February 23, 2022 • 62 mins
Y'all ready for a Questlove Supreme first? We have yet to dive into the world of gospel, so you know if we gonna do it, it has to be done right! That's why the first gospel artist to sit with us is the great change-maker and supreme innovator, Fred Hammond! Yup, another legendary conversation, and 2-parter. Oh, and keep your ears open for a special guest cohost with his own gospel roots...This is Questlove Supreme with Fred Hammond part 2.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio YO,
What Up? Sponsor the Low. Last week we got in
to part one of our interview with Fred Hammond, and
y'all heard that one. Get ready for part two. We
go even deeper and it's even better. Quest Love Supremes
in the house, y'all. Yep, I asked you initially then
(00:24):
we got sidetracked, but can you just briefly talk about
what the gospel circuit is like? And remember I told
you that the whole thing? Like, okay, you're you're touring
with the Whinings? What is what is a working musician
making with the whinings? Ins? Like? And is another one?
(00:56):
There is there a rider? I just want to know,
like what are working musician makes in the gospel circuit?
Like are you playing j churches? Is banquet halls? Is
the theaters? Like take me through all you get me
a gig drumming with the with the Whinings. It explained
to me the whole process. Okay, so the wine is
(01:17):
when they came out their record, they had a great manager.
They had a couple of great managers. Direct dirts On
was one of them, a couple of other people and
they had writers, you know, down to just like a
because these managers managed secular acts. So they had writers.
And we were doing mainly theaters, and back at that
(01:38):
time they had this thing called the World's Greatest Gospel Show,
James Cleveland, Mighty Clouds, and they were doing arenas. They
were doing literal arenas like Cobol Hall or something, and
so we did a lot of big, big dates. When
we did a church, we felt like, you know, it
was beneath us. You know, your church was big because
(01:58):
we were used to not doing churches. The Wind has
had a thing that they said, we don't want to
play churches because we don't want to alienate some people
don't want to come to church, and we want everybody
to hear our music. So we did a lot of theaters,
you know, did a lot of theaters, be compater, We
did radio City, We did a lot of a lot
of things. So they had a writer. We all stayed
(02:21):
in the hotel. We traveled by Greyhound bus and van.
Every now and then we would we would fly um,
but we we we traveled and we didn't have no
problem loading up in a sixteen passenger you know and
hiding down the road. You know, so that was the case.
But here's let's let's talk about the money. It got strange,
(02:46):
It got really weird, got weird. I started off making
because I knew they were charging like three a night.
Then they were moving up four thousand dollars that they
were moving up the ranks, and they started off making
two fifty a night, and it was like, man, this
is great money. Well, somebody told them, like, you know,
(03:08):
as you guys make more money, the band is going
to make less money. And they took that wrong. So
when they went up to we went down to one seventy.
When they went up to five thousand, we went down
to like a hundred. It got down to fifty dollars
(03:29):
a night because they were like, hey, you know what
else y'all gonna black? Who else you're gonna play for?
You know, just we don't we do only kind of
game in the town, you know. And we literally got
down to fifty dollars a night. And I was on welfare.
I was literally collecting unemployment and having to go out
(03:51):
of town. So I go to Oakland, I have to
stop off at the unemployment office. I go into I
go into KFC right next to the unemployment office say hey,
y'all looking for me about y'all got applications. They said,
now we ain't hearing and I going in in the
off and they said, okay, cool, I signed, I go back.
(04:13):
I beel like, my fifty dollars from the wine is
three nights. I got to pluck fifty plus. That wasn't
per dam that your per daym was in your pay
So I wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, oh wow,
it was. It was kind of it was it was,
it was, it was. It was a thing. You know,
how did you let it get that Why did why
(04:34):
did you guys let it get to that point? I mean,
I'm just curious as like you didn't nobody ever said
anything like okay, now it's a hundred no no. My
drummer one of my best friends in the group at
that time, his name was Sandy Lovely. He was a
great drummer, and he just got two points in, Man,
I can't go out for this. I got to get
a job. I'm gonna give me a job at Chrysler.
(04:57):
And we had meetings like guys, can we get more money?
And they were they were at a place where they
were so hot. They were like if you don't want
to play, you know somebody else. And that was just
the way it was. And they weren't mean. They would
just call themselves being business people. And I stayed as
long as I physically could. I was making I literally
(05:18):
man was on welfare and playing and I just stuck
hung in there. I never forget we do. Went to
California for a month and I had to pay for
my own food every now and then. They pay for
our food. You know, come on and sit on down.
But they only had a few gigs. We probably had
seven gigs out there, so fifty times seven is what
it was. And I had to eat. So when I
(05:39):
went home, I probably went home literally with like bucks
in my pocket. Yeah, I'm saying. But my thing was,
I loved it so much and I thought, at being
young and governable, I'm like, well, this is how it goes.
I'm not leaving. This is the best place for me.
(06:01):
So it's not gonna be about money. I didn't realize.
I was learning it's not about money. When you do this,
you gotta have a passion. So that's what it was.
Another question I always wanted to know. I'm you know,
I grew up in uh, you know, a household with
the least three thousand records. I'm very, very very familiar
(06:22):
with the Light label, so I know about the history
of Ralph Carmichael um Man and whatnot. Could you explain
it for our listeners and to me too, because I
know very little, Like was like a Detroit label, and
like why were why was that the was that the
(06:45):
go to? Was that the motown of gospel labels? Back then?
It was Andre Crouch made Light Records. Ralph andre Crouch
were really good friends, and Ralph invest it in Andre's
earliest music, you know, and then Andre just blew it up, man,
and just he just that's what did it. That's what
(07:08):
did it. Andre Crouch built Light Records, and then the
Winders went at that same time Andrea had a little
something and they had to kind of part ways. Andre
went to Warner Brothers, you know, from there, and so
the Windings ran Light Records, and Light Records was a major,
major force. But it was from l A. They lived.
They were out in Pasadena and somewhere out there, and
(07:29):
you know out there that's where Light Records was. The
Hawkins to the Hawks in the Bay Area, and they
were on Light Yeah, the first record and all of
their records were on Light Records. Yeah, Light was the
major lay whatl that for? Word Records hadn't even come
into play yet, you know, Light was the thing. And
(07:50):
then Ralph he retired and gave his uh reins over
to another guy. And that's when Commission came in and
we salvage because we were making money for Light Records,
you know, we was, we was really turning some records over. Okay,
So now that we're there, can you please tell me
(08:10):
just the average creative at least for the I'm going
on and that they'll tell us, like your first few records,
can you tell me what the creative process is for
making those albums? As and who's the alpha that makes
the decisions? Who? How do you guys especially, I mean
six of you or seven of you? Six of you? Like,
(08:33):
is it really democratic or is it just like what
you say goes or what? Like? What's the as Fonte
would say, sort of the division of labor in and
creating these records? Um Man, I was good and I've
always been good at delegating, you know, I understood it.
So I broke the group up into two pieces because
(08:56):
the singers, Carl Mitchell and Keith They weren't really Mitchell was.
He was He was kind of key and learning the
music side. But I had a very funk background, so
I would divide it up into here the singers, this
is what we do, and then it was Michael Brooks
and myself, Me and Mike. Mike was a keyboard player
(09:16):
and he was the songwriter, so we would take his songs.
He would say this is this, this, this, this, and
then we would add the flare to we put the
swag on it. Mitchell and I would put the swag
on and I was It was never about me, you know,
running the show. We were just glad that Mike Brooks
was such a good songwriter. He was phenomenal. All of
(09:37):
them songs back then basically came from him. We didn't
even know anything about song right he was teaching us.
But we took his songs and we made them as
good as they could be. So, you know, we just
we understood that level. So I was really a producer
from that angle. Mike was the writer, arranger and producers.
(09:58):
So we worked well together, you know. We we we never
saw anything different from Timmy Jimmy in Terry or or
from baby Face in l A. So we just took
it that. You know, you work together, you know, you know,
whatever you feel, how you feel about that, he said,
I like that. I say, well, I like what you're doing.
So we just did that and it worked, you know
what I mean? That was up. What was the in
(10:21):
terms of stacking recording your background vocals? What was that process? Like? John, Yeah,
a good friend of mine, great great engineer. He ended
up getting fired off our first record because a lot
of firing going on in the commission. Y'all was getting
people out of that because I never heard the word
(10:44):
fire so much. So here's what we were doing. We
heard a different sound from what everybody else heard when
it comes to background. So we took and we stacked
you know, each part you know for four and four
and our backgrounds were more Clark's histories. One of the
songs that we learned, our first song, we real quick.
(11:07):
Just so when you say four four four are each
one of y'all, like four of y'all singing the same
part and y'all are tracking four of us were sing
and we've seen two tracks because it was twenty track
at that time, so we really had to manage your jump.
So we were singing the bottom, then we've seen the middle.
Then sometimes Mitchell Carlin I would sing the top, or
(11:29):
just Mitchell Carlin Mitchell will sing the top. So we
had six tracks of vocals, but we we had intricates
parts because we were always concentrating on the Clark Cys.
Our first song we ever learned in my mother's in
my mother's living room was look gives the place, bead,
Praise bead, Blood, help me Dozia. Yeah. When we sang
(11:55):
that and learned that, man, we ran out like we
ran a grand We jump got off off the porch.
We learned it. So we said, this is how our
vocals are gonna be. So now we're singing this song.
If we have any lord before, sure they wait and
and we're singing it and surely we need, surely we need,
(12:15):
surely we need him na. And when we did that part,
we were amazed. But the engineer said, no, you can't
have the vocals up that loud. They need to be
back here. I said, but they don't sound good back there.
We want them up loud it because it's like background leads.
And we had a thing because nobody was doing it
(12:36):
that way. So finally he put them where he wanted
them and we just said, okay. Cool. I went into
the stage managers, I mean the studio manager. I told her.
I said, you know, we need to get our masters.
She said you leave it. Yeah, and she said why.
I said, I didn't want to get him. You know, fired,
(12:56):
I want you know? He said, well, we think our
voices sound better up here. He said, who paying for this?
Is he paying for this? We pa, are you pay?
And I said we are. She said, you better grew up, pair.
I'm gonna teach you how to be a man. Next
week came back, it was a different engineer there, and
(13:17):
he turned it up where we wanted and the commission
sound was perked. The very next album though, we went
back with John and he got it and he was
the assignment brother brother Hammond. Can you explain the influence
(13:37):
and what makes the Clark's sisters their sound or they're
blend like, what makes it so spect than anyone's former
background blending or whatnot? Winky one word at that time,
Twinkie Clark. Twinkie was Stevie to us how she played
when she sat down to how she played, how she
(13:59):
arranged her heart and niece and what she did it
was just amazing. And so you have Karen and Derenda
and you have you have Denise at that time, and
Jackie and Tweakie was giving out these crazy parts in
these crazy chords and it was blowing us all the way.
It was amazing. If you go back and listen to
(14:20):
the recordings, weren't that great productionalizing sonically, you know, there's
a lot of mistakes that kept going. But if you
listen to the heart of Twinkie Clark's arranged, it was
just with like that prey and spirit. That is an
amazing song. That was our north star to say, we
want to make people feel like this about our record
(14:42):
because at that time we didn't want to sound like
the Windings because they were kind of straight ahead, you know,
four Tops Temptations, you know they were they were that
they were We wanted to be different. They were that
change to go back to, go back to, go back
to question is no no no no no no no
(15:02):
no no, just just just straight so to you, to you.
That was regular, just regular flat, like a harmony, one
on one. That was one on one. My my parents
lived for that record. So I'm growing up thinking that
the Windings are the epicenter of you know, and the
(15:24):
absolute force of gospel seeing. But for you that was
just normalized. And the Clark's sisters were top shelf. It
was as far as being creative, the Clarks were top shelf.
As far as the blend the Winding brothers, there was
a blend like no other because they were family. So
(15:45):
we took the we took the polished of the Windings,
and we took the creativity of the Clark sisters. And
that's what commissioned was. So if the Windings commissioned and
Clark sisters got together, did they produced us? You know
what I'm saying. So, um, that's what you hear, you know.
But it was about Twinkie. Twinkie was beast. She was
(16:07):
a beast. She was she was amazing, and that's where
we got it from. So okay, actually, I want to
direct this to James, because here's the deal. Again, we're
not you know, at the top of the show, I
explained that when I was in high school, it was
almost like a gang experience, and I'm at performing art
(16:30):
school and you got like one cat like Kurt Rosen
winkles into Frank Zappa, so you gotta learn his language.
But then like christ McBride and Joey Di Francisco are
a heavy jazz cats you gotta listen to like anything
on Blue Note. And then of course, you know my
partner Toriguez is hip hop and whatnot. And so there
was the fourth category of cats who only lived for
(16:55):
a commission. And so you know, like I, even though
we didn't go to the same school together, like little
John Roberts as a drummer, was how I knew commission
Because the thing is, you know, like I'm thinking, like
with my legacy of who my dad was and whatnot,
I'm finally like in a high school situation which I
could play like all City jazz band all that stuff.
(17:17):
So I'm thinking, like the red carpet is just ready
for me and like, you know, for me to get
my thing on. And little John Roberts, who's way younger
than I was, Like he's like three or four years younger.
You know this, this little you know, eighth grade runt
is playing like an adult and I'm like, wait what
and he's little John's let me know, like like what
(17:40):
you don't know about commission. And I'm realizing, you know,
because again I was I was team Prince. That's that's why,
that's who I chose that you know, prints the time
and all that stuff. I wasn't him to commission. And
yet all my peers, like all those first generations monster
cats were that's like taking every word as like bond
(18:05):
so for you, for you, James, like how how much
of their work, like was influential to you coming up
in your dad's church and whatnot? Oh my see, I
grew up and my father is a bishop and a
Jamaican bishop, which means that we ain't We couldn't do nothing.
(18:28):
As my dad said, you can't do this, you can't
do that. He had to sneak to listen to the commission.
No no, no, no, no no. That was the only thing.
Are those are the only records that I could listen to,
you know, we I grew up, you know, the records
that were in the house where the Andre Croucher and
the Hawkins and so forth and um so listen to that.
(18:50):
But when commission came, it was like this is something new.
All my musician buddies at the time that grew up
in a church were like yo, if you check the
sound at the very beginning of it was like what
is that? So it was like we had something, we
(19:10):
had something cool to listen to, you know what I mean. Yeah,
something that was explained to me. What year did gospel
stop really let itself go of? Like the Gospel quartet
ding ding ding ding dinging, Like when did gospel really
let go? Because even now I collect like I love
(19:32):
collecting gospel records that will take that one secular song
and turn into a gospel song like Shalimar's Second time Around,
or you know, there's a whispers and the beat goes
on gospel version, there's a Lovely Day that's gospelized. You know,
there's always that one Tilken song where they like take
a secular song and do it, but the rest of
(19:54):
the stuff is like old time gospel. At what point
in the gospel world do you not have to feel
shame that you're making people dance and not playing the
regular gospel time old time you brought the sunshine maybe, right,
yeah Clark Sisters, Yeah the Sunshine, Yeah, I mean that
(20:18):
was a massive. Yeah. So that's the first time in which,
like I mean, if you go back to Edwin Hawker
Edwin Hawk is the old Happy Day too, you know
what I mean. So even then, like that's still gospel
to me. But like, what's the point where, like you know,
where you if you take the vocals away, it could
(20:41):
be a secular song, Like, at what point does that happen?
It really took hold with bbs CCS first. Oh yes,
I got it right. I was thinking that, but I
didn't want to say it out loud. Thank you for it.
I'm thinking that's when it really took hold because they
people didn't know if there was a love song album,
(21:04):
you know, and that's when they got popular to actually
seeing music. Steve Thomas was the was the producer at
that time. He's a white with a lot of in heaven.
He did a lot of Vanessa Williams stuff too. Yeah, yeah,
but that's when it really kicked in. So when you're
playing in church, are there any elders ever giving you
(21:27):
side eye? Like because even even mind like I'm not
I didn't I didn't come from the church per se,
but I played drumps in my church occasionally. So like
you know, in eight six, eighties seven, you know, I
might put a little bit of top Villain into whatever
we're doing, or play like a run d NC break
(21:47):
beat or whatever, and occasionally, like an older uncle would
give me that look like I know what you're doing.
You know how people didn't know when the kids start
doing the then they're like, oh, you're playing Secondly, you
don't do that like uplifted. So are you at all
ever getting like side eyes if you start referencing a
(22:11):
popular baseline, if you start doing not just need deep
or something like in your music. Man, we caught the
blues with that. Man we called the blues with that
we were getting. Man, we got picketed, We got picked
at it show. I wasn't expecting that the mission we
were doing a we were doing a convention in Kentucky,
(22:34):
at least Cincinnato, Kentucky, and man, there was they said, Man,
we don't want to we don't want to bump you out.
But there's a whole bunch of people, about twenty to
thirty people out in the front, and they got picket
signs saying this music is gonna send you to hell.
I never forgot. I never forgot. It was like I've
seen out of the movie driving up all of a sudden,
(22:56):
we in slow motion you hear some strings playing and
you see these people god Devil's music, Devil's really and
we're just sitting there there, like what are you doing?
But it was still a line of young people waiting
to get in. And when we got inside, we played
like never before. We weren't really rebellious. We were kind
of hurt because we didn't see that like that, but
(23:16):
we played anyway, and the kids came in there and
they had a great time, and we did have a
lot of elders. And people say, I don't understand it.
Like one pastor was totally against us, and the only
reason he stopped being totally against us is that another
pastor had a son that was on drugs that was
getting clean because he was listening to our music. He
(23:38):
would come to church. He said, I don't know what
them boys is doing, but I tell you this, if
they can get him to do his job, I ain't
mad at it. And it started changing some people around,
but it took a long time, and people was picking
at us because we had on blue jeans. We were
the first group to ever wear blue jeans on a record,
so we were like new additions and people just thought
(23:58):
people wouldn't buy a record just because of we had
on that first album. They wudn't even back what Yeah,
y'all think the church is keeping is catching up yet
they everybody and everybody ain't in No, That's why I
was asking churches's house, Jakes in the Podder's house, we
(24:21):
have we have dance ministries, we have youth ministries, and
they could do whatever it is long, it's it's not
sexual looking. They can do any dance. They can whoa,
they can do whatever they want to do to anything
because he encourages. Man, this is current, this is what
we're doing. This nothing wrong with this. We we better
offer them something. Somebody else is gonna offer him something.
(24:43):
I want to give her something because they're gonna the
poll is gonna offer or something. So you know, let's
be smart about young people. And they're they're with it now,
but coming up. Man. Eric Robinson is one of my
best friends. About that, Yeah, Jed Tenners, yes, so he
I never forget. They told me they said they they
(25:04):
brought him down to Popados and they said they had
a special guest for his birthday and they brought me
in the room. He literally started crying and we started
we stayed friends every since. But he told the story
that really blessed me. He said he hated gospel music
because it was he didn't like it, and his mother said,
you gotta listen to it, but she was praying for something.
(25:26):
So one day he was downstairs iron in his clothes
and his mother put our record on the on the
earning board and he saw that we had clothes with
like he did, and he listen, looked at it, and
he played it. He said, I literally started crying. He said,
because you guys, you said it. You guys made it
cool to do gospel. And that's when the cliff he
(25:50):
and I talked about to this day. That's my guy,
that's that's I'm I'm mind blow. And I wasn't expecting
the picketting. I thought, like, you guys broke through the
other side and everyone was with it. So it's basically
(26:11):
like the black foot loose, Like it's always a chick
with a skirt underneath the knees ready to pick up,
you know what I'm saying, black foot loose. Well, I
also want to know has there ever been musically speaking,
how how long would you guys rehearse and you know,
(26:31):
was there ever a pressure to top yourselves as far
as your musicality because you know, again some of these
songs are are straight and hit funk songs. But then
like you guys will get on your return to forever,
you know, crazy arrangements at the end thing and you know,
so how how how what's the what's the regiment for
(26:53):
like practicing and coming up with new ideas and whatnot.
There was a point in time where we're doing the
first several set of records, when our budgets were really,
really small. What we would do is put twenty hours
of practice time in a basement to every four hours
(27:13):
of studio time because we didn't have much money in
the studio. You can knock it out. We're knocking it out.
And then we was putting fines in place. We had
no money, but we was putting fines in place. You know,
if you miss, if you because you had to do
a take, you got one take because we was like, no,
we're gonna be do this in one take. If you
mess it up, man, that's five out of fine, you know,
(27:36):
and so the next one we would honestly, but we
were on it man, because we would and we loved rehearsing.
We didn't really have no jobs, so we loved rehearsing. Man,
we we just saw ourselves in a bit of better place.
So we were either be in Michael Brooks's basement and
we were we were learning. That's where I brought in
Field College. You know, if you go listen to Hide
(27:56):
the word on the second album, Okay, but the drummer,
I listened to the level forty two and I listened
to Phil Collins and them, and uh my drummer was
crazy about Phil Collins. So we said, we're gonna put
this one part in there that Phil does his thoms
all right. So it said when it looks think the thing,
(28:19):
you bob boom, And he didn't think that instant and
then he would go past the one. So he go
bro broom instead of broken, broken bock, instead of going
to the one people go. Pe said watch, I'm gonna
do this. Boo boo boo boo, spot the boom, and
(28:40):
and we went into a thing. But we he would
do something, then I would do something, or Mark King
would do this right here boom boom boom, and this
will never do well, Let's do this right here. We
were blessed to experiment with music and still keep a pocket.
That was the beauty of commission. Man, that's what I loved. Wow, Wow,
(29:01):
you mentioned level forty two. I was about to say, Um,
what's his name is bass playing? Yes? Yes, I definitely
see that. Yeah Arrow. He wanted to Uh, he wanted
to ask you you. I wanted to tell the story
of recording, writing and recording running back to you. Oh man,
(29:24):
it was funny because that's actually just came up about
three years ago as a sore spot. It just came up. Uh.
It was supposed to be in a little movie thing
we just talking about doing. And I won't blow people's cover,
but I'll just tell you what happened. Um, we were
(29:44):
in there and this record we had a we had
an artist named Derek Brinkley, you know, and I was
gonna give this song to him, and they said, well, no,
why don't you keep it? So I said to Keith,
I said, because it's my personal testimony. And I said,
Keith Man, why don't you sing this song? Because we
always want to make sure everybody felt more comfortable, you know,
(30:04):
like I don't want to seem like I'm doing everything.
So I wrote this song, you know, and I said, Keith,
would you do it? Keith is more straight laced of
all of us. He was very much the straight laced guy,
you know, very cool. But he went out there in
these streets like we was. We was out there and um,
he said, man, I'm not real comfortable with doing that song.
I said, well, I'll go do the demo of it.
(30:28):
And you guys kind of listened to it. So what
we would do is out the person would sing the
lead and then we go start making a background parts.
So I went in there and I sang the song
and I'm looking at the guys in there, and they're
just kind of sitting like this, you know. And uh,
and so I'm singing the parts. I'm singing the parts,
and finally I put a look in there after I finished,
(30:49):
and I put the headphones down, and nobody's you know,
not saying, man, great songs that they're just sitting there.
And so I walked from the microphone two the studio
ten ft, going past double doors, and when I got
in there, everybody was looking at me like this, and
I was I didn't know what to expect. So I
(31:10):
just sat down and when the guys said the good job, man,
good job. And I said, okay, cool. So I'm listening
to the playback and I turned around to the guys
and said, so, guys, let's start putting some backgrounds to it.
Let's put some backgrounds to it. And the guy said,
I don't think you should put no backgrounds. Here's the
here's the here's the dirt, here's a little dirt. One
(31:31):
of the guys, when I was coming from the vocal
booth to the room, said so, y'all gonna just let
him do a solo on this record, ah man. And
when I got in there, everybody was off guard. So
that was the look. That was the look. And so
(31:53):
the rest of the guys told me this literally three
years ago. Wow. I always say what they just told
me this three years ago. Wow. And so when I
walked in the room, I walked in and the person said, hey, man,
you should just go ahead and do it yourself. And
(32:14):
I said, no, man, I don't want nobody thinking I'm
trying to do no no solo or nothing like that.
They said, man, now you're good. The guys were trying
to process what they just dealt with. So they sat
there and what you hear is the demo is the
actual song itself today? Wow? Wow. We were still Here's
(32:38):
the thing, we were still regular dudes. We were still
people with insecurities. We were people. We were guys, boys
trying to be raising, trying to turn into men. We
had idiosyncrasies, we had group issues. So when I see
something like The Temptation Story was one of my favorite
movies of all time. You know, I feel that pain
when I see that five heart beach, I feel that
(33:00):
pain when I see the Jackson's I see a new addition. Man,
we all went through that. It's nothing different in gospel.
People have desires and this that another. We just didn't
cut each other a fight, but man, it was still
the same drama, you know what I mean. And that
was one of their moments. Well, James and I are
(33:21):
from the Trash State area, so the gospel station I
always listened to my parents went full Christian on me,
like around mid eighties, and there was a station called
w zz D, of which you know, you can hear
some wine In's, but then it would be like the
People of the Day, Sandy Patty, Michael W. Smith or
(33:45):
or you know less. Yeah, all all those groups Twilight Paris, Like,
were you guys ever accepted in the sort of white
mainstream contemporary Christians set or were you guys strictly just
like on your side of the fence, or you know,
(34:06):
was there mixing you know what they have not on
festivals or churches would invite you guys or like a
brilliant question. We did have a few churches. So if
we did thirty gigs a year, you know, two of
them would be a white church or a big white festival,
you know, a big white festival. The guy that brought
(34:27):
Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith to town, his name is Art.
He would try to get us in events because he
was just a really good friend in him and Derek Dirkson,
where Derek was trying to cross us over to let
people see what we did. But we didn't do a
lot of them, but we had enough. You know, festival
festivals were big back there. So we were going to
(34:48):
stage you know, right before Petra or right before you know,
uh striper. You know, would you try to kill him?
Would you try to kill him? Yeah, we was doing
our same I saw I saw a picture the other day.
Somebody sent me something I'm gonna probably posted in a
day or so where we were doing the the monument
(35:10):
watching it's called I forgot what it was called, but
it was a big freedom fest and it's one of
the largest white festivals around and they brought us there.
It looks like the crowd is sitting on us because
we were saying that's when Marvin stat was in the group.
He had just got in the group, and but the
reality was it was a hundred and eighteen degrees and
people were falling out. They told everybody sit down for
(35:33):
every group. It don't matter who it was, because people
were falling out and it was taking people away and
it had to be like the mall was filled. So
it probably was about thirty thou people on the lawn,
you know. So you know, I just saw that the
other day and I'm probably posted in a day or so.
But yeah, that we had a decent fair, but we
basically stayed on outside defense. I want to get to
(35:56):
his last down with Commission at least to see what
the difference is and starting the band ten years ago
in in and what prompted to the initial split from
the group in in ninety four with Matters of the Heart,
Could you just talk about that time parent. The first
(36:19):
record after the split was Number seven. That was that
was the the first record. Okay, what ended up happening
was Michael Brooks ended up getting a really good deal
with PolyGram Rain of Bundy and PolyGram in New York,
and she made him his staff, her staff producer, and
(36:43):
you know, he was kind of a and R director
and he was still with us, but he was really
really busy doing that, and he reached out to Keith
and say, hey man, we'll do a solo record on you.
And Benson Records passed on Keith's solo deal. They gave
him an option to do it. They said, no, we
invested in commission. We don't think you should be doing that. Well,
(37:03):
we had something in our contract to say first right
of refusal if you pass it's head. Well, Keith went
on the head and signed with Brooks and this production
company with the Rain of PolyGram and uh, it's called
Election Records was the name of the record company they
ended up. Benson got really mad. Benson Records got really mad.
(37:25):
So then they came to me and said, he can't
stand in this group. If this is gonna happen, y'all
need to get him out and this, and so the
record company basically made us split and said, well, man,
you can't be a part of us if you're gonna
do that, And so him and Mike went their way.
So now the whole record from number seven and then
Matters of the Heart is all in my hands to produce.
(37:48):
And I brought Mitchell on because that was my boy,
and he had Mitchell had an amazing sound. He understood,
you know, flavor, he understood, he had a flavor to it.
So that I'm learning that's Mitchell and Parks. But that's
our groove behind it. But that's their pin, you know.
Ordinary just want to do Mitchell and Parks some of
the greatest songs they had. They just had that that thing.
(38:10):
But we had the music at so number seven, you know,
I brought him up, boy Banar, right, we did King
of Flory, We did I Can't Live Without You, and yes, yes,
he stayed with me, hung out with me, and me
and him was like that and he so if you
(38:30):
listen to King of Glory, you will hear me and Bernar,
you know. And then you listen to I Can't Live
Without You, you hear me and Banar. My first solo record.
I came to Jesus with the FLA band, me and Banar,
Grace for me every day, Me and Banar, and then
Bernard went and got his record deal from another record
company and he moved on. So that was what that was,
(38:51):
so our sound. I was able to take the funk
that was always in me and drive it and said
this is what we're gonna do. And then we got
to h we got a little bit more polished because
we were we got two matters of the heart and
we wanted to sound a little older. So then I
got my boy, Chucky Booker, and we did you know,
love is the way we did. You can always come
(39:14):
home with run DMC, and we just we experimented with
great music. So we had CCM sound, we had that
funk Chucky Booker sound, and then we had that commissioned
funk in the middle of there something. So that was
kind of how that was birthed. Yeah, and that was
my last record. That was my last record. But and
then after that, that that was when you did Radicals for
(39:35):
Christ for Christ my last record, and we had another
split at that point in time, and and I thought
I was I was gonna get rid of other guys,
and we're gonna be me. You know, I'm I mean
good with the record coming. You know it is what
it is that which one of you was going, I'm
not leaving. Ye know that I've already proved myself. I'm
(39:56):
I'm not going to y'all. They loved the record, so
it's selling. And and we had a meeting one time
and they said this. They brought a lot of different
things that wasn't true. And we sat down with a
pastor and I'm like, okay, what are you some of
somebody's leaving. It ain't gonna be me. We were here. No,
I'm not moving. As somebody read, I won't say which
(40:17):
what it was. He said, read the bottom line. And
he said, because the pastor said, I don't see anything
wrong here. There's nothing out of order to receiat her
in place. Everything that you guys are saying, I don't
see it. What's the bottom line? And he said, we
do not believe God called Fred to be the leader
(40:38):
of our group. And it took all the air out
of me because I picked, I hand picked the guy
that was reading it. And I sat back in my
chair and I went through all the emotions right there.
And then I told I said, give me a week,
and I went back to my little spot, my little studio,
(41:01):
and I went to everywhere in the Bible in the
New Testament that talked about belief, and the main script
you was Jesus was in his own town preaching to
his own people, and they said, who does this guy
think he is? Don't we know his sisters and them
who we think wait to get all this knowledge from?
And he said he marveled at their unbelief. And then
(41:23):
this was the thing that made me give it up.
He said, many mighty miracles he could not do because
of their unbelief. And I closed the Bible. I said,
I can get these guys ten grammys. They all have
Rose Royce's Mentley's and they won't believe it's me. So
I'm out. And I just handed everything. Oh, I said,
y'all can have it. And I went into a wilderness.
I did not know what I was gonna do. I
(41:44):
went into a depression. We sang one more year, and
then I had to figure out what I was gonna
do and this and that's when I heard started acquiring
and I was like, now I'm gonna keep it one hunted,
(42:05):
you know, and I don't, you know, only I gotta
keep it careful because I don't want to get canceled.
You know. I didn't care for choirs for the persona
that he carried at the time, and that's what's all
I'm gonna tell you, just dude, you know, and I didn't.
I didn't care for it, you know. I didn't care
for what people looked at quires. And I saw Kirk
on a show and I saw David Man, I saw
(42:28):
a big day daln uh my boy, Daln I saw
and it was with it. And so then I knew
John p Key. So I started listening to John, and
John was Stuggorn. I knew John me. I helped him
get his first deal, and so I started listening. I
started listening to show up, like for four months straight,
(42:48):
and I'm hearing this hard driving thing, and I'm like,
I can do this. I can do this. So I
was friends with Billy Steele, so I paid attention to
sound the blackness because at that point in time, Jimmy
Terry just killed the game, which sounds of black. So
I'm seeing this transformation and I'm going into it, and
I finally I've come up with RFC. I said, this
(43:10):
is gonna be our flavor. We're gonna do this. We're
gonna do praise and worship. And nobody knew what praising
worship was at that time. Praising worship is just how
you say the lyrics you're saying. So when people are saying,
I've been down, boom and I'm gonna get back up,
they were singing where they were in life. They were singing, baby,
getting need a pair of shoes, even got a life
(43:31):
build Because this is my problem. I'm gonna turn over
the Lord. He'll working it out. But I started lifting
the Lord up. So I I'm doing this beat, and
I got my MPC and I got all my cards,
and I'm loading samples up and I'm doing this one
beat boom, top boom, boomtop boom boom, and I stopped
the sample. And you know how an NPC, the sample
(43:54):
would go over to shop to do, did you hit
it again? Shot to do be glory, to gold bead
too glow, And that's how it started. It changed into
a full thing, you know. So I just took praise
(44:17):
and worship that white people were doing, brought it over
to the Black church and I told I tell white
people and says, you guys cook string beans and it
still has snapped in it. We don't like that. I
got stuff to be all this. It needs to be
wilted turkey leg and it needs to have not a
(44:40):
nutrient around a rival. I don't want to I'll see
none of that fiber. This this shouldn't be no good.
So that's what my praise of worship was. It was
we just took their stuff that was neat and we
just put some turkey leg in there. It was such
(45:08):
an education, especially in Watchington with with you and Kirk
doing verses together, Yeah, and going through you know, going
through your history. How how does it feel when now
like contemporary second acts be a Diddy Snoop Dogg did
(45:28):
a gospel record, Like, how does it feel to be
embraced by that community to whom that you know? Maybe
ten twenty years ago, I think maybe the most radical
thing I saw thirty forty years ago was maybe like
Maurice White singing with a gospel act. But you know,
now it's it's very commonplace. Like, how does it feel
(45:51):
to get embraced by the world? Respect feels good? Respect
just feel is good. And that's all we ever wanted
was respect, you know, to be treated like we're real musicians.
We're not church musicians. We're real musicians who made a
(46:11):
choice to sing church stuff. And now that's what it is.
So I can look at you, I can look at
the roots. I can pay attention. I paid I've watched
you know, you guys. I remember when you guys went
on and got the gig we all talked about. That
was stuff about that we talked about. I paid attention
to the sound that came out of Philadelphia music. So child,
(46:32):
now we just embraced each other because you know, at
the end of the day, each every one of us
on here, our brothers and sisters, were a family of music.
First what we talked about. But this hip hop gospel,
that's just something we choose to have a conversation about.
But first and foremost, we all have the passion of
(46:52):
the beat, the drum, the base, the keys, the sound,
the lyric. And now we can have those conversations with
each other and we respect them. Like I said, my brother,
we're in here right now preparing for Ricky, Bobby, Rod,
Johnny and Mike. We're preparing for them right now. All
(47:12):
of our gears getting ready to go out. And when
I go and see him, I love them and we
just we hug up, we dap up, and we just
respect each other, you know what I mean. I really
can't wait for this. For me, This education is important
because you know, James, James Canna attest to this. Especially
in the last two years, I've been like really catching
(47:35):
up on a lot of things that I've missed and
wasn't able. You know, the like the quarantine period that
we're now, it's a slow down period where you know,
we get time to ourselves and really I get to
catch up on books and things and music that I
otherwise wouldn't have caught up on because I'm working so much.
And I was you know when when La said that
(47:55):
you wanted to do Quest up Supreme, I was, you know,
I was like, think God, because I didn't want to
be the only person in life who listened to Crash
Cuts more than I've listened. You know, cut happened to
(48:20):
do today my birthday. So I thank you for this, man,
you know, I truly thank you. Almost In closing, I
just want to know, well, in the aftermath of the pandemic,
how has your life changed, and how has the circuit
at least your life and music changed since March Because
(48:42):
he about to go on tour allegedly, Yeah, we're about
to do has a car who was one of my
best but good friends. We're hitting the road, has a
Kyle Marvin's app. Myself is reel holding hitting the Role
Up festival to praise to it. But you know what, man,
it's weird because US streaming has killed us streaming. Really,
(49:06):
I mean, here's the thing. Are are people are just
starting to get on streaming this year. They're just starting
Oh no no no, he's saying the with you. So
they couldn't go nowhere, So on their refrigerators, on their
(49:27):
computers listening. They discovered Pandora, they discovered Spotify, you know
what I'm saying. So they're they're listening. Now here's the thing.
It's kind of a cruel joke, and it's not God's fault,
but it feels like a cruel joke because I still
have so much music in me to create, but there's
(49:49):
no real outlet. Like I just did a record, Man,
I just did a record with this was this coming
called Thinness and I put it out. It's called Sunday
Morning Fred, and it's on so on Apple Music right now.
But and it's one of the leading black streaming records
out there. And I'm not on a major label. But
it's not saying nothing because I'm streaming like seven thousand,
(50:13):
like thirty six thousand, uh copies of week streams of
week on this new record. And that's not really that good.
It's not really like it's it's like, man, I put
a lot of money into it to make it happen.
And so on my Facebook page, I got a whole
I got the whole concert, I got the whole contract.
(50:34):
I did it in my warehouse, and it's a throwback
of old Fred. It's pages of life for it. It's
that vibe and a man gospel is in a tunnel
because R and B died, And I tell everybody that
when R and B die, I'm talking about LTD, I'm
talking about time, I'm talking about Anita and Luther, and
(51:00):
we could listen to them. We were What made commission
happen is because you can listen to something like like
you said, man, your father said, you can listen to them,
And we gave you the time. We gave you some
prints we gave you these these people because we had
something to lean on. Well, now those people are gone,
(51:23):
that that music is gone. It's nothing new coming out.
And therefore and and gospel has gone back to traditional
or to Maverick. Maverick is the white version of Black gospel,
and Marbrick City, Maverick City is the new praise of
(51:45):
worship is the hot It's the hottest praise and worship
company out their lives. And when I tell you, they
got some amazing artists. But what it is is a
lot of the young people now have gone over there
and they've taken the sound of black music and they've
made it less black. Okay, you to go research it.
(52:10):
It's people like chand of more Man. I'll tell you
this guy is amazing. But what they're doing is they're
creating a new space for these guys to write and
to do their things. So I can't be mad at
I'm never gonna be mad at somebody doing their thing.
Maverick is the hottest thing going Maverick City. But I
can do Maverick because I'm too too, sof I don't
(52:32):
have that thing, and man, check it out, check it out.
So you're saying, right now, there's really not there's really
not a space for you to be creative and release
products and have it be monetarily worth it. So would
you frante this order where you were in like two
thousand three, like trying to figure out are you saying
(52:55):
this is where you were in two thousand three, like
when you start a little brother and try to figure
out I mean now, I would assume now in twenty
years later, the lame that you're in is is rather lucrative. Absolutely,
now it makes sense. But at the time, the beauty
of what I did that a lot of my counterparts
(53:17):
didn't do back in the commission days is I really
felt God told me to just keep putting music out,
even though I wasn't in the best record company position,
even though they were making the money and I wasn't.
I kept hearing him saying, just keep putting music out,
keep putting it out, and my guys were saying, rightfully,
I'm not gonna let them pip me. I'm I'm out
of the game before you pip me, I'm gonna leave.
(53:38):
But I kept making the music. Now my catalog is
what is is Spotify. I did twenty two million streams
this year that Spotify alone, Pandora plus this plus that,
and my catalog is burning through like crazy. So people
want to keep me where they met me though. That's
(54:00):
what I don't want you to evolve, like I've reached
that Freakie Beverly status I reach. I'm gonna make you know,
I'm gonna make I would make a suggestion. I'm putting
this out this on CLS. I'm saying this, This needs
to happen because I think I think I see e
lane for you, brother, Fred, if I make if I
may offer, Okay, listen, this is the same thing that
(54:23):
you know that Rick James did. Like when you have
the veteran act being produced by the younger producer. So
Rick James when he produced The Temptations a mirror when
he produced Al Green. I think your next do not
(54:44):
absolutely Jack, Yeah, both of y'all y'all did Al Green.
I think your next project, Fred, I think you should
be produced by David Morrison. Oh like when I'm talking
about I don't know if you know him. I don't
know if you know him, but Devil Morrison is a singer,
(55:05):
He's a singer producer out of He's from out of Florida,
but he's based in I think l A. Now, Devin is,
when I tell you, a student of commission. When I
when I found out you were put on the show,
I reached out to him. I was like, Devon, like,
I know commission, but like I'm not I'm not a
church dude, so I need to know you know what
I mean. He made me a playlist of like his
(55:26):
favorite jobs. He was like, all right, this is what
you need. These are the joints, these are the producers
that are like he knows your whole thing. And yeah,
said I've seen you the playlist. And when I listened
to the playlist, I was like, oh my god, this
is Devin's like this is he is a student and
a student of your music and loves you, bro like
I think y'all can kill something like for real food.
(55:49):
That's the beauty of it. To work with my my newest,
these young cats. I love working with him, you know,
I love working with him. So I'm down, man. I
would link you' all up, straight up and down like that. Sometimes. Wait, James,
there anything right? We the heathens over here, So you know, man,
(56:14):
it's it's it's just so much music. I just got
to tell you how much of an influence you've had
all my life musically, and I just want to thank
you for that. I don't know if you remember we
met my brother Marvin mcquittye introduced us when you came
into Philly. This is this is your back rest in peace,
(56:34):
my brother. Yeah. But just I just I just gotta
say thank you man for thank you for the music,
thank you for for who you are. That's all. I
appreciate you all, and I uh, this night was special
to me. I have not done a zoom this loan listen.
(56:58):
I wouldn't have been checked out the whole long time
ago because I'm there. Okay, we just talked about everything else.
But when you get you get into the history and
you get into the music college of it all. Man,
you guys are amazing. Tonight was amazing. Quest Man, you
don't understand. I really am a fan and I am
a fan. I really thank you and I received that.
(57:20):
Thank you so much for for doing this for us. Um,
I really appreciate it, and thank you for YO. Real quick, Fred,
do I have do I have permission? Can I get
your number from errow? And I'll think you'll okay, I'll
do that. I don't mess with people when I go
places if they don't really recognize me. I'm the kind
of person that are staying with my family. And I'm cool,
(57:43):
you know, because sometimes you need to start. And they
don't know you today, they know you tomorrow, they know
you when you when you ain't friend of people and
I don't know other people. You and I met one time.
Oh no we were no no, no that it wasn't that.
It was good Grammys. He was at the Grammys and
(58:03):
I was behind you. Was in l A and I
was behind you, and somebody was kind of they were
they were like messing with your tickets or something, you know,
and you was you and your mom. You are together.
And so I said, hey, hey, bro, you're good. And
you turned around and said hold on a second, man,
And and so the girl I was with is like,
(58:24):
don't bother, don't buy said I think he's having some
problems up there. And I said, I'm believe in him
enough to try one more time. You got free and
I got free. I walked up to you and I said,
hey man, I just want to tell you I'm a fan.
My name is Fred Hammond and Man, you embraced me
with the biggest hull. You said, Oh look he went
(58:49):
to It was always like snap, oh yeah, okay, I
was scared. I was scared, he said, and he said,
this is my mom and we hugged and this is
another we talked to that. Yeah, didn't produce you to
the person I was with. And man, that that made
my day because I didn't really walk up to a
whole bunch of people that night. I'm not that dude
to walk up there. So yo, ho, what's up? You
(59:15):
don't know me? I don't know you, but man, you
were too close. We were in the tunnel on our way.
You were too close for me not to say something.
His quest love. Man, I'm like, man, let me just
talk to him. Man for a minute. It was nervous
that first of all, it was like like the little
tree was growing up because Shane was come. I didn't
(59:39):
get you on site, but definitely your name holds holy
because if there's anyone who made me go on the
basement and rehearse endlessly to keep up with the cats
that I was listening to commission, it was you. You.
Thank you you, and you know I give credit to
(59:59):
my dad, like my dad made me go on the
basement rehearse, but you know that was from like eight
to thirteen, But definitely once I got to high school,
you were definitely the spark that really really brought my
musicianship out. Brother, and I think for that, thank you.
I'll say this and I'll be done. You. You guys,
(01:00:20):
when you do stuff like this, you add validity to
who we are as God spartists. You guys did something
and y'all mentioned my name in the middle of one
of these two or three hour shows, and my people
listened to it and they my God sent me by
five people said yo, man, Chris Love said your name,
but they talked about you, and they marked the spot,
(01:00:42):
go to this spot and you get here. And I
did it and I said it there and man, it
brought a smile to my face. It's not like somebody
sent me something. They said, I said, oh yeah, when
they sent it to me, I wanted to just know
because of how I feel about you, I feel about
your proof, how I feel about your publishmith and everything
that you guys are doing. I just wanted to hear that,
(01:01:04):
and it was it was validation to me. It's a
respect and you guys had such nice things to say,
and whoever the guest was on that time, they were
talking nice about it as well. So I just want
to tell you, man, when you guys do this us,
it's a blessing. Man. Trust me, we're listening. Thank you
so much, Thank you, Vaya, Sugar, Steve about to win
(01:01:28):
that and and they come on, come are important man,
and I'm paid Bill and our special guest James James
(01:01:49):
the episode soon. Yeah, yeah, you thank you so much
for doing it for us and we appreciate it. This
is Puss Love, Puss Love Supreme. We will see you
on the next go round. Thank you. M. Werslap. Supreme
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
(01:02:14):
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio YO,
What Up? Sponsor the Low. Last week we got in
to part one of our interview with Fred Hammond, and
y'all heard that one. Get ready for part two. We
go even deeper and it's even better. Quest Love Supremes
in the house, y'all. Yep, I asked you initially then
(00:24):
we got sidetracked, but can you just briefly talk about
what the gospel circuit is like? And remember I told
you that the whole thing? Like, okay, you're you're touring
with the Whinings? What is what is a working musician
making with the whinings? Ins? Like? And is another one?
(00:56):
There is there a rider? I just want to know,
like what are working musician makes in the gospel circuit?
Like are you playing j churches? Is banquet halls? Is
the theaters? Like take me through all you get me
a gig drumming with the with the Whinings. It explained
to me the whole process. Okay, so the wine is
(01:17):
when they came out their record, they had a great manager.
They had a couple of great managers. Direct dirts On
was one of them, a couple of other people and
they had writers, you know, down to just like a
because these managers managed secular acts. So they had writers.
And we were doing mainly theaters, and back at that
(01:38):
time they had this thing called the World's Greatest Gospel Show,
James Cleveland, Mighty Clouds, and they were doing arenas. They
were doing literal arenas like Cobol Hall or something, and
so we did a lot of big, big dates. When
we did a church, we felt like, you know, it
was beneath us. You know, your church was big because
(01:58):
we were used to not doing churches. The Wind has
had a thing that they said, we don't want to
play churches because we don't want to alienate some people
don't want to come to church, and we want everybody
to hear our music. So we did a lot of theaters,
you know, did a lot of theaters, be compater, We
did radio City, We did a lot of a lot
of things. So they had a writer. We all stayed
(02:21):
in the hotel. We traveled by Greyhound bus and van.
Every now and then we would we would fly um,
but we we we traveled and we didn't have no
problem loading up in a sixteen passenger you know and
hiding down the road. You know, so that was the case.
But here's let's let's talk about the money. It got strange,
(02:46):
It got really weird, got weird. I started off making
because I knew they were charging like three a night.
Then they were moving up four thousand dollars that they
were moving up the ranks, and they started off making
two fifty a night, and it was like, man, this
is great money. Well, somebody told them, like, you know,
(03:08):
as you guys make more money, the band is going
to make less money. And they took that wrong. So
when they went up to we went down to one seventy.
When they went up to five thousand, we went down
to like a hundred. It got down to fifty dollars
(03:29):
a night because they were like, hey, you know what
else y'all gonna black? Who else you're gonna play for?
You know, just we don't we do only kind of
game in the town, you know. And we literally got
down to fifty dollars a night. And I was on welfare.
I was literally collecting unemployment and having to go out
(03:51):
of town. So I go to Oakland, I have to
stop off at the unemployment office. I go into I
go into KFC right next to the unemployment office say hey,
y'all looking for me about y'all got applications. They said,
now we ain't hearing and I going in in the
off and they said, okay, cool, I signed, I go back.
(04:13):
I beel like, my fifty dollars from the wine is
three nights. I got to pluck fifty plus. That wasn't
per dam that your per daym was in your pay
So I wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, oh wow,
it was. It was kind of it was it was,
it was, it was. It was a thing. You know,
how did you let it get that Why did why
(04:34):
did you guys let it get to that point? I mean,
I'm just curious as like you didn't nobody ever said
anything like okay, now it's a hundred no no. My
drummer one of my best friends in the group at
that time, his name was Sandy Lovely. He was a
great drummer, and he just got two points in, Man,
I can't go out for this. I got to get
a job. I'm gonna give me a job at Chrysler.
(04:57):
And we had meetings like guys, can we get more money?
And they were they were at a place where they
were so hot. They were like if you don't want
to play, you know somebody else. And that was just
the way it was. And they weren't mean. They would
just call themselves being business people. And I stayed as
long as I physically could. I was making I literally
(05:18):
man was on welfare and playing and I just stuck
hung in there. I never forget we do. Went to
California for a month and I had to pay for
my own food every now and then. They pay for
our food. You know, come on and sit on down.
But they only had a few gigs. We probably had
seven gigs out there, so fifty times seven is what
it was. And I had to eat. So when I
(05:39):
went home, I probably went home literally with like bucks
in my pocket. Yeah, I'm saying. But my thing was,
I loved it so much and I thought, at being
young and governable, I'm like, well, this is how it goes.
I'm not leaving. This is the best place for me.
(06:01):
So it's not gonna be about money. I didn't realize.
I was learning it's not about money. When you do this,
you gotta have a passion. So that's what it was.
Another question I always wanted to know. I'm you know,
I grew up in uh, you know, a household with
the least three thousand records. I'm very, very very familiar
(06:22):
with the Light label, so I know about the history
of Ralph Carmichael um Man and whatnot. Could you explain
it for our listeners and to me too, because I
know very little, Like was like a Detroit label, and
like why were why was that the was that the
(06:45):
go to? Was that the motown of gospel labels? Back then?
It was Andre Crouch made Light Records. Ralph andre Crouch
were really good friends, and Ralph invest it in Andre's
earliest music, you know, and then Andre just blew it up, man,
and just he just that's what did it. That's what
(07:08):
did it. Andre Crouch built Light Records, and then the
Winders went at that same time Andrea had a little
something and they had to kind of part ways. Andre
went to Warner Brothers, you know, from there, and so
the Windings ran Light Records, and Light Records was a major,
major force. But it was from l A. They lived.
They were out in Pasadena and somewhere out there, and
(07:29):
you know out there that's where Light Records was. The
Hawkins to the Hawks in the Bay Area, and they
were on Light Yeah, the first record and all of
their records were on Light Records. Yeah, Light was the
major lay whatl that for? Word Records hadn't even come
into play yet, you know, Light was the thing. And
(07:50):
then Ralph he retired and gave his uh reins over
to another guy. And that's when Commission came in and
we salvage because we were making money for Light Records,
you know, we was, we was really turning some records over. Okay,
So now that we're there, can you please tell me
(08:10):
just the average creative at least for the I'm going
on and that they'll tell us, like your first few records,
can you tell me what the creative process is for
making those albums? As and who's the alpha that makes
the decisions? Who? How do you guys especially, I mean
six of you or seven of you? Six of you? Like,
(08:33):
is it really democratic or is it just like what
you say goes or what? Like? What's the as Fonte
would say, sort of the division of labor in and
creating these records? Um Man, I was good and I've
always been good at delegating, you know, I understood it.
So I broke the group up into two pieces because
(08:56):
the singers, Carl Mitchell and Keith They weren't really Mitchell was.
He was He was kind of key and learning the
music side. But I had a very funk background, so
I would divide it up into here the singers, this
is what we do, and then it was Michael Brooks
and myself, Me and Mike. Mike was a keyboard player
(09:16):
and he was the songwriter, so we would take his songs.
He would say this is this, this, this, this, and
then we would add the flare to we put the
swag on it. Mitchell and I would put the swag
on and I was It was never about me, you know,
running the show. We were just glad that Mike Brooks
was such a good songwriter. He was phenomenal. All of
(09:37):
them songs back then basically came from him. We didn't
even know anything about song right he was teaching us.
But we took his songs and we made them as
good as they could be. So, you know, we just
we understood that level. So I was really a producer
from that angle. Mike was the writer, arranger and producers.
(09:58):
So we worked well together, you know. We we we never
saw anything different from Timmy Jimmy in Terry or or
from baby Face in l A. So we just took
it that. You know, you work together, you know, you know,
whatever you feel, how you feel about that, he said,
I like that. I say, well, I like what you're doing.
So we just did that and it worked, you know
what I mean? That was up. What was the in
(10:21):
terms of stacking recording your background vocals? What was that process? Like? John, Yeah,
a good friend of mine, great great engineer. He ended
up getting fired off our first record because a lot
of firing going on in the commission. Y'all was getting
people out of that because I never heard the word
(10:44):
fire so much. So here's what we were doing. We
heard a different sound from what everybody else heard when
it comes to background. So we took and we stacked
you know, each part you know for four and four
and our backgrounds were more Clark's histories. One of the
songs that we learned, our first song, we real quick.
(11:07):
Just so when you say four four four are each
one of y'all, like four of y'all singing the same
part and y'all are tracking four of us were sing
and we've seen two tracks because it was twenty track
at that time, so we really had to manage your jump.
So we were singing the bottom, then we've seen the middle.
Then sometimes Mitchell Carlin I would sing the top, or
(11:29):
just Mitchell Carlin Mitchell will sing the top. So we
had six tracks of vocals, but we we had intricates
parts because we were always concentrating on the Clark Cys.
Our first song we ever learned in my mother's in
my mother's living room was look gives the place, bead,
Praise bead, Blood, help me Dozia. Yeah. When we sang
(11:55):
that and learned that, man, we ran out like we
ran a grand We jump got off off the porch.
We learned it. So we said, this is how our
vocals are gonna be. So now we're singing this song.
If we have any lord before, sure they wait and
and we're singing it and surely we need, surely we need,
(12:15):
surely we need him na. And when we did that part,
we were amazed. But the engineer said, no, you can't
have the vocals up that loud. They need to be
back here. I said, but they don't sound good back there.
We want them up loud it because it's like background leads.
And we had a thing because nobody was doing it
(12:36):
that way. So finally he put them where he wanted
them and we just said, okay. Cool. I went into
the stage managers, I mean the studio manager. I told her.
I said, you know, we need to get our masters.
She said you leave it. Yeah, and she said why.
I said, I didn't want to get him. You know, fired,
(12:56):
I want you know? He said, well, we think our
voices sound better up here. He said, who paying for this?
Is he paying for this? We pa, are you pay?
And I said we are. She said, you better grew up, pair.
I'm gonna teach you how to be a man. Next
week came back, it was a different engineer there, and
(13:17):
he turned it up where we wanted and the commission
sound was perked. The very next album though, we went
back with John and he got it and he was
the assignment brother brother Hammond. Can you explain the influence
(13:37):
and what makes the Clark's sisters their sound or they're
blend like, what makes it so spect than anyone's former
background blending or whatnot? Winky one word at that time,
Twinkie Clark. Twinkie was Stevie to us how she played
when she sat down to how she played, how she
(13:59):
arranged her heart and niece and what she did it
was just amazing. And so you have Karen and Derenda
and you have you have Denise at that time, and
Jackie and Tweakie was giving out these crazy parts in
these crazy chords and it was blowing us all the way.
It was amazing. If you go back and listen to
(14:20):
the recordings, weren't that great productionalizing sonically, you know, there's
a lot of mistakes that kept going. But if you
listen to the heart of Twinkie Clark's arranged, it was
just with like that prey and spirit. That is an
amazing song. That was our north star to say, we
want to make people feel like this about our record
(14:42):
because at that time we didn't want to sound like
the Windings because they were kind of straight ahead, you know,
four Tops Temptations, you know they were they were that
they were We wanted to be different. They were that
change to go back to, go back to, go back
to question is no no no no no no no
(15:02):
no no, just just just straight so to you, to you.
That was regular, just regular flat, like a harmony, one
on one. That was one on one. My my parents
lived for that record. So I'm growing up thinking that
the Windings are the epicenter of you know, and the
(15:24):
absolute force of gospel seeing. But for you that was
just normalized. And the Clark's sisters were top shelf. It
was as far as being creative, the Clarks were top shelf.
As far as the blend the Winding brothers, there was
a blend like no other because they were family. So
(15:45):
we took the we took the polished of the Windings,
and we took the creativity of the Clark sisters. And
that's what commissioned was. So if the Windings commissioned and
Clark sisters got together, did they produced us? You know
what I'm saying. So, um, that's what you hear, you know.
But it was about Twinkie. Twinkie was beast. She was
(16:07):
a beast. She was she was amazing, and that's where
we got it from. So okay, actually, I want to
direct this to James, because here's the deal. Again, we're
not you know, at the top of the show, I
explained that when I was in high school, it was
almost like a gang experience, and I'm at performing art
(16:30):
school and you got like one cat like Kurt Rosen
winkles into Frank Zappa, so you gotta learn his language.
But then like christ McBride and Joey Di Francisco are
a heavy jazz cats you gotta listen to like anything
on Blue Note. And then of course, you know my
partner Toriguez is hip hop and whatnot. And so there
was the fourth category of cats who only lived for
(16:55):
a commission. And so you know, like I, even though
we didn't go to the same school together, like little
John Roberts as a drummer, was how I knew commission
Because the thing is, you know, like I'm thinking, like
with my legacy of who my dad was and whatnot,
I'm finally like in a high school situation which I
could play like all City jazz band all that stuff.
(17:17):
So I'm thinking, like the red carpet is just ready
for me and like, you know, for me to get
my thing on. And little John Roberts, who's way younger
than I was, Like he's like three or four years younger.
You know this, this little you know, eighth grade runt
is playing like an adult and I'm like, wait what
and he's little John's let me know, like like what
(17:40):
you don't know about commission. And I'm realizing, you know,
because again I was I was team Prince. That's that's why,
that's who I chose that you know, prints the time
and all that stuff. I wasn't him to commission. And
yet all my peers, like all those first generations monster
cats were that's like taking every word as like bond
(18:05):
so for you, for you, James, like how how much
of their work, like was influential to you coming up
in your dad's church and whatnot? Oh my see, I
grew up and my father is a bishop and a
Jamaican bishop, which means that we ain't We couldn't do nothing.
(18:28):
As my dad said, you can't do this, you can't
do that. He had to sneak to listen to the commission.
No no, no, no, no no. That was the only thing.
Are those are the only records that I could listen to,
you know, we I grew up, you know, the records
that were in the house where the Andre Croucher and
the Hawkins and so forth and um so listen to that.
(18:50):
But when commission came, it was like this is something new.
All my musician buddies at the time that grew up
in a church were like yo, if you check the
sound at the very beginning of it was like what
is that? So it was like we had something, we
(19:10):
had something cool to listen to, you know what I mean. Yeah,
something that was explained to me. What year did gospel
stop really let itself go of? Like the Gospel quartet
ding ding ding ding dinging, Like when did gospel really
let go? Because even now I collect like I love
(19:32):
collecting gospel records that will take that one secular song
and turn into a gospel song like Shalimar's Second time Around,
or you know, there's a whispers and the beat goes
on gospel version, there's a Lovely Day that's gospelized. You know,
there's always that one Tilken song where they like take
a secular song and do it, but the rest of
(19:54):
the stuff is like old time gospel. At what point
in the gospel world do you not have to feel
shame that you're making people dance and not playing the
regular gospel time old time you brought the sunshine maybe, right,
yeah Clark Sisters, Yeah the Sunshine, Yeah, I mean that
(20:18):
was a massive. Yeah. So that's the first time in which,
like I mean, if you go back to Edwin Hawker
Edwin Hawk is the old Happy Day too, you know
what I mean. So even then, like that's still gospel
to me. But like, what's the point where, like you know,
where you if you take the vocals away, it could
(20:41):
be a secular song, Like, at what point does that happen?
It really took hold with bbs CCS first. Oh yes,
I got it right. I was thinking that, but I
didn't want to say it out loud. Thank you for it.
I'm thinking that's when it really took hold because they
people didn't know if there was a love song album,
(21:04):
you know, and that's when they got popular to actually
seeing music. Steve Thomas was the was the producer at
that time. He's a white with a lot of in heaven.
He did a lot of Vanessa Williams stuff too. Yeah, yeah,
but that's when it really kicked in. So when you're
playing in church, are there any elders ever giving you
(21:27):
side eye? Like because even even mind like I'm not
I didn't I didn't come from the church per se,
but I played drumps in my church occasionally. So like
you know, in eight six, eighties seven, you know, I
might put a little bit of top Villain into whatever
we're doing, or play like a run d NC break
(21:47):
beat or whatever, and occasionally, like an older uncle would
give me that look like I know what you're doing.
You know how people didn't know when the kids start
doing the then they're like, oh, you're playing Secondly, you
don't do that like uplifted. So are you at all
ever getting like side eyes if you start referencing a
(22:11):
popular baseline, if you start doing not just need deep
or something like in your music. Man, we caught the
blues with that. Man we called the blues with that
we were getting. Man, we got picketed, We got picked
at it show. I wasn't expecting that the mission we
were doing a we were doing a convention in Kentucky,
(22:34):
at least Cincinnato, Kentucky, and man, there was they said, Man,
we don't want to we don't want to bump you out.
But there's a whole bunch of people, about twenty to
thirty people out in the front, and they got picket
signs saying this music is gonna send you to hell.
I never forgot. I never forgot. It was like I've
seen out of the movie driving up all of a sudden,
(22:56):
we in slow motion you hear some strings playing and
you see these people god Devil's music, Devil's really and
we're just sitting there there, like what are you doing?
But it was still a line of young people waiting
to get in. And when we got inside, we played
like never before. We weren't really rebellious. We were kind
of hurt because we didn't see that like that, but
(23:16):
we played anyway, and the kids came in there and
they had a great time, and we did have a
lot of elders. And people say, I don't understand it.
Like one pastor was totally against us, and the only
reason he stopped being totally against us is that another
pastor had a son that was on drugs that was
getting clean because he was listening to our music. He
(23:38):
would come to church. He said, I don't know what
them boys is doing, but I tell you this, if
they can get him to do his job, I ain't
mad at it. And it started changing some people around,
but it took a long time, and people was picking
at us because we had on blue jeans. We were
the first group to ever wear blue jeans on a record,
so we were like new additions and people just thought
(23:58):
people wouldn't buy a record just because of we had
on that first album. They wudn't even back what Yeah,
y'all think the church is keeping is catching up yet
they everybody and everybody ain't in No, That's why I
was asking churches's house, Jakes in the Podder's house, we
(24:21):
have we have dance ministries, we have youth ministries, and
they could do whatever it is long, it's it's not
sexual looking. They can do any dance. They can whoa,
they can do whatever they want to do to anything
because he encourages. Man, this is current, this is what
we're doing. This nothing wrong with this. We we better
offer them something. Somebody else is gonna offer him something.
(24:43):
I want to give her something because they're gonna the
poll is gonna offer or something. So you know, let's
be smart about young people. And they're they're with it now,
but coming up. Man. Eric Robinson is one of my
best friends. About that, Yeah, Jed Tenners, yes, so he
I never forget. They told me they said they they
(25:04):
brought him down to Popados and they said they had
a special guest for his birthday and they brought me
in the room. He literally started crying and we started
we stayed friends every since. But he told the story
that really blessed me. He said he hated gospel music
because it was he didn't like it, and his mother said,
you gotta listen to it, but she was praying for something.
(25:26):
So one day he was downstairs iron in his clothes
and his mother put our record on the on the
earning board and he saw that we had clothes with
like he did, and he listen, looked at it, and
he played it. He said, I literally started crying. He said,
because you guys, you said it. You guys made it
cool to do gospel. And that's when the cliff he
(25:50):
and I talked about to this day. That's my guy,
that's that's I'm I'm mind blow. And I wasn't expecting
the picketting. I thought, like, you guys broke through the
other side and everyone was with it. So it's basically
(26:11):
like the black foot loose, Like it's always a chick
with a skirt underneath the knees ready to pick up,
you know what I'm saying, black foot loose. Well, I
also want to know has there ever been musically speaking,
how how long would you guys rehearse and you know,
(26:31):
was there ever a pressure to top yourselves as far
as your musicality because you know, again some of these
songs are are straight and hit funk songs. But then
like you guys will get on your return to forever,
you know, crazy arrangements at the end thing and you know,
so how how how what's the what's the regiment for
(26:53):
like practicing and coming up with new ideas and whatnot.
There was a point in time where we're doing the
first several set of records, when our budgets were really,
really small. What we would do is put twenty hours
of practice time in a basement to every four hours
(27:13):
of studio time because we didn't have much money in
the studio. You can knock it out. We're knocking it out.
And then we was putting fines in place. We had
no money, but we was putting fines in place. You know,
if you miss, if you because you had to do
a take, you got one take because we was like, no,
we're gonna be do this in one take. If you
mess it up, man, that's five out of fine, you know,
(27:36):
and so the next one we would honestly, but we
were on it man, because we would and we loved rehearsing.
We didn't really have no jobs, so we loved rehearsing. Man,
we we just saw ourselves in a bit of better place.
So we were either be in Michael Brooks's basement and
we were we were learning. That's where I brought in
Field College. You know, if you go listen to Hide
(27:56):
the word on the second album, Okay, but the drummer,
I listened to the level forty two and I listened
to Phil Collins and them, and uh my drummer was
crazy about Phil Collins. So we said, we're gonna put
this one part in there that Phil does his thoms
all right. So it said when it looks think the thing,
(28:19):
you bob boom, And he didn't think that instant and
then he would go past the one. So he go
bro broom instead of broken, broken bock, instead of going
to the one people go. Pe said watch, I'm gonna
do this. Boo boo boo boo, spot the boom, and
(28:40):
and we went into a thing. But we he would
do something, then I would do something, or Mark King
would do this right here boom boom boom, and this
will never do well, Let's do this right here. We
were blessed to experiment with music and still keep a pocket.
That was the beauty of commission. Man, that's what I loved. Wow, Wow,
(29:01):
you mentioned level forty two. I was about to say, Um,
what's his name is bass playing? Yes? Yes, I definitely
see that. Yeah Arrow. He wanted to Uh, he wanted
to ask you you. I wanted to tell the story
of recording, writing and recording running back to you. Oh man,
(29:24):
it was funny because that's actually just came up about
three years ago as a sore spot. It just came up. Uh.
It was supposed to be in a little movie thing
we just talking about doing. And I won't blow people's cover,
but I'll just tell you what happened. Um, we were
(29:44):
in there and this record we had a we had
an artist named Derek Brinkley, you know, and I was
gonna give this song to him, and they said, well, no,
why don't you keep it? So I said to Keith,
I said, because it's my personal testimony. And I said,
Keith Man, why don't you sing this song? Because we
always want to make sure everybody felt more comfortable, you know,
(30:04):
like I don't want to seem like I'm doing everything.
So I wrote this song, you know, and I said, Keith,
would you do it? Keith is more straight laced of
all of us. He was very much the straight laced guy,
you know, very cool. But he went out there in
these streets like we was. We was out there and um,
he said, man, I'm not real comfortable with doing that song.
I said, well, I'll go do the demo of it.
(30:28):
And you guys kind of listened to it. So what
we would do is out the person would sing the
lead and then we go start making a background parts.
So I went in there and I sang the song
and I'm looking at the guys in there, and they're
just kind of sitting like this, you know. And uh,
and so I'm singing the parts. I'm singing the parts,
and finally I put a look in there after I finished,
(30:49):
and I put the headphones down, and nobody's you know,
not saying, man, great songs that they're just sitting there.
And so I walked from the microphone two the studio
ten ft, going past double doors, and when I got
in there, everybody was looking at me like this, and
I was I didn't know what to expect. So I
(31:10):
just sat down and when the guys said the good job, man,
good job. And I said, okay, cool. So I'm listening
to the playback and I turned around to the guys
and said, so, guys, let's start putting some backgrounds to it.
Let's put some backgrounds to it. And the guy said,
I don't think you should put no backgrounds. Here's the
here's the here's the dirt, here's a little dirt. One
(31:31):
of the guys, when I was coming from the vocal
booth to the room, said so, y'all gonna just let
him do a solo on this record, ah man. And
when I got in there, everybody was off guard. So
that was the look. That was the look. And so
(31:53):
the rest of the guys told me this literally three
years ago. Wow. I always say what they just told
me this three years ago. Wow. And so when I
walked in the room, I walked in and the person said, hey, man,
you should just go ahead and do it yourself. And
(32:14):
I said, no, man, I don't want nobody thinking I'm
trying to do no no solo or nothing like that.
They said, man, now you're good. The guys were trying
to process what they just dealt with. So they sat
there and what you hear is the demo is the
actual song itself today? Wow? Wow. We were still Here's
(32:38):
the thing, we were still regular dudes. We were still
people with insecurities. We were people. We were guys, boys
trying to be raising, trying to turn into men. We
had idiosyncrasies, we had group issues. So when I see
something like The Temptation Story was one of my favorite
movies of all time. You know, I feel that pain
when I see that five heart beach, I feel that
(33:00):
pain when I see the Jackson's I see a new addition. Man,
we all went through that. It's nothing different in gospel.
People have desires and this that another. We just didn't
cut each other a fight, but man, it was still
the same drama, you know what I mean. And that
was one of their moments. Well, James and I are
(33:21):
from the Trash State area, so the gospel station I
always listened to my parents went full Christian on me,
like around mid eighties, and there was a station called
w zz D, of which you know, you can hear
some wine In's, but then it would be like the
People of the Day, Sandy Patty, Michael W. Smith or
(33:45):
or you know less. Yeah, all all those groups Twilight Paris, Like,
were you guys ever accepted in the sort of white
mainstream contemporary Christians set or were you guys strictly just
like on your side of the fence, or you know,
(34:06):
was there mixing you know what they have not on
festivals or churches would invite you guys or like a
brilliant question. We did have a few churches. So if
we did thirty gigs a year, you know, two of
them would be a white church or a big white festival,
you know, a big white festival. The guy that brought
(34:27):
Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith to town, his name is Art.
He would try to get us in events because he
was just a really good friend in him and Derek Dirkson,
where Derek was trying to cross us over to let
people see what we did. But we didn't do a
lot of them, but we had enough. You know, festival
festivals were big back there. So we were going to
(34:48):
stage you know, right before Petra or right before you know,
uh striper. You know, would you try to kill him?
Would you try to kill him? Yeah, we was doing
our same I saw I saw a picture the other day.
Somebody sent me something I'm gonna probably posted in a
day or so where we were doing the the monument
(35:10):
watching it's called I forgot what it was called, but
it was a big freedom fest and it's one of
the largest white festivals around and they brought us there.
It looks like the crowd is sitting on us because
we were saying that's when Marvin stat was in the group.
He had just got in the group, and but the
reality was it was a hundred and eighteen degrees and
people were falling out. They told everybody sit down for
(35:33):
every group. It don't matter who it was, because people
were falling out and it was taking people away and
it had to be like the mall was filled. So
it probably was about thirty thou people on the lawn,
you know. So you know, I just saw that the
other day and I'm probably posted in a day or so.
But yeah, that we had a decent fair, but we
basically stayed on outside defense. I want to get to
(35:56):
his last down with Commission at least to see what
the difference is and starting the band ten years ago
in in and what prompted to the initial split from
the group in in ninety four with Matters of the Heart,
Could you just talk about that time parent. The first
(36:19):
record after the split was Number seven. That was that
was the the first record. Okay, what ended up happening
was Michael Brooks ended up getting a really good deal
with PolyGram Rain of Bundy and PolyGram in New York,
and she made him his staff, her staff producer, and
(36:43):
you know, he was kind of a and R director
and he was still with us, but he was really
really busy doing that, and he reached out to Keith
and say, hey man, we'll do a solo record on you.
And Benson Records passed on Keith's solo deal. They gave
him an option to do it. They said, no, we
invested in commission. We don't think you should be doing that. Well,
(37:03):
we had something in our contract to say first right
of refusal if you pass it's head. Well, Keith went
on the head and signed with Brooks and this production
company with the Rain of PolyGram and uh, it's called
Election Records was the name of the record company they
ended up. Benson got really mad. Benson Records got really mad.
(37:25):
So then they came to me and said, he can't
stand in this group. If this is gonna happen, y'all
need to get him out and this, and so the
record company basically made us split and said, well, man,
you can't be a part of us if you're gonna
do that, And so him and Mike went their way.
So now the whole record from number seven and then
Matters of the Heart is all in my hands to produce.
(37:48):
And I brought Mitchell on because that was my boy,
and he had Mitchell had an amazing sound. He understood,
you know, flavor, he understood, he had a flavor to it.
So that I'm learning that's Mitchell and Parks. But that's
our groove behind it. But that's their pin, you know.
Ordinary just want to do Mitchell and Parks some of
the greatest songs they had. They just had that that thing.
(38:10):
But we had the music at so number seven, you know,
I brought him up, boy Banar, right, we did King
of Flory, We did I Can't Live Without You, and yes, yes,
he stayed with me, hung out with me, and me
and him was like that and he so if you
(38:30):
listen to King of Glory, you will hear me and Bernar,
you know. And then you listen to I Can't Live
Without You, you hear me and Banar. My first solo record.
I came to Jesus with the FLA band, me and Banar,
Grace for me every day, Me and Banar, and then
Bernard went and got his record deal from another record
company and he moved on. So that was what that was,
(38:51):
so our sound. I was able to take the funk
that was always in me and drive it and said
this is what we're gonna do. And then we got
to h we got a little bit more polished because
we were we got two matters of the heart and
we wanted to sound a little older. So then I
got my boy, Chucky Booker, and we did you know,
love is the way we did. You can always come
(39:14):
home with run DMC, and we just we experimented with
great music. So we had CCM sound, we had that
funk Chucky Booker sound, and then we had that commissioned
funk in the middle of there something. So that was
kind of how that was birthed. Yeah, and that was
my last record. That was my last record. But and
then after that, that that was when you did Radicals for
(39:35):
Christ for Christ my last record, and we had another
split at that point in time, and and I thought
I was I was gonna get rid of other guys,
and we're gonna be me. You know, I'm I mean
good with the record coming. You know it is what
it is that which one of you was going, I'm
not leaving. Ye know that I've already proved myself. I'm
(39:56):
I'm not going to y'all. They loved the record, so
it's selling. And and we had a meeting one time
and they said this. They brought a lot of different
things that wasn't true. And we sat down with a
pastor and I'm like, okay, what are you some of
somebody's leaving. It ain't gonna be me. We were here. No,
I'm not moving. As somebody read, I won't say which
(40:17):
what it was. He said, read the bottom line. And
he said, because the pastor said, I don't see anything
wrong here. There's nothing out of order to receiat her
in place. Everything that you guys are saying, I don't
see it. What's the bottom line? And he said, we
do not believe God called Fred to be the leader
(40:38):
of our group. And it took all the air out
of me because I picked, I hand picked the guy
that was reading it. And I sat back in my
chair and I went through all the emotions right there.
And then I told I said, give me a week,
and I went back to my little spot, my little studio,
(41:01):
and I went to everywhere in the Bible in the
New Testament that talked about belief, and the main script
you was Jesus was in his own town preaching to
his own people, and they said, who does this guy
think he is? Don't we know his sisters and them
who we think wait to get all this knowledge from?
And he said he marveled at their unbelief. And then
(41:23):
this was the thing that made me give it up.
He said, many mighty miracles he could not do because
of their unbelief. And I closed the Bible. I said,
I can get these guys ten grammys. They all have
Rose Royce's Mentley's and they won't believe it's me. So
I'm out. And I just handed everything. Oh, I said,
y'all can have it. And I went into a wilderness.
I did not know what I was gonna do. I
(41:44):
went into a depression. We sang one more year, and
then I had to figure out what I was gonna
do and this and that's when I heard started acquiring
and I was like, now I'm gonna keep it one hunted,
(42:05):
you know, and I don't, you know, only I gotta
keep it careful because I don't want to get canceled.
You know. I didn't care for choirs for the persona
that he carried at the time, and that's what's all
I'm gonna tell you, just dude, you know, and I didn't.
I didn't care for it, you know. I didn't care
for what people looked at quires. And I saw Kirk
on a show and I saw David Man, I saw
(42:28):
a big day daln uh my boy, Daln I saw
and it was with it. And so then I knew
John p Key. So I started listening to John, and
John was Stuggorn. I knew John me. I helped him
get his first deal, and so I started listening. I
started listening to show up, like for four months straight,
(42:48):
and I'm hearing this hard driving thing, and I'm like,
I can do this. I can do this. So I
was friends with Billy Steele, so I paid attention to
sound the blackness because at that point in time, Jimmy
Terry just killed the game, which sounds of black. So
I'm seeing this transformation and I'm going into it, and
I finally I've come up with RFC. I said, this
(43:10):
is gonna be our flavor. We're gonna do this. We're
gonna do praise and worship. And nobody knew what praising
worship was at that time. Praising worship is just how
you say the lyrics you're saying. So when people are saying,
I've been down, boom and I'm gonna get back up,
they were singing where they were in life. They were singing, baby,
getting need a pair of shoes, even got a life
(43:31):
build Because this is my problem. I'm gonna turn over
the Lord. He'll working it out. But I started lifting
the Lord up. So I I'm doing this beat, and
I got my MPC and I got all my cards,
and I'm loading samples up and I'm doing this one
beat boom, top boom, boomtop boom boom, and I stopped
the sample. And you know how an NPC, the sample
(43:54):
would go over to shop to do, did you hit
it again? Shot to do be glory, to gold bead
too glow, And that's how it started. It changed into
a full thing, you know. So I just took praise
(44:17):
and worship that white people were doing, brought it over
to the Black church and I told I tell white
people and says, you guys cook string beans and it
still has snapped in it. We don't like that. I
got stuff to be all this. It needs to be
wilted turkey leg and it needs to have not a
(44:40):
nutrient around a rival. I don't want to I'll see
none of that fiber. This this shouldn't be no good.
So that's what my praise of worship was. It was
we just took their stuff that was neat and we
just put some turkey leg in there. It was such
(45:08):
an education, especially in Watchington with with you and Kirk
doing verses together, Yeah, and going through you know, going
through your history. How how does it feel when now
like contemporary second acts be a Diddy Snoop Dogg did
(45:28):
a gospel record, Like, how does it feel to be
embraced by that community to whom that you know? Maybe
ten twenty years ago, I think maybe the most radical
thing I saw thirty forty years ago was maybe like
Maurice White singing with a gospel act. But you know,
now it's it's very commonplace. Like, how does it feel
(45:51):
to get embraced by the world? Respect feels good? Respect
just feel is good. And that's all we ever wanted
was respect, you know, to be treated like we're real musicians.
We're not church musicians. We're real musicians who made a
(46:11):
choice to sing church stuff. And now that's what it is.
So I can look at you, I can look at
the roots. I can pay attention. I paid I've watched
you know, you guys. I remember when you guys went
on and got the gig we all talked about. That
was stuff about that we talked about. I paid attention
to the sound that came out of Philadelphia music. So child,
(46:32):
now we just embraced each other because you know, at
the end of the day, each every one of us
on here, our brothers and sisters, were a family of music.
First what we talked about. But this hip hop gospel,
that's just something we choose to have a conversation about.
But first and foremost, we all have the passion of
(46:52):
the beat, the drum, the base, the keys, the sound,
the lyric. And now we can have those conversations with
each other and we respect them. Like I said, my brother,
we're in here right now preparing for Ricky, Bobby, Rod,
Johnny and Mike. We're preparing for them right now. All
(47:12):
of our gears getting ready to go out. And when
I go and see him, I love them and we
just we hug up, we dap up, and we just
respect each other, you know what I mean. I really
can't wait for this. For me, This education is important
because you know, James, James Canna attest to this. Especially
in the last two years, I've been like really catching
(47:35):
up on a lot of things that I've missed and
wasn't able. You know, the like the quarantine period that
we're now, it's a slow down period where you know,
we get time to ourselves and really I get to
catch up on books and things and music that I
otherwise wouldn't have caught up on because I'm working so much.
And I was you know when when La said that
(47:55):
you wanted to do Quest up Supreme, I was, you know,
I was like, think God, because I didn't want to
be the only person in life who listened to Crash
Cuts more than I've listened. You know, cut happened to
(48:20):
do today my birthday. So I thank you for this, man,
you know, I truly thank you. Almost In closing, I
just want to know, well, in the aftermath of the pandemic,
how has your life changed, and how has the circuit
at least your life and music changed since March Because
(48:42):
he about to go on tour allegedly, Yeah, we're about
to do has a car who was one of my
best but good friends. We're hitting the road, has a
Kyle Marvin's app. Myself is reel holding hitting the Role
Up festival to praise to it. But you know what, man,
it's weird because US streaming has killed us streaming. Really,
(49:06):
I mean, here's the thing. Are are people are just
starting to get on streaming this year. They're just starting
Oh no no no, he's saying the with you. So
they couldn't go nowhere, So on their refrigerators, on their
(49:27):
computers listening. They discovered Pandora, they discovered Spotify, you know
what I'm saying. So they're they're listening. Now here's the thing.
It's kind of a cruel joke, and it's not God's fault,
but it feels like a cruel joke because I still
have so much music in me to create, but there's
(49:49):
no real outlet. Like I just did a record, Man,
I just did a record with this was this coming
called Thinness and I put it out. It's called Sunday
Morning Fred, and it's on so on Apple Music right now.
But and it's one of the leading black streaming records
out there. And I'm not on a major label. But
it's not saying nothing because I'm streaming like seven thousand,
(50:13):
like thirty six thousand, uh copies of week streams of
week on this new record. And that's not really that good.
It's not really like it's it's like, man, I put
a lot of money into it to make it happen.
And so on my Facebook page, I got a whole
I got the whole concert, I got the whole contract.
(50:34):
I did it in my warehouse, and it's a throwback
of old Fred. It's pages of life for it. It's
that vibe and a man gospel is in a tunnel
because R and B died, And I tell everybody that
when R and B die, I'm talking about LTD, I'm
talking about time, I'm talking about Anita and Luther, and
(51:00):
we could listen to them. We were What made commission
happen is because you can listen to something like like
you said, man, your father said, you can listen to them,
And we gave you the time. We gave you some
prints we gave you these these people because we had
something to lean on. Well, now those people are gone,
(51:23):
that that music is gone. It's nothing new coming out.
And therefore and and gospel has gone back to traditional
or to Maverick. Maverick is the white version of Black gospel,
and Marbrick City, Maverick City is the new praise of
(51:45):
worship is the hot It's the hottest praise and worship
company out their lives. And when I tell you, they
got some amazing artists. But what it is is a
lot of the young people now have gone over there
and they've taken the sound of black music and they've
made it less black. Okay, you to go research it.
(52:10):
It's people like chand of more Man. I'll tell you
this guy is amazing. But what they're doing is they're
creating a new space for these guys to write and
to do their things. So I can't be mad at
I'm never gonna be mad at somebody doing their thing.
Maverick is the hottest thing going Maverick City. But I
can do Maverick because I'm too too, sof I don't
(52:32):
have that thing, and man, check it out, check it out.
So you're saying, right now, there's really not there's really
not a space for you to be creative and release
products and have it be monetarily worth it. So would
you frante this order where you were in like two
thousand three, like trying to figure out are you saying
(52:55):
this is where you were in two thousand three, like
when you start a little brother and try to figure
out I mean now, I would assume now in twenty
years later, the lame that you're in is is rather lucrative. Absolutely,
now it makes sense. But at the time, the beauty
of what I did that a lot of my counterparts
(53:17):
didn't do back in the commission days is I really
felt God told me to just keep putting music out,
even though I wasn't in the best record company position,
even though they were making the money and I wasn't.
I kept hearing him saying, just keep putting music out,
keep putting it out, and my guys were saying, rightfully,
I'm not gonna let them pip me. I'm I'm out
of the game before you pip me, I'm gonna leave.
(53:38):
But I kept making the music. Now my catalog is
what is is Spotify. I did twenty two million streams
this year that Spotify alone, Pandora plus this plus that,
and my catalog is burning through like crazy. So people
want to keep me where they met me though. That's
(54:00):
what I don't want you to evolve, like I've reached
that Freakie Beverly status I reach. I'm gonna make you know,
I'm gonna make I would make a suggestion. I'm putting
this out this on CLS. I'm saying this, This needs
to happen because I think I think I see e
lane for you, brother, Fred, if I make if I
may offer, Okay, listen, this is the same thing that
(54:23):
you know that Rick James did. Like when you have
the veteran act being produced by the younger producer. So
Rick James when he produced The Temptations a mirror when
he produced Al Green. I think your next do not
(54:44):
absolutely Jack, Yeah, both of y'all y'all did Al Green.
I think your next project, Fred, I think you should
be produced by David Morrison. Oh like when I'm talking
about I don't know if you know him. I don't
know if you know him, but Devil Morrison is a singer,
(55:05):
He's a singer producer out of He's from out of Florida,
but he's based in I think l A. Now, Devin is,
when I tell you, a student of commission. When I
when I found out you were put on the show,
I reached out to him. I was like, Devon, like,
I know commission, but like I'm not I'm not a
church dude, so I need to know you know what
I mean. He made me a playlist of like his
(55:26):
favorite jobs. He was like, all right, this is what
you need. These are the joints, these are the producers
that are like he knows your whole thing. And yeah,
said I've seen you the playlist. And when I listened
to the playlist, I was like, oh my god, this
is Devin's like this is he is a student and
a student of your music and loves you, bro like
I think y'all can kill something like for real food.
(55:49):
That's the beauty of it. To work with my my newest,
these young cats. I love working with him, you know,
I love working with him. So I'm down, man. I
would link you' all up, straight up and down like that. Sometimes. Wait, James,
there anything right? We the heathens over here, So you know, man,
(56:14):
it's it's it's just so much music. I just got
to tell you how much of an influence you've had
all my life musically, and I just want to thank
you for that. I don't know if you remember we
met my brother Marvin mcquittye introduced us when you came
into Philly. This is this is your back rest in peace,
(56:34):
my brother. Yeah. But just I just I just gotta
say thank you man for thank you for the music,
thank you for for who you are. That's all. I
appreciate you all, and I uh, this night was special
to me. I have not done a zoom this loan listen.
(56:58):
I wouldn't have been checked out the whole long time
ago because I'm there. Okay, we just talked about everything else.
But when you get you get into the history and
you get into the music college of it all. Man,
you guys are amazing. Tonight was amazing. Quest Man, you
don't understand. I really am a fan and I am
a fan. I really thank you and I received that.
(57:20):
Thank you so much for for doing this for us. Um,
I really appreciate it, and thank you for YO. Real quick, Fred,
do I have do I have permission? Can I get
your number from errow? And I'll think you'll okay, I'll
do that. I don't mess with people when I go
places if they don't really recognize me. I'm the kind
of person that are staying with my family. And I'm cool,
(57:43):
you know, because sometimes you need to start. And they
don't know you today, they know you tomorrow, they know
you when you when you ain't friend of people and
I don't know other people. You and I met one time.
Oh no we were no no, no that it wasn't that.
It was good Grammys. He was at the Grammys and
(58:03):
I was behind you. Was in l A and I
was behind you, and somebody was kind of they were
they were like messing with your tickets or something, you know,
and you was you and your mom. You are together.
And so I said, hey, hey, bro, you're good. And
you turned around and said hold on a second, man,
And and so the girl I was with is like,
(58:24):
don't bother, don't buy said I think he's having some
problems up there. And I said, I'm believe in him
enough to try one more time. You got free and
I got free. I walked up to you and I said,
hey man, I just want to tell you I'm a fan.
My name is Fred Hammond and Man, you embraced me
with the biggest hull. You said, Oh look he went
(58:49):
to It was always like snap, oh yeah, okay, I
was scared. I was scared, he said, and he said,
this is my mom and we hugged and this is
another we talked to that. Yeah, didn't produce you to
the person I was with. And man, that that made
my day because I didn't really walk up to a
whole bunch of people that night. I'm not that dude
to walk up there. So yo, ho, what's up? You
(59:15):
don't know me? I don't know you, but man, you
were too close. We were in the tunnel on our way.
You were too close for me not to say something.
His quest love. Man, I'm like, man, let me just
talk to him. Man for a minute. It was nervous
that first of all, it was like like the little
tree was growing up because Shane was come. I didn't
(59:39):
get you on site, but definitely your name holds holy
because if there's anyone who made me go on the
basement and rehearse endlessly to keep up with the cats
that I was listening to commission, it was you. You.
Thank you you, and you know I give credit to
(59:59):
my dad, like my dad made me go on the
basement rehearse, but you know that was from like eight
to thirteen, But definitely once I got to high school,
you were definitely the spark that really really brought my
musicianship out. Brother, and I think for that, thank you.
I'll say this and I'll be done. You. You guys,
(01:00:20):
when you do stuff like this, you add validity to
who we are as God spartists. You guys did something
and y'all mentioned my name in the middle of one
of these two or three hour shows, and my people
listened to it and they my God sent me by
five people said yo, man, Chris Love said your name,
but they talked about you, and they marked the spot,
(01:00:42):
go to this spot and you get here. And I
did it and I said it there and man, it
brought a smile to my face. It's not like somebody
sent me something. They said, I said, oh yeah, when
they sent it to me, I wanted to just know
because of how I feel about you, I feel about
your proof, how I feel about your publishmith and everything
that you guys are doing. I just wanted to hear that,
(01:01:04):
and it was it was validation to me. It's a
respect and you guys had such nice things to say,
and whoever the guest was on that time, they were
talking nice about it as well. So I just want
to tell you, man, when you guys do this us,
it's a blessing. Man. Trust me, we're listening. Thank you
so much, Thank you, Vaya, Sugar, Steve about to win
(01:01:28):
that and and they come on, come are important man,
and I'm paid Bill and our special guest James James
(01:01:49):
the episode soon. Yeah, yeah, you thank you so much
for doing it for us and we appreciate it. This
is Puss Love, Puss Love Supreme. We will see you
on the next go round. Thank you. M. Werslap. Supreme
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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