Leroy Burgess Part 2

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Question. Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. Yo. It's Up, everybody. This is Fonte fun to Below from Team Supreme, and we are back with part two of our conversation with Leroy Burgess. This is a guy who I've wanted to speak with for years, longtime fan of his music and all of his work. Honestly, this was one of my favorite interviews this season. We got to talk about his catalog, his production work, his early days, everything. If you haven't heard it yet, please make sure you check out part one, where Leo talks about his beginnings, his group Black Ivory and Woutang sampling his music. Now here's part two. Enjoy. Yeah, when would you say is the moment that you graduated from Jess's songwriting and singing to like like at the helm of production where Patrick sort of taking a back seat and now this is a Leroy Burgess production. Okay, that's an easy too, That's an easy one. The transition moment, the actual transition moment when I when I transitioned from composer and musician into duca arranger was the Weekend album, the Freak album. Yeah, I had stepped away from Black Ive. We took a hiatus from Black Ivy and participating with them. And the first person I went to was Patrick. And Patrick used to work me out of worked on the Benny King album or Webb album. You know, just background vocals, a keyboards or something like that, you know, stuff like that. Then he said, I got this album. Atlantic's given me a project called Free and I need two songs, right, And I had one song called Weekend and one song called Much too Much. And he said, okay, but you're gonna write all the charts. You're gonna you're gonna write well, he said, I'll do the strings, but I want you to do the horns, right. I want you to do all the sins, and I want you to teach the rhythm musicians, which is something that I learned from teaching my band a band of songs, you know, the Black Eby band, the songs how to play and how I wanted them a range. So I had a bat But this was the first time I started writing charts and you know, having to do that. So that was the actual transition because when I went in the studio to do it at Bob Blank Studios, I was waiting for power. Went in there waiting for heads of his the charts good luck, and he was like, no, no, no, no, you're going there with the musicians, right, show them the song, give them the parts that you want them to play. Right, you're gonna I'm gonna play acousta piano, you play elect to piano, right, and this is how we're gonna do it. And he said, you're at the helm. I want this to be what you want, all right, So you're gonna come up with the parts of all I'm gonna do is the strange. And I was heavy. So that was me actually stepping coursing that threshold into production and arranging and so forth. That was It was that moment. How did you learn to like read music and play? Were you just playing by ear or were you formally trained? And are these court charts or like noted notes? Yeah, okay, to answer your question quests, they are court charts, all right, Okay? Patrick was Patrick taught me how to write the chord charts right. He would later teach me how to write the horn charts and write for strength and to do full arrangements. I started playing when I was four years old, you know, playing with the church, but I don't call it. I call that banging on the piano. I was banging on okay. When I was very young, my mom's used to get me away from my sisters, so she sent me to a babysitter that had a piano. But she taught me little things like Twinkle Twinkle Star and this old man he played one right, and how to play those on the piano, and they got me interested. Fast forward to when I was eleven, I had a brilliant music teacher in the person of Herbie Jones. Herbie Jones was Duke Ellington's chief rhythm and brass arranger, and he worked on his side job was working at the Cadet Chords Central Harlem. My mother father insisted I joined the Cadets, so I would worry. Yeah, I'd be on top of him. How did he played? And he taught me how to play chords, how to recognize that notes, so forth, and so on, so forth. Not combined us with what I was learning from Patrick in terms of the specifics of reading and writing and notating and so forth and so on. And I gradually learned how to do it all. But it was a gradual thing. It was an aide. I went to Juilliard or I went to I went before we I just wanted to go back to you and I just before we forget it. Larry Blackman, we had him on the show. He's right, he's playing drums on that. Do you remember that session? Yes? I do. He on the Don't Turn Around? First of all, the only songs that we did in Philly was Don't turn Around, And I keep asking questions those two songs, which was our A and B side of our first single, right. Everything else on the Don't Turn Around album we recorded in New York at Blue Rock Studios. Right. Laddy Blackman happened to live in my housing complex, drew album Aunt Hamilton Houses. I lived in building like two hundred US on forty three. He lived down the block on the eighth Avenue building. Right, Patrick knew him. I didn't know that Patrick knew him, but Patrick knew him. Right. So, when Patrick was putting together the arrangement for you and I so forth and so on, he said, I said, well, who's gonna play the gums? And he was like, well, it's guy Larry Blackman. I'm like, ohh He's like he said, well he's really good, um at at He's the perfect guy. So Larry played on you and I uh, he played on final one who Loves You, and he played on she said that she's leaving those three songs. Wow, got it? Thank you for that all right? So I have a production question to ask you, like, how are you able to develop your sound? Because you know, I mean next to the Randy Muellers of the world and later the Kachifs, like, you're doing some really revolutionary in disco and post disco music. But I would assume that you would have to have a lot of hours to figure out what the sound is and like, so, how are you able to develop your sound like that? Well? Meaning no disrespect, absolutely overthinking, get a little bit? Wow? What what this always happens on the show? I'm stocked in a gas yeo. I surrounded myself with great people, great musicians who are very simple but do a really good job. Now, in the case of Let's do It, Let's do it was composed, that's an afterthought for the most part. Wow, we were hired to record another song. Uh, I forget I even forgot the name of that song. It was just we were just hired as musicians, right. But Greg Carmichael, who was the producer. He had book twelve hours. We got through the first song, you know, the song we needed that we were booked to do uh in two and two hours, two and a half hours, something like that. So he said, well, I'm not doing anything else with the time. Why don't you guys come up with something that I'll let y'all record what you want to do. So we ordered to food and while we waited for the food, I went into the instrument room and started twinking on the piano. Right, Usually, it doesn't take but a minute for my brother James Callaway to come in on base. So came up with something just very simple. So then James came in and he played on top of me, playing that. Right, Sonny came in and he played on top of me playing that, you know. So the three of us were playing and arrived at that groove. Right after that we basically laid the whole thing down. One thing that I liked about it is because I liked to come up with jazz changes for a disco song, which because they don't belong in right. So once I had everything together, we went in. We did the rhythm and as we once we had the rhythm, crack all in there. Then Sonny, my cousin, Sonny Davenport, he started laying percussion pieces, the Koka first second, A go Go, the famous a Go Go unless Amberrines, stuff like that. Right while, we called my sister with name my girl, Dorothy Terrell, and a couple of other females to come in and do the background. We wrote the words that night great oh wow. Came up with the rap that night, right, So within the remaining eight hours we came we uh where we started with nothing and we ended up with let's do it. I always wanted to know how you came up with all the names for your like your aliases, like lag conversion, like I didn't come up with him. Okay, most of the time it would be a matter of me saying, well, I don't want it to be me, I don't want it to be a leroy or just for record, or like this is a group effort so forth from someone. And initially the name of the group was Caliber, which is an anagram of Leroy Burgess and James Callaway, right, okay, okay, Caliber, And that's on your leams hooked on your love record, right. Uh, that's the only time we used that After that, it was like, as long as we retained the sound, I didn't care what name we used, right, I leave it to the record companies to come up with. Sam Records came up with Conversion. We was like, oh Conversion. Uh when he when he copyrighted the name Conversion and Suso Records wanted that group. They were like, well, you can't use the name Conversion, So what would I said, I don't care what called it. Whatever, they called it log right, And from there Universal Robot Band came out of that. Yes, yes, even man. Then from that, you know, the names just evolved from different places. I never really what was important to me was that the sound and the team was doing the same thing and arriving at the style of music that we hope would be embraced. Yeah. One of my favorite records of yours. I just I always wanted to ask you about Caprice. Do you remember cutting it? Like who's singing lead on that record? Because it sounds like a little girl, sound like a kid, But but I love that song, man, That's one of my favorites in your catalog. Jackie Bradley used to play guitar for the Black Evy Band and one of the early bands that we worked with. He was part of the Social Beings, our band right about the eighties. This is that's in the early seventies, right. So fast forward to the eighties and Jackie's putting together his own band, Caprice. He comes to me says, I would like for you to give us a song. If you got a song, we'd like to do a song of yours. Right. So I'm like, okay, we got a song me and Sonny had composed called Right. And so we actually went into the process of teaching them. The singer, Yvette Davis was this was like her first record, so she was hurry. Oh, she was tentative, she was scared, she was she was she she was like she didn't believe in her voice and so forth. And I was like, no, honey, you just trust me. I'll get you to Just trust me and I can get you to to I can introduce you to the singer that's within you. How old was she at this time? She was in her twenties. She was in her twenties and thirties or something like that. Okay, and um, so I walked her through how to sing it. Because he really has a voice that like has a quality like Denise Williams, like that really litting tiny you know, it's like you know, but at certain points she can be very powerful, but know it's just this little ting quality. And I said, we can use that. Let's use that that quality. That's when she goes to knowledge the time, don't you know. Um uh, she was perfect for it. I made everybody get out of the studio watching cut the leads, all right. The only ones that was there with my was myself and Sonny and Evet and the engineers um, because I didn't want her intimidated by the other band members and so for open song. But uh, she did an amazing job in realizing that song. Okay, so since you just dropped your process and especially with your aliases, can I assume that the um the bumble Bee Unlimited song is just the elmes On very Speed, Well actually not the Eleans Um bumble Bee Unlimited would usually be Patrick myself and and yeah, very speed. I was speeded down. And wasn't that a little risky in terms of like, hey, this this song might actually get some traction on radio and whatnot, Like do we want to sing in very speed or in our natural voices? Like, what made you want to do that? Well, bumble be unlimited with Patrick's brainchild, Okay, And the whole thing is at that point, I was definit for work because I had just left Black Obrey, so I needed to work so bad. So whatever Patrick wanted to do, I was like, yeah, I'm fine with that. I was more worried about it being us having a problem with voice bag bagd Zavian productions and because of Alvin and the Chipmunks and they, you know, compared, But it was the same process. This is exactly the same process, but Patrick's had done with about it. I'll call the bumble being nobody who will be will be the wiser. So so you you really thought somebody would come at you for because Stevie Wonder did it on maybe your Baby and slot Like, I'm just realizing now that side one or fresh, that entire side one slice singing in very speed. I did not know that. I mean, it's not extreme very speed where it sounds like Alvin and Chipmunks heat. When they did the French version of Dance to the music, he didn't call it Slie in the family Stone. He called it the French Fries. And they kept the same musical backdrop as dance to the music, but they sang it as Alvin and the Chipmunks and it was really Lilly Gagging or whatever. It's like a rare B side and yeah for Europe, but I love that song. Before I get to my next question, just in general with New York and various bands around that. We mentioned, you know, brother Larry Blackman before, but you know, around this time, are you at all having interactions at all with like, you know, like with Larry Muller and uh or Casseif also came from BT Express a little later. But you know, as you guys are kind of molding and shaping really the sound of disco and more importantly the sound of post disco. What I guess we call it bookie. I don't know if you called the bookie or not, but people have tagged it bookie. Are you having any interactions with those guys whatsoever? I met Randy at a at a little gig we did at a club called APT back in the weekends, and we're friends. Same thing with Hugh would Eaves the third, and I'm friends with all of them. We have not interacted professionally to collaborate on any music, but we appreciate with each other. That's coming from I mean some some credit now rogers something. Who do you feel is the person that really is the proprietor of Bookie like a slow down version, same disco pulse, but less less cluttered and more groove based. In other words, more for the backyard barbecue than Studio fifty four. Like, well, if you ask anybody in London, they would tell you it's me. I say to you as well, well, straight up, I don't know. I just come from Harlem, right in Harlem. While disco is like kind of up one twenty one, you know, get your heart rate going and slow fall. I'm from that. Chill boom chill boom boom boom boom boo boom. I'm there right in terms of I want to create and where to groove, it's from me, right, So when I did songs like fat Batten, when I created Let's do it and so forth, that's where we at. We swinging right there. We're not interested in boom boom boom boom boom boom. Now we we do these records for record companies who, in their brilliance, in their moments of genius, they decide, all right, let's take it and give it to somebody, tell them sweet it up, but this go sweet us go through it. But as far as boogie is just a chilled out, laid back kind of groovy joint right where you can still party hard to it without you know, having a cardiac of vest right, how two steps so was sweet to Me ever considered like a single from from the live record on the long album Sweet to Me So Sweet? That's like I go heavy on that song when I do my bookie sets, And I always wanted to know. Why wasn't that ever like given the single treatment. Well, because the hierarchy can care stand care at Salshole Records, they decided that the only well there would be too single there would be I Know You Will, which was the Labry Levan record. Right, Um, you've got that something right, and then um dancing into the Stars right. The others laid on the line um sweet to Me. They never really made it into the forefront of being a single, uh, in terms of Salsoul's feeling or what they decided to do. So so they just felt it was filler. Yeah, they felt it with Villa. But here's the big story about it, we ment ined the Universal Robot Band. Right, Yes, breaking even a right, barey breaking even is actually the seventh song from the Log album. Oh okay, gotcha all right, Barely breaking even we recorded to close the Log album out, all right. That's when we got all of the musicians, all of the singers who were put together the Log project. We called them all in the studio for I think it was an eighteen hour session or something like that. Right, everybody was we fed, everybody, made sure everybody was comfortable, with plenty stuff to smoke. And you know, we were here the Happy session, and I said, we're gonna do this great record where everybody's gonna sing, and it's gonna be like this giant quiet and and we're all gonna talk about how hard it is to keep money in our pocket barely breaking even. Right. What happened was our co producer Greg car Michael heard the backet and was he pleased with it, right, and decided to go to South So to get a little extra paper. The extra paper, I want a little extra came care said, no, right, so Greg said, in the middle of the night, around two thirty in the morning, Right, he went to the studio and was recording, and he told him, I want to make a safety of the master of the twenty four two twenty four tract. I want to make it and I'll bring it right back that Later that day we went to mix the song to do a final mix of the song to complete the album, and found it not to be there. So of course we're like, oh my god, what a lot. How did y'all let it go light? So we get on the phone. We can't care. So also we're coming down there right now, Greg to take blah blah blah, blah blah blah. We expected came Cared to be completely up and arms about the lots of billy breaking even right. That's when Can told us about, well, Greg came and was looking for extra paper, so forth and so on. I did not want to give it to him, and that's why he, you know, common did to take. Right. Essentially, the outrage that we expected from cam Kidd was not to be found, all right. He his basic position was, We've already got these sixth great tunes. I don't need the extra of of of you know. So that's when some months later it was released on Movelow Records as Universal Robot band. But that Billy Breaking Even is the seventh song from the log down. Wow, we didn't talk about Mainline. That's another one of my favorite, but you tell us about recording that session. Um. I stepped away from Black Ivy because we were being typecast into a slow jam group. All right. That's where you know, don't turn around you and I I'll find a way all the slow jams that they loved with the false settle they wanted us, that the audience wanted us to stay there, and thereby I would not accept us doing any fast. I could not stay in that environment because I was not going creatively while the marketplace is going around me. So that's when I made a decision to actually step away into a hiatus from Black Ivy. All Right about somewhere around seventy eight seventy nine, Lenny Adams, who was still managing Black Ivrey, came to me and said, I need songs for this new Buddha album, you know, or they're gonna drop us from Buddha, right And I said, well, I got three songs that I'm not doing anything with, uh, Hustling Coming Down and Mainline, and I will you know those songs are not assigned to anybody. Uh. And so Lanny was like, write your own ticket or whatever you want, whatever you needed to be, I want you to come back, bring the musicians in all right, Uh, I said, well, if I'm gonna do, we have to do it with Patrick Adams. We need Patrick Adams on it. Um, we need James Callaway, uh you know, and and we just locked it up, lined it up. Um. Uh. I gave him a demo so Russell could learn the same the league right and uh you know, the backgrounds we just sang as we normally would do, but I would it right and m Patrick came in did the strings and porns. The drums weren't right. Initially we used Leroy Mike Conner on the drums, but they were not falling right. So we had Earl Young come in and overdubbed his Young hypothetically speaking, So say, if I'm like one of your periods of your contemporaries in nineteen seventy nine, and I'm producing the same music that you're producing, Okay, what would what is a producer's rate in in seventy eight, seventy nine eighty like in the in the era of twelve inch discos for the sassoles of the world, these small labels of the world, like what would my living be per per side, like, is it's whatever you can work with? Or is it a contracted thing? Like I think I was one to make a living barely basically back in that period, you do good if you could get a budget that was anywhere between say about thirty five hundred to about five thousand, the high end of that would be ten thousand. Right, will give you that, right and say, bring me my record, bring me a great record, bring me something that's gonna kill so far, so on. And it was your job to take the amount that you were given and create that record, right, and whatever was left over, Yeah, you could walk home with, you know. So if you were given ten thousand dollars in it only courts you six to do right, you know, the final record, then you're walking home with four. Right. So budgets around that time were about, you know, if they were reasonable, they were ten thousand and up per song, right, and and that would give you a decent amount of room. And how you lived and how you lived off a bit is how you could make that budget um work with under ten thousand dollars so that you had to you weren't all in now of control. Okay, So did you have great relationships with Larry Levan or even Frankie Crocker at that like a being a song or like bringing him a test pressing and see if it works it doesn't work, are you able to go back and readjust if it does not work. I'm gonna take one person at a time. Lorry Levant, I did not know who he was, and I did not know who what the Paradise Guvage was. I thought it was a gouvag Wait, what how did you create a soundtrack for Generation It? Did not know what the Paradise Garage was? I did. I'm just being honest. I so what was the epicenter of a place where you wanted to see how your music worked for? Oh? You just went straight to them. Yeah, and that's where. That's where my first gig at any of those clubs down there, long before I learned about Paradise gul. My first gig was at Studio fifty four performing as far as La La van Goes. I got to appreciate his art after I Know you Will was given to him to mix right, and I was like, now you know, we're from uptown, we're from Harlem, and we're like, we're belligerent about everything. So so we're like Lave of Vans mixing it? Who we never heard of him. I don't know if I want him to have my stuff? Who is that? All? Right? So we stormed right track Studios on forty eighth Street where he's doing the final mix. Right. And when I say we stormed, we jump in the cab. Me James and Sonny were from harm Yeah, yeah, we jump in the cab. We rolled all the way down there and we were like, um, oh no, you're letting us in a in session, this our song, alright, blah blah blah. So we basically bogarted our way up to the studio where he was working, and you know, they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't let us in. Finally Labby came out and was gracious and said, oh, these are the producers, these are the song writers. Let them end so farping song. And then he applaused us of what he had in mind and how he was working it, and it sounded so great, right, We was like, oh, I don't mean to go right ahead. So remixing was just a foreign idea, like letting someone borrow your your your your your mate, your your lifeline. Well, here's the thing. When you were budgeted by a record company, right, it was there. It was their property, period, Right, it was there. So you could do whatever mix you wanted to do and say this is the mix I want to come out, and they'd be like, okay, yeah, let's leave it ahead. And then they would call set Patty Bam, John Vallas, the man, they go, whoever their guy, right, Jelly being beneath us, they say, hey, take this multi track and give me a great record, right, And then it would not be what the producer's vision was. It would be this other vision that was in the mind of the remixer, however that mind might be on that given day. All right, but that was the job. I mean you you wasn't if you didn't own that master, so you couldn't say it, I'm gonna make sure that's supposed to Mike. They own the master, so they could say and so after a minute you have to say, you have to resign yourself to that dynamic, all right. One of the is that it's really definitive. It's Let's do It. Let's do It was an eleven minute song all right, that had two bridges right, and the van chorus. I was going nuts on as a lead vocalist, right. All of that ended up on the cutting wound floor at Sambac. They was like, no, contain the record to this five minute thing, and this is what it's going to be. We heard it, we were discussed. We were like, oh my god, where's the best of the record. Right, Let's do it came out amazing, hit, huge hit, right so uh. In twenty sixteen, um I had a copy of the eleven minute version right right right with the vocals the soap open song, and Frankie Knuckles played it at Studio fifty four right, and I forgot to get to take back from him, so he took it back to Cargo with him. Right, Frankie passed away. He gave it to another DJ dju manual something right, and he gets in touch with me twenty fifteen, says I have the eleven minute version of Let's Do It. I'm like what, So he send it to me. I send it to my partner pl to master it, right and then to initiate the startup of gorgeous entertainment. I said, let's just put it out for free. Let's give it to everybody for free. Right, And we introduced everybody to what the full version of Let's do it is, right, And they got the second bridge, they got to hear the second court, they got to hear the vamp out or all of the things that were removed from it. They got to hear it, and they were like, oh my god, this is incredible. Why everybody started asking the question that we were asking, and you know, why did y'all chop it up like that? Yeah? I put it all down to how music evolved and the business that uh that pertains to it, right, you know, and and just not to let anything drive you so crazy that you doing crazy stuff. I wanted to ask you about Fonda Ray. She was like one of my favorite singers of that time. She's over it like a fat rat. What was she like in the studio? She was pleasant, she was she was um professional. And where did she come from? I don't know a book? So she just brought to you as a client game, folks. She came from um. Either it's either Mount Vernon or Newashell or somewhere Yanka's or something like that. I think that's where she lives. Um Uh. When we did Over like a Fat Fat we recorded it as a demo with Bob Blank He Bob gave us some free studio time and uh, we me, James and Sonny we went in. We just did our thing, creating songs and so far up in the song so over like vat Back was one of the songs. And we left the tapes with Bob, and then Bob went to Vanguard and Vanguard had signed Fonder and Bob called us up and said, we mind if he tried fond of Rey And I'm like, fond of who? And He's like Fonda and I'm like, uh, okay, Well we'll allow it if you let us be at the session, meaning myself and my cousin Sonny Davenport. Uh. We went to the session. She learned the song and sang it very competently, giving us the performance that y'all are familiar with. And um um was that her first session. No, she's also on she had worked with August Darnell. Uh during the she did Uh, she did definitely love it was it wasn't Doctor Buzzers. It was with Don Armando's second rumba band or something. Wow. He always crazy like a LEAs and stuff. But defintely love is a record though that doesn't jam did not know that she also had worked with uh Patrick Adams with a version of touch Me All Night Long. Yes, that's different than the one that we know, or different the version which spelled t u c h oh like it spelled t u c h me. And she did that um uh before it got to the Sandy post and that did it? Okay, wow, all right, here's here's the question I always wanted to know. I'm giving right to Rick James right now. I knew it's so I have one question to ask you, all right, the way that you're holding your head right now, I already know what the answer is. But can can I can I just take a wild guess that your involvement with Big Time it's just that intro. No, oh, so you did the entire because the thing is is that the kick drum piano intro, it's such a leroy burgess sound. And then right when the song kicks in, I felt like, wow, okay, now it sounds like Rick James, how did that come? How did that come together? Okay, at the session, I was telling you about where we recorded over like a fat vat for a Fonda or for that. One of the another one of the songs that we've done was a song claued Bay Time right now. You know, I did the demo with the piano and James on bassis, Sunny on drums, and I sang into you know, I did a demo of the vocals of shit right and on our way uptown, Bob Blank Studio was on twentieth and sixth Avenue right and on our way back up town, we just decided to stop at fifty seventh Street between eighth and ninth Avenue to stop at Kenny Morris's house. Kenny wood Morris was Patrick's partner, right to just stop there to get a little package for us to feel good with. When we got uptown, we wink absolutely so, you know, and Kenny was holding so we went there all right. When we got there, Kenny's friend Rick James was in attendance. He was he was visident Kenny, and so you know, we really want to do our business and get on. But then you know, Kenny would like come on inside, and Patrick was right there, and uh so we did our little wine and Dine thing. I mean, we're not new din is wine we already know. And Rick James was like, tell Patrick, I'm getting ready to do my new album. I don't want more down to me and so far I just need to be a good one and so Farth and I mentioned that we just came out of the studio doing the little demo and so far, Oh, let me hear, let me hear. I'm looking for songs, right, and so big Time was the first song on the cassette and we only made a halfway through. We Oh my god, that's my song. That's my far. I got to have it because big Time is the persona of big Time is Rick James persona. It's all about a guy who arrived at the big time. So life of fortunate and fame and stuff. Yes, glamor and fame and all of that. So it was pah, that's my song. I needed to Patrick, you walking out and so forth and so on. So Patrick woked it out. This is nineteen seventy nine. By nineteen eighty it was released as we made a deal for it to be the first single from the Garden of Love album. Right, and we arranged for Rick James and Patrick two, for Patrick to co produce it with Rick James and take it out. They took the multi track out to California with Vick James added his flavor to it. Then song the Change and everything like that that was written composed by me and Rick James added his elements to it, but essentially he replayed the bass, took James callaway off and replayed the bass, replayed some of the piano parts, put his horns on it and so forth, and then added the don't don't get that little And I'd like to think, I don't want to be presumptuous, but this is before Super Freaking all of that, and I'd like to think that big Time was central in reviving Rick's career to set a degree that he was able to then take that model and create new songs from it, right, and that gave you the super Freak And that's exactly what it did. But that piano intro, Yeah, it's such an un Rick James sounding thing that I was like, in my mind, I felt like, at the last minute, let's add that piano into at the top and then no, but that was the whole record. When when we did it. That was that was you know, that was the whole demo. So I guess I really became familiar with you. Um kind of the summer eighty four when like B boy cultures starting to set off and the Elims release yourself. What was your thoughts on the Marlly mar remix of that song. I didn't know who Morlly was before that, but I certainly got to know who he was since he did it, Okay, because see, for me, it became a practical situation. Uh, that part goes we release you know sound we right and an octave from where I'm singing it now right right form that of Duke might be able to do that once or twice of right before your whole voyale would break in a half, give out right, that's break in a half. So I always was like, while I understand the virtue of it being sampled, a lot of people expected it to be sunk. That was my second question. How much of a nightmare was it for them? Because that's the only version we played. We know there's other versions of the song, but we would always go to the B side and play the Molly Mall version, and it was inescapable in the summer of nineteen eighty four. Right, so I arrived at a balance between when I'm doing my live show, I let one of the girls or something like that do those parts right, and then I stick to you gone to you know you need to stick to that right, which makes it easy because believe me, if I just did one full chorus of that voice, that's the end of the show. And thank you very much, good night, And I hope you enjoyed that. That that chorus that I I wanted to ask you as a record you did some couple of years back with Glenn underground let me know you're feeling me record? Oh, yes, myself and Glenn, Oh Patrick working on that as well. Yes, yes, the song was composed by Patrick, Glenn and myself. Uh. That was when um a guy named Raddick who wims dust tracks records down in Chicago. Uh, he had a hook up with Glenn and Glenn had asked for myself and Patty that it can convinced us to take a plane to fly out there for a couple of days and worked with Glenn and Uh again that song was started from scratch. We had nothing, no no beat nor anything. And Patty came up with you with a baseline that kind of took us somewhere, and then I said, I added some chords to it, and then we had Glenn coming put the drums against it and so far up and swing them. We began to build a record up from there. Uh, and within two days we had that that song. I love that song, man. I just I was. I was so happy. A good buddy of mine a score out of out of Chicago. He sent me that when it came out, and I was just so happy to hear you like singing again, and like, I just really love that record. Man. I have one inner life question. Yes, well, actually, okay, this is something you really got to settle for me, because it's killing me. Did you ever work with Alan George or Fred McFarlane, because even if your name is not on the credits, I still insist that you had something to do with somebody else's guy, even though you know your only connection to it was working with Jocelyn Brown in her life. But and I'm not want to be starting something, but I can't be the only human being that thought that you produced that well, Alan George and Fred McFarlane will first of all, fremcfarland was a member of Conversion and Law okay, keyboard player for my group. Knew On one of the high keyboard players for the group, So we knew Fred. And we've known Allan because Alan had been close friends with our second the second Black Ivory band, Stone Up, so we knew Alan through that. The reason why you hear a connection between somebody else's guy and music that you associate with me is two reasons. One is James Callaway, he's the bass player on that record, right, all right, right, and and of course Fred mcfallin. And the second element is George Ellington and Vincent Henry on brass because George and Vincent George was the horn player for my band. Vincent was a man, and the two of them gave you that that kind of sound, right, So between James, Fred and and Vincent and George, that's where you get that that lay off sounded compared to what we do. Yeah, you get through You probably throw what the seventh Heaven on that too, Like Gwen Guthrie. It kind of all those literally, believe it or not. That's the first place I looked to me. It's your sound, I guess in general, and in wrapping this up unless you have another one, Fronte, Yeah, I just wanted to talk to him his newest record. UM though, Yes, Yeah, you work with a lot of my heroes on this one with Remixes. Big ups to UM Josh mLAN and Mark Matt from for a Hero. Um, what's your connection with those guys? And uh talk about your your work with them everybody on UM that I'm blessed to have shared their brilliance on these days. The remixes have been friends for a little while now. Stacy Kid I met a few years ago when I invited him to have it to come see myself and my live man. I've known um. Louis Vega ever take a all the way back to the Conversion we make in twenty sixteen. Kenny Carpenter, good friend of mine that I worked with a song on him called more Love, and he came back and did some of the early mixes on remake that I did a Jesus Children of America about Stevie. Mark mac is a friend, very long time friend. I've known him for about a good twenty twenty five years. It was Das Parks. I was about to say gas Parks man Oh my God, rest in peace being departed, and ascended Angel das Parks who insisted on me meeting Mark right and said, Marcus the guy, Marcus Mark, and Mark has since I've met him and since I've worked with him, everything that Mark has done has been just the absolute truth, just so pure, so to wrap up the whole album and reflects Nicholas is. He was a surprise because he heard These Days the album, the initial album from which the remix album is inspired, and heard the song altogether, and he was just really taken with that. And I was taken with all of the reflex remixes. He's the one who does the best remixing that I've heard. When I heard him do Robert by Michael Jackson and All Night Long by Lionel Ritchie. He does his thing in the Stone with earth winning fire. He's really a brilliant Nicholas is really a brilliant remixer. So I was blessed that all of them, when they heard These Days the initial album come out, they called me up and they said, hey, I want to remix this, and I want to remix that. I want to do this, and I want to do that. And I spoke with my partner pr Sweets, and he said, well, let's do a remix album. You know that Death features remixes, right, And that's where this latest project came. These Days initial album was released back in September twenty twenty two, and the remix album just It was initially released in March twenty three, twenty twenty three, and then as of last Thursday it hit track Sauce so and now people are starting to really get into it. But those guys bless me with their talent and with their insight and with their genius, and they made it into a project that I can really really be proud of them. Yeah. Now we're all disciples, man, We're all disciples. So I got one more record to ask before we wrap, because not many people talk enough about Eddie Kendricks's is Arista period and you worked on something more record. I never used to dance. Can you talk about like working with Eddie Kendricks like what it was like. It was a lot of fun because Eddie is a cannabis indulgence as I am, and uh they know. So Patrick got the deal when Eddie when he was working with Alista, and he said, I got to Eddie Kendricks deal. I said, oh great, that's cool. Do you have anything for him? Not really, we don't have nothing, but I'd like to meet him. So Patrick said, oh, come on down, I have a meeting with him, so forth and so on. So I bought my team meet James and Sonny. We went down there. We met, you know, chopped it up, had a few drinks and so forth and so on, and I was like, well, Eddie, what do you want to sing about? Right? And uh, he said, I don't really know. I don't really can just write me a great song. For whatever reason. We started talking about the Temptations moves and the and the choreography and so forth, and I think I started talking about how Black we was biting his choreography. So I started talking about that and he said, well, I never liked to dancing. I'm not a dancer. I'm a singer. And so although I had to do it because it was part of my my duties as a Temptation, you know, to do the choreography and all of that, but I never really liked it. And I was like, wow, there's our song story. So myself and my cousin Sonny, and my brother James we created a song chord I Never Used to Dance. It's about, which is about a dude who doesn't really like dancing. You know how many you go to a party and you see the dudes standing up against the wall while the chick get up. You know, they out there doing anything, and the dudes is just like, than they're looking. Yeah, how about that? How about the Mets you know the wallflower songs? Yeah, yeah, so they're doing that. But never used to dances? About that one chick that you see it hit the floor and oh my god, I just gotta dance with it. And all of a sudden, you're not dancing behind, you're not dancing. Dance finds itself out on the floor with if he's the one that gets you to do it. So that's what Never Used to Dance is all about. And he heard it. When he heard it was like, oh, that's perfect, that's me all, that's me, that's it so so and for me, listen, when I was thirteen fourteen, I was singing just my imagination and the way you do, the things you do those songs were just ingrained in me. To be working with an icon like him, right, Oh, and for him to be doing one of my compositions, one of my co productions was just a dream come true of many many dreams that have come true and in my time in this industry. Yo, man, this is some of the best two hours ever waiting on this man nerding out. Thank you, man, I I can't even thank you enough for this, Like you know you you changed culture and you know you can't there there aren't enough flowers in the world to give you. Man like like what you've done for dance culture, man is like real heads no, and we just thank you for for doing our show with us all. Thank you for the music, man, just your music so much joy to like to my life, you know what I mean. And uh always a good time. So just just thank you for all your your contributions. Man, straight up bliss showing. Thank you all for having me. I'm very aware of how successful your work is. Question this team is I'm just happy to be a part of it, uh uh and happy to participate in this. Uh. You guys have some really great questions. Man. You know we're fans. We are fans. You know I'm a DJ, so I'm only as good as the knowledge I have of you know, the records. I gravitate towards and you know your your records have saved many of many a party of mine. So thank you very much for that. That's what's up. That's what's up. Thank you, Yo. It wouldn't be have a super Steve and unpaid bill and franticolo and like EF. This is another another classic much love extravaganza of it. Enter We will see all next time, all right, thank you? What's Love? Supremes a production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.