QLS Classic: Leon Sylvers III

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Without
no doubt, this gentleman that would bring into the table
is responsible for some of the best music you've ever danced,
ever listened to. Of Course, these talented family, the Silver's family,

(00:25):
have been in our lives for so long.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
They're amazing harmonies.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Of course, him branching out on his own to do
production for like The Whispers, Shallamar, Lakeside, Evelin, Champion King,
so many, so many groups, so many groups, just a
classic sound of boogie, you know.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Kind of posting disco, and we call it book. He's
one of the greatest and so so so.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Happy that he took time out to come speak to us.
This is Leon.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Silvers, the third.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
This is from January thirty first, twenty eighteen lest classic.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Here we go.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Supremo something So Supremo. Role call Supremo Sun Sun Supremo.
Role called Supremo, Son Son Supremo, Roll Call, Supremo Son
Son Supremo.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
Roll call.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I got nothing, Yeah, no, really, I got nothing. Yeah,
I'm sober whelmed by grids.

Speaker 5 (01:31):
I have nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Sprema So Supremo roll Call Suprema Son Son Supremo Roll.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Wait a minute, Yeah, let's see how I sound. Yeah,
Now do I sound better? Yeah? The second time.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Fund Sun Supremo role called Supremo Sun Son Supremo role call.

Speaker 6 (01:56):
My name is Fante. Yeah, call me your friend. Yeah,
because it's not too Yeah. Only one can win.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Supremo Road Suprema So Supremo Road Suprema.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, the show to be on. Yeah, let's put some
tea on. Yeah and talk to missus Silver Supremo, So
Soun Supremo.

Speaker 7 (02:27):
Roll mulesman struggling. Yeah, to write these rhymes. Yeah, almost
called a ghost writer.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:34):
On the hotline, Son Son Supremo Roll Call Supremo Roll.

Speaker 8 (02:44):
It's my em Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
And I ain't feeling bad yeah, Leon Silvers.

Speaker 9 (02:50):
Yeah, got me thinking about DC Cab.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
So Supreme Road Supremo.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah yeah, I love that soup frame.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Up frame, roll up frame, up up frame.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
That was the greatest contribution ever, ever, ever to to.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (03:34):
Okay, dude, I'm sweating over here.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
I'm nervous.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know, I know we're nervous about this episode because
we didn't mock like you.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Normally we mocked.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Like yous intro and we we you caught a break
this time because you came through with the DC.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
That was he went real deeper that that. Okay, look,
I'm just putting it out there.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
We're just gonna go all over the place because the
reason why I feel as though we commit to the show. Yes,
you know, we're about the whatever, the teaching of excellence
and bringing people and exposing him to the audience, you know,
to audience that might not know him, stuff like that.
But just sometimes you just want to nerd out on

(04:27):
your favorite and I there's so much. There's not enough
that I can say about the gentleman that we have
with us right now. I can say that, you know
he is. I mean, he's such a genius in every

(04:48):
area that he's ever done in crafting harmonies and his
musicianship and his songwriting. I mean he damned near it
invented a genre of music.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
He killed disco, He literally killed disc of all the like.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
He invented genres and he inspired some of our greatest
I told Jimmy Jam that he was coming on our show,
and even Jimmy Jam had to bow down because of
all that he learned from this.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Man, I'm about to start crying right now.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show, Leon Silvers.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yes, man, you don't know how happy we are right now,
Like we're.

Speaker 9 (05:35):
Just shout out to dang funk shout the day funk.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Yeah. We have so many questions about your life. Like
I've never idolized someone so much that I really don't
know that much about because you rarely did interviews and things.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Like that that matter. But let's just should we rapid fire?
Do we?

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Just we?

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I want to go, Let's go through the journey.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Okay, now, I'm gonna say it. Let's start at the beginning.
You all gotta be proud of me. I haven't said
that in a while, but this time.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
So uh, I believe your entire family is from Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Correct, Uh? Please be wrong?

Speaker 5 (06:22):
Suck everybody except me faster Agian Pat.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Where were you born?

Speaker 5 (06:29):
I was born in South ben Indiana. Oh yes, My
father was going to college out there and my mother
and I was born on the campus and only stayed
there three days after I was born, So I know
nothing about South Ben, Indiana.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I was. I was born.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
There for three days I was there for three years.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Wait, you born in South ben Memorial Hospital. Wow, that's amazing,
That's that's crazy. Yeah, So just.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I just want to know it all, like talk about
the beginnings in Tennessee and how music entered into the household.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
Well about Tennessee, I can't remember too much except Roy Rogers,
so I was too. After about two years, we hit
the train and came to LA. I think I was
two or three years old, and La is where everything started.
The Motown sound for me.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Why did you guys move to Los Angeles?

Speaker 5 (07:37):
I think my father got a gig at what is it, uh,
some kind of space company something. He was doing some
kind of work I couldn't remember, but he his work
brought us out there. And everybody wasn't born yet. It

(08:02):
was just myself, Charmaine, Charmaine.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Charmaine is the eldest sister, and you're the eldest brother.

Speaker 5 (08:10):
No, Olympia is the oldest of the family. Olympia and
then myself, Charmaine and James Jonathan that was who was
only four of us when we went to LA and
it started with me was the Motown sound. I was
into James Jamison on bass period and Benny Benjamin the drums, uh,

(08:35):
And that was my start in music. I was taking hangers,
acting like high hats. I took the drum, the little broom,
the sweeping part, used that as a rim and snare,
and the box spring I used as a kick drum.
That's how I started music right there.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, that's where most people would take the broom
and make that to a guitar. You thought to make that?

Speaker 5 (09:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Was were there any adults that were musicians that were
influential in your life at that point.

Speaker 5 (09:11):
Where no, I'm just Jamison and Benny Benjamin. I didn't
know nobody yet. That was only about six or seven
there at seven.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
What was it about that music that called you the bass?

Speaker 5 (09:25):
I got a guitar when I was like, we did
we just did four part harmony because I was teaching
everybody this lower Scudder's commercial back in the day. And
my brother was three years old, but he held four
part harmony. So we was doing this lower Scudder's commercial
and my father heard us and started teaching us some

(09:46):
four freshman type harmony back in the day at high
lows and all that, and so we did it real easy,
and he got a manager and they put us on
we were called the Little Angel, right, and they put us
on Spike Jones. Arc link letters show all these names
from back in the day. And that's where my brother

(10:11):
he was three when we did our first TV show,
and he held he gave everybody our parts when we
forgot him, so he As far as harmony is concerned.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
How did you guys even know how to notate harmony?
Because well, one thing I think our audience should know
is I feel like the the one distinction that separated
you guys from any of your contemporaries Jackson Stair Steps,

(10:42):
whoever was young at that time, was you guys had
the most unusual harmony structures ever?

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Was that from not knowing?

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Like who taught you those dissonant and chromatic harmonies that
weren't average?

Speaker 5 (10:58):
And I think, well, my father was into the four
Freshmen and the high lows and all that. So he
he saw us doing three part harmony and one lead
on this Laura Scuddis commercial and I gave him their parts,
but it was, you know, simple stuff like you know,
and he saw we can hold a note, not get off,

(11:21):
So he started giving us harder songs, songs like It's
a blue world, and well I forgot the name of
those songs, but uh it was four and five part harmony,
and we stayed on it and didn't get off. I
don't know why. My mother could have been an opera singer.
She was studying for a minute, So I guess that's

(11:44):
why we uh we just felt we can do it,
and we just did it. You know. It wasn't no
why or whatever. We just did it, stayed on the notes,
and I actually was the worst holding the note. Yeah, James,
this was the best, and then it was Charmaine, then Olympia.

(12:07):
Than me, I was last. I always forget my note,
you know. But James had the ear for holding the notes,
and he was the youngest.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
What year was this this was?

Speaker 5 (12:17):
I was like I was like seven six, but.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I mean, like in what year was it?

Speaker 5 (12:23):
Like probably sixty fifty nine or something like. I was
born in fifty three, so okay, around fifty nine or
something like that or sixty.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
So there wasn't even a template out at the time
to or besides maybe Frankie Lymon and the teenagers, which
is more like fifty seven to fifty, but there were
no kids groups or that sort of thing.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
To no, just Frankie Lyman, what's your name? Sound kind
of like a kid little Anthony back then imperiods. I
listened to him for a minute.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, so were you guys instantly in pursuit of the
next level? Was just to find a record deal? Or
was it just like we did this television show and
that's it.

Speaker 5 (13:05):
Well, back then we didn't have no leads. It was
off harmony, so we would just stand there and sing,
no personality, no charisma or nothing, just singing holding the notes.
And we were so young that I guess the crowd
thought it was amazing that we were singing that kind
of stuff, But we was just ready to get off
the stage and go play kind of thing. But I

(13:29):
loved music. I was the one teaching them and actually
sometime making them saying. But I got into the motown thing,
and then from there we didn't get into seriously making
moves to record companies till I was around I guess

(13:52):
thirteen or fourteen or fifteen, something like that, because that's
when when the Jacksons came out. That's when I got
serious and I started teaching that when my brother, because
he had the most powerful voice and I was he said,
I can't say. I said, well, just nothing again, you

(14:14):
won't do nothing unless you practice it. He had the tone.
So I work with him every day and practice till
after a year or so he was riffing and all that.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
You know, So all your brothers and sisters are literally
coming out the wound one by one during this period.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
You're just waiting for them to get of age.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
And like everybody, there was nobody that came in my
family that couldn't hold a harmony. They could do that
before they could do a lead. We had to practice
our leads.

Speaker 10 (14:44):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
So as far as when they give them apart, they'd
hold it and we sing to somebody else's part, they
would keep it and never blend into the other person's
part or anything like that. We all had that, I guess.
But the leads we had to work on and worked
him and Foster. But Edmund worked the hardest. Uh and

(15:05):
his tone reaped the benefits because I worked at it
at home. And then when we got with Freddie Perrin, Uh,
he heard Edmans's voice right off the bat.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
So, but that was the one in the Capitol years.

Speaker 5 (15:21):
I'm jumping too fast, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
So what label was Pride? Associated with MGM.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
Yeah, a friend of Mike Curb, which was Mike Wiener Curb.
Mike Curb was running MGM when we were signed and
he was only twenty four years old.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Wait, so the Mike Curb congregation. That's one of my
favorite breakdowns exactly, the coming down.

Speaker 5 (15:47):
Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, he was cool. He was
the one that really hit me with the commercial thing
because I was doing I was really kind of into
back then that social conscious type writing, the you know,
because the Black Panthers was out and all that stuff,

(16:07):
so socially conscious music was kind of in, and I
was into that from a third grip from this history teacher,
Mr Simon. But he was the one who told me, well, Leon,
your music has to be more commercial, you know. And
I was on that tip, like, well, what do you know?

(16:30):
You only do pop music, you know, you know, because
we knew how more. I mean, MGM was as far
as motown was. And he's like, you're right, but even
if I do pop music, it has to be commercial.
You're doing R and B, it's got to be as commercial.
And I didn't want to hear that, but I did,

(16:52):
and I started changing after I had that meeting because
he wanted to give He made up pride after that.
It's all. He told us to do this song called
what It Takes, an old Barry Gordy song, and he
wanted us to do it, and we did it, and
it you know, it wasn't nothing. You know, it didn't
do nothing. And this meeting with me, I didn't know

(17:14):
it at the time, was to get inside whoever was
the head of leader of the group type of thing.
And I was more like trying to tell him, we
know what we're do and just let us do it,
because I realized they put us on the shelf for
the Osmonds because they didn't try. Yeah, but we didn't

(17:38):
know that when we signed, and they didn't tell, you know,
we just we didn't have no records out for a year.
We didn't even go in the studio for a long
time after the Osmonds was out. But you know, I
understand the marketing thing, you know, uh, they didn't want
no other competition out there, and we were a family
group that could sing harmony and all that, so they

(17:59):
signed us.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Well, then I gotta ask then if because I know
with one bad Apple not At one point did MGM say, hmm,
this sounds close like ABC. All right, Silver's here you go,
like this should be for you instead of the Osmonds or.

Speaker 5 (18:15):
No, the Odumans were signed already and they were specially
targeted to be the off the other side, a white
group family group and a black family group. That was
I understand the marketing after, but we didn't know that
was the case till, like, you know, years later, And
I didn't believe it even after people was telling me

(18:38):
because I wasn't caring about that, you know, as long
as we can come out, that was my thing. So
their whole thing was done, and all of a sudden
we heard them out and he was on MGM. Nothing
was told or anything, and it just came out, you know,
And I actually liked the record. I thought it was
you know. But Mike Curb was cool because he made

(19:00):
up pride and well he got his friend Michael Veener
to uh incredible bar because incredible bargle man. Oh yeah yeah,
and that was a funny story too. But he they
were schoolmates, Curb and Mike Veener, and he always wanted
to get into the record business and Mike Curb gave

(19:21):
him that shot and gave us put us on another
label because MGM was more pop than anything. They never
had no R and B groups on MGM, so Pride
was the label that he put us on. Got a
well KEG. Johnson got a black promoter and Mike Veener

(19:43):
was the head of Pride and we hit with Fool's
Paradise our first record. Well there was R and B hit,
you know, I didn't get no pop play, but uh,
that was that. And when we started practicing, we went
on the road and things were happening quick because we
had the big naturals and people automatically oh another Jackson's

(20:06):
and we had the bigger naturals. So can you.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Clear how those your actual naturals home?

Speaker 5 (20:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, okay, I had to know it for his weeks
or not because.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
They were so perfect.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
The Silvers Afros for me, the real standard of the Afro,
not the Jackson five like that.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
You know.

Speaker 5 (20:26):
Well, we we had a concept. I thought, if you
would we would go to bed instead of with the
natural flattening it up, we would brush our hair up
and take rubber bands and have a unicorn going up
and to sleep like that. And we took the rubber
bands off, it would just lay out like that.

Speaker 9 (20:43):
Wow, so that was our natural secrets revealed.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
You think, I ain't gonna do this, only braid my
hair so can have that effect. I was like, damn,
I could just unicorm shit, you're fired, thank you?

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh man?

Speaker 1 (21:04):
So h knowing or you know, I don't. I don't
know how big of a presence the Jackson Five were
in you guys's life as far as like that's the
goal or if it was some sort of eclips it was.

Speaker 5 (21:23):
But it was big. Oh sorry, no.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Well I'm asking like, was there a thing like well
until we reached the status of the Jackson Five, like
we haven't made it yet or that sort of thing,
And at least with the Pride Records.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
It wasn't openly said because we were kind of controlling
our We were writing our songs, we were doing our
own harmony. We didn't have a corporation like guys that
knew what they were doing, you know too, so we
learned everything. So it was like a great feeling each

(21:58):
level of it. So we wasn't even thinking. We was
just happy to be in it really and doing our
own music.

Speaker 6 (22:05):
So those prior records was that you in the studio
like just pretty much doing everything.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
How much was that and how much?

Speaker 5 (22:13):
But Jerry Butler had three guys, well two Keg Johnson
and Jerry Peters working with his company, and he sent
them first to meet us. And he met us at
the six Flags Magic Mountain doing a show, and backstage
after the show he brought his records. I guess that

(22:34):
he wanted well that he did want us to hear
from Jerry Butler, telling him to let him hear this.
And I had my base ready in an amp and
we were all sitting in a line, well in a circle,
half circle, and we knew he was coming, so we
was prepared to play our songs. And he said, I

(22:57):
heard you all right, Keg did, and we looked at
each other and said yeah yeah, And he said, okay,
let me hear something. So we started playing Fool's Paradise
at the record first record and I start off with
the bass and and then Charmain started singing, and we
all you know, and Keg just walked over to the

(23:17):
trash can and then okay, that's one, let me hear
another one, and through through the records in the trash
in front of us. You know, we liked that we
was teenagers. We was like we looked at each other. Yeah,
so that was great. We clicked right off the bat,
you know when he did that.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
You know so well, even though buying these records and
seeing the production and stuff, I knew that you wrote
the songs, but yeah, I was trying to figure out,
like how much production control you had these songs.

Speaker 5 (23:50):
I didn't. I was learning then. I didn't want to produce.
I didn't even play on it, and I didn't want to.
He asked me did Keg was the producer, but it
was supposed to be. It was Keg and Jerry Peters
that were the producers. Jerry Butler wasn't going to produce,
but it was his company that was hired and some

(24:11):
things went down. But Keg was the producer, and he
asked me, did I want to play on it? Because
he liked everything he heard and he was worried. He
wasn't going to tell Jerry. Now I didn't notice at
the time, but he was. He wasn't going to tell
Jerry till later, oh wo, because Jerry was busy still,

(24:33):
he was still hot with his career. He was on
tour and all that stuff. So, uh, we was actually
in the studio cutting this stuff before Jerry even knew
that we didn't do his record. But I didn't know this.
I just heard it from a phone conversation with my mother,
Mike Wiener and Keg because Keg was with Jerry and

(24:57):
they were about to get rid of him. Because Jerry
came in and came down, and I remember I had
to go in the studio and he was telling me, now,
this is what I wanted y'all to do, and he
played a way worse bubblegum record than one Bad Apple,
and I like that, this was horrible. It was bubblegum.

(25:21):
So I was like, you know, I was from the
Nickason Garden and Watts, so yeah, I wasn't even trying
to hear it. But I liked Jerry Butler, so I said, well, yeah,
we're not doing that, That's all I said. I didn't
want to say nothing else because I liked him. I just,

(25:42):
you know, let me cut to the chase and I
play around. We ain't doing it, and he said, oh
why not. Yeah, it's too bubblegum, That's all I said.
And he said, oh, okay, you sure, that's all he said.
I said yeah, and he let it go. He just
made sure everything went through his company KEG, and then

(26:06):
was gonna get fired. But I liked the way he
handled itself with us when he threw the records in
the trash, so I stood up for him. I told him, Oh,
if you get rid of KEG, we ain't doing nothing.
I didn't know what I was I was, but I
meant what I said. I was only about what eighteen No,

(26:29):
I was seventeen or something. But I was the one
that everybody was listening to, and they like KEG, and
we were doing our own things. So I just told
Mike Wiener, Hey, if you get rid of KEG, we
ain't doing nothing. We'll go somewhere else.

Speaker 6 (26:44):
Before y'all got into the studio, how were you writing
your songs like fools preadicce writing them on base at home?

Speaker 5 (26:49):
On this bass? Oh, I would use the base excuse
me as a harmonic to the melody that I would sing.
Oh ways, I wouldn't do it as a you know
a lot of people stay on E for the funk
type thing. I would use it as a keyboard. I
would always play the bass of harmonic to my melody

(27:13):
and then the chords would you could you could hear
different ones you know, as you listening to the melody
and the bass.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
So are a majority of the songs that you write.
Do you write it on bass? Verse before you never
on piano?

Speaker 5 (27:28):
Never on Okay, now I do because you know you
got a studio in your hand. Now you know you
could do anything really, But back then, if I did
a melody, I immediately went to the bass and did
the harmonic bass line because that was like my keyboard.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
So for for those first four three or four initial
Silvers albums, that didn't catch you on the way that
showcase quitte on and once you guys went to Capitol,
But was it at all shocking to you that those
records would be discovered in a new light in the

(28:10):
era of rare groove culture and hip hop sampling, Like
because even though in your mind you might think like,
oh well, okay, those first few records weren't hitting like
you know, our Capital years, But for a.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Lot of us, yeah, that's the holy grail. Oh my god. Yeah,
I mean the first album.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Alone with with uh wish I could talk to you.
I'll never be ashamed, Like there's least like in my eyes,
like that first Silver Records has at least six six
or seven gems on it that we see in the
light of sampling and how it's so was it at
all shocking to you that, like some thirty five years later,

(28:52):
forty years later, that suddenly like even in my DJ
said like I'll play only one can win, as.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
So that is all?

Speaker 5 (29:03):
Well, actually I felt great. I mean it was like
an honor for and then I started thinking, how does
that happen? You know? And then I's the only thing
I could think of is Wow, it was young people
that picked that up, and I was young at the
time when I wrote it. So it's like twenty years
later that same spirit and you know, musical DNA if

(29:27):
you will, you know, only the young could hear that,
because I was like, wow, that must be it. The
same thing with mister me all those songs that were
sampled I wrote when I was younger than eighteen.

Speaker 6 (29:41):
Right, No, that's that's a whole twenty minute conversation just
on that song.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes, Well what's started man with? Yeah? With mistermeanor like,
how how did you come with that?

Speaker 4 (29:56):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (29:58):
Wow, I didn't. The base came first.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
I was just I was stomping my foot and I
was just hitting mm hmmmmm. No, I was just doing
the first one first.

Speaker 11 (30:18):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 5 (30:20):
Oh, And then I started repeating those two over and
over and I would hit my foot kind of hard
on the ground like a kick. And I had one
of them old. It was I think it was a
Signo cassette player. They only made one. It had one big,
giant speaker. It was a Mono radio cassette player. Man,

(30:42):
it had the perfect compression for that mic. Because I
recorded that baseline stomping my feet with that cassette. Man,
it was the best sound ever. I did everything. I
went and bought two of those.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Ye that's what the that's what the iPhone sounds like now,
and sort of I track a lot of my drums
up with the iPhone, like on the floor, like thirteen
feet away from me, and it's the same perfect man.

Speaker 5 (31:10):
So I just loved that. I kept that cassette till
it evaporated. You know. It just had that the misdemeanor
vibe on it. And I just recorded that and then
said the hook. I don't remember if I had the
words already, I did, probably did, and I was and

(31:34):
I knew because I listened to that melody lower octave
with the base and the same register, and it's wrong.
It's the most horrible melody with the baseline because it's
one of them notes that if you do an octave
high you can get away with it. It sounds cool,
almost funky, but if you do it in the same
register like an octave lower, the worst thing to your ear,

(31:58):
you couldn't. I hated it when I when I heard
it like that, but uh, I knew what I had
when I actually did the melody with the bassline, it
sounded great. I just knew I had something that would
people would like. I don't know why, it just had
a feeling, ye, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
And how old was Foster when he cut that?

Speaker 5 (32:20):
He was around I think ten, uh.

Speaker 9 (32:23):
Turn eleven, like ten years old?

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Then out were you?

Speaker 5 (32:30):
Were you?

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Because of the pristine level of musicianship that a lot
of the Pride era records were under. Were you guys
always using the same musicians in the studio or was
it did you have a relationship with these musicians or
was just like who's here today?

Speaker 5 (32:48):
We met him because we wanted to be at every session,
So it was mainly Chuck Rainy on bass.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Or what oh man?

Speaker 5 (32:59):
Those two were the bass players. Those guys were just
moonlight Like no, they were the top.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
But well, I'm just saying like, well, like yeah.

Speaker 5 (33:10):
Well, Keig Keg and Jerry Peters they were real good
producers back then. They did uh, Gray, what's that song
that friends of Friends of distinct? Yeah, they did that
and uh you got me go in and and so
Keig Johnson and Jerry Peters were formidable producers themselves. So

(33:32):
and Jerry Peters was great keyboardist and arranger. So they
knew all the top musicians. And I'd go to every session.
David t was main guitar. Uh Felder. They switch up
on keyboard guys because there was a lot of them,
but it was always kind of jazz oriented. Guys still alive,

(33:53):
Yes he is.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Wait, uh, it's just hit me. Was it one of
your brothers or or three? Somehow? You guys were actually
involved in the Jackson five cartoon, Edmund.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
He was Marlon's voice.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Here's a voice of you.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
You mentioned something, well, a lot of us are not
California residents, but I have family out here, and you
said Nickerson Nickerson gardens, which instantly struck fear in my heart.
I was like, Okay, hands up, yeah, well, a lot
of the We're All in the Same Gang.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Video was shot there. Yeah, how.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Knowing what I know about, you know, LA gang culture
and that stuff, especially that being the most notorious housing projects.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
In l A.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
How did the eleven of you escape that unscathed? Was
it just like leave the silvers alone, like they're going
to make it one day?

Speaker 5 (35:06):
Or well, no, we you know, you had to kind
of get busy.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
But it's like, Okay, we're going to do soul Tree
one day and then come back and you got to
fight your way inside your crib or No.

Speaker 5 (35:16):
Actually we were. We were singing then, we were learning
and building our our voices then. And I was going
to verbum Day High School. It was a Catholic school
in the in the middle of watts and it was
the Nickerson Garden was around it actually, and I went

(35:39):
there to play basketball because I got a little scholarship there.
And we entered a talent show from verbum Day and
actually before the Brothers Johnson's name was Brothers Johnson. They
were in that talent show too, wow, and they won
their place. No, they didn't even go to the but

(36:00):
you could if you had somebody that did, you could
be in that talent show and we didn't have no band.
We were just doing a cappella. So we put put
about seven or eight chairs and put a one leg
on the chair and appella. You know. So we we

(36:22):
got one second place. But there was a guy named
Wylie Brooks there and he came up to us and said,
I have a friend at MGM.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
You know that reminds me who arranged your version of yesterday.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
From that that all acapella?

Speaker 5 (36:41):
Who did that? I think? I think did we do
it ourselves? I think we did. I can't remember anybody else.
Oh no, there wasn't a arranger that helped us. When
we were doing our show for Las Vegas, George something.
He helped us out. But then we changed it and.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
So you guys would still do the the a cappella
beatles yesterday just the way that.

Speaker 5 (37:09):
Yeah, we we We did our show at the Rolls
a couple of months ago and we kept that in
the show. We put that back in the show.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
That that is like, yeah a lot of people, that's
the most jaw dropping. Were you professionally taught eventually how
to notate music or was.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
It just like I don't know how to read it all. Wow,
dog man, I'm gonna learn though too.

Speaker 9 (37:40):
So even on the base that was just our self taught.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
You talked yourself.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
Oh yeah, I was. I was into jameson that. That
was the teacher right there.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Well from me, can we go to the years capital
trying to So how did the MG situation? Well, not implode,
but how did you guys eventually get the attention of
Capitol records.

Speaker 5 (38:10):
I don't really remember too much except that.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Who's managing the group.

Speaker 5 (38:18):
At when we were on Pride it was a manager
called Nordy Stein. He would always try to chime in
and then when we didn't react fast, he would say,
it's just a thought Leon. So we knew Nordy Stein
like that. But he was cool. He got gigs, and

(38:39):
I didn't. I liked him. Really.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
How how are you guys able to keep the discipline
of the group? I mean, because again, it's nine of you,
and you are going into uncharted territory of stardom, and
you're in.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Hollywood and.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
You know obviously I mean, I don't know if you're
the father figure of the group, but I would assume
that as the eldest brother you had to keep Oh.

Speaker 5 (39:08):
Yeah, it was in line, and you know it was
I didn't believe in nothing halfway. And I was a
good disciplinary and I mean Foster he was the only
one that really showed because he was into football like
I was into basketball. So he didn't want to practice
at all when and he would cry and try to

(39:31):
get out of it, you know that kind of stuff.
But he eventually came through. But I would do like, hey,
I ain't getting on stage getting booed ever, so y'all,
let's let's go practice. And we had the Jackson's to
look up to as far as steps professionalism, but they
were they were worked through professionalisms and professional people.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
I gotta ask you a question, okay U, because I
mean I haven't seen you guys on Soul trained billions
of times, and you know all your steps are immaculating
and all those things.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Did you guys ever work with Charlie Atkins? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
that was Charlie that.

Speaker 5 (40:16):
That move on Boogie Fever, that first move. We we
usually would change certain steps because some of them guys
would get a little too feminine, and you know, we
from the niggas and guns, so we'd be like, okay,
don't worry about that we.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Changed that, but.

Speaker 5 (40:36):
Child, yeah, well sometimes it was you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and we didn't we knew which which one to edit
out and to put in. But Charlie's step, I said,
oh no, that ain't going nowhere. You got to keep that,
you know, just don't fall because it'll be a domino theory.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Because it's so amazing to see the nine of y'all
do it.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Okay, here's the thing, as as the soul trained attict
that I am, the first minute of the show to
me is the most important part of the show because
it's when sim McCoy's gonna let you know who's on
the show with guest stars, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
And the thing is when they show the act that's on.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
You know, it's usually just a one and a half
second or two second action shot. And as a kid
not knowing who the Silvers were, and it was like
with guest stars the Silvers and all of.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
A sudden, see.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I just never that was the most magical thing. And
the thing was its like before the age of the
VCR and that stuff. I mean, I had to suffer
for like twenty years just waiting to see the game,
imagining that thing and begging people like do.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
You know doncran News can't just get the episode.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
They're finally like finding that episode in Japan, like some
twenty five years later.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Man, I wanted the ball like a baby. But yeah,
like the steps were so maculate, and but again it's
like how.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
It's like one false one false move and it's down
here like I'm one person went to the left one.

Speaker 5 (42:11):
But like whoa, yeah, but we staggered it because we
we learned okay, no no straight lines. It's just so
they'd stagger them, like being if the first one, second,
one's a little back, third one's up back, that kind
of thing.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
What would y'all rehearsed at at this time?

Speaker 5 (42:28):
At this point, we had a garage that we turned
into a little studio because I had a four track studio.
Uh back then it was kind of big, but it
was four tracks. So we rehearsed their steps and are
songs you know, and uh in the garage. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Describe working with Freddy Parrin, who did he produce the
first Capitol record?

Speaker 5 (42:55):
Yes, Uh, that was that's what I learned production. Why
not you like I learned well, it's I mean, he
was he was great. I learned a lot from him,
but he did kind of take one of our songs. Oh,
but I mean it was like it's like we got
through it and we were still cool laughter. Because it

(43:17):
was a song called Stealing from the Cookie Jar. Wow
I was the title of it, and the bass line was.

Speaker 11 (43:26):
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom boom.

Speaker 5 (43:32):
I went jazz on it on that third part. Freddy,
after he played the song and we sung it was
going off and he said, uh, play that back, and
that part We remember him playing it back because we thought, oh,
Freddy likes, he's gonna choose this one type thing. Then

(43:52):
a couple of weeks later he called us up and Hotline.
He played Hotline for us and Jelly your song and
it well, the baseline.

Speaker 11 (44:01):
Was boom boom boom boom doom doom doo doo doo doo.

Speaker 5 (44:06):
And he went back to But Jonathan and Ricky, my brothers,
they were like, hey, and and uh with my man
who wrote it with Freddy, great writer, he said he
did like this. Yeah, yeah, it's almost like you did.

(44:29):
Uh that was you know, but I mean we got
past it because I was thinking, okay, if we the
record ain't out yet, y'all Ken Lewis, Kenny Saint Louis, Yeah,
great writer. He I thought it was kind of funny
because I was happy because Wow, I did something that

(44:51):
dude liked. But it was like we were minors. Well
I wasn't, but but Jonathan and them still were, and
they were the one more active on doing something about it.
And I said, well, you know what, let's just leave
it alone because you can't copyright a bassline. I mean,

(45:13):
either it's arrangement or because I found out, you know,
and then the record ain't made nothing yet. So if
we stopped the process Freddie panning him going back off,
then Capitol Records may drop us. Let's go on and
let Freddy do his thing. It's not like he took
our song. It's just a bassline he got an idea
from because it's not exactly the same. So I convinced

(45:36):
him to say, oh, okay, you know, because it could
have been a bad situation because we I was about
sixteen or seventeen then, so and Freddie was already uh oh,
you know, but he didn't steal nothing. Really, it was
just an idea that he took because my song was
totally different melody wise. So but we know how that

(46:00):
goes now when your food for thought, you know what
I'm saying. But I let it go and we had
a great rapport with Freddy, and I learned a lot
from him because he would work on one line at
every point of the song. And one time he's working
so hard on one record on the hotline, and I

(46:20):
just thought he was crazy. I was just what the
what is he thinking? So at the end, I said,
why did you go over that one so much? And
he said, well, you know how you hear records sometimes
and every part you start liking better and better. Sometimes

(46:40):
it happens like Magic's my and then other times you
set up your chorus better, you set up your ad
lib better, and it's like people listening don't know they
why they like the song better, and you get more
people and the more you hear it, the more you
like that part. And I still thought he was crazy.
I said, oh okay, and then it got me performing it.

(47:02):
When you you know, when you start performing, you there's
certain things you know already, so it's like second nature.
But in a certain part of a song you like better,
and I said, oh, I like this part, and then
it hit me that's the So I was like, okay,
I got to listen to this guy.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
You know, can you tell the day Tripper story?

Speaker 5 (47:21):
Oh yeah, yeah that I mean that was kind of
a hard part of my life. I thought I had
messed up because this uh reporter for the Times, Hunt
is his name, he was he was a he put
he cut up my words and acted like I was

(47:43):
downing Freddy Parent because I said I had told him, well,
I don't like the assembly line production attitude, but I
was talking about other producers. And then I said, but
Freddy Parent, he listens to my He left that ship
out and put Leon's tired of the assembly line production attitude,

(48:05):
and then he put in there Freddy Pearn's name after
talking about something else. Then he said, I quote and said, well,
boogiey Fever's cool, but that's for kids. I don't like
boogie fever like in passing, laughing like, but but it
was a hit and it did good for us. He
left that out and put Leon right after the assembly
line production attitude.

Speaker 9 (48:25):
And I was sounded like a hater.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
That mean man. Sorry, Yeah, but also U was that
the first time?

Speaker 1 (48:45):
That was that the first time you got to meet
James Jamerson, Like, that's him playing the baseline of Boogie Fever.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Correct, No, that's not James Jamerson.

Speaker 5 (48:54):
No, it was either Wilton Felder or Truck Rainey.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Okay, wait, pretty parent, I could have sworn that.

Speaker 5 (49:06):
No, I never met him. I was at every session
I think. Was I a Bookie?

Speaker 4 (49:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:12):
I was there.

Speaker 5 (49:13):
No, it wasn't James Jamison.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Wow, that's on his UH discography whatever the on the website.

Speaker 5 (49:21):
I may not have been at Bookie Fever's session. I
was at the vocal thing, so it could have been.
Could have been that. I may not have been there
on that one.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Was on James Jamison's page that well, then damn. I
thought it was a moment like, hey, I've always left
your base player. No, have you ever got to meet him?

Speaker 5 (49:37):
I didn't really meet him, and I was mad when
I you know, because I always wanted to. I'd even
called a couple of UH session that a person thought
that he was playing on because he had came out
to l a excuse me. By the time I got there,
the session was over, and you know, I was trying

(49:58):
to just go bump into him and and just say
because I never told him face to face, he's the
reason I started bass. I mean, I got a guitar.
We was doing a show when we was the Little
Angels at that it was called the Moula Rouge. I
think back then, I don't know. It was that that
building that Nickelodeon was in for a while on Sunset

(50:22):
they had a Christmas party and it was us and
Dennis the Minis the original original Yeah, and we were
backstays throwing a football and then they called us on
stage and gave us a present. At the end, I
got a guitar and I took the two high strings
off because I was so into motown and I used
it as a bass That's how much I was a

(50:43):
bass player. I wanted to be a bass player period.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Wow. So was it New Horizons that.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
You guys like decided to take control of the production
and like, where does on silver is finally stepping and say.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
Oh yeah, I forgot I got that.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
That was.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
When they were telling me about boogiey Fever and I said,
I said, and passing, I said, well that that's that's
I think they got that from the Beatles. Anyway, because
that's a day tripper. So you can do a little
bit and cut it off because I think back then
the copyright was in bars. How much you did the

(51:35):
exact same thing within a certain amount of bars and
if you change it before that bar hit straight. Yeah,
so that's after the stealing from the cookie jar concept.
We thought, you know boogie well, No, that was after
so well we we I just assumed that they peeped
it because I used to peep things. But I would

(51:56):
never be that blatant with it. I would just into
a vibe and do my own, you know, of a
song because there was a lot of motown ones that
I loved, and you know, I would do my version,
but not blatantly copy the bass or the chords or
I didn't want to do that because I like my

(52:17):
own ideas.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
So it was capital or ATV music, like hey wait
a minute, or what went on the like did they
notice at all?

Speaker 5 (52:26):
Like no, because he changed it before the bar before that?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Was it totally?

Speaker 6 (52:35):
In your recording sessions, what was your what was your
approach or your science to tracking the vocals and like
tracking the harmonies. Would you cut everybody on like one
mic and y'all sing around it or did you track
them individually?

Speaker 5 (52:48):
Well, back then we did sometimes the girls on one
mic and then the guy's on one mic, but it
was all at the same time. Okay, I think I
don't remember us separating back then like later on, you know,
when I was producing then, I did that stacking thing different,

(53:10):
But back then we were. They just would tell us okay, girls,
Charmaine back or Oland back, and when we all they
sung on one mic and then they would separate us
with lows and mid and highs. Freddy I mean, yeah,
Freddy Parron and keg.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
So for the New Horizons record, and that meant a
lot to me because I was given that eight track
when I was like six, so I wow. I studied
it profusely, but uh, I know that it didn't reach
the level of the Something Special album and showcase. And
knowing that you guys left Capital after then, is it

(53:55):
implied that, okay, well, since it was the minist return
or lower sales for this one, that you guys are
just off the label or was it because Lark and
Arnold left the Good Columbia.

Speaker 5 (54:08):
I think probably, Well, usually when the ANR guy leaves
back then a lot people who the new A and
I want to bring their own in so and you
can only have so many artists at the so if
you don't like the group, everything you know stops right there.

(54:29):
And our last it makes it easier for him because
our last green sheet didn't show too much. So and
that's you know, I'm assuming that that's what it was,
and that was Capital. I feel they made a mistake though,
but that was in learning because we cut this song
called what's it at the concert or off? Yeah, I

(55:00):
got cut. We cut that way before any rider came out.
It sat on Capital. I even called the Capital everybody
from all the secretaries to come in after the after
they were old, you know, they were done with their work,

(55:20):
and said we went down to each office and said
come on up. We wanted we need a crowd, and
everybody came and we had them doing O. Then we
had them do don't stop, get off. We had that
whole crowd thing.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
And so you recorded that way before nineteen seventy eight,
Well that was the first one. That was the first
that was on the disco Fever album.

Speaker 5 (55:41):
But no, but I'm saying when we heard like we
came from Japan and went to straight. I wanted to
get home because we got tickets for that brothers Johnson
Brick and Georgia Duke concert Man at the Forum, so
we wanted to make that and I got We got
back in town and I just heard everybody going. It

(56:04):
was the crowd doing it. And I said, what what
is that? And they said, whoa, that's what they do
now when they like something.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
So I said, oh, the crowd likes something already, let's
put that old record and you know, so that's what
I did. But and I told Larkin, this is what
the people are doing. So we we guaranteed certain mind
of sales. When the public likes something that they done
created and they hear it back on them, they it's
a Dundell. Nobody listened. That thing sat for about two years,

(56:36):
about four or five hits with and ours was the last,
and it still went number one R and B.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
You know.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
So, so even though you weren't because I know by
this time UH you had formed with UH or at
least took it a day job with Dick Griffy, but
you were still were you actively producing your your family's

(57:05):
albums while still no, you weren't a member. You weren't
a full member of these Castablanca records.

Speaker 5 (57:13):
No, no, no, I was out the group then, So
how does that?

Speaker 2 (57:17):
How does that work?

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Because you know, you gotta start off as a nine
and then like then you were seven, and it's like,
how how do band members just leaving?

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Like I can't take it anymore?

Speaker 5 (57:29):
And that's no, I was kicked out of the group.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
Wait what Yeah?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
It was it was like, you know, did they blame
you for New Horizons?

Speaker 5 (57:42):
No, no, I don't. It wasn't that. It's just I
think everybody was growing there. They wanted to do a step.
Everybody wanted to do their own you know. Well, because
I was like, I took the approach as as leader
when we was okay, what everybody got? I always and
I took that into production. I give everybody a chance
to let me see what you got, do it. Let's

(58:05):
do whether it's some melody or ad lib whatever. I
just prepared myself to come with it if they ain't
got nothing that's worth anything. So and you have to
use tact because I feel producers have to be psychologists babysitters.

Speaker 6 (58:19):
At some point the same thing. Last night, he said
those exact same words about producers. It's babysitting. Psychology is
counselors exactly.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
So by this point, who do you of your siblings? Like,
who's who's are you in conflict with? Is it? Like
you know, Angela, you you're singing them wrong? Note you
sing too flatter.

Speaker 5 (58:44):
There wasn't no one person other than you know, when
people get tired and they don't even know why, they
just want something different because I don't. It didn't matter
what word I said, even when it's okay, let's see
what and then they come up with something. And then
if there's silence, you know, someone else comes up with

(59:04):
an idea, you know, so I would always do it
what about? And then I'd already have something prepared and
they was, ooh that's nice. All they took. It was
two or three of them, you know, so and it
was a lot of us. So I based everything off that.
And then if something's not happening, I didn't even have
to say I don't like that to steer the crowd.

(59:26):
They would say it, or they would say, well I
don't know about that, and then you just keep coming
with it, which is the way it should be anyway,
the best idea coming forward. But after a while, they
were growing into what I already was. I was past minor,
and I was developing my own thing, and everybody wanted

(59:48):
to do their thing, I guess because and then when
I had that meeting with them with al Ross, he
was well, he did said like this, he had a
contract on us for half and it was nine people
plus my mother. Oh, and that's true, So that that's

(01:00:11):
why I said what I said. But I had a
meeting to try to and I told everybody, look, you
guys are miners. He's not gonna want a chance or
show that contract to nobody, so all we have to
do is and I told mom just be cool, because
I was already eighteen then, you know, so you know,
I knew, you know, we'll just kicked me on off
the group and we're straight, you know. But I was

(01:00:34):
telling them how we we had a meeting and he
got up. Everything was working until he got up out
of the seat and said, Leon, I don't know what
you think you're doing or who you think you're talking to,
and that kind of thing. And I was like, I
forgot to tell moms. Look, if he gets up and
walks and I get up, don't worry I'm not going

(01:00:56):
to hit him. I'm going to wait for him to
hit me. Then it's really on. So I forgot to
do that with her. So me from Nickerson gun, I
ain't gonna let no man stand over me while I'm sitting.
So when he got up and started walking around the table,
I got up and was smiling. I thought that was enough.
I said, so what, you're getting up for a while,

(01:01:18):
And then I stood up and walked to meet him.
And that's and when he stopped and sat on the desk,
that's when Mom said, Okay, that's it. Stop, that's end there,
and he knew what was up. Then, oh there's the way,
okay cool. So from then on out, I was the
bad guy. It didn't Mom was scared too, and that's moms.

(01:01:42):
I couldn't get mad at her because I wasn't, you know.
But I knew we had that meeting, and after that happened,
he was I knew he was in her ear. And
that's when I After I was out the group, I
went hooked up with Dick Griffy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Okay, before we get to the Solar years, because I
know you're bursting, man, I have one more question. What
were your feelings on okay, because they did an album
with I mean, on paper, it looks like a dream
because I think Harold Faltemeyer and Giorgio Moroder produced. Uh,

(01:02:27):
they produced the disco Fever album.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
That was the blanc right. Yeah, yeah, they did a
song on Dance Fever. I think it was called Ucci
Kuchi Dancing or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
What were your feelings I called the Aftermath album because
you were totally not involved in that album, what were
your feelings on it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Well?

Speaker 5 (01:02:48):
I blamed Al Ross, you know, I mean I laughed
at it because I knew Georgio Moroder had his boys
do it. He didn't do none of that. So I
said I didn't know, And I said, I'm willing to
bet that his boys did that, not Georgia, because it's
nothing in it sounds like a Giorgio Moroda production.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
They didn't have the great synthesizer line exactly like it was.
It was just bull crap. And I said, that's Al
Ross because he has no vision. He just, oh, we
used Georgia's Moroda's name.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
We're done.

Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
You know, he's always one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
It was always because even like even though I knew
of that album. I didn't get it in time, but once,
you know, in my adult years, and I got it,
and so oh Georgia, Oh this is gonna be a
synthesizer classic album.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
And then nothing was.

Speaker 5 (01:03:42):
It wasn't even close to nothing. I was like, well,
because I was you know, he's the big time producer
and some of the records with Donna, Donna Summer, I
was like, dang, okay, hot stuff and that's cool. We
can get some of that on, you know. But when
I heard it, I said, Okay, this is manager didn't
have no vision he could. Dude, if you're playing paying

(01:04:03):
top dollar, you can say nope, not this one, give
me another one, you know something or Jojo Georgio got
to do one at least or two, you know, listen,
and that wasn't happening.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Now let's go to Sue.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
First of all, we all want to know, like why
Dick Griffy, Well, what kind of businessman was Dick Griffy.

Speaker 5 (01:04:32):
Well, he was a cool businessman for his thing. You know,
he knew how to he was he was, he had
an ear and he was a cool businessman. And at
that time, I wanted to produce periods, so I was
kind of like, would would work with anybody that that
hired me to do my thing. I played some stuff

(01:04:52):
that we cut, uh, and I had cassettes of it
to let him hear, and uh. When I met with him,
he wanted he he loved what he heard so much
that he said, I got a group called Chellamar. It's
with the Soul trained gang singer and he put with

(01:05:13):
Jody and Jeffrey and I knew who they were from
seeing them on Soul Train, and he said they got
a boy said I'm coming. I need some songs to
put around the single that they had, you know, and
it was still kind of just coming off the charts.
So I said cool. So I went in and cut
Take That to the Bank with Kevin Spencer. He used

(01:05:37):
to play for the Silvers. He was playing bass for
the Silvers, and I said, oh, and the Silvers weren't
performing then they had ticked the hiatus and it was
so I said, Kav, come on, let's cut some stuff.
Because he was a bass player, keyboard player and a
singer so and a writer. So I said, okay, let's
let me work with keV on this, you know, And

(01:05:58):
we went and cut that and I had an idea
with the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
Bells and the yeah, the cow bell and the.

Speaker 5 (01:06:07):
Timbali type thing. I wanted to put that beat on
another record, you know so well the first record, Yeah,
that was.

Speaker 6 (01:06:20):
How would you decide which songs went to Shallamar and
which songs went to Dynasty.

Speaker 5 (01:06:25):
I'd wait and write it with the artists, not not
with them per se, because a lot of them didn't write.
But I'd wait till I get with the group and
and see what they what they had, what ideas they had,
because that would differentiate even if it's one person or
if it's two that had a dominant personality. I'd get

(01:06:48):
to have something of the group. You know that if
I just created everything, you know, everything would sound the same.
So I wanted to even though the main quality thing
was there. You know, sometimes people heard of Shalamar record
in Dynasty and Dynasty and the Shalamar record, but sometimes
it comes off like that, you know, so it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Was bank crafted before you met Shalamar, or you met
them first, got to see their personality, and.

Speaker 5 (01:07:14):
Yeah, that was I did that before I met him.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
I think, yeah, I think, yeah, why did was it
Gerald who came in before Howard Hewitt Brown?

Speaker 5 (01:07:28):
Name.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Okay, yeah, what well even then, because before they were threesome,
they were like a fivesome because they did the Uptown
special thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
You had nothing to do with that very first single. Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:07:42):
Actually I did meet him first, but it was just
you know, to say hi type thing, because Dick was
more interested in uh me getting in the studio because
they had a deadline, you know, basically.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Okay, so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Okay, okay. I hate to ask this question because I
don't know if I want to know the answer to it.
How much singing did Jeffrey Daniel do in the group?

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:08:19):
He did all of them, all of his voice. Yeah,
I didn't. I didn't have to use nothing. He would
he would hit them notes. I was like, oh, okay,
and and that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Is always afraid that he really wasn't singing those parts.
And then like you know, he was there for the
dancing and.

Speaker 5 (01:08:35):
He hung like he would stay more and key than
Jody sometimes. Wow, yeah he uh he And he wasn't.
He was a worker. It wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:08:45):
I'd nitpicked so much that some of the artists go
crazy a little bit because it's like, okay, one more time,
you know, and then it's like they they hear it's
been cool about ten times ago, you know. But I
was just looking for I'd have to memorize like some
I wanted piercing and some I wanted smooth, and I

(01:09:07):
didn't want to tell them. I just wanted to And
I'd set up the inputs on the record where they
wouldn't hear a change. In other words, i'd have them singing,
but I know the other ones on there, so i'd
cut in even though they don't hear a recording going in.
So I would do it like that, and I got

(01:09:28):
so good at it that, you know, i'd go in
between the essays and stuff like that. So really, oh yeah,
pre pro to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
I went crazy doing that too because I had to
stop because you know, you expect the engineer to do that,
you know. I did, you know, because I was like,
hey man, you're messing me out with the you know,
to get mad at the engineers, and he was just
looking like you just in between an s. What the

(01:10:01):
So I didn't want to hear that. I just wanted
to finish and get out of here, you know. So
I kind of went crazy, which wasn't cool.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Maybe there's a question I have about second time around,
was the rhythm were the rhythm tracks cut?

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
Not even the rhythm tracks?

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Were the drums initially cut to another song and then
at the last minute you change. This is the only
reason why I'm asking because the traditionally a drum fill
usually happens on the four acount that leads to the one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
Like three four.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
Established this a new one. Second time around, the drum
fills having in a very odd place, which leads me
to believe I was like either those guys like math geniuses,
where they just decided, okay on the three do you
know what I'm talking about? And you know, I'm just
come out there, but it never happens on to set

(01:11:03):
up the one, right, It happens in a weird place,
and I was like, okay, Either they just had another
song in mind. He decided, no, let me just take
these drums over there and do that.

Speaker 5 (01:11:16):
Actually that one, No, that was the song. We recorded
it like that, and Mordell would go he was playing
the drums on that, Mordell Potts, and he would throw
different different fields at different times, and some of that
sometimes I'd say, no, not there, but then I'd say, oh,

(01:11:39):
remember that one you did do it the same way
on the other one too, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
So I liked It's just very orthodox.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
If it didn't mess up the vibe, right, I let
it stay?

Speaker 9 (01:11:51):
Would you how would you tell us about your process
of track of your drums.

Speaker 6 (01:11:54):
I read an interview a while back with Nicholas from
The Whispers, and he was saying, how you would try
like a metronome for like six minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:12:03):
I've done that, But they had the song wrong. It
wasn't on the beat goes on, and it was I
think it was keep On Loving Me? Did I play
the drums on? Well? They all was supposed to, but
he something happened, either a thing in his family or
he couldn't or he was sick. So I was set up.

(01:12:23):
So I would go back to doing the drums by
the numbers.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
You know you're your best drummer then, because that's my song. Yeah,
so that's you playing on keep on Loving Me?

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:12:34):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
Man Man.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
To talk about working with the Riskers, because uh, I
know that for years they struggled with getting a hit.
And it's kind of funny because watching their evolution on
Soul Train, each appearance down with tease them like, you know,
like you know, one day you're gonna have hit. One
day you're gonna that episode in which they do and

(01:13:00):
the begos on. It's it's such an inside joke with them.
They're laughing so hard because it's like, yeah, finally we
got out, we.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Got to hit. How did how did you? Uh well,
how did that come come to be? With them?

Speaker 5 (01:13:16):
I knew that, uh well, they were already they were
a balladeer group. Really, they had great ballads. I loved
Only meant to Wet my feet and all that. That
was great. So I didn't even try to do ballots
because I knew they had that covert. So I was, okay,
there's no R and B disco group that because mostly
that back then, when I first was doing that, it

(01:13:38):
was pop groups doing that disco type stuff that's all
chat you know, that kind of you know, right, So
I wanted to do an R and B type disco
and I said, oh, I could do that on them
and all our up tempo stuff. Just make it R
and B disco because there really wasn't that many except

(01:14:01):
for what's his name started doing it Chic now Rogers
and them, but someone, uh they didn't hit with I
mean they had that, uh that one before I was working,
but that didn't do as big as the free that

(01:14:24):
kind of stuff. They hone their craft right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Then up Temple without being four on the floor exactly.
So yeah, let me explain.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
I don't know if you know to me, Okay, So
the boogie, the genre of boogie or what people call boogie.
First of all, like I already know that it's it's
it's always.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
Some mam and jamma behind the typewriter that comes up
with these terms and whatever. That's a genre boogie, I
don't even yes.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
So basically boogie was post disco, in other words, barbecue
two step music, think of before I let go, thing
of second time around, basically slow down disco.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
So if the average disco.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Songs about one twenty eight bpms, thing of like you
should be dancing by the beaches, boot boot boot boot
boot boot, right, this boogie's more of a one eighteen
there's one twenty like second time around. It could have
before on the floor, but thing of like make that
move or second time around, but even even then, but

(01:15:29):
just has a groove. It's like a groove to to
boogie could still be and and the beat goes on,
but more of a do do do do do? Like
the envelop in the floor, like it's the yeah, yeah,
you don't feel like you're on cocaine again.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
It's like Sevesters, do you want to funk with me?

Speaker 9 (01:15:50):
It's aiva, yeah, something.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Like your grandma can dance to It's it's it's it's
the barbecue thing. But the thing is, did you with
with the the desperation that critics had to end disco
and all those things like did you have this plan
in mind?

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
Because even when.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Quincy Jones describes his mission with Off the Wall and
sort of like his production work with the Brothers Downson,
like between seventy seven and eighty three.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
He's describing like we gotta kill disco? Were you trying
to kill disco at the time? Like was this this
no concluded plan like I'm gonna no.

Speaker 5 (01:16:33):
I was literally trying to carve out, uh my leon
motown sound. I guess because I didn't care about what
other people thought. I knew I had a ballad group
that they never did disco, and I was gonna do

(01:16:55):
more than just the normal pop high synthesizers and a
because when I first cut it, I knew Okay, I'm
gonna go Motown Jamison with the bass because I wanted
a unique type bass, because that's why I went up
with the strings, because the kick was real low, so
I wanted to have that, and I wanted to have

(01:17:17):
them do some false things. And then Scotti's voice he
reminds me of He don't sound like Nat King Cole,
but his voice is identifiable like Nat King Cole's was
back in the day, like when you hear a whisper song,
no know who he is, and there's nobody else that
has that ring to his voice. So I was using

(01:17:39):
that for making the melodies, and I wanted to do
a unique bass line. I wanted to put emphasis on
the bass and kick.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
Can you please answer this question.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
The Scotti brothers, the Scotty twins, when they're on TV singing,
they're both singing tandem at the same time.

Speaker 5 (01:18:00):
Do sound alike who is singing?

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
Who's singing on?

Speaker 5 (01:18:03):
And he don't even know sometimes I forget, but they
do have the same tone. Scotty can just go higher
and longer.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Okay, would you have a track them both together in
unison over there?

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
He did that sometimes on emergency.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Uh yeah, like who heard that too, But who's your
go to Scotty? Is it Wilace and Walter?

Speaker 5 (01:18:27):
Like who's your Oh well, Walter, Scotty was the main
lead when he gets the high notes, but Walter and
both of them could sing, and I forget who's doing what.
But after I put Walter on, then put Scotty and
it ain't no. I mean, he could hit some high notes,
but not like Scotty's ring and Scotty wouldn't very when

(01:18:48):
we did that tour, he hears one of in voices
where he don't get horse alive. You know, some people
can get horse and it's a rap.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:18:57):
I never heard him get horse. That's one thing I
I heard so many other groups get hoarse on that tour.
Scottie never But that's I guess, uh, his style of
singing or something. But when I put both of them
on just regular verses, I can't tell who's singing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
Did you produce lady?

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
Okay? Just and goes on, okay and goes on.

Speaker 5 (01:19:21):
And uh, I think out the box and uh, I
think there was two or three I did on each album.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
You didn't do the whole Whispers album. Now, okay, keep
your love around. You did that one right?

Speaker 10 (01:19:32):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:19:34):
Your love? Yeah, I did that with Kevin and Will.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Yeah, I love that song man.

Speaker 5 (01:19:40):
Yeah, I want to recut that because I didn't like
all that echo crap that on the vocals, yeah, on
on the music the snare was watery. I didn't like that.
What I thought it was a sound?

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
Did you use one studio?

Speaker 5 (01:19:56):
Uh? For the first part of Solar stuff with studio
Masters over on Beverly Boulevard and it a Beverly Center.
But after that we recorded at different places, but mostly
all that original first couple of years was done all
at studio Masters.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
So what the formation of Dynasty? Did you have an
itching to, you know, to get to be an artist
again and to be in the spotlight?

Speaker 5 (01:20:27):
Excuse me, not really, but the band that I used
wanted to and I used because I was using Mordell,
Ricky Smith, Kevin Will, before we was a group playing
on all the Solar hits that I produced, I'd used

(01:20:47):
the same people. So we became a group actually before
the beat goes on, because we cut that song in
we had a place, got us a room to rehearse
and it was kind of rank type place, but everybody

(01:21:08):
called it Doodoo Records. Steve Steve Shockley a lakeside called
it that, so everybody knew what it was. We rehearsed
and I started cutting. The beat goes on there after
we we we made the idea when we was cutting
second time around in the studio and Steve Shockley was

(01:21:28):
playing exercise actually on NI guitar, thank you, doing it
as an exercise, and the bass came to my head,
so I said, oh, repeat them first two, just back
and forth, and I told Wardell to hit the straight
kick and told studio the engineer to run the tape
before we was we was there to cut second time around,

(01:21:50):
but I heard that baseline office and then Steve started
embellishing it thinking, and the baseline came.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
In me, so you're trying to cut something else.

Speaker 5 (01:22:05):
And then I had the idea, that's run to tape
for about a minute, just to get that idea on,
you know, and then I finished the song, So.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
Did you just loop that minute? Just that nice?

Speaker 5 (01:22:19):
But I didn't loop it when I recut it. We
cut it over after I went through everything with everybody,
you know, like Will had the keyboard line and you know,
we practiced before we go in the studio because I
didn't want to willy nilly it like that. I wanted
you musicians, stay on the pocket, let's go, you know

(01:22:40):
that kind of thing. You know, so we practice, and
you know, I just could hear tempo a lot, you know,
i'd practice. I could hear when something's off a lot.

Speaker 8 (01:22:49):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:22:49):
So I wanted to practice and we didn't have I
wasn't that technical. I was more of a musician back there,
back then, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Didn't y'all simple joan, y'all simple? Why are you blowing
up as spot? I'm sure nigga.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
I would assume that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:18):
Don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
That we were able? Did we have money to clear
any sample? On the Minstrel Show? On the Minstrel Show? No,
no Atlantic record that joint? You're talking about? What Mint show?

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
Never mind? You know you know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
It's time to do Dirk. Don't call quest long.

Speaker 7 (01:23:50):
Now.

Speaker 9 (01:23:51):
There was a foreign exchange song that that that actually
there was a little brother.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
It was a little brother could have sworn.

Speaker 4 (01:24:01):
Was either.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Get back or left back?

Speaker 9 (01:24:05):
Oh I know that she ain't.

Speaker 6 (01:24:08):
It was what no, no, no, no, no, you okay,
I know what you're talking about. You're talking about so good.
It was it was a whisper joints so good.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
Attitudes.

Speaker 6 (01:24:22):
That was That was Dynasty. I think that was Dynasty.
That was not That was just a B side. That
was just something we just cut and that was.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Sorry, Yeah that was I mean, I'm out here.

Speaker 6 (01:24:35):
Now there's another Foreign Exchange song that is heavily influenced.

Speaker 9 (01:24:44):
Okay, influence, That's what love is made of.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
Just the harmony. Man, that ship is amazing. And like
I didn't even know.

Speaker 6 (01:24:54):
I never heard the original song before. And then I
was like, damn, like these fucking vocal this vocal arrangement
is crazy. So yeah, I've been heavily influenced throughout my
career by and I think the Statue of Limitations and
all that ship. If you succume to me, you'll just

(01:25:18):
be getting practice. Those records did nothing. You're better off
just working on a new song with me.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
You ain't gonna get ship. I'm sorry, I'm just funny.
Are we talking about that on the way over here? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:25:40):
We was in the ind I was like, man, I
shouldn't bring up that sample and I'm I'm sorry, Supreme.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
Anyway, Dynasty, I thought, I don't want to be freak
with Shalamar for the longest and so well, I guess
you already said your process on deciding what goes where?

Speaker 5 (01:26:11):
Well, that one, no, that one was. That was the
first thing. I spent my own money to go and
record on this song. It wasn't even I didn't know
what the title was going to be yet. I just
went in and cut it. I spent ten grand and
cut about full songs. Yeah, yeah, but that I wanted

(01:26:34):
to be in there by myself cutting and you know,
and the engineer was good help. He told me how
to you know, what it was and what the engineers
and all that. So this was right after I was
out the group the Silvers, and I wanted to go
into the studio and cut and so I practiced this

(01:26:55):
and went in and cut that track.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
So it wasn't common to have your own facility at
this time, to like work out ideas and a place
of your own and that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
You just had to ring.

Speaker 5 (01:27:07):
Well back then, no, I was just out the Silvers,
so I wasn't I wasn't living at the house because
I had gotten married and I was me and my
wife had a place. Actually we got separated by then,
so we were I was cutting these songs on my

(01:27:31):
own to hone my production skills, if you will.

Speaker 12 (01:27:35):
My wife was in Dynasty, correct, well yeah, my second
wife second yeah, but yeah, but that particular song was
the track was cut because I just wanted to get
that music on tape because I had an idea.

Speaker 5 (01:27:57):
And later on, after I was doing Shalamar and all
that and we got the group Dynasty together, I went
back to that track and I went to a couple
of clubs and they had a thing called you know,
freak was the title back then, and everybody was like

(01:28:19):
acting like they was having sex on the dance floor.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
Dance too.

Speaker 5 (01:28:23):
Yeah, it was a dance called the Free. So I said, oh,
and I saw I came. We came with somebody that
was she was more like a she wasn't hip or nothing,
or wasn't loose or none. So she came to the
club and it was like wow, it's like the first time.
And then two guys ran on the side of her
and was you know, one on one side wiched her

(01:28:46):
and she was like, oh my god, and then got
into it and I was like, oh shit, that's a song.
I don't want to be a freak, but I can't
help myself. And that's how I wrote that and I
put that on that literally that's how that worked.

Speaker 2 (01:29:00):
That song.

Speaker 9 (01:29:00):
Hr, yeah, that's on.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
Have you asked a hashtag? Hey, speaking of dynasty, what
was your reaction to? Uh, Camplow's.

Speaker 5 (01:29:16):
Like, oh, that's great. I was happy, you know, you know,
although I would like to I was so into those
sampling things because it's like you do work one time
and you get paid again for not you know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
So that's all that is.

Speaker 5 (01:29:34):
Like, man, someone liked it again again.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
Like that's the thing, like this shocking t like oh
my god, like I can't believe twenty years later, like.

Speaker 5 (01:29:42):
This is oh it was, it was. It was great.
I mean that's why I knew. I made me tell
my son because he's into it. Now. Never do anything
you have, but you do it because you never know
who's gonna like it later. No body likes stuff that
they feel. You just cut any kind of way, or

(01:30:05):
I can do that that ain't nothing special to it.
And if you start recording and doing your creative thing
like that, it will sound like that. And that's how
that's why I was like, Wow, we did something right.
If it can sell again in a whole new generation.

Speaker 12 (01:30:22):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:30:23):
Yeah, And the thing with you, like with your samples,
like a lot of times like you would hear you
would hear you would find like samples that other producers
would use, and you would hear the sample and it's
like that be the only hot part of.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
The song, right, But your song.

Speaker 6 (01:30:38):
Like the whole in Vinceent Atlanta Music, Yeah, it's the
part they said all the time, the whole song is
a dope song.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
I was like, oh, man, like that really?

Speaker 5 (01:30:46):
Thanks? Thanks? Yeah, well, I have to half of that
go to Ben Right because he's bad.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Benjamin Right did the strings.

Speaker 5 (01:30:55):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:30:59):
I tried to get him on everything because he loved
what I did, and he'd add something instead of just
impact some horns on it where you know, he would
add another groove to it. And I was like, okay,
we got bend Dan.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
It's great. Ben Right was on that. Ben Right also
did don't stop to get enough. They did. Yeah, he's
still going strong to day. Hey question uh. With the.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
With the go Ford album by Shallamar, the Red Painting
Art album and the Friends album, it was kind of weird.
I mean back you know, back in the sixties and seventies,
it was normal for an Active released maybe two or
three albums in the same calendar year. I wasn't used

(01:31:51):
to that in nineteen eighty one, like they started off
the year with the with the Go for It album
and with Friends. Why were those two Shalimar albums released
in such close proximity to each other.

Speaker 5 (01:32:02):
Because Dick Griffy had a couple of uh contract obligation
to finish by the end of the year, and he
old one album on everybody, so we all had to
get together and do the albums within a month or
two everybody. So I had, but I didn't want to

(01:32:25):
put nothing out that didn't have no at least one
or two bangers that could have a chance to sell,
you know.

Speaker 7 (01:32:32):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:32:32):
So I came up with keep On Loving Me for
the whispers, not keep on Loving Me, this kind of
loving and then this was a throwaway album.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
Let him have his moment.

Speaker 6 (01:32:50):
The changes in that song that bridge, what the prechurse
that goes to? Where did that come from?

Speaker 5 (01:32:57):
Kevin Spencer?

Speaker 6 (01:33:00):
Oh my god man, it's such a detour, like it
starts off as one thing and then it goes into
that and it's like what, But then somehow it finds
his way back.

Speaker 9 (01:33:09):
To that hook is like, oh ship, that's fucking genius.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:33:12):
Yeah, he went, he had a he had a couple
of changes, and I was like, okay, know that one.
And then because I like to take it a little someplace.
That's my motown thing. I guess I like going how
to even take changes?

Speaker 6 (01:33:25):
And you know did it because you produced as well
as Charlamar Let's find a Time for Love?

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
That one is another one for me.

Speaker 5 (01:33:34):
Where's another Kevin Spencer joint? He was a great keyboardist
though he was doing stuff like gonna make that move
when when that little dude he would do some classical
runs with with the keyboard and he was doing it
as an exercise to get ready for the song. And
I said, no, no, no, put that in the song

(01:33:56):
right after, give me that build up, just like that,
the classical type thing. So I would pick things that
he would do, but he would be the one doing it.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
We also got to note that, you know, for all
these dance classics you make, I mean, okay, you didn't
do Lady, but you definitely did Shalamar's.

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
For me, dog, Okay, this is gonna be the moment
of rap fire like just the true the true Geek.

Speaker 5 (01:34:33):
That was cool. That was another one I played the
drums on too. That was when I first started drums
by the numbers.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
Man with so many hits and even the filler and
stuff that didn't you know whatever the beast like, do
you have favorites that you've done? Like like, yeah, okay,
that's that's my resistance, Like what what are they? As
far as you're the first one was I've just begun

(01:35:04):
to love you.

Speaker 5 (01:35:05):
That I because I dreamed that really yeah on stage
that that melody, Uh it was it came in a dream,
and I had the baseline and the dream too, all
came in a dream. I keep the what I call

(01:35:26):
lick savers, but the dictaphones that lawyers used to use
by the bed or by the bed in the car
and one at the studio locked up in the room. Yeah,
so I because I'd like to do a lot of
spontaneous stuff that comes if it's feeling right, and you
never get it quite the same. I know everybody try

(01:35:49):
to say that, but uh, you know, if it's like, oh,
do that again, and I know when it ain't that again,
you know, so they would say yeah, I can get
that and that now okay, let me hear it, and
then they do it. Okay, that ain't it dude? You
know so I would keep it, cut it and keep
it and use it later.

Speaker 8 (01:36:09):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:09):
So I gotta ask with the orange slat of hits
that you're producing between seventy eight and eighty one, which
is you know, just out the wood work. By this point,
are your brothers and sisters coming to you like what
we couldn't know what about us on that total?

Speaker 8 (01:36:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
Were they like, hey, congratulations, can we have a Night
to Remember? Or like you know, were they wait, didn't
your sister write that? Or which I think your sister
co wrote a Night to Remember?

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Does she not know?

Speaker 5 (01:36:53):
Like I think it was? Her name was on not
nice to Remember? Well, oh yeah, she was supposed to
put Foster's name on there because Foster did the guitar
part on He created that guitar part, and then I

(01:37:20):
did I heard the bassline and did the rest and
put his name on. But then Charmaine was he had
her be the publishing company person because he was still
signed to al Ross and and I guess Foster wind up,

(01:37:48):
you know, uh, putting her name down.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
So wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (01:37:52):
When it comes to the Janet Jackson debut album, who
produced that? Because I'm under the impression that your family
produce that was that you come give your love to
me Foster. Okay, so you do it, and then I
did another one. Don't give up this good.

Speaker 3 (01:38:14):
Thing?

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
Yeah that look see And that's the thing, the fact
that you just casually forgot that, Like all right, that
song means everything to my DJ set now in twenty
eighteen in ways you like it's just it's it's a
jam even yo, when I DJ parties for her, like

(01:38:34):
I'll put that ship on and just to freak her
out because it's like, how can y'all forget how good
this song sounds?

Speaker 6 (01:38:41):
Like it was before it's time. I don't think it
really at the time it came out back then, like
philler could be filler.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
But now it's like the quality music is so bad
that any good quality song is like a filler joint
back then. Now, yeah, I love that you just casually
forgot you made that song.

Speaker 7 (01:39:04):
I remember you sent that tried to send that song
to me and say it was a new Janet Jackson song,
Like yeah, Janet's going boogie, and I was like, no,
nigg I noticed.

Speaker 1 (01:39:10):
Right, she's the one to re writing her history, acting
like the first album didn't exist.

Speaker 4 (01:39:19):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:39:21):
So also, okay, you're are you familiar with the the
Jam and Lewis keep On Love with Me story?

Speaker 5 (01:39:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:39:37):
So how did how did it feel to have And
it's very weird because is this not the studio that
he fired them and we're at Sunset Down. Yes, they
had a meeting in that room. This is where they
got fired. How did it feel? First of all, what
are your thoughts on Prince's music circa.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
Eighty eight? And how did it feel to have him
so nervous that he swears even to this day he's
not to this day. Well, I wasn't trying to. I
wasn't trying to, Benny. I wasn't trying to how to
feel at least in the back of.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
His mind to think that you know that it was
Jam and Lewis that really produced Keep On Loving Me
and not You.

Speaker 5 (01:40:29):
That's funny because Jesse was the one that told me
Prince because he would want to play on some of
the records, and I let him play on some of
the soul Yeah giveaway, right, Yeah, I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
I think you did.

Speaker 5 (01:40:50):
Ye, everyone understand who. But he's the one that said, man,
we was. We was doing the solid goal I thing.
There was a show out.

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
Maryland.

Speaker 5 (01:41:05):
He said in between the songs, they would play other
people's records for them to dance, and he said, keep
on Loving Me came on and Prince went up over
to the studio and was just listening for a long time,
and then he came over to Jesse and said, Man,
I'm glad they're not into our kind of stuff. That's

(01:41:26):
all Jesse told me. He didn't say that. Prince thought
Terry and Jimmy did it. He didn't say that to me,
said it that way, but they didn't have nothing to
do with that. That was actually Wardell's baseline. Wardeal Pots
came to me with with just the baseline and keep
on Love and Me and that's that, and I said,
and he was. I said, oh, that's kind of nice.

Speaker 9 (01:41:52):
Were you around for the video for keep on Loving Me?
Amazing me and my man?

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
So we did. We paid that video for a song
we did call We on the Move, which.

Speaker 5 (01:42:07):
Brother, my brother, my son, brother, my son told me
about that because oh man, he's one of and I said, Oh,
because I saw it and I said, oh, that's nice.
You know, I liked it because it was you know
that that was banging. Yeah. I was like, dang, because
I wanted to stay.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
Just made my year.

Speaker 9 (01:42:29):
Yeah, le yeah, yeah, that was a total homage. Like
what was Nicholas?

Speaker 12 (01:42:36):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:42:36):
What was he?

Speaker 9 (01:42:37):
I mean he passed I guess been a couple of
years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
What was he like? Man?

Speaker 5 (01:42:41):
He was great? Man, he was I mean he was
the energy of the group. You know what I'm saying.
He would personality wise, we was We never had no
not one thing.

Speaker 8 (01:42:59):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:43:01):
It was just like talking to a family member. He
was cool. He was very private though. He didn't want
nobody to know nothing about him or where he lived
or anything like that. It was like, let me give
you this number of the corner and get this to nobody.
I mean, he was serious that kind of So I
was like, oh, I get it, dude, you know, gotcha?

(01:43:24):
You know, So he was he was just very He
didn't have his I didn't even know he had a family.
I heard of it, but he didn't show. Oh yeah,
he didn't play around the other side of the town
or something. Yeah, he didn't even want to talk about
him at work.

Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
Did you produce Emergency by the Whispers?

Speaker 5 (01:43:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:43:42):
Have you ever seen that video? I remember Crazier and
Yet Nicholas the Tama. Yeah he might super beer. Yeah,
he might deserve an oscar or something.

Speaker 2 (01:43:58):
He got it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
I mean songs emergency and it's them fighting over a payphone,
getting on a payphone.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
But the thing of the craziness of keep On Loving
Me and just add a phone booth to it.

Speaker 6 (01:44:14):
You gotta see it. Yeah, it's a it's an artist.
I think a lot a long time to really get
videos like those. If you look at videos from the
early ages, like you everybody, they were terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
They trying to do that now.

Speaker 7 (01:44:28):
Like even if a song like don't look any further
like Generation, it's got a second life now.

Speaker 2 (01:44:34):
Yeah, I mean millennials are discovering these videos now.

Speaker 7 (01:44:37):
And actually I just there was an article I just
saw on Facebook that somebody posts, I think it's on
the root dot com about the ten best worst of
Black music videos, and keep On Loving.

Speaker 2 (01:44:48):
Me is on there. That should not be there. That's
a classic.

Speaker 7 (01:44:51):
No, I said the same thing. What was the song
you just mentioned Emergency? No, there was another one that
was like the number one song. Yeah, it's got a
second life now.

Speaker 5 (01:45:01):
Yes, Chlamar had one that uh where they were behind
the bar and yeah in a flower place or something
and in a book. Oh. I don't want to be
the last to know that. Really, video did not make
any sense.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:45:21):
I knew it back then when I saw it on
and then some of the people on uh where they
go on YouTube and say, that's a weird video. But
I love that group. You know, that video don't make sense.
But Jody is great. You know it was like everybody
was mentioned, but it was you know that they're singing

(01:45:42):
was great.

Speaker 6 (01:45:48):
How did you get involved in the Black Street album?
I wanted to ask that question.

Speaker 8 (01:45:55):
We get five stars because I had a whole five
star moment.

Speaker 1 (01:45:57):
All right, this is just we wrap it five Champagne
King and Crystal's his dame.

Speaker 9 (01:46:04):
All right, we'll come back black Street, Black Street.

Speaker 5 (01:46:09):
Well, uh, I sent mm hm. Teddy Riley's manager, who
was Harvey Austen back then got rest is solely passed,
but he was his manager, and I get he said
Teddy asked him to call me and he found out
where I was. I was living in Reno then, and uh,

(01:46:32):
he said he would like him. He's coming out to
l A and he wants to meet with me about
coming back to v A and helping him with a group.
You know, that's all they said.

Speaker 2 (01:46:41):
And h.

Speaker 5 (01:46:43):
I said, oh okay, and he said, if you you
have something, uh, so I'll a At that time, I
was working on my wife and her sister's group. They
were rappers and they were they called themselves Onyx before,

(01:47:06):
like years before. So I sent them their tape and
Markel got it and he loved it and played it
for Teddy And when they came out, I met him
at the hotel and I was catching a flight when
him back the next couple of days and went out

(01:47:28):
there and he was he loved uh. After we talked
and what I did, and I was going around looking
for a place to stay during that whole time.

Speaker 9 (01:47:43):
You know, So were you actually like because you co
wrote before I let you go?

Speaker 2 (01:47:49):
Yeah? Yeah, how did that come about?

Speaker 5 (01:47:52):
Well, he would give me. He told me he had
some those Atari computers, which was the beginning of logic,
and they were built on these inside these Atari great computers,
and he had about five of them up there, but
none of the other writers and guys would would would

(01:48:14):
would take him to use him because they didn't, you know,
Teddy didn't come with a guy to teach him. I
guess you know. So he said, I got one of
them computers over there, and I was like, okay, that's
the Lord telling me I got to get with it
or leave it alone. So I said, give me one
of them computers over there, and I'll give me a book.

(01:48:35):
And uh, you know, oh, you know, you know, so
I said, cool, no problem. So I took it home,
learned it, and started doing stuff through there. And then
when I brought a song to him with that, all
he had to do was hook it up and run
it through his pro tools and all that because he

(01:48:55):
had it all set up and he loved that, you know.
And then he started telling it everybody else to do it,
you know. So we we got along that way by
ethical work practices mostly, I guess you know.

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
Well, I mean to rewind a little bit.

Speaker 7 (01:49:13):
There was a little bit of unethicalness from Teddy well
possibly with the group today and the song girl I
Got My Eyes on you. Oh did that did that get?
Because that was that was a direct bite of Carrie
Lucas to show me where you're coming.

Speaker 5 (01:49:28):
Of course, of course I didn't look at it as
a bike, because how can you hide that. I was
on some Oh hey we can check you know, so
damn yeah, And I just told Dick and then oh
we got record out there the melody of showing me

(01:49:52):
where they're coming from. So that's cool, you know. I
was taking it like that because you.

Speaker 2 (01:49:56):
Know, can you explain the the muscle of Dick Griffy.

Speaker 5 (01:50:04):
Like, yeah, he was more old school sug I mean
he was Dick was a you know, he was a
he was from that gangster thing, but he was more
you went to college, should did too. Though Dick played

(01:50:27):
football and was a drummer. He's a musician, so he
knew he had a better ear than most people thought,
you know, so he could hear you know.

Speaker 6 (01:50:37):
During the time when you were producing, Like you said,
you were in Reno for a while. So during your
solo run, were you making good money as a producer,
like getting roughties off the records and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 (01:50:47):
Well, yeah, but it wasn't like the first couple of
records was like, uh three points and production advance I
think it was five or ten grand or something like

(01:51:09):
that for the first couple of months, but he wanted
to sign me exclusive, and I didn't want to sign exclusive,
so I didn't. I only signed exclusive one time when
when I was when I had my family group come
over there, and he wanted me to sign exclusive. I said, okay,
for a year only that's you know, And that's the

(01:51:30):
only time I signed exclusive with him because I wanted
to go other places and you know, do some things
and with like if you notice, on the first part
of them records, Dick put his name down as producer
with me.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
I was wondering how much of that was.

Speaker 5 (01:51:49):
And I was like, I didn't know that he was
going to do that. I knew he had a publishing
situation so he would sign. He signed William Shelby and
Kevin and I because because he had his own publishing deal.

(01:52:09):
So I was like, okay, well you bringing me into
this situation. So he wanted to sign Kevin so that
he could get publishing and that kind of thing. But
Kevin was a legitimate writer, so I didn't mind it
like that. You know, well Kevin has to get his part,
so you signed Kevin, and I'll have my other so

(01:52:30):
it'll be even. And I know they doing their work
and I ain't giving nothing away, you know, so and
helping some young dudes get their thing on, you know.
So that was our relationship. I was the one that
had to make it be something more than just this
how it is you the kind of thing, you know,

(01:52:51):
And me and Dick just got along really. He didn't
mess with me on what to do or what to
and it was like, you know, when that happened, I'd say, okay, well,
if you want that way you do it, you know
you're gonna get it. I'm done, and he would be
I was one time, I think a whispers thing and

(01:53:13):
they were complaining about no it was it was lake side.
It was Lakeside. I was doing all the way live
and Fred didn't want didn't want as well, you know,
he didn't want He just wanted to hook and the
music no verses. And I said, no, that that's not

(01:53:38):
how you did. You got a great hook here. You
need to let's make some burden. And he was like
he jumped up. He wanted to fight me, you know.
So it was like, okay, okay, do uh okay roll
the tape up, told engine they put it back in
the thing. Now Fred was big muscles, and he was

(01:54:01):
about my size but bigger, and he was the one
he could fight. Everybody knew he could. He can go
a little bit. So I was like, oh big Fred.
But I couldn't see no artist knocking me out in
those So I said, okay, friend, we can. We can

(01:54:21):
go out and try to do this. But uh, you know,
shit still ain't gon take like you want it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):
Let's go.

Speaker 5 (01:54:28):
So I went outside. I was looking for a pipe
or something in case it didn't look too good for me,
and there was one right here when I opened the door,
and I said, okay, oh no, let me get over
here so he don't look there. And if he's getting
too fast for me, I can duck, get the pipe, bloom,
get the ankles or the knee, and you could still

(01:54:52):
play the congos with.

Speaker 4 (01:54:56):
But love.

Speaker 5 (01:54:57):
But but it didn't get to that, you know. Uh
they Otis came out and said, Lee, come on in.
We ain't got I was.

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
Like, wo because you know it's crazy, it's like over
hit Like no, he was just.

Speaker 5 (01:55:11):
Close to it.

Speaker 2 (01:55:12):
Fred.

Speaker 5 (01:55:12):
Some people have their own ways of uh deal breaking
when it comes to a melody or what they think
is you're gonna mess up in they song. Every writer,
every good writer gets a little crazy sometimes with with
what their baby is, you know, and he had one,
you know, because I know that chorus was there in

(01:55:34):
that boom boom boom boom boom.

Speaker 2 (01:55:36):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:55:36):
Okay, you got something, dude. So I took him in
the room and I said, just play the beat and
then just keep that boom boom boom going nothing m
m m, and then do doom.

Speaker 10 (01:55:50):
Dude.

Speaker 5 (01:55:51):
I just broke it down and gave him lick. The
only person I didn't have to give a lick to, well,
I didn't have to give it to none. But it
came Steve hit Dunk good small parts, yeah, and then
Fred came in and said, oh I got a part.

Speaker 4 (01:56:10):
Lee.

Speaker 2 (01:56:11):
He didn't want to do no verse, and he came
on with that.

Speaker 10 (01:56:17):
Dude.

Speaker 5 (01:56:20):
It laid together perfectly. I was like, Okay, that's it.
Nothing else, that's rock, and let's cut and that's how
that's how we cut it, you know, And then they did.
We did the Actually I did the melody on the
verses too. I should have asked for some writing, but
it was so it was so dramatic back then that
I didn't want to add that to the mix after

(01:56:40):
we had a hit type thing, you know, so I said,
because they said, well Lee, you you kind of ruled us. Now,
I don't worry about it. I didn't want to, you know,
I didn't want Fred to get all go through something
and you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:56:52):
So, so what happened with I mean, not that so
hard went anywhere after eighty four, but it's almost like
that era of and I know music was changing by then,
but like, what do you feel happened after eighty four?
Like I consider like maybe Shalamar is the Look?

Speaker 2 (01:57:13):
Probably?

Speaker 1 (01:57:15):
I mean even did you do anything on what was
the album after the Look? That the when Thelisa Davis
and Mickey Free were in Shallom? Oh man, I cannot, right,
did you work on any of those records? Like circumstantial
evidence and no?

Speaker 5 (01:57:26):
But Foster did actually accidentally he had a record that
was supposed to go on that album. Well he had
actually Mickey Free was his artist, and Mickey Free was
signed to me and Foster. So Dick wanted his daughter

(01:57:47):
was the one was instrumental in bringing Mickey Free over,
not not the older daughter. Okay, yeah, well she was
working for Dick and she wanted Mickey Free and Shalamar
when when Howard and was gone, So Dick told Mickey
he liked his look and says, yeah, man. So Mickey

(01:58:09):
asked us leave we want to I want to go
over and I said, okay, now you sure because we
had a deal for him at a and m oh
Off a record call his party, Let's party, I think
me and Foster did, and he was They said they
wanted to sign him, but he they was gonna sign

(01:58:29):
him at the after the end of the year. So
he said, Lee, they're doing a movie, I can jump in.
And I said, well, that's up to Foster now, you know,
because I don't want to hold nobody back. So Foster
said okay. And but and Foster said, I got to
do something on the album, and so Dick said okay.
So when they got time to do that, the dude Wolf,
who was the producer, he Foster did a record on him,

(01:58:54):
and Wolf said, I'll buy y out. He didn't want
nobody else's wrecking on it. And I said, Falster, I
don't know what if they have a hit, you you know,
and he said, well, no, that's a weak one. He
can so he paid, Uh Foster, I think fifteen grand

(01:59:21):
or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:59:22):
The money rang in the song they do nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:59:25):
Foster made out.

Speaker 5 (01:59:29):
And that, you know, that's how that and then the
rest was you know, uh they had got Sydney after
a while after Howard left.

Speaker 1 (01:59:38):
Right, yeah, I forgot about Sidney coming in. They kept
that name alive for the longest name even. I mean
it's still around still. I mean there's another verse.

Speaker 7 (01:59:49):
Shalamars right now, ah right, yeah, Jody was on on
Facebook going in Chalamar reloaded and then there's Shalamar featuring Howard.

Speaker 2 (01:59:59):
You how yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (02:00:01):
Yeah, came Joy's not in either, she's in.

Speaker 2 (02:00:04):
H that's her, that's herring. Yeah, I'm scared anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:00:13):
And I gotta say, man, I thought Shakedown this is
one of my all time favorite.

Speaker 5 (02:00:21):
That's that was a great fibe time too, because we
heard a track she had when we when she came
down to do it, she had already cut some tracks
from Simon and she said you want to hear it?
And I said no, no, no, no, I don't want
to hear nobody else's no. Right, So and then later on,

(02:00:45):
like after we've cut some stuff, I heard her track.
It was just a track. It wasn't a melody and
words on it, and I said, whoa. I thought it
was some of our guys because I had about five
rooms going. So I went up front. You know, dad,
I sound like a damn prince joint who did this?
And then she said that's the one and I was like,

(02:01:05):
oh damn, okay, well let me go back to the
wood shed because I really thought that track was a killer.
I didn't know what they was gonna put on top
of it, but that track. If I had it, I
would have known exactly. Track was a smash track wise though,

(02:01:26):
and I said, okay, I want some funk. I can come.
I ain't combat this ship with some funk. Give me
Ricky Smith and Foster, you know, because they both could
pop good and Foster had her thing on that h
that shakedown dude, Yes, yes, going to the funk. From there,

(02:01:48):
I was like, okay, give me that. Yeah, because she's
kind of raunchy anyway, she you know, I'm saying for
you know, she she she ain't from a rich family
and had that class he she you know, and her
voice was beautiful, so funk would be great for her.
And that's how I was marketing it and uh, those

(02:02:09):
that in what's that other one? Action? And those were
the singles, and I said, what the no. I wanted
to see what that other song was and they told
me it was called Teenager and I listened to it
and I said, wow, the niggas reduced that record. I

(02:02:36):
couldn't believe it. I felt mad, how can you? I
mean what they put on top of it? And then
the mix was mighty. I was like, wow, because I
knew that track if you would have heard it with
the yeah, with the something I guess Prince had that
first mix it was no vocals. Man, that joint was killing.

(02:02:57):
I know, if I wered have I knew what it was,
but they just took all of it. It wasn't even
the same song. I was like nothing, I got nothing
from it. So I understand why the company didn't didn't promoted.

Speaker 1 (02:03:13):
So I mean, I mean, we're going to just fall
in the endless vabitageholes. Is there any other five stock question?

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):
Are you right? Yeah?

Speaker 8 (02:03:23):
Well, because I got a question understand by some Okay,
So I know, I just wanted to know because they,
of course part of the childhood of you were a
certain age, But what attracted you to work with them.

Speaker 9 (02:03:37):
Was it because they too are a family group. I've
just discovered they were from the UK.

Speaker 5 (02:03:41):
I thought they were from Yeah, well, what happened with
that was was the A n R guy Peter Robinson
on right then? I was doing the group for him.
Mom uh living in a Box?

Speaker 2 (02:03:57):
No, it was.

Speaker 5 (02:04:01):
Heang, what's the name of that group?

Speaker 7 (02:04:04):
I forgot Give me a second, I'll figure out, trust me.

Speaker 5 (02:04:07):
They had a song called, uh no man is an Island.
I don't know if that was a single. Uh you okay,
what was the name of that? They had? The this
guy the leader of the group, like Curtis Mayfield. He
did Curtis Mayfield sounding music. He was an English dude.

(02:04:31):
Uh well, I forgot the name. But I was out
there doing them and he and he said, well would
you do five Star for you know? And I was like,
oh cool, you know you already knew who they were.
Yeah A Box. Well that was another group. It wasn't
the same group that I did something on that. We

(02:04:53):
struck up a good relationship, me and Peter Robinson and
h I did uh five Star and uh you know
they were I like, I like him that the lead
singer or she she was really yeah, she where are they?
Does anybody know? They came out and they still yeah,

(02:05:17):
they're still. They came to America though, and I was
living out here was the Monkeys, Blow Monkeys? That's that?

Speaker 2 (02:05:24):
Yeah, to the Rescue.

Speaker 5 (02:05:28):
Yeah, I like that group. That was that was fun. Yeah.
That dude was talented. He knew what he wanted and
they didn't know. They asked me to and I think
it was hinging on. You know, in certain groups, they
they really intellectual, they know what they want, and they
they said, do you know where our sound comes from?

(02:05:50):
What where? What does it sound like to you? And
I knew from the beginning, but I said, uh, you
have a Curtis Mayfield type vibe. And they all looked
at each other and smiled. Then yeah, we want him
type of thing. Alright, Oh I'm sorry, go on, no, no,
no good, No, I'm cool.

Speaker 2 (02:06:09):
Are you Are you aware of.

Speaker 1 (02:06:15):
Kind of the the nouveau slash retro bookie sound of today? Uh,
particularly like in Calvin Harris's music what he just released now,
which is basically his version of Bookie or you know
the work of you know, groups like Chromeo Tuxedo or

(02:06:37):
Tuxi Tuxedo, even that are that are you know, they're
pretty much taken like DMX Drum Machine Sounds and your
your your live based approach, and that's like, are you
generally aware of the of the obsurgence of your seventy
nine to eighty five work and even in stuff like

(02:06:57):
stuff you did on Real to Real and all those
other it was like.

Speaker 5 (02:07:00):
I haven't I'd have to hear a song. I don't
know by the names you were saying it because I
haven't gotten into it. But if you've refering to kind
of what what uh Bruno Mars is.

Speaker 1 (02:07:12):
Doing kind of even there's a submertial there's a subculture
of cats that are just like.

Speaker 6 (02:07:18):
If you could put it up, pull up Starlight by Zoe, Okay,
I will, this feels like Starlight by Escort, but I
don't know my son really knows, you know, Starlight by
This was like our Leon Silver's whispers homage like this was, man,

(02:07:40):
I spent so much time on this vocal trying to
sound like Scottie.

Speaker 2 (02:07:45):
Try to mix it like how you would mix. They
stuffed it's on T L I g h T. I
spelt it like I got a degree.

Speaker 7 (02:07:59):
While we're waiting for them to figure that out. Yes,
how did you meet Jimmy Jame Terry Lewis.

Speaker 5 (02:08:05):
They came to LA and we as as a break
from the time and Prince and they came to our
celebrity basketball game. Actually, they came to the studio and

(02:08:26):
we met and I said, oh, hey was that and
they wanted to meet me and type of thing. And
they played on our basketball thing that we did, and
then we went back to the studio and they were saying,
they are, well, we're trying to get into writing with
other people, you know, right now, and and I was like, okay,
let me hear some stuff, you know. And they played

(02:08:49):
a song called High Hopes from a cassette you know.
And I was like, okay, that's though I produced. I
won't have to cut everything because the bottom line is
Prince had gotten mad and took them back. Actually, I
told him they can do real to real First, yeah,

(02:09:13):
I said, you can produce them. And then they let
me hear what's his name? Later and I said, oh,
because I had signed my I let my brother Ricky
and Gene Dozer signed him to do so os band
and they were they did it, and then they he
played High Hopes and I was like, oh wait a minute, Okay,

(02:09:36):
I'm gonna I'm gonna take this and go do this
on so os band. So I flew out there and
I cut it myself. But I want to hear whose
voice sounded like Terry's because Terry had a nice, nonchalant
style melody yeah you know, and I loved the way

(02:09:58):
he sounded. So I was listening that everybody sing and
the drummer had the voice that and I was like, oh, okay,
you gonna sing this? And you know, they were cool.
They didn't say nothing because usually the girl is the
one that you know, has to sing, so I had
her do the but his tone sang that perfect, and
I didn't want to change the pitch and go hide

(02:10:19):
with did I tried, it didn't sound the same. So
I had him do exactly the real drums because he
had a cassio beat. He did everything on the casio,
you little white cassio and dariy jilot. Ever, I was like, okay, okay,
let me get the cassette and then I went out
there and had him play everything with the real drums,

(02:10:43):
but I kept that cassio sound. I went and bought
one just like theirs because I did that. Yeah, so
I wanted to make it more punchier, but I did
the melody. Maybe changed one or two words, but I
did the melody like he did. But I had to

(02:11:06):
with the real drum sound and everything.

Speaker 7 (02:11:08):
It was.

Speaker 5 (02:11:09):
I love the way it came out, you know, because
I couldn't have Jim Jean and Ricky do it because
they wouldn't do it with the same Because yeah, because
this is something I wanted to do. So I just
went out there and did it, you know. And my
man was happy at Clarence Avant because you know, they

(02:11:30):
had a record right off the bat from that.

Speaker 1 (02:11:32):
It's funny you say basketball because three of the acts
that you discovered. Whenever Don Cornelis asked how did you
hook up with Leon Silvers, they all had a basketball backstory,
which I found hard to believe. Well, I think Crystal
said that you met them at a fat Burger or

(02:11:52):
something like that. At least that was the story on soldiering.
But yeah, yeah, I think out of fat Burger. But
that's what Luss's name a reel to real. They all said, yeah,
we met him. You know, there's a basketball game going on,
and da da da da da, And I'm like, well,
how big was basketball in your life that well, you're
meeting all your access.

Speaker 5 (02:12:13):
Well, I I was. I was either going to play
basketball or do music because that's how my head was
into basketball and music and so much did after I
go play ball, I'd always write a song because I
guess the blood flow was going.

Speaker 2 (02:12:26):
And uh, you know, I.

Speaker 5 (02:12:29):
Played at verbum Day and they were to direct uh.
U c l A would look at Verbal Day first
before they go look at for any other UH school
for because they had a Verbal Day would win All
CIF every year and Jordan High would win All City
every year. So those two schools came highly recruited for

(02:12:50):
u c l A. And I was playing for for
verbum Day and the coach, who was actually Tracy Edmund's
father was my coach and he got moved to u
c l A. On my last eleventh year and eleventh
grade at Verbal Day and he was like, oh, I'll

(02:13:11):
see you at U c l A. Leon and I
was like, oh great, Now, all I gotta do is
keep my grades right, shoot them jumpers and we straight.
So I was on that tip. But then after the
all my whole family got signed that said, okay, easy
quicker for us to get out the nickoson garden with

(02:13:32):
everybody didn't me to wait four years to play ball
and you know.

Speaker 6 (02:13:36):
Take them out, so find that you want to introduce.
This is Starlight by my brother Zoe keyboardist, producer.

Speaker 2 (02:13:48):
This from his album.

Speaker 6 (02:13:51):
Sky Break, and this is our We have several but
this is my uh, this is our Leon Silver's dedication.

Speaker 2 (02:14:04):
It's unreal. Yes, it is.

Speaker 7 (02:14:24):
Reasonable when my love is college.

Speaker 10 (02:14:31):
You're the old one's give the long line.

Speaker 5 (02:14:36):
Talk get jest.

Speaker 3 (02:14:40):
There's just something us, the respirable way until they didn't
see the stay of all.

Speaker 2 (02:14:53):
And it's done the less the same, not the doles.

Speaker 10 (02:14:56):
Away and it's all gon we being under the.

Speaker 4 (02:15:16):
Straight up.

Speaker 2 (02:15:22):
So I hope we did you justice. Man. That's great man,
thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:15:27):
I'm just saying that with with there being a whole
subculture of people that are into your work, like what
what what is your your your stock room, your your
your your cassette collection of all the unfinished demos and tapes,
and like how many songs do you have just on

(02:15:48):
standby that are.

Speaker 5 (02:15:49):
Just well, uh oh yeah you know you got a lot. Yeah,
I had a lot because there's you know, certain things
that don't make the great, whether it's because you went
to something else or uh, you took the melody that
was on that track somewhere else. So bottom line is
I have I'm going over that right now because I

(02:16:12):
put a lot of them in digital format, Jesus, and
with me and my wife, we're doing some mobile type
TV type things. I'm gonna have a thing called story
behind the song, the ones that didn't make the grade.
But like you say, there's a lot from that error

(02:16:36):
that today would sound great. There's a lot of people
want to hear the authenticity of that type of style
right now.

Speaker 2 (02:16:44):
So when we won't first did.

Speaker 5 (02:16:50):
You got it? We'll definitely let's do this. Do this well,
you know, we can work on doing it together, you know, brother.

Speaker 2 (02:16:58):
Yeah, thank you man, oh god, you have no idea this.
This is one for the history book. And we you've
changed everything about our lives and just really made it better.

Speaker 8 (02:17:11):
And and.

Speaker 1 (02:17:13):
Man, you literally created one of my favorite eras of
funk music. Man, and I love everything about music, but
your contribution alone.

Speaker 2 (02:17:23):
Man, is it's just outstanding. Thank you, thank you. I
can't we can't say thank you enough. Seriously, yes, so
on behalf of Sugar Steve Sweet. It's like you and

(02:17:44):
Boss Bill. This is very grateful. Love Supreme only on
Pandora and we can see over the next round.

Speaker 5 (02:17:51):
Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:17:54):
All right West.

Speaker 1 (02:17:56):
Love Supreme is a production my Heart Radio. This classic
episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}QLS Classic: Leon Sylvers III

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

All Episodes

QLS Classic: Leon Sylvers III

Dateline NBC