Of course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Without no doubt, this gentleman that would bring into the table is responsible for some of the best music you've ever danced, ever listened to. Of Course, these talented family, the Silver's family, have been in our lives for so long. They're amazing harmonies.
Of course, him branching out on his own to do production for like The Whispers, Shallamar, Lakeside, Evelin, Champion King, so many, so many groups, so many groups, just this classic sound of boogie, you know, kind of hosting disco, and we call it book. He's one of the greatest and so so so happy that he took time out to come speak to us. This is Leon Silvers, the third. This is from January thirty first, twenty eighteen lest classic. Here we Go.
Supremo something So Supremo. Role called Supremo Sun Sun Supremo. Role Call, Supremo Son Son Supremo, Roll Call, Supremo Son Son Supremo roll Call.
I got nothing, Yeah, no, really, I got nothing. Yeah, I'm sober whelmed by grands. I have nothing.
Sprema So Supremo roll call Suprema Son Son Suppremo Ro.
Wait a minute, Yeah, let's see how I sound. Yeah, Now do I sound better?
Yeah?
The second time.
Fund Sun Supremo role called Supremo Sun Son Supremo role call my.
Name is Fante. Yeah, call me your friend. Yeah, because it's not too Yeah. Only one can win.
Supremo Road Suprema So Supremo Road Suprema.
Yeah.
The show to be on. Yeah, let's put some tea on. Yeah and talk to missus Silver.
Supremo, Son Son sup Roll Mulesman struggling. Yeah, to write these rhymes. Yeah, almost called a ghost writer. Yeah, on the hotline.
Son Son Supremo Roll Call Supremo.
Roll it's my em Yeah. And I ain't feeling bad yeah, Leon Silvers.
Yeah, got me think about DC Cab.
So Supreme Road Supremo.
Oh yeah.
Yeah yeah, I love that.
So frame.
Up frame, Roll up up up frame.
Ladies and gentlemen. That was the greatest contribution ever, ever ever to to.
Wow.
Okay, dude, I'm sweating over here.
I'm sorry.
I'm nervous.
You know, I know we're nervous about this episode because we didn't mock like you normally. We mocked like you is intro and we we you caught a break this time because you came through with the DC that was he went real deeper that that. Okay, look, I'm just putting it out there. We're just gonna go all over the place because the reason why I feel as though
we commit to the show. Yes, you know, we're about the whatever, the teaching of excellence and bringing people and exposing him to the audience, you know, to audience that might not know him, stuff like that. But just sometimes you just want to nerd out on your favorite and I there's so much. There's not enough that I can say about the gentleman that we have with us right now.
I can say that, you know, he is. I mean, he's such a genius in every area that he's ever done in crafting harmonies and his musicianship and his songwriting. I mean he damned near it invented a genre of music. He killed disco. He literally killed this of all the like he invented genres, and he inspired some of our greatest I told Jimmy Jam that he was coming on our show, and even Jimmy Jam had to bow down because of all that he learned from this man. I'm
about to start crying right now. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show, Leon Silvers. Yes, man, you don't know how happy we are right now, Like we're just shout out to dang funk shout the day funk. Yeah. We have so many questions about your life, Like I've never idolized someone so much that I really don't know that much about because you rarely did interviews and things like that that matter. But let's just should we rapid fire? Do we?
Just we?
I want to go, Let's go through the journey. Okay, now I'm gonna say it. Let's start at the beginning. You all got to be proud of me. I haven't said that in a while, but this time. Okay. So uh, I believe your entire family is from Tennessee. Correct, Uh, please be wrong?
Suck everybody except me Fastergian Pat.
Where were you born?
I was born in South Ben, Indiana. Oh yes, My father was going to college out there and my mother and I was born on the campus and only stayed there three days after I was born, So I know nothing about South Ben, Indiana.
I was.
I was born there for three days. I was there for three years. Wait, you born in South ben Memorial Hospital. Wow, that's amazing, That's that's crazy. Yeah, So just I just want to know it all, like talk about the beginnings in Tennessee and how music entered into the household.
Well about Tennessee, I can't remember too much except Roy Rogers, so I was too. After about two years, we hit the train and came to LA. I think I was two or three years old, and La is where everything started the Motown sound for me.
Why did you guys move to Los Angeles?
I think my father got a gig at what is it, uh, some kind of space company something. He was doing some kind of work I couldn't remember, but he his work brought us out there. And everybody wasn't born yet. It was just myself, Charmaine.
Charmaine Charmaine is the eldest sister and you're the eldest brother.
No, Olympia is the oldest of the family. Olympia and then myself, Charmaine and James Jonathan. Uh, that was who was only four of us when we went to LA and it started with me was the Motown sound. I was into James Jamison on bass period and Benny Benjamin the drums. Uh, And that was my start in music. I was taking hangers acting like high hats. I took the drum, the little broom the sweeping part, used that as a rim and snare, and the box spring I
used as a kick drum. And that's how I started music right there.
You know, that's where most people would take the broom and make that to a guitar. You thought to make that?
Yeah?
Was were there any adults that were musicians that were influential in your life at that point.
Where no, I'm just Jamison and Benny Benjamin. I didn't know nobody yet. That was only about six or seven there at seven.
What was it about that music that called you the bass?
I got a guitar when I was like, we did we just did four part harmony because I was teaching everybody this lower Scudder's commercial back in the day. And my brother was three years old, but he held four
part harmony. So we was doing this Lower Scudder's commercial, and my father heard us and started teaching us some four freshman type harmony back in the day at high lows and all that, and so we did it real easy, and he got a manager and they put us on we were called the Little Angel, right, and they put us on Spike Jones arc Link letters show all these names
from back in the day. And that's where my brother, he was three when we did our first TV show, and he held he gave everybody our parts when we forgot him, so he As far as harmony is concerned.
How did you guys even know how to notate harmony? Because well, one thing I think our audience should know is I feel like the the one distinction that separated you guys from any of your contemporaries Jackson Stair Steps, whoever was young at that time, was you guys had the most unusual harmony structures ever? Was that from not knowing? Like who taught you those dissonant and chromatic harmonies that weren't average?
And I think, well, my father was into the four Freshmen and the high lows and all that. So he he saw us doing three part harmony and one lead on this Laura scuddis commercial and I gave him their parts, but it was, you know, simple stuff like you know, and he saw we can hold a note, not get off, So he started giving us harder songs, songs like It's a Blue World and well, I forgot the name of those songs, but uh it was four and five part harmony, and we stayed on it and didn't get off. I
don't know why. My mother could have been an opera singer. She was studying for a minute, So I guess that's why we uh we just felt we can do it, and we just did it. You know. It wasn't no why or whatever. We just did it, stayed on the notes. And I actually was the worst holding the note. Yeah, James, this was the best, and then it was Charmaine, then Olympia. Than me, I was last. I always forget my note, you know. But James had the ear for holding the notes, and he was the youngest.
What year was this this was?
I was like I was like seven six, but.
I mean, like in what year was it?
Like probably sixty fifty nine or something like. I was born in fifty three, so okay, around fifty nine or something like that or sixty.
So there wasn't even a template out at the time to or besides maybe Frankie Lymon and the teenagers, which is more like fifty seven to fifty, but there were no kids groups or that sort.
Of thing to no, just Frankie Lyman, what's your name? Sound kind of like a kid little Anthony back then imperiods. I listened to him for a minute.
Yeah, so were you guys instantly in pursuit of the next level? Was just to find a record deal? Or was it just like we did this television show and that's it.
Well, back then we didn't have no leads. It was off harmony, so we would just stand there and sing, no personality, no charisma or nothing, just singing holding the notes. And we were so young that I guess the crowd thought it was amazing that we were singing that kind of stuff, But we was just ready to get off the stage and go play kind of thing. But I loved music. I was the one teaching them and actually sometime making.
Them saying but.
I got into the motown thing, and then from there we didn't get into seriously making moves to record companies till I was around I guess thirteen or fourteen or fifteen, something like that, because that's when when the Jacksons came out. That's when I got serious and I started teaching that when my brother, because he had the most powerful voice and I was he said, I can't say. I said, well, just nothing again, you won't do nothing unless you practice it.
He had the tone. So I work with him every day and practice till after a year or so he was riffing and all that.
You know, So all your brothers and sisters are literally coming out the wound one by one during this period. You're just waiting for them to get of age.
And like everybody, there was nobody that came in my family that couldn't hold a harmony. They could do that before they could do a lead. We had to practice our leads.
Uh.
So as far as when they give them apart, they'd hold it and we sing to somebody else's part, they would keep it and never blend into the other person's part or anything like that. We all had that, I guess. But the leads we had to work on, and worked him and Foster. But Edmund worked the hardest. Uh and his tone reaped the benefits because I worked at it at home. And then when we got with Freddie Perrin, uh, he heard Edmans's voice right off the bat.
So, but that was the one in the Capitol years.
I'm jumping too fast, go ahead.
So what label was pride associated with? MGM.
Yeah, a friend of Mike Curb, which was Mike Wiener Curb. Mike Curb was running MGM when we were signed, and he was only twenty four years old.
Wait, so the Mike Curb congregation.
That's one of my favorite breakdingwsime exactly, the coming down. Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, he was cool. He was the one that really hit me with the commercial thing because I was doing I was really kind of into back then that social conscious type writing, the you know, because the Black Panthers was out and all that stuff, so socially conscious music was kind of in, and I was into that from a third grip from this history teacher, Mr Simon. But he was the one who told me, well, Leon,
your music has to be more commercial, you know. And I was on that tip, like, well, what do you know? You only do pop music, you know, you know, because we knew how more. I mean, MGM was as far as motown was. And he's like, you're right, but even if I do pop music, it has to be commercial. You're doing R and B, it's got to be as commercial. And I didn't want to hear that, but I did, and I started changing after I had that meeting because he wanted to give He made up pride after that.
It's all. He told us to do this song called what It Takes, an old Barry Gordy song, and he wanted us to do it, and we did it, and it you know, it wasn't nothing. You know, it didn't do nothing. And this meeting with me, I didn't know it at the time, was to get inside whoever was the head of leader of the group type of thing.
And I was more like trying to tell him, we know what we're do and just let us do it, because I realized they put us on the shelf for the Osmonds because they didn't right, Yeah, but we didn't know that when we signed and they didn't tell, you know, we just we didn't have no records out for a year. We didn't even go in the studio for a long
time after the Osmonds was out. But you know, I understand the marketing thing, you know, uh, they didn't want no other competition out there, and we were a family group that could sing harmony and all that, so they signed us.
Well, then I gotta ask then if because I know with one bad Apple not At one point did MGM say, hmm, this sounds close like ABC. All right, Silvers, here you go, like this should be for you instead of the Osmonds.
Or no, the Odumans were signed already and they were specially targeted to be the off the other side, a white group family group and a black family group. That was I understand the marketing after, but we didn't know that was the case till, like, you know, years later, And I didn't believe it even after people was telling me because I wasn't caring about that, you know, as long as we can come out, that was my thing.
So their whole thing was done, and all of a sudden we heard them out and he was on MGM. Nothing was told or anything, and it just came out, you know, And I actually liked the record. I thought it was you know. But Mike Curb was cool because he made up pride and well he got his friend Michael Veener to uh credible bar because incredible bargle man. Oh yeah yeah, and that was a funny story too.
But he they were schoolmates, Curb and Mike Veener, and he always wanted to get into the record business and Mike Curb gave him that shot and gave us put us on another label because MGM was more pop than anything. They never had no R and B groups on MGM, so Pride was the label that he put us on. Got a well KEG. Johnson got a black promoter and Mike Veener was the head of Pride and we hit with Fool's Paradise our first record. Well there was R and B hit, you know, I didn't get no pop play,
but uh, that was that. And when we started practicing, we went on the road and things were happening quick because we had the big naturals and people automatically oh another Jackson's and we had the bigger naturals. So can you.
Clear how those your actual naturals home?
Yeah?
Yeah, okay, I had to know it for his weeks or not because they were so perfect. The Silvers Afros for me, the real standard of the Afro, not the Jackson five like that. You know.
Well, we we had a concept. I thought, if you would we would go to bed instead of with the natural flattening it up, we would brush our hair up and take rubber bands and have a unicorn going up and to sleep like that. And we took the rubber bands off, it would just lay out like that.
Wow, so that was our natural secrets revealed. You think, I ain't gonna do this, only braid my hair so can have that effect. I was like, damn, I could just unicorm shit, you're fired, thank you? Oh man? So h knowing or you know, I don't. I don't know how big of a presence the Jackson Five were in you guys's life as far as like that's the goal or if it was some sort of eclips it was.
It was big.
Oh sorry, no, well I'm asking like, was there a thing like well until we reached the status of the Jackson Five, like we haven't made it yet or that sort of thing, And at least with the Pride Records.
It wasn't openly said because we were kind of controlling our We were writing our songs, we were doing our own harmony. We didn't have a corporation like guys that knew what they were doing, you know too, So we learned everything. So it was like a great feeling each level of it. So we wasn't even thinking. We was just happy to be in it really and doing our own music.
So those prior records, was that you in the studio like just pretty much doing everything.
How much was that and how much?
But Jerry Butler had three guys, well two Keg Johnson and Jerry Peters working with his company, and he sent them first to meet us. And he met us at the six Flags Magic Mountain doing a show, and backstage after the show he brought his records. I guess that he wanted well that he did want us to hear from Jerry Butler, telling him to let him hear this. And I had my base ready in an amp and we were all sitting in a line, well in a circle, half circle, and we knew he was coming, so we
was prepared to play our songs. And he said, I heard you all right, Keg did, and we looked at each other and said yeah yeah, And he said, okay, let me hear something. So we started playing Fool's Paradise at the record first record and I start off with the bass and and then Charmain started singing, and we all you know, and Keg just walked over to the trash can and then okay, that's one, let me hear another one, and through through the records in the trash
in front of us. You know, we liked that we was teenagers. We was like we looked at each other. Yeah, so that was great. We clicked right off the bat, you know when he did that.
You know so well, even though buying these records and seeing the production and stuff, I knew that you wrote the songs, but yeah, I was trying to figure out, like how much production control you had these songs.
I didn't. I was learning then. I didn't want to produce. I didn't even play on it, and I didn't want to. He asked me did Keg was the producer, but it was supposed to be. It was Keg and Jerry Peters that were the producers. Jerry Butler wasn't going to produce, but it was his company that was hired and some things went down. But Keg was the producer, and he asked me, did I want to play on it? Because he liked everything he heard and he was worried. He
wasn't going to tell Jerry. Now I didn't notice at the time, but he was. He wasn't going to tell Jerry till later. Oh wo, because Jerry was busy still, he was still hot with his career. He was on tour and all that stuff. So, uh, we was actually in the studio cutting this stuff. Before Jerry even knew that we didn't do his record. But I didn't know this. I just heard it from a phone conversation with my mother, Mike Wiener, and Keg because Keg was with Jerry and
they were about to get rid of him. Because Jerry came in and came down, and I remember I had to go in the studio and he was telling me, now, this is what I wanted y'all to do, and he played a way worse bubblegum record than one Bad Apple, and I like that, this was horrible. It was bubble gum. So I was like, you know, I was from the Nickason Garden and Watts, so yeah, I wasn't even trying to hear it. But I liked Jerry Butler, so I said, well, yeah,
we're not doing that, That's all I said. I didn't want to say nothing else because I liked him. I just, you know, let me cut to the chase and I play around. We ain't doing it, and he said, oh why not. Yeah, it's too bubblegum, That's all I said. And he said, oh, okay, you sure, that's all he said, and I said yeah, and he let it go. He just made sure everything went through his company KEG, and then was gonna get fired. But I liked the way he handled itself with us when he threw the records
in the trash, so I stood up for him. I told him, Oh, if you get rid of KEG, we ain't doing nothing. I didn't know what I was I was, but I meant what I said. I was only about what eighteen No, I was seventeen or something. But I was the one that everybody was listening to, and they like KEG, and we were doing our own things. So I just told Mike Wiener, Hey, if you get rid of KEG, we ain't doing nothing. We'll go somewhere else.
Before y'all got into the studio, how were you writing your songs like fools preadicce writing them on base at home?
This bass? Oh, I would use the base excuse me as a harmonic to the melody that I would sing. Oh ways, I wouldn't do it as a you know a lot of people stay on E for the funk type thing. I would use it as a keyboard. I would always play the bass of harmonic to my melody and then the chords would you could you could hear different ones you know as you listening to the melody and the bass.
So are a majority of the songs that you write. Do you write it on bass? Verse before you never on piano?
Never on Okay, now I do because you know you got a studio in your hand. Now you know you could do anything really, But back then, if I did a melody, I immediately went to the bass and did the harmonic bass line because that was like my keyboard.
So for for those first four three or four initial Silvers albums that didn't catch you on the way that showcase quitte on and once you guys went to Capitol, But was it at all shocking to you that those records would be discovered in a new light in the era of rare groove culture and hip hop sampling, Like because even though in your mind you might think like, oh well, okay, those first few records weren't hitting like you know, our Capital years, But for a lot of us, yeah,
that's the holy grail. Oh my god. Yeah, I mean the first album alone with with uh wish I could talk to you. I'll never be ashamed, Like there's least like in my eyes, like that first Silver Records has at least six six or seven gems on it that we see in the light of sampling and how it's so was it at all shocking to you that, like some thirty five years later, forty years later, that suddenly like even in my DJ said like I'll play only one can win, as so that is all?
Well? Actually I felt great. I mean it was like an honor for And then I started thinking, how does that happen? You know? And then I's the only thing I could think of is Wow, it was young people that picked that up, and I was young at the time when I wrote it. So it's like twenty years later that same spirit and you know, musical DNA if you will, you know, only the young could hear that,
because I was like, wow, that must be it. The same thing with mister me all those songs that were sampled I wrote when I was younger than.
Eighteen, right, No, that's that's a whole twenty minute conversation just on that song.
Yes, Well what's started man with? Yeah? With mistermeanor like, how how did you come with that?
Uh?
Wow, I didn't. The base came first.
Uh.
I was just I was stomping my foot and I was just hitting mm hmmmmm. No, I was just doing the first one first mm hm oh. And then I started repeating those two over and over and I would hit my foot kind of hard on the ground like a kick. And I had one of them old. It was I think it was a Signo cassette player. They only made one. It had one big, giant speaker. It was a Mono radio cassette player. Man, it had the perfect compression for that mic. Because I recorded that baseline
stomping my feet with that cassette. Man, it was the best sound ever. I did everything. I went and bought two of those.
Ye that's what the that's what the iPhone sounds like now, and sort of I track a lot of my drums up with the iPhone, like on the floor, like thirteen feet away from me, and it's the same, perfect man.
So I just loved that. I kept that cassette till it evaporated. You know. It just had that the misdemeanor vibe on it. And I just recorded that and then said the hook. I don't remember if I had the words already, I did, probably did, and I was and I knew because I listened to that melody lower octave with the base and the same register, and it's wrong. It's the most horrible melody with the baseline because it's one of them notes that if you do an octave
high you can get away with it. It sounds cool, almost funky, but if you do it in the same register like an octave lower, the worst thing to your ear, you couldn't. I hated it when I when I heard it like that, but uh, I knew what I had when I actually did the melody with the bassline, it sounded great. I just knew I had something that would people would like. I don't know why. It just had a feeling y, you know.
And how old was Foster when he cut that?
He was around I think ten, uh.
Turn eleven, like ten years old? Then out were you? Were you? Because of the pristine level of musicianship that a lot of the Pride era records were under. Were you guys always using the same musicians in the studio or was it did you have a relationship with these musicians or was just like who's here today?
We met him because we wanted to be at every session. So it was mainly Chuck Rainy on bass.
Or what oh man?
Those two were the bass players those guys were just moonlight Like no, they were the top.
But well, I'm just saying like, well, like yeah.
Well, Keig Keg and Jerry Peters they were real good producers back then. They did uh, Gray, what's that song that friends of Friends of distinct? Yeah, they did that and uh you got me go in and and so Keig Johnson and Jerry Peters were formidable producers themselves. So and Jerry Peters was great keyboardist and arranger. So they knew all the top musicians and I'd go to every session. David t was main guitar. Uh Felder. They switch up on keyboard guys because there was a lot of them,
but it was always kind of jazz oriented. Guys still alive, Yes he is.
Wait, uh, it's just hit me. Was it one of your brothers or or three? Somehow? You guys were actually involved in the Jackson five cartoon Edmund.
He was Marlon's voice.
Here's a voice of you. You mentioned something, well, a lot of us are not California residents, but I have family out here. And you said Nickerson Nickerson Gardens, which instantly struck fear in my heart. I was like, okay, hands up, Yeah, well, a lot of the We're All in the Same Gang video was shot there. How yeah, how knowing what I know about, you know, LA gang culture and that stuff, especially that being the most notorious housing projects in l A. How did the eleven of
you escape that unscathed? Was it just like leave the silvers alone, like they're going to make it one day?
Or well, no, we you know, you had to kind of get busy.
But it's like, Okay, we're going to do soul Tree one day and then come back and you got to fight your way inside your crib or.
No, actually we were. We were singing then, we were learning and building our our voices then. And I was going to verbum Day High School. It was a Catholic school in the in the middle of watts and it was the Nickerson Garden was around it actually, and I went there to play basketball because I got a little scholarship there. And we entered a talent show from verbum Day and actually before the Brothers Johnson's name was Brothers Johnson. They were in that talent show too, wow, and they
won their place. No, they didn't even go to the but you could if you had somebody that did, you could be in that talent show and we didn't have no band. We were just doing a cappella. So we put put about seven or eight chairs and put a one leg on the chair and appella. You know. So we we got one second place. But there was a guy named Wylie Brooks there and he came up to us and said, I have a friend at MGM.
You know that reminds me who arranged your version of yesterday? That that all acapella?
Who did that? I think? I think did we do it ourselves? I think we did. I can't remember anybody else. Oh no, there wasn't a arranger that helped us. When we were doing our show for Las Vegas, George something. He helped us out. But then we changed it and.
So you guys would still do the the a cappella beatles yesterday just the way that.
Yeah, we we We did our show at the Rolls a couple of months ago and we kept that in the show. We put that back in the show.
That that is like, yeah a lot of people, that's the most jaw dropping. Were you professionally taught eventually how to notate music or was.
It just like I don't know how to read it all. Wow, dog man, I'm gonna learn though too.
So even on the base that was just our self taught. You talked yourself.
Oh yeah, I was. I was into jameson that. That was the teacher right there.
Well from me, can we go to the years capital trying to So how did the MG situation? Well, not implode, but how did you guys eventually get the attention of Capitol records. I don't really remember too much.
Except that.
Who's managing the group.
At when we were on Pride it was a manager called Nordy Stein. He would always try to chime in and then when we didn't react fast, he would say, it's just a thought leon. So we knew Nordy Stein like that. But he was cool. He got gigs, and I didn't. I liked him. Really.
How how are you guys able to keep the discipline of the group? I mean, because again, it's nine of you, and you are going into uncharted territory of stardom, and you're in Hollywood and you know obviously I mean, I don't know if you're the father figure of the group, but I would assume that as the eldest brother you had to keep Oh yeah, it was in line, and you know.
It was I didn't believe in nothing halfway. And I was a good disciplinary and I mean Foster he was the only one that really showed because he was into football like I was into basketball. So he didn't want to practice at all when and he would cry and try to get out of it, you know that kind of stuff. But he eventually came through. But I would do like, hey, I ain't getting on stage getting booed ever,
so y'all, let's let's go practice. And we had the Jackson's to look up to as far as steps, professionalism and it, but they were they were worked through professionalisms and professional people.
I gotta ask you a question, okay U, because I mean I haven't seen you guys on Soul trained billions of times and you know all your steps are immaculating and all those things. Did you guys ever work with Charlie Atkins? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, that was Arlie that that move on Boogie Fever, that first move. We we usually would change certain steps because some of them guys would get a little too feminine, and you know, we from the niggas and guns, so we'd be like, okay, don't worry about that we.
Changed that, but.
Child, yeah, well sometimes it was you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, and we didn't we knew which which one to edit out and to put in. But Charlie's step, I said, oh no, that ain't going nowhere. You got to keep that, you know, just don't fall because it'll be a domino theory.
Because it's so amazing to see the nine of y'all do it. Okay, here's the thing, as as the soul trained attict that I am, the first minute of the show to me is the most important part of the show because it's when sim McCoy's gonna let you know who's on the show with guest stars, you know. And the thing is when they show the act that's on. You know, it's usually just a one and a half
second or two second action shot. And as a kid not knowing who the Silvers were, and it was like with guest stars the Silvers and all of a sudden, see I just never that was the most magical thing. And the thing was its like before the age of the VCR and that stuff. I mean, I had to suffer for like twenty years just waiting to see the game, imagining that thing and begging people like, do you know doncran News can't just get the episode. They're finally like
finding that episode in Japan, like some twenty five years later. Man, I wanted the ball like a baby. But yeah, like the steps were so maculate and but again it's like how it's like one false one false move and it's down here like one person went to the left one.
But like whoa, yeah, but we staggered it because we we learned okay, no no straight lines. It's just so they'd stagger them, like being if the first one, second, one's a little back, third one's up back, that kind of thing.
What would y'all rehearsed at at this time?
At this point, we had a garage that we turned into a little studio because I had a four track studio. Uh back then it was kind of big, but it was four tracks. So we rehearsed their steps and are songs you know, and uh in the garage. Yeah.
Describe working with Freddy Parrin, who did he produce the first Capitol record?
Yes, Uh, that was that's what I learned production. Why not you like I learned well, it's I mean, he was he was great. I learned a lot from him, but he did kind of take one of our songs. Oh, but I mean it was like it's like we got through it and we were still cool laughter. Because it was a song called Stealing from the Cookie Jar. Wow I was the title of it, and the bass line was.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.
I went jazz on it on that third part. Freddy, after he played the song and we sung it was going off and he said, uh, play that back, and that part We remember him playing it back because we thought, oh, Freddy likes, he's gonna choose this one type thing. Then a couple of weeks later he called us up and Hotline. He played Hotline for us and Jenny your song and it well, the baseline.
Was boom boom boom boom doom doo doo doo doo doo doo.
And he went back to But Jonathan and Ricky, my brothers, they were like, hey, and and uh with my man who wrote it with Freddy, great writer, he said he did like this. Yeah, yeah, it's almost like you did. Uh that was you know, but I mean we got past it because I was thinking, okay, if we the record ain't out yet, y'all Ken Lewis, Kenny Saint Louis, Yeah, great writer. He I thought it was kind of funny because I was happy because Wow, I did something that
dude liked. But it was like we were minors. Well I wasn't, but but Jonathan and them still were, and they were the one more active on doing something about it. And I said, well, you know what, let's just leave it alone because you can't copyright a bassline. I mean, either it's arrangement or because I found out, you know, and then the record ain't made nothing yet. So if we stopped the process Freddie panning him going back off, then Capitol Records may drop us. Let's go on and
let Freddy do his thing. It's not like he took our song. It's just a bassline he got an idea from because it's not exactly the same. So I convinced him to say, oh, okay, you know, because it could have been a bad situation because we I was about sixteen or seventeen then, so and Freddie was already uh oh, you know, but he didn't steal nothing. Really, it was just an idea that he took because my song was
totally different melody wise. So but we know how that goes now when your food for thought, you know what I'm saying. But I let it go and we had a great rapport with Freddy, and I learned a lot from him because he would work on one line at every point of the song. And one time he's working so hard on one record on the hotline, and I just thought he was crazy. I was just what the what is he thinking? So at the end, I said,
why did you go over that one so much? And he said, well, you know how you hear records sometimes and every part you start liking better and better. Sometimes it happens like Magic's my and then other times you set up your chorus better, you set up your ad lib better, and it's like people listening don't know they why they like the song better, and you get more people and the more you hear it, the more you like that part. And I still thought he was crazy.
I said, oh okay, and then it got me performing it. When you you know, when you start performing, you there's certain things you know already, so it's like second nature. But in a certain part of a song you like better, and I said, oh, I like this part, and then it hit me that's the So I was like, okay, I got to listen to this guy.
You know, can you tell the day Tripper story?
Oh yeah, yeah that I mean that was kind of a hard part of my life. I thought I had messed up because this uh reporter for the Times, Hunt is his name, he was he was a he put he cut up my words and acted like I was downing Freddy Parent because I said I had told him, well, I don't like the assembly line production attitude, but I
was talking about other producers. And then I said, but Freddy Parent, he listens to my He left that ship out and put Leon's tired of the assembly line production attitude, and then he put in there Freddy Pearn's name after talking about something else. Then he said, I quote and said, well, boogiey Fever's cool, but that's for kids. I don't like boogie fever like in passing, laughing like, but but it
was a hit and it did good for us. He left that out and put Leon right after the assembly line production attitude.
And I was sounded like a hater that mean man. Sorry, Yeah, but also U was that the first time? That was that the first time you got to meet James Jamerson, Like that's him playing the baseline of Boogie Fever. Correct, No, that's not James Jamerson.
No, it was either Wilton Felder or Truck Rainey.
Okay, wait, pretty parent, I could have sworn that. No, I never met him. I was at every session I think. Was I a Bookie?
Yeah?
I was there. No, it wasn't James Jamison. Wow, think that's on his UH discography whatever the on the website.
I may not have been at Bookie Fever's session. I was at the vocal thing, so it could have been. Could have been that. I may not have been there on that one.
Was on James Jamison's page that well, then damn. I thought it was a moment like, hey, I've always left your base player. No, have you ever got to meet him?
I didn't really meet him, and I was mad when I you know, because I always wanted to. I'd even called a couple of UH session that a person thought that he was playing on because he had came out to l a excuse me. By the time I got there, the session was over, and you know, I was trying to just go bump into him and and just say because I never told him face to face, he's the reason I started bass. I mean, I got a guitar. We was doing a show when we was the Little
Angels at that it was called the Moula Rouge. I think back then, I don't know. It was that that building that Nickelodeon was in for a while on Sunset. They had a Christmas party and it was us and Dennis the Mints the original original Yeah, and we were backstays throwing a football and then they called us on stage and gave us a present. At the end, I got a guitar and I took the two high strings off because I was so into motown and I used it as a bass That's how much I was a
bass player. I wanted to be a bass player period.
Wow. So was it New Horizons that you guys like decided to take control of the production and like, where does on silver is finally stepping and say.
Oh, yeah, I forgot I got that.
That was.
When they were telling me about boogiey Fever and I said, I said, and passing, I said, well that that's that's I think they got that from the Beatles. Anyway, because that's a day tripper. So you can do a little bit and cut it off because I think back then the copyright was in bars. How much you did the exact same thing within a certain amount of bars and if you change it before that bar hit straight. Yeah, so that's after the stealing from the cookie jar concept.
We thought, you know boogie well, No, that was after so well we we I just assumed that they peeped it because I used to peep things. But I would never be that blatant with it. I would just into a vibe and do my own, you know, of a song because there was a lot of motown ones that I loved, and you know, I would do my version, but not blatantly copy the bass or the chords or I didn't want to do that because I like my own ideas.
So it was capital or ATV music, like hey wait a minute, or what went on the like did they notice at all? Like no, because he changed it before the bar before that? Was it totally?
In your recording sessions, what was your what was your approach or your science to tracking the vocals and like tracking the harmonies. Would you cut everybody on like one mic and y'all sing around it or did you track them individually?
Well, back then we did sometimes the girls on one mic and then the guy's on one mic, but it was all at the same time. Okay, I think I don't remember us separating back then like later on, you know, when I was producing then, I did that stacking thing different, But back then we were. They just would tell us okay, girls, Charmaine back or Oland back, and when we all they sung on one mic and then they would separate us with lowse and mid and highs. Freddy I mean, yeah, Freddy Parron and keg.
So for the New Horizons record, and that meant a lot to me because I was given that eight track when I was like six, so I wow. I studied it profusely, but uh, I know that it didn't reach the level of the Something Special album and showcase. And knowing that you guys left Capital after then, is it implied that, okay, well, since it was the minist return or lower sales for this one, that you guys are just off the label or was it because Lark and Arnold left the Good Columbia.
I think probably, Well, usually when the ANR guy leaves back then a lot people who the new A and I want to bring their own in so and you can only have so many artists at the so if you don't like the group, everything you know stops right there. And our last it makes it easier for him because our last green sheet didn't.
Show too much.
So and that's you know, I'm assuming that that's what it was, and that was Capital. I feel they made a mistake though, but that was in learning because we cut this song called what's it at the concert or off? Yeah, I got cut.
We cut that way before any.
Rider came out. It sat on Capital. I even called the Capital everybody from all the secretaries to come in after the after they were old, you know, they were done with their work, and said we went down to each office and said come on up. We wanted we need a crowd, and everybody came and we had them doing O. Then we had them do don't.
Stop, get off.
We had that whole crowd thing.
And so you recorded that way before nineteen seventy eight, Well that was the first one. That was the first that was on the disco Fever album.
But no, but I'm saying when we heard like we came from Japan and went to straight. I wanted to get home because we got tickets for that brothers Johnson Brick and Georgia Duke concert Man at the Forum, so we wanted to make that and I got We got back in town and I just heard everybody going.
It was the crowd doing it. And I said, what what is that? And they said, whoa, that's what they do now when they like something. Wow.
So I said, oh, the crowd likes something already, let's put that old record and you know, so that's what I did. But and I told Larkin, this is what the people are doing. So we we guaranteed certain mind of sales. When the public likes something that they done created and they hear it back on them, they it's a Dundell. Nobody listened. That thing sat for about two years, about four or five hits with and ours was the last, and it still went number one R and B.
You know. So, so even though you weren't because I know by this time UH you had formed with UH or at least took it a day job with Dick Griffy, but you were still were you actively producing your your family's albums while still no, you weren't a member. You weren't a full member of these Castablanca records.
No, no, no, I was out the group then, So how does that?
How does that work? Because you know, you gotta start off as a nine and then like then you were seven, and it's like, how how do band members just leaving? Like I can't take it anymore?
And that's no, I was kicked out of the group.
Wait what Yeah?
It was it was like, you know, did they blame you for New Horizons?
No, no, I don't. It wasn't that.
It's just I think everybody was growing there.
They wanted to do a step. Everybody wanted to do their own you know. Well, because I was like, I took the approach as as leader when we was okay, what everybody got? I always and I took that into production. I give everybody a chance to let me see what you got, do it. Let's do whether it's some melody or ad lib whatever. I just prepared myself to come with it if they ain't got nothing that's worth anything.
So and you have to use tact because I feel producers have to be psychologists babysitters.
At some point the same thing. Last night, he said those exact same words about producers. It's babysitting. Psychology is counselors exactly.
So by this point, who do you of your siblings?
Like, who's.
Who's are you in conflict with? Is it? Like you know, Angela, you you're singing them wrong? Note you sing too flatter.
There wasn't no one person other than you know, when people get tired and they don't even know why, they just want something different because I don't. It didn't matter what word I said, even when it's okay, let's see what and then they come up with something. And then if there's silence, you know, someone else comes up with an idea, you know, so I would always do it what about? And then I'd already have something prepared and
they was, ooh that's nice. All they took. It was two or three of them, you know, so and it was a lot of us. So I based everything off that. And then if something's not happening, I didn't even have to say I don't like that to steer the crowd. They would say it, or they would say, well I don't know about that, and then you just keep coming with it, which is the way it should be anyway, the best idea coming forward. But after a while, they
were growing into what I already was. I was past minor, and I was developing my own thing, and everybody wanted to do their thing, I guess because and then when I had that meeting with them with al Ross, he was well, he did said like this, he had a contract on us for half and it was nine people plus my mother. Oh, and that's true, So that that's why I said what I said. But I had a meeting to try to and I told everybody, look, you
guys are miners. He's not gonna want a chance or show that contract to nobody, so all we have to do is and I told mom just be cool, because I was already eighteen then, you know, so you know, I knew, you know, we'll just kicked me on off the group and we're straight, you know. But I was telling them how we we had a meeting and he got up. Everything was working until he got up out of the seat and said, Leon, I don't know what you think you're doing or who you think you're talking to,
and that kind of thing. And I was like, I forgot to tell moms. Look, if he gets up and walks and I get up, don't worry I'm not going to hit him. I'm going to wait for him to hit me. Then it's really on. So I forgot to do that with her. So me from Nickerson gun, I ain't gonna let no man stand over me while I'm sitting. So when he got up and started walking around the table, I got up and was smiling. I thought that was enough.
I said, so what, you're getting up for a while, And then I stood up and walked to meet him. And that's and when he stopped and sat on the desk, that's when Mom said, Okay, that's it. Stop, that's end there, and he knew what was up. Then, oh there's the way, okay cool. So from then on out, I was the bad guy. It didn't Mom was scared too, And that's moms. I couldn't get mad at her because I wasn't, you know. But I knew we had that meeting, and after that happened,
he was I knew he was in her ear. And that's when I After I was out the group, I went hooked up with Dick Griffy.
Okay, before we get to the Solar years, because I know you're bursting, I have one more question. What were your feelings on