Questlove Supreme: John Oates

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

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode this time this
really is.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
A special episode of course, Love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
We have our Team Supreme with us. This is going
to be a.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Special being kind of an instant too parter, I will
save that our guest today simply not only accomplished musician, singer, songwriter,
but in my opinion, he is hands down one half
of one of the most successful duos of all time

(00:45):
in the modern rocket era. He'll popularize the burgeoning blue
eyed soul movement of the late sixties and early seventies
and into the future from my native town in Philadelphia,
along with his partner Daryl Hall, who incidentally will have
his own episode to himself as well.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I want to preface.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
By saying that usually, uh, when we have guests on
the show, I kind of like the one on one thing,
just like one artist for Team Supreme. I know it's
been easier to have a group aesthetic, but I feel
like you get more in depth stories when it's one
on one. And I'm not being a smart like by

(01:27):
referencing one of their classic songs, but in.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
My game to night Eaginal man that when that was
the NBA.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Do you remember a certain age when that was the
NBA theme song?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
When when they had.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
That who you don't remember this?

Speaker 3 (01:45):
What man? Yo?

Speaker 4 (01:46):
One on one they there was a promo they cut
and it would be like, you know, you see bird
and magic like you know, playing this motion and it
was one on one. They cut it on one on one.
That ship was amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
They used it for the old started game.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
John.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Where are you right now as we speak? I'm in Nashville, Okay,
And this is your home home?

Speaker 5 (02:07):
Well, yeah, we still have a place out in Colorado
where we lived for about twenty five years in the
nineties into the two thousands. But yeah, we've been here
now for about almost fifteen years. And yeah, it's a
great place to make music.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
See I see. So when were your Philly days over?

Speaker 5 (02:27):
Oh? Man, you know that was a long long time ago.
I think Daryl and I both moved to New York
together in nineteen seventy two, and that's when we got
our Atlantic Records contract and we made our first album
in New York at Atlantic Records.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
The one Top produced.

Speaker 5 (02:47):
No No No, This is a Reef Martin Oh wow.
A Reef produced our first two albums, an album called
holl Oats, which hardly anybody knows about, and then the
album Abandon Luncheonette, which is kind of the one that
I think most people think is our first album was
a second but Arif Martin produced both those and we
couldn't have been in better hands. One of the greatest

(03:08):
producers of all time, and was he was. He surrounded
us with the greatest musicians in New York City and
it was an amazing experience.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
So, you know, having you on the show is special
for me at least because even though we had Todd
on the show, I feel like I'm going to get
way better mid to late sixties Philadelphia music community stories

(03:37):
that otherwise my dad wouldn't have been able to tell
me about, or you know, a lot of cats and
that I've always wanted to know these stories about the
music scene in Philly, especially right before Gamble and Huff
started their empire.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Always been curious about that sort of thing. Were you
born in Philadelphia?

Speaker 5 (04:00):
I was actually born in New York City. My family
was from New York, but when my father's job was
relocated to Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia in nineteen I'm going
to date myself. But hey, you all know, I'm old self.
It doesn't matter fifty nineteen, fifty four, fifty three or
fifty four. And so we moved in the whole. We

(04:21):
moved our family, The rest of my the rest of
our extended family stayed in the New York area. But no,
so essentially, even though I was born in New York,
you know, I was such a little kid. I grew
up in Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia area.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Okay, And what part of Philly were you in Pennsylvania?

Speaker 5 (04:39):
Well, it was a little town called North Wales, which
was near Lansdale Dale. It was about twenty miles north
of Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Okay. Cool. Do you know what your first musical memory was?

Speaker 5 (04:51):
I sure do, I absolutely do. Right after we moved
to Pennsylvania, there was a place not too far away
called Willard Grove Amusement Park. Okay, And now it was
an air base as well, but anyway, at the time,
it was an amusement park. And my folks took me
there and Bill Haley and the Comets were playing in

(05:13):
the band show. And I don't know if you remember,
but Bill Haley was from Camden, of course, and so
I was like I was probably four maybe, And of course,
you know, I had had this musical sensibility at the time,
even though I was a little kid. And I remember
running down to the stage. It was a band show,
so the stage was only maybe two feet high, and

(05:34):
I remember being this little kid and I ran right
down to the band shell. And I remember the bass player,
the upright bass player. At one point in the show,
he rode his bass like a horse, and I thought
that was the most amazing things I'd ever seen. And
that actually the first live music I ever heard was
Rock around the Clock. And you know Bill Haley.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
And the Comets really so they were just performing at the.

Speaker 5 (06:00):
They were in the they were performing at the amusement park.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I think I believe that
I too saw a latter day Bill Haley beforemat Then
we used to we we had something called the Steel Pier.

Speaker 5 (06:15):
Oh. Yeah, I played at the Steel Pier.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, the Steel Pier in a Lank city. It was
a Lank city, right or wild.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
Wood Yep, No, it was in Atlantic City. And when
I was a really little kid, around five or six,
I sang at something called Tony Grant Stars of Tomorrow
which was a kitty uh talent show at the Steel Pier.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
In my dating myself, I had mentioned the word Al
alberts Where you do you remember the Al alberts O
case at all?

Speaker 5 (06:42):
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was around that time, and
there was a guy and it was actually before Dick
Clark took over Bandstand and it was what was his name?
There was a different host before Dick Clark, but it
was during that period of time. It was in the
mid fifties.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
And uh so you you were there for like the
the do Op era of Philadelphia.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
Yeah, Duop and Jerry Blavett and all that stuff. Jerry
Blavett was a big hero of mine.

Speaker 6 (07:08):
Yeah, the radio show that he used to do from
I think it was from Trenton where he'd play all
B sides and man, I heard, you know, songs like
Biolah by the Versatnes and you know, and Guided Missiles
and you know these.

Speaker 5 (07:24):
Songs that were just unbelievable and you know your your
your father man Lee Andrews and the Hearts. Man, I
mean you know, tick tick tick in the clock a
league got it?

Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's that's so dope.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
So okay, during that period, I'm assuming that you're a teenager.
Like for you, like when did you know? What was
your moment of or your calling of knowing that you
were going to be a musician?

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Like how old were you? And was guitar always your
weapon of choice? I was?

Speaker 5 (08:00):
I just had I guess I had musical talent when
I was a little little kid. You know, I would sing.
I would sing these little songs. In fact, I have
a recording of me singing a little children's nursery song
that was done at Coney Island in one of those
record booths, you know where you go into the booth
and you put some money in and you'd sing and
the little record would come out. I still have that record.

(08:21):
I did that when I was like four or five
years old, and then I started playing guitar at seven.
I originally started on accordion because they were the only
music teacher in this little town where we lived, was
an accordion teacher. But I hated it, and then I
played I started playing guitar at about seven or eight,
and I was it.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
You play accordion?

Speaker 5 (08:42):
No?

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I mean if you were to pick it up, now,
would you be?

Speaker 5 (08:48):
I could fumble around on it, but but what happened
was seriously my mother just thought. My mom said, you
know he take some music lessons. Well, the only teacher
was an accordion teacher, and you know he was doing
all that Pennsylvani and you you know, polka stuff, that
kind of stuff, and so, I mean I hated it.
I literally I remember it. Used to sit in the closet.

(09:08):
And then I think I took two or three lessons,
and finally on the third lesson, the teacher went, he's
not practicing. I said, I hate this. I'm not doing it.
And I said, I want to get a guitar. So
I got a guitar and I started there.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Okay, how old were you when you got your guitar?

Speaker 5 (09:23):
About seven?

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Okay, do you remember the first album that you yourself purchased.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
I didn't purchase an album at the first. I purchased singles.
It was always singles.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Okay, well, yeah, your first it was the first record
that you got.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
Oh man, let's see Shirley and Lee. Well it was
the Everly Brothers Shirly Lee and uh, well it's probably
an Elvis song too, I'm sure, and a Chuck Berry song,
probably Johnny be Good or something like that.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
As you were a teenager, how what was the you know.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
I guess for a lot of us could say that,
you know, I grew up in the era of the
Philadelphia sound just being developed, you know, in their early seventies.
But of course I know that a lot of those cats,
like not only Gamble and Huff, but Bunny Siegler and
all those guys were just local Philadelphia musicians.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
So could you talk of just about.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
That that environment atmosphere sort of in the mid sixties
to the early seventies, like what was happening in Philadelphia musically?

Speaker 5 (10:38):
Well, you know, during when I was a teenager living,
you know, living right outside of Philly, you know, I
would take the train down on the Reading Railroad into
Center City and buy clothes and to go to the
record Museum on Chestnut Street by records. And what I'd
always do on Saturday night was I'd go to the
Uptown And I went to the Uptown Theater almost every

(10:59):
Saturday night. And oh, I saw the greatest of the greats.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
So give me a typical give me a typical weekend.

Speaker 5 (11:07):
Oh well, all right, you know I saw Sam and Dave,
I saw you know, the Temptations, I saw Stevie wonder
Do Fingertips when he was like twelve, when he first
came out. I actually saw him play that song and
I remember he jump on the drum kit and his
little kid. I mean, man, there was so many great
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Four Tops, you know,

(11:28):
all the all the great Motown. But you know Barbara Mason,
Uh you know the Delphonics stylistics. Uh well, the Delphonics
were first. The Stylistics came a little later, but I mean,
you know, I was taken with a lot of the
great I remember this one group from Memphis that I loved,
the Mad Lads. Yeah, the Mad Lads, and uh he

(11:50):
just it just went on and on and on. It
was to me, it was it was I learned how
how a show is supposed to go. You know what,
what what got people off, what made got people to
scream and yell and clap and uh it was just
an amazing experience.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
So you know again, I'm a Philadelphian, so I've not
heard any shows about the Uptown. What would be the
typical format of a show, like, for instance, if James
Brown is coming to Philadelphia, would he normally play at
the Uptown or was he at.

Speaker 5 (12:24):
The time, Yeah, he would the Uptown Theater. Well, you know,
it was part of it was part of the Chiplan's circuit.
You know, it was the Apollo, the Howard and Howard
Theater in DC, the Uptown in Philly.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
I mean that was the circuit, you know, So, like,
what would the format be like would shows? Would you
go there at twelve and at afternoon and.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Stay there all day?

Speaker 5 (12:42):
Or no, No, it was he there were evening shows. They
were evening shows, and they would have a house band.
They always had a house band, and part of the
house band later became a lot of the cats who
played with Gamble and Huff became the studio guys for
Game on Huff. But in fact, Kenny Gamble might have
even been playing piano in the house man Darrel. We'll
tell you a little bit more about that too, because

(13:03):
he he was He worked with with Kenny and Leon
on his first record. But I, you know, I worked
with Bobby Martin. Bobby Martin arranged the first single that
I that I did, and I didn't even know who
he was. We we were looking I was. It was
basically my high school band and we wanted to make
a record. We went We went down to North broad

(13:23):
Street to a place called Virtue Studios. Frank Virtue, who
who had a song called Guitar Booge Shuffle that was
his claim to fame.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
It was an instrumental okay.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
He had a small had a small studio on North
broad Street and we recorded this track and Frank Virtue,
who was the owner and the engineer, he said, man,
you guys need some work. He said, I'm going to
introduce you to somebody. He gave me Bobby Martin's number,
and we went down and paid him a visit and
he was working out of a small office just south
of a city hall on Broad Street, and he arranged

(13:55):
it and kind of he kind of you know, gave
us a little professional you know, spit and polish and
made made it sound good. So so we were both
Darryl and I were kind of involved with the core
of the Gamble and enough people before they became kind
of gambling off.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
What was your group situation before Hall of Notes or
was Darryl you're well?

Speaker 5 (14:18):
I had I had a band called the Masters, and
Daryl had a group called the Temptones. Daryl's group was
pretty much a four part an a cappella group, very
similar to the Temptations. That's why they call themselves the Temptones.
Really yeah, and my group was more of a combo,
you know. It was funny I used that word combo.
Nobody uses that word anymore, right, It was you know, guitar, bass, drums.

(14:43):
We had a trumpet and a trombone and a saxophone. Uh.
I got my sister to sing background. So we were
like our self contained, you know, rhythm section and vocals,
and we did all you know, we did. We did
what bands did in those days. We played the hits,
We played the songs that we heard on the radio,
and you know, leaning a lot on on the stuff

(15:03):
that came out of Stax and Volt too. I did
a lot of that, and I did a lot of
Curtis Mayfield as well.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
So for you, though, as a teenager, did you instantly
know that you wanted to be in the music business
or were you just rolling with the win and see
what would happen.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
I don't think I had a choice, you know, And
I'm not bragging when I say this, but I've never
had a job. The only thing I've ever done is
play music. Is this thing I've had to have in
a job, was teaching guitar lessons when I was in college.
So that's I'm a blessed, a very very grateful person
because I got to do what I you know, what

(15:43):
I think I was born to do.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
All right, So how did you meet Darryl?

Speaker 5 (15:48):
Well, it's a it's an unusual story. His he the
Timptones had recorded on Jimmy Bishop's label. Jimmy Bishop you
might know it was was the top DJ on w D.

Speaker 7 (16:02):
As their family is legendary in Philly.

Speaker 5 (16:05):
Oh yeah, and uh so Darryl. Darryl was signed to
and I think it was Arctic Records. Uh, he'll tell you.
He'll give you all the details on that. On his side.
And this this group I had, as I said, it
is called the Masters. And we made this track with
Bobby Martin and went down to the record museum on
Chestnut Street and said, hey, we made a record and

(16:27):
the guy said, let me hear it, put it on
the turntable, said what are you going to do? I said, well,
we're looking for we won't put it out. He said,
sign here, threw a piece of paper in front of me,
and of course I was, you know, I'd sign an
I'd sign anything ship. In fact, I think that was
I think I did that way too many times in
my career. But that's another story enough. You don't have

(16:48):
enough time for that.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I was going to say, I got to ask
you about the seventies years.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
But we but we did get you know, So my
song is getting played on H A T and D
A S. Darryl's song was getting played, so we were
both aware of each other, but I didn't I didn't
know him, and we were individually invited to a record
hop that Jimmy Bishop was doing out in West Philly
at the del Fi Ballroom. Del Fi Ballroom, right, you know.

(17:16):
And so we went out there and we were standing backstage.
It was an afternoon teenage thing. It was the Five
Stair Steps Howard Tate. Howard Tate had a song called
Look a Granny, Run Run, And so Howard Tate Five
Stair Steps, me and Daryl's group in my group, and
we literally didn't know each other, and but I had
heard his record, he had heard my record. And then

(17:36):
a gang fight broke out in the crowd, and so yeah,
so we all went down and we never even got
to perform. We were gonna lip sync our record. We
went down onto the street level and when we went downstairs,
we went, hey, man, I saw you. Yeah, yeah, you know,
I said, And we were both going to Temple University
and I started seeing him around the school on Broad Street.

Speaker 7 (18:00):
But John, excuse me, I have to ask you because
it sounds like so regular. This isn't the no, this
is in the sixties, correct.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
Yeah, this was a team. This would have been nineteen
sixty eight.

Speaker 7 (18:10):
So the question is was it common Because DAS at
the time was still an R and B station, right,
And I'm guessing that Mary Mason and then we're playing
nothing but R and B music. So how common was
it that two dudes, too white dudes, two different groups
had music on these black radio stations.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
Well, did you ever hear our music?

Speaker 7 (18:31):
I mean, yeah I did, But I'm just saying to
you that in the moment though, in the moment.

Speaker 5 (18:37):
Hey listen, we we were accepted by the black music
community long before we were accepted by the white, white
rock and roll community. So it was not a surprise
to us at all when our records crossed over. You know,
that was totally seemed normal to me. We just made
the music that we made, you know. I mean, if
you grow up in the Philadelphia area and you listened

(18:58):
to Philadelphia radio and you're kid, you're gonna make the
music that goes in your head, you know. And so
we made the music that that we made, and it,
I guess must have done something right, so, you know.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
But for you, but for you growing up in that
time period, you weren't at all drawn to, uh, the
other acts of the era, era like the Dovell's or.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
You know, like the Frankie Avalin.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Dan You're like, yeah, you're talking about the Cameo Parkway era.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, yeah, Well, you.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
See what happened was when Darryl and I first met,
two of the guys in my band got drafted into Vietnam.
My band fell apart. Daryl's group was kind of falling
apart anyway, so I joined up with him as a
guitar player, backup guitar player, and when both groups fell apart,
he and I gravitated toward each other and we started
we became songwriters. At the at the Schubert Schubert Building,

(20:00):
guy the guy named John Madera, and John Madera was
from the Cameo Parkway. He was the guy from the
Dovels and Chubby Checker and Frankie and uh, we knew
that that that that music was on its way out,
and you know, it was really the end of that
Cameo Parkway era. So but we you know, we knew,
we knew Lenn Barry and and all those guys. You know,

(20:21):
they were all around the whole time. And then at
the exact same time that Darren and I were writing
on the I think we were on the second floor,
Gamble and Huff opened their offices on the fourth floor
with Tommy Bell and everything. So we all kind of
started at the same time.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
That building that you were referring to was that kind
of like the Brill Building was.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
The Philadelphia's version of the Brill Building. It was the
Super Theater building. Okay, we're still there, but there were
offices in it at the time. And yeah, so that's
how we started. And uh, you know, yeah, we knew
all those guys, and you know, we were involved in
that era. But as I said, the Dovels and Cheby
Checker and those guys werena you know, they were they

(21:01):
were they were the last year's model, you know, they
were kind of going out.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I went to Performing Arts school, uh for elementary at least,
even though it went up to high school. But oftentimes
we go to that Schubert Building to learn like our
musical craft, like take piano lessons over there, and take
drum lessons over there on Broad Street. Yeah, so you get,

(21:28):
you guys met when a gang fight was breaking out,
like yes, in your mind, like even like was how typical?
I mean, I guess I was born way after like
the gang Wars. But you know, if you're a teenager
in the fifties and sixties, like how prevalent was gang

(21:52):
activity in Philadelphia?

Speaker 5 (21:53):
You know, I think in the sixties the city was
much more integrated. There was, there wasn't as much violence.
I think a lot of the you know, the black
black power movement, black pride movement really started more in
the seventies. And you know, by that time, Daryl and
I had gone on to New York. But you know,
and of course there was you know, there was racial

(22:14):
stuff happening all over the country, but we felt I
always felt very comfortable in Philadelphia, especially in the sixties.
I never had any problems with it. And you know,
if you really look at if you look at Gamble
and Huff at the great you know tsop rhythm section.
You know, it was an integrated rhythm section. You know,
black and white players playing working together in the studio.
And the head engineer, Joe Tarcia, he was a white,

(22:37):
white cat. And you know Vince Montana who did all
the string arrangements. You know, he's a white guy. But
so there was it was really it didn't feel that
unusual to me at the time.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
So in your opinion, what year do you feel as
though what we know is the sound of Philadelphia, or
at least the first draft it does'tend to be the
less strings like that was Philly International, but you know,
like the earlier and trudest stage of like Gamble Records
before Philly International.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
Before it was a little more raw.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, So for you, like especially the stuff they did
on Atlantic, when do you feel is like the actual
sound of Philadelphia got established?

Speaker 5 (23:22):
I think it happened around the same time, around nineteen seventy,
I would say, I feel like, you know, like you said,
the Little Sunny and the Intruders, the Delphonics, those records,
they were street records. They were essentially do wop records
with musical backing, you know, And it wasn't really until

(23:44):
later on when Tommy Bell, I think, was responsible for
adding a real high level of musical sophistication to what
was coming out of the game on Huff's Place. You know,
if you listen to Tommy Bell, and I mean his court
changes are so unbelievable and so unique and so complicated

(24:04):
really if you think about it, and you know, in
a way, and I had a conversation with it with
Burt Backerac about this. Tommy Bell was, to me, is
like the black Burt Backerac, you know. I mean you
listen to Burt backerac songs and the way he voiced
his chords, and you listen to Tommy Bell and the
way he voiced his chords. I think they were listening
to each other because I think there's a lot of

(24:27):
similarity there.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Could you talk about the period that led up to
the actual record deal with the Lenox.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
Yeah, well, it goes back to the shop building. We
were working with this guy, John Madera, and we were
just songwriters. We were kind of staff songwriters, and we would,
you know, we'd write some songs and he'd try to
pitch him for us, and nothing was really happening. And
he had done a deal with Chapel Music in New
York City. I guess he sold his catalog. And when

(24:56):
he sold his catalog, we kind of came along with
the deal. We were like his new writers, and so
he was kind of bragging on us as the new
writers that he was bringing along with the sale of
his publishing catalog. So we went to New York City
and we auditioned for chap Music. Basically, you know, he
kind of it was, you know, he would show us off,

(25:17):
you know, and me and Daryl would play our little songs,
you know, that we had written, and Chapel Music seemed interested,
but then nothing would ever happen. So then go to
New York and we'd do a showcase, he and they,
just Daryl and I just the two of us. He'd
played piano, I played guitar, and it was like a
kind of a little bit kind of a folky R
and B duo kind of thing. And everybody always loved

(25:39):
what we did, but we never we never got any traction.
We'd go back to Philly and we'd find out that
and always the thing he'd always say to us is say, yeah,
they like you, but they passed. They passed. We couldn't
figure out why why they like us, But nobody ever
offered us a deal. And we later found out that
he was trying to cut deals on the side that
were just so so bad that nobody wanted to touch

(26:02):
us because it was just, you know, I don't want
to get into the music business. This the dark, seamy
side of the music business a little bit.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
But that's act. That's no ex education. Though.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, man, in Philly was it as was the the
what I will say, the mars Levy of it all.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Was that kind of a presence in Philadelphia as well.

Speaker 5 (26:26):
Absolutely, it was all over the place. It was everywhere.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
So when do you feel as though.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
What I you know, for those who are listening to
the podcast, I'm sort of speaking on a kind of
the wise guy mafioso era of the music business where.

Speaker 7 (26:46):
We thought, so he was following you, he was following you.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Well, yeah, I know we're following because we know each other.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
But I'm speaking for the people.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
I'm yeah, oh, yes, you represent the people.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
However, you know, eventually, well, some of it's like that
episode of I don't know if you remember the Sopranos
when when uh uh, you know, Tony's guys were trying
to shake down the Starbucks and the person was trying
to like explain to them, like we're not a local,
like this is this is a chain they and they

(27:19):
sort of felt like dinosaurs.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
It was like, oh, we can't shake.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Down, right And but for you when did that sort
of did that era ever end?

Speaker 5 (27:32):
I think it did, and I think it kind of
went out in the seventies. And by that time, Daryl
and I were so frustrated because we couldn't get anything
going and every you know, it was very frustrating to
have people like like what you did, but yet not
respond to you. And we we we got to the
point where we couldn't deal with it anymore, and we
we kind of put our pulled our money together. We

(27:53):
you know, we didn't have anything at the time. I mean,
you know, if I could buy a cheese steak, you know,
it was a big deal for me. You know, so
we pulled we pulled our money together when we flew
to California and neither of us had ever been to
California before, and we didn't know that you had to
have a car when you got there. We we just
we just showed up. We just shut up. This guy

(28:17):
from Chapel Music picked us up at the airport and
he let us stay at his house and he said,
I'm going to get you you know, I'm going to
let you guys play for few people and see what happens.
We just thought maybe California would give us a chance,
and sure enough, we played for this guy at his house,
literally in his living room, and he was friends with
Amed Erdigan, had Atlantic Records, very good friends they were.

(28:39):
He was actually he wasn't really a musician. He was
an art dealer, but amed Erdigan was a big art
collector and that that's I guess that was their thing.
So we played at this guy's living room and this
guy said, he started it was funny. We played a
couple of songs and he started laughing, and we said,
what's up? What's the deal? He goes, are you guys
for real? We were like yeah, and he's like, why

(29:01):
are you playing in my living room? He goes, how
come you don't have a record contract? I said, well,
we can't get one. We got them this guy in Philly,
who you know, can't help us, and we don't know
what to do. I mean, it was kind of crazy,
and he said, I'm gonna call on it. He says,
you guys go back to Atlantic and you auditioned for them,
and we went okay, and so we flew back to

(29:21):
Philly and then we went took the train to New
York and we walked into a room with Jerry Greenberg,
who was the president of Atlantic at the time, and
Reef Martin and we played our songs just like we
did every time we played, and a Reef stood up
at the end and said, I want to produce these guys.
That was it? Wow, record deal?

Speaker 3 (29:47):
What was it like working with him?

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Because I became familiar with the Reef because of I
guess my love for the average white band records. That's
when I started seeing his name on a lot of
the crow But at the time, were you excited were
you familiar with his track record with like Aretha?

Speaker 5 (30:08):
I was. I was very, very familiar with a Reef.
I thought the Aretha stuff and in particular, his arrangements
were so spectacular and so beautiful string arrangements and just
his just his musical sensibility. And you know, he was
an interesting guy because he was he was Turkish, and
he had this deep, deep love for American jazz and

(30:30):
American music. What was great about a Reef was he
thought like a pure musician. He didn't care about styles
and genres and what was hip or what was happening
at the moment. He just cared about what would serve
the song the best. He he thought like a classical,
like a classical arranger. He you know, if it needed

(30:52):
an obo and in a viola, he would do an
obo and a viola. He had no there was no
it was no kind of thing. Well, so and so
is doing this. This is the sounds on the radio,
so let's do something like that. It had nothing to
do with that, and he was I learned so much.
In fact, I think every recording session I've ever done
since that time, I pretty much tried to conduct the

(31:15):
way he did. He just put the best people possible
in the room, the best players that he thought was
appropriate for the music in the room, and he just
guided them and let them do what they did. But
he just kind of guided them. He never asserted himself
and made it seem like he was running the show.
He was always there, and he was always made sure

(31:38):
that he got exactly what he wanted. But he never
was out there telling, oh, you do this and you
do this, and so it was really it was really
an education to be with him and to see what
you know. When we were doing the second album with him,
he was producing The Divine Miss m with Bette Miller,
so we'd leave the studio, Bette Miller would come in.

(31:59):
And then he was doing the John Primee album, the
first John Prine album, which was an unbelievable album. So
he was doing singer songwriters, he was doing R and
b's did he did Solomon Burke, he did Hubert Laws,
the jazz. So, I mean, he was all over the
map because he was so good as a as a

(32:22):
just as a musician. He didn't care what it was.
It was just music to him, pure music. And I
think that's what I learned from him.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
So Okay, so back then I know that the this
sort of I mean, the technology.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Is different than the eighties than it was the seventies.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
But when you're working on an album, like is is
he having is it one on one time with him
or is it for him like a day job where
it's like, Okay, I got a refill on Tuesday, and
Donny Hathaway on Wednesday. Yeah, all notes, I'll squeeze you
guys in him for three hours, so it's not like

(33:03):
he's spending No, he.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
Didn't squeeze us in. He didn't squeeze us in. We
had full day sessions or full night sessions, mostly day sessions,
and he usually did two sessions a day. So yes,
we would be in there for maybe eleven to five
or something like that, and he would take a dinner
break and maybe he would have another session that evening.
But we worked, I mean, we know, we worked. We

(33:28):
were right there, I.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Mean right in the thick of it, and it didn't
feel like cutting paste to you like in terms of
you know, me and I spend more time with him.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
I we felt, we felt that he cared as much
for us as he did for any of the other
artists working with and you know, he put us. We
didn't have a band at the time. It was just
Daryln and I, So our rhythm section for that second
album was Bernard Purdy, Gordon Edwards, Richard T. H mc craken,
Dave's Finosa. Yeah, these are the kind of players we

(34:04):
were with, and so for the first time Darryl and
I got to play with these, you know. I mean,
we had Joe Farrell the saxophone solo and She's Gone
is Joe Farrell?

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah? Oh wow?

Speaker 5 (34:15):
You know, so we had we had jazz musicians and
R and B musicians and classical musicians, and you know,
it was just an amazing thing to be He just
he would hear our songs and then he would think,
I know who's right for this, and he would make
the call. We didn't even know who we'd be walking
into that day, but we knew that whoever we walked

(34:36):
into that day was going to be just right for
the music we were making.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Okay, I have a question about abandoned Ntenette. Yeah, specifically
She's Gone. Yep, yeah, Okay, So I've gone through this
story a lot of times in the Pandemic where it's
something about keys modulating that scare the living beg this

(35:00):
out of me, and you know, I mean, be honest,
like you guys were definitely for drama with the the
end build up of She's Going, But whose idea was
it to just do those five modulations?

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Like is this going to be the key? You know?
Is this going to be the key? Is going to be.

Speaker 5 (35:22):
Talking about.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
At the very end of she's going there's like just
just are you know, like in a soap opera where
you have.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
That sort of thing. So there's a part of the.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
Song or like the end of I'm trying for something
for our for our listeners understand Love on Top by Beyonce,
like Growing Up, Yeah, it's magic, it's like fourteen times whatever, yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Right, or Golden Lady by Stevie.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
But the thing is, to me, it's I always knew
the boogie man was waiting for me at the end
of every Mirror.

Speaker 8 (35:58):
You got to get over this at some point, man.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
I you know, I believe that that was That was
a reef's idea to do that, and it was it's
kind of a cheap shot to modulate to to kind
of you know, to Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm
gonna make this song more exciting because I'm gonna modulate
up a half step. I'm gonna take it up. But
I'll tell you what, Darryl and I have modulated four

(36:27):
times in that song. We never modulated again in the
rest of our career. That's all I got to say
about that, okay.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
But there's also okay, what's even stranger about that? Is
one of the very first musical videos I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Was She's Gone. One of the strangest things.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I believe where I see She's going.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
I think, Jerry Blabbitt, I know where you saw it.

Speaker 5 (36:58):
You saw it, you saw I'm Philadelph a TV on
a dance show, on a teenage show.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
I did.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
We got a store, I got a story. I got
a story for you.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
So the thing is is that I remember I was
I was five years old.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
I believe that you guys actually did have a devil.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
You know, a woman was a devil. So whatever the
lyrics were, I payed the devil to replacement. I remember
you guys sitting on a you guys were sitting on
a couch, and I just.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Remember a devil was running around in this video.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Which the thing is is that, you know, for listeners
that don't know music, videos was a promotion tool so
in case you couldn't go overseas and tour, they could
at least have something to play on those top of
the Pop shows or Shindig or any of those shows
that you weren't able to get to you know, if

(37:53):
you weren't big enough to fly to Europe, so you
would make performance videos. But soon afterwards, uh, they started
putting some concepts in there, like Frank Zappa do some
concept videos. So I definitely remember this being a concept video.
But for you guys, did you because you used music

(38:14):
videos to your advance, do you feel the time like
this was advantageous to the song in your career?

Speaker 5 (38:22):
Well, you have to remember this was over ten years
before MTV.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yes, yeah, what happened, And I'll tell you what happened.

Speaker 5 (38:30):
She's going to begin to get some popularity, was on
the charts. They wanted us to lip sync our song
at a show in New Jersey or at the at
the Steel Peer. It was called ed Herst Summertime at
the Pier. It was a teenage dancer, right was Saturday afternoon,
Saturday afternoon, right, yeah, yes, So Daryl and I were

(38:55):
thinking about it and we said, wait a minute, I said,
we can't go down to the Steel Pier, and Liz
sank she's gone, while a bunch of kids started to
dance to it to where we said, So we said
to them, can we just come to the studio and
just we record the song, you know, video tape the song,
and then you can show that they didn't know what
we were going to do though, So let's just remember

(39:18):
it was nineteen seventy two. Yes, whatever we were doing
at the time, there was a let's put it this way,
there was some mine altering substances both there you go, okay.
So we decided that we were gonna do this weird
thing where we brought literally the furniture from our apartment
and my sister, who was a student at Temple University,

(39:42):
she was going to direct it. The girl who walks
by in the video is Sarah Daryl's girlfriend from Sarah Smile,
and the devil was some kid from Long Island who
is our road manager. We rented in a devil suit.
I rented a penguin suit with flippers and was wearing
the bathroom. So I would encourage anyone out there who

(40:03):
has not seen this video to go on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Oh wow, it never wants it. That's so weird, Like
I have a list of child memories that not once
anything like yo, I gotta I totally forgot to see.
Was it ever on YouTube? It is?

Speaker 5 (40:26):
You can watch it. So we so we did this
and they got so angry. They got so pissed off
at us because they thought we were mocking them, and
I guess in the way we were. But anyway, so
they told us. They got mad. They called, they called
Atlantic Records and said, these guys will never get played
on Philadelphia radio. Who do they think they are? Well, oh,

(40:48):
it was. It was bad, and we had a backpedal
to all this stuff with the record company and we
were just having a crazy time because we were that's
where we were at. And uh so, anyway, that's how
that happened.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
You know, my dad had a lot of records in
the house.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Shortly thereafter, almost immediately as that song is going to
the charts, I know that Tavars it also covered She's Gone,
So there was This is almost the same similar situation
with the Fifth Dimension in Dinah Ross, like releasing Love
Hangover at the same time, like Tavars and Hall of

(41:27):
Notes are kind of fighting for airplay time for She's
Gone at the time.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Were you guys cool?

Speaker 5 (41:33):
No, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but
not quite. We have released We had released She's Gone
and went into the top forty, but it didn't go
much higher than that. Then after that, Tavaris recorded and
went to number one. It was a number one R
and B record.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Right, Okay, that's what I do, the Tavares version.

Speaker 5 (41:51):
And people said people, people said, oh, man, you believe
it's just number one R and B record. Darrenly are like, yeah,
that makes perfect sense to me. And then we released
it again after Tarvaris, when Sarah Smile was out and
it went into the it was I would think it
went to number two.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Man, okay, but you got you guys were fine and
cool with that.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Then you know, hey, no, I was happy.

Speaker 5 (42:13):
But even Lou Rawls got that song.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
The next record with war Babies, could you talk about
working with Todd Todd Rundren on that record.

Speaker 5 (42:23):
Yeah, Well, we had moved to New York City, and
so the war Babies record was a direct a reaction
to leaving Philadelphia and being in New York and experiencing
New York and the difference between New York and Philadelphia.
New York was so big, much bigger and more faster
and chaotic, and you know, and and we we really
you know, even though the Abandoned Lunch and Net was

(42:45):
a great record, it's still one of my favorites. It
didn't really it wasn't very successful. So at the time,
the record business was completely different than it is now,
you know, I mean, you know how it is now.
If you if you if you don't have a hit
on your first record, making a second record, yeah, yeah, Well,
in those days, record companies signed you because they actually

(43:06):
believed that you could have a career that maybe you know,
you could evolve and develop creatively. So but we had
no we had no reason to do the same type
of record because it wasn't successful. So we said, well,
let's just try something different. And you know, Todd had
having moved from Philly to New York. We figured he'd
have something, you know, he could relate to it. To

(43:28):
be honest with you, we were just trying to be experimental.
We were trying to push the boundaries and see how
far we could go. It's it's not one of my
favorite records. I didn't feel comfortable in that style. It
was a lot more I think. I think the thing
about Todd and his style of production is that you know,
if you if you want Todd Runger and you get

(43:49):
Todd Runger, you know, there's no denying what you're going
to get. And so you know, for me personally, not
one of my favorites, but I think it did. Was
it It gave us the ability to be more kind
of in that in that experimental rock genre. And then
going forward, we we combined, we combined the Philly R

(44:09):
and B the folky stuff that we were doing, and
that war Baby's thing all together and that's what enabled
us to find a sound of our own.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
So for your the next record, I mentioned this at
the Rock and Mall Hall of Fame. Uh the record.

Speaker 5 (44:29):
Yeah, I know what you're gonna say, Who's.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Whose idea was it for the cover design to do
the because you know, the Androgis thing was coming into
play with what Bowie was doing, and I think, like
I think the Stones did, it would go ted suit
like for you what was the the marketing idea of
that cover and.

Speaker 5 (44:47):
It was That's exactly what it was. It was. It
was a moment in time. That's what was happening in
New York City and Greenwich Village at the time. You know,
it was Rick Darringer.

Speaker 9 (44:56):
Tyrung Gren, Mick Jagger, Bowie and we were you know,
we caught up in that whole down scene that was
happening in Philly, in New York or rather, and we
met this guy named Pierre Laroche, who was the stylist
for all those records, for every.

Speaker 5 (45:12):
One of those records that you mentioned, and I remember
we had dinner with him and he said, I remember
what he said. He said, I will immortalize you. And
you know what, it's the only the only album cover
anyone ever asked us about, and it has nothing to
do with the music inside.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
But see about hdo But okay, of course, the breakout
single from that is Sarah Smile. At this time, are
you guys coining the term blue eyed soul?

Speaker 5 (45:43):
Like?

Speaker 3 (45:44):
How you know?

Speaker 5 (45:45):
We never really liked that phrase, you know. To me,
to be honest with you, I just think, you know,
it's to me, it's kind of offensive. And I'll tell
you why I think it. It kind of takes white
guys trying to sound black guys, okay, And I don't
think that's what we do. I think we sound like
the way we sound, and if we've got soul, then

(46:09):
good and I hope it comes through, and you know,
to me, and I don't. I don't want to get
too philosophical about this. But to me, soul is not
is doesn't belong to any race, creed, nationality. I mean,
you know, I hear music. I hear soulful music and
all sorts of music around the world. I mean, you know,

(46:30):
there's Irish music that's very soulful, there's American Indian music
is unbelievably soulful. So I think soul is a thing
that touches you. It moves you emotionally, and that's what
soul is. If you hear music that makes you move,
whether it's physically move or makes your your your emotions move.

(46:50):
To me, that's what soul is. So at least I
got it out on the table.

Speaker 8 (46:57):
It's very similar to what Bonnie read that yeah on
our show as well with Crutch of the Blues and
her experience growing up listening to that stuff.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Other Avana is like you know, the I think from
when I listen to artists. You know, if it was
white artists, I think, more so than anything, you just
want to see those artists give credit to what they
grew up on.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
I don't think it's you know what I'm saying, And
you know that's what I kind of always saw with
you guys, and just with the white artists that kind
of fell into that, you know, that what you call
blue out soul, like a Mike McDonald or whatever. You know,
they always bigged up the stuff that they grew up on.
And I think the only time it really becomes an
issue is when you know, a white artist is.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Like, oh no, this is just all me.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
It's like, no, the fuck it ain't, you know what
I mean, That's that's where the problem comes in. But
I agree, I mean, it's you can find the elements
of soul in all music. It's a feeling more so
than it is just a genre or whatever.

Speaker 5 (47:54):
You're You're absolutely right, it's we you know, we were
all products of what came before us. You know, we
we there's not one person on this planet who just
comes out of the womb and is a total, unique original.
Maybe there are a few. What we do and who
we are is about our It's our It's in our DNA,

(48:14):
it's in our upbringing, it's in the place we live,
it's in the experiences that we experience, and that's who
we are. And you know, and I've I've always made
a point to uh, to be very clear that you know,
to point to my roots and the music that that
made me who I am, and I honor it and
I try to and I'm very respectful for it, and

(48:34):
I always try to to make sure that you know,
people understand that, hey, this is where it all comes from.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Facts.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
I think on this record, well, one you guys are
producing it, and two, yeah, you have the monsters on here.
So I could assume that Ed Green is drumming on
Sarah's Smile.

Speaker 5 (49:01):
I believe it was at Green on Sara. We had
three out three drummers on that record.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Well, based on them drum fills, I hope that you
know Ed Greham of Barry White fame and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
And also on bass h Leland.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Clark, Yes, yes, and we had Scotti Edwards as well
on the.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Base and here's Steve right back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
I love when you're using when you're using these uh,
these monster musicians, like can you just because I will
also say that consistent levels. But once you get to
the Faces album that you guys capture and consistent you know,
I know that musicians were quote unquote diamond doesn't in

(49:48):
the seventies and whatnot, But how do you is it
just a matter of whoever's available, or is there a
particular musician that you're looking for to give you a
particul or it sound like, how do you grab the
musician that you want and how do you know who's
the best guy to use?

Speaker 5 (50:06):
You know, musicians through their reputation obviously, you know. But
the Silver album that won with Sarah Small on it,
that was the first album that we made in California.
We made that in LA. And we made that in
LA for a reason. We had an interest for Bond,
who was actually from Philadelphia, who was in our band

(50:26):
very briefly, and he went to LA to try to
make his mark as a session player and a producer.
And after the Todd Runggern album when that didn't connect,
and you know, we realized that wasn't the right direction either,
he said, you guys should come to LA because I've
got great musicians, I've got the best studios. Come out here,
and we should make the record out here. And so

(50:46):
we took a leap of faith. We just said, hey, man,
why not and we went to We went to California,
and you know, in the mid seventies in California, they
did have the best recording studios in the country. It
was all the best recording technologies, best engineers, and Chris found,
uh you know, he found he was friends with Ed
Green and and he brought in Lee Scarr and you know,

(51:09):
we had Jeff Bercaro, and we had who was it
who else on drums, Jim Keltner. Yeah, we had all
all sorts of amazing musicians and they were all available
because we were in LA. So it was definitely it
was definitely a new experience to be in l A
and record with those guys. And yeah, we got great
results and we made three albums in LA.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
So there was was there truth to the rumor that
you guys were initially going to do something for the
Rocky soundtrack because of the Philly connection at one point
for the first movie.

Speaker 5 (51:43):
Yeah, there was a song called Grounds for Separation. Grounds
for Separation was on on that album and uh so
Lesser Stallone. Uh he used that song as temp music
in the in the in the movie when they were editing.
And you know how it, you know it is with
a film. If you start using music, you kind of

(52:03):
you kind of get get married to it and you
can't demo.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
That's the movie game.

Speaker 5 (52:10):
You know, I have no idea why it didn't happen,
but it was a big mistake.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Your Oh it's nail on the matole. Okay, all right,
I don't know you know what, I.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
Don't know who. I don't know who thought that was
wasn't a good idea. But whoever thought it wasn't a
good idea wasn't too sure. Actually asked Daryl about that. Yes,
Darrel about that?

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Who have a good I will ask Darryl about that? Okay, Well, okay,
for what I what I'm allowed to ask about him
was were you his first clients? Yes, okay, so you
had him when he was like a twenty year old,
like out of college or something.

Speaker 5 (52:59):
Well, let's if you can, if we can wind back
a little bit to that story I told you about
when we were going from Philly to New York auditioning
at Chapel Music. On one of those trips, when we
went and played our new songs for Chapel Music when
we were songwriters, this young kid, Tommy Mattola was in
the room. He was a song plugger for Chapel Music

(53:20):
at the time, and after one of those sessions he
came up to it said, well, you know, what do
you guys, what's what's your deal? And we're like, we
don't have a deal, and we got nothing going on.
We're you know, we're playing our songs for people. People
seem to like him, but nothing's happening. He goes, let
me see if I can help you, and that's how

(53:41):
he became our manager. He basically he had never managed
anybody in his life, and he was just a He
was the same age as us, and you know, we
were in our twenties early twenties, and he said, I
think I can help you, and he started to help us.
And when we wanted to break out of our deal
with that guy and Philly, we he kind of helped

(54:02):
us with that, and that's how he became our manager for.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
The Bigger and both of us records that has a
rich girl on Can I ask was it was your label?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Ever?

Speaker 2 (54:17):
Do they ever ask you, guys to slightly change the
lyric to get on radio. I'm only okay, I'm only
asking this, and I hate bringing up the story. When
you're young and you live with strict parents, it's not
like it comes with a manual on words that you're

(54:37):
allowed to say and not allowed to say, it's just that,
you know, it's a curse word if you get hit
and you said the word and didn't.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
Know it was a curse word. So of course I'm
reading the song lyrics and I kept singing it's a
bitch girl, and I sat, oh wow.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
Yeah, okay, okay, let's let's think about that. Let's think
about that in the context of the music that's out
there today.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
I'm not blaming off for it.

Speaker 5 (55:03):
No, no, no, I'm not. I'm laughing about it because
it seems so silly to me. It's like crazy and
you okay, so you know what they you know what?
You know what happened with that? It was okay, here,
here's here's I messed up the music businesses. It was
okay for the album cut, but the single. We had
to change it for the single. So they they they

(55:24):
made Daryl go in the studio and sing brich. He
had to put an R in the words. If you
listen to this single, it's britch. You can barely tell,
but it's there. And so just by doing that, that
was okay. It was so stupid.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
I guess the intention was bitch.

Speaker 5 (55:47):
I'm confused.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Way the intention was bitch? Yeah, the lyric was bitch,
but you couldn't say that, you.

Speaker 7 (55:53):
Couldn't on the radio and all my life, I did
not all my life and all my life.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
What do you think it was? She's a girl?

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, but then then he goes back and says, it's
a bitch girl.

Speaker 5 (56:05):
He does.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
You know what?

Speaker 7 (56:07):
Okay, I'm not the only one that in this moment.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Are you familiar with the Philippe when One of a
Kind love and fair story?

Speaker 5 (56:18):
No, I'm not familiar to the story, but he's one
of my favorite singers of all time.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Yeah, No, he's He's definitely out there. He did a
rogue move. I always wanted to know when how did
he get kicked out the group? And this they can
get it kicked out the group. But this sort of
put the group on high alert that he could be rogue.
So the next time you listen to One of a

(56:43):
Kind of Love affair towards the end, I had gotten
a forty five of this maybe back in nineteen ninety seven,
and I saw that it said edited version, and at first, no, no,
it said un censored version, censored version, And in my mind,

(57:04):
I'm like, wait, this is the Spinners, not n W
A like what could be censored on the Spinners thing?
And I happen to ask somebody who used to work
at Atlantic, and they told me the story that basically
Felipe in the very last rounds of that libs one
of the kind of affairs he says, you know you

(57:26):
want to love Hut, you just gotta fuck her, And yeah,
he got away with it. I think they got away
with it for like eleven weeks and then suddenly the
FCC started, you know, like someone caught.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
It on the radio and then like kind of shit
and he and he didn't deny it at all, So.

Speaker 5 (57:52):
You know, I like him even more now.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
So could you could you talk about in your opinion,
because you guys won't basically have kind of hit your
stride at least with the hits until four years later.
So that period in between, like with the Nigga Bays
record with Beauty on Backstreet and uh, the the Livetime

(58:19):
record like oh and also the I think Ecstatic for
those five records, what was generally happening with you guys
and in terms of where he wanted to go.

Speaker 5 (58:35):
And yeah, I can I can tell exactly what's happened.
So we went down the La do that silver album
and it was successful with Sarah Smile. Then she She's Done.
That was successful. Then Rich Girl came on the next
one that was successful. So I so we were a
role and we were playing bigger you know, bigger arenas
and things like that. Then came the Beauty on a

(58:55):
Backstreet novel. And what happened was and I can I
can tell this story because you know, God bless him.
Chrispaond had passed away a few years ago. He was
a brilliant musician and producer, but he was a very,
very damaged individual, and as we got more successful, hegan
to lose it and he began to overindulge in substance abuse.

(59:20):
So when we went out to do the third album,
which ended up being Beauty on a Backstreet, he was
very very iraq. In fact, we had to cancel sessions
because he passed out. It was cracked his head on
the on the control, you know, on the on the console,
and UH got to be taken a hospital. It was
it was a bad scene and so he barely made

(59:42):
through the album. And that album, to me, is the
darkest thing we've ever done. And I don't really care
for it, and I never listened to that record ever.
So what happened was because we had no hits and
that record wasn't very successful, we kind of, you know,
kind of fell off the radar a little bit and there.
And I think one of the smartest things we ever
did during that period of time was we said, you know,

(01:00:05):
we've been recording all our albums with studio musicians and
it's been great, but what we really need is a
great live band, and we need a live band that's
so good that we can take that same band into
the studio. And at the time, right at that time,
Elton John was just finishing up the Yellow Brick Road,
and we made friends with the Elton John band, which

(01:00:26):
was Caleb Quay, Kenny Passilli, and Roger Pope, and we
basically adopted them, and all of a sudden, we had
this kick ass live band that we could take into
the studio, and we did this album called Along the
Red Ledge right, and we had a lot of guests
on that album, and we bring David Foster, who had

(01:00:48):
never produced a record before. We were his first artists
David Foster ever produced.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Oh this is the year before After the Love is
Going so okay. So he worked with you guys first, and.

Speaker 5 (01:00:58):
I got to tell you about it After Love Is
Gone too, because when we were getting ready to do
the album with David Foster, he said, I got a
song for you guys. Boy, oh yeah, and he said
here check he had written it with Dave Graydon, yes,
And so he sat Me and Darrel were sitting in

(01:01:18):
his living room and he played it on the piano
and he can't sing for ship, but he's an amazing
Danna player, and he was singing and he was doing
after the Love Is Gone, and we're like, yeah, yeah,
I know vocals due. I mean, if you hear if
you think about it now, you can hear us do

(01:01:39):
it many major mistakes in our career.

Speaker 7 (01:01:47):
What did you think about when you heard the Earth
Winning I was just curious.

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
And he went and did it with earth Wind and Fire.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
When you you heard Earth Win five version, was that like?
Did did you get it then?

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
In a way that maybe you didn't get when when
David trying to sing it.

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
I got it the first time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
It's also fronte.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
It's also a little weird because even Philip himself says
that that song for him was sort of like, yeah,
it was a success, but you know, you also got
to understand that Charles Stephanie just died and they I'm
not saying they got back. It's weird to think of
all in all as the earthword and fire gets by

(01:02:28):
off the skin of their teeth. But just the fact
that Marie was able to make that record without Charles
and still do something lind blowing so wanted he had
that one record in him and then you know, called
him for David to help him. But I remember a
lot of fans kind of feeling the same way about

(01:02:52):
After the Love Is Going is maybe like about cool
in the Gang's here celebration or like yeah, it's like that.
But now I think about it, man, it had all
had all of it done after the Love Is Going,
I think that that would have with the right musicianship,

(01:03:12):
that probably could have just ousted Bobby Callwell.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Just as far as love the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Definitive slow jam like yeah the Blue Eye like that, I.

Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
Mean, yeah, we would have crushed it.

Speaker 7 (01:03:30):
But it speaks to David Foster because the song was
banging either way.

Speaker 5 (01:03:33):
Hey listen, Dave. David Foster wrote a great so he's
an incredibly talented amazing guy, but he wasn't right for
us as a producer. But at least, you know, we
did get to work with him for a couple of albums.
And then you mentioned Static. We brought David to New
York to record that record because we didn't want to
be in l A anymore. And he in the middle

(01:03:53):
of that record, he said, what am I doing here?
You guys are making this record yourself. You don't need me.
And that was the last time we ever us an
outside producer.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
It's almost like you guys became a brand new group
with the Voices record.

Speaker 5 (01:04:09):
Another another career misstep. Really we uh we We were
finally back in New York where we wanted to be,
and we had a band that could that we finally
achieved what we knew we needed to do. We had
developed a live band that could play live and kick
ass and we could take them in the studio and that.

(01:04:31):
But we were also producing ourselves. There was no one
else except us in the engineer and so we did it.
We made the kind of record we wanted to make,
and I think it was just a very inspiring time.
Great musicians, great songs, and it was just it was
it was happening. We were we were glad to be
out of LA and I think that we had a

(01:04:53):
New York had a big energy in nineteen eighty, you know,
and we kind of tapped into it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Speaking speaking of your bands, you know, by that point
at least, that to me was like the last era
of musicianship where not only did you care about the artists,
but you also cared for their band too. And you
guys had a really charismatic band. Longtime fans will instantly

(01:05:21):
recognize that. You know, the great g Smith was your
guitar player long before he was a Yeah, the SNL
musical director of like the eighties and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Also Tom t boam Walk.

Speaker 5 (01:05:39):
One of the greatest of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Dude, do you know how crust I was so Steve?
Do you remember they were coming.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
On the ninth show to perform and they had to
cancel because we booked you in twenty ten and Tom
had passed.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
The morning the morning of Yes, but could you talk
about that band, but just your whole.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Just your whole crew by that point, like is eighty
when you sort of solidified that band.

Speaker 5 (01:06:16):
Yeah, that's when it started. That's when that band jailed
right after the Voices album and that band uh Here
again was finally the you know, we still were in
that search for that ultimate band that could play live
and be in the studio and that that's when we
found h. Ge joined us first, and he brought in

(01:06:36):
Mickey Curry on drums. Right. Mickey was a friend of
his who had played in bar bands with him, and
Mickey had never played in a professional band other than
you know before us. When we had Ge and Mickey.
It's kind of a funny story. We were looking for
a bass player and we we did some auditions at
s I R. I don't know if you got time

(01:06:57):
for this.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
But totally.

Speaker 5 (01:07:00):
We were looking. We had Ge and Mickey and we
really needed it. We knew we needed a really great
bass player and we had done some auditions and most
of the guys were not up to up to it.
And we had come down to two guys and there
was this one kid from Long Island. He was tall
and skinny, he had a great haircut, he was a
good looking guy. And then there was Tom Woke who

(01:07:25):
had not been named t Bone yet. He was just
Tom Woke, right, and he was kind of a you know,
he kind of wore flannel shirts and a cap, and
he lived in Austin and New York. And you know,
they were both really good players, right. We didn't you know,
we didn't play with them a lot, but we we
kind of tested them out. So it came down to
these two guys. Right, so we finally had the finals.

(01:07:46):
We had the we're gonna have the audition between these
two bass players. So the guy comes in, the kid
from Long Island, the good looking guy comes in, and
he was kind of cocky. He felt like he had
the gig. And you know, we played a couple of
songs and he was good. You know, so after and
T Bone came in, No, no, I'm sorry, hold on.
T Bone came in first and he played. He was amazing,

(01:08:09):
and he left. And then the other kid came in
and he played, and after he was done, he felt
like he really was in the band. And I remember
he turned around to us and he said, actually turned
around to Darryl and we were sitting around, and he said, hey, Daryl,
when I'm in the band, I think I should sing
kiss on my list. And remember Daryl turned abound and said, hey, John,

(01:08:31):
go get the balld guy.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
You're serious.

Speaker 5 (01:08:37):
Yeah, Darrel said, let's get the ball guy, and that's
how we got That's how we got t Bone man.
It was the best decision we ever made.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Ever talked to himself out a gig. Wow, he didn't eat.

Speaker 5 (01:08:53):
Was he serious or just don't know whether he was
serious or not. But if he wasn't serious, it was
an asshole. So it doesn't matter word.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
One voice is the original voice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
The original version of every Time You Go Away was
on that record? Yeah, Was that ever released as a
single off that record? Was that just an album cut?

Speaker 5 (01:09:17):
It was? It was the last track on the B side.
And you know, back in the days when you're making
vinyl records, the last track on the B side was
was either the art record that you couldn't fit anywhere
else or it was like the throwaway record, and he
didn't think of it. If you listen to our version,
it sounds like a Stone Stacks, Volt Stamm and Dave track.

(01:09:40):
I mean it is. It's real, authentic and real raw.
And you know, to give Paul Young credit, those guys
heard it and they turned it into a great pop song.
But but if you listen to our version, our versions,
I think is great too. But it's not a single.
It's not a pop single.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Longtime QLs head should also know that piano Palladino is
playing based on the Paul Young version of every Time
You Go Away.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Why were they two album covers for voices?

Speaker 5 (01:10:16):
Because because we were trying to control everything, we didn't
want the record company to tell us what to do,
so we made our own album covers black and white.
And we didn't know what to do. So we took
a picture of Darryl and a picture of me and
we tore him in half and we pasted it together
and we sent it to the record company, said put
this on the cover, and they they didn't want to
do it, but they did it because they had to

(01:10:37):
they because we made them do it. And what happened
was the record got released. We were really popular in
Japan at the time and they we were going to
do the Japanese tour, and the Japanese record company said,
we hate this record album cover, and so they made
their own album cover without telling us. So when we
got to Japan, there was that album cover with me

(01:10:58):
with the pink pants, right yeah, and the Japanese people
they had that picture. It was a publicity picture there
and they just stuck it on the album. They didn't
even tell us, and we said, hey, what, so we
get to Japan, we have a new we have a
new album cover, and so that's so. Then America re
released the album with that Japanese cover.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
That's crazy because I like the black and white version better.

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
That's because you have good taste with.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
The transition of the eighties, were you guys thinking about,
you know, the versioning new wave movement or the stuff
that like Gary Numan was doing with drum machine technology
and whatnot, Like how how is modern technology coming into
to play with the band?

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
Starting with that, because I think it was notable to
not just use the drum machine as a click track,
but to actually make it part of the song.

Speaker 5 (01:11:55):
Were we were using something called a rolling comfy rhythm.
It was a little wooden little wooden box, little square box.
It had four presets rock one rock, two bossa Nova
and samba, and you had a rotary knob that would
you could adjust the tempo by a rotary nob. But
it didn't tell you how what the temple was. It
was just you just had a feeling. We would use

(01:12:17):
that for a feel for just when we were trying
you know, kind of going over the track and trying
to get the right tempo, the right field. What happened
with Kiss on My List. Kiss on My List was
never intended to be on the record. That was a
song that Daryl wrote with Jana Allen, who was Sarah's sister,
who was a young song writer, and she came up

(01:12:38):
with the idea. Daryl helped her with it, and she
wanted to make a record. So it was at the
end of one of our sessions for voices and we
were all done for the day and Darrel said, let me,
let me just make this demo for jam because you know,
I promised her i'd, you know, lay it down for her.
So he went in on the piano with the with

(01:12:59):
the rhythm hit rock one, you know, and you know,
and he just played the song. So we didn't want
to waste tape, so we recorded it at fifteen ips
instead of thirty ips because it was a throwaway. It
was a demo, So after it was done, it was
just the piano and the copy rhythm and we played it.

(01:13:22):
I guess Darrek played it, might have played it for
Tommy Mattola or someone, and everybody flipped out. And said,
that's amazing. You guys got to cut this. So we
didn't really want to recut it because it sounded really
good the way it was. It was on fifteen ips,
So the song has this kind of warbly thickness to it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Yes, it does.

Speaker 5 (01:13:41):
And all we did was add add a couple of
instruments to it, bass, guitar, you know, some little pads,
and that's the way we put it out. So it
really it was supposed to be a demo and that's
why we kept a copy rhythm on it, just like that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:57):
I always wanted to know go on my forty five.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
On my forty five of Kiss on My List, I
believe the B side was Africa. Is that you guys
doing a sort of a your Bo Diddley homage there?

Speaker 3 (01:14:14):
Or Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:14:16):
That was my That was my song that I wrote
for my girlfriend at the time, who was a model
working around the world, and she was she was in Africa,
and I just.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Thought it was kind of funny Africa.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Yeah, like I don't know, it was kind of feel Yeah,
Africa was just one of those songs where I constantly
had it on rotation on my forty five. You know,
if you put the arm over to the right. Then
you're gonna have the song repeat over and over and
over again. And I just always remembered, like the summer
of nineteen eighty, like that was always the I just

(01:14:50):
always kept it on the B side for the Private
Eyes record. All right, I got to cut to the
chase man, you know. And due to the lasting power
of it to this day, you know, DJ gigs are
not complete for half of America's DJ days.

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
If I can't go for that is not.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
Played, Could you please give us the story of how
that song came to be because it's such it's such
a reverence the way that it's just stripped down and
sounds sounds so revolutionary.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
That the session was over, everyone had gone. Me, Darryl
and the engineer were in the studio and we were
an electric lady. And Darryl walked out into the studio
with the electric piano and here again the rolling Company rhythm,
which always sat on his pianel, so we could basically
work through tracks. And he had an idea. I guess

(01:15:49):
he had that idea in his head, but he never
said anything to me or anybody. It was just maybe
something that was just going around his head. And he
hit rock one and whatever tempo was on it, I
don't know whatever that was said at and he just
started playing his left hand. He just started playing bong

(01:16:09):
and unmo dong goo goom go, and then he started
playing and then he said, man, hey, John, get your guitar.
And I got the guitar and he actually suggested to
me to play this line. He goes play play. I
muted like a like a funk line, and I stuck
turning unt dunt, dunlearn it throw, and all of a sudden,

(01:16:29):
it just like went like this. You know, it was like, okay,
there's this does need anything? This is like it right here.
It's the left hand of the keyboard, the guitar thing,
and that was it on that song. The only thing
that's on that song is is the keyboard, the guitar,
sax solo and one synthesizer thing right and and then

(01:16:55):
background vocals. That's the whole song was.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Whose idea was to make it sound as stripped down
because to me, that drum machine is such a radical
sound to it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
I mean, there's two versions of it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
The twelve inch has more brighter drum mixed to it,
but the album cut version.

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
I can't describe to me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
It was almost like an improved version of the drums
that slide was.

Speaker 5 (01:17:33):
That album you know, there's lit going on. That had
that same quality to it that you said. It was
stripped down and raw and it was dry. There was
just this thing. I mean sometimes when when you know
you don't have to have a lot if it's the
right combination of you know, of tonalities. When you get
the right tonalities and they're not fighting each other, they

(01:17:56):
all have their place, you know, they got they're all
in the right place. That's all you need. You don't
need anything else. And I think we were We were
smart enough to realize that it was the groove was
was was major and it was just that was it.
That's all you needed.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
No One told you, guys like this group might be
undercooked a little bit, like it needs something else or nobody.

Speaker 5 (01:18:19):
Nobody told us anything because we never let.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Anyone in the studio. I love it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:25):
Just the engineer engineering the band. Yeah, no record comfort people.

Speaker 8 (01:18:30):
It's the great engineers from Electric Lady. I don't know
what's what's going on, must be something in the water
over there. I have a question for you. John was
private eyed the first album that you did go to
Electric Lady forks. I know you went there for a
few Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:18:44):
I think we did voices at the Hit Factory. I'm
pretty sure voices was done at the Hit Factory. Uh.
And then we started Private Eye at the Hit Factory.
And Darryl and I both lived in the village. We
both lived very very close to Eighth Street, and we
just wanted to walk to the studio. That's that's why
we picked Electric Ladio. We wanted to be able to walk.

(01:19:05):
I wanted to be able to walk to the studio
and walk to Balducci's and that was that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
Was that was the criteria for for for me, at
least my era of Electric Lady.

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
There's this you know, revered thing for.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
For Hendrix, like wow, was the House of Indrix. But
back then was it like that or was it just like, Hey,
there's a studio on Eighth Street, let's just go there
and make a record. Yeah, yeah, I mean sure didn't
have a vibe to it.

Speaker 5 (01:19:35):
It was, Yeah, it had a vibe. There was no doubt.
It was at a vibe. And Eddie Kramer used to
used to pop in and out, uh, you know, and
and you know, you walk in there and there was
that big mural that went down the hallway, psychedelic mural.
But but the reality was it was on a street
and we could walk to it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
So okay, it almost took ten years for you to
reach the promise of what you were I guess initially
planning on doing back in the early Atlantic days. But
as a duo, Like, how are you two getting along
with this newfound success?

Speaker 5 (01:20:10):
We've always gotten along really well. We we we really
leave each other alone. You know. Back in the early days,
you know, we were together constantly and traveling constantly always,
you know, everything was shared. But as we got older
and as we got more successful, you know, we lived
separate lives with separate families, you know. And but but
we you know, we met as teenagers. So it's almost

(01:20:33):
like a brotherhood. You know, it's almost like it's a
family thing. You know, we don't have to even talk.
We can be a part for long periods of time,
and we get together and it's like time stops. It's
it's a very unusual thing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:20:46):
And it's amazing, to be honest with you, that we
were still able to work together. You know, we we
do our own thing. We do separate projects. Uh, you know,
I'm gonna I'm doing a tour next week, actually an
acoustic tour with a guitar player friend of mine here
in Nashville, And Darryl's going to do a tour. He's
doing some a new solo album tour, and then we'll

(01:21:10):
come back and play together, you know, probably over the summer.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
So you know, I know that, I for one, am
very tired of anytime someone sees me alone in public,
nine times out of ten they're going to ask me
where's the rest of the guys at.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
Where's the band? I'm almost certain you get asked more
every day.

Speaker 5 (01:21:33):
Yeah, where's all?

Speaker 10 (01:21:35):
You know they think that they think that we just
you know, we're just well, you know, our company is
called Two Headed Monster, So that gives you an idea
of what, you know, what it's all about.

Speaker 5 (01:21:46):
I remember one time I was sitting in a dressing room,
and it wasn't long ago, sitting in a dressing room
and I was by myself in the dressing room, and
one of these security guys at the venue stuck his
head in dressing and goes and he looked at me.
There was nobody else in the room, he said, which
one of you guys is holding oats? I said, I said,

(01:22:08):
I guess, I guess that's me.

Speaker 3 (01:22:10):
I don't know, all right. So for H two, oh,
first of all, while on this streak, what is the
what is the pressure like for you?

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Like going into prived, I said, it's like, damn, we
got to top you know, voices And with HGO it's like,
oh man, we had like four top ten singles with
the Privateized record. Like, are you feeling the pressure at
the time or is it still like we still have

(01:22:44):
to prove ourselves or do you now feel like by
this point at least like you've arrived.

Speaker 5 (01:22:50):
I think, well, we definitely felt like we arrived. We
felt like we were doing the right thing. You know,
we had to achieve what we wanted to achieve, were
producing ourselves, had the band that we wanted that we
could take live and be in the studio, and we
thought that that's we were there and things were rolling.
You know, the band was amazing, the vibe was amazing,

(01:23:12):
We're writing really great songs. And I don't think that
there was no exterior pressure. We didn't have pressure from
the record company. I mean it might have been there.
We never let it get to us. We just just
wanted to make a great record and we just went
in there and did it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
I've heard rumors of it, but can you tell me
whether or not. I don't know if it happened that
we are the World Sessions or whatever. Was it truth
to the rumor that Michael Jackson actually told you guys
that Billy Jean was inspired by the DNA of I

(01:23:48):
can't go for that.

Speaker 5 (01:23:49):
That. He didn't say that to me. He may have
said that to Darryl. He did say. He came backstage
with his brothers when we were playing in California in
LA and he said, he said, I can't go for that.
It's my favorite song to dance too. He goes, I dance,
he goes, I work out all my dance routines to
that grouve. So just that and that alone kind of

(01:24:11):
tells you that if he liked it that much, he
must have said to himself, Man, I'm gonna write something
sounds like that.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
Yeah, what about so with That's what that said? Man
Eater and part Time.

Speaker 3 (01:24:22):
Lover, Oh, what are your thoughts on on that?

Speaker 5 (01:24:28):
You know, Man, I wrote the chorus of man Eater
as a reggae song because I had come back from
Jamaica and wrote I wrote it as I wrote it
as a reggae song.

Speaker 11 (01:24:44):
It was like it was like it was like you know,
and so.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
I wrote, it's like like lovers rock kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (01:25:01):
Yeah, and I and I and I played it for
Darryl and he was like, man, he goes, I love this,
he goes, he goes, I don't know, man, he goes,
I don't know if reggae groove is right for Hallos.
And I said, well, what do you got? And he
went on, gone, gone, gone, okay. And I mean, at
least that was smart enough to listen to him.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
You know the question I always wanted to know. All right,
this is more of an arrangement question.

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
Sometimes there will there will be some songs that get
released and in your mind and retrospect in your mind,
you think that the course happens a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
Great example is.

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Uh uh Fonte, the the rock Master Scott and the
Dynamic Threes. The roof is on fire like of course
that powerful, but it only gets said once in the song.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
And that's like.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
That's what I said, Yeah, you gotta gotta you gotta
wait five minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:26:07):
Before it even gets to that part.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
And for me, a song like one on one, I
always swore to God that the whole back and forth
between you and Darryl a fan.

Speaker 3 (01:26:20):
I get to night one on what a fan I
get you? Nah, Like that only happens once.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Yet in my mind, that's that's a course that just
goes on and on, which is so tricky.

Speaker 3 (01:26:35):
Whoh and that's a very intricate Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
That song has a lot of intricate background parts, like
whose idea was it too? I'm surprised that it was
a hit because you guys didn't take the easy route
and just saying the easy part of the course, but
there were other sub courses in there.

Speaker 5 (01:26:55):
We really pride ourselves on those background arrangements. And that's
a Philly thing. I mean, that's really that's coming from
that doop background vocal thing. And if you listen to
some of our songs, and I think a lot of
people don't realize this, but a lot of our songs,
the hook is actually the background part. Yes, it's it's

(01:27:16):
very unusual. People don't realize that, but the hook, like
We're out of touch, that's just a giant background vocal
and the lead is bouncing off the backgrounds. We do
that a lot, and that's a thing, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
You want to know how I know that that's true.
Maybe five years ago I got the Master two. I
can't go for that, And just as an experiment, I
took the vocals and put them over where the background
should be, and I took the backgrounds and put them
where the vocals were.

Speaker 3 (01:27:49):
Yeah me to this, no, yeah, yeah to this day.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
I mean I've been playing it and my DJ sets
to see if one person notices that Darryl singing over
the chorus music and the chorus is over it. Not
one person has noticed it yet. And that's all the
only version I played.

Speaker 5 (01:28:09):
That's cool. I didn't realize that's that I'd like. I
would like to hear that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
How did you guys get Family Man from Mike Oldfield?

Speaker 5 (01:28:18):
That was a that was just an accident. We were
making the record and one of our roadies are keyboard
tech who was helping us with keyboards. He came in
one day and he said, hey man. He was a
big Mikeae Oldfield fan, and he said, I heard this
new Michae Oldfield record. He goes, and there's a vocal

(01:28:39):
on it. Because Michae Oldfield was predominantly instrumental, and he said,
there's this cool song with this girl singing this vocal
this vocal tune, and he said, you guys got to
hear it. And we just played it for fun in
the studio and we went, wow, we should cut that,
and we did. We just cut it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
I also remember you did two versions of that video.
One version was like extremely long, like it was almost
like again the early days of MTV where they just
need a lot of content. I definitely remember, Yes, it
cut like ten versions of Leave It.

Speaker 3 (01:29:17):
But there was two versions of.

Speaker 8 (01:29:22):
I'm just I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, Well, Gotti and Cream.

Speaker 8 (01:29:29):
Re mixes of Owner of a Lonely Heart too, Like
there's one hundred mixes.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
Trevor wasn't messing around, Trevor Warren. Yeah, but I remember
you guys did two versions of an extended version of
Family Man, which is like eight nine minutes long.

Speaker 5 (01:29:49):
And yeah, yeah, we were always doing club mixes, you
know on some of those records.

Speaker 3 (01:29:55):
Did you have anything to do with that? You and
Darryl or did somebody else?

Speaker 5 (01:29:58):
Just well, the first club mix that we had success
with was for Satis and so with jelly Bean Benitas, right,
Billy did that one, and then we then the really
extreme stuff that we did later on on the on
the Big Bamboom Mountain by Arthur Baker.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
And an important summit meeting of a record you were
part of USA for Africas we are the world?

Speaker 3 (01:30:23):
What was what was that experience?

Speaker 5 (01:30:26):
Like Quincy Jones and Lena Richie and Michael Jackson, they
were smart because they knew that it was the American
Music Awards were going on in LA. And then back
in those days, you know, you only had two things.
You had the American Music Awards and the Grammys. They
were really it was not a million different award shows
like there is today. And so they knew that everybody

(01:30:47):
kind of who was anybody in pop music was going
to be in LA for American Music Awards because you
pretty much everybody went. So they just said they they
sent invitations to everybody to select people to come to
the studio at A and M after the awards, and
the invitation said no managers, no agents, no hangers on,

(01:31:09):
just come, just come. And there was a green room
out in the lobby for all the people. You know,
the all the other folks and just the artists were
allowed in and that was the that was brilliant because
all the artists left their hair down. You know, there
was no hangers on and agents and managers trying to
you know, control anybody, and everybody just got real. Everybody

(01:31:32):
got real. And I you know, I remember they had
little names on on the these little steps where we
all stood for the chorus, and I had I had
Ray Charles was right in front of me off my
left shoulder, and Bob Dylan was right behind me on
my right shoulder, and I was just looking. I was

(01:31:52):
you know, you know, through the years, I think I've
tried to be more very aware of certain moments when
when I realized that maybe this is something that you know,
couldn't might never happen again. And I remember very distinctly
being very aware of what was happening, where I was
and what was going on, and I thought to myself,

(01:32:13):
this is a very unique thing. And I don't know
if you can see it or not, but I'll show
it to you.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
Oh, everyone signed.

Speaker 5 (01:32:25):
Everybody sign it. I think this is the only copy
that exists. I mean, and I mean everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
So we're looking at the sheet music and everyone's signature
from We.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
Are the World.

Speaker 5 (01:32:39):
That's amazing and for once, for once, I had the
presence of mind to go around and get.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
Everybody, oh yeah else.

Speaker 5 (01:32:47):
Even got Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder to sign this thing.

Speaker 3 (01:32:49):
So that's myself. How long was the process for you?

Speaker 5 (01:32:57):
It was a couple of hours. But you know what
we did was we just sang the chorus. We said,
we all sang the chorus in unison, and we said, okay,
everybody just throw a harmony part on and you know,
of course he had a good room for the great singers,
so everybody just picked apart, sang a third third of
you know, octaves or whatever it was, and uh, and
then everybody broke down and then they did all the

(01:33:17):
the solo solo stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:33:20):
So the backgrounds were done. First one went home first year.

Speaker 5 (01:33:24):
And it didn't it didn't take long, It really didn't.
There was a couple of little snap There was a
couple of little issues where you know, you know, you
put a bunch of a list talent in the same
room and somebody's gonna think they're gonna start producing, and uh.
There was a couple of little things where I won't
mention any names, but Stevie.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
Yeah, we we had we had Hughey Lewis on this show.

Speaker 5 (01:33:52):
Did he tell you the same story?

Speaker 10 (01:33:54):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
No, no, No, I don't know. I know, yeah, what's your story?
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:34:02):
Stevie made some suggestions he he thought would be a
good idea, and it kind of kind of derailed the
whole thing because they were trying to get a lot done,
you know. And uh and finally, you know, Quincy Jones
just came out from behind the console, you know, behind
the glass, and he just once Quincy came out, it
was like and I remember, I think I think Ray
Charles said something like, hey man, I think he said,

(01:34:25):
as I recall, he said, it is his line on
Michael's song. Let's just do it the way they want.
And that was and that was it. Once once he
said that, everything kind of.

Speaker 7 (01:34:33):
Got imagine Stevie versus Ray.

Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
I just love it.

Speaker 7 (01:34:39):
I know they were friends, and I know it's all
in fun sounds hilarious.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
Wait you guys. Were you guys also on the sun
City record as well? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:34:47):
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
I don't know, was that recording them the same way
or was.

Speaker 5 (01:34:51):
It just like no, that was all the individual stuff. Yeah,
it was a group thing, but it was small groups.
I think Stephen brought different people to and it was
all done in New York in a small studio in
the city.

Speaker 2 (01:35:04):
You know, you guys are basically the gold standard, like
for you was it Were there any regrets of that period,
in that rise of being at the top of your game,
of having like number one singles, number one albums, Has
there been something that you haven't achieved or was that

(01:35:28):
you could have redone or something.

Speaker 3 (01:35:30):
I think think that.

Speaker 5 (01:35:31):
People perhaps to realize that when you have this mega
success like that in the pop world, the biggest thing
that you lose is time. You lose time, and you
lose you lose yourself because there's so much demands on
your time for obviously to make the music, to promote

(01:35:52):
the music, to tour, to play live, to write new songs.
It just never seemed to end, really and I think
when we got it right after, you know, we did
we did three things that were really big. We did
We Are the World. We did Live Time Live AID
in Philadelphia at Veteran Stadium, and we headlined that with

(01:36:13):
you know, with Jagger and Tina Turner and uh, and
Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin, and then we did we
and we had done the Apollo Theater show, right, and
we also had Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin. Once we
had done those three things, I think Darryl and I
actually looked at each other and said, what more could
we boss? Had? We had more success than we could

(01:36:37):
have ever dreamed of. We had, as you said, number
one records tour of the world, you know, on the
top of the pop charts. And I think we I
think we were smart. I think we realized that there
was only one way to go from there, and.

Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
That was down.

Speaker 5 (01:36:51):
Because I don't think you can sustain that sort of success.
I think it's very difficult. Very few people can sustain
that sort of success for a lengthy period of time.
And I think what we did was we stepped away.
And maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to do from
a business point of view. Commercially, of course it wasn't,
But it was a smart thing to do for psychic life,

(01:37:15):
you know, for life.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
How you know how difficult or challenging was it to
pull off the Kendrick and Ruffin.

Speaker 3 (01:37:31):
Project, because you know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:34):
I've read a lot of autobiographies of various Temptation members,
and you know, they don't look too fondly of that
that reunion album that came out in nineteen eighty one,
So I don't know, I would assume that, you know,
when they're doing this album with you in nineteen eighty

(01:37:54):
four eighty five, that the sort of Temptations proposed seven
member reunion thing went a bust and they both want
their separate ways to do the separate projects.

Speaker 3 (01:38:07):
But for you, what was it like? You know, I
know that you.

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
Two were big Temptations fans, but at the time, you know,
was it rose colored glasses like it was exciting or
maybe I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:38:23):
We we were asked to reopen the Apollo after the
Apollo had been closed for a bit for to be renovated, renovated,
and it was a big you know, we Darren and
I felt like it was a big honor. It was
a you know, it was a charity event. It was
in New York City, obviously, and it was a big
honor to be asked, you know, to reopen the Apollo,
and we want to do something special, and so what

(01:38:45):
we wanted to do was we wanted to go back
to the so some of the music that kind of
brought me and Darryl together back in the sixties, and
that was our mutual love for the Temptations and Eddie,
you know, Eddie was Eddie's was a sweetheart. Eddie was
playing in holiday inns in Alabama. David was David was

(01:39:06):
a He was very challenging, challenging individual, and but we
managed to corral them together and we told them flat
out and they said, look, here's what we want to do.
We want to try to replicate the thing that we
remember as teenagers when you guys were at your peak.
We want to wear the suits, we want to do

(01:39:28):
the steps, we want to do the whole thing. And
we're on the stage at the Apollo. We want to
we want to try to recapture for that moment. And
it was really kind of in a way, I mean
not in a way, it was really it was really
me and Daryl wanting to to have that experience of
performing with our teenage idols on the stage and kind

(01:39:50):
of having this and to be honest with you, it
was it was one of the most amazing things I've
ever done, because it was like time had stopped and
instead of me being in my bedroom trying to do
the Temptation steps and singing those songs, I was on
the stage at the Apollo doing it with them, and
they were so cool about it, and they wanted to
do it so authentically. If you if you watch the steps,

(01:40:12):
they are exactly the same choreography. And it was just
one of those things. And honest to God, it was
a psychedelic moment. And by that, I don't mean taking drugs.
What I mean is is that I felt like I
was watching myself. I felt like gone out of my
body and I was watching myself do that. And it

(01:40:34):
was really something that I don't think I could ever
you know, really well, I can't really describe it any
other bit way in that, but it was just something
that was just very very And that's when me and
Daryl decided to step away after that. It was after
that show, in the reception after the show, we were
all the people were coming around and everybody was saying,
you know, how great it was and all this, and

(01:40:55):
I remember me and Daryl sitting down together and we said,
you know what, probably time for us to just stop.

Speaker 4 (01:41:01):
Wowad for us, it was a full circle.

Speaker 5 (01:41:06):
We had we had met because of the temptations in
a sense, and now we were we had done that,
and it really felt like we had completed this thing
in our in our life.

Speaker 7 (01:41:17):
You know, was there something in your mind you wanted
to do after this circle had completed, because it seems
like a whole era.

Speaker 5 (01:41:22):
So now I wanted, I wanted to live. I wanted
to I want to do all the things that I
had never done. You have to remember I was on
the road from nineteen seventy two until nineteen eighty six,
and I never ever stopped, not one time. It was
two breaks and that whole time.

Speaker 3 (01:41:38):
Had you made a list?

Speaker 5 (01:41:41):
Yeah? My list was was, uh, live in a house.

Speaker 4 (01:41:47):
Get me, get married, have a kid.

Speaker 5 (01:41:52):
And that's exactly what I did. I I sold everything
I owned, I move, I moved to Colorado and I
met my future wife and we build a house and
had a kid. And for about ten years I hardly
did any music. And wow, I lived in the mountains
and I kind of became a different person. So it
was just something I needed to do.

Speaker 3 (01:42:14):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
One one last question I have. I know that you're
you once lived next door to Hunter S.

Speaker 3 (01:42:21):
Thompson.

Speaker 2 (01:42:22):
Yeah, oh god, what was that shit like psychedelics.

Speaker 5 (01:42:27):
Well, that's that's what happened when I when when I
when I left New York City and I kind of
started my life over again, moved to Colorado. I was
with my my girlfriend who later became my wife, and
we we found a little piece of property. She actually
found it in Woody Creek, Colorado, which is and we
we it was it was just a piece of land

(01:42:49):
with a little cabin and we were going to build
a house. And so I remember one day and we
went out there to look at it and we were
standing with a real estate agent and on the proper
and we heard a shotgun blast and then on the
on the roof of the cabin, this metal roof, we
heard all the shotgun pellats, you know, like that, and

(01:43:10):
we're like, what the hell is that? And the real station, Oh,
that's your neighbor, Hunter Thompson. He said, don't worry, he's fine.
You'll you'll get to meet him later. I was like,
I said, is this going to be a problem, And
he said he said, no, no, no, it's going to
be all right. And so we ignored that. And his
if you if you know anything about Hunter, you know

(01:43:31):
he had that red car LANDNK that he drove in
the field loathing that was parked that was parked in
our cabin. He didn't own the property, but that property
had been abandoned for years, so he just stuck his
car in the little cabin. So we were going to
take that cabin and convert it into an apartment where
we could live while we built our house. So I

(01:43:54):
kept going up and knocking on his door, because he
literally was right across the road. I would knock on
his door, hopefully, you know, to introduce myself and say,
hey man, we got to get your car out of
the cabin. And he never answered the door ever, because
he would sleep all day and stay up all night,
and I would always go during the day as so

(01:44:14):
finally I just the keys were in the car.

Speaker 3 (01:44:16):
I put a.

Speaker 5 (01:44:17):
Jumper cables on it, I jumped it, I started it.
I drove it up onto his lawn. I parked it
directly in front of his kitchen door, and I left
it there. And I knew him for twenty five years.
He never said a word to me about it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:33):
He did it.

Speaker 5 (01:44:34):
He probably did it in the middle of the night, yes,
where it just appeared there. Wow, you We used to
go up to his house and we used to watch
Monday night football with him and the sheriff.

Speaker 3 (01:44:46):
And he did something normal like watch football.

Speaker 5 (01:44:50):
Oh that he was a major sports junkie. He was
a huge sports fan. That's all his whole thing. And
then then we went to the funeral too, Johnny dep
did you know where where they shot his ashes out
of the cannon and all that we were there for that.
It was wow. I didn't know they did it at
the funeral.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):
Wow, wow, wow.

Speaker 8 (01:45:10):
Just who you want for a neighbor when you're trying
to get away from it.

Speaker 5 (01:45:13):
All right, he was actually you know what though, he
was actually a really good a good guy. He he
liked being Hunter Thompson. You know, he liked he liked
the image. You know, he liked the hat and the
cigarette holder and the motorcycle with a glass of Burt
you know gin. But down you know, he was a
Southern gentleman. He was from Kentucky and if he liked you,

(01:45:35):
and it broke all that down. He was he was
really cool and he was really smart. And no, it
was a real experience to have him as a neighbor
for over twenty years.

Speaker 2 (01:45:43):
Well, we thank you for coming on the show and
we have a team Supreme Fan Digolo, Boss, Bill Sugar,
Steve like you, I'm quest Love.

Speaker 3 (01:45:51):
This would be great, John O, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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