Speaker 1: A Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: So up, y'all.
Speaker 3: June is a Black music month, and every year we
Speaker 3: use this time to acknowledge something that really can't be overstated.
Speaker 3: Black music is one of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now,
Speaker 3: back when Teams Supreme and I were doing the Questluf
Speaker 3: Supreme and now on the Quest Loft Show, we've always
Speaker 3: tried to create a space for those stories. So for
Speaker 3: the entire month of June, we're bringing you an episode
Speaker 3: every day focused on the history, influence, and ongoing evolution
Speaker 3: of black music. A Team and I Doug Crew the
Speaker 3: catalog of selected episodes that feel especially meaningful for now,
Speaker 3: conversations that inform entertain connect the dots between where this music.
Speaker 4: Comes from and where it's headed.
Speaker 3: Now, alongside those, we'll be releasing four new episodes of
Speaker 3: Quest Left Show featuring trailblazers, innovators, and cultural connectors and
Speaker 3: visionaries who represent the past, present, and future of black music.
Speaker 1: I want you to enjoy this.
Speaker 3: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This is Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: Welcome to our our are nominated our NAACP nominated Team Supreme.
Speaker 4: Like Yeah, Hello, how about you. I'm feeling good.
Speaker 5: Image Award nominated, sir, I have made it.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's fine. And uh, Suca, Steve, how are you
Speaker 4: this evening? I'm good.
Speaker 3: My image has been nominated as well by the NAACP.
Speaker 2: That's how I'm feeling.
Speaker 4: I'm feeling good.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, the keeper of Rocco and Elmo?
Speaker 3: How you doing, un pay Bill.
Speaker 4: I can't say that.
Speaker 3: I ever thought in all the awards that I'd ever
Speaker 3: been nominated for an end double a CP award.
Speaker 4: So feels good like that.
Speaker 6: There you go.
Speaker 4: How's it going.
Speaker 7: I'm good, brother, I'm good man, glad to be nominated,
Speaker 7: and uh yeah, I never thought this would happen this way.
Speaker 3: Over three years right straight, ship Threet came, It's okay,
Speaker 3: we're back here here, sir.
Speaker 1: He went to get cigarettes for a long time.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 3: So I know for the longest, you know, I've been
Speaker 3: talking to our listeners at q LS, especially in the
Speaker 3: last year, about you know, the direction of transformation my
Speaker 3: life is going, and how it's important to often get
Speaker 3: out of your comfort zone. You know, I'm stretching out
Speaker 3: to different territories. So I will be the first to
Speaker 3: be very transparent with our longtime listeners of q LS
Speaker 3: that this episode should be notable for Unlike previous Quest
Speaker 3: of Supreme episode sodes, this will probably the first time
Speaker 3: that and it's not like I have a PhD in
Speaker 3: every guest that ever comes on the show, but this
Speaker 3: will probably mark the first time that I don't know
Speaker 3: the entire canon in history of a particular guest of
Speaker 3: the show like.
Speaker 4: The back of my hand. I'm not saying that I'm
Speaker 4: not familiar with our guest today.
Speaker 3: So that said, I would actually like to say and
Speaker 3: injac that we have two special guests today. So joining
Speaker 3: the Team Supreme is my brother and soul or soul
Speaker 3: aquarian James Alo Wishes, poiser, producer, songwriter, fellow Randy watsoner
Speaker 3: extraordinaire and Gospel of ficionado and mean and.
Speaker 1: World famous meme on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, James is definitely like a meme. I'm not
Speaker 3: even a meme, Like that's a life of mine?
Speaker 2: Do means get nominated for naacp A Woods.
Speaker 5: Years backup, you have Grammy and you know, but I'm satin.
Speaker 4: That's a meme hall of Fame, and the Meme Hall
Speaker 4: of Fame.
Speaker 3: You will make it that said, I brought brother James
Speaker 3: here to help me pick up the pieces on things
Speaker 3: that I otherwise wouldn't know because for me, I don't
Speaker 3: want to leave any stone unturned.
Speaker 4: Our guest today, I will say.
Speaker 3: Is one of the most legendary and influential musicians that
Speaker 3: I know in Black music.
Speaker 4: That's not hyperbolic or anything.
Speaker 3: I say this literally because I've not met a musician
Speaker 3: post five that has not made our guests their north
Speaker 3: star as far as their musicianship is concerned. We'll get
Speaker 3: with that in the show today, but without further ado,
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to quest of supreme be
Speaker 3: legendary brother Fred Hammon.
Speaker 6: Yes, appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Appreciate it, and congratulations everybody and your nomination.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You
Speaker 4: know what's weird, I didn't even know that you were.
Speaker 3: Active on social media and you had left a comment
Speaker 3: in one of my things, and I was like, yo,
Speaker 3: Fred Hammond knows who I am. Like I had zero
Speaker 3: clue that you even knew that I was alive or anything.
Speaker 3: So this conversation is long long overdue because, as I
Speaker 3: said at the top, back when I was really honing
Speaker 3: my skills as a musician.
Speaker 4: There was like one of three routes you can go. Now,
Speaker 4: we all knows that I chose the hip hop route.
Speaker 3: Most musicians in eighty three, eighty four, eighty five, they
Speaker 3: chose the purple route. And then there's a sect of
Speaker 3: black musicianship in which which you might have a household
Speaker 3: that might not allow secular music in the household. And
Speaker 3: that said, I will say that you were probably their
Speaker 3: main choice. And when I say you, I'm talking about
Speaker 3: you and your very influential group commissioned.
Speaker 4: So I thank you.
Speaker 3: I've been dying to have this conversation with you because
Speaker 3: I need the edumacation.
Speaker 4: So where are you right now as we speak.
Speaker 6: I'm at my studio here in Dallas.
Speaker 8: I have a warehouse and the studio here that I
Speaker 8: do everything out of me and my family, my brothers,
Speaker 8: and I was actually just finishing up a vocal that
Speaker 8: I'm working on for the New Addition tour, just to
Speaker 8: kind of give them some stuff to go through some transitions,
Speaker 8: you know, give them some suggestions and stuff. So I
Speaker 8: was just finishing up that, you know, and then we'll
Speaker 8: send it out to them and say, you know, give
Speaker 8: some ideas of what can happen. My brother Ray is
Speaker 8: the production manager for the tours. So when you see
Speaker 8: BBD a new addition, he's front of the house and
Speaker 8: the guy that runs the you know, gets everything together
Speaker 8: production line.
Speaker 3: So you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m
Speaker 3: D or co MD of this reunions or that's.
Speaker 8: About it's just uh, right now, we're just seeing some stuff,
Speaker 8: and I wanted to show them, like a lot of
Speaker 8: the transitions that they want to do from song to song,
Speaker 8: the song that they could do some vocal right here,
Speaker 8: that's simple, that's what they do, because it's not normal
Speaker 8: for them to do that. And so I just went
Speaker 8: in there and just did some old commission new edition
Speaker 8: type stuff, simple just to get them to the next song,
Speaker 8: you know, so to give them another just to give
Speaker 8: my idea of what can happen. So you know, it's
Speaker 8: up to them.
Speaker 3: You know that sounds like yeah, quasi Okay, Well it's
Speaker 3: funny you say that because I think maybe like a
Speaker 3: month ago, I was listening to Heartbreak and I was
Speaker 3: just talking to Jimmy jam about the intro song of
Speaker 3: that album, which is called uh, that's the way We're living,
Speaker 3: which as far as it's execution is concerned, I feel
Speaker 3: like that definitely falls from the tree of what Commission
Speaker 3: was about. You know, when a lot of these cats
Speaker 3: that have what we call gospel chops, they're basically saying that,
Speaker 3: you know, they're sons of Commission. So always wanted to
Speaker 3: know how you felt about your influence as far as
Speaker 3: the black musicianship we have now with gospel chops. Like
Speaker 3: you know, do you watch acts often in R and
Speaker 3: B say like, well, that's our lick, and that's our lick,
Speaker 3: and that's our like.
Speaker 8: Well, you know the thing about it is back then
Speaker 8: a lot of people don't notice. But I was close
Speaker 8: with a lot of those guys back then.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: You know, it was funny because you know Davante his
Speaker 8: father is a pastor and one day we did a
Speaker 8: concert at their trick and DeVante said, yo, man. You know,
Speaker 8: he came up I style. He was a young fella.
Speaker 8: He said, hey, man, I just want to tell you
Speaker 8: guys that have been influenced us and I just got
Speaker 8: signed to m c A and the name of my
Speaker 8: group is called Jodasy. I say, really, he say, you
Speaker 8: know k C and I knew Little k C. From
Speaker 8: Little Cedric. I used to Friday so Little Cedric and
Speaker 8: the Hayley Singers. We would do concerts together and pass
Speaker 8: on the road and do interviews and whatnot. So I
Speaker 8: was I kept up with all of those guys and
Speaker 8: you know a lot of the cats, Chucky Booker and Da.
Speaker 6: And they would bring me backstage.
Speaker 8: They would bring me backstage and whether they were doing
Speaker 8: the Budwives and Superfessor, and I'm a student. You know
Speaker 8: a lot of people, you know a lot of church people,
Speaker 8: they don't go places and learn because they can't control
Speaker 8: theirselfs when they get inside or behind the curtain, you know.
Speaker 8: But I would go, you know, I would go to
Speaker 8: Al Hayman, Budwiser, Superfessor, and I would meet the guys
Speaker 8: backstage and I would watch. I'd be a student of
Speaker 8: production of how they were playing, and I would take
Speaker 8: it back to Commission. You know.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 8: Commission is a amalgam of the Clark sist number one,
Speaker 8: the vocal of the Clark Sisters. Then the rest is
Speaker 8: the time, earth wind and Fire, the genesis.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: Chicago, we did just a different thing, and we noticed
Speaker 8: that a lot of the guys that were coming around
Speaker 8: at that time, were coming up to us and they
Speaker 8: were starting to get get put on like boys and men,
Speaker 8: and we just kept in touch and we were just
Speaker 8: cool and friendly. Little Joe and Buddy from the Rude
Speaker 8: Boys were always doing something. We're always together at some
Speaker 8: point doing something, letting them hear music. They're letting us
Speaker 8: hear ours and hear theirs, and you know, so we
Speaker 8: kept connected with our R and B family.
Speaker 4: You know, did he just say Genesis, Yes, But.
Speaker 3: If you if you really look at it, yo, I mean,
Speaker 3: there's really not that much difference.
Speaker 4: Between Pride Rock and Got the Chops.
Speaker 3: Crazy dude, we just saw it like we just literally
Speaker 3: I forget the brother's name, but I remember when James,
Speaker 3: I think you remember this. Do you remember when Who's
Speaker 3: Who's the group that who were they were formerly known
Speaker 3: as at the Drive in? And then when one of
Speaker 3: their members, right, So, do you remember when Mars Volta
Speaker 3: auditioned a drummer at our studio like behind literally next
Speaker 3: to your studio.
Speaker 4: He was a Gospel Chops.
Speaker 2: Drummer, Thomas Pridgin. I think yes, yeah, and.
Speaker 4: It was it was the match made it.
Speaker 3: At first, I was like, that's weird that they got
Speaker 3: a gospel chop drumming to do it, but because of
Speaker 3: the intricacies of what Mars Volta is, it was like
Speaker 3: a marriage made in heaven.
Speaker 4: And that's when I.
Speaker 3: Realized that gospel chop and progue rock are almost neck
Speaker 3: and neck with each other.
Speaker 4: I mean, of course gospel chop has more soul to it,
Speaker 4: but every every pop group now has a gospel drummer.
Speaker 4: I just an Ariana Grande and all those guys they
Speaker 4: all have.
Speaker 3: It's all like big fills from three to four and
Speaker 3: one every every bar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's literally music. I think that all music.
Speaker 1: Like everything's like at the end of the four of
Speaker 1: our phrases.
Speaker 3: What the notable thing about my entry in music is
Speaker 3: that on the opposite of that, but literally which is funny, Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: which I'm saying that Basically, I feel as though Commissioned
Speaker 3: really is probably the most influential black group in at
Speaker 3: least the last forty years of music, second to Prince,
Speaker 3: you know, as far as the as far as the
Speaker 3: ripple effect of Nah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely their contribution.
Speaker 7: I mean, because you look at a I'm like I'm learning,
Speaker 7: I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all.
Speaker 7: I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a
Speaker 7: Jodasy album or you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like it was that they always liked about y'all.
Speaker 7: Y'all stuff was that it was I could tell when
Speaker 7: you say, you know, you were a student and you
Speaker 7: would go and meet the other groups and stuff. The
Speaker 7: songs always sounded current, you know what I'm saying, a
Speaker 7: lot of times gospel because for those very reasons you said,
Speaker 7: you know, gospel stuff would always be behind, like if
Speaker 7: it came out in ninety two, it would sound like
Speaker 7: something from.
Speaker 1: Like eighty eight, eighty seven, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: But Commission Records, y'all was always like right on time
Speaker 7: and it was never dated.
Speaker 1: I always appreciated that man, that right there.
Speaker 8: Was it was just our DNA. It was like we
Speaker 8: listened to everybody. I give you a story. One of
Speaker 8: the guys wrote a song called It's so good to
Speaker 8: Know the Savior, and he was a tempo guy, so
Speaker 8: it was like a church tempo It's so good know,
Speaker 8: let's say, and the record company didn't pick it. It
Speaker 8: was it had all of the fizzle and the buzzer
Speaker 8: and everything, and the guy. He came to me and said, hey, man, listen,
Speaker 8: I think we need to change the drummer out, which
Speaker 8: is our drummer. I was like, no, man, it's not that.
Speaker 8: I say basically, it's man, it's kind of dated. And
Speaker 8: I said, tomorrow, we just need to castle over to
Speaker 8: that month. And they didn't know because they hadn't heard.
Speaker 8: They hadn't heard LeVert. I was cool with Gerrell, and
Speaker 8: so when Casanova came out, they hadn't heard it yet.
Speaker 8: So I said, let's just get in the studio and
Speaker 8: let me flip it a little bit. And I had
Speaker 8: an ra drum machine and some stuff and I just
Speaker 8: boot boom.
Speaker 4: Got to him boom boom, boom.
Speaker 8: Cocka boom, and then it changed into you can see
Speaker 8: a vamp into that and then the song had life.
Speaker 8: Well that was because we stayed current and we paid
Speaker 8: attention to the trends and our counterparts. You know, we've
Speaker 8: paid attention to everybody from the old school, whether it's
Speaker 8: luther Al Green, you know, earth Wind all the way
Speaker 8: up to the verb to a babyface to the deal.
Speaker 6: You know, like we were talking what song we like?
Speaker 6: We like Sweet November or do we like this?
Speaker 4: Because our vocals.
Speaker 8: Were off of the whispers and the dramatics. Those are
Speaker 8: our male vocal counterprices that we love.
Speaker 6: Do watch.
Speaker 8: So if you hear a lot of our harmonies we
Speaker 8: sing like Ron Banks and Scottie and Walter, you will
Speaker 8: hear a lot of that in. But then we add
Speaker 8: what we are. But it's because we paid attention to musicology.
Speaker 8: We just paid attention to everything, you know. So it
Speaker 8: was funny too you said something about Jimmy. Jimmy Terry
Speaker 8: is like my hero, Jimmy Terry, Teddy Tim baby Face
Speaker 8: in La. So one time we were going to do
Speaker 8: this thing in Minnesota called uh It's a Methodist church
Speaker 8: and they were Soul Liberation Outreach and they said where
Speaker 8: you want to go to? My said, can we go
Speaker 8: see flight Time? Because we we were just you know,
Speaker 8: we didn't have no studios. So I said, can we
Speaker 8: go see flight time? We want to see some black
Speaker 8: guys who were owning something. And I walked in the
Speaker 8: flight Time and I was just blown away. And that's
Speaker 8: when I was just influenced heavily by you know, these
Speaker 8: two guys. And they were just finishing the controls starting
Speaker 8: on we about to start on this new record called
Speaker 8: Rhythm Nation they're recording now, and we just had those moments.
Speaker 8: Then they said, well where you want to go next?
Speaker 8: Now we church boys now remember this, this is this
Speaker 8: is for we church boys, so we don't do clubs
Speaker 8: and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: So somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio
Speaker 6: and we was like, oh, I don't know, so.
Speaker 8: I think were like, I think something gonna jump over us.
Speaker 8: But I said, yeah, man, I want to go. I
Speaker 8: want to see it. So we went over there. Man,
Speaker 8: and on the whole ride over there, because at that
Speaker 8: point Prince wasn't in his last space. He was in
Speaker 8: that that I want to I'm gonna really mess you
Speaker 8: up with whatever I'm talking about. And we walked up
Speaker 8: to the place and people was praying Jesus help us Lord.
Speaker 8: You know, we're walking into the spot and we're thinking, man,
Speaker 8: you better pray and put some annoying oil on. When
Speaker 8: when we walked in, it was business as usual. People
Speaker 8: just walking around doing business. It wasn't nothing crazy. And
Speaker 8: I said, man, this is whole thing is a persona
Speaker 8: I thought it was. And the rest of the guys,
Speaker 8: some of the guys said, I'm just stay in there.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna stay in the van, I said, I'm going in.
Speaker 8: I want to see what's what I mean, how find
Speaker 8: you get this? How do you get this close? And
Speaker 8: I see this guy had a complex. I mean at
Speaker 8: that time, to think about Paisley, it was it was
Speaker 8: it was like Cowboys Stadium at that time.
Speaker 6: She said, I gotta go see it.
Speaker 8: But when I walked through, they took us to his
Speaker 8: personal room and they just my mind was blown because
Speaker 8: it was business. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 8: I say, man, this is just a persona. And then
Speaker 8: I learned how to be an owner. So now I
Speaker 8: mean I got seventeen thousand squar feet. Well, it came
Speaker 8: from Jimmy and Terry. It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince
Speaker 8: and Michael Powell who lived in Detroit, who Baker that
Speaker 8: was my close friend. So I had to learn. And
Speaker 8: that's you know, I looked at my big brothers to
Speaker 8: do that for me.
Speaker 3: You know, Okay, I want to start at the beginning
Speaker 3: of your life. I'm assuming that you were born in Detroit.
Speaker 6: Michigan, was born in San Antonio.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, See the one time I don't ask
Speaker 3: the question, I get burnt. Sorry, can you tell me
Speaker 3: what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 8: My first musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know,
Speaker 8: I say this because a lot of people have these
Speaker 8: misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks that
Speaker 8: they're perfect.
Speaker 6: I don't. I was.
Speaker 8: I was born different, you know, I was. My mother
Speaker 8: and father were married to other people, and he was
Speaker 8: a pastor and my mother was a musician, and the
Speaker 8: church really dogged my mom and protected him, and so
Speaker 8: they kind of put her out. And so it was
Speaker 8: basically me and her. And before I was born, you know,
Speaker 8: we went through this whole thing about she was she
Speaker 8: wouldn't have had an abortion and it didn't work, you know.
Speaker 8: So it's a lot of stuff that goes on with
Speaker 8: me being here. So yeah, yeah, And so she was
Speaker 8: my biggest musical influence. So I followed her everywhere to
Speaker 8: because she taught choirs. She was very amazing at teaching
Speaker 8: choirs and playing the piano for churches. And I never
Speaker 8: forget I'll go back to she came home with this
Speaker 8: little forty five and I had a clothes and play
Speaker 8: and she said, you know, I bought these boys, you know,
Speaker 8: and it was just a picture of these five boys,
Speaker 8: was the Jackson's and she said, you know, listen to this.
Speaker 6: I hadn't even heard them on the radio.
Speaker 8: And I put it on my clothes and play and
Speaker 8: I Want you back came on, and I just saw
Speaker 8: Michael as my age because they were saying he was
Speaker 8: younger than they said he was my age. I was
Speaker 8: probably five six, and I was just I was enamored
Speaker 8: with this group, and so I was singing and I
Speaker 8: found myself singing Jermaine's part at six seven years old.
Speaker 8: And my mother said, you know, if you open your mouth,
Speaker 8: you can sing better.
Speaker 6: You can sing like.
Speaker 8: That little boy right there. And I was very shy,
Speaker 8: and I didn't want her to hear me because I
Speaker 8: thought she would make me sing in front of people.
Speaker 8: So I made sure she didn't ever hear me again.
Speaker 8: So I took my clothes and play in the closet
Speaker 8: because you ran her own batteries, and I sang in
Speaker 8: the closet because I didn't want her to hear me sing.
Speaker 8: I was afraid she was going to put me up
Speaker 8: there in church. And so that's my earliest knowledge right there.
Speaker 5: So were you kind of born into skepticism of the church,
Speaker 5: like sincere because of your situation. You know.
Speaker 8: The beautiful thing is God kept me from that from
Speaker 8: the knowledge of people now thinking I was worth it,
Speaker 8: you know. But when I look back at it, a
Speaker 8: lot of people just thought I was just worthless because
Speaker 8: you can't do nothing with God because you're born.
Speaker 6: Out of wether lite. Who are you?
Speaker 8: You know your mother, your mother's is an adult, so
Speaker 8: they just kind of threw us away. But the reality
Speaker 8: is that's why I'm probably effective today. Not because I
Speaker 8: sing good, not because I play any instruments, not because
Speaker 8: I produce anything or saying on anybody's record. It's because
Speaker 8: I understand what broken people go through. And so my
Speaker 8: whole job is to tell people, Hey, man, I've been broken,
Speaker 8: I understand brokenness. You why don't you come with me?
Speaker 8: I believe this and you know, so there's no errors.
Speaker 5: It's just there's a forgiveness element in there too, though.
Speaker 5: You got that you that's with it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely, So when people like quest you said, you
Speaker 8: understand my pain when it comes to just you and
Speaker 8: your mom, you understand that, you know, and maybe others
Speaker 8: do too.
Speaker 6: But you know my path, man, my.
Speaker 8: Path, it's just it's been ordained to go through a rugged, rugged,
Speaker 8: feed up path to get to this point to tell
Speaker 8: other people, I understand where you are, I get it,
Speaker 8: I get it.
Speaker 4: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I mean that's mine.
Speaker 3: Wasn't as drastic as like being shoned or whatnot, but
Speaker 3: definitely my parents were sort of in the same situation
Speaker 3: where they were part of other unions, and you know,
Speaker 3: that's kind of how you know, I came, I came.
Speaker 4: To the world. So for a lot of our listeners,
Speaker 4: I don't know if they're fully aware.
Speaker 3: You know, I would explain to people often that you know,
Speaker 3: we'll look at somebody like you know.
Speaker 4: Ray Charles now as a national treasure.
Speaker 3: But you know, I would tell like anybody I'm teaching
Speaker 3: about Ray Charles is the fact that you know, Ray
Speaker 3: Charles was probably almost the NWA of his day.
Speaker 9: Like the idea of the idea from singing gospel music
Speaker 9: with secular lyrics was highly controversial with the Black church,
Speaker 9: and fast forwarding to where your entry into gospel music
Speaker 9: is where you can put some funk inside it or
Speaker 9: put some swing inside.
Speaker 3: Of your music and it really not rub people the
Speaker 3: wrong way. Can you explain just the what brought you
Speaker 3: to Detroit? How did you make that transition from San
Speaker 3: Antonio to Detroit.
Speaker 8: Well, due to the circumstances situation, they sent this up
Speaker 8: to Detroit.
Speaker 1: We was sitting, oh how exiled to Detroit exile.
Speaker 8: We got a nice bus ticket up to a Philly
Speaker 8: place called Detroit and a beautiful family called the Hope,
Speaker 8: the Hoak's family. They took us in and they gave
Speaker 8: us their attic and we became a part of their
Speaker 8: family while my mother went through her healing process, you know,
Speaker 8: of which when she passes seventy four, she was still
Speaker 8: trying to validate herself as you know, forgiven, you know,
Speaker 8: and she was a she's a great praise warrior, great,
Speaker 8: you know. She she made a lot of strides, but
Speaker 8: it just she couldn't get over some things.
Speaker 6: And so we ended up in Detroit, which was a blessing.
Speaker 3: How big is your family at this point as far
Speaker 3: as your siblings, and.
Speaker 8: At that time it was me and my mom. At
Speaker 8: this point it's me. I got two brothers, Ray and Dave,
Speaker 8: and they have families.
Speaker 6: I have a family, I.
Speaker 8: Have kids and whatnot. And I have two sisters that
Speaker 8: live in Atlanta, from my mother's other union, you know, okay,
Speaker 8: and then then I have a brother and four other
Speaker 8: sisters from the other union. So I'm right there in
Speaker 8: the middle. I'm the absolute when you count down, I'm
Speaker 8: the middle child of all of that, you know. So
Speaker 8: that's we're and now we're all kind of cool together.
Speaker 8: My brother from my father's side, he comes and he
Speaker 8: drives our tour bus from time to time, and my
Speaker 8: sisters are so we're all kind of together, and you know,
Speaker 8: that's that's the thing.
Speaker 4: So, Okay, I know you were born in nineteen sixty,
Speaker 4: I believe.
Speaker 3: So can you describe to me what it is to
Speaker 3: grow up in Detroit, Michigan in the early seventies. I
Speaker 3: know about you know, I've heard people tell me about
Speaker 3: growing up in Detroit in the early sixties. And I know,
Speaker 3: of course people who grew up in Detroit between like
Speaker 3: the mid eighties and the in the early nineties.
Speaker 4: But I really don't know.
Speaker 3: People that have had a period in Detroit in the
Speaker 3: early seventies, like around that period where like United Sounds
Speaker 3: there where you know, motowns leaving. Could you just describe
Speaker 3: to me basically what your life was as a teenager
Speaker 3: in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies.
Speaker 8: You know, it was really just about about school and
Speaker 8: surviving in the hood, you know, just you know, one
Speaker 8: of my good friends in the seventies, I went to, well,
Speaker 8: my mom moved to California to Inglewood when I was
Speaker 8: in the fourth grade, the first part of the fourth grade,
Speaker 8: and she didn't like it, and we came back to
Speaker 8: Detroit around December. But I hadn't been in school, so
Speaker 8: that whole fourth grade year I had to try to
Speaker 8: catch up. So this is like the seventies, you know,
Speaker 8: this is and whatnot. The next year I had to
Speaker 8: go to a parochial school a seventy at Venice, where
Speaker 8: I was good friends. Best friend was Greg Mathis, Judge
Speaker 8: Greg Mathis. So he and I were in the Wow,
Speaker 8: oh yeah, you and I were in the fifth grade
Speaker 8: together and everything you ever hear that he ever said
Speaker 8: one hundred Because I lived in the hood and he
Speaker 8: lived in the projects. He lived in the Herman Gardens,
Speaker 8: and he had a bunch of brothers. But he was
Speaker 8: smart as a whip in the fifth grade and I
Speaker 8: was struggling. But he and I were just really good friends.
Speaker 8: So growing up there, it was just you know, the
Speaker 8: seventies are almost a blur because I wasn't musical yet.
Speaker 8: I was thinking more sports and whatnot. And I hadn't
Speaker 8: done any real music until I got to about sixteen,
Speaker 8: about fifteen or sixteen years old, and I transitioned from
Speaker 8: drums in my church to bass guitar.
Speaker 4: Okay, wait a minute, you're trying to tell me that.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking like you came out the wound playing bass,
Speaker 3: but this didn't happen until you were a teenager.
Speaker 8: Yeah, right around fourteen, thirteen years old, I start transitioning
Speaker 8: because my mother. I went to a church called Greater
Speaker 8: Grays Temple, and the line to play drums was around
Speaker 8: the corner, and the pastor's son he had a lot,
Speaker 8: Chuckie Ellis, Charles Ellis. He's bitch of bellist now, but
Speaker 8: he was an amazing drummer, and I had my sticks.
Speaker 8: I would go every Sunday and I would try to play,
Speaker 8: and you know, just never got a chance. So my
Speaker 8: mother said, hey, you know, I don't like to see you,
Speaker 8: you know, not getting a chance. Is there any other instrument?
Speaker 8: There was a bass guitar laand over in the corner,
Speaker 8: and nobody would come and play because the guy was working,
Speaker 8: and I said, well, I like to play bass, maybe
Speaker 8: I could try that, And that's when I moved to
Speaker 8: bass guitar and I never looked back.
Speaker 3: The reason why it's also important for me to know
Speaker 3: about this specific period in the seventies is because I
Speaker 3: know that once black families migrate to the Midwest, especially
Speaker 3: in town you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois,
Speaker 3: you know a lot of them are escaping the South,
Speaker 3: the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South.
Speaker 4: They're getting these factory jobs. These factory jobs are paying.
Speaker 3: Well, and they're buying these houses, and the houses have
Speaker 3: garages and of course instruments. You know, this is basically
Speaker 3: how like the first wave of the funk generation starts.
Speaker 3: And I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration
Speaker 3: seventy seventy one seventy two, you know, budgets started to
Speaker 3: get cut, music education started to wane and whatnot, and
Speaker 3: the idea of the garage band, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: wilted out. So I mean, by that time period, even
Speaker 3: though you were late in developing your musicianship, were there
Speaker 3: musicians around like next door and all those things, or
Speaker 3: were factories closing by then, and then like that dream
Speaker 3: just died.
Speaker 8: You know, music was still big, even though of the
Speaker 8: porch bands and the garage bands from the sixties weren't
Speaker 8: very popular, but music was still a thing, you know.
Speaker 8: So I hooked up with a guy at my fifteen
Speaker 8: His name was Jeff Stanton, and he was like my
Speaker 8: best friend. And this guy could play every instrument at
Speaker 8: that point. He play bass, he could play guitar, he
Speaker 8: could play drums, and he was fluent at it at
Speaker 8: fifteen years old. So he would take every day we
Speaker 8: would come home to his house after school or in
Speaker 8: the summertime, and we would just shed and he would
Speaker 8: start to show me people. He was the person he said, Man,
Speaker 8: I got this record. You really need to hear check
Speaker 8: it out. This dude right here plays all the instruments.
Speaker 8: His name is Prince and it was the four You album.
Speaker 8: And so we're listened in the basement and he's like, man,
Speaker 8: listen to that.
Speaker 6: Listen to that. You got to get on.
Speaker 8: Your theory for it. He's teaching me theory. He's like, up,
Speaker 8: what's that? And I'd have to kind of come back
Speaker 8: and name it. And so every day we would shed,
Speaker 8: and we would go places like the Detroit Mission, the
Speaker 8: Detroit Music Union, and bands would play come in and audition,
Speaker 8: so we it was still alive. Uh, And then we
Speaker 8: would play in the garage. We played Mister Magic for
Speaker 8: like four hours, you know, in the garage. Then we graduated.
Speaker 8: Then we graduated to Herbie and you know a Chameleon.
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, so once I learned that them
Speaker 8: two songs and we have a little crowd out there
Speaker 8: and we just play it, and then there it was.
Speaker 8: I was so proud when I learned the baseline to
Speaker 8: That's the Way of the World, and I learned that
Speaker 8: that had doom doom, doom, doom doom. When I learned
Speaker 8: that concept that that, man, it blew me away. So
Speaker 8: we were still it was still a powerful place to
Speaker 8: learn music. It hadn't died that whole seventies. It hadn't died,
Speaker 8: you know.
Speaker 4: Well living in Detroit.
Speaker 3: Was was any of the p funk folklore, Like was
Speaker 3: that an influence on you at all, Like seeing any
Speaker 3: of those guys around United Sounds or any of those things,
Speaker 3: or was that sort of like after you know, they
Speaker 3: migrated and went to California.
Speaker 4: Like, was any of that part of your DNA at all.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: They had a on eight Mile there was a club
Speaker 8: called Axles. Okay, the lead the Woods, Lamont Johnson, they
Speaker 8: would all play there. Yeah, so they would all play there.
Speaker 8: Amp Fiddler would show up and they say, yo, ma
Speaker 8: Ant Fidler from he played with George Clinton. Uh, David
Speaker 8: Chong would I mean, and the all these people, and
Speaker 8: we would try to go in there and sit in there,
Speaker 8: sneaking because it was kind of under but we'd sneak
Speaker 8: in and we'd listen to.
Speaker 6: Them and these cats. The funk was heavy.
Speaker 8: It was still Brainstorm was just starting to get started.
Speaker 6: Man. It was real, real strong.
Speaker 8: So Amp Fiddler, Uh, we never got a chance to
Speaker 8: see George, but we played with a lot of the
Speaker 8: guys that played on his record, like Butch Small I
Speaker 8: believe his name is but Mo.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was real big.
Speaker 8: He used to run a studio called ARMJ and so
Speaker 8: he was the Lynn drum king. So he came and
Speaker 8: did some Lynn drum on the first Commission record.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 8: But he was just somebody we looked up to, you know,
Speaker 8: Warren Woods, the engineer, you know, man, it was just
Speaker 8: it was still rich Man it hadn't died at all.
Speaker 8: I mean, it was still really rich in the seventies,
Speaker 8: especially going into the eighties.
Speaker 3: So as a musician, who would you say, is is
Speaker 3: your north star? As far as like, that's the musician
Speaker 3: I want to emulate, because it's weird to me. Like
Speaker 3: most bass players I know, especially having lived in the seventies,
Speaker 3: every every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams,
Speaker 3: thank you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark.
Speaker 3: So the fact that you started in seventy eight with
Speaker 3: Prince tells me that you're sort of a later generation.
Speaker 3: So who, as far as like your setting and as
Speaker 3: far as like who you wanted to emulate, who is
Speaker 3: the musician that is your north star?
Speaker 6: Well? Number one?
Speaker 8: Okay, Well let's break it up into two bass players. Okay,
Speaker 8: not because my total north star is Stevie period, hands down, right,
Speaker 8: but as far as bass players are going. Okay, So
Speaker 8: my first bass player influence and I didn't really know it,
Speaker 8: but I would pick his sound out when I heard
Speaker 8: I want you back.
Speaker 6: That's James Jamison.
Speaker 4: James Jamison, I would hear his.
Speaker 8: Bass lines and I just always locked him. Now as
Speaker 8: a bass player. I definitely was Stanley and Jacko, and
Speaker 8: then it was Abe Laboreal. It was Alfonso Johnson who
Speaker 8: played this fretless situation. I paid attention to Anthony Jackson,
Speaker 8: these are my these are my go tos. And then
Speaker 8: of course Marcus was younger, so he came on the
Speaker 8: scene a little bit later. Those guys were my Jamison Clark,
Speaker 8: Anthony Jackson, Jocko, Alfonso Johnson, Gino Vanelli's bass player. I
Speaker 8: don't know who it was, but we would listen to him.
Speaker 8: So anybody that was really killing back then, we would
Speaker 8: grab their record, their music and we would just I
Speaker 8: would share to it. So those are my north stars
Speaker 8: right there.
Speaker 3: So were you more a team uh thumb plucking or
Speaker 3: were you more a team index middle finger for baby?
Speaker 8: I was I'm a pocket guy. I never had the
Speaker 8: all of these. I just laid in that pocket. So
Speaker 8: I was definitely a thumper. I was definitely team thump.
Speaker 4: I get it, okay, I love it. At what point
Speaker 4: are you forming uh or.
Speaker 3: At least bonding with Marcus Montreal like the other members
Speaker 3: of commission, Like how are you guys?
Speaker 4: How do you guys meet?
Speaker 3: And is that was that your first actual band or
Speaker 3: did you have other bands before?
Speaker 8: Well, Mitchell Jones and I we graduate. We went to
Speaker 8: school together at Mumford High and we were together NonStop
Speaker 8: all three years. So he and I started Commission.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: At the end of the day he and I started Commission,
Speaker 8: I went off to play for the Winings. I was
Speaker 8: the bass player for them from nineteen until I was
Speaker 8: like twenty three years old, and that's when I started.
Speaker 8: That's when I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell,
Speaker 8: Keith Staton, Carl Reid, Michael Brooks and Michael Williams the drummer,
Speaker 8: and right around them, right.
Speaker 3: Around are you talking Liver studio both with the Wan
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 8: Oh, with the Winings, I was just I was, man.
Speaker 8: They wouldn't even let me near the studio. They wouldn't
Speaker 8: you could even you couldn't even see nobody famous.
Speaker 6: Here's here's a joke.
Speaker 8: Andre Crouch came to their house and Ronald told me,
Speaker 8: he said, man, if you don't, if you be good,
Speaker 8: I'll let you come over and see Andre. So we
Speaker 8: was like, oh man, we just skim and so they
Speaker 8: this is no joke. They had us come over. He
Speaker 8: opened the door, and we had to look through the
Speaker 8: screen and I was sitting in the chair over He said,
Speaker 8: just look over there, that's him right now.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: And we were like, wow, that is him. Wow.
Speaker 8: This that we never asked if we come in, and
Speaker 8: we never went in. They were why go home?
Speaker 7: Nah.
Speaker 1: That's how they protected their relationships, like.
Speaker 8: No, no, So I never got a chance to play
Speaker 8: on any album you know, with them or anything.
Speaker 6: We weren't you know, we weren't good enough, but we
Speaker 6: were good enough to do the road.
Speaker 8: And you know what, we wasn't offended. We really weren't offended.
Speaker 8: When we heard their records. We knew it was something
Speaker 8: different between Abel Boors, Bill Maxwell, Hadley Howkin Smith. You know,
Speaker 8: we knew it was something different. So we weren't tripping,
Speaker 8: you know, we just appreciated the opportunity to just be
Speaker 8: in the number.
Speaker 2: Now, let me ask you this, were you around that
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna nerd boy out on.
Speaker 1: The churches while you're here?
Speaker 2: Were you back then on the church vibe where Thomas
Speaker 2: Woodfield and Rudolph Stance, Phil and all them guys.
Speaker 4: Whoa see that stuff? I wouldn't know that, ask like.
Speaker 8: Thomas Woodfield gave me my first chance to play in
Speaker 8: the studio and my base, my bass wasn't up to park,
Speaker 8: it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was too young.
Speaker 8: The first record was Vanessa Belle Armstrong Peace Be Still
Speaker 8: record Yes, and there's a song called I Don't want
Speaker 8: my living to be in vain and anyway you bless
Speaker 8: me and playing those two Okay. My boy that honestly
Speaker 8: he called in because my base didn't work was Lenard
Speaker 8: Bradley Kerr.
Speaker 6: Okay, kurrent, everybody knows that's okay.
Speaker 8: So but Kerr was the king around there, and uh,
Speaker 8: he was another guy that kind of schooled me. But
Speaker 8: that was my first take on going in the studio.
Speaker 8: So then when we did our demo as commission, we
Speaker 8: asked we saved um some money and we asked Thomas
Speaker 8: Whitfield the producers. So, uh, when you hear the bed track,
Speaker 8: when you hear the rhythm track, like, if you listen
Speaker 8: to these four songs given my problem to you, I
Speaker 8: can see Jesus if you listen to uh, if we
Speaker 8: ever needed the Lord before those three songs. The rhythm
Speaker 8: track of that was produced by Thomas Whitfield, WHOA and
Speaker 8: I was amazed by Thomas, because you know, Thomas had narcolepsy.
Speaker 8: So Thomas would be where he would be straight up
Speaker 8: like this, get that be flat out of there, and
Speaker 8: everybody stopped and somebody played and they solo it, and
Speaker 8: sure enough, get that player played the B flat that
Speaker 8: was kind of hidden up under there.
Speaker 6: He said, I don't play that, No, that's a scene.
Speaker 6: Come on, And h Thomas was my hero. Thomas was
Speaker 6: really my hero.
Speaker 8: And I would sit in the corner of RMJ studio
Speaker 8: and I went out. I remember washing a garbage can out.
Speaker 8: It was like this little gray high school bought garbage
Speaker 8: can we have in high school. I went and washed
Speaker 8: it out. I turned it upside down and stuck it
Speaker 8: between the tape machine mc I tape machine and an
Speaker 8: effects rack. And I sat in this little cubby hole
Speaker 8: and I didn't ask say a word. I said, don't
Speaker 8: let him kick me out. Don't let him kick me out.
Speaker 8: And I honestly just sat there and I listened, and
Speaker 8: I prayed, and I said, Lord, show me how he thinks.
Speaker 8: And I probably was eighteen years old at that time.
Speaker 8: I said, please show me how he thinks. Because he
Speaker 8: was a he was a genius when he sat down
Speaker 8: and played like he sit on the piano and played. Man,
Speaker 8: it was it was magical just the way he did it.
Speaker 8: And so you know Thomas Whitfield man, Rudolf Stanfield, oh man, Yes,
Speaker 8: Rudolf was and I'm not sure if you remember this
Speaker 8: guy because he was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J.
Speaker 4: Wright.
Speaker 8: You know he was, he was. He was a genius.
Speaker 8: So all these cats ran together and I just stood
Speaker 8: in the background.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, brother Hammond, you mentioned about you're not having
Speaker 3: the right base.
Speaker 4: What one?
Speaker 3: What was your first base you used? And what is
Speaker 3: your acts of what is sort of your acts of.
Speaker 4: Your your your favorite seal?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, okay, so true story.
Speaker 8: Uh, my mother we went to k and when we're
Speaker 8: talking about going to a base, we went to kmart
Speaker 8: and there was a base on sale for thirty five
Speaker 8: dollars and the headstock was cracked, literally cracked, and they
Speaker 8: said thirty five dollars and the guy said, if you
Speaker 8: buy it now, I'll give it to you for twenty
Speaker 8: five now. It couldn't stay in tune. It was impossible
Speaker 8: because between the A and the G, you know there
Speaker 8: was it was cracked, right, So I'm sitting there and
Speaker 8: I'm going I think we can fix this. So I
Speaker 8: think we can take this a wood shop and put
Speaker 8: it on advice and put some blue there. And I'm
Speaker 8: trying to figure out how to make this thing work.
Speaker 8: So we took it up to Wonderland Music and said,
Speaker 8: you know, can y'all fix this? And the guy said,
Speaker 8: now you can't fix that. You need to take that
Speaker 8: back and buy this one. We'll give it to you
Speaker 8: for the same price if you come back and buy it.
Speaker 8: We took it back to Kmart argued with him because
Speaker 8: it was no return, but they gave us some money back.
Speaker 8: My mother took the twenty five back to Wonderland and
Speaker 8: we bought this Norma for that same out and so
Speaker 8: I never forget. My mother said, if you if you
Speaker 8: put this under your bed and you don't use it,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna sell it.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 8: You got to promise me. And so I promised her.
Speaker 8: And I played, and I went to church and we
Speaker 8: had a storefront church, and I played. I had a
Speaker 8: little bitty amp and I played, and I would play
Speaker 8: so high because you couldn't hear me. So I had
Speaker 8: to play it like a lead. Because church be gone,
Speaker 8: that's what you need to hear out that little amp.
Speaker 8: And so my mother got really I got discouraged, and
Speaker 8: I put it up. So for four months my mother
Speaker 8: let us sit up under the bed, and then one
Speaker 8: day she was going we were going to choir wrestle
Speaker 8: and she said, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you. You
Speaker 8: promised me I'm gonna sell that. I'm gonna sell it.
Speaker 8: And she wasn't even looking at me.
Speaker 6: She just drive me.
Speaker 8: She said, I'm very disappointed. And my mother's relationship with
Speaker 8: you wasn't no talking. It was just she talked and
Speaker 8: I just listened, and I felt horrible. And she said,
Speaker 8: why did you disappoint me like that? You told me
Speaker 8: you promised you better keep your word as a man.
Speaker 8: Why did you tell me that? And I said, they laugh.
Speaker 6: At me, mam.
Speaker 8: She said, cool, said everybody unesder Eddie Charles everybody. Why
Speaker 8: they said, because it don't sound like a bass And
Speaker 8: she didn't say nothing else. That next Saturday, we ended
Speaker 8: up going to Oakland Mall Grenelle's music and we were
Speaker 8: in there and so she was playing the piano like
Speaker 8: she was playing the piano, and she said, which one
Speaker 8: of them bases is better. And I picked up this
Speaker 8: univox and I said, well this one is, man, it's
Speaker 8: one hundred and eighty dollars, because at that point you
Speaker 8: could tell how much your base about how much it
Speaker 8: costs one hundred eighty dollars from twenty five dollars is
Speaker 8: a night you got a good base, you know. I
Speaker 8: was sitting there, man, and I was playing it, and
Speaker 8: then she said, okay, wrap that up. I'm gonna take
Speaker 8: it for him. And the salesman became the salesman. He said, ma'am,
Speaker 8: this boy got talent. If you want him to be
Speaker 8: the best, you gotta get him the best. And I'm
Speaker 8: telling the dude, and shut up. My mother's on the yes,
Speaker 8: pack this thing up and get the heck out of here.
Speaker 8: He said, let me show you what it is. This
Speaker 8: boy's got talent.
Speaker 6: He rolled.
Speaker 8: He pulled this fender out of the front, the same
Speaker 8: one that a w B had, the same blind fender precision,
Speaker 8: And did we know about man, that's my dude, that's
Speaker 8: my dude.
Speaker 4: You're my man.
Speaker 8: Oh God, Okay, sitting there, I'm in there and I'm
Speaker 8: asking can we play? I said, we're gonna get this
Speaker 8: one but can I just leave play it and me?
Speaker 8: We went through this rich. We said, take off your coat,
Speaker 8: almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from on my feet,
Speaker 8: take off thy.
Speaker 6: He made sure he put a towel.
Speaker 8: On me, and he put the base down and I
Speaker 8: plugged it into that amp that the Unifox had.
Speaker 6: He said, oh no, no, no.
Speaker 8: No, you do this fright, and he pushed this big
Speaker 8: red custom eight foot over it and turned it up.
Speaker 6: And the first thing I did was bom do doon
Speaker 6: bone do don't don't out.
Speaker 1: And it was cool.
Speaker 8: So smooth, and all of a sudden, I'm playing everything
Speaker 8: I said, I may not get a chance to play
Speaker 8: this no more. So I played skin tight, I played
Speaker 8: I'll take You Man, I played fire, I played everything
Speaker 8: I could possibly play. Next thing, you know, there was
Speaker 8: a crowd in front of Grenell's brother saying, look at
Speaker 8: that boy, that boy in there playing that bass like that.
Speaker 8: And my mother looked at it and she said, they said,
Speaker 8: we can do a payment plan, thirty dollars a month.
Speaker 8: He deserves this, he'll be good. And she put her
Speaker 8: head down just like this because she didn't have that
Speaker 8: kind of money, and she said, wrap it up. I
Speaker 8: better na see this under the bed, I said, I
Speaker 8: promise you you'll never see it under the bed.
Speaker 6: Now that base retired. My mother side of it, All of.
Speaker 8: This stuff you see here, all of this every time
Speaker 8: you see me on soulfire, every time you see me anywhere.
Speaker 8: It was because she took a chance on a four
Speaker 8: hundred and thirty dollars fender base and she didn't have
Speaker 8: the money. She probably ended up paying eighteen hundred dollars,
Speaker 8: but it paid for everything that you see me by.
Speaker 8: She invested in me. She invested in me, and that
Speaker 8: was what it was. And I played that thing in
Speaker 8: the ground. Being young, I didn't know anything about. I
Speaker 8: couldn't afford to take it to go and get calibrated.
Speaker 8: So I just changed the streams. And you know how
Speaker 8: we had to ball the strings to get that pop back.
Speaker 8: You know what I mean, what boil them?
Speaker 6: You will put on.
Speaker 4: Explain that process to me.
Speaker 6: So here's the thing I ended up.
Speaker 8: I could buy like, I could save up enough money
Speaker 8: to buy strings, uh maybe once every five to six months.
Speaker 8: So I bought these dear Dairya lights. So you know
Speaker 8: they get all craddy and stuff. They start sounding dull well,
Speaker 8: we learned that if you take them off the base,
Speaker 8: round them up, put them in hot, boiling water for
Speaker 8: about seven to ten minutes, you pull them back off
Speaker 8: and they fresh and you get that same bank right
Speaker 8: back again. So we were boiling strings. We would never
Speaker 8: buy none. That's good style, good stuff.
Speaker 2: Hey, Fred, did you play that on victory?
Speaker 6: Victory?
Speaker 8: I played enough by that time I was able to
Speaker 8: buy another base, another finger, because that base got me fired.
Speaker 8: That That was literally after the Thomas Whitfield session. He said, man,
Speaker 8: you're a good player, but you you got to keep
Speaker 8: up with your axe and you just gotta I gotta
Speaker 8: have somebody to play. And at that point Leonard Kern
Speaker 8: had this Gibson and it was it was solid. So
Speaker 8: I lost the gig, but he let me play the
Speaker 8: least those two songs. And you know what it was.
Speaker 8: It was an Ibanaz. I went and bought an Ibanaz
Speaker 8: and that's the one that's on victory. That's the one
Speaker 8: on victory. Yep, do you still have that original bass?
Speaker 8: Just for prosperity sake? Or I couldn't thin, but I
Speaker 8: went and bought one, just like just to remind me.
Speaker 8: I went and bought one just not now. It's crazy.
Speaker 8: I don't play much no more because of my arthritis,
Speaker 8: and I'm just older. And so I got a lot
Speaker 8: of young cats to play with me. Now I ended
Speaker 8: up getting my own base line through basse mind oh
Speaker 8: and everything all that, and so I got about five
Speaker 8: of them, and I'm like, man, you wait till I
Speaker 8: can't play to give me this.
Speaker 5: Didn't get to see that Dishy Fred never got dam.
Speaker 4: But you know she's watching the spirit we need.
Speaker 3: Can you please tell me as as much as you
Speaker 3: feel comfortable with revealing what's under the hood, I want
Speaker 3: to know what is it to tour on the gospel circuit?
Speaker 3: First of all, to get to get the pole position
Speaker 3: of being the go to guy to play these gigs.
Speaker 4: But then let's.
Speaker 3: Say I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I
Speaker 3: play drums and you play bass. You mentioned the lines,
Speaker 3: but I mean, I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand,
Speaker 3: like when do you start? When do they When did
Speaker 3: they really start taking you serious? As in friends my
Speaker 3: go to like at what year are you the man?
Speaker 6: You know? In?
Speaker 8: Never happened like that for me because I went straight
Speaker 8: from the winers straight to commission and with Commission, I
Speaker 8: dedicated every waking moment. I dedicated every waking moment to
Speaker 8: making sure that group did what we needed to do.
Speaker 8: I will tell you this story that I got fired
Speaker 8: off of a Commission off of a Tremaine Hawkins tour.
Speaker 8: That was my first tour that I was the go
Speaker 8: to guy. Man, I'm trying to think it was. It
Speaker 8: was probably I was out of school, so it could
Speaker 8: have been like it was coming out of the winings.
Speaker 8: So it's probably eighty three, right, her first real solo album.
Speaker 6: But look at Me Crisis at Me three album, that album.
Speaker 8: I got fired off that gig. And it was funny
Speaker 8: because Michael Wright was was one of my best friends.
Speaker 8: Michael Williams is one of my best friends. Michael Williams
Speaker 8: is the drummer. He's a drummer for Commission, and Michael
Speaker 8: Wright was a guitar player. He was supposed to be
Speaker 8: the seventh of Commission and they Jeff in the Valley
Speaker 8: was putting together a.
Speaker 6: Group uh to go out and play for Tremain.
Speaker 8: So me and Michael bass player lead and then drummer,
Speaker 8: and everything was fine and we were rehearsed. We were
Speaker 8: shed in the basement, and I always sang the middle
Speaker 8: and Mike sang the top.
Speaker 6: And that's just the way it was.
Speaker 8: The night we got to Jeff to come in and
Speaker 8: do the audition, like, let's let's start practicing. My Mike
Speaker 8: froze and he started singing the middle. Now in my head,
Speaker 8: I couldn't make that transition bass wise and singing, so
Speaker 8: I had to shed. And once I learned my part,
Speaker 8: I'm good. But it's not like, oh, let me switch
Speaker 8: to this Bible, let me sing this party.
Speaker 6: It was like, this is my part.
Speaker 8: I can rock this and I can sing this part song. Well,
Speaker 8: he sang my part and he froze, and I'll never forget,
Speaker 8: I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike,
Speaker 8: I sing in the middle. He looked right back at
Speaker 8: me and said, no, I sing in the middle. And
Speaker 8: I'm like, oh. He had a situation here, and Jeff
Speaker 8: Lavalley was looking like this, somebody sing something, and so
Speaker 8: I said, well, let me solvage the situation because he's
Speaker 8: my boy. I'll try to sing this top. I'll just
Speaker 8: learn it. And as I was doing it, I was struggling,
Speaker 8: and so Jeff said, you know what, let's just come
Speaker 8: back tomorrow. Well, when I came back the next day,
Speaker 8: they had somebody sitting in the car, and the manager
Speaker 8: came and said, we have a problem, and we seemed
Speaker 8: to be a problem.
Speaker 6: That's the problem.
Speaker 8: And they said, well, I said, well, we kind of
Speaker 8: learned kind of the same part, and they said, go
Speaker 8: get Jonathan right quick, and coming down the steps, Jonathan Dubos.
Speaker 6: Walking down the steps.
Speaker 8: He come walking down the steps and Mike Wright, who's
Speaker 8: the guitar player, said, oh man, I'm fired. And he
Speaker 8: literally he literally started packing up his guitar and they
Speaker 8: said no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 6: They said, Fred, can you use your base? And they
Speaker 6: all they rehearsed right in.
Speaker 8: Front of me, and they said, Fred, I'm sorry, Unfortunately
Speaker 8: we're not gonna be able to use you all this time.
Speaker 3: And they couldn't just take three hours so you can
Speaker 3: relearn your harmony parts or whatever.
Speaker 8: They told me to go home and learn it, and
Speaker 8: they gave me a knight and I went home and
Speaker 8: I learned it. And when I went back, Gloria Hawkins
Speaker 8: was there, Jeff le Valley was there, and Jonathan was
Speaker 8: standing there. They were just there and I can't imagine
Speaker 8: Jonathan came in yet, but I know it was doubt
Speaker 8: and the pressure hit me so hard and I started
Speaker 8: playing and I was singing a note that I could
Speaker 8: not sing, and I just remember stopping and put my
Speaker 8: head down and I wasn't gonna rap for my boy.
Speaker 6: This is kind of the first time I sold. It
Speaker 6: was his fault.
Speaker 4: I don't care now.
Speaker 8: I sat through the whole rehearsal while Jonathan Dubo's.
Speaker 4: Practiced on my wow man.
Speaker 6: And I tell.
Speaker 8: Everybody one of the reasons why probably I am decently
Speaker 8: successful is because I never carried bitterness towards anyone.
Speaker 3: Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you're
Speaker 3: seeing these people every day like.
Speaker 6: We were still boys.
Speaker 8: We never you know, you don't rat your boy out,
Speaker 8: And that's just what it was. And it was unspoken
Speaker 8: at that time that that's what the problem was. And
Speaker 8: I never I never ratted him out. And I just
Speaker 8: it was crazy too, because they toured for about a
Speaker 8: year to two years and I was broken.
Speaker 4: I was broken, See James, we were rated each other out.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 8: My best friend was Michael Williams as well, the drummer
Speaker 8: for Commission, and he has no filter, so he would
Speaker 8: come back, just tell yeah, we just came from Amsterdam.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 8: Man, let me tell you something, man, just that I
Speaker 8: just bought this, that we did that, and I just
Speaker 8: I sat there and I just I just took it.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: So what did you wind up doing?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 4: Did you take that ass?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 4: Okay, I got a shed even harder.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, I've said I'm I'm never gonna let that
Speaker 8: happen to me again. But what I did was I
Speaker 8: focused deep on getting commissioned together because we had to
Speaker 8: learn managers. We had to try to find managers. We
Speaker 8: didn't have the easy role man. People thought that commission
Speaker 8: was signed and somebody saw us man.
Speaker 6: We spent. We raised thirteen.
Speaker 8: Thousand dollars from aunts, uncles, cousins, skating parties, receptions. We
Speaker 8: would put them in a shoe box under my bed
Speaker 8: and go buy studio time. And finally we had a
Speaker 8: finished product and we leased that first record that I'm
Speaker 8: going on It was a lease.
Speaker 6: I'm going on record, yep. Our manager.
Speaker 8: We went to Tys Scott Records and Leonard Scott said,
Speaker 8: I'll sign you guys. We didn't know what to ask for.
Speaker 8: We said, can we just have the money back? To
Speaker 8: pay our parents and our family be He said sure.
Speaker 8: But then Derek Dirkson, who was the leader of Chapter eight,
Speaker 8: you know, he was the drummer and the leader of Chapter,
Speaker 8: he said, let me manage you.
Speaker 6: Guys.
Speaker 8: You just walked away from the wind and he said,
Speaker 8: let me manage you. And we said okay. He said,
Speaker 8: give me two weeks. I'm gonna take it to Light Records,
Speaker 8: and if they don't come back within two weeks, we'll
Speaker 8: go over the tys. Guy well he called on his relationships.
Speaker 8: He did a lease steal, We put the record out
Speaker 8: and the rest is history. And then we got signed
Speaker 8: the second record all from second record all.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just going to ask you about the
Speaker 1: business of that.
Speaker 7: So how did that work in terms of like, do
Speaker 7: you guys own those masters now?
Speaker 1: Was it a deal that they own?
Speaker 7: How was business done in the gospel world as compared
Speaker 7: to the kind of secular music?
Speaker 8: It was done the same same, Jack, I believe we
Speaker 8: own the masters now. Though we do own the masters
Speaker 8: now to the first five records, but other than that,
Speaker 8: we just got took so in.
Speaker 3: Your mind and you're saying that the Winings was like
Speaker 3: your first gig before you went with with or your
Speaker 3: biggest gig before you went to forming Commission in your
Speaker 3: mind is the Whinings and doing that circuit as good
Speaker 3: as it gets, like as top as it gets. Is
Speaker 3: there any point where you're like, hey, maybe I should
Speaker 3: go to Los Angeles to become a session musician, or
Speaker 3: are there.
Speaker 4: Any secular acts? Like is Anita Baker in the chapter?
Speaker 3: You know, like are you are your eyes looking elsewhere
Speaker 3: or for for you? It's like, I'm gonna stay in
Speaker 3: the gospel world and the Whinings is.
Speaker 4: As good as it gets to get out there.
Speaker 8: I never looked to do a secular group or play
Speaker 8: in the club or anything else. I really felt like
Speaker 8: I was cold. And this is before I knew my
Speaker 8: birth issues or anything. I honestly felt like I was
Speaker 8: called to gospel music. So the winings was as big
Speaker 8: as it got. It's like, man, I thought I'd be
Speaker 8: paying for them right now at sixty years old.
Speaker 6: I never thought I was gonna leave, and I didn't
Speaker 6: want to leave when I left.
Speaker 8: You know, Honestly, there was a little high coup that
Speaker 8: happened in Commission. He I'm gonna give you all some
Speaker 8: real little son behind the scene, A couple members called
Speaker 8: me with our managers at that time, into a basement
Speaker 8: at twelve o'clock at night and they told me, if
Speaker 8: you don't leave the Winings, we're gonna take this group
Speaker 8: from you. You out here traveling, you out here doing that,
Speaker 8: you can't be no group leader. They didn't have a
Speaker 8: record deal, they didn't have anything, but there was some
Speaker 8: scuttle but that was going on between two members and
Speaker 8: the management and they were literally trying to take the
Speaker 8: group from me. And I said, they said, if you
Speaker 8: don't leave them, we're gonna take this group from me.
Speaker 8: So I had to go back to the Wins and
Speaker 8: I couldn't be no rat, so I couldn't tell them, Man,
Speaker 8: they're making me do this. I had to tell them.
Speaker 8: And then after Chicago, that's my last, that's my last gig.
Speaker 8: I'm going to make commission. And they were so mad. Man,
Speaker 8: they were so mad. They understood there was no no no, no,
Speaker 8: no no, that's what they said.
Speaker 6: But it was because we were family.
Speaker 8: And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson,
Speaker 8: the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Al Green and a bunch
Speaker 8: of people in Chicago. And I never forget I cried
Speaker 8: like a baby, and in the van they got together
Speaker 8: as brothers and they sang this song to find His Keepers.
Speaker 8: I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend, we
Speaker 8: love having you.
Speaker 1: What up y'all here? That was part one of our
Speaker 1: two parts interviews.
Speaker 4: With the legendary bred Hammlin.
Speaker 1: Y'all stay tuned.
Speaker 7: Part two is coming up next week, and it gets
Speaker 7: even better right here on QLs.
Speaker 4: Of course. Love Supring Yep Must Love Supreme is a
Speaker 4: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.