June 28, 2023 • 43 mins
Questlove Supreme salutes Black Music Month in style with a special interview with Bill Clinton. The 42nd President of the United States and Founder and Board Chair of the Clinton Foundation brings some vinyl with him to the in-studio interview as he discusses his love of Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, and more—and recalls the actions he took in the White House to support that passion. While chatting with Team Supreme, President Clinton revisits his saxophone playing on Arsenio Hall, and offers some powerful advice and wisdom to people on how to go about their lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All right, kids,
you ready like you?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You ready like you? Everything's ll let's go, we jump,
let's do it, let's do it. Here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Suprema Sun Sun Suprema roll Calm Suprema Sun Sun Supremo.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Roll call, Suprema.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Sun Sun Supremo, Role Calm, Suprema Son Son Suprema roll Call.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
My name is Questlove, Yeah, and you are you Yeah?
And that's Team Supreme.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And he's forty two.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Supreme su Suprema roll Calm, Suprema su Suprema roll call.
Speaker 6 (00:52):
My name is Fante Yeah, and I'm gonna keep it
roll yeah with the Realist President.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, out of Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Suprema Son Suprema, roll call, Suprema Son Son Supremo.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Role Call.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
My name is Sugar.
Speaker 7 (01:10):
Yeah, first president I ever met.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh you just reminded me.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (01:15):
I haven't filed my taxes yet.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Suprema So Supremo. Roll call, Suprema So Suprema.
Speaker 8 (01:24):
Roll call paid Bill.
Speaker 9 (01:26):
Yeah, and I got to thinking, yeah about my second
favorite bill.
Speaker 8 (01:30):
Yeah, President Clinton.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Suprema su.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Supreme So Suprema roll.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
It's my ear yeah, and it's a special day. Yeah,
our first press. Yeah, Bill Clinton all Day.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Roll call Supremo, So Son Supremo, roll call, Supremo, Son Son.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Supremo, roll call.
Speaker 10 (01:57):
My name is Bill. Yeah, Yeah, I know the drill. Yeah,
I'm glad to be here. Yeah, calls music is there?
Take it up?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Sun Sun Subpreme roll call Subpremo.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Sun Sun Subprema roll Calm Subprema, Son Sun Subpremo, roll
call Subprema Son Sun.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Subprema roll call.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Ladies and gentlemen, Congratulations, we have our first.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I will say, it's it's a point. We just do
a Griselda right exactly. It's amazing how the world works sometimes. Uh,
for no particular reason. You know, we we've been away
from each other for three years and decided, hey, it
might be cool for us to get back together and
(02:55):
do some stuff in person.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And then life throws you a curveball.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And I I will say, probably no less than twenty
four hours ago.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
We got a call straight up.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And I'll be honest with you, because I was preparing
for another guest, and right before I went to sleep
last night, I read my itinery I'm like, wait a minute,
that's tomorrow. I thought that was like in the future,
because when you threw it at me, I was like, ah,
this will never happen.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So like no, we all went like what.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
February thirtieth of Yah, nineteen seventy six, Like that's going
to happen.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I will be saying, yeah, this is happening.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And our guest today is the very first time that
you're nervous. Yeah, yeah, this is the very first time
I stepped in the voter booth to exerciseise.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
Y rightsident voted for your age.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Time.
Speaker 8 (03:52):
I wasn't Oh the second time.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Wait, how I don't know what your age is.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
On papill I am eighty six years old, Okay, I
mean sometimes you seem younger than me.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Then when you have a beard.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
It looks like you're accountant, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So I don't know how old you are. But you know, my.
Speaker 7 (04:07):
First vote was for ducacis believe it or not, that's
how old you are.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That's how old you are. Come up anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Live in CDM studios is where we are, and we
are very honored to have music lover musician uh and incidentally,
are the forty second president of these United States, William
Jefferson Clinton one A question to.
Speaker 8 (04:37):
What is happening?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
So, how are you today?
Speaker 10 (04:39):
I'm good, I'm better now. This is I didn't find
out about this much before you.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
You were like an hour before.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Oh, let's let's hit down just a casual question, like.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
What what did you do this morning? Like what's your
morning routine like as of lately?
Speaker 10 (04:53):
Well lately, I get up in the morning and I
read the papers. I'm old five, I'll read the papers.
Get my phone and I read the papers I didn't read.
I read my local West Sister County paper and the
New York Times and paper. Then I read the Washington
Post online, and then I look and see what other
(05:14):
articles there are, and then I work puzzles for a
while because it's good for you. Like I do that
word puzzle in New York Times every day.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Are you a wordle person or a New York Times
crossword person or I.
Speaker 10 (05:27):
Don't do that. I only do the cross word on Sunday.
But I do wordle, and I do the wordle nice,
and I do the spelling Bee, the spelling Bee every day.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I would like to think that I have an expansive vocabulary,
but you know, it's so frustrating. I give up after
like the seventh word unpaid bill. You strike me as
a person that can at least get to fifteen.
Speaker 9 (05:50):
I can I go in on the the this one. Yeah,
I can't stop. It's just like you can.
Speaker 10 (05:54):
It's pretty hard to do.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
It was hard today. There was a lot of there was.
Every time there's an X, what, it's like, what the
hell's going to do?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
What's a vow for today?
Speaker 8 (06:01):
Well, there's a bunch of vwel so it's a.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
What's in the middle?
Speaker 9 (06:03):
Oh a, oh, well wait, and you'll say that's hard.
It was like I'm gonna no one's gonna listen. It's
like oxidation annotation notation there too.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, during the pandemic, you'll be shocked at you know,
what you do for entertainment, especially because I was on
a farm with new cable. So that's when I started
my rabbit holing inside of crosswords.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And that sort of thing. So you're a word o person.
Speaker 10 (06:28):
Too, Yeah, I started that later. I did that the
spelling bee for a long time and now normally around
dinner time, He'll and I'll get back together and between
the two of us we can get them all. What
so we have a conspiracy for spelling baby we didn't
do it yesterday, and I didn't get them all yesterday either.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
So you like to do it at nighttime, around dinner
or first thing in the I'm the first thing in
the morning person.
Speaker 10 (06:54):
I like to do it first thing in the morning,
and then whichever ones I don't have, I'll just put
it away and think about it and start working. Because
I do. I call people in the morning when I'm
fresh and thoughtful, and then I'm trying to finish two
books I've been working on and it's been very frustrating,
so I do that in the middle of the day.
(07:15):
I take time off and take away. I try to
take a walk every day.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
My day is determined on if I'm able to solve wordle.
Speaker 10 (07:24):
One thing that frustrates me. The other day I got
three of the five letters in order off the first work,
which I put in a rose. And I got three
of the first and I got R O and then E,
and I literally went through five permutations before I got
to write one. I was going nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I wanted to throw your right.
Speaker 10 (07:47):
It was broke, I think was the wordle. And I
went through all you know wrote I don't know any
other words. That's what makes you feel you don't know
what he's dumb, unlucky, what's going on.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It has a way of determining how good or rotten
your day is going to be. So I try to
do it now in the afternoon.
Speaker 10 (08:06):
So it can't spoil your morning.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
See, you walked in with two albums and being as
though we're jazz fanatics here at Quest of Supreme, where
I'm curious to see what you brought to the table.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Why did you choose.
Speaker 10 (08:23):
This is an old Sunny Rollins album. You can see
I had to type it up. I see, I had
it forever and it's the first one he did on
Brazilian music. I once told Rollins that I love the
album he did in Harlem in the late nineties. He
(08:45):
said it wasn't worth of them, and I said, what
was the matter with it? He said, I didn't learn anything.
I didn't do anything new. There. He is, you know,
at his age, and he's still doing things new. So
this is great.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What's the name of that album, President, It's Sounny Rowlings brings.
Speaker 8 (09:02):
The jazz new rhythm from South America.
Speaker 10 (09:04):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Do you often get disappointed when you meet notable people
that have done things amazing that you think are amazing,
and then they're just dismissive of it. Like that often
happens here at the show, where you know, I say
the thing he did, and they'll just be like, man, whatever.
Speaker 10 (09:21):
One of the things that I really loved when I
was president is nearly anybody, I'll come play for you
if you ask me. And one day I looked up.
I was sitting at my desk and I looked up,
and then we had the door open to the outside.
Dave Brewbeck was standing there and he was, you know,
(09:41):
getting you know, some award. Not the Kennedy Center War, Oh,
he got the National Medal of Arts that you're So
I went out and shook hands with him, and I
told him how much I liked him, And I said,
you know, when I was fifteen years old, you've played
about seventy miles from home. So I went to your
concert in Arkansas because he was friends with the guy
(10:05):
who was a great music teacher there, jazz fanatic. He
looked at me and kind of skeptically said, he said,
besides take five, what's your people? What's your favorite rubeks On?
I thought always giving me? I said blue Rondo. He said,
nobody knows that. I said, it's a great song. He said,
hum the bridge.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Oh, he's one of those people was so.
Speaker 10 (10:31):
I hummed the Bridge for it, and three days later
he sent me a great autograph copy of the chart
and that still hangs in my music room today. Wow,
just because I knew the Bridge from BLUEO.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Wow, that's terrifying.
Speaker 8 (10:48):
Yo, that's the one you know, don't want?
Speaker 5 (10:51):
You know?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
What does that?
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Like?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Does that a lot of where I'll just take the
compliment and be like, you know, because they'll say something
skill like, yo, man, I have botle and then to
reach the person that actually wants evidence that you really believe,
And then I'm like, what if it winds up being
a pie in the face moment and then you can't say, then,
how's the conversation going?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I'm glad you knew his history, right.
Speaker 10 (11:15):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
What other records did you bring in there?
Speaker 10 (11:19):
I got Dizzy Gillespie's New Way, which also has a
couple of resilient songs on it, including the Morning of
the Carnival from Black Corfea, which is one of my
favorite songs. I think it's one of the most beautiful
songs that were written a.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Love Brazilian music. Mister President was like, my favorite. Oh
I'm like this, No, no, I said the music, not that.
Speaker 10 (11:43):
This is a record of Jimmy Smith. I think he
is the greatest sas organists who ever lived. And he
used to play at a place called the Cellar Door
in Washington when I was in college, so I would
go and listen to him, and the first time he
started playing, I thought that organ and was going to
walk out of this room all by itself. Oh, he
(12:04):
was unbelievable. What year was this, sixty four, sixty five,
something like that. And this is my favorite jazz samba record.
This is the first record done by Stan Gatz and
Charlie Birds out of Brazil.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
So when did you fall in love with Brazilian jazz?
Speaker 10 (12:26):
I was interested in jazz, and I started listening to
bigger jazz bands when I was six or seven years old,
and my folks had a record player and they'd go
away and I'd just get these records, just record after
record and sit there on the floor and listen to them.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So was your parents collection?
Speaker 10 (12:43):
Yeah? And then I started ordering Downbeating magazine when I
was in grade school, and because they asked me, I
started out on clarinet, and they asked me to shift
to saxophone because the school needed a saxophone in the band.
And I fell in love with and I started reading Downbeat,
and I read it all through high school, and when
(13:05):
I could, i'd supplement the record collection.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
You know, did you have aspirations of being a professional
musician or did you just love it?
Speaker 10 (13:12):
Absolutely? Yeah, I would. I went to summer camp at
the university and they had some good teachers, and I
would sometimes play twelve hours a day. I inflayed, my
guns were practically bleeding, and I loved it. But when
I was sixteen, I looked in the mirror one day
and I said, will you ever be as good as culturing?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
How are you the president? Talking yourself out of your
own dream? That young?
Speaker 10 (13:44):
Oh? I didn't talk to myself. I was conflicted. I
wanted to do three things in my life. I wanted
to be a doctor that helped people that didn't have
access to healthcare. I didn't want to, you know, be
a rich doctor. I wanted to get out there. I
wanted to be Paul Farmer. When I grew up, I
wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a musician,
(14:07):
and I wanted to be in politics because I could
see when I was a boy how much conflict there
still was in America. So I remember like it was yesterday.
I was sixteen looking in a mirror, just begun to
shave felt big. And the reason I asked this question
is you couldn't make a living as a jazz musician
(14:31):
in the sixties unless you did the clubs. You know,
nobody had these massive record contracts. You didn't a jazz
musicians didn't feel, you know what like Kenny g later
made a lot of money, you know, going around. You
couldn't make a living unless you did the clubs. And
so your chances of becoming addicted to drugs were roughly
(14:54):
three times your chances of having a successful family and
raising kids that were healthy. I mean, you had to.
It was a big risk. As Cole Traning and lots
of others found out, he was a genius.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Have you ever got to witness him in person?
Speaker 10 (15:08):
No, I never heard Cold Training in person. I do
have at home an autographed album that a friend of
mine found for me, where his face is like has
gone into running paint, fascinating looking album. I never heard him.
I never heard gets I did herb Alfred he gets
(15:30):
his last saxophone and he had it in a safe.
So he sent me a note when I got elected,
and he said, if you come out here, I'll let
you play it. But I never got to do it.
But anyway, I just thought that it wasn't worth the risk.
And I did love it, but I had a sort
(15:54):
of troubled home growing up, and I knew i'd be
disappointed in my life if I didn't, you know, have
a child and do a halfway decent job.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
And a musicians not the talary that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
How old were you when you left Arkansas? Like how
long did you live there before you went to college?
Speaker 10 (16:14):
From my birth, I was born in a little town
of Arkansas, and then we moved to a bigger town
when I was six after the first grade, and I
stayed there until I graduated from high school and I
went to college in Washington for four years. Then I
lived in England for two years, which was a.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Great part of What part of England did you live?
Speaker 10 (16:37):
I was in school in Oxford, so I got a
scholarship to go to school there, and that was great
because it was in the middle of all the Vietnam
War to do, you know? And I kept waiting to
be drafted every month and I was called once, but
the law allowed you to finish the year you were
in if you were in school. And then the lottery
(16:59):
came in. I got a high number.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Did you go to the club scene a lot in
London when you were living there and going? No?
Speaker 10 (17:04):
But I went to. Like we were talking about concerts,
I tried to find whatever music I could, and I
remember the most memorable one for me was when Mahaja
Jackson played the Albert Hall, which is this great old
Victorian venue, and you know, the country England was deeply divided,
(17:26):
America was deeply divided. Everybody was upset, kids were cynical,
and all of a sudden, I go to the but
I was determined to hear Mohata Jackson. So I go
with a friend who knew nothing about her music. I said,
you're going to love this. You thank me for the
rest of your life. So were we got a seat,
you know, pretty far back. But I looked around and
(17:49):
most of the people there were young people. And she
started singing, and by about the third song, half the
audience was crying I mean, she was so enormously powerful.
She just was She just radiated her.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Still gospel music, right, you think to be a bunch
of kids.
Speaker 10 (18:08):
Then at the end of the performance, they stormed the
stage and they were like seven or eight deep right
on the stage, screaming like they were groupies at a
rock concert and begging her to keep singing and begging her.
And she sang another song or two and then finally
had to leave. You know, but and she was just
her standing alone on the stage. You know, the way
(18:28):
she did it was amazing. It was one of the
most amazing concerts I ever saw. Just she was something.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Well I wanted to know, like what your music experience
was in Arkansas, like because you seem pretty open minded
to just art and all that stuff, Like how does
one do that from Yeah.
Speaker 10 (18:54):
Well it was we weren't all the same. You know,
it's not like it even today. It's more well to
the right of where it was in the nineteen seventies.
Most Southern states are in the small towns in rural
areas because of what's happened to the information ecosystem and
a lot of other things. But I remember when I
(19:17):
went to the BREWBYX concert. I was telling you about that.
He was friends with the band director down there who
had worked with Stan Kenton and when they did all
that groundbreaking musical work. You know, in the fifties, there
were always chances to do that. I've Ray Charles once
when he was kind of on the slow circuit in
(19:38):
a little venue in western Arkansas. When I was in college,
I heard Ray Charles sing where Marion Anderton did in
Constitution Hall. She wanted to sing in Constitution Hall. You
remember that Daughters of American Revolution drove her out. So
(19:58):
Harold Ikey's the interior secretary for Roosevelt, whose son worked
for me in the White House. Amazing. He gave her
the Lincoln Memorial, the famous When Ray Charles came in
nineteen sixty seven, he sang in Constitutional Hall. And I
(20:22):
call this woman that I had just met, and on
a lark, I asked if she wanted to go to
this concert. She was about six feet tall, and we
got we can. By the time I got the tickets,
we had to sit way up in the back on
the second floor and we were only there were fewer
than ten white people there. Yes, it was unbelievable, though
(20:45):
I never forget he played, you know, his repertoire, and
he saved Georgia till near the last, and he plays
the introduction on the piano and didn't do anything. He
holds it in the crowds and then finally he just
reaches up to microphone he said Georgia like that, and
(21:06):
the crowd went nuts, just nuts, and it was And
I was so excited at that Ray Charles concert. I
remember it was June the twenty fourth, nineteen sixty seven.
I so remember where it was that I stayed up
till three o'clock in the morning. I couldn't go to sleep,
and I went out and raided three in three miles
so I could sleep a little. And I saved that
(21:26):
ticket stub for I don't know ten fifteen years. I
kept it in my billfa wow. And I was so
grateful that I finally got to meet him, you know,
when I was president, and we became friends. And Quincy
Jones was helpful to me because he was a friend
of mine. And you know, he and Charles knew each
(21:47):
other in Seattle when Quincy was fourteen and Charles was seventeen,
and Ray Charles got himself all the way from Central Florida,
where he was a boy as a blind man, because
he was not blind in his early years, but he
was blind, and he took a bus. He said he
(22:07):
wanted to get as far away from Central Florida as
he could without having to leave the country. So he
went to Seattle, and Quincy said, you know, I decided
I could make it music. I mean, here's this blond
guy who's seventeen, and he's got his own apartment. He's
(22:27):
got three suits in the closet, and he's got a girlfriend.
And that was a great story, and I genuinely came
to not only admire, but have an enormous affection for
Ray Charleson a couple of weeks before he died, and
this is long after I left the White House and
(22:48):
I knew he was sick, his young staff person called
my office and said, Ray wants to talk to President Clinton.
Can you do it? And I said sure, anytime, you know.
So he called me, and I knew he was sick,
and it was pretty well public by then. He didn't
talk about any of that. He had no interest in
(23:08):
talking to He said, I'm just calling a few of
my friends. Feoful, I want to talk to, you know,
one more time, and we shot the breeze for like
twenty minutes.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
What did that feel like if even you going to
your younger self and realized that Ray Charles called you
like and he wanted to call you before some things happened.
Speaker 10 (23:27):
Yeah, and he knew he was going to die. Yeah,
but he didn't want to talk about that. He wanted
to just talk about life with people that he had
And I forget, I think there were twelve or fifteen
people he just called that he wanted to talk to.
And I always thought he was something special.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
What was the moment did you think the music community
he talked about being friends with Quincy Jones and Ray Charles,
and I'm curious when they learned that you were beyond
a passer by.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Was it like the.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Sax moment on our Senior? Did everybody realize like he
is not just a fan, He's a part of his community.
Speaker 10 (24:05):
Well, I got a little of that on Johnny Carson,
you know with it Johnny Carson was I bombed at
my speech at the Democratic Convention in nineteen eighty eight,
and we don't have time for me to explain what
I bombed?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And so Carson hen hence Ducacus.
Speaker 10 (24:27):
A woman actually is very interesting the people. This shows
you the difference in commentary. People that heard the speech
on the radio were ninety percent positive about it because
it was not interrupted. I got hundreds and hundreds of
letters from people who are in the radio. But anyway,
a woman named Amy Baker, who just passed away a
(24:48):
couple of years ago, a wonderful woman was working for Carson,
and she called a friend of mine in California and said,
I think Clinton should come on the show. He said,
I think Johnny would like him, and he said, he'll
let me take a ribbon. They talked, and I said,
and he never lets politicians come on the show anymore,
so we need him to play something so we can
(25:10):
use it as an excuse. I think we played Billy Holidays,
God Bless the Child, and maybe Heartbreak Hotel. We played something,
but I played anyway, really, and then Carson takes out
an hour glass and you know what those like three
minutes was. It turns it up and the sad starts
(25:30):
running out. And I said, well, I want to thank
you for giving me a chance to come here and
finish my speech. So we had a great time and
then I did our Sinio.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Okay, so we didn't know about Carson's.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I was like, this happened.
Speaker 10 (25:54):
Yes, then uh so our Sineo. You know knew I could.
It was halfway to be halfway decent if I played
and I wasn't playing really much. Then I think we
did my funny Valentine and Summertime. I think that's what
we played.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You did Elvis song. I think you did Harbrey tell
that part. I do remember on the commercial break.
Speaker 10 (26:12):
Well, Elvis was my secret service code name.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Okay, oh wow, that's when.
Speaker 10 (26:17):
I was running for president. I literally could sing the
Jordanaires background to every single Elvis Presley song. I remembered
long sections of dialogue from Love Me Tender and you
know all that stuff. I liked him, and if you
saw Baz Lrman's film about him, we did one thing.
(26:38):
The film finally showed once why Presley was so close
to the black community and why he deliberately sang in
the Ghetto and some other songs. He didn't have much politics,
but he felt pretty strongly about civil rights because he'd
grown up on the edge of the black neighborhoods in
Tupelo and and he had, you know, the voice of
(27:01):
a generation.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Can't wait for you to see the Little Richard documentary
where he he Lord Richard says Elvis actually told him
behind the scenes that you are basically the reason that
I am here, and no. Richard was like, well he's.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
In all out right.
Speaker 10 (27:15):
Well he was great, Little Richard. I was.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
I was curious to know about the Arsenio performance because
this was in the nineties, so it's pre Twitter, pre
you know, going viral, so to speak. So how did
your team know, like after that performance, what were the
markers then of like, yo, we killed that, Like how
did you see the impact of it on your campaign?
Speaker 10 (27:36):
A lot of it was like primp media commentary and
people are calling in, calling to all your headquarters. You know.
We used to send out our idea of rapid response
because we had a system. We had ten thousand people
throughout the country that we sent fax machine factions to
(27:59):
every day. We sent them facts as they says, here's
what we need to push today, and they would call
their local newspapers, they would call their local radio stations
and try to get the message out, or they would
write a letter to their local newspapers. I mean it
seems so. It seems like creaky today.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
That that wasn't so far away.
Speaker 10 (28:26):
We we were, you know, we did the best we could,
and you know, I think there were some good things
about the eighties and the nineties. It's still most towns
had their own newspapers, and they were pretty much on
the level. You know, they could be in real right
wing towns or real liberals towns, but they were built
newspapers pretty well on the level. And they would give
(28:48):
you access if you showed up, and they would say
what you said and then and if they dumped on you,
they would do it on the editorial page. They wouldn't
twist the news story. It was very different than that.
Almost every town of any size had their own locally
owned radio station. It meant a huge difference. I mean,
(29:10):
I might not be here if it weren't for that.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
All right, I got a question, and you know, I
was trying to figure out again with twenty four hour
less than twenty four hour warning, you don't know like
what angle we're going to go in. And this brings
me back to if you remember, on the internet, they
started this trending question like would you rather have half
a million dollars or a dinner with jay Z.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
What would you choose?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And no, But the thing is is, like you know,
it's either would you rather get wisdom on how to.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Run the game and create your own.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Game or just whatever? Just give me the money.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Money, okay, but the timeout, but I got but my
question aazy would tell you to take the money.
Speaker 10 (30:01):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
But you know, since we have you here, and I
feel like at least for the five of us, and
by the five of us also mean like the community
that listens to this particular podcast, all of us, I
feel are either in our pivot moment in our lives
or in our career, Like all of us do something
notable here, Like he was part of the Hamilton team,
(30:26):
and you know, he's been a long time engineer, She's
been radio hosts, he's been like a hero to many
in the hip hop community. And now we're kind of
at this place in our lives where we're sort of
flirting with leadership roles. And you know, I would like
to ask you, as a person who sort of volunteered
(30:47):
for this life, to be a leader in all those things,
because it comes with a lot from what from the
outside looking in or I don't know if I'm inside
thinking I'm outside looking in. It seems like one a
thankless job to be a leader. And I'm not just
talking about president. Let's take it down. Why would you
ever want to subject yourself to having to always think,
(31:13):
quick on your feet, always having the answer, having to
whatever the metaphorical term, reach across the aisle, to speak
to someone, to nuanced a relationship, to do a long
dinner just for that one person, and you got to
do it like one hundred times. I guess I'm basically
asking is like all of us are right now sort
of at the bottom, looking at whatever our mount Fiji
(31:37):
or whatever the mountain is that we see, why should
we want to be a leader, Like, what is the
what's the motivation?
Speaker 10 (31:48):
Most of life is a social experiment and a social experience.
So if you feel strongly about something and you want
to impact your cha answers are much better if you
can lead a pack that agrees with you. And I
think that's really important that all these questions no one
(32:10):
can answer but the person affected. But I think it
starts with how you keep score. I mean, we all
keep score, whether we admit or not, we keep score
on ourselves. I wish I were a little taller. I
wish I little say, if I'd had Lebron's body, I'd
have gone a different line of work. That kind of stuff,
you know, we do that. So if you keep score
(32:36):
in a way that is at all other directed, then
if you get a chance to lead, you have to
do it and people won't resent you if they see
that it's other directed. I mean to me, I decided
when I got into this, I said, why are you
doing this? And I realized I had to face some
(32:58):
way of keeping score. So I keep score as follows.
Are people better off when you quit than when you started?
The children have a broader future? And are things coming
together instead of falling apart? And if you can answer
yes to all three of those questions, I think your
life's a runaway success. Even if you have heartbreak, even
(33:21):
if you fail, even if you make colossal mistakes, and
if you make enough decisions and you live long enough,
you will make mistakes. I think that's it. But if
you if you keep scoring any way that is other director.
You want to increase people's love for music, You want
to increase people's understanding of the social impact of music.
(33:44):
You want to get people who never thought about how
America got started to see it through as they can feel.
And you do, Hamilton, you know you did. Whatever it is.
There's a price.
Speaker 7 (33:58):
You should be president, So bad news. Guys care about
other people and not just not just ourselves.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Hang on a second. We got to let this go.
I knew it was coming. I knew I was coming
my team music when I say something brilliant go.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
Ahead, you didn't mean an interrupt miss President. We finished
with your thought?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Well, as of this taping, you know, we lost, Yeah,
one of the most crucial leaders of someone that I
looked up to because the role that Harry Belafonte played
and social change, right, you know, because I don't want
to have to like what I'm previously. What I'm known
for now is just like hey, a hustler. I'll do
(34:43):
this job and that job and this project and that project.
But you know, I'm wondering, like at sixty, at seventy,
like what is my life going to be? And right
now I'm thinking like, okay, I want to get into philanthropy.
So I'm kind of like working my behind off now
now so that I can be in the position to
(35:04):
be that person when I get to my sixties. And
also I'm also trying to get out the place where
like I'm writing my future down, like okay, ten years
from now, I'm gonna do that. I'm now learning a
lesson where I wake up every day and just like this,
like this was definitely not on my Bengo cart list,
like at all, this conversation, but things like this have
(35:24):
been happening to me almost consistently for the last two years,
where you know, I'm such a meticulous planner and this
is what I'm doing. This is how my future is
going to be, and then universe like kicks over and this, no,
this is what you're actually going to do. So you know,
as far as Harry Belafonte's concerned, that's kind of how
(35:45):
I thought. Okay, that might be the path I go,
where I plant ideas in people and then they implement
these things and change happens, be it we Are the world,
or the civil rights movement or even Beach Street, right,
even Beach Street.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I just you said keeping score, and for me, keeping
score means that there are two sides, and you have
to be a coach to do that. And the way
that politics is now, it's enough to give me pause
and just be like.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I don't know, let me just cut a check and.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Hide in the woods, you know, Like I've never been
the hide in the woods person, but I brought a
farm three years ago, thinking like, I need a place
in the woods to hide in case the worst case
scenario happens. So me, personally, I'm just on the prespice
on the line of like, do I have to be
that person? Do I have to be the heir of
Bellafante that's no longer here, or do I just hide
(36:46):
behind somebody here and you do it?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Like what would you say, because.
Speaker 10 (36:51):
I would say, do you need to do a little
bit of both? Let me explain what I mean by that.
Harry Belafani work his way into what you might call
direct action where he's marching with doctor King. But I
was thinking that I was telling on hell the way
drownd here today. I remember one of his earliest movies
(37:12):
when he was still a Calypso king, and he was
a beautiful man. God knows he was beautiful, and so
it's sort of a proto colonial movie. I'm embarrassed I
can't remember the name of it. But he's a guy
in the Caribbean. He's interested in what's going on in
this country, and this white lady sort of falls in
(37:35):
love with him. And when they did this movie, it
was a pretty brave thing to do to deal with
all that. There wasn't many movies dealing with all that.
So he made his statements in the movie and it was,
as a matter of fact, a good movie. And he
did a good thing. And then he used what he
had earned to start marching and getting involved with these
(37:58):
other things and doing it. I want to say something
almost contradicts what I told you earlier. I do think
you have to know how you're going to keep score,
and then you lay out a plan. But people ask
me all the time about how did I survive these
tough campaigns or what do you do when you're president?
And I remember when Hillary ran for the Senate from
(38:20):
New York, nobody asked her or her opponent, what are
you going to do when they bring down the World
Trade Center? So life is always happening to you. So basically,
you have to think about what you just said. And
I think it's a good thing you bought a.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Farm, by the way, But oh, I'm right next to you.
Trust me.
Speaker 10 (38:39):
But let's just take a politician, say vote for me
from mayor and I will do one, two three. Okay.
Then you get in and George Floyd gets killed on
your streets or you're way up north. But for the
first time ever, a tornado takes out half your town
(39:00):
because of climate change, it's moving to Coronados North. Okay.
So you say, how should I think about this? Well,
first of all, you have to be heartless not to
deal with what's happening that you didn't plan for. But
if you don't also do what you said you would
do when you ran, the people that were your most
ardent supporters may feel let them and you may feel
(39:23):
let them. So life is a constant struggle to do
what you said you do and what you plan to
do deal with the incoming fire that you never expected.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Let me ask you a question real quick before you go.
We're going to probably be planning this interview back around June,
which is Black Music Month. I wanted to mention this
because although President Carter was the first one to invite,
of course, the Black Music Coalition to come to the
White House, you, my friend, were the one who signed
the order and invited Jimmy jam Terry Lewis, Deana Williams,
(39:59):
the Isley bro This to come to the White House
and make it official. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 10 (40:03):
Yeah? I remember that. First I wanted to do it,
and secondly it was another excuse to get people to
come see me, he thought. I mean, I was a
huge Brothers friend and I love this whole heart of mine.
I get it out every now and then just play
it again. There are all these songs you have, songs
you replay from your life, don't you. I think, Nina Simons,
(40:28):
I wish I knew how it would feel to be three.
It's the best recording of that song, and it's the
best little known song of the civil rights era. And
when I get really down, I just put it on
and play it. But anyway, that's what I wanted to
say about it. I didn't I want to make the
point I was trying to make before. How whatever anybody's
(40:50):
listening to us, you worry about how much money is
it and what am I going to do? People need
to worry more about how am I going to do it?
If you're going to keep score in terms of other
people's lives, and your impact on it. You have to
worry as much about how you're going to do it.
That's what you're gonna do, and how much money you
have or don't.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Beautiful, what's the stuff you listen to when you need
to get up?
Speaker 10 (41:13):
Oh? For once in my life, it's like Stevie Wonders
in my life.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
One last jazz question from me with regards to the
saxophone Oliver and Nelson. Are you an Oliver Nelson fan?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (41:26):
So there's an albumin Impulse called a tribute to John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. I was just wondering if you've ever had
that one?
Speaker 8 (41:33):
No, check it out that.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's class.
Speaker 10 (41:37):
I got a bunch of those albums.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, Oliver Nelson, Pharaoh Sanders. Were you a fan of
his as well?
Speaker 10 (41:44):
Oh? Yeah, you know he had Arkansas connections. Yeah, he
want to talk to his family when he died.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
You're reminding me that I'm doing my first chow in
Arkansas in four days.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
You are ever, Yeah, but the roots have never.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Went to you Arkansas. I think we're going a little rock. Yeah,
there's a festival down there, so it'll be interesting to
see you.
Speaker 10 (42:07):
You'll like it. They'll be that's a good town.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
I'm going to see it. So this, if you want to.
Speaker 10 (42:13):
Go to my library, let me know. I'll set it
up right there.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I might do it, Yes, no doubt, I will absolutely
do that.
Speaker 10 (42:20):
And there's an uh we just opened the new Arkansas
Art Gallery, which is old and it's beautiful really and
a brilliant woman architect named Jenny Gang from Chicago did it.
It is a fabulous place.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I shall be going there.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
How big is that vinyl collection? You didn't tell us?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Like?
Speaker 5 (42:38):
How many records you gotten? Where you keep those things?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Oh?
Speaker 10 (42:41):
I keep them in home with my in New York.
I've got probably I've got over one hundred of these
in New York. But I also have that many in Arkansas.
There's an apartment upstairs in the library, and I've got
them there. Okay, so I still play.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Them there you go, Well, sir, yeah, this could actually
go in for twelve hours and we wouldn't care. But
your people were like, nah, you got to wrap it
up now, so on behalf of Fontigelo and Laya and
Sugar Steve and unpaid Bill.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Thank you very much, President Clinton for gracing our show.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Yes, oh you didn't get to President you didn't get
to tell about your summer or soul. Dan, We're supposed to.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Talk about next time. Okay, Part two, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All right, kids,
you ready like you?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You ready like you? Everything's ll let's go, we jump,
let's do it, let's do it. Here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Suprema Sun Sun Suprema roll Calm Suprema Sun Sun Supremo.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Roll call, Suprema.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Sun Sun Supremo, Role Calm, Suprema Son Son Suprema roll Call.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
My name is Questlove, Yeah, and you are you Yeah?
And that's Team Supreme.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And he's forty two.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Supreme su Suprema roll Calm, Suprema su Suprema roll call.
Speaker 6 (00:52):
My name is Fante Yeah, and I'm gonna keep it
roll yeah with the Realist President.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, out of Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Suprema Son Suprema, roll call, Suprema Son Son Supremo.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Role Call.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
My name is Sugar.
Speaker 7 (01:10):
Yeah, first president I ever met.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh you just reminded me.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (01:15):
I haven't filed my taxes yet.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Suprema So Supremo. Roll call, Suprema So Suprema.
Speaker 8 (01:24):
Roll call paid Bill.
Speaker 9 (01:26):
Yeah, and I got to thinking, yeah about my second
favorite bill.
Speaker 8 (01:30):
Yeah, President Clinton.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Suprema su.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Supreme So Suprema roll.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
It's my ear yeah, and it's a special day. Yeah,
our first press. Yeah, Bill Clinton all Day.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Roll call Supremo, So Son Supremo, roll call, Supremo, Son Son.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Supremo, roll call.
Speaker 10 (01:57):
My name is Bill. Yeah, Yeah, I know the drill. Yeah,
I'm glad to be here. Yeah, calls music is there?
Take it up?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Sun Sun Subpreme roll call Subpremo.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Sun Sun Subprema roll Calm Subprema, Son Sun Subpremo, roll
call Subprema Son Sun.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Subprema roll call.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Ladies and gentlemen, Congratulations, we have our first.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I will say, it's it's a point. We just do
a Griselda right exactly. It's amazing how the world works sometimes. Uh,
for no particular reason. You know, we we've been away
from each other for three years and decided, hey, it
might be cool for us to get back together and
(02:55):
do some stuff in person.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And then life throws you a curveball.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And I I will say, probably no less than twenty
four hours ago.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
We got a call straight up.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And I'll be honest with you, because I was preparing
for another guest, and right before I went to sleep
last night, I read my itinery I'm like, wait a minute,
that's tomorrow. I thought that was like in the future,
because when you threw it at me, I was like, ah,
this will never happen.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So like no, we all went like what.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
February thirtieth of Yah, nineteen seventy six, Like that's going
to happen.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I will be saying, yeah, this is happening.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And our guest today is the very first time that
you're nervous. Yeah, yeah, this is the very first time
I stepped in the voter booth to exerciseise.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
Y rightsident voted for your age.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Time.
Speaker 8 (03:52):
I wasn't Oh the second time.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Wait, how I don't know what your age is.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
On papill I am eighty six years old, Okay, I
mean sometimes you seem younger than me.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Then when you have a beard.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
It looks like you're accountant, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So I don't know how old you are. But you know, my.
Speaker 7 (04:07):
First vote was for ducacis believe it or not, that's
how old you are.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That's how old you are. Come up anyway.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Live in CDM studios is where we are, and we
are very honored to have music lover musician uh and incidentally,
are the forty second president of these United States, William
Jefferson Clinton one A question to.
Speaker 8 (04:37):
What is happening?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
So, how are you today?
Speaker 10 (04:39):
I'm good, I'm better now. This is I didn't find
out about this much before you.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
You were like an hour before.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Oh, let's let's hit down just a casual question, like.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
What what did you do this morning? Like what's your
morning routine like as of lately?
Speaker 10 (04:53):
Well lately, I get up in the morning and I
read the papers. I'm old five, I'll read the papers.
Get my phone and I read the papers I didn't read.
I read my local West Sister County paper and the
New York Times and paper. Then I read the Washington
Post online, and then I look and see what other
(05:14):
articles there are, and then I work puzzles for a
while because it's good for you. Like I do that
word puzzle in New York Times every day.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Are you a wordle person or a New York Times
crossword person or I.
Speaker 10 (05:27):
Don't do that. I only do the cross word on Sunday.
But I do wordle, and I do the wordle nice,
and I do the spelling Bee, the spelling Bee every day.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I would like to think that I have an expansive vocabulary,
but you know, it's so frustrating. I give up after
like the seventh word unpaid bill. You strike me as
a person that can at least get to fifteen.
Speaker 9 (05:50):
I can I go in on the the this one. Yeah,
I can't stop. It's just like you can.
Speaker 10 (05:54):
It's pretty hard to do.
Speaker 8 (05:55):
It was hard today. There was a lot of there was.
Every time there's an X, what, it's like, what the
hell's going to do?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
What's a vow for today?
Speaker 8 (06:01):
Well, there's a bunch of vwel so it's a.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
What's in the middle?
Speaker 9 (06:03):
Oh a, oh, well wait, and you'll say that's hard.
It was like I'm gonna no one's gonna listen. It's
like oxidation annotation notation there too.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, during the pandemic, you'll be shocked at you know,
what you do for entertainment, especially because I was on
a farm with new cable. So that's when I started
my rabbit holing inside of crosswords.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And that sort of thing. So you're a word o person.
Speaker 10 (06:28):
Too, Yeah, I started that later. I did that the
spelling bee for a long time and now normally around
dinner time, He'll and I'll get back together and between
the two of us we can get them all. What
so we have a conspiracy for spelling baby we didn't
do it yesterday, and I didn't get them all yesterday either.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
So you like to do it at nighttime, around dinner
or first thing in the I'm the first thing in
the morning person.
Speaker 10 (06:54):
I like to do it first thing in the morning,
and then whichever ones I don't have, I'll just put
it away and think about it and start working. Because
I do. I call people in the morning when I'm
fresh and thoughtful, and then I'm trying to finish two
books I've been working on and it's been very frustrating,
so I do that in the middle of the day.
(07:15):
I take time off and take away. I try to
take a walk every day.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
My day is determined on if I'm able to solve wordle.
Speaker 10 (07:24):
One thing that frustrates me. The other day I got
three of the five letters in order off the first work,
which I put in a rose. And I got three
of the first and I got R O and then E,
and I literally went through five permutations before I got
to write one. I was going nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I wanted to throw your right.
Speaker 10 (07:47):
It was broke, I think was the wordle. And I
went through all you know wrote I don't know any
other words. That's what makes you feel you don't know
what he's dumb, unlucky, what's going on.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It has a way of determining how good or rotten
your day is going to be. So I try to
do it now in the afternoon.
Speaker 10 (08:06):
So it can't spoil your morning.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
See, you walked in with two albums and being as
though we're jazz fanatics here at Quest of Supreme, where
I'm curious to see what you brought to the table.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Why did you choose.
Speaker 10 (08:23):
This is an old Sunny Rollins album. You can see
I had to type it up. I see, I had
it forever and it's the first one he did on
Brazilian music. I once told Rollins that I love the
album he did in Harlem in the late nineties. He
(08:45):
said it wasn't worth of them, and I said, what
was the matter with it? He said, I didn't learn anything.
I didn't do anything new. There. He is, you know,
at his age, and he's still doing things new. So
this is great.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
What's the name of that album, President, It's Sounny Rowlings brings.
Speaker 8 (09:02):
The jazz new rhythm from South America.
Speaker 10 (09:04):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Do you often get disappointed when you meet notable people
that have done things amazing that you think are amazing,
and then they're just dismissive of it. Like that often
happens here at the show, where you know, I say
the thing he did, and they'll just be like, man, whatever.
Speaker 10 (09:21):
One of the things that I really loved when I
was president is nearly anybody, I'll come play for you
if you ask me. And one day I looked up.
I was sitting at my desk and I looked up,
and then we had the door open to the outside.
Dave Brewbeck was standing there and he was, you know,
(09:41):
getting you know, some award. Not the Kennedy Center War, Oh,
he got the National Medal of Arts that you're So
I went out and shook hands with him, and I
told him how much I liked him, And I said,
you know, when I was fifteen years old, you've played
about seventy miles from home. So I went to your
concert in Arkansas because he was friends with the guy
(10:05):
who was a great music teacher there, jazz fanatic. He
looked at me and kind of skeptically said, he said,
besides take five, what's your people? What's your favorite rubeks On?
I thought always giving me? I said blue Rondo. He said,
nobody knows that. I said, it's a great song. He said,
hum the bridge.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Oh, he's one of those people was so.
Speaker 10 (10:31):
I hummed the Bridge for it, and three days later
he sent me a great autograph copy of the chart
and that still hangs in my music room today. Wow,
just because I knew the Bridge from BLUEO.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Wow, that's terrifying.
Speaker 8 (10:48):
Yo, that's the one you know, don't want?
Speaker 5 (10:51):
You know?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
What does that?
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Like?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Does that a lot of where I'll just take the
compliment and be like, you know, because they'll say something
skill like, yo, man, I have botle and then to
reach the person that actually wants evidence that you really believe,
And then I'm like, what if it winds up being
a pie in the face moment and then you can't say, then,
how's the conversation going?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I'm glad you knew his history, right.
Speaker 10 (11:15):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
What other records did you bring in there?
Speaker 10 (11:19):
I got Dizzy Gillespie's New Way, which also has a
couple of resilient songs on it, including the Morning of
the Carnival from Black Corfea, which is one of my
favorite songs. I think it's one of the most beautiful
songs that were written a.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Love Brazilian music. Mister President was like, my favorite. Oh
I'm like this, No, no, I said the music, not that.
Speaker 10 (11:43):
This is a record of Jimmy Smith. I think he
is the greatest sas organists who ever lived. And he
used to play at a place called the Cellar Door
in Washington when I was in college, so I would
go and listen to him, and the first time he
started playing, I thought that organ and was going to
walk out of this room all by itself. Oh, he
(12:04):
was unbelievable. What year was this, sixty four, sixty five,
something like that. And this is my favorite jazz samba record.
This is the first record done by Stan Gatz and
Charlie Birds out of Brazil.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
So when did you fall in love with Brazilian jazz?
Speaker 10 (12:26):
I was interested in jazz, and I started listening to
bigger jazz bands when I was six or seven years old,
and my folks had a record player and they'd go
away and I'd just get these records, just record after
record and sit there on the floor and listen to them.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So was your parents collection?
Speaker 10 (12:43):
Yeah? And then I started ordering Downbeating magazine when I
was in grade school, and because they asked me, I
started out on clarinet, and they asked me to shift
to saxophone because the school needed a saxophone in the band.
And I fell in love with and I started reading Downbeat,
and I read it all through high school, and when
(13:05):
I could, i'd supplement the record collection.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
You know, did you have aspirations of being a professional
musician or did you just love it?
Speaker 10 (13:12):
Absolutely? Yeah, I would. I went to summer camp at
the university and they had some good teachers, and I
would sometimes play twelve hours a day. I inflayed, my
guns were practically bleeding, and I loved it. But when
I was sixteen, I looked in the mirror one day
and I said, will you ever be as good as culturing?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
How are you the president? Talking yourself out of your
own dream? That young?
Speaker 10 (13:44):
Oh? I didn't talk to myself. I was conflicted. I
wanted to do three things in my life. I wanted
to be a doctor that helped people that didn't have
access to healthcare. I didn't want to, you know, be
a rich doctor. I wanted to get out there. I
wanted to be Paul Farmer. When I grew up, I
wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a musician,
(14:07):
and I wanted to be in politics because I could
see when I was a boy how much conflict there
still was in America. So I remember like it was yesterday.
I was sixteen looking in a mirror, just begun to
shave felt big. And the reason I asked this question
is you couldn't make a living as a jazz musician
(14:31):
in the sixties unless you did the clubs. You know,
nobody had these massive record contracts. You didn't a jazz
musicians didn't feel, you know what like Kenny g later
made a lot of money, you know, going around. You
couldn't make a living unless you did the clubs. And
so your chances of becoming addicted to drugs were roughly
(14:54):
three times your chances of having a successful family and
raising kids that were healthy. I mean, you had to.
It was a big risk. As Cole Traning and lots
of others found out, he was a genius.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Have you ever got to witness him in person?
Speaker 10 (15:08):
No, I never heard Cold Training in person. I do
have at home an autographed album that a friend of
mine found for me, where his face is like has
gone into running paint, fascinating looking album. I never heard him.
I never heard gets I did herb Alfred he gets
(15:30):
his last saxophone and he had it in a safe.
So he sent me a note when I got elected,
and he said, if you come out here, I'll let
you play it. But I never got to do it.
But anyway, I just thought that it wasn't worth the risk.
And I did love it, but I had a sort
(15:54):
of troubled home growing up, and I knew i'd be
disappointed in my life if I didn't, you know, have
a child and do a halfway decent job.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
And a musicians not the talary that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
How old were you when you left Arkansas? Like how
long did you live there before you went to college?
Speaker 10 (16:14):
From my birth, I was born in a little town
of Arkansas, and then we moved to a bigger town
when I was six after the first grade, and I
stayed there until I graduated from high school and I
went to college in Washington for four years. Then I
lived in England for two years, which was a.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Great part of What part of England did you live?
Speaker 10 (16:37):
I was in school in Oxford, so I got a
scholarship to go to school there, and that was great
because it was in the middle of all the Vietnam
War to do, you know? And I kept waiting to
be drafted every month and I was called once, but
the law allowed you to finish the year you were
in if you were in school. And then the lottery
(16:59):
came in. I got a high number.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Did you go to the club scene a lot in
London when you were living there and going? No?
Speaker 10 (17:04):
But I went to. Like we were talking about concerts,
I tried to find whatever music I could, and I
remember the most memorable one for me was when Mahaja
Jackson played the Albert Hall, which is this great old
Victorian venue, and you know, the country England was deeply divided,
(17:26):
America was deeply divided. Everybody was upset, kids were cynical,
and all of a sudden, I go to the but
I was determined to hear Mohata Jackson. So I go
with a friend who knew nothing about her music. I said,
you're going to love this. You thank me for the
rest of your life. So were we got a seat,
you know, pretty far back. But I looked around and
(17:49):
most of the people there were young people. And she
started singing, and by about the third song, half the
audience was crying I mean, she was so enormously powerful.
She just was She just radiated her.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Still gospel music, right, you think to be a bunch
of kids.
Speaker 10 (18:08):
Then at the end of the performance, they stormed the
stage and they were like seven or eight deep right
on the stage, screaming like they were groupies at a
rock concert and begging her to keep singing and begging her.
And she sang another song or two and then finally
had to leave. You know, but and she was just
her standing alone on the stage. You know, the way
(18:28):
she did it was amazing. It was one of the
most amazing concerts I ever saw. Just she was something.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Well I wanted to know, like what your music experience
was in Arkansas, like because you seem pretty open minded
to just art and all that stuff, Like how does
one do that from Yeah.
Speaker 10 (18:54):
Well it was we weren't all the same. You know,
it's not like it even today. It's more well to
the right of where it was in the nineteen seventies.
Most Southern states are in the small towns in rural
areas because of what's happened to the information ecosystem and
a lot of other things. But I remember when I
(19:17):
went to the BREWBYX concert. I was telling you about that.
He was friends with the band director down there who
had worked with Stan Kenton and when they did all
that groundbreaking musical work. You know, in the fifties, there
were always chances to do that. I've Ray Charles once
when he was kind of on the slow circuit in
(19:38):
a little venue in western Arkansas. When I was in college,
I heard Ray Charles sing where Marion Anderton did in
Constitution Hall. She wanted to sing in Constitution Hall. You
remember that Daughters of American Revolution drove her out. So
(19:58):
Harold Ikey's the interior secretary for Roosevelt, whose son worked
for me in the White House. Amazing. He gave her
the Lincoln Memorial, the famous When Ray Charles came in
nineteen sixty seven, he sang in Constitutional Hall. And I
(20:22):
call this woman that I had just met, and on
a lark, I asked if she wanted to go to
this concert. She was about six feet tall, and we
got we can. By the time I got the tickets,
we had to sit way up in the back on
the second floor and we were only there were fewer
than ten white people there. Yes, it was unbelievable, though
(20:45):
I never forget he played, you know, his repertoire, and
he saved Georgia till near the last, and he plays
the introduction on the piano and didn't do anything. He
holds it in the crowds and then finally he just
reaches up to microphone he said Georgia like that, and
(21:06):
the crowd went nuts, just nuts, and it was And
I was so excited at that Ray Charles concert. I
remember it was June the twenty fourth, nineteen sixty seven.
I so remember where it was that I stayed up
till three o'clock in the morning. I couldn't go to sleep,
and I went out and raided three in three miles
so I could sleep a little. And I saved that
(21:26):
ticket stub for I don't know ten fifteen years. I
kept it in my billfa wow. And I was so
grateful that I finally got to meet him, you know,
when I was president, and we became friends. And Quincy
Jones was helpful to me because he was a friend
of mine. And you know, he and Charles knew each
(21:47):
other in Seattle when Quincy was fourteen and Charles was seventeen,
and Ray Charles got himself all the way from Central Florida,
where he was a boy as a blind man, because
he was not blind in his early years, but he
was blind, and he took a bus. He said he
(22:07):
wanted to get as far away from Central Florida as
he could without having to leave the country. So he
went to Seattle, and Quincy said, you know, I decided
I could make it music. I mean, here's this blond
guy who's seventeen, and he's got his own apartment. He's
(22:27):
got three suits in the closet, and he's got a girlfriend.
And that was a great story, and I genuinely came
to not only admire, but have an enormous affection for
Ray Charleson a couple of weeks before he died, and
this is long after I left the White House and
(22:48):
I knew he was sick, his young staff person called
my office and said, Ray wants to talk to President Clinton.
Can you do it? And I said sure, anytime, you know.
So he called me, and I knew he was sick,
and it was pretty well public by then. He didn't
talk about any of that. He had no interest in
(23:08):
talking to He said, I'm just calling a few of
my friends. Feoful, I want to talk to, you know,
one more time, and we shot the breeze for like
twenty minutes.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
What did that feel like if even you going to
your younger self and realized that Ray Charles called you
like and he wanted to call you before some things happened.
Speaker 10 (23:27):
Yeah, and he knew he was going to die. Yeah,
but he didn't want to talk about that. He wanted
to just talk about life with people that he had
And I forget, I think there were twelve or fifteen
people he just called that he wanted to talk to.
And I always thought he was something special.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
What was the moment did you think the music community
he talked about being friends with Quincy Jones and Ray Charles,
and I'm curious when they learned that you were beyond
a passer by.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Was it like the.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
Sax moment on our Senior? Did everybody realize like he
is not just a fan, He's a part of his community.
Speaker 10 (24:05):
Well, I got a little of that on Johnny Carson,
you know with it Johnny Carson was I bombed at
my speech at the Democratic Convention in nineteen eighty eight,
and we don't have time for me to explain what
I bombed?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And so Carson hen hence Ducacus.
Speaker 10 (24:27):
A woman actually is very interesting the people. This shows
you the difference in commentary. People that heard the speech
on the radio were ninety percent positive about it because
it was not interrupted. I got hundreds and hundreds of
letters from people who are in the radio. But anyway,
a woman named Amy Baker, who just passed away a
(24:48):
couple of years ago, a wonderful woman was working for Carson,
and she called a friend of mine in California and said,
I think Clinton should come on the show. He said,
I think Johnny would like him, and he said, he'll
let me take a ribbon. They talked, and I said,
and he never lets politicians come on the show anymore,
so we need him to play something so we can
(25:10):
use it as an excuse. I think we played Billy Holidays,
God Bless the Child, and maybe Heartbreak Hotel. We played something,
but I played anyway, really, and then Carson takes out
an hour glass and you know what those like three
minutes was. It turns it up and the sad starts
(25:30):
running out. And I said, well, I want to thank
you for giving me a chance to come here and
finish my speech. So we had a great time and
then I did our Sinio.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Okay, so we didn't know about Carson's.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I was like, this happened.
Speaker 10 (25:54):
Yes, then uh so our Sineo. You know knew I could.
It was halfway to be halfway decent if I played
and I wasn't playing really much. Then I think we
did my funny Valentine and Summertime. I think that's what
we played.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You did Elvis song. I think you did Harbrey tell
that part. I do remember on the commercial break.
Speaker 10 (26:12):
Well, Elvis was my secret service code name.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Okay, oh wow, that's when.
Speaker 10 (26:17):
I was running for president. I literally could sing the
Jordanaires background to every single Elvis Presley song. I remembered
long sections of dialogue from Love Me Tender and you
know all that stuff. I liked him, and if you
saw Baz Lrman's film about him, we did one thing.
(26:38):
The film finally showed once why Presley was so close
to the black community and why he deliberately sang in
the Ghetto and some other songs. He didn't have much politics,
but he felt pretty strongly about civil rights because he'd
grown up on the edge of the black neighborhoods in
Tupelo and and he had, you know, the voice of
(27:01):
a generation.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Can't wait for you to see the Little Richard documentary
where he he Lord Richard says Elvis actually told him
behind the scenes that you are basically the reason that
I am here, and no. Richard was like, well he's.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
In all out right.
Speaker 10 (27:15):
Well he was great, Little Richard. I was.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
I was curious to know about the Arsenio performance because
this was in the nineties, so it's pre Twitter, pre
you know, going viral, so to speak. So how did
your team know, like after that performance, what were the
markers then of like, yo, we killed that, Like how
did you see the impact of it on your campaign?
Speaker 10 (27:36):
A lot of it was like primp media commentary and
people are calling in, calling to all your headquarters. You know.
We used to send out our idea of rapid response
because we had a system. We had ten thousand people
throughout the country that we sent fax machine factions to
(27:59):
every day. We sent them facts as they says, here's
what we need to push today, and they would call
their local newspapers, they would call their local radio stations
and try to get the message out, or they would
write a letter to their local newspapers. I mean it
seems so. It seems like creaky today.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
That that wasn't so far away.
Speaker 10 (28:26):
We we were, you know, we did the best we could,
and you know, I think there were some good things
about the eighties and the nineties. It's still most towns
had their own newspapers, and they were pretty much on
the level. You know, they could be in real right
wing towns or real liberals towns, but they were built
newspapers pretty well on the level. And they would give
(28:48):
you access if you showed up, and they would say
what you said and then and if they dumped on you,
they would do it on the editorial page. They wouldn't
twist the news story. It was very different than that.
Almost every town of any size had their own locally
owned radio station. It meant a huge difference. I mean,
(29:10):
I might not be here if it weren't for that.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
All right, I got a question, and you know, I
was trying to figure out again with twenty four hour
less than twenty four hour warning, you don't know like
what angle we're going to go in. And this brings
me back to if you remember, on the internet, they
started this trending question like would you rather have half
a million dollars or a dinner with jay Z.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
What would you choose?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
And no, But the thing is is, like you know,
it's either would you rather get wisdom on how to.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Run the game and create your own.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Game or just whatever? Just give me the money.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Money, okay, but the timeout, but I got but my
question aazy would tell you to take the money.
Speaker 10 (30:01):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
But you know, since we have you here, and I
feel like at least for the five of us, and
by the five of us also mean like the community
that listens to this particular podcast, all of us, I
feel are either in our pivot moment in our lives
or in our career, Like all of us do something
notable here, Like he was part of the Hamilton team,
(30:26):
and you know, he's been a long time engineer, She's
been radio hosts, he's been like a hero to many
in the hip hop community. And now we're kind of
at this place in our lives where we're sort of
flirting with leadership roles. And you know, I would like
to ask you, as a person who sort of volunteered
(30:47):
for this life, to be a leader in all those things,
because it comes with a lot from what from the
outside looking in or I don't know if I'm inside
thinking I'm outside looking in. It seems like one a
thankless job to be a leader. And I'm not just
talking about president. Let's take it down. Why would you
ever want to subject yourself to having to always think,
(31:13):
quick on your feet, always having the answer, having to
whatever the metaphorical term, reach across the aisle, to speak
to someone, to nuanced a relationship, to do a long
dinner just for that one person, and you got to
do it like one hundred times. I guess I'm basically
asking is like all of us are right now sort
of at the bottom, looking at whatever our mount Fiji
(31:37):
or whatever the mountain is that we see, why should
we want to be a leader, Like, what is the
what's the motivation?
Speaker 10 (31:48):
Most of life is a social experiment and a social experience.
So if you feel strongly about something and you want
to impact your cha answers are much better if you
can lead a pack that agrees with you. And I
think that's really important that all these questions no one
(32:10):
can answer but the person affected. But I think it
starts with how you keep score. I mean, we all
keep score, whether we admit or not, we keep score
on ourselves. I wish I were a little taller. I
wish I little say, if I'd had Lebron's body, I'd
have gone a different line of work. That kind of stuff,
you know, we do that. So if you keep score
(32:36):
in a way that is at all other directed, then
if you get a chance to lead, you have to
do it and people won't resent you if they see
that it's other directed. I mean to me, I decided
when I got into this, I said, why are you
doing this? And I realized I had to face some
(32:58):
way of keeping score. So I keep score as follows.
Are people better off when you quit than when you started?
The children have a broader future? And are things coming
together instead of falling apart? And if you can answer
yes to all three of those questions, I think your
life's a runaway success. Even if you have heartbreak, even
(33:21):
if you fail, even if you make colossal mistakes, and
if you make enough decisions and you live long enough,
you will make mistakes. I think that's it. But if
you if you keep scoring any way that is other director.
You want to increase people's love for music, You want
to increase people's understanding of the social impact of music.
(33:44):
You want to get people who never thought about how
America got started to see it through as they can feel.
And you do, Hamilton, you know you did. Whatever it is.
There's a price.
Speaker 7 (33:58):
You should be president, So bad news. Guys care about
other people and not just not just ourselves.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Hang on a second. We got to let this go.
I knew it was coming. I knew I was coming
my team music when I say something brilliant go.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
Ahead, you didn't mean an interrupt miss President. We finished
with your thought?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Well, as of this taping, you know, we lost, Yeah,
one of the most crucial leaders of someone that I
looked up to because the role that Harry Belafonte played
and social change, right, you know, because I don't want
to have to like what I'm previously. What I'm known
for now is just like hey, a hustler. I'll do
(34:43):
this job and that job and this project and that project.
But you know, I'm wondering, like at sixty, at seventy,
like what is my life going to be? And right
now I'm thinking like, okay, I want to get into philanthropy.
So I'm kind of like working my behind off now
now so that I can be in the position to
(35:04):
be that person when I get to my sixties. And
also I'm also trying to get out the place where
like I'm writing my future down, like okay, ten years
from now, I'm gonna do that. I'm now learning a
lesson where I wake up every day and just like this,
like this was definitely not on my Bengo cart list,
like at all, this conversation, but things like this have
(35:24):
been happening to me almost consistently for the last two years,
where you know, I'm such a meticulous planner and this
is what I'm doing. This is how my future is
going to be, and then universe like kicks over and this, no,
this is what you're actually going to do. So you know,
as far as Harry Belafonte's concerned, that's kind of how
(35:45):
I thought. Okay, that might be the path I go,
where I plant ideas in people and then they implement
these things and change happens, be it we Are the world,
or the civil rights movement or even Beach Street, right,
even Beach Street.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
But I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I just you said keeping score, and for me, keeping
score means that there are two sides, and you have
to be a coach to do that. And the way
that politics is now, it's enough to give me pause
and just be like.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I don't know, let me just cut a check and.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Hide in the woods, you know, Like I've never been
the hide in the woods person, but I brought a
farm three years ago, thinking like, I need a place
in the woods to hide in case the worst case
scenario happens. So me, personally, I'm just on the prespice
on the line of like, do I have to be
that person? Do I have to be the heir of
Bellafante that's no longer here, or do I just hide
(36:46):
behind somebody here and you do it?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Like what would you say, because.
Speaker 10 (36:51):
I would say, do you need to do a little
bit of both? Let me explain what I mean by that.
Harry Belafani work his way into what you might call
direct action where he's marching with doctor King. But I
was thinking that I was telling on hell the way
drownd here today. I remember one of his earliest movies
(37:12):
when he was still a Calypso king, and he was
a beautiful man. God knows he was beautiful, and so
it's sort of a proto colonial movie. I'm embarrassed I
can't remember the name of it. But he's a guy
in the Caribbean. He's interested in what's going on in
this country, and this white lady sort of falls in
(37:35):
love with him. And when they did this movie, it
was a pretty brave thing to do to deal with
all that. There wasn't many movies dealing with all that.
So he made his statements in the movie and it was,
as a matter of fact, a good movie. And he
did a good thing. And then he used what he
had earned to start marching and getting involved with these
(37:58):
other things and doing it. I want to say something
almost contradicts what I told you earlier. I do think
you have to know how you're going to keep score,
and then you lay out a plan. But people ask
me all the time about how did I survive these
tough campaigns or what do you do when you're president?
And I remember when Hillary ran for the Senate from
(38:20):
New York, nobody asked her or her opponent, what are
you going to do when they bring down the World
Trade Center? So life is always happening to you. So basically,
you have to think about what you just said. And
I think it's a good thing you bought a.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Farm, by the way, But oh, I'm right next to you.
Trust me.
Speaker 10 (38:39):
But let's just take a politician, say vote for me
from mayor and I will do one, two three. Okay.
Then you get in and George Floyd gets killed on
your streets or you're way up north. But for the
first time ever, a tornado takes out half your town
(39:00):
because of climate change, it's moving to Coronados North. Okay.
So you say, how should I think about this? Well,
first of all, you have to be heartless not to
deal with what's happening that you didn't plan for. But
if you don't also do what you said you would
do when you ran, the people that were your most
ardent supporters may feel let them and you may feel
(39:23):
let them. So life is a constant struggle to do
what you said you do and what you plan to
do deal with the incoming fire that you never expected.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Let me ask you a question real quick before you go.
We're going to probably be planning this interview back around June,
which is Black Music Month. I wanted to mention this
because although President Carter was the first one to invite,
of course, the Black Music Coalition to come to the
White House, you, my friend, were the one who signed
the order and invited Jimmy jam Terry Lewis, Deana Williams,
(39:59):
the Isley bro This to come to the White House
and make it official. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 10 (40:03):
Yeah? I remember that. First I wanted to do it,
and secondly it was another excuse to get people to
come see me, he thought. I mean, I was a
huge Brothers friend and I love this whole heart of mine.
I get it out every now and then just play
it again. There are all these songs you have, songs
you replay from your life, don't you. I think, Nina Simons,
(40:28):
I wish I knew how it would feel to be three.
It's the best recording of that song, and it's the
best little known song of the civil rights era. And
when I get really down, I just put it on
and play it. But anyway, that's what I wanted to
say about it. I didn't I want to make the
point I was trying to make before. How whatever anybody's
(40:50):
listening to us, you worry about how much money is
it and what am I going to do? People need
to worry more about how am I going to do it?
If you're going to keep score in terms of other
people's lives, and your impact on it. You have to
worry as much about how you're going to do it.
That's what you're gonna do, and how much money you
have or don't.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Beautiful, what's the stuff you listen to when you need
to get up?
Speaker 10 (41:13):
Oh? For once in my life, it's like Stevie Wonders
in my life.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
One last jazz question from me with regards to the
saxophone Oliver and Nelson. Are you an Oliver Nelson fan?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (41:26):
So there's an albumin Impulse called a tribute to John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. I was just wondering if you've ever had
that one?
Speaker 8 (41:33):
No, check it out that.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's class.
Speaker 10 (41:37):
I got a bunch of those albums.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, Oliver Nelson, Pharaoh Sanders. Were you a fan of
his as well?
Speaker 10 (41:44):
Oh? Yeah, you know he had Arkansas connections. Yeah, he
want to talk to his family when he died.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
You're reminding me that I'm doing my first chow in
Arkansas in four days.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
You are ever, Yeah, but the roots have never.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Went to you Arkansas. I think we're going a little rock. Yeah,
there's a festival down there, so it'll be interesting to
see you.
Speaker 10 (42:07):
You'll like it. They'll be that's a good town.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
I'm going to see it. So this, if you want to.
Speaker 10 (42:13):
Go to my library, let me know. I'll set it
up right there.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I might do it, Yes, no doubt, I will absolutely
do that.
Speaker 10 (42:20):
And there's an uh we just opened the new Arkansas
Art Gallery, which is old and it's beautiful really and
a brilliant woman architect named Jenny Gang from Chicago did it.
It is a fabulous place.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
I shall be going there.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
How big is that vinyl collection? You didn't tell us?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Like?
Speaker 5 (42:38):
How many records you gotten? Where you keep those things?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Oh?
Speaker 10 (42:41):
I keep them in home with my in New York.
I've got probably I've got over one hundred of these
in New York. But I also have that many in Arkansas.
There's an apartment upstairs in the library, and I've got
them there. Okay, so I still play.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Them there you go, Well, sir, yeah, this could actually
go in for twelve hours and we wouldn't care. But
your people were like, nah, you got to wrap it
up now, so on behalf of Fontigelo and Laya and
Sugar Steve and unpaid Bill.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Thank you very much, President Clinton for gracing our show.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Yes, oh you didn't get to President you didn't get
to tell about your summer or soul. Dan, We're supposed to.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Talk about next time. Okay, Part two, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. 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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