Fred Hammond Pt. 1

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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Ladies and gentlemen. This is Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to
our are nominated our N double A CP nominated Team Supreme. Yeah, Hello,
how are you? I'm feeling good? An Image Award nominated, Sir,

(00:22):
I have made it. Yes, that's fine. And uh Suger Steve,
how how are you this evening? I'm good. My image
had been nominated as well. A graduated, That's how I'm feeling.
I'm feeling good. And uh, you know, the keeper of
Rocco and Elmo, how you doing? Uh? Unpaid 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 A
CP Award. So feels good to put it like that.
There you go. How's it going. I'm good, brother, I'm
good man glad if you know? Mainated and uh yeah,
I never thought this would happen over for years right

(01:07):
straight back here here 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 QLs,
especially in the last year, about you know, the direction

(01:27):
of transformation in my life is going and how it's
important to often get out of your comfort zone, you know,
stretching out the different territories. So I will be the
first to be very transparent with our longtime listeners of
q LS that this episode should be notable for Unlike

(01:47):
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 probably more the first time that I don't
know the entire can in the history of a particular
guest of the show, like the back of my hands.

(02:09):
I'm not saying that I'm not familiar with our guest today.
So that said, I would actually like to say and injact,
that we have to special guests today. So joining the
Team Supreme is uh my brother in soul or soul
quarian James alowitious poiser, producer, songwriter fellow Randy Watson or

(02:34):
extraordinari and gospel of for Sionado and Me and world
famous meme one Twitter. Yeah, James is definitely like a meme.
I'm not even a meme, Like that's a life do
means get nominated for c p A Woods back up
Sir back upon Gray. Yes, you have grammed and you know,

(02:57):
but I'm sorry. That's fame. In the Meme Hall of Fame,
you will make it. That said. I 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 our guest today,
I will say, is one of the most legendary and

(03:19):
influential musicians that I know in Black music. That's not
hyperbolick or anything. I say this literally because I have
not met a musician post five that has not made
our guests their north star as far as their musicianship

(03:41):
is concerned. We'll get with that in the show today.
But without further ado, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to
Quest of Supreme be legendary Brother Fred Hammond. Yes, do appreciated,
appreciate it and congratulations everybody, but we're in your nomination.

(04:03):
Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know,
it was weird. I didn't even know that you were
active on social social media and you had left a
comment and 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, UM,

(04:26):
this this conversation is long long overdue because, as as
I said at the top, back when I was really
honing my skills as a musician, UM, there was like
one of three routes you can go. Now we all
know that I chose the hip hop route. Most musicians
in eight three, eight four eighty five they chose the
purple route. And then there's a sect of black musicianship

(04:50):
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 there are main choice.
And when I see you, I'm talking about you, and
you're very influential group commissioned. UM, So I thank you.

(05:10):
I've been dying to have this conversation with you because
I need the agentication. So where where are you right
now as we speak. I'm at my studio here in Dallas,
have 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

(05:32):
on for the New Addition tour, just to kind of
give them some stuff to go through some transitions, you know,
give some suggestions and stuff. So I was just finishing
up uh that, you know, and then we'll send it
out to him and see, you know, give some ideas
of what can happen. My brother Ray is the production
manager for the tours. So when you see BBD a

(05:52):
new addition each front of house and the guy that
runs the you know, gets everything together production line. So
so you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m
D or co m D of this reunions or that's
about it's just uh right now, we're just seeing some stuff.
And I wanted to show them like a lot of

(06:14):
the transitions that they want to do from songs, songs
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 commissioned new edition type stuff,
simple just to get them to the next song, you know,
so to give them another just to give my idea

(06:35):
of what can happen. So you know, it's up to them.
You know that sounds like yeah, quasi 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

(06:55):
of that album, which is called uh, That's the Way
We're Living, which, as far as its executions concerned, I
feel like that definitely falls from the treat of what
Commission was about. 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 I

(07:19):
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, that's our link,
and that's our link, and that's our like well, you
know the thing about it is back then a lot
of people don't notice. But I was close with a

(07:41):
lot of those guys back then. You know. You know,
it was funny because you know DeVante his father is
a pastor, and one day we did a concert at
their church and DeVante said, yo, man, you know, he
came up I style. He was a young fella. He said, hey, man,
I just want to tell you guys have been influenced
to us. And I just got signed to m c A.
And the name of my group is called Jotasi. I say, really,

(08:03):
he said, you know Casey and I knew Little Casey
from Little Cedric. I used to so Little Cedric and
the Hayley Singers. We would do concerts together and pass
on the road and do interviews or whatnot. So I
was I kept up with all of those guys. And
you know a lot of the catch Chucky Booker and
d o A and people bring me backstage. They would

(08:24):
bring me backstage and whether they were doing the Budwise
a Superfest. 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 the curtain, you know.
But I would go, you know, I would go to
Al Hayman bud Wise is Superfest, and I would meet
the guys backstage and I would watch. I'd be a

(08:45):
student of production of how they were playing, and I
would take it back to Commission, you know. Uh. Commission
is a amalgam of the Clark's Sister Number one, the
vocal of the Clark's sisters. Then the US is the
time Earth winning fire, Um Genesis, you know Chicago, we

(09:08):
did just a different thing, and we noticed that a
lot of the guys that were coming around at that time,
we're coming up to us and they were starting to
get the get put on, like boys and men, and
we just kept in touch and we were just cool
and friendly. Uh little Joe and uh Buddy from the
Rude Boys. Yeah, we're always doing something. We're always together

(09:29):
at some point doing something, letting them hear music, They're
letting us here ours and here there's you know, so
we we kept connected with our R and B family.
You know, did he just say Genesis? Yeah? 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 like we just literally, Um, I forget
the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think
you remember this you this? Do you remember when, um,
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, So do you remember when Mars Volta

(10:21):
auditioned a drummer at our studio like behind literally next
to your studio he was a gospel chops drummer, Thomas Pridgeon,
I think, yes, yeah, and it was it was the
match made it. At first, I was like, that's weird
that they got a gospel chop drummer to do it,
But because of the intricacies of what Mars Volta is,

(10:44):
it was like a marriage made in heaven. And that's
when I realized that gospel chops and prog rock are
almost neck and neck with each other. I mean, of course,
gospel chop has more soul to it, but every every
cop group now has a gospel drummer on a grande
and all those guys they all have. It's all like
big fills from three and four and one every every bar.

(11:11):
I think, like everything's like at the end of the
four of our phrases. What the notable thing about my
entry and music is that I'm the opposite of that?
But literally, which is funny, yeah, which I'm saying that basically.
I feel as though Commissioned really is probably the most

(11:32):
influential black group in at least the last forty years
of music, second to two Prints, you know, as far
as the as far as the ripple effect of absolutely
their contribution because you look at a song like I'm Learning,
I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all.

(11:53):
I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a
Jodacy album or you know what I'm saying. Like it
was 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,
you know what I'm saying a lot of times gospel
because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel

(12:15):
stuff would always be behind, like if he came out
in ninety two, it would sound like something from like seven,
you know what I'm saying. But but but commission record,
y'all was always like right on time and it was
never dated. 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

(12:38):
the guys wrote a song called It's so Good to
Know the Savior and that he was a tempo guy,
so it was like a church tempo. Then then it's
so good, let's say, And the record company didn't pick
it it was. It had all the pile and the
bustle and everything. And the guy he came to me

(12:58):
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 it's kind of dated. And I said tomorrow,
we just need to casting over the month. And they
didn't know because they hadn't heard. They hadn't heard LeVert.
I was cool with with Gerald, and so when casting

(13:19):
Ova 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 r a drum
machine and some stuff and I just boom boom cocka
boom boom cacka boom boom bocka booch and then it
changed into you can see it vamp into that and
then the song had life. Well that was because we

(13:40):
stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and
our counterparts. You know, we paid attention to everybody from
the old school, whether it's luth uh Al Green, you know,
earth Wind all the way up to the firt to
a baby Face to the deal. You know, like we
were talking which song we like? We like Sweet November

(14:01):
or do we like this? Because our vocals we're off
of the whispers and the dramatics. Those are our mail
vote counterproducts that we we love. Do wat. So if
you hear a lot of our our harmonies we sing
like Ron Banks and Scotty and Walter, you will hear
a lot of that in a but then if we
add what we are. But it's because we paid attention

(14:22):
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
baby Face in l A. So one time we were
going to do this thing in Minnesota called um Uh.
It's a Methodist church and they were the Soul Liberation

(14:45):
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 in the flight Time and I was just
blown away. And that's when I was just influenced heavily
by you know, these two guys, and they were just

(15:07):
finishing the controls starting on We're about to start on
this new record called Rhythm Nation and recording now and
we just had those moments. Then they said, well where
you want to go next? Now we were church boys,
now remember this, this is this is what we church board.
So we didn't do clubs and stuff like that. So
somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio and
he was like, I don't know, so I think people

(15:33):
like I think something gonna jump on this. 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 with whatever I'm talking about.
And we walked up to the place and people praying
Jesus help us going you know, we're walking into the

(15:54):
spot and we're thinking, man, you better pray put some
annoysing oil on when we When we walked in, it
was business as usual, people just walking around doing business.
It wasn't nothing crazy. And I said, man, this is
the whole thing as a persona, I thought, And the

(16:22):
rest of the guys, some of the guys said, I'm
gonna just staying. I'm gonna stay in the van. I said,
I'm going in. I want to see what's what I mean,
how far do 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):
I 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
seven teens spread feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry.
It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince and Michael Poe who

(17:07):
lived in Detroit who produced to Anita Baker, and 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. You know, Okay, I want
to start at the beginning of your life. Um, I'm

(17:29):
assuming that you were born in Detroit, Michigan. I'm born
in San Antonio. Oh all right. See the one time
I don't ask the question, I get burnt. Sorry, he
tell me what your first musical memory was. My first
musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know. I

(17:49):
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 it, you know, I was. My mother and father
were married to other people, and uh, he was a
pastor and my mother was a musician, and the church

(18:11):
really dogged my mom and protected him, and so they
kind of put her out as 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 with me
being here. So um yeah. And so she was my

(18:36):
biggest musical influence. So I followed her everywhere. Two because
she taught choirs. She was very amazing at teaching choirs
and playing the piano for churches. And I never forget.
I'll go back to She came home with this little
forty five and I had a close and play and
she said, you know, I bought these boys, you know,

(18:57):
And it was just a pitch 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, and I was probably
five six, and I was just I was enamored with

(19:18):
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. So I
made sure she didn't never hear me again. So I

(19:40):
took my clothes and play in the closet because you
ran ther own batteries, and I sang in the closet
because I didn't want her to hear me saying I
was afraid she was gonna put me up there in
front of the church. And so that's my earliest knowledge
right there. So were you kind of born into skepticism
of the church, like since ye because of your tuation?
You know. The beautiful thing is God kept me from

(20:03):
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 you can't do nothing with God because you're
born out of weather. You who are you? You know
your mother your mother's it is an adulterer. So they
just kind of threw us away. But the reality is

(20:23):
that's why I'm probably effective today now because I sing good,
not because I play any instruments or not because I
produced anything or saying 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,
I understand brokenness. Why don't you come with me? I

(20:44):
believe this, and you know, so there's no heirs, It's
just it's a forgiveness element in there too, though, that
you got that you absolutely so when people like question.
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,

(21:05):
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, I understand where you are.
I get it, I get it. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah,
I mean that's mine. Wasn't as drastic as like being
shun or whatnot, but definitely my parents were sort in

(21:27):
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 would explain to people often that you know, we'll
look at somebody like, you know, Ray Charles now as

(21:48):
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 n
w A of his day. Like, yeah, the gospel music
with secular lyrics was highly controversial with the Black church.

(22:10):
And fast forwarding to where your entry in the gospel
music is where you can put some funk inside it
or put some swing inside 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):
the transition from San Antonio to Detroit. Well, due to
the circumstances situation, they sent this up to Detroit. We
were sitting, oh EXI we we We got a nice
bus ticket up to a friendly place called Detroit, and

(22:52):
a beautiful family called the Hope the Hoax family. They
took us in and they gave us their attic and
we became a part of their family. Why my mother
go went through her healing process, you know, um of
which when she passes seventy four, she was still trying
to validate herself as you know, forgiven you know, and

(23:17):
she was a she's a great praise warrior, great, you know.
She she made a lot of strides, but just she
couldn't get over some things. And uh so we ended
up in Detroit, which was a blessing. How big is
your family at this point as far as your siblings,
and at that time it was me and my mom.
At this point is me I got two brothers, Ray

(23:40):
and Dave, and they have families. Um, I have a family.
I have kids and uh whatnot. And I have two
sisters that live in Atlanta from my mother's other union,
you know. And then then I have a brother and
four other sisters in the other unit. So I'm right

(24:01):
there in the middle. I'm the absolute when you count down,
I'm the middle child of all of that, you know.
So that's we were. And now we're all kind of
clue together. My brother from my father's side, he comes
and he drives our tour bus from time to time.
And my sisters already, so we're all counted together. And uh,

(24:22):
you know, that's that's the thing. So Okay, I know
you were born in I believe. Um, 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

(24:43):
in the early sixties. And I know, of course people
who grew up in Detroit between like the mid eighties
and the and 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, Motown's leaving. Could you just describe

(25:05):
to me basically what your life was as a teenager
in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies. 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

(25:26):
moved to California to Inglewood when I was in the
fourth grade, the first part of 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

(25:46):
a parochial school with a seventy at Venis, where I
was good friends. My best friend was Greg Mathis, Judge
Greg Mathis. So he and I were in the oh yeah,
and I were in the fifth grade together and everything
you ever hear that he ever said one hunted because
I lived in the hood and he lived in the projects.
He lived in the Herman Gardens, and he had a

(26:09):
bunch of brothers, and but he was smart as a
whip in the in the fifth 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 uh, I hadn't

(26:29):
done any real music until I got to about sixteen,
about fifteen or sixteen years old, and I transitioned from
drums in my church to bass guitar. Wait a minute,
you're trying to tell me that. I'm thinking like you
came out the wound playing base, but this didn't happen

(26:50):
until you were a teenager. You're right around fourteen, thirteen
years old. I started transition because my mother. I went
to a church called Greater Grades Temple, and the line
to play drums was around the corner and in the
pastor's son he had it locked Chuckie Yellis, Charles Ellis,
he's bitch of bellis now, but he was an amazing drummer,

(27:11):
and I had my sticks. I would go every Sunday
and I would try to play, and you know, just
never got a chance. And my mother said, hey, you know,
I'm I don't like to see you, you know, not
getting the chances there any other instrument. There was a
bass guitar laying over the corner, and nobody would come
and play because the guy was working. And I said, well,
I'd like to play bass, maybe I could try that.

(27:32):
And that's when I moved to bass guitar and I
never looked back. 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,

(27:54):
the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South. They're
getting these factory jobs, these factory jobs of paying well,
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 of the funk generation starts.
And I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration

(28:18):
seventies seventy one seventy too, you know, budgets started to
get cut, 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

(28:42):
we're factories closing by then, and then like that dream
just died. 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
uh in my fifteen His name was Jeff Stanton, and

(29:04):
he was like my best friend. And this guy could
play every instrument at that point. He could play bass,
he could play guitar, you can 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 sd and he would start to show me people.
He was the person he said, Man, I got this record,

(29:26):
you really need to hear check it out. This dude
right here plays all the instruments. His name is Prince
and it was the four Year Hour, and so we're
listening in the basement and he's like, man, listen to that.
Listen to that. You gotta get on your theory, Fred,
he's teaching me theory. He's like, uh uh uh, what's that?
And I'd have to kind of come back and name it.

(29:48):
And uh So every day we would shed and we
would go places like the Detroit Detroit Music Union and
bands would play come in and audition, so we it
was still alive. Uh and then we would play in
the garage. We played Mr Magic for like four hours,
you know, in then we graduated. Then we graduated the

(30:10):
Irbian and you 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 played
and then there 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 doom do. When I learned that concept that that man,

(30:34):
it blew 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, well living
in Detroit, was was any of the p funk folklore?
Like was that an influence on you at all like

(30:55):
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 was
that even that part of your DNA at all? You know,
they had an eight mile There was a club called
Axles Okay, the lead Woods, Lamont Johnson they were, so

(31:21):
they would all play there. Am Fitler would show up
and they said, yo, man An Fitler from he played
with George Clinton, uh, David Chong, which I mean, and
then the only people and we would try to go
in there and sitting there and sneak in because it
was kind of underage. When we'd sneak in and we
listened to him and these cats. The funk was heavy.
It was still Brainstorm was just starting to get started. Man,

(31:45):
it was real, real storm. So Am Fitler, Uh, we
never got a chance to see George, but we played
with a lot of the guys that played on his record,
like Butch Small believe his name is, but yeah, he
was a big He used to run a studio called
r m J and so he was the Lynn drum king.

(32:05):
So he came and did some Lyn 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 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.
So as a musician, who would you say, is is

(32:28):
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 every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams,
thank you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark.
So the fact that you started in seventy eight with

(32:49):
Prince tells me that you're sort of a later generation.
So who, as far as like your setting and and
as far as like who you wanted to emulate? Who
is the musician that is your north star? Well? Number one? Okay,
Well let's break it up into two bass players. Okay, now,

(33:10):
because my total north star is Stevie period, hands down, right.
But as far as bass players are gone, Okay, So
my 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, that's James Jamison. James Jamison.
I would hear his basselines and I just always locked him.

(33:34):
Now as a bass player, Uh, definitely with Stanley and Jacko,
and then it was Able Boreal. It was Alfonso Johnson
who played this, you know, fretless uh situation. I paid
attention to Anthony Jackson. These are my these are my

(33:55):
goal toos. And then of course Marcus was younger, so
he came on the seen a little bit later. But
those guys were my Jamison Clark, Uh, Anthony Jackson, Jocko,
Alfonso Johnson, Geno Vannelli's bass player. I don't know who
it was, but we would listen to him. But so
anybody that was really killing back then, we would grab

(34:17):
their record, their music and we would just I would
share to it. So those are my north stars right there.
So were you more a team uh thumb plucking or
were you more a team index middle finger for babies.
I'm a pocket guy. I never had the all of these.
I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely

(34:37):
a thump. I was definitely team Thump. I get it, okay,
I love it at what point, are you forming or
at least bonding with Marcus Montreal like the other members
of Commission, like how are you guys? How do you
guys meet? And that was that your first actual band

(34:59):
or did you have bands before? Well? Mitchell Jones and
I we gradually we went to school together at Mumford
High 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 Windings. I was a bass
player for them from nineteen until I was like twenty

(35:21):
three years old, and that's when I started. That's when
I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell, Keith Staton,
Carl Read, Michael Brooks and Michael Williams the drum and
right around them, right around are you talking live in
studio both? I'm sorry what the wine is? I was

(35:42):
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. But here's a 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 of the skin, and so they this is no joke.

(36:05):
They had us come over. He opened the door and
we had to look through the screen and I've been
sitting in the chair over and said just look over there,
right over there, and we were like, wow, that is
hum Wow, this is that. We never asked if we
come in and we never went in home. No, that's

(36:27):
how they protected their relationships, like no, no, So I
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 weren't offended. We really weren't offended.
When we heard their records, we knew it was something

(36:49):
different between Able, Boreal, Bill Maxwell, Hadley Hockin 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. Now, let me ask you this, were
you around and I'm gonna nerd boy out on my

(37:12):
on the Church? Yes, that's why you here? Were you
back then? On the Church? Vibe with with Thomas Woodfield
and Rudolf Stansfield and all these guys whoa see that stuff.
I wouldn't know that. As like Thomas Woodfield gave me

(37:33):
my first chance to play in the studio and my base,
my base wasn't up to park, it wouldn't stay in tune,
and I was too young. The first record was Vanessa
Belle Armstrong peacep still record, Yes, Vanessa bell and there's
a song called I don't want my living to be
in Vain and anywhere you bless me and playing those

(37:54):
two okay, my my, my boy that honestly he called
in because my base didn't work was Lenar Brandley Kerrn,
Okay Kerr. Everybody that's okay. So but Kern was the
king around there, and uh he was another guy that
kind of scooled me. But that was my first take
on going in the studio. So then when we did

(38:15):
our demo as commissioned, 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,
give him my problem to you? Um, I can see
Jesus um if you listen to um uh if we

(38:36):
ever needed the Lord Before those three songs, the rhythm
track of that was produced by Thomas Whitfield Wow. And
I was amazed by Thomas, because you know, Thomas had
an arcolepsy. So Thomas would be where he would be
straight up like this, get that be flat out of there,

(38:58):
and everybody stopped and somebody played and they solow it,
and sure enough get our player played the B flat
that was kind of hitting up under there, and they said,
I don't play that. Oh that's a scene, come on,
and uh, how much? Was my hero? Thomas was really

(39:19):
my hero. And I was sitting in the corner of
RMJ Studio and I went out. I remember watching a
garbage can out. It was like this little great high
school bought garbage came we have in high school. I
went and washed it out. I turned it upside down
and stuck it between the tape machine m c I
tape machine and an effects rack. And I sat in

(39:40):
this little cubby hole and I didn't ask, let's the 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,
showed me how he thinks. And I probably was eighteen
years old at that time, and said, please show me
how he thinks, because he was. He was a genius

(40:00):
when he sat down and played like he sit on
the piano and played. Man, it was it was magical
just the way he did it. And so you know
Thomas Whitfield man, Rudolph Stanfield, oh man, Rudolf was and
I'm not sure if you remember this guy because he
was right with Thomas, and that's Earl J right, you
know he was, he was, He was a genius. So

(40:21):
all these cats ran together and I just stood in
the background. 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? Yeah, okay,

(40:44):
So two story. Um 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 and the
guy said if you buy now, I'll give it to

(41:06):
you now. It couldn't stay in tune. It was impossible
because between the A and the G you know there
was it was cracked. 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
advice and blue there, and I'm trying to figure out
how to make this thing work. So we took it

(41:27):
up to Wonderland Music and said, you know, can y'all
fix this? And the guy said, no, 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. We took it back to
kmart argue with him because it was no return, but
they gave us some money back. My mother took the
twenty five back to Wonderland and uh and uh. We
bought this Norma for that same amount, and so I

(41:52):
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. You gotta promised me. And so I
promised her, and I played and I went to church
and we had had a storefront church and I played.
I had a little bit of ample, and I played
and I would play so high because you couldn't hear me.
So I had to play it like a lead because

(42:14):
Churchill going and I'm like, d that's 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 was going, we're going to the inquiry
so and she said, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in you.

(42:37):
You promised me I'm gonna sell that almost suddenly, and
she wouldn't even look at me. She just drove 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 disappoint me like that? You told me

(42:57):
you promised you better keep your word as a man.
Why did you tell me that? And I said, they
laugh at me. She said, cool, say everybody on est
Eddie Charles. Everybody Why, they said, because it don't sound
like a base And she just said nothing else. That

(43:20):
next Saturday we ended up going to Oakland mall for
Neil's music, and we were in there, and so she
she was on playing the piano like she was playing
the piano, and she said, which one of them basis
is better? And I picked up this unifox and I said, well,
this one is. It's a d eighty dollars because at
that point you can tell how much your base about

(43:40):
how much it calls hundred eighty dollars from is a
nice You got a good base. I was sitting there, man,
and I was playing it. And then she said, okay,
wrapped 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 give him the best. And I'm telling to
do shut up. My mother's on the yes. Got this

(44:04):
thing up and get the hip out of you. 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 procedures, and man, that's my dude, that's my dude.

(44:25):
You're man, Oh god, 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 I just leave play it?
And we went through this rich We said, take off
your coat, almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from
on that feet. Take off. He made sure he put
a towel on me, and he put the base down

(44:45):
and I plugged it into that amp that the Unifox had.
He's oh, no, no, no, no, you got to do
this fright. He pushed this big red custom eight foot
off there and turned it up. And the first thing
I did it was done don't don't boom, don don

(45:09):
don and it was it was so smooth, and all
of a sudden, I'm playing everything. I said, I may
not get a chance to play this no more. So
I played skin tight, I played I'll take I played fire.
I played everything I could possibly played. Next thing, you know,

(45:30):
there was a crowd in front of Grenelle's brother saying,
look at that boy, look at that boy, and they're
playing that basse like that. And my mother looked at
it and she said, they said, we could do a
payment playing the thirty dollars a month. He deserves this,
He'll be good. And she put her head down just
like this because she didn't have that kind of money. Yeh.

(45:51):
And she said, wrap it up. I bet not see
just under the bed, I said, I promise you you'll
never see it under the bed. Now that base retired.
My mother. All of this stuff you see here, all
of this, every time you see me on Soulfia, every
time you see me anywhere, is because she took a

(46:13):
chance on a four hundred and thirty dollar fender base.
But she didn't have the money. She probably ended up
paying eight hundred dollars, but it paid for everything that

(46:33):
you see me. But 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 the ball of strings
to get that pop back. You know what I mean?
What boil them? You will put explain that process to

(46:55):
you know. Here's the thing I ended up. I could
buy like I could save up enough money to buy strings,
uh maybe once every five to six months. So I
bought these dear Dairea lights. So you know, they get
all trendy and stuff. They start sounding duk. Well, we
learned that if you take them off the base, ground
them up, put him in the hot ball and water

(47:16):
for about seven to ten minutes. You pull them back
off and they freshen. You get that same bank right
back again. So we were boiling strings. We were never
buying enough. That's good style. Hey, Fred, did you play
that on victory? I played enough By that time I

(47:37):
was able to buy another base, another fender, because that
base got me fired. That That was literally after the
time is whinfield session. He said, man, you're a good player,
but you gotta keep up with your acts and you
just gotta I gotta have somebody to play. And at
that point Lenard Turn had just Gibson and it was

(47:57):
it was solid. So I lost the gig, but he
let me play the least those two songs. And you
know what it was. It was an ibans. I went
and brother Ibanz and that's the one that's on victory.
That's the one on ye. Do you still have that
original base? Just for prosperity sake, Cord, I couldn't, but
I went and bought one, just like just to remind me,

(48:21):
I went and brought 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 baseline through base. Mine don't get
my own seniors year and everything on it. And so

(48:42):
I got about five of them. And I'm like, man,
you wait till I I can't play. To give me this.
Your mother didn't get to see you, but you know
he's watching the spirit we need. Can you please tell me,

(49:05):
as as much as you feel comfortable with revealing 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

(49:28):
I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I play
drums and you play bass. You mentioned the Whiners, but
I mean, I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand,
Like when do you start? When do they when do
they really start taking you serious? As in Freds might
go to, like at what year are you the man?

(49:49):
You know? It never happened like that for me. Because
I went straight from the Winders straight to Commission, and
with Commission, I dedicated every week and momentu I dedicated
every waking 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. 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 Winders, So it's probably eight three were right,
her first real solo album, whatever, Look at Me, Crisis

(50:31):
at Me three albums that first album. I got fired
off that gig. And it was funny because Michael Wright
was one of my best friends. Michael Williams is one
of my best friends. Michael Wins is the drummer. He's
a drummer for Commission. And Michael Wright was a good
top player. He was supposed to be the seventh member
of Commission, and they Jeffrey the Valley was putting together

(50:56):
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, were shared
in the basement, and I always sang in the middle
and Mike sang the top. And that's just the way
it was. The night we got to Jeff to come

(51:17):
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 base wise
and singing, so I had to share. And once I
learned my part, I'm good. But it's not like, oh,
let me switch to this partle let me sing this party.
It's like, this is my part. I can rock this

(51:40):
and I can sing this part song. Well. He sang
my part and and he froze, and I never forget,
I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike,
I seen in the middle, and he looked right back
at me and said, no, I sing the middle. And
I I'm like, oh, we have a situation there, And
Jeff le Valley was looking like this somebody thinking, somebody

(52:03):
seeing something. And so I said, well, let me salvage
the 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 somebody sitting in
the car and the manager came and said, we have
a problem, and we seem to be a problem. That's

(52:24):
the problem. And they said, well, I said, well, we
kind of learned the kind of the same part. And
they said, go get Jonathan right quick, and coming down
the steps, Jonathan do Bos walking down the stop. He
come walking down the steps and Mike right who's the
guitar player, said, oh man, I'm fired. And he literally

(52:45):
he literally started packing up his good time. And they
said no, no, no, no, no no. They said, Fred,
can you 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 be able to use you all
this time. They couldn't just take three hours so you

(53:06):
can relearn your harmony parts or whatever. They told me
to go home and learn it, and they gave me
a night and I went home and I learned it.
And when I went back, Gloria Hawkins was there, Jeff
Loa Valley was there, and that and Jonathan was standing there.
They were just there and I can't imagine if Jonathan
came in yet, but I know it was that in

(53:27):
the pressure hit me so hard. I started playing and
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 kind
of the first time I said it was his fault.
I don't care now. I sat through the whole rehearsal
while Jonathan Dubos practiced on my base. And I tell everybody.

(53:55):
One of the reasons why I probably I am decently
six sccessful, it's because I never carried bitterness towards anyone.
Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you've
see these people every day, like we were still boys,
still boys. We never you know, you don't wrat your
boy out. And that's just what it was. And it

(54:17):
was unspoken at that time that that's what the problem was.
And I never I never read it him out. And
I just it was crazy too, because they toured for
about a year to two years, and I was broken.
I would broke see James, we would have read each
other out. Man, My best friend was Michael Williams as well,

(54:40):
the drummer for commission, and he has no filter, so
he would come back just telling, 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. So what
what did you wind up doing? Like? Did you take
that as like, Okay, I got a jet even harder?

(55:01):
Oh yeah, obviously said I'm never 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 road. Man. People thought that
commission was signed and somebody saw us. Man. We spent.
We raised thirteen thousand dollars from uncle's cousins, skating parties, receptions.

(55:27):
We would put them in the shoe box under my
bed and go by studio times. And finally we had
a finished product and we leased that first record that
I'm going on. It was a least yep. Our manager.
We went to tight Scott Records, and Leonard Scott said
I'll sign you. Guys. We didn't know what to ask for.
We said, we just have the money back to pay

(55:48):
our parents and our family back. 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, of me, 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.

(56:09):
I'm gonna take it to Light Records, and if they
don't come back within two weeks, we'll go over the task.
Well he called on his relationships. He did at least. Still,
we put the record out and the rest is history.
Then then we got signed the second record off from
second record off. Yeah, I was just gonna ask you
about the business of that. Um, So, how did that
work in terms of like, do you guys own those

(56:29):
masters now? Was it a deal that they owned? How
was business done in the gospel world as compared to
the kind of secular music? It was done the same, Jack,
I believe we own the masters now though we do
the masters now to the first five records. Um. But

(56:51):
other than that, we just got too So in your mind,
and you're saying that The Windings was like your first
gig before you went with 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,

(57:12):
like as top as it gets. Is there any point
where you're like, hey, maybe I should go to Lost
Angeles to become a session musician, or are there any
secular acts? Like it is Anita Baker in the chapter
you know, like are you are your eyes looking elsewhere
or for you? For you? It's like, I'm gonna stay

(57:34):
in the gospel world and The Windings is as good
as it gets to get out there. I never looked
to do a secular group or play in the club
or anything else. I really felt like I was cold.
And this is before I knew my birth issues or anything.
I honestly felt like I was called to gospel music.

(57:55):
So The Windings was as big as it got. It's like, man,
I thought I'd be paying for their right now at
sixty years. I 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 to in commission.
You know, I'm gonna give you all something real, a
little something behind the scene. A couple of members called

(58:17):
me with our managers at that time, into a basement
at twelve o'clock at night and they told me, if
you don't leave the Windings, we're gonna take this group
from you. You out of traveling, you out of 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

(58:41):
the management, and they were literally trying to take the
group from me. And I said, they said, if you
don't leave them, we're gonna take this group from me.
So I had to go back to the Windings. And
I couldn't be no rat, so I couldn't tell him, Man,
they make it me do this. I had to tell
him and then after Chicago, that's my last, that's my
last gig, I'm going to make commission. And they were

(59:04):
so mad at really, and they were so mad. They understood.
They told you 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 Joy, Al Green and a bunch

(59:24):
of people in Chicago, and I never forget. I cried
like a baby. And in the van they got together
as brothers and they sang this song, Uh to find
His Keepers. I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend,
we love having you. M Uh what up? Y'all find

(59:47):
selo here. That was part one of our two part
interviews with the legendary Fred Hammond. Y'all stay tuned. Part
two is coming up next week, and it gets even
better right here on QLs. Cous Love Supreme YEP, m R.
Slave Subprime is a production of I Heart Radio. For

(01:00:09):
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.