Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up, Ladies and gentlemen, This is another episode h Quest Love Supreme. I mean it's quest Love, which means the family. Uh, we got Layah. Hello, how are you?
I'm well?
Hello, sir doing well?
Yeah, you're back in LA right now?
I am back in La.
Yeah. Yeah.
Gloom and Doom, Yeah, Gloom and Doom.
Yeah, May Gray June Gloom.
People don't know this about La.
Get it, get it into it.
Okay, it's good to hear. Fan Takeolo is uh in the blue room? Yeah, man, yeah, man, got a new light bulb. But I think previously you're going purple.
Yeah, I'm going purple.
I went blue.
I went cool. You know what I'm saying. We got a legend in the building with us today, so you know, I tried to make it cool for him. So yeah, that's what it is.
Sugar Steve, what's up, bro? How you doing? Hi? Everybody?
Everything's good, Everything's good, Thank.
You, Steve. Ladies and gentlemen, I will say our guest tonight is I mean, I feel like all of our guests are legendary, super legendary, but our guest tonight world famous. Songwriting Hall of Fame member, having damn near pinned over close close to two thousand joints joints in his illustrious career.
He is the architect, in my opinion, the architect of the sound of Memphis, you know, a city that has rich musical history, and you know, as a staff member, as a writer, as a producer for Al Bell's legendary Stax label, he is given us so much magic over the decades, along with this songwriting partner Isaac Hayes, and on his own of course. You know he's worked with
too many legends. The name they're Sam and Dave's otis writing Barks, Carlo Thomas, the Emotions, Albert King, Rufus Thomas and of course Johnny watch out for jo D. Taylor. Even if those names I mentioned are slightly before your time, I will say that, you know, if you're a hip hop head, can we say that his composition might be the musical backdrop of the East West La Beef?
Oh man, Oh my god?
Well no, no, no, because the word is that you know, pop got yeah, pop sort of felt that you know who shot you was about him, which you know, we have clear evidence that Biggie did that rhyme with Keith Murray for the Mary J. Blige interlude, you know, long ago.
But the truth didn't matter at that point. The truth didn't matter.
Yeah, the truth didn't matter. I guess the perception was bigger than what reality was. You know, we live in a time where facts don't matter, and so I will just say that, you know, between like Biggie and Wu Tang and Kane and m P and Will Smith and so many others have used as his work. You know, we're we're in the presence of a legend, and we're honored to have the one and only Great David Porter on Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to the show.
Yes, yes, as how they reed said, how do you talk that? It's really an honor?
Ques, you laid the foundation. So I'm just you know, regurgitating your your life's work. So where are you right now? Are you still a members?
No? I'm in New York. I was speaker at the ai mp A summit, which I left there and came right here. That's why I have this loud jacket on. I was along with your fan and your friend Doug it Fresh. He wanted me to tell you.
How Oh okay, we had doug on the show.
Yeah, yeah, you know. I was going to ask, like, do you normally dressed this swinky every day?
Now?
A sweatsuit guy? That's me okay right now, loud jacket on it, but he's folk. But Dougie wanted me to be sure to tell you, and yes, there's an honor for me to be here.
Thank you. What you guys, can you tell us your first musical memory?
Well, you mentioned one of the cornerstones of those memories, and that's Maurice. I was born on the Dating Street in Memphis, Tennessee. My next door neighbor was a family called the Cunninghams, and they were drummers and we sang up the street at a church called Rosi, a Baptist church where if you read Maurice's autobaccay, he mentioned that in his Bible, but which is true? And uh, Kelly Cunningham and Leander Cunningham were the brothers that were older them.
Carled Cunningham, who just so happened to be the drummer that was an airplane cress with all this reading. He was the original drum for the barricades photos up the street on the left hand side of the street was Maurice White and and we came together eight nine years old singing a Rose Here Baptist church right on on
that same dead end street. And the stimulus for the impressions and the motivation for creativity and people making us thinking that we had some singing talent because they were clapping and shouting, and we didn't realize it because they were worshiping. We thought it was all about as young kids. But the motivation to want to have the passion for music where they stem out of that experience.
So you were nine years old when you started playing in your church.
Well, actually I was before nine. We were going to church. Uh yeah. But but actually singing in a in a kind of a quartet is not the right kind of where but loop heads singing together Linn Kelly and Maurice and I was about eighty nine years old. We were going to Rose Elementary School and and singing and church on Sunday. That was the real experience of learning how to feel good about doing that in front of people.
And you were born in Memphis, Tennessee.
I was born at two ninety Virginia Street, uh, up against a building called Coal Manufacturing Company, which was the last last house at the bottom of the hill. When it rained, water would roll down the hill and up against that that tin building and very close to going into our home. And the next door neighbor was the cunning Hams, which which Carl was the drumming and right up going up the hill was Maurice and that was it right there.
Like I know, a lot of legends were born in Memphis. Aretha Franklin was born in Memphis, was she not?
She was, Yes, she was. Her father preached Reverend Franklin preached my father's funeral, you know, at Great Whitstone Baptist Church. Yeah. I first when I told Reapa that years later, she just blew her away because she had recorded I Take what I Want one of the compositions bizic and I And I told then she just blew her away. Yeah. Yes, she was born in Memphis, tennes Cee, right there, Fourth Street.
So just tell me, like the general, like, why is that town so musical?
Well, there, in nineteen forty seven forty eight, there was a radio the first black radio station in the country was WDA in Memphis, Tennessee. And the fact that before that all of the music you heard was you know, the pop favorite kind kind of vibe. And so the energy for the originality and I'm going to speak for in just a second didn't come to bear until WDA started playing all of those amazingly emotional, connecting music by
black artists. And the one thing that happened that was really really meaningful and impactful on young kids during that time was the individuality of artists or artists. You know, back then you had a four piece rhythm based drums, guitar and keys, and so in order for that kind of magic to happen in a unique kind of way, artists that you will listening to on the radio, one thing that is a he had. One thing that really
manifested itself to you was the individuality of artists. You listened to Chuck Berry and what he was doing with the guitar and his rhythm essens of how he was doing what he was doing, even though he had a rhythm of tumblment, but the focus was his guitar playing. And you listened to Little Richard and his piano playing and what he was doing. The individuality, in addition to his persona as a singer, was was his personality. Fat's
Dombao with the same piano playing. The individuality of Fats was the Fats y, So you were you were able Jackie Wilson with the range and the magic in his tones and things you were looking at as a youngster, those kind of impressions that were in turn motivating you to understand that the magic happened through music. Was trying to find something that identified you and your uniqueness, and so starting from that kind of foundation, all of us
started trying to find that magic. So when you mentioned Al Jackson, his father was a musician and a drummer, but L started finding his own niche out of an individualistic way for himself. And by the time we go to Stacks with the slope floor in the room, the Stacks was an old movie theater and the floor was sloping. We'd get in there during our records. L would be at the bottom of the floor. We'd be doing the vocal off the top of the floor with Sam and
Dave or Johnny Taylor, Aby King or whoever. Isaac would be the mid floor and Steve would be a little higher than that. L heard of the lake when he would play and his pocket was feeling where the true essence of the tempo was with that laid back kind of essence that was coming throughout the room. And so but everybody would work to find the individuality because of the motivation of the music that we was hearing coming
from WDA. Even with the BD King before he blew up, you know, there was that magic that he was finding it within himself. Bobby Blue Blind and Johnny A's and all these people had their own persona of which was also in turn motivating us with aspirations to do music to try to find that for ourselves.
I'm glad I have you now because you know, even though it's been kind of six months since the release of the movie. As a director, Baz Luhrmann kind of has us at arm's length a little bit with his You know, it's when you make Hollywood biopics, it's either like, did these facts really happen? Or is this a Hollywood tale? And I want to believe the Elvis movie, but I got to hear from someone that was at least in proximity.
The way they portrayed it was like, you know, he was just hanging around the way amongst the brothers and whatnot. I mean, is that a fact or was that more embellishing beers.
Lhermann came to Limpus and asked if he could talk to me, So he came to my studio Memphis. The reason he came to the studio in Memphis because A did a special called The Searcher on Elvis Presley. And if you saw the Searcher, which they showed it for a couple of days in a row, and it was a few years ago, then you saw me talking about Elvis on that special. The reason that I was able to talk about elverscouse when I was a kid walking up from the Virginia Street where I was born, up
to Beale Street, which wasn't that very far. Maurice did the same thing. We would see people because we were not able to go in the clubs or anything like. We would just walk up the street and just see people. I was a poor kid, like I said, from a large family. My dad was died when I was two years old, and so I had a little bit of freedom of beautiful, amazing mother. So I was able to go and just with these aspirations that want to do music,
to get those that kind of vibe. And so there was this young kid white kid hanging around the street. I didn't know it was Elvis Presley or anything like that, nothing akin to that. But I've found out that that well, in fact, Elvis the white boy that wanted to sing black. And so what I did was I really told bears where Elvis got the vine from. Elvis got divine from
Roy Hamilton. And if you saw the movie The Search It, the reason that the name Roy Hamilton is mentioned in the movie is because I told him that's where it came from. Otis Blackwell, who was the writer who didn't get all of the money and certainly didn't get all this his writer credit, was a writer of so much of the Elvis still and if you listen to Otis if he was alive, you see where Oldis also got it from. But but Roy Hamilton, the flavor and the
nuances of Elvers singing came from Roy Hamilton. Check us out of some of Mieri to ketlog.
I used to Yeah, I used to listen to I think Isaac covered uh don't let right, yes, right. So my dad, my dad used to play the Roy Hamilton version. I always thought that was Elvis. The turntable was too high for me to see like what was on the label? So yeah, yeah, for the longest I thought that was an Elvis Presley song.
So what with this being straight up in real there was an authenticity about Elvis' comment being influenced by black artists and that that was in fact true. Elvis would come go to it was an event that wd I would hold in Memphis called the Good Real Review. Elvis would show backstage at the Goody Review. There are pictures of Elvis with Rufus Thomas and but that's real now.
So was he the only white gentleman to do that? Is that why I feel so special? Because he would just by himself not listen.
The individuality of black talents was a template that American used to break talents like that them finding ways to replicate some abnuances of black talents was the cornerstone which became whatever you want to call it, even up into this day. So no, no, he was not. He was not the only.
One, and not the first I'm guessing either, just the maybe the most talented.
He just blew up, but he know he was. There was so much magic happening on Beal Street. This is famous fear the Street Memphis. A lot of poor people, but people having a good time inside of what they had to deal with, and that was the place they would go to do it. And there were clubs and
the like on that street. That was magic. And like I said, the individuality of people being proud of who they were would manifest itself, not only in the way people would perform on stages, but even the way a guy who may have been working on the garment shop were dressed for the weekend, just be having a good time in his own world. In the bias and the racism that was going on in that prevent time, you could not kill the spirit of a people, and that
was what it was. And then there was some folks lock in the elvis would come and hang around that vibe and that spirit, and obviously we eventually found out what it ended up being for.
Well, let me ask you, so, you know, having come of age in the mid seventies early eighties, I'll say that you know your average soul singer is pretty much at this point like emulating Stevie Wonder like with this soulful voice and whatnot. And so you know, I've I've, of course, because I wasn't born during the time when Elvis first came out, I didn't know for sand like, so everything I learned was, you know, sort of like
later in my life. And I always knew, you know, that the theory of like, you know, if I could find a white boy that sings like a black guy, I'll make a billion dollars from you know, Colonel Tom Parker saying that. But like, in your opinion, was Elvis's voice in your opinion as a true blue Memphis in that in that era, was that the actual voice of a black guy? Like, was it if you were to put him more, was it sort of.
Like Bobby Carwell, well, yeah, I know I agree with the Roy Hamilton thing, But is that.
Sort of snarling thing that was gonna was that the actual voice of because if I'm thinking of that time period, I'm thinking more like Ray Charles and whatnot. But is it just was it just typical for black singers to have that sort of voice that those hasn't No, No, you got to give him a little bit of him finding what the black brother couldn't give him.
That's the whiteness of who he was. And so the nuance is that that gave him a little bit of a torch came out of him not being able to replicate with the trueness of what all these talents were. And you consider what Otis was doing. Otis Blackwell, who
wrote the songs I wish you could hurt. I met this brother, and knowing that there were a lot of credits that were given to Elvis that I knew Elvis didn't write the songs with him, But he's written the songs with Otis black Well, things that I heard, those kinds of things. But you can listen to him, and you can hear this guy saying, and you can say, Evers got some of that from him. Ever's got some of that from Roy. Evers got some of that from him, And so he was able to put those things together.
But I also found a niche that gave you a little bit of of what he was about as well. And it became a combination of those things. But it was magnified by the uniqueness of the black contribution.
He grew from fast forward justin.
Without a doubt, right, You know. The interesting being if you think about the seventies and before then, listen, Teddy was Teddy, Otis was Otis. Johnny Taylor was Johnny Albert who couldn't read, and we would whisper the lyrics. I would be on the mic when he was singing, say the line before he was singing. But the uniqueness of Albert planning to get to us hitting the line. The uniqueness of Albott was inside of his personality as avert. Oh wow, only he to do those kinds of things.
You give Johnny Taylor the melody that Isaaca and I we wrote out, got to Love Somebody's Baby because somebody been loving mine. Now we wrote the song, and David wrote a song into teachers. When Johnny sang the song, the individuality of Johnny took it to another another kind of a blue song, little Bluebird. We wrote that that would listen to it. The individual reality of the artists, even with the Hazen Porter song, would take it to
the persona that was the inside of their uniqueness. And then by the time we get the Sam and David, we're doing the church thing, which is what we're doing. The individual of paid with the combination of David and I would direct them like a choir. If you listen, I think you you're gonna hear me holler.
At the very intro, I thank you because I make the mistake and holler. We kept their take, But that's because I'm on the other side of the mic directing them. But I cannot give them the individuality that brings out the uniqueness of what they were, and it became an identity thing because they were focused on making affairs and
so that's what all of those are. So even before Stevee, the individuality that ultimately ended up being Stevie grew out of some of the influences that he heard as a youngster.
Because the first record I heard on Stevin Fingertips, I didn't hear Stephen One like Stevie Wonder, you know, on I heard Steven Wander like Stevie Wonder because he stopped perfecting the uniqueness that was him and he magnified it. And then everybody says, it's to your point, Chris, start trying to follow that template. But those who followed the temple never got to the strength that Steed had.
I see, I see class for you. When do you sort of credit the moment that you started your mission like you're not You're come to Jesus moment with music, but that this was something that you professionally wanted to pursue.
I was, how real should I be with this?
I'll super real good.
I was so so poor, from a family of twelve with an outdoor toilet in Memphis. I told you who my neighbors were, and we all were that way. Maurice and I moved from where we were to a housing project called them On Gardens at the same time, which was a housemand I just felt that I had to find a way to do this thing. I thought I was a singer to do this thing, and I was trying to find an identity and didn't know where that was.
And so here's a kid working at a grocery store, just getting ready to graduate from high school from Booker T. Washington High School, where Maurice White and I graduated in nineteen sixty one from. And I'm working across the street from this movie theater, which was Satellite Records. And I would go over there because there was a little record shop there, and I had no money to buy the records. But there was a lady inside of there who said they had a recording company and they had a label.
Asked her about it, so they said, we record country artists. So I said, well, could you audition me, would you listen to me? She said, well, you can talk to my brother, but we just RECALLD country. So I went in there and I talked to Jim Stewart, who didn't want to to listen to me or anything such as that. He had a guy working with him by the name of Chips Moman. If you google the name Chips Moman. He became legendary later on, but he was the guy
that was working with Jim Stewart. Before there was no Snacks, it was called Satellite Records, And so I got the audition there and froze in the room on the audition, but I bought to them. I got some of my classmates to perform on it for me. I got Booker T. Jones to play baritone horn on the demo. I got Andrew Love to play tennis sacks on the demo. I got William Bell the same background along with James Austin
on the demo. Wheniam Bail became yes and my demo was a song original song because he asked me did I have it? Did I write songs? I told him yeah, I didn't have any. He asked me, well, did I have a band? I told him yeah, I didn't have one, and so he had two artists, Nick Charles and Charles Hines Country. I convinced him to let me do an audition. I then got the guys together to do the audition with me and froze on the demo and flopped. It
didn't work for me. But Jim Stewart met booker T. Jones, who he used to play baritone on Rufus Thomas record William Ball. He recorded you don't miss your water to your well, run try and and the rest is history. I mean, it's so. What it showed me was that I had a long way to go, and I started trying to find out who I really was if I wanted to be this, and I realized that I couldn't be the artist. I tried a couple of other records. I recorded for Savoy Records Little David, I recorded with
Willie Mitchell, Kenny Kane. Yes, it's on Savoy Records.
I didn't know that was the Savoy subsidiary.
Really, no, no, No, Savoy was different. The world wasn't Stax Records. Okay, that's that's for me, out hustling, trying to trying to find.
A panthay, I get it.
That's that's But so in trying to do that, I get with this guy who we used to sing on talent shows at the Palace, stayed on Beale Street, by the name of Isaac Hayes. So Isaac and I started talking. I said, this form a writing team. Now to come to Jesus. Moment was me figuring that if I'm gonna get in the music business, I'd already failed with the audition trying to sing. But I bought this guy all this amazing talent, and so I didn't get right in. I got with Isaac and we formed a label called
Genie Records. And there's a record on a guy by the name of Homer Banks called Little Lady of Stone And ain't that a Lot of Love? If you find that record, That's a record that I did with Isaac before Stax Records. Then I went and Convissium Stewart to give me an opportunity as a writer. I became the first staff writer for Stax Records, given a six month trial. In the rest of his history, I started building the
writing staff and all of that. What year was that, I want to say it's nineteen sixty three, but I could be slightly slightly off because I was there in nineteen sixty one. There's a record called The Life I Live on Barbara Stevens Stead that I did with Marvel Thomas. Was before even Isaac and I really connected, So it was like I was hustling.
You mentioned Willie Mitchell. What was it like working with him at that time?
Willie Mitchell was was was working with a company but of High Records, that was working with London as a distributor, and WILLI was not on the inner loop of High Records. WILLI was working with a guy by the name a white guy by the name of Ray Harris, and they didn't really realize what Willie Mitchell was. And so I found a way to convince them to let me make a record there. And so Willie and I wrote a song you can google it called Practice makes Perfect you'll
see written by Porter Mitchell. That's Willie and I and I'm Kenny Kine is David Porter. But this is before they allowed Willy to be Willie and Ray Harris got out of their way and Willy got the opportunity with some kind of deal. He worked with Joe Koogie and Nick Pacy and those guys and became the guy that Royal Studio became and High Records became. The rest is hissue with Willie Mitchell. That's my comment to Jesus. Moment of finding that writing was my in road defining a path for this.
So was it mostly a trial by fire in terms of you know, even with me, like with my musical education, a lot of my knowledge of like the first year that I came to a studio was more or less like what does this do? What does this do? And you know I didn't. No one told me about sixteen bar structures and you know, how to find my own sound. So you know, a lot of my education of music production just came from like the first three years of trying to see what works and whatnot. But how did
these people know to trust you? If you don't was expected for you to like be accredited songwriters and have experience of like writing out charts and knowing arrangements and all those things, or you just are you singing to each band members like this is what you do?
Or yes, all of that, but we didn't do Just Isaac Hayes did not write music. David Porter didn't either, No, he didn't, and so we went through the whole process of head arrangements. The great artists, the greatest creative that was Otis Ready. If you were able to be in a studio with Otis reading during a session, you would marvel at how he would come up with the bassline, the horn patterns, the guitar direction for Steve to play out on those records. Isaac and I were motivated from
the church. We realized that Motoon had to straightforth beat with these beautiful melodies on the top of that, and it was amazing how they did that. But we also realized, because we talked strategically about how we were going to find a path inside of this industry to do this, we realized that if we want to have an impact,
we had to find an identity. We had records before we did the Sam and Dave, there are quite a few of those records, but we were trying to find the adentity way for us to be affected, and we realized that that opportunity came from the spirituality of the church on the lower end of things, and so we started focusing on the bass, drums, guitar lines rather than the straight four kind of things, and that's why they became patterns inside of all of the songs that we
were doing. But those patterns didn't come from us writing a chart for that came from us giving the musician the actual patterns. Hold On I'm Coming a perfect example that the drum beat on hold On I'm Coming did not come about with us just starting to sing and they start playing No. I went to Alice and I remember the record get out on the Life Woman by leaving, may that beat play that beat? I said, Chick, that that's the beat that we want. Hold On I'm Coming.
Isaac had the horn, just a horn lick on that. That lick it put that down two or three weeks before we even thought about hold On I'm Coming. Hold On I'm Coming came one night late. We were we left a club after we were jamming, went to the studio by two thirty night. I went to the restroom. Isaac was trying to get me the hurry out of the restroom. I said, hold On I'm coming there and I said, God, it came out of the room. Twenty
minutes later we wrote hold On I'm Coming. The drum pattern we did all.
That, that's the movie story, that's the God's true.
It is the deal.
I've already see that acted out in the whole dramatic trail.
The y Isaac of Stacks Records happened because of the inner spirits inside of the creative juices that came not from somebody doing sitting down and writing a charge for me, but somebody giving people. The essence of of whether the songs were in the end of his was only magnified through that.
Okay, then I gotta ask you this question. Okay, you guys have this like ten minute song on presenting Isaac Hayes called I Want to Make Love to You, and it is one of the most ambitious arrangements I've ever heard. It's like part jazz, part blues, part serious soul, part comedy.
But there's so many parts to this song. So if it's not notated, like how for these like extravagant arrangements that you guys are doing, because it's not just like here's the A part, here's the B part, here's the A part, here's the B part, here's the code of Like you guys are writing these like extravagant arrangements, like how are they able to maintain that memory of what to do? If you guys aren't notating that stuff.
Well, first, Plase I didn't produce presenting Isaac Hayes.
Okay, right, but let me tell.
You, because Isaac and I worked for as from the core, I can tell you how the things that the core foundation of all of the records was inside of the base patterns. Now there was chance done on the up end of the charte. We Isaac used and huns we'd used al warn free. I mean, we use cats to put the orchestration on the top. But that's also coming out of Isaac's head. That's not some guy. He given the track to it said okay, create the parts. That's
not how that happened. But because there was such an authenticity of remembering things, all of the wrecks from hold on them coming to soul man, you don't know those are things that of course, the records was to two minutes forty seconds long. Your point is, well, how are you gonna do this on a long, long, long lung record. Well,
on a long, long, long lung record. If you were inside of the stacks room and you know everybody standing up looking at Isaac, and Isaac is directing and curing on the parts, the guys are right down four bars here, eight bars here, and the cats would know if you hold up his hand, it's the next it's the next pense,
it's the next pass, whatever it was gonna be. So I wasn't in the room when he was doing it, but I'm sure that the same kind of processes that I did on the victim of the joke abb of what you right, the same thing, because that's what I did.
So what are Al Bell's basic thoughts when you guys, and I'm going back to stacks in the sixties, but I'm just curious, like, when this turns into enterprise and you guys are making serious albums, what are Al Bell's thoughts when some of these album cuts are seven minutes, thirteen minutes, twenty two minutes.
Not right friendly at all.
That's well, I know that the age of FM radio was sort of like we play longer cuts when at least you know, the first five years of the seventies, But I mean, you guys were almost like the anti Motown, because I know Motown's whole thing was like has to be three minutes and thirty seconds and easily digestible, and so was that by design or.
But That's an amazing question, because the truth needs to be told. Isaac was the first to do the extended creating of the song the very first. The way that happened was al Ball now was being in control because Stacks all of the masters that Stax had recorded, Atlantic got those because Jim Stood had signed up one of his funny contracts and didn't realize they'd given the catalog away. Then Albert l got into power control of the company
and ultimately end up owning the company. And so what L did was in order for us to get back in the mood in the competitive way, said, listen, we got to create product and get an abundant of product to get out there. He encouraged Isaac to do the album. He encouraged easy going, Isaac said, because we were already in the power position. Isaac said, if I'm going to do it, I got to do what I feel I want to do. L had no idea that isa was gonna take it there, because Isaac always was influenced got
jazz cats. I mean he always, but that wasn't not the kind of records that we were doing. So when he got the freedom to do it the way he wanted, to do it. We used to go to the club called Club La Run. We would go there and just
jam before we'd go back to the studio. One night we were jamming and singing some stuff at the club to Run when something is Wrong with My Baby and some of the other songs that we had written and that they were popular songs we singing, and Isaac went went into a vibe with the sustained thing on the Hammibe three organ that was there and start talking and he would start talking, and the message was on a song by Glenn Cammell called by the time I get
to Phoenix, and Isaac started talking with me standing up on the stage with him, and I know what the heck he's doing, and him start and they were getting in to listen to him, and he just start making it longer and longer, and it came. He didn't have
it ridden out. It came to him in the natural way that these lines I'm telling you, and the horn Patterson came and he talked the whole thing out and hit By the time I get the Phoenix with the beat three loud and whatever, and the cats were just trying to follow him, which they did, and by the time he got the opportunity to record and told al al on a second because presenting Heinsac Hayes the album did not really work. On the second he told me to do it again. Honestly, I want to really do
it the way I want to do it. And that's why there are four tunes on that album. And the first motivation was that Phoenix thing that we did at the club I run and that was what nineteen minutes long as something.
Would tape ever run out, would would tape run out at all?
Well, that didn't know that, but you know, Isaac would we would have been in the studio jam and we end up with a lot of tracks that would in a writing songs off but later on just by the extended park that we didn't use on the record. So so cats would know that that and by the time I get the Phoenix case that had to be a new real to tape. Cats would know that he was going to do extended versus they just did not know it's going to be that law. So I don't know. I wasn't in the room mothetics.
But okay, so can you explain, especially like with with the tension that's happening in the mid to late sixties, especially in the civil rights movement? How was it socially, especially with you know cats like uh, you know, Donald Duck Dunn, Steve Cropper, like because you know the sound of stacks even though it's gut bunkeet soul, gut bucket funk like this, this is an integrated, intersectional kind of organization with men and women, black and white, that sort
of thing. So how easy was it navigating especially with sort of I guess culminating to King's assassination Like in Memphis? What is the social atmosphere of these white musicians and black musicians playing together?
Like what's a work dinner looked like?
Inside the street? Well, to a question, if I think I understand correct, this is this is the interesting thing about that period. Racism was still rapid during that period. It was still there, but because Stewart was smart enough to see that the black contribution of talents were far exceeding where Steve was and Dunk was. But these were casts that were able to integrate, for lack of a better word, into the Bible what we were doing because they were able to listen to where we were coming from.
And it was it was showed that the possibility of seriously making some money until they were there was a willingness to follow the lead of the black talents. And when I say that, when you could side, there's Booker T. Jones in that in that combination of talent we called it the Big Six. That was Al Jackson Junr in that combination of talent. That was Isaac Hayes in a combination of talents. That was David Porter in the cumbination
of talents. And here is Steve and Duck. And the leading parts was either coming from Booker or from Isaac, or from I or from Al. As relates to where a lot of the originality come from. The abilities to adapt and to be affecting with it was coming out of the rhythmic treaties that Croper would bring to many of the songs, and Duck would was amazing at remembery and containing patterns and giving you the right kunt of imagy.
For that, Like what about once y'all left the studio, Because like you said, y'all were the leaders in the individualities, but y'all couldn't eat in the same places, stay in the same places, And that that.
Is so so true. And then we didn't make a norm of that. They would go to a place called the Four Way Grill with us, which was a black restaurant on the Mississippi Walker. And when we wanted to really eat together, we would go to the Four Way Grill. And the Four Way Grill, if you read the history of it, that was all also the place where doctor King would go. That's also a place where Jesse Jackson
would go. At the front of the Four Way is the door people would come in from the street, but they had a back entrance at the back of the doors. James Brown and a lot of foo. We would go in the back door there and we would eat some of the best soul for wos you ever want to have. But that was a place when we would do I was a vocalist for Boogleton MG's on the road playing in the College Circuit. To your point, we'd get in
the car. We did this is Bookert and mgs well, we do sessions with we worked at the College Circum On the weekend, we'd get in the car and go play gigs and we had a lot of This is where we could not get in the hotel in a real comfortable kind of way we'd go and play the gig on the College State, come back and be in the studio on Monday. So it wasn't It wasn't the kind of thing where you'd see a lot of let's
go out and hang out together. There were black clubs and they were white clubs, and that was still going on in the mephis by the time you went into the stacks rooms to do the work. It was a unity there, but it was also a willingness to follow the lead of the black talents who was really making the thing. And that's why the magic came from an Otis Rennie, who showed everybody what all of that meant what I just said, because there was no one who could do it to the degree that Otis could do it.
Did you personally feel some sort of way when like your sound and your formula are being used by other memphis Like in other words, like if you were to if anyone were to listen to like Let's Stay Together, Yeah, you know, the sound of the brass band in the front and the basic gut bucket groove of that song.
You know, someone to say to me like, oh, that's probably Stax Records or something like that, and you know, even though you guys are in proximity of each other in terms of mileage, Like I'm certain that Willie and his organization were way different. Might be like one or
two musicians that are the same. Are you guys feeling some sort of way that, like the sound that you helped make the Blueprint Architects is sort of now being not even outside of Memphis, because I'm certain that you know, there's the Cats and Muscle Souls are also I'm thinking that they too, are you know, Memphis based and whatnot, Like, especially with the work they were doing the Refit like, did you feel some sort of way when your sound is sort of like identified with that whole region but
some of those things that you had nothing to do with, it just sounds like you did well.
The beautiful thing about it is that we have so many artists that we had to use other rooms to do that. The reason that Muscle Shows sound became revered as it did was because we sent so many artists there, so many many artists there.
How far was Muscle Souls from Memphis.
Maybe a little bit more to our drive? Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean I don't know if you're familiar with the album that I do that that has the victim of the joke, the song the Masquerade is over?
Wait time out? All right, Okay, are you really asking us right now? We know I'm afraid the Masquerade is over?
But but but that quest that's a cute kind of things you mentioned earlier about hair stuff. That's one of those kinds of things. I had a mic going around room with the head, says, going in the harmon license to cast the play. But but but that's also one of the dumbest mistakes I made because the second half of it, which has nothing at all to do with the original song which I was given, the head arranged to it, and that's where all the samples came from.
Do you know how many millions of dollars I gave away with that? All of those those how many? But that's no story. But but but h so we're.
Gonna ask about that too.
But but but but uh but Muscle Shows was so many ars. Johnny Taylor, the staple singers color the emotions with so many that we we went to the room in what Willie was doing over it high that's Andrew
Love and Wayne Jackson the horn section. A lot of the patterns, and I can show you some patterns that the guys are and forgot that we already did the patterns on the track over there, and they got into whatever on the al track, and there's a line that we did on Man, what the heck got so But but we were we were so so unified and and the magic that was happening out of Memphis. There was no animosity or anger toward what WILLI was doing, nor
was that coming from willly what we were doing. We were just simply happy that all of the stuff was connected. And then that there was magic with our Green. The magic with our Green was reminiscent of the magic that we felt when we lost over this ringing. So there was a joe and the happiness. And then when Willie come up with a record that stupid great like I can't stand the rain, I mean just great, great, great, great music. So there was there was no It was
in a lot. Some of the players were the same. It was that kind of spirit in Memphis during that time.
At any point was Al Green ever going to go to your direction to stacks at any point or just he immediately went to high.
No, No, WILLI.
WILLI discovered l but did you know about him before Willie discovered him?
No, No, I don't think it was nobody. No, that was Willie. Willie. WILLI heard something in him and and took him to a space L didn't believe he was. Al was a hard singer. WILLI forced him to find the identity thing that I was talking about. WILLI forced L to find that thing, that thing for am.
The way he's singing on his first album is Backup Train.
Yes, will listen to the vamp of Love and Happiness, and you'll see that's where Al really is. Willy control how L found himself. And then when Al really found himself, then R magnified the persona what that should be. And that's why some of those vocals that he would do on those songs were just crazy, because he was having so much fun in discovering new nonsense inside of what he was doing that was even fresher than he even imagine.
I would imagine. He became unbelievable. The same thing was happening with Otis as well, Johnny Taylor as well.
Can you tell me or recall the experience of hearing what happened to Otis Redding and the original barcas well.
Let me first first say this because this is this is this is an interesting story. When Otis came to Memphis to record Sitting on the Doctor the Bay my office at the Stacks Building. The door to the office was on the street, because by then we had bought the other location. There was a cafe next door to the theater, and there was some other's things on the other side, and there was a grocery store on the other side. We had bought all of that and converted
that into part of the space. Otis came into the room in my office. He said, I want you to hear a song and tell me what you think about it, because he you know, he there was a mis respect there. So he came and he sang with a acoustic guitar, openstright, acoustic, and he sang Sitting on the Doctor of the Bay to me the whole song, and he said, what you think.
I said, well, I think you ought to make the first verse the last verse and the last verse the first verse, because the story says so better than me. He really thinks he is. He went into the studio and recorded Sitting on the Doctor of the Bay. Now it was not complete because he had a plane to catch and he then left Memphis, got on got did his flight. I was, as I mentioned the vocals book of Tenmg's that weekend, we flew to Ohio and played a cottage up there in n OHI up there, so
I we're in. We had finished the gig, were in the airport. I get a call from my wife at the time. I get a call saying that their said that Otis Ready was in an airplane crash. And I said, I couldn't believe. I said, no, what do you? And I didn't believe it, and she reinforced it in in a real emotional way to me. And I told the guys that I was told when I told the guys that, and we were getting ready to catch a plane to come back to Memphis when we found out. So we
were coming from a gig Otis was going. They were going to another gig. And the devastation of finding out about that was when we were on another gig. Matter of fact, it's I think I want to say, it's in Booker T's book if you read Booker talks about it as well. That's that's that's when that was found out.
Did you did you know, James Alexander, Well, uh, the basis of the bar Kays, Well.
Then you don't know the story about how the record cut came about. They had a record, a track that they had and it was just a track. Isaac and I went into the room. It was a track. Jim Steward was standing over there listening to it, didn't know what what it was. Then called it they was. They played the track for us. Isaac Hayes came up with the title soul Finger. I said, let's put some kids
on the record. I went outside and got twenty five or thirty kids, brought him in the room, got two cases of coke, asked James, James Elexander when you interviewed him about this story, got two cases of coke, gave him the Coca cone. I directed them like a choir. Every time I raised my hand and do this, you scream soul finger. And then when I do this, you say you say so. And so Isaac gave the title soul Finger for the record. I put the kids on it.
That's that's the record. So James Alexander definitely knows David Porter and Isaac Hayes definitely does that. Getting jigging record. No no, I did on the Barcades, gave them I did a head range, gave them fifty percent of the song. But I came up with it. Put the kiss the same thing again. I got Kiss off the street. I directed him like a que and had him sing and did the track of the Barcades singing dance right, the singing dance, so real close to James.
I've always been curious and you know he's he's definitely, he's definitely like one of our buckets, bucket list guests that we want to get. Just let me know, oh please, that that's him and Jazzy Fae, like James Son.
Used to lay on the floor in the studio.
If really yeah, do you know like how he was able to bounce back and start the group all over again, and just how he felt. Because I believe the story is that, I don't know if it was a coin flippant not. The thing was that only a certain amount of people could fit on the plane. I believe the legend is that James Alexander is like, look, I'll just catch a commercial flight and him and Carl.
Did that another not not Carl Kunaham, but another car Carl Siums did that cause Carl Sum was going to go with it and James and Carl Sums did that. That's that's true. Okay, it was ah something like that, whatever the number sixts was, but James and Carl couldn't get on it, and James took a commercial flight. That's true. James was the one that was asked to go, and because Zelma didn't want to, she wasn't the most able to do it. James was the one that went to identify this.
I know that was such a devastating loss to the label. Like how are you guys, especially with a transition of you know, moving into the seventies and whatnot, can you explain just the feeling at the time, like especially post King by the time the seventies comes, Like what do you feeling in terms of like where music is or where Stacks is as an organization to.
Really appreciate the energy that Otis brought to our environment. Otis was a driver for another guy that was being recorded at the time. Otis came in as his driver. Otis pleaded with Al Jackson Junior to would someone take a listen to him? Sing? Al told Steve give if you got a minute, man, people that already was leaving, Andy already left, would you take a listen to this guy?
He just wanted somebody to listen to him. Otis Redding saying these arms of mind with Steve Cropper, who is not a piano player, playing tributs on the piano, and the rest is history for ODIs ready then, because no one understood oldest better than Otis, because Otis was a huge fan of Little Richard. If you listen to the B side of These Arms of Mine, you're gonna think
it's Little Richard because that's where Otis was. But the These Arms of Mine song, Otis showed where he was, and that was the thing that resonated inside of that room. And no one could do that but Otis, and Otis was given the lead way to show where that came from. And then Otis was the one that started really magnifying the head arranges kind of vibe or what of became
the cornerstone of everything we did there. So the loss of Otis created a kind of emotional kind of devastation to all of us that it's no way to explain the level of it, because then we begin to feel what could have been with the magic that was coming from this man. I mean he would go in the studio in this like fastest, get up, we'll be able to come up with all these parts and these tracks and just do them and then go on to mic and make up the song on the mic. That's me singing homedy with him.
I was gonna ask you about that.
Yeah, yeah, but that's im.
I didn't know when the times he says I said this, when you gonna come in, he said, you feeling.
It was like, but that's the magic of this this god.
The thing is that Otis Redding was twenty seven when he died. Was it that typical for during the time that you guys have between the age of what twenty he came to you, twenty three or twenty four?
I don't, I can't.
You could be right, yeah, twenty three, twenty four, very twitters, but I can't remember, Like, were you guys saying to yourselves back then, like this guy has a way older voice than what his age allows. Or was it just the stress of living in that time just brought that age and that experience on your typical singer back then.
When you listen to the B side, as mentioned of these ums of mine, and you hear Otis there, and you listen to what Otis was doing. Otis was so brilliant as far as seeming in the individuality that magnified with people. So you could talk to Otis and I was, yeah, how you doing, Everything's fine? But then he said, you can't get that, you know. I mean, all of this was with a purpose aim at locking you in to the persona that was Otis. Ready, there was no Otis
didn't talk like that. Job. That was a character you better believe it was. But he also perfected it in such a way that that the uniqueness of him, because he would stumble up on other things that he would do, because and he's making up things on the microphone as well. It's just.
That was a character man, even on trimp where he's like talking on countries like.
Bro, it's real what I'm telling you. This man was brilliant. And and and and the Brians were manifested in some of the patterns that the guests were able to play, which was motivating Isaac and I to get better with our patterns. I Thank You. The record on I Thank You was motivated out of Otis reading I went there.
Answer right, Tennessee Walker horses on the drums. Now, just the magic of Otis Ready and seeing what he would do in the room was the catalyst for so much of what happened through all of us, and so us trying to find our traction to get into the ballpark of that was to your point about a little bit of the decline before people were beginning to find their way. That was part of it. We had lost the magic marker for what we could ultimately be when we lost that guy.
Who do you think he was trying to emulate since that wasn't his natural.
Voice Otis Ready. When I say that individuality was the cornerstone of the magic of what was having in their stacks, I'm saying that that became the signature thought for everybody on every record. William Bale his records in the Sweeteness, said Booker, and William wrote and the songs everybody loves. One of those songs, that's William going into a character that's one of my best buddies to this day. That's also inside of the character of where you know his slot was.
Yeah, what you're saying is people there were alter egos before there were Sasha fears, that's what you're saying, you know what.
I'm living that right now because I just found an interview with Bobby Woomeck talking about Slid recording. There's a ride going on, and you know, one of the questions I had about Sly was like, well, how come the voice of slies on that record where he's like clear as day on his record, And Bobby was just like, man, SLID's an actor. He was just fucking around.
And.
I see now, like, I don't know, it's just said to me, just that voice is so seasoned, like it just and again, like I heard that voice when I was ten, so I just thought that's like my grandfather's voice. So when I found out he was, you know, I'm thinking twenty seven, I'm thinking, you know, like Chris Brown's voice or bad era Michael Jackson voice like sounds like young, but he just sounds so old and seasoned. I just thought that was unusual.
I came from a period where people who looked like me, in order to connect in a market that didn't handle all the access of internet all those kind of things, had to find a way to make the possibilities of that more real and the best way to do that, based on the evidence of time, was to find the individuality that created an essence of uniqueness for you. And inside of that kind of thought process was the desire
to find that. And in many instance, when people would find that, they would find themselves and they would know where that pocket was. Bobby Wallman Ship's moment left Stax Records when Stacks, when Satellite turned into Stax and Chips went to a place called American Studios. And because Bobby couldn't get into Stax Records, where did he go? In Memphis, Tennessee.
Bobby went to American Studios. And if you go by the early music of Bobby Womack, you'll find out that Bobby Womack was in Memphis, Tennessee recording over there, Danny Thomas and Chelsea at Chips Woman Studio. Check it out. And so look when we did gigs, and I'll say this, and when we did gigs on the on the college circuit, and we'd go and do these gigs. Some of these white colleges would have two acts performing. Some of these appearances were book of ten emg's on one end of
the floor. Because they didn't know that Booker had a vocalist, which was me. They would hire another group to sing and perform. Who did they have one of those gigs and this was a guy became a buddy of mine behind the Oser Brothers who was playing guitarme for the brothers at these college dates. Jimmy who came to Memphis with me to try to get some gigs and sessions
with me in Stacks Records. Jimmy Henrix. So all of this, all of this speaks to people understanding that they had to find an individual alder that gave them an end to where they wanted to go. Jimmy is another essence and example of that because he was a bad mother shits your mouth playing bro. But when he got when he got time for him to find him, he knew how to integrate those nuances that became the rock thing and going that whole look. He knew how to do that and he did it to the bone.
So you're basically saying that rap music isn't the only genre in which someone's everyday voice all Sean Carter and jay Z is you have to be a character. I just thought that was hip hop.
The Land of Lead didn't start with hip hop.
Nuances of what, in my opinion, many of those talents got to where they got to was realizing that James Brown saying like sound like James Brown, and Teddy Pendergrass sounded like Teddy Pendergrass, and somewhere in between that sly Stones sound like sly and somewhere in between that you go, you can go down the line. And the magic habit when people perfected the essences of who they were with the purity of an emotional connecting way to an audience,
and that was where the magic was. And so I think that when you found all these records happening on the Tonic and Cat's trying to find a way to trick their voice to make themselves sound whatever they're doing, they got that undernoess to them possible of the influences that came through their grandmama and the uncle whatever talking about how they like, I like that James Brown. I
was like, why y'all doing that kind of stuff? And then they found a way to make it work for them, and they make it work to the Hill and so Nas and these other kids, and they told me that that that you mentioned who shot you? Which which which My guy bigger did. But they told me biggest audition tape was a song of mine and put us writing.
I forget Bone Alley, Yeah.
Came to Memphis to interview me and he told me that. I said, I what are you talking? He said no, his audition was I've never heard that and so so by the time I thing I heard was who shot you? So But the point I'm just saying, they were looking for ways to find the individuality that was uniquely them
and they've perfected. So when I listened to Biggie and hear where he was coming from, and then I listened to Kendrick to said what I'm saying, this is stupid stuff because they all find a way to find the magic within the says you mentioned Jay, They all find a way to do that. Those who become affected with it as soon as they get the pocket of money, they moved to the hills. But hey, it's wrong with that, and that I'm wrong with that.
But real, well, well, lets Steve ask this question because I'm sorry I forgot my question.
Question the story you mentioned earlier about sitting on the dock of the bay that it was unfinished, did you oversee the finishing of that song or how did that get finished?
No proper did that? Steve?
So what had to be recorded after his accident.
In session? You know, all this is just saying the song to me when he came to my office, and then I just gave him that that suggestion. Then he went in the studio and recorded. You know, I don't know to what degree he was it was not finished. I really don't.
All right, Well, I have a follow up question then about Hendrix. Why didn't Stacks sign Hendrix? Or I'm trying to imagine Jimmy Hendricks as a Stax artist, what that would be like? Was there any talk blues guy?
You know, he wasn't entries at the time. He was trying to get on SUC sessions. There was no essence of jim and being Jimmy at the time, gotcha, yeah, yeah, But and then then Steve had a lock on the studio. Being honest with you, he wasn't easy to get get in some sessions, you know, and he just came to see if he could.
How many studios were in total rooms?
Well, there eventually became three rooms in there, A B, and C, but it was a while before we got B. It was it was a while.
Before we got that, so what's scheduling like?
It was crazy. We ended up, as I mentioned before, having to do bookings that it wasn't a place in muscle shows.
Okay, I get it now.
Goats in Mississippi. We did some bookings, you know, we we ended up because we had so many acts to do.
Was Nashville ever an option like was did Nashville have any potential of having flavor?
Yeah? Asked about that?
Or nah? No?
So do you feel the It's funny, I'm like, I know you know about the guy to ask about the Black Music Museum. It's only one black music museum in the country, and it's in Nashville. But it's it's it's supposed to feel like a situation where to make folks come. Do you feel like that or do you feel like that it should be Memphis?
It should have been Memphis. But but honestly, Henry Hicks Uh the guy who came to Mesa before it was built, and we met on all that stuff, and I supported him in the effort because it's difficult for me to believe that actually happened in Nashville. If you know Nashville, believe that. But he pulled it off and he got uh. He honored Pattel, La Belle, Teddy Rodder, Kirk Franklin and myself as a program that we did there several years ago.
As he was bringing note the ride and disability to it, he bring several artists that talk about Nashville or whatever, and that's and that was part of the surprise for me to see that he was a brother that was really believing he was gonna pull it together and he did.
Oh yeah him and quite a few people shouts at Deanna Williams too, and Big John Platt is a nice community of folks that are.
Involved in Yeah, in that place special and.
Where it's placed, like right in downtown in the face of like the Oprey.
It's like you we here right in the face of the Yeah.
So I give I give I give those guys credit for pulling off something that one I found a difficult lee that would ever be, but also the level of it being that that it is. I mean it it's beautiful.
I wanted to ask you, David about you You talk about characters and uh, you know, the singers and everybody wanted to be individual Rufus Thomas Man what was what was he like? I thought I loved him. I mean I watched Tacks was all I saw him on. But yeah, what was he like? Just as a dude read book?
If you told Rufus Thomas that he wasn't an artist, he'd cutsh you out. Rufus knew that he could go into a sona that really magnified marketability for himself. If you try to get in the saying saying he was not what you think in terms of that, but when he was saying one of his original compositions, he could saying saying because no one could do it better than he could, and he could sell it in such a way that that was it was magic. He was. He was extremely confident man. He was up in age when
he started recording. He was, but he was extremely confident. And he also felt that he wanted to be able to compete with Sam and Dave or Oldis and whoever was on the stage. So he would he found a way to get outfits even though he wasn't getting paid the kind of money the others were getting paid on the gigs. But you can tell that because every time he hit the stage, he'd be sharp as sharp could be. And when he go into this thing, he could do
it to him. And so but that was because he just he just knew where his niche was and he refected us. We talked about earlier the individuality that was powerful for him.
Carla was his daughter.
Correct, Carla was his daughter.
How was it when she came along? How did that work?
Well? Cala came along at a time when when Jim still recorded Rufus and Colin or a record called Cass I Love It, which they said it was a hit, but it really was the marginal kind of record. But Jim saw something in Carla and asked her if she had any original songs, and she had a song called Gee Whiz, and Colin paid a little piano and Cala recorded Ge Whiz. It really became the dome the for stacks and the relationship with Atlantic Records. That initiated the
really power of the deal for us. And so that was what that was. And then Isaaca and I had the biggest record on Caller because we wrote a song called b A d Y and we produced that on Calling and that was her biggest record. But yeah, no, she she was shed some some stuff and director with Quest mentioned with Trump, was she oldest brought out another kind of person. This is very effective.
We talked about soul man, but there's a whole like barge of classic songs. I'm just gonna name something. Can you recall the stories of how or tell me what the songwriting processes for some of these songs, Like when Something's Wrong with My Baby?
Yeah, I was, I was. I was a man's boy and got a girl pregnant high school and my mama said, you got married, and I married? Uh, nineteen years old. I married. And so I'm living with a kid and fantasizing as I'm trying to get in the music in as an effective way. I'm about love and what is would be the power love? Because the young lady didn't
love me and I didn't love her. But we had a kid, and so I would dream about babies and so just I would have a pad up under the bed, which I still do that when a right, and sometimes I'd wake up with a thought and the idea and I would write it down. When something is Wrong with my Baby was one of those ideas that I woke up in the dream, wrote, wrote the title down, got up, wrote the whole song out called Isaac. We couldn't get into the studio. As I mentioned, we didn't have a
lot of rooms at the time. Couldn't get in the studio. We went over to Sidney Kirk's house. One of Isaac's friend got his piano, wrote when Something Is Wrong with My Baby in about twenty five thirty minutes because they had the melody already in the head. And the rest is history with that song. But that was like when I mentioned the titles Isaac, he said, man, I love that, and we wrote it and so man came about just as equally because Isaac heard something out of Detroit and said, man,
we need to write a song called soul Man. And then here comes sol mad We're talking. We wanted to be a motivational song our music. So I talked about getting an education. I was educated at Woodstock. I was brought up on the science. We talked about I'm the beginning the whole manifestation of motivating people, the double meaning
of soul Man in the Woodstock line in there. That was before the festival Woodstock, and when Bulusi and Akro was saying people thought that we had Woodstock, that's Woodstock was a county school in Memphis. But but all of those things came about with.
Us trying to think of ways to make ideas that people can relate to but also motivational for people inside of the subliminal message in our writings.
And that's what we were.
Doing when you and when you and Isaac worked together. How did y'all work? Like?
Did you?
Were you on piano? Was he on piano? Were you more lyrics?
Isaac was on piano. I started out as a lousy trumpet player to start trying to play trumpet in high school and wanted to be a singing star. Recent was the drama in high school, and Booker was below us in high school, and so I started thinking I was this great trace singing and put down the instruments. And so by the time Isaac and I got together, I understood melodically how to do exactly what we needed to
do lyrically, how to do that. And Isaac we started out, I just started up playing trippers on the piano before we started, just stretching himself to do all he could do, and all of a sudden, he started discovering things that he would hear inside of his head, which is where the head arrangement came and I started finding things I
would hear inside of my head. And then when we would sit down to write a song or come up with an idea, if we had to put some piece of something down on another tape to use it as a reference for something possibility, we would then sit down and create the songs right from stretch. Right at that point we'd schedule or writing. We'd go and do a gig at a club or something like that and come
to the studio and just start writing. And we would do that from artists to artist, song to song individualities and be it a blue song on Johnny Taylor, a blue song on Elbath King, a lover song on a soul children, a pretty song on the Emotions, a flat down song on Sam and that we focused on doing it the way we felt that inside of the room.
But it was Jilly, Isaac and I sitting at the piano, me coming up with the melodies and the lyrics of a song, singing the song, and we're coming up with a musical direction that we would go inside of that. The head arranging part of that comes and we would go into the room. We talk about the concept of it.
If we wanted to hold on them coming. It was one of those examples where where he had had had a horn pattern down weeks before, and we talked about coming up with this idea after I came out of the restroom, and then we talked about an idea about Superman, a resking kind of thing and a motivation for people, and that was where the thought was. And once we said that, twenty minutes later we had the song don't
you ever feel sad? You know me, but times are bad, the day comes, you're down and river troubling about the drown hold on I'm coming, And we talked about the unity and the bond between people with that.
But when you saw Roman, when you were recalling the story of Something's Wrong with My Baby, for half a second, I was like, oh God, this isn't a love song. He's talking about his newborn kid being sick. And I was like, wait, where's he about to go with this story? Like that's what it means literally a baby?
No. Now, I was trying to think about what it'd be like they had a real woman that I could really feel all of that for.
I feel you, I believe in ninety one ninety two, back when the idea of a box set was a novel idea. These eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve CD sets, like a history of a label started happening for the record industry because literally, if you buy the Stacks box set from nineteen ninety one, you can hear the entire
history of the Wu Tang clan. I want to know, have you ever met the Riza and what were your initial thoughts in the mid nineties when suddenly the thing about Riza and his sampling method is it was even jarring. I don't know if I can speak for Liah, Steve or Fante, but his level of sampling was really jarring, Like like I'm very familiar with the sweet inspirations like Why Mary and all that stuff, and so just the just the very unorthodox way that he sampled that Why Mary is a criminology.
I knew it was always different with Riza. I knew it was never you can't it ain't easy. It was never easy.
That's and he wasn't He wasn't afraid to use voices either, like he would a lot. Generally when you would chop samples, you would try to get out of the vocal. You know what I'm saying he would almost intentionally like incorporate the vocal use.
Yeah, it was very so when you're hearing like or I guess you know you have to get permission. I don't know what the process is like if your publisher just says, hey, I give a permission, or they gotta go to the songwriter. Sometimes we got to have a conversation with the songwriter. Sometimes it's just like, yeah, you
could clear it. But when when your work starts getting a lot of traction in the early to mid nineties with Biggie with Uh even Mop with Annie up Soul Sister Brown Sugar, I believe yeah, yeah, Like what are you feeling? Is are you feeling like to change I'm back or is it like wait, I didn't intend my songs to sound like this, Like what are they doing?
The respect for the creative process was something that I marveled at, I know Isaac marvel at, and the fact that I just simply felt good they found an interesting way to interpret something that I was part of the creation of. When Rizza and I met, Rizzi met, we've met, I've even introduced him on some shows and stuff, and he's kind of my studio and just The level of respect that those guys head for the catalog was just
amazing to me. But also find the interesting ways they found to interpret the song like cream, I mean, like I mean, come on, you know wait, let.
Me inter it up to you, because I got a question with as long as I Got You, maybe maybe like four five years ago. Actually, I think during the Motions episode I played it. The Emotions have a version of as Long as I Got You, which is even funkier. It sounds like a demo. Why wasn't that version ever released?
Because it probably sounded like the demo that you're talking about. You know, I really, I really don't even remember the Emotion's version. Do you know how embarrassed that is for me to say that?
Because you got too made over two thousand songs, like we will.
Forgive you for forgetting one everything, but.
Again you you've done over two thousand songs, so you can forget a few.
Yeah. But but the version that we did to charmels Isaac was was uh. I don't want to bust him out, but he was. He was a little romandously fascinated with one of the girls with that because we weren't even they were not looked upon as an act that we're gonna let's go into We're gonna record this s group called the Chamels. We knew that, Mary and and Milton, we knew them. But when Isaac come he said, man, we ought to record record them? He said what he said, Well,
so we did. And one of the banner things that we did, the one banner thing that we did that I just marvel. It was as long as I got you. And that was also one of those things that we naturally felt the power of. And when we just wrote the song and then Barbara, who is the least singer of it, her text on it was amazing. Isaac is singing background on some of the parts of the record. Wow, that's not all the girl was saying. So so it's It was one of those things that I was shocked
at how it ended up being sampled so much. Even the Nicole bus sample of it. I mean, that's Barbara singing that part of it on the record. That's the actual record on you on the cod Okay section of it.
You know, we gotta mention You've also worked with the legendary Cissy Houston and the Sweet Inspirations.
Not not Sissy but but the sweetest verses because Sissy wasn't.
So she left the group at the time.
Yeah, she left the group at the time. Yeah, if it was three of them at the time, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, Sissy wasn't with them. And wishes and dishes and and your role when you don't get it at the home of those songs, sisus not on that.
So were the Emotions the only group that weren't necessarily quote unquote homegrown. Was the main protocol of Stax Records to just have like Memphis home Groom talent or like, how did do you know how the Emotions came to the label and what was it like working with them?
Hervis Staples bought the Emotions to us.
Oh okay, all right.
Yeah, and he brought him to Isaac and I and they were very very young, sixteen years old, very very young. Sheila was younger than sixteen. Well I think Wonder was the oldest one, I believe, right, But Purvis bought them to Isaaca and I take a listen to and their father was Joe was like a little guitar player. He
wanted to be a part of the group. He was their father, And so we listened to them, and we said that Joe wanted to be a part of the group because he was impressed with you know, pop staples, you know with the Staples, and so we said, if we would do them, we'd have to do just the girls, and so we did the girl but Purvis was the one that brought them to us. Wow.
Okay, so you you mentioned it earlier. I was saving it for now, but you gotta tell me, like, what is the story behind I'm afraid the Masquerade is over? Because every time I have a break up, Yo, every time I have a breakup, like just that is one of the saddest songs ever. And now and that's another example of like they're crazy arrangements in that song. And now that you're telling me that you guys are going on phillion and all that stuff.
And it I'm walking around the room to.
Tell what was the genesis of that song?
Actually behind the second album which had hang On Sloopy on it. I don't know if you ever heard that that's I know, yeah, yeah, but I didn't quite hit the mark with hang on Sloopy. But I like the concept that I had would hang on Sloopy. So when I came up with the concept of creating acting scenes inside of the next project. I knew I was going to create something different, so I wanted to have thing sing who is she?
Who's the woman? Who's the woman that was one.
Of my secretary but also my wife. My second wife was also in that. That's that when the card scene, I come up running, Uh, that's my second wife. The girl I'm talking to about the girl. Yeah, I'm fascinated with the girl. Man, that was actually my wife.
Wait time, now there's two women on that song.
Yeah. Well, if you go to the very beginning, not not on that song. If you go to the very beginning of the album, yes, I know that I want Yes, yeah, and and and I go. You open the door, and I go into this party and I'm talking, Well, the girl that's talking to me about the other girl, Uh, that was my wife. I wrote out the story as I would go, and I then selected the songs that would fit the concept of where I was going to
take the story to. If you notice the last song on it was Airplane Ticket Bus Ride, Can I Borrow Your Car? I wrote that at the last minute because I had gone through the whole storyline and didn't have the closed out song. But the Masqueraders overcame about where I wanted to create something that gave the essences of all the things that are having prior to that period in the Apple, whether it's acting scenes. So if you notice the breakdown comes and I start rapping, well that
was I didn't have it written out. I knew the concept. I didn't have the rap written out on that song. I knew the concept, and I talked the concept after I did the head arrangers for the parts.
So you're singing it as the band sort of reading your face at the same time.
No, no, I did the track first. In my mind, I'm looking at I'm going through the emotion of this inside of the various transitions. That's why the piano part that's running playing the piano, I'm humming the piano part for running to play. The signature has been saying all this sun. That's one of those things where a piano player, that's what we want to play more right, just play that and stop just that and when I clue you
stop on that. That's what that was. But so so after that was done, now I get rid of the single song. Now I do the rap and I'm feeling where the parts are before I do the horns, and I'm feeling all of that and I'm making I promise you, I'm making it up come to an extended part, not the actually good song. I'm making it up the whole time because I know where the storyline is gonna ultimately end up and where it's gonna lead to make songs.
But not that I ever counted bars. But in your mind you're like, Okay, we're gonna do thirty two bars of a break and I'll figure out something to say in these thirty two bars. No, and then it's over, Like you know.
Now what I know? By kn't Bob? We do that? But not on this song. I so you got. I'm walking around the room talking in the microphone, directing cats in the microphone. I'm going around them while the track is while I got the bed foundation of the track. Oh my mama, I'm telling you this how this was done. I'm walking around the room, harming the parts. I don't
know how many bars I'm going to make this. I just want to make the emotional connectivity be a finick enough for me to feel something I need to feel when it's time to make the transition. That's why you hear some call flops and things inside of the track. Listen. I know, you know, you know, that's why you hear some of that. But after this of it was why I kept a lot of that.
The wronger saying listeners of QLs Right now, I'm doing the Jim Carrey dumb and dumber realization, Jeff, I can't believe this. Wow. Okay.
I was asked, David, were you a fan by chance of David Axelrod? Did you listen to any of his stuff? Really? Okay? I just both of you, y'all. I always like, oh, yeah, both of you guys, y'all kind of have like this really dark yeah, dramatic, like big uh Like it's it's big and like beautiful, but it's also kind of dark and kind of a carver as well, and it's really classy.
It's elegant, but it's really like dark and it can be like, oh you listen to that, listen to it in the dark, you might be freaked out a little bit, but really beautiful stuff.
Man.
I just I just wondered if y'all were fans of each other.
Well, well, you know what I would tell you this man I am. I feel that I've been so blessed because what come has come through me is the grace of a man upstairs. Because I have a nonprofit program where I teach songwriting, recorproducing all of that called the Constroining MT. It's ten years old. A lot of what you get coming out of ificent kids that have gone
through my program in songwriting. All this's got got one hundred and thirty some videos with everybody Stevie Bariz, Philip Bailey, Jimmy jam Bobby Womag, Edite la Verge I mean, let usy I mean on video talking about their concepts of the creating process. So all of this, I had to come up with a set way to understand how I do what I do for the success of those things to come out of that, Because if I was relying totally on how I felt, people don't care about how
you feel. They care about how you make them feel. So I had to find a way to make the magic of that be resonating to others. And I had to also know in order to replicate it again, find some way to understand it. And part of what Isaac and I would talk about and sometimes he would think I was crazy because I was so far end of that. But it was a gift and Maurice White and I
came from Virginia Street. Maurice, if you read this book, you see that he talked about me being one of the first persons he ran the name Earth Winning firedown to why I flew to La. I was at hot producer Maurice's with Ramsay planning the Hong Kong by the Cindrey Plaza Hotel. I flew to La because he wanted to tell me something he did to gig the next day were walking up sunset. He's going to tell you
a concept I got. Maurice created the earth Wind and Fire off of a concept in the direction that he had from the gift go and knew exactly what he was going to go in and the creative process because he knew he wanted to have an identity that created a uniqueness that was totally him. That is the essence of what comes out of Memphis in such unique ways that no one can can understand it, including me and say if it's a God given gift?
Was was Maurice's uh, metaphysical direction? Was it jar to you at the time because you know what Marius was trying to convey with earth, wind and fire was like the spirit which which is kind of the exact opposite of even though he was using gospel overturns in the Southern Church, but he's really using metaphysics and things outside of Westernized Christianity. Was that a little weird for you
at the time, Like what you get into Marius? Like, like, how did you perceive this, this kind of spirituality that Marius was was conveying with with the band.
We're walking up the street and he said, tell me what you think about this earth when in fire? Consider the time period that we're talking about, Ohio players, mm hmm. All I meant you couldn't go down.
He comes a guy says, earth when in fire, and this is the concept, David, and then I'm gonna fuse jazz.
But he ran all of that down to me. He's gonna fuse that inside of it. What I thought was he's gonna make something work, because we always talked about how I stumbled from the spirituality of what I was doing to make it work, and I just believe he was gonna make it work. I just didn't know how he was going to accomplish it in the climate that we were living in, because he was it was going
to be so innovative. It had to be. But when I heard the sound of what he did, because he had a group before or when the fire, when I heard the sound of what he did with the group, it was it was over. And we stayed like this. I was I would fly to la when he when Maurice had to Parkinsons just to get him in the car and ride in the street because he was through touring. We were that close and we talked of and left it.
So his thought about what he was going to do because he had that thought about what those processes was going to be and what the musician was going to be before he put it together. The only thing he told me differently while we were on sun So he said, I'm going to bring Verdein out here to California. He told me that. But other than that, he was going to put all of those ingredients together and he did it.
But yeah, I just because we worked off of concepts in the direction and identity and all of those things we lived off of that. I just didn't know he would put it off. He did it. I believed in him.
There is one important question I forgot to ask as a kid that grew up in a three thousand album household, and especially a kid that was afraid of clowns. Dog, who was the artistic visionary behind the album cover for Victim of the Joke?
When he says you can't handle the truth? Listen, that's a joke. That's a joke. I didn't know how smart I was. I just thought that because I had some Tennessee Walker horses out in Shelby Farms. I just thought, I want to do this cover, and I want to have a clown outfit on and I want to be I want to sit on a drum because I want to make this an opera. Called it Victim of the Joke? I wanted to be, and I want to make it like Who's the clown? Well and so, but this is
before I wrote out the script. I had that. So that was one of those things where becuse it's just it came from another kind of space, just like when something is wrong came from another kind of space. Hold on coming came from another kind of space. The toilet was there, but it was somewhere else. But it's just it's from another kind of space.
When was the ending of Stacks as we knew it.
The ending of Stacks happened with Isaac still there, Me still in charge of five labels ahead of A and RM. Steve Cropper was gone, Doug Dunn was gone, Al Jackson Jr. Was there, and so it was. It was a situation where we didn't know what was going on with the business part of the company, but we knew that al bail that became such a revered person, certainly after the White Stacks that we did, which was amazing within itself, until it was almost I had the feeling that the
business white community where the biggest work. When they found out that because we had a line of credit with a particular bank there, when they found out that this this black man was was what he was was doing, what he was doing, that it was almost they called the line and came at us in such a way that they got al Bill indicted eighteen indictment and tried
to destroy him, foreclosed on the company. And the last thing we knew was Isaac couldn't get any money his money, which it was millions of dollars there, and the company actually folded because of foreclosure Isaac then left Stacks when it was foreclosed and then signed with the other labor.
But he didn't he didn't sign with another label before Stacks closed, and so but it was it was an attack on destroying a powerful company that was creating a great amount of jobs and a tremendous amount of notoriety for Memphis, Tennessee. And you put that with what Willie Mitchell was doing. We were a power base in a city that was seaked in a in a kind of bigger fee that was not in its own interest because the credibility that we was bringing to the city was was tremendous in itself.
They were you around when Al Bell formed Bellmark, his his indie label that they put out they end up putting out there it is but uh.
Yeah, he l moved to California when he did that. You know, he had an office building on Hollywood there. You know, I was definitely wrong when Al when Stax was over and everybody thought Al was over, Ali ended up you know, creating Bailmark. As you said, Wait a minute, he was. He was still in a brilliant mind.
Yeah, and I think he did. He did most Beautiful Girl in the World.
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I forgot in Motown and Motown.
Say what Al Bell worked with Barry Gordy at Motown form.
Them bells, them bells. I'm trying to.
Check that out, Joe. You know, I'm gonna say, I've listened to you guys, and I just muddled and how much information Wasn't it was.
Fantasy at all associated with Al Bell? Because there was a period in the early Arts, like in two thousand and whatnot, in which ah damn, see, I'm messing up right now. One of the executives that used to work at Geffen who signed me, went to Fantasy and was like, yes, we have all the Fantasy masters and all the Stacks masters.
Like can I can I say? Of course? Was that was that Erny Singleton?
I know any Singleton, but no it was not him.
No, Okay, okay, because I only worked for Fantasy period.
Okay, but okay, so I guess they connected in the early arts.
Well you're not a Fantasy deal happened? Right?
No, I don't know, okay.
STAXX closed was totally closed in seventy six. Here comes to People came to me and asked me would I create a seven and a half tape of what the was in the Stacks library and when I do that, because they didn't know what it was, the bankhead or closed us and they were just trying to figure out how to get rid of stuff and they didn't know what they had. And so what happened was they had to pay me one hundred thousand dollars to put seven and a half takes together for about forty five minutes.
And Fantasy Records came to me after that and asked me what I had up the label for them. What they wanted was to release the catalog of the music, and they wanted me to move to Berkeley, California. I said, I would not move to Berkeley, California. If you insted me doing it, I would have to do it in Memphis, and I also would have to have the right to sign some of the artists to the label, and you release records on We said, we don't really want to
do I said, well then I'm not interested. Well, they would not have known what to do with the catalog, so they made the deal with me. Ernie Singleton, who later became the president of MCA, and that's why we closed. To this day, was working for Fantas said records. Another guy by the name of Bob Orsche was working there. I released the record on the Emotions. They had a record called Shouting Out Love. I released the record I have on Isaac called hot Bed. I released a record
on the Barcade called Holy Ghosts. I released the record on the Soldier and called Can't Give Up a Good Thing. I had another act by the name of Shown Up. And if you go seven eight should Be and you google seven eight Billboard magazine, you'll see there were four or five records on the national charts of with Stax Fantasy on it. And then when I told the guy, we have an opportunity to be successful, he says, no,
I don't want I said, we can be big. I said I don't want to be big, and then I left the deal because I realized what time that was.
Wow.
I won't go deeper than that anyway. I wasn't interested in that, So that's what happened. So after that, whoever signed with Fantasy I left in seventy eight, after those records were released. If those records that I mentioned holy they hit on the bar that was after Staxic Clue.
I was going to ask what was the because they were Mercury at the time, Like was that in their that was just in the vaults or something that was.
I got that out of the bault, I got the help out of Asac, out of the bowl. I got the help out of the emotions out of the boat.
Ah.
I recalled it an.
Ah see. But because the thing is the barks era I want to know about is again the posts, you know, the seventies barks But maybe you know the answer, with the exception of Holy Ghost, why is every song they ever released like derivative of someone else's hit? Like did they not think that we wouldn't put you and two together?
That shine was you know, earth wind fires on your face or you know, shake it from the front might be Shining Star, or like were they just the type of seventies band that would just get the forty five of the moment, study that forty five and figure out, Okay, what's our formula for that? Because literally Holy Ghost is probably like even even on stacks, like a song like it's on the Cold Blooded records, like one of my favorite Barkas Joint, which is basically kind of derivative of
when the World's at Peace by the OJ's it's wow. No, literally, Jimmy jam and I like pretty much kept a record of every song that the bar Ks has ever created. Oh there's a song called a fighting fire with Fire or the Stacks era Barkays, which you know is also a popular sample for hip hop. But there's almost one element in every I mean even on those earlier records, like they're sliding in family Stones, dance to the music,
and it's like, don't stop, dance to the music. Don't stop. Like, were they not afraid that one day they might get caught in sort of litigation with.
Being well, you understand, the guy who would ended up taking them over in total, who didn't have the control of Stax Records and then being kept in a particular direction that records could be so long was a guy by the name of Work with Us, by the name of Alan Jones. Okay, Alan Jones became the producer, the only producer and the manager of the Barcades, and he came up with the direction that they were going to go. In matter of fact, I'm going to be sure to get James so you can interview this.
Yeah, please do us that salad. He's that solid. Please please please, it's done.
But so Alan was the one who was giving them this this particular direction, and I would rather I won't, butch it up. I'm gonna get James and he'll he would tell you ask them about it. Jones and Larry Dotson, who was versatile and his vocal could could immolate those be the players or whoever.
Larry Dodson is probably one of the most underrated soul cats, still in fine form with it with his but yeah, the legendary Alan Jones, who you know, I forgot to ask about cold Feet with Albert King and I'll play the blues for you and all that stuffy, legendary legendary man. This this is such an honor to just to talk to you and finally get some in depth stories from you, because we've never seen any feature linked article on you
or or anything. And you're You're just a genius and a gentleman, and we thank you for being on our show.
Yeah, straight up man.
Yeah.
Shout out to DJ Khalil too. I put this together again.
Thank you. We appreciate you doing this. Unpaid Bill Bruh, you missed, you missed the masterpiece of an episode. I gotta let you know yo on behalf of Sugar, Steve and font Ticolo and Laya and Unpaid Phil and the great David Porter. Thank you so much. It's another classic episode of Quest Love Supreme and we will see you guys on the next go round. Thank you much. Love
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