The Chic Story: The Legacy Of Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards [Episode 330]

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mixing in some funk in R and B with our
rock and roll. It's the story of she Coming up
next with author Chris Sutton. I'm booked on Rock.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
We're totally rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you
you're reading little hands this, it's time to rock and
roll up. We are totally booked.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Everybody. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for
those about to read and rock. Excited to have back
a friend of the podcast for another guest visit, Chris Sutton.
He is the author of the book titled The Sheik Organization,
Every album, Every song, part of Sonic Bond's Great series
on Track. Welcome back, Chris. How you doing I'm doing right?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
This is the I think I've told you before. This
is the sixth time now.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
That I've been on You're up there. You're in the top,
in the top, upper half. And from what you were
telling me before we started recording, I know we've got
some more visits coming up soon, which you know we
can talk about if you like. You get to that,
but let's talk about CHIC, or more specifically the Chic Organization.
That's important because that's an umbrella term that's used for

(01:08):
a collective of musicians who appear on these records. Thats
you cover in the book. But at the heart of
it are two guys. One of them has produced several
rock albums, which we'll talk about, but let's talk about
the two main guys and the umbrella that is the
Sheikh Organization.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
So at the heart of this it's Bernard Edwards and
Narl Rogers going back into the nineteen seventies. Nile on
guitar as everyone knows, and Bernard Edwards the phenomenal bass player,
and they owned the Sheik Organization name, and they brought
in people they knew to play the other instruments. They

(01:45):
would use regular musicians, and they not only worked on
the chic brand which people know. But it's Na still
tells people to this day in concert they worked on
other people's records, produced, brought their own musicians in wrote.
But because these records were under other people's names. I
know NA still thinks this day that people perhaps are

(02:07):
not aware of exactly how widespread the Sheek Organization is
on records in the nineteen seventies. So if you go
and seem live, for example, he'll tell you all this
is Diana Ross songs. Will be doing it, you boi.
We played on this and we did this. So the

(02:27):
biggest selling albums by Davey Bowie, Madonna, and Diana Ross
for some considerable time were all ones produced by Narle
Rodgers and featuring the Sheik Organization.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Now Rogers at one time was a member of a
touring version of the Sesame Street TV show. Take us
back to the beginning of how She formed.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Well they started up. I think Bernard Edwards was asked
to put a band together to play on the road
for a singing group called New York City who had
a big hit with I'm Doing Fine Now, which came
out in the mid seventies. He put a band together,
got Narl Rogers in for that and that went well.
They then formed a band called New York City themselves

(03:12):
and they started recording and doing covers, and eventually this
led onto the Chic brand name being set up and
they went off with that in about nineteen seventy seven.
It's very very interesting, I think the early years of Chic,
how they get together and how they bring in these
these phenomenal musicians, and it's a very very identifiable brand

(03:35):
that they have, isn't it. I mean you can hear
it running through all those key records in the seventies
from the people that we just mentioned, but mainly the
Sheik organization, and I guess Sister Sledge would be the
other one that people would probably know that they work
strongly on as well.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
The most recognizable part of the k sound probably now
Rogers rhythm guitar. Tell us about his guitar of choice
and why that's go to guitar.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, he's hit and mak a guitar in his style.
He actually developed it. There was a song which came
out in the mid seventies called Scorpio by Dennis Coffee
and if you listen to that, that kind of chucker
chucker guitar playing that Nile kind of patents. He's very
evident on that, and that's one of the big components
of Chic sound, as everybody knows as time goes on

(04:25):
and actually experiments with even playing rock guitar. There's some
solos on the early eighties ship gaut but the if
I just played you the solo, you'd be going, oh,
who's this? You know, which which rock band is this
I'm listening to? And it's actually nil Rogers key on
there would be the title track of the Real People
album and he plays some absolutely scorching league guitar on

(04:48):
that sounds nothing like Nil Rogers at all, but it's
that kind of the rhythm and the groove and the
field that runs through most of their records sprinkled B
ballads as well, well, but when they hit that groove,
it's just phenomenal, really phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, we can't forget the importance of Bernard Edwards and
his bass playing. According to Nile, Bernard has a unique technique.
Talk about Bernard's approach to playing and it came out
of the fact that he didn't want to use a pick.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
No, no, he doesn't use a pick, which is surprising.
He tends to play with his fingers and kind of
plucking kind of style. And I mean, he was interviewed
once and he didn't even know what strings were on
his base at all. He hadn't changed them in years
and used the same strings. He was asked what strings
he played, and he said, which other strings come with

(05:36):
this bass? He said, it's a kind of a standard
I think in bass playing, and I'm going to say
in the disco kind of genre and you know, this
was kind of very, very tricky when when I was
getting into music. I'm not sure how it was for you, Eric,
but you were kind of in kind of tribes and

(05:58):
groups and that was what you liked and what you did.
But I never kind of sat in with it. If
you asked me what kind of music I was into
growing above, it said glam rock and heavy rock and
prog rock, and that was my thing. But I was
quite happy diving off into other areas. I don't know
if that's the same for you.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, I didn't know which group I really felt like
I belonged to most. I could kind of go from
one group to the other. I could be the Olt
rock guy or the Gothic rock guy, or a cure
or glam rock or seventies rock.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I think it was even a case of when when
I was offering to do this book and I spoke
to Sonic Bond Steven there about what I wanted to
do next, and I kind of imagined his reaction at
the other end, I mean, he was glad to have
it because it filled a kind of a gap in
the range at the time when I started working on it.

(06:51):
I remember back at the time when some of these
records came out, you couldn't go around to some people
I knew and say, oh, that record I Want Your
Love by Chic, that's great. They'd be thinking, what's going
on with him? Right?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, because people label them
as a disco band. Yeah, and that's not really a
fair label. They're part of the disco era, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
That's broadly because where the records were played on the radio,
and you know, you could dance to these records, but.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's funk, it's R and B, it's rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
There was a very famous feature in the New Musical
Express by a journalist called Danny Baker, who you may
have heard of it. He became quite well known in
the UK, and he did this kind of review of
Sheikh's Say Chik album where he was going, you wouldn't
expect me to say, but this is a great album.
These are great songs, and I love it and I'll
passionately defend it, and he was anticipating flak coming his way.

(07:51):
I think they don't really get the credit they deserve
at all for what they did and what they achieved
and what's going on musically these records. One of the
advantages of doing a book like this, you may have
had the same experiences. You keep having to listen to
the songs again and again and again and again and again.

(08:12):
What's he like on headphones? What's it like on the stereo,
and you find all these details and things, and you're
just constantly blown away by things you hadn't noticed, things
that you've discovered. What they wanted was for dinah Us
to go global and huge and not just be lumped
into the Tamla motown kind of bracket. And they knew

(08:33):
that Niall and Bernard were capable of delivering that, and
controversially so as we're undoubtedly going to talk about, I
would imagine because Tamla were not happy with what they
got completely and this is a complaint that you would
see coming through from time to time regularly. Or you've
made our artists sound like chic and you're thinking, yeah,

(08:57):
you know, the Johnny Mathis album, for example, sounds exactly
like Johnny math Is singing with Chic and that took
decades to get released because they sat on it because
it didn't sound right to the company.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
We can't forget Tony Thompson Chik's drummer powerhouse player. Yeah,
and an interesting story. The way things start with him
in the beginning is that he learned early on to
simplify his kit and learn how to groove thanks to
now In Bernard. This is from an interview he did
in OH five. In this interview that your quotes are
in the book, they had him remove a lot of

(09:35):
the parts of his kit, right, and they said, you
don't need all that stuff, let's get just focus on
the groove.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Absolutely correct. I mean that's the big thing. If you
take a song like you can take any Chik song,
but the one that I drive people mad with most genuinely,
he's probably Spacer by Sheila Ba de Vosh. And it's

(10:01):
a song that almost anybody I think listening to this
podcast will know when they hear it straight away. It's
been covered and been sampled. But the groove at the
heart of this is just absolutely to die for. These
guys are playing, which is Nile Bernard, Tony Thompson, Sami
Figueroa just play this incredible, just relentless groove that they

(10:22):
get into. And they used to do it in one
go as well. If it kind of went wrong, they
would do it again start to finish. There's no kind
of patching parts in or anything of that nature.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Right. They move fast during recording sessions, you're write.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Oh dear God. Yeah, I mean to the point where
they were recording the Sey Sheik album and the Sister
Sledge We Are Family album simultaneously in two studios. So
they're doing both albums simultaneously, and the horn section are
coming in and doing brass parts the songs. They don't

(10:58):
even know what they're for. I interviewed the horn section
and told them that they were on the second album
by Sister Sledge, and they didn't even know.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
They were given the charts. They just said, okay, it.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Would be like, okay, we're going to do this and
the covenent melody, Oh you want to kind of like this,
But they wouldn't know. I mean, this is what they're
telling me. They didn't know that they were going to
be I Want Your Love, for example, doing those brass
accents at all until the record came out.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Rob Sabino my keys to it in the early days.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, Rob Sabino, I mean she had some wonderful, wonderful keyboards,
piano players, and Sabino is a guy who runs through
pretty much everything that she'd do. Robed Sabina. He would
be the fourth probably member of the core band, which
would be musically guitar, Bernard Edwards Space, Rob Sabino, keyboards,

(11:55):
Tony Thompson drums. That would be the four and then
Figure over comes in and percussion of the piano players
are brought in, so instrumentally, that would be the core
of the Sheikh Organization band.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
If I'm not mistaken. Sammy Figueroa, I think he's on
David Lee Ross Crazy from the Heat, the EP with
California Girls.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
And I don't know I've hand, but he's on everything
pretty much. There's nobody listening to this podcast. I think,
who won't have Sammy figure out somewhere lurking on their shelves.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, let me just check the credits because I feel
like I've seen that name. Let's see, Yeah, Sammy Figueroa,
let's see personnel there. He is, Sammy Figurea percussion. He's
on all four of those songs on Dave c EP.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah, he's great.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
The first sheet hit that comes from the self titled
debut album from seventy seven, the song Dance Dance, Dance
Yawser yaosy Yawser, title inspired by a film starring Gig Young.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah. Yeah, they shoot horses, don't they. I think it
was the film, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't say I've
ever seen the film. I was aware it was from there,
and it's a decent starter. And you can hear luf
of Andros singing on that. He's part of the big
chorus at that stage when they did that song Dance
Dance Dance, and not even Tony Thompson's on that song.

(13:18):
They used a session drummer instead. You can kind of
hear where they're going with it. I don't think it's
the best of Sheikh's songs. Singles has its moments, however,
Everybody Dance, which is the next one that comes along,
is well, I tell you put that on And as
soon as Bernard plays that bass, I mean Heaven I'm.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Gone and Dance Dance Dance top ten single.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah absolutely. It's then finding their footing really and at
that point they haven't got the kind of the dream
team vocalists in place that normal gene Wright who went
off on a solo career pretty much immediately and they
did her album and this is the difficult thing. This
is the hardest part of doing this book. There were

(14:04):
so many little paths to follow and try and pull
it all together, and that was extremely difficult to do.
And literally every song that they did in this period
is in there, cross checking and making sure I got
it all right. But it was it was very, very
difficult to do compared to the other ones I've done,
which were much more linear and focused on one. Actually,

(14:24):
it's been a challenge a.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Lot of moving parts with the lineup.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's just following the path and trying to make
it logical. And then you become aware that we're always
talking about when an album is released as the key
thing for us, you know, when did this album come out,
But when you look at the organization, quite key for
them is when these things were being recorded because they
were so busy.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Oh yeah, so timeline was also a challenge in that way.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, it hadn't been so much as a problem before.
When doing Black Sabbath Alice, they see DC it's fairly
linear and very easy to follow, but this was kind
of like, Okay, I mean they're doing like three or
four albums a year at some point, man for themselves
and different artists and to this day I think, I mean,

(15:16):
I did a signing session for this, and there were
people who were for example, we didn't know they did
Carly Simon, you know. And there's a huge song over
here called why, a very very popular song, part of
the lyric kind of big thing, and there were people
in the record shop who were going didn't know this
was chic, but it is. They wrote it.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, they wrote Ley Freak. That's the song that tapped
the charts in nineteen seventy eight from their second album
titled Say Chic. I want to talk about the music,
but first talk about the origins of the lyrics and
its connection with Studio fifty four.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, they were going to see this is Narlon Bernard.
They were being invited to see I think it was
Grace Jones at Studio fifty four, and they inferred there
was a bit of kind of racism and a bit
of a problem going on, but they weren't letting basically,
and they should have been allowed in, and so frustrated
and angry they went home and started. Originally the title

(16:15):
was can we say this on your podcast? Sure? Yep,
it was fuck off.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
I wouldn't have gone over where on the radio.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
No, So I mean that's what because they're angry, not
so what they came up with, and that was them
shouting that, you know, with the dormant bands who hadn't
let them in, And that's how it started, was with
that sort of anger and volatility, and instead you get
this kind of astonishing, very disco flavored track this time.
And Lafreak is interesting because you know, there's a lot

(16:46):
of songs and you'll know about this in the music
that you like that you don't listen to them kind
of anymore. You don't engage with them. You know them
so well, like you know your whole lot of loves.
You stay away to him and ain't talking about love
or whatever. You know them well, you don't even have
to put them on. So what I'm trying to do

(17:07):
with this book parties to get people to go back
and go, actually, I'm going to listen to that again
almost in you. That would be my hope that people
will go, you know, I hadn't noticed that, I hadn't
picked up on that.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, exactly, like the like the strings on that track, right,
that's the arrival of the celebrated Chikh strings. In the
vocalist duo of Alpha Anderson Lucy Martin.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Alpha Anderson. You know, actually I'm telling the truth. I
actually have goosebumps now just saying Alpha Anderson and Lucy
Martin that those two together are just incredible at what
they do. And there's a lovely bit on the Freak
where Alpha Anderson goes flat deliberately, just slightly off and

(17:55):
and she says, I'm sure you'll be amazed, and she
goes flat unamazed, and you kind of here delights in
it when you I'm sure you'll be a Mason just
goes flat and Nile was like, oh, and he thought, yeah,
that kind of works. So she just It's just beautiful
the way these little accents and these little details come in.
One of the problems with the sheet vocalists, with Alpha

(18:18):
and Lucy's is they sit so well in with the music.
You never hear anybody talk about them outside of Sheep fans.
You don't hear anyone going, oh, one of my favorite
singers is Alpha Anderson or Lucy Martin unless you're a
hardcore Sheep fan. But what they do is they sit
harmonically well within the music. It's kind of like they're

(18:39):
not a buff. It's generally I'm not putting this terribly well,
am I. It's like you notice them, but you don't.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Well would it be would you say it's much like
Steely Dan, Yeah, right, where people always look to Donald Fagan,
Walter Becker, but all these great musicians, which people will
say there's a ton of great musicians that work with them,
but the average person will not be able to cite
those names exactly that.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, thanks for coming up with that and helping me out.
I think, yeah, if you said to people, tell me
about Sheik, you get now people are mentioned, now, you
might get burned Tony, But Alpha and Lucy I don't
think they ever fully got the credit and respect they
deserved at all.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Nilan Bernard, they worked with Sister Sledge for the seventy
nine album We Are Family, title track, huge hit. You
mentioned that in that same year, Sheik released the album Risque,
another number one single with good Times. There's another song
that to this day gets played all the time. You
say that song is not overtly euphoric a song as
it might seem to be on casual listening. What did

(19:46):
Nile have to say about the irony of the lyrics.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Well, it's going back to that kind of the dust
bowl era and the recession, so there's a lot of
that in them. If you actually listen to the lyrics
that you picked that up, it's kind of about getting by,
about getting through and coping. So it's when they're singing
these are the good Times, it's almost as though it's

(20:11):
kind of like willpower and trying to believe that things
will get better. So I think it's kind of quite
under the radar on that, and of course I know
you're going to mention it, bro I'll getting At the
time that they were recording good Times, John Deacon of
Queen was sitting there in the control room. This is

(20:32):
a fact. And while another one bites that dust doesn't
sound exactly like good Times, you've certainly got to say
that he was kind of remembering a little bit what
he'd heard from Bernard's bass, but that definitely.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Must be so inspired by it. For sure.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Inspired is the word we're going to use, absolutely, and
good Times I think is a candidate for Sheikh's best song,
particularly if you go for the extended mix and a
key feature of it, which we haven't We had it
a bit on everybody dance. You heard it on that,
But this one has got this great sheet breakdown and

(21:13):
this is a part of a lot of Chik's best songs.
It's where they just drop the music down to one
or two components, maybe the bass, maybe the drums or
both or whatever, or just Niles guitar, and then bring
the instruments back in one by one by one by
one by one till you get to the full sound again.
And it's a quite magnificent trick that they pull on

(21:34):
an awful lot of songs. You can hear it Honor
once you Love, you can hear it some good Times
and he drops right down to banandspass.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
That's interesting. Yeah, well that's just going back to what
your goal is, going back and listening to these songs
that become a part of They're almost in the background
when you hear them. Give them a listen again and
listen to that. I got to listen for that. That
approach to the production.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
It's brilliant. You're here. I mean, good Times is as
good a one to start with, and by the time
you finished and you actually focus on that, you'll be
there going. Man, I've got to listen to more of
these guys. But maybe one of the best breakdowns is
on the album they did for their singer Gone Solo
Normal Gene Right, And there's a great song on there
called I Like Love. And I've got to say that

(22:20):
lyrics generally are not Chiek's best suit. They just sort
of fit the music and can often be a little
bit maybe trite at times, but there is a very simplistic,
life affirming feel to a lot of their lyrics. I
Like Love just does what it says on the tin.
It's kind of like for anybody who's been in love love,

(22:41):
somebody is missing, somebody happy about being with somebody, and
that's what he does, and it's relentless in that and
you just have to give in and go, yeah, okay,
I'm in I'm along for the ride, and it's very
life affirming stuff a lot of what they do.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Chris Sutton is the author of The Sheikh Organization, Every Album,
Every Song Say Chic and risk Ae both top ten
and platinum selling albums, and as we know, disco had
begun to fall on a favor at the beginning of
the eighties. Ic released four albums, nineteen eighty's Real People,
nineteen eighty one's Take It Off, nineteen eighty two's Tongue
in Chic, and nineteen eighty three's Believer. The albums in

(23:18):
the singles from those didn't match the commercial success of
the past, but that doesn't always mean that the quality
of the work wasn't still there. Tell us about those albums,
what you think of them. I think it's kind of
mixed results. I know, well, there's one album there you
weren't a big fan of. I think it might have
been Believer.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, there's a definite sense. If anyone listening wants to
go straight to the best chic albums everybody, I think
he's going to say, say Chic and Risk. It's packed
with hits that most people will know. The album tracks
are also pretty strong. Going back then, you know at
Last Time Freeze one of Sheik's best songs, and it's

(23:57):
a ballad and that's terrific track. Interestingly, on Real People,
that's where Nile experiments be playing some rock league guitar
on the title track and does it extremely well. I
think you'd be very surprised if you play that and
thinking is that really nahlif they've not got somebody else
in But yes, it is there's a definite sense of

(24:19):
the Chikh. There's great moments on those albums. There's some
really good songs, but there is a sense of them
not really knowing where they're going or what to do anymore.
It's very tight as a brand what they do and
how that works, and it also became quite successful for

(24:41):
other people will probably move on and look at their
work directly with other people that would be I think
to be good to look at. But she definitely the
whill start coming off in the nineteen eighties, So you're
looking at albums and you go, yeah, some crackers on there,
some great songs, but the overall quality of the album's
is there with the peak of say Chic and risking

(25:04):
for Now.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
And Bernard though at least they've got work. I mean
in fact Now specifically he wasn't lacking work, so he
was making the paychecks were coming in and a high
point being part of the Diana Ross album from nineteen eighty.
They were both both part of that. Yeah, then the
album Diana.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
I think the thing that did it was they did
the normal Jeene write album in seventy eight called Norman
Jene that was their former singer on the first album,
she and it's a really good album and there's some
great songs on it, but it wasn't pulling up any
trees or doing well sales wise. If you're a Sheep fan,
you've got to go listen to it because some wonderful
stuff on there. But the big thing for them comes

(25:47):
with that Sister Sledge, with Our Family album, their Sister SLEDGEWK,
you know, going along okay, lower reaches of the charts,
doing okay, and that album goes stratospheric the way our
Family album them, and it's got thinking of You on it.
It's got He's the greatest dancer lost in music, the

(26:08):
wonderful lost in music we have. These are big, powerhouse,
big songs. So what they've done was take a band
who were doing okay and suddenly make them enormous, enormous.
And they'd written all the songs, played on all the songs,
brought the shekh back inquir of vocalist in on all
the songs, produced it. So I think people watching in

(26:30):
the industry you'll know this, they'd be thinking, like, if
those guys can do that for Sister Sledge, what can
they do for our artists, our people and so in
nineteen eighty you get that Sheila and B Devotion and Spacer,
the absolutely phenomenal song Spacer is on that, and then
the big one Dying a Us Upside Down coming out

(26:54):
My Old Piano, And they turned in this fantastic record
with went okay, and so they had it remixed and
had her regular engineer Ros Tarana worked on it to
make it more Dina Ross like. They felt that it
was too much of a sheet record, so they wanted

(27:15):
to tone down the sheetness and make it more of
a Dina Ross sounding record. When they put out the
deluxe edition, you had the benefit of getting the Sheik
original mixes. Yeah, I mean there are big winners, like
my Old Piano is just so much better on the
original Sheek mixes with this huge, long jazzy solo from

(27:38):
Narl Rodgers, and I think it sounds great. But equally so,
some of the dynamics that Ross Trana puts in on
the remix are probably better than what Ala Bernard got.
Kind of dynamics doesn't seem to be such a big
thing on their records. I've noticed whe when people have
remixed or remastered their work that the dynamics tend to

(28:02):
be better.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Well, let's get into Nile some more. In the production
work he did, he worked with so many classic rock artists,
most notably David Bowie. He co produced nineteen eighty three's
Let's Dance with Bowie, huge hit album hit singles Modern Love,
the title track China Girl. Stevie Ray Vaughan on Gatari,
then relatively unknown guitarist at the time, talk about how

(28:26):
Bowie at that time, he's without a label and he's
looking to make his biggest record. Yet why did he
choose Nile to produce.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
He chose not to produce because he wanted his biggest record.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yet there you go, simple as that.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
It is as simple as that. It really is as
simple as that. He it's a case of putting the
Davy Bowie nous onto whatever Nile and his band could contribute,
and Nile used all of the Sheikh alumni who were
available to him at that time. There were issues with

(29:01):
Tony Thompson and there were issues with Bernard Edwards by then,
which were down to reliability, and that was because of
kind of issues that both guys and Nol himself and
probably everybody concerned him making records around that time would
have maybe had issues and challenges, should we say, but

(29:24):
Nle didn't want to ruin the sessions or delay the
sessions on such an important album, So Bernard Edwards only
plays on one track and Tony's I think on two
or three or four tracks. Bernard Edwards is on without You,
which obviously is my favorite track on Let's Dance, because
it's our fully set of Sheikh alumni that we get
on the album, and I do really like that. It's

(29:48):
a curious album Let's Dance. When you look at it,
it's certainly very much targeted at the mainstream, and the
whole idea was was that it would bring in people
who weren't Davey bow fans, and I remember at the
time it certainly did that. There were people buying that
record who who hadn't got the back catalog on URCA

(30:10):
or maybe got one or two items from it, and
he did it. It was success. It's the least biggest
selling album.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
I remember it well as a kid that there were
people in my neighborhood that had the cassette knew nothing
about Bowie's music prior to that.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds ridiculous to say that doesn't it.
But you go back and you think he really did
push him to a completely new level. Davey Bowie, you know,
the all these hit albums was taken to a new level.
And when you look at the album, it's the sequencing
is quite interesting. Side one is where the hits are
plus without you, and then inside too you get some

(30:47):
songs by outside songwriters coming in as well. So it's
not that I would say that it's anywhere here who's best.
I don't know anybody. I've never met anyone who would
say it's Davey Bowie's best album, but it's his most
successful album.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Stan Harrison played the sax and flute on the album.
He told you about that experience. What did he have
to say about working with Bowie and now, well.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, I mean everybody interviewed, but he has a bad
word to say about working with Niall and recording sessions.
They found him very intentive, a very easy person to
work with and get on with. And surprisingly also I
thought David Bowie seems to be an amazingly easy guy
for people to get on with. Sammy Figueroa talk going

(31:32):
off and having something to eat and coming back for
a nap while he'd recorded the percussion parts for Let's Dance,
And you know, he sits there and then they roll
the take back and play per David and he goes, yeah,
that's great, well done. And Stan Harrison had exactly the
same kind of experiences as well. He found the very
easy guys to work with. Bernard Edwards appears to be

(31:56):
the one who would be more tricky, more of a
discipline area and more. Somebody would have people on point
then not Rogers was.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
He produced three songs now did on Mick Jagger She's
the Boss from eighty five. He and Bernard they appeared
on a couple songs on Paul Simon's nineteen eighty three
album Hearts and Bones, and that that same year I
didn't know this, they produced the in excess single Original
Sin Share the Story of this one now called any
Special Guest.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah. Well though, and this is the thing when you're
not Rogers and you and you're recording with him, He's
got his book handy, and he felt they needed some
extra on the backing vocals to handle that in the
harmony vocals. So he just calls Daryl Hall, I gotta.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Listen to it again. Can you pick up on his
voice in there.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Can I be Seid totally honest with you? No, no, eh,
not for me, No, But I'm not hearing where he
is on it terribly well. But I can understand why
in excess were impressed by by his ability to do that.
And the other one from that area that we have
to include is Madonna. I mean, that was the biggest

(33:01):
album for Ages that the Virgin album, because you get
the unlike a Virgin, you get you get where she
were and where sheika going. So the actual band play
on about half of the album. You look at the credits,
and then on about half of the album it's Nile
and the synth and so on.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
But that's an example, Chris, I never knew that they
were part of that album. How many people even know
that I'm the hardcore fans.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
I don't know anybody does. I've never met anybody. I'm
doing this book. People were going like a Virgin. In fact,
when I did this signing session, I was telling that
they were going like really, yeah, really?

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Did she talk about it a lot?

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Nil has this thing where he feels he said in
the pasting interviews that people like Bowie and Madonna have
done the pr and the publicity for their albums, but
haven't exactly played up the contribution as much as he
films they could have done.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah that I mean, yeah, I don't. I don't know
any other way to really put it. I mean they
are partially responsible for the fact that we don't know
these things.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
It's it's a curious thing, isn't it. I mean, if
you look at the like of Virgin album, you look
at that track list and we're looking at well, like
a virgin material girl dress you up a cover of
love Don't Live Here Anymore Angel, It tells off towards
the end, but you do get the best song on

(34:35):
there for Sheep fans, he should we do without a doubt,
beautiful guitar part from Nalini and it's very very chicicy
in the sound on it. As I say, about half
the album is the full sheet band completely backing vocalists
and everybody's on there, brass section, strings, the works, and

(34:57):
then the other half of the album is sort of
and Rob Sabino and since and so on. So you
hear that kind of thing going on some of the
other tracks, but it is to all intents and purposes
yet another one a Chic album. The difference series is
they don't write anything. They're not involved in any of
the writing. On this one, he's purely Nile producing, doing

(35:20):
the whole production and then them playing on it. So
you do get that difference this time around.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Let's get to the nineties. There was a Chic reunion
in the nineties. They released ninety two's Sheikhism and then
Now released a solo album in ninety six called Chic
Freaking More Treats. Then there was there was a live
Chic album released in ninety nine called Live at the
Buddha Khan. This was taken from shows in nineteen ninety six. Sadly,
Bernard's final performance was it during the final show that

(35:49):
he wasn't feeling well and then was he was urged
to go to the hospital, didn't and passed away.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
It's the show you actually see on the DVD which
all that. Now you are literally watching the last performance
that Bernard edwards.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
And how long after that show did he pass that night?
That night?

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Yeah, maybe, depending depending what time the show actually finished,
I'm not sure what time he'd have gone to bed,
not sure, maybe three or four hours and.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
He pushed through that show. Nile was telling him before
the show, we don't have to go on go to
the emergency room. If you got to do that, do it.
I'm worried about you.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Yeah, And if he'd done that, he would have saved
his life probably.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Probably What was the cause of death, Well.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
I think he hearts attacked, pneumonia. Ah, he was extremely ill.
And Nil talks about how he he woke up in
the middle of the night with like a kind of
a shove and a push and a feeling, and that
was the exact moment, so apparently that Bernard Edwards had
passed away.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
So in other words, he had a hunch that something
was wrong or did he literally hear.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
It kind of woke him up in the night that
something awful was happening.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Wow, how old he was only in his what would
he been in his forties or fifties?

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, I think so, I'd have to check how old
he would have been, not an old man, especially imagination.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
So look, those are the tragic ones when something could
have been done, but they feel like the show must
go on. I'm going out there. I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah, he was good. I mean on the Sheik is
an album, He's probably some of the best work that
he'd done. I think really Bernardaause his bass playing is
extremely good on it. NIH's good on it. I don't.
I don't think the sound and the songs on the
Hole as good as their seventies era. The vocals I
think were a bit more solely then Alpha and Lucy

(37:49):
had this kind of they kind of had this kind
of glide over the songs that really worked with what
they were doing, and they fitted in well. I think
the vocals stand out a bit more on on Chikhism
for me, which is probably why I'm not quite sicking
on them. And there are some moments on it. There
are some good moments, as are two or three good
songs on Chikhism, but I think fundamentally probably they've never

(38:14):
really got back or got close maybe one or two
times to that.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
There was something that Bernard said now during that Japan
show that ultimately led to the new era right with
Nile and Chic, because he hadn't intended to continue with Chic,
but it was something Bernard said to him right when
he looked out at the crowd.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, I mean I think they realized then that what
they got, the brand that they got was capable of
going on for a lot longer. The popularity. I don't
think they'd realized just how popular and how big Chic were,
and I think they realized that Bernardsby would have been
anything that happened to him, that Nile should carry on
with the band. It took him a while, and of

(38:57):
course then it becomes rebranded eventually is not Rogers and Chic,
which is fair enough because there's nobody in that band really.
Since then, who goes back to the original sheet line
above than Nile.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
And what year would that have been? They had the
twenty eighteen album that they put out now Rogers in Chic,
But what year did they reform? In the two thousands?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
In the two thousands and they came back and they
slowly built the brand up, and what they've been enormous
over here got to be said. I mean, Chic sell
out over in the UK and Europe everywhere they go.
I mean, they are enormous and part of the reason
for that. I don't know what happens in America with
them or whether you get them over there, but you
see the setlist that they can put together is phenomenal.

(39:43):
Inasmuch as if you were going out with your friends
and you go into a festival or whatever, and you
know how it goes. These guys are going to come
on and ladies and they're going to play a load
of songs that you know, they're popular songs. You even
know the words to a lot of them, and you're
going to have a good time.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
A handful of songs that are just slam dunk automatic.
Crowd's gonna go crazy when they hear it. Do they
play the songs from the other artists that they worked with?
Did they do the Diane Rossa? Oh?

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah. Will always make sure that you're aware that that
the reason they're doing these songs is because he we
wrote them, we produce them. You know, these are as
much ass songs in a way. So they do Let's Dance, for.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Example, they do Let's Dance cool.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Oh, and they've even done Modern Love off that album
they've done. They've done some of the Madonna songs, Sister
Sledge that they'll do stuff and they can rotate the
sets around to cover many of these songs.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, so you put those songs in the set list.
You've got You've got what ten eleven, twelve tracks that
are automatic hits. That are guaranteed.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
I mean, they did the Glastonbury this year, not just
in chic and they just said effortlessly, we're one of
the best, if not the best fans on the on
the day because they got this enormous crowd and they're
going on and they're playing Shake Song, Sister Sledge, David Bowie,
all these enormous hits and the crowd know them, and
the crowded there all jammed together on a hot day

(41:14):
having a great time.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Hey guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
at old glory dot com over three hundred thousand officially
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(41:40):
glory dot com, make sure to use the promo code
Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock dot
com and click on my deals now. Unfortunately, you weren't
happy with a twenty eighteen album. Though it's about time.
There were three. It was hampered by three difficulties, you said.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, did I get it down to three difficult is.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Well?

Speaker 2 (42:02):
For start off? Before the album came out, they released
one of the best chic songs and I'll Be There,
And it was a phenomenal comeback. I've used that word
a lot, phenomenal, I know, but this was just amazing
and it kind of viewed some samples, some bits from
old cheek songs and they got Alpha and Lucy Back

(42:22):
and Fancie Thornton were there singing as well. Absolutely amazing
track I'll Be There. I loved it by the time
they'd reached the album, It's about time, the pun being,
of course, it's about time we did an album, you said.
And it's chock a block full of guest vocalists, none

(42:43):
of whom are one at all. I don't think they
really added anything at all much to the songs. The
songs themselves are often not great. They're okay. There are
moments where some of the songs that are good, but

(43:04):
it's not what he could have been, and I don't
think that's ever possible unfortunately, And.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
As far as the guest vocalist. Do we have.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Well, Elton John's on there, Lady Gargar is on there,
and Lady Gaga is one of the ones where he
goes a bit wrong. I mean she does, she does
I Want Your Love, And I think that would have
worked better if it had been done very differently. I
think it's similar to the point where it doesn't work.

(43:38):
I think that's one of the problems with it. And
there are various other people who, to be honest, I've
never really heard of.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Right, I'm looking through it here, Heiley, Steinfeld, Lunch Money, Lewis.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Who are these people? I looked them up and I still.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Didn't that nail. Yeah, you would think though with well,
there was a Prince song that there was going to
be he was going to include on there, but when
Prince passed away he pulled it.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah. That's a shame, wasn't it, because that might have
been a good song. It just feels a bit of
a jumbled and you know, do you have records where
you listen to them and they're kind of fatiguing, right,
And to me it's one of those where I just
feel tired about halfway through the reallesseners of it.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
I should clarify it wasn't a Prince song. It was
a song about Prince that now wrote. It was a
conversation that he had with Prince.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah. I can't see them ever releasing another studio album
because it turned up in bargain bins and so on
really quickly. You can buy it for like next to nothing.
And it's a shame to say that, But these things happened,
don't they. I mean now it turns up on people's
records to this day. I mean, look what he did
for Daft Punk. It's gonna be one of the biggest

(44:53):
records of the last ten twenty years.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Have you ever heard his work there with Dave You're
Phil filltle Mouth, David ly Roth. Yeah, interesting album, it's
it's it's panned by fans, and I think some critics
appreciate it. It's very different from anything else that Dave
put out.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Well it will be yeah, yeah, yeah, he would be Yeah.
I mean Narle's capable of doing that. I know when
he won't be Brian Ferry. They just, for example, they
get him in the studio and just tell him to
plug his guitar and just play, and he remember him
no letter Well, what do you want me to do?
And he was just do Nile Rogers, So he just
chuck chucking away on the guitar and they just would

(45:35):
record him playing for like half an hour or whatever
and see what they got out of it. And he's
absolutely brilliant. I mean, as the Daft Punk records saying,
I mean that's that's one of the biggest kind of
floor filler, party tastic records probably over the last ten
twenty years. And that's Nile's guitar at the heart of that.
That's that's doing that the people.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
And he continues to work with other artists. He forums,
he producers, shek are still going. So he's he's doing good.
I think didn't she get into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame or he did as a producer?

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Not sure that men he made as a producer. Very
probably he would. He would be in there. She there.
That would be an interesting one if they did. I mean,
they deserve their place. They deserve the credit that they get.
I mean so many, so many great albums and artists
that they didn't. I say that Carlie Simon song they
did Why He is one of their best songs that
they did for the soup for one album, the Johnny

(46:32):
Mathews Album's Really Good, which eventually came out decades later.
The Debbie Harry album.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Is uh, that's the other one.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's not That's probably for me, one of
their least successful works from that era. You've got Debbie
Harry and Chris Stein coming in with with what they
bring to the table, and you've got Chic coming in
with what they bring, and the potential sounded really impressive,
but the album never really kind of takes off, has moments,

(47:02):
but it's like it sort of grinds and doesn't necessarily
work so well for me. And also I think lovers,
I am to say this, but Debbie herself gets a
bit exposed at times on the album. But I mean,
this could be controversial, but I wouldn't say that Debbie
Harry's got the greatest voice for me, That's my personal opinion.

(47:25):
I think if she sticks within her range and what
she can do, she's fine. But at times on the
album with Chic, it just doesn't sound quite right to me.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Pushing too hard.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Yeah, I mean you actually hear this on if you
listen to the like of Virgin album with Madonna, she
has a range, and when she's in that range, she's
really really really good, really really good at what she
can do. And shoeby Doo is my favorite song on
that album. And Madonna's well inside her comfort range and

(48:00):
she's terrific, absolutely terrific, as she's a material girl as well.
But there's a couple of tracks on the Debbie Harry
album where you can actually hear that you can tell
what Alphad Anderson or Lucy Martin would have been able
to do with her songs. They would have suited their
voices well.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Going back to David Lee again, that was that's been
the criticism of him. If he stays within his range,
it's great, but he tries to go outside of his range,
and he continues to do so, and he's been doing
it for years and people are just miffed by that.
They don't understand, why not just sing the Van Hillens
songs the way they were a song initially, which they're
in a range you can do, but he's trying to

(48:39):
sing higher. But yeah, that's their prerogative.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Yeah, I don't want to kind of make anyone annoy
anyone who's listening talking about this kind of thing, but
these really are facts that everybody has a range. You
go to the top of your range, you could be
pushing it and he might struggle. That is what happens
to almost any singer. You're not talking about people like Whitney,

(49:05):
Houston and so on and so forth, or you know,
these people have got these incredible ranges and can just
do anything. My dad was a singer back in the day,
and he used to listen to the records I was
playing and he would say, this guy's not a singer
or whatever. And what my dad meant was was there
are people who can do scales and can sing and

(49:29):
as singers. And then in this book there were other
people that I'd be listening to who got a good voice.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Well, yeah, there's a singer and then there's a vocalist. Right,
two different things, and they're both. You can be great
at one and or great at the other.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
But his point would be that if you are, if
you're a singer, you're not going to get nodes and
so on and struggle and losing your voice, et cetera,
because you trained and you learn this. And a casing
point is how Davy Bowie went for singing lessons sometime
around the Heroes era and suddenly he starts warbling and
kind of doing these scales things which he never used
to do before because he taking lessons. And then you

(50:04):
get people who've got great voices and they would just
kind of wreck their voices. And now rough might be
somebody like that. I don't know whether maybe he has
kind of wrecked his voice over the years.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah, I mean, a great vocalist is somebody. It doesn't
matter what the ranger is, it's just the way that
they the way they present the lyrics, what they put
into it emotionally, or the character in the voice things
they'll do. And David is to me one of the
greatest vocalists of all time. So just to put that

(50:36):
out there.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
But there's people I'm a big fan of Alice Cooper.
I don't think I would call him a great singer,
but i'd call him a great.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Vocalist yep, exactly, and.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Something like under my Wheels even schools out he puts
that across, and my god, he puts it across really
really well. But if you listen to those songs, and
if you try at home singing along to them myself,
a you're going to feel the strain.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Find the book down Rock website at bookdown rock dot com.
There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x. Also check out the bookd on Rock blog.
Find your local independent bookstore. Find out all the latest

(51:22):
hot rockbook releases, and before you go, check out the
booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked on
Rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com
the Sheik Organization, every album, every song, the books out
now find out where overr books are sold. You can
look forward at to your nearest bookstore. Go to bookdow
on rock dot com to find your nearest independent bookstore.

(51:43):
Now people can find you online, Chris, in maybe just
a few days or by the time this episode's out
online on your own website.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Well, yeah, the website should be up in a couple
of days from now, so I'm not sure when you're
putting this out, but yeah, I've decided to do that
partly so that I can kind of somewhere people can
see the books that I've been doing. I'm also going
to do lots of reviews about catalog things and put
things up about what I think about old albums, particularly
the older albums, and then linked to podcasts and YouTube.

(52:13):
And this kind of happened. When I did the Sparks book,
which you were kind enough to have me.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
On earlier this year, I got great responses from fans.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Well, god, do you know something, I've never had such
a big response to anything I've done in my life.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
I mean, boy, yeah, I kind of looked a little
silly because I didn't know much about them, you know,
and then people are like, I get these people commenting
of how hardcore of a fan they are and they
know so much about them. But again, I don't mind.
I'll embarrass myself in pursuit of discovering something new. I mean,
it's never too late, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Well, partly thanks to you. They were kind of coming
and battering down in my email and my door and
their messages, but all very nice people. I've got to say,
they will be lovely, I mean, wonderful people. And thanks
to yourself and all of these people, That's why Sparks
in the Eighties is happening right now. I'm working on

(53:07):
that as we speak, because all those people and.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
We shou admit it. Will it be Chris Sutton dot com?
Will that be their website is as simple as that.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
It's it's called Words and Music dot Online.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Ah, so okay, words and Music.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Dot on online. And it's so new that I was
working on it before talking to you.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Words and Music dot online dot online. Remember that, folks.
I'll put it in the show notes too, and.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
It'll be up in the day so and it'll love links.
I'm going to go and find all your stuff on
YouTube and do links to the conversations.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
That we've had all right now, can you share what
we were talking about before recording? What do you have
in the works? You've got two three books?

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Great, The Sabbath and Do one took longer than I
expected it too, and that's partly because the Sheikh Organization
one was so consuming and ridiculous in terms of the
scope that's in it. You know, there is no other
book out there I think that covers so many artists
that I know of in this way. But Sabbath and

(54:15):
Dio is now finally done and should be out. I'm
guessing in the next couple of months.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Oh Man, Black Sabbath, and Deal.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Okay, and that also includes Heaven and Hell. So we've
we've gone to those albums.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yeah, the Reformed line.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
All of anything with Tony, Geezer and Ronnie and so
has been covered, including all the live albums, is a
lot more than you might think live recordings, and some
very interesting interviews in that about the the remix of
the live Evil album, for example, which was when Davis
did which is to Die for absolutely phenomenal. So that's

(54:54):
coming out, and then I'm working on Sparks in the
eighties and I'm all so working on an entire book
on Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies, which nobody knows will now.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Oh so you're gonna break down the whole album, the tracks, the.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Album, the tour, that street tour, and I've got more
people to talk to me than did last time around.
So there's some new names that are going to be
featured talking about that, and I'm not sure how that's
going to finish up that book. I know what I
would like it to be, which would be like a
coffee table book.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Okay, And we're talking twenty twenty six release.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
If I'm very lucky.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Yeah, Okay, it just depends. But we've got the Sabbath
and DAL want to look forward to next.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
I mean, the thing with the Sabbath and d O
one was always about the name I think of the band,
and I honestly think that, but they shouldn't have called
it Black Sabbath when Doo came in. I think that
you can completely understand.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Why for marketing reasons, and that.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Really is the only reason to do that. I think
it was such a new phenomenal project that he deserved
to have its own name. I think Ronnie James Dio
never got the credit he deserved. And by that I
mean he was the singer in Rainbow and he come
from Rainbow. But I only realized how much he must
have contributed to Rainbow when I heard Heaven and Now.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Yeah, by the way, I didn't speak to you when
as he passed, just your quick thoughts on what was
your what was going through your mind when you heard
that he passed away, and your thoughts on that final
concert that he put that he would courageously did really,
I mean, and now when you know in hindsight that
he wouldn't be around much longer after that.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Well, to be totally honest with you, I didn't think
it was going to be around much longer. When I
saw the concert, I was actually shocked when I saw
him on the stage and you could actually see. I
thought that how much of an effort it was to
do what he did. It wasn't actually surprise, And I

(57:00):
know a few people who have said the same that
none of us was surprised when he passed away, perhaps
not as quickly as he did, but I'd actually been
around birming. We've been around Birmingham, going to all the
places where there's the bench and.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
The right which you mentioned you're from Birmingham.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Yeah, that's right. So we've gone into Birmingham to for
the gig and stuff, and we were actually went around,
did all the tour of all the places to look at,
and then he passed away. The reaction in Birmingham surprised me.
I think some years ago would have been black Sabbath fans,
maybe some others, but this you're looking at almost the

(57:37):
entire city. I didn't expect that.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
There'll never be another like him.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
No, I did spend an afternoon with him once. That's
when I met him and he was a really really
nice guy then and that was on his first tour
blist of OZ. He made his first appearance back in
Birmingham and he'd done signing session at Virgin Records in Birmingham,
and you know, you got the signing, the signatures and

(58:06):
stuff were hanging around and there was only about two
or three of us left and he said, oh, we're
going back to the hotel now, and do you want
do you want to come for a drink? So you're thinking, okay,
well we're not going to fit in the car, but
there wasn't a car. You literally just walked through Birmingham
City Center down Corporation streets at the hotel and a
lot of people didn't know who he was. Would have

(58:26):
been different years later, but at that point, what you know,
in nineteen eighty one, he was still kind of not
that well known.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Were you there in a working situation or as a fan?

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Hi fan. I used to work in Birmingham City Center,
so it meant you could always get to the Odeon
or the town Hall venues, and I very very quickly
learned if you got to any of these venues in
the afternoon, if you had a long lunch hour you
finished work early, you could meet anybody. I used to
go to like the Oudion and go down the side
ramp when they were unloading all the gear or whatever gig.

(58:59):
The band would turn up and they post a photo
sign autographs. That's so cool, and they were absolutely fine
about that. And I got into so many sound checks,
countless sound checks that I watched, and they were absolutely
fine about it. Come the actual like six seven o'clock time,
and he'd be like battened down the hatches, ready for

(59:19):
the gig and all that. And then you couldn't meet anybody.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
That just says a lot about Ozzie though. He just
wants to hang with the fans. You guys want to
come along, let's go.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Well he did, and it was him and Bob Daisy
League kerslate Randy Rhoades, who who was a lovely guy,
very very very quiet guy, didn't have hardly anything to
say really, and as he was actually quite quiet and
down to earth, people forget this. He'd turned it on
on stage, but off stage he wasn't like that at all.

(59:48):
I think he becomes like that as time goes on.
He starts to talk about who he is and the
Prince of darkness and all this sort of business. He
certainly wasn't doing that back in eighty one when I
met it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Chris Sutton has always Thank you so much and we'll
talk to you again soon.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Thanks Eric, It's always a pleasure. That's it. It's in
the books.

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