Questlove Supreme: Narada Michael Walden Part 1

we got more important pressing matters on our hands. Let me just say that I know that a line share of my personal music knowledge, you know, honestly came into play once hip hop contextualized my parents boring record made it interesting, which you know, basically my age fourteen fifteen sixteen. Of course I could ratle off any musician's name, but I wasn't in a slouch either when I was a kid. But you know this, this knowledge I have a music really became a thing when I was a teenager.

who I idolized. And of course, if you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you already know that I've had the pleasure of doing a one on one with my idol Steve Rone, formerly of The Average White band today is no exception, and today we'll actually complete that circle, because if I'm really honest with myself, our guest today might be the first air quote fusion drummer that I became familiar with.

Is Dancing. And now that I think about it, I think the very first time that I nerded out on Bassis Megabasis will Lee of The Letterman Show was more about him playing on that album than it was anything else that Willy has done. Willie's done legendary shit, but I will say that his resume is beyond impressive. Name It Whitney Arefa, Mariah, George, Michael Jeff Beck Campbell, Yeah, Temi Campbell, Barbaris Streiss and Wynald Richie Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Dona.

and then that would just make everything just go. So I kind of just pray, swim, you know, get myself together physically, and then get in that spirit that the person you really feel like, oh, you're not here to fight with me, You're going to me that great music. Then they start singing whatever they're going to do, and then endorphins kick in and are gone. But that spirit of love is really really important. That's what I want to say to.

Probably the most incredible moment along this line was after I made the songs of two songs, Who's the Men Who? Until You Say You Love Me? And Here and flew back to Detroit, Michigan to meet Aretha. It looking in her eyes is scary that would that would scare you? That would that scared me? But there again, you know, I let her know in my spirit, my eyes, my love, I'm not here to fight, I'm not here to make a problem. I want I want to serve you, I

love you, and help us make the best music. And then once the music comes on and then she starts opening up and singing, then again, like I said, it just gets happy. And then it's like, well, what do you want to eat? You want cheeseburger, you want, you know, fried chicken? What you want? And all that sounds happening.

His little name is little Stevie Wonder you know. And he plays. I said, how can you he's blind, how can you even see the drums? Well he does, Okay, okay, okay. But not long after came out a song that was a live version of Fingertips, and Fingertips were smoking and I mean smoking, like smoking smoking. And I was lucky enough to go to Chicago, my dad comes from Chicago, and go to the Regal Theater and see him play. And when they walked him out, it was like an alien.

He walked like an alien, slowly, kind of back and forth, like you know, like I've never seen anything walk like like you walked. But now in the audience it's packed with screaming girls, like beatles, screaming, you know. And when he gets the microphone, he's just in control and his voice is high like a little boy, but just every little note just so perfect, just so perfect, and the band just rocking and on the harmonica perfect, and I just was like is true. He is better than me.

He's got everyone in his pond of hand. He's challenging God. And that was the summer of the eclips you're talking about Signed in Chicago. I decide, Okay, if I'm blind, I can maybe be as good as these guys are are my hero. So I wasn't stare at the sun make myself blind. But the Good Lord said no, no, no, you keep your sight. But I did try to make myself blind.

But I get orgasmic beating these damn things. And I see the happiness of my parents, my grandparents, and I got so happy. That's bigger when I knew that's it,

that's a little little kid. I guess just after that would be like then making pillows and getting a pie ten and playing along with Na Simone live a town hall, you know, Summertime and that album, the live album of hers playing along with that, and then that became like kind of going on like that, you know, Ama Jamal and those those those type of records, playing along with them. But yeah, it's just always there, that record, the young,

the young vibe, catching the spirit of the music. So important.

him and my dad. Quite frankly, the only time he really kind of gave me the kudos like ild I could play was when I could play a note for note that record he bought. That was when he knew, oh, well, I guess you can play. But it wasn't until that.

from my grandparents house named Harold Mason. And Harold was a black cat who knew independency. And he had a Blue Book of Independency by Jim Chapin. So that book you play right hand written Jane Jane K Jean Chane K Jean Jechang like that, but then against it on the left hand. The pattern keeps changing, so you have to kind of, you know, keep reading the changing and like learning your mind how to break it up. Then you bring your feet into it, your bass drum, your

high hat. But then he'd be so advanced. He would say, well, you know the jazz cats in New York, now you know what they're doing. They aren't just playing two and four in the hide anymore. They're playing with the high hand, you know, whatever they want to do on the on the on the left foot. I thought that that would be too much. I don't want to get into all that. I was happy just playing to do on the high

hat with my foot. But he was that advanced breaking the mind up for independency, which really, to this day helped me. A lot of people don't understand its like learning to ride a bike. You can do it, then you can play all kind of crazy stuff. So it happened early in my life that I got with peril Maze. And then guess what happened. Harold went on to play the drumps for Stevie. Wonder. Now Stevie's a little older now,

you know, signed to deliver. Those records are out and they came through Calumu Zoo a place called Western Michigan University of the College, and the place is to see Stevie won. He's a big star. So here's my teacher, Harold Maston, drums and the thing that caught the fire

is this, and you'll appreciate you You're you're bad. Harold starts playing this groove, goes on the bell like one, two, the four dean t kitting dan thing, but bean to kitting thing thing, pan, kting thing thing, ticketing thing pan like that, and Steve's catching fire with us. Stevene runs over the blind stuff pushes us get off the drums. Harold gets on the drums and starts playing the same thing stronger.

shop around Miracles, We're hearing all the new stuff. You know, baby, I need you to love them before you don't even hears it. It's there at our parties. So that's what it was. It was just hearing the radio. And then I gotta say pop music like Patty Page, Old Cape Cod, Johnny Mathis's. Chances are all that music is just as huge in Michigan. So you love Prince. That's why Prince is so bad ass, because Prince not only got the funks, but but he got all the white pop stuff just as wrong. That's

what it is back there, miss Minnesota, Michigan. Right, It's like a big old gumbo.

Hendricks was mean. It was mean, so I had to give him a lot of love.

you guys are into this. So when it hit and the best thing was this man, not just that show, but check this out. It'd be John Lennon saying, well, our favorite female vocalist is Mary Wells. It's like, damn Mary well That's that's Detroit, That's where I live. But little white girls a little better at the school. They who's Mary. It's like, damn, that's Mary Wells. They don't die.

I don't know Mary Wells, they would say, and then ring John would say, well, also, our favorite male singer is a little Richard, Little Richard, little Richard that was on a seven year you know, long tall sally all those records. So but they have no idea who they were. So the Beatles really educated all these people who I knew, the little white kids whatever to what was really going down. So I do and I liked that. I liked that

that's caught. That caught us because they're not the're talking about black people and given a shine which we never had. You know what I'm saying. That was a big to do. And I'm telling you, man, this whole beatle Mania thing was real. So you're born with seventy one? What do what do you born right?

I was talking about by your married Wells. So that's what it was, man, the catching of all these things that were like cool.

were just like religion. The chord changes and the way they put it together with the sounds and the great singers. It was just a religion, man.

So he can go on in the Ambassador Lounge and be the opening at because his uncle owned the place before Jim mcgrifford, whoever's coming through town is gonna play what it was, Yes, So it was like first hand experienced playing Jane Jane or where we were gonna play before they came on. And you know that was just mind blowing because I must tell you also a part of what I love there is a record by Kennat Jimmy Smith called The Sermon Is twenty two minutes long.

Were what it did to my brain is e equals empty square. Art Blakey played a batbeat two and four the whole record, because you know those cat jazz guys are busy, No, but dude, it just rocks like a blues record. I realized the power of that, and that really helped me a lot. That you could just put down and it's and people love it even more so. Man, those experience when I was eleven with the Ambassadors, that helped me that band. And then we bring a little

horn player into it. You know, Captain was studying at the at the university on trumpet Pierre, or a Sacic player or a vise player, Carl. You know, I gonna expand the sound. So I had great experience playing the young like that, and then uh, I would do that. Then the rock thing of my own bands. And then as I got a little I left home when I was about sixteen years old, right, and I had now go to keyboards. I played Fender bass Oregon and we do like what does It Take by Junior Walker all Stars,

those type of songs. But I'm playing keyboards now. So and then that band was called Distance in the Far. Then I had another band I played bass that's called the Mother Thump with the Flunkies. Now we're doing Expressway to Your Heart and Grand Funk Railroad. You know, are you ready all that music. Yeah. So, and then before I left Kalamazoo, I joined a horn band, kind of a Chicago horn band, but very progressive called Avatar and they were really, really, like, probably the most progressive band

I've been with. And then my friend who played trouble with that band, Bobby Napp, he said, do you know about this record by Cold Blood called I said no. He played me this cap man named Sandy McGee on an album called Siss. And to this day, you say north Star moment, that's still my north Star moment. Sandy McGee on drums.

and that was that same and my dad. I come back to Calendars to go play some more clubs, and my dad would saying, why didn't you just become a policeman, you know, because this whole road thing for you, I don't know if you should be doing that. But now now I was always a drummer. Then that band decided to go out to California. Now here we are going out to California. I came out to California, you know, we played shows out here and you know, in Hollywood

and all that. Then that band broke up. Then I decided, no, I want to stay in California. And then that became hard. Now my ship from receiving clerk downtown La, wrapping boxes here in music, constantly just trying to get out of here, you know, how to save myself. And I had a few cousins, one that helped me out out in the Englewood area and then another one out in Pasadena. He said, come stay with me, and I did, and then it was there I could like really shed was now the

Mobblished Workers album just came out. I had enough money to buy that Inner Mounting Flame album that just crush to me. I'd never heard anything like Colbum vishnu on that effort and seven nine eleven whatever, what the hell funk you like a fucking dog god? So that became my shedding shed And then I also love Buddy Miles, the live album that got that Bam S Joe text. You know, then for spiritual moments you put on Alice

Coltrane's Universal Consciousness side too. You know, it could be Jack Vignette, you know, just like so how kind of got off on mixing these worlds, the Colbumn, cleanless Buddy funk and the Jackie net symbols. I love all that stuff that I got that I met this cat man you might know him Eddie Hazel. I had a band with him called Ouch Why he was so mean because me being good that he could play the funk really fast.

That prepared me for provision you later. But he'd be like, look at and then you pass around this joint, but it'd be laced with PCP the angel dust. So now you're really getting out there. But you know you're looking at him because he's gorgeous, got his things on and gorgeous and just playing so clean and so fast aries. So those type of things happen for me. You know, I've had great experiences.

you feel like whoa you know. So Eddie Hayes was an influent I didn't stayed them very long, you know, because he was always moving, but you know, but he made a big influence in my life. You know. You hear Maggot brains that how he plays on that record, It's like that's who he is.

So he bought my first plane ticket. I'd never been on the plane before. What it be it maybe seventy one, seventy two, seventy one there, see, because I got to my high school seventy so that's now the year you're born, seventy one around that area. One that I fled in Miami, and I like Miami, and it really opened my eyes again because I'm at the universe. I wasn't at the university, but at the university would be all these great cats

coming up. Pat Matheeni, you know, Danny Gotlieb hiring Bullock, Cliff Card and Patty Scaffolo's now married to Bruce Bringsteen. They are all these young people like that. But my friend was one of the teachers them stand SMOLDI and I stayed with him and he'd have books on the group. I said, okay, I said, this is the cat who's inspiring my vision news. Yes, so then you start reading the books of poetry on she was treaching moy that

were inspiring my vision news. The poems of birds of fire, you know, my flute and immortality, all these things he was writing that were just beautiful and very God ordained. So I had a band down there called the New MacGuire Sisters. Now we really went full fledge rock spusion out there, odd meters to the limit because now Mobby Storchestra made it go there, and we'd have this big warehouse where the sound would just be like enormous, like I could mic my bass drum with a big SVT amplifier.

So I got used to just making this huge sound in there. And then not long after we got all this together, that band then moved to Connecticut, a place called Canan, Connecticut, where up on the board of matth Houst's in Connecticut a farm a bard where we could play. It was an awesome sound, and then the little cabins in a main house and so we could keep kept working. But I was always scratching how am I gonna make it? But how am I gonna make it? How am I

gonna make it? I was always on my soul. And then not long after came through Hartford the Mobys Shtorkers' second album, playing the Birds of Fire. And I had my friend, our manager, take me down to that show and dropped me off at the show. And what this is really important because you asked about Guru. This was my first time laying eyes on the real living Mobbish new and cobblem And as I'm getting the I'm bit late,

the place is packed. There's a bright light on vish you and it's just him on double neck guitar and Cob going at it maybe in seventeen something so out there you would never you can't even count it. But they were like so intense with it. It was just nuts. So I decided to walk right down to the edge of the stage and look up in his eyes and see what the hell is going on? And I did.

I looked right up in his eyes and he's he's just the bullets just bullets just like an adimal on fire, and his eyes are back in his head and I go, yeah, this is real. It's too intense to be made to me, to be like memorized. It's just flowing through him. And it went up for so long that could have been like tw many minutes of this. I heard John Coltrane on record with Elvin Jones just be out there for the longest times. I've never seen anything live in a

rock setting. Marshals five's drum set, loud clean vibes. Oh my god, clear fives, loud clean. It could stop like that and back at it together. Oh Holy God, this is this is now my life. This is now gotta be what I gotta go to because if I if I do another direction of my life, I could die. I don't want to die. Jimmy, who are my fruit? My heroes? Now I knew that the vision was into God. He'd found the meditation way because I knew about his guru. So that night I saw a guy in white. I

knew his disciple. His name is a Pikshah. I said, please, a paic Shaw, I really have to meet Morvish team back to meet him, and he was so kind to me of the whole audience something I'm nobody. He gets me backstage and Marvish to pokes his head and said, go in that little room and I'll meet you in one minute. And I wait that little tiny room and

I'm scared because I've never seen anything like this. And I can hear Cobbm and Joan Hamer you know, Hi talk in the other room like Mcca you know, and Jon They're all and then maister comes in and he's like English with this black mob. Miles Davis talk, hello, brother, how are you?

Here We're on the backstage in Hartford. It's almost one in the morning. He is going to drive all night, go back to Queens, New York and see the grew at six am. That's not he's not going to sleep after just what I saw him do. Something is so small like that just rock my world. This is too much and you know what happened. It's just God. Because about a week later, I'm way out in the country of Hayman, Connecticut, in the woods at this farm I lived in, and the throne rings and it's Mahavish New.

He says, Ah, Man, it's Marvish New. And I can't be the tonight, but I want you to go to the meditation in Norwalk and meet the Grew tonight. I said, okay, So Man, I had long hair. I brushed my hair back, you know, and I got my shaver and I shaved my beard off because I know they have no beards. And my mom had made me a kind of a white dog shiki. I put that white does she k on? And we had an old limousine that the new McGuire sisters had and my friend Greg Felt drove me down

there and to nor Walk. And when I got there, that was I was a little bit late too, so guess what happened. I go inside and I leave my eyes on the grou The area is singing and playing the harmonium and singing, and he sees me and keep singing. And the girls are on one side, and the boys and the other side. They're all wearing white, and the girls are all wearing these kind of Indian sories. So

there's one chair left on the girl's sides. I sit down with the girls, and then this old lady named Akoutie, she gets up front and she reads out of his new book called The Dance of Life, Part two. And the poems in this book were just like knives in my heart, because you know, it was just just crying to God. You know, Oh Lord, how many days, how many nights, how many minutes, seconds, hours must I cry to see your face? How long must I wait to

see you? Go on and on like that, And then that hit me again, Maybe what you're asking for, Michael, It was not an ard, I was, Michael. Maybe what you're asking for you're not really ready for. That's what hit me again. Then I met a black gentleman just after the whole thing, named Lelehan. He's all, let's go stare as the library you know me by guy by a book, and then I can take you to the

to the UH to the restaurant called Love and Serve. Okay, So I go up to the library and all these books you have written, I have just enough moneed to buy a book called The Dance of Life Part two that they had read the downstairs they had read from So I buy that one book and I said'm walking down the stairs. Man, here is the gurul in the living room, just standing there kind of meditating. And I stopped and he says, so you are mobbish and his friend I said, yes, said you would like you would

like to become my disciple. I said I think I'm ready, And he went into a long meditation like just all moblished, the eyes back in his head, and just this feeling came over me as I stood before him. And then long after he said I accept through him my heart, and then he kind of walked away. But as he walked away, I kind of felt like an explosion and happening inside of me, and maybe explosion of gratitude that now I've not met my vision you now, I mean

it's girl. His giru has just accepted me. Who am. I. That's what happened to me. And I was so grateful that to be to be accepted, and I knew that would save my life because I did not want to die. I'm the kind of cat LSD loved the experiences of being so high. But you can have a bad experience and be out of here or at his BSPs and the angel dosts and those things can just get you out of here. Man, so here, this is the God way.

You just love God. You know you pray, you meditate, you know you you you do beautiful things that you offer your music to God. That change the whole trick is obtected in my life.

often frowned upon amongst other black people. Like I remember seeing an interview with like Maurice White of earth Wood Fire maybe like in the late seventies early eighties, where he's talking about this level of spirituality and kind of looking at the adults in the room as he's saying it's on television. They're frowning like mm hmm, see that's that double shit. He ain't talking about Christianity. Da da da,

So like, what made you? Because this is not even though this, this level of spirituality is our African origins?

I know, I knew I needed it. I was raised Catholic, I was raised with mother, married Jesus and all that, and I hold the communion and all that and all those things, you know, the your stay and the sanctuary and all the beautiful music. But but that wasn't saving me. And I had been clobbered by Morvish News Live, not only on record, you know, unspoken heights live, I see. And then to meet this teacher, he was beautiful, It

was nothing wrong. It was like, okay, would you follow Jesus. Yeah, well there's a living example of someone living truth, talking truth. What you're gonna do? So for me, it was a blessing, absolute blessing. There was no doubt about that at all. Only data was Am I Am I good enough? Am I ready enough? Like I told you? When did you when did he grant you with the name Nara? Well that came later, he told me, laters, and I'm gonna I'm not gonna spoil you. I've spoiled so many, given

them names too fast or do early. I'm not gonna spoil, I'm gonna make you. And it wasn't until the release of Garden of Lovelight that he gave me a min named Narda. And he said, no row dumb, no ruh. That went on for so long, I don't know if a name is nah rah ar Da. So he said, Narda, Narda supreme musician. Narda' soul brings from having to Earth light, delight and compassion and takes back to having from Earth earth sufferings. So the music, this is my role now

as Narda. Michael Oldham and uh yeah, what.

going to do. I became a teacher for a while, the drama workshop, the teacher's thing, what the word was called someplace. I played top talk down there for a while. Anyway, I'm saying to you, I just had to focus, and I thought, well, that's just going to my solo career. So then my attorney was Barry Plattine. He said, you know what, Epic Records will pay for you to make a demo, you know, because at least you've got some

names from coming to Movis structure. I said, okay. So then I heard off Lenny White's album of Phoenician Summers, this cat named Raymond Gomez, who I thought, damn, this guy has got the chops like I'm wanting to hear. And then when I met him, he had the both sides of Candridge Blues with chops and infusionary. So I said, okay, I want you. Would you play make my demo with me and David Sanchez who had made his album Hime on keyboards and then a guy like ru Lee was

David's bass player at the time. So then I went to Epic and made son Is Dancing maybe delightful and one wan one of the songs, or maybe maybe delfe on one of the songs three three things, and the Epic turned it down. So then walk on the streets thinking how you're gonna make it, How you're gonna make it, how you're gonna make And then Barry said, just you know, stay patient. And I got a phone call from my

cat named Raymond Silva from Atlantic. They were doing well with now colbum and he said, you know, uh, you know, maybe we'd be interested in you. So then I gave them my tape that I've done for the Epic of the Sun Is Dancing and maybe with a few things I've cut, and I met Jerry Greenberg, who was a president at the time, and then they offered me a deal. But guess what, they said, we want half your publishing. I said, okay, I wanted to deal that bad. I

was doing well with Wired. I wrote four so Always on Wire for Jeff Beeck, so I'm making money so that they said we won't have to publish. I said not, I don't care. Just sign me, give me a shot, and they did, and then they said, you have your choice of two producers in house producers or Reef Martin

or Tommy Dowd. And I said, well, I love them both, but this album is more on the rock side, and I want to use this engineer from London who did the last Mobish album called Inner Worlds, named Dennis McKay right, So I thought maybe I should use Timy Tommy Dowd because he's more on that side of things. And I did. Tommy said hey, let's work, and Timy was so cool and he just let me be me and help me. And I was in that studio brother Whereretha and ray

and all that. That's why I cut the Garden Love and that main studio and it'd be on I do want to say. Another cat was there as Jimmy Douglas, a young backup cat. He was my He was the second. So it'd be him and desm Kay and Tommy, Tommy Dowd and my hot band of Raymond Gomez David Sanchez will Lee on bass and myself. That was the core. I deliverhearsal forts so they'd know what to expect in the studio so we could cut it fast because you know, as you know still your time and all that expensive.

So we went in there and know I knew White Knight Ray and I wrote that and we knew how to do it. I brought in a created ranger named Michael Gibbs who did the Apocalypse album Mama Short, because he was brought up to range my strings when I wanted that. And then my friends came, like Carlos Santannaka did to think of First Love, which is beautiful, Jeff

Beck Game to do Satan Lurascal, which is beautiful. So I'm just really honored by that album, and I'm glad that you know about it, because some people don't even know about it. But that was my first soul album. My baby, Yo, Yo, what up everybody. This is Fonte Fontibelo from Team Supreme. We haven't done this in.