# Black Music Month QLS Classic: Jimmy Jam Part 1

An episode of [The Questlove Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1485250501), 2 Jun 2026, 1 h 51 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/86918ee4-4aa4-497b-995a-ae32006cd4b7/2e2e809d-df28-4e23-8dff-ae3200af61c7/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ee132490-ba24-4965-b558-ae32006cd4c0

In part 1, the legendary R&B songwriter and producer Jimmy Jam spoke about his early days, life with Prince and goin' broke. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
[0:04] Speaker 1: was produced by the team at Pandora.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Hey, what's up, y'all?
[0:11] Speaker 1: This is quest Love And as you notice throughout June,
[0:15] Speaker 1: we are celebrating Black Music Month by releasing an episode
[0:20] Speaker 1: every day, So every day and maybe want to hear
[0:24] Speaker 1: especially pick LS Classic.
[0:26] Speaker 2: Now for Part one, Part two, and Part three of
[0:31] Speaker 2: my all time favorite ULS episode.
[0:35] Speaker 1: This is the legendary Jimmy Jam. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome
[0:40] Speaker 1: to another episode of QLs Classic.
[0:42] Speaker 2: I'm Questlove.
[0:44] Speaker 1: This episode we consider it to be our finest hour.
[0:47] Speaker 1: We interview the music god himself, Jimmy Jam. This is,
[0:52] Speaker 1: without no doubt one of our best moments, my personal favorite.
[0:56] Speaker 1: In Part one of this three part series, we discuss
[0:59] Speaker 1: this life in Minnesota, of Minneapolis, coming up as a DJ,
[1:03] Speaker 1: his friendship with Terry Lewis's music partner, and getting mentored
[1:06] Speaker 1: by the one and only Clarence Aphon, not to mention
[1:09] Speaker 1: Uh Princey starting a little unknown band called The Time.
[1:13] Speaker 2: We Hope you enjoyed. Here we go.
[1:19] Speaker 3: Su Primo sun So Supremo, Roll Call Suprema So Supremo,
[1:26] Speaker 3: Roll Call Suprema son So Suprimo roll call So Bremo
[1:32] Speaker 3: So so so.
[1:34] Speaker 1: So I went to the mirror, yeah, with Grayson Vaness. Yeah,
[1:38] Speaker 1: the mirror looked back at me. Yeah, that's where the
[1:41] Speaker 1: god said, Supremo.
[1:46] Speaker 2: Roll call Supremo So so.
[1:49] Speaker 1: So roll What's love double dipping? Yeah, not trying to
[1:53] Speaker 1: be facetious. Yeah, that mirror really said.
[2:03] Speaker 2: Suprema So Supremo row My name is Fante. Yeah, in
[2:08] Speaker 2: the heels of a Gora.
[2:10] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[2:10] Speaker 2: Well, my man, Jimmy Jam Yeah. Now where is my food?
[2:15] Speaker 3: Supremo Sun Sun Supremo Role call, Suprema Son Son Supremo
[2:21] Speaker 3: role called.
[2:22] Speaker 2: My name is Sugar, yeah, the engineer. Yeah, if you
[2:27] Speaker 2: need me, Yeah, I'm over here.
[2:31] Speaker 3: Supremo Son Son Supremo, Role call, Supremo Son Son Supremo
[2:37] Speaker 3: Role call.
[2:38] Speaker 2: I'm unpaid bill, Yeah, chilling with my family.
[2:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Jimmy Jam Yeah, I had to be my
[2:45] Speaker 1: first Grammy.
[2:49] Speaker 3: Supprivo roll call, Suprema Son Supremo Role This.
[2:54] Speaker 2: Was my name. Yeah, and I still say yeah the
[2:58] Speaker 2: best record of the eighties. Yeah, Alex is here saying.
[3:01] Speaker 3: Ro come Suprema So Supremo, Role call, Supremo.
[3:08] Speaker 2: Supremo roll call. Yeah. Never out of touch. Yeah, Jimmy
[3:14] Speaker 2: jam is here. Yeah, I miss you.
[3:17] Speaker 1: My.
[3:19] Speaker 2: Suprema Supremo.
[3:21] Speaker 3: Roll call, Suprema son Son Supremo.
[3:25] Speaker 2: Role came. I don't know, Yeah what I was supposed
[3:29] Speaker 2: to say. Yeah, I'll be fat Albert. Yeah, so Supremo.
[3:37] Speaker 3: Roll call, Suprema So Supremo. Role call, Suprema son Son Supremo.
[3:45] Speaker 3: Roll call, Suprema son Son Supremo.
[3:49] Speaker 1: Roll call, Ladies and gentlemen. I do not want to
[3:53] Speaker 1: waste a second. Welcome Jimmy, jim Okay, let's go, Jimmy
[3:57] Speaker 1: Jam Where were you born? No, I'm not wasting a second.
[4:02] Speaker 2: No, how you doing, I'm good, I'm good man. We're
[4:06] Speaker 2: very overwhelmed for this Pineapple goals man. This is goal yeah.
[4:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, like my life is whatever.
[4:17] Speaker 2: Door I thought she was gonna fall my Yeah, it
[4:19] Speaker 2: was like, my life.
[4:20] Speaker 1: Is Baltic Avenue and Mediterranean, like this is ward Walking
[4:25] Speaker 1: Park place.
[4:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, Monopoly references, it is. It is sports.
[4:31] Speaker 1: Hello there, mister James Harris, the third Man.
[4:35] Speaker 2: I'm wonderful man. It's great to be here with you
[4:37] Speaker 2: today finally and your crew, your whole crew. Man, it's wonderful.
[4:40] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[4:41] Speaker 1: We've been looking forward to this one for a minute. Yeah,
[4:42] Speaker 1: this is serious of life life goals here.
[4:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, let's just we're starting from the begin Where were
[4:54] Speaker 2: you born, sir? Minneapolis, Minnesota? Okay, uh, what part of
[5:00] Speaker 2: what part of Minneapolis? I grew up South Minneapolis, So
[5:04] Speaker 2: you know, I can say like forty first in Portland Avenue,
[5:06] Speaker 2: which doesn't mean a lot to anybody, but you know,
[5:09] Speaker 2: if you think of downtown, it's like, you know, First Street,
[5:11] Speaker 2: second Street, you know, First Avenue, so on and so forth.
[5:16] Speaker 2: I lived forty one blocks south of downtown.
[5:18] Speaker 1: I feel like when any black person is from the
[5:20] Speaker 1: south side of town, south side of east side, that
[5:24] Speaker 1: means something something going on.
[5:26] Speaker 2: Like what part of what was the town part of
[5:30] Speaker 2: town to not go to? In Minneapolish, Well, okay, if
[5:34] Speaker 2: you were black, the northeast was where to not go to.
[5:37] Speaker 2: It was called actually the northeast is what we called it.
[5:41] Speaker 2: Where the white people lived. Yeah. Yeah, every town has
[5:45] Speaker 2: always white people. The white people didn't didn't necessarily want
[5:49] Speaker 2: us to be there, you know, because white people live
[5:52] Speaker 2: every I mean, let's face it. Back, growing up, I
[5:56] Speaker 2: think the state population was something like three percent black,
[6:00] Speaker 2: and maybe it was eight percent black in Minneapolis or
[6:03] Speaker 2: something like that. So pretty much white people were everywhere.
[6:06] Speaker 2: But certainly, you know, everybody was very tolerant, I guess,
[6:12] Speaker 2: I would say, and it was very progressive town. But
[6:16] Speaker 2: as you can tell from the music, it came out
[6:17] Speaker 2: of there. I think that's had a lot to do
[6:18] Speaker 2: with it. But no, I mean, really, the north side
[6:21] Speaker 2: probably is where the folks were. You know, I was
[6:25] Speaker 2: one of the only South Side guy. I mean in
[6:27] Speaker 2: Prince obviously because we went to school together and stuff.
[6:30] Speaker 2: But on the north side of town you had you know,
[6:33] Speaker 2: Morris Day, Jellybean, Terry Lewis, you know, and you had
[6:37] Speaker 2: the community center called the Way, which everybody used to
[6:39] Speaker 2: rehearse at and that kind of thing. So it was
[6:42] Speaker 2: a lot more happening on the north side of town,
[6:44] Speaker 2: I would say that on the south side.
[6:46] Speaker 1: So in your formative years, how many of your contemporaries
[6:51] Speaker 1: and peers that you were professional with would you see
[6:54] Speaker 1: on a regular basis?
[6:56] Speaker 2: Everybody? Man, it was a small community, it was. It was.
[7:00] Speaker 2: It was a lot like I always say that Purple
[7:02] Speaker 2: Rain the movie was a kind of a it was fiction,
[7:06] Speaker 2: but it was it told a lot of truth and
[7:07] Speaker 2: that was there was like a couple of clubs you
[7:10] Speaker 2: could play at, and there was more bands than the
[7:13] Speaker 2: clubs could hold. So it made for a very competitive
[7:16] Speaker 2: situation where if your band wasn't firing, you just wouldn't
[7:20] Speaker 2: be playing in the club. And so that's the way
[7:23] Speaker 2: we grew up. So there was like the Elks Lounge.
[7:25] Speaker 2: There was a club called the Nakarima Nakaima was actually
[7:27] Speaker 2: American spelled backwards. And you know, the Cozy Bar was
[7:32] Speaker 2: another place. There was a place called the Flame. And
[7:35] Speaker 2: you know, so between, you know, back in that day,
[7:37] Speaker 2: you had you know, my band, I had a band
[7:39] Speaker 2: called Mind and Matter, Terry had Flight Time. We were
[7:42] Speaker 2: together and then we were apart. We were you know,
[7:44] Speaker 2: we were going back and forth a lot. And then
[7:46] Speaker 2: Prince had Grand Central. Morris had a band called the
[7:51] Speaker 2: Enterprise Band of Pleasure at one point, you know, so
[7:54] Speaker 2: on and so forth. So what happened was there was
[7:56] Speaker 2: all these bands, but there's only a couple of places
[7:58] Speaker 2: to play. But all of those guys and particularly people
[8:01] Speaker 2: like that, and really the best, probably the baddest dude
[8:05] Speaker 2: up there was Sonny Thompson.
[8:09] Speaker 1: Everyone speaks of Sonny Thompson like he's God, Yeah, Like,
[8:13] Speaker 1: what is it about? What is the legend of Sonny Thompson. Well,
[8:17] Speaker 1: Sonny Thompson.
[8:18] Speaker 2: I remember back when I first met Terry, and I
[8:21] Speaker 2: remember we put our little band together and stuff, and
[8:23] Speaker 2: then they used to do these big outdoor festivals at
[8:26] Speaker 2: a place called the Phylliswheetlely, which is a big community center,
[8:29] Speaker 2: and they used to do these outdoor concerts and I
[8:31] Speaker 2: remember seeing they had a band, actually the original band
[8:34] Speaker 2: that was called the Family. Sonny Thompson was in that band.
[8:38] Speaker 2: But I'd never seen a brother play the guitar like that.
[8:40] Speaker 2: I mean, he just was like he was like legendary.
[8:45] Speaker 2: He was like the dude. And on top of it,
[8:48] Speaker 2: he had the attitude like if you didn't like him
[8:51] Speaker 2: or you didn't like the way he was playing, he
[8:52] Speaker 2: was gonna come down to kick your ass. Right, So
[8:54] Speaker 2: he'd he'd played the gig and stuff, and then afterwards
[8:56] Speaker 2: if he'd like, look at it you and you'd say
[8:58] Speaker 2: to him, he killed it, Sonny, Man, that was amazing,
[9:02] Speaker 2: because you better say that. But the good news was
[9:05] Speaker 2: he always was. He was amazing, and he was a
[9:07] Speaker 2: dude that everybody just kind of stopped and stared and
[9:10] Speaker 2: went damn. What was his style of playing? He was
[9:14] Speaker 2: a great rhythm player. He played with a lot of aggression.
[9:17] Speaker 2: You know. The thing I always said about about Prince
[9:20] Speaker 2: and the way he played is I've never seen anybody
[9:22] Speaker 2: attack instruments the way Prince did, Like he literally attacked
[9:26] Speaker 2: the instruments louder or just toned well, you know he would.
[9:31] Speaker 2: I mean I always say, like, for instance, Terry. You know,
[9:35] Speaker 2: Terry's a great bass player, There's no doubt about it.
[9:38] Speaker 2: But you know how we always use the analogy like
[9:41] Speaker 2: in basketball, people that make you better. Prince was that person, right,
[9:45] Speaker 2: So Terry would be playing a bass part and Prince
[9:49] Speaker 2: would take the bass from Terry and go, no, play
[9:52] Speaker 2: it like this, and then he'd play it, and then
[9:54] Speaker 2: he'd had Terry the bass back, and Terry would look
[9:57] Speaker 2: at the bass like he'd never seen it before. You know,
[9:59] Speaker 2: it's like damn. You know so that but that was
[10:02] Speaker 2: the way Sonny was, and I think Prince got a
[10:05] Speaker 2: lot of that from Sonny, like the attack of the instruments.
[10:09] Speaker 2: And it's the same with the keyboards. We used to
[10:11] Speaker 2: break keyboards all the time because it wasn't like you
[10:13] Speaker 2: would just hit the keyboard politely. It was like we
[10:17] Speaker 2: were doing all kind of swoops and wow wow on
[10:19] Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, like we would break keyboards.
[10:22] Speaker 2: I mean that kind of stuff. I mean that was
[10:23] Speaker 2: the way he wanted you to play. And so I
[10:27] Speaker 2: mean that that kind of attitude to me was the
[10:29] Speaker 2: thing that you know, set him apart, along with a
[10:32] Speaker 2: whole lot of other things, but it really set Prince
[10:34] Speaker 2: apart for sure.
[10:35] Speaker 1: What were the what was a gold club to play
[10:39] Speaker 1: in Minneapolis at the time, Like, was First Avenue a
[10:43] Speaker 1: dream that was unattainables?
[10:45] Speaker 3: No?
[10:46] Speaker 2: Actually, here's an interesting thing. Yeah, Now First Avenue was
[10:49] Speaker 2: actually the first place that actually allowed like black bands
[10:53] Speaker 2: to play. So there was a quiet segregation. Oh it
[10:57] Speaker 2: was not in your fleece, Oh it was. I guess
[11:01] Speaker 2: you could say it was quiet. I mean, if you
[11:02] Speaker 2: were a band and you were trying to play somewhere,
[11:07] Speaker 2: you knew there were clubs that were just unattainable. You
[11:09] Speaker 2: just weren't going to play that club. And I thank
[11:12] Speaker 2: God to this day that that happened because what it did,
[11:16] Speaker 2: as history has always shown with black folks, is from
[11:20] Speaker 2: adversity comes all good things. You know, you look at
[11:25] Speaker 2: what you don't have, and then you figure out that
[11:27] Speaker 2: you can't go the easy route that everybody else is going,
[11:30] Speaker 2: and then you figure out a way to go get
[11:31] Speaker 2: it done. So what we used to do back in
[11:35] Speaker 2: the day, we knew we couldn't play I can't remember
[11:38] Speaker 2: even the names of the clubs, but there was all
[11:40] Speaker 2: these very fancy white clubs and they all had white bands,
[11:44] Speaker 2: but they were all playing R and B music, which
[11:47] Speaker 2: was ironic. We knew we couldn't play those clubs. So
[11:50] Speaker 2: what we would do is, for instance, there was a
[11:51] Speaker 2: hotel downtown called the Dykeman Hotel. It was a hotel
[11:57] Speaker 2: that was probably about a year away from, you know,
[12:00] Speaker 2: being torn down. I mean it was just nobody stayed there.
[12:03] Speaker 2: Rooms were rady, the whole thing. But what they had
[12:05] Speaker 2: was a big ballroom. So what we would do is
[12:08] Speaker 2: we would take, you know, we'd go to the owner
[12:12] Speaker 2: of the hotel and we'd say, hey, can we rent
[12:14] Speaker 2: the ballroom out. We'll give you the liquor, whatever the
[12:18] Speaker 2: liquor sales are, you keep and we'll take the door.
[12:21] Speaker 2: We'll charge you know, three bucks at the door or whatever.
[12:24] Speaker 2: And so what it did is it forced us to
[12:27] Speaker 2: become entrepreneurs, because it wasn't like we just had the
[12:30] Speaker 2: talent we could go play. It was like, okay, we
[12:32] Speaker 2: got the talent, now we got to figure out how
[12:34] Speaker 2: we're going to go play. So we would do that.
[12:36] Speaker 2: Now we now back in the day, there's no Twitter
[12:38] Speaker 2: and no social media, so it was go to institut prints.
[12:41] Speaker 2: That was the place you go. You print up a
[12:43] Speaker 2: bunch of flyers and then you put them on people's
[12:45] Speaker 2: cars and you'd say, you know, ladies get in free too,
[12:49] Speaker 2: for one drink. So you'd say whatever the heck you
[12:51] Speaker 2: needed to say to get them to get them down.
[12:55] Speaker 2: And all of a sudden you get on Saturday night
[12:57] Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, you'd get fifteen hundred people
[13:00] Speaker 2: in this ballroom. Meanwhile, the white clubs are sitting empty.
[13:07] Speaker 2: So now they're going, wait, where's everybody at tonight, And
[13:11] Speaker 2: they're like, well, they're all going to see the band
[13:13] Speaker 2: you wouldn't let play at your club. And so what
[13:17] Speaker 2: happened after that was there began to be a little
[13:19] Speaker 2: bit of a thing where people begin to recognize that
[13:24] Speaker 2: maybe there's a talent or maybe we should let these
[13:26] Speaker 2: folks in, you know, because these guys are talent and
[13:29] Speaker 2: they're obviously drawing, right. But the first person to really
[13:32] Speaker 2: act upon it was Steve McClellan at First Avenue who said,
[13:36] Speaker 2: we'll book you guys in what was called Seventh Street Entry,
[13:39] Speaker 2: which is like the little club, right, so if you
[13:42] Speaker 2: were cool there, if you could get it going there,
[13:44] Speaker 2: then we'll move you to the main room. But he
[13:47] Speaker 2: was the one that really gave us the shot, and
[13:49] Speaker 2: he gave you know, back then it wasn't just by
[13:51] Speaker 2: the way, it wasn't just black bands, but it was
[13:53] Speaker 2: like new wave bands you think about, like the Replacements
[13:56] Speaker 2: in the suburbs and all of those bands, those bands
[13:58] Speaker 2: all started, those white bands all started in that Seventh
[14:00] Speaker 2: Street Entry. We even mixing with those guys at all,
[14:03] Speaker 2: like would you see replacements? And we didn't mix at all,
[14:07] Speaker 2: not I mean just because we didn't. It wasn't it
[14:09] Speaker 2: we didn't like them. We were aware of them, and
[14:11] Speaker 2: I think they were aware of us. But we know
[14:13] Speaker 2: we never mixed together at all. It was just kind
[14:16] Speaker 2: of the same dudes from the neighborhood that we grew
[14:18] Speaker 2: up with. It was all of those same guys all together.
[14:21] Speaker 1: So kind of jumping ahead a little bit, did you
[14:24] Speaker 1: have goals to make it out of Minnesota or.
[14:29] Speaker 2: Or was it just like, Okay, we'll just be a local.
[14:32] Speaker 1: Band here and maybe well no, I mean, or I'll
[14:36] Speaker 1: get a job, like are your parents supportive of this?
[14:39] Speaker 2: Or well, okay, so two really good questions. So my parents.
[14:46] Speaker 2: First of all, my dad played in a band and
[14:52] Speaker 2: was always a professional musician. Used to take me to
[14:55] Speaker 2: rehearsals and stuff back when I was, you know, six
[14:58] Speaker 2: seven years old, and and I you know, at that point,
[15:01] Speaker 2: I had the music bug totally, so I got to
[15:04] Speaker 2: see it. I used to used to get to go
[15:05] Speaker 2: to the studio and the whole thing. But he was
[15:08] Speaker 2: always he never made it really where he wanted to.
[15:12] Speaker 2: He was always kind of that guy on the cusp
[15:15] Speaker 2: of making it. You know. He'd get on a few
[15:17] Speaker 2: Back in the day, there were kind of regional records
[15:18] Speaker 2: that were hits, and my dad would play on those
[15:21] Speaker 2: records and then they'd ask him to go tour. But
[15:24] Speaker 2: because at that point of his life he had me
[15:27] Speaker 2: and he had gotten married, my mom always used to
[15:31] Speaker 2: kind of frown upon, you know, like, well, no, you can't.
[15:33] Speaker 2: You got responsibilities, you got family, and you got you know,
[15:36] Speaker 2: you can't just run off and go on tour and
[15:38] Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And that really affected what happened
[15:43] Speaker 2: with me because when I got to the point where
[15:45] Speaker 2: I really wanted to do music, my mom was one
[15:47] Speaker 2: hundred percent behind me because she realized that my dad
[15:52] Speaker 2: never had a chance to do what the way he
[15:54] Speaker 2: wanted to do it. So she really kind of stepped
[15:56] Speaker 2: out of my way and was very supportive of me.
[15:59] Speaker 2: So that was huge for me. By the way, and
[16:03] Speaker 2: they because they separated and so or they got divorced,
[16:06] Speaker 2: and so I basically stayed with my mom. So she said,
[16:10] Speaker 2: you know whatever, as long as I see you doing music,
[16:12] Speaker 2: you can do whatever the heck you want to do.
[16:14] Speaker 2: But you know, as long as you was serious about
[16:16] Speaker 2: it and that kind of thing. So that was that
[16:18] Speaker 2: was important. What was the industry in Minnesota?
[16:22] Speaker 1: Like if cars were Detroit and black families were there,
[16:26] Speaker 1: middle class and buying instruments and stuff, and the same
[16:30] Speaker 1: for factories in Indiana and the Midwest, what was the
[16:34] Speaker 1: industry in Minnesota that kept was that an industry town
[16:39] Speaker 1: at all?
[16:40] Speaker 2: Well, the things I remember growing up were first of all,
[16:43] Speaker 2: grain and flower. I remember gold Metal Flower was a
[16:45] Speaker 2: big company back in the day. Pillsbury was up there,
[16:48] Speaker 2: big company general. Yeah, I forgot I er, I now realized.
[16:54] Speaker 2: He said that the ghetto boys thought he had came,
[16:57] Speaker 2: but it was gold metal Flower. Now I get it.
[17:01] Speaker 2: It was flower. Thank you for solving it. Mystery whether
[17:08] Speaker 2: I was made.
[17:13] Speaker 1: Life because of his accent, you know, I thought than
[17:18] Speaker 1: flower solving the mystery of Willie.
[17:22] Speaker 2: I didn't know there was a mystery. You know, we
[17:26] Speaker 2: had it, but I just didn't. You didn't put it together,
[17:28] Speaker 2: That's what he was saying.
[17:30] Speaker 1: You.
[17:31] Speaker 2: But all of those were up there, and obviously three
[17:33] Speaker 2: M was up there to Honeywell. There were some some
[17:36] Speaker 2: pretty big companies up there for sure, but just to
[17:40] Speaker 2: and just to wrap the other thing we were saying.
[17:43] Speaker 2: The whole idea, yes, was to get out of town.
[17:46] Speaker 2: That was our focus because we knew we couldn't sit
[17:49] Speaker 2: around and depend on playing in the clubs that weren't
[17:53] Speaker 2: gonna let us play, and we knew that we couldn't
[17:56] Speaker 2: make it playing in a club circuit where there's two
[17:58] Speaker 2: or three clubs and there's a bands or whatever it
[18:01] Speaker 2: is like that was not going to happen. So we
[18:03] Speaker 2: set our sites always on making it nationally that was
[18:06] Speaker 2: our whole thing. When Prince made it out, that showed
[18:11] Speaker 2: us that it can happen. And it also because he
[18:15] Speaker 2: was so unique in what he did, that then brought
[18:18] Speaker 2: everybody started looking at Minneapolis like, Okay, what else is
[18:21] Speaker 2: up there? Because that that happens with all towns, happened
[18:24] Speaker 2: with Seattle, happens. You know, that's just the thing that happens.
[18:26] Speaker 2: It's like something great comes out and it's like, oh,
[18:28] Speaker 2: what what else is there? What else is there? So
[18:30] Speaker 2: we were definitely the beneficiaries of that. And there's a
[18:33] Speaker 2: lot of great I will say, a lot of talented
[18:36] Speaker 2: white musicians playing R and B music that never made
[18:40] Speaker 2: it out of Minneapolis. Some of them made it out
[18:42] Speaker 2: because Jesse took a couple folks with him and when
[18:45] Speaker 2: he did his band Jesse Johnson reviews the Peterson's. How
[18:52] Speaker 2: many Peterson's were there? A lot? Yeah, that was the
[18:56] Speaker 2: That was the musical family up there. I mean, just
[18:59] Speaker 2: so much talent, you know, but there were but there
[19:02] Speaker 2: were other ones too, And I'm just kind of I'm
[19:05] Speaker 2: blanking on names and stuff, but there was a lot
[19:07] Speaker 2: of talent. But because they didn't they were very comfortable,
[19:10] Speaker 2: so they had no reason to try to think outside
[19:12] Speaker 2: of getting out of Minneapolis or anything like that. Like,
[19:15] Speaker 2: we were so a lot of great talent up there
[19:17] Speaker 2: that people didn't know about until, like I say, until
[19:19] Speaker 2: that time when you know, Jesse picked up a few people.
[19:22] Speaker 2: And I'm trying to think Margaret Cox, who was actually
[19:24] Speaker 2: Tomorrow Margie. But yeah, but Margaret Cox was insanely talented,
[19:28] Speaker 2: you know, so as a singer. So yeah, people like that.
[19:32] Speaker 1: So when can I assume that Funky Town was the
[19:37] Speaker 1: first at least indication that an escape could be made
[19:42] Speaker 1: or something could happen.
[19:43] Speaker 2: Was that just like a fluke went off in your eyes?
[19:46] Speaker 2: Well for us, you know, Prince was the example that
[19:51] Speaker 2: you could make it because see Prince was like three
[19:53] Speaker 2: years before Funky Town. I forgot, yeah, Towns seven but no,
[19:57] Speaker 2: but but but but Funky Town was eighties and that
[19:59] Speaker 2: was you know, at the height of the disco craze
[20:02] Speaker 2: and when it was and actually when disco was being
[20:05] Speaker 2: played on the radio, not only in the clubs, but
[20:06] Speaker 2: actually the format because I remember we had a radio
[20:09] Speaker 2: station up there that went from a rock format to
[20:11] Speaker 2: a disco format, which was very controversial, but disco was
[20:16] Speaker 2: hot at that point in time. But we thought, what
[20:20] Speaker 2: did you grow up listening on? Like, what were you
[20:22] Speaker 2: listening to? Grow? For me, yeah, well there was nothing
[20:26] Speaker 2: but pop radio up there. I mean, I grew up
[20:29] Speaker 2: as a kid. My earliest memories were always you know,
[20:34] Speaker 2: I always loved the harmony groups. I loved Seals and
[20:37] Speaker 2: Cross America America. Yeah, you know that kind of stuff.
[20:41] Speaker 2: Bred that was. I mean, to this day, that's the
[20:45] Speaker 2: way I stacked my harmonies because of the way they
[20:47] Speaker 2: sang those songs. Back then, a little bit later in life,
[20:51] Speaker 2: I liked, like, around the time I met Terry, I
[20:54] Speaker 2: was really into Chicago that was. That was my favorite
[20:56] Speaker 2: band ever, you know, and me and Terry both loved them.
[21:00] Speaker 2: And then Terry then turned me on to when I
[21:02] Speaker 2: met him, he turned me on to Earth Wind and Fired,
[21:04] Speaker 2: Tower of Power, New Birth. I met Terry in seventy two. Okay, yeah,
[21:09] Speaker 2: so we're we're talking Last Days in Time, Earth Winding
[21:12] Speaker 2: Fire and Music in my mind Stevie Wonder. You know,
[21:15] Speaker 2: these were the albums and Terry turned me on to those.
[21:18] Speaker 1: Black radio you didn't have no black radio experience at
[21:21] Speaker 1: the age of ten twelve.
[21:23] Speaker 2: There wasn't a black radio experience for me. When I
[21:26] Speaker 2: got into high school, I was really into or junior
[21:29] Speaker 2: high and into high school, I was really into Gambling,
[21:31] Speaker 2: Huff and everything coming out of Philadelphia. Blue Magic was
[21:35] Speaker 2: my favorite all time group. I know everybody was into stylistics,
[21:38] Speaker 2: but Blue Magic was my group. But how could you
[21:39] Speaker 2: hear it or see it was? Oh yeah, Soul Train
[21:44] Speaker 2: definitely was on, and you definitely would hear it on
[21:46] Speaker 2: Soul Train. But I remember I had a friend of
[21:50] Speaker 2: mine whose dad was an executive of music Land, which
[21:54] Speaker 2: is one of the big retail stores back in the day.
[21:56] Speaker 2: So he used to get every single record that came out.
[21:59] Speaker 2: And my thing was I was always a big liner
[22:02] Speaker 2: note reader and a big label reader. So my thing
[22:05] Speaker 2: was wit we All collect and Ville Yes. So my
[22:11] Speaker 2: whole thing was I remember there were records that would
[22:14] Speaker 2: come out and I would particularly during the Motown era
[22:18] Speaker 2: because I really I really loved the Motown records, all
[22:21] Speaker 2: of that stuff, the Holland Dozer, Holland, like I remember
[22:24] Speaker 2: I did. I remember looking at a Supremes album at
[22:27] Speaker 2: a like a family reunion or something back in sixty
[22:30] Speaker 2: two or something or sixty so I was like three
[22:32] Speaker 2: or four years old, and I remember that Holland Dozer Holland.
[22:34] Speaker 2: It was the album was called The Supreme sing Holland
[22:37] Speaker 2: Dozer Holland, that gold record, and I the gold record, right,
[22:40] Speaker 2: I had no idea what that meant. Well, I kept going,
[22:43] Speaker 2: what does this mean? What do you mean they singing
[22:46] Speaker 2: Holland Dozer Holland, And somebody explained to me, no, they
[22:49] Speaker 2: wrote the songs. The girls are the singers, but somebody
[22:51] Speaker 2: wrote the songs. And something went off in my head
[22:54] Speaker 2: at that point. That always made me look who wrote it?
[22:57] Speaker 2: Who produced it? And so I remember all the Motown
[23:01] Speaker 2: records would be the first ones I'd always go to.
[23:03] Speaker 2: And I remember like staring at the first time I
[23:05] Speaker 2: heard I Want You Back Jackson five, and you know
[23:10] Speaker 2: Dinah Ross and Dinah Ross presents the Jackson five, and
[23:13] Speaker 2: I thought, oh wow, that's cool. And I looked down
[23:15] Speaker 2: the record. I'm like, well, I don't see Donna Ross's
[23:17] Speaker 2: name anywhere on here. Right, there's some dudes called the Corporation.
[23:22] Speaker 2: I got to find out who the corporation is, you know.
[23:24] Speaker 2: So that was always my my thing. And and I
[23:29] Speaker 2: knew that because what I learned was there were certain
[23:31] Speaker 2: there were groups I like, but it was all about
[23:34] Speaker 2: who produced them. Like it was. It was like, you know,
[23:37] Speaker 2: like Eddie Kendricks could come out with a song and
[23:40] Speaker 2: I would be like, Yeah, that's okay. And then you
[23:43] Speaker 2: come out with a song I go, oh, I love
[23:45] Speaker 2: that song. Okay, who did that song? Okay? Leonard Casting
[23:48] Speaker 2: and you know, Frank Wilson and okay. And then I'd
[23:52] Speaker 2: hear another song that had nothing to do with Eddie Kendricks,
[23:55] Speaker 2: but I'd go, oh, I like that track. Who did that?
[23:57] Speaker 2: And it'd be the same dudes, right, and and that's
[23:59] Speaker 2: what and I got. That's when I started going, Okay,
[24:02] Speaker 2: that's that's my thing. And so for me, that's what
[24:06] Speaker 2: always excited me, and that's what, you know, ultimately made
[24:08] Speaker 2: me want to become a songwriter and a producer.
[24:12] Speaker 1: What kind of equipment were you dealing with when you
[24:15] Speaker 1: first started, Like did you have a piano in the
[24:17] Speaker 1: house or Fender Roads or we had?
[24:20] Speaker 2: How did you get it around to gigs? Oh? Well, okay,
[24:23] Speaker 2: well I'll tell you. Our very first gig was the
[24:26] Speaker 2: summer that I met Terry, which was seventy two, and
[24:30] Speaker 2: I remember my dad. At the time, I thought of
[24:33] Speaker 2: myself as a drummer. I'd had drums in the house
[24:36] Speaker 2: since I was like five years old. They bought me
[24:39] Speaker 2: a drum set and I used to play and I
[24:40] Speaker 2: used to blast. I remember one of my favorite records
[24:44] Speaker 2: was this Jackson fire record called Looking through the Window right,
[24:50] Speaker 2: because I loved the way it had that and I
[24:54] Speaker 2: used to play the drum to that, and I love
[24:56] Speaker 2: that the way the and all that stuff, all the
[24:59] Speaker 2: dynamics of it. So I used to play like to
[25:01] Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and so I thought of myself
[25:04] Speaker 2: as a drummer. So what happened was Terry was going
[25:06] Speaker 2: to put this band together to play at this kind
[25:08] Speaker 2: of year in summer year in thing, and he said,
[25:14] Speaker 2: but he heard me play piano, and so he said, man,
[25:18] Speaker 2: I need you to play keyboards for me for this thing.
[25:20] Speaker 2: And I said, I'm a drummer, Terry, and he said, no, nah,
[25:23] Speaker 2: I heard you play the keyboards. I said no, but
[25:24] Speaker 2: really I played the drums and he said, I already
[25:27] Speaker 2: got a drummer, and I said, no, I played it.
[25:29] Speaker 2: I played the keyboards. I mean I played the drums.
[25:31] Speaker 2: So Terry then brought over jelly Bean Johnson, who was
[25:35] Speaker 2: his drummer and jelly Bean played and I said, yeah,
[25:38] Speaker 2: I can mess with some keyboards. Yeah, So that that
[25:43] Speaker 2: ended my drumming career at that point. And it was
[25:46] Speaker 2: Jelli being playing guitar back then, he played, Yeah, he
[25:49] Speaker 2: did play guitar back then, but he was a drummer.
[25:51] Speaker 2: I mean he was, I mean a great drummer. So,
[25:53] Speaker 2: I mean you could tell it back then. He's super
[25:55] Speaker 2: talented dude. And he's probably the one person in Terry.
[25:59] Speaker 2: This probably in Terry's life longer than me. I mean,
[26:02] Speaker 2: I think him and jelly Bean go back. I met
[26:05] Speaker 2: Terry when I was probably thirteen or something, and jelly
[26:08] Speaker 2: Bean probably precedes me by three or four years because
[26:11] Speaker 2: they went to school together. So I didn't meet Terry
[26:13] Speaker 2: till the summertime, you know, think, but yeah, I mean, yeah,
[26:16] Speaker 2: he was amazing. So what we did is we went out.
[26:19] Speaker 2: I was playing drums with my dad, okay, and he
[26:22] Speaker 2: had a gig where he would play the weekends at
[26:24] Speaker 2: a couple of clubs and stuff and that. And real quick,
[26:27] Speaker 2: how that happened was he had a trio, right, and
[26:31] Speaker 2: was him this guitar player named Coffee and a drummer. Right,
[26:35] Speaker 2: But every they never could keep a drummer. So every
[26:38] Speaker 2: week there'd be like a different drummer and so yeah, right,
[26:43] Speaker 2: So eventually one there was a gig and the drummer
[26:48] Speaker 2: didn't show up, and my mom said, why don't you
[26:52] Speaker 2: let Jimmy play a set? He knows all your songs.
[26:56] Speaker 2: We've been watching you play for all this time. That's
[26:58] Speaker 2: a million So anyway, I so I did. I sat in.
[27:04] Speaker 2: I did one set with him and stuff, and everybody
[27:06] Speaker 2: liked it. Crowd liked it. Okay, right, So a couple
[27:09] Speaker 2: of weeks later and stuff, same thing, and so Coffee,
[27:12] Speaker 2: the guitar player said, you know, hey, well, my dad's
[27:15] Speaker 2: name was Jim. Also, he say, Jim, you know, why
[27:17] Speaker 2: don't you let your son go ahead and play? You know,
[27:19] Speaker 2: he knows the show show is let him play, So
[27:22] Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that whatever whatever, So anyway, I did.
[27:25] Speaker 2: I played the whole show. So after they get into
[27:28] Speaker 2: that gig, Coffee said to my dad, why don't you
[27:31] Speaker 2: just let your son play? Man? We don't have to
[27:33] Speaker 2: keep finding drummers, you know. So my dad said, okay, cool,
[27:37] Speaker 2: we'll let you play. Will you are a drummer? And
[27:39] Speaker 2: then my mom said, and he and my mom said
[27:41] Speaker 2: how much you're gonna pay him? And she became my
[27:46] Speaker 2: agent real quick. So and and then my dad said, well,
[27:48] Speaker 2: you know, i'll throw him out, you know a little something.
[27:50] Speaker 2: And she said, no, no, no, you're gonna pay him,
[27:52] Speaker 2: just like you pay any drummer. Yes, did you pay right?
[27:57] Speaker 2: And that was the start of my you know, and
[28:00] Speaker 2: that started my little I don't know college runner. I
[28:02] Speaker 2: don't know what happened to that money, but we started
[28:04] Speaker 2: putting that money away. So that was parents. Do you
[28:07] Speaker 2: ever see your college for money from all them beings? Yes?
[28:10] Speaker 1: Ever, I had a fifty dollars savings bund like my
[28:13] Speaker 1: grandmother bought me when I was like five.
[28:15] Speaker 2: Never seen. I don't know where it's at. Yeah, I
[28:17] Speaker 2: think my dad's been. Last time I saw it was
[28:19] Speaker 2: on top of the TV. That was on top of
[28:21] Speaker 2: the Big Team. It's been a long time ago. So
[28:28] Speaker 2: how does how do you guys melt all your bands?
[28:33] Speaker 1: Because I can assume that The Time is basically a
[28:37] Speaker 1: supergroup of Minneapolis based musicians and one Illinois musician. Yeah,
[28:46] Speaker 1: so what starts the process of you guys leaving your
[28:50] Speaker 1: respective bands to become the Time?
[28:55] Speaker 2: Okay, well that's uh I'll try to not make it
[28:58] Speaker 2: too complicated. So here's there's a lot of moving parts.
[29:02] Speaker 2: So for me, first of all, Terry at this point
[29:06] Speaker 2: had put together what was the nucleus of Flight Time,
[29:11] Speaker 2: which was Jellyban Johnson on the drums, Terry on the bass.
[29:16] Speaker 2: Interesting story how he had found Monty Moyer because Terry
[29:20] Speaker 2: had been trying to get me to join the band again.
[29:23] Speaker 2: I was. I was off doing my own band for
[29:25] Speaker 2: a while, and then I had actually quit doing that
[29:28] Speaker 2: and I had started DJing in your band at that
[29:31] Speaker 2: time when you drumming or were you playing keys, I
[29:33] Speaker 2: was playing keys, and I was writing all the songs
[29:36] Speaker 2: we did. We did all original songs, and it was
[29:38] Speaker 2: all and I was doing my best, you know Tom
[29:42] Speaker 2: Bell gambling of this is impression, mind and matter. Yeah,
[29:46] Speaker 2: I mean that's what I was trying to do with
[29:48] Speaker 2: a little bit of electronics in it. You know, I
[29:50] Speaker 2: had a little synthesizer and stuff in it. But it
[29:51] Speaker 2: was definitely trying to be that. That was that was
[29:54] Speaker 2: my inspiration, and so so I had you know, those
[29:59] Speaker 2: guys to me weren't serious. They were older guys. I
[30:01] Speaker 2: was just at I was sixteen at the time. And
[30:03] Speaker 2: those guys weren't really serious about it, like they're twenty
[30:06] Speaker 2: two twenty three, and I didn't get well. They had
[30:07] Speaker 2: jobs and families and kids and stuff. I'm like, twenty
[30:10] Speaker 2: four hours music and you know, I'm like, y'all are
[30:13] Speaker 2: messing up. You know, they get high and stuff, and
[30:15] Speaker 2: I'd be like, y'all getting high, we need to be
[30:16] Speaker 2: working on our music. And you know, they were like,
[30:18] Speaker 2: who the fuck this punk kid you know telling us?
[30:21] Speaker 2: You know. So anyway, eventually I just said forget it.
[30:24] Speaker 2: So I started DJing. I started working at a record pool,
[30:27] Speaker 2: you know, getting records. I started working at a record
[30:29] Speaker 2: store because I the clubs I played at were influentential
[30:34] Speaker 2: enough that I could know when I heard a record.
[30:37] Speaker 2: I could go to the record store guy and he
[30:38] Speaker 2: didn't trust me at first, but I could say to him, hey,
[30:42] Speaker 2: there's this record. Matter of fact, MFSB had a record
[30:45] Speaker 2: called Dance with Me Tonight, okay. And I had this
[30:48] Speaker 2: girl named Joyce whenever I played at the club. And
[30:51] Speaker 2: this is a teen club. Because I played at a
[30:52] Speaker 2: bunch of different clubs as a DJ, I had and
[30:54] Speaker 2: my crowd just kind of followed me around. But the
[30:56] Speaker 2: teen crowd was my best. We did about fifteen hundred
[30:59] Speaker 2: kids on a Friday and a Saturday night. It was huge,
[31:02] Speaker 2: a huge pace, Yeah, huge pressure. Oh, it was great.
[31:06] Speaker 2: It was it was awesome. It was awesome. It is
[31:08] Speaker 2: the most one of the most fun moments of my
[31:10] Speaker 2: life actually was doing that because just the whole idea
[31:12] Speaker 2: of introducing people to music, which is amazing, and you
[31:15] Speaker 2: know how that feels. I mean, you guys do that now.
[31:17] Speaker 2: Teens hold you hoses today. So if you don't play
[31:20] Speaker 2: what they know, well you know what, okay. So that
[31:24] Speaker 2: that's my point. So I had this girl named Joyce,
[31:26] Speaker 2: and Joyce I don't know where she was from, but
[31:29] Speaker 2: she'd always hand me some record every week and she'd say,
[31:34] Speaker 2: play this, this is gonna be whatever whatever, and i'
[31:36] Speaker 2: and I'd listen to a little bit in the headphones
[31:38] Speaker 2: and previewed and it would always sound a little weird
[31:40] Speaker 2: to me, and I'd be like, Joyce, are you sure,
[31:42] Speaker 2: and she'd go, yeah, yeah. And she had a crew
[31:44] Speaker 2: of about three or four other people and she would
[31:46] Speaker 2: get out and dance. She said, I know the dance
[31:48] Speaker 2: floor is gonna clear, but we're gonna I'm gonna dance
[31:51] Speaker 2: and we're gonna be cool. I mean, okay. So anyway,
[31:55] Speaker 2: she brought me a whole bunch of different records, but
[31:57] Speaker 2: the one I remember, the one of the first ones
[31:59] Speaker 2: was Dawn for Me Tonight MFSB right. So, and I
[32:03] Speaker 2: said to her, you know, Joyce, I got the album that.
[32:05] Speaker 2: I said, I've heard the song. It ain't really that No,
[32:07] Speaker 2: she said, no, but this is the twelve inches different.
[32:08] Speaker 2: It's a different mix. I said, okay, cool. I put
[32:11] Speaker 2: the record on and I go cause I talked to
[32:15] Speaker 2: I'd mixed and I talked. I did both things, and
[32:17] Speaker 2: I just said, here's a new one front zelm backzillm
[32:19] Speaker 2: all right, exactly right. And I said, okay, here's a
[32:22] Speaker 2: here's a brand new one, you know, exclusive, you know whatever,
[32:25] Speaker 2: whatever whatever. I put the record on the intro of
[32:29] Speaker 2: the records about I don't know. It's about sixteen bars
[32:31] Speaker 2: and stuff, and it sounds like I don't know, it's
[32:34] Speaker 2: it doesn't sound like nothing's gonna happen, right, And everybody's
[32:37] Speaker 2: kind of staring at me for a minute because they
[32:39] Speaker 2: pretty much trust me, so they're staring at me for
[32:41] Speaker 2: a minute. And then I see him start to inch
[32:44] Speaker 2: off the dance floor, and I'm like going, oh man,
[32:48] Speaker 2: I'm right, and then all of a sudden, it kicks
[32:51] Speaker 2: into this different group goes into this groove and I
[32:57] Speaker 2: see every and then I see Joyce in the middle
[32:59] Speaker 2: of the floor with her crew of people start dancing,
[33:02] Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, now the dance floor starts
[33:04] Speaker 2: coming back on the dance floor. By the end of
[33:06] Speaker 2: the night that record, I had to play it again.
[33:10] Speaker 2: They loved it that much, so I went to the
[33:12] Speaker 2: record There was a record store called Hot Licks, and
[33:14] Speaker 2: I remember this guy named Chico, I think his name
[33:16] Speaker 2: was Chico fat fingers right, and he played, he played,
[33:19] Speaker 2: he played, He played with a reggae band uh called
[33:23] Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm gonna I can't remember the name. It's
[33:25] Speaker 2: like Shagoy or Shambai or had some name like that. Anyway,
[33:29] Speaker 2: he ran the store. So I walked into the store
[33:31] Speaker 2: and I said, hey, man, this twelve inch dance with
[33:33] Speaker 2: me tonight. Can you get some of these? And he
[33:36] Speaker 2: said yeah. He says why and I said, because this
[33:38] Speaker 2: is my number one song at my club. I'm gonna
[33:39] Speaker 2: play it again next weekend. And I said, and I'm
[33:42] Speaker 2: gonna tell everybody to come down that you're the only
[33:44] Speaker 2: one that has the record downtown Minneapolis. You're the only
[33:46] Speaker 2: one that has record. So okay, So he says, well,
[33:49] Speaker 2: how many should I get? And I said, like a thousand?
[33:52] Speaker 2: He said, what You're nuts? I said, okay, cool. So anyway,
[33:57] Speaker 2: next weekend I played it pack the dance floor. I said,
[34:01] Speaker 2: hot Licks, go down to Hot Licks, are the only
[34:03] Speaker 2: ones in town with the record. He said, uh, Monday,
[34:07] Speaker 2: he said, he sold out. And he said and I said, well,
[34:10] Speaker 2: how many do you order? He said, well, I ordered
[34:11] Speaker 2: five hundred. I said, I told you to get a thousand, right,
[34:14] Speaker 2: And I remember I talked to him later on in life.
[34:16] Speaker 2: I talked to some PR person that worked for CBS
[34:19] Speaker 2: back in the day and they said, man, it was weird.
[34:22] Speaker 2: This one record just jumped off for it, you know.
[34:27] Speaker 2: So wait, we we always did this on Quest Love
[34:31] Speaker 2: Supreme for old DJs. Can you can you front sell
[34:35] Speaker 2: dance with me tonight? Right now? So yeah, I guess
[34:39] Speaker 2: here we go, right, all right, here's an exclusive. You're
[34:43] Speaker 2: gonna here first for the first time. You trust me
[34:46] Speaker 2: all this one now, trust me? This is him speed
[34:51] Speaker 2: dance with me tonight. Here we go. That was with me,
[35:09] Speaker 2: you know. And you know what's funny is is that
[35:12] Speaker 2: ended up being I kept charts from you know, dance
[35:16] Speaker 2: Floor Reaction and all that stuff, and then I started
[35:18] Speaker 2: printing the charts out and then I would take them
[35:20] Speaker 2: down to the record store and I'd leave them right
[35:23] Speaker 2: And that record was my number one record of all
[35:26] Speaker 2: time during the probably year and a half that I was.
[35:30] Speaker 2: I was at that club and she brought me some
[35:32] Speaker 2: other ones, a Firecracker mass production, and then she brought
[35:38] Speaker 2: me Firecracker was easy. The follow up was Forever, and
[35:42] Speaker 2: I don't remember Forever. Forever started off with just a
[35:46] Speaker 2: high hat, so it just started off with which was
[35:54] Speaker 2: a guaranteed dance floor you know clearer really yeah, But
[35:59] Speaker 2: she said, but wait till the beat kicks in, it's
[36:02] Speaker 2: gonna be real cool. So I said, okay, here's new
[36:04] Speaker 2: mass production. And people were like, well that they knew
[36:07] Speaker 2: that Firecracker was the jam, so they stood with me
[36:10] Speaker 2: for this one. And they stood and when they kicked in,
[36:12] Speaker 2: they uh huh, it sounds like put the word yeah,
[36:20] Speaker 2: watch when this kicks in. Though I never even knew
[36:36] Speaker 2: they had a follow up record. This was a follow up.
[36:39] Speaker 2: This was a follow up and Masterpieces in A S S.
[36:57] Speaker 2: They're in storage. Wow, yeah you are. Joyce should have
[37:01] Speaker 2: got an A and a job, right, Joyce was. Joyce
[37:03] Speaker 2: was incredible. Man, my DJ game already. I'm gonna play
[37:06] Speaker 2: these two in my next sets. I got, I got.
[37:08] Speaker 2: I'll give you one more from that from that day.
[37:11] Speaker 2: What about are you familiar with breakwater? Do it till
[37:13] Speaker 2: the fluid gets hot? I don't know that. Do it
[37:17] Speaker 2: to the fluid gets hot? Let me go and uh
[37:20] Speaker 2: release the beast, but do it to the fluid gets
[37:23] Speaker 2: Do it to the fluid gets hot. That was another
[37:25] Speaker 2: one that was really hot for me. And these records
[37:26] Speaker 2: were only big at my club, right and at this
[37:29] Speaker 2: record store. That was the weird thing about it. Oh yeah, okay,
[37:35] Speaker 2: I know this got that one? Yeah, I know that.
[37:38] Speaker 2: At the time, just DJ Jimmy James.
[37:42] Speaker 3: Where was your DJ?
[37:43] Speaker 2: It was Jimmy jam That came from DJing really yeah? Okay, yeah,
[37:49] Speaker 2: that came from Jay So what happened? So? Okay? So
[37:53] Speaker 2: that club was called the Disco Track right now. Also,
[37:57] Speaker 2: Downtown was a club that went through a series of
[37:59] Speaker 2: different names, but when I worked there, it was called
[38:02] Speaker 2: the Fox Trap. Okay, Now, the Fox Trap had three levels.
[38:06] Speaker 2: Downstairs live music, second floor was DJ, which was me,
[38:10] Speaker 2: and then third floor was a DJ, but it was
[38:12] Speaker 2: more chill or you know, laid back right, more of
[38:15] Speaker 2: a lounge type situation. So when I started working, there
[38:20] Speaker 2: was a DJ named Kyle Ray, and Kyle Ray was,
[38:25] Speaker 2: as you call it, the front selling DJ. Like he
[38:27] Speaker 2: did no mixing at all. It was all just personality
[38:30] Speaker 2: and playing records, right, So I took an example from him.
[38:35] Speaker 2: He was actually tragically killed, which was like nuts and
[38:41] Speaker 2: he tragically died, and so I kind of had borrowed
[38:44] Speaker 2: a little of his style as far as front loading
[38:47] Speaker 2: the records. But I could also mix because I had,
[38:50] Speaker 2: you know, kind of the musical thing, so I always
[38:52] Speaker 2: did a combination of it. And then I had a
[38:54] Speaker 2: little keyboard which I actually have downstairs, which was my
[38:57] Speaker 2: first synthesizer, and I used to play along with the
[38:59] Speaker 2: records and ate my own little stuff. So I was
[39:03] Speaker 2: doing that and that, and there was a at the
[39:07] Speaker 2: I was just going by Jimmy Harris, which was my name,
[39:09] Speaker 2: and there was a bartender from Philly who called himself
[39:14] Speaker 2: Delphonix right right, and I went over to get you know,
[39:18] Speaker 2: a drink from him or whatever, a cold because I
[39:21] Speaker 2: don't think I was. I don't think that I was eighteen.
[39:23] Speaker 2: I was probably still seventeen eight I don't I don't
[39:24] Speaker 2: even think. But I didn't drink anyway, so it didn't
[39:26] Speaker 2: really matter. And he said yo. He said man. He said,
[39:32] Speaker 2: I what kind of name you got? Man? And I said,
[39:34] Speaker 2: what do you mean? I said, what's your DJ name?
[39:36] Speaker 2: And I said I don't know. He said, man, you
[39:38] Speaker 2: gotta be you gotta be something. Man. I'm telling everybody
[39:40] Speaker 2: your name's Jimmy Jam. And I said, okay. He said,
[39:44] Speaker 2: Jimmy Jams, pot pots and pans, shake my hand. He
[39:47] Speaker 2: went into this whole rap, right, and I was like,
[39:49] Speaker 2: that's okay, cool. Right, So anyway, he started telling everybody
[39:54] Speaker 2: my name was Jimmy Jam and it just stuck, and
[39:58] Speaker 2: even to the point when we did the first time
[40:00] Speaker 2: record and I said to Prince when Prince was doing
[40:04] Speaker 2: like the credits on the record, and I said, Prince,
[40:08] Speaker 2: what name should I be under? And he said you
[40:10] Speaker 2: should be Jimmy Cham. I said, okay, cool. So that
[40:13] Speaker 2: was it. So then it was historic because it was
[40:15] Speaker 2: in printed. Brother gave me my name Delphonix. Yes, sir,
[40:19] Speaker 2: the bartender at the Fox Trap. Okay, so I'm sorry
[40:35] Speaker 2: because we're totally off track here. Yeah, okay, So okay,
[40:41] Speaker 2: So I tell this story about playing in all the
[40:44] Speaker 2: different clubs and stuff. So at the Fox Trap, Terry
[40:49] Speaker 2: was playing downstairs in the in the live music room.
[40:53] Speaker 2: I was playing upstairs right and the DJ room, and
[40:56] Speaker 2: Terry used to come up. And Terry is really good
[40:58] Speaker 2: at bugging the ship out of peace and twisting their arm,
[41:01] Speaker 2: and he's really good at that. He's stubborn, right. So
[41:04] Speaker 2: his whole thing was, man, you ain't a DJ man,
[41:07] Speaker 2: you're a musician man. You need to join the band,
[41:09] Speaker 2: and we need a keyboard player and such and such
[41:11] Speaker 2: and and I'm like, Terry, I just I'm not feeling it, man,
[41:13] Speaker 2: you know whatever. So one day he comes up to
[41:17] Speaker 2: the booth and he says, jam, he said, we got
[41:19] Speaker 2: a keyboard player. And I thought, oh great, he's gonna
[41:23] Speaker 2: quit bugging me now. And he says right. So I'm like,
[41:26] Speaker 2: he said come down, and you should come down and
[41:27] Speaker 2: check him out. And I said, okay, cool. So I
[41:31] Speaker 2: grabbed knee deep by funk a delic, which was I
[41:33] Speaker 2: think seventeen minutes or whatever it was. I put that
[41:36] Speaker 2: on and I jumped out the booth. It was pretty
[41:39] Speaker 2: early in the night, so it wasn't you know, nobody
[41:40] Speaker 2: would have cared if if it went ran out. But
[41:42] Speaker 2: I ran downstairs. I walk into the room. I hear
[41:47] Speaker 2: they're playing what you Won't Do For Love Bobby Calwell, right,
[41:51] Speaker 2: and so they're saying, and I'm hearing this somebody singing
[41:54] Speaker 2: and dun dudu. I'm like looking around singing, somebody singing
[42:01] Speaker 2: their asshole? Who's singing? And I looked behind this stack
[42:04] Speaker 2: of keyboards and this little white guy right and I'm
[42:09] Speaker 2: like looking and I'm like, oh wait, his mouth is moving,
[42:12] Speaker 2: but it doesn't sound like a white boy singing. And
[42:15] Speaker 2: who is that? You know? So I went back upstairs.
[42:18] Speaker 2: I looked at Terry and I went, you know, gave
[42:19] Speaker 2: the thumbs up. I went back upstairs. So after the
[42:21] Speaker 2: gig was over, I came back down. I said, hey, man,
[42:24] Speaker 2: who was singing to Bobby Callwell? He said, that's our
[42:26] Speaker 2: keyboard player, Monty Moyer. And I said, oh, I said
[42:29] Speaker 2: nice to meet you, Monty. I said cool. Terry, I said,
[42:31] Speaker 2: well good, you got your keyboard player. Now we you know,
[42:33] Speaker 2: good luck, you know, he said, no, man, he said,
[42:37] Speaker 2: we got to have two keyboard players. Man, that's the
[42:40] Speaker 2: that's the vibe, two keyboard players. So fast forward a
[42:43] Speaker 2: little while. I was going out with this older lady,
[42:46] Speaker 2: right and h she was beautiful too, Puerto Rican. Oh
[42:49] Speaker 2: my god. Anyway, so anyway she broke my heart. I
[42:53] Speaker 2: was I think I was eighteen. She was thirty proudly right,
[42:55] Speaker 2: oh wow, so damn. Her name her name was Carmen,
[43:03] Speaker 2: and she worked at the Horse of course, she worked
[43:06] Speaker 2: at the at the cosmetic counter, one of the stories
[43:09] Speaker 2: up there, man, and she just was amazing. So anyway,
[43:11] Speaker 2: she broke over me. So I'm a little broken hearder
[43:14] Speaker 2: than I'm walking home, right, I'm walking from her apartment home,
[43:16] Speaker 2: which is, you know, maybe ten blocks not that far.
[43:19] Speaker 2: So I'm walking up Lake Street, which was one of
[43:20] Speaker 2: the main things. And I walked by this club. I
[43:24] Speaker 2: didn't even know it was a club. It was like
[43:25] Speaker 2: a community center. And I'm walking by and I hear,
[43:27] Speaker 2: you know, music coming out of it and stuff, and
[43:29] Speaker 2: I was like something going on in here, right, So
[43:31] Speaker 2: I opened the door, I look in, I walk in.
[43:34] Speaker 2: There's a band rehearsing. Whose band is it Terry's band? Right?
[43:39] Speaker 2: I said, Terry, what's up? Man? He said, oh, this
[43:41] Speaker 2: is our rehearsal space. Man. Where you know this? They
[43:43] Speaker 2: opened up this club. They're letting us rehearse here and
[43:45] Speaker 2: then they're going to actually open it up night times.
[43:47] Speaker 2: And it was called the YASM y a a s M,
[43:52] Speaker 2: which was the Young African American Society of Men or
[43:56] Speaker 2: something like that or something. Yeah, it turned out it's upstanding. Yeah. Yeah,
[44:06] Speaker 2: so they yeah them. So anyway, I was like, okay, cool.
[44:09] Speaker 2: So anyway, they're in their rehearsing and stuff. I said, yeah,
[44:12] Speaker 2: cool cool. So Terry said yeah, man, so come on, man,
[44:14] Speaker 2: you're ready to join the band. And I said no, man,
[44:15] Speaker 2: I said, I you know, I'm this girl. Just broke
[44:18] Speaker 2: my heart, man, you know. And Terry's like, man, you
[44:20] Speaker 2: get your mind off it, man, you know, you just
[44:22] Speaker 2: need to jump back in. Just I said, nah, man,
[44:24] Speaker 2: I don't have any keyboards. Man. You know, I sold
[44:26] Speaker 2: all my keyboards and stuff. You know, we'll get you keyboards, man,
[44:28] Speaker 2: what kind of keyboards you want?
[44:29] Speaker 1: Man?
[44:29] Speaker 2: I said no, no, I don't, Terry, I'm good right.
[44:32] Speaker 2: So this is before cell phones right, I go home.
[44:35] Speaker 2: Next day, my phone rings Terry Lewis, Come on jan
[44:38] Speaker 2: what you're gonna do? Man? Come on man, we got
[44:40] Speaker 2: we got keyboards for you. Man, come on down, come
[44:42] Speaker 2: on down, you know. And at that point they had
[44:44] Speaker 2: started getting some gigs and stuff. They were gonna be
[44:47] Speaker 2: opening for the Barkas and Switch at this concert, right whoa,
[44:50] Speaker 2: So it was like, man, you got to join the band. Man,
[44:52] Speaker 2: we're gonna be opening for Barkas and Switch. Now, at
[44:55] Speaker 2: this point in time, the Alexander O'Neill was our lead singer. Okay, okay,
[45:01] Speaker 2: so this is when alex was the lead singer. So anyway,
[45:04] Speaker 2: we had a nice little band. We had basically the band.
[45:06] Speaker 2: We didn't have a guitar player. We it was kind
[45:08] Speaker 2: of we would rent a guitar player, but we didn't
[45:10] Speaker 2: really have anybody serious on guitar. Right, So anyway, we
[45:14] Speaker 2: go and do the gig. The gig was cool. Somebody
[45:18] Speaker 2: from Switch stole some some of our shoes. Really yeah,
[45:22] Speaker 2: yeah exactly, so anyway, but it was cool. So at
[45:28] Speaker 2: that point I pretty much was in that. So anyway,
[45:30] Speaker 2: so the band was set, except we didn't have a
[45:32] Speaker 2: guitar player. So we started gig and started doing our thing.
[45:36] Speaker 2: Our reputation was basically that we were the we were
[45:39] Speaker 2: the best band in Minnesota. So we you know, would
[45:42] Speaker 2: other bands agree with you, Well, yes they would actually,
[45:47] Speaker 2: interestingly enough, because what happened was so this is the
[45:51] Speaker 2: Jesse Johnson piece. Okay, so Jesse had Jesse had moved
[45:54] Speaker 2: to Minneapolis, or actually had come to Minneapolis because he
[45:58] Speaker 2: heard Prince was looking for a guitar player. But he
[46:02] Speaker 2: was mistaken because he was actually looking for a bass player.
[46:04] Speaker 2: He was looking for somebody and he ended up getting
[46:07] Speaker 2: brown Mark. But he but Prince met him, and Prince,
[46:12] Speaker 2: you know, like Jesse, and he said, he told Jesse,
[46:15] Speaker 2: he said, you should, you should stay in town and
[46:17] Speaker 2: and you know, get in one of the bands up
[46:19] Speaker 2: here and just you know, stick around. So Jesse went
[46:23] Speaker 2: to Morris's band, which was called Enterprise Band and Pleasure.
[46:27] Speaker 2: So Morris, interestingly enough, was the drummer in that band,
[46:31] Speaker 2: not the lead singer, and a girl named Sue Anne
[46:34] Speaker 2: Carwell was the lead singer. Yeah, Sue Anne Carwell was amazing,
[46:41] Speaker 2: amazing singer. Prince Di's a lot of stuff with her
[46:44] Speaker 2: back in the day too. Yeah, I mean she was
[46:46] Speaker 2: she was an amazing singer. Interestingly enough, little side note,
[46:52] Speaker 2: Morris did come up and sing one song every night.
[46:55] Speaker 2: He got off the drums and sue An actually went
[46:57] Speaker 2: back and played the drums. Oh, they traded switch and
[47:02] Speaker 2: the song was ironically too Hot, like cool in the
[47:06] Speaker 2: game Cool the game. Oh okay, okay, okay. So mister
[47:10] Speaker 2: Coole sang too Hot, so so and he sang it
[47:15] Speaker 2: really good. That was the funny thing. And if you
[47:17] Speaker 2: think about it, that's a really tough song to sing.
[47:18] Speaker 2: There's a lot of different intervals and it's crazy. If
[47:20] Speaker 2: you ever watch people try to sing that song, it's tough.
[47:24] Speaker 2: The bridge is tough. No, it's think about it. You
[47:30] Speaker 2: gotta hit all the Yeah, it's a lot of and
[47:34] Speaker 2: then it goes to the chain and then you know
[47:36] Speaker 2: it's a lot. Anyway, he used to hit it flawlessly
[47:39] Speaker 2: every night. Right, So, anyway, everybody kept telling us about
[47:42] Speaker 2: this guitar player. You know, they come to our gigs
[47:45] Speaker 2: and they'd be like, man, you checked out Morrison Nim's
[47:48] Speaker 2: guitar player, and we were like no, I said, man,
[47:50] Speaker 2: they got this guitar player. Man, he wears pink suits.
[47:53] Speaker 2: It does like ten minute guitar solos man, you got
[47:55] Speaker 2: to check him out. And we were like, okay, cool.
[47:57] Speaker 2: So we had a night off, we went over and
[48:00] Speaker 2: checked him out. He was exactly as advertised, right. So
[48:05] Speaker 2: afterwards we went up to two women. We said, hey, man,
[48:09] Speaker 2: you need to come join our band. You need to
[48:11] Speaker 2: come watch us. You know, nothing against Morris, but you
[48:14] Speaker 2: need to come to our band. So he said, okay, cool.
[48:16] Speaker 2: So the next weekend he came, well, I mean, you know,
[48:21] Speaker 2: because I mean there's no I mean, it is all
[48:23] Speaker 2: word of mouth and it was fighting words then taking
[48:26] Speaker 2: money out of my mouth. Well there's no social I
[48:28] Speaker 2: mean there's no social media, so I mean it's all
[48:30] Speaker 2: just kind of word of mouth. Somebody hears something, they
[48:32] Speaker 2: tell the next person, they tell the next person, so
[48:33] Speaker 2: on and so forth. That's what it was. And so anyway, yeah,
[48:36] Speaker 2: so you know, he came over, checked our band out
[48:41] Speaker 2: and we were good, right. So he went back to
[48:44] Speaker 2: Morris and he said, yo, Morris, he said, you know,
[48:49] Speaker 2: no offense man, but you know I'm going to join
[48:51] Speaker 2: Flight Time. Man. They're like really good. And what Moris
[48:55] Speaker 2: said actually kind of surprised. Well, it surprised us when
[48:59] Speaker 2: we he told us he said, he said, and Morris said, yeah,
[49:03] Speaker 2: that's cool, Jesse, because pretty soon we're all going to
[49:04] Speaker 2: be one band anyway. Wow. And we didn't know what
[49:08] Speaker 2: that meant. We were like, what's the time I was
[49:11] Speaker 2: gonna be one band? That doesn't make any sense. Okay. So,
[49:15] Speaker 2: as the story goes, Prince when he was doing the
[49:18] Speaker 2: Dirty Mind album, right, and of course the first couple
[49:21] Speaker 2: of albums he did were more R and B records
[49:24] Speaker 2: with some rock stuff on it, but Dirty Mind was
[49:26] Speaker 2: a whole different departure. Warner Brothers was scared of Dirty
[49:30] Speaker 2: Mind because they didn't hear any like funky hits on there.
[49:34] Speaker 2: Uptown sort of in that, but they wanted another song.
[49:39] Speaker 2: They said, we need another funky song on the record. Right.
[49:44] Speaker 2: So Morris actually wrote Party Up, but Prince took the
[49:49] Speaker 2: credit for it. But he owed Morris a favor and
[49:53] Speaker 2: he told Morris, if you put a band together, I'll
[49:56] Speaker 2: get your record deal. So Morris came over to our
[50:00] Speaker 2: band and said, Prince said, if I put a band together,
[50:03] Speaker 2: he'll give it, get it, get us a record deal.
[50:06] Speaker 2: So y'all just be the band and now we'll go
[50:09] Speaker 2: get a record deal. And that's how Mores ended up
[50:12] Speaker 2: in the band. But that's not the end of the store.
[50:15] Speaker 2: I was gonna say so because he didn't want to
[50:18] Speaker 2: sing initially, right, alex. So we had two dilemmas. One
[50:22] Speaker 2: was well, actually it wasn't the We actually had one
[50:25] Speaker 2: dilemma because Alexander O'Neil was the lead singer of the group.
[50:30] Speaker 2: Was he a good lead singer? Singer at that time?
[50:32] Speaker 2: Alexandro amazing. Never would sing the same lyrics. Twice we
[50:41] Speaker 2: had a song called I remember, we had a song
[50:43] Speaker 2: called march Wright that was an original song, and every
[50:47] Speaker 2: gig he'd sing different lyrics. He just would just make
[50:49] Speaker 2: up lyrics as he went along. The chorus would always
[50:52] Speaker 2: be the same, but the actual lyrics he would sing
[50:54] Speaker 2: were always different. And he did that a lot because
[50:57] Speaker 2: he never showed up the rehearsals and he never you know,
[51:00] Speaker 2: he didn't really care, but he no, he could pull
[51:02] Speaker 2: it off. He was alex was amazing. So anyway, our
[51:07] Speaker 2: big dilemma was, well, if Morris is the drummer, what
[51:10] Speaker 2: happens to Jellybee? Do we have two drummers? Jelly Bean
[51:16] Speaker 2: was good on guitar, but not at the point where
[51:18] Speaker 2: we could make him into a guitar player, so he
[51:20] Speaker 2: was kind of like gonna be the odd man out
[51:22] Speaker 2: and it was almost like, Wow, who's going to break
[51:25] Speaker 2: the news to Bean? And oh really? Oh yeah, so
[51:28] Speaker 2: we were at that point. Well, so Prince called a
[51:32] Speaker 2: dinner at Perkins Cake and Steakhouse, which is sort of
[51:37] Speaker 2: like the equivalent of Denny's but better. No, it's still there. Still.
[51:44] Speaker 2: I went to that Perkins Yep, my first night at
[51:47] Speaker 2: Paisley Park. Yep, it's still there. Right, that's crazy. So anyway,
[51:51] Speaker 2: we sit down and we're all going to have dinner basically,
[51:54] Speaker 2: and Prince is gonna kind of lay out the game
[51:56] Speaker 2: plan and what we're gonna do. Right, So Alexander O'Neil's there. Now.
[52:01] Speaker 2: The first thing to say about Alex is Alex always
[52:04] Speaker 2: speaks in the third person, like a football player. Yeah.
[52:13] Speaker 2: So so Alex, now, you know, he goes into his
[52:16] Speaker 2: before now we've we've ordered food, right, and of course
[52:20] Speaker 2: Princess buying, so Alex orders a big steak and he
[52:23] Speaker 2: orders all this food. Right, So Alex goes okay, Prince
[52:29] Speaker 2: before we get started, because he had a little lisp, right,
[52:32] Speaker 2: so he would have go okay, Prince, before we get
[52:34] Speaker 2: started and things like that that you know, I had
[52:35] Speaker 2: a few things I just want to get off my chest.
[52:37] Speaker 2: Here we go and and we're all like looking at
[52:41] Speaker 2: Alex like what what are you doing? Man? And He's like, so,
[52:44] Speaker 2: you know, here's the thing, you know, Alex, thatwn On Neil.
[52:46] Speaker 2: You know, first of all, Adaxon On Neil need you know,
[52:48] Speaker 2: I need a new house. I needed. I need a
[52:51] Speaker 2: new call, you know, I need. I need a pooling things,
[52:53] Speaker 2: you know, a down on Neil. You know, yeah, I
[52:55] Speaker 2: need a pooling things, you know, down need you know,
[52:58] Speaker 2: I just need some things. You know. I know this
[52:59] Speaker 2: this whole record thing is real cute and all that
[53:01] Speaker 2: stuff that, but this, you know, out of that o
[53:03] Speaker 2: Neil needs some things. You know what I'm saying, Prince.
[53:05] Speaker 2: You know, so this is all cute and everything, you know,
[53:07] Speaker 2: but I'm just letting you know that, you know, before
[53:09] Speaker 2: we get started. You know, this is and and as
[53:11] Speaker 2: he's talking, everybody's kicking each other under the table and
[53:15] Speaker 2: nudging everybody like what the heck is this dude doing.
[53:18] Speaker 2: We ain't even got the deals, ain't so Louien sign
[53:20] Speaker 2: condoeen nothing. It's like, you know, so as he's talking,
[53:26] Speaker 2: and I see this and if we ever do our
[53:29] Speaker 2: movie we want to do, it's like a movie. Alex.
[53:34] Speaker 2: The waiter comes and as Alex is finishing his tirade,
[53:40] Speaker 2: puts this big steak down in front of him, and
[53:44] Speaker 2: Alex goes right on, Cue Prince, that's just the way
[53:47] Speaker 2: I see it. So I'm gonna go ahead and throw
[53:48] Speaker 2: down and see a steak right here. So Prince and
[54:01] Speaker 2: Morris look at each other and get up and leave
[54:06] Speaker 2: the restaurant. Yeah, they're gone. So now we're like, going,
[54:13] Speaker 2: he's gonna pay for this stake. This is not right. Yeah. Yeah.
[54:19] Speaker 2: So we're like, okay, this is not good. So anyway,
[54:22] Speaker 2: I don't even know. We were like, dude, what are
[54:24] Speaker 2: you What are you doing here? Man? What are you doing? Alex? Well, man,
[54:27] Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm just you know, trying to point
[54:29] Speaker 2: out a few things. You know, people think, you know,
[54:30] Speaker 2: because I'm telling you man, you know, he's the way
[54:32] Speaker 2: it is without that O'Neill. You know, if there's a
[54:34] Speaker 2: bear in the woods in Alexander, Neil, you better help
[54:36] Speaker 2: the beard because you don't got to help Alexander. And
[54:46] Speaker 2: by the way, we have a publishing company called Help
[54:48] Speaker 2: the Bear. And that's why because that was Alexis. That
[54:52] Speaker 2: was Alexis line. So, needless to say, we just thought
[54:56] Speaker 2: everything was done. And I can't remember whether So Terry
[54:59] Speaker 2: got a phone call and I can't remember whether it
[55:01] Speaker 2: was from Morris or from Prince. I think it might
[55:04] Speaker 2: have been from Prince, and he just said because it
[55:09] Speaker 2: was just it was a very short thing. It was.
[55:11] Speaker 2: It was basically lose the Bear. Yeah, it was like
[55:15] Speaker 2: Alexander or Neil is out, Morris Day is the lead singer,
[55:22] Speaker 2: Jelly Breen Johnson is the drummer. Meet tomorrow at nine
[55:26] Speaker 2: o'clock at such and such and such at the Yasm
[55:30] Speaker 2: to rehearse. And that was it, and Alex was done.
[55:35] Speaker 2: Bean was the drummer, Morris was somebody told him. I
[55:40] Speaker 2: don't know who told him, but yeah, he got the word.
[55:42] Speaker 2: But I need to know the story of the next
[55:44] Speaker 2: time you saw Alex. So was Alex cool with this?
[55:48] Speaker 2: Of course? Not? Well? Yeah, because yeah, because you know,
[55:51] Speaker 2: help the Bean. You don't even know, no, But I
[55:56] Speaker 2: remember what our conversation with the conversation I remember having
[55:59] Speaker 2: with Alex after that was just one where we said
[56:01] Speaker 2: to him, hey, man, if we make it, meaning me
[56:05] Speaker 2: and me and Terry had this conversation with him. We
[56:07] Speaker 2: just said, man, when we make it, we're coming back
[56:09] Speaker 2: and getting you. And that was it. And see, Bill,
[56:13] Speaker 2: it works out, no, because we we you know, it
[56:19] Speaker 2: just you know, we felt bad and we felt like,
[56:21] Speaker 2: you know, we didn't know the way things were going
[56:23] Speaker 2: to work out, that we'd actually have an opportunity to
[56:25] Speaker 2: do that and come back and grab him. But we
[56:27] Speaker 2: did the way things worked out. But now we just
[56:30] Speaker 2: kind of felt like that, and you know, and then
[56:32] Speaker 2: at that point we were we were off and running
[56:34] Speaker 2: and Alex was just you know, still gigging locally and everything,
[56:38] Speaker 2: you know. But yeah, he talked himself right out of
[56:40] Speaker 2: that and we did one song with Alex, actually recorded
[56:44] Speaker 2: one song called you. It was called you, Yeah, he
[56:47] Speaker 2: was called you would be Mine. Wow it sounded vague, yes, yeah, exactly,
[56:53] Speaker 2: Yeah it was. It was ironic.
[56:54] Speaker 1: But so once you guys started rehearsing, uh well yeah,
[57:01] Speaker 1: talk about that process, like how often would you guys rehearse?
[57:05] Speaker 2: And every single day? Every single day. Now here's the thing. Now,
[57:08] Speaker 2: the album was already done. I mean, Morrison Prince had
[57:11] Speaker 2: already done the Time album. We didn't play on the
[57:13] Speaker 2: time album a lick. So you were given we were
[57:16] Speaker 2: record or the cassette we were given, Yep, given the
[57:19] Speaker 2: cassette and six songs could learn learn these songs? Six songs.
[57:24] Speaker 2: You also did the what's the to the beat song?
[57:26] Speaker 2: The oh no no, no, no oh oh, dance to
[57:31] Speaker 2: the beat, Dance to beat dance, So there were extra
[57:33] Speaker 2: songs too. Correct. Yeah, but we never recorded dance to
[57:36] Speaker 2: the Beat. I don't think. I think we just played
[57:38] Speaker 2: it live. I don't think we ever recorded it. If
[57:40] Speaker 2: it was recorded, it was live for records. So it
[57:42] Speaker 2: was it only expected of you guys to just do
[57:45] Speaker 2: a half hour no matter what.
[57:46] Speaker 1: Or because I'm thinking, like, if you're doing having a
[57:50] Speaker 1: show's material, usually people do cover songs, have a forty
[57:54] Speaker 1: five minute show ready or hour show ready.
[57:58] Speaker 2: Well, when we went okay, so when we went up initially,
[58:00] Speaker 2: so when we were rehearsed and actually there's one piece
[58:03] Speaker 2: of the rehearsal I got it, I got it, or
[58:05] Speaker 2: two actually rehearsal stories I'll relate to you while we're
[58:08] Speaker 2: on the rehearsals because we're rehearsing at the YASM and
[58:11] Speaker 2: the ASTHM as it turns out was owned by this
[58:13] Speaker 2: guy named Leonard Weaver was his name, right, Old cat,
[58:18] Speaker 2: Old black cat. And he had this bar, and in
[58:22] Speaker 2: the bar were these juice machines. One was lemonade and
[58:25] Speaker 2: one was fruit punch. And he also had these lamps.
[58:29] Speaker 2: It was like a lounge and he had these lamps
[58:31] Speaker 2: and they were naked women basically with a lamp shade
[58:34] Speaker 2: on top of it.
[58:35] Speaker 3: Right.
[58:37] Speaker 2: So when we started rehearsing, Leonard said he had two rules.
[58:42] Speaker 2: He said, y'all stay out of my juice machine, and
[58:46] Speaker 2: y'all don't touch my titty lamps. It's Italian, so timmy lamb.
[59:02] Speaker 2: So we said, okay, cool, we got you man. We're
[59:04] Speaker 2: not gonna mess when we got it. So we started rehearsing.
[59:07] Speaker 2: We rehearsing every day at this point. So I remember,
[59:11] Speaker 2: you know the whole thing. Now, Jerome at this point
[59:15] Speaker 2: was not in the group. Jerome was a roadie, right,
[59:20] Speaker 2: and I remember we had gone and done a couple
[59:22] Speaker 2: of gigs and Jerome had to like ride in the
[59:27] Speaker 2: truck with the equipment with this gap tooth British guy,
[59:31] Speaker 2: you know, with the British teeth. Jerome helped me, you know,
[59:36] Speaker 2: unload the amps, and you know, it was like all
[59:38] Speaker 2: this and Jerome was just like so pissed off, like
[59:40] Speaker 2: you know whatever, but he's you know, he's going along
[59:42] Speaker 2: with it, right, So he's trying to figure out, man,
[59:45] Speaker 2: how can I get a gig in this thing? You know,
[59:48] Speaker 2: you know something? And Terry's trying to figure it out too,
[59:50] Speaker 2: because that's just you know, Jerome's Terry's brothers, right, So
[59:52] Speaker 2: we're trying to figure this out. So anyway, we're rehearsing
[59:56] Speaker 2: and in the stick, Morrison, somebody bring me a mirror. Right,
[1:00:02] Speaker 2: So on the walls of the yasm are these big mirrors, right,
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: but not like little merrors, but I'm talking about big
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: full body mirrors, right. So Prince is at the rehearsal
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: and he's watching us rehearse, and Morris says, somebody bring
[1:00:19] Speaker 2: me a mirror, and out of the blue, Jerome goes
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: and grabs a mirror off the wall, puts it in
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: front of Morris. Morris turns around, looks at it kind
[1:00:28] Speaker 2: of like starter like oh, and pulls out his comb
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: and starts combing his hair. Prince falls on the floor
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: like he's like, ah, we gotta do that. We gotta
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: do that. We gotta do that. And Jerome was no
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: longer a roadie. So that's how that's how he went
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: from being the roady to be in the valet. It
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: was simple as that, and that happened. And every night
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: we go into the bar and drink the juice out
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: of the juice machine, but then we'd pour water into it,
[1:01:03] Speaker 2: so it would look like nothing happened because every time.
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: So so Leonard would walk in every day and he'd
[1:01:08] Speaker 2: come in and he'd look and make sure everything was cool.
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: And then one day we were playing around and we
[1:01:12] Speaker 2: broke one of the titty lamps. Oh, and so we
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: like turned it around and tried to kind of glue
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: it and try to whatever. And I swear to God,
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: he walked in and he looked and he said, who's
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: been in my juice machine? Because it's because it's because
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: it's all like light colored now like brothers trying to
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: be slick, but it ain't working right, so it's all
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: like that. And then he looks and he's like looking
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: at it all of us. He said, who was in
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: my juice machine? And we're like going on, we don't know, God,
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: but it was Jesse was who it was. So anyway,
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: we were like, no, we don't know, We don't really know.
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: So he was like looking around my titty lamp. Who
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: broke my titty lamb? And it's like, heck, can he
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: see that? He's like one hundred feet away from the
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: teddy lamb? How does he know that lamp was broke?
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: It was crazy, It was times, man, but it was
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: like the whole formation of us as a unit. That
[1:02:06] Speaker 2: was the back drop of it, And it was a
[1:02:09] Speaker 2: reason we were so tight, not only as musicians but
[1:02:12] Speaker 2: just as people because we already grew up as friends anyway,
[1:02:16] Speaker 2: but that those experiences just totally solidified everything that we
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: were doing. And then we would play at night, like
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: like we would rehearse it during the day and then
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: at night Weaver would open the place up, charge people
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: and we play songs, not you know, when we do
[1:02:29] Speaker 2: a couple covers, but mostly it just be our stuff.
[1:02:31] Speaker 2: People didn't know what the heck we were singing, but
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: they just liked it. You know. It was just like
[1:02:35] Speaker 2: a place to go and hang out.
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: Okay, this is what I gotta know now. More than anything,
[1:02:43] Speaker 1: you guys had this image that was just as important
[1:02:50] Speaker 1: and prevalent as the music was. And how did you
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: guys actually care for like, did Mars have ten versions
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: of that gold jacket?
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: Did you have, Doris? Yeah?
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: Exactly, because the thing is that what I know about
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: touring is every show I do, it's drenched.
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: Are you? But I know that it's required that you
[1:03:24] Speaker 2: guys you know it. Do you guys have a.
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: Wardrobe person that runs shit to the cleaners and stuff?
[1:03:31] Speaker 1: Because I feel like, and did you have to look
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: that way? Twenty four to seven?
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: Okay, well, yeah, so the wardrobe really was based on
[1:03:41] Speaker 2: the way we dressed anyway, because guys always as a
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: matter of fact, as a matter of fact, you're looking
[1:03:46] Speaker 2: at it. You're looking at it right now. But I'm
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: going to show you a picture of Terry. You can't
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: see this on the air, but this is Terry Lewis
[1:03:53] Speaker 2: at like fourteen fifteen years old. Wow, that's it's not
[1:03:59] Speaker 2: as a guitar strap. Yeah. And he's got and he's
[1:04:01] Speaker 2: gotten and he painted this base red, black and green.
[1:04:03] Speaker 2: This is the base. When I met Terry, he painted
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: his you know, so he was afrocentric and the whole thing.
[1:04:09] Speaker 2: That's right. So when people talk about the way we looked.
[1:04:14] Speaker 2: I mean that that goes from you know, back in
[1:04:17] Speaker 2: that day. I mean we we we used to take
[1:04:19] Speaker 2: because the thrift stores. We couldn't afford to dress. We
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: wanted to dress nice, but we couldn't afford it. But
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: you could go to a thrift store and get a
[1:04:25] Speaker 2: suit for ten bucks, right, and get a hat and
[1:04:28] Speaker 2: a whole thing. So we were always rocking that style,
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: and Prince just enhanced it. Now Morris is stuff the
[1:04:34] Speaker 2: press we called it the pressley, the jacket that he
[1:04:37] Speaker 2: had on the first two album covers. There was only one. Yeah,
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: there was only one that was it the pressley, And yeah,
[1:04:43] Speaker 2: we kept it dry. You know. That was part of
[1:04:45] Speaker 2: Jerome's job. By the way, he was the real valet
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: for the group, so he'd call everybody and say, you know,
[1:04:50] Speaker 2: have your dry cleaning ready to go, you know, if
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: we'd be at a hotel or that kind of thing.
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: But yeah, all of our stuff was thrift shop stuff.
[1:04:56] Speaker 2: And it was interesting because the first tour we did,
[1:04:58] Speaker 2: I remember, we would go to thrift and we would
[1:05:01] Speaker 2: clean up. Second tour we did, they were all out
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: of stuff. Because people caught on and doing it. Yeah,
[1:05:07] Speaker 2: it totally caught on. So it was interesting. But yeah, no,
[1:05:10] Speaker 2: that that was the thing, man. We just that was
[1:05:12] Speaker 2: always kind of our our style anyway, you guys weren't
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: quite of age, but like that that look when they
[1:05:23] Speaker 2: came out in nineteen eighty one.
[1:05:25] Speaker 1: I mean that's the first time I think, like we
[1:05:28] Speaker 1: were all big in our moms, like, yo, take us
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: to the thrift store.
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: Word you would never hear darn. I was wondering if
[1:05:33] Speaker 2: that was cool to y'all because.
[1:05:34] Speaker 1: That's like the dog I mean, they they talked about
[1:05:37] Speaker 1: baggies and then like and you know, my mom be like, baggies,
[1:05:43] Speaker 1: I can get you some bags.
[1:05:44] Speaker 2: It's like two dollars at the thrift store. And it
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: was like the thrift store. Yeah, well f as I
[1:05:49] Speaker 2: frowned on it.
[1:05:50] Speaker 1: But like because my cousins were more like in the street,
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: you know, like b boy and just came out and
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: sergery of valent a drug dealer shit, right, But when
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: oh my goodess, like all of sixth grade, all I
[1:06:01] Speaker 1: wore were just baggies and my parents couldn't be more pleased.
[1:06:10] Speaker 2: On like twenty bears of pint, you know what I mean. Yeah, So,
[1:06:16] Speaker 2: so you guys just naturally look like gangster. We just naturally, Yeah,
[1:06:20] Speaker 2: we just naturally did it, and and we just kind
[1:06:22] Speaker 2: of fell into it. And we also liked the whole idea,
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: the whole cool aspect. We liked anyway, because it was
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: about respecting yourself and it was about you know, dressing
[1:06:30] Speaker 2: well and having class and that. And we liked the
[1:06:34] Speaker 2: idea of that. I mean we enhanced it, and Prince
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: enhanced it. I mean he he took it to a
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: whole other level. And yes, he wanted us to always
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: look the part he hated the idea of because we
[1:06:45] Speaker 2: used to talk about it back in the day when
[1:06:48] Speaker 2: we first started touring and stuff. We would go out
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: like with Cameo, you know, and Cameo would have, you know,
[1:06:53] Speaker 2: the glitter suits on and the whole thing, and and
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: Prince always kind of frowned on it. He just said, no,
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: he said, you should look the way you look, you know,
[1:07:01] Speaker 2: and nobody should see you looking unlike yourself what they
[1:07:05] Speaker 2: expect to see you. Even to the point where I
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: remember with Morris, I mean, by the second tour, we
[1:07:13] Speaker 2: were holding that pressley together with tape literally, I mean
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: it was just like that thing was about ready to
[1:07:19] Speaker 2: fall apart, and I remember Morris kept saying, Prince, can
[1:07:22] Speaker 2: I get a new jacket? I need a new Presley
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: And Prince was like, no, that's what people expect to
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: see you in, and that's the way you need to look.
[1:07:28] Speaker 2: He was very much into that, right. And I remember
[1:07:32] Speaker 2: about halfway through that tour and we were kicking his
[1:07:36] Speaker 2: ass pretty good every night at that point. Oh we know, yeah,
[1:07:41] Speaker 2: And I remember they at one point in time, I
[1:07:44] Speaker 2: remember the management came to us and said, we're gonna
[1:07:46] Speaker 2: put you guys out on your own, on your own
[1:07:48] Speaker 2: tour because Prince didn't let us play. You have to
[1:07:53] Speaker 2: now think about once again, no media, no social media. Right.
[1:07:56] Speaker 2: So everything that you got you read right. It was
[1:07:59] Speaker 2: a new paper thing. Right. The two biggest markets obviously
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: were La and New York. Right, those two markets. We
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: didn't play with Prince. We didn't open with him, right,
[1:08:11] Speaker 2: So he did Madison Square Garden or whatever it was.
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: We didn't play, but we played for Vanity six. So
[1:08:16] Speaker 2: we were in the building, right, which to this day
[1:08:19] Speaker 2: is the thing you're probably pisss jelly Bean off the
[1:08:22] Speaker 2: most of anything. Man. All our friends are out there, man,
[1:08:24] Speaker 2: we're in the building and stuff, and we can't even play.
[1:08:26] Speaker 2: I was like, he used to get so mad. Same
[1:08:28] Speaker 2: with the Forum in LA. Never played the Forum in LA.
[1:08:31] Speaker 2: We played Long Beach Arena, and we played I think
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: Nasau Coliseum or something in New York. But we never
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: got to play those shows because the reviews were all like, yeah,
[1:08:42] Speaker 2: Prince was great, that was great, but you got to
[1:08:44] Speaker 2: see the time, you know, and he didn't want that,
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: so that was the thing. So we never played those markets.
[1:08:50] Speaker 2: So after we saw that happen and we were kind
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: of like, okay, So the management's like, you know, we're
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: gonna put you on your own tour, and I think
[1:08:57] Speaker 2: it was gonna be Evelyn Champagne King and Shallamar or
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: somebody like that, right, So we were like, okay, cool, great,
[1:09:04] Speaker 2: we'll do our own tour. That's cool. So then they
[1:09:07] Speaker 2: changed their mind and they said so by this point
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: in time, so Morris said, well, if we're doing our
[1:09:10] Speaker 2: own tour, I'm getting me a new Presley. So Morris
[1:09:14] Speaker 2: orders this new Presley, right, And I remember Prince used
[1:09:19] Speaker 2: to sometimes come in our dresser room because after we
[1:09:21] Speaker 2: do the Vanity six set, we would they in the
[1:09:25] Speaker 2: old at the beginning, they would give us like fifteen
[1:09:27] Speaker 2: minutes to change, right, So we would come out and
[1:09:30] Speaker 2: do the Vanity six set, and then we go back
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: in the dress room, hang out for a little bit,
[1:09:33] Speaker 2: and then we come back out. Sometimes we'd actually be dressed,
[1:09:37] Speaker 2: but we put on like capes or we put on
[1:09:40] Speaker 2: something stupid. So people said, the people on the side, yeah,
[1:09:43] Speaker 2: so they couldn't see who we were, right. So, but
[1:09:46] Speaker 2: it was great because we were so warmed up. It
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: was like our sound check, right, play it for Vanity six.
[1:09:50] Speaker 2: So it even made us better, right, And and then
[1:09:54] Speaker 2: it got to the point where he wouldn't even give
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: us enough time to change or anything. We really started
[1:09:58] Speaker 2: killing him then because we were all warmed up, and
[1:10:00] Speaker 2: it was like Jellybean, like the longer he played, the
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: better he got. He was one of those kind of drummers,
[1:10:04] Speaker 2: so it was all working against him. So I remember
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: we had kind of lattashed him in about three or
[1:10:09] Speaker 2: four gigs in a row. So anyway, he comes into
[1:10:12] Speaker 2: the dressing room and we were really kind of feeling
[1:10:14] Speaker 2: ourselves at that point in time, and he comes into
[1:10:17] Speaker 2: the dressing room and he goes and nobody's really reacting
[1:10:21] Speaker 2: to him, and he just kind of goes, what are
[1:10:24] Speaker 2: you guys doing? And Morris says, got something to show you, Prince,
[1:10:33] Speaker 2: And so Jerome goes and brings out this wardrobe thing
[1:10:38] Speaker 2: and unzips it and Morris like flips it and the
[1:10:43] Speaker 2: thing comes off and he goes, I got a new Presley.
[1:10:53] Speaker 2: Prince literally goes, ah, I created a monster and ran
[1:10:58] Speaker 2: out of the room. Swear to God, Swear to God.
[1:11:04] Speaker 2: He did. He created him last year. He did. It's like, yeah,
[1:11:19] Speaker 2: what were those Okay?
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: So I know by the time that what times it
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: came out, you guys were and maybe assuming a better place.
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: But in the very beginning the first album, were you
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: guys like I just want to know what a working
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: class musician was into and doing between eighty one and
[1:11:41] Speaker 1: eighty two, Like, were you guys driving yourself to the gigs?
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: Like I don't know if you read Maurice White's autobiography,
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: but I'm shocked at even up until Spirit they were
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: like driving themselves to the gigs.
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: They were, you know, station wagons to the gigs and
[1:12:00] Speaker 2: that stuff. Well, we did. We definitely did the station
[1:12:02] Speaker 2: wagon thing. There's no doubt about that. We did, but
[1:12:05] Speaker 2: not by the time, by the time we were actually
[1:12:07] Speaker 2: touring with Prince. No, we had a tour bus, and
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: you know, we were making our little one hundred and
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: fifty dollars a week after they a week Yeah what
[1:12:16] Speaker 2: is Yeah?
[1:12:17] Speaker 1: What is a working class musician make in eighty one
[1:12:22] Speaker 1: on that tour? Like, were you guys at the top
[1:12:24] Speaker 1: level or no?
[1:12:26] Speaker 2: We were, No, we were well below the top level
[1:12:28] Speaker 2: because we we were like I say, we would get
[1:12:31] Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty dollars a week in a in
[1:12:33] Speaker 2: a check and for that it was in mine per
[1:12:36] Speaker 2: dim Yeah. Well and we get per diem too, so
[1:12:39] Speaker 2: I guess it would add up to two fifty a week.
[1:12:41] Speaker 2: So that if that changes anything. I mean, my my
[1:12:43] Speaker 2: check after taxes was one hundred and seventeen dollars. I
[1:12:46] Speaker 2: still have, I think my check stub, you know, my
[1:12:48] Speaker 2: original check stub. But no, we were going broke and
[1:12:51] Speaker 2: it probably you know, for me at the time, I
[1:12:54] Speaker 2: was living at home anyway, so I hadn't moved out,
[1:12:57] Speaker 2: and I didn't have any kids. I didn't have any responsibility.
[1:13:00] Speaker 2: It was really tough on Terry because Terry, not only
[1:13:03] Speaker 2: Terry drove a school bus, you know, and and was
[1:13:07] Speaker 2: making really good money doing that. But also because when
[1:13:11] Speaker 2: we were gigging his flight time and we're like I say,
[1:13:13] Speaker 2: we were like doing our own gigs and do outing,
[1:13:16] Speaker 2: and yeah, we were doing really well. I mean as
[1:13:18] Speaker 2: a bad I mean, Terry took a huge pay cut,
[1:13:21] Speaker 2: probably the biggest out of anybody had a young son
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: at that point in a house. I mean, Terry was
[1:13:28] Speaker 2: always very like responsible from like an early age, like
[1:13:31] Speaker 2: he was already living his he was like an adult
[1:13:33] Speaker 2: at an early age. So for him, yeah, it hit
[1:13:37] Speaker 2: him really bad, like it messed his credit up, you know,
[1:13:40] Speaker 2: it messed him out rat Oh, yeah, it totally messed it,
[1:13:43] Speaker 2: totally messed him up. And and even I remember the
[1:13:46] Speaker 2: second year we had an ultimatum, like it was in
[1:13:49] Speaker 2: I think it was San Dieg. I think we were
[1:13:51] Speaker 2: in San Diego and we had we were all sharing
[1:13:56] Speaker 2: rooms at that point in time, except for except for Morris,
[1:13:59] Speaker 2: and I remember Terry said, man, we got two gold albums.
[1:14:04] Speaker 2: They had bumped us up to two fifty a week,
[1:14:07] Speaker 2: and then Vanity, Yeah, Vanity six was giving us another
[1:14:10] Speaker 2: one hundred a week or something like that at plus
[1:14:13] Speaker 2: per diem. So everybody was saving the per diem to
[1:14:16] Speaker 2: buy a VCR or whatever. I mean, you know that
[1:14:18] Speaker 2: was the hot thing back in that day, was save
[1:14:19] Speaker 2: up for a VCR, right. But we but everybody was
[1:14:22] Speaker 2: getting you know, at that point in time, he getting
[1:14:24] Speaker 2: on everybody's getting on everybody's nerves. So it was like,
[1:14:26] Speaker 2: you know, Terry said, man, we need our own room.
[1:14:28] Speaker 2: So he went to management at the time, and there
[1:14:31] Speaker 2: was this lady named Jamie Shoop, and Jamie shop was like,
[1:14:34] Speaker 2: she was our tour manager. Not Alan, No, okay, Ali
[1:14:38] Speaker 2: came along after us after yeah. Yeah, So Jamie was amazing,
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: took great care of us. She I mean as best
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: she could. I mean, because it was it was Prince's thing.
[1:14:49] Speaker 2: I mean, there was no doubt about Prince ran it.
[1:14:53] Speaker 2: But she looked out for us the best she can.
[1:14:55] Speaker 2: And she said, listen, she said, if you guys, you
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: guys should have your own rooms, I'll advocate for that.
[1:15:00] Speaker 2: Let's have a meeting whatever. So we told everybody, here's
[1:15:04] Speaker 2: what we're gonna do. We're gonna have a meeting in
[1:15:05] Speaker 2: San Diego, and we're basically going to say if we
[1:15:10] Speaker 2: don't get rooms, we're quitting the tour. That's the thing
[1:15:13] Speaker 2: right now, Jesse. For some reason, we said don't tell anybody,
[1:15:20] Speaker 2: but Jesse for some reason went behind our backs and
[1:15:22] Speaker 2: told management or told Prince or told somebody. So when
[1:15:27] Speaker 2: we got everybody in this room, we thought, you know,
[1:15:30] Speaker 2: we had the upper hand. We're gonna spring this on them.
[1:15:33] Speaker 2: We walked into the room and Prince was like, so
[1:15:35] Speaker 2: you guys are going to boycott. Huh, We're like going.
[1:15:38] Speaker 2: We like all looked at each other. Then we all
[1:15:40] Speaker 2: looked at Jesse, and Jesse's like, what, you know whatever,
[1:15:45] Speaker 2: We're like, okay. So Terry at that point was just like,
[1:15:48] Speaker 2: you know, listen, dude. He said, I can't. You know,
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: I can't. I got a kid, I got you know whatever, whatever.
[1:15:54] Speaker 2: I can't. You know, I can't do this. And I
[1:15:59] Speaker 2: remember Prince he said to Terry rock stars shouldn't have kids. Wow,
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: never forget that. I'll never forget that to this day.
[1:16:09] Speaker 2: And uh anyway, so Terry, so Terry walked up. Terry said,
[1:16:15] Speaker 2: Terry said quit. Terry said, Terry said, I remember going
[1:16:19] Speaker 2: into it. He said, I'm always gonna have enough money
[1:16:23] Speaker 2: to get a bus ticket. If i can do nothing else,
[1:16:26] Speaker 2: I'm gonna have enough money to get a bus ticket
[1:16:28] Speaker 2: to go home. And so he had his you know,
[1:16:30] Speaker 2: fifty dollars or whatever the heck a bus ticket was.
[1:16:32] Speaker 2: He had it, and he said, that's it. I'm out
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: of here. Well, of course, Jamie came to the rescue
[1:16:39] Speaker 2: and talked to Prince and said, Prince, come on, these guys,
[1:16:43] Speaker 2: you know, they can have their own rooms. It's what's
[1:16:44] Speaker 2: not what's the big deal. It's you know, it's three
[1:16:46] Speaker 2: more rooms a night. What's the big deal? And anyway,
[1:16:49] Speaker 2: Prince was so Prince was said, okay, fine, they got it.
[1:16:52] Speaker 2: But if it wouldn't have been for Terry doing that, right,
[1:16:55] Speaker 2: because because for Terry it was serious. It wasn't like
[1:16:57] Speaker 2: a you know, a grand standing type thing or anything.
[1:17:01] Speaker 2: It was like serious, like Terry, Terry had real life
[1:17:04] Speaker 2: and real responsibilities. And for nineteen eighty two, what would
[1:17:11] Speaker 2: have been fair.
[1:17:13] Speaker 1: Market share for what, you know, what tickets were back then,
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: what the gross was for these shows? And I know
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: everyone's on this tour, so I know it's vanity and
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: yeah there are people and you guys and your people
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: and the revolution and printing his people, I'm sure the
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: staff and all that stuff.
[1:17:31] Speaker 2: What is fair for that time period? Honestly, quest So
[1:17:36] Speaker 2: I don't know I don't really know.
[1:17:38] Speaker 1: It wasn't that because you know, we were and tour
[1:17:42] Speaker 1: support wasn't a thing like Mo Austin and those guys weren't.
[1:17:45] Speaker 2: Like I think Warner Brothers. Yeah, I think Warner Brothers
[1:17:48] Speaker 2: definitely supported the tour. I mean because all three records
[1:17:50] Speaker 2: were all Warner Brothers records. I mean, you couldn't actually
[1:17:53] Speaker 2: have a better situation. Yeah, right, you know, they were
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: all records. But the other thing was we weren't making
[1:17:59] Speaker 2: any We made any royalties on the time records. All
[1:18:02] Speaker 2: we made was the salary, So it wasn't like it
[1:18:04] Speaker 2: was an advance against royalties. And remember back in those days,
[1:18:10] Speaker 2: if you had a gold record, you were doing pretty
[1:18:12] Speaker 2: well because you know, the money flowed. I mean, the
[1:18:15] Speaker 2: royalties were pretty good.
[1:18:17] Speaker 1: So when they would open a budget, that wasn't split
[1:18:20] Speaker 1: with you guys, like it was just like we just
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: paid regular salary.
[1:18:23] Speaker 2: Just played a regular salary. We never we never were
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: royalty artists individually. Morris was, but the rest of us weren't.
[1:18:30] Speaker 2: Was there a big difference between you guys and the
[1:18:32] Speaker 2: Revolution when it came to that, Like financially, I never
[1:18:36] Speaker 2: knew what the Revolution made quite Honestly, I never did.
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: We never, we never really dealt with it. I'm sure
[1:18:42] Speaker 2: they were making more than us, you know, but so
[1:18:46] Speaker 2: what point does.
[1:18:49] Speaker 1: The idea of moonlighting even come into your you know,
[1:18:56] Speaker 1: your brain light and its moonlighting and thing like we
[1:18:59] Speaker 1: need to make our own money and get our own publishing.
[1:19:03] Speaker 2: Or just like, no, hey, we want to express ourselves. Yes, yeah, no,
[1:19:06] Speaker 2: it wasn't. It wasn't a money thing ever. It was
[1:19:10] Speaker 2: so so the way that went down was Terry. Once again, Terry,
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: And if I don't say it enough during this interview,
[1:19:20] Speaker 2: thank God for Terry Lewis. I mean, I swear to
[1:19:23] Speaker 2: God that brother in my life has just been a
[1:19:27] Speaker 2: godsend in every possible way. And but Terry said, I
[1:19:33] Speaker 2: can't remember where we were at. I want to. First
[1:19:36] Speaker 2: I was thinking it was Houston, but it wasn't Houston,
[1:19:38] Speaker 2: but it was somewhere and we were kind of ending up.
[1:19:40] Speaker 2: The tour was kind of beginning to end up, and
[1:19:43] Speaker 2: we were and Terry said, I'm going to go to
[1:19:47] Speaker 2: la after the tour, and everybody was like, what are
[1:19:52] Speaker 2: you gonna do in l A t And he said,
[1:19:53] Speaker 2: he said, man, he said, I'm just gonna make some
[1:19:57] Speaker 2: demos and try to get some songs placed and just
[1:20:00] Speaker 2: do some stuff. And everybody was like why, and he said,
[1:20:05] Speaker 2: because they need us out there, and everybody said, man,
[1:20:10] Speaker 2: you're crazy. And so Terry said, well, who wants to go?
[1:20:14] Speaker 2: Somebody wanted to come with me, and everybody's like, man, no, man,
[1:20:17] Speaker 2: I'm saving up from my VCR man. And literally that's
[1:20:22] Speaker 2: what everybody said. And I looked at Terry and I said,
[1:20:24] Speaker 2: well I'll go. Terry said okay, and I said, but
[1:20:28] Speaker 2: where are we going to stay? He said, I don't know,
[1:20:30] Speaker 2: We'll figure it out. Said where are we going to
[1:20:32] Speaker 2: get equipment from? I don't know, We're gonna figure it out.
[1:20:34] Speaker 2: I said, where we gonna get a car from? I
[1:20:36] Speaker 2: don't know. We'll figure it out. And I trusted that
[1:20:39] Speaker 2: brother because that was the brother that when the girl
[1:20:42] Speaker 2: broke up with me and when I was a drummer
[1:20:45] Speaker 2: and he told me I needed to be a keyboard player,
[1:20:49] Speaker 2: got me into the band. And I just trusted because
[1:20:53] Speaker 2: he because he had made decisions before and twisted my
[1:20:56] Speaker 2: arm to do things. And I'm like, I'm not gonna
[1:20:58] Speaker 2: he doesn't need to twist my arm on this one.
[1:20:59] Speaker 2: I'm going to go on faith on this one. And
[1:21:03] Speaker 2: so when the tour ended, we went to La Uh.
[1:21:07] Speaker 2: Terry sold his car, I think, if I'm not mistaken,
[1:21:12] Speaker 2: we bought uh some Viking ship. We bought uh. We
[1:21:22] Speaker 2: bought uh you know in the classifieds. We bought a
[1:21:24] Speaker 2: task cam, a little four track tape, a little microphone.
[1:21:29] Speaker 2: I had this little Cassio keyboard with a little drum
[1:21:32] Speaker 2: machine built into it. He had his base. And there
[1:21:35] Speaker 2: were some people we knew from Minneapolis that had a
[1:21:38] Speaker 2: house that they were renting a house out there, and
[1:21:40] Speaker 2: they had one bedroom in the house and it was
[1:21:42] Speaker 2: smaller probably in this little area we're sitting there. We
[1:21:44] Speaker 2: had enough room to put two cots in there, and
[1:21:47] Speaker 2: that's where me and Terry bunked. We didn't have a car,
[1:21:50] Speaker 2: so we would walk to there was a California, yeah,
[1:21:53] Speaker 2: but but but the eighties, in the eighties, well, here's
[1:21:57] Speaker 2: the funny thing, though, we the only places we went
[1:21:59] Speaker 2: because we we do our demos at home, right, So
[1:22:01] Speaker 2: we'd do our demos at the crib. So we'd sit
[1:22:03] Speaker 2: at the crib all day. They'd go to work, the
[1:22:05] Speaker 2: people who we were staying with, and we'd all day
[1:22:08] Speaker 2: be in like the bathroom and stuff to get reverb
[1:22:10] Speaker 2: and stuff and be making our little demos and stuff.
[1:22:13] Speaker 2: And then we would walk. There was a place called
[1:22:14] Speaker 2: Golden Bird Chicken that was on Losienega Avenue. Best chicken
[1:22:19] Speaker 2: ever to me, and you could get a four piece
[1:22:21] Speaker 2: for two ninety nine. Because we didn't have any money,
[1:22:23] Speaker 2: so we'd go get the two piece the four piece
[1:22:25] Speaker 2: rather for two ninety nine. That was our one meal
[1:22:28] Speaker 2: of the day. And then when the people got home
[1:22:31] Speaker 2: at night, they'd all make milkshakes or whatever, so we'd
[1:22:33] Speaker 2: have a milkshake at night. And that was That was
[1:22:35] Speaker 2: basically the way we lived. And it was funny because
[1:22:38] Speaker 2: oh and we didn't have any clothes. We had our
[1:22:40] Speaker 2: time clothes, so like we're in ninety degree weather, but
[1:22:43] Speaker 2: we got these suits. And the police used to the
[1:22:47] Speaker 2: police used to stop us, right, We'd just be walking
[1:22:50] Speaker 2: and the police would stop us and they go, everything okay, gentlemen,
[1:22:53] Speaker 2: and we'd go like, yeah, everything's good. And they'd look
[1:22:56] Speaker 2: at us and they go, you're not from here, are you?
[1:22:57] Speaker 2: And we'd be like, no, how could you tell you know?
[1:23:00] Speaker 2: And uh, But they never messed with us, really, and
[1:23:03] Speaker 2: it was cool, and that was kind of our thing.
[1:23:06] Speaker 2: And then eventually, you know, we hooked up with some
[1:23:08] Speaker 2: girls that had cars, you know, right, I found a
[1:23:10] Speaker 2: girl that had a Porsche. It was cool, you know,
[1:23:13] Speaker 2: so we figured it out. But but that was what
[1:23:15] Speaker 2: we were doing. And of course the word back in
[1:23:16] Speaker 2: Minneapolis is that we were out there starving to death,
[1:23:18] Speaker 2: and you know, we're starving to death and they're nuts
[1:23:21] Speaker 2: and they're crazy, and you know, that was kind of
[1:23:23] Speaker 2: the thought process.
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: How much downtime did you have because I figured, at
[1:23:27] Speaker 1: least until the time that you guys were dismissed, that
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: there was no downtime, like you're always rehearsing.
[1:23:36] Speaker 2: We had, we had, Okay, so that was between so
[1:23:38] Speaker 2: the first tour was eighty one into eighty two. We
[1:23:40] Speaker 2: think we were done in April of eighty two, so
[1:23:43] Speaker 2: we had between April and probably June or July before
[1:23:46] Speaker 2: we started rehearsing for the next tour and stuff. So
[1:23:52] Speaker 2: it was never where he's like, where are you guys,
[1:23:56] Speaker 2: I'm doing? Oh yeah, no, that was good. That was
[1:23:59] Speaker 2: a good Onefinitely. Definitely, it definitely turned into that were
[1:24:02] Speaker 2: you guys given a general rule that you weren't allowed
[1:24:05] Speaker 2: to like, yes, it wasn't a general rule, it was
[1:24:10] Speaker 2: a mandate. Basically, did mars enforce these rules or was
[1:24:14] Speaker 2: it just like Prince said, Zoe, this was Prince No,
[1:24:18] Speaker 2: this was princes had This was not Morris. As a
[1:24:20] Speaker 2: matter of fact, I really Moore said something that rehearsal
[1:24:26] Speaker 2: one day that was so for us, very empowering and
[1:24:32] Speaker 2: very enlightening. I don't know how everybody else took it,
[1:24:34] Speaker 2: but he said that this thing ain't gonna last forever.
[1:24:40] Speaker 2: Whoa And he said that I suggest everybody figure out
[1:24:46] Speaker 2: what it is that they want to do out of
[1:24:48] Speaker 2: this and start working towards it. He said, I don't
[1:24:51] Speaker 2: know what everybody else is doing. He said. Now, he said,
[1:24:53] Speaker 2: I'm taking acting lessons because he said, I want to
[1:24:56] Speaker 2: learn to actually, you know, do I want to be
[1:24:59] Speaker 2: a to be able to act? I want to be
[1:25:00] Speaker 2: able to do stuff?
[1:25:01] Speaker 3: You know?
[1:25:03] Speaker 2: Was this before this, before Purple rain? This is yeah,
[1:25:05] Speaker 2: this is this is going into the into the nineteen
[1:25:08] Speaker 2: ninety nine tour. Okay, so and he so he said that,
[1:25:13] Speaker 2: and then he said, uh, he said, you know, he
[1:25:16] Speaker 2: pointed in me and Terry and he said, Jimmy and
[1:25:18] Speaker 2: Terry producing records. He said, I don't know what the
[1:25:22] Speaker 2: rest of y'all are doing, but y'all need to figure
[1:25:24] Speaker 2: it out. So he knew, he knew, you know, he
[1:25:28] Speaker 2: knew what it was going to be. So that was
[1:25:30] Speaker 2: very encouraging to us. And well, Terry and I used
[1:25:33] Speaker 2: to do. I mean, we spent a lot of money
[1:25:35] Speaker 2: doing it, but and I have no idea where we
[1:25:38] Speaker 2: got the money from quite honestly now that I think
[1:25:40] Speaker 2: about it. But Prince used to we would rehearse during
[1:25:43] Speaker 2: the week, and we would we rehearse, you know, Monday
[1:25:48] Speaker 2: through Friday or whatever. When we would get done Friday,
[1:25:52] Speaker 2: Terry and I would hop like the last flight to
[1:25:54] Speaker 2: LA and you know, we had booked a couple of
[1:25:58] Speaker 2: you know acts at that point time. We were doing
[1:26:01] Speaker 2: a group called Reel to Reel for Leon Silvers. We
[1:26:05] Speaker 2: were doing Climax for Dick Griffy at Solar, so we
[1:26:10] Speaker 2: had a couple of things going right. So we would
[1:26:13] Speaker 2: fly and we do, you know, twenty four hour lockout
[1:26:15] Speaker 2: at the studio, right, which we didn't know. So we
[1:26:19] Speaker 2: do twenty four hour lockout, but then we would work
[1:26:21] Speaker 2: twenty four hours. We didn't know that. It just meant
[1:26:23] Speaker 2: that nobody could come into studio after you, right, So
[1:26:26] Speaker 2: we drive the engineers. He'd be like, what time do
[1:26:30] Speaker 2: you think we're going to end tonight? We said, we
[1:26:32] Speaker 2: got twenty four hour lockout. What are you talking about?
[1:26:35] Speaker 2: He was like, no, but that doesn't mean you were.
[1:26:37] Speaker 2: I said, no, we got it for twenty four hours.
[1:26:39] Speaker 2: We're working twenty four hours. Terry'd be asleep on the couch.
[1:26:41] Speaker 2: I'd be working that I fall asleep and Terry would
[1:26:43] Speaker 2: be working. Oh man, no, we were. I mean it's like,
[1:26:47] Speaker 2: come on, man, we're trying to get this done. So
[1:26:49] Speaker 2: that was the way we would work, and then we
[1:26:50] Speaker 2: would catch a plane back to be back in time
[1:26:52] Speaker 2: for Monday rehearsal. So Prince got wind of what we
[1:26:59] Speaker 2: were doing. Who's nitch Jesse? And so all of a
[1:27:08] Speaker 2: sudden the rehearsals would start going longer and longer. Then
[1:27:13] Speaker 2: all of a sudden, there'd be a Saturday rehearsal, or
[1:27:16] Speaker 2: there would be are we are we rehearsal tonight? No,
[1:27:19] Speaker 2: and there's no rehearsal tonight. Okay, cool, We're gonna hop
[1:27:22] Speaker 2: a plane and then we're literally on our way to
[1:27:24] Speaker 2: the airport. Oh yeah, there's a rehearsal that kind of
[1:27:27] Speaker 2: thing would start happening. So it was a lot of roadblocks,
[1:27:30] Speaker 2: you know, kind of thrown in front of us at
[1:27:32] Speaker 2: that point. And yeah, out of that. So it was
[1:27:37] Speaker 2: it was an interesting time. But no, we were doing it.
[1:27:39] Speaker 2: We certainly weren't doing it for the money because we
[1:27:40] Speaker 2: weren't making any money. But we were doing it just
[1:27:43] Speaker 2: because we had a love of music and we didn't
[1:27:46] Speaker 2: feel what we were doing sounded like the time, because
[1:27:49] Speaker 2: one of Prince's concerns was that, you know, don't give
[1:27:52] Speaker 2: away the time sound. And it's like, well, but you
[1:27:55] Speaker 2: are all the time sign So what we're doing isn't
[1:27:58] Speaker 2: the time, I mean, you know, And so there was
[1:28:01] Speaker 2: a lot of that. I remember. We we got blamed
[1:28:02] Speaker 2: for Leon did just keep on loving me. Prince swore
[1:28:06] Speaker 2: we did that record. We said, Prince, we weren't even
[1:28:08] Speaker 2: in the studio when that record was done. We still
[1:28:10] Speaker 2: swear that we did that record, right.
[1:28:13] Speaker 1: He told me a story like you know, they're hid
[1:28:17] Speaker 1: behind Leon Silvers, but I know it was them, Like
[1:28:20] Speaker 1: he still believes that that's them.
[1:28:23] Speaker 2: We didn't. Actually a matter of fact, it's funny we
[1:28:25] Speaker 2: heard that record. I think the first time we heard
[1:28:26] Speaker 2: that record was on the radio and we loved it.
[1:28:29] Speaker 2: I mean we were because we were Leon Leon Silver's
[1:28:31] Speaker 2: disciples man. We love Leon Silvers man, and we heard
[1:28:35] Speaker 2: that record and we were like, oh, hell yeah, we
[1:28:37] Speaker 2: love this, this is great. And were we never heard
[1:28:40] Speaker 2: it before? We weren't in the studio. I mean, he
[1:28:42] Speaker 2: took how approach you like, listen to this? Well, you know,
[1:28:47] Speaker 2: it's funny because we did. When we did we did
[1:28:49] Speaker 2: a record called can You Treat Me Like She Does?
[1:28:51] Speaker 2: For Real to Real and a very obscure record. But
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: the demo of that song, Terry's playing the bass very
[1:28:59] Speaker 2: much like the time, and uh, Leon always called it
[1:29:02] Speaker 2: the patent bass, like when you're patting something, because it's
[1:29:06] Speaker 2: really it's more of a percussive thing than actually playing notes,
[1:29:09] Speaker 2: so it's just boom, you know. Terry calls it boogaloo bass, right.
[1:29:16] Speaker 2: So Leon always called it the patent patent bass, like
[1:29:20] Speaker 2: you're patting the bass. Right. So when we did the
[1:29:24] Speaker 2: demo of the record and Leon heard it, he says, oh,
[1:29:27] Speaker 2: he said, because he always scratched his beard and he
[1:29:29] Speaker 2: always talked like this, and he'd say, yeah, he said,
[1:29:32] Speaker 2: I like that. I like that record. He said, we're
[1:29:34] Speaker 2: going to do that record. I'm like real to real,
[1:29:36] Speaker 2: and we're like, okay, great, Leon, cool. You know, So
[1:29:39] Speaker 2: we went in and did the track. So as we're
[1:29:41] Speaker 2: doing the track, Princess in our mind talking about don't
[1:29:46] Speaker 2: give away the time sounds so now so Terry like
[1:29:49] Speaker 2: is watering down the bass part now right, So now Terry,
[1:29:52] Speaker 2: Terry's just going boom, you know, he's just kind of
[1:29:57] Speaker 2: doing like that. So we turned, you know, we did
[1:30:00] Speaker 2: the track and we said, okay, here you go, Leon,
[1:30:01] Speaker 2: and he goes what happened to the patent bass? And
[1:30:06] Speaker 2: we were like, no, that's the way we do it,
[1:30:08] Speaker 2: just like that. No, I heard the shits on the
[1:30:11] Speaker 2: demo and he was patting the base different than he's
[1:30:13] Speaker 2: doing it. So either you guys can do the pattern
[1:30:17] Speaker 2: on the bass or I'll go in and do it myself.
[1:30:21] Speaker 2: And so we were like, oh shit, okay. So we
[1:30:24] Speaker 2: went in and I think I think Leon Terry did
[1:30:27] Speaker 2: kind of add a little bit to it, but never
[1:30:29] Speaker 2: wanted to give the whole thing away. But I think
[1:30:32] Speaker 2: Leon did go in and you know, put a few
[1:30:34] Speaker 2: little pats of his own there. But nah, I mean
[1:30:36] Speaker 2: we really were conscious of that of not. We didn't
[1:30:40] Speaker 2: want to give away the time sound and I think
[1:30:42] Speaker 2: and and by the way, when we were producers, that
[1:30:45] Speaker 2: was the same thing we did when we started producing.
[1:30:46] Speaker 2: We we would do one act and then the next
[1:30:49] Speaker 2: act we'd be like, no, we're going a whole different
[1:30:51] Speaker 2: groove or drum machines or keyboards or whatever to try
[1:30:53] Speaker 2: to keep everybody. You know, how did you.
[1:30:56] Speaker 1: Avoid the Dick Griffy pitfall? Because you guys could have
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: easily been just still our house producers?
[1:31:05] Speaker 2: Yep? Did he pursue you guys at all? Sort of
[1:31:09] Speaker 2: the Well, the reason is one man, Clarence Savon. Clarence
[1:31:14] Speaker 2: Savon didn't allow that to happen. Now, when we went
[1:31:17] Speaker 2: to see Clarence, there was a lady named Dina Andrews
[1:31:22] Speaker 2: who was an A and R person that sold our records,
[1:31:25] Speaker 2: and she, pardon me, she was the one that actually
[1:31:27] Speaker 2: introduced us to Griffy and she also knew and and
[1:31:32] Speaker 2: by the way, all of these songs we were doing
[1:31:34] Speaker 2: back then were all based on one demo tape that
[1:31:36] Speaker 2: we did at the house and high Hopes was on
[1:31:40] Speaker 2: their SOS band I saw called when You're Far Away
[1:31:43] Speaker 2: that we ended up doing on Gladys Nyne and the
[1:31:44] Speaker 2: Pips a song called the only one that we did
[1:31:46] Speaker 2: on Dynasty, which was Leon's. Yeah, I didn't know that.
[1:31:51] Speaker 2: As matter of fact, the keyboard on there is that
[1:31:53] Speaker 2: original little Cassio keyboard because because Leon said, man, keep
[1:31:57] Speaker 2: that keyboard sound just like you had it, I said, okay,
[1:32:00] Speaker 2: So like literally climax we did for Dick graphy real
[1:32:03] Speaker 2: to real we did Dick, not for I mean for
[1:32:05] Speaker 2: Leon Silver's Yeah exactly, and and so on and so forth.
[1:32:08] Speaker 2: So anyway, but all of these songs were all on
[1:32:10] Speaker 2: that same demo tape, and everybody just heard different songs
[1:32:13] Speaker 2: they liked. Dick heard, you know, wild Girls. Yeah, he said,
[1:32:18] Speaker 2: heard wild Girls and said, oh yeah, wold Girls. That
[1:32:20] Speaker 2: wild Girls. We like that. You know, he still a
[1:32:22] Speaker 2: copy of you know, Terry probably does. He probably does.
[1:32:27] Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have it, but I bet you
[1:32:29] Speaker 2: he does because he still got the four track you
[1:32:31] Speaker 2: know that we did all that stuff probably in his
[1:32:33] Speaker 2: room somewhere. Yeah, he's got no, it's not here. It's
[1:32:35] Speaker 2: not he's got it at his house, but it's not here,
[1:32:38] Speaker 2: but he's got it definitely. But anyway, so that was
[1:32:40] Speaker 2: that was the whole thing. So everybody had their own
[1:32:42] Speaker 2: different kind of things that they liked. But what happened
[1:32:44] Speaker 2: with Clarence was Dennis said, I'm gonna introduce you to
[1:32:49] Speaker 2: Clarence Avon because Clarence had wanted us to do he
[1:32:51] Speaker 2: We had done High Hopes, but we didn't produce it.
[1:32:53] Speaker 2: We just wrote it right, So Clarence wanted to hear
[1:32:57] Speaker 2: what it would have sounded like if we produced it.
[1:32:59] Speaker 2: So he had the demo. So we, you know, Dinah
[1:33:02] Speaker 2: set up a meeting. We went to meet him. Clarence
[1:33:04] Speaker 2: called us the two thugs because we walked in with,
[1:33:06] Speaker 2: you know, our hats and our suits and stuff, and
[1:33:08] Speaker 2: he said, who are you two thugs? You know? So anyway,
[1:33:12] Speaker 2: he listens to the he said, he said that High Hopes.
[1:33:15] Speaker 2: He said, I like that record, he says, you know,
[1:33:17] Speaker 2: and we said, well, Clarence, he said, it's cool, but
[1:33:20] Speaker 2: the way it came out, but you know, he said,
[1:33:22] Speaker 2: what's the difference in the demo? I said, we put
[1:33:23] Speaker 2: the chili sauce on the demo. He said, oh, you
[1:33:25] Speaker 2: did chili sauce. I like that. Okay, let's hear that
[1:33:28] Speaker 2: we put it in and he said, yeah, yeah, I
[1:33:30] Speaker 2: like that. I like that. He said, okay, so I
[1:33:32] Speaker 2: want you to do two songs on the next SOS
[1:33:34] Speaker 2: band record and we said okay, cool, Yeah, we're down,
[1:33:38] Speaker 2: you know whatever. So he said okay, he said but
[1:33:40] Speaker 2: here's the thing. He said, now, y'all's manager is negotiating
[1:33:44] Speaker 2: your fee. And when he said that, our first thought
[1:33:48] Speaker 2: was oh man, So we were like, okay, Clarence, well
[1:33:51] Speaker 2: we can you know, we can get the budget down, man,
[1:33:53] Speaker 2: you know, whatever you you know want to do. And
[1:33:55] Speaker 2: he said, get the budget down. She ain't asking enough money, y'all.
[1:33:59] Speaker 2: Y'all are worth more than that. And we were like, oh,
[1:34:02] Speaker 2: we was representing you at the time. Dina andrews, Okay, okay, yeah,
[1:34:06] Speaker 2: she was like our kind of de facto but she
[1:34:09] Speaker 2: but she worked for Solar but yeah, but she was
[1:34:11] Speaker 2: moonlight and I guess you could say, you know, representing
[1:34:14] Speaker 2: our affairs and uh. She had also got introduced us
[1:34:20] Speaker 2: to a guy at Warner Brothers Publishing and I'm trying
[1:34:23] Speaker 2: to think of who it was or Warner Chapel, I
[1:34:26] Speaker 2: can't remember his name, who was going to give us
[1:34:27] Speaker 2: a publishing deal. Right, So Clarence had seen the publishing
[1:34:31] Speaker 2: deal and Clarence said, if y'all signed this publishing deal,
[1:34:37] Speaker 2: I'm never speaking to YouTube again day. And we were like, wow,
[1:34:41] Speaker 2: what's what's the problem with the with the deal? Clarence
[1:34:44] Speaker 2: and the deal was something like it was like I
[1:34:45] Speaker 2: don't know one hundred and I don't know it one
[1:34:47] Speaker 2: hundred and seventy thousand dollars for three years or something
[1:34:49] Speaker 2: like that, right, which at the time he thought, Oh
[1:34:52] Speaker 2: my god, I'm like, are you kidding me? Taking us
[1:34:54] Speaker 2: one hundred fifty dollars a week? Yeah? Right, We're like, oh,
[1:34:57] Speaker 2: come on, man, that's great, he says. He said, well,
[1:35:00] Speaker 2: let me just break it down for you, gentlemen. So
[1:35:03] Speaker 2: he said, so you got one hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
[1:35:06] Speaker 2: So first of all, you know you're gonna split that
[1:35:08] Speaker 2: in half because there's two of y'all, in case you
[1:35:09] Speaker 2: didn't understand that there's two of you. Okay, So now
[1:35:12] Speaker 2: maybe you have you know, eighty five thousand dollars. Now
[1:35:16] Speaker 2: Uncle Sam's gonna take his fifty percent. And now you
[1:35:21] Speaker 2: got forty thousand dollars and three years for forty thousand.
[1:35:26] Speaker 2: That's fifteen thousand dollars a year. What are you gonna
[1:35:28] Speaker 2: do with that? We were like, uh, well, he said, gentlemen,
[1:35:35] Speaker 2: he said, I guarantee you your first runty check will
[1:35:38] Speaker 2: be more than that total three year check, mark my words.
[1:35:43] Speaker 2: And we said, okay, Clarence, we're cold, we're with it.
[1:35:45] Speaker 2: So we never never signed a deal. Clarence gave us
[1:35:49] Speaker 2: a SOOS band deal, and of course that led to
[1:35:52] Speaker 2: the ill fated recording session of Atlanta that we all
[1:35:57] Speaker 2: know about. So but that was the thing. And by
[1:35:59] Speaker 2: the way, Clarence was absolutely right. Our first royalty check
[1:36:03] Speaker 2: was uh, probably right around that number, just for I
[1:36:08] Speaker 2: think just for the first like sos name, so for
[1:36:11] Speaker 2: one song. Yeah, what was was?
[1:36:13] Speaker 1: It?
[1:36:13] Speaker 2: Just be good? Yeah? So he was right. So that's
[1:36:18] Speaker 2: how we didn't get into the Dick Griffy thing, because
[1:36:20] Speaker 2: he didn't allow that to happen, he said. And the
[1:36:22] Speaker 2: other last little thing he told us when we met
[1:36:25] Speaker 2: with him, he said, think about this, gentlemen, what are
[1:36:28] Speaker 2: you going to be doing seven years from now? And
[1:36:30] Speaker 2: we said we're gonna be making hits and he said no, no, no, no,
[1:36:32] Speaker 2: he said, I don't mean that. He said, right now,
[1:36:35] Speaker 2: you got me, you got Barry Gordy, got Lonnie Simmons.
[1:36:39] Speaker 2: You got Dick Griffy, right, you know where the guys
[1:36:43] Speaker 2: are in the industry. Who's going to be the next us?
[1:36:46] Speaker 2: He said, that's who you need to That's what you
[1:36:48] Speaker 2: need to start looking at. You need to start identifying
[1:36:51] Speaker 2: talent and then helping them out. And he says, if
[1:36:54] Speaker 2: you ever come across somebody who you think is talented,
[1:36:57] Speaker 2: they're in a screwed up deal or whatever it is,
[1:37:00] Speaker 2: you would introduce him to me. And we said, okay,
[1:37:03] Speaker 2: And you know who we met l A l A
[1:37:05] Speaker 2: Read He was in the deal yep, because he was
[1:37:10] Speaker 2: in the deal and he was and they had that
[1:37:13] Speaker 2: in the contract as nobody else did. They had that,
[1:37:16] Speaker 2: They had that contract. And we met him and knew
[1:37:19] Speaker 2: him and face were doing stuff together and he said,
[1:37:22] Speaker 2: can you introduce me to Clarence And we said absolutely.
[1:37:24] Speaker 2: We called Clarence. We said, Clarence, we got somebody for you,
[1:37:26] Speaker 2: just like you said, and the rest is history there.
[1:37:29] Speaker 2: So Clarence Clarence is the funk whisper. Yeah he is,
[1:37:34] Speaker 2: he absolutely is, He absolutely is.
[1:37:38] Speaker 1: Well yeah, the first time, I I mean, I love
[1:37:42] Speaker 1: Sussex Records, but I didn't know that he was.
[1:37:44] Speaker 2: They ahead of it or even taboo.
[1:37:49] Speaker 1: But yeah, I remember he was one of the first
[1:37:51] Speaker 1: people you thinked when you got your Grammy, your producer
[1:37:56] Speaker 1: the year, Yes for your Grammy. So how okay, I'm
[1:38:02] Speaker 1: playing wilfully ignorant here. The day that you got fired,
[1:38:08] Speaker 1: I mean, was that mid tour or did you that
[1:38:11] Speaker 1: was between tours? So so what had happened was of
[1:38:14] Speaker 1: course obviously the whole snowstorm happened. We missed the gig
[1:38:17] Speaker 1: in San Antonio.
[1:38:18] Speaker 2: We went to say, you're sitting on the plane as no,
[1:38:21] Speaker 2: the planes, they weren't letting people on the plane. There
[1:38:23] Speaker 2: was literally no I'm from Minnesota. What time was the flight?
[1:38:27] Speaker 2: Flight was like first thing in the morning, like seven
[1:38:29] Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, like just when even then, and
[1:38:31] Speaker 2: think like maybe we rent a car. We did think
[1:38:33] Speaker 2: of that. We thought of every possible scenario. We booked
[1:38:37] Speaker 2: ourselves on any flight leaving. We booked ourselves on it.
[1:38:41] Speaker 2: You could do that in those days. And literally we
[1:38:44] Speaker 2: were booked on like ten different flights and they all canceled,
[1:38:47] Speaker 2: and they all canceled. Literally. Then we thought, well, can
[1:38:51] Speaker 2: we get the rent a car back drive to an
[1:38:53] Speaker 2: airport that's open. But once again, now you're not dealing
[1:38:56] Speaker 2: with it's not ways and you know and and and
[1:39:00] Speaker 2: Siri and what's the closest airports that's opened, Siri? And
[1:39:03] Speaker 2: it's none of that. You know, you had none of those,
[1:39:05] Speaker 2: you know, the ability to do that. So but no,
[1:39:08] Speaker 2: all of those possibilities. We were like, take a flight
[1:39:11] Speaker 2: to anywhere we can connect and get to San Antonio.
[1:39:13] Speaker 2: So we had the whole day to figure it out.
[1:39:15] Speaker 2: And so literally for eight hours. And of course we're
[1:39:17] Speaker 2: in the Atlanta airport. Everybody been in the Atlanta airport.
[1:39:20] Speaker 2: It was one of the first airports with totally separate
[1:39:23] Speaker 2: terminals for everything, where you had to take the train
[1:39:25] Speaker 2: to get to each terminal. We were up and down
[1:39:28] Speaker 2: on the train, up and down like what's taken off?
[1:39:31] Speaker 2: Anybody taken off? Anybody? It was It was probably the
[1:39:35] Speaker 2: worst day of my life, I would say, because we
[1:39:37] Speaker 2: had never missed a gig. I mean you just as
[1:39:39] Speaker 2: a musician, the show must go on. I mean I
[1:39:41] Speaker 2: remember Terry, there was a gig we had. Terry had
[1:39:44] Speaker 2: stitches and stuff and was bleeding and gotten in a
[1:39:46] Speaker 2: car accident, still showed up and did the gig. You know,
[1:39:49] Speaker 2: we actually we were opening for uh maybe it was
[1:39:53] Speaker 2: a cam it might have been a cameo we were
[1:39:55] Speaker 2: opening for or something. But he showed up. I mean
[1:39:58] Speaker 2: he was like, where's Terry? Always at the hospital, but
[1:40:00] Speaker 2: he's on his way. It's like, okay, cool, you know,
[1:40:01] Speaker 2: it's like you just don't miss a gig man. So
[1:40:04] Speaker 2: that was crazy. But we figured out we were going
[1:40:06] Speaker 2: to miss it when we got into town. It was
[1:40:08] Speaker 2: really funny because I actually went to the club afterwards
[1:40:10] Speaker 2: and everybody was saying, oh many, y'all were great, y'all
[1:40:12] Speaker 2: were great. I felt so weird. I was like, I'm
[1:40:15] Speaker 2: going home, man, this is this is too weird. So
[1:40:18] Speaker 2: when we got back to La we just figured, you know,
[1:40:21] Speaker 2: because we were still making our little check, a little paycheck, right,
[1:40:24] Speaker 2: so we got you know, we would go by the
[1:40:25] Speaker 2: accountant's office, and I figured we're going to go get
[1:40:27] Speaker 2: our last check, right. So we walked into the account's
[1:40:30] Speaker 2: office and everybody was like, hey, how you guys doing. Oh,
[1:40:32] Speaker 2: here's your checks. Okay, we'll see you next week. We
[1:40:35] Speaker 2: were like you will, okay, cool, all right, So we
[1:40:38] Speaker 2: took our check right. So we did that for the
[1:40:40] Speaker 2: next couple of weeks, three weeks you know, just went
[1:40:42] Speaker 2: in and got our check and whatever. And I'm like going,
[1:40:44] Speaker 2: I don't think they know we're fired. That's weird, you know.
[1:40:48] Speaker 2: So then we were at this Whispers concert. Did you
[1:40:51] Speaker 2: know you were fired? Though we were told we were fired. Okay, yeah,
[1:40:55] Speaker 2: we were told we were fired. Matter of fact, who
[1:40:56] Speaker 2: told you you? Rent?
[1:40:58] Speaker 1: Prince told us, So he is confrontational. It wasn't like
[1:41:01] Speaker 1: get my management to tell you.
[1:41:05] Speaker 2: That over at a dinner too or something where like
[1:41:07] Speaker 2: Prince and Morris were sitting together. It wasn't. It wasn't
[1:41:09] Speaker 2: a dinner. It was what happened was and this is
[1:41:12] Speaker 2: so damn movie storybook time. Okay, we had, you know,
[1:41:18] Speaker 2: we're ready to mix the SOS band songs and we
[1:41:21] Speaker 2: had ended up doing just be good to me, but
[1:41:23] Speaker 2: also did tell me if you still care also in
[1:41:26] Speaker 2: a subsequent session. So we're like ready to go. We're
[1:41:29] Speaker 2: like got the time booked at Larabie Studios, right, and
[1:41:33] Speaker 2: we're gonna mix with Steve Hodge. Way, we know Steve
[1:41:36] Speaker 2: Hodges from looking at the liner notes, and it's like, okay,
[1:41:39] Speaker 2: we need Steve Hodge at Larabie. That's the combination that
[1:41:42] Speaker 2: we need right to mix the record. That's all we
[1:41:43] Speaker 2: didn't know, but that's what we figured. So we got
[1:41:46] Speaker 2: the time booked. That day, we get a call from
[1:41:50] Speaker 2: Prince meet me at Sunset Sound at six thirty and
[1:41:53] Speaker 2: we were like damn. So we kind of looked at
[1:41:55] Speaker 2: each other and we said, well, we're supposed to be
[1:41:56] Speaker 2: mixing the SOS bad record. Well we got to go.
[1:41:59] Speaker 2: We have to go to Sunset Sound. I mean, it's
[1:42:02] Speaker 2: like it was obvious to it was no choice. It
[1:42:04] Speaker 2: was like, no, the time is our priority, you know,
[1:42:07] Speaker 2: the SOS thing. We can wait and we'll figure it out.
[1:42:10] Speaker 2: So we went. When we pulled up the accountant was there,
[1:42:14] Speaker 2: a guy named Fred Moultrie. He was there, and we said,
[1:42:18] Speaker 2: we're getting our We're getting fired. Like we knew the
[1:42:20] Speaker 2: jig was up, right, You instantly knew. We just knew.
[1:42:23] Speaker 2: We just knew that what So we said, hey, what's
[1:42:25] Speaker 2: up Fred? And Fred had this high voice and he said, hey, guys,
[1:42:28] Speaker 2: how you doing. Have a good session? Y'all have a
[1:42:30] Speaker 2: good session. We were like, okay, cool, all right, well
[1:42:34] Speaker 2: maybe not, you know. So we go into this little room,
[1:42:37] Speaker 2: kind of this little sitting room right adjacent to the studio,
[1:42:40] Speaker 2: myself Terry, Jesse Morris, and Prince, just the five of us, right,
[1:42:46] Speaker 2: And Prince goes, I told you guys not to produce
[1:42:52] Speaker 2: other records, and you did, so you're fired. And room
[1:43:03] Speaker 2: went silent for a minute. And then I got up
[1:43:05] Speaker 2: and I said, okay, cool, and I got up and
[1:43:07] Speaker 2: walked out the door. So Terry stayed in there for
[1:43:10] Speaker 2: a little while, trying to reason with him, like yeah,
[1:43:14] Speaker 2: Terry was like, come on, mane, well Terry, you know,
[1:43:16] Speaker 2: Terry was great because here's the one thing. First of all,
[1:43:21] Speaker 2: Prince couldn't bullshit Terry ever. You just he's just usually
[1:43:25] Speaker 2: he's just not the cat you do it with. And
[1:43:27] Speaker 2: that's what Prince liked about Terry so much. He knew
[1:43:30] Speaker 2: he couldn't do you know, oki dok on him, like
[1:43:33] Speaker 2: like he would just tell him straight, like Prince, you
[1:43:36] Speaker 2: suck right now or you He would just always say
[1:43:39] Speaker 2: that yeah he could. Yeah, oh absolutely, Oh yeah. They
[1:43:42] Speaker 2: used to get in, They used to get in these
[1:43:45] Speaker 2: five six hour conversations about stuff about about life and
[1:43:50] Speaker 2: religion and you name it. And and because Prince would
[1:43:55] Speaker 2: have all these philosophies and he'd do all this stuff
[1:43:57] Speaker 2: and it would be like and he talked, and you
[1:44:00] Speaker 2: when he talked, man, he had this way of kind
[1:44:02] Speaker 2: of like it was like drinking the kool aid. Man.
[1:44:03] Speaker 2: It was like, right, no one ever challenged the morning.
[1:44:06] Speaker 2: Nobody challenged him. And Terry would always go like, yeah, okay,
[1:44:10] Speaker 2: well that's what you think, but here's what I think,
[1:44:12] Speaker 2: and would come right back at him. And I think
[1:44:14] Speaker 2: Prince always appreciated that with Terry, and Terry was really
[1:44:17] Speaker 2: the leader of the time. I mean, Morris was the
[1:44:20] Speaker 2: lead singer, but whenever there was a decision to be made,
[1:44:23] Speaker 2: Morris would always go, Terry, what do you think? Okay, right,
[1:44:26] Speaker 2: So Terry was that dude. So Terry, Yeah. So Terry
[1:44:29] Speaker 2: tried to reason with him a little bit and just
[1:44:30] Speaker 2: kind of go like, come on, man, would you why
[1:44:32] Speaker 2: would you do that? We're not giving away the sound
[1:44:35] Speaker 2: like you say, we're doing you know so and so,
[1:44:38] Speaker 2: you know whatever. Anyway, about ten minutes later, Terry comes
[1:44:41] Speaker 2: out and he says, Okay, well, what do you want
[1:44:44] Speaker 2: to do now? And we looked at our watch and
[1:44:46] Speaker 2: I said, well we got time. Yeah, we got time
[1:44:49] Speaker 2: at Larabie. Let's go to Larby and missus right, So
[1:44:52] Speaker 2: we walk into Larabie and we had never even met
[1:44:56] Speaker 2: Steve Hodge before, and so we walk in and he goes,
[1:44:59] Speaker 2: you guys, me Tarry, Yeah, he says, I'm Steve and
[1:45:01] Speaker 2: I said, hey, Steve, nice to meet you. How you
[1:45:03] Speaker 2: doing no good? And Steve goes, what's wrong with you guys?
[1:45:08] Speaker 2: And he said something wrong and we said, we just
[1:45:10] Speaker 2: got fired from the time and he said. Steve said hmm.
[1:45:15] Speaker 2: He said, well, I'm gonna tell you something. He said,
[1:45:18] Speaker 2: you don't have much story about because this record you
[1:45:20] Speaker 2: guys got here. He said, this is a hit. And
[1:45:23] Speaker 2: he knew, he knew, he knew, and it was that
[1:45:30] Speaker 2: should be the end of the story, but it wasn't.
[1:45:32] Speaker 2: Oh okay, so because that was how that happened, of
[1:45:36] Speaker 2: course not. I'm telling you. We're still picking up our
[1:45:38] Speaker 2: little paychecks right every week, right right. So now we're
[1:45:41] Speaker 2: backstage at a Whispers concert. We run into Lee Bailey.
[1:45:44] Speaker 2: He's got this show called Radio Radio. So so Lee
[1:45:48] Speaker 2: Bailey's backstage and he walks up to me with a
[1:45:50] Speaker 2: microphone and he says, Lee Bailey, radioscope here, you're fired
[1:45:54] Speaker 2: from the time. What's the bottom line? And he puts
[1:45:57] Speaker 2: the mic in my face and yeah, right right, and
[1:46:01] Speaker 2: I'm going, who are you Lee Bailey? Radioscope, I said,
[1:46:06] Speaker 2: I said, I know. I said, we're just here watching
[1:46:07] Speaker 2: the concert, man, but I heard you got fired. From
[1:46:09] Speaker 2: the time, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Man,
[1:46:12] Speaker 2: We're just here watching the concert, right, So I just
[1:46:14] Speaker 2: kept saying that. Right. A couple of days later, we
[1:46:18] Speaker 2: go to the accountant's office and we go, hey, guys,
[1:46:21] Speaker 2: and they go, we can't give you your checks. Guys.
[1:46:25] Speaker 2: We said, why not? I said, because you guys got fired.
[1:46:28] Speaker 2: And we laughed and we said, we got fired like
[1:46:29] Speaker 2: four or five weeks ago. Who told you we got fired?
[1:46:33] Speaker 2: It was just on the radio. He's still doing it.
[1:46:45] Speaker 2: He's still doing so. So then the epilogue, as we
[1:46:48] Speaker 2: call it, back from the Dan August Days. Anybody Dan
[1:46:51] Speaker 2: August fan over, everybody, budd he said, a Quinn Martin production.
[1:46:56] Speaker 2: Anybody ever watched Quinn Martin production shows? Okay, well I
[1:46:58] Speaker 2: got some. Yeah, I stopped it. Oh, I can't believe it.
[1:47:02] Speaker 2: I can't believe nobody in the room. Okay, So Quinn
[1:47:04] Speaker 2: Martin was a production team did TV shows back in
[1:47:09] Speaker 2: the day. But Burt Reynolds was on a show called
[1:47:12] Speaker 2: Dan August. He was a detective. It was really good,
[1:47:16] Speaker 2: great show. Anyway, they would always say. It would always
[1:47:19] Speaker 2: say act one, act two, Act three, and then at
[1:47:21] Speaker 2: the end it would always say epilogue, and it was
[1:47:24] Speaker 2: always the wrap up of the show. So the epilogue
[1:47:27] Speaker 2: of the story is Prince had jelly Bean called Terry,
[1:47:38] Speaker 2: and as it turned out, the reason that the accountant
[1:47:40] Speaker 2: didn't know we were fired just because we never were
[1:47:42] Speaker 2: really fired. It was a bluff. And the idea was
[1:47:46] Speaker 2: we were supposed to fall flat on our faces and
[1:47:49] Speaker 2: then beg for our jobs about right. Well, unfortunately that
[1:47:55] Speaker 2: didn't happen because just be good to me came out
[1:47:58] Speaker 2: unfortunately for who and not for us. So anyway, it
[1:48:03] Speaker 2: just be good to me. Everybody basically was felt like, okay,
[1:48:05] Speaker 2: well this is a this is a smash. Whoever did this?
[1:48:07] Speaker 2: We're good, you know, so jelly Bean. So Prince decided
[1:48:12] Speaker 2: divide and conquer. So he called Jellybe and he said
[1:48:15] Speaker 2: to jelly Bean, get get Terry lewis back and Terry said,
[1:48:20] Speaker 2: and uh, Bean said, what about what about Jimmy? And
[1:48:23] Speaker 2: he said no, he said, just just Terry. So jelly Bean,
[1:48:28] Speaker 2: Jelly Bean called Terry and I never forget this. We're
[1:48:31] Speaker 2: in this, We're in this little little room and we
[1:48:34] Speaker 2: had a little three bedroom apartment, uh, with Dina, with
[1:48:37] Speaker 2: Dina Andrews, I think, as a matter of fact, at
[1:48:39] Speaker 2: that point, and I remember Terry getting a phone and going, hey, Bean,
[1:48:43] Speaker 2: what's up. What are y'all doing? And so Bean's telling them, oh, yeah,
[1:48:48] Speaker 2: we're gonna do this movie, Purple Rain, and we're gonna
[1:48:50] Speaker 2: do this whole thing, and you know, blah blah blah
[1:48:51] Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah, and uh, Terry says yeah. He says, well,
[1:48:57] Speaker 2: he said, what about Jimmy And he said, you know,
[1:49:00] Speaker 2: I want Jimmy back. Terry said, you every cuss word,
[1:49:05] Speaker 2: every like if he could climb through the phone and run.
[1:49:09] Speaker 2: Bean's knocking, and I was like, Terry, what's going on?
[1:49:14] Speaker 2: He says, no, no, you can't. I mean, he was
[1:49:16] Speaker 2: so pissed off. Anyway, I said to Terry, I said, man,
[1:49:19] Speaker 2: go do the movie. It's no big deal. I said,
[1:49:21] Speaker 2: I'm not going anywhere. I said, you know, make the
[1:49:23] Speaker 2: movie sounds fun, go ahead and do it and whatever.
[1:49:25] Speaker 2: He said, No, he'll no, he said, no, we in
[1:49:27] Speaker 2: this together. He said, if they're not going to do
[1:49:29] Speaker 2: that to us, you know, we're a team and you
[1:49:32] Speaker 2: know whatever. Yeah, so that was it. So that was it.
[1:49:36] Speaker 2: So then and that's so, that's why we were out.
[1:49:37] Speaker 2: And then wait, wait, why are you looking at me?
[1:49:40] Speaker 1: Like?
[1:49:40] Speaker 2: Why did you look at me? Mayor? Because I felt
[1:49:43] Speaker 2: you looking at me like you can learn from this
[1:49:45] Speaker 2: and there are some words of wisdom coming from this
[1:49:48] Speaker 2: story about Lord, you're here with you for twenty years.
[1:49:53] Speaker 2: You're here with me now flashback. It took a long time,
[1:50:00] Speaker 2: like another episode of tune in. Look did you give
[1:50:09] Speaker 2: me that? You listen? You're with me?
[1:50:14] Speaker 3: Okay, it's what I'm taped now.
[1:50:15] Speaker 2: I just needed it. Thank you, I love it. I
[1:50:18] Speaker 2: love it. I'm sorry. That's what we do here. That's
[1:50:24] Speaker 2: what we do here. It's a public service. Oh man.
[1:50:29] Speaker 1: That's it for part one of our conversations with Jimmy
[1:50:31] Speaker 1: jim Thank you guys for tuning in. And next week
[1:50:34] Speaker 1: we have part two and that's when Alexander returns, Jimmy
[1:50:38] Speaker 1: and Terry helped Janet take control and much more. Don't
[1:50:41] Speaker 1: miss it quest Love Supreme. It is a production of iHeartRadio.
[1:50:45] Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
[1:50:51] Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
[1:50:54] Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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