QLS Classic: Jean Carne

As part of 2023's Jazz Appreciation Month, the incomparable Jean Carne joined Questlove Supreme. She reflected on her Atlanta upbringing and growing up around figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as creating Spiritual Jazz in the early 1970s with her former husband, Doug Carn. Jean also shared stories from working with Earth, Wind & Fire, Phyllis Hyman, and Norman Connors—and recalls providing valuable vocal guidance to a teenage Michael Jackson. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Questo, and you're getting another classic episode of QLS. So back in 2023, we spoke with the legendary Jean Kern. Jean is not only one of the greatest voices in Philadelphia, she's also been an incredible mentor to some of the many voices that we've loved throughout the years. And she talks about her journey, including her time in the spiritual jazz space, running circles with Earth, Water, and Fire, and so much more. Jean is really kind and gracious and an awesome talent, and she'd never let any of that go to our head. Get it? I love this convo, and I hope you do, too.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  This is Jean Kern on Questlove Supreme Classic. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Questlove Supreme. I'm your host, Questlove. This is Team Supreme. Laia, how are you?

• 2:47Speaker 03

  I'm doing... I'm doing good.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  You know something?

• 2:52Speaker 03

  What?

• 2:53Speaker 00

  I want to know how many rooms you have in your house, because are you in like a 19-room mansion?

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Stop saying that. This is my house. Just the last time we spoke, I was somewhere else in...

• 3:04Speaker 00

  But you have more artwork than any human I know.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, you've met my parents, so yes, I do. I got, shoot, I'm surprised I don't got a picture of our guest on my wall somewhere. Yeah.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  I see.

• 3:17Speaker 04

  Your dad gave me one at Bethesda.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Of yourself?

• 3:21Speaker 04

  One of your Aunt Deanna, and your dad, and Melvin Lindsey.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Ooh, mystery voice.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, mystery, okay.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Who was that mystery voice?

• 3:33Speaker 03

  I don't know yet.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Steve, how are you, bro?

• 3:36Speaker 05

  You know, if you delete something off an iTunes playlist, all you gotta do is hit Apple X, and it all comes back. You know what Apple X, you know, Command X? I mean, help your brother out.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Anyway.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Oh, delete.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  I leave early one day in 14 years.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Steve, yes.

• 3:51Speaker 05

  And somehow a playlist gets deleted.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  In the history of The Tonight Show, Sugar Steve has been a constant presence almost every day, and the one day he leaves, things don't fall apart. I kept things together, so yes.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Oh, that was so cute. Things don't fall apart.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  What's up, everybody? How y'all doing? Hey, Miss Jane.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  What's up, Fonte? My song title.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  It was a good album title as well.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Fonte, what's up, brother?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  What's going on, bro? What's going on, Miss Jane? It's very nice to meet you.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Lovely meeting you.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, my aunt, she was a big fan of your records, and I would always go to her house and like play your stuff. And I just always remember just your album covers, you just always looked really classy, really pretty, and just always just a really classy singer. So it's really an honor to sit with you today. I appreciate it.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Oh, it's my pleasure, and I appreciate your aunt educating you.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is an extraordinary singer and artist, especially for those who grew up around the Philadelphia International Sound. I'm one of those people. I went to school right next door to Philadelphia International Records on Broad Street way, way, way back in the day. Basically, our guest today, you know, I was introduced to her via my father's illustrious record collection, a lot of jazz in there, and of course, you know, the black jazz label. And I will say that all the albums of our guest today and her former husband Doug Kern definitely played a major role in my personal growing up.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  Basically, just some of the best, what I call spiritual jazz. I mean, there's so many titles for it. Some people say fusion, spiritual jazz, I don't know what you call it, but there's also a point in the 70s when our guest today became part of the incredible stable of artists that contributed to the sound of Philadelphia, helmed by Kenny Gamble and Leon Hough with such legendary songs as, you know, "Free Love" and "Don't Let It Go To Your Head" and "My Love Don't Come Easy." And then, of course, you know, the immortal "Closer Than Close," not to mention my song was "The Flame of Love." Like, there's so much to talk about, but, you know, April is Jazz Appreciation Month,

• 6:16Speaker 00

  and basically, our guest today, she makes jazz, she makes R&B, she makes disco, she does it all, and she's worked with all the legends. All the legends work with her. Kenny Gamble, Leon Hough, Jerry Butler, Eddie Levert, Phyllis Hyman, Earl Garner, Billy Paul, Dexter Wanzel, The Temptations, Grover Washington Jr., Rick James, Dirt, George Duke, just everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, so overdue, our guest, the incomparable Jean Kern to Questlove Supreme. Thank you very much.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Thank you for coming.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Ba-ba-bah.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  How are you?

• 6:49Speaker 04

  I'm wonderful. How's everybody?

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Doing well.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  We're great. Massive fans of yours, and, you know, I thank you for doing this, you know, with a lot of our guest of late, with just how the music industry is built, mostly celebrating, you know, a certain type of mainstream artist, and really not giving light or shine to artists of... I mean, I don't want to sound like the old grumpy music lover, but, you know, a lot of artists that have substance or something extra to give, you really don't read that much. And I don't recall ever like reading in-depth interviews with you at all, but, you know, I'm so familiar with your work, but, you know, you don't get to see your artists in some of these mainstream publications that do music.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  So I thank you for finally granting us the, just the honor of getting to interview you. So I'm gonna ask a lot of questions. Number one, Miss Kern, could you tell me your first musical memory?

• 7:52Speaker 04

  My first musical memory?

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  Perhaps, oh, I guess in church, Greater Mount Calvary Baptist Church, maybe singing solo in front of the adult choir. I must have been four then, because I remember, I think the song must have been, yeah, because I think Mahalia Jackson had done it. "One of these mornings, one of these mornings, I'm going home to live with God." And I was just a little kid, you know, but I think that might have been my first public memory.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  And I did a lot of stuff at, I remember a lot of stuff at home that I would do when somebody would visit us. My mother said, I would give them a concert. She said, I'd put on my ballet slippers, and I'd stand in a plie position with my hands like this, and then give them a concert if they, you know, if my folks asked me to.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  So that was just a typical occurrence, because you hear that a lot. You hear about like Cecil Franklin waking up Aretha Franklin at 3:00 in the morning, like entertaining the guests, like saying something for them. But, so your parents were like that a lot?

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and I didn't mind, you know, so, yeah, they were cool like that.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  What city were you born in?

• 9:22Speaker 04

  I was born in Columbus, Georgia. I was raised in Atlanta.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Okay. It's weird, like, a lot of artists that represent Philly International, in my mind, they're always from Philadelphia, even though they just record for a Philadelphia label, so, you know, it's kind of a...

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've always been a part-time Philadelphian, well, for 50 years now, so...

• 9:47Speaker 00

  You live there currently, right now? You still live there?

• 9:50Speaker 04

  Half the time here and half, and the rest in Atlanta.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  Okay, okay. So you never lost touch with your home roots or any of that, those things?

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Oh, no, no.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  So, having been raised in the church, especially with down south, how does, like, what is your relationship with secular music? I know that for, there's a lot of generation, generational blacks that grew up in households in which like secular music is somewhat taboo or not allowed in the household. Was your household that, sort of that way, or?

• 10:26Speaker 04

  You know, I've learned that that's the case with a lot of singers, but thank goodness it wasn't the case at my house, because my dad loved music, you know, Big Band, New Orleans jazz, you know, preservation jazz, R&B. So I was never pigeonholed where music was concerned. I started collecting records, you know, with the little record player in the little box with the little snap on there.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  I started collecting records at, I guess, five-ish, and they never, they never limited the, you know, the records I could buy.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  What were some of the records you were buying at that time?

• 11:13Speaker 04

  Oh gosh. Well, my dad had a record store on Auburn Avenue.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  Ah, okay.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  It was with a cab company and a moving company and employment agency. So.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  All in one?

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, in one building.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  And I, yeah, it was right down the street from, um, Big Bethel Baptist Church and it was two blocks down from Ebenezer Baptist Church. Um, and so I got, you know, I got to sell records too, because my brother and I would come and, you know, and work for my dad. Sometimes I was dispatcher, you know, for the cab company. And then sometimes I sold records and it, you know, it was just a whole plethora of activity that, that we got to do. But I don't know. I, I think, I think selling records was the most fun for me because if somebody comes in and asks for a record that we didn't have, I had to write down the artist.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  And, and my dad would pick it up at the, at, there were one stops.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  Where the record stores would, you know, they got the, the, uh, man, the pressed records from, I think then they had a pressing plant in Canton, Georgia. And, and that, that's how we, you know, that was the chain of command for, for, for doing records. I think that was the most fun, the most fun growing up. And it was down the street from the Royal Peacock. It was like two doors down from Royal Peacock. So when artists would come to perform the Peacock, I would slip out and go see their soundshacks.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  Because the owner of the Peacock was, you know, a friend of my dad's.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  In fact, I remember talking to Ruth Brown and telling her, um, that I saw her do a soundcheck. Uh, because her son thing, he was, he's, he's, he was a guitar player uh, a few years ago on one of the nighttime shows. And he had this amazing voice because he did a demo that I, um, that I eventually recorded. And so Ruth Brown and I got to talk because he put her on the phone and I told her, you know, I, I remember you, you know, when, when Mama, he treats your daughter mean was, you know, was a big song for her.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  And she loved it. She absolutely loved that. Because I was, I was a little kid.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Wow. Okay, so.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  I'm wondering, aren't I? Um.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  No, because.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  I was thinking so those are the records.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  This is literally what our show is about. And I'm glad you mentioned, for the longest, I couldn't figure out the proper title. So whenever I, uh, whenever people ask me about my record collection, I never knew the, the proper title of those dealers were called One Stops. But, um, oftentimes, like when people ask, like, how do you collect so many records? I think they think that I go out and actually purchase like individual, like two hundred thousand records where now, you know, a lot of those owners of those one stops, um, either they're widow, widows, or, you know, or their family don't know what to do with them. So usually there's like thirty or forty thousand pieces lying around and then

• 14:46Speaker 00

  maybe a guy like me will purchase it if, if it seems interesting enough and that sort of thing. So.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  If you can get to them before the British come, because they, a lot of Brits come, come to America every year to, to, you know, get the, the great records, you know.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Japanese dealers, British people, like it, every place but the United States really treasures like, you know, I mean, there's some people in the United States, but for the most part.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  But that's also interesting. You know how we are with our treasures.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. We're, we're a disposable country. So, okay, so that makes a lot of sense to me because normally, uh, when our guests come on the show, the common denominator is that, um, a lot of guests on the show are, are DJs and that's how, at least the producers that we've had on the show. Um, so the fact that you've worked in a record store explains a lot of your, you know, of, of your illustrious range as far as like the world of jazz, the world of soul, the world of blues, like all the music that you sing.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Does it also mean that like your dad was a man? Because like, record store owners were the man in the streets, right? Like they had a lot of respect and access and whatnot?

• 16:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, the street that my dad's business was on, Auburn Avenue, was the, the seat uh, for that part of town of black business. In fact, okay, Gladys Knight's sponsor, Mr. Alexander, TM Alexander, was, um, was his, his, um, realty company, he and Mr. Calloway's realty company was right down the three doors down from, you know, from, from my dad's business. And, and I remember, you know, we knew from the inside that, that TM was Gladys Knight's sponsor. And I, I knew of her. And then I got to see her on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I remember the first time like we got a request for, for their record. Um, because I had to write it down, you know, it was Every Beat of My Heart. And on the, on the B side was Darling, which was only the, uh, Pips.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Hmm. Ah, okay. Okay.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. And Darling, Darling was just the, the Pips. And on the other side was Gladys Knight and the Pips. So, yeah, yeah. I, uh, but I didn't know that was part of the hierarchy that, you know, record company owners were the man.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  The man in the streets.

• 17:29Speaker 04

  Because there were businesses all the way down the street on, on Auburn Avenue.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  How, how long did, did he keep that business up? Like, was that a majority of your life or?

• 17:42Speaker 04

  I remember when I was twelve, that was when, when I ordered Darling. I must have been twelve then. And as a, then up, up to, to, uh, teenagehood, I performed at Big Bethel Baptist Church, which is, like I said, two blocks down from Wheat Street, uh, Baptist Church and, and one block down from Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was Dr. King's church. So.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  Did you ever get to see him in person?

• 18:15Speaker 04

  To see who?

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Dr. King.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah. In fact, my brother, Dr. King, my dad had a cab stand, you know, at, at, um, Big Bethel Baptist Church. And that's where you pay for slots for your cabs to, to sit. Uh, so that after church, after choir rehearsal, all those places, all those events, um, people can come out of the church and the cabs waiting, they're like, like they do at the airport.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  And, but Dr. King could park anywhere. And my brother, my brother used to, used to wait for him to park at, when he would park at, at, um, Big Bethel. And he would walk him down two blocks to Ebenezer. Because he was, you know, he was, now, he was the man. And I remember my brother was so thrilled because this was before, a couple of weeks before the March on Washington.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Hmm, okay.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  And, and my brother, I mean, he was literally shaking when he told us about the fact that Dr. King had told him where to meet them to, to be on the bus to go to the March on Washington. So, yeah, to answer your question.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Wow. You got to see him. That's incredible.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. After he, um, he passed away, I did numerous, uh, Mrs. King would call on me to do, to do numerous activities, singing, you know, on, on, um, ecumenical, uh, Sunday, uh, when they would, you know, honor him, uh, and to sing, you know, at, at the church, et cetera. Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  And she invited me to the second March on Washington.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers, producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of the group Chic. A great song has a way of defining a moment, a moment of joy, heartbreak, or anything in between. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, dropping in on some of the coolest, most fascinating artists working today. We'll go deep into their lives and careers and hear what it was like before the moment that made them. From hitmakers like Miguel.

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  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. Regardless of how everyone else buys into this, I believe in this and I'm gonna push.

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  To rising stars like Alex Warren.

• 20:59Speaker 05

  You know, a song is a story and the verse is setting the scene. And for me at least, it's allowing me to be personal and vulnerable with the audience, whether it's about my wife and I'm being vulnerable about her, or it's about, you know, my parents and I'm being vulnerable to them. And it's almost like a cinematic piece in a way where each song tells that beautiful story.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  It's gonna be one hell of a trip. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features and tech. Or test drive a spatial.

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  Behind every chart topping hit, you know by heart, there's an original writing it someplace where nobody was listening, some basement, some bedroom, somebody with headphones on at three in the morning, chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original, already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off tempo on purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first, not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth

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  telling. What's yours? Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Your vocal style, like you have a very, very rich, rich, rich tenor. Yes, you've can sing highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. Who was your inspiration as far as like your, your singing style? Who did you gravitate towards?

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Uh, oh, it was different periods of my life. And, you know, I was influenced by, by various and sundry singers and horn players and keyboard players. I remember seeing Aretha, she was traveling with her father Reverend C.L. Franklin. And she, they were at the city auditorium, which belongs to Georgia State now. And, and she, um, she sang a song called In A Land Where We'll Never Grow Old. And by then I was playing piano for church choirs. So I

• 23:58Speaker 04

  put that in my, in my repertoire and always remembered her for that song. And I've sung it at funerals from, like I said, from time I was an early teenager till, I guess, a couple of years ago, I sang it at a funeral as well.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  So you were just the go to person?

• 24:19Speaker 04

  I, I guess, but, but Atlanta was so full of wonderful singers. Whoa. Yeah. I was just one among so many extremely talented for.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Were, were you at all somewhat hobnobbing or crossing paths with any other future legends that we might have know of, known of at that time period?

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Well, let's see, but you never think of it that way.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Or who started out? That's what I was just thinking. Like when you were in Atlanta, who, who were the singers in Atlanta?

• 24:57Speaker 04

  Well, there were lots of blues singers. Okay. The Tams, as we stroll along together.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  The Times.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 25:06Speaker 04

  Oh, that's the times. But Atlanta.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  That's my uncle.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  What?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Love.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  What?

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Billy, Billy Jackson.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Amir.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Billy Jackson, who produced that song. Uh, that's one, that's one of my uncles.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  Last date I did with, with where Billy Paul performed, um, it was in, in London. Uh, the times were on there.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 25:29Speaker 04

  And, but I think the Tams were an Atlanta group, but I, I gave them the wrong song.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  The times of Philadelphia.

• 25:37Speaker 04

  Okay. The times of Philadelphia. And what kind of fool do you think I am? Yeah, yeah, that's them. Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  Okay. But for you though, like, when did you, was it a thing where you just out the womb singing or like what, what, how old were you when you made the decision that this was going to be your profession? This was going to be your, your calling?

• 26:05Speaker 04

  You know, I guess I never really made that kind of decision because I do, I did sing. My mother said before, before I could remember, I remember vaguely some of the little concerts I did for folks that would visit us, you know, relatives and stuff. Uh, and I remember uh, being in the church choir and, and singing solo before the church choir. Uh, but I never made a decision. It was, I guess it was.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Cause even in college, even in college, right? Like even in college, you were, you were singing.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  It was made, the decision was made for me because I got scholarships, you know, for music scholarships and academic scholarship. The school that I chose, Morris Brown, I got a scholarship for academics and I got one of vocals scholarship, a music scholarship. So I was going to be doing that for the rest of my life, whether I knew it or not. I never made a, a decision. Um, I think it was just God.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  I, I hear another thing that we have in common that, uh, you and I would have been former Juilliard students, but.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  We had a different calling. So what was your decision to not go to Juilliard?

• 27:29Speaker 04

  I fell in love with Doug Carn and we eloped to Hollywood and got married. And that's when we.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  How old you guys when y'all did that?

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Uh, 20.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Oof. Young.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Well, no, we were just, we, no, we were late teens, but we started the family, you know, I was 20.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  So you had that, that kind of fate as well?

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, I was, uh, at least my dad planned on me going to either Juilliard or Curtis. He, he wanted me to be in classical music because he thought that was.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  That's what my folks thought.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  A respectable, a respectable art form, like.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. Cause I, I sang classically, you know, all the major arias and stuff, you know, the Messiah and seven last words and, and, and so it was, it was understood that I would probably teach music in a college.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  What is this Russian thing? I'm sorry. I know that's in there too. I, I did not know this about you that you also, that started early on when you were younger too, the Russian singing?

• 28:41Speaker 04

  I, um, we were on a, in, in high school, we were on a, in a special experimental program of, program of study, uh, in high school and our foreign language was Russian. So I, um, I took Russian all during high school. Then when I went to Morris Brown, that was the first year they had a Russian course. So I, I did three years in high school and then uh, two years in, at Morris Brown. So.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  And you speak it proficiently.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  For me too. I used to.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Same.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  You do, Amir, you speak Russian proficiently?

• 29:24Speaker 00

  In the first grade.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Only thing I remember now is.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Uh, you gotta respond Amir. Okay. Okay. What she, what did she say Amir? What she saying?

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Oh dude, that, that was 45 years ago. I, the type of school I went to, we learned four or five languages. We had to know, like from first to fourth grade, I was fluent in French, Russian, Spanish, Latin, English, and Ebonics.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  Oh, that's, that's hot. Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  That's a good answer. Uh, yes, it is hot. Yes. That, yeah. I'm just fascinated. I'm like, most people take Spanish and French their whole life. They still not proficient. Y'all take it for three, four, five years and it's like.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I got, got a little proficiency in some languages because when, when I perform in, you know, in France or in Spain or, or elsewhere, I would get, get, I had Berlitz books and cassettes. And I would learn to, you know, to talk to the audience, introduce songs, uh, through, through my, my books and my cassette tapes. So that, um, in fact, my, my second husband thought I was fluent in Spanish and Russian and, and, and, and, um, French and, and he, in fact, he's told people I was fluent in those other languages, but

• 30:54Speaker 04

  I could just, you know, I could order food. I could introduce my songs. I could ask for directions. Cause I, I didn't want to be anywhere where I was that compromised. So I always learned proficient, you know, just travel, travel French or travel Spanish.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  So you were always prepared?

• 31:16Speaker 04

  I tried to be. Yeah. Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 00

  In, in your high school years or, you know, did you have any sort of dalliances at all with like pop music or just modern soul music at all?

• 31:31Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I loved, I loved R and B. In fact, I just found out yesterday from Liah, that LeAndres was your father?

• 31:44Speaker 00

  That, yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's my dad. That's my dad. Actually, here, here's, here's, here's a, a minor fun fact. We're jumping way into the timeline, but, um.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  You know, I, I, he basically ushered me into show business because, you know, by 12, I became his bandleader. But um, I'll say that my very first professional gig, non nepotism, you.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Gene Carne?

• 32:20Speaker 00

  Wow. So you had, you had a musical director named Donald Dumson.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Donald was, was a sort of a prodigy.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  Cause he could, yeah, cause when we do places like, like Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, I could throw in an aria because Donald was proficient at, you know, he knew all the arias. In fact, I remember when Pavarotti came to Philadelphia, Donald was the pianist that he asked for.

• 32:52Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. Donald Dumson was, still is the man.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Mr. Dumson, absolutely. I was gonna say, and so I went to the high school creative and performing arts. Now, the thing is, when I, when I thought about it this morning, that is highly, that's a highly unusual request. Like, I'm trying to figure out, I mean, I, I get, I get miffed when my band asks of me to like, let an established artist spit a hot 16 or 24 over, you know what I mean? Like, blah, blah, blah's in the audience,

• 33:35Speaker 00

  let, let him get on the microphone. And yet, all I remember was, uh, that Mr. Dumson was going to have three of his choir students and me, and I think at the time, it was supposed to be me and Kristen McBride, but I think Kristen couldn't make it, so only I could drum. And we were gonna be like, special guests. We were, you, you did a, I think we had to play Free by Denise Williams.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  And we backed you up. And I was thinking like, how, that must have been an unusual request, because I'm trying to figure out, like, how did he, how did he even make that happen? Like, yo, okay, uh, Ms. Carne, I got, you know, students at my high school, da, da, da, da. We're doing this gig. Can they come up and sing a song with you? Like, you didn't have to say yes, and yet you did.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  I always welcome anybody on my mic.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  See, I feel bad, because even, even established rappers, I won't let them on my stage.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  But she's a natural born educator, too.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  That's personal, then. That's personal.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  I get it. I get it.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  Touche. But Donald did the same thing with Boys to Men.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. Actually, at the time, Mark Nelson was one of the three. Uh, Tamika Patton, who at the time, um, like, Tamika Patton was, was, you know, she's the, not was, still amazing singer, gospel singer. Um, I believe that at the time, she just signed to Manhattan Records when it was on Capitol. And then, uh,

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Wow, yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Mark, Mark Nelson, who was still in Boys to Men at the time, um, was the second singer. And, uh, I believe Verdine Brown, who's like gospel legend singer extraordinaire, like, she was the, the third singer. But I remember you, you had a van, you picked us up from school. We've been rehearsing Free all day.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  Why is she picking you up from school? Why is Gene Carne picking?

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Do, do you know whose car that was?

• 35:52Speaker 00

  That van? Who, whose van was it?

• 35:53Speaker 03

  It wasn't a van.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  It was red, wasn't it?

• 35:57Speaker 00

  It was, I believe it was a red, yes. It was a red van, yes.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  That was Deanna Williams' car.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Wow. That's crazy.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Now, didn't I hear Deanna say that you used to be her assistant or her?

• 36:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. I was her intern at, at I Am. Yep. Absolutely.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  That's where we met. Uh, Gene, we met at I Am. That's where I met him. Yeah, I Am.

• 36:25Speaker 04

  Oh, that's wonderful.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  I want to thank you for making that the most normal way of you telling that story, because.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did. I wasn't, I just left it there. I left it there.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  Thank you. Anyway.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  That's darling. Range for life.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  Yes. Absolutely. But, um, no, I, I want to thank you for that. Like, I've only, I could say, you know, you were, you were my first gig. Uh, Phyllis Hyman was my second, and I think, I forget what my last gig was before I got a record deal. But you were definitely very encouraging, very nurturing. It was easy.

• 37:01Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Phyllis was hard on us, though. Phyllis was hard on us.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  You, you were lucky to be alive.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  Yo, I, I gotta, I'm serious.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  Phyllis was not fuzzy.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  I'll, I'll be honest with you. Um, you know, at that time, I think, back when I was following my dad's path for me, you know, okay, I'm, I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna go to Juilliard, like, in his mind, he wanted me to be somewhere between, like, the next Bernard Purdy, like, the, the, the in-demand session drummer, and.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Pretty, pretty, pretty.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Pretty, pretty. Yeah. And basically, uh, in his mind, like, you know, if I, if I get a job, uh, with an orchestra, like, if you're, if you're good, then you can easily, you know, you could make six figures a year, you know? You could work your way up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. I mean, like, I met to him, I was like.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  True. And now I'm washing lettuce. Right.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  I was like, talk. I'm trying to make that a night. Like, not a, not a, not a year. Yeah. So, first of all, was your work with, uh, your former husband, Doug, was that your, your first foray into, like, the professional singing world, or were you recording before that, or?

• 38:32Speaker 04

  That was my second, um, foray, if you will. Um, cause, okay, after Doug and I, when we eloped, we ended up in Hollywood in the same building, well, complex, it was an apartment hotel complex, as Earth, Wind & Fire. They had come from Chicago. They made that sojourn west, and we all lived in the same, in the same apartment hotel complex. And everything surrounded the pool. Uh, it was hotel, or it was apartment. You

• 39:10Speaker 04

  could stay for a day, you could stay for a year. Uh, you had maid service, and, uh, the, um, residence manager, the guy's front desk, had been on, on, uh, gunsmoke. So, most of the folks he let in there were entertainers.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Right. Okay.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I met everybody from Reverend Ike to, in fact, I, he, uh, I, I subbed for his, his piano organist. He came to Atlanta. I was, I was, I was a teenager then. And I, I subbed for his, his organist pianist when he came to Atlanta. You know, they had those, those tent things.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  The revival?

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Those revival, tent revivals.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Can you explain to our listeners who Reverend Ike was? Because right about now, there's like.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Yo, straight up, straight up.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  Okay, so there, there are, right now, the only connection to Reverend Ike that most New Yorkers have is he, his former church is still way up in the Heights, like, right before the Bronx. And so, whenever a venue like Radio City Music Hall is out of commission, uh, then you're gonna have to go to what was formerly known as Reverend Ike's church, which is like this large sprawling building that can hold about maybe seven to eight thousand people. So it was kind of weird, like, there was a point where Radio City Music Hall was shut down for like, two months. So, like, in order to see, like, Adele or

• 40:48Speaker 00

  Bonnie Fair, like, you would have to go to the Bronx or to the Heights to go see them at Reverend Ike's former church. And people, you know, some of those photos are still up, so I would just listen to comments of them trying to figure out, like, wait, are we in a black church? Like, what?

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Why are we seeing, like, a rock show there? But can you explain who Reverend Ike was to those that don't know?

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Well, he was an evangelist. Um, and his, his philosophy was prosperity, a prosperity philosophy. And he traveled all over the country, uh, doing his, his, um, crusades, if you will, usually in, in, in a big, you know, in a big covered tent style, or sometimes they did them in large auditoriums. And I, you know, everybody knew his name, because he was just very flamboyant. In fact, he lived at our, for a good part of a week in our complex. And so, everybody got to see him with, you know, he would come out

• 41:56Speaker 04

  with his guards, you know, and you have to walk the length of the pool to get to the front, to the front office to go outside.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  He was a star. He was an oddity, if you will. Cause he, you know, he had full length mean coats and stuff and, and bodyguards and stuff.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  Was he a pimp though?

• 42:18Speaker 07

  I mean, I picture, I picture Daddy Rich, Richard Pryor.

• 42:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's in my mind.

• 42:23Speaker 04

  On a, on a, on a mega church level.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Is that a real question, Amir? Was that a real question that you?

• 42:29Speaker 07

  Was he a pimp?

• 42:30Speaker 03

  Was it, that a real question?

• 42:32Speaker 00

  Well, I meant, cause when I see photos of Reverend Ike, like his hair was laid back.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  You know, he was.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  He had a fried died and laid to the side. And, and he was very flamboyant.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  You were saying that your work with, with Doug was your second foray. What was your first as far as recording?

• 42:52Speaker 04

  Okay. Uh, Doug and I were, our whole philosophy was to, to put lyrics to a lot of our favorite jazz classics.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  Vocalise.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, yeah. Cause I knew all the melodies. I knew the intros. I knew the heads of songs. And, uh, you know, staying with the, you know, with the horns. These are our records, you know, at home. So we put lyrics to those, to those classics, um, acknowledgement of love supreme.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  Would you study the solos as well?

• 43:30Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, I did the solos note for note for note. Um, Wayne Shorter, who just passed away, Envenised, was the title tune of our first album.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Um, Horace Filbert, Peace. We put lyrics to Peace. Um, in fact, Horace put lyrics to Peace and Doug took it before we moved to New York. Doug took our version, went to New York to show Horace, you know, what we had done with it. Cause he liked to get permission. Um, Andy Bay did the lyrics.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  On, on Horace Silver's version of Peace.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  I was going to ask you, when, when you do that, do you have, cause I've heard like, uh, like Eddie Jefferson might have a version of a particular song and then like John Hendrix might have his version of a particular song. So.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  And Ross, yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 00

  Right. So is like, once lyrics get applied to a song, are those the definitive lyrics or is there just a world, is there a rule in jazz that a vocalise artist can add their interpretations of what they think that song should be lyrically at least?

• 44:43Speaker 04

  Well, I don't, I don't know what the, what the rule is, but I know on the credits, um, Doug's name was added as, you know, as writer. So I, I don't know what the rules are, but he wanted to give the, um, Lee Morgan. He was gonna, we put lyrics to Search for the New Land.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Hmm. Okay.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  This is this album with this beautiful Afro with you and Doug and Jeannie. Is this the?

• 45:14Speaker 04

  You know, we took that picture. Oh, no, not the, not the one with Jeannie, but there was one of the, it was a promo picture. I don't think it was an album cover, a promo picture we took. Uh, we took in a, in a, uh, Japanese garden and it was in Philly. I'd love to know where that.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Oh, in Fairmont Park. Maybe it was in Fairmont Park at the Japanese house. They have a whole thing.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  Maybe Doug is ready to fly to, to New York. Lee Morgan was performing at Slugs. This small jazz club in the village that had peanut shells on the floor. It was famous for that.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  And that was the week that Lee Morgan's wife.

• 46:00Speaker 00

  His wife.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  That's, that's what I was about to say. Slugs. Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Blew him away.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  We don't mean jazz.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  You gotta watch that documentary.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Please, also cause my daddy in it. Yes, yes, yes.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  Oh, cool.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. I know if you notice that, yep. He's in it. He's, he has one of the only people who took a photo of Helen. Helen called him.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  Wait, your dad's in it?

• 46:22Speaker 03

  My dad's in the documentary. He has his photo and he, he is commentating in it because when Helen went to jail, she called him.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Wow. Because the whole story about Helen Morgan is she didn't stay in jail for too long, even though she killed a man in front of a bunch of people.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  She sure had witnesses. Yeah.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  Yes, she did. Yes, she did.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  Cause I think Leon Thomas was singing on that gig. Um, you know, Creator has a master plan.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Yes, ma'am. That's her.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. Cause he did that with.

• 46:49Speaker 07

  He would do the yodel thing. He would do the yodeling.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. And you know, he said he learned that yodeling from listening to recordings of pygmy rich African pygmy rituals.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  What?

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Really?

• 47:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what Leon told me.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  I've never heard us get credited for yodeling. I've never heard black people get credited for yodeling.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  But the yodeling that Leon.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Banjo yodeling?

• 47:14Speaker 04

  It wasn't, it wasn't in the mountains in West Virginia yodeling. It was, it was this yodeling where at times it sounded like he was singing two notes, like, like Leila Hathaway can do.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Leila Hathaway.

• 47:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So his was not your, your.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Typical.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  West Virginia yodeling.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Under no circumstances. Yeah. It was almost, it was mystical.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers, producer, songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of the group Chic. A great song has a way of defining a moment, a moment of joy, heartbreak, or anything in between.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  This fall, I'll be driving across the country, dropping in on some of the coolest, most fascinating artists working today. We'll go deep into their lives and careers and hear what it was like before the moment that made them. From hit makers like Miguel.

• 48:17Speaker 06

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. Regardless of how everyone else buys into this, I believe in this and I'm gonna push.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  To rising stars like Alex Warren. You know, a song is a story and the verse is setting the scene. And for me at least, it's allowing me to be personal and vulnerable with the audience, whether it's about my wife and I'm being vulnerable about her, or it's about, you know, my parents and I'm being vulnerable to them. And it's almost like a cinematic piece in a way where each song tells that beautiful story. It's gonna be one hell of a trip. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:02Speaker 05

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• 49:41Speaker 00

  Behind every chart topping hit, you know by heart, there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening, some basement, some bedroom, somebody with headphones on at three in the morning, chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off tempo. On purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there. Living stories worth telling.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  What's yours? Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  So at the time that you moved to Hollywood, you know, what are your impressions? You mentioned Earth, Wind and Fire. I assume that this is the time that they also were working on, um, Sweet, Sweet Beck's.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  Their first album.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  That, or their very first, after Sweet, Sweet Beck or that when they signed to Columbia?

• 50:51Speaker 04

  This was, this was before Sweetback, uh, cause their first album, they won Warner Brothers.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  For their first two albums, The Need of Love and Earth, Wind and Fire.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  Um, and one day I was rehearsing lyrics that Doug and I had put to infomise to one of the, one of the tunes on, maybe it was, I don't remember which song, but Maurice knocked on the door. Uh, we lived upstairs and everybody had a patio. Uh, and you know, you never close, you know, close your sliding glass doors. And so Maurice introduced himself. Uh, cause this dad never recorded either.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  He introduced himself and he said, I heard the voice of an angel and I followed it up the stairs. And then he introduced himself, you know, to me.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 51:49Speaker 04

  And he came back after Doug got home. I told him, you gotta, you gotta meet, you know, meet my husband. And it was that meeting that made Maurice invite both me and Doug to record on their first two albums. At Sunset Sound. That was the first studio I've ever recorded in, cause that was the only one I knew about. Doug had done an album on Savoy when he was a teenager, an organ album. On Savoy Records when he was a teenager, but I'd never recorded before. Except there was, okay, there was an album that Morris Brown did of our choir. It's called Oh Clap Your Hands. And I would love to have a copy of, you know, it was a thirty-three.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  And it was called Oh Clap Your Hands. I, I, if anybody out there has, you know, has a copy or just, just.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  I'm already on it. I got you.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. That would, that would complete my life, I think, you know, if I could get a copy.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  Gene Brown, I'm coming to you, bro.

• 52:54Speaker 00

  Gene Brown can find anything. Yes.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  Okay, but that's what why Doug and I ended up recording Infiniti in in Cali, you know, in Hollywood at Sunset Sounds, because that was the the studio at the time.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 53:11Speaker 04

  That's where Maurice did those two albums.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Did you guys own the Black Jazz label or?

• 53:18Speaker 04

  I've read that that Doug was president of Black Jazz Records. Um, Gene Russell.

• 53:25Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  A musician himself, uh, started that label. And, um, Doug was approached by Gene to for us to, you know, for us to come and sign with them. Yes, he was the head of of Black Jazz Records and Black Jazz Records was a a division of Ovation Records. Dick Shory out of Chicago was the head of the parent company, Ovation Records. And Black Jazz was a, you know, a custom label. So Doug never, never owned it.

• 54:06Speaker 04

  And, um, I ended up not signing with them because Russell offered both of us a contract. But, um, but Doug thought, well, let's see how he treats him. Because the like, the first album, I think on subsequent pressings, they put my name on it, but it was just Doug Corin. Infiniti.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:29Speaker 04

  Uh, and subsequent pressings, they, uh, featuring the voice of Gene Corin.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. And Doug said, well, let's see how he treats me. And then, you know, if this first record, you know, works, okay, then, you know, then I would, I would sign, but.

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 54:47Speaker 04

  We, you know, we broke up and got divorced and stuff like that. So, uh, but we did, we did three albums and then Doug did a a compilation like after, after I left the group. Um, when I went with, because I went with Norman Connors. Performance wise and and I produced the vocals on all of his, all of his his albums.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Yes, you did.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  I got to work with and vocal coach Phyllis, because Phyllis used so many of my my musicians. It was, it was so cool, you know, it was, she didn't even have to ask after a while, you know, my horn players. She, she just loved, loved my musicians and I I got to work with her vocally. And she said, Amir, you'll appreciate this. She said that she had no lower register.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  What?

• 55:44Speaker 04

  Until she heard Infiniti. She said that let her know she had to develop a, and she did it on her own. She developed this lower register on her own. Yeah, she said, because there there's a line in in Infiniti. And always keep them in your heart for love, for love will teach you to care, et cetera, et cetera. And she said, that line from Infiniti was her inspiration and her incentive to develop a lower register.

• 56:22Speaker 04

  And she really, she did a great job because I worked with, you know, with her on all of the albums that Norman Connors produced on her. And and the ones that she sang on, uh, the songs that she sang on on Norman's albums.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 56:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:38Speaker 00

  You know, when I, when when we had those records, I was five, six years old. Um, so naturally I thought Norman Connors was the singer, not knowing like Michael Henderson and all those people.

• 56:49Speaker 04

  Everybody did, everybody.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  However, I got to ask you now.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Were you there for the, uh, So Much Love sessions?

• 57:00Speaker 04

  I think I know which song you're talking about.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  Uh, so, all right, so there's, so one thing you're going to know about me is while people are into the hits, I'm a guy that's into the filler. Yeah, I'm a album cut filler guy and so so much love is, uh, basically, it's like buried at the end of side two on You Are My Starship, but it's basically him doing a drum solo. But he's also singing and kind of quasi yodeling.

• 57:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  It wasn't my dad's favorite song, but, you know, I was a drummer back then, so I used to always play it. My dad was like, it was to the point where it was like, Amir, no, no much love, like no more, that song, I can't take it no more.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  But.

• 57:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, so you gotta, you researched this. We did a cover of My My Love.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  You make me feel brand new.

• 58:00Speaker 04

  You make me feel brand new. Yes.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 04

  Uh, um, uh, what's her name? Um, Eleanor Mills. She was Stephanie's sister in law.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 58:11Speaker 04

  Fabulous singer, fabulous singer. She did the, she was, you know, slated to do the vocals on the song. Norman insisted on singing that first line, that first little section. Uh, until till the only you, I guess that's a bridge.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:33Speaker 04

  Maybe that's a bridge.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  The second part, Russell's, Russell's part, right.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  Exactly where Russell comes in and you gotta listen to that. And you'll, now, your dad didn't want you to listen to So Much Love, right? Or you, yeah, because your dad was saying that wasn't up to par for him, right?

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Right, exactly.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  Your dad, well, of course, your dad was visionary. So if you find that that tune, uh, Norman's cover of that tune.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  I'm ready for it.

• 59:11Speaker 04

  I thought he was just joking. Um, because it was like, I'm gonna, you know, who are we going to get to sing, you know, that first line? Pitchy is being kind. Okay.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  Okay, it was comparable and and I love Quincy because first thing he told me when Stevie introduced me to to to, um, Quincy.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Quincy said, uh, we we were recording down the street from each other. Stevie came to see me in the studio and we walked down the street and Quincy was recording. This was in Burbank, maybe.

• 59:54Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 59:55Speaker 04

  It was in Cali and the first thing Quincy said to me was, our birthdays are a day apart. And I said, oh, you, so you're there by the Ides of March because mine is March 15th. And his was the 14th. Why, thank you, thank you. Laia insisted that I keep celebrating for the whole month and I'm doing just that.

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  Yes, man.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Should be the year, but you know.

• 1:00:22Speaker 04

  Hey, why not? Why not? Yeah, yeah. Quincy did a section on a song that he produced on somebody. And he and Norman were comparable to to each other delivering a vocal.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  You you gotta find, you make me feel brand.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Oh, I will look for it. I will still look for it. You know what?

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  It's not.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  It's it's just hitting me now that you mentioned your relationship to Maurice was the earth, wind and fire connection. The reason why it just hit me. For the first week I spent in, when I moved to London, uh, there's a DJ named Giles Peterson. He played me.

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  One of my favorite folks, one of my favorite.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  He he's responsible for us getting a record deal, The Roots getting a record deal. Um, uh, you guys do a cover of Mighty Mighty, I think on the the Higher Ground album. But a really hip jazz version of it.

• 1:01:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  Mm, mm, mm.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was the album that it had some some of the stuff that was in the can. And Doug did all of that by himself after I left, you know, the group. And he he found a ringer singer, uh, her name's Joyce Green. That was her doing the the newer songs on on the, um, at Adam's Apple.

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. But that's you on, uh, Revelation, correct?

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  Oh, definitely. Like I said, some of the songs he took off of the previous albums.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Previous three albums, yeah.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, time, yeah, Time Time Is Running Out is one of my all time favorite songs. I love this song to death.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  I just really wish we could play music on this podcast. I, man.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  I'm like trying to keep up, like I'm hitting the app, I'm hitting mute and listening. Oh, shout out to everybody that's listening. You know, just hit pause when you need to.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Get these records. Yeah, sorry.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  Next, we're going to have to do playlists specifically for all the songs. All the songs you've mentioned. So at the time, and considering you a serious jazz singer or a serious singer. I'm left with, I'm left under the impression that like serious jazz musicians try to make it happen in New York. And New York sort of looks at LA as sort of like a joke when it comes to serious jazz musicianship. I mean, Crusaders aside or whatever, but I know that the East Coast has a very snobby, and you know, it's that way with hip hop as well, like we're more intellectual, more, you know, strategic with our work. But I mean, for you.

• 1:03:07Speaker 00

  Getting to Hollywood, did you feel like, alright, I can make this work? Like, what were your goals? Was your goal to just be like the next Sarah Vaughan? Or were you like, no, I want to be on the top of the charts? Or what was your personal goals? Singing?

• 1:03:25Speaker 04

  I just like to be challenged. I just like to, you know, to sing horn lines and duel with a piano and stuff. So I never, I never had a, had a path or anything. Cause, cause on, on the Earth, Wind & Fire stuff, I did the high, high stuff. Cause that was before Philip. And before, um.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Jessica Cleves?

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  Jessica Cleves. And you know, Patty and I decided, I guess it was one day at dinner, we were saying, we're gonna produce Jessica Cleves. Cause she had the most beautiful voice on the planet. And so Patty and I said, yeah, we're gonna produce Jessica Cleves. And the whole dream just went down the drain because I understand she, um, she was married to or partners with a, with a drug dealer. And that, and she, you know, she inspired, expired behind that. But she was the first high singer for Earth, Wind & Fire.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  Because Jim Brown, you know, the football guy managed Earth, Wind & Fire.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh wow.

• 1:04:45Speaker 04

  And he managed Friends of Distinction. So he took Jessica out of Friends of Distinction and put her in, in, um, Earth, Wind & Fire. Songs like Keep Your Head to the Sky and stuff. That was right up Maurice's alley, you know, the spirituality. In fact, he, um, showed me what all the symbols were on all their literature, album covers, on the sleeves, everywhere. And there must've been maybe a dozen of them. He said, well, everybody knows, you know, knows the interpretation of these, but there were four. He said, now these four, just you and I know.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  And he said, and we'll talk about these in Nirvana.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  When I get there, we're gonna have a big discussion.

• 1:05:39Speaker 03

  Wow, that's.

• 1:05:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers, producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of the group Sheik. A great song has a way of defining a moment. A moment of joy, heartbreak, or anything in between.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  This fall, I'll be driving across the country, dropping in on some of the coolest, most fascinating artists working today. We'll go deep into their lives and careers and hear what it was like before the moment that made them. From hitmakers like Miguel.

• 1:06:19Speaker 06

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. Regardless of how everyone else buys into this. I believe in this and I'm gonna push.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  To rising stars like Alex Warren. You know, a song is a story and the verse is setting the scene. And for me at least, it's allowing me to be personal and vulnerable with the audience. Whether it's about my wife and I'm being vulnerable about her, or it's about, you know, my parents and I'm being vulnerable to them. And it's almost like a cinematic piece in a way where each song tells that beautiful story. It's gonna be one hell of a trip. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:07:04Speaker 07

  Hey, it's Lunchbox from the Bobby Bones Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla Sedan with the latest features in tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or an adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in. Get a deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Some basement, some bedroom, somebody with headphones on at three in the morning, chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off-tempo, on purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth telling. What's yours?

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 1:08:34Speaker 00

  Can you tell me about the transition to you becoming your own artist? Where you're not working with Doug anymore and you're on your own? Can you talk about the process that led you to start your solo career?

• 1:08:48Speaker 04

  Oh, okay, um, well, after the Revelation album, we, we moved to, we moved to New York because we were getting offers for performances there. So we moved to New York and Doug and I were working at the Village Vanguard. And Norman had just left Pharaoh, Pharaoh Saunders. And he was starting his own, his own group. He had his promo pictures, you know, and he came in, in the Vanguard. And I remember he gave me a picture and, um, he said, I'm starting my own group, you know?

• 1:09:33Speaker 04

  After I, um, I was totally through, you know, with Doug's situation. Cause we split in, in New York. Uh, I was trying to decide, I wasn't ready to go solo per se. I worked, I did a, I did a short tour with Doug Ellington. And I wrote down.

• 1:09:57Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  Three, he was looking for a high soprano for what became his, his last spiritual concert.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  A friend of mine and I sat down and we were trying to decide who I wanted to go with. Okay, the choices were Thad Jones and Mel Lewis Big Band.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  Rasan Roland Kirk.

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  Oh wow.

• 1:10:22Speaker 04

  And Norman Connors. So, and I got in touch with, with all of them. I think Thad and Mel were going to Russia, somewhere in Europe, like in a week or two weeks. I didn't even have a passport at, at the time. And there was so much material.

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

  Didn't think I could do it justice, so crossed them off. Um, and then Rasan and, and Dorothy, his wife, were good friends of mine and Doug's. So I wondered if, you know, you know how when a couple breaks up.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Ah, it's a team.

• 1:11:07Speaker 04

  Who from the.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  Who gets the, who wants the kids?

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, who gets the friends, you know?

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  So I said, I don't know, you know? But Dorothy and I are still friends. She, she's amazing. So Norman, Norman got it by default.

• 1:11:25Speaker 00

  Wise choice.

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  I, I agree, I agree. Yeah, yeah, cause, cause for vocals, you know, he became totally dependent on, on me to, what voice train them if need be and take them in and, and do. He would have the tracks done. McKinley Jackson did most of the arrangements. And he, sometimes he would even ask if they could sound like thus and so. Can you make, can you make him sound like, like?

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  And he wanted me to, to make Eleanor Mills sound like me. Yeah, so.

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  So he would want you to morph? Or he would leave it up to you to decide the, the vocal direction of, of each artist?

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, cause he would have the tracks done. Uh, and he would tell me who, who the singer was gonna be. And like, like you do in instrumental arrangement. You know, you know, your ranges and your transpositions for your various instruments. I would become familiar with the singer and know, you know, what to do with them melodically.

• 1:12:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:42Speaker 04

  And a lot of the backgrounds and stuff I did anyway, because it was hard to find singers, you know, to, to blend and all that jazz. So you just stack it, you know? And I learned stacking. In fact, Maurice White called it molting. Cause they were just starting to overdub.

• 1:13:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, multi-track.

• 1:13:01Speaker 04

  And, you know, when they, yeah, when they did, when they did the first two albums, the two albums I recorded on. So yeah, yeah. And I got to work with some wonderful folks, you know, Glenn Jones and, and Phyllis and, and, and gosh, so, so many, and Michael, Michael.

• 1:13:22Speaker 00

  Michael Anderson.

• 1:13:22Speaker 04

  Michael, yeah, at rehearsal, he'll tell, because I've done numerous dates with him. Uh, and he would tell the, the musicians, he'd say, yeah, you gotta listen to Miss Karen, because she taught me.

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  Alright.

• 1:13:36Speaker 04

  So funny. Yeah, so that, that was a good period. That was, that was just a period of growth for me.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  You've mentioned this twice, but I just really need to know about how a session goes with Phyllis Hyman and how she takes direction and how, what does that collaboration feel like?

• 1:13:54Speaker 04

  She gave everybody what for, except me. She wouldn't even curse around me. And I never, I never asked for that. But, but I think, and I'm so grateful, because, because I, you know, I, I, I just couldn't have, you know, that would've been it. We wouldn't have been friends, you know?

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:18Speaker 04

  Cause she, she could talk like a, like a platoon of soldiers.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  She was tough.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  Very, very tough.

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  But I have a feeling you didn't, you didn't have too much conflict, though. I feel like you were that woman.

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  No, we never did. We never did.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Period, though. Like, you were the person I feel like that people went to that it was, it was never a beef with Gene Carn. Like, you're beefing with Gene Carn? How?

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:14:43Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't beef.

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  That's good to know. Hey, I have a question. So, you know, this, this is sort of a paradigm shift for you. Well, at least in the world of jazz, especially in the mid seventies. And what you're seeing a lot of, quote, serious jazz musicians. Transfer to more adult contemporary sounds or that sort of thing. I mean, for Norman Connors to come from the world of Pharoah Sanders and whatnot. And then start making pop hits. You know, was there any trepidation whatsoever in terms of like?

• 1:15:25Speaker 00

  Hey, we're sick. Cause I always, you know, when you, when you see the Motown story, you hear like the Funk Brothers. Talk about like, ah, man, we're serious jazz cats and, you know, we, we gotta play this like pop music to pay our bills. And even with, um, James Brown's cats, like those, those guys thought that, no, we're serious jazz musicians and, you know, the bosses pays us good money, but on the side, we're doing jazz. So for you, was there any trepidation whatsoever? Or was it just a natural move? Like, okay, it's, it's time to to move to the middle, at least left to center and see what we can do?

• 1:16:01Speaker 04

  Uh, no trepidation at all because I, since, since I was a little girl, my dad loved the big bands.

• 1:16:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:16:09Speaker 04

  So if there were, if there was a big band anywhere within a hundred miles of Atlanta. My dad, my brother and I, we get in the car and we find that concert. So I loved, you know, and he took, my dad was from New Orleans. So so jazz, you know, preservation jazz was, you know, was a, a mainstay where he was concerned. He played a little piano by ear and stuff. And so it was, it was all, it, there were no lines of demarcation with me for styles. Styles of music or genres. And with Norman needing, going from a

• 1:16:54Speaker 04

  from Pharoah to, to pop, as you call it. It was, that was during the, the fusion era. You know, uh, Roy Ayers was doing fusion. They, they were the godfathers of fusion. So it, it was, it was just more growth and more stretching for me. It was, it was delightful. Cause I never liked being him then.

• 1:17:22Speaker 00

  So was it new to suddenly hear yourself on, on radio? Was that like a thrilling moment or was it just a shrug? Like, eh, whatever?

• 1:17:32Speaker 04

  Oh, no, it's, it's always thrilling. Yeah, yeah. I never listened to my product. I still don't listen to my product. Um, but I loved it when they played it. Cause and when you listen to your own stuff, do you proof listen?

• 1:17:48Speaker 00

  Only when it's time to make the next record, I will do a deep dive and like binge listen, but I, I don't listen to my music just like. Hmm, like.

• 1:17:58Speaker 04

  Just sit down and for relaxation, right? You don't do that, right?

• 1:18:02Speaker 00

  Nah, not really.

• 1:18:04Speaker 04

  Me neither. Me neither. Cause, cause I'm proofing, you know, saying, oh, I should have done this. I should have, you know, I should have put three more background, you know, stacked three more backgrounds. And cause one on my Motown album. Was it Motown album? Yeah, yeah. I did a, um, this, this tune written by Reverend Oliver Wells. Uh, he wrote a spiritual tune for Earth, Wind and Fire. They took him on a couple of tours. Um, and I did thirty voices. I had the engineer to bring in choir risers. And, and I would imitate.

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  You stood at each?

• 1:18:50Speaker 04

  Sopranos, altos, yeah.

• 1:18:52Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  I did my own bass. Yeah, yeah. And I did some of the voices of, of the elderly ladies. You know, that wore the hats every Sunday, who had the big wavy vibrato, the ah, ah, vibrato. I just remembered back, you know, and, and the engineer said, this will not work. Because you're going to sound like thirty versions of yourself. And I said, no, I have references all the way from my, from twelve years old. To put, you know, to put down.

• 1:19:28Speaker 00

  Singing a character.

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:31Speaker 03

  Which song is this? See, see?

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  Uh, this, what, it wasn't on the Motown album, come to think of it. It was I, it's never been released. Okay. It was a project that I did. It was a version of Lift Every Voice and Sing. That I did as a fundraiser for the Apex Museum. Which is on Auburn Avenue. Down, well, it was technically across the street from where my father's business was. And a block and two blocks from, from Ebenezer Baptist. Um, and I, I did that for them. It was, it was, uh, forty-five when I did it. Cause I think I did it in eighty something. And then I

• 1:20:17Speaker 04

  went back to the studio and digitally remastered it. Uh, yeah, it was a, it, no, it's a set first. And then we did it as a, as a CD. Um, and, uh, it was uh, Lift Every Voice and Sing. And Julian Bond did a soliloquy on the flip side. Talking about James Weldon Johnson and his brother. Uh, Rosemon Johnson, who wrote the song. That's where I had the, the thirty voices. Yeah.

• 1:20:51Speaker 00

  Okay. All right. So I, I'm ready for the story. What brings you to Philly International? What's the steps that brought you there?

• 1:21:02Speaker 04

  Okay. Eddie Green, an amazing keyboardist from Philly. Uh, one of my favorite keyboardists, got in touch with me. This was when I was still uh, recording and, and performing with Norman, Norman Connors. Uh, got in touch with me and said that he, um, he was calling me for getting in touch for, for Kenny Gamble. Uh, and he wanted me to, to come to Philly. Um, and, and talk to, you know, they wanted to talk to me about joining the label. Uh, cause I had been, I performed in Philly at the Bijou and places

• 1:21:46Speaker 04

  before that, you know, cause although I wasn't a soloist as such, but I had an audience somehow. Um, cause I remember seeing Larry Maggot at a, at an event. This was just before the pandemic. And, uh, he was talking about, you know, how um, I guess I had, and well, I know I have pictures. I think he said he had pictures of, um, when Patty came to sit in with me and Emmy Levert. So I went to, to Philly to the, to three oh nine.

• 1:22:22Speaker 03

  Hmm. Rest in peace.

• 1:22:24Speaker 04

  Label. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we're, they're doing, um, biopic. Um, and we got to go there. They interviewed a lot of the former artists. And we did it in three oh nine, which is now a hotel.

• 1:22:43Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  I didn't, I haven't even went over there. It's a hotel at all.

• 1:22:47Speaker 00

  It is.

• 1:22:48Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Cause for a long time, every time I passed by there, you know, first there was a big hole in the ground. And I would just cry. Cause you know, that was my history.

• 1:23:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:00Speaker 04

  And, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 03

  And this is the recent documentary, right? This is the Sam Pollard?

• 1:23:06Speaker 04

  Uh, it, I don't, I don't know when it's coming out.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Yes, that's.

• 1:23:09Speaker 04

  I think they're gonna, that, that's what it is. Yeah. Cause they're gonna add some more to it. Um, and strangely, when, when I did my, um, my, my interview. My, my godson, Gamble's son, Khalif, his firstborn, was the camera guy.

• 1:23:31Speaker 04

  I was proud of that, of course. Uh, but during my entire interview. I, my voice trembled.

• 1:23:44Speaker 04

  And and I thought it did. And then I I and I didn't realize that was really the case until we finished. They they put me in my car downstairs and I answered my phone and and the voice and the tremble was gone.

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  So I don't know if there were visitations there or not, because because I was wondering, am I gonna feel Teddy? You know.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  Hey, that's possible.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  Phyllis.

• 1:24:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, any of those folks that, you know, that I got started in the business with, you know, who were my buddies. So, yeah, okay, what what was I answering? I digress.

• 1:24:35Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Just coming to Philly International.

• 1:24:40Speaker 04

  Okay, I get there to talk to meet with Gamble. It was on the night of an Ali fight. In A C. Everybody had left the building and we were gonna talk for fifteen minutes and Gamble was gonna, you know, I don't know how he was gonna get there, but then I, you know, I never, I don't like fights, you know, boxing, any of that stuff. Bustling, boxing and wrestling and stuff, not my stick. So, but we ended up talking through the whole match. And and and I dare say that was one of the best decisions I've I've ever made.

• 1:25:23Speaker 04

  Because it was, it was, it was magic. It was magic.

• 1:25:28Speaker 00

  So what is the process now? I mean, at this time, you're you're joining the label in seventy six. When they're at, you know, when they're at the true like height of their powers. So what's the, I I guess, you know, when you join, is, can you run us through like the process? Like, is there an A and R? Is there the person, like, are you deciding what songs you want to sing from them? Are they like, hey, we have a song for you? Are you allowed to say, I don't like that one? Or, you know, can we change this? Like, how much leverage do you have in terms of

• 1:26:08Speaker 00

  you being an artist there? Or are you just on the conveyor belt of proven hitmakers?

• 1:26:15Speaker 04

  Well, um, it was, there was total respect.

• 1:26:22Speaker 04

  Gamble, Gamble respected my musicianship and in the building there were the producers, the writers, you know, McFadden Whitehead, Dexter Wanzel, Linda Creed and and Tom Bell, whom we just lost. And when I get there, Gamble would tell me, you know, first of all, don't sing anything that you don't want to sing. Don't be goaded into, you know, persuaded, you know, you know what works for you, you know what what fulfills you.

• 1:27:01Speaker 04

  You know what works with your philosophies. And so I would go to, they will have written stuff for you. Like McFadden Whitehead, they they would present their songs with magic. I mean, they were, they were fabulous dancers and pulling, pulling the the flowers out of the sleeve.

• 1:27:26Speaker 02

  They had a presentation.

• 1:27:29Speaker 02

  They were selling it. They were selling it.

• 1:27:33Speaker 04

  They were, they were a riot. I just adore them. Yeah. And each of the producers who had written for you, composers who had written for you, presented their songs. And and, you know, I'm there for probably a month, maybe more, just doing songs and and I over-recorded, so there's still stuff in the can, maybe a couple of albums in the can. Because and when the the tunes that that Kenny and Leon wrote for me, when we first started,

• 1:28:11Speaker 04

  they were in the in the room, you know, in the boardroom while I, you know, while I did the, did the songs, while I recorded the songs. After that, they let me do the recordings and then either they'd bring in, we'd bring in Barbara and Yvette and and Carla, the sweeties, to to do the backgrounds, or I would stack the backgrounds.

• 1:28:43Speaker 04

  And when I, when I was finished, I would take it in the office and let, you know, let Kenny or call them in the in the in the studio and and let them them hear, you know, what they, what I'd done on this song and and give me a critique. And it and it went like that.

• 1:29:02Speaker 00

  One, one of my favorite songs on your Philly debut record was No Laugh It Matter.

• 1:29:08Speaker 04

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:29:10Speaker 00

  What, like, so what what are your memories of just that first album, like?

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  It was, it was an adventure. I remember the tunes that Dexter did were all experimental.

• 1:29:21Speaker 00

  Can you talk about him as a producer? Because I don't think many people know that.

• 1:29:24Speaker 02

  Dexter Wanzel.

• 1:29:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, Dexter Wanzel was really like a futuristic. I always felt like being under that that umbrella of Philly International almost limited him a bit because what I knew of what he was capable of, like, you know, he really wanted to be like Afrofuturist, damn near Sun Ra level of

• 1:29:46Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:29:46Speaker 00

  experimentation, but they they they honed him back a little bit. But if you listen to like a lot of his solo stuff on his records, you can see that. But can you describe him as like a, as a producer and a and a musician?

• 1:30:02Speaker 04

  Dexter was, is a visionary.

• 1:30:08Speaker 04

  Truly a musical visionary, because you remember songs like Life on Mars?

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  Yes, man.

• 1:30:14Speaker 04

  He's been, he's been telling, telling the world that there's life on Mars for what, fifty years now?

• 1:30:21Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:30:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, his songs should be played for all the launchings. Should be a part of of the the music that they, that the astronauts hear when they go into outer space. He was just, just, well, is such a genius. It's amazing. Like, okay, when when they did, when he and Cynthia Biggs did Nights Over Egypt.

• 1:30:48Speaker 04

  Cynthia did the research on that, over in the east.

• 1:30:55Speaker 02

  Over Pyramids at Giza.

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  There once lived a girl, she ruled the world, then down the Nile, he came with a smile. She was the queen and he was the king under the moonlight. Yeah, your eyes won't believe and your mind can't conceive. Yeah. Nights Over Egypt, they were talking about Cleopatra, of course. And and it was, everything that that Dexter did has has roots. I mean, very deep. Like you said, Afrocentric roots. Yeah.

• 1:31:35Speaker 03

  I didn't really think about that till y'all said that. That's deep about Dexter. I really, you're right, every song.

• 1:31:40Speaker 00

  So in being in that that that cyclone of Dexter, McFadden Whitehead and and all those writers, is there a story of a tune that you wanted that you couldn't get because another artist had it or in a song that was offered to you that you might have passed on that became bigger for someone else?

• 1:32:02Speaker 04

  Ah, the only tune, and I I guess it wasn't big for her, but McFadden Whitehead wrote a, wrote a tune called I Don't Know No One Else To Turn To. And I, I, you know, I'm a grammarian and and

• 1:32:28Speaker 03

  There was just too many, too many double negatives.

• 1:32:31Speaker 04

  Had a double negative in it. And I remember McFadden said, he said, okay, Karen, this song is gonna be so big that you're gonna say, hey, McFadden, write me another double negative song. And strangely enough, I I love Love Don't Love Nobody, always loved it. But I didn't want to cover it because it had double negative.

• 1:33:03Speaker 04

  But I I covered it and it's become a theme song of mine. I have to do it every, every performance, but.

• 1:33:10Speaker 00

  I'm so glad you said that. For for the longest, I was afraid to ask in public if that's grammatically correct or not correct, because, you know, once a song becomes a staple, I just leave it alone. So.

• 1:33:24Speaker 00

  No, I'm I'm not. But for me, every time I heard Love Don't Love Nobody, I was like, I think that's only a a term that we say, like, I, you know, I I wanted to make sure that. I'd never asked, but always in my mind, when I was a kid, I always felt like that wasn't grammatically correct. And so.

• 1:33:42Speaker 04

  You're so correct.

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  Neither is conversating, neither is conversating.

• 1:33:49Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Nile Rodgers, producer, songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of the group Chic. A great song has a way of defining a moment, a moment of joy, heartbreak, or anything in between. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, dropping in on some of the coolest, most fascinating artists working today. We'll go deep into their lives and careers and hear what it was like before the moment that made them. From hitmakers like Miguel.

• 1:34:22Speaker 06

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. Regardless of how everyone else buys into this, I believe in this and I'm gonna push.

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  To rising stars like Alex Warren.

• 1:34:37Speaker 00

  You know, a song is a story and the verse is setting the scene. And for me, at least, it's allowing me to be personal and vulnerable with the audience, whether it's about my wife and I'm being vulnerable about her, or it's about, you know.

• 1:34:48Speaker 02

  Parents, I'm being vulnerable to them. And it's almost like a cinematic piece in a way where each song tells that beautiful story. It's gonna be one hell of a trip. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:35:08Speaker 07

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• 1:35:44Speaker 00

  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart, there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening, some basement, some bedroom, somebody with headphones on at three in the morning, chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off-tempo, on purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first, not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth telling.

• 1:36:27Speaker 00

  What's yours? Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 1:36:36Speaker 00

  Because you arrived to Fully International in seventy-six, at the, in nineteen seventy-six, at the same time that the Jacksons had relocated to Philadelphia, did you have any run-ins with them, like, during that whole recording process?

• 1:36:55Speaker 04

  Absolutely. We were recording at the same time.

• 1:36:59Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 1:37:00Speaker 04

  They were such, such nice kids. They, my, my then-husband, Khalil, they would talk, they would snuggle in the corner and look at Khalil, because they said that he looked like their neighbor, OJ Simpson.

• 1:37:18Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:37:20Speaker 04

  That's what he really does. Strangely enough, I'd never noticed it. So, so they, they liked Khalil, and Michael was having, uh, voice change problems.

• 1:37:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:37:35Speaker 04

  And he was, he was, what, he might have been twenty then? I don't, I don't know how old he was.

• 1:37:40Speaker 00

  Seventy-six, he was eighteen?

• 1:37:43Speaker 04

  Eighteen, okay. But he, his voice was changing. And there were, and we were all in the same hotel at the Latham, uh, on, on, what's that, Walnut?

• 1:37:53Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:37:55Speaker 04

  On Seventeenth at Walnut. And, and we, we all lived in that hotel.

• 1:38:01Speaker 00

  That's where my prom was.

• 1:38:02Speaker 04

  We lived in, in one, um, part of the hotel, and they had the fire doors closed, you know, because we had instruments in our room and stuff. So.

• 1:38:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:38:12Speaker 04

  So, Michael was always in my suite. And, uh, he confided in me that he was cracking. There were certain, certain notes on certain songs that he would crack. And so, we, we worked on that, you know, because I'd been a vocal coach, like, since I was twelve, working with those choir voices.

• 1:38:37Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:38:38Speaker 04

  So, we worked on, we worked on his changing the enunciation sometimes, changing where he placed notes. And sometimes, and I tried to convince him to just change the notes and the phrases, you know, because he was full of, full of ideas, full of musical ideas. But he was so stubborn about, you know, instead of, instead of this figure, why can't we change it to another figure? And it convey the same idea. But he, he, he was just stuck on certain, you know, certain figures that he had contrived in his, you know, in his head as part of his plan.

• 1:39:20Speaker 00

  His muscle memory.

• 1:39:21Speaker 04

  We worked, yeah, yeah. And, and, um, that's when I discovered he, he was, um, he was a pediatric insomniac, because my mother was a pediatric insomniac.

• 1:39:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:35Speaker 04

  Um, children who don't sleep well at night.

• 1:39:38Speaker 03

  Oh, kids, okay, children.

• 1:39:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, all the way through, through adulthood. My mother, my mother took naps during the day, because she was just roaming around the house at night.

• 1:39:50Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:39:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, um, because he would, when he'd come into my room after we'd finish our little sessions, he, I remember the first time he said, he said, "I'm gonna take a nap." And he, and he pointed to the floor on the other side of my bed. And I'm a germaphobe. So.

• 1:40:10Speaker 00

  Forgot.

• 1:40:11Speaker 04

  So I wouldn't even let my kids, you know, when they'd grow up and travel with me, they couldn't even walk barefoot on a hotel floor. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:40:21Speaker 03

  Patty, at your face. Oh.

• 1:40:23Speaker 04

  I started getting, getting the, uh, housekeeper to leave me sheets and pillowcases and stuff. So when he, you know, when he'd come over to take a nap, he'd sleep on the floor. And I remember hearing, when they were accusing him of, of the, of the, the children thing, I was saying, and he, and he mentioned one day to them, he said, "No, I never slept in the bed with them." He said, "I slept on the floor." I said, "Yes, I know he does," you know. That, that just blew me away.

• 1:40:59Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:41:00Speaker 04

  It hurt me so badly. But that's, uh, what, what was happening when, when we were all recording at the same time.

• 1:41:08Speaker 00

  So you helped him develop his pre, pre-Seth Riggs. Wow. You, you were a vocal trainer for him.

• 1:41:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, all singers should get checked by Seth Riggs.

• 1:41:21Speaker 00

  Oh, no doubt.

• 1:41:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:25Speaker 03

  Checked.

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  He's pretty, he's pretty old now, so hurry up.

• 1:41:29Speaker 00

  Well, no, there's, he, there's enough lessons on YouTube that we can just go there.

• 1:41:35Speaker 04

  Wow, that's heavy.

• 1:41:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's a forty-five-minute session of Michael Jackson and Seth Riggs, uh, doing vocal exercises. Yeah.

• 1:41:44Speaker 04

  Oh, that's cool. You know, Maurice had some issues. And I, and he would, he would come up, you know, come up, and I would work with him vocally. And I remember after Doug and I had moved to New York, I heard changes, you know, I'd go to see them a lot, uh, when they performed live. And, and I would ask him about stuff, you know, that he was doing. I said, "Well, you know, you know, where'd that come from?" He said, "Actually," he said, "I went to Seth Riggs." I said, "Okay." And, and he said, and I said, "Well," it, so it

• 1:42:28Speaker 04

  worked, huh? He said, "Yeah, but the thing is, everything you told me and taught me, Seth Riggs told me and taught me," he said, "but I incorporated it because I had to pay him."

• 1:42:46Speaker 03

  You're not a paid vocal coach, all this, all this coaching?

• 1:42:49Speaker 04

  Not for my friends, not for Phyllis, not for Michael. No, I was, I was getting.

• 1:42:54Speaker 00

  She was looking out for the cookout.

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:56Speaker 03

  But they was paying somebody.

• 1:42:58Speaker 00

  I know, but in seventy-six, we weren't.

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  I know.

• 1:43:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, you know, Michael was.

• 1:43:05Speaker 00

  We weren't there yet.

• 1:43:06Speaker 04

  He, he wanted, he wanted me and the kids to, to take him to Six Flags, you know. And, and my mother, you know, told me, "You can't take this Forty-Sixth, like, they're just open." He said, "'Cause, 'cause you don't have security." And his security wouldn't work, you know.

• 1:43:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:43:26Speaker 04

  You can't do that. So, no, he was, he was like a family member. My mother went to one of their concerts, and I could never get my mother to go to anybody's concerts but mine and Patty. In fact, she said Patty's was the best concert she had ever gone to.

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:43:45Speaker 04

  I almost got jealous.

• 1:43:47Speaker 00

  Second best.

• 1:43:49Speaker 04

  No, no, she said it was the best.

• 1:43:54Speaker 02

  Ms. Jean, I wanted to ask you about recording two particular songs, Was That All It Was? And, well, of course, Don't Let It Go To Your Head, but Was That All It Was? Just, you remember that session and, you know, what that was like?

• 1:44:08Speaker 04

  I do, I really do. Jerry Butler, the coolest guy in music, that's why they call him the Iceman.

• 1:44:17Speaker 02

  Iceman.

• 1:44:17Speaker 04

  He literally is. He wrote that one, he gave me that one, and it was a ballad. And it was, it was so odd hearing, hearing the demo with Jerry Butler singing. You know, I'm used to hearing him, him do those smooth ballads, you know? Except stuff like Western Union Man, but that was still smooth and cool and icy.

• 1:44:46Speaker 04

  So it was, it was just so odd hearing him sing Was That All It Was? And, and this was at the beginning of disco.

• 1:44:55Speaker 02

  Yes, ma'am.

• 1:44:56Speaker 04

  And although we didn't, I didn't choose it for that reason, but when it was, it was one take too. Cause I'm not, I'm not a one take girl.

• 1:45:05Speaker 03

  It's just one.

• 1:45:06Speaker 04

  I like to do the scratch vocals, I like to live with them a couple of days and then come back in and perfect it, you know, get it, live with it and then, then get it like I really want it.

• 1:45:20Speaker 04

  And I had, I had finished the, the take and Jerry said, well, that's the take. And I said, are you sure? Cause I, you know, my old habit was to live with it and then do it over.

• 1:45:36Speaker 04

  Perfect it. John Ushry did the instrumental, did the orchestration. That was, that was a masterpiece of orchestration. It was, it was really good. And it was so cute seeing them in the studio, the two of them. Jerry's all cool, you know, and, and icy, like I said, and, and mature. And John Ushry couldn't sit still. He had, you know, one of those type eight personalities and he was all over, all over the room.

• 1:46:12Speaker 00

  For the, for the When I Find You Love album, what, what was happening at CBS at that time? Cause I felt like that's, that album should have been way bigger. Was That All It Was is a club staple?

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, we got, we didn't realize it was gonna be, you know, so embraced by the disco world. But the discos started calling the label, asking for, you know, a 12 inch. You know, they obliged, of course, but um, there was a, a conflicting period there with, with CBS and, and Philly International.

• 1:46:56Speaker 04

  And, and was, was, you know, was in that, came out during that period. So I don't, it might have been part of that, that conflict. Cause Gamble and Huff were powerful, very powerful. And there could have been rumblings of, of envy, you know, that kind of thing.

• 1:47:21Speaker 03

  Too much power.

• 1:47:23Speaker 00

  So what led to the journey to Motown?

• 1:47:25Speaker 04

  Gamble was deciding to, to do other things. He came to me and said, you know, he wanted to do other things. And he brought his, his nephew Chuck, Chuck Gamble that had the label. But before that, he formed another label and put, I know he put me on there and he put the OJs on there and maybe, maybe Teddy.

• 1:47:51Speaker 00

  And the stylistics, TSOP?

• 1:47:54Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:56Speaker 04

  And he was, he was contemplating doing other things at the time.

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  Is this when he started doing the real estate stuff?

• 1:48:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:48:05Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 1:48:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:48:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, building, you know, building communities and stuff. Yeah, and he asked me, what label would I like to, you know, to go with? Because our, our executive vice president did my deal with Motown. So it was handing your, your niece over to, you know, to another family.

• 1:48:30Speaker 00

  I see.

• 1:48:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, so that's how that happened.

• 1:48:35Speaker 02

  And another one of my favorite songs of yours, Ms. Jean, I want to talk about is a, is a duet. I'm Back For More.

• 1:48:42Speaker 00

  How?

• 1:48:43Speaker 02

  Do you remember?

• 1:48:44Speaker 00

  That's right, she did do that.

• 1:48:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the joint, that's the one.

• 1:48:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was on a, that was a production of Norman Connor's on, for Al Johnson.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  Al Johnson, yeah.

• 1:48:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they had finished Al's album and they didn't have a hot single. So they called me, they recorded it in LA. And so they called me, we started looking for a clincher song. You know, strong, strong first single. And we found I'm Back For More on an old Taboris album.

• 1:49:19Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:49:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and I, so I thought we should do it as a duet. So I was gonna use Sybil Thomas, one of Rufus Thomas's daughters.

• 1:49:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:49:33Speaker 04

  Cause he, he's got some singing daughters, boy. But Sybil had moved to New York at the time. Uh, so I ended up doing, doing it as a duet with, with Al. And that song has been sampled more than anything I've combined that I've ever recorded.

• 1:49:52Speaker 03

  I was just about to ask y'all that, like, what, what are the samples? I hear the samples in the song, I was like, what are the songs that we know from this?

• 1:49:58Speaker 02

  Ah, God.

• 1:50:02Speaker 04

  Well, did it. And there are, when you look on Who's Sampled? There are names of, of rap groups and rappers that I don't even know. So, so a lot of the, you know.

• 1:50:17Speaker 02

  We don't know him either.

• 1:50:20Speaker 04

  Same there? Okay, I don't feel so badly then. Oh, okay.

• 1:50:24Speaker 03

  You must have took sampling well because since you said that you're on a steady evolution and you're fine with music, with growing and going through whatever changes. When they started sampling and using it for hip hop, you were, you were cool about it, right?

• 1:50:38Speaker 04

  Oh, I loved it. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:41Speaker 03

  Okay, cause Don't Let It Go To My Head, it's like, you know, everybody loves that Brand New Being song.

• 1:50:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, but Don't Let It Go To Your Head, you know, one of those, those message things that, that Kenny and Leon were famous for. And surprisingly, little known fact, they, I remember when Kenny gave me the song, he said, cause he gave, gave it to me as a demo with him playing guitar and singing, you know, and, and, and Huff did, did a little piano on it. And so when I, he said, this, you might like this one. And he said, don't worry, Huff and I have the, have the background. And I thought, that's cool, you know, so when I finished, when I finished putting down the, the lead vocal,

• 1:51:28Speaker 04

  the final vocal, I went in his office and I said, come on, we're ready for the backgrounds. And, and Gamble said, oh, that's okay, Jean, you got it. And I said, oh, no, no, no, no, y'all gotta come sing this with me. And they did, you know.

• 1:51:49Speaker 03

  That's them in the background, Don't Let It Go To?

• 1:51:53Speaker 03

  Who's saying, no, no, no, no? Who's, who goes, no, no, no?

• 1:51:56Speaker 04

  That was me doing all of them.

• 1:51:57Speaker 03

  That's her. I mean, duh, sorry, okay, I'm sorry, I knew that, I'm just, okay.

• 1:52:01Speaker 00

  Wait, uh, okay, so this is a, one, I don't even know that's Roland Chambers playing guitar with you on that guitar scatty thing at the end. But when you wanna incorporate your scatting and whatnot, and, you know, we haven't interviewed The Whitstable's or George Benson yet, so you're probably the first pop scatter that I can ask this to.

• 1:52:24Speaker 00

  What comes first? Like, are you singing your, and I'm talking about the, the thing that you do at the end?

• 1:52:32Speaker 04

  Most folks can't hear that I'm with that, you know, don't even know that that's under me. Cause what I did was, I, I was just, I was thinking of ad libs. Well, that was in the middle, but like, it ended up, you know, being like, like an, an ad lib section. And I did, I, and I don't know if it was Roland or not on, on guitar then. But um, yeah, I imitated the, um, the, don't, don't ever, never, never let it, don't let it go to your head, your head.

• 1:53:10Speaker 00

  So that was you first and then they followed you?

• 1:53:12Speaker 04

  No, I was imitating, I was imitating his, his solo.

• 1:53:19Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, so he.

• 1:53:20Speaker 04

  Like we did on Envenised, you know, going back to that period. Cause like, like, like on, on Envenised, every, every, every note in the solo, in Wayne Short's solo. Someday you will grow up, you'll grow up and have your problems. Little girl, you must try to be strong. That was, that was us putting lyrics to Wayne's solo.

• 1:53:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:53:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it was the same, the same habit.

• 1:53:52Speaker 00

  You decided to do, If You Don't Know Me By Now? Which, the irony of it is that you're not on Philly International anymore.

• 1:54:02Speaker 04

  That's what Motown said too.

• 1:54:06Speaker 00

  Was it your idea to do it? Was that Motown like, oh, we have a legacy artist from Philly International? So let's bring some of that to, over here, or?

• 1:54:13Speaker 04

  No, it was, it was, it was my, my idea. In fact, when, um, when, when I made, uh, who was it? Okay, Iris Gordy and, and, um, Reynona Gordy were, you know, uh, over, over that, that project.

• 1:54:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:54:32Speaker 04

  They, when I, when I said I wanna do If You Don't Know Me By Now, they, the scullabot was, well, you've already left that label. So they gave me about five long play albums with samples of Jovette music.

• 1:54:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:54:51Speaker 04

  Cause it was like, what about us? You know, well, they didn't say that, but

• 1:54:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:54:56Speaker 04

  I, I, I got it. And from those, I chose, "My baby loves me. Oh, yeah." I did that.

• 1:55:03Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:55:04Speaker 04

  Um, and I did another, another Motown tune. Uh, but yeah, but, um, if you don't know me by now, I remember telling Teddy that I wanted to cover, you know, to cover that. Well, what I wanted to do at first was, "I miss you. Oh, I miss you."

• 1:55:24Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:55:25Speaker 04

  And, and Teddy said, "That doesn't fit you," he said, "'cause think about the lyrics," he said, "'cause it's got drink and drink." And he said, "You don't drink."

• 1:55:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:55:36Speaker 03

  Drinking, drinking, drinking.

• 1:55:39Speaker 04

  That's when I went to, to If You Don't Know Me By Now. Yeah.

• 1:55:43Speaker 00

  Uh, another genius move on that album. Um, and this is kinda weird. I, I think the way that I discovered classic songs is I discovered the, the cover first. Um,

• 1:55:56Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:55:57Speaker 00

  I, I knew your version of "Completeness" first before I knew Minnie Riperton's version.

• 1:56:03Speaker 02

  Minnie Riperton, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:04Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. Yeah. You know, that was the only thing that she had recorded that I could do.

• 1:56:11Speaker 00

  Oh, cause she just started flexing and

• 1:56:12Speaker 04

  Everything else of hers was out of my stratosphere. And, and the week that she passed away, she, um, she came to see me at the Roxy. Um,

• 1:56:23Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:56:23Speaker 04

  I did maybe three days at the Roxy and it was just, just a few months before she passed away. Cause she, she was telling me how she, she was, he said, she said, "I'm putting y'all down." She was, cause she was on CBS.

• 1:56:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:56:38Speaker 04

  Um, and she said, "I'm gonna do my own thing." She was telling me about a clo- clothing line. This was way after she had had the mastectomy.

• 1:56:47Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:47Speaker 04

  And, and that, those two nights, George Duke came to see me, um, Stevie came to see me, uh, Sarita came to see me, Chaka. Chaka was just pregnant with her first child. Then there were so many folks that I didn't know, um, came, came to see me at the Roxy. It's right on Sunset, right at the Beverly Hills line, at the sign. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:20Speaker 00

  I know that for you in eighty-six, you know, one of the, one of the best comeback stories in music was, you know, you achieving your number one, um, single with "Closer Than Close."

• 1:57:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:57:36Speaker 00

  And again, uh, um, "Flame of Love" is like one of my all-time favorite songs of yours. Um, wh- generally, what was happening in eighty-six for you? Like, were you expecting this at all? Cause I think a lot of times when artists are on a lot of labels and they record and record and record and the desired results. I mean, sometimes it's like a stalled car, sometimes it's not, but this, this really truly felt like a victory lap for you. Like, can you talk about just the whole process of making that record and what your expectations were and how, how did it feel to come with those two hit singles?

• 1:58:17Speaker 04

  Well, it was so, such a pleasure to, to work with Grover.

• 1:58:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:58:23Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, cause a friend of his, um, what's his name? He used to be on the news, uh, here in Philly. I knew him, he does, he does an ad now for a legal firm and his name won't come to me, but he went to More- Morehouse.

• 1:58:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:58:41Speaker 04

  And I met him, um, in Atlanta, you know, when he was matriculating. And he, he hooked, it was his idea for me and Grover to get to know each other. So he made the introduction. And, um, and it was like, we had, we were separated Siamese twins, Grover and I. We were so compatible. It was just amazing. In fact, "Closer Than Close" was the first, the first song we chose, uh, cause he produced two, two of my albums, the two on, on Atlantic. And we just thought so much alike and he, he just loved playing on, on my product. You know, he played on just about everything on those two albums.

• 1:59:26Speaker 04

  In fact, on the twenty-fourth of April,

• 1:59:30Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:59:31Speaker 04

  Uh, in Atlantic City, the, um, National R and B Music Society is, is, um, in conjunction with the mayor of, of Atlantic City, is installing the first class of, of artists on the, uh, Atlantic City Walk of Fame. And, um, I, I know the Delphonics are on there, James Brown will be installed and Grover Washington Jr. So I, you know, and I've been, been in touch with, you know, with his, his daughter and his son and, and his wife, Chris, and they're, they're gonna be there.

• 2:00:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:00:11Speaker 04

  And, yeah, and, and the grandchildren. Yeah. So I had to, I had to mention that. Uh, but I had, um, my, my manager, my then manager had put me on two labels. Sugar Hill Records was one and Boston International Records with Maurice Starr, Sugar Hill Records.

• 2:00:35Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 2:00:35Speaker 04

  Had, um, Sylvia, Sylvia Robinson. And he was in such a hurry. We'd get half an album done and he was saying, "Well, they're not, you know, they're not doing this quickly enough." So he would get me, he made me leave the label and got both Maurice and Sylvia to, to grant me, um, unconditional releases from the label. But, but of course I, I stayed with, with, um, Sylvia Rhone for the two albums on, on Atlantic. It was we then, you know,

• 2:01:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:01:12Speaker 04

  Electro, Silo, Atlantic and Warner Brothers.

• 2:01:18Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Nile Rodgers, producer, songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of the group Chic. A great song has a way of defining a moment, a moment of joy, heartbreak, or anything in between. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, dropping in on some of the coolest, most fascinating artists working today. We'll go deep into their lives and careers and hear what it was like before the moment that made them. From hitmakers like Miguel.

• 2:01:52Speaker 06

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life, regardless of how everyone else buys into this. I believe in this and I'm gonna push.

• 2:02:03Speaker 02

  To rising stars like Alex Warren.

• 2:02:06Speaker 00

  You know, a song is a story and the verse is setting the scene. And for me at least, it's allowing me to be personal and vulnerable with the audience, whether it's about my wife and I'm being vulnerable about her, or it's about, you know, my parents and I'm being vulnerable to them. And it's almost like a cinematic piece in a way where each song tells that beautiful story.

• 2:02:25Speaker 02

  It's gonna be one hell of a trip. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Kelvin Washington from The Odd Couple with Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a

• 2:03:07Speaker 02

  great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shoptoyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 2:03:14Speaker 00

  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart, there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Some basement, some bedroom, somebody with headphones on at three in the morning, chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up, already looping that one bar, already off-tempo, on purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there. Living stories worth telling. What's yours? Behind every original, live and leave us.

• 2:04:05Speaker 00

  Once the 90s come along, how do you feel the industry, especially with black artists? I guess with the process of, you know, with hip hop coming in and whatnot, and you're seeing like another generation of artists come into the system that's kind of far away from the traditional style of what soul or singing or jazz music or whatever, like, how do you not get discouraged by that? I think, I think, because a lot of artists could easily fall into bitterness and anger. For some reason, I don't feel, I don't feel that from you at all.

• 2:04:47Speaker 00

  Like, how have you been able to maintain your cool and sort of a steady pace throughout your career?

• 2:04:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're very astute as an observer, because it never, it never affected me negatively. I like the fact that they sampled me a lot, you know, and back when, you know, when the lyrics were wholesome and cute, you know, and positive, I, you know, I embraced it as well. And, and they, they used vintage music anyway, you know, on in there. So I like the fact that they were introducing the, the young listeners to, to the vintage artists and the vintage sound.

• 2:05:38Speaker 04

  So I was, I was, I was cool with it. And the fact that, that I, you know, had a jazz audience, of, you know, a strong, sturdy jazz audience and the R and B side. So I, you know, I, I could perform everywhere, you know, and in Europe, you can, you can perform in Europe for the rest of your life. They know more songs than you know.

• 2:06:03Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 2:06:04Speaker 04

  So I was, I was cool.

• 2:06:06Speaker 03

  Can you also talk about too, because I remember a time, and these are from my childhood memories, but I remember a time when you became, you got into education and you were teaching, weren't you teaching at Howard? And you were teaching vocals?

• 2:06:17Speaker 04

  Oh, I got offers from several universities, yeah, to join their faculty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was, it was a bit too confining. That the couple of universities offered me, they said, okay, you can pick your, your days that you'll have classes. And they had replacements for me, subs for me, when I had to, you know, to, to go to work, you know, this week. And, and, you know, it was, it was cool like that. But I just didn't, you know, because I was still raising the kids then.

• 2:07:00Speaker 04

  And, and that happened with, with some Broadway offers as well, because I couldn't, couldn't bring the kids to New York.

• 2:07:08Speaker 03

  What did you say no to?

• 2:07:10Speaker 04

  My mother did not want to live in New York.

• 2:07:13Speaker 03

  Oh, well, yeah, that part, that part.

• 2:07:15Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:07:16Speaker 03

  Very different than Atlanta.

• 2:07:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. But, but the fact that I had those two very diverse audiences kept me, kept me afloat. And I, you know, I, and I'm glad a lot of the rappers have grown up, your vintage rappers have grown up and, and changed their lyrics. And I'm thinking that's going to happen down the road for the younger ones, you know. So there's hope.

• 2:07:44Speaker 00

  People mature.

• 2:07:46Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:07:47Speaker 00

  I have one more question. So can you talk about your work on the Jazz is Dead series with Ali Shaheed and Adrian?

• 2:07:56Speaker 04

  Oh, that was, that was quite an experience, you know. I haven't done anything like that since I appeared on, on an album and you, you mentioned M'Tume.

• 2:08:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:08:15Speaker 04

  Years, years and years ago, I think it might've been, no, it wasn't his first album. It was called Life Cycle.

• 2:08:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:08:25Speaker 04

  And he recorded in Boston at the New England Conservatory. And he had Andy Bay, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ron Carter, so many of, of, you know, of the, the top jazz artists on, on this, this project. And what he brought was a skeleton. Skeleton, you know, skeleton tracks, because it was an album. And we basically, he gave us titles, themes, patterns, and we basically, it was extemporaneous

• 2:09:10Speaker 04

  for the most part. And not since then had I been able to do that until I got with, with Ali Mohammed Shaheed and, and Adrian Young. Because I'd get there in the studio, they hadn't sent me any, any music, no ideas, no titles, nothing. And Adrian sends, gets, plays me some changes, pretty avant garde changes for, for most of those tunes, which was very appealing to me, you know, like sitting in with Pharoah

• 2:09:53Speaker 04

  Saunders or Thelonious Monk, you know, sometimes.

• 2:09:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:09:57Speaker 04

  So that was cool by me. And then I had to go on mic with no idea as to what I was going to sing, which I hadn't done, like I said, since the M'Tume album.

• 2:10:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:10:13Speaker 04

  I composed my lyrics, I composed the melodies, just listening to the chords and the titles of the songs were all extemporaneous and off the top of my head with no prior, no prior notice, no prior conceiving and didn't even know that was how it was going. It was, it was a stretch.

• 2:10:37Speaker 03

  Like exercise, right? Like, did it feel like exercise?

• 2:10:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was like calisthetics.

• 2:10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:45Speaker 04

  For, for a whole album.

• 2:10:47Speaker 03

  But you did it.

• 2:10:49Speaker 04

  It made you stand on your tippy toes.

• 2:10:52Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 2:10:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:54Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I, I want to thank you for taking time out to, to, to speak with us and, you know, we're lifelong fans of yours and, you know, definitely one of my favorite singers. And I thank you for taking a chance on an unknown drummer. And, you know, that, that had a, a massive effect on me.

• 2:11:19Speaker 03

  Tell them the circle backstory, Auntie, that, that you do now every day, every night.

• 2:11:24Speaker 04

  Oh, absolutely. You know, I, I didn't remember you from, you know, from the, from the performances.

• 2:11:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:11:34Speaker 04

  I started, I, who was your guy? Your late night guy that you'll?

• 2:11:41Speaker 03

  Jimmy Fallon.

• 2:11:42Speaker 00

  Jimmy Fallon, yes.

• 2:11:43Speaker 04

  I never watched his show. I, I, I passed by his show, you know, channel surfing, and I saw you and your guys. I tried to, to like his part, you know, his jokes and his guests and so on. And it didn't, it didn't work. So I started recording your show, his show, y'all's show. And I would, I would fast forward to when y'all broke for commercials, to you played, you know, on the fade for the commercials and when you came back. And that I loved.

• 2:12:25Speaker 04

  And I, I guess I, I, it was because cellularly, I remembered you.

• 2:12:33Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 2:12:34Speaker 04

  That was good. Nothing for me.

• 2:12:37Speaker 00

  See?

• 2:12:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:39Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. Well, I guess we're leaving the show now, Steve, so. Watch tonight's show, I heard it's a hot mess. Shut up.

• 2:12:51Speaker 03

  The music, the music.

• 2:12:54Speaker 00

  No, especially the music. No, I, thank you, thank you once again. And on behalf of unpaid bill, give, give well, bro, and, and take a little. Absolutely. Give well, unpaid bill. This is Steve. We thank you. And this is another classic episode of Questlove Supreme, and we'll see you next week on the next go around. All right, y'all. Peace. Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:13:37Speaker 00

  For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 2:13:44Speaker 03

  This is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features and tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places. Honestly?

• 2:14:26Speaker 05

  Honestly?

• 2:14:27Speaker 06

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• 2:14:55Speaker 00

  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving, already shaking things up. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth telling. What's yours? Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 2:15:30Speaker 02

  If you love music and great artists' interviews, check out Before the Moment, hosted by Nile Rogers. This new series follows Nile as he travels across the country, talking with some of today's most fascinating artists about the moments that shaped their lives and careers. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren, Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the point where everything changed. And this podcast tells the stories that came before it. Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series, on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:16:07Speaker 03

  What's that? My fresh detector. Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting? Fresh produce, fresh meat. Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh? Apparently, we celebrate.

• 2:16:25Speaker 00

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices. When your fresh detector is going off, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.