April 3, 2024 • 50 mins
Narada Michael Walden has won "Producer Of The Year" at the Grammy Awards. Before he produced monster records for Aretha Franklin, George Michael, Whitney Houston, and others, he was a prolific drummer from Michigan with a dream. In Part 1 of his Questlove Supreme interview, Narada recalls his upbringing and influences. He details his experiences, ranging from seeing Stevie Wonder as a child and years hanging out with P-Funk's Eddie Hazel. Narada also describes his time as a member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and working with some of the most revered Jazz legends while as a disciple of Sri Chinmoy. This is a rare audience with one of Questlove's greatest inspirations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm ringing this hat quest Love for you. This is
my drumming hat in high school in the high school bands. Man.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, you still have that. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, all right, Uh,
I'm not nervous at all.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good. We gotta get your hat like that, amir.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love Supreme. I am
quest Love, your host of the day. We are here
with fun Tigolo f Takeolo. Where you at right now?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm at the crib man. I just uh, I came
in just straight from the gym, so you know, sweat
same shame here, yep, shame.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's it's something about uh March that creeps in that says, okay,
summer coming. I gotta get my summer by yeah, mineus
picnic body, so yeah, I want to look halfway presentable
with the picnic. H Steve, how are you pal?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm good, really looking forward to this interview like everybody else.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
How interesting was your evening?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Super interesting? Definitely trying to hear you pronounce words and
so forth.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
All right, Steve, as you guys know, I can't stop
writing books and one of the well I'm not trying
to say unfortunate, but one of the things that I
am not much of a fan of in the process
of book writing is doing the audio books, especially when
Steve is on standby to hear me struggle with college words,
and he definitely got a ear full last night. But look,
(01:48):
we got more important pressing matters on our hands. Let
me just say that I know that a line share
of my personal music knowledge, you know, honestly came into
play once hip hop contextualized my parents boring record made
it interesting, which you know, basically my age fourteen fifteen sixteen.
(02:11):
Of course I could ratle off any musician's name, but
I wasn't in a slouch either when I was a kid.
But you know this, this knowledge I have a music
really became a thing when I was a teenager. However,
I will say that in my life in real time,
and I'm talking about when I'm seven years old, there
were two particular drummers who I idolized. And of course,
(02:34):
if you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you already
know that I've had the pleasure of doing a one
on one with my idol Steve Rone, formerly of the
Average White Band Today is no exception, and today we'll
actually complete that circle, because if I'm really honest with myself,
our guest today might be the first air quote fusion
(02:56):
drummer that I became familiar with. Not exactly by choice.
It just so happens that a particular family excursion of
nineteen seventy seven on a trip to Disney World in
a van with an A track tape player as our
entertainment and maybe six A track tapes in rotation, and
(03:17):
one of those six A track tapes had heavy rotation
of the debut album of our guest on the Show today,
entitled Garden of Love Light. And one song in particular
that I know that I personally put ten thousand Gladwellian
hours in a practice was a tune called The Sun
(03:40):
Is Dancing. And now that I think about it, I
think the very first time that I nerded out on
Bassis Megabasis will Lee of The Letterman Show was more
about him playing on that album than it was anything
else that Willy has done. Willie's done legendary shit, but
I will say that his resume is beyond impressive. Name
(04:04):
It Whitney, Arefa, Mariah, George, Michael, Jeff Beck Campbell, Yeah,
Temi Campbell, Barbaris Streiss and Wynald Richie Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey,
Dinah Ross, Rachel my Vision Orchestra. He's worked with everyone
but me, and the time I think I'm trying to
(04:24):
be him, you know what I mean. Not to mention,
I will say that he's probably the first human being
that I've ever taken note of that even mentioned the
word that I'm obsessed with now post pandemic, which is meditation.
So this is a long overdue conversation with the great legendary.
(04:46):
Please welcome Nordom, Michael Walton, finally the Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Thank you so much man, a long time man. Wow,
thank you so much, happy to be here. This is wonderful.
I'm a big fan of yours, breath, a big fan
of yours. You know, you bring the funk, man, you
bring the soul, and you bring the integrity to the music.
Some I'm really really loving you.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Then I'm bringing everything I ever learned from you, man,
so now you know what it is. I'm also realizing
I've met you briefly before, and I will say that
there are very few human beings that have an instantaneous
disarming chip that I wish I had. You have a
(05:30):
level of calm that I now know that. Of course,
your resume is that impressive because I believe that you
have a sort of calming element, because you produced some
people that I would believe would be some of the
hardest people personality wise to even step with. I've said
(05:50):
no to a few of these people were just like
drumming with them or any of those things, because I
couldn't bear to think of the thought of, you know,
of dealing with that. But can I ask you, like,
what when did you develop this personality of just calmness,
Like you have a very disarming like have you ever
(06:11):
gotten angry in your life?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Oh? Yeah, sure, sure I do, of course I do.
It's just that I learned, like what you're speaking about
in production and working with other people that I wanted
to get their best, and I realized that the love
aspect was really powerful. It is really powerful. And then
you mentioned meditation, So through meditation and the love aspect
(06:33):
that became the most important part, and that the person
I'm working with could feel that love to do their best,
and then that would just make everything just go. So
I kind of just pray, swim, you know, get myself
together physically, and then get in that spirit that the
person you really feel like, oh you're not here to
(06:54):
fight with me, You're going to me that great music.
Then they start singing whatever they're going to do, and
an endorphins kick in and are gone. But that spirit
of love is really really important. That's what I want
to say to you about that.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Do you have a pre studio ritual that you do
or something like the kind of get ready to get
into this.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know you can see behind me. I have a candle,
two camels here and a candle up there. You know.
I burn a little incense every now and again. I
usually bring a gift to the person I'm working with,
just kind of make them feel the love on a
physical level. A teddy bear flower, something sweet. And then
I want to say one more thing about what you're
asking about, because it's really important for me that. Probably
(07:33):
the most incredible moment along this line was after I
made the songs of two songs, Who's the Man Who
Until You Say You Love Me? And Here, and flew
back to Detroit, Michigan to meet Aretha. It looking in
her eyes is scary. That would that would scare you?
That would that scared me? But there again, you know,
(07:54):
I let her know in my spirit, my eyes, my love,
I'm not here to fight, I'm not here to make
a problem. I want I want to serve you, I
love you, and help us make the best music. And
then once the music comes on and then she starts
opening up and singing, then again, like I said, it
just gets happy. And then it's like, well, what do
you want to eat? You want cheeseburger, you want you know,
fried chicken? What you want? And all that sounds happening.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
See, I wish I'd known you previously, Steve could have
tested this. You know. Of course, I'm still here at
the tonight show and Lovely Lovely, and I've only had
one client sort of put us through the ringer to
the point where I just walked away. And you know, unfortunately,
(08:41):
I've had the pleasure of playing practically with every person
I've ever idolized. But when it came to a refa
and the alpha level of testing that we were put through,
I failed that test. Oh no, you know it was
(09:02):
like my ego was there because in my mind I'm like, well,
I'm holding up the tradition, like we are holding up
the tradition of Cornell dupri and Bernard Purty like her seventies,
her seventies crack band, and you know, she wanted to
have a long talk, and she wanted us to audition
and all this stuff, and you know, I just now
(09:27):
regret that that move. But I was just like, well, no,
I'm fine. If you want to sing behind your karaoke track,
then go ahead and do so. And she did so,
and it could have been magic, but you know it
was definitely I didn't know about what you just said,
like we're dealing with people and how to disarm them
and all that stuff. And so first starters, Where were
(09:50):
you born?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I'm from Calamazoo, Michigan, between Chicago and Detroit, rightland middle
in the country, Calumboo where they make gifts and guitars,
you know, and Battle Creek, Michigan is not far away
with the Mick Kellogg's complex, and that's where Junior Walk
All the Star comes from, you know, with all that funk.
So I Calamus in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I'm only laughing because Kalamazoo is always my go to
random hypothetical city when I say something like, oh, you know,
I always in Kalamazoo, miss but I've never known one
human being from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Now you do, Now you do.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I read a really interesting story about you in a magazine.
I think it was right on. I'm not certain, but
the very first thing I've ever read about you. I
happen to be reading this story a year before were
in Philadelphia. And I don't remember the exact lining of
(10:47):
the earth whatever, but I do know that we were
about to go through in nineteen eighty four a major
solar eclipse.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And it was one of the things were like the
school was like handing out these these sunglasses and you
must never look in the sun or else you'll go blind.
And yes, yes, And I remember reading an interview of
you where you said you were so inspired by Stevie
Wonder that could you tell that story? Please?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Okay, brother, that's true story. Okay, let me just go
back up just for a second to say that Ray, Charles,
George Sharing or blind men knocked me out with their genius.
And then on the scene, my aunts, my mom's sisters,
they're Vicky and Valor there, their twins. They said, well,
you know, on the scene. Now is a little boy
(11:38):
your age, maybe a little older than you, but he
plays drums better than you play. And he's incredible. I said, no, no, no,
I don't want to buy it. And he said, oh no.
His little name is little Stevie Wonder you know. And
he plays. I said, how can he's blind? How can
you even see the drums? Well he does, Okay, okay, okay.
But not long after came out a song that was
(11:58):
a live version of Fingertips, and Fingertips were smoking, and
I mean smoking, like smoking smoking. And I was lucky
enough to go to Chicago, my dad comes from Chicago,
and go to the Regal Theater and see him play.
And when they walked him out, it was like an alien.
He walked like an alien, slowly, kind of back and forth,
(12:20):
like you know, like I've never seen anything walk like
like you walked. But now in the audience it's packed
with screaming girls, like beatles, screaming, you know. And when
he gets the microphone, he's just in control and his
voice is high like a little boy, but just every
little note just so perfect, just so perfect, and the
(12:42):
band just rocking and on the harmonica perfect, and I
just was like is true. He is better than me.
He's got everyone in his pond of hand. He's challeng God.
(13:05):
And that was the summer of the eclips you're talking
about Signed in Chicago. I decide, Okay, if I'm blind,
I can maybe be as good as these guys are
are my hero. So I wouldn't stare at the sun
make myself blind. But the Good Lord said no, no, no,
you keep your sight. But I did try to make
myself blind.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah. Oh, I read that story and I guess we had.
You know, the next cycle of that was sometime in
nineteen eighty four, and you know again this and also
you know, there's a thing like when you're a kid
an adult tells you no, you're just instantly like, even
(13:42):
if it's to your own detriment. And there was one
point where I was like, yeah, Nardi Michael's right, like
if I'm blind, like Stevie Wonder, I too can have gifts.
And I was actually thinking, let me go outside and
just stick. Do you remember your very first musical memory.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
When I was really little, my dad bought a record
home called Froggy went a court and he did lie
Froggy went according he did you know I was a
little kid, kid, kid, kid kid, I remember that kind
of thing. I also remember, very very young, I was
so blessed by Santa with a toy toy Land drum
set for Christmas. That blew my mind. These little drums
(14:29):
with the paper heads, so you play them, but the
head's been last very long because it's bit of paper.
But I get orgasmic beating these damn things. And I
see the happiness of my parents, my grandparents, and I
got so happy. That's bigger when I knew that's it,
that's a little little kid. I guess just after that
would be like then making pillows and getting a pie
(14:50):
ten and playing along with Na Simone live a town Hall,
you know, Summertime and that album, the live album of
hers playing along with that, and then that became like
kind of going on like that, you know, Ama Jamal
and those those those type of records, playing along with them.
But yeah, it's just always there, that record, the young,
the young vibe, catching the spirit of the music so important.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
High tens were your symbols.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah A ten ten.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
A we are the same person? Yeah yeah, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, that's right. So what is the significant of a
pie tin symbol. What what what will we hear that on? Well,
you know, it just makes a high, high tending tink tink,
you know it kind of if you don't have a symbol,
at least it can make high kind of a sound
like a symbol, so you know. And a pillow, like
a flat pillow, can be like a bass drum or
whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I was set up chairs, Yeah, that's it. I was
set up chairs, as my drum said. And then either
the lamp, lamp shade or a pie ten was always
my damn. I thought I was the only person.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
That thought about no, no, man. I bet Steven want
it too.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
That is crazy. Recently I went back to my old
neighborhood and I saw there's a lady that you know,
still living and down the block, and she was telling
like people's stories off like, eh, he used to always
wail in the drums. I used to hear him five
six houses away. So your parents lived in a household
in which they encouraged you to make noise and all
(16:25):
these things, and.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, yeah, I got to say. My dad was like
eighteen when he had me. My mom was nineteen when
they had me, and my dad wanted to be a drummer,
and he would carry his best friend's drums around in
a cat named Bill Dowdy from the Three Sounds. So
he wasn't a drummer, but he loved it. So that
was a big yes, you know, build out it from
Three Sounds. Yes, well that was my dad's friend, and
that's another record I was raised up playing along with
(16:47):
him and my dad. Quite frankly, the only time he
really kind of gave me the kudos like iuld I
could play was when I could play a note for
note that record he bought. That was when he knew, oh, well,
I guess you can play. But it wasn't until that.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, I'm letting you know that. The whole Billdouti thing
in our family was a big to do and and
I was I could make noise. So you're right, the
parents loving you, loving what the sound? It's important.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
How old were you when you first started drumming?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
A little kid? Five, six, seven years old? But I
didn't take stare droom lessons until like ten years old.
You know, rudiment, five stroke, role paradiddles, you know like that,
and then oh, your left hand is not as fast
as your right hand. You gotta work right your left hand,
all that kind of behavior. But then I'm really blessed.
Maybe you're around the age of eleven twelve. There was
(17:40):
a drummer on the north side of Kalamazoo, not apart
from my grandparents house named Harold Mason. And Harold was
a black cat who knew independency, and he had a
Blue Book of Independency by Jim Chapin. So that book
you play right hand written Jane Jane K Jean Chane
k Jean Inge Chang like that, but then against it
(18:02):
on the left hand. The pattern keeps changing, so you
have to kind of, you know, keep reading the changing
and like learning your mind how to break it up.
Then you bring your feet into it, your bass drum,
your high hat. But then he'd be so advanced. He
would say, well, you know the jazz capts in New York,
now you know what they're doing. They aren't just playing
two and four in the hide anymore. They're playing with
the high hand, you know, whatever they want to do
(18:24):
on the on the on the left foot. I thought
that was that would be too much. I don't want
to get into all that. I was happy just playing
to do on the high hat with my foot. But
he was that advanced breaking the mind up for independency,
which really, to this day helped me. A lot of
people don't understand its like learning to ride a bike.
You can do it, then you can play all kind
of crazy stuff. So it happened early in my life
(18:45):
that I got with peril Maze. And then guess what happened.
Harold went on to play the drumps for Stevie. Wonder.
Now Stevie's a little older now, you know, signed to deliver.
Those records are out and they came through Calumu Zoo
a place called Western Michigan University of the College, and
the place is to see Stevie won. He's a big star.
So here's my teacher, Harold Maston, drums and the thing
that caught the fire is this, and you'll appreciate you
(19:06):
You're you're bad. Harold starts playing this groove, goes on
the bell like one, two, the four dean t kitting
dan tingan but pan to kitting thing thing being kitting
thing thing ticketing thing pan like that, and Steve's catching
fire with us. Stevene runs over the blind stuff pushes
(19:30):
us get off the drums, Harold gets on the drums
and starts playing the same thing stronger Dean Ti Kadan.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
King.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I was like, damn. Then Stephen gets crazy. He stands
up on the stool and the police goes ah. He
falls off the stool on the floor, gets back up
up again, falls on the floor and starts playing his groove.
I'm like, these people are nuts. They're nuts, But it
showed me that the level craziness you can go to
(20:01):
and it's okay.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You're one of the rare artists that I mean, We've
had a few artists on the show that I have
recollections of seeing one concert or two concerts or whatever.
But am I to believed that even since childhood you
were just regularly seeing shows of musicians.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
In Kalamus and Michigan. We're in the country, so it's
not like I'm in the city. So no, I wouldn't
say like I'm like a New York where Ucats were
or Philadelphia. No, we're country cats. We're country mice. But
our ears are big because we're hearing all the music
out of Detroit, We're hearing all the music out of Chicago.
You know, five stairsteps Curtis Mayfield. We're hearing everything. We're
hearing everything. We're hearing them the brand new motown, you know,
shop around Miracles, We're hearing all the new stuff. You know, baby,
(20:41):
I need you to love them before you don't even hears it.
It's there at our parties. So that's what it was.
It was just hearing the radio. And then I gotta
say pop music like Patty Page, Old Cape Cod Johnny Mathis's.
Chances are all that music is just as huge in Michigan.
So you love Prince. That's why Prince is so bad ass,
(21:02):
because Prince not only got the funks, but but he
got all the white pop stuff just as wrong. That's
what it is back there, miss Minnesota, Michigan. Right, it's
like a big old gumbo.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
I see. Were you a big record collector as a kid.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, I love the records. I love the records, and
I loved also like playing that song by the who
I Can See for miles and miles of miles in
my basement. That was that caught my attention. I didn't
even know who Keith Moon or anything that was. I
just like the I can See I Can see you
know that left power yeah, who was your idol?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Drumming? Wise? Uh wait, do you play any other instruments
besides drums?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I just played keyboard piano to write my songs. You know,
keyboards to right, So drumming is still your first left? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Who were your idols?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Like?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Once you develop your style, like, who's the person that
I'm that person? Who's your north star?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I learned from everybody. Harold taught me so much, Harold Mason,
Stevie that that thing I just told you about. I
was blown out by the charisma ringo star. I gotta
tell you. On the Ed Sullivan Show, to see him
flirt with the chicks in the upper balcony as he
was playing the open slushy high hands, smiling at the
chicks above. I thought that was badass. See the chrism
(22:24):
aspect got me more than the chops, just the swinging
and the smiling. Wow man, Okay. Then Mitch Mitchell with
Hendricks was mean. It was mean, so I had to
give him a lot of love.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
All right. So I've talked to many an artist and
of a certain age, of a certain age for a
lot of them. There north star was the Beatles on
Sullivan the same way like twenty years later. Of course,
like Motown twenty five was another north Star moment for
people that watched the Moon. But I'm more fascinated when
(23:01):
black people speak of the Beatles on Sullivan, like, could
you explain what the fascination was? Because was it just
that there was nothing else? Like what made black people
even open to that moment?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, okay, I knew the Beatles were coming because I
saw their album cover in downtown Kalamazoo and Paul McCartney
had a cigarette on the cover and that was unusual,
just to see a cat having a cigarette bowl on
the cover. Just small things like that. There's a Catholic
school and so the girls were already certain rumble about
the Beatles. It was already catch them fire, and that
was unusual because no one ever talked about music. So
(23:38):
here they are rumbling about the Beatles. It's like, really,
you guys are into this. So when it hit and
the best thing was this man, not just that show,
but check this out. It'd be John Lennon saying, well,
our favorite female vocalist is Mary Wells. It's like, damn
Mary well That's that's Detroit, That's where I live. But
little white girls a little better at the school. They
(23:59):
who's married. It's like, damn, that's Mary Wells. They don't die.
I don't know Mary Wells, they would say, and then
ring John would say, well, also, our favorite male singer
is a little Richard, Little Richard, little Richard that was
on a seven year you know, long tall Sally all
those records. So, but they have no idea who they were.
So the Beatles really educated all these people who I knew,
the little white kids whatever to what was really going down.
(24:22):
So I do and I liked that. I liked that
that's caught. That caught us because they're not the're talking
about black people and given a shine which we never had.
You know what I'm saying. That was a big to do.
And I'm telling you, man, this whole beatle Mania thing
was real. So you're born with seventy one? What do
what do you born right?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Seventy one?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah? Okay, so this is like sixty three, sixty four.
It was on fire. We never experienced like it. Just
even the plane, the plane landing, looking at them coming
out the plane, people going hysterical, so just it just
you go wow, wow. The music was good, but it
was all the frenzy around it me like incredible, damn.
But then when they started loving black people, I was like,
(25:00):
I like these kids, you know what I was talking
to talk about, talk about litle Richard, you know what
I was talking about by your married wells. So that's
what it was, man, the catching of all these things
that were like cool.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Got it? Got yeah? All right? So how far is
Detroit from Kalamazoo? And at any point did you make
a move to Detroit? Like was Motown calling you or
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I would love. I would love to have gone to
to Motown. I've gone. We would drive to Detroit to
go visit a family friend or whatever and just go
by the street. But you know, you could never go
in there. It was like a sacred territory. You know,
you could never go in there. But just to go
buy it, just drive by it would be like a
big deal. So I don't have any stories of like,
you know, going inside there or anything. But we all
(25:41):
were just like religion. The chord changes and the way
they put it together with the sounds and the great singers.
It was just a religion man.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
What was your what was your band experience? Like in
your teen years, like were you forming bands in high.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
School or yes, yeah, my first band was I was
eleven and he'd be ten. He played Hammond B three
and his name is Joel Brooks and he was brilliant,
like Jimmy Smith, a young kid, Jimmy Smith. So it
just drums me and him on organ. And his uncle
owned a little nightclub called the Ambassador Lounge on the
(26:18):
North side of Caladizoo, the Black side of Calamazoo. So
he can go on in the Ambassador Lounge and be
the opening at because his uncle owned the place before
Jim mcgrifford, whoever's coming through town is not gonna play
what it was, Yes, so it was like first hand
experienced playing Jane Jane or where we were gonna play
before they came on. And you know that was just
(26:41):
mind blowing, because I must tell you also a part
of what I love there is a record by Kennat
Jimmy Smith called The Sermon Is twenty two minutes long.
Were what it did to my brain is e equals
empty square. Art Blakey played a batbeat two and four
the whole record, because you know those cat jazz guys
are busy no, but dude, it just rocks like a
(27:12):
blues record. I realized the power that and that really
helped me a lot that you could just put down
and it's and people love it even more so. Man,
those experience when I was eleven with the Ambassadors, that
helped me that band. And then we bring a little
horn player into it. You know, Captain was studying at
the at the university on trumpet Pierre or a Sacic
(27:34):
player or a vis player, Carl. You know, I gonna
expand the sound. So I had great experience playing the
young like that, and then uh, I would do that.
Then the rock thing of my own bands. Then as
I got a little I left home when I was
about sixteen years old, right, and I had now go
to keyboards. I played Fender bass Oregon and we do
like what does It Take by Junior Walker all Stars,
those type of songs. But I'm playing keyboards now. So
(27:56):
and then that band was called Distance in the Far.
Then I had another band I played bass that's called
the Mother Thump with the Flunkies. Now we're doing Expressway
to Your Heart and Grand Funk Railroad. You know, are
you ready all that music? Yeah? So, and then before
I left Kalamazoo. I joined a horn band, kind of
a Chicago horn band, but very progressive called Avatar and
they were really, really, like, probably the most progressive band
(28:18):
I've been with. And then my friend who played trouble
with that band, Bobby Napp, he said, do you know
about this record by Cold Blood called I said no.
He played me this cap man named Sandy McGee on
an album called Siss. And to this day, you say
north Star moment, that's still my north Star moment. Sandy
McGee on drums.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Wow, Okay, So when's the moment in which you're like, Okay,
this is my profession. I am going to be a drummer.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Always. I didn't want to ever do anything else. I
remember one day I had joined a band called dickon
Wingims so Revival that came to Calama Zoo. They took
me up after I did want to be in college anymore.
I went three semesters of college. I packed my drums
in their school bus and went out to play them Flint, Michigan,
these little nasty joints. But it was so important that
I did that because that I really knew how to
connect with the people. People, people, the people, people people,
(29:10):
and that was that same and my dad. I come
back to Calendars to go play some more clubs, and
my dad would saying, why didn't you just become a policeman,
you know, because this whole road thing for you, I
don't know if you should be doing that. But now
now I was always a drummer. Then that band decided
to go out to California. Now here we are going
out to California. I came out to California, you know,
we played shows out here and you know, in Hollywood
and all that. Then that band broke up. Then I decided, no,
(29:31):
I want to stay in California. And then that became hard.
Now my ship from receiving clerk downtown LA, wrapping boxes,
hearing music constantly, just trying to get out of here,
you know, how to save myself. And I had a
few cousins, one that helped me out out in the
Englewood area and then another one out in Pasadena. He said,
come stay with me, and I did, and then it
was there I could like really shed was now the
(29:53):
Mobblished Workers album just came out. I had enough money
to buy that Inner Mounting Flame album that just crush
to me, I'd never heard anything like Colbum vishnu on
that effort and seven nine eleven whatever, what the hell
funk you like a fucking dog God? So that became
my shedding shed And then I also love Buddy Miles,
(30:16):
the live album that got that Bam S Joe text.
You know, then for spiritual moments you put on Alice
Coltrane's Universal Consciousness side too. You know, it could be
Jack Vignette, you know, just like, so how kind of
got off on mixing these worlds, the Colbumn, cleanless Buddy
funk and the Jackie net symbols. I love all that
(30:37):
stuff that I got that I met this cat man
you might know him, Eddie Hazel. I had a band
with him called Ouch. Why he was so mean because
me being good that he could play the funk really fast.
That prepared me for provision you later. But he'd be like,
look at and then you pass around this joint, but
(31:03):
it'd be laced with PCP the angel dust, So now
you're really getting out there. But you know you're looking
at him because he's gorgeous, got his things on and
gorgeous and just playing so clean and so fast. Aries
So those type of things happen for me. You know,
I've had great experiences.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
I need I need to hear what Eddie Hazel was
like from a person not in the p funk atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Just a big, big, big brain, you know, like Hendrick's
a big brain, you know, and not afraid of anything.
The rock, the tone, the funk, the black, like early prince,
like a prince could hug like he was, that could
do anything like in those worlds and not not scared
of anything. And again this powerful, it's powerful, this powerful
(31:50):
thing that would go around and would be like, oh
my god, I almost can't mess with that because I'm
too I'm too sensitive, but it would just make you
feel like whoa you know. So Eddie Hayes was an
influent I didn't stayed them very long, you know, because
he was always moving. But you know, but he made
a big influence in my life. You know. You hear
Maggot brains that how he plays on that record, It's
like that's who he is.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I would look to know at what point did the
teachings of Sri Chamoy enter your life, Like was it
during this period or was it later on.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Just after this period? This is my passage in the
LA experience I'm talking about, right, you know. And then
I had to work hard to try to find work
out in LA, you know, very hard. And they even
go back in the big what's called a you know,
an orderly in the hospitals to make ends meet. But
it wasn't long after I got a phone call from Miami.
A cat and down there named Santa Toronto, guitar player
(32:46):
from a winter band down the Santa Morono. He found
he heard about me. He said, come down to Miami.
So he bought my first plane ticket. I'd never been
on the plane before. What it be it maybe seventy one,
seventy two, seventy one there, see, because I got to
my high school seventy so that's now the year you're
(33:06):
born seventy one around that area. One that I fled
in Miami, and I like Miami, and it really opened
my eyes again because I'm at the universe. I wasn't
at the university, but at the university would be all
these great cats coming up. Pat Matheeni, you know, Danny
Gotlieb hiring Bullock, Cliff Card and Patty Scoff who's now
married to Bruce Bringsteen. They are all these young people
like that. But my friend was one of the teachers
(33:27):
them stand SMOLDI and I stayed with him and he'd
have books on the group. I said, okay, I said,
this is the cat who's inspiring my vision news. Yes,
so then you start reading the books of poetry on
she was treaching moy that were inspiring my vision news.
The poems of birds of fire, you know, my flute
and immortality, all these things he was writing that were
(33:48):
just beautiful and very God ordained. So I had a
band down there called the New MacGuire Sisters. Now we
really went full fledge rock spusion out there, odd meters
to the limit because now mobbys Storchestra made it go there.
(34:08):
And we'd have this big warehouse where the sound would
just be like enormous, Like I could mic my bass
drum with a big SVT amplifier. So I got used
to just making this huge sound in there. And then
not long after we got all this together, that band
then moved to Connecticut, a place called Canan, Connecticut, way
up on the bord of matth Housts in Connecticut, a
farm a bard where we could play. It was an
(34:31):
awesome sound and then the little cabins in a main
house and so we could keep kept working. But I
was always scratching how am I gonna make it? But
how am I gonna make it? How am I gonna
make it? I was always on my soul. And then
not long after came through Hartford the Mobys Shtorkers' second album,
playing the Birds of Fire. And I had my friend,
(34:52):
our manager, take me down to that show and dropped
me off at the show. And what this is really
important because you asked about Guru. It was my first
time laying eyes on the real living Mobbish new and cobblem.
And as I'm getting the I'm bit late, the place
is packed. There's a bright light on vish you and
(35:13):
it's just him on double neck guitar and Cob going
at it maybe in seventeen something so out there you
would never you can't even count it. But they were
like so intense with it. It was just nuts. So
I decided to walk right down to the edge of
the stage and look up in his eyes and see
what the hell is going on? And I did. I
looked right up in his eyes and he's he's just
(35:35):
the bullets, just bullets. Just like an adimal on fire
and his eyes are back in his head and I go, yeah,
this is real. It's too intense to be made to me,
to be like memorized. It's just flowing through him. And
it went up for so long. I could have been
(35:56):
like tw many minutes of this. I heard John Coltrane
on record with Elvin Jones just be out there for
the longest times. I've never seen anything live in a
rock setting. Marshals five's drum set, loud clean vibes. Oh
my god, clear fives, loud clean. It could stop like
(36:22):
that and back at it together. Oh Holy God, this
is this is now my life. This is now gotta
be what I gotta go to because if I if
I do another direction of my life, I could die.
I don't want to die. Jimmy, who are my fruit?
My heroes? Now I knew that that vision was into God.
(36:45):
He'd found the meditation way because I knew about his guru.
So that night I saw a guy in white. I
knew his disciple. His name is a Pikshah. I said, please,
a paic Shaw, I really have to meet Morvish new
team back to meet him, and he was so kind
to me of the whole audience something I'm nobody. He
gets me backstage and Marvish to pokes his head and said,
(37:09):
go in that little room and I'll meet you in
one minute. And I wait that little tiny room and
I'm scared because I've never seen anything like this. And
I can hear Cobbm and Joan Hamer you know, Hi
talk in the other room like Mcca you know, and
Jon They're all and then Maister comes in and he's
like English with this black mob. Miles Davis talk, hello, brother,
(37:33):
how are you?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Just like what is that? But that's how he was.
And I said, well, my name is Michael Wallas and
I said I've never seen anything like you, and I
want to be like you. I played drums and he said, well,
you know what I'm doing is larg as I do
to my prayer life, my meditation life. I said, yeah,
I know, because I ran on the back of your jackets.
These the poems by your group. He said yeah. He said,
(37:55):
I'm gonna see my grou at six in the morning
and I'll tell I met you. And that was like damn.
Here We're on the backstage in Hartford. It's almost one
in the morning. He is going to drive all night,
go back to Queens, New York and see the grew
at six am. That's not he's not going to sleep
after just what I saw him do. Something is so
(38:17):
small like that just rock my world. This is too much.
And you know what happened. It's just God. Because about
a week later, I'm way out in the country of Hayman, Connecticut,
in the woods at this farm I lived in, and
the throne rings and it's Mahavish New. He says, Ah, Man,
it's Marvish New. And I can't be the tonight, but
I want you to go to the meditation in Norwalk
(38:40):
and meet the Grew tonight. I said, okay, So man,
I had long hair. I brushed my hair back, you know,
and I got my shaver and I shaved my beard
off because I know they have no beards. And my
mom had made me a kind of a white dog shiki.
I put that white does she k on? And we
(39:02):
had an old limousine that the new McGuire sisters had
and my friend Greg Felt drove me down there and
to nor Walk. And when I got there that was
I was a little bit late too, so guess what happened.
I go inside and I leave my eyes on the
grou The area is singing and playing the harmonium and singing,
and he sees me and keep singing. And the girls
are on one side, and the boys and the other side.
They're all wearing white, and the girls are all wearing
(39:23):
these kind of Indian sories. So there's one chair left
on the girl's sides. I sit down with the girls,
and then this old lady named Akoutie, she gets up
front and she reads out of his new book called
The Dance of Life, Part two. And the poems in
this book were just like knives in my heart, because
you know, it was just just crying to God. You know,
(39:44):
Oh Lord, how many days, how many nights, how many minutes, seconds,
hours must I cry to see your face? How long
must I wait to see you? It go on and
on like that, And then that hit me again. Maybe
what you're asking for, Michael, It was not an ard,
I was, Michael. Maybe what you're asking for you're not
really ready for. That's what hit me again. Then I
(40:06):
met a black gentleman just after the whole thing, named Lelehan.
He's all, let's go stare at the library, you know
me by guy by a book, and then I can
take you to the to the UH to the restaurant
called Love and Serve. Okay, So I go up to
the library and all these books you have written, I
have just enough moneed to buy a book called The
(40:26):
Dance of Life Part two that they had read the
downstairs they had read from So I buy that one
book and I said'm walking down the stairs. Man, here
is the gurul in the living room, just standing there
kind of meditating, and so I stopped and he says,
so you are mobbish and his friend I said, yes,
said you would like you would like to become my disciple.
(40:47):
I said, I think I'm ready. And he went into
a long meditation like just all moblished and the eyes
back in his head, and just this feeling came over
me as I stood before him. And then long after
he said I accept through him my heart, and then
he kind of walked away. But as he walked away,
I kind of felt like an explosion and happening inside
(41:09):
of me, and maybe explosion of gratitude that now I've
not met my vision you now, I mean it's girl.
His giru has just accepted me who am I. That's
what happened to me. And I was so grateful that
to be to be accepted, and I knew that would
save my life because I did not want to die.
(41:29):
I'm the kind of cat LSD loved the experiences of
being so high. But you can have a bad experience
and be out of here or at his BSPs and
the angel dosts and those things can just get you
out of here. Man, so here, this is the God way.
You just love God. You know you pray, you meditate,
you know you you you do beautiful things that you
offer your music to God. That change the whole trick
(41:52):
is obtected in my life.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
All right, let me ask you something because it took me.
No no, no, no no. I appreciate you sharing that
because the thing is is that it might have taken
me about five decades to even be open to that
level of spirituality. Because you know, for a lot of
(42:15):
African Americans in America, like we clutch onto our Christianity
like no one's business and any other kind of straying
from you know, what your grandmom taught to you, what
her grandmother taught her, what and so on and so forth.
(42:36):
Back to you know, our presence in this country is
often frowned upon amongst other Black people. Like I remember
seeing an interview with like Maurice White of earth Wood
Fire maybe like in the late seventies early eighties, where
he's talking about this level of spirituality and kind of
(42:58):
looking at the adults in the room as he's saying
it's on television. They're frowning like mm hmm, see that's
that double shit. He ain't talking about Christianity. Da da da,
So like, what made you? Because this is not even
though this, this level of spirituality is our African origins?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes, what made you.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Just sort of bypass the fear of what will others
think about me? Or what will my parents say? Or
what will my fellow Michigan's people or a fellow black people?
They think like, I'm this weird? What made you just
bypass that?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I want to save my life? It was just me
against the world. It's just me against the world. How
am I going to make it? This is the way
to make it? Narada, My visions accepted you as a friend.
He's calling you the phone. This is his guru, his
grou's accepted you. It felt good to me. It was
a way of living a good life, of having a
(43:56):
way of directing my attention, my focus. And I needed that.
I know, I knew I needed it. I was raised Catholic,
I was raised with mother, married Jesus and all that,
and I hold the communion and all that and all
those things, you know, the your stay and the sanctuary
and all the beautiful music. But but that wasn't saving me.
(44:16):
And I had been clobbered by Morvish News Live, not
only on record, you know, unspoken heights live, I see.
And then to meet this teacher, he was beautiful, It
was nothing wrong. It was like, okay, would you follow Jesus. Yeah,
well there's a living example of someone living truth, talking truth.
(44:39):
What you're gonna do? So for me, it was a blessing,
absolute blessing. There was no doubt about that at all.
Only data was Am I Am I good enough? Am
I ready enough? Like I told you? When did you
when did he grant you with the name Nara? Well
that came later, he told me, laters, and I'm gonna
I'm not gonna spoil you. I've spoiled so many, given
them names too fast or do early. I'm not gonna spoil,
I'm gonna make you. And it wasn't until the release
(45:02):
of Garden of Lovelight that he gave me a min
named Narda. And he said, no row dumb, no ruh.
That went on for so long, I don't know if
a name is nah rah ar Da. So he said, Narda,
Narda supreme musician. Narda' soul brings from having to Earth light,
(45:23):
delight and compassion and takes back to having from Earth
earth sufferings. So the music, this is my role now
as Narda. Michael Oldham and uh yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
What leads to your deal at Atlantic Records? And on
top of that, how did you link with of all
people Tom Dowd on your first album.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I went through after I joined Mavish Orchestra and did
like two and a half years with my Vish Orchestra.
When that band stopped and Vishnu then went to Shakti
with you know, Zakia Hussein and that genius stuff. Then
I was really into a funk, in a depression because
now I didn't know what to do with my life.
I mean, I'm I'm high now now all my chop
everything is. But what are you gonna do? You're not
(46:08):
in the band anymore. It was like the Beatle brook up.
So I just tried to think of what I was
going to do. I became a teacher for a while,
the drama workshop, the teacher's thing, what the word was
called someplace. I played top talk down there for a while. Anyway,
I'm saying to you, I just had to focus, and
I thought, well, that's just going to my solo career.
So then my attorney was Barry Plattine. He said, you
(46:30):
know what, Epic Records will pay for you to make
a demo, you know, because at least you've got some
names from coming to mobs structure. I said, okay. So
then I heard off Lenny White's album of Phoenician Summers,
this cat named Raymond Gomez, who I thought, damn, this
guy has got the chops like I'm wanting to hear.
And then when I met him, he had the both
sides of Candridge Blues with chops and infusionary. So I said, okay,
(46:51):
I want you. Would you play make my demo with
me and David Sanchez who had made his album Hime
on keyboards and then a guy like Rule Lee was
David's bass player at the time, so then I went
to Epic and made son Is Dancing, maybe delightful and
one wan one of the songs, or maybe maybe delfe
on one of the songs three three things, and the
Epic turned it down. So then walk on the streets
thinking how you're gonna make it, How you're gonna make it,
(47:12):
how you're gonna make And then Barry said, just you know,
stay patient. And I got a phone call from my
cat named Raymond Silva from Atlantic. They were doing well
with now colbum and he said, you know, uh, you know,
maybe we'd be interested in you. So then I gave
them my tape that I've done for the Epic of
(47:33):
the Sun Is Dancing and maybe with a few things
I've cut, and I met Jerry Greenberg, who was a
president at the time, and then they offered me a deal.
But guess what, they said, we want half your publishing.
I said, okay, I wanted to deal that bad. I
was doing well with Wired. I wrote four sols on
Wire for Jeff Beeck, so I'm making money so that
(47:53):
they said we won't have to publish. I said not,
I don't care. Just sign me, give me a shot,
and they did. And then they said you have your
choice of two producers in house producers or Reef Martin
or Tommy Dowd. And I said, well, I love them both,
but this album is more on the rock side, and
(48:13):
I want to use this engineer from London who did
the last Mobbish album called Inner Worlds, named Dennis McKay right,
So I thought maybe I should use Timy Tommy Dowd
because he's more on that side of things. And I did.
Tommy said hey, let's work, and Tomy was so cool
and he just let me be me and help me.
And I was in that studio brother, where Aretha and
(48:34):
ray and all that. That's why I cut the Garden
Love and that main studio and it'd be on I
want to say, another cat was there as Jimmy Douglas,
a young backup cat. He was my He was the second.
So it'd be him and Dens mc kay and Tommy,
Tommy Dowd and my hot band of Raymond Gomez David
Sanchez will Lee on bass and myself. That was the core.
I deliverhearsal forts so they'd know what to expect in
(48:56):
the studio so we could cut it fast because you know,
as you know still your time and all that expensive.
So we went in there and know I knew White
Knight Ray and I wrote that and we knew how
to do it. I brought in a created ranger named
Michael Gibbs who did the Apocalypse album Mama Short, because
he was brought up to range my strings when I
wanted that. And then my friends came, like Carlos Santannaka
(49:17):
did to think of First Love, which is beautiful, Jeff
Beck Game to do Satan Lurascal, which is beautiful. So
I'm just really honored by that album, and I'm glad
that you know about it, because some people don't even
know about it. But that was my first soul album.
My baby, Yo, Yo, what up everybody. This is Fonte
Fontibelo from Team Supreme. We haven't done this in.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
A while, but this conversation is so great and we
had so much to cover that we had to make
it too parter. Look out for part two, drop it
next week or above this in your podcast feed. In
that conversation, Narta talks about his work with Whitney Houston,
Aretha Franklin Starship, and becoming one of the most in Deman.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Producers and all of music of all time, Top flight.
Speaker 4 (49:57):
Security of the world, Craig this conversation, it was mind
blowing from me and I know you're gonna enjoy it,
all right, that's happen.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
How Much Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm ringing this hat quest Love for you. This is
my drumming hat in high school in the high school bands. Man.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, you still have that. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, all right, Uh,
I'm not nervous at all.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good. We gotta get your hat like that, amir.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love Supreme. I am
quest Love, your host of the day. We are here
with fun Tigolo f Takeolo. Where you at right now?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm at the crib man. I just uh, I came
in just straight from the gym, so you know, sweat
same shame here, yep, shame.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's it's something about uh March that creeps in that says, okay,
summer coming. I gotta get my summer by yeah, mineus
picnic body, so yeah, I want to look halfway presentable
with the picnic. H Steve, how are you pal?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm good, really looking forward to this interview like everybody else.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
How interesting was your evening?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Super interesting? Definitely trying to hear you pronounce words and
so forth.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
All right, Steve, as you guys know, I can't stop
writing books and one of the well I'm not trying
to say unfortunate, but one of the things that I
am not much of a fan of in the process
of book writing is doing the audio books, especially when
Steve is on standby to hear me struggle with college words,
and he definitely got a ear full last night. But look,
(01:48):
we got more important pressing matters on our hands. Let
me just say that I know that a line share
of my personal music knowledge, you know, honestly came into
play once hip hop contextualized my parents boring record made
it interesting, which you know, basically my age fourteen fifteen sixteen.
(02:11):
Of course I could ratle off any musician's name, but
I wasn't in a slouch either when I was a kid.
But you know this, this knowledge I have a music
really became a thing when I was a teenager. However,
I will say that in my life in real time,
and I'm talking about when I'm seven years old, there
were two particular drummers who I idolized. And of course,
(02:34):
if you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you already
know that I've had the pleasure of doing a one
on one with my idol Steve Rone, formerly of the
Average White Band Today is no exception, and today we'll
actually complete that circle, because if I'm really honest with myself,
our guest today might be the first air quote fusion
(02:56):
drummer that I became familiar with. Not exactly by choice.
It just so happens that a particular family excursion of
nineteen seventy seven on a trip to Disney World in
a van with an A track tape player as our
entertainment and maybe six A track tapes in rotation, and
(03:17):
one of those six A track tapes had heavy rotation
of the debut album of our guest on the Show today,
entitled Garden of Love Light. And one song in particular
that I know that I personally put ten thousand Gladwellian
hours in a practice was a tune called The Sun
(03:40):
Is Dancing. And now that I think about it, I
think the very first time that I nerded out on
Bassis Megabasis will Lee of The Letterman Show was more
about him playing on that album than it was anything
else that Willy has done. Willie's done legendary shit, but
I will say that his resume is beyond impressive. Name
(04:04):
It Whitney, Arefa, Mariah, George, Michael, Jeff Beck Campbell, Yeah,
Temi Campbell, Barbaris Streiss and Wynald Richie Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey,
Dinah Ross, Rachel my Vision Orchestra. He's worked with everyone
but me, and the time I think I'm trying to
(04:24):
be him, you know what I mean. Not to mention,
I will say that he's probably the first human being
that I've ever taken note of that even mentioned the
word that I'm obsessed with now post pandemic, which is meditation.
So this is a long overdue conversation with the great legendary.
(04:46):
Please welcome Nordom, Michael Walton, finally the Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Thank you so much man, a long time man. Wow,
thank you so much, happy to be here. This is wonderful.
I'm a big fan of yours, breath, a big fan
of yours. You know, you bring the funk, man, you
bring the soul, and you bring the integrity to the music.
Some I'm really really loving you.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Then I'm bringing everything I ever learned from you, man,
so now you know what it is. I'm also realizing
I've met you briefly before, and I will say that
there are very few human beings that have an instantaneous
disarming chip that I wish I had. You have a
(05:30):
level of calm that I now know that. Of course,
your resume is that impressive because I believe that you
have a sort of calming element, because you produced some
people that I would believe would be some of the
hardest people personality wise to even step with. I've said
(05:50):
no to a few of these people were just like
drumming with them or any of those things, because I
couldn't bear to think of the thought of, you know,
of dealing with that. But can I ask you, like,
what when did you develop this personality of just calmness,
Like you have a very disarming like have you ever
(06:11):
gotten angry in your life?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Oh? Yeah, sure, sure I do, of course I do.
It's just that I learned, like what you're speaking about
in production and working with other people that I wanted
to get their best, and I realized that the love
aspect was really powerful. It is really powerful. And then
you mentioned meditation, So through meditation and the love aspect
(06:33):
that became the most important part, and that the person
I'm working with could feel that love to do their best,
and then that would just make everything just go. So
I kind of just pray, swim, you know, get myself
together physically, and then get in that spirit that the
person you really feel like, oh you're not here to
(06:54):
fight with me, You're going to me that great music.
Then they start singing whatever they're going to do, and
an endorphins kick in and are gone. But that spirit
of love is really really important. That's what I want
to say to you about that.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Do you have a pre studio ritual that you do
or something like the kind of get ready to get
into this.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know you can see behind me. I have a candle,
two camels here and a candle up there. You know.
I burn a little incense every now and again. I
usually bring a gift to the person I'm working with,
just kind of make them feel the love on a
physical level. A teddy bear flower, something sweet. And then
I want to say one more thing about what you're
asking about, because it's really important for me that. Probably
(07:33):
the most incredible moment along this line was after I
made the songs of two songs, Who's the Man Who
Until You Say You Love Me? And Here, and flew
back to Detroit, Michigan to meet Aretha. It looking in
her eyes is scary. That would that would scare you?
That would that scared me? But there again, you know,
(07:54):
I let her know in my spirit, my eyes, my love,
I'm not here to fight, I'm not here to make
a problem. I want I want to serve you, I
love you, and help us make the best music. And
then once the music comes on and then she starts
opening up and singing, then again, like I said, it
just gets happy. And then it's like, well, what do
you want to eat? You want cheeseburger, you want you know,
fried chicken? What you want? And all that sounds happening.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
See, I wish I'd known you previously, Steve could have
tested this. You know. Of course, I'm still here at
the tonight show and Lovely Lovely, and I've only had
one client sort of put us through the ringer to
the point where I just walked away. And you know, unfortunately,
(08:41):
I've had the pleasure of playing practically with every person
I've ever idolized. But when it came to a refa
and the alpha level of testing that we were put through,
I failed that test. Oh no, you know it was
(09:02):
like my ego was there because in my mind I'm like, well,
I'm holding up the tradition, like we are holding up
the tradition of Cornell dupri and Bernard Purty like her seventies,
her seventies crack band, and you know, she wanted to
have a long talk, and she wanted us to audition
and all this stuff, and you know, I just now
(09:27):
regret that that move. But I was just like, well, no,
I'm fine. If you want to sing behind your karaoke track,
then go ahead and do so. And she did so,
and it could have been magic, but you know it
was definitely I didn't know about what you just said,
like we're dealing with people and how to disarm them
and all that stuff. And so first starters, Where were
(09:50):
you born?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I'm from Calamazoo, Michigan, between Chicago and Detroit, rightland middle
in the country, Calumboo where they make gifts and guitars,
you know, and Battle Creek, Michigan is not far away
with the Mick Kellogg's complex, and that's where Junior Walk
All the Star comes from, you know, with all that funk.
So I Calamus in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I'm only laughing because Kalamazoo is always my go to
random hypothetical city when I say something like, oh, you know,
I always in Kalamazoo, miss but I've never known one
human being from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Now you do, Now you do.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I read a really interesting story about you in a magazine.
I think it was right on. I'm not certain, but
the very first thing I've ever read about you. I
happen to be reading this story a year before were
in Philadelphia. And I don't remember the exact lining of
(10:47):
the earth whatever, but I do know that we were
about to go through in nineteen eighty four a major
solar eclipse.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And it was one of the things were like the
school was like handing out these these sunglasses and you
must never look in the sun or else you'll go blind.
And yes, yes, And I remember reading an interview of
you where you said you were so inspired by Stevie
Wonder that could you tell that story? Please?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Okay, brother, that's true story. Okay, let me just go
back up just for a second to say that Ray, Charles,
George Sharing or blind men knocked me out with their genius.
And then on the scene, my aunts, my mom's sisters,
they're Vicky and Valor there, their twins. They said, well,
you know, on the scene. Now is a little boy
(11:38):
your age, maybe a little older than you, but he
plays drums better than you play. And he's incredible. I said, no, no, no,
I don't want to buy it. And he said, oh no.
His little name is little Stevie Wonder you know. And
he plays. I said, how can he's blind? How can
you even see the drums? Well he does, Okay, okay, okay.
But not long after came out a song that was
(11:58):
a live version of Fingertips, and Fingertips were smoking, and
I mean smoking, like smoking smoking. And I was lucky
enough to go to Chicago, my dad comes from Chicago,
and go to the Regal Theater and see him play.
And when they walked him out, it was like an alien.
He walked like an alien, slowly, kind of back and forth,
(12:20):
like you know, like I've never seen anything walk like
like you walked. But now in the audience it's packed
with screaming girls, like beatles, screaming, you know. And when
he gets the microphone, he's just in control and his
voice is high like a little boy, but just every
little note just so perfect, just so perfect, and the
(12:42):
band just rocking and on the harmonica perfect, and I
just was like is true. He is better than me.
He's got everyone in his pond of hand. He's challeng God.
(13:05):
And that was the summer of the eclips you're talking
about Signed in Chicago. I decide, Okay, if I'm blind,
I can maybe be as good as these guys are
are my hero. So I wouldn't stare at the sun
make myself blind. But the Good Lord said no, no, no,
you keep your sight. But I did try to make
myself blind.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yeah. Oh, I read that story and I guess we had.
You know, the next cycle of that was sometime in
nineteen eighty four, and you know again this and also
you know, there's a thing like when you're a kid
an adult tells you no, you're just instantly like, even
(13:42):
if it's to your own detriment. And there was one
point where I was like, yeah, Nardi Michael's right, like
if I'm blind, like Stevie Wonder, I too can have gifts.
And I was actually thinking, let me go outside and
just stick. Do you remember your very first musical memory.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
When I was really little, my dad bought a record
home called Froggy went a court and he did lie
Froggy went according he did you know I was a
little kid, kid, kid, kid kid, I remember that kind
of thing. I also remember, very very young, I was
so blessed by Santa with a toy toy Land drum
set for Christmas. That blew my mind. These little drums
(14:29):
with the paper heads, so you play them, but the
head's been last very long because it's bit of paper.
But I get orgasmic beating these damn things. And I
see the happiness of my parents, my grandparents, and I
got so happy. That's bigger when I knew that's it,
that's a little little kid. I guess just after that
would be like then making pillows and getting a pie
(14:50):
ten and playing along with Na Simone live a town Hall,
you know, Summertime and that album, the live album of
hers playing along with that, and then that became like
kind of going on like that, you know, Ama Jamal
and those those those type of records, playing along with them.
But yeah, it's just always there, that record, the young,
the young vibe, catching the spirit of the music so important.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
High tens were your symbols.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah A ten ten.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
A we are the same person? Yeah yeah, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, that's right. So what is the significant of a
pie tin symbol. What what what will we hear that on? Well,
you know, it just makes a high, high tending tink tink,
you know it kind of if you don't have a symbol,
at least it can make high kind of a sound
like a symbol, so you know. And a pillow, like
a flat pillow, can be like a bass drum or
whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
I was set up chairs, Yeah, that's it. I was
set up chairs, as my drum said. And then either
the lamp, lamp shade or a pie ten was always
my damn. I thought I was the only person.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
That thought about no, no, man. I bet Steven want
it too.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
That is crazy. Recently I went back to my old
neighborhood and I saw there's a lady that you know,
still living and down the block, and she was telling
like people's stories off like, eh, he used to always
wail in the drums. I used to hear him five
six houses away. So your parents lived in a household
in which they encouraged you to make noise and all
(16:25):
these things, and.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, yeah, I got to say. My dad was like
eighteen when he had me. My mom was nineteen when
they had me, and my dad wanted to be a drummer,
and he would carry his best friend's drums around in
a cat named Bill Dowdy from the Three Sounds. So
he wasn't a drummer, but he loved it. So that
was a big yes, you know, build out it from
Three Sounds. Yes, well that was my dad's friend, and
that's another record I was raised up playing along with
(16:47):
him and my dad. Quite frankly, the only time he
really kind of gave me the kudos like iuld I
could play was when I could play a note for
note that record he bought. That was when he knew, oh, well,
I guess you can play. But it wasn't until that.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, I'm letting you know that. The whole Billdouti thing
in our family was a big to do and and
I was I could make noise. So you're right, the
parents loving you, loving what the sound? It's important.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
How old were you when you first started drumming?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
A little kid? Five, six, seven years old? But I
didn't take stare droom lessons until like ten years old.
You know, rudiment, five stroke, role paradiddles, you know like that,
and then oh, your left hand is not as fast
as your right hand. You gotta work right your left hand,
all that kind of behavior. But then I'm really blessed.
Maybe you're around the age of eleven twelve. There was
(17:40):
a drummer on the north side of Kalamazoo, not apart
from my grandparents house named Harold Mason. And Harold was
a black cat who knew independency, and he had a
Blue Book of Independency by Jim Chapin. So that book
you play right hand written Jane Jane K Jean Chane
k Jean Inge Chang like that, but then against it
(18:02):
on the left hand. The pattern keeps changing, so you
have to kind of, you know, keep reading the changing
and like learning your mind how to break it up.
Then you bring your feet into it, your bass drum,
your high hat. But then he'd be so advanced. He
would say, well, you know the jazz capts in New York,
now you know what they're doing. They aren't just playing
two and four in the hide anymore. They're playing with
the high hand, you know, whatever they want to do
(18:24):
on the on the on the left foot. I thought
that was that would be too much. I don't want
to get into all that. I was happy just playing
to do on the high hat with my foot. But
he was that advanced breaking the mind up for independency,
which really, to this day helped me. A lot of
people don't understand its like learning to ride a bike.
You can do it, then you can play all kind
of crazy stuff. So it happened early in my life
(18:45):
that I got with peril Maze. And then guess what happened.
Harold went on to play the drumps for Stevie. Wonder.
Now Stevie's a little older now, you know, signed to deliver.
Those records are out and they came through Calumu Zoo
a place called Western Michigan University of the College, and
the place is to see Stevie won. He's a big star.
So here's my teacher, Harold Maston, drums and the thing
that caught the fire is this, and you'll appreciate you
(19:06):
You're you're bad. Harold starts playing this groove, goes on
the bell like one, two, the four dean t kitting
dan tingan but pan to kitting thing thing being kitting
thing thing ticketing thing pan like that, and Steve's catching
fire with us. Stevene runs over the blind stuff pushes
(19:30):
us get off the drums, Harold gets on the drums
and starts playing the same thing stronger Dean Ti Kadan.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
King.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I was like, damn. Then Stephen gets crazy. He stands
up on the stool and the police goes ah. He
falls off the stool on the floor, gets back up
up again, falls on the floor and starts playing his groove.
I'm like, these people are nuts. They're nuts, But it
showed me that the level craziness you can go to
(20:01):
and it's okay.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
You're one of the rare artists that I mean, We've
had a few artists on the show that I have
recollections of seeing one concert or two concerts or whatever.
But am I to believed that even since childhood you
were just regularly seeing shows of musicians.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
In Kalamus and Michigan. We're in the country, so it's
not like I'm in the city. So no, I wouldn't
say like I'm like a New York where Ucats were
or Philadelphia. No, we're country cats. We're country mice. But
our ears are big because we're hearing all the music
out of Detroit, We're hearing all the music out of Chicago.
You know, five stairsteps Curtis Mayfield. We're hearing everything. We're
hearing everything. We're hearing them the brand new motown, you know,
shop around Miracles, We're hearing all the new stuff. You know, baby,
(20:41):
I need you to love them before you don't even hears it.
It's there at our parties. So that's what it was.
It was just hearing the radio. And then I gotta
say pop music like Patty Page, Old Cape Cod Johnny Mathis's.
Chances are all that music is just as huge in Michigan.
So you love Prince. That's why Prince is so bad ass,
(21:02):
because Prince not only got the funks, but but he
got all the white pop stuff just as wrong. That's
what it is back there, miss Minnesota, Michigan. Right, it's
like a big old gumbo.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
I see. Were you a big record collector as a kid.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, I love the records. I love the records, and
I loved also like playing that song by the who
I Can See for miles and miles of miles in
my basement. That was that caught my attention. I didn't
even know who Keith Moon or anything that was. I
just like the I can See I Can see you
know that left power yeah, who was your idol?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Drumming? Wise? Uh wait, do you play any other instruments
besides drums?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I just played keyboard piano to write my songs. You know,
keyboards to right, So drumming is still your first left? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Who were your idols?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Like?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Once you develop your style, like, who's the person that
I'm that person? Who's your north star?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I learned from everybody. Harold taught me so much, Harold Mason,
Stevie that that thing I just told you about. I
was blown out by the charisma ringo star. I gotta
tell you. On the Ed Sullivan Show, to see him
flirt with the chicks in the upper balcony as he
was playing the open slushy high hands, smiling at the
chicks above. I thought that was badass. See the chrism
(22:24):
aspect got me more than the chops, just the swinging
and the smiling. Wow man, Okay. Then Mitch Mitchell with
Hendricks was mean. It was mean, so I had to
give him a lot of love.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
All right. So I've talked to many an artist and
of a certain age, of a certain age for a
lot of them. There north star was the Beatles on
Sullivan the same way like twenty years later. Of course,
like Motown twenty five was another north Star moment for
people that watched the Moon. But I'm more fascinated when
(23:01):
black people speak of the Beatles on Sullivan, like, could
you explain what the fascination was? Because was it just
that there was nothing else? Like what made black people
even open to that moment?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, okay, I knew the Beatles were coming because I
saw their album cover in downtown Kalamazoo and Paul McCartney
had a cigarette on the cover and that was unusual,
just to see a cat having a cigarette bowl on
the cover. Just small things like that. There's a Catholic
school and so the girls were already certain rumble about
the Beatles. It was already catch them fire, and that
was unusual because no one ever talked about music. So
(23:38):
here they are rumbling about the Beatles. It's like, really,
you guys are into this. So when it hit and
the best thing was this man, not just that show,
but check this out. It'd be John Lennon saying, well,
our favorite female vocalist is Mary Wells. It's like, damn
Mary well That's that's Detroit, That's where I live. But
little white girls a little better at the school. They
(23:59):
who's married. It's like, damn, that's Mary Wells. They don't die.
I don't know Mary Wells, they would say, and then
ring John would say, well, also, our favorite male singer
is a little Richard, Little Richard, little Richard that was
on a seven year you know, long tall Sally all
those records. So, but they have no idea who they were.
So the Beatles really educated all these people who I knew,
the little white kids whatever to what was really going down.
(24:22):
So I do and I liked that. I liked that
that's caught. That caught us because they're not the're talking
about black people and given a shine which we never had.
You know what I'm saying. That was a big to do.
And I'm telling you, man, this whole beatle Mania thing
was real. So you're born with seventy one? What do
what do you born right?
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Seventy one?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah? Okay, so this is like sixty three, sixty four.
It was on fire. We never experienced like it. Just
even the plane, the plane landing, looking at them coming
out the plane, people going hysterical, so just it just
you go wow, wow. The music was good, but it
was all the frenzy around it me like incredible, damn.
But then when they started loving black people, I was like,
(25:00):
I like these kids, you know what I was talking
to talk about, talk about litle Richard, you know what
I was talking about by your married wells. So that's
what it was, man, the catching of all these things
that were like cool.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Got it? Got yeah? All right? So how far is
Detroit from Kalamazoo? And at any point did you make
a move to Detroit? Like was Motown calling you or
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I would love. I would love to have gone to
to Motown. I've gone. We would drive to Detroit to
go visit a family friend or whatever and just go
by the street. But you know, you could never go
in there. It was like a sacred territory. You know,
you could never go in there. But just to go
buy it, just drive by it would be like a
big deal. So I don't have any stories of like,
you know, going inside there or anything. But we all
(25:41):
were just like religion. The chord changes and the way
they put it together with the sounds and the great singers.
It was just a religion man.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
What was your what was your band experience? Like in
your teen years, like were you forming bands in high.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
School or yes, yeah, my first band was I was
eleven and he'd be ten. He played Hammond B three
and his name is Joel Brooks and he was brilliant,
like Jimmy Smith, a young kid, Jimmy Smith. So it
just drums me and him on organ. And his uncle
owned a little nightclub called the Ambassador Lounge on the
(26:18):
North side of Caladizoo, the Black side of Calamazoo. So
he can go on in the Ambassador Lounge and be
the opening at because his uncle owned the place before
Jim mcgrifford, whoever's coming through town is not gonna play
what it was, Yes, so it was like first hand
experienced playing Jane Jane or where we were gonna play
before they came on. And you know that was just
(26:41):
mind blowing, because I must tell you also a part
of what I love there is a record by Kennat
Jimmy Smith called The Sermon Is twenty two minutes long.
Were what it did to my brain is e equals
empty square. Art Blakey played a batbeat two and four
the whole record, because you know those cat jazz guys
are busy no, but dude, it just rocks like a
(27:12):
blues record. I realized the power that and that really
helped me a lot that you could just put down
and it's and people love it even more so. Man,
those experience when I was eleven with the Ambassadors, that
helped me that band. And then we bring a little
horn player into it. You know, Captain was studying at
the at the university on trumpet Pierre or a Sacic
(27:34):
player or a vis player, Carl. You know, I gonna
expand the sound. So I had great experience playing the
young like that, and then uh, I would do that.
Then the rock thing of my own bands. Then as
I got a little I left home when I was
about sixteen years old, right, and I had now go
to keyboards. I played Fender bass Oregon and we do
like what does It Take by Junior Walker all Stars,
those type of songs. But I'm playing keyboards now. So
(27:56):
and then that band was called Distance in the Far.
Then I had another band I played bass that's called
the Mother Thump with the Flunkies. Now we're doing Expressway
to Your Heart and Grand Funk Railroad. You know, are
you ready all that music? Yeah? So, and then before
I left Kalamazoo. I joined a horn band, kind of
a Chicago horn band, but very progressive called Avatar and
they were really, really, like, probably the most progressive band
(28:18):
I've been with. And then my friend who played trouble
with that band, Bobby Napp, he said, do you know
about this record by Cold Blood called I said no.
He played me this cap man named Sandy McGee on
an album called Siss. And to this day, you say
north Star moment, that's still my north Star moment. Sandy
McGee on drums.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Wow, Okay, So when's the moment in which you're like, Okay,
this is my profession. I am going to be a drummer.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Always. I didn't want to ever do anything else. I
remember one day I had joined a band called dickon
Wingims so Revival that came to Calama Zoo. They took
me up after I did want to be in college anymore.
I went three semesters of college. I packed my drums
in their school bus and went out to play them Flint, Michigan,
these little nasty joints. But it was so important that
I did that because that I really knew how to
connect with the people. People, people, the people, people people,
(29:10):
and that was that same and my dad. I come
back to Calendars to go play some more clubs, and
my dad would saying, why didn't you just become a policeman,
you know, because this whole road thing for you, I
don't know if you should be doing that. But now
now I was always a drummer. Then that band decided
to go out to California. Now here we are going
out to California. I came out to California, you know,
we played shows out here and you know, in Hollywood
and all that. Then that band broke up. Then I decided, no,
(29:31):
I want to stay in California. And then that became hard.
Now my ship from receiving clerk downtown LA, wrapping boxes,
hearing music constantly, just trying to get out of here,
you know, how to save myself. And I had a
few cousins, one that helped me out out in the
Englewood area and then another one out in Pasadena. He said,
come stay with me, and I did, and then it
was there I could like really shed was now the
(29:53):
Mobblished Workers album just came out. I had enough money
to buy that Inner Mounting Flame album that just crush
to me, I'd never heard anything like Colbum vishnu on
that effort and seven nine eleven whatever, what the hell
funk you like a fucking dog God? So that became
my shedding shed And then I also love Buddy Miles,
(30:16):
the live album that got that Bam S Joe text.
You know, then for spiritual moments you put on Alice
Coltrane's Universal Consciousness side too. You know, it could be
Jack Vignette, you know, just like, so how kind of
got off on mixing these worlds, the Colbumn, cleanless Buddy
funk and the Jackie net symbols. I love all that
(30:37):
stuff that I got that I met this cat man
you might know him, Eddie Hazel. I had a band
with him called Ouch. Why he was so mean because
me being good that he could play the funk really fast.
That prepared me for provision you later. But he'd be like,
look at and then you pass around this joint, but
(31:03):
it'd be laced with PCP the angel dust, So now
you're really getting out there. But you know you're looking
at him because he's gorgeous, got his things on and
gorgeous and just playing so clean and so fast. Aries
So those type of things happen for me. You know,
I've had great experiences.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
I need I need to hear what Eddie Hazel was
like from a person not in the p funk atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Just a big, big, big brain, you know, like Hendrick's
a big brain, you know, and not afraid of anything.
The rock, the tone, the funk, the black, like early prince,
like a prince could hug like he was, that could
do anything like in those worlds and not not scared
of anything. And again this powerful, it's powerful, this powerful
(31:50):
thing that would go around and would be like, oh
my god, I almost can't mess with that because I'm
too I'm too sensitive, but it would just make you
feel like whoa you know. So Eddie Hayes was an
influent I didn't stayed them very long, you know, because
he was always moving. But you know, but he made
a big influence in my life. You know. You hear
Maggot brains that how he plays on that record, It's
like that's who he is.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I would look to know at what point did the
teachings of Sri Chamoy enter your life, Like was it
during this period or was it later on.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Just after this period? This is my passage in the
LA experience I'm talking about, right, you know. And then
I had to work hard to try to find work
out in LA, you know, very hard. And they even
go back in the big what's called a you know,
an orderly in the hospitals to make ends meet. But
it wasn't long after I got a phone call from Miami.
A cat and down there named Santa Toronto, guitar player
(32:46):
from a winter band down the Santa Morono. He found
he heard about me. He said, come down to Miami.
So he bought my first plane ticket. I'd never been
on the plane before. What it be it maybe seventy one,
seventy two, seventy one there, see, because I got to
my high school seventy so that's now the year you're
(33:06):
born seventy one around that area. One that I fled
in Miami, and I like Miami, and it really opened
my eyes again because I'm at the universe. I wasn't
at the university, but at the university would be all
these great cats coming up. Pat Matheeni, you know, Danny
Gotlieb hiring Bullock, Cliff Card and Patty Scoff who's now
married to Bruce Bringsteen. They are all these young people
like that. But my friend was one of the teachers
(33:27):
them stand SMOLDI and I stayed with him and he'd
have books on the group. I said, okay, I said,
this is the cat who's inspiring my vision news. Yes,
so then you start reading the books of poetry on
she was treaching moy that were inspiring my vision news.
The poems of birds of fire, you know, my flute
and immortality, all these things he was writing that were
(33:48):
just beautiful and very God ordained. So I had a
band down there called the New MacGuire Sisters. Now we
really went full fledge rock spusion out there, odd meters
to the limit because now mobbys Storchestra made it go there.
(34:08):
And we'd have this big warehouse where the sound would
just be like enormous, Like I could mic my bass
drum with a big SVT amplifier. So I got used
to just making this huge sound in there. And then
not long after we got all this together, that band
then moved to Connecticut, a place called Canan, Connecticut, way
up on the bord of matth Housts in Connecticut, a
farm a bard where we could play. It was an
(34:31):
awesome sound and then the little cabins in a main
house and so we could keep kept working. But I
was always scratching how am I gonna make it? But
how am I gonna make it? How am I gonna
make it? I was always on my soul. And then
not long after came through Hartford the Mobys Shtorkers' second album,
playing the Birds of Fire. And I had my friend,
(34:52):
our manager, take me down to that show and dropped
me off at the show. And what this is really
important because you asked about Guru. It was my first
time laying eyes on the real living Mobbish new and cobblem.
And as I'm getting the I'm bit late, the place
is packed. There's a bright light on vish you and
(35:13):
it's just him on double neck guitar and Cob going
at it maybe in seventeen something so out there you
would never you can't even count it. But they were
like so intense with it. It was just nuts. So
I decided to walk right down to the edge of
the stage and look up in his eyes and see
what the hell is going on? And I did. I
looked right up in his eyes and he's he's just
(35:35):
the bullets, just bullets. Just like an adimal on fire
and his eyes are back in his head and I go, yeah,
this is real. It's too intense to be made to me,
to be like memorized. It's just flowing through him. And
it went up for so long. I could have been
(35:56):
like tw many minutes of this. I heard John Coltrane
on record with Elvin Jones just be out there for
the longest times. I've never seen anything live in a
rock setting. Marshals five's drum set, loud clean vibes. Oh
my god, clear fives, loud clean. It could stop like
(36:22):
that and back at it together. Oh Holy God, this
is this is now my life. This is now gotta
be what I gotta go to because if I if
I do another direction of my life, I could die.
I don't want to die. Jimmy, who are my fruit?
My heroes? Now I knew that that vision was into God.
(36:45):
He'd found the meditation way because I knew about his guru.
So that night I saw a guy in white. I
knew his disciple. His name is a Pikshah. I said, please,
a paic Shaw, I really have to meet Morvish new
team back to meet him, and he was so kind
to me of the whole audience something I'm nobody. He
gets me backstage and Marvish to pokes his head and said,
(37:09):
go in that little room and I'll meet you in
one minute. And I wait that little tiny room and
I'm scared because I've never seen anything like this. And
I can hear Cobbm and Joan Hamer you know, Hi
talk in the other room like Mcca you know, and
Jon They're all and then Maister comes in and he's
like English with this black mob. Miles Davis talk, hello, brother,
(37:33):
how are you?
Speaker 3 (37:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Just like what is that? But that's how he was.
And I said, well, my name is Michael Wallas and
I said I've never seen anything like you, and I
want to be like you. I played drums and he said, well,
you know what I'm doing is larg as I do
to my prayer life, my meditation life. I said, yeah,
I know, because I ran on the back of your jackets.
These the poems by your group. He said yeah. He said,
(37:55):
I'm gonna see my grou at six in the morning
and I'll tell I met you. And that was like damn.
Here We're on the backstage in Hartford. It's almost one
in the morning. He is going to drive all night,
go back to Queens, New York and see the grew
at six am. That's not he's not going to sleep
after just what I saw him do. Something is so
(38:17):
small like that just rock my world. This is too much.
And you know what happened. It's just God. Because about
a week later, I'm way out in the country of Hayman, Connecticut,
in the woods at this farm I lived in, and
the throne rings and it's Mahavish New. He says, Ah, Man,
it's Marvish New. And I can't be the tonight, but
I want you to go to the meditation in Norwalk
(38:40):
and meet the Grew tonight. I said, okay, So man,
I had long hair. I brushed my hair back, you know,
and I got my shaver and I shaved my beard
off because I know they have no beards. And my
mom had made me a kind of a white dog shiki.
I put that white does she k on? And we
(39:02):
had an old limousine that the new McGuire sisters had
and my friend Greg Felt drove me down there and
to nor Walk. And when I got there that was
I was a little bit late too, so guess what happened.
I go inside and I leave my eyes on the
grou The area is singing and playing the harmonium and singing,
and he sees me and keep singing. And the girls
are on one side, and the boys and the other side.
They're all wearing white, and the girls are all wearing
(39:23):
these kind of Indian sories. So there's one chair left
on the girl's sides. I sit down with the girls,
and then this old lady named Akoutie, she gets up
front and she reads out of his new book called
The Dance of Life, Part two. And the poems in
this book were just like knives in my heart, because
you know, it was just just crying to God. You know,
(39:44):
Oh Lord, how many days, how many nights, how many minutes, seconds,
hours must I cry to see your face? How long
must I wait to see you? It go on and
on like that, And then that hit me again. Maybe
what you're asking for, Michael, It was not an ard,
I was, Michael. Maybe what you're asking for you're not
really ready for. That's what hit me again. Then I
(40:06):
met a black gentleman just after the whole thing, named Lelehan.
He's all, let's go stare at the library, you know
me by guy by a book, and then I can
take you to the to the UH to the restaurant
called Love and Serve. Okay, So I go up to
the library and all these books you have written, I
have just enough moneed to buy a book called The
(40:26):
Dance of Life Part two that they had read the
downstairs they had read from So I buy that one
book and I said'm walking down the stairs. Man, here
is the gurul in the living room, just standing there
kind of meditating, and so I stopped and he says,
so you are mobbish and his friend I said, yes,
said you would like you would like to become my disciple.
(40:47):
I said, I think I'm ready. And he went into
a long meditation like just all moblished and the eyes
back in his head, and just this feeling came over
me as I stood before him. And then long after
he said I accept through him my heart, and then
he kind of walked away. But as he walked away,
I kind of felt like an explosion and happening inside
(41:09):
of me, and maybe explosion of gratitude that now I've
not met my vision you now, I mean it's girl.
His giru has just accepted me who am I. That's
what happened to me. And I was so grateful that
to be to be accepted, and I knew that would
save my life because I did not want to die.
(41:29):
I'm the kind of cat LSD loved the experiences of
being so high. But you can have a bad experience
and be out of here or at his BSPs and
the angel dosts and those things can just get you
out of here. Man, so here, this is the God way.
You just love God. You know you pray, you meditate,
you know you you you do beautiful things that you
offer your music to God. That change the whole trick
(41:52):
is obtected in my life.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
All right, let me ask you something because it took me.
No no, no, no no. I appreciate you sharing that
because the thing is is that it might have taken
me about five decades to even be open to that
level of spirituality. Because you know, for a lot of
(42:15):
African Americans in America, like we clutch onto our Christianity
like no one's business and any other kind of straying
from you know, what your grandmom taught to you, what
her grandmother taught her, what and so on and so forth.
(42:36):
Back to you know, our presence in this country is
often frowned upon amongst other Black people. Like I remember
seeing an interview with like Maurice White of earth Wood
Fire maybe like in the late seventies early eighties, where
he's talking about this level of spirituality and kind of
(42:58):
looking at the adults in the room as he's saying
it's on television. They're frowning like mm hmm, see that's
that double shit. He ain't talking about Christianity. Da da da,
So like, what made you? Because this is not even
though this, this level of spirituality is our African origins?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes, what made you.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Just sort of bypass the fear of what will others
think about me? Or what will my parents say? Or
what will my fellow Michigan's people or a fellow black people?
They think like, I'm this weird? What made you just
bypass that?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I want to save my life? It was just me
against the world. It's just me against the world. How
am I going to make it? This is the way
to make it? Narada, My visions accepted you as a friend.
He's calling you the phone. This is his guru, his
grou's accepted you. It felt good to me. It was
a way of living a good life, of having a
(43:56):
way of directing my attention, my focus. And I needed that.
I know, I knew I needed it. I was raised Catholic,
I was raised with mother, married Jesus and all that,
and I hold the communion and all that and all
those things, you know, the your stay and the sanctuary
and all the beautiful music. But but that wasn't saving me.
(44:16):
And I had been clobbered by Morvish News Live, not
only on record, you know, unspoken heights live, I see.
And then to meet this teacher, he was beautiful, It
was nothing wrong. It was like, okay, would you follow Jesus. Yeah,
well there's a living example of someone living truth, talking truth.
(44:39):
What you're gonna do? So for me, it was a blessing,
absolute blessing. There was no doubt about that at all.
Only data was Am I Am I good enough? Am
I ready enough? Like I told you? When did you
when did he grant you with the name Nara? Well
that came later, he told me, laters, and I'm gonna
I'm not gonna spoil you. I've spoiled so many, given
them names too fast or do early. I'm not gonna spoil,
I'm gonna make you. And it wasn't until the release
(45:02):
of Garden of Lovelight that he gave me a min
named Narda. And he said, no row dumb, no ruh.
That went on for so long, I don't know if
a name is nah rah ar Da. So he said, Narda,
Narda supreme musician. Narda' soul brings from having to Earth light,
(45:23):
delight and compassion and takes back to having from Earth
earth sufferings. So the music, this is my role now
as Narda. Michael Oldham and uh yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
What leads to your deal at Atlantic Records? And on
top of that, how did you link with of all
people Tom Dowd on your first album.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I went through after I joined Mavish Orchestra and did
like two and a half years with my Vish Orchestra.
When that band stopped and Vishnu then went to Shakti
with you know, Zakia Hussein and that genius stuff. Then
I was really into a funk, in a depression because
now I didn't know what to do with my life.
I mean, I'm I'm high now now all my chop
everything is. But what are you gonna do? You're not
(46:08):
in the band anymore. It was like the Beatle brook up.
So I just tried to think of what I was
going to do. I became a teacher for a while,
the drama workshop, the teacher's thing, what the word was
called someplace. I played top talk down there for a while. Anyway,
I'm saying to you, I just had to focus, and
I thought, well, that's just going to my solo career.
So then my attorney was Barry Plattine. He said, you
(46:30):
know what, Epic Records will pay for you to make
a demo, you know, because at least you've got some
names from coming to mobs structure. I said, okay. So
then I heard off Lenny White's album of Phoenician Summers,
this cat named Raymond Gomez, who I thought, damn, this
guy has got the chops like I'm wanting to hear.
And then when I met him, he had the both
sides of Candridge Blues with chops and infusionary. So I said, okay,
(46:51):
I want you. Would you play make my demo with
me and David Sanchez who had made his album Hime
on keyboards and then a guy like Rule Lee was
David's bass player at the time, so then I went
to Epic and made son Is Dancing, maybe delightful and
one wan one of the songs, or maybe maybe delfe
on one of the songs three three things, and the
Epic turned it down. So then walk on the streets
thinking how you're gonna make it, How you're gonna make it,
(47:12):
how you're gonna make And then Barry said, just you know,
stay patient. And I got a phone call from my
cat named Raymond Silva from Atlantic. They were doing well
with now colbum and he said, you know, uh, you know,
maybe we'd be interested in you. So then I gave
them my tape that I've done for the Epic of
(47:33):
the Sun Is Dancing and maybe with a few things
I've cut, and I met Jerry Greenberg, who was a
president at the time, and then they offered me a deal.
But guess what, they said, we want half your publishing.
I said, okay, I wanted to deal that bad. I
was doing well with Wired. I wrote four sols on
Wire for Jeff Beeck, so I'm making money so that
(47:53):
they said we won't have to publish. I said not,
I don't care. Just sign me, give me a shot,
and they did. And then they said you have your
choice of two producers in house producers or Reef Martin
or Tommy Dowd. And I said, well, I love them both,
but this album is more on the rock side, and
(48:13):
I want to use this engineer from London who did
the last Mobbish album called Inner Worlds, named Dennis McKay right,
So I thought maybe I should use Timy Tommy Dowd
because he's more on that side of things. And I did.
Tommy said hey, let's work, and Tomy was so cool
and he just let me be me and help me.
And I was in that studio brother, where Aretha and
(48:34):
ray and all that. That's why I cut the Garden
Love and that main studio and it'd be on I
want to say, another cat was there as Jimmy Douglas,
a young backup cat. He was my He was the second.
So it'd be him and Dens mc kay and Tommy,
Tommy Dowd and my hot band of Raymond Gomez David
Sanchez will Lee on bass and myself. That was the core.
I deliverhearsal forts so they'd know what to expect in
(48:56):
the studio so we could cut it fast because you know,
as you know still your time and all that expensive.
So we went in there and know I knew White
Knight Ray and I wrote that and we knew how
to do it. I brought in a created ranger named
Michael Gibbs who did the Apocalypse album Mama Short, because
he was brought up to range my strings when I
wanted that. And then my friends came, like Carlos Santannaka
(49:17):
did to think of First Love, which is beautiful, Jeff
Beck Game to do Satan Lurascal, which is beautiful. So
I'm just really honored by that album, and I'm glad
that you know about it, because some people don't even
know about it. But that was my first soul album.
My baby, Yo, Yo, what up everybody. This is Fonte
Fontibelo from Team Supreme. We haven't done this in.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
A while, but this conversation is so great and we
had so much to cover that we had to make
it too parter. Look out for part two, drop it
next week or above this in your podcast feed. In
that conversation, Narta talks about his work with Whitney Houston,
Aretha Franklin Starship, and becoming one of the most in Deman.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Producers and all of music of all time, Top flight.
Speaker 4 (49:57):
Security of the world, Craig this conversation, it was mind
blowing from me and I know you're gonna enjoy it,
all right, that's happen.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
How Much Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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