July 19, 2023 • 54 mins
Questlove Supreme has wanted to speak with Leroy Burgess for years, and now it has happened. The legendary singer, songwriter, and producer revisits his New York City upbringing. For Part 2, Leroy details the music that makes him a post-disco/boogie pioneer. He recalls his time with Logg, The Universal Robot Band, and Bumble Bee Unlimited. Leroy also shares his experience meeting Rick James and writing a hit for the late star. He also discusses new music and how his classic formula for song-making remains.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Yeo's Up, Everybody.
Speaker 4 (00:05):
This is Fante Fontigelow from Team Supreme and we are
back with part.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Two of our conversation with Leroy Burgess.
Speaker 4 (00:13):
This is a guy who I wanted to speak with
for years, longtime fan of his music and all of
his work.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Honestly, this was one of my favorite interviews this season.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
We got to talk about his catalog, his production work,
his early days everything.
Speaker 5 (00:26):
If you haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Please make sure you check out part one, where Leroyd
talks about his.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Beginnings, his group Black Ivory and Wu.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Tang sampling his music.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Now here's part two.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, when would you say is the moment that you
graduated from just songwriting and singing to like at the
helm of production where Patrick sorted taking a back seat
(01:00):
and now this is a Leroy Burgess production.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Okay, that's the easy too, That's the easy one. The
transition moment, the actual transition moment when I when I
transitioned from composer and musician into producer arranger. Was the
Weekend album, the Freak album. I had stepped away from
Black Ivy, took a hiatus from Black Ivy and participating
(01:26):
with them. And the first person I went to was Patrick,
and Patrick used to work me out of worked on
the Benny King album Art Webbed album. You know, just
background vocals, the keyboards or something like that, you know,
stuff like that. Then he said, I got this album
and Lanty's giving me a project called Free and I
need two songs, right, And I had one song called
(01:48):
Weekend and one song called Much too Much. And he said, okay,
but you're gonna write all the charts. You're gonna put
You're gonna write well, he said, I'll do the strings,
but I want you to do the horns, right. I
want you to do all the since, and I want
you to teach the rhythm musicians, which is something I
learned from teaching my band, the band the songs, you know,
(02:11):
the Black Ivory Band, the songs, how to play and
how I wanted them arranged. So I had a bat
But this was the first time I started writing charts
and you know, having to do that. So that was
the actual transition because when I went in the studio
to do it at Bob Blank Studios, I was waiting
for power. I went in there waiting for his the charts.
(02:32):
Good luck. And he was like, no, no, no, no.
You go in there with the musicians, right, show them
the song, give them the parts that you want them
to play. Right, you're gonna I'm gonna play acousta piano,
you play electric piano, right, and this is how we're
gonna do it. And he said, you're at the helm.
I want this to be what you want, right, So
(02:55):
you're gonna come up with the parts. All I'm gonna
do is the strange. And I was heavy. So that
was me actually stepping coursing that threshold into production and
arranging and so forth. That was It was that moment.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
How did you learn to like read music and play?
Were you just playing by ear or were you formally trained?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And are these chord charts or like noted notes?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Yeah, okay, to answer your question quest, they are chord charts,
all right, okay? Patrick was Patrick taught me how to
write the chord charts right. He would later teach me
how to write the horn charts and write for strength
and to do full arrangements. I started playing when I
was four years old, you know, playing with the church.
(03:44):
But I don't call it. I call that banging on
the piano. I was banging, Okay. When I was very young,
my moms used to get me away from my sisters,
so she sent me to a babysitter that had a piano.
But she taught me little things like Twinkle Twinkle Lit
Star in this old man he played one right, and
how to play those on the piano, and that got
(04:05):
me interested. Fast forward to when I was eleven, I
had a brilliant music teacher in the person of Herbie Jones.
Herbie Jones was Duke Ellington's chief rhythm and brass arranger, Wow,
and he worked on his side job was working at
(04:26):
the Cadet Corse Central Harlem. My mother, father and sisted
I joined the Cadets, so I would worry. I'd be
on top of him. Oh how did you play that?
And he taught me how to play chords, how to
recognize notes, so forth, and so on so forth. Now
combined this with what I was learning from Patrick in
terms of the specifics of reading and writing and notating
(04:50):
and so forth and so on, and I gradually learned
how to do it all. But it was a gradual thing.
It was an aide. I went to Julliardo, I went
to right.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
I went before we I just wanted to go back
to you and I just before we forget it. Larry Blackman,
we had him on the show. He's he's playing drums
on that. Do you remember that session?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Uh? Yes, I do. He on the Don't turn Around?
First of all, the only songs that we did in
Philly was Don't turn Around, and I keep asking questions.
Those two songs, which was A and B sides of
our first single, right. Everything else on the Don't turn
Around album we recorded in New York at Blue Rock Studios. Right,
(05:36):
Dy Blackman happened to live in my housing complex, Drew
Hamilton Houses. I lived in building like two hundred wus
on forty three. He lived down the block on the
eighth Avenue building. Right, Patrick knew him. I didn't know
that Patrick knew him, but Patrick knew him.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
So, when Patrick was putting together the arrangement for you
and I so forth and so on, he said, I said, well,
who's gonna played the drums? And he was like, well,
is guy Larry black When I'm like, oh, he's like,
he said, well, he's really good at He's the perfect guy.
So Larry played on you and I. He played on
(06:14):
finding One who Loves You, and he played on she
said that she's leaving those three songs.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Thank you for that? All right?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So I have a production question to ask you, like,
how are you able to develop your sound? Because you know,
I mean next to the Randy Moellers of the world
and later the KA Chiefs, like, you're doing some really
revolutionary in disco and post disco music. But I would
assume that you would have to have a lot of
(06:46):
hours to figure out what the sound is and like, so,
how are you able to develop your sound like that?
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Well? Meeting no disrespect, absolutely overthinking it a little.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Bit, all right, thinking wow.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
It what what this always happens on the show?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I'm shocked in a gas.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I surrounded myself with great people, great musicians who are
very simple but do a really good job. Now, in
the case of Let's do It, Let's do It was
composed as an afterthought for the most part. Wow, we
were hired to record another song. Uh, I forget I
(07:40):
even forgot the name of that song. It was just
we were just hired as musicians, right. But Greg Carmichael,
who was the producer, he had booked twelve hours. We
got through the first song, you know, the song we
needed that we were booked to do uh in two
and two hours, two and a half hours, something like that.
So he said, well, I'm not doing anything else with
(08:00):
the time. Why don't you guys come up with something
and I'll let you all recall what you want to do.
So we ordered some food and while we waited for
the food, I went into the instrument room and started
twinking on the piano. Right, Usually it doesn't take but
a minute for my brother James Callaway On to come
(08:24):
in on bass. So came up with something just very simple.
So then James came in and he played on top
of me, playing that. Right. Sonny came in and he
played on top of me playing that you know. So
the three of us were playing and arrived at that groove.
Right after that, we basically laid the whole thing down.
(08:44):
One thing that I liked about it is because I
like to come up with jazz changes for a disco song,
which because they don't belong there. Right, So once I
had everything together, we went in. We did the rhythm
and we once we had the rhythm track all in there,
then Sonny, my cousin Sonny Davenport. He started laying percussion pieces,
(09:08):
the kunga first ball, the second a go go, the
famous of go go let, tambourine, stuff like that. Right,
while we called my sister with name my girl, Dorothy Terrell,
and a couple of other females to come in and
do the background. We wrote the words that night, right,
(09:29):
oh wow, came up with the wrap that night. Right.
So within the remaining eight hours we came we uh
where we started with nothing and we ended up with
let's do it.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I always wanted to know how you came up with
all the names for your like your aliases, like long conversion,
like where'd that come from?
Speaker 5 (09:49):
I didn't come up with them. Oh okay. Most of
the time it would be a matter of me saying, well,
I don't want it to be me. I don't want
it to be a Leroy record, right, this is a
group effort, so forth and so on. And initially the
name of the group was Caliber, which is an anagram
of Leroy Burgess and James Callaway, right, okay, okay, Caliber,
(10:15):
And that's on your leams, hooked on your love records.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
That's the only time we used that. After that, it
was like, as long as we retained the sound, I
didn't care what name we used, right, I leave it
to the record companies to come up with. Sam Records
came up with Conversion, were like, oh hey Conversion. When
he when he copyrighted the name Conversion and Suso Records
(10:43):
wanted that group, They were like, well, you can't use
the name Conversion, So what would I said, I don't
care call it whatever. They called it log right, And
from there Universal Robot Band came out of that.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yes, yes, even man.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Then from that, you know, the names just evolved from
different places. I never really what was important to me
was that the sound and the team was doing the
same thing and arriving at the style of music that
we hope would be embraced. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
One of my favorite records of yours I always wanted
to ask you about by Caprice. Do you remember cutting it? Like,
who's singing lead on that record? It sounds like a
little girls that was like a kid, But but I
love that song, man, It's one of my favorites in
your catalog.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Jackie Bradley used to play guitar for the Black Ivory
Band and one of the early bands that we worked with.
He was part of the sols to Be as Our band. Right,
fast about in the eighties. This is that's in the
early seventies, right, So fast forward to the eighties and
Jackie is putting together his own band, Caprice. He comes
to me says, I would like for you to give
(11:52):
us a song. If you got a song, we'd like
to do a song of yours. Right. So I'm like, okay,
we got a song. Me and Sonny had composed call right,
And so we actually went into the process of teaching them.
The singer Evette Davis was this was like her first record.
So she was very Oh, she was tentative, she was scared,
(12:18):
she was she was she she was like she didn't
believe in her voice and so forth. And I was like, no, honey,
you just trust me. I'll get you to Just trust
me and I can get you to to I can
introduce you to the singer that's within you.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
How old was she at this time?
Speaker 5 (12:36):
She was in her twenties. She was in her twenties
and thirties or something like that, Okay, And so I
walked her through how to sing it. Because she really
has a voice that like has a quality like Denise
Williams like that really lilting tiny you know, it's like
(12:56):
you know, but at at certain points she can be
very powerful, but know it's just this lilting quality. And
I said, we can use that. Let's use that that quality.
That's when she goes and now is the time, don't
you know?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yes, sir, she was perfect for it.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
I made everybody get out of the studio watch and
cut the leads all right. The only ones that was
there with was myself and Sonny and the VET and
the engineers because I didn't want her intimidated by the
other band members and so forth and song. But she
did an amazing job in realizing that song.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Okay, so, since you just dropped your process and especially
with your aliases, can I assume that the the Bumblebee
Unlimited song is just the lemes on very speed?
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Well, it's actually not the alems Bumblebee Unlimited would usually
be Patrick myself and and yeah versep just I speeded down.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And wasn't that a little risky in terms of like, hey,
this the song might actually get some traction on radio
and whatnot, Like do we want to sing it at
very speed or in our natural voices?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Like, what made you want to do that?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Well, Bumblebee Unlimited was Patrick's brainchild, Okay, And the whole
thing is at that point, I was desperate for work
because I had just left Black Abbrey, so I needed
to work so bad. So whatever Patrick wanted to do,
I was like, yeah, I'm fine with that. I was
more worried about it being us having a problem with
(14:36):
gross Bagdasavian productions because of Alvin and the Chipmunks, and
you know, compared it was the same process. This is
exactly the same process, but Patrick's had done about it.
I'll call the bumble Bee and nobody who will will
be the wiser.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So you really thought somebody would come at you for
because Stevie Wonder did it on maybe Your Baby and
slot Like, I'm just realizing now that side one or fresh.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That entire side one sly singing in arry speed.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I mean, it's not.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Extreme various speed where it sounds like Alvin and Chipmunks.
He when they did the French version of dance to
the music, he didn't call it slide in the family Stone.
He called it the French Fries And they kept the
same musical backdrop as danced to the music, but they
sang it as Alvin and the Chipmunks and it was
(15:37):
really Lolly Gaggan or whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's like a rare B side and.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah for Europe, but I love that song. Before I
get to my next question, OK, just in general with
New York.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And various bands around now.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
We mentioned you know, brother Larry Blackman before, but you know,
around this time, are you at all having interactions at
all with like, you know, like with Larry Muller and
uh or BECAUSEI fosso came from BT Express a little later,
but you know, as you guys are kind of molding
(16:16):
and shaping really the sound of disco and more importantly
the sound.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Of post disco. Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I guess we call it bookie. I don't know if
you called the bookie or not, but people have tacked
it bookie. Are you having any interactions with those guys whatsoever?
Speaker 5 (16:33):
I met Randy at at a little gig we did
at a club called APT back in the early weekends,
and we're friends. The same thing with Hubett Eves the Third,
and I'm friends with all of them. We have not
interacted professionally to collaborate on any music, but we appreciate
(16:55):
where each other's coming from.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I mean some some credit now rogers some who do
you feel is the person that really is the proprietor
of Bookie like a slow down version, same disco pulse,
but less less cluttered and more groove based, in other words,
(17:21):
more for the backyard barbecue than Studio fifty four.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Like well, if you ask anybody in London, they would
tell you it's me.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I say to you as well, straight up, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
I just come from Harlem, right in Harlem, while disco
is like kind of up in one twenty one twenty,
you know, get the hord rate going and so forth.
I'm from that chill boom chill boom boom boom boom
boo boom. I'm there right in terms of I want
(18:00):
to create and where the groove is for me, right right,
So when I did songs like fat Rating, when I
created let's do it and so forth, that's where we at.
We swinging right there. We're not interested in boom boom
boom boom boom boom. Now we we do these records
for record companies who, in their brilliance, in their moments
(18:22):
of genius, they decide, all right, let's take it and
give it to somebody t sweet it up, but just
go sweet. It had to go through it. But as
far as boogie is just a chilled out, laid back
kind of groovy joint right where you can still party
hard to it without you know, having a cardiac arrest, right.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Two step?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
So what was sweet to Me ever considered like a
single from from the lock record.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
From the log album sweet to Me so sweet?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's like I go heavy on that song when I
do my bookie sets, and I always wanted to know
why wasn't that ever like given the single treatment.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Well, because the hierarchy can care stand care at salso records,
they decided that the only well there would be two
singles there would be I Know You Will, which was
the Larry Levan record, Right, You've got that something right
(19:32):
and Dancing into the Stars right the others laid on
the line sweet to Me. They never really made it
into the forefront of being a single in terms of
Souso's feeling or what they decided to do.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So so they just felt it was filler.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Yeah, they felt it with filler. But here's the big
story about its crazy We mentioned Universal Robot Band.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Right, yes, sir, barely break it even a right.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Barely breaking even is actually the seventh song from the Log.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Out, Oh okay, gotcha all right?
Speaker 5 (20:14):
Barely breaking even. We recorded to close the Log album
out all right. That's when we got all of the musicians,
all of the singers who were put together the Log project.
We called them all in the studio for I think
it was an eighteen hour session or something like that. Right,
everybody was in there. We fed everybody, made sure everybody
(20:35):
was comfortable with plenty of stuff and smoke, and you know,
we were the happy session. And I said, we're gonna
do this great record where everybody's gonna sing, and it's
gonna be like this giant quiet and we're all going
to talk about how hard it is to keep money
in our pocket. Barely breaking even. Right. What happened was
(20:55):
our co producer, Greg Carmichael heard the record and was
very please with it, right, and decided to go to
South Soul to get a little extra paper, little extra paper,
I want a little extra can't care? Said no, right,
so Greg said, in the middle of the night, around
(21:17):
two thirty in the morning. Right, he went to the
studio and was recording, and he told him, I want
to make a safety of the master of the twenty four.
I want to make it and I'll bring it right
back that Later that day we went to mix the
song to do a final mixture of the song to
(21:38):
complete the album, and found it not to be there.
So of course we're like, oh my god, what how
did y'all let it go? All right, so we get
on the phone. We can't care, So so we coming
down there right now, Greg to thek blah blah blah,
blah blah blah. We expected that King Cared to be
completely up in arms about the loss of Bailly Breaking
(22:01):
even right, that's when Ken told us about Well, Greg
came and was looking for extra paper, so forth and
so on. I did not want to give it to him,
and that's why he, you know, com and did the tape. Right. Essentially,
the outrage that we expected from Ken Kidd was not
(22:22):
to be found, all right. His basic position was, We've
already got these sixth grade tunes. I don't need the
extra of of you know. So that's when some months
later it was released on Movelow Records as Universal Robot Band.
(22:45):
But that Bailly Breaking even is the seventh song from
the logo.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Wow, we didn't talk about mainline.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
That's another one of my favorite, but you tell us
about recording that session.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
I stepped away from Black Ivory because we were being
typecast into a slow jam group. All right, that's where
you know, don't turn around you and I I'll find
a way all the slow jams that they loved with
the falsetto, they wanted us, the audience wanted us to
stay there, and thereby I would not accept us doing
any fast. I could not stay in that environment because
(23:31):
I was not growing creatively while the marketplace is going
around me. So that's when I made a decision to
actually step away and do a hiatus from Black Ivy.
All Right, about somewhere around seventy eight seventy nine, Lenny Adams,
who was still managing Black Ivory, came to me and said,
(23:52):
I need songs for this new Buddha album, you know,
or they're gonna drop us from Buddha, right And I said, well,
I got three songs that I'm not doing anything with
h Hustling coming Down and Maylind and I Will. You know,
those songs are not a signed to anybody uh, and
so Lenny was like, write your own ticket or whatever
(24:15):
you want, whatever you need it to be. I want
you to come back, bring the musicians in, all right.
I said, well, if I'm gonna do it, we have
to do it with Patrick Adams. We need Patrick Adams
on it, we need James Callaway, you know. And and
we just locked it up, lined it up. I gave
them a demo so Russell could learn to sing the
(24:35):
league right and uh, you know, the backgrounds, We just
sang as we normally would do. But I like it right.
And Patrick came in did the strings and horns. The
drums weren't right. Initially we used Leroy Mike Connor on
the drums, but they were not falling right. So we
had Earl Young come in and overdub his.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Young hypothetically speaking, so say, if I'm like one of
your peers, of your contemporaries in nineteen seventy nine, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Producing the same music that.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
You're producing, Okay, what would what is a producer's rate
in in seventy eight seventy nine eighty Like in the
in the era of twelve inch discos for the sassoles
of the world, these small labels of the world, like
(25:29):
what would my living be per per side like is
it whatever you can work with? Or is it a
contracted thing? Like how does one make a living?
Speaker 5 (25:43):
Barely? Basically, back in that period, you do good. If
you could get a budget that was anywhere between, say
about thirty five hundred to about five thousand, the high
end of that would be ten thousand. Right, we'll give
you that, right and say, bring me my record, bring
(26:07):
me a great record, bring me something that's gonna kill
so forth and so on. And it was your job
to take the amount that you were given and create
that record, right, and whatever was left over, Yeah, you
could walk home with. You know, So if you were
given ten thousand dollars, then it only costs you six
(26:27):
to do right, you know, the final record, then you're
walking home with four. Right. So budgets around that time
were about, you know, if they were reasonable, they were
ten thousand and upper song, right, and that would give
you a decent amount of room. And how you lived
(26:50):
and how you lived off a bit is how you
could make that budget work with under ten thousand dollars,
so that you had to.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You weren't all and out of control, Okay, So did
you have great relationships with Larry Levan or even Frankie
Crocker at that like a being a song or like
bringing them a test pressing and see if it works
it doesn't work, are you able to go back and
(27:19):
readjust if it does not work.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
I'm gonna take one person at a time. Larry Levan
a R. I did not know who he was, and
I did not know who what the Paradise Garage was.
I thought it was a gage?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Wait, what how did you create a soundtrack for Generation?
Speaker 5 (27:38):
It?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Did not know what the Paradise Garage was?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
I did. I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
So what was the epicenter of a place where you
wanted to see how your music worked?
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Oh? He just went straight to them.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Yeah, and that's where. That's where my first gig at
any of those clubs down there, long before I learned
about Paradise Googa. My first gig was at Studio fifty four, uh,
performing Let's do it. As far as Lady Levan goes.
I got to appreciate his art after I Know you
Will was given to him to mix right, and I
(28:15):
was like, now you know we're from uptown, We're from
Harlem and We're like, we're belligerent about everything. So so
we're like, ladle Van's mixing it? Who? We never heard
of him. I don't know if I wanted him to
have myself. Who is that? All right? So we stormed
(28:37):
right Track studios on forty eighth Street where he's doing
the final mix.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
And when I say we stormed, we jump in the cab.
Met James and Sunny.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We are from Harlem.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Yeah, yeah, we jump in the cab. We rolled all
the way down there and we were like, oh no,
you're letting us in this session, this out on all right?
Blah blah blah. So we basically boguarded our way up
to the studio where it was working, and you know,
(29:09):
they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't let us in.
Finally Labby came out and with gracious and said, oh,
these are the producers, these are the songwriters. Let them
end so far up the song and then he appaused
us of what he had in mind and how he
was working it, and it sounded so great, right. We
(29:29):
was like, oh, I don't mean to go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So remixing was just a foreign idea, like letting someone
borrow your stem, your your your your mate, your your lifeline.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Well, here's the thing. When you were budgeted by a
record company, right, it was there. It was their property period, Right.
It was there, so you could do whatever mix you
wanted to do and say this is the mix I
want to come out, and they'll be like, okay, yeah,
let's leave it ahead. And then they would call chef
(30:09):
Patty bad John Wallace Man, they go whoever their guy, right,
jelly Bean, Benitas, They say, hey, take this multi track
and give me a great record, right, And then it
would not be what the producer's vision was. It would
be this other vision that was in the mind of
(30:33):
the remixer, however that mind might be on that given day.
All right, but that was the job. I mean you
you wasn't if you didn't own that master, so you
couldn't say, I'm going to make sure it's supposed to
mix it. They owned the master so they could say
and so after a minute you have to say, you
(30:54):
have to resign yourself to that dynamic. All right. One
of the is that it's really definitive. Let's do it.
Let's do it. Was an eleven minute song, right that
had two bridges, right, Wow, and the vamp chorus. I
was going nuts on as a lead vocalist, right. All
(31:18):
of that ended up on the cutting wom floor at
SAM Record. They was like, no, contain the record to
this five minute thing, and this is what it's going
to be. We heard it, we were discussed, we were like,
oh my god, where's the rest of the record. Right,
let's do it? Came out amazing, hit you just hit right.
So in twenty sixteen, I had a copy of the
(31:45):
eleven minute version right right right with the vocals and
so forth and song, and Franky Knuckles played it at
Studio fifty four right and I forgot to get the
tape back from him, so he took it back to
Corgo with him. Right Frankie passed away. He gave it
to another DJ, DJ a manual something right, and he
(32:13):
gets in touch with me twenty fifteen, says I have
the eleven minute version of Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
I'm like what?
Speaker 5 (32:22):
So he sent it to me. I sent it to
my partner PR to master it right and then to
initiate the startup or just entertainment. I said, let's just
put it out for free. Let's give it to everybody
for free. Right, and we introduced everybody to what the
full version of Let's do It is? Right, and they
(32:45):
got the second bridge, they got to hear the second chord,
they got to hear the vamp out or all of
the things that were removed from it. They got to
hear it, and they was like, oh my god, this
is incredible. Why did everybody started asking the questions that
we were asked? You know? Why did y'all chop it
up like that? I put it all down to how
(33:06):
music evolves and the business that uh that pertains to it, right,
you know, and and just not to let anything drive
you so crazy that you doing crazy stuff.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I wanted to ask you about Fonder Ray. She was
like one of my favorite singers of that time. She said,
over it like a fat rat.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
What was she like in the studio?
Speaker 5 (33:29):
She was pleasant, she was she was professional.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
And where did she come from?
Speaker 5 (33:35):
I don't know a book.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So she was just brought to you as a client.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
She came from either it is the other Mount Vernon
or Newer Shell or somewhere Yonkers or something like that.
I think that's where she lives. Uh. When we did
over Like a Fat that we recorded it as a
demo with Bob Blank. Bob gave us some free studio
time and uh, we met James and Sonny. We went
(34:03):
in and we just did our things, creating songs and
so for up the songs so over like Batlight was
one of the songs. And we left the tape for Bob.
And then Bob went to Vanguard and Vanguard had signed
Fonder and Bob called us up and said, we mind
if he tried fond of Ray And I'm like, fond
(34:24):
of who and He's like Fonda Ray and I'm like, uh, okay,
Well we'll allow it if you let us be at
the session, meaning myself and my cousin Sonny Davenport.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
We went to the session. She she learned the song
and sang it very competently, giving us the performance that
y'all are familiar with.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Was that her first session, No she had she's also
on she worked with August Darnell.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
During the she did she did Deputy Love It was
It wasn't Doctor Buzzers.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
It was with Don Armando's second Rumba band or something.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
He always had that crazy like alias and stuff.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
But definitely Love is a record though that's a jam
did not know that.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
She also had worked with Patrick Adams with a version
of touch Me All Night Long.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yes, that's different than the one that we know, or.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Different the version with spelled t U c h oh,
like it spelled t U c h me And she
did that, uh before it got to the Sandy post.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
That did it?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Okay, Wow, all right, here's here's the question I always
wanted to know. I'm getting right to Rick James right now.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I knew it.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
So I have one question to ask you.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
All right, the way that you're holding your head right now,
I already know what the answer is. But can I
can I just take a wild guess that your involvement
with Big Time is just that intro?
Speaker 5 (36:07):
No?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh, so you did the entire because the thing is
is that the kick drum piano intro is such a
Leroy Burgess sound. And then right when the song kicks in,
I felt like, wow, okay, now it sounds like Rick James,
how did that come?
Speaker 1 (36:23):
How did that come together?
Speaker 5 (36:25):
Okay? At the session I was telling you about where
we recorded over like a fat rat for a Fonda
or we for that one of the another one of
the songs that we'd done was a song called Baytime
right now. You know, I did the demo with the
piano and James on Bassis Sonday on drums and I
(36:46):
sang in the you know, I did a demo of
the of the vocals and shit right and on our
way uptown to Bob Blank Studio was on twentieth and
sixth Avenue right and on our way back uptown, we
just decided to stop at fifty seventh Street between eighth
and ninth Avenue to stop at Kenny Morris's house. Kenny
(37:08):
Morris was Patrick's partner, right to stop there to get
a little package for us to feel good with. When
we got uptown, we absolutely so, you know, and Kenny
was holding so we went there all right. When we
got there, Kenny's friend, Rick James was in attendance. He
(37:33):
was he was visiting Kenny and oh, so, you know,
we really want to do our business and get on.
But then you know, Kenny was like, come on inside,
and Patrick was right there, and uh so we did
our little wine and dine thing. I mean, we'll not
know Dona's wine.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
We already know.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
And rig James was like, tell old Patrick, I'm getting
ready to do my new album.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I don't want more.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Down to and so forth. I just need to be
a good one and so forth. And I mentioned that
we just came out of the studio doing a little
demo and so for oh let me hear no, no,
let me hear it, I'm looking for songs, right, and
so big Time was the first song on the cassette
(38:20):
and we only made it halfway through.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Oh my god, that's my song.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
That's my song. I got to have it because big
Time is the persona of big Time is Big James persona.
It's all about a guy who arrived at the big Time.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Life of fortune and fame and stuff.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Yes, yeah, glamor and fame and all of that. So
it was Paul, that's my song. I needed to Patrick
be working out and so forth and so on. So
Patrick worked it up. This is nineteen seventy nine. By
nineteen eighty it was released as we made a deal
for it to be the first single from the Garden
of Love album, right, and we arranged for Rig James
(39:02):
and Patrick too, for Patrick to co produce it with
Rig James and take it out. They took the multi
track out to California, where Rig James added his flavor
to it. The entire song, the change and everything like
that that was written composed by me and Vig. James
added his elements to it, but essentially h he replayed
(39:27):
the bass, took James callaway off and replayed the bass, uh,
replayed some of the piano parts, put his horns on it,
and so forth, and then added don't don't right, And
I'd like to think, I don't want to be presumptuous,
but this is before super Freaking all of that, and
(39:49):
I'd like to think that big Time was central in
reviving Rick's career to such a degree that he was
able to then take that model and create new songs
from it, right, And that gave you the super Freak And.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
That's exactly what it did.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But that piano intro, Yeah, it's such an Unricked James
sounding thing that I was like, in my mind, I
felt like, at the last minute, let's add that piano
interro at the top, and then no, but.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
That was the whole record when we did it, was that,
you know, that was the whole demo.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So I guess I really became familiar with you.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Kind of the summer eighty four, when like B boy
cultures starting to set off and via lemes release yourself.
What was your thoughts on the Marley Maul remix.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Of that song.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
I didn't know who Marlly was before that, but I
certainly got to know who he was since he did it. Okay,
because to see for me, it became a practical situation. Uh,
that part be goes, release your sound, we right an
(41:12):
octave from where I'm singing it now right right form
that of right you might be able to do that
once or twice right before your whole voice would break
in half, give out right, just breaking half. So I
always was like, while I understand the virtue of it
being sampled, a lot of people expected it to be sunk.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
That was my second question. How much of a nightmare
was it for them? Because that's the only version we played.
We know there's other versions of the song, but we
will always go to the B side and play the
Marley mal version right right right, And it was inescapable
in the summer of nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
Right. So I arrived at a balance between when I'm
doing my live I let one of the girls or
something like that do those parts right, and then I
stick to you got to you know you need to
stick to that right. It makes it easy because, believe me,
(42:15):
if I just did one full chorus of that, that's
the end of the show. And thank you very much,
good night, And I hope you enjoyed that. That that
chorus that I didn't.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
I want to ask you, Lee Roy, there's a record
you did a couple of years back with Glenn underground.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Let me know you're feeling me record.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Yes, myself and Glenn.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Oh oh, Patrick working on that as well.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
Yes, Yes, the song was composed by Patrick, Glenn and myself. Uh.
That was when a guy named Raddick who runs dust
Tracks Records out of Chicago. Uh, he had a hook
up with Glenn and Glenn had asked for myself and
Patrick Rady Can convinced us to take a plane to
(43:05):
fly out there for a couple of days and work
with Glenn. And again that song was started from scratch.
We had nothing, no no beating nor anything. And Patrick
came up with with with the baseline that kind of
took us somewhere and then I said, I added some
cords to it, and then we had Glenn come in
(43:28):
put the drums against it, and so forth and so on,
and we began to build a record up from there,
and within two days we had that that song.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I love that song, man, I just I was I
was so happy.
Speaker 4 (43:42):
A good buddy of mine, Escort out of out of Chicago,
he sent me that when it came out, and I
was just so happy to hear you like singing again
and like, I just really love that record.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Man.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I have one inter life question.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yes, well, actually, okay, this is something you've really got
to settle for me, because it's killing me. Did you
ever work with Alan George or Fred McFarlane, Because even
if your name is not on the credits, I still
insist that you had something to do with somebody else's guy,
(44:19):
even though you know your only connection to it is
working with Jocelyn Brown and in her life. But and
I'm not want to be starting something, but I can't
be the only human being that thought that you produced that.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Well Alan George and Fred McFarlane. First of all, Fred
McFarlane was a member of Conversion and Law.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Like okay, keyboard player for.
Speaker 5 (44:49):
My grouping one of the high keyboard players for the group.
So we knew Fred, and we've known Alan because Alan
had been close friends with our second the second Black
Ivory band Stone Love, so we knew Allen through that.
The reason why you hear a connection between somebody else's
(45:11):
guy and music that you associate with me is two reasons.
One is James Callaway, he's the bass player on that
record right right, and and of course Fred mcfallan. And
the second element is George Ellington and Vincent Henry on
(45:32):
brass because George and Vincent. George was a horn player
for my band, Vincent was a man and and the
two of them gave you that that kind of sound, right,
So between James, Fred and Vincent and George, that's where
you get that that layer of sounded compared to what
(45:53):
we do.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Yeah, you get throw. He probably throw what's seventh Heaven
on that too, that GWNG Guthrie. It kind of all those.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Really believe it or not, That's the first place I looked
to me. It's your sound, I guess in general, and
in wrapping this up unless you have another one.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
Yeah, I just wanted to talk to him about his
his noise record.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, you work with a lot of my heroes on
this one. With the remixes. Big ups to.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Josh Milan and Mark Matt from for a hero. What's
your connection with with those guys? And UH talk about
your your work with.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
Them everybody on that I'm blessed to have UH share
their brilliance on these days. The remixes have been friends
for a little while now. A Stacy kid I met
a few years ago when I invited him to have
(46:53):
us to come see my myself in my live. I've
known Louis Vega ever take us all the way back
to the conversion we make in twenty sixteen. Kenny Carpenter,
good friend of mine that I worked with a song
on him called more Love, and he came back and
(47:14):
did some of the early mixes on remake that I
did of Jesus Children of America about Stevie. Mark Mack
is a friend, very long time friend. I've known him
for about a good twenty twenty five years. It was
DEAs Parks.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
I was about to say, Dans Parks man, Oh my God,
rest in peace.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Bear departed and ascended angel Death Parks who insisted on
me meeting Mark right and said, Marc is the guy Mark,
and Mark has since I've met him and since I've
worked with him, everything that Mark has done has been
just the absolute truth, just so pure. So to wrap
(47:55):
up the whole album and reflect Nicholas is. He was
the surprise because he heard These Days the album, the
initial album from which the remix album is inspired, and
heard the song all together and he was just really
taken with that, and I was taken with all of
(48:15):
the reflex remixes. He's the one who does the best
remixing that I've heard. When I heard him do Rock
with You by Michael Jackson and All Night Long by
Lino Richie. He does his thing in the Stone with
earth Wind and Fire. He's really a brilliant Nicholas is
really a brilliant remixer. So I was blessed that all
(48:38):
of them, when they heard These Days the initial album
come out, they called me up and they said, hey,
I want to remix this, and I want to remix that,
and I want to do this, and I want to
do that. And I spoke with my partner, pl Sweets,
and he said, well, let's do a remix album. You
know that just features remixes, right, And that's where this
(49:00):
latest project came. These Days initial album was released back
in September twenty twenty two, and the remix album just
It was initially released in March twenty third, twenty twenty three,
and then as of last Thursday it hit track sauce
(49:22):
so and now people are starting to really get into it.
But those guys blessed me with their talent and with
their insight and with their genius, and they made it
into a project that I can really really be proud of.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Yeah. Now we're all disciples, man, We're all disciples.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
So I got one more record to ask before we rap,
because not many people talk enough about Eddie Kendricks's. Is
aristera period? And you worked on the Something More record?
I never used to dance. Can you talk about what
like working with Eddie Kendricks like what it was like?
Speaker 5 (50:01):
It was a lot of fun because Eddie is a
cannabis indulgence as I am.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
And hey, no the club amen.
Speaker 5 (50:15):
So Patrick got the deal when Eddie when he was
working with Arista, and he said, I got to Eddie
Kendrick deal. I said, oh, great, that's cool. Do you
have anything for him? Not really, we don't have nothing,
but I'd like to meet him. So Patrick said, oh,
come on down, I have a meet him with him,
so forth and so on. So I bought my team
meet James and Sunny. We went down there, we met,
(50:37):
you know, chopped it up, had a few drinks and
so forth and so on, and I was like, well, Eddie,
what do you want to sing about? Right? And he said,
I don't really know, I don't really care. Just write
me a great song. For whatever reason, we started talking
about the Temptations moves and the choreography and so forth.
(50:57):
And now I think I started talking about how Black
Eyes was biting his choreography, you know. So I started
talking about that and he said, well, I never liked
the dancing. I'm not a dancer. I'm a singer. Uh.
And so although I had to do it because it
was part of my my duties as a Temptation, you know,
(51:20):
to do the choreography and all of that, but I
never really liked it. And I was like, wow, there's
our song story. So myself and my cousin Sonny, and
my brother James, we created a song called I Never
Used to Dance. It's about which is about a dude
who doesn't really like dancing. You know, how many you
(51:42):
go to a party and you see the dudes standing
up against the wall while the chick get out. You know,
they out there doing anything and the dudes is just
like standing there looking at it. Yeah, how about that?
How about the Mets?
Speaker 1 (51:54):
You know the Wallflower song?
Speaker 5 (51:56):
Yeah, so they're doing that. But never used to dances
about that one chick that you see it hit the
floor and oh my god, I just got to dance
with it. And all of a sudden, you're not dancing behind,
you're not dancing the ass find yourself out on the floor,
which is he's the one that gets you to do it.
So that's what never used to dance is all about. Wow.
(52:21):
And he heard it. When he heard it, it was like, oh,
that's perfect, that's me all, that's me, that's it so
so uh And for me, listen, when I was thirteen fourteen,
I was singing just my imagination and the way you do,
(52:41):
the things you do, those songs were just ingrained in me.
To be working with an icon like him, right, oh,
and for him to be doing one of my compositions,
one of my co productions, was just a dream come true,
many many dreams that have come true in my time
(53:04):
in this industry.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
Yo, man, this is some of the best two hours
ever been waiting on this man.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
It's nerding out.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Thank you, man, I can't even thank you enough for this,
Like you know you've changed culture and you know you
can't there there aren't enough flowers in the world to
give you man like like what you've done for dance culture,
man is like real heads no, and we just thank
you for doing our show with us.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Thank you for the music, man, just your music is
so much joy to like to my life, you know
what I mean, and uh, always a good time. So
just just thank you for all your contributions. Man, straight up.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
Blood Shulan, thank you all for having me. I'm very
aware of how successful your work is. Question this team is.
I'm just happy to be a part of it, ah
and happy to participate in this. Uh. You guys have
some really great questions. Man.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
You know we're fans. We are fans.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
You know I'm a DJ, so I'm only as good
as the knowledge I have of you know the records
I gravitate towards. And you know your your records have
saved many many a party of mind.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
So thank you very much for that.
Speaker 5 (54:22):
That's what's up. That's what's up.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Thank you, yo.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
When be having su Steve and unpaid Bill and fantigolo
and like if this is another another classic much love
extravag handl love it energy.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
We will see all next time, all right, thank you.
M's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Yeo's Up, Everybody.
Speaker 4 (00:05):
This is Fante Fontigelow from Team Supreme and we are
back with part.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Two of our conversation with Leroy Burgess.
Speaker 4 (00:13):
This is a guy who I wanted to speak with
for years, longtime fan of his music and all of
his work.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Honestly, this was one of my favorite interviews this season.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
We got to talk about his catalog, his production work,
his early days everything.
Speaker 5 (00:26):
If you haven't heard it yet.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Please make sure you check out part one, where Leroyd
talks about his.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Beginnings, his group Black Ivory and Wu.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Tang sampling his music.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Now here's part two.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, when would you say is the moment that you
graduated from just songwriting and singing to like at the
helm of production where Patrick sorted taking a back seat
(01:00):
and now this is a Leroy Burgess production.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Okay, that's the easy too, That's the easy one. The
transition moment, the actual transition moment when I when I
transitioned from composer and musician into producer arranger. Was the
Weekend album, the Freak album. I had stepped away from
Black Ivy, took a hiatus from Black Ivy and participating
(01:26):
with them. And the first person I went to was Patrick,
and Patrick used to work me out of worked on
the Benny King album Art Webbed album. You know, just
background vocals, the keyboards or something like that, you know,
stuff like that. Then he said, I got this album
and Lanty's giving me a project called Free and I
need two songs, right, And I had one song called
(01:48):
Weekend and one song called Much too Much. And he said, okay,
but you're gonna write all the charts. You're gonna put
You're gonna write well, he said, I'll do the strings,
but I want you to do the horns, right. I
want you to do all the since, and I want
you to teach the rhythm musicians, which is something I
learned from teaching my band, the band the songs, you know,
(02:11):
the Black Ivory Band, the songs, how to play and
how I wanted them arranged. So I had a bat
But this was the first time I started writing charts
and you know, having to do that. So that was
the actual transition because when I went in the studio
to do it at Bob Blank Studios, I was waiting
for power. I went in there waiting for his the charts.
(02:32):
Good luck. And he was like, no, no, no, no.
You go in there with the musicians, right, show them
the song, give them the parts that you want them
to play. Right, you're gonna I'm gonna play acousta piano,
you play electric piano, right, and this is how we're
gonna do it. And he said, you're at the helm.
I want this to be what you want, right, So
(02:55):
you're gonna come up with the parts. All I'm gonna
do is the strange. And I was heavy. So that
was me actually stepping coursing that threshold into production and
arranging and so forth. That was It was that moment.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
How did you learn to like read music and play?
Were you just playing by ear or were you formally trained?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And are these chord charts or like noted notes?
Speaker 5 (03:22):
Yeah, okay, to answer your question quest, they are chord charts,
all right, okay? Patrick was Patrick taught me how to
write the chord charts right. He would later teach me
how to write the horn charts and write for strength
and to do full arrangements. I started playing when I
was four years old, you know, playing with the church.
(03:44):
But I don't call it. I call that banging on
the piano. I was banging, Okay. When I was very young,
my moms used to get me away from my sisters,
so she sent me to a babysitter that had a piano.
But she taught me little things like Twinkle Twinkle Lit
Star in this old man he played one right, and
how to play those on the piano, and that got
(04:05):
me interested. Fast forward to when I was eleven, I
had a brilliant music teacher in the person of Herbie Jones.
Herbie Jones was Duke Ellington's chief rhythm and brass arranger, Wow,
and he worked on his side job was working at
(04:26):
the Cadet Corse Central Harlem. My mother, father and sisted
I joined the Cadets, so I would worry. I'd be
on top of him. Oh how did you play that?
And he taught me how to play chords, how to
recognize notes, so forth, and so on so forth. Now
combined this with what I was learning from Patrick in
terms of the specifics of reading and writing and notating
(04:50):
and so forth and so on, and I gradually learned
how to do it all. But it was a gradual thing.
It was an aide. I went to Julliardo, I went
to right.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
I went before we I just wanted to go back
to you and I just before we forget it. Larry Blackman,
we had him on the show. He's he's playing drums
on that. Do you remember that session?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
Uh? Yes, I do. He on the Don't turn Around?
First of all, the only songs that we did in
Philly was Don't turn Around, and I keep asking questions.
Those two songs, which was A and B sides of
our first single, right. Everything else on the Don't turn
Around album we recorded in New York at Blue Rock Studios. Right,
(05:36):
Dy Blackman happened to live in my housing complex, Drew
Hamilton Houses. I lived in building like two hundred wus
on forty three. He lived down the block on the
eighth Avenue building. Right, Patrick knew him. I didn't know
that Patrick knew him, but Patrick knew him.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Right.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
So, when Patrick was putting together the arrangement for you
and I so forth and so on, he said, I said, well,
who's gonna played the drums? And he was like, well,
is guy Larry black When I'm like, oh, he's like,
he said, well, he's really good at He's the perfect guy.
So Larry played on you and I. He played on
(06:14):
finding One who Loves You, and he played on she
said that she's leaving those three songs.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Thank you for that? All right?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So I have a production question to ask you, like,
how are you able to develop your sound? Because you know,
I mean next to the Randy Moellers of the world
and later the KA Chiefs, like, you're doing some really
revolutionary in disco and post disco music. But I would
assume that you would have to have a lot of
(06:46):
hours to figure out what the sound is and like, so,
how are you able to develop your sound like that?
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Well? Meeting no disrespect, absolutely overthinking it a little.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Bit, all right, thinking wow.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
It what what this always happens on the show?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I'm shocked in a gas.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I surrounded myself with great people, great musicians who are
very simple but do a really good job. Now, in
the case of Let's do It, Let's do It was
composed as an afterthought for the most part. Wow, we
were hired to record another song. Uh, I forget I
(07:40):
even forgot the name of that song. It was just
we were just hired as musicians, right. But Greg Carmichael,
who was the producer, he had booked twelve hours. We
got through the first song, you know, the song we
needed that we were booked to do uh in two
and two hours, two and a half hours, something like that.
So he said, well, I'm not doing anything else with
(08:00):
the time. Why don't you guys come up with something
and I'll let you all recall what you want to do.
So we ordered some food and while we waited for
the food, I went into the instrument room and started
twinking on the piano. Right, Usually it doesn't take but
a minute for my brother James Callaway On to come
(08:24):
in on bass. So came up with something just very simple.
So then James came in and he played on top
of me, playing that. Right. Sonny came in and he
played on top of me playing that you know. So
the three of us were playing and arrived at that groove.
Right after that, we basically laid the whole thing down.
(08:44):
One thing that I liked about it is because I
like to come up with jazz changes for a disco song,
which because they don't belong there. Right, So once I
had everything together, we went in. We did the rhythm
and we once we had the rhythm track all in there,
then Sonny, my cousin Sonny Davenport. He started laying percussion pieces,
(09:08):
the kunga first ball, the second a go go, the
famous of go go let, tambourine, stuff like that. Right,
while we called my sister with name my girl, Dorothy Terrell,
and a couple of other females to come in and
do the background. We wrote the words that night, right,
(09:29):
oh wow, came up with the wrap that night. Right.
So within the remaining eight hours we came we uh
where we started with nothing and we ended up with
let's do it.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I always wanted to know how you came up with
all the names for your like your aliases, like long conversion,
like where'd that come from?
Speaker 5 (09:49):
I didn't come up with them. Oh okay. Most of
the time it would be a matter of me saying, well,
I don't want it to be me. I don't want
it to be a Leroy record, right, this is a
group effort, so forth and so on. And initially the
name of the group was Caliber, which is an anagram
of Leroy Burgess and James Callaway, right, okay, okay, Caliber,
(10:15):
And that's on your leams, hooked on your love records.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
That's the only time we used that. After that, it
was like, as long as we retained the sound, I
didn't care what name we used, right, I leave it
to the record companies to come up with. Sam Records
came up with Conversion, were like, oh hey Conversion. When
he when he copyrighted the name Conversion and Suso Records
(10:43):
wanted that group, They were like, well, you can't use
the name Conversion, So what would I said, I don't
care call it whatever. They called it log right, And
from there Universal Robot Band came out of that.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yes, yes, even man.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Then from that, you know, the names just evolved from
different places. I never really what was important to me
was that the sound and the team was doing the
same thing and arriving at the style of music that
we hope would be embraced. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
One of my favorite records of yours I always wanted
to ask you about by Caprice. Do you remember cutting it? Like,
who's singing lead on that record? It sounds like a
little girls that was like a kid, But but I
love that song, man, It's one of my favorites in
your catalog.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Jackie Bradley used to play guitar for the Black Ivory
Band and one of the early bands that we worked with.
He was part of the sols to Be as Our band. Right,
fast about in the eighties. This is that's in the
early seventies, right, So fast forward to the eighties and
Jackie is putting together his own band, Caprice. He comes
to me says, I would like for you to give
(11:52):
us a song. If you got a song, we'd like
to do a song of yours. Right. So I'm like, okay,
we got a song. Me and Sonny had composed call right,
And so we actually went into the process of teaching them.
The singer Evette Davis was this was like her first record.
So she was very Oh, she was tentative, she was scared,
(12:18):
she was she was she she was like she didn't
believe in her voice and so forth. And I was like, no, honey,
you just trust me. I'll get you to Just trust
me and I can get you to to I can
introduce you to the singer that's within you.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
How old was she at this time?
Speaker 5 (12:36):
She was in her twenties. She was in her twenties
and thirties or something like that, Okay, And so I
walked her through how to sing it. Because she really
has a voice that like has a quality like Denise
Williams like that really lilting tiny you know, it's like
(12:56):
you know, but at at certain points she can be
very powerful, but know it's just this lilting quality. And
I said, we can use that. Let's use that that quality.
That's when she goes and now is the time, don't
you know?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yes, sir, she was perfect for it.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
I made everybody get out of the studio watch and
cut the leads all right. The only ones that was
there with was myself and Sonny and the VET and
the engineers because I didn't want her intimidated by the
other band members and so forth and song. But she
did an amazing job in realizing that song.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Okay, so, since you just dropped your process and especially
with your aliases, can I assume that the the Bumblebee
Unlimited song is just the lemes on very speed?
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Well, it's actually not the alems Bumblebee Unlimited would usually
be Patrick myself and and yeah versep just I speeded down.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And wasn't that a little risky in terms of like, hey,
this the song might actually get some traction on radio
and whatnot, Like do we want to sing it at
very speed or in our natural voices?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Like, what made you want to do that?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Well, Bumblebee Unlimited was Patrick's brainchild, Okay, And the whole
thing is at that point, I was desperate for work
because I had just left Black Abbrey, so I needed
to work so bad. So whatever Patrick wanted to do,
I was like, yeah, I'm fine with that. I was
more worried about it being us having a problem with
(14:36):
gross Bagdasavian productions because of Alvin and the Chipmunks, and
you know, compared it was the same process. This is
exactly the same process, but Patrick's had done about it.
I'll call the bumble Bee and nobody who will will
be the wiser.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So you really thought somebody would come at you for
because Stevie Wonder did it on maybe Your Baby and
slot Like, I'm just realizing now that side one or fresh.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That entire side one sly singing in arry speed.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
I mean, it's not.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Extreme various speed where it sounds like Alvin and Chipmunks.
He when they did the French version of dance to
the music, he didn't call it slide in the family Stone.
He called it the French Fries And they kept the
same musical backdrop as danced to the music, but they
sang it as Alvin and the Chipmunks and it was
(15:37):
really Lolly Gaggan or whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's like a rare B side and.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah for Europe, but I love that song. Before I
get to my next question, OK, just in general with
New York.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And various bands around now.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
We mentioned you know, brother Larry Blackman before, but you know,
around this time, are you at all having interactions at
all with like, you know, like with Larry Muller and
uh or BECAUSEI fosso came from BT Express a little later,
but you know, as you guys are kind of molding
(16:16):
and shaping really the sound of disco and more importantly
the sound.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Of post disco. Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I guess we call it bookie. I don't know if
you called the bookie or not, but people have tacked
it bookie. Are you having any interactions with those guys whatsoever?
Speaker 5 (16:33):
I met Randy at at a little gig we did
at a club called APT back in the early weekends,
and we're friends. The same thing with Hubett Eves the Third,
and I'm friends with all of them. We have not
interacted professionally to collaborate on any music, but we appreciate
(16:55):
where each other's coming from.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I mean some some credit now rogers some who do
you feel is the person that really is the proprietor
of Bookie like a slow down version, same disco pulse,
but less less cluttered and more groove based, in other words,
(17:21):
more for the backyard barbecue than Studio fifty four.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Like well, if you ask anybody in London, they would
tell you it's me.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I say to you as well, straight up, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
I just come from Harlem, right in Harlem, while disco
is like kind of up in one twenty one twenty,
you know, get the hord rate going and so forth.
I'm from that chill boom chill boom boom boom boom
boo boom. I'm there right in terms of I want
(18:00):
to create and where the groove is for me, right right,
So when I did songs like fat Rating, when I
created let's do it and so forth, that's where we at.
We swinging right there. We're not interested in boom boom
boom boom boom boom. Now we we do these records
for record companies who, in their brilliance, in their moments
(18:22):
of genius, they decide, all right, let's take it and
give it to somebody t sweet it up, but just
go sweet. It had to go through it. But as
far as boogie is just a chilled out, laid back
kind of groovy joint right where you can still party
hard to it without you know, having a cardiac arrest, right.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Two step?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
So what was sweet to Me ever considered like a
single from from the lock record.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
From the log album sweet to Me so sweet?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's like I go heavy on that song when I
do my bookie sets, and I always wanted to know
why wasn't that ever like given the single treatment.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Well, because the hierarchy can care stand care at salso records,
they decided that the only well there would be two
singles there would be I Know You Will, which was
the Larry Levan record, Right, You've got that something right
(19:32):
and Dancing into the Stars right the others laid on
the line sweet to Me. They never really made it
into the forefront of being a single in terms of
Souso's feeling or what they decided to do.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So so they just felt it was filler.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Yeah, they felt it with filler. But here's the big
story about its crazy We mentioned Universal Robot Band.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Right, yes, sir, barely break it even a right.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Barely breaking even is actually the seventh song from the Log.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Out, Oh okay, gotcha all right?
Speaker 5 (20:14):
Barely breaking even. We recorded to close the Log album
out all right. That's when we got all of the musicians,
all of the singers who were put together the Log project.
We called them all in the studio for I think
it was an eighteen hour session or something like that. Right,
everybody was in there. We fed everybody, made sure everybody
(20:35):
was comfortable with plenty of stuff and smoke, and you know,
we were the happy session. And I said, we're gonna
do this great record where everybody's gonna sing, and it's
gonna be like this giant quiet and we're all going
to talk about how hard it is to keep money
in our pocket. Barely breaking even. Right. What happened was
(20:55):
our co producer, Greg Carmichael heard the record and was
very please with it, right, and decided to go to
South Soul to get a little extra paper, little extra paper,
I want a little extra can't care? Said no, right,
so Greg said, in the middle of the night, around
(21:17):
two thirty in the morning. Right, he went to the
studio and was recording, and he told him, I want
to make a safety of the master of the twenty four.
I want to make it and I'll bring it right
back that Later that day we went to mix the
song to do a final mixture of the song to
(21:38):
complete the album, and found it not to be there.
So of course we're like, oh my god, what how
did y'all let it go? All right, so we get
on the phone. We can't care, So so we coming
down there right now, Greg to thek blah blah blah,
blah blah blah. We expected that King Cared to be
completely up in arms about the loss of Bailly Breaking
(22:01):
even right, that's when Ken told us about Well, Greg
came and was looking for extra paper, so forth and
so on. I did not want to give it to him,
and that's why he, you know, com and did the tape. Right. Essentially,
the outrage that we expected from Ken Kidd was not
(22:22):
to be found, all right. His basic position was, We've
already got these sixth grade tunes. I don't need the
extra of of you know. So that's when some months
later it was released on Movelow Records as Universal Robot Band.
(22:45):
But that Bailly Breaking even is the seventh song from
the logo.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Wow, we didn't talk about mainline.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
That's another one of my favorite, but you tell us
about recording that session.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
I stepped away from Black Ivory because we were being
typecast into a slow jam group. All right, that's where
you know, don't turn around you and I I'll find
a way all the slow jams that they loved with
the falsetto, they wanted us, the audience wanted us to
stay there, and thereby I would not accept us doing
any fast. I could not stay in that environment because
(23:31):
I was not growing creatively while the marketplace is going
around me. So that's when I made a decision to
actually step away and do a hiatus from Black Ivy.
All Right, about somewhere around seventy eight seventy nine, Lenny Adams,
who was still managing Black Ivory, came to me and said,
(23:52):
I need songs for this new Buddha album, you know,
or they're gonna drop us from Buddha, right And I said, well,
I got three songs that I'm not doing anything with
h Hustling coming Down and Maylind and I Will. You know,
those songs are not a signed to anybody uh, and
so Lenny was like, write your own ticket or whatever
(24:15):
you want, whatever you need it to be. I want
you to come back, bring the musicians in, all right.
I said, well, if I'm gonna do it, we have
to do it with Patrick Adams. We need Patrick Adams
on it, we need James Callaway, you know. And and
we just locked it up, lined it up. I gave
them a demo so Russell could learn to sing the
(24:35):
league right and uh, you know, the backgrounds, We just
sang as we normally would do. But I like it right.
And Patrick came in did the strings and horns. The
drums weren't right. Initially we used Leroy Mike Connor on
the drums, but they were not falling right. So we
had Earl Young come in and overdub his.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Young hypothetically speaking, so say, if I'm like one of
your peers, of your contemporaries in nineteen seventy nine, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Producing the same music that.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
You're producing, Okay, what would what is a producer's rate
in in seventy eight seventy nine eighty Like in the
in the era of twelve inch discos for the sassoles
of the world, these small labels of the world, like
(25:29):
what would my living be per per side like is
it whatever you can work with? Or is it a
contracted thing? Like how does one make a living?
Speaker 5 (25:43):
Barely? Basically, back in that period, you do good. If
you could get a budget that was anywhere between, say
about thirty five hundred to about five thousand, the high
end of that would be ten thousand. Right, we'll give
you that, right and say, bring me my record, bring
(26:07):
me a great record, bring me something that's gonna kill
so forth and so on. And it was your job
to take the amount that you were given and create
that record, right, and whatever was left over, Yeah, you
could walk home with. You know, So if you were
given ten thousand dollars, then it only costs you six
(26:27):
to do right, you know, the final record, then you're
walking home with four. Right. So budgets around that time
were about, you know, if they were reasonable, they were
ten thousand and upper song, right, and that would give
you a decent amount of room. And how you lived
(26:50):
and how you lived off a bit is how you
could make that budget work with under ten thousand dollars,
so that you had to.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You weren't all and out of control, Okay, So did
you have great relationships with Larry Levan or even Frankie
Crocker at that like a being a song or like
bringing them a test pressing and see if it works
it doesn't work, are you able to go back and
(27:19):
readjust if it does not work.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
I'm gonna take one person at a time. Larry Levan
a R. I did not know who he was, and
I did not know who what the Paradise Garage was.
I thought it was a gage?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Wait, what how did you create a soundtrack for Generation?
Speaker 5 (27:38):
It?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Did not know what the Paradise Garage was?
Speaker 5 (27:41):
I did. I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
So what was the epicenter of a place where you
wanted to see how your music worked?
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Oh? He just went straight to them.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
Yeah, and that's where. That's where my first gig at
any of those clubs down there, long before I learned
about Paradise Googa. My first gig was at Studio fifty four, uh,
performing Let's do it. As far as Lady Levan goes.
I got to appreciate his art after I Know you
Will was given to him to mix right, and I
(28:15):
was like, now you know we're from uptown, We're from
Harlem and We're like, we're belligerent about everything. So so
we're like, ladle Van's mixing it? Who? We never heard
of him. I don't know if I wanted him to
have myself. Who is that? All right? So we stormed
(28:37):
right Track studios on forty eighth Street where he's doing
the final mix.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Right.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
And when I say we stormed, we jump in the cab.
Met James and Sunny.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We are from Harlem.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
Yeah, yeah, we jump in the cab. We rolled all
the way down there and we were like, oh no,
you're letting us in this session, this out on all right?
Blah blah blah. So we basically boguarded our way up
to the studio where it was working, and you know,
(29:09):
they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't let us in.
Finally Labby came out and with gracious and said, oh,
these are the producers, these are the songwriters. Let them
end so far up the song and then he appaused
us of what he had in mind and how he
was working it, and it sounded so great, right. We
(29:29):
was like, oh, I don't mean to go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
So remixing was just a foreign idea, like letting someone
borrow your stem, your your your your mate, your your lifeline.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Well, here's the thing. When you were budgeted by a
record company, right, it was there. It was their property period, Right.
It was there, so you could do whatever mix you
wanted to do and say this is the mix I
want to come out, and they'll be like, okay, yeah,
let's leave it ahead. And then they would call chef
(30:09):
Patty bad John Wallace Man, they go whoever their guy, right,
jelly Bean, Benitas, They say, hey, take this multi track
and give me a great record, right, And then it
would not be what the producer's vision was. It would
be this other vision that was in the mind of
(30:33):
the remixer, however that mind might be on that given day.
All right, but that was the job. I mean you
you wasn't if you didn't own that master, so you
couldn't say, I'm going to make sure it's supposed to
mix it. They owned the master so they could say
and so after a minute you have to say, you
(30:54):
have to resign yourself to that dynamic. All right. One
of the is that it's really definitive. Let's do it.
Let's do it. Was an eleven minute song, right that
had two bridges, right, Wow, and the vamp chorus. I
was going nuts on as a lead vocalist, right. All
(31:18):
of that ended up on the cutting wom floor at
SAM Record. They was like, no, contain the record to
this five minute thing, and this is what it's going
to be. We heard it, we were discussed, we were like,
oh my god, where's the rest of the record. Right,
let's do it? Came out amazing, hit you just hit right.
So in twenty sixteen, I had a copy of the
(31:45):
eleven minute version right right right with the vocals and
so forth and song, and Franky Knuckles played it at
Studio fifty four right and I forgot to get the
tape back from him, so he took it back to
Corgo with him. Right Frankie passed away. He gave it
to another DJ, DJ a manual something right, and he
(32:13):
gets in touch with me twenty fifteen, says I have
the eleven minute version of Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
I'm like what?
Speaker 5 (32:22):
So he sent it to me. I sent it to
my partner PR to master it right and then to
initiate the startup or just entertainment. I said, let's just
put it out for free. Let's give it to everybody
for free. Right, and we introduced everybody to what the
full version of Let's do It is? Right, and they
(32:45):
got the second bridge, they got to hear the second chord,
they got to hear the vamp out or all of
the things that were removed from it. They got to
hear it, and they was like, oh my god, this
is incredible. Why did everybody started asking the questions that
we were asked? You know? Why did y'all chop it
up like that? I put it all down to how
(33:06):
music evolves and the business that uh that pertains to it, right,
you know, and and just not to let anything drive
you so crazy that you doing crazy stuff.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I wanted to ask you about Fonder Ray. She was
like one of my favorite singers of that time. She said,
over it like a fat rat.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
What was she like in the studio?
Speaker 5 (33:29):
She was pleasant, she was she was professional.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
And where did she come from?
Speaker 5 (33:35):
I don't know a book.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So she was just brought to you as a client.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
She came from either it is the other Mount Vernon
or Newer Shell or somewhere Yonkers or something like that.
I think that's where she lives. Uh. When we did
over Like a Fat that we recorded it as a
demo with Bob Blank. Bob gave us some free studio
time and uh, we met James and Sonny. We went
(34:03):
in and we just did our things, creating songs and
so for up the songs so over like Batlight was
one of the songs. And we left the tape for Bob.
And then Bob went to Vanguard and Vanguard had signed
Fonder and Bob called us up and said, we mind
if he tried fond of Ray And I'm like, fond
(34:24):
of who and He's like Fonda Ray and I'm like, uh, okay,
Well we'll allow it if you let us be at
the session, meaning myself and my cousin Sonny Davenport.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
We went to the session. She she learned the song
and sang it very competently, giving us the performance that
y'all are familiar with.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Was that her first session, No she had she's also
on she worked with August Darnell.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
During the she did she did Deputy Love It was
It wasn't Doctor Buzzers.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
It was with Don Armando's second Rumba band or something.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
He always had that crazy like alias and stuff.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
But definitely Love is a record though that's a jam
did not know that.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
She also had worked with Patrick Adams with a version
of touch Me All Night Long.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yes, that's different than the one that we know, or.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
Different the version with spelled t U c h oh,
like it spelled t U c h me And she
did that, uh before it got to the Sandy post.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
That did it?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Okay, Wow, all right, here's here's the question I always
wanted to know. I'm getting right to Rick James right now.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I knew it.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
So I have one question to ask you.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
All right, the way that you're holding your head right now,
I already know what the answer is. But can I
can I just take a wild guess that your involvement
with Big Time is just that intro?
Speaker 5 (36:07):
No?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh, so you did the entire because the thing is
is that the kick drum piano intro is such a
Leroy Burgess sound. And then right when the song kicks in,
I felt like, wow, okay, now it sounds like Rick James,
how did that come?
Speaker 1 (36:23):
How did that come together?
Speaker 5 (36:25):
Okay? At the session I was telling you about where
we recorded over like a fat rat for a Fonda
or we for that one of the another one of
the songs that we'd done was a song called Baytime
right now. You know, I did the demo with the
piano and James on Bassis Sonday on drums and I
(36:46):
sang in the you know, I did a demo of
the of the vocals and shit right and on our
way uptown to Bob Blank Studio was on twentieth and
sixth Avenue right and on our way back uptown, we
just decided to stop at fifty seventh Street between eighth
and ninth Avenue to stop at Kenny Morris's house. Kenny
(37:08):
Morris was Patrick's partner, right to stop there to get
a little package for us to feel good with. When
we got uptown, we absolutely so, you know, and Kenny
was holding so we went there all right. When we
got there, Kenny's friend, Rick James was in attendance. He
(37:33):
was he was visiting Kenny and oh, so, you know,
we really want to do our business and get on.
But then you know, Kenny was like, come on inside,
and Patrick was right there, and uh so we did
our little wine and dine thing. I mean, we'll not
know Dona's wine.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
We already know.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
And rig James was like, tell old Patrick, I'm getting
ready to do my new album.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I don't want more.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Down to and so forth. I just need to be
a good one and so forth. And I mentioned that
we just came out of the studio doing a little
demo and so for oh let me hear no, no,
let me hear it, I'm looking for songs, right, and
so big Time was the first song on the cassette
(38:20):
and we only made it halfway through.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Oh my god, that's my song.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
That's my song. I got to have it because big
Time is the persona of big Time is Big James persona.
It's all about a guy who arrived at the big Time.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Life of fortune and fame and stuff.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Yes, yeah, glamor and fame and all of that. So
it was Paul, that's my song. I needed to Patrick
be working out and so forth and so on. So
Patrick worked it up. This is nineteen seventy nine. By
nineteen eighty it was released as we made a deal
for it to be the first single from the Garden
of Love album, right, and we arranged for Rig James
(39:02):
and Patrick too, for Patrick to co produce it with
Rig James and take it out. They took the multi
track out to California, where Rig James added his flavor
to it. The entire song, the change and everything like
that that was written composed by me and Vig. James
added his elements to it, but essentially h he replayed
(39:27):
the bass, took James callaway off and replayed the bass, uh,
replayed some of the piano parts, put his horns on it,
and so forth, and then added don't don't right, And
I'd like to think, I don't want to be presumptuous,
but this is before super Freaking all of that, and
(39:49):
I'd like to think that big Time was central in
reviving Rick's career to such a degree that he was
able to then take that model and create new songs
from it, right, And that gave you the super Freak And.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
That's exactly what it did.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But that piano intro, Yeah, it's such an Unricked James
sounding thing that I was like, in my mind, I
felt like, at the last minute, let's add that piano
interro at the top, and then no, but.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
That was the whole record when we did it, was that,
you know, that was the whole demo.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So I guess I really became familiar with you.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Kind of the summer eighty four, when like B boy
cultures starting to set off and via lemes release yourself.
What was your thoughts on the Marley Maul remix.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Of that song.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
I didn't know who Marlly was before that, but I
certainly got to know who he was since he did it. Okay,
because to see for me, it became a practical situation. Uh,
that part be goes, release your sound, we right an
(41:12):
octave from where I'm singing it now right right form
that of right you might be able to do that
once or twice right before your whole voice would break
in half, give out right, just breaking half. So I
always was like, while I understand the virtue of it
being sampled, a lot of people expected it to be sunk.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
That was my second question. How much of a nightmare
was it for them? Because that's the only version we played.
We know there's other versions of the song, but we
will always go to the B side and play the
Marley mal version right right right, And it was inescapable
in the summer of nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
Right. So I arrived at a balance between when I'm
doing my live I let one of the girls or
something like that do those parts right, and then I
stick to you got to you know you need to
stick to that right. It makes it easy because, believe me,
(42:15):
if I just did one full chorus of that, that's
the end of the show. And thank you very much,
good night, And I hope you enjoyed that. That that
chorus that I didn't.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
I want to ask you, Lee Roy, there's a record
you did a couple of years back with Glenn underground.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Let me know you're feeling me record.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Yes, myself and Glenn.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Oh oh, Patrick working on that as well.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
Yes, Yes, the song was composed by Patrick, Glenn and myself. Uh.
That was when a guy named Raddick who runs dust
Tracks Records out of Chicago. Uh, he had a hook
up with Glenn and Glenn had asked for myself and
Patrick Rady Can convinced us to take a plane to
(43:05):
fly out there for a couple of days and work
with Glenn. And again that song was started from scratch.
We had nothing, no no beating nor anything. And Patrick
came up with with with the baseline that kind of
took us somewhere and then I said, I added some
cords to it, and then we had Glenn come in
(43:28):
put the drums against it, and so forth and so on,
and we began to build a record up from there,
and within two days we had that that song.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I love that song, man, I just I was I
was so happy.
Speaker 4 (43:42):
A good buddy of mine, Escort out of out of Chicago,
he sent me that when it came out, and I
was just so happy to hear you like singing again
and like, I just really love that record.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Man.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I have one inter life question.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yes, well, actually, okay, this is something you've really got
to settle for me, because it's killing me. Did you
ever work with Alan George or Fred McFarlane, Because even
if your name is not on the credits, I still
insist that you had something to do with somebody else's guy,
(44:19):
even though you know your only connection to it is
working with Jocelyn Brown and in her life. But and
I'm not want to be starting something, but I can't
be the only human being that thought that you produced that.
Speaker 5 (44:38):
Well Alan George and Fred McFarlane. First of all, Fred
McFarlane was a member of Conversion and Law.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Like okay, keyboard player for.
Speaker 5 (44:49):
My grouping one of the high keyboard players for the group.
So we knew Fred, and we've known Alan because Alan
had been close friends with our second the second Black
Ivory band Stone Love, so we knew Allen through that.
The reason why you hear a connection between somebody else's
(45:11):
guy and music that you associate with me is two reasons.
One is James Callaway, he's the bass player on that
record right right, and and of course Fred mcfallan. And
the second element is George Ellington and Vincent Henry on
(45:32):
brass because George and Vincent. George was a horn player
for my band, Vincent was a man and and the
two of them gave you that that kind of sound, right,
So between James, Fred and Vincent and George, that's where
you get that that layer of sounded compared to what
(45:53):
we do.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Yeah, you get throw. He probably throw what's seventh Heaven
on that too, that GWNG Guthrie. It kind of all those.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Really believe it or not, That's the first place I looked
to me. It's your sound, I guess in general, and
in wrapping this up unless you have another one.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
Yeah, I just wanted to talk to him about his
his noise record.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, you work with a lot of my heroes on
this one. With the remixes. Big ups to.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
Josh Milan and Mark Matt from for a hero. What's
your connection with with those guys? And UH talk about
your your work with.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
Them everybody on that I'm blessed to have UH share
their brilliance on these days. The remixes have been friends
for a little while now. A Stacy kid I met
a few years ago when I invited him to have
(46:53):
us to come see my myself in my live. I've
known Louis Vega ever take us all the way back
to the conversion we make in twenty sixteen. Kenny Carpenter,
good friend of mine that I worked with a song
on him called more Love, and he came back and
(47:14):
did some of the early mixes on remake that I
did of Jesus Children of America about Stevie. Mark Mack
is a friend, very long time friend. I've known him
for about a good twenty twenty five years. It was
DEAs Parks.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
I was about to say, Dans Parks man, Oh my God,
rest in peace.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
Bear departed and ascended angel Death Parks who insisted on
me meeting Mark right and said, Marc is the guy Mark,
and Mark has since I've met him and since I've
worked with him, everything that Mark has done has been
just the absolute truth, just so pure. So to wrap
(47:55):
up the whole album and reflect Nicholas is. He was
the surprise because he heard These Days the album, the
initial album from which the remix album is inspired, and
heard the song all together and he was just really
taken with that, and I was taken with all of
(48:15):
the reflex remixes. He's the one who does the best
remixing that I've heard. When I heard him do Rock
with You by Michael Jackson and All Night Long by
Lino Richie. He does his thing in the Stone with
earth Wind and Fire. He's really a brilliant Nicholas is
really a brilliant remixer. So I was blessed that all
(48:38):
of them, when they heard These Days the initial album
come out, they called me up and they said, hey,
I want to remix this, and I want to remix that,
and I want to do this, and I want to
do that. And I spoke with my partner, pl Sweets,
and he said, well, let's do a remix album. You
know that just features remixes, right, And that's where this
(49:00):
latest project came. These Days initial album was released back
in September twenty twenty two, and the remix album just
It was initially released in March twenty third, twenty twenty three,
and then as of last Thursday it hit track sauce
(49:22):
so and now people are starting to really get into it.
But those guys blessed me with their talent and with
their insight and with their genius, and they made it
into a project that I can really really be proud of.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Yeah. Now we're all disciples, man, We're all disciples.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
So I got one more record to ask before we rap,
because not many people talk enough about Eddie Kendricks's. Is
aristera period? And you worked on the Something More record?
I never used to dance. Can you talk about what
like working with Eddie Kendricks like what it was like?
Speaker 5 (50:01):
It was a lot of fun because Eddie is a
cannabis indulgence as I am.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
And hey, no the club amen.
Speaker 5 (50:15):
So Patrick got the deal when Eddie when he was
working with Arista, and he said, I got to Eddie
Kendrick deal. I said, oh, great, that's cool. Do you
have anything for him? Not really, we don't have nothing,
but I'd like to meet him. So Patrick said, oh,
come on down, I have a meet him with him,
so forth and so on. So I bought my team
meet James and Sunny. We went down there, we met,
(50:37):
you know, chopped it up, had a few drinks and
so forth and so on, and I was like, well, Eddie,
what do you want to sing about? Right? And he said,
I don't really know, I don't really care. Just write
me a great song. For whatever reason, we started talking
about the Temptations moves and the choreography and so forth.
(50:57):
And now I think I started talking about how Black
Eyes was biting his choreography, you know. So I started
talking about that and he said, well, I never liked
the dancing. I'm not a dancer. I'm a singer. Uh.
And so although I had to do it because it
was part of my my duties as a Temptation, you know,
(51:20):
to do the choreography and all of that, but I
never really liked it. And I was like, wow, there's
our song story. So myself and my cousin Sonny, and
my brother James, we created a song called I Never
Used to Dance. It's about which is about a dude
who doesn't really like dancing. You know, how many you
(51:42):
go to a party and you see the dudes standing
up against the wall while the chick get out. You know,
they out there doing anything and the dudes is just
like standing there looking at it. Yeah, how about that?
How about the Mets?
Speaker 1 (51:54):
You know the Wallflower song?
Speaker 5 (51:56):
Yeah, so they're doing that. But never used to dances
about that one chick that you see it hit the
floor and oh my god, I just got to dance
with it. And all of a sudden, you're not dancing behind,
you're not dancing the ass find yourself out on the floor,
which is he's the one that gets you to do it.
So that's what never used to dance is all about. Wow.
(52:21):
And he heard it. When he heard it, it was like, oh,
that's perfect, that's me all, that's me, that's it so
so uh And for me, listen, when I was thirteen fourteen,
I was singing just my imagination and the way you do,
(52:41):
the things you do, those songs were just ingrained in me.
To be working with an icon like him, right, oh,
and for him to be doing one of my compositions,
one of my co productions, was just a dream come true,
many many dreams that have come true in my time
(53:04):
in this industry.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
Yo, man, this is some of the best two hours
ever been waiting on this man.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
It's nerding out.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Thank you, man, I can't even thank you enough for this,
Like you know you've changed culture and you know you
can't there there aren't enough flowers in the world to
give you man like like what you've done for dance culture,
man is like real heads no, and we just thank
you for doing our show with us.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Thank you for the music, man, just your music is
so much joy to like to my life, you know
what I mean, and uh, always a good time. So
just just thank you for all your contributions. Man, straight up.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
Blood Shulan, thank you all for having me. I'm very
aware of how successful your work is. Question this team is.
I'm just happy to be a part of it, ah
and happy to participate in this. Uh. You guys have
some really great questions. Man.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
You know we're fans. We are fans.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
You know I'm a DJ, so I'm only as good
as the knowledge I have of you know the records
I gravitate towards. And you know your your records have
saved many many a party of mind.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
So thank you very much for that.
Speaker 5 (54:22):
That's what's up. That's what's up.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Thank you, yo.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
When be having su Steve and unpaid Bill and fantigolo
and like if this is another another classic much love
extravag handl love it energy.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
We will see all next time, all right, thank you.
M's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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