Questlove Supreme: The Family Stand (Part 1)

Best known for their early 90’s international hit single “Ghetto Heaven,” the trio of Sandra St. Victor, Peter Lord and V. Jeffrey Smith tell their story of coming up as musicians and songwriters in the 80s and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme. It's a production of iHeartRadio three.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
So fat fact, ladies and gentlemen, Sometimes you just have
to go with the flow. Steve's looking Matt nervous right
now because we're not following the rules of the show
from an engineer standpoint. But I don't know. I just
felt the need. We don't have to do row call
every time, right. We don't know how, but I will

(00:27):
say yes. First start is if you're if you're tuning
in Leighton, this is a Quest Love Supreme on iHeartRadio.
And uh, we're we're still here with three Supremas because
I haven't locked and changed. See what I did there, guys,
Locked and change? Yes, Yes, Boss, Bill, Lion Sugar Steve
are with us.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Apparently unpaid.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Bill met a woman named Lady Sunshine, and uh he
left us a dear John note that said he ain't
never coming back. Fanticolo apparently is still smoking very strong
cigarettes and he said he'd be back for visitation Sundays
in a month. So what I will say is that

(01:10):
when time has passed and the smoke is cleared, I
really hope that the storytellers and the history makers and
the history tellers will be kind to our next guest,
whether as a collective or as individuals as an artist, producers, songwriters,

(01:31):
or just playing old session musicians or just three really
talented musicians.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Our guests today have made impact in.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
History, and they march to the beat of their own drum,
their own weird drum, whether we know it or not.
And I'll be honest, I think Bill can agree with me, Boss,
Bill can agree that the gems of the Discovery for
this episode alone rates ten on the OH meter. Yes, yes,
and we graciously thank them for doing us the honor

(02:02):
of celebrating with them thirty years of truth, weirdness, cleverly
hidden snark, Hellotle, Van of White, How you doing zero
compromises as far as I know, Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome they want and only Peter Lord V, Jeffrey Smith
and Sancho Saint Victor a special tree for all you

(02:23):
music experts and nerds and connoisseurs out there, professionally known
as the Family stand.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Wow, Now every intro has to be like that. Oh right, right,
I think a new I think a new standard has
been said. And I really had a good roll call,
but you know I had they had two of them.
One of them was going to steal steal one of them.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Now see I wasn't even going to do the obvious one.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I have to say that, Uh, this is this is
one that I didn't see coming. Really why I didn't
see coming? I just now I see it coming. I
appreciate it. You know, just when when your name period
on the wish list of oh family stand want to
do a question.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Of supreme, We're like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, I'm happy, Boss, Bill's happy, everyone's happy.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
I'm not worried about the thing You're not worried about.
That's what's up. So has this always been this way
with you? Guys like you just pretty much? Yeah, no doubt,
I'll break out. Is that the bond that kept you together?
The music?

Speaker 4 (03:28):
The music has always been the thing. I mean, we
we can hang out and have good fun and you
know we we we are compatible outside of music, but
the thing that always brings.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Us back is that music.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
Because we are like I call them my musical soulmates,
and I mean that sincerely.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
They literally are.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
I mean, I've never been connected to bonded with anyone
one of the way I am with Peter and Jeff
and I call them my powers, towers of powers, the talents.
When I'm between them, I'm the safest that I am
in the world.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Okay, well here this is a tradition on question of
Supreme because any guest that comes on the show always
want to find out what brought them to where they
are now. And you know the first question I always have. Well,
there's three of you now, so this is going to
be an extra long episode, this might be this might

(04:19):
tie Jimmy Jams record.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
Can I take my shoes off?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Six hours?

Speaker 5 (04:24):
That's why we watch you their home because.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
For radio.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
Thank you, so thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
What what I'll do is, uh, I'll go from my
my right to left.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
My first question for you, Pete is uh first or
where were you born?

Speaker 6 (04:46):
I was born in Brooklyn, New York. Really, I'm from Brooklyn. Okay,
same hospital as Michael Jordan's.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Open Atlantic. Okay, wait what hospitals there? What I think
it was Saint Joseph's or something.

Speaker 7 (05:00):
Like that, Off Atlantic.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, okay. And Sandra, where were you?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
I know you were Big four?

Speaker 8 (05:08):
Yeah yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:09):
And all right, so you're the Big D and then
the church is the day the D.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
That's another thing.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Okay, so the big ride d Yeah, what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Hr.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
This is XM radio or Triple X.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Uh V. Jeffrey.

Speaker 7 (05:29):
I was born in Harlem. Harlem Hospital. Really yeah, the
old one. Okay, I'm a man of a certain age.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
So the old one as opposed to yeah.

Speaker 7 (05:39):
The one that's here, it was going on thirty one,
thirty fifth and Lenox. No it's not Lenox. I think
it's a little further overly. Okay, Yeah, it's the old one,
said a man of a certain a. So I don't
think people even know about that.

Speaker 6 (05:54):
That one an older Okayla Harlem Hospital, like Frederick Douglas
was born there right same time.

Speaker 8 (06:03):
Were there? We go?

Speaker 2 (06:10):
So then so then I'll ask what year Sondra, Sondra,
what year did you come to.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
New York City?

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Nineteen eighty.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
Okay, yeah, visiting a few times or you you've just I.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Just rolled up and it was a crazy roll up,
but yeah, I rolled up in nineteen eighty two.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Really it was crazy, kind of opening to a song
that wasn't written yet, Welcome to the Jungle, like you
got off the bus.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
It was freaking nuts, you know. It was a roy
Ors roll up so he's had us set up, and
it was there's a whole thing there, but yes, I
got it.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Okay, Okay, we got time now. No, no, I'm gonna get
to that.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
So then I'm just my big My first four questions
are always just the basic foundations of who you are
as individuals before we get in the collective. All right,
so what is Peter? What is your first musical memory?

Speaker 6 (07:02):
Very first musical memory? This is gonna give away age,
but this wasn't relate because we're we're already sure here here,
I'm mature, that's right. The first song I remember hearing
was hit the Road.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
Jack, Okay, Jack?

Speaker 4 (07:16):
And don't you come back.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
What you say?

Speaker 6 (07:22):
And that's my first musical memory, hit the Road Jack Okay.
And then I remember being my sister having a party
at around I think it was nineteen sixty eight or nine,
and she played that Sly album and my life was
never the same after that though I didn't realize it yet,

(07:42):
but the really reason I got into music industry was
was because of.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Satan. And that was because.

Speaker 6 (07:53):
And I'll tell you I know a lot of us,
you know, people of certain He would like to say
that God, Jesus got into music, but Satan got me
in the music because the movie The Exorcists. And I
tell you why. Because the movie came out, I was
so afraid to go to sleep. I started playing the
radio every night, and agential, all right, yo, we went

(08:17):
tangential all right. So so I was so that every
shadow was like, you know, Linda Bleir, I turned the
head around. So I started playing the radio every wait.
In the one, I got this new song, I'm so
tired of being alone. I thought about that all myself.
That was out green, oh, you know, but then I
kept hearing Stevie and you know, these people are doing

(08:37):
the radio during and I'm like, oh, I think I
like music because I'm hearing songs in my head.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Wait, i gotta say something.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I don't think I've ever shared the story before, but uh,
now that would makes sense because when you think of
the Boogeyman or whatever, the first thing you want to
do is distract yourself from whatever you think is under
the bed or in the closet. So you put music
on to yea be an invisible roommate. Frank Zappa had
did a film, a short film with Bill Plimpton nineteen

(09:06):
seventy three whatever, and it came on Midnight Special. But
this thing, like he turned into a demon. I mean,
if you know Frank Zappa's music, it's like, yeah, like
four fingers turned into seventy five billion fingers. And I
had nightmares of Frank Zappa forever. And so thus my
mom I totally forgot that's how music really. I had

(09:28):
her on twenty four to seven because I was scared
of Frank Zappa getting me.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, that was connected.

Speaker 8 (09:36):
Bro.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
So, Sondra, what was your first musical memory, in addition
to the first music that you purchased or owned and
the moment that changed your life and brought you to music.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
Okay, well, so the first and the last question, I'm
probably about the same, and that's the first musical memory.
My parents and my aunts tell me about stuff that
I did when I was two, like playing the piano,
and they said I was fiddling around playing scale and
I figured out that the scale was joy to the world.
So they said, but dude, I was they said, I

(10:08):
was two. I'm okay, I don't remember this whether they
tell me said you were too, and you said, and
I said.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
George to the world, the Lord It's come.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
So it was George to the world. I don't recall that,
but my first musical memory is I was I had
chores and I had to clean dust the these these
coffin looking dazzled lamps and in the living room, and
uh as I was consoling myself while I was cleaning,

(10:40):
I started singing. And as I was singing, I said,
I'm a singer. I was like eight. I said I am.
I didn't say I don't want to. I didn't say
I want to sing. I said I am a singer.
And it's new from that and it's never changed from
that moment, never anything else. And uh so, yeah, that
was the first that's like the real solid memory. And

(11:01):
that also is the last question when that's the thing
that changed my life as far as it was no
question at that point who I was in my own
you know, and my own you know, skin, I knew
from that point I forgot your second question.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
The first record you purchased.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Okay, so yeah, the first thing I probably purchased was
Songs in the Key of Life or Larry Graham's Mirror.
That's the first thing I probably purchased. Yeah, yeah, because
I was young, but I had a little allowance and
and that was about that time, and those were the
first albums I had, songs of Kill Life and Mirror Mirror.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Jeff, what was your first musical memory?

Speaker 7 (11:49):
Around my house? There was a lot of music because
my mother, she sang, and she used to have like
these parties. Well I don't want I don't know exactly
what to call them now because uh, you know, there
was a lot of stuff going on, and there was
a lot of stuff going on. Me my sister was
under a chair and watching them play music all night.

(12:11):
But at the same time, the music that we would
listen to was things like Brooke Benton and the first
thing that the song that I remember is Booker t
and the MG's what's the song that but green Onions?

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Right until this day.

Speaker 7 (12:27):
I say Stevie probably caught that with ground, because when
I first heard higher Ground, I said, Stevie, Stevie jack
that song, you know, I mean he added his little twist.
But that's probably the first memories. And also I was

(12:48):
made to love her. That was but the but the
music that really changed my life was music.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
In my mind.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Really, there's another observation I'm making right now that's rare
for our guests. It sounds like that at a very
early age, music isn't an obstacle in your households. Usually

(13:18):
with our guest on the show, there's like Charlie Wilson,
like people have to sneak to listen to records, like
the only secular record they're allowed to listen to is
What's going On or that sort of thing. So you're saying,
even at an early age and discovering music, your parents
were more than Okay, well, what type of parents did
you guys have that were so open to.

Speaker 6 (13:38):
Well, I had a parents, Well can you hear me? Well,
my mother was a nurse and my father was a Communist,
so that creates an artist. So he was always he
was open. He was open minded to begin with, a
little bit too open minded, but so and my oldest

(13:59):
sister was into music and my father's sang, so we weren't.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
We weren't.

Speaker 6 (14:03):
And I was baptized Catholic, so we weren't like a
religious Baptist. You know, music is evil type of fan,
you know, So you had our alternative semi altern different
for what Yes, black people at the time, absolutely because
my father, my father was actually he went to he

(14:24):
graduated from Harvard, He was a lawyer, he was a
columnist of major paper and a professor. But he was
seriously a communist and got caught up in the nineteen
fifties scandal. So his whole career end up being a
teacher in Jersey City. So my parents got divorced around
nineteen sixty three. It's when the violins come in and we'll.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Explain explained to me the repercussions of that.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
If you if the the government was trying to vent
out who was a communist.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Based on so even though we had he was.

Speaker 6 (14:55):
He had a Harvard law degree and was a doctor
philosophy and wrote books about history, the fact that he
was a kind of he got outed and was and
he was started to school in Aubany and was forced
to leave there.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
And is your dad Paul.

Speaker 6 (15:07):
No, you know, there's a picture of him, and there's
a picture of him and Paul Robinson and Joe Lewis
and this big you know party, uh, back in the
late forties.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
He had me like late later in his life. I
member he believes that he was just anti capitalist.

Speaker 6 (15:22):
Or he was he was an atheist and in fact,
but my mother wasn't even though she wasn't religious, but
she went just and my grandmother, Jamaican and very religious,
wanted to make sure I didn't say, yeah genius, yeah yeah,
crazy crazy, so sore Gemini, I'm lea. Yeah he's a

(15:47):
Gemini because your album.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (15:51):
So so they were open minded in terms of terms
of in terms of that, in terms of music, so
they you know, they love music, and she actually wanted
me to. I think she wanted me to get a
music But my sister was actually went to music and
art and I didn't go. I went to Erasmus High
School in Brooklyn and oh, actually no, I didn't. I
was went to wal Women Junior High School in Brooklyn
and to make sure I'd have to fight the same
people I did and woll Women when I went to Erasmus,

(16:13):
I made sure I passed that test to go to
Stuyvesant High School.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
So that's what isn't that tip story as well? That
sounds familiar, that's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (16:21):
So yeah, so I ended up going, but I wasn't
in music. But music wasn't such a There wasn't a
block to music in my house in that so that
was fortunate.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
So was there a uh, most the sort of hip
hop narrative is basically with gang activity in New York
in the seventies and sort of waiting out in the eighties.
But was that an everyday thing in your your teenhood?

(16:49):
We heard a lot in the West Coast, but you rarely.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Hear what the what the thing is? Uh this say?

Speaker 6 (16:54):
I was a different type of kid, so so yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, you know how you survived? Yeah? Navigated.

Speaker 6 (17:02):
Actually I kind of ignored a lot of stuff and
not a conscious thing. I mean, I just wasn't into it,
you know what I mean. So I was I just
wasn't definitely into gangs of fighting and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
The following you avoid it because normally they choose you.

Speaker 6 (17:17):
I guess they thought I was so weird they didn't
know what to do with me. And I just didn't
you know, you know, the mirror route, you know what
I mean. I was just yeah, I was just just
so kind of out, you know, and that I had
like a weird kind of childhood like in Brooklyn, and
so there was a lot of fights and stuff, and
but I was as opposed to get into the fights.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
I was.

Speaker 6 (17:38):
I was kind of stupid kidding away because I was
scared of people I should have been scared of because
they had a bunch of brothers and I had no brothers.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
But one day, one.

Speaker 6 (17:46):
Day I found out later it was the biggest bully
in the neighborhood took my We used to play this
game people don't play anymore, called punch ball. It's kind
of like baseball, thought about punchball. So this guy, this
guy took my ball and I said, give me my boy.
He said no, And I punched him in the face.
And then anybody said, do you know he just punched you?

Speaker 8 (18:05):
President?

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I punched it in the face.

Speaker 6 (18:09):
But but but then it was but then it was like,
do you know he just hit him? And then I
have to realize that who I hit? Then I was scared.
But then the guy became friends with me and looked
out for me. But he looked out for me for
a bunch of the other kids were really tougher than
even worse.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
He was, so, well, I'm glad you had that, because
I I can't imagine a childhood growing up where you
don't have that one person that's like I'm gonna get
the fuck you up. Oh no, I mean yeah, I've
never had that.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
So I just ran home with the quickness. So Sondra
in Dallas, Okay.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Ish, what was Dallas at the time in your childhood,
because I think of Austin as a blue city in
a red state, or at least they would like to
paint that or now it is sure, we don't even
know now, but Texas trying to go blue.

Speaker 7 (19:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
But but I'll say that the times that I've went there,
at least with my gracious hosts, the l Head Rappo
that me, yeah, oh my god, l Head Rapo. She
showed me signs of Dallas that I didn't even know exist.

(19:31):
And I've been there plenty of times, and I was like, oh,
there are people like me down here. What was it
like for you growing down there?

Speaker 4 (19:39):
It was it was it was like the two sides
of the tracks, you know.

Speaker 7 (19:43):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
And my dad who came from him and his brothers,
him and his brothers. I mean the first gun I
saw was my dad's. Okay. My dad was like a
pimp back in the day, right, And you know, I've
I stumped stumbled on those pictures. But so Dallas when
I was gonna was very divided. So he had he

(20:05):
had decided at some point that he was gonna, you know,
leave the gang life behind a little bit, you know,
at least at least on the front.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
I wanted to use.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
You can't you can't. You can't trust because we're tells
my dadd didn't really leave that shit behind.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
So what I'm telling you is.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
What I'm telling you. So he kind of like, you know,
so he we got great job. He you know, moved
up first black supervisor at the phone company, all kind
of crack. But but my like my mother's family lived
on the other side of the tracks. So when we
had to go visit them, we's, oh, snap, this is
the real.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Real, right.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
So they lived in West Dallason, South Dallason, you know,
and the little trailers and like twelve people in one house.
And you know, we went to vision visit our country cousins.
They didn't have shoes, so like, you know, we was like,
oh damn, we're middle class. I mean, I didn't know
the term for it then, but I now look back
on it. You know, I grew up middle class, well
you know, I would say lower to middle middle class,

(21:04):
in the upper middle middle class life. But dad, dad
Dad's Dad's dad's like, you know, sort of gangster side
never left. I mean, for example, I remember I was

(21:25):
with this dude.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh no, here we go.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Let me just tell us cute. I mean so and uh,
you know, he wasn't treating me right, and he actually
like he actually slapped the ship on me one day
and I like.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
And I was so stunned.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
So I got on a flight. Now I was in
New York. So I got on a flight. I just
went back call my dad always picked me at the airport.
And he picked me up with airport and I was
just quiet, and he was like, what's wrong with you?
I'm like nothing, and he was quiet. It was forty
minute ride almost home.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
He said, did he lay his hands on you?

Speaker 4 (22:02):
He just guessed it. And I was like, son, So
so we got home. He was I never saw him
get that read. He was like, lights came. He was
like he got home. He picked up the phone. Oh
he called dude, he'd just say ship to me. He

(22:23):
just he just picked up the phone. He brought my
suitcases and picked up he said, he said, because the
name Clark said Clark, this is mister Matthews. He if
you ever lay your hands on my daughter again, New

(22:44):
York won't be big enough.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
I was like, I just want to know we ever
heard from Clark again? No, actually did not.

Speaker 8 (23:02):
Know.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
I mean, like, is he alive?

Speaker 4 (23:05):
He could not answer that question. Honestly, I do not know.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
I did not.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
He shut him down, So I mean he's done that
kind of that's kind of thing he does. I mean,
you know, he got cute when he got older, when
he would just meet ladies. All my girlfriends who I introduced,
he would flirt with and tell them I'm not a
dirty old man. I'm just a sexist senior citizen.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Even now I'm making to use that line. Put that
one out.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
That was my dad and his brother.

Speaker 7 (23:39):
Did you learn how to handle the pistol?

Speaker 8 (23:40):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (23:41):
I did actually see from Texas?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
I don't want to is that I don't want to
make any assumptions about Texas whatsoever. But can I assume
that that's is simples breathing air or water at least
we're talking.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, I would say.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
I would say seventy percent. I'm not gonna say everybody,
you know what I mean because everybody most people don't
know how to don but knew how to shoot or
the parents definitely had guns. So you you you come
across it, you know what I mean. So I came
across the gun in my house. My dad used to
keep it on top of the refrigerator. I'm like, why
is it on top of the refrigerator.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
The gun was.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
When he saw me like find it, he was like, okay,
well you're gonna do the gun. You're gonna you know,
let me show you how.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
So were you the only sibling?

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (24:31):
No, I had three. We're all adopted by the way,
three siblings. Yeah you were chosen, Yeah, three chosen kids.

Speaker 7 (24:37):
I almost shot my sister. Let me tell you what happened?
Were kids, right? And me and my sister were in
my my my stepdad. I mean, I wasn't like familiar
with my biological so my mother had me married, right,
Me and my sister was playing in her in their room,

(25:00):
and uh so we was reaching the you know, trying
to look for things, and we see this gun and
I think, and it's a toy gun. So I pointed
at my sister and klick and then I pointed at
the ceiling and it went off. They came in and
they said, I didn't know what was happening, and so
they was wondering if something had happened upstairs. I was

(25:21):
wondering why they were They were tripping, so I didn't
know it was a real gun, you know. I was like,
that's one of my earliest memories because I don't remember
much before I was nine.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Well, that's question of supreme lasion. Good night, Steven Silver.

Speaker 5 (25:38):
Now, yeah, nobody carrying, right? You got to ask now?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Scary?

Speaker 7 (25:47):
Yeah, that's that's that's scary. I mean I remember, that's
like kind of a weird kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
It's a blessing, like you're blessed, like seriously want to
win differently, Well, I.

Speaker 7 (25:58):
Don't, you know, I don't believe in love or anything
like that, but that was a yeah, I mean, somebody's
looking out.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Bring you guys to New York. Now, what year did
you guys meet? Not even as eighty six?

Speaker 7 (26:23):
Okay, you're talking about all of us. Let me take
let me let me take this.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
I go ahead, break it down.

Speaker 7 (26:30):
Peter and I met through a mutual friend, Will Downing. Yes,
me and Will Downing. We used to do a lot
of work together. We were writing sessions all that stuff,
and you know, Will used to come over my house
and you know, we used to write, and so he
one day he told me that he knew that this
guy needed a flute player on a song that he

(26:52):
was writing. Right, and I never forget the song was
in the thick of it, right, that's the name of it.
I never forgot the name of that song. So he
let me hear the song. I said, man, I gotta,
I gotta meet this guy. So he said, I'll bring
him over. So, uh, Pete came over my house. You know,
I said, that's Pete.

Speaker 8 (27:14):
He's weird.

Speaker 7 (27:15):
He looked like he had this like Larry ninety six
to five. And I'm like, So we started working together.
And uh, at the time you were, you had a group.
You were with Renee and Angela and Angela.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Right, I can't wait for the stories. We're not We're
not even going to get to the family stand yet,
collective experience.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Oh she's shaking her head.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
No, already, every Renee story. Yes, I'm ready for I'm
ready for the So.

Speaker 7 (27:48):
It was Renee and Angela right, they were producing the Yes, yes,
So somehow I convinced p I said, Pete, man, you know,
we could do this ourselves because I was always into,
you know, having being in control of our music. So
you know, we started working together doing a lot of
productions and stuff, and so we had a bunch of
singers coming and doing demos for us because at the

(28:10):
time we were doing stuff for Silver your Own, Marilyn
Bob and Mickey Howard. You know, we did Mickey Howard
all yeah, yeah, yeah, mac Man, we did. We did
productions on them, and we had different singers singing our demos.
So Lisa Fisher was one of the one of our singers. Now,

(28:31):
I knew Lisa from I met Lisa in nineteen eighty
eighty three on a session that I was doing for
Billy Oshan, right, so she was in the studio, she
was in the Zach So you know, I met Lisa then,

(28:53):
So we kind of established a relationship over the years.
And then she she did some demos for us too.
And so did we get it offered a deal or
we just studied first.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
First, we met before you guys got the offer for
the producers deal because Lisa, Lisa had to go do Luther,
she had to go, right, and so then she she
pulled me in because I met Lisa when she was
doing the Crystals and I still lived in Texas and
I was doing Lazy Fair and so we hooked up
before I moved to New York and Doug Crystals. She
was she was in the Crystals. Yeah, yeah, she was

(29:29):
doing the Crystals back in the day, traveling as not
as the original No, no, no, I know that's my era,
like yeah, no doubt. So there was like one original
Crystal and the other two and Lisa was one of
the other two.

Speaker 5 (29:44):
Ship I did shows with Lisa when you were with
your dad, we didn't.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
My dad was like a dup legend.

Speaker 7 (29:52):
And so so anyway, yeah, we were using Lisa and
a bunch of other singers and we told Lisa that
we needed a singer and she said, oh, my girl,
Sandra lives in Dallas and I can hook you up
with them.

Speaker 9 (30:08):
Man.

Speaker 7 (30:09):
At the time, we were producing this group called the
mac dand who I think Babyface? They produced Roses are
Red right, So we were producing some songs on that record,
so we had to go to Dallas to produce them,
and that's where we hooked up with Sondras show and
I will never forget Lisa invited us to lose Evangels.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
What year was this eighty eight eighty like eighty six.

Speaker 7 (30:34):
Had been eighty six, eighty seven, eighty six because I
met Pete in eighty five.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Was there air conditioning on in the stadium?

Speaker 8 (30:42):
When yes, yo, I'll forget, never forget.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
She was shading. I was minding my own business.

Speaker 6 (30:52):
She you know, she she we said hello, and maybe
because she was used to men melting over her as
rightfully so, but she just said he and I said
how you doing? And she thought I was being cold,
But I think I just had some interigestion that day.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I like that story. I mean, my stum was hurting, like,
who do you think he is? I'm sorry to say,
it's good to see.

Speaker 6 (31:17):
I'm six five.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
She's giving you come on.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
He looked down his nose at me. Jeff was like, hey,
how you doing exactly? You know, he could like look
at me, but not look.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
I was looking at the rest of your baby going on.

Speaker 7 (31:40):
Shoes hr.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
But it was the eighties that kind of Okay, this
is the thing.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I'm really excited that you guys are on the show
simply because the one story that I'm not story, but
just the one narrative that I never ever got to
wrap my head aroun round was what was the environment
like for I guess the black musicians in trying to

(32:10):
navigate through the mid eighties, like the Marcus Miller's, the
Bernard Wrights, the Tawatha G's, Like what is the stratosphere
of you guys?

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Well, see, you know all those people you mentioned so
but basically all those people came out of the session scene,
right right, So so the session scene was thick. It's
not anymore, right, but back then you had your West
Coast session folks and you had your East coast session
folks and all the people you mentioned. Maybe Marcus was
more west but.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Ended up going back.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
Yeah, but so so, I mean those people are mostly
East Coast people, and they came out of sessions, and
record labels were looking to like you know, put push
people to the front like Mt. May and Tawatha out
of into m two May from these from that session scene.
So that's why you got the McK murphy's and you know,

(33:05):
the Bernard Rights and those folks that came from that
scene and also Pete Jeff you know what I mean.
They they were offered this producer's deal out of the
because they were doing all these sessions.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
But was there a collective where like I mean, I'm
talking even deeper, like with Shaka's brother, like Mark Stevens,
and then like all these monsters, Lay White and all.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Those we used to hook each other up.

Speaker 8 (33:28):
Man.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
Definitely, there was a real camaraderie with folks. I mean,
like Lisa and Brenda White King put me on, you know,
because Lisa knew before I moved, before I moved here,
and she usually Brenda and they all sort of took
me under their wing and they put you into the
situations you need to be put into.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
So what was your apprentice situation?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Like if you say that Lisa was a Luther disciple,
who was your apprentice situation?

Speaker 4 (33:54):
That would probably be Roy Yers then, because you know,
that was how I first got up there up here,
that's where I am I now New York. So yeah,
so it was Roy.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Started to tell me a little bit.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
Yeah, I got a lot of Roy story.

Speaker 5 (34:07):
But you said something like when you came to New
York and you were with Roy, like that's when you
knew things were different.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Like the way you entered New York was different than
was wild as here. Okay, okay, yeah, it was definitely closed.
We have to keep closing. Darn I was trying to
let the girls free, or to.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Mean, moments which.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
To me, songs come up right there.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
Okay, so but.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
So so Roy so Roy uh he I met him
in when I was in playing with a group of
Zachary bro I don't know if you know who he is,
and we had used his equipment, so we got He
came to our show and stuff and after the show
he was like, I want you to come to New York.
You wanna be in my band? I was like, uh,
dirty old man. You know, that's kind of what I said,

(35:13):
That's kind of what I know.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
I was like, I.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
Was like, girl, yeah, but yeah, I thought he was,
you know, just you know, pushing up. Really. So I
went and told the band I'm like, Roy Ers asked
me to, you know, come to New York. They were like, yo,
let's go. And so I was like wait, I wasn't
really planning accepted. They were like, no, you got it.
This a So then I reached out to Roy and
I said, Roy, yeah, so the whole band was He says,

(35:38):
I don't need the whole band, so so wow, that's
gonna be I was like, that's gonna be awkward. Because
they got the band, they got the transportation to get
me here. So so right, that is all story. Oh

(36:02):
I got oh, okay, so so I went the whole
man decided to come, I said, but he said he
doesn't really need So we got there and he took
me and Zachary bro But when we got there, he
had set us up to stay at William Allen's house.
William Allen is an arranger, string arranger for all of
those beautiful ubiquity arranged songs. He did all those string arrangements.

(36:24):
And we were staying I was no Zach and I
was staying at William Allen's apartment in Harlem. And it
was February twenty first, nineteen eighty two, and it was like,
you know, forty seven inches of snow on the ground,
and the cab like picked.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
That a gift of yours to the recall dates.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
I remember this definitely.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Oh, just this story.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
I remember a lot of things like that that, Like
you're like, well, things that terrify you. You have a
tendency to okay, yeah, because we we we passed. I mean,
I'm from Dallas. We have nice large streets and stop
signs and lights. Everybody fallows the rules. So we got here,
we passed by like blocks. I'm like, so I think
we passed it. I think it was back there. He

(37:03):
just said, okay, put it in reverse and and just
like bed backwards, you know, like two and a half
blocks in the snow, and you know, on a one
way street. And I was just scarceialless. And we got
there and we stayed at Williams and and you know,
there was he didn't have a bed for us. He

(37:23):
could barely walk to his house because he was a hoarder.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
He had no food.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
And we were like, he said, whatever you find in
the pantry, open the pantry.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Roaches jumped out. It was like, this is mine. That
was like my.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
Introduction to the off I imagine story back off. No,
I got a freaking story for right, but that's later.
That's a whole mother freaking roy story. He's crazy.

Speaker 7 (38:06):
You heard the story, go ahead and tell it.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Nuts.

Speaker 4 (38:12):
But yeah, that was okay, right, that was just my
introduction to New York story.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
That's all right.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
So you I mean, this was obviously just a conversation
between the three of you, and you're saying that you
met at this.

Speaker 7 (38:29):
Lutheran show, met Sondra and Pete met okay a few
years before that.

Speaker 6 (38:35):
Well, we were going to try out different singers. But
I mean, I want to back a track actually because
you as the person was kind of really my mentor
in a way was Jeff because he didn't know that,
but he was kind of.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
He's finding out right now. You know how many interviews.

Speaker 6 (38:54):
Have you he talked about. I think it's because like
I just come out of with the Howard University.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yeah, you know what the how Ward you know?

Speaker 6 (39:03):
And uh so I was there around the same time
as Wayne Lindsay and uh some other people and uh.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
You graduated. I graduated in eighty two. Hudson. Yes, yes,
was he a teacher there as well? Was a teacher.

Speaker 6 (39:19):
He was a teacher there, Le Hudson. I think I
think that guy I think you're talking about. Yeah, I think, yeah,
I think it's if that's what you're talking about. But
I wasn't even the jazz band, but i'd been, uh
have the Renee and Angela thing, right, I think right,
graduated or write something like that. I was working with
a friend who was it was the It was a
singer named Raymond Reader, a great singer.

Speaker 7 (39:41):
Yeah, yeah, I remember, right and right, yeah, and uh
he had a female to right.

Speaker 6 (39:46):
They were going to turn this into another Shalomar. Okay, yeah,
so that's who.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
That's who. That's who.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
We're going to be another Shalomark. All right. As you
can see, they didn't quite work.

Speaker 6 (39:55):
But uh, pope six y five popping really you know,
uh look like Pinocchio or whatever trying to pop block.
But anyway, so so I was in that bad but
that situation didn't work out. I won't get to the
gory details of it. But then they didn't work out,
and I went back to New York. But I wasn't
really necessarily in the New York scene like Jeff was.

(40:16):
You know, I would sometimes I would hang with Jeff
and he was he was working with Ashif and I
went with him up there, and a lot of people
who were there were like, who's who's the guy over there?
You know, and he's a weird guy. Who's the weird guy?
You know? Jeff said, no, he's cool.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
That was the question.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
Yeah, they only let me up there once. But but
but I when I was up there once there was
a cause she had a whole bunch of songwriters and
they were like working and said, we can come up
with these ideas and they said you write songs, right,
I said, yeah, I know, I write a little bit,
so so right now and then were of the kind
of gym to the idea and I was like, oh yeah,
I came. I started singing up and then they're like,

(40:52):
that's all right, that's cool, and I left. I think
about maybe a year later I kind of heard what
I was singing that day.

Speaker 10 (40:58):
But but but h so there was a like a
so I knew some of the people from Howard University,
but in terms of like the New York crew and
hanging all the sings and stuff, I didn't kind of
really know as much as Sondra and Jeff.

Speaker 6 (41:16):
But as we got a chance we producing records, Like
Jeff was saying, we got do some stuff with Merlin
Bob and said we were on in Atlantic and they said,
I once you do, guys do a producer album. And
that's how it came about finding saying. But the thing is,
since I was the outsider and the and the most
fucked up one of the group, all right, they didn't
know people. You know, the interesting you're talking about that
times and how people related and because yeah, it was

(41:38):
a kind of a clique. I was never kind of
any any clicks and I'd be like, Jeff, can I
can I go with you?

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Said, yeah, no, he's cool.

Speaker 9 (41:46):
You know.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
But but but it affected kind of our sound of
music because the eighties was a very unique time. I'm
a unique times, like the kind of bridge as you know,
between transition, transition and all and all I know is
whatever the funk was going on in the eighties for
me personally, I wasn't fucking digging and I hadn't really
but I hadn't really realized what that was yet. So

(42:09):
so there was these things were really great, but there
was a certain sound. So we started to make our
album Why Sandra fit in all these singers they were
like and came feel a little bit from the Kashif school.
He made some real dope records. It was like it
was the type of singing back then with background singers,
love come down and all that kind of you. And

(42:30):
then well, this ship was tight.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
This is my favorite episode, this, this is my dream.
It was like talking to three and mirrors all this
random information to say.

Speaker 6 (42:42):
She was like, I know who but you know, but
but Sandra, when she said you're like she was a siren.
She was that fucking Tina Turner kind of like, my
shit is unbridled.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
I'm trying to be he who who? But I wasn't
really into that. She didn't like the sene.

Speaker 6 (43:01):
Yeah, I didn't know what that thing was. We were
doing backfrons of the album and be like, you guys
not making it so clean. They'd be like, that was
that was? That was a Jackie Deson double take. For
those on radio who couldn't see what I just did,
it was Jackie Lison. But anyway, so uh so in
terms of Sondra just fit into an energy that that

(43:22):
we had and we knew naturally and we need and
even with our first album chapters, we had really locked
in quite do what that thing was. But all I
knew was I didn't want to hear the ship I
had been hearing.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, okay, okay, well let's get to that. I think.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
We could safely assume that the most defined sound of
what the eighties was, at least for the beginning of
the eighties to the mid eighties, I mean, was the
kind of sound that Prince crafted that there was Bookie
with with with the work that she did and everything

(44:00):
and in Brooklyn, uh he did big time with James uh.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Leroy Burges and I mean Leroy Burgess.

Speaker 7 (44:09):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Well, if you work with everyone, did you.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
My life is a blurring terms of that. I mean, yeah,
I have worked with a lot of people. I mean
the eighties to me, I mean I thought, I think
the seventies to me was like the best time for music,
of course, but the eighties was transitional to me because
the sound just changing, and I thought people were just
trying to figure things out in terms of of the sound. Sonically,

(44:37):
everything kind of just sounded stiff and and and and
perfect and we just kind of had to go through that.
I mean, even today, as much as we can get
to anything that we want, sometimes sonically things just sound
kind of over quantized to me. Hell yeah, yeah, everything
just sounds kind of over quantized. And it's too It's

(45:00):
not bad, it's not good. It's not a bad thing
or a good thing, but it's a thing.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
So it's numbing.

Speaker 7 (45:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's numbing, you know. Because the funny thing is,
I want to visit my son over the Christmas holidays,
you know what I mean. I don't really celebrate Christmas,
but you know, I had to go see my son.
So he was taking me back to the airport, and
we were listening to all this music, right, and I'm
hearing one song and everything sounds perfect, everything, you know, harmonies,

(45:28):
big drums, everybody's into the loudness and the you know.
So this one song comes on by this girl I
forgot her name, but it sounded so soulful, harmonies. As
soon as the song finish, me and my son started
laughing at the same time. We started laughing at the
same Now, you know, he's my son, but he realized

(45:49):
that everything sounded the same, and there's always like just
kind of one song that will kind of stick out,
and you realize how fucked up things have kind of
gotten in every everybody's kind of just playing the you know,
I got to sound like the last thing, you know, So,
you know I was I making a point here.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yeah, everything sounds the same. Well that's the thing though,
But in the eighties you have to choose a path.
And for sure, it's like there's Bookie, there's the Minneapolis
Prince sound, there's also hip hop. How are you guys
wrestling with what hip hop has becoming? The fact that

(46:30):
you're developing a craft. But yet were people that just
seemed to.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
Well, I think what the what the key transition was
for us, and then how it leads musically is that
there was this link with sixties and seventies children music.
So but then the music got electronic and slick, but
what the bridge was was hip hop. So hip hop
was feeding off of that rawness from the James Brown,

(46:56):
the drums.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
And all that kind of stuff. And in the late eighties,
in the late in the yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
It was yeah, in the mid eighty like have you
guys dealt with Larry Smith or I'm just throwing out
New York names, like.

Speaker 7 (47:09):
I know him.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
I mean, yeah, I don't know personally.

Speaker 7 (47:12):
I don't know him personally, but I know of him.
I know of him. I know of him.

Speaker 6 (47:16):
I think the thought was what I was getting to
is like we did a session, I went to it.
I was fine to Jeff carrying the Jeff's bags to
a session one day.

Speaker 5 (47:26):
And.

Speaker 6 (47:28):
It was and I would just, you know, a lot
of times I would just sit there and be quiet
and listen to people that they were doing a hip
hop record, hip hop record, and I was listening to
and I was like, you know, at that particular time,
I hadn't really heard yet somebody being no sensibilities of
hit hip hop of the drums was happened underneath with
a melodic song kind of at that particular time. So

(47:52):
that concept of bringing that together, and plus there was
a there was starting to be on the East Coast,
certain rock records that I heard that I liked and
just and then listening to more like soulful stuff. And
since we were called the Standard, we're going to become
the family Standing change her name because Evon Jefferys and
the stand was too confusing.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Uh that story, we can get to it the latest time.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 6 (48:16):
That's what led to Ghetto Heaven. That the idea of
let me sing a song over this within the context
of this hip hop, raw ish type of beat.

Speaker 7 (48:31):
I'm gonna tell him how Ghetto Heaven came to be?

Speaker 3 (48:34):
You know what is Ghetto Heaven?

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Now that we're gonna break down the song before you
even get to how you guys got your group name.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
But okay, let's go.

Speaker 7 (48:42):
You want me to tell you how the song came
to be? You know salam REMI, yes, we do. He
was kind of the inspiration for that song because when
we were on our first album, you know, we did
the first album the record company. You know, we were
like that group that they didn't exactly know what to

(49:04):
do with us, so they kind of fucked us around.
And you know, so I said, I knew Sir Maryland,
Bob right elect.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
It was Atlantic first. Yeah, I remember with Sylvia. Sylvia
they both went together.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Okay, I forgot.

Speaker 7 (49:29):
I forgot they were getting us all, me and Pete
all the production work. You know. But anyway, after that
first album, I knew uh Salaam Remi's father because him
and I grew up together. We did the Chitlin circuit,
you know, we did a lot of sessions together. So
I said, Pete, we need to go talk to my

(49:51):
friend Van van Gibbs. Right. So Van was over there
on fifty fourth Street and eleventh Avenue. I said, I
set up a meeting him so we could kind of
talk because we were getting kind of frustrated with what
the record company was not doing for us. And uh,
we had a little talk and then we heard this

(50:11):
music coming and coming from the basements. I said, what's that?
He said, that's my son. His name is I knew
he that's my son, Salam. He's going to be a producer.
He said, you want to He said, you want to
go down and listen. So we went down and listened
to the music, and then listen to the music. He said.
He came home and listened to me. Say I got
an idea. He said, I got an idea. So after

(50:35):
we left Fans, we went straight back to Ebesfield and
worked on hither came up with a drum beat. Came
up with a drum beat. Now, if you remember the
original version of red Frog, drummer came up with a bassline.
Good dogg, A dogg, A dudegg.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
That's that came from because I was in love with
d And I said, yeah, I was a cool more
what's that? He had the wild wild West? The doom
boom boom. So then that's why I said, I didn't
even know you. Remember I said, like that.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Base each other right now, I didn't know that baseline.
So then you you changed.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
You said boom boooom. So so he was like a
boom boom boom, Yeah, boom boom. I was, I love
that baseline. So then you like.

Speaker 7 (51:27):
So to twisted little the record company heard it.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
Yeah, but see here's the thing. Here's the thing. See
that this is the piece of the piece that I
always remember about the inspiration of Ghetto Heaven because the
salam thing was part of that.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
But also the.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
We had gone to the label, we had submitted the
whole record. We submitted the whole album, and they were like, yeah,
this is dope, it's dope. We didn't hear no singles.

Speaker 11 (51:48):
Yeah yeah, So we were like son of them, and
so we were like so excited, excited about the album
and disappointed that they didn't hear you know, because we
felt like they were singles, you know, change, change, So
we were like, remember, I remember, you know.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Eventually getting back to the studio was like, you know,
it was just like they just want nursery rhymes. They
just want nurse rhymes. We were like, I love my baby. No, no,
I remember.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Rush Rush, Rush Rush was.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
There time out was Rush Rush the last song done
for a spell Bound the first I was the same
formula exactly.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
No, No, it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Well, well you want to hear a rush Rush story.
I asked you that.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
I said, you can't, you can't play you can't write
a song with just two chords.

Speaker 6 (52:42):
No, no, no, that wasn't it. That was what was
that was was no at the time. What happened happened
was usually what happens is. You know, at the time,
Babyface was writing a lot of songs. We would go
back and baby Faces a great song. Right of course
I loved him, but I but I would say to her,

(53:03):
I can write those songs in my sleep.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
So did you purposely use the d X seven patch
just as a point of sarcasm.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
No, it wasn't.

Speaker 6 (53:13):
The sarcasm was I literally said, because I knew what
his thing was. The thing was there was the way
he hit the beat. So I was like, I jokingly
went to the piano and I said, yoo is a
something trees yo, look kiss that puts my soul that ease.
And I was I was like, oh that sounds good.

(53:35):
And that's the first two things I said. But there
was a way he used. He would write songs that
kind of go I wanna run, I wanna try, I'm
gonna take the yeah, yeah, own.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
My heart myself.

Speaker 6 (53:49):
It's it's a it's a it's a pocket to us
to a song, and every songwriter has that pocket. So
once you figure out what the mofos pocket is, he'd
be like, oh, you wanna that type of song you
wanna that.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
That's the pocket of that thing. So it's all up.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
So that's my brother, yo, who you texted?

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I gotta do this, I gotta do this.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
I gotta do on the show. I gotta do this.
Hang on, please pick up? What time is it on
the I was just pick up please. I meant to
tell him that when I met him too, but he wasn't.
It's not a but.

Speaker 7 (54:32):
Odd time six o'clock.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Damn it, damn it, damn it, damnit.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
I'm officially calling Jimmy Jam to let him know that
he's officially my second favorite.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
Got all back. I think he thinks that I'm butt Downald,
but I got I got Jimmy Jam.

Speaker 6 (54:55):
Just bring him, bring them No, I know, I look
because it really was for Jimmy Jam because the first
song that I did, we kind of did it together.
But I did this, this track with this song for
this girl named Janis Christie. All right, heat strokes. It's
one of the worst songs I ever wrote, but it
came a little bit of a him, but it wasn't it.

(55:16):
Here was this this nineteen eighty six or eighty seven,
something like that. Yeah, So Jenny Jackson's record to come out,
so everybody was trying to do that. What have you
done for me lately?

Speaker 7 (55:27):
And what was that?

Speaker 3 (55:28):
What was what was that song by that group?

Speaker 7 (55:32):
Album?

Speaker 6 (55:33):
Nobody was another group because another one that came out
Alice be My Girl, Full Force, Full Force, Full Force
had a record, right, that was really dope.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
I want you just for me?

Speaker 6 (55:42):
Yeah, but so so the baseline for heat Stroke was
a kind of a combination of reboff for Jimmy and
it was like, so it was like.

Speaker 9 (55:50):
Doom doom, but do doom, but do do doom doom
doom doom, but do do but boom boom, you know.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
So, so it was that and the song was horrible too.

Speaker 9 (56:05):
He stroke up.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
The moment, it was kind of fly. It was flying
for the time. But usually my jokes songes and and
being his I'm trying to be all that's what happened. Yes,
ghetto Heaven Rush Rush Promise. I was serious. Notice he
put that one under another name, no noticed, Alice Smith.

Speaker 6 (56:32):
Yeah that was really dumb too, because at the time
till now because in two thousand, around two thousand and four,
like they're not checking for us anymore. I'm chicking my
name to Joshua now picking up my new young hip podcast,
which was the dumbest ship I ever did.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
My fucking sorry, stop stop editing.

Speaker 6 (56:50):
Oh yeah, josh yeah, so I wrote, he did, he
is and but the thing is but inspired. That was
again going back to hip hop. What was there was
this record I Love Broken Language and Broken Broken Language
by Smooth. Yeah, you get that track like so so
so he was like the mind. So I'm like, he

(57:12):
is the dupe pleecta, the due protector, that's all. So,
so that's what I so when you can motherfuck it? Yo,
when did you hear her that song?

Speaker 4 (57:24):
You're right up the cocaine cooker, the hook cup on
your hookup, hup the thirty five cent shorts on my
two for five's overlooked.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
The rat turn off. The team turner asked, whipp I
learned the man, the money earner, Jack.

Speaker 7 (57:40):
The un Protector, the song band.

Speaker 6 (57:42):
Of Anything, I fear, the baby can shave, the.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Make believe the joke. Oh god, So that's that's the
connection between you know, the soul and him.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
But just telling your arm bead Broken Language by Smooth
the Hustler.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yeah, basically, now it's your number two.

Speaker 7 (58:07):
Now you know what The interesting thing about that project
that I remember too is that I remember them taking
a long time to get back to us about doing
the song because and we almost thought that they didn't
want to do the song, and we almost thought that
maybe they were trying to get somebody else to produce
the song. And it was like it was just kind

(58:29):
of a weird thing, and I think we almost gave
the song away.

Speaker 6 (58:33):
Yeah, what the problem was, they didn't They didn't intend
for the first single to come from exactly exactly.

Speaker 7 (58:39):
They didn't intend for the first single to come from us,
and so they made the right choice.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
They made the right choice.

Speaker 6 (58:45):
But finally, but about that album though, is and and
and and go back to Jimmy and Terry because we
love Love loved and one of the but that's the
second single was I Wish so.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
Sing.

Speaker 6 (59:00):
Yeah, I think it's called I Wish or something. But
there's a song we had on there called Forwards from
a Heartbreak. There was a really dope song that actually
should have been should have been the next thing, but
it was but it was a tie, so it was good.
But we but you know, it was a lot of
times with the music, it is politics, and you know, yeah,
and we we get it though, but and the name,

(59:22):
and we actually had offered that, so I think we
had tried to get it to Whitney Houston, and then
I think, Satan. I'm sorry, Chris Clive Davis.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
I didn't know that MySpace is still thing. Well, I
mean maybe in the archive world wherever that thing is. Unfortunately,
my uh whatever the bio in my mindspace thing is
like Clyde Davis is the devil.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
Someone from Arrison the album.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Yeah, Clyde, don't know now, I just said it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Though I wasn't inviting in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
That's why.

Speaker 5 (01:00:12):
The same night.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Everybody wait, uh oh yo, my mind is about to
explode right now because we're all over the place all
right since since no, no, we're just being sporadic. This
is why I want to know, because when I got

(01:00:37):
word that you guys were producing Spellbound second album, Yes,
her second album, her follow up to her, I mean her,
it was a massive record. Yeah, I mean Forever your
Girl was more like an industry that built virgin and

(01:00:58):
opportunities like that, don't they don't That story doesn't happen.
When when I heard you guys were producing it, and
the line share of the record.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
I was like, yo, like yeah, that's from him playing
in her house, playing a piano, And.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
How did that happen? How did it happen?

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Because I would have thought, okay, uh well okay knocked out,
that was upstart la baby face. But now that they're
the ship, let's listen, like she's an industry now Aftershock.

Speaker 7 (01:01:33):
First she wanted to do She wanted to do something
different she was.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
She wanted to make an artistic statement. She wanted she
didn't want to see the machine.

Speaker 7 (01:01:43):
No, she didn't want to do She wanted the big.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
Enough to move past that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Yeah, that she was big enough to make.

Speaker 6 (01:01:52):
And she's really underestimated in terms of her artistic and
intellect and discipline, so she was.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
She heard Rush Rush, so she flipped on with that.

Speaker 6 (01:02:00):
And then and we were working with a group called
after Shock that we did album for versions, and that's
how she kind of heard about us. And after she
heard Rush Rush, she loved that. And then what else
did we write?

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Then? I think Blone kisses new promise of a new
day and then.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
The new day was so dark the way those dissonant
strings came it. But but but the juxtaposition of the
video being so sunny and everything and everything.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
I was like, yo, but listen the coolest song on there.
I'm sorry it was vibology.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
What happened?

Speaker 8 (01:02:38):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
I think the MTV Award performance did it?

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Because literally the next day we were watching it, watching ship.
So the next day the radio the managers told us
you already is literally saying you're not sending us the
fat song, are you?

Speaker 8 (01:02:57):
Yo?

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
Man?

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
It was just I can in context look at I'm
googling the video so she no, it's not even the video.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
If she performed at the MTV Awards, And because you know,
I mean pre social media, I don't even know how
people managed to Like I knew, the collective thought was that,
oh my god, what happened to Paula exactly?

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
And they blamed the song, right, they blamed it. I
like that was the single they like.

Speaker 6 (01:03:30):
It was cost you know when you have like the
costume on wireless, but it was a wireless microphone. I
think something on the back of something that kind of
made it jet out funny angles and made it look
she's two pounds if that, and it made it look
like she was she's like three pounds three exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
So literally, the radio was because they were sending the
sing little next day they were like, you're not sending
us the fat song and just it just it killed
the momentum of that song. And honestly, I mean, if
I'm if, I'm gonna tell you that that form that
the backgrounds on that song, for me, is the most
proud I am of any background I've done recorded in

(01:04:08):
my career because of the fact that I got to
use my classical training.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
All of that. I did all of them voices from
the bar to the I did all of those.

Speaker 5 (01:04:17):
Can we can't ask you about that? Because Bill sent
a video audio of when she was in high school
and I was like, this can't really be.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
It was like the opera.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
I knows we're the government, the government tape.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
That's that's now.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Wait range man, Well, no, I mean I was trained.
I mean, you know, I went to like music and art,
where Erica went, where Roy Hargrove went, Nora Jones, all
that ship went out. They told me to stop being
so perfect, and I was he you know, it's like, oh, really, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
Did it race? Can you still hit the you still got.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
I mean, yeah, that's in you.

Speaker 5 (01:05:10):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
So the classical training never leaves you. But the that's
what I got. The best training I got isn't being
in the studio. Pet and Jeff telling me the feel
is the most important, the feel. Don't lose the feel.
I'm like, can I do that again? They're like no,
I felt good, You're not doing it again.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
I'm like, please gotta do it again? Like nope.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
So yeah, they didn't let me, you know, perfection. They
don't let me perfect perfect it. So you know they're
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Whatever to take is right.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Whatever to take, I want it to be like something else.
But if it feels right, and they both like, you know,
they're like that, and Mark Batson is like that, these
are those producers don't care if the note is right,
if if the if the pronunction. They want the take
to feel right. That's the prime objective. So you know

(01:06:09):
that's important because you know, I listen, I was actually
today listened to a bunch of like, you know, seventies
and eighties stuff like Jeane carn and you know, infinities,
and I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Like, she ain't singing it. Then it ain't like perfect.
It's about the field.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
It's about you know, it's about where where she's where
she's coming from with the note. It's not about where
to note, where to know lands where she come from.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
But it's funny because she still has a similar background
as you were. She knows how to do it classic.

Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
Oh yeah, she's classically trying to h Jeff, you're not
getting away with us.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
I'm sorry. I have to at least back up the
tree in at least fifteen years just to start with.
Or first for starters, you were taught by you, step
latif No.

Speaker 7 (01:06:55):
I studied with him for a second in college for
a second, and I wasn't taught by him. I went
to Burrough of Manhattan Community College for about a year.
That was just my extent of college because once I
made it out of high school, I don't know how
I said, yeh, college to try. So I got in
there and and I studied with him for a little while,

(01:07:18):
and he was you know, he shown me some things.
In fact, I didn't even know he played flute. I
didn't know what the flute was his thing. And you know,
I just once a week I go and he you know,
just do some private lesson things. And you know, that's
about my extent. The extent of me studying with him.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
What is your preferred weapon of choice as far as
your arsenal is a soprano alto tenor.

Speaker 7 (01:07:44):
I've been playing a lot of soprano lately. I don't,
I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
I mean, gun to your head? What do you what's
what's your acts? Because you have so many? Don't say
with the sky.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
That one.

Speaker 7 (01:08:08):
But I've been playing a lot of soprano, probably the
last maybe maybe four or five years. I've been playing
a lot of soprano, a lot of sopran on Barry
though I love you on Barry too, but that doesn't
make me enough.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Okay, I'm gonna ask you. Okay, So here's the question
I asked. So our particular sex player, Uh, Ian, Uh?
What's Ian's last name?

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):
And Hendrickson Smith Ian hendricks and Smith formerly of the
Dad Kings. And so the thing is that Ian hates
when I make him break out the soprano.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
He doesn't now for us, it's hilarious, but he hates
the sheen associated with the soprano. Well, I mean that,
And you know it's almost like I guess the Unwritten
rule is like after Coltrane.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
Okay, you know it's done with it?

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Who else wants to and more power Wayne Shorter, more
power to you know, I know there are other greats
that have touched.

Speaker 7 (01:09:14):
I didn't like Coltrane's sound on soprano.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
You serious sound, You're you are one of a kind.

Speaker 7 (01:09:21):
I didn't like his sound on soprano. Tanna, He's my
favorite all time, but soprano I didn't like. I didn't
like his tone on who did you like?

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
On soprano?

Speaker 7 (01:09:30):
I like Wayne Shorter?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Oh yeah, okay, so you feel the definitive sound of
the soprano sacks is Wayne Short, but.

Speaker 7 (01:09:36):
Not the definitive sound. I just his sound just connects
with me more on soprano cold training because I think
he got if I remember correctly, that was something that
was a gift from Miles, right, yes, yeah, so you
know he picked it up. I guess he was trying
to do something. But I wasn't crazy about his sound Sonically,
his sound, I wasn't crazy about it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
What were you looking for, Leary?

Speaker 7 (01:10:00):
I wasn't looking for anything. It just wasn't connecting me.
It just sounded kind of no, not even contrived. I
think he was sincere about what he was doing, but
it just didn't sound it wasn't for me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
That's so, what's your favorite period of COULTREYMN.

Speaker 7 (01:10:17):
Giant Steps, spiral or no, that the stuff when you
don't like the stuff when he started I mean I
liked I mean the stuff when he started going out,
it just got a little bit too out for me. Okay,
but uh the era of Giant Steps before that, you know,

(01:10:39):
stuff he was doing in the sixties with Miles was.
I loved all of that stuff. I mean, he had
like a sound to me, he just had his sound
just connected.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
I remember, so, who's your sex guy then?

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
Because I just naturally assume that everyone worships the culture
no matter what.

Speaker 7 (01:10:59):
Yeah, culture ain't no matter what.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:11:02):
I like Michael Brecker. He was like that cat to me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
Song hero Okay, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:11:12):
I mean those two guys. I mean, there's just so
many guys. I mean, I could go back to Dexter
Garden and pres had his own sound. You know, this
smooth thing. Uh Bird was just Bird was fast. I mean, ah, man,
Bird was just.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
So I don't know, Manka, So explain to me, because
the thing is that you managed to capture the one
the one thing I always hear about when uh An
iconic solo is captured in the song. It's always the
same story, and the story is okay, guys, I'm ready
to cut it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
Nope, we got it already. That was very much.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
I know that's your story. Yeah, but are you once
did you know that you captured lightning in a bottle
with your sexophone and solo carabing.

Speaker 7 (01:12:08):
No, no, that that I have to give credit to
the producer, Keith Diamond at the time, because he was
the one that he knew pretty much what he wanted
in terms of.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
The song, so we.

Speaker 7 (01:12:22):
Would just take sections because I mean, I went into
the studio and I was just kind of trying to
get a feel of what the song was, and they
had the tape rolling. He told Bob Rosea to roll
the tape while I was playing and I was in
front of the mic. They were trying to get a sound.
So I said, okay, I think I got something, and
then he said, no, come on in. I was just

(01:12:46):
warming up.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
Let me just do a take of it.

Speaker 7 (01:12:49):
And no, No, that song, that song was pieces because
he had the whole tape rolling and he took pieces
of what I played throughout the from the beginning of
the song to the end, I want you to play
this part here, and we just kind of constructed the
solo and the and the interesting thing about it is

(01:13:17):
like after that song blew up Man, I was getting
calls leg everybody and their mother was calling me and
my friend Van. He said, yo, Jeff, you need to
start charging people because I was under charging people. He said,
you know your ship is hot, you need to get
paid for it. So I just started charging people. Yeah,

(01:13:37):
I ran up a lot more.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
Ste to this.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
So when Billy Ocean finally agreed to come on the show,
this is after six long years of begging, please come
on the Tonight Show, Please please please Tonight Show. And
he finally agrees to to the show, and we're losing
our ship. And then I'm looking at Ian, our sax player,

(01:14:06):
and we were like, dude, you have to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
Note for fucking and do we spend two hours just
singing that ship to him?

Speaker 5 (01:14:18):
I don't know that between that solo and Carolin's whisper.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Here's the thing though, It's like I know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
A lot of Tarik's lyrics. Tarik, you know, I mean,
Tarik will let me let me not misrepresent him. I
think the average person knows like can can retain like
maybe seventy five songs or seventy those things. But it's

(01:14:52):
just like, I mean, I know that song because I
DJ it so much. I you know, watch TV.

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
An American Americans who were born before eighty have to
know that that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Yeah, she feels like like she means Chief is like deep,
like he's like Doug carn He's free.

Speaker 5 (01:15:09):
Jazz, jazz, boozie, jazz, boogie.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
Is like he's more avant garde. That's where his heart is.
I mean, he made his meat and potatoes as the
Dap King, so.

Speaker 5 (01:15:20):
All that, Like you don't think it's boogie when you
all know the solo Caribbean.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
No, no, no, you know it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
But I don't think like any anybody that's on the
Tonight Show now. Like again, my story is that I
didn't grow up saying, hey, one day I'm gonna be
the new Doc Severson of the Tonight Show.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
It just happened and I'm prepared for it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
But part of the job of being on the Tonight
Show is that you all the pop culture sponging that
you've done your life, everything you've learned now gets utilized
on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
So I mean you know that solo. But it's like,
now you got to execute a perfect you.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
That's different.

Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
Oh yeah, that's no, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:16:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:16:07):
I love that little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
Wait wait.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
You still when's the last time you had to play
that still verbatim? Or don't tell me thirty five years
ago after I did it?

Speaker 7 (01:16:36):
That was it when I had to play it?

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
Yes, I can't.

Speaker 7 (01:16:41):
Oh no, no, no no. The only two times I
really played with him was one night the week the
night he was on Saturday Night Live. He did two
nights at Radio City. Those were the only times that
I ever played with Billy, And ironically, the the last
night that I him was when I lost the horn

(01:17:02):
that that I had because we went out.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
You literally lost that horn.

Speaker 7 (01:17:07):
Let me tell you what happened after the show, you know,
because he sold out Radio City two nights. I sat
him with him two nights. The second night we went
and we after the show, we went to kind of celebrate,
you know, went up, got a couple of drinks. I
went down into the after we were done, I went
down into the garage to get my car. The guy

(01:17:31):
brought my car. My horn was in the back of
the car. I didn't put it in the car. Yet
I paid, went and paid for the car and drove
off and left my horn. When I got home, I
looked in the trunk. I was like, oh shit, So
I went back to the garage. Of course, they didn't
see nothing. They didn't see they didn't see nobody saw anything.

(01:17:55):
And so the only time I ever see that horn
for reruns of Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
And if somewhere in life there's like some grandkid that
got a saxophone for church, not knowing what they just got.

Speaker 7 (01:18:08):
Yeah, well somebody, Yeah, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 4 (01:18:12):
I think she'd be in a black Sonian.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
So Sondra, okay, so your journey is just as rich
as well. I tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
We're not even going to get properly get to the
family stamp. This is almost like a nine part episode.
How much pounding of the payment did you do in
New York?

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Oh wait, can you wait one second please, we're getting
a phone call.

Speaker 3 (01:18:45):
We're getting a.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Phone call right now, James Harris the third, Yes, sir,
how you doing. I'm currently right now taping an episode
of Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Okay, I regret the form.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
You of this, and I've I've made a public I've
declared my loyalty, my allegiance to you since the history
of my show. But but you are now officially in
second place.

Speaker 8 (01:19:09):
As you're you you've been, You've you've been.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
You've been demoted to second place because the Family Stand
episode is the craziest thing I've.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
Heard in my life? Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Yes, I'm currently right now with with v Jeffrey, Sounder's name,
Victor and Peter and yeah, I have.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
To tell you that live on the air, that love
you know that, thank you for giving me give me
the hands up on Friends Radio. They're going to do yourself.

Speaker 7 (01:19:56):
Yes, I know, yeah, yeah, we want to come on you.

Speaker 6 (01:19:59):
More sympathy love.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
I'm sorry, this is the craziest the stories I've heard. It's,
you know, like we're very organized, we're going to chronological
order now.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
It's just going all over the place.

Speaker 9 (01:20:12):
I can't wait to hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Man, yes, man, anyway, I just want to let you
know you're number two, but you're still number one.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
But you're number two, you know, would you say number one?
I'm still number one as a solo acto.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
Yes, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
I'm just gonna get my category.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
Together, all right, You're still the number one solo Act
on Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Think perfect, Okay, all right, bro, all right, God'll.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
Hold up, hold up, wait a minute, all right, you
know when you hear my voice, sorry you're disappointed, but
you're gonna have to wait seven more days to get
This is beyond team this is this is wow. I
can't even describe what you're experiencing right now. I think
this is probably shaping up to be one of.

Speaker 3 (01:21:03):
My favorite episodes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
And I know I went on record to say that
Jimmy jam had the absolute best episode of Quest Love Supreme.
But this might be neck and neck. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:21:13):
I'm gonna have to ask the rest of the Team Supreme.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
So please join us next week for part two of
this legend already legendary classic.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
Instant classic episode of the family stand on Quest Love.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Subprime, Quest Love Supreme. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.