Guest Maurice Browne

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Episode Transcript

(00:18):
Hey, welcome back to the bookat that radio show. I'm doctor Robert
Benson. As always, before weget started, we want to say thank
you je Jehovah, thank you forSundays, christ thank you for a family's
taking for work and our ability todo the things we're able to do.
And I'm hanging out with my mainman, Eddie Ice g the engineer extraordinaire,
the guy who runs the nest thenetwork, who has a great guest

(00:38):
for us to see. And what'sshe say that, Eddie gu what's up?
Man? Hey brother, how you'refeeling man? How you feeling I'm
doing I'm doing great, man,doing great. I'm energized today, my
friend, because we have an excitingguest, a guy who you may be
familiar with his silky voice and hishistory on the radio. Mister Maurice Brown.

(01:03):
Welcome to the show. Mister Brown. It's good to have you here.
Good to see you again. How'severything. Everything's doing fine? And
thank you for allowing me to participatein your program this either. Hey,
mister Brown, I am still honoredto have you on the show. We
all have our soundtrack, if youwill, of life being from where we're

(01:23):
from. The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. I can tell you that your voice
echoes in my memory as a partof my soundtrack of life, talk about
what it's like to be a partof a culture and be a part of
what people be, a part ofwhat people remember their consciousness is simply by
your voice and your ability to shareother people's experiences and no sex of things.
Well, you know, it's itis one of the few jobs that

(01:48):
I can ever think of that Ireally enjoyed that I wouldn't have told my
employees that I would have done itfor free. But it's something that Julie
enjoyed. But you let me geta lot of feedback. First of all,
you enjoy the interaction with the withthe community with the listeners, and
you also and hopefully enjoy the musicand the accommodation of the two, making
well worth the experience. Um.You get to go to different activities,

(02:12):
you get the post shows. Um. And back then when I first started,
the money was very poor. Um. You know, it was like
a minimum wage plus and just alittle bit of plus, and most of
your money was made outside of thestation. Um. And so that's so
you had to enjoy it. Andit was a lot of fun back then.
That was back in the day.It was a lot of fun forty
fifty years ago. Yeah, Sue. Well, you know, mister Brown,

(02:37):
I know you've worked at a fewstations, but the one that we're
familiar with is w DAS and someof the Philadelphia area stations. And when
we think about the music and wethink about some of the different DJs that
were there, Tony Brown, whois no relation, right, meet me,

(03:00):
there's no relation, But tell usabout some of the others and some
of the history of w Dyes.Well, you know, we just want
to mention that we have about everythree months we have a meeting at luncheon
of some of the old staff,you know, Doug Henderson, we have
some of the engineers, we havesome of the disc jockeys who were there.

(03:23):
Charlie Brown was there. Um.I've been trying to get Mimi there
because she's but she's been looking afterher her her dad for a while.
Um, and we have we talkedabout what used to be, how it
used to be used to be alot of fun. Um. You know,
some of the folks still show up, like Doug Henderson. Um,

(03:43):
it was a lot of fun backthen, and that's what supplemented the money
that we didn't get. What wedid get, but a little little bit
of money way to get um.Because we had a lot of freedom,
We have a lot of opportunity.We played just about what we wanted to
play. There were some restrictions,there were some categories, but outside out
of that, we did have alot of freedom of saying what we had
wanted to say and introduced records andtalk about folks, whether as artist.

(04:09):
Over the years, I've interviewed aenormous amount of folks, you know,
and I had a lot of fundoing it, from Michael Jackson, just
Stevie Wonder to Maurice White, GladysKnight, he was she was a lot
of fun. Glass a lot offun. I don't know, if we

(04:29):
had the time, I can talkAbout'll say that real quickly. What happened.
It was with Gladys Knight. WhenI was doing interview with her,
was between two shows. She wasdoing two shows on a Saturday, and
was after the first show. Iwas with the producer of the record promoter
and he knocked on the door timeyou know, that's his job, and
he was asking, you know,Gladys if I could do an interview,

(04:50):
and she looked like you got tobe I just got off the stage.
She had a roll on, likehe just got at the shower and you
asked me for what. She didn'tsay a word or she just looks say
everything, and she looked come onin and couldn't start if we're talking.
She talked for an hour, thoughtabout it everything, and those are the

(05:15):
things you really appreciate. I thinkone of the best interviews that I always
jore and number was the interview Idid with Phyllis Hyman. And this was
no reason why she didn't give outinterviews and reason why she gave I did
a show on w DAS where wefeature an artist, ird feature an artists
for a couple of hours, andduring that period of time that I was
playing, I played the special onher. I played two hours I guess

(05:39):
her music and she wasn't coming outwith any albums at that time. And
she said, the only reason whyyou're here is because I had no albums
out and you played my music.You played two hours on music. That's
why you're in my apartment. AndI was there with the promoter and her
friend, and she really talked abouther life, problems that she had in
her life. And you know shenever drove that reason watch you live close

(06:00):
to thirty Street station and show shecould do shows in New York so she
can go to DC, so hecan take a train to Atlantic City.
And she had a lot of problems. He had a psychologist, a psychiatrist,
and she talked about that. Ididn't ask those questions because I knew
nothing about that. But I sayall that to say, those types of
interviews, those types of people thatyou meet associated with radio made it well

(06:24):
worth the time. Of course,when you're introduced shows and you're m seeing
a show that's where you made yourextra money, someone will say, I'm
sure not everybody reported it to theirs. But anyway, I don't think
say that I'll pay the mortgage inthe car. Note it's past seven years

(06:45):
of the IRS can't get but theycan always get you. But anyway,
so when we have these meetings,I keep going around a circle, and
we have these meetings every three months. We talk about things like that,
what we did in the studio withno one knows happening in those studios,
which some good, some interesting.But the people that you meet the people

(07:10):
who came through the studio. Youknow. I mean, you could be
on the air and all of asudden Share walks by, you know,
with her the news record, youknow, take me home. I turned
around. It's a share, youknow, you know, or you want
to happen to be passing by becausethey passed by w DAS, because that
was the number one black station inPhiladelphia. You know, he's usually one,
two or three in the city.So everybody came by that station.

(07:32):
And hope that answered your question.Hey most certainly did. And the thing
it's amazing to me is that yougot a guy who're sitting on the other
Saturday interview scenario, if you will. But this is a book. At
that radio show, I'm doctor RubberBenson with the main man ADIHG and the
great Maurice Brown. And when wecome back, we're going to talk to
him a lot about a whole lotmore. So sit tantum, We'll be

(07:54):
right back. See why. Listenersfrom over one hundred and fifty countries around
the world follow the Book Up DadRadio show join Doctor Robert Benson and Eddieg
as they chat with special guests whoshare their stories and information that will change
your life watch and listen on Lifeand Spirit online dot com, or subscribe
to the Book of Dad radio showon Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeart Radio,

(08:18):
or wherever you get your podcast.Brought to you by the NASCA Network.
Hey, look at that radio show. I'm doctor Robert Benson and Eddie
SG and move right back at youwith mister Maurice Brown. And we're talking
about and talking to a guy whowas a part of radio history, if

(08:39):
you will. But today radio itselfhas evolved to the point where we're doing
this interview the way we're doing itright now, we're face to face,
we're talking to each other. Well, in the past, it wasn't quite
that way. So Maurice, wewant to ask you a question about the
evolution of radio now to where itis to day, and I want you
if you could use a foundation foranswering this question by talking about Soul Train.

(09:01):
We're all familiar with Soul Train backin the day because it was a
national program back then versus how radiowas more local then. Now we've evolved
at this point where everything it hasthe potential at least to be on a
national level. But talk about SoulTrain and how its impact kind of changed
everything. And but the R andB flavor, if you will, on

(09:24):
a national level versus just at theradio level. When Soul Train was on,
I remember I was in school.Everybody used to rush to the TV
to watch Soul Train. It broughta lot of artists to life who would
not normally have the kind of exposurenecessary to progress in the field of entertainment.

(09:45):
I mean radio stations did it withyou know, he had to get
with the program director or you hadto know somebody who's on the air.
Soul Train open up a lot ofopportunities, and it was it helped hundreds
of artists move forward in the field. I mean different from radio from back
in the day. You're talking abouta couple of decades ago to today.
Now. In radio, you youcan't say what you want to. They

(10:09):
tell you what to say. Theysay you win to say it, how
long you have to say it.They pick the exact records that you have
to play. Before it was localin other words, w das used to
play whatever they you know, whatwe thought was necessary at the station.
Now you have a something like aClear Channel. Let's own a thousand stations,

(10:31):
so rather have individual program directors.They might have five program directors,
four thousand stations that set the parametersfor all the states from White and go
to New York or or DC,or Chicago or California. Here the same
music. And that's what ruined Ithink a lot of the enterprise of radio.

(10:52):
You know, it was no longerindependent, you know, because what
plays in Philadelphia is close to NewYork or what plays I'm from New York.
I was born in New York,and I lived in New York for
most of my young years. Butwhat plays in New York does not play
in Philadelphia. Dowcom to Philadelphia andpeople say, oh, that's a great
record by such and such that I'venever heard that song before in my life.
It was the number one in Philly. The same thing happens with DC,

(11:15):
so that no longer exists because allthe stations started playing the same thing.
Have these stations because back in theday, the FCC said you could
only own the seven stations. Nowcompanies own a thousand stations. And that's
the reason why people now go toSpotify or they have their own little iPods

(11:35):
or music devices in their cars becausethey don't want to hear the same music
over and over again to go fromcity to city, and it doesn't change.
You don't have that kind of diversity. A lot has changed. But
getting back to Soul Train, that'swhen opportunities for different artists really expanded.
And he gave them more than justthat local flavor. He gave them a
national flavor. It gave them theexposure necessary to progressive life and entertainment.

(12:01):
Well, you know, you openedmy eyes to something with that last statement,
because radio, as you said,it was local, which is what
made the sound of Philadelphia what itwas. Right, it was able to
transcend the local area and become international, but it still was grounded in Philadelphia.

(12:26):
The artists and everything was grounded inPhiladelphia. And as you said,
when the conglomerates took over radio,it just became generic. So I like
what you said about Spotify, andthis is the reason that Spotify, Phy
and Pandora, these guys are sosuccessful as because now I can listen to

(12:52):
what I want to listen to.I'm not held hostage anymore by the conglomerate
who is playing the same thing everywhere. I have choices now, and that's
interesting when you think about how thingshave changed. But it comes back around
to what the individual consumer wants,which is I want to hear what I

(13:13):
want to hear, not what youwant me to hear, to make it
more of a commercial enterprise. Sothat's pretty interesting. It's very interesting.
So that's a very interesting point,and it kind of makes me dig a
little deeper into it too, wherethere's a term that used to be floated
around called payola, where hartists hadpeople influencing people like yourself, Marius.

(13:39):
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat term and was it something that you
ever had to deal with the paolaissue? If you will just say that
personally, No, I'm not sayingno because I'm trying to protect myself the
scale to dictate, even though Iwas sometimes it was offered suggestions as to

(14:05):
what to play, and there's compensationfor that, um, but there were
there was a lot of payola.I mean artists who would have to pay
the program that I'm not speaking anyparticular radio station. We get that straight
up front, would pay the radiostation program director or general manager, and

(14:26):
all of a sudden you hear arecord played on the air which definitely shouldn't
have or it was a good record, you know, you know that much
the better. But that was reallyheavily. You know, if you didn't
pay the money, you had toyou had to pay to play. So
you want to hear play on theradio, you had to pay the money.
And that's why most of the performers, most of the recording artists didn't

(14:50):
make any money because their agents hadto pay the radio station in different radio
stations about the nation unless it wasreally get caught on and they had to
play it. But just to getthat initial start, because you got a
lot of artists out there, butyou get that start, you had to
get that push to get to pushand need that money. Um. I

(15:11):
don't know whether that exists in thecorporate life. Um so, I can't
address that way, but it definitelywas part of the environment for a long
period of time. Yeah, HeyLoo, Maurice. It's like your electric
bill. If you want to electricyou gotta pay right. Hey, we're

(15:31):
having a great conversation here with MauriceBrown, doctor Robert Benson and me Eddie
g We're going to take a breakand we're gonna come back on the book
of that radio show and give yousome or this great content. Thanks,
you have something special you have greatnessin you. Hello, I'm Less Brown,
Missus, Mamie Brown's baby boy.I want you to spread the word

(15:52):
to your family members and friends tolisten to Less Brown Greatness Radio dot com.
Absolutely, and let me share withyou why we're going to be focusing
on positive things. Because whatever youfocus on the longest becomes the strongest.
And now more than ever, whenthe suicide rate has increased over thirty three
percent, when the suicide rate ofyoung children between five and eleven has doubled,

(16:19):
people feeling hopeless and stressed out andpowerless, we need programming that can
bring out the greatness in them,and that's what we will be focused on.
When you listen, it will bean experience that will transform your life.
Less Brown Greatness Radio dot Com.That's my story and I'm sticking to

(16:40):
it. Hey, welcome back tothe book at that radio show with me
Adig, doctor Robert Benson, andthe great Maurice Brown. Hey, sir,
Now, I've worked with this youngman for many years, and you
know, I know his meticul styleof interview and the research that he does.

(17:03):
I've learned a lot from him,as a matter of fact. Talk
to us Maurice about some of yourfavorite interviews and some things that you'll never
forget. I'm looking here trying tomake a list real quickly of the people
that I did interview. And Ihad an interview over twenty people. I
can only think about ten. Itwas Jeoffrey os One, Michael Jackson,

(17:26):
Gladys Night, and the Pips.I'll say the Pips. I'll say the
real quick about what happened after aninterviewed gladyst Night. The Pips were in
a different room and I said,I wanted to interview blah blah blah.
Sit fine, they were eating.I said, I'll come back when you
finish eating. Said no, sitdown, so I'm not hungry. He
said, you want the interview,you sit down on knee. And all

(17:47):
they did had the recorder and allthey did they passed the mic between them
because they knew the questions. Theyknew the answers to the question everybody asked
them. And I just ate youthat Maurice White, along with his brother
Uh, he came by the station. Rick James Rick at a different time,
China, Marie Stevie Wonder, JeffreyOsborne. Jeffrey Osborne was a lot

(18:11):
of fun. Uh. As Imentioned before, um and and Lou Roles.
When I interviewed Lou Rowles, itwas like he made it sound like
we knew each other for decades.Um, he was my man, Maurice
Brown, how are you doing,my brother? I never make a man
of my life sound I trying tomake him sound comfortable. He made me

(18:32):
feel comfortable. It was he wasa nice guy. He was he was
fun. Uh. Some people werejust straight, you know, just answered
your question and that's it. Likete Marie was like that. I'm not
saying anything bad about the interview.She's no longer with us, but even
she was she was just straight.But some folks are a lot of fun.
Uh. Maurice White was a lotof fun. I asked him why

(18:56):
he still my name, but hewouldn't candle. But you know that that
was a large part of what wedid at the station, and again,
as I mentioned in the beginning,it helped supplement the money we didn't get
directly in our paycheck. Seeing,you know, seeing the artists being with
them, um, occasionally being invitedpersonally to a party they were invited to.

(19:21):
They were they were part of introducingthem at at an arena, and
so all that was part of theenjoyment of being in radio. Now it's
it's it's just a job. Formany of the people I speak spoke to.
And I was in radio in acouple of places Omaha, Nebraska,
the UH Inladelphia, Pennsylvania, Greensboro, North Carolina, and in them back

(19:44):
to Philly. Um because I wasin TV for a period of time as
reporter and angle so and in fact, I got into television because I got
bored with with radio. You couldn'tdo what I used to be able to
do. I used to be ableto feature an artist and spend as much
time as I want. Nobody botherme because they had good ratings. But
I wanted to feature you know,dynamic duels, you know Tommy Teama,

(20:06):
Marie and Rick James, or MarvinGay and Tammy Terrell or whatever I wanted
to do, or do a specialone glass night or whoever. But you
can't do that now You're you're limitedon your given instruction. You don't follow
them instructions. There the door.You know. The thing I noticed is
that, as you mentioned before,and it's not always about the money.

(20:27):
It's really about doing what you lovedoing, but you got to bring the
ends together, as simple as that. Now, because of that needing to
bring the ends together, you've branchedoff and you actually worked for the Philosophy
Housing Authority. Talk about how youuse your skill set in the media to
allow you to be successful working forthe housing authority. What exactly did that

(20:48):
look like for you? Well,I was with the Housing Authority for almost
about fifteen years. And what gotme into the way I could use my
talents in the Philipia Housing Authority isdealing with people. Whenever you have an
association with when you're in radio,you're you know, you're always with folks,
whether you're at a club you know, you're spending records, or you're
announcing, or you're at a coliseumsomeplace. You use that same type of

(21:12):
talent when you're introducing. When you'retalking to residents, it's different. People
are basically the same, and youlearn how to interact with them. You're
trying to get, you know,information from them that helps the authority,
that helps them, and so youtalk to them, you interview them.
So interviewing became very easy. It'sjust a conversation can turn into an interview.

(21:33):
They don't know that, but you'retrying to get information that helps them
and helps the authority. It helpstheir housing, it helps their future,
you know, their education, theirenvironment, and the problems that they have
and how you know, how Ican bring that back to the authority,
say, you know, there's aproblem here the residents are having and at
least I can you know, addressthat, at least they can address at
least I can bring it to them. So it's the talent of meeting people,

(21:55):
talking to people and being able toassociate with them, and maybe it
would It was very easy to talkto folks um because of the experience I
had in radio, and that's Ithink benefit of the Authority did a lot
of videos which which it grows,helped me with a lot um, you
know, with the authority talking,you know, interviewing different residents in the

(22:15):
higher ups, the CEO UM andI think it advanced the authority and it
helped advanced the also the residents atthe authority. I see, I can't
hear you. I'm sorry. Youreminded me of something. We worked in

(22:38):
television together too. Maurice Brown wasa great news anchor for Philly TV.
Philly TV news and um wow,I just I don't know why I forgot
about that, but that was great. We did a lot of things together.
That's how I know how professional,meticulous and great this guy is.

(23:00):
And I gotta throw something at you. Today. I was talking. I
was talking to the bank right andthe person, the customer service guy.
He was talking to me like,hey, thank you very much. I
says, Man, this guy hesounds like Maurice brown Man. I said,

(23:22):
hey, man, you could havea career in radio. I says,
you know, I work at radioand I've heard some great voices,
man, but you sound like youhave a good voice. So he's like,
oh, thanks a lot. Man. I was. I was hoping
it wasn't getting recorded and he's gonnaget fired because he's going to leave and
go on the radio. But I'mgonna blame that on you, Maurice.

(23:45):
It was a good time we hadat the radios, at the TV station
and again getting into TV in thebeginning with was because they had changed so
much in radio. I figured,well, what's the next step. I'll
say this briefly. Getting the TV, I had no experience in television whatsoever,
and what you have to do intelevision is interview people. You're doing
a story, and I work forI can't think of the cable station.

(24:08):
They didn't pay anything. I justdid it for the experience. In Philadelphia,
Um, you know, the interviewhad a little small newscast and I
do a stand up and people willbe watching, and it would really bother
me. I will look like,mind your business, I wouldn't say,
and I get all tensed up.And I'd been doing three takes, ten

(24:30):
takes, and finally the guy whosaid, look, you do the next
take or we're going to dump thestory. And you get into a habit
of just saying you've got to disregardthem, thinking of them as something else,
pets or something that doesn't bother you, and and talk't need to get
in TV. Once you get inTV. Though, was wasn't as fun
as radio. That's more work,but it was also well Marisa, you

(24:56):
know, I think it's great aboutit is that you know a guy that
says small talented as yourself and hasmany different sides. What side are you
using right now? What are youactually into these days? What can we
look for from you or tune intoyou that you're doing right now? All
right now. I get started afew months ago. I'm working at w
RTI, which is a jazz classicalstation in Philadelphia. I do a one

(25:19):
show on a Sunday night where Iplayed jazz, and I didn't know much
about jazz. You know. Ido das another station in Omahana, Braska,
but I really wasn't into that muchjazz. So I learned a lot
in a very short period of time. And and so that's what I'm doing
basically, as well as doing somevideography for different companies. I also do

(25:42):
a photography but that's that's what's happeningright now. Once a week that we
RCI Sunday. Wow, Hey,you know this is not enough time I'm
gonna get with you. So yougot to come back. You got this
open invitation. We definitely want tosee you back. And look at that
your show without a doubt, Eddieg that's it. He appreciate what was

(26:06):
that, sir. I was gonnasay thank you for the opportunity. Doctor
Robert Benson. It's been a pleasureof seeing you once again. Mister Eddie
Girl. We don't each other forover twenty years, and it's always a
pleasure to talk to you and professionallyand personally, and I like the opportunity.
Thank you for the opportunity of evenaddressing your your clientele, your listeners,

(26:27):
and I really enjoyed it. Thankyou well. I don't know anybody
could have said any better than that. So I'm going to say this is
that be around people who do greatthings and you'll always be successful yourself.
Be litmus paper because I'm around folkslike these guys here. It's been booking
that radio show Hang Up withan Maman Eddieg. And thank you so much,
mister Marius Brown. I've learned somuch from you today. You have

(26:49):
absolutely no idea. Thank you somuch, and we'll talk to you next
time. Biden b