Sam Moore | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

In what may be one of his final interviews, soul legend Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) sits down with Billy Corgan for a candid, career-spanning conversation—covering church-born vocals, the Stax vs. Motown divide, and why real bands beat backing tracks. He revisits the accidental origins of Sam & Dave, the studio alchemy with Isaac Hayes and David Porter, and sessions behind “Hold On, I’m Comin’” and the iconic “Play it, Steve!” on “Soul Man.” Moore speaks frankly about industry politics, DJ gatekeeping, tours with Otis Redding, the M. G.’s (Duck Dunn, Al Jackson, Steve Cropper) and his long road from addiction to sobriety. Subscribe to the Magnificent Others YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:09Speaker 01

  And then came, "You Don't Know Like I Know."

• 1:13Billy Corgan?

  Great song.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Well, it didn't hurt nothing. Nah, I think had a monopoly on Sam Moore.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  I really liked the stuff coming out of United Artists. I like those songs. Did they promote it? No, because you know why? I was a junkie. I didn't like that because it burned first time. I could make love and all that stuff. Whoa, boy. And that was the beginning.

• 1:48Billy Corgan?

  Let's start here because I haven't seen the new Stacks documentary. I heard you did see it. You did see it?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  I did. I did.

• 1:57Billy Corgan?

  How do you feel about it? Because I heard you weren't totally happy with it.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Billy, the first two nights were, I could accept. And I did accept, but the last two nights, I, from my standpoint.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  I wasn't very pleased about it. I don't think when you're doing something like that musically, you want to try to stay away from the politics and the racism and everything else. You want to, you want to focus much more into the music. What, what, what had begun, how it revolves and not all the stuff about uh, who killed Malcolm, why they killed Martin and Ku Klux Klan? That's, that's not giving information and talking about the music for the young people that's going to be watching.

• 2:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  That was, that was, that's my only take on it.

• 3:03Billy Corgan?

  I mean, my, my impression as a fan of Stax is it's such a testament to how music can bring people together.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. I tell you Billy, I was very, and I looked at this yesterday, uh, looking at the book. And there are people that could have got collabs like, uh, Luther Ingram, The Soul Children, believe it or not, Lil Milton, The Stable Singers, Arthur Connolly. Who has sweet soul music? Come on Billy. I mean, I mean, you, you mean, you, you, you gonna focus in on who killed Martin instead of, you know, doing your thing, doing your thing about,

• 3:55Speaker 01

  you know, these people that's, that's, that's in the, in the, in the industry of music.

• 4:00Billy Corgan?

  Yes, sir.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  From my, my, from my view, I was not totally happy about it.

• 4:07Billy Corgan?

  How'd you feel how they dealt with your guys' story?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  They, you know, where, from the time we came from, uh, Roulette Records and trying to get a record deal, working up until we got signed to Atlantic and to tell the story how we got signed to Atlantic, that was interesting. Now, there were some parts in there that is really.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  is a contradictory thing because one per- one person is saying that Sam and Dave came down to Memphis, Stax, no one wanted to record them, they wanted to be giving us a deal and, and, and before that, it says that Jerry Wexler from Atlantic sent us down there. So, you know, y- y- that's confusing.

• 5:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  You know, you can't, you, you, you, if you're gonna, if you're gonna say something positive or negative, tell, be honest and tell the truth.

• 5:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  That's what I, you know, don't, don't, um, say things to make yourself or whatever look good. Tell the truth and be honest and let the cards fall where they may. And that's my, that was my take on it, Billy.

• 5:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So, a quick story about myself. So, my, my father was born in, in southern Illinois and they moved up to Chicago. Uh, my grandmother got divorced. My dad was quite young and my grandmother ended up working as a maid and, and, you know, living in a poor neighborhood. My dad told the story of how he fell in love with music because they lived across the street from a gospel church on the south side of Chicago.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 6:02Billy Corgan?

  In the nineteen fifties. And he used to go into, he used to go into the church and listened, you know, and for all we know, he was listening to Sam Cooke or whoever was in the circuit around that point. So, I, I, I like-

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 6:15Billy Corgan?

  So, this forever stuck with me because he loved black music to his, his gut. He, he basically would tell me-

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 6:23Billy Corgan?

  He, he would tell me as a little boy, white people not so great. If you want to listen to real music, you listen to this kind of music. That's what I grew up on. I grew up on Stax. You know, I grew up on bands like the Shy, Shy Lights and things like this. So, so I want you to-

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:38Billy Corgan?

  If you could talk, because I know how important the church was for you in terms of your singing.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Billy, I have to.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  I would, I would have to agree with your father. As opposed, now the reason, let me explain to you why. I'm not gonna be putting down the, the today's music. That's not, that's not in our con- that's not in the conversation here. But what, what, what I agree with him is, back in the days of what your father was listening to and what you became lover of, that was music. You had, you know, if your father lived in the fifties and, and, and, and living in Chicago,

• 7:30Speaker 01

  that meant, that meant that he heard Mahalia Jackson. He heard The Caravan. He heard The Cook Family, which is Sam and his brothers and his sisters. He heard, oh my God, a lot of gospel. Mostly other staple singers. So your father was right. That was music in the days. We didn't have what they have today. Today,

• 8:04Speaker 01

  back in that time, if you went on stage to do a, do a show, a performance,

• 8:13Speaker 01

  you better, you better, you better bring, you bring your A-game. Because whoever was ahead of you could and would embarrass you. To the point that, no, your father right, you, you, it would be, the person that would, would be ahead of you would embarrass you with your own's headline. You're headlining and they're coming on as, as a guest, as a guest singer. And they're embarrassing you. So today, they don't, I found out they don't use, because I said to my wife, I said to Joyce, I said, Joyce, I said,

• 8:58Speaker 01

  I, I, I see Beyonce and Taylor Swift and all these people doing these shows. And I said, but I, I don't see a band. And she said, Sam, she said, I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm gonna tell you. They don't use bands any longer. I said, live bands? She said, no, they do tracks.

• 9:23Billy Corgan?

  They do and they don't, but, but she's right, yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Wow, and I'm going, what? Well, I, I would like to, if I was gonna go to a show today, if, and I say if, preposition, if I was going, I want, I want you to show me something, Billy. I mean, I mean, if you're gonna, you know, show me, show me what you got. I mean, make me, make me earn my, earn my time of watching you up there on that stage. I don't wanna see a lot of dolls and fake penises and all this stuff.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I don't wanna see, you know, I'm not into that, Billy, you know?

• 10:16Billy Corgan?

  I'm not into fake penises either.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  No, I'm not into Billy, no, I'm not into that. And I don't wanna see, I don't wanna see the ladies on the floor and all that stuff. I wanna, but, and also again, I come back to her and we discussed this. I said, do you think we're gonna ever? Because there, oh, question my mind that there are still good singers out here. There are still good singers out here, but what?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  And I ask her, "Do you think we're gonna ever hear any good music today?" She says, "No." Not that, and when you talk to her, maybe sometime in the near future, you can even debate her, but she says she doesn't think the music is gonna be like it, good as it was back then. What do you think?

• 11:13Billy Corgan?

  Well, I think, I think, you know, when you guys first hit it big, there was a lot of fake, artificial music in the time. You know what I mean? Like cheesy, cheesy, sweet pop, and you guys broke through with real gut bucket, from the heart soul music, like literally from the soul. So I think there's always that opportunity when it gets too perfect, too fake, that somebody comes through from the heart. And, and I think from a, from a spiritual point of view, God always sort of seems to manifest the thing you'd least, when you least expect it.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Amen. I, I, I, I totally agree with that because I wanna hear your heart. I know, you know, I wanna hear, I wanna see you sweat. I wanna see your, yeah, I wanna see you do C.L. Franklin.

• 12:06Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  I wanna see, yeah, I wanna see you, I wanna see you dance all over that place singing and, and when I did not be a clown, because, uh, that's, to me, that's not clown. But, uh, if the Holy Ghost hits you, you're gonna dance, you're gonna do the Holy Dance. And we did that, I did that, David, I did that a lot. Uh, I, I, I, I got Joyce, she doesn't understand, I never danced, I did the Holy Dance. She said, "Yeah, okay."

• 12:40Speaker 03

  At the dance.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  At the dance, she said.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  There's footage.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  But I, you know, uh, if I'm paying forty or fifty, or seventy-five or seventeen hundred to see you, I wanna, I want you, man, I want you to put it, lay it out on me, which, that's, you know, that's, that was, that was saying, that's saying something now, because that's not gonna happen, so.

• 13:06Billy Corgan?

  Yes, sir.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  You know, so we'll move on.

• 13:08Billy Corgan?

  I know, I know there's this story where you, you, you got a gig emceeing. And that's, and that's how you ended up meeting Dave and you know, there's that whole story, but I want to know, how old were you when you got that gig and you started singing professionally for the first time?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  I was probably in my twenties.

• 13:26Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, twenties. Yeah, I was probably in my twenties, yeah. Uh, I was, uh, I think, oh, I was out of, this was back, this was up in the sixties. Uh, and, uh, you know, you know how young kids at that time, Billy tried to impress one another? And we were, it was a gang of us, well, three or four of us together. And, uh, being the smallest one in the group, we passed by this club.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  And, uh, this, there was a sign in the, in the, in the glass window that said, hiring MC, singer, comed- you know, comedians plus. So, one of my, one of the guys with us said, "Hey, Sam, I bet you won't try that." And I said, "What?" He said, "Right there." So I looked at that, I said, "Oh, yeah? Well, I'm a gospel singer, you know, and, uh, but, uh, I, I, you don't dare me, 'cause I'm gonna take the dance."

• 14:46Speaker 01

  So I walked, I walked up, Billy and I, I, there was Mr., at the time, there was Mr. LaMelo, the owner's, uh, father was sitting at the door and I walked up and I said to him, I said, "Uh, I'd like to take, get that job." He said, "What job?" I said, "Right there in the window." "Well, when you look at me at that time, you would question, you're gonna go, 'Really? Right?'" You know, uh, "What, what, uh, what is your, what is your qualification?" "Oh, yeah, well, you know, yeah, you and you?"

• 15:30Speaker 01

  "Yeah, well, you know, yeah, I, I mean, uh, you know, I'm MC." "Where? Where gospel shows and shows on the beach?"

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Okay, what shows on the beach? Uh, what's your name? Sam? Okay. Sam, what shows you, uh, emceed on the, on the beach? Well, Billy,

• 15:53Speaker 01

  I got myself in a trick bag. I said, oh, I, I at the Eden Rock and, you know. And who did you emcee for at the Eden Rock? Uh,

• 16:08Speaker 01

  uh,

• 16:11Speaker 01

  uh, uh, oh, yeah, I, I, I, I emcee for Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. Now, Billy, we not, we not that far out of, out of segregation, okay? Come on, come on. You know, I, that's why I said I got myself in a jam. He said, sir, Frank Sinatra, yes, sir. And who else? Uh, Bobby Darin? Bobby Darin. Really? Yes, sir. Uh huh.

• 16:50Billy Corgan?

  At le- at least you went for the ba- at least you went for the best, right? He started.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I did.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I had read about, I had read this in the newspaper. Entertainers come in town.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  I didn't know, I didn't watch it. So he said, okay, I'll give you a tryout. Uh, when could you do a tryout? Could you come in and do a tryout? I said, yes, sir, sure, when? I said, when, when you like them? And he said, how about tomorrow night? Now, Billy, there was no way. I, I didn't, I didn't have clothes to, for, for a rock and roll show or nothing like that. So I took one of my gospel suits and cut, cut the legs to make them like, like, uh,

• 17:38Billy Corgan?

  Little Lord Fanta, right? Kind of.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, in court shirt and tie and I went in and uh he said and then he gave me a list, Billy, he gave me a list. He said, this is what you do. When the the music starts, you come up and they're gonna you introduce yourself. Yes, sir. Uh, this is gonna be amateur night. Yes, sir. Okay. Now, what you do, introduce yourself, then you sing a song, and after you sing a couple of songs, then uh introduce the band and uh you start with

• 18:26Speaker 01

  the uh amateur hour. Okay. Yes, sir. And you tell a couple, you know, you can you are you say you can tell jokes. Yes, sir. Okay, good, good. Okay. This is a good tryout now. This you don't have the job, Sam. You're doing a tryout. Yes, sir. Okay. I went up and I knew two songs. I knew uh You Never Smile Again and I knew Danny Boy.

• 18:53Billy Corgan?

  The Irish classic.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Billy, don't ask me about another two, another song. That's what I knew. And I sang those two songs for a week. I told the same joke. Well, they weren't jokes. I thought they were jokes when I said knock, knock, and the audience go, who's there? So eventually the owner walks up to me, calls me in, and he said, my father, uh, say you're doing a tryout? I said, yes, sir. He said, okay. I'm uh I'm the son of uh my father is Mr.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Lamello. Okay. I said, yes, sir. Listen, I want to say something. Okay. I thought he was gonna give me a big, come on, I'm gonna make it. He said, first of all, you sound stupid.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  You don't sing two songs. You don't know any other two songs? Uh, no, sir. Uh huh. Okay, cut those out. Next thing, you're not funny.

• 20:05Billy Corgan?

  Sorry.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  In fact, you, you, I'm losing money because people are hearing this stuff and they're walking out or going to the bathroom. They don't want to hear knock-knock jokes. Cut that out. By the way,

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I tell you what, let you go up on the front and you take down the names of people that want to be on Amateur Hour. Don't you, you, you, yeah, cause you stupid. He did. He said, you sound real stupid. He said, I love the way you, I love you, the way you, you phrase and sing. You're a little loud, but that's okay. You, what, what kind of singing? I said, oh, I said, he said, what did, I said, I say gospel. He said, oh, okay. Well, what kind of gospel? I said, gospel, gospel, you know, it's okay. Well, don't sing gospel no more. Don't, don't do that no more.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Just be a, so that's how I started, Billy. I was, I went up to the front and that's how I met Dave because I was up front taking names of people that wanted to be on the Amateur Hour. And that's how that, that's how sort of had the beginning of starting Sam and Dave.

• 21:22Billy Corgan?

  When you, had you heard Dave sing before that or was that the first time?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  No, that was the first time. I had, I had heard about this young man that was a great, believe it or not, Billy, I heard that from word of mouth that this was a, the next Sam Cooke.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  That's what I heard.

• 21:44Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  And I hadn't seen him. But when he did come out there and he and I was taking down the names and he came up and I said, and your name, he said, Dave. I said, okay. And I'm pretty sure you have a last name. Yeah. What's your last name? Praeta. I said, what? Praeta. I said, spell it. So he, I said, Prater. He says, no, Praeta. I said, oh, okay, okay, okay. Finally, I ain't gonna fight over name calling, you know? So I said, what are you saying? So I, what did he say? I'm doing dogging me, I'm gonna be doing dogging me around. I said, oh, really? Okay. So I put it down.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  And the rest, rest, Billy, is history. It went from sugar to you know what after that. And that's how Sam and Dave became,

• 22:42Speaker 01

  unfortunately, became for the next twenty-one to twenty-two years, Sam and Dave.

• 22:47Billy Corgan?

  Now, did you, did you feel musically connected? Or did you, like, what was it about the connection? I, obviously, people loved when you guys sang together. That's evident, but what was your impression of him musically?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Listen, it was a job that was put on me, not by me. I didn't hire Dave and get Dave to come. Johnny LaMelo is the one. And the guy behind the bar, that was a bartender by the name of P. Wee Ellis, I mean, P. Wee Wilson, that got us together. Uh, and Johnny, when Dave did what he did on stage with the microphone and I got nervous and I was trying to Uh, get out of the way of whatever you wanna call it. And the audience bit, they thought that was the act.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  The audience put us, actually put it together because Johnny Witten, they, when, when they start screaming, when he and I both went to the floor to get the mic, pick the mic up.

• 23:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  It was like a Joe Test thing, sort of thing, you know, without using your foot center stuff. So that's, that's actually what happened.

• 24:04Billy Corgan?

  Your impression of him as a singer first, let's, can I, cause I wanna unpack that a little bit.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  At that time, it was okay because we had a, we didn't have a, there was no plan, there was no strategy. Uh, what, and we were doing covers, so we were doing, um, whole, uh, nah, we were doing songs like, don't play that song for me. Uh, and saying something that, that sounded gospel-y, like Sam Cooke stuff, Jackie Wilson stuff. We, we never harmonized, Billy. And that was proven to me by Isaac Hayes. We never harmonized, we blended. But we never harmonized it, call and response.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  So that's, when I say call and response, that doesn't mean that I, that doesn't give credit to being impressed. If I sang something or said something, he would chase me behind it or say what I would say or make up his own. I only listened to Dave after twenty some odd years for the first time. All those years that he and I performed up and down the road and over, over, uh, out of the country, I never really listened to Dave that much. I really didn't, Billy. Now that may sound a little chesty, but no, I really didn't listen. Uh, and Joyce could, can confirm that, cause she was with me at the time.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  And I was on stage and uh, well, I was going to do a thing, uh, drug wise. And uh, Billy, I was singing and for some reason or another, I, I was getting sick. I needed to hit, get some drugs. That's when I come, I, I stopped singing that much and let Dave take over, him lead on a song. And I went, not understanding, I didn't pay attention until then, that I had done it on a hot mic. I said, he can't sing.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  And George, I, I, I don't know whether she still has it now, but she, she had it on re, on, on, on a recorder, uh, camera or something, whatever she had. And I went, he can't sing. That's the first time I had ever heard him out of twenty, twenty-one years. That's true. I mean, I'm telling the truth, Billy.

• 26:31Billy Corgan?

  I believe you.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Uh, that's, I'm comparing myself, but it's not, no, I, I never listened to Dave.

• 26:37Billy Corgan?

  But what sort of, shocking is maybe not the right word, but you guys had so much success, especially when you went to Stax. Were you surprised by the reaction to both of you? Or did you see it more as your thing and he was with you? Does that make sense?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I didn't have that in mind. Thank you asking that question. I had not in my, in my world of thought to do a, uh, Sam and Dave. I had my mind set on doing songs like, watch how stupid I was now. I was thinking long lines of doing stuff like Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Benny King, you know, Louis John, uh, Clyde McFatta, pretty songs. I had that in mind, having that in mind.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  And we were called in and uh, we were introduced to Hayes and Porter. By the way, uh, we, we were introduced to that day. We went into the studio and uh, Jim Stewart, the owner, said to me, to David and myself, that they were going to be our producers. First of all, I'm, I, I'm, I'm upset because I see, I've seen how Isaac is dressed.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  That's, that's a letdown right there. This man's got these clothes that he's wearing that does not garner anything of the thinking of the way that I, of the songs I wanna do.

• 28:23Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Or I would like to do. So, what I did, I went, we went in and they started playing down some songs. And they got to some songs and Billy,

• 28:38Speaker 01

  right there. I kid you not, right there. Tears started coming down the side of my face. I started crying and I said, I, I, I, I, I wanna go home. I, this is not gonna work. Well, Billy, we had, you know, there was a failure with Roulette and everything and locally down here.

• 29:08Billy Corgan?

  Was that, was that, was that with Morris Levy? Was that the Roulette under Morris Levy?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, Billy, well, he didn't know what to do with us and I don't think he cared about doing anything. He, we, he, we were, listen. He didn't see no reason to make money with us. Cause the, the, if you wanna call it a style, the way we were singing like gospel singers. He, that was not in his, you know, he like, he, come on, he had like, Count Basie, Joe Williams, O.C. Smith. There's people like that, you know, the people that, that, that, that didn't even come near

• 29:55Speaker 01

  of the thing that he was making money with and, you know, doing his thing with. So, no, uh, that was a failure there. So, Kevin coming, finally getting a deal.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  And not having somebody to really

• 30:14Speaker 01

  uh speak up for us to make the deal. Uh, I felt, I, I, I really felt let down. I, I really was upset and hurt. And I really wanted to go back home and come back and well, maybe try and get a maybe try again to get a record deal. A possible record deal.

• 30:37Billy Corgan?

  I hear you. You're in, you're in stacks. You're meeting these guys who we many names we all know now. Isaac Hayes, Booker T, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, you know, this, that crew, right? That's the crew. And Jim Stewart was the label owner, right?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's just a, yeah.

• 30:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So, so how do we get from you standing there crying, you know what I mean? To making hits with these same people?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Okay. And I, and I can too to find this out in the book that I was reading. First of all, I did not know. I didn't know we were important. I didn't think we were important enough to, to be there. But it didn't, I didn't have enough gumption to, I didn't have no manager to go to to say, hey, look, I don't wanna

• 31:28Speaker 01

  I, I don't wanna sign with the, I don't wanna sign with these guys, you know? Uh, I didn't know that we, at the time, I knew we had signed with Atlantic, so I didn't know to call Jerry or uh, you know, anybody. I didn't know. I just choked back everything and they played songs. And I found out, Billy, that if they hadn't have come up with something, eventually they were gonna call Atlantic and drop us.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  They were gonna drop us, Billy. Uh, and, uh, the first thing came to mind, because we had a song called, uh, Jody, Jody Ryder. It was sort of like a country song, uh, which I, I intentionally sang it country. And I remember Jim Stewart saying, what are you doing? And I'm going, uh, singing. He said, they don't want you to say it like that. They want you to sing it like they're, you know, they have it put down.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Well, I did that intentionally because I didn't like the song. So we passed,

• 32:54Speaker 01

  so we passed that, Billy. And then came, You Don't Know Like I Know.

• 33:01Billy Corgan?

  Great song.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. Wasn't, it didn't hurt nothing. Uh, nah. You know, you don't know like I know. Okay, all right. Sound like we, you know, I sounded liking it. But now, I wasn't all that gung ho about all the songs. I wasn't all that gung ho about Hold On Coming and, and really wasn't gung ho about Soul Man. But I went along with it. And the next thing I knew, I ain't getting gung ho about anything until,

• 33:36Speaker 01

  uh,

• 33:39Speaker 01

  maybe, Dave and I had been together,

• 33:46Speaker 01

  about nineteen years, when I started appreciating what we were doing.

• 33:53Billy Corgan?

  That's crazy.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Is that like, yeah?

• 33:57Billy Corgan?

  Did you, were you, were you not feeling the band? What, what, what, what didn't you like about it musically?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  The thing about it, I was so accustomed to, to doing the holy dance and singing gospel, till I took that part of what I was doing in church and carrying on stage. And locally, I was doing that here in Miami. Well, we're going and doing shows now.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Overseas, I, what did I do? I covered myself by doing this, Billy. I covered this. I went out and I first, to make things better, to cover, I got a, I, I put together a twenty-one-piece orchestra for the stage. To dance, I'm standing on the corner here in Miami, and I saw the Florida A and M team. The one that talks about the, the, the fast stepping Florida A and M, and I stood there and I looked, Billy, and I mean, they were stepping. And I said, that's what I want.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  I want the horns swinging, I want that fast step, I want you playing, and I want that to be, what if I could put that together with what I hear, with Duck and, uh, Isaac and, and, and, and, and Al, Al Jackson in the horn line, and I know, I know, I, I, I know you understand, I, I'm not bringing up another name of, of, of, of Steve Crawford. He was not integral part of what Isaac was trying to put together.

• 35:46Billy Corgan?

  Was Isaac Hayes the person you most connected with musically in that, in Stax's world?

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Oh, God, yes. Oh, God. He taught me not how to sing, uh, Billy. No, he taught me how to properly do it. He knew I had that gospel-y thing. Okay, what you do, Sam? What I want to do it. He would do this at first, a verse, a chorus, and then go back to the top. Well, that was not long enough to put a record out. So what they did, they had to go back and, uh, put a beginning,

• 36:35Speaker 01

  a middle, and an end, and go back to the top, and then you end live out. Well, that's how Isaac saw it, and that's how the, Sam, Sam, are you singing? If they would have sung...

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Where Isaac put him and wanted him to sing, then that would have been harmonizing.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  But for some reason or another, I don't know, you know, today, I don't know. People got into Dave's head that he could sing those high notes in all those keys. And, and he doesn't understand those were, to me, they were not high notes. It was just a matter of fact.

• 37:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you, you just, you just sang up there anyway.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  I just sang up there anyway. I even talk up there anyway, you know.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  So anyway, to, to move on here, I, that's how David put it out there. I mean, Isaac put it together. Well, when Booker T would come into town, uh, he, he did like, he played on, let me, let's see, he played on May I, baby, he played a tuba. He didn't, uh, he played the tuba and I, I'm not too sure whether we have a recorder in his material. I, I doubt that because he was in, he was in Indiana, University of Indiana, going to school. But on the summertime and we were there, it was, it was always Isaac.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  And I, I connected with him, sitting down on the, at the piano or standing. And he would, he would sing Dave's part down to Dave. Dave, this is where I want you to go.

• 38:31Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Sam, this is where, you know, I'm not going to tell you where to go. What you do, you find your place.

• 38:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  That's how he would put it. I, find your place. And that's what I would do, Billy. I just find a place. So if I open up a song, sing it down first. Don't be yelling and screaming. Sing it. Middle of the song, sing it.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  End of the song, sing it. Build up a pyramid. Go back up the top and then now Sam ad lib. Do your, do all your Sam stuff. Dave, Dave, you follow him. Do whatever, you know, that's how, that's, that was Sam and Dave.

• 39:23Billy Corgan?

  Wow, interesting. So just indulge me because I, I love Stax music so much. Uh, to me, to me, it's just so much great music. I mean, it's incredible to listen to how many great artists, how many great songs, how many great performances.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:39Billy Corgan?

  So indulge me. What was the typical session? You guys are behind sort of a, a, like a, like a soundproof thing so you could see the band, but you're, you're isolated. Is that how it worked?

• 39:51Speaker 01

  We're behind

• 39:54Speaker 01

  the board. That, you know, the, the micro, microphone. Uh, two, two mics. We saw Steve Crawford. That's how player Steve came up because he was standing right in front of me. Uh, I saw Isaac. Isaac put himself in a, in a place. I could see him. Uh, David would get over in there. And I, it, it, it was a lot of, and I guess he takes credit for showing, telling me how, showing me how to say that was not true. He was, what he was doing, I was leaving. He was listening what Mr. Stewart was telling him.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Sam is leaving too many gaps. And that's how player Steve came up out. I was leaving, I'm a so old man. And that's it. And no, fill in that gap. And Isaac was saying, you know, fill in that gap. Don't leave it, leave that open space like that. Cause it's not, it's not, it's empty. So as I was trying to find something, Billy.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I blurred it out. Play it Steve. That's all I could come up with. And when we, and believe it or not, that was almost refused. Because when we went up into the engineering room, Jim Stewart said to me, Sam, why did you say play it Steve? Because it looked like you, you, you know, you're counting on, why didn't you say play it Isaac or play it Sonza? And I couldn't give, I couldn't give Jim an answer. I said, I just, I said, you said fill the gap, Jim.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  I just, I said, I, I said Steve was studying then. I just saw him and I just, I just blurred it out.

• 41:58Billy Corgan?

  But from your vantage point, you could see the whole band or maybe just part of the band?

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Just part, just part at the time. Yeah, just part. For a long time, it was only the rhythm section. Billy, when we first started recording, it was only, we were recording with the whole band. We had horns and everything in the studio. Uh, but as times went on, what was happening was this. Uh, Isaac would lay down tracks because it was taking too long for, and I'm not saying this would be rude or nasty. I'm just being honest.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  It was taking, Dave had a lisp and it was destroying the mic coming over the, coming over the system. He would say a lot and it was, and they did everything they could, even put putty chewing up in his mouth to cut that, you know? And they had to stop this. So what Isaac came up with after cut the track, that is when we learned that what he was doing, he would work overnight.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  To get that, that, the whisper sound out of, of, of the songs. And so that was, that was getting too much and it was, and it was costing a lot of money, you know? Cause Atlanta started saying something, my God, it takes that long to record one song? Well, yeah, did Billy, you know?

• 43:45Billy Corgan?

  When you were created, obviously some of these songs which are now classics, you know? Did you have a sense that they were gonna be hits and classics? Or were they just other songs in the other songs you were recording?

• 43:55Speaker 01

  I liked, you know, I liked, you know what? Can I say this? You ever heard the name Homer Banks?

• 44:05Billy Corgan?

  I do know the name, I don't know where or how.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  He did a Johnny Taylor's. Who's Making Love and stuff like that?

• 44:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Who's Making Love to Your Old Lady? While you're out making love, right?

• 44:16Speaker 01

  He wrote all, he wrote most of the stuff. Of, for, for, for, for, for, uh, at Stax. He wrote for Sam and Dave, uh, You Don't Know What You Mean to Me and, and, and stuff like that. And I'm not too sure he didn't write other stuff that David may have taken credit for writing. Uh, but hey, that's, that's up for, that's up for controversy. Too late, let's pass it. He would have been, if I had the, the, the, the, the power at the time, after those hits, I would have chosen him as my lead writer with that, with, uh, with Isaac. Billy, he was a hell of a writer. I love his stuff.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  All the stuff that I, uh, that David, uh, uh, wrote. Uh, well, I sort of liked some of the stuff. I like, I, I like Hold On, I'm Comin, Something Is Wrong, I like that. I Thank You, I like that.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  It was just so much I could do with Soul Man at the time because I'm I'm not finding out it was not a rhythm and blues song Billy. It was a like a Dylan writing a song.

• 45:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  It was one of those kind of songs.

• 45:32Billy Corgan?

  I hear you.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  I didn't know that. I thought it was I thought it was a song, you know, get the girls and all but no, it was Isaac and it was I found out. It was a a character song.

• 45:49Billy Corgan?

  Oh, interesting. Never knew that.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I Billy, don't feel that I felt I did not know that myself until later on. I read that that's what the song was all about. Yeah.

• 46:04Billy Corgan?

  So in terms of choosing material, did you have did you have some say over it or was it basically like, here's the song you guys you guys are going to record and we're going to trust Isaac, whoever's kind of running it to point us in the right direction?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  There were our producers, producers. My writing days, I had writer's block. I had stopped writing ever since I left here. So I had no, I had no inkling to write. And I left it up to at the time, I left it up to David to write. And I would go by what what Isaac would lay down at the piano in in the in the rhythm section. I had no inklings about writing songs because I I don't think I I don't think I would have written.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  If I would have

• 47:04Speaker 01

  had didn't have writer's blocks, I don't think I would have written that way anyway. I don't think I don't think a soul man would have come into play. I don't think so. I'm I'm pretty sure not.

• 47:14Billy Corgan?

  Can you appreciate why people still love that music so deeply? Is that is that something you've kind of grown to understand?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  I understand it now. I understand what Isaac was leading up to with Soul Man. Hold on, I'm coming. Uh, yeah, I appreciate because you know what, but I found out also.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Through reading and listening to others.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Hold on, I'm coming was recorded by many others. Hold on, I'm coming like Bill Cosby, Willie Nelson. I mean, come on, man. I mean, I was appreciative to hear people sing that song. I'm going, whoa. Ain't that something? The, the, the soul children, they did it. Uh, Aretha Franklin, from what Joyce tells me. I don't know if you, where she is, but she told me that Aretha Franklin got a Grammy behind Hold On, I'm Comin. Hey, buddy. Hey, partner.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Can you believe? Hey, I, I, I, I, I, we laid down some good stuff, didn't we?

• 48:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's interesting because to me, at least from a musician point of view. It's, it's, it's the combination of, of, of your vocal against that kind of Memphis gut bucket feel that makes it so, so electric.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know what? You go back, let's go back, let's go back a little. Let me take you back a little bit. If it don't be for the bassline of a Doug Dunn. The drumming, laying down the drum

• 49:10Speaker 01

  of Al, Al Jackson. Man, if it don't be for them and Isaac Hayes putting that together. Billy, there would be no Sam and Dave. Sorry. Nope, wouldn't have been.

• 49:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  This man is the one, he gets all the credit for that. He's the one that lay, and, and this is a man that basically didn't read the music. He was doing that thing by ear and heart and feel.

• 49:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  He would take the horns and he would say, this is what I want you to do so, so, so, so. Hey, I, uh, love Dwayne. John, do this, so, so, so, lay that horn line down. Okay, now.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  You didn't have to tell Al Jackson. Al Jackson was the best at holding it right there. Not above, not under, holding it in place. He wouldn't let, and if you listen to some of the live things that Sam and Dave was doing, you hear me say, "Al about to kill me over here." He wouldn't, because I wanted to come out. You know, I, I, I'm sudden to saw damn.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  I have lived, my brains are, and I'm looking at, I, I'm looking at Al, and Al is just holding it, and guess what? My wife takes it upon herself to listen to that, and she tells, at that time she would tell, "Just stay there, don't let him go. Just keep it right, don't do nothing phony, don't do no, run the roads, no. Hang on him, stick it up in his butt." And I'm going, "Joyce, stay out of this." And that came from Al Jackson.

• 51:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Billy, if you don't mind, I'm gonna tell you something, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share something with you. That came to mind, came to mind, and I, I, I never, I, I, I, I, some of this I talked with Joyce. Sam and Dave could have been bigger than Big. Maybe not, you know, not, I'm not talking about the Taylor Swift, some of the Beach Boys. I'm talking about bigger than they, than they were. Okay, we were big, but we should have been bigger. But we didn't have the right connection.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Management, attorneys, agencies, nobody, and actually, nobody actually gave a damn. I mean, come on, uh, we were pushed around. We came up at the time that segregation was just.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Well, if Martin hadn't have gotten killed, I think it would have been better. But at the time, it was just crossing over into a segreg- uh, integration. If you want to call it that today. Cause segregation is gonna always be around, I'm sorry. But, uh, we just didn't have the right instruments and tools to make Salmon Day bigger than they really should have been.

• 52:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, which is crazy, cause you, you had, I think, ten top twenty hits in a row.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Billy, we did. I, you, you're absolutely right, uh, I was reading that in the, in the, uh, in the, in the ads the other night, in the old book, and it was ten. And, listen, if we, i- if it didn't get big over here on the charts, it did a lot of damage in Europe.

• 53:15Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  England, France, Japan, it did a lot of big, it hit big overseas. So a lot of times, when we would go overseas, they would ask us to sing songs like, "So sister brown sugar," what? "Wrap it up," what? And we had to, believe it or not, Billy, we had to go back into rehearsal to learn the darn thing. Cause people were calling that, and we overseas in rehearsal, learning the songs of "Wrap It Up." Catch a fine, you know, stuff, what the devil? So, over here, we didn't have to worry about it.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  "So sister brown sugar," being overseas, did it do any damage, do anything over here? Not really, no.

• 54:06Billy Corgan?

  I mean, I've heard and read that many African-American artists that went over to Europe in the sixties were surprised at how much better they were treated over there. Did you experience that as well?

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bill, absolutely. I mean, we, when we first went over with, with, uh, as co-headliners, co-headliners with, uh, Otis Redding, we were surprised. We were on stage before, uh, Otis went on, and Billy, we were singing Hold On, I'm Comin as our ending, when Soul Man and, uh, Otis, uh, Otis Redding's manager

• 54:59Speaker 01

  came to the curtain, at the end of the curtain, and pointed his finger, number one. We had gone number one over there.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  We had, we were supposed to go to number one over here, but somebody stops us like, you know, but that's okay. I love it to death. It was Lulu.

• 55:20Billy Corgan?

  Lulu, Lulu got you good.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let, let's be fair. If Atlantic had have done their job and got in there and did like they were doing with Aretha, okay, the money that they put out on, uh, and did with Aretha, wonderful. But they tell me that the reason is, hey, those weren't, those weren't the times. So that's the way it went down. And you know what, Billy? I gotta tell you something.

• 55:56Billy Corgan?

  Please.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Who controlled that at the time to keep it out of it? And I'm gonna be fair to Atlantic and Stax. At the time, records were being played over the radio. You know who controlled that? The disc jockeys.

• 56:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  If Hold On, I'm Comin would have come out, and I'm just, I'm not just picking on Hold On, Come On, just grabbing a song. And Soul Man, I mean, Hold On, I'm Comin was sent to the radio station here. Well, a friend of mine, like Butterball, would have, uh, got it sent to him.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Nah, he's a friend to Henry Stone. Okay. Henry Stone get his cut, he's doing what he's gotta do. He's, he's part of Sam and Dave, he's a, he's a. Well, when it came down to this, and the disc jockey call you, say, hi, Sam. How you doing? Man, I just got your new record today. Really? Yeah. And we went on by that, I like that, Sam, Sam. I like that song, boy. He said, thank you. Yeah, man, I, I, I thought I'd call you and let you know. You got a hit, you got a hit, boy. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, Sam, um.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  Sam, guess what? What?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  I just bought a new car.

• 57:29Billy Corgan?

  Uh oh.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Watch it, watch it, Billy, watch it, Billy. Just bought a new car. Really? Yeah, I got, hey. I got this bad Cadillac, man. Really? Yeah. You know, and you know, you know, the money that I make here at the station. I, I said to myself.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  I ain't making that much, but I saved up enough to put a down pay. Listen, Billy, to put a down payment.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I understand. Now, now, Billy, now, what this gotta do with you telling me you like my record?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  So, Sam, yeah. I can put that thing at number one. I can make it number two, Bill, Sam. Could you see your way clear? Just send me a couple of hundred, maybe, you know, a few, you know? Well, that went on for, forever, for a long time. Until we didn't have a record company, a record deal, a record company. That went on for the, the disc jockeys would call me in the middle of the night, or call me on the road, or find me. And they would just.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I was, I was like a dump truck. Yeah. I was sending money. Yeah. And that's what happened, Billy. I'm sharing this with you, my friend. And I'm telling you, that's the truth. That's the way I saw it. This jock is controlled how far a record could be played. What happened today? I don't know. I have nothing. I don't know nothing about that.

• 59:09Billy Corgan?

  Oh, they just do it different now.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 59:13Billy Corgan?

  Same, same, but different. Same.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 59:17Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah. Yes, sir.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, but thank you for enlightening me because I didn't, I didn't know, man, you know.

• 59:25Billy Corgan?

  What?

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 59:26Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's a new, new century, old problems.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Oh, nothing has changed that much.

• 59:34Billy Corgan?

  Yes and no.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yes and no. Okay. I got, I got.

• 59:39Billy Corgan?

  You're gonna have to feel me on this one.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  I feel you.

• 59:43Billy Corgan?

  Cause I, I'm still, I'm still out here working singles, brother. I got, I gotta, I gotta play it straight.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Let's leave it, let's be honest and leave it, leave it alone.

• 59:52Billy Corgan?

  There you go.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:54Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 59:55Billy Corgan?

  So, growing up in Chicago like it did, my father loving African American music. And of course, you, you know, I heard so many of these songs as a kid on the radio. Motown, Motown was always presented as the class of this, you know, the, the, what do they call it? Voice of, uh, black America or young America. I can't remember what the Motown motto was.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Young America, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:00:21Billy Corgan?

  But to, but to me personally, I'm, I'm way more into the sax sound and the sax story.

• 1:00:31Billy Corgan?

  And.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Um, Billy, I'm.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  When we were, when they were trying to find a place for us.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Um, a lot of stuff that was introduced to us had a, um, we were actually.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Guiding ourselves like Motown. And we were called on the carpet by Jim and Isaac. And said, listen, listen, guys. What Motown is doing is Motown. Motown, no, no, number one, they have more of a roster than we do. Number two.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  The way Barry is thinking is not the way we are thinking. Barry has his way of thinking.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  And Isaac has his well thinking. Why don't you, Sam, why don't you and Dave concentrate on not what how Barry is doing? And stop trying to try to get into that that class. And concentrate more on how Isaac is thinking for you guys and your thinking.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  And that's when I think and I started sitting at the piano on in some pictures you'll see. Not so much of my sitting next to Isaac. But most of the time you see me standing almost in front of him or to the side of him. Cause he was running it down to where he wanted. He was promoting, introducing these songs to us. Now, what I've turned down, I some of the songs that some of the songs that were introduced that came across, yes. I. Isaac felt though they didn't fit, so they passed on it.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Uh, there are a lot of songs that came in from other, uh, from other writers. Uh, we, we, we, we, we some, we did not. Was it going for a hit? Who's Making Love? Yeah, I was what I was supposed to do it, but.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Politics jumped in there somewhere.

• 1:03:15Billy Corgan?

  Ah, interesting.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, politics jumped in there. And it was not a Hayes and Porter composition, it was a Homer Banks.

• 1:03:28Billy Corgan?

  Right, right.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  I was supposed to have done it, because I had laid down a, a, a track. A guy, I had laid down a guy, a guide vocal with Homer.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  With just piano and piano and, and, and, and, and drum. And the next thing I knew, um, I heard Johnny Taylor doing it. I said, wow. But if you listen to it good, if you know the, if you know the, the voice of Homer, it's very clear that he was thinking Sam Moore.

• 1:04:08Billy Corgan?

  Ah, interesting.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Because it's up there. And the song that Johnny is singing is too hard for Johnny.

• 1:04:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  If you listen to it good now, because Johnny's, Johnny was in the, in the register of like Sam and, and, and Marvin and all these people. Uh, and if you listen good, listen, the song that Johnny is, Who's Making Love, the song is too hard. And, and Homer, Homer Banks was singing the part that was supposed to have been Dave.

• 1:04:43Billy Corgan?

  Oh, interesting. Okay, real quick, let me go back to this, though. Did,

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:49Billy Corgan?

  How, how did you feel about Motown overall? You know, the, the brand that they were, you know, the, the, because a lot of the music was very commercial.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wasn't all that impressed. I liked what I heard, like from Mary Wells, I liked, I did. You know, My God, stuff like, I liked. I liked, I really liked Marvin. I liked the temps, because they had that gospel-y thing. You got what I'm saying?

• 1:05:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  I loved the tops because of, uh, Levi. Levi, boy, could he say, could he say, and I was going, whoa, whoa, this man.

• 1:05:27Billy Corgan?

  What a voice, yeah.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, what a voice. And I found out that a lot of stuff, what I'm thinking I like, Barry almost didn't let it come out.

• 1:05:36Billy Corgan?

  Ah, interesting.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  God, that's not, that was not his, his vision. Yeah, a lot of the stuff that Marvin did, he wasn't all that pleased with.

• 1:05:47Billy Corgan?

  Interesting. So to compare that to Stax was, was, because you were talking about Isaac Hayes, was his vision maybe to present a more authentic voice of, of, of soul music?

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. His vision was to make a combination, I was, the way I was told, and it's here, say, the way I was told is that he wanted to reach a white, a whiter audience. He wants a young, get the young, white audience.

• 1:06:19Billy Corgan?

  Interesting. But with more authentic, with more authentic soul music?

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:06:26Billy Corgan?

  Interesting. I've been reading Booker T's book, and he talks about whatever happened in 1968 with the, the change of ownership of Stax, that, that things really started to change at Stax. Did you feel that as well?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  I was going.

• 1:06:40Billy Corgan?

  Oh, you were going by then?

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I was going by that. And, and I did hear him speak about that. I was going about that time.

• 1:06:48Billy Corgan?

  But it was about that time you guys now kind of get moved over to Atlantic, right? And Jerry Wechsler is now producing you.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were, yeah, we were, yeah.

• 1:06:57Speaker 04

  Billy, when the deal collapsed, Sam and Dave were never signed directly to Stax. They were loaned out. The deal that they had and their contract was always with Atlantic. So when the deal ended, they got pulled back and they wouldn't let, at Stax, they wouldn't let Isaac continue writing or working with them.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:07:19Speaker 04

  It was a complete, it was a complete. Because of the masters and all of that stuff.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 04

  It was ugly. It was, there was.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  It was ugly, Billy. Yeah, Billy.

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  So there was, so there was no recourse.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, Billy.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  It was, I mean, e- even to the point of having Wexler taking us, sending us, taking us, sending us down to muscle shows. It didn't work. Nobody really knew how to record us. The way we were singing and I, the way I was singing and stuff like that, they wouldn't have recorded us that way. Like, I, I think had a, a monopoly on Sam Moore.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  I'm telling you the truth.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  I think, I think Hayes had it, had it without knowing it. He had got, if anybody else got y'all, they're not gonna record you this way.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  And we recorded with other, other labels and stuff like that. We recorded with United Artists. Now, they had some good stuff on, I had some good stuff on United Artists. Some covers and some writers' stuff. I liked, I re- I really liked the stuff coming out of, uh, United Artists. I liked those songs. Did they promote it? No. Uh, I liked some of those things that was done by King Curtis with me. Was that promoted? No. Because you know why? I was a junkie.

• 1:08:59Billy Corgan?

  When you say you're a junkie, when did the drug problems start for you in this, uh, story?

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Nineteen sixty, sixty-seven, sixty-eight.

• 1:09:10Billy Corgan?

  Was it, was it just life, life on the road or what, what led you into that life?

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  It was the Willie John thing, uh, uh, uh, that started it out in New York. I was in New York at the Apollo. He had, uh, he had just come out of prison. Bobby Schiffman.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  Schiffman.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Schiffman had got him out.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  And he, he was on the show of Sam and Dave. I didn't know. Billy, I didn't know. Uh, I had never, you know, I, you know, uh, living in New York, you see stuff. And there were times that, you know, you pass by in Harlem, you see junkies on the street. Never would I have imagined being in that position, position of being like that. I remember the first time Willie John, uh, was at, uh, Wilt Chamberlain, who used to play basketball. His club called Wilt. I was at his, uh, his club and I remember that Willie John walked in and told me to come to the bathroom.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  And, uh, I went to the bathroom and he pulled this little package out. And what he did, uh, Billy, he opened this little pouch and he took out this, uh, straw that was cut and he dipped into this bag and got this powder and stuck it on my, ah, ah, oh, oh, ah, oh, what is that? He said, ah, try another one. And he gave me another one in the other nose, nostril. Yeah, I, I, I didn't, I didn't like that cause it burned first time. And as I was going home that night in New York, I was living in New York on a hundred and seven.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  As I was going home that night, I threw up.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  I threw up, Billy. I threw my guts up. And after I threw up and, uh, and threw my lunch and my dinner, my lunch and my breakfast up.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  I felt good and I said, wow, that, wow, I felt good. I could, I could do things and say things I wanted. I, I had never been able to do, but I would ever introduce or say before. I could make love and all that stuff. Whoa, boy. And that was the beginning. That started fifteen years, Billy.

• 1:11:45Billy Corgan?

  Wow, fifteen years. How'd you, how'd you finally get clean?

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  I, what happened, Billy? I, I started ODs.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Two and three times everywhere I would go after, after so many years. And I was ODing and the last time I was with Jo- Joyce and I, and I had left Dave. And I had my first job in uh,

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  in uh Texas. And what I had done slick me, cause Joyce said no, slick me, I had gone up time in Harlem, not here, in Harlem, and I had got some dope and I shot some dope and uh what happened? I uh got on the plane to do my first job lo- alone uh a- as a solo artist. And uh,

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  I uh,

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  couldn't make it the opening night.

• 1:12:51Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  I was sick. Yeah, I OD, it was, I had a, I don't know if you would call it today, uh other word, I, I had a connips, you know, my stomach, my head, you would have recognized that. And Joyce said no, but Joyce called the doctor.

• 1:13:13Speaker 04

  And he wound up in the bathtub in ice.

• 1:13:16Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  And Billy, I went through back and forth after that. Two or three times and I remember that night, I said, I was in a tub of ice and I said, you know what? Don't kill my stupid behind. And that's, I, and I, and I can paraphrase that. I said, I'll, I'll leave it alone, no more, I won't do it, I won't. Now, yes, I did get up, but you know what? Put people to understand, you go through a struggle, day by day, you, you would recognize that.

• 1:13:52Billy Corgan?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Uh Billy, you struggled. Your dad was thirty, mine, you know, mine would have been about that, but mine was fifteen.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  But I struggle, but I overcome it and been in it for 42 years, Billy.

• 1:14:10Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  Billy, I'm gonna interject, there's something very important that Sam is missing. What had happened was, there was a show, Kelly Lang had a four o'clock news show on NBC in Los Angeles, and they were doing a series on addiction, and I happened to turn in quite by accident, it was a God wink, but quite by accident, they were doing a piece on opiate, heroin addiction, and they were talking about this test drug called Neltrexan that was being offered at a specific facility in Oxnard, and I picked up the phone, I got the information, called, and was able to get Sam onto the program.

• 1:14:49Speaker 04

  He was detox successfully and wound up on the Neltrexan, but what had happened was when we went to New York, he slipped, and instead of taking the Neltrexan, which would have blocked the opiate receptors in his brain, he shot up, then took it, and that's what put him into the spiral on the way back.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Speaker 04

  But after that, he wound up on Neltrexan for about, almost a year, a lot of the time he didn't know, because I was crushing it and putting it in his food.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  And he's been sober ever since.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  That was it.

• 1:15:22Billy Corgan?

  God bless.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:15:24Billy Corgan?

  Sam, I have to go, I have to go now. Thank you so much for talking to me, it's been such an honor to talk to you about music and your life.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  Billy, don't let this be the last time you call me. Billy, let's not use this not to contact, talk, let's just be friends, how is that?

• 1:15:41Billy Corgan?

  I love it, I love it, Sam. God bless you both.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  I'd like to meet you back. I wanna go to some wrestling, I wanna go to some wrestling things.

• 1:15:48Billy Corgan?

  I'm gonna take you to some wrestling, Sam. All right, I gotta go, lots of love to you both.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  I'mma, I'mma hold you to that, Billy, I'mma hold you to that.

• 1:15:55Billy Corgan?

  Okay, talk to you both soon, thank you so much.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Thank you, Billy.

• 1:15:58Billy Corgan?

  God bless, bye bye.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  God bless.

• 1:16:03Speaker 05

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