QLS Celebrates Womens History Month Part 3

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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Quest Love Supreme and we're celebrating Women's History Month here in March with some special programming drawn from nearly a decade of shows and conversations. And shout out to Laya from Team Supreme who always pushed the programming to QLs to make sure that there is space for these conversations to even happen, especially at times when the team was sometimes crowded by guys.

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Speaker 3: In the room.

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Speaker 1: Yes, we are guilty.

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Speaker 2: It's so weird how we take for granted women's roles in music and in history. I remember as a child oftentimes getting records and legit being shocked. I remember one time my aunt was a part of the Columbia Music House. Asked your parents about that at Google Columbia Music House that was the original Spotify. That's how we got records rapidly. And one day we got night Birds by label in the package in the mail.

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Speaker 1: I believe that was the.

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Speaker 2: Very first time that I saw all women on an album cover and I kept staring at it, and I remember asking my aunt. I was like four years old, and night Birds is the LaBelle album that kind of like brought them to prominence. Of course, their timeless Lady Marmalade was the lead single, that Monster single from that album. And I remember asking my aunt, like, are women allowed to make music? And you know, it's so weird how even at the age of four I had to ask that question, but because you know, you just often didn't see such a thing, which now you know, after having worked on the slo and the Family Stone documentary, I see how revolutionary sly Stone was in nineteen sixty seven. As far as like ginger pairing is concerned, seeing Cynthia Robinson on the trumpet, that's something you just didn't see every day, you know, you didn't see those things. I remember there was a group called Ecstasy, Passion and Pain from Philadelphia and they had a drummer named Cookie and they were on Soul Train, and I was like, wow, girls are allowed.

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Speaker 1: To play drums?

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Speaker 2: Like And you know, I lived in a household with three women, my aunt, my sister, and my mother, and they were constantly, constantly reprogramming me to always give consideration to women and to give them their proper do and their proper respect. And so that's kind of how it starts with me, and you know, as a result, women.

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Speaker 1: Were a big part of our creative circle.

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Speaker 2: Like you know, if you just look at the first movement of jam sessions that we had with Black Lily, primarily female led, simply because when that movement started out initially as the Roots Jam session, a lot of the women that would come would just be huddled up in the corner rather, you know, kind of pissed off that they're not getting any time on the microphone. Like they would sing for like two seconds and then suddenly like an MC would come on and.

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Speaker 1: Then you know, they just give up and walk away in the corner.

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Speaker 2: I remember one particular night there's epic battle between Tracy and the Jazzy Fat Nasties and Rest in Peace Mum's the poet, and they were going at each other and Tracy was getting in his ass like like I'm tired of y'all hogging up the microphone not giving us our say and whatever.

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Speaker 1: You know, Richard Nichols is his whole solution. Rich's job was always to come with this solution. He didn't break up arguments, He just came up with the solution. The solution was, Okay, we will now start a female led jam session so that women get their say.

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Speaker 2: And that's the Black Lily Jam sessions for you.

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Speaker 1: So shout out to Tracy for holding it down. This is part three.

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Speaker 2: Enjoy all right, So we're going to begin with the amazing Tracy Ellis Ross. In this clip, she speaks about wishing to use the physical life changes that women experience to push her towards stand up. This conversation also touches on Blackish covering postpartum and how Tracy had a complicated relationship being an actress with a very famous mother.

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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this conversation.

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Speaker 2: I always tried to imagine what it was like to grow up in Los Angeles or Hollywood.

00:04:59
Speaker 1: Assume that you grew up.

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Speaker 4: I grew up in New York.

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Speaker 5: Really yeah, New York, New York and Europe. So I was born here in La I went to the Center, and then we moved to New York so my mom could do the whiz in seventy nine, and we left and started school in New York in seventy.

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Speaker 4: Nine and stayed there until seventh grade. And I'm we moved to Paris and then Switzerland.

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Speaker 5: So I did eighth and ninth grade in Europe, which are pivotal years, and then moved back to the East Coast and then went to Brown.

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Speaker 3: You've got a couple of languages and maybe oh.

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Speaker 6: I just forgot all my friendship.

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Speaker 5: I have lost most of my vocabulary, but I have a strong French accent that can you know, get me by and I can speak English with a French accent like nobody's business.

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Speaker 7: Then you have no idea because you don't know that I speak English of conscience doesn't matter because the people they wander and don't know how you stay in English because the people are their wonder all the time.

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Speaker 4: You know how you say, how you say?

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Speaker 1: Uh?

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Speaker 4: You know?

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Speaker 6: Wait, I'm sorry, I mean almos Tracy, Tracy?

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Speaker 8: Do you right?

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Speaker 5: I do?

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Speaker 8: I write so me.

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Speaker 3: It's funny because I was just thinking you. I know you've done improv. I seen you sketch comedy with the lyricists lounge. Of course, You're a funny lady. How come and I know your I a stand up? Have you ever thought of like just doing.

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Speaker 5: I've not done stand up, but I have to tell you I mean this.

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Speaker 4: I'm forty eight years old.

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Speaker 5: At my forty eight, I'm forty eight and I'm going through the beginning of some changes, some perimenopause, and I've got to tell you that I really get to stand up on this ship because I, first of all, it's got Did you see the that two second pool video I posted?

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Speaker 2: Yes, thoughts there, I heard about that fool video.

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Speaker 1: It's funny.

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Speaker 4: I think it's two seconds. It's two seconds in.

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Speaker 6: That videocy Mater you was in a bathing suit. That's what I heard. That's all I had in a pool.

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Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I have a like it wasn't me in a bathing suit in the kitchen.

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Speaker 8: Actually in the pool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, why is this two seconds?

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Speaker 6: You should do that?

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Speaker 3: Because a female comedian told me that female shouldn't talk about female issues, so please do that.

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Speaker 6: Why was I.

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Speaker 4: Wish more people would talk about it.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know about you, but some of the sexiest and most admirable women that I look at are my age and older. I want to know what's happening and it's.

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Speaker 6: Still happening, and how it happens and what.

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Speaker 5: It is, and like it should be demystified. And I don't think it should be scary to men either. I think it's it's certainly not the end of my life. I am not being pushed out on a canoe out into nowhere.

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Speaker 4: I'll tell you that right now.

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Speaker 5: I as I said before, I am a liberated woman. I am out here living my life in all.

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Speaker 4: Of its fullness.

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Speaker 5: Well yeah, and I think people we should talk about it in that way so that we let go of the stigma. It's the same thing like on Blackish when we did that episode on postpartum depression. Why are we not talking about these things when you're siloed off by yourself. That's when you feel termally unique and you don't think that you can you know, it's just you that's in that situation.

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Speaker 4: Nah, We're all doing it.

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Speaker 5: And by the way, men have their own version of what's happening at this age as their home hormones are shifting and changing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, hey, well yeah, I was about to say, will set it off yesterday, even though this is coming.

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Speaker 1: On way later.

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Speaker 4: Oh my god, that was so charming and lovely that he did that.

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Speaker 1: And that was my favorite post.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it was so lovely.

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Speaker 5: But I also have to say, like a friend, so many friends and me a text.

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Speaker 4: I did a video on that on Instagram too of people saying you have gained so much weight.

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Speaker 5: Good, bravo, thank your body. You just made it through a pandemic. What else were you supposed to do? And I'm sorry, but that layer of softness welcome it because the ship was hard and scary and sharp out there.

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Speaker 8: Everybody make it?

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Speaker 5: No, you know, and so and and our joy and spontaneity was all funneled into very few spaces, most of which involved food and drink. So what y'all thought was gonna happen? And you well, I've never done that, but you know that.

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Speaker 4: But don't worry.

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Speaker 5: I had It's okay, I'm okay.

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Speaker 1: No truth, you never had, no true at all.

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Speaker 4: No, and my friends know. I call it the devil's lettuce.

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Speaker 6: Why did they let you in? The lyricsis lounge?

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Speaker 8: I didn't.

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Speaker 4: I don't know.

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Speaker 8: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: It can happen. I'm gonna leave bloom or two trades. Yeah, I will guide you through this.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I've been I've been saying. I mean, I have so many stories about me thinking I'm gonna walk that way and.

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Speaker 6: Wait till fifty. Just go ahead of wait till fifty.

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Speaker 5: Okay, maybe it'll be my fiftieth birthday, You're gonna send me a package.

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Speaker 1: I'll leave the light one for you. Trust me, I got I got you, Okay.

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Speaker 2: So I always wanted to know, as far as you're growing up as concerned and that you were paired with other kids that were sort of in the same position as you, at what point, at any point, did you ever had to adjust in a world in which people weren't of that sort of cut from that that same cloth, where you had to deal with everyday people, Like, at what point.

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Speaker 4: Were you every day in life? I mean I was, you know.

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Speaker 5: I First of all, the way I was raised again is everybody is a person.

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Speaker 4: I am one of people. I was not raised to think I was better than anybody.

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Speaker 5: I had certain different opportunities and experiences than other people, but I was always taught to connect on the places that we are the same. We've all got blood running through our veins, and we all have feelings, and we all, most of us are getting up every day trying to do our best and work our hardest and and sort of make at least our lives work.

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Speaker 4: And function properly.

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Speaker 5: So I also come I don't know if I was top this, if I came up with this, if.

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Speaker 4: You know, but to sort of put my.

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Speaker 5: My humanness as the front runner of who I am not.

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Speaker 4: And first of all, I didn't do that. My mom did all those things.

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Speaker 8: She did.

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Speaker 3: She keep you around like a couple of Detroit cousins just to make sure it does y'all new.

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Speaker 4: I went to Detroit every summer, and that's how you do it.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, on a palette on the floor and on Bobby's house up the street from Grandmammy and Aunt.

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Speaker 4: Bobby sat me.

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Speaker 5: Between her legs and did my hair with that goodie comb and tried to kill my scalp. And you know, Grandmommy, my Grandma lined us up outside the fancy bathroom downstairs and put all the cousins and put mayonnaise in our hair on the on the laid on the kitchen sink, put our head in the sink, and then filled our hair with mayonnaise. You had to walk around smell on like a sandwich forever to getition your hair.

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Speaker 4: I mean, all all of our cousins and boys and girls. It wasn't just the girl. The girls like the boys and girl.

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Speaker 5: We all got lined up step and Monica Kevin Kevin we all just line up.

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Speaker 6: We see that in Rainbow. That is so beautiful, that's dope, it's funny.

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Speaker 5: So so yeah, that's what I'm saying, Like, we weren't sheltered to be up in some crystal palace somewhere, although.

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Speaker 4: We lived, you know, in a hotel, and I'm not to work in.

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Speaker 5: A rolls at the school at a rolls verse every day with a driver by the name of Bartha.

00:12:32
Speaker 8: But that's.

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Speaker 1: As you do.

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Speaker 5: Wait a minute, okay, so yeah, like, okay, so these things also did happen.

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Speaker 4: I'm not saying they didn't, but.

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Speaker 6: Wow, that's amazing.

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Speaker 9: Christmas in a ritz.

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Speaker 4: But then we were in Detroit in the summer.

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Speaker 1: So they did you.

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Speaker 2: I know that singing at least when when I first met you in the early arts, singing was always a big passion of yours. With a household like yours, in an environment like you grew up in, how easy was it for you to express the desire to want to do something in the arts or not be shy about.

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Speaker 5: It, Like Harry, My mother supported us in finding our version of expression in whatever that looked like.

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Speaker 1: But you know, are you the only singing ross?

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Speaker 5: No, Roonda is a singer.

00:13:36
Speaker 4: Evan's a singer. I'm the last.

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Speaker 1: I forgot your brother, Evan Ross.

00:13:40
Speaker 4: That's okay, I'm the last to the party.

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Speaker 5: And it's so funny because I remember, I can't remember how many years ago it was, but my mom was in Vegas and on stage and she was like, you know, my children sing.

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Speaker 4: Blah blah blah whatever, and I want to bring someone up to sing with me.

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Speaker 5: And I'm like standing there, like, go ahead, Evan, go ahead, you know whatever, and she said.

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Speaker 4: My name, and I was like, with what's happening right now? I was like, this is not my thing. I'm the funny one. What are we doing? What's happening?

00:14:07
Speaker 5: And she made me sing on stage and it was so hilarious because if you watch the video, you see.

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Speaker 4: My mom turn into my mom and thinks, oh no.

00:14:18
Speaker 5: Did I just put Tracy put my baby in a position that she didn't want to be in inadvertently, like did I make her put her, you know, too exposed on something that makes her shy?

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Speaker 4: And she sort of she got this tone in her voice that was such.

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Speaker 5: My mom's tone of okay, everybody be quiet because this is important, like we need we need to support this moment?

00:14:41
Speaker 4: Be quiet?

00:14:42
Speaker 2: Are you speaking of the infamous when she puts people on the spot to sing reach out in touch?

00:14:47
Speaker 5: No, she put me on stage and had me sing sing like Billie Holiday. Oh, Like I was sing that around the house and she was like, go ahead, did you? Because every time I mean, I sang in high school and whatever, every time I sang.

00:15:04
Speaker 4: When I was twenty two, my mom said to me, all right, Tracy, it's time. And I was like, it's time for what? She's like, it's time for you to record an album?

00:15:11
Speaker 5: And I was like, hell, no, no, no, no, no no.

00:15:14
Speaker 4: No no no, I'm gonna go the other way.

00:15:18
Speaker 5: Nope, We're gonna make people laugh and we're just gonna keep them at arm's length and that'll be good.

00:15:23
Speaker 1: But why, Okay, in hindsight, why do you think that was your decision?

00:15:29
Speaker 5: Uh?

00:15:29
Speaker 4: For a lot of reasons.

00:15:30
Speaker 5: I think unconsciously, I the idea of being.

00:15:35
Speaker 4: Compared to my mom was just too much to think of.

00:15:39
Speaker 5: I had also seen children of be obliterated in the press, just shredded, And you think back to that time and being the child of or any of those things.

00:15:52
Speaker 4: That's not that was not cool.

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Speaker 5: Then that was not something that was also the time when you didn't move from TV to movies, when you didn't move from being a host to an actor, Like everything was very pigeonholed, and there certainly wasn't this spirit of oh, you're Dona Ross as child. Maybe you want to say, well, no, not at all. And I look like my mom, And the truth is I sound kind of like her. So you know, there was no you put you as soon as you put a sparkly dress on me. I mean, I've seen it now, I've won a Golden Globe. I've been doing working in the I'm forty eight years old. I'm not a child anymore, and I still cannot do anything without my mom's name.

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Speaker 4: Like maybe my mom is just like it's she's larger, she's an.

00:16:43
Speaker 1: Interesting let me but let me interject.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: I definitely now feel as though, you know, to Dinah Ross, it's like, yo, Tracy Ellis is your daughter, Like, yeah, you've done You've definitely done something that is I don't know if any person, maybe Janet Overcoming who her her brothers were to be in her own right, but.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you made your own name though, Yeah, yeah, you're.

00:17:15
Speaker 2: When history books are written like you know, you have your own and not even to compare like that, you know, like we can.

00:17:22
Speaker 5: All well that was part of what I came to, I mean and understood it's like and an adult mind can look at it that way, but a kid cannot.

00:17:31
Speaker 4: And so now I.

00:17:32
Speaker 6: Know, like I'm not my mom right.

00:17:35
Speaker 4: Like I'm not trying to be here, I'm not like never, that's not what's happening. But as a kid, you think you.

00:17:42
Speaker 3: Know and you have something that's really super special. I was going to ask you because your production company is named Joy Mills, but I'm assuming that you're aware that you have that superpower and that's why you named it that. Are you aware that like Tracy Ella's Ross is a joy bringer.

00:18:02
Speaker 4: That like makes my heart very very full.

00:18:04
Speaker 6: I'm just trying to tell you.

00:18:07
Speaker 4: My I was born Tracy Joy Silverstein. That's my name, so right.

00:18:14
Speaker 6: Now, so because I'm like, well what about mister Ellen.

00:18:18
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, go ahead, Okay, So this is and that was the third point okay about my dad.

00:18:24
Speaker 4: So when I joined so like many kids, uh so.

00:18:27
Speaker 5: Then I was Tracy Joy Ross Silberstein. All through growing up, t j R S were my initials all through growing up. But then, like so many people, you dropped this name. That name is too long. I was Tracy Joy Ross. You know what I mean, drop these names too many names. So I became Tracy Joy Ross. And then when I joined SAG there was another Tracy Ross.

00:18:49
Speaker 4: In the Union. Remember Tracy Ross. She was.

00:18:55
Speaker 5: Yes.

00:18:56
Speaker 8: I thought, yeah, that very god she grew up.

00:19:01
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't know you were my age.

00:19:05
Speaker 6: I thought like, you know, we don't all look alike. They looked nothing alive.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: I heard the name Tracy Ellis. I remember watching that Tracy Ross on Star Search.

00:19:15
Speaker 6: He was a hero.

00:19:16
Speaker 2: And then she thought like, oh, that's Diana Ross's daughter. That's the one she talked about.

00:19:21
Speaker 5: When I joined the Union, there was another Tracy Ross. So they were like, uh, do you want to be Tracy Joy Ross in the Union? And I was like yes, But everybody like I look like my mom, and people know I'm my mom's child and I'm so much a product of both of my parents, Like.

00:19:38
Speaker 4: I am my dad's child and I'm my mom's child. And I wanted him to have a steak.

00:19:44
Speaker 5: You know, it's so crazy because I talk so much about women and women of color, and particularly black and brown women that we historically have not had a steak in what we make, and even with our children, we give up our name, and so there's often this you can't I even follow our bloodline because of that. But we have been at the center of economic, cultural, political revolutions in this country, and we are often doing the work, but not centered in the prize from that work. And strangely enough, I was worried about my dad having a piece of what he made, and so I put Ellis in my name and I became Tracy Ellis Ross at the beginning of my career, and my first you know, SAG card was Tracy Ellis Ross. And now you know, my name goes up there and people go and Bob Elis's kid.

00:20:36
Speaker 2: Okay, what was the first major creative thing that you at least for you, What was the first major creative thing that you did as far as doing television or commercials or well, the.

00:20:50
Speaker 5: First big thing I did was the gap ad with my mom. Yeah, and I remember it was on billboards and it was like a big.

00:20:59
Speaker 4: Wall in airport.

00:21:00
Speaker 5: I walked through and I was just like, oh my god, I made fifteen hundred dollars and I thought I had made.

00:21:05
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm rich. I don't my mother.

00:21:12
Speaker 6: I'm rich.

00:21:15
Speaker 4: I was like, that was so amazing. I could pay my own doctor's fees. I can just I can make my own food.

00:21:22
Speaker 1: Was a crowd.

00:21:24
Speaker 4: I was so much money. I was like, I was like, I will never work again.

00:21:35
Speaker 5: I actually think it was it was seven hundred and fifty dollars and then I think I made fifteen hundred on the first show I did. But then the next thing was I did an Infinity commercial. So I was modeling with Wilhelmine Agency and I went in for.

00:21:50
Speaker 4: A modeling like commercial job and go see.

00:21:56
Speaker 5: And at the place where they were doing it, they were like, the people that are doing me. It was a secret deodorant ad I went in for and there was a sign in sheet next to it for Infinity car commercial and whoever ran the commercial audition place was like, you should go in and try for the Infinity commercial.

00:22:16
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, yes, of course I'll drive.

00:22:19
Speaker 5: So I went in and that was the job that taft heart lead me into SAG, which is the job that will pay the money to get you into SAG.

00:22:29
Speaker 10: And yeah, I just love the idea that Tracy Els had to Taft Hartley. I mean, I've done that and it just just makes me laugh. That's okay, keep continuing, please, But also also, why are there not people with multiple names in SAG? Couldn't there be multiple Tracy?

00:22:45
Speaker 1: Really?

00:22:46
Speaker 6: But Nessa Williams Remember Vanessa william.

00:22:50
Speaker 1: L Williams Vanessa L Williams. Yeah, well shit, okay, cool, Yeah, I learned something again.

00:22:58
Speaker 4: So I got taft heart lead in.

00:23:00
Speaker 5: I did that commercial and then I don't know.

00:23:04
Speaker 4: I mean, it has not been a fast and easy road for me.

00:23:08
Speaker 5: I remember there was a movie called Mixing Nia that Karen Parsons from Fresh Press. She ended up getting that movie, and I've never been more devastated in my life.

00:23:21
Speaker 1: Really.

00:23:21
Speaker 7: I was like, I mean, I was sure a meror that this was going to launch me into.

00:23:27
Speaker 8: The stratosphere of the Roscar.

00:23:30
Speaker 7: I was going to the Academy Awards with my seven hundred and fifty dollars from my gap aad. I was going to march my way into Hollywood and be received with open arms for a career that would last a lifetime.

00:23:45
Speaker 5: Didn't happen.

00:23:47
Speaker 2: What is that process like? Like your version of the Hollywood Shuffle? As far as callbacks near missus, what did you audition for that you didn't get?

00:23:57
Speaker 6: Oh my god, I don't even remember.

00:23:58
Speaker 5: I had a three ring binder, like one of those Whopper three ringfinders of like every audition I had auditioned for.

00:24:05
Speaker 6: I didn't care.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: You keep all the receipts of everything.

00:24:08
Speaker 5: I didn't get nothing, really well, because according to us, it's like Daddy's Girls.

00:24:14
Speaker 6: I had no in right, Like, I'm trying to think no, no, no, no.

00:24:18
Speaker 5: There from from the time that I did I did Far Harbor, that first movie I did with Jennifer Connelly and Marsha k Harden. Okay, so I did that, and then I did the show and before that, I did the show The Dish on Lifetime.

00:24:35
Speaker 4: That was because I'm a TV girl. I live in your TV and I'm a TV girl, like like it was like.

00:24:44
Speaker 5: A magazine show about TV shows.

00:24:50
Speaker 6: What nothing? He ain't say nothing, he says, she.

00:24:54
Speaker 1: Said, first, I'm like.

00:24:58
Speaker 6: I started watching Lifetime.

00:25:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, you know.

00:25:02
Speaker 5: And and then I got an agent and auditioned and auditioned and auditioned and auditioned and auditioned and auditioned and auditioned and auditioned, and I auditioned some more and I didn't get many callbacks, and then they dropped me. And this is what they said.

00:25:21
Speaker 4: It stuck with me for a really long time.

00:25:23
Speaker 5: Listen, Tracy, We're gonna let you go because you come with all these bells and whistles, but then you get in the room and you just don't pop?

00:25:34
Speaker 3: Would you face bitch?

00:25:40
Speaker 4: I could, but you know what, it was a turning point for crazy.

00:25:43
Speaker 5: I could not get out of there without those you know, those tears they sit.

00:25:49
Speaker 4: There because you're so ha you know those office chairs with the wheels of the the wheels on the bottom of them.

00:26:01
Speaker 5: I felt like my heart had come out and it was like stuck underneath the wheel and she kept moving the chair and it was just getting all tangled in there with my heart and then there was blood and stuff and then the tears, and I couldn't get out fast enough. But I made a decision at that point. I remember calling my sister.

00:26:20
Speaker 11: I called I was like, I don't I don't wop I.

00:26:28
Speaker 5: Know no popper.

00:26:36
Speaker 6: Stand up.

00:26:37
Speaker 2: At any point, did you ever consider dropping the ross from your name? It was too late the thought that like, okay, maybe they're holding that against me, like my lineage and well, you.

00:26:51
Speaker 4: Know I used to say that.

00:26:52
Speaker 7: People were like, well, doesn't being done roszda open doors for you?

00:26:55
Speaker 5: And I was like, no, what it does is and unlocks the door. And then people sit on the other side like, going, how's she going.

00:27:01
Speaker 4: To walk in?

00:27:02
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:27:03
Speaker 4: They're like, okay, show us what. But I don't think that had anything to do with it. I think I sucked.

00:27:10
Speaker 5: I think I didn't know how to bring the person that I was inside myself and in the privacy of my home out into the world. And I needed that hit in order to ask myself, did I have the courage to do what it took to bring.

00:27:29
Speaker 4: That person out? Or did I just.

00:27:32
Speaker 5: Want to go back into my hole and sort of live privately as I chose?

00:27:38
Speaker 8: You know.

00:27:45
Speaker 1: That was Tracy Ellis Ross.

00:27:47
Speaker 2: And next up is Shirley Jones at The Jones Girls and this clip she speaks about the power of Tracy's mom, Diana Ross, and the sexism that went into see a strong black woman who was a perfectionist and the early nineteen seventies. Shirley also tells how Diana made a way for her as an artist outside of an accomplished background singer.

00:28:08
Speaker 1: Shirley also speaks about a powerful anthem for women nineteen seventy nine, so You're Gonna make Me love somebody.

00:28:15
Speaker 2: Else sampled by Jay Z, as well as being covered by Escape in the nineteen nineties. There's some great history here, Shirley Jones from twenty twenty one.

00:28:27
Speaker 1: What was it like to finally land that job?

00:28:30
Speaker 8: It was amazing. We actually, we were perfectly happy. We had just moved to Detroit to LA with McKinley Jackson. He was managing us at the time, and we were perfectly happy doing background sessions because because we were doing like three and four day it was either us or the waters that people wanted to do their water back then, Oh yeah, those are my buddies. Yeah, it was either us or them. That's who we were, those premier groups for background singing back then. And McKinley said, well, you know, Diana's auditioning for some singers and she's been turning everybody down, and you know, and I and he said, you guys want to try We like Diana. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're from Detroit. Hey, let's give it a shot. And so we went up there actually thinking we were singing for gil Aski, her music director and her road manager Don Peak up lower canyon somewhere and we went up there and McKinley started playing. We had rehearsed ain't no mountain high enough and reach out and touch somebody's hand for our audition, and right in the middle of singing, who comes down the hall but Diana Ross and yeah, And the only words out of her mouth was, you guys are terrific. Can you get passports? We're going to London? And we, of course, you know, we were like, yeah, we can go to London, but we had to work out some things on our contract because of our background singing, which she did allow. We traveled seven months of the year with her, and then when she was on hiatus, she did allow us to keep our background singing. Career.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: For other artists, I failed you, she ailed you and retainer, but you were allowed to We were.

00:30:19
Speaker 8: Allowed to sing, right, but we were still getting you know, we were getting half of our paycheck when she was when she wasn't working, but she still allowed us to do our singing, our background singing. And over the years I have defended and set said so many people have said, what was she like? I hear, you know, she's this, she's that, and the other. I said, let me just tell you one thing. She was the hottest entertainer in the world back in the seventies. Absolutely nobody was bigger than Diana Ross except maybe Frank Sinatra. And she was a perfectionist. She was a female, and she was demanding. She demanded that her from her band to her singers to be as into the show and rehearse and be on top of your gig as she was. And because that was drilled in us, and that's what we did. Anyway. She was absolutely one of the best people to work for, and she was so concerned for us because up until we went to London with her, the only places we had been was Detroit surrounding areas and then California. And she loved and respected our sounds so much that after the European tour is when she came to us, she was getting ready to do her yearly twice a year residency at Caesar's Palace, and she came to us and said, you know, you girls are too good to be singing background behind me or anybody else whatever, So you know, I changed clothes at least five times in my show. I want you to get a song together and i want you to sing it. I'm gonna bring you out the Jones sisters and I'm gonna introduce you to the world. And that's actually she did that. We chose if I Ever Lose This Heaven from Quincy Jones' album that was hot back then, and uh, that's how we got with gamb One Huff at the theater, yeah, the subar s Yeah, from the Schubert Theater, and she called us and Cynthia Biggs and Dexter Wanzelle they were in the audience and they said all they could think about and look at during the whole show was us. They kept saying, you hear those girls, you hear her background singers, they're tearing it up and Gambling Huff came backstage and they said, you guys are terrific. Are you signed with anybody? And we're like no, And we're like, oh my god, gamb when I'm asking us if we're signed with anybody? And so we went back to LA and within a month we had our attorneys did we worked out the deal, and within two months we were flown to Philadelphia to work on that first Jones Girls album.

00:33:06
Speaker 1: Wow, Yes, that's amazing, that's amazing.

00:33:14
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, I always wanted to know was this the tour where she would it would start with the video thing with the guys carrying her open.

00:33:25
Speaker 8: No, No, this was before then, okay, because.

00:33:28
Speaker 2: I always wanted to know how she did that illusion. No, Okay, I was a kid when I see it, like a long time ago.

00:33:35
Speaker 8: But yeah, wow.

00:33:36
Speaker 3: Can you also talk about like the gig with her and how it was different than other background kids as far as like she said she changed her clothes five times, did you guys get to change your clothes? Did you have the same outfit you had to wear every night or what? Because it was Diana Ross, y'all had like a nice rotation, and what did.

00:33:52
Speaker 6: She require before every show?

00:33:53
Speaker 3: As far as we hur soul and stuff like that, it's the comparison to everybody else you work for.

00:34:00
Speaker 8: With her being a perfectionist. We rehearsed a lot before we would go out on tour with her. I mean we rehearsed a lot. And yes she did curse. She would come in there and if you if the bad and she never had to curse with us because we were gonna be on top of our game. But if she would, she would curse them out. And I and you know, and I often tell people, I said, now, if she were a man like Frank Sinatra coming out cursing because somebody wasn't doing their absolute best and she felt that they should be, he'd be applauded. He would be applauded and said, oh, he's just such a strong individual. He's he'd make sure that, you know. But because she's a woman, and she was that demanding at that time, you know, women weren't supposed to, you know, come if you done, weren't doing your job. You were supposed to be demure and say well would you please? You know, she would come in there cursing like us, saying oh, yeah.

00:34:53
Speaker 6: Beyond it makes me think of Beyonce is allowed to be today?

00:34:56
Speaker 8: Yeah exactly, So I gets I give I give her kudos because she was demanding, yes she was, but she was also she would she would also make sure that she was doing the you know, as far as rehearsing too, she was always always immaculate, impeccable. Two people that I learned the most from as far as entertaining myself. I always say, is Diana Ross and Eddie Lebert from the o Jays because they are show people. Absolutely show people can't wait to hear.

00:35:28
Speaker 1: What can Yeah, I want I want to know for you?

00:35:33
Speaker 2: Or is it a thing where the grass is greener On the other side, do you prefer studio sessions or do you prefer uh traveling? This I'm talking in strictly in terms of your days as a background singer.

00:35:50
Speaker 8: As a background singer, I prefer being in the studio. Yeah, I prefer being in the studio because I'm more of a like Well, when we were traveling doing background for her, that was exciting because that was the first time we you know, we're traveling doing background and making money. But now, I mean I prefer doing studio work versus traveling singing background for someone.

00:36:14
Speaker 2: Isn't it a bigger pressure though in the studio because I'm almost certain that there's you know, there's really not enough time for you to you borderline, have to catch it and perfect it in you know, in a short amount of time, I would assume correct, Yes.

00:36:32
Speaker 8: Yeah, in real time. That's one of the reasons why but so many people wanted us to do background because they knew that we were going to rehearse so much so that when we got in the studio, you know, time is money, we would knock that stuff out just like that. That's why some some sometimes we would have two and three sessions a day because we were able to. We would rehearse and practice our parts for whoever, and to make sure that when we went in the studio bam bam bam, we could do it. And you know, back in the day, you're talking about eight tracks, and you're talking about not being able to sing one little part and then they fly it through the song. You had to sing that exact same way four and five, you know, three to double it and and uh so. And I think that's one of the reasons why the artists today today don't as far as live performances. They cannot do it like us that were trained to have to sing a song all the way through three and four different times to stack that harmony and sound the exact same way each time.

00:37:36
Speaker 1: Right, I see, I agree. I agree with you.

00:37:39
Speaker 3: Curious who were your peers or I don't want to say competitors, but who were the peers who if you can't get the Jones sisters.

00:37:46
Speaker 6: You know, we should call so and so the waters.

00:37:49
Speaker 8: That was it. It was ya and it was us in California for the longest. Yeah, that was it.

00:37:55
Speaker 6: I'm sorry.

00:37:56
Speaker 8: Yep.

00:37:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what I know you mentioned working under Holadozah Holland when you came to Los Angeles.

00:38:07
Speaker 1: What year was that.

00:38:08
Speaker 8: We went to Los Angeles in nineteen seventy five? Yeah, about seventy five seventy six, that's when Motown moved and then you know they had given Hollandojah Holland the Invictus and the music Merchant labels, right, and I think Motown moved what in seventy three seventy four, and then those like McKinley and Hollandojah Holland moved out I think seventy five.

00:38:33
Speaker 2: So it was just basically everyone in Detroit was migrating to Los Angeles and we might as well follow suit and follow them as well.

00:38:40
Speaker 8: Follow them exactly exactly.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: I see.

00:38:42
Speaker 2: Could you tell me, like, what other notable acts were you singing background for that we might not be aware of.

00:38:50
Speaker 8: Helen Ready share songs? Yeah, Helen Ready. Oh my god, somebody just posted it the other day. I forgot that song that we did for her, we did the entire album because she just passed I think recently, and someone posted it.

00:39:09
Speaker 1: And share I share like half read or take Me Home.

00:39:12
Speaker 8: Or I forgot what song. But the song that we did do for share, I don't think it made the album, okay, but we did a session. We did a session because we did two songs with her and they never met. I don't think they made the album. Now, somebody's gonna probably prove me wrong and post it.

00:39:29
Speaker 2: You know, I know that you've done background on some notable affilly international songs as well.

00:39:37
Speaker 1: So am I to assume.

00:39:39
Speaker 2: That you're you're basically all the female voices that I hear on like You'll never find another love like Mine and those those songs as well, like with Lou Rawl's.

00:39:50
Speaker 8: And now we did do Lou Rawl's album. There was a group of girls in Philadelphia, Okay, I can't think of their names that were doing and a lot of background singing for Gambling them because once we became the Jones girls, you know, we didn't do as much background singing for other people once we got with Gambling Huff in seventy nine, just select people, you know, when we had the time because you know, with you're going to make me love somebody else coming out the box being so big, we immediate get Gamble, immediately sent us to Ohio with Charlie Atkins, who put the OJS and Temptations with him, and we were we were rehearsing to go out on tour with the OJS. Oh yes, oh man.

00:40:44
Speaker 2: He.

00:40:46
Speaker 5: Was.

00:40:46
Speaker 8: He was. And I have two left feet, so he was always on me. He was constantly on me because I'm not. I was the only one that couldn't dance. Brendan Valleie could dance, you know, and me, I'd always tried to, Well, I'm saying and lead anyway. Can I just stand on? No, you cannot. You're gonna do those You're doing them too, girl. So oh he was a testent. You just just eat a banana. Eat a banana before you come in here to rehearsal for that potassium so you could move those feet. He was a drill master.

00:41:20
Speaker 2: No, I heard every every act that's ever worked with him. Oh wait, what what period were you guys?

00:41:28
Speaker 8: Uh?

00:41:29
Speaker 1: With Aretha Franklin.

00:41:31
Speaker 8: We did the Almighty Fire album with her.

00:41:33
Speaker 2: Oh God, yes, only only say this.

00:41:39
Speaker 1: Because the kind of the kind of household I grew up in. I would. I grew up with.

00:41:46
Speaker 2: Three binge shoppers when it came to records, so like every week, stacks and stacks and stacks of forty five stacks and stacks and stacks of thirty three's would.

00:41:57
Speaker 1: Come in the house.

00:41:58
Speaker 2: The thing is is that I would get the records that my parents didn't want. So, you know, as far as my Aretha collection, like there there was a period like Almighty Fire, the U record all the way up to La Diva, like basically the post Sparkle records that really weren't hitting the same right I inherited, So I know all those like Sweet Passion, like all those Aretha records that weren't quite you know up there with the legacy albums.

00:42:29
Speaker 1: What was it like?

00:42:30
Speaker 2: Oh god, and she was wearing that space suit too, yep, the Green Space I remember that that period.

00:42:38
Speaker 1: What was it like?

00:42:39
Speaker 2: And how intimidating is it you know working with her? Or was she just you know, another Detroit person that you could connect with.

00:42:49
Speaker 8: Well, we had sang as children at her father's church with my mother one Sunday when we were there. I believe it was one of her father's anniversary, and we knew that she was going to be there. At that time, she was she was a superstar. She had respect out, you know, she was like and they said she was going to be at the church. And after we performed, she came up to my mother and said, boy, those are some singing girls you got there. And then fast forward like fifteen years later, we were doing Almighty Fire. And what a lot of people don't know is that when that Sparkle movie was, you know, they were looking for the actor, the actors and actresses for that movie. Aretha Franklin and Kenny Gamble wanted us to play the sisters. Aretha put pitched in for She wanted us to do it because because of our voices and we had just sang on her album, and Kenny felt that that would be a great We were the you know, the Jones girls. He felt that we were just coming out that they sent us to New York and a limo and uh it was uh. I think they both were very and I know we were disappointed, Uh, especially when uh and you know Aretha she was activist, but back then, especially when those girls, they you know, was very light, bright girls that got the part her thing was to them was you know this, this is ridiculous. Those girls can you know they they're they're singers and they could be taught to be actresses too, and she she was quite upset about that.

00:44:34
Speaker 1: So there was almost a chance that you could have yeah, sparkle.

00:44:39
Speaker 6: Yes sing the songs.

00:44:43
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:44:44
Speaker 2: Was there was there ever a background gig that you had that was like a little too intimidating or that you you know, it was just all right to you.

00:44:55
Speaker 8: Now, we we no matter who the artist was, and there were a lot of artists that you know, hadn't even made it yet. But you know, if we liked the song, and you know, they they were willing to pay, because pay the money, you know, we were we would do it and we would give our best. And the thing that a lot of people don't know is that for another reason why so many people liked us is because we created a lot of those backgrounds. They knew that if they gave us the song, we were going to create the background parts. Yeah, I mean arrangement, some some on some for a lot. Now some did come with, you know, specific backgrounds, but our reputation became such that they'd be like Okay, well, hey, here's the song. What do you guys think you know, no Norman Connors, Lou Rawls.

00:45:55
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:45:57
Speaker 8: Else that we they've let us do, just you know, control the background. God, it's so many people.

00:46:05
Speaker 3: Just songs. But you were just like artists that were like, it don't matter what song I'm doing. Let the Jones girls.

00:46:09
Speaker 8: Come in here and do and do our thing. Now. Brenda was alive because her memory is so much better than mine. She she she can remember every single artist we did background on and everything. But but me, it gets a little fuzzy sometime because when people post stuff now and I'll be like, oh, yeah, I remember that we did do that song, you know.

00:46:31
Speaker 2: So so with with signing to Philly International, I'll say that probably in my opinion, because you know, we my dad purchased all the records and played it at the house all the time, I will say that you guys were probably given them more contemporary, up to date town than a lot of the acts that were on Philly International back then. Like it was almost a thing where you know, you knew instantly within the first two seconds that you were listening to a Filly International song based on like the trademark of the strings and all the mixing on the record or whatever, but like, You're gonna make me love somebody else sounded nothing like what Philadelphia, especially what was happening in nineteen seventy nine, if anything, right, Yeah, because it.

00:47:28
Speaker 6: Was like a woman telling me you better get your shit together.

00:47:30
Speaker 8: Right exactly.

00:47:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what I mean, I would assume that it's still the same group of people, like it's still dexter Anzel and Gambling Huff and all those Well, I know McKinley Jackson also worked on the record as well, But right, like, what was the discussion basically on how to present you guys in your sound.

00:47:56
Speaker 8: That's one of the things that I think Gamble and Hope they were purposely trying to take us away just a little bit for from the the strings and horns of like say, like of what they did with three Degrees three Degrees, and wanted they wanted us to be more funky, more soulful, more R and B And if you noticed the very first Jones Girls album, that's exactly I mean. I'm at your Mercies on there, which is a you know, heart wrenching ballad.

00:48:31
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:48:32
Speaker 8: Then of course there's You're Gonna make Me love somebody else? Yeah, exactly, So yeah, who Can I Run To? Us? Yep?

00:48:44
Speaker 1: What were your feelings on?

00:48:46
Speaker 2: Of course, not what your feelings on were you How did it feel for Escape to sort of reintroduce that song onto a holy generation?

00:48:57
Speaker 8: Yeah? When I when I heard it, when I first heard it, it was well nineteen ninety five, so by that time it was sixteen years future from when we did it, and so many I remember so many of the producers when Gambled back in the day, you know, you had a A side and a B side on records, and who Can I Run To? Was on the B side. So many people did not want Gamble to put that. They said, put show love today, put anything on that on the B side of You're Gonna make Me Love somebody else? Besides who Can I Run To? Because that is a that is a single of its own. But of course that didn't happen. So n I mean we you know, we were working and and the girls and I had broken up by then, and when we heard who Can I Run To? I was happy actually because back then when their record came out, there were so many DJs that were, you know, into new that we had done it first, because people used to flip it on the radio sometimes and play who Can I Run to? So what they would do is like, yeah, I know you guys love this one by Escape, but guess what Escape didn't do it first the Jones. Then they would play our version too and have people call in which version they like the best, and all of that. And I happened to the girls on a radio show some years back, and they said, we hope we did a good job, but we just love you guys and love you all sound. And I told them, I said, you all did a great job because what you did was you brought back a lot of attention to the Jones girls, so I was saying, I told them, I said, so, hey, thank you, thank you all, because it brought back some attention. Because I mean, up until you know, from sixteen years later, you know, we had kind of died out, like we weren't together anymore. We had done we would do some things occasionally over in Europe, but it was it brought back a lot of attention and put that Jones girl's name back out there.

00:51:11
Speaker 2: And last week's episode, we heard an excerpt from my one on one with Kathleen Henna. A few years earlier, we spoke to Sleeeder Kenny, and in this group, Carrie and Korn speak about Kathleen's influence and the Riot Girl movement. You also hear about being a part of a strong community and the challenges of fame and success coming out of that. At what point for the both of you, are you realizing that you have a voice or that music is something that you're interested in pursuing, not just something that casually that just happens, you know, in your household.

00:51:52
Speaker 12: I think for me, I I moved to Olympia to go to college. I went to like, you know, the Evergreen State College when all of the stuff was happening, and I have to credit Bikini Kill and Brat Mobile playing a show, and I was just I just got to be like right up close, like right there when they were doing their thing, and I was like, I want to do that. I'm going to start a band, and I in my head I started a band Like that night. I was just like I'm in I'm doing it too, okay, you know, because I saw them do it. They were my age and they were they were just starting out, and so it just like opened the door.

00:52:37
Speaker 2: He explained to me the whole idea of what Rye Girl represents, and is that a title that was invented by the proprietors or again, was it some guy from Spin magazine sort of searching for the next big thing and then said, okay, this right girl with a bunch of rs in it.

00:52:57
Speaker 12: No, it was it was actually like a a genuine movement, you know. It was the title was you know, started by a young woman in DC who was like, we need to start an actual movement for women in the independent music scene that that highlights women's roles and supports women and talks about safe spaces for women. And there were meetings. You could go to a meeting you could talk about all these things. You could talk about, you know, being in a bad relationship, sexual assault, like all.

00:53:33
Speaker 13: Of the kind of like taboo stuff at.

00:53:35
Speaker 9: The time at that time.

00:53:37
Speaker 12: Yeah, at the time, there just wasn't another space for that stuff to come out and happen.

00:53:42
Speaker 8: So it was it was very real. It was very.

00:53:45
Speaker 13: Taboo at the time.

00:53:47
Speaker 12: And you know Kathleen Hannah was she was you know, very much like a cultural leader, right, she was like our poet because she was writing this stuff that she was incredible poet, incredible writer and performer, you know, and very confrontational. But she was saying all the stuff that we were all like so afraid to say ourselves.

00:54:15
Speaker 2: Okay, So the first time I met Kathleen Hanna, I didn't know I was mean, Like I didn't know anything about Rye girl whatever. Like the Roots are just doing a show somewhere up in Seattle. I forget the spot in Seattle that we were playing. I know it was across the sheet from the spot where they throw fish.

00:54:34
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, the showbox.

00:54:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were at the showbox. Yeah, I'll say that. Yeah, I met.

00:54:40
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, the first three times I've met or seen Kathleen, she was like cursing someone out like it was always like.

00:54:49
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.

00:54:50
Speaker 2: And my manager of Rich was they those two were like really good friends. So he's sort of my manager who passed away. Him and her really became good friends.

00:55:01
Speaker 1: And you know, he just liked, that makes all the sense.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you see it down here and you describe, Oh my god, that makes ye.

00:55:09
Speaker 1: Oh that's how it really shit, Like my shit is all trickles down.

00:55:11
Speaker 2: Economics were Rich and him, Him and Kathleen were like talking whatever, Like I mean, but she was just I've never seen the person so just wild and unhinged and just told what the fuck she felt and all that. Like I was just like, yoh, this is unheard of whatever. So that that was like my introduction to her. She was cool and very nice to us, but like in a second, she will she'll bring the ruckus and I've just never seen that shit, so you know, and I don't really be like, oh intense or whatever, but that's what it was like for me meeting her. So could you tell me what the environment was, at least at the time in the Northwest that really prompted this movement to really find its legs.

00:55:55
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, you know, the Northwest was was this hotbed of like independent music. So there was all of this like criticism of mainstream music that was you know, that wasn't genuine, It wasn't you know, real art and everything. And this music scene was about you know, like real people telling their stories and making music available to everyone, so you know, five dollars shows.

00:56:25
Speaker 13: And all of that.

00:56:26
Speaker 12: But it was also this kind of like slam dancing, rather violent culture at every show, and so there was just not a lot of space for women to feel like, am I going to be safe going to this show? Am I going to feel like I you know, my voice is heard? And the roles for women were still like oh yeah, you know, my boyfriend's.

00:56:51
Speaker 13: In that band, and right, and.

00:56:53
Speaker 12: And just like when we're still yeah a foil. And so when you had a personality like Kathleen who was like protagonist, right, so she was like center stage at all times, it was like an arrow like shot through our hearts. It was like, I want to be like that. Like I'm I was a shy, awkward, kind of academic type kid. But I saw someone just like take control of the stage, be like I have a story to tell and everyone in this room is going to listen, And that just opened the door.

00:57:31
Speaker 14: It kind of took feminism and you know, even though they're definitely you know, very fair critiques of right girl, like just like other early iterations of feminism, it lacked intersectionality, and you know, it was it was largely white women, although there was tons of women of color there as well, but it definitely took feminism out of an academic context and gave it a very like punk, very colloquial vernacular. It was like here was you know, like a world of punk had just come out of like a hardcore phase, especially on the West Coast, which was super violent. So all of a sudden, it was like, what if we took this movement, these ideas that are largely like in you know, college textbooks, and just put it over three courts and screamed it?

00:58:20
Speaker 9: And that was very liberating.

00:58:21
Speaker 14: I think to think that if you had a message, it didn't necessarily need to be couched in a book, you know, that it could be couched in a scream or a yelp. And I think that just freed up a lot of people to express themselves. I mean the same way so much music just becomes like a source of liberation for people, where it's like I have something to say, and now I can say it over this song instead of you know, writing out this exactly.

00:58:50
Speaker 2: So what's the point where you two meet each other and sort of talk in terms of starting a group in and starting the beginning of Slater Kenney.

00:59:06
Speaker 9: That was yeah, I was ninety four.

00:59:08
Speaker 14: I was already living in Olympia to go to college as as well. Koran was I think you were in your senior year, and we were both in other bands. Koran was in a much more like prototypical or archetypal right girl band called Heavens to Betsy, and I was in a band called Excuse seventeen. You know that was that like day, those days, we were in that group. To correct the Kathleen, no, she was in neither she was in but other bands.

00:59:36
Speaker 1: I didn't know if.

00:59:37
Speaker 14: Everyone was in so many bands, okay, yeah, And so we just saw this kindred spirit in each other, like you know, Koran was the only her band was two people.

00:59:49
Speaker 9: Koran on guitar and a drummer.

00:59:52
Speaker 14: And then I was in a band with a similar setup to Slater Kenney what Slater Keny would be two guitars and drums, and we just we thought, I know, I heard Korn sing and I was like, I would love to be writing songs with this person. And she heard me play guitar and had the same feeling, and so we started playing kind of as a side project, and then pretty quickly that became what we wanted to do. It was just a very innate chemistry.

01:00:17
Speaker 10: Why was there always no bass players, I'm just just because he didn't want them.

01:00:23
Speaker 8: It was.

01:00:23
Speaker 12: It was definitely like a thing in the northwest of like, you know, how can we be different and not not like, you know, sort of the archetype rock band.

01:00:35
Speaker 14: Yeah, and neither of us played I think it just was played bass and we just wanted to be this like kind of tight unit. I think there's sometimes when you're when something is perceived as a lack, it actually can be a strength through like how can we find a way into these songs without the traditional instrumentation, you know, it kind of forces you to write differently. We detuned to see sharp, so Korn was singing in this really high register and you know, trying to get low end sound out of for a guitar. And yeah, I think we used it to our advantage. Although now in the past couple of years. You know, obviously we like bass. Early on though people always ask us like, do you guys not like bass? I'm like, no, ninety nine point nine percent of all music we listened to has bass.

01:01:16
Speaker 1: Okay, how long have you been playing guitar, Carrie?

01:01:20
Speaker 14: I started when I was fifteen, so it has been what is that thirty years?

01:01:26
Speaker 1: Ok?

01:01:27
Speaker 13: Yeah?

01:01:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, Corian, how long have you been playing guitar?

01:01:32
Speaker 13: It is it's like thirty years because I started when I was like eighteen, so.

01:01:37
Speaker 2: Okay, well resisting the temptation of making a spinal tap joke. And I know that Janet joined the band three albums later, but was it always the plan to sort of have various musicians because I noticed that what determines what your sound is probably also depends on the musicians that are playing with you as well. So first drummer Laura McFarlane, how do musicians come in the group and how do they leave? Like is it just a one and done thing or you guys are just taking this a little more serious than the other.

01:02:11
Speaker 14: Or no, I mean definitely. Just to say about Janet, and she was an integral part of the band. I mean I wrote about it in my book when she joined, you know, we.

01:02:20
Speaker 1: Were like, yeah, that's when you jelled.

01:02:21
Speaker 9: Yeah, we were like this is this is great?

01:02:23
Speaker 14: I would I'm I am sure as people assess us, you know, ten fifteen years from now or you know, they're like, that will be the classic period of the band, So you know they were never throwaway.

01:02:34
Speaker 1: Being the rock and Hall of Fame, I get it.

01:02:36
Speaker 14: Yeah, she's a great drummer, so that Korn can talk about Laura because yeah, she had brought her own avant guard style for sure.

01:02:44
Speaker 8: Yeah.

01:02:44
Speaker 12: I mean I think a lot of it is like a little bit happenstance on our part, Like you know, we went we did go to Australia thinking like, hey, let's play music, you know, and there was there was like this international underground music community for real, And we wrote her a letter, We wrote like the record label a letter, and she wrote back like yeah.

01:03:09
Speaker 13: Let's play music.

01:03:11
Speaker 12: And that's just how it happened, and you know, and then eventually it was like, well she did come over and we played music here, and then she was like I kind of need.

01:03:20
Speaker 13: To go back to Australia. We're like, yeah, oh.

01:03:22
Speaker 2: Okay, now that you're in the game of being on an indie label, can you just walk us through the process of how do you manage to survive and be creative at the same time, Like for those first few albums, did you still have to have day jobs or was it like, Okay, you know, we can sort of survive off of our club gigs and what units that we're selling.

01:03:51
Speaker 12: I mean, I think there's there was definitely some back and forth, you know, like there were still temp jobs.

01:03:58
Speaker 13: I think even after dig Me Out.

01:04:00
Speaker 9: I think that we kind of put this.

01:04:03
Speaker 12: Like idea about being creative and being control of the creative part of things as something that was really important to us. So we were always willing to like do whatever other jobs needed to be done, I think, just to like make money or whatever.

01:04:18
Speaker 8: I mean, we weren't.

01:04:18
Speaker 12: We weren't not making money from touring, and we were always wanting to figure that out and make it better. We were always like ambitious about that. It just it took us a while to get there.

01:04:30
Speaker 2: But at what point are you absolutely full time? We're ban I can pay my bills, I can put cheese or my whopper and not break the bank like.

01:04:44
Speaker 14: Probably dig me Out, I would say, So that's ninety seven.

01:04:48
Speaker 9: I mean, let's also be clear. I was living in Olympia.

01:04:52
Speaker 14: I think my rent was three ninety five a month, so that doesn't take that much. You know, you can you can play a couple of shows even as a tiny band and make you know. So we were living in small towns and like you know, sharehouses and stuff. But dig me Out, I mean, one thing at the time on indie labels was thesefit profit shares, which you know, you just it was a split and people actually bought records. So even though these these records weren't going gold or platinum, you know, when dig Me out sells you know, seventy five thousand copies or one hundred thousand copies and you have, you know, getting fifty percent of profit share, like at the time when you're in your early twenties, that's that's definitely enough to live off of, even if you're splitting it three ways.

01:05:39
Speaker 2: So by the time that you guys are out, I also know that every major label was looking up and down the aisles for the next big thing or whatever I mean. So at no point, like you know, I know you guys started off on Chainsaw and then the lovely title Kill All rock Stars. First of all, with with those labels, is that are there actual are these actual labels or just like okay, well what are we going to call the label this time? Or like is that your label and you guys have a distribution system? Or is Kill All walk Stars like an actual label like sub Pop is, and you know.

01:06:21
Speaker 12: Yeah, no, Kill rock Stars is definitely an actual label. And and that point I think was pretty critical for us because after the first record came out on Chainsaw, which was another a label run by fellow musicians, but they were like still touring that it was Jody and Donna from Team Drash, so that was, you know, problematic. We did have a time when we were courted by major labels before dig Me Out, and we considered it. You know, we considered, we argued about it, We thought about it like crazy.

01:06:56
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna ask you a question, okay, because I knew this was a parallel story with hip hop and with with this movement, how at what point are you able to really relax and really not live in fear of the idea of quote unquote selling out? You know, that shadow following you, like the perception of how we're because the thing is is that knowing what I know now and again because I worked backwards, I'm like, yo, like you know, and you can even tell them that, like with the videos that you're doing now and all that stuff, like the humor element and all those things that you're really showing your personalities. Whereas once I went back to the beginning and realized like, oh okay, it started off here and then you guys slowly blossomed into this thing. I can imagine that the perception of who you guys were as a group or trying to present also probably played, you know, decisions made by the band. And I always wanted to know, like how the perception of being seen as sellouts or being too successful? Should we do this commercial or should we sign to this this label, this major label, like will we be the same? Like how important is that perception playing in the band at that period in you're at least for the first three or four records, it was huge.

01:08:34
Speaker 14: I mean, I mean you were around during that time too. I mean that it just was such a different beast. You know, this this idea that somehow, you know, a major label was going to you know, rob you of your artistic credibility, that by aligning yourself with anything that was corporated or commercial, you know, signified you know, something that was anti art you know.

01:08:57
Speaker 9: And there were a lot of arguments.

01:08:59
Speaker 14: Treaties, know, books, zines, you know, and very lively polemic and a lot of real anger, I think from people that never really took into consideration how anyone grew up in terms of you know, if they had money and that you know, like it just never it was not a very nuanced conversation, but it was very real because you cared about your friends and to sort of admit, you know, I want something more than I can get. This route was really tricky, so we just we really didn't consider it. And I was probably the most hard line at the time. I was like the youngest, I was the baby in the band, and I think Corn was probably you probably were the most interested, am I right?

01:09:44
Speaker 13: No, Steel Magnolia is the termine years.

01:09:49
Speaker 12: I was always my eyes were always on the business route more than anyone else.

01:09:53
Speaker 9: Yeah, she's good about that. But you know, there were also these horror stories.

01:09:56
Speaker 14: You know, you would for every band that had a decent relationship with their A and R person, there was someone that ad signed to a major and been dropped, you know, like a band like Spoon or like or even coming from the Northwest, you see Nirvana, you see this guy that was tort supposedly, you know, tortured by the fact that you know, he no longer felt connected to who he was and his fans. So there were all these cautionary tales.

01:10:28
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, we did a two party with Monica Lynch as the president of Tommy Boy Records, Monica is responsible for releasing some of my favorite hip hop by day La Skul, Queen, Antifa and others. To listen to Monica speak, you can hear her passion and dedications which remains today.

01:10:46
Speaker 1: And this clip she speaks about being a white woman in a position of power and influence in a male dominated space.

01:10:53
Speaker 2: What's cool about Monica is she also was a steadfast supporter of afrocentric hip hop, as well as other forms of music and sometimes marginalized communities. At this place, are you shocked that, even though you know Sylvia Robinson was running sugar Able Records or whatnot, were women in executive positions really not a thing? And I'm taking it out of hip hop just general at labels like I know about Sylvia Ron at least her, you know, coming up at at at Atlantic and starting east West and whatnot.

01:11:30
Speaker 1: And maybe I mean Cassargramils was more.

01:11:32
Speaker 15: At Casablanca before then.

01:11:36
Speaker 2: Well okay, well I knew about Neil Bogart, but who was running who was at Casablanca?

01:11:40
Speaker 15: Well, I believe Sylvia had started.

01:11:43
Speaker 1: I did not know. Oh wow, all right, we give fact check it.

01:11:47
Speaker 16: This is a great, great subject matter, And I'm really happy you brought this up, because you know, there's a lot of women from that early eighties period who didn't necessarily get at their shine or necessarily get titles.

01:12:02
Speaker 15: I was, I think I was made president in eighty five. I still have the press release. And why do I have it because I had to write it.

01:12:09
Speaker 1: The writing Wikipedia entry.

01:12:13
Speaker 15: Yeah, like, yeah, your president, Now, could you go write this up?

01:12:16
Speaker 5: Yes?

01:12:16
Speaker 15: Okay, fine, so the but yeah, before in that.

01:12:22
Speaker 16: Early eighties period, I would say that the people that really come to my mind is like women who were doing a lot in the early hip hop labels would be Ann Carly at Jive Records, you know who. I actually knew Anne when she was working in the New York office of EG Records.

01:12:39
Speaker 15: I used to harass her for rocky music tour tickets and that.

01:12:44
Speaker 4: Uh.

01:12:44
Speaker 16: There was Jeanine Leclair who was at Next Plateau Records that worked with Eddie o'lachlin.

01:12:52
Speaker 8: There was D. D.

01:12:55
Speaker 16: Joseph who worked with at Prism Records, which became you know, which began Chill. Of course, there was Sylvia and there were others. And I'm really sorry because I should have prepared a list for this because it is important and there's a lot of people who you know, it was a bit later in the eighties when there were more women who were getting into the business, but there were a lot of women who were in the business then and they just didn't necessarily get as much recognition. They might have started as a receptionist and became press or promo.

01:13:33
Speaker 15: So there's there's this whole.

01:13:34
Speaker 16: Wave of women that were part of the even like late seventies and early eighties, whose whose names just don't tend to come up as much.

01:13:44
Speaker 15: So much in hip hop.

01:13:45
Speaker 16: Has been told and told again through books and documentaries and everything, but there's still a lot of terrain that hasn't been touched really, So.

01:13:53
Speaker 2: What's the difficulty level of you like really as far as like pounding the desk and demanding that respect, like do you have to be tough as nails?

01:14:05
Speaker 1: Who ran book? And uh winter? Right? And when you have to come do you have to run it in a winter style?

01:14:12
Speaker 15: And you know, no, no, well I don't yeah, no, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying.

01:14:20
Speaker 16: You know. I get asked a lot over the years, people said, well, what was it like being a woman in the hip hop world, or what was it like being a white woman in the hip hop world? And I'm like, my response is usually like, you know what, there were so many opportunities for women in the fledgling hip hop industry.

01:14:40
Speaker 15: Again, it was so small back then. If I had gone to say, oh, you.

01:14:47
Speaker 16: Know, Columbia Records or Mercury or PolyGram or whatever Warner Brothers, you know, and said, hey, you know, I'm looking for a job, I would have been lucky to get you know, be the coffee run or for some.

01:15:00
Speaker 15: Guy doing mid Atlantic radio promotion. Okay, so in hip hop because it.

01:15:06
Speaker 16: Was just a small little industry and no one was really checking. You know, like a lot of women were able to sort of get ahead in this business because there wasn't like a precedent.

01:15:16
Speaker 15: It wasn't an old boys network, you.

01:15:19
Speaker 16: Know, so it was still being it was still being the story was being written, and you know, there was a lot of opportunities. Although I will say when I went to the first Jack the Rapper Convention, uh, a lot of people thought I was hired help for another reason. So, but you know the Rapper Convention, that's another documentary somebody should too.

01:15:43
Speaker 1: Oh boy, tales from the Rap Convention.

01:15:47
Speaker 2: So okay, when when okay, so eighty six, when Club Neuveau starts hitting you know, lean on me and jealousy and all that. So it was highly it was on a capable like by that point, you guys are just you know, a force. Was there ever a temptation to say leave Tommy Boy and maybe and I don't want to discredit hip hop's you know, force or whatnot, but in the mind state of eighty seven, did you ever have the temptation or did someone from RCA or Warner Brothers or quote a legit major.

01:16:26
Speaker 1: Label try to poach you away and say, come work for us.

01:16:30
Speaker 16: Yeah, there was a label A and M actually and A M was a real class operation, you know it was.

01:16:39
Speaker 15: I mean, there was like, uh and they even bought me a plane ticket and put me in a hotel. It was like, oh my god, you know, this is pretty great. But I it didn't didn't happen. I really sort of sense that I was better.

01:16:55
Speaker 16: Where it was, and it turned out to be true, you know, because it was towards you know, it was made president. I guess eighty five eighty six, I can't remember exactly, but you know, it was towards the end, you know, towards the late eighties where I really oversaw A and R and the creative direction for the label.

01:17:15
Speaker 15: I was already doing quite a bit already in both of those areas.

01:17:19
Speaker 16: And also, you know, in the early days, whether it was collecting money from distributors, or putting in pressers with the pressing plant, or getting the label copy typed up, or sitting with Bambada while he wrote out of special things, or creating a press list and writing press releases, talking to.

01:17:39
Speaker 15: You name it. It was like you got to do a lot of different things. But it was, you know, in the late eighties where I sort of really I think that was a really golden erape for Tommy Boy in the late eighties and the early nineties.

01:17:53
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty eight, you know, for me, at least in my life, one of the greatest pairaradigm shifts that really affected I mean, eighty eight was such a banner year. But you sign a group that literally changes the course of my life. And we've had various people involved with Daylas Soul projects, so we you know, you don't have to go through the every day, but what I do want to know is who was responsible for the genius marketing of day Las Soul because from the press photos to the fonts to the stickers. You know, for only time on life I ever got sent to the principal's office was because I put day Lost Soul stickers all over my high school. Like, so, who was responsible? Like what was the brainchild operation of we can make these guys bigger than hip hop?

01:18:51
Speaker 1: And I read that hip hop for hippies? Wasn't that your ship? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I was.

01:18:57
Speaker 15: Very involved in all of that, but it was also.

01:19:01
Speaker 16: There's a lot of people at Tommy Boy that I would credit for being a huge part of this campaign. I think that it was a very critical decision to have the Gray organization do the all the you know, all of the daisy or the imagery for the for the album cover. That was so that was I would say such a radical move at that point because they basically sort of threw down a gauntlet, uh to what the prevailing visual aesthetic was of hip hop. And I think it was the type of thing that a lot of people were like, what is this but you know, but but but the thing is before the album, before the album, and you saw all those visuals. You know, Plug Tune In was a radical record and and and I still have I still have the demo tape and I still have the write up that I did after my meeting with Daddy O. And I want to make sure to credit Daddyo because it was Daddy O from Stetsasnic who called me and said, Hey, I've got these groups I'm shopping.

01:20:16
Speaker 15: Can we set up a meeting. I'm like yeah, da da da, And he sat on the phone. There were three groups.

01:20:21
Speaker 16: Two of them were like Sore, these more mainstream like Rene and angela type of groups or something, and he mentioned, uh, Dela Saul.

01:20:30
Speaker 15: He said, oh, and there's this group that Paul's working with called De La Soult.

01:20:34
Speaker 16: And I do remember thinking that's a really intriguing name. You know what is that it didn't sound like a hip hop group. And so I met with him, and that's in that demo tape of plug Tuning and.

01:20:48
Speaker 15: Freedom, Freedom of Speak I think was the freedom.

01:20:53
Speaker 16: Yeah, it was the two tracks on the on the one cassette, and it was like you immediately knew that it was either gonna be big or nothing. And that's where I think Tommy Boys legacy largely lies with signings that were sort of in that category you're gonna love it or you're not gonna hate it, but it wasn't in the middle, and Dala Soul I think personifies that. And you know, the the demo of plug Tuning sounds pretty much. I'm pretty sure I don't think that it was even even mixed, you know. I think it was an eight track that Paul did and I don't think it even went beyond that.

01:21:32
Speaker 15: By the time it was mastered. I think it was still like this eight trick demo sounding thing.

01:21:36
Speaker 16: And we had this We did this ad campaign where we got all these different people to say, you.

01:21:42
Speaker 1: Know, you know how it is, you know, like when you know Latifa's mom, she was part of it.

01:21:48
Speaker 15: Latifa's mom, the lake Rita Owens we did.

01:21:51
Speaker 16: We did a campaign that I came in for Dala Soul, I came in for Patty LaBelle, I came out with Dala Saul. We had this with like some goofy, you know, sort of straight looking white guy like you know, I came in for.

01:22:06
Speaker 15: I forget it wasn't steely Dan.

01:22:08
Speaker 1: We hung that up in Sam Goodies. I worked at Sam goodies at the time.

01:22:11
Speaker 16: Oh man, well then you know, so this is that imaging campaign I think was fantastic. We had a great full page ad and billboard. I said DLA gold when it went gold. But you know, I think a lot of it sprung from the group itself, because you know, I still have and I shared this with pass actually just last week.

01:22:38
Speaker 15: He sat down in the office and with this he has.

01:22:42
Speaker 16: A very distinctive style of cursive and he was writing down the history of Dala Soul on this notebook paper set, describing who each group member was. And he was writing it in day La speak. And that was another thing too, because like, nobody knew what the fuck they were talking about.

01:23:03
Speaker 15: They had their own language, like what are they tell?

01:23:07
Speaker 8: What the what do you mean?

01:23:08
Speaker 15: Plug tune?

01:23:08
Speaker 6: And what's that you know?

01:23:10
Speaker 15: And what is true? Guy the dove?

01:23:12
Speaker 8: You know?

01:23:12
Speaker 15: What is all this stuff?

01:23:14
Speaker 16: But they but they had a different look, They had a different sensibility. So there was a lot there to already work with and to sort of get inspired to do interesting and creative marketing and promotion. You really can't do something unless the something that the project and the recordings and the artists that you're working with are interesting in.

01:23:37
Speaker 15: And of themselves.

01:23:38
Speaker 16: You can blow it up and magnify it. But if they're not, if it's not inherently interesting and great, you can't really do anything.

01:23:45
Speaker 15: So so they really they were like, wow, this group pretty interesting. There a lot of people played role.

01:23:53
Speaker 16: I don't know if you know Rod Houston because he's also from from Philadelphia.

01:23:56
Speaker 15: He's now one of the biggest voice.

01:23:58
Speaker 1: Side He's a voice aided guy.

01:24:00
Speaker 6: He's huge.

01:24:01
Speaker 15: He's huge.

01:24:02
Speaker 16: And Rod I still have the copy that he wrote up because we did this contest to name the sample and.

01:24:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did you did you enter?

01:24:14
Speaker 6: I didn't.

01:24:15
Speaker 1: I didn't know the LIBERACEI or any Yeah I didn't know that.

01:24:19
Speaker 16: Yeah we got I still have a lot of the entries from the contest that I kept. A lot of people thought it was Bobby Bloom And the only person who got the who the only person who got it right was Joel Weber, as I mentioned to him earlier with the Partners in the New Music Seminar. And he's the guy who put out He was an A and R guy at Fourth and Broadway in Island. He put out the Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight and he was the only one who identified the invitations right, It's written on the wall is the sample right record. So they So there was a lot of really great things that sort of sprung from the fact that the group themselves were so different and so interesting. And I think that that whole Daisy age imagery, you know, was certainly a blessing and a curse for the group, because then they didn't really like being named the hippies of hip.

01:25:12
Speaker 15: Hop, and you know, pushed back against it, you know.

01:25:15
Speaker 16: But that was that album Three Feet High in Rising, you know, And that was actually the first project I assigned to Dante. I loved that, Dante, make sure you get this, get the clearances for so and so and so and so. But it was the first project that he worked on, which was fantastic. He did an amazing job.

01:25:36
Speaker 15: And Paul, of course, you know, yeah, thank you for this.

01:25:42
Speaker 2: Listen back for Women's History Month. Ket's new episodes a Quest Love Supreme coming soon.

01:25:50
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. Posted by I'm here Quest Love Thompson. Are you saying clear? Sugar? Steve mandel An unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are Amir, Quest Love Thomas, Sean Cheek and Brian Calvin. Produced by Britney, Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Eliah Saint Clair, edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown and quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.