Speaker 1: R and B Money.
Speaker 2: Honey, we are.
Speaker 3: Thanks take valoti. We are the authorities R and B
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tank. This is the
Speaker 3: R and B Money Podcast, the authority on all things
Speaker 3: R and B.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it starts somewhere. Come on, Bishop bad There is
Speaker 1: an origin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Bible says in the beginning, that's what we
Speaker 3: have here on today. Yes, I'm talking about my beginning
Speaker 3: where the love, just where the love began for this
Speaker 3: thing right here. We got some guys in the building.
Speaker 3: That's what I want to get straight to him. Man,
Speaker 3: come on Mitchel Jones and call red of commission.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Listen the reasons, the reason for nineties R and B.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have foundational building blocks.
Speaker 1: Sean Stockman says his regards. Yes he does.
Speaker 3: John's got off the phone with him. Sit there here
Speaker 3: since it's love. Wow, excellent, excellent, Like okay, you know
Speaker 3: I get it. You were you were commissioned, you were
Speaker 3: called to do what you do, and you accepted that
Speaker 3: call and you move, You moved in such a way
Speaker 3: that you know that lives were changed, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like lives literally lives were changed without you
Speaker 3: even being there. Like like, I am one of those
Speaker 3: kids who in ninth grade discovered Commission. I joined this
Speaker 3: this gospel group called Brotherhood. And I've been in church,
Speaker 3: you know, all my life. But you know, I moved
Speaker 3: to Maryland, new surroundings, new everything, new school, and I
Speaker 3: meet these two guys in inquired class and they sing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I say we should be a group.
Speaker 1: Let's be a group.
Speaker 3: It's like, we got two other guys in a group
Speaker 3: with or whatever at the church down the way. So
Speaker 3: I joined the group with them, their Brotherhood, and you know,
Speaker 3: they're heavy whinings, love the wine and shout out to
Speaker 3: the ones, love the ones right and and they're like,
Speaker 3: have you heard Commission. I was like, no, I have
Speaker 3: not heard commission. And they put on Commission. It's a rap.
Speaker 3: I had found somebody I wanted to be and his
Speaker 3: name was Mitchell Jones. Wow. We would argue, like you
Speaker 3: know how you like when you be a superhero from
Speaker 3: a cartoon, when you go outside the play it's Marvel characters.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm Mitchell, you can't be you were
Speaker 3: Mitchell yesterday. It doesn't matter. I'm better at me. That's
Speaker 3: what we were doing. Wow, we're fighting to be Mitchell Jones.
Speaker 4: Man, I just want to say I appreciate all the
Speaker 4: love that you've showing us over the last few years, man,
Speaker 4: and all the people that came on and you know
Speaker 4: and said some of about Commission. Is just good to
Speaker 4: know that Commission Music is still blessing people. Man, and
Speaker 4: you know, these gifts that God has given us. You know,
Speaker 4: all we did was yielded back to God. Because it's
Speaker 4: one thing to use your gift for God, use your
Speaker 4: gift for them. See you get performance, but when you
Speaker 4: yielded to him, you get presents. And we just thank
Speaker 4: God for how we just yielded to Him. And we
Speaker 4: just want to love people with our gifts. That's all
Speaker 4: we did.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: We love people with our gifts, and that's that's what
Speaker 4: it's all about, man, still sharing the love of God.
Speaker 4: We were commissioned to do this, you know, we were
Speaker 4: sent by God, and we just thank God. I want
Speaker 4: to thank God for you guys again, and for all
Speaker 4: the guys in Commission that answered the call, because if
Speaker 4: they didn't answer the call, it wouldn't be no commission.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be here, you know, So I thank God
Speaker 4: for Fred Michael Brooks, Keith Staates, Uh, Carl Reed, Jones,
Speaker 4: Park Stuart, Yeah, phenomenal songwriter singer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and uh who else we got here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you forgot Michael.
Speaker 4: Williams, Michael Williams, all those guys as the call man,
Speaker 4: and I just thank God for that.
Speaker 3: Like I said, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't
Speaker 3: for those guys.
Speaker 4: Man, Just thank God for like I said, all the
Speaker 4: people that showed love to us, man, you, Jamie and
Speaker 4: all the other people that came on.
Speaker 3: And it's been a blessing to know. Man.
Speaker 4: Like I said again that our music is still blessing people,
Speaker 4: still still blessing.
Speaker 3: Still.
Speaker 1: I still play it. I thank you in my car. Period.
Speaker 5: It was my introduction to church music, to the gospel. Really, yeah,
Speaker 5: I never I didn't grow up on it, obviously, I'm
Speaker 5: sure you guys the podcast. But the first gospel artist
Speaker 5: I had ever heard was commissioned ever like before, I mean,
Speaker 5: like you know, i'd heard names, but to actually listen
Speaker 5: to it, and I think I might have been like
Speaker 5: maybe fourteen or fifteen, and it just and my whole life.
Speaker 5: Actually I grew up on as I would call it,
Speaker 5: not even just r and B music. I grew up
Speaker 5: on Cadillac music, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was just pimps playing music they listened to. So
Speaker 1: that's what I grew up on.
Speaker 5: And for me, the first time hearing Commission, it wasn't
Speaker 5: a shock because I felt like it was R and B.
Speaker 1: Saying to God for me personally.
Speaker 5: You know, it was love songs to God more so
Speaker 5: than it was I guess worship. It was more like
Speaker 5: if you close your eyes. In my opinion, they felt
Speaker 5: like R and B records to God.
Speaker 1: For me, just me personally.
Speaker 5: So I think it was an easy It was an
Speaker 5: easy transition for me to just go from you know,
Speaker 5: the R and B music that I was listening to,
Speaker 5: to listening to Commission as well, especially with the harmonies right.
Speaker 5: And by this point Jodysy was already going, so I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is where it comes from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't grow up in the gospel per se.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: My father he introduced me to Niking Cole and through
Speaker 4: the early the late sixties, there was a contest who
Speaker 4: can sound like Niking Cole and they paid five hundred
Speaker 4: dollars and my father won that. He introduced me to
Speaker 4: Na King Cole and night. King Cole was the kind
Speaker 4: of guy that very technical, smooth, you know, you learn
Speaker 4: how to when to use vibrada, when not to use vibrada,
Speaker 4: Very melodic you know what I'm saying. Just phenomenal singer.
Speaker 4: So that's where it started for me. Then my brother
Speaker 4: who used to sing with dramatics, he introduced me to
Speaker 4: Stevie Wonder, Donnie Hathaway, Michael Jackson and see, doub you
Speaker 4: don't see that, I don't know see that.
Speaker 3: No, come on, man, you know see that man, Charlie
Speaker 3: Wilson that I had to do that you're doing to
Speaker 3: see out there like you know, this is really you
Speaker 3: did that like he did.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's that's that's the guy. I
Speaker 1: just did a show with Charlie. So yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: called me into the office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we say we got on the stage together
Speaker 3: and and and and thank.
Speaker 1: God together with with the crowd crowds going crazy, really dope.
Speaker 3: I think there was such a like as he spoke
Speaker 3: on and I know, normally we like to go all
Speaker 3: the way back to the beginning, like origin, and then
Speaker 3: you went there, you started going in that King Cole
Speaker 3: and all of that, and then you got the smooth
Speaker 3: criminal sitting next to you, who just this is a
Speaker 3: smooth criminal, silky school, silky and smooth, don't miss, just
Speaker 3: right in there. And it was such an amazing balance
Speaker 3: because everything was placement, like you guys were in you
Speaker 3: guys were in the right places, doing the right things
Speaker 3: on every song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's hard.
Speaker 2: We tried. We all of the musical backgrounds from all
Speaker 2: the guys, Fred Michael Books, Mitchell, myself, Keith singing in choirs,
Speaker 2: singing in carls and gospel choirs in high school. A
Speaker 2: month for high school. We all went there and we
Speaker 2: had some amazing teachers and our background in Detroit. I
Speaker 2: mean I lived like maybe seven blocks away from Stevie
Speaker 2: Wondon in Detroit, and that was one of my first concerts.
Speaker 2: He came to Badley like in sixty nine. It's like,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be Stevie Wonder. I said, man, oh crazy,
Speaker 2: Stevie Wonder ain't gonna come to know Bagley Elementary. And
Speaker 2: the curtain opened and he's sitting there with the world
Speaker 2: is too and he's singing.
Speaker 3: You're like, it is, Stevie, that's your elementary school.
Speaker 2: At elementary school, that's correct.
Speaker 1: And how old is he at this point?
Speaker 2: Though, man, Stevie probably was around twenty twenty two somewhere
Speaker 2: right in there. I'm like, Stevie came to school, Well
Speaker 2: he was right up the street on Rose Line, so
Speaker 2: because it was from saconof but he came to school,
Speaker 2: and You're like, everything went through your mind about singing.
Speaker 2: That was perfect because it was Stevie And then.
Speaker 3: Who was it?
Speaker 2: And Motown? And you know Motown is in the same
Speaker 2: time we went, so we just you know, grew up
Speaker 2: listening to all the Motown sound, I mean listening to
Speaker 2: all of the gospel sounds. You know. We had a
Speaker 2: radio station called wor gpr DFQ that played a collose
Speaker 2: of music that was from soft rock to hard to
Speaker 2: regular gospel to whatever it was. And we learned and
Speaker 2: gleaned from people, because everybody learns from everybody. Nobody just
Speaker 2: shows up and said this is who I am. It
Speaker 2: doesn't happen that way. You listening to somebody. And I
Speaker 2: think we have a collection of stuff. Fred's background, Mitchell's
Speaker 2: hearing and learning and listening and being in groups. And
Speaker 2: I started singing when I was in elementary school, you know,
Speaker 2: Hollywood's Singers was one of my first tunes. And they
Speaker 2: wasn't singing it right, and I got a masked sayd man,
Speaker 2: y'all ain't singing this. I got to get this right.
Speaker 2: And so from that point to middle school, joining the
Speaker 2: glee club, and then only is the high school, and
Speaker 2: then singing in the choir, doing solos and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: playing drums and you just the music stuff started coming
Speaker 2: out of you, man. So I think our experience brought
Speaker 2: us to where we are now. And then all that
Speaker 2: stuff we learned. Because when you hear stuff, it's inside you.
Speaker 2: It's getting in there, and you take it and you
Speaker 2: use yourself to interpret what you're hearing. It helps mold
Speaker 2: you in shape you. So that's when we came. That's
Speaker 2: why we came to what we were doing.
Speaker 3: So how does it get from you know, the beginnings
Speaker 3: of you know, Nat King Cole and and Hollywood Hollywood
Speaker 3: Swingers and all of this to commission?
Speaker 1: How does that even business? In high school?
Speaker 2: School together? We went in high school.
Speaker 4: You tell me, tell what my little part, you can
Speaker 4: tell you you got the biggest part. Fred and I
Speaker 4: was in high school together. So I remember meeting him.
Speaker 4: He came to my church one day and he was
Speaker 4: playing the bass, and uh, I didn't know. I didn't
Speaker 4: talk to him at that time, but I saw him
Speaker 4: in school again. I said, man, you played the bass
Speaker 4: with grace. He said yeah.
Speaker 3: So you know, he said you you go to that church?
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, I go to I started the Church
Speaker 4: of God in Christ And so one day a friend
Speaker 4: of a friend of mine named Tony Clarkston said, have you.
Speaker 3: Heard Fred sing? He said, come here, Fred, come here.
Speaker 3: So when Fred sang, I said, wow, Man, you played
Speaker 3: the bass and you sing, I said, man, you should
Speaker 3: be singing. Man.
Speaker 4: He said, Fred don't sing much, but he's because he
Speaker 4: was playing the bass. A lot said you should be singing,
Speaker 4: and so Fred and he told Freddy, say Fred, you
Speaker 4: need to listen to Mitchell.
Speaker 3: So I sang something.
Speaker 4: He sang, I think one of the Donnie song and
Speaker 4: I sang on the Dney song and I said wow.
Speaker 5: I said, man, we need to do we need to
Speaker 5: do something. So we singing in talent show and it
Speaker 5: went pretty good. Did you sing a gospel record in
Speaker 5: town show? Everything was changed okay and it went well.
Speaker 5: So we said, man, we gotta do something. So from
Speaker 5: that point, I knew Fred and I was going to
Speaker 5: be together, you know, no matter what. And I just
Speaker 5: feel like at that time we were probably answering the
Speaker 5: call but didn't know it yet, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And so later on we had another group called Apostles,
Speaker 5: me Tony Harn, Tony Claxton and Fred, and we didn't
Speaker 5: sing much around the city, but we sing in church
Speaker 5: in our church. Then we started singing a group called Saved,
Speaker 5: and that we did our first forty five and that
Speaker 5: was a phenomenal experience to hear yourself, you know, when
Speaker 5: you sing and you get a chance to see what
Speaker 5: see what it sounds like on table, and that was
Speaker 5: a phenomenal experience.
Speaker 4: And we was excited about that forty five we did.
Speaker 4: But then that group broke up. So Fred started playing
Speaker 4: with the Winings.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, he started playing bass with the one and
Speaker 4: he was singing with him a little bit too right,
Speaker 4: and so he said, hey, man, listen, just hold up, man.
Speaker 4: You know we're gonna do We know we're gonna do something.
Speaker 4: So Keith and Carr was singing in the group and
Speaker 4: they did something in high school as well. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: let him tell that. But I started singing with them, okay,
Speaker 4: And I said, when I started singing with them, guys,
Speaker 4: I was like, we started singing around the city.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh man, they're gonna be like the
Speaker 3: New Winings, or they're gonna be like the Winings. I said, man,
Speaker 3: I can't wake to Fred. I can't wait to Fred
Speaker 3: get in this. Yeah, And they was like, who is Fred?
Speaker 3: I said, you know Fred, you know she's singing with
Speaker 3: me and safe, he said, And I knew it. I
Speaker 3: didn't even ask him could he be in it? Because
Speaker 3: I knew you know what I'm saying. Because because I
Speaker 3: knew and Fred was gonna be together, we got God
Speaker 3: was gonna be together.
Speaker 4: So when I said, you know, man, I can't wait
Speaker 4: till Fred getting this, they said, oh yeah. So when
Speaker 4: Creid came and he heard the band, the band wasn't
Speaker 4: real good.
Speaker 3: It was okay.
Speaker 4: But Fred had a group called the Unit Michael Brooks,
Speaker 4: Michael Williams, Wow, Mike Right, and Fred and they used
Speaker 4: to play.
Speaker 3: Around the city, you know, weddings and things like that.
Speaker 3: So Fred kind of connected the band together. And I
Speaker 3: remember the first time we sang Michael Brooks came and
Speaker 3: played the song called the City, and we learned it. Man,
Speaker 3: when we sang it's a city in the distance, we
Speaker 3: couldn't even finish. Man, we ran out of there, like
Speaker 3: right in the world, right in the world. So we
Speaker 3: knew it was something that God put together. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. We all That's why I say at
Speaker 3: the beginning, I'm glad everybody answered the call, because if
Speaker 3: everybody didn't answer the call wouldn't be no commission.
Speaker 4: So even in the word commission. I remember when Fred
Speaker 4: we was talking one day and he said, Man, we
Speaker 4: got to think of a name. I said, He said, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, we commission office. You cause we went to
Speaker 4: the service together. He said, you like commission offices. I said, hmm,
Speaker 4: that sounded like a good name right there. And then
Speaker 4: the name it says right there. God chosen us and
Speaker 4: he sent us. He's the one put it together.
Speaker 3: And man, we from then on, Man, we just went
Speaker 3: around the city, went around the world, and just began
Speaker 3: to share the love of God. Man, it was been
Speaker 3: a blessing ever since. I'm let Carl finish that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what else. No, my experience was
Speaker 2: the same church, singing to church. Keith and I went
Speaker 2: to the same church. I mean we were friends as
Speaker 2: as almost like toddlers of Bethlehem Temple. And so when
Speaker 2: his dad started the church, my family means to help
Speaker 2: start the church with him. But uh, in high school,
Speaker 2: you know, I was in the glee club, singing and stuff,
Speaker 2: and then we were singing church. So one day after service,
Speaker 2: we stood around the piano and started singing, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: kid man, we should start a crew. You know, let's
Speaker 2: do that. Cause my cousin played like classic piano, so
Speaker 2: he was playing and so we started singing songs. So
Speaker 2: we would sing Andrew Kraut songs, stuff like that. And
Speaker 2: the next thing, you know, we started the group Sounds
Speaker 2: of Joy, and we were trying to get his brother joined,
Speaker 2: but his brother wanted to do preaching, so he didn't.
Speaker 2: You know, preaches either got to sing or they got
Speaker 2: to preach, and so he preached, Oh, you can't do both.
Speaker 2: You can do both, but it's not gonna work for you.
Speaker 2: You gotta go a whole hog one way or another.
Speaker 1: And so he went preaching.
Speaker 2: So Keith was auditioning for a group called Blessed and
Speaker 2: Mitchell went to the rehearsal, and when he went to
Speaker 2: the rehearsal, he was hearing Keith singing. He's like like, man,
Speaker 2: you can really sing. And he's like, man, we got
Speaker 2: a group called Sounds. Joey should come check us out.
Speaker 2: And so Mitchell came over. Now, mind you, I knew
Speaker 2: Mitchell from high school and seeing him at church. So
Speaker 2: it was high school and church for us. Fred, Michael Williams,
Speaker 2: all those guys, and so he invited him to warn
Speaker 2: our rehearsals. So Mitchell came in, he listened to us
Speaker 2: and then everybody's noble. Mitchell plays and writes songs, so
Speaker 2: he sat on the panther to sing this. So he
Speaker 2: started playing and me and Keith started singing. The party
Speaker 2: gave us and we was like, oh my god, Mitchell,
Speaker 2: do you want to be with us? And he's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, playing And they said, man, I can't wait
Speaker 2: to Fred get in here. We're like, Fred, yeah, that'd
Speaker 2: be the fourth got cool. Cool. So from that point
Speaker 2: Mitchell was a liaison to get us connected with Fred.
Speaker 2: Fred hooks us up with the unit, and that's what
Speaker 2: what commission was. Those seven guys started the group Commission
Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty two, eighty two. Now, I know
Speaker 2: some of y'all probably wasn't born in but that's how
Speaker 2: long it was we saw doing what were doing. I
Speaker 2: was I was six, but that's how long ago it was.
Speaker 2: And so we started pursuing to get a manager right,
Speaker 2: and we had some crazy experiences getting the managers and
Speaker 2: working doing gigs, putting money together and get in the
Speaker 2: studio because that was the goal. We got to get
Speaker 2: in the studio and do a record. We got to
Speaker 2: get a manager.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: Fred knew the Winings manager, Derrick Dirkson, and so he
Speaker 2: went to say, man, would you like the manager? He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm managing the winers, Why would I manage y'all? So
Speaker 2: he said, he gave him a note, but we kept going.
Speaker 2: We met some other managers. Didn't turn out to be that.
Speaker 2: It was probably maybe two months later he was dismissed
Speaker 2: from the Winings and he put that phone call in said, hey,
Speaker 2: listen you guys, STI elevate on. He's like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: guarantee you. I'll get you a record deal, just give
Speaker 2: me two weeks. Sure enough, two weeks later he had
Speaker 2: a record deal with Light Records, went through Larry Strauss,
Speaker 2: and they gave us a lease agreement, right, which ain't
Speaker 2: a record deal. It's just if this one works, y'all
Speaker 2: get some more on. So we put that one out.
Speaker 2: I'm Going On came out July thirteenth, nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: hit on the radio like were on the radio, were
Speaker 2: on the radio. Plan I'm going on next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: But that's three years. That's three years. It took us
Speaker 2: three years to get from meeting, rehearsing together, getting to
Speaker 2: know everybody, meeting the manager, and getting a record deal.
Speaker 2: That was three years July thirteenth, you know, you don't
Speaker 2: forget those dates, and then we the rest is history,
Speaker 2: man song after song. So they came back maybe six
Speaker 2: months later and said, listen, we want to sign y'all
Speaker 2: to a real contract. Can we get four more options?
Speaker 3: And we was like four more?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So we signed for four more with that
Speaker 2: Light Records. So we did actually just six with the
Speaker 2: Light Records.
Speaker 1: They put they gave six options, they gave us.
Speaker 2: We did the one and it gave us five more. Yeah.
Speaker 5: In the in the gospel world, yes, the business side
Speaker 5: of it, How different is it from the R and
Speaker 5: B side? I mean, I mean, obviously you guys have
Speaker 5: always done gospel. But I'm saying as far as just
Speaker 5: the points structure, the money structure is.
Speaker 3: Like, is it.
Speaker 1: Better? Is it worse? Is it like? Did y'all make
Speaker 1: some real money off of you know, these first deals
Speaker 1: or how does that go?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? No?
Speaker 1: Right, okay, okay, so doing it for the Lord, doing
Speaker 1: it for the Lord.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: It's a world of difference in the gospel than it is.
Speaker 2: The budgets are a lot bigger, even how they do radio.
Speaker 2: Everything is different in gospel than when they do it
Speaker 2: in the secular radio.
Speaker 1: As far as so it's bigger in gospel, you said
Speaker 1: it's bigger in R and B always way bigger than RB.
Speaker 2: You know everybody's once we got going, we really want, man,
Speaker 2: we really want to get a secular deal because they
Speaker 2: got the budgets, they got the marketing. Oh that's a
Speaker 2: different world.
Speaker 1: So if you remember, do you remember what y'all signed for?
Speaker 2: What we signed for. Yeah, we didn't get nothing. We
Speaker 2: just signed huh, we got nothing. We just signed for
Speaker 2: the more options period. I think our first but not
Speaker 2: more money, No, I think I think probably our first
Speaker 2: budget may have been like twenty five thousand, maybe.
Speaker 1: To make the record to finish y'all to eat for everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because in gospel you only make your money
Speaker 2: if you travel Rodney road money. You know, the budgets
Speaker 2: for marketing and all that stuff for radio and everything.
Speaker 2: It's nowhere near secular, right, So we just had to
Speaker 2: go with the flow. And you know, to answer your question,
Speaker 2: my friend, absolutely not. You had to keep your day
Speaker 2: job to sing.
Speaker 1: And that's the part. So it's like the old NBA
Speaker 1: days and I didn't score forty, you still have to
Speaker 1: go be a fireman.
Speaker 3: That's that's the part that bothered me, you know so
Speaker 3: much when I was in gospel about the industry is
Speaker 3: because you know I was, I was kind of dabbling
Speaker 3: in the R and B as a writer and a producer.
Speaker 1: But you know, we had our group called Psalms.
Speaker 3: Yeah everything y'all been saying, it's all things I've seen
Speaker 3: the Bible, bless say Psalms. It's all in some way,
Speaker 3: it's got some fire with related to the church offer.
Speaker 3: So rout one, I just I went into this space
Speaker 3: where like and I told this story before, where I
Speaker 3: went and saw I went and saw immature perform when
Speaker 3: I was writing and producing for this girls group and
Speaker 3: and at that time we had the hottest group in
Speaker 3: the city with DC Maryland Virginia.
Speaker 2: Like we were.
Speaker 1: We were the guys, right, and.
Speaker 3: You know, I thought we were doing something as we would,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of set up our mics and sing
Speaker 3: our songs and have our band playing. I thought we
Speaker 3: were We're doing something, I thought. I thought we weren't.
Speaker 3: And I watched immature, three little kids put on a
Speaker 3: show in an arena. I watched them go crazy. I'm
Speaker 3: watching the musicians. I'm like, those are church guys. I'm
Speaker 3: listening to the tracks play, I'm hearing the effects the back.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what is that he's playing? The MP secret you.
Speaker 1: You guys are the first guys I saw do that though,
Speaker 1: But I'm watching.
Speaker 3: I'm like, and I thought to myself, I was like,
Speaker 3: with with with this, with this amazing message that we have,
Speaker 3: right and and we're such a great singers, we wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to follow these three little kids because we're
Speaker 3: missing something. Why can't we be as Why can't we
Speaker 3: have as much show for God as they have for
Speaker 3: whoever they have it for?
Speaker 1: Why can't we? And I was on a mission.
Speaker 3: I had dancers, I had lights, I had the tracks,
Speaker 3: I had everything, and the church couldn't handle the power
Speaker 3: and the power went out.
Speaker 1: It was like we was coming out and everybody was
Speaker 1: like everybody couldn't believe what was happening? Is alot?
Speaker 3: Like you smelled something bad. It was bad, and so
Speaker 3: we you know, we gotta I gotta get on the piano.
Speaker 3: We gotta just finish it out and just you know.
Speaker 3: And in my mind, I'm like, okay, okay, that just
Speaker 3: means we have work to do. But in everybody else's
Speaker 3: mind it was, no, that's not of God. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: how does something being difficult become not of God? Like
Speaker 3: how does that work? Like this is our first time
Speaker 3: doing this, and this is you know, all that dancing
Speaker 3: and all that outfitting and showbolding. I said, it's not
Speaker 3: show bolding. These are the gifts he gave us, gave us.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to use my gifts to the acts for him.
Speaker 3: What is wrong with that? And and I got kicked
Speaker 3: out of that group, not kick, maybe they left me
Speaker 3: in the group. And I was in the group by
Speaker 3: myself at that, you know, because I really had but
Speaker 3: I had a desire to do something big for God,
Speaker 3: and everywhere I went, nobody wanted to do that. So
Speaker 3: I started dabbling R and B where I knew they
Speaker 3: wanted to do big things and outcomes. Kirk Franklin would
Speaker 3: stomp and I'm pissed. I'm up at arms. I told you,
Speaker 3: I told you.
Speaker 1: That we can celebrate God as big as we want.
Speaker 1: That's right, but it comes down to the money.
Speaker 3: But what I'm saying is that, what I'm saying is
Speaker 3: that and it all comes down to consumer right, consumption right,
Speaker 3: and how many people who's consuming the product and how
Speaker 3: many people are consuming and that kind of dictates the
Speaker 3: market right. But I just felt like, I'm just giving
Speaker 3: you my my path. I just felt like with such
Speaker 3: a powerful message, they they should. There should be millions
Speaker 3: for marketing, there should be hundreds of thousands for budget.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. It's just my thinking because
Speaker 3: of what we're representing, and it just wasn't the case
Speaker 3: even now now that they've seen we're breakout artists like
Speaker 3: a Mary Mary, you know what I mean, tight tript
Speaker 3: all these breakout moments.
Speaker 1: You see that it's possible, you see it. They're doing
Speaker 1: arenas they're doing. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I get, I get, I get passionate, Yeah, because I
Speaker 3: just you know, I don't know, but those budgets are
Speaker 3: so different, and I just don't.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think. I don't think that it's fair. No,
Speaker 3: I don't think you should give up though. You know,
Speaker 3: for people that's coming up in the music, when they
Speaker 3: have a dream, you know, a vision and what they
Speaker 3: feel God when I'm do, don't stop.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Just because you had you've
Speaker 4: been discouraged, you might be discouraged by the people that
Speaker 4: don't accept it.
Speaker 3: You got to keep on pushing it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: That's why Kirk Franklyn come out. I'm pretty sure he
Speaker 4: got rid cue for some things he did commission. When
Speaker 4: we first started and they were talking about, man, that
Speaker 4: ain't gonna work, but we kept going. We didn't stop.
Speaker 4: And I think for anybody's coming into the gospel, don't stop,
Speaker 4: you know, keep going and find some support, find somebody
Speaker 4: to misupport you.
Speaker 3: I think that's more of a testament of you guys
Speaker 3: being able to break through without having the same resources
Speaker 3: needed to do such a thing. Like y'all were really
Speaker 3: y'all were really in the streets with this music, like
Speaker 3: church to church, door to door. Like I saw you
Speaker 3: guys at evangel Church, Central Avenue, okay, kid, and I'm
Speaker 3: just like, I'm trying to worship God and not worship
Speaker 3: you guys. But I'm like they look like.
Speaker 1: This is like for Jesus, Jesus.
Speaker 3: But see.
Speaker 2: But see, what what you probably recognized was is that
Speaker 2: you were the person that we were doing that for.
Speaker 2: Because we didn't get to support like the quartet or
Speaker 2: the choir the stuff like that. We had a purpose
Speaker 2: in our hearts that we were gonna do it. Because
Speaker 2: we didn't have to just do quartet. We could give
Speaker 2: music to where if a person just came out of
Speaker 2: the street and wanted to come to church, they could
Speaker 2: hear our music and Saya waite that gospel that relates
Speaker 2: to me, you know, feel that that relates to me.
Speaker 2: And so what we did was if they were playing
Speaker 2: the profit on stage, we wanted the profit on stage.
Speaker 2: If they had the DX seven, we want DX seven
Speaker 2: back in the day. If they had lights, we got lights.
Speaker 2: If they had smoke, we're gonna do smoke. And we
Speaker 2: did our first concert and we had smoke, lights, glitter,
Speaker 2: you name it. We had because we felt like we.
Speaker 5: Had to be excellent for God the power and go
Speaker 5: out on y'all. Though the power didn't go out because
Speaker 5: we were an older church. This is why they're commissioning.
Speaker 5: Why are you doing R and B now, Well.
Speaker 2: We didn't do that at church. And see what we did.
Speaker 2: We had we had to go to the venues and
Speaker 2: had the power for us and you sell tickets and
Speaker 2: sometimes we did venues and they were selling alcohol in
Speaker 2: the in the Vestibu or whatever like Fox Theater, places
Speaker 2: like that State Theater. We wanted to be there because
Speaker 2: we thought that gospel people deserve to have the best.
Speaker 1: And so we yeah, I took it outside of the church.
Speaker 2: We took it outside the church. Wherever they have in concerts,
Speaker 2: that's where we want to have a concerts.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, and so it.
Speaker 2: You know, it took a while for the catch on, right.
Speaker 2: You know, when you a trailblazer, and I think we
Speaker 2: trail blazers and somedays first people that went out west
Speaker 2: and get to live and all the good stuff, they
Speaker 2: had to trail blaze a lot of stuff that they're
Speaker 2: doing now riding on tour buses fly in places. Man,
Speaker 2: we were on vans with smoke coming through the bottom
Speaker 2: going to do gigs because we knew we had a purpose.
Speaker 2: We're gonna break this ceiling. We're gonna we're gonna take
Speaker 2: this professional stuff to where it needs to go and
Speaker 2: raise raise the awareness of the people. Y'all. We deserve
Speaker 2: more than just have a church. It's an organ, the
Speaker 2: keyboard won't play, the lights go out. We felt like, man,
Speaker 2: we want to show how much them, like, how much
Speaker 2: to do does it cost to bring the trust in
Speaker 2: for lights? Oh, that's coming to be, bring it in,
Speaker 2: give them two more thousand and bringing in. And that's
Speaker 2: what we aspired to. It took us a while to
Speaker 2: get it going, but after a while it started catching on,
Speaker 2: not just for us, but it started catching on for
Speaker 2: other people and they started wanting the same thing because
Speaker 2: they saw us do it. We probably didn't get paid
Speaker 2: that night, right, but they saw a show, so they
Speaker 2: went home and said, man, I'm going to the next one.
Speaker 2: So we were building something, and it takes a while
Speaker 2: to build something, and that's what we did. We took up.
Speaker 2: We took our time building something, and it's where if
Speaker 2: you see people doing stuff now. They were the first
Speaker 2: ons did that back in the eighties and maybe not
Speaker 2: sorry if that we had to suffer, but somebody got
Speaker 2: to somebody else, somebody got in R and bright way,
Speaker 2: somebody had to suffer. We don't get there.
Speaker 3: We know, we know it. You answered my next question
Speaker 3: because it was I was getting ready to go to
Speaker 3: the place where what was behind the design of orchestrating
Speaker 3: the music in such a way, because like for me,
Speaker 3: it was the first time I had heard a first
Speaker 3: person point of view, like you were singing from God's
Speaker 3: point of view, like I am here, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, or you know, in the reverse hold me
Speaker 3: like like you're like you're singing to God. But it's
Speaker 3: like I definitely thought I'm here was an R and
Speaker 3: B jam. Yeah, it's like it's like these are songs.
Speaker 3: These are like let's say you're in a marriage or something,
Speaker 3: you sing these to your wife like or you know,
Speaker 3: like what what made you do that?
Speaker 2: Well? Mitchell is the secular really.
Speaker 4: My partner, uh, part partner of my writer writing partner,
Speaker 4: Park Stewart. Such a phenomenal to me. He's one of
Speaker 4: my top ten writers. Yeah, phenomenal lyricists. I mean number one,
Speaker 4: number one, my number one guy, you know, so yeah,
Speaker 4: not one guy, oh yeah, oh yeah. Phenomenal lyricists man
Speaker 4: and singer too, you know, very melodic.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Sam Cook was this guy, you know, phenomenal, and uh,
Speaker 3: we got together.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: I remember somebody somebody was telling, man, you gotta meet Parks.
Speaker 4: You gotta meet Parks man, y'all so much alike.
Speaker 3: And somebody was telling him, you gotta make Mitch. You
Speaker 3: gotta make meet Mitch. So we met, and man, we met.
Speaker 3: We hit it off so well.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: I found out that he hoped and I hooped. So
Speaker 3: we did a lot of a lot of things we go.
Speaker 1: Now we got the gospel.
Speaker 6: You know, John used to who things have a hoop
Speaker 6: after the concert and everybody everybody say, who listen, we
Speaker 6: all get you know, a couple of John I'm sure
Speaker 6: you know that's Isaac Isaac to save his life, I
Speaker 6: want to ask him, and that's take six, okay.
Speaker 3: And Brian mcni oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he runned it off. What he's saying, ask about me? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And so you know, we hit it off, man, and
Speaker 4: a lot we a lot of things we are in common,
Speaker 4: and so Parks brought I am here to me and uh,
Speaker 4: you know it comes out of our experience with God.
Speaker 4: You know, our relationship with God, and it was more
Speaker 4: than relationship with fellowship. You think about relationship a marriage
Speaker 4: without love, It's no, it's no marriage. You know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So you got to have this relationship is
Speaker 4: a love and loverlylationship with God. And God wants to
Speaker 4: share his love with us. He wants us to know
Speaker 4: that he loves us, and he want to love us
Speaker 4: on a personal level. So when we see that kind
Speaker 4: of love coming to us, we say, man, God want
Speaker 4: to share.
Speaker 2: This love with everybody.
Speaker 3: What kind of love is? It's a perfect God love
Speaker 3: and imperfect people perfectly. And that's what commission is all about.
Speaker 3: We want to let everybody know we all, none of
Speaker 3: us are perfect, but this perfect God loves these imperfect
Speaker 3: people perfectly. We want to share that same love. And
Speaker 3: God has uh, he is love. So therefore he's expressing
Speaker 3: himself through us. When we give ourselves to him fully,
Speaker 3: then he has full possession of us. He can have
Speaker 3: full expression through us. God want to tell you how
Speaker 3: much he loves you, So he want to tell us
Speaker 3: all he want to show us all. So we got
Speaker 3: together and wrote them songs man like I am here,
Speaker 3: hold me, you know crying, Let's.
Speaker 1: Let's die, Let's let's starve too fast? I am here.
Speaker 1: Let's start there. We'll start dissecting some things. Did you
Speaker 1: you did this? I was loved that song?
Speaker 3: What was going into the melody? Right? Was it just
Speaker 3: because of the dynamics in your voice that those things
Speaker 3: came out?
Speaker 1: Or was that the melody? That was the melody?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: That that them in there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the melody.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: What's important is as interpretation. Of course, we have to
Speaker 4: write songs where the melody matches the lyrics. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. If we have dark chords, then we
Speaker 4: might want to talk about, you know, situation trouble, different
Speaker 4: situations like that. If it's right, we want to talk
Speaker 4: about joyful situations. So interpretation everything. I give you an example,
Speaker 4: and I don't want to swell nobody, but it's a
Speaker 4: it's a song called uh. I don't want to say that.
Speaker 4: If I'm if I'm.
Speaker 3: Saying I want to fly away, why would I sing
Speaker 3: a melody like I don't want to fly away? No,
Speaker 3: I would say I want to fly away. You see
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, because I'm taking off. So interpretation is everything.
Speaker 3: So when we writing a song, we want to make
Speaker 3: sure not that you hear will hear me, but that
Speaker 3: you hear what I'm saying, because the message is more
Speaker 3: important than me. Of course, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Sometimes we as sing as we get in the way
Speaker 3: we do too many things. We get distracted by trying
Speaker 3: to get me over rather than the message over me,
Speaker 3: and so parks and now that's that's the way we
Speaker 3: do it. When we're writing, we're trying to find the
Speaker 3: right melody to go with this song. We're trying to
Speaker 3: make sure that the melody is matching the words right.
Speaker 1: And I feel you. But there was subtle difficulties within
Speaker 1: those melodies.
Speaker 3: When you say difficulties, what you mean just just little
Speaker 3: little cliques right, just that fast that were just like
Speaker 3: those tastes, those tasty little more souls. Well, my brother,
Speaker 3: my brother told me, he said, when he introduced me
Speaker 3: to Stevie, Donnie, Michael Jackson and Charlie, he said, listen,
Speaker 3: what you want to do is you want to imitate them.
Speaker 3: First thing is imitate the second thing is assimilate. The
Speaker 3: third thing is master.
Speaker 4: The fourth thing, I'm sorry, the third thing is what
Speaker 4: I say, imitation, simulation, master, and innovation innovator. So when
Speaker 4: you talk about it, well, when you learn those you
Speaker 4: first get it and you try to you know, you're imitating,
Speaker 4: you're taking it in those Michael Jackson, Stevie wanted Donny Hathaway.
Speaker 4: Learning those little things, then you assimilated, you kind of
Speaker 4: perfected a little bit. Then you make it your own.
Speaker 4: You master it, then you become an innovator. Not everybody
Speaker 4: becomes an innovator.
Speaker 1: They don't.
Speaker 4: Some people imitating, They may imitate the next person, the
Speaker 4: next person next, and they never find their style.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's break it down.
Speaker 3: The crack here. This guy that's Michael is the crack Michael. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: Stevie do the crack too, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Riding on the rocket.
Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, Stevie there too.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I don't like your attitude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's okay, absolutely, And then I know that I
Speaker 3: know the fast switches in the middle are are Stevie
Speaker 3: and Charlie and Donnie and Donnie too. But the but
Speaker 3: but the vibrado is like a mix of Donnie, I
Speaker 3: think in Charlie, Okay, that's what I think.
Speaker 2: Don't leave that King co out of that.
Speaker 1: Now that that is not.
Speaker 3: What that teaches you is the importance of melody and
Speaker 3: tone and articulation. He had phenomenal tone and melody, and
Speaker 3: he would interpret the song right. He wouldn't get in
Speaker 3: the way so that the message. When the message get over,
Speaker 3: we all get over. But when I get over, the
Speaker 3: message get lost. Yeah, so important thing is, and musicians
Speaker 3: do the same thing. They might overplay and play before
Speaker 3: you know it, it's crowded keyboards. Gonna have a spot,
Speaker 3: the base, gonna have a spot, a good time, gonna
Speaker 3: have a spot. But when they all just doing stuff,
Speaker 3: it's all in the way. The message is no longer clear.
Speaker 3: The message gott to be clear and understood. Melody is
Speaker 3: so important. We never lost the message. And even through
Speaker 3: what I would dare to say, the innovative melodic choices
Speaker 3: that you guys made, we never lost them and made
Speaker 3: the message that not much more powerful because it was
Speaker 3: like we were receiving the message in a way we
Speaker 3: hadn't heard it before, which just blew our minds completely.
Speaker 1: And an end from a perspective, we hadn't heard it
Speaker 1: from before. Did you guys have to fight for that?
Speaker 5: As far as creative from a creative standpoint, either with
Speaker 5: the label or even just within the church.
Speaker 2: Almos so much about the label didn't really fight us
Speaker 2: unless they didn't like, you know, you had the session
Speaker 2: sit down, know this song that we're pitching songs. If
Speaker 2: they didn't like a song, it wasn't that they didn't
Speaker 2: don't do it. Don't do the song and maybe go
Speaker 2: back to the table and do something else. And so
Speaker 2: they left the creative stuff to the producers and they
Speaker 2: left the interpretation up to the singers or what we did,
Speaker 2: because it kind of like look, we kind of like
Speaker 2: looked like we know what was doing and we did
Speaker 2: what we did because when we brought something to you
Speaker 2: it was that, but we just sent stayed there. We
Speaker 2: evolved to more and more stuff, you know. So but
Speaker 2: it was like I said, it's a collage of all
Speaker 2: the stuff we heard and then making sure you stick stuff. See,
Speaker 2: discipline singing is hard to do if you don't have
Speaker 2: nobody around you that makes you be disciplined. Mitchell Jones
Speaker 2: is like, do this, non do that, do this, Fred,
Speaker 2: don't do this. Do it, And so you have to
Speaker 2: have a little bit of a challenge because if you
Speaker 2: hang around with mediocre people, you're gonna be some mediocre.
Speaker 2: So you got to have somebody that's gonna challenge and
Speaker 2: pick stuff out. Like I didn't really sing false when
Speaker 2: I was in the first group. I didn't start singing
Speaker 2: false until we started a commission. Now that's all I
Speaker 2: do is sing false. I know I'm singing false. What's
Speaker 2: the thing is? Okay, okay, I'm doing false cruising. So
Speaker 2: it's people have the ability. Talented people have the ability
Speaker 2: to pull stuff out to you. A great producer mintioned,
Speaker 2: a great producer pull stuff out of you you didn't
Speaker 2: think you had, right, So a producer makes a real
Speaker 2: big difference where you're going, how you sound, how you
Speaker 2: evolve into a singer. Yeah, so you got to surround
Speaker 2: yourself with people that challenge you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: One of the things we Parks and Now would do
Speaker 4: would be like if we sing a verse here, we
Speaker 4: make sure that the next the next line would compliment
Speaker 4: the last line, you know what I'm saying, and then
Speaker 4: the next line will set up the next line so
Speaker 4: that it's going somewhere.
Speaker 1: It's making you great stories feel it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, So it's important that each line compliments the
Speaker 4: next line. Just don't sing anything, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: but make sure the melody is right, make sure the
Speaker 4: message is clear.
Speaker 3: We listen back and say is that is that clear enough?
Speaker 3: Is it a better melody? Because when you play a chord,
Speaker 3: there's certain notes in that chord that I can sing.
Speaker 3: It's one melody in there that'll make the chord sent out, Yeah,
Speaker 3: of course, and there's some notes I can sing that
Speaker 3: don't make that because we want to make sure that
Speaker 3: the course, the melody, all that fits so that the
Speaker 3: message become more clear. It kind of like invites you
Speaker 3: more into it. And I think there's a thing that
Speaker 3: that you know you said earlier about presence any vocal,
Speaker 3: they're not having to do a lot if you truly
Speaker 3: have presence, Yeah, within your vocal. Let's get to you,
Speaker 3: carl uh. Secret place? Is that what we're doing? Can
Speaker 3: we go there?
Speaker 1: Can can we talk about that?
Speaker 2: Let's talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 3: We can get ready for just a little bit of
Speaker 3: secret place. Yeah. Yeah, please.
Speaker 2: From the pen of some very good writers. I grew
Speaker 2: up listening to some a lot of different people on
Speaker 2: the favorite singers was Bibby cole Well got got rested,
Speaker 2: so he just passed away. Great singer interpretating and the
Speaker 2: songs and stuff. And uh, I used to all we
Speaker 2: did a lot of Van Riot and stuff. Everybody brought
Speaker 2: their own music. I brought my music. I brought Chicago,
Speaker 2: I brought Bibby coy Well. Sometimes you reach back and
Speaker 2: get a little Toto, you know. I used to list
Speaker 2: like Phil Barry, I like gods. They didn't do a
Speaker 2: whole they didn't do a whole bunch of running, but
Speaker 2: they you felt, you felt as you you felt them
Speaker 2: when they did it, and they interpreted the song. So
Speaker 2: you know, I tried to pride myself on singing, you know,
Speaker 2: songs like that. My brothers used to was in a
Speaker 2: rock band, if you can believe it, and uh doing rock.
Speaker 2: I know y'all probably never heard of Acre Winning, Johnny Winning,
Speaker 2: old rock and rollers, and uh, you know you hear them.
Speaker 2: You you you downstairs listening to under the Door. They
Speaker 2: listening to that music because you too little, You aren't
Speaker 2: supposed to be down in no way, but you're hearing
Speaker 2: those things. So what you're hearing will have an influence
Speaker 2: on help you develop your style and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So I listened to all that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 2: so Secret Place was birthed out of us listening to
Speaker 2: some styles. And when they heard that, they wrote that
Speaker 2: song Secret Place kind of sounds like a heart of mine.
Speaker 2: The style was more of an adult contemporary you're saying it,
Speaker 2: And so that's why I was the adult contemporary guy.
Speaker 2: Fred wrote songs like that. Mitchell will put me on.
Speaker 2: I think Mitchell man because he let me sing some
Speaker 2: of those R and B songs like I Am here.
Speaker 2: He let me sing a verse on that. I appreciate
Speaker 2: him put me in the R and B vein so.
Speaker 1: Clean.
Speaker 2: But you take somebody to pull us up out of
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying the coach and so Secret
Speaker 2: Place is one of the signature songs that we did.
Speaker 2: And but it was the thing about that one is melodic.
Speaker 1: You were floating it's and.
Speaker 2: You gotta float with its floating on place. You know, Man,
Speaker 2: I ain't never heard no heavy false like yours. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm just singing man, we're talking about oh yeah, Because
Speaker 2: you know, when you're singing false, it's always a break
Speaker 2: line between natural and Uh, so a lot of time.
Speaker 2: I had to sing it hard to do false. Menchell Man,
Speaker 2: he got that head false. He can sing in his
Speaker 2: head that false and make them notes. But it was interpretation,
Speaker 2: interpretation song for me doing the secret place.
Speaker 1: So we're the false guys.
Speaker 2: Things falter because when you get older, that's all you
Speaker 2: can do is yeah, my falsest is.
Speaker 3: The last man standing. Listen my chest voice to give
Speaker 3: me issues, right, but my false you don't want this
Speaker 3: work false nasty and.
Speaker 2: And the people feel it. The people can really feel
Speaker 2: the false. When you do the false, you do it
Speaker 2: because it fools on a certain heart stream that it's
Speaker 2: almost like crying almost when you do the false. That's
Speaker 2: what commission being in the commission pulled out those talents
Speaker 2: and pulled out those gifts that you didn't know you had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: And I was singing false the whole time in my group,
Speaker 3: and a guy in my group could actually sing first
Speaker 3: apron and it's natural. Wow. And I looked at him
Speaker 3: like and we didn't know for years or even know,
Speaker 3: we didn't even know it. One day we just testing
Speaker 3: range and he starts doing them. Look at him like this,
Speaker 3: I'm not going there.
Speaker 1: So you got me getting light headed all concerts and
Speaker 1: you do this in your chest right right.
Speaker 2: So we brought up we had a lot to contind with,
Speaker 2: but we knew we were supposed to be here, yeah,
Speaker 2: and do what we did. We did it for God
Speaker 2: wanted us to do it, and we knew we would hope,
Speaker 2: hopefully would influence people to do what they were supposed
Speaker 2: to do, to be called to do. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: think we inspired a few people.
Speaker 1: Boys to me Joosy Jagged Edge Tank.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 5: You can just go down the list of everything that
Speaker 5: came after y'all in R and B music was attached
Speaker 5: some way, some way, wow, some way melodically one way
Speaker 5: or another, a couple of artists that probably stole some
Speaker 5: melodies and lyrics.
Speaker 2: Still you know, still that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm shook. She got over there.
Speaker 3: Of y'all listen to R and B music sometimes, as
Speaker 3: you allude to some of your influences from back in
Speaker 3: the day, Oh yeah, we would like to.
Speaker 1: No yor.
Speaker 3: Top fun, your top five, top f.
Speaker 1: The top five by sings.
Speaker 3: We want to know it already be so.
Speaker 1: We are to know it's not just church. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: the bomb and we want to know.
Speaker 7: Yes, raw, yeah, no time be crazy man funnic.
Speaker 1: You singing the wild notes in front of Commissioner.
Speaker 3: Hit every nast note, you hit it right. Let's start
Speaker 3: with you, Mitchell Jones, your top five R and B
Speaker 3: singers down here haway mm hm, Stevie Wonder yeah see
Speaker 3: do see do not gonna get that off again. I
Speaker 3: know who that is.
Speaker 5: Charlie Wilson. If y'all started late, is Charlie Wilson Aretha
Speaker 5: mm hmmm, Michael, yeah, Michaelchael.
Speaker 3: Jackson, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael had grown men trying to
Speaker 3: sing like him at nine.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's different. You want you want some of this car?
Speaker 8: I want to take some of it. Mine might be
Speaker 8: I won't have to take Mitchell's too a little bit.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna have to say.
Speaker 2: Stevie because he's the first secular artist I ever seen
Speaker 2: saw sing live when I was about eleven, and he
Speaker 2: from your neighborhood, and he from the hood, from the hood.
Speaker 2: I'm despired going to catch you off by surprise people, Bryson.
Speaker 3: What do you mean people's people?
Speaker 1: People?
Speaker 2: I was studying and short listening. I'm like people got
Speaker 2: a twin because he doubled in his vocal.
Speaker 1: People sold that, any of them people.
Speaker 2: Bryson love that, I gotta say, Charlie Wilson, man, I
Speaker 2: loved Whitney Houston.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: The voice Whitney Houston was like it was amazing. I
Speaker 2: loved her. And if I have to say old school,
Speaker 2: I really did like Marvin Gaye.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he was.
Speaker 2: A crooner, soulful crooner. He was very passionate when you
Speaker 2: hear him singing. And he lived in the hood, same
Speaker 2: neighborhood he lived on out of Drive. He was actually
Speaker 2: recorded Let's Make Up Tonight in his living room on
Speaker 2: out of Drive. Marvin gay He's right in the hood.
Speaker 2: So those are my top five that right there, and
Speaker 2: uh got to get it up. Keep on. Backyard party.
Speaker 2: Wasn't supposed to be there because I'm a church boy,
Speaker 2: but I was. I'll go over there, I'll go over there.
Speaker 1: What do.
Speaker 3: You see the Lord? You tell him I'm not here,
Speaker 3: Tell him I'm not here, alright. Top five R and
Speaker 3: B songs.
Speaker 4: Mister Jones, Ribbon in the Sky, m hm speak wonder
Speaker 4: m h Donnie has the Way a song for you,
Speaker 4: Charlie Wilson, keep running m hmm.
Speaker 1: Luther Houses not on mm hm do do do do do? Okay, okay, And.
Speaker 3: So I know I know that earthwork the Fire is
Speaker 3: not a solo.
Speaker 2: But let's go.
Speaker 1: Hm hm.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's my fire. That's musicianship at its finest.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, earth wind and fire. Mm hmmm, it's finest.
Speaker 3: You Carl, what you can, what you want? Do?
Speaker 2: Do for love?
Speaker 1: Bill some thought of a bridle right there, and he's doing.
Speaker 2: I like Stevie.
Speaker 3: I liked Peter so Terra have the sing song.
Speaker 1: The song is huh Stevie's song? What song is Stevie?
Speaker 3: There?
Speaker 1: She said?
Speaker 9: Song songs over joy? Oh my goodness, come on, man,
Speaker 9: Stevie anything he did? I mean, I just called to
Speaker 9: say I love you.
Speaker 2: I sing it to a girl one time.
Speaker 1: That could have been a commissioned song. Starting to come out,
Speaker 1: starting to come out. He said, No, that wasn't a
Speaker 1: Pennies now come to find out.
Speaker 3: Uh, and I.
Speaker 2: We always love you. That's like one of the all times,
Speaker 2: because you kid, I got one more. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: love this song as a little boy.
Speaker 9: I'm going to knock on your doing your window pain
Speaker 9: Usa mm hm oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't go wrong.
Speaker 3: At all. Y'all are naming all historical at a high level.
Speaker 3: Let's do the Let's let's do a voltron. Let's put
Speaker 3: together your ultimate R and B artists. We're gonna mix
Speaker 3: it between the both of y'all. Okay, So what we're
Speaker 3: gonna do is you're gonna build your arm b artists.
Speaker 3: Who you're gonna get the vocal for the artists, the
Speaker 3: performance style for the artists, the styling of the artists,
Speaker 3: the passion of the artists. And you know, since we
Speaker 3: have so much creative excellence in the building, who's gonna
Speaker 3: write and produce for that artist? So we'll start with you, Mitch,
Speaker 3: who's gonna get the vocal from for that artist? Donny
Speaker 3: mm hmm, donnay real fast with that Carl who you
Speaker 3: don't get the performance style from.
Speaker 2: Man showmanship, It's got to be Michael mm hm Yes, sir, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and singing like what he's come on?
Speaker 3: Yes, passion.
Speaker 1: Who are you gonna get the styling from? Yes? Since
Speaker 1: you started, since you started the gumby, Yeah, you got
Speaker 1: the gumby.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, y'all brought the street culture
Speaker 3: to the church, and you know them threads and the
Speaker 3: party shirts, guess jeans, pencil pocket. Marvin had the style.
Speaker 2: To this day.
Speaker 1: He still got today. This is Marvel, the passion of
Speaker 1: the artists, the heart of the artists. Mm hmmm, who
Speaker 1: mean it?
Speaker 2: They really mean it? Oh man, Mitchell took the last one, Marvin.
Speaker 2: I thought Marvin minute when he's saying.
Speaker 1: You can you can double up.
Speaker 2: You can double up on Marvin, who you said you
Speaker 2: can't lose, can't lose?
Speaker 1: Okay, the first course collaboration, that's what we see all.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go to reatha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that's that's that's pretty fire. That's pretty fire.
Speaker 1: Who's writing for this artist?
Speaker 3: I got two people?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm looking. I'm looking at you. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna see what you say, Peter.
Speaker 2: You want David Foster.
Speaker 3: David Foster.
Speaker 6: Mm hmmm, David Foster phenomena, phenomenal, phenomenal Yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you argue David do a really
Speaker 1: big name out.
Speaker 3: He's right, I mean, he's a phenomenal, right of man,
Speaker 3: phenomenon right love Parks. But I mean you can.
Speaker 1: Have no qualm with you saying David Foster, I have
Speaker 1: no qualm you definitely should have real what you got
Speaker 1: laying in the stands and I can tear it into
Speaker 1: Oh no, he gots up.
Speaker 3: You know he got gospel gospel only parts and I
Speaker 3: could turn off some worldly pass r V.
Speaker 1: Oh yes he's doing who's producing?
Speaker 2: Where's my term? No?
Speaker 3: No, get the producer? Did know you did the writer?
Speaker 3: You said, I can do both, but you can separate them.
Speaker 3: I'm not get in the middle of that.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, well.
Speaker 3: You can.
Speaker 2: You gonna tell me what I'm gonna tell him. I
Speaker 2: have to go with Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've heard nothing bad they put out
Speaker 2: only Yeah, I mean they did everything. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying saying you get them into that doc with
Speaker 2: the hats on too while they producing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, they were maniacs. Yes, yes, the many.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely phenomena. Like it's still not to this day.
Speaker 3: Nothing close yep, yeah, no not then nothing close. You
Speaker 3: go see Janeting concert. Oh yeah, you're like, oh, got it,
Speaker 3: got it producing, got it, got it?
Speaker 2: Man, we were we we came up listening to Time
Speaker 2: and uh, you know Prince and that era. That's when
Speaker 2: stuff was really changing. I think for everybody stripting come
Speaker 2: from from disco that era. Man, it's jamm and Lewis
Speaker 2: Lewis Monsters the time. And oh, I gotta say, it
Speaker 2: was hard for me to stay in church because a
Speaker 2: song came out called Flashlight. We're all right George Clinton
Speaker 2: Last Light.
Speaker 1: Last Light almostran about the church.
Speaker 3: How are you gonna go to?
Speaker 2: How they gonna play that? And then you gotta go singing, uh,
Speaker 2: come down Jesus on the main, like wouldn't you.
Speaker 1: All last like to be? Like I figured it out.
Speaker 1: I was that guy. I played everything in church I
Speaker 1: was supposed to play.
Speaker 2: I was that guy you pushed it, you pushed push,
Speaker 2: did the pastor that would stop you and say he.
Speaker 3: Was with all of the Shenanigans. He wanted all this,
Speaker 3: But do you passed a REFERENTI room Petty saved my life.
Speaker 3: I was going a whole nother.
Speaker 2: Direction, save your life life. But he was.
Speaker 3: He met me where I was. He is the street
Speaker 3: guy too from d C. So he understood me. And
Speaker 3: you know my connection to all of it, which is
Speaker 3: how I got connected to y'all. Like it just all
Speaker 3: made sense at the at the right time. You.
Speaker 2: You're saying exactly the reason why I believe Commission what
Speaker 2: they did. We were able to reach people that other
Speaker 2: people weren't reaching, like the Quartet a Quiet people for
Speaker 2: that purpose. We were able to reach people because we
Speaker 2: were trying to do Time and Prince. You know, we
Speaker 2: were trying to we were trying to get to those
Speaker 2: people that we just got saved that an feel like
Speaker 2: they had an outlet because they didn't want to sing
Speaker 2: the old heymns. We're trying to give them something they
Speaker 2: can sing. And that's what we did. A lot of
Speaker 2: old hymns we took and turned into commissions on right,
Speaker 2: so they'd be like, oh man, that's old hinder. But
Speaker 2: the testimonies that we had for us about people in college,
Speaker 2: struggling in college, in your dorm room, don't know where
Speaker 2: the next meal coming from, trying to take your life. Ye,
Speaker 2: the testimonies My roommate left your album and I never
Speaker 2: listened to gospel, and I.
Speaker 3: Put it Onst Atheists and I listened to it after God.
Speaker 2: And that changed my life. I started running. So when
Speaker 2: people tell us stories like that, that's the reason why
Speaker 2: we did this, to get that because we saved some
Speaker 2: people turn their life around, didn't kill themselves testimony like that. Man,
Speaker 2: Come on, man, what's better than that billion dollars being streams?
Speaker 2: What's better than that? Yeah, nothing saved somebody's life. We
Speaker 2: we we live for those moments, man's and so we
Speaker 2: know that we're leaving that mark, not just the music mark,
Speaker 2: because we know that's gonna be there, but the mark
Speaker 2: of people looking back and saying, Wow, we looked back
Speaker 2: and said, man, we did this, and God was able
Speaker 2: to get glory out of this, and people's lives were
Speaker 2: spared and saved. That right there when we can just
Speaker 2: about finish it up right there with that save lives
Speaker 2: people now who are doctors performing surgeries in their careers.
Speaker 2: And if it hadn't been for y'all, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: made it. So those type of testimonies, Man, listen, how
Speaker 2: much of cars we pay for ourselves and go to
Speaker 2: get that testimony to save somebody and get their life together, man,
Speaker 2: because that's what it's about for.
Speaker 3: Us, you know, getting the ministry to the places where
Speaker 3: they need it. That's right, That's what I've always been
Speaker 3: an advocate for. Streets needed, and that's why you was
Speaker 3: pushing you want the lights and the lights went out.
Speaker 2: That's why you did that.
Speaker 1: He came back you.
Speaker 2: Excellent.
Speaker 3: We got one more segment for you, gentlemen. We're gonna
Speaker 3: hold you long man, but you know and all of
Speaker 3: your and all of your travels, we have one more segment.
Speaker 1: Gonna bless our soul.
Speaker 10: I ain't saying no nicks. Yeah, I ain't saying no names.
Speaker 10: I ain't saying no names. Ain't saying no niggas. Where
Speaker 10: you was, what you did, don't say, don't say, I
Speaker 10: ain't saying no.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've watched you'll segments on that one, and I'm trying
Speaker 2: to figure out. We've been racking our brain on that.
Speaker 2: You're trying to figure out what we could tell.
Speaker 3: That funny.
Speaker 1: That's what's crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah for us, for y'all will be a funny or foolish,
Speaker 5: a rightish.
Speaker 1: We're changing words.
Speaker 3: Make it through this.
Speaker 1: I said a bad way, you did say a word one,
Speaker 1: but God knows my heart. An atmosphere here, love it,
Speaker 1: love it, no condemnation, no.
Speaker 2: No judging, judge, none of that.
Speaker 5: So this segment, y'all watched the show called I Ain't
Speaker 5: saying no names. Tell us a story funny or foolish.
Speaker 5: A funny and foolish.
Speaker 1: The only rules of the game. You just can't say
Speaker 1: no names.
Speaker 5: We know it's some funny and foolish things going on
Speaker 5: in the gospel world too. Yeah, y'all can tell us
Speaker 5: some stories. Listen if you want to tell us the
Speaker 5: stump down Detroit stories, y'all can tell.
Speaker 3: Us we went all of it.
Speaker 2: Uh, Parks, don't look at me like that. Okay, you
Speaker 2: want me do it, we do it. This is nice, Okay.
Speaker 2: So one of our first flights, we were flying out,
Speaker 2: Uh commission, We're going somewhere on the airplane and uh,
Speaker 2: you're not probably get set up. The light goes on, Dean,
Speaker 2: you mean I'll move out to the camping blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, go to the bathroom. So I ain't saying
Speaker 2: no names. When somebody went to the bathroom in the group,
Speaker 2: and when they came out, they had a long string
Speaker 2: of tallert people out the back.
Speaker 3: Of the.
Speaker 1: Not on the foot, but at the back of the pass.
Speaker 2: No, I thought it was the foot, It was pants.
Speaker 2: Oh No, I ain't saying no names.
Speaker 3: Who.
Speaker 2: But he didn't know until he got back to the
Speaker 2: seat that he had that home and it was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god.
Speaker 3: To that. You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't blow up the airplane.
Speaker 3: Bad man. Listen, I can't, I can't, I can't. You
Speaker 3: got I'm gonna go wherever I go. No, I'm many
Speaker 3: airplanes and whooped them. And it's scary too because like
Speaker 3: some of those airplanes got the it's got the suction.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You gotta hold yourself. What happens that my little lady
Speaker 3: is waiting show. You don't want to go in because
Speaker 3: I'm in here. I'm in here because you know I'm
Speaker 3: in there. I'm settled in. You wasn't with commission at
Speaker 3: that time. In the last row. I had to get
Speaker 3: that all of me.
Speaker 2: But that's one of the things we entertained ourselves with.
Speaker 2: Crazy stuff.
Speaker 3: You mention I won't go to for two you just
Speaker 3: come on.
Speaker 1: I agree with that.
Speaker 3: The toilet paper, yeah, I whoop any bathroom. I don't care,
Speaker 3: white house plane, I don't care. My stomach is not
Speaker 3: gonna be eroding.
Speaker 2: So you believe it's more room out than.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, like this is natural, This flows naturally. Wait
Speaker 1: until you get off the plane. Man, No bathroom have
Speaker 1: you seen the bathrooms and the new Delta airplanes they're
Speaker 1: really nice. Fire they're not that nice.
Speaker 3: They got enough room. No they don't, Yes they do.
Speaker 3: So you did it in the old one though, too.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I didn't like.
Speaker 1: He did.
Speaker 3: You wipe your head, you know, and I keep my
Speaker 3: wife's only just in case anybody's still dry wiping in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: You are out of control now that I agree with.
Speaker 3: You are out of.
Speaker 1: Bounds, and you probably stink.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't let me bring mine to security WI. Yeah. No,
Speaker 2: when when I was going through they put through my base. Oh,
Speaker 2: we gotta gona they're gonna take over the plane with
Speaker 2: some wet worms. They would not let this plane. I said,
Speaker 2: what do you think you got? I got some cocaine
Speaker 2: in there, soaked in or something.
Speaker 3: It's just wipes.
Speaker 1: Okay, you just gave him the whole suggestion right there.
Speaker 1: It can happen.
Speaker 2: It can Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Knew he's gonna get some Detroit playing.
Speaker 3: You know. It was this one time they put you know, oh, brothers, listen, man.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how much we appreciate you, man,
Speaker 3: and thank you for making the trip, you know, thank
Speaker 3: you for thank you for the information. Thank you for
Speaker 3: the music you've made. Thank you for the lives you've
Speaker 3: lived and continue to live. Thank you personally for me
Speaker 3: for changing my life, for blessing me in more ways
Speaker 3: than you could ever imagine, you could ever imagine. And
Speaker 3: still to this day, I still play them songs and
Speaker 3: play them albums to this day, and it still makes
Speaker 3: me feel the same way, the same way. I'm still
Speaker 3: that kid in ninth grade, like, Wow, listen to this.
Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough. We can't thank you enough, man,
Speaker 3: guys for helping us. Man, we really appreciate it. Love
Speaker 3: you guys to showing us. Man, we really appreciate it. Man.
Speaker 1: That's really do.
Speaker 2: As opening the doors Dot and allow us to sit
Speaker 2: here and tell some stories.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: And you know it encourages us to hear stories from
Speaker 2: people like like yourself, artists doing your own thing out there. Man,
Speaker 2: it's encouraging. So we appreciate you. Really do appreciate you, guys, man.
Speaker 2: And uh, We're gonna continue to watch segments and everything
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I get something good out of every time I look
Speaker 2: at the shows. Man, it's y'all doing your thing.
Speaker 1: Man, words I control sometimes.
Speaker 2: Don't say you can't cuss. It says you can't curse.
Speaker 2: The big difference.
Speaker 3: There's a difference. Come on, we're getting technical now, spoken
Speaker 3: from the man himself. More comments.
Speaker 1: Enough cos I like it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Please to your money. And this is the R
Speaker 3: and B Money Podcast, the authority on all things R
Speaker 3: and B and this has been a life changing pod
Speaker 3: and one of the best days of my life. Y'all
Speaker 3: make some noise for Mitchell Jones, Callsey.
Speaker 1: Good to be here.
Speaker 3: R and B Money.
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