QLS Presents First Musical Memories Part 1

Over the years, many of the Questlove Supreme interviews begin by asking, "What was your first musical memory?" In a special episode, looking back at memorable answers, Questlove offers his own and explains his curiosity. Part 1 of this series includes looking back at answers from Larry Blackmon of Cameo, Dave Matthews, Maya Rudolph, Macy Gray, Organized Noize, Blondie, Bonnie Raitt—and many others. While we're at it, write a review or drop us a line on socials, and let QLS know your first musical memory.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
All Right.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
So I asked Quest Love Supreme guests about their first
musical memory, because I feel like it's a great starting point.
You know, everyone has a come to Jesus moment when
it comes to when they discovered music, or how music
liberated them or what brought them into music, And oftentimes

(00:32):
I'll say that music plays an important role of helping
you remember what your life was. You know, I remember
my first car accident because I knew the Lanis Marset
song that was playing as we crashed. I remember like
the first heartbreak I had with a girl, and Anita

(00:56):
Baker's Sweet Love comes on like sometimes. You know, Chappelle
often jokes we turned the car radio volume down because
no one wants to get their ass beat to a soundtrack.
But you know, oftentimes music helps us remember what life is.
And so that's why I ask them that. I believe
the first episode that the public heard was the Maya

(01:20):
Rudolph episode. Of course, our very first, and that was
I believe September of twenty sixteen, and I asked Maya
about it, and you know, it wasn't like the staple
of QLs episodes until like twenty nineteen. That's when I
realized that's a good deal breaker. Oftentimes you got to

(01:44):
gain the trust of the artist that comes on the show,
and I kind of want them to know in the
first fifteen minutes what type of show this is. And oftentimes,
especially with creatives, they often do interviews on the defensive.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
You know, we called that.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Gotcha journalism, like you're asked an awkward question that you
don't want to answer and you know, kind of puts
them in a pickle. So sometimes it surprises people. I
think the Steve Stout episode was hilarious because, you know,
I know that Steve Stout walked into this interview knowing

(02:21):
that we were going to ask him about the infamous
NAS Hate Me Now video controversy between him NAS and Diddy,
and we really didn't go there. Like he was genuinely
shocked that we wanted to know about his life, Like
he stopped the interview. I was like, wait a minute,

(02:42):
this is what you guys want to know about, Like
he was shocked that if it were any other outlet,
he knew that they were more or less there for
the juicy gossip stuff, and you know, for anybody in
a prominent position in music. I want to show the
path that led to that, so that the listener you
might get inspiration from that, like, oh, okay, well I

(03:04):
went to high school and I try to start my
band and da da da da. So if you hear
the people that you admire going through a process, then
that might spark an idea and you to do the same.
And so I will say that when John Oates of
Daryl Hall and John Oates Hall of Notates of course
mentioned my dad, that was kind of cool. He said that,

(03:27):
you know, growing up in Philadelphia and the dou wop scene,
my father was definitely a pioneer, and that meant a
lot to me to hear. So I guess I should
share with you guys my first musical memory and rather
apropos now that the slide doc is done. But my
first musical memory is also my first memory in life.

(03:50):
And I will say that I was two years old.
This is nineteen seventy three. I'm in my West Philadelphia
house getting my hair washed, and you know, I'm two
years old, so I don't know the rules that once
you have their eyes closed when getting their hair washed.

(04:11):
My sister's hand accidentally hits the bath detergent or the
cleanser ajax, and it sort of hits the marble tub hard,
and you know, it's like a cloud of smoke.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
It gets in my.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Eye and I'm just burning, stinging, sting and sting and crying,
having a fit, you know. And all I remember was
I ran from the bathroom on the second floor to
the first floor, just running. My dad grabs me, and
all I remember was that they pinned me. It was

(04:49):
like a wrestler, like I was pinned to the ground.
My aunt Karen and my sister Dawn were pinning my shoulders.
My mom pinned my ankles so that couldn't run, and
my dad was trying to like you gotta think of
it like a what's the movie, Oh, Clockwork Orange, Like

(05:12):
the way they forced the eyelids open to stay open.
My dad has a gallon of water and he's trying
to flush my face and all this is happening while
the second song on sly is very depressing.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
There's a riot going on.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Album as playing called just Like a Baby, And if
you know the song just Like a Baby, the ominous baseline,
very spooky sounding song, that's my first memory in life,
and that kind of made me obsessed with Sly and
probably made me highly eligible to direct this documentary because

(05:50):
of my relationship and obsession with the guy who created
that song. Weird enough, I didn't hear that song again
until like eight years later, and when I was like
ten or eleven, I heard that baseline and instantly ran
to the record player, and all those memories came triggering back,

(06:12):
like you know, the scene and kill Bill whenever, like
Quincy Jones's Iron Side Please. That's what it felt like.
It was like triggering, like, oh my god, I remember
that feeling and me being pinned to the floor and
them trying to wash my eye out. So that's my
first musical memory. So what was your first cognizant memory

(06:38):
of music? Yeah, just of the environment you grew up in. Like,
you don't remember that Soul Train episode in what you
were crying through your mom's interview segment.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Mmm, I don't remember it, but I remember that all
that that era for me was, I mean, we were
on the road with my parents most of the time
until I started school, So I mean when we were
little little sometimes they go out on the road and
they take us with them. But pretty much, especially when
I was a baby. I think my mom went out
on the road for a minute and then she called
my dad. She was like, you have to come with me.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
I can't be without the baby and without you guys.
And so we were on the road a lot. And
I remember being on the road with my parents, like
I remember somebody lost a tooth in like some town
with a casino and we got like a chip or something,
you know, Like I remember, like sound check.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
To me is like.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
I think it was it was me or my I
think it's me, me or my brother.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Even like a bar fight or something.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
No, like like the normal things that happened to a kid.
But the tooth fairy brought me like a casino chip
because we were in like Lake Tahoe or something. But
like like being on the road was very normal. And
then like seeing my mom, Yeah, like being being in studios,
being backstage, and like seeing my mom before the show,

(07:55):
like before the audience was there. All that is like
tied together as one kind of large memory.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
That was my Rudolph And here is Daryl Hall. Do
you remember what your very first musical memory.

Speaker 5 (08:10):
Was, probably seeing my well, my mother and father both
were musicians. I see my mother in a band. I
mean my mother was in it was in a band
in post Town, and I was like, yeah, from the
age of two years old, I'd watched the band, and
I always wanted to be the band leader, you know,
the guy that had the he had like a white
coat on. Everybody else had red coats on. He had

(08:30):
a white coat on. So yeah, I was I wanted
to be that guy.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
What does Darryl Hall's mom's voice sound like? What is
her singing voice?

Speaker 5 (08:37):
She was a soprano. She's ninety eight years old now
and she still sings, but yeah, she's an amazing singer,
amazing soprano. And my father was in a gospel group,
a vocal group, and so I learned harmonies from him
and his brothers and his friends and all that. So,

(08:58):
you know, I grew up in the whole world.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Were they closer to do Wop or more Mills Brothers
or like harmony?

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Like what was their church harmony? You know, like.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
Gospel?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Harvey, what was your first musical memory.

Speaker 6 (09:17):
My mom would sing at this park across the street
with her band, and she had this big afro and
bell bottoms, blue jean bell bottoms in a green shirt
and some big hoops, and she had this tambourine but
she would hit it with her hip all the time,
and I just loved every time her hip would move

(09:39):
or she'd sing, the audience would just I just saw
them go crazy. I didn't know what that meant, but
the sound of her voice always would do something here.
So that memory always, I always remember that before I
go on stage. But that was my one of my
first memories of music. The other one is the h

(10:00):
The band would record to the A track and it
would sit in our room. We had a shotgun house
to just go straight ahead and in the living room.
The band would record in the living room, and my
mom would record her vocal part with the A track
in our bedroom, which was the next room. So I
would stare at the A track and watch my mom

(10:22):
record on the edge of the bed. And then when
they pressed play and her voice came out of it,
I was just blown away. And that's when I like
those two memories. That's when I wanted to sing.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
Did your mother did she like make records of your
recording artists or did she just sing?

Speaker 6 (10:38):
And she was a recording artist, She had her own
band called car Nova in New Orleans. They had their
own band. It was interracial, racial bass player guitar. My
stepdad played drums. That's why I started on the drums.
That's why I loved watching drummers. That's why I became
a fan of me. And I would watch the way

(11:02):
drummers set up their snares. It slanted, is it low?
Is it below their knees, like every little technical thing.
So I started on the drums, and I would watch
them perform rehearse in our bedroom, but we were too
young to go in the club, so they would have
the car close to the side door so that my
mom can babysit while performing, so she would do double duty.

(11:27):
So I'm a kid from that kind of era where
they did a lot of performing and recording at the
same time. But she had her own band lead singer,
and her and the bass player would write songs together
all the time.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Wow, I know you're probably obsessed with Darry Jones if
you're trying to figure out drummer angles. All right, that
was Letusy and now this is Bonnie Rape. I start
off every episode with the same question, so you're no
exception to the rule. Could you please give me your
very first musical memory.

Speaker 7 (12:03):
Oh, I think my dad, who was a Broadway leading man,
singing the songs from his show, with my mom warming
him up on the pianel. She was his musical director
and rehearsal pianist. And I remember being really little and
hearing this big, old booming voice singing these great Rogers
and Hammerstein songs. So I'd have to say, my folks

(12:26):
playing in the house.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
We also have Organized Noise.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
We begin with Sleepy Brown, whose father, Jimmy Brown, was
the singer and flute player of a very well known
funk band from the seventies called Brick. Of course, Brick
gave us the classic song Dazz. I believe dazz is
what they call a por dementeau of danceable jazz. They

(12:54):
call it dazz. And then we're going to get to
Ray Murray, and of course the late we go Wade.
And this was recorded in Atlanta in twenty twenty three,
very special episode Organized Noise. I know your lineage runs deep.
I know all your lineage runs deep, but especially Sleepy

(13:16):
being the son of the legendary Jimmy Brown Brick, I'll
start with you, can you tell me what your first
musical memory was.

Speaker 8 (13:25):
I was six years old, right, and it was my
first concert I went to. And I was with my
grandparents and we get to the concert and walk on
side the stage and my dad, know start performing, And
when I seen them do dazz, right, my mouth dropped
and I look back at my grandmother when.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
I say, this is what I want to do.

Speaker 9 (13:48):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Period, I knew I want to do music.

Speaker 8 (13:51):
As soon as I saw my dad playing them ows
and everybody screaming and going crazy. I was just like,
I gotta do this is this is what I have
to do. And plus you know, my mom would buy
me Jackson five albums every Christmas, right, you know, so
I was like the six Jackson. Plus I was in
Break Right and Commodoors and I was in everybody group.

(14:12):
So my first experience of music was the greatest era
of music to me was the funk era and the
disco era. No music has been made more beautiful than that.
So that's my whole being, you know what I mean,
No matter what. That's why they called me funk or not,
because if it ain't funky, I ain't doing.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I function with that chewing dazz and music and ain't
gonna hurt nobody. The captain obvious break is, do you
have a favorite Brick song that isn't a hit or anything?

Speaker 8 (14:42):
Yeah, yep, fun one of them, Happy Happy.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
You know what I was gonna say, Damn, I always
always say, but I've always confessed that I'm kind of
working on Sultry, right. I was like preface with like,
I'm not supposed to say this, but no, I'm getting
to the seventy seven episodes, and I gotta say, your
dad was a charismatic motherfucker even when performing Happy on

(15:11):
Soul training, Like I.

Speaker 8 (15:12):
Just but they always had the biggest smile. It's like
we saw him perform. He was just excited and happy
to perform for people. And he's always been that way.
When he was younger, he had had a band in
Savannah that did a couple of records, Jimmy and the
Mighty Sensations, that did pretty good. Right, So he's always
always loved music till this day.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (15:34):
I'm working on the album right now with him. We're
doing like an instrument Yeah, instrumental jazz. So he played flute, instrum, trombone, ato, sex,
every hole you can put it front him and kill it.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Living from the Mind was also one of my favorite.
Yes that Baseline killed.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Me and uh uh Somerset uh Summer.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Telling them white album coming with Yeah, yeah, I know
that joint. Wait, like Brick Trivia. Have you heard this
tip it about Prince? Do you know the story? So
Prince was such a fan of Brick. What do you
know that he wrote get it Up? He wrote that

(16:17):
for Brick and they rejected it. We interviewed Mars, I'll
do it for you sound effects sound Yeah, Mars and
we I mean we've had damn near I remember at
the time on except Terry Lewis, Terry Lewis. But yeah,

(16:38):
when we asked Mars about him and Prince Craft in
the first record, you know, he told us that he's
playing drums on everything. He was like, when we may
get it up for some reason, like Prince was really
into not for some reason, I mean everybody was into it, but.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Man, you just blew me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Way, Prince had wrote get It Up for Brick Brick
to be whatever the album is with with the Green
where it's like it's like the Green Leaves for that album.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
They rejected it. You gotta talk to your dad about that.
What you're doing.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
There?

Speaker 2 (17:20):
You go, that's crazy?

Speaker 9 (17:22):
All right?

Speaker 1 (17:22):
So, Ray, what is your first musical memory?

Speaker 10 (17:26):
Me and my brother and sister used to turn the
lights off and dance around to flight time.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yes, sir, the airplane land.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Just nos New York state of mind.

Speaker 10 (17:41):
Uh So early on, I kind of like my father's
jazz head. So he he had all of this music
which was like everything that we ever heard in hip hop.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
You feel me?

Speaker 10 (17:54):
All of this ship to cat sample, that's the ship
that I grew up with playing in the house.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, all three of you were born in Atlanta. I
was doing Savannah. Okay, Yeah, I was born and you
where were you born? About to say you gotta have
me swag?

Speaker 11 (18:10):
Boys?

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I know it's where are you born? Where are you?

Speaker 10 (18:13):
I was going to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yes, my mom is
from Pittsburgh, but I grew up before we came to Atlanta.
We came to Atlanta with Mayna Jackson when he took
over the city when he became the first black mayor.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Right.

Speaker 10 (18:29):
My father and mother were in Tuskegee, Alabama, So I
grew up in Tuskegee pretty much Alabama.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
Okay, what I got roots there too, shout out to Mobile,
not Texig, but Mobile.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
All right for you, Rico, what's what's your first musical memory?

Speaker 12 (18:45):
Oh Man, Even with listening to their memories, I was man,
is as simple as that's good now. It's as simple
as hear music on the radio. Because you know what
I'm saying, I didn't really hit it. We didn't have
a car when I was younger, so I didn't really
hit the radio until like Mama was cleaning up or something,
or or when I finally went into that back room.

(19:06):
We had an extra room, and I just kind of
went to digging, Yes, the guest room and all the
junk sits in the man. I ended up finding more
than records back there one day. But the records not.

Speaker 13 (19:25):
A bunch of fact.

Speaker 12 (19:28):
Yes, yes, money, but like Donald Summer and uh like
ring my Bell and all that kind of stuff with
some of the records and Iley Brothers. Yeah, I was
seeing that stuff as records. But but on the radio
when she was it was just the energy of the house.
She would be a different person when the music came
on and she turned up loud and she cleaning up.

(19:48):
So people always made that I always say you know,
I like to play my music when I'm cleaning up.
I really understood what that meant. It's like I feel
good today today is this is what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
I'm going I need to.

Speaker 12 (19:59):
Be a good right, you need to feel good wile
I'm getting this.

Speaker 9 (20:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
So so my examples of music.

Speaker 12 (20:04):
And another one at a young age was my first
little job when I was like ten years old, just
unloading the back of an eighteen or like a truck
or whatever. They used to play the radio, and I
just remember that made it go by. So the music
music was always a I didn't never think I could
necessarily be able to make it. They never think I
would be a part of the business. But I knew
how important it was and how much I did, how

(20:26):
much it did for me, just at that young age,
and didn't even know who, didn't know exactly who, none
of the artists was. Just knew that at that time,
being a man of my age, which is fifty. During
that time nineteen eighty, I was eight. So like what
he's talking about, like soaking up, sir, at the right time.
It's the end of the seventies, so we but they

(20:48):
still loaded as far as the albums. I could still
see an album. I still saw eight tracks, you know what
I'm saying. I still rode in cards. What we did
that actually had an eight track in.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
It, So I collect them. Wow, but.

Speaker 12 (21:01):
A brick is amazing because even when when I found
out who his father was or whatever, you just thought
about that's ice cube song.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Vasoline, that's the song that asked you got back? That
was deep. I was so happy when they did. How
did you think about vacine?

Speaker 12 (21:22):
Cool?

Speaker 8 (21:23):
Ye, Like a lot of other artists have sampled before that.
You know, kid played it ain't gonna hurt nobody, you
know him with did he did?

Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's all good? It was yeah good.

Speaker 8 (21:34):
So well when I heard q on one of the
coldest disc records.

Speaker 14 (21:39):
Ever all the time, bro my heart like Jenny, So
I was, man, that's still one of my favorite Man.

Speaker 8 (21:55):
I still play that records and like I'm in the
mirror and I'm cute and let me shut up.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
That first batch of QLs.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Guest reflects on how their parents shaped their first musical memories.
In some cases, those parents were professionals, known recording artists
with their own careers. My parents were also professional recording artists.
I grew up in a family act nightclub act. My
father was an oldies du wop singer. By the time

(22:27):
I was born, my entire family was part of the show.
So a lot of my musical memories were, you know,
help shaping the nightclub lounge act. One of my favorite
musical memories of all time is my dad taking me
being shopping to record stores.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Twice a month.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
We'd go to King James on fifty second Street and
my dad would basically just you know, going to a
record store back in the day was like a religious
experience to me, like this is where you first know
the smell of incense, this is where you first see
like black light, and you know those zodiac signs that

(23:08):
are fluorescent colored and they look good in black light
in your bedroom, and seeing like the wall display of
how they creatively displayed the records and whatnot. So pretty much,
I'll say that for me, Ben, shopping with my dad
every other month in West Philly was kind of a

(23:31):
dream for me. My dad would go to the hippies
guy in the store and say, all right, give me
all the forty fives I need. And you know, my
dad needed these forty five so that his band would
know the latest songs to play, you know, and the
guy would just grab a box and say, all right,
you need Casing, the Sunshine Band, you need the Commodores,
you need the Manhattans, you need Wild Cherry, you need

(23:55):
the Ohio Players and the New Earth Went and Fire.
You know I meant to them. They saw my dad
coming in and knew that this was going to be
an instant three hundred dollars sale. But you know, they
would just grab all the forty fives and then Dad
would just use his instincts to see what he should
invest in names so that he was familiar with, like
BT Express or Gene Carn or the OJ's whatever, and

(24:19):
just buy Binge Binge Binge, and we come home. You
know that started my being shopping addiction throughout the years.
And we get home, and then when it was time
for rehearsal, my dad's band would just rummage through all
the forty fives and all the records and they'll be like,
we'll take this, we'll take this, we'll take this, we'll
take that, this, that and the other. And the weird

(24:40):
thing is pretty much whatever wasn't desirable, whatever my dad's
band didn't like, I got to keep. So I'll say
that I'm probably a rare case in which the flop
single was, you know, my favorite song. So you know,
I always joke that, of course they would keep like

(25:04):
whatever stylistics hit there was, but you know, the stylistics
would also cover, like the reggae cover of a song
called like Shame and Scandal in the Family, and that
was a flop, and of course I would get that record.
I'd get the Casey and the Sunshine Band single that
was not a hit, and kind of that became part

(25:25):
of my vocabulary. So I think I'm in a rare
case in which a lot of the music that I
took in from like ages three to eleven or not hits, which.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Explains my creativity.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Okay, so sometimes it's not the parents as much as
records a QLs, guest parents or relatives had laying around
the house. Next you'll hear some of those stories. Yeah,
you guys already know that I grew up in a
house with about three thousand records and three very distinctive
record collectors. Like my father was straight ahead. He liked

(26:10):
vocal and he loved the yacht rock of his day,
but mostly like vocal stuff like he loves Streisand and
Nat King Cole and the Beach Boys, anybody with harmony.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
That was his lane.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
My mother was really esoteric, and she would have been
a cret digger if she were like of age now
in the hip hop era. So she would judge albums
based on how funky they looked and whatnot. So my
mom was very hip, and my sister pretty much wanted

(26:43):
to keep up with her her school friends, her friends
in school, so she came home with like a really
diverse record collection and kind of put me onto stuff
that I wasn't hip to. I didn't know about Kiss,
I didn't know about David Bowie Queen, you know, just
like a lot of yacht rock stuff, a lot of

(27:05):
AM pop. We used to listen to Wizard one hundred
back in Philly. And so I'll say that, if anything,
my sister is really really responsible for my elastic kind
of tolerance for all types of music, you know, which,
of course, once hip hop comes then everything's wide open. So,

(27:26):
you know, growing up in a house where a thousand
records really helps. What was your first musical memory?

Speaker 15 (27:33):
My first musical memory, My memory is very bad, but yeah,
you know, driving in the vw vand with my dad
and my brother and sister, and my dad would just
blast music eight tracks always and sing along really loud,
and it.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Were you allowed to curate the selections or was it
like don't touch my stereo?

Speaker 9 (27:56):
No?

Speaker 4 (27:57):
No, No.

Speaker 15 (27:57):
He would drive, he'd you know, be driving really fast
and rereaching for the eight tracks and trying to push
you know, the one, two, three four thing. And that's
when I really got into music as a little kid,
especially from the radio. But I also knew. I was like,
what is it? What's the deal with Neil Young? Like
my dad would scream sing Neil Young songs?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Got it? Okay, It's a tough thing to listen to.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
It's like a five year old.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Well, yeah, I was gonna say that.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
I two lived in a don't touch my stereo household,
so a lot of the music that I went touch
with the ten foot pole suddenly you know, you know,
I'll give you a great example. So my dad was
like pre pre yacht rock, pree am radio pop. Like

(28:46):
he liked vocals like Johnny Mathis, Barbara Streissan, Nat King Cole,
anyone that flexed harmony as well. So we have pet
Sounds in the house, but I'd never touched it. And
then when I read a review that wasn't the Rolling

(29:06):
Stone Lever review Paul's Boutique, someone said, oh, this is
Sergeant Peppery. He's like, I disagree. This is the pet
Sounds of hip hop. This is more pioneering, And I
was like, wait, dad has that record? So actually, like
Paul's Boutique opened my mind to something I would otherwise
resist before the age of eighteen, I'm now open to.

(29:27):
So I'll ask you, like, because if you're listening to
all of the music that you guys and all your references,
and if you're familiar with the rapid fire way that
you guys craft records, I would have thought that coming
out the wound that you guys were just like music
savants that you know, grew up with the pedigree at

(29:48):
the age of one of all this music. So I
might have believed that, at least for the first ten
years of your life is more like forced learning or
Stockholm syndrome.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
Like no, no, no, no.

Speaker 15 (29:58):
So that's an ingrained memory, you asked, like, my first memory,
that's an ingrain.

Speaker 4 (30:03):
It's it's not a pleasant.

Speaker 15 (30:05):
One, but it's a memory. But I have an older
brother and sister, and this is, you know, early seventies,
when forty five's, you know, forty fives and I.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
And the AM radio.

Speaker 15 (30:19):
It was a certain time in the radio where it
wasn't like this type of music was played on this station.
This type was played on this station. That you know,
the music being made in the early seventies was a
little taste of all of this different stuff, right, And
you know, the radio kind of reflected that for a minute.
And so we had a sort of lesson from the
radio for a very brief time. And also, growing up

(30:40):
in New York City, just walking down the street, you
hear so much different music that you're you're being taught
every day.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
And that was Adam King ed Rock Harowitz of the
Beastie Boys. What was your first musical memory of your life?

Speaker 16 (30:58):
My first musical memory. My mother was a classically trained
opera singer. And wow, yeah, she sang in the New
York full of minors. She sang in Lincoln Center.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Like it's crazy.

Speaker 16 (31:10):
I did Cornegie Hall a couple of months ago with
d Nice, and everybody was like Yo Way and Carnegie Hall,
Way and Carnegie Hall, and in my mind, I'm thinking,
my mother laped this place three times, like this.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Is not until I know it four times.

Speaker 16 (31:25):
Until I do it four times, I've done nothing, you
know what I mean? Because because I looked, I would
go see my mother at connegeyall. But again, she was
a classically trained singer, so around the house she sang
and played the piano. Since first and then my real
real like music a ha moments was when I stayed
with my grandmother and I was since I was like six,

(31:48):
and she had this record that she played like every
day when she came home for work. It was Happy Landing,
and I would watch her be happy playing this song,
and then I would just sit there and try to
figure out how to play all the records in the house.
But when she's coming home, I would put on Happy
Landings for her to walk into the house too. And
I realized, like maybe like a year later, like I

(32:12):
am actually doing something to her emotionally by putting this
record on when she walks through the door. And that
made me always want to be the person in the
house that played the records. So I didn't know that
at five and six and seven and eight that I'm
becoming this DJ until I heard records being mixed and

(32:32):
I was like, Yo, what the fuck is happening right now?

Speaker 1 (32:38):
And that was the late great DJ Clark Kent back
in twenty twenty three. Could you tell me what is
your first musical memory in life?

Speaker 17 (32:48):
My first musical memory is when I was in Ohio,
which is where I'm from.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yellow Springs, Yellow Springs.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, you know what, I'll say that. You know Chappelle,
he could talk anybody into anything, because that's the type
of gift he had. But during the pandemic, those trips
of Yellow Springs, you know, it was such a welcome
relief to sort of the stress of what the pandemic

(33:15):
was in twenty twenty. So there was half a second
where I was considering getting a house in Yellow Springs.
I'm still not against the idea, you know, I know
that quality lives out there. I know Dave convinced a
few people in this community to buy property out there
and whatnot. So was it always a hippie friendly town

(33:39):
since the get or was that a recent development?

Speaker 17 (33:42):
Oh no, it's always been that way. It's always been
a really cool little oasis in a very conservative state.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, I was like.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Those nine blocks exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, it's like a taste of heaven. Like, oh, I
was like, I can get used to this.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
And then I took the wrong yeah, yeah, and I
saw the wrong president. I was like right, yeah, I
was like, uh, let me, let me get back to
the to the blue blue section.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
So what was your first musical memory there?

Speaker 17 (34:20):
Well, there were a couple with my dad because he
didn't play an instrument, but he had a collection of
records because he liked jazz. So it was me sneaking
into his collection.

Speaker 18 (34:32):
And listening and hearing the drums and not knowing what
that was because I was, you know, like three and four,
but really liking what I heard and being drawn to that.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
So you know, what were those records.

Speaker 5 (34:46):
Yeah, he had a lot of Ama Jamal.

Speaker 17 (34:48):
He had some and that was probably one of his favorite.
He had Miles records. He had some Coltrane records. Those
were his his like favorite three artists, you know, which
was a great introduction for me. He had Modern Jazz quartet.
You know, he had a kind of a nice little
niche of stuff, and so I would sneak in there

(35:11):
and you know, listen to probably scratch some of the
albums because I was too young to really, you know,
take care of him well. But yeah, that's probably my
first and you know, maybe my second would would be
taking a piano piano lesson with my grandmother who was
a classical pianist, and hanging out with my uncle who

(35:33):
was a musician as well.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Were drums the first weapon of choice for you or
what was the first instrument that he gravitated towards.

Speaker 17 (35:42):
Oh, definitely drums. Yeah, and I took a lesson on
piano with my grandmother, But yeah, drums was always the
thing that attracted me.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
That was Cindy Blackman, Santana. And next up you're going
to hear Tjer Moses. Can you tell us what your
first musical memory was?

Speaker 19 (36:03):
Teen Marie, my cousin was moving into a house behind
my tet's house, and we cut a gate in because
everybody in you know, in the South, we all live
around each other.

Speaker 17 (36:14):
Family lives around each other, so we would cut gates
or cut like little paths to go to someone's house.

Speaker 19 (36:19):
And we tore the gate back from my tet's house
to my cousin who was moving to the house behind.
And the whole time she was unpacking, she was just
playing that square bands out. I was really little, but
that shit was hard. I loved it. I just I
was a little kid loving Teena Marie. That's my first.
I guess gospel was my first, because church. But the

(36:41):
first time I really was.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Excited was teen Red because it must be magic album.

Speaker 19 (36:46):
That was your yeah, that one, Yes he loves you
that yeah, it's so good. And she was just unpacking
and dancing and like all in her zone. It was
her first place.

Speaker 9 (36:57):
You know.

Speaker 17 (36:58):
And I was just watching that.

Speaker 19 (36:59):
I was loving the music, and I was.

Speaker 17 (37:01):
Supposed to help them, but I was a little kids.
I couldn't really help.

Speaker 18 (37:03):
But that's all first in.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Music, all right.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
So here's Dave Matthews first with the memory involving family,
and then another one involving the radio and his mother.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
What, oh my god? Twenty eight minutes.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yo, he waits.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Can we each have one word of the question?

Speaker 1 (37:23):
What she got?

Speaker 17 (37:25):
Go ahead, Steve, you go go ahead.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Okay, what was your first musical memory?

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Wait a minute? Time out?

Speaker 1 (37:39):
The first question we asked. This is the level of
comfort I have with Dave Matthews. I legit forgot. I
was doing a podcast. I was totally I let a
half hour go by it. I didn't even start the process.

Speaker 20 (37:54):
No.

Speaker 17 (37:55):
I was like, maybe he's doing his remakes, remixing. I'll
start from the beginning.

Speaker 21 (38:00):
I'm here, so, uh, you know, if we have to
start again, I'm happy.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
No, no again, but I will I will say this.
But the question was what was your first musical memory.

Speaker 21 (38:13):
I would like to say my first live music that
I remember, Like, I think it was my first memory
because I think I was sitting between my mom's knees.
I was a little kid, you know, sort of, and
on the back of a flat bed truck. Pete Seeger
was playing the band really and I remember thinking that

(38:40):
guy's awesome and he was so weird. He was such
a weird, but he was so he had he was
so friendly, and so that's my first Like, I feel
like the.

Speaker 17 (38:50):
Country was this, Dave, because you've lived in a lot
of places. Where were you when we saw.

Speaker 21 (38:55):
Up upstate not upstate New York, but you know, north
of New York City. So he was in Croaton quite
a bit, and uh in that area and uh.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Was it turn Turn Turn or I can't remember what song.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
I don't think it was.

Speaker 21 (39:06):
I can't remember what songs he was playing. I just
remember thinking this, and people were you know, it was
relaxed and everything. But then I think, my when I
was five years old, I remember liking the Jackson five.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
So I'm not entirely sure.

Speaker 21 (39:18):
Whether that was because why I fell in love with
him was because they had a five, ye right, But
then I really did love.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Them.

Speaker 21 (39:28):
And then I've I've fell in love with the Beatles,
and I became I would say, a bore until my
brother opened my brain when I was about ten, and
my brother was turned me onto other kinds of music,
and and then I and then it was the seventies,
so I could listen to the radio and you could

(39:49):
hear you know, in the seventies, you could have the
radio on and it could be like at least well
PLJ or.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Whatever it was.

Speaker 21 (39:55):
You know, it was like, uh, it could be it
would be like John Denver and then Marvin Gay and
then and Paul Up and format and then you know,
Donna Summers and then you know, I remember my mom
would always go to the radio when Donna Summers came on,
and she'd be.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Going, ah, love to love you baby, my mom, like I.

Speaker 21 (40:13):
Don't like this song right right, And then she waits
for it to be over. But I married my mom
always running to the radio and turning off the and
that was the only song I could remember.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Her response.

Speaker 21 (40:24):
I think it was just it was too much was
there was too much love making in that song for
my mom.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Okay, So a lot of QLs guests grew up around
New York City and at least to cite the Apollo
as a place of musical memories. Then first we're gonna
hear from Mike Murphy of the System, and the next
Larry Blackman of Cameo. So the question I usually start with,
can you tell me what your first musical your first

(40:53):
musical memory was?

Speaker 22 (40:56):
You know, as a kid, my mother loved music, so
we used to go to the Apollo all the time.
And it was at a time when you could see
five shows in one day. You could just sit there,
hang out and watch all the shows. And so I
did that a lot. Those are my earliest, my earliest memories,
you know, in music in the house of course to

(41:16):
Jackson five, who I emulated in my first band, and
kind of that's how I got my start.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Because you have so much history, man, I might as well.
I got immediately dive in can you tell me in
your life what was your first musical memory? My first
musical memory, yes, in your life.

Speaker 9 (41:37):
I was about five years old and my aunt was
staying with us in New York. She was from Augusta,
Georgia and bother's sister, and she always talked about the
Apollo and she took me to my first show there.
So my first musical memory was I guess being about

(42:01):
two rolls back from the stage and observing Sam Cook.
That was first musical memories. And then she tells me
the story about after leaving there, I broke away from her,
running down the street and almost ran across Seventh Avenue, uh,

(42:23):
and came close to being met by a Greyhound bus.
And she didn't think it was that funny, but she
said I would lapse and let her catch up with me,
and then break away and run that much more. And
that had nothing to do with music. But being that
my first musical experience was there, I was like And

(42:46):
then after becoming old enough to make it there myself,
I used to play He'll keep from Church and cause
the Manes on Sunday.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Four years Okay, so do me a favorite, because this
this is like a rabbit hole show where we nerd
out on information like that, could you please walk me
through like a typical day where you go to the Apollo?
Like how much did it cost? Like where would you sit?

(43:16):
The acts that played? Like can you walk us through
a typical apollo? What year are you talking around?

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Is this the sixties?

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Seventies?

Speaker 5 (43:25):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (43:26):
My god? This this had to be the sixties. Okay,
A typical day was you know, parents would give us
these envelopes. We were members of the Union Baptist Church
on one hundred and forty fifth between seventh and eighth. Okay,
we would go to church. I would take my sister, Shoot,

(43:48):
about five years younger than me, and we'd go and
we'd wait until the offering time, which we would take
the envelopes and put it in plate, and up to
the plate went around and everything there was something else
that happened. They would play music and do something. But
I would give her the signal and then we meet
in the back of the church if she wasn't sitting

(44:11):
with me, and then I would take her across the
street to my cousin's house, leave her and take the
eighth Avenue bus to one hundred and twenty fifth Street
and go up to the Apollo. But anyway, they had
mad names. On Sunday. There were two shows on Sunday,
and I would catch the earlier show and my seat
was if you're on the stage, you look to the

(44:35):
left and the first balcony right there, that was my seat. Okay,
it didn't have my name on it, And strangely enough,
I was never challenged about where I sat. And that
went on for years. I've seen every late great performer
of color. I mean everyone from Okay, Sam Cooked, Jackie

(44:59):
will Flip Wilson, of course, James Brown now I mean,
and the lines went around the corner in both directions
all the way to the rear of the theater. Became
acquainted with acquainted with a couple of the massive ceremonies.

(45:22):
Goodness names. I can't think of some of the names
right away, but I don't think and I've seen everybody, Ray, Charles.

Speaker 23 (45:31):
B B.

Speaker 9 (45:32):
King, Benny King, Joe Text.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
For you, who was the act that really grabbed you
the most? Like when you saw them? Like for you,
is it just like on board, let me go see
what's at the Apollo? Or you know, was the music
calling to you or was it just something to do
on a Sunday?

Speaker 9 (45:53):
I did that? I was, I was. I was totally
captivated by everything that happened. And I don't know if
you have any memories of the Apollom, but they used
to show a movie before the live acts. It just
it just grabbed me. I mean, every Sunday that's something

(46:16):
I did, Like clockwork, wasn't discussed. Didn't feel as if
I had to. I just had to see whoever was there.
The one show I did not see was the Jewel Box.
Review didn't even know what it was until some years later.
You know, I never questioned that, but man, I was

(46:38):
there and you know turned into friendships with five Stairsteps,
with Kenny and Clarence and family, and man, I mean
I remember times when the Jackson five were there, when
Michael was running around backstage, up and down the stairs
and Jermaine you know, you know, if you know Jermaine,

(47:01):
you know he was the protector and you know, just
to get to know those guys on a one on
one basis was was. I enjoyed that in a great deal.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
So you would you were just allowed lee way like
throughout the theater or just.

Speaker 9 (47:19):
The more the more people noticed me. I was allowed
to enjoy what I enjoyed doing, and that was you know,
it was a weird thing. I cannot even remember how
certain things turned into friendships, but I did that.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
That happened a lot at the Apollo. How many of
these shows would occur a day? Is it just one
long concurrent show from like what a typical show just
be like a two hour experience and then they get
rid of people and then you come back or yes.

Speaker 9 (47:54):
It was like that. I believe at one time. I
understand there were several s was a day okay, prior
to my attending, but I would remember at least two
shows and they would add a show according to whatever
it was going on. I watched the documentary on HBO,

(48:17):
and a lot of it I remembered, but some of
the acts that were there prior to my going, I
heard a lot of things. And then Amateur Night I
believe it was on Wednesday, and that was a guest
within itself. It was Apollo to me was a finishing school,

(48:41):
if you want to call it that. But that's where
I really cut my teeth. I remember George Clinton Parliament
before it became Funker Delicment I remember the first show
when it became that, and of course George was wild.
We've always gone over the years. But there was a

(49:03):
group called Flamingos then had a song called Funky Broadway,
and that was the group that, as far as drumas
were concerned, that turned me out. That solo at the
end of Funky Broadway was the solo you had to play.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
If you were wait not dying. The Blazers.

Speaker 9 (49:29):
Dyke in the Blazers, and there was was a not
called the Dyke in the Blazers was one thing, but
the Flamingos. It was called the Battle of the Bands.
Groups from the Manhattan's Parliament's Parliament, and a lot of
other acts.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Sometimes the records in the house are children's records, and
they provide a foundation for folks, especially in the days
of kitty turntables. One of the records that I hold
near and deer. My first kid record was you Know.
As a Sesame Street fan, big fan of Ernie and
Bert Bert's Blockbusters, I would listen to that record religiously.

(50:19):
So when I get to school second grade, I would
sing doing the Pigeon or La La La La, like
all of Bert's greatest hits. So yeah, man, that was much,
isn't it. Shout out to Bert bro Gangster. All right,
and here is Bruce Springsteen. As if you couldn't tell

(50:39):
by the voice the local sicasty space right now, Like, wait,
we interviewed Bruce Springsteen. Damn right, we interviewed everybody on
this show. So since this album is essentially kind of,
at least the spirit of it is a return to
the music that you kind of fell in love within

(51:00):
your childhood, sure, I guess I'll start with the first
question I asked every guest on the show, even though
this is like the fourth question. What was your what
was your very first musical memory.

Speaker 24 (51:13):
My first musical memory was Disney Records. What was these
seven Snow White and the seven Doors?

Speaker 5 (51:21):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Hi ho hi hole.

Speaker 24 (51:23):
It's so my first recollection was something like that, you know,
or you know those little yellow records that played on
seventy eight speed. I don't know if you guys are
old enough to remember these, oh no, whatever, little seventy

(51:44):
eight s's, you know, little kid colors, red, yellow, blue,
and they played at seventy eight and they were basically
themes from movies. So that would be my first real
musical memory as a child. But after that, my mother
was young, she had me when I was when she
was in her early twenties, she played the radio. She

(52:05):
had the radio on all time every day, you know,
in the car and in the kitchen, and she listened
to Top forty and so right from a very young age,
I was exposed to like the great music of the fifties,
and that sort of was where what kind of inspired me,
you know, And really I'm basically a Top forty influenced musician.

(52:25):
That's how I kind of grew up. And I started there,
and then I went searching in blues and folk in
a lot of different other places for influences, but really
I started out just listening to the Top forty on
the radio.

Speaker 25 (52:37):
That's a little unusual though, because I would think, I mean,
I would consider you maybe like the second generation of
rock and roll.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
So you're not, I mean, you're not exactly a greaser.
And I know that you in your teen years. You know,
it was the late sixties.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
But it's very.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Unusual for me to see not not agreeable, but least
an amicable musically amicable environment in the household, because normally,
like the music of the kid is rebellious music and
turn that you know, right, But you're you're saying that
your your parents weren't like that at all, like bab.

Speaker 24 (53:19):
Well, my dad was a bit like that, but my
mother no, she was a young woman and she was
into uh, you know, we're Southern Italians, which means we
like music, we can sing and we can perform.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Next up we have Deborah Harry and Christine known as Blondie.
I would like to know, oh, I ask them both
of you. I'll start with Debris. What was your first
musical memory?

Speaker 4 (53:48):
Oh?

Speaker 20 (53:49):
Wow, I know, Well that's it really goes back, doesn't it.
I had, you know, children's record, it's back back then.
I had a Victrola, at least that's what my dad
called a victrola, and it was in a box, you know,
a little suitcase, and it had a speaker that was

(54:14):
attached to the arm where the you know, where the
needle was and you would just drop it down onto
the record. And so that those were my earliest things.
And I think one of my one of my favorites
was a thing, oddly enough called Little Toott.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Yeah, was that a Disney record?

Speaker 8 (54:37):
Or enough?

Speaker 4 (54:38):
Was a Disney record?

Speaker 20 (54:40):
It might have been, might have been, but it was
a really great little song that went through a lot
of different emotional interpretations because it told a story up
this little tougueboat and you know the worthlessness of this
little and little togueboat and how the big togboats always
you know, pushed it around. But then a little front

(55:02):
of it, yeah, little too became like the hero of the.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Day and so basically off the Retins Reindeer. Chris, what
was your first musical memory.

Speaker 26 (55:16):
Well, I don't I don't really remember locking onto any
little kid music.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
My first affinity for music started when I was like,
I guess, you know, around ten.

Speaker 26 (55:28):
Or eleven, with movie scores, which was and man, some
of those novelty songs, you know, like the Chipmunks and
Purple People, Eater and stuff. But I, you know, I
don't know how much that move me, that stuff. But
then I started, you know, like Laurence of Arabia and
West Side Story. I mean, I I it's very hard

(55:48):
for me to explain to younger people what a huge
cultural touchstone West Side Story was. West Side Story was
as big as the damn Beatles, There's no question about it.
I don't think people people don't get that nowadays.

Speaker 20 (56:03):
My oh god, my mother got so mad at me
because I took my sister, who is seven years younger
than me to see West Side Story and she almost
had a heart. Oh no, you took her, You took
her to see that? Oh no, how could you? But
it was fabulous. It was so wonderful. And you know,
Leonard Bernstein was never better.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
Really, I was going to say that, I'm currently reading
uh little Stephen Stephen van Zant's autobiography, and he too
has an immense obsession with West Side Story and pretty
much described it as the way that you guys did

(56:43):
like when it came out, it.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
Was a huge deal.

Speaker 26 (56:46):
I don't know, I mean, you're probably all your soundtracks
that I was praying more obsessed with Lawrence Arabia soundtrack,
mauriciol are you know great?

Speaker 20 (56:55):
And the other thing that I listened to a lot
was like the Cowboys sing, which is you know, Western,
not even country western, it was really Western music and
those were those were great, you know, great songs and
people like Burl Lives and stuff lives.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Okay, So now that you you know, declared your love
for Lawrence of Varibia, I gotta ask. You know, it's
important because the very first Okay, So, I grew up
in the household with an older sibling who, you know,
because of my sisters, because of her school situation. You know,

(57:37):
she was fitting in with her girlfriends what they were
listening to at the time. So you know, she's bringing
in a lot of you know, the classic new wave
of punk stuff or whatever. But the one album that
I remember, even though she had like you know, each
of Me and all that stuff, like, I remember the
day that she brought Auto American.

Speaker 26 (57:57):
Okay, okay, okay, okay. So, now, in on the orchestral session,
there was a bait one of the bass players played
on the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack, right, So that.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
I was going to ask, is your obsession because you
know the way that you open up Auto American with
the Europa score.

Speaker 26 (58:17):
Yeah, I mean you know you know that by then
I was at Adito Roda very deep and all this
other stuff.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
You know, I always had a thing for soundtracks.

Speaker 26 (58:27):
I think soundtracks nowadays that's a whole other topic, are
way overused. Uh They're becoming like laugh tracks, you know,
where they steer your emotions in the direction, right, of where, whoever, whoever,
the committee.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
That wrote the thing, they think you should be feeling,
you know.

Speaker 26 (58:43):
And then, you know, gradually I started assimilating the pop
music that was around me, like locomotion.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
Everybody loved the locomotion no matter what, you know.

Speaker 26 (58:53):
And you know, this stuff like the Shambra Laws, I
didn't really appreciate till later when we were doing the band.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
I was kind of like commercial to me at the time.

Speaker 20 (59:04):
You know, well, I'm older than Chris and I remember
this thing. I used to listen to radio a lot.
I had a little radio and I always had my
ear right next to the speaker. The speaker was only
at this big and they had a radio thing called
the Hit Parade. Yeah, and all those like crooners and

(59:27):
you know, band singers and stuff like that. There was
a lot of that. It was kind of great yeah
before yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
And then it was.

Speaker 26 (59:36):
And then I went into folk music, of course, you know,
because I was fifteen and sixty five and by that
time I've been playing I've been playing guitar for since
I was twelve, and folk music was it. And I
remember learning how to play house at the Rising Sun
was such a big deal to me.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
The one and only Mark ronson Mark, What was your
first musical memory?

Speaker 13 (59:59):
I have like almost snapshots in my head, like partial memories.
I remember having a little trap drum kit when I
was three or four. I remember also having it was
either a Sony or Fisher Price record.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Player that was like plastic, like.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
A brown joint or like a little tan one, like
a little tan joint.

Speaker 13 (01:00:23):
Whereas no, this was like primary colors.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
It was like red.

Speaker 13 (01:00:28):
Maybe it was just like an English one. It was
like red, yellow, green, And I just remember lifting the
needle and putting it down on the record and just
that excitement when the first like crackle happened, and then
like just being like whoa, I can control this. I
mean it's so not I mean it's not even deep
enough to compare it to DJ because it literally is DJing.

(01:00:49):
But yeah, those are some of my first first memories,
all right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
So instruments are important too.

Speaker 11 (01:00:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
The drums chose me because my birth doctor and cur
my mother to let me be as creative as I
want to be. You know, he's one of those hippies
like let him play in his food, let him draw
on the walls, like things that you should not do
in a black household with a bunch of plastic on
the furniture. But my mother pretty much took his advice

(01:01:18):
and let me just run rampant, but kind of drew
the line when it was like beating up the furniture.
So pretty much, I'll basically say that after beating the
furniture to death, my parents got me my first drum
set in nineteen seventy four when I was three years old.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
What is your actual first musical memory that you.

Speaker 23 (01:01:43):
I think for me, I was like a kid who
like who had you know, you know, you have to
be outside playing with individuals and your friends and am
I really great friends. But I think mine was when
I first got my first bass amplifier, had this univox,
I had a copy Fender Jazz called the Orlando, and

(01:02:04):
I opened up the case and I thought it was
real fur. I thought I was rich because I had
this bass guitarist fur was the fur inside of it.
That was my first musical experience, experience really, And then
I played trump. I played first trombone and jazz man too,
so I wanted to play saxophone, but they I wanted
to play saxophone, but.

Speaker 21 (01:02:24):
They didn't have anymore?

Speaker 17 (01:02:25):
What age is this again?

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
This isn't just in grade school?

Speaker 23 (01:02:28):
Well, grade school I was just starting to play. But
by the time I got to high school, I sat
in the first chair playing trombone.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
And that was Raphael Sadec.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
In twenty twenty one, here is bass God, Nathan East.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
What was your first musical memory that you had.

Speaker 27 (01:02:47):
Yeah, there was there was always a piano kind of
around the house that uh, pops and moms both would play.
But you know, it was like, you know, music, music
filled the neighborhood and you know, so you'd hear gl
Oudys Night, Marvin Gay out, you know, blasting through the
homes of this of the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
But it was really I'll never forget.

Speaker 27 (01:03:08):
My first forty five was more Love by Smokey Robinson.
We were just always gathered around the radio and listening
to music. And I remember when I played cello for
three years and then I discovered the base and it
was it was actually in church my brothers and I
were doing that. They were doing like these folk masters

(01:03:30):
back in the day when all that started, and uh,
and then there was a base on the altar and
I went up picked it up and nobody claimed it,
and I picked it up and I said, oh lord,
what was your first musical memory?

Speaker 11 (01:03:46):
My dad was in my ass because I wasn't practice
my piano in my ass because I had to practice
a half hour every day. And sometimes I would like
wait till he fell asleep, and after sleep and then
and then I would say, yeah, practice and he did.
I would get a whooping if I if I didn't practice.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
If you didn't practice your skills, yeah, man. So wait,
how old were you when you first started playing piano?

Speaker 11 (01:04:10):
Seven?

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Was this like a church requirement thing or like just
something to do to pass the time, or no, it's
my mom.

Speaker 11 (01:04:17):
My mom had this thing for signing me up for
activities so she could go do what she was gonna do.
That was like my babysitter. So if I was at
the y MCA all day, then you know I was coming.
That was just or like after school I went to
piano and then she would drop me off and she
would like go grocery shop like that was her, Like

(01:04:38):
you know that those were all my babysitters. But but
I learned, you know, I learned how to play the piano.
And she had me an archery swimming. I could do
anything when.

Speaker 16 (01:04:48):
I was little.

Speaker 11 (01:04:49):
Oh wow, okay, you guys didn't have the white the
white mom just dropping you off on sething.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Yeah, boys and girls, summer time.

Speaker 23 (01:04:56):
Yeah yeah, basketball, gymnastics, everything I know in gymnastics, Forward Road.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Get dropped off with the y and got dropped off
at Hebrew School on Sundays.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah sure, yeah, schools are why really? Yeah?

Speaker 17 (01:05:15):
We had that.

Speaker 11 (01:05:16):
We had a Jewish center and I had to go
to that too.

Speaker 12 (01:05:19):
Why'd you have to go to that?

Speaker 11 (01:05:21):
Because they had What class did I take?

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
That's why I took a cleaner? Why a cleaner gym?

Speaker 13 (01:05:26):
I took?

Speaker 9 (01:05:27):
This?

Speaker 11 (01:05:27):
I took That's why I put swimming lessons.

Speaker 6 (01:05:31):
You're right, that's funny, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:05:34):
Because it wasn't tho swimming pool that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:36):
Was nice like that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, I couldn't go to the fifty second Street. Why
I could go to the Jewish y on Broad Street
but not fifty second Street? You get to ask the
second Street why that's really?

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
And closing out the betch that is Mason Gray, another
one of a kind voice. Thank you guys for tuning in.
Come back next week and check out your podcast feed.
Part two of QL's first musical memories as we kick
off a new year, new season, and more great episodes ahead.
All Right, What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

(01:06:21):
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