February 5, 2025 • 55 mins
In Part 2 of this special look-back series, Questlove Supreme examines guests' first music memories. Questlove shares another memory from his life and drops some anecdote. The second set includes memorable reflections from DJ Premier, Sananda Maitreya, Steve Ferrone, Adam Levine, Tevin Campbell, Brittany Howard—and more. As we celebrate these early impressions, please consider writing a review or drop us a line on socials, and let QLS know your own first musical memory.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Good People,
Good People, What's up? Welcome back to Part two of
QLs Musical Memories. I'm your host quest Love and I've
asked his questions to hundreds, truly hundreds of people. You
(00:20):
haven't checked out Part one, now's the time, but right now,
here's part two. This one has a series of unique answers. Also,
every one of these episodes are available to stream wherever
you get your podcasts and on the iHeart app. Right
about now, we're going to start with one of my
musical heroes. All right, this guy man drummer of the
(00:40):
Average White Band. He's drummed on so many records by
Shaka Khan and Just the God. This is Steve Farhon.
He shared a story about tap dancing. Ironically, that's all
I also got into drumming, you know, I had to
learn to tap dance first, coordinate my feet. And he
taught us also about how tab dancing taught him about
(01:02):
race and culture living in Brighton, England. So let's go
back to twenty twenty two with the great Steve FERRONI can.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, you know what, I was told.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Was that I used to sit in the high chair
and we didn't have TV back then. We had radio, okay,
And I'd sit in the high chair with my spoon
eating and then some music would come on and I'd
start banging my spoon on the on the on the
high chair, on the table there to just keep in
time with whatever music was on the radio. And that's
(01:43):
was when they decided that my grand my grandma, my grandmother,
and my mother decided that I needed to channel that
that ability somewhere. So my grandmother was a big fan
of tap dancing. She loved Fred Astaire and Jim Kelly
and Tic Tac Toe and those guys. She was aware
(02:04):
of them, and so she sent me the tap dancing
school when I was better, as soon as I could,
about three years old.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah, I was going to say, I just discovered that
about you maybe a week ago when I was doing
my research, and that's kind of my entry.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And too.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Drums.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
I went to perform in art school in the first grade,
and it was one of those situations where you go
to your drum lesson and the drums are right there
and you're sort of like, let me at him, let
me at him, and they're like nope, and they point
to a practice pad on the corner, and you got
to learn, like your roommate's like, it's almost like I
(02:40):
had to practice to work my way up to the
drum set. But even before I got to the practice pad, Yeah,
I had to take tap dance. So yeah, yeah, all
that bojangles me and my shadow like like I was,
I was a hoofer, Like.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Were you good at it? That was pretty good at it?
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Yeah, that was pretty good at it.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
I want medals and stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Really, can you can you still hoof now? Or is
that I.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Had a neat replacement that light on my feet anymore?
But I could probably, I can probably I can do
a timestep still, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, Like around around maybe nine, age nine or age ten.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
I kind of eased out of that and just became
strictly like music.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Well, you know, I have.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
To say my first, like my moment that you had,
that you said that you had with Average White Band,
I had when I was about five years old. My
parents used to take me. They used to take me.
We had this I guess you call it Vaudeville or
something like that. Vaudeville there was a theater called the
Hippodrome and the Beatles played there actually, so it's kind
(03:56):
of Bingo Hall now I think it is. But this
is one of those theaters got sort of neglected and
sort of let go little theater and uh and and
they used to take me there to see these shows
and and you know, usually it was comedians and pantomime
at Christmas and stuff. And they took me there to
(04:18):
see this show. And there was a band. There was
a band, a close harmony group called the Deep River Boys.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Deep from Brooklyn.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Oh really okay, and they were very very big on
Radio Luxembourg. Was was where you would where people would
go to to listen to something other than the BBC,
because the BBC used to just play classical music and
it wasn't they didn't play anything at all, you know.
So you go to Radio Luxembourg and you tune into
Radio Luxembourg and they had a show on there and
(04:50):
and I guess they also was it was also a
show that was that was that was good for like uh,
the the American forces were all over Europe at that point.
They had the basis of France and Germany and and
uh and and so they used to be on that
on on the American Forces Broadcasting. But they had a
regular show on this on this and they on Radio
(05:11):
Luxembourg and they appeared at the Hippodron. So my parents
took me down there and they did maybe it was
kind of like gospel music, but I'd never heard anything
like that, and I got really excited and started dancing
around in the in the audience listening to this music
is like, what's this?
Speaker 7 (05:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well is that ehen you find vanilla ice cream? You
give a vanilla I skream to a baby first time
they have it, They're like, why didn't you give me
this before?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
You know?
Speaker 8 (05:36):
You get this baby food? Why where was this vanilla
ice cream?
Speaker 9 (05:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
That was what what what I got with from their music,
And they sent them manager there too me and they
brought me backstage and befriended, befriended me.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
They made me Deep River Boys number six, and that
was the time. That was when I found out that
I was black. Oh word, okay, yeah, I had no idea.
I had no idea that I was black until I
went and saw these guys. And they took me back
back to my parents, my grand my mom and my
(06:11):
grandmother took me backstage to meet them, you know, with
the they I've been invited back and I looked at
these guys and they were six foot tall, which was
then back then was gigantic, was a giant. And I said,
I wish I could be black black you guys, back
then we never said black was colored because it was disrespectful.
(06:34):
It was disrespectful to say black black. Then I wish
I was colored like you.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
And this guy Harry Douglas, who I stayed in touch
with for years, he passed away sometimes sometime ago.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh, you maintained a friendship with him.
Speaker 8 (06:48):
Yes, all through the years.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yes, it was just amazing.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
And uh and there the first Americans that you interacted
with as well.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yes, how weird was it to hear? Did they have
an accent to you?
Speaker 10 (07:01):
I didn't even know. I was just like, I was
just so sweet. I mean that's how they sang. And
they sang, they sang like, yeah, we heard. It seemed
like we sort of heard about America.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
I think we had TV by then, So there a
couple of TV series that we've seen, not much of
a TV little thing like this black bohite thing, right,
But but Harry Douglas looked at me and he and
he said to me, he says, you know, tonight I'm
going to cast a spell. And when you wake up
tomorrow morning, you go look in the mirror and you
and you'll be you'll be colored like we are. Sleep.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I went to sleep, and then I got up and
I went to the mirror, and yes, it was.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
Anything more about it.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Oh god, that's a great story.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, all right, that was Steve Farona, the average white band. Uh,
he's played with so many giants. Next up, another great storyteller.
You know, we gave our flowers to the one and
only Tevin Campbell. What was your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 11 (08:08):
My aunt giving me the Amazing Grace album, the Franklin
Mazin Grace album on the vinyl.
Speaker 8 (08:15):
She gave that to me when I was I think
I was.
Speaker 11 (08:18):
That was the first album that I listened to continuously.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
Ah, I think I was maybe eight or nine. She
gave it to you.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So her version of Holy Holy is just like, come on, man,
what were we talking about?
Speaker 8 (08:33):
Well, her version of Amazing Grace is, Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 11 (08:36):
I mean though the song was written by Amon, I
didn't know that till years after a couple of years ago,
I learned that.
Speaker 8 (08:43):
But anyway, she like, no, yeah, yeah, it does, it does.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
What was it like for you to see the film
version of that after having lived with it so long?
Speaker 9 (08:55):
You mean you mean the her refas film version?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
She you know, when she was a she they tried
to bring it out maybe like you know, like twenty
years ago, and because of some sort of contractual dispute,
she didn't allow it, so of course she had to
pass away.
Speaker 9 (09:11):
Were you able to see the documentary or the concert
the film.
Speaker 11 (09:16):
The Amazing Grace Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, sorry, yeah.
I thought it was beautiful in a point in her
life where she was very happy, not that she wasn't
happy at any point in her life, but she was glowing,
and she was she had this afro and it was
just beautiful, man, And you know, seeing her in her element,
I think it was the.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
Most beautiful thing. I think that people were touched by
seeing that film.
Speaker 11 (09:40):
Because you don't a lot of people don't know that
she sat and played that pid piano a lot of
the songs that.
Speaker 8 (09:47):
She did, and a lot of songs on an Amazing Grace.
Speaker 11 (09:49):
Album too, So to see her sitting there in her element,
playing behind her and singing.
Speaker 8 (09:52):
It's just amazing all the time.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
So that most people don't know that she's like just
as good as a piano player.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
She is.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Yeah, it's important for people to see that.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Here's Bernadette Cooper of Climax. Can you tell me what
your first musical memory was?
Speaker 12 (10:12):
Wow, when you say musical memory like.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Band that I now just from as a baby, Like
what like the very first musical memory as a child.
Speaker 12 (10:25):
Of course, you know, Aretha Franklin was my was my
played in my household when there was happy times, when
they were sad times. So Rita was a person that
I used to listen to and follow her lyrics and
her and her vocal movements and her hooks, and and
it made me a better writer by the Rita Franklin songs.
(10:48):
And then of course moving on Dio Daddo, Remember Dio Daddo. Yeah, yeah,
it was a little bit of all those guys. Jeff Beck,
you know, I really got into that scene and kind
of in the high school, junior high school era.
Speaker 8 (11:04):
But yeah, I would.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Say, what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 13 (11:12):
My dad, my father, we were in a in a
yard in the backyard in Outlan HALLI school, small little town,
and it was like five o'clock in the afternoon. Everything's
kind of gives gold you know, when the sound goes down,
everything looks golden. And my father he was over there
teaching me how to read and one of me teaching
me how to play the violin. So he happened, opened
(11:33):
up the violin case rather the violin put it put
it up here like this, and then he goes.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Meta, which means look meta. Then he went and I'm
like what. And then a bird.
Speaker 13 (11:46):
Comes over this, a little lance lance on this street,
and he was he goes best, do you see? He
goes bess one more time?
Speaker 14 (12:01):
Bird.
Speaker 13 (12:03):
If you could talk to the birds, you could talk
to people.
Speaker 14 (12:06):
Get it.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And I was like, and that was Carlos Santana. And
you can add bird calls to as many talents.
Speaker 14 (12:18):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Speaking of which, wow, here's Mars day. Maris, what was
your what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 6 (12:27):
It went way.
Speaker 15 (12:28):
Back, you know, because I kind of just came into
the world with the notion that I was going to
be involved with music, you know, born in fifty six,
you know, and I can remember listening to the Beatles
on our little am radio that we had, and you know,
(12:50):
then later remember doing you know the James Brown running
around my.
Speaker 16 (12:54):
You know, the house in the projects and fruit of
the looms on doing the splits, trying to do James
round and all that, and then sixty four comes around.
We were one of the first you know, let you
know how what priorities were back then, but we had
one of the first color TVs in the projects all that.
Back then, I was watching Bandstand Man, and I'm watching
(13:17):
the Supremes at four tops, you know, all these motown
acts on Bandstand and I was like, that's what I
want to do, you know.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
So those were my early memories, you know, of music.
But I just it was just in.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
My blood, all right. So you know, last episode in
part one of this compilation, I gave you one musical memory.
Part two, I'll give you another musical memory. Jimmy Jam
would make fun of me during the pandemic when I
was like DJ and online and you can read the
(13:53):
comments as you DJ. Jimmy Jam always noticed that I
would let the listeners know when a particular song scared
me in my childhood, and I realized that I never
liked songs that had a modulation in it, like whenever
there's a dramatic key change. I was never a fan
(14:15):
of that, Like it just sounded scary, real scary, And
that's how it's always been great. Example Aretha Franklin's classic
covering of Bobby Woomex I'm in Love. There's like a
moment where there's like a bridge and then they go
to this modulation key change, and then Eric Martin and
(14:38):
Jerry Wexler put extra extra reverb on Aretha's voice, and
you know, like I now know like gospel singing sort
of comes from pain and whatnot. But yeah, I don't know.
Just to my four year old ears, man, I don't
know if it sounds like she was being murdered or whatever.
(14:59):
So that's like a scary moment to hear. But also
the beginning of me not liking modulation starts once again
in my childhood. Three years old. Yeah, someone called child
services for all the shit that happened during my third
year of life. My sister and I are staying in
(15:22):
Alta Dina, California, in my aunt's house while my parents
are recording the Congress Alley album, the same Congress Alley
album that Doctor dre used on a nothing but a
g thing. I mentioned that a few times, my parents
being a sample of those voices in the hook.
Speaker 14 (15:39):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Anyway, So again in a bathtub, taking a bath, get
out the bath and rambunctious two year old. I'm just
running around, running around, and I slip and fall and
I land kind of on my left side on our
hot radiator. And the radiator has to be especially like
(16:03):
back in the day radiators. Like now we have like
you know, thermostats, and usually the heat comes from you know,
like ventilators that are in the sky. But back in
the day, man, they used to be on the ground,
and they used to be burning and hot, like thinking
of the equivalent of like an iron, just put an
iron on and then just touch an iron, like that's
(16:24):
how houses were heated back in the early seventies. And
I slipped and my entire leg hits the radiator, and
according to my sister, I think I had like second
degree burns, but I was just screaming in pain. But
right when this was happening, Soul Train was on and
(16:44):
Curtis Mayfield was doing Freddy's Dead And there's a part
in the middle of Freddy's Dead where they just briefly
go to C sharp minor and a bunch of trombones
and trumpets have the plunger, you know, like when New
(17:05):
Orleans band uses the plunger, like that sort of thing,
and they're doing that line and Freddy's Dead man.
Speaker 14 (17:14):
And ah Man.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was never a fan of C sharp. C sharp
minor is one of the keys that I don't like,
Like when something scary happens in the movies or whatever,
like that's the that's the key I don't want to
hear for some reason. But any song that had a
modulation after that I was not a fan of. Maybe
with the exception. The only one that passed that test,
(17:37):
I'll say was Stevie Wonder's Golden Lady, which used to,
you know, at the end of the song, every four
bars it would just go higher and hire and hire.
So that's another distinctive memory from my childhood. What was
your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 6 (17:58):
The Beatles.
Speaker 17 (18:00):
I was two years old, and it's the first not
only musical memory, it's my first memory. I would imagine
the thought. I almost vaguely think I remember a picture
of my father being banished from my life my biological father.
But obviously I would have suppressed that if it was
a negative emotion. But at the age of two, I remember.
Speaker 8 (18:22):
She loves you, yeah, yeah, and oh you.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
No no no, no no.
Speaker 17 (18:29):
If you don't understand, I want to hold your hand,
and she loves you. That that is the earliest memory
I have. And I just think it's so awesome that
it was a musical memory as well, because nothing you
know that that was the music that woke up my
consciousness to the fact that I was existing in that life.
Speaker 14 (18:48):
So that was my first memory.
Speaker 17 (18:50):
I also remember seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's on television when
it came on in nineteen sixty four, I think also too,
or somewhere around thereabouts. And I remember my mother buying
me some Batman cards because that was my first hero
was Batman. So those memories around the same time. They
(19:11):
were all the East Ards New Jersey memories.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And that was the great Sanata Matreya from our twenty
twenty four to one on one interview, and this is
John oots back in twenty twenty two with a really
touching memory of my father's music. Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 9 (19:31):
Do you know your first musical memory was.
Speaker 6 (19:33):
I sure do. I absolutely do.
Speaker 18 (19:37):
Right after we moved to Pennsylvania, there was a place
not too far away called Willa Grove Amusement Park. Okay,
and now it was an airbase as well, but anyway,
at the time it was an amusement park and my
folks took me there and Bill Haley and the Comments
were playing in the band show. And I don't know
(19:57):
if you remember, but Bill Haley was from Camden, of course,
and so I was like I was probably four maybe,
and of course, you know, I had had this musical
sensibility at the time, even though though I was a
little kid.
Speaker 6 (20:10):
And I remember running down to the stage.
Speaker 18 (20:12):
It was the band show, so the stage was only
maybe two feet high, and I remember being this little
kid and I ran right down to the band shell.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
And I remember the.
Speaker 18 (20:22):
Bass player, the upright bass player. At one point in
the show, he rode his bass like a horse, and
I thought that was the most amazing things I'd ever seen.
And that actually the first live music I ever heard
was Rock around the Clock.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
And and uh, you know Bill Haley in the.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Comets really, so they were just performing at the.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
They were in the they were performing at the Amusement Park.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Yeah, I was going to say, I think I believe
that I too saw a latter day Bill Haley Beforemat.
Speaker 9 (20:54):
Then we used to we we had something called the
Steel Pier.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
Oh yeah, I played at the Steel Pier.
Speaker 9 (21:00):
Yeah, still here in a Lank City. It was in
Lank City, right or wild Wood Yep.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
No, it was in Atlantic City.
Speaker 18 (21:05):
And when I was a really little kid, around five
or six, I sang at something called Tony Grant Stars
of Tomorrow, which was a kitty.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
Talent show at the Steel Pier.
Speaker 9 (21:18):
In my dating myself, I had mentioned the word Al Alberts.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Where you do you remember the Al albert show case
at all?
Speaker 6 (21:24):
Yeah? Yeah, it was.
Speaker 18 (21:25):
It was around that time, and there was a guy
and it was actually before Dick Clark took over Bandstand
and it was what was his name? There was a
different host before Dick Clark, but it was during that
period of time.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
It was in the mid fifties.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
And uh so you you were there for like the
do Op era of Philadelphia.
Speaker 18 (21:45):
Yeah, du Op and Jerry Blavitt and all that stuff.
Jerry Blavitt was a big hero of mine.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Yeah, how was.
Speaker 18 (21:51):
That the radio show that he used to do from
I think it was from Trenton where he'd play all
B sides and man, I heard, you know songs like
Viola by the Versatones and you know and Guided Missiles
and you know these songs that were just unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
And you know your.
Speaker 18 (22:09):
Your your father man Lee Andrews and the Hearts. Man,
I mean, you know, tick tick ticking of the clock.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
He got a.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Can you tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Oh?
Speaker 19 (22:28):
Man, first musical memory. My grandmother had like one of
those big consoles that has like the eight track player
and the record player and the speakers built in. And
I remember being really young, maybe four, and messing around
with all the vinyl yes and pulling out some of
(22:49):
the albums and had them all on the floor, and
my Grandma's like what you're doing, you know, like don't
break them and all this, and I remember her putting
on the Thriller album. I remember here. I remember hearing
the speakers because it's like a tube system, remember them
warm up, and then I could hear, you know, songs
of Thriller coming out of the speakers and being like,
(23:10):
what the hell is this, you know, kind of kind
of amazed in the name of by the whole thing,
not just the music, but just all of it. You know,
the warmth of it coming on?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Was that your kind of I don't mean come to
Jesus moment, but for you, was that like the moment
where it's like, Okay, well I want to also express
myself in this way through music or.
Speaker 20 (23:39):
Nah.
Speaker 19 (23:40):
So no, not really, I mean I had that kind
of moment when I was eleven. I I was in
middle school and in my school, I don't know what
if a grade eleven is fifth or sixth grade, and
there was a band from our school that had rented
out our gym and they were gonna put on a show.
And I remember all throughout the day everybody was asking,
(24:01):
are you gonna go to the show? You're gonna go
to the show? I was like, I don't know, I'll
see if I can get there. And so I get
to the gym and I'm by myself, and I remember
being like super anxious because I don't really know anybody
at well, and the band plays and a musing them
play on stage and kids I went to school with.
It was like I didn't know these kids could do this.
There were so talented. Look at the effects that having
(24:22):
on people. It was songs that I liked and I knew,
and it was like the coolest thing I had ever seen.
And it was in that moment standing in the gym
that I knew I wanted to be in a band,
and I wanted to make my own music and I
wanted to be up there like they were. Like, I
think that was the come to Jesus moment for me.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Okay, how long before you found other people that sort
of had a common love for music? Like was music
something that you kept close to the chest? Or like
how big was the music community down there?
Speaker 19 (24:56):
It was? It was so small. I had to teach
people how to play music to be in a band.
Speaker 14 (25:03):
Wow.
Speaker 19 (25:04):
So I would go teach myself the instruments, and then
I would go back to school and I would just
try to find a kid with some sort of musical
talent like rhythm, and I'd be like, Okay, hey, do
you want to learn how to play bass guitar? Like
do you want learn how to play drums? And I
would tutor them and see if that get to appointment
where we could make music together. Some yes, but a
lot no, Like it just didn't happen. I was trying
(25:25):
to make it happen. And it wasn't until I was
probably like sixteen years old that I finally met some
kids who also were interested in making music. And that
was Zach Zach copple Bassis for Albama Shakes. And then
he's Fogg who became a guitar player, and it was them.
So this whole thing really started from my school.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Was guitar your very first instrument of choice? Or did
you play other instruments as well?
Speaker 19 (25:52):
My first instrument, I guess technically is like piano, and
then drums, drummer, heart and then basically yeah, yeah, yeah,
a lot of my yeah, a lot of the drums
on my new record. I programmed those drums. I'm not
saying I could play them like that, but I can
hear it, you know. And uh yeah. Then I learned bass,
(26:15):
and then I only learned guitar because I had to.
I didn't really want to play guitar really, no, I
want to be in the rhythm section. I just one
I want to play bass.
Speaker 14 (26:24):
What is the gap though?
Speaker 9 (26:25):
Wait?
Speaker 21 (26:26):
The gap in between you knowing you wanted to do
this and you teaching folks that the music.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Like, how are you learning.
Speaker 14 (26:33):
You never kind of said that yet, Well you just yeah.
Speaker 19 (26:37):
So at firstly I didn't have those instruments like drums.
I could have access to drums because there were a
set of drums at our school, so I could go
play those drums after school. When it came to bass guitar,
I would just borrow one from one of the rich kids,
because like, I don't know what it was about school, Well,
all the rich kids had a bass guitar. Let me
borrow it, you know, and they let me borrow it.
(26:58):
And so I taught myself how to do that. And
the guitar my my sister had a guitar like tucked
away back in the closets, like one of those jcpenny
guitars that looks like a Less Paul and it's like
it's like one hundred and fifty pounds. And that's what
I learned on was that guitar. So I was teaching myself.
Speaker 14 (27:17):
How long did it take?
Speaker 19 (27:19):
I mean, I haven't mastered any of those instruments, right,
that's what we're doing, okay, no, no, no, no no no. Honestly,
I was just learning as I went. So if I
picked something up, I would make something with it. I
would just learn as I went. So from from the
very beginning, I wanted to make my own music. That
was like the whole goal, that was like the whole purpose.
But when I was originally learning, I had to learn
(27:42):
other people's songs.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
So I just.
Speaker 19 (27:43):
Started with stuff that was easy, like like blink on
a two, and I was like, kind of things like
that that are pretty easy power chord stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
So I'm going to ask you, am I the only
one that goes through this?
Speaker 5 (27:55):
Like sometimes when we'll ask people about their childhood, you're
thinking about your childhood, you but then you realize that
their childhood is actually your adulthood, like.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Childhood, and I'm like, wait a minute. I was thirty
three years old when that came out, like pretty.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Don't do the math, don't do the math.
Speaker 14 (28:17):
Don't do it.
Speaker 6 (28:17):
Don't do it.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
It hurts.
Speaker 14 (28:18):
I give my feelings hurt.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I guess when we first played together was at the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and we
were doing a tribute for Big Mama Thornton. In your childhood,
was there did anyone ever put you onto her? Or
was it like later in life when you discovered her
I'm for a so called music historian. I you know,
(28:42):
I admit, and I'm ashamed of it that I was
probably in my mid forties before someone explained to me
who Big Mama Thornton was, even though like I've heard
hound Dog and all that stuff all my life, but.
Speaker 19 (28:55):
I remember doing his sister though.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Oh my god, I talk about it.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You know what you want to edit that? Yes? Yeah,
and quest Love makes mistakes. Yes, I had a brain fart.
I'm sorry he was a historian quest Love things.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
I'm sorry. I meant sisters at a thought. Yeah, were
you at all familiar with her in your childhood or
did that come to you later in life?
Speaker 19 (29:22):
It definitely came to me later in life, maybe mid twenties.
Mid twenties is when I started getting curious about these
women blues players, right, And then I had started hearing about, well,
there's this woman that kind of inspired Chuck Berry and
inspired of us Presley and had the electric guitar. And
someone told me about it because I played an SG
(29:44):
and they're like, oh this like sister was at a tharpe.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
She also put a SG.
Speaker 19 (29:47):
She put an SG custom in white, and I was like, oh,
I've never heard of her, so I started looking into
her stuff and I was like, the stuff she's actually
playing on the guitar is so unique. It's it's her
on that guitar. Nobody else is doing it. It's crazy.
It's actually hard, it's hard to play how she's playing.
And so that's when I kind of started diving into
(30:09):
her stuff and in her story, which her story is
really interesting as well.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And that was Brittany Howard. And here's Ellie Reid from
part one of our epic three parter.
Speaker 8 (30:21):
La.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
What was your very first musical memory, first musical memory ever,
like ever your first thought of music? What? Like, what's
it might be?
Speaker 5 (30:33):
It might be a little hazy, but I think that
it was growing up Cincinnati, Ohio in the kitchen, small kitchen,
transistor radio in the window, and I think it was
It's my party and I cry if I want to. Yes,
I think it was that because for some reason I
(30:55):
remember that name, Quincy Jones. Don't know why, but like
I knew that name as a baby and it never left,
you know. I think it was that or it was
something from Motown, right, like one of those dancing in
the streets.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
So I can't exactly I was very young.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
But the one that the one that got me though,
the one that, like the life changing moment, was when
I heard give the drummer some and and cold sweat
James Brown. That moment, like that was that the world stopped.
So speaking of Cincinnati. Oh, by the way, uh, in
(31:33):
case our listeners don't know, not many people know that
Quincy Jones produced Leslie Gore's It's My Party. That's his
very first, very first hits as a as a pop producer.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I was going to say that I noticed, at least
from what Bootsie told me and just from observing that
anyone who's in proximity of King Records and their whole
operation had their life changed, either as someone that works
(32:05):
inside of King Records or the studio or the factory,
or someone like Boucie Collins did hung in the alleyway
and just hoped maybe one day we'll get used or
something like that.
Speaker 14 (32:16):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But because there's a five year of five to ten year.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
Age discrepancy of you and Boucie's generation, right, how did
the James Brown Ohio effect? And Plus this also explains
why Ohio is the funk capital of the United States
because I mean basically, King Records moved their operations to Cincinnati,
and basically at a time period in which the ripple
(32:45):
effects started happening even in other cities like Funk just
spread throughout Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland, been all over. So just
as a ten year old, were you aware of James
Brown's presence in the city. I feel like I didn't
know it officially, but I felt the presence. Like the
(33:06):
first Contenter ever went to was a James Brown concert
at the Cincinnati Convention Center, and I hung outside and
I met Maceio Parker, and that that was a big
deal for me, like literally walking down the street outside
the convention Center. And also King Records was like a
few doors down from like my karate school as a kid, Right,
(33:29):
So I would go to karate school, but when I
wait on the bus, right take the bus home afterwards,
and I knew that that was King Records. So I
never saw a soul, but I would just stare at it.
I felt drawn to it. But then as I got
like slightly older, all the musicians in Cincinnati were all
(33:50):
so impacted by Bootsy and James Brown, but more Bootsy
to be honest, right, James was like the godfather of soul.
Bootsy was our local superstar. So everything that Bootsy did,
we all, you know, aspire to do. Bootsy holds his
base this way, so you hold your base like Bootsy. Right,
(34:11):
Bootsy wears these kind of shoes, so he has these.
Everything was about whatever Boots he did was the magic.
You know, he was like a god to us. James
Brown needed Booty more than Boots. He needed James even
though Boosy needed that guidance, right, Yeah, James Brown needed
that validation of you know, the next generation respecting him.
Speaker 9 (34:35):
And what was the first song, super bad.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Very first song sex Machine? Sex Machine was bootsy very
first one. Yeah, okay, you got it.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
There's there's an amazing all right, So they did that
song in two takes, and there's a there's a really amazing,
rare dialogue for James. Like if you listen to James's
out takes, normally it's sarcasm or I mean not like
mean spirited, but like if they mess up or whatever,
you'll you'll hear him like chastise the engineer or something
(35:07):
like that. But when they do the second take of
sex Machine, there's like a forty five minute conversation of
James just like you hear him walking in the studio
and tell them like like being encouraging almost like which
is rare for James Brown. But he's like obviously knows
like these these six seventeen eighteen year old kids are
(35:29):
really really scared right now, and he's just oh, no,
you got it, man, Like you can do it, like,
which is wow, compared to the rest of what James does,
like on the other takes or whatnot, Like it's almost
like he knew that he was dealing with children, you
know what, I'm.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Right, So, yeah, some sensitivity and he's yeah, that's great.
Speaker 14 (35:57):
All right.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Here is a DJ Premiere Premiere fun fact about Premiere
secret comedian. See that was Premier playing piano right now.
So to be fair, when this episode aired in twenty seventeen,
I didn't ask the question. We were just in the
studio talking and Premiere shared this. But it fits. You know,
(36:19):
whenever the two of us get to talking, we have
a lot to say. So Premiere.
Speaker 21 (36:26):
For me, it was my mom is an art teacher
and she just had so many records in the house.
You know, the rules were, don't touch the top of
the record only all the edges or you get a.
Speaker 14 (36:39):
Do we call it a whooping? Not a spank and
a whooping?
Speaker 21 (36:42):
I touched the top because I just wanted to see
what is touch on the top?
Speaker 14 (36:46):
Do she goes, you got your fingerprints on it? Your
dumb motherfucker's.
Speaker 9 (36:53):
Like?
Speaker 21 (36:53):
And then I mean I got plenty of whipons because
you know, I looked at records as a toy, because
the labels was what attracted me. The way they looked
when they spun. I was really attracted to the labels.
You know, It's like, wow, Motown, the way it looked
in Tamala, dark skinned Motown versus light.
Speaker 14 (37:13):
Yeah. Oh, like the blue versus the yellow, and the.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Motel was the yellow in the brown. Harry Winner once
at Universal explained to me that because Motown used eighteen
different factories across the United States UH to print it,
like they didn't do their own pressing, it was never consistent.
So the ink would be consistent. So you would have
some Motown print that had a very dark queue to it,
(37:41):
and then you had a lighter Motown. But sometimes even
the Tamala would be a very dark label versus a
light one, like it would just Gordy. It would depend
on you know what pressing plant used.
Speaker 21 (37:58):
Yeah, but the labels always fascinated me, just the way
and look when it's fun. And then on top of that,
you know you had semi even not semi auto. You know,
they went to semi automatics, but it little almost like
a gun. But they even fully automatic turntables, which at
that time my mother called it a record player, not
a turntable. So seeing her stack the spindle with the
that looks like a bottle rocket or whatever, and stack
(38:20):
that and then puts five forty fives on there and
let the arm hold it, and then the arm goes up,
touches it, goes back, the record drops in it. I'm like,
how does it know to land there?
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Like?
Speaker 14 (38:32):
You know, so I took her as apart, which got me.
Speaker 21 (38:36):
That gets you because I wanted to see the mechanics
of what's making it do that and you know where
to land.
Speaker 14 (38:41):
And then on top of it, when you put a.
Speaker 21 (38:43):
Twelve, you know, an album, it knew to start at
the album where it's like, how's it no go here?
But on the forty five goes all the way insigne
and lands right on the tank.
Speaker 14 (38:51):
I was in the juke boxes too.
Speaker 21 (38:52):
I would just stay at the jukebox because almost any
restaurant back then had a juke box, and I would
just stare at and watch it shuffle the records, and
then you know, like that, that's why he's like happy Days.
Speaker 14 (39:03):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I do not feel would you? Would you rotate records
without even listening to it, just see what it looked
like spilling? Were you biased against labels that you didn't like?
Copy wise, even if I had good music, did you
judge it on the label?
Speaker 14 (39:23):
Judge it on the label like I do now?
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Like I never like Capital so it took me a
long time, like especially.
Speaker 22 (39:30):
Old swimming purple or orange like Nat King cole Cat
black with a rainbow around. Yeah, that's why I never
touched my dad's Capitol record right, took me wrong to
get the Beatles.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And Beach Boys like Yeah, label who was the like
the one I used? Like scary labels used to scare me.
I never liked Buddha, yeah, with the little man at
the bottom, like Kurd Time Curtains. But here's the thing
you like Kurt Time. Yeah, I scared.
Speaker 14 (40:02):
Literally face say that.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
At the same I would never to listen to if
there's Hell below, we all gotta go. We're all gonna
go with all that psychedelic echo effect to it in
the dark. As a three year old watching that Kurt
Time label, Nah, but I'd be obsessed with it, like
make him put it on. Then I run upstairs and
(40:25):
hide on the cover.
Speaker 14 (40:27):
I don't.
Speaker 21 (40:27):
I hit under the covers when Jaws came out because
I thought the shot could come in, and I'm like,
and if you think about it, the shot can't swim
without water. But I just remember going to see Jaws
with my family and just.
Speaker 14 (40:38):
That boom doom, doom, doom, doom, doom doom.
Speaker 21 (40:41):
I was so scared of staying by myself, you know,
my my parents let us stay by myself at a
young age because it's just like that in the South,
you know, you know, you leave your door unlocked and
people just walk in, you know, like I'm from that, Like, hey,
your dad, oh it's not you know, unchained fively. I
(41:02):
learned that when I came to New York and my
mom's from Baltimore. So even when we used to stay
at my grandmother's house, same thing. They had all these
like all these locks and You're just like, damn, you.
Speaker 14 (41:12):
Know, what's the you know?
Speaker 21 (41:14):
But then you see the corner store right outside the
house where everybody's fighting and screaming and breaking glass, and
I'm like.
Speaker 14 (41:22):
I want to go back to Texas, you know.
Speaker 21 (41:24):
And then you get to the teenage Agent where it's like, yo,
I love all this violence stuff.
Speaker 14 (41:28):
And that's when the changes started. The change started to come.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Your father, your father, he was a professor at PRAI Review.
Speaker 14 (41:36):
Yeah, yeah, and he was my dean. Imagine that. So
you went for free? No? Well, I mean yeah, he
paid for it. What was computer science? But none of
those languages exist, you know. I took for tran and basic.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah no, no, no, you can't get your receipt back.
So wait, if the if the turntable was such a
sacred holy ground in your household? What happened the very
first time you ever heard the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
(42:15):
on the Wheels is still? Did you hear it as
a youngster in Texas?
Speaker 14 (42:21):
No? I was.
Speaker 21 (42:23):
I was going back and forth. Yeah, but I was
going back and forth because my grandfather lived in Brooklyn.
That's how the first Brooklyn connection happened. Because he ustaill.
He lived in Brooklyn, so being staying with him, he
and I used to always go to I was really
in the in the pinball games heavy as a kid,
so he's always take me to Playland in tom Square
and then we always go to a Yankee game. So
I was so used to going to baseball games with him.
(42:45):
That's how I got into baseball. I played that played
when I was young, and that he's the one that
got me into that. And then he used to tour
with his band and he played trombone, trumpet, guitar and
upright bass.
Speaker 14 (42:57):
So he used to always show me all.
Speaker 21 (42:58):
The pictures like, yeah, this is when I was in German,
this is when I was here, just when I was there.
Speaker 14 (43:01):
And I remember his wife, Rooney, God bless her.
Speaker 21 (43:04):
She's always going, oh, Bill, there you go. He loves
to brag about all the places he's been. But for me,
it was like, wow, all this music took you all
these places, you know, So I wanted to do that
same thing.
Speaker 14 (43:18):
See yeah, but so.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
So it wasn't like you scratched on the home term
table and nah, not then.
Speaker 21 (43:23):
But by the time scratching came out, I just was
wanted to figure out how they able to bring it
back like that. And then my homie who's still a
friend of mine, RP.
Speaker 14 (43:33):
Coler.
Speaker 21 (43:33):
His name is Randy Pettis. He went to my college.
So I didn't really understand the scratching aspect as far
as how they're making the record come back until like
nineteen eighty five, when when eighty four, I'm sorry, eighty
four when I was in college, cause I graduated high
school in eighty four.
Speaker 14 (43:48):
My freshman year in college, I went.
Speaker 21 (43:50):
I went to summer school just so I just wanted
to be in college so bad, because you know, just
to get away hang out with all the people.
Speaker 14 (43:56):
And we don't.
Speaker 21 (43:56):
We only live five minutes from the college, but it's
still a different way now. On the dorms and with
the boys, we're drinking, we're doing all the stuff that
and that that you want to do away from your parents.
And and uh, I just remember, man, he was scratching
and and he had these felt pads on there, and
I was like, yo, how are you doing that? And
and he.
Speaker 14 (44:17):
Was like, I'll show you. He's come to my dorm.
And I went to this dorm.
Speaker 21 (44:19):
He showed me how to cut on his old big Gemini.
It was a big Gemini mixer. It was silver with
wood on the side. That's all I remember, the big silver.
Speaker 14 (44:28):
Damn. He had to run to get the cross fader,
you know, and he was and the way, the way,
the way the dorms were.
Speaker 21 (44:34):
Set up shot the Holly Hall that was, that was
the dorm of all the wildness. He the way he
had to set up he a two on the right
because he couldn't.
Speaker 14 (44:42):
He couldn't.
Speaker 21 (44:42):
He couldn't do nothing right because well he cult left
and right, but only when he was doing the gigs
at his whole, at his dorm, he would set him
up on the right. So, being I got so used
to learning it that way, I just stuck with that
way I could. You know, I got better now where
you have to cross over and everything, but now I
don't want him that But if it's set up that way,
I'm still nice to do it with him on the
(45:04):
right or And then the second thing that led me
just keeping on the right was when Malcolm Claren and
the world famous Supreme Team came out with the album
d You Like Scratching? You see the turntable together, Yeah,
the turntables together on the cover and the mixer is
a GLI mixer in the front. So I was like,
I want to do that, but I'm just gonna move
them back over like the way RP taught me.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
All Right, So when anyone ever asked me, like, what
is the most exemplary episode to listen to? I always
referred them to the Great Jimmy Jam one of my
favorite QLs episodes of all time, talking about musical diversity
and his upbringing.
Speaker 20 (45:46):
My earliest memories were always, you know, I always loved
the harmony groups. I loved Seals and Cross America America Wow. Yeah,
you know that kind of stuff. Bred that was. I mean,
to this day, that's the way I stacked my harmonies
because of the way they sang those songs. Back then,
a little bit later in life, I liked, like, around
(46:08):
the time I met Terry, I was really into Chicago
that was. That was my favorite band ever, you know,
and me and Terry both loved them, And then Terry
then turned me on to when I met him, he
turned me on too, earth Wind and Fired, Tower of Power,
New Birth. I met Terry in seventy two. Okay, yeah,
so we're just we're talking last days in time, Earth Winding,
Fire and music in my mind Stevie Wonder. You know,
(46:30):
these were the albums and Terry turned me on to those.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Black radio You didn't have no black radio experience at
the age of ten twelve.
Speaker 20 (46:38):
There wasn't a black radio experience for me. When I
got into high school, I was really into or junior
high and into high school, I was really into Gambling,
Huff and everything coming out of Philadelphia. Blue Magic was
my favorite all time group. I know everybody was into Stylistics,
but Blue Magic was my group.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
But how could you hear it or see it?
Speaker 9 (46:56):
Was?
Speaker 20 (46:58):
Oh, yeah, Soul Train definitely was on and you definitely
would hear it on Soul Train. But I I remember
I had a friend of mine whose dad was an
executive of music Land, which is one of the big
retail stores back in the day. So he used to
get every single record that came out. And my thing
was I was always a big liner note reader and
a big label reader. So my thing was we all
(47:22):
collective and bill yes. So my whole thing was, I
remember there were records that would come out and I
would particularly during the Motown era because I really I
really loved the Motown records, all of that stuff. The
Holland Dozer Holland, like I remember I did. I remember
looking at a Supremes album at a like a family
(47:43):
reunion or something back in sixty two or something or
sixty so I was like three or four years old,
and I remember that Holland Dozer Holland it was. The
album was called The Supreme sing Holland Dozer HOLLANDLD Record,
and I the gold record, right. I had no idea
what that meant. I kept going, what does this mean
mean they singing Holland Dozer Holland, And somebody explained to me, no,
(48:03):
they wrote the songs. The girls are the singers, but
somebody wrote the songs, and something went off in my
head at that point. That always made me look who
wrote it, who produced it? And so I remember like
all the Motown records would be the first ones I'd
always go to. And I remember like staring at the
first time I heard I Want You Back Jackson five,
(48:24):
and you know Dinnah Ross and Dinah Ross presents the
Jackson five and I thought, oh, wow, that's cool, and
I looked down the record. I'm like, well, I don't
see Donna Ross's name anywhere on here. There's some dudes
called the somebody. I gotta find out who the corporation is,
you know.
Speaker 9 (48:40):
So that was.
Speaker 20 (48:40):
Always my my thing and and I knew that because
what I learned was there were certain there were groups
I like, but it was all about who produced them.
Like it was. It was like, you know, like Eddie
Kendricks could come out with a song and I would
be like, Yeah, that's okay. And then you come out
with a song, I go oh, oh, I love that song. Okay,
(49:01):
who did that song? Okay, Leonard Caston and you know,
Frank Wilson and okay. And then I'd hear another song
that had nothing to do with Eddie Kendricks, but I'd go, oh,
I like that track. Who did that? And it'd be
the same dudes, right, And that's when I got That's
when I started going, Okay, that's that's my thing. And
so for me, that's what always excited me, and that's what,
(49:22):
you know, ultimately made me want to become a songwriter
and a producer.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
We're gonna close with Adam Levine. This is from an
End Studio in twenty twenty four episode, and it really
just captures the rabbit holeness of QLs, Eddie Grant into
Cat Stevens and everywhere in between. And we'll close this
and we'll catch up with you guys soon. All right,
thank you. What was your very first musical memory in life?
Speaker 7 (49:53):
And I know the first record I bought other than
my parents playing music in the car, right, which probably
always the Beatles. This is so funny, but I remember
very distinctly buying the Eddie Grant Electric Avenue. Electric that
I like it was, but it was like like a tick.
I played the song like my parents were like I
(50:14):
never need to hear the song.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Again, so what uh, it's not unusual. It's to John mlaney,
that's what electric Avenue was.
Speaker 14 (50:21):
To use the kid.
Speaker 7 (50:22):
It was like it was like ad nauseum all day long.
Please God, I don't ever want to hear it again.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
That song comes on, that song holds up, dude. Jimmy
wanted him on the show to do Electric Avenue, and
the first thing he wanted to do, you know, like
artists might have that smells like teen spirit moment where
they don't want to do the song that they're known for.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
Like Bobby mcfairn, like like, you know, like I want
to do like play that so and so listen to
the song and realize what it's about and then realize
he should play.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Okay, when he came on the show, you remember this, Steve,
he wanted to do like a different version of it.
He wanted to mix it with it. I don't want
to dance like the other minor hits that.
Speaker 14 (51:06):
He wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
The B side, time Warp Yes, yo, Wait, so do
you know about time Warp? No, dude, So time Warp is.
I didn't even notice this, but we've all heard time Warp.
So Time Warris is kind of a song of his
that was like a B side that wound up being
not him going rogue the only way I can describe it,
(51:28):
you know, like dog was a donut on Cat Stevens's record. Wow,
that's a metaphor.
Speaker 14 (51:32):
That is a deep cut.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
It's like an instrumental. Right, it's an instrumental. Okay, So Encyclopedia.
In seventy seven, Cat Stevens had a synthesizer endorsement deal
with the company of which he promised, like, Okay, one
of these songs, I'll play your instruments on the record.
But Cat Stevens ain't necessarily a synth based artist, he's
(51:55):
like acoustic yeah, you don't say right, And so basically
that the penultimate cut, like the song before the album ends,
he did a quickie, little four minute demonstration song of
this new drum machine and whatever, and it actually fucked
around and wound up being like a bee boy classic.
Speaker 7 (52:14):
But who's about right now Stevens, which into Adam, let's
get Seddie and then back to my mind just exploded.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
This is dog wasn't donut by uh oh okay, yeah right,
which is basically like this is that's what you went?
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Adams, Like, where do we start with this?
Speaker 1 (52:37):
He that's not castaing. It is because he contractually had
to make a song up with all this darm machines.
Speaker 7 (52:46):
That's a weird contractualbligation.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Nineteen seventy seven. He was the first with the like
Lynn drum and all that stuff. So he made this
ship and of course the b boy community press work
immediately picked up on it and it became a classic
unbetown to him. But the same way Eddie Grant. Eddie
Grant did kind of an Overheim synthesizer song called time Work,
which is he had.
Speaker 7 (53:09):
A foot in that door already though that the cast
even ship is crazy. Yeah, I never heard anything like
that in my life from him, Like, what was that?
Speaker 1 (53:16):
I want to hear it.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
I didn't know, right, none of us knew what it
was him.
Speaker 8 (53:19):
You've got to get this.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
So this, this is the B side of Electric Avenue.
So basically, at Paradise Garage this became an anthem. And
if it's played at Paradise Garage, it also means that
at Crocker is also playing it on his radio show.
So Eddie Grant wanted to come and do Time.
Speaker 14 (53:43):
Ward came back, We got full circle.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
I'm there, I'm very focused in the morning, and now
the show's over. Thank you very much, Eddie Grant. Really anyway,
so you loved Electric Avenue.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
He came and wanted to do the B side.
Speaker 7 (54:03):
Yeah, he's just crazy.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
Jimmy is always watching the music guests from his dressing
room or his office because he has a monitor in there,
and he tries not to come out and freak out
the people that early in the morning. But that's the
one time in which you know, we're like, okay, so
we'll do one verse of Electric Avenue and then we'll
do Time Warp, and which you're not singing at all.
Jimmy ran in and it was like, guys, no, I
(54:28):
need you to do electric avenue. And then at that
he wanted to do like a blues harmonica version of it.
Speaker 7 (54:34):
Oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hard when that's like
we had, right.
Speaker 5 (54:40):
We had to wrestle him out of that and just
do regular ass letric avenue.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
You guys had already like sampled all the weird little samples.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
In all the little all those little stuff Burbson's frame.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
It's like Ray Parker not doing Ghostbusters some ship like that.
Speaker 14 (54:55):
True, Yeah's true.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
So Huey lewis not doing Ghostbusters. Thank you for listening
to Quest Love Supreme Hosted by Amir quest Love, Thompson,
Why You, Saint Clair Sugar, Steve Mandell, and unpaid Bill Sherman.
Executive producers are Mira quest Love, Thompson, Sean g and
(55:20):
Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brady Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Eliah
Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by
Noel Brown West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
(55:42):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio
app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Good People,
Good People, What's up? Welcome back to Part two of
QLs Musical Memories. I'm your host quest Love and I've
asked his questions to hundreds, truly hundreds of people. You
(00:20):
haven't checked out Part one, now's the time, but right now,
here's part two. This one has a series of unique answers. Also,
every one of these episodes are available to stream wherever
you get your podcasts and on the iHeart app. Right
about now, we're going to start with one of my
musical heroes. All right, this guy man drummer of the
(00:40):
Average White Band. He's drummed on so many records by
Shaka Khan and Just the God. This is Steve Farhon.
He shared a story about tap dancing. Ironically, that's all
I also got into drumming, you know, I had to
learn to tap dance first, coordinate my feet. And he
taught us also about how tab dancing taught him about
(01:02):
race and culture living in Brighton, England. So let's go
back to twenty twenty two with the great Steve FERRONI can.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, you know what, I was told.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Was that I used to sit in the high chair
and we didn't have TV back then. We had radio, okay,
And I'd sit in the high chair with my spoon
eating and then some music would come on and I'd
start banging my spoon on the on the on the
high chair, on the table there to just keep in
time with whatever music was on the radio. And that's
(01:43):
was when they decided that my grand my grandma, my grandmother,
and my mother decided that I needed to channel that
that ability somewhere. So my grandmother was a big fan
of tap dancing. She loved Fred Astaire and Jim Kelly
and Tic Tac Toe and those guys. She was aware
(02:04):
of them, and so she sent me the tap dancing
school when I was better, as soon as I could,
about three years old.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Yeah, I was going to say, I just discovered that
about you maybe a week ago when I was doing
my research, and that's kind of my entry.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And too.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Drums.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
I went to perform in art school in the first grade,
and it was one of those situations where you go
to your drum lesson and the drums are right there
and you're sort of like, let me at him, let
me at him, and they're like nope, and they point
to a practice pad on the corner, and you got
to learn, like your roommate's like, it's almost like I
(02:40):
had to practice to work my way up to the
drum set. But even before I got to the practice pad, Yeah,
I had to take tap dance. So yeah, yeah, all
that bojangles me and my shadow like like I was,
I was a hoofer, Like.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Were you good at it? That was pretty good at it?
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Yeah, that was pretty good at it.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
I want medals and stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Really, can you can you still hoof now? Or is
that I.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Had a neat replacement that light on my feet anymore?
But I could probably, I can probably I can do
a timestep still, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, Like around around maybe nine, age nine or age ten.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
I kind of eased out of that and just became
strictly like music.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Well, you know, I have.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
To say my first, like my moment that you had,
that you said that you had with Average White Band,
I had when I was about five years old. My
parents used to take me. They used to take me.
We had this I guess you call it Vaudeville or
something like that. Vaudeville there was a theater called the
Hippodrome and the Beatles played there actually, so it's kind
(03:56):
of Bingo Hall now I think it is. But this
is one of those theaters got sort of neglected and
sort of let go little theater and uh and and
they used to take me there to see these shows
and and you know, usually it was comedians and pantomime
at Christmas and stuff. And they took me there to
(04:18):
see this show. And there was a band. There was
a band, a close harmony group called the Deep River Boys.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Deep from Brooklyn.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Oh really okay, and they were very very big on
Radio Luxembourg. Was was where you would where people would
go to to listen to something other than the BBC,
because the BBC used to just play classical music and
it wasn't they didn't play anything at all, you know.
So you go to Radio Luxembourg and you tune into
Radio Luxembourg and they had a show on there and
(04:50):
and I guess they also was it was also a
show that was that was that was good for like uh,
the the American forces were all over Europe at that point.
They had the basis of France and Germany and and
uh and and so they used to be on that
on on the American Forces Broadcasting. But they had a
regular show on this on this and they on Radio
(05:11):
Luxembourg and they appeared at the Hippodron. So my parents
took me down there and they did maybe it was
kind of like gospel music, but I'd never heard anything
like that, and I got really excited and started dancing
around in the in the audience listening to this music
is like, what's this?
Speaker 7 (05:29):
You know?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well is that ehen you find vanilla ice cream? You
give a vanilla I skream to a baby first time
they have it, They're like, why didn't you give me
this before?
Speaker 4 (05:36):
You know?
Speaker 8 (05:36):
You get this baby food? Why where was this vanilla
ice cream?
Speaker 9 (05:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
That was what what what I got with from their music,
And they sent them manager there too me and they
brought me backstage and befriended, befriended me.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
They made me Deep River Boys number six, and that
was the time. That was when I found out that
I was black. Oh word, okay, yeah, I had no idea.
I had no idea that I was black until I
went and saw these guys. And they took me back
back to my parents, my grand my mom and my
(06:11):
grandmother took me backstage to meet them, you know, with
the they I've been invited back and I looked at
these guys and they were six foot tall, which was
then back then was gigantic, was a giant. And I said,
I wish I could be black black you guys, back
then we never said black was colored because it was disrespectful.
(06:34):
It was disrespectful to say black black. Then I wish
I was colored like you.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
And this guy Harry Douglas, who I stayed in touch
with for years, he passed away sometimes sometime ago.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh, you maintained a friendship with him.
Speaker 8 (06:48):
Yes, all through the years.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yes, it was just amazing.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
And uh and there the first Americans that you interacted
with as well.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yes, how weird was it to hear? Did they have
an accent to you?
Speaker 10 (07:01):
I didn't even know. I was just like, I was
just so sweet. I mean that's how they sang. And
they sang, they sang like, yeah, we heard. It seemed
like we sort of heard about America.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
I think we had TV by then, So there a
couple of TV series that we've seen, not much of
a TV little thing like this black bohite thing, right,
But but Harry Douglas looked at me and he and
he said to me, he says, you know, tonight I'm
going to cast a spell. And when you wake up
tomorrow morning, you go look in the mirror and you
and you'll be you'll be colored like we are. Sleep.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I went to sleep, and then I got up and
I went to the mirror, and yes, it was.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
Anything more about it.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Oh god, that's a great story.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, all right, that was Steve Farona, the average white band. Uh,
he's played with so many giants. Next up, another great storyteller.
You know, we gave our flowers to the one and
only Tevin Campbell. What was your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 11 (08:08):
My aunt giving me the Amazing Grace album, the Franklin
Mazin Grace album on the vinyl.
Speaker 8 (08:15):
She gave that to me when I was I think
I was.
Speaker 11 (08:18):
That was the first album that I listened to continuously.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
Ah, I think I was maybe eight or nine. She
gave it to you.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So her version of Holy Holy is just like, come on, man,
what were we talking about?
Speaker 8 (08:33):
Well, her version of Amazing Grace is, Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 11 (08:36):
I mean though the song was written by Amon, I
didn't know that till years after a couple of years ago,
I learned that.
Speaker 8 (08:43):
But anyway, she like, no, yeah, yeah, it does, it does.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
What was it like for you to see the film
version of that after having lived with it so long?
Speaker 9 (08:55):
You mean you mean the her refas film version?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
She you know, when she was a she they tried
to bring it out maybe like you know, like twenty
years ago, and because of some sort of contractual dispute,
she didn't allow it, so of course she had to
pass away.
Speaker 9 (09:11):
Were you able to see the documentary or the concert
the film.
Speaker 11 (09:16):
The Amazing Grace Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, sorry, yeah.
I thought it was beautiful in a point in her
life where she was very happy, not that she wasn't
happy at any point in her life, but she was glowing,
and she was she had this afro and it was
just beautiful, man, And you know, seeing her in her element,
I think it was the.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
Most beautiful thing. I think that people were touched by
seeing that film.
Speaker 11 (09:40):
Because you don't a lot of people don't know that
she sat and played that pid piano a lot of
the songs that.
Speaker 8 (09:47):
She did, and a lot of songs on an Amazing Grace.
Speaker 11 (09:49):
Album too, So to see her sitting there in her element,
playing behind her and singing.
Speaker 8 (09:52):
It's just amazing all the time.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
So that most people don't know that she's like just
as good as a piano player.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
She is.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Yeah, it's important for people to see that.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Here's Bernadette Cooper of Climax. Can you tell me what
your first musical memory was?
Speaker 12 (10:12):
Wow, when you say musical memory like.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Band that I now just from as a baby, Like
what like the very first musical memory as a child.
Speaker 12 (10:25):
Of course, you know, Aretha Franklin was my was my
played in my household when there was happy times, when
they were sad times. So Rita was a person that
I used to listen to and follow her lyrics and
her and her vocal movements and her hooks, and and
it made me a better writer by the Rita Franklin songs.
(10:48):
And then of course moving on Dio Daddo, Remember Dio Daddo. Yeah, yeah,
it was a little bit of all those guys. Jeff Beck,
you know, I really got into that scene and kind
of in the high school, junior high school era.
Speaker 8 (11:04):
But yeah, I would.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Say, what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 13 (11:12):
My dad, my father, we were in a in a
yard in the backyard in Outlan HALLI school, small little town,
and it was like five o'clock in the afternoon. Everything's
kind of gives gold you know, when the sound goes down,
everything looks golden. And my father he was over there
teaching me how to read and one of me teaching
me how to play the violin. So he happened, opened
(11:33):
up the violin case rather the violin put it put
it up here like this, and then he goes.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Meta, which means look meta. Then he went and I'm
like what. And then a bird.
Speaker 13 (11:46):
Comes over this, a little lance lance on this street,
and he was he goes best, do you see? He
goes bess one more time?
Speaker 14 (12:01):
Bird.
Speaker 13 (12:03):
If you could talk to the birds, you could talk
to people.
Speaker 14 (12:06):
Get it.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And I was like, and that was Carlos Santana. And
you can add bird calls to as many talents.
Speaker 14 (12:18):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Speaking of which, wow, here's Mars day. Maris, what was
your what was your first musical memory?
Speaker 6 (12:27):
It went way.
Speaker 15 (12:28):
Back, you know, because I kind of just came into
the world with the notion that I was going to
be involved with music, you know, born in fifty six,
you know, and I can remember listening to the Beatles
on our little am radio that we had, and you know,
(12:50):
then later remember doing you know the James Brown running
around my.
Speaker 16 (12:54):
You know, the house in the projects and fruit of
the looms on doing the splits, trying to do James
round and all that, and then sixty four comes around.
We were one of the first you know, let you
know how what priorities were back then, but we had
one of the first color TVs in the projects all that.
Back then, I was watching Bandstand Man, and I'm watching
(13:17):
the Supremes at four tops, you know, all these motown
acts on Bandstand and I was like, that's what I
want to do, you know.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
So those were my early memories, you know, of music.
But I just it was just in.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
My blood, all right. So you know, last episode in
part one of this compilation, I gave you one musical memory.
Part two, I'll give you another musical memory. Jimmy Jam
would make fun of me during the pandemic when I
was like DJ and online and you can read the
(13:53):
comments as you DJ. Jimmy Jam always noticed that I
would let the listeners know when a particular song scared
me in my childhood, and I realized that I never
liked songs that had a modulation in it, like whenever
there's a dramatic key change. I was never a fan
(14:15):
of that, Like it just sounded scary, real scary, And
that's how it's always been great. Example Aretha Franklin's classic
covering of Bobby Woomex I'm in Love. There's like a
moment where there's like a bridge and then they go
to this modulation key change, and then Eric Martin and
(14:38):
Jerry Wexler put extra extra reverb on Aretha's voice, and
you know, like I now know like gospel singing sort
of comes from pain and whatnot. But yeah, I don't know.
Just to my four year old ears, man, I don't
know if it sounds like she was being murdered or whatever.
(14:59):
So that's like a scary moment to hear. But also
the beginning of me not liking modulation starts once again
in my childhood. Three years old. Yeah, someone called child
services for all the shit that happened during my third
year of life. My sister and I are staying in
(15:22):
Alta Dina, California, in my aunt's house while my parents
are recording the Congress Alley album, the same Congress Alley
album that Doctor dre used on a nothing but a
g thing. I mentioned that a few times, my parents
being a sample of those voices in the hook.
Speaker 14 (15:39):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Anyway, So again in a bathtub, taking a bath, get
out the bath and rambunctious two year old. I'm just
running around, running around, and I slip and fall and
I land kind of on my left side on our
hot radiator. And the radiator has to be especially like
(16:03):
back in the day radiators. Like now we have like
you know, thermostats, and usually the heat comes from you know,
like ventilators that are in the sky. But back in
the day, man, they used to be on the ground,
and they used to be burning and hot, like thinking
of the equivalent of like an iron, just put an
iron on and then just touch an iron, like that's
(16:24):
how houses were heated back in the early seventies. And
I slipped and my entire leg hits the radiator, and
according to my sister, I think I had like second
degree burns, but I was just screaming in pain. But
right when this was happening, Soul Train was on and
(16:44):
Curtis Mayfield was doing Freddy's Dead And there's a part
in the middle of Freddy's Dead where they just briefly
go to C sharp minor and a bunch of trombones
and trumpets have the plunger, you know, like when New
(17:05):
Orleans band uses the plunger, like that sort of thing,
and they're doing that line and Freddy's Dead man.
Speaker 14 (17:14):
And ah Man.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was never a fan of C sharp. C sharp
minor is one of the keys that I don't like,
Like when something scary happens in the movies or whatever,
like that's the that's the key I don't want to
hear for some reason. But any song that had a
modulation after that I was not a fan of. Maybe
with the exception. The only one that passed that test,
(17:37):
I'll say was Stevie Wonder's Golden Lady, which used to,
you know, at the end of the song, every four
bars it would just go higher and hire and hire.
So that's another distinctive memory from my childhood. What was
your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 6 (17:58):
The Beatles.
Speaker 17 (18:00):
I was two years old, and it's the first not
only musical memory, it's my first memory. I would imagine
the thought. I almost vaguely think I remember a picture
of my father being banished from my life my biological father.
But obviously I would have suppressed that if it was
a negative emotion. But at the age of two, I remember.
Speaker 8 (18:22):
She loves you, yeah, yeah, and oh you.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
No no no, no no.
Speaker 17 (18:29):
If you don't understand, I want to hold your hand,
and she loves you. That that is the earliest memory
I have. And I just think it's so awesome that
it was a musical memory as well, because nothing you
know that that was the music that woke up my
consciousness to the fact that I was existing in that life.
Speaker 14 (18:48):
So that was my first memory.
Speaker 17 (18:50):
I also remember seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's on television when
it came on in nineteen sixty four, I think also too,
or somewhere around thereabouts. And I remember my mother buying
me some Batman cards because that was my first hero
was Batman. So those memories around the same time. They
(19:11):
were all the East Ards New Jersey memories.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And that was the great Sanata Matreya from our twenty
twenty four to one on one interview, and this is
John oots back in twenty twenty two with a really
touching memory of my father's music. Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 9 (19:31):
Do you know your first musical memory was.
Speaker 6 (19:33):
I sure do. I absolutely do.
Speaker 18 (19:37):
Right after we moved to Pennsylvania, there was a place
not too far away called Willa Grove Amusement Park. Okay,
and now it was an airbase as well, but anyway,
at the time it was an amusement park and my
folks took me there and Bill Haley and the Comments
were playing in the band show. And I don't know
(19:57):
if you remember, but Bill Haley was from Camden, of course,
and so I was like I was probably four maybe,
and of course, you know, I had had this musical
sensibility at the time, even though though I was a
little kid.
Speaker 6 (20:10):
And I remember running down to the stage.
Speaker 18 (20:12):
It was the band show, so the stage was only
maybe two feet high, and I remember being this little
kid and I ran right down to the band shell.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
And I remember the.
Speaker 18 (20:22):
Bass player, the upright bass player. At one point in
the show, he rode his bass like a horse, and
I thought that was the most amazing things I'd ever seen.
And that actually the first live music I ever heard
was Rock around the Clock.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
And and uh, you know Bill Haley in the.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Comets really, so they were just performing at the.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
They were in the they were performing at the Amusement Park.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Yeah, I was going to say, I think I believe
that I too saw a latter day Bill Haley Beforemat.
Speaker 9 (20:54):
Then we used to we we had something called the
Steel Pier.
Speaker 6 (20:57):
Oh yeah, I played at the Steel Pier.
Speaker 9 (21:00):
Yeah, still here in a Lank City. It was in
Lank City, right or wild Wood Yep.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
No, it was in Atlantic City.
Speaker 18 (21:05):
And when I was a really little kid, around five
or six, I sang at something called Tony Grant Stars
of Tomorrow, which was a kitty.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
Talent show at the Steel Pier.
Speaker 9 (21:18):
In my dating myself, I had mentioned the word Al Alberts.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Where you do you remember the Al albert show case
at all?
Speaker 6 (21:24):
Yeah? Yeah, it was.
Speaker 18 (21:25):
It was around that time, and there was a guy
and it was actually before Dick Clark took over Bandstand
and it was what was his name? There was a
different host before Dick Clark, but it was during that
period of time.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
It was in the mid fifties.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
And uh so you you were there for like the
do Op era of Philadelphia.
Speaker 18 (21:45):
Yeah, du Op and Jerry Blavitt and all that stuff.
Jerry Blavitt was a big hero of mine.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Yeah, how was.
Speaker 18 (21:51):
That the radio show that he used to do from
I think it was from Trenton where he'd play all
B sides and man, I heard, you know songs like
Viola by the Versatones and you know and Guided Missiles
and you know these songs that were just unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
And you know your.
Speaker 18 (22:09):
Your your father man Lee Andrews and the Hearts. Man,
I mean, you know, tick tick ticking of the clock.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
He got a.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Can you tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Oh?
Speaker 19 (22:28):
Man, first musical memory. My grandmother had like one of
those big consoles that has like the eight track player
and the record player and the speakers built in. And
I remember being really young, maybe four, and messing around
with all the vinyl yes and pulling out some of
(22:49):
the albums and had them all on the floor, and
my Grandma's like what you're doing, you know, like don't
break them and all this, and I remember her putting
on the Thriller album. I remember here. I remember hearing
the speakers because it's like a tube system, remember them
warm up, and then I could hear, you know, songs
of Thriller coming out of the speakers and being like,
(23:10):
what the hell is this, you know, kind of kind
of amazed in the name of by the whole thing,
not just the music, but just all of it. You know,
the warmth of it coming on?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Was that your kind of I don't mean come to
Jesus moment, but for you, was that like the moment
where it's like, Okay, well I want to also express
myself in this way through music or.
Speaker 20 (23:39):
Nah.
Speaker 19 (23:40):
So no, not really, I mean I had that kind
of moment when I was eleven. I I was in
middle school and in my school, I don't know what
if a grade eleven is fifth or sixth grade, and
there was a band from our school that had rented
out our gym and they were gonna put on a show.
And I remember all throughout the day everybody was asking,
(24:01):
are you gonna go to the show? You're gonna go
to the show? I was like, I don't know, I'll
see if I can get there. And so I get
to the gym and I'm by myself, and I remember
being like super anxious because I don't really know anybody
at well, and the band plays and a musing them
play on stage and kids I went to school with.
It was like I didn't know these kids could do this.
There were so talented. Look at the effects that having
(24:22):
on people. It was songs that I liked and I knew,
and it was like the coolest thing I had ever seen.
And it was in that moment standing in the gym
that I knew I wanted to be in a band,
and I wanted to make my own music and I
wanted to be up there like they were. Like, I
think that was the come to Jesus moment for me.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Okay, how long before you found other people that sort
of had a common love for music? Like was music
something that you kept close to the chest? Or like
how big was the music community down there?
Speaker 19 (24:56):
It was? It was so small. I had to teach
people how to play music to be in a band.
Speaker 14 (25:03):
Wow.
Speaker 19 (25:04):
So I would go teach myself the instruments, and then
I would go back to school and I would just
try to find a kid with some sort of musical
talent like rhythm, and I'd be like, Okay, hey, do
you want to learn how to play bass guitar? Like
do you want learn how to play drums? And I
would tutor them and see if that get to appointment
where we could make music together. Some yes, but a
lot no, Like it just didn't happen. I was trying
(25:25):
to make it happen. And it wasn't until I was
probably like sixteen years old that I finally met some
kids who also were interested in making music. And that
was Zach Zach copple Bassis for Albama Shakes. And then
he's Fogg who became a guitar player, and it was them.
So this whole thing really started from my school.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Was guitar your very first instrument of choice? Or did
you play other instruments as well?
Speaker 19 (25:52):
My first instrument, I guess technically is like piano, and
then drums, drummer, heart and then basically yeah, yeah, yeah,
a lot of my yeah, a lot of the drums
on my new record. I programmed those drums. I'm not
saying I could play them like that, but I can
hear it, you know. And uh yeah. Then I learned bass,
(26:15):
and then I only learned guitar because I had to.
I didn't really want to play guitar really, no, I
want to be in the rhythm section. I just one
I want to play bass.
Speaker 14 (26:24):
What is the gap though?
Speaker 9 (26:25):
Wait?
Speaker 21 (26:26):
The gap in between you knowing you wanted to do
this and you teaching folks that the music.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Like, how are you learning.
Speaker 14 (26:33):
You never kind of said that yet, Well you just yeah.
Speaker 19 (26:37):
So at firstly I didn't have those instruments like drums.
I could have access to drums because there were a
set of drums at our school, so I could go
play those drums after school. When it came to bass guitar,
I would just borrow one from one of the rich kids,
because like, I don't know what it was about school, Well,
all the rich kids had a bass guitar. Let me
borrow it, you know, and they let me borrow it.
(26:58):
And so I taught myself how to do that. And
the guitar my my sister had a guitar like tucked
away back in the closets, like one of those jcpenny
guitars that looks like a Less Paul and it's like
it's like one hundred and fifty pounds. And that's what
I learned on was that guitar. So I was teaching myself.
Speaker 14 (27:17):
How long did it take?
Speaker 19 (27:19):
I mean, I haven't mastered any of those instruments, right,
that's what we're doing, okay, no, no, no, no no no. Honestly,
I was just learning as I went. So if I
picked something up, I would make something with it. I
would just learn as I went. So from from the
very beginning, I wanted to make my own music. That
was like the whole goal, that was like the whole purpose.
But when I was originally learning, I had to learn
(27:42):
other people's songs.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
So I just.
Speaker 19 (27:43):
Started with stuff that was easy, like like blink on
a two, and I was like, kind of things like
that that are pretty easy power chord stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
So I'm going to ask you, am I the only
one that goes through this?
Speaker 5 (27:55):
Like sometimes when we'll ask people about their childhood, you're
thinking about your childhood, you but then you realize that
their childhood is actually your adulthood, like.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Childhood, and I'm like, wait a minute. I was thirty
three years old when that came out, like pretty.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Don't do the math, don't do the math.
Speaker 14 (28:17):
Don't do it.
Speaker 6 (28:17):
Don't do it.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
It hurts.
Speaker 14 (28:18):
I give my feelings hurt.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I guess when we first played together was at the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and we
were doing a tribute for Big Mama Thornton. In your childhood,
was there did anyone ever put you onto her? Or
was it like later in life when you discovered her
I'm for a so called music historian. I you know,
(28:42):
I admit, and I'm ashamed of it that I was
probably in my mid forties before someone explained to me
who Big Mama Thornton was, even though like I've heard
hound Dog and all that stuff all my life, but.
Speaker 19 (28:55):
I remember doing his sister though.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Oh my god, I talk about it.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
You know what you want to edit that? Yes? Yeah,
and quest Love makes mistakes. Yes, I had a brain fart.
I'm sorry he was a historian quest Love things.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
I'm sorry. I meant sisters at a thought. Yeah, were
you at all familiar with her in your childhood or
did that come to you later in life?
Speaker 19 (29:22):
It definitely came to me later in life, maybe mid twenties.
Mid twenties is when I started getting curious about these
women blues players, right, And then I had started hearing about, well,
there's this woman that kind of inspired Chuck Berry and
inspired of us Presley and had the electric guitar. And
someone told me about it because I played an SG
(29:44):
and they're like, oh this like sister was at a tharpe.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
She also put a SG.
Speaker 19 (29:47):
She put an SG custom in white, and I was like, oh,
I've never heard of her, so I started looking into
her stuff and I was like, the stuff she's actually
playing on the guitar is so unique. It's it's her
on that guitar. Nobody else is doing it. It's crazy.
It's actually hard, it's hard to play how she's playing.
And so that's when I kind of started diving into
(30:09):
her stuff and in her story, which her story is
really interesting as well.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And that was Brittany Howard. And here's Ellie Reid from
part one of our epic three parter.
Speaker 8 (30:21):
La.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
What was your very first musical memory, first musical memory ever,
like ever your first thought of music? What? Like, what's
it might be?
Speaker 5 (30:33):
It might be a little hazy, but I think that
it was growing up Cincinnati, Ohio in the kitchen, small kitchen,
transistor radio in the window, and I think it was
It's my party and I cry if I want to. Yes,
I think it was that because for some reason I
(30:55):
remember that name, Quincy Jones. Don't know why, but like
I knew that name as a baby and it never left,
you know. I think it was that or it was
something from Motown, right, like one of those dancing in
the streets.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
So I can't exactly I was very young.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
But the one that the one that got me though,
the one that, like the life changing moment, was when
I heard give the drummer some and and cold sweat
James Brown. That moment, like that was that the world stopped.
So speaking of Cincinnati. Oh, by the way, uh, in
(31:33):
case our listeners don't know, not many people know that
Quincy Jones produced Leslie Gore's It's My Party. That's his
very first, very first hits as a as a pop producer.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I was going to say that I noticed, at least
from what Bootsie told me and just from observing that
anyone who's in proximity of King Records and their whole
operation had their life changed, either as someone that works
(32:05):
inside of King Records or the studio or the factory,
or someone like Boucie Collins did hung in the alleyway
and just hoped maybe one day we'll get used or
something like that.
Speaker 14 (32:16):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But because there's a five year of five to ten year.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
Age discrepancy of you and Boucie's generation, right, how did
the James Brown Ohio effect? And Plus this also explains
why Ohio is the funk capital of the United States
because I mean basically, King Records moved their operations to Cincinnati,
and basically at a time period in which the ripple
(32:45):
effects started happening even in other cities like Funk just
spread throughout Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland, been all over. So just
as a ten year old, were you aware of James
Brown's presence in the city. I feel like I didn't
know it officially, but I felt the presence. Like the
(33:06):
first Contenter ever went to was a James Brown concert
at the Cincinnati Convention Center, and I hung outside and
I met Maceio Parker, and that that was a big
deal for me, like literally walking down the street outside
the convention Center. And also King Records was like a
few doors down from like my karate school as a kid, Right,
(33:29):
So I would go to karate school, but when I
wait on the bus, right take the bus home afterwards,
and I knew that that was King Records. So I
never saw a soul, but I would just stare at it.
I felt drawn to it. But then as I got
like slightly older, all the musicians in Cincinnati were all
(33:50):
so impacted by Bootsy and James Brown, but more Bootsy
to be honest, right, James was like the godfather of soul.
Bootsy was our local superstar. So everything that Bootsy did,
we all, you know, aspire to do. Bootsy holds his
base this way, so you hold your base like Bootsy. Right,
(34:11):
Bootsy wears these kind of shoes, so he has these.
Everything was about whatever Boots he did was the magic.
You know, he was like a god to us. James
Brown needed Booty more than Boots. He needed James even
though Boosy needed that guidance, right, Yeah, James Brown needed
that validation of you know, the next generation respecting him.
Speaker 9 (34:35):
And what was the first song, super bad.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Very first song sex Machine? Sex Machine was bootsy very
first one. Yeah, okay, you got it.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
There's there's an amazing all right, So they did that
song in two takes, and there's a there's a really amazing,
rare dialogue for James. Like if you listen to James's
out takes, normally it's sarcasm or I mean not like
mean spirited, but like if they mess up or whatever,
you'll you'll hear him like chastise the engineer or something
(35:07):
like that. But when they do the second take of
sex Machine, there's like a forty five minute conversation of
James just like you hear him walking in the studio
and tell them like like being encouraging almost like which
is rare for James Brown. But he's like obviously knows
like these these six seventeen eighteen year old kids are
(35:29):
really really scared right now, and he's just oh, no,
you got it, man, Like you can do it, like,
which is wow, compared to the rest of what James does,
like on the other takes or whatnot, Like it's almost
like he knew that he was dealing with children, you
know what, I'm.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Right, So, yeah, some sensitivity and he's yeah, that's great.
Speaker 14 (35:57):
All right.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Here is a DJ Premiere Premiere fun fact about Premiere
secret comedian. See that was Premier playing piano right now.
So to be fair, when this episode aired in twenty seventeen,
I didn't ask the question. We were just in the
studio talking and Premiere shared this. But it fits. You know,
(36:19):
whenever the two of us get to talking, we have
a lot to say. So Premiere.
Speaker 21 (36:26):
For me, it was my mom is an art teacher
and she just had so many records in the house.
You know, the rules were, don't touch the top of
the record only all the edges or you get a.
Speaker 14 (36:39):
Do we call it a whooping? Not a spank and
a whooping?
Speaker 21 (36:42):
I touched the top because I just wanted to see
what is touch on the top?
Speaker 14 (36:46):
Do she goes, you got your fingerprints on it? Your
dumb motherfucker's.
Speaker 9 (36:53):
Like?
Speaker 21 (36:53):
And then I mean I got plenty of whipons because
you know, I looked at records as a toy, because
the labels was what attracted me. The way they looked
when they spun. I was really attracted to the labels.
You know, It's like, wow, Motown, the way it looked
in Tamala, dark skinned Motown versus light.
Speaker 14 (37:13):
Yeah. Oh, like the blue versus the yellow, and the.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Motel was the yellow in the brown. Harry Winner once
at Universal explained to me that because Motown used eighteen
different factories across the United States UH to print it,
like they didn't do their own pressing, it was never consistent.
So the ink would be consistent. So you would have
some Motown print that had a very dark queue to it,
(37:41):
and then you had a lighter Motown. But sometimes even
the Tamala would be a very dark label versus a
light one, like it would just Gordy. It would depend
on you know what pressing plant used.
Speaker 21 (37:58):
Yeah, but the labels always fascinated me, just the way
and look when it's fun. And then on top of that,
you know you had semi even not semi auto. You know,
they went to semi automatics, but it little almost like
a gun. But they even fully automatic turntables, which at
that time my mother called it a record player, not
a turntable. So seeing her stack the spindle with the
that looks like a bottle rocket or whatever, and stack
(38:20):
that and then puts five forty fives on there and
let the arm hold it, and then the arm goes up,
touches it, goes back, the record drops in it. I'm like,
how does it know to land there?
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Like?
Speaker 14 (38:32):
You know, so I took her as apart, which got me.
Speaker 21 (38:36):
That gets you because I wanted to see the mechanics
of what's making it do that and you know where
to land.
Speaker 14 (38:41):
And then on top of it, when you put a.
Speaker 21 (38:43):
Twelve, you know, an album, it knew to start at
the album where it's like, how's it no go here?
But on the forty five goes all the way insigne
and lands right on the tank.
Speaker 14 (38:51):
I was in the juke boxes too.
Speaker 21 (38:52):
I would just stay at the jukebox because almost any
restaurant back then had a juke box, and I would
just stare at and watch it shuffle the records, and
then you know, like that, that's why he's like happy Days.
Speaker 14 (39:03):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I do not feel would you? Would you rotate records
without even listening to it, just see what it looked
like spilling? Were you biased against labels that you didn't like?
Copy wise, even if I had good music, did you
judge it on the label?
Speaker 14 (39:23):
Judge it on the label like I do now?
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Like I never like Capital so it took me a
long time, like especially.
Speaker 22 (39:30):
Old swimming purple or orange like Nat King cole Cat
black with a rainbow around. Yeah, that's why I never
touched my dad's Capitol record right, took me wrong to
get the Beatles.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And Beach Boys like Yeah, label who was the like
the one I used? Like scary labels used to scare me.
I never liked Buddha, yeah, with the little man at
the bottom, like Kurd Time Curtains. But here's the thing
you like Kurt Time. Yeah, I scared.
Speaker 14 (40:02):
Literally face say that.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
At the same I would never to listen to if
there's Hell below, we all gotta go. We're all gonna
go with all that psychedelic echo effect to it in
the dark. As a three year old watching that Kurt
Time label, Nah, but I'd be obsessed with it, like
make him put it on. Then I run upstairs and
(40:25):
hide on the cover.
Speaker 14 (40:27):
I don't.
Speaker 21 (40:27):
I hit under the covers when Jaws came out because
I thought the shot could come in, and I'm like,
and if you think about it, the shot can't swim
without water. But I just remember going to see Jaws
with my family and just.
Speaker 14 (40:38):
That boom doom, doom, doom, doom, doom doom.
Speaker 21 (40:41):
I was so scared of staying by myself, you know,
my my parents let us stay by myself at a
young age because it's just like that in the South,
you know, you know, you leave your door unlocked and
people just walk in, you know, like I'm from that, Like, hey,
your dad, oh it's not you know, unchained fively. I
(41:02):
learned that when I came to New York and my
mom's from Baltimore. So even when we used to stay
at my grandmother's house, same thing. They had all these
like all these locks and You're just like, damn, you.
Speaker 14 (41:12):
Know, what's the you know?
Speaker 21 (41:14):
But then you see the corner store right outside the
house where everybody's fighting and screaming and breaking glass, and
I'm like.
Speaker 14 (41:22):
I want to go back to Texas, you know.
Speaker 21 (41:24):
And then you get to the teenage Agent where it's like, yo,
I love all this violence stuff.
Speaker 14 (41:28):
And that's when the changes started. The change started to come.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Your father, your father, he was a professor at PRAI Review.
Speaker 14 (41:36):
Yeah, yeah, and he was my dean. Imagine that. So
you went for free? No? Well, I mean yeah, he
paid for it. What was computer science? But none of
those languages exist, you know. I took for tran and basic.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah no, no, no, you can't get your receipt back.
So wait, if the if the turntable was such a
sacred holy ground in your household? What happened the very
first time you ever heard the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
(42:15):
on the Wheels is still? Did you hear it as
a youngster in Texas?
Speaker 14 (42:21):
No? I was.
Speaker 21 (42:23):
I was going back and forth. Yeah, but I was
going back and forth because my grandfather lived in Brooklyn.
That's how the first Brooklyn connection happened. Because he ustaill.
He lived in Brooklyn, so being staying with him, he
and I used to always go to I was really
in the in the pinball games heavy as a kid,
so he's always take me to Playland in tom Square
and then we always go to a Yankee game. So
I was so used to going to baseball games with him.
(42:45):
That's how I got into baseball. I played that played
when I was young, and that he's the one that
got me into that. And then he used to tour
with his band and he played trombone, trumpet, guitar and
upright bass.
Speaker 14 (42:57):
So he used to always show me all.
Speaker 21 (42:58):
The pictures like, yeah, this is when I was in German,
this is when I was here, just when I was there.
Speaker 14 (43:01):
And I remember his wife, Rooney, God bless her.
Speaker 21 (43:04):
She's always going, oh, Bill, there you go. He loves
to brag about all the places he's been. But for me,
it was like, wow, all this music took you all
these places, you know, So I wanted to do that
same thing.
Speaker 14 (43:18):
See yeah, but so.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
So it wasn't like you scratched on the home term
table and nah, not then.
Speaker 21 (43:23):
But by the time scratching came out, I just was
wanted to figure out how they able to bring it
back like that. And then my homie who's still a
friend of mine, RP.
Speaker 14 (43:33):
Coler.
Speaker 21 (43:33):
His name is Randy Pettis. He went to my college.
So I didn't really understand the scratching aspect as far
as how they're making the record come back until like
nineteen eighty five, when when eighty four, I'm sorry, eighty
four when I was in college, cause I graduated high
school in eighty four.
Speaker 14 (43:48):
My freshman year in college, I went.
Speaker 21 (43:50):
I went to summer school just so I just wanted
to be in college so bad, because you know, just
to get away hang out with all the people.
Speaker 14 (43:56):
And we don't.
Speaker 21 (43:56):
We only live five minutes from the college, but it's
still a different way now. On the dorms and with
the boys, we're drinking, we're doing all the stuff that
and that that you want to do away from your parents.
And and uh, I just remember, man, he was scratching
and and he had these felt pads on there, and
I was like, yo, how are you doing that? And
and he.
Speaker 14 (44:17):
Was like, I'll show you. He's come to my dorm.
And I went to this dorm.
Speaker 21 (44:19):
He showed me how to cut on his old big Gemini.
It was a big Gemini mixer. It was silver with
wood on the side. That's all I remember, the big silver.
Speaker 14 (44:28):
Damn. He had to run to get the cross fader,
you know, and he was and the way, the way,
the way the dorms were.
Speaker 21 (44:34):
Set up shot the Holly Hall that was, that was
the dorm of all the wildness. He the way he
had to set up he a two on the right
because he couldn't.
Speaker 14 (44:42):
He couldn't.
Speaker 21 (44:42):
He couldn't do nothing right because well he cult left
and right, but only when he was doing the gigs
at his whole, at his dorm, he would set him
up on the right. So, being I got so used
to learning it that way, I just stuck with that
way I could. You know, I got better now where
you have to cross over and everything, but now I
don't want him that But if it's set up that way,
I'm still nice to do it with him on the
(45:04):
right or And then the second thing that led me
just keeping on the right was when Malcolm Claren and
the world famous Supreme Team came out with the album
d You Like Scratching? You see the turntable together, Yeah,
the turntables together on the cover and the mixer is
a GLI mixer in the front. So I was like,
I want to do that, but I'm just gonna move
them back over like the way RP taught me.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
All Right, So when anyone ever asked me, like, what
is the most exemplary episode to listen to? I always
referred them to the Great Jimmy Jam one of my
favorite QLs episodes of all time, talking about musical diversity
and his upbringing.
Speaker 20 (45:46):
My earliest memories were always, you know, I always loved
the harmony groups. I loved Seals and Cross America America Wow. Yeah,
you know that kind of stuff. Bred that was. I mean,
to this day, that's the way I stacked my harmonies
because of the way they sang those songs. Back then,
a little bit later in life, I liked, like, around
(46:08):
the time I met Terry, I was really into Chicago
that was. That was my favorite band ever, you know,
and me and Terry both loved them, And then Terry
then turned me on to when I met him, he
turned me on too, earth Wind and Fired, Tower of Power,
New Birth. I met Terry in seventy two. Okay, yeah,
so we're just we're talking last days in time, Earth Winding,
Fire and music in my mind Stevie Wonder. You know,
(46:30):
these were the albums and Terry turned me on to those.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Black radio You didn't have no black radio experience at
the age of ten twelve.
Speaker 20 (46:38):
There wasn't a black radio experience for me. When I
got into high school, I was really into or junior
high and into high school, I was really into Gambling,
Huff and everything coming out of Philadelphia. Blue Magic was
my favorite all time group. I know everybody was into Stylistics,
but Blue Magic was my group.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
But how could you hear it or see it?
Speaker 9 (46:56):
Was?
Speaker 20 (46:58):
Oh, yeah, Soul Train definitely was on and you definitely
would hear it on Soul Train. But I I remember
I had a friend of mine whose dad was an
executive of music Land, which is one of the big
retail stores back in the day. So he used to
get every single record that came out. And my thing
was I was always a big liner note reader and
a big label reader. So my thing was we all
(47:22):
collective and bill yes. So my whole thing was, I
remember there were records that would come out and I
would particularly during the Motown era because I really I
really loved the Motown records, all of that stuff. The
Holland Dozer Holland, like I remember I did. I remember
looking at a Supremes album at a like a family
(47:43):
reunion or something back in sixty two or something or
sixty so I was like three or four years old,
and I remember that Holland Dozer Holland it was. The
album was called The Supreme sing Holland Dozer HOLLANDLD Record,
and I the gold record, right. I had no idea
what that meant. I kept going, what does this mean
mean they singing Holland Dozer Holland, And somebody explained to me, no,
(48:03):
they wrote the songs. The girls are the singers, but
somebody wrote the songs, and something went off in my
head at that point. That always made me look who
wrote it, who produced it? And so I remember like
all the Motown records would be the first ones I'd
always go to. And I remember like staring at the
first time I heard I Want You Back Jackson five,
(48:24):
and you know Dinnah Ross and Dinah Ross presents the
Jackson five and I thought, oh, wow, that's cool, and
I looked down the record. I'm like, well, I don't
see Donna Ross's name anywhere on here. There's some dudes
called the somebody. I gotta find out who the corporation is,
you know.
Speaker 9 (48:40):
So that was.
Speaker 20 (48:40):
Always my my thing and and I knew that because
what I learned was there were certain there were groups
I like, but it was all about who produced them.
Like it was. It was like, you know, like Eddie
Kendricks could come out with a song and I would
be like, Yeah, that's okay. And then you come out
with a song, I go oh, oh, I love that song. Okay,
(49:01):
who did that song? Okay, Leonard Caston and you know,
Frank Wilson and okay. And then I'd hear another song
that had nothing to do with Eddie Kendricks, but I'd go, oh,
I like that track. Who did that? And it'd be
the same dudes, right, And that's when I got That's
when I started going, Okay, that's that's my thing. And
so for me, that's what always excited me, and that's what,
(49:22):
you know, ultimately made me want to become a songwriter
and a producer.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
We're gonna close with Adam Levine. This is from an
End Studio in twenty twenty four episode, and it really
just captures the rabbit holeness of QLs, Eddie Grant into
Cat Stevens and everywhere in between. And we'll close this
and we'll catch up with you guys soon. All right,
thank you. What was your very first musical memory in life?
Speaker 7 (49:53):
And I know the first record I bought other than
my parents playing music in the car, right, which probably
always the Beatles. This is so funny, but I remember
very distinctly buying the Eddie Grant Electric Avenue. Electric that
I like it was, but it was like like a tick.
I played the song like my parents were like I
(50:14):
never need to hear the song.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Again, so what uh, it's not unusual. It's to John mlaney,
that's what electric Avenue was.
Speaker 14 (50:21):
To use the kid.
Speaker 7 (50:22):
It was like it was like ad nauseum all day long.
Please God, I don't ever want to hear it again.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
That song comes on, that song holds up, dude. Jimmy
wanted him on the show to do Electric Avenue, and
the first thing he wanted to do, you know, like
artists might have that smells like teen spirit moment where
they don't want to do the song that they're known for.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
Like Bobby mcfairn, like like, you know, like I want
to do like play that so and so listen to
the song and realize what it's about and then realize
he should play.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Okay, when he came on the show, you remember this, Steve,
he wanted to do like a different version of it.
He wanted to mix it with it. I don't want
to dance like the other minor hits that.
Speaker 14 (51:06):
He wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
The B side, time Warp Yes, yo, Wait, so do
you know about time Warp? No, dude, So time Warp is.
I didn't even notice this, but we've all heard time Warp.
So Time Warris is kind of a song of his
that was like a B side that wound up being
not him going rogue the only way I can describe it,
(51:28):
you know, like dog was a donut on Cat Stevens's record. Wow,
that's a metaphor.
Speaker 14 (51:32):
That is a deep cut.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
It's like an instrumental. Right, it's an instrumental. Okay, So Encyclopedia.
In seventy seven, Cat Stevens had a synthesizer endorsement deal
with the company of which he promised, like, Okay, one
of these songs, I'll play your instruments on the record.
But Cat Stevens ain't necessarily a synth based artist, he's
(51:55):
like acoustic yeah, you don't say right, And so basically
that the penultimate cut, like the song before the album ends,
he did a quickie, little four minute demonstration song of
this new drum machine and whatever, and it actually fucked
around and wound up being like a bee boy classic.
Speaker 7 (52:14):
But who's about right now Stevens, which into Adam, let's
get Seddie and then back to my mind just exploded.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
This is dog wasn't donut by uh oh okay, yeah right,
which is basically like this is that's what you went?
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Adams, Like, where do we start with this?
Speaker 1 (52:37):
He that's not castaing. It is because he contractually had
to make a song up with all this darm machines.
Speaker 7 (52:46):
That's a weird contractualbligation.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Nineteen seventy seven. He was the first with the like
Lynn drum and all that stuff. So he made this
ship and of course the b boy community press work
immediately picked up on it and it became a classic
unbetown to him. But the same way Eddie Grant. Eddie
Grant did kind of an Overheim synthesizer song called time Work,
which is he had.
Speaker 7 (53:09):
A foot in that door already though that the cast
even ship is crazy. Yeah, I never heard anything like
that in my life from him, Like, what was that?
Speaker 1 (53:16):
I want to hear it.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
I didn't know, right, none of us knew what it
was him.
Speaker 8 (53:19):
You've got to get this.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
So this, this is the B side of Electric Avenue.
So basically, at Paradise Garage this became an anthem. And
if it's played at Paradise Garage, it also means that
at Crocker is also playing it on his radio show.
So Eddie Grant wanted to come and do Time.
Speaker 14 (53:43):
Ward came back, We got full circle.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
I'm there, I'm very focused in the morning, and now
the show's over. Thank you very much, Eddie Grant. Really anyway,
so you loved Electric Avenue.
Speaker 2 (54:01):
He came and wanted to do the B side.
Speaker 7 (54:03):
Yeah, he's just crazy.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
Jimmy is always watching the music guests from his dressing
room or his office because he has a monitor in there,
and he tries not to come out and freak out
the people that early in the morning. But that's the
one time in which you know, we're like, okay, so
we'll do one verse of Electric Avenue and then we'll
do Time Warp, and which you're not singing at all.
Jimmy ran in and it was like, guys, no, I
(54:28):
need you to do electric avenue. And then at that
he wanted to do like a blues harmonica version of it.
Speaker 7 (54:34):
Oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hard when that's like
we had, right.
Speaker 5 (54:40):
We had to wrestle him out of that and just
do regular ass letric avenue.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
You guys had already like sampled all the weird little samples.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
In all the little all those little stuff Burbson's frame.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
It's like Ray Parker not doing Ghostbusters some ship like that.
Speaker 14 (54:55):
True, Yeah's true.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
So Huey lewis not doing Ghostbusters. Thank you for listening
to Quest Love Supreme Hosted by Amir quest Love, Thompson,
Why You, Saint Clair Sugar, Steve Mandell, and unpaid Bill Sherman.
Executive producers are Mira quest Love, Thompson, Sean g and
(55:20):
Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brady Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Eliah
Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by
Noel Brown West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
(55:42):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio
app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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