Nat Adderley Jr.

For Nat Adderley Jr., serving as Luther Vandross’ musical director and longtime pianist was one chapter in a remarkable musical life—and a partnership that helped shape the sound of modern R&B. In conversation with Questlove, Nat looks back on making “Never Too Much,” flying in from Houston to play “A House Is Not a Home,” and trying to talk Luther out of recording the Carpenters’ version of “Superstar.” As Vandross is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Nat recalls the grandeur of Luther’s stage shows and the loss of drummer Yogi Horton. He also reflects on how his arrangement of “If This World Were Mine” found new life in Kendrick Lamar’s “Luther.” The funny, unpredictable conversation also touches on Nat’s new album, Took So Long—his first as a leader and a return to the Jazz roots that run through his family and his work. In a personal full-circle moment, Questlove tells Nat how a protest song Nat recorded at 15 with his uncle Cannonball Adderley changed his life. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 1:34Speaker 00

  The Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Welcome to another episode of The Questlove Show. I'm gonna do something a little different. Let's go back in time. It's 1982, and, you know, for those that follow this show and follow me and whatnot, you know, you know, my story and my lineage and my family and all that. But actually, my father started giving me formal drum lessons in drumming school in Philadelphia in 82 when I was 11. And, you know, my teacher and I are having a conversation. He puts a record on for me, and he's like, I want you to listen to this. And, all right, so imagine that someone's pulling out a record and they play this for you.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  So this is the record that my drum teacher plays for me. And what's notable is the actual introduction of the record. Now, I'm 12 years old, listening to this.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Wait, no, no. No, come on. You gotta get your flowers. You gotta get your flowers.

• 3:03Speaker 05

  Okay, I can't hear this.

• 3:09Speaker 05

  Is that all?

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, okay, I'll take it down, I'll take it down. So clearly, we're dealing with another Amir here, a person that can't take his flowers. So, okay, I stopped it, just to make you, just to make you comfortable. No, but this is what you don't know. Like, that made an impression on me. And then, when I came back the next week, he played me other compositions of yours. And I'm like, you know, as someone who's born in the 70s, I arrived on this earth kind of equipped with the Jackson 5, but the Jackson 5 were so polished that I never went in the mind state of like, oh, this is someone my age or younger than me singing.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  However, anyone else who was a kid that was making music that was non-bubble gum and serious, I don't know, I took reverence to. And the thing is, is that I wanna know, before I even introduce who you are, this is my cold open, I'll get to the introduction later, but the name of the song is called "The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free." I wanna know what circumstances occurred in your life that, as a 14-year-old, you had to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders to write? Like, this is not just a cutesy song by a pre-teen.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  These are like much-needed words, especially after the fallout of 1968, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, the Malcolm X and Megha Evers and everyone, like, the bloodshed of the 60s. And now it's 1970, and you sing the song where it's rare to hear anger. You know, at the most, Curtis Mayfield will present the situation. Marvin Gaye might scoff at the government or whatever.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  I mean, you're 14 years old, and you're allowed to sing the word bullshit. I won't hear that until five years later, when Ronald Isley says the same thing on Fight the Power. What circumstances made you write that song? You should be very proud of that song. I know you're trying to duck and dodge, you know, and everyone hates their first recordings, but that made an impression on me. So what made you write it?

• 5:33Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  And you gotta talk with the microphone, make sure.

• 5:35Speaker 05

  Hello.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  I will get to your introduction after you, because I got it. That song is the entry of my 12-year-old mind saying, I gotta be just as serious as a musician.

• 5:49Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  And that's what led me here. This is why I wanted you here.

• 5:52Speaker 05

  Wow. Hello, Amir.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  How you doing? See, you thought it was gonna be a whole nother show. You weren't expecting this.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Oh, I was not. I was not.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  We're different here.

• 6:02Speaker 05

  Wow. Well, I'll tell you, well, I was, obviously, I was listening to that. That was my favorite stuff, Curtis, Marvin, back at the time. But I gotta tell you, man, at the time, you wanna know what made me write that?

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Your life experiences from like...

• 6:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, what made me write that? Because I was listening, that was my favorite music at that time. I was living, I was living in the world, I was experiencing what I was experiencing. But the main thing, and the main reason I would say that I was experiencing it, was because I was loving that music. I was experiencing the world through that music and listening to those lyrics, more than I was experiencing it through my everyday life. I was living a blessed life. And school, and music school, and my friends, you know, I wasn't living those lyrics that

• 7:03Speaker 05

  I was hearing. I was living in Teneck, New Jersey.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Other your kids your age are like, I mean, there's Boogie Fever, and Bubble Gum Soul, and Dancing Machine. Literally, you're speaking of like, the bloodshed, the anger that the nation feels.

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  And it was enough to make your uncles very serious.

• 7:24Speaker 05

  Sure, sure. I'm trying to, I'm trying to tell you, that's, that's what was in my heart and in my brain. But what I'm saying is that, once that happened, I absolutely ignored all of that. It became, and I don't, I don't say this often, because we don't talk about it often. That was a shock. I haven't heard that in years. I don't listen to it, and nobody puts it on, we don't discuss it. Man, you don't understand, we just met.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:01Speaker 05

  And you don't, we don't, we don't talk about that.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Really?

• 8:07Speaker 05

  Man, very briefly, if you, if you knew me, if you were backstage with me all those Luther Vandross years, you would know, we don't talk about my dad and uncle ever backstage. They know that we just don't do that. We talk about everything I've done since then.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  I got you.

• 8:34Speaker 05

  I would say, everything else.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  So people just start with "Never Too Much" and...

• 8:38Speaker 05

  Basically...

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Don't realize...

• 8:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes. I don't know why, but that's just something that we never talk about. My friends from high school, my friends in the neighborhood, I think we learned early on to just never bring that up. That's just something that I just never wanted to talk about, and that is when that started. That record is, I would say, when that started. This is so funny. My best buddy from high school, he just called me on the way over here, he's expecting me to call him, hello, Steven. He's expecting me to call him when I leave here, because I haven't talked to him in forever.

• 9:24Speaker 05

  He learned when I was 15, and came back from that, that we don't talk about that. This is not something...

• 9:33Speaker 00

  You're really about living in the present, and...

• 9:36Speaker 05

  I never talked about that. I went to school, I hung out with my friends in Teneck, we ran around, I chased the girls, I did what high school kids do, which we won't discuss.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  So, did you...

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Here.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Well, wait, you answered my question.

• 9:56Speaker 05

  I did I?

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Now, let me take care of business.

• 9:58Speaker 05

  Good, okay.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Our yesterday.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Seriously.

• 10:03Speaker 05

  Did we do that?

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Our, our guest today is, is giving us the honor of letting us give him his flowers. It's so funny how, when this uses on the other foot, because very much like the last four minutes I just witnessed in my 10 years at this platform, I'm world famous for ducking and dodging compliments and memories and your first albums and all those things. And, and so I, I understand you're being slightly uncomfortable and revisiting parts of your past. However, I also think it's important as people that we celebrate ourselves. And you celebrating yourself will be an example to someone watching that like,

• 10:48Speaker 00

  okay, like I had to watch a few people get their flowers and be comfortable with it. It's hard. I know it's hard to receive love, but you deserve it. I will say that our guest today really is an unsung hero. I'm a person that is an extreme record credit.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  I don't want to.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  He's gonna hate this episode. You're not gonna hate this episode.

• 11:11Speaker 05

  I don't want to.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:13Speaker 05

  He's looking at me. He's like, I don't want to.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Look.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  Turn away, turn away.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  You got it. Okay. Would it help if it was just?

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Will he stop?

• 11:21Speaker 00

  I'm not. Let me just, let me say what your name is so that the people know. Our guest today helped craft what, um, I guess I could say it's elegant soul, educated soul, if you will. Of course, it goes without saying that his masterful collaborations with the one and only, I have to say that Luther Ronzoni.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Luther Ronzoni Vandross.

• 11:44Speaker 05

  That is his name.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Um, is unparalleled. And I have so many questions about things behind the scenes and the crafting of these classic albums, also touring, and the fact that songwriting, producing and arranging, he's been doing this since as a child. I was gonna go with another song, which he was 11 years old. What I just played to you was when he was 15, but you know, he's made many appearances. Speaking of his lineage, not to scoff at, of course, his father is his namesake. Uh, and his uncle is the, the legendary Julian Cannonball Adderley. And it's just not lost on me, the humor of his debut album, which came out last year. Uh, humorously titled Took So Long.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  Yes, it did take so long. And for someone that's been crafting music since 11, I too wonder why it took forever to, you know, to, to come up with the idea of your own solo material. This is definitely one of my dream interviews. I promise to make this very comfortable. Nat Adderley Jr., thank you for doing me. The honor and the pleasure of having you on this platform.

• 12:52Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  I'm gonna ask you an easy question.

• 12:54Speaker 05

  Thank you, man.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  What was your first musical memory? In life, your first time that your memory will let you remember something musical?

• 13:05Speaker 05

  All right, well, you just, you just mentioned it, so I'll, I'll go there.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Okay, what is it?

• 13:10Speaker 05

  It is, uh, sitting in the basement, messing around with some chords, some fourth chords that you know what I'm talking about. The audience may not, but they were, uh,

• 13:22Speaker 00

  These are music experts.

• 13:23Speaker 05

  Fourth. Just parallel fourths. Uh, bop, bop, bop, bop. And, uh, and my uncle was upstairs. I was 11 or so. They were upstairs and, and Cannonball came down, thought that sounded cute and came down for an 11 year old.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Were you playing like heart and soul or just like?

• 13:47Speaker 05

  I don't know what it was, just parallel force. He came down, thought it sounded cute for an 11 year old. And the next thing I knew, they did indeed, uh, record that song that I was messing around with.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Oh, wait, I wasn't expecting that. I thought I was just like, encourage you, go on and.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  No.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Practice, young man.

• 14:07Speaker 05

  You asked me for my earliest memory and that would be my earliest musical memory, I guess. Uh, was that before I even started taking lessons, uh? I think so, cause I did start, you know, at the piano, just plunking around. Uh, I did have an ear early on for, uh, picking out tunes that I heard. I could find them, you know, on the piano. I don't know how young I was, six or seven or.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 14:38Speaker 05

  Something like that, you know, uh, picking out by ear. So anyway, so that may have been my earliest, uh, memory to.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  What does your house look like? What is it to grow up in Nat Adderley Senior's household? Like, is this a thing where like, oh, Miles might come by or like?

• 14:57Speaker 05

  Well, not Miles, well, well, uh, Dion might stop by, Nancy.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Jersey.

• 15:04Speaker 05

  Might stop by. Yeah, yeah, the Jersey folks. But, uh, not for music necessarily being on. It was because the, uh, cause the peanut was, was happening around the table.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Game night.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah. The cards were flying around and the cussing and, and hollering.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  I'll cut you.

• 15:24Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. It was horrible. Oh.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Who, who typically would be in these card games?

• 15:30Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, oh, Nancy, hollering my mama and daddy and, and Cannon, if he was there, they all go cooking. My sister and I are getting up, trying to get breakfast, trying to go to school.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  And they're still playing?

• 15:44Speaker 05

  They're still playing. They're still playing cards. And we, and we're like, can we get some bread? It's, it's time to go to school, mom. Can, can, can we get an egg or something this morning? It's, the bus is outside waiting. It's time to go to school. So anyway, so it was kinda like that. Not music all over the place like we, like you might think. It was that.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  This is a better answer.

• 16:07Speaker 05

  It was like that or games. Onto, we loved, uh, Scrabble and just for watching them on TV or, you know, or playing them around the, you know, if it wasn't cards, it was, you know, Scrabble or, or those kinda games.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Speaking of which, ladies and gentlemen, the next move is on the Do You Want More channel? My game show. All right, you know, plug. I gotta do that. Thank you so much for that. I hear a lot about Jersey. I've heard Sissy Houston's version of Jersey. I've heard like pre riot, pre riot Jersey. What was it like? Like you mentioned Teaneck. In my mind, that was the coolest logo on an Isley Brothers record. But what was Teaneck, New Jersey like? Was it just like New York light? Like, okay, it's 20 minutes away from the city and we can get there or?

• 16:57Speaker 05

  No, it was our own little, uh,

• 17:01Speaker 05

  community. I mean, I, growing up, Teaneck was huge. Going back now, it's amazing. It feels so small.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  But back then it was, it was.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  Back then it was the world. I mean, speaking of the Isleys, they were two blocks uh, around the corner. Tanya was a couple of grades ahead.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Your sister's older or?

• 17:26Speaker 05

  Tanya Isley.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Oh, Ton, okay.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  Tanya Isley was a couple of grades ahead.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:31Speaker 05

  Riondo, we called him Dodo.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:34Speaker 05

  He was a couple of grades behind me.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:37Speaker 05

  Tanya had a boyfriend in Inglewood.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  Next door. It was really Teaneck and Inglewood. So a bunch of folks lived in Inglewood also. And, uh, she had a boyfriend in Inglewood, so, so the Inglewood girls came to Teaneck High to look for Tanya to beat her up, cause she, anyway.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Okay. You have another.

• 17:59Speaker 05

  Did he ask me to describe Teaneck and Inglewood growing up?

• 18:02Speaker 00

  I, I got what I, I got what, I got.

• 18:04Speaker 05

  You did ask, didn't you?

• 18:06Speaker 00

  I, I'm with it.

• 18:07Speaker 05

  So it was a bunch of fun.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  You know, you and the music are also becoming of age in which like James Brown's introducing like a lot of revolutionary ideas that never been in music before. Some jazz artists might had, have to add a little funk into their repertoire and not swing as much. Actually, your uncles were, in my opinion, good at adapting to that based on the amount of sampling that we did from their

• 18:33Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  70s work. But in general, and as a young person, were you living a duplicitous life? Like, did you have to be serious jazz, but then like behind their backs, like also listen to James Brown and?

• 18:46Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  The stuff that people your age would listen to.

• 18:49Speaker 05

  I would say there were actually no restrictions.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  In my household, I mean.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  This is rare.

• 18:57Speaker 05

  We loved all the gospel.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  We dug all the James Browns.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Definitely had all that, all that going on. All the jazz, obviously, you know, we did, did, uh, both sides of that. I was doing the European thing. I was taking the lessons, all that. So that was going on, uh, all day. I mean, I didn't quit taking the lessons until past high school. I mean, sure, I was still.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Studying classical music or?

• 19:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I was still doing that up in, I guess I quit after 10th grade. I was still, yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  Is it because you mastered it or?

• 19:34Speaker 05

  Let me see, I, um, I was going to Juilliard until prep division.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:40Speaker 05

  Uh, until Manhattan School of Music took over their building uptown. So I stayed with my teacher and the building.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 19:51Speaker 05

  My teacher stayed uptown, cause I was in Teaneck.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 19:54Speaker 05

  By the George Washington Bridge, you know, so, uh, so I stayed with my teacher and the building. So I stayed with Manhattan School of Music and then, uh, so that was going on in my house.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  And this is just high school years? You're taking advanced?

• 20:05Speaker 05

  Until, until 10th grade and then I guess I quit. I went to Music and Art. You know, with all, with Lisa Fisher and Marcus Miller and Ray Chu and, uh, all that.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  I'm curious about something. So there's also a sect of musician, and these are usually people that are born between 45 and 55 that come on this show that are by this time like. You know, by the time nineteen seventy one rolls around, you know, they're teenagers, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. And they all have kind of a come to Jesus moment. When they describe like the first time they heard Music of My Mind. Because it was such a sprawling difference. Was there an album or something that just cracked your head open in terms of like, I have a purpose in life to create and do this or?

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Hmm, I can't think of that. I just remember growing up, I just loved The Beatles and Motown. I just remember at the time and I say, I wish I was, I mean, when I first started writing, I said, oh, I just came along a little bit too late. I just love the Motown, I just love Smokey and the Temptations. I just love those songs. You know, so that's the period that I really, really loved. And, you know, and the Beatles and I love the Philly stuff coming out of that. So, no, I just loved all that stuff and then Stevie and stuff.

• 21:37Speaker 05

  You know, and then the jazz, I'm my first, first thing I loved and recognized was McCoy and Coltrane. And then so, you know, it was just all mixed up. No, there wasn't one particular thing, I won't say. Then I just fell in love with Herbie and Chick back then. No, no one particular thing.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  At what point did you realize like the lineage you came from? Like at one point, it's just like your uncle and your dad. And oh, this person's here and that person's here. But at what point did you realize like this is a very rare situation that I'm in? In which?

• 22:16Speaker 05

  You're not getting it yet.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  You just never realized it.

• 22:20Speaker 05

  I came back from recording The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free and ignored that for the rest of time. And just went about my teenage life, never mentioning that. I went to college and became, I started using my middle name. There are a couple of people that from my freshman year that still call me Eddie. That's my middle name. Edwin is my middle name.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  So would you have preferred not to have?

• 22:58Speaker 05

  I'm not gonna say.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Been thrust it on stage like, here's my eleven year old, hit it.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  Oh, I don't, I can't say, I don't know about all that. I'm just saying that I'm me is all became a part of who I am. I can't say all, all that. I mean, I went to college, I joined the band. All that became a part of who I am as a person, how I think politically. Obviously, that's part of who I am. That certainly is a part of who I became as a, as a college student. Oh, my gosh, I wanted to major. That is a whole part of who I am. That's, that was who I wanted to graduate as. I didn't end up doing that, but that was

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:46Speaker 05

  what I wanted to be. So anyway, and then, oh, my gosh, that defined who I, who I became as a musician. I was still a jazz person, I guess, in, in college. But joining the band, when did I join the band with Luther? It's still early with me in my memory, you know, I'm on this.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  Eighty one, you would have been.

• 24:13Speaker 05

  Let me see, when did I meet, well, I met Luther in the, in a band, in the basement of the Apollo Theater.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  Were you part of Listen My Brother?

• 24:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  You were a part of that?

• 24:23Speaker 05

  Yes, that's where I met Luther, yes.

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• 25:37Speaker 00

  So here's the weird thing. I don't know how much you know about my history. You know, six years ago, I got to, out of nowhere, reluctantly at the time, to direct a movie called Summer of Soul, which was about the Harlem Cultural Festival.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  Summer of Soul.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  And, you know, I'm going through all the producers' notes. Like literally, the basement is a time capsule of that period in nineteen sixty nine with all the notes, all the production notes, all the producer notes, all the correspondence, back and forth. Everything's in one thing. And the one thing I discovered, you know, because it was supposed to be six weekends of entertainment and whatnot. And the one thing I discovered was that the camera crew that is gonna film these six weeks of the Harlem Cultural Festival, they're only available for the first five weeks. So then there's a whole round of correspondence of, well, who's gonna have to

• 26:39Speaker 00

  eat the sacrifice and not be taped and preserved for history? Because we don't have a camera crew. And so there's a decision that, okay, we're gonna dedicate a day or a weekend to all the local acts in New York City to perform. And we just won't, we'll photograph them, but you know, they won't be preserved on, on tape. Because the camera crew has given a commitment already to this brand new television show that's making its debut on PBS, which is called Sesame Street. And so they decide initially, Listen My Brother and other local

• 27:20Speaker 00

  area acts were going to be on the first weekend of Harlem Cultural Festival. But then they decided, wait a minute, because we got the fifth dimension now and they just committed. How about we put them in that slot and then we'll put the local people the last week of it? And so you guys never, I've seen photos of Listen My Brother performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival, but there's no audio or video of it. But of course, the other thing is that you guys wind up being on the pilot of Sesame Street, performing the number song or whatever. Yeah, whatever, whatever song it was. How did that idea come about?

• 28:00Speaker 00

  Like as far as this twenty person, twenty groups with more than twenty members? Like, was that just normal back then or?

• 28:08Speaker 05

  Oh, I don't know. Well, Voices of East Harlem was the first one.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, my God, I did not know that one. That's major.

• 28:15Speaker 05

  That was first and they were more popular, I guess, at the time. But then Listen My Brother, to me, all the singers

• 28:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  came out of that one.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Who notable was in Voices of Harlem?

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Robin Clark and Fonzie.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Fonzie Thornton, the great Fonzie Thornton.

• 28:31Speaker 05

  And some more, I can't, you know, this is early, I can't think. But you know, at the time, I thought at the time Fonzie was the one. I mean, and there was, there were a couple more. Luther wasn't even the one at the time that I was thinking was gonna be the breakout star.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  Fonzie had a reputation, even in Philly, in Philly circles. Like, my dad was an oldies doo-wop singer, like in the fifties. And then like he tried to sustain his career in the seventies. So he was still kind of in the circles of Philadelphia stuff. And I always heard the name Fonzie Thornton.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Right, right, sure.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Like even me not having a clue, but that name always, you know, there was a, my dad's best friend was a producer by the name of Billy Jackson. And he was part of the, the NR staff at Columbia at the time. So I always heard this name.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Fonzie Thornton. So I have one question about your uncle. Cause even as you speak, the one thing that I noticed about your dad and your uncle, they were amazingly communicative to their audience when they would play.

• 29:37Speaker 05

  Sure, sure.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  The, the in-between song banter, to me, was even more iconic than the songs that they did. And especially with the Zodiac album.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  How, it was, it was rare, besides Earth, Wind & Fire, you just didn't hear people talk about like metaphysics and astrology and all those things. Like, just offstage, was that always your uncle?

• 30:05Speaker 05

  Oh, you should have heard him at home.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  That's what I mean, like, was it like that 24/7?

• 30:11Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, if there were more hours in the day.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  Unsolicited advice, talking your ear off?

• 30:17Speaker 05

  All day long. Oh, Lord. Yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Was your father just the same, or was like?

• 30:25Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, both of them, both of them. They continued, and of course, when Cannonball passed, then it was my dad, and he was just a continuation.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  Nonstop.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  You briefly spoke of like those, like these names that I would later see all on album credits and whatnot. You know, New York at this time, and especially in the 70s, is bubbling under with these musicians, or these area musicians, New York, New Jersey, Nile Rodgers, Marcus Miller, Tom Brown, like various. Can you describe what the circuit was like back then? Like, if I wanted to get you on a gig in 1974, 75, or whatever, like, how would I? I mean, now I could just DM somebody on their social media and instantly get them. How do you know that you're wanted for a gig or needed for a gig? Like, what's the network like back then?

• 31:17Speaker 05

  Well, you, you did call me, I got called even in Houston back then, or even when I was in New Haven back then. I could get the calls, so we did have a little, a little community. We knew where each other was, it didn't matter if you lived in town or not, so, so that was easy, yeah.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  You know, the 80s made it easy for technology, like, okay, if you jumped to 86 or whatever, the DX7 was portable enough to throw in your, your trunk or whatever to get. But if you're gigging in the 70s, like?

• 31:55Speaker 05

  I wasn't carrying stuff around then.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  So you didn't have to carry a 73 or 88 Rhodes, or figure out how to get a Wurlitzer to a gig, or?

• 32:04Speaker 05

  I don't remember gigging like that, doing that now, unfortunately.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Okay, so back then, you weren't the?

• 32:14Speaker 05

  I have a heavy thing I'm carrying around with my old self. I'm lugging a keyboard around to the gig, but no, back then, I don't remember doing that.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  You know, everything was, everything was there, and I wasn't going around to gigs. There was a piano there, you know, all the time for gigs, but for the sessions, you know.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  But what if you wanted to add color to your repertoire? Like, I know there's the Rhodes and there's a piano, but?

• 32:39Speaker 05

  Everything was really there, I would, I would say. At the time, man, I wasn't doing that, I was, I was calling a programmer at the time.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:52Speaker 05

  Oh, man, I was, I was big time back then, I wasn't a little slouchy, little?

• 32:58Speaker 00

  I need a gig, okay, so you weren't that?

• 33:00Speaker 05

  No, man, not like now.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  But even then, okay, so we answered you.

• 33:03Speaker 05

  Now I'm slepping stuff around, yeah, no, man, back then, I was big time back then.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  It's still big time, but listen, one of your arrangement creations is this one Song of the Year last year, like, that's amazing. Even if This World With Mine wasn't your composition or that, I'm just saying.

• 33:19Speaker 05

  I did get arranged, okay, I didn't?

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, you helped arrange the song that, that got Kendrick Lamar his biggest song, so?

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I don't get anything for?

• 33:29Speaker 00

  Well, but I'm getting word out there that without this man, if This World With Mine's arrangement, wouldn't?

• 33:36Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  This is how you spread the word.

• 33:38Speaker 05

  Okay, good, okay.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  But, okay, I do want to know.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  A lot of people see this, right?

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:43Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  What is?

• 33:44Speaker 05

  Millions of people see this.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:46Speaker 05

  Did you all hear that?

• 33:47Speaker 00

  The world now knows.

• 33:48Speaker 05

  Luther from last year, that was, you know?

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:50Speaker 05

  The original, If This World Were Mine?

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Yes. We're gonna get to that.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  That was my arrangement for last year, he said that, not me.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  You are, that's why you're here.

• 34:00Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, all right.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:01Speaker 05

  And there are four people here that are the audience for?

• 34:05Speaker 00

  But there are four million people inside that box that?

• 34:07Speaker 05

  Ah, there you go, there you go.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  What was the DX7, pre, pre 85?

• 34:15Speaker 05

  I'll never forget that, DX7.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  I mean, but I define you, like, you?

• 34:21Speaker 05

  We used that keyboard, didn't we?

• 34:23Speaker 00

  There are three artists, I believe, that knew how to program it right, so it didn't sound cheap. I could tell cats that would just play the, the factory settings.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  And then people that would actually figure out how to craft patches so that it has warmth?

• 34:42Speaker 05

  Can you?

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Um?

• 34:44Speaker 05

  A little bit?

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Well, okay, here's the deal, I'm a?

• 34:46Speaker 05

  Well, you know more than me, just, just by um, you can program it more than I can. I can tell you that right now.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  I'll take that.

• 34:54Speaker 05

  I don't know where the button is to turn it on to program. I don't.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  Okay, okay, okay, okay, all right. First of all, were you a part of the Cotillion Records era Luther albums in terms of him recording? Or did you come aboard specifically during?

• 35:17Speaker 05

  When was Cotillion?

• 35:18Speaker 00

  Uh, 78, 79?

• 35:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, before the, oh, sure, I mean, the first two?

• 35:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, the first two Luther, oh, sure, man, I did those, yeah. I think Carlos has the arranging, but, yeah, so the first one, Luther does call me, and, and I go and meet them in the studio, and we do that record. Nothing happens, but that was great, and I was playing piano.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 35:43Speaker 05

  You know, on that one. Then, again, a few years later, the second one, he called me for that one. And Carlos doesn't, Carlos was in Listen My Brother Also.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  Were you part of any of the Change sessions, like Search and?

• 35:59Speaker 05

  Okay, not Change, that happened after the second Luther.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 36:03Speaker 05

  So, but I did do that record as well.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Nothing, second time around was on that one, you know, it appeared on some of Luther, Luther record later on. Anyway, so, but nothing really happened with that, so I didn't hear anything. Then he did those Change records, and Luther blew up.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Made a little noise, yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 05

  Made a little noise then, and so then, the next thing I?

• 36:27Speaker 00

  So when Never Too Much is around the corner, how are you guys preparing?

• 36:30Speaker 05

  Well, by then, I moved to Houston, and have a kid, and, and the next thing I know, Luther comes through, he's singing Background with, with Roberta, with Roberta.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Oh, Roberta Flack, okay.

• 36:46Speaker 05

  Comes through Houston, calls me up, and says, says I'm coming over, we hang out, and he calls me up and says, says he comes over to the house, and I have a great picture of him with my first daughter, hanging out, she's, he's holding her, and she's screaming her face off, because I give her, give her to him. And he says, I'm going back in the studio, you gotta come up. Says, okay, of course, and we do four cuts. So, okay, whatever, and I go back to Houston. Then he calls me up again from Houston.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Wait, stop.

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Stop.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  You can't say we just did four cuts.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Do four more cuts, and nothing happens.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  You're not, no, you're not gonna gloss over four cuts.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  Okay, well, you wanna know what they are?

• 37:33Speaker 00

  These are major cuts.

• 37:35Speaker 05

  Don't you know that, something, whatever?

• 37:37Speaker 00

  These are defining cuts.

• 37:39Speaker 05

  I've, I've been working some other stuff, I don't know, whatever it was. Okay, then he, then he calls me back and does two more cuts. I say, okay, I'll come up and do two more, okay, whatever, flies me up from Houston. And I say, okay, I'll fly up from Houston, okay, it's crazy, but I fly up and do them, and, and that was Never Too Much. I remember still, like it was yesterday, I don't remember anything, I never had a good memory. And now I'm on some medication that really is messing with my memory, that's why I can't play, because, I mean, I'm here because my daughters told me, oh, Dad, you're fine to talk.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  And you are.

• 38:16Speaker 05

  I'm fine to talk, you know, because otherwise, I would be, I was nervous about coming because my memory is weird, but my daughter said, oh, you're fine, your talking is fine.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:26Speaker 05

  I just can't remember when I get to bar five.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 38:29Speaker 05

  I can't remember what the chord is.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 38:32Speaker 05

  By bar seven, I remember what the chord was in bar five.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  And then you?

• 38:36Speaker 05

  But, but my daughter said, you're fine, go do the podcast, you're fine. I said, okay, if you all say so, okay, so I'm here. But I remember those sessions, I remember Never Too Much like it was yesterday, I remembered Marcus.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Tell me all that you remember about that.

• 38:49Speaker 05

  Oh, Marcus said, I counted off, one, two, three, Marcus said, boo, boo, huh?

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:56Speaker 05

  Boo. I don't see that on the chart, anyway, so those two, I remember that, that session anyways. So then, there's one more, so then about two months later, he calls me up and says, I have one more song for this record. One more song, and I said, Luther, I know some piano, but let me give you some numbers, let me give you a couple of phone numbers in New York, don't call me, don't fly me up from, from Houston to play one song, that's ridiculous. Let me give you some phone numbers. He says, no, you gotta come play this one song, I said, that's crazy. He says, no, your ticket's at the airport, I don't care what you're doing, come and play the one song. Oh, my gosh, okay, let me make these arrangements.

• 39:40Speaker 05

  So you know, you know what the one song was that he flew me? Make a guess what that one song, he said, you gotta come play the one song.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  I mean?

• 39:48Speaker 05

  On that record, on that record, he says, you got to come play this one song.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  I guess you're speaking of?

• 39:56Speaker 05

  House is not a home.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  I got my cover wrong, I almost said superstar, and I wanted, yes, the house is not a home.

• 40:02Speaker 05

  He said, I had to come play House is Not a Home, so I came up to play that one song, and he flew me home. I just heard it on the radio the other day.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  As it should be?

• 40:11Speaker 05

  Just, just the other day, I said.

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• 41:24Speaker 00

  Now, can I ask you questions about these sessions?

• 41:26Speaker 05

  Okay, so now you can ask me the question.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 41:29Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Welcome to

• 41:31Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  the fifth hour of The Today Show. Now I'm playing. All right, so my question is, I'm always curious about when I see credits for rhythm arrangers, string arrangers, vocal arrangers, horn arrangers, background vocal arrangers. Like at one point on like Michael Jackson albums, even more pronounced, like there's percussion arrangements and all those things. Is giving arranger, arranger credits kind of the industry standard back then? To keep you from wanting to ask, hey, so as far as the division of labor around here, am I producer too, or am I not?

• 42:16Speaker 00

  Like, why was it so necessary to define? Because in my mind, I would like to think that all creative decisions that went into crafting that sound, you know Luther's song, the first two seconds you hear it. Marcus is very distinctive, and I know Michael had a lot to do with that in the engineering as far as his thumb is concerned. Your lush arrangements, the patches you use. Like, these are things that are part of the DNA of what, it's a very elegant soul sound that Leon Silvers and Kashif aren't doing. And Prince is not doing.

• 42:59Speaker 00

  And whoever is just in that, you know, other producers at the time, Stevie Wonder's not doing, Ray Parker Jr.'s not doing. So Luther's sound is very specific. So I would like to think if that creative process were happening today, then those albums would have been produced by Luther Vandross, Marcus Miller, and that Adderley Jr. Why was it so important to sort of divide the line of like rhythm arranger? Because you're a musician's union member, like, would that be more money if you are listed as rhythm arranger or string arranger? Because you got credit for like these very specific things. And in my mind, you just helped co-produce it.

• 43:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  Did I open up a can of worms?

• 43:49Speaker 00

  I'm sorry.

• 43:50Speaker 05

  A little bit. And that's what you do.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  Well, okay, this is what I want specifically now. If you are arranging a song, how long do you have? Now, you're just saying like, I came up and played it. But no, you're also arranging these things. So how long do you have to turn The Carpenters, from what The Carpenters is?

• 44:09Speaker 05

  You, oh, you, you picked that one. Well, Luther needed charts to come in and read. I mean, I guess some, you know, some people come in, I guess y'all, I guess everybody works differently. We had charts, somebody had to do charts.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Core charts are like specific?

• 44:27Speaker 05

  Core charts, whatever's needed. I mean, I guess, I mean, every song is different. And certainly every idiom is absolutely different.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  So even Buddy Williams has to have drum charts to know?

• 44:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, every tune is different.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  Sometimes the drummer will have the same chart as the keyboard player. Sometimes I may give the drummer his own thing because maybe he may just need a roadmap.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:57Speaker 05

  Maybe he needs a roadmap with some hits. Maybe his roadmap is the same as the piano.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 45:02Speaker 05

  You know, so yeah, every, every song is different. But they will usually need charts. Some tunes maybe not.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Maybe not, yeah. But usually, you know, I'm gonna come in with a chart for every tune. And so that is the rhythm arrangement. For the rhythm arrangement means bass drums, guitar, keyboards, percussion, whatever's in that first session, that's the rhythm arrangement. Then, you know, of course, sometimes the percussion comes afterwards. You know, the guitar could come afterwards as an overdub. What may come as an overdub? Some keyboard stuff may come as an overdub. It may come as the rhythm arranged, part of the rhythm arrangement.

• 45:58Speaker 05

  But that could come as a part of what comes later. So it may come as part of what the other arranger may be, may get credit for.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Now, that may be the rhythm arrangement, arranger may be the arranger. So it may be the one arranger.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  I'm raising my hand to ask permission to interrupt you. Okay, so you're telling me that Never Too Much might have been cut without a guitar in the initial tracking of the rhythm?

• 46:31Speaker 05

  Could have been. It wasn't, but it could have been.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  Okay, because I was gonna say, without that guitar, I would not have confidence that this is our song. Because that, those two, to me is

• 46:44Speaker 05

  Well, that, that, that just couldn't have been. I'm here, that I can't imagine.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 46:48Speaker 05

  Couldn't have been. But some other cut I could find where maybe the guitar came later. Most of ours, I mean, we always cut the guitar at the same time.

• 46:59Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 47:00Speaker 05

  You know.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  Okay, so there are two very specific songs I want to ask about. And not just about their crafting, but Never Too Much is such a staple. You know this already.

• 47:12Speaker 05

  Unbelievable.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  You know, there's no, no Black Wedding, no

• 47:16Speaker 05

  Who knew at the time that Never Too Much, I certainly, who knew at the time that that was gonna be what it has become? I didn't know.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Okay, but you guys lucked onto something because

• 47:30Speaker 05

  One take, I just, I remember it like it was yesterday.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  But I want to know, who would dare try to install odd time signatures and counts in such a danceable song? Because this song is just made for two-step, is made for a two-step. Yet you have all these

• 47:54Speaker 05

  Then to put that five bar in there.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's such, it's a nightmare for cover bands. I've never heard a cover band not come out injured, like a car accident, with that song. If Never Too Much is playing, me and my boys are on standby like, check this out. And

• 48:12Speaker 05

  I can, to this day, I, I can't imagine what kind of space Luther was in when he sat down.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  So those were his ideas?

• 48:23Speaker 05

  Luther wrote that. I can't, I mean, we can make a claim different times than me, you know, me and Marcus both. I wasn't there, you know, when Marcus and Luther sat down. I just showed up at the session for some of those Marcus and Luther. And Marcus just showed up at the session with some of me and Luther's tunes. So I don't know what happened. I know that some of our tunes, you know, or some of, I mean, another, you know what I'm saying? Some of Luther's tunes.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, what's Luther, so amazing. Oh, yeah, I, I know, I, I, I put that right there in so amazing. You know what I'm saying? But I ain't do Never Too Much, no. Luther, every single thing, I ain't

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 49:10Speaker 05

  I ain't do nothing.

• 49:13Speaker 05

  Luther brought everything into that. I can't imagine where that came from.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  Okay, that was the universe guiding you guys. Were you technically also the MD on Luther's tours? When, when it's time to tour these records, are you his MD? Are you his musical director? Are you touring with him?

• 49:29Speaker 05

  If Luther ever tried to call another MD, I would have sent the mafia.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Okay, so I've really got questions for you now.

• 49:39Speaker 05

  Oh, my gosh, he wouldn't have lived another day.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  I'm glad you said that.

• 49:44Speaker 05

  If he had tried

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Because this means you are eyewitness for all these tours. So this is what I want to know. All right, so the Luther show

• 49:51Speaker 05

  So I've already cussed once in this podcast, so we know we're all right.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Yes, we are right.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Okay, so the quote unquote, the Luther show

• 50:01Speaker 05

  I've even called you a motherfucker on this podcast.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  As you should, because you're an Adderley. I'll take it. The Luther show was always a staple in the Thompson household. My mom and dad would go routinely to each show. And the one thing I always noticed, and, and side note, side note, is that I'm really, really good friends with the one and only Shep Gordon.

• 50:27Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 50:28Speaker 00

  So just, I'm coming in the door to let you know how I know my Lutherology from his side of things. And so the thing is that, like, the way that my mom would come home to describe Luther shows and how elegant it was and would dress Lisa Fisher World and how the lights looked glistening on them and all those things and the choreography and all those things. You know, now we live in a time in which there are like creative directors that we hire for artists to put things together. Was that the case back then? And how much meticulous micromanaging was put into the live presentation of these albums on tour?

• 51:11Speaker 00

  Like, was this all Luther's brainchild and every sequence, every light gel, every instrument, the mixing, was he that?

• 51:22Speaker 05

  Every detail you just said.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 51:25Speaker 05

  Lord have mercy. Except for the music, I would just, I'll just say, he didn't, he didn't come over to me.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  To say, speed up or slow down?

• 51:34Speaker 05

  He didn't come over to me, would. Hmm, not even really that, cuz we would, you know, people would come and say, you all sound just like the record. I, um, you know, Jasmine said, we don't really go for that as musicians, even what I'm doing now. I don't go for just like the record. I don't go for, I don't go for just like we played the song last night, you know, but for the Luther show, we always kinda went for just like the record. And people would say that. You all sound just like the record, and that was a good thing for some reason.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  It was. Well, cuz people wanna preserve that memory.

• 52:14Speaker 05

  I guess, I guess so.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  And how I remember it when I first heard it, that's how I wanna hear it.

• 52:18Speaker 05

  I guess so. That wouldn't be a thing for me. I don't know why that's, people love that. I, I wouldn't necessarily, but anyway.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  I come from hip hop, which is also like, Michelle and Diego Chela coined a term called ventriloquism, which is like, you know, and that's kind of what the roots are, like, you know, like the way that we'll loop something and sample it. I feel like we were selling a moment in time. But here's the thing, though, your whole disposition now is actually where we should be. Like, I'm a sentimental person, so I'm always looking in the rearview mirror and loving the past, and you are clearly like, it's about today, about now, which is where we should be. So, for the record, even though I'm protesting you not going down memory lane in the way

• 53:06Speaker 00

  that I'd like you to, I do also appreciate that it is important to be right here in the now.

• 53:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, but to answer your question, Luther, but as far as the choreography, as far as the show, oh, yeah. I mean, we, no, we do, and people do it today, but back then, that was very unique. No, nobody was doing that Luther, nobody was carrying around that kinda stuff. I mean, we, in, in, in fact, I would say we simplified the show in later years, because in the beginning, we had the, we had an elevator up and down. We, we were carrying around a baby grand piano with the, uh, with the ballet dancer on top of the piano, dancing around. I could hardly play, just a.

• 53:50Speaker 00

  Cuz she's doing pirouettes.

• 53:51Speaker 05

  She's doing pirouettes on top of it, with the ballet thing, with the tutu flying around on top of the piano. I'm trying, I'm trying to play superstar, do, miss a note, shit.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  I, I have two difficult questions to ask about this period in your, your creative journey. I'll ask the lighter one first. Okay, so Babyface has been on the show, El DeBarge has been on the show, Jesse Johnson at the time has been on the show, Invogue has not been on the show, and based on the way you just frowned right now, I'm not even going there.

• 54:25Speaker 05

  I didn't frown, what are you talking about?

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Literally, you went.

• 54:28Speaker 05

  What are you talking about?

• 54:29Speaker 00

  Like, if Quincy Jones's Iron Side could be played right now, that would happen. But I gotta know, I gotta know this question, and I'll make it easy for you. You don't have to implicate yourself or anything, you don't have to gossip or nothing, but from one to 10, from one to 10, one being a walk in the park, 10 being, don't you ask me that question. I have a feeling that the 1987-88 tour of Luther and Anita Baker.

• 55:03Speaker 05

  No shit.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  Oh, God, was that 13?

• 55:06Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  Was that 14?

• 55:08Speaker 05

  I'm not answering that question.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  And that's it. I, the reason why I wanted to ask is because, and you don't, I'm not gonna ask you a question. You know, the deal wasn't established when they were opening for Luther. Uh, DeBarge was quasi-established when they were opening Luther, but Luther was Luther, and they were opening for him, same for Jesse Johnson. However, the only reason why I wanted to ask you this is because this is the first time in which, like, Luther and Anita are neck and neck. She's number, and really, to tell the truth, she put some major numbers on the board, and I always wonder, like, who decided, was it a flip of the coin, like, you go first, I go first?

• 55:56Speaker 00

  So, from one to 10, are you telling me your number is 92, and you can't answer this question?

• 56:01Speaker 05

  Uh, who decided?

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Of, of how?

• 56:04Speaker 05

  I have no idea.

• 56:05Speaker 00

  If it was hard, if it was hard to get through that tour.

• 56:08Speaker 05

  If it was hard to get through that tour?

• 56:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:11Speaker 05

  I didn't have, it wasn't hard for me to get through the tour.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  You're pleading the fifth, okay. Okay, I'm gonna ask you a second question that's really.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  I had no problem getting through the tour, it was easy for me.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  You specifically had no problem getting through the tour. Okay, I'm fine with that.

• 56:26Speaker 05

  I smiled at everybody. Hi, how are you?

• 56:29Speaker 00

  You're saying a lot right now, and I get it.

• 56:31Speaker 05

  Hi, how are you?

• 56:33Speaker 00

  You, you minding your business, had nothing to do with it?

• 56:35Speaker 05

  Actually, I never said, hi, how are you? I never.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Okay, so, look, one particular area that's special to me that I might have been too young, and really, you know, there was no internet back then, I didn't know people to ask. As sentimental as I am about music history, um, I'm also like an artifact collector, so, you know, I own Buddy Williams's snare drum from the first three albums. But I have a question to ask you, and this is so hard for me to ask, because really, all I can go on is like one Jet article. Can you please just walk me through the Yogi Horton situation?

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Uh, I, I just, I read Jet one day, and I'm only asking you this because, like, Yogi did one of the first drum instructional videos, so, like, I learned a lot from him, and then when I read that he unalived himself in New York City, right before a show.

• 57:43Speaker 05

  Right.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  I wanna know, like, what happened? Like, was the show canceled? Like, would someone?

• 57:48Speaker 05

  We did the show.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  Who was called in to play drums to?

• 57:52Speaker 05

  Brian, Bri, Brian, yeah. Uh, we did the show that night. We had the rehearsal that afternoon.

• 57:59Speaker 00

  So, it happened that more, like, what, if you, from what you can say, like, what happened?

• 58:04Speaker 05

  I got the call that, oh, I wanted to cancel the show, of course, but, uh, it was sold out, and, and I was, I was told by higher ups.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  The show must go on.

• 58:16Speaker 05

  Oh, the show must go on, we're sold out. Like, oh, Lord, so I got on the phone and got the replacement, uh.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  What type of person was, like, was he just going through life or?

• 58:28Speaker 05

  Oh, man, he was, yeah, sure, was having issues. I don't remember any particular problems that day. He fell out, I know he was going through some stuff, but I, I think he just, uh, he fell, man, there was no, I mean, people tried to come up with crazy stories and stuff. No, there was nothing crazy. He probably fell. He didn't commit suicide or anything like that.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  You think it was an accident or?

• 58:59Speaker 05

  Somebody heard. He didn't get pushed or anything crazy like that. That's crazy. No, it was an accident, and he fell. I'm sure he was angry or excited or very worked up that time of night or something, and it was an accident, and he.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  At what time did it happen?

• 59:21Speaker 05

  Um, late at night, 2:00 in the morning or something, I'm not sure, but late that night before.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  Besides a, a small Jet article, it was like, that's what I heard, and it was just never heard of or talked of again, and I just wanted to know what.

• 59:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, we go way, we go way back, uh, Yogi, now, he's from T-Nec also. So, uh, so we were actually in rival bands growing up in high school. He was actually in a band in Inglewood. Uh, uh, we were, oh, Lord, I was, it's been a long time, I was in the Soul Commuters, and he was in the Deltas.

• 59:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 59:59Speaker 05

  I'm not looking at you, are you laughing over there?

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Not at all.

• 1:00:02Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Or he could be talking to his wife over there, I, I don't know. I don't know who he's talking to.

• 1:00:09Speaker 05

  People usually laugh when I say. I say, I was in the Soul Commuters.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  Anyway, um, so, uh, so, yeah, so, so we were in rival bands at the time, and, uh, we were, and, and actually, uh, and, you know, and Yogi at the time, well, we talked sessions back then, I was doing good sessions, but Yogi was the cat back then, he was doing a lot of sessions.

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:00:32Speaker 05

  So, actually, when we first, uh, when we first went on tour, you know, Yogi was, was the cat, I was, I was the, uh, musical director for Luther. But, but Yogi was much more successful doing sessions at the time. So, we were a little bit clashy in the beginning, you know, Yogi was a little bit difficult for me, taking direction, cuz he was more successful, yeah, you, you know, we, we were cool. And from Tina, I mean, we were already rivals anyway, you know, so, you know, and he was older, you know, he was two or three years older than me, so, so it was like that, you

• 1:01:16Speaker 05

  know, but very quickly, you know, we were, you know, we were cool. We're always cool. Buddy, you're mentioning Buddy, you know, I mean, you, you didn't mention, I mean, I was on one, uh, I was a member of a group that you don't know about, called Natural Essence. Buddy was the drummer.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:32Speaker 05

  Uh, Francisco Centeno, I don't know if you know him, was the bassist.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  You don't know, know him. Uh, Earl McIntyre was, uh, the trombonist.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:41Speaker 05

  Uh, you don't know him. Um, and, uh, so we had a, we had a record out, and we did that record, I thought it was, uh, pretty good, most people thought it was pretty good, but we put that record out, and then I went to college and ignored that. If I was a member of that group, I would not speak to me to this day, cuz.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  That's how tight it was, and?

• 1:02:02Speaker 05

  We, we were, remember, we, we were working around town, working around New York, we had a, had a thing going, and then I just said, see y'all. I decided I wanted to go to college, and I just.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Is this the Yale period?

• 1:02:17Speaker 05

  Didn't wanna work it, yeah. I didn't wanna work it, I wanted to go to college, and I just said, bye, and, I mean, I could have done some stuff, of, of course, when I first went to college, I was away every weekend, I was doing Ashford and Simpson.

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  At the time, so I was away every weekend.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  What was that like?

• 1:02:36Speaker 05

  That was, oh, I still, hey Val.

• 1:02:41Speaker 05

  I just.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  Jake, we gotta get her on the show.

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, oh, that's my heart, heart, I mean.

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  I mean, I was a regular at the restaurant, but.

• 1:02:49Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  Oftentimes, they will come to you.

• 1:02:52Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 1:02:52Speaker 00

  If you come there, if you come there to eat, they will come there with a microphone and put the thing. And that's the.

• 1:02:59Speaker 05

  Oh, you, are you serious?

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  I mean.

• 1:03:02Speaker 05

  Oh, I am a background singer at the table at the Sugar Bar.

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  Sometimes I just wanna have some turkey meatloaf and.

• 1:03:10Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm a frustrated, ask anybody, I'm a frustrated background singer. Since I was a kid. Oh, ask anybody.

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  I would go in like in the nineties when the Sugar Bar was popping, like. It, it'd be warning, like, if we sit you down and we happen to be on stage, you might have to sing a round or two or whatever and. Yeah, so.

• 1:03:31Speaker 05

  Oh, let's, oh, let's go tonight and, and, and get two mics.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  There you go.

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• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  So you were also doing Ashford and Simpson at the time and?

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  Well, that was, that was my first big, that was me and Francisco and Buddy.

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  So before Luther, Ashford and Simpson.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  I think that's how that and the Listen My Brother gig.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  Solidified it.

• 1:05:08Speaker 05

  I think that's how Luther felt comfortable calling me to be his first M D.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  His M D.

• 1:05:17Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I guess, I don't know why he called me to be his first, well, he called me to do the first record, so I guess. He was comfortable to call me to do the first sessions, but, uh.

• 1:05:30Speaker 00

  I just forgot something.

• 1:05:30Speaker 05

  What, what am I saying?

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  Well, we were talking about Ashford and Simpson, but there's, there's another question I have for you.

• 1:05:35Speaker 05

  Okay, that was our first big gig. We were still in high school.

• 1:05:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:05:39Speaker 05

  And, uh, we were rehearsing the band, Natural Lessons, that I'm telling you about. We rehearsed on the sixth floor of a building on eighty seventh street, Walter Booker. Uh, Cannonball's bassist.

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:05:51Speaker 05

  My dad's bassist, lived on the sixth floor of a building on eighty seventh street.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  And Nick and Valerie's manager lived on the fourth floor. So when Valerie Simpson came out with her first records, which had Silly Wasn't I?

• 1:06:06Speaker 00

  Silly Wasn't, yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 05

  Her first record, and so she was looking for a band to do her first gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. She was looking for some young folks, I guess, because they're such mentors.

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  And cheap.

• 1:06:18Speaker 05

  You know, and, oh, that's all right, that's all right, that's all right.

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  Let's keep it buck and cheap.

• 1:06:25Speaker 05

  That's all right. They were looking for a band, and so Nick Ashford's manager said, I hear there's some kids. Upstairs, I hear they're pretty good. So, so the next thing I know, they, here come Nick and Valerie upstairs to our rehearsal. They come up and rehearsal and they hire me and Buddy and Francisco. And next, and they hired us to go and be Valerie's first band at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. That was me and Buddy and Francisco. That was our first professional big gig. We were in high school and I guess twelfth grade, so that was our first big.

• 1:07:07Speaker 05

  So when I went to college, I was out every weekend with Valerie.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  How long did you stay with him?

• 1:07:14Speaker 05

  I would say that whole first year and even into the second, I don't know. And then, then it became Nick and Valerie and I was still working with them. I.

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  So you there for like the I wanna be selfish years and give me something real, like those first few albums?

• 1:07:33Speaker 05

  Uh, up until something and then, oh my goodness, they didn't work that much. At some point, they called me to go out and I said, oh my gosh. Nick called me and I said, Nick, I can't go. I can't go this time. I'll never graduate. I'm about to not graduate anyway. I will never get this degree if I can't go anymore. I can't, I, I got three years under my belt.

• 1:08:05Speaker 00

  You gotta see it through.

• 1:08:06Speaker 05

  I gotta see this through. I'm not gonna go, but I tell you, but Ray can do it though. Cause I had already, I had already, I had already hired Ray Chu as the second keyboard, yeah. I said, go ahead and, and, and have Ray do it.

• 1:08:20Speaker 00

  Are you on their albums as well or just the tours?

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  I was on the records at the time. I was on the records doing second, Valerie was playing piano. And so I was doing, so I said, go ahead and have Ray do it. Next thing I know, Ray is blown up and I have a college degree.

• 1:08:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:36Speaker 05

  And Ray is doing all that and I'm in Houston with my babies. Luckily, next thing I know Luther called and I got that going, so it worked out. But at some point I was in the Lord have mercy, what have I done? I have a college degree and I have given my gig to Ray Chu and he is blown up.

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:09:00Speaker 05

  And my ass is down here in a Houston apartment. I was. With babies, with lovely babies.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  Right. Yale is nothing to scoff at. But why was it so important that you get your receipt?

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  Your degree, when you were clearly.

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  It was almost like you, you escaped the South to get free in the North and then you're like, all right, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go back to. Did you need your degree?

• 1:09:32Speaker 05

  He still don't get it, does he?

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  I don't get it.

• 1:09:35Speaker 05

  He still don't get it.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  Ah, damn. Music is just an afterthought to you, like, it's just like.

• 1:09:42Speaker 05

  I didn't want it, man. I don't wanna be, let me put it like this, when I went to Houston. When I first got there, I took a job as an accounting for eight months. That was my gig. I got up every morning and did, did that. Uh, well, when I went to school, I wanted to be a lawyer.

• 1:10:08Speaker 00

  I was gonna say the question I should have asked you.

• 1:10:10Speaker 05

  Look at my high school yearbook.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:10:13Speaker 05

  All my, everybody in my high school said, Nat, go ahead to college. Go ahead and do your thing and, and get over this bullshit and find your. You're gonna come back to music. Go ahead and finish this law bullshit that you're talking about. You're gonna come back to music one day and call us when you finish, cause this is crazy.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  So my first question I should have asked you was. When you were eight years old, what was your dream to be? I'm just assuming you came out as an Adderley. You have two of the bright, not even one, you have two North Stars.

• 1:10:55Speaker 05

  I didn't know.

• 1:10:56Speaker 00

  Was there a pressure to live up to?

• 1:10:58Speaker 05

  Well, they weren't home really. I mean, you know, at that age, they were not home. My dad was not, I mean, he was on the road all the time.

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Speaker 05

  At that point, he started being home more, I guess, when I was twelve or thirteen. Something like that. I mean, it wasn't going all the time. I told the parent stories, I mean, getting up and. I mean, they were home sometime, but gone way more than home. So twelve or thirteen, home more. So, no, and then, like I said, writing the song, no, my life was more about being. Just a normal kid and that's what I would say my dad was going for.

• 1:11:45Speaker 05

  I mean, our block, our lives, my school, my, my life, I mean, I was in music school.

• 1:11:53Speaker 00

  So none of that was enjoyable to you, like?

• 1:11:55Speaker 05

  Well, sure, well, I spent.

• 1:11:57Speaker 00

  The doors that opened, the people you met and the history you made, none of, none of that was like?

• 1:12:03Speaker 05

  That was so fleeting though. That wasn't my life, what the history, what, what going out there? I mean, I spent hours at the piano practicing. So I guess that was, I don't know, enjoyable? I don't know. That was life. I wouldn't say it was. Enjoyable or not enjoyable. I guess it was enjoyable sitting practicing hours. It was enjoyable being alone, cause that's me and I, and it's genetic too, cause I make a lot of. I make kids that way too, and I make grandkids that way. I mean, my kids make. Even the kids that don't come out that way, make kids.

• 1:12:42Speaker 05

  I am ill, you make, make kids that way that like to go in their room and be by themselves. So, yeah, I guess I enjoy sitting at the piano for that amount of time, you know, but, um.

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  And it's too overwhelming for you to think like, something that came from your creativity, your chakra. Is forever, like music to me is just a Polaroid shot.

• 1:13:09Speaker 05

  Sure. Oh, I love it now. Oh, do I love hearing something on the radio? Yeah. Of course, something that I did that comes on the radio or being in the, being in the studio and finishing it. Oh, that's great. Just sitting there saying, oh, it's done. Oh, thank you, Jesus, it's done.

• 1:13:31Speaker 05

  Let me walk out the studio. Yeah, but you know, but as as a kid being going out for the one day, I I don't even I hardly remember going writing it. How long did it take to write it? Yeah, fun, fun, but I don't I don't remember that. Then I go, I remember going out and hanging with the hanging with the boys afterwards, uh, going out that one day, getting on the plane. No, I don't remember that. I remember the other.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:57Speaker 05

  I don't remember. No, I don't remember the other three hundred and sixty four days that year. That's not a memory for me making that music or living that. No, the childhood is more the memory, being on the block, my friends, uh, going to the going to music and art and hanging out and not coming home for until night and and and my mother fussing at me about, uh, call if you're not gonna come home, call me so I'm not worried about you.

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:14:30Speaker 05

  Are you kidding me? And my father being on the phone, because he's not home, call your mother. I'm gonna have to call. I'm gonna kill you when I get home. Call. It's all right. You're not gonna come home, but call her.

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:14:42Speaker 05

  You know, things like that. I mean, that's my memory. So, um, so, no, that's that's not it. And I'm telling you.

• 1:14:48Speaker 00

  And I I can accept that.

• 1:14:49Speaker 05

  And then so I went to college. I didn't want to be a musician. I got to Houston and I was an accounting clerk for eight months until.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  What was it about the city Houston that called you?

• 1:15:01Speaker 05

  I married somebody. My first my first wife was, uh.

• 1:15:06Speaker 00

  Got you. Okay.

• 1:15:07Speaker 05

  Was, uh, Houston. I so we went there to have our first kid and had a second one there. And so I was lived in that area for seven years until we got divorced and I moved back to New York.

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:18Speaker 05

  And the rest is history. And I, you know, getting got married again and had two more. And that's why the nineties are absolute blur. I had two more and my wife got McDonald's, got a McDonald's and became a long more more story. Let me stop there. She may be waiting for I I I hope she's gone. I hope she went back to to New Jersey. She dropped me off.

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 1:15:43Speaker 05

  I hope she went back to Jersey. Anyway, uh, so in Houston, I worked for, uh, seven months, eight months, until a singer in town found out I was in town.

• 1:15:54Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  Called me up to come play piano bar for her from five to seven.

• 1:16:00Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:01Speaker 05

  Every day. So I was working from nine to five.

• 1:16:05Speaker 00

  In Houston?

• 1:16:05Speaker 05

  As an in Houston, as an accounting clerk at Barbara Steamship Company, as an accounting clerk from nine to five. And then I would go, well, I started getting off at five. I went in at eight. I started working from eight to four so I could get to the piano bar from five to seven and and accompany the singer. I found myself making the same money for those two hours, five to seven, I was making all day as an accountant with the tips. And so I quit the job as an accounting, as an accounting clerk from from nine, from eight to four.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  And and, uh, continued the piano bar job and.

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  In Houston?

• 1:16:52Speaker 05

  In Houston. And I've been a musician ever since. I never, that was my last straight job that was in, I guess I had my kid in seventy nine. That was in nineteen eighty.

• 1:17:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:17:05Speaker 05

  So the summer of nineteen eighty was the last time I've had a job, not as a musician.

• 1:17:13Speaker 00

  I'm gonna ask you just rapid fire questions that, because I'm satisfied with the interview, but I do know that I will get murdered by the comments if I don't just ask some basic things that I'm sure that we wanted to know, which is

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  real quick. Assuming that you're also part of the rhythm section and the personnel chosen to produce work on Luther's, uh, personal North Stars. He's made a bruhaha over, you know, like him wanting to work with Diana, wanting to work with Dion, wanting to work with, uh, Aretha. Am I assuming that you're on the Jump to It records and the Get It Right sessions and the whatever, uh, What a Guy or or How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye, whatever whatever songs Dionne Warwick did on her record? Were the rhythm sections, was that cut like separate from?

• 1:18:09Speaker 00

  At any point, are you having to have interactions with Aretha Franklin, like in the studio as you're playing whatever, Love Me Right or or My Daydream or, I think you guys did a cover of It's Your Thing. I grew up with three thousand records, so I I remember everything as a kid. But like, what were those sessions like? Like the Jump to It sessions, which?

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  Oh, guys, this is another.

• 1:18:40Speaker 05

  I remember music. Yeah, I mean, I.

• 1:18:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:18:44Speaker 05

  I don't remember anything, but it's it's so so weird. I'm so so blessed with that. I don't know why that is, because I don't remember anything from childhood. My my younger sister, who's three and a half years younger, has to remind me of everything from childhood. I don't remember stuff, but music I remember. Uh, so the Aretha, oh, I used to love, uh, remember this one, if she don't want your loving.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  Yes, of course.

• 1:19:11Speaker 05

  Oh, I love that one. Yeah. So, yeah, I did that. Uh, oh, yeah, Aretha, oh, I.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  Flex.

• 1:19:24Speaker 05

  I mean, I remember all that.

• 1:19:25Speaker 00

  This leads me to a a part two of this Aretha thing. Now, Never Too Much, we've already established classic song, works on the dance floor, everything.

• 1:19:37Speaker 00

  I always felt, now, here's the thing.

• 1:19:40Speaker 00

  You know, there's Luther the Balladeer and then what I would say Luther the Non Balladeer. And his very specific style of non ballad songs, the fast songs. You know, like Bad Boy was a shuffle song.

• 1:20:00Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, there's even a point where like what I would call like the Luther shuffle of like, like Give Me The Reason, Stop to Love, have the same sort of boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like that feel, fast songs. But compared to what's in the marketplace, um, you know, like what Jam and Lewis are doing, like it's hard to DJ those things. Like, but there's such a staple in terms of his canon, his his repertoire and all those things.

• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  And like you're you're giving Get It Right to to Aretha and Jump to It and

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  like, how hard was it to really give Luther a funk bomb? That is at least in the same territory as Never Too Much, because, yeah, okay, like, I'll Let You Slide was cool. You know, Stop Stop to the Love, Stop to Love was.

• 1:20:59Speaker 05

  It did well.

• 1:21:00Speaker 00

  It's Over Now, It's Over Now, I would say is probably the only fast song in which.

• 1:21:05Speaker 05

  That got got up in there.

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  That got life on the dance floor. But was it?

• 1:21:10Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  Was it hard to try to give him an uptempo bop that?

• 1:21:14Speaker 05

  I don't I don't know how anybody, I know where I was at with, uh, with with Give Me The Reason.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  Uh, I I just was, uh, into the British thing. You don't you don't hear that? Uh, did that? I mean, that's where I was. Uh, good, that didn't come out, uh, obvious.

• 1:21:34Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:35Speaker 05

  Maybe I shouldn't.

• 1:21:36Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 1:21:37Speaker 05

  Maybe I shouldn't say it now. So.

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  You should. It's history.

• 1:21:40Speaker 05

  Good, good, good. Yeah, well, I was.

• 1:21:42Speaker 00

  It's unique to Luther, but no one else is doing it. And it's almost like DJs need six or seven other songs that feel the same in order to.

• 1:21:52Speaker 05

  Well, it just never, it just never worked. And, um, we talk about it all the time now with Luther being so huge now with this being Luther's year now.

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:03Speaker 05

  You know, um.

• 1:22:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:05Speaker 05

  We always talk about, I wish they'd, I wish they'd find something else. And so so my family, we always talk about Stop to Love. Obviously, because it was, uh, it was number one here for for a couple of weeks.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:16Speaker 05

  Um, uh, so we always say, well, I wish they'd go find Stop to Love. But no, it doesn't sound like, uh, a DJ could fit it in somewhere. It's not danceable here. But but that was, well, well, that came from.

• 1:22:32Speaker 00

  It was still loved and received.

• 1:22:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that came from Give Me The Reason. Give Me The Reason came from me sitting there and it was, I don't know, what was it? The fourth was the, uh, that was that record.

• 1:22:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:22:47Speaker 05

  So so that was the, that was, uh, me just, uh, was, I was copying.

• 1:22:55Speaker 05

  Uh, I was copying London, Great Britain, great.

• 1:22:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:22:59Speaker 05

  Nobody ever thought about that good.

• 1:23:01Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 1:23:02Speaker 05

  So I was listening to British and let me.

• 1:23:05Speaker 00

  What was, what was the?

• 1:23:06Speaker 05

  He's big over there. Let me give him something British. Great. It doesn't sound like that. And, and we just did that. And the bass was not quantized. I don't know if you, I, I read that somewhere. I read that in a review somewhere. The drums were, you know, the bass is.

• 1:23:23Speaker 00

  The bass was play live?

• 1:23:24Speaker 05

  The bass was live.

• 1:23:25Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:23:26Speaker 05

  Okay. And, uh, and that did what it did.

• 1:23:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:23:29Speaker 05

  And it was, it was fine. And gosh, it was, did very well in London. Then, uh, so then that did very well, uh, Grammy nominated even.

• 1:23:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:23:41Speaker 05

  Uh, so, uh, so then, then the deal was, oh, actually that was for a movie.

• 1:23:47Speaker 00

  Uh, ruthless people.

• 1:23:49Speaker 05

  Movie. That was for the movie. Right. So then the deal was. And then the deal was, oh, we gotta do something like that.

• 1:23:55Speaker 00

  So Stop the Love is his twin. I got it.

• 1:23:58Speaker 05

  The answer to that. And that was quantized. And I saw, and I saw, I saw a review. Oh, they learned how to quantize everything. Stop the Love is the.

• 1:24:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:24:10Speaker 05

  The better ver, the correct.

• 1:24:13Speaker 00

  Improved version.

• 1:24:13Speaker 05

  The improved version of giving the reason.

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  What was the hardest song to make during that initial period?

• 1:24:20Speaker 05

  By the way, by the way, Better Love was the answer to Never Too Much, you know?

• 1:24:24Speaker 00

  Ben, ben, ben, ben. Of course. Yes.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  I mean, Better Love was Luther coming to Luther, Luther coming through, coming through Houston again.

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:24:33Speaker 05

  Coming to the apartment, Never Too Much was out, said, oh, we gotta do another Never Too Much. And he showed me Better Love. He, Nat, you gotta finish this.

• 1:24:46Speaker 05

  Go finish that. Oh, okay.

• 1:24:48Speaker 00

  Uh, hip hop heads, Better Love would be, uh, the Young Guns Better Love. Uh, if you're a rock.

• 1:24:54Speaker 05

  No, no Better Love.

• 1:24:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, no Better Love.

• 1:24:56Speaker 05

  No Better Love.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:24:57Speaker 05

  Did very well. Thank you very much.

• 1:24:59Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:25:00Speaker 05

  Love it, love it, love it.

• 1:25:01Speaker 00

  If, okay, because the, the, the cover song is such a staple in the Luther world. Is there a cover attempt that you guys tried that maybe mid-session, you're like, nah?

• 1:25:15Speaker 05

  A cover, uh.

• 1:25:17Speaker 00

  A, a cover song. I mean, you guys pretty much have, your covers are so distinct that a lot of us think that they're the originals. So, I mean, you know, like each song has, each album has its own cover song.

• 1:25:29Speaker 05

  I do not remember.

• 1:25:30Speaker 00

  Is there a song that just wound up on the cutting floor of like, uh, we did a cover of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah on?

• 1:25:37Speaker 05

  No, but I, no, but I know a song that I wanted to be on the cutting.

• 1:25:43Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:25:43Speaker 05

  I know a song.

• 1:25:44Speaker 00

  What don't you like?

• 1:25:45Speaker 05

  Oh, no, I, I like it enough now, I guess, but I know what song I did not want to do when he called me and wanted to do it.

• 1:25:52Speaker 00

  Superstar?

• 1:25:53Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:54Speaker 00

  Dog.

• 1:25:56Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:57Speaker 00

  Uh, I feel like Fonte. Shout out to Fonte. Speak on it. Well, wait, this is what I want to know about Superstar. Wait, wait.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

  Superstar? What are you calling?

• 1:26:06Speaker 00

  But wait.

• 1:26:07Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:26:08Speaker 00

  But wait, before you give me the story.

• 1:26:09Speaker 05

  You like soup, don't you? Remember, you want to do that? No, Luther, no. That's not a good idea, dude. Listen, let's do Close to You. How about that one? If you like the carpenters, let's do Close to You.

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  Ah, yes. Okay.

• 1:26:27Speaker 05

  I didn't like that idea at all.

• 1:26:29Speaker 00

  Thank you for giving me that. You gave me something.

• 1:26:31Speaker 05

  Is this how my face looked when you said the thing?

• 1:26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, when I, when I said it, I was like, ah. You, you and Bill Withers almost have the same mannerisms whenever I talk to, like, getting, getting a tender answer out of him is almost like a boxing round of 15 matches. And finally I got one punch in. Yes, you gave me something. All right. The thing with Superstar is though, this is what I always wanted to know, is for those that didn't know better, it's like, the intro is just two lines

• 1:27:05Speaker 00

  of the Stevie Wonder penned, uh, Until You Come Back to Me, uh, That's What I'm Gonna Do, from Aretha Franklin. Just as an intro, of which I'm assuming you guys had to pay full scale for it. Even though you're not doing the entire song, you're just doing, so it's almost like some hip hop shit where, all right, I just want to take these two songs. I want to tell you, baby, the changes I've been going through. At any point was it just like, hey, why don't we just come up with just a different intro? And so we don't have to pay full scale for just using 15 second, like the 15 seconds, Stevie Wonder will get credited and Clarence Paul and, and the writers of Until You Come Back to Me. Like, why was it so important that those two be meshed together?

• 1:27:51Speaker 05

  Luther would never not do something

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  for a reason like that.

• 1:27:57Speaker 00

  Who talks him off the ledge? Are you the ledge talker? Is Marcus the ledge talker? Who's the person that says, hey, you sure about that? Or, ah?

• 1:28:05Speaker 05

  Nobody.

• 1:28:06Speaker 00

  Oh, no one tells? No one puts baby in the corner?

• 1:28:09Speaker 05

  No one is ever able to talk Luther off of any ledge.

• 1:28:14Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 1:28:15Speaker 05

  That would, trying to talk him off of a ledge would just make him jump further off of the ledge.

• 1:28:25Speaker 00

  So you don't know a Jedi mind trick? Sometimes I make a person think, sometimes I make a person think that my idea is their idea.

• 1:28:34Speaker 05

  Never tried it. It's too late.

• 1:28:36Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 1:28:37Speaker 05

  Never tried. It's too late.

• 1:28:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:28:39Speaker 05

  Damn, I'll try that. Cause I do intend to go lift him out the grave and whoop his. Cause, cause I am very upset with him anyway, because you, you know, we never toured Asia at all. We never went to Japan or China. Never. Not once.

• 1:28:56Speaker 00

  Why not? He didn't?

• 1:28:59Speaker 05

  Because the record company was never willing to.

• 1:29:05Speaker 00

  Promote him.

• 1:29:05Speaker 05

  Prom, pay for him to bring all his shit.

• 1:29:08Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:10Speaker 05

  On a plane or boat over to China and lug it all around the damn country, excuse me. Uh, to, to, you know, the elevator and the dancers and the piano and the, all that shit.

• 1:29:25Speaker 00

  He wouldn't do a scaled down version of it.

• 1:29:27Speaker 05

  He would not do, I said, Luther, how about me and you go the first time?

• 1:29:31Speaker 00

  Piano, yeah, piano voice.

• 1:29:32Speaker 05

  Just me and you go the first time and set it up and then we can go and bring all your shit. He never wanted to do it all, all, all that. So every time I get a royalty check now, I'm thinking, what would this be if we just went over there one time?

• 1:29:50Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:29:50Speaker 05

  What about the, a second time? What would it be? So when I go and lift him out of his grave just to punch him

• 1:30:00Speaker 05

  three or four times, I have an extra few things to, I'm, I'm writing a list.

• 1:30:06Speaker 00

  Am I going to see you at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he gets inducted?

• 1:30:08Speaker 05

  Am I, are you gonna see?

• 1:30:10Speaker 00

  I will be there, uh.

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  You'll be there?

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  I'm one of the members that.

• 1:30:14Speaker 05

  I haven't, I haven't decided. I guess I should, should go. I have a, oh, I have a weekend. I have a great gig. I really want to go doing Los Cabos.

• 1:30:26Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:30:27Speaker 05

  They want me to bring my trio down to Los Cabos for the weekend. I would love to go, but it's the same weekend. I haven't decided.

• 1:30:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:30:36Speaker 05

  Whether I should.

• 1:30:37Speaker 00

  I'm hoping I see you there.

• 1:30:38Speaker 05

  Whether I should be there. I guess I should.

• 1:30:40Speaker 00

  I think you should.

• 1:30:41Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  Because that's.

• 1:30:43Speaker 05

  I haven't been invited. I shouldn't need to be invited. I, I haven't decided.

• 1:30:49Speaker 00

  A few people, I will make a phone call.

• 1:30:51Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:30:52Speaker 00

  Um, look, I, I really appreciate this uncomfortable exercise. This is not just a Kendrick Lamar Luther moment. I mean, we can go Kanye slow jams. We can go, I mean, we can go all over the place with, with, with your work, but, um, yeah, for me, uh, to hear my drum teacher, uh, play me a song in which he's telling me like, yeah, there's an 11-year-old taking a solo on the piano and, you know, I'm 11 and I'm like, I can do this? Like, I'd, I'd never, so I guess I will say that my drum teacher is probably using

• 1:31:33Speaker 00

  that intro song almost as a portal for me to dream, which, you know, we weren't necessarily, parents want a safety. Get a job, go to college, get a good job, get good money. And it's, it's risky to dream. And, um, yeah, I, I gotta say that I think I specifically just wanted you on this show because to bring that Jules Benner and West Philadelphia drum lessons moment full circle, that I get to speak to the person that just planted the tiniest seed of like, wow, a kid wrote that song, a kid my age and,

• 1:32:16Speaker 00

  you know, and then it, it brought me to my destiny. And yeah, you make cool stuff. So I thank you.

• 1:32:22Speaker 05

  Thank you very much, man.

• 1:32:23Speaker 00

  Nat, that'll be true.

• 1:32:24Speaker 05

  Let me just say, man, I just, uh, I just gotta say, man, I mean, to, to know, I mean, I knew. I knew, but I know more. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn, so much.

• 1:32:35Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:32:35Speaker 05

  And, uh, and just to, just to know, man, more, uh, who you are. I mean, I knew. But man, just to catch up, catch up a little bit more, man.

• 1:32:46Speaker 00

  With two friends kicking it.

• 1:32:47Speaker 05

  Well, my, my favorite thing, man, I understand everything. Man, my political leanings, first of all.

• 1:32:57Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:58Speaker 05

  And I told you, I mean, I was not available in the nineties. I wasn't even available in the two thousands.

• 1:33:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:04Speaker 05

  But to go back, man, so much respect, man. Man, I love it, love it. And I understand everything. I don't need to look. I understand every word. Thank you so much for putting out music and lyrics that I can listen to and I understand everything and love it. And it's intelligent and.

• 1:33:31Speaker 00

  You're the, you're, you are the, you're the seed of all that. Now we're going to spend the next five minutes over using compliments as a weapon. All right, we're out, y'all. I'll see you on the next go around.

• 1:33:43Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you very much.

• 1:33:44Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:33:51Speaker 00

  The Questlove Show is hosted by me, Amir Questlove Thompson. The executive producers are Sean G., Brian Calhoun, and me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown. Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton. Logos, graphics, and animation by Nick Aloie.

• 1:34:20Speaker 00

  Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Braun.

• 1:34:26Speaker 00

  Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Questlove Show wherever you stream your podcasts. And make sure you follow us on socials. That's at Q L S. Check out hundreds and hundreds of Q L S episodes, including The Questlove Supreme Shows in our podcast archives.

• 1:34:50Speaker 00

  Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

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