The Whispers

we know what we love. We get it. This is different. First of all, man, thank you all so much, Thank you guys so much, man for coming um this. These are the type of moments for us, um that really bless us, that really bless us when we get to really, um dabble into the foundation of this whole thing. You know what I mean, because you know these are these are roads, dirt roads, gravel roads, um, that were paved.

These are you know, houses that were completely you know, built from the ground up that you know, me and this guy now we get to walk those roads and we get to go into those buildings because you are so first, thank you you know what I mean, Um, you say something because I'm can I start off by

saying this, please whatever you want, whatever you want. Yes, let me just say this, Man, to you two young guys, Jay Tank, We've watched you guys from Afar with a great deal of admiration, and we talked about this all the time. We're from two different different generations. What you two young guys have done, the hit makers, the writing, we admire it. We want you to know how we feel about it, and we we say to ourselves all the time. As time goes on, the circumstance makes things

better for the younger ones. But when we came along, we probably didn't have the opportunities that you did, but we watched you guys take it and run with it. And before we started this today, when we're talking about Jay coming out of retirement, enough, that's grandson. So what that speaks to, man, it really speaks to what you guys have taken and done with it. We wish we would have had the opportunity. You know, we're gonna talk about it today, about the obstacles that were in our

way racism the sixties. We didn't have the opportunity, but we said this all the time, especially with the rappers because we're in R and B. But the rappers said, before we let you take our music, we'll sell it out of our car. Had we taken that stance when we were coming up, it would have been quite different. So we watch you guys with all this admiration, man, because that's what y'all did. You told the industry you're not gonna mess around, You're not gonna mess us up.

We determined to do what we do, and you've done it. And I'm speaking for the whispers when I say this, man, great just of admiration to both of you. That's what it means to us. Let me let me add one. I'm gonna add one word to what he's saying, and it's a short way of saying what you guys did that we didn't do. You understood the word ownership way better than we did. We understood it, but when we came along, even if we had understood it, we the

times wouldn't allow it. But y'all didn't have that problem. And I just love you for it because the people that's gonna be after you, your kids, their kids, they're gonna learn from you too. You know, so you got if we didn't understood what ownership really meant, fighting, dying, ford do whatever, we've probably been a lot better, but we didn't, and we're not. We're not blaming nobody but us and all the foals we had we put on

us because we got the same brain that you. We might use a little different, but we all got a brain. Now how you use it as your problem, But y'all understood that word ownership. And I don't want to thank you for it, just the times itself allow you to do that. Like he said, during the time that we came along, there was no such thing and they weren't gonna give it to you. And you were so hungry at the time just to have a record deal, you

know what I'm saying, because you already knew. Look, if you'd have walked in and said, Okay, I'll take the deal, but I won't own everything that I do, they tell you, okay next, that's what would have happened to you. So we didn't even have that opportunity and was never afforded that opportunity. But as you get older, you know, like the the people like the Ray Charles and you know, those kind of people were able to go back and

get that ownership. Now that that's been paid for, you guys, you know, you don't necessarily have to go to a record company. There's so many other avenues to put your record out. Now, we didn't have none of that. So, like like like guy said, I don't think it was dumbness on our part, another kind of thing. We just didn't have the opportunity and we put it probably have

been railroaded out of the business. So you just kind of had to flow with the waters until you know, you got to the position where we are today where now we can go back and record everything that done over the years. But it but it took. It took some arrogance though. It took some cockiness. The younger generation, y'all. Y'all was crazy, y'all say I'm not taking the ship excuse my expression. And that's what it took. I mean, you know what I'm talking about. You know, we were humble, man,

because we were trying to get in the door. You know, I mean, y'all said, hey, you ain't taking my hip and sucking it up. That's what y'all, And that's what needed to be said, you know, not even though when you had we said that it still would have been limited. But as time moves on, the opportunity to get greater, and y'all took advantage of it, and I think it's just great, man. I just want to extend you guys.

You know a lot of grace right in that regard, because you know the idea of thinking for yourself and wanting to own there's a different There was a different repercussion in your time then there is in our time, you know what I mean. And that's from your blood, sweat and tears of doing everything that you were able to do right. But you know, it's it's hard to say, you know, walking the door and have this mind to want to own something when in those days it could

possibly cost you more than just your career. It's like the lyric that jay Z says. He said, I'm coming back to get everything that they from what everything that they took from the co crush? That's exactly and he literally did that, and he had to make the decision of I'm willing to sink or swim. I think for

us it happened in a couple of ways. I think obviously in tank situation, it was more so about his longevity, because you know, he started off with one of those draconian deals, you know what I mean, one of those situations. He just outlasted it. You know. For me, it started in a very independent space because obviously, I I started off as a kid in a group, and I watched my father get blackballed in music business at a very young age. So I had to come from a different angle,

so what all. And being from the Bay Area has pushed independence in my mind, because, like you said, those rappers that were going out of the trunk were Bay Area rappers, absolutely, you know what I mean. So for me, I just always had a different mindset of Okay, one, they're not gonna let me in because of my name at the time. Um So I gotta go around the corner, and I got to create these this buzz and this whole other thing, and that wish an independent mindset and

then us coming together once we finally locked in. We looked at it like, you know what, we're willing to take less in the beginning so it can be greater later. And that's how that's how we end up here, betting on ourselves, on ourselves, real bets, like we've we've said in some offices and they've had to tell some people. You know. Now, I'm gonna roll with him at the end of the day. Like we always say, we'll split a happy meal. What I'm saying, I'm gonna roll with

my happy meal. Friends. You know what I'm saying. Before this construct, tell me what we can and can't do and what we're capable of. You know what I mean. So you know again those are you? You all standing firm in in any space, in any capacity. Is the reason for sure, you know what I'm saying. Because there's there's evolution, there's us being able to watch that and say, oh man, how can we learn from that and what extra can we bring to that with now the new

technology in the world being smaller. Man, you know what I'm saying. And now it's even crazier. Iso, you know what I mean. We're back looking for you. It just goes, we're back looking for you. We're back wanting to feel how you made us feel. We're back, man, You know what I mean. It is a beautiful circle to make. Listen, you tell me, is it a beautiful man? I tell you, we feel so honored man to be here talking to two young guys that are in today's music we come from.

It wasn't like that, and I just said all the time, man, I'm just so excited to see how watched the young talent today and people talk about it. Even we came along, they said, well, you gotta be careful. We had this song called seems like I Gotta Do Wrong before they noticed me. That was the title. That was the title, that was the whole title. Seems like I got to do wrong. And my mother said, y'all, y'all gonna be y'all, don't get trouble saying stuff like that. But today that's what,

that's what. Yeah, but we're imagine back then, we had to be so careful about trying to offend the establishment. Like live El said, we was trying to get in. And then let's go twenty years later. You now, we're talking about twenty years later and you're doing that. You're younger, you're twenty years younger than us, and it's still around still. But the bravery, man, that's what I talked about. What y'all did. You said, I gonna roll with him. You know how brave that was when you did that. You

understand what you was doing what with us? It wasn't. It was crazy and done that. But you said, I'm gonna roll with him. Yeah, I'm gonna you bucking tradition. Man, Well let me go to youth, let me go back to the ridge. I'm gonna tell you one quick story how we even got our name. It might sound funny, but it's the God's truth. We went to a little record company called Dolray Records, owned by Luberdale, who long he's didn't gone, but he gave us a shot and

we were auditionally. We never had a problem with the singing part. Like most black young acts you know, all sing So we went in and we were singing for him. He said, man, I love you guys. Sound you got this soft y'all are different sounds like a whisper. Said why don't we call you the whispers? And Nick? He said, man, listen, anything you want to call it. You give us this deal, you call us the whispers. But the point I make, that's what we had to do to it end. We

didn't We didn't know nothing by no money. We wasn't even interested in money, even though we needed it. But that wasn't the point. Back then, we wanted to get in the door, which we did, and to his credit, it seems like I gotta do wrong. You love us. So these are songs that you never heard before. Both of you were even boy, he wasn't even the world, you know, but this is what we had to do

to get in. And like the vel said, so you can you imagine what you would have said going on talking about man, listen, I want to deal, but I got own. You know what you need to told you where it was. We're gonna call you the Whispers. But now, like we we love to go back to the beginning. And this is a great segue into going to the beginning, you know what I mean, the inception, the how we get to the whispers? How did we get to the whispers? Like? Was it he even got to that meeting? Was where

you got to that meeting? Wasn't somebody that man? Y'all? Should you understand something? Y'all? Boy, y'all will be good together? Like how did that even happen? That was? That was a strange story. But let's start with the two of us. Scottie and I born in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Nevada. My father worked for the Navy, we eventually came to Los Angeles. My father was a jazz guy. He thought rhythm and blues was below him. Wow, I know. Yeah.

We started listening to Motown and the Temptations. My dad said, wait a minute, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. Those are the kings and queens of music. You can't sing. What do you say? It was R and B what That's how he felt about that. But as youth like you, guys, man, we would listening to Motown like all the young people. We wanted to be the next Temptations. But we ended up in the sixties on a talent show, Scotty and I as the Scott Twins, Nicholas, Marcus and Gordy as

the Eden Trio. They were performing as a trio. We were performing as a duet, and while backstage waiting to go on, we started harmonizing with each other, the five us, trying to be like what was on the ride, and we said, a man, after this talent show, we gotta hook this up. We can become a vocal group. And that's how The Whispers was formed. Backstage, backstage high school talent show, High school talent show Jordan High School in Watch, California. But we were to do that, and I might add

that we won that talent show. Yeah, never said he would tell you that because we did a lot of talent shows back then. Remember the guy's name Hunter Handcock. He was this shop, so he'd come through the neighbor we lived in the projects. He'd come through, and that was the exciting thing that was gonna happen. Everybody looked forward. We get a lot of old the start that you go,

that's even better with putting it. But we would always end up we were like competing against each other and neiguatives and man, one of these things, we're gonna win. One of these we would always win. But like well said, once we put the sound together and we heard it, we said, hey, because what we I think with my father, to his credit, what he did give us that we didn't know till later, it was valuable, was Bob. For a while before we got like you was saying, well

what about before that? Before that we were about to be back. You know, my father said, if you won't learn how to sing, learn how scat and harmonade and harmina. That's what my father, he was saying, you know he was. As a matter of fact, it took us me to this day when we started singing on and beat. My father is just a little bit boys sing right what it means sing right, that's not singing. And it was but to him, you see what I'm saying. So he said, if you want to learn to saying scap like ella,

that's the thing. And we did. That's what it. So that's where but we know later on in life when we start singing, all that would come into play, and it worked to help develop our sound and the whole thing. And it was whispered you here today. That's where it pretty much all came. Well, that's what those whispers because I didn't come along until he came later years later, the fifteen years Alter and Walter almost joined the group.

He joined the Bottle, came back from Vietnam, rejoined the Whispers, and that's when he and then I came in about a year or so after you got drafted. Yeah, I got drafted with the Vietnam. Yeah. Really it's been one year. Yeah, So how does the government decide to draft one? Can't do it? Can't do you can't do it. You can only take one first any brothers, Yeah first, I ended up getting draft first born. That's it if they just yeah, just flipped around in the wound. One time. He was

glad that they took him. I wouldn't have never made it. There was a young dis draft up in the Bear of all places. He was the how this thing on the radio? I dink time I know who you're talking about? His Sylvester Solon. Yeah, we had a story about your dad. We got anything. I got stories. Your dad probably didn't tell you, but and you may not want be. So

we was down. We were together, but Slide heard a record called never Again, That's just jockey, and he said, maybe what are these guys gonna bring them to it? He brought us to the Barrier. And when we came to a blue place called a sportsman club, your dad met him mentioned there was a sportsman club the showcase mcchezmos out misress All Barrier. So he brought us from here to Los Angeles to the Sportsman Club, sly Stone on the radio, and we were supposed to be there

for like a week. We end up staying there two years. We were the opening act for every major act that came through that and that during that time, it was Curtis mayfield oldest reading. We saw all this reading a week before he died, came through, but we were the opening act and that's where we sort of learned, I call it. That's where we went to craft craft right there in the bar area. That's why I love the bury I lived, and he never came to He came

to Buryer, but he never liked it. I lived there for fourteen years, just me, and when he came he said, I go back to l A. I can't. It's it's it's very much. I love love, our hate place. It's no in between. Yeah, it completely what I learned that I didn't know when I left the l A like they called me a hustler. But in Oakland, as you will know, you better have a hustle. You got you my friends. Wasn't about going to church on Sunday and

the families standing that all day. Up in Oakland. Everybody had some other way to make some kind of money. So that's where I was for fourteen years. When he came up there, he's an I need to go back to ros Yea. Yeah. Yeah, so that's where. Yeah, that's why I said, The Barrier really made us because we learned our craft in the Bay Area. Everything that before we went on the road and all that. It all started Oakland Bachman Sava the Barrier, so we slide to

his credit. In Los Angeles was such a big metropolis. If you didn't have a hit record, you couldn't get on the radio. Sly Stone was the biggest jock in the Bay Area. If he liked it, you got a shot. And he heard our song and put it on the radio station. And that's how we really got our start. We had to come back to Los Angeles to be kind of these are the whispers. They kind of kind of hit but they thought we were from the bait, but we originated from We just couldn't get on the air.

And I'm flat out. My father told me from my whole life, Yeah, they know we are from the bar you know, so my whole you know the worst. Yeah, Well let's you know what is the guy that today runs our situation. Name is Alonso Award. Your father knew the Ward Brothers. The Ward Brothers they ran to the Yeah, that's what you had to get, that's what that's exactly. You know what I'm talking about. That's what the movie

that's where based on them. That's exactly they ran Oakland in terms of you want to be a hustler and a good hustler. Yeah, and them and your dad were great friends, you know, and they gave us they kind of let it. They gave us the acceptance. We did a talent show and the Ward Brothers were there and by them applauding for us, that put us on the map. And wow, hustlers we end up making Olivia Lawson turned out. That's what that was about. Yeah, Yeah, that's what that

was about. She was on our worthy grandmother's house. Yeah, you understand. Yeah, completely. It's so interesting because I'm always asked, you know, my inspirations and what how did I learn how to sing? And you know, it's and I think Tank and I we we we messed so great because it's it's R and B music from two different sides. Mine is his church, his his church, mind his Catillac. That's the best way to and most people don't understand

the Cadillac side of music. Everybody usually goes towards oh, you came from a church. Yeah, I'm like, oh, there's a whole another side, there's just pure there's hustlers who just love music. And literally our vocal coaches as a kid were all my father's pen friends and exactly you know what I mean. That just guys who played in the band, but they you know, they played a whole another game for us. What we grew up on was the del Phonics and the Whispers and you know what

I mean. And in all of these groups, Blue Magic, all these groups that really we're singing about the game that you listen to, those lyrics, those lyrics are completely about absolutely gag. So you guys, music always just connected to me the most because I'm just like this literally is what I see every single day, you know what I mean? Man, And just even the way that it was worded, yeah, just it was special that we lost

him into sixteen. But he wrote, like you said about the streets, yea, And we sung it as simple as that, I don't know those ladies, Yeah, yeah, they want to do this. That the ladies to the utmost that and everything to him. He said to us, if we respect our mothers and sisters and our wives, ladies, you can't miss And that's what we did. Lady was the biggest ballot that we ever had, you know, and today here we are, fifty six years later. I mean if you

have told me. I mean y'all when you said you retired. When we heard that the day I had the pot, were looked at each other. We couldn't believe. I just wanted to try some other qualify And I tell you saying, I'm glad you're back, thank you. I mean, you have an incredible that people here, that gift, you know. I mean you said something earlier, the combination between you two. When I saw the Soul Train Awards, I'm like, what

where the hell is that song come from? And the you know, back and forth were sitting laving in bed watching the show and I said, we gotta can find that on and then we played it because you know, I know you you had to do the g version. Yeah. Well we're riding down and we're like, where the hell is that When we talk about let's let's say we can find it really exists, We're trying to figure it out a rehearsal, like wait, so, which which one is the sec You know, it's funny because you had that song.

When we put out a song, we had a song called piste off, and we were going to do it on Soul Train Route teen all that stuff. It was laid out Nicholas Carwell with his root tine the song was and so we sung the song down one of the first time this cut cut um uh that that were piste off, say that you made the title or something, the reason you called us, the reason you called us right, and so we had to they had to bleep out piste off. We also changed and we had to change.

The song of the vigion was called piste off. What year is this? Oh God, it's kind of be like in the nineties. Run was no, but we changed it. The baby come back we had We had to change the baby come back because they would come back, don't leave, but was piste off. That's gotta that's gotta go. But we just gotta can you change the old situation? But the point is back then today today that yeah, thats the off. Yeah, piss the funk off, Single Man Mother

streaming on all platforms exactly, on every radio stage. That just goes, y'all fun along, we come back, go back, you you you win, you win, you want and then you you gave these other three guys an opportunity to join the winners, the winner circle. When did you get to a point where somebody put some real paperwork and

wanted to have a real conversation with you? Like? How come long did that take between you guys doing talent shows to you guys getting to that office and then about five years and then the real monumental change came when I went to a Courtis Mayfield concert and met Dick Griffy shout. That's when it happened. A big guy who looked like a professional football player. You guys know what. Dick looked like. Him and my father friend, they were friends, right,

And he walked up to me. My wife and I were at the concert after it was over, and he walked up to me. He said, listen, I can make you guys a big, big group. He said, you remind me a lot of Ladders Night and the Pips, But I think he can be better. Well, I looked at him. He looked like a football player. And we had heard this every time we get around people of influence. They would say, man, y'all need to let me do something

with you. But it never happened. He begged me. We actually we met for three different occasions before I would bring him in for the whispers because I didn't know. I really didn't know. I don't know, bullshit into or what. But he was serious. So about a month later, now about six months later, we met in my cousin's garage with Dick Griffy right here in Los Angeles, and he said, I want to be your manager. And the question is answered, when what you said? That's when we he was our manager.

We didn't really have a record company, but he managed us to go up against labels and have discussion. So he didn't have so lord. This time he was he was a promoter. He Don Coneius put black acts that you now see the day that had never been heard on television and did Griffy promoted them. He was the biggest black promoter in the United States. He would take these his first He's the first one that took Stevie Worst Country too. And then he also, I didn't know

that's how he came into the business. Yeah, yeah, And then he and Don hooked up. They basically said I have the television and you promoting, so let's They created Soul Trained Records. And now we get into the controversy. These two men to the most brilliant guys that I've ever met in my life. They couldn't get along. I can see that. I can see that to this day. Man. We we said, had these two guys been like Berry Gordy and had a little less ego to get along,

they'd have been the biggest black entrepreneurs. They'd have been the jay z of the day. Don had television, he had the ability to promote acts over the country, so between the two of them, they would have had it locked up. But they couldn't get so they started Soul Trained Records together. They started so it was Don's Dick came up with the name and Don liked it and it became Old Trained Records. But maybe three or four years into it, they clashed and you guys are signed

to Soldier Record. At the signing, we're the first act signed to Soul Train Records. We went on the road one day, came back the next and Locks was on bad Locks was on the record company. Because because they fell out, they felt normal record company it was gone. Just like all the acts that they had. Don felt that his television career was It was kind of ingevity with Dick. Dick was like your father. They were a great friend. Dick was a hustler, but a good but

a brilliant hustler. Guy went to the Navy, could have went to Annapolis, that's how smart he was. Chose to be a hustler. Don feared that he didn't like his television thing being associated, so they parted ways to Street. But just think had they put it, had they kept it together, can you imagine that? That's exactly because you said he was too street. The potential is just scary. It could have happened. But what we learned from that, sometimes when it ain't meant to be, they meant to be.

How good they should have been the giants they could have been the first black presidents is for as unconcerned. But and then the other lesson that was learned is how dangerous that ego is, because that's all it destroyed. It. Ego messed up other young acts the black community. They could have ruled the whole black community. But again ego

stepped in. Good sense stepped out. But the good part about it is that with Di Griffy, even when they were going through their thing, there was never any fear for the whispers because the Griffy's we had so much confidence and who he was. He was a hustler and you knew if he said he was going to do something, he was was done. He says, don't worry about cohost. I'm form a new company. It's gonna be call Solo Records.

You're gonna be my first artist on that label. And he put the energy and went out and found producers like the Leon Silvers of the industry and put them with He says, I want to I want to shake this like like the Motown world Motown. And he put it together and got writers after writers after writers, and you know, his ability, his A and our ability was incredible. Dick Griffy was in A and our genius. So he

would sit down, we would listen to songs. He says, yeah, this song is a song would be good for you. And so when we did our first first project with him, you know, he wanted to take up all the songs. He said, Now you know, you know Nigga's got enough hits right there, So enough for y'all. I gotta spread this wealth to other groups like you know, like, yeah, well let me give you I tell you a lot of people didn't realize, like Leville said, he was a great A and R guy. To give you an example

of how nobody would never notice. Let's take the Lakeside song Fantasist boards. You know the raptors in there, they take a long okay, that was in the middle of the song. Did griefly said, hey, take the that there and open your song up with that. With that, open it with nobody with and even then said, man, you don't know what you're talking about. But he was the president. He said, take that rap. Put it in front the biggest record they ever had. Just like he told the deal,

y'all gonna let baby Face sing? Okay, Still baby Face came to us and said, man, the deal don't like none of my songs, said everything I right. None of the deal wanted to be prince they had when you hear two occasions my my mind, you know, in the mood they didn't want they didn't like none of them songs. We were down in Atlanta at they didn't want to hear none of them. Facing l A who at the time was was Kenny Edmonds and l A Read. They weren't at that time submitted those songs. We heard them.

We went crazy. He was. We told baby Fat, you were meant to write for us. He said, I'm so glad because my group they don't want. But now you said, you guys remember the right. In all fairness to them, he's saying that, and I agree with it. He send it. I don't think that they didn't want him, that they were young imps for then they didn't want to be whisper want group nothing personally, ain't nothing. But that's not But we don't want. We don't want to be that.

We that young guy with that he ringing is here and the girls are going crazy. That's who we want to be. But what we understood, we knew the one thing we've always knew. We knew what we could do, and that's it. Don't be trying to be something you're not. We know we can't wrap it. You ain't never heard us try to rap because we know what that don't mean if we don't like it. But we understood what baby face he was hearing what we actually could do. And when we heard that music, we say, man, and

we took it to Dick. As a matter of fact, to show you, we actually tried to sign him. We had a company called black Dad. We wanted to sign preference. No no, you can't. No, no, you can have the song, but I won't. Hill. Well, just like leg Side was signed the Midnight Star, that was their act. Y'all know how that works. Yeah, that's the thing. I'm sorry. The deal was, yes, exactly, broke his first his first two occasions. No, no no, no, the house direct Yeah, absolutely, all of

these things are under one umbrella. Here's a difference. What I always called the hustle mentality that I favor because Dick was a hustler. He gave the acts the freedom. Yeah. I mean, Barry Gordy worked in Detroit for the motor industry and he was a more kind of structured. The difference between Berry Gordy and Dick GRIFFI both bringing in their own way. But I always say that Dick brought the hustler mentality to music in relating to younger acts

because he was from the street. He would give you the opportunity to come and explain to him what you were trying to do with the song. Leon Silvers was in his prime, he was beginning to be who he would become as a producer, and man, Dick will sit there and listen to you all night Berry. Gordy on the other hand, if you know, Motown had great stars, but you know the story they brought what's going on, and he didn't want to put it out. He was like my mother told us, that's a little too. That

was the key difference. He was going with the formula. He was going with the formula because he came like us from that earlier generation. That didn't make him that daring that you guys were daring so so great about what y'all did, because but but we all know that Moretown is what it is and his storically speaking, it's the greatest black record company there ever was. But dig Griffy that was that's what he was trying to imitate.

Was very Gordy. But we had this stable baby face Leon Midnight Star, Uh Dynasty Shalamar like this little company in Los Angeles, as y'all know, was to become everywhere somebody somebody has to do a story, yeah, because because it's just it's just crazy because Leon Silver's they think everything was written by Leon Silver's the earlier hits were. But Leon was smart enough to say, I'm gonna get

a staff of writers that are hungry. And what I'll do is I'll a and r there stuff and add my little flavor to it, like almost like a school for writers. And he would, I mean, just because you wanted the Leon Silver's records. If if he was attached to it, he was attached to it. It wasubilate and he and he gave them the freedom too, because I mean, he came with some stuff. I remember we did a song and they're looking back at it was the funniest

thing in the world. He gave. He gave to Scott He says, okay, said I want you to say, you know, I want you to do your scat. You know you want and I want you to say and you know what that means, hey, Scotti, let that mean? And then you know, after he did a scat and guys like, man, I ain't doing that. That's the craziest thing. What were you talking about? Wind up being one of the biggest songs that we had. But that was the genius of him. He said, I'm gonna find a way to you, Scotty Scatt.

Where most people ran away from it, he found a way to embrace it. And the same thing with and be goes on. Leon silver has had a way that when he was in the studio with you, because at that time he didn't have a drummer, so he would get on his knees and just hit the base drum with basically hit the bass drump. He had a little mallet. Boom boom boom. Did he do that? Then he would get the snare and then he would do the SnO, he was in the tem he had it in his head.

He wasn't a drummer, but he had in his head. And when he finished, when he finished one, we saw it from the bass drum up and then the things that he did was amazing about him. And I'm a witness to it because what he asked me to do, because I didn't know the finished product, I thought it was crazy. So I'm fighting with my guys about doing it that something I'm not doing that? What you mean?

What that? What does that mean? So you know, but what he would end up doing because he knew the end, what was going in and when we heard Man, when we finished and the beagles on, we knew that like thank god we had our first. One of the fund things we love we love to ask is like your your your your feelings after your first hit record, your your movements after your first hit record? What did you what did you buy? I'm glad you asked this, Chris,

because we get this. We get asked this a lot, and we have you get three difference first of all, and this is the most young people that need to understand that. This shows you how one record can change your life completely. We went from I went from being able to get my clothes out of the cleanness to not having to be able to put them in the cleaners if you could. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but we went Our lives changed completely. One day you over here and then next day you

way over here. And for you Squares, that means that he didn't have to wear the same thing twice. I can finally give myself out of the famers. But and the beat goes on. Now. We did know the night that we finished it that it was our first year record. What we didn't know it's how our lives were gonna change because from that point on, and answer to your question, from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighties seven, everything we had was either platinum or go yeah, talk about it, Yeah.

Records I'm not even trying to crack the rip. I'm just telling you, honest god truth. But to go from what you said, like from from poor to that, I can't even think of a word to describe how great it was. You asked me, what did we bout like? I remember, I went, I shouldn't even be seeing it,

that's the truth. I wouldn't bought Mercedes, and I took the money out of my foot get it, yeah, put it into you didn't believe check from you asked me he was a walking band, would not put his money and I would not put My mother used to say food, do you know what exactly? Do you know what the bank is? Yeah? Yeah, mama, But I trust the bank, you know. And I as an Oakland hustle, I wasn't only one up in old we all mentality. Everybody had that.

But any when I when I wasn't bought my first Mercedes, they thought I was a drug dealer because I had all the cash, and I guess said, sir, let's sir, uh, we need to check check. I know how about you would cost thirty seven thousand, three hunds something. But I had all the money on me. So but again that's what we went. That's what the hit record did from nineteen eighty seven, Lordship Thank You. The funny part is what happened to me was once my first purchase was

a nine eleven ninety Porsche. And it was funny because I went to the dealership to get this portion and I'm standing there and nobody's helping me. They're just looking at there, and I'm welcome at this Porsche that's on the floor, and I'm saying, man, this is so bad. Yeah, the anthracite gray wheels everything I wanted. And I stood there in that place for about forty five minutes before anybody say anything to you. Nobody said nothing to me, So I decided I'm gonna leave. You know, I'm piste

off now. So I'm walking out about this time. There's another sales just coming on shift. He says, uh, can I help you? I said yeah, I said, because obviously nobody in there who wants my money. He said, what do you What are you here for? I said, I like to buy that seventy nine thirty on the showing floor there. He says, really, I said yeah. He says, well, what can I do? I said, well, I wanna pay cash for it. I want that car, so can you here's five thousand dollars. I'll be back with cash your

check for it. Because I didn't do the check in and savings. I didn't do that. Yeah, I didn't do the leg and so I bought that car. And I think walk you were in the store. You went in the store and some guy told him, says, oh, yeah, well I just sold this to this guy who sings with the whispers and he says his name was. He said, yeah, that's all I sold it to. So I learned my lesson from See, he kept us in the left and right leg. Nick would keep his in his drawls. He

slept with his money in his drawers. That's stopped after Nick went and sat down on the toilet in the middle of the night, and god, he had his money in the draws and pulled his pants down and flushed the toilet and everything. He too much money, didn't know what to do with it. He flushed and he flushed this all this money down the toilet and he went running down to the front catch tanker. That's some way

you where, because I'm willing to go in. That was the last time he put his money in his draws. That's how crazy things were back in the day. We just got too much money. He that was the second thing he did. The first thing he did me and him was blowing my mom my house. Yeah, that's the first thing him for any cause and all that he went down there later with it. My mom couldn't believe it. But that was the greatest feeling in the world world

to go by your parents. They're here. My dad had passed by then, but man, you tell me how to this day, I just think about it, and I just get happy because we we had been around. This is crazy in nineteen eighty. We had been around ten years before that. So we weren't that's the good thing that happened to us. We weren't young and foolish to the point. We had been striving for ten years. So when they finally happened, even though they bought the cars, mostly we

did some sensible things with it. And you didn't get you didn't know. I got it later. But the first thing I wanted to do is see my mama smile. You know. Yeah, that's that's that's what. Here's the question. Is it pertains to business? Um, just so we can

get some more information out there. How did you feel about looking back on it, the structure of your business at the time, like in terms of the fairness or the unfairness of it, or the things that were just so glad out of control that you know, should have been a certain way and weren't. Like what was happening at that time. It was structured to a point where you were only meant to go so far. As a black artist, you know that the structure of the business

was made was was made too. You come into a record company, they signed you to a deal and depending on who you are, the cloth that you had before you got there, you might get eight points as an artist. Eight that's crazy and it eight points. Then Stevie came along, you know, with his success that in Motown, and he was a writer, producer and he could talk about owning all of this stuff. But in our era, you were just trying to get the exposure. You would do anything,

and it limited you just were limited. You couldn't get but only so far, you know. Uh, as especially as a young black stand up vocal groups, stand up vocal groups were they were always afraid that them five guys might mess with some white women. So they were they were. They were things that happened with the temptations in the

Four Tops. And you know, traveling through the South had to be careful because you represented, here's five good looking black man standing up doing and young girls invariably gonna come in. You know, they're gonna like so you know, so you were just limited in terms of your ability. And then it depends on behind intelligent you were. You know, if you were, did you understand do you know about publishing copyrights? No, we were young. We just wanted to

be on stage. We wanted the girls the screen. We didn't learn about that. Dick Griffey was the guy that educated us about publishing. You know, Nick was our only writer. But we understand, we didn't understand publishing the way you guys did. And even you know, writers weren't compensated with the way they should have been to this day. But the but here's the ratio. If a hundred million was made back then, you actually, well, how much of that

should I get from a fair standpoint? But you were lucky. If a hundred me was made, you might get to three thousand maybe dollars. That's that's if a hundred million is generated. You now today you know what records generating. We're talking hundreds of millions. If you're not even knowing what you didn't have a clue of what that was. You didn't know what it was when you say no, we didn't know what was generated. Because I mean, first of all, back then, even now, when you see a

hunting me didn't make me faint. I don't know about you, But back then, not only would you faint, you may not ever fucking wake up a hundred million dollars. Nobody ever dreamed that kind of bunny was being even made. You know, but then you're going along with the obedience of being a black person that comes into play, whether you would you know, so you didn't even get to what like, well, we never got to that. No, No,

I don't know. You know, you stayed in your place, and you know you did what you were supposed to. You were obedient. Let's put it like you're happy with a little happy with a little one. So Huney bellion was genuine. You wouldn't have probably believed it anyway anyway, because those numbers don't even make sense, don't make sense, you know. Yeah, that's why we say the young people today.

But we don't have to because young people like you, you understand a huney million dollars don't mean that much to you. It's a lot of money, but you understand what a hundred million dollars is. In our day, we had no clue, no clue what a hundre million dollars. I don't even you don't think about that, you know,

y'all do. I remember having a conversation with my with with my father and couples, guys and uncles, and they were talking about sports and how they used to look at athletes and they used to be like, that's they ain't got no money like us. Absolutely, they used to really look at like you know, because it was just a different time. It was a different time, and you know what guys were getting in the streets compared to

you know what guys were getting legally. Absolutely, you know that at one point that was the way to get rich, absolutely, to get really rich. Absolutely, it was more so in a in a legal way. Absolutely, we didn't have all of these ways, you know from now with music or with acting, or with you know, with sports sponsorships and you know all these other things that that all the ancillary things that come along with it. Now, before it was just like oh yeah, if you want that Cadillac,

nobody get to house. Absolutely, so I completely, I completely understand what you're saying. I also want to know, from the road sense, how did that work because obviously you know, you have you have the you have the deal structures,

and you have the way that that works out. Like you said, you were lucky if you're getting eight points with most people don't understand the eight points breaks down to eight cents pennies, you know what I mean because a lot of people, you know, they they've made all of these terms, you know what I mean that where you know, you don't really just look into it. You're like,

you can, you can. I mean the sad thing is you can have a conversation with some of the artists that are out now and they don't even know what that breaks down to, even with all of this information. Yeah, that's the sad part. Now, Like like Tanks said earlier, we we we listened to you guys with grace and at a different you know, it's the scales are tipped in a different way because you guys had no idea.

There was no way to truly find out. And to our fault, we weren't educated enough to know that to ask the question, if there's a hundred pennies and the eight is gone, what happens to the other ninety two? That's common sense. But when you want to be on stage and you want the exposure, the business was built on that, That's what I'm talking. The business was on

the sexy of that. They just want to say, They just want to they just want to sing to them girls after the show as well, worried they want a little wine, a little woman, right, Yeah, yeah, maybe the don't taste. Yeah, they manipulated and in such a way because you know, the gifted are very much invested in the gift. We're very much invested in the gift. Like we're always trying to figure out how to be better

within our gift. At no point do we stop and say, you know what I'm saying, well, let's talk about those eight points, because sometimes the math doesn't correlate with the gift. You know, we just we just I'm just here the thing. But you know what I'm saying, we're gonna pick Okay, you gotta are you gonna pick that up about exactly exactly there for us. And even in the beginning of my career, like the things that I could have done with my early success, I didn't know to do. Yeah,

nobody showed me, nobody telling me. Yeah, nobody was like, now with this, since you have a top three record on the Hot one hundred, this is what you should go ask what and what you should turn that as exactly and then now you can be your own. But you know the advantageous I went on the business side to tell you that I was still being conditioned to to be a player. Yeah, I was being conditioned to stay a player. We want you to be the best player you can be. Yeah, but you gotta stay on

the team. You look, you look at the way that like I said, we go back to the terms, We go back to just even the way it was worded, the masters slave. People don't even know about that. And then and then the owner, you know what I mean. So if you if you're looking at music, they put it right in front of But this thing is do

you own your masters? You know what I mean? And there's I mean, there's a quote that I put on on one of my pages that says, uh, you know, we we own our own masters, you know what I mean. The masters don't own us. That's right, and that's something that you know, at one point we had to make that decision for ourselves. And if you look at it from that standpoint, you will approach it differently. That's right. If you look at it like, Okay, if they own

my masters, they own me absolutely. I don't think you would thank you or give them up as fast. But I don't think that that's ever though. That's never really put in front of someone to make that decision. Even beyond that, even when we went on the road and thinking, you get the test of this because we've all gone through the same things. You go on the road, you make all of this money as long as your socket

is for right soccer literally. But the other side of it is that we weren't given the tools to sit down at We never had a dinner table where the whole family sits down and your dad says, you know, you should put your money into this stock, or you should not necessarily go out there and buy them gold chains and cars and and that kind of stuff. Maybe before you even buy a house, because the house is

the worst investment. Maybe you need to go out there and buy you a bunch of apartment buildings or or or buy you a shopping center or or something like a parking something where you can have residual income coming in. We didn't have those conversations, so we were actually not knowing what to do with our money. So what we do is we pop bottles, the gold chains, we had the cars, We get a house, We bang a bunch of girls, and then get caught up with ye yeah,

what else did you do? But they excited excignment don't last long when you're married and the wife find out, oh ship on that half, they get ahead and they get at a moment exactly. So then you want end up saying, damn, I suked up really bad, you know. And so if you get that second chance, which a lot of people don't get, to reboot yourself and start again, that your hundred times. If you get that second chance, you don't do things. You know what I'm saying. That's

that's what I was asking about this the road. Ah And and when you guys get this this records are these records because you guys have multiple records. It's not like just the one record. We can go down the list how is that? Is it connected or is it separate at that point because you know now they'll even

try to get a piece of your performance. So back then it was completely separately, not thinking about the other side of your business because you're and that's why I asked, you're doing sellout business in the countin and separate and apart from royalties and publishing two different sets of income. And as you say, when you're selling out fifteen thousand caters, Luther at his height was going I mean, he was with CBS, selling plenty of records, but I guarantee it

was separate and apart. In our case, it definitely was. They didn't. They didn't associate the two with each other. You just we did that because you were just And then you get a royal statement and that's when you start argument and they even got to have money off the road some lawyers, but from the road, as you say, you start arguing. They never gave me a chance to argue because they never sent me a royalty statement. You

never gotta wait. You gotta be getting in my first sale and those I didn't manage eight to two thousand dead, I saw one royalty. Are you kidding me? When we're talking about to day, I saw one. But he's seriously, at that time, I was just playing my game. I understand my time, So you were being blinded by that. But then the times where I wanted to ask those tough questions and I did things. You know what I'm saying that that that kind of you know, put me

in a bad position. Um, you know, I really had to be smart about how I fought that battle because I don't have the money to fight it. Yeah, exactly. And I didn't know if at the time, you know what I mean, with the time that I had, I just need to focus on music. But when you got more money, got way more money, we got way more acts. They keep going, keep going in that lower yourselfice. I got to focus on a record that's going to change the verbage, the negotiations. So I gotta focus on that.

And that's what I did. Understandable. Yeah. Um, now we're talking about thirty five years later to think about that still, what are years later and this what's happening with us? And here we talked about forty years later. You went eight years and didn't see a royalty statement, So one that is amazing to me I've walked away from a lot of money as a means to an end, just so I can get to the other side, get to the next step, get to the next step. Wow, that's amazing,

you know what I mean. So, like, you know, it's funny because when people watch it or people see it, you know, they see the videos and all of these steps I say, they don't know, like, while some of these videos are out that you know, some of us are reaching in the ash tray, you know what I'm saying, digging out coins to put gas in. They don't realize that. And that was very much where I've been trying to get to the next moment. And the cost of that

video was on the dotted line. Come come, that's what when you see you start arguing. But see I say this though in our case, we weren't educated, now that I understand it, we met my gardener, I manager now, and I thought I was a pretty educated guy. But I wouldn't because if you educated, you have a sense of being curious about what's happening to you. But when you're doing what we like, you we out there performing, the girls, having fun, and you don't want to look

when they charge you for that video. You didn't even know he was being charged. You thought they were paying for it, because that's what you thought. You meet someone that explains to you how this is a business industry. It's called show, but it's business. And until you understand that, you're gonna be victimized by We certainly were. But I'm amazed that as younger as young as you are. Yeah, do you remember. I remember I was talking to one of the lakes side and he said to me, and

it may sound funny, but it blow your mind. Man, how do you go on to and come home and be broke? Yeah, yeah, that's correct, that was happening, but that's what was happening. I've seen it. He we on to have played sold out. Remember we were laughing. We went to the record store. They they met these girls and they brought in the babies and all that. They called off the girls and their kids signing. You know, they had the limos and they had about five or

six limos. Every limo there was paid for, record company paid for. Gladly didn't have no problem making you look good. But when you get back home that you yeah, you mad, this is what that's what your negative here And young kids. Y'all can thank God for y'all's podcast because you guys can explain this. Two young kids that are in this industry, you know, let they have to understand, be educated and nothing wrong with flying coach at nothing, nothing unless you're

six six. Yeah, you're comfortable and the rel you know, it's the flights get further. You want to later? Yeah, Europe. You don't need to fly first class from San Francisco to Los Angeles. You're the play Wait things all sold out, I go tomorrow. Let's get to the minds man, Let's let's get to the r. You want to talk to this brother because they've been doing this a long time. You know, they got they got minds on them, got minds on the second of our show, Top five. Okay,

I don't normally have to keep over this. Okay, today we're gonna we're gonna keep it simple. We want to know whispers whispers whispers your top five R and B artists M M male female group, five different us gonna say the same thing, but we're probably gonna we're prepared. It was your gree on and the next you. Okay, come on, let's just get it. Somebody kick it off. It's easy to me. It's easy. I start out with

Donny Hathway, no question, go down from him. I go to Marvin gay After Marvin Gaye, I go to Jesse Belvin, and then I go to two females. That's fall as I'm concerned, and it's just me that I'm my all time favorite. One is white, one is black. The black one is as a James for me. The white one is carrying carpet. Yes, yeah, that' see what's going on. The two greatest female singers as far as I'm concerned,

Ada and Caring. That's my father. Okay. Probably for me, I'm probably got a mixture of old school and new school um NK and Cole one of my greatest my mom, hipp you to this guy, Jackie Wilson, one of the greatest singers performers on planet Earth. Me being a tenor dey'll. Finally William Hart, one of my favorite tenor singers ever on this planet. That that I like female singer wise would be Many Rippington because she was singing in the

stratosphere before any of these ladies came along. I knew there was a stratosphere, and the last one would be Marvin gay because I like where he comes from emotionally. I could always count on him to say something that will bring tears to your eyes. And I knew every masterful song that he came out with was based on whatever emotional thing that he was going through, So I could we've had broken hearts, somebody tore our hearts out

of our chest, So he would have a song. Did you play that and just kind of sit in your own little pity session and listen to that song all the time. So Marvin get those would be you know, those would be my people. Scott did not have. We both Danny Hathaway, But I kind of put in mind the people that I revere the most. There's a combination of how will they could sing, but how great a writers they were? For me, Critis Mayfield the greatest black writer if you had the choice of colors, which when

you choose my brother? When I heard that, um, I admire him for his He wasn't a great vocalist, but his writing ability made me Marvin Gaye just natural. Two greatest female singers to me that ever lived Aretha Franklin number one, especially the young area, and Whitney Whitney was God given. She just that thing that you saw she did. Did you look at her eyes when she was in that jogging suit, she was looking how amazed that we were amazed that she could do that. Didn't you see that?

Because she did it so easy? She said, what what they what they're tripping about? That girl was so gifted to me. That's it for me. She just had to flap foot it just yeah, yeah, yeah, now that was less are amazing? Okay, okay, let's get another list, one another list on UM Top five R and B songs. You get tricking that's hard? That was that is hard? Well, Number one, What's going on? Kick it off? Kick it off? There? That's that's the one song that Marvin made that he

brought in other people. They were having a good time. It just evolved into the greatest as far as I'm concerned. That song. My wife and I we danced to the whole album and Mom got so many different songs on there. But What's going On? It's one of my favorite songs of all time. And then Luther who the Bad Truths, has a song called what is the title of it? His vocal gymnastics to me, I ain't heard nobody. What is the song I'm thinking up? The hit, the hit record,

the ad Yeah, whoo whoo. Man, it skips me. But his vocal gymnastics on it the house not ho No, No, he's talking about his hit record. Uh that it was a hit. But I love I love you said the song. You had a song. But what I what I related to is how he executed it as a vocalist, Luther Andro's male vocalist to me, And I mean, I've been around a lot of years and I heard a lot of singers. Luthor for me, this is what I like. You said songs right, Well, I related to the guy. Yeah,

I guess. I guess that's what I'm doing. Yeah, go ahead, and I'm gonna start out with what I say. Songs R and B probably one of the biggest, but it was just one of my favorite. That would be me and Mrs Jones that that that to me was when he did that, it brought in a whole new and then another song one of my favorite songs and it's R and D. Then go you said, boy, why are you coming with all these white acts? What you won't do?

Do love? To me? That was one of the greatest written R and B songs, And when I found he was white, I was stunned. I'm just being I said, wait a minute, how in the world one of the greatest songs was ever recorded for our concern? So those two, me and Mrs Jones, And then of course I can leave about Jesse Belvan. That's before you guys. Yeah, yeah, put us up on that, put us up on. Yeah. He he had a song called good Night Love and night my love. I'm gonna listen, go listen to start

saying to my wife from now on and not my love. Yeah, don't worry with it, don't worry you're around. Good Night my love. Well for me, you probably never heard this song, but I always like her because it was a song that was written by this young lady. She's not here anymore on this planet, but she took she when she wrote the song, because that's how I met my wife. I met my wife through Tina Marie, because my wife should sing with Tae Marie. So she happened to be

on the cruise. But she wrote a song for us called Butter Butter, and she says, this is what a woman wants to hear from you. Guys. And when she sat there on her keyboard in her house and played that song, I was like, oh my god, Yeah, that's what a woman wants to hear. So but it was done by us. So it's one of my favorite songs. Uh. You mentioned a song. I think it's called here my Dear. Yeah, you were my wife to me. You know when he with some of the things he said in that man

just wanted captivating everything inside of you. That was That's one of my favorite songs only because of his delivery and I could hear the pain in his voice. That was one of it. And uh, any del Phonic song because it didn't make any difference anymore between Tom Bell and Linda Creed, who wrote some of the greatest songs

in the stylistics he wrote for them. He wrote for del Phonics too, you know last week and uh, any of you know la la Lala means I love you, that kind of stuff in the tone and him having that little baby thing kind of thing that he did do. I remember him gonna tell you the Sqol story. I remember when I wanted to be a vocalist and I wanted to be in a group. My father wanted me to be a saxophone player. But it was nothing sexy to me and that saxophone thing at all. So I

went to see the Delfonics. I went to see the Delfonics, and I saw this nigger come out with William Hard and sing women into a trance where literally back in the day, you know, he wouldn't be doing that stuff now today, but he was. He must have slopped women in front of the stage. And I was like, oh, that's the nigger I wanted I want to be. So I went home and start working on my tenor as hard as I could, because that, I mean, I just

didn't find anything with playing a saxophone. But I knew that I wanted to be out there and I wanted to sing. And all the women that you could get was like my mode. I didn't think like what the Scott didn't want to say. I didn't think about no damn money. I just want the different type of currency, different different and so you know, but any of the Delfonic stylistic songs, you know, all of those things, that's

all I listened to when I first met them. So when they heard me sing for the first time, you know, because me and Scotty became friends. I went to see them performance, and once again this girl turned me onto him. But I went to see them at a performance, and I wanted to meet the whispers. So I decided, Okay, how can I meet the whispers? Okay, if I go with somebody, fine them, Nigga's gonna let me. Sure enough, he invited me back, probably dying scoop on what I had.

You know what I'm saying, But it got me through the door. And then me and Scotty became friends. And I started picking up all picking him up all the time. Uh. You know when he was coming in l a from from the Bay Area and uh, one day I was taking him back to the airport and uh, delfonic song came on and I started singing, not even thinking because I used to sing in my car all the time with nobody in there, and now I looked around, ding,

I'm singing in front of this nigger. He's a professional singer. He said, Man, Man, I didn't know you had that pretty falsettle with. Why don't you tell me you're saying? I said, man that you know, our friendship is not based on that. But I would be at every performance hoping one of them niggas getting to take take their place. And it happened, you know, it happened, and I was able to slide into there, and and it took me

a year before I walked on stage. I sang back behind the background in the wings, but my mic set up there and sing and I could always sing. But Nicholas Carwell was my business obstacle to get through because he was a choreographer. He said, this nigga got two left feet. He ain't gonna make it. And Scotty begged him. He says, no, man, he don't use drugs. He's wearing Penny loafer shoes v Next sweaters. He's clean. He's clean,

he don't use no drugs. He's the guy. So Nick, you know, you know, said well, we're gonna do a national audition and if we don't find another and them knew that audition, then I'll work with him. And they didn't find. Anybody in history is made. I've been with him now forty eight years, you know, fifty plus years. So he sunk back, stays for two years, Yeah, because

he couldn't entertain and then I went through the same thing. Yeah, he didn't know what you If you wasn't right, If you wasn't right, you're not getting on that stage again. But I was behind the band or something to Literally, I didn't get behind the band. I was in the wing. Nobody even knew I was standing on the wing for people that stage, you know, stage crew. They knew I was standing there singing. But you know, but Nick, and every night after we performed either today, I would rehearse

all day with Nick. Then at night we rehearse again. And I did that for almost two years. Yeah yeah, And two years later yeah yeah, And in Oakland, California, I got there thinking I'm gonna be in the wings again, and you said, okay, because I'm telling them all the time I'm ready, but I'm not sure if I'm ready. But I'm telling them ready, I'm ready, and said now that you're not quite ready yet, you know. And this one night they said, okay, you think you ready? I said, yeah,

I'm ready. Okay, it's not you're gonna get dressed, We're gonna go and stage. Remember that I never shake that much in my but you know, muscle memory from doing it all the time, it kicked in and it just got better and better because what people don't understand negative time, when you're just standing there doing nothing, how do you

hold yourself. You can either look awkward or you can look g right, So people don't understand that in the performance, saying, Nick would always say, you have to hold your hands a certain way. You have to look like you can't

look like you're thinking. You know, if you mess up, don't even worry about it, just catch it at the next spot, says they most likely won't know, you know, But that's what Nick taught me, and when them too, because when they walked out and niggas was like from the time they said ladies and gentlemen, the whispers from that point walking out, it was all choreographed to the everything, everything, everything, every bow, every I mean, every little minu thing that

you probably wouldn't see was choreographic. And I had to learn all that took me two years. Wow, you know I love that. I love that. Okay, here we go. We're gonna do this in pieces. This is called the R and B Votron. We're gonna build your R and B singer. Okay, this is the whispers R and B Voltron. We're looking for who you want the vocal from, who you want the styling from, who you want the performance style from, and who you want the passion from. So,

m wow, where you getting the vocal from? Something? With you? I'm looking right at you, Mr Feeling, Mr. I gotta sing it my way. You're talking about being see the problem and this is this is a fascinating question scepted because in my mind, who I wanted do for feeling ain't necessarily the person, because there's a difference between seeing with feeling and performing on the stage. Telling me who you want, well, you know who I want for feeling.

There's only one Dannie hath Towait for feeling. But Danny, excuse my friends, I loved him to death. But Dannie was short guy with a big capple and his whole thing was that's that's comes from the voice, as you might be shocked to I say, in terms of performing, well, no, this is just the vocal. This is vocals. Donnie, have the way for me done? I love that. You can't you can't go wrong with that down there you were performing somebody else? Are you gonna spread this around? Okay?

Who you getting the style from? Then? In terms of how they look on stage, the drip, that drip Marvin Gaye. Yeah yeah, dressed like Marv. This is getting different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming with Yeah. Well, I don't know what you're gonna ask me, but he said, who are you getting the performer style from? How did he get down on stage? Wow, that's easy for me. I can't believe you ain't eveything performing and it's probably people. Well it's not before they

know who he is. But James Brown, well, James performing before me, before he could throw it off. And it's amazing. Yeah, performing, he said, performing right, James Brown and Bobby Brown and Chris browning before me. But those two Brown you can't miss. With James Brown and Bobby Brown performing, my god, Yeah, tough. Young I watched him, watch him giving you a ship, the whole room, the whole group, everything they needed. I'm glad you said this kind and you know he's so young.

I'm thinking and but you gotta give it to performing that category. That's a different hole, you know. Alright, one more piece, one more piece and all and all of you guys can chime in on this. Who you get the passion from the heart of your artists who give it all that guy. Well, yeah, well, I'm gonna tell you something that we work with him all the time, and I watched him perform, and he gives one hundred and fifty thousand percent every time he sings a song. And that to me is um um oh Jay's um.

He gives one of the whole three pieces exactly. That is very very true. Good pig he did all the time. Anybody want to add to that, anybody with those for passion, for passion, I think Eddie LeVert is it? Yeah, I go with Eddie. Yeah, yeah, he gives you, He gives you all. I went on tour with with with him. I was on tour. I was opening for Jason Kid, I was opening for Baby Face, O Jays and Pata Bellow.

Is that right? That's a favorite of Al Hayman Man. Yeah, I know you're young, but I need somebody to feel fifteen minutes, no kidden, Yeah, I said, brother Al Hayman, whatever you need, I'm in this is this will be schools to be paid education. You should have been paying him paid education. And I watched I watched Eddie every night, and Eddie, we'll come and watch my show, no kidding, come, And then Baby face with you know, say, hey, man, you should come out and sing some of the you know,

the song I wrote, all the songs that I wrote. Second, you should come sing some of those with me. Not come out man. The information I got from that tour. Yeah, and then Patty come out there just oh my god. Up. Well you know what we do it. I got to give it to him to Luther. We tour it with him for a couple of years. Vocally, Lucy was strong, didn't was incredible, you know, And I'd asked him, I said, because don't you get horse? You know? He told me that you know, he didn't. He said he you know,

he would take lemons and but not much. He said, what really does it for me? It's not singing? It just rests. I said, So that's that's because he'd go out on stage and his voice was so silky, you know what I'm talking about. He was, and he hit the notes every night every night. But you said it rest. He that's what he's said. We don't rest. Yeah, we don't rest. And I'm I'm victim of that because I'm like the class clown. I got to crack the jokes,

you know, I got to have a feverage too. You know I'm running the midnight Oh it's then I'm gonna work out like and that's counter completely counterproductive. It is to keeping that instrument show. Yes what Luther told me. And I mean, you know, I never used lemons and stuff like that either, but I noticed after two or three days, I'm gonna be holes. You got to get some rest and not use them vocal cords. And he told me that's that's what it is, because I can't wondering.

I mean, you know, we boy the fourth night, you hear everybody you could tell Yeah, you know what I'm saying, everybody sound Yeah, yeah, I don't know what he did, but he didn't have that problem. Okay, well we got we got one more second for your man. We can and let y'all get away without getting to the brought of the most supports segment, especially when we got the legends, especially y'all got y'all got the best, you got the best story. There were no camera phones back, no cameras

at all. Y'all got away with so much. Yeah, so we got a segment of the show. It's called I ain't saying on that name, so the story can be funnier, fucked up, funny, and fucked up. The only rule is you can't say nobody's names outside of the members of the of the of the Whispers. Okay, you know what I mean. So right now we're about to get the whispers the whispers. I ain't saying no that well, I guess,

uh baby close, yes and no names. But I think probably the craziest things that have happened to me back in the day, many years, many moons ago, Um, you know, doing my thing, met a young lady out on the road and uh, he took it back to the hotel. And this was the place sometimes we go to places where we're there for more than one day, so you have one that day and then you get another one

the next thing. So so I wind up having this one girl, and then you know, next night, I meant another one that I really liked, so I decided open to take her back to the hotel. Well, the first one came back to the hotel uninvited, So she's sitting in the lobby waiting on me to roll in. So I rolled in with the other one on my arm. She said in there, She's like, uh, what's going on? I said, well, you know, uh, I'm with her, you know. She says, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you're not

with her tonight, you're with me. And I said no, I'm with her. So you're gonna have to go home. Says no, no, no, anything like that. You with me. So get on the elevator. She gets on the elevator, Rember, I go up to my floor. I get off the elevator. She gets off the elevator too. I got one on the left, one on the right, so I take the other one. I said, okay, you're going in the room. I'll be here there. I gotta handle this. So the other girl said no, I'm we're all going in this

room together. And I'm like, no, you can't come into them. And she said no, we were all gonna be in this room. We're all gonna party tonight together. I'm like, no, baby, you can't be in here. You know I'm with her. You go home, Gonna call you tomorrow. It's just no, it ain't going that way. So I tried to go in my room. She was pushing to go in the room with me. So I'm like, okay, wait minute, you know you need to stop all this. I'm trying to be cool. So I try to go in the room again.

By this time people here. It's out in the hallway and Leon Blue, who was our musical he was actually our stage manager at this time. His buddy of mine were still close his leaves. We just went to his wife's, his new his a wedding. But anyway, he peeps out the door and he sees me out there, and he's eyeballing the argument. So after about the third time he trying to get in my room, I'm piste off. I'm mad now because she's interrupting my flow. So I put

my hand on her chest and push her back. So she stumbles back and she breaks her heel on her shoe. So I decided, don't care. I'm going my room. I told you i'll see you tomorrow. Take up, you know. And she says, huh no, they ain't going down like that. And I heard clicker, and I turned around and she falls out a little thirty eight. I'll remember the day I died. It was all polished girl. Hand Well then Leon Blue and I don't think you're gonna come down

and help me? His dog go clicker. Now I'm standing hallway, I'm like oh, so now I gotta go different. Baby, You don't you don't want to show I don't want you don't want to do that. But I didn't know. Ye she did. But we're standing in the hallway fifteen minutes arguing. I guess he went back to his room and called for college. The elevator opened. I've never been so relieved in my life. Too, big ass white policemen came and walked down the hall and so me pitching

out and said she got guns. Part about it. He didn't hesitate or say anything about the gun. He says, Maam, you gotta go. I think he's gonna go, and you know, take her down, says you gotta go, and she's I'm not going. Anybody says, ma'am, You're either gonna go or we're gonna take you to jail. So he doesn't want to be He doesn't want to be with you, doesn't want to be bothered with you. You gotta leave. She walked over to me before she left, and she said,

I'm gonna get your ass to start up. From that point. On the other two days that we were there, I had a bodyguard every day because I didn't know she's gonna come back and shoot me or not. And so from that point on, I learned keep him for apart, don't be doing it in the same city. Stick with one.

How you whispered to man? That was my crazy still, the whole whisper to half a whisperation, the whole whisper to everybody that I was like, Man, that scared me the daylights out of me because I was like, they didn't say nothing about the gun. I just gotta you gotta go, yeah, you know, And now that, yeah, we got a little here. Wow, Who's who's next? Who got something else to kind of intertwined because we ended up story. We were in Buffalo, New York. It's been years ago

with the huge jazz artists. He's now gone. He had a record called was a Dukie stick BIG's talking about. We were opening for him, and in those days, the headliner, you know how it is, they get everything. So we get to the sound check and all of their instruments are covering the entire stage and all is left is about a spot as big as this table for us to perform. And we said, are the intromant is gonna be moved back? Or can you know? Because we couldn't

even get the five of us on that. He said, no, that's it, that's your space. So Scottie said, no, no, no, no, no, we gotta have more space in this. He gets piste off and he attempts to kick the drum set with his feet and one of the roadies came to stop him from kicking it, and Scottie turned around and Cole cocked that man and it was on. It was fighting.

They called the police and our trumpet players said Scotty and walked, y'all got to get out of here, and then you go back to the hotel as if this never happened. And he said, when you get back to the hotel, get under the bid because they coming for you. Eat and they're gonna find you because but this is the only and we both got under the bed, and of course the bed kind of went like but we got under. We got under that. The funniest part about it is that when we went to the room to

find out where they were. The guy you're talking about, John, he was our saxophone player, trumper trumper player, and I'm like, what, Scott, he's cracking up. Points you look out of the bed. They laying out like this. They actually come and took us to jail, but said, yeah, the police came to jail. We went to jail, both of Nick Nick paid off with basically how we end up getting out of jail. They end up taking us to jail with a little

little funny. He got pressed charges. Yeah, he pressed charge and the police came, but Nick did is went to their road manager, paid them off and they dropped it. We spent overnight and they came and got us show that night. Mr show was over and the artists when you wish I could tell you, but he's artists. He died a few years ago. Piano player. Well, that's the only way that could they could hurt us because they knew our show, with our routines and the twins and stuff.

If you could not give us enough space then you know, and there's other artists that done that too, you know that would give us a little space because they said, we don't need I don't need the heat, and long as I don't happen. I don't know this, this segments don't know and we're not calling no name, but I will say this much to who if you gets to who that was, because he's no longer with us. We end up being the greatest friends in life. And it wasn't him that it wasn't so much as if it

was really his people. It has people because he would have never he would have never even went that route. And he was the greatest guy. I don't want to call his name because the seconds, well, let's put it like this. We later ended up and ended up doing one of our biggest Christmas songs that he produced. Wow, yeah, it worked out. Somebody had to catch those hands. Yeah, some good time. That's what you're crazy. That's what's crazy. Crazy.

A lot of people caught hands. But let me say this to you YouTube and particularly said it in the beginning, but we have to say it again because the fact that you two young guys I thought enough of us to even allow us to do this. Yeah, a man, we don't take that for not. We appreciate it. We want you to know we appreciate we didn't even get

into maybe we could do it another time. This platform gives us the opportunity to say to our people some things that we normally would have never got to do exactly. We thank you all for that. Yeah, we appreciate it. We don't take our granted. Man. Yeah, looks that you just appreciate old school. You know, heard that stuff on you know, and so trained talking about R and B is dead stuff, And I'm like, what the heck are they talking and just trying to spark us. Come at y'all.

You didn't say hip hop. Yeah, y'all say R and beach. Everybody love you for money? Listen, we are we are we first of all, we love you. Um, we are not scared of the part two. So don't worry about that. I heard that anytime. You got it. Know what I'm saying, to be doing of our cattle. Yeah, it's so good, be honest with you. We didn't even get to next time. We'll get catalog talk catalog. You don't talk to that catalog. Yeah, you know anything about catalog to roll things. That's a

bunch of them. The works, the works, you know what I'm said, the bodies works. Um. First of all, let me say we love you, We appreciate you, thank you, thank you, you are. You are held in high regard. Thank you over here. You know what I mean. And

so um, we can't thank you enough. We can't thank you enough for the work um, and we can't thank you enough for just being here and get giving us these jewels and this information, and you know, because that's that's where we all suffer, you know what I mean. We suffer from things we don't know, you know what I mean. And so these these places, things, people, all of this that you have that you've we need it. Thank you. We need it. If we're gonna do better,

it starts, it starts with the information. Thank you. Um so UM, I can't I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to talk catalog talking, and I can't wait for you to hold lesson in high regards by giving us one of them smashes. That's easy. That's easy because because I really get to tap into my phone, into my imaing. I really, I really get to be talented. I get to be talented. And you're doing something. You know, we're ballads. That's where you know, that's where we come from.

So you come from that same school. So I know you've got something, you got something deep in us. Between the two of you, I can extend that bar, turnarounds to sixteen and you know they throw a special four and they're like, we can get creative that's that's easy, and it's a musk. It has to be done. I want to say to YouTube, just keep doing what you're doing doing, don't change. Just keep doing what you're doing

and it'll be fine. Well I'm tanking. I'm Ja Valentine and this is the arm by Money podcast, the authority on all things are in and this y R Money, R and B Money is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and rate our show, and you can connect with us on social media at Ja Valentine and at the

Real Tank. For the extended episode, subscribe to YouTube dot com, forward Slash, R and B Money