QLS Classic: Allee Willis

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

What up, y'all?

This is Liaiah and this week's Quest Love Supreme classic is all about a true legend.

Her name was Ali Willis.

We lost her a couple of years ago, but before that, she sat down with the Quest and Team Supreme September nineteenth, twenty eighteen, as she was also being honored as Songwriter of the Year. Yeah, who is this person who has the color purple, friends, and earth, wind and fire in common.

It's Ali Willis and we break it all down this.

Episode, So listen, learn and celebrate the life of a really cool lady.

Suprema Supreme, Suprema Supremo.

Roll Call Supremo, Roll Call Supreme, Suprema roll Call.

I'm slightly out of it. Yeah, I'm a little sick. Yeah, my favorite of all time.

Yeah. This September my ten was Swift Supreme.

Suprema, roll Call, Supreme, So Supreme.

Roll my name is Sugar.

Yeah.

I always wanted to ask how high were you when you wrote Neutron Dance, Hi.

Supreme So SUPREMEA role called Suprema son Son, Suprema roll call.

Yeah your up. Yeah, I'm so hyped. Yeah, we're about to steer it up.

Supreme son Son Supreme roll Call, Supreme so SUPREMEO roll.

Called high a Mali. Yeah from the valley.

Oay, I used to land in New York.

I'll take that.

Supreme, Supreme Choice, Supreme, Supreme Roll Supreme, Supreme roll.

Wow. Okay.

We were a little scared when we started the theme because it was only normally it's like nineteen billion of us h ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a very anemic Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host, quest Love. The show must always go on.

Uh.

We're here today with it's Laya and Sugar Steve, hellot of people.

I will say that if you know me or if you know us well at the Quest Love Supreme, we've been here for a year and some change. Uh, then you know that we're all about looking under the hood to see what's under the surface, and today is no different.

Uh.

Most of us called the uh the raisin Potatoes salt remix, you know, Uh as expected. Uh, black Twitter was up in arms because that's what Taylor Swift does well. But little did we know that we had a lesson coming to us, and so we were most of us were beyond certain that all the authors of that song, yes, uh, were the blackest of the black. We just we just knew we were spinning up all of our facts and everything, and I mean we just, yeah, that's that's the barbecue.

She wrote that too.

I've never had more fun discovering her, her legacy, and and and her her songcraft and her life more than our guest today. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the quest Lip Supreme.

Ali Willis. He's white Willis, but.

The right Alley Willis.

Plus everyone thinks I'm a black man. When I meet anyone, they go, shit, you're a woman and you're white.

So hey, you know, uh so I should note that you are getting inducted into the Songwriters.

Hall of Fame, yes tonight. Why can I ask what took so long?

Because you're exactly exactly talk about it. Which is why I never gave a shit about being in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, because there were a lot of people, you know, who were in there who had hits, definitely not necessarily ones that you might know fifty years from to day. So I just assumed, you know, I was passed over. Didn't mean a lot to me, And then when I got it, I was so excited I couldn't stand it. So it doesn't mean a lot, and I'm elated.

Well, I'm elated for you because you know, well one, you know, as as a person that lives for uh liner notes and credits.

I mean, maybe it's just easy to overlook a name or something.

You know you've been, You're ubiquitous, yet you're under the surface in the eyes of many a liner note rat. But once we discovered what he did, it was like, yeah, it's you know, I'm the world's best kept secret.

So well hopefully hopefully not for long.

So I want to go back to your beginnings you were now even though you said from the valley and well.

Half of that I was.

I was born in Detroit, the greatest city in the world.

What part of the east west?

Northwest? I went to Mumford.

I've never had a Northwest on the show.

Yeah, Northwest. A lot of people came out of my high school. The Winings went there, the Clark sisters went there. Earl Klue Jerry Bruckheimer, Oh yeah, yeah, wow yeah.

So what was what was your entry into music? Because I know that you had a history as a copywriter at Sony Columbia.

At Columbia, I was a journalism major with a minor in advertising at the University Wisconsin and someone told me that they had advertising departments at record companies.

So I got a job as.

A secretary at Columbia and epic almost didn't get the job because they sent me upstairs when I interviewed for a typing test, and I literally was on my eleventh time of failing and the uh, what was the test?

Typing?

You have to do?

You know, like you have to do like one hundred words a minute.

I was even money, so they'd like dictaate something to you and you, yeah, you're actually reading something and you have to type, oh and just I wasn't getting it. But then the head of the advertising department called upstairs where I was taking the test and said send her down because they just found out that day that the secretary was quitting. So I got the job, but then within a month I was bumped up to junior copywriters, so my I was in charge of all the minorities,

Uh, it's for all those Columbia records, so.

Like, well, no, it was up to me to actually get the assetates as soon as the artist finished the record, and then write all the advertising for it. So that was radio commercials print ads, some cases TV, but not so my main people that I well, I met Jannis Joplin the first day that I was actually a secretary. She passed away five days later, but I got in there and then I eventually moved into her apartment. So yeah, I have a lot of stuff like like I saw Otis Redding's plane crash.

I mean, I have a lot of stuff like this.

Tell us well about it Otis?

Well, wait, did we start with Janet, because like you said, you met her Janis.

Jane Jane Well, and then I was writing promo for Pearl, the album that came out actually right after she died, but of course we didn't know she was going to die. So Johnny Cash, I did early stuff for my main artist that I was in charge of. The Loura Nero, Uh, Barbara Strays and Blood, Sweat and.

Tears the Stone. Were they considered an urban act?

Yeah, they were put in with the black acts because they had horns. I guess, yeah, I'm not well, explain to me. I'm glad you're here it because well, it's not like we have Clive on the show.

Ever.

He was like, I know, yeah, so this is the closest I'm gonna get to it. Do you remember what the atmosphere was like when you guys were given the final master to there's a riot going on because I figured that on the heels of stand and Woodstock and the Greatest Hits record.

It's like, oh, this is gonna be the monster. Yeah, and you get it and it's a whole other thing. Yeah, what was the what was the room?

Like? People who were diehard sly fans loved it and felt like he was progressing. But I think most of the record company they wanted, you know, dance to the music and everyday people and they were getting you know, thank you for letting me be myself or you know, yeah, so there it was a mix. I remember there was some like panic in the room that maybe this wasn't going to be a hit I think, but uh, you.

Know, because like on your coming up from Detroit, Yeah, I want to ask you at this point how your parents felt about your journey, because we know that Joe Daddy wasn't really.

Messive with the Blakes.

Yeah, we can thank him for my career though, because the more resistant, the more it pushed me. He was not a bigot though he really wasn't a bigot. He did it more to push my buttons, you.

Know, and he knew that the black thing was going to be.

He was like the thing that put me over the y.

Yeah, Archie Bunker though, I think believed it a little more than my dad.

You know.

My thing is growing up in Detroit.

I grew up right when Motown was like formed and coming up, So I used to go down there every time I could. Started when I was twelve, i think, and I would sit out on the front lawn because you could just watch people, you know, walking in and out.

But most importantly you could hear.

Through the walls.

Really so yeah, certain instruments. You could hear bass, you could hear drums. Sometimes you could hear background vola from the law. Yeah, because it was just in a little house. So you know, if you were sitting close enough to the house, which is how the Supremes got discovered, they were also sitting out in front, and I think Mickey Stevenson, who was head of A and R, came out on the front porch and said, can anyone sing, I mean I wasn't there for that.

How many people are sitting on the lawn on the deck.

Had to be really dedicated. There were always like tourists around, but.

There were a few people who were like planted there.

Was it a twenty four hour operation?

Yeah, I'm thinking of the safety, like okay, well not to really blow up the spot. But like in Brooklyn, the the the Daptone headquarters, which was Sharon Jones's. Yeah, like their operation is very similar. Where it's in a neighborhood. Yeah, I don't I'm not quite certain or where if the neighborhood knows what goes on in that house. Yeah, but always wonder, like with Motown, like was it a twenty four hour operation?

Was it secure?

It's you know what I mean, were like I was never I was never there at night. But my understanding is yes, twenty four hours. Oh okay, yeah, okay, yeah, but you know during the day there'd always be tourists there and then there would be you know, the lawn sitter. There's actually a little patch of dirt now you know today right in front of the big you know those big historical landmark, those green and gold they're not plaques. They're big, they're like five feet tall, and it says

So when did the Motown people, whether it be Berry or whoever the artist is, when did they discover that you were.

Who you were?

Like?

Not until Motown the musical O really yeah, because I never got inside.

I was always outside.

And then when September first came out and then Boogie Wonderland, the Detroit Free Press did a thing, you know, like the Local Girl Makes Good and that was the first time I was ever in the studio because they did

Five thousand lead singers.

Yeah and.

Yeah, it was crazy. It took five years. There's also a visual component to it.

All.

Self funded, nearly killed me. But I love that city and I'll do anything. And then only within this last year was I introduced to Rob and Terry. They heard about my collection because I have a very vast uh pop culture, kitch kitch pop culture, kind of off the center line. So they came out to see it because they have a lot of Motown stuff, like really obscure stuff.

And then I became inseparable from them.

They came to your house, they flew out.

For a day, and then just in Detroit, like three weeks ago, they threw me a party and I had my birthday at Motown. That was a surprise party that happened there. So everyone that was on the tour her, you know, they stopped. They played this little film when you start the tour. It's the have you ever seen that film? Oh my god, Oh you'll have a heart attack. It's like classic Motown footage, but not that you usually see. And it's the first thing that they show you when

That is amazing. Yeah, that is amazing.

So my Motown thing, though, is new, and I never met Barry Gordy, which was a quest of mine forever. And when Motown the Musical opened in Detroit, it's at a theater that is literally.

Right down the block from Motown.

And but one of my friends directed Motown the Musical, Charles Randoff Right, and he said.

You're meeting Barry Gordy.

And I had had a camera because I have video on my life since nineteen seventy eight. So really, yes, literally every significant moment and trillions of the insignificant.

Ones, but nothing rated.

Are everything there, everything's out of there and anyway, So I saw Charles go off to Barry Gordy, and I could hear Barry Gordy going she wrote what she wrote? What?

Yes?

And then I got to meet him.

I have all of this on film, and you know, as I'm giving him kind of my final hug, I thanked him and he said no, thank you, which to me were the greatest words ever uttered to me in my life, because I idolized him forever.

I mean, we're still thinking you so thank you. That that is crazy. Wait, so how old were you when you left Detroit?

How old did you see? I went when I went to college, which was seventeen. Then I would come home for vacations, and then once I was twenty one, I went to New York.

Yeah, I went to New York and that was it.

So what was the did you have any twenty grand experiences up in Detroit?

Only in that I was always nine to go there, you know.

I mean I went a couple times, but that Baker's Keyboard lounge, do you know? But Baker's, Uh, I not heard of it. Bakers is really where the Funk Brothers came from. It's still in existence. It's a jazz club, and you know the Motown, the Funk Brothers, they were all jazz players, right, so most.

Of them came out of there. But it was you know, my father did not like me.

Having the these.

Tastes that I had for black culture, so I wasn't really allowed to go out. He couldn't stop me from going to Motown, especially once I got my driver's license.

But I always like to.

Say I did get the last word with My father passed away in two thousand and two, and the very very last words that I said to him, I leaned down and I whispered in his ear.

I just got the gig to write the color purple.

And he was gone within the hour, gone gone. So whatever he put me through, I got him good.

Oh God, sibling wise, are you the only sibling or no?

I have an older brother and sister, one still in Detroit. My sister lives in Omaha. But they did not have a fascination with Detroit the way that I did. Were you the middle child, youngest? Oh you were the young yeah?

Okay, explain yeah, So back to so when you left Detroit and uh college and whatnot? When did you did you go to La A X And.

I, well, I have the job at the record company from sixty nine actually to seventy four. But in nineteen seventy two I wrote my first song okay, and I took it to my boss at the record company, the head of the advertising department. Actually I took the first three that I wrote, and he took those to a guy named Ron Alexenburg. He was head of Ever at the time, and then Alexembourg not knowing it was me because it was a conflict of interest to work there and be an arm to.

An artistry and I didn't want to lose my job.

Alexembourg liked it and then took it to Clive, so Clive had to sign off on and then I got a deal, so I had to quit.

And I had one album that came out. First ten songs I Ever.

Wrote did not make it. Actually got great reviews, but it had zero sales, so.

I was doing four.

I only did four live appearances. I was terrified of performing the first performance they put me opening for a folk singer. I had an all black band dressed as sequin vegetables, and everyone.

In my band like went on to do something great.

Put it in.

Yeah, well Bob Babbitt, who was yeah, yeah, they liked me. I don't know.

The greatest thing is that tonight at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, the background singer is the very very first singer that I ever hired to be in my band at the time, Phonsie Thorn Frozzie Thornton.

Yes he's getting inducted to no, no, he's.

Singing backgrounds on Neutron Dance in September.

Which the Phronsie's like Luther, like just name it, like well yeah, like.

Best favorite Luther since Kindergarten.

But the amazing thing is Luther was Phonsie's piano player, and Phonsie actually had a group. There were three of them, and so I ended up hiring the three of them and leaving Luther behind.

Luther was pissed off.

But Luther, that was my very first music click.

That was like family to me. Speak.

Wait now that you're here, all right, I gotta ask you quasi personal. Does the name Billy Jackson mean anything to you?

I mean, I know.

Formerly other times.

I know he wrote so in Love for the Times, but he was also a staff producer at Columbia.

No, I don't think I know the same Billy Jackson. But So in Love is absolutely my favorite all time records. Anyway, So, so what happened was, so I go out on tour.

It was disastrous.

I never relaxed one second on stage, and I didn't want a tour anymore, and then I lost my deal like four months after the album came out. That night, one of my my best friends were the Harlottes. They sang you know, Bette Midler and one of them Sharon Red, who went on to have like a bunch of like disco things. Sharon Red, that was my best best Wait, she was a heartlet Sharon Red. Yes, and as Charlotte Crossley Charlot do you know Charloh I don't know that name, but yeah, Sharon Sharon Read?

Yeah, who was Sharon Ray?

Why should we know her?

Well, she had a bunch of disco Yeah the name that you know, yeah that you just but as a DJ, I know that name, so I lost my record deal. She said, you shouldn't be alone come to this recording session I'm doing. I don't want to fucking be at a recording session if I've just lost my deal, you know. But she was like adamant about it, and I went and it was another one of these unbelievable things that I am blessed to have happened to me.

We opened the.

Door to the studio was the Hit Factory, which is where I also recorded my one album that came out and produced by Jerry Ragavoy, by the way, and opened the door and the singer who I didn't know, took one look at me, and she literally ran over to me and got on her knees and started bowing and said, what are you doing here? You should go home and write me a song, And it was Bonnie Ray wo whoa. I got my very first cover the next day and went on the road with her for a short while,

She said, I have a friend who's also up here recording. Go into Studio B. He needs lyrics.

I hated just writing lyrics and I didn't want to be with the friend. I'm finally with the big cheese, so what do I want to be with the friend for? So for two days I avoid going into this studio.

She was in Studio A. He was in Studio B, way.

Down the hall, and I was going walking down the hall and the door to Studio B open and I go, shit, that's the guy. And I head into the bathroom. So I'm in the bathroom. I had to pee anyway, So well, I wanted to be with Patty. Yeah, So anyway, I'm like sitting on the toilet and the door to the bathroom my fence, and I hear clump, clump, clump, and these two male feet slide under the bathroom door.

Sure, and all he he in.

This like deep voices, like Patty says a really good writer, you know, come into Studio B.

So I go into Studio B, and I figure, I'm trapped.

I'm like a speed.

Writer, and now you to cuss HI out with coming in the bathroom.

No, no, no, it was no because I knew I was messing up by not going in.

I mean, I'm, you know, I finally meet like a star and I'm already not doing what she, you know, said overwhelming. Yeah, well this was overwhelming because we had he had all these tracks, and so I'm sitting across from him and We're just firing these lyrics off. And it was not until the middle of the second song Swear to God that he had a phone call, and I really started staring at him, you know, and I went, oh my god, it's Herbie Handcot.

Wait, do not tell me this is out. Just come run into me.

Got written, Yes, exactly exactly.

That was the first one IoT that before I realized it was Herbie Hancock.

Shyeah, see this is what you don't know. And I can't even believe you know that song. No you with this is what you don't know.

That song is a very significant song to my, my generation, my clique. Another detroiter that you might not be aware of a producer.

Named Jay Dilla. Oh I mean yeah, yeah. He his gift if you heard the term like oh, musicians, musician or song song. Yeah.

Usually he's like an obscure person that the regular people don't get, but only the special people get.

Yeah, he was the producer's producers producers. Wow.

So and not even to put myself in that category, like only the special people got this guy. But what he managed to do, of course, you know hip hop works. A lot of work is derivative off of other people, you know, sampling and all that stuff. So, uh, which is weird. I'm saying this as of this date, eighteen years ago. Uh, Fantastic Volume two came out today as of this speaking. I'm sure that this will go.

Away, yes, this right right right? Yeah, but.

Uh, you know, normally in an album like Sunlight wouldn't have necessarily gotten a second look. I mean it, there's some classics on it. But it wasn't until Jay Dillon made us pay attention to it and especially just come running to me. That means that's almost like, you know, you're tired of people telling you like how much the friends theme means to them. I never get tired of it myself right now.

That's like for the Neil Soul generation. Yeah, yeah, that that means everything, like of all you like, of all the things you've done. Yeah, that song means the most of me.

That is so shocking because I couldn't even sing it to you. Now, that's like how little.

I mean, there's the reason why I'm like I hired vocoder players and stuff. Even when when Hermie comes around, I was like, really like that's what you Wantdow, I got everything else, Like why that song is amazing?

Well, we we wrote like three or four songs like that day, of which that was, you know, one of them, and then it was the Feat Down Failed Now.

The next album.

Yeah, and it was almost like the sequel to it. Yeah, but that's yo, dog Wow. The fact that that almost didn't happen and you were avoid it only.

Happened because he had nerve to come into the bathroom.

I wish Bill was here man. Yes, okay, so basically, uh uh okay, play the original teach us. I haven't done this in so long because you know, I haven't heard it since then. So basically, literally I.

Have Maybe the last time I heard this was nineteen eighty.

I listened to this about ten times a week. Wow.

I don't understand how you write something like this without knowing how to just falllng.

I mean because I didn't. I didn't know how to play, so I had to like teach myself.

So he wrote the music person and told you to come with lyrics, yeah.

Music, well yeah, and then I sat with him and we wrote the lyrics.

Yeah. That's It's crazy to me because I don't even is this the first time that he sang lyrics to Yeah?

And it's why I never put together, really that it was Herbie Hancock, because what does he need lyrics for?

But he had just gotten the vote co order.

Wait, I never feel like I heard Herbie sing before.

Yeah, let's have a question. Still unbelievable. I haven't heard that in so long, so for us at least hang on a second.

Oh yes, of course, what was your singing voice?

Like my singing voice is as high as my speaking voice is low, like like in the oh zone.

Yeah, it's likely.

Well wait that's the thing I want to know. Well, I really want to get to Boogie wonder Lamb. But you're the imagery, like what all your subject matters and yourlyrics are just on some next level Like as far as the the imagery.

Is, if I'm left to my own devices, they it is, but certain like I was very upset writing September, even though I was so excited, I couldn't stand it. But it was such a song lyric lyric, and you know, I was this journalism major. I wanted to write this you know, incredible poetry or uh you know, story and not have lines be as common as do you remember the twenty first ninety September Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing.

The clouds away that cloud line.

I was ready to slip my wrists, but you know you're writing in that case with Maurice and and al McKay also, who's unbelievably fantastic.

But the lyric end of it was just with Maurice. It was so dark though, but for such a happy song.

Yeah, well dark as Boogie Wonderland that's the one that's really dark, well in the verses. But but I learned an incredible lesson, the single most important lesson in my songwriting career, from Maurice during September.

Because I was very.

He always used the term or.

The nonsensical word body e when he would write anything.

So if it was like he was doing that's the way of the world, you know, he would have gone.

Yeah.

So that came right at the top of the chorus is September. You know, body a sadie. Remember body dancing in September? Body yad never was a cloudy day. So I kept saying throughout the writing because we wrote September to be the only the new single on the Greatest Hits, and at the same time we were writing the whole I Am album, so it took, you know, months to actually complete any of the songs because they were all being written at once. So for September, I kept saying,

We were at Sunset Sound in LA and.

The whole album was due, plus September had to be out of the studio at midnight. It was like ten minutes to midnight, and I went into the studio and I did literally get on my knees and I'm clutching his thighs. The man had the best thighs in the music industry, I gotta tell you, and yeah, probably and begging like we have to change body out of real words. In his biography, he actually says I was crying while

But by then body I was in the earth would a fire Alexicon.

They yeah, had done yeah nas prominently, but yes, yeah, and uh like sun Goddess or something like that right in your head what would have fit those That was part of the problem. Everything was corny, you know, because you only have three syllables.

Give me examples like what was.

Well when we did try in white words, it was still stuff that nauseated me, like, you know, oh my love or you know yeah, yeah, no, no, it was hit, yes, it was hideous. So anyway, but I'm still begging him, and you know.

He was calm. It took a lot to like rile him.

I to this day, like never saw him angry or anything or lift his voice to it, you know, to anyone, just this serene being. And so I finally said, I like scream, what the fuck does body on mean? And he just said, who the fuck cares?

And that was it. That was the end of it. And then the record was out in three weeks, and my life changed, tell me changed, because that was the barbecue.

Yeah no, it still is. It's the song that wouldn't die. It's it literally gets bigger every year.

I need to know more about body like we did, Maurice. I mean, it's it's just a random sound.

They've just always you know, since that's the way the world since opened our eyes. They just I could I could tell you about.

Do you know, I know you'll know it hot dog it because that, to me is one of my favorite Maurice vocals. And that's all. Uh, I can't actually remember who's that dogging around is? The only actual vocal in there.

Otherwise it's all by type, just phrases and sounds.

All right, we majorly skipped went straight to Earthwork Fire. I want to get to Can't Let Go, But let's let's go back.

To be another one that I thought insignificant, and that song no Let Go, Yeah, that.

Is I still that's still my DJs like that to me, that should have been that.

I think it was a B side of something it was, yeah, but.

It should have it should have been hit like that to me.

Wow, that's incredible that it's my obscure more obscure ones.

That you like, which I love. That's not incredible that wait, get to Angela Bluefield anyway, Oh my god, Oh my god. I don't know which one the title track to the one album that really didn't make it something about You. It's in between Two Tough and Angel of the Night, but the Angel of the Night. Here's the funny story is that even though that didn't get much more.

I mean, i've her first four records, like my dad was the biggest Angela Bluefield, that album didn't get that much played. But here's the funny thing, Uh, growing up and the Don't Touch my don't touch the stereo household.

There was a scratch on side one of that Angela Bluefield record, So you are.

And so.

You know, the way that our stereo was position was like far away from We had speakers all over the house, universal speakers, but the stereo was in the living room, so like, if you want to change it, you gotta go downstairs. Like you can listen to it in any room in the house, but you still had to. And so because of the way that the wax culture is, I think it's the first line of the second verse of.

Something about you, which I think is you've been hungry too long? It always skips.

My cousins were dirty, whereas since you've been hugd me too, you've been huked me too long, since you've been hooking.

Ship used to always skip. And that memory that is etched in my brain I can't even remember. Was the churuse like kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's all I remember, though, Yeah, but it's just like yeah. But the thing is is that I used the word hungry all the time in lyrics though, so I know that it's me.

All the time. So what was you hungry for everything? All the time.

Okay, so as a songwriter, Okay, I'm taking back to her seventy seven You're in the bath, so seventy eight, well seventy eight, Yeah, how how terrifying was it living check to check?

Like?

And how does a songwriter make a living in LA? Like this is like you just wait for the quarter to come? Did you get a publishing deal?

Did you? Like? How does that work?

I know I was pretty starving to death when I first lost the job at Columbia Epic. I became a hat check girl at comedy clubs, so at Catcherizing Star, and then there was a club called Reno Sweeney, which was a cabaret that Bet Melissa Manchester, Barry Manilow Manhattan Transfer.

Came out of there. Yeah.

So I.

Was hanging coats at Reno Sweeney and well at both of the clubs. Yeah, And I was also hanging posters. I was going around the city with like glue and shit. But I moved to California because it was if I'm going to starve death, I'm doing it in the sun. So I actually moved in seventy six, and no, I was getting I was on unemployment, really not making money at all. I did get one publishing deal with like a five thousand dollars advance, which to me was like a million dollars.

Right was going home, back home?

Ever an option like I got a little bit never no because of my father situation, and I.

Write letters like hey Dad, I'm doing fine. It was like yeah no.

And every time I got a record cut, it was by a black artist, and then I'd have to go through the whole like conversation again. So not I only got reat hatched to Detroit seven or eight years ago, and then I became obsessive about it.

I always loved it in my heart, but I wasn't going back constantly.

So he wasn't impressed with September and.

Dad, I got a number one hit, not to my face, but I always heard from all my friends like, you know, if we see your dad walking down the street, we got to go to the other side because he'll talk about you for two hours and he'll show us clip, he'll show them clippings and all of this.

But not not to me.

Really didn't give it up until right at the end, and then I sent him out with the color purple.

So even so, how do songwriters get paid is the artist, like, okay, i'd see your starving.

Here's here's a couple hundred bucks just to.

It was really, you know, all my friends were songwriters, my whole little click.

Some became performers.

Those people we're making money, but the ones who were just songwriters, we were basically just starving together. It was quite an illustrious group. Everyone went on to like have hits and all pretty much around the same time. We all kind of hit at the same time. But no, we were collecting unemployment and.

Really that's it. Like when Patty.

LaBelle paid for me to go to San Francisco, that was it. It's you know, the Harlot's were up there, you know, which is how she heard it. So they were like giving me money for food and she paid for the tickets.

So that tasty album. Yeah, Patty, was that the only time you worked with her before you got to Stir It Up.

I was on a couple albums of her. I had a couple songs per album, okay, for two or three albums. Yeah, Stirred Up was like way aft, well relatively way.

Aft, okay, Okay, So with uh, I know that you also, okay, I gotta get to it's it's a big na bs.

No, it's a lot. But how what was on your mind with Bookie Wonderland.

I can tell you exactly.

I've been waiting for this movie.

I can tell you the other jewels she hold of for you two. I forget about the other one with great.

Oh oh oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. So Bookie Wonderland I wrote with John Lynn. John Lynn had written Sun Goddess for Earth Wind and Fire, and he was kind of he was managed by the same Cavallo Ruffalo who you know managed Earth Wind and Fire. Denise Williams like Prince Yeah, friends, yeah, oh, that's the story I need to tell you.

So remember Prince.

Yes, and uh so, Maurice kept saying you two should write together. So this would have been in March, I think in nineteen seventy eight, so I already knew I had a whole bunch of Earth Wind and Fire stuff coming out, but nothing had come out yet.

John had had something out, and.

We wanted to use the word boogie, because every song had boogie in it at that time, but we didn't want to use it in the normal sense of the word, which you know, to dance. And I the night before had seen the movie Looking for Mister Goodbar.

Diane Keaton movie.

She goes out to disco's every night like her life is completely falling apart, but she gets into the club and you know, her life is all of a sudden magical, and she brings home a different guy every night to sleep with, and the audience has led to believe that one of these guys is a serial killer.

Not what you thought you were going to hear for Boogie Wonderland.

So we wanted to write.

A song about someone who's life was falling apart but would escape into this world of dance every night where everything would be okay.

So we knew we.

Wanted a really dark verse and we wanted a really sparkling happy chorus.

So the h and we wrote the song actually in order.

So the you know the verse which people always come up to me and they say, book you Wonderland. It's such a happy song, And I always say, have you listen to the lyric? So but people sing it like you know, you sing it phonetically. People sing along with it, but they don't know what they're singing. So the verse is, uh, midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men who need more than they get. Daylight deals a bad hand to

Then we wanted to.

The song was actually written in a different structure than they recorded it in because they go from that, they do the little dance boogie Wonderland chant, and then they go right back into sounds fly through the night, I chase my vinyl dreams, the boogie Wonderland.

I find romance when I start to dance in Boogie Wonderland.

But we inserted the chorus in between the verses, so it went from this dark, depressing you're looking in the mirror and feeling like shit, to all of the love in the world can't be gone, all the need to be loved, can't be wrong. All the records are playing in my heart keep saying boogie Wonderland, And we wanted that to sound almost Broadway ish, and how happy that that music was. It was supposed to be like a bipolar mood swing.

Yes it was. To the chorus, Yeah, and would you write these lyrics? Do you just come out with the complete prose or like, are you thinking of a rhythmic structure? Are you thinking of.

Because that's a lot you're You're placing a lot of poetic thought into the imagery. Yeah, but in my head, I'm like, Okay, well, how's this going to fit in this line and this line and that line, and how can we.

Well we were we we definitely wrote the music. We wrote the music to the verse verse, and then put the words to that. Then we jumped to the chorus music and lyrics. I mean, every song is different. I knew we were actually trying to write for Earth Wind and Fire, but you know, so we knew it had to have, like, you know, a certain rhythmic thing to it, and because the chords were so dark in the in the verse, that seemed to fit.

And the first few lines of the chorus came easy.

But we still didn't have boogie in it, and we we didn't know how to work it in and we didn't really know what to call the song. And the course was last, yes, and the words Bookie Wonderland War was the very last thing that we got.

So what was the it was.

Originally called Johnny's Casino Lounge. So and we, yeah, we got the phone book out because we said, well, let's look up names of clubs. So we looked up clubs and we looked up bars, and one we liked Johnny's, and then there was another one called the Casino Lounge.

So the original chorus started out, come.

To Johnny's cassine no lounge.

That was the original things became all time favor.

Instead of you know, and then then we went, no, no, it doesn't sound important enough. Earth Wind and Fire is not going to sing Johnny's Casino Lounge. So then we came to, uh, you know, all the Love in the Wood can't be Gone, And when we got to all the records are playing and mock keep saying when we got there, it was we wanted Broadway, we wanted Cinderella, we wanted you know something. So that just felt like

Uh.

Johnny's Cassine No Lounge.

You know.

When you're writing these songs, are you thinking, first, let's write a hit or you just trying to express an idea?

Well, in my head, I always wanted hits. So because I love layered It's so complex, it was like.

It didn't dawn on me that anything was different about it, which it was, seriously yeah, because my whole thing was there used to be this massive discussion between what is art and what is commercial.

And I grew up on Top forty radio.

I loved Top forty, so to me, the greatest songs were when you could mesh those two things together as opposed to making a decision between going one way or the other.

So I was always trying to shove that in.

That song felt the whole way through like, Okay, that is exactly what we're doing. So I But Boogie Wonderland only came about because we realized that even though we set out to write a song using that word, we hadn't used it. So we went, okay, screw it. Instead of the club name, boogie Wonderland is.

Going to be.

What this needs to be is the state of mind that this person is in when they go into the club.

So that state of mind became Boogie Wonderland.

So are you having these philosophical discussions as you're doing it? Yes?

And I love writing that way. So is there like a vision board or something like? Okay, so what do you want to write about?

And I mean, you know, I I have written with thousands of stupid people.

Thousands.

It's a drag to write with someone stupid because you can't have these kind of discussions. I love having these kind of discussions because you really like break it down and you.

Know, like what she has became my all time right now, this is amazing, this is.

But John Lynn was someone you could have those kind of discussions with. So, uh, you know, that was really one of those songs where you're kind of intellectualizing it the whole way through.

See.

I just always felt that Boogie Wonderland was a I mean that to me was the when we talk about troll culture, uh, the the the especially like in today's Internet society, when you speak of troll culture, yeah, the the art of of of provoking someone whatever. Now usually in in the cannon in the songwriting canon of earth wind Fire. Yeah, Boogie Wonderland isn't necessarily in anyone's top ten, but I always surface Earth and Fire fans were like, they try to.

Do a disco song, yeah, missed it. Yeah, And I always had to argue, I'm like, yo, like Boogie Wonderland and Hey.

Yah are almost in the same Hey y'all is in the same category. Like Dre's actually making fun of the audience that's embracing it. Yeah, and he says like they're not even listening to the lyrics where it's like he's literally saying, you know, people just want to shake their ass, but they're not even peeping the darkness of the song. And I noticed always felt that Boogie Wonderland was done with a week. I thought it was let's make fun of disco. Well it was with a week.

I need to get you the demo of Boogie Wonderland, Yes you do, which you could actually guess you right now because they do have it on my website. Yes, but it was we always felt like we wrote it as a song. They cut it as a groove, like it was never meant to be all orchestrated like that. Oh so once you had the demo with the lyrics, then they can do whatever they.

So when you heard the final product, what'd you think? Well, I was at a bunch of the sessions.

It took me to hear that song as an oldie to go, oh my god, it's really good. So at the time I thought they sucked it up. Yeah, really, yes, even though I was very excited, like we were at the.

String and horn sessions that just in terms of being in the room with those kind.

Of strings, those kind of horns was exciting, but it did not feel appropriate for the song that we had written. I mean, now, in hindsight, you know, I absolutely adore it, but at the time it's like, what is all this stuff doing on here?

You know?

But even in your Broadway vision of it, because Earthword and Fire is theater, they are high, high theater, so yeah, we I don't think they knew it at the time. So I always felt this is a multi layered troll mastery, Like I.

Can see that.

Yeah, But the the demo was was different.

The demo.

You would have to hear the demo, John singing the lead on that I will get you the demo.

I think that would be really interest thing for.

You to hear.

Extremely also within in the stone. We can't ignore that you wrote in the stone? Yeah, what is that about?

At the time, I had no idea.

You know. The first thing he ever said to me, Maurice, literally the very first thing was do you what do you know about Eastern philosophies?

And it was like I knew nothing. I didn't even know what he was talking about.

That I always say I was as evolved as pop rocks.

I was like, I was like strictly you know, pop culture, top forty radio, television, and you know, I knew he was into all this, you know, deep shit.

So I said, I didn't know anything.

So he gave me a list of books and sent me yes, and sent me to a store in La called the Body Tree, which was the Yeah, like just you could smell the incense.

Like a mile away. It's still there. No it's not.

There's a I meant the culture is still there.

Yeah, it's not physically still there, but yeah, there's someone that was associated with that place, that has another place similar to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. So he gave me ten books and he said, the one you have to start with. It was called the Greatest Salesman in the World. And I thought oh, it's about advertising. I got this down and I opened it up and immediately it's not about advertising, it's you know, the profits in.

There in the old Egypt.

And I got so confused immediately immediately. But in the Stone on that album, and I Am was supposed to be the song that kind of really got all of their philosophy in there, So I.

Never understood it.

As we were writing, he would basically tell me what he wanted to say, and I would give him ten different lines that that said that. Now, of course I understand everything. It's very much let alone the phrase I am. He said, that's what I'm going to call the album. I said, what does I AM mean? Now, it's in

The seat of my pants.

Did you have a good report in friendship with Maurice White. I'm only asking because What makes I AM really significant is the fact that even though even though all right so uh like and Steve, even though Marie's Richard Nichols, which was Charles Stephanie yeah, passed away.

Kind of leaving him to hold the ball and hold everything together, which I mean for the all in.

All record, I felt like that just the sheer adrenaline of Okay, now I have to drive this car and made Charles proud of me. But I always felt like, because I mean, you come into play. But also David Foster, he brought us the same day.

We were both brought in.

You two were brought this. Did you guys work together per se or were you like separate camps on.

Some songs together?

And then I also did he had a solo album with Jay Grayden called The airplaye okay, oh yeah, uh yeah, so Graydon and Foster were kind of a team at that point.

You know what, I've had an Airplayer album forever. I didn't know that was David Foster. Yeah, yeah, Okay sings on that record. Yeah yeah.

Another I can't remember the single. I think could it be alright something like that.

It's a yacht rock classic.

Oh okay, yeah, Well I like it then, okay, yeah, well, I.

Mean if you like did his Office Rock, Yeah, it's a smooth la not a class.

Well no, no no, but I love like that cheesy Kidny Loggins. You like kitchen art, Yes, I love kitchen music.

Yes I do too, Yeah, I do. The Airplay album is right up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was very nineteen eighty one, which is when it was yeah.

All that la musician Toto. Yeah, I live for this stuff.

Wait are you No?

Toto was recording next door to us the whole way through I Am. We had both studios locked out for like a year at sound really er at Hollywood No, yeah, I Am was cut both at Hollywood Sound and at Sunset Sound. I have a good Hollywood Sound story because Verdein, well, Michael Jackson was recording next door to us a lot

At the same time. And I think it was eighty one.

I guess finally we're there at the same time, and he said, let's go right now he's there.

I go in.

Michael Jackson stands up, he grabs my hand. We're shaking hands, and someone runs into the studio and says, Richard Pryor just set himself on fire. Well, and Michael Jackson's hand just like went limp in my hand and he like fell back, and I thought.

I gotta go now.

And that was the only time I met Michael Jackson.

It was not the lamp at But I remember that, were you? Yes?

Oh for the record, no, but yes, I remember.

Yo.

That was in April of eighty eighty, was it eighty Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that that news hit My aunt like lost it.

Yeah, that was something else anyway.

Wait, so then, speaking of Michael Jackson, then we bring up Greg Phillip Gangs, who was one of her besties.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd go way back with him. He we love Greg. Yeah, great show.

Yeah, No, I've heard the podcast.

But the question, no, I know, you asked him a question and I don't he either didn't know the answer didn't answer was whether Earth Wind and Fire played on their records. Oh, and Ali Willis knows the answer. Yeah, tell me, I have to say in my day, yes, they did. They played every instrument there were people like Paulino, you know, Da Costa was coming in, but they played

Deadened the Uh. Yeah, I think it's impossible.

It's kind of like Doctor Drake like it's I think it's impossible because by that point, I mean, after nineteen seventy five, they.

Were such a force on the road.

Well, I'll give it back an example like the Beach Boys, to the point where if as a unit, the Beach Boys were always touring on the road and kind of Brian was was at home, yeah, maintaining that.

So I always felt that there were more.

Whoever could deliver the greatest performance musically on their records after nineteen seventy eight could do it. I mean I definitely feel it, for I mean on the Raised album, on their eighty one Rais album, there's.

Yeah, by that time it was shifting, but certainly before it was absolutely at least when I was.

There, Yeah, it was all them.

Yeah, So that's always been a question. But Marie kind of talked about in this book as well. Okay, so I always felt that you were the spiritual whisper.

You have to tell me about working with Narada Michael Walden and is he always like that? Four? Yes?

Really him, He just cops me. Oh I was thinking the other way.

Oh, he's hype so hyper. Yeah, he's hyper on bang bang bang. Every time he talks to me. It's like my science teacher from third grade.

He is. I would say, he's fifty percent that way and fifty percent the other way.

And there's no medal, no medal. He is an unbelievably great guy.

I love him.

I worked with him recently, but we started when he used to open for Patty LaBelle. So when I started getting my Patty stuff started, you know, hitting me up, let's write together, let's write together.

And I almost immediately got.

Sick of songwriting as soon as they started having hits. It was just because it was too much everyone and their mother.

Yes, when something would hit, then people knock on your door. Yeah, then the pressure to like September.

Yeah. And I think because I.

Was so associated with earth, wind and fire, people assumed I was just a lyricist that drove me nuts and in a lot of earth wind and fire, I was, but with no one else was I and it never was as interesting for me just writing lyrics as you know, versus writing music and lyrics.

So by the time Narda got to.

Me, which was after September was out, I was trying to weed out who you know, I was writing. I was getting over one hundred songs cut a year, which so I was a machine. I would write five six hundred songs a year. I mean I was writing three four songs a day.

Wow, So how do you not get numb from that process? I did.

I stopped enjoying it almost as soon as I had hits.

How do you know what's your creative process? Because the number for you to turn out that many a day, it's like, how do you not get it?

It was mostly writing lyrics and I just started hating it. It was exciting at first because you get on everyone's album, but I didn't think musically most of the time. It's like, if I had been co writing the music, Bar five would have been somewhere else, you know.

So it eventually led to it led to really me being kind of miserable. The more songs I got cut.

Between eighty eighty one is when I really started feeling like I can't keep doing this.

Is it's going to make me hate musical Yeah.

And then eighty three it happened with a Manhattan Transfer song. They had me write lyrics. There was a spyro gyra song called Shaker Song, and so they had me and David Lasley, who was a frequent collaborator of mine incredible.

Put lyrics to it.

It's like, what are we going to do with with Shaker?

You know, what what is that? And it took us forever, you know, we finally.

Figured out, oh, he can't shaker as opposed to Shaker. But what they wanted was a jazz song where every single phrase had a lyric to it with very little repeat.

So it was a four page, single space lyric.

If it just was that went linear, you know, the four lines repeated where Shaker was it would repeat. Otherwise it constantly changed. Took forever to write, so they I was really good friends with all of them, and they called up nineteen eighty one. This was I was already at the point of like, I'm not interested in doing this anymore. It's just it's too much because we write that many songs, what is there to say? And I'm writing mostly to music that I didn't care about.

But I was getting on these huge albums.

So Tim Howse was the you know, his group, He called up and he said, now we want to do pick up the pieces Average White Band and so write a lyric to that, and we need it like on Monday, and it was my birthday that weekend. I'm a huge party thrower. That is my number one skills parties way above music, way above music. So I thought, oh god, now I have to do what I did to Shaker Song, which was nightmarish. Even though I loved the Shaker song,

There can be very few, you know, repeats.

So it ruined my birthday weekend.

I just you know, sat there writing around the clock and I handed it in and Tim said, oh, we just wanted the chorus. Oh yeah, And that was at the point where I went, I'm out, I can't do this because I also what I was doing is I would wipe with a group or you know, an artist, and I'd write seven or eight songs and then maybe they would do one.

If you were lucky, they would do one.

And I just felt like songwriters get so taken advantage of. It's not like you're getting Josh Wright and it's you know, don't make me do eight songs if you know you already got nine songs on the record, So what am what am I doing this for? And then pick up

It's so an incredible burden a half because these words are just pouring out of you.

I know, I'm presenting this romantic version of like the gods are just pouring words out of you, But.

It's like, but words that you stop caring about between writing so much and not caring about some of the music, feeling that the music could have been so much better.

So when something doesn't make it, where is it in the garbage?

Can you didn't know somebody else?

No, No, well yeah, oh no.

I mean for every song I have out, there are ten others sitting there. Nothing happens with them, especially if it's not music that you thought was that great and you were writing with.

A specific artist. So no, it was.

There were hundreds of songs, just like you know, dead Fish, you know that.

It was.

It was literally like, where is that? Pick up the pieces? I'm I'm the world's biggest average white band. Fin Yeah, So just as a completist, where is that?

I'm sure I've got it somewhere.

You know I have it, but you know, And so I decided right there and then something has to change. Took me a couple years, but out of total frustration, I started to paint. And I was writing working with one of the go gos at the time, and Jane Weedling guitar, and she came in the very next day and bought my first painting. So I thought, oh my god, I have this built in you know, music audience. I'm going to keep doing this. So I just started painting.

Because she said you had a story, because he was the reason that you started.

Well, James, you know, I always collected memorabilia, and I loved black memorabilia, specifically late sixties, early seventies, massive afros, the fashions.

Talk about what's what's in your Oh my god, it's unspeakable now.

But yeah, on speaking, you need a trip to Willis Wonderland, that's.

What you next.

Elli, Uh, but you know, I wasn't originally, you know, I was.

There were sambos in there, there were mammy's and James Brown went around my house. He asked me for a grocery bag. Oh yes, James gave him a Brown grocery bag. And now, but mostly my stuff was the massive afros, but there were Jemima's in there and other things. And he would go and he would pick it up and he'd hold it about four feet in the air, and then he'd go bing and he'd let.

His hand go and you could hear it smashing in the bag. So I have the bag too. I have all the smashed pieces.

So that's like an art piece you could make.

Yeah, no, I know, I know. So uh.

He was the one that really said this stuff is not cool.

And but the rest of my stuff, he said, you have to keep collecting this because black people did not know these things were around. There wasn't enough money to distribute stuff. So if something was made in Detroit, it wasn't going to get past Cleveland. And very specifically a couple of games that I had, one called Slangling nineteen sixty nine made in Detroit. I think Irene Carter is the company at Black bingo. So instead of b I NGO,

Wow.

And then instead of the numbers, it's Chitlin's Wo Funky Broadway Cadillac.

Gold Tooth. I mean, amazing stuff it is. We're here right now from the Smithson.

Have you talked to Smithsonian about some of your stuff?

No?

You know, You're like, you know, no, I'm I'm ready to talk.

Yeah, I have to make an introduction to Timothy and Burnside at the Smithsonian.

Who.

Well, wait, this is an unbelievable conversation because in twenty twenty I was supposed to have a pretty major exhibition of my collection and my work and how it worked together.

And this morning before I came here.

I got a thing that the CEO of the Childs Wright African American Museum, which is the second largest African American museum next to the Smithsonian now in Detroit.

She resigned this morning. So there went the exhibition.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, as soon as we're done, have you been there?

No?

And I've got a couple of things because I know the color purple's there, earth wind and fires in there so I'm done.

And they have a like mammy section and a sand boat explaining about this, so you would really yeah.

Oh I would love it.

But my stuff is all like one of my favorite things is it's a do it It's called the do it Yourself.

Black Power coloring kit and.

I love you, and all it is is a you know, you got a puple little paints and then you get a figure that starts out as a white.

Man and you paint him black and.

He's got his fist. That was sixty eight, I think sixty eight.

I thought I was, Oh no, I.

Mean and then like talk about the correlation between your house and Peewee's house.

Well that people used to think that I did the set, which I didn't. We at that time were like inseparable. We were best friends, so we had very similar esthetic but I actually didn't have anything to do with that. I did, though, write the title song that we did as a duet to Big Adventure, But Danny.

Elfman, who you know, did all the music.

For that, said, ain't no one else doing the title song. But I do have that the duet between me and Pee.

Wee, that's the circus one right, The second movie.

Uh that No, that was Pee Wee's Big Top.

I was a big Pee wee fan.

It was Big Adventure was the first. Yeah, you wrote lyrics to that theme? Yes? And no no, no, no, no, no, no no no that was Mark mothersbow all that because no, this music, it is awesome.

Really yeah no, the only thing that came.

I just figured you would wake up to that, but apparently you just unbelievable.

That's Marks and Cydney Lauper singing.

Okay, so no, you're talking about the theme to his television.

Oh That's what I'm talking about about the theme to his movie.

Okay, yeah, yeah, but the the duet did come out on Warner Brothers. They made five hundred picture discs and that's all. So So anyway, Greg filling games playing on it too.

I have a question, since we're on your memorabilia, yeah stuff, what's your record collection?

Like?

After all?

You know, like I converted everything to digital because I couldn't stand schlepping everything around anymore. I still have my favorite favorite favorite albums, mostly Motown, but it's not I don't have it out though, but I have a lot.

Of music memorabilia.

So, but James Brown was the one who said to me, you have to keep collecting this stuff. You know, you could have a museum with the stuff that you have, because people don't know this.

Stuff is in existence.

So I you know, it was the Godfather saying collect act. So I just kept going.

So you just collect any type of kitchen art or pop culture or everything.

Well, it's very specifically the periods. I used to be most interested in the fifties. Now way more interested in sixties, seventies. Uh, kind of soul stuff, atomic stuff, Kitch stuff. The Kitch stuff didn't happen until later. I hated Kitch, but then I art directed.

Why I just didn't it.

Was too I was into like more like fantastic design, and Kitch kind of was open poker. No, I wasn't into that stuff, but then I art directed and production designed Julia Julie Brown, Yeahrown, Yeah, the Julie.

Brown Show, which was the very first Downtown No the white one White there were ones. Yeah, yeah, I used to watch that show. No, she was good.

Yeah, and it was it was the very first MTV clip show where someone was commenting on videos, so we would make fun you know of all the.

The videos.

Yes, yeah, and and and so that set had to be really kitchy and me and her, I remember we went to the Long Beach Swamp Meet and there was a painting of two clowns drinking a cup of coffee, and I thought, there's something hideous about this, but I knew it was right for her set and my deal because there was no budget. We would shoot ten shows in three days, and we did, like, you know, like

You know.

I see so a lot of stuff like that.

Like I have the unbelievably great graphic on these pantyhose called Touch a Soul, and you know, it's this almost nude woman almost like she's praying and she's in the middle of like this you know, red green and black circle thing. But then the shade of the pantyhose is off black, which is not right right, you know. And the Supremes, you know, the Supremes had white bread out, so I've got the bread wrapper.

White bread, and they got killed for it.

I have Mary Wilson on film talking about how they just you know, it killed them because the pumpernickel raw.

But it wasn't a choice they have made. They couldn't.

I mean, I know, but literally Supremes white bread.

I mean, it's un.

Were you always the visual art piece? I want to say that we see today as far as wardrobe.

Once I got on my own, once I started cutting my record in nineteen seventy two, is when the clothing, Oh so you were just I was yeah, before that, I was like, you know, what would a college girl wear? You know, like not expressive at all. And then someone took me to a thrift shop and my life changed.

Wait for me forget understand what was the print story?

So well, we've kind of ruined the impact of the story because we know who it is now. But there was this kid that always hung around earth Wind and Fire had their own label when I Am came out, called Arc, and there was this weird kid always hung around the office, didn't talk to anyone, but he was there one hundred percent of Yeah. And I.

I had heard all of the I Am album complete, but I never.

Heard it sequenced.

So when I got the call come up Maurice's you know they're on the road. Go in Maurice's office, it was a.

Reel to reel and you can hear the album sequence.

I knew this was going to be an incredibly emotional thing for me because I knew this album was going to change my life.

You know, I'm still on food stamps.

At this time. Okay, So.

I go in in the whole like a couple days before.

I'm like so excited, and this is I'm going to be in Maurice's office when I have this moment to myself, I'm going to cry.

It's going to be unbelievable.

So I get up there and I'm closing the door and someone comes over and says, can't they used to call him the kid?

Can the kid.

Listen with you?

And I thought, Shit, that's this weird kid and he never says anything, And so here's the real to reel. Here's the weird kid, maybe four feet back from the real to reel I'm back, like at Maurice's desk, so I'm maybe eight feet behind him, and I couldn't even concentrate on the record. I just kept looking at the guy going, fuck you, you know, what are you doing?

To myself? Like, what are you doing in here? My moment? And then four months later, I Want to be your lover came out and I went, oh, my fucking god, it's Prince. Was there no small talker or anything? Nothing? Not a word.

Did you'll ever circle back to each other?

Never? No, not a word.

But you know, there's my Prince story. I'm really good friends with Wendy though still.

But the friends of the show, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know we there's so much that we missed.

I actually wanted to know how fast this is gonna be the most obscure music question I asked of the day, how fast did it take you to write shopping for me to see?

Wow?

You are pulling them out? Oh wait, you think you're just on the show because they told you like he wanted history. I just didn't know it was you.

Well, I didn't write it as fast as The fastest song I ever wrote was Neutron Dance.

That was the fastest.

That was fifty eight minutes, twenty eight for lyrics and thirty two or whatever.

It is, no weed, How do you remember that?

Because I did not want to write the song that was real. That was the first time I was in I had so many hits in a row and I had nothing, and it was at a point where I was miserable writing and really feeling like I had ruined my career.

And uh, there was should I tell you the Neutron Dancer?

Okay, that there was a movie called Streets of.

Fire, yes, Diane Lane.

But all they told me about this movie was that it was a handsome guy, cute girl and a black doop band and they're out of town. They're only ones to escape a nuclear holocaust. That's all they told at.

I believe Streets of Fire was the first PG thirteen rated film. Yeah, this is where I can Dan Hartman.

Yeah, well so this was that was the spot that it was written for. And it was Joel Silver's first.

Movie too, okay as a director, right, yeah.

As a producer, as a producer and anyway, so they said write this song. I didn't have any common evidence that I could write good anymore. My publisher put me with someone who had never written a song before. But they signed him because his brother had the biggest record of the year of the year before, which was Maniac. Yes, yes, but because he was Michael Simbello's little brother. So and I only found out that he had never written before like five minutes before he was coming over.

And so when I, well, you're telling me that Danny Simbelo's entry into music, he's.

Written a lot of shit that that was his first song was to dance. But you're saying to me that, like it was nepotism that got him in the door.

Absolutely, he would have been the first to tell you that too.

Yeah. Really, yeah, because his name just pops up everywhere the addition stuff.

Yeah, Michael like one of my favorite collaborators ever, so is narda.

But but Danny really unbelievable. It was just a nepotism move. Yes, that's crazy.

And he had been in Stevie Wonders maybe seventeen at the time, and he had been in Stevie's band since he was fifteen. So the only thing I knew was that he could play okay, which was great for me because I can't play. So I put a timer on when he came over, because I said, I only have an hour, and I thought, and he came over and he had like he had like a little bag lunch and he had a hockey uniform on and he was sweating.

It was just like the worst thing that could have happened to me.

And uh and I knew we had to write for a doo wop band, so I just said to him, play the tritest fifties.

Bass line that you could think of.

And he immediately, you know, boom boom boom boom boom, bom bomb ba ba ba ba ba bum bum bum bum bomb. And I can sing a melody to anything. Start tapping those water bottles together. You'll have a song in thirty seconds. So uh we So I know the music was done in twenty eight and then we started on the lyric and I knew it had to have something to do with you know, it was a nuclear holocaust, so you know something. There's got to be like burning in there or exploding, you know something.

And I let you to tell you the story because I'm like, what does this have to do with Beverly Hills, cop like, why, well, yeah, yeah, no, I get it.

No, So we though the original title of Neutron Dance was Barbecue. I'm just burning on the barbacue. That was original, So I was, you know, this was a song we were writing. We weren't writing for a particular artist, so I it was very autobiographical because I just I felt like, you know, my career is over. What's happening in my life, and I knew I had to make a change. If I don't get off my ass and do something, it's all over. So and that's you know that lyric I

Every day.

I look out of my window and there are two kids picking the lock on my nineteen sixty two pink corvetor.

So I race out of the house and I'm thinking, I got to get this kid out of here.

This song is like a piece of shit.

So I'm running out of the house into my driveway to chase the kids away, and I yelled back the.

Line, someone stole my brand new Chevrolet, which.

Is how how that happened.

Yeah, but they didn't steal it.

You caught them, No, I caught it, and they were kids, so they ran away as soon as I got out there. And then by the time I was back because I'm just racing, It's like, why am I putting I'm into this song?

My career is over? Who's this kid?

So then I had in the rent is due. I got no place to stay, and so that song was finished. He was out of the house in fifty eight minutes.

Yeah, yeah, and handed it in. They rejected it, you.

Know from the movie, which to me it was like this piece of shit song written in under an hour, so didn't surprise me. But my publisher really liked the song, got it to the Pointers. Pointers cut it, but it was they were at their height. They had already chosen five singles off this next album that was coming out.

How'd you get past Richard Perry?

I had nothing to do with that at that he was like, yeah, that was strict Like, yeah, that was strictly my My publisher did that. And anyway, Pointers cut it, and then I get a package in the mail that had a cassette and a letter from Jerry Bruckheimer.

He's doing his second movie. They you know, need a song that sounds like the song that's on the cassette and it's Neutron Dance.

Did he know you from Detroit?

And he know?

No? Okay no, But they certainly had to have known I was the writer of Neutron Dance and they're sending me this thing to copy, which they I knew they sent to every writer in LA because all my friends were calling me up and everyone knew, Oh it's Eddie Murphy that you know this is going to be hot. Yes, we're going to write a sound alike to Neutron Dance.

So is that the process for most soundtracks, at least for beck then? Back then that sounds like this.

Yeah, they put the temp music in, So this explains the yes, absolutely, So they sent him I want a new drug?

Right? Yeah? I see.

And anyway, so I got so sick of my friends telling me that they've ripped me off that I called Danny up and said come over, And so we stripped a Neutron Dance demo down to the drums, used all the same sounds, wrote an exact parallel lyric, and handed that song in Rejected for Beverly Hills Cop and three weeks before the movie came out, I found out that Jerry Bruckheimer had gone into his garbage can looking for a cassette to tape over put played the first few

And it was Stirred Up.

So stir it Up and Neutron.

Yes, ye, listen to the lyric of stir it Up and listen to the lyric of Neutron dance.

And they had they are the exact same song.

I'm doing something I haven't done it alone.

A story, Yes, it's yo.

Yeah, so that's how that, that's how those two.

That's a crazy story I've heard since the Human Nature discovery for Quincy Jones.

From Steve Picaro.

Yeah, like, yeah, the cassette was on auto what do you call it when it goes to SIDEB automatically?

Yeah, whatever, It was on side A. Yeah, not from Steve, but from the other guys in the group. Yeah, and they were recording over his cassette and suddenly, yeah, like.

From me and Steve wrote a song. Michael Jackson wanted a song like Human Nature, and we wrote a song. It was my first time working with him, and Steve was going to meet him in Las Vegas or something, and then Michael Jackson died. So there is a song on the new latest Toto album called The Little Things that Steve actually sings the lead on that was supposed to be the Human Natures Sound Alike that went to Michael Jackson.

I gotta make a note said with the name of this again.

Yeah, so, uh, lots of stories like that.

Where are we at right now?

Like, I mean, we passed, but we didn't even get to the Color Purple and let's get to the parties and the Jennifer Lewis best eason.

Yeah, well she's one of my best friends and we need to show him.

Just from last week her doing leading a little sing along with her book Chanting in order to sell the book at.

Her house Color Purple with a full like choreography, but in the back doing a choreography too.

Yeah, it's a minute a minute.

What happens if Jennifer Lewis cannot come when I throw a party?

I changed the day?

What I changed the day? Because she ends up hosting the parties with me all the time.

Jennifer is, Uh, she's she's knowingly responsible for the success I'm having with my current book right now. I heard usually right before, I didn't want to do an audiobook. This is like my fourth book, and I'd like try to uh stave off the publisher for making me do an audio.

Yeah.

Yeah, So once I gave in, then I was like, all right, let me do some research because what I don't want to bore people with my voice. And someone recommended to me listen to how she tells the story on her audiobook, and I listened to her.

You gotta listen to get the audiobook of Jennifer Lewis's and Another Mother Black.

She's the most compelling storyteller, Like she uses her voice inflections. So that's the reason why I decided, like, yo, well, I don't have the gift of like then.

I told oh, he's gonna yeah, Like I didn't have that, So I figured, like, what's my version of Jennifer Lewis. Oh, I'll do skits.

So like I put, oh, you reacted to actual Well.

I have like actors and stuff like people like rereading and Steve Is. Who are you Steve, I'm Paul McCartney. Yeah, Steve is Barbara so like, I owe that to Jennifer Luis's face. He's so proud.

But you know, Jennifer Lewis has a similar type story of being inspired by someone in order to get a movie part that she got when she went up for what's the Disney movie that she's in? Mister No No, And the character is Mama Oda. It's one of the Disney movies like yes, okay six seven years ago.

She's been in a lot of shoots.

Yeah, And she didn't know what voice to use for the character. And she owns a lot of my.

Art that I've done and beautiful by the way.

Don't you.

In nineteen ninety nine, I took on an alter ego named Bubbles, the artist who I manage, and Jennifer started buying up bubbles stuff.

Ru Paul and Lily Tomlin own the most.

They battle each other.

Are you saying? Have they ever been in the rooms? All these people been in the room.

All together?

Oh my god, all die.

No, it wasn't cars. It was like the Princess, Prince, Princess and the Princess. Okay, that's it. So anyway, So one of the paintings of mine that she owns by Bubbles the artist who I manage but is actually me.

Is a thing of moms maybly.

So Jennifer goes to the audition and she has no idea what to do, what voice to do, and she said she flashed on the painting of Moms. And so if you listen to her character in that movie, it is Mom's maybe.

She goes, yeah, I used to listen to tapes of moms maybe my dad driving a school.

Like incredible, incredible, And you painted her?

Yeah, I loved moms. Man, Well, bubbles painted her.

I mean bubbles.

I just managed, right, Okay, it would it would actually uh, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention obviously. Well, okay, I'm certain that you're going to say, yeah, I wrote it in five minutes, didn't mean anything to me, just and it just became one of the biggest theme songs. When did you actually write remembrance I'll be there for you.

Re brands, brands, I'm sorry that was written in nineteen ninety four.

I did not really didn't want to be a songwriter anymore because I had gotten onto the internet in nineteen ninety one, came up with a concept for social Yeah yeah, social network In nineteen ninety two, my CEO became Mark Cuban and no one understood.

So explain the concept because back then it was the super Information Highway.

Lest Yeah.

I wanted to take anything that could be done in an online environment, which was not a lot, and there was maybe one of each of these things, but you could sell things, you could play games, you could do email, you know, it was very limited stuff. I wanted to take everything, combine it together in one place, which wasn't done.

Then if you shopped for the one car.

That maybe was online, you'd have to take ten minutes, log off, then go to where you would you know, play a game. You were always in this black hole of cyberspace. So I wanted to combine everything. I'm the first one ever that said the Internet is a social place, that this is about people connecting to each other. So there could be collaborations and there could be friendships, and

And we're going to create this.

Fictional community inhabited by these fictional characters who are going to be the guides into cyberspace for people who in nineteen ninety two did not understand what cyberspace was. And I prototyped it throughout the nineties, but we were just too early. No one knew what we were talking.

As Mark Zuckerberg, No, we were likely.

Yeah, when you discovered Friendster.

And and well that I had a ton of resentment that took me forever to get over because all those they ignored the issues that we couldn't solve and therefore didn't do it.

What happens to copyrights? What about privacy?

And we just didn't know the answer to it, you know, still damn But so I was interested in that, and I still had a publishing deal to you know, a quota to fulfill, and quotas had never been I'd never had one before, but it never would have been a problem in the old days. But now I'm interested in something that's nonlinear, that's totally interactive, and I'm not interested in a three minute song that goes from here to here and the artist is the only one that has

No one thinks it's going to be a hit. Write this year out of your deal.

So shit.

So the music Michael Skloff had written already, he was married to one of the producers, right, and gave me the song. I thought, this is the whitest thing I have ever heard in my life. It's going to ruin my career. But everyone said, don't worry, because who's going to hear this?

No one's ever gonna hear it.

Yeah, And so I handed it in and it blew up instantly, And so it was a forty five second thing that a disc jockey in Nashville made a cassette of and played it back to back for forty five minutes. Rembrands got it because they were the only band signed to Warner Brothers who were.

In LA at that time that weren't on tour.

So no one, yeah, no one associated with this song really wanted anything to do with it. And it became the biggest airplay record in.

Nineteen ninety four. It was unbelievable. So for me, that was the official end of my publishing deal.

So it was perceived that I'm going out on a high note, when in fact I was like barely crawling, you know, yeah, because I wanted to do this cyberspace.

Thing and no one knew what I was talking about.

So so that was just whatever.

It was a gift, total gift.

Okay. So in the ending, can you confirm or not confirmed for me that one song can change your life, because usually movies, movies and TV gives you this impression like that one hit single you could just live off that. Oh that's not true. Yeah, that's not true at all.

It's like if if you only wrote September, well, if I had to only the modest life, yeah, if I yes, if I had only written simptem, I do live a modest life because I'm a self financed artist.

So any of these other ideas, I get.

It's that song and a few others that are carrying the whole thing, you know along. But yeah, I mean, I think if you wrote it by yourself, if you produced it, if you sang it, you know, may and it was a gigantic kit that remained a classic. You could probably live a comfortable life, but those things happening at the same time are so rare.

Uh that yeah, Michael Jackson, I know that. Yeah, No, I know that's so you got to you gotta write it, you gotta.

Just you gotta do everything. And I was never in that position.

You know, You're always a collaborator and one fourth of them.

Yeah, and you know the publishing, like if you write for TV that that publishing is gone, you know.

Yeah.

So and an Earth Wind and Fire those were my first songs, so I got less of a writer's share than I should have.

And my publishing was owned by A and M. So you know, everyone gets their cut. Oh yeah, lunch money, I see. Yeah, so okay, yeah, I see, Okay.

Gun to your Head the three songs that you're the proudest. So I'm really salty. There're so we didn't talk about all American girls.

We didn't talk about Well, she's going to invite us to her house, so maybe because we can invite Jennifer Lewis. Yes, oh my god, yeah, I'm getting emotional.

To go.

I would like to do that.

Ever, she lives really close.

Yeah, I'll meet you.

Got to make it happen. Okay, yeah you're out there, so.

No, but we're gonna do it this year.

We're ready, ready. Well, I thank you, thank you. This is wow. I could forever. Well.

I'm so impressed with what you know. I always knew that you knew a lot of stuff, but you were digging them out from the bottom.

I'm really well in Boss Bill and Fantigolo and Unpaid Bill. You missed eight Newsy today, Like I feel like I'm the least knowledgeable of the six of us on the show.

So wow, that's some bullshit.

He don't feel like that.

I mean, if Bill and Fante were here, I barely get a word of it.

But yeah, Fante would take Yeah he would have too.

I mean they'd be freaking out over you know. Oh God, you wrote I should have loved you. Oh yeah, Jesus Christ. That should have been a continent.

The bass player was Yeah, and Randy was seventeen years old. Yeah, Randy Jackson.

We have him on the show coming up to.

Yeah, it was seventeen years old when he first played that, and he sounds so much like Bernard Edwards anyway.

Yeah, yeah, I think that was conscious too. I think we were talking about that.

Yeah, it felt like she grew. Yeah, all right, anyway, I thank you very much for coming on, ladies and gentlemen.

He will legendary status right here.

Sorry, riding Hall of Fame twenty eighteen fame. We've we've lost to our yeah world, So it's nice knowing you. You by anyway, This is use of course, Love Supreme the next go round. I'll see.

H h h h.

Court.

Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.