Questlove Supreme: Fred Hammond Pt. 1

A Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio.

So up, y'all.

June is a Black music month, and every year we use this time to acknowledge something that really can't be overstated. Black music is one of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now, back when Teams Supreme and I were doing the Questluf Supreme and now on the Quest Loft Show, we've always tried to create a space for those stories. So for the entire month of June, we're bringing you an episode every day focused on the history, influence, and ongoing evolution

Comes from and where it's headed.

Now, alongside those, we'll be releasing four new episodes of Quest Left Show featuring trailblazers, innovators, and cultural connectors and visionaries who represent the past, present, and future of black music.

I want you to enjoy this.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This is Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to our our are nominated our NAACP nominated Team Supreme.

Like Yeah, Hello, how about you. I'm feeling good.

Image Award nominated, sir, I have made it.

Yes, that's fine. And uh, Suca, Steve, how are you this evening? I'm good.

My image has been nominated as well by the NAACP.

That's how I'm feeling.

I'm feeling good.

And uh, you know, the keeper of Rocco and Elmo? How you doing, un pay Bill.

I can't say that.

I ever thought in all the awards that I'd ever been nominated for an end double a CP award.

So feels good like that.

There you go.

How's it going.

I'm good, brother, I'm good man, glad to be nominated, and uh yeah, I never thought this would happen this way.

Over three years right straight, ship Threet came, It's okay, we're back here here, sir.

He went to get cigarettes for a long time.

Okay.

So I know for the longest, you know, I've been talking to our listeners at q LS, especially in the last year, about you know, the direction of transformation my life is going, and how it's important to often get out of your comfort zone. You know, I'm stretching out

The back of my hand. I'm not saying that I'm not familiar with our guest today.

So that said, I would actually like to say and injac that we have two special guests today. So joining the Team Supreme is my brother and soul or soul aquarian James Alo Wishes, poiser, producer, songwriter, fellow Randy watsoner extraordinaire and Gospel of ficionado and mean and.

World famous meme on Twitter.

Oh yeah, James is definitely like a meme. I'm not even a meme, Like that's a life of mine?

Do means get nominated for naacp A Woods.

Years backup, you have Grammy and you know, but I'm satin.

That's a meme hall of Fame, and the Meme Hall of Fame.

You will make it that said, I brought brother James here to help me pick up the pieces on things that I otherwise wouldn't know because for me, I don't want to leave any stone unturned.

Our guest today, I will say.

Is one of the most legendary and influential musicians that I know in Black music.

That's not hyperbolic or anything.

I say this literally because I've not met a musician post five that has not made our guests their north star as far as their musicianship is concerned. We'll get with that in the show today, but without further ado, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to quest of supreme be legendary brother Fred Hammon.

Yes, appreciate it.

Appreciate it, and congratulations everybody and your nomination.

Thank you very much. We thank you for that. You know what's weird, I didn't even know that you were.

Active on social media and you had left a comment in one of my things, and I was like, yo, Fred Hammond knows who I am. Like I had zero clue that you even knew that I was alive or anything. So this conversation is long long overdue because, as I said at the top, back when I was really honing my skills as a musician.

There was like one of three routes you can go. Now, we all knows that I chose the hip hop route.

Most musicians in eighty three, eighty four, eighty five, they chose the purple route. And then there's a sect of black musicianship in which which you might have a household that might not allow secular music in the household. And that said, I will say that you were probably their main choice. And when I say you, I'm talking about you and your very influential group commissioned.

So I thank you.

I've been dying to have this conversation with you because I need the edumacation.

So where are you right now as we speak.

I'm at my studio here in Dallas.

I have a warehouse and the studio here that I do everything out of me and my family, my brothers, and I was actually just finishing up a vocal that I'm working on for the New Addition tour, just to kind of give them some stuff to go through some transitions, you know, give them some suggestions and stuff. So I was just finishing up that, you know, and then we'll send it out to them and say, you know, give some ideas of what can happen. My brother Ray is

So you're telling us that you're sort of quasi m D or co MD of this reunions or that's.

About it's just uh, right now, we're just seeing some stuff, and I wanted to show them, like a lot of the transitions that they want to do from song to song, the song that they could do some vocal right here, that's simple, that's what they do, because it's not normal for them to do that. And so I just went in there and just did some old commission new edition type stuff, simple just to get them to the next song, you know, so to give them another just to give

You know that sounds like yeah, quasi Okay, Well it's funny you say that because I think maybe like a month ago, I was listening to Heartbreak and I was just talking to Jimmy jam about the intro song of that album, which is called uh, that's the way We're living, which as far as it's execution is concerned, I feel like that definitely falls from the tree of what Commission was about. You know, when a lot of these cats that have what we call gospel chops, they're basically saying that,

Well, you know the thing about it is back then a lot of people don't notice. But I was close with a lot of those guys back then.

You know.

You know, it was funny because you know Davante his father is a pastor and one day we did a concert at their trick and DeVante said, yo, man. You know, he came up I style. He was a young fella. He said, hey, man, I just want to tell you guys that have been influenced us and I just got signed to m c A and the name of my group is called Jodasy. I say, really, he say, you know k C and I knew Little k C. From Little Cedric. I used to Friday so Little Cedric and

And they would bring me backstage.

They would bring me backstage and whether they were doing the Budwives and Superfessor, and I'm a student. You know a lot of people, you know a lot of church people, they don't go places and learn because they can't control theirselfs when they get inside or behind the curtain, you know. But I would go, you know, I would go to Al Hayman, Budwiser, Superfessor, and I would meet the guys backstage and I would watch. I'd be a student of production of how they were playing, and I would take

Uh.

Commission is a amalgam of the Clark sist number one, the vocal of the Clark Sisters. Then the rest is the time, earth wind and Fire, the genesis.

You know.

Chicago, we did just a different thing, and we noticed that a lot of the guys that were coming around at that time, were coming up to us and they were starting to get get put on like boys and men, and we just kept in touch and we were just cool and friendly. Little Joe and Buddy from the Rude Boys were always doing something. We're always together at some

You know, did he just say Genesis, Yes, But.

If you if you really look at it, yo, I mean, there's really not that much difference.

Between Pride Rock and Got the Chops.

Crazy dude, we just saw it like we just literally I forget the brother's name, but I remember when James, I think you remember this. Do you remember when Who's Who's the group that who were they were formerly known as at the Drive in? And then when one of their members, right, So, do you remember when Mars Volta auditioned a drummer at our studio like behind literally next to your studio.

He was a Gospel Chops.

Drummer, Thomas Pridgin. I think yes, yeah, and.

It was it was the match made it.

At first, I was like, that's weird that they got a gospel chop drumming to do it, but because of the intricacies of what Mars Volta is, it was like a marriage made in heaven.

And that's when I.

Realized that gospel chop and progue rock are almost neck and neck with each other.

I mean, of course gospel chop has more soul to it, but every every pop group now has a gospel drummer. I just an Ariana Grande and all those guys they all have.

It's all like big fills from three to four and one every every bar.

Yeah, it's literally music. I think that all music.

Like everything's like at the end of the four of our phrases.

What the notable thing about my entry in music is that on the opposite of that, but literally which is funny, Well, yeah, which I'm saying that Basically, I feel as though Commissioned really is probably the most influential black group in at least the last forty years of music, second to Prince, you know, as far as the as far as the ripple effect of Nah.

Absolutely their contribution.

I mean, because you look at a I'm like I'm learning, I mean, which is one of my favorite songs for y'all. I mean, that wouldn't sound out of place on a Jodasy album or you know what I'm saying.

Like it was that they always liked about y'all.

Y'all stuff was that it was I could tell when you say, you know, you were a student and you would go and meet the other groups and stuff. The songs always sounded current, you know what I'm saying, a lot of times gospel because for those very reasons you said, you know, gospel stuff would always be behind, like if it came out in ninety two, it would sound like something from.

Like eighty eight, eighty seven, you know what I'm saying.

But Commission Records, y'all was always like right on time and it was never dated.

I always appreciated that man, that right there.

Was it was just our DNA. It was like we listened to everybody. I give you a story. One of the guys wrote a song called It's so good to Know the Savior, and he was a tempo guy, so it was like a church tempo It's so good know, let's say, and the record company didn't pick it. It was it had all of the fizzle and the buzzer and everything, and the guy. He came to me and said, hey, man, listen, I think we need to change the drummer out, which is our drummer. I was like, no, man, it's not that.

Got to him boom boom, boom.

Cocka boom, and then it changed into you can see a vamp into that and then the song had life. Well that was because we stayed current and we paid attention to the trends and our counterparts. You know, we've paid attention to everybody from the old school, whether it's luther Al Green, you know, earth Wind all the way up to the verb to a babyface to the deal.

You know, like we were talking what song we like? We like Sweet November or do we like this?

Because our vocals.

Were off of the whispers and the dramatics. Those are our male vocal counterprices that we love.

Do watch.

So if you hear a lot of our harmonies we sing like Ron Banks and Scottie and Walter, you will hear a lot of that in. But then we add what we are. But it's because we paid attention to musicology. We just paid attention to everything, you know. So it was funny too you said something about Jimmy. Jimmy Terry is like my hero, Jimmy Terry, Teddy Tim baby Face

So somebody said, you want to go see Prince studio and we was like, oh, I don't know, so.

I think were like, I think something gonna jump over us. But I said, yeah, man, I want to go. I want to see it. So we went over there. Man, and on the whole ride over there, because at that point Prince wasn't in his last space. He was in that that I want to I'm gonna really mess you up with whatever I'm talking about. And we walked up to the place and people was praying Jesus help us Lord. You know, we're walking into the spot and we're thinking, man,

She said, I gotta go see it.

But when I walked through, they took us to his personal room and they just my mind was blown because it was business. And at the end of the day, I say, man, this is just a persona. And then I learned how to be an owner. So now I mean I got seventeen thousand squar feet. Well, it came from Jimmy and Terry. It came from Jimmy, Terry Prince and Michael Powell who lived in Detroit, who Baker that

You know, Okay, I want to start at the beginning of your life. I'm assuming that you were born in Detroit.

Michigan, was born in San Antonio.

Oh all right, See the one time I don't ask the question, I get burnt. Sorry, can you tell me what your first musical memory was?

My first musical memory, honestly was first of all. You know, I say this because a lot of people have these misconceptions about gospel artists and preachers that everybody thinks that they're perfect.

I don't. I was.

I was born different, you know, I was. My mother and father were married to other people, and he was a pastor and my mother was a musician, and the church really dogged my mom and protected him, and so they kind of put her out. And so it was basically me and her. And before I was born, you know, we went through this whole thing about she was she wouldn't have had an abortion and it didn't work, you know. So it's a lot of stuff that goes on with me being here. So yeah, yeah, And so she was

I hadn't even heard them on the radio.

And I put it on my clothes and play and I Want you back came on, and I just saw Michael as my age because they were saying he was younger than they said he was my age. I was probably five six, and I was just I was enamored with this group, and so I was singing and I found myself singing Jermaine's part at six seven years old. And my mother said, you know, if you open your mouth, you can sing better.

You can sing like.

That little boy right there. And I was very shy, and I didn't want her to hear me because I thought she would make me sing in front of people. So I made sure she didn't ever hear me again. So I took my clothes and play in the closet because you ran her own batteries, and I sang in the closet because I didn't want her to hear me sing. I was afraid she was going to put me up there in church. And so that's my earliest knowledge right there.

So were you kind of born into skepticism of the church, like sincere because of your situation. You know.

The beautiful thing is God kept me from that from the knowledge of people now thinking I was worth it, you know. But when I look back at it, a lot of people just thought I was just worthless because you can't do nothing with God because you're born.

Out of wether lite. Who are you?

You know your mother, your mother's is an adult, so they just kind of threw us away. But the reality is that's why I'm probably effective today. Not because I sing good, not because I play any instruments, not because I produce anything or saying on anybody's record. It's because I understand what broken people go through. And so my whole job is to tell people, Hey, man, I've been broken, I understand brokenness. You why don't you come with me? I believe this and you know, so there's no errors.

It's just there's a forgiveness element in there too, though. You got that you that's with it.

Yeah, absolutely, So when people like quest you said, you understand my pain when it comes to just you and your mom, you understand that, you know, and maybe others do too.

But you know my path, man, my.

Path, it's just it's been ordained to go through a rugged, rugged, feed up path to get to this point to tell other people, I understand where you are, I get it, I get it.

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I mean that's mine.

Wasn't as drastic as like being shoned or whatnot, but definitely my parents were sort of in the same situation where they were part of other unions, and you know, that's kind of how you know, I came, I came.

To the world. So for a lot of our listeners, I don't know if they're fully aware.

You know, I would explain to people often that you know, we'll look at somebody like you know.

Ray Charles now as a national treasure.

But you know, I would tell like anybody I'm teaching about Ray Charles is the fact that you know, Ray Charles was probably almost the NWA of his day.

Like the idea of the idea from singing gospel music with secular lyrics was highly controversial with the Black church, and fast forwarding to where your entry into gospel music is where you can put some funk inside it or put some swing inside.

Of your music and it really not rub people the wrong way. Can you explain just the what brought you to Detroit? How did you make that transition from San Antonio to Detroit.

Well, due to the circumstances situation, they sent this up to Detroit.

We was sitting, oh how exiled to Detroit exile.

We got a nice bus ticket up to a Philly place called Detroit and a beautiful family called the Hope, the Hoak's family. They took us in and they gave us their attic and we became a part of their family while my mother went through her healing process, you know, of which when she passes seventy four, she was still trying to validate herself as you know, forgiven, you know, and she was a she's a great praise warrior, great,

And so we ended up in Detroit, which was a blessing.

How big is your family at this point as far as your siblings, and.

At that time it was me and my mom. At this point it's me. I got two brothers, Ray and Dave, and they have families.

I have a family, I.

Have kids and whatnot. And I have two sisters that live in Atlanta, from my mother's other union, you know, okay, and then then I have a brother and four other sisters from the other union. So I'm right there in the middle. I'm the absolute when you count down, I'm the middle child of all of that, you know. So that's we're and now we're all kind of cool together.

So, Okay, I know you were born in nineteen sixty, I believe.

So can you describe to me what it is to grow up in Detroit, Michigan in the early seventies. I know about you know, I've heard people tell me about growing up in Detroit in the early sixties. And I know, of course people who grew up in Detroit between like the mid eighties and the in the early nineties.

But I really don't know.

People that have had a period in Detroit in the early seventies, like around that period where like United Sounds there where you know, motowns leaving. Could you just describe to me basically what your life was as a teenager in Detroit, Michigan in the seventies.

You know, it was really just about about school and surviving in the hood, you know, just you know, one of my good friends in the seventies, I went to, well, my mom moved to California to Inglewood when I was in the fourth grade, the first part of the fourth grade, and she didn't like it, and we came back to Detroit around December. But I hadn't been in school, so that whole fourth grade year I had to try to catch up. So this is like the seventies, you know,

Okay, wait a minute, you're trying to tell me that.

I'm thinking like you came out the wound playing bass, but this didn't happen until you were a teenager.

Yeah, right around fourteen, thirteen years old, I start transitioning because my mother. I went to a church called Greater Grays Temple, and the line to play drums was around the corner, and the pastor's son he had a lot, Chuckie Ellis, Charles Ellis. He's bitch of bellist now, but he was an amazing drummer, and I had my sticks. I would go every Sunday and I would try to play, and you know, just never got a chance. So my mother said, hey, you know, I don't like to see you,

The reason why it's also important for me to know about this specific period in the seventies is because I know that once black families migrate to the Midwest, especially in town you know, like in Ohio, Detroit, Indiana, Illinois, you know a lot of them are escaping the South, the racism of the South, the Jim Crow South.

They're getting these factory jobs. These factory jobs are paying.

Well, and they're buying these houses, and the houses have garages and of course instruments. You know, this is basically how like the first wave of the funk generation starts. And I know that around maybe around the Nixon administration seventy seventy one seventy two, you know, budgets started to get cut, music education started to wane and whatnot, and the idea of the garage band, you know, kind of

You know, music was still big, even though of the porch bands and the garage bands from the sixties weren't very popular, but music was still a thing, you know. So I hooked up with a guy at my fifteen His name was Jeff Stanton, and he was like my best friend. And this guy could play every instrument at that point. He play bass, he could play guitar, he could play drums, and he was fluent at it at

Listen to that. You got to get on.

Your theory for it. He's teaching me theory. He's like, up, what's that? And I'd have to kind of come back and name it. And so every day we would shed, and we would go places like the Detroit Mission, the Detroit Music Union, and bands would play come in and audition, so we it was still alive. Uh, And then we would play in the garage. We played Mister Magic for like four hours, you know, in the garage. Then we graduated. Then we graduated to Herbie and you know a Chameleon.

Well living in Detroit.

Was was any of the p funk folklore, Like was that an influence on you at all, Like seeing any of those guys around United Sounds or any of those things, or was that sort of like after you know, they migrated and went to California.

Like, was any of that part of your DNA at all.

You know.

They had a on eight Mile there was a club called Axles. Okay, the lead the Woods, Lamont Johnson, they would all play there. Yeah, so they would all play there. Amp Fiddler would show up and they say, yo, ma Ant Fidler from he played with George Clinton. Uh, David Chong would I mean, and the all these people, and we would try to go in there and sit in there, sneaking because it was kind of under but we'd sneak in and we'd listen to.

Them and these cats. The funk was heavy.

It was still Brainstorm was just starting to get started.

Man. It was real, real strong.

So Amp Fiddler, Uh, we never got a chance to see George, but we played with a lot of the guys that played on his record, like Butch Small I believe his name is but Mo.

Yeah, he was real big.

He used to run a studio called ARMJ and so he was the Lynn drum king. So he came and did some Lynn drum on the first Commission record.

You know.

But he was just somebody we looked up to, you know, Warren Woods, the engineer, you know, man, it was just it was still rich Man it hadn't died at all. I mean, it was still really rich in the seventies, especially going into the eighties.

So as a musician, who would you say, is is your north star? As far as like, that's the musician I want to emulate, because it's weird to me. Like most bass players I know, especially having lived in the seventies, every every sentence starts with the least with Larry grahams, thank you for letting me be myself, for Stanley Clark. So the fact that you started in seventy eight with Prince tells me that you're sort of a later generation.

Well? Number one?

Okay, Well let's break it up into two bass players. Okay, not because my total north star is Stevie period, hands down, right, but as far as bass players are going. Okay, So my first bass player influence and I didn't really know it, but I would pick his sound out when I heard I want you back.

That's James Jamison.

James Jamison, I would hear his.

Bass lines and I just always locked him. Now as a bass player. I definitely was Stanley and Jacko, and then it was Abe Laboreal. It was Alfonso Johnson who played this fretless situation. I paid attention to Anthony Jackson, these are my these are my go tos. And then of course Marcus was younger, so he came on the scene a little bit later. Those guys were my Jamison Clark, Anthony Jackson, Jocko, Alfonso Johnson, Gino Vanelli's bass player. I don't know who it was, but we would listen to him.

So were you more a team uh thumb plucking or were you more a team index middle finger for baby?

I was I'm a pocket guy. I never had the all of these. I just laid in that pocket. So I was definitely a thumper. I was definitely team thump.

I get it, okay, I love it. At what point are you forming uh or.

At least bonding with Marcus Montreal like the other members of commission, Like how are you guys?

How do you guys meet?

And is that was that your first actual band or did you have other bands before?

Well, Mitchell Jones and I we graduate. We went to school together at Mumford High and we were together NonStop all three years. So he and I started Commission.

You know.

At the end of the day he and I started Commission, I went off to play for the Winings. I was the bass player for them from nineteen until I was like twenty three years old, and that's when I started. That's when I started Commission. But it was me and Mitchell, Keith Staton, Carl Reid, Michael Brooks and Michael Williams the drummer, and right around them, right.

Around are you talking Liver studio both with the Wan I'm sorry.

Oh, with the Winings, I was just I was, man. They wouldn't even let me near the studio. They wouldn't you could even you couldn't even see nobody famous.

Here's here's a joke.

Andre Crouch came to their house and Ronald told me, he said, man, if you don't, if you be good, I'll let you come over and see Andre. So we was like, oh man, we just skim and so they this is no joke. They had us come over. He opened the door, and we had to look through the screen and I was sitting in the chair over He said, just look over there, that's him right now.

Wow.

And we were like, wow, that is him. Wow.

This that we never asked if we come in, and we never went in. They were why go home?

Nah.

That's how they protected their relationships, like.

No, no, So I never got a chance to play on any album you know, with them or anything.

We weren't you know, we weren't good enough, but we were good enough to do the road.

And you know what, we wasn't offended. We really weren't offended. When we heard their records. We knew it was something different between Abel Boors, Bill Maxwell, Hadley Howkin Smith. You know, we knew it was something different. So we weren't tripping, you know, we just appreciated the opportunity to just be in the number.

Now, let me ask you this, were you around that and I'm gonna nerd boy out on.

The churches while you're here?

Were you back then on the church vibe where Thomas Woodfield and Rudolph Stance, Phil and all them guys.

Whoa see that stuff? I wouldn't know that, ask like.

Thomas Woodfield gave me my first chance to play in the studio and my base, my bass wasn't up to park, it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was too young. The first record was Vanessa Belle Armstrong Peace Be Still record Yes, and there's a song called I Don't want my living to be in vain and anyway you bless me and playing those two Okay. My boy that honestly he called in because my base didn't work was Lenard Bradley Kerr.

Okay, kurrent, everybody knows that's okay.

So but Kerr was the king around there, and uh, he was another guy that kind of schooled me. But that was my first take on going in the studio. So then when we did our demo as commission, we asked we saved um some money and we asked Thomas Whitfield the producers. So, uh, when you hear the bed track, when you hear the rhythm track, like, if you listen to these four songs given my problem to you, I can see Jesus if you listen to uh, if we

He said, I don't play that, No, that's a scene. Come on, And h Thomas was my hero. Thomas was really my hero.

And I would sit in the corner of RMJ studio and I went out. I remember washing a garbage can out. It was like this little gray high school bought garbage can we have in high school. I went and washed it out. I turned it upside down and stuck it between the tape machine mc I tape machine and an effects rack. And I sat in this little cubby hole and I didn't ask say a word. I said, don't let him kick me out. Don't let him kick me out.

Wright.

You know he was, he was. He was a genius. So all these cats ran together and I just stood in the background.

So, yeah, brother Hammond, you mentioned about you're not having the right base.

What one?

What was your first base you used? And what is your acts of what is sort of your acts of.

Your your your favorite seal?

Yeah, yeah, okay, so true story.

Uh, my mother we went to k and when we're talking about going to a base, we went to kmart and there was a base on sale for thirty five dollars and the headstock was cracked, literally cracked, and they said thirty five dollars and the guy said, if you buy it now, I'll give it to you for twenty five now. It couldn't stay in tune. It was impossible because between the A and the G, you know there was it was cracked, right, So I'm sitting there and

Now.

You got to promise me. And so I promised her. And I played, and I went to church and we had a storefront church, and I played. I had a little bitty amp and I played, and I would play so high because you couldn't hear me. So I had to play it like a lead. Because church be gone, that's what you need to hear out that little amp. And so my mother got really I got discouraged, and

She just drive me.

She said, I'm very disappointed. And my mother's relationship with you wasn't no talking. It was just she talked and I just listened, and I felt horrible. And she said, why did you disappoint me like that? You told me you promised you better keep your word as a man. Why did you tell me that? And I said, they laugh.

At me, mam.

She said, cool, said everybody unesder Eddie Charles everybody. Why they said, because it don't sound like a bass And she didn't say nothing else. That next Saturday, we ended up going to Oakland Mall Grenelle's music and we were in there and so she was playing the piano like she was playing the piano, and she said, which one

He rolled.

He pulled this fender out of the front, the same one that a w B had, the same blind fender precision, And did we know about man, that's my dude, that's my dude.

You're my man.

Oh God, Okay, sitting there, I'm in there and I'm asking can we play? I said, we're gonna get this one but can I just leave play it and me? We went through this rich. We said, take off your coat, almost like Moses, take off thy shoes from on my feet, take off thy.

He made sure he put a towel.

On me, and he put the base down and I plugged it into that amp that the Unifox had.

He said, oh no, no, no.

No, you do this fright, and he pushed this big red custom eight foot over it and turned it up.

And the first thing I did was bom do doon bone do don't don't out.

And it was cool.

So smooth, and all of a sudden, I'm playing everything I said, I may not get a chance to play this no more. So I played skin tight, I played I'll take You Man, I played fire, I played everything I could possibly play. Next thing, you know, there was a crowd in front of Grenell's brother saying, look at that boy, that boy in there playing that bass like that. And my mother looked at it and she said, they said, we can do a payment plan, thirty dollars a month.

Now that base retired. My mother side of it, All of.

This stuff you see here, all of this every time you see me on soulfire, every time you see me anywhere. It was because she took a chance on a four hundred and thirty dollars fender base and she didn't have the money. She probably ended up paying eighteen hundred dollars, but it paid for everything that you see me by. She invested in me. She invested in me, and that was what it was. And I played that thing in

You will put on.

Explain that process to me.

So here's the thing I ended up.

I could buy like, I could save up enough money to buy strings, uh maybe once every five to six months. So I bought these dear Dairya lights. So you know they get all craddy and stuff. They start sounding dull well, we learned that if you take them off the base, round them up, put them in hot, boiling water for about seven to ten minutes, you pull them back off and they fresh and you get that same bank right back again. So we were boiling strings. We would never

Hey, Fred, did you play that on victory?

Victory?

I played enough by that time I was able to buy another base, another finger, because that base got me fired. That That was literally after the Thomas Whitfield session. He said, man, you're a good player, but you you got to keep up with your axe and you just gotta I gotta have somebody to play. And at that point Leonard Kern had this Gibson and it was it was solid. So I lost the gig, but he let me play the least those two songs. And you know what it was.

Didn't get to see that Dishy Fred never got dam.

But you know she's watching the spirit we need.

Can you please tell me as as much as you feel comfortable with revealing what's under the hood, I want to know what is it to tour on the gospel circuit? First of all, to get to get the pole position of being the go to guy to play these gigs.

But then let's.

Say I'm growing up with you in Detroit and I play drums and you play bass. You mentioned the lines, but I mean, I'm certain that you've done other gigs beforehand, like when do you start? When do they When did they really start taking you serious? As in friends my go to like at what year are you the man?

You know? In?

Never happened like that for me because I went straight from the winers straight to commission and with Commission, I dedicated every waking moment. I dedicated every waking moment to making sure that group did what we needed to do. I will tell you this story that I got fired off of a Commission off of a Tremaine Hawkins tour. That was my first tour that I was the go

But look at Me Crisis at Me three album, that album.

I got fired off that gig. And it was funny because Michael Wright was was one of my best friends. Michael Williams is one of my best friends. Michael Williams is the drummer. He's a drummer for Commission, and Michael Wright was a guitar player. He was supposed to be the seventh of Commission and they Jeff in the Valley was putting together a.

Group uh to go out and play for Tremain.

So me and Michael bass player lead and then drummer, and everything was fine and we were rehearsed. We were shed in the basement, and I always sang the middle and Mike sang the top.

And that's just the way it was.

The night we got to Jeff to come in and do the audition, like, let's let's start practicing. My Mike froze and he started singing the middle. Now in my head, I couldn't make that transition bass wise and singing, so I had to shed. And once I learned my part, I'm good. But it's not like, oh, let me switch to this Bible, let me sing this party.

It was like, this is my part.

I can rock this and I can sing this part song. Well, he sang my part and he froze, and I'll never forget, I said to him. We stopped and said, yo, Mike, I sing in the middle. He looked right back at me and said, no, I sing in the middle. And I'm like, oh. He had a situation here, and Jeff Lavalley was looking like this, somebody sing something, and so I said, well, let me solvage the situation because he's my boy. I'll try to sing this top. I'll just

That's the problem.

And they said, well, I said, well, we kind of learned kind of the same part, and they said, go get Jonathan right quick, and coming down the steps, Jonathan Dubos.

Walking down the steps.

He come walking down the steps and Mike Wright, who's the guitar player, said, oh man, I'm fired. And he literally he literally started packing up his guitar and they said no, no, no, no no.

They said, Fred, can you use your base? And they all they rehearsed right in.

Front of me, and they said, Fred, I'm sorry, Unfortunately we're not gonna be able to use you all this time.

And they couldn't just take three hours so you can relearn your harmony parts or whatever.

They told me to go home and learn it, and they gave me a knight and I went home and I learned it. And when I went back, Gloria Hawkins was there, Jeff le Valley was there, and Jonathan was standing there. They were just there and I can't imagine Jonathan came in yet, but I know it was doubt and the pressure hit me so hard and I started playing and I was singing a note that I could not sing, and I just remember stopping and put my head down and I wasn't gonna rap for my boy.

This is kind of the first time I sold. It was his fault.

I don't care now.

I sat through the whole rehearsal while Jonathan Dubo's.

Practiced on my wow man.

And I tell.

Everybody one of the reasons why probably I am decently successful is because I never carried bitterness towards anyone.

Isn't Detroit a little bit too small for like you're seeing these people every day like.

We were still boys.

We never you know, you don't rat your boy out, And that's just what it was. And it was unspoken at that time that that's what the problem was. And I never I never ratted him out. And I just it was crazy too, because they toured for about a year to two years and I was broken.

I was broken, See James, we were rated each other out.

Man.

My best friend was Michael Williams as well, the drummer for Commission, and he has no filter, so he would come back, just tell yeah, we just came from Amsterdam.

Man.

Man, let me tell you something, man, just that I just bought this, that we did that, and I just I sat there and I just I just took it.

You know.

So what did you wind up doing?

Like?

Did you take that ass?

Like?

Okay, I got a shed even harder.

Oh yeah, I've said I'm I'm never gonna let that happen to me again. But what I did was I focused deep on getting commissioned together because we had to learn managers. We had to try to find managers. We didn't have the easy role man. People thought that commission was signed and somebody saw us man.

We spent. We raised thirteen.

Thousand dollars from aunts, uncles, cousins, skating parties, receptions. We would put them in a shoe box under my bed and go buy studio time. And finally we had a finished product and we leased that first record that I'm going on It was a lease.

I'm going on record, yep. Our manager.

We went to Tys Scott Records and Leonard Scott said, I'll sign you guys. We didn't know what to ask for. We said, can we just have the money back? To pay our parents and our family be He said sure. But then Derek Dirkson, who was the leader of Chapter eight, you know, he was the drummer and the leader of Chapter, he said, let me manage you.

Guys.

You just walked away from the wind and he said, let me manage you. And we said okay. He said, give me two weeks. I'm gonna take it to Light Records, and if they don't come back within two weeks, we'll go over the tys. Guy well he called on his relationships. He did a lease steal, We put the record out and the rest is history. And then we got signed the second record all from second record all.

Yeah. I was just going to ask you about the business of that.

So how did that work in terms of like, do you guys own those masters now?

Was it a deal that they own?

How was business done in the gospel world as compared to the kind of secular music?

It was done the same same, Jack, I believe we own the masters now. Though we do own the masters now to the first five records, but other than that, we just got took so in.

Your mind and you're saying that the Winings was like your first gig before you went with with or your biggest gig before you went to forming Commission in your mind is the Whinings and doing that circuit as good as it gets, like as top as it gets. Is there any point where you're like, hey, maybe I should go to Los Angeles to become a session musician, or are there.

Any secular acts? Like is Anita Baker in the chapter?

You know, like are you are your eyes looking elsewhere or for for you? It's like, I'm gonna stay in the gospel world and the Whinings is.

As good as it gets to get out there.

I never looked to do a secular group or play in the club or anything else. I really felt like I was cold. And this is before I knew my birth issues or anything. I honestly felt like I was called to gospel music. So the winings was as big as it got. It's like, man, I thought I'd be paying for them right now at sixty years old.

I never thought I was gonna leave, and I didn't want to leave when I left.

You know, Honestly, there was a little high coup that happened in Commission. He I'm gonna give you all some real little son behind the scene, A couple members called me with our managers at that time, into a basement at twelve o'clock at night and they told me, if you don't leave the Winings, we're gonna take this group from you. You out here traveling, you out here doing that,

But it was because we were family.

And the last gig we did was with Milton Brunson, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Al Green and a bunch of people in Chicago. And I never forget I cried like a baby, and in the van they got together as brothers and they sang this song to find His Keepers. I just remember the hook. They said, farewell friend, we love having you.

What up y'all here? That was part one of our two parts interviews.

With the legendary bred Hammlin.

Y'all stay tuned.

Part two is coming up next week, and it gets even better right here on QLs.

Of course. Love Supring Yep Must Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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