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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I am

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Speaker 1: your host Quest Love. Uh, this is Team Supreme.

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Speaker 2: Why are you? How are you how doing.

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Speaker 3: Something?

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Speaker 4: What?

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Speaker 1: I want to know? How many rooms you have in

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Speaker 1: your house? Because are you in like a nineteen room mansion?

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Speaker 4: Stop saying that this is my house? Just the last

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Speaker 4: time we spoke, I was somewhere else.

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Speaker 2: And but you have more artwork than any human I know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you've met met my parents, so yes, I do.

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Speaker 4: I got I'm surprised I don't got a payre of

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Speaker 4: our guests on my wall somewhere.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I see.

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Speaker 3: Your dad gave me one of yourself, one of your

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Speaker 3: aunt Deanna and your dad and Melbour and Lindsay.

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Speaker 2: Oh mystery voice? Yeah, okay, okay, who was that mystery voice? Hey? Steve?

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Speaker 2: How are you? Bro?

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Speaker 5: You know, if you delete something off an iTunes playlist,

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Speaker 5: all you gotta do is hit Apple X and it

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Speaker 5: all comes back app You know what Apple X? You

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Speaker 5: know command X? I mean help your brother anyway?

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Speaker 4: Oh delete?

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Speaker 5: I leave rally one day in fourteen years, Steve, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: somehow a playlist gets to.

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Speaker 1: You in the history of it Tonight Show, Sugar Steve

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Speaker 1: has been a constant presence almost every day, and the

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Speaker 1: one day he leaves, things don't fall apart.

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Speaker 4: I kept things together, so yes, that things don't fall apart.

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Speaker 6: What's up everybody dot.

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Speaker 3: My song title.

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Speaker 4: It was a good album title as well.

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Speaker 2: Fan Tickelo what's that brother? What's going on? Bro? What's

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Speaker 2: going on? Miss Jane? It's very nice to meet you.

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Speaker 3: Lovely meeting you.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, my my aunt she was a big fan of

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Speaker 6: your records and I would always go to her house

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Speaker 6: and like play your stuff, and I just always remember

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Speaker 6: just your album covers. You just always look really classy,

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Speaker 6: really pretty, and just always just just a really really

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Speaker 6: classy singer. So it's really an honored to sit with

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Speaker 6: you today. I appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: Oh, it's my pleasure, and I appreciate you educating you.

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Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is an extraordinary

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Speaker 1: singer and artists. Basically our guest today. You know, I

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Speaker 1: was introduced to her via my father's illustrious record collection.

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Speaker 1: A lot of jazz in there, and of course you

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Speaker 1: know the Black Jazz label, and I will say that

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Speaker 1: all the albums of our Guest Today and her former husband,

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Speaker 1: the Doug carn definitely played a major role in my

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Speaker 1: personal growing up. Basically just some of the best what

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Speaker 1: I call spiritual jazz. I mean, there's so many titles

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Speaker 1: for it. Some people say fusion, spiritual jazz. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what you call it. But there's also a point

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Speaker 1: in the seventies when our Guest Today became part of

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Speaker 1: the incredible stable of artists that contributed to the sound

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Speaker 1: of Philadelphia, helm by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff with

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Speaker 1: such legendary songs as you know, free Love and Don't

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Speaker 1: let It Go to Your Head and my Love Don't

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Speaker 1: Come Easy, and then of course you know the immortal

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Speaker 1: close and then close. Not to mention my song was

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Speaker 1: the Flame of Love. Like, there's so much to talk about,

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Speaker 1: but you know, April is Jazz Appreciation Month, and basically

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Speaker 1: our guest Today she makes jazz, she makes R and B,

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Speaker 1: she makes disco. She does it all and she's worked

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Speaker 1: with all the legends. All the legends work with her,

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Speaker 1: Kenny Gamble, Leon Huf, Jerry Butler, Eddie Laverert, Philip Simon

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Speaker 1: or o'garner, Billy Paul, text To Janzell, The Temptations, Grove Washington, Junior,

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Speaker 1: James Dir George Do just everyone, ladies and gentlemen, please

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Speaker 1: welcome so overdue our guests, the incomparable Gene car Into,

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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thank you for coming. How are you?

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Speaker 3: I'm wonderful. How's everybody doing well?

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Speaker 2: Doing well?

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Speaker 1: We're great massive fans of yours and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I thank you for doing this. You know, with a

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Speaker 1: lot of our guests of late, just how the music

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Speaker 1: industry is built mostly celebrating, you know, a certain type

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Speaker 1: of mainstream artists and really not giving light or shine

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Speaker 1: to artist of I mean, I don't want to sound

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Speaker 1: like the old grumpy music lover, but you know a

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Speaker 1: lot of artists that have substance or something extra to give.

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Speaker 1: You really don't read that much, and I don't recall

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Speaker 1: ever like reading in depth interviews with you at all.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I'm so familiar with your work, but

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Speaker 1: you know, you don't get to see your artists in

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Speaker 1: some of these mainstream publications that do music. So I

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Speaker 1: thank you for finally granting us the just the honor

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Speaker 1: of getting to interview you. So I'm gonna ask a

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Speaker 1: lot of questions. Number one, Miss Karen, could you tell

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Speaker 1: me your first musical memory.

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Speaker 3: My first musical memory, perhaps, Oh, I guess in church

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Speaker 3: greater amount Calvary Baptist Church, maybe singing solo in front

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Speaker 3: of the adult choir. I must have been four then,

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Speaker 3: because I remember I think the song must have been yeah,

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Speaker 3: because I think Mahelia Jackson had done it one of

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Speaker 3: these mornings, one of these mornings home, going home to

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Speaker 3: live a God. And I was just a little kid,

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Speaker 3: you know, But I think that might have been my

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Speaker 3: first public memory. And I did a lot of stuff

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Speaker 3: at I remember a lot of stuff at home that

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Speaker 3: I would do when somebody would visit us. My mother

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Speaker 3: said I would give them a concert. He said. I'd

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Speaker 3: put on my ballet slippers and I'd stand in a

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Speaker 3: plia position with my hands like this, and I give

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Speaker 3: them a concert if they, you know, if my folks

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Speaker 3: asked me to.

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Speaker 2: So that that was just a typical occurrence, because you

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Speaker 2: hear that a lot.

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Speaker 1: You hear about like Cecil Franklin waking up Aretha Franklin

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Speaker 1: at three in the morning, like entertainment guests like saying

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Speaker 1: something for them.

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Speaker 2: But so your parents were like that a lot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I didn't mind, you know, So, yeah,

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Speaker 3: they were cool like that.

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Speaker 2: What city were you born in?

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Speaker 3: I was born in Columbus, Georgia. I was in Atlanta.

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Speaker 2: Okay. It's weird, like a lot of.

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Speaker 1: Artists that represent Philly International, in my mind, they're always

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Speaker 1: from Philadelphia, even though they just record for a Philadelphia label.

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Speaker 2: So you know, it's kind of a yeah.

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Speaker 3: I've always been a part time Philadelphia, well for fifty

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Speaker 3: years now.

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Speaker 2: So you live there currently right now? You still live.

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Speaker 3: There half the time here and half and the rest

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Speaker 3: in Atlanta.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, so you never lost touch with your your

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Speaker 2: home roots or anyth that those things? No, No, So,

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Speaker 2: having been raised in the church, especially with down South,

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Speaker 2: how does like, what is your relationship with secular music?

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Speaker 2: I know that for there's a lot of generation generational

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Speaker 2: Blacks that grew up in households in which like secular

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Speaker 2: music is somewhat taboo or not allowed in the household.

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Speaker 2: Was your household that sort of that way or.

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Speaker 3: You know, I've learned that that's the case with a

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Speaker 3: lot of a lot of singers. But thank goodness, It

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Speaker 3: wasn't the case at my house because my dad loved music,

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Speaker 3: you know, big band, New Orleans jazz, you know, preservation jazz,

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Speaker 3: R and B. So I was never pigeonholed where music

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Speaker 3: was concerned. I started collecting records, you know, with the

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Speaker 3: little record player in the little box with the little

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Speaker 3: snap on there. I started collecting records that I guess

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Speaker 3: spy ish, and they never they never limited this, you know,

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Speaker 3: the records I could buy.

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Speaker 6: What was some of the records you were buying at

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Speaker 6: that time?

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Speaker 3: Oh gosh, Well, my dad had a record store on

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Speaker 3: Auburn Avenue.

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Speaker 2: It was with.

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Speaker 3: A cab company and a moving company and an employment agency,

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Speaker 3: so all one, yeah, in one building, and I yeah.

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Speaker 3: It was right down the street from Big Bethel Baptist Church,

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Speaker 3: and it was two blocks down from Ebeneza Baptist Church.

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Speaker 3: And so I got you know, I got to sell

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Speaker 3: records too, because my brother and I would come and

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Speaker 3: you know and work for my dad. Sometimes I was dispatcher,

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Speaker 3: you know, for the cab company, and then sometimes I

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Speaker 3: saw records and it you know, it was just a

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Speaker 3: whole plethora of activity that we got to do. But

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Speaker 3: I don't know, I think I think selling records was

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Speaker 3: the most fun for me because if somebody comes in

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Speaker 3: and asks for a record that we didn't have, I

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Speaker 3: had to write down the artists and and my dad

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Speaker 3: would pick it up at the at There were one

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Speaker 3: stops where the record stores would you know they got

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Speaker 3: the uh Manu pressed records from. I think then they

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Speaker 3: had a pressing plant in Canton, Georgia, and and that

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Speaker 3: that's how we you know, that was the chain of

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Speaker 3: command for for for doing records. I think that was

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Speaker 3: the most fun, the most fun growing up. And it

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Speaker 3: was down the street from the Royal Peacock. It was

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Speaker 3: like two doors down from the Royal Peacock. So when

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Speaker 3: artists would come to perform the Peacock, I would slip

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Speaker 3: out and go see their soundchecks because the owner of

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Speaker 3: the Peacock was, you know, a friend of my dad's.

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Speaker 3: In fact, I remember talking to Ruth Brown and telling

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Speaker 3: her that I saw her do a sound check because

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Speaker 3: her son saying he was he's he's a he was

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Speaker 3: a guitar player a few years ago on one of

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Speaker 3: the nighttime shows and he had this amazing voice. Because

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Speaker 3: he did a demo that I eventually recorded, and so

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Speaker 3: Ruth Brown and I got to talk because he put

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Speaker 3: her on the phone and I told her, you know,

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Speaker 3: I remember you, you know when when Mama Dotter mean

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Speaker 3: was you know, it was a big song for her,

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Speaker 3: and she loved it. She absolutely loved the fact because

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Speaker 3: I was I was a little kid. Wow, Okay, wondering,

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Speaker 3: aren't I?

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, this is literally what I was about.

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Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned. For the longest, I couldn't

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Speaker 1: figure out the proper title. So whenever I whenever people

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Speaker 1: ask me about my record collection, I never knew the

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Speaker 1: proper title of those dealers were called one stops. But oftentimes,

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Speaker 1: like when people ask like how do you collect so

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Speaker 1: many records? I think they think that I go out

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Speaker 1: and actually purchased like individual like two thousand records where

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Speaker 1: now you know, a lot of those owners of those

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Speaker 1: one stops either they're widow widows or you know, or

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Speaker 1: their family don't know what to do with them. So

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Speaker 1: usually there's like thirty or forty thousand pieces lying around

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Speaker 1: and then maybe a guy like me will purchase it

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Speaker 1: if it seems interesting enough and that sort of.

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Speaker 3: Thing, so it can get to them before the British

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Speaker 3: come because they can.

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Speaker 2: Everyone, yeah, come to.

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Speaker 3: America every year to you know, get the great records.

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Speaker 1: You know, yeah, Japanese dealers, British people like every place,

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Speaker 1: but the United States really treasure is like you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean there's some people in the United.

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Speaker 2: States, but for the most part, But that's.

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Speaker 4: Also interesting measures you know, how we are treasures sometimes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're disposable country. So okay, So that makes a

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Speaker 1: lot of sense to me because normally when our guests

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Speaker 1: come on this show, the common denominator is that a

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Speaker 1: lot of guests on the show are DJs. And that's

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Speaker 1: how at least the producers that we've had on the show.

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Speaker 1: So the fact that you've worked in the record store

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Speaker 1: explains a lot of your you know, of your illustrious

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Speaker 1: range as far as like the world of jazz, the

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Speaker 1: world of soul, the world of blues, like all the

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Speaker 1: music that you sing.

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Speaker 4: Does it also mean like your dad was a man

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Speaker 4: because like record store owners were the man in the streets, right,

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Speaker 4: Like they had a lot of respect and access and whatnot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, the street that my dad's business was on,

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Speaker 3: Auburn Avenue, was the seat for that part of town

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Speaker 3: of black business. In fact, okay, Gladys Knight's sponsor, mister

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Speaker 3: Alexander TM Alexander was was his his realty company. He

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Speaker 3: and mister Calloway's realty company was right down the three

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Speaker 3: doors down from you know, from from my dad's business.

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Speaker 3: And and I remember, you know, we knew from the

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Speaker 3: inside that that TM was Gladys Knight's sponsor, and I

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Speaker 3: knew of her and then I got to see her

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Speaker 3: on Ted Max's original Amateur Hour. Yeah, yeah, I remember

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Speaker 3: the first time we got a request for for their

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Speaker 3: record because I had to write it down, you know,

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Speaker 3: it was every beat of my heart. And on the

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Speaker 3: on the b side was Darling, which was only the Pips. Okay, okay, yeah,

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Speaker 3: and Darling Darling was just the Pips and on the

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Speaker 3: other side was Gladys Knight and the Pips. So yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: but I didn't know that was part of the hierarchy

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Speaker 3: that you know, record company owners were the man in

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Speaker 3: the street because there were businesses all the way down

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Speaker 3: the street on the Auburn Avenue.

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Speaker 2: How long did he keep that business up? What was

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Speaker 2: that a majority of your life?

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Speaker 3: Or I remember when I was twelve, that was when

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Speaker 3: when I ordered Darling. I must have been twelve then

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Speaker 3: and as a then up up to to a teenagehood,

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Speaker 3: I performed at Big Bethel Baptist Church, which is, like

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Speaker 3: I said, two blocks down from Wheat Street Baptist Church

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Speaker 3: and one blockdown from Ebniza Baptist Church, which was Doctor

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Speaker 3: King's church.

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Speaker 2: So did you ever get to see him in person,

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Speaker 2: to see who doctor King?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, yeah. In fact, my brother, doctor King, my

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Speaker 3: dad had a cab stand, you know, at Big Bethel

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Speaker 3: Baptist Church, and that's where you pay for slots for

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Speaker 3: your cabs to sit, so that after church, after choir, rehearsal,

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Speaker 3: all those places, all those events, people can come out

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Speaker 3: of the church and the cabs waiting. They're like like

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Speaker 3: they do at the airport.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 3: And but Doctor King could park anywhere. And my brother,

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Speaker 3: my brother used to used to wait for him to

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Speaker 3: park at when he would park at at Big Bethel,

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Speaker 3: and he would walk him down to Blacks to Aveniza

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Speaker 3: because he was you know, he was now he was

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Speaker 3: the man. And I remember my brother was so thrilled

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Speaker 3: because this was before a couple of weeks before the

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Speaker 3: march on Washington, Okay, and my brother, I mean he

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Speaker 3: was literally shaking when he told us about the fact

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Speaker 3: that doctor King had told him where to meet them,

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Speaker 3: to be on the bus to go to the march

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Speaker 3: on Washington. So yeah, to answer your question.

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Speaker 2: Wow, you got to see him, that's incredible.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, yes. After he he passed away, I

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Speaker 3: did numerous misiness King would call on me to do,

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Speaker 3: to do numerous activities, sing it, you know, on on

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Speaker 3: ecumenical Sunday when they would you know, honor him and

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Speaker 3: to sing, you know, at the church at Stetra. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 3: And she invited me to the second March on Washington.

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Speaker 1: Your vocal style like you have a very very rich,

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Speaker 1: rich rich tenor yes, you've can sing the highest of

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Speaker 1: the highs and the lowest of the lows. Who was

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Speaker 1: your inspiration as far as like, h your your singing style?

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Speaker 2: Who did you gravitate towards?

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Speaker 3: Oh? It was different periods of my life, you know.

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Speaker 3: I was influenced by by various and sundry singers and

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Speaker 3: horn players and keyboard players. I remember seeing Aretha. She

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Speaker 3: was traveling with her father, Reverend C. L. Franklin, and

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Speaker 3: she they were at the City Auditorium, which belongs to

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Speaker 3: Georgia State now uh and and she she sang a

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Speaker 3: song called in a Land Where Will Never Grow Old?

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Speaker 3: And by then I was playing piano for church choirs.

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Speaker 3: So I put that in my in my repertoire and

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Speaker 3: always remembered her for that song, and I sung it

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Speaker 3: at funerals from like I said, from time I was

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Speaker 3: an early teenager till till I guess a couple of

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Speaker 3: years ago staying at a funeral as well.

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Speaker 2: So you were just the go to person.

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Speaker 3: I guess. But Atlanta was so full of wonderful singers

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Speaker 3: whoa yeah, I was just one among so many extremely

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Speaker 3: talented for.

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Speaker 1: Were you at all somewhat hobnobbing or crossing paths with

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Speaker 1: any other future legends that we might have known known

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Speaker 1: of at the time period?

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Speaker 3: Well, let's see, did you never think of it that way?

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Speaker 4: Right? Or who started out? That's what I was just thinking,

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Speaker 4: like when you were in Atlanta?

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Speaker 2: Who?

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Speaker 4: Who were the singers in Atlanta?

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Speaker 3: Well, there were lots of blues singers, Okay, the tams

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Speaker 3: as we stroll along to get the times, Oh oh

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Speaker 3: that's the Times. But Atlanta, that's my uncle.

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Speaker 2: Billie Billy Jackson.

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Speaker 1: Billy Jackson who produced that song that's that's one of

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Speaker 1: my uncles.

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Speaker 3: Last night I did with with where Billy Paul performed.

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Speaker 3: It was in London. The Times were on there, okay,

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Speaker 3: but I think the Tams were an Atlanta group, but

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Speaker 3: I gave them the wrong song.

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Speaker 2: The Times of Philadelphia.

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Speaker 3: Okay, the Times of Philadelphia and yeah, what kind of

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Speaker 3: food do you think I am? Yeah, yeah, that's them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah okay.

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Speaker 1: But for you, though, like when did you? Was it

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Speaker 1: a thing where you just out the womb singing or

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Speaker 1: like what what how old were you when you've made

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Speaker 1: the decision that this was going to be your profession,

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Speaker 1: this was going to be your your calling.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: I guess I never really made that kind of decision,

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Speaker 3: because I do. I did sing, my mother said before

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Speaker 3: before I could remember. I remember vaguely some of the

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Speaker 3: little concerts I did for folks that would visit us,

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Speaker 3: you know, relatives and stuff.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: And I remember being in the church choir and singing

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Speaker 3: solo before the church choir. But I never made a decision.

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Speaker 3: It was I guess it was.

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Speaker 4: Even in college, right like even in college you were

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Speaker 4: you were singing.

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Speaker 3: It was made. The decision was made for me because

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Speaker 3: I got scholarships, you know, for music scholarships and academic scholarship.

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Speaker 3: The school that I chose, Mars Brown, I got a

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Speaker 3: scholarship for academics and I got one a vocal scholarship,

350
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Speaker 3: a music scholarship. So I was going to be doing

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Speaker 3: that for the rest of my life. Whether I knew

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Speaker 3: it or not, I never made a decision. I think

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Speaker 3: it was just God.

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Speaker 1: I hear another thing that we have in common that

355
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Speaker 1: you and I would have been former Juilliard students.

356
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Speaker 2: But yeah, we had a different calling. So what was

357
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Speaker 2: your decision to not go to Juilliard.

358
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Speaker 3: I fell in love with Doug carn and we eloped

359
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Speaker 3: to Hollywood and got married and that's when we.

360
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Speaker 2: Owe you guys, I did that.

361
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Speaker 3: You well, no, we were no, we were late teens,

362
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Speaker 3: but we started the family, you know. I was twenty Okay, wow,

363
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Speaker 3: So you had that that kind of fate as well.

364
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Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I was at least My dad planned on

365
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Speaker 1: me going to either Juilliard or Curtis.

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Speaker 2: He wanted me to be in classical music because he

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Speaker 2: thought that.

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Speaker 1: Was that's what folks thought respectable, irrespectable, our form.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because I sang classically, you know, all the major

370
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:09,199
Speaker 3: Arias and you know the Messiah and seven Last Words,

371
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:14,600
Speaker 3: and and and so it was it was understood that

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Speaker 3: I would probably teach music in a college.

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Speaker 4: What is this Russian thing? I'm sorry, I know that's

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Speaker 4: in there too. I did not know this about you

375
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Speaker 4: that that started early on when you were younger too,

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Speaker 4: the Russian singing.

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Speaker 3: I we were on a in high school. We were

378
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Speaker 3: on a in a special experimental program of program of

379
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:42,240
Speaker 3: study in high school, and our foreign language was Russian.

380
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 3: So I took Russian all during high school. Then when

381
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Speaker 3: I went to Morris Brown that was the first year

382
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 3: they had a Russian course. So I did three years

383
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 3: in high school and then two years at marsh Brown. So,

384
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Speaker 3: and you speaking proficiently for me too? I used to.

385
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Speaker 4: Same, you do, a mayor, you speak Russian proficiently.

386
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Speaker 2: In the first grade. The only thing I remember now is.

387
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Speaker 4: Okay, what did she say, a mire?

388
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Speaker 3: What she said, dude?

389
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Speaker 2: That was forty five years ago.

390
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Speaker 1: The type of school I went to, we learned four

391
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: or five languages we had to know, like from first

392
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: to fourth grade, I was fluent in French, Russian, Spanish, Latin, English,

393
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Speaker 1: and ebonics.

394
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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good answer. Yes, it is hot.

395
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Speaker 3: Yes, that's yeah.

396
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Speaker 4: I'm just fascinated. Like most people take Spanish in French

397
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 4: day whole life, they're still not proficient. Y'all take it

398
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 4: for three four five years, and it's like.

399
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 3: Yo, Well, I got a little proficiency in some languages

400
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 3: because when when I perform in you know, in France

401
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 3: or in Spain or or elsewhere, I would get get

402
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 3: I had Burlet's books and cassettes, and I would learn

403
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 3: to you know, to talk to the audience, introduce songs,

404
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 3: uh through through my my books and my cassette tapes,

405
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:29,239
Speaker 3: so that, in fact, my my second husband thought I

406
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 3: was fluent in Spanish and Russian and and and and

407
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 3: and French and and he in fact, he's told people

408
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 3: I was fluent in those other languages. But I could

409
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 3: just you know, I could order food, I could introduce

410
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 3: my songs. I could ask for directions, because I I

411
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 3: didn't want to be anywhere where I was that compromised.

412
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 3: So I always learned proficient, you know, just travel, travel

413
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 3: French or travel Spanish.

414
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 2: So you were always prepared.

415
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 3: I tried to be.

416
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, in in your high school years or you know,

417
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: did you have any sort of alliances at all with

418
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: like pop music or just modern soul music at all.

419
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, I loved I loved R and B.

420
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 3: In fact, I just found out yesterday from Laia that

421
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 3: le Andrews was.

422
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 2: Your father, my dad.

423
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazinging.

424
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my dad. That's not that.

425
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 1: Actually, here here's here's here's a minor fun fact. We're

426
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: jumping way into the timeline. But you know, I I

427
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: he basically ushered me into show business because you know,

428
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: by twelve I became his band leader. But I'll say

429
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:05,399
Speaker 1: that my very first professional gig, non nepotism.

430
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 4: You Gene carn.

431
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: Kaw, So you had you had a musical director named

432
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: Donald Dumpson.

433
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:16,919
Speaker 3: Donald was was a sort of a prodigy. Yeah, because

434
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 3: he could yet because when we do places like like

435
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 3: Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, I could throw in

436
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 3: an aria because Donald was proficient at you know, he

437
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 3: knew all the arias. In fact, I remember when Pavaratti

438
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 3: came to Philadelphia, Donald was the pianist that he asked

439
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 3: for when Donald Jompson was still.

440
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 2: Is the man mister Dumpson? Absolutely, I was going to say.

441
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: And so I went to the high school creative and

442
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:52,160
Speaker 1: performing arts.

443
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 2: Now, the thing is when I when I.

444
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: Thought about it this morning, that is highly that's a

445
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: highly unusual request, Like I'm trying to figure out. I mean,

446
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: I get I get miffed when my band asks of

447
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: me to like let an established artist spit a hot

448
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: sixteen or twenty four over so you know what I mean,

449
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 1: like blah blah blah's in the audience, let him get

450
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: on the microphone.

451
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 2: And yet all I remember was.

452
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 1: That mister Dumpson was going to have three of his

453
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: choir students and me and I think at the time

454
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be me and Christian McBride, but

455
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: I think Christian couldn't make it, so only I could drum,

456
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: and we were going to be like special guests. Were

457
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: you did a I think we had to play free

458
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: by Denise Williams Wow, and we backed you up?

459
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 2: And I was.

460
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: Thinking, like how that must have been an unusual request

461
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to figure out, like how did he

462
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: how did he even.

463
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 2: Make that happen?

464
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: Like yo, okay, uh, miss carn I got you know,

465
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: students at my high school, we're doing this gig. Can

466
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: they come up and sing a song with you like

467
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: you didn't have to say yes, and yet you did.

468
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 3: I always welcome anybody owned to my mic.

469
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: See that's really bad because even established rappers I won't

470
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: let them.

471
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 4: But she's a natural born educator too.

472
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 3: That's personal. Then that's personal.

473
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 2: I get it.

474
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 3: Touche. But Donald did the same thing with Boys to Men.

475
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

476
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: Actually, at the time, Mark Nelson was one of the

477
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: three Tamika Patten who at the time, like Tamika Patten

478
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: was was you know, she's the not what still amazing singer,

479
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,239
Speaker 1: gospel singer. I believe that at the time she just

480
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: signed to Manhattan Records when it was on Capitol and

481
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: then wow, yeah yeah, Mark Mark Nelson, who was still

482
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: in Boys to Men at the time, was the second singer.

483
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: And uh, I believe for Dean Brown, who's like gospel

484
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: legend singer extraordinaire, like she was the third singer. But

485
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: I remember you you had a van. You picked us

486
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: up from school. We remember hers and free all day?

487
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 4: Is she picking you up from school?

488
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 2: Why is jan Do you know whose car that was

489
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: that van?

490
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 4: Whose van was it?

491
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 3: It was red, wasn't.

492
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 7: It it was?

493
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 2: I believe it's a red Yes, it was a red van.

494
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 3: Yes, that was Deanna Williams car.

495
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: Wow, that's crazy now.

496
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 3: Didn't I hear Deanna say that you used to be

497
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 3: her assistant for her?

498
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 2: I was, I am, Yeah, absolutely, we.

499
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 4: Met, we met it, I am, that's where I met him. Yeah,

500
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 4: I am.

501
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for making that the most

502
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: normal way of you telling that.

503
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 2: Story, because yeah, I did.

504
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 3: I was.

505
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 4: I just left it there.

506
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 7: Thank you anyway, life, Yes, absolutely, but no, I want

507
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 7: to thank you for that, like I've only I can say.

508
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: You know you were You were my first gig. H

509
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 2: Phil Simon was my second, and I think I forget

510
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 2: my last gig was before I got a record deal.

511
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:51,959
Speaker 2: But you were definitely very encouraging, very nurturing. It was easy.

512
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 3: You were not you alive.

513
00:31:57,440 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got. I'm serious.

514
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 3: This was not fuzzy.

515
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you.

516
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 1: You know, at that time, I think back when I

517
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: was following my dad's path for me. You know, Okay,

518
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna go to Juilliard.

519
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:19,719
Speaker 1: Like in his mind, he wanted me to be somewhere

520
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: between like the next Bernard Purty, like the in demand

521
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: session drummer.

522
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 3: And pretty pretty purty, pretty.

523
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: Pretty yeah, and basically in his mind like you know,

524
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: if I, if I get a job with an orchestra,

525
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: like if you're if you're good, then you can easily

526
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: you know, you can make six figures a year, and

527
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: you know you can work your way up to one

528
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.

529
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 6: Mere like it met to him, was like true, but

530
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 6: now I'm watching letters, right.

531
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 2: I was like, talk, I'm trying to make that a

532
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 2: night like not a r Yeah. So, first of all,

533
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 2: was your work with your former husband Doug? Was that

534
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 2: your your first for ray and two like the Professional

535
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 2: Singing World or were you recording before that or.

536
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 3: That was my second foray if you will, because okay,

537
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 3: after Doug and I when we eloped, we ended up

538
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 3: in Hollywood in the same building, well complex. It was

539
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 3: an apartment hotel complex. As Earth went and fire. They

540
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 3: had come from Chicago. They made that sojourn west and

541
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 3: we all lived in the same apartment hotel complex and

542
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 3: everything surrounded the pool. It was hotel or it was apartment.

543
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 3: You could stay for a day, could stay for a year.

544
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 3: You had made service and the residence manager the guy's

545
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 3: front desk had been on on gun Smoke, so most

546
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 3: of the folks he let in there were entertainers, right, Okay, Yeah,

547
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 3: I met everybody from Reverend Ike to In fact, he

548
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 3: I subbed for his his piano organists he came to Atlanta.

549
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 3: I was, I was. I was a teenager then, and

550
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 3: I subbed for his his organist pianists when he came

551
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 3: to Atlanta. You know they have those those tent things, Yeah,

552
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:47,399
Speaker 3: those revival revivals.

553
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,320
Speaker 1: Can you explain to our listeners who Reverend Ike was,

554
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,240
Speaker 1: because right about now there's like, yo, straight up, straight

555
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: up okay, So are right now the only connection to

556
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: Reverend Ike that most New Yorkers have is his former

557
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: church is still way up in the heights, like right

558
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: before the Bronx. And so whenever a venue like Radio

559
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: City Music Hall is out of commission, then you're going

560
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: to have to go to what was formerly known as

561
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: Reverend Ike's Church, which is like this large, sprawling building

562
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: that can hold about maybe seven to eight thousand people.

563
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 2: So it's kind of weird.

564
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: Like there was a point where Radio City Music Hall

565
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 1: was shut down for like two months, so like in

566
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: order to see like Adele or Bonnie Ver like you

567
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: would have to go to the Bronx or to the

568
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,439
Speaker 1: Heights to go see them. At Reverend Ike's former church

569
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: and people, you know, some of those photos are still up,

570
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:47,959
Speaker 1: so I would just listen to comments of them trying

571
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: to figure out, like wait, are we in a black church?

572
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 2: Like what right?

573
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 3: Right?

574
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: Why are we seeing like a rock show there? But

575
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: can you explain who Reverend Ike was to those that don't.

576
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 3: Know, Well, he was a angelust and his his philosophy

577
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 3: was prosperity, a prosperity philosophy, and he traveled all over

578
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:15,840
Speaker 3: the country, uh, doing his his crusades, if you will,

579
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 3: usually in in a big you know, in a big

580
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:24,880
Speaker 3: covered tent style, or sometimes they did him in large auditoriums,

581
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 3: and I you know, everybody knew his name because he

582
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:34,319
Speaker 3: was just very flamboyant. In fact, he lived at our

583
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 3: for a good part of a week in our complex,

584
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,719
Speaker 3: and so everybody got to see him with you know,

585
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 3: he would come out with his guards, you know, and

586
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 3: you have to walk the length of the pool to

587
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 3: get to the front to the front office to go outside.

588
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 3: He was a star. He was an oddity, if you will,

589
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 3: because he you know, he had full length. I mean

590
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 3: coats and stuff and and bodyguards and stuff.

591
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,800
Speaker 2: Was he a pimho? I mean I pictured Daddy rich Richard?

592
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's on a mega church level.

593
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, a real question of Meir? Was that a real

594
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 4: question that you was a real question?

595
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 2: Well? I meant because when I say photos of Reverend,

596
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 2: I like his hair was laid back.

597
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,760
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, you know he was fried died and laid

598
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 3: inside and and he was very flamboyant.

599
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: You were saying that your work with with Doug was

600
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 1: your second, fore rade, what was your first as far

601
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: as recording?

602
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, Doug and I were Our whole philosophy was

603
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 3: two to put lyrics to a lot of our favorite

604
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:50,759
Speaker 3: jazz classics.

605
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 2: Vocalist.

606
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because I knew all the melodies. I knew

607
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,839
Speaker 3: the intros, I knew the heads and the songs, and uh,

608
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 3: you know, I was staying with the you know, with

609
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 3: the whole. These are our records, you know, home, so

610
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 3: we put lyrics to those, to those classics acknowledgmental love, supreme.

611
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 2: Wou'd you study the solos as well?

612
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, I did the solos. Note for note for note,

613
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:25,240
Speaker 3: Wayne Shorter, who just passed away infinized his title tune

614
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 3: of our first album, Wow, Horace Silver Peace, we put

615
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 3: lyrics to Peace. In fact, Horrace put lyrics to Peace

616
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 3: and Doug took it before we moved to New York.

617
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 3: Doug took our version, went to New York to show

618
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 3: Horace you know what we had done with it, because

619
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 3: he liked to get permission. Andy Bay did the lyrics

620
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 3: on on Horrace Silver's version of Peace.

621
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you when when you do

622
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: that do you have because I've heard like like Eddie

623
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: Jefferson might have a version of a particular song and

624
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: then like John Hendricks might have his version of a

625
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 1: particular song. So right, So is like, once lyrics get

626
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: applied to a song, are those the definitive lyrics or

627
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: is there just a world? Is there a rule in

628
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: jazz that a vocal easee artist can add their interpretations

629
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: of what they think that song should be lyrically at least?

630
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know what the what the rule is,

631
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 3: but I know on the credits Doug's name was added

632
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 3: as you know, as writer. Okay, So I don't know

633
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 3: what the rules are, but he wanted to give the

634
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,800
Speaker 3: Lee Morgan he was gonna we put lyrics to search

635
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,120
Speaker 3: for the New Land, right, Okay.

636
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 4: This is this album with this beautiful afro with you

637
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:00,720
Speaker 4: and Jeanie.

638
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 3: Is this the you know we took that picture? Oh no,

639
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 3: not the not the one with Jeanie. But there was

640
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 3: one of the it was a promo picture. I don't

641
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 3: think it was an album cover. A promo picture we took.

642
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 3: We took in a in a Japanese garden and it

643
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 3: was in Philly. I'd love to know where that.

644
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 4: Maybe it was in Fairmount Park at the Japanese House.

645
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 3: Maybe Doug is ready to fly to to New York.

646
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 3: Morgan was performing at Slugs, the small jazz club in

647
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 3: the village that had peanuts shells on the floor. It

648
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 3: was famous for that. And that was the week that

649
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 3: Lee Morgan's wife and blew him away.

650
00:40:53,160 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 4: Yes yeah, documentary please, yes, yes cool? Yeah, I know

651
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 4: if you noticed that. Yeah, he said, he has one

652
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 4: of the only people who took a photo of Helen. Helen,

653
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 4: my dad's in a documentary. He has his photo and

654
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:14,439
Speaker 4: he is commentating in it because when Helen went to jail,

655
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 4: she called him wow.

656
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 2: Wow.

657
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 4: Because the whole story about Helen Morgan is she didn't

658
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 4: stay in jail for too long, even though she killed

659
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 4: a man in front of a bunch of people.

660
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 3: She sure had witnesses.

661
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 4: Yes, yes she did, Yes she did.

662
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 3: Oh wow, because I think Leon Thomas was singing on

663
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 3: that gig, you know, creator as a master plan. Yes, yeah,

664
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,359
Speaker 3: because he did that fair the yodel thing.

665
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 2: He would do, the yodeling.

666
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know he said he learned that yodeling

667
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:50,720
Speaker 3: from listening to recordings of Pigmy rich African Pigmy rituals.

668
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 3: What really, Yeah, that's what Leon told me.

669
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 4: I've never heard us get credited for yodeling. I've never

670
00:41:56,719 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 4: heard black people get credited for.

671
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 3: The yodling that Leon banjo yodling. It wasn't. It wasn't

672
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,399
Speaker 3: in the mountains in West Virginia yodeling. It was. It

673
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 3: was this yodling where at times it sounded like he

674
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 3: was singing two notes, like like layla hathaway, can do hathaway? Yeah? Yeah,

675
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:24,240
Speaker 3: So his was not your your typical West Virginia yodling

676
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 3: right under no circumstances. Yeah, it was almost. It was mystical.

677
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: So at the time that you moved to Hollywood, you know,

678
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: what are your impressions. You mentioned earth Wind and Fire

679
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 1: I assume that this is the time that they also

680
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:50,399
Speaker 1: were working on Sweet Sweetbacks first album there very after

681
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: Sweet Sweetback, or that when they signed the Columba.

682
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 3: Was this was before Sweet Back, because their first album

683
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 3: they Want Warner Brothers right for the first two albums,

684
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 3: The Need of Love and earth Wind and Fire right.

685
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 3: And one day I was rehearsing lyrics that Doug and

686
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:15,160
Speaker 3: I had put to infantize to one of the one

687
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 3: of the tunes on maybe it was, I don't remember

688
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:24,919
Speaker 3: which song, but Maurice knocked on the door. We lived

689
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 3: upstairs and everybody had a patio. Uh, and you know

690
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 3: you never closed, you know, close your sliding class doors.

691
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 3: And so Maurice introduced himself. Because this dand never recorded either.

692
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 3: He introduced himself. He said, I heard the voice of

693
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 3: an angel, and I followed it up the stairs and

694
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 3: then he introduced himself, you know, to me.

695
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 2: Wow.

696
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 3: And he came back after Doug got home, and I

697
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 3: told him you got to you got to meet, you know,

698
00:43:55,040 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 3: meet my husband. And it was that meeting that made

699
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 3: Maurice invite both me and Doug to record on the

700
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 3: first two albums. At Sunset Sound. That was first studio

701
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,399
Speaker 3: I've ever recorded in because that was the only one

702
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 3: I knew about. Doug has done an album on Savoy

703
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 3: when he was a teenager, an organ album on Savoy

704
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 3: Records when he was a teenager. But I never recorded

705
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 3: before except there was Okay, there was an album that

706
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 3: Maurris Brown did about choir. It's called Oh Clap Your Hands,

707
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 3: and I would love to have a copy. You know,

708
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 3: it's a thirty three and it was called old Clap

709
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 3: your Hands. If anybody out there has you know, has

710
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 3: a copy or.

711
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 2: Just just already order, I got you.

712
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 3: Oh thank you? That would that would complete my life.

713
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 3: I think, you know, if I could.

714
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 2: Get I come to you. Bruh, Jeane Brown confer anything.

715
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, but that's what why Doug and I ended

716
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 3: up recording Infinitized in Kelli, you know, in Hollywood at

717
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:12,399
Speaker 3: Sunset Sounds, because that was the studio at the time. Yes,

718
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,959
Speaker 3: that's where Maurice did those two albums.

719
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 2: Did you guys own the Black Jazz label or.

720
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 3: I've read that that Doug was president of Black Jazz Records.

721
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:33,800
Speaker 3: Gene Russell, a musician himself, started that label and Doug

722
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 3: was approached by Jean for us to you know, for

723
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 3: us to come and sign with them. Yes, he was

724
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 3: the head of Black Jazz Records, and Black Jazz Records

725
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 3: was a division of Ovation Records. Dick Shorey out of

726
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:59,320
Speaker 3: Chicago was the head of the parent company, Ovation Records,

727
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 3: and Black Jazz was a you know, a custom label.

728
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 3: So Doug never never owned it, and I ended up

729
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 3: not signing with them because Russell offered both of us

730
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 3: a contract. But but Doug thought, well, let's see how

731
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 3: he treats him, because the like the first album, I

732
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 3: think on subsequent pressings they put my name on it,

733
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 3: but it was just Doug Corn infinized and subsequent pressing

734
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:37,839
Speaker 3: State featuring the voice of Gene Corn. Yeah, And Doug said, well,

735
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 3: let's see how he treats me, and then you know,

736
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 3: if this first record, you know, works okay, then you know,

737
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 3: then I would I would sign. But we you know,

738
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 3: we broke up and got divorced there, so but we did.

739
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 3: We did three albums and then Doug did a population

740
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 3: like after after I left the group when I went

741
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 3: with because I went with Norman Connors performance wise, and

742
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 3: I produced the vocals on all of his all of

743
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 3: his his albums.

744
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 2: That's how I.

745
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 3: Got to work with and vocal coach Phillis, because Phillis

746
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 3: used so many of my musicians. It was so cool,

747
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 3: you know it was she didn't even even have to

748
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 3: ask after a while, you know, my horn players. She

749
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 3: she just loved, loved my musicians, and I got to

750
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 3: work with her vocally. She said, Amir, you'll appreciate this.

751
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 3: She said that she had no lower register. What until

752
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 3: she heard Infinite. She said that let her know she

753
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 3: had the developer and she did it on her own.

754
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 3: She developed this lower register on her own. Yeah, she said,

755
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 3: because there's a line and infantized and always keep them

756
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 3: in your heart for love, well, teaching, et cetera, et cetera.

757
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:19,879
Speaker 3: And she said that line from Infantized was her inspiration

758
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 3: and her incentive to develop a lower register. And she

759
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 3: really she did a great job because I worked with,

760
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 3: you know, with her on all of the albums that

761
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,280
Speaker 3: Norman Connor has produced on her and and the ones

762
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 3: that she sang on, uh, the songs that she sang

763
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 3: on on Norman's albums.

764
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, you know when I when when we had

765
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: those records, I was five six years old, so naturally

766
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 2: I thought Norman Conness was the singer, not knowing like

767
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 2: Michael Henderson all.

768
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 3: The everybody did everybody.

769
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: However, I got to ask you, now, were you there

770
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: for the uh so Much Love sessions?

771
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 3: Which song you're talking about?

772
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 2: So?

773
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: All right, so there's so one thing you're going to

774
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: know about me is while people are into the hits,

775
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: I'm a guy that's.

776
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,839
Speaker 2: In the filling. Yeah, I'm a cut filler guy.

777
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:22,759
Speaker 1: And so so Much Love is uh basically it's like

778
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: buried at the end of side to when You Are

779
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: My Starship, But it's basically him doing a drum solo,

780
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: but he's also singing and kind of quasi yodeling.

781
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't my dad's.

782
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: Favorite song, but you know, I was a drummer back then,

783
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 1: so I used to always play it. My dad was

784
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:44,360
Speaker 1: like it was still the point where it's like a

785
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,919
Speaker 1: mere no no much love, like no more that song.

786
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 2: I can't take it much.

787
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 3: But yeah, so you gotta research this. We did a

788
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 3: cover of.

789
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 2: My Yes.

790
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's her name? Eleanor Mills. She was Stephanie's sister

791
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 3: in law. Oh, fabulous singer. She did the She was

792
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 3: you know slated to do the vocals on the song,

793
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 3: Norman insisted on singing that first line, that first little

794
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 3: section until till the only I guess that's a bridge.

795
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: Maybe the second part Russell's Russell's.

796
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,240
Speaker 3: Exactly where Russell comes in. And you got to listen

797
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 3: to that, and you'll now your dad didn't want you

798
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:52,839
Speaker 3: to listen to so much love right for you, Yeah,

799
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 3: because your dad was saying that wasn't up to par

800
00:50:56,840 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 3: for him, right right, exactly, your ad Well, of course

801
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 3: you're dead visionary. So if you find that that tune, uh,

802
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 3: Norman's cover of that tune he sings first, I thought

803
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 3: he was just joking because it was like, I'm gonna

804
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 3: you know, who are we going to get to sing?

805
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 3: You know, first line pitchy is being kind okay, okay.

806
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 3: It was comparable. And I love Quincy because first thing

807
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 3: he told me when Stevie introduced me to to Quincy,

808
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 3: Quincy said, uh, we were recording down the street from

809
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 3: each other. Stevie came to see me in the studio

810
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 3: and we walked down the street and Quincy was recording.

811
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 3: This was in Burbank, maybe it was in Cali. And

812
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 3: the first thing Quincy said to me, was our birthdays

813
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 3: are a day apart. And I said, oh you so

814
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 3: you're there by the IDEs of March because minus March

815
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 3: fifteen and this was the fourteenth. Why thank you? Thank you.

816
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 3: Laiah insisted that I keep celebrating for the whole month

817
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 3: and just that.

818
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know.

819
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 3: Hey, why not? Why not? Yeah? Yeah. Quincy did a

820
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 3: section on a song that he produced on Somebody, and

821
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 3: he and Norman were comparable two to each other, delivering

822
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 3: a vocalow you gotta find you make me feel drend.

823
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I will look for it. I wilso look

824
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 2: for it.

825
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 3: You know what it's not.

826
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: It's just hitting me now that you mentioned your relationship

827
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:58,239
Speaker 1: to Maurice. Was the earth wind and fire connection the

828
00:52:58,280 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 1: reason why it just hit me the first week I

829
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: spent in when I moved to London. Uh, there's a

830
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: DJ named Jarles Peterson. He played me.

831
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:12,800
Speaker 3: One of my favorite folks, one of my favorite.

832
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 1: He's responsible for us getting a record deal, the Routes

833
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:20,839
Speaker 1: getting a record deal. Uh, you guys do a cover

834
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: Mighty Mighty, I think on the Higher Ground album really

835
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: hip jazz version of it.

836
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was the album that it had some

837
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 3: some of the stuff that was in the can, and

838
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 3: Doug did all of that by himself after I left,

839
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:44,320
Speaker 3: you know, the group, and he found a ringer singer.

840
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 3: Her name's Joyce Green. That was her doing the newer

841
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 3: songs on the at Adam's Apple.

842
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: Okay yeah, oh okay, but that's you on Revelation correct.

843
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 3: Oh definitely. Like I said, some of the songs which

844
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 3: he took off of the previous album I get it,

845
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:06,840
Speaker 3: previous three albums.

846
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, time yeah, time, Time is running out is

847
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:11,719
Speaker 2: one of my all time favorite songs. I love this.

848
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 4: This is really what we can play music on this podcast.

849
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 3: Man.

850
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 2: I know I'm trying to.

851
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 4: Keep up, like I'm a I'm hit mute and listening.

852
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:21,880
Speaker 4: Oh shout out, say everybody's listening. You know, just hit

853
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 4: pause when you need to exact these records.

854
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, Next we're gonna have to do playlists specifically

855
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: for yes, all the songs you mentioned so at the time,

856
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 1: and considering you a serious jazz singer or serious singer,

857
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 1: I'm left with it. I'm left under the impression that,

858
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: like serious jazz musicians try to make it happen in

859
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 1: New York and New York sort of looks at l

860
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 1: A as sort of like a joke when it comes

861
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: to serious jazz musicianship I mean crusaders aside or whatever.

862
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: But I know that the East Coast has a very

863
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:59,440
Speaker 1: snobby and you know it is that way with hip

864
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: hop as well. Like we're more intellectual, more you know,

865
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:04,319
Speaker 1: strategic with our work.

866
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:06,800
Speaker 2: But I mean, for you.

867
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: Getting getting to Hollywood, did you feel like, all right,

868
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:13,120
Speaker 1: I can make this work?

869
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 2: Like like what were your goals?

870
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 1: Was your goals to just be like the next Eravon

871
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: or were you like, no, I want to be on

872
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:23,800
Speaker 1: the top of the charts, or what was your personal

873
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:25,320
Speaker 1: goals singing?

874
00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 3: I I just like to be challenged. I just like

875
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 3: to you know, to sing horn lined and duel with

876
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 3: a piano and stuff. So I never I never had

877
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:44,040
Speaker 3: a had a path or anything because because on the

878
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 3: Earth went and fire stuff. I did the high high stuff.

879
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:54,200
Speaker 3: Because that was before Philip and before Jessica Jessica Cleaves,

880
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 3: and you know, Patty and I decided, I guess it

881
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:01,680
Speaker 3: was one day at dinner we were saying, we're going

882
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:05,600
Speaker 3: to produce Jessica Cleves because she had the most beautiful

883
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 3: voice on the planet, and so Patty inside said yeah,

884
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 3: we're going to produce Jessica Cleves, and the whole dream

885
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:20,239
Speaker 3: just went down the drain because I understand she she

886
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:25,200
Speaker 3: was married to or partners with a with a drug

887
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:30,880
Speaker 3: dealer and that, and she you know, she inspired expired

888
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 3: behind that. But she was the first Hi singer for

889
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:40,520
Speaker 3: Earth Wind and Fire because Jim Brown, you know, the

890
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 3: football guy, managed Earth Wind and Fire and he managed

891
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 3: Friends of Distinction, So he took Jessica out of Friends

892
00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 3: of Distinction and put her in the Earth Wind and

893
00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 3: Fire stones like keep your head to the sky and

894
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:06,080
Speaker 3: stuff that was right up Maurice's valley, you know, the spirituality.

895
00:57:06,760 --> 00:57:10,880
Speaker 3: In fact, he showed me what all the symbols were

896
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:17,920
Speaker 3: on all their literature album covers, on the sleeves everywhere,

897
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 3: and there must have been maybe a dozen of them.

898
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 3: He said, well, everybody knows, you know, knows the interpretation

899
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 3: of these, but there were four. He said, Now these

900
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:32,920
Speaker 3: four just you and I know. And he said, and

901
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 3: we'll talk about these in Nirvana when I get there.

902
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 3: We're going to have a big disguise.

903
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing.

904
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about the transition to you becoming

905
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: your own artists? Where you're not working with Doug anymore

906
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 1: and you're on your own. Can you talk about the

907
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 1: process that glad you to start your solo career?

908
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 3: Oh? Okay, Well, after the Revelation album, we moved to

909
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,920
Speaker 3: we moved to New York because we were getting offers

910
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 3: for performances there. So we moved to New York and

911
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 3: Doug and I were working at the Village Vanguard and

912
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 3: Norman had just left Pharaoh Pharaoh Saunders and he was

913
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:37,080
Speaker 3: starting his own, his own group. He had his promo pictures,

914
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 3: you know, and he came in in the Vanguard and

915
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:46,000
Speaker 3: I remember he gave me a picture and he said,

916
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 3: I'm starting my own group. You know. After I I

917
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 3: was totally through, you know, with Doug's situation because we

918
00:58:56,600 --> 00:59:01,560
Speaker 3: split in New York. I was trying to side. I

919
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 3: wasn't ready to go solo per se. I worked, I

920
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 3: did a I did a short tour with Duke Ellington,

921
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 3: and I wrote down three. He was looking for a

922
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 3: high soprano for what became his last spiritual concert. Okay,

923
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 3: A friend of mine and I sat down and we

924
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:30,320
Speaker 3: were trying to decide who I wanted to go with. Okay,

925
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:34,120
Speaker 3: the choices were Dad Jones and mel Lewis, Big Band,

926
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 3: w Rossanroland Kirk oh Wow, and Norman Connors. So and

927
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:45,320
Speaker 3: I got in touch with with all of them, I

928
00:59:45,360 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 3: think that. And now we're going to Russia somewhere in Europe,

929
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 3: like in a week or two weeks. I didn't even

930
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 3: have a passport at the time, and there was so

931
00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 3: much material I didn't think I could do it justice,

932
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:09,480
Speaker 3: so across them off. And then Rostan and and Dorothy

933
01:00:10,400 --> 01:00:15,200
Speaker 3: his wife were good friends of mine and Dougs. So

934
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 3: I wondered, if you know, you know how when a

935
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 3: couple breaks up.

936
01:00:21,720 --> 01:00:24,919
Speaker 2: Lat who from the who gets who want the kids?

937
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 3: Who gets the friends?

938
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 2: You know?

939
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 3: So I said, I don't know, you know, but Doroth

940
01:00:31,560 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 3: Anne and I are still friends. She's amazing. So Norman

941
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 3: Norman got it by default whise.

942
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 8: Choice, Yeah, I agree, I agree, yeah, yeah, because because

943
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 8: for vocals, you know, he became totally dependent on.

944
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:54,360
Speaker 3: Me to what voice, train them if need be, and

945
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 3: take them in and and do. He would have the

946
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 3: tracks done McKinley Jackson and did most of the arrangements,

947
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 3: and he sometimes he would even ask if they could

948
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:09,360
Speaker 3: sound like dos and so can you make can you

949
01:01:09,400 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 3: make him sound like like he wanted me to make

950
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:19,040
Speaker 3: eleanor Mills sound like me. Yeah.

951
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 1: So, so he would want you tomorph or he would

952
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 1: leave it up to you to decide the the vocal

953
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:27,760
Speaker 1: direction of each artist.

954
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:34,640
Speaker 3: Well yeah, because he would have the tracks done and

955
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 3: he would tell me who who the singer was gonna be,

956
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 3: and like like you do an instrumental arrangement, you know,

957
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 3: you know your ranges and your transpositions for your various instruments,

958
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 3: I would become familiar with the singer and know, you know,

959
01:01:54,200 --> 01:01:58,600
Speaker 3: what to do with them melodically, okay, And a lot

960
01:01:58,640 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 3: of the backgrounds and stuff I did anyway, because it

961
01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 3: was hard to find singers, you know too, to blend

962
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 3: and all that jazz. So he just stack it, you know,

963
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 3: And I learned stacking. In fact, Maurice White called it

964
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 3: moulting because they were just starting to overdob you know

965
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 3: when they yeah, when they did when they did the

966
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 3: first two albums, the two albums I recorded on. So yeah, yeah,

967
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 3: And I got to work with some wonderful folks, you know,

968
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:34,040
Speaker 3: Glenn Jones and and and Phyllis and and and gosh,

969
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 3: so many and Michael Michael Michael Yeah, at rehearsal, he'll

970
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 3: tell because I've done numerous states with him. Uh, and

971
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 3: he would tell the the musicians to said, yeah, you

972
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 3: gotta listen to with Carn because she taught men. Yeah,

973
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,040
Speaker 3: so that that was a good period. That was that

974
01:02:56,160 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 3: was just a period of growth for me.

975
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:01,520
Speaker 4: You've mentioned this twice, but I just really need to

976
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:04,080
Speaker 4: know about how a session goes with Phyllis Hyman and

977
01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 4: how she takes direction and how what does that collaboration

978
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:08,320
Speaker 4: feel like.

979
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 3: She gave everybody what for except me. She wouldn't even

980
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,919
Speaker 3: curse around me, and I never I never asked for that.

981
01:03:19,840 --> 01:03:25,440
Speaker 3: But but I think, and I'm so grateful because because I,

982
01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 3: you know, I I just couldn't have you know, that

983
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:32,480
Speaker 3: would have been it. We wouldn't have been friends, you know, yeah,

984
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 3: because she she could talk like a like a platoon

985
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:42,440
Speaker 3: of soldiers. Was tough, arry, very tough. But I was a.

986
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:44,880
Speaker 4: Feeling you didn't you didn't have too much conflict though.

987
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:46,480
Speaker 4: I feel like you were that woman.

988
01:03:46,600 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 3: We never did. We never did.

989
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:50,640
Speaker 4: Carriot though, like you were the person I feel like

990
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:52,960
Speaker 4: that people went to that it was. It was never

991
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:56,720
Speaker 4: a beef with Gene Carn, like you're beating with Gene carn.

992
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,800
Speaker 3: How right now, I don't I don't be.

993
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 2: That's good to know. Hey, I have a question.

994
01:04:04,680 --> 01:04:07,640
Speaker 1: So you know this, this is sort of a paradigm

995
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:10,680
Speaker 1: shift for you, well, at least in the world of jazz,

996
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 1: especially in the mid seventies and what you're seeing a

997
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:22,480
Speaker 1: lot of quote serious jazz musicians transfer to more adult

998
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: contemporary sounds or that sort of thing. I mean, for

999
01:04:26,120 --> 01:04:29,360
Speaker 1: Norman Connors to come from the world of Pharrell Sanders

1000
01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 1: and whatnot and then start making pop hits. You know,

1001
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:40,480
Speaker 1: was there any trepidation whatsoever in terms of like, hey,

1002
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 1: we're because I always you know, when you when you

1003
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 1: see the Motown story, you hear like the Funk Brothers

1004
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:48,760
Speaker 1: talk about, like a man, we're serious jazz cats, and

1005
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:51,959
Speaker 1: you know, we got to play this like pop music

1006
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:55,360
Speaker 1: to pay our bills. And even with James Brown's cats,

1007
01:04:55,440 --> 01:04:58,520
Speaker 1: like those those guys thought that, you know, we're serious

1008
01:04:58,560 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 1: jazz musicians and you know the lost this pass good money.

1009
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 2: But on the side, we're doing jazz.

1010
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 1: So for you, was there any trepidation whatsoever or was

1011
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:10,720
Speaker 1: it just a natural move like okay, it's it's time

1012
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:14,040
Speaker 1: to to move to the middle at least left the

1013
01:05:14,040 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: center and see what we can do.

1014
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 3: Uh, no trepidation at all, because I since since I

1015
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:24,960
Speaker 3: was a little girl, my dad loved the big bands. Okay,

1016
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:27,560
Speaker 3: so if there were if there was a big band

1017
01:05:27,640 --> 01:05:31,920
Speaker 3: anywhere within one hundred miles of Atlanta, my dad, my

1018
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,560
Speaker 3: brother and I we get in the car and we

1019
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 3: find that concert. So I loved, you know, and he

1020
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 3: took My dad was from New Orleans, so so jazz,

1021
01:05:43,680 --> 01:05:48,480
Speaker 3: you know, preservation jazz was you know, was a mainstay

1022
01:05:48,560 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 3: where he was concerned. We played a little piano by

1023
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:54,960
Speaker 3: ear and stuff, and so it was. It was all

1024
01:05:56,400 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 3: There were no lines of demarcation with me or styles,

1025
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 3: styles of music or genres and with Norman Needing going

1026
01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:14,360
Speaker 3: from a from Pharaoh to to pop as you call it.

1027
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:18,680
Speaker 3: It was that was during the fusion era. You know,

1028
01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:24,600
Speaker 3: Royeers was doing fusion. They were the godbothers of fusion.

1029
01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 3: So it was it was just more growth and more stretching.

1030
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:35,240
Speaker 3: For me, it was it was delightful because I never

1031
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:36,480
Speaker 3: liked being him then.

1032
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:42,360
Speaker 1: So was it new to suddenly hear yourself on on radio?

1033
01:06:42,640 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 1: Was that like a thrilling moment or was it just

1034
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:46,200
Speaker 1: a shrug?

1035
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:51,080
Speaker 3: Like, eh, whatever, Oh no, it was always thrilling. Yeah. Yeah,

1036
01:06:51,200 --> 01:06:53,600
Speaker 3: I never listened to my product. I still don't listen

1037
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:57,520
Speaker 3: to my product. What. I loved it when they played it.

1038
01:06:57,640 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 3: Because when you listen to your own stuff, do you

1039
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:02,240
Speaker 3: proof listen?

1040
01:07:03,440 --> 01:07:05,480
Speaker 1: Only when it's time to make the next record, I

1041
01:07:05,560 --> 01:07:09,720
Speaker 1: will do a deep dive in like binge listen. But

1042
01:07:09,800 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: I don't listen to my music, just like for relaxation.

1043
01:07:15,680 --> 01:07:16,880
Speaker 3: Right, you don't do that, right?

1044
01:07:17,360 --> 01:07:18,160
Speaker 2: No, not really?

1045
01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:23,400
Speaker 3: So neither neither because because I'm proofing, you know, saying,

1046
01:07:23,440 --> 01:07:26,520
Speaker 3: oh I should have done this, I should have you know,

1047
01:07:27,120 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 3: I should have put three more background you know, stack

1048
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:37,560
Speaker 3: three more backgrounds. Because one on my motown album, was

1049
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 3: it mon album? Yeah? Yeah, I did a this this

1050
01:07:42,760 --> 01:07:48,080
Speaker 3: tune written by Reverend Oliver wells uh. He wrote a

1051
01:07:48,080 --> 01:07:50,480
Speaker 3: spiritual tune for Earth Wind and Fire. They took him

1052
01:07:50,600 --> 01:07:56,400
Speaker 3: on a couple of tours. And I did thirty voices.

1053
01:07:57,000 --> 01:08:01,920
Speaker 3: I had the engineer to bring in choir risers and

1054
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:04,360
Speaker 3: and I would imitate.

1055
01:08:06,200 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: Altos.

1056
01:08:06,760 --> 01:08:11,880
Speaker 3: Yeah what I did my own base, Yeah yeah. And

1057
01:08:11,920 --> 01:08:15,640
Speaker 3: I did some of the voices of the elderly ladies

1058
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:19,320
Speaker 3: you know that wore the hats every stunt Sunday who

1059
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:26,200
Speaker 3: had the big waybe Vibrato, the h Vibrato. I just

1060
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:30,240
Speaker 3: remember it back, you know, And and the engineer said,

1061
01:08:30,320 --> 01:08:33,760
Speaker 3: this will not work because you're going to sound like

1062
01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:37,760
Speaker 3: thirty versions of yourself. I said, no, I have references

1063
01:08:38,040 --> 01:08:41,640
Speaker 3: all the way from my from twelve years old to

1064
01:08:41,760 --> 01:08:48,040
Speaker 3: put you know, to put down. Yeah, yeah, which was fun.

1065
01:08:48,360 --> 01:08:51,639
Speaker 3: See uh this what it wasn't on the Motown album.

1066
01:08:51,720 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 3: Come to think of it, it was I it's never

1067
01:08:55,040 --> 01:08:57,880
Speaker 3: been released, okay. It was a project that I did.

1068
01:08:57,920 --> 01:08:59,960
Speaker 3: It was a version of Lift Every Voice and Say

1069
01:09:00,880 --> 01:09:05,360
Speaker 3: that I did as a fundraiser for the Apex Museum,

1070
01:09:06,080 --> 01:09:11,799
Speaker 3: which is on Auburn Avenue down Well. It was technically

1071
01:09:11,880 --> 01:09:15,639
Speaker 3: across the street from where my father's business was, and

1072
01:09:16,360 --> 01:09:22,840
Speaker 3: a block and two blocks from from Evaneza Baptist and

1073
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:27,360
Speaker 3: I did that for them. It was it was forty

1074
01:09:27,400 --> 01:09:29,360
Speaker 3: five when I did it, because I think I did

1075
01:09:29,360 --> 01:09:33,200
Speaker 3: it in eighty something. And then I went back to

1076
01:09:33,240 --> 01:09:38,760
Speaker 3: the studio and digitally remastered it. Yeah, it was no

1077
01:09:38,840 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 3: it's ax step first and then we did it as

1078
01:09:42,360 --> 01:09:49,679
Speaker 3: a as a CD and it was Lift Every Voice

1079
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:53,960
Speaker 3: and sing and Julian Bond did a soliloquy on the

1080
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:59,280
Speaker 3: flip side, talking about James Weldon Johnson and his brother

1081
01:10:00,560 --> 01:10:04,439
Speaker 3: Rosemond Johnson, who wrote the song that's where I had

1082
01:10:04,520 --> 01:10:06,040
Speaker 3: the thirty voices.

1083
01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:10,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, so I'm ready for the story.

1084
01:10:10,920 --> 01:10:14,760
Speaker 1: What brings you to Philly International? What's the steps that

1085
01:10:15,640 --> 01:10:16,240
Speaker 1: brought you there?

1086
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:23,880
Speaker 3: Okay? Eddie Green, an amazing keyboardist from Philly, one of

1087
01:10:23,880 --> 01:10:27,680
Speaker 3: my favorite keyboardists, got in touch with me. This was

1088
01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:33,360
Speaker 3: when I was still recording and performing with Norman. Norman

1089
01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 3: Connors got in touch with me and said that he

1090
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:43,040
Speaker 3: he was calling me for getting in touch for Kenny

1091
01:10:43,080 --> 01:10:50,960
Speaker 3: Gamble and he wanted me to come to Philly and

1092
01:10:51,479 --> 01:10:53,560
Speaker 3: talked to you know, they wanted to talk to me

1093
01:10:53,600 --> 01:10:57,680
Speaker 3: about joining the label because I had been I had

1094
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:02,640
Speaker 3: performed in Philly at the Bes You and places before that,

1095
01:11:02,840 --> 01:11:06,040
Speaker 3: you know, because although I wasn't a soloist as such,

1096
01:11:06,200 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 3: but I had an audience somehow, because I remember seeing

1097
01:11:11,520 --> 01:11:16,320
Speaker 3: Larry Maggott at a at an event. This was just

1098
01:11:16,360 --> 01:11:20,519
Speaker 3: before the pandemic, and he was talking about you know

1099
01:11:20,920 --> 01:11:25,240
Speaker 3: how I guess I had well, I know, I have pictures.

1100
01:11:25,400 --> 01:11:29,519
Speaker 3: I think he said he had pictures of when Patty

1101
01:11:29,600 --> 01:11:33,320
Speaker 3: came to sit in with me and Abie Leverte. So

1102
01:11:33,760 --> 01:11:38,160
Speaker 3: I went to Philly to the three oh nine, Uh,

1103
01:11:38,960 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 3: to the label Yeah yeah, oh we're they're doing Bio Pick,

1104
01:11:47,160 --> 01:11:50,840
Speaker 3: and we got to go there. They interviewed a lot

1105
01:11:50,880 --> 01:11:56,000
Speaker 3: of the former artists, and we did it in three

1106
01:11:56,040 --> 01:11:58,080
Speaker 3: oh nine, which is now a hotel.

1107
01:11:58,760 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't.

1108
01:11:59,880 --> 01:12:04,559
Speaker 4: I read went over the whole Oh.

1109
01:12:03,680 --> 01:12:07,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because for a long time every time I

1110
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:09,679
Speaker 3: passed by there, you know, first there was a big

1111
01:12:09,720 --> 01:12:12,799
Speaker 3: hole in the ground and I would just cry because

1112
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:15,400
Speaker 3: you know, that was my history.

1113
01:12:16,000 --> 01:12:19,439
Speaker 4: And yeah, this is the recent documentary, right, this is

1114
01:12:19,479 --> 01:12:22,439
Speaker 4: the Sam polar Uh don't.

1115
01:12:22,439 --> 01:12:24,840
Speaker 3: I don't know when it's coming out. I think they're

1116
01:12:24,880 --> 01:12:28,600
Speaker 3: gonna that's what it is, yeah, because they're going to

1117
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:33,880
Speaker 3: add some more to it. And strangely, when when I

1118
01:12:33,880 --> 01:12:41,519
Speaker 3: did my my interview, my my godson, Gamble's son, Kalise,

1119
01:12:42,000 --> 01:12:47,680
Speaker 3: his first born, was the camera guy. I'm proud of that,

1120
01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:55,960
Speaker 3: of course. Uh. But during my entire interview, I my

1121
01:12:56,080 --> 01:13:03,519
Speaker 3: voice trembled and and I thought it did and then

1122
01:13:03,760 --> 01:13:07,599
Speaker 3: I and I didn't realize that was really the case

1123
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:13,000
Speaker 3: until we finished. They they put me in my car

1124
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:19,200
Speaker 3: downstairs and I answered my phone and and the voice

1125
01:13:19,520 --> 01:13:23,960
Speaker 3: and the tremble was gone. So I don't know if

1126
01:13:24,200 --> 01:13:29,479
Speaker 3: there were visitations there or not, because because I was wondering,

1127
01:13:29,760 --> 01:13:38,000
Speaker 3: am I gonna feel teddy? You know? You know any

1128
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:41,080
Speaker 3: of those Yeah, any of those folks that you know

1129
01:13:41,200 --> 01:13:44,680
Speaker 3: that I got started in the business with, you know,

1130
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:49,479
Speaker 3: who were my buddies. So yeah, okay, what what was

1131
01:13:49,520 --> 01:13:56,360
Speaker 3: I answering? I digressed? No no, no, no, no, you okay.

1132
01:13:57,000 --> 01:14:00,400
Speaker 3: I get there to talk to meet with Gamble. It

1133
01:14:00,520 --> 01:14:06,400
Speaker 3: was on the night of an Ali fight ac everybody

1134
01:14:06,439 --> 01:14:09,599
Speaker 3: had left the building and we were going to talk

1135
01:14:09,720 --> 01:14:12,120
Speaker 3: for fifteen minutes, and Gamble was going to you know,

1136
01:14:12,520 --> 01:14:14,559
Speaker 3: I don't know how it's going to get there. But

1137
01:14:14,720 --> 01:14:17,400
Speaker 3: then I you know, I never I don't like fights,

1138
01:14:17,479 --> 01:14:21,760
Speaker 3: you know, boxing, any of that stuff, bustling, boxing and

1139
01:14:21,920 --> 01:14:27,599
Speaker 3: wrestling and stuff. Not my stick. So but we ended

1140
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:32,840
Speaker 3: up talking through the whole match and and I dare

1141
01:14:32,920 --> 01:14:37,639
Speaker 3: say that was one of the best decisions I've ever made,

1142
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:43,160
Speaker 3: because it was it was it was magic. It was magic.

1143
01:14:43,560 --> 01:14:46,040
Speaker 2: So what is the process now?

1144
01:14:46,080 --> 01:14:48,320
Speaker 1: I mean, at this time, you're joining the label in

1145
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:51,439
Speaker 1: seventy six, when they're at you know, when they're at

1146
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:53,280
Speaker 1: the true height of their powers.

1147
01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:56,679
Speaker 2: So what's the.

1148
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:01,960
Speaker 1: I guess you know when you join is can he

1149
01:15:02,040 --> 01:15:04,080
Speaker 1: run us through? Like the process? Like is there an

1150
01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:07,080
Speaker 1: an r is there the person?

1151
01:15:07,320 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 3: Like?

1152
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:10,360
Speaker 1: Are you deciding which songs you want to sing from them?

1153
01:15:10,400 --> 01:15:12,000
Speaker 1: Are they like, hey, we have a song for you.

1154
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:15,120
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to say I don't like that one?

1155
01:15:15,280 --> 01:15:17,679
Speaker 1: Or you know, can we change this? Like how much

1156
01:15:18,400 --> 01:15:23,840
Speaker 1: leverage do you have in terms of you being an

1157
01:15:23,920 --> 01:15:27,160
Speaker 1: artist there? Or are you just on the conveyor belt

1158
01:15:27,280 --> 01:15:30,680
Speaker 1: of proven hip makers?

1159
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:39,400
Speaker 3: Well it was there was total respect Gamble. Gamble respected

1160
01:15:39,479 --> 01:15:46,080
Speaker 3: my musicianship. And in the building there were the producers,

1161
01:15:46,120 --> 01:15:49,040
Speaker 3: the writers, you know mcdann and Whitehead, Dexter, Wan Cell,

1162
01:15:50,960 --> 01:15:58,080
Speaker 3: Linda Creed and Tom Bell whom we just lost. And

1163
01:15:59,000 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 3: when I get there, Gamble would tell me, you know,

1164
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:06,720
Speaker 3: first of all, don't sing anything that you don't want

1165
01:16:06,760 --> 01:16:10,320
Speaker 3: to sing. Don't be goaded into you know, are persuaded.

1166
01:16:10,479 --> 01:16:13,400
Speaker 3: You know, you know what works for you, you know

1167
01:16:13,520 --> 01:16:18,960
Speaker 3: what what fulfills you, you know what works with your philosophies.

1168
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:24,080
Speaker 3: And so I would go to they will have written

1169
01:16:24,120 --> 01:16:29,840
Speaker 3: stuff for you, like McFaddens my that they they would

1170
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:34,519
Speaker 3: present their songs with magic I mean they were. They

1171
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:41,559
Speaker 3: were fabulous dancers and pulling the flowers out of the sleeves.

1172
01:16:41,680 --> 01:16:46,120
Speaker 6: They were selling it.

1173
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:54,040
Speaker 3: They were, they were a riot. I just adore them. Yeah,

1174
01:16:54,200 --> 01:16:57,160
Speaker 3: and each of the producers who had written for you,

1175
01:16:57,560 --> 01:17:01,520
Speaker 3: composers who had written for you, in it their songs,

1176
01:17:02,080 --> 01:17:05,840
Speaker 3: and and you know, I'm there for probably a month

1177
01:17:06,080 --> 01:17:11,320
Speaker 3: maybe more, just doing songs, and and I over recorded,

1178
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:14,880
Speaker 3: so there's still stuff in the can, maybe a couple

1179
01:17:14,880 --> 01:17:20,599
Speaker 3: of albums in the can. Because and when the tunes

1180
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:24,720
Speaker 3: that that Kenny and Leon wrote for me, when we

1181
01:17:24,880 --> 01:17:28,640
Speaker 3: first started, they were in the in the room, you know,

1182
01:17:28,680 --> 01:17:31,120
Speaker 3: in the boardroom while I, you know, while I did

1183
01:17:31,160 --> 01:17:35,839
Speaker 3: the did the songs, while I recorded the song. After

1184
01:17:35,880 --> 01:17:43,000
Speaker 3: that they let me do the recordings. And then either

1185
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:48,200
Speaker 3: they bring in we'd bring in Barbara and Evett and

1186
01:17:48,200 --> 01:17:54,560
Speaker 3: and Carla the sweeties, uh right, to do the backgrounds,

1187
01:17:54,680 --> 01:17:58,960
Speaker 3: or I would stack the backgrounds. And when I when

1188
01:17:59,000 --> 01:18:01,559
Speaker 3: I was finished, I would taken in the office and

1189
01:18:01,680 --> 01:18:04,080
Speaker 3: let you know, let Kenny or call them in the

1190
01:18:04,520 --> 01:18:08,439
Speaker 3: in the in the studio and let them them hear,

1191
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:11,599
Speaker 3: you know, what they what I'd done on this song,

1192
01:18:11,720 --> 01:18:15,760
Speaker 3: and and give me a critique. And it and it

1193
01:18:15,840 --> 01:18:16,439
Speaker 3: went like that.

1194
01:18:17,439 --> 01:18:20,960
Speaker 1: One of my favorite songs on uh your Philly debut

1195
01:18:21,000 --> 01:18:22,599
Speaker 1: record was a no laughing matter?

1196
01:18:23,960 --> 01:18:25,240
Speaker 3: Wow? Yeah?

1197
01:18:25,320 --> 01:18:28,040
Speaker 1: What like, so, what what are your memories of just

1198
01:18:28,160 --> 01:18:29,120
Speaker 1: that first album?

1199
01:18:29,240 --> 01:18:32,760
Speaker 3: Like it was it was an adventure. I remember the

1200
01:18:32,800 --> 01:18:35,480
Speaker 3: tunes that Dexter did were all experimental.

1201
01:18:36,080 --> 01:18:37,960
Speaker 1: Can you talk about him as a producer, because I

1202
01:18:38,000 --> 01:18:41,880
Speaker 1: don't think many people know that. Yeah, Dexter Jel was

1203
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:45,800
Speaker 1: really like a futuristic I always felt like being under

1204
01:18:45,880 --> 01:18:49,360
Speaker 1: that that umbrella of Philly International almost limited him a

1205
01:18:49,400 --> 01:18:53,559
Speaker 1: bit because what I knew of what he was capable of, Like,

1206
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:57,799
Speaker 1: you know, he really wanted to be like afro futurist,

1207
01:18:58,280 --> 01:19:03,680
Speaker 1: damn your son raw level of yes, experimentation, but they

1208
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:06,960
Speaker 1: they honed them.

1209
01:19:05,880 --> 01:19:06,599
Speaker 2: Back a little bit.

1210
01:19:06,600 --> 01:19:08,320
Speaker 1: But if you listen to like a lot of the

1211
01:19:08,360 --> 01:19:11,040
Speaker 1: solo stuff on his records, you can see that. But

1212
01:19:11,160 --> 01:19:18,280
Speaker 1: he described him as like as a producer and a musician, Dexter.

1213
01:19:19,320 --> 01:19:25,760
Speaker 3: Was is a visionary, truly a musical visionary because you

1214
01:19:25,800 --> 01:19:30,479
Speaker 3: remember songs like life on Mars. Yes, he's been He's

1215
01:19:30,520 --> 01:19:33,720
Speaker 3: been telling telling the world that there's a life on

1216
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:35,960
Speaker 3: Mars for what fifty years now?

1217
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:37,240
Speaker 2: Right right?

1218
01:19:38,000 --> 01:19:41,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, his song should be played for all the launchings

1219
01:19:42,240 --> 01:19:45,840
Speaker 3: should be a part of the music that they that

1220
01:19:45,960 --> 01:19:50,120
Speaker 3: the astronauts here when they go into outer space. He

1221
01:19:50,360 --> 01:19:55,920
Speaker 3: was just just, what is such a genius. It's amazing, Like, Okay,

1222
01:19:56,040 --> 01:19:59,760
Speaker 3: when when they did when he and Cynthia Biggs did

1223
01:20:00,760 --> 01:20:07,760
Speaker 3: Nights over Egypt, Cynthia did the research on that over

1224
01:20:07,840 --> 01:20:18,280
Speaker 3: in the East, there once lived a girl. She then

1225
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:23,160
Speaker 3: down the nile. He came with a smile. She was

1226
01:20:23,200 --> 01:20:27,479
Speaker 3: the queen and he was the king under the moon. Yeah,

1227
01:20:27,600 --> 01:20:33,120
Speaker 3: your eyes won't believe and your mind came. Yeah, Nights

1228
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:38,479
Speaker 3: over Egypt. They were talking about Cleopatra, of course, and

1229
01:20:38,479 --> 01:20:44,200
Speaker 3: and it was everything that that Dexter did has has roots,

1230
01:20:44,320 --> 01:20:50,520
Speaker 3: I mean very deep, Like you said, afrocentric roots. Yeah,

1231
01:20:50,320 --> 01:20:51,160
Speaker 3: I think about that.

1232
01:20:51,200 --> 01:20:53,240
Speaker 4: So y'all said that that's deep about that? I really

1233
01:20:53,439 --> 01:20:54,719
Speaker 4: you're right. Every song.

1234
01:20:56,080 --> 01:21:00,240
Speaker 1: So and being in that that that cyclone of dex Here,

1235
01:21:00,479 --> 01:21:04,040
Speaker 1: McFadden and Whitehead and and all those writers. Is there

1236
01:21:04,040 --> 01:21:08,479
Speaker 1: a story of a tune that you wanted that you

1237
01:21:08,479 --> 01:21:12,280
Speaker 1: couldn't get because another artist had it, or in a

1238
01:21:12,320 --> 01:21:13,920
Speaker 1: song that was offered to you that you might have

1239
01:21:13,960 --> 01:21:15,960
Speaker 1: passed on that became bigger for someone else.

1240
01:21:17,960 --> 01:21:22,800
Speaker 3: Oh, the only tune, and I guess it wasn't big

1241
01:21:22,840 --> 01:21:28,040
Speaker 3: for her. But McFadden and Whitehead wrote a wrote a

1242
01:21:28,040 --> 01:21:31,160
Speaker 3: tune call I don't know no one else to turn to,

1243
01:21:32,600 --> 01:21:39,240
Speaker 3: and I, uh, you know, I'm a grammarian, and and

1244
01:21:39,320 --> 01:21:47,840
Speaker 3: uh it was just too many had a double negative

1245
01:21:47,920 --> 01:21:51,920
Speaker 3: in it. And I remember McFadden said, he said, Okay,

1246
01:21:52,040 --> 01:21:55,559
Speaker 3: carn this song is going to be so big that

1247
01:21:55,640 --> 01:22:00,960
Speaker 3: you're going to say, hey, McFadden, write me another double right,

1248
01:22:02,040 --> 01:22:06,919
Speaker 3: And strangely enough, I I love Love Don't Love Nobody.

1249
01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:10,960
Speaker 3: Always loved it, but I didn't want to cover it

1250
01:22:11,520 --> 01:22:19,640
Speaker 3: cuse it had double negative. Dang, but I covered it.

1251
01:22:19,760 --> 01:22:22,400
Speaker 3: I've become a theme song of mine. I have to

1252
01:22:22,439 --> 01:22:24,240
Speaker 3: do it every every performance.

1253
01:22:24,360 --> 01:22:26,160
Speaker 2: But I'm so glad you said that.

1254
01:22:26,240 --> 01:22:29,200
Speaker 1: For the longest, I was afraid to ask in public

1255
01:22:29,280 --> 01:22:33,360
Speaker 1: if that's grammatically correct or not correct, because you know,

1256
01:22:34,080 --> 01:22:36,400
Speaker 1: once the song becomes a staple, I just leave it alone.

1257
01:22:36,840 --> 01:22:37,800
Speaker 2: So you.

1258
01:22:39,560 --> 01:22:42,240
Speaker 1: No, I'm not, But for me, every time I heard

1259
01:22:42,360 --> 01:22:45,240
Speaker 1: love don't Love Nobody, I was like, I think that's

1260
01:22:45,280 --> 01:22:48,439
Speaker 1: only a term that we say, like I you know,

1261
01:22:49,439 --> 01:22:52,080
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that I never asked.

1262
01:22:51,880 --> 01:22:53,840
Speaker 2: But always in my mind when I was a kid.

1263
01:22:54,120 --> 01:22:56,519
Speaker 2: I always felt like that wasn't grammatically correct.

1264
01:22:56,600 --> 01:23:02,559
Speaker 3: And so you're so correct.

1265
01:23:06,640 --> 01:23:12,880
Speaker 1: Because you arrived to Philly International in seventy six, at

1266
01:23:12,920 --> 01:23:16,840
Speaker 1: the in nineteen seventy six, at the same time that

1267
01:23:16,520 --> 01:23:20,439
Speaker 1: the Jackson's had relocated to Philadelphia. Did you have any

1268
01:23:20,520 --> 01:23:24,680
Speaker 1: run ins with him, like doing that whole recording process.

1269
01:23:25,439 --> 01:23:31,559
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we were recording at the same time. Oh, there

1270
01:23:31,560 --> 01:23:38,120
Speaker 3: were such such nice kids. They my my then husband Khalil.

1271
01:23:39,040 --> 01:23:43,080
Speaker 3: They would talk, They would sniggle in the corner and

1272
01:23:43,280 --> 01:23:46,200
Speaker 3: look at Khalil because they said that he looked like

1273
01:23:46,280 --> 01:23:53,120
Speaker 3: their neighbor O. J. Simpson. Oh, wow, he really does.

1274
01:23:54,160 --> 01:24:01,120
Speaker 3: I've never noticed it. So they liked Khalil. And Michael

1275
01:24:01,439 --> 01:24:05,080
Speaker 3: was having voice change problems.

1276
01:24:05,400 --> 01:24:06,320
Speaker 2: Okay, he was.

1277
01:24:06,600 --> 01:24:09,800
Speaker 3: He was what he might have been twenty then, don't.

1278
01:24:09,840 --> 01:24:12,800
Speaker 2: I don't know how old are seventy six, eighteen.

1279
01:24:13,360 --> 01:24:17,439
Speaker 3: Eighteen, okay, but his voice was changing, and there were

1280
01:24:17,960 --> 01:24:19,880
Speaker 3: and we were all in the same hotel at the

1281
01:24:19,960 --> 01:24:27,320
Speaker 3: Latham on Forsa Walnut, Okay, yeah, on seventeenth at Walnut,

1282
01:24:28,240 --> 01:24:31,160
Speaker 3: and we all lived in that hotel.

1283
01:24:31,560 --> 01:24:32,640
Speaker 2: That's where my problem was.

1284
01:24:33,080 --> 01:24:37,160
Speaker 3: We lived in one part of the hotel and they

1285
01:24:37,360 --> 01:24:39,680
Speaker 3: had the fire doors closed, you know, because we had

1286
01:24:39,720 --> 01:24:43,800
Speaker 3: instruments in our room. Stuck so right, So Michael was

1287
01:24:43,880 --> 01:24:49,040
Speaker 3: always in my suite, and he confided in me that

1288
01:24:49,120 --> 01:24:55,320
Speaker 3: he was cracking. There were certain certain notes on certain

1289
01:24:55,400 --> 01:25:01,679
Speaker 3: songs that he would crack. And so we we worked

1290
01:25:01,720 --> 01:25:04,000
Speaker 3: on that, you know, because I've been a vocal coach,

1291
01:25:04,560 --> 01:25:07,439
Speaker 3: like since I was twelve, working with those choir voices.

1292
01:25:07,800 --> 01:25:08,439
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

1293
01:25:09,280 --> 01:25:15,240
Speaker 3: So we worked on we worked on his changing the annunciation, sometimes,

1294
01:25:15,520 --> 01:25:20,040
Speaker 3: changing where he placed notes and sometimes and I tried

1295
01:25:20,080 --> 01:25:23,400
Speaker 3: to convince him to just change the notes in the phrases,

1296
01:25:23,520 --> 01:25:26,400
Speaker 3: you know, because he was full of full of ideas,

1297
01:25:27,000 --> 01:25:31,200
Speaker 3: the musical ideas, but he was so stubborn about you know,

1298
01:25:31,360 --> 01:25:34,719
Speaker 3: instead of instead of this figure, why can't we change

1299
01:25:34,760 --> 01:25:39,519
Speaker 3: it to another figure? And it conveyed the same idea.

1300
01:25:40,240 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 3: But he he was just stuck on certain you know,

1301
01:25:44,439 --> 01:25:48,479
Speaker 3: certain figures that he had contrived in his you know,

1302
01:25:48,600 --> 01:25:53,679
Speaker 3: in his head. As far as his plan. We worked yeah, yeah,

1303
01:25:54,320 --> 01:25:59,479
Speaker 3: and and that's when I discovered he he was he

1304
01:25:59,640 --> 01:26:04,680
Speaker 3: was a pediatric insomniac because my mother was a pediatric insomniac.

1305
01:26:06,040 --> 01:26:10,800
Speaker 3: Children who don't sleep well at night, oh children, Yeah,

1306
01:26:10,840 --> 01:26:14,360
Speaker 3: all the way through through adulthood. My mother. My mother

1307
01:26:14,720 --> 01:26:18,400
Speaker 3: took naps during the day because she was just roaming

1308
01:26:18,400 --> 01:26:22,680
Speaker 3: around the house at night. Wow yeah. And because he

1309
01:26:22,760 --> 01:26:25,599
Speaker 3: would when he come into my room after we'd finish

1310
01:26:25,680 --> 01:26:29,599
Speaker 3: our little sessions. He I remember the first time he said,

1311
01:26:29,640 --> 01:26:33,040
Speaker 3: he said, I'm going to take a nap, and he

1312
01:26:33,240 --> 01:26:35,960
Speaker 3: and he pointed to the floor on the other side

1313
01:26:35,960 --> 01:26:42,360
Speaker 3: of my bed. And I'm a germaphobe, so forgot. So

1314
01:26:42,479 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 3: I wouldn't even let my kids, you know, when they

1315
01:26:44,400 --> 01:26:47,000
Speaker 3: grow up and travel with me. They couldn't even walk

1316
01:26:47,040 --> 01:26:50,840
Speaker 3: barefoot on a hotel floor. Oh no, no, no, no, no,

1317
01:26:51,840 --> 01:26:57,600
Speaker 3: get your face. I started getting getting the housekeeper to

1318
01:26:57,720 --> 01:27:02,200
Speaker 3: leave me sheets and pillowcases and stuff. So when he,

1319
01:27:02,320 --> 01:27:04,120
Speaker 3: you know, when he come over to take a nap,

1320
01:27:04,800 --> 01:27:09,280
Speaker 3: he'd sleep on the floor. And I remember hearing when

1321
01:27:09,320 --> 01:27:09,799
Speaker 3: they were.

1322
01:27:09,680 --> 01:27:15,240
Speaker 9: Accusing him of of the of the children thing I

1323
01:27:15,280 --> 01:27:18,040
Speaker 9: was saying, and he and he mentioned one day to them,

1324
01:27:18,160 --> 01:27:20,800
Speaker 9: he said, no, I never slept in the bed with them.

1325
01:27:20,840 --> 01:27:24,320
Speaker 3: He said, I slept on the floor. I said, I know,

1326
01:27:24,520 --> 01:27:29,240
Speaker 3: he does. You know that that just blew me away.

1327
01:27:29,360 --> 01:27:31,599
Speaker 3: That Wow, hurt me so badly.

1328
01:27:32,439 --> 01:27:36,519
Speaker 9: But that's what what was happening when when we were

1329
01:27:36,560 --> 01:27:38,320
Speaker 9: all recording at the same time.

1330
01:27:38,600 --> 01:27:42,920
Speaker 1: So you helped him develop his pre pre set Riggs. Wow,

1331
01:27:43,360 --> 01:27:45,240
Speaker 1: you you were a vocal training friend.

1332
01:27:45,800 --> 01:27:49,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, all singers should get.

1333
01:27:49,160 --> 01:27:53,080
Speaker 2: Checked by seth Riggs, was no doubt.

1334
01:27:53,920 --> 01:27:57,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah checked. He's pretty he's pretty old now,

1335
01:27:58,120 --> 01:27:59,360
Speaker 3: so hurry up.

1336
01:27:59,680 --> 01:28:03,360
Speaker 1: Well, now there's there's enough lessons on YouTube that we

1337
01:28:03,400 --> 01:28:04,120
Speaker 1: can just go there.

1338
01:28:06,120 --> 01:28:07,439
Speaker 3: Whoa, that's heavy.

1339
01:28:08,080 --> 01:28:10,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a forty five minute session of Michael Jackson

1340
01:28:10,960 --> 01:28:14,800
Speaker 1: and seth Riggs, uh doing vocal exercises.

1341
01:28:14,920 --> 01:28:20,559
Speaker 3: Oh, that's cool. You know, Maurice had some issues and

1342
01:28:21,240 --> 01:28:23,760
Speaker 3: I and he would he would come up, you know,

1343
01:28:23,880 --> 01:28:28,360
Speaker 3: come up and I would work with him vocally. And

1344
01:28:28,479 --> 01:28:32,960
Speaker 3: I remember after Doug and I had moved to New York,

1345
01:28:33,680 --> 01:28:35,800
Speaker 3: I heard changes, you know, I'd go to see them

1346
01:28:35,840 --> 01:28:40,080
Speaker 3: a lot when they performed live, and and I would

1347
01:28:40,120 --> 01:28:43,120
Speaker 3: ask him about stuff, you know, that he was doing.

1348
01:28:43,160 --> 01:28:46,280
Speaker 9: I said, well, you know, you know where did that

1349
01:28:46,320 --> 01:28:50,439
Speaker 9: come from? He said, actually, he said, I went to

1350
01:28:50,520 --> 01:28:56,439
Speaker 9: seth Riggs. I said okay, and he said and I said, well,

1351
01:28:58,040 --> 01:28:59,000
Speaker 9: so it worked time.

1352
01:28:59,080 --> 01:28:59,920
Speaker 3: He said, yeah.

1353
01:29:00,120 --> 01:29:05,360
Speaker 9: But the thing is everything you told me and taught me,

1354
01:29:06,479 --> 01:29:10,680
Speaker 9: seth Riggs told me and taught me, he said, but

1355
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:16,920
Speaker 9: I incorporated it because I had to pay him.

1356
01:29:17,080 --> 01:29:20,240
Speaker 4: You're not a paid vocal coach coaching, I mean.

1357
01:29:20,760 --> 01:29:24,360
Speaker 3: Not for Phyllis, not for Michael. No, I was.

1358
01:29:24,439 --> 01:29:25,960
Speaker 2: I was just looking out for the cookout.

1359
01:29:26,720 --> 01:29:28,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, but they was paying somebody.

1360
01:29:28,920 --> 01:29:31,360
Speaker 2: No, But in seventy six, we weren't. No.

1361
01:29:32,720 --> 01:29:38,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know he wanted he wanted me and

1362
01:29:38,960 --> 01:29:42,320
Speaker 3: the kids to take him to Six Flags, you know,

1363
01:29:43,400 --> 01:29:46,960
Speaker 3: and my mother, you know, told me, you can't take

1364
01:29:47,000 --> 01:29:50,320
Speaker 3: this forty six like that just open, he said, because

1365
01:29:50,560 --> 01:29:55,439
Speaker 3: because you don't have security, and his security wouldn't work.

1366
01:29:55,640 --> 01:29:59,559
Speaker 3: You know, he just can't do that. So no, he was,

1367
01:29:59,600 --> 01:30:02,479
Speaker 3: he was like a family member. My mother went to

1368
01:30:02,560 --> 01:30:05,640
Speaker 3: one of their concerts, and I could never get my

1369
01:30:05,720 --> 01:30:09,200
Speaker 3: mother to go to anybody's concerts but mine and Patty.

1370
01:30:09,720 --> 01:30:13,160
Speaker 3: In fact, she said Patty's was the best concert she

1371
01:30:13,200 --> 01:30:14,160
Speaker 3: had ever gone to.

1372
01:30:15,520 --> 01:30:19,240
Speaker 2: Almost got jealous, your second best?

1373
01:30:19,960 --> 01:30:23,400
Speaker 3: No, No, she said, it was.

1374
01:30:24,640 --> 01:30:25,120
Speaker 2: Miss Gane.

1375
01:30:25,120 --> 01:30:28,000
Speaker 6: I want to ask you about recording two particular songs.

1376
01:30:28,320 --> 01:30:31,360
Speaker 6: Was it all it was? And of course don't let

1377
01:30:31,360 --> 01:30:33,439
Speaker 6: it go to your head, but was that all it was?

1378
01:30:34,720 --> 01:30:37,160
Speaker 6: Just you remember that session and you know what that was.

1379
01:30:37,120 --> 01:30:44,799
Speaker 3: Like I do I really do. Jerry Butler the coolest

1380
01:30:44,840 --> 01:30:50,519
Speaker 3: guy in music. That's why they called him. He wrote

1381
01:30:50,600 --> 01:30:55,479
Speaker 3: that one. He gave me that one, and it was

1382
01:30:55,520 --> 01:30:59,360
Speaker 3: a ballad, and it was It was so odd hearing

1383
01:31:00,160 --> 01:31:04,400
Speaker 3: hearing the demo with Jerry Butler's singing. You know, I'm

1384
01:31:04,479 --> 01:31:08,479
Speaker 3: used to hearing him him do those smooth ballads, you know,

1385
01:31:10,160 --> 01:31:13,200
Speaker 3: except stuff like Western Union Man, but that was still

1386
01:31:13,240 --> 01:31:18,600
Speaker 3: smooth and cool and icy, and so it was. It

1387
01:31:18,680 --> 01:31:21,840
Speaker 3: was just so odd hearing him sing. Was that all

1388
01:31:21,840 --> 01:31:24,479
Speaker 3: it was? And and this was at the beginning of

1389
01:31:24,560 --> 01:31:29,439
Speaker 3: disco And although we didn't I didn't choose it for

1390
01:31:29,479 --> 01:31:33,080
Speaker 3: that reason. But when it was it was one take too,

1391
01:31:33,640 --> 01:31:36,479
Speaker 3: because I'm not I'm not a one take girl. I

1392
01:31:36,880 --> 01:31:39,960
Speaker 3: like to do the scratch vocals. I like to live

1393
01:31:40,000 --> 01:31:41,920
Speaker 3: with them a couple of days and then come back

1394
01:31:41,960 --> 01:31:45,320
Speaker 3: in and perfect it, you know, get it, live with it,

1395
01:31:45,439 --> 01:31:50,479
Speaker 3: and then then get it like I really wanted. And

1396
01:31:51,479 --> 01:31:56,840
Speaker 3: I had, I had finished the take and Jerry said,

1397
01:31:57,520 --> 01:32:00,439
Speaker 3: well that's the take, and I said, are you sure?

1398
01:32:00,680 --> 01:32:03,800
Speaker 3: Because you know my old habit was to live with

1399
01:32:03,880 --> 01:32:09,519
Speaker 3: it and then do it over a perfected John ushery

1400
01:32:10,400 --> 01:32:15,439
Speaker 3: uh did the instrumental, did the orchestration that was that

1401
01:32:15,560 --> 01:32:20,080
Speaker 3: was a masterpiece of orchestration. It was. It was really good,

1402
01:32:20,439 --> 01:32:23,120
Speaker 3: and it was so cute seeing them in the studio,

1403
01:32:23,479 --> 01:32:26,960
Speaker 3: the two of him. Jerry's all cool, you know, and

1404
01:32:26,960 --> 01:32:31,479
Speaker 3: and icy, like I said, and mature and John Ushery

1405
01:32:32,720 --> 01:32:36,120
Speaker 3: couldn't sit still. He had, you know, one of those

1406
01:32:36,160 --> 01:32:41,560
Speaker 3: type A personalities, and he was all over all.

1407
01:32:41,160 --> 01:32:44,000
Speaker 2: Over the room for the for the one I Find

1408
01:32:44,120 --> 01:32:44,880
Speaker 2: You Love album.

1409
01:32:45,600 --> 01:32:50,519
Speaker 1: What was happening at CBS at that time, because I

1410
01:32:50,520 --> 01:32:52,679
Speaker 1: felt like that's that album should have been way bigger.

1411
01:32:53,960 --> 01:32:57,040
Speaker 2: Was that all it was is a club staple?

1412
01:32:58,080 --> 01:33:01,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got we didn't realize it was going to be,

1413
01:33:01,720 --> 01:33:06,479
Speaker 3: you know, so embraced by the disco world. But the

1414
01:33:06,600 --> 01:33:10,519
Speaker 3: disco started calling the label asking for you know, a

1415
01:33:10,560 --> 01:33:15,559
Speaker 3: twelve inch you know. They obliged, of course, But there

1416
01:33:15,680 --> 01:33:22,639
Speaker 3: was a conflicting period there with with CBS and and

1417
01:33:22,920 --> 01:33:29,920
Speaker 3: Philly International and and was was you know, was in

1418
01:33:29,960 --> 01:33:34,360
Speaker 3: that came out during that period. So though I don't

1419
01:33:34,520 --> 01:33:38,280
Speaker 3: it might have been part of that that conflict because

1420
01:33:38,640 --> 01:33:44,679
Speaker 3: Gamble and Huff were powerful, very powerful, and there could

1421
01:33:44,720 --> 01:33:51,240
Speaker 3: have been rumblings of of envy, you know, that kind

1422
01:33:51,280 --> 01:33:51,559
Speaker 3: of thing.

1423
01:33:51,640 --> 01:33:55,439
Speaker 2: Too much power, So what led to the journey to Motown.

1424
01:33:56,120 --> 01:34:01,360
Speaker 3: Gamble was deciding to do other things. He came to

1425
01:34:01,400 --> 01:34:03,760
Speaker 3: me and said, you know, he wanted to do other things,

1426
01:34:04,160 --> 01:34:09,439
Speaker 3: and he brought his his nephew, Chuck Chuck Gamble that

1427
01:34:09,600 --> 01:34:13,719
Speaker 3: had the label. But before that he's formed another label

1428
01:34:13,840 --> 01:34:16,639
Speaker 3: and put I know, he put me on there, and

1429
01:34:16,680 --> 01:34:20,960
Speaker 3: he put the OJS on there and maybe maybe.

1430
01:34:20,760 --> 01:34:27,400
Speaker 8: Teddy t s op okay, okay, yeah, yeah, and he

1431
01:34:27,439 --> 01:34:32,160
Speaker 8: was he was contemplating doing other things at the time.

1432
01:34:32,360 --> 01:34:34,120
Speaker 4: Is this when he started doing the real estate stuff?

1433
01:34:35,880 --> 01:34:40,320
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, building, you know, building communities and stuff.

1434
01:34:40,720 --> 01:34:40,960
Speaker 9: Yeah.

1435
01:34:40,960 --> 01:34:43,680
Speaker 3: And he asked me what label would I like to,

1436
01:34:44,120 --> 01:34:50,120
Speaker 3: you know, to go with, because our executive vice president

1437
01:34:50,479 --> 01:34:56,160
Speaker 3: did my deal with Motown. So it was handing your

1438
01:34:56,360 --> 01:35:00,360
Speaker 3: your niece over to you know, to another fan family.

1439
01:35:01,360 --> 01:35:01,760
Speaker 2: I see.

1440
01:35:03,520 --> 01:35:05,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's how that happened.

1441
01:35:06,479 --> 01:35:08,800
Speaker 6: Another one of my favorite songs of your machine I

1442
01:35:08,840 --> 01:35:10,679
Speaker 6: want to talk about it's a it's a duet.

1443
01:35:11,240 --> 01:35:17,240
Speaker 2: I'm back for more. How do you remember? That's right?

1444
01:35:17,560 --> 01:35:18,200
Speaker 6: That's the one.

1445
01:35:18,840 --> 01:35:21,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was on a that was a production of

1446
01:35:21,640 --> 01:35:28,080
Speaker 3: Norman Connors on for Al Johnson. Yeah, And they had

1447
01:35:28,160 --> 01:35:32,920
Speaker 3: finished Al's album and they didn't have a hot single,

1448
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:36,040
Speaker 3: so they called me. They recorded it in l A

1449
01:35:36,840 --> 01:35:39,800
Speaker 3: and so they called me. We started looking for a

1450
01:35:39,880 --> 01:35:44,880
Speaker 3: clincher song, you know, a strong, strong, first single, and

1451
01:35:45,040 --> 01:35:49,280
Speaker 3: we found I'm Back for More on an old Tabaris album.

1452
01:35:50,120 --> 01:35:50,640
Speaker 2: Wow.

1453
01:35:51,080 --> 01:35:55,040
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah, And so I thought we should do

1454
01:35:55,080 --> 01:35:58,360
Speaker 3: it as a duet. So I was going to use

1455
01:35:58,760 --> 01:36:04,560
Speaker 3: Sybil Thomas, one of Rufus Thomas's daughters, okay, because he's

1456
01:36:04,680 --> 01:36:09,120
Speaker 3: got some singing daughters. Boy, but Symple had moved to

1457
01:36:09,200 --> 01:36:12,720
Speaker 3: New York at the time. Uh, So I ended up

1458
01:36:12,880 --> 01:36:16,800
Speaker 3: doing doing it as a duet with with Al And

1459
01:36:16,960 --> 01:36:21,440
Speaker 3: that song has been sampled more than anything I combined

1460
01:36:21,760 --> 01:36:23,040
Speaker 3: that I recorded.

1461
01:36:23,200 --> 01:36:25,040
Speaker 4: I was just about to ask y'all that, like, what

1462
01:36:25,080 --> 01:36:26,600
Speaker 4: the what are the sample I hear the samples in

1463
01:36:26,640 --> 01:36:28,080
Speaker 4: the song. I was like, what are the songs that

1464
01:36:28,120 --> 01:36:28,640
Speaker 4: we know from this?

1465
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:35,960
Speaker 3: God? Yeah, well did it? And there are when you

1466
01:36:36,000 --> 01:36:39,920
Speaker 3: look on who's sampled, there are names of of rap

1467
01:36:40,000 --> 01:36:45,280
Speaker 3: groups and rappers that I don't even know. So so

1468
01:36:45,560 --> 01:36:55,280
Speaker 3: a lot of those we don't know. Okay, so badly then, oh, okay.

1469
01:36:55,240 --> 01:36:57,719
Speaker 4: You must have took sampling well, because since you said

1470
01:36:57,720 --> 01:36:59,920
Speaker 4: that you're on a steady evolution and you're fine with me,

1471
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:03,679
Speaker 4: were growing and going through whatever changes. When they started

1472
01:37:03,680 --> 01:37:06,479
Speaker 4: sampling and using it for hip hop, you were you

1473
01:37:06,520 --> 01:37:08,439
Speaker 4: were cool about it, right, Oh?

1474
01:37:08,479 --> 01:37:09,200
Speaker 3: I loved it?

1475
01:37:09,640 --> 01:37:13,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, okay, because don't let it go to my head.

1476
01:37:13,400 --> 01:37:16,080
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, everybody left that brand newpie and something.

1477
01:37:16,160 --> 01:37:17,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head. You know.

1478
01:37:17,840 --> 01:37:21,360
Speaker 3: One of those those message things that that Kenny and

1479
01:37:21,439 --> 01:37:27,800
Speaker 3: Leon were famous for and surprisingly little known fact they

1480
01:37:28,160 --> 01:37:31,200
Speaker 3: I remember when Kenny gave me the song, he said,

1481
01:37:32,120 --> 01:37:34,559
Speaker 3: because he gave it to me as a demo with

1482
01:37:34,640 --> 01:37:39,040
Speaker 3: him playing guitar and singing, you know, and and and

1483
01:37:39,479 --> 01:37:43,479
Speaker 3: Huff did a little piano on it. And so when

1484
01:37:43,520 --> 01:37:47,720
Speaker 3: I he said this you might like this one, and

1485
01:37:47,840 --> 01:37:51,599
Speaker 3: he said, don't worry Huff and I had the had

1486
01:37:51,600 --> 01:37:56,000
Speaker 3: the background that that's cool, you know. So when I finished,

1487
01:37:56,040 --> 01:37:59,960
Speaker 3: when I finished putting down the lead vocal, the final vocal,

1488
01:38:00,600 --> 01:38:03,880
Speaker 3: I went in his office and I said, come on,

1489
01:38:03,960 --> 01:38:08,400
Speaker 3: we're ready for the background. And and gamble Stead, Oh

1490
01:38:08,439 --> 01:38:15,200
Speaker 3: that's okay, Gene, you got it. Oh no, no, no, no, no,

1491
01:38:15,479 --> 01:38:19,519
Speaker 3: y'all got to come sing this with me. And they know.

1492
01:38:19,760 --> 01:38:21,080
Speaker 4: That's them in the background.

1493
01:38:21,120 --> 01:38:21,960
Speaker 2: Don't let it go to.

1494
01:38:23,640 --> 01:38:25,920
Speaker 4: Who wait, No, no, no, no, who's who was?

1495
01:38:26,240 --> 01:38:31,000
Speaker 3: No? No, no, I'm sorry, I knew that.

1496
01:38:31,120 --> 01:38:34,679
Speaker 2: I'm just wait, okay, so this is a very one.

1497
01:38:34,760 --> 01:38:36,920
Speaker 1: I don't even know that's Rolling Chambers playing guitar with

1498
01:38:37,000 --> 01:38:39,880
Speaker 1: you on that guitar scatty thing at the end, but

1499
01:38:40,840 --> 01:38:44,320
Speaker 1: when you want to incorporate your scating whatnot. And you know,

1500
01:38:44,360 --> 01:38:48,400
Speaker 1: we haven't interviewed the Whispers or George Benson yet, so

1501
01:38:49,200 --> 01:38:51,479
Speaker 1: you're probably the first pop scatter that I can ask

1502
01:38:51,520 --> 01:38:57,919
Speaker 1: this to. What comes first? Like, are you singing your

1503
01:38:58,320 --> 01:39:00,320
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about the thing that you do again?

1504
01:39:01,320 --> 01:39:05,960
Speaker 3: No, no, most folks can't hear that. I'm with that,

1505
01:39:06,439 --> 01:39:09,599
Speaker 3: you know, don't even know that that's under me because

1506
01:39:09,960 --> 01:39:14,320
Speaker 3: what I did was, I was just I was thinking

1507
01:39:14,360 --> 01:39:18,240
Speaker 3: of ad libs. Well that was in the middle, but

1508
01:39:18,720 --> 01:39:22,680
Speaker 3: like it ended up, you know, being like like an

1509
01:39:22,720 --> 01:39:27,000
Speaker 3: ad lib section I did. I and I don't know

1510
01:39:27,000 --> 01:39:31,360
Speaker 3: if it was Roland or not on on guitar then,

1511
01:39:31,880 --> 01:39:38,320
Speaker 3: but yeah, I imitated the don't never never never know it,

1512
01:39:38,400 --> 01:39:40,639
Speaker 3: don't let it go to your head, your head, So that.

1513
01:39:40,640 --> 01:39:41,920
Speaker 2: Was you first, and then they followed.

1514
01:39:41,960 --> 01:39:47,160
Speaker 3: You know, I was imitating I was imitating his his.

1515
01:39:48,040 --> 01:39:50,320
Speaker 2: Solo oh okay, so he.

1516
01:39:50,960 --> 01:39:53,920
Speaker 3: Like we did Ninfantized, you know, going back to that

1517
01:39:54,120 --> 01:40:00,960
Speaker 3: period because like like like on uninfantized, every every every

1518
01:40:01,040 --> 01:40:05,040
Speaker 3: note in the solo in Wayne Shorter solo, some day

1519
01:40:05,200 --> 01:40:09,040
Speaker 3: you will grow up. You'll grow up and had your problems,

1520
01:40:09,479 --> 01:40:13,880
Speaker 3: little girl. You must try to be strong. That was

1521
01:40:14,320 --> 01:40:19,719
Speaker 3: that was us putting lyrics to Wayne's solo. Okay, yeah,

1522
01:40:19,760 --> 01:40:22,480
Speaker 3: so it was the same, the same habit.

1523
01:40:23,280 --> 01:40:26,080
Speaker 1: You decided to do uh if you don't know me

1524
01:40:26,200 --> 01:40:30,320
Speaker 1: by now, which the irony of it is that you're

1525
01:40:30,360 --> 01:40:32,160
Speaker 1: not on Philly International anymore.

1526
01:40:33,080 --> 01:40:34,960
Speaker 3: And that's what Motown said.

1527
01:40:36,840 --> 01:40:38,120
Speaker 2: Was it your idea to do? It?

1528
01:40:38,200 --> 01:40:40,280
Speaker 1: Was that Motown like, oh, we have a legacy artist

1529
01:40:40,320 --> 01:40:43,280
Speaker 1: from Philly International, so let's bring some of that over here.

1530
01:40:43,479 --> 01:40:46,559
Speaker 3: Or no, it was it was it was my my idea.

1531
01:40:47,160 --> 01:40:52,280
Speaker 3: In fact, when when when I made uh who is it? Okay,

1532
01:40:52,320 --> 01:40:58,280
Speaker 3: Iris Gordy and and Raynona Gordy were you know, over

1533
01:40:58,680 --> 01:41:00,320
Speaker 3: over that that pride jacked.

1534
01:41:00,560 --> 01:41:00,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1535
01:41:02,720 --> 01:41:05,280
Speaker 3: They when when I said I want to do if

1536
01:41:05,320 --> 01:41:09,120
Speaker 3: you don't know me by now, they the sculler butt

1537
01:41:09,240 --> 01:41:12,960
Speaker 3: was well, you've already left that label. So they gave

1538
01:41:13,040 --> 01:41:18,840
Speaker 3: me about five long play albums. With samples of Joe

1539
01:41:18,840 --> 01:41:23,880
Speaker 3: bat music because it was like, what about us, you know.

1540
01:41:24,080 --> 01:41:27,679
Speaker 3: Well they didn't say that, but I got it, and

1541
01:41:27,800 --> 01:41:32,760
Speaker 3: from those I chose my baby Loves Me. Oh yeah,

1542
01:41:32,960 --> 01:41:39,439
Speaker 3: I did that, and I did another another Motown tune.

1543
01:41:39,840 --> 01:41:42,960
Speaker 3: But yeah, but if you don't know Me by Now.

1544
01:41:43,560 --> 01:41:47,880
Speaker 3: I remember telling Teddy that I wanted to cover, you know,

1545
01:41:47,920 --> 01:41:50,680
Speaker 3: to cover that. Well. What I wanted to do at

1546
01:41:50,720 --> 01:41:56,280
Speaker 3: first was I miss you, Oh, I miss you, and

1547
01:41:56,280 --> 01:41:59,960
Speaker 3: and Teddy said that doesn't fit you. He said, because

1548
01:42:00,360 --> 01:42:04,200
Speaker 3: think about the lyrics, he said, because it's gotten drink

1549
01:42:04,320 --> 01:42:10,120
Speaker 3: and drink, and he said, you don't drink. That's when

1550
01:42:10,160 --> 01:42:13,040
Speaker 3: I went to if you don't know Me by Now.

1551
01:42:13,439 --> 01:42:17,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, another genius move on that album.

1552
01:42:17,840 --> 01:42:18,840
Speaker 2: And this is kind of weird.

1553
01:42:19,120 --> 01:42:22,639
Speaker 1: I think the way that I just discovered classic songs

1554
01:42:22,720 --> 01:42:29,160
Speaker 1: is I discovered the cover first. I knew your version

1555
01:42:29,200 --> 01:42:33,439
Speaker 1: of completeness first, before I knew many Riputins versions.

1556
01:42:34,840 --> 01:42:37,800
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, you know that was the only thing

1557
01:42:37,960 --> 01:42:40,160
Speaker 3: that she had recorded that I could do.

1558
01:42:41,479 --> 01:42:42,800
Speaker 2: Oh, because he's just reflexing it.

1559
01:42:43,040 --> 01:42:47,400
Speaker 3: Everything else of hers was out of my stratosphere. And

1560
01:42:48,120 --> 01:42:51,519
Speaker 3: the week that she passed away, she came to see

1561
01:42:51,560 --> 01:42:56,320
Speaker 3: me at the Roxy. I did maybe three days at

1562
01:42:56,320 --> 01:42:59,000
Speaker 3: the roxyat and it was just just a few months

1563
01:42:59,040 --> 01:43:02,360
Speaker 3: before she passed the way. Because she she was telling

1564
01:43:02,400 --> 01:43:05,200
Speaker 3: me how she she was. She said, she said, I'm

1565
01:43:05,240 --> 01:43:08,640
Speaker 3: putting y'all down. She was because she was on CBS

1566
01:43:08,840 --> 01:43:12,360
Speaker 3: right and she said, I'm going to do my own things.

1567
01:43:12,360 --> 01:43:14,880
Speaker 3: She was telling me about a clothes clothing line. This

1568
01:43:15,080 --> 01:43:19,080
Speaker 3: was the way after she had had the mistectomy, and

1569
01:43:19,080 --> 01:43:23,479
Speaker 3: and that those two nights, George Duke came to see me,

1570
01:43:25,000 --> 01:43:29,880
Speaker 3: Stevie came to see me. Uh Serena came to see me.

1571
01:43:30,400 --> 01:43:36,000
Speaker 3: Chaka Chaka was just pregnant with her first child. Then

1572
01:43:36,800 --> 01:43:40,960
Speaker 3: there was so many folks that I didn't know came

1573
01:43:41,160 --> 01:43:44,640
Speaker 3: came to see me at the Roxy. It's right on Sunset,

1574
01:43:44,840 --> 01:43:47,880
Speaker 3: right at the Beverly Hills line at the sign.

1575
01:43:48,920 --> 01:43:52,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know that for you in eighty six,

1576
01:43:53,800 --> 01:43:55,879
Speaker 2: you know, one of the one of the best comeback

1577
01:43:55,920 --> 01:44:01,120
Speaker 2: stories in music was you know you achieving your number.

1578
01:44:00,960 --> 01:44:09,280
Speaker 1: One single with Closer than Close, right and again I'm

1579
01:44:09,760 --> 01:44:11,280
Speaker 1: Flame of Love is like one of my all time

1580
01:44:11,320 --> 01:44:16,479
Speaker 1: favorite songs of yours. Generally, what was happening in eighty

1581
01:44:16,560 --> 01:44:20,479
Speaker 1: six for you? Like, were you expecting this at all,

1582
01:44:20,560 --> 01:44:23,320
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of times when artists are

1583
01:44:23,320 --> 01:44:25,599
Speaker 1: on a lot of labels and they record and record

1584
01:44:25,600 --> 01:44:29,040
Speaker 1: and record, and the desired results, I mean, sometimes it's

1585
01:44:29,040 --> 01:44:33,120
Speaker 1: like a stalled car. Sometimes it's not. But this, this

1586
01:44:33,479 --> 01:44:36,360
Speaker 1: really truly felt like a victory lap for you. Like,

1587
01:44:37,400 --> 01:44:39,880
Speaker 1: can you talk about just the whole process of making

1588
01:44:39,880 --> 01:44:43,559
Speaker 1: that record and what your expectations were and how did

1589
01:44:43,600 --> 01:44:44,280
Speaker 1: it feel too.

1590
01:44:45,720 --> 01:44:47,000
Speaker 2: Come with those two hit singles.

1591
01:44:48,120 --> 01:44:51,880
Speaker 3: Well, it was so such a pleasure to work with Grover.

1592
01:44:52,760 --> 01:44:53,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1593
01:44:54,680 --> 01:44:58,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, because a friend of his, what's his name, he

1594
01:44:58,640 --> 01:45:02,200
Speaker 3: used to be on the news here in Philly. I

1595
01:45:02,280 --> 01:45:06,280
Speaker 3: knew him. He does he doesn't add now for a

1596
01:45:06,360 --> 01:45:09,400
Speaker 3: legal firm, and his name will come to me. But

1597
01:45:09,479 --> 01:45:13,759
Speaker 3: he went to more House and I met him in Atlanta,

1598
01:45:13,800 --> 01:45:18,040
Speaker 3: you know, when he was matriculating and he hooked. It

1599
01:45:18,080 --> 01:45:21,720
Speaker 3: was his idea for me and Grover to get to

1600
01:45:21,760 --> 01:45:27,360
Speaker 3: know each other. So he made the introduction and it

1601
01:45:27,439 --> 01:45:32,759
Speaker 3: was like we had we were steparated Siame's twins, Grover

1602
01:45:32,840 --> 01:45:36,320
Speaker 3: and I we were so compatible. It was just amazing.

1603
01:45:36,560 --> 01:45:40,320
Speaker 3: In fact, Closer than Close was the first, the first

1604
01:45:40,479 --> 01:45:45,120
Speaker 3: song we chose. Because he produced two of my albums,

1605
01:45:45,120 --> 01:45:49,799
Speaker 3: the two on Atlantic and we just thought so much alike,

1606
01:45:49,840 --> 01:45:52,960
Speaker 3: and he just loved playing on my product. You know,

1607
01:45:53,040 --> 01:45:56,080
Speaker 3: he played on just about everything on those two albums.

1608
01:45:57,080 --> 01:46:01,760
Speaker 3: In fact, on the twenty fourth of April uh in

1609
01:46:01,800 --> 01:46:08,160
Speaker 3: Atlantic City, the National R and B Music Society is,

1610
01:46:09,320 --> 01:46:14,800
Speaker 3: in conjunction with the Mayor of Atlantic City, is installing

1611
01:46:15,120 --> 01:46:22,360
Speaker 3: the first class of artists on the Atlantic City Walk

1612
01:46:22,400 --> 01:46:28,280
Speaker 3: of Fame. And I know the Delphonics on there. James

1613
01:46:28,320 --> 01:46:34,680
Speaker 3: Brown will be installed and Grover Washington Junior, so you know,

1614
01:46:34,680 --> 01:46:37,160
Speaker 3: and I've been in touch with, you know, with his

1615
01:46:37,160 --> 01:46:40,559
Speaker 3: his daughter and his son and his wife Chris and

1616
01:46:40,600 --> 01:46:45,920
Speaker 3: there then be there and yeah, and and the grandchildren. Yeah.

1617
01:46:46,000 --> 01:46:50,320
Speaker 3: So I had to had to mention that. But I

1618
01:46:50,439 --> 01:46:55,439
Speaker 3: had my my manager, my then manager had put me

1619
01:46:55,479 --> 01:47:00,559
Speaker 3: on two labels. Sugar Hill Records was one and Boston

1620
01:47:00,600 --> 01:47:08,480
Speaker 3: International Records with Maurice Starr sugar Hill and Sylvia Sylvia Robinson.

1621
01:47:09,520 --> 01:47:12,960
Speaker 3: And he was in such a hurry. We'd get half

1622
01:47:13,000 --> 01:47:16,240
Speaker 3: an album done and he was saying, well, they're not

1623
01:47:16,680 --> 01:47:20,360
Speaker 3: you know, they're not doing this quickly enough. So he

1624
01:47:20,400 --> 01:47:24,000
Speaker 3: would get me. He made me leave the label and

1625
01:47:24,040 --> 01:47:30,600
Speaker 3: got both Maurice and Sylvia to grant me unconditional releases

1626
01:47:30,960 --> 01:47:35,200
Speaker 3: from the labels. But but of course I stayed with

1627
01:47:35,200 --> 01:47:40,519
Speaker 3: with Sylvia Rown for the two albums on Atlantic. It

1628
01:47:40,680 --> 01:47:45,840
Speaker 3: was weird then, you know, Electrosylo Atlantic and Warner Brothers.

1629
01:47:50,760 --> 01:47:52,920
Speaker 2: Once the nineties come along. How do you feel that

1630
01:47:52,960 --> 01:47:58,960
Speaker 2: the industry, especially with with with black artists. I guess

1631
01:47:58,960 --> 01:48:00,360
Speaker 2: with the process of of.

1632
01:48:00,520 --> 01:48:03,080
Speaker 1: You know, with hip hop coming in and whatnot, and

1633
01:48:03,120 --> 01:48:07,920
Speaker 1: you're seeing like another generation of artists coming too the

1634
01:48:08,000 --> 01:48:12,240
Speaker 1: system that's kind of far away from the traditional style

1635
01:48:12,240 --> 01:48:16,800
Speaker 1: of what soul or singing or jazz music or whatever, like,

1636
01:48:18,160 --> 01:48:20,519
Speaker 1: how do you not get discouraged by that?

1637
01:48:20,920 --> 01:48:21,240
Speaker 2: I think?

1638
01:48:21,360 --> 01:48:25,040
Speaker 1: I think because a lot of artists could easily fall

1639
01:48:25,080 --> 01:48:29,719
Speaker 1: into bitterness and anger for some reason, I don't feel.

1640
01:48:29,760 --> 01:48:32,200
Speaker 1: I don't feel that from you at at all. Like,

1641
01:48:32,800 --> 01:48:36,439
Speaker 1: how have you been able to maintain you're cool and

1642
01:48:36,720 --> 01:48:39,080
Speaker 1: sort of a steady pace throughout your career?

1643
01:48:40,000 --> 01:48:44,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm you're very astute as an observer because because

1644
01:48:44,960 --> 01:48:50,760
Speaker 3: it never it never affected me negatively. I like the

1645
01:48:50,840 --> 01:48:56,080
Speaker 3: fact that they stampled me a lot, you know, and

1646
01:48:56,640 --> 01:48:59,000
Speaker 3: back when you know, when the when the lyrics were

1647
01:48:59,600 --> 01:49:03,880
Speaker 3: posts them and cute, you know, and positive. I you know,

1648
01:49:04,120 --> 01:49:08,280
Speaker 3: I embraced it as well. Uh and and and they

1649
01:49:08,560 --> 01:49:14,360
Speaker 3: they used vintage music anyway, you know in there. So

1650
01:49:14,479 --> 01:49:17,439
Speaker 3: I like the fact that they were introducing the the

1651
01:49:17,479 --> 01:49:22,479
Speaker 3: young listeners to to the vintage artist and the vinted sound.

1652
01:49:24,280 --> 01:49:26,559
Speaker 3: So I was, I was, I was cool with it.

1653
01:49:26,840 --> 01:49:30,000
Speaker 3: And the fact that that I, you know, had a

1654
01:49:30,200 --> 01:49:35,559
Speaker 3: jazz audience, you know, a strong, sturdy jazz audience, and

1655
01:49:35,640 --> 01:49:39,040
Speaker 3: the R and B side, So I you know, I

1656
01:49:39,479 --> 01:49:43,639
Speaker 3: could perform everywhere, you know, and in Europe you can.

1657
01:49:44,000 --> 01:49:46,160
Speaker 3: You can perform in Europe for the rest of your life.

1658
01:49:46,880 --> 01:49:50,200
Speaker 3: They know more songs than you know. Absolutely, So I was,

1659
01:49:50,240 --> 01:49:50,880
Speaker 3: I was cool.

1660
01:49:51,320 --> 01:49:53,639
Speaker 4: Can you also talk about to because I remember a time,

1661
01:49:54,200 --> 01:49:56,280
Speaker 4: and I'm decent from my childhood memories, but I remember

1662
01:49:56,280 --> 01:49:58,920
Speaker 4: a time when you became you got into education and

1663
01:49:58,960 --> 01:50:02,640
Speaker 4: you were teaching teaching at Howard and you were teaching vocal.

1664
01:50:02,400 --> 01:50:05,600
Speaker 3: Oh, I got offers from several universities. You had to

1665
01:50:06,200 --> 01:50:11,960
Speaker 3: join their faculty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was it

1666
01:50:12,000 --> 01:50:15,320
Speaker 3: was a bit too confining.

1667
01:50:17,640 --> 01:50:17,840
Speaker 2: Back.

1668
01:50:17,880 --> 01:50:22,280
Speaker 3: A couple of universities offered me, they said, okay, you

1669
01:50:22,320 --> 01:50:27,120
Speaker 3: can pickure your days that you'll have classes, and they

1670
01:50:27,160 --> 01:50:30,880
Speaker 3: had replacements for me, subs for me when I had to,

1671
01:50:31,400 --> 01:50:35,160
Speaker 3: you know, to to go to work, you know, this week,

1672
01:50:35,880 --> 01:50:38,720
Speaker 3: and and you know, it was it was cool like that.

1673
01:50:39,800 --> 01:50:43,080
Speaker 3: But I just didn't, you know, because I was still

1674
01:50:43,160 --> 01:50:47,000
Speaker 3: raising the kids then, and and that happened with with

1675
01:50:47,120 --> 01:50:51,360
Speaker 3: some Broadway offers as well, because I couldn't I couldn't

1676
01:50:51,800 --> 01:50:54,080
Speaker 3: bring the kids to New York. What did you say

1677
01:50:54,400 --> 01:50:58,439
Speaker 3: to my mother? Did not want to live in New York? Oh?

1678
01:50:58,479 --> 01:51:01,840
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that part, that part, it is very different

1679
01:51:01,840 --> 01:51:02,720
Speaker 4: than Atlanta.

1680
01:51:03,080 --> 01:51:03,519
Speaker 9: Yeah.

1681
01:51:03,800 --> 01:51:06,719
Speaker 3: Yeah. But but the fact that I had those two

1682
01:51:08,040 --> 01:51:13,320
Speaker 3: very diverse audiences kept me kept me afloat. And I

1683
01:51:13,760 --> 01:51:16,639
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm glad a lot of the rappers

1684
01:51:16,920 --> 01:51:20,640
Speaker 3: have grown up. Your benches, rappers have grown up and

1685
01:51:21,200 --> 01:51:24,439
Speaker 3: changed their lyrics, and I'm thinking that's going to happen

1686
01:51:25,920 --> 01:51:28,680
Speaker 3: down the road for the younger ones, you know, So

1687
01:51:28,960 --> 01:51:32,400
Speaker 3: there's hope people, That's right.

1688
01:51:32,520 --> 01:51:34,840
Speaker 1: I have one more question, So can you talk about

1689
01:51:36,280 --> 01:51:39,919
Speaker 1: your work on the Jazz Is Dead series with Alicia

1690
01:51:40,000 --> 01:51:42,599
Speaker 1: heat and Adrian Oh?

1691
01:51:42,800 --> 01:51:48,559
Speaker 3: That was that was quite an experience. You know. I

1692
01:51:48,640 --> 01:51:53,320
Speaker 3: haven't hadn't done anything like that since I appeared on

1693
01:51:53,800 --> 01:52:00,599
Speaker 3: an album and you mentioned and to may right, uh,

1694
01:52:01,479 --> 01:52:04,560
Speaker 3: years years and years ago, I think it might have been. No,

1695
01:52:04,600 --> 01:52:08,799
Speaker 3: it wasn't his first album. It was called life Cycle,

1696
01:52:10,040 --> 01:52:17,520
Speaker 3: and he recorded in Boston at the New England Conservatory

1697
01:52:18,680 --> 01:52:23,599
Speaker 3: and he had uh Andy Bay Deadie Bridgewater, Ron Carter,

1698
01:52:24,479 --> 01:52:30,160
Speaker 3: so many of you know, of the top jazz artists

1699
01:52:30,600 --> 01:52:36,479
Speaker 3: on on this this project. And what he brought was

1700
01:52:36,920 --> 01:52:41,760
Speaker 3: a skeleton skeleton, you know, skeleton tracks because it was

1701
01:52:41,800 --> 01:52:51,760
Speaker 3: an album, and we basically he gave us titles and themes, patterns,

1702
01:52:52,080 --> 01:52:56,080
Speaker 3: and we basically it was extemporaneous for the most part.

1703
01:52:57,880 --> 01:53:02,639
Speaker 3: And not since then had I been able to do

1704
01:53:02,720 --> 01:53:08,560
Speaker 3: that until I got with with Ali Muhammad Shahid and

1705
01:53:09,160 --> 01:53:15,720
Speaker 3: Adrian Young. Because I get there in the studio they

1706
01:53:15,760 --> 01:53:21,760
Speaker 3: hadn't sent me in any music, no ideas, no titles, nothing,

1707
01:53:24,400 --> 01:53:30,519
Speaker 3: and Adrian since it plays me some changes, pretty avant

1708
01:53:30,560 --> 01:53:34,439
Speaker 3: garde changes for most of those tunes, which was very

1709
01:53:34,479 --> 01:53:38,120
Speaker 3: appealing to me, you know, like sitting in with Pherol

1710
01:53:38,240 --> 01:53:43,040
Speaker 3: Saunders or Felonious Mark you know sometimes. So that was

1711
01:53:43,080 --> 01:53:47,240
Speaker 3: cool by me. And then I had to go on

1712
01:53:47,360 --> 01:53:51,720
Speaker 3: Mike with no idea as to what I was going

1713
01:53:51,800 --> 01:53:55,719
Speaker 3: to sing, which I hadn't done, like I said, since

1714
01:53:56,000 --> 01:54:01,160
Speaker 3: the MN two May album. I composed my lyric. I

1715
01:54:01,240 --> 01:54:05,639
Speaker 3: compose the melodies just listening to the chords, and the

1716
01:54:05,680 --> 01:54:10,120
Speaker 3: titles of the songs were all extemporaneous and off the

1717
01:54:10,160 --> 01:54:14,000
Speaker 3: top of my head, with no prior, no prior notice,

1718
01:54:14,120 --> 01:54:18,360
Speaker 3: no prior conceiving, And didn't even know that was how

1719
01:54:18,760 --> 01:54:20,360
Speaker 3: it was good. It was.

1720
01:54:20,479 --> 01:54:24,880
Speaker 4: It was a stretch like exercise, right like.

1721
01:54:26,360 --> 01:54:33,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was like calisthetics for a whole album.

1722
01:54:33,240 --> 01:54:34,160
Speaker 4: But you did it.

1723
01:54:34,800 --> 01:54:36,800
Speaker 3: It made you stand on your tippy toes.

1724
01:54:38,080 --> 01:54:38,560
Speaker 2: That's good.

1725
01:54:38,960 --> 01:54:39,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1726
01:54:40,080 --> 01:54:44,000
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I want to thank you for taking

1727
01:54:44,000 --> 01:54:47,240
Speaker 1: time out to speak with us, and you know we're

1728
01:54:47,800 --> 01:54:51,200
Speaker 1: lifelong fans of yours, and you know, definitely one of

1729
01:54:51,280 --> 01:54:56,000
Speaker 1: my favorite singers. And I thank you for taking a

1730
01:54:56,080 --> 01:55:01,560
Speaker 1: chance on an unknown drummer. And you know that that

1731
01:55:01,560 --> 01:55:04,280
Speaker 1: that a massive effect on me.

1732
01:55:04,880 --> 01:55:07,360
Speaker 4: And I'm the circle back story Auntie. That that that

1733
01:55:07,520 --> 01:55:09,040
Speaker 4: you do now every day every night.

1734
01:55:10,400 --> 01:55:12,040
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, you know.

1735
01:55:13,480 --> 01:55:17,120
Speaker 9: I didn't remember you from you know, from the from

1736
01:55:17,240 --> 01:55:24,160
Speaker 9: the performances. I started, I, uh, who is your guy

1737
01:55:24,400 --> 01:55:28,640
Speaker 9: in your late night guy that you.

1738
01:55:28,600 --> 01:55:30,000
Speaker 3: I never watched his show.

1739
01:55:31,360 --> 01:55:36,960
Speaker 9: I passed by his show, uh you know channel surfing,

1740
01:55:37,440 --> 01:55:40,320
Speaker 9: and I saw you and your guys.

1741
01:55:41,200 --> 01:55:44,760
Speaker 3: I tried to like his part, you know, his jokes

1742
01:55:44,760 --> 01:55:48,760
Speaker 3: and his guests. Uh. And it didn't It didn't work.

1743
01:55:48,960 --> 01:55:54,680
Speaker 9: So I started recording your show, his show, y'all show. Uh,

1744
01:55:55,440 --> 01:56:01,000
Speaker 9: and I would I would fast forward to when y'all

1745
01:56:01,560 --> 01:56:04,840
Speaker 9: broke the commercial until you played, you know, on the

1746
01:56:04,880 --> 01:56:08,880
Speaker 9: faith for the commercials, and when you came back, and

1747
01:56:09,120 --> 01:56:14,360
Speaker 9: that I loved And I guess I I I it

1748
01:56:14,440 --> 01:56:17,880
Speaker 9: was because cellularly I remembered you.

1749
01:56:18,560 --> 01:56:28,520
Speaker 10: Oh nothing for me see yeah, oh wow, Well I

1750
01:56:28,520 --> 01:56:29,920
Speaker 10: guess we're leaving the show now, Steve.

1751
01:56:30,000 --> 01:56:37,840
Speaker 2: So watch tonight's show. It's a hot mess. The music,

1752
01:56:37,920 --> 01:56:40,680
Speaker 2: the music, no, especially the music.

1753
01:56:41,160 --> 01:56:41,240
Speaker 3: No.

1754
01:56:41,400 --> 01:56:45,839
Speaker 2: I thank you, Thank you once again. And on behalf

1755
01:56:45,880 --> 01:56:50,680
Speaker 2: of paid Bill give give well bro and fan take

1756
01:56:50,680 --> 01:56:55,120
Speaker 2: a little absolutely get well paid Bill, Steve. Uh, we

1757
01:56:55,320 --> 01:56:55,800
Speaker 2: thank you.

1758
01:56:56,000 --> 01:56:59,360
Speaker 1: This is another classic episode of Quest Love Supreme and

1759
01:56:59,400 --> 01:57:01,200
Speaker 1: we'll see week on the next go round.

1760
01:57:01,240 --> 01:57:02,240
Speaker 2: All right, y'all peace.

1761
01:57:15,040 --> 01:57:22,000
Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio. For

1762
01:57:22,120 --> 01:57:26,400
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1763
01:57:26,800 --> 01:57:28,480
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.