October 21, 2025 • 60 mins
KCAA: Get Balanced with Dr. Marissa on Tue, 21 Oct, 2025
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh stump off at exhausting amster wheel and into balance.
Living with Doctor Marissa from Missuju. Doctor Marissa, also known
as the Asian Oprah. Her mission to be a beneficial
presence on the planet, her purpose to be your personal advocate,
(00:23):
to live, lap love, learn, her life motto, don't die wondering,
Take back your life with Doctor Maurissa Pey.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And oh Welcome, I'm your gune. Tend to take my advice,
I'm not using it. Get Balance with Doctor Marissa The
Morning Show here on.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Casey AA, NBC News, CNBC News and MEC Sports radio
station AM ten fifty FM one oh six point five
and streaming everywhere iHeartRadio, Spotify, iTunes, Tune in Audible, Amazon Music,
TL Rumble, Potja.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A streak Er Speaker and more. Why so many places.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I want to maximize my splatter zone for more hope
and happiness. So there's no gossip, no scandal, no Kardashian
talg at all. Instead, I want you to focus on
your own reality show and how you can be happy
eighty eight percent of the time. So you have topics
and guests to that end, and today is no exception.
You may recognize her from singing on stage at the
(01:28):
Agape International Spiritual Center. You may recognize her as she
serenaded me when I was sick at the beginning of COVID.
Everybody thought, well, I included thought I had COVID, but
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
But anyway, she was kind enough to sing to me.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Then. She has a rich discography, as you saw in
the promo for R and B chart hits, maybe even more,
but that's what it said on Wipedia as well. She
was the lead singer for Jerry Butler's Peaches, so she's
been singing a long time. The one Particular eight Understanding
(02:08):
Mellow hit number three on the Billboard R and B chart,
sold over one million copies and awarded a Gold disc
by the r i AA in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
She's also worked as a backup singer for people you
might remember, Ray Charles, Diana.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Ross, and Stevie Wonder, to name just a few. She's
also written songs recorded by Bobby Woa, Mack, Aretha Franklin,
Gladys Knight, and Prince Brenda. Also sings regularly, it used
to sing regularly, and Reverend Jesse Jackson's Operation Breakfast Choir
in Chicago in the early seventies. So please welcome to
(02:50):
my studio, Brendaly Agger Arlyn, You're welcome. I'm still putting
my face on. I went and worked out this morning,
so I, uh, I guess I could say you.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Can watch me do it quickly here. You could say.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
That I'm doing the Pamela Anderson natural look.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I love that look. Really.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Uh, I'm not as crazy about my Well, you're you're
hashtag ageless, so yeah, my my. I have a co
host that on Friday's James Hawthorne, who is always amazed
at how I can do this very quickly and without
(03:42):
a mirror.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So you're you're you're seeing it live.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Now and there we go all dead. So how was
that for quick?
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And it looks good?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you. It's called eight years of modeling, I hear you.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, so you learn how to do that. But Brenda Lieger,
we start every show in this past seven hundred and
two consecutive.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Weeks with breakfast.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
So what we do is take a bite of my
gratitude sandwich. Top of the bun is things that we're
grateful for outside of ourselves, and bottom of the bun
are going to model for you what you do before you.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Go to bed tonight.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
That is gratitude, what's inside of yourself. So that's how
we start every show. This lasts like three years, I think,
and it serves also as a way to.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Have us focused on.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
What is good in life instead of what isn't and
an alternative to this thing called MS meaningless scrolling that
we sometimes do in the morning and we end up
in a really as Rev will say, Big brother Michael
will say, puts us in a state of piss offedness.
And we don't want that. So I'm going to start.
(05:03):
You know, it was really interesting. Someone asked me when
I was going to start another round of the twenty
day Fast from complaining, and I don't know if you
heard of that, but a lot of a god bade
people joined me in that.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
When was it ry? Was it a duen? Gains came
to what got me? And so.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Complaining is the opposite of gratitude. And so I decided
to count how many gratitudes I could do.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Before I got to the studio this morning.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And I think I'm on thirteen. And the first thing
I was grateful for was toilet paper. Oh so you
know what I did when I woke up.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So, so what are you grateful for?
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I'm just grateful to wake up this morning.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Awesome. I'm grateful for the rain. I don't know if
it's raining where you are.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
It's beautiful, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
What's that song you're you're my resident musician?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
No, none, no rain? Who sings that?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Oh? Oh? I do that on my show. I can't
stand in the rain against my window. But that's.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I am grateful for the gym downstairs that I get
to roll out of bed and go on the bike.
And uh, I'm grateful for that. What are you grateful for?
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I'm grateful for my backyard because I go out there
and I do my exercises and meditation and I talk
to my big tree. George's in the back and it's
a big, big tree that I hug and talk to
and I just watch the birds. I'm grateful for to
be able to just go out in the backyard.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah. Awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I am grateful that this is consecutive week seven hundred
and two on the air on camera and I just
passed the four point one million impression mark on my
YouTube TV channel, and.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
For that, I am truly grateful.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You knew me when I started, like I think, yeah, right, yes,
I did, yeah so so shows yeah, because I went
looking for it and I couldn't find it on YouTube
and I realized you were It was when I didn't
have cameras in the studio.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Right right, right, right right. Okay, let's go to the
bottom of the button. Okay, So what is this. This
is weightlifting for our mental health.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
A lot of us are aware now thanks to my
honorable moniker Oprah. She brought I think, to the mainstream
the whole conversation about how you're feeling, if you're happy,
your mental health, the state of your mental health.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And that's a good news.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
The not so good news is a lot of people
have gone outside of themselves to find relief, whether it's
through legal or illegal drugs, to numb shopping, sex, whatever
it is, to try to.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Fill that hole.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And I believe, at least for me, part of that
was I just never really liked myself, Like, no matter
what I did and how much I achieved, inside, I
was a hot mess. So in order to help us
with our hot mess, this exercise the bottom of the
bunt is to say what do I like about myself?
(08:47):
I think both of us are pretty good at that,
and we're comfortable with it.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But it takes some work right to get rid of
that voice in your head. You have to really own what.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
It is that you like about your So that's what
we do at the bottom of the bond.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So Breda leeeger, what do you like about yourself?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
What I like about myself is I've learned to like myself. Hmmm.
And there was a time when I did did not
think that I had all the properties to live a
good life. I'm the oldest of eleven children, and I
was always the one who had to work to help
(09:29):
raise the younger kids. And at some point I thought, well,
nobody's staying near didn't take any attention, So I thought
I just was hidden back and not and maybe even
in the way sometimes. But I've learned that that was
really all in my head, and I learned to to
(09:49):
just thank God for me who I am, me being
who I am, And over the years it grew and
grew and grew and out. I love me. I wrote
a song about it. I just love being me, yes me.
There ain't nobody else I'd rather be. From the top
of the kids, from the top of my head to
(10:09):
the soul. I just love be and me.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Nice. That's a great song and it's so important to
do that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Uh, children to to to to understanding about themselves with
their special and that nobody else like you.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So yeah, that's what I work exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I appreciate my ability to pivot, uh, to take what
I call bruce bananas and make banana bread out of
them because I'm not a big fan of lemons and lemonade,
and you know, I have, like like Michael, I have
to you know, put my own twist on it and
(10:58):
make up words and expressions.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So that's my expression.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And I don't know if you knew this, Brenda, I
was not supposed to be here.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I was supposed to be on tour for six months. Yeah,
I didn't think you knew that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I was supposed to do Africa with Michael in August,
Canada in July, Ireland next month, Hawaii last month, and
Shanghai and Taiwan in November December.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And two days.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Before the first flight they found blood clots, two dvt's
and they I'm in a no fly zone now indefinitely.
And that was a tough one because.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You know how much I loved a fly.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So I've had a pivot and it wasn't like I
think the I like that, and I appreciate about myself
that I know that healing is not a light switch
right to adjust to something. I gave myself some time
to to be sad and then be mad and and
(12:05):
uh so I appreciate my ability to model and to
live out loud and to Someone gave me a nice
compliment yesterday about the hope that I inspire and it
was a huge compliment because they had just seen the
Jane Goodall thing that everybody has to watch.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Did you watch that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Please?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Please watch that you I blubbered through the whole thing.
So that's why it was such a compliment. You know,
to to be in that you know, hope inspiring place
that that you know that I was put in and wow,
like that was huge. So I appreciate that I that
I know how to do that and that I can
(12:55):
take compliments.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Now before I would have been.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
LEO understand, Oh that's right. So we're so hard to
take a compliment. I'm learning to thank you instead of
oh that that was nothing, Yes it was it was
nothing is something. So I'm starting to own up to
the spirit of God that lives to who I am,
(13:20):
who I really am, and.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Things are changing in my life because of it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah. Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Though?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And and and and you with your gold records and.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
With you know you see it behind you there, with
your butler and all that you've accomplished.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
People will same with me, like people will go what.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
You of all people?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Why would you even think that there was anything wrong
with you or whatever? Because you know why not just
Leo Brenda. But we are also really recovering perfectionists, right,
So that's another reason why it's so hard, because we
always want to do better. So when someone says you're
doing good, it's like, thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
But I still have.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
My first gold record I wanted to do. We did
it in one take. Jerry and I did it one day,
and I kept saying, I think we should do it again.
Jer said, no, you will not do it again. This
will be sold in the record stars just like this.
But as perfect as it was, I wanted to do
it again. I'm learning, though, I'm.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Learning, well, anytime I speak the truth or my guest
speaks the truth, there's a siren and you just heard
that one go by, so that.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Was the truth. But yeah, I love that African American
saying if there is no enemy within, no one outside
can hurt.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
You, which is so powerful, right yeah, yeah, So there
you have it.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
We just had breakfast together.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Thanks for joining us and taking a night of my
gratitude sandwich.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I'm hoping that you will do this every weekday.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Morning and if you're not driving, you can always join
us in the chat. I'm here every weekend morning to
start your day in the most positive way. Thanks for
joining us for breakfast. And now for the topic of
(15:31):
the day.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It says everything is awesome. The topic of the day
is MS.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Brenda Leeger, who's in studio live right now.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I'm gonna put a story up. But I don't have.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
An answering machine, Brenda. I have a questioning machine, and
when you call me, it says, who are you and
what do you want? So brand of the Agger, who
are you and what do you want?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
I am Branda the Agger.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Of course, I am a singer, songwriter, playwright, actor, voice coach,
sometimes lecturers.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Sometimes I will speak at schools or whatever. And recently
I just spoke about my life and it went over
so big I gotten jobs from just walking on a
stage to talking about me and my life. I was like,
you guys gotta pay me to speak about me, but
(16:43):
if it's beautiful, because they'll bring up questions that I
hadn't even thought of, you know. And what I want.
I want to Doctor King, of course is my favorite
philosopher or leader. But I want to do the will
of God. That's that was his thing, he says. I
(17:04):
just want to do God's will and and those parameters
are an actor, a songwriter, a storyteller, you know. But
that's when I get joined. And that's what I want
to continue to do.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
And that's a really good answer for that.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I'm just putting a story up on Instagram right now
that you're live in studio. If you've just tuned in,
you can get this live on my YouTube TV channel.
It's a free subscribe easy. Just ask my assistant Google
put in Doctor Mersa on YouTube or Asian Oprah on
YouTube and it will pop right up.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
You can then interact with us.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Ask our resident musician today, Brenda Lieger, any questions.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You would like, and yeah, that's what's going on in
studio today. So I didn't ask you. I don't. I'm
not going to ask you how.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Old you are because your hashtag ageless like I am.
But your career has spanned decades.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I mean that.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I will even say quarter centuries like I mean right, you've.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Been singing half a century.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Half a century.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
So did you know at what age did you know
that this is what you would be doing?
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Three years old, I told my mother that I would
sing around the world to make people happy, and I
started singing at three. My dad would put me up
on a shoe box and I would sing to the
people in the church.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Is your dad a preacher?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
No?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Man, No, that was an emphatic no. If you didn't
catch stop.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Let me tell you. My dad was an amazing man.
He was a truth seeker and sometimes he collided with
the people, the ministers in the church, because he saw
life differently from what they saw. And he was intuitively
(19:30):
very spiritual man. And yeah, so when I said he
was he was not a preacher. He knew. No. No,
he would be saying, I don't even know if I
want to go to church today. I'm just gonna hear
a bunch of this, a bunch of that, But something
good in a daddy. So he would go on. He
would go to church, but I would see him sometimes
(19:50):
sitting in church of him.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Was your mom really active in church?
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yes, my mother wasn't sure. Well, my father was a too,
he worked in the church, but my mom was more,
you know, the choir, the choir director, and she taught
me good things and check it or out, believe it
or not. My dad appointed me a Sunday school teacher
when I was nine years old. I was I was
(20:19):
a Sunday school teacher, so I would get the Bible
and read what my next lesson was going to be.
And I was teaching kids and the grown ups.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So the shy leo part of you started very early, right,
and another peasm.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Is another service I offer.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
My mother told me when I was when I was
three years old. She says, you got a voice, You've
got a gift. She says, never ever, ever, ever refused
to sing. I have never in my whole fifty five
years career, I never refused. If I'm asked to sing,
(21:00):
I was singing, whether I get paid or not, because
that's in my mother's ear. Never refused.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Interesting, and your father's was make sure you get paid.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
You know. Actually, my dad was so afraid for me
when I was wanted to be a singer, and he
not consciously, but he subconsciously kind of stifled my career
for a while because when I graduated in high school,
he said, you need to get a job because you'll
(21:37):
never make money singing. And you know, children, you want
to prove your dad right because you don't want them
to be wrong. So I kind of didn't really go
after after it until some years later because my dad
said I couldn't make it as a singer. So evidently
(21:58):
I did, but I got I grew out.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Of that, and when I'm in a big way.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
In a big way, and before my precious dad passed away,
he called me one day crying because this out my dad.
I would send him tapes of me singing at a gape.
My dad listened to River and Michael and that was
in Mobile, Alabama, se Ah. He would listen to the
sermons and he found out that what he was thinking
(22:30):
was not all wrong when he was a kid, you know.
But he cried to me on the phone and said
he was sorry that I was a great artist. He
would call them and when I go home to visit,
he would call the neighbors and hey, you know my
oldest daughter is here. She's visiting from California. You know,
the one that's a singer.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
That's so cute.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
No, it was just so rewarding. I love my I
love my parents.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That's so cool. Smile for a second. Okay, I'm sending
that to a big brother. But because we just mentioned
his name. Uh but uh, I see eyeballs in the studio.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Just want to do a check in if you're wondering
what's going on in the studio today, Uh it is.
Take my advice. I'm not using a get balanced with
doctor Mars of the morning show. You're on k c
A a NBC news radio, and thank you so much.
Someone just gave us the finger, this one, not the
other one.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
I like this.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
One too, but uh, what was it's gonna Oh my dad,
like yours, was well meaning.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Uh but the same thing he found out.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
That I you know, uh, when I got to California,
the plan was to get my PhD. And I love singing,
and I art to doing some lounge lizarding and I write,
you know, my own music as well, And.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
He flew down and sat me.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
He got went flew down and sat me down, and
he goes, you're good, but you're not that good of
a singer.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
And you wanted to be.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
A professor like he was, a professor a PhD in
chemical engineering. You've wanted to be a professor since you
were four years old. So he reminded me, like you know,
like my dad, and he said you can always sing later,
and that you know that fork in the road because
I had been you know, James Earld Jones loved to
(24:40):
listen to me, would come and listen when I was
playing at It was either Romeo and Juliet's in Santa
Monica or Sunset and Vine simply blues.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Remember that. Well, yeah, and yeah and yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
So I had been asked to do put a demo
tape together by I don't think I told you this
five star shaw Day's team it back in the day.
Oh and I didn't do it. I just put everything aside.
And then I didn't sing until.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Michael put me in front of Ricky to audition and
she wasn't a big fan.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
And when I finished audi, she said, what makes you
think you can sing? So that, yeah, that was that
was brutal. And then yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Years later. I you know, I did sing in the
choir for twelve years. I retired.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
I retired to put more time into filmmaking. I got
my first laurel on a short film and doing you
know that, the book tour and everything. So music has
been both a joy and a pain, Like my heart hurts,
(26:01):
because you want people to recognize your voice, right, yeah,
and then two choir directors in a row just you know,
and that's their right to.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Know what You should come over to my house and
we have accession and discover what's really in there, because
I tell my students and you have got to stand
naked and be vulnerable to see what we not literally
(26:36):
just what we have down in here, and not be
able to pull it up. No, be afraid of those emotions.
Be vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Oh no, I know I can sing, and I appreciate
my my you know abilities, and I know that I'm
not meant to not sing, But I have to get
over the you know, getting trying to get milk from
a tractor, that's what it is. It's like trying to
(27:06):
get approval from people who are not capable.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, but I mean you're in the ind you were,
You're still in the industry, and you know, when you
were with the Jerry Butler and you were singing and
you were the lead singer, and you you did records
and all of that, but you admitted that there were
times when you still didn't feel like you were good
(27:35):
enough or how did you how did you come to.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Peace with that?
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I think that is like a huge for anyone listening
who has a gift. But you are in that same
place that I'm in where it's like, Okay, I think
I have a gift in singing, and people tell me,
and you know, and I don't know if I had
a dollar for every time people would say, why aren't
you singing?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Soulos at a God Mate? Like if I had a dollar,
i'd be rich.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
But it's that like, how do you come to peace
with that?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Forty five years ago, I've just come to my last
thirty one years at a God Baby. I have learned
about my life at my spiritual community. I was on
that path since I was six years old. I always
knew intuitively that there was something more than what I
(28:38):
was being taught, so I just kind of followed. I
was strong enough to follow that, and girl, it took
me to some places that right today, I probably wouldn't
have gone, but I believed in myself enough to venture out.
When I ventured out, I ventured in. I found that
(29:00):
place in me that you couldnot tell me I'm not anymore.
You can't tell me. I know now who I am
from that little girl on that in that field, pick
and please. And actually I knew one day that I would.
My dream was like to meet Jerry, but Sam Cook,
(29:22):
Danie Ross. I ranged the planklet all except Sam. Not
only did I get to meet them, I worked with them.
I'm written for Ray Charles. So how I did there
was that that still small voice in you, the key.
I don't care if I was living. I lived in
my car for a minute, I don't care. I knew
(29:44):
that everything I did was temporary. I did a day
job for a hot minute until and I used to say, Okay,
I'm gonna get up and go to my temporary job
because and then I'm gonna come home at night, I'm
gonna write songs. So I worked and in that day
in the office and during the day, and I would
come home and write a song because I knew the
(30:07):
day job wasn't I knew who I was and what
I was. But it took took a while.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
So that little thing and as a child, it kept
going and kept going. It never died out.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Never, Okay, So that that is that? No, no, no,
it's great, it's great. It's it's very you're inspiring because
you've already had that level of success that a lot
of musicians that are are still looking for. And and
(30:40):
yet you know, talk about creativity.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
She had a one woman show. She's going to be
on stage again in November. Uh. And another production that
I'm sure that you wrote, right.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Yes, I wrote, Yes, she did. It's a musical, yeah,
called Walcome My Brother Home.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
And it's a lovely, lovely piece and it deals with
what we're dealing with, homelessness, mental imbalanced, dreams that have
been deferred but you still believe in them. And it's
just my nine characters in the in the play, four musicians,
(31:22):
three singers, three dancers, and it's a who it's a
wonderful play. It's very, very rewarding. Yeah. Our own Leo
Gallo from Agape is my assistant director and choreographer and
he's an actor and the wonderful actor in the play.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Wow. Look at this, at this, Yeah, look at you.
You're so pretty.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Oh, thank you, thank you?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, and uh, you use a oil of happiness instead
of oil lay.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
This is what I call my ageless people.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
This is so inspiring and we sold out every night
when we put it up in April.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Michael Kane, when was this? I was out of town.
I remember you inviting me.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
I remember you were out of town.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, but I won't be out of town for this one,
so I expect like front row seats. Yeah, Hudson Theater
in Hollywood, California. It's really easy to find this. Ask
my assistant Google. Just put walking with my brother. I'm sorry,
walking my brother home.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Well one another. Back to that place in here that
is see, that is God, that is joy. We want
to get back to that And the role that these
people take to get back is it's amazing. And the
teachers are amazing. You're going to have a homeless guy
to guide you out of your rut. It's just it's
(33:04):
it's God wrote it. I will to the paper like
this and wrote the whole When there was a time
for a song, Oh the song belongs here, and now
get tired hell, and I just wrote it sad.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
That's awesome, and I love it when my guests cry
because tears are the disinfectant that keep your heart. So
thank you for showing me your heart. We need to
take a quick break for news, weather, traffic, and award
from our sponsor. Thanks for staying here. Stay tuned. We'll
be right back into and too. As Chuck Woolery used
to say, but I say, piece in it and piece out,
(33:44):
don't go away all right back.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well.
Speaker 8 (34:05):
She has been dubbed the Asian Oprah, and she just
wants all of us to be happy.
Speaker 9 (34:17):
Doctor Marissa aka the Asian Oprah.
Speaker 10 (34:20):
Says, the most important thing you can choose is choosing
to be happy.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
You are tuned into my weekly talk radio TV show
called take My Advice.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
I'm not using it. Get balanced with doctor Marissa.
Speaker 8 (34:44):
That's the idea for doctor Marissa Pay's new book call
Eight Ways to Be Happy.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Many of us say I am my own worst critic.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Nobody's harder on me than I am.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
And my response to.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
That is stop it. Why are you doing that to yourself?
You have to be.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
Your biggest fan, because if you can't, at the end
of the day, say I did a good job.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Who is We.
Speaker 7 (35:10):
Don't have to constantly be angry at the things that
are wrong. Why don't we choose to be happy about
things that are right? We have the choice.
Speaker 10 (35:19):
That's our muscle, and life is so amazing if we
can see it.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Take life with doctor Mauriepe.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
You're tending to take my advice, I'm not using it.
Get balanced with doctor Marris of the Morning show here
on gay zaa NBC radio home to the Asian OPRAH.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Number one talk in the ie. Thank you very much
and screaming everywhere.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
iHeartRadio, Spotify, iTunes, tune in, and of course my YouTube
TV channel where if you free subscribe, hit that button
you'll get alert every weekday morning when I'm on live
here on my YouTube TV channel.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Give us the finger, this one not the other one.
And yeah, I'm.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
So glad that the people who said I would be
here a year only wouldn't last more than a year.
Because I do not talk about the headlines at all,
because you can get that anywhere and it will definitely
get you to a place where you're saying what is
wrong with people? Instead, I want to talk about what's
right with people? What's right with the world and definitely
(36:47):
what's right with my guest. You've seen her all over
the place. She is certainly a force to be reckoned with.
She's my fellow Leo. She always reminds me when it's
our time for our birthday, usually at the.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
End of July, so we celebrate the entire astrological talk.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
And she's readily agger She's got, as you can see
behind her gold records, She's got R and B chart
hitters on Billboard. But most important, she has a very
big heart and a very big voice that she shares.
She continues to be hashtag ageless and is just a
(37:32):
beautiful musical force to be reckoned with. And so delighted
to finally get her in studio. She actually was one
of my very first guests when I started this May first,
twenty twelve, seven hundred and two consecutive weeks ago, and
I'm so glad that they were wrong about lasting and
(37:54):
glad to have you back.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
In fact, I am.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Celebrating next Tuesday, So this whole time we're celebrating, I'm
going to be having show number one thousand and five
hundred podcast shows. I was doing this before they started
calling them podcasts, I think, and to celebrate that show
I'm having on. I don't know if you know her,
Brenda Lee, but she's a huge actress. She was the
(38:21):
Walton's mom Michael Leonard Michael, Yeah, who is also the
grandmother of Jeffrey Dahmer in the Netflix special that hit
one billion views. Yes, so she's ageless. She's agreed to
be my fifteen hundred show guest. So that's weak from Tuesday. Yeah,
(38:47):
and I also want to invite you to I could
not probably get you a big discount, but Asian Oprah
Giveaway today. There's two of them. One is Katalina Jazz
Festival and you like jazz, but it's the last. This
last weekend I was there, got to see Keiko Matsui,
my sister, and then this weekend Eric Darius.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Gerald Albright, all the big stars. You can go.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
If you go to the box office and ask for
the Asian Oprah Giveaway ticket, you will get ten dollars
off your ticket.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Ask Tracy so go.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Spend the day in Catalina Island. They've been my sponsors
for a while. The Asian Oprah Giveaway tickets are gone, sorry,
but you will get that discount but yeah, keep it here.
And today's very special guest.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Her name. You know her as Brenda Lee Aeger.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And she is someone who sang backup for some big names,
not just saying back up. She also wrote music for
as she mentioned before, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder.
She is the magnificent, the one and only, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Inside and out.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
And da Leeger, welcome back to my show.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And yes, personal life.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I don't know how much of that is like on
or off the record, but I you know, I love
getting to know people, not just professionally. And I think
that you are a public persona. And you talked a
little about your mom and.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Dad, but married not married children.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I think you have grandchildren, So I think you have
that and I know you love them, and I think
I've met some. But please tell me where were you
born and sort of give me the milestone highlights.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I was born in Mobile, Alabama. I was raised on
a farm outside of Mobile called Lord Peachtree, Alabama. Alabama.
Where I come from is like the You're right on
the Gulf of Mexico and I'm the oldest is like
I said, of eleven kids.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
My brothers, eldest of eleven.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
They were actually twelve, but we lost one. My mother
had twelve babies, eight brothers and four girls. Eight boys
for a girl. I'm the only one that ventured out.
I went to I moved to New York as as
(41:33):
soon as I graduated high school. New York kicked my
butt all the way back to Alabama. I went to
audition at the Apollo Theater and they would not allow
me to audition and real country bump again. I was
so naive. I walked up to the door and say, my.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
Name is Brenda Marie Anna.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
I want to audition, and the guy looked at You're
not coming in today, I said, but I have come
all the way from Alabama. Please, I need to get
in the auditions. Didn't is and and and sure enough
I didn't get to do that. I wound up working
in a factory. You're talking about a sweat box, I
(42:19):
mean New York Manhattan. At that time, there was nothing
but sweatboxes, making clothes, making material for gowns and so forth.
And my job was to make was to put sequins
on gowns before they were gowns. And uh and and
I longed to wear one of those. But here I
was making making, help them to make the dress. But anyway,
(42:42):
five years later I was headlining at the at the Apollow.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
So I'm so glad I asked this question. Wow, so
so okay.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
So so here's lessons on how to you know, not
give up.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's right, you have your dream.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
It's not not shy or unwilling to do whatever it takes.
Working at freaking sweatshot, literally I'm thinking about every those goals.
Those sequins are a pain in the Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
There's a machine. Okay, you put the bottom, the little
thing that holds it together, You put put that in
this machine. And then there's an air machine. You put
the material over that. Then there's an air machine that
comes down. It clamps the OUs, It clamps the top
to the bottom, on the on the on the dress,
and there's a you know, there's a pattern. And I
(43:40):
tell you that was that was one of the times.
And all it all the while, I kept singing.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
I kept singing.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
I kept singing. And when I was picking the picking
the pes in the on the phone, I kept singing.
I was singing from one row to the end of
the row and back, and I just knew I was
going to get up out of there. So to make
this really really in between those five years that our
auditioned and headline with Jerry Butler, I got married, moved
(44:07):
to Chicago, had a daughter, my beautiful daughter, Michelle, and
joint Operation bread Basket. Operation bread Basket was the SCLC
economic arm and its job was to help black officials
get elected and to bring money into the black community.
(44:30):
So I was a civil rights activist. Switch up still
and I still I want just sprawl, just draw. And
I traveled the country with three other girls and a
twenty one piece orchestra with the River and Jesse Jackson,
and we went all around the country getting helping to
get black officials elected for the first time Carl Stokes,
(44:51):
I mean, if there was a black official getting elected,
we were there.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Wow. I didn't know that about you love it for girls.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Jesse pulled us out of the bread Basket choir, which
was one hundred and twenty five people, but we were solo,
and so he pulled us for solos to travel with him,
and we not only sang at the rallies with the orchestra.
Once the rally in the morning was over, we hit
the streets, we knocked on the doors. We knocked on
(45:21):
people's doors and said, hey, we're in the city to
help you get your mayor. You have to come out
with us and boat. And sometimes people was like, oh,
but it's so early in the mornings. And we stand
there and say we'll wait till you put some clothes on.
You gotta go vote. And we won every everyone and
everywhere we went. We want.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
So I'm going to give you doctor Marie's Beneficial Presence
on the Planet Award just because of that. I didn't
even know that, Dan girl.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
I mean it just but I mean you you really,
you really have been around a number of blocks and
and your life is is consistently for service, which is
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
It's amazing. Okay, keep going.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
And I have my two grandsons who are absolutely amazing,
which you watched them grow up.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes, they're adorable, rather too old for.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Me for them. And I think as even as a family,
we want to be be a beneficial presence on the planet.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah, and you are and you are so so go back. Okay.
So you're singing with Jesse Jackson. Jesse, Yeah, Reverend Reverend Jackson.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
So one day Reverend Jackson comes up to me and
he said, you know you and I was. We was,
we were young, we were in the in our twenties.
She said, you know, you like to write songs. And
my little brother who's in Carolinas, he likes to write
song but he's coming to live here in Chicago. He says,
I want to put your guys together so you can
(47:06):
write songs together, both of you. And he did, and
and Chuck and I started writing songs together, and then
he and we demo the songs. He took a demo
to Jerry Butler, so he calls me one day. I'm
working a day job at the bank. At the bank,
he calls me one day and he says, uh, brigal ly, uh,
Jerry Butler wants to see you. And I'm like, now,
(47:31):
mind you Jerry Butler and Sam Cook, well my favorite
male singers. I hung up on him and he called
me back. He said, I know I lie a lot,
but he really want He heard our demo and he
really loves your voice. Uh, you got to go down
to Poteen oh two, South Michigan and on him again.
(47:51):
Oh my god, you get me by my job. And
the third time he had his best friend to call
and he said. He said, but I know he's a liar,
but this time he's really telling the truth. And so
I took it. I would check this out. My boss
was sitting there listening to the whole thing, and turned
(48:13):
to my boss, and my boss was like, he's this
Jewish man that you know how the cigar boxes had
the guy with it with the.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Time, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was him. He
had the handle bar handle bar.
Speaker 5 (48:26):
And I said, what do you think.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
I don't want to lose my job. He said, you
little shit. If you don't go down there and go
see that man about your career, get out of here.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Get here.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
So that's how the whole thing was.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Okay, you just have to take me out for lunch now,
because you just violated my FCC, I should have told
you we can't use it, just.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
In case you're going to do that's a twenty thousand
dollars Fine.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
So happened again. I was just repeating him, ad apology,
I apologize. I'm so okay.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
So after he called you a little chittaki, you went
to see Jerry and.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
He said, I didn't.
Speaker 5 (49:16):
Speak right now.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
So his secretary when I walked in, she says, he's
in there waiting for you. So I opened the door
and there he was, the Jerry Butler, sitting behind his
desk in a cream colored jogging suit, and he says,
how are you, young lady? And now I'm gonna be
(49:41):
very refined. So I sit down and he said, have
to see that to God. Thank you, sir, He said,
you know, I got your demo and I like your song.
He said, but I like the girl that's singing it.
And he says, do you think you would like to
(50:03):
record that song for me? I lost it. I'm like, what,
you're my favorite, You're my favor for your precious luck.
I started singing this song for you. You just know
you're just and he said, calm down, come down.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
You were what mid twenties?
Speaker 4 (50:23):
I was twenty one?
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Oh you were twenty one?
Speaker 4 (50:27):
And he says, I guess that. I guess that means yes, right.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Oh MG, that is the best story. Yeah, that's the
best story.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
Oh he's like got.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Forty something at this point? Was he like forty something? Point?
Speaker 4 (50:42):
I think he was thirty two?
Speaker 3 (50:43):
Yes, thirty two, okay, yeah, but he's already like he
was big, right, that's what.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
I'm saying him and saying okay, well my favorite.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Singers okay, okay, and I'm like I still.
Speaker 4 (50:56):
To this day, I pitched my you think about it.
So I went back to Chicago earlier this year to
his services and that was oh.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
So then so then you started singing because he liked
the girl be find the voice.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
And we were on the road. I was on the
road with Jerry Butler, and everybody in my hometown, whoa this,
I start she sing with Jerry but.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Wow wow, and so like from the first rejection at
Apollo Theater, how many years?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Five years? Did you say?
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Five years? Wow, he's read Jerry Butler and Brenda Leeager.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Oh I got just got chills. It was that's I'm
so happy for you. I didn't even know that part,
Like I knew that you were like, you know.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
There's so much more.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
So then okay, so then you're sang with them, recorded
topped the charts, and then what.
Speaker 4 (51:59):
Well after two gold records and another one that well,
our first record that I was checking out rode it
sold two hundred and fifty thousand copies. That was a
lot back in those days. But the second Ain't Understanding
metisol a million and the other we make a back
of racks close to You that also sold a million.
(52:20):
So we came out to Stee, California.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Wait wait, is that the why dude?
Speaker 4 (52:27):
Okay, yes, you can look that up on YouTube. YouTube.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
That's awesome. I love that song.
Speaker 4 (52:32):
We came out to California to do Soul.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Train, to do Soul Train, okay, And.
Speaker 4 (52:40):
We did Soul Train and I left Chicago. We left Chicago.
I had this big bear coat on because we left
in a blizzard. When I got to California, the palm
trees were swinging sway, the sun was shining. The driver,
I had on a flip flop, said some short shorts.
(53:02):
And I looked at Jerry. I said, Jerry, this is
my home. I am going to live in Los Angeles
and he said, be you can't. Your record company it's back.
I moved within six weeks. I'm like, I'm sorry, I
got to go. So I came on out too, and
(53:24):
you left him. I did well, he was married. I mean,
there was gone we But you know, you make so
many mistakes in your youth. You make and I guess
they're not mistakes, that's just on your path. But you
can make some bad decisions. I made several, Okay, I
mean several. Said this one out. So I'm on the
(53:48):
road with Jerry Butler having fun Chuck Jack to my
original writer, Guy h Jesse's brother started writing with my
piano player, Marvin Yancy. So they were riding together and
they were like my brothers, and they called me. I'm
on the road, and it's hey, Lily, we got some
fantastic news. When you get back to Chicago. Oh you
(54:10):
the three of us, we're gonna write together. We're gonna
be like colland Dojan Holland and we're gonna write and
produce together. And I'm like, ah, you know, I got
to hit record. I'm on the road. That's we know.
But we got this girl. We've got this girl. We
gotta produce. She's Natalie Cole, She's nat King Cole's daughter,
and you'll be one of the producers. I'm like, I
don't think so, I'm on the road. Yeah. Later one
(54:34):
of the biggest, one of the biggest mistakes. Natalie Cole
and I talk about it all that well, we talked
about it when you know, when she was here, But
she said, yeah, girl, we would have been hanging out together.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
But Uh yes, oh mg, yeah, yeah like that.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
So we won't even go and just you don't have time.
I'm gonna put on and I'm gonna I tell these
stories at my concert and some of them tell us
a story about No.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
I can understand why people are paying you money just
to talk about your life because I didn't know all this.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
This is like so cool that I you.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Know, I was inspired just to ask you that question
because we didn't do this last time.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah, I'm so glad to this.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Is comparable to make you feel better. Larry Namer, who
is the founder of E Entertainment, Uh, he's been on
my show a couple times. He's coming on again, but
he said same thing. A missed take was he passed
on Ryan Seacrest. Now that's not as bad as Natalie Cole.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
However, however, oh my god, I passed on Natalie.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
Okay, And we only have two minutes left, so I
I will definitely have to continue this another time because
I know that we just we just started on that
mountain of really fabulous stories.
Speaker 2 (56:10):
And you know what's interesting.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
Is I'm getting the When Marilyn White was on the
show and she was talking about her time with Earth
wind and Fire, and you know, her partnership, and she
wanted me to write her book right and the story
of her and we actually started writing, and you know,
kind of ran out of funds.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
And stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
So people are still asking me, you know, when that
book's coming out.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
But but I could definitely see writing.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
Your story as well, So so that's something to think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well you were waiting for someone who.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Is the best seller?
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Who? Who?
Speaker 5 (56:54):
Who?
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Who put the pen down the way you did, so
that was all down. Yeah, yeah, national, yeah, let's talk
about that.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
But what's your final word for I don't know for anybody,
anybody and everybody who's listening who doesn't feel as happy
and fulfilled as they could be in this thing called life.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
You got one minute.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
I wrote it in a song, and I've going to
close with that. Paint your picture, write your song, build
a castle of your own, Climb your mountain. You can sail.
Speaker 9 (57:34):
The seven seeds, ride your recket ship in space, find
your quiet in a place to reveal your destiny, whatever.
Speaker 4 (57:44):
It may be. You know better than anyone what do
you want from that's left. Never let someone else take
your dreams away. Go for what is right for you.
Only you can make your dreams come true.
Speaker 5 (57:58):
And wherever it takes, I'll be by your side. So
live your dream.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
And that was Brenda Lee Aeger. Thank you so much,
my sister. The words were exactly what I needed to
hear right now too.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
So I'm getting a little, you know, tears of the
disinfected that keep my heart soft.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
So thank you.
Speaker 4 (58:28):
Yes, let's keep our hearts soft and through the tears,
you know, even through the tears, there's something that has
the nose.
Speaker 3 (58:40):
It's going to be all right, yep, when one door
closes and another one opens.
Speaker 2 (58:46):
But sometimes it's hell in the hallway.
Speaker 4 (58:49):
But uh yeah, yes.
Speaker 3 (58:52):
And you know picking the cotton and picking the I
mean putting the the the I'll never get that image
out of my head now, the sequence in the gowns,
all right, do this with me now.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
It's all about balance.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
Peace in peace, out world, peace through inner piece. This
is doctor Marisa and Brenda Leeager wishing you the best day.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
Ever. I'll see you tomorrow. Love you.
Speaker 11 (59:31):
E digits lock them in for more information, recreation and
guaranteed fun casey AA ten fifty A ns Hey you
yeah you do you know where you are well, you've
done it. Now. You're listening to casey AA Loma Linda,
(59:54):
your CNBC news station, so expect the unexpected.
Speaker 8 (01:00:06):
You're listening to the Tehibo Tea Club radio show hosted
by
Oh stump off at exhausting amster wheel and into balance.
Living with Doctor Marissa from Missuju. Doctor Marissa, also known
as the Asian Oprah. Her mission to be a beneficial
presence on the planet, her purpose to be your personal advocate,
(00:23):
to live, lap love, learn, her life motto, don't die wondering,
Take back your life with Doctor Maurissa Pey.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And oh Welcome, I'm your gune. Tend to take my advice,
I'm not using it. Get Balance with Doctor Marissa The
Morning Show here on.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Casey AA, NBC News, CNBC News and MEC Sports radio
station AM ten fifty FM one oh six point five
and streaming everywhere iHeartRadio, Spotify, iTunes, Tune in Audible, Amazon Music,
TL Rumble, Potja.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A streak Er Speaker and more. Why so many places.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I want to maximize my splatter zone for more hope
and happiness. So there's no gossip, no scandal, no Kardashian
talg at all. Instead, I want you to focus on
your own reality show and how you can be happy
eighty eight percent of the time. So you have topics
and guests to that end, and today is no exception.
You may recognize her from singing on stage at the
(01:28):
Agape International Spiritual Center. You may recognize her as she
serenaded me when I was sick at the beginning of COVID.
Everybody thought, well, I included thought I had COVID, but
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
But anyway, she was kind enough to sing to me.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Then. She has a rich discography, as you saw in
the promo for R and B chart hits, maybe even more,
but that's what it said on Wipedia as well. She
was the lead singer for Jerry Butler's Peaches, so she's
been singing a long time. The one Particular eight Understanding
(02:08):
Mellow hit number three on the Billboard R and B chart,
sold over one million copies and awarded a Gold disc
by the r i AA in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
She's also worked as a backup singer for people you
might remember, Ray Charles, Diana.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Ross, and Stevie Wonder, to name just a few. She's
also written songs recorded by Bobby Woa, Mack, Aretha Franklin,
Gladys Knight, and Prince Brenda. Also sings regularly, it used
to sing regularly, and Reverend Jesse Jackson's Operation Breakfast Choir
in Chicago in the early seventies. So please welcome to
(02:50):
my studio, Brendaly Agger Arlyn, You're welcome. I'm still putting
my face on. I went and worked out this morning,
so I, uh, I guess I could say you.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Can watch me do it quickly here. You could say.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
That I'm doing the Pamela Anderson natural look.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I love that look. Really.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Uh, I'm not as crazy about my Well, you're you're
hashtag ageless, so yeah, my my. I have a co
host that on Friday's James Hawthorne, who is always amazed
at how I can do this very quickly and without
(03:42):
a mirror.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So you're you're you're seeing it live.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Now and there we go all dead. So how was
that for quick?
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And it looks good?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you. It's called eight years of modeling, I hear you.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, so you learn how to do that. But Brenda Lieger,
we start every show in this past seven hundred and
two consecutive.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Weeks with breakfast.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
So what we do is take a bite of my
gratitude sandwich. Top of the bun is things that we're
grateful for outside of ourselves, and bottom of the bun
are going to model for you what you do before you.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Go to bed tonight.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
That is gratitude, what's inside of yourself. So that's how
we start every show. This lasts like three years, I think,
and it serves also as a way to.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Have us focused on.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
What is good in life instead of what isn't and
an alternative to this thing called MS meaningless scrolling that
we sometimes do in the morning and we end up
in a really as Rev will say, Big brother Michael
will say, puts us in a state of piss offedness.
And we don't want that. So I'm going to start.
(05:03):
You know, it was really interesting. Someone asked me when
I was going to start another round of the twenty
day Fast from complaining, and I don't know if you
heard of that, but a lot of a god bade
people joined me in that.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
When was it ry? Was it a duen? Gains came
to what got me? And so.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Complaining is the opposite of gratitude. And so I decided
to count how many gratitudes I could do.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Before I got to the studio this morning.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And I think I'm on thirteen. And the first thing
I was grateful for was toilet paper. Oh so you
know what I did when I woke up.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So, so what are you grateful for?
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I'm just grateful to wake up this morning.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Awesome. I'm grateful for the rain. I don't know if
it's raining where you are.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
It's beautiful, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
What's that song you're you're my resident musician?
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
No, none, no rain? Who sings that?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Oh? Oh? I do that on my show. I can't
stand in the rain against my window. But that's.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I am grateful for the gym downstairs that I get
to roll out of bed and go on the bike.
And uh, I'm grateful for that. What are you grateful for?
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I'm grateful for my backyard because I go out there
and I do my exercises and meditation and I talk
to my big tree. George's in the back and it's
a big, big tree that I hug and talk to
and I just watch the birds. I'm grateful for to
be able to just go out in the backyard.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah. Awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I am grateful that this is consecutive week seven hundred
and two on the air on camera and I just
passed the four point one million impression mark on my
YouTube TV channel, and.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
For that, I am truly grateful.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
I thank you.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
You knew me when I started, like I think, yeah, right, yes,
I did, yeah so so shows yeah, because I went
looking for it and I couldn't find it on YouTube
and I realized you were It was when I didn't
have cameras in the studio.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Right right, right, right right. Okay, let's go to the
bottom of the button. Okay, So what is this. This
is weightlifting for our mental health.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
A lot of us are aware now thanks to my
honorable moniker Oprah. She brought I think, to the mainstream
the whole conversation about how you're feeling, if you're happy,
your mental health, the state of your mental health.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And that's a good news.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
The not so good news is a lot of people
have gone outside of themselves to find relief, whether it's
through legal or illegal drugs, to numb shopping, sex, whatever
it is, to try to.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Fill that hole.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
And I believe, at least for me, part of that
was I just never really liked myself, Like, no matter
what I did and how much I achieved, inside, I
was a hot mess. So in order to help us
with our hot mess, this exercise the bottom of the
bunt is to say what do I like about myself?
(08:47):
I think both of us are pretty good at that,
and we're comfortable with it.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But it takes some work right to get rid of
that voice in your head. You have to really own what.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
It is that you like about your So that's what
we do at the bottom of the bond.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So Breda leeeger, what do you like about yourself?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
What I like about myself is I've learned to like myself. Hmmm.
And there was a time when I did did not
think that I had all the properties to live a
good life. I'm the oldest of eleven children, and I
was always the one who had to work to help
(09:29):
raise the younger kids. And at some point I thought, well,
nobody's staying near didn't take any attention, So I thought
I just was hidden back and not and maybe even
in the way sometimes. But I've learned that that was
really all in my head, and I learned to to
(09:49):
just thank God for me who I am, me being
who I am, And over the years it grew and
grew and grew and out. I love me. I wrote
a song about it. I just love being me, yes me.
There ain't nobody else I'd rather be. From the top
of the kids, from the top of my head to
(10:09):
the soul. I just love be and me.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Nice. That's a great song and it's so important to
do that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Uh, children to to to to understanding about themselves with
their special and that nobody else like you.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So yeah, that's what I work exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I appreciate my ability to pivot, uh, to take what
I call bruce bananas and make banana bread out of
them because I'm not a big fan of lemons and lemonade,
and you know, I have, like like Michael, I have
to you know, put my own twist on it and
(10:58):
make up words and expressions.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So that's my expression.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And I don't know if you knew this, Brenda, I
was not supposed to be here.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I was supposed to be on tour for six months. Yeah,
I didn't think you knew that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I was supposed to do Africa with Michael in August,
Canada in July, Ireland next month, Hawaii last month, and
Shanghai and Taiwan in November December.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And two days.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Before the first flight they found blood clots, two dvt's
and they I'm in a no fly zone now indefinitely.
And that was a tough one because.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You know how much I loved a fly.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So I've had a pivot and it wasn't like I
think the I like that, and I appreciate about myself
that I know that healing is not a light switch
right to adjust to something. I gave myself some time
to to be sad and then be mad and and
(12:05):
uh so I appreciate my ability to model and to
live out loud and to Someone gave me a nice
compliment yesterday about the hope that I inspire and it
was a huge compliment because they had just seen the
Jane Goodall thing that everybody has to watch.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Did you watch that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Please?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Please watch that you I blubbered through the whole thing.
So that's why it was such a compliment. You know,
to to be in that you know, hope inspiring place
that that you know that I was put in and wow,
like that was huge. So I appreciate that I that
I know how to do that and that I can
(12:55):
take compliments.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Now before I would have been.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
LEO understand, Oh that's right. So we're so hard to
take a compliment. I'm learning to thank you instead of
oh that that was nothing, Yes it was it was
nothing is something. So I'm starting to own up to
the spirit of God that lives to who I am,
(13:20):
who I really am, and.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Things are changing in my life because of it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah. Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Though?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And and and and you with your gold records and.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
With you know you see it behind you there, with
your butler and all that you've accomplished.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
People will same with me, like people will go what.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
You of all people?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Why would you even think that there was anything wrong
with you or whatever? Because you know why not just
Leo Brenda. But we are also really recovering perfectionists, right,
So that's another reason why it's so hard, because we
always want to do better. So when someone says you're
doing good, it's like, thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
But I still have.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
My first gold record I wanted to do. We did
it in one take. Jerry and I did it one day,
and I kept saying, I think we should do it again.
Jer said, no, you will not do it again. This
will be sold in the record stars just like this.
But as perfect as it was, I wanted to do
it again. I'm learning, though, I'm.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Learning, well, anytime I speak the truth or my guest
speaks the truth, there's a siren and you just heard
that one go by, so that.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Was the truth. But yeah, I love that African American
saying if there is no enemy within, no one outside
can hurt.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
You, which is so powerful, right yeah, yeah, So there
you have it.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
We just had breakfast together.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Thanks for joining us and taking a night of my
gratitude sandwich.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I'm hoping that you will do this every weekday.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Morning and if you're not driving, you can always join
us in the chat. I'm here every weekend morning to
start your day in the most positive way. Thanks for
joining us for breakfast. And now for the topic of
(15:31):
the day.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
It says everything is awesome. The topic of the day
is MS.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Brenda Leeger, who's in studio live right now.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I'm gonna put a story up. But I don't have.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
An answering machine, Brenda. I have a questioning machine, and
when you call me, it says, who are you and
what do you want? So brand of the Agger, who
are you and what do you want?
Speaker 4 (16:06):
I am Branda the Agger.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Of course, I am a singer, songwriter, playwright, actor, voice coach,
sometimes lecturers.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Sometimes I will speak at schools or whatever. And recently
I just spoke about my life and it went over
so big I gotten jobs from just walking on a
stage to talking about me and my life. I was like,
you guys gotta pay me to speak about me, but
(16:43):
if it's beautiful, because they'll bring up questions that I
hadn't even thought of, you know. And what I want.
I want to Doctor King, of course is my favorite
philosopher or leader. But I want to do the will
of God. That's that was his thing, he says. I
(17:04):
just want to do God's will and and those parameters
are an actor, a songwriter, a storyteller, you know. But
that's when I get joined. And that's what I want
to continue to do.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
And that's a really good answer for that.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I'm just putting a story up on Instagram right now
that you're live in studio. If you've just tuned in,
you can get this live on my YouTube TV channel.
It's a free subscribe easy. Just ask my assistant Google
put in Doctor Mersa on YouTube or Asian Oprah on
YouTube and it will pop right up.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
You can then interact with us.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Ask our resident musician today, Brenda Lieger, any questions.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You would like, and yeah, that's what's going on in
studio today. So I didn't ask you. I don't. I'm
not going to ask you how.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
Old you are because your hashtag ageless like I am.
But your career has spanned decades.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I mean that.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I will even say quarter centuries like I mean right, you've.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Been singing half a century.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Half a century.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
So did you know at what age did you know
that this is what you would be doing?
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Three years old, I told my mother that I would
sing around the world to make people happy, and I
started singing at three. My dad would put me up
on a shoe box and I would sing to the
people in the church.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Is your dad a preacher?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
No?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Man, No, that was an emphatic no. If you didn't
catch stop.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Let me tell you. My dad was an amazing man.
He was a truth seeker and sometimes he collided with
the people, the ministers in the church, because he saw
life differently from what they saw. And he was intuitively
(19:30):
very spiritual man. And yeah, so when I said he
was he was not a preacher. He knew. No. No,
he would be saying, I don't even know if I
want to go to church today. I'm just gonna hear
a bunch of this, a bunch of that, But something
good in a daddy. So he would go on. He
would go to church, but I would see him sometimes
(19:50):
sitting in church of him.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Was your mom really active in church?
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yes, my mother wasn't sure. Well, my father was a too,
he worked in the church, but my mom was more,
you know, the choir, the choir director, and she taught
me good things and check it or out, believe it
or not. My dad appointed me a Sunday school teacher
when I was nine years old. I was I was
(20:19):
a Sunday school teacher, so I would get the Bible
and read what my next lesson was going to be.
And I was teaching kids and the grown ups.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So the shy leo part of you started very early, right,
and another peasm.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Is another service I offer.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
My mother told me when I was when I was
three years old. She says, you got a voice, You've
got a gift. She says, never ever, ever, ever refused
to sing. I have never in my whole fifty five
years career, I never refused. If I'm asked to sing,
(21:00):
I was singing, whether I get paid or not, because
that's in my mother's ear. Never refused.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Interesting, and your father's was make sure you get paid.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
You know. Actually, my dad was so afraid for me
when I was wanted to be a singer, and he
not consciously, but he subconsciously kind of stifled my career
for a while because when I graduated in high school,
he said, you need to get a job because you'll
(21:37):
never make money singing. And you know, children, you want
to prove your dad right because you don't want them
to be wrong. So I kind of didn't really go
after after it until some years later because my dad
said I couldn't make it as a singer. So evidently
(21:58):
I did, but I got I grew out.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Of that, and when I'm in a big way.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
In a big way, and before my precious dad passed away,
he called me one day crying because this out my dad.
I would send him tapes of me singing at a gape.
My dad listened to River and Michael and that was
in Mobile, Alabama, se Ah. He would listen to the
sermons and he found out that what he was thinking
(22:30):
was not all wrong when he was a kid, you know.
But he cried to me on the phone and said
he was sorry that I was a great artist. He
would call them and when I go home to visit,
he would call the neighbors and hey, you know my
oldest daughter is here. She's visiting from California. You know,
the one that's a singer.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
That's so cute.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
No, it was just so rewarding. I love my I
love my parents.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That's so cool. Smile for a second. Okay, I'm sending
that to a big brother. But because we just mentioned
his name. Uh but uh, I see eyeballs in the studio.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Just want to do a check in if you're wondering
what's going on in the studio today, Uh it is.
Take my advice. I'm not using a get balanced with
doctor Mars of the morning show. You're on k c
A a NBC news radio, and thank you so much.
Someone just gave us the finger, this one, not the
other one.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
I like this.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
One too, but uh, what was it's gonna Oh my dad,
like yours, was well meaning.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Uh but the same thing he found out.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
That I you know, uh, when I got to California,
the plan was to get my PhD. And I love singing,
and I art to doing some lounge lizarding and I write,
you know, my own music as well, And.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
He flew down and sat me.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
He got went flew down and sat me down, and
he goes, you're good, but you're not that good of
a singer.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
And you wanted to be.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
A professor like he was, a professor a PhD in
chemical engineering. You've wanted to be a professor since you
were four years old. So he reminded me, like you know,
like my dad, and he said you can always sing later,
and that you know that fork in the road because
I had been you know, James Earld Jones loved to
(24:40):
listen to me, would come and listen when I was
playing at It was either Romeo and Juliet's in Santa
Monica or Sunset and Vine simply blues.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Remember that. Well, yeah, and yeah and yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
So I had been asked to do put a demo
tape together by I don't think I told you this
five star shaw Day's team it back in the day.
Oh and I didn't do it. I just put everything aside.
And then I didn't sing until.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Michael put me in front of Ricky to audition and
she wasn't a big fan.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
And when I finished audi, she said, what makes you
think you can sing? So that, yeah, that was that
was brutal. And then yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Years later. I you know, I did sing in the
choir for twelve years. I retired.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
I retired to put more time into filmmaking. I got
my first laurel on a short film and doing you
know that, the book tour and everything. So music has
been both a joy and a pain, Like my heart hurts,
(26:01):
because you want people to recognize your voice, right, yeah,
and then two choir directors in a row just you know,
and that's their right to.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Know what You should come over to my house and
we have accession and discover what's really in there, because
I tell my students and you have got to stand
naked and be vulnerable to see what we not literally
(26:36):
just what we have down in here, and not be
able to pull it up. No, be afraid of those emotions.
Be vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Oh no, I know I can sing, and I appreciate
my my you know abilities, and I know that I'm
not meant to not sing, But I have to get
over the you know, getting trying to get milk from
a tractor, that's what it is. It's like trying to
(27:06):
get approval from people who are not capable.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, but I mean you're in the ind you were,
You're still in the industry, and you know, when you
were with the Jerry Butler and you were singing and
you were the lead singer, and you you did records
and all of that, but you admitted that there were
times when you still didn't feel like you were good
(27:35):
enough or how did you how did you come to.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Peace with that?
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I think that is like a huge for anyone listening
who has a gift. But you are in that same
place that I'm in where it's like, Okay, I think
I have a gift in singing, and people tell me,
and you know, and I don't know if I had
a dollar for every time people would say, why aren't
you singing?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Soulos at a God Mate? Like if I had a dollar,
i'd be rich.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
But it's that like, how do you come to peace
with that?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Forty five years ago, I've just come to my last
thirty one years at a God Baby. I have learned
about my life at my spiritual community. I was on
that path since I was six years old. I always
knew intuitively that there was something more than what I
(28:38):
was being taught, so I just kind of followed. I
was strong enough to follow that, and girl, it took
me to some places that right today, I probably wouldn't
have gone, but I believed in myself enough to venture out.
When I ventured out, I ventured in. I found that
(29:00):
place in me that you couldnot tell me I'm not anymore.
You can't tell me. I know now who I am
from that little girl on that in that field, pick
and please. And actually I knew one day that I would.
My dream was like to meet Jerry, but Sam Cook,
(29:22):
Danie Ross. I ranged the planklet all except Sam. Not
only did I get to meet them, I worked with them.
I'm written for Ray Charles. So how I did there
was that that still small voice in you, the key.
I don't care if I was living. I lived in
my car for a minute, I don't care. I knew
(29:44):
that everything I did was temporary. I did a day
job for a hot minute until and I used to say, Okay,
I'm gonna get up and go to my temporary job
because and then I'm gonna come home at night, I'm
gonna write songs. So I worked and in that day
in the office and during the day, and I would
come home and write a song because I knew the
(30:07):
day job wasn't I knew who I was and what
I was. But it took took a while.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
So that little thing and as a child, it kept
going and kept going. It never died out.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Never, Okay, So that that is that? No, no, no,
it's great, it's great. It's it's very you're inspiring because
you've already had that level of success that a lot
of musicians that are are still looking for. And and
(30:40):
yet you know, talk about creativity.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
She had a one woman show. She's going to be
on stage again in November. Uh. And another production that
I'm sure that you wrote, right.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Yes, I wrote, Yes, she did. It's a musical, yeah,
called Walcome My Brother Home.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
And it's a lovely, lovely piece and it deals with
what we're dealing with, homelessness, mental imbalanced, dreams that have
been deferred but you still believe in them. And it's
just my nine characters in the in the play, four musicians,
(31:22):
three singers, three dancers, and it's a who it's a
wonderful play. It's very, very rewarding. Yeah. Our own Leo
Gallo from Agape is my assistant director and choreographer and
he's an actor and the wonderful actor in the play.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Wow. Look at this, at this, Yeah, look at you.
You're so pretty.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Oh, thank you, thank you?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, and uh, you use a oil of happiness instead
of oil lay.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
This is what I call my ageless people.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
This is so inspiring and we sold out every night
when we put it up in April.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Michael Kane, when was this? I was out of town.
I remember you inviting me.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
I remember you were out of town.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, but I won't be out of town for this one,
so I expect like front row seats. Yeah, Hudson Theater
in Hollywood, California. It's really easy to find this. Ask
my assistant Google. Just put walking with my brother. I'm sorry,
walking my brother home.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Well one another. Back to that place in here that
is see, that is God, that is joy. We want
to get back to that And the role that these
people take to get back is it's amazing. And the
teachers are amazing. You're going to have a homeless guy
to guide you out of your rut. It's just it's
(33:04):
it's God wrote it. I will to the paper like
this and wrote the whole When there was a time
for a song, Oh the song belongs here, and now
get tired hell, and I just wrote it sad.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
That's awesome, and I love it when my guests cry
because tears are the disinfectant that keep your heart. So
thank you for showing me your heart. We need to
take a quick break for news, weather, traffic, and award
from our sponsor. Thanks for staying here. Stay tuned. We'll
be right back into and too. As Chuck Woolery used
to say, but I say, piece in it and piece out,
(33:44):
don't go away all right back.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well.
Speaker 8 (34:05):
She has been dubbed the Asian Oprah, and she just
wants all of us to be happy.
Speaker 9 (34:17):
Doctor Marissa aka the Asian Oprah.
Speaker 10 (34:20):
Says, the most important thing you can choose is choosing
to be happy.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
You are tuned into my weekly talk radio TV show
called take My Advice.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
I'm not using it. Get balanced with doctor Marissa.
Speaker 8 (34:44):
That's the idea for doctor Marissa Pay's new book call
Eight Ways to Be Happy.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Many of us say I am my own worst critic.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Nobody's harder on me than I am.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
And my response to.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
That is stop it. Why are you doing that to yourself?
You have to be.
Speaker 7 (35:04):
Your biggest fan, because if you can't, at the end
of the day, say I did a good job.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Who is We.
Speaker 7 (35:10):
Don't have to constantly be angry at the things that
are wrong. Why don't we choose to be happy about
things that are right? We have the choice.
Speaker 10 (35:19):
That's our muscle, and life is so amazing if we
can see it.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Take life with doctor Mauriepe.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
You're tending to take my advice, I'm not using it.
Get balanced with doctor Marris of the Morning show here
on gay zaa NBC radio home to the Asian OPRAH.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Number one talk in the ie. Thank you very much
and screaming everywhere.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
iHeartRadio, Spotify, iTunes, tune in, and of course my YouTube
TV channel where if you free subscribe, hit that button
you'll get alert every weekday morning when I'm on live
here on my YouTube TV channel.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Give us the finger, this one not the other one.
And yeah, I'm.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
So glad that the people who said I would be
here a year only wouldn't last more than a year.
Because I do not talk about the headlines at all,
because you can get that anywhere and it will definitely
get you to a place where you're saying what is
wrong with people? Instead, I want to talk about what's
right with people? What's right with the world and definitely
(36:47):
what's right with my guest. You've seen her all over
the place. She is certainly a force to be reckoned with.
She's my fellow Leo. She always reminds me when it's
our time for our birthday, usually at the.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
End of July, so we celebrate the entire astrological talk.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
And she's readily agger She's got, as you can see
behind her gold records, She's got R and B chart
hitters on Billboard. But most important, she has a very
big heart and a very big voice that she shares.
She continues to be hashtag ageless and is just a
(37:32):
beautiful musical force to be reckoned with. And so delighted
to finally get her in studio. She actually was one
of my very first guests when I started this May first,
twenty twelve, seven hundred and two consecutive weeks ago, and
I'm so glad that they were wrong about lasting and
(37:54):
glad to have you back.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
In fact, I am.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Celebrating next Tuesday, So this whole time we're celebrating, I'm
going to be having show number one thousand and five
hundred podcast shows. I was doing this before they started
calling them podcasts, I think, and to celebrate that show
I'm having on. I don't know if you know her,
Brenda Lee, but she's a huge actress. She was the
(38:21):
Walton's mom Michael Leonard Michael, Yeah, who is also the
grandmother of Jeffrey Dahmer in the Netflix special that hit
one billion views. Yes, so she's ageless. She's agreed to
be my fifteen hundred show guest. So that's weak from Tuesday. Yeah,
(38:47):
and I also want to invite you to I could
not probably get you a big discount, but Asian Oprah
Giveaway today. There's two of them. One is Katalina Jazz
Festival and you like jazz, but it's the last. This
last weekend I was there, got to see Keiko Matsui,
my sister, and then this weekend Eric Darius.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Gerald Albright, all the big stars. You can go.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
If you go to the box office and ask for
the Asian Oprah Giveaway ticket, you will get ten dollars
off your ticket.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Ask Tracy so go.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Spend the day in Catalina Island. They've been my sponsors
for a while. The Asian Oprah Giveaway tickets are gone, sorry,
but you will get that discount but yeah, keep it here.
And today's very special guest.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Her name. You know her as Brenda Lee Aeger.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And she is someone who sang backup for some big names,
not just saying back up. She also wrote music for
as she mentioned before, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder.
She is the magnificent, the one and only, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Inside and out.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
And da Leeger, welcome back to my show.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And yes, personal life.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I don't know how much of that is like on
or off the record, but I you know, I love
getting to know people, not just professionally. And I think
that you are a public persona. And you talked a
little about your mom and.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Dad, but married not married children.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I think you have grandchildren, So I think you have
that and I know you love them, and I think
I've met some. But please tell me where were you
born and sort of give me the milestone highlights.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I was born in Mobile, Alabama. I was raised on
a farm outside of Mobile called Lord Peachtree, Alabama. Alabama.
Where I come from is like the You're right on
the Gulf of Mexico and I'm the oldest is like
I said, of eleven kids.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
My brothers, eldest of eleven.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
They were actually twelve, but we lost one. My mother
had twelve babies, eight brothers and four girls. Eight boys
for a girl. I'm the only one that ventured out.
I went to I moved to New York as as
(41:33):
soon as I graduated high school. New York kicked my
butt all the way back to Alabama. I went to
audition at the Apollo Theater and they would not allow
me to audition and real country bump again. I was
so naive. I walked up to the door and say, my.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
Name is Brenda Marie Anna.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
I want to audition, and the guy looked at You're
not coming in today, I said, but I have come
all the way from Alabama. Please, I need to get
in the auditions. Didn't is and and and sure enough
I didn't get to do that. I wound up working
in a factory. You're talking about a sweat box, I
(42:19):
mean New York Manhattan. At that time, there was nothing
but sweatboxes, making clothes, making material for gowns and so forth.
And my job was to make was to put sequins
on gowns before they were gowns. And uh and and
I longed to wear one of those. But here I
was making making, help them to make the dress. But anyway,
(42:42):
five years later I was headlining at the at the Apollow.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
So I'm so glad I asked this question. Wow, so
so okay.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
So so here's lessons on how to you know, not
give up.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's right, you have your dream.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
It's not not shy or unwilling to do whatever it takes.
Working at freaking sweatshot, literally I'm thinking about every those goals.
Those sequins are a pain in the Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
There's a machine. Okay, you put the bottom, the little
thing that holds it together, You put put that in
this machine. And then there's an air machine. You put
the material over that. Then there's an air machine that
comes down. It clamps the OUs, It clamps the top
to the bottom, on the on the on the dress,
and there's a you know, there's a pattern. And I
(43:40):
tell you that was that was one of the times.
And all it all the while, I kept singing.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
I kept singing.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
I kept singing. And when I was picking the picking
the pes in the on the phone, I kept singing.
I was singing from one row to the end of
the row and back, and I just knew I was
going to get up out of there. So to make
this really really in between those five years that our
auditioned and headline with Jerry Butler, I got married, moved
(44:07):
to Chicago, had a daughter, my beautiful daughter, Michelle, and
joint Operation bread Basket. Operation bread Basket was the SCLC
economic arm and its job was to help black officials
get elected and to bring money into the black community.
(44:30):
So I was a civil rights activist. Switch up still
and I still I want just sprawl, just draw. And
I traveled the country with three other girls and a
twenty one piece orchestra with the River and Jesse Jackson,
and we went all around the country getting helping to
get black officials elected for the first time Carl Stokes,
(44:51):
I mean, if there was a black official getting elected,
we were there.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Wow. I didn't know that about you love it for girls.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Jesse pulled us out of the bread Basket choir, which
was one hundred and twenty five people, but we were solo,
and so he pulled us for solos to travel with him,
and we not only sang at the rallies with the orchestra.
Once the rally in the morning was over, we hit
the streets, we knocked on the doors. We knocked on
(45:21):
people's doors and said, hey, we're in the city to
help you get your mayor. You have to come out
with us and boat. And sometimes people was like, oh,
but it's so early in the mornings. And we stand
there and say we'll wait till you put some clothes on.
You gotta go vote. And we won every everyone and
everywhere we went. We want.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
So I'm going to give you doctor Marie's Beneficial Presence
on the Planet Award just because of that. I didn't
even know that, Dan girl.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
I mean it just but I mean you you really,
you really have been around a number of blocks and
and your life is is consistently for service, which is
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
It's amazing. Okay, keep going.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
And I have my two grandsons who are absolutely amazing,
which you watched them grow up.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes, they're adorable, rather too old for.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Me for them. And I think as even as a family,
we want to be be a beneficial presence on the planet.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah, and you are and you are so so go back. Okay.
So you're singing with Jesse Jackson. Jesse, Yeah, Reverend Reverend Jackson.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
So one day Reverend Jackson comes up to me and
he said, you know you and I was. We was,
we were young, we were in the in our twenties.
She said, you know, you like to write songs. And
my little brother who's in Carolinas, he likes to write
song but he's coming to live here in Chicago. He says,
I want to put your guys together so you can
(47:06):
write songs together, both of you. And he did, and
and Chuck and I started writing songs together, and then
he and we demo the songs. He took a demo
to Jerry Butler, so he calls me one day. I'm
working a day job at the bank. At the bank,
he calls me one day and he says, uh, brigal ly, uh,
Jerry Butler wants to see you. And I'm like, now,
(47:31):
mind you Jerry Butler and Sam Cook, well my favorite
male singers. I hung up on him and he called
me back. He said, I know I lie a lot,
but he really want He heard our demo and he
really loves your voice. Uh, you got to go down
to Poteen oh two, South Michigan and on him again.
(47:51):
Oh my god, you get me by my job. And
the third time he had his best friend to call
and he said. He said, but I know he's a liar,
but this time he's really telling the truth. And so
I took it. I would check this out. My boss
was sitting there listening to the whole thing, and turned
(48:13):
to my boss, and my boss was like, he's this
Jewish man that you know how the cigar boxes had
the guy with it with the.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Time, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was him. He
had the handle bar handle bar.
Speaker 5 (48:26):
And I said, what do you think.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
I don't want to lose my job. He said, you
little shit. If you don't go down there and go
see that man about your career, get out of here.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Get here.
Speaker 4 (48:36):
So that's how the whole thing was.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Okay, you just have to take me out for lunch now,
because you just violated my FCC, I should have told
you we can't use it, just.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
In case you're going to do that's a twenty thousand
dollars Fine.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
So happened again. I was just repeating him, ad apology,
I apologize. I'm so okay.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
So after he called you a little chittaki, you went
to see Jerry and.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
He said, I didn't.
Speaker 5 (49:16):
Speak right now.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
So his secretary when I walked in, she says, he's
in there waiting for you. So I opened the door
and there he was, the Jerry Butler, sitting behind his
desk in a cream colored jogging suit, and he says,
how are you, young lady? And now I'm gonna be
(49:41):
very refined. So I sit down and he said, have
to see that to God. Thank you, sir, He said,
you know, I got your demo and I like your song.
He said, but I like the girl that's singing it.
And he says, do you think you would like to
(50:03):
record that song for me? I lost it. I'm like, what,
you're my favorite, You're my favor for your precious luck.
I started singing this song for you. You just know
you're just and he said, calm down, come down.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
You were what mid twenties?
Speaker 4 (50:23):
I was twenty one?
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Oh you were twenty one?
Speaker 4 (50:27):
And he says, I guess that. I guess that means yes, right.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Oh MG, that is the best story. Yeah, that's the
best story.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
Oh he's like got.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Forty something at this point? Was he like forty something? Point?
Speaker 4 (50:42):
I think he was thirty two?
Speaker 3 (50:43):
Yes, thirty two, okay, yeah, but he's already like he
was big, right, that's what.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
I'm saying him and saying okay, well my favorite.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Singers okay, okay, and I'm like I still.
Speaker 4 (50:56):
To this day, I pitched my you think about it.
So I went back to Chicago earlier this year to
his services and that was oh.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
So then so then you started singing because he liked
the girl be find the voice.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
And we were on the road. I was on the
road with Jerry Butler, and everybody in my hometown, whoa this,
I start she sing with Jerry but.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Wow wow, and so like from the first rejection at
Apollo Theater, how many years?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Five years? Did you say?
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Five years? Wow, he's read Jerry Butler and Brenda Leeager.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Oh I got just got chills. It was that's I'm
so happy for you. I didn't even know that part,
Like I knew that you were like, you know.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
There's so much more.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
So then okay, so then you're sang with them, recorded
topped the charts, and then what.
Speaker 4 (51:59):
Well after two gold records and another one that well,
our first record that I was checking out rode it
sold two hundred and fifty thousand copies. That was a
lot back in those days. But the second Ain't Understanding
metisol a million and the other we make a back
of racks close to You that also sold a million.
(52:20):
So we came out to Stee, California.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Wait wait, is that the why dude?
Speaker 4 (52:27):
Okay, yes, you can look that up on YouTube. YouTube.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
That's awesome. I love that song.
Speaker 4 (52:32):
We came out to California to do Soul.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Train, to do Soul Train, okay, And.
Speaker 4 (52:40):
We did Soul Train and I left Chicago. We left Chicago.
I had this big bear coat on because we left
in a blizzard. When I got to California, the palm
trees were swinging sway, the sun was shining. The driver,
I had on a flip flop, said some short shorts.
(53:02):
And I looked at Jerry. I said, Jerry, this is
my home. I am going to live in Los Angeles
and he said, be you can't. Your record company it's back.
I moved within six weeks. I'm like, I'm sorry, I
got to go. So I came on out too, and
(53:24):
you left him. I did well, he was married. I mean,
there was gone we But you know, you make so
many mistakes in your youth. You make and I guess
they're not mistakes, that's just on your path. But you
can make some bad decisions. I made several, Okay, I
mean several. Said this one out. So I'm on the
(53:48):
road with Jerry Butler having fun Chuck Jack to my
original writer, Guy h Jesse's brother started writing with my
piano player, Marvin Yancy. So they were riding together and
they were like my brothers, and they called me. I'm
on the road, and it's hey, Lily, we got some
fantastic news. When you get back to Chicago. Oh you
(54:10):
the three of us, we're gonna write together. We're gonna
be like colland Dojan Holland and we're gonna write and
produce together. And I'm like, ah, you know, I got
to hit record. I'm on the road. That's we know.
But we got this girl. We've got this girl. We
gotta produce. She's Natalie Cole, She's nat King Cole's daughter,
and you'll be one of the producers. I'm like, I
don't think so, I'm on the road. Yeah. Later one
(54:34):
of the biggest, one of the biggest mistakes. Natalie Cole
and I talk about it all that well, we talked
about it when you know, when she was here, But
she said, yeah, girl, we would have been hanging out together.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
But Uh yes, oh mg, yeah, yeah like that.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
So we won't even go and just you don't have time.
I'm gonna put on and I'm gonna I tell these
stories at my concert and some of them tell us
a story about No.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
I can understand why people are paying you money just
to talk about your life because I didn't know all this.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
This is like so cool that I you.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Know, I was inspired just to ask you that question
because we didn't do this last time.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah, I'm so glad to this.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Is comparable to make you feel better. Larry Namer, who
is the founder of E Entertainment, Uh, he's been on
my show a couple times. He's coming on again, but
he said same thing. A missed take was he passed
on Ryan Seacrest. Now that's not as bad as Natalie Cole.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
However, however, oh my god, I passed on Natalie.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
Okay, And we only have two minutes left, so I
I will definitely have to continue this another time because
I know that we just we just started on that
mountain of really fabulous stories.
Speaker 2 (56:10):
And you know what's interesting.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
Is I'm getting the When Marilyn White was on the
show and she was talking about her time with Earth
wind and Fire, and you know, her partnership, and she
wanted me to write her book right and the story
of her and we actually started writing, and you know,
kind of ran out of funds.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
And stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
So people are still asking me, you know, when that
book's coming out.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
But but I could definitely see writing.
Speaker 3 (56:39):
Your story as well, So so that's something to think about. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well you were waiting for someone who.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Is the best seller?
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Who? Who?
Speaker 5 (56:54):
Who?
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Who put the pen down the way you did, so
that was all down. Yeah, yeah, national, yeah, let's talk
about that.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
But what's your final word for I don't know for anybody,
anybody and everybody who's listening who doesn't feel as happy
and fulfilled as they could be in this thing called life.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
You got one minute.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
I wrote it in a song, and I've going to
close with that. Paint your picture, write your song, build
a castle of your own, Climb your mountain. You can sail.
Speaker 9 (57:34):
The seven seeds, ride your recket ship in space, find
your quiet in a place to reveal your destiny, whatever.
Speaker 4 (57:44):
It may be. You know better than anyone what do
you want from that's left. Never let someone else take
your dreams away. Go for what is right for you.
Only you can make your dreams come true.
Speaker 5 (57:58):
And wherever it takes, I'll be by your side. So
live your dream.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
And that was Brenda Lee Aeger. Thank you so much,
my sister. The words were exactly what I needed to
hear right now too.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
So I'm getting a little, you know, tears of the
disinfected that keep my heart soft.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
So thank you.
Speaker 4 (58:28):
Yes, let's keep our hearts soft and through the tears,
you know, even through the tears, there's something that has
the nose.
Speaker 3 (58:40):
It's going to be all right, yep, when one door
closes and another one opens.
Speaker 2 (58:46):
But sometimes it's hell in the hallway.
Speaker 4 (58:49):
But uh yeah, yes.
Speaker 3 (58:52):
And you know picking the cotton and picking the I
mean putting the the the I'll never get that image
out of my head now, the sequence in the gowns,
all right, do this with me now.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
It's all about balance.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
Peace in peace, out world, peace through inner piece. This
is doctor Marisa and Brenda Leeager wishing you the best day.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
Ever. I'll see you tomorrow. Love you.
Speaker 11 (59:31):
E digits lock them in for more information, recreation and
guaranteed fun casey AA ten fifty A ns Hey you
yeah you do you know where you are well, you've
done it. Now. You're listening to casey AA Loma Linda,
(59:54):
your CNBC news station, so expect the unexpected.
Speaker 8 (01:00:06):
You're listening to the Tehibo Tea Club radio show hosted
by
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