QLS Classic: George Johnson

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to QLs classic George lighting LyX Johnson, formerly a
legendary of Brothers Johnson Funk Unit. We talked to him
about his days with Billy Preston, pairing up with Quincy Jones,

(00:25):
eyewitnessing sly Stone make the legendary album There's a Riot
going On, and also his brother.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
In the late Green Lewis.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Thunder Thumbs Johnson from October twenty fourth, twenty eighteen. This
is the George Johnson episode of Questlam.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Supreme Suprema Supremo, Roll Call Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Supremo,
Roll Call, Suprema Sun Sun Supremo Roll Call.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
This is the show. Yeah, my name's Questlove.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
I want to welcome you, yeah to the club.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Supreme Supremo, Roll Call, Supreme Supremo.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Roll My name is Fonte.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
Check out my flow. Yeah. One of my favorite jams. Yeah, Tokyo.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Suprema Son Supremo, Roll Call, Supremo, Supreme Roll Call.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
My name is Sugar.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, I get my kicks.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
From thunder Thumbs Yeah, and light lips.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Son Supremo, Roll Call Supreme So Supreme, Roll.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Still is riding. Yeah in the new Mercedes. Yeah, down
the highway. Yeah to the ladies.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Suprema Suck souprem Suprema Son Son Supremo.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Roll calls em.

Speaker 6 (02:10):
Yeah, you know the deal.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Yeah, And I want to know, George, Yeah, is what
you feel really real?

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Roll call Suprema Son Son Supremo, Roll Car Suprema Son
Son Suprema Roll Call.

Speaker 7 (02:25):
My name is Troy, Yeah, pop Sisdom Man. Yeah, are
y'all already Yeah for a little bit of blame.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Roll Supremo Sun Sun Supremo, Roll Call Suprema Son Son Supremo,
Roll called.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
This is GJ.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I'd like to say, yeah, get the funk out in
my face. Yeah, I'm doing my.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Roll Suprema So Supremo, Roll Car Suprema Son Sun Supremo,
Roll cal Suprema Son Son So Frema roll call.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Small Way better. That was it, Gemen.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Many people have.

Speaker 8 (03:13):
Asked, but I gotta be honest with you. We've had
our first role call train wreck and to never ever
do a role call twice with the guests. But we
actually that was our second take. Maybe at the fate
of the of this episode, we can play the wreck.
This is hilarious because once again Fonte has drink Steve's milk.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Wow, man, that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Is this?

Speaker 8 (03:43):
This is our first father son edition of It is
cost love supreme, This is complimenting. We are live at
the illustrious Capitol Records building. Uh, the house that Nat
built in the Beatless, the Beach Boys and Gillian Frank
What what the studio we're in right now?

Speaker 4 (04:04):
What studio is the studio A? Is the studio A?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
And Neck and Cole is really the headliner in here?
And I guess Frank Sinatra as well.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
Okay, all right, so we're in a room with history.
I will say that our special guest today, one of
our two guests today, is probably one of the most
legendary guitarists in funk soul history, having contributed to projects
for Billy Preston, Liningless Smith, Bill Withers, Quincy Jones, Steve Arrington.

(04:36):
That I didn't know George Duke, David Williams, the legendary
guitarist David Williams. You gotta tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
He used to come over my house. I will teach
him some things.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
It's going to be so good.

Speaker 8 (04:49):
Renee and Joyce Kennedy, formerly of a Mother's Finest The Silvers,
but of course he's better known by his his non
de plume UH Lightning Licks who along with his brother,
the late Great Lewis Johnson, UH, he's one half of
the legendary monster duo the Brothers Johnson. Also not not

(05:12):
not not to be outdone. His offspring is as an
impressive uh resume as well. You can name it from
j Lo to solangdo.

Speaker 6 (05:24):
Yes, yeah, a lot of a bunch of stuff. Work
with a few people, yes.

Speaker 8 (05:29):
Shory Radio Johnson also, but please welcome the legendary George
Johnson and.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Right quest those supreme.

Speaker 6 (05:36):
Thank you, thank you for coming man, thank you, thanks
for having us.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
The Stunt Link my Daddy edition. So how are you
to do?

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Oh? I'm doing good.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
I don't come out to many interviews. I'm actually working
on a book and thinking about doing some new music
with my son. So when I heard that you came
through and want to interview, I had the Okay, I'm
going to do this.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
Thank you so much. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 8 (06:05):
We're excited about this. We're excited. Okay, So I want
to get right into it. Okay, where were you born?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I was born in Los Angeles, California, in nineteen fifty three.
I'm currently sixty five years old. Just turned May seventeenth.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Graduations.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, still kicking up. Basically, have been enjoying the aftermath
of where God took me through the whole livelihood of
learning music. I started playing at five years old bb King,
but he wound up covering one of my songs that
I wrote for Billy Preston, a song called I Wonder Why,

(06:45):
and I had a chance to meet him. And it's
funny because every artist who I've met was seen abound
a meeting from the Beatles, James Brown, you know, through
my track in my career, really slid Stone, Larry Graham,

(07:06):
you know, these were people who personally hands on taught
me or everything about funk. But I knew as far
as guitar. That was probably about eleven. I had a
choice to whether I to play bass or if I
wanted to play guitar. But I was already playing guitar,
and I knew it was playing guitar had the six

(07:26):
strings and you could play chords as opposed to notes.
I was actually teaching my brother Lewis, when I play
a C chord, you should play a C note. So
actually I knew I could get further in writing and
watching the Beatles performers three guitars and drums, which is
the same instrumentation we had as kids. The Johnson three

(07:48):
plus one, and you know, I just loved it. You know,
the motown thing that hit, what you do, the things
you do, all the Smokey Robinson and it was the
Funk Brothers who I really learned a lot because at
one time I thought it was different bands. I didn't
think it was one band exactly, so you know, these

(08:13):
were legends. Unfortunately they didn't get stock in the company,
but you know, these were people who I most admired.
You know, sixth seventh grade, I'm going to school humming
hits and you know I can't.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
I would.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
I was really creative, so I got good grades. I'm
sitting there writing lyrics and history and you know, or
or geography, and I pulled that into I wanted to
pull all that into my world through through history. I
wanted to know a lot of things, which is a
lot of things I know on a black issue that

(08:49):
you guys would never know from doctor Francis Creswell saying
to Ny mock Barr, you know, travel the world, and
you know, dove into being a Christian into Islam at
a very early age, and had chanced to meet Minnesulta's
fery Khan and Mustafa Muhammad who's a very close friend

(09:10):
of mine and kind of balanced the unbalanced for me.
What kept the focus going and in the right direction
was the music, because the music could teach me the most.
And we had prejudices and all that stuff back in
the early sixties and backing up into the fifties, so

(09:32):
as kids, we weren't really given the right to have
an opinion. It was up to the parents, you know,
and they came from old school, like my family came
from Mississippi, New Orleans, you know, down south. They were

(09:54):
never taught the right things, you know, even as far
as we were when we grew up, you know, nons
wouldn't teach us the truth. We'd gone to church and
see all these pictures of white folks, you know, which
there were black saints. Later on to find Saint Peter,
who's supposed to hold the keys to heaven. Okay, he's

(10:17):
in the mill he's at the Vatican as a statue
which the Pope gets up, and you have the Quran,
I mean the Bible, the Quran and the Torah, and
in front of all that is a black statue of
Saint Peter, which he gets up at five o'clock in
the morning kiss his feet. Had we had known that

(10:37):
it would inspire us more as the as youth to
feel better about ourselves as far as being, you know,
sitting in the back of the classroom, which I always
wanted to be, first row, second rope. I need glasses.
I can't see the board. So in my travels it's
like I used all of that, you know, in geography.

(11:00):
I want to go everywhere I see on this map.
You know, they have the big old picture, you know.
And we never went out of la and I wound
up traveling the world probably about over a dozen times.
And I'd get on the plane read Okay Idaho with
their famous for potatoes. This, you know, it would really
prepare myself to know and ask questions. In went over

(11:22):
to Africa in eighty four, checked into the lobby, and
this African king and a prince which was his son,
were there. I had no idea so he looked at
me and said, oh, my brother. He said, when you
get through, could you come over and have a drink
with it? And I'm like, who the hell is this?

Speaker 4 (11:44):
You know?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
So I went upstairs and came back down and he
told me he was a king and he had seventeen
wives and thirty five kids.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Busy king.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I said, how do you do that? Very slowly?

Speaker 4 (12:00):
What a part of LA were you born in?

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well? Actually we went to Okay, I went to Catholic school.
It was called Transfiguration. It was right off of Vernon
and we lived on Samarron. That's where we grew up.
Street called Samarron and Transfiguration was off of which is

(12:24):
King now. It was on King and Fourth Avenue. Did
eight years there learn to speak Latin? I wasn't all
to boy sally, Yeah, I mean, I was like all
over the place. But I figured that it would be
a great opportunity to get out of school when I wanted. Okay,

(12:45):
So they always would leave the doors open in the front.
Would you come in through the church? Okay? If I'm like,
would go over to where the priests were or where
they dressed and all that. Directory I had reason to
be in the area because I was an ultim boy.
So I'd go creep through the church, go through the

(13:05):
front doors, go down to Taketo.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Place you.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Have lunch, and coming back through the doors. A couple
of times I got caught. So there was a middle
light and uh, the confession. So if I jumped in that,
like the priests are doing that, all the moves down
so if you step in it, they figured the priest
was in there. So I was hearing confessions and all that.

(13:34):
Your father helped me my daughters, this is pregnant. Oh yeah,
I was like, hey, you know, say three our fathers
three held marriages when our father acting contrition and you good.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
The original, so we're your Were your parents into music?

Speaker 2 (13:54):
My mom played, uh keyboards. She wasn't really you know,
she'd learned little music and would play. I never saw
her play. Well it was having around the piano. She
can just get on it and play a little bit.
My dad was a hell of a whistler. He could
out whistle to tell me.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
We get the car on.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, well you know right right. My dad could whistle
like that. Really yeah, so it was he would whistle
melodies if he couldn't sing. I know, all the lyrics.
He's showing that he could whistle it. He'd whistle out
a song. Well, he cutting a lawn whatever, cutting the hair,
you know, helping us with the stuff. But we got

(14:40):
music from both sides, you know, and we had some
aunts and uncles that could play, you know, damn anything.
They wanted to just go to the keyboard, from gospel
music to rock and roll. You know, they can just improvise.
How old were you when you got your first guitar? Well,
this is a very good story because this Okay, I

(15:02):
was watching at some of it, and I was watching
Elvis Presley Joe House Rock came out. I probably was
about five six, and we had a couch and us
sitting on the floor between my dad's legs, just watching.
They had about eight of the grand kids running around.
I'm trying to get to the move out the way.

(15:23):
He saw my interest in this man who was playing
this box guitar and shaking his legs, and all the
girls were biting their nails and crying, which is the
only thing I could not interpretate why there were crying, okay,
but they were just excited. There was an emotion, you know.

(15:43):
So he gets up during the commercial, goes into the
kitchen and it was like a half gallon of milk,
pours what was left out, washes it out, cuts a
hole in the middle, takes a stick, staple it to
it where the pouring part was. He takes four rubber
bands and put the pins at the bottom. So he

(16:06):
made a simulated guitar. By the time they say came
back on, he stepped back over me and he waited
to and he just handed me the milk cart. Yeah,
simulated guitar. That was like the most important thing in
my life. He saw me actually just focusing in on

(16:26):
this person, you know, more so than any of all
the other grandkids. So it's like he just knew, So
I'm gonna get put this in this boy's hand. She
gonna become that and from you know, he couldn't. Later on,
he and his brother because his brother Buster my dad's
name was Joseph. He they're both so creative and two

(16:53):
black men from Mississippi who have the original blueprints for
the airplanean's landing. When first the parachute would come out,
they had reverse reverse whatever it is that reverse thrust.
That was their idea. But it was two Yeah, they
have the original blueprint we should have on the airline.

(17:17):
But because yeah, they had the original blueprints of turning
one engine on going this way because they only had
one engine going that way. So that's why when planes
landing kind of makes you know, and it helps planes
lands and next time y'all going back to New York.
Exactly two black men. So those two black men who

(17:43):
came up with that built our first guitar. Wow, that's
how my dad's brother came over. You got a busted
water heater. I can make that. It was a welder,
you know. And he got some sheep metal Bennett round.
He had all the two He made that and that
lasted until we moved. So we had we had great

(18:07):
black men in our family. Everywhere we would look outside
of music, somebody knew something about that. Also had an
uncle who used to come by and check. His name
was Arthur and he played a three thirty five guitar
and he used to play backup guitar for West Montgomery. Man.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Okay, you know so, and then.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
We have an uncle who actually played saxophone and he
come over and check on us how the boys doing it.
We had basically the same story like the Jackson. You know,
my mom was, don't buy it. Why are you buying all?
They said, these boys are gonna be bad. They let him.
Let me just do what I'm gonna do. And he
brought us all instruments. Oh, we should be paying bills
and blood, which you know, it worked out. I'm thankful

(18:54):
he went that way. He had more faith than my mom.
She wanted us to be scholars like she was and
getting master's degrees and all that kind of stuff, and
that wasn't I got my master master's degree through Quincy
eight years. Takes four years to get your degree and
another four to get your masters. I did eight years

(19:15):
with Clincy Jones.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
In your family, is it just as far as your
siblings are concerned.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Now, we have an older brother, Tommy, who played drums.
He was like Buddy Miles. He played drums and sang.
His path was too. Well say, we had our group.
We had two guitars, me and Alex Swear who wanted
to play with talking Heads.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
Well, Alex, he also played with that's my cousin. Yes, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
He was the plus one. It was a Johnson three
plus one and exactly. So you know, I was like
the Quincy Jones then back then being the Arrangers, since well,
I knew I had to be brilliant in the school
because my parents didn't want us to do anything until

(20:05):
after if we had good grades, and after you do
your homework then you could chill. So I would do
my homework by the time school was out home the
right and leave to go to forgot the name of
the record store and that of Normandy and pick up
new singles. So you know, it could have been four

(20:28):
top songs standing in the Shadow, Loves or Temptations or Smoky.
The first thing I'd do is go home. I'd buy
five singles out of my pocket because we was doing gigs,
making about two hundred bucks for one, you know, set
of three hours and it was only four of us. So,
I mean from sixth grade on, you know, I had money.

(20:54):
I didn't have a bank. I put my money under
the mattress. Anybody who needs money.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Go, you know, go under here and pick it up
the mattress of the crown.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Well, I never had a bank account, and I didn't
know if I wanted to trust banks. Okay, you're giving
you my money and then what so.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
In all your years of playing, did you ever take
formal lessons or was it all just kind of self?

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah. Once I got into high school and my guitarist
teacher got in touch with my parents and told them
that they're wasting their money because I'm teaching them motown ship.
You know, he's teaching us one that we're teaching them.
You know, because I would pick up really quick. They
showed me the basics of C chord and you know
minor chord, and you know one, three, five, and then

(21:47):
take out the third and you get a minor and
which a lot of stuff and people don't realize and
the sound and rappers later got it mixed up and
they added the third with a note that don't match
text your record, you know, things like that. But I
would as a child pick up singles, and I was

(22:07):
the only one out of the group who would put
on the record. The first thing I would do is
write the lyrics.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
I was telling my son Troy this probably about a
couple of months ago. I would write the lyrics and
then I would pick out the part I wasn't gonna
play and sing first of all, to pick out the
hit I want so all we played is hits. We
had a catalog of about two hundred songs that we
could play and where jazz to R and B. Because
we also came from Led Zeppelin, Deep, Purple three Dollar Night, Chicago,

(22:45):
you know, a lot of those groups. We would play
their music. So we was all over the place musically.
That's why Quincy loved the style of where I came from.
I always want to turn my brother Lewis on the
funk with sliding the family stone. He later didn't got

(23:05):
me watch it.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
I'm going to do.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Like watch what I'm gonna do later, you know.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
And it was cool.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
And that's the only problem I would have because sometimes
he would kind of lie being honest, Well, who taught
you to do that? I didn't had nothing. I was
going to touch you how to put the bass in
your hand? Hey dad, we needed the bass. And he
did learn on his own and James Jamieson and Automotile,
he picked it up. He was as bad as I was,
but he just wouldn't do more than that. Like Quincy said,

(23:39):
he's a hell of a bass player, you know, and
he was that.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
So he didn't have the ability to play guitar, but
you could play guitar.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
No, he could play, but he couldn't play play guitar.
He'd played guitars on some of our records. Oh okay,
his style. He just played, as you know, and a
lot of things that I would play. George, you play bass.
You could play bass because I was using his bass
upside down and he'd get pissed from writing something too funky,
and we go to the studio and Larryot's I mean

(24:08):
and Quincy play it like George, I'm like, oh ship
say that. Because on the demo I would play the bass,
the guitars. I used to lay about seven eight guitars,
like when you first got I'd be good to you.
That was all guitars bassed, and the drum machine asked,
still have still have that? I'm gonna give the trouble

(24:30):
I heard those. I have all of it. Plus so
Quincy would listen to everything we had and he would pick.
So he's like picking all these songs because out more
or less complete mind. More so my brother and he'd
have like grooves. So we're like on two different levels.
But it's like I was saying earlier, because I would

(24:52):
write and there's something to think about to go with
your history animals. Okay, when you have a person who
comes I'm young like I was, and I would write
lyrics to like BB King's Thrillers, you know, and then
noticed the difference just not a major chord, the third
is out as a minor, Okay, so that's that to

(25:14):
put that there for every song in lyric, I would write,
whether it was a Smokey Robinson song, you're actually going
through the emotions of that writer for you to write
the lyrics down, and you're reading it, it's like wow,
and he made it to perfection. So I'm writing some
finished perfection of how someone felt. And I'm writing over

(25:37):
two hundred some songs. So it's like I got bits
and pieces of everybody from Chicago, Zeppelin, the Motown, you know.
It all became the cake with the candles lit.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
So it was part of your writing, DNA, and it
helped you.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yes, I mean a lot of people wouldn't look at
it because they just stay in one area of one song.
But if you're writing all these different songs, including Supremes,
you know, all the other Motown acts, David Ruffin songs,
and even I had to find on later they weren't
writing in Smoker Robinson Robinson, So I'm going through a
lot of emotions and oh baby, baby, and it's like

(26:15):
some of this stuff down and made me cry just
reading it.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
So that's a good that's a good exercise. I never
thought that you actually internalize.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, what if you write? If you write the lyrics
and get all the lyrics correct, then pick out the
guitar part. Who's gonna play this? Play the bass? Now
I'm getting into James Jamieson's head, you know what I'm saying.
Then you get the little drummer's head and you and
you're listening and giving the parts out, you know what,
And you're young.

Speaker 8 (26:43):
Here's something that's actually kind of sort of connected to you.
This explains that Prince poster.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Oh the Star is Born poster. Yeah, well no, no, no,
the dude so oh yeah.

Speaker 8 (26:55):
For some reason, okay, so in light of princes passing,
they found a concert poster in which Prince wrote the
lyrics to to Quincy's The Dude the Rat And for
some reason I was trying to they gave some back

(27:18):
history to it, and I guess like that intrigued them,
and I guess writing it out physically helped what you
were explaining.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, you can look up in the archives, because Prince
was a fan of ours. The first interview he's done
ever did well, you know where'd you get your music from?
And he mentioned brothers, Johnson's Slide and Family Stone, which
I had Me and Sly wound up getting very close.
As far as Larry Graham too. After that interview, he
never mentioned anything. Everything was Prince and I went. I

(27:52):
went to Vegas to see him perform, and he called
my room, had this guy called it room and they
did there like two o'clock in the morning, sound check.
Have George come down, and I had a guest with me.
I brought my guest. I didn't tell her where we're going.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
We just went in.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
We had the whole MGN. We were sitting on the side.
Larry Graham was supposed to do a sound check. He
bumped Larry off and did his sound check because he
wanted to, you know, meet me and see me. He
played for us for about two hours straight. It was
better than the kind of you know check. You know,

(28:28):
he played songs that wasn't his repertoire.

Speaker 4 (28:31):
Yeah, and he came.

Speaker 9 (28:34):
Yeah yeah, and you know he used to do that
with some of his fan club members, like in the
early two thousands, he would invite them into the sound
check right and would just play for them and talk.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
And then we played Club fifty four. He asked me
to come on stage, and I played with him and
Lry Graham, but I actually went played on the wrong songs.
They did a whole slide thing. I was still up
in the top with my girl was checking him out.
I said I should be down there for that, but
I guess he thought I'd come down when I heard
something I liked. So when he called me on stage,
they got to this Elvis little groove. But I mean

(29:04):
it was cool, but it wasn't what IU to prefer.
But you know, we walked in the club. They were
playing Get the Funk out of My Face, Strawberry Letter,
Get to You. I told, I said, man, they handed
me this guitar. They were so fucked up and out
of turn. Who did Let's go get on? Let's go
get on, Jordan, And I was like, don't ask me that,

(29:24):
because the fans are going getting people.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
What is the age difference between you and your brother.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Lewis two years? Okay, we were all two years apart.
It was Lewis's two years apart from me was two
years and my older brother.

Speaker 8 (29:45):
So your first professional gig outside of the Johnson Brothers
plus one or the Johnson three plus one.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right, I got tired of that. We did win the
contest and all that in nineteen sixty eight k f
j's concert. We won everything. We won box instruments like
the Beatles, box guitars, and we got a record contract
with I just did a documentary portion with Gina Gina

(30:15):
Rey Mac Bobby Dog. Oh yeah, she he produced our
first record as John's three plus. I wanted to testify
it will sounded just like tighten up with the maked
mellow part, but it's like make it sweeter, make it sweeter, right,
another breakdown exactly. So that was the first time we had,

(30:37):
you know, met Bobby wo Max Label Venture Records, this
guy named Mickey Stevenson.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
I think, are you looking at it right now? Yeah?
Of course, I'm like, are you looking at it right now?
How much is it goes? Well?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
They only made a thousand records. They sold about I
don't think it's around. I'm googled and all that stuff,
but uh, they saw just a single. It was just
a single. Before that, we did our own demo. We
used to go up to Rachel's enterprise and we would

(31:10):
cut demos, which I met a lot of people. Actually,
my girl friend now she used to work for Rachel's enterprise. Okay,
and and uh her name is Joy Randall. She also
she works for Disney now.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
And is this how you started interacting with Billy Preston,
because I know that no, no, no no.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
With Billy Preston. We were looking for a keyboard player.
Oh okay, And you mentioned earlier Renee and Angela. Renee
was the same class with Lewis my younger brother. Oh okay,
age Renee used to come over quite a bit and

(31:52):
I met him, and you know, he's a he's a
hell of a keyboard player. And I thought if we
had a keyboard player to the group, he would be
the one because he was, you know, two years young.
He was bad and like he played me some of
the stuff he had written and he but only where
the keyboard was was at Billy Preston's duplex he had

(32:16):
up off of Olympic. So we took the group and
we went over to Billy's house where he had an
organ and a Fender road downstairs at his mother's place.
He happened to just come off the road. I think
he did some work with the Beatles. He's always hanging
with the Beatles and make Jagger, you know. And he

(32:38):
came in and I had on this flag shirt like
I took with my high school picture at Prinshall High.
By the way, they putting me at the fiftieth anniversary
of Princeville High and they put me in the Hall
of Fame October fourteenth. Yeah, Jersey, So I walk in,
he walks in, See limo pulls up and his Billy

(32:59):
he gets that was this big wig looking like sly
Where I met Slye through him too, because they used
to come over. Billy Preston was one of the baddest
motherfucking keyboard players on Earth period.

Speaker 8 (33:13):
What is it about his technic? Is people always speak
of But since you played with them? What made him
such so in demand with all these groups?

Speaker 2 (33:22):
And well number one groups would call him for him
to make them. Yeah, like the Beatles, you know. I
went over there. Well finishing that story, I mean I
met the Beatles through Billy. I met sly and family
Stone through Billy Preston. He was connected which one I
was when you when you met sly Oh, I was like,

(33:44):
so goddamn nervous.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
What year was?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
This just had to be in around seventy because he did.
I was there when Poet went down.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
Wow, I was there.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
But I'll tell this pre story real quick, okay. And
Billy had asked me to join the group. He walked
in and saw a big afro and I was in
my I was like, I was like Jimmy Hendrix and
Freddy Stone combined and having more time. Things back. So

(34:25):
I was playing some guitar you would have been probably yeah,
I would prefer to be Barry Gordy's on the original one.
So when Billy asked me, and it's like I was
kind of getting tired of just like we ran our

(34:45):
gambit as a johnst One and I kept telling my
brothers that, you know, it's like somebody got to leave.
We had to go do something else. They didn't want
me to go, but they wasn't telling me not to go.
So I went to audition a keyboard player become Billy,
and he's gonna pull me out of our group. I
want you to play with me. So that was a

(35:06):
decision I had to make sure we continue on with
this new keyboard pro, which he probably would have been bad.
It probably could have worked out. And as he pulled
me aside and he asked me, how long have you
been playing? He said, love the way you play? Who
were some people that you love? And I was telling
him sly and he just start smiling. He knew them.

(35:27):
That was his best friends. I like Freddie Stone, I
like Jimmy henrix Is. He needed that ingredient he did
not have me before, he asked me. He did have
some other great people, Tony Maid and Bobby Watson. Yes,
right right, yeah, I mean they were before us, and uh,

(35:54):
I was also listening to them because we are on
the same We had played clubs and we'd see Rufus
and Shaka Kount. That's how I new about them, and
as far as a lot of other groups too, but
they kind of stood out. We wound up having some history,
uh later in life, touring together. So I decided to myself,

(36:19):
I'm gonna go out with Billy. So Billy called. He said, man,
we're getting ready to do what like six months old
in Europe. So I said, well, I said I'll go.
So it's having dinner and to mention to my mom.
I said, well, by the way, I'm leaving in the morning,

(36:43):
just like that. I'm that's how it. What said, I'm
leaving in the morning to go to Europe. I've been
going to Germany. You ain't going, No, damn Johnny you
I asked to getting up and going to school because
I was in junior high school, junior college and West
l A's Junior College, and I had set up all

(37:04):
these musical courses. And I asked my teacher. He was
the only one I respected. So if you had the
chance to go out with Billy Preston and go to
Europe and you know, do music. But I had like
harmony theory, I had like a handful of different types
of music because I wanted to finish do to learn
the music. And he said, what yours. Let me tell
you this, you only have one chance to go to Europe.

(37:25):
You can always come back to school. So I would
clean out your lock her. So I just went took
all my shit out, cleaned it up, put it in
my bag, went home and decided to I was going
to Europe. So I called my girlfriend.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
I served my mom right now, boy, you ain't decide not.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I'm your decision making. So I told her to come.
I was goa come get her and go to the airport.
I was leaving the cars to my low riding Malibu
about sixty five Malabu orange with GJ on the side
of white in terrier. And it wasn't dropped. I just
cut the strings. So the hell it had a rock

(38:14):
to it, you know. So and I left. My mom
came down, but she had told me get up, it's
time to go to school. I said, all, I said, well,
I told you I am going to Germany. So she
didn't believe me. All right, So I leave and probably

(38:34):
was gone for about a good month because I was
known for getting up leaving because you know, the girlfriend
at least I had called checked. I didn't call because
I didn't want to hear right.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Oh man.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
So we were in London and I decided to call.
And this is in seventy one. So I said, look,
I'm in London, England, and we're leaving here. We're going
to Paris. And you know, I'm fine, I'm good. I'm
making some good money making like probably about seven hundred
per gig, which wasn't bad. Yeah, And I told her

(39:16):
I will send money. So then she kind of chilled out.
Then I want I sent money, and even though I
had no bills, I just sent money and she didn't
said another You know, she's like knew. And I was
the only son who would do anything like that, including

(39:37):
when his bass player Grady quit and Billy he quit
at the airport. I used to go home and teach
Lewis the show. We'd sit on the side of the
bed he had. We had double beds, and my guitar
this way and his guitar that way. Easy to follow,
so I taught him every song he had done. So

(40:01):
my brother Lewis literally new Billy show after the first
tour after the year, goes by at the airport and
I think they had red Devils available, yellow jackets, Kwai ludes,
all that ship was out his bass players. These are pills.

(40:24):
I never really got into them. My I had girls.
They come over and they bring it to the parties
and whole bag of yellow jackets, and what the hell
are you gonna do with this? You know, there was
no sealem you know, I don't know. People at the
party they'd take one and you know, my dad would
find what was this ship he always was taking. He

(40:47):
flushed down the toilet and it was funny. I'm gonna
tell you this story. This is kind of my personal business.
But you know, I had sampled, uh some lines of cocaine.
I had a friend of mine who always had it,
and he kind of I'd tell that other people. I knew,
I'm not gonna mention they were doing it. So he
brought it and he had like a whole mountain of
cocaine out in the bedroom. My dad saw the weed

(41:12):
experiment with weed cocaine, but in that pills. He said,
I'll tell you one thing, you better flush that down
a toilet. About the weed.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
Was the biggest concern.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yeah, he he didn't know what blow was.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Right now, so you know, he he couldn't He didn't.
He couldn't say anything about that because he didn't know
what it was. So I'm looking at my boy who
brought it, and We're both like glad he said flush
the weed, and I was both. I mean, I had
just got into too cocaine and I didn't really know

(41:56):
how I was supposed to feel, you know. And UH
got around a few huge people that they were known
for that ship.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
Speaking of which, can you tell that police session went.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
All right? So I get back home from the trip.
I didn't mean to go off. Please, like Troy would say,
we talked.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
That's what this show is for.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Just bring me back to Okay. So anyway, I go
back to Billy Preston and it's so ironic and I
don't know if I should mention this, but I probably will.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
I will.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
A friend of mine, who was Billy's engineer, took me
over to this girl he was dating, and it was
April and her sister happened to be Kathy, who was
married Kathy Silver. Yeah, okay, So he goes into the

(43:06):
bedroom with April and he leaves me with Kathy.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
So we're down.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
So this first time I met her, and you know,
I wasn't married, and everything was cool, and I thought
she was so beautiful and nice and sweet. But back then,
I mean, I had so much experience with a bunch
of different gorgeous women. I had three of them living
with me at one time. Three they were all girlfriends,
and they never left. So I had to put him
to work. All right, you comed up the kitchen and

(43:34):
you cut clean. All I know is I'm writing good.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
To you, legends.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Are you listening to this episode.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Special?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
I'm here to tell the truth. Like I mentioned, it
was probably be the most truthful interview, and it's gonna
take you in a lot of different areas y'all have
done because I'm just being me. A lot of this
stuff I'm putting in my book, which is gonna be
off to change, incredible, and it'll be more informative that
I can dig into right now. But this year, I'm well,

(44:16):
I got it seventy percent done, so I left off
actually sixty percent. I left off twenty percent off the back,
twenty off the front, so and nobody could do it. Okay,
it goes back when I was like a baby. That stuff.
I remember the first time it rained.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
But me hooking up with Kathy was like he put
me with Kathy because he was with April. And then
they disappeared and left us in the room. So we
laid by the fireplace, and you know, I had no
idea that was gonna be sliced on wife, So you know,
the most furthest I went with her. We kissed a
little bit, and you know it's like shit, I'm not

(44:57):
gonna lay out here and let him walk into us.
We can't walk into him. So and we were there
for probably for a couple of hours, and her older sister,
April wanted us to hook up because Michael and I
kind of had a look alike with big afros, light skin,

(45:18):
very cool, you know, on chill. You know, I never
really wanted for anything as far as out of a
woman than that my grandmother or mother aunts could give.
So I've been used to that, so I wasn't used
to a lot of the benefits of a woman. Just
like we wing not have my guitar. I said, this

(45:39):
is the only thing you can't come in between me
and my guitar, or my guitar or my music. And
it kind of rolled from that. That's why the woman
who I picked was Troy's mom. You know, she was
my soulmate and nobody comes close to that. She passed
in two thousand, but you know she was the only

(45:59):
one I let into my world and inspired me to
continue writing. Okay, So anyway, afterwards, you know, Sly played
the Palladium. I took my wife to be there and
we went backstage and I saw Kathy and Sly coming
down the hallway. They're getting ready to go on because

(46:20):
I said I want to go. You know, see Sly.
I didn't know him yet, so I see him walking.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
This is when.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
He was they were doing if you want me to stay?
It came out. Yeah, but I had met him before.
We'll get back to that. But I saw her coming
and he turned his head and end on his big
hat and the Selver outfit, and she like looked at
me and her and she said, So I totally got it.

(46:50):
I understood it. There's like a lot of Sly attitude personality.
It just came into me just from watching, listening, telling stories.
Because Troy will tell you it's not to me. People
he'd trust to this day except for me. And I
can truly say that, Oh will sit down and you
know slides man, I mean Troy's mane.

Speaker 7 (47:12):
The email will be encrypted though they got a special
funk language that the emails el.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yeah, this is probably about four years ago and we
still talk. He'd send me like eighty five emails.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
In a day, Sylvester. No, he does.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
He has a laptop and you know he'd learn and
when he'd get bored, he would text people that he trusts,
not everybody. So we would when I wasn't around him,
and I don't go around him a lot. He'd have
a questions, a g I got some songs. I got
some new songs because he would give me songs. He'd
come over my house and I was out to Dina

(47:59):
when I was with Patrise. That's why Patrice come by.
They all would love to meet him, but he wouldn't
let a lot of people meet him period.

Speaker 8 (48:09):
Why was he such a recluse because I know that
once he well, that's because certain people that he trusted
and he opens up and he's regular and that.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
Sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Because he's a prophet, and a prophet is one who
only God is spoken to. Wow, you know, yeah, then
that's the true fact. Like Abraham was a prophet. Those
are who God speaks to, somebody who's been on the
journey and who accepts themselves and who could still do

(48:38):
what they want to do regardless. And he has leadership,
and all of a sudden he doesn't have any leadership.
Then he has someone he wants to trust. The two
it's like a God speaking to Jesus. And you know
it gets so deep as far he don't doesn't spread
himself out. If you want no slide. Just listen to
all of his songs. You caught me smiling all that

(49:00):
and listened. He stand because he politically in the sixties
was like the only Malcolm X that would bring truth
and put it in your face.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
So with poet, like when you were there of him,
what was that was?

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Well when we after I met him, And this is
the scary part for me because I heard him before
I met him. He Kathy was in the house with Billy, okay,
because Billy's sisters knew her or something, and that's how
that hooked up. I'm trying to look at her just
before we hooked up, checking her out. Then he said,

(49:34):
slides here. I'm like what I looked out the window.
I knew he had a mobile home that he record
with and he would he came to Billy had wooden stairs,
so I'm hearing Sly's voice her and just walk Sevesters here, Sevester.

(49:55):
So I'm like sitting by the on the seat of
the keyboard player right where the doorway, getting ready to
see this man for the first time in my life.
But I knew him, like you know, and they see
him he walks in. Then they had this thing with
that like stomp and laugh, which you know how to do.

Speaker 4 (50:13):
They're talking.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Right exactly, and I looked at him. It was like
my mouth dropped because it was like seeing Jimmy Hendrix.
But I was concerned, and you know, we got a
chance to talk about all that kind of stuff because
we became very close. And Billy pointed at me first
said this is George Johnson, this is my new guitarist.

(50:38):
And Billy was so proud of me. Sly knew what
that meant. He knew exactly what that meant. So Sly,
out of Billy's whole band, I was the only one
who opened up that He opened up too, And that's
how I got to get into bell Air with Poet
and uh. Well, after he visited, he went to the

(50:59):
room with Suet Billy, and I'm like sitting in the
in the living room kind of shaking, thinking what I
wanted to ask him, or if I should ask him
anything at all, because he had that vibe first of all,
and held get out. He always want a leather he
had this way he was sliced out.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
You have his dog with him? Gun?

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, no he didn't, he told me. Shot gun in
the head.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Oh okay, I'm sorry, No, he.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Said, this is how that happened. He was Kathy was
at home. He was in the studio. This is right
before I started kind of following to the studios and
he'd let me come in and uh, same thing like
with Stevie Wonder and out there when he did creeping on.
Oh wow wow.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Billy got a call Kathy and she said, she said, Sylvester,
you have to come home. Gun just bit your son.
Yeah wait, Gun, just what bit the baby? So, just
like I told me this story, I said, so what
did you do and how did you do it? He said, Man,

(52:07):
he said, I went went home and I went outside
and sat down because he had a baboon and a
pit bull.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
What I didn't know about the baboon.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
He had a baboon. I can't tell you what the
pit did to the baboon. Uh, but he'd have him
in the cage and he'd always stick. It's all my
trying to get the pit. But he said. I went
outside and I looked at Gun and uh sly was like,
this is the personality. He said. I just asked him
one time, he said, Gun said, did you bite little Sylvester?

(52:43):
So the dog he didn't put his head down, and
he knew Sly Slide had him train really well, and
he had his gun for gun, his tail didn't go down.
I said, don't tell me. He said no, he didn't
submit when I asked him that question. So he took
the gun and me had just shot him in the head.

(53:04):
That told me a whole lot about it. Jesus, Christ
shot the damn dog in the head because he didn't
at least he didn't submit to what he did.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Is that what happened? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (53:17):
That was That was Sly hunt. These are things that
I never really told in public. This is one reason
why him and I are so. I can't tell you
too too much about him because but he wouldn't be
listening though, right, somebody, somebody could somebody, man, you hit
that great story, George Johnson.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
You're out there listening. We would love would love to
have you on the show. Slide.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
This is I can get him on the show.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Jesus. That was.

Speaker 8 (53:48):
Does he still I had running with him maybe five
six years ago? Does he still have this? It looks
like the speed racer kind.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Of audio death bike.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Oh yeah, I heard just like after it looks like.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
It looks like the Adams family.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
It was so hot, and it was like it was me.

Speaker 8 (54:12):
Chappelle and I were headed to the Grammys in the
year that the Sliding family Stone reunited, and.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
Like just at our feet, Slide stopped and Dave and
I just looked at each other and then he just
went off, and it was like it was one of
the things, like no one's ever going to believe what
just happened.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Well, I had a lot of those kind of stories,
and I just kept to myself, and what is that
vehicle called? Well, it actually was a tricycle because they
had one wheel and the motorized and it was two
in the back. But it was built like if somebody
tried to build a Harley and extended it. And they
had the two wheels in the back, and they had
almost like a seat for two. One of them had

(54:55):
a seat for two, and one of them just just
a seat for one. And I would always touch a
man too scared because I'd call it the death trap.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
Take it on the highway, right onto one on one freeway.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
He had a friend of mine who lived up north
drive it down to him and he had about two
or three of them, but he was you know, slide
was so into everything right and left and was And
who was that group that had the motorcycles, the gang Groupe? Well, yeah,
he knew them, you know. And I think that's when
he started biking back back then. But you know, he

(55:32):
come over to the house. He came over for two
three years straight. Troy was little, and you know.

Speaker 7 (55:36):
He used to call the house before cell phones at
like three in the morning, and me and my sister
would be sleep ready to go to school. My mom
answered the phone and it was not.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
It wasn't too pleasant.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
He was he was gangster.

Speaker 7 (55:50):
He was gangster as all hell. But he was definitely
scared of my mom. You call it the damn house
at three in the morning. My kids got school in
the morning.

Speaker 4 (55:59):
A song.

Speaker 7 (55:59):
I don't give a fuck about sly Stone.

Speaker 6 (56:06):
I don't about the song.

Speaker 4 (56:09):
That I tell you to.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Anything ideas he had just when the answer phone would
come on to just put it, yeah and leave it
and I'll listen to it, you know, later on. But
we're gonna get back the poet. But anyway, we kind
of jumping in front of it and back and in front.
But like I was saying, a lot of his personality
and you know. That's how I wound up going out

(56:33):
to me. You know, because Sly was as brilliant as
a motherfucker period. He could deal with anybody on any level,
and if you weren't chosen to be spoken to, you
just won't never get it. That's the kind of person
he was, you know. So when he did call, he
would call it four or five in the morning, and

(56:54):
he thought it was okay, and then he told me,
he said, man, he said, I'm scared of DeBie, your wife.
I'll be laying right there. I just left the studio
with him, you know, because we worked for like two
years straight just cutting stuff and I seeing what he had.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
He had me.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
He gave me all of his quarter and no half
inch eight track reels, which was probably about a dozen
that he wanted me to go through and pick out
what was good and what was not good. That was
my job for probably about four years, because I mean,

(57:35):
that's what I'm saying, the trust he would never give nobody.
That last thing he did ask me to do, which
was a couple of years ago, was to go up
to the Frisco house and go up to the attic
and get all of his ship, including the songs, you know, pictures, clothes,
and I said, that's kind of a too big of
a risk. And I had one guy who would do it.

(57:56):
But if you ask anybody, he probably know what was missing.

Speaker 4 (58:00):
You want me to get.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Right exactly, So I wasn't trying to putting into that.

Speaker 4 (58:07):
You know, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
When we went to his house the first time is
after he came up the stairs and I met him,
Billy and man, we're gonna go with sales house. In
case I knew all the name slides sevest seals, I
wouldn't you know what I mean. I would adapt to
nicknames and stuff like that and would never say no

(58:29):
because I knew whatever it was gonna be, it was
gonna be crazy. Just how I met little Richard one
night he came into the studios for and I was
scared of death of him because it's like a pass gate.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
But he was big, big gate.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
At Billy and he's looking, man, I said, what's up
with your boy? Or your Billy said you leave on
the law, you will get his ass kicked. I had
I had the jout Billy in the neck a couple
of times, you know, knocking him back and don't mess
with my brother when he gets on the set.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
You know, But how how long was your duration with
Billy before?

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Three years? Well those three years, Well I get to
the poet thing real quickly.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
This is before.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
So anyway we go. We get to the bel Air House.
It was like this cold blooded, sinking, sunken stone house.
Which across the street from that was the Beverly Hill
Billy's mansion that they on TV. So I'm like looking
at that, looking at Slides house. And then next door
to him, Doris Date lived, which people thought he right.

(59:40):
So we going to the crib and we're all sitting
you know, and uh now this is another time. The
first time he did the palladium out here, and and
he got into the mobile home. We beat him there
because building him new.

Speaker 4 (59:58):
You know, he traveled in a mobile home.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
No, He's like he always had a mobile home because
he would have cats. Like I'm gonna get ready to
get to move the studio from upstairs into the mobile
home so he could drive and keep recording then or
change his mind, He's like, okay, mobile all the stuff
into the mobile. He did like three guys and they
would take everything from up in the studio that's recordable

(01:00:23):
down into the mobile home and he hook it all up,
which could have it took three hours to do. Then
the one time I was over there and I see
he just told him to do it, and then he
didn't never mind put it all back.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
It's worked exactly. But you know, he when we were
there the second time, I saw him and he walked
in and he had these little bells on and red leather,
so you can hear him coming up to the door.
So he came up to the door because he knew
Billy was there. People could have been in the house,
like if he just walked off stage. So he was like,
you just said percussion and ship and bloom, that's the

(01:00:59):
kind of stuff he'd say, kicked the door, bloom, make
his own sound effect like batman.

Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
Bloom.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
And then he come and look, he had a certain thing.
I guess when you got your wig on and your
leather suit and you slide stone, you know, you the king.
You know, ain't nobody as funky as you are. He
had an aura, you know, and that's where Prince got
his thing from, whichly made him. Tell me where did
he get his bibe? From a lot of people don't know.

(01:01:38):
He got his walk from Bob Dylan. And that's a slide.
Prince did that too. You walked your shoulders side to side,
you know, as you walk in. Bob Dylan was the
coolest white boy I was in. I used to look
at videotapes. You go back and see videotapes of Bob Dylan,
you know, slide, and he told me, he tell me shit.
He wouldn't tell people like that. Man, you crack up

(01:02:01):
when you find out. So I got there from Bob Dylan,
and that's of course you came up through the same era.
And then I noticed, I say, well, Prince got that
from you. He didn't like Prince at all. Prince ain't
as funky as you. I was on to tell him
to go to Prince. I said, man, I ain't got to.
I had to leverage Prince had.

Speaker 8 (01:02:19):
George George Clinton once said that his favorite slid quote
about Prince was a sly used to tell George that man,
he should he tastes like spinach when he needed to
be tasting like Cola greens.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
I'm gonna tell you something. And George Clinton and I
are very close. George Clinton well with his band and
everybody who was involved with including Born and Burning War,
all the other cats. They was like the funkst cats
on the planet because they had more funk than anybody
had on stage, you know, Bob Gun and we was

(01:03:00):
out there on touring them with him. So it's like
a lot of them had the equal it was more
more equal. When I was in the Slide in the
family Stone, of course I loved the drummer and Greg Erica.
Of course I loved Larry Graham and Larry Graham and
I got very close and then there was a competition
or Slide knew I was hanging with Larry. Larry know
I was hanging with Slide. You know, they wanted to

(01:03:23):
They wanted to deceive me to make a decision.

Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
Bring together.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
We just wouldn't hang out. We just you know, from touring.
Larry Graham was like my older brother and he taught
me a lot about He taught me more about funk
than Slide could on base. Larry didn't because Larry could
execute that stuff. Slide we could execute it, but he
played with a pick a pick and there was more

(01:03:55):
melody until rus Day Allen came on the scene and
turned it out within time. I'm yeah, and Rusty and
I met, and well, you know, we're clos It's like
I had to know everybody who was in the House
of Funk, you know, and we all kind of knew
and you know a lot of people. That's why even

(01:04:15):
nowadays you hear rappers and singers, it's like not enough, Okay,
somebody produced you, somebody wrote the record, so it's not
it's not coming out of you. Somebody helped develop, you know,
that kind of thing. But when I was there and
I went up here and let nobody come up, and
I went upstairs, and they had eight monitors on the

(01:04:37):
bed for all the rooms in certain areas of the house.
So I'm like, what are y'all doing? They were having fun,
having their little milk and cookies. Yeah, and I'm like,
what are y'all doing? He said, all were looking at everybody,
but Sly was looking at Billy's girlfriend's breast and she

(01:05:02):
had this little cut thieves looking at her Cleaveland and
he just said that I'm looking at what's the names?

Speaker 10 (01:05:07):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
He said, you could tell her to come up because
the waistly is if you don't make your way there,
you ain't coming up. Well, the whole band was a
Billy was sitting downstairs. I got tired of waiting. He
had this bodyguard named Jay R who had a cut
across his knife cut, and he was like looking at
all of this, like beating on his chair and just

(01:05:30):
waiting for him. Damn you motherfucker to get up. Sit there.

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
Now, you can't leave.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Yeah, So I mean, people were stuck. So I decided,
I said, look, Billy's upstairs, it's my friend. I'm gonna
go see what's up. He didn't say a word. He'd
let me go up when I opened the door, and
he had this egg chairs you could sit in. They
had the music come through. You could sit down and
listen to music. Sly looked over at me and he

(01:05:57):
remembered Billy said, Man, this is George. They don't fuck
with him, this motherfucker. Because we had in our family,
to be honest, some inside on some brutal kind of
shit with motherfuckers been in prison. So we had our
own mafia thing that runs in the family, and including
certain people that came to assistance of FOI who who

(01:06:22):
they worked and went and got some of them in
an organization. So I never really talked about that. And
you know, we grew up with gangsters living in our block.
The leader of the Slossons, leader the Gladiators back then
the next door to us and down the street, so
and we had all to find his babysitters. So they came,

(01:06:48):
so they were trying to get with them, and then
they protected us. And since we had just three puzzling
and played music and went around to all the high
schools and colleges, we brought people together. And if it
wasn't for you and your group, me and my wife
wouldn't have got you know, it was it was.

Speaker 4 (01:07:04):
It was like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
So I kind of felt every move of emotions that
people would describe, and you know, I didn't take anything
for granted. That just kept my ears open wide, knowing
that'd be a great opportunity to jump or go to
different places that no one else could take me. Everywhere
I have been, no one else but the next great

(01:07:26):
person took me to, like Billy Preston, you know, And
when after after I was up in the bedroom and
there were Billy was on the cloud and that and
Sli was on the Fender Roads. But playing on Billy
played a lot of backwards stuff, just.

Speaker 10 (01:07:41):
Like in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
So do wow, you know, I think, but I can't yeh.
Billy would here would slively playing and he'd just do
a he he knew where his place would be. And
I heard poet and I'm like, it gets no funky,

(01:08:07):
you know?

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
Can I ask you something?

Speaker 8 (01:08:12):
So because normally I talk to people about their reaction
to there's a ride going on once it's the finished product,
but what they're creating it's nothing like the raw ra
cheer leader vibe of what stand represented or the dance
of the music album.

Speaker 4 (01:08:33):
Every day people, You're totally right, like was this not
a foreign thing to you? For you to be hearing
like this is literally the first funk I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Was in to the original stuff that you're talking about.
And I was all in a political movement, so for
us to see a black man just how we had
other people knocking, like Muhammad Ali, but he has his
wig on a long collar, looking like a clown. But
they was just his look.

Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
At the same time, he's like, you know, how black
can you be? And you're gonna go there and disgrace
Islam wearing a wig. He was on one David Caviage
show or something like. You know, he talked about it,
and I could see Muhammad at Lee's point and I
could see Sly's point. He told me how he made
the band. You know, we have different colors, different textures,

(01:09:26):
a whole bunch of colors, and that's where George Clinton
got his whole idea from, and you know, different sounds,
and he even was different. But he was the leader
of the group. So he said, you have all that,
all those colors, all that creativity of all that sound.
So he didn't admit to so after hearing Dance to

(01:09:51):
the Music was the first one that I heard, even
though we heard I was down with them when they
were in contests with the Chambers brothers, who time was
up other than Chaga's brothers too. But the line that
we're gonna win and all his greatest hits, like you
had mentioned, even from Don't call Me Nigger Whitey, you know,

(01:10:14):
he made statements that were vital for those times, and
he spoke his mind. I think he was probably one
of ten groups that were just you know, he wasn't
afraid of it, putting it on the record that the
record states that boom, this is how I feel. This
is where we're coming from. So he was like the

(01:10:35):
warrior gangster on record. But did it not feel or
foreign to you? Like very uns It was because he
was in his world with the Riot album. He didn't
have a lot of input with the group, okay, and
or the Fresh album. He might would pull Freddie in,

(01:10:56):
Larry in, you know, he might would call in uh,
Cynthia or Rose you know. Rolls and I became very
close because she was like I told her, letting me
know anytime there was a problem. So she was watching
My Watchman and I was telling him everything from what
he ate, well, he likes a couple of newdles, said
that all. Doesn't y'all give him some.

Speaker 4 (01:11:19):
Vegetables.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
He liked cheese, which is you know, he told me
that weird day. If you got a packet of cheese
in the back of your pocket, then you got something
else you don't need that goes with it, that it
clogs you up. Yeah, because of lactose.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Yeah, So a lot of stuff like that. He I
didn't know. He just tell me in the studio you
got it now that.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Yeah, you told me stories about Hendrix, which he knew.
Hendrix was my know, which I did have a chance
to meet Hendrik Sai or his dad.

Speaker 4 (01:12:04):
Can I ask a question? Was Betty Davis around at
any part of this?

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
I never saw her? Damn, I never saw her. But
I liked this the baseline Larry did with with a
lot of her stuff. Oh for yeah, oh yeah, that
was that was the ship. But it was you know,
when you talk about funk, there was really no other
person that you can go to outside of when George

(01:12:34):
Clinton came up. His funk was different. So everybody had
that little different type of funk. And that's why him
and George won. I knew they were gonna hook up.
First the egos came in, and once that settled down
and they're both together, then George would call me up
versus about ten years ago and man, you his slie
new stuff. He's done so and now I really hadn't

(01:12:55):
heard it because you know, I would be the one
who would talk about him from his face, right, I said, Man,
you know, first of all, you ain't gonna be doing
that ship in my house. Second of all, maybe I
think I'm gonna wait to after you die to little
sell more records. His eyes got this, man, ain't nobody

(01:13:18):
told me no ship like that, I said, Jimmy Hendrix
died and his record sales boost. You know, if you
want to start acting ignorant, you know, I'm even going
through all this music you letting me go through, and
if you're gonna put something together, I just might wait
till you're gone and it'll be worth more money. So

(01:13:40):
he knew I would like talking to him like himself
talking to himself. I said, you taught me everything about
you that I know. He first care said man gj
Used called me gedg. You got more on my records
than I have thought existed. And I would cut some stuff,

(01:14:00):
recut it, like singing a simple song and playing my
version and like totally tweak it out. That'd be STEPHF.
Troy would get, you know, add some stuff, and you know,
he could tell things I was into and have it.
Could I play and learned to play a lot like
Larry Graham, but I also learned a lot and playing

(01:14:21):
bass like Sly. Both of them knew that. And I
played the guitars like he was unsynthesized, said, man, you
got to get back to these telecaster guitars, tankling, you
know what I'm saying. Like on the slow version of
Thank You. You know that was a sound you're not
doing that you're trying to incorporate, and you're putting three

(01:14:41):
things on one track, which shouldn't be doing anyway, because
you know, that's how he would record play a certain
amount of you know, guitar or something on there I
was and it switched to a loud mood bass to
make the meters go up.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
And I said, was he his own engineer?

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
Yep? Right, So you know when I hooked up with him,
I was trying to teach him a couple of things
that I learned from Bruce Woodine. So you know, certain
things that you know, minus three dB for like a
high hat or anything that bright comes back at you
how has laid down. You know, I never would have

(01:15:19):
known that I learned a lot from Bruce.

Speaker 4 (01:15:22):
Say, I forgot that Bruce Woodine actually engineered your records.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Yes, we were the reasons why this is gonna trip
you up off the wall happened thriller blooprint and bad
Michael introduced I could show you a picture us at
Carnegie Hall, and he was following seventy nine and he
was following the brothers Johnson down to my little bow

(01:15:46):
tie I had on when he did the covers for
because yeah, I used to work, you know, I used
to He was studying, studying me and my brother, and
he loved the sound. He was complaining about whether you
should go the qu at that time they had just
started working on but had eight months into Off the Wall,

(01:16:07):
and I knew then, you know, it was my job
and it was nothing I could do to step back
and just let them float as long as they could go.

Speaker 4 (01:16:22):
How did you guys end up getting with Quincy?

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Well, with Quincy, I had hooked up actually with Stevie
Wonder because I was going to join Wonderlove auditioning for
me and my brother before that.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
Really, yeah, and I was on or like after like
what period?

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
This was around right before he recorded the song Creeping,
because I was in the studio with them all night. Yeah,
I had been kind of because we were at the
record plant and he was a studio B okay okay,

(01:17:03):
and we were in the Studio A or Studio C,
which is the biggest studio where Quincy was. Yeah, and
I think I was in the Chacuzie hanging out a
couple of times.

Speaker 4 (01:17:12):
It was in the studio plan.

Speaker 6 (01:17:16):
Right when you walk in that door to the left,
the left, they turned into a gym. It's a gym now.
I think they got some exercise equipment.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
Initially it was a jacuzie, which is cool because if
you work in one, just chill out and go on
jaczie and get you.

Speaker 6 (01:17:31):
Some food and hang out, amongst other reasons.

Speaker 4 (01:17:36):
Yeah, I might want to man.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
Well, they was keeping it pretty clean. It was all
It always has been pretty clean.

Speaker 4 (01:17:47):
But we.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Was in there, and Quincy will tell you this, and
he mentioned in his interviews too, that took me and
Lewis and we were in the studio with with Stevie.
It's like, okay, this now, this is my brother because
I always initiate the initial hook up. Say I hung
there without Lewis when I was caring creeping. Now, I
don't know if it had a lot, because Stevie used

(01:18:11):
to always call me Turan brother. This my Turian brother.
I knew when he would record his birth My birthday
is like seventeenth think his was the fourteenth or fifteen, thirteenth, thirteenth. Yeah,
so I would creep into the studio two three o'clock
in the morning, and he knew my footsteps.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
He knew the rhythm in the pattern.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
He knew how he knew my walk. Just George Johnson,
just George Johnson's it. Okay, was rocking his head. Say
what you doing man? He pressed the button. I'm gonna
start this new track, finishing one thing, which was I
forgot the last song. He did his song that too.
It was so fun of him, Like, man, he had
too much funky things in the can. Now this is

(01:18:56):
after I met Sly, So it's like, now all the
and I'm gravitating. I had Billy pressed in his slice.
I'm gravitating, just two keyboard players. M hm. So I
spent all night with his mom and first time she
met Stevie and creeping unfolded from the tambourine. The first
thing he later.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
That was the first thing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
The first thing on the track was the tambourine right right,
and then that's all you heard. Then he added everything
else and we were there till about eight in the morning,
and the whole damn song was done. And I'm like,
you see how bad this matter offuck is Without a

(01:19:38):
that's crazy, yeah, without the click.

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
He just be the last night.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
And he did that, you know, probably maybe as a
test store. Because we're sitting up there, I wonder what
he's gonna do next, you know, And he did everything
to the drums, synthesizes all the parts and you put
a basic vocal and that that's why we were there
from like two in the morning, probably about ten thirty
in the morning. But a couple of my close friends

(01:20:08):
knew because I'd be up at a and them in
the studio late at night between him and Line of Richie,
and we passed it. Hey, Line was up. He was
a night out too. Some of them don't make a
move until after twelve, and you can't call them before
three in the afternoon because they're sleep right, so you know,
then they'd call me. Steve would give me a heads up.
I bet studio, George, okay, I'll be at the studio.

(01:20:30):
I said, all right, I might come down. Well, you know,
to look up in line. On one time I called
it two thirty. Say it's not three o'clock yet. I said,
all right, all right now, but Tommy back coming back,
man coming back. And you know, just they knew who

(01:20:50):
I had hung over and who I've been hanging out with.
Because after that I went to George Duke. So it
was Billy Preston, Stevie Wonder, George Duke, that's the.

Speaker 4 (01:21:02):
Education, Yeah, for real.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
And then I went to uh, George Duke, Bill Withers.
This was before Billy Preston.

Speaker 4 (01:21:14):
I forgot because you're on the back cover of Bill right.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
Yeah. Yeah, me and my wife and my dad who
was sitting.

Speaker 4 (01:21:22):
On the ground. So was that a real?

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
Like what was the concept behind Ray Parker Jr.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
Was that a real because he on Sultan.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
He was to the left with his wife. Yeah, it
was like it was a whole. It was on Bill's property,
in his backyard. We just took like we was over
there for barbecue and hanging out. Just took a musician
family picture, and you know it's like heavy hitters are there.
They were, they were on set. And even back then,

(01:21:55):
somebody like maybe Ray Parker is like he just recently
hooked up with Sly. A lot of people wanted they
knew I was there. I could easily invite him to
but I never take anybody over this. The only person
that took over his place was Irene care because she
was my neighbor and Patrise Russian, And to be honest
with you, I think she was a little bit envious.
So I know she was a Michael Jackson because she

(01:22:17):
she wanted me to be just the only one. She didn't,
you know, want too particular about said to Garrett would
come over right, you know, and you remember side, so
you two were next door neighbors. That next door she
lived the street that explains to the curve, right. That's how, Yeah,
we hooked up.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
And that was the weirdest. Whenever I saw the credits
on the album, I'm like, I didn't care.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
And she was a great right and she went lyrics.
She really had nothing to do with the music.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Uh. Back then I was experimenting with basslines on keyboards
and it was like a Bobby Brown thing. Don't don't down,
don't don't don't you know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):
And that was way before then. We are the ticket
to the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Irene lived probably like three blocks away Patrise. Russian lived
about four blocks away and around the corner. So I
used to I used to always before Irene moved out
to where I am, and she moved twice near me.
You know, I guess a lot of people's like if
you hang out with somebody, because I always wanted to

(01:23:28):
meet her That's how Fame tour manager said, so I
want to meet her, said you're gonna work with her
one day, and that happened without his help. We just gravitated.
Actually the fifth member of Toto who did a lot
of movie scores.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
DA. No, it's never total.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
They are all members of the group, James Newton, Howard
Howard and I because we was working in the studio
and he's the one to introduce me to Irene.

Speaker 4 (01:24:03):
Do you still speak to her? I was just I
was like, I haven't heard from her in a while.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
Yeah, we talked, but it's you know, it's we're still cool.
It's like I kind of let things lie where they
lie if you get pissed off about something I heard.
She was very hard to get along with the time.
I wasn't like forcing anything, and it's like, if you
are a true person who you are, you kind of
let things go. But I think it boiled down too
all of a sudden, We're together working and you saying, oh,

(01:24:29):
I can't work with you today, Casid Garrett's coming over attitude,
or you know, I can't work digging Irene. I mean
Patrese's coming over. Patrice came over and she heard this
one song I did call I Fresh and sly I
wanted to play on it too, and I didn't let him.
But so if you pass some time to pull up,

(01:24:53):
you pull up I Fresh, and you're gonna hear some
similarity or sly Stone, which he was the one that
got me playing keyboard. Okay, So Patrese came over. That
was her favorite gen. She used to come over just
to hear that. So when Irene Carer would see her
coming up, all ship's gonna get you know, it's over
because he might be working with Irene. You know, he

(01:25:14):
might be where it wasn't might be I was working
with you know, side Garrett. We cut a lot of
demos together.

Speaker 4 (01:25:20):
And how did you guys end up signing with like
and M? And story?

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
Okay, okay. At when we're at the record plant and
I was working with Q, I had told him the
story because before and then I would go up to
A and M because I was working with Billy Preston.
He was on A and this would be the first
good place to go on. I took and them basically

(01:25:49):
the same kind of song that I took Quincy, Okay,
you know, and they basically you know, didn't pay attention
because you had a black door to go through a
white door. And that was funny because we were the
only group in the history of May and Them who

(01:26:09):
covered all genres of music, not just funk, jazz, blues pop.
You know. So Michael was paying attention to back then,
and we started paying most of the bills, you know,
from Styx. I was the one who had picked Human
that was on the charts for twenty seven weeks, the

(01:26:33):
song Human by Human Nature, Human League. Yeah. I did
a lot of stuff, ghost stuff that a lot of
people don't realize and wait, yeah, and it brought Jimmy
jam and Terry Lewis on the scene.

Speaker 4 (01:26:53):
So how did.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
Well, John McLean and I are very close and I
was like helping him out. Yes, everybody else, Yeah, well
this is probably before a lot of other things that happened.
But you know, we were just about ready to leave
a and m and I was doing my job. I
just kind of got bored and didn't have my parking

(01:27:16):
space there, and I told him, I said, I help
you out there. The guards and everybody knew what George
Johnson's here, He's probably back there helping another motherfucker out.
John McLean had given me first this cassette and told
me to listen to it. Tell me what I thought.
He was originally working in the mailroom, think making about

(01:27:39):
five hundred bucks a week or something like that at
a and him became before he came, so he went
to the Power Moves. It's just how I got Sly
on Jesse Johnson's record video.

Speaker 4 (01:27:50):
You did that? Yeah, wow, I was the only one
that makes sense, the only one but never had sense.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
Yeah, never got credit for a lot of stuff. That's
what I'm saying. A lot of truth. Crazy crazy, And
Sly wasn't interested. You told me, man, I don't want
to do this and get you some money. You could
do what you like to do, all right.

Speaker 4 (01:28:12):
You can do what you like. Jesse.

Speaker 8 (01:28:14):
Jesse did our episode and he explained to us that, yeah,
he just sent the two inch to.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
Yeah, they never met before the video.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
It's like he wasn't interested in meeting him. He said,
you're the funcust why he want interested in meeting Prince?
I said, man, you got to go hang with Prince,
and he did. Prince came out to his place and
he was in the palisades, and Slide told me he
knocked on the door, came out. I said, what did
you do? Just looked at him on the monitor. I

(01:28:42):
didn't let him in.

Speaker 4 (01:28:47):
Now why Prince gravitated to Larry?

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
But Prince Prince had Larry and focus. He was trying
to bring back Sly to him, and Slid and Sly
and Freddy who at it not to go with Prince.
They're the only two that held out. Slide told me
a prince just trying to be like me. I said, well,
let him be like you and he the new you,

(01:29:11):
you know, let him you know, if he got all
this money could help you. Prince Sly one out there
and saw his complex and I think very you know,
could be jealous or at least about it. And you
know what I mean. But he's been to the right
and he's been to the left, being up and down
with his financial status. And you know, when you see
another person coming and want to be you, they wouldn't

(01:29:32):
even let him send At the hard Rock Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, Prince asked to sit at the table.
They wouldn't want They didn't let him come sit at
the table. Would Sly in the family stone? So I
mean he was trying to be, you know. That's why
he was very cordial to me, you know, and do
you give me a private show. I could have probably

(01:29:53):
went with them, but I wasn't too into their you know,
I knew he was gonna be prince after that. You know,
I wasn't gonna be too much more of you know,
the time happened, like I said, when Jimmy, jam and
Lewis because they did the drum tracks and all that
on Human and that was bringing them in. But John

(01:30:14):
McClean asked me to listen to this cassette and tell
me what you think. So I probably would wait till
along the way good to lunch for the next day,
and I would listen to it when I leave my house.
So I listened to it, turned it out, got the
side too, and Human came up. You know, It's like

(01:30:35):
I had to keep rewinding. I didn't even know it
was Jimmy and Terry.

Speaker 4 (01:30:38):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
So I said, okay, got to the I was gonna
kept listening to us. I couldn't go no further than that.
I said, you know what A and them, It just
going to show you, show you about these companies. A
lot of people that ain't got the right ears. I said,
this is totally fucked up because they got this hit
out of see Quince's side to second song on side too.
It should be on side one the first record. Oh.

(01:31:01):
Man said, that's cool. I'm bringing in my boys, Jimmy
and Terry. I said, who Jimmy, Jammy Tayor. I said,
whoever did it needs to be I didn't even know
that they were from the time, right, okay, okay? And
I said, you need the next board, meaning because I
was actually on the Board of Governors with the Grammys
from the seventh ninety two ninety four. They wanted me

(01:31:25):
to become the president of NARS and at that time
I chose not to us. I said, I got an
mc hammer came up. Oh wow, I got bored on
board of the board.

Speaker 6 (01:31:44):
So it was a lot of things that sometimes I like, damn,
I wish you would have did it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Well, you know, it was cool. I mean I was in.
I was on the head of the producer committee because
Irene Carry's husbands will encourage me to get on the board.
He said, man, yeah, well all the stuff you know
and have been through. He said, you need to be
signing off on some stuff and you know, I was
on the producer committee for two years and picking up is.

Speaker 4 (01:32:09):
It like to be at that level because like right
now Jimmy jim is also Yeah, really I was on
the he's.

Speaker 6 (01:32:18):
Like one of the heads of the producer committee.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
How important is it? Like what's the end games being at?

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
Well, say number one was they all thought I was
the plant of Quincy's.

Speaker 4 (01:32:31):
Ahay, they were scared, so.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
They and this is after Thriller. Okay, I was there.
That was in eighty four, I mean at eighty four. Yeah,
so after that, I was there from ninety two to
ninety four. So they thought I came with the master
map of the plant, okay, and it was cool, and
I just didn't want to be on the border ground
and I wanted to go to to find out. Okay,

(01:32:54):
what's the highest position, you said, producer committee. So I
got on that like instantly. I was getting all free music.
They'd send me the box and I wouldn't have to
pass it on to nobody else that kept all the CDs.

Speaker 6 (01:33:08):
That was the first time I heard the chronic.

Speaker 4 (01:33:13):
For those committees.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
You just get everything, okay, yeah, I mean, well the
other ones you share except for the producer committee, because
you got these different categories of music. So you may
have two and three people. Oafter you get through the box,
send it to sell it. You know, sometime they may
take out a few things, but you have to deliver
the whole box.

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
And what's the whole purpose of that committee?

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
To well? With that committee? You eventually before that, if
you're just going to be a member of the board,
they're going to get your briefcase and have a lot
of applications that you sign people on to the Grammys
from September. After September it is too late, okay, so
you actually will see a group. There's a lot of
people now say, oh, would you like to get go

(01:33:57):
for a nomination? I maina sure for the Grammy. Their application, right,
you're not gonna say no. You know, you fill out
the application. You have the right to submit to fruit.
Yeah right, okay, so you know what I mean. I
didn't get paid. I brought intellect and experiencing what I

(01:34:19):
know about music. Since I hooked up and had all
these other people from Billy Preston.

Speaker 4 (01:34:24):
You brough an opportunity basically, right.

Speaker 2 (01:34:26):
I could hear something now when it's a hit. Just
how I picked the song Human When I told John McClean,
I said, you go up to the board meeting next week.
I know it was the second week of every month,
and you tell her Bible and Jerry Moss because they
had sticks out thing in Human League. I said, this
is the hit that's on side too, and I don't

(01:34:47):
think they ever changed it, but then they did try
it and it wound up on charts number one for
twenty seven weeks. That was the first time people at
A and M news. I think John mintioned George told
you he said that that was the one. So I
was like the ghost of music there picking hits.

Speaker 9 (01:35:09):
When did you guys first start recording your first album?
Form with Quincy producing seventy five And that was on
his album is It Love that We're Missing? Wrote four
songs trying to find out about you just listening listen.

Speaker 7 (01:35:24):
And he has those writing sessions. He would like a
little dictaphone, he would like record when he played the
songs yeah with Quincy, like in the in his apartment.
He like has all of that stuff. He used to
play that stuff for me when I was on the
way to school. I was like five years old listening
to these like session tapes of them writing these growing.

Speaker 8 (01:35:42):
Up, Like, at what point do you realize, Okay, he's
not just dad, but he's sort of might kind of
be a big deal and a big deal.

Speaker 6 (01:35:52):
Well, I always knew he was like a superhero and
I was at two years old.

Speaker 4 (01:35:59):
My first word was tape.

Speaker 6 (01:36:02):
And it's funny he passed down the same so it
was kind of like how how my grandfather.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Gave hold on. He would also say, ready, cassette.

Speaker 7 (01:36:09):
Go, So yeah, he he did the same thing with
me where he because I was like, I didn't know
what capacity I was going to do. Uh music, I
just was into it, and I was into the technology
side of it, and so like I love the tape machine.
Because I would see him in his studio and you know,
he'd be laying down the guitar part. So he teached

(01:36:31):
me how to punch him in because he didn't he
couldn't punched men, and like you know, certain things, and
so I was all, you know, he'd bring me to
the studio and I meet all these amazing great people.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Wasn't paying attention to nobody like this is Quincy Jones.

Speaker 4 (01:36:48):
Uh who is on the cover or the inside of blam.

Speaker 6 (01:36:53):
That's uh that Cody cousin.

Speaker 4 (01:36:58):
Son.

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
Yeah, yeah, they still hang out. He's trying to do music.

Speaker 6 (01:37:01):
But yeah, that's none of them.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
I like Troy Okay, Well.

Speaker 6 (01:37:09):
Sound pretty okay.

Speaker 4 (01:37:10):
So I have I have questions about the production techniques
of the brother Johnson the Brothers Johnson sound, but I
have to get this question out the way. Well, first
of all, we look out for number one, right, uh,
like many other uh songs done by black artists. Of course,

(01:37:33):
that was always my exposure to the Beatles before. Yeah,
I thought that I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't. That
was my first time hearing that, so right, and you know,
my art teacher trying to tell me, like, no, that's
not the Beatles did this verse. We did, but I'm
in first grade, so I didn't know the.

Speaker 2 (01:37:49):
First Well, yeah I got that was the crimination of
the Funkadelic and Brothers Johnson and Beatles.

Speaker 4 (01:37:57):
I see, Well it worked because I always thought that
that was your song.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
Yeah, no, there wasn't. You know, everything I would approach
it would have to have a signature on it. A
lot of the first album that you were talking about
mostly was one bass, a drum machine, and probably about
eight guitars. That's how I learned about arrangement. Quincy would
take all the guitar parts and put different and it's yeah,

(01:38:29):
I mean we our keyboard players be like George Duke
and Herbie Hancock, Harvey Mason on drums, so our band
were people that he could get and come into the studio.
Harvey Mason was playing with headphones on pull out the
drum track on songs like trying to find out about
you if you you know it would just go for

(01:38:51):
it and we you know. So that was like the
only the first band outside the little band we had
and these are like you walking in you saying Herbie
Hancock walking the floor, like playing notes on and tell
me bedtime story now. Uh, you know all that kind
of stuck in my head that Herbie wrote that They had.

Speaker 4 (01:39:12):
You guys with the rhythm section on sounds and stuff
like that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
I played on a few things. They took me out
the mix purposely when Michael Jackson hit and Lewis had
a lot to do with that. That's when we started.
I was about to chew his head up.

Speaker 4 (01:39:30):
I was going to sort of.

Speaker 2 (01:39:35):
Come.

Speaker 4 (01:39:36):
I was going to get there. Wait, wait, I have
one specific question the Devil. That was my jam. It's okay,
but I just want to know. Did y'all everythink like
a seven year old with hear the songs?

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
Jesus Well actually didn't work because I wrote that song
after The Exorcist came up.

Speaker 4 (01:40:00):
Come on, man, it's like, okay, listen with song.

Speaker 2 (01:40:04):
I would always skip it with Billy Preston and by
him being Christian and all that, and they had the
gospel music. It's certainly what I would step out of
the zone. And it makes songs like make the Devil man,
you know, so I gotta make me a devil song?

Speaker 3 (01:40:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:40:21):
You did? You did?

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
And I used the stand and I took a pencil.
That's when it starts. You got yeah yeah, And I
used Hendricks. I got my watch Hendrix here.

Speaker 4 (01:40:47):
Okay, so this is what I'm telling you. Yeah, as
an adult, let's see the technique. I see the.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
Technical Let it get to the fun really quick.

Speaker 4 (01:40:56):
This ain't the f.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
Sli no, no, no, no song o cakes.

Speaker 4 (01:41:06):
Wow, that's the suit.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
I said the stuff huddle, don't make hair like that's
my bass line?

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
And was that you singing on singing?

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):
They gonna be born? Guitars coming all of the counterpoints like.

Speaker 4 (01:41:41):
All right, we're about to hitting the ass burning party,
run under the covers and he will take you down.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
You're going to be a snoop time.

Speaker 4 (01:41:57):
He will have your ass.

Speaker 8 (01:42:02):
I think in nineteen seventy seven, I accept what Jesus questions.

Speaker 2 (01:42:06):
Person like, and you know what, I probably wrote it
because I was raised and wasn't ultiboy.

Speaker 8 (01:42:19):
They were like a mirror again, like that song, that song,
It did it literally like I never saw you to
the same ever again. And even with y'all, even the
shutter open, uh for the back cover of Right On Time,

(01:42:40):
I was still thinking.

Speaker 4 (01:42:41):
Like, oh man, I would bury your albums like and
then like bottom last of my Dad's pole, I had
to do that with my dad was just giving. Some
covers were scarier, should you bury them under?

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
I'd give. I would give acknowledgment to certain things that
kids should know and adult should know. The devil was
like I wasn't scared of him. I even ran my
vocal thing backwards. That's how I got that sound, and
I used your mother sucks cocks and how yeah I
did play it and you hear it. That'd be a

(01:43:26):
whole nother phone.

Speaker 4 (01:43:34):
I'm sorry, man, I wasn't listening to.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
And the thing.

Speaker 8 (01:43:43):
But but aside from that, Blake, aside from that, I
always wanted to know you guys had a very weird.

Speaker 4 (01:43:56):
Greek course technique that I can only described as like
this animated muppet sound like for yourself, be yourself right exactly,
or even right on time, or even like very speeding
Serena's voice on get the funk out of my face? Like,
how come you guys never.

Speaker 2 (01:44:15):
Just did me get the funk out of my face?

Speaker 4 (01:44:19):
I've always thought that that was me.

Speaker 8 (01:44:22):
But how come none of the vocal techniques, besides your
lead vocal, how come they were never just dry and
natural like you guys were either like even with Stump,
it's like the Muppets were singing.

Speaker 2 (01:44:42):
No, it basically came from things that were going on
TV shows, you know. I mean you're walking in with Q.
You got to have like various types of you know, uh,
like characters. Yeah, they were like characters. It's just like
the brother who sang the parts you sounded like. I

(01:45:03):
can't think of his name right now, but he got
that stuff because he knew in the sly.

Speaker 4 (01:45:11):
Right right, I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:45:14):
So he was a wonderful person coming in to do that.
It's like I wanted to take No, I wasn't Richard,
he was one. He did a high vocal too. Why
in the hell can he came out and see that's
when you get old Alex Bob.

Speaker 4 (01:45:29):
No, uh, I didn't know that Ricky was playing with
you guys. Ricky Lawson.

Speaker 2 (01:45:33):
Yeah, I found him in Detroit in a basement. Really yep,
just in Detroit in a basement that one of my
musicians mentioned him and said he needed to be looked at.
So I went and looked at him. You know, he
went from there to heights, you know, and you know,

(01:45:57):
that's what it's about. And that's what I love about
Prince because he a lot of moneies he gave away
and went to kids who you know, had to do
with music or needed help. You know. He drop off
monies to different schools and different communities. He only would
take a certain amount and he'd leave the whole rest
of it and wind them given to the mayor, which

(01:46:19):
is something you know, It's kind of the attitude the
ultimate attitude Slide would have wanted. You know, I don't
need any monthy monthy.

Speaker 8 (01:46:36):
People got in the Sugary Otis way later, yes, in life,
but you were there for round one.

Speaker 4 (01:46:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
He was actually a neighbor to his parents, lived around
the corner. I used to go visit. I used to
visit them before I met him because I remember seeing
the Johnny Oda Show and Three Tons of Joy when
I was a kid, and I mentioned to my mom
and one of my cousins had me meet one of

(01:47:04):
Sugary's cousins who I almost started to date. I did
go over to her house. I think she passed away,
but I saw this album and it looked like this
Mexican dude on it, and I said, who's that? Oh,
this is my cousin. This is Sugar Yoldison. Before I
played that record run Across the Ice Cold Daydream and

(01:47:25):
all that stuff on there and Strawberry Letter Letter, I
went straight to Q and told him this is we
need to cut this song. And it was never a single.
Lewis used it at his wedding. Quin's the original one
Sugar Yoldis is and when we got to the vampa
the guitar and yeah, it's it's all over and we

(01:47:47):
have to do this this song.

Speaker 4 (01:47:48):
So it was your idea to cover Strawberry letter.

Speaker 2 (01:47:50):
Yeah, I brought some ship to the picture.

Speaker 4 (01:47:54):
No, your version to me is all we did, was.

Speaker 2 (01:47:57):
Added, Yeah, because you don't do nothing, he created. You
do something and beef it up. Otherwise it's not worth
doing all the time. You know, what do you think
that song is about? I know what it's about. And
that song basically is as shugy. He was almost had
that slide like attitude, and he'd have a girlfriend who

(01:48:17):
he never really respond to because he was a musician.
He kind of reminded me of me too. Don't come
between me right exactly. So she had written these strawberry
letter sent it letters to him, oh wow, and he
never opened one, and he told me he went back

(01:48:38):
he had a break, and all of a sudden he
opened them and still had the scent. You know, I
missed you, baby. When you're coming home, it be Strawberry
letter one, Strawberry two, all the way to twenty two.
That's why a present from you, Strawberry letter twenty three
two twenty two. The music plays I said that a
few so the song is actually twenty three, but the

(01:49:02):
people say why is it twenty three? And you always
say twenty two. All those letters a president from you
Strawberry letter twenty two. Right, that's where it ends, and
the song begins as twenty three The mystery unlocked. Yeah, difficult.

Speaker 4 (01:49:20):
Did you ever get his initial reaction to it when
when he heard it?

Speaker 2 (01:49:23):
Or Sugar and I was tight as me and fly
because Sugar could sometimes be very hard to get along
with and deal with. I knew his parents two years
before I even met him. When I met him and
then he heard, you know, because Quincy had got him
to come into the studio. We were out of town

(01:49:44):
to do the guitar solo, and he couldn't play it
because it was in a different key. It's like I played,
It's a whole different stretch. I didn't actually play on it.
He got to leave Ris why and that's the reason
he plays because I wasn't available. I left the road
to come home, did a little mix on it, and
then pulled up the two guitar parts and showed my

(01:50:05):
cousin the other part and went back out on the
road till Quincy finished it. So and then could put
it up so a lot of things. I mean, they
had my ass so busy that I should have got
credit for even the way it went down with Michael
Jackson because he wanted both of us, ok and they

(01:50:25):
told Quincy, you know, I want George and Lewis. Michael
was filing the shit and he was very disappointed. My
brother Lewis said, George doesn't write for anybody. He's working
on Brothers Johnson's stuff. He doesn't do sessions. So you
told him. My guitar person was in the room. He's
the one that told me that. Lewis said that. I said,

(01:50:45):
what did Quincy do? He said, he kind of looked up.
He didn't have too much to say because and I said, Okay,
I see the whole scenario. Because Quincy thow ahead, He
and them didn't want us to do shit. They was
trying to keep me like locked because back then and
even Quincy had done interviews.

Speaker 4 (01:51:04):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (01:51:05):
Is it Quincy Jones?

Speaker 4 (01:51:06):
Is it Michael Jackson?

Speaker 2 (01:51:08):
To me, it was all but at that time when
he when Michael came out with Off the Wall, Stump
was number one, So people would have gradued what we
would have automatically went to, Okay, it's the Brothers Johnson
who's making that shit happen. It ain't Quincy. And you
know the music is the vibe is you know, so
if they left me off, they what they didn't have

(01:51:29):
to put brother john sony okay, and then they just
took Lewis and he became, uh.

Speaker 4 (01:51:37):
That's crazy though, So is that just him on Get
on the Floor.

Speaker 2 (01:51:42):
Lewis played bass on Billy Jeans everything.

Speaker 4 (01:51:45):
A lot of what Get on the Floor is initially
the song he wrote.

Speaker 2 (01:51:49):
Yeah, no, no, no, I mean it could have been
one that was developed that I didn't even put guitar
on yet because it wasn't approved by me okay to
be totally honest, se So you know, I got left
out the mix. And you know, Michael did call me.
He took the kids out to Disneyland one day and
I had three messages sound like he was crying or

(01:52:12):
he was that's on him and Quincy was on the
way out to divide. But he knew between me and
James Ingram, we were the only two people that ever
you know, went back on Q's face. And because I
would look at him like a teacher and I also
look at him as a dad, that I also look
at him as a kid because I had to teach him.

(01:52:33):
He said, okay, Jordan, I had to hold Louis's hand,
but you're going to be all right. I said, well,
don't get too much any knowledge, and that Lewis boys
shit because he's young, he's on the Divideuse to be
totally honest. He you know, there's a lot of good
things about him. There's a lot of things that he
didn't play into correctly. He never really looked at himself

(01:52:56):
as being a part of Brothers Johnson because the Brothers
Incent was me and he'd picked nine or eight of
my songs out of the eleven they got on the
first album, Get the Funk Out in My Face. Lewis
wrote the track, I laid the guitar, I wrote the lyrics.
He did Land the Ladies and as all the rest
of those songs were mine. Quincy just said in a

(01:53:19):
meeting with George, you're gonna make all the money. I
just said, we'll give Louis give my brother half without
thinking so.

Speaker 4 (01:53:25):
For songs like Love Is and Running for Your Love
and all that, the songs that he said.

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
My signature running for eleven, I did that a lot
of songs I would do, and I knew he would
get pissed off because Quincy at first didn't know he
had learned Lewis, it's like play the accidental Who's that
on bass? He says, George, play it like George. I'm
like why and the fuck he said that? You know?
I mean? And I could put myself in Lewis's shoes too.

(01:53:53):
So a lot of my songs got favored and picked
and had my signature guitar. That's why when I stepped
up off on purpose on Blam, didn't write nothing in
Quincy's Call, and I said, man, give me a song,
Just give me one song. And I wrote Blam and uh,
that was a tie of the album, never a single
with all the other stuff. That's and they brought in.

Speaker 4 (01:54:17):
Simpson, who wrote and Ain't We Funking? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:54:20):
That was between me, probably Alex Lewis. You know a
few people in the band, Ricky Heath.

Speaker 4 (01:54:28):
Okay, you know. I always wanted to know why on Treasure, Ricky,
why did Ricky sing Treasure or not?

Speaker 2 (01:54:35):
Because I needed a break. I was singing too much,
and I like and I liked all about the Heaven,
which is typically that's my little He wrote both. But
it's like, damn, you know, I'm up here, and I
was like, I'm the only one working, working, working. Lewis
back played the bass chill. You know, I had to
like make him sing because somebody please sing a song

(01:54:56):
where I could just chill. And this is funn Come treasure, right,
And I loved that because when he'd sing it all
that to do the same background part.

Speaker 4 (01:55:05):
So I was like, so, I like, you're singing background
in your own right, right.

Speaker 2 (01:55:11):
I mean I didn't sing lead, and I'm back there saying,
you know, I felt like I'm hanging out with Aggie
Johnson side effecting, you know, and the cleaners, yeah, and
the cleaners on Crimp. We grew up together. Aggie knew
so much about me than that anybody knew, because he
was coming to the house and he watched it firsthand.

Speaker 4 (01:55:29):
Is that cleaner still on Prinshaw?

Speaker 2 (01:55:31):
I think it is okay, okay, But he's like, this
is Georgia's ship. And he would tell the band and
he said from from Lewis, he was there. He come
over to the house. He said, you think that's something
you ought to hit the original rass ship. Quincy polished
it and taught me how to do it. But you know,
you go with the white noise on four track and

(01:55:53):
triple it to the eight track, and you know you
get all these different type sounds and textures. Yeah, that's right.
Then you record the bass again to keep that fatter.
And I'm playing upside down bass left handed with a
pick and with my thumbs. And you know, Lewis was
good at he could take any of my stuff. The
difference was it would sound like Graham Central Station in

(01:56:17):
me okay, because Larry Graham taught me how to play bass.

Speaker 4 (01:56:24):
Did Lewis actually have the ability to play like James
Jafferson use his two fingers or would Yeah, he would.

Speaker 2 (01:56:29):
Play and he got his come up and as they
would say when he was in the studio with Stanley
Clark and the engineer hit record and Louis was always
like a warrior that saw he was in Japanese and
all this stuff, and you know he would challenge and
you know everything was about a challenge. And don't let
him get on stage and Larry call you up. Is

(01:56:50):
he gonna come out there and fuck you up? But
that's what he ultimately went to and stayed there because
he really didn't have a lot of friends. Bass players
like Stanley Clark. They got stuff on tape with him
at George Duke when Stanley would get ready to come
out and he turned back on Now I ain't gonna
start that ship, and he'd go back in this spot.

(01:57:12):
But he was when I first saw damn, it's like
I actually liked it because I saw Louis got his
ass whooped so bad. I'm gonna tell you how and why,
because they were in the studio one't a lot of
people around. But then you know, after he kind of
got established and you know, Quincy had called both of
them in. Louis couldn't read as fluent as Stanley Lewis,

(01:57:38):
couldn't two fingers fluent as Stanley Lewis is doing that
that stuff with thumping and all that, and then all Stanley,
you know, I'm like, second here, good, somebody showed his ass,
you know, without saying nothing. He needed to be to
be put down, knockdown few not.

Speaker 4 (01:58:01):
So, how did you guys work together on the Winners album,
which was the first album without Quincy?

Speaker 3 (01:58:09):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:58:09):
What was? It was very hard? I mean I worked more.
It's like you from the very first album. I picked
the album covered see Quence the songs mixed it.

Speaker 4 (01:58:19):
And the commercial was dope.

Speaker 2 (01:58:22):
And use it took a lot to you know, Quincy
was just our producer. We were signed to the label.
Lewis didn't want to do anything a lot of stuff
asked George, asked George, That's what I'm saying. He never
felt it was our group. M hm, you know, and
even into the Winners album, he didn't feel cool until
he did Passage album, which was the Christian album. I

(01:58:44):
had nothing to do with it. And leading up to
all that was even with the story with Michael, because
he didn't want me to be a part of that
because he'd feel like right, so he could take me
out the mix. And since I'm not on it saved
a lot of questions about was he Quincy Brothers Johnson?

Speaker 4 (01:59:05):
You know, why do you think it was important for
him to establish his or for him to have agency
as in this is mine and.

Speaker 2 (01:59:15):
Because this is ours? Well it wasn't. It wasn't. But
you know, unfortunately that's the.

Speaker 4 (01:59:20):
Way he grew up.

Speaker 2 (01:59:21):
He grew up at home under my mother's apron Well,
if you picture stuff like me and my older brother
and I had to split my time. Louis would stay home.
He would never go out and run and hang and
you know, most like get shot at sometime, a jump
a fence and ride your bikes. And you know, he
never experienced that. He was always a homeboy. He was
afraid he was hanging out with gangs and you know,

(01:59:43):
not in them, but around him knew him. So he
was very shielded. And that's another reason why him and
his first wife split up. I'm more in short, because
she would tell me, George, I don't have three kids.
I get four, which is you know, and when you're
protected like that. She would talk to him and we'd

(02:00:04):
be in the airport and I had to tell her
chill on her responses to him when he'd make a comment,
and in front of the whole band, it's like she
wouldn't you know, Oh Louis could acting like a child,
say please, don't talk to him like that. You know
he has the same amount of respect the band has
for me. When you talk to him like that, you know,

(02:00:25):
it doesn't work for me. So he was a different
you know, That's why he was so bad. A lot
of people who on the borderline of being a genius,
there's something a lot of things they can do and
a lot of things they can't relate to, right, But
they have fucking genius.

Speaker 4 (02:00:45):
You know. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:00:46):
He was very like to himself kind of person in general,
like you didn't really like he wasn't like very outgoing
only to certain people. One of the last things I
talked to him about on the email I was working
on the project. I was like, y'all, I'll do some
play a little bit too, a little bit bass, guitar, keys,
every little bit of everything. And I was like, Yo,

(02:01:06):
you know uncle, I want to, like, you know, do
some throwback sound. I want to kind of like get
your your tone. You're like, what, you know, what did
you you know what how'd you get that sound? How
did you like in your bass and all that? He
was like, oh yeah, like I'll tell you.

Speaker 6 (02:01:21):
He was like let me Uh. I was like, so,
you know, do I need to go buy a vintage
music man?

Speaker 2 (02:01:25):
I was.

Speaker 6 (02:01:26):
I was trying to plan to see, like let me
have one of your basses, but he know, I was like, man,
I'm trying to get this sound.

Speaker 7 (02:01:34):
How can I do I need to buy a vintage
He's like, Nope, don't buy advantage, you just get you know,
just buy you a Mexican Uh.

Speaker 6 (02:01:43):
What the p bass?

Speaker 4 (02:01:43):
What would he use?

Speaker 6 (02:01:45):
He used the music man uh uh sting Ray and
what he what what he told.

Speaker 7 (02:01:53):
So the whole secret was is when Fender Leo Fender
stopped working for Fender and started music Man, he uh
kind of uncle uncle Lewis was a part in developing
the Stingray bass and so the one that he had
was like specifically created for his style of playing, and
so they moded the it was too expensive to mass

(02:02:16):
produce and that was a part of his sound. So
it was like in the it was in the design
of the bass to kind of fit his style and
that's why his tone was so specific and at that
time nobody could get it because it was all it
not only didn't have to do with his playing, but
it was in the actual pickups, in the way that
the bass was designed.

Speaker 6 (02:02:34):
And that's what he told me.

Speaker 7 (02:02:35):
He was like, you know, you know, just get a
just get a Mexican p bass, you know, cheap and
hot rot it, and this is how you do it.

Speaker 6 (02:02:44):
And then told me the whole thing, and it was like,
don't tell you that.

Speaker 7 (02:02:51):
I was like why, Like it's like eight hundred years later,
like but you know, people asked me that question a lot,
like about them and the dynamic, and you know, when
I think about it, it's like, yes, it's you know,
everything my pop said. But also you just got to
think about it like they're just brothers, like if you
could just like from there from the beginning, like they

(02:03:12):
literally had an entire career together as brothers, like you
know if I don't know if any of you guys
have siblings, like.

Speaker 6 (02:03:20):
A whole career.

Speaker 7 (02:03:21):
Not only that, but it's like the whole world is
looking at you and y'all like y'all supposed to just.

Speaker 6 (02:03:26):
Like but that's the thing.

Speaker 8 (02:03:26):
I never saw it as like George's group and the
other guy in the background, right. The thing is to
me the brothers Johnson is, which is weird because I
know that, you know, for for them, and his guitar
playing is well documented on those records, but for me,
it's like his voice and Lewis's thumb, and to me,

(02:03:48):
like that thumb and your father's voice are equal.

Speaker 7 (02:03:53):
Right, and also like part of like some of that
even though my dad was like you know, on some
a lot of the records, like writing the parts guitar
parts and and some of the bass parts. Even like
we talked about this recently, the reason why it worked
it was, and it was such a specific and exclusive
sound was because of the two elements coming together. And

(02:04:16):
so even though my dad had an approach and perspective
and like he said, like he would he would bring
the Larry Graham element on if he would demo a bass,
And even though everybody, yeah, I play more like that,
you know, my uncle would still take it and do
his own thing and make it his own, you know,
and and use that as a blueprint. But eventually it
would just turn into his thing. And it was the
combination of all of that that made it do this.

Speaker 6 (02:04:37):
It was a balance. It was like this thing and
it was like, yeah, it was. It was crazy. And
I and I looked at it the same way too.

Speaker 7 (02:04:44):
Like growing I always thought it was just like, yeah,
it's the two of them that they are part of it.
But when I when I look back, like growing up
in it, you know, they were. They were my superheroes,
you know. Growing up I looked up to them obviously.

Speaker 4 (02:04:58):
And asking how are you.

Speaker 7 (02:05:02):
I'm thirty five, yeah, so uh, you know, I kind
of I was born in eighty three, So it's like
towards the end, I remember never doing the kicking album.
I was there for a lot of the sessions, and
like he started a lot of those demos at the
house and stuff, and that's when he like taught me
how to punch in and all that stuff.

Speaker 6 (02:05:20):
But yeah, like I it was, it was.

Speaker 7 (02:05:22):
It was crazy to watch it all like unfold. And
I knew my dad would kind of like take the
lead on certain things, but I don't think it was
ever like he said. It wasn't like he just was
just so hungry to take the lead. He just was
just like ever since the Johnson's three plus one, he
just do it because nobody else would want to sit
there and write the lyrics out. But they was out

(02:05:44):
playing and ship like it had to get done somehow,
you know. And and with my uncle, you know, he
was the he was the youngest sibling. So like he said,
like he he wasn't able to go out and run
the streets because he was too young.

Speaker 6 (02:05:57):
He just couldn't do it.

Speaker 7 (02:05:58):
And you know, my dad was like a little bit older,
so it was okay for him to be out with
the older brother. They're getting into trouble and ship and right.
So you know, I think it was just that you know,
them being yeah, that whole thing, you know, that that
whole thing. And it's interesting because my dad is like
the middle sibling, and so there's that, and then my

(02:06:18):
other uncle, the oldest, he's definitely the big brother, and
so they clashed a lot of times and bump heads.
But I think at the end of the day they
all still had a mutual respect for each other and
they were bump heads and even like U till right
before my uncle passed away. You know, they got together
and did the thing with Quincy at the Hollywood Bowl,
and you know, whenever it was, that magic never left.

(02:06:41):
That's the crazy thing about music, is like when once
you have that chemistry and that connection, no matter what
you go through and how you know, crazy it gets
like every time they would get in the room, when
when they would start, it was just like nothing ever
wouldn't happen.

Speaker 4 (02:06:56):
Can I ask a question, No, Mari, I gotta ask
a question on street wave? How the one is? Really?
I always this feels like a weird course.

Speaker 8 (02:07:14):
Stop laughing attecause don't doom doom, doom doom.

Speaker 4 (02:07:18):
I feel like your brother.

Speaker 8 (02:07:19):
Your brother emphasizes the two as the one, but you
guys are as The rhythm section or following the traditional
one two, three, four, But his the way he starts
at dude, I always feel like his pick up in
his mind was the one. It's just because the symbol

(02:07:41):
is emphasizing. It's just like I feel like it's a
it's a dog chasing his taille. Who is the architect
of street wave?

Speaker 2 (02:07:47):
Well, it's basically you're basically right because this on people
like Harvey Mason be on the set of John Robinson
and they would use their influence and they'll beat. They
know exactly what to do with Lewis drum wise, okay,
you know. I mean, we've had lots of drummers and
and a lot of ones that stuck well, like Harvey

(02:08:08):
Mason and uh Jr. Who I really loved. Harvey Mason Jr.
Was cool, He did the trick. Harvey Mason was like
one of the cats who was like a drum god
to me because he could pick up. He would play
to something of our tracks and we had the drum

(02:08:29):
machine already in it. We wouldn't be playing with him
except for in the headphones, okay, because we would cut
it with a drum machine. Then all of a sudden
he'd come in set and would play it and I
just watch him just how we'd be in a room
and this studio minds me of studio A and A
and M. They have all the big stuff where they

(02:08:51):
do strings and the whole illustrated stuff, but.

Speaker 4 (02:08:56):
We're the world room. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:08:57):
Yeah, and uh it's something funny speaking of that, how
we get left out of that when we were part
of the world.

Speaker 4 (02:09:13):
That was good.

Speaker 2 (02:09:17):
Even had James Browton, I mean Ray Charles in Sight
and Shaka Khan saying I'll be good to you yes,
and then me and it was like four people that
should be in the world with Guinness Records, Quincy Jones, myself,
Chakakan and rachels On one song I'll be Good to
You that I.

Speaker 4 (02:09:37):
Wrote, Oh that's right for back on the Block. Yeah,
I came right and.

Speaker 2 (02:09:43):
I was like, I would look how you look just well,
you know, yeah, I hope you did half of half
of it. I hope, yeah, but you know a certain things.
Wasn't surprised because I knew how the music industry was
and you can't come out. See we were signed to

(02:10:05):
a contract. That's why I want to believe in A
and M that you initially signed they had no idea
who you are, what you're going to be. They were
so jealous of Quincy because he until we came, brought
him out of jazz and all of a sudden, you
hear is the love that were missing that was GJ sound.

Speaker 8 (02:10:25):
And brought him you guys, definitely brought him into the
modern era, modern music era.

Speaker 2 (02:10:30):
And then and his closure would be and work for
him as a hit on Michael Jackson and do it
because Sony didn't want him to do it. They figured
he was just a jazz artist even though he produced us,
and he couldn't do the job. Quincy was like the
perfect camp in music. Have you have you because if
you think about it, you get, you know, Ry Templeton

(02:10:54):
to write some songs, great songs, You got Greg Felling Games,
You get all these great musicians. And I didn't notice that.
You know, I'm not talking about the brother or anything.
But every time he would get used this more they
would get used. If anybody's getting used, they wouldn't really
never get the credit they deserved. I'd say, great filling

(02:11:15):
Games put in about the certain the same amount of
work that I have done on projects, which then they
going to eventually give him an oscar for something. But
what about all the other shit that you did that
was you know, even more crucial. Michael Jackson, you know Michael.

Speaker 4 (02:11:32):
And then if you notice when we discussed that, yeah,
we had film games on the show last year, earlier this.

Speaker 2 (02:11:38):
Year when he went on his own, a lot of
his stuff wasn't that impressive, you know when he didn't
sell to men records he was trying to get. He
couldn't do that back when he first started without being
validated by someone who had ears like Mike Quinty and
his crew. I was doing that alone with me and

(02:12:00):
Quincy Seor Lewis played the bass and eat the sishy
and go to sleep on the couch. But I was
the one who had to finish above Quincy. And he knew.
I knew, Okay, you hired, you're you are the producer.
You are my brother, you are my father. I respect
you the highest because you could teach me more than
anybody has taught me, from sly Stone to Billy Preston.

(02:12:24):
And you know, we were just grooving with our friends.
With them, they just played me ship and look at
me and smile. I'm like, damn, you don't play some
moret you know this. I was like, man, if this
ain't funky, I eat concrete.

Speaker 4 (02:12:46):
Wait a minute. Speaking of which, ah damn. I forgot
to ask what was the situation behind this? Had to
be like how.

Speaker 8 (02:12:55):
You technically did get to work with Michael Jackson on one?
So yeah, was a track, which is weird because Black.

Speaker 4 (02:13:02):
Radio used to pimp like this is the duet with
Michael Jackson and brothers Johnson, and they would debut it
and play it and then I just hear, like one mouseie.

Speaker 2 (02:13:14):
What he's doing like that, which my daughter would love
because she knew his voice and took her around and
he was doing thriller Billy Jean to the studio. But
that song happened. That was a B track that wasn't
even supposed to be included in any of our stuff.

(02:13:37):
We were out on tour. Michael s to write get Quincy,
you know, one of our songs. He wanted to write
with us, but the way he chose to write, he said,
go in and see what he did. What they recorded
that they weren't using. I never did like this had
to be because it was a base. It was it's

(02:14:01):
like that don't even sound like you. I dug it,
you know, And it wasn't Lewis because the one time
he went on a scent based in the tangent you know,
play it on stage. Was just saying, man, how could
you not play your bass?

Speaker 4 (02:14:18):
You know? Did you not?

Speaker 2 (02:14:19):
You weren't known for keyboard.

Speaker 3 (02:14:21):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:14:22):
What was the decision to not have him played that
bass line?

Speaker 2 (02:14:26):
Well, it was no decision. What happened was It's like
when it got to that point, I didn't give a
ship or a fuck about nothing, to be honest, It's
like you couldn't hurt me no more and you already
hurt me and I still had knocked you up the
bottom line. Now, if Michael got the track, he wrote
the lyrics, it was all about Michael Jackson's I don't.

(02:14:48):
I didn't even play guitar on it. That's how pissed
I was.

Speaker 4 (02:14:52):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:14:52):
There's no guitar on the damn okay, So it's like
Michael got the leftovers. Only thing I did was sing
lead okay. And you know I didn't plan for it
to be a single nothing, because it's like I wouldn't.
Well at that point, we hadn't used that for an
album to be put on an album. So I was like,

(02:15:15):
all right, Michael came up with this stupid ass. If
he wasn't checked it would have checked with me on
you know which tune? Could I have gave him one
of mine or written one?

Speaker 5 (02:15:24):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:15:25):
So he like took a B tune wrote on it
just because of his name and went forward. And A
and M already did they quota or only going to
release one? We never gotten more than two songs a
hit off of a record, except that's it. That's why
Quincy and enrolled with Thriller and they got eight off

(02:15:48):
of that. That's kind of one of the teachings. But
A and M did not want to recognize truth even
though they were Herbalt and Jerry Moss, and we got
sold off to PolyGram for two hundred and fifty million,
along with the rest of all the other groups, you know,

(02:16:08):
real like that. I just went into the office with
her Abell and Jeremi. I said, look, we are men,
I'm done. I walked away from at least two point
three million on my next album that I could have
done as a single, but I said, okay, that'll just
be sounding like another Brothers Johnson record. So I didn't
want to even acknowledge. It wasn't that I needed the money,

(02:16:30):
but that was in my contract. My lawyer said, they
could have paid you your two point three million you
just walked away from.

Speaker 4 (02:16:37):
Back in.

Speaker 2 (02:16:40):
Or the eighties. So, I mean it was a lot,
you know, I had to deal with politics that I
was very frustrated. I kind of knew that we were
locked in. That's why I was kind of teaching them
and showing them back in what I had, picking singles

(02:17:02):
Janet Jackson, whatever you've done lately, nasty. You know, the
Human League thing I got Slide for John McClean, and
Slide didn't want to do it. I twisted his arm
to do it. So it was a lot of things
where I was the person that could get the job

(02:17:22):
done even without Quincy. But Quincy, when uh what's his
name over at Warner Brothers had bought Quincy's contract from
A and M because he ain't even have a million
dollars in Boston, and he gave Quincy put up two
million dollars to get out of the deal with A

(02:17:43):
and them. Okay, okay, when he left A and M,
then they told us that we were going to get
sued if we talked to Quincy, you know, any of
that go down, I called Quincy said, what the hell
is you know? A and M fuck A and M records,
you know, and the damn attorney who I couldn't stand,

(02:18:06):
you know, melt Old melt Old Olton Olin something like that,
and you can tell him, I said that still it
can kiss my ass. That is a quote for you,
melt melt Olin.

Speaker 4 (02:18:27):
So at the end of the day, with all of
these demos and ideas lying around, like what this phase
of your life, like, what do you want.

Speaker 2 (02:18:40):
Your legacy? Well, it is what it is. And when
I put out my book, which maybe we'll talk because
I might go through you through make it an audible thing,
see what I'm saying, And would be would love for
you to do to do that as basically a starter

(02:19:02):
for this interview, and you know.

Speaker 4 (02:19:06):
I could.

Speaker 2 (02:19:06):
I could split it with you, yes, because you're you're
getting stuff that people really want to hear from us
because they haven't and you are getting it. So that
actually would cut the chase through me writing, which I

(02:19:28):
was gonna do anyway. And since it is audible, you
already have it, Mike, So I would definitely give you
the pronounce it. So I mean to make it. We
can deal with it, and you know, I give you
my numbers and stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:19:44):
And well, yeah we're family now.

Speaker 2 (02:19:46):
Yeah, to make it an audible book.

Speaker 4 (02:19:48):
So try what what what's next for the down the
pike for you.

Speaker 2 (02:19:53):
Man?

Speaker 6 (02:19:54):
Just uh continuing to create. I've been doing a lot
of artists develop.

Speaker 7 (02:20:00):
One of the recent things I did was this boy
band called why Don't We who just signed the Atlantic
Records last summer, developed them all last year and just
kind of you know, I think it's just one of
the things I picked up from being around it because
it was real like as you you know, just heard
a lot of development going on and to to kind
of create this uh legacy. It wasn't just like you know,

(02:20:24):
throwing stuff against the wall, see was stick. It was
like work, real work, real work.

Speaker 6 (02:20:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:20:29):
I've seen what he could do and heard his shows
and share things with me, and I give him the
best advice of you know that I can. And we
haven't even begun because I still have some teachings. I
told him, you know, I want to just layer it
on him that I've learned from Quincy and Bruce, and

(02:20:51):
we haven't begun that we're going to start that today
or tomorrow. Wow, Like I just let him grow and
I tell him, you know, we'd work on projects together.

Speaker 6 (02:21:00):
Yeah, actually did a I did a record.

Speaker 3 (02:21:02):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (02:21:02):
This is one of the early records I wrote with
Solange for Kelly Rowland's first album, simply Deepest Joint called Obsession,
and uh my dad came and play guitar on it.

Speaker 2 (02:21:13):
It's fun Yeah, but I'll do that and I do
nothing else for somebody else. It could be bigger.

Speaker 7 (02:21:23):
It's funny because he like it's crazy, like he actually
like it's true, like they got this especially like with
a lot of the old school cats.

Speaker 6 (02:21:30):
It's just this camaraderie that's just like unrivaled.

Speaker 7 (02:21:33):
Like I remember when you know, even though I've known
you know, the Knowles and you know all them like
for some time now, and work quite a bit with Solange,
like I never really you know.

Speaker 6 (02:21:43):
Obviously, Beyonce is like a huge star.

Speaker 7 (02:21:45):
I remember one time one morning, like met her in
passing one morning, Like I get this call from the
eight three to two number, and I'm like, what you
know whatever before three o'clock in the afternoon, the hell
must speak.

Speaker 6 (02:22:00):
To Troy, Like who is this this is B. Who
the hell is B Beyonce? What's what's going on?

Speaker 4 (02:22:10):
Well?

Speaker 2 (02:22:10):
You know, and she it was crazy, she was that
just before you knew we were almost possibly related on
my mom's side.

Speaker 7 (02:22:18):
Yeah, so she she wanted to uh, this was for
her first solo album. She needed to do to clear sugar. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
no one could get in touch with like, no one
knew where the hell he was, but they.

Speaker 6 (02:22:30):
Knew that that you know, got yeah, you know, and
I was like, okay, cool, Like, well is this your number?
Can I call you?

Speaker 4 (02:22:37):
Could we work?

Speaker 6 (02:22:46):
Mission was already accomplished.

Speaker 4 (02:22:47):
Done. You talked to her on the phone. You did
more than most. Well, we would like to think y'all
for coming on the show Man.

Speaker 6 (02:22:55):
Thanks education given us the time, Thank you for having.

Speaker 4 (02:23:01):
Thank you for coming so much. No, thank you both,
thank you both. So on behalf. Oh wait, I think
we should also play the initial Dibaco.

Speaker 6 (02:23:09):
Come so far.

Speaker 4 (02:23:10):
Yes, yes, yeah, we might as well. Go ahead.

Speaker 8 (02:23:12):
We're going to fade out on the original Dibacco Roll
call for you, roll call stands out there anyway on
Behalf of the team, Supreme Fan take a little unpaid
Bill Boss, Bill Sugar, Steve or the Sugar Steve Network
CEO and his own brother.

Speaker 4 (02:23:28):
Sugar Steve appears courtesy of the Sugar and like, yeah,
oh wait, you know what I didn't tell Wait? Can
you hold up the cover real quick? Yeah? I always
share a quest love childhood punishment.

Speaker 8 (02:23:41):
So usually as a kid, each year I picked a
designated album cover.

Speaker 4 (02:23:48):
Right, but I'm just wanted to show I wanted to
show you.

Speaker 8 (02:23:52):
All Right, ladies, gentlemen, go google right on time for
the Brothers of Johnson album covering. So each year I
would nat an album covered that I would emulate for
every picture taken of me, you know, like I was
in seventy four it was all the Chris Jasper poses
from Living Up that was my thing. Or seventy eight

(02:24:13):
was me making a Tommy DeBarge face from the Switch album.
So seventy seven I decided, okay, all airborne jumping shots
holding various pieces of furniture because I didn't have a
base in seventy seven and somehow at my father's rehearsal,

(02:24:35):
I saw my father's bass players base there and I thought, I'm.

Speaker 4 (02:24:39):
Gonna do what Louis Johnson does. So I grabbed the bass,
I jumped and I dropped the bass nice and it
was Tito Jackson time wait Joe Jackson. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen,
I'll see you later. Thank you very much. This has
been quest up Supreme only on Pandora. We'll see you.
Let me add this too.

Speaker 2 (02:25:00):
The album cover was shot out in the desert and
it was around the time where the UFO start. Oh
you know, the UFO era for us in the seventies
was highlighted a lot. And that guitar right now is
currently hanging a glass case in Troy's studio, just in
nineteen seventy one. One Stelly Fender stratcast.

Speaker 4 (02:25:25):
Wow. Great, now we know who to rob. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (02:25:32):
If it comes up, it is locked though.

Speaker 4 (02:25:37):
Well, see you, ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you on
the next go round.

Speaker 11 (02:25:44):
Suprema Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Supremo, roll Call, Suprema Sun Supremo,
Roll Call, Suprema Sound Supremo roll Call.

Speaker 5 (02:25:59):
Get on the ball, Yeah, get on the case, Yeah,
get the funk, Yeah, Supreme Supreme Rose.

Speaker 4 (02:26:15):
My name is Prante.

Speaker 9 (02:26:16):
Yeah, I'm in the mix with thunder Thumbs Yeah and
Lightning Licks.

Speaker 4 (02:26:22):
Are you are you? Roll car Suprema Supreme roll best
arrest my case.

Speaker 5 (02:26:34):
Yeah, if you don't agree with the boss Bill, Yeah,
get the funk out of my face.

Speaker 3 (02:26:39):
Spre Supreme Supreme Rod.

Speaker 6 (02:26:48):
Yeah, oh yeah it's true.

Speaker 3 (02:26:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:26:51):
Orge Johnson is here. Yeah, I'll be good to you.

Speaker 3 (02:26:54):
Roll Suprema Shut Supreme, roll call Supreme SUPREMEO.

Speaker 4 (02:27:02):
Roll call this Sugar.

Speaker 3 (02:27:04):
Yeah. The reason I write the ship ahead of time
because I can't improvise.

Speaker 4 (02:27:09):
Fuck you again, Supreme roll Call Supremo.

Speaker 5 (02:27:18):
Role.

Speaker 2 (02:27:19):
My name is Yea Troy.

Speaker 6 (02:27:22):
Yeah, we both like to talk, so hit us up tomorrow.

Speaker 10 (02:27:27):
Supreme Supreme roll Yeah, Supreme Supremo, roll call supre Wait
a minute, I know this is a b We gotta
redo it.

Speaker 3 (02:27:45):
We got to.

Speaker 1 (02:27:51):
What's Love Supreme is a production iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laiya St. Clair

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