Questlove Supreme: Howard Hewett

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Oh damn, I'm paid Billsie. What the hell?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Snap Son, Jesus Christ, Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another
episode of course I'm Supreme. Bill, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yes, sorry, starring up date Phil Man.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
You in the house. You even with even with a Tony,
You're you're still with us.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I know I'm just close from not.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm here for now, Billy.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
The second you complete you got, You're not gonna mess
with this anymore.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
The second I he got before you.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Hell, yeah, I'm getting out. Bill loves Supreme.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
All I'm taking everybody with you.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Days coming too, He says, exactly, all right, sugar, Steve,
you're still loyal, correct to Bill Sherman. Yes, okay, Hey, Alicia,
lord On, somebody we gotta fund Ticolo in the crib.
What's up?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Brother? You call us good?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, I'm good Man. Were down twenty six?

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Cause yeah, nice?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
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 twenty six. Are you down twenty six thousand dollars? Exactly?

Speaker 4 (01:35):
What is the game, nah man, you know it's still
try trying to live past fifty?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yes, which is you know, struggle, super struggle. How are
you hey?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
I'm good man, I'm feeling all right, feeling all right.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
We're good, all right, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, what can
I say? Yes, it is a freaking known to us,
of course, as one third of probably one of my
favorite groups. I don't know, I can't categorize Shalamar as
a soul group. I can't categorize them as a pop

(02:14):
group or a bookie group. But you know, I mean
because they transitioned between disco, between bookie and between new
wave eighties pop, you know they were everlasting. And you know,
of course our guest today is, without saying, a singer's singer,
a real singer and awesome singer has had such a

(02:37):
story career singing the soundtrack of our lives. 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, the one and only Howard Hewitt. Thank you, Yes, indeed,
thank you, thank you for coming. Yeah, I can't wait

(02:58):
till we're off zoom. So we could have like real
hand claps. Again, I like the last seven episodes were all.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
Breathing, and that's what that's what it's a killer because
that's exactly what it sounds like when you're in, when
you're in like a.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Huge crowd, like right, exactly right, All right, well we'll
be effects.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
How are you today?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
What's going on?

Speaker 5 (03:24):
Very good, very well, Just just like we were talking
earlier about, I do my my daily walk and I'm
trying to stay ahead of this heat out here. It's
like crazy, man, really crazy out here in California. Well
where I am, it's different temperatures different, Yeah, Long Beach.
Out of the Long Beach yesterday it was like seventy

(03:45):
seven degrees out here all day yesterday was like a
hundred uh and real field was one hundred and eight.
So Jesus great, what one hundred and eight man there was.
That's one of those times you just stay in that
you stay in the house, you don't even go outside,
close the curtains.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
You mentioned something that this this actually might be inspirational
for me. How often do you have to commit to
the daily walk. I'll admit that 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

(04:25):
about the daily walk, but in the last two weeks
I've sort of slacked off on it just due to
the scheduling of it. But how important is the daily
walk 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

(04:46):
sort of condition happening. So you know, like I'm I'm
certain that most of us that are on our walking
thing is doing it for health reasons and whatnot.

Speaker 5 (04:53):
So conditioning, you know, conditioning and and But for me,
especially for the past years 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, I'm
going to remove everything from you that can distract you

(05:14):
from me. You did what I'm saying. Me and my
girl broke up a couple of months before before COVID.
You know, 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 COVID. I
known this this cat since I was twenty years old,
and I'm best friend.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Right.

Speaker 5 (05:35):
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 and I had my work.
I always had my work. And so so.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
He said, no distractions now and he said, he.

Speaker 5 (05:59):
Said, and I'm take that away from you right now.
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 it. Daily. I did
a daily reading. I get up, I read a daily situation.
I read. I started from Genesis in my Bible and went,

(06:22):
I'm all the way up, almost halfway through the New
Testament now, you know, and all the way 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 in five or six steps. I'm
right outside on my deck, you know what I'm saying.
So that was my daily devotion between me God, Christ,

(06:45):
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
beginning of the pandemic, you know, I got out on
my bike. There's like a fifteen to twenty mile route

(07:06):
that I can take around my crib. I got out
on my bike, and then in the middle of that
fifteen to twenty miles 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
and all these people started flooding into the thing. What's up,

(07:27):
what's going while you're 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 the thing
about this pandemic, about this virus rather is that it
thrives on It thrived on low immune systems. It thrived
on load vitamin D deficiencies, which is really heavy and

(07:49):
all especially within black people, right, and so like it
was like my that's when I started when I started.
I said, Okay, I'm gonna do with my walk because
I do it like a four 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
and talking at the same time, right, And then I'm like,

(08:10):
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 miles, after about two miles,
I'd stopped at a specific place and then I talk right.
So first at first it was fac dot dot dot
and life right fresh air cardio. All that leads to life,

(08:33):
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 fac

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

(09:16):
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 health and keeping my health up
and keeping everything up. You know, it's like, Okay, I
can take the time to do all that stuff. Sometimes,

(09:37):
you know, the schedule will well like get in a
way as far as like how early I start, how
early I can get out there. But I'm always going
to get out there, you know what I'm saying. Every day,
every day, I'm out there every day.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
I love it.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
Even on the weekend. I know, I don't come online
on the weekend, I don't go live on the weekend,
but I get out there and do something on the weekend.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Do a daily show.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Okay, yeah, all right, well yeah, how are you just
let it be known that you're definitely the straw that
broke the all right, fine if.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
You that's what I need to hear, you know, because
people have been get on.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Me like yo, man, you slacking off.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Man.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
You you were committed your da da da, You're falling off,
like you know, my partner's don't walk with and all
that stuff. So they were getting on me today about that,
like you ain't walked in like ten days a mirite,
So all right, I now know, I now.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Know that I have to.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
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's jacked up, everything can be going well.
But if you don't have your health, man, that's crazy.
It's crazy. And then if stuff is jacked up and
your health is jacked up, that's like a whole other thing.

(10:53):
There's a whole other situation.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
You're absolutely right, Well, brother, you look awesome, like you
look good, great and great health.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
That's five year old gold. That's it.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Sixty five brothers late forties to me, like for real,
for real, they still look great. Six.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
The the question I want to pose to you, of course,
is the first question always ask on the show. Uh,
could you please tell us what your first musical memory was?

Speaker 5 (11:25):
My first musical memory, man, was Actually I would think
Isley Brothers, Sam Cook and my grandmother's garage when we
would have all the holidays we would, we would. It
would always be at my grandmother, my grandma fitz Hugh's house.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
And well, you mean records or in person.

Speaker 5 (11:51):
No records, I'm talking about records. Say Damn was like, oh,
you're talking about live as far as no no.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
No, no, no no, I mean first all right.

Speaker 5 (12:03):
Yeah, that's that's one years ago. 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 put a turntable in there, and we
had the forty fives and stuff. So I remember chain Gang,
Sam Cook and Twists and shout of course you know

(12:24):
the brothers. Yeah, I remember, I did you know? I
did about about twenty cities with Ron Iley 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 or if I'm headlining, I get there
twenty minutes before I go on and that's it. I

(12:46):
don't want to get there and 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 uh Isy brothers and with Ernie and stuff. Man,
every night, I was like in the wings. You know,
it's just like watching because he took me all the
way back to when I was like five years old,

(13:07):
you know, five six seven four six seven years old,
and then he caught me. You caught me out on
stage every once in a while, man, and that was like, what,
all right?

Speaker 6 (13:19):
Cool?

Speaker 5 (13:20):
You know, but that's my first as far as musical
musical situation. I think that's the foundation that I had,
and then you know, went into the whole gospel thing.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Okay, yeah, I was going to say that.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
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 family collection.

Speaker 5 (13:47):
All DJ's wanted to be singers, and all singers want
to be DJ's. I was saying exactly he's saying with
Frankie Crocker a lot back in the day. And frank
that was one of my best parts. And what was
he like? Man?

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Was he you know known him as that personality? Was
he really out there like that?

Speaker 5 (14:06):
Frankie? Frankie was the most down down nigga in the world.
I mean, you know, and I remember because when we.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
First so proper all the time I heard him speak,
and you know.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
I said, I'm on the Quest Love Show. I got
to be proper nigga.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, you must an't listen to the.

Speaker 5 (14:31):
He's done my homework, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Now we keep it out, Let it go.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
Now. Frankie was down nigga 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 a lot of the lot of the
promotion in New York and stuff, and and uh, we
got to the we got to w B l S
and h he wasn't ready yet. So the lady that

(14:56):
was the rep that was from the record company, she said, okay, hey,
while we're waiting on Frankie, we'll go over down to
this other I forget what the station was, kiss or
something like that, Kissing. And so we went down there
and did the interview and stuff, and then we came
back and like Frankie, we're sitting down in the lobby
of the BLS and Frankie comes out. When he walks out,
you know, this is tall, I mean black nigga man.

(15:20):
He's 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
Paola thing. So I remember. I remember there was like
an article and Playboy, and of course, you know, I
never looked at the.

Speaker 7 (15:40):
Picure the article, but it talked about it talked about
his whole ordeal with the Paola situation and the fact
at the time that he when he came back after
the piel, he came back riding up one hundred and
twenty fifth Street on the White Stallion.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
Class, he was all the saying, so like we when
he came out, he's stood up there and he just
kind of stood there right, and we're sitting. 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 it
and he was doing the interview and stuff, and he says,

(16:21):
you know, your voice reminds me of Gladys Knight, And
I'm like, glad it's night, what come on, man, glads Knight.
I'm flattered, But Gladys 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
Isley brother interview, the historic Issy brother interview when they

(16:43):
got in the fight on on you know, they.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Never heard of that one.

Speaker 5 (16:48):
I've heard looking at us fight live on the air.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
You know, that's a lot of eyes.

Speaker 5 (16:56):
That was before any that's that's before any of them
passed away.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
So they was all on the all Christ Jasper too,
about six.

Speaker 5 (17:07):
But take out. 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, off bend the canyon, he said, he said,
here's that. You know that We exchanged numbers and stuff.

(17:30):
He said, when you're when you're back in town, when
you're off the road, get me a car. You come up,
you know, have some dinner. I said, cool, you know,
let's go, I said, And so a couple of two,
three weeks later, we're going. 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
Cocker's house. I know, he got ladies all over the

(17:51):
the whole thing. I'm bowling, you know. And I got
up there and it was me, him and his moms
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,
that was my man. So so dope man, you know, yeah,

(18:12):
he was. He was. He was not the persona basically.
I mean, he lived large, you don't, don't get me wrong,
and he he demanded his respect as far as that's concerned.
But he wasn't someone unorderly, un you know, crazy deal.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
He had a house in Beverly Hills and he was
a New York personality too.

Speaker 5 (18:34):
Yeah, up on house, up on Benedict off of Benedict Canyon.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Yeah, he was the highest plate like black radio jock
in the country.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
So was he doing syndicated back then or was it just.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
He was he was doing he would do. I think syndication.
Syndication was just coming in maybe not too long after that,
but but he had he's had that house up. He
had that house up there for a long time.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Say that's what I was thinking.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Coast.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
They put you in the.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Paper maybe you know, yeah, I see.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Do you do you remember the first album that you
purchased with your own money, with.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
My own money. I don't remember which one of what
it was exactly. I can't say, uh back in the
day because.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
I also be stolen to Just in case I'm saying
people have come stealing their first records.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
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. Soyo, wow, Okay, so you know
times I had to 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

(20:04):
like Parliament Funkadelic and you know all that kind of stuff,
like Maggot Brains and I love that Eddie Agel situation.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Okay, yeah, ok, yeah, I take it. I know you
were born in Ohio, but I don't know what city
you were born in.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
Akron, Akron, Ohio, Akron.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
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 fifteen.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
I met James when I was fifteen.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
So this is this explains why you two are also
seeing background on PYT together exactly.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
Okay. I was with James when when he got the
demo for Just Once, you know, and he's like, man, listen, listen,
because we lived right around the corner from each other
at that time. And he's said, man, and he said, listeners,
what do you think about this? I said, Man, I
think that's a coblet song? He said, Man, this is
some there's some pop pussy right here. Man. And I said,

(21:16):
I said, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's true boy. Because
you know, but see when Jane, when I was back
in Ohio, my group, my group was called Life. We
spelled the l yf E, so Life. Jennings won the
first nigga to say that right when we spelled l
yfy Life Banding Show. And it was like seven of

(21:38):
us and we were like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, I
think Ricky Parker Ricky Fletcher was eighteen nineteen years old,
and so 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. Games played keyboards

(22:01):
and sang background because he didn't consider himself a lead singer, right,
And they had this lead singer called named Bernard lost
and he's still back and aftr now Bernard lost him too.
This day could sing me under this, under this, my
desk over here, this this boy really what is you're
talking about? Going from natural effortlessly up into your foss

(22:24):
He had that back, he had that down back then
tall lanky brother and like a dance of red dance
and sing the same time. And it was like, I mean,
they were funky. Revelation Funk was funky.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
You know. Wait a minute, okay, so what's the name
that's the group that James Ingram was in that he
was playing keyboards and Revelation God, damn it, damn it,
damn it, damn the ones from uh Dolomite.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
Yeah, weren't they movie movie?

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, okay, because they came out.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
Here, they came out here. Bernard never came out here
because he Lord called him back to the church, fortunately
because it was some crazy stuff that was happening. But
they had this cat named Wouchie Wayne Arnold that came out.
Wayne was bad too. I don't know what he means,
like ARNOLDI So we were like nobody, but they came.

(23:19):
They came out here, and then they only stayed together
out here about a year and a half, uh 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, so you know, and then, uh,
for James, the rest was history. He started working with

(23:39):
h Ray Charles and a bunch of other people and stuff,
and you know, in the studio and stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
It was cool just to get this straight.

Speaker 8 (23:46):
James Ingram sounded like that at fifteen years old.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
No, nothing has ever changed.

Speaker 5 (23:52):
Well, he was about when I first met it, he
was nineteen, because he was about four years older than me.
And uh yeah, I mean he had all that stuff
down hard, it's like, but but he didn't develop it
and and really kind of take it out where it's
supposed to be until you know, until he got it,

(24:12):
until he went solo.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
So well, one more thing, so if you were friends
with James, uh, were you at all in proximity of
his brother Philip at the time when Philip was developing
a switch? M The switch also has achron connections, correct.

Speaker 5 (24:30):
Yeah, Philip Phillip was like Philip was his younger brother.
So Phillip's younger than me. And uh, phillips group back
in Achron. Uh Man, what was his name? I forget,
I forget their name. The name we had, we had
weird names back there. There was a group called picket Fence.
I don't know what that was about, but it was like,
you know, but the Philip was with raw Soul I

(24:53):
think it was. And I mean Akron, Akron was an
amazing place to grow up man, and and the rubber cat.
It was the rubber capital of the world at that time,
so so middle class was thriving. It was 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

(25:14):
that some cats tried to do all three.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
All three, all three. But rubbers and.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
Philip I think the name of Phillips. The group was raw,
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 because every time I listened to L,
I hear Bobby you know what I'm saying, and it's

(25:43):
just it's crazy. And uh so they came out, and
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, they
were coming out and bringing them out, and so I
went and hung out with them at the studio, you know,

(26:05):
while they were while they were calling uh called it,
I call your name or something like that, and 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 his false. That was that was his
natural voice, just like I was listening to Elle the
other night. Elle's false is his natural voice. That's his

(26:27):
natural voice, right, so you know 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.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Question, I do remember, I think I remember during one
of the interviews with Don Krnoli's on Soul Train where
you talked about you were actually dancing on the show first.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Is that true? Were y'all just joking with each other?

Speaker 5 (26:54):
I was never a soul trained dancer.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
I heard okay there because because it said it said,
it was said 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.

Speaker 5 (27:09):
I was dating, uh this this lady that worked for
down and there and at the Souldier and Dance Studios
studios in the office in the front.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Office, Pam Brown.

Speaker 5 (27:19):
No no, no, this is her name was Ann.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
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've no no, no,
no, no no no no.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
It just hit me.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
You literally have christened a human being with my all
time favorite name. I read about this and ride on
you have a daughter named Rainy Days.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
Rainy Days d a z rather yo.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
When I read that ship when I was ten years old,
I'm like, I'm gonna have a girl, and I'm the
name of.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Rainy Days, Like it just wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 5 (27:56):
Her mom, you know, eventually became my wife and she
his mother and my two older daughters. But when when
Rainie was born, Rainy was the only only child that
I didn't see come out, you know, because I was
I was on the road. I had my my my
oldest darted with me. She was like a year and
a half at the time, right, and so her mom

(28:17):
was so huge. I was like, look, I'm gonna take
I'm gonna take Lakeiva. My oldest daughter's name is Lakiva,
you know, which was the name let Kiva k I
v E. Which is a name, which is the name
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 hall called

(28:37):
Kiva Hall, Andy, I say, every morning i'm walking to
my first class, I say, wow, Kiva Kiva would be
a beautiful name for a little girl. But had a
love on the front of.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Luck that is so black.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
You got all the names correct, Bill, I got it.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
I got it.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Anything Bill, and my friend Lafonte and quest got.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
You so like but like, I took Lakeiva out on
the road with me because her mom was so huge.
I just wanted her to concentrate on being pregnant, not
not having so she was having to take care of
one and half kids. So I took my daughter out
on the road with me so we would we would

(29:32):
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
here to l a sit there.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
You know.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
I take her to the beach, walker on the sand,
you know, a whole thing, trying to make that baby drop,
you know what I'm saying. And after after about 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
do you feel? She said, it feels you know. I said, look,
me and Kieva are going to go to my mom's

(30:11):
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 my partner and partner mine was out.
I got him a job working with the group. When
when when I was with the group and stuff, So

(30:32):
one of my best partners, so you know, he was
out on the road with her, and like we were
sitting in my in either his room in my room,
and like he said, so, uh.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
I can tell this is already gonna be my favorite interview.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
Man.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yes, I feel like member of this Tobias.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
I think howard you were?

Speaker 5 (31:03):
He said, and I and and he said, so you
know your name the baby Rainie had the baby? You said, yeah,
said what, so what's you gonna name her? I took
the time, what are you gonna name her Rainie? After
my you know, say, what what's the nile name gonna be?
But I was thinking about.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Days the the story.

Speaker 5 (31:30):
She sees his interview, she thinks that I was drunk
or something when Ian the whole time you.

Speaker 8 (31:38):
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 of my
life up until he got like eighty and tell me
on my birthday, like how my conception of how I
was born?

Speaker 3 (31:52):
And it's just it's just a love.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
About the conception, the conception.

Speaker 8 (31:55):
I'm sorry, the conception, but the dad was.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Born sign Yeah, but ye say those stories, tell them stories.
People love us.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
I was going to say there was a ten year
old reading write on magazine that it was really really
hell impressed with that name. At the time. I was like, wow,
that's the greatest name ever. Raindy Days. All right, I'm
gonna have raindy Days two point oh all right. So
it's it's still in the cards for me.

Speaker 5 (32:24):
She hated it when she was in grade school, but
when she got into junior high and then high school
and then all that time adulthood, she loves it. She
loves her name.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
You know, nice nice is she in the Does does
she have musical talent? Does she?

Speaker 2 (32:38):
I have no clue what she.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
Came out of schools, came out of high school, wanted
to do you know, wanted 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 four demos, three or four songs, and she
got her head shot together and then got herself a

(33:02):
deal with this company called notting Hill. You know, notting
Hill was in l a and as well as in London,
you know, in the UK, so she was They were
working on an album together, and then halfway through the
album she comes to me she says, you know, Dad,
I'm really not into this. I said, what do you
mean into it? She said, I'm more interested in what

(33:26):
I'm gonna wear than the music, you know what I'm saying.
So he was into the fashion for Unfortunately, the people
at at at notting Hill were cool and they had
put a single out in uh in the UK that
did fairly well. But you know, she wasn't she wasn't
into it, so they let her go and then she
got a position with Vera Wang company, you know, did

(33:50):
that for.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
A while then, so she lived in London for a while.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
She went to London, she didn't live there, but she
spent a lot of time.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Okay, I see, I see, Okay, I do want to know.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Okay, first of all, before you get into your entry,
do you know exactly what the situation was that caused
Jerald Brown to leave Shalamar 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

(34:26):
kid or whatever. I had the Uptown Festival forty five
and what not, and it's like, I never thought his
voice blended in with that group. Well even even take that,
I'm mean, take That to the Bank, of course was
a classic song, no matter what, but I never felt
like his voice fit into He was like he was

(34:47):
like a grown adult, and I always felt like Jody
and Jeffrey represented like the kids while.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
He was like a proper adult or whatever.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
But what's the situation that caused him to vacate the group? Don't?

Speaker 5 (35:00):
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 about whatever. Because you know, Gerald had been
been in the business 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

(35:22):
that wasn't Gerald, that was this guy named Gary Mumford.
So they had they had two lead singers before before me. Right,
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.

(35:43):
That's why I was never really a big fan of
disco because I always thought it was pretty fabricated music
and and you know, I was more into the 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

(36:03):
out there, see if it made some noise. If it
made some noise, then they go and put a group together.
And that's how Salomar basically, you know formed. So it
was like Gary Mumford on Uptown Festival and then uh
and then he I think he went back to the
church too, if I'm not mistaken. And and then Jerald

(36:24):
Brown came in. They took him from you know, because
it was Don Cornelius and uh Griffy, right, you know,
at first it was sole trained records, you know what
I mean. And so they brought Jerald 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

(36:47):
because I was with a group. I was with a
group down that was formed people that was formed by
the people in uh Matthew Jeffrey Bowen.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Jeffrey Bowen produced a song for You by the Temptations, right.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
Yep, and a bunch of colm did Bonnie Pointer was
his lady, and.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Here was his wife? Right dom Bonnie Pointer was his wife?
And wait did he did he produce? I think he
co produced with George Clinton two songs on guitarist Eddie Hazel,
Eddie Hazel's record, Hey.

Speaker 5 (37:19):
We were, Well, we were. He had hired me because
I I was this girl Tammy Gibson who used to
sing for Stevie in Wonder Love. 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, this show group called Beverly Hills,
right and the people at Mavericks Flat down in the

(37:41):
Crenshaw district, John Daniels and and Alonzo Daniels's 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, about a little less
than a year and a half or so, and I
was making like two point fifty three years is this around?
This is like seventy seven, seventy seven, because I brought

(38:05):
seventy eight in seventy seven. Out the end of seventy seven,
I was in Helsinki, Finland, which was the first gig
that we did, and then we went to Geneva, Switzerland,
and I read that because I brought we brought seventy
eight nineteen seventy eight in in Geneva, Switzerland, and then
we went on to Bena, Dorm, Spain, Santa Pez, France.

(38:27):
We're all over the place. I was making two fifty
three hundred a week, you know what I'm saying. But
I was having them ball I was like twenty two,
about twenty two years old.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Again, I'm pulling out my inflation calculator just to see,
just to see. So when you're saying the show group,
you're saying in terms of like you guys, because I
think heat Wave was sort of in the same situation
where they were perform more on like army.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Bases or clubs of the day. Is that the same situation.

Speaker 5 (38:56):
Or no, we never did army bases. 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
Infernal to Mandy you know what they so yeah, and
it's like and you know, did you know Afternoon Delight
all that kind of stuff. You know, it was like,
you know, it was my stuff, old stuff exactly. We

(39:18):
didn't do any original stuff. It was just and it
was like, you know, so.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
But wait, by the way, guys, two fifty back in
nineteen seventy seven was one thousand, one eighty seven and
eighty six cents by today.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
That was that was good. That was cool money.

Speaker 5 (39:37):
I wish I would have felt that. Then I came
back a year and a half with about five hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
That was this.

Speaker 5 (39:45):
But so, you know, so like I came back and
and all the Mavericks Flat was was a really interesting
place where on the weekend it was a club and
on the week days that's where we rehears. We will
rehearse the band anytime we had a show that we
wanted to try out on people at a live audience.

(40:06):
We would play at Mavericks Friday and Saturday the night
and so it was like, you know, I mean, Mavericks
was interesting in that you could look out in the
audience at any time. Shaka Khan would be sitting out there,
or lion On Richie when he was with the Commodores,
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

(40:29):
you know, uh, the way that you do your show,
the whole thing, and uh. And where it was located Crenchhall,
right Crenshawn Stocker, right on the corner of Crenshaw on Stocker.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
So this point in Crenshaw, because I also know that
what was Total Experience also a club.

Speaker 5 (40:44):
On Crenshaw as well, right up the street.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
As far as the black clubs are concerned, you're saying
at Maverick Flats and Total Experience, And like, where were
the other nightlife options for black people to go.

Speaker 5 (40:57):
To Strawberry Hill? Was the club there? I don't know
a whole bunch of clubs around there a bit, because
I hung at Mavericks all the time. You know. It
was like 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 in Dolls. I think was a was a club,

(41:18):
but I think that was a little bit before I
got there, you know, guys and dolls. But I'm not
really familiar with the whole bunch of the clubs over there.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
So you're saying that if you if it's nineteen seventy seven,
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.

Speaker 5 (41:43):
Then, or no, I didn't do a lot of West
Hollywood back then because that was like I got to
I got out here in LA in nineteen seventy six,
you know, and so I hooked up with the people
at Mavericks about about two months after I got out here,
you know, and we and John Daniels told me what

(42:03):
he what, what he was, what he wanted to do
he had. He had 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 model on
The Price Is Right. She was in yea from Friday. Yeah,

(42:28):
she was in. That's what she shut up built.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
She was.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
And uh, he's done, He's done over there, it's like man,
So yeah, she she was in. She was in the
Love Machine and six other beautiful women. They and they
went all around the world. When I first went down there,
the cat T Tucker that played bass for Revelation Funk
like I said at that time. By that time they

(43:01):
were broken up and T was playing for the Love Machine.
And I called T one day. I said, I got
his number.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
I called him.

Speaker 5 (43:08):
I said, Yo, man, I'm in town. Blah blah blah.
I said, man, come down to Maverick Flat. I'm rehearsing today.
You know, I'm playing with this group called Love Machine.
So me and my cousin went down to Maverick Flatt
and stuff, 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.

(43:29):
So you know, that was how that whole thing came about.
And then we started putting the 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 a little less than a year and
a half over in England, and came back and I
started kicking around in LA and then that's when I

(43:50):
hooked up with Jeffrey Bowen, you know, to he was
doing this album with this solo album on Eddie Hazel,
and he.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Please describe with what Eddie Hazel was like. Besides George Clinton,
I really haven't gotten a straight story about Eddie Hazel.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
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,
you know, he was. He was like, you know, an
amazing guitar player, maggot brains, that's Eddie, you know, right, Hazel.
And but he was he he I mean, I I

(44:31):
just smoke weed, but he smoked weed. You know I
know what that means. You go back, yes, so, but
but he was cool, I mean real cool, real cool brother.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
But so you're saying that Eddie Hazel once potentially had
a deal on Motown Records that fell through. M hm.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
I don't know if it fell through because they were
they you know, Eddie Jeffrey was producing it. And then
we were working because after I came, like I said,
Tammy came and got me because she wanted me to
do this. She was she was contracting the backgrounds or
that they were doing. So I went in and did

(45:17):
the sessions. Me, Tammy, this girl Kathy 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 Bowen
came to me. He said, you know, man, I love
your vocals. I loved it. This is going to be
a self contained situation, so you know, I'd love for
you to be a part of It's going to be you,

(45:38):
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 said, I said, cool, Okay.
So the next day I joined after you know what
I'm saying, and all the checks and we started and

(45:59):
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 the time
you walk out of the studio. So Jeffrey would book
book the time for like eight o'clock, you know, in
the evening. He wouldn't show up for whatever reasons, I

(46:19):
don't know, until midnight, and then we would work till about,
you know, about four or five o'clock in the morning,
so that's like nine hours you know, at about one
hundred and thirty hundred and forty whatever the scale was
at that time if you were doing a solo or
you know.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Inflation inflation count it's a lot of money, bill, it's
a lot of money, a.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Lot of money right there.

Speaker 5 (46:41):
So that sound like that, 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 we weren't reflecting the time that we you know
that we were in the studio and so then I
called him me. I took my lady. I took my

(47:01):
lady to work. She worked at you know, like I said,
for dying down at the Souldichrained 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 running around, blah blah blah blah blah

(47:23):
blah blah, you know, blah blah, getting all this stuff
off my chest. And the phone rings, right, and this
Angelo Bond was his co producer. Angelo answers the phone
and he looks at me and he says, 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.
He said, well, not a lady. And it sounds like

(47:44):
it's long distance. That was before cell phones. When you
hear the crackling on the phone, right launch he said, you.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Know, it's nine dollars a minute, he said.

Speaker 5 (47:54):
He said, it's not a lady, it's a guy. And
it sounds like it's long distance. So I take the
phone and it's Jeffrey. Right. They were in New York
at 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 some I forget

(48:14):
exactly what it was because I wasn't interested in why
with this was happening. It's like, what are you? What
are we getting to as far as like this phone call,
and he said that you know that Jerald Brown, that
Gerald said, Hey, when y'all can see it my way,
give me a call. And he jumps on the plane
and leaves. Oh, they're in the middle of a promotional tour.
You did, and so like he says, I know, you

(48:36):
know because they Mavericks Flat. All the soul trained people
used to come down to Mavericks Flat all the time.
I first I first met Jeffery and Jody before Shallamar
at Mavericks Flat, right, and say, 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 this three degrees of separation is crazy, you know

(48:58):
what I'm saying. So they saw the show Jeffrey Before,
before Shala Maar resisted, Jeffrey had told me, man, I
love your vocals. I said, I love your dancing. Man,
you and Jodie. I used to watch them before I
even left Ohio on soul train. I see them dancing. Wow,
that's great, that's great. So he says, I know we
you know we, I know, you know that we formed

(49:21):
Shalamar blah blah blah. We got to take that to
the bank out there when in 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.
Then he told me all this stuff, and then he says,
you're at the Motown building, right, I said yeah. He
said where are you. I'm up on the fifteenth floor.

(49:41):
He said, well, so Large'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 he's
waiting for you to, you know, for you to get
in touch with him. So like, you know, so he
talked a little while longer. I get off the phone
and I tell Jeffrey Bowen and I tell angelabaum, what

(50:01):
to do? No, I said what? And then the Dan
angel says, man, Chellamar is just a fly by night
disco group. They'll never amount to anything. And then 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 then Jeffrey started talking some stuff. And when things
like that happen, I have a tendency just kind of
sit back, and ever since I was a kid, if

(50:23):
I 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 some money in the middle.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
No.

Speaker 5 (50:43):
I went down to the ninth floor, got in, talked
to Dick. This was on a Friday, right, and and
Dick reiterated what Jeffrey the offer Jeffrey made and uh,
I said, I told him. I said, no, I'm really interested.
I said, but I got to give these people upstairs
a chance to rectify themselves, because even though I didn't

(51:03):
have contracts, my words was still you know, worth word 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

(51:24):
I went over to his house, watched the videotape of
the Shalomar Show. And then I was sitting in this
rocking chair, right, I remember, I was watching the show,
was sitting this rock and said, the show goes off,
and Dick says, well, sing something, you know. Jeffer and
Joey say, you're a great singer. Sing something. I said,
I said, right here, I compel them.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
You know.

Speaker 5 (51:42):
He said yeah. And I said to myself, I say, well, lord,
you know me and you so I broke in. I
broke in the field of Fire by Peebo Bryce. I
compel them something that to me, you know, and yeah,
And got through the first verse half the and Dick says, okay, okay, okay,
I'll be right back. He goes upstairs, comes back down.

(52:05):
He has like, goes in one pocket. He has some cash.
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 and that
was pre nine to eleven. I could ride on your ticket.
You know, I could ride up right on my head right,
I could ride. You didn't have to have a specific name.
He said, here's an airline ticket. You got to be

(52:26):
on the red Eye out tonight. Meet the group of
New Jersey tomorrow, as they moved from New York to
New Jersey, he said, Meet the group of New Jersey tomorrow.
He said, because and go over the lift sync 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,

(52:47):
think about Ohio? Is that the prereconsist as far as
our being from a house. You got to be cool
about everything, you know what I'm saying. So like, I'm like, okay, okay,
you think you can handle it. Oh sure, I can
handle it. Side, I'm like, I got a job.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
Well, I would have asked, what was Dick Griffy Like, man,
it's been about let me experience.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Let me add on to that.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Fonte Howard, We've we've asked at least seven people this
question and they kind of glide by the situation. Okay,
I know, I know the brother's not here right now,
but can you give us a real, real in quotations
Dick Griffy's situation.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
Uh, he did. Dick was was a 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 in tact as far as his so

(53:55):
but that was his thing, that was how, that was
where he came from. For uh, for instance, all.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Right, all right without without you compromising your position, were
there any buildings with balconies on them office from nine
to five?

Speaker 5 (54:18):
I don't think that happened with Dick, you know, with
the five heartbeat situations, you know. But but I've heard
of certain situations with other characters of 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,

(54:38):
he was a gangst gangster type of cat, you know.
And and but he respected if you stood up for
what you you know, stood for you know.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Five minutes the first time you stuttered, huh five minutes.
We've been talking.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
It's the first time because because you want to be
because I.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Be careful, I get it.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
I guess respectful.

Speaker 5 (54:59):
I get it. Yeah, because you want to be because
because 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 door, it's up
to you to put to open up the door and
get in there. So like, you know, I appreciate the

(55:22):
the opportunity that Dick presented to me and and and
respected him, you know, immensely 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 and if I felt this
was not the way that this should be, he really

(55:43):
he really didn't like me going out and and working
with people like Quincy, working with people like uh other
other producers and stuff, because then I could see, you know,
how it's really supposed to be done and.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
How and how the real business looked like.

Speaker 5 (56:00):
The business was supposed to be done. And he didn't
like for me to do that. But I was going
to do that. I went out and worked with Stanley
when I work with George, you know, yeah, 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

(56:22):
everything is concerned.

Speaker 8 (56:23):
So it's kind of like a you feel like it's
kind of like a learning process that 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 do I have
any say in the songs that we sang? And you know,
like all the business stuff that like in retrospect you
may have, but at the same time.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
You didn't have it at that time.

Speaker 5 (56:42):
Yeah, well, at first, at first, I didn't want to
have any sales far as concerned, because because my whole
thing was like, I want to learn, I want to
look at it. I'm not I don't want to come
here and act like I know what I'm doing because
I had never been in a recording a real recording
studio at all up to that point, you know, like
you know, and and and Leon Silver's you know, like

(57:04):
you know, it was like a learning process. I saw
how he worked, I saw how his uh, his crew work,
his cruel writers, Will Shelby, Kevin Spencer, and I would
sit back a lot of times. I was back. The
first song that I really participated on and in participated

(57:25):
in writing and felt comfortable enough to present it to
them as far as writing was concerned, was for the
lover in you, you know, and so yeah, so like
you know that was me and Dana Myers and like so,
I mean we had a thing where were reprint presented
to the people to his his cruel, his stable writers

(57:46):
and stuff, and they would say veto you know or
so you know, it was like it was it was
a learning process for me. I didn't want to jump
in there. I know, I want to write down.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
I want a lesson that a lot of the youth here.
So that's why I want you to tell.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
So let me let me ask them so with So
your first album with is big fun correct? I got
it Okay. When I was the kids like, oh the
Dolphin record.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
It would they would killer wells.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
I thought there was dolphins too.

Speaker 5 (58:24):
Black Actually, the barrels that we were sitting on and
they're superimposed.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
Barrels.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Okay, the classic moment, So with barrels, okay, with Big Fun. Yeah,
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 Gelling situation? Now

(58:57):
complete disclosure. I'm probably the only human being on earth
that has not seen Unsung. I've heard it might 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

(59:19):
How long was it before after that New Jersey first
gig with him, until you started recording Big Fun, And
what was the Gelling situation? Like with you, Jeffrey and Jody.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
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
a I forget. It was either Josie's room or Jeffrey's room.
I forget. But it was crammed into you know, like
learning the lip sync. I studied the lip sync, you

(59:55):
know while I was flying across country, and and then
learning the choreography because I'm used to sing and I
used to I'm not used to dancing. I'm a singer, right,
so you know that choreography. And so then we got
that together, and then we continued on from the rest
of that promotional tour, which if I'm getting I'm trying

(01:00:17):
to get it. I'm at that point now where I'm
even trying to get the timelines together because I'm I'm
writing a book. I want to write my book, you know,
so I need to get these timelines together myself. So
when I got I think I got there in New Jersey,
it had to 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 this clothing store

(01:00:39):
in New Jersey thing it was called Heaven on Earth
or something like that, and and bought this overcoat, you know.
So so that was so it had to been like
about maybe November, November, September, October, November, December time. And
then We've finished up that promotional tour at the Copa Cabana,

(01:01:03):
you know, in New York. And then as soon as
we flew back to back to La which was the
beginning of seventy nine, I believe, because it was seventy eight. Yeah,
the beginning of seventy nine. We started immediately recording the
Big Fun album, went in and started putting that whole

(01:01:26):
whole thing together, and it took us. It took us,
you know, four or five six months or so, four
or five months or so to do the whole album
and then put then we put, so we went, So
that takes us into towards the end of seventy nine,
you know, the middle mid towards the end of seventy nine,

(01:01:47):
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. So, yeah,
twelve instance and sof so, I forget who did the remix.
We did a remix on it, put it out there,

(01:02:09):
and then it like screamed up the charts. So like
that was towards 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.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Can you describe what working with Leon Silvers is?

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Do you have any do you have any big friend
Lewis stories to go with it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
And I'm playing.

Speaker 5 (01:02:35):
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 that day,
and like he we started out, I could tell it
was gonna be one of those days. We're like, that's good,

(01:02:57):
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, I said, man,
I can't do this today. They'll start a getting tomorrow. Man.
He was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
He was just a test actually, Like all right.

Speaker 5 (01:03:17):
I mean I mean phrasing, you know, And when you
talk about Howard Hewitt sound, I would give a big
portion of that. The kudos up to Leon for helping
me develop the Howard Hewitt sound. You know, I had
my sound, you know, going from the natural to the Falls,
you know, before I left out Ohio you know, when

(01:03:40):
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 the
falls back then. But he helped me develop that other
like staying like Stickler as far as phrasing is concerned,
you know, looking that at every nuanced all those ad

(01:04:02):
libs that you think are ad lives on there on
those there ain't no ad libs. We we thought that
stuff out, you know what I'm saying. He put it there,
put it here, put it there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:04:14):
Do you remember like a moment of time when that
when that happened, when you thought, all right, I don't
know about this.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
But like no, you gotta you gotta do that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:21):
And it worked, but oh yeah, worked every time. But
like those type of things were like are you sure
that's that's that's gonna work in there? You know yeah,
and that poomomoom boom, and it just fell right in
places like but do.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
You have any memories of recording because like two of
my favorite shadow my songs of all time over and
over and let's find the Time for Love, Remember those.

Speaker 5 (01:04:48):
Sessions yeah, I remember over and over like it was
like yesterday, because that was when I was the only
one in the group basically, you know, Jeffrey and Jody
had already split. So like at that time I wanted
to do 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

(01:05:11):
either got it. You're either gonna do it, you know,
go you just sit around and ride it out, go
to Court, you know, or move to England or wherever
where Jeffrey and Joey moved to. Well else you can
do another you know, another album. And so of course
I hate Court. I don't like Court. You know, Court
is like of course, like the Court's like a nightmare Vegas.

(01:05:31):
You know what I'm saying, You're just doing to you
don't know what's happening. So so like you know, but
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 and Leonne in that video, and and Let's Time
Let's find the Time for love? Was that the song

(01:05:51):
you said, Let's time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Yeah, Let's find a Time for Love?

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Yeah, that's not on the look is it?

Speaker 5 (01:05:57):
Is it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
That was was that?

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
I think that was on three for Love let me
let me hold them let me Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
No, no, no, it wasn't. It was on Friends.

Speaker 5 (01:06:13):
No, I think it's going on uh fante.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Let me find out that you're a fan of go
for It, yo, like on the loaf, like you bullshit
you deep cut cat col Dog Hey man, I rocked
that album. Yo, here you go man, all right?

Speaker 5 (01:06:35):
Was finding Time for Love? That wasn't on Go for It?

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Wasn't that was? It wasn't Friends. I mean what that was.

Speaker 5 (01:06:44):
For love? It's just a beautiful song, man, just.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
It really it is.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
I love that record.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Do you remember recording it? Do you remember like recording
that joint or like that session.

Speaker 5 (01:06:53):
I don't. I don't really really remember anything that stuck
out in my mind about recording except that it was
just a nod boom boom damn.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Now I'm looking for it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:07:11):
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 of me and
Jody Widley. Man, it was like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
It was on Big Fun. It was on Big Fun,
Big Fun.

Speaker 5 (01:07:23):
It was the first album. Yeah, I think that was
the first time we really realized the magic that the
combination of our of our voices really projected out there.
It was it was you know them. The timbre of
her voice and my voice together even on the background
situation was like, amazing, amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
That's a gorgeous song man, a great performance by all Right.
I don't necessarily want you to throw him under the rug,
but can you answer two questions for me? Because you know,
I just gotta know because again, like it's also my
perception of Shalamar coming from a ten year old. But

(01:08:04):
every time I turn around, like Jeffrey Daniel had a
guitar in his hand, but I don't recall him playing guitar.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Was he always air guitaring?

Speaker 5 (01:08:13):
Well, he was air guitar sometimes. But you know he
knows how to play. You know, he really stuck to
it and he really he can he can play it now.
You know what I'm saying. He really knows how to
play now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
And that's him singing on pop Along Kid.

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
Yeah, that's him singing on a long Kid.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Yeah, Okay, I get I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
Okay, No, I just wanted to make sure I didn't
know if that was him, that was you, if he
was giving much singing duties 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.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
It's almost like I wish it was five of you
because you guys were doing shit. That's like, for a
listeners out there, if you if you can, if you
could demo, if you could demo, if you could google.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
A song called Shoe Shoe Shine by.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
The Dynamics 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 is past Brook Payne as far as
choreography is concerned. But yeah, I was saying that the
choreography that you guys had, even if you say like

(01:09:30):
I'm not a dancer, somehow, in my mind I just
always walked away with like, Schallamar really had great, polished choreography,
Like how hard were how hard? And like how much
time did you guys spend on those routines.

Speaker 5 (01:09:48):
Spending a lot of time on the routines Jody. Jody
was really instrumental as far as like putting together a
lot of routines. Jeffrey would throw his his his situation
in there a lot, and I at fir. I mean,
I was just you know, because one of the things
that that I was concerned about was the fact that
I sing, and when you sing, it is like you

(01:10:09):
got to breathe, and you got and you're breathing if
you're out of breath, you know what I'm saying. And
so that's when I, you know, I did the I
did the choreography and went through the quote. But I
told them, let's make be conscientious of the fact that
I'm singing. You know what I'm saying. You got you know,

(01:10:30):
you guys, I'm saying, I'm singing, I got to hit
those notes that I created on those albums and all
that kind of stuff. So you know, so that's yeah,
like you you know, and then then get it, you
know what I'm saying. So you know, it was like
then we started being I think we started being conscientious.
They started being conscientious of that, and that's when the

(01:10:53):
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. So I would rather people
walk away from a concert saying, man, you remember when
they did this thing together, boom boom, boom boom. They

(01:11:15):
were together, and then Howard broke off and they broke on,
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 taught Michael
how to do that, and Michael named it the moonwalk.

(01:11:37):
Jeff taught him how to do that. So but at
the you know, during the show, we would play the
song called what was it called I Forget It? But
it was first first part of writing the Socket. It's
called writing the Socket, yeah, yeah, And we and they
were being in the band would break down into this
funky groove and me and Jody would be on one

(01:11:59):
side of stage right 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
and boom like that, and Jeffrey would backslide all the
way across the stage. Man First, all people on the
on the floor. It's guaranteed they're standing up because they
think he's on like a conveyor belt. That's how until that.

(01:12:23):
From that point on, we could do anything. We would
do it. It was on. It was on.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
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
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

(01:12:49):
them through the solar channel. Did anything ever happen.

Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
To that project, I'm not sure. I remember Casper and
Cooley though definitely Casper and Cooley actually went over first
because 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 Cap and Coley, Crassperan
Cooley went over there to try and teach it to him,
but for some reason he couldn't grasp it from them.

(01:13:14):
So when we came back from uh, from the promotional tour,
that's when Jeffrey went over and taught him how to
do Okay, but I think the the group was called, uh,
what was the what's the name of the group? I
forget to forget.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
I'm forgetting. Yeah, I'm a blink right now.

Speaker 5 (01:13:32):
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, but nothing really
came of it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
So at the time when 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 to have to struggle at least in our eyes,
it's like, oh, you made it right out the box.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
How different does your life change?

Speaker 5 (01:14:17):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
What is it to be a young successful blackmail with
a hit group? In Los Angeles, California nineteen.

Speaker 5 (01:14:29):
Eighty goopies were crazy, you know, but.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
Wet ass pussy did you just say that?

Speaker 8 (01:14:40):
And it made so much sense between me and Steven Howard,
and I'm afraid the resid or feeling there too.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
I just don't know if every was there to really.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
Leading out of context, leave it out in context. They
just trust me, listeners. The conversation was had earlier.

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
But but in a sense that was one of the
changes because you know, I had dealt with with the
whole groupie thing 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.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
I, oh, yeah that's what they was holy from the
waste stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:15:18):
Man would 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 then going overseas with the

(01:15:41):
group with Beverly Hills, you know yeah yeah, foreign, yeah,
foreign situation. 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 with this for a long time.
There ain't nothing like hit record groupies. Hit record groups
are the ones that like you know, you can all
of a sudden it's like, oh, how did you get

(01:16:02):
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 they think about me.

(01:16:24):
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, anyway, started getting a sense of
responsibility of what you're saying because you know that people
are really listening to you, you know what I'm saying,

(01:16:46):
and it's like and that's with that comes responsibility. It's like,
you know, I got to like I said, I came
from I came from a whole housefuld of women, you know,
like my mom, my mom, four sisters, and then me
and my dad were the only testosterone, you know, walking
around there for about three or four years until my

(01:17:07):
younger my younger brother came. But you know, but I
always looked at that and that always kind of shaped
what I would allow myself to, you know, to say
in my music and what I do and what I
and what I project and project as far as the
music is concerned, so you know, but I mean it

(01:17:27):
was it was because at the time, was we were
only second time around was out there. I think it
was like I think I was about twenty three, twenty
three years ago, you know, so young. We were really
really young. Jeffrey's only like a couple of months older
than I am, and Jody's like, I forget, like about
three four years younger. But you know, we were young,

(01:17:49):
you know when that whole thing went down, So it
was it was a big adjustment and big adjustment.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
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 ah, there's a limousine and there's a bodyguard.
But I mean, was there just ever a time when
you just couldn't do something simple like just go to
the seven eleven to get you know, that would stick

(01:18:20):
of gum or something like that. Was it like that?

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Or was it just.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
Could you still have a personal life or was it
like constantly being chased around and that sort of thing.

Speaker 5 (01:18:34):
Not being chased around. I think it was like, you know,
here in the States, you had to realize you had
to get a sense of where you could go and
where you couldn't go. You dig It's like, you know,
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 a piece, yeah, you're eating it was I

(01:18:55):
don't mind, you know, autographs and stuff. That's the part
you asked for it. You got it, Toyota, you know
what I'm saying. So that's a proper whole thing. But
like you know, the place that was really difficult to
get around was was in the UK once when it
when everything hit in the UK, because the UK is

(01:19:16):
so condensed, you know what I'm saying. I mean, the
whole the whole island is what Bobble's 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, it was crazy, and uh.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Can you explain that situation? 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 the this version of Souldiering Soultring

(01:20:02):
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
there Well to give you guys a backstory, I believe
that the legend is that you guys were supposed to
perform on top of the Pops, but something happened, so

(01:20:23):
he decides, I'm just gonna pop lock and he does
the moon walk on the show, and suddenly you guys
become instant make us celebrities.

Speaker 5 (01:20:32):
That's how I always say, whatever we were, whatever we
are over there in the UK, I mean we still
Jeffrey and I and Carolyn Griffy still tour over there now,
and we 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 but what happened was a right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
Happened?

Speaker 5 (01:20:58):
Was it happened? Uh? We have been on the road
so much. Also Jody was like pregnant with her first
her first child or daughter, Lauren, and uh, and I
was trying to piece together what little bit was left
of my first marriage, you know, and which didn't happen.
You know, it didn't work. But but we have been

(01:21:20):
on the road so much for so long, we said,
and at the time I can make you feel Good.
There's another song that that me and get 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 charts, and
took so long for us to decide what we were

(01:21:41):
going to do. By time he got there, I Can
make You Feel Good had had fallen to number two,
and Top Fox was the number was a program where
they only did number one records on there, so so
he couldn't do he couldn't do I Can make You
Feel Good. But then somehow I forget what happened? They

(01:22:03):
they arranged it so he could come back on there
since he was all the way all the way over there,
because it felt the number two on his way over there,
you know, I know, so like like they said, you know,
they said, well, you know, yo, we can get him
on here. You can do you know, do a dance
because he was going to do a dance thing to

(01:22:25):
I Can make You Feel Good, But he ended up
doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
To a night remember, yes, and I.

Speaker 5 (01:22:31):
Think that was going to be the next single anyway
or something like that. So he went on there, and
and Top of the Pops is the type of show.
It came on every Thursday, you know. And and if
you went on Top of the Pops and and Kill Friday,
you saw your album sales go go through the roof.
That's how how how instantly impactful you know that that

(01:22:54):
show was to the UK. So man, he went on there.
They went crazy. Man, they went crazy. It was like
it was like, you know, we couldn't we couldn't walk
down the street Apps and then over there.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
You know, I was going to say that in some
weird way, you guys, not going over there almost served
the group better because of that very specific Hey, guys,
I don't know if you. I don't know if you remember,
but when Leon had did our show, he had mentioned

(01:23:34):
a Shalamar video that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
It's escaping me right now.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
But I went, I forget the title, but I went
to actually look it up on YouTube, and I have
to say it, it's probably in my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
I thought the emergency.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
Video for the Whispers was the weirdest video from 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.

Speaker 5 (01:24:09):
You not remember in a garden?

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Like you were in a flower shop or something like that.

Speaker 5 (01:24:15):
It's like, I don't want to be the last to know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
Yo, Okay, who conceptualized? Have you guys seen this video?

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
Y'all?

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):
Now forget forget keep on love of me, forget all
the weird videos that have come from Solar Records like this, chops,
every God.

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
Everything.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
I only I only wish I had a time machine
to go back to Leon Silver's interview so we could
talk about this video some war because I looked it
up way after after we did the interview. What was
who conceptualized that videos?

Speaker 5 (01:24:55):
It's like it's like meats and had one of them
flop hats on and something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
It's like an anti bellum, Like what's going on in
this video?

Speaker 5 (01:25:09):
I don't want to be the last, you know, if
you're gone. Yeah, man, it was like that was back in.
That was back We did three videos in the same day.

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
Man, this was the last one.

Speaker 6 (01:25:30):
This time.

Speaker 5 (01:25:32):
I don't know who came up with their concept, because man.

Speaker 3 (01:25:36):
Wow, your hair looks great though.

Speaker 5 (01:25:38):
I mean, but but it's just like, what was it
the night to remember I think when Jeffrey was the
the waiter or the bar, he came out the closet
and I'm like, oh, that's not cool.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
Yeah, that that video was weird.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
But this, this, this takes.

Speaker 3 (01:25:56):
Me click this man, this white face the time.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
I wish the show had a visual component.

Speaker 4 (01:26:02):
Everybody looking at it now this this is the oddest thing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
Yo.

Speaker 5 (01:26:06):
Man is crazy. 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 this tune called work
work it Out, work it out, you know, check out,
work it out, work it out.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Is like that that's even that's even crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:26:27):
It's even weirder.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
You know, so who directed these videos?

Speaker 5 (01:26:32):
Bill Parker, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
It's weird, You're right, I'm sorry, I'm like, you're looking
at it right now.

Speaker 5 (01:26:39):
But work it out. Yes, we got balloons working out, yes, yes,
and then the balloons go back.

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
But I mean, but really though, I mean, those videos
are weird.

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
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 early age, I mean, they you could tell
that they didn't know what the fuck to do, you
know what I mean, you know what I'm saying. I mean,
you look at it, don't look any further video, it's

(01:27:12):
just like what.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
In the hell, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:27:14):
Right right?

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
Uh, don't look any further video from Dennis Edwards inside.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
Yeah, but I will.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
Admit, like you guys, the whole Solar Cannon, all the groups,
including the Lakeside videos, and even though 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. You know, so it's
almost like and that probably explains I'm gonna get into Yeah,

(01:27:48):
for the life of me, I don't even know how
you guys were successful in getting a deck 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
wasn't somewhere There's a Love for Me ever released as

(01:28:09):
a single.

Speaker 5 (01:28:11):
Amazing song the way that people respond to it, man,
you would single, You would think it was it was
a single at some point because it's like they go crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
That Different Strokes episode, did y'all justice?

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
Like that's you.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
Know, for those who don't know, you know, when Janet
Jackson first was on Different Strokes like that was her
and will in Todd Bridge's song on on on that show.

Speaker 5 (01:28:39):
So I didn't. I didn't know that, you know, I
didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
You never knew that.

Speaker 5 (01:28:43):
I never knew that. I didn't I never really watched
Different Strokes that much.

Speaker 1 (01:28:46):
But song placement, man, song again, I was a ten
year old, so it's like, you know, can you explain
why me being aware of what you guys's records were
as they came out. I do remember being very shocked
and surprised when Gofert was just like in the record
Ben and I was like, well, wait, where's the single

(01:29:08):
at how how come? Like I almost felt like it
was just put out there. It was just arbitrarily like
what was was go for a bunch of throwaway songs?

Speaker 5 (01:29:17):
Or it was it was there was we were going, Uh,
Solar was going from r c A Distribution to Electure Distribution,
to complete, to complete their obligation to r 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
Electure 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 Sweeter as the Days
Go By, you had you know, uh, this talk to Me,
which was which was like a crazy crazy things. James

(01:30:02):
and I did a song on there 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 h rca
disabusing company and so that they can move on to

(01:30:24):
the electric election.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
So at the time, though, and you know, like Thuraway albums,
are you know, Frank Zappa was famous for it. Uh,
you know, Prince did cast and disorder. Like Thuraway albums,
there's nothing new about it. But at the time, are
you feeling like, well, we do have a are you
thinking about it in terms of legacy, Like, well, I
don't I don't want to just put a stinker out

(01:30:46):
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 waste a shot, especially when
we have this much momentum mmmm.

Speaker 5 (01:31:05):
We we really didn't think about that a lot because
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 sweeter as the
days go by. That was that was a that was
a pretty you know turned out to be a pretty

(01:31:26):
especially overseas, turned out 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.

Speaker 1 (01:31:38):
Sorry I didn't mean, but in terms of releasing it,
knowing that you're just gonna go put all the energy
in front of the friends album that's.

Speaker 5 (01:31:46):
Yeah, yeah, in front of the album with the new
distribution 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 if Dick said we're gonna
put it with you know, get a throw Way album,
lean I said, we're gonna do a throw Way album. Okay,
all right, cool, let's do. Let's get in there and work,

(01:32:08):
you know.

Speaker 1 (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.

Speaker 5 (01:32:14):
It, right right, especially Jeffrey. Jeffrey did a lot of
stuff on there.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
And so in your in your mind, like what's what's
your favorite album of v Shallamar Cannon.

Speaker 5 (01:32:24):
I think like I really dig Three for Love. I
dig Three for Love because of the the politics of it.
And as far as because Lee Young Junior 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 Uptown Festival album

(01:32:49):
cover was a cartoon type of character, the disco gardens
and Disco Guarden and and uh and and also you
know even the big Fun album on those yeah and
stuff 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 it so

(01:33:11):
that 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 Love? That was on three for Love?

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
I believe, I believe, Yeah, it's on three yeah, yes.

Speaker 5 (01:33:37):
And what we were talking about in the very beginning
of the of this whole of this whole show was
very important because when I first got with the group,
it was like, you know, Shalomar the disco group, you
know what I'm saying. And like, 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

(01:33:58):
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 into you know, when
they started talking about Shalamar, you know, after for the

(01:34:18):
Lovering You, it was like, yeah, the group Shalamar, the
singing group, pop group, R and B group, but you know,
put the disco group out of the picture.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
What was the name? Where did the name come from?
What was the meaning of the name Salamar?

Speaker 5 (01:34:34):
This is there's this cat named Simone Susan who brought
h Uptown Festival to Dick and Don Cornelia's 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 Soussan was this cat and there

(01:34:56):
was a there was a garden over in the at
least or something like that called Shalomar Garden. It's a
s h l I M A R you know, shally Mar.
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 I
to the A and s A A L A m
A L s h s h A l.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
A m A L.

Speaker 5 (01:35:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:35:33):
Okay, what can you what can you tell us both
legally and and respectfully about Jody's situation and why she's
not torn with the band currently.

Speaker 5 (01:35:43):
With us currently.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:35:45):
Yeah, at the time, we we got an offer Jeffery,
like I think it was about twenty years ago, seventeen
twenty years or so ago. We we uh uh got
a well, Jeffrey got an offer to do five gigs
over in Asia and throughout Japan and stuff, and and
so you know, we called Jody, we said, you know,

(01:36:06):
jeff called me. I said, yeah, I'm down, I'm coold,
it'll be fun. And then we called Jody, and Jody said, well,
I don't think I really want to revisit that part
of my life, you know, and and which you know
you can't say. I mean, she she, you know, everybody
didn't have the same you know. It's a situation you

(01:36:26):
can do. You know, three people, two people can experience
the same.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Exact thing and come on with different experiences.

Speaker 5 (01:36:35):
Different experiences. So you got three people who experienced the
same exact thing and came away with three different, uh experiences.
So at that time, Jeffrey and I went and 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

(01:36:55):
bunch of stuff in the UK. We went to Africa
a couple of times with that light, with just me
and Jeffrey. And then when we wanted to bring the
female entity back into it, Carolyn Griffy, who is Dick
Griffy's daughter, and she was she was singing background for
me on a lot of my solo stuff, you know,

(01:37:15):
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. And also she had she has an
amazing voice. I love her, I love her instrument. And
we didn't even audition to anybody else. We just offered
the position.

Speaker 4 (01:37:35):
Yeah, how was your How was your relationship before mister
Griffy when he passed? How was our relationship at that
time right before he passed?

Speaker 5 (01:37:44):
Me and Dick, Yeah, yeah, we were. We were We
were at each other's about something. I forget what it was.
I forget what it was. He didn't, And it was
funny because you know, he was just he was just
learning about and stuff at that time and accidentally sent

(01:38:05):
it to me.

Speaker 6 (01:38:06):
I'm like, nigga, you know, and I just I just laughed,
you know, and and uh, I forget what it was
we were arguing about at that time.

Speaker 5 (01:38:18):
But I loved him. I loved it, you know. And
then we had a bitter sweet thing.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
Was he when he passed?

Speaker 5 (01:38:29):
So yeah, seventy so 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
we were arguing about something then I forget what it was.

Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
But wow, you know, I know, I know I brought
it up earlier, but I kind of want to if
you visited, I know that you and James Ingram are
singing on p YT. Are you at all involved on
the original version of p YT the slower before it
turned into the version that's on Thriller? There's another alternative, slower,

(01:39:14):
smoother version of the Yeah, yeah, a slower version. Are
you on that version at all? Or is it just
the version that's on Thriller?

Speaker 5 (01:39:23):
Just a version is on Thriller. I didn't even know
there was a slower version out.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
You know, you know good?

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
Well, yeah, they left no stone unturned, like they kept.

Speaker 5 (01:39:33):
Where the background sampled from the from the no.

Speaker 1 (01:39:36):
No, no, it's completely different recording. Just the title, they
shared the title.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
That's all.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
Like they turned into something totally totally different. 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
and yet I remember at the same time when they

(01:40:03):
started slowly playing Billy Jean and beat It, you guys
were one of the few groups that they slowly letting
the door along with like Prince and Lionel, Ritchie, Eddie Griant.
How do you do you know how that happened? Like
how was was that the making of Dick Griffy or like.

Speaker 5 (01:40:24):
I don't know what the 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
but you know down you had that you had that
famous uh interview with David Bowie and Bowie Yeah, and
I think at that point they started kind of re

(01:40:46):
re looking at certain situations. When David Bowie comes up
to us this, how can you call yourself a music channel?
And and you not playing black music? It's like it's crazy,
you know, so so like, but I'm not about the politics.
It was just you know, people they the promotion. People
kept pushing it, kept pushing it. But at the time,

(01:41:07):
like I said, it was just it was just us
and Michael at the time that they were playing.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Okay, So can I assume that the look was technically
kind of sort of maybe your first solo record, but.

Speaker 5 (01:41:24):
Kind of okay, it was the last It was the
last album that we did that Jeffrey and Jody and
I did together, but they participated just.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Like they equally.

Speaker 5 (01:41:38):
As far 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, man, check that tune out if you get
a chance to check that TOI.

Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
Oh, 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
Philadelphia because I'm gonna ask you this question.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
But I know that you wrote the Look with Stanley Clark.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
Now personally one of my all time favorite how Hewitt
songs non shall marve related. But really, if I'm honest
with it, this is probably my all time favorite song.

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
Of yours is Heaven Sent? Now?

Speaker 1 (01:42:20):
You know, as a jazz head, you know this is
a guy that's you know, done, returned it forever, doesn't
change the world of bass music. I feel really silly
that this is also might be my favorite Stanley Clark
songs though he has such an intricate history with his bass,
but this one particular song says, could you what I

(01:42:42):
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 how
are you are? Solo joint?

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
And then my aunt couldn't find it. She's looking for forever.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
And then finally it's like it's buried on you know,
the Stanley Clark record.

Speaker 2 (01:43:03):
Did you talk about that song?

Speaker 5 (01:43:05):
That song? It was 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,
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

(01:43:26):
when Stanley because Stanley and I met first, and then
he me to George and when we met we had
a mutual friend that was his accountant, I think, and
then he did some he doesn't work for me, and
then he introduced me to Stanley. Stan was a fan
of you know, the Shalomar stuff, and I was definitely

(01:43:48):
a fan of Stanley's because my first instrument that I
learned how to play when I was like twelve years old,
was bass, so you know, I was the 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.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):
A lot was Heaven sent?

Speaker 5 (01:44:12):
Heaven said, yeah, okay, I gotta look it up. Yeah,
I can't remember his name. There was some I remember
there was some stuff that was going on with him
and Stanley, but you know, we got we 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 slated to go

(01:44:34):
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, I'll do it that album, put
it on my album. You know what I'm saying. We
weren't doing that then.

Speaker 2 (01:44:48):
Is this song is it? Is it still in your repertoire?

Speaker 5 (01:44:50):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely definitely. I love that.

Speaker 4 (01:44:54):
You know, I was just gonna ask, what was the
creative chemistry, like, uh, Stanley and George working together?

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
What were they like in the studio together?

Speaker 5 (01:45:03):
Man? It was like because because I did a lot
of the Clark dou uh and a lot of involved
in a lot of that, especially the videos I do.
These little crazy cameo appearances on the videos didn't make
any sense all of a sudden, I'm there, you know
what I'm saying. It was amazing. I mean, George just

(01:45:26):
working with George. So George was just I mean, if
if you didn't know anybody that didn't all the whole
bottom part of George's house and U in Hollywood, uh,
lower Hollywood Hills, basically off of Franklin. The whole bottom
part of his house was his studio. Everything room, studio,

(01:45:47):
you know, everything, the lounge, everything was. The studio had
a he had his wine cellar down there and stuff,
and I mean it was it was just we We
would just going there and it was a place to
go in and just be creative and working with and
then watching him and Stanley together was just a double

(01:46:10):
double situation, double dose of what you know, George did
and it and it and it was was enhanced by
Stanley's 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.

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):
That's beautiful. Man, Wow, could you what was the audition
process like for Mickey Free and Delisa Davis once Jeffrey
and Jody left, uh Shallamar.

Speaker 5 (01:46:45):
Well, for Mickey, there wasn't really an audition situation. Mickey
was working on a project I think with Leon, you know,
and Mickey was like, basically, you know this prince like
our player cat and he was working out of a
studio masters, and so I would come there. I was

(01:47:07):
working on something and then we see each other, I
think with these studio masters of Lairbie a studio I
can't remember, but we crossed each other across the path.
Hey man, was up, Hey man, what's up? And then
keep on going right, and then we started talking and stuff.
And Mickey is Mickey, if he ever decided to put

(01:47:27):
this guitar down and not do music anymore, he could
be a stand up comedian for real. That nigga had
me cracking up the whole time. And so 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 in, which

(01:47:48):
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,
and we went into the whole you know, we went
into the whole rock thing. You know. I always had
my dressing room when Jeffrey was in the group. Its

(01:48:10):
me and Jeffrey had a dressing room, right we went together.
Joey would have her own dressing room, but it's just
you know, the camaraderie of it, you know. So Mickey
and I had our dressing room together. Our theme song
in the dressing room was Rebel Yelle, which would call
it leather Gloves on and the built can you know

(01:48:36):
what I'm saying? And we ready to go out there
and deal man. So like it changed the whole thing.
Now with Delisa, we Dick came up with this idea
of involving a lot of the local different local radio
stations across the country and do this contest, the contest

(01:48:56):
to find the girl for Shalamar, you know, and it
involved the local radio stations and and all of them.
They put together this thing. They had auditions Don Lewis.
Don Lewis auditioned in New York. That's when I first
met Don Lewis.

Speaker 1 (01:49:19):
I don't remember I was that was it all the episode?
I missed that episode? Yeah, was our last pre COVID interview.

Speaker 5 (01:49:26):
Oh yeah, I remember Don coming out with these hot
pants and these and these uh uh what they called
fish net stockings. Right. For years I called her fish
net right because she didn't she didn't win the audis
in delease because she won the New York audition, and

(01:49:47):
then she was then they flew they flew her to
l A and one it was here's l A in
l A. One of the time 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.

(01:50:08):
But I called her fishnets, you know, so you know,
but that was the process. De Lisa was from Nashville.
So when we went to Nashville, did the did the
audition and there so.

Speaker 1 (01:50:20):
This this was nationwide's nationwide Yeah, oh wow, okay.

Speaker 5 (01:50:25):
Georganashville all all over the place. We're all over the place.

Speaker 1 (01:50:29):
By the way, did did Mickey ever share any of
that basketball Charlie Murphy story with you at all.

Speaker 2 (01:50:35):
The day after, he said, he told you.

Speaker 5 (01:50:38):
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 skit, the Charlie Murphy
Hollywood stories and on Dave Sappelle, they did a thing.
They talked about Mickey going up and going up to
the Princess House. I said, Man, Mickey called me today

(01:51:00):
after they the day after they did that, And so
we were up at short Cast House man last night,
and and Eddie Murphy and Charlie Murphy, everybody came up
and played basketball, he said. Prince Prince went out there
in his heels and was dumping. He said, Man, anybody

(01:51:20):
wants some pancakes?

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
He called me.

Speaker 5 (01:51:26):
He called me the day after, a day after that
went down.

Speaker 1 (01:51:30):
Wait, can I get this fronte because I'm gonna forget this. Also,
on the Look, you worked with the legendary David Hawk
Wazinski formerly of Rufus. Yes, yeah, could you talk to
like that? That's a cat I definitely want to interview
as well. Like, did you talk about the process of

(01:51:50):
songwriting with him and working with him?

Speaker 5 (01:51:52):
It was wild. Hawk was wild. His studio was called
it was up in the hills, off of a little
off the off, the one on off, the one on one. Uh,
Laurel wasn't Laura can I can't remember. Okay, it was
up in the hills, and the name of the studio
was called Food in the Hill. You know what I'm saying,

(01:52:13):
Called the Hill Okay, Pool in the Hills studios. So
it was like me him, Mickey, we had it. Yeah,
it was just the whole writing process and would get
serious then all of a sudden it would just go
off the chain somewhere else and we were just you know,
we were just up there. We had we had, you know,
interesting situation visitors up there in and out and.

Speaker 1 (01:52:40):
I as you're going.

Speaker 5 (01:52:44):
And so like, you know. But it was but but
the creative situation of it when we would be on
track was amazing. It was amazing. We got a lot
of work done, a lot of creative looking at uh
we did. One of the songs we did was called Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:53:00):
My Girl Loves Me, That's my ship, you.

Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
Know, yeah, I know, probably to you like this was like,
all right, 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

(01:53:24):
your words, like I the the Heartbreak record was actually
kind of dope. And I do, I do want to
know the story. Okay, So I know the history of
Dean Pitchford because I went to perform an arts high school.
So Dean Pittsford, of course you know he's he's he's
a fellow e gotter Bill. You should know this person.

(01:53:48):
He wrote, I mean from Godspell, the Fame. He wrote
like a lot of Broadway stuff. He won Matt Grammys
and a Tony and Emmy.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
I know that him and.

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
Bill Wolford wrote uh about to say footloose?

Speaker 2 (01:53:59):
Well, they were of that too. They were dancing in
the sheets.

Speaker 8 (01:54:03):
Sheets like the streets to a child here, excuse me,
mister Hewett.

Speaker 3 (01:54:09):
And I know I called you Howard the whole time.

Speaker 8 (01:54:10):
But a young child who hears that song you sang
the first time you heard somebody said it was dancing
in the street.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
I mean they talking about getting it on and they
talking about the sheets.

Speaker 8 (01:54:19):
Kids don't even hear that part you just hear the
I was a kid and I heard body of friends.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
You know, Yes, I.

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):
Now grab your coat when we're going home, That's what
he said.

Speaker 3 (01:54:30):
Yeah, I'm enlightened. As of today, I am enlightened.

Speaker 2 (01:54:34):
Yes, she thought I was dancing in the streets.

Speaker 1 (01:54:36):
But wait, can I can I just ask though, Yes,
the song was a bona fide hit, But did anyone
ever raise the question that it might be a tab
bit derivative of nineteen ninety nine at all?

Speaker 5 (01:54:47):
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 in the group at that time. It was just
it was just me and and Dean Pittsford called and
wanted me and Leon to come to the Paramount Studios
and listen and look at this movie that he had

(01:55:10):
and he had temporary music in it, you know, just stuff.
And then when it came to the park where he
had written you know, for dancing and sheets, he said,
this is where I want, you know, shalomar thing to be.
And so like you know, we watched a movie, we talked,
got blah blah, blah blah, and Leon and Leone and
I are walking back to the UH to the the

(01:55:33):
parking lot, and I said, well, what do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:55:36):
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:55:36):
He said, Wow, I got a whole lot on my plate.
I don't think that's going to be a big movie.
You know what I'm saying. It's it's like and I
got I got a whole lot on 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.

Speaker 1 (01:55:55):
But oh god what.

Speaker 5 (01:55:58):
I ain't gonna throw Leon under the bus like that.
It was me too, I said, I don't think it's
going to be a big movie.

Speaker 1 (01:56:06):
You saw Footloose and you were just like, man, whatever,
you know, okay.

Speaker 5 (01:56:11):
You know because it because it was it was just
you know, this guy, this cat teaching white folks how
to dance and and all that. You know, it's like,
you know, it's like, hey, you know, I don't think
it's going to be that big of 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 Griffy wasn't gonna allow me to get

(01:56:33):
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, a
good look.

Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
It'll be a good look promotional thing.

Speaker 5 (01:56:54):
So it would be, you know, why not do it?
I'll do it. I put it, you know, do the
do the song, put it in there. All of my
name lives. However, you know what I'm saying. So I know,
I had to go to Solar, to the legal department
in Solar when somebody called me one morning and then

(01:57:14):
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 that was like
the first the first bid of the first one of
the first big soundtracks out there. But I had to
go to Solar and say because somebody called me that
particular morning said, uh, you've been checking out the Footloose

(01:57:38):
soundtrack and said, now I was hey, man, they sold
platinum already. I said, what he's there, 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 company. I said, man, Virgil, you've been
checking the Dancing the Footloose soundtrack. Virgil goes said, yeah,

(01:57:59):
you know how these these things really don't don't sell
a lot. You know, it's not a sound and that's it.
As a dude, it's it's platinum. Somebody told me, yeah,
there's no way, no way, platinum, and then that's it
took off from there. Man, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:58:17):
But I was about to say, you guys, double dip,
because isn't the only Grammy for Shallamar also 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.

Speaker 5 (01:58:32):
Was the year of Yeah that was Hawk with Linsky. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
double dip. That's that's that's right. We didn't I don't
I don't think we know. We didn't win anything for.

Speaker 1 (01:58:47):
Well that well, the soundcheck one a Grammy, So I
assume that someone gets that, uh you know, that sort
of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:58:58):
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 Party Machine when I
was a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:59:06):
Jesus got first.

Speaker 3 (01:59:09):
Like so I felt like a little celebrity couple.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
Yeah, the original James b.

Speaker 5 (01:59:16):
I gotta say, h.

Speaker 1 (01:59:21):
No, no, no, no, never mind, keep going. That's a good.

Speaker 5 (01:59:26):
Story, right.

Speaker 1 (01:59:26):
There was.

Speaker 5 (01:59:28):
There was a cat. There was a cat Jerome Gasper,
who was an r cat for PolyGram. I think at
the time it's a good friend of mine and so
and maybe prefaced it. Also. I had a I had
a condo and Handcock Parker that at that time, and
I had this in my bedroom. I had this big
you know, remember the rear projections, big screen TVs. I

(01:59:49):
had a big rear projections, big screen TV at the
bottom of my bed. And uh, every morning I wake up,
you know, turn on the TV, flip through the channels,
get the channel eleven or nine or whatever, and I
see Fame was on. You know, you know what I'm saying.
And there I say, man, there's this fine woman that

(02:00:10):
comes on Fame. You know, I never knew. I never
waited for the credits or anything. I just wanted to
look at her, you know what I'm saying. And then
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, fine, you know what I'm saying.

(02:00:34):
So this guy's your own Gaspar called me and uh
he said he talked. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah yeah yeah. Howard, how Howard? You know? He said, man,
we just we just signed the girl from Fame, you know,
to a contract or a PolyGram. I want you to
do a few songs on her. I wanted to do
a couple of two three songs on her. I said, well,
which girl is there's near people's I said, well which

(02:00:55):
girl is?

Speaker 1 (02:00:56):
This is it?

Speaker 5 (02:00:57):
There's you? That's same, he said. He said, I sent
you overnight a compilation, uh via a tape to you
and I said, okay, cool. Next morning the FedEx Con,
they they get the tape. I put the tape in
my vah seeing and they said, ladies general near people
and she comes walking out on stage. I pushed cars

(02:01:20):
and I called, I'm in, I'm in.

Speaker 1 (02:01:25):
I'm on my way.

Speaker 5 (02:01:28):
Whatever you want me to do, I'm there, you know.
And soul Train was first.

Speaker 8 (02:01:32):
I said, I messed up that timeline and my kid
here because I was like, oh, I thought soul Train
was first.

Speaker 3 (02:01:36):
With soul Train was after the two of you, our hosts.

Speaker 1 (02:01:39):
And she was never on soul Train.

Speaker 2 (02:01:41):
Was never she was on Party Machine.

Speaker 1 (02:01:46):
Sorry but to our long but to our younger gen
Z listeners, she's all she's the hot mom on Pretty
Little Liars. So that's that's what That's what everyone knows
her as like.

Speaker 5 (02:02:03):
We worked on we worked on the album and really
got you know, got got really close. So's she's a
good ladies, she's a good woman. We have our son.
We have Christopher is uh our son, you know, and
it's amazing. We just we just had lunch about two
weeks or so ago, she and I, Christopher, her other

(02:02:23):
daughter and stuff. It's like this, it's very cool. It's
very cool.

Speaker 3 (02:02:27):
First response and be like, let's cool, we just had lunch.

Speaker 1 (02:02:34):
No wait, I gotta say though, Damn, I didn't wait
because I know we got to end this episode eventually sometime, however.

Speaker 2 (02:02:42):
I will, I got this. What is okay?

Speaker 1 (02:02:45):
This is always what I always wanted to know when
an artist does their signature, like when they do the
token gospel song on their record. I ee in.

Speaker 2 (02:03:00):
Love that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (02:03:03):
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 comings and going through your life
in the turmoil whatever, Like we're just on the creative
and the things. But at that point, the fact, the
fact that Save Men became such a signature song for you,
mm hmm, Like where were you in your life that

(02:03:26):
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?

Speaker 5 (02:03:40):
Okay? So before I left the group, before I left
Salomar at the time, like two or three years, two
or three years before I left Salomar, 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

(02:04:00):
I'm responsible for what I say. I said, I promised
that I will honor you on every solo project that
I do, you know, and and I have so say
man was the first was on the eye, Committal Love
album was the first sol and then on and on.
But when I finally rolled my contract out, I had

(02:04:22):
a lecture. You know, if you know the term electure
had first rights or refusal one everything that came off
of Solar 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,

(02:04:42):
e lecture was like cold as ice. They didn't they had.
All they had over there was the eagles and and
and that whole thing, and and and so. 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

(02:05:03):
I said, if that's the case, why don't we just
make this deal so ridiculous that they're gonna decline it?
You did, so, you know, put all kinds of stuff
in there, bumps here. You know, the money was like
unheard of for the first time solo arts. Even though

(02:05:24):
I had the success with Shalamar was crazy and we
took it to him. Bob Krasnow, who was head of
the company.

Speaker 1 (02:05:31):
Yeah, Bob, Bob says, he calls you bluff.

Speaker 5 (02:05:36):
He says, okay, what else? Wow? You know, so so like,
you know, okay, they accepted it. So it was a
great deal monetarily, and the company was a great turnout
to be a company, a great company. But it was
almost like I just describe a solo electra like a

(02:05:57):
twelve cylinder car and you 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. But getting back
to when I first went to the thing, I had

(02:06:21):
the new record company and I had a new management company.
So this was in nineteen eighty five when I first
left the group, and so I had a meeting with
the new record company, I had a meeting with an
RCAT and a new record company, had a meeting and
with the new management company that I had hired, and
I went in I was excited about doing my first

(02:06:42):
solo project. Shook everybody's hand and I sat down and
I said, first of all, before we get started in
this meeting, I said, I want to say I want
to do a song to the Lord on this album.

Speaker 2 (02:06:56):
It was like, that's how you started the.

Speaker 5 (02:06:58):
Meeting, That's how I started to meeting, okay, and so
I want to do a song to the Lord on
this and like it's like you can hear crickets in there,
and this is eighty five. This I don't know when
Jesus Is Love came out, but.

Speaker 1 (02:07:12):
This that was eighty But again, it was a rare move.
Like the door, you normalized it when you did it.
Then everyone started doing it.

Speaker 5 (02:07:23):
But it was but at the time it was like,
you know, I'm talking about putting you know, Denise would
do a gospel album and then she going she come
back and do an R and B album. I was
talking about combining putting that on there. You know what
I'm saying. And so like you know, this one cat
starts talking, well, you know Howard, you know we might
get into we want to take your career in the

(02:07:44):
sex symbol direction might not be conducive to religious overtones
and this and that and that and this, and then
my management companies, the cat from my management. He started
talking because I hadn't even talked to him about this yet, right,
And so I'm sitting again, I said. I sat back
and I listened. I listened to what they were saying,

(02:08:04):
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 dig where you're coming from.
I said, but maybe because in my mind, too, man,
is that these people got to promote my record. I

(02:08:26):
don't want to get anybody, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:08:30):
If you want to give them something that they're enthusiastic
about as well.

Speaker 5 (02:08:32):
Yeah, sour about promoting the record and stuff. 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, I understand it. I hear where you're coming
from this nineteen eighty five, 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

(02:08:55):
I'm going to do a song ask him and asked, like,
I'm going to do a song to the Lord on
this album. Hit My promise to him sits up here
as far as like my priorities and if it's like
you know, and and I'm going to do a song

(02:09:16):
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 Monte Seward, who's co writer on that,
on that on same men. When we put it. When
we put it together, man, it was like it was great.
But I will say that it was nineteen eighty five

(02:09:40):
around that time or so. And then I I was
dating as a girl in Miami, lit was her family
was in Miami. So I remember we were going to
spend Thanksgiving there with her family. She had moved to
la and we were going to spend Thanksgiving. So I
was in the in the studio, you know, all the
whole day, and she had already flown down there and

(02:10:02):
I was gonna get on the red eye and meet
her there, right So I get on a plane and
Monty and I had come up with the track, like
a real rough track for sa Men, and I knew
that's what I wanted to be, you know, the inspirational song.
So I jump on the Red Eye going to Miami

(02:10:23):
and I get on the plane, I put my headphones on,
I put the cassette in. It was on a cassette,
you know, and so I was listening to about three
or four songs that I still had to write melodies
and lyrics to. And at the end of that cassette
was a was like a real rough track of say Men,
I mean one of the and it didn't even go
all the way through it just you know, it's just

(02:10:45):
a real rough track of Samen. 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, sac in time around.
You know, we'll have our second time around. But before
we go, there's something I got to say. Everything's not

(02:11:05):
what it seems. There's a stronger force behind the scene.
He's in our lives every day. He's right there when
we call on him. It's where and I'm writing and
I'm writing, and there was 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 used to always tell
me when I was a kid. She says, you're the

(02:11:27):
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 she would always tell
him 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 ours. You know, we're children of the God's God.
And so when I started writing now and I said,

(02:11:48):
you know, I know there's someone who don't believe. Sometimes
it's very hard to see 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 hill. Man,
it hit me. I'm like writing it's cattle on the
thousand It hit me. There, tears started coming down, and

(02:12:08):
this lady sitting next to me, like, what the hell
is happening over here? You know, can I can I
move my seat or something like that. But by the time,
by time it touched down in uh at Miami, international lyrically.
The song was totally done.

Speaker 8 (02:12:28):
It's crazy because you know, 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.

Speaker 5 (02:12:39):
It's an ultimate It's an ultimate crazy song.

Speaker 3 (02:12:42):
How they go to a single. They didn't even want
the gospel song, and then it became a.

Speaker 1 (02:12:46):
Single because they playing they were playing the album cut
on black radio.

Speaker 3 (02:12:49):
Right, they had to make so that Black radio made
it a single.

Speaker 5 (02:12:52):
Yeah, they played it. I mean, you know Donnie Simpson
ended in show. They did that the show he ended
with a whole bunch of black radio uh shows across
the across the country, you know, Uh ended it with it.
And and then I did it at one of Black
Black Radio Exclusive b r E. Remember I'm sitting in

(02:13:15):
Miller's things. I closed up the closed up the whole
h uh convention with that song.

Speaker 4 (02:13:20):
And stuff I remember from from like you did it
also on the Robert Townsend part of the Crime Robert Towns.

Speaker 5 (02:13:28):
Yeah, when Robert, when Robert got in touch with me.
That's because I'm still my boy. We we you know,
we're really good friends still now. But like when he
approached me about it, he called and called and asked
and asked for a meeting. 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 uh my Partners the Crime,

(02:13:51):
my you know, HBO special. He said, I would love
for you to do, you know, say man, I said, oh, man,
that's what's up. Okay, let's gold. I love to be honest.
And then he says, I want to sing it with you.
Oh and my mind, you know, do you sing? I mean,

(02:14:13):
I don't know, And I guess because I don't, you know,
my face kind of tells all kind of stuff when
I'm thinking. Sometimes I unfortunate. But like, you know, he
looked at me and he said, hey, man, you know,
this is my first special, this is my first HIO special.
And I couldn't find I couldn't think of any other
way to thank God, you know, for this first special

(02:14:36):
thing in this with you. And it came 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 my second solo album had already been released.
I Commit to Love was in the bend, second out.

(02:14:58):
Yeah enough, already been released. 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 amen,
you know I.

Speaker 2 (02:15:15):
Was gonna say, was it was? Was this the this
is pre Sylvia Rome.

Speaker 1 (02:15:19):
So this is like the Bob Maryland era of Electra Merton.
Bob Marland I always called Marland. Was he there at
the time or is it now? Well rock President was ahead,
but Merlin, Bob wasn't there at the time, was.

Speaker 2 (02:15:32):
He or did he come in like eighty eight nine?

Speaker 5 (02:15:34):
Okay, I don't. I don't remember him, but that I
didn't know.

Speaker 1 (02:15:38):
But afterwards did they of course acknowledge that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:42):
Okay, you was? He was on point with this then, you.

Speaker 5 (02:15:46):
Know, because Bob 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'd go have a
meeting with him. And I was here and here's in
New York, we we talk on the phone and just
talk about and talk about the direction, talk about what
I want to do, blah blah blah blah blah. And

(02:16:07):
at the end of every after say man, at the
end of every conversation, Bob said, well, I know you're
gonna do another one of those gods songs, right, I'm
gonna do another guy song. It's gonna be because, of
course after the success and the popularity is say man,

(02:16:29):
of course it was. It was everybody's idea.

Speaker 2 (02:16:31):
Then you know, wait they took credit for it.

Speaker 5 (02:16:34):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so wait.

Speaker 2 (02:16:36):
Before we wrap, I got one. Unless you had something.

Speaker 1 (02:16:39):
I just wanted to say, man, show me, yes, thank you.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:16:46):
I don't know if you know like how popular that is.
Me and my wife we danced, we 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.

Speaker 1 (02:17:01):
What was the inspiration for that and what was it
like recording it?

Speaker 5 (02:17:06):
Don nettlesby and uh Terry Kofay. You know, it was
this writing partner, Terry kole Fay. It was actually coffee
he spelled, but he wanted to co face so that's cool,
that's all good, you know. So they wrote this track.
I forget how we got. I forget how we connected,

(02:17:27):
but they got this track to me, man, and like,
and when when I heard this track, I 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

(02:17:49):
had two boomboxes that recorded you did. So I lay
down in the in the middle of my floor and
up in my up in my bedroom, and I had
a like probably a bottle red wine, you know, and
I put one box on one side, one box on it.
I put concess in and I started bouncing things, you know,

(02:18:10):
from that, and I started coming up with with, you know,
different scenarios, different things I wanted to think about, things
that 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 the hook was just
so money, man. It was just it was you know,
it was like, you know, like you do some songs

(02:18:32):
in it, and it's like fighting you pulling teeth to
make just go here and may it fit melody and
you know, uh, praising life. Man, show me. It was
like butter and it just came down and like you
to let me know, just to let this go, help me,

(02:19:00):
show me, you know what I'm it's like. And then
the video was like crazy man.

Speaker 1 (02:19:06):
Of course I remember that video. Yeah, of course it was.

Speaker 5 (02:19:13):
You know what was hated?

Speaker 2 (02:19:16):
Yeah, we did, yeah, very much, so very much.

Speaker 8 (02:19:19):
So I just wanted to say, if I was ushow
must be a very religious experience. And the way that
you put these songs together and the way that the
at least the ladies or if some of the fellas
received them live, like do.

Speaker 3 (02:19:31):
You see that in the crowd? Do you see people
responding in a way.

Speaker 5 (02:19:34):
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, you helped me out, man, I'd be
I'd be a multi millionaire at this time. And and
like I always say, you know, my thing is like

(02:19:55):
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 out show me uh once twice three times,
you know, and and listen to how Listen and I
tell them, now, I can get you to the bedroom.
I can get you through the bedroom door.

Speaker 2 (02:20:16):
But you got the.

Speaker 5 (02:20:18):
Bedroom with you, right, So.

Speaker 3 (02:20:22):
All the credit and.

Speaker 9 (02:20:24):
Then when I do when I do the shows, I mean,
it's so it's so beautiful because you know, before BC,
before COVID, anyway, I would spend most of my time
in the audience rather than on stage because I like
to I like to feel my audience.

Speaker 5 (02:20:40):
I like to have them participate. And it's a beautiful
thing because you know a lot of cats there with
their women and they with the lady and their pointing
come sing to her. Yeah, you know, because she ain't
gone home with me? Right? All right?

Speaker 1 (02:21:00):
Well, I got to 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 the
show in eighty seven with George Duke. 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.

Speaker 5 (02:21:20):
Don asked George to do it, and 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 wrote a bunch of stuff, you know,
through the years, and a bunch of theme songs for
this and and that and and I mean we did
a song for he said. He said, how I want

(02:21:43):
you to come write these lyrics, you know, for this
pop artist over in Japan, right, I forget the cast's name,
he said, But you can't get deep. This dude is
not deep. You can't get deep. It's got to be shallow.

Speaker 1 (02:21:58):
So I love you, you have baby O my mind,
I think about that time.

Speaker 5 (02:22:04):
I wrote called New York Girl. You know, it's like
it's like, you know, I can't even remember lyrics, but
but it was. That's the perfect But now with the
Souldier and award thing, uh, Don, George was taken over
all the stuff as far as that's concerned. And then
he asked me to come in and do uh, do

(02:22:25):
some ad libs and stuff on the on the so yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (02:22:31):
What is it I guess in closing, what is it
that you've what is it that you've learned that made
you a wiser human being? Like it just in your
your your your journey m hmm to this point that
that's brought you here to this day, that still has
you here.

Speaker 5 (02:22:49):
You know, that's that's the deep question, because you know,
you learn so much on your way, in different scenarios,
in different places. I think one of the things though,
that is most important as as an artist for me
and as a man, as with your integrity, as far
as as concerned, is to let your yes be yes,

(02:23:10):
and your nobo no. You know what I'm saying, 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
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.

(02:23:34):
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
a flaky person and and and and deal in uh
situations where your integrity is not you know, intact. You
know it's it doesn't mean anything. It really doesn't mean

(02:23:55):
because at the end of the day, it's gonna 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 people to remember about
your music? I want to remember the integrity of my
music that I stayed.

Speaker 1 (02:24:14):
I stayed in.

Speaker 5 (02:24:15):
Av I had people saying you should put rapper, and
you used to put a rap thing, 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 and I have to. When I got in this business,
I wanted to be I wanted to achieve longevity. I

(02:24:39):
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 keep your
integrity in this business. And as a man, you know,
man It's like, you know where I where I've come

(02:25:02):
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
and all that. But hey, it's about you know, praise God.
That's that's all I can say. Praise God.

Speaker 2 (02:25:23):
That's all you can say.

Speaker 1 (02:25:24):
Man, Well, thank you very much, brother Ewett, thank you
for doing our show. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 5 (02:25:32):
Pleasure zoom pleasure.

Speaker 1 (02:25:34):
Sugar, Steve, are you are you gearing up to say.

Speaker 5 (02:25:39):
Knocked out over there a minute ago?

Speaker 1 (02:25:41):
Now that's just the weed talking.

Speaker 2 (02:25:45):
I'm serious.

Speaker 1 (02:25:45):
I'm on the scissor tonight. So you got a cold.
I never went fully unconscious, but.

Speaker 2 (02:25:54):
You're Oh.

Speaker 8 (02:25:55):
I told you you wosibly tell people that you got
to do disclaimers and stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:25:58):
You can't just put that out there.

Speaker 5 (02:26:00):
Just a good thing.

Speaker 8 (02:26:02):
We're on zoom, right, And I said, but look, they
worked receive like three hours ago.

Speaker 4 (02:26:07):
So I was gonna say, Howard man, like some years ago.
This has been over a decade ago. I actually met you,
I ran in you. It was real quick. It was
an lax and if I'm not mistaken, I think it
was it was lax. But you were just just as
you are now, man, super cool, and I just walked up.

(02:26:27):
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,
I'm a fan.

Speaker 1 (02:26:40):
Brother.

Speaker 4 (02:26:40):
He was like, thank you man, like super cool, and
I started the tweet. I was like, yo, I just
met how you and I thought, I was like, I
don't know what was he doing out here, so let's me. No,
I don't want to blow the spot up or whatever, but.

Speaker 5 (02:26:58):
Sneaking, you know, right right?

Speaker 4 (02:27:00):
But you were super cool and I just I never
forgot that man, and just where you were a class
act and you still are.

Speaker 1 (02:27:05):
And I just thank you for the music and for
all your man for.

Speaker 5 (02:27:09):
Absolutely thank you. I always say, man, we're all in
this thing together, none of us 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 cordial and respectful and right, you know, as
as possible. Unfortunately, some of my peers, you know, use

(02:27:29):
their celebrity as an excuse to be rude to people.
But you know it's like, especially in this business, it's
like we're not athletes.

Speaker 1 (02:27:37):
You know.

Speaker 5 (02:27:38):
Sometimes athletes they want people to hate them because they'll
come to the stadium to hate them. But in this business,
if somebody hate you, they ain't gonna buy your records.
Are customer service true truthactly?

Speaker 1 (02:27:52):
Well, we thank you for doing our show on behalf
of Scissor Steve and unpaid Bill. Putting the kids to
bed right now, Fontagelo and Laiya this Quest Love once
again the immortal Howard hewittt Quest Love Supreme and we
will see you next go round. Thank you y'all. What's up?

(02:28:15):
This is fante.

Speaker 4 (02:28:16):
Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
QLs and let us know what you think.

Speaker 1 (02:28:20):
Who should be next to sit down with us? Don't
forget to subscribe to our podcast all right, peace. Quest
Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple

(02:28:42):
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,

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Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Questlove Supreme: Howard Hewett