QLS Classic: Bernard Purdie & Chuck Rainey

Questlove sits down with legendary musicians Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie to talk through how they influenced and, in some cases, invented the ubiquitous groove that’s become the music of our lives.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey,
this is Sugar Steve and this week's QLs classic episode,
Quest Love and I sit down with legendary musicians Chuck
Rainey and Bernard Perk to talk through how they influenced
and in some cases invented, the ubiquitous grew that became

(00:22):
the music of Our Lives. Originally released April seventeen, two
thousand and nineteen. Ladies and gentlemen, do not attempt to
adjust your dial. This is a special special edition of

(00:45):
Coest Love Supreme only on Pandora. Uh. If you remember
previously when Sugar Steve and I had a chance to
chat it up with brother Herb Albert, we just did
a rogue episode without the family. So we all still family.
But right now this is age episode of Quest Love Supreme.
I would say, right now we are having a summit

(01:05):
meeting of the gods. Uh. We have two gentlemen who
have shaped some of the most daring art funk, pop, rock,
soul music of our lives. Not of music, but just
of our lives. Uh. Our first guest brother, Chuck Rainey,
his his session resume is Life Goals, having played on

(01:28):
classic album after classic album after classic album. UH, projects
and musicians such as Brother Cal Jada, Eddie Harris, Laarniro Uh,
George Benson, Quincy Jones, ROBERTA. Flacton and Hathaway Crusaders, Donna Burg,
Bobby hump Fried, Marlina Shaw, Sergio Mendez, Marvin Gaye many
represents Stilly Dan. It just goes on forever and not

(01:49):
to be outdone. As a drummer, Brother Bernard Party inspired
the drummer, who inspired the drummers, who inspires drummers and
continues on. Uh. This man is quite literally unavoid bull
and his influence both men are. His resume also too
reads like life Goals. Name it Herbie Man, Jack McDuff,
James Brown, Nina Simone, Shirley Scott and Crawford, Gene m

(02:11):
and Dizzy Gillespie, b B. King, Five Stairsteps, David fat An, Newman, Sister, Aretha, Franklin, King,
Curtis Gil Scott, Heron, Less McCann, Esther Phillips, Cat Stevens,
Hall of Notes, Jill cocker Am, the Peoples, and Yes, Yeah,
I said it, Steely Dan. Uh, please give it up.

(02:32):
Y'all for the one and only Chuck Rainy butnar party.
It's a q l s man. I really appreciate you
guys making it happen. Should be noted that both of
you are UM kind of doing the rounds in celebration
of a film that we never thought would see the

(02:54):
light of day, which is UH Aretha Franklin's documentary Amazing Grace.
Many people know that, UM the classic live album that
came from those sessions and in the nineteen seventy two,
but many people don't know that there was an accompanying
UH film that went along with it. And it's been

(03:18):
a miracle to finally get it out to the people,
and I highly recommend it. It's it's a master class
and a miracle. So we thank you for coming. UM.
So how weird is it too? I mean, you guys
are have written history and we just take for musicians

(03:39):
like myself and all my peers take from it, UM,
But for you is it just like breathing like, oh,
it's nothing, like it's just a Thursday. I'm gonna make
history today, Like I'll never like that. So you're appreciative
of where we are now. Number One, working is important
you know, having a gig, And of course what makes
you better is when you get paired up with the

(04:00):
same person a whole lot, And so Bernard and I
have been paired up a whole lot. He's so much.
He's as much a part of my career as I am.
And if I were a drummer, my man, I would
play just like him. Well, let's explain this to me
as as a musician asking UH in the sixties and seventies,
what were the most important UH treats or what are

(04:25):
the most important characteristics to have to make sure that
you are always constantly being the call guy, being the
go to person four session gigs. Well, for me, it
was always the easiest part. Getting the gig was the
easiest part. Oh yeah, I'd beg I knew had it,

(04:46):
I knew how to beg. You beg for gigs, no
shame whatsoever. And the beauty of it was I wasn't
begging just for myself. I was taking the credit of
Joe Rainey and everybody else that wanted to do it
with us. But Chuck and I were actually of all

(05:10):
the records that I made with so how and in
a time and which okay, Let's take the Lake sixties,
at the time in which a crew like the Wrecking
Crew were the default go to people for a lot
of uh West Coast musicians, Like, how are you able
to even ease your way into a system in which,

(05:34):
you know, most people just want Half the time, I
just hear like, hey, half the people just show up
on time. O. They half just shuts up and do
what they're told. They're not high maintenance. Like, how do
you infiltrate your way into a system that otherwise normally
would be occupied by someone who's been grandfathered in and

(05:54):
locked into a gig? You know, actually that's a great
question for me. I'm a bass player. I've always wanted
to just play the bass, so um, whenever I get
a call coming out of King Curtis's band, uh, just
but everybody came through his band and KENK Curtis All
Stars and the six Sixties ended up in the studio,

(06:16):
and I just wanted to play, so like, I did
not maneuver my way into anything other than just to
be the best player that I could. And a new
face always helps too, But just uh, just to be
prepared and be able to play, to be able to
read when it's necessary, but when and also be able
to just play the bass. So I never considered myself

(06:37):
working yet being a part of the group and the
record crew. You know, you mentioned that, you know, like
those guys and the guy and help, but with Carol,
they were l A is a very huge scene, very
big scene. Hollywood was a big scene in music, and
they just happened to be the kind of uh selective
group that producers would hire because they were together all

(07:00):
the time. Between me and Bernard Paul Griffin, Um, and
that while there's just basically Cornell Dupre or Billy Billy Butler, Um,
we worked together so much. Eric Gail on a lot
and he should have been first. Um, we worked together
so much. If I were a producer, I would hire

(07:22):
the people that are on your record, that would work
for Alan, that worked for Seeing. I mean, I mean,
you hire the same people I think now. I now,
don't get me wrong. I think I'm a good bass player.
I think I'm a very good musician. But but I
will say this a large part of me being involved
in so many projects, it's because the habit, my name

(07:44):
was a habit. Who should we get on a base?
Chuck Raine, just like who should we get on the guitar.
I mean, drums Burned are pretty because our names were
a habit, were on everybody's records, and so usually people
hired the last person that they saw or the one
that they remember. I did jams as well as a bachelor.

(08:05):
I thought I was kind of halfway cute to begin with.
But I have a lot a lot of friends, you know,
and I played my base all of the time and Jams.
I played for nothing many many times. That's how I
got into business. I think we all went that way
with Eric. You know you you you you got a
year coming up, you don't have a budget, and you
want to do it on Sunday. I'm not working on Sunday.

(08:27):
And you tell me that, uh, that Paul Griffin or
that Eric Gail or bring our parties on the gate
to what I want to share it with them. So
I played a whole lot for nothing. I kind of
think that that's what's kind of helping both of us
in that if I do something for you for nothing
and you happy to get it signed and you want
to do the rest of the album, basically people will
call the same people to help them out and I

(08:49):
help out just about wanting to play the bass now,
I would say that as as a listener, um, with
made both of you very distinctive. Uh, and you're playing styles.
The fact that you were able to infuse your personality
per se in these songs normally I would think that, Um.
I mean I've been told by many a producer musician,

(09:11):
like you know, when you do a session, just do
what the song is called for, try not to infuse
yourself too much in it. But um, as far as
uh trademarks are concerned, I mean, I think of you,
and I instantly think of like that's your that's your
little business card or your little graffiti tag left on

(09:31):
every song. So whenever I hear uh those those near
harmonic slide notes, I know, okay, this is this is
a chuck raining affair. And the same with but no party.
I mean, I you know, I'll be honest with you. So,
my my father was a singer, a musician, a singer

(09:55):
who had this period like in the in the fifties
and did some stuff in the seventies. Um he had
to do called le Andrew's in the Heart and so yeah,
that's my dad, I think. So uh there was a
session that producer Billy Jackson was having UH in their
early seventies. So I I was at this gig and

(10:16):
but nor it was the drummer in the gig, and
I was around four years old. And at the end
of the session, my dad says, are come here, and
he says, I want you to shake this man his hand.
And he's like, Bernard, I want you to tell my
son how you keep food on the table. And I'll
never forget. This is the first thing I remember in life.

(10:38):
Bernard said the two and the four. And at the
time I was confused, like huh. But my dad was
such a stickler and disciplinary for just keep it in
the pocket. That's all you gotta do. To keep it
in the pocket. You work forever. And of course you know,
when you're young, you're impressionable, you want to go all

(10:59):
over the place. But I will say that you were
able to. I wouldn't know people people know about the
fable pretty shuffle, which of course is kind of slowed
down halftime UH groove, which for for listeners of today,

(11:21):
I would actually say that the purty shuffle UH could
be the genesis of what a lot of trap producers
today Um, I feel like that's the beginning of trap.
With the Purtie Shuffle was basically trapped. Music today is
basically the Purtiy shuffle. Minuster to swing on it. So

(11:42):
still halftime got in a lot of high hat grace
notes on it. But in addition to like your feels
like all these things, all these feels, how are you
able two insert your personality on one songs? Uh? That?

(12:03):
Otherwise I feel like any other producer would say, I
just wanted straight, no filler, like where you were producers
then given you, guys, freedom to add your personality to things,
and or you just have free reign of the land.
We have never ever had free range really, and when

(12:29):
you get free range is when you can actually tell
the producer try it, you might like it. So you're saying,
have you met a producer that was a little bit like,
well that's too much? Oh? Really you have to fight
to get here. Fighting. We're not fighting. Fighting is the

(12:52):
right word. But diplomacy, that's the one that I had
to learn. That was the hardest thing in the world
for me, because I knew immediately when you asked for something,
what you knew, what you wanted to do, what you
wanted to hear having chucked on the base freed me. Okay,

(13:19):
it freed me to I could do the party shuffle,
I could do this, do circle in the music. So
he was the anchor, yes and okay. This is similar
to the relationship with Ron Carter and Tony Williams, where
Ron Carter was the anchor of Miles Davis and allowed
Tony Williams the freedom to we even and out. So

(13:41):
that's very interesting because I would say the same thing
about him. See a lot of my rhythm ideas a
lot of ideas when I do it, like when I'm
giving the chord shard, I come up with great ideas
by getting rhythm input from the drums. And like I
said earlier, if I were a drummer, I know I
would play just like him because of the way that
it feels. But like I sit on his shoulder. He

(14:04):
may think he's sitting on mind, but I'm sitting on his.
But what he just said earlier, if I had to
play bass, I would beat Chuck Randy. Then I'd be
better than Chuck. All my life, I wanted to be
better than Chuck Randy. But I can't play the bass.
Who do you who both of you, who do you

(14:26):
feel your greatest disciples were? Like I would think if
as a listener, I would kind of think that perhaps
as a drummer, maybe Steve Arron, who played with the
average white man UM was a student of yours because
he would infuse your personality and he had a tight

(14:50):
pocket rhythm and as a basis UM, I always thought
that Wullie Weeks was very severely under champions as far
as his playing style and and infusing yourself. But in
your eyes, like who who were some of the musicians
that you felt um or maybe you don't see them

(15:10):
as disciples that maybe they were just your equal peers
or whatever, But like who who were the cats that
you guys enjoyed or or perhaps we're a little like
mm hmm, okay, I gotta but you know, I UM
get something from everybody. Basically, I came out of Ken
Curtis's band there for four years, and he is my

(15:32):
musical father hero because he taught me discipline, being on time.
I went to do something and went not to do it,
and the playing tune that was my that's that's that's so,
I would say Ken Curtis, and he wasn't a bass player.
But other than that, um, what was he like as
a band leader? I mean nobody could. I mean he

(15:54):
was the epitome of a band leader. And why was
he ve go to m D for a lot of
these projects? That because his talent. It's telling everybody knew
him number one that he was a great musician. He
also knew who the guys were. He knew who the
musicians were that could play. And if he called you
to play, he wouldn't have called you if he knew

(16:15):
that you couldn't do it because he was a rhythm
If you listen to the way he plays, he was
like a drummer or bass player. So I would say
Ken Curtis. Other than that, James Jamison has been off
very influential to the way that I think as a
bass player. So those two people first come to mind,
James Jamison Concurtis. Now I could go on forever, but

(16:36):
I was going to say the same, but you can
count me in on King Curtis most most definitely. The
other one was my teacher, Mr. Lizard Hebert. He had
fourteen piece orchestra that wasn't his called the Clyde bestis orchestra.

(16:58):
But I got this in my hometown in Elkton, Maryland.
Every Friday and Saturday, that band played and they played
dance music. Everything was dance. You have to move, you
gotta play something simple. Simple is the key to what

(17:23):
music is. And that's what people remember. They can hum,
they can sing, they can do anything they want, but
you need to move the butts and the chairs defeat
whatever that had to be done. They had to move
their bodies and the people sitting can move in the chair. Well,

(17:49):
let me ask, Okay, so I know that you guys
came from an era and I listened, even even as
someone in the hip hop generation, for a lot of
the stuff that we gravitate towards. Um, it's all pocket based,
finding the perfect four measures of nothing, fancy of nothing,
just straight pocket um. I mean, I have my thoughts

(18:12):
and I've had a lot of of of arguments on
social media, uh, concerning what I feel about the state
of Okay. So right now, in two thousand nineteen, we're
kind of in the era of the polar opposite of
where you two came from. And there's there's a thing
called gospel chops, and gospel chops are kind of like, Uh,

(18:37):
it's kind of like watching an All Star NBA basketball game.
Now we know that true NBA UH sportsmanship and and
the mark of a true UH championship team are people
that knew their roles. You know, this guy is really
good at assist, but this guy's going to outside shooting,
and this guy's good at dribbling, this guy's great at rebounds. Like,

(18:58):
everyone knows their roles. However, an All Star game you
do run into the danger of if you have five
Lebrons on the squad, or if you have five Michael
Jordan's on the same squad, then suddenly it's overkilled. So
a lot of musicians today, um, because we live in

(19:20):
a highlight real era. Uh, it's sort of like the
musical equivalent of hey man, look at me, look at me,
look at me, look at me, and whatever I have
to do to get your attention, I will do it.
So I mean it's it's it's a cute novelty for
a while, but some similar to like a ropa dope style,
you get worn out and you've never seen you rarely

(19:43):
see musicians trust the process of playing in the pocket,
just playing a groove without feel free or without Okay,
I'm gonna go off time here and then I'll pick
him up later. So but I will say that in
the in the se have a niece in which a
lot of your work is prominent. The genesis of what

(20:06):
I now knew as gospel chops was just being born.
So like when new styles are coming in as far
as bass playing, let's say, uh, let's say Stanley Clark,
Let's say with the playing of Lewis Johnson or or
even Larry Graham, where it's like, okay, now funk songs
and eat eat minor and going all over the place

(20:29):
is a thing like what keeps you grounded and just
keeping straight ahead and being such a melodic pocket bass player, Well,
I've sort of been trained to first do what the
leader wants and how they're doing. Also too, from our generation,
the me aspect of us it was a little different,

(20:52):
and that the social media was not at all like
it is now. Like I could come to the studio
like r and Bullock come to h come to the
studio but naked and play nobody cares. I was a
little crazy with this. I don't know what he would dress,
he would wearing wearing those shoes and stuff like that.
You know, but he was such a good player. It

(21:12):
doesn't matter in New York in particular. So like we
didn't have I didn't have to look good to go
to a session. Ok uh, unless you're someone like Bernard.
He wore studient every day. Uh clean, he was clean.
But you know, I would think to answer that questions
sort of like today's. I know, at Victor Wooden's camp,

(21:35):
where I'm a regular instructor every year, Uh, they posted
my all music dot Com resume on the barn wall.
It's nineteen pages. So at the time I must have
been well, I won't say, but I wouldn't. You know,
I've been around for a while. I've been around and
so like in talking to the students and in my rotations,

(21:57):
there were two or three students found it hard to
believe that I was involved in so much stuff until
I told him how old I was. They think today
they wake up on Monday, they want to be Stanley
Clark on Friday, or if they want to be a uh,
Larry Graham, and they don't understand that Stanley Clark, Larry Graham,
Chuck Rainey, James Jamison, before you even heard of us,

(22:20):
we had a large background of experience and playing with
a lot of people, like I've been on the road
with just about every R and B act in the
out of the fifties and sixties before I even got
to do one session, you know. So like a lot
of the guys that they wanted too quick, also too
they wanted for another reason, they wanted to look at me.

(22:41):
They want for that. They wanted to say, look at me.
I'm just a bass player. I just want to play
the bass. I get a kick out of playing the base.
And I'm elated that these shows. No, no, no, no,
you see, yeah, the opposite, definitely, most definitely everything that

(23:02):
he said, I'm gonna double it. But I had a big,
big problem when I was coming because I had to
beg for everything that I got. And I'm all right,
all right, can you give me example of a gig
that you almost didn't get that you had to like,

(23:25):
please please give me a chance, because I would think
the work would speak for itself. Just one look, I felt,
so really, just one look. Bonnie Richmond came around the corner.

(23:58):
He's the contractor. There was not one drummer, and sweet
and uh Charlie's the bar none around the corners and
the the other bar the restaurant, not one drummer, and
I was running after him, please please please, I'm run

(24:22):
I'm good, I'm good. I can do anything. I can
play anything. I read music, I do whatever has to
be done. I begged and pleaded, and I followed him
for the fifteen minutes that he was out there looking.
And this was all a demo. This was a demo.

(24:42):
So I got there. There was Bob Bush now um
Uh Hayes, Ernie Hayes and the guitars uh Wally Richardson.
They were sitting there. They had been sitting there for
a half hour or more waiting for a drummer to

(25:05):
show up. So they literally came in a restaurant two
bars to find Charlie's. That's where everybody. Everybody hung there.
So that was like the Holden Place and then steak
Charlie's the same. This is in California, New York, New York, Okay,

(25:25):
Broadway on Broadway, right off a Brother and around in
the corner. So that's one look, that's all it took.
Charlie said, like all you can eat shrimp right the
people and eat uh the big salad Bary Well. That
was one of the main reasons, because that was the
cheapest thing in there. And to musicians, thank you everybody,

(25:51):
because the musicians would play free in the place just
to play. They didn't nobody, nobody wanted any money. They
wanted to be there, They got drinks. They just that
was the place to hang. But I was actually too
young to hang. But the thing was Oh, but the

(26:18):
beauty for me is that all I did. I asked
Ernie Hayes to play the piano and Bob Bush now
they started playing debates because I wanted to find out
what the tune was about. So for me, basically I

(26:39):
just wanted to where the temple. Just show me where
the temple, and then I just went across it only
so I could just feel okay, But I put the
feeling into the four people. They were in the control

(27:00):
room fussing and cursing each other out and everything else.
And the engineer he's, you know, taptants, okay, listen because
he had turned it up just a tiny bit just
to hear you're playing. And then they turned okay. Look

(27:23):
they listened for and it was like whoa, what's that? Well,
who's the drummer who's earned body richmins. I don't know.
He's been bugging me. He said he could play anything.
I don't even know who he is, you know, So
they listen. She started singing because the only thing that

(27:47):
was missing was where the flavors should be, whether you
claim quarter notes, whether you're playing eights, whether you play sixties,
or what are your plane dotted? So you just have
to know where the rhythm needs to be, can I ask? Um? Okay?
So based on everyone that I get on this podcast

(28:10):
that the story always varies. Um, I'm slowly finding out
now again. I was raised by, you know, a drill
sergeant father who's like, you know, you gotta you know,
practice five hours a day outside. No, you gotta practice,
which I get. Um, how imperative or how much of

(28:30):
an advante was it to be able to know how
to read thoroughly? So when new songs come to you,
do you get a cassette a week at advance? Or
is it just like, here's your charts, I'm giving you
three minutes to look it over. Really listen. If I
got three minutes I had, that was a lifetime for me.

(28:52):
What everybody we were young? Okay and Bob Bushnell and
all those people at least ten years our senior. So
when we came on the scene, we were younger, Eric
me Cornell Cornell when the ms involved, but we were
young people, and we also had a different view of
what he's saying about the groove. We played the groove

(29:15):
a little differently. I played more rhythm on my base
than Bob. He was older than I was. Now, what
did you just ask, Well, like when you're getting a song, oh,
that will hold it, hold it right there. M M.
I'm being very honest with you. Coming from demos, nothing's written.

(29:37):
And we both got involved in this business doing demos,
working for people who don't know sicken from came here
about music, but they have the money and they have
the connection, and so they're just hireder people to make
things up. Like most of the most of the just
making if there's a court chart, sometimes you will make

(29:58):
out your own court chart. I stopped doing that because
it ain't my job. But now he always felt like
I was lying to you know, when you're eight years
old and your dad's like, you gotta go to Juilliard,
so you can know. I'm under the impression that these
albums I'm listening to were thoroughly written out, like part
of a part for a part, here you go, and

(30:18):
then I gotta get the piece of paper to No.
One and two three, and yeah, you gotta know like
I learned. I was taught that you have to know
how to read on site the second you see these
drum charts, because ain't no producer are gonna have the
patients to sit there and wait for you to figure out,
thank you what it is. But are you saying half

(30:39):
the time, it's just like half he hands the chords
and make up the rhythm called Steely Dan call to Quincy.
All of them. They don't write no base parts and
they don't write the drum parts. So they're like, you
got it. And they're smart because the continuity the director exactly.
They say, Okay, we know what to do here. Like

(31:00):
Walter and Donald did not know anything at all about
us at all, Gerry Katz did because he was a
New York producer and so like he would hire because
he knows Walter and Donald. Number one, they're very strange
to begin with. I want to say strange. It's not negative,
it's just that they're different. But they don't know what
to play. We don't know what the base should do.

(31:21):
Maybe they have an idea. They don't know what kind
of drum beats should be there. They don't know these
things that they don't have, that you don't know where
I'm talking about. Even Quincy never wrote one note for
me here walking in space and all that stuff. Now
I tell you why that is. I'll tell you why

(31:42):
that is. You have people, you have musicians that are
challenges of the of course challenges the word to use,
but they are The rhythm is very important. Like he
said earlier, people want to dance. Even in jazz, they
want to dance. And there are certain people that can
give you if you don't know what to play. If

(32:02):
you don't if you don't know what I should play
on this song, I bet you the house, the farm.
I got something for you if you ain't got nothing.
Because I'm a rhythm person and I've had experience with
there's only there's only seven notes in music rhythms. I
would think that probably there's thirty two, but I've only

(32:25):
seen maybe nine rhythms to play as a bass player.
So now when you start worrying about reading, you have
to learn how to read by experience. Now you don't
have to, and you also have to have experience to
create something. But there are jobs that you get, like
we both have clients that write out everything, okay, but
then we have most of our clients don't write out nothing.

(32:48):
Thank you. They hired a person that can come up
with a part. I'm supposed to create a part for
you that sounds like you wrote it. So if you
look at the baselines that I play there, they are repetitive,
like the lines are repaired because it sounds like Quincy
I wrote it, or sounds like Donny Hathaway was different, meticulous. Oh,

(33:10):
let's see before you play anything, truck, before you do anything,
to do this first, and I really don't want anything else. Okay. Now,
it took a couple of years for Donning to trust
me to do because, like I was popular and I
do have a style and a flair about how I'm
seeing things. But he insisted that you played this first

(33:33):
before you do your thing, and I don't really want
your thing. And he was a master, yes, not only
a master. But the point is that it wasn't his date,
wasn't his he was writing, but other artists so all
of this was all written down, written out. If you

(33:58):
want that gig, you gotta know how to read. Okay, Okay,
there's so much of your both of your collective cannons,
are you know so much to to dig through? I'll
briefly touch on a few of them, but I'll start
with what gig was considered a fun gig? Who did

(34:23):
you look forward to? As a basis answer drumas, who's
the one artist like we're gonna have fun on this one? Really? Yes? Yes,
tell us Okay, let's pick a random song, tell me
you're at rock Steady or just a memorable rock Steady
is very interesting? Okay Number one. I love telling this story. Okay,

(34:45):
if I get along with it, know that's what this
shows were we went down to Miami in the wintertime.
Living in New York in the winter it's different than
living in Miami, and so we're going to Miami Beach
and Landed took good care of us. We were staying
in the mansion, you know, uh, and we played. Now,
we went to the studio Criteria one morning and our

(35:07):
car picked us up. Okay before uh, Tommy Dowd and
Aretha and whoever else was there before the car picked
them up. So we got there first with Jane Paul.
And what I'm saying is Jean Paul is let Paul's son.
Let's Paul's son. But James Paul was the second engineer

(35:28):
everything that came out of Atlantic Records, as far as
the engineering goes, Tommy down is the one that they
looked to wrong. Jean Paul. He's the one to set
the mics. He's the one to set the anyway, so
we were criteria. We had a great breakfast. The sun
is shining is a ninety degrees and Aretha was there,

(35:50):
so I guess the wreatha did come. But but Tommy
Dowald and j Weston weren't there, and so Dream Paul
set up in the mics. I think it was the
second song that we've done me and and she taught
us the song. She taught us all the songs. She
would sit down and play the same, teach us a song.
A reef wasn't there or then to pick the arranger,
and so she taught us the song now I want

(36:13):
to reef and and uh, Tommy Dowal and Jared Wester
got there. We knew the song, but the reef job
was he was the arranger, so he would now have
to learn the song. So we sit there and play
what we knew. When he would write down a cord chart,
you know he was right and he did that all
the time. Um I write a cord chart. Now, we

(36:33):
tracked the song and before they got there as a
demo with demo, the song as a demo. So when
they got there they heard the demo blah blah blah.
I think we worked all morning trying to improve I
tried to improve it. So what you're hearing our rock
Steady is a demo. So the only thing that they

(36:55):
went back to the original demo and kept the went
back to the original music that they heard and the
field and the field that was everything. So he came
in trying to change it up a little bit. They
always do, always do. Every arranger in the world does
it because they want to get the producer or out
of the arranger. They get paid for that territorial whether

(37:17):
they did it or not. But rock Steady is a demo.
If you listen to it, it almost you can see
it in a way. But it's the groove. It's the
groove and a wreath that was playing with us. She
played with us, and so like a thing about you
mentioned the gospel world for a second. Now, I'm out
of the Pentecostal church and I've been immersed in that

(37:40):
all my life. And you can't get no more rhythmic.
You can't get no more feel out of a good
Pentecostal shot down, you know, you know, as far as
like the amazing Race album has showed a little bit
of it, yes, with a bit of it. Now the
Border song is not on that album, but but the

(38:02):
Border Song, it's the most precious thing that I've ever
recorded because it takes me right back to my being
twelve years old sitting up in church and listen to
the choir okay, you know, and the feel of it.
It's that's gospel, that's Pentecostal gospel. Um. And so that
we both said a wreath of Finland cried well, listen
to that. That choir was slamming. That choir was just

(38:26):
it was a very large too, but slamming. So like
it gets too, I've talked so much stuff i forgot
what we were talking about. Steady Rock, Steady, that's a demo.
We had a good time that way too. Uh, we
had a very very good time with that. We did. Uh.
I don't know how many songs we did, but rock Steadies,
a demo and a wreath of played with She played

(38:48):
with us on every song. By the way, first, how
she as a musician, not not much is made about
her piano playing. She was a great piano player, like
Marlina Shaw, great piano player, kidding me man Pentecostal like
Valery Simpson Pentecostal. Both they can play. Never knew Marlina
so is the piano player. She didn't play a bus

(39:08):
because her nails is that long. Now white nails like
she has played. I've been on tour with her for
the last nine years. She retired. Wow, and we just
go to Japan, Me and David t walk in Harvey mation.
Does she still do the go away a little boy speech? Really?
That's after who is this bitchy? I had that record?

(39:31):
But she Aretha had a lot to do with. All
she had to do was sit down, just sit down
and play. She tinker. She just played the field. That's like,
what's the whole thing? Spanish Harlem, there's a song that
crosses two rhythm borders? Is it to the bar and

(39:53):
it's it's also shuffle not shuffle, but this is two
different grooves there. But it is the idea of it
is it is to make it feel like a shuffle
because that part I got from you. But I got
it from you. Yeah, I'm just going to compliment each
other the whole episode. No, but it's just see for me,

(40:19):
I was fresh out of Jamaica doing by Motley and
all this other stuff I had done too. You just
casually drop that like it's what I made two albums
with it, the first two albums. Yeah, that's you. Yes,
But the point is that it's it's see, I don't

(40:44):
mind anything with anybody. I don't have a problem that
somebody wants to take credit for somebody. You go right ahead,
because I know what I did also too. If you're listening,
you can tell the difference between this drummer and that drummer.
You know the difference between this bassic player and that
bass player and those And I'm not talking about musicians,

(41:06):
I'm talking about the general public. They know the difference
between like Steve Gadd who was a great drummer, and
Bernard Purty. You can tell just like with bass players
and I bought a musician. But a lot of the
people who are not musicians, they canna say that's you. Okay,
so let's talk about that, all right, I'm gonna get
to the Beatles ghosting story. Uh what session have you?

(41:30):
What sessions have you done that you had to go somebody?
I have to kill somebody? No, no, no ghost I've
heard sessions of like well known bands that from what's
the basement, Like, okay, let's get dout of that coming
here and sweetening it up for real. But it's not
even about using the word ghosting. We fix. So give

(41:56):
me some fixing stories, like who have you fixed that?
You weren't credited for it? But that's you. Well, for me,
there's about two thousands, at least there's about two I
got paid. Can we talk about the Beatles story. You
can talk about it, but what it is for me,

(42:18):
it's a dead issue. That issue has hurt me so
badly that as yeah, see, I'm I've fixed tracks. That's it.
There was nothing that she has a musician. I get
it all that, I do it all the time. But
I was doing what I was doing at that particular time,

(42:41):
is that I was doing the group from France. Uh,
all these different countries. They were bringing the music over
to fix music and to make music because it was
the way things were done. The record label would not pay,
but not that none of these groups would have gotten

(43:03):
signed if studio musicians who are not paying. Yeah, I
think that that's the one. Okay, so four listeners out there,
they're a little lost basically, uh you know, okay, well
as you as we discussed in the Philip Bailly Earthwen
and Fire episode, Um, we made some discoveries that, yes,

(43:24):
you know, occasionally Maurice White would use a core of
a few musicians that weren't the the central members of
Earth Worn Fire either they're touring were even the Beach
Boys like Brian Wilson pretty much made pet sounds with
the Wrecking Crew while the people that we know as

(43:46):
the Beach Boys went in tour. But it doesn't make
it any less of a fraud or anything. It's just
got it the world, yes, exactly, and many many non
musicians don't know. That's the modus operandi, you know, And
that is what all the record companies, all of them,
they all said the same thing. I'm not gonna spend

(44:07):
a hundred and fifty dollars or somebody that we don't
know your boys. We like your boys, but you gotta
use studio musicians because what it is bam bam bam,
they knocked the songs out. Also true for drummers. I've
experienced this to the drummer has to hit the snare
in the same place every time existently. But now on

(44:28):
the road you don't have to because sound equipment will
make the sound okay, because you've got to use the
studio drummer whose use he has experience there in the
same place, or else you're gonna have a million dollars
worth of remix money. But you don't have the same
way with bass players are good. I know I'm a
good bass player. However, they are a lot. I think
there are a lot of base players I play better

(44:49):
than me, but their road based players. When I sit
down to play, when I've opened up a lot of
other bass players, mainly because what they played was okay,
it's just that it was not as audible as it
should be tone and tone wise, where it's like I've
been played a starting away in the studio to make
a note a particular kind of way, did you okay?
So was the preference for you to be a road

(45:13):
drummer or a studio musician? Like or is the grass
greener on the other side, Like you're in the studio,
like damn, I wish we were in Europe and you're
on the road, and it's like Miss New York Sessions,
Like what's the no? Yes being able to play? And
what do you on the road or in the studio?

(45:35):
That is the best news in the world. You're working
and your name is going to be out there. It
took the record labels maybe forty years before they put
studio musicians name on the record when they found out
that they can guarantee ten percent more profit and not

(45:58):
have to do anything. They didn't give us anything by
putting our names on. It gave us a little bit
of something that kept us like who you know today,
I'll know it's as today And I agree, I probably
have said the same thing. Working. It's important baby shoes,

(46:20):
the bank, and I'm missing stuffing Alan help me out here.
You know they're very important for baby shoes and the bank. Right, Okay,
you know, so you have to work out for your
car note. I see, So you have to uh, you
have to make money. You have to work, so working
in the live in Europe doing a session to me

(46:41):
is the same thing. Are there? Could you tell me
anything that you guys remember about the particular amazing Grace project, um,
how it is presented and what the preparations that went
into it were. I'm sorry that, you know, like world
would never be able to hear the rehearsal festivally. I've

(47:02):
talked about it was somebody today. The rehearsals was the
real deal. And when you listen to the recording, the
sound is not bad sounding. The sound is good. It's good.
But they should have recorded that album in James Cleveland
Cleveland's church, because we were there all weak and we
got used to it, you know. So we were you

(47:25):
rehearsing James Cleveland's church and then relocated to Okay. But
I you know, I've been talking about it. I've said
it for years. If people could have seen seeing what
happened in the rehearsals. Besides her singing, she preached, she

(47:49):
actually preached, Alan were you there doing the rehearsals? Well,
only seven, but he went the studio. I saw you
in the studio and so you were you were seven
years old? Watching this. He wasn't there. Yeah, I the

(48:11):
project first came to my attention and um, I think
two thousand three and I saw just uh maybe a
four minute mark of it, and I was like, wait
a minute, is that the rolling Stone sitting in the deaconsview? Like?
How how major was this? Like again, I just thought

(48:34):
it was a live album and that wasn't supposed to be.
He was there on the last day and Paula just
happened to have cameras running and cameras cameras all week really,
and you had other folks that are now superstars that

(48:54):
were there, but you don't see them. Are there any
other projects that you guys have done that's like sitting
in the can somewhere, like you're any festivals that have
time to one? And that was on Bang Records? Okay,

(49:15):
another Bang label, Well the Bang label of the artists
I made their records. Don't tell me you're on bricks
h m hm. Listen to it. That's all you happened, drama.

(49:38):
Just listen to it, all right? So uh, brick um
our our listenership should know. The lead singer Brick is
the father Sleepy Brown who's made a lot of outcast
Classics in Atlanta. Their unit from UM Atlanta and U

(50:00):
they had a major hit. Uh. They wrote a song
about their amalgamation of disco and jazz called daz and
it was. It was a notable hit. Yeah, you know
we were talking earlier about groove. I think the disco
era proved the point that that that Bernard was making

(50:22):
to beat the field people want to dance. How did
you feel about four in the floor? I feel a
certain way about it, or yeah, I didn't like it
really because it limit you got in your way only
in country music. Now, being in New York playing country
music is progressive country music. Now I see with Lynn
Novi pure country from the west, from from from the

(50:43):
mountains of West Virginia, except that we got a chance
to put a little bit of this all this country
violin fiddle is everything like that is shipt that underneath it.
It was progressive and so you could do something other
than for on the floor. Now, I've been in Dallas,
Texas for the last thirty five years, and I had
to learn how to deal with the phone and floor

(51:04):
because the baby shoes and the bank, you know, as
far as playing with the with the downbeat of the
drummer and also following the left hand of a piano.
That's traditional country. I did it because I've never done
it before, and I came out of New York not
doing that. But in New York they didn't do that.
So Florida four doesn't bother me anymore, especially when I

(51:25):
get to all the babies are grown now, no more
baby shoes, you know. But yeah, well yeah yeah, but
batty care grand baby. You know you have mentioned memorable
things from Amazing Grace. I'm gonna say this. I'm probably
going too far, but I've done at least fifteen interviews

(51:47):
since she died, and I'm always compelled. And I talked
to either at least once a year, okay, um, and
it was always short. And one thing that I remember
about that whole thing's number one, King Curtis had put
together a band of gentlemen. Okay, we were Lucy Golocy,

(52:07):
average musicians, But when we got to California, James Cleveland
went out of his way a couple of times to
remind us that we were in church and about the
women in blah blah blah, and I remember good. I
remember somebody told him the back off because this is
a different kind of band. That bothered me. I am
a gentleman, and he also too. When it came to

(52:30):
uh uh to rehearsing, I felt that the whole deal
was more about James Cleveland and everything. I mean, I
saw it. I felt it. Um. I felt that that
he was all about him all during the week with
the pain but and how he was doing things. If

(52:50):
you look at the film, although I haven't seen the
latest film, but I do know there's a whole lot
of hesitation deciding what to do. After each song, He's
going over talking to what was his name? The Uh
he's in a wheelchair. Now I understand, okay, uh talking
is just sitting there. You know. It's like a service,

(53:12):
you know. Uh. And that it was too much about him,
that micromanaging. Yeah, well no managing, Okay. Now. The only
thing that my saving grace was this, I just moved
to l A, okay, and I was engaged to be married.
And she also thought it was a big deal, uh
to the come to church, you know, to look at

(53:36):
you know, what was going on, because Rutha was a
big deal. Um. But during the whole thing, people being
in too protective over the past I mean my part somewhere.
One time in front of the church. I came and said,
my pastor parts here. That's why I said this. She
would be a signed, you know something like that. I mean,
I wasn't rude or anything like that, but there's a
whole lot of a whole lot of California patriarchy New

(54:01):
York kind of things that you know, the two coasts.
I've always had a little different kind of thing going on.
But saving grades for me was playing those songs over
and over and over. It wasn't really necessary. As a
matter of fact, on the second day of rehearsal, they
could have recorded the album really, because when it comes
to how many days of rehearsal, worthy were four days

(54:24):
of rehearsal and the three days of recording, and you
guys were that intense with those songs. It was it
just like we all knew those new so we knew
what we were supposed to do. Every song on that
album is from the Gospel Pearl song Book. And I
played gospel before I played anything else in life. So

(54:50):
I didn't have a problem playing gospel, and I didn't
have a problem playing for the last forty fifty years
because I still go and I played with gospel group.
So on the other side of that coin, I would
imagine the answer would be steely Dan. But okay, well,
pretty much the world knows how hard or how rigid

(55:14):
or animal retentive or whatever difficult word you want to
put put in that description. But besides the steely dam sessions, uh,
what client was also quasi tightly wound as far as

(55:34):
rigorous rehearsals, micromanaging, a session that would make you want
to roll your eyes, like, okay, that happens. Well, just
give me an example. It's hard, but you played on
the Brothers. Usually you forget those people. Bert Dicto where

(55:57):
Bert wasn't that what his sessions? Though? What were his sessions?
Very dig tod was like down the Hathaway they are
arranged hundreds of new of artists that were recording here
hard to One of the songs is that the three Degrees,

(56:21):
which one the biggest they've had. That would be like
maybe maybe to the hip hop generation, maybe means everything
to us because it's been chopped and sampled and so
like three degrees version of maybe, but before they went
to fill the International that means something to my my

(56:45):
generation so you're making us really local. No, but it's
it's it's super new. But so it's not new. It's
not new because that's what we had to do. I
mean it's new for you. Well it's okay, not new
for me per se, because I grew up with that record.
Let me give an example. So in my world, uh,

(57:09):
there's shall we say, a guru um and his name
is James Yancey a k a. J. Dilla Um who
was a producer from Detroit who basically made us just
listen to uh older records in a new way. So

(57:31):
this is an example of him taking the three degrees
maybe and what he calls flipping it, which he will
take a song sort of chopped the parts and redo them.
So I just fell all apart inside because I hadn't
heard that voice in such a long time. I turned around.

(58:06):
So Dill is the kind of guy he'll he'll use
a record and he's so inspirational. Now, what makes this
particular project notable was that he passed away from lupus.
So he's making this this kind of his his Uh,
he's making this record in the hospital kind of in

(58:26):
in the last months of his life. So he wasn't
even able to talk or be mobile, but his brain
was still able to create miracles. So any record that
he ever uses will then make cats like me turn
around and pay top dollar for those old records, read
the credits and then study those credits, and then buy

(58:47):
all those records and then buy all those records. And
so that's what I mean by about him being uh
uh guru. But is this weird that what might be
an eye roll session for you that time we play,
you know, for someone in my generation, that could be everything.

(59:09):
Like I didn't know that you played drums on synthetic
substitution by her Bruni And I'm certain that you're tired
of hip hop historians like, oh my god, you're playing
on since that is substitute, Like I'm sure that's a
footnote in your life, like, oh that thing, Like I
did that in two seconds, But that was the way
thanks were. You guys wanted something different, so you would

(59:32):
actually take and try to turn records completely all the
way around. Yeah, but it is just so weird that
something that could be a footnote in your life could
be an anchor like thirty years down the line, like
how do you feel feel about that? I mean, I
think it's great, but we don't think of it that way.

(59:53):
If we did, you know, important your work on Donald
Bird's records are like something like thanks twice or or
or I'm assuming like Harlem River Drive or or fancy
dancing like all that Bobby Humphrey stuff, especially now that
we have access to the stems and can individualize attracts

(01:00:17):
and just listen, like it's Pete Rock would die right
now if he knew I was talking to you like
you you between between uh between the Ohio players, um
uh Turban on his said, uh, Marshall Jones between Marshall

(01:00:39):
Jones and you like you guys birthed Pete Rocks whole life,
which in turn he birthed us, you know what I mean.
And it just it just goes in circles. So you
guys are in in this in this generation. Uh. You know,
you have so much technology that you can do these

(01:00:59):
kind of things. We couldn't do that. And plus you
mentioned Donald that you like, you mentioned Donald burning Bobby Humphrey.
You see once and we've talked about this early once
you coming to favoritism with the one producer. Everything they do,
you're they call you everything the minds Els did. I

(01:01:22):
was basically doing a certain span of time Freddie parent
and and and and and and and and the Mills.
What is Freddie Parently? I never get to hear stories
about him as a producer. What was He's one of
those kind of people that sort of kind of uh,
He's able to be in a room and you don't
know he's there. I don't remember much about Freddy other
than he was very religious. Yeah, okay, okay, but once

(01:01:45):
you start working with them, they keep everything they do.
They got their thing. They called the same people over
and over and over and over and over again. Okay.
You know, I was listening to a radio program where
um Donald Bird's band of the original band of the
black Birds, the Blackbirds, they were talking and I kind

(01:02:09):
of feel sorry for a lot of these guys because
I did three records with Donald Bird. But you listen,
but you listen, you listen to these guys, and everything's
made about that they were the original band. And now
they're talking of course they feel freedom. Everybody has an ego.
And so I'm then there with with with my son
in law and and and we're talking about you know,

(01:02:32):
they said, well do you know these guys that do
not having a clue on who they are other than
that they had to have been a road band for
Donald Bird, but they did not make those records. I
was gonna say, that has to be you on the
Blackbird records too, So that's you on Rock Creek Park
and and Walking in Rhythm, and and and the music
business is very very good. Bobby Humphrey is not a

(01:02:54):
great musician, but her records sold a lot, a lot
because of the rhythm section they put Jerry Peters, Harvy Mason, Me,
David T. Walker, um uh, we we also work as
a group. Absolutely, are you on on Love? Is? Uh?

(01:03:14):
The album with Love Vibrations? Okay? But I'm glad you
you know you, you will have a you gotta you
know a lot about sponge Man David Walker, um Love Vibrations.
I was here in New York. I just got to
New York when the record came out, okay, and David

(01:03:35):
was here with the with the band called the Kinfolk,
and um Love Vibrations is one of my When I
heard that record, I almost died, really the cause of
the field and the sound, not so much of what
the rhythm was. Although I'm a rhythm guy. But nobody, nobody,

(01:03:56):
no guitar players. Sounds like David Walker. He's special. You're right, none,
you know? Yeah? Yeah, So I assume with Freddy Parren.
Uh can I also assume that the Silvers and the
Jackson five are also under your No, I didn't play

(01:04:16):
with the silver as Jerry Peters. Okay, Johnson produced the Silvers,
and that was a little bit before my time. In
hall of the Jackson five or the Jackson five. The
Jackson five was the Jackson five. It wasn't, uh, um,
because I'm the one that also made the record for
the Jackson five in the beginning, which ones the very

(01:04:38):
beginning that first from the one that was written by
the UM the corporation. Now, well, he was on TV.
He had his big job on TV. Um you talk
about a producer, No, he wasn't. He was the actual

(01:04:59):
writer of the song. Oh, Clifton, Clifton Davis. You never
can say goodbye that's you? What songs are you on? Uh? Don't,
I don't don't think it. Don't dance some machine that's
you and U do do? I'm sorry, Bill, I know,
I know there's a nightmare for you. Very very interesting too,

(01:05:20):
about when you get talking if it's okay. Um, I
just come from New York and I was living in Hollywood. Now,
if you come from New York, you have a certain
New York attitude, especially if you're making money, that you're
hippr you know, not that you're hipper, but you just
don't have to put up with You don't have to
put up with and you and you, and the New

(01:05:42):
York attitude is to tell you when it's full of ship,
oh you know, when when it's not cool. Stephen Preus
and um number one Motown had a Ben burd I
don't mind talking about him because everybody hated him did
and so now everybody knows he was not a likable guy.

(01:06:03):
And Um, I I came up around, not came up around,
but I knew Smoky Robinson, I knew the devastating affair.
I knew I know a lot of these musics, these
people because they're from my neck of the woods. I'm
from Ohio, And every nine then I would be on
tour with one band from Ohio. That's with somebody from

(01:06:23):
Detroit or from Chicago. It's anyway, um Um, Smokey or
somebody else would call they had two to studios, Sunset
and Sunrise, and so they would call for me because
they number one personally, they knew me, and the plus
I did have a little bit of a rip. Ben
sometimes would take the liberty of putting you over here
in this studio, putting you over here, and I had

(01:06:46):
to straighten him out real quick. And I didn't mind
doing it because I was first out of New York.
I said, I he hired me, I know him, So
I'm not going to Sunset, I'm going blah bla. So
that was one thing I'm getting away from the Jackson
Five things I got. The producer was a pay in
the button. It's the kind of producer where when you're
going to do a session, he's got four or five

(01:07:07):
people in the in the control room, his cousin, his
old lady's blind blind, the blind blah. Drugs were very,
very prominent at the time. And when we did Uh
Dancing Machine, perfect, I mean perfect, James Gosson, I mean
we we it was perfect. I'd like the second tape.

(01:07:29):
But Motown would keep you there for for the takes,
just to get their money's worth, just to get and
the bandom. The guy who wrote the song with me producing,
and we got a click track, but he's breaking the
sweat directing US five is just anyway record. So back
then you can use click tracks. Uh, back then click
tracks were still used. Absolutely, okay, absolutely, So if you

(01:07:53):
know how to play with a click track, you don't
have that problem. And it's very very hard for people
to play, especially drummer. You ever jumped to play with
the click track. I've experienced that in Texas, I mean
a whole lot. Now, so we record the song I wanted.
The producers did now, but his name is how how
Davis hal Davis Um. So he decides, he decides that

(01:08:23):
they don't want to hear the base. They don't want
to hear the base until until maybe the third verse.
What okay, that was his problem. So now the engineer
and James Carmichael broth the arrangement. Arrangement James Carmichael told him.

(01:08:46):
The engineer told him, James Gatson told him, and I
told him, all you got to do is pull the
faded out and then bring it back up. But no,
he's producing, he used, his nose is running and he's
uh huh, and so you don't want me to play
and it's ridiculous. No time, I thought was very ridiculous.
I can talk about that a lot, however, So like

(01:09:10):
okay the session. About two or three weeks later, been
Bury calls for me. He wants me to uh come
back and do it over the and I ignore him.
I didn't need a moretown client. I didn't need a
more town. I was from Quincy all the way down
to his father, uh to to to a lot of people.
I was taking care of business, my wife, the baby,

(01:09:31):
the bank was happy with my button. So I didn't
need more town. Especially it was giving me some kind
of and there a lot of things I'm not saying
that's in there, So I don't I don't return the
call uh to your girl to being buried, I don't
been talking. I don't want to work front. I don't
have to put it that way I feel you have to.
And so time goes by. So how David calls me?

(01:09:53):
Oh number one, being Bury had had a happen of
calling you directly on your line, directly to you, and
ain't supposed to happen that way. You all the answering service,
the answer service calls and then uh so anyway, uh
he been Burrett. He calls me for for for he
calls me to come back, I have to come back
and fix something or anyway, I didn't. I didn't call

(01:10:15):
him back. Now, I lived in Hollywood on Vermont in
the in the Oakwood Garden departments. That was huge, you know,
it was just huge. And to get to my apartment
you had to know where my apartment was, you know.
I came on one day and how David's cart was
in my door and he said, Chuck, please give me

(01:10:35):
a call. We need you to come and fix something.
So when somebody went that far, I said, well, I'll
give him a call. And so he said he made
a mistake that I had to come there. They had
tried Whilton Felter, They had tried Tom Scott's uh, I
can't think of his name, the bass player. They had
tried two or three bass players to put a baseline
on the front of the song. Wilton Felder said, what

(01:10:57):
you need to go do is go back and get
the same guy because they didn't have the same kind
of field. And so they try to do it without me.
Because I've been very probably don't camp much about me
because I would call him down when he called me down,
you know, and things like that. So like finally I
went and when they had and did it. But the
style is kind of I had no problem just playing
the same thing. I gotta tell you now, Um, it's

(01:11:21):
it's weird because even the Jackson's are touring now, their
bass players nailed every new of that song, which is
not it's not it's not usual at all. Like I
feel as though the start of Dancing Machine is the
base work one. It's just unusual. And how that almost

(01:11:47):
they can't come to be is some mind boggling part
of my involvement with Michael Jackson and the film Ben
but the back starts called it. Jermaine Jermaine always handed
to play the bass, and then he became a bass player.
He's the bass player. So like, um, he learned him
and Kenny Burke ah him and correct, yes you are okay,

(01:12:14):
and so so him and Kenny Burke were always very
very to me, very very I'm trying to find a
word but I can't right now, but you know what
I'm saying. Yeah, And so Jermaine I did his first
album that's that's me playing based on his first album
on Let's Be Young Tonight and all those Now are
you playing based on Ruku? Please don't break my heart.

(01:12:34):
I'm not sure. All I do know is I did
his first album, right. I remember asking him, said to me,
why don't you He says, I can't play this. I
will play it. I will be I will play it,
he said, but right now we're trying to get the
record down. He has a study, right, ok you know,
so that Jermaine basically was the reason that I even
got involved with Michael. I did too. Michael sang on

(01:12:56):
two songs. One was been okay and then there was
another song that he did. But I think my my
association with the Jackson five definitely Jamine, definitely because of Jermine,
and I think for the whole thing around. Although you know,
when your name is kind of shining everybody's face, they
do want to keep what they call the best players

(01:13:17):
who are not always the best players, but the name
is familiar. Like you know, I'll tell you it's very important,
you know, Like I've run across base players to say
I don't come out the house listens for a hundred
fifty dollars or for a hundred dollars. That's not a musician, Okay,
you should say I don't come out of the house
if I'm sick. Oh, I don't come out of the
house if it's in and say you don't smoke cigarettes,

(01:13:39):
and you're gonna do a bar playing the bar like
I stopped smoking quite a while ago and going to
playing the bar. It's totally beneath me because of the
cigarette smoke. You know. Now, I know how you've been.
So speaking of Motown, you also have you how many

(01:14:00):
Motown sessions have you done? Uh? Yeah, probably probably four? Yeah,
Well you got me be lying manus, I want you correct.
The thing is is that everybody thinks that it was
all done in Detroit. Half of those things we did
here in New York. Really, you know what? Speaking of

(01:14:24):
that here in New York, a lot of the Moldtown
artists when they were on tour when they come to
New York, me Bernard and Eric, We'll do a lot
of Sunday demos for the Temptations for a lot of
groups coming out of Detroit when they came this way.
That's because of the name value that we had being
him and Eric um. So a lot of times we

(01:14:47):
would do uh little little demo sessions with what accent
of traveling. Remember the old James, Yeah, talk to me
the old jameson my homeboys by the way, Cleveland, Cleveland,
Clint accent. Well, I had six months out of a
year on Saturdays when they were not working and trying

(01:15:13):
to do things, they'd be here, uh making their records. Wow.
And a lot of people don't know that. It's gonna
blow a lot of minds. But when you look at
Detroit now, I've been to both studios or the one
studio that's now closed, but to the regular studio, I've
been there. Get ready to go there again in June,

(01:15:34):
uh for for the base day. But a lot of
people don't understand when you read a credit, or when
you read someone's interview, or when you were with someone's biography,
you have to be very careful in what you believe
because so many things like we're just talking about, I
would not be surprised if a lot of the demos

(01:15:56):
that we made, well, well, I'm not surprised. A lot
of them was we made for Detroit artists coming here.
Number one, we're not in Detroit. Detroit used the same
people all the time, and they lived in Detroit. When
you come to New York. Then you got you got
at least ten bass players that are different, ten drummers

(01:16:17):
that are different. Well, I never, I didn't never really
care for I shouldn't say it that way, but I
can't find the right words. But the multime rhythm section
was very, very basic. M. The only body that was
different was Jamison. That's why those records are so based
on ominous if that's if there's a word, you know.

(01:16:37):
But a lot of things that we did here in
New York helped everybody go back home and better their
record or maybe to add to it that kind of thing,
you know, like so like we definitely um like we
look at the Wrecking Crew, somebody had the money, the
ego from those musicians. Then are the only musicians in

(01:16:58):
l A. I've gotten all kinds, so not all kinds.
Let me let me stop. I'm going to lease three
people that have called me or emailed me asking me
to be a part of doing a New York rhythm
section thing. M similar similar to me, you don't need
my Okay, you don't need to do it, and you
don't need it. I live in California for twelve years.

(01:17:22):
California people have huge egos right, because it's Hollywood, right,
and so they can do something like that in New York.
We don't care. We didn't care. We just didn't care.
There was a time, doctor listen to the reckon, I
can tell you who the bass player was. I can't
do that anymore. I can't do that now. It's different
now because it's it's the machine some cats. I mean,

(01:17:45):
you know, I feel a Filipino Palladino is probably the
one cat um who he holds you and Jamison in
high regards and still to this day on his work
with D'Angelo uh projects that he does. I mean, you know,
he still has the same precision based from nine jillion

(01:18:09):
years ago that's in your hands right now, like he's
definitely keeping the torch ALIVEE. Wait, I have just a
few more questions. I know we gotta wrap up soon. Uh,
but I gotta know. So your work with leon Ware,
I'm starting to realize that it's it's once a producer

(01:18:30):
uses you, guys and continues to use Have you ever
worked with leon Ware before? Brother brother party? Um, I
gotta say that your work on his right for many
repretending for did you describe any of those like the
once You sessions or any of those. Well everything I

(01:18:50):
want you, um um. James Gaston described it as a
jam and that there were no notes written. All called
Michael did was just put on court changes and maybe
every now and then an ensemble lick or something like that. Um,
what did you just ask me about? No? No, about

(01:19:12):
the I want you to And so when it comes out,
I want you one basic thing. Now, that ain't a
Marvin gear record. Okay, it was a Leon and Leon
always used the same people me, Sunny Burke or Clars McDonald.
James got some guest and David T. Walker and Leon.
When he died he was worth in the millions because

(01:19:36):
of his songwriting. He wrote a couple of things that
Quincy did I want I Want You. The only drag
about I Want You was that it was done in
Motown because Leon was signed to Motown. You know, going
over there was always Uh. When I see it's a
drag and I see it's a dragon, I feel you.

(01:19:56):
Sometimes business is jenking, It's fool. It's cool man. You
earned the right. You earned the right. I have never
complained I feel you because I like I said, But
just like I said, my car note, my house. Note
my baby's shoes and a wife was satisfied. Hey, at

(01:20:17):
the end of the day, man kept food on the
table with the two on the fourth when you start
and the continuation of the thing of Motown. The person
that was so underrated, Mel Brown describe Merl Brown h
described Mel Brown for me for those that don't know

(01:20:38):
the past, well, he was there and he was covering
for Papa m because half the time he was out
of it. Um but he played on every act. They
used to get him, put him on the root on

(01:20:59):
the road. Uh, they didn't. They didn't want him to
stay in Detroit. So the supremes, it didn't matter the temptations,
whoever he was out with. He could get home. And
then one day, maybe two days, and they get him
out because there was friction inside with all the different musicians.

(01:21:25):
And you know how that friction. The greatest Motown producer
for me, it's Willie Hutch really Willie. Willie was not
because he's from Dallas, but he was. I'll work with
Willie and he was a good producer. Okay, well, you know,
so you're playing on the MAC and okay, I'm sad
to ask uh. Simpson asked Ford and Simpson. You know,

(01:21:49):
it's the same thing. But to see they were from here,
from New York and they were heavy duty songwriters, just
like Smooky Promison or the Brothers, the Three Brothers, Uh,
holland Hod. You know what, Wait before I wrap, there's

(01:22:10):
something I gotta ask that the world doesn't know about.
How did you get this project? This movie Project Lee
that came out in you're drumming on it. It's like
it's you on a stage with a dancing woman. It's
it's it's uh, it just came on YouTube, like I'll say,

(01:22:30):
like a couple of years ago. But do you know
this project? Mm hmm? How how did that come to be?
It was the first time, the very first time that
I got credit, okay, and it was the first black
X rated movie. Okay, okay, I remember that movie. So okay,

(01:23:02):
when all of a sudden done for both of you,
what do you feel like your top three definitive works
are as far as can you even do that? Like
your three with three songs? Would you save like the
three songs that define for both of you? What three
songs are there? Well? Damn okay, rock steady um until

(01:23:33):
you come back to me, yes, okay, and um uh
not one of the shuffles, yes now that I'm stilly
dan that uh oh yeah man. Last okay, we'll get

(01:23:57):
you home at last. Okay, all right. So but brother Rainy,
what what are the three that you feel are like? Well?
My favorite is the border song. Okay, I just get
the goose bumps and sometimes I cry. It has to.
It's not recorded anywhere the border song. No, no no, no,

(01:24:17):
I'm talking about the libraries. And that didn't make uh
we didn't do that on the Amazing Grace. Okay, no,
it wasn't a border song. And then also to Home
and last also gives me goose bumps. It's something about it.
I like minor keys anyway, but it gives me you
for goose bumps. Quincy is a long cam Betty. It's

(01:24:38):
also something that I really really enjoyed playing. Um. Actually,
when you ask me that question, I don't really have.
I mean, it's hard to pick out three. It's hard,
but for me, he just said the magic words. It's
the hardest thing in the world. Now, I played safe
for the last fifty years by talking about Aretha. But

(01:25:05):
this album right here, and which album is that? This
is done? By an arrangement. Gary McFarland, Garrey McFarland, J McFarland. Yeah,
creative river dreams and so many others. And and the
point is is that sack full of dreams, not river dreams. Sorry, Steve. Uh,

(01:25:29):
I was going up on the elevator on Fort Street
to A and R recording studio and uh Gratty tape
was on the elevator. Was so we're going upstairs, you know,
to record. Wow, graty, that's it. Where are you going?

(01:25:52):
He said, I'm going the same place you're going. That's it. Well,
it's me going up there. They don't need me. I
didn't know. He also sang, oh, no one knew Grady
takes sing. Yeah, I didn't know. I've been knowing the
man for the drum and that was it. Yeah. Well, hey,

(01:26:17):
I loved him. I loved watching him and do things,
and and uh, the arranger, I knew exactly what he wanted.
And he also knew that I was going to be
the one playing the drugs, even the ones where he
wasn't singing. Madam. So we actually did this album almost

(01:26:41):
live with the whole band in my mind. Now, when
Meals was came after. But this this particular album, Uh,
he was in the process of also doing his record,
so I did his record red after, so that that
they come from rehearsal together, right and we go upstairs.

(01:27:05):
This this isn't the first time that I heard uh,
um uh a weird Grady Tait story where people didn't
know that he was also a singer. A lot of
a lot of my generation, us growing up in um
or on television, never knew that he was the voice
on Schoolhouse Rock, like all those little uh, all those

(01:27:29):
cartoons we grew up. Um, gentlemen, I could, I could
nerd out and ask questions forever, but UM, I gotta
wrap it up. But I just have to say from
the bottom of my heart that UM, having this conversation
with YouTube is is this is one of the greatest.
This is why I do what I do. Like you

(01:27:50):
guys have no idea what you're uh, You're working your
contribution and this isn't blown smoke up your ass, none
of that. Like this you guys have true are the
architects and and the the gas too. A lot of us,
not just me as a musician, but for a lot
of us, UM out there, and I truly thank you

(01:28:12):
for it. Um once again, Chuck Rainey and Brother Bernard
party on Couest Love Supreme Special Edition on behalf of Fontigelo.
Both bills Sugar Steve and Layah. This is Quest Love
signing off probably one of the greatest Quest Love Supremes ever. Uh.
We will see you next time on the next go round.
This Quest Love Supreme only on Pandora. Thank You. Courts.

(01:28:41):
Love Supreme is a production of I heart Radio. This
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