Howard Hewett

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Question. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Oh damn, I'm paid Bills. What the hell? Snap Son,
Jesus Christ, Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of

(00:22):
course Bill. Thank you very much. Yeah, starring starring up
day Phil. You're in the house. You even with even
with a Tony, You're still with us. I know. I'm
just close from not I'm here from stay slumming Bill. Stay.

(00:45):
The second you complete your he got you're not gonna
mess with us anymore. The second he got before you.
Hell yeah, I'm just getting out Bill Love Supreme. I'll
take everybody with me to He says, all right, shook a, Steve,
you're still loyal, correct to Bill Sherman, Yes, okay, at

(01:10):
least somebody we got fon Tigelow in the crib. What's up? Brother?
Was good? B Yeah, I'm good man. We're down because
nice we move, we move, we moveing weight Son. I
like the fact that we down twenty six actually is
a good thing, because normally that could mean like Atlanta
is down by or you down twenty six dollars? Exactly

(01:35):
what it is? A game, nah man, it's it's you know,
it's still trying to try trying to live past fifty Yes,
which is you know, struggle, super struggle. How are you?
I'm good man, I'm feeling all right, feeling all right, good,
all right. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, Uh, what can I say?

(01:57):
Our Yes, it is a freaking jen known to us,
of course, as one third of probably one of my
favorite groups. I don't know, I can't categorize Shalamara as
a soul group. I can't categorize them as a pop
group or a bookie group. But you know, I mean

(02:18):
because they transition between disco, between bookie and between new
wave eighties pop. You know they were everlasting and you know,
of course are are our guest today is without saying,
a singers singer, A real singer, um and an awesome
singer has had such a story career, um singing the

(02:40):
soundtrack of our lives. UM. I don't even want to
waste one minute in my patent long nineteen minute intros.
I will just say, welcome to Quest Left Supreme, be
one and only howard you wit, Thank you, yes, indeed,
thank you, thank you for coming. Yeah. I can't wait
till we're off zoom so we could have like real

(03:01):
handclaps again, Like the last seven episodes were all breathing,
and that's that's what it's the killer because that's exactly
what it sounds like when you're in, when you're in
like a huge crowd, like exactly right, all right, we
woke up the effects for you. How how are you today?

(03:23):
What's going on? Very good? Very well? Just just like
we were talking earlier about I do my own my
daily walking. I'm trying to stay ahead of this heat
out here. It's like crazy, man, it's really crazy out
here in California. Well where I am, it's different temperatures
different Yeah, Long Beach. Out of the Long Beach. Yesterday

(03:44):
it was like seventies seven degrees out here all day
yesterday was like a hundred uh and real field was
hundred eight. So it's great eight man, it was. That's
one of those times you just stay in that you
stay in the house, you don't even go outside. You
you you mentioned something that this this actually might be

(04:07):
inspirational for me. How often do you have to commit
to the daily walk? I'll admit that, Um, I will
often let my work schedule become become my excuse to
get out of it. So I've been I've been sort
of religious about the daily walk, but in the last

(04:27):
two weeks I've sort of slacked off on it just
due to the scheduling of it. But how important is
the daily walked? Because before we were rolling, we were
just basically talking about the struggle to survive, especially for
black people, to struggle to survive past fifty without you know,
some sort of condition happening. So you like, I'm sure,

(04:48):
I'm certain that most of us that are on our
walking thing is doing it for health reasons and whatnot.
So conditioning, you know, conditioning and and But for me,
especially for the past years, see, since the pandemic, it
was almost like in the beginning of the pandemic, it
was a spiritual thing for me because it was like
it was almost like God said to me, he said,

(05:09):
I'm gonna remove everything from you that can distract you
from me. You did what I'm saying, Uh, me and
my girl broke up a couple of months before before COVID,
you know, my my partner. I'm not saying that that's
why he took him away from here, but he passed
Like in the beginning, the very beginning of of of

(05:30):
of covid. I've known this this cat since I was
twenty years old and my best friend. So but through
my career, I've gone through you know, death, my mom
and dad. You know, I've gone through breakups and all
that kind of stuff. Some of the saddest times that
I spent in my career was spent on stage. You
did what I'm saying because I and I had my work.

(05:53):
I always had my work. And so so he said yeah,
and he said, he said, and I'm take that away
from you right now, you know. And then and then
my next question in my spirit was, now, what you're
gonna do? You know what I'm saying. And so that's
when I did a daily I did a daily uh reading.

(06:16):
I get up, I read a daily situation. I read.
I started from Genesis and my Bible and went, I'm
all the way up, almost halfway through the New Testament now,
you know, and and all the way and and every day.
Because when I built my house, I had them build
a deck off of right, I can I can roll
out of bed and five or six steps I'm right

(06:38):
outside on my deck. You know what I'm saying. So
that was my daily devotion between me God, cried the
Holy Spirit. And so it was like and with that,
I started a whole situation as far as like we
were being shut in, but that didn't mean that we
had to be conspectators. So like when I in the

(07:00):
beginning of the pandemic, you know, I got out on
my bike. There's like a fifteen twenty mile route that
I can take around my crib. I got on. I
got out on my bike. And then in the middle
of that fifteen twenty mile route, I decided I stopped
to take a break, and I said, well, let me
go on Facebook, my Facebook fan page Live. Let me
go on live for a minute. And I went on there,

(07:22):
and all these people started flooding into the thing. How
what's up, what's going on? How are you doing? You know,
what's happening? Blah blah blah blah blah. And so then
that told me that people are in But you know,
and and and the thing about this pandemic, about this
virus rather is that it thrives on It thrived on
low immune systems. It thrived on low vitamin D deficiencies,

(07:46):
which is which is really uh heavy and art especially
and within within black people, and so and so like
it was like, my that's what I started. When I started,
I said, Okay, I'm gonna do with my wark because
I do it like a war mile walk. And then
and at first I was walking and had my had
my had my phone in my hand walking. I'm walking

(08:08):
and talking at the same time, right, And then I'm like,
I wasn't getting any benefit from the walk actually because
I'm not pacing myself. So then eventually I did in
the middle of the four the four miles, after about
two miles, I stopped at a specific place and then
I talked right First, at first it was F A
C dot dot dot and life right fresh air cardio.

(08:31):
All that leads to life, you know what I'm saying.
And then after we started talking and I started having
these conversations, my my, you know, take on what was
happening as far as the last administration was concerned, my
take on you know, the virus, my take on this,
my take, and people were chiming in. Then it became
a conversation. So then I added F A C C

(08:53):
at another C dot dot dot in life, fresh air
cardio conversation, which which as the communication understanding each other
and all that leads to life, you know what I'm saying.
So so it's almost like now after after all this time,
it's like I'm I feel like I'm obligated to get

(09:15):
on there for my people, so like you know, the
people that have have dedicated themselves to being there. So
I have a dedication to that myself. So on top
of that getting you know, my my health and and
keeping my health up and keeping everything up. You know,
it's it's like, okay, I can, I can take the
time to do all that stuff. Sometimes you know, uh,

(09:39):
the schedule will will like get in the way as
far as like how early I start, how early I
can get out there. But I'm always gonna get out there,
you know what I'm saying. Every day every day, I'm
out there every day, even on the weekend. I don't
I don't come online on the weekend, I don't go
live on the weekend, but I get out there and

(09:59):
do something on the weekend daily show. Okay, yeah, all right, Well,
how are you just let it be known that you're
definitely the straw that broke the all right, fine if
you That's what I needed to be here now because
people have been get on me, like yo, man, you're
slacking off, man. You you committed your dad, you're falling off,

(10:20):
like you know, my partner's that walk with and all
that stuff. So they were getting on me today about that,
like you ain't walked in like ten days of mirror.
So I now know. I now know that I have
to It's important, man, It's really important because you know
you all, you know, all you got if you don't
have anything else, you know you got and you have
your health if you if everything is jacked up, everything

(10:43):
can be going well. But if you don't have your health, man,
that's crazy. It's crazy. And and then if if stuff
is jacked up and your health is jacked up, that's
like a whole another thing. There's a whole another city.
You're absolutely right. Well, probably you look awesome, like you
look good, great, in great health, old goal late forties

(11:07):
to me like fort six. So yeah. The the question
I wanna pose to you, of course, is the first
question I always asked on the show. Could you please
tell us what your first musical memory was. My first
musical memory, man, was Actually I would think Isley Brothers,

(11:34):
Sam Cook and my grandmother's garage when we would have
the all the holidays. We would, we would. It would
always be at my grandmother, my grandma fits Hughes house.
And what you mean records or in person? No records,
I'm talking about record damn. It's like, are you're talking

(11:57):
about live? It's far no no no, no no no,
I mean your Yeah, that's that's one of musical because
we played. I wasn't. I was when I was five
years old, four or five years old. I was in
charge of like playing the forty fives and stuff, and
and they clear out the garage and and put a
turntable in there and and we had the forty fives

(12:18):
and stuff. So I remember Chain Gang, Sam Cook and
Twisted and Shot of course, you know the Iasy Brothers. Yeah,
I remember, I did you know? I did about about
twenties cities with Ron asually about some years about six seven,
eight years ago. And usually when I do a show,
I'm usually I do my show and I'm gone or else,

(12:41):
or if I'm headlining, I get there twenty minutes before
I go on, and that's it. I don't want to
get there hang around and stuff, and if I'm on
before the headliner, then I'm gone. But with with Ron,
when I was out there with Ron and and and
uh iasy brothers and with Earning and stuff. Man, every
night I was like in the wings. You know, it's

(13:02):
just like watching because he took me all the way
back to when I was like five years old, you know,
five six seven four or five six seven years old,
and then he called me, you called me out on
stage every once in a while, man, And and that
was like, what all right? You know, but that's my
first as far as musical musical situation. I think that's

(13:25):
the foundation that I had, and then you know, went
into the whole gospel thing. Okay, yeah, I was gonna
say that, Uh okay, that makes sense because usually every
musical great has some sort of DJ curation experience before
they get into their profession. So that makes sense that
you were in charge of the the family collection. Um,

(13:47):
all DJs want to be singers, and all singers want
to be DJs. I was just saying, you're saying, I
with Frankie Crocker a lot back in the day that
that was one of my best this And what was
he like? Man? Was he? You know? Because knowing him
as that personality, was he really out there like that?
Frankie Frankie was the most down down nigger in the world,

(14:13):
you know. And I remember because when we first proper
all the time I heard him speaking, I said, I'm
on the Quest Love Show. I gotta be proper. No, No,
you mustn't listen to the ship. Do my homework, you know.

(14:33):
Now we keep it up, let it go. No, frank
was down nigger boy. He was like and it was
like when I first met him, you know, we it
was we had a second time around out. So we
were good a lot of the lot of the promotion
in New York and stuff, and and uh we got
to the we got to w BLS and uh, he

(14:54):
wasn't ready yet. So the lady that was the rep
that was from the record company, she said, hey, why
we're waiting on Frankie, We'll go over down to this
other Uh I forget what the station was, Kiss or
something like that. And so we went down there and
did interview and stuff. And then we came back and
like Frankie, We're sitting out in the in the lobby
the BLS and Frankie comes out. When he walks out,

(15:16):
you know, this is tall, I mean, black nigger man.
He's like, like, fine, features, you know. And I remember
reading about Frankie when I was like fifteen, sixteen years
old when he got into the into the thing with
the payola thing. So I remember. I remember it was like,
uh an article and Playboy, and of course you know,

(15:38):
I didn't. I never looked at the pig. But but
it talked about it talked about his whole or deal
with the payola situation and the fact and the time
that he when he came back after Phil he came
back riding up a street on the white stallion. Yeah. Yeah,

(16:02):
he was all just saying, so like we when he
came out, he stood up there and he just kind
of stood there, right, and we're sitting and he said,
I got my spies out. I know y'all went to
the other station. Y'all heard you. That's how we started out, right,
So we went in and then he looked at and
he was doing the interview and stuff, and he says,
you know, your voice reminds me a gladys night. And

(16:24):
I'm like, glad it's night. But come on, man, glass
like I'm flattered, but glad it's night. That's a chick, right,
So and uh and so then that's that's how our
whole thing started out. And I kind of clammed up
on the on the interview because I also heard about
the Isay brother interview, his story guysy brother interview when
they got in the fight on on you know, they've

(16:47):
never heard of that one. I've never heard this fight
live on the air. You know. That's a lot of
eyes that was before any that's before any of them
passed away. So they was on the but check out.

(17:08):
So like later on we said, you know, I saw him,
I think because we were there doing the thing. I
think it was at Madison Square or something like that,
one of those big festivals, and so at the you know,
when I saw him later on that night or the
next night or something, he said, look, I got a house,
you know, and in Beverly Hills. You know of been
the canyon said, he said, here's that. You know that

(17:28):
we exchange numbers and stuff. He said, when you're when
you're back in town, when you're off the road, give
me a car. You come up, you know, have some dinner.
I say, cool, you know, let's go, I said. And
so a couple to three weeks later, we're going, I'm
I'm home and I give him a call and he says, yeah,
come on left for dinner. And I'm thinking, you know,
all right, Frankie Cocket's house. I know, he got ladies

(17:49):
all over the places, in the pool, the whole thing.
I'm gonna be bolding, you know. And I got up
there and it was me, him and his mom, Ms Rocker,
and he took care of his mom, and like from
that point on we got jam type. It was like
it was that that was my that was my man,

(18:10):
that was my man man. You know, yeah, he was
he was. He was not the persona basically. I mean,
he lived large, you don't don't really wrong, and he
he demanded his respect as far as that's concerned. But
he wasn't something unorderly on you know, crazy. He had

(18:30):
a house in Beverly Hills, and he was a New
York personality too. Yeah. Up on house, up on benditit
on off of Bennitic Canyon. Yeah, no question. He was
the highest play like black radio jock in the country.
So was he doing syndicated back then or was it
just he was he was doing he would do. I
think syndication. Syndication was just coming in maybe not too

(18:54):
long after that, but but he had he's had that
house up he had that house up there for a
long time. About to say, that's what I was thinking
to pay because my coaster put you in the paper.

(19:14):
Maybe you know, yeah, I see. Do you do you
remember the first album that you purchased with your own money,
with my own money. I don't remember which one what
it was exactly. I can't say, uh back in the

(19:34):
day because I also be stolen too, just in case
I'm saying people have come to stealing their first records,
yeah exactly. But see, you know I come, I come
from my household. My I have four older sisters. You
know what I'm saying. So uh oh wow, okay, so
like that household, like you, of times I had to

(19:56):
I think of an album, though I do believe an
album that I would have purchased. It might not have
been the very first one, but like Parliament Funkadelic and
you know, all that kind of stuff, like Maggot Brains
and and I love that Eddie Hagel situation. Okay, yeah, okay, yeah,
I take it. I know you were born in Ohio,

(20:17):
but I don't know what city you were born in. Akron, Akron, Ohio, Akron. Okay, yeah,
wait a minute, Okay, this explains it all right. So
I know that James Ingram is also from Akron, Ohio. Yeah,
and I assume that you two were really good friends.

(20:38):
I met James when I was fifteen. So this is
this explains why you two are also singing background on
p y T together exactly. Okay, I was. I was
with James when when he got the demo for Just Once,
you know, and he's like, man, how listen because we
lived right around the corner from each other at that time.

(20:59):
And he's said, man, and he said, listeners, what do
you think about this? I said, man, I think that's
a cobl song. He said, Man, there's some there's some
pop pussy right here. Man. And I said, I said, yeah, yeah,
that's right, that's true boy. Because and you know, let's

(21:21):
see when James, when I was back in Ohio, my group,
my group was called Life. We spelled the l y
f E, so Life Jennings when the first nigger to
say that. Right when the spread we spelled l y
f E Life Banding Show. And it was like seven
of us and we were like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,

(21:43):
I think Ricky Parker Ricky Fletcher was eighteen nineteen years old,
and so our we were proteges of Revelation Funk, which
you know, James played keyboards and they were all they
were all like about four years older than us. So
played keyboards and sang background because he didn't consider himself

(22:04):
a lead singer, right, And they had this lead singer
called named Bernard Lost and he's still back in accron
now but now I lost into this day because sing
me under this, under this, my desk over here, this
this what is you're talking about? Going from natural effortlessly
up until your fast. He had that back, he had

(22:25):
that down back there, tall lanky brother and like a
dance or dancing same same time, and it was like,
I mean they were funky. Revelation Funk was funky. You
wait a minute, Okay, So what's the name that's the
group that James Ingram was in that he was playing
keyboards in Revelation Damn, damn, damn, damn. The ones from
a couple Day, Yeah, the movie. Yeah, yeah, because they

(22:52):
keep me out here. They came out here, but Nord
never came out here because he Lord called him back
to the church. Fortunately because it was some crazy stuff
that was happening. But uh, they had this cat name
Woochie Wayne Arnold that came out. Wayne was bad too.
I don't know what he ld. So we were like

(23:16):
nobody called, but they came. They came out here and
then only stayed together out here about a year and
a half h maybe two years or so, and then
they broke up and James stayed out Dap the drummers
stayed out t Tucker the bass players stayed out here,
and so you know, and then, uh, for James, arrest

(23:37):
was history. He started working with h Ray Charles and
a bunch of other people and stuff and you know,
in the studio and stuff. It was cool. Just to
get this straight. James Ingram sounded like that at fifteen
years old. No, nothing has ever changed. Well he was
about when I first met him, he was nineteen because
he was about five years older than me. And uh yeah,

(23:59):
I mean he had all that stuff down hard, it
was like, but but he didn't develop it and and
really kind of take it out we're supposed to be
until you know, until he got it, until he went solo.
So what well, a one more thing, So if you
were friends with James. Uh were you at all in

(24:22):
proximity of his brother Philip at the time when Philip
was developing a switch m because Witch also has acrone connections. Correct, Yeah,
Philip Philip was like Philip was his younger brother. And
so Philip is younger than me. And uh, Phillips group
back in Akron, Uh, Man, what was the name? I forget,
I forget their name. The name we had, We had

(24:44):
weird names back there. There was a group called Pickett Fence.
I don't know what that was about, but it was
like you know, but but Philip was with Raw Soul
I think it was. And I mean Acron Akron was
an amazing place to grow up, man. And and the
Rubber Cat was the rubber capital of the world at
that time, so so middle class was thriving. It was

(25:05):
like you know, it was it was and you either
did you either did music, you did you worked in
the rubber factory, or you were pimp one or the other.
You know that some cats tried to do all three.
But I think the name of Phillips group was raw

(25:26):
so if I'm not mistaken, But yeah, Philip had a
great voice and everything, and and when they came out
with Switch. I didn't even have a deal at that time.
We were I was talking to L about that just
the other day. Uh because every time I listened to L,
I hear Bobby you know what I'm saying, and it's
just it's crazy. And uh So they came out, and

(25:47):
you know, it was like Eddie Flewell and the trumpet player,
Eddie and I. Eddie and I went to grade school,
junior high and graduated high school together. So when they
came out, I was I would go, you know, I
they were coming out, rain bringing them out, and so
I went and hung out with him at the studio,
you know, while they were while they were recording, I got,

(26:08):
uh called it, I call your name or something like that.
I would I would just sit there and all just
listening to Bobby. He could do that because I think
it was his false but that wasn't as false. That
was that was his natural voice. Just like I was
listening to L the other night. Els false is his
natural voice. That's his natural voice, and so you know,

(26:30):
it's it's it's you know, it was amazing. It was
amazing as far as I was concerned. So yeah, Philip
and and and Eddie. Yeah came out when switch came out?
Um question, I do remember. I think I remember during
one of the interviews with Don Cornelius on Soul Trend
where you talked about you were actually dancing on the show.

(26:51):
First is that joking with each other? I was never
a soul trained dancer. And I heard okay there because
because I said it said it was set with a laugh.
So I was like, wait, I don't know if he's
serious or not, but okay, I knew if that was true.
I was dating, uh this this lady that worked for

(27:12):
down and there at the Soultia and Dance Studio studios
in the office, in the front office, and Pam Brown. No, no, no,
this is her name is Wait a minute, wait a minute,
wait a minute, wait a minute. Jesus Christ, I can't
believe I'm talking to you right now. How are you you? No? No, no,
no, no no no no. It just hit me. You literally

(27:37):
have christened a human being with my all time favorite name.
I read about this in right on you have a
daughter named Rainy Days. Rainy Days d A z rather yo.
When I read that ship when I was ten years old,
I'm like, I'm gonna have a girl, and I'm gonna
name of Rainy days. Like it's just that's crazy. Mom,
you know. Eventually became my wife and she's mother and

(27:59):
my two older daughters. But when when Rayanny was born,
Rainey was the only only child that I didn't see
come out, you know, because I was gonna. I was
on the road. I had my my my oldest daughter
with me. She was like a year and a half
at the time, and so her mom was so huge.
I was like, look, I'm gonna take I'm gonna take Kiva.

(28:21):
My oldest daughter's name is Lakiva. You know, which was
the name let Kiva k I v which is the name?
Which is the name I I made up when I
was nineteen years old. I used to go to Kent
State for a minute, and like I used to walk
past Kiva Hall, this hard card Kiva Hall, and say,
I say, every morning I'm walking to my first class,

(28:42):
I said, wow, Kiva Kiva would be a beautiful name
for a little girl. But at a love on the
front that is so black. You got all the names, correct, Bill,
I got it, I got it. You call him out

(29:04):
into anything, and my friend Lafonte and so like, but like, um,
I took I took the Kiva out on the road
with me because her mom was so huge. I just
wanted her to concentrate on being pregnant, not not having
to so she was having to take care of my

(29:27):
one and half kids. So I took my daughter out
on the road with me so we would we would
work at the time, Shalamar, we were working Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday off, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So Thursday I finished the show. Monday,
I mean Sunday rather, I finished the show. Then Monday morning,
me and Kieva would jump on the plane fly back

(29:48):
here to l a sit there. You know. I take
her to the beach walker on the sand, you know,
the whole thing, trying to make that baby drop, you
know what I'm saying. And after after got three weeks
or so agoing back and forth, back and forth, I
was like wiped out. So we were near Ohio and
I called her and I said, you know how you feel?
She said, it feels me. I said, look, me and

(30:09):
Kieva are gonna go to my mom's house and just chill.
So I went to my mom's house and said enough.
We got there on Monday and like Tuesday or Wednesday.
She had the baby right, so named her named her
after her mom. Her mom's name was Raining and so um,
my partner partner mine was out. I got him a
job working with the group. When when when I was

(30:31):
with the group and stuff. So one of my best partners,
so you know, he was out on the road, and
like we were sitting in my in either his room
in my room, and like he said, so, uh uh,
I can tell this is already gonna be my favorite
interview man. I said, I feel like, how would you

(31:03):
he said, And I and and he said, so you
know your name when the baby Rainy had the baby?
Say yeah, so what're you gonna name it? I took
what are you gonna name it? Rainy? After a mom?
You know, say what what's the nedle name gonna be it?
I was thinking about days know this story. She sees

(31:31):
this interview that she thinks that I was drunk or something,
when I mean the whole time you was talking, I
was just thinking. I was like, I hope Howard remembers
all the stories of how how his kids were born,
because not for nothing, especially the girls. My dad used
to call me every year in my life up until
he got like eight and tell me on my birthday,
like how my conception of how I was born? And

(31:52):
it's just it's just a conception. I'm sorry, but the
day I was born. Yeah, but you tell them stories
people love. I was gonna say there was a ten
year old reading right on magazine that it was really
really Hella impressed with that name. At the time. I

(32:12):
was like, Wow, that's the greatest name ever. Rainy days
An I'm gonna do have raindy Days two point oh.
All right, so it's still in the car stool. She
hated it when she was in grade school, but when
she got into junior high and in high school and
then out all that time in the doghood, she loves it.
She loves her name. You know, nice nice is she

(32:35):
in the Does he have musical talent? Does she have
no clue? Like what? Yeah, she just thinks. She came
out of schools, came out of high school, wanted to do,
you know, wanting to get into the business and stuff,
and so like, you know, I gave her my advice
and she, you know, got herself a little job started,
you know, putting putting together her demos. About three or

(32:56):
four demos, three or four songs that she had got
her heads together and then got herself a deal with
this company called notting Hill you know, um nothing Hills
in in l a and as well as in London,
you know, in the u K. So she was. They
were working on an album together and then halfway through
the album, she comes to me and she says, you know, Dad,

(33:19):
I'm really not into this. I said, what do you
mean to it? She said, I'm more interested in what
I'm gonna wear than the music, you know what I'm saying.
So he was into the fashion for Unfortunately to the
people at at notting Hill were cool and they had
put a single out in uh in the u K
that did fairly well. But you know, she wasn't She

(33:41):
wasn't into it, so they let her go. And then
she got a position with a very wayne company you know,
did that for a while and then she lived in
London for a while. She went to London. She didn't
live there, but she spent a lot of time. I see,
I see, Okay, I do want to know Okay, first

(34:05):
of all, before you get into your entry, um, do
you know exactly what the situation was that caused Gerald
Brown to leave Shalamara, that was your vacancy, because even
with those first two records, I always felt like I had,
you know, the first two albums as a kid or whatever.

(34:27):
I had the the Uptown Festival forty five and whatnot,
and it's like, I never thought his voice blended in
with that group. Well even even take that, I mean,
take that to the bank. Of course it was a
classic song, no matter what. But I never felt like
his voice fit into He was like he was like

(34:47):
a grown adult, and I always felt like Jody and
Jeffrey represented like the kids and he was like a
proper adult or whatever. But what was the situation that
caused him to vacate the group? Don't I don't. I
don't know the specific situation exactly what happened. I think
there was some stuff, some questions about management maybe or

(35:09):
about whatever, because you know, Gerald had been in the
business for for a while with Soul Trained, with the
Soul Trained gang, and and coming from coming from Cincinnati,
and that first Uptown Festival album, the first that wasn't Gerald,
that was just gott named Gary Mumford. So they had
had they had two lead singers before before me, right,

(35:31):
so it was Gary Mumford on Uptown Festival and then uh,
Jerald Brown. Uptown Festival was one of those things where,
you know, back in the day with disco and stuff.
That's why I was never really a big fan of
discal because I always thought it was pretty fabricated music
and um. And you know, I was more into the

(35:52):
into the band and the real people that did it,
because you do you know, they would put together uh,
you know, a on with with studio musicians, studio vocalists,
throw it out there and see if it made some noise.
If it made some noise, then they go and put
a group together. And that's how Salem are basically, you
know formed. So it was like Gary Mumford on the

(36:14):
Uptown Festival and then uh and then he I think
he went back to the church too, if I'm not mistaken,
and um and then Gerald Brown came in and they
took him from you know because it was darker Nearius
and uhriff Griffy, right, you know, at first it was
sold trained records, you know what I mean. And so

(36:36):
they brought Gerald Brown in and then they did take
that to the bank. They were out in the middle
of a promotional tour. I was working with this cat
uh Jeffrey Bowen at the time because I I was
with a group. I was with a group down that
was people, that was formed by the people and uh

(36:57):
Jeffrey bon Jeffrey Bon produced a song for You by
the Temptations, right yep, and a bunch of comus did that.
Bonnie Pointer was his lady and he was his wife. Right,
Bondie Point was his wife? And wait did he did
he produce? Uh? I think he co produced with George
Clinton two songs on guitarist uh Eddie Hazel Eddie Hazel's

(37:18):
record We Were, We Were well, we were. He had
hired me because I was this girl, Tammy Gibson who
used to uh sing for Stevie and Wonderlove. She was
looking and she came looking for me because I was
with a group that ended up. We ended up overseas
for about a year and a half. The show group
called Beverly Hills right and the people at Mavericks Flat

(37:41):
down in the Crenshaw District, John Daniels and and Alonzo
Daniels his brother, they put together show groups and stuff.
So this was one of the groups that they put together.
We ended up touring overseas for about, you know, a
little about a little less than a year and a
half or so, and I was making like two fifty
three was this around? This is like seventies seven, seventy seven,

(38:04):
because I brought seventy eight in U seventy seven injured
seventy seven. I was in Helsinki, Finland, which was the
first gig that we did. And then we went to Geneva, Switzerland,
and I reader that because I brought we brought seventy
eight nineteen seventy eight in in Geneva, Switzerland, and then
we went on to ben the Dorm, Spain, Santa Pe, France.

(38:27):
We're all over the place. I was making two fifty
three D a week, you know what I'm saying. But
I was having the fall. I was like twenty two
about twenty two years over. I'm pulling out my inflation
calculator to see. So when you're when you're saying the
show group, you're saying in terms of like, uh, you guys,

(38:48):
because I think Heatwave was sort of in the same
situation where they were four more like army bases or
clubs of the day. Is that the same situation or no,
We never did army basis. But when I say a
show group, I mean like a top forty group, you
know what I'm saying. We did everything from disco Infernto
to Mandy you know what I did. So yeah, and

(39:09):
it's like you you know, did you know Afternoon Delight
all that kind of stuff. You know, it was like,
you know, it was my stuff stuff exactly. We didn't
do any original stuff. It was just and it was like,
you know, so, but wait, by the way, guys, to
fifty back in the nineteen seventy seven was one thousand,
one thousand and eighty seven and eighty six cents. That

(39:34):
was That was good. That was cool money. I would
have felt that. Then I came back a year and
a half with about five hundred dollars. That was it.
But but so, you know, so like I came back
and and and all the Mavericks Flat was was it
a really interesting place where on the weekend it was

(39:55):
a club and on the week days that's where we rehearse.
We rehearse the band and anytime we had a show
that we wanted to try out on people at a
live audience, we would play at Mavericks Friday and Saturday night,
and so it was like, you know, I mean Mavericks
was interesting and that you can look out in the
audience at any time. Shaka con would be sitting out there,

(40:17):
or Lionel Ritchie when he was with the Commodoors, or
Richard Pryor hung out there all the time, and it
was it was just it was just a great place
to like cut your teeth as far as like you know, uh,
the way that you do your show, the whole thing,
and uh located Crenshaw right Crenshaw on Stocker, right on
the corner Crenshaw on Stocker, so at this point in Crenshaw,

(40:41):
because I also know that it was total experience. Also
a club on Crenshaw as well, totally right up the street.
As far as the black clubs are concerned, you're saying
that Maverick flats and total experience, and like where were
the other nightlife options were black people to go to?
Strawberry Hill was a club there? Um, I don't know

(41:03):
a whole bunch of clubs around there. But because I
hung at Mavericks all the time, you know, it was like, man,
I had a key to Mavericks at one time, so
you know, that was my That was my hang that
was my hanging spot, you know. So there's other guys
and dolls. I think was it was a club, but
I think that was a little bit before I got there,
you know, guys and dollars. But I'm not not really

(41:24):
familiar with the whole bunch of the clubs over there.
So you're saying that if you if it's nineteen seventy
seven and seventy eight, seventy nine and you're a black professional,
chances are like you're hanging in on Crenshaw Boulevard at
a club. So we weren't really doing like West Hollywood
back then or now. I didn't do a lot of

(41:46):
West Hollywood back then because that was like I got
to I got out here in l A in nineteen
seventy six, you know, and uh so I hooked up
with the people at Mavericks about two about two months
after I got out here, you know, and we and
John Daniels told me what he what, what he was,
what he wanted to do. He had a he had

(42:07):
a bunch of show groups, and one of his main
show groups was this group called the Love Machine. It
was like seven seven fine fine with Kathleen Bradley, who
was the first black uh model on the Prices right,
she was in ye from Friday. Yeah, she was in

(42:29):
that's where she shut up Bill this and uh, he's done,
He's done over there. It's like so yeah, she she
was in. She was in the Love Machine and six
other beautiful women. They and they were went all around

(42:51):
the world. When I first went down there, the cat
T Tucker that played base for Revelation Funk, like I said,
at that time. By that time they were broken up
and T was playing for the Love Machine. And I
called T one day. I said, I got his number.
I called him and I said, Yo, man, I'm in town.
Blah blah blah. I said, man, come down to Mary Flat.

(43:12):
I'm rehearsing today. You know what, I'm playing with this
group called Love Machine. So me and my cousin went
down to Marverick Flatt and stuff, and and they were
rehearsing at that time to do a showcase that night
for Tom Jones because they were Tom Jones wanted them
to open up for him. So you know, that was
that whole thing came about it. And then we started

(43:33):
putting a group and stuff together. But I was working there,
went overseas, came back from there, we broke up the
group Beverly Hills broke up after about a year the
less than a year and a half over in England
and came back and I started kicking around l A.
And then that's when I hooked up with with Jeffrey Bowen.
You know too. Uh he was doing this album with

(43:57):
a solo album on Eddie Hazel, and he please describe
with what Eddie Hazel was like. I've besides George Clinton,
I really haven't gotten a straight story about Eddie Hazel.
He was. He was an interesting cat in that you
really couldn't get a good feel for Eddie because he
was he was. He was high a lot of times,

(44:19):
you know. He he was like, you know, amazing guitar player,
maggot brains, that's Eddie you know Hazel, and um, but
he was he I mean, I just I used to
smoke weed, but he's smoked weed, you know, Chief thirteen.
I don't know what that means. You go back, yes, so,

(44:46):
but but he was cool, I mean real cool, real
cool brother. But so you're saying what Eddie Hazel once
potentially had a deal or motown records that fell through.
I don't know if it fell through, because they were
they you know, Eddie m. Jeffrey was producing it. And
then we were we were working because after I came,

(45:07):
like I said, Tammy came and got me because she
wanted me to do this. She was she was contracting
the backgrounds for that they were doing. So I went
in and did the sessions. Me, Tammy, this girl Cathy
James I forget, I think that was the name. And
we went in and did the session. And then after
after we got done with the tunes and stuff, Jeffrey
Cone Jeffrey Bowing came to me. He said, you know, man,

(45:30):
I love your vocals. I loved it. This is gonna
be a self contained situation, so you know, I love
for you to be a part of It's gonna be you,
Tammy and the girl that we were working with. And
I said, cool, you know that's that's great. He said,
I can get you in. He said, we can start
working on the contracts, you know, but I can get
you into the union tomorrow, right And I said, cool,

(45:52):
okay go. So the next day I joined after you
know what I'm saying, and all just checks and we
started and it was like I wasn't contracted yet, you know,
so if you're an uncontracted artist, you have to get
paid from the time you walk into the studio time
you walk out of the studio. So Jeffrey Wood book

(46:13):
booked the time for like eight o'clock, you know, in
the evening. He wouldn't show up for whatever reasons, I
don't know, until midnight, and then we would worked hell
about you know, about four or five o'clock in the morning.
So that's like tin hours you know, at about a
hund thirty hundred forty whatever the scale was at that time.
If you're doing a solo or you know, there's a

(46:38):
lot of money build, it's a lot of money, a
lot of money right there. So that sounds like yeah,
so like you know, but then after about working about
a couple of months, you know, started getting kind of flaky,
you know what I'm saying, kind of shaky as far
as like the checks weren't we weren't reflecting the time
that we you know, uh, that we were in the studio.

(46:58):
And so then that called me that I took my lady.
I took my lady to to to work. She worked
at you know, like I said, ever don down at
the Soul tierin Soldierin Dance Studios up in West Hollywood,
and I took her, dropped her off of work, told
her I'm going to the Motown building and have a meeting. Right.
So I'm sitting in a meeting on the fifteenth floor
and I'm like, you know, y'all giving me the Motown

(47:21):
running around blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, you know,
blah blah blah, getting all this stuff off my chest.
And the phone rings, right, and this can Angelo Bond
was his co producer. Angelo answers the phone and he
looks at me and he says, uh, it's for you.
I said, it's for me. I said, if it's my lady,
tell her I'll call her. I'll call her back, right.

(47:41):
He said, Well, not a lady, and it sounds like
it's a long distance. That was before cell phones. When
you're here, the crackling on the phone, he said, it
was nine dollars a minute, he said. He said, it's
not a lady, it's a guy, and it sounds like
it's a long distance. So I take the phone and
it's Jeffrey Annual, right, they were in New York at

(48:04):
the time, in the middle of this promotional tour whatever
it was that they got into an argument about. I
never he said, he told me something. I forget exactly
what it was. I was want interested in why this
was happening. It's like, what are you what are we
getting too? As far as like this phone call and uh,
he said that you know that Gerald Brown that Jerald said, Hey,

(48:26):
when y'all can see it my way, give me a call.
And he jumps on the plane and leaves there in
the middle of a promotional tour. You did, And so
like he says, I know, you know because they Mavericks Flat.
All the soul trained people used to come down to
Maverick Flat all the time. I first I first met
Jeffrey and Jody before Shalamar at Mavericks Flat, right, and say,

(48:49):
so they used to come there and they used to
show They used to see the show that I did
with Beverly Hills there, right, all there's three degrees of separation.
That's crazy, you know what I'm saying. So they saw
the show Jeffrey before, before Shalamar existed. Jeffrey told me, man,
I love your vocus. I said, I love your dancing, man,
you and Jodie. I used to watch them before I

(49:10):
even left Ohio on soul train. I see them dancing. Wow,
that's that's great, that's great. So he says, I know
we you know we, I know you know that we
formed Shalamar and blah blah blah. We gotta take that
to the bank out there when the middle of promotional tour.
We want to offer you an equal position in the group,
you know, as lead singer. And I said, I said, well, okay,

(49:33):
And he told me all this stuff. And then he says,
you're at the Motown building, right, and said yeah. He said, well,
are you set them up on the fifteenth floor? He said, well,
Soular's offices are down on the ninth floor in the
same building. And we talked to and we already talked
to Dick Griffy, and he's mad. He's waiting for you
to you know, for for you to get in touch
with them, so like, you know, so he talked a

(49:55):
little bit longer. I get off the phone and I
tell Jeffrey Bowen and I tell Angelo biand what to do?
I said, And there's a dentil says man Salamar is
just a fly by night disco group. They'll never amount
to anything. And and you don't want to get involved
with Solar that you're You're you got the potential to
be with Motown, you know. And and then Jeffrey started

(50:17):
talking some stuff. And when things like that happened, I
have a tendency just to kind of sit back, and
ever since I was a kid, if if if I
had to think, you know, I want to sit back
and take in everything that they're saying. So I'm listening.
And when they get done, I said, well, my car
is parked on the street. I need to go put

(50:39):
some money in the middle. I went down to the
ninth floor, got in, talked to Dick. This was on
a Friday, right and um and Dick reiterated what Jeffrey
the offer Jeffrey made and uh, I said, I told him.
I said, no, I'm really really interested. I said, but
I gotta give these people upstairs a chance to rectify themselves.

(51:02):
Because even though I didn't have contracts, my words was
still you know, worth contract, right. So I called them
and told them, look, I'm gonna be home. If you
guys want to rectify this thing, let me know, call
me right And so all night Friday night nobody called.
Saturday morning, I called Dick and he went over to

(51:25):
his house, watched the videotape of a Salamar show. And
then I was sitting in this rocking chair, right, I remember,
I was watching the show the rocks and says, show
goes off and dis as well sing something, you know.
Jeffer and Joey said, you're a great singers. Sing something.
I said. I said, right here, I could tell them,
you know. He said yeah. And I said to myself,
I said, well, lord, you know me and you So

(51:46):
I broke into I broke in the field of fire
by people bryce I could tell them, told me you know,
and and yeah, and and got through the first verse
half the up and Dick says, okay, okay, okay, I'll
be right back, and he goes upstairs, comes back down.
He has like goes in one pocket. He has some cash.

(52:08):
He said, here's some cash, you know, leave with your
old lady. Pay some bills. And he went in the
other pocket and brought out an airline ticket that was
pre nine and eleven. I could ride on your ticket,
you know, I could ride right on my right. You
didn't have to have a specific name. He said, here's
an airline ticket. You gotta be on the red eye
out tonight. Meet the group in New Jersey tomorrow as

(52:31):
they move from New York to New Jersey, said, Meet
the group of New Jersey tomorrow. He said, because and
and uh go over the lipt Sinc. And the choreography
of take that to the Bank, he said, because Monday
you got a TV show to do. And I'm like,
you know, I'm like, you know, being from Ohio, think
about Ohio? Is that the prerecusites as far as our
being from our house? You gotta be cool about everything,

(52:53):
you know what I'm saying. So like I'm like, okay, okay,
you think you handling, Oh sure, I can handle side.
I'm like, I got a job. What I would ask?
What was Dick Griffy? Like? Man, it's been like at
let me add on to that, Fante Howard. We've we've

(53:15):
asked at least seven people this questions and they kind
of glide by the situation. Okay, I know, I know
the brothers not here right now, but can you give
us a real, real in quotations, Dick Griffy situation? Uh,

(53:35):
Dick was was there very should I say, complex character
in certain ways, but very direct in other ways. And
as far as like you know, he used a lot
of under the thumb type of tactics to keep things,
you know, in intact as far as it so, but

(53:55):
that was his thing. That was how, that was where
he came from. For instance, for instance, alright, alright without
without you compromising your position, were there any buildings with
balconies on them? Utilized office hours are from nine to five.

(54:18):
I don't think that happening with Dick, you know, with
the five Heartbeach situation, you know. But but I've heard
of certain situations with other characters who we won't you know,
going to right now also doing that whole. But I
don't think Dick ever ever did that type of thing.
But he was he was. He was you know, he

(54:38):
was a gas gangster type of cat, you know. And
and but he respected if you stood up for what
you you know, stood for, you know, five minutes of
the first time you stuttered, huh five minutes we've been talking.
It's the first time because because you want to be
because I gotta be careful, respectful, I get it. Yeah,

(55:00):
because you want to be because because I I have,
I have much respect for it because Dick, thank god,
you know, Dick was a vehicle that was chosen to
get my foot in the door, you know what I'm saying.
And as long as you you know, once you get
your foot in the doors, up to you to put
the open up the door and get in there. So like,
you know, I appreciate the the opportunity that Dick presented

(55:24):
to me, and and and respected him, you know, immensely,
and and missing dearly now. But you know, I mean
we had our drag knockdown, drag out fights, man, and
and it was like, you know, when if I felt something,
if I felt this was not the way that this
should be, he really he really didn't like me going

(55:45):
out and and and working with people like Quincy, working
with people like uh other other producers and stuff, because
then I can see, you know, how it's really supposed
to be done, and how and how the real business
looked like the business was supposed to be done. And
he didn't like for me to do that, but I

(56:05):
was gonna do that. I went out work with Stanley
when I don't work with George, you know, and and
all those and and like I said, Quincy, and you know,
so I could see how that whole thing was supposed
to go down, you know, and as far as financially
everything is concerned. So it's kind of like a you
feel like it's kind of like a learning process that

(56:27):
he was the beginning of the learning process, because I
was wondering when you got excited about getting a job
and everything, at that moment, you don't wonder, well, what
it do I have any say? And the songs that
we sing, and you know, like all the business stuff
that like in retrospect you may have, but at the
same time, you didn't have it at that time. Yeah, well,
at first, at first, I didn't want to have any
sales as far as were concerned, because because my whole

(56:48):
thing was like, I want to learn, I want to
look at it. I'm not I don't want to come
here acting like I know what I'm doing because I
had never been in the recording of a real recording
studio at all up to that point, you know, like
you know, and and and Leon Silver's you know, like
you know, it was like a learning process. I saw
how he worked, I saw how his his crewel work

(57:12):
as cruel writers will Shelby Kevin Spencer's and I would
sit back A lot of times. I was back. The
first song that I really participated on and and participated
in writing and felt comfortable enough to present it to
them as far as the writing was concerned, was for
the lover in you you know, and so yeah, so

(57:35):
like you know that was me and Dana Myers and
like so, I mean we had a thing where we
were presented to the people to his as cruel, as
stable writers and stuff, and they would say veto you
know or or so you know. It was like it was.
It was a learning process for me. I didn't want

(57:55):
to jump in there are I know what I want
to write down? Problem. I want a lesson of the youth.
Get you here. So that's why I want so let
me let me ask them. So with So, your first
album with them is Big Fun? Correct, big album? I
got it? Okay? When I was the Killers, like oh
the Dolphin record, Um, would they would kill the wells? Wells?

(58:20):
I thought there was dolphins too, right, Actually, barrels that
we were sitting on and they superimposed barrels. Okay, the
classic moment. So with barrels, okay, with Big Fun, Yeah,

(58:44):
so walk us through the process of one. Like, by
this point when you're doing Big Fun, how long have
you been in the group? What's your jelling situation? Now
complete disclosure. I'm probably the only human being on earth
that has not seen Unsung. Uh. I've heard it might

(59:08):
have been a tense episode. I don't know. So I'm
kind of asking you this, you know, from the total
naivete of not knowing what the situation was. But what
was how long was it before after that New Jersey
first gig with him until you started recording Big Fun,
And what was the jelling situation like with you, Jeffrey,

(59:31):
And it was, you know, because when we first when
I first got there, we were like thrown together, you know,
when I first got to Jersey and we were, you know,
we I was in all day Sunday, I was in
and uh, I forget it was either Josie's room, my
Jeffrey's room. I forget. But it was crammed into you know,
like uh, learning the lip sync I had. I had

(59:53):
studied the lip sync, you know, while I was flying
across country and and then learning the choreography because I
don't used to sing, and I used to I'm not
used to dance, and I'm a singer, right, so you
know that choreography. And so then we we got that together.
And then we continued on from the rest of that
UH promotional tour, which if I'm getting I'm trying to

(01:00:17):
get I'm at the point now where I'm I'm even
trying to get the timeline together because I'm I'm writing
a book. I want to write my book, you know,
so I need to get these get these timelines together myself.
So when I got I think I got there in
New Jersey, it had to have been winter time because
I had to I had to buy an overcoat because
I didn't have an overcoat. So I went to this

(01:00:38):
this clothing store in New Jersey, things called Heaven on
Earth or something like that, and UH and bought this overcoat,
you know. So so that was so it had to
have been like about maybe November, UH, November, September, October, November,
December time. And then we've finished up that promotional tour

(01:01:01):
at the Copa Cabama, you know, at UH in New York.
And then as soon as we flew back to back
to l A, which was the beginning of seventy nine,
I believe because it was seventy eight. At the beginning
of seventy nine, we started immediately recording a big fun album,

(01:01:23):
went in and and started putting that hole, the whole
thing together, and took us. It took us, you know, uh,
four or five six months or so, four or five
months or so to do the whole album, and then
and then uh we put, then we put uh so
we went. So that takes us into towards the end
of seventy nine, you know, the middle mid towards the

(01:01:46):
end of seventy nine. And then put Second time Around
out there, and Second Time Around at first was kind
of creeping up the charts, you know what I'm saying,
But it wasn't It wasn't until we did a remix
that back then, that's when remixes were real big, you
know what I'm saying, in twelve instances and stuff. So
I forget who did the remix. We did a remix

(01:02:07):
on it, put it out there, and then it like
screamed up the charts. So like that was towards the
end of the end of seventy nine into eighty, you
know what I'm saying. So it was like from that
time then we had a hit record in eighty Wow.
He described what working with Leon Silver's is like, um,

(01:02:28):
and do you have any do you have any big
Fred Lewis stories to go with it? And I'm playing
you know, it was like I know that at one point,
you know, because Leon is like a stickler for backgrounds
and stuff like that. I mean, just like stickler for backgrounds.
And like I remember going in there one time and
there was a part I was supposed to be doing

(01:02:49):
that day, and like he we started, I could tell
it was gonna be one of those days were like, Uh,
that's good, it sounds great, Let's do it again. Uh.
And then he's like, you know, and and that after
about after about forty five minutes, so I said, Lee,

(01:03:09):
I said, man, I can't do this today. They started
getting tomorrow. Man. He was a tak He was just hard.
I mean I phrasing. You know. And when you talk
about Howard Hewitt sound, I would give a big portion
of that the kudos up for to Leon for helping

(01:03:30):
me developed the Howard Hewitt sound. You know, I had
my sound, you know, going from the Fall Natural to
the fest you know, before I left out Ohio. You know,
when I was a kid. I developed that in my
mom's bathroom with all the all the tile and everything,
with the you know, built in reverb that you got
in the bathroom. So I developed that natural going into

(01:03:51):
the forest back then. But he helped me develop that
other like staying like Stickler as far as phrasing is concerned,
you know, looking at every nuance, all those ad lives
that you think our ad lives on there on the
ad lives. We we we thought that stuff out. You
know what I'm saying. Okay, put it, put it there,

(01:04:12):
put it here, put it there. Yeah. Do you remember
like a moment of time when that when it happened,
when you thought, all right, I don't know about this,
but like no, you gotta you gotta do that and
it worked, oh yeah every time. But like those type
of things, was like are you sure that's that's that's
gonna working there? You know, yeah, just do and that

(01:04:33):
pompom pomp boom, and it just fell right in places
like but do you have any memories of recording because
like two of my favorite shouting my songs of all time,
over and over, uh and Let's find the Time for Love?
Remember those? Yeah? I remember over and over like it
was like yesterday, because that was when I was the

(01:04:55):
only one in the group basically, you know, Jeffrey and
Jody had already split. So like at that time, I
wanted to do uh, I wanted to do my solo thing.
But Dick says, well, you know, you still got two
and a half three years left on this contract, so
you either got it. You're either gonna do it, you know,
go you just sit around and ride it out, go

(01:05:16):
to court, you know, or move to England or wherever
with Jeffrey and Jody moved to, or else you can
do another, you know, another album. And so of course
I hate Court. I don't like Court. You know Court,
it's like courts, Like the Court's like a nightmare Vegas.
You know what I'm saying. You're just going to you
don't know what's happening. So so like, you know, but

(01:05:36):
we recorded that over and over at that time, did
the video and that whole thing. That was when in
the videos like me and Mickey Free, you know me
Mickey Bean in that video and uh and let's time
Let's find the Time for love? Was that the song
you said, Let's time yea, yeah, Let's find time yeah,
that's not on the look, is it? Is it? Yeah? Yeah?

(01:06:01):
That was was that? I think that was on three
for Love let me let me them let me Yeah, No, no, no,
it wasn't. It was on Friends. No, I think it's
going uh, let me find out that you're a fan
of Go for It Yo, like on the low, like

(01:06:22):
like your bullshit you deep cut Cat, but corn Dog
hey man, I rocked that album dog Yo, you go man,
it was fine time for Love. That was on Go
for It was that was? It wasn't Friends. I mean

(01:06:42):
that was a for love. It's just a beautiful song, man,
just it really it is. I love that record. But
do you remember recording it? Do you remember like recording
that joint or like that session. I don't. I don't
really really remember anything that's stuck out in my mind
about recording except that it was just a nod dum
d du boom boom boom boom boom damn it. Now

(01:07:08):
I'm looking for it. Yeah. And the thing and the
thing that that really that really stood out to me
as far as that song was concerned, also was just
the combination to me and Jody whiteley Man, it was
like it was on big Fun. It was on Big Fun,
the first album. Yeah, I think that was the first
time we really realized the magic that the combination of

(01:07:30):
our of our voices really uh projected out there. It
was it was you know that the com the timber
of her voice and my voice together even on the
background situation, was like amazing, amazing. That's a gorgeous song man,
a great performance by all. All Right, I don't necessarily
want you to throw him under the rug um, but

(01:07:51):
can you answer two questions for me? Because you know,
I just gotta know because again, like it's also my
perception of Shalabar coming from a ten year old But
every time I turned around, like Jeffrey Daniel had a
guitar in his hand, but I don't recall him playing guitar.
Was he always aarro guitarring, Well, he's a guitar and

(01:08:15):
some sometimes, but you know, you know, was how to
play you know, he really stuck to it and and
he really he can he can play it now. You
know what I'm saying. He really knows how to play
it now. And that's him singing on pop Along Kid. Yeah,
that's what him singing. Yeah, Okay, okay, I just wanted
to make sure I didn't know if that was him,
that was you, if he was given much singing duties

(01:08:35):
or not. Okay, now from from one from one too impossible?
How hard were they on the choreography front of things,
because you guys, you guys really had a together. You know.
It's almost like I wish it was five of you
because you guys were doing ship that's like um for

(01:08:59):
listeners that there if you if you can, if you
could demo, if you could demo, if you could google.
A song called Choose Shoe Shine by the Dynamic Superiors,
in my opinion, is one of the greatest performances ever
on Soul Train, in which they literally act out every
word that's saying like, this is past Charlie Atkins, this

(01:09:21):
is past Brooke Payne as far as choreography is concerned.
But yeah, I was saying that the choreography that you
guys had, even if you say, like I'm not a dancer, somehow,
in my mind I just always walked away with like
Shalamar really had great polished choreography, Like how hard were

(01:09:42):
how hard? And like how much time did you guys
spend on those routines? Spending a lot of time on
the routines. Jodi Jody was really instrumental as far as like, uh,
putting together a lot of routines. Jeffrey would throw his
his his situation in there a lot, and I at first,
I mean, I was just you know, because one of

(01:10:03):
the things that that I was concerned about was the
fact that I sing, and when you sing, it's like
you gotta breathe, and you got in your breathing if
you're out of breath, you know what I'm saying. And
so that's when I, you know, I did, I did
the choreography and went through the quote. But I told him,
let's make be conscientious of the fact that I'm singing.

(01:10:27):
You know what I'm saying. You know, you guys, I'm saying,
I'm singing. I gotta hit those notes that I created
on those albums and all that kind of stuff. So
you know, so that's like, you know, and then then
get you know what I'm saying, So you know, it
was like then we started being I think we started

(01:10:48):
being conscientious. They started being conscientious of that, and that's
when the whole situation of like, you know, there's in
choreography a lot of times less is more, you know
what I'm saying. And the human mind, the human brain
can only just take so much, you know this. So
I would rather people walk away from a concert saying, man,

(01:11:11):
you remember when they did this thing together boom boom
boom boom. They were together, and then Howard broke off
and he broke and then they came back and did
it together. And so I would rather that than a
whole bunch of stuff that they're not really gonna remember anyway.
And so Jeffrey and Jody were on it, Jeffrey's whole
backsliding thing that he had. Eventually he's the one that

(01:11:33):
talkt Michael how to do that, and Michael named the
moonwalk on him how to do that. So but at
the you know, and during the show, we would play
the song called uh um, what was it called I
Forget in There? But it was first first part the
writing the sockets called writing the Socket, Yeah yeah, and
we and they would be and then the band would

(01:11:55):
break down into this funky groove and me and Jody
would be on one side of the stage, right can
and Jeffrey be all the way on the other side
of the stage, and Jody and I would pull this
imaginary rope right and pull it boom like that, and
Jeffrey would backslide all the way across the stage. First,
all people on the on the floor. It's guaranteed they're

(01:12:17):
standing up because they think he's on like a conveyor belt.
That's until that. From that point on, we could do anything.
We would do it. It was on, It was on.
So do you have any do you have any knowledge
of because I know that Jeffrey was also trying to
get another group off the ground, the one that with

(01:12:39):
Casper Cooley and Casper like his other dancers. There was
there was like I think it was like a singing
group whatever. I assume that he was trying to bring
them through the solar channel. Did anything ever happened to
that project, I'm not sure. I remember Casper and Cooley
though definitely. Casper and Cooley actually went over first because

(01:12:59):
we were we were going overseas for a promotional thing
for about six weeks, so that's when Michael wanted to
learn the backslide, So first Gasper and Coley. Classper and
Cooley went over there to try and teach it to him,
but for some reason he couldn't grasp it from them.
So when we came back from from the promotional tour,
that's when Jeffrey went over and taught him how to Okay,

(01:13:22):
but but I think the the group was called, uh,
what was the what was the name of the group?
I forget that, I forget, I'm forgetting. Yeah, I'm drawing
a blank right now. It's a it's a It was
a dance group basically, and yeah, and like I don't
know whether Jeffrey was trying to make it into a
singing group too and maybe bring it to Dick or whatever,

(01:13:44):
but nothing really came of it. Um. Okay. So at
the time when the second time around becomes a big
ass hit and it's definitely established that you're in in
a you know, a well established group that's not going

(01:14:06):
to have to struggle. Um, at least in our eyes,
it's like, oh, you made it right off the box.
How different does your life change? Like? What is it
to be a young successful black mail with a hit group?
In Los Angeles, California nineteen eight? Goopies were crazy, you know,

(01:14:32):
but wet ass pussy and it made so much sense
between me and Stephen Howard and I'm afraid I'm feeling
there too. I just don't know if everything of context,

(01:14:52):
leave it out of context. Just trust me, listeners. The
conversation was added earlier, but in a in a sense
that was one of the changes because you know, I
had dealt with with the whole groupie things since I
was like, you know, young, very young, Like even in
the gospel situation there you had your gospel groupies, you know,
and when I, oh, yeah, that's what my brother was

(01:15:16):
holding from the waist up. Man, you think, you know,
the Lord told me to give this to you. Okay,
you know so, but but then you know, and then
I had, you know, when I when I went into
the R and B situation back in back in Ohio,
we had our our fans that follow us around. And

(01:15:39):
then uh going overseas with the group with Beverly Hills,
you know, yeah I can't yeah, yeah, foreign situation. And
when I get with the group, I'm like, you know,
I'm like, man, I got this down. This is like
I've been dealing this for a long time. There ain't
nothing like hit record groupies, hit record group These are
the ones that like, you know, you came like all

(01:16:00):
of a sudden. It is like oh, how did you
get in here? You know? And so you know it
that after a couple of years of that, that really
made me look at that whole thing and and look
and see, uh, you know, that's not something I really
want to deal with as far as that's concerned, because
it's not like they know me. They just know what

(01:16:22):
they think about me, and they knew me, they might
not even like me so like so that so I
ended that whole thing that was that was a change
in my life. But you know, as far as the responsibility,
I think you started getting at least I did anyways,
started getting a sense of responsibility of what you're saying.
And because you know that people are really listening to you,

(01:16:45):
you know what I'm saying, and it's like and that's
with that comes responsibility. It's like, you know, I gotta
like I said, I came from I came from a
whole household of women, you know, like my mom, my mom,
my four sisters, and then me and my dad were
the only testosterone, you know walking around there for about

(01:17:05):
three or four years until my younger my younger brother came.
But you know, but I always looked at that and
and that always kind of uh shaped what I would
allow myself to you know, to say in my music
and what I do and what I and what I
protect and project as far as the music is concerned,
so you know, but I mean it was it was

(01:17:28):
because at the time, it was we were only to
second time around was out there. I think it was
like I think I was about twenty three three years
you know, so you were really really young. Jeffrey is
only like a couple of months older than I am,
and Jody's like, I forget, like about three or four
years younger. But you know, we were young, you know

(01:17:49):
when when that whole thing went down, So it was
it was a big adjustment and big adjustment. Is there
any I mean not preparing you, but did it ever
get to the point where, especially when you're young and impressionable,
you have ideas of what starter was like like there's
a limousine and there's a bodyguard. But I mean, was

(01:18:09):
there just ever time when you just couldn't do something
simple like just go to the seven eleven to get
you know, that would stick a gum or something like.
Was it like that or was it just could you
still have a personal life or was it like constantly

(01:18:31):
being chased around and that sort of thing not being
chased around. I think it was like, you know, here
in the States, you you had to realize you have
to get a sense of where you could go on
where you couldn't go. It's like, you know, there's there's places,
there's places that even now I won't go because I
won't be it won't be you know, like you want

(01:18:51):
a piece, Yeah you're eating it was I don't mind.
You know, uh, autographs and stuff. That's a part of
you asked for what you got it toyota, you know
what I'm saying. So that's the whole thing. But like
you know, the place that was really difficult to get
around was was in the UK once when when everything

(01:19:13):
hit in the UK, because the UK is so condensed,
you know what I'm saying. I mean, the the whole
island is what Bob about as biggest California. But you
got all kind of people in there and then and
so once once we hit there, it was like, I mean,
it was hit hit. Jeffrey went on top of the
pops did his thing. The next day. It was like bam,

(01:19:36):
it was crazy, and uh, can you explain that situation? Um,
because I've seen him do uh Night to remember, where
he's just pop locking by himself, and you know, even
I went to live there for a couple of years
and they still talk about like that being such a
game changing moment. I know that Jeffrey also hosted uh

(01:19:59):
the this version of Soul Trying, Soul Trying six twenty
or whatever it was called. But what was the situation
that both you and Jody didn't make that promotional tour
and Jeffrey just decided to pop lock and then to
give you guys a backstory. I believe that the legend
is that you guys were supposed to perform on Top

(01:20:20):
of the Pops, but something happened, so he decides, I'm
just gonna pop Lock and he does the moonwalk on
the show, and suddenly you guys become instant make us celebrities.
That's why I always say, whatever we were, whatever we
are over there in the UK. I mean we still
Jeffrey and I and Carolyne. Griffy's still tour over there now,

(01:20:42):
and we've starved out. We've carved out a real niche
out there, real good niche over there where we're doing
festivals with sixty seventy thousand people over there is now
you know so and um, but what happened was that happened? Uh,
we have been on the road so much. Also, Jody

(01:21:04):
was like pregnant with her first her first child or daughter,
uh Lauren, and uh, and I was trying to piece
together what a little bit was left in my first marriage,
you know, and which didn't happen. You know, it didn't work.
But uh, but we have been on the road so
much for so long, we said, and at the time,

(01:21:25):
I can make you Feel Good. There's another song that
that I me and UM we wrote, we wrote together,
and and I Can make You Feel Good came out
over there. I can make you Feel Good blown up,
you know, going up to charge and took so long
for us to decide what we're gonna do. By time
he got there, I can make you Feel Good had

(01:21:46):
had fallen to number two, and Toy Box was the
number was was a program where they only did number
one records on there, so so he he couldn't do
he couldn't do I Can make you Feel Good. But
then somehow I forget what happened. They arranged it so
he could come back on there since he was all

(01:22:07):
the way all the way over because it felt a
number two on his way over there, you know, I know,
so like the like they said, you know, they said, well,
you know, you know, we can get him on here.
You can do you know, do a dance with because
he was gonna do a dance thing too, I can
make you feel good. But he ended up doing it too.

(01:22:27):
Uh and I think that was gonna be the next
single anyway or something like that. So he went on
there and and Top of the Pops as the type
of show it came on every Thursday, you know. And
and if you went on Top of the Pops and
and killed Friday, you saw your album sales go go

(01:22:48):
through the roof. That's how how how instantly impactful you
know that that show was to the u K. So man,
he went on there, they went crazy. Man, they weren't
crazy easy. It was like it was like, you know,
we couldn't we couldn't walk down the streets over there.
You know. I was gonna say that in some weird way,

(01:23:12):
you guys, not going over there almost served the group
better because of that very specific Um, hey, guys, I
don't know if you I don't know if you remember.
But when um Leon had did our show, he had mentioned,

(01:23:33):
um a Shalomar video that um, it's escaping me right now.
But I went, I forget the title, but I went
to actually look it up on YouTube, and I just
say it. It's probably in my mind. I thought the
emergency video for the Whispers was the weirdest video from

(01:23:56):
the Solar Cannon with him arguing inside of a phone booth.
But you guys have a very it might have been
for the song you just mentioned. It was like you
were in a garden or do you not remember, like
you're in a flower shop or something like that. It
was like, I don't want to be the last to know. Yo, Okay,

(01:24:20):
who conceptualized? Have you guys seen this video? Y'all? Now
forget forget keep on loving me, forget all the weird
videos that have come from records like this tops ever,
my god, everything, Like I only I only wish at
a time machine to go back to Leon Silver's interview

(01:24:43):
so we could talk about this video support because I
looked it up way after after we did the interview.
What was who conceptualized that video? It's dude, It's it's
like it's like and I wasn't then flop hats on
or something like that. It's like an antebellum, Like what's

(01:25:07):
going on in this video? I don't want to be
the last though, if you're gun yeah, man, it was
like that was back and that was back. We did
three videos in the same day. Man, this was the
last one. Tired this time. I think I don't know

(01:25:33):
who came up with the concept, because man, your hand
looks great though. I mean, but but it's just like,
what was it dar Dan Dan the night to remember?
I think when Jeffrey was the waiter or the body
he came out the closet and I'm like, oh, that's
not cool. Yeah that that video was weird. But this, this,

(01:25:56):
this takes me click this taste. Man, this face the
one time I wish the show had a visual component.
Everybody looking at it now, this is this is the
oddest thing. Man, It's it's crazy. And like I said,
but we did three videos. I remember it was it's
nice to remember. I don't want to be the last.
And uh this tune car working work it out, work

(01:26:20):
it out, you know, Jack got work it out, work
it out. It's like that, that's even that's even a
crazy it was even weirder. You know, so who directed
these videos? Bill Parker, Jesus Christ. It's weird, You're right.
I'm sorry. I'm like, you're looking at it right now,
but work it out. Yes, we got balloons working out

(01:26:46):
and then the balloons go back. But I mean, but
really though, I mean, those videos are weird. But I really,
looking back at it, videos were really something that I
think it took a lot of like black artists a
while to figure out, you know what I'm saying, like
what it was because a lot of those like earl As,
I mean, they you could tell that they didn't know
what the fund to do, you know what I mean.

(01:27:08):
I mean, you look at that, don't look any further video.
It's just like what in the Hill, you know what
I mean, right, don't look any further video from Dennis Stwards. Yeah,
but I will admit, like you guys, the whole Soular Cannon,

(01:27:28):
all the groups, including the Lakeside videos, and even there,
I'm coming like at least like the fact that you
guys we're thinking forward as far as the visual component
that most groups weren't even thinking of back then. Yeah,
So it's almost like and that probably explains I'm gonna
I'm gonna get into yeah. For the life of me,

(01:27:48):
I don't even know how you guys were successful in
getting uh that giveaway on MTV at a time when
MTV was very slow to play back black videos. But wait,
I do have a question. I gotta go to Charlene
and Willis's theme. Please why I wasn't somewhere there's a
love for be ever released as a single. Amazing song

(01:28:13):
the way that people respond to it, man, you would
think single. You would think it was it was a
single at some point because it's like they go crazy
that Different Strokes episode, did y'all justice? Like that's you know,
for those who don't know, you know, when Janet Jackson
first was on Different Strokes, like that was her and

(01:28:34):
will in top Bridges song on on on that show.
So I didn't. I didn't know that, you know, I
didn't know that. You never knew that. I never knew that.
I didn't I never really watched Different Strokes as much.
But placement man song Again, I was a ten year old,
so it's like, you know, can you explain why me

(01:28:57):
being aware of what you guys records were as they
came out. I do remember being very shocked and surprised
when Gopher it was just like in the record bend
and I was like, well, wait, where's the single at
how how come? I almost felt like it was just
put out there just arbitrarily, like what was it was
going for? Like a bunch of throwaway songs or it

(01:29:18):
was it was there was we were going. Solar was
going from our ci A distribution to a lecture distribution,
to complete, to complete their obligation to our c A.
Each group on the on the on the Solar label
Old r c A another another album, one more album

(01:29:39):
and then we could then Solar could move on to
a lecture distribution. So it was like it was we
called we used to call it the throwaway album. But
on that album you had you had Sweeters and Days
go By had you know, uh this uh talk to Me,
which was which was like a crazy, crazy thing. James

(01:30:02):
and I did uh a song on They're called you
Got Me Right, you know, one of those urgency things,
you know, and and but that's what it was. We
used to call it the throwaway album, you know, And
that was because we had to fulfill the obligation to
our c a disabusing company and so that they can

(01:30:23):
move on to the electrical election. So at the time, though, um,
and you know, like throw away albums are you know
Frank Zapple was famous for it. Uh, you know, printed
cast and disorder like throwaway albums. There's nothing new about it.
But at the time, are you feeling like, well, we
do have are you thinking about in terms of legacy,
like well, I don't I don't want to just put

(01:30:46):
a stinker out there or something that doesn't have all
this promotion or something, because you guys are basically releasing
it knowing that it's going to be dead in the
water anyway. But did you feel any sort of way
about that as a group, like we don't want to
weigh a shot, especially when we had this much momentum. No,
we we We really didn't think about that a lot

(01:31:07):
because I thought, I guess we were depending on the
guidance of the record company as far as that's concerned.
You know, they said, Okay, we're gonna do this, it's
gonna be cool, blah blah blah, And like I said,
some some uh switeters of days go by. That was
a that was a that was a pretty you know,
turned out to be a pretty especially overseas, turned out

(01:31:27):
to be a pretty popular song and stuff. So it
wasn't it wasn't like we put it wasn't like if
you listen to the album, wasn't like we put a
stinker out there. There was some stuff on. There was
some stuff that I didn't mean in terms of releasing
it knowing that you're just gonna go put all the
energy in front of the Friends album. That's yeah, yeah,

(01:31:48):
the front of the album with the new Disabution Company. Now,
I think we were you know again, we were so
we were still at that point, we were still pretty
young in the business, and like so we were we
were depending then. You know, if Dick said we're gonna
put it away, you get a throwaway album. Leon said
we're gonna do a throwaway album. Okay, alright, cool, let's
do it. Let's get in there and work, you know.

(01:32:09):
But I also noticed that this is the album that
the three of you really got to contribute a lot
of your personal songs to it, right right, especially Jeffrey.
Jeffrey did a lot of stuff on there. And so
in your in your mind, like what's what's your favorite
album of v Shallamar Cannon. I think like I really
dig Three for Love. I dig three for Love because

(01:32:30):
of the the politics of it and um, as far
as because Lee Young Jr. Told me when I first
got with the group, because up until that time, it
was a lot of caricatures as far as album covers concerned.
You know, the the Uptown Festival album cover was a

(01:32:51):
cartoon type of character, the disco gardens and Disco Garden
and uh and and also you know, um even the
big Fun album on with the dolphins and stuff is
still you know, but Lee told me, man, you have
to establish your faces as far as the group is
concerned when people. You have to establish this so that

(01:33:11):
when people say Shalomar, they think of Howard, Jeffrey and
Jody because they see it. And then and on the
on the legal tip, you know, that was very cool.
So that was that was really important to me as
far as that album was concerned, which album, Which album
was for the lover and you on was that on

(01:33:31):
three for leve that was on three for Love? I believe,
I believe, Yeah, it's yes. And what we were talking
about in the very beginning of the of this soul
of this whole show was very important because when I
first got with the group, it was like, you know, Salimar,
the disco group, you know what I'm saying, And like,

(01:33:52):
like I said, I wasn't a big fan of disco,
you know what I'm saying. So my thing was like,
that's we need to establish this as a as as
a group, as a as a whatever you want to pop,
R and B whatever, not disco. So when we did
for the Lovering You, for the Lovering You was very
instrumental in doing that, taking us from the disco group

(01:34:14):
into you know, when they started talking about Salimar, you know,
after for the Lover and You, it was like, yeah,
the group Shalomar the the singing group, pop group, R
and B group, but you know, put the disco group
out of the picture. What was the name? Where did
the name come from? What was the meaning of the
name Shalamar? There is there's uh this cat named Simone

(01:34:37):
Susan who brought uh Uptown Festival to uh Dick and
and uh Don Carnelius. Uptown Festival was like a medley
of motown hits, you know, so like uh, you know,
in the disco in the disco format, and uh so
Simone Su sign was this cat and there was a

(01:34:57):
there was a garden over in the at least or
something like that called Shalimar Garden and its a s
h l I M A R you know, Sali Maru.
It was this. There was this, uh, there was this
botanical garden that this potentate or somebody you know, put
together for his lady, you know, and and so like

(01:35:19):
there was this beautiful garden. That's how they got Disco
Garden out of it. And then they changed the eye
to the A and s A A L A m
A L s S s h A l A m
A R. Yeah. What can you what can you tell
us both legally and respectfully, um about Jody's situation and

(01:35:40):
why she's not torn with the band currently with us currently. Yeah, well,
at the time, we we got an offer Jeffrey, like
I think it was about twenty years ago, seventeen twenty
years or so ago. We we uh uh got well,
Jeffrey got an offer to do five gigs over in
Asia or and throughout the Pans and something. And so

(01:36:03):
you know, we called Jody, we said, you know, jeff
called me. I said, yeah, I'm down, I'm cool, it'd
be fun. And then we called Jody and uh, Jody said, well,
I don't think I really want to revisit that part
of my life, you know, and and which you know
that you can't say, I mean that, she she you
know that everybody didn't have the same you know. It's

(01:36:25):
it's a situation you can do. You know, three people,
two people can experience the same exact thing and come
away with two different experiences, two different experiences. So you've
got three people who experienced the same exact thing and
came away with three different, uh experiences. So at that time,

(01:36:46):
Jeffrey and I went and jeff we did the shows
by herself. We put the band together and we did
the shows ourselves, you know. And uh, and then in
fact we went on to do a bunch of stuff
in the UK, We went to Africa a couple of
times with that line, with just me and Jeffrey. And
then when we wanted to bring the female entity back

(01:37:06):
into it, Caroline Griffy, who was Dick Griffy's daughter, and
she was she was singing background for me on a
lot of my solo stuff, you know, and so she
had the history of the group. She had the passion
of the group, so we didn't even we didn't even uh.
And and also she had she has an amazing voice.

(01:37:26):
I love her, I love instrument. And we didn't even
audition anybody else. We just offered the position. Yeah, how
was your How was your relationship before Mr Griffy when
he passed? How was our relationship at that time? Right
before he passed? Man Dicky, we were we were We

(01:37:47):
were at each other's thopes about something. I forget what
it was. I would give what it was. And it
was funny because, like you know, he was just he
was just learning about X thing and stuff at that time,
and and accidentally sent it to me. I'm like nigger,

(01:38:12):
you know, and I just I just laughed, you know,
and and uh, I forget what it was. We were
arguing about it at that time, but um, I loved him.
I loved it, you know. And then we had a
bitter sweet thing. How was he when he passed? Yeah,

(01:38:33):
seventies something, you know, and like you know, it was,
it was, it was. It was sad I never got
a chance to see him right when before he passed.
We had a couple of meetings before he got Before
he got sick and uh, you know, but and we
were arguing about something then I forget what it was.
You know, Hey, I know, I know I brought it

(01:38:54):
up earlier, but I kind of want to revisit it.
I know that you and James Ingram are singing on
p y T. Are you at all involved on the
original version of p y T? The slower before it
turned into the version that's One Thriller? There's another alternative, slower,
smoother version of yea, yeah, yeah, a slower version. Are

(01:39:20):
you on that version at all? Or is it just
the version that's one Thriller? Yes, a version of is
on thriller? I I didn't even know there was a
slower version out, you know, you know good? Well, yeah,
they left no stone unturned, like they kept where the
where the backgrounds sample from the front from the RIGI no, no, no, no,
it's completely different recording. Just the title. They shared the title,

(01:39:41):
that's all. Like they turned into something totally totally different. Um.
But speaking of speaking of Griffy again, you know, MTV
was was just a baby, and of course they were
world famous for really not focusing on that many black acts.
And yet I remember at the same time when they

(01:40:03):
started slowly playing Billy Jean and beat It. Um. You
guys were one of the few groups that they slowly
letting the door, along with like Prince and Lionel, Richie,
Eddie Grant, Um. How do you do you know how
that happened? Like how was was that the making of
Dick Griffy or like m I don't know what the

(01:40:25):
politics were as far as what the politics were as
far as getting all that into in uh into the playlist,
but at the time, it was just it was just
us and Michael and UM. But you know down you
had that you had that famous uh interview with David
Bowie and and I think at that point they started

(01:40:45):
kind of really relooking at certain situations. When David Bowie
comes up to you say, how can you call yourself
a music channel and you're not playing black music? It's
like it's crazy, you know, so so like UM, but
I'm not sure about the politics. It was just you know,
people they the promotion. People kept pushing it, kept pushing it.

(01:41:06):
But at the time, like I said, it was just
it was just us and Michael at the time that
they were playing. Okay, So can I assume that the
look was technically kind of sort of maybe your first
solo record, but kind of group name. Okay, it was

(01:41:29):
the last. It was the last um album that we
did that Jeffrey and Jody and I did together. But
they participated just like they equally as our as like
just like we used to do all the rest of
the projects and stuff. There's a tune on there called
you Are the You're the one for me? Check that
tune out if you get a chance to check that time. Oh,

(01:41:49):
I know, I know it well, I know it well,
but I just wanted to know, like the working process.
Speaking of the Look, I know I know, and you
know I'm a Philadelphian, So I feel like a bad
to Philadelphia because I'm gonna ask you this question. But
I know that you wrote the Look with with Stanley Clark.
Now personally one of my all time favorite how are

(01:42:10):
You with songs? Non Shalamar related, but really, if I
if I'm honest with it, this is probably my all
time favorite song of yours is Heaven Sent? Now? You know,
as a jazz head, you know this is a guy
that's you know, returned forever doesn't change the world of
bass music. I feel really silly that This is also

(01:42:31):
might be my favorite Stanley Clark song be it as
though he has such an intricate history with his bass,
but this one particular song says could could you? What
I really want to know is why didn't you say
that for your own project? Yes, even though it made
noise on his record, I almost felt like because when
it came out, I felt like, oh, this is the

(01:42:53):
how you are solo joint and then my aunt couldn't
find it. She's were looking forward forever and then finally
it's like, uh, it's it's buried on you know the
Stanley Clark record. Did you talk about that song? That song?
It was It was one of the first times that
I ventured one of my first ventures off from Solar
you know what I'm right? And so, like I said before,

(01:43:16):
Dick wasn't really a big fan of that, but you know,
it was like, you gotta you can't just you know,
keep people sold up in certain situations. So it was
when Stanley, because Stanley and I met first and then
he under you to George and when we met we
had a mutual uh friend that was his accountant, I think,

(01:43:38):
and then he didn't he doesn't work for me, and
then he he introduced me to Stanley. Stan was a
fan of you know, the Salamar stuff. And I was
definitely a fan of Stanley because my first instrument that
I learned how to play when I was like twelve
years old was base, So you know, I was the

(01:43:59):
Stanley was like the cat, right. So we just started
working together. And there was another cat that wrote that song.
I think he passed away. I can't remember that wrote
it love? What was it? Heaven on Heaven Sent Heaven said, yeah, okay,
I got to look it up. Yeah, I can't remember
his name. There was some I remember, there was some

(01:44:21):
stuff that was going on with him and Stanley, but
you know, we got we um. You know, we went
in and started recording, started messing around with it, and
it was just it was it was just slated to
go on his album. It wasn't slater to go on
my album. And that was before I think, you know,
the whole concept of putting a song you could put
it on this album was doing like putting on my album.

(01:44:44):
You know what I'm saying. We weren't doing that then.
Is this song is it? Is it still in your repertoire? Oh? Yeah,
oh yeah, definitely, definitely. I love that. You know, I
was just gonna ask, what was the creative chemistry like, uh,
Stanley and George working together, what were they like in
the studio together? Man? It was like because because I

(01:45:05):
did a lot of the Clark Duke UHCT and a
lot of involved in a lot of that, especially the videos,
I do lose a little crazy cameo appearances on the
video making didn't make any sense all of a sudden,
I'm there, you know what I'm saying. Um, it was amazing.
I mean, George just working with George, So George was

(01:45:28):
just I mean, if you didn't know anybody that didn't
all the whole bottom part of George's house and uh
in the Hollywood uh lower Hollywood Hills, basically off of Franklin.
The whole bottom part of his house was his studio.
Everything room, studio, you know, everything, the lounge, everything was

(01:45:51):
the studio had he had his wine cellar down there
and stuff, and and I mean it was it was
just we We would just go in there and it
was a place to go in and just be creative
and working with and and then Waton, Him and Stanley
together was just a double undouble situation, double dose of

(01:46:12):
what you know George did and it and it and
it was was enhanced by Stanley stuff. Stanley do some stuff,
George would enhance it with his thing. I mean it was.
It was a major, major creative, total creative atmosphere in there.
That's a beautiful man. Wow, um could you what was

(01:46:34):
the audition process like for Mickey Free and Delsa Davis
once Jeffrey and Jody left, uh shalomar Well, for Mickey,
there wasn't really an audition situation. Mickey was working on
a project I think with Leon, you know, and Mickey

(01:46:55):
was like basically you know this prince like um our
player cat and and he was working out of uh
studio Masters, and so I would come there. I was
working on something and then we see each other I
think with these studio masters a layer by a studio
I can't remember, but we crossed each other across path.

(01:47:15):
Hey man. It was like, hey man, was up, blah blah,
and then keep on going right and then we started
talking and stuff. And Mickey is Mickey. If he ever
decided to put this guitar down and not do music anymore,
he could be a stand up comedian for real. That
that had me cracking up the old time. And so

(01:47:39):
then that's when I talked to Leon because like I said,
they were they were working on something. And then I said, well,
why don't I bring you know, uh Mickey, And was
changed the whole situation of the group, you know, because
Mickey was more of this rock cat and I was
just looking to do something to pass the time for
two and a half years, you know, so you know,

(01:48:03):
and we went into the whole you know, we went
into the whole rock thing. You know. I always had
my addressing room when when Jeffrey was in the group,
is me and Jeffrey had a dressment room, right, we
just together. Joe we would have her own dress room,
but it's just you know, the camaraderie of it, you know.
So Mickey and I had our just room together. Our
theme song in the dressing room was uh Rebel Yale,

(01:48:25):
which was called Leather Gloves on and the built can
you know what I'm saying? And we're ready to go
out there and deal man. So like it changed the
whole thing. Now with with de Lisa, we uh Dick
came up with this idea of involving a lot of

(01:48:48):
the local different local radio stations across the country and
do this kind of contest, the contest to find the
girl for Salamar, you know, uh, and it it involved
the local radio stations and and all of them. They
put together this thing. They had auditions Don Lewis, Don

(01:49:11):
Lewis audition in New York. That's how I first met
Don Lewis. I don't remember. I think I was healthy
because it was episode. Yeah, Don was our last pre
COVID interview. Oh yeah, I remember Don coming out with

(01:49:31):
these hot pans and these and these uh what they
called fish net stockings. Right. For years, I called her
fish net right because he didn't she didn't win the
audists and delease because she won the New York audition,
and then she was then they flew they flew her
to l A. And when it was here is l

(01:49:52):
A in l A. One of the times she was
in l A. That's when she I guess she connected
with the different world people are are, yeah, the different
world people. But for years after I knew and you know,
after I knew Don, for years, I can never really
remember her name, but I call her fishnets, you know,
so you know, but that was the process. You know.

(01:50:15):
De Lisa was from Nashville, So when we went to Nashville,
did the did the audistion there. So this this was
nation wide. It is nation wide. Yeah, Woshville, all all
over the place. We're all over the place. By the way,
did Mickey ever share any of that basketball Charlie Murphy
story with you at all? The day? He said, He

(01:50:37):
told you after the day after it happened. Man. That's
why when people called me, when people called me after
Dave Chappelle did it, and years later when people called
me and told me, man, you see that's good. The
Charlie Murphy Hollywood stories and on Daves Chappelle, they did
a thing. They talked about Mickey going up and going
up to Princess House. I said, Man, Mickey called me

(01:50:59):
the day after day, the day after they did that,
and so we upen she a cass house man last night,
and and Eddie Murphy and Charlie Murphy, everybody came out
and played basketball. He said. Prince Prince went out there
in his heels and was dunking in. Man, anybody wants

(01:51:20):
some pancakes. He called me. He called me the day
after the day after that, went down. Wait, can I
get this fante because I'm gonna forget this um. Also
on the Look, you worked with the legendary David Hawk
Wazinski formerly a Rufus. Yes, yeah, could you talk to

(01:51:45):
like that? That's a cat I definitely want to interview
as well, Like can you talk about the process of
songwriting with him and working with him? It was wild
Hawk was wild. He his studio was called he was
up in the Hills off of a little off the off,
the one oh off, the one on one, uh lorred
one loyal can I can't remember. That was up in

(01:52:07):
the hills and the name of the studio was called
Food in the Hill. You know what I'm saying. Okay,
Pool in the Hill studio. So it was like me, him, Mickey,
we had it. It was just the whole writing process
and would get serious and all of a sudden it
would just go off the chain somewhere else and we

(01:52:29):
were just you know, we were just up there. We
had we had you know, interesting situations, visitors up there
in and out and uh uh and so like you know.
But it was but but the creative situation of it
when we would be on track was amazing. Was amazing.

(01:52:53):
We got a lot of work done, a lot of
creative looking at we did. One of the songs we
did was called micro microL loves Me. That's my ship. Yeah,
I know, probably to you like this was like all right,

(01:53:14):
I'm just gonna do this bid and then get out
here and do my solo join But you know, for
a whatever past the time record, at least in your words,
like I the the Heartbreak record was actually kind of dope.
And I do, I do want to know this story. Okay,

(01:53:35):
so I know the history Dean Pitchford because I went
to perform in arts high school. So Dean Pittchford. Of
course you know he's he's he's he's a fellow egot
ter Bill. You should know this person. Um he wrote,
I mean from God's Spells of Fame. He wrote like
a lot of Broadway stuff. He won Matt Grammys and
a Tony and an Emmy. I know that him and

(01:53:56):
Bill Woolford wrote uh about to say footloose, Well they
were that too. They were dancing in the sheets, sheets
like the streets to a child. Here she fives me,
Mr Hugh, And I know I called you Howard the
whole time. But a young child who hears that song.
You think the first time you heard somebody said it
was dancing in I've been talking about getting it on

(01:54:18):
and they're talking about the sheets. Kids don't even hear
that part. You just hear the I was a kid
and of friends. You know. Now, grab your code and
we're going home. That's what he says. Yeah, I'm enlightened.
As of today, I am enlightened. Yes, she was dancing
in the streets. But wait, can I can I just
ask though, Yes, the song was a bona fide hit,

(01:54:41):
but did anyone ever raise the question that it might
be a tabbit derivative of at all? Well, you know,
the thing, the whole the way that whole thing came
about was at the time, like I said, it was
just me. I don't even think I had Mickey and
the group at that time. You know, it was just
just just me and and Dean Pittsford called and wanted

(01:55:02):
me and Leon to come to the Paramount Studios and
listen and look at this movie that he had and
he had temporary music and you know, just stuff. And
then when it came to the park where he had
written you know, for dancing and see he said, this
is where I want, you know, shalamar thing to be.

(01:55:23):
And so, like you know, we watched the movie. We
talked God blah blah blah, and Leon and Leona and
I are walking back to the to the the parking
lot and uh, I said, well, what do you think?
You know? He said, Wow, I got a hole out
on my plate. I don't think that's gonna be a
big movie. You know what I'm saying. It's it's like
and I gotta hold I got a whole lot on

(01:55:46):
my plate. I don't really, I'm not I'm not really
gonna have time to do it. He said, well what
do you think? I said, well, I don't think it's
gonna be a big movie either, you know, but god
what I'm having a brain for, Like so I'm gonna
throw Leon under the bus like that. It was me too,
I said, I don't think it's gonna be a big
movie either. You saw and you're just like, man, whatever,

(01:56:09):
you know, you know, because because it was it was
just you know, this guy, this cat teaching white folks
how to dance and and all that kind of stuff.
Like you know, it's like you know, it's like, hey,
you know, I don't think it's gonna be that big
a movie. But I said, but being with the position
that the group, which I was gonna have to keep
on at that time, I knew Dick Riffy wasn't gonna

(01:56:32):
allow me to get out of my contract, so I
had to keep on with the group. I said, But
given the position that the group is in at this time,
I said, I think it would be a good even
though I don't think it's gonna be a I don't
think it's a great movie. They're gonna put a push
behind it and good look, it'll be a good look

(01:56:52):
promotional thing. So it would be you know, why not
do it? I'll do it. I'll put it, you know,
do the do the song, put it in there and
Alamar name lives hoever. You know what I'm saying. So
you know, I know I had to go to Solar
to to to the legal department and Solar when somebody

(01:57:12):
called me one morning and then the soundtrack had been
out there and it is sold. Because at that time,
soundtracks weren't really big. People really didn't look at soundtracks,
you know, And um, that was like the first the
first bit of the first when the first big soundtracks
out there. But I had to go to Solar and say,
because somebody called me that particular morning said you've been

(01:57:35):
checking out the Footloose soundtracks And now I was like, hey, man,
they they's sold platinum already. I was like, what you know?
And so I go I go to and talk to
Virgil Roberts at the at the record company. I went
down to the record and I said, man, Virgil, you've
been checking the Dance and the Footloose soundtrack. The Virgil

(01:57:58):
goes that, yeah, you know how these these things really
don't don't sell a lot. You know, it's not just
that sound. And I said, I said, dude, it's it's platinum.
Somebody told me platinum. Yeah, there's no weight, no weight, platinum.
And then that's and it took off from there. Man,
it's crazy. But I was about to say, you guys,
double dip, because isn't the only Grammy for Shalimar also

(01:58:24):
for your participation on the Beverly Hills cop so yeah,
for Don't get Stopped in Beverly Hills. So it was
almost like eighty four was the year of Yeah that
was Hawk with Lensky, Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, double Dip
that's that's that's right. But we didn't. I don't I
don't think we know. We didn't win anything for uh

(01:58:47):
well that well the soundtrack one a Grammy, So I
assume that someone gets that. Uh you know, yeah, that's
sort of thing I was gonna I was gonna ask
you out man, what can you tell us about your
marriage to near people's. I used to always watch the
part of Machine when I was a kid, Jesus first,

(01:59:09):
so I felt like celebrity couple, the original Jane b Yeah,
I gotta stay okay, never mind, no no, no, no, no, no,
never mind, keep going. That's a good start. There was
a cat. There was a cat, Jerome Gaspar who was

(01:59:31):
a and R cat for polygraph I think at the
time is a good friend of mine and so and
let me preface it. Also, I had a I had
a condo and Hancock Parker at that time, and I
had this in my bedroom. I had this big you know,
remember the rear projections, big screen TV. I had a
big rear projections big screen TV at the bottom of

(01:59:52):
my bed. And uh, every morning I wake up, you know,
turn on the TV, flipped through the channels, get the
channel eleven. Or nine or whatever, and uh, I see
Fame was on, you know what I'm saying, And they're
to say, man, this is this fine woman that comes
on Fame. You know, I never knew. I never waited

(02:00:16):
for the credits or anything. I just wanted to look
at her, you know what I'm saying that. And I
keep it on Fame on the channel where Fame was
for about you know, ten fifteen minutes. If she didn't
come on the screen, I'd start flipping through the channel.
But I'm sitting there, Yeah, girl, fine, you know what
I'm saying. So this got's your own. Gash called me

(02:00:37):
and uh he said, he talks and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah yeah yeah. Howd how how howd you know?
Is it? Man? We just we just signed a girl
from Fame, you know, to to a contract or a PolyGram.
I wanted to do a few songs on it, a
couple of two three songs on it. I said, well,
which the girl this is new or People's? I said,
well which girl? Is Is it? Just that same? He said?

(02:01:01):
He said, I sent you overnight the compilation, uh, via
a tape to you and I said, okay, cool. Next morning,
the FedEx comes, they they get the tape. I put
the tape in my vage just seeing and it said, ladies,
you New York people. And she comes walking down on stage.
I pushed cars and I called, I'm in, I'm in,

(02:01:25):
I'm on my way. Whatever you want me to do,
I'm there, you know. And the Soul Train was first.
I said, I messed up that timeline and my kid
head because I was like, oh, I thought Soul Train
was first, but Soul Training was after the two year
host and Soul Train. She was never on Soul Train.
She was on a party machine party. But to our

(02:01:48):
long but to our younger gen Z listeners, she's all
she's the hot mom on Pretty Little Liars. So that's
what that's what everyone knows her as. Like we worked
on we worked on the album, and UH really got
you know, got got really close. So she's she's good ladies.

(02:02:10):
He's a good woman. We have our son. We have
Christopher is uh our son, you know, and amazing. We
just we just had lunch of about two weeks or
so ago, see and I Christopher, her other daughter and stuff.
So I guess it's it's very cool. It's very cool
your first response and be like school, we just had lunch.

(02:02:34):
No wait, I gotta say though, damn wait, because I
know we gotta end this episode eventually. Time however, I will.
I gotta What is okay? This is always what I
always wanted to know when an artist does there signature,
like when they do the token gospel song on their

(02:02:57):
record I Eat Richie. That's sort of thing. Where is
are you at a place in your life? What it's
sort of like because we we didn't even get into
the personal comes and going to even life in the
turmoil and whatever, like we're just on the creative and
the things. But at that point, the fact the fact

(02:03:19):
that Saleman became such a signature song for you, m hmm,
Like where were you in your life that that song
made made its appearance and the way that you delivered it,
like we really believed it. So were you at a
transitional phase in your life where that song came right
in time? Okay? So before I left the group, before

(02:03:43):
I left Salamar at the time like two or three
years to two or three years before I left Salamar,
I always had the situation I wanted to do a
solo album. So I remember praying seriously I prayed, prayer,
I said, Lord, when I'm by myself, when i'm so,
when i'm when I'm responsible for what I say, I said,
I promised that I will honor you on every solo

(02:04:07):
project that I do, you know, and and I have
so say, man was the first, Uh was on the
Committal Love album was the first so long, and then
on and on. But when I finally rode my contract out,
I had electure. You know, if you know the term.
The Lecture had first rights or refusal on everything that

(02:04:28):
came off a solo right. So I had to give them.
I had to. I had to go through them before
I could go anywhere else, you know, as far as
my solo situation was concerned. So you know, at the time,
the Lecture was like cold as ice. They didn't they
they had all they had over there with the eagles
and and and that whole thing, and and and so.

(02:04:50):
Like I told my attorney, I said, okay, so they
have to have first rights or refusal and in other words,
they have to you know, decline the deal that we
bring to them. You know, you know what I'm saying.
So I said, if that's the case, why don't we
just make this deal so ridiculous that they're gonna decline it.

(02:05:11):
You did so all kinds of stuff in there, bumps here.
You know, the money was like unheard of for the
first time Solar has even though I had the success
with Shalamar, was crazy and and we took it to him.
Bob Kraz now who was ahead of ye. Bob says,

(02:05:35):
he calls your bluff. He says, okay, what else you know?
So so like, you know, okay, they accepted it. So
it was a great deal monetarily, and the company was
a great turn out to be a company, a great company.
But it was almost like I I just describe a

(02:05:55):
Solar Electra like a twelve cylinder car, and you they
running on six cylinders, you know what I'm saying. And
like because they did their job, they did their situation
as far as the urban R and B situation is concerned.
But the pop department over there never came to the party.
So you know, it was like it was a whole thing.

(02:06:15):
But getting back to when when I when I first
went to the thing, I had the new record company
and I had a new management company. So this was
in nine when I first left the group, and so
I had a meeting with the new record company and
I had to meet with A and R. Cat new
record company had a meeting and with the new management

(02:06:38):
company that I had hired, and Uh. I went in.
I was excited about doing my first solo project. Took
everybody's hand and I sat down and I said, first
of all, before we get started in in this in
this meeting, I said, I want to say, I want
to do a song to the Lord on this album.
It was like, that's how you started the meeting, That's

(02:06:59):
how I started a meeting. And okay, and so I
want to do a song to the Lord on this album.
And like it it's like you cant hear crickets in there,
and this is eighty five. This I don't know when
Jesus Is Love came out, but this was. But again,
it was a rare move, like you normalized it when

(02:07:19):
you did it, then everyone started doing it. But it wasn't.
But at the time, it was like, you know, I'm
talking about putting. You know, Denise would do a gospel album,
but then she going she'd come back and do an
R and B album. I was talking about combining putting
that one there, you know, what I'm saying, and uh so,
like you know this one, Cat starts talking, Well, you

(02:07:40):
know Howard, you know, we right get into we want
to take your career in the sex symbol direction might
not be conducive to uh religious overtones and this, and
Nan Dan this, and then my management's company stuck Cat
for my management he started talking because I hadn't even
talked to him about that yet, right, And so I'm
sitting again, I said. I I sat, I sat back,

(02:08:01):
and I listened. I listened to what they were saying.
And all the time, in my head, I'm saying, okay, Lord,
you know what am I supposed to do here? You
know what I'm saying. And so when they got done talking,
I said, you know what, I hear you, and I
understand you, and I can I can dig where you're
coming from. I said, But maybe because because in my mind, too, man,

(02:08:23):
is that these people got to promote my record. I
don't want to get anybody, you know, you want to
give him something that they're enthusiastic about as sour about
promoting the record and stuff. But but I had to stand,
you know, I had to stand for what I had promised.
And when I said. I said, look, I said, to

(02:08:43):
understand it, I hear where you're coming from this. I said,
but let me just let me let me go back
and let me rephrase what I said. I said, let
me say that I'm going to do a song I
ain't asked him. I asked, like, I'm gonna do a
song to LORDA on this album hit. My promise to

(02:09:06):
him is sits up here as far as like my
priorities and if it's like you know, and and and
I'm gonna do a song to the Lord on this album.
So I said, we can talk about everything else now,
you know. So we talked about everything else, and then
then you know, we went away once once Monty Suward,
who's co writer on that, on that on same end

(02:09:30):
when we put it. When we put it together, man,
it was like it was good. But I will say
that it was around that time or so. And then
I um, I was dating as a girl in Miami.
Lived was. Her family was in Miami. So I remember

(02:09:51):
we were gonna spend Thanksgiving there with our families. He
had moved to l A And we're gonna spend Thanksgiving.
So I was in the in the studio, you know,
all the whole old day and she had already flown
down there, and now I was gonna get on on
a red iron met there, right. So I get on
the plane and Monty and I had come up with
the track, like a real rough track for say men um,

(02:10:16):
and I knew that's what I wanted to be, you know,
the inspirational song. So I jump on a red eye
going to Miami and I get on the plane, I
put my headphones on, I put the cassette in. It
was on the cassette, you know, and so I was
listening to about three or four songs that I still
had to write melodies and lyrics too. And at the
end of that cassette was a was like a real

(02:10:38):
rough track of saying man, I mean one of them.
And it didn't even go all the way through it
just you know, it's just real rough track of say amen.
And when it came on, all these lyrics started coming
to me, and it's like, you know, it's time to
say goodbye for now. You know, we'll have our second
time around, second time around. You know, we have our

(02:11:01):
second time around. But before we go, there's something I
gotta say. Everything is not what it seems there's a
stronger force behind the scene. He's in our lives every day.
He's right there when we're calling him. It's where my
strap and I'm writing and writing, and there's this lady
sitting next to me. And then when I got to
the second I got to the second verse where it
says talks about cattle on a thousand hills. My mom

(02:11:23):
used to always tell me when I was a kid.
She says, you're you're the King's kid. You're the King's kid,
you know, and the king had he had, you know,
your God's child. This is what she was saying. And
there's and she would always say them, there's golden cattle
on a thousand hills, and that's yours. You know, that's
yours because you're you're the King's kid. That's hards you know,
we're killing of the guys. Guy. And so when I

(02:11:46):
started right now and I said, you know, I know
there's someone who don't believe. Sometimes it's very hard to
see what lives those living those life every day. Some
things don't go away, but to be without it is
not his will. There's cattle on a thousand hills. Man,
It hit me. I'm like writing cattle on him and
it hit me there tears started coming down, and then

(02:12:08):
lady is sitting next to me like, what the hell
is happening looking over here? Oh you know, can I
can I move my seat or something like that. But
by time, by time and touchdown in uh Miami International lyrically,
the song was totally done. That's crazy because you know,

(02:12:29):
most people when they hear that song, no matter how
many times they hear that song, they feel the same
way you felt when you wrote it. Like it's one
of those songs where it just catch you no matter
where you are, like ship. It's an ultimate It's an
ultimate crazy song. How did they go to a single?
They didn't even want the gospel song and then it
became a single. Well because they're playing they're playing the
album cut on black radio, right, but they had Black

(02:12:51):
Radio made it a single. Yeah, they played it. I mean,
you know, Donnie Simpson ended this show until he ended
with a whole bunch of act radio shows across the
across the country. You know, uh ended it with it.
And and then I did it at one of um
uh black Black Radio Exclusive b r E member, I'm

(02:13:13):
sitting Miller's things. I closed up, the close up, the
whole uh convintion with that song and stuff I remember
from from like you did it also on the Robert
Townsend Partisan Grinder, Right yeah, when Robert. When Robert got
in touch with me, that's such because that's still my boy.
We we we you know, we're really good friends still now.

(02:13:36):
But like when he approached me about it, he got
called a naked asked for meetings. So I went over
to where he was doing some stuff and went into
the office and stuff, and he says, man, you know,
I'm getting ready to do my my my Partners to Crime,
my you know, HBO special. He said, I would love
for you to do you know, say man, I said,

(02:13:57):
oh man, that's what stuff. Okay, let's go. I love
to be honored. And then he says, I want to
sing it with you. Oh like and into my mind,
you know, do you sing? I mean, I don't know
if you think that problem And and I guess because

(02:14:17):
I don't know. My face kind of tells all kind
of stuff when I'm thinking sometimes unfortunately, but like you know,
you looked at me and he said, hey, man, you know,
this is my first special. This is my first eighth
pod special. And I couldn't find I couldn't think of
any other way to thank God, you know for this
first special thing in this with you, and it came

(02:14:38):
off so cool and And what was interesting about that
was that at the time when the Partners in Crime,
uh special air, I was there. My my second solo
album had already been released. I commit to Love was
in the bends, like yeah, forever enough already have been released.

(02:15:01):
But once that, once Partners in Crime aired across the country,
you know, record stores had to reorder I Commit to
Love because everybody flowed, you know, flooded in, you know,
looking for say, man, you know I was gonna say
it was it was was this the this is pre
Sylvia runs. This is like the Bob Merland era of Electra.

(02:15:23):
Bob Merland always called was he there at the time?
Or is it president was ahead? But Merlin, Bob wasn't
there at the time, was he or did he come in?
Like okay, I don't remember him, but that I didn't remember.
But afterwards did they of course acknowledge that Okay he was.
He was on point with this, you know, because Bob

(02:15:46):
and I had had had created a routine of like
whenever I would start. Whenever I get ready to start
an album, I would I would call it. If I
was in New York, I go have a meeting with him,
and Bob's here, and here was in New York. We
we we talk on the phone and just talk about
talk about the direction, talk about what I want to do,
blah blah blah blah blah. And at the end of

(02:16:08):
every after saying man, at the end of every conversation,
Bob saying, well, I know you're gonna do another one
of those guys songs, right, do another guy song. It's
gonna because, of course, after the success and the popularity

(02:16:28):
of saying man, of course it was it was everybody's
idea then, you know, and wait wait they took credit
for it. Yeah yeah, so wait before we wrap, I
got one. Unless you had something I just wanted to say, man,
um show me. I don't know. I don't know if
you know, like how popular that is. Me and my

(02:16:50):
wife we dance, we just step. That is a very
popular stepping song, you know what I mean. But that's
just I just a gorgeous song and beautiful performance everything.
What was the inspiration for that and what was it
like recording it John Nettlesby and uh Terry CoFe, you know,

(02:17:11):
it was his writing partner, Terry CoFe. It was actually Coffee.
He spelled it ceo, but he wanted to co face.
So let's go. That's all good, you know. So they
wrote this track. I forget how we got. I forget
how we connected, but they got this track to me, man,
and like, and when when I heard this track, I

(02:17:33):
just moved into this new crib and I didn't have
any recording equipment up or anything. So I'm like, I
got this track, and I was like, man, this track
is amazing. It's an amazing, amazing track. And so I
didn't have any recording equipment set up, so I had,
but I had two boom boxes that recorded you did.
So I laid down in in the middle of my

(02:17:55):
floor and up in my um, up in my bedroom,
and I had a like probably your bottle of red wine,
you know, and I put one box on one side,
one box on this I put cassettes in and I
started bouncing things, you know, from that, and I started
coming up with with, you know, different scenarios, different things.

(02:18:15):
I wanted to think about, things that like romantic stuff
that I wanted to do with my woman for my
woman and all that and like and then that hook
came and then was just so monealable. Man. It was
just it was you know, it was like you know,
like you do some songs and and and and it's
like fighting you pulling teeth to make your go here

(02:18:38):
and they get fit, get melody and you know, uh,
raising life man, show me. It was like butter and
it just came down and was like you got to
let me know, just to let this go, help me fast,

(02:19:00):
show me. You know, It's like and then the video
was like crazy. That video, yeah, you know what was
hated me. Yeah, yeah, very much, very much. So I
just wanted to say if I was you wish you

(02:19:21):
must be a very religious experience in the way that
you put these songs together, in the way that the
at least the ladies or some of the fellers received
them live, Like do you see that in the crowd.
Do you see people responding in a way that's like
like most shows crazy, It's crazy. If I had a
dollar for every time a cat came up to me, man,

(02:19:43):
you helped me out, man, I'd be I'd be a
multi millionaire this time and and like I always say,
you know, my thing is like, you know, some cats
don't know what to say, you know what I'm saying.
So my thing is like, okay, I'll give you what
to say. You can say, listen to Howard listen show

(02:20:05):
me uh once twice, three times, three times, you know,
and and listen to how It listen. I'm not And
I tell him, now, I can get you to the bedroom.
I can get you through the bedroom door. But you
got a room with you, right, So yeah, and then
when I do when I do the shows, I mean,

(02:20:26):
it's so it's so beautiful because you know, before BC,
before Cold anyway, I would spend most of my time
in the audience rather than on the stage because I
like to I like to feel my audiences. I like
to have them participate. And there's a beautiful thing because
you know a lot of cats there they're there with
their women and there with the lady and their point

(02:20:48):
and come sing to her what I'm saying, yeah, yeah,
you know yeah, because she ain't going home with me,
right right. Well, I gotta ask this one last question
because you know, I've asked one too many soldiering questions.
But I know that you took over the theme to

(02:21:09):
the show in the eighties seven with George Duke. Um,
what was what was the well? Like? What was the process? Like?
Basically Don just asked you guys to do it? Or
like how how did that go down? Don asked George
to do it? And then George asked me to do it.
You know what I'm saying. So it wasn't it wasn't
a collaborative situation as far as I ask concerned. But
you know, George said, George, you know, George and I

(02:21:31):
wrote a bunch of stuff, you know, through the years,
and and bunch of theme songs this and and that
and and um, I mean we did a song for
uh he said, Um, he said, how he wants you
to come write these lyrics, you know, for this UH
pop artist over in Japan. Right, I forget the cat's name,
he said. But you can't get deep. This dude is

(02:21:53):
not deep. You can't get deep. It's gotta be shallow.
So I love you. You have baby O my mind.
I think about that all the time. I wrote contemplating
New York Girl. You know, it's like it's like it's like,
you know, I can't remember lyrics. But but it was

(02:22:13):
that's that's the perfect time. But now with the Souldiourne
Award thing, uh don, George was taken over all this
stuff as far as that's concerned, and then he asked
me to come in and do uh do some ad
libs and stuff on the on the sulcia. So yeah,
So what is it I guess in closing, what is
it that you've what is it that you've learned that

(02:22:37):
made you a wiser human being? Like it just in
your your your your journey to this point that that's
brought you here to this day that still has you here.
You know, that's that's a deep question because you know,
you learned so much on your way in different scenarios,
in different places. I think one of the things though,

(02:23:00):
as most important as as an artist for me and
as a man, as with your integrity, as far as
that's concerned, is to let your yes be yes, and
your nobiyoll no. You know what I'm saying, I understand
and do and say what you're gonna do, what you're
gonna you know, like I said in the earlier situation,
my word was was worth more even before I knew

(02:23:23):
that my word was worth more than than anything, any
piece of paper I could sign. You know, your integrity
will follow you through this business closer than anything else will.
All you can do, you can do all that, you
can have all the hit records you want, all the
you know, the love people love. But if you are
are flaky person and and don't and and deal in

(02:23:46):
uh situations where your integrity is not you know, intact,
you know it's it doesn't mean anything. It really doesn't
mean because at the end of the day, it's going
to be about who this man? What you as a
man is about? What are you about? You know, you
can do all the music and people say, what do
you want? What do you want your music? Want? You

(02:24:08):
want people to remember about your music. I want to
remember the integrity of my music. That I stayed. I
stayed in the van. I had people saying you should
put wrapping and you sho put the wrapping thing, and
you should do some talk about you know, sex and
all this kind of stuff. Now that's not my lane,
you know what I'm saying. My lane is like here
and stay here and not and and I have to.

(02:24:31):
When I got in this business, I wanted to be
I wanted to UH achieve longevity. I didn't want to
just come into this business, make a couple of hit
records and then go laid out on the beach. You
know what I'm saying. I wanted to work at it.
I wanted to work the work ethic, what it takes
to keep and stay and and keep your integrity in

(02:24:53):
this business and and as a man. You know, man,
it's like you know where I where I've come as
far as where I am now, is that I can
look in the mirror and say, I like that cat.
He's cool. It's all right, it's cool, you know what
I'm saying. And I've had my my, my, my, craziness

(02:25:15):
and all that, but hey, it's about you know, praise God.
That's that's all I can say. Praise God. That's all
you can say. Man, Well, thank you very much, brother
you witt, I thank you for doing our show. Um,
it's been a pleasure. Pleasure. Sugar Steve, are you are

(02:25:36):
you getting up to say? Knocked out over there a
minute ago? Now that's just the weed talking. I'm seriously,
I'm on the scissor tonight. So that you got a cold.
I never went fully unconscious, but oh I told you,
see you won't possibly tell people that you gotta do

(02:25:57):
disclaimers and stuff. You can't just put that out there
just a cold good thing well on zoom right like
three hours ago. So I was gonna say, Howard Man,
like some years ago, this has been over a decade ago.
I actually met you. I ran and you. It was

(02:26:18):
real quick. It was an l A X and uh,
if I'm not mistaken, I think it was it was
l A X. But you were just just as you
are now, man, super cool, and I just walked up.
I was like, yo, man, I'm a big fan, and
like you were just kind of low key. So I
didn't want to blow your spot up, you know what
I mean? Because I was like, all right, I don't
want to make people notice. And then it's like thirty
more people coming, so I just I was like, yo,

(02:26:40):
my fan brother. He was like thank you man, like
super cool, and I started to tweet. I was like, yo,
I just met how are you? Then I thought, I
was like, I don't know what we're he doing out here,
so let's me not. I don't want to blow spot
up or whatever. But you know, right right, but you

(02:27:00):
were super cool, and I just I never forgot that man,
and just where you were a class act and you
still are. And I just thank you for the music
and for all your country. And I always say, man,
we're all in this thing together another, and none of
us is getting out of this thing alive, you know
what I'm saying, So we might as well might as
well do this together and be as as as cordial

(02:27:22):
and respectful and you know, as as possible. Unfortunately, some
of my peers, you know, use their celebrity as an
excuse to be rude to people. But you know it's like,
especially in this business, just like we're not athletes. You know.
Sometimes athletes they want people to hate them because they'll
come to the stadium to hate them. But in this business,

(02:27:45):
if somebody hates you, they ain't gonna buy your records.
Customer service, sir, true, Well, we thank you for doing
our show. Um on behalf of Scissors, Steve and and
and unpaid Bill, putting the kids to bed right now,
Fontagelo and light. Yeah, this question love once again, the

(02:28:06):
immortal Howard Hewitt on question Love sucream and we will
see you next go around. Thank you, yo, what's up?
This is Fonte. Make sure you keep up with us
on Instagram at QLs and let us know what you
think we should be next to sitting down with us.
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, all Right Piece

(02:28:26):
m quest Love Supreme is a production of my heart Radio.
We more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
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