The Questlove Show - Black Music Month QLS Classic: Jimmy Jam Part 1

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

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.

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And as you notice, throughout June, We are celebrating Black Music Month by releasing an episode every day. So, every day, we're going to hear especially pick QLS Classic. Now, for part one, part two, and part three of my all-time favorite QLS episode, this is the legendary Jimmy Jamie Jan. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of QLS Classic. I'm Questlove. This episode, uh, we can see.

to be our finest hour. We interview the music god himself, Jimmy Jam. This is without no doubt one of our best moments, my personal favorite. In part one of this three-part series, we discuss his life in Minnesota of Minneapolis, coming up as a DJ, his friendship with Terry Lewis, his music partner, and getting mentored by the one and only Clarence Avon, not to mention Prince starting a little unknown band called The Time. We hope you enjoy it. Supra, Subima, Subrama, Role Call. Supremma, Submina, Submina, Role Call.

Supremma, Subra, Subt, Subprema, Role Call. Supremma, Subra, Submira, Role Call. So I went to the mirror, Yeah. With Grace and Finesse. Yeah. The mirror look back at me. Yeah.

Swear the guy said. Please. Supremma roll call. Supremma Role Call. Supraima, Submrauma Role Call. Much love double dipping. Dibbing, yeah. Not trying to be facetious.

Yeah. That mirror really said. Maris. Supreme. Amis Fonte. Yeah. In the hills of Agora. Yeah.

With my man Jimmy Jam. Yeah. Now where's my fedora? Rocahn. Suprema. Submina. Role Call. Supraima.

Subrama. So, Submina Rocault. My name is Sugar. Yeah. The engineer. Yeah. If you need me. Yeah.

over here. Roecom. Suprema, Subrema, Roe Call. Suprema, Subrema, Subrema, Role Call.

I'm unpaid Bill. Yeah. Chilling with my family. Yeah. Mr. Jimmy Jam. Yeah. Handed me my first Grammy. Roll Call.

That's right. Supraima, Subima, RoeCall. Supremma, Subima, Subima, Subima Role Call. Boss Bill's my name.

Yeah. And I still say. Yeah. Best record of the 80s. Yeah. Alex is hearsay. Roll call. Suprema.

Suprema. Supremea. Suprema. Suprema. Subrema. Yeah. Never out of touch. Yeah.

Jimmy Jam is here. Yeah. I miss you much. Roll call. Supremma. Supremma. Supremma role. Subrema role call.

I don't know. Yeah. What I'm supposed to say. I'll be fat Albert And say Hey Suprimo So Suprimo

Roe Call Suprema Subima Supremo Role call Suprema Subima Subima Role

Ladies and gentlemen I do not want to waste a second Welcome to Jimmy Jam Yeah Okay let's go Jimmy Jam Where were you born No I'm not

Wasting a second No how you doing I'm good I'm good man Thank you We're very overwhelmed for this. We have pineapple. Goals, man.

This is goals. Yeah. In your house. I, yeah, like, my life is whatever. Y'all should have seen when he walked in the door. I thought you was going to fall out. Yeah, like, my life is Baltic Avenue, Mediterranean. Like, this is boardwalk and park place.

Yeah, Monopoly references. It is. No sports references. It is. Hello there, Mr. James Harris, the third. How are you? I'm wonderful, man. It's great to be here with you today finally.

And your crew, your whole crew, man. It's all wonderful. Thank you for having us. We've been looking forward to this one for a minute. Yeah. This is serious of life goals here. Yeah. Let's just go.

We're starting from the beginning. Let's go. Where were you born, sir? Minneapolis, Minnesota. Okay. What part of Minneapolis? I grew up South Minneapolis. So, you know, I can say,

like 41st in Portland Avenue, which doesn't mean a lot to anybody. But, you know, if you think of downtown as like, you know, first street, second street, you know, first avenue, so on and so forth, I lived 41 blocks south of downtown. I feel like when any black person is from the south side of town, south side or east side, that means something. Yeah, it's something's going down. Like what part of, what was the town part of town to not go to in Minneapolis? Well, okay, if you were black, the northeast was where to not go to. It was called actually the Northeast is what we called it. That's where the white people live?

Yeah. Every town has the Northeast is always where white people live. The white people didn't necessarily want us to be there, you know. Because white people live every, I mean, let's face it. Back growing up, I think the state population was something like 3% black and maybe it was 8% black in Minneapolis or something like that. So pretty much white people were everywhere. But certainly

everybody was very tolerant. I guess I would say it was a very progressive town. But as you can tell from the music, it came out of there. I think that's had a lot to do with it. But no, I mean really the north side probably is where the folks were. I was one of the

only South Side guy, I mean, in Prince, obviously, because we went to school together and stuff. But on the north side of town you had you know Morris Day jelly bean Terry Lewis um you know and you had the community center called the way which everybody used to rehearse that and that kind of thing so it was a lot more happening on the north side of town I would say that on the south side so in your formative years how many of your contemporaries and peers that you were professional with would you see on a regular basis everybody man it was it was a small community it was it was it was a lot like

Like, I always say that Purple Rain, the movie was a kind of a, it was fiction, but it told a lot of truth. And that was, there was like a couple clubs you could play at, and there was more bands than the clubs could hold. So it made for a very competitive situation where if your band wasn't firing, you just wouldn't be playing in the club. And so that's the way we grew up. So there was like the Elks Lounge. There was a club called the Nacarima. Nacarima was actually American spelled backwards. and you know the cozy bar was another place there was a place called the flame and you know so between you know back in

that day you had you know my band I had a band called mind and matter Terry had flight time we were together and then we were apart we were you know we were going back and forth a lot and then um prince had grand central um Morris had a band called the enterprise band of pleasure at one point in time you know so and so and so forth so what happened was there was all these bands but there's only a couple of places to But all of those guys, and particularly people like, and really the best, probably the baddest dude up there was Sonny Thompson. Sunny Thompson. Can you, everyone speaks of Sunny Thompson like he's God. Yeah.

Like, what is it about, what is the legend of Sunny Thompson? Well, Sunny Thompson, I remember back when I first met Terry and I remember we put our little band together and stuff. And then they used to do these big outdoor festivals at this place called the Phyllis Wheatley, which is a big community center. and they used to do these outdoor concerts. And I remember seeing, they had a band. Actually, the original band that was called The Family, Sonny Thompson was in that band. But I'd never seen a brother play the guitar like that.

I mean, he just was like, he was like legendary. He was like the dude. And on top of it, he had the attitude, like if you didn't like him or you didn't like the way he was playing, he was going to come down and kick your ass, right? So he'd play the gig and stuff, and then afterwards, he'd like look at it and you, And you'd say to him, oh, man, he killed it, Sonny, man.

That was, that was amazing. Because you better say that. But the good news was he always was. He was amazing. And he was a dude that everybody just kind of stopped and stared and went. Damn. What was his style of playing? He was a great rhythm player.

He played with a lot of aggression. You know, the thing I always said about Prince and the way he played is, I've never seen anybody attack instruments the way Prince did. Like, he literally attacked the instruments. louder or just tone. Well, you know, he would, I mean, I always say like, for instance, Terry, you know, Terry's a great bass player. There's no doubt about it.

But, you know how we always use the analogy like in basketball, people that make you better? Prince was that person, right? So Terry would be playing a bass part, and Prince would take the bass from Terry and go, nope, play it like this. And then he'd play it. And then he'd had Terry the bass back. and Terry would look at the base like he'd never seen it before. And it's like, damn, you know.

So, but that was the way Sonny was. And I think Prince got a lot of that from Sunny, like the attack of the instruments. And it's the same with the keyboards. We used to break keyboards all the time because it wasn't like you would just hit the keyboard politely. It was like we were doing all kind of swoops and wow, wow, and all that kind of stuff. Like we would break keyboards. I mean, that kind of stuff. I mean, that was the way he wanted you to play.

and so I mean that that kind of attitude to me was the thing that you know set him apart along with a whole lot of other things but it really set Prince apart for sure what were the what was a goal club to play in Minneapolis at the time like was First Avenue a dream that was unattainable no actually here's the interesting thing yeah now First Avenue was actually the first place that actually allowed like black bands to play So there was a quiet segregation or just not in your fleece? Oh, it was, I guess you could say it was quiet. I mean, if you were a band and you were trying to play somewhere, you knew there were clubs that were just unattainable. You just weren't going to play that club.

And I thank God to this day that that happened because what it did, as history has always shown with black folks, is from adversity comes all good things. things, you know. You look at what you don't have and then you figure out that you can't go the easy route that everybody else is going and then you figure out a way to go get it done. So what we used to do back in the day, we knew we couldn't play. I can't remember even the names of the clubs, but there was all these very fancy white clubs and they all had white bands, but they were all playing R&B music, which was ironic. We knew we couldn't play those clubs. So what we would do is,

for instance, there was a hotel downtown called the Dykeman Hotel. It was a hotel that was probably about a year away from, you know, being torn down. I mean, it was just nobody stayed there, rooms were ratty, the whole thing. But what they had was a big ballroom. So what we would do is we would take, you know, we'd go to the owner of the hotel and we'd say, hey, can we rent the ballroom out? We'll give you the liquor, whatever the liquor sales are, you keep. and we'll take the door, we'll charge, you know,

three bucks at the door or whatever. And so what it did is it forced us to become entrepreneurs because it wasn't like we just had the talent, we could go play. It was like, okay, we got the talent. Now we got to figure out how we're going to go play. So we would do that. Now back in the day, there's no Twitter and no social media. So it was go to InstuPrints.

That was the place. You go and you print up a bunch of flyers and then you put them on people's cars. And you'd say, you know, ladies get in free, two for one drinks. You'd say whatever the heck you needed to say to get them down. And all of a sudden you get a Saturday night and all of a sudden you'd get

1,500 people in this ballroom. Meanwhile, the white clubs are sitting empty. So now they're going, wait, where's everybody at tonight? And they're like, well, they're all going to see the band you wouldn't let play at your club. And so

what happened after that was, there begin to be a little bit of a thing where people begin to recognize that maybe there's a talent or maybe we should let these folks in because these guys are talent and they're obviously drawing, right? But the first person to really act upon it was Steve McClellan at First Avenue who said, we'll book you guys in what was called 7th Street Entry

which is like the little club. Right? So if you were cool there, if you could get it going there, then we'll move you to the main room. but he was the one that really gave us the shot. And he gave, you know, back, it wasn't just, by the way, it wasn't just black bands, but it was like new wave bands.

You think about, like, the replacements and the suburbs and all of those bands. Those bands all started, those white bands all started in that seventh street entry. Were you even mixing with those guys at all? Like, would you see replacements? Mm-mm. We didn't mix at all.

I mean, just because we didn't. It wasn't that we didn't like them. We were aware of them. And I think they were aware of us, but we, no, we never mixed together at all. It was just kind of this. same dudes from the neighborhood that we grew up with, it was all of those same guys altogether. So kind of jumping ahead a little bit. Did you have goals to make it out of Minnesota or

was it just like, okay, we'll just be a local band here and maybe, well, no, I mean, or I'll get a job? Like, are your parents supportive of this? Or? Well, okay, so two really good questions. So my parents, first of all, my dad played in a band and was always a professional musician, used to take me to rehearsals and stuff back when I was, you know, six, seven years old. And I, you know, at that point, I had the music bug totally. So I got to see it. I used to get to go to the studio and the whole thing. But he was always, he never made it really where he wanted to. He was always kind of that guy on the cusp of making it. You know, he'd get on the,

a few back in the day there were kind of regional records that were hits and my dad would play on those records and then they'd ask him to go tour but because at that point of his life he had me and he had gotten married um my mom always used to kind of frown upon you know like well no you can't you got responsibilities you got family and you got you know you can't just run off and go on tour and that kind of stuff and that really affected what happened with me because when i got to the point where I really wanted to do music, my mom was 100% behind me because she realized that my dad never had a chance to do the way he wanted to do it. So she really kind of stepped out of my way and it was very supportive of me. So that was huge for me, by the way, because they separated

or they got divorced. And so I basically stayed with my mom. So she said, you know, whatever, as long as I see you doing music, you can do whatever the heck you want to do. But, you know, as long as you're serious about it and that kind of thing. So that was important. What was the industry in Minnesota? Like if cars were Detroit and black families were there, middle class and buying instruments and stuff, and the same for factories in Indiana and the Midwest. What was the industry in Minnesota that kept?

Was that an industry town at all? Well, the things I remember growing up were, first of all, grain and flour. I remember gold metal flour was a big company back in the day. Pillsbury was up there, big company. General Mills. Yeah. I forgot. I was going to visit General Mills factory.

I just now realized he said that the ghetto boys, my thought he had came, but it was gold metal flower. Oh. Now I get it. It was flour. Right. Thank you for solving that mystery. You know what I thought. I thought it was gold made a flower.

Gold made a flower. Right. Right. Like the most popular flower. No, I'd never heard that for my life. Because his accent, you know, I, too, thought it was... Thank you, Jim. I thought his gold made a flower.

Solving the mystery of Willie Dee. I didn't know there was a mystery. All we had in the house was gold metal flower. No, we had it, but I just didn't. You didn't put it together. Yeah. That's what he was saying. I'm with you, Fonte.

But all of those were up there, and obviously 3M was up there, too, Honeywell. There was some pretty big companies up there for sure. But just to, and just to wrap the other thing we were saying, The whole idea, yes, was to get out of town. That was our focus because we knew we couldn't sit around and depend on playing in the clubs that weren't going to let us play. And we knew that we couldn't make it playing in a club circuit where there's two or three clubs and there's eight bands or whatever it is. Like that was not going to happen. So we set our sights always on making it nationally.

That was our whole thing. When Prince made it out, that showed us that it can happen. And it also, because he was so unique in what he did, that then brought everybody started looking at Minneapolis like, okay, what else is up there? Because that happens with all towns. Happened with Seattle. You know, that's just the thing that happens. It's like something great comes out. And it's like, oh, what's not there?

What else is there? So we were definitely the beneficiaries of that. And there's a lot of great, I will say, a lot of talented white musicians playing R&B music. They never made it out in Minneapolis. Some of them made it out because Jesse took a couple folks with him when he did his band, the Jesse Johnson Review. The Peterson's. But the Peterson's.

How many Peterson's were there? A lot. Yeah. That was the musical family up there. I mean, just so much talent, you know. But there were other ones too. And I'm just kind of blanking on names and stuff. But there was a lot of talent, but because they didn't, they were very comfortable.

So they had no reason to try to think outside of getting out of Minneapolis or anything like that like we were So a lot of great talent up there that people didn't know about until like I say until that time when you know Jesse picked up a few people and I'm trying to think Margaret Cox who's actually tomorrow Margie but yeah but Margaret Cox was insanely talented you know so as a singer so okay yeah people like that So when can I assume that funky town was the first at least indication that an escape could be made or something could happen?

Was that just like a fluke one off in your eyes? Well, for us, you know, Prince was the example that you could make it because Prince was like three years before Funky Town. I forgot. In my mind, I'm thinking Funky Town's like 70.

But no, but Funky Town was 80s and that was, you know, at the height of the disco craze and when it was and actually when disco was being played on the radio, not only in the clubs, but actually the format. Because I remember we had a radio station up there that went from a rock format to a disco format, which was very controversial. But disco was hot at that point in time. But we thought...

What did you grow up listening on? Like, what were you listening to? For me? Yeah. Well, there was nothing but pop radio up there. I mean, I grew up as a kid. My earliest memories were always, you know, I always loved the harmony groups. I loved Seals and Cross, America.

America, wow. Yeah, you know, that kind of stuff, bread. That was, I mean, to this day, that's the way I stack my harmonies because of the way they sang those songs back then. A little bit later in life, I liked, like around the time I met Terry, I was really into Chicago. That was my favorite band ever, you know. And me and Terry both loved them.

And then Terry then turned me on to, when I met him, he turned me onto Earth, Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, New Birth, I met Terry in 72. Okay. Yeah. So we're talking last days in time, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Music in my mind, Stevie Wonder, you know, these were the albums. And Terry turned me on to those records.

So black radio, you didn't have a black radio experience at the age of 10, 1112. There wasn't a black radio experience for me. When I got into high school, I was really into junior high, and into high school, I was really into Gamble and Huff and everything coming out of Philadelphia. Blue Magic was my favorite all-time. group. I know everybody was into stylistics, but Blue Magic was my group. But how could you hear it? Or see it? Was Soul Train

a thing? Yeah, Soul Train definitely was on. And you definitely would hear it on Soul Train. But I remember I had a friend of mine whose dad was an executive of Music Land, which was one of the big retail stores back in the day. So he used to get every single record that came out. And my thing was I was always a big liner note reader and a big label reader. So

my thing was... Wait, we all collectively put in Fonte and Bill. Yes. So my whole thing was, I remember there were records that would come out, and I would, particularly during the Motown era, because I really loved the Motown records, all of that stuff, the Hall of Dozier Holland. Like, I remember looking at a Supremes album at like a family reunion or something

back in 62 or something or 60. I was like three or four years old, and I remember that Holland Dozier Holland. It was, the album was called, the Supreme sing Holland Dozier Holland. That gold record. And I, the gold record, right? I had no idea what that meant. I kept going, what does this mean?

What do you mean they're singing Holland, Dozier, Holland? And somebody explained to me, no, they wrote the songs. The girls are the singers, but somebody wrote the songs. And something went off in my head at that point that always made me look who wrote it, who produced it. And so I remember, like, all the Motown records would be the first ones I'd always go to. And I remember, like, staring at the first time I heard I wanted. want you back, Jackson 5. And, you know, Diana Ross presents the Jackson 5. And I thought,

oh, wow, that's cool. And I looked down the record. I'm like, well, I don't see Dinah Ross's name anywhere on here. Right, right. There's some dudes called the, somebody called the Corporation. I got to find out who the corporation is, you know, so that was always my, my thing. And and I knew that because what I learned was there were certain, there were groups I like, but it was all about who produced them. Like it was like, you know, like Eddie Kendricks could come out with a song and I would be like, yeah, that's okay. And then he'd come out with a song, I go, oh, I love that song.

Okay, who did that song? Okay, Leonard Kasten and, you know, Frank Wilson and okay. And then I'd hear another song that had nothing to do with Eddie Kendricks, but I'd go, ooh, I like that track. Who did that? And it'd be the same dudes, right? And that's when I got, that's when I started going, okay. That's my thing.

And so for me, that's what always excited me, and that's what ultimately made me want to become a songwriter and a producer. What kind of equipment were you dealing with when you first started? Like, did you have a piano in the house or Fender Rhodes? And how did you get it around to gigs? Well, okay. Well, I'll tell you, our very first gig was the summer that I met Terry, which was 72.

and I remember at the time I thought of myself as a drummer. I'd had drums in the house since I was like five years old. They bought me a drum set and I used to play. And I used to blast. I remember one of my favorite records was this Jackson Five record called Looking Through the Window. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right?

Because I loved the way it had that and I used to play the drum to that. And I love that the way the... Gun, Gun, all that's... stuff, all the dynamics of it. So I used to play like to that kind of stuff. And so I thought of myself as a drummer. So what happened was Terry was going to put this band together to play at this kind of year-in summer year-in thing. And he said, but he heard me play piano. And so he said, man, I need you to play keyboards for me for this thing. And I said, well, I'm a drummer, Terry.

And he said, no, no, I heard you play the keyboards. I said, no, but really, I play the drums. And he said, well, I already got a drummer. And I said, No, I play the keyboards. I mean, I played the drums. So Terry then brought over Jelly Bean Johnson, who was his drummer, and Jelly Bean played. And I said, yeah, I can mess with some keyboards. It's cool. So that ended my drumming career at that point.

Was Deli Bean playing guitar back then? Yeah, he did play guitar back then. But he was a drummer. I mean, he was a great drummer. So, I mean, you could tell it back then. He was super talented dude. And he's probably the one. person in Terry, there's probably been in Terry's life

longer than me. I mean, I think him and Jellybean go back. I met Terry when I was probably 13 or something and Jellybean probably precedes me by three or four years because they went to school together. So I didn't meet Terry until a summertime, you know, thing, but yeah, I mean, yeah,

he was amazing. So what we did is we went out I was playing drums with my dad. Okay, and he had a gig where he would play the weekends at a couple clubs and stuff. And that and real quick how that happened was he had a trio, right? And was him, this guitar player named Coffee and a drummer, right?

But they never could keep a drummer. So every week there'd be like a different drummer. So I don't tap. Yeah, right? So eventually, there was a gig and the drummer didn't show up and my mom said, why don't you let Jimmy play a set?

He knows all your songs. We've been watching you play for all this time. Sounds familiar. So anyway, I, so I did. I sat in. I did one set with him and stuff, and everybody liked it, crowd liked it. Okay, right. So a couple of weeks later and stuff, same thing.

And so coffee, the guitar player said, you know, hey, Jim, my dad's name was Jim also. He said, hey, Jim, you know, why don't you let your son go ahead and play? You know, he knows the show's show, just let him play. He said, oh, I'm not sure about that, whatever, whatever. So anyway, I did. I went, played the whole show. So after they get into that gig Coffee said to my dad

Why don't you just let your son play man We don't have to keep fighting drummers You know So my dad said okay cool We'll let you play You are a drummer And then my mom said And my mom said how much you're gonna pay him

And he So he became my agent real quick So and then my dad said Well I'll throw him out You know a little son Something she says no no You're gonna pay him just like you pay Any drummer

Did you pay Right and that was the start of my, you know, gig, and that started my little, I don't know, college funder, I don't know what happened to that money, but we started putting that money away. So that was where I started. Do you ever see your college fund money

from all the big accounts? Ever. I had a $50 savings bond like my grandmother bought me when I was like five. Never seen. I don't know where it's at there. I think my dad spent my money. Last time I saw it was on top of the TV that was on top of the big TV.

This has been a long time ago. So how does, how do you guys melt all your bands? Because I can assume that the time is basically a supergroup of Minneapolis-based musicians and one Illinois musician. Yeah. So what starts the process of you guys leaving your respective bands to, become the time. Okay, well that's, I'll try to not make it too complicated.

So here's a lot of moving parts. So for me, first of all, Terry at this point had put together what was the nucleus of flight time, which was Jelly Bean Johnson on the drums, Terry on the base. Interesting story how he had found Monty Moyer because Terry had been trying to get me to join the band again. I was off doing my own band for a while, and then I had actually quit doing that, and I had started DJ. In your band at that time, would you drumming or were you playing keys? I was playing keys, and I was writing all the songs. We did, we did all original songs, and I was doing my best, you know, Tom Bell, gambling of. This is a mind and matter stuff.

Mind and matter. Yeah. I mean, that's what I was trying to do with a little bit of electronics in it. You know, I had a little synthesizer and stuff in it, but it was definitely trying to be that. That was my inspiration. And so, you know, those guys to me weren't serious. They were older guys. I was just, I was 16 at the time. And those guys weren't really serious about it. Like, they're 22, 23. And I didn't get, well, they had jobs and families and kids and stuff. I'm like, 24 hours of music. And, you know, I'm like, y'all are messing up, you know, they get high and stuff. And I'd be like, y'all getting high. We need to be working on our music. And, you know, they were like, who's the fuck? this punk kid, you know, telling us, you know.

So anyway, eventually I just said, forget it. So I started DJ and I started working at a record pool, you know, getting records. I started working at a record store because the clubs I played at were influential enough that I could know when I heard a record, I could go to the record store guy. And he didn't trust me at first, but I could say to him, hey, there's this record. Matter of fact, MFSB had a record called Dance With Me Tonight. Okay. And I had this girl named Joyce.

whenever I played at the club, and this is a team club, because I played at a bunch of different clubs as a DJ. And my crowd just kind of followed me around, but the teen crowd was my best. We did about 1,500 kids on a Friday and a Saturday night. It was huge, a huge place. Yikes. Yeah. That's pressure.

Oh, it was great. It was awesome. It was awesome. One of the most fun moments of my life actually was doing that because just the whole idea of introducing people to music, which is amazing. And you know how that feels. I mean, you guys do that.

No, teens told you how this today. So if you don't play what they know, pass your ass. Well, you know what? Okay, so that's my point. So I had this girl named Joyce, and Joyce, I don't know where she was from, but she'd always hand me some record every week.

And she'd say, play this, this is going to be whatever, whatever. And I'd listen to it a little bit in the headphones and preview it, and it would always sound a little weird to me. And I'd be like, Joyce, are you sure? And she'd go, yeah, yeah. And she had a crew of about three or four other people, and she would get out and dance.

She said, I know the dance floor. it's going to clear, but we're going to, I'm going to dance, and we're going to be cool. I mean, okay. So, anyway, she brought me a whole bunch of different records, but the one I remember, the one of the first ones was dance with me tonight, MFSB, right? So, and I said to her, you know, Joyce, I got the album that. I said, I've heard the song, it ain't really that. No, she said, no, but this is the 12 inches. It's a different mix. I said, okay, cool. I put the record on, and I go, because I talked, too, I'd mixed, and I talked. I did both things, and I just said, here's a new one.

Front Zell. Excel. Exactly, right? And I said, okay, here's a brand new one, you know, exclusive, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. I put the record on the intro of the record's about, I don't know, it's about 16 bars and stuff, and it sounds like, I don't know, it doesn't sound like nothing's going to happen, right? And everybody's kind of staring at me for a minute because they pretty much trust me. So they're staring at me for a minute.

And then I see them start to inch off the dance floor. And I'm like going, oh, man. I'm bombing. Right? And then all of a sudden it kicks into this different groove. Boom that goes into this groove. And then I see Joyce in the middle of the floor with her crew of people start dancing. And all of a sudden, now the dance floor starts coming back on the dance floor.

By the end of the night, that record, I had to play it again. They loved it that much. So I went to the record. There was a record store called Hotlicks. And I remember this guy named Chico, I think his name was Chico Fat Fingers, right? And he played with a reggae band called, oh man, I'm going to, I can't remember the name. It's like Shigoy or Shambai or some, it had some name like that. Anyway, he ran the store.

So I walked into the store and I said, hey, man, this 12-inch dance with me tonight, can you get some of these? And he said, yeah, he says, why? And I said, because it's my number one song at my club. I'm going to play it again next weekend. And I said, and I'm going to tell everybody to come down that you're the only one that has the record, downtown Minneapolis. You're the only one that has the record. So, okay. So he says, well, how many should I get?

And I said, like a thousand? He said, what? You're nuts. I said, okay, cool. So anyway, next weekend I played it, packed the dance floor. I said, hot licks, go down to hotlicks that are the only ones in town with the record. He said, Monday, he said, he was sold out, and he said, and I said, well, how many do you order? He said, well, I ordered 500.

I said, I told you to get a thousand, right? And I remember I talked to Later on in life I talked to some PR person that worked for CBS back In the day and they said Man it was weird this one record just jumped off for us You know So wait

We always do this on Quest Love Supreme For old DJs Can you front cell dance with me tonight right now Keep front cell? Yeah I guess Here we go All right All right here's an exclusive

you're going to hear it first for the first time. You trust me on this one. Now, trust me, this is MFSB. Dance with me tonight. Here we go. That was, dance with me to. That was an easy one. MFSB.

And you know what's funny is that ended up being, I kept charts from, you know, of dance for a reaction and all that stuff. And then I started printing the charts out, and then I would take them down to the record store, and I'd leave them, right? And that record was my number one record of all time during the probably year and a half that I was at that club. And she brought me some other ones,

a Firecracker mass production. First time. And then she brought me, Firecracker was easy. The follow-up was forever. And I don't know if you remember forever. Forever started off with just a hi-hat. So it just started off with which was a guaranteed dance floor

clearer. Oh really? Yeah, but she said the way till the beat kicks in, it's going to be real cool. So I said, okay, here's new mass production. And people were like, well, they knew that Firecracker was the jam. So they stood with me for this one.

And they stood. And when it kicked in, they... Uh-huh. Sounds like put the word out of my... I was by the same way. Yeah, watch when this kicks in, though. I never even knew they had a follow-up record. This was a follow-up.

This was a follow-up. Wow. Joey Jim, you are... Joyce should have got an A-N-R job. Right? Joyce was incredible, man. You got my DJ game already. I'm going to play these two in my next sets.

I'll give you one more from that day. What about, are you familiar with breakwater? Yeah. Do it to the fluid gets hot? I don't know. Didn't play that. Do It to the Fluid Gets Hot was another one that was. I play Say You Love Me Girl and Release the Beast.

Yep. But do it to the fluid gets hot. Do it to the flu gets hot. That was another one that was really hot for me. And these records were only big at my club, right? And at this record store. That was the weird thing about it. Oh.

Yeah. Okay, I know this. Got that one? Yeah. At the time, you're DJ Jimmy Jam? What was you, DJ Monica? It was Jimmy Jam. Okay.

That came from DJ. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that came from DJ. So what happened, so, okay, so that club was called the Disco Trek, right? Now, also downtown was a club that went through a series of different names, but when I worked there, it was called the Fox Trap. Okay. Now, the Fox Trap had three levels. Downstairs, live music, second floor was DJ, which was me, and then third floor was a DJ, but it was more chill, more laid back, right? more of a lounge type situation.

So when I started working, there was a DJ named Kyle Ray. And Kyle Ray was, as you call it, the front-selling DJ. Like he did no mixing at all. It was all just personality and playing records, right? So I took an example from him. He was actually tragically killed, which was like nuts. And he tragically died. And so I kind of had borrowed a little of his stuff.

style as far as front loading the records. But I could also mix, because I had kind of the musical thing. So I always did a combination of it. And then I had a little keyboard, which I actually had downstairs, which was my first synthesizer. And I used to play along with the records

and create my own little stuff. So I was doing that. And there was a... I was just going by Jimmy Harris, which was my name. And there was a bartender from Philly who called himself Delphonic. right right okay and I went over to get you know a drink from him or whatever a Coke

because I don't think I was I don't think because I was 18 I was probably still 17 18 I don't I don't even think but I didn't drink anyway so it didn't really matter and he said yo he said man he said what kind of name you got man and I said what do you mean so what's your DJ name and I said I don't know he said man you got to be you got to be something man I'm telling everybody your name's Jimmy Jam and I said okay he said Jimmy Jam and he said Jimmy Jam Pots and Pots and Pants. Shake my hand. He went into this whole rap, right?

And I was like, going. That's really. Okay, cool. Right. So anyway, he started telling everybody my name was Jimmy Jam. And it just stuck. And even to the point when we did the first time record. And I said to Prince, when Prince was doing like the credits on the record.

Right. And I said, Prince, what name should I be under? And he said, you should be Jimmy Jam. You know, I said, okay, cool. So that was it. So then it was. So then it was historic because it was imprinted at that point. So Philly Brother gave you your moniker.

The Phili Brother gave me my name, Delphonics. Yes, sir, the bartender at the Foxtrap. Pride Month, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. Iheart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride. Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride Canada. Your 24-7 radio stream and the only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations.

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I'm sorry because we're totally off track We are We are on track You're on show Yeah Okay

So Okay so I tell this story about playing in all the different clubs and stuff. So at the Foxtrap, Terry was playing downstairs in the live music room. Right. I was playing upstairs, right, in DJ room. And Terry used to come up, and Terry is really good at bugging the shit out of people and twisting their arm. And he's really good at that.

He's stubborn, right? So his whole thing was, man, you ain't a DJ, man. You're a musician, man. You need to join the band. We need a keyboard player and such and such and such. And I'm like, Terry, I just, I'm not feeling it, man. You know, whatever. So one day he comes up to the booth and he says, jam.

He said, we got a keyboard player. And I thought, oh, great. He's going to quit bugging me now. And he says, right? So I'm like, he's like, come down and you should come down and check him out. And I said, okay, cool. So I grabbed knee deep by Funkadelic, which was, I think 17 minutes or whatever like it was. I put that on and I jumped out the booth.

It was pretty early in the night. So it wasn't, you know, nobody would have cared if it. if it went ran out, but I ran downstairs. I walk into the room. I hear they're playing what you won't do for love, Bobby Calwell, right? And so they're saying, and I'm hearing this, somebody singing,

I'm like looking around. Who's singing? Somebody's singing their ass all. Who's singing? And I look behind this stack of keyboards and this little white guy. Right? And I'm like looking and I'm like, Oh, his mouth is moving, but it don't sound like a white boy singing.

And who is that, you know? So I went back upstairs. I looked at Terry and I gave him a thumbs up. I went back upstairs. So after the gig was over, I came back down. I said, hey, man, who was singing to Bobby Caldwell? He said, that's our keyboard player, Monty Moyer. And I said, oh, I said, nice to meet you, Monty.

I said, cool, Terry. I said, well, good. You got your keyboard player now. You know, good luck, you know. He said, no, man. He said, we got to have two keyboard players, man. That's the vibe, two keyboard players. So fast forward a little while, I was going out with this older lady.

Right. And she was beautiful, too, Puerto Rican. Oh, my God. Anyway, so, anyway, she broke my heart. I think I was 18. She was 30 probably, right? Oh, wow. She got damn.

So she. Sorry. Her name was Carmen, and she worked at the... Of course it was. Yes, it was. Of course it was. She worked at the cosmetic counter at one of the stories. up there, man, and she just was amazing.

So anyway, she broke over me. So I'm a little brokenhearted, and I'm walking home, right? I'm walking from her apartment home, which is, you know, maybe 10 blocks, not that far. Right. So I'm walking up Lake Street, which was one of the main things, and I walked by this club. I didn't even know it was a club. It was like a community center. And I'm walking by, and I hear, you know, music coming out of it and stuff.

And I was like, something going on in here, right? So I open the door. I look in. I walk in. There's a band rehearsing. Whose band is it? Terry's band. Right?

I said, Terry, what's up, man? He said, oh, this is our rehearsal space, man. We're, you know, they open up this club. They're letting us rehearse here, and then they're going to actually open it up night times. And it was called the Yasem, Y-A-A-A-S-M, which was the young African-American society of men or something like that. Wow. Yeah, I'm a real slavish. It's upstanding.

Yeah. So the Yasim. So anyway, I was like, okay, cool. So anyway, they're in there rehearsing and stuff. I said, yeah, cool, cool. So Terry said, yeah, man, so come on, man, you ready to join the band? And I said, no, man. I said, you know, this girl just broke my heart, man.

And, you know, Terry's like, man, get your mind off of it, man. You know, you just need to jump back into this. I said, no, man, I don't have any keyboards, man. You know, I sold all my keyboards and stuff. I, you know, we'll get your keyboards, man. What kind of keyboards you want, man? I said, no, no, I don't, Terry, I'm good, right? So this is before cell phones, right?

And I go home. Next day my phone rings, Terry Lewis. Come on, Jan, what you're going to do, man? Come on, man. We got keyboards for you, man. Come on down, come on down, you know. And at that point, they had started getting some gigs and stuff. They were going to be opening for the barcaze and switch at this concert, right?

Whoa. So it was like, man, you've got to join the band, man. We're going to be opening for barcays and switch. Now, at this point in time, Alexander O'Neill was our lead singer. Okay. Okay. So this was when Alex was the lead singer. So, anyway, we had a nice little.

band. We had basically the band. We didn't have a guitar player. We would rent a guitar player, but we didn't really have anybody serious on guitar, right? So, anyway, we go and do the gig. The gig was cool. Somebody from Switch stole some, some of our shoes. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Judy Sims, we're looking at you, bro. Exactly. So anyway, but it was cool. So at that point, I pretty much was in. So anyway, so the band was set, except we didn't have a guitar player. So we started, gig and started doing our thing. Our reputation was basically that we were the best band in Minnesota. So we, you know, would other bands agree with you? Well, yes, they would, actually.

Interestingly enough, because what happened was, so this is the Jesse Johnson piece. So Jesse had moved to Minneapolis, or actually had come to Minneapolis because he heard Prince was looking for a guitar player. Okay. But he was mistaken because he was actually looking for a bass player. He was looking for somebody, and he ended up getting Brown Mark. Right. But Prince met him, and Prince, you know, like Jesse, and he said, he told Jesse, he said, you should stay in town and, you know, get in one of the bands up here and just, you know, stick around.

So, Jesse went to Morris's band, which was called Enterprise Band at Pleasure. So Morris, interestingly enough, was the drummer in that band, not the lead singer, and a girl named Sue Ann Carwell was the lead singer. 99 and a half Sue Ann Carwell was amazing. Amazing singer. Prince did a lot of stuff with her back in the day, too.

Yeah, I mean, she was an amazing singer. Interestingly enough, a little side note, Morris did come up and sing one song every night. He got off the drums, and Sue Ann actually went back and played the drums. Wow. Oh, they traded. Yeah, they traded. Oh, like switch. And

the song was, ironically, Too hot. Like Cooling the game? Cooling the game. Oh, okay. Okay. So Mr. Cool sang too hot. And so...

And he sang it really good. That was the funny thing. If you think about it, that's a really tough song to sing. There's a lot of different intervals. And it's crazy. If you ever watch people try to sing that song, it's tough. The bridge is tough. No, it's...

Think about... You got to hit all the notes. Yeah, it's a lot of... And then it goes to the chain. You know, it's a lot. Anyway, he used to hit it flawlessly every night, right? So, anyway, everybody kept telling us about this guitar player. You know, they come to our gigs and they'd be like, man, you checked out more than them's

guitar player? And we were like, no. I said, man, they got this guitar player, man, he wears pink suits. It does like 10-minute guitar solos, man. You got to check him out. And we were like, okay, cool. So we had a night off. We went over and checked him out.

He was exactly as advertised, right? so afterwards we went up to the to women we said hey man you need to come join our band you need to come watch us you know nothing against Morris but you need to come to our band so he said okay cool so the next weekend he came

well I mean you know because I mean there's no I mean it is all word of mouth them's fighting words though taking money out of my mouth well there's no social I mean there's no social media so I mean it's all just kind of word of mouth somebody hears something they tell the next person they tell the next person so on so forth. That's what it was. And so anyway, yeah. So, you know, he came over, checked our band out.

And we were good, right? So he went back to Morris and he said, yo, Morris. He said, you know, no offense, man, but, you know, I'm going to join flight time, man. They're like really good. And when Morris said actually kind of surprised. Well, it surprised us when he told us. He said, he said, and Morris said, yeah, that's cool, Jesse. because pretty soon we're all going to be one band anyway. And we didn't know what that meant. We were like, what was he talking about we're going to be one band? That doesn't make any sense. Okay, so as a story goes, Prince, when he was doing the Dirty Mind album, right? Now, of course, the first couple of albums he did were more R&B records with some rock stuff on it.

But Dirty Mind was a whole different departure. Warner Brothers was scared of Dirty Mind because they didn't hear any, like, funky hits. on there. Uptown sort of in that, but they wanted another song.

They said, we need another funky song on the record, right? So, Morris actually wrote Party Up.

But Prince took the credit for it. But he owed Morris a favor. And he told Morris, if you put a band

together, I'll get your record deal. So Morris came over to our band and said, Prince said, if I put a band

together he'll get us a record deal. So y'all just be the band and now we'll go get a record deal. And that's how Morris ended up in the band. But that's not the end of the story. Yeah, I was going to say So. Because he didn't want to sing initially, right?

Alex was so we had two dilemmas. One was, well actually we actually had one dilemma because Alexander O'Neill was the lead singer of the group. Was he a good lead singer at that time? Alexander? Oh, amazing.

Okay. Never would sing the same lyrics twice. We had a song called, I remember we had a song called March Wright that was an original song. And every gig, he'd sing different lyrics. He just would just make up lyrics as he went along. The chorus would always be the same, but the actual lyrics he would sing were always different. And he did that a lot because he never showed up to rehearsals. And he never, you know, he didn't really care.

But he, no, he could pull it off. Alex was amazing. So anyway, our big dilemma was, well, if Morris is the drummer, what happens to Jellybean? Do we have two drummers? Jelly Bean was good on guitar, but not at the point where we could make him into a guitar player. So he was kind of like going to be the odd man out, and it was almost like, wow, who's going to break the news to Bean? Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

So we were at that point. Well, so Prince called it a dinner at Perkins' cake and steakhouse, which is sort of like the equivalent of Denny's but better. It's like Shoney's. Perkins is still there. Perkins is still there. No, it's still there. I went to that Perkins. Yep.

After my first night at Paisley Park. Yep. It's still there, right? That's crazy. So anyway, we sit down and we're all going to have dinner, basically, and Prince is going to kind of lay out the game plan and what we're going to do, right? So Alexander O'Neill's there. Now, the first thing to say about Alex is that Alex always speaks in the third person. Like a football player.

Yeah. Larry Armstrong going to do. So Alex now, he goes into his before, no, we've ordered food, right? And, of course, Prince is buying. So Alex orders a big steak, and he orders all this food, right? So Alex goes, okay. Hey, Prince, before we get started, because he had a little list, right? So he would go, okay, Prince, before we get started and things like that, there,

you know, I had a few things I just want to get off my chest. Here we go. And we're all, like, looking at Alex, like, what are you doing, man? And he's like, so, you know, here's the thing. So, you know, Alexander O'Neill, you know, first of all, Alexander O'Neill need, you know, I need a new house. I need a new car. You know, I need a pool and things, you know. Able and Neil, you know, yeah, I need a pooling things.

You know, I just need some things. I know this whole record thing is real cute and all that stuff there, but this, you know, Alexander O'Neill needs some things, you know, what I'm saying, Prince, you know, so this is all cute and everything, you know, but I'm just letting you know that, you know, before we get started, you know, this is, and, and as he's talking,

everybody's kicking each other under the table and nudging everybody, like, what the heck is this dude doing? We ain't even got the deal as ain't, we ain't signed, nothing. It's like, you know, so as he's talking, and I see this, and if we ever do our

movie that we want to do. It's like a movie. Alex, the waiter comes and as Alex is finishing his tirade puts this big steak down in front of it. And Alex goes right

on cue. Prince, that's just the way I see it, so I'm going to go ahead and throw down and see a steak right here. Three women, come back against Victor. Yeah, what if you're a skis. So Prince and Morris look at each other and get up and leave the restaurant. Yeah, they're gone.

So now we're like going, who's going to pay for this steak? This is not. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So we're like, okay, this is not good. So anyway, I don't even, but we were like, dude, what are you doing here, man? What are you doing, Alex?

Well, man, I'm just, you know, I'm just, you know, trying to point out of it. Not a few things, you know. Because I'm telling you, man, you know, because here's the way it is with Alexander O'Neill. You know, if there's a bear in the woods and Alexander O'Neill, you better help the bear because you ain't got to help Alexander O'Neill. I need him.

And by the way, we have a publishing company called Help the Bear. Wow. And that's why. Because that was Alex's line. So needless to say, we just thought everything was done. And I can't remember whether, so Terry got a phone call. And I can't remember whether it was from Morris or from Prince. I think it might have been from Prince.

And he just said, because it was just, it was a very short thing. It was basically, lose the bear. Yeah, it was like Alexander Orniel is out. Morris Day is the lead singer. Jellybrain Johnson's the drummer. Meet tomorrow at 9 o'clock at such and such and such. At the yasm.

to rehearse. And that was it. And Alex was done. Bean was the drummer. Morris was a lead singer. Somebody told him. Come on. I don't know who told him,

but yeah, he got the word. But I need to know the story of the next time you saw Alex. Was Alex cool with this? Of course not. Well, yeah, because, yeah, because, you know,

help the band. Because Alex has no need no help. He don't need no help. No, but I remember our conversation with the conversation I remember having with Alex after that was just one where we said to him, hey man,

if we make it, meaning me and, me and Terry had this conversation with him, we just said, man, when we make it, we're coming back and getting you. And that was it. And see, Bill, it works out. Man, I knew. I was going to do it. No, because we, you know, it just, you know, it, we felt bad and we felt like,

you know, we didn't know the way things were going to work out that we'd actually have an opportunity to do that and come back and grab him. But we did the way things worked out. But, yeah, we just kind of felt like that. And, you know, and then at that point, we were off and running. And Alex was just, you know, still gigging locally and everything, you know. But, yeah, he talked himself right out of that. And we did one song with Alex.

Actually, recorded one song. That's the time? It was called you, yeah, it was called You Would Be Mine. Wow. It sounded very. That gig would have been. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was ironic.

So once you guys started rehearsing, well yeah talk about that process like how often would you guys rehearse and every single day every single day now here's the thing now the album was already done i mean morrison prince had already done the time album we didn't play on the time album a lick on the so you were given the record or the cassette we were given yep we given the cassette and six songs learn these songs six songs you also did the what's the to the beat song the Oh, bite the beat. No, no, no.

Oh, dance to the beat. Dance to the beat. So there were extra songs, too, correct? Yeah, but we never recorded dance to the beat, I don't think. I think we just played it live. I don't think we ever recorded. If it was recorded, it was live recording of it. So was it only expected of you guys to just do a half hour no matter what?

Because I'm thinking, like, if you're doing having a show's material, usually people do cover songs, have a 45-minute show ready, or an hour. show ready well when we were okay so when we went out initially so when we were rehearsed and actually there's one piece of the rehearsal I got it I got a or two actually rehearsal stories like I'll relate to you while we're on the rehearsals because we're rehearsing at the yasm and the yasm as it turns out was owned by this guy named uh Leonard Weaver was his name right old cat old black cat and he had this bar and in the bar were these juice machines one was lemonade and one was fruit punch

and he also had these lamps. It was like a lounge, and he had these lamps, and they were naked women, basically, with a lampshade on top of it, right? So when we started rehearsing, Leonard said he had two rules. He said, y'all stay out of my juice machine,

and y'all don't touch my titty lamps. This is a Christmas story? Right, right. Frazierie. It's a target. So. Titty lambs. So we said, okay, cool.

We got you, man. We're not going to mess. We got it. So we started rehearsing. We rehearsing every day at this point. So I remember, you know, the whole thing. Now, Jerome at this point was not in the group. Jerome was a roadie, right?

And I remember we had gone and done a couple of gigs, and Jerome had to, like, rock. in the truck with the equipment with this gap tooth British guy, you know, with the British teeth. You know, Jerome, help me, you know, unload the amps and, you know, it was like all this. And Jerome was just like so pissed off, like, you know, whatever. But he's going along with it, right? So he's trying to figure out, man, how can I get a gig in this thing? You know, you know, something.

And Terry's trying to figure it out too because that's, you know, Jerome's Terry's brothers, right? So we're trying to figure this out. So anyway, we're rehearsing. And in the stick, Morris sing, somebody bring me a mirror, right? So on the walls of the yasm are these big mirrors, right? But not like little mirrors, but I'm talking about big, huge, full body mirrors, right? So Prince is at the rehearsal and he's watching us rehearse. And Morris says, somebody bring me a mirror.

And out of the blue, Jerome goes and grabs a mirror off the wall, puts it in front of Morris. Morris turns around, looks at it kind of like started like, oh, and pulls out his comb and starts combing his hair. Prince falls on the floor. Light bulbs. He's like, ah, we got to do that. We got to do that. We got to do that. And Jerome was no longer a roadie.

So that's how he went from being the roadie to be in the ballet. It was simple as that. And that happened. And every night, we'd go into. to the bar and drink the juice out of the juice machine, but then we'd pour water into it so it would

look like nothing happened. So Leonard would walk in every day and he'd come in and he'd look and make sure everything was cool. And then one day we were playing around and we broke one of the titty lamps. Oh shit. And so we like turned it around and tried to kind of glue it and try to whatever. And I

swear to God, he walked in and he looked and he said, who's been in my juice machine? Because it's all like light colored now. Brother's trying to be slick, but it ain't working, right? So it's all like that. And then he looks, and he's like looking at all of us.

He said, who was in my juice machine? We're like going, oh, we don't know. But it was Jesse, was who it was. So anyway, we were like, no, we don't know. We don't really know. So he was like looking around. My titty lamp. Who broke my titty lamp?

And it's like, how the heck can he see that? He's like 100 feet away. from the titty lamp how does he know the titty lamp is broken it was crazy it was crazy times man but it was like the whole formation of us as a unit that was the backdrop of it and it was the reason we were so tight not only as musicians but just as people because we already grew up as friends anyway but that those experiences just totally solidified everything that we were doing and then we would play at night. Like we would rehearse during the day and then at night, Weaver would open the place

up, charge people, and we play songs. Not, you know, when we do a couple covers, but mostly it just be our stuff. People didn't know what the heck we were singing, but they just liked it. You know, it was just like a place to go and hang out. Okay, this is what I've got to know. Now,

more than anything, you guys had this image that was just as important and prevalent as, you guys as the music was. And how did you guys actually care for, like, did Morris have 10 versions of that gold jacket? Did you have 90?

30 fedoras? Yeah, exactly. Because the thing is that what I know about Torn is every show I do, it's drenched. are you but I know that it's required that you guys you know do you guys have a wardrobe person that run shit to the cleaners and stuff because I feel like and did you have to look that way 24-7 okay well yeah so the wardrobe really was based on the way we dressed anyway

you guys were always looking like that as a matter of fact you're looking at it you're looking at it right now but I'm going to show you a picture of you can't see this on the air but this is Terry Lewis at like 14, 15 years old Wow White and black All right

That's his right And he's not This is guitar strap Yeah And he's got And he's got And he painted this base Red Black and Green

This is the base When I met Terry He painted his You know So he was Afrocentric And the whole thing That's right He's been woke

So when So when people talk about The way we looked I mean that That goes from You know Back in that day I mean we

We used to take Because the thrift stores, we couldn't afford to dress. We wanted to dress nice, but we couldn't afford it. But you could go to a thrift store and get a suit for $10. Right? And get a hat and a whole thing. So we were always rocking that style. And Prince just enhanced it.

Now, Morris's stuff, we called it De Presley. The jacket that he had on the first two album covers, there was only one. Yeah. There was only one. That was it, The Presley. And, yeah, we kept to drag. You know, that was part of Jerome's job, by the way. He was the real valet for the group.

So he'd call everybody and say, you know, have your dry cleaning ready to go, you know, if we'd be at a hotel or that kind of thing. But, yeah, all of our stuff was thrift shop stuff. And it was interesting because the first tour we did, I remember we would go to thrift shops and we would clean up. Second tour we did, they were all out of stuff because people would go. Everybody else. And doing it. Yeah, it totally caught on. So it was interesting.

But, yeah, no, that was the thing, man. We just, that was always kind of our style anyway. You guys weren't quite of age, but. like that that look when they came out in 1981 I mean that's the first time I think like we were all big

and our moms like you know take us to the thrift store word you would never hear I was wondering if that was cool to y'all because that's like ill dog I mean they they talked about baggies and then like and you know my mom be like baggies yeah I can get you some baggies

it's like $2 at the thrift store and you was like the thrift store Yeah, well, first I frowned on it But like, because my cousins were more like in the street You know, like B-Boy and just came out And Sergio Valentez and Jordan All the drug dealer shit Right

But when, oh my goodness Like all of sixth grade All I wore were just baggies And my parents couldn't be more pleased Than it's been $10, go rock out, son On like 20 pairs of pants You know what I mean?

Yeah So So you guys just naturally looked like gangsters. We just naturally, yeah, we just naturally did it and we just kind of fell into it. And we also like the whole idea, the whole cool aspect we liked anyway, because it was about

respecting yourself, and it was about dressing well and having class and that. And we liked the idea of that. I mean, we enhanced it, and Prince enhanced it. I mean, he took it to a whole other level. And yes, he wanted us to always look the part. He

hated the idea of, because we used to talk about it. Back in the day, When we first started touring and stuff, we would go out like with Cameo, you know, and Cameo would have, you know, the glitter suits on and the whole thing. And Prince always kind of frowned on it. He just said, no, he said, you should look the way you look, you know, and nobody should see you looking unlike yourself, what they expect to see you. Even to the point where I remember with Morris, I mean, by the second tour,

we were holding that Presley together with tape literally. I mean, it was just like that thing was about ready to fall apart. And I remember Morris kept saying, Prince, can I get a new jacket? I need a new Presley. And Prince was like, no, that's what people expect to see you in. And that's the way you need to look. He was very much into that, right? And I remember about halfway through that tour, and we were kicking his ass pretty good every night at that point.

Oh, we know. Yeah. And I remember they, at one point in time, I remember the management came to us and said, we're going to put you guys out on your own tour because Prince didn't let us play you have to now think about once again no media no social media right so everything that you got

you read right it was a newspaper thing right the two biggest markets obviously were L.A. and New York right? Those two markets we didn't play with Prince we didn't open with it right so he did Madison Square Gardner whatever it was we didn't play but we played for Vanity

So we were in the building, right? Which to this day is the thing that probably pisses jelly bean off the most of anything. Man, all our friends are out there, man, and we're in the building and stuff, and we can't even play. I was like, he used to get so mad. Same with the forum in L.A. Never played the forum in L.A. We played Long Beach

Arena. And we played, I think, Nassau Coliseum or something in New York. But we never got to play those shows because the reviews were all like, yeah, Prince was great, that was great. But you've got to see the time. You know, and he didn't want that. So that was the thing. So we never played those markets.

So after we saw that happening, we were kind of like, okay. So the management's like, you know, we're going to put you on your own tour. And I think it was going to be Evelyn Champaign King and Shalamar or somebody like that, right? So we were like, okay, cool. Great. We'll do our own tour. That's cool. So then they changed their mind.

And they said, so by this point in time, so Morris said, well, if we're doing our own tour, I'm getting me a new Presley. So Morris orders this new Presley, right? And I remember Prince used to sometimes come in our dresser room because after we do the Vanity Six set, we would, at the beginning they would give us like 15 minutes to change, right? So we would come out and do the Vanity Six set and then we'd go back in the dress room, hang out for a little bit, and then we come back out.

Sometimes we'd actually be dressed, but we put on like capes or we put on something stupid so people couldn't tell them. couldn't see. Yeah, so they couldn't see who we were, right? So, but it was great because we were so warmed up. It was like our sound check. Right. Played for Vanity Six. So it even made us better, right? And then it got to the point where he wouldn't even give us enough time to change or anything. We really started killing him then because we were all warmed up. And it was like Jelly Bean, like the longer he played, the better he got. He was one of those kind of drummers.

So it was all working against him. So I remember we had kind of latched him in about three or four gigs in a row. So anyway, he comes. into the dressing room and we were really kind of feeling ourselves at that point of time and he comes into the dressing room and he goes, and nobody's really reacting to him and he just kind of goes, um, what are you guys

doing? And Morris says, got something to show you, Prince? And so Jerome goes and brings out this wardrobe thing and unzips it. And uh,

Morris like flips it and the thing comes off. And he goes, I got a new Presley. What? Prince literally goes, ah, I created a monster. And ran out of the room. Swear to God. Swear to God. He did.

He created a monster. He did. And it's like, yeah. What were those? Okay. Happy Pride Months. Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. IHeart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop.

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We're going to make the ordinary, extraordinary. Stay close. It's a carac. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. So I know by the time that what time is it came out, you guys were, and maybe assuming a better place. But in the very beginning, the first album, where you guys like, I just want to know what a working.

class musician was into and doing between 81 to 82 like were you guys driving yourself to the gigs? I don't know if you read Marys White's autobiography but I'm shocked that even up

until spirit they were like driving themselves to the gigs. They were you know station wagons to the gigs and that stuff. Well we did we definitely did the station wagon thing. There's no doubt about that. We did but not by the By the time we were actually touring with Prince, no, we had a tour bus, and, you know, we were making our little $150 a week after the week.

A week, yeah. What is a working class musician make an 81 on that tour? Like, were you guys at the top level or? No, we were, no, we were well below the top level because we were, like I say, we would get $150 a week in a check. and for that it was And mine Per diem Yeah well

And we get per diem too So I guess it would add up to 250 a week So that if that changes anything I mean my My check after taxes was $117 I still have I think my Check stuff You know my original check stuff

But no we were going broke And it probably You know for me At the time I was living at home Anyway So I hadn't moved out And I didn't have any kids I didn't have any responsibility

It was really tough on Terry Because Terry not only Terry drove a school bus, you know, and was making really good money doing that. But also because when we were gigging his flight time, and like I say, we were doing our own gigs and that. And we were doing really well. I mean, as a band, I mean, Terry took a huge pay cut, probably the biggest out of anybody, had a young son at that point and a house. I mean, Terry was always very responsible from like an early age. like he was already living his, he was like an adult

at an early age. So for him, yeah, it hit him really bad. Like it messed his credit up. You know, it messed him out. Oh, crap. Oh, yeah. It totally messed. It totally messed him up. And and even I remember the second year, we had an ultimatum like it was in

I think it was San Diego. I think we were in San Diego. And we had, we were all sharing rooms at that point in time, except for Morris. And I remember Terry said, man we got two gold albums they had bumped us up to

250 a week and then Vanity six was giving us another hundred a week or something like that at plus per diem so everybody was saving their per diem to buy a VCR I mean that was the hot thing back in that day was saved up for VCR right but everybody was getting you know at that point in time

you're getting on everybody's getting on everybody's nerves so it was like you know Terry said man we need our own room so he went to management at the time and there was this lady named Jamie Shoup, and Jamie Shoop, was your tour manager? She was our tour manager. Not Alan? No.

Okay. Allen came along after us. Okay. After we were there. Yeah. Yeah. So Jamie was amazing. Took great care of us.

I mean, as best she could. I mean, because it was Prince's thing. I mean, there was no doubt about Prince Ran it. But she looked out for us the best she can. And she said, listen, she said, if you guys should have your own rooms, I'll advocate for that. let's have a meeting, whatever. So we told everybody, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to have a meeting in San Diego. And we're basically going to say, if we don't get rooms, we're quitting the tour. That's the thing, right? Now, Jesse, for some reason, we said, don't tell anybody. But Jesse, for some reason, went behind our backs and told management or told Prince or told somebody. So when we got everybody in this room, we thought, You know, we had the upper hand. We're going to spring this on them.

We walked into the room and Prince was like, so you guys are going to boycott, huh? We were like going, we like all looked at each other. Then we all looked at Jesse. And Jesse's like, what? You know, whatever. We're like, okay. So Terry at that point was just like, you know, listen, dude.

He said, I can't, you know, I can't, I got a kid. I got, you know, whatever, whatever. I can't, you know, I can't do this. And I remember Prince said, He said to Terry, rock stars shouldn't have kids. What? Oh, man. Never forget that.

I'd never forget that to this day. And anyway, so Terry walked up. Famous. Terry said, Terry said, Terry said, Terry said, I remember going into it. He said, I'm always going to have enough money to get a bus ticket. If I can do nothing else, I'm going to have enough money to get a bus ticket to go home. and so he had his $50 or whatever the heck of bus ticket was

he had it and he said that's it I'm out of here well of course Jamie came to the rescue and talked to Prince and said Prince come on these guys

you know they can have their own rooms what's not what's the big deal it's you know it's three more rooms a night what's the big deal and anyway Prince was so Prince was said okay fine they got it but if it wouldn't have been for Terry doing that

right because because for Terry it was serious it wasn't like a you know a grandstanding type thing or anything it was like serious like terry was real life terry had real life and real real responsibilities and so for 19 for for 1982 what would have been fair market for what you know what tickets were back then what the gross was for these shows and i know everyone's on this tour so i know it's vanity and yeah there are people and you guys and your people in the revolution and prince and this I'm sure the staff and all that stuff.

What is fair for that time period? Honestly, Quest, I don't know. I don't really know. It wasn't that because, you know, we were... And tour support wasn't a thing like Moe Austin, those guys weren't like... I think Warner Brothers, yeah, I think Warner Brothers definitely supported the tour. I mean, because all three records were all Warner Brothers records.

I mean, you couldn't actually have a better situation. I mean, really, yeah. Right? You know, they were all records. But the other thing was we weren't making any, we never made any royalties on the time records. All we made was the salary. So it wasn't like it was an advance against royalties. And remember back in those days, if you had a gold record, you were doing pretty well.

Because, you know, the money flowed. I mean, the royalties were pretty good. So when they were open a budget that wasn't split with you guys? Like, it was just like, you just paid regular salary. We just played a regular salary. We never, we never were royalty. us individually. Morris was, but the rest of us weren't. Was there a big difference between you guys and the revolution when it came to that,

like financially? I never knew what the revolution made, quite honestly. I never did. We never really dealt with it. I'm sure they were making more than us, you know. So at what point does the idea of moonlighting even come into your, you know, your brain? And as moonlighting a thing, like, we need to make our own money and get our own publishing? Or just like, no. Hey, we want to express ourselves. Yes.

Yeah. No, it wasn't a money thing ever. It was, so the way that went down was Terry, once again, Terry. And if I don't say it enough during this interview, thank God for Terry Lewis. I mean, I swear to God, that brother in my life has just been a god. in every possible way. But Terry said, I can't remember where we were at. First I was thinking it was Houston, but it wasn't Houston, but it was somewhere.

And we were kind of ending up, the tour was kind of beginning to end up. And we were, and Terry said, I'm going to go to L.A. after the tour. And everybody was like, what are you going to do in L.A.? And he said, man, he said, I'm just going to make some of the tour. demos and try to get some songs placed and just do some stuff. And everybody was like, why? And he said, because they need us out there. And everybody said, man, you're crazy. And so Terry said, well, who wants to go? Somebody want to come with me? And everybody's like, man, no, man, I'm saving up for my VCR, man.

And literally that's what everybody said. And I looked at Terry and I said, well, I'll go. Terry said, okay. And I said, but where are we going to stay? He said, I don't know, we'll figure it out. So where are we going to get equipment from? I don't know we're going to figure it out. I said, where are we going to get a car from? I don't know, we'll figure it out.

And I trusted that brother because that was the brother that when the girl broke up with me, and when I was a drummer and he told me I needed to be a keyboard player, got me into the band. And I just trusted because he had made decisions before. and twisted my arm to do things. And I'm like, I'm not going to, he doesn't need to twist my arm on this one. I'm going to go on faith on this one. And so when the tour ended, we went to L.A.

Terry sold his car, I think, if I'm not mistaken. We bought. Word up, Terry. He on some biking shit. Yeah, right? Burn the ships, God damn it. We ain't coming back. I'm winning. We bought a, we bought, you know, in the classifieds, we bought a task.

a little four-track tape, a little microphone. I had this little Cassio keyboard with a little drum machine built into it. He had his bass. And there was some people we knew from Minneapolis that had a house. They were renting a house out there, and they had one bedroom in the house. And it was smaller probably in this little area. We're sitting there. We had enough room to put two cots in there.

And that's where me and Terry bunked. We didn't have a car, so we would walk to... In California? Yeah. But we... In the 80s. In the 80s. Well, here's the funny thing, no.

The only places we went, because we'd do our demos at home, right? So we'd do our demos at the crib. So we'd sit at the crib all day. They'd go to work, the people who we were staying with. And we'd all day be in, like, the bathroom and stuff to get reverb and stuff and be making our little demos and stuff. And then we would walk. There was a place called Goldenbird Chicken that was on La Cienega Avenue.

Best chicken ever to me. And you could get a four-piece for $2.99. Because we didn't have any money. So we'd go get it. get the two piece, the four piece rather, for 299. That was our one meal of the day. And then when the people got home at night, they'd all

make milkshakes or whatever, and so we'd have a milkshake at night. That was basically the way we lived. And it was funny because oh, and we didn't have any clothes. We had our time closed. So like, we're in 90 degree weather, but we got these big ass suits. And the police used to stop us, right? We'd just be walking. And the

the police would stop us, and they go, everything okay, gentlemen? And we go, like, everything's good. And they'd look at us and they go, you're not from here, are you? We'd be like, no. How could you tell? But they never mess with us really. And it was cool. And that was kind of our thing. And then eventually, you know, we hooked up with some girls that had cars, you know. Right. I found a girl that had a Porsche. It was cool. You know, so we figured it out. But that was what we were doing. And of course, the word back

in Minneapolis is that we were out starving to death and, you know, we're starving to death. And they're nuts and they're crazy. And, you know, that was kind of the thought process. How much downtime did you have? Because I figured at least until the time that you guys were dismissed that there was no downtime. Like, you're always rehearsing. We had, we had, okay, so that was between, so the first tour was 81 into 82. I think we were done in April of 82. Okay.

So we had between April and probably June or July before we started rehearsing for the next tour and stuff. So we had like two or three months. where he's like, where are you guys? I'm doing your version of Prince. Oh, yeah, no, that was good. That was a good one. No, it definitely turned into that. Were you guys given a general rule

that you weren't allowed to Moonlight? Yes, it wasn't a general rule. It was a mandate, basically. Did Morris enforce these rules, or was it just like Prince said it? Did Morris care? No, this was Prince. No, this was Prince. This was not Morris.

As a matter of fact, I really Morris said something at rehearsal one day that was so for us very empowering and very enlightening I don't know how everybody else took it but he said that this thing ain't going to last forever

and he said that I suggest everybody figure out what it is that they want to do out of this and start working towards it He said, I don't know what everybody else is doing. He said, now, he said, I'm taking acting lessons because he said, I want to learn to actually, you know, do, I want to be able to act. I want to be able to do stuff, you know. Was this before Purple Rain?

This is, yeah, this is, this is going into the, into the 1999 tour. Okay. So, and he said that, and then he said, he said, you know, he pointed in me and Terry, and he said, Jimmy and Terry are producing records. He said, I don't know what the rest of y'all are doing, but you all need to figure it out. So he knew. He knew. He knew what it was going to be.

So that was very encouraging to us. And what Terry and I used to do, I mean, we spent a lot of money doing it. And I have no idea where we got the money from, quite honestly, now that I think about it. But Prince used to, we would rehearse during the week. And we would rehearse, you know, Monday through Friday or whatever. When we would get done Friday, Terry and I would hop like the last flight to L.A.

And, you know, we had booked a couple of, you know, acts at that point in time. We were doing a group called Real to Real for Leon Silver's. We were doing climax for Dick Griffey at Solar. So we had a couple of things going, right? So we would fly and we'd do, you know, 24-hour lockout at the studio, right, which we didn't know. So we do 24-hour lockout, but then we would work 24 hours.

We didn't know that it just meant that nobody could come in the studio after you. Right. So we drive the engineers crazy. Right, right. He'd be like, what time do you think we're going to end tonight? We said, we got 24-hour lockout. What are you talking about? He was like, no, but that doesn't mean you were.

I said, no, we got it for 24 hours. We're working 24 hours. Terry would be asleep on the couch. I'd be working. Now I fall asleep in Terry would be working. One engineer. Oh, man, no. I mean, it's like, come on, man.

We're trying to get this done. So that was the way we would work. And then we would catch a plane back to be back in time for Monday rehearsal. So Prince got wind of what we were doing. Who snitched? Jesse. Jesse. I knew it.

Jesse. There's a deterrent coat. And so all of a sudden the rehearsals would start going longer and longer. Then all of a sudden there'd be a Saturday rehearsal. or there would be are we are we rehearsing tonight no there's no rehearsal tonight okay cool we're gonna hop a plane

and then we're literally on our way to the airport oh yeah there's a rehearsal uh you know that kind of thing would start happening so it was a lot of roadblocks you know kind of thrown in front of us at that point and um yeah a lot of that so it was it was an interesting time but no we were doing it we certainly weren't doing it for the money because we weren't making any money

but we were doing it just because we had a love of music And we didn't feel what we were doing sounded like the time. Because one of Prince's concerns was that, you know, don't give away the time sound. And it's like, well, but you are the time sign. So what we're doing isn't the time. I mean, you know. And so there was a lot of, I remember we got blamed for Leon did this record. Keep on loving me.

Prince swore we did that record. We said, Prince, we weren't even in the studio when that record was done. He still swore. Then we did that record, right? He told me about the wisdom. He told me his story. Like, you know, they're behind Leon Silver's, but I know that it was them. Like, he still believes that that's them.

We didn't. Actually, matter of fact, it's funny. We heard that record. I think the first time we heard that record was on the radio. And we loved it. I mean, we were Leon Silver's disciples, man. I love Leon Silver's, man. And we heard that record, and we were like, oh, hell yeah.

We love this. This is great. And we never heard it before. We weren't in the studio. I mean, he took people. How do they approach you? Like, listen to this. Well, you know, it's funny because we did, when we did a record called,

can you treat me like she does for real to real? And a very obscure record. But the demo of that song, Terry's playing the bass very much like the time. And Leon always called it the patent bass, like when you're patting something. Because it's really, it's more of a percussive thing than actually playing notes. Right. So it's just boom. It's the note.

Terry calls it Bougaloo bass. Okay. Right. So Leon always called it the patent base. Like you're patting the bass, right? So when we did the demo of the record and Leon heard it, he says, oh, he said, because he always scratched his beard. And he always talked like this. And he'd say, yeah.

He said, I like that. I like that record. He said, we're going to do that record. I'm like, real to real. And we're like, okay, great, Leon, cool. You know. So we went and did the track. So as we're doing the track

Prince is in our mind talking about don't give away the time sound So now So Terry like is watering down the bass part now Right so now Terry Terry's just going boom You know he's just kind of doing like that So we turned you know

We did the track and we said okay here you go Leon and he goes What happened to the patent base? And we're like no that's the way we do it Just like that No I heard the shit's on the demo and it was patent the base different than he's doing it. So

either you guys can do the patent on the base or I'll go in and do it myself. And so we were like, oh shit, okay, so we went in. And I think Leon, Terry did kind of add a little bit to it, but never wanted to give the whole thing away. But I think Leon did go in and

put a few little pats of his own. But no, I mean, we really were conscious of that, of not, We didn't want to give away the time sound. And I think, and by the way, when we were producers, that was the same thing we did when we started producing. We would do one act, and then the next act, we'd be like, no, we're going to a whole different groove or drum machines

or keyboards or whatever to try to keep everybody, you know, their own thing. How did you avoid the Dick Griffey pitfall? Because you guys could have easily been just solar house producers. Yep. Did he pursue you guys at all? Sort of. Well, the reason is one man, Clarence Avon. Clarence Avon didn't allow that to happen.

Now, when we went to see Clarence, there was a lady named Dina Andrews, who was an A&R person that sold our records. And she, pardon me, she was the one that actually introduced us to Dick Griffey. And she also knew, and by the way, all of these songs we were doing back then were all based on one demo tape that we did at the house. and High Hopes was on their SOS band. A song called When You're Far Away that we ended up doing on Gladys Stein The Pips, a song called The Only One that we did on Dynasty, which was Leon's group. Y'all did that?

Yeah. I didn't know that. Matter of fact, the keyboard on there is that original little Cassio keyboard. Because Leon said, man, keep that keyboard sound just like you had it. I said, okay. So like literally, climax we did for Dick Griffey, real-to-reel we did Dick, I mean for Leon Silver's. Yeah, exactly.

and so on and so forth. So anyway, but all of these songs were all on that same demo tape and everybody just heard different songs they like. Oh, wow. Dick heard,

you know, Wild Girls and said, Yeah, Wild Girls. Was that one of them? Yeah. He's heard Wild Girls and said, oh yeah, wild girls.

That Wild Girls. We like that. You know, a copy of that demo tape? Um, you know, Terry probably does. He probably does.

I don't, I don't have it, but I bet you he does. Because he's still got the four track, you know, that we did all that stuff. He's probably in his room somewhere. Yeah.

No, it's not here. He's got it in his house, but it's not here, but he's got it, definitely. But anyway, so that was the whole thing. So everybody had their own different kind of things that they liked. But what happened with Clarence was, Dina said, I'm going to introduce you to Clarence Avon because Clarence had wanted us to

do, we had done high hopes, but we didn't produce it, we just wrote it, right? So Clarence wanted to hear what it would have sounded like if we produced it. So we had the demo. So we you know, Dina set up a meeting. We went to meet him. Clarence called us the two thugs because we walked in with, you know,

our hats and our suits and stuff. He said, who are you two thugs, you know? So anyway, he listens to the, he said, he said, that high hopes, he said, I like that record. He says, you know, and we say, well, Clarence, he said, it's cool, but the way it came out, but, you know, he said, what's the difference in the demo?

I said, well, put the chili sauce on the demo. He said, oh, you did. Chili songs, oh, I like that. Okay, let's hear that. And so we put it in, and he said, yeah, yeah, I like that. He said, okay. So I want you to do two songs on the next SOS band record. and we said, okay, cool. Yeah, we're down, you know, whatever.

So he said, okay, he said, but here's the thing. He said, now, y'all's manager was negotiating your fee. And when he said that, our first thought was, oh, man. So we were like, okay, Clarence, well, we can, you know, we can get the budget down, man, you know, whatever you want to do. And he said, get the budget down. She ain't asking enough money. Y'all are worth more than that. And we were like, oh, really?

Who was representing you at the time? Dina Andrews. Okay, okay. Yeah, she was like our kind of de facto manager. But she also worked for Solar. But she worked for Solar. But yeah, but she was moonlight, and I guess you could say, you know, represent our affairs. And she had also introduced us to a guy at Warner Brothers Publishing.

And I'm trying to think of who it was, or Warner Chapel. I can't remember his name, who was going to give us a publishing deal, right? So Clarence had seen the publishing deal. And Clarence said, if y'all sign this publishing deal I'm never speaking to you to again and we were like wow what's what's the problem with the

deal clearance and the deal was something like it was like I don't know a hundred and I don't know it's $170,000 for three years or something like that right which at the time you thought oh my god I'm like are you kidding me we're taking a $150 a week yeah right we're like oh come on man that's great he says

he said well let me just break it down for you gentlemen so he said so you got $170,000. So first of all, you know, you're going to split that in half because there's two of y'all, in case you didn't understand that, there's two of you, okay? So now maybe you have, you know, $85,000. Now Uncle Sam's going to take his 50%, and now you got $40,000.

And three years for $40,000, that's $15,000 a year. What are you going to do with that? We're like, uh, well, hmm, he said, gentlemen, he said, I guarantee you, you first royalty check will be more than that total three-year check. Mark my words. And we said, okay, Clarence, we're cool, we're with it. So we never signed a deal.

Clarence gave us the SOS band deal. And, of course, that led to the ill-fated recording session in Atlanta. That we all know about. But that was the thing. And by the way, Clarence was absolutely right. Our first royalty check was probably right around that number, just for, I think just for the first, like, SOS thing. For one song. Yeah.

What was it? Was it, just be good to me? Yeah. So he was right. So that's how we didn't get into the Dick Griffey thing, because he didn't allow that to happen. He said, and the last little thing, he told us when we met with him, he said, think about this, gentleman, what are you going to be doing seven years from now? And we said, we're going to be making hits. And he said, no, no, no, no.

He said, I don't mean that. He said, right now you got me, you got Barry Gordy, got Lonnie Simmons, you got Dick Griffey, right, you know, we're the guys are in the industry. Who's going to be the next us? So that's what you need to start looking at. You need to start identifying talent and then helping them out. And he says, if you ever come across somebody who you think is talented and they're in a screwed up deal or whatever it is, you introduce him to me. me. And we said, okay. And you know who we met? L.A. L.A. Reed. L.A. Reed. He was in the deal. Yep, because he was in the deal. And he was, and they had that

digraphy. He's the one that signed the contract because nobody else did. They had that contract. And we met him and knew him and Face were doing stuff together. And he said, can you introduce me to Clarence? And we said, absolutely. We called Clarence. We said, Clarence, we got somebody for you, just like you said. And the rest is history there. So, Clarence is the funk whisper. Yeah, he is. He absolutely is. He absolutely is.

Well, yeah, the first time I... I mean, I love Sussex Records, but I didn't know that he was the... He was taboo. The head of it, or even taboo. But, yeah, I remember he was one of the first people you think when you got your Grammy, your producer of the year.

Yes. For your Grammy. Yeah. So how... Okay, I'm playing willfully ignorant here. The day that you got fired, I mean, was that mid-tour or did you... That was between tours. So what it happened was, of course, obviously the whole snowstorm happened.

We missed the gig in San Antonio. We went to San... Were you sitting on the plane as... No, the planes, they weren't letting people on the plane. There was literally... Now, I'm from Minnesota. What time was the flight? Flight was, like, first thing in the morning, like 7 o'clock in the morning.

Like just when the... And you don't think, like, maybe we rent a car. We did think of that. We thought of every possible scenario. We booked ourselves on any flight leaving. We booked ourselves on it. You could do that in those days. And literally, we were booked on, like, 10 different flights.

And they all canceled. And they all canceled. Literally. Then we thought, well, can we get the rent a car back, drive to an airport that's open? But once again, now you're not dealing with, it's not ways in, you know, and, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, And what's the closest airports that's open, Siri? And it's none of that. You know, you had none of those, you know, the ability to do that.

So, but no, all of those possibilities. We were like, take a flight to anywhere we can connect and get to San Antonio. So we had the whole day to figure it out. And so literally for eight hours. And, of course, we're in the Atlanta airport. And everybody had been to the Atlanta airport. It was one of the first airports with totally separate terminals for everything where you had to take the train to get to each terminal. We were up and down on the train, up and down.

I'd like, what's taken off? Anybody taking off? Anybody take it was probably the worst day of my life, I would say, because we had never missed a gig. I mean, you just, as a musician, the show must go on. I mean, I remember Terry, there was a gig we had. Terry had stitches and stuff and was bleeding and got in a car accident, still showed up and did the gig.

You know, we actually were opening for, maybe it was a, it might have been a cameo we were opening for, or something. But he showed up. I mean, he was like, where's Terry? Oh, he's at the hospital, but he's on his way. It's like, okay, cool. You know, it's like, you just don't miss a gig, man. So that was crazy. But we figured out we were going to miss it.

When we got into town, it was really funny because I actually went to the club afterwards and everybody was saying, oh, man, y'all were great. Y'all were great. I felt so weird. I was like, I'm going home, man. This is too weird. So when we got back to L.A., we just figured, you know, because we were still making our little check, a little paycheck, right? So we got, you know, we would go by the accountant's office and I figured we were going to go get our last check, right? So we walked in the accountant's office and everybody was like, hey, how are you guys doing? Oh, here's your checks. Okay, we'll see you next week.

And we're like, you will? Okay, cool. All right. So we took our check, right? So we did that for the next couple weeks, three weeks, you know, just went in and got our check and whatever. And I'm like going, I don't think they know we're fired. That's weird, you know? So then we were at this Whispers concert. Did you know you were fired, though? We were told we were fired. Okay. Yeah, we were told we were fired. Matter of fact, who told you, you, you were Prince. Prince told us. So he is confrontational.

It wasn't like, give my management to tell you. Cavallo and those cats. Wasn't this done over at a dinner too or something where like Prince and Morris were sitting together? It wasn't a dinner. It was what happened was, and this is so damn movie storybook time.

Okay. We had, you know, we're ready to mix the SOS band songs. And we ended up doing, just be good to me, but also did tell me if you still care also in a subsequent session. So we're like ready to go.

We're like got the time booked at Larrabee Studios, right? And we're going to mix with Steve Hodge. The way we know Steve Hodges from looking at the liner notes. And it's like, okay, we need Steve Hodge at Larrabee. That's the combination that we need, right, to mix the record. That's what we didn't know, but that's what we figured. So we got the time booked. That day, we get a call from Prince,

meet me at Sunset Sound at 630. And we were like, damn. So we kind of looked at each other and we said, well, we're supposed to be mixing the S. bad record, well, we got to go to Sunset Sound. I mean, it's like it was obvious to, it was no choice. It was like, no, the time is our priority. You know, the SOS thing, we can wait and we'll figure it out. So we went.

When we pulled up, the accountant was there, a guy named Fred Moultrie. He was there. And we said, we're getting our, we're getting fired. Like, we knew the jig was up, right? You instantly knew. We just knew. We just knew that what to what? So we said, hey, what's up, Fred?

and Fred had this high voice and he said, hey guys, how are you doing? Have a good session. Y'all have a good session. We were like, oh, okay, cool. All right, well, maybe not, you know. So we go into this little room, kind of this little sitting room right adjacent to the studio. Myself, Terry, Jesse, Morris, and Prince.

Just the five of us, right? And Prince goes, I told you guys not to produce other records. and you did. So you're fired. And room went silent for a minute. And then I got up and I said, okay, cool. And I got up and walked out the door.

So Terry stayed in there for a little while, trying to reason with him. Really? Yeah. Terry was like, come on, man. Well, Terry, you know, Terry was great because here's the one thing. First of all, Prince couldn't bullshit Terry ever. You just, he's just, he's just not the can't you do it with. And that's what Prince liked about Terry so much.

He knew he couldn't do, you know, oky-doke on him. Like, he would just tell him straight. Like Prince, you suck right now. Or you, he would just always. He could say that? Yeah, he could. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, they used to get in, they used to get in these five, six-hour conversations about stuff.

Really? About life and religion and you name it. And because Prince would have all these philosophies and he'd do all this stuff and it would be like, and he talked. And when he talked, man, he had this way of kind of like it was like drinking the Kool-Aid, man. It was like, right? No one ever challenged him on it. Nobody challenged it. And Terry would always go like, yeah, okay, well, that's what you think, but here's what I think.

And would come right back at him. And I think Prince always appreciated that with Terry. And Terry was really the leader of the time. I mean, Morris was the lead singer. But whenever there was a decision to be made, Morris would always go, Terry, what do you think? Okay. Right. So Terry was that dude.

So Terry, yeah, so Terry tried to reason with him a little bit and just kind of go like, come on, man. Why would you, why would you do that? We're not giving away the sound like you say we're doing, you know, so on, so, you know, whatever. Anyway, about 10 minutes later, Terry comes out. And he says, okay, well, what do you want to do now? We looked at our watch. I said, well, we got time at Larrabee. let's go to Larrabee and mix this song, right?

So we walk into Larrabee, and we had never even met Steve Hodge before. And so we walk in, and he goes, you guys, Jimmy and Terry, yeah. He says, I'm Steve, and I said, hey, Steve, nice to meet you. How are you doing? No good. And Steve goes, what's wrong with you guys?

And we said something wrong? And we said, oh, we just got fired from the time. And he said, Steve said, hmm, he said, well, I'm going to tell you something. He said, you don't have much to worry about. because this record you guys got here, he said this is a hit. And he knew.

He knew. He knew. And it was. That should be the end of the story, but it wasn't. Oh. Okay. So,

because that was how that happened. Of course, now, I'm telling you, we're still picking up our little paychecks, right, every week, right?

Right. So now we're backstage at a Whispers concert. We run into Lee Bailey, who's got this show called Radio School. Radio School. Right?

So Lee Bailey's backstage. and he walks up to me with a microphone and he says, Lee Bailey, Radio Scope, here you're fired from the time. What's the bottom line? And he puts the mic in my face. The original TMZ. Yeah, right?

And I'm going, who are you, man? Lee Bailey, Radioscope. I said, I don't know. I said, we're just here watching the concert, man. But I heard you got fired from the time. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, man. We're here watching the concert, right? So I just kept saying that, right?

A couple of days later, we go to the accountant's office. and we go, hey guys, and they go, we can't give you your checks, guys. We said, why not? Because you guys got fired. And we laughed, and we said, we got fired like four or five weeks ago. Who told you we got fired?

It was just on the radio. Oh, wow. Big up to Lee Belli, he's still doing it. E.U.R. Web. Yeah, yeah. I talk to Lee Bell. He's still doing. So then the epilogue, as we call it,

from the Dan August days. Anybody, Dan August fan? I'm over everybody's head. A Quinn Martin production. Anybody ever watch Quinn Martin production shows? Okay, well, I got some stuff. Did he stumped you guys?

Yeah, I stopped. Oh, I can't believe it. I can't believe nobody in the room. Okay, so Quinn Martin is a production team, the TV shows back in the day. But Bert Reynolds was on a show called Dan August. He was a detective. It was really good.

Great show. Anyway, they would always say, it would always say act one, act two, act three. And then at the end it would always say epilogue. And it was always the wrap-up of the show. So the epilogue of the story is Prince had jelly bean call Terry. And as it turned out, the reason that the accountant didn't know we were fired just because we never were really fired.

It was a bluff. And the idea was we were supposed to fall flat on our faces and then beg for our jobs back. Right. Well, unfortunately that didn't happen because Just Be Good to Me came out. Unfortunately for who? And not for us. So anyway, just be good to me. Everybody basically felt like, okay, well, this is a smash.

Whoever did this were good, you know. So Jelly Bean, so Prince decided divide and conquer. So he called Jelly Bean and he said to Jelly Bean, get Terry Lewis back. And Terry said, in the. Bean said, what about Jimmy? And he said, no. So, just Terry. So jelly bean called Terry.

And I never forget this. We're in this, we're in this little room. We had a little three-bedroom apartment with Dean Andrews, I think, as a matter of fact, at that point. And I remember Terry getting on phone and going, hey, Bean, what's up? What are y'all doing? And so Bean's telling them, oh, yeah, we're going to do this movie, Purple Rain, and we're going to do this movie. this whole thing and you know blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and uh Terry says yeah he says well he said what about Jimmy and he said you don't want Jimmy back

Terry said you every cuss word every like if he could uh climb through the phone and wrong beans neck and I was like Terry what's going on he says no no you can't I mean he was so pissed off anyway I said to Terry I said man go do the movie. It's no big deal. I said, I'm not going anywhere. I said, you know, make the movie sounds fun. Go ahead and do it and whatever. He said, no, hell no. He said, no, we're in this together. He said, if they're not going to do that to us.

You know, we're a team and whatever, whatever. Yeah. So that was it. So that was it. So that's why we were out. And then wait, wait, why are you looking at me, why did you look at me, Mayor? Because I felt you looking at me. You can learn from this,

of me. There are some words of wisdom coming from this story about loyalty. You're here with me now. We don't even talk of 20 years. You're here with me now. Sorry, that's flashback. It took a long time, Mr. Jam. Like, as you tell me this person story.

Sounds like another episode of a... Tune in. She looked, she gave me that, you listen to this, Mirren. You're with me. Okay, it's on them tape now. I just needed it. Thank you. Right.

I love it. I love it. I'm sorry. Brue. Brue interruption. That's what we do here. That's what we do here. It's a public service.

Yes. Oh, man, that's it for part one of our conversation with Jimmy Jam. Thank you guys for tuning in. And next week, we have part two. And that's when Alexander returns. Jimmy and Terry help Janet take control. And much more. Don't miss it.

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