One Song - Roy Ayers' "Everybody Loves The Sunshine"

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Just bees and things and one song that’s been sampled over 100 times! This week, Diallo and LUXXURY break down “Everybody Loves The Sunshine,” from the godfather of neo-soul, Roy Ayers. They discuss L.A.’s jazz scene, explore Roy Ayer’s lasting influence on modern music, and pose an inconceivable question: Is there really no vibraphone on “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”? One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=5174a4931e4c4bc2 Songs Discussed: "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" - Roy Ayers "Running Away" - Roy Ayers Ubiquity "Description of a Fool" - A Tribe Called Quest "What Are We Gonna Do?" - Luxxury "Flying Home" - Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra "Memphis Underground" - Herbie Mann "I Love You Michelle" - Roy Ayers "We Live In Brooklyn Baby" - Roy Ayers Ubiquity "Borough Check" - Digable Planets "Mystic Voyage" - Roy Ayers Ubiquity "The Third Eye" - Roy Ayers "Passin' Me By (Fly As Pie Remix)" - The Pharcyde "My Life" - Mary J Blige "Ooh" - Roy Ayers "Pothole" - Tyler, The Creator feat. Jaden Smith "You Can't Turn Me Away" - Sylvia Striplin "Get Money" - Junior M.A.F.I.A. feat. the Notorious B.I.G. "Tell It Like It T-I-Is (MK Underground Mix)" - The B-52's Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luxury today, we're all about the vibes, literally about the vibes, because we're talking about a similar work by Jazz Legend, who's working jazz and Jazz Fusion, not only established him as one of the music's greatest vibes player, see what we did there, but also made him the pioneer of a later genre, Neil Sol. That's right, Diallo. Though it was never released as a single, this song peaked at number 51 on the Billboard 200,

and has been sampled more than 100 times. More than 100 times. More than a hundred times. Very much more. I'd be surprised if it was a sample 200 times. It might have been even 200. Listen, we're talking about bees and things and one song, and that song is Everybody Loves the Sunshine by Roy Ayers.

Everybody loves the sunshine, sunshine. I got some questions today. I'm getting chills already. We've not started. We have a lot of questions between the two of us that we're going to try and answer, and we might need some help from the One Song Nation on this episode. Well, let's get into it. I'm actor, writer-director, and sometimes DJ, Diala Riddell.

And I'm producer, DJ songwriter, and musicologist Luxury, a.k.a. the guy who whispers, Interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And if you want to watch one song, you can watch this full episode on YouTube and Spotify.

And while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right, so Diallo, obviously this song is so big in the culture, the original version, the samples, the interpolations. What was the first version that you heard? Wow. Roy Ayers was around all my childhood, you know. It's funny, it's around my kids' childhood, because I played

this song in the car, getting ready for this episode, for my kids. And the first thing they said was, oh, man, it's the song from TikTok. Like, it's weird to me how, like, that's the new context. Absolutely, it's not, oh, I've heard this all the radio. It's like, oh, yeah, it's that tick. I guess it was

like a basketball meme. Okay. Everybody was like shooting hoops with this song playing in the background. But my father is John T. Riddle Jr. He's a kind of a famous painter and an artist. You know, he's got pieces that have been at the Brod and Cam and Lachma, the High Museum in Atlanta all over the place. And they're in your house too if anyone wants to come by and see his work. And steal them. Yes, yes.

I just come to Mr. Riddell's house. I have security. But I have the code. If anyone needs it, just DM me. Oh, my gosh. Okay. I don't know where we're going with this. But it's great work and you should see it.

That's all I'm saying. He was part of this scene with Betty Sarr and David Hammond. And these artists really appreciated Bebop-era jazz artists like Bird and Coltrane. Not to mention Hampton Hawes and Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, who was damn near a member of our family, also from this Los Angeles scene. And Roy was, you know, just by way of his age. He was part of a slightly later part of the scene, you know, because he had such a huge influence.

in the jazz of the 70s. So I heard Roy and Sun Ra and others, you know, blasting out of my father's basement where he did all his painting and sculpting and silk screening. And to me, that's like the soundtrack of my childhood. So this music's been around pretty much since I had, since I figured out I had ears. Thank you for that background. That's a great story. I'm sort of, I'm visualizing everything you're saying.

And it's like, you know, it's another era and place that I wish I could have been a part of it. It just sounds like, I remember the sounds blasting from my. my father's, you know, studio. That's the effect that the, you know, when you're an artist, the child in your house or the children in your house. Absorbs that. Yeah, they observe all that. Right.

What was your first exposure to Roy? That's such a great question because part of the answer is, I have two answers. One is Roy Ayers and his music, the ubiquitousness of it. It's no accident that he, we'll talk about in a minute, but that's what he called his label and one of his musical entities. Of course. Ubiquity. He's doing a lot of different things and it's a little bit all over the place.

and in the culture it's all over the place. So everybody loves the sunshine is a radio staple and it probably will be forever. As a child, I certainly heard it. It was absorbed into my veins. I think the first time I knew I was hearing Roy Ayers is part two of your answer

was definitely as me finding a break. In other words, hearing a sample and just like exploring where it came from. Which happened early in my life as a teen, I'm listening to hip-hop and Dela-Soul. It's like you get that instinct to be like, where did this come from? So I was thinking about it for this episode, and I think the answer is, I would have heard my first Roy A air song, probably the tribe called Quest, use of it.

Yes. Which is, um, description of a fool? It's description of a fool from people's, oh, now I have to think of the, now I have to say the entire name of album. People's instinctive travels and the path of rhythm. Yes. I think that's the first tribe called Quest album's name. We will take that answer. I'm pretty sure that's right. I definitely remember just, that's on the cassette version. You know, it's not on the vinyl version. It's like, you know, the bonus track. And I just was so hooked by that hook, that looping baseline.

It got its hooks in on the corner, selling jumbos, stealing your friends and also your foes. What's the matter with you, boy? You big a loop. It got its hooks into me, both as a, like, music fan. And later, as a musician, it should be said.

As I was listening to all these Roy Ayres songs prepared for this episode, I was like, his sound is so much what I have been going for in recent, you know, eras of me being a musician. Yeah. As luxury,

so much of my music comes from this 70s funk instrumentation including Rhodes, clavinet, and the Selena. We're going to talk about the Selena,

the string ensemble with a single droning note. I just want to play a snippet of one song quickly. This is a song by a band called Luxury. And I mean, this song called,

What Are We Going to do? Is me trying to be right Ares. So I'm just going to call attention to here in the chorus. Listen to that one note that just gets higher, but doesn't change what the note is itself. It's a drone. There's the roads. So that notes, just one note droning. And then I just go up an octave. That's me. That's me trying to be Royer's from this era. I know it. I love it. It's funny that you bring up the note and sort of like having one, let's call it the spine. Yeah, yeah. That's there because. When you listen to your song or some of these Roy Air songs that we're going to listen to today, and especially with sunshine, that note sticks out because no matter what he's doing, no matter how he's affecting you physically as you let that music in, that one really high-pitched note is there.

And to me, that does feel like how the sunshine feels if you're like on a beach or just on your roof deck or something like, that sun is unchanging. that sun has been there since the Roman armies were marching. It's been there since the earliest Egyptian civilizations. It's been there since the freaking dinosaurs. The sun is unchanging. Stability within our globe, like our earth. Like the existence of the sun as stability as everything changes in history. Everything else is just cool chaos and madness.

But in the song it's all, that sun is just that single sense. What a great metaphor for in the song it's doing a very similar thing. talk about it in the stems, but the core changes are so interesting and strange and unexpected. I'm so glad you breathe this up. But that drone stays consistent and grounds you. It does.

Guys, if you love this song, you're going to want to stick around. Because if you're like me, I want to know why each one of those notes and everybody loves the sunsign hit so hard. They all hit hard differently. And at different times, too, you're almost overwhelmed. And all you can do is sit back, lay back, and enjoy the

sunshine. Absorb the vibes. Yeah. Before we get... Or locked thereof. Sorry. No, there's so much to impact here. I've already got chills. We haven't talked about anything yet.

This is real-time reactions, folks. Before we get into the greatness of Roy Ayers, the artist, let's talk about Roy Ayers, the person, the man. So Roy's story really begins here in Los Angeles, South Central, to be exact, where he was born and raised. His first... It was called South Park back then. It was?

Not me enough. Yeah, used to be called South Park. Interesting. Though his first experience playing music was through singing and playing the piano and church, it was the vibraphone that called him early on. At five years old while attending a Lionel Hampton concert, he was given mallets, you know, the vibes, what you play the vibes with, by the man himself, handed him his mallets at the end of the show. So wow. That's so cool. What a cool story. By the way, cool five-year-old for even being there. Yeah, that's true, too.

Yeah. Roy tributes some of his spirituality to the vibraphone saying, quote, it meant something to me. It gave me some kind of spiritual release in contrast to other instruments. I think it really was Lionel Hampton who gave me that spiritual vibe. The instrument has a fascinating sound, a hypnotic sound. I think I would tend to agree with Roy on all of that. Let's listen to one of Lionel Hampton's most recognized compositions, flying home. So Roy gets almost gifted his instrument at the age of five from a jazz legend. I think we can all say that happens to all of us at some point in life.

Well, we got the mallets, not the entire instrument. He got the mallets. He didn't actually get the instrument until much later. But he had the mallets ready to go when he finally got it. But this is another very important part in his story, I think. Roy Ayers went to Thomas Jefferson High School. At a very important time because Thomas Jefferson High School and the jazz fans already like, oh, yes, of course, you know, Jefferson High School.

The reason being that they produced so many jazz greats that school, including Dexter Gordon. The list is almost like too long to run down. And at some point you're like, why so many? Was it just the timing? Well, I think that the fact that this is post-World War II, Los Angeles. And people forget, post-World War II, Los Angeles, a lot of black people had moved here from the South and St. Louis and Louisiana. Not just because the racism, while still here, you know, there's the redlining of, you know, where you can own a house and all that kind of stuff. But there was a large black population out here.

And they had moved out here because there was both the last. large black population and there were a lot of jobs. A lot of people have moved out here during World War II for all the munitions and construction and manufacturing jobs. And there was so there was a lively black community and everybody was putting their families into public schools. And there was a teacher at Jefferson High School by the name of Samuel Brown. Fun fact, he was the first black music teacher in the Los Angeles public school system. And it's one of those things that's happened on this show before. You have this music teacher, Samuel Brown, who is literally churning out and inspiring, you know, all these kids to go into music and to go on to become great musicians.

And it reminds me of our Farside and Warren G episodes where Locke High School also had one of these teachers. Just because one teacher can make such a massive difference. Reggie Andrews causes the spark that causes all these other kids to go into music. And it just goes to show, I think, that one One teacher, well-placed, can have a huge impact not just on the lives of their students, but on the culture of the world. Absolutely. And just actually, you know, that made me think of. There is a similar story in Jamaica.

So many of the reggae grates came out of the Alpha Boys School. And Sister Mary Davies is this one teacher who's credited as a sort of birthing a nation of reggae, so to speak. She's literally called the mother Teresa of reggae. I love that. So after high school, just like my father again, Roy Ayers finds. himself at L.A. City College, which my father used to call L.A. Silly College. Like, you know, it's the community college, and a lot of people can afford to go there, especially if you support yourself

or your family by, you know, taking on a night job. And it's at Los Angeles City College where Roy studied advanced music theory until Herbie Mann came to town. Roy joined Herbie Mann's band as their vibes player for their L.A. gig. And they hit it off. The rest, as they say is history. From there, Roy drops out of LACC, hits the road with Herbie Man, and never looks back. Here's a song from Herbie Man that features a young Roy Ayers. This is Herbie Man's Memphis Underground. Why are the vibes so cool, man? It's like the coolest sound.

It's the coolest instrument. One thing I want to point out to, more foreshouting for this episode, you will note that for the most part, especially in jazz, vibes parts are melodies. Think of the vibes, even though it's a keyboard, so to speak, and there's two mallets, right? Sometimes people have four mallets. what you're really hearing is kind of the same thing you'd hear from a saxophone. In other words, it's a note, it's a melody, sometimes played as octaves. But I just want to point that out because once we get into the Sims, it's going to be part of our investigation, our archaeological dig. And yeah, just something to point out about how the vibes are usually played. I love that. And also, I want to point out when I hear vibes, I hear California vibes. I hear Los Angeles vibes. There's something sort of cool about the vibes. And sunny. It sounds sunny. It sounds cool. You know, my parents were part of this L.A.

seen around the time that Roy is doing this material. And they're going to some of those places like the Hague, you know, which is one of these forgotten, it wasn't on Central Avenue, but it's one of these forgotten LA clubs that you can go to and hear that West Coast sound. Like, you know, the West Coast sound is very different from the East Coast sound. It is more vibe. It is more chill and lay back. I think about albums like Birth of the Cool, which is sort of the seminal West Coast jazz

album. It's just a different vibe. Once again, you can kind of hear the sun. You can kind of feel the palm. So over the next few years, Roy cuts his teeth touring with Herbie Mann. He's the vibes player. He's learning the ways of the road. And it's Herbie who actually got him his first deal with Atlantic Records and produced all

three of his first records under the label. I mean, seriously, what a treat to have a mentor who not only brings you on the road with him as a teenager, gets you a record deal. And then on top of all that, he produces your records. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, let's listen to a little bit of Roy's work with Herbie Man. this is off of an album called Daddy Bug

1969 same year as Memphis Underground came out and I'm going to play for you guys a track called I Love You Michelle Fun fact it was written by Edwin Bird's song That's got everything I need in a song It's got the groove, that bass line, hypnotic The drum beat, the funky drum I mean listen

It's a long song And I could have stayed there for a while I could have stayed there for a while too I was enjoying that solo that vibe So something about that sound just like tickles my brain in exactly the right way. And what an all-star group of players. You've got Roy Air is on vibrapho. You've got Herbie Hancock on piano.

Buster Woods. You got Ron Carter on bass. It's the all-stars. It's just a same. And it's written by Edwin Bird's song. Edwin Bird's song also from the Los Angeles scene at that time. A big part of the Roy Ayr's story. He actually wrote Running Away.

That song I just mentioned earlier. Running away. Yes. He works on, I think he worked on Freaky Diki as well. I mean, like. He's a frequent collaborator. It makes sense that Edwin Bird's song would continue to dabble in dancey-type music. He'd eventually make Cola Bottle Baby, which eventually got sampled by Dapper.

And rapper, dapper, snapper. Yes, by Gangstar. Gangstar sampled it for his skills. A few years later, Roy joins Polydor for a better record deal, where he formed the jazz funk ensemble. Roy Ayers Ubiquity. So, you know, I remember when we started talking about this show, we were like, what's the difference between Roy Ayers and Rayers' ubiquity? It's really just a matter of, like, who's the name of it. of the artists on the label.

It's also important to note that Roy Ayers' solo music is probably best to find as more straightforward jazz music. You know, that's his, you know, individual effort. Whereas Roy Ayers' ubiquity is his band that's more focused on fusion and jazz fusion and incorporating different genres

within the framework of improvisational music. That's where you get more of the funk stuff coming in, the R&B influence. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, speaking of ubiquity, he says he got that name from his manager. His manager apparently said you should call your group Roy Ayers ubiquitous. because it means to be everywhere at the same time, and the music itself is ubiquitous

because it's a combination of so many forms of music, jazz, pop, blues, and soul. So it's ubiquity of everywhere and everything, a little bit of everything. Let's listen to one of the earlier ubiquity records. This is one of my absolute favorites of all time. This is We Live in Brooklyn, baby. So good.

And this song also reminds me of probably another early breakbeat, which in retrospect was me hearing Roy Ayers for the first time without knowing it, which was the use of this song. And one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums, It's Borough Check by Digable Planet's featuring Guru. This is from Blow Outcome. Go out and buy it immediately if you don't own this record. Because they were used a couple portions of that song, including.

The strings. And you know what? It's interesting, too. As we're listening, I'm realizing that the Digable Planet's palette on this record, especially, is extremely Roy Ayres, 1976. For sure. It is a Rhodes rich. record with the beats and the bass lines are extremely coming out at that moment. Everything is really muddy.

Yeah. In some ways, I would argue the blowout comb, which I believe dropped in 1995, is a 94, where that makes sense, is sort of like a proto, meaning almost too early to be in the genre, but it's a proto-Neil Soul album. You know what I mean? Because I would argue that Neil's Soul definitely, yeah, like, if everything was like glossy and, you know, bad boy and and glamorous, Neo Soul was almost like a reaction to that. It was like, no, no, no, we're going analog. We're going roads. Yeah.

We're going dusty. Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit about Roy's effect on Neal Soul, a little bit later in the episode. Roy was quite prolific by the 1970s, having released 13 records by 1974, but it wasn't until 1975 that he hit his stride with Jazz Fusion and particularly with his breakthrough, Mystic Voyage. Let's listen to the title track off of that one. This is Mystic Voyage.

And it's in 1976 that he zeros in even more on this ubiquity sound. With the album, we've all come to know and love. Everybody loves the sunshine. Which has one of my all-time favorite Roy Ayr's songs, The Third Eye. We've got to hear a second of the third eye. Which also got sampled into one of my absolute favorite hip-hop beats of all time, passing me by Fly is Pie remix by the Far Side. I can do this all day.

That sound is like so... It goes so deep for me. It cuts so deep. It's so delicious. And we're going to keep here. hitting this on the head, but not only do the vibes sound bright and alive, but they're also hard. It's a hard percussive instrument. It is literally a percussion instrument. It's a percussive. It's where you find it in the percussion area, not in the horns, not in the strings, not in the

brass. It's right over there. It's, it's, it's, you've got mallets. You're hitting something. Therefore, it is a percussion instrument. I will say my all-time favorite experience playing the drums, whether it was the kit or the timpany, whatever it was, was probably the quad-toms in the marching band because I had my mallets and I was doing what a drummer does. But you're hearing notes. But because it's tonal. Yeah, you got notes. It was like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

You know, it was all that. I miss those Friday night lights. I miss the football games. I miss my quantum solos. That was special times. We're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to dive into the stems for Roy Ayers' landmark classic. Everybody loves the sunshine, the individual parts.

We're going to figure out why and how everything is layered. to just give you the chills when you listen to this song. We're going to get forensic. We're going to be archaeologists of the song. You're going to hear all the individual parts when we get back. We'll hook up back to one song.

Luxury, before we jump into the stems, how do the splits break down on everybody loves the sunshine? Everybody Loves the Sunshine is 100% composed and publishing goes to Roy Ayers, where now is a state, I should say. One thing I do want to bring up, though, is important as we get into the stems and the players is that Roy Ayers was obviously a vibes player.

He's obviously a songwriter. and a lyricist and he sings on this track among others. But he is maybe more than anything, a group leader. He brings the band together for live performances, for the studio, and a lot of the compositional process. We're going to give some props in a minute to one of the performers, Philip Wu. But one quote from him that perfectly summarizes the approach is he says, Everybody Loves the Sunshine was typical for how Roy worked.

He'd come in with an idea and sing it or play it to us, but there was no written music, no scores, no charts. everyone got to their instrument and played what they felt would work for what was happening in the room at the time. So we'd have a spark of an idea and the performers, the players would flesh it out essentially. So that's an important thing to think about as we listen to the stems. Here's something. I find this really odd. After hours and hours of painstaking research, our team couldn't find anything on producers, Maurice or James Green. Yeah, not just the two of those. So Maurice Green is the producer ostensibly,

and James Green is one of the engineers. And I went down a rabbit hole, the whole team collectively, we went down our individual rabbit holes. We just could not find very much of any information about who these people are. Other than, I have a hypothesis, they're both named Green. Maybe they were brothers and they were part of the entourage. I thought you were going somewhere else.

I thought you're going to say maybe these are like, you know, pseudonyms for somebody else. I hadn't even thought of that. I don't owe the FBI money or something. But between... Who owns the FBI money? It could be more than James Green. It could be on the lamb.

I don't know, man. All I can tell you is that on all music and disc, and, of course, Wikipedia and deep Google searches, like so little, so there aren't other credits, or not very many, I should say, if any, for these two gentlemen who are very central to the making of this huge hit song. So you would think that after this, they would get work anywhere for the rest of their lives, but apparently seems not to be the case, or they change their names. There is a potential explanation for this, which is, there was an interview where Roy Ayers talks about how he would wear engineers out. So, for example, he, the other, the named engineer on this,

Jerry Solomon, we know a little bit about. But apparently he wore, he wore, him and his wife out and they would go all hours of the night. And like he would say, can you just get a different engineer? We just can't work with you anymore. So maybe he started with Jerry Solomon and moved on to James Green, who's his friend, who that, I don't know who knew how to work at the board. The janitor and the night janitor, he's like, hey, I'm here anyway. I know how to run the board. I've seen, I've seen the other guys do it. I can do it too. It was like a will, it was like a goodwill hunting situation where the janitor's been watching in the background. He's like, yeah. Can we hear a little bit of the demo for Everybody Loves the Sunshine?

Yeah, man, this demo, when I found it, I love it. This is, you'll be able to hear in the demo a lot of stuff that made the final cut and a handful of differences, which I'll point out after I play it for you. Let's hear the demo for Everybody Loves the Sunshine. My life, my life, my life, my life in the sunshine, sunshine. You know, one thing I love about doing this show is that it would never occur to me in my day-to-day life that, hmm, I wonder if that song that I love, everybody who loves a sunshine, has a demo.

Right. Maybe I should go out there and try and find that demo. Like, hey, I don't know what you're doing today, but we found the demo for you. Yeah, we did it. We took that Google search away from it. That is so raw. It's so raw. And there's so much.

I like the aggressive drums in it. Right. The drums are funkier. It's a little bit, like they, here are some of the changes that to my ears stood out to me. Number one is the funky groove that you just pointed out. It's more of a funk groove. The final version is a little mellow or it's a little jazzier even, I would say. So we have a conga that's more prominent.

There is a conga in the final. version, but it's really buried. But to me, maybe the biggest thing is that there, that hook, that dun da-d-d-d-dun, that six-note hook. Yeah. In the final version, it's played on piano. Yeah. In the

demo version, it's played on the vibes. And here, look, we're just going to give the game away. I don't know that there are vibes on the final version of the song. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy. A man known for vibes leaves vibes off of his biggest hit. It's possible. He left him up. But in the demo, it was

the hook was the vibraphone. I'll tell you what, man, because those vibes came in and played that part, I was ascending. I was literally like, I just wanted to like, just take off my glasses and just sit like this

because I just could not believe. I was like, there's something about the way the notes move. I just feel like, you know, like I feel there's a certain spiritual, spirituality, there's a certain sort of like, I am one with the universe.

But there's a lightness. The ascend is a great word for it because it's an upward lift. I felt that too. Piano is a little different, literally the same. notes, the same syncopation, same rhythm. But it feels different.

Okay, so we've heard the demo. Let's set the scene for the recording of the version we know. Roy is at Electric Lady Studios with ubiquity. It's a hot, sunny day. You see where this is going. Hot sunny day. And he says, quote, I just got this phrase in my head. Everybody loves the sunshine.

I started singing, feel what I feel when I feel what I feel what I'm feeling. That's all you need. That's all you need. Then I started thinking about summary imagery. Folks get down in the sunshine. Folks get brown in the sunshine. Just bees and things and flowers. All lyrical content was complete immediately, right?

Just those three lines. You know? Yeah. That's it. That's all you need. Don't overtake it. In a flash, he got all of the components, all the lyrical components. I'd love to see how this comes together. And apparently it all happened pretty spontaneously. He's quoted as explaining, I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound, a mix of vibraphone, piano, and synthesizer.

We recorded it at night so the sun was down, but the vibe in the studio. was really nice. And I think that's where that demo must come out of because he says right there, vibraphone was a big part of it in his mind. And we just heard that version. Final version, Vibrophone, TBD. Wow. Well, with that said, let's start our dive into the stems,

my man, and let's start with the rhythm section. All right. On drums, we have Doug Rhodes. And on percussion in Congas, we have Chanow O'Farrell, who is with airs for most of his 1970s LPs. Doug Rhodes, on the other hand, another mysterious performer whose name appears in the credits of this

record and not much else on the internet. So we ask you the one song nation if you know of more of Doug Rhodes's work, please let us know. We'd love to know more about this wonderful drummer. All right, let's listen to what Doug Rhodes played. So chill. It's funky. It sounds like the demo, but it's much more chill. And just one thing to point out is you're not hearing him play the snare as a snare. In other words, like a boom, cat boom. It's not a cat on the two and four. You're getting, as a side stick, it's a lot more mellow. It's more of a jazz thing to do. And or Latin percussion. It feels like you're relaxing in the sun.

Like a cat would be like, I'm drinking a pinia colada in the sun. But that's not the vibe we're on right now. That's not the vibe we're on. Yeah, it's laid back. Here's a little more. All the noises. Listen. Layback.

Lay back. I mean, I think that was Roy just giving him instructions, right? Lay back. Keep it chill. He's like, lay back. Which I kind of picture him like, you know, hovering over the drum kit, like watching him like a hawk. Which I'm sure he wasn't doing. I'm sure he was given the right vibe.

voice seems cool. Yeah, and since we just heard a little bit of it, so it's mostly high hat, but there are a couple sections with a ride and a snare. For example, in the bridge, what I'm calling the D section, I'll play it for you, and then I'll give you a little context. And you can hear a band playing, because that's music, that's band communication, that they're making these little subtle choices that mirror what the other performers, like rhythmically doing things the other performers are doing. It's so cool hearing that. It's so cool. It feels a band. Y'all, it sounds like music. It sounds like music.

Because of what's usually my favorite part of the song, which is the bass. I always love what the bass is doing. If you were to quiz me right now, I could not tell you what would even qualify as the bass in the song. So I'm anxious to hear it. So this is John Solomon, sometimes known as Sean on bass, electric bass. He's in the Roy Ayers-Edwin Birdsong family. He plays with both of those guys. He was on Birdsong's 1973 debut.

That was his first appearance. He's mostly a session guy and then a touring guy. So he don't really, he's not a name in the same. way as Ron Carter's a name that we know from like looking at a liner notes. He's mostly with Roy Ayers. And then he goes on to tour with Nona Hendricks, the English beat, Ronnie Wood and Roger Daltry. But this song is, obviously, he's making his name as, you know, he's on one of the greatest recorded songs of all time, as well as being a touring bass player mostly afterwards.

So there's three main things that he does through the song. He starts simple. This often happens, and we've talked about this in multiple episodes, when there are session players, as the song progresses, the parts they play start to get a little more interesting. It's like they sort of establish themselves. And then over time, they're like, okay, let's start to vary it up a little bit. So he starts with just playing the roots of the chords. And I will start here and then bring in a little context since it is pretty simple.

Which is very helpful because those chords are so dense. The bass helps keep us grounded and tells us where the root is. They're doing so much that it actually distracts me from what the bass is doing. It's not like a fancy base. No. Doing crazy things. But that's exactly what I was saying, especially it being the beginning of the song. Right.

So your ears are being introduced to something fairly complicated. As the song progresses, your ears get accustomed to it. So he's enabled, it enables him to start doing a little more fancy things because he's already laid the groundwork, literally. Where can we hear some of these fancy things? Okay, so a little bit later on, this is in the B's and Things section. He just goes up in octave, starts to vary it up a little bit. Little fills. So just little variety.

I'm feeling too much. They're going to have to wheel me out of the studio. There's so much lift. I feel so lifted, like you said. What did you call before? Ascending. Ascending. It's very ascendance, very lifty.

And then towards the middle and then all the way to the end of the song, he gets a little fancier. For context. It's devastatingly good, isn't it? This is about halfway through. And from here, he's kind of in the funky zone. Like here, little fills, little melodies. Music makes me want to be a better person. Man, are you crying?

Because it is... I know. I'm almost tearing. It's okay if you are. It's so embarrassing. It's beautiful fucking music. Like, I feel like, I'm moved that you're moved.

I feel like connected with the people who came before me and the people who will come after me. Like, why am I so connected with like everything? I swear, I am sober. I've done nothing. No, music is moving. Music is emotional. I don't like being vulnerable.

Listen, my friends, I feel what you're feeling. I feel when I feel, when I feel, when I feel, when I feel. Too much. Too many feelings. Listen, cut off. off YouTube, go listen to the audio. Imagine a stone face avatar for me getting through this episode

because I'm feeling too much right now. Man, I'm really moved by your emotional connection to this music. It's not even like tears of sadness. It's just like, gosh, like, you know what it also reminds me of when I would listen to hip hop with, you know, my buddy aunt Demby, like there was a certain era

hip hop like when Rockus was like a big label and you hear something, you'd be like, oh, why is that so good? You know, like, you would just, would just hit you. And I'm not saying I don't feel that, you know, all the time nowadays, but there are times when, like, I'll just hear, like, a decision. Because all these chords and notes that they're hitting, these are all just individual decisions. Yeah. And yet you're just like, but like a little bit of the decision they make kills you. You're just like,

oh. Like you feel that pain. Like, you know, I think that's why people are always like, you know, listen to hip hop like that. You know, it's just one of those things. No, it's well said. And it's easy to forget, too, that like a musician's role is not just to hit the correct notes. It is to tap into an emotion. It is to evoke something, to themselves have feelings that they bring to the selection of notes they play and how they play them, which in turn creates a response

like this. It's incredible. When it's effective like this, it's a beautiful thing. What's going on with the keys on this song? So this is one of those records that happen so often on the show where the credits only tell us for all of the songs on this entire record, here are all of the parts and not necessarily who played what.

But we do know that there's an electric piano, a.k. A.K. Rhodes, the one, the thing that devastates us sometimes emotionally because it's so beautiful and so rich emotionally as an instrument. That's what we were just listening to with the bass a moment ago. There's a synthesizer, which is,

there's two, actually. There's an ARP and there's a Salina String Ensemble, which is whatever, technically a keyboard. And then there is, on this record, again, in the credits, there are vibraphones clearly. But now that we're in the keys, we're going to work together to answer the question,

is there a vibraphone on this song? Did the vibes make the cut? I don't really know. Just to type back to something we talked about earlier with vibraphones and Lionel Hampton in that discussion, there is a tonal similarity to both of these instruments. So I think that's a reason why Roy Ayers likes having the roads in a lot of his catalog, because their effect is very similar. And what Roy Ayers is mostly playing as a vibraphone player are melodies in between his parts that he's singing or somebody else is

singing in the solo. Maybe it's punctuating a melody line that another part is playing. He's not comping. Comping is what you call when you are supporting the song by playing chords, and it's not the primary thing. He's really not doing that across the catalog. I'm saying all this to support my thesis that I don't think he's on this song. So with that said, all of those keyboards are played by some combination of Roy Ayers with Philip Wu, who is our episode's Unsung Hero. Let's talk a little about Philip Wu. When he was 17, he talks about how he saw Roy Ayers performing live. Like 10 people were in the audience, like not what people. And he tells the story how, and this is, by the way,

is like every young musician's fantasy is that some performer will say this. What Roy said that night, which apparently was, would anybody like to come up and play with us? And apparently he just got really excited and raised his hand, but it turned out to, I think he was joking. But he tells the story that a couple years later,

he sees him again, and Roy Ayrd says, hey, I remember you. Do you want to play? And he was a huge fan of the music. He knew all the songs, and they had happened to just have lost a keyboard player. So he was right place, right time. and ended up playing the rest of the show.

So he got that fantasy that was deferred from two years earlier. When I was a kid, I would go see Metallica, and I'd be like, I hope Lars falls down. And they said, does anyone know how to play the drums? They're like, I know all your songs, my heart. Never happened. Never happened for me. Apparently that happened, like,

legendary for like the who at some concert. Maybe that's a story that, maybe that's a story that drummers tell each other to like, apocryphal, like hopeful. But that really did happen to Philip Wu. So he ends up playing the gig and joining the band. Wow. And he moves from Seattle to New York.

York, quote unquote, it was unheard of for a band leader to pick up musicians on the road like like that. It changed my life. Oh, that makes a lot. It would change your life. It would change your life. Oh, that's so much fun. That's like the baseball fantasy where it's like, totally. Our Alfredo got hit. It's so like a kid with a little glove reason. Absolutely right. When you're a kid, you just want to be involved. You want to get to the big leagues like that. Well, it happened for this kid. Well, he was 19 at at the time. So is Philip playing the keys? So here's what we know between Roy Ayers and Philip all of these keyboards I just named are on, we don't know necessarily, except Pian, Piano. piano is the only specific keyboard whose credit is exclusively under Philip Wu's name.

Yeah. But let's start with the Rhodes. Let's listen to some of the stems. Love a Rhodes. And if you have to cry, then I've got a shoulder to cry. I can't cry on demand, dude. Trust me, if I could, I would get hired as an actor way more. So without further ado, here's the Rhodes in the intro.

That note. That note. That's that note. This one. That note. That's the one that devastates you? You know how people say like, oh, he's that dude or I'm that girl? Like, that's that note. That's that note. That's that note.

It's that note in the, oh, it's so good. I think that's a C sharp over that A minor chord, but the chord's much more complicated than that. I'm going to get into it in a second. Okay. But it's a devastating note, no matter how you slice it, no matter what it's called. Remember we did our Portishead episode. I was like, oh, that one note is devastating.

Well, a note can be devastating. Context is everything. In a good way, though. It's devastating in a great way. Oh, let's be clear. Every emotion we ever discuss on this show is glorious. From violent to devastating. It's all because we love music and it's emotion. The emotion causingness of music is what makes us want to do this show every week. We said this episode is about vibes. We're discussing all the vibes.

These are all the vibes. Created by possibly no vibes. Ironically, vibes on in the mix. I mean, it's so interesting because this song, it's essentially like one long group. Pretty much. It's one long groove. And I'm not, my attention's not waning. Yeah. I don't feel the repetition.

Like, it's just good. What weird magic spell is it casting on me? In a nutshell, this song has one main section, the Everybody Loves the Sunshine. That's like 75 to 80% of the song. But there's also an intro, which is the difference between them is the intro has the three chords. And then everybody loves the sunshine has the four chord cycle. That's the best way to think about it.

And then sort of two thirds of the way through just to break it up, we have this little da-na-na-na-na-na, which that's like the bridge. Yeah. For the most part, the song is the Everybody Loves the Sunshine, and everything else is kind of just designed to refresh your ear, so you don't get too much of that uninterrupted. Totally. And what's going on with the piano?

That's Philip Wu, playing that hook about 20 times throughout the song on the piano, and not on the vibes as it was in the demo. Let's hear it again? Let me give it to you in context. No, I know. I know. I'm trying to... It almost seems like the wrong. tone that piano, how it goes up like that, how it ascends, if you will. Everything is context.

And yet it totally, it's, it makes the song. It's framed by the thing before it and the thing after it, which gives it the context, which creates that emotional response that's so unique. We began this conversation talking about that synth that runs through the entire song. Can we just hear that synth isolated? Yes, let's listen to the Solina, which is the name of this instrument, very 70s, one of my favorites. We heard it earlier in the luxury song, sending on a single note. And I probably got that from this or from Roy A or his Cadlock,

because he actually does this on a few songs. But the Salina is playing a single note. It's a drone throughout the song. It's very loud in the mix. It is. And here it is. This is the note B. I mean, that's it. You've heard it now. I'll add some context. It's a B. That's all it is. It's just the note B. We're just sharing the note B. But it has the laser-like precision. it's almost like someone's, it's almost like Roy's finding a laser into my heart. You know what I mean?

It is. That's how it comes across to me. You said it at the beginning of the episode. That's the sun. I can't tell you how much I'm connecting with every single part of this. Yes, it's the sun. It's a laser. It's light. It's light. It's there every day.

That is a note of B played on a Salina. On a Selena. But it really is just a beam of light. Yeah. And it's acting like an anchor solidifying the song, at least part of it. Everything else is changing during the song. But that Selena note, But B stays the same while those chords move around in really surprising ways.

There is one more synth in this song. It's the ARP synth. That's right. We can't go, we can't finish up the stems for the song without getting that iconic hook, which begins the song. I love how just not, they're disconnected. Does that ever change? That never does anything. Well, it does at the end of the verse into the chorus.

But for the most part, it stays basically in that pocket, right? So that happens at the beginning. Mm-hmm. and then it happens one more time and then never again. That's twice in the whole song. It only happens in the A section, remember, which is the intro and it's the B's and things part. But no other part of the song has that. Maybe I just heard the samples so many times.

I thought that was repeating through the whole song. It's one of those like psychoacoustic phenomena. Is there another instrument playing that essentially that's a no, we're no, you've just got those two. So it's a monophonic line played twice and not quite matching, which is sort of wonderful. Like they don't, they're not quite timed exactly right. So when you hear them together, it sounds like, and the envelopes are a little bit different.

But that only happens at the very beginning of the song and bees and trees and flowers. And then it ends with this. Doong do. Portamento. There you go. In the sunshine. You know, it's like the Mandela effect.

I swore it was there the whole song. So that's wild. So many things about this song in my mind and then the evidence presenting itself in the stems, right? Surprises about... Can't argue with the evidence. Maybe the number one thing being, listen, let's just not to put too fine a point on it.

You've heard all of the instruments of this song. Did you hear a vibraphone? No. I didn't hear one. No, I didn't hear one. The only theory I have is that it's either so deeply blended with the roads, which as I've set up, are very similar tonally anyway. Yeah.

But why would it be blended when this is a multi-track song? Everything else is separated. Why would it be the only instrument being really? Roy Air is a main instrument. Why would the vibes be the other one blended and buried under the roads? I just don't think there's a vibraphone in here. Well, I'll tell you what, you've convinced me that there are no vibes on this song, but I do have a theory. I think that I hear Roy Ayers' vocals on this song. Is he the male voice on the song? I think there may be something to your theory. Let's listen and find out. My life, my life, my life, my life in the sunshine. Everybody loves the sunshine.

But that is Roy's vocals on there. That's Roy's vocals. And it's layered with a second vocal from another person that we don't know much about. But we do know. We do know that her name is Debbie Darby, aka Chikas. Oh, fun. And she was so named, quote,

this is, I need to really set up that this is a quote from not me, not from my mouth. Because she was a fine chick, quote, because she was a fine chick, a good looking girl who sang it so beautifully, she was the start of the show. It's not a bad quote, but it's like, no, I'm not going to be saying that.

Don't read anything that you're reading the quote. Let's hear her soloed and then I'll blend them together as you hear on the final song. My life, my life, my life, my life. And the sunshine. Everybody loves the sunshine. And now I'll blend it with Roy. And you can hear what it sounded like together.

Sunshine. Everybody loves the sunshine. I'd love to hear more of Debbie Darby, aka Chikas, because I think she's such an important part of the song. Yes. You know, there's something about his harmonies with hers. It's almost like a conversation. I don't want to go too deep into this,

but it's like you hear a man and a woman, again, you sort of hear, you know, like a completion of sorts. Yeah. There's something very black in 1970s about her vocals. I can't quite put my finger on it. But like, you know, she's a black singer, she's a black woman,

and it's almost like she's co-signing on what Roy is singing about. Okay. Like, this is a very natural song. We're talking about not the birds and the bees. We're talking about the bees and the trees and the things and all this stuff and flowers and stuff. So there is an element of like life and creation.

So the presence of a female voice seems like it belongs here. And then just from an aesthetic point of view, I love songs when like when you get to a chorus or even sometimes with the verse, when you add in voices that you know aren't just the singer because then it's like, oh, he's already got, he's already got support. Yeah.

You know, he's already got people who are like joining in with what the message is. Yes, exactly. It works in every genre like in punk like when they get to the chorus and you hear like a bunch of, it might all just be like the front,

you know, the front man's voice layered, but it sounds like consensus. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, I want to jump on this bandwagon. Her voice brings that consensus.

Yeah. Right. So this is one of those wonderful circumstances where the song fades out, the canonical version that you get on the record. But we have stems that extend beyond it because they recorded more.

And here is Debbie Darby, doing some fun ad list. that didn't make the final cut, but we get to hear them now. But you're hearing them now. Everybody loves the sunshine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're trading ad-lib, so that's Roy. Sunshine.

Everybody loves the sunshine. Hey, hey, hey, come on. It sounds like they're just going, your turn, my turn, they're just trading back and forth. Sunshine. What you say, everybody loves the sunshine. Oh, yeah.

It's a different song, though. I can see why they cut it for the vibe of what they were going for. These people sound like they're about to go see a movie on 42nd Street after the event recording Electric Lady. We would be doing our audience wrong. If we didn't hear the part that we mentioned earlier, let's just call it the feel what I feel part of the vocals. Can we hear some feel what I feel when I feel what I feel when I'm feeling?

Is that what you'd like to hear? All those feels? Let's hear all the feels. It'll give us all the feels. and it'll give us all the feels. So as before, I'm going to start with Chikas, and then I will layer Roy on top. And just to be clear, this is a song technically

with no harmonies in it. They're just unison. They're singing the same note and octave apart. That's part of being on the vibe too. It's part of being on the vibe too. And it makes sense, now that we've gone through that complicated choral stuff happening in the roads and piano,

all the complicated harmonies are happening in the roads. And I think that's why they chose to keep the vocal so simple. So have this melody line that's just unilatered. just the two of them singing the same note in an octave apart, rather than making a big vocal stack out of it. And now that it's coming around, I'm adding Roy back in for the harmony. Feel what I feel when I feel what I feel when I'm feeling. In the sunshine.

Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Can I hear Roy by himself too? Just that part. Feel what I feel when I feel what I feel what I'm feeling. and the sunshine. And I can hear her too, which makes me wonder if it's either bleed from the headphones or they were just recording

very close to each other. They were because on all these parts, I can hear other parts being played way down in the mess. Yeah, yeah. So, D'all, what would you say the legacy of everybody loves the sunshine is? Look,

the song that my kids said, oh, that's the TikTok song. It's still being played. It was actually playing when we were on vacation last, almost on like a, every once an hour loop at this hotel we were saying at. At one point my kids were like,

this must be on a little bit. I don't think anybody ever got tired of it because I do think it speaks to a certain, it speaks to a certain vibe of, you know, and even in the winter on a rainy day, as evidenced by the legitimate tears that came, you know, flowing at one point, I think it connects to something fundamental in the universe.

I think this is more than just a jazz song or just a great song. I think this is a song that, that if you let it in, it's going to carbonate something inside you. And I think that it's a reminder that when music works, you don't have to really try and overthink it. That's so beautifully put. If you connect for generations to come. That is so beautifully put that not only do I feel like I'm speechless with like,

how can I, not that I needed to top it, but I think you said everything that I agree with everything and cosine, everything you said, perfectly put. Maybe one thing you made me think about is coming out of so much analysis, which is like the left brain version of what you're very pure opposite of that coming from the heart. I'm all right brain rage. I'm like ready to push over my table. No, it's really beautiful. But it just reminds me that all of the analysis is pointless if it doesn't make that emotional connection. Yeah. And I think when it's something's this pure, it's going to connect with several generations.

Like we've taught a lot about, you know, this song as it was created in the 70s. But don't forget, in the 90s, Mary J. Blyge sampled it for my life. Common Dr. Dre, J. Cole, Tupac, across his catalog to this day, his song, Ooh, which we can play a snippet of here, was sampled for the song by Tyler the creator and Jaden Smith, the song Pappel.

Watch out for the Pahoe. Watch out for the Pahoe. So I think his influence on not just hip-hop, but just on music and creators and artists, I think it's safe to say it's going to be here for a very long time. He tapped into such an important vibe and it was so specific and it was so individual. And at the same time,

I'm just struck by, as we talk about the making of the song, I'm struck by that's almost demonstrated by the fact that he walked into a room with talented musicians with an idea and brought them together orchestrating this final result without the key instrument maybe that made him famous

in the song itself. It meant that his presence is what brought this elevation, this this uplifting that we're talking about. That is so universal, and that's half a century old and still being reused and transformed. Yeah, it's 50 years. And I mean, there would be no DeAngelo,

there would be no Erica and all these wonderful Neil Sol artists without Roy Ayers. I just think that his influence is there for all to enjoy. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gym with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. Sometimes the song comes from you guys

and the One Song Nation with all your wonderful DMs. You guys put us on a new music all the time. Luxury, I invite you to go first. All right, well, this is another iconic song that is known to people from samples as well as maybe more so than the original. But I love this song.

Another song I've been DJing for years. Frankly, I think I was DJing it before I knew that it was a sample. This is Sylvia Striplin. You can't turn me away. So good. And you hear so many of the elements. You hear so many of the Royals. hear so many of the Roy Ayers elements.

Yes, absolutely. No, no, I'm agreeing with you. No, I'm saying absolutely. I think that little modulation that you don't expect. That song was obviously sampled by Junior Mafia for the song, Get Money. And it's a song produced by Roy Ayers, and it includes Philip Wu on the Oberheim. And it's some of the same cast and characters. Roy Ayers, just an amazing producer. You know, and yeah, that was Sylvia's stripling. It's great song.

Great song. And what about you, Deallel? What is your one more song this week? For my one more song, I want to send a shout out to DJ Sneak, the famous Chicago house producer, because I played a set with him, and he rolled out this song that was new to me, and maybe it'll be new to you. And even if it's that, I bet you'll like it. It's the B-52's Tell It Like It Tis, but it's the MKK Underground Mix.

I believe from 1992. It was new to me. Here it is to you. Really random. That's amazing. B-F2's remix. And I didn't know that the producer M-K had been around since 1992. I knew that he had been around since the early aughts in the late 90s, but apparently early 90s.

Doing that microsampling thing. We love it. Yeah. It's very cool. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-A-L-L-O. And on TikTok at DiL-O-R-L-O. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok at Luxury.

And now One Song officially has its own Instagram and TikTok. Go follow at One Song Podcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcasts. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. Also be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist. Yes. All of the songs we discussed in our episodes,

you can find the link in our episode description. And if you made it this far, we think that means you liked our podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars. Keep those three-star reviews to yourself. Give us five stars, leave a review, and share with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the show going.

All right, luxury, help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury. And I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanez. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo.

Mixed by Michael Hartman and Engineering by Eric Hicks, Production supervision by Razak Boykin. Additional production support from Z. Taylor. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wahl, and Leslie Guam.