February 16, 2022 • 60 mins
Y'all ready for a Questlove Supreme first? We have yet to dive into the world of gospel, so you know if we gonna do it, it has to be done right! That's why the first gospel artist to sit with us is the great change-maker and supreme innovator, Fred Hammond! Yup, another legendary conversation, and 2-parter. Oh, and keep your ears open for a special guest cohost with his own gospel roots...This is Questlove Supreme with Fred Hammond part 1.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to our our our nominated,
our nub A CP nominated Team Supreme. Like, yeah, hello,
how about you.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I'm feeling good. Image Award nominated, Sir, I have made it.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes, that's fine, and uh Suca, Steve, how are you
this evening? I'm good. My image has been nominated as
well by the nub A CP. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling.
I'm feeling good. And uh, you know, the keeper of
Rocco and Elmo, how you doing? Un pay Bill. I
(00:46):
can't say that I ever thought in all the awards
that I'd ever been nominated for an n double ACP Award.
So feels good, which put it like that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
How's it going.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I'm good, brother, I'm good man, glad of you know
dominated and uh yeah, I never thought this would happen
this way over in for years right straight ship three,
It's okay, back here here, sir.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
He went to get cigarettes for a long time. Okay,
so I know for the longest, you know, I've been
talking to our listeners at q LS, especially in the
last year, about you know the direction of transformation in
my life is going, and how it's important to often
get out of your comfort zone, you know, stretching out
to different territories. So I will be the first to
(01:37):
be very transparent with our longtime listeners of q LS
that this episode should be notable for Unlike previous Quest
of Supreme episodes, this will probably the first time that
and it's not like I have a PhD in every
guest that ever comes on the show, but this will
(02:00):
probably mark the first time that I don't know the
entire canon, the history of a particular guest of the
show like the back of my hand. I'm not saying
that I'm not familiar with our guest today. So that said,
I would actually like to say and in jac that
we have two special guests today. So joining the Team
(02:21):
Supreme is uh my brother and soul or soul aquarian
James aloisious poiser, producer, songwriter, fellow Randy watsoner extraordinaire and
Gospel of ficionado.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
And me and world famous meme on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh yeah, James is definitely like a meme. I'm not
even a meme, Like that's a life.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Do means get nominated for NAACP Awards five years.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Grammy backup, sir, backup.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
You have Grammy and you know, but I'm certain that
the fame and the Meme Hall of Fame you will
make it. That said, I brought Brother James here to
help me pick up the pieces on things that I
otherwise wouldn't know, because for me, I don't want to
leave any stone unturned. Our guest today, I will say,
(03:16):
is one of the most legendary and influential musicians that
I know in Black music. That's not hyperbolic or anything.
I say this literally because I've not met a musician
post five that has not made our guests their north
(03:38):
star as far as their musicianship is concerned. We'll get
with that in the show today. But without further ado,
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Questlove supreme be legendary
brother Fred Hammond.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yes, appreciate it. Appreciate it, and congratulations everybody and your
nomination book.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know,
it's weird. I didn't even know that you were active
on social media and you had left a comment in
one of my things, and I was like, yo, Fred Hammond,
knows who I am, Like, I had zero clue that
you even knew that I was alive or anything. So
(04:26):
this conversation is long, long overdue because, as I said
at the top, back when I was really honing my
skills as a musician, there was like one of three
routes you can go. Now we all knows I chose
the hip hop route. Most musicians in eighty three, eighty four,
eighty five, they chose the purple route. And then there's
(04:48):
a sect of black musicianship in which you might have
a household that might not allow secular music in the household.
And that said, I will say that you were probably
their main choice. And when I say you, I'm talking
about you and your very influential group commissioned. So I
(05:10):
thank you. I've been dying to have this conversation with
you because I need the edumacation. So where are you
right now.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
As we speak. I'm at my studio here in Dallas.
I have a warehouse in the studio here that I
do everything out of me and my family, my brothers,
and I was actually just finishing up a vocal that
I'm working on for the New Addition tour, just to
kind of give them some stuff to go through, some transitions,
you know, give them some suggestions and stuff. So I
(05:39):
was just finishing up that, you know, and then we'll
send it out to them and say, you know, give
them some ideas of what can happen. My brother Ray
is the production manager for the tours. So when you
see BBD a new addition, he's front of the house
and the guy that runs the you know, gets everything
together production wise.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m
D or co MD of this reunions or that's.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
About it's just uh, right now, we're just seeing some stuff.
And I wanted to show them like a lot of
the transitions that they want to do from song to
song the song that they could do some vocal right here,
that's simple, that's what they do because it's not normal
for them to do that. And so I just went
in there and just did some old commission new edition
(06:27):
type stuff, simple just to get them to the next song,
you know, so to give them another just to give
my idea of what can happen. So you know, it's
up to them. You know that.
Speaker 7 (06:39):
Sounds like yeah, quasim okay, Well it's It's funny you
say that because I think maybe like a month ago,
I was listening to Heartbreak and I was just talking
to Jimmy jam about the intro song of that album,
which is called uh, That's the way We're Living, which,
(07:01):
as far as it's execution is concerned, I feel like
that definitely falls from the tree of what Commission was about.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
You know, when a lot of these cats that have
what we call gospel chops, they're basically saying that, you know,
they're sons of Commission. So always wanted to know how
you felt about your influence as far as the black
musicianship we have now with gospel chops. Like you know,
do you watch acts often in R and B say like, well,
(07:31):
that's our lick, and that's our lick, and that's our like.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Well, you know the thing about it is back then
a lot of people don't notice. But I was close
with a lot of those guys back then. You know.
You know, it was funny because you know, Davante, his
father is a pastor, and one day we did a
concert at their church and Davante said, yo, man, you
know he came up. I styled he was a young fella.
(07:55):
He said, hey, man, I just want to tell you
guys have been influenced to us. And I just got
signed to MCA eight and the name of my group
is called Jodasy. I say, really, he say, you know
k C. And I knew Little k C from Little Cedric.
I used to so Little Cedric and the Haley Singers.
We would do concerts together and pass on the road
and do interviews and whatnot. So I was I kept
(08:16):
up with all of those guys. And you know a
lot of the cats, Chucky Booker and Da and they
bring me backstage. They would bring me backstage and whether
they were doing the Budwives and Superfessor, and I'm a student.
You know a lot of people, you know a lot
of church people, they don't go places and learn because
they can't control themselves when they get inside or behind
(08:37):
the curtain, you know. But I would go, you know,
I would go to Al Hayman, Budwiser, Superfessor, and I
would meet the guys backstage and I would watch. I'd
be a student of production of how they were playing,
and I would take it back to Commission. You know.
Commission is a amalgam of the Clark Sistory number one,
(08:57):
the vocal of the Clark Sisters. Then the is the Time,
Earth Wind and Fire, Genesis, you know, Chicago, we did
just a different thing, and we noticed that a lot
of the guys that were coming around at that time
were coming up to us and they were starting to
get get put on like boys and men, and we
(09:19):
just kept in touch and we were just cool and friendly.
Uh Little Joe and uh Buddy from the Rude Boys
always doing something. We're always together at some point doing something,
letting them hear music. They're letting us hear ours and
hear theirs, and you know, so we we kept connected
with our R and B family.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You know, did he just say Genesis? Yes, But if
you if you really look at it, yo, I mean
there's really not that much difference between prog rock and dude.
(09:57):
We just saw it like we just literally I forget
the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think
you remember this. Do you remember when Who's Who's the
group that who more they were formerly known as at
the drive in and then when one of their members,
(10:19):
So do you remember when Mars Volta auditioned a drummer
at our studio like behind literally next to your studio.
He was a gospel chops drummer.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
Thomas Pridgin, I think, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And it was a it was a match made it.
At first, I was like, that's weird that they got
a gospel chop drumming to do it. But because of
the intricacies of what Mars Volta is, it was like
a marriage made in heaven. And that's when I realized
that gospel chops and prague rock are almost neck and
neck with each other. I mean, of course, gospel chop
(10:55):
has more soul.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
To it, but every pop group now has a gospel
drummer on a grande and all those guys.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
They all have.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
It's all like big fills from three to four and
one every every bar. Literally music, I think music like
everything's like at the end of the four of our phrases.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
What the notable thing about my entry in music is
that I'm the opposite of that, but literally, which is funny, well, yeah,
which I'm saying that Basically, I feel as though Commissioned
really is probably the most influential black group in at
(11:37):
least the last forty years of music, second to Prince,
you know, as far as the as far as the
ripple effect of Nah. Absolutely their contribution.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I mean, because you look at a song like I'm Learning,
I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all.
I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a
Jobasy album or you know what I'm saying. Like it
was the they always liked about y'all. Y'all stuff was
that it was I could tell when you say, you know,
you were a student and you would go and meet
the other groups and stuff. The songs always sounded current,
(12:10):
you know what I'm saying, a lot of times gospel
because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel
stuff would always be behind, like if it came out
in ninety two, it would sound like something from.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Like eighty eight eighty seven, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
But Commission Records, y'all was always like right on time
and it was never dated.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
I always appreciated that man, that right there was it
was just our DNA. It was like we listened to everybody.
I give you a story. One of the guys wrote
a song called It's so Good to Know the Savior,
and he was a tempo guy, so it was like
a church tempo. It's so good and let's say, and
(12:52):
the record company didn't pick it. It was it had
all of the fizzle and the buzzer and everything. And
the guy he came to me and said, hey, man, listen,
I think we need to change the drummer out, and
which is our drummer. I was like, no, man, it's
not that. I say, basically, it's man, it's kind of dated.
And I said, tomorrow, we just need to castle over
(13:12):
to that month. And they didn't know because they hadn't heard.
They hadn't heard LeVert. I was cool with Gerrell, and
so when Casanova came out, they hadn't heard it yet.
So I said, let's just get in the studio and
let me flip it a little bit. And I had
an ra drum machine and some stuff and I just
bo't boom boom boom boom cocka boom, and then it
(13:35):
changed into you can see a vamp into that and
then the song had life. Well that was because we
stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and
our counterparts. You know, we've paid attention to everybody from
the old school, whether it's Luther uh Al Green, you know,
earth Wind all the way up to the vert to
a babyface to the deal. You know, like we were
(13:59):
talking song we like Sweet November or do we like this?
Because our vocals were off of the whispers and the dramatics.
Those are our mail vote counterproces that we love do WoT.
So if you hear a lot of our harmonies we
sing like Ron Banks and Scottie and Walter, you will
hear a lot of that in But then we add
(14:19):
what we are. But it's because we paid attention to musicology.
We just paid attention to everything, you know. So it
was funny too. You said something about Jimmy. Jimmy Terry
is like my hero, Jimmy Terry, Teddy Tim babyface in La.
So one time we were going to do this thing
in Minnesota called uh It's a Methodist church and they
(14:43):
were Soul Liberation Outreach and they said where you want
to go to? My said, can we go see flight Time?
Because we were just you know, we didn't have no studios.
So I said, can we go see flight Time? We
want to see some black guys who were owning something.
And I walked into flight Time and I was just
blown away. And that's when I was just influenced heavily
(15:03):
by you know, these two guys, and they were just
finishing the controls starting on We about to start on
this new record called Rhythm Nation they're recording now, and
we just had those moments. Then they said, well where
you want to go next? Now we we church boys,
now remember this, this is this is what we church boys.
So we don't do clubs and stuff like that. So
(15:25):
somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio and
we was like, oh, I don't know. So I think
were like, I think something gonna jump on us. But
I said, yeah, man, I want to go. I want
to see it. So we went over there. Man, and
on the whole ride over there because at that point,
Prince wasn't in his last space. He was in that
that I want to I'm gonna really mess you up
(15:47):
with whatever I'm talking about. And we walked up to
the place and people was praying Jesus help us God.
You know, we're walking into the spot and we're thinking, man,
you better pray put some annoy all on you. When
when we walked in, it was business as usual. People
(16:08):
just walking around doing business. It wasn't nothing crazy. And
I said, man, this is whole thing is a persona.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I thought it was.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
And the rest of the guys, some of the guys said, man,
I'm just stay in there. I'm stay in the van.
I said, I'm going in. I want to see what's what?
I mean, how find you get this? How do you
get this close? And I see this guy had a complex.
I mean at that time, to think about Paisley, it
was it was it was like Cowboys Stadium at that time.
(16:43):
She said, I gotta go see it. But when I
walked through, they took us to his personal room and
they just my mind was blown because it was just business.
And at the end of the day, I said, man,
this is just a persona. And then I learned how
to be an owner. So now I mean I got
seventeen dous square feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry.
It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince, and Michael Powell who
(17:07):
lived in Detroit who baker that was my close friend.
So I had to learn, uh, and that's you know,
I looked at my big brothers to do that for me.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
You know, Okay, I want to start at the beginning
of your life. I'm assuming that you were born in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Was born in San Antonio.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Oh all right, See the one time I don't ask
the question, I get burnt. Sorry, Can you tell me
what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
My first musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know,
I say this because a lot of people have, uh,
these misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks
that they're perfect. I don't. I was. I was born different,
you know, I was. My mother and father were married
to other people, and he was a pastor and my
(18:08):
mother was a musician. And the church really dogged my
mom and protected him, and so they kind of put
her out. And so it was basically me and her.
And before I was born, you know, we went through
this whole thing about she was. She went and had
an abortion and it didn't work, you know. So it's
a lot of stuff that goes on with me being here.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
So yeah's a blessing.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah. And so she was my biggest musical influence. So
I followed her everywhere to because she taught choirs. She
was very amazing at teaching choirs and playing the piano
for churches. And I'll never forget I'll go back to.
She came home with this little forty five and I
had a cloth and play and she said, you know
(18:55):
I bought these boys, you know, And it was just
a picture of these five boys was Jackson's and she said,
you know, listen to this. I hadn't even heard him
on the radio. And I put it on my clothes
and play and I want you back came on, and
I just saw Michael as my age because they were
saying he was younger than they said he was my age.
I was probably five or six, and I was just
(19:17):
I was enamored with this group, and so I was singing.
And I found myself singing Jermaine's part at six seven
years old. And my mother said, you know, if you
open your mouth, you can sing better. You can sing
like that little boy right there. And I was very shy,
and I didn't want her to hear me because I
thought she would make me sing in front of people.
(19:38):
So I made sure she didn't ever hear me again.
So I took my clothes and play in the closet
because you ran her own batteries, and I sang in
the closet because I didn't want her to hear me sing.
I was afraid she was going to put me up
there in front of the church. And so that's my
earliest knowledge right there.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
So were you kind of born into skepticism of the church,
like since because of.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Your you know. The beautiful thing is God kept me
from that from the knowledge of people now thinking I
was worth it, you know, But when I look back
at it, a lot of people just thought I was
just worthless because you can't do nothing with God because
you're born out of web lite. Who are you? You know,
your mother, your mother's is an adult. So they just
(20:20):
kind of threw us away. But the reality is that's
why I'm probably effective today. Not because I sing good,
not because I play any instruments, or not because I
produce anything or sing on anybody's record. It's because I
understand what broken people go through. And so my whole
job is to tell people, hey, man, I've been broken,
(20:41):
I understand brokenness. You why don't you come with me?
I believe this and you know, so there's no errors, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Just it's a forgiveness element in there too, though, that
you got that, you.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Absolutely so when people like quest you said you understand
my pain when it comes to just you and your mom.
You understand that, you know, and maybe others do too.
But you know, my path, man, my path. It's just
it's been ordained to go through a rugged, rugged, feed
up path to get to this point to tell other people,
(21:15):
I understand where you are. I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I mean that's mine.
Wasn't as drastic as like being shunned or whatnot, but
definitely my parents were sort of in the same situation
where they were part of other unions, and you know,
that's kind of how you know, I came, I came
to the world. So for a lot of our listeners,
I don't know if they're fully aware, you know, I
(21:41):
would explain to people often that you know, we'll look
at somebody like, you know, Ray Charles now as a
national treasure. But you know, I would tell, like anybody
that I'm teaching about Ray Charles is the fact that
you know, Ray Charles was probably almost the NWA of
his day.
Speaker 8 (21:59):
Like, yeah, the idea sing gospel music with secular lyrics
was highly controversial with the Black church.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
And fast forwarding to where your entry into gospel music
is where you can put some funk inside it. Or
put some swing inside of your music and it really
not rub people the wrong way. Can you explain just
the what brought you to Detroit? How did you make
(22:31):
that transition from San Antonio to Detroit.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Well, due to the circumstances situation, they sent us up
to Detroit. We was sitting oh.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Exile to Detroit exile.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
We got a nice bus ticket up to a friendly
place called Detroit and a beautiful family called the Hope,
the Hoak's family. They took us in and they gave
us their attic and we became a part of their family.
While my mother went through her healing process, you know,
of which when she passes seventy four, she was still
(23:12):
trying to validate herself as you know, forgiven, you know,
and she was a she's a great praise warrior, great,
you know. She she made a lot of strides, but
it just she couldn't get over some things. And so
we ended up in Detroit, which was a blessing.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
How big is your family at this point as far
as your siblings, and.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
At that time it was me and my mom. At
this point it's me. I got two brothers, Ray and Dave,
and they have families. I have a family. I have
kids and whatnot. And I have two sisters that live
in Atlanta from my mother's other union, you know. And
(23:55):
then then I have a brother and four other sisters
the other unit. So I'm right there in the middle. Okay,
I'm the absolute when you count down, I'm the middle
child of all of that, you know. So that's we're
and now we're all kind of cluel together. My brother
from my father's side, he comes and he drives our
(24:16):
tour bus from time to time, and my sisters are
so we're all kind of together, and you know, that's
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So, Okay, I know you were born in nineteen sixty,
I believe. So can you describe to me what it
is to grow up in Detroit, Michigan in the early seventies.
I know about you know, I've heard people tell me
about growing up in Detroit in the early sixties. And
(24:45):
I know, of course people who grew up in Detroit
between like the mid eighties and the in the early nineties.
But I really don't know people that have had a
period in Detroit in the early seventies, like around that period,
like United Sounds there where you know, motowns leaving. Could
you just describe to me basically what your life was
(25:07):
as a teenager in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, it was really just about about school and
surviving in the hood, you know, just you know one
of my good friends in the seventies. Yeah, I went
to well, my mom moved to California to Inglewood when
I was in the fourth grade, the first part of
(25:31):
the fourth grade, and she didn't like it, and we
came back to Detroit around December. But I hadn't been
in school, so that whole fourth grade year I had
to try to catch up. So this is like the seventies,
you know, this is and whatnot. The next year I
had to go to a parochial school with a seventy
at Venice, where I was good friends. My best friend
was Greg Mathews, Judge Greg Mathews. So he and I
(25:53):
were in the Wow. Oh yeah, you and I were
in the fifth grade together and everything you ever hear
that he ever said one hundred Because I lived in
the hood and he lived in the projects. He lived
in the Herman Gardens, and he had a bunch of brothers.
But he was smart as a whip. In the fifth
(26:13):
grade and I was struggling, but he and I were
just really good friends. So growing up there, it was
just you know, the seventies are almost a blur because
I wasn't musical yet. I was thinking more sports and whatnot,
and I hadn't done any real music until I got
to about sixteen, about fifteen or sixteen years old, and
(26:37):
I transitioned from drums in my church to bass guitar.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Okay, wait a minute, you're trying to tell me that.
I'm thinking like you came out the wound playing bass,
but this didn't happen until you were a teenager.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, right around fourteen, thirteen years old, I start transitioned
because my mother. I went to a church called Greater
Grays Temple and the line play drums was around the
corner and the pastor's son he had a lot, Chuckie Ellis,
Charles Ellis. He's bitch of bellist now, but he was
an amazing drummer, and I had my sticks. I would
(27:13):
go every Sunday and I would try to play, and
you know, just never got a chance. So my mother said, hey,
you know, I don't like to see you, you know,
not getting a chance. Is there any other instrument. There
was a bass guitar laying over in the corner, and
nobody would come and play it because the guy was working.
And I said, well, I like to play bass, maybe
I could try that. And that's when I moved to
(27:34):
bass guitar and I never looked back.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
The reason why it's also important for me to know
about this specific period in the seventies is because I
know that once black families migrate to the Midwest, especially
in town you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois,
you know a lot of them are escaping the South,
the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South. They're
getting these factory jobs. These factory jobs are paying well,
(28:01):
and they're buying these houses, and the houses have garages
and of course instruments. You know, this is basically how
like the first wave of the funk generation starts. And
I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration seventy
seventy one seventy two, you know, budgets started to get cut,
(28:23):
music education started to wane and whatnot, and the idea
of the garage band, you know, kind of wilted out.
So I mean, by that time period, even though you
were late in developing your musicianship. Were there musicians around
like next door and all those things, or were factories
closing by then? And then like that dream just died.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, music was still big, even though a lot
of the porch bands and the garage bands from the
sixties weren't very popular. But music was still a thing,
you know. So I hooked up the guy at my
fifteen His name was Jeff Stanton, and he was like
my best friend. And this guy could play every instrument
(29:08):
at that point. He play bass, he could play guitar,
he could play drums, and he was fluent at it
at fifteen years old. So he would take every day
we would come home to his house after school or
in the summertime, and we would just shed and he
would start to show me people. He was the person
he said, Man, I got this record, you really need
to hear. Check it out. This dude right here plays
(29:29):
all the instruments. His name is Prince and it was
the four You album. And so we're listening in the
basement and he's like, man, listen to that. Listen to that.
You got to get on your theory, Fred. He's teaching
me theory. He's like up, what's that? And I'd have
to kind of come back and name it. And so
(29:50):
every day we would shed and we would go places
like the Detroit miss the Detroit Music Union, and bands
would play come in and audition, so it was still alive. Uh,
And then we would play in the garage. We played
Mister Magic for like four hours, you know, in the garage.
Then we graduated. Then we graduated to Herbie and you
(30:11):
know a Chameleon. I mean, you know, so once I
learned that them two songs and we have a little
crowd out there and we just play it, and then
there it was. I was so proud when I learned
the baseline too, that's the way of the world. And
I learned that that had doom doom, doom, doom doom.
When I learned that concept that that, man, it blew
(30:34):
me away. So we were still it was still a
powerful place to learn music. It hadn't died that whole seventies.
It hadn't died, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well living in Detroit was was any of the p
funk folklore, Like was that an influence on you at all?
Like seeing any of those guys around United Sounds or
any of those things or was that sort of like
after you know, they migrated and went to California, Like,
(31:05):
was any of that part of your DNA at all?
Speaker 3 (31:08):
You know? They had a on eight Mile There was
a club called Axles. Okay believe the Woods, Lamont Johnson.
They would all play there. Yeah, so they would all
play there. Amp Fiddler would show up and they say, yo, man,
ant Fidler from U. He played with George Clinton. Uh,
David Chong would I mean, and the only people And
(31:31):
we would try to go in there and sit in there,
sneaking because it was kind of under but we'd sneak
in and we'd listen to them and these cats. The
funk was heavy. It was still Brainstorm was just starting
to get started. Man, it was real, real strong. So
Amp Fidler, Uh, we never got a chance to see George,
but we played with a lot of the guys that
(31:53):
played on his record, like Butch Small I believe his
name is but Small. Yeah, he was big. He used
to run a studio called rm J, and so he
was the Lynn drum king. So he came and did
some lind drum on the first Commission record. You know,
but he was just somebody we looked up to, you know,
Warren Woods, the engineer, you know, man, it was just
(32:17):
it was still rich, Man, It hadn't died at all.
I mean, it was still really rich in the seventies,
especially going into the eighties.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
So as a musician, who would you say, is is
your north star? As far as like, that's the musician
I want to emulate, because it's weird to me. Like
most bass players I know, especially having lived in the seventies,
every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams, thank
(32:44):
you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark. So
the fact that you started in seventy eight with Prince
tells me that you're sort of a later generation. So who,
as far as like your setting and as far as
like who you wanted to emulate, who is the musician
that is your north star?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Well number one? Okay, Well let's break it up into
two bass players. Okay, not because my total north star
is Stevie period, hands down, right, but as far as
bass players are going. Okay, So my first bass player
influence and I didn't really know it, but I would
pick his sound out when I heard I want you back.
(33:26):
That's James Jamison, James Jamison, I would hear his bass
lines and I just always locked him. Now as a
bass player, I definitely was Stanley and Jacko, and then
it was Abe Laboreal. It was Alfonso Johnson who played
(33:47):
this friendless situation. I paid attention to Anthony Jackson, these
are my these are my go tos. And then of
course Marcus was younger, so he came on this seen
a little bit later. But those guys were my Jamison Clark,
Anthony Jackson, Jocko, Alfonso Johnson, Gino Vanelli's bass player. I
(34:11):
don't know who it was, but we would listen to him.
So anybody that was really killing back then, we would
grab their record their music and we would just I
would share to it. So those are my north stars
right there.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So were you more team uh thumb Plucking or were
you more team index middle Finger for baby, I was like.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I'm a pocket guy. I never had the all of these.
I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely
a thumper. I was definitely team thump.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I get it, okay, I love it. At what point
are you forming uh or at least bonding with Marcus
Montreal like the other members of Commission, like, how are
you guys, how do you guys meet? And is that
was that your first actual band or did you have
other bands before?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Well, Mitchell Jones and I we graduate. We went to
school together at Mumford Hide and we were together NonStop
all three years. So he and I started Commission. You know,
at the end of the day he and I started Commission,
I went off to play for The Winings. I was
the bass player for them from nineteen until I was
like twenty three years old, and that's when I started.
(35:24):
That's when I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell,
Keith Staton, Carl Reid, Michael Brooks, and Michael Williams the drummer,
and right around them, right.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Around are you talking live for studio?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Both with I'm sorry, oh, with the Winings, I was
just I was, man, they wouldn't even let me near
the studio. They wouldn't you could even you couldn't even
see nobody famous. Here's here's a joke. Andre Crouch came
to their house and Ronald told me, he said, man,
if you don't, if you be good, I'll let you
come over and see Andre. So we was like, oh, man,
(36:00):
the skin, and so they this is no joke. They
had us come over. He opened the door and we
had to look through the screen and I was sitting
in the chair over and said just look over there.
That's him right now. Wow. And we were like, wow,
that is him. Wow, this is We never asked can
we come in? And we never went in. They were
(36:25):
why go home?
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Nah, That's how they protected their relationships, like.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Go home no. No. So I've never got a chance
to play on any album you know, with them or anything.
We weren't you know, we weren't good enough, but we
were good enough to do the road. And you know what,
we wasn't offended. We really weren't offended. When we heard
their records. We knew it was something different between Abe Laboreal,
(36:51):
Bill Maxwell, Hadley Howkin Smith. You know, we knew it
was something different. So we weren't tripping, you know, we
just appreciated the opportunity to just be in the number.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Now, let me ask you this, were you around that
and I'm gonna nerd boy out on on the churches
while you're here? Were you back then on the church vibe?
Where where Thomas Woodfield and Rudolph Stance, Phil and all
them guys.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Whoa see that stuff. I wouldn't know to ask, like.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Thomas Woodfield gave me my first chance to play in
the studio and my base, my basse wasn't up to park,
it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was too young.
The first record was Vanessa Belle Armstrong Peace be Still
record Yes, and there's a song called I don't want
my living to be in vain and anyway you bless
(37:52):
me and playing those two Okay. My boy that honestly
he called in because my base didn't work was Leonard
Bradley Kurr. Okay, Kurr. Everybody knows that, Okay, So but
Kern was the king around there, and uh, he was
another guy that kind of schooled me. But that was
my first take on going in the studio. So then
(38:15):
when we did our demo as commission, we asked we
saved him some money, and we asked Thomas Whitfield, the producers. So, uh,
when you hear the bed track, when you hear the
rhythm track, like, if you listen to these four songs
given my problem to you, I can see Jesus if
you listen to Uh, if we ever needed the Lord
(38:37):
before those three songs. The rhythm track of that was
produced by Thomas Whitfield, WHOA. And I was amazed by Thomas,
because you know, Thomas had narcolepsy. So Thomas would be
where he would be straight up like this, get that
be flat out of there, and everybody stopped and somebody
(39:01):
played and they solo it, and sure enough, get that
player played the B flat that was kind of hidden
up under there. He said, I don't play that, No,
that's a scene, come on. And Thomas was my hero.
Thomas was really my hero. And I would sit in
(39:22):
the corner of RMJ studio and I went out. I
remember washing a garbage can out. It was like this
little gray high school bought garbage can we have in
high school. I went and washed it out. I turned
it upside down and stuck it between the tape machine,
MCI tape machine and an effects rack. And I sat
in this little cubby hole and I didn't ask say
(39:43):
a word. I said, don't let him kick me out.
Don't let him kick me out. And I honestly just
sat there and I listened and I prayed, and I said,
Lord show me how he thinks. And I probably was
eighteen years old at that time, I said, please show
me how he thinks, because he was a he was
a genius. When he sat down and played like he
sitt on the piano and played, man, it was it
(40:05):
was magical just the way he did it. And so
you know Thomas Woodfield, man, Rudolph Stanfield, oh man, Yes,
Rudolph was And I'm not sure if you remember this
guy because he was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J. Wright.
You know he was, he was, He was a genius.
So all these cats ran together and I just stood
in the background.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So, yeah, brother Hammond, you mentioned about you're not having
the right base. What one? What was your first base
you used? And what is your acts of what is
sort of your acts of your your your favorite seal?
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah yeah, okay, so true story. Uh my mother we
went to kmart and when we're talking about doing to
a base, we went to kmart and there was a
base on sale for thirty five dollars and the headstock
was cracked, literally cracked, and they said thirty five dollars
(41:03):
and the guy said, if you buy it now, I'll
give it to you for twenty five now. It couldn't
stay in tune. It was impossible because between the A
and the G, you know there was it was cracked right.
So I'm sitting there and I'm going, I think we
can fix this. So I think we can take this
the wood shop and put it on a vice and
(41:23):
put some blue there. And I'm trying to figure out
how to make this thing work. So we took it
up to Wonderland Music and said, you know, can y'all
fix this? And the guy said, now you can't fix that.
You need to take that back and buy this one.
We'll give it to you for the same price if
you come back and buy it. We took it back
to Kmart argued with him because it was no return,
but they gave us some money back. My mother took
the twenty five back to Wonderland and we bought this
(41:48):
Norma for that same amount, and so I never forget.
My mother said, if you if you put this under
your bed and you don't use it, I'm gonna sell it. Now.
You got to promised me. And so I promised her.
And I played, and I went to church and we
had a storefront church, and I played. I had a
little bitty amp and I played, and I would play
(42:10):
so high because you couldn't hear me. So I had
to play it like a lead because church be gone,
that's what to hear out, that little amp. And so
my mother got really I got discouraged, and I put
it up. So for four months my mother let us
sit up under the bed. And then one day she
(42:31):
was going, we were going to choir wrestle and she said,
I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you. You promised me I'm
gonna sell that. I'm gonna sell it. And she wasn't
even looking at me. She just drive me. She said,
I'm very disappointed. And my mother's relationship with you wasn't
no talking. It was just she talked and I just listened,
and I felt horrible. And she said, why did you
(42:55):
disappoint me like that? You told me you promised you
better keep your word as a man. Why did you
tell me that? And I said, they laugh at me, Mam,
She said, cool said everybody unskewer Eddie Charles. Everybody why,
they said, because it don't sound like a bass. And
(43:17):
she didn't say nothing else. That next Saturday, we ended
up going to Oakland Mall Grenelle's music and we were
in there and so she was playing the piano like
she was playing the piano, and she said, which one
of them bases is better? And I picked up this
unifox and I said, well this one is, man. It's
one hundred and eighty dollars. Because at that point you
(43:38):
could tell how much your base about how much it
costs one hundred eighty dollars from twenty five dollars is
a night you got a good base. I was sitting there, man,
and I was playing it. And then she said, okay,
wrap that up. I'm gonna take it for him. And
the salesman became the salesman. He said, ma'am, this boy
got talent. If you want him to be the best,
you gotta get him the best. And I'm telling the dude,
(44:00):
shut up. My mother's on the face. Yes, packed this
thing up and get the heck out of here. He said,
let me show you what it is. This boy's got talent.
He rolled. He pulled his fender out of the front,
the same one that a w B had, the same
blind fender precision, and did we know about man, that's
(44:21):
my dude, that's my dude.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
You're my man.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Oh god, okay, I'm sitting there. I'm in there, and
I'm asking can we play? I said, We're gonna get
this one, but can't I just leave play it and me?
We went through this rich. We said, take off your coat,
almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from on my feet.
Take off. He made sure he put a towel on me,
and he put the base down and I plugged it
(44:46):
into that amp that the Unifox had. He said, oh no, no, no, no,
you got to do this fright. And he pushed this
big red custom eight foot off and turned it up.
And the first thing I did it was dom don't, don't.
Speaker 9 (45:07):
Boom, do don't, don't out don't And it was cool,
so smooth, and all of a sudden, I'm playing everything.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I said. I may not get a chance to play
this some more. So I played skin tight, I played
I'll Take You Man, I played fire, I played everything
I could possibly play. Next thing, you know, there was
a crowd in front of Grenelle's brother saying, look at
that boy. Look at that boy in there playing that
bass like that. And my mother looked at it and
she said, they said, we can do a payment plan,
(45:41):
thirty dollars a month. He deserves it. He'll be good.
And she put her head down just like this because
she didn't have that kind of money, and she said,
wrap it up. I better not see this under the bed.
I said, I promise you you'll never see it under the bed.
Now that base retired. My mother side of it, All
(46:07):
of this stuff you see here, all of this every
time you see me on soulfire, every time you see
me anywhere. It was because she took a chance on
a four hundred and thirty dollars fender base. She didn't
have the money. She probably ended up paying eighteen hundred
dollars right, she bought us, but it paid for everything
(46:33):
that you see me about. She invested in me. She
invested in me, and that was what it was. And
I played that thing in the ground. Being young, I
didn't know anything about. I couldn't afford to take it
to go and get calibrated. So I just changed the strings.
And you know how we had to boil the strings
to get that pop back. You know what I mean?
What boil them? You will put on?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Explain that process to me.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
So here's the thing I ended up. I could buy
like I could save up enough money to buy strings
maybe once every five to six months. So I bought
these dear dairya lights. So you know they get all
craddy and stuff, they start sounding dull. Well, we learned
that if you take them off the base, ground them up,
put them in hot boiling water for about seven to
(47:17):
ten minutes, you pull them back off and they fresh.
You get that same bank right back again. So we
were boiling strings. We would never buy none. That's good style,
good stuff.
Speaker 5 (47:30):
Hey, Fred, did you play that on victory?
Speaker 3 (47:35):
I played enough by that time I was able to
buy another base, another finger, because that base got me fired.
That That was literally after the Thomas Whitfield session. He said, man,
you're a good player, but you you got to keep
up with your axe and you just gotta I gotta
have somebody to play. And at that point Lenard Turn
(47:56):
had this Gibson and it was it was solid. So
I lost the gig, but he'd let me play the
least those two songs. And you know what it was.
It was an Ibanaz. I went and bought an Ibannaz
and that's the one that's on victory. That's the one
on victory. Yep.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Do you still have that original base? Just for prosperity
sake or.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
I couldn't thin. But I went and bought one, just like,
just to remind me. I went and bought one just
not Now it's crazy. I don't play much no more
because of my arthritis and I'm just older, and so
I got a lot of young cats to play with me. Now.
I ended up getting my own base line through base
Mind and everything on it, and I got about five
(48:43):
of them. And I'm like, man, you wait till I
can't play to give me this.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
You didn't get to see that Dishy Fread never got damn,
but you know she's watching the spirit. Can you please
tell me, as much as you feel comfortable with revealing
(49:09):
what's under the hood. I want to know what is
it to tour on the gospel circuit first of all,
to get to get the pole position of being the
go to guy to play these gigs. But then let's
say I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I
(49:31):
play drums and you play bass. You mentioned the Winers,
but I mean I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand,
Like when do you start? When did they really start
taking you serious? As in friends my go to Like
at what year are you the man?
Speaker 3 (49:49):
You know? It never happened like that for me because
I went straight from the Winers straight to Commission, and
with Commission, I dedicated every waking moment. I dedicated every
week and moment to making sure that group did what
we needed to do. I will tell you this story
that I got fired off of a Commission off of
(50:10):
a Tremaine Hawkins tour. That was my first tour that
I was the go to guy.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Man, I'm trying to think it was. It was probably
I was out of school, so it could have been
like it was coming out of the Whinings. So it's
probably eighty three Rte her first real solo album, but.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Look at Me, Crisis at Me three.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Albums that album. I got fired off that gig. And
it was funny because Michael Wright was was one of
my best friends. Michael Williams is one of my best friends.
Michael Williams is the drummer. He's a drummer for Commission,
and Michael Wright was a guitar player. He was supposed
to be the seventh member of Commission and they Jeffrey
(50:53):
in the Valley was putting together a group uh to
go out and play for Tremaine. So me and Michael
bass player lead and then drummer, and everything was fine,
and we were rehearsed. We were shed in the basement
and I always sang the middle and Mike sang the top,
and that's just the way it was. The night we
(51:15):
got to Jeff to come in and do the audition, like,
let's let's start practicing my Mike froze and he started
singing the middle. Now in my head, I couldn't make
that transition bass wise and singing, so I had to shed.
And once I learned my part, I'm good. But it's
not like, oh, let me switch to this PI or
(51:36):
let me sing this party. It's like, this is my part.
I can rock this and I can sing this part song. Well,
he sang my part and he froze, and I'll never forget,
I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike,
I sing the middle, and he looked right back at
me and said, no, I sing the middle. And I'm like, oh.
(51:57):
We had a situation there, and Jeff la Valley was
looking like this somebody somebody singing something, and so I said, well,
let me solveage this situation because he's my boy, I'll
try to sing this top I'll just learn it. And
as I was doing it, I was struggling, and so
Jeff said, you know what, let's just come back tomorrow.
But when I came back the next day, they had
(52:18):
somebody sitting in the car and the manager came and said,
we have a problem, and we seem to be a problem.
What's the problem and they said, well, I said, well,
we kind of learned kind of the same part. And
they said, go get Jonathan right quick, and coming down
the steps, Jonathan Dubos walking down the steps. He come
(52:39):
walking down the steps and Mike Wright, who's the guitar player.
I said, oh man, I'm fired. And he literally he
literally started packing up his guitar. And they said no, no, no, no,
no no. They said, Fred, can he use your base
and they all they rehearsed right in front of me,
and they said, Fred, I'm sorry, Unfortunately, we're not going
(53:00):
be able to use you all this time.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
And they couldn't just take three hours so you can
relearn your harmony parts or whatever.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
They told me to go home and learn it, and
they gave me a knight and I went home and
I learned it and when I went back, Gloria Hawkins
was there, Jeff Lavalley was there, and Jonathan was standing there.
They were just there. And I can't imaginef Jonathan came
in yet, but I know it was doubt. And the
pressure hit me so hard. And I started playing and
(53:31):
I was singing a note that I could not sing,
and I just remember stopping and put my head down
and I wasn't gonna rap for my boy. This is
kind of the first time I sold. It was his fault.
I don't care now. I sat through the whole rehearsal
while Jonathan Dubo's practiced on my base.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
And I tell everybody. One of the reasons why probably
I am decently sucessful, it's because I never carried bitterness
towards anyone.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you're
seeing these people every day like.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
We were still boys, Okay, we never you know, you
don't rat your boy out, And that's just what it was.
And it was unspoken at that time that that's what
the problem was. And I never I never rated him out.
And I just it was crazy too, because they toured
for about a year to two years and I was broken.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
I was broken. See James, we would have rated each
other out.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Man. My best friend was Michael Williams as well, the
drummer for Commission, and he has no filter, so he
would come back just tell them, yeah, we just came
from Amsterdam, man. Man, let me tell you something, man,
just that I just bought this, I bought that, and
we did that, and I just I sat there and
I just I just took it. You know.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
So what did you wind up doing?
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Did you take that ass?
Speaker 3 (54:59):
Like?
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Okay, I a set even harder.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Oh yeah, I've said I'm never gonna let that happen
to me again. But what I did was I focused
deep on getting commissioned together because we had to learn managers.
We had to try to find managers. We didn't have
the easy role man. People thought that commission was signed
and somebody saw us. Man. We spent We raised thirteen
(55:22):
thousand dollars from aunts, uncles, cousins, skating parties, receptions. We
would put them in a shoe box under my bed
and go buy studio time. And finally we had a
finished product and we leased that first record that I'm
going on. It was a lease.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
I'm going on record.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Yep, our manager. We went to ty Scott Records and
Leonard Scott said, I'll sign you guys. We didn't know
what to ask for. We said, can we just have
the money back to pay our parents and our family back?
And he said sure. But then Derek Dirkson, who was
the leader of Chapter eight, you know, he was the
drummer and the leader of Chapter he said, let me
(56:00):
manage you. Guys. You just walked away from the wine.
He said, let me manage you and uh, we said okay.
He said, give me two weeks. I'm gonna take it
to Light Records, and if they don't come back within
two weeks, we'll go over. The tys guy, well he
called on his relationships. He did a lease steal. We
put the record out and the rest is history. And
then we got signed the second record all from second
(56:22):
record All.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
I was just going to ask you about the business
of that. So how did that work in terms of like,
do you guys own those masters?
Speaker 9 (56:29):
Now?
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Was it a deal that they own?
Speaker 4 (56:32):
How was business done in the gospel world as compared
to the kind of secular music.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
It was done the same same thing. Jack, I believe
we own the masters now though we do own the
masters off to the first five records, but other than that,
we just got took.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
So in your mind and you're saying that the Winings
was like your first gig before you went with or
your biggest gig before you went to forming commission? In
your mind, is the Whinings and doing that circuit as
good as it gets, like as top as it gets.
(57:14):
Is there any point where you're like, hey, maybe I
should go to Los Angeles to become a session musician,
or are there any secular acts? Like is Anita Baker
in the chapter? You know, like are you are your
eyes looking elsewhere? Or for you? It's like, I'm gonna
stay in the gospel world and the Winings is as
(57:37):
good as it gets to get out there.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
I never looked to do a secular group or play
in the club or anything else. I really felt like
I was called. And this is before I knew my
birth issues or anything. I honestly felt like I was
called to gospel music. So the Winings was as big
as it got. It's like, man, I thought I'd be
paying for them right now at sixty years old. I
(58:01):
never thought I was gonna leave. And I didn't want
to leave when I left, you know, honestly, there was
a little high coup that happened in commission. He I'm
gonna give you all some real little son behind the scene.
A couple members called me with our managers at that time,
into a basement at twelve o'clock at night and they
(58:24):
told me, if you don't leave the winings, we're gonna
take this group from you. You out here traveling, you
out here doing that, you can't be no group leader.
They didn't have a record deal, they didn't have anything,
but there was some scuttle but that was going on
between two members and the management, and they were literally
trying to take the group from me. And I said,
(58:45):
they said, if you don't leave them, we're going to
take this group from me. So I had to go
back to the winings. And I couldn't be no rat.
So I couldn't tell them, Man, they're making me do this.
I had to tell them and then after Chicago that's
my last, that's my last gig. I'm going to make commission.
And they were so mad at me, really, and they
(59:08):
were so mad. They understood no no, no, no no no,
that's what they said. But it was because we were family.
And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson,
the Mighty Clouds of Joey al Green and a bunch
of people in Chicago, and I'll never forget. I cried
(59:28):
like a baby. And in the van they got together
as brothers and they sang this song to find His Keepers.
I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend, we
love having you.
Speaker 4 (59:46):
What up, y'all finclo here? That was part one of
our two part interviews with the legendary bred Hammond. Y'all
stay tuned. Part two is coming up next week, and
it gets even better right here on QLs. Of course
Love Spring Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio, Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to our our our nominated,
our nub A CP nominated Team Supreme. Like, yeah, hello,
how about you.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I'm feeling good. Image Award nominated, Sir, I have made it.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yes, that's fine, and uh Suca, Steve, how are you
this evening? I'm good. My image has been nominated as
well by the nub A CP. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling.
I'm feeling good. And uh, you know, the keeper of
Rocco and Elmo, how you doing? Un pay Bill. I
(00:46):
can't say that I ever thought in all the awards
that I'd ever been nominated for an n double ACP Award.
So feels good, which put it like that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
How's it going.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I'm good, brother, I'm good man, glad of you know
dominated and uh yeah, I never thought this would happen
this way over in for years right straight ship three,
It's okay, back here here, sir.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
He went to get cigarettes for a long time. Okay,
so I know for the longest, you know, I've been
talking to our listeners at q LS, especially in the
last year, about you know the direction of transformation in
my life is going, and how it's important to often
get out of your comfort zone, you know, stretching out
to different territories. So I will be the first to
(01:37):
be very transparent with our longtime listeners of q LS
that this episode should be notable for Unlike previous Quest
of Supreme episodes, this will probably the first time that
and it's not like I have a PhD in every
guest that ever comes on the show, but this will
(02:00):
probably mark the first time that I don't know the
entire canon, the history of a particular guest of the
show like the back of my hand. I'm not saying
that I'm not familiar with our guest today. So that said,
I would actually like to say and in jac that
we have two special guests today. So joining the Team
(02:21):
Supreme is uh my brother and soul or soul aquarian
James aloisious poiser, producer, songwriter, fellow Randy watsoner extraordinaire and
Gospel of ficionado.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
And me and world famous meme on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh yeah, James is definitely like a meme. I'm not
even a meme, Like that's a life.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Do means get nominated for NAACP Awards five years.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Grammy backup, sir, backup.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
You have Grammy and you know, but I'm certain that
the fame and the Meme Hall of Fame you will
make it. That said, I brought Brother James here to
help me pick up the pieces on things that I
otherwise wouldn't know, because for me, I don't want to
leave any stone unturned. Our guest today, I will say,
(03:16):
is one of the most legendary and influential musicians that
I know in Black music. That's not hyperbolic or anything.
I say this literally because I've not met a musician
post five that has not made our guests their north
(03:38):
star as far as their musicianship is concerned. We'll get
with that in the show today. But without further ado,
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Questlove supreme be legendary
brother Fred Hammond.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yes, appreciate it. Appreciate it, and congratulations everybody and your
nomination book.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know,
it's weird. I didn't even know that you were active
on social media and you had left a comment in
one of my things, and I was like, yo, Fred Hammond,
knows who I am, Like, I had zero clue that
you even knew that I was alive or anything. So
(04:26):
this conversation is long, long overdue because, as I said
at the top, back when I was really honing my
skills as a musician, there was like one of three
routes you can go. Now we all knows I chose
the hip hop route. Most musicians in eighty three, eighty four,
eighty five, they chose the purple route. And then there's
(04:48):
a sect of black musicianship in which you might have
a household that might not allow secular music in the household.
And that said, I will say that you were probably
their main choice. And when I say you, I'm talking
about you and your very influential group commissioned. So I
(05:10):
thank you. I've been dying to have this conversation with
you because I need the edumacation. So where are you
right now.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
As we speak. I'm at my studio here in Dallas.
I have a warehouse in the studio here that I
do everything out of me and my family, my brothers,
and I was actually just finishing up a vocal that
I'm working on for the New Addition tour, just to
kind of give them some stuff to go through, some transitions,
you know, give them some suggestions and stuff. So I
(05:39):
was just finishing up that, you know, and then we'll
send it out to them and say, you know, give
them some ideas of what can happen. My brother Ray
is the production manager for the tours. So when you
see BBD a new addition, he's front of the house
and the guy that runs the you know, gets everything
together production wise.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m
D or co MD of this reunions or that's.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
About it's just uh, right now, we're just seeing some stuff.
And I wanted to show them like a lot of
the transitions that they want to do from song to
song the song that they could do some vocal right here,
that's simple, that's what they do because it's not normal
for them to do that. And so I just went
in there and just did some old commission new edition
(06:27):
type stuff, simple just to get them to the next song,
you know, so to give them another just to give
my idea of what can happen. So you know, it's
up to them. You know that.
Speaker 7 (06:39):
Sounds like yeah, quasim okay, Well it's It's funny you
say that because I think maybe like a month ago,
I was listening to Heartbreak and I was just talking
to Jimmy jam about the intro song of that album,
which is called uh, That's the way We're Living, which,
(07:01):
as far as it's execution is concerned, I feel like
that definitely falls from the tree of what Commission was about.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
You know, when a lot of these cats that have
what we call gospel chops, they're basically saying that, you know,
they're sons of Commission. So always wanted to know how
you felt about your influence as far as the black
musicianship we have now with gospel chops. Like you know,
do you watch acts often in R and B say like, well,
(07:31):
that's our lick, and that's our lick, and that's our like.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Well, you know the thing about it is back then
a lot of people don't notice. But I was close
with a lot of those guys back then. You know.
You know, it was funny because you know, Davante, his
father is a pastor, and one day we did a
concert at their church and Davante said, yo, man, you
know he came up. I styled he was a young fella.
(07:55):
He said, hey, man, I just want to tell you
guys have been influenced to us. And I just got
signed to MCA eight and the name of my group
is called Jodasy. I say, really, he say, you know
k C. And I knew Little k C from Little Cedric.
I used to so Little Cedric and the Haley Singers.
We would do concerts together and pass on the road
and do interviews and whatnot. So I was I kept
(08:16):
up with all of those guys. And you know a
lot of the cats, Chucky Booker and Da and they
bring me backstage. They would bring me backstage and whether
they were doing the Budwives and Superfessor, and I'm a student.
You know a lot of people, you know a lot
of church people, they don't go places and learn because
they can't control themselves when they get inside or behind
(08:37):
the curtain, you know. But I would go, you know,
I would go to Al Hayman, Budwiser, Superfessor, and I
would meet the guys backstage and I would watch. I'd
be a student of production of how they were playing,
and I would take it back to Commission. You know.
Commission is a amalgam of the Clark Sistory number one,
(08:57):
the vocal of the Clark Sisters. Then the is the Time,
Earth Wind and Fire, Genesis, you know, Chicago, we did
just a different thing, and we noticed that a lot
of the guys that were coming around at that time
were coming up to us and they were starting to
get get put on like boys and men, and we
(09:19):
just kept in touch and we were just cool and friendly.
Uh Little Joe and uh Buddy from the Rude Boys
always doing something. We're always together at some point doing something,
letting them hear music. They're letting us hear ours and
hear theirs, and you know, so we we kept connected
with our R and B family.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You know, did he just say Genesis? Yes, But if
you if you really look at it, yo, I mean
there's really not that much difference between prog rock and dude.
(09:57):
We just saw it like we just literally I forget
the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think
you remember this. Do you remember when Who's Who's the
group that who more they were formerly known as at
the drive in and then when one of their members,
(10:19):
So do you remember when Mars Volta auditioned a drummer
at our studio like behind literally next to your studio.
He was a gospel chops drummer.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
Thomas Pridgin, I think, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And it was a it was a match made it.
At first, I was like, that's weird that they got
a gospel chop drumming to do it. But because of
the intricacies of what Mars Volta is, it was like
a marriage made in heaven. And that's when I realized
that gospel chops and prague rock are almost neck and
neck with each other. I mean, of course, gospel chop
(10:55):
has more soul.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
To it, but every pop group now has a gospel
drummer on a grande and all those guys.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
They all have.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
It's all like big fills from three to four and
one every every bar. Literally music, I think music like
everything's like at the end of the four of our phrases.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
What the notable thing about my entry in music is
that I'm the opposite of that, but literally, which is funny, well, yeah,
which I'm saying that Basically, I feel as though Commissioned
really is probably the most influential black group in at
(11:37):
least the last forty years of music, second to Prince,
you know, as far as the as far as the
ripple effect of Nah. Absolutely their contribution.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
I mean, because you look at a song like I'm Learning,
I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all.
I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a
Jobasy album or you know what I'm saying. Like it
was the they always liked about y'all. Y'all stuff was
that it was I could tell when you say, you know,
you were a student and you would go and meet
the other groups and stuff. The songs always sounded current,
(12:10):
you know what I'm saying, a lot of times gospel
because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel
stuff would always be behind, like if it came out
in ninety two, it would sound like something from.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Like eighty eight eighty seven, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
But Commission Records, y'all was always like right on time
and it was never dated.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
I always appreciated that man, that right there was it
was just our DNA. It was like we listened to everybody.
I give you a story. One of the guys wrote
a song called It's so Good to Know the Savior,
and he was a tempo guy, so it was like
a church tempo. It's so good and let's say, and
(12:52):
the record company didn't pick it. It was it had
all of the fizzle and the buzzer and everything. And
the guy he came to me and said, hey, man, listen,
I think we need to change the drummer out, and
which is our drummer. I was like, no, man, it's
not that. I say, basically, it's man, it's kind of dated.
And I said, tomorrow, we just need to castle over
(13:12):
to that month. And they didn't know because they hadn't heard.
They hadn't heard LeVert. I was cool with Gerrell, and
so when Casanova came out, they hadn't heard it yet.
So I said, let's just get in the studio and
let me flip it a little bit. And I had
an ra drum machine and some stuff and I just
bo't boom boom boom boom cocka boom, and then it
(13:35):
changed into you can see a vamp into that and
then the song had life. Well that was because we
stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and
our counterparts. You know, we've paid attention to everybody from
the old school, whether it's Luther uh Al Green, you know,
earth Wind all the way up to the vert to
a babyface to the deal. You know, like we were
(13:59):
talking song we like Sweet November or do we like this?
Because our vocals were off of the whispers and the dramatics.
Those are our mail vote counterproces that we love do WoT.
So if you hear a lot of our harmonies we
sing like Ron Banks and Scottie and Walter, you will
hear a lot of that in But then we add
(14:19):
what we are. But it's because we paid attention to musicology.
We just paid attention to everything, you know. So it
was funny too. You said something about Jimmy. Jimmy Terry
is like my hero, Jimmy Terry, Teddy Tim babyface in La.
So one time we were going to do this thing
in Minnesota called uh It's a Methodist church and they
(14:43):
were Soul Liberation Outreach and they said where you want
to go to? My said, can we go see flight Time?
Because we were just you know, we didn't have no studios.
So I said, can we go see flight Time? We
want to see some black guys who were owning something.
And I walked into flight Time and I was just
blown away. And that's when I was just influenced heavily
(15:03):
by you know, these two guys, and they were just
finishing the controls starting on We about to start on
this new record called Rhythm Nation they're recording now, and
we just had those moments. Then they said, well where
you want to go next? Now we we church boys,
now remember this, this is this is what we church boys.
So we don't do clubs and stuff like that. So
(15:25):
somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio and
we was like, oh, I don't know. So I think
were like, I think something gonna jump on us. But
I said, yeah, man, I want to go. I want
to see it. So we went over there. Man, and
on the whole ride over there because at that point,
Prince wasn't in his last space. He was in that
that I want to I'm gonna really mess you up
(15:47):
with whatever I'm talking about. And we walked up to
the place and people was praying Jesus help us God.
You know, we're walking into the spot and we're thinking, man,
you better pray put some annoy all on you. When
when we walked in, it was business as usual. People
(16:08):
just walking around doing business. It wasn't nothing crazy. And
I said, man, this is whole thing is a persona.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I thought it was.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
And the rest of the guys, some of the guys said, man,
I'm just stay in there. I'm stay in the van.
I said, I'm going in. I want to see what's what?
I mean, how find you get this? How do you
get this close? And I see this guy had a complex.
I mean at that time, to think about Paisley, it
was it was it was like Cowboys Stadium at that time.
(16:43):
She said, I gotta go see it. But when I
walked through, they took us to his personal room and
they just my mind was blown because it was just business.
And at the end of the day, I said, man,
this is just a persona. And then I learned how
to be an owner. So now I mean I got
seventeen dous square feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry.
It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince, and Michael Powell who
(17:07):
lived in Detroit who baker that was my close friend.
So I had to learn, uh, and that's you know,
I looked at my big brothers to do that for me.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
You know, Okay, I want to start at the beginning
of your life. I'm assuming that you were born in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Was born in San Antonio.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Oh all right, See the one time I don't ask
the question, I get burnt. Sorry, Can you tell me
what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
My first musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know,
I say this because a lot of people have, uh,
these misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks
that they're perfect. I don't. I was. I was born different,
you know, I was. My mother and father were married
to other people, and he was a pastor and my
(18:08):
mother was a musician. And the church really dogged my
mom and protected him, and so they kind of put
her out. And so it was basically me and her.
And before I was born, you know, we went through
this whole thing about she was. She went and had
an abortion and it didn't work, you know. So it's
a lot of stuff that goes on with me being here.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
So yeah's a blessing.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah. And so she was my biggest musical influence. So
I followed her everywhere to because she taught choirs. She
was very amazing at teaching choirs and playing the piano
for churches. And I'll never forget I'll go back to.
She came home with this little forty five and I
had a cloth and play and she said, you know
(18:55):
I bought these boys, you know, And it was just
a picture of these five boys was Jackson's and she said,
you know, listen to this. I hadn't even heard him
on the radio. And I put it on my clothes
and play and I want you back came on, and
I just saw Michael as my age because they were
saying he was younger than they said he was my age.
I was probably five or six, and I was just
(19:17):
I was enamored with this group, and so I was singing.
And I found myself singing Jermaine's part at six seven
years old. And my mother said, you know, if you
open your mouth, you can sing better. You can sing
like that little boy right there. And I was very shy,
and I didn't want her to hear me because I
thought she would make me sing in front of people.
(19:38):
So I made sure she didn't ever hear me again.
So I took my clothes and play in the closet
because you ran her own batteries, and I sang in
the closet because I didn't want her to hear me sing.
I was afraid she was going to put me up
there in front of the church. And so that's my
earliest knowledge right there.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
So were you kind of born into skepticism of the church,
like since because of.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Your you know. The beautiful thing is God kept me
from that from the knowledge of people now thinking I
was worth it, you know, But when I look back
at it, a lot of people just thought I was
just worthless because you can't do nothing with God because
you're born out of web lite. Who are you? You know,
your mother, your mother's is an adult. So they just
(20:20):
kind of threw us away. But the reality is that's
why I'm probably effective today. Not because I sing good,
not because I play any instruments, or not because I
produce anything or sing on anybody's record. It's because I
understand what broken people go through. And so my whole
job is to tell people, hey, man, I've been broken,
(20:41):
I understand brokenness. You why don't you come with me?
I believe this and you know, so there's no errors, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Just it's a forgiveness element in there too, though, that
you got that, you.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Absolutely so when people like quest you said you understand
my pain when it comes to just you and your mom.
You understand that, you know, and maybe others do too.
But you know, my path, man, my path. It's just
it's been ordained to go through a rugged, rugged, feed
up path to get to this point to tell other people,
(21:15):
I understand where you are. I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I mean that's mine.
Wasn't as drastic as like being shunned or whatnot, but
definitely my parents were sort of in the same situation
where they were part of other unions, and you know,
that's kind of how you know, I came, I came
to the world. So for a lot of our listeners,
I don't know if they're fully aware, you know, I
(21:41):
would explain to people often that you know, we'll look
at somebody like, you know, Ray Charles now as a
national treasure. But you know, I would tell, like anybody
that I'm teaching about Ray Charles is the fact that
you know, Ray Charles was probably almost the NWA of
his day.
Speaker 8 (21:59):
Like, yeah, the idea sing gospel music with secular lyrics
was highly controversial with the Black church.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
And fast forwarding to where your entry into gospel music
is where you can put some funk inside it. Or
put some swing inside of your music and it really
not rub people the wrong way. Can you explain just
the what brought you to Detroit? How did you make
(22:31):
that transition from San Antonio to Detroit.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Well, due to the circumstances situation, they sent us up
to Detroit. We was sitting oh.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Exile to Detroit exile.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
We got a nice bus ticket up to a friendly
place called Detroit and a beautiful family called the Hope,
the Hoak's family. They took us in and they gave
us their attic and we became a part of their family.
While my mother went through her healing process, you know,
of which when she passes seventy four, she was still
(23:12):
trying to validate herself as you know, forgiven, you know,
and she was a she's a great praise warrior, great,
you know. She she made a lot of strides, but
it just she couldn't get over some things. And so
we ended up in Detroit, which was a blessing.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
How big is your family at this point as far
as your siblings, and.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
At that time it was me and my mom. At
this point it's me. I got two brothers, Ray and Dave,
and they have families. I have a family. I have
kids and whatnot. And I have two sisters that live
in Atlanta from my mother's other union, you know. And
(23:55):
then then I have a brother and four other sisters
the other unit. So I'm right there in the middle. Okay,
I'm the absolute when you count down, I'm the middle
child of all of that, you know. So that's we're
and now we're all kind of cluel together. My brother
from my father's side, he comes and he drives our
(24:16):
tour bus from time to time, and my sisters are
so we're all kind of together, and you know, that's
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So, Okay, I know you were born in nineteen sixty,
I believe. So can you describe to me what it
is to grow up in Detroit, Michigan in the early seventies.
I know about you know, I've heard people tell me
about growing up in Detroit in the early sixties. And
(24:45):
I know, of course people who grew up in Detroit
between like the mid eighties and the in the early nineties.
But I really don't know people that have had a
period in Detroit in the early seventies, like around that period,
like United Sounds there where you know, motowns leaving. Could
you just describe to me basically what your life was
(25:07):
as a teenager in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, it was really just about about school and
surviving in the hood, you know, just you know one
of my good friends in the seventies. Yeah, I went
to well, my mom moved to California to Inglewood when
I was in the fourth grade, the first part of
(25:31):
the fourth grade, and she didn't like it, and we
came back to Detroit around December. But I hadn't been
in school, so that whole fourth grade year I had
to try to catch up. So this is like the seventies,
you know, this is and whatnot. The next year I
had to go to a parochial school with a seventy
at Venice, where I was good friends. My best friend
was Greg Mathews, Judge Greg Mathews. So he and I
(25:53):
were in the Wow. Oh yeah, you and I were
in the fifth grade together and everything you ever hear
that he ever said one hundred Because I lived in
the hood and he lived in the projects. He lived
in the Herman Gardens, and he had a bunch of brothers.
But he was smart as a whip. In the fifth
(26:13):
grade and I was struggling, but he and I were
just really good friends. So growing up there, it was
just you know, the seventies are almost a blur because
I wasn't musical yet. I was thinking more sports and whatnot,
and I hadn't done any real music until I got
to about sixteen, about fifteen or sixteen years old, and
(26:37):
I transitioned from drums in my church to bass guitar.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Okay, wait a minute, you're trying to tell me that.
I'm thinking like you came out the wound playing bass,
but this didn't happen until you were a teenager.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, right around fourteen, thirteen years old, I start transitioned
because my mother. I went to a church called Greater
Grays Temple and the line play drums was around the
corner and the pastor's son he had a lot, Chuckie Ellis,
Charles Ellis. He's bitch of bellist now, but he was
an amazing drummer, and I had my sticks. I would
(27:13):
go every Sunday and I would try to play, and
you know, just never got a chance. So my mother said, hey,
you know, I don't like to see you, you know,
not getting a chance. Is there any other instrument. There
was a bass guitar laying over in the corner, and
nobody would come and play it because the guy was working.
And I said, well, I like to play bass, maybe
I could try that. And that's when I moved to
(27:34):
bass guitar and I never looked back.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
The reason why it's also important for me to know
about this specific period in the seventies is because I
know that once black families migrate to the Midwest, especially
in town you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois,
you know a lot of them are escaping the South,
the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South. They're
getting these factory jobs. These factory jobs are paying well,
(28:01):
and they're buying these houses, and the houses have garages
and of course instruments. You know, this is basically how
like the first wave of the funk generation starts. And
I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration seventy
seventy one seventy two, you know, budgets started to get cut,
(28:23):
music education started to wane and whatnot, and the idea
of the garage band, you know, kind of wilted out.
So I mean, by that time period, even though you
were late in developing your musicianship. Were there musicians around
like next door and all those things, or were factories
closing by then? And then like that dream just died.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, music was still big, even though a lot
of the porch bands and the garage bands from the
sixties weren't very popular. But music was still a thing,
you know. So I hooked up the guy at my
fifteen His name was Jeff Stanton, and he was like
my best friend. And this guy could play every instrument
(29:08):
at that point. He play bass, he could play guitar,
he could play drums, and he was fluent at it
at fifteen years old. So he would take every day
we would come home to his house after school or
in the summertime, and we would just shed and he
would start to show me people. He was the person
he said, Man, I got this record, you really need
to hear. Check it out. This dude right here plays
(29:29):
all the instruments. His name is Prince and it was
the four You album. And so we're listening in the
basement and he's like, man, listen to that. Listen to that.
You got to get on your theory, Fred. He's teaching
me theory. He's like up, what's that? And I'd have
to kind of come back and name it. And so
(29:50):
every day we would shed and we would go places
like the Detroit miss the Detroit Music Union, and bands
would play come in and audition, so it was still alive. Uh,
And then we would play in the garage. We played
Mister Magic for like four hours, you know, in the garage.
Then we graduated. Then we graduated to Herbie and you
(30:11):
know a Chameleon. I mean, you know, so once I
learned that them two songs and we have a little
crowd out there and we just play it, and then
there it was. I was so proud when I learned
the baseline too, that's the way of the world. And
I learned that that had doom doom, doom, doom doom.
When I learned that concept that that, man, it blew
(30:34):
me away. So we were still it was still a
powerful place to learn music. It hadn't died that whole seventies.
It hadn't died, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well living in Detroit was was any of the p
funk folklore, Like was that an influence on you at all?
Like seeing any of those guys around United Sounds or
any of those things or was that sort of like
after you know, they migrated and went to California, Like,
(31:05):
was any of that part of your DNA at all?
Speaker 3 (31:08):
You know? They had a on eight Mile There was
a club called Axles. Okay believe the Woods, Lamont Johnson.
They would all play there. Yeah, so they would all
play there. Amp Fiddler would show up and they say, yo, man,
ant Fidler from U. He played with George Clinton. Uh,
David Chong would I mean, and the only people And
(31:31):
we would try to go in there and sit in there,
sneaking because it was kind of under but we'd sneak
in and we'd listen to them and these cats. The
funk was heavy. It was still Brainstorm was just starting
to get started. Man, it was real, real strong. So
Amp Fidler, Uh, we never got a chance to see George,
but we played with a lot of the guys that
(31:53):
played on his record, like Butch Small I believe his
name is but Small. Yeah, he was big. He used
to run a studio called rm J, and so he
was the Lynn drum king. So he came and did
some lind drum on the first Commission record. You know,
but he was just somebody we looked up to, you know,
Warren Woods, the engineer, you know, man, it was just
(32:17):
it was still rich, Man, It hadn't died at all.
I mean, it was still really rich in the seventies,
especially going into the eighties.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
So as a musician, who would you say, is is
your north star? As far as like, that's the musician
I want to emulate, because it's weird to me. Like
most bass players I know, especially having lived in the seventies,
every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams, thank
(32:44):
you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark. So
the fact that you started in seventy eight with Prince
tells me that you're sort of a later generation. So who,
as far as like your setting and as far as
like who you wanted to emulate, who is the musician
that is your north star?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Well number one? Okay, Well let's break it up into
two bass players. Okay, not because my total north star
is Stevie period, hands down, right, but as far as
bass players are going. Okay, So my first bass player
influence and I didn't really know it, but I would
pick his sound out when I heard I want you back.
(33:26):
That's James Jamison, James Jamison, I would hear his bass
lines and I just always locked him. Now as a
bass player, I definitely was Stanley and Jacko, and then
it was Abe Laboreal. It was Alfonso Johnson who played
(33:47):
this friendless situation. I paid attention to Anthony Jackson, these
are my these are my go tos. And then of
course Marcus was younger, so he came on this seen
a little bit later. But those guys were my Jamison Clark,
Anthony Jackson, Jocko, Alfonso Johnson, Gino Vanelli's bass player. I
(34:11):
don't know who it was, but we would listen to him.
So anybody that was really killing back then, we would
grab their record their music and we would just I
would share to it. So those are my north stars
right there.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
So were you more team uh thumb Plucking or were
you more team index middle Finger for baby, I was like.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I'm a pocket guy. I never had the all of these.
I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely
a thumper. I was definitely team thump.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I get it, okay, I love it. At what point
are you forming uh or at least bonding with Marcus
Montreal like the other members of Commission, like, how are
you guys, how do you guys meet? And is that
was that your first actual band or did you have
other bands before?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Well, Mitchell Jones and I we graduate. We went to
school together at Mumford Hide and we were together NonStop
all three years. So he and I started Commission. You know,
at the end of the day he and I started Commission,
I went off to play for The Winings. I was
the bass player for them from nineteen until I was
like twenty three years old, and that's when I started.
(35:24):
That's when I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell,
Keith Staton, Carl Reid, Michael Brooks, and Michael Williams the drummer,
and right around them, right.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Around are you talking live for studio?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Both with I'm sorry, oh, with the Winings, I was
just I was, man, they wouldn't even let me near
the studio. They wouldn't you could even you couldn't even
see nobody famous. Here's here's a joke. Andre Crouch came
to their house and Ronald told me, he said, man,
if you don't, if you be good, I'll let you
come over and see Andre. So we was like, oh, man,
(36:00):
the skin, and so they this is no joke. They
had us come over. He opened the door and we
had to look through the screen and I was sitting
in the chair over and said just look over there.
That's him right now. Wow. And we were like, wow,
that is him. Wow, this is We never asked can
we come in? And we never went in. They were
(36:25):
why go home?
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Nah, That's how they protected their relationships, like.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Go home no. No. So I've never got a chance
to play on any album you know, with them or anything.
We weren't you know, we weren't good enough, but we
were good enough to do the road. And you know what,
we wasn't offended. We really weren't offended. When we heard
their records. We knew it was something different between Abe Laboreal,
(36:51):
Bill Maxwell, Hadley Howkin Smith. You know, we knew it
was something different. So we weren't tripping, you know, we
just appreciated the opportunity to just be in the number.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Now, let me ask you this, were you around that
and I'm gonna nerd boy out on on the churches
while you're here? Were you back then on the church vibe?
Where where Thomas Woodfield and Rudolph Stance, Phil and all
them guys.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Whoa see that stuff. I wouldn't know to ask, like.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Thomas Woodfield gave me my first chance to play in
the studio and my base, my basse wasn't up to park,
it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was too young.
The first record was Vanessa Belle Armstrong Peace be Still
record Yes, and there's a song called I don't want
my living to be in vain and anyway you bless
(37:52):
me and playing those two Okay. My boy that honestly
he called in because my base didn't work was Leonard
Bradley Kurr. Okay, Kurr. Everybody knows that, Okay, So but
Kern was the king around there, and uh, he was
another guy that kind of schooled me. But that was
my first take on going in the studio. So then
(38:15):
when we did our demo as commission, we asked we
saved him some money, and we asked Thomas Whitfield, the producers. So, uh,
when you hear the bed track, when you hear the
rhythm track, like, if you listen to these four songs
given my problem to you, I can see Jesus if
you listen to Uh, if we ever needed the Lord
(38:37):
before those three songs. The rhythm track of that was
produced by Thomas Whitfield, WHOA. And I was amazed by Thomas,
because you know, Thomas had narcolepsy. So Thomas would be
where he would be straight up like this, get that
be flat out of there, and everybody stopped and somebody
(39:01):
played and they solo it, and sure enough, get that
player played the B flat that was kind of hidden
up under there. He said, I don't play that, No,
that's a scene, come on. And Thomas was my hero.
Thomas was really my hero. And I would sit in
(39:22):
the corner of RMJ studio and I went out. I
remember washing a garbage can out. It was like this
little gray high school bought garbage can we have in
high school. I went and washed it out. I turned
it upside down and stuck it between the tape machine,
MCI tape machine and an effects rack. And I sat
in this little cubby hole and I didn't ask say
(39:43):
a word. I said, don't let him kick me out.
Don't let him kick me out. And I honestly just
sat there and I listened and I prayed, and I said,
Lord show me how he thinks. And I probably was
eighteen years old at that time, I said, please show
me how he thinks, because he was a he was
a genius. When he sat down and played like he
sitt on the piano and played, man, it was it
(40:05):
was magical just the way he did it. And so
you know Thomas Woodfield, man, Rudolph Stanfield, oh man, Yes,
Rudolph was And I'm not sure if you remember this
guy because he was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J. Wright.
You know he was, he was, He was a genius.
So all these cats ran together and I just stood
in the background.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So, yeah, brother Hammond, you mentioned about you're not having
the right base. What one? What was your first base
you used? And what is your acts of what is
sort of your acts of your your your favorite seal?
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah yeah, okay, so true story. Uh my mother we
went to kmart and when we're talking about doing to
a base, we went to kmart and there was a
base on sale for thirty five dollars and the headstock
was cracked, literally cracked, and they said thirty five dollars
(41:03):
and the guy said, if you buy it now, I'll
give it to you for twenty five now. It couldn't
stay in tune. It was impossible because between the A
and the G, you know there was it was cracked right.
So I'm sitting there and I'm going, I think we
can fix this. So I think we can take this
the wood shop and put it on a vice and
(41:23):
put some blue there. And I'm trying to figure out
how to make this thing work. So we took it
up to Wonderland Music and said, you know, can y'all
fix this? And the guy said, now you can't fix that.
You need to take that back and buy this one.
We'll give it to you for the same price if
you come back and buy it. We took it back
to Kmart argued with him because it was no return,
but they gave us some money back. My mother took
the twenty five back to Wonderland and we bought this
(41:48):
Norma for that same amount, and so I never forget.
My mother said, if you if you put this under
your bed and you don't use it, I'm gonna sell it. Now.
You got to promised me. And so I promised her.
And I played, and I went to church and we
had a storefront church, and I played. I had a
little bitty amp and I played, and I would play
(42:10):
so high because you couldn't hear me. So I had
to play it like a lead because church be gone,
that's what to hear out, that little amp. And so
my mother got really I got discouraged, and I put
it up. So for four months my mother let us
sit up under the bed. And then one day she
(42:31):
was going, we were going to choir wrestle and she said,
I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you. You promised me I'm
gonna sell that. I'm gonna sell it. And she wasn't
even looking at me. She just drive me. She said,
I'm very disappointed. And my mother's relationship with you wasn't
no talking. It was just she talked and I just listened,
and I felt horrible. And she said, why did you
(42:55):
disappoint me like that? You told me you promised you
better keep your word as a man. Why did you
tell me that? And I said, they laugh at me, Mam,
She said, cool said everybody unskewer Eddie Charles. Everybody why,
they said, because it don't sound like a bass. And
(43:17):
she didn't say nothing else. That next Saturday, we ended
up going to Oakland Mall Grenelle's music and we were
in there and so she was playing the piano like
she was playing the piano, and she said, which one
of them bases is better? And I picked up this
unifox and I said, well this one is, man. It's
one hundred and eighty dollars. Because at that point you
(43:38):
could tell how much your base about how much it
costs one hundred eighty dollars from twenty five dollars is
a night you got a good base. I was sitting there, man,
and I was playing it. And then she said, okay,
wrap that up. I'm gonna take it for him. And
the salesman became the salesman. He said, ma'am, this boy
got talent. If you want him to be the best,
you gotta get him the best. And I'm telling the dude,
(44:00):
shut up. My mother's on the face. Yes, packed this
thing up and get the heck out of here. He said,
let me show you what it is. This boy's got talent.
He rolled. He pulled his fender out of the front,
the same one that a w B had, the same
blind fender precision, and did we know about man, that's
(44:21):
my dude, that's my dude.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
You're my man.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Oh god, okay, I'm sitting there. I'm in there, and
I'm asking can we play? I said, We're gonna get
this one, but can't I just leave play it and me?
We went through this rich. We said, take off your coat,
almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from on my feet.
Take off. He made sure he put a towel on me,
and he put the base down and I plugged it
(44:46):
into that amp that the Unifox had. He said, oh no, no, no, no,
you got to do this fright. And he pushed this
big red custom eight foot off and turned it up.
And the first thing I did it was dom don't, don't.
Speaker 9 (45:07):
Boom, do don't, don't out don't And it was cool,
so smooth, and all of a sudden, I'm playing everything.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I said. I may not get a chance to play
this some more. So I played skin tight, I played
I'll Take You Man, I played fire, I played everything
I could possibly play. Next thing, you know, there was
a crowd in front of Grenelle's brother saying, look at
that boy. Look at that boy in there playing that
bass like that. And my mother looked at it and
she said, they said, we can do a payment plan,
(45:41):
thirty dollars a month. He deserves it. He'll be good.
And she put her head down just like this because
she didn't have that kind of money, and she said,
wrap it up. I better not see this under the bed.
I said, I promise you you'll never see it under the bed.
Now that base retired. My mother side of it, All
(46:07):
of this stuff you see here, all of this every
time you see me on soulfire, every time you see
me anywhere. It was because she took a chance on
a four hundred and thirty dollars fender base. She didn't
have the money. She probably ended up paying eighteen hundred
dollars right, she bought us, but it paid for everything
(46:33):
that you see me about. She invested in me. She
invested in me, and that was what it was. And
I played that thing in the ground. Being young, I
didn't know anything about. I couldn't afford to take it
to go and get calibrated. So I just changed the strings.
And you know how we had to boil the strings
to get that pop back. You know what I mean?
What boil them? You will put on?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Explain that process to me.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
So here's the thing I ended up. I could buy
like I could save up enough money to buy strings
maybe once every five to six months. So I bought
these dear dairya lights. So you know they get all
craddy and stuff, they start sounding dull. Well, we learned
that if you take them off the base, ground them up,
put them in hot boiling water for about seven to
(47:17):
ten minutes, you pull them back off and they fresh.
You get that same bank right back again. So we
were boiling strings. We would never buy none. That's good style,
good stuff.
Speaker 5 (47:30):
Hey, Fred, did you play that on victory?
Speaker 3 (47:35):
I played enough by that time I was able to
buy another base, another finger, because that base got me fired.
That That was literally after the Thomas Whitfield session. He said, man,
you're a good player, but you you got to keep
up with your axe and you just gotta I gotta
have somebody to play. And at that point Lenard Turn
(47:56):
had this Gibson and it was it was solid. So
I lost the gig, but he'd let me play the
least those two songs. And you know what it was.
It was an Ibanaz. I went and bought an Ibannaz
and that's the one that's on victory. That's the one
on victory. Yep.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Do you still have that original base? Just for prosperity
sake or.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
I couldn't thin. But I went and bought one, just like,
just to remind me. I went and bought one just
not Now it's crazy. I don't play much no more
because of my arthritis and I'm just older, and so
I got a lot of young cats to play with me. Now.
I ended up getting my own base line through base
Mind and everything on it, and I got about five
(48:43):
of them. And I'm like, man, you wait till I
can't play to give me this.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
You didn't get to see that Dishy Fread never got damn,
but you know she's watching the spirit. Can you please
tell me, as much as you feel comfortable with revealing
(49:09):
what's under the hood. I want to know what is
it to tour on the gospel circuit first of all,
to get to get the pole position of being the
go to guy to play these gigs. But then let's
say I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I
(49:31):
play drums and you play bass. You mentioned the Winers,
but I mean I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand,
Like when do you start? When did they really start
taking you serious? As in friends my go to Like
at what year are you the man?
Speaker 3 (49:49):
You know? It never happened like that for me because
I went straight from the Winers straight to Commission, and
with Commission, I dedicated every waking moment. I dedicated every
week and moment to making sure that group did what
we needed to do. I will tell you this story
that I got fired off of a Commission off of
(50:10):
a Tremaine Hawkins tour. That was my first tour that
I was the go to guy.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Man, I'm trying to think it was. It was probably
I was out of school, so it could have been
like it was coming out of the Whinings. So it's
probably eighty three Rte her first real solo album, but.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Look at Me, Crisis at Me three.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Albums that album. I got fired off that gig. And
it was funny because Michael Wright was was one of
my best friends. Michael Williams is one of my best friends.
Michael Williams is the drummer. He's a drummer for Commission,
and Michael Wright was a guitar player. He was supposed
to be the seventh member of Commission and they Jeffrey
(50:53):
in the Valley was putting together a group uh to
go out and play for Tremaine. So me and Michael
bass player lead and then drummer, and everything was fine,
and we were rehearsed. We were shed in the basement
and I always sang the middle and Mike sang the top,
and that's just the way it was. The night we
(51:15):
got to Jeff to come in and do the audition, like,
let's let's start practicing my Mike froze and he started
singing the middle. Now in my head, I couldn't make
that transition bass wise and singing, so I had to shed.
And once I learned my part, I'm good. But it's
not like, oh, let me switch to this PI or
(51:36):
let me sing this party. It's like, this is my part.
I can rock this and I can sing this part song. Well,
he sang my part and he froze, and I'll never forget,
I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike,
I sing the middle, and he looked right back at
me and said, no, I sing the middle. And I'm like, oh.
(51:57):
We had a situation there, and Jeff la Valley was
looking like this somebody somebody singing something, and so I said, well,
let me solveage this situation because he's my boy, I'll
try to sing this top I'll just learn it. And
as I was doing it, I was struggling, and so
Jeff said, you know what, let's just come back tomorrow.
But when I came back the next day, they had
(52:18):
somebody sitting in the car and the manager came and said,
we have a problem, and we seem to be a problem.
What's the problem and they said, well, I said, well,
we kind of learned kind of the same part. And
they said, go get Jonathan right quick, and coming down
the steps, Jonathan Dubos walking down the steps. He come
(52:39):
walking down the steps and Mike Wright, who's the guitar player.
I said, oh man, I'm fired. And he literally he
literally started packing up his guitar. And they said no, no, no, no,
no no. They said, Fred, can he use your base
and they all they rehearsed right in front of me,
and they said, Fred, I'm sorry, Unfortunately, we're not going
(53:00):
be able to use you all this time.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
And they couldn't just take three hours so you can
relearn your harmony parts or whatever.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
They told me to go home and learn it, and
they gave me a knight and I went home and
I learned it and when I went back, Gloria Hawkins
was there, Jeff Lavalley was there, and Jonathan was standing there.
They were just there. And I can't imaginef Jonathan came
in yet, but I know it was doubt. And the
pressure hit me so hard. And I started playing and
(53:31):
I was singing a note that I could not sing,
and I just remember stopping and put my head down
and I wasn't gonna rap for my boy. This is
kind of the first time I sold. It was his fault.
I don't care now. I sat through the whole rehearsal
while Jonathan Dubo's practiced on my base.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
And I tell everybody. One of the reasons why probably
I am decently sucessful, it's because I never carried bitterness
towards anyone.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you're
seeing these people every day like.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
We were still boys, Okay, we never you know, you
don't rat your boy out, And that's just what it was.
And it was unspoken at that time that that's what
the problem was. And I never I never rated him out.
And I just it was crazy too, because they toured
for about a year to two years and I was broken.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
I was broken. See James, we would have rated each
other out.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Man. My best friend was Michael Williams as well, the
drummer for Commission, and he has no filter, so he
would come back just tell them, yeah, we just came
from Amsterdam, man. Man, let me tell you something, man,
just that I just bought this, I bought that, and
we did that, and I just I sat there and
I just I just took it. You know.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
So what did you wind up doing?
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Like?
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Did you take that ass?
Speaker 3 (54:59):
Like?
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Okay, I a set even harder.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Oh yeah, I've said I'm never gonna let that happen
to me again. But what I did was I focused
deep on getting commissioned together because we had to learn managers.
We had to try to find managers. We didn't have
the easy role man. People thought that commission was signed
and somebody saw us. Man. We spent We raised thirteen
(55:22):
thousand dollars from aunts, uncles, cousins, skating parties, receptions. We
would put them in a shoe box under my bed
and go buy studio time. And finally we had a
finished product and we leased that first record that I'm
going on. It was a lease.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
I'm going on record.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Yep, our manager. We went to ty Scott Records and
Leonard Scott said, I'll sign you guys. We didn't know
what to ask for. We said, can we just have
the money back to pay our parents and our family back?
And he said sure. But then Derek Dirkson, who was
the leader of Chapter eight, you know, he was the
drummer and the leader of Chapter he said, let me
(56:00):
manage you. Guys. You just walked away from the wine.
He said, let me manage you and uh, we said okay.
He said, give me two weeks. I'm gonna take it
to Light Records, and if they don't come back within
two weeks, we'll go over. The tys guy, well he
called on his relationships. He did a lease steal. We
put the record out and the rest is history. And
then we got signed the second record all from second
(56:22):
record All.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
I was just going to ask you about the business
of that. So how did that work in terms of like,
do you guys own those masters?
Speaker 9 (56:29):
Now?
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Was it a deal that they own?
Speaker 4 (56:32):
How was business done in the gospel world as compared
to the kind of secular music.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
It was done the same same thing. Jack, I believe
we own the masters now though we do own the
masters off to the first five records, but other than that,
we just got took.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
So in your mind and you're saying that the Winings
was like your first gig before you went with or
your biggest gig before you went to forming commission? In
your mind, is the Whinings and doing that circuit as
good as it gets, like as top as it gets.
(57:14):
Is there any point where you're like, hey, maybe I
should go to Los Angeles to become a session musician,
or are there any secular acts? Like is Anita Baker
in the chapter? You know, like are you are your
eyes looking elsewhere? Or for you? It's like, I'm gonna
stay in the gospel world and the Winings is as
(57:37):
good as it gets to get out there.
Speaker 3 (57:40):
I never looked to do a secular group or play
in the club or anything else. I really felt like
I was called. And this is before I knew my
birth issues or anything. I honestly felt like I was
called to gospel music. So the Winings was as big
as it got. It's like, man, I thought I'd be
paying for them right now at sixty years old. I
(58:01):
never thought I was gonna leave. And I didn't want
to leave when I left, you know, honestly, there was
a little high coup that happened in commission. He I'm
gonna give you all some real little son behind the scene.
A couple members called me with our managers at that time,
into a basement at twelve o'clock at night and they
(58:24):
told me, if you don't leave the winings, we're gonna
take this group from you. You out here traveling, you
out here doing that, you can't be no group leader.
They didn't have a record deal, they didn't have anything,
but there was some scuttle but that was going on
between two members and the management, and they were literally
trying to take the group from me. And I said,
(58:45):
they said, if you don't leave them, we're going to
take this group from me. So I had to go
back to the winings. And I couldn't be no rat.
So I couldn't tell them, Man, they're making me do this.
I had to tell them and then after Chicago that's
my last, that's my last gig. I'm going to make commission.
And they were so mad at me, really, and they
(59:08):
were so mad. They understood no no, no, no no no,
that's what they said. But it was because we were family.
And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson,
the Mighty Clouds of Joey al Green and a bunch
of people in Chicago, and I'll never forget. I cried
(59:28):
like a baby. And in the van they got together
as brothers and they sang this song to find His Keepers.
I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend, we
love having you.
Speaker 4 (59:46):
What up, y'all finclo here? That was part one of
our two part interviews with the legendary bred Hammond. Y'all
stay tuned. Part two is coming up next week, and
it gets even better right here on QLs. Of course
Love Spring Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
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