The Questlove Show - Black Music Month QLS Classic: Jimmy Jam Part 2

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

Black Music Month for Questlove Supreme nears its close in style. In part 2 of his epic interview, Jimmy Jam spoke about making Prince jealous, the studio secrets behind his recordings, how he made all those hits with Janet Jackson and much more.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clivert Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clivert Show on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode.

Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to. to uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Quest Love Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey, what's up y'all? This is Questolo. And as you noticed, throughout June, we are celebrating Black Music Month by releasing an episode every day. So, every day, you're either going to hear a specially pick QLS classic. And on Wednesdays, we're dropping new two-part episodes with Wayne Brady and James Poyser,

both of which were filmed in studio. So make sure you also watch us on YouTube. Now, for part one, part two, and part three of my all-time favorite QLS episode, this is the legendary Jimmy Jam. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove, and this is QLS Classic, and this is the second of our three-part series with producer Jimmy Jam. Last episode, we explored his life in Minnesota, and enjoying the group of the time and getting fired by Prince.

And now this episode, we talk about working with artists like Shirel, Alexander O'Neill, Patty Austin, New Edition, the SOS band, The Human League, and also Janet Jackson, all top 10 artists. We also discussed the creative process and songwriting and producing and becoming businessmen. This is a really, really great episode. I hope you enjoy it. All right, let's go. So, obviously, you guys go to get Alex back, but how does Sherell? We do. We do. So, yeah, so actually, yeah, so Shirel's the next one. So Shirel, you know, after S. the West Band jumped off. Clarence had signed Sherell. She was from

Detroit. He said, I signed this girl from Detroit. So she's kind of young and raw, but I think you guys can do something with her, whatever, whatever. I remember we met her, we hung out with her, loved her, you know. And I remember it was the reason we moved back, Sherell was the reason we moved back to Minneapolis. We were working in a studio. I remember what studio was, but she had

always done backup singing, not a lot of lead singing. And it was just a very nervous thing. We were always watching the clock and you know, cognizant of the of the budget and it was just this kind of pressure thing. So we knew these guys in Minneapolis that had a studio down their basement and we said,

maybe we'll go back to Minneapolis and record and it'll be like a less pressure and whatever, whatever, whatever. And I remember the very first day we walked in the studio was called Creation Audio and it was down the basement of a of a little house. First song we did was didn't mean to turn you on. Wow.

And when that happened, we were like Terry just said, we need to just move back to Minneapolis. Because we can make music anywhere, but we should just do it, this kind of environment where we can just create and not worry about the high pressure, you know, the high prices of L.A. You recorded in that basement? Yeah. Okay. Now I'm going to start with the creative process. Okay. How does Jimmy Jam... On that synthesizer, by the way. On this very... That's the one that's the... That's the end up to turn you on. How does Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis construct a song?

Is it a chorus? Who does the lyrics? Who does the... There's a lot of different ways that it happened. Okay, so let's take I didn't mean... Because what I really want to get into is that's the point. That's the song that I felt that you really started coming on your own as a drum programmer. Especially assuming that, did you guys do your own remix edits and all that stuff?

Yes. Okay, which also QLS listeners continues the theory that all really masterful great producers were once awesome DJs. So this is the Dr. Dre theory all over again. So because you're doing a lot of intricate stuff there and I was kind of saying this question for the control album. But who's teaching you, I mean, who's teaching you these patches and these programming? and stuff. I mean, I still barely get past page three on the drummer's manual of any drum machine I ever get. And there's no pro tools and stuff. Are you editing and cutting tape or like, how are you doing this stuff? Well, a little bit of everything. So didn't mean to turn you on,

though, was real simple. So the DMX, that's a DMX drum machine. Yes, it was. And so I learned the DMX drum machine really from Leon Silver's. He had one. He was, he was one of the, people that just there was always a drum machine laying around the studio and he at a certain point he made a transition where he would cut things with the drum machine but then the drummer from Lakeside and I can't remember his name who was amazing he would come back in and play real drums because Leon still like the idea of real drums but he had a metronome and he could just lock right in not all drummers could do that could play with a drum machine but he could but he always

had one around so I just would always mess around with it and And so same thing with the lindrome. Prince always had a lind drummer around. So I just would always mess. My whole thing was I would just pick up stuff and just start messing around with it. And I think because I was a drummer, it all just made sense to me. But I never, and it's funny, you said you don't get past page three. I never picked a manual up.

I've never read a drum machine manual in my life. Man, braggard. I'm not bragging. I just, it doesn't make sense. It's just kind of trial and error. It's just you just kind of mess around. until you come up with stuff that make sense to me.

Well, I'm asking because even like in the bridge of that song, like these rolls that you're programming, and the various handclaps. Yeah. The spillage and all this stuff towards the end, I'm assuming that that stuff has to be pre-programmed

as in your thinking your head, okay, four bars from the beginning, or even the beginning, before the song, starts. Right. Again, is this, but without pro, in the age of Pro Tools now, I could just punch anything in one and then copy and paste and do whatever I please, but you didn't have it then.

Right. So are you sitting there with the map of the format of the song? No. No. My thing was always, I would always put the drumbeat down. That would always be the first thing. And I knew that sometimes there was a format. Like I knew, on that particular song, I kind of knew what the format was in my mind.

So, but I wouldn't ever program a song from start to finish on the drum machine. I would physically put in a pattern like the beginning of that song, which is just a handclaps, I think. That would be one pattern. Then I'd put the next pattern in, which was the main, you know, whatever that was. Right. Then the change was the boom, boom, boom, boom. That would be another thing. Right.

So turn the tape on, press play, go to my thing. Then as the song's playing, I'm thinking to my head, okay, now it sounds like a change here. And I just go to the change. And then I go back to the main part, and I go to the change. Now, most of the time, it worked pretty good. Not locked to empty? No, not locked to simply at all. I used to drive people.

Whoa. No. God. No. I used to drive people crazy with that. Yes, you're driving me crazy. Because engineers would get it. I'm looking at Steve right now.

Like, see, I'm not alone, Steve. No, we'd send stuff out to get remixed, and they'd always say, what's the Simpty start time? And we go, we don't know. Yes. We didn't lock to Simpy. We just play. You turn the tape on, and you play. And that was the way we always did it.

Didn't mean to turn you out was interesting because that song was very heavily influenced by the system. Ah, I can see that. The systems did a lot of, the system did a lot of that and that kind of stuff. The difference was they hooked everything together so that it was sequenced. And I didn't do that because I didn't know how to do that.

So I never sequenced, there was never a sequenced keyboard. Not even with your synthesizer work and your bass work? No. You're doing that by hand? By hand. It sounds like eight minutes. Yeah, I know.

So it's like innocent. Yeah, oh yeah. The whole innocent suite. Twelve minutes long. last 12 minutes playing for 12 minutes and also and that's an interesting and innocent is an interesting one too

because that's one where we put the drum part down first and then we had to figure out what we were going to put on top of it you know that made sense but that I got from Prince because Prince would do that

can you answer a question for me even though I don't know if you were were you ever physically there for time recording No. Mixing or anything? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's the thing, like a song like The Walk, which is nine minutes, how does he know in bar 176?

Man, is sweet mother, like that part? Like, does he map out even the dialogue? No. You put the groove down. So, like, literally on the walk, it would basically be him on the bass and Morris on the drums. And they would just play for nine minutes. And so Prince would kind of in his mind think, well, this might be a verse, this might be a chorus, whatever. This might be just a jam session, whatever.

Then there will be, you listen to it back, you put the chords over the top of it, and then the little hornstabs and stuff you do based on the brakes and some of that other stuff. Like he knew, he didn't know what everything was going to be. You just kind of create it as it's going along and let the drums and the baseline dictate what you then put on top of it. So it's why it sounds so spontaneous because it literally was spontaneous. Now, you could go back and do it,

like if there's a lick that Morris would do a kakum kikaboo on the drums, and then you'd hear it and you'd go, oh, let's put a horn line on it. Glik, glink, click, clik. Okay, okay. Right? Right.

But you just kind of took each piece of the song until it was filled until it was a full song. So we kind of took, see, that's the thing. If you think about it, We took a lot of lessons from what Leon Silver's did. We took a lot of lessons from what Prince did.

And then we took a lot of lessons from just listening to records that were out and things that we like. And just applied them to the way we record. You know, but we had great teachers. I mean, we had great teachers. There were great records, not to mention all the records growing up we listened to. You know, so, you know, that to me is kind of the thing. And so for us, but I couldn't sequence. And that's the thing.

I never opened up a manual. So I didn't know. I had a DMX drum machine in an OB8. Okay, they're supposed to talk to each other through the DSX, which was the sequence. Right. We have a DSX. It's never been used. Never been touched.

Never been touched. Because I didn't know how to hook it up. I never knew how to hook it up. I, and tell you, the only reason I ever even started sequencing at all was one, I had a drum programmer or just a programmer in general named Alex Richburg. Who was from New York originally. Wait, how do you know Alex?

Janet Jackson album? Janet Jackson album, yeah. He was a rope. He's all over there to break. Yeah, yeah. And he was the one that got me into. Well, he was the one that really started putting, we were talking earlier before we started the interview.

We were talking about how hip-hop influenced R&B. But he was a true hip-hop head. that was incorporated into our camp, which really, he had the whole kind of hip-hop sensibility from the MPC. He introduced me to the MPC, drum machine, and all those things. And the idea of that type of sampling, because I never sampled in a drum machine.

I usually just use like a little AMS sample or something like that. So he was the one that really opened my mind up incorporating hip-hop into the way we did R&B records, particularly with Janet, but with a lot of other, you know, acts too. So he was a really important part. But up until I met him, and that was, like he said, Velvet Rope era, so 97, I guess, or something like that. I never, and even after that, I remember he would hook stuff up so it would be, like, ready for, to sequence. Like, what was the one that we did?

Oh, Got Till it's gone. Got till it's gone. He hooked everything up together, and he said, make a record. And don't do it in this box. Don't do it outside of the thing. And the reason the record sounds the way it sounds is because I did the simplest thing I could possibly do, which was go, blunt, blun, blun, blun, blun, right? Because that's all I knew how to do.

And it was like, okay, and I said, okay, here, I got something in. What do we do now? And it's like, okay, now we'll make the song. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? But that's why that turned out like that. And literally when that song was done, I unplugged all that stuff and said, I'm not making records like that no more. I couldn't do it.

Ah, you got a hit out of it. Got a hit out of it. And the only thing after that, and when I discovered logic, see, when garage band came out, I thought, oh, this is cute. But then when somebody said, oh, logic, it's like, do you know how to work garage band? It's garage band on steroids. Yes. That's when I said, oh, wait, okay, I can do this. This makes sense to me because he always used logic back in the day when it was hard to use.

Right. So I said, oh, I can figure this out. I know the theory of this. But no, all of those records were all just played by hand. Like I remember, what was one we did? Oh, I just heard it the other day. Thelma Houston. Used to hold me so tight.

Yeah, but that's all. Right. That's by hand? By hand, whole record. Oh, God. All of those records. Just be good to me. That's not looped.

No, no, no, no, no. That's all played. All of that stuff. That's a long. That's a long, that's long to be. Yeah, but I had great chops then. Because that stuff, compared to what Prince had us going through at rehearsal. See, Prince prepared me for all that stuff.

You know, Prince would have me, like, 777, it's famous, well, I don't know if it's a famous story. I told it to a bunch of people, though. You know, we're doing 77793-11, and my part was just doubling Terry's baseline. with this wild kind of OB-8 sound, right? And then I'd do like a little string part, and that was it, right? So I remember we were rehearsing a song, and Prince goes, Jimmy Jam, what are you doing with your left hand? And I said, nothing, Prince, I was doing the baseline.

He said, you should do the baseline, but then you should do the chords with Monty. And I said, well, it's not like that on the record. And he said, it's got to be better than the record. That was always his thing, it's got to be better than the record. It's like, okay, cool. So now I'm like, Oh, gung, gung, eh,

right? I'm cool, like, cool. So we finished the song. He says, What note are you singing on the course? So I'm not singing a note on the course. I said, Monty's singing,

and Terry's singing, and Jesse's singing, and then Morris got the main note, whatever. Find a note. Like, okay, he says, it's got to be bigger than the record. Like, okay, bigger than the record.

Okay, cool, right. So now I'm playing. Seven, seven, seven, 93. So I'm singing, right? I'm good. We finish. He goes, why aren't you doing the choreography, Jimmy Jam? I'm not going to dance.

I said, Prince, I'm standing on the keyboard. What I'm supposed to? It's a simple choreography. You should be able to do it. So I'm like, okay, cool. So now I'm trying to do the little four-corner step, and I'm trying to do my pans, and I'm trying to sing the note, and I'm just so pissed off.

I cannot do it, right? And I'm just, I'm pissed off. And I think about it all night, and I'm just pissed off. So the next day we come back to rehearsal, He says 777-9.9.3.11, and I'm just like, oh, here we go. I start playing. Perfect. By about the fourth run-through of it, now I'm tipping my hat. I'm taking my hand. Liping my face. It became so easy. And that taught me work ethic. That was the thing that taught me that he had a belief, like a good coach. you can always do more

you can always do more you can't settle you you know but he saw that I could do more and push me to do it so from that moment on all the stuff in the studio where you can make a mistake and who can you know whatever but no I mean that was simple

to play 10 minutes on a song was easy because forget about the rehearsals were crazy side questions since you brought it up yeah has jelly bean ever played it proper once in these shows no he can't he can't play it I've never heard a drummer play it correctly

The drummer that plays at the closest is Morris. Wow. Because, yeah, because Morris is a David Garibaldi fanatic. Guy. And that... Yeah, for our listeners that haven't seen any other interviews, we won't mention. David Garibaldi, I guess Prince pulled a Swiss beat and just broke our hearts by using the stock program.

Do you know what number it was in the Lindrome? No, I heard it was. like, it's one of the high ones, like 77 or 80 something or something. He programmed that many? 77.99. No, no, but it wasn't, no, it was different, different drummers. Different drummers had different beats in that drum machine. Oh, okay.

That was part of the whole kind of selling point of it, was they gave it to different drummers, and different drummers programmed their own beats. Do you still have the Lindrum with those programs in there? No, I'm sure it exists, but we never had it. That was always, that was always princes. Okay. That was always princes.

Yeah. L.M. 1. But yeah, no, David Garibaldi. But, yeah, that was Morris's dude. If you ever hear Morris play the drums, he can do all of that Tower of Power stuff like just crazy. It's amazing.

Yeah, I didn't know what a drum machine was at the time, so I spent like all of 82 doing the handclaps and the drum machine, and someone told me, that's a drum machine. I was heartbroken, because I thought all that stuff was real. So you came back for Alex.

Was he happy to see you guys, or was it like, it's about time? Well, no, it was actually. Working at this Perkins Festival? I had to pay for that thing. Okay, so the Alex thing was, so after Sherell, after we did Shirel and Sherell was successful, the next artist that Clarence brought us was a guy named Jeffrey Robinson. And this guy was a... Wow.

No, there's no, I know. Stumper. Trust me. He's been stumped. He's been stumped. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think anybody ever heard of him again. And I don't even know where he came from. We were in Minneapolis now at this point, because we kind of moved up and we were working at this creation audio place we talked about earlier.

So, anyway, Jeffrey comes to town. Nice looking guy. I remember he had an ascot. He was very sophisticated in the whole thing. and whatever. Now, we had already done the tracks. We had already done, you know, if you were here tonight, and I think we had done that.

Look at us now and another track. I can't remember, do you want to like I do? We had done those three tracks with Monty Exx, the Monter. So we showed him the songs, and we said, okay, come on, there's what we're going to do. Now, we figure he's going to come in and kill it, right?

So he comes in, and his voice kind of, he had one of those voices with, there's a real fast vibrato. So everything was like, Like he singing into a fan. Yeah, exactly. And it was a little weird, and we were like, okay, well, whatever.

And he said, yeah, my voice is skipping. He said, you know, we'll do it to anybody have tea, anybody, you know, whatever. So it's like, okay, tea, whatever. Then came back the next day is the same thing. Came back the next day, it was the same thing. So we called Clarence and we said, okay, this dude you sent up here? I'm not sure, man. It's nice looking dude, nice enough cat.

I said, I'm not really sure. He said, what do you want to do? And we said, there's this guy named Alexander O'Neill. And he said, huh, Alexander O'Neill, was he Irish? He said, no, Clarence. I said, he's a black dude, man. I said, but, you know, he said, what kind of name was O'Neill for a black man? I said, I don't know, Clarence.

I said, but I said, can we put him on the songs? And he said, yeah, yeah, put him on there. I said, okay, cool. So we went over to Alex's gig. And Alex was finishing up like one in the morning or whatever it was. And we said, Alex. I said, we got these songs. I said, can you come over and sing them?

Like, I can't remember when we did it that night or the next day, but we, like, literally did the three songs the next day. Like, he sang him all the way just like that. Like, just sang him, right? We sent him to Clarence. Clarence said, who's this motherfucker? Said Alexander O'Neill. He said, man, he said, bring him out here.

So we did. We brought it, got a plane, went to L.A. Clarence signed him on the spot. Did you talk to Alex versus? and say don't Sal Sal, I think he knew.

He got the... I think he knew. He learned it for the first time. Yeah, we didn't have to say a thing. But anyway, yeah, but anyway,

he got signed off of that, and I don't know to this day what happened to Jeffrey Robinson, but he was perfectly nice guy, but he just didn't have it. So we took those same songs, we added,

you know, Broken Heart Can Mend and, and then we figured out, we knew from working with Alex. That's a perfect album opener, by way. Yeah. I love the,

the nerve of you guys starting out records albums with mid-tempo stuff like I would never thought to were you guys also sequencing the records once you were done totally totally yeah that was one of the great things about doing records for Clarence because he totally let us we did the album cover oh wow really all the space

we did all the we did all the we did all the that cover with the diner in the whole thing we did the video like we conceptualized all of that stuff I mean obviously we have people do I think a guy named Craig Rice did the video who does a bunch of stuff for HBO and stuff now, right? Okay, he did the actually shot the video. But it was all our concepts. I mean, he basically just let us do, and so we really got spoiled. I mean, Clarence was amazing, you know, just because we told him,

Clarence had gone in a whole bunch of different things. He was doing oil company, and he was doing all these other different things. And we said, Clarence, you need to be doing music, and we're going to make music fun for you again. You know, because at a certain point, he wasn't having fun doing music. And we said, we're going to make music fun for you again. I think we did that. Who opens an album with mid-tempo stuff? Because, like, even with SOS band, I think no one's going to love you.

It opens up. Yeah. Sans a time. Sands a time. Yeah, like, that's a risk. But that was a jam, though. I get it. I get it.

I mean, because Luce N's kind of did it with, what you call it? What's the song? Yeah, hanging on a string, contemplating. Yeah. Yeah, but it's like. Loose ins. Loose ins. Totally.

Yeah. Marknelly. Nick Marnelli, biggest biteer of all time. No love lost name? Tokyo shit, Jimmy Channel. No, no, no. Oh, my God. No, my thing with Nick is actually, you know, I've never met Nick Marnelly in my life.

He's just a name on a liner note to me. And I love, hang on a string, and I love loose ends. It was the fact that I remember I read, they were asked about it, and they were like, oh, it sounds nothing like it. it doesn't have anything to do with it. And I just was like, oh, come on. Really? Yeah, that was the thing to me.

It's like, come on, now I'm going to admit that at least if I was influenced by some, I'm going to throw it out. Like we just said, you're talking about the do-d-d-d-boom on the kick drum. I'm like, no, the system, man. Yeah, but I mean, but I'm so. And how litigious you were. I mean, you could, your lawyers just could have been on standby. Yeah, I just, I mean, to me, that, that was the thing with that.

But no, the Lucan's records were amazing, the 52nd Street records. I mean, a lot of that. I mean, and that's when we knew that our influence wasn't just in America, that it was to the UK and it was like a whole bunch of different places. Wait, you didn't do tell me how you feel? No, Nick Martinelli did that. Does anybody who did a BBQ bands, Jeannie? It's not, Your wishes, my coming.

I don't know who did it. I think they were self-produced, I think. BBQ band? BB&Q band. When I first heard it, I thought it was you guys. Well, the first, see, the first, I don't know which record, but the first ones were done by the guys that did the change record, which

was their first ones, which was a guy named Mario Malavasi and Jacques Fred Petrus. They did the BBQ band. So, because to me it sounded like the change record when I heard it. But, yeah, they were... We got to get the change, too, at some point.

Yeah, change was... That was an interesting. Oh, thank you. What was it? You guys never got paid for that, though, right? I heard you guys never got paid for those songs. That is correct. Well, we did eventually. It came out of somebody else's budget, though, which I don't know, remember who it was.

But no, we did. We went over to Italy to do the change record. We were asked, you know, would we like to produce the change album? And we said, yeah, we'd love to. They're from Italy? No, the musicians are actually from America, from mostly New York musicians, as a matter of fact. Okay. But the guys that produced it, it was this, Jacques Fred Petrus and Mario Mallevesi, they were, I don't know whether they were Italian.

I think they're French or Italian or whatever. But the studio they recorded at was in Italy. It was actually in Modena, in Italy, home of Ferrari, which I didn't know back then. I saw, we would pass by this place that said Ferrari, and it didn't even dawn on me. That's like the actual Ferrari place when he was going to make the cars. Because, you know, $150 a week, I wasn't thinking about a Ferrari. But it was a great experience where there was a villa. I remember the first day we got there, they cooked everything for you.

They did everything, right? So the first day they brought out pasta, right, and we're grubbing. And we kept saying, yeah, more and more. And they're like, looking at me more. And like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we get done, and we're like sitting back, and then they bring chicken. And we're like, ha. We didn't know about the whole courses and the whole thing.

Anyway, but the change record was cool And we did it It was like a farm in the middle of nowhere In this villa We were totally bored to death We would have really appreciated it And I wish it would have happened We were a little older

And we really would have appreciated How cool of a situation it was But what it did is it introduced us To Otari tape machines Because they had Otari tape machines Everybody had Stuter tape machines Right This place had Otari

And we loved the machine And we thought wow this is a great machine So There's all kind of little It's funny because every story, there's some little thing that has influenced or something that we've done that's been significant. And that was a significant thing for us to find those tape machines because we couldn't afford a student tape machine. And when we found those tape machines, we got a great relationship with them, and it turned out really well. There was a guy in change, though, named Timmy Allen, who later on did A&R for Jive Records, but he was the bass player.

He wrote the song True Love, and he wrote on that album and a couple other things. Could have been more talented guy, nicer guy. And that was a great experience making that record. And then we mixed with Michael Brower in New York. And we were always used to mixing, like, one song over a day or two with Steve Hodge. Right. Michael Brower was banging out three songs a day. We were like going, oh, man.

I mean, it was amazing. That quick? Yeah. But he was doing all the Luther Vandross mixes. And we wanted that Luther Vandross sound for the change record. Oh, my God. Okay, Mike, did you see the snare drum? He has Yogi's drum set from Never Too Much.

I'm trying to purchase it. Yeah, he knocks him out. He also did Holo Notes, Private Eyes album. Yeah, I'm trying to buy that the Never Too Much. Matter of fact, I think searching, I believe, He said that everything that Luther's ever sang on. That was a snare drum. Yeah.

That would make sense. Yeah. I'm trying to get it. That would make sense. Trying to get it. So he knocked it out in three days? Yeah, three days. We said there's no way.

Three songs a day, and I think there was nine songs on the album. And you were satisfied with the mixes? Yeah, the mixes were great. I thought they were great. I was, we were just shocked because we didn't know. And that's when we kind of learned the pace in L.A. versus the pace in New York. you know, it's a whole different thing

and that was one of the ways we figured that out. But can you trust it? I mean, have you, how many times do you have to recall a mix? As in... In that day, none. We'd recall it none, no times. That was the mix. We very rarely recalled mixes.

I mean, once we got it to where we liked it, we liked it. We very rarely recalled mixes. Okay. Very rarely. We would leave mistakes in there and we would leave you know, we'd get it to a certain point and we'd just kind of feel like, you know, we'd always joke, we'd go, okay, what, five people aren't going to buy the record because of this thing,

that only we here, it's like, does it feel good? And is it, yeah, it's good. And back then, mixing was very collaborative because, you know, you had to have four guys with their fingers on the board. They weren't automated in the 80s? Well, some of them were, but the one we were working on in New York was not automated. So we literally did the mixes And the one that we

Even the ones that like we did At Creation Audio in Minneapolis So Alexander O'Neill and Shirel and Shane Well with the recording of change Although we mixed it in New York But those records, no They was all done people on faders And everybody man

You know somebody would be in charge of the mutes And somebody would be in charge of whatever So it was a performance And it was just about getting the best performance It wasn't even about recalling the mix It was just making a great performance. And I missed that. That was actually fun. I enjoyed that part of it. Okay, well, let's talk about your early forays into hip-hop. Okay, let's talk about it.

Captain Rap, Bad Times, and the ICT's Cold War Madness. Yeah. So those records were basically because we would hang out at a studio in L.A. called Studio Masters, and that was where Leon Silverst did a lot of his records. And I remember there was this guy named Cletus Robinson, and he owned a record company called Saturn Records. Cletus. That's the blackest name ever. Exactly. And this dude looks like,

it looks like his name sounds. That's how this dude looks. Well, overalls then. And this dude had, I don't know, he had this record and he just said, man, you know, the track ain't happening on,

you know, we need a track for this, you know, record and stuff. And we were like, okay, cool. And we just moved in the OB8 and the Lindrum and just got down.

And, you know, once again, bad times is another perfect example of just, I just played that start to finish, the baseline, nothing sequenced and just played it from start to finish. And we didn't hear the singing and all that stuff and the rap, which nobody really

used the rap. Everybody flipped it over to the side, right? But the girl's name was Kimball, and she was what was her story? She was signed to a group that was signed to United Artists. Remember the group Enchantment? Yes. Okay, so she was involved with somebody there. Maybe Michael Stokes.

Maybe his girlfriend or something. And anyway, so they said this girl, Kim Ball is going to sing. We said, okay, great. And we didn't hear it until it was actually done. All we did was go in and put the little track together for it. And we loved it. We were like, oh, man, this is funky. And we were trying to make, I was trying to make a D-Train record, quite honestly, because Hubert Eves was from Minnesota. I didn't know. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. What?

Yeah. It makes sense now that you say it, but I hear it. I thought he's from Chicago. I don't know. That's amazing. Well, we knew it from Minneapolis because I remember we got a D-Train record. I have no idea to this day where it showed up, but it was on our time tour bus. And I remember seeing the record and it said D-Train and we all looked at it and it was a white label.

And we were like, D-Train. What the heck is D-Train? And then we started hearing the record. And I said, oh, this is the record we got. And I looked at it and it was Hubert Eves. And I said, oh, this is. this is you really's a record and we just knew him from Minneapolis we were like oh there's Minneapolis boys so we were always you know like happy and proud of the stuff he did so

yeah so I don't know man but yeah that was that and and the same thing with the coldest rap and that we didn't know we did the track it was one of those things where you know we just kind of went and did it I think we got 500 bucks for it or something and that was and that was like didn't know they were going to be we didn't know what they were going to be it was just going to be put put a track together and you know it is what it is is. I think we knew, yes. Actually, I do think we knew they were going to be rap records, but we didn't know, you know, Ice Tea, we knew the name, sort of. Captain Rap, I knew, because he had done some other stuff. I think I used to play one of his records even before that, if I'm not mistaken. So, I ran into him,

by the way, at the New Edition Star Ceremony, he came up to me and he said, we worked together before, and I said, we did. He said, yeah, he said, on that bad times, I was the rapper on that. I said, Oh, man, that's nice to meet you. It was very funny, man. So, yeah. But, no, that was kind of our first foray into hip-hop. And I had, it was interesting. I remember I was coming from American Music Awards or something,

and it was when Kid Rock was really jumping off huge. And I remember we were walking into a door at the same time. And he runs into me, Kid Rock runs into me. And he said, oh, man, sorry, sorry, man. I said, no, now I'm sorry, man, after you, after you. And he said, hey, man, Jimmy Jam. And I said, hey, what's up, man? He goes, I can't stand it.

You can't stand it. He said, I said, man, you know that song? He said, man, I'm from Detroit. I know all of y'all shit. I said, okay, cool. You know? So it was very cool, man. But that record to this day, man, we were just in Japan and Korea.

And they were talking about that record over there. Where did those two records come in the timeline? Like were those before... We were... Yeah, they're probably before SOS. Yeah, before SOS. Because it's probably... We were still working like real-to-real first climax stuff,

dynasty stuff. So this is more of an 82 type of thing. And S-O-S was more of 83. Do you remember the drum machine we used on? Bad time? Yeah, it's a distorted... Yes. I don't know.

You know, no. No, it wasn't a... What the heck was that thing? That's a great question, question. I can't remember what the heck it was. It was something so distorted and wrong. No, it was right. Right.

No, I know, I know. I'd take it from that record, but trying to figure out how you, trying to figure out what drum machine you used for that. Yeah, what was that thing? It was whatever was laying around that day at the studio. It wasn't anything that we brought. It was whatever was laying around. Yeah, I brought it.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be.

Listen to the Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck.

I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely, on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot.

He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcasts on the Iheart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.

You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian and Michael Marantini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now, can I jump to 1986? Thank you. It's a big joke. So how's the idea even come up that Janet Jackson wants to work with you guys? Okay, so the story there is there was, okay, so John McLean, who was an A&R guy at A&M Records, he had called us to work on Howard Johnson. So fine. Yep.

So, which So Fun is one of the best records of all time to me. I mean, what an amazing record. But anyway, so this was like the follow-up album. And he called us and said, you want to do some stuff on Howard Johnson? We said, yeah, yeah, that'd be cool. So anyway, we did a couple things on him. It didn't jump off big or anything, but it was great working with him. Very talented, dude.

And I remember we were really into Steve Arrington at that point, and so we did this record called Knees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very Steve. You could put another other body parts. Yeah, yeah. No, it worked. So anyway.

So then the next thing he asked us, did we want to do? He said, hey, the girl in Atlantic Star is going to make a solo album. Do you want to work Sharon Bryant? You want to work with her? And I said, oh, yeah, we love Sharon Bryant. Yeah, that was cool. So, you know, we were like, okay, we're excited. We're ready to go.

So then we get a phone call, and he goes, and we started working on tracks for her and stuff. So he got a phone call, and he just said, hey, you know, I don't know how to say this, but, you know, she doesn't really want to work with you all. Oh, damn. She's got another producer she wants to work with her, whatever. I guess her boyfriend or whoever was at the time, right? So we were like, so we were like, okay, cool, you know, that's cool, whatever. And he said, man, he said, I'm embarrassed, man.

He said, so he said, what is it? Is there something else on, you know, that you would like to work on for us, you know, whatever? And we said, well, send the roster. So they sent a roster. And me and Terry looked at the roster and we're going down the names and then Janet Jackson. We both stopped on Janet Jackson and looked at each other and said, Janet Jackson. So we called John and we said, John, we want to do Janet. And he says, oh, okay, yeah, that's cool.

How many songs do you want to do three, four songs? I said, no, we want to do the whole album? You do? You do? Was that even option back then? Because as far as I know, were Illmatic-esque productions a thing on R&B records back then? There were different producers.

Yeah, I mean, the first two Janet albums was like... Okay, you're right. You're right. You're right. Speaking of, did you guys choose Janet because of Jesse working with her on the... The previous albums? Jesse had, yes, because what happened was we actually were in a session with her on the first album,

that Renee and Angela did half of it, and I think Leon Sovers did the other half. Yeah. And we were actually in the session with her and actually... Don't give up this good thing? Yeah, don't give up this good thing. And the one I love was come give you a love to me. Yeah, that was the one I loved. And so we knew she was cool.

She was big fans at the time. She sat front row and we played Long Beach when we couldn't play the forum and played Long Beach. She sat front row with her mom and she came back after her and met us and stuff. She was so sweet and all that. So anyway, so we knew her already. We felt like we already kind of had a little bit of a relationship with her. But when Jesse did Fast Girls and that, we just thought, wow, okay, that's more. She's got like a little attitude to her because we knew young she had an attitude.

because when she was doing the whole May West thing and doing the variety show stuff, she always had such a personality and a sassy, right? So we were like, that's what needs to be happening with her to me, is that kind of thing. So that's what we and Terry,

we're both thinking that same thing. So that was kind of the idea. So we said, okay, cool, that's what we're going to do. That's what we'll do. And so we had a meeting. And I remember at the meeting, it was her dad and her and John.

And I remember they played Heat of Heat by Patty Austin which was the current record we had just done. Yeah. X ready Patty. And she Or is it lust? Because she has such a crazy sense of you. I wouldn't know

how did y'all get her to go that level. You know what though? She, it was funny, we didn't know her well enough to know her sense of humor. Yeah. She did crazy. She did those three songs in like a We did three songs.

Oh my God. We were sitting there, because we booked three days. We figured we'll do a song a day. And she tore through whatever the first song we did. She tore through it that leads in the background so fast. And me and Terry are sitting and looking at each other going, is there something else to do, you know?

Patty, you want to do the next song? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, cool. Then we did it. And then we were like, okay, well, we'll do the next one tomorrow, I guess. Because we read, unbelievable. I never heard somebody sing that fast. But so we didn't really get to know her.

Like, she had a great personality. She was very nice. We were just too young, nervous doing something for Quincy Jones. Oh, my God. Right. We're trying to do string arrangements. And we're trying to like, oh, we got to impress Quincy because he's trusting us with this. Even at this point?

Oh, my God. Yes. Oh, that's Quincy Jones, man. But you're jamming loose. I mean, at what point, we all like. We jam up, yeah, like, one point were you like, all right, kiss my ass prints? Control? No, never really.

I don't think we've ever felt that way because to me it's... Were you in the audience the night that he was taunting you guys about, I want to hear this on your records? Yes. I mean, I never took it as a real insult. I was just like, okay, he's giving you guys props. Like, what did you? I took it as an insult Oh, you did?

Yeah, because he came by, he came by, I remember he drove by my house right after the control album came out and he like threw the CD out the window or did some, you lie! You lie! Yeah, you! Legendary hater. Yeah, so it was weird and I remember thinking

because I see, he likes it. Right, well, I realized, my mom told me. My mom told me. was the one that would always say, you know, when people do that, it means that they're really, they're jealous of you for something. And I'm going, because I'm always thinking to myself, how the hell is Prince jealous of me? I said, that dude is the most talented dude ever in the history of people, period. How is he jealous of me? I can't even, I'm nowhere near him. Because you're inside the bubble and couldn't be outside to see it. But, well, that literally

took over black music. No, I get, I get the result of, what it was, but I never felt like, I just felt like we did our job. Like we set out to do, like what the control album, our whole thing was, and I think I've been quoted on this a few times, in our neighborhood that we lived in at the time,

there was, in L.A., because we were, we had a still had a place in L.A. And we would drive up the street and you'd hear music blasting out of everybody's homes, right? And we just wanted to be that record that everybody was blasting out their home.

And so it had to be funky, it had to be aggressive, it had to be loud. There was already, I mean, females weren't really making those kinds of records. Those records were all rap records or whatever. And we wanted to make that kind of record because we felt she had the attitude to pull it off. And so that was the whole thing. And so one of the best days in my life was actually when the album came out, and I remember driving up that same street and hearing that record blasting out of everybody's, house. And at that point, forget whether

where we're at the charts or where we're at at sales. I felt like we did what we accomplished what we set out to do. And I hadn't really felt that way. Honestly, as a producer, I never felt like we, the first record we did that actually turned out in real life, the way we heard it in our heads, was the finest by the SOS. Oh, wow.

That record, we heard it in our heads, because we said we got to switch up from the 808 thing. We did borrowed love on that album, right? Because they said, because the record company is like, well, you got to have another one that sounds like. And we said, okay, fine. We'll do that. But we got to, yeah.

Oh, so they actually asked for like an E minor. Yes. Just be good to me. Yes, they did. Really? Yes, they did. Yeah, they said, you got to have another one. Yeah, no, they did.

It was, and so we were like, okay, yeah, we'll do that. But that's not what we really hear for them. And when we did the finest, it was like in our heads, we were like, this is the cut for them. Like, it to do. It was about the space of that song. My favorite part of that song is just the fact that it stops. Right.

Just love that. It just stops. Right. Well, that's the finest. Yeah. I mean, there's some. about, see, because that song's sophisticated and I always thought the SOS band was really sophisticated

because even from Take Your Time Do It Right, you're not hearing songs that have Glock and Spiel in it, you know what I'm saying? So that was the thing, but that record actually came out the way we thought it would We wanted it to come out. What is it about? I think this is one of the first questions I asked you on Twitter when I realized

that that was actually you. Hey, I finally got verified by the way. Yeah, I saw you know who did that? Damn Funk did that. Really? Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Dame funk. Dame funk. Dame funk.

Who? That's cool. What is it about E-flat? I know you said, like, you know, whatever the song calls for in my head, that's what I make it. Right. But, I mean, a lot of your, is there by design, do you feel that E-flat minor is like the black? The black key. The black key, like the...

No pun intended. That experience. No, I mean, some of your best funk songs for what have you done for me lately to... Yeah. The finest, to... You know, a lot of your grittier, funkier songs are done in that key.

Which... I mean, it allows you to just hit all the black keys and not... It's never a wrong key. That's right. That's right. But... What D minor was for James Brown, I almost feel like E-flat.

Well, But I used to identify it as Stevie Wonder's key. But now that's the Jammin' Lewis key to me. Like, is it something about, or is it just the singers you pick, their range is strictly in that particular, or am I overthinking it? You're probably overthinking. Let's go with that. No, no, you're not overthinking it.

But the simple answer is, because it's a funky-ass key, it's funky because E traditionally was always the lowest note on a bass. Yeah. On a traditional base. If you go one half step lower, it's even funkier. Because it's all about just the lowness of it. And it was something that a keyboard player, so a bass player couldn't do that.

They could tune down, I guess, if they wanted to. But no, the bass player couldn't. go to E flat, but a keyboard player could. So because most of our stuff was... That's right. All your E flat joins are keyboard... They're all keyboard players. Wow. Okay. That makes sense. I don't know.

I have a personal disdain for for weak E minor songs. Like, you know, because basically it's like, okay, thank you for let me be myself. I'm taking rhythmation

out of this. I'm not trying to insults. I'm just saying that that's such a mountain to climb. I feel like everybody that does anything in E minor's like that they're, the mountain Fiji, the Mount Fiji to them is, thank you for letting me be myself.

Right. I'm in here from get the funk out my face to all those songs in that key. Yes. Which, I mean, there's some cool ones, like maybe glide by pleasure or that sort of thing, but I don't know.

I'm not a fan of funk bands that do songs in that key. Right. And I know it's supposed to be in that key because it's easy to play. It's the lowest. But it's also the lowest. It's the lowest. So it kind of turns out to be the funkiest key. But so the idea of going a half step lower was always just something about it.

Fakes in E flat. And I think fakes, right? Yeah. And I think Encore is an E flat too. Yeah, Cheryl. They are. Like, a lot of your dance classics are in that key, which I just think it's a funky key. It is.

Before we get back to Janet, and this is going to circle back around, can we talk about the secret? Sure. What was the secret? And where did all those songs end up that were going to be on that project? Ha! Okay, so when we were booted from the time, the thing that people always ask was, when are you guys going to put another band together? And our answer always was never,

because we've already played with the best band we could ever play with, so we're never going to put a band together. However, we will do a project, and it'll be me and Terry, and we'll probably add, our fantasy at that time was to add a guitar player girl. And we were going to be called The Secret, and we did. We started recording tracks for what,

we thought was going to be a secret album probably around 84, 85, something like that. Some of those tracks have seen the light of day. What have you done for me lately? It was a secret track. Whoa. There's another song on that same album called You Could Be Mine. Yeah. That was a secret track.

And as a matter of fact, I'll tell you what have you done for me lately in our story. So we had done the album The album was totally done We sent it in John McLean listened to it And as all A&R people Always say I just need one more

And I'm like going John You got control You got nasty You got what I think of you I mean you got your singles man What do you need I just need there's something more

I need one more So anyway John So you planned on a 4-4 8 song Yeah Yeah we were done We thought we were good In your mind

What was the fourth song on Side A that was going to close it? I don't know because we didn't know because we hadn't, at that point, we hadn't sequenced it. It was not sequenced. It was just, we just felt we were done. We got enough songs. We got enough songs. Okay. So did you record any extra, or were those nine songs it?

We did record actually extra. We recorded a song actually, there was a guy named Hammy that played with H-A-M-Wave. I hate you right now. Hammy way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was with real to real. Wow. He played with real to real.

And he actually did a song called Hungry for Your Love that we've recorded with Janet. It's really good. It's very, come give you a love to me. It's kind of in that vein because we said, can we get a song that has that kind of,

you know, that kind of new wave pop type of thing. Yeah. To do Eddie Murphy, white people back. Exactly right. The Carlton. Did he give a place by he doesn't even know I'm alive? no he doesn't even know i'm alive

can i ask for you mentioned yeah can i guess was that the first song you guys worked on yes fucking i'm a genius i'm a god dude

genius i'm a genius i'm a genius okay then you have a radio show to proclaim shut up steve okay that's all

one to know Steve Steve ain't said shit for three hours How can you tell that was the first one? It sounds so different from the rest of the rest of the way. But the thing is... They still feeling each other out? Like, he doesn't even know I'm alive

is probably the only thing that's really close to, like, Boogie. Oh, okay. Like, that felt like it could be released in 83. Like, it could have been on one of the first two albums. I almost didn't believe you guys did it. All right, to slight confession, when I was working at Musicland, at Sam Goody's,

in high school, this cat named Spencer. Yeah. Had me believe that he was the Spencer Bernard. Oh, they did it? That song. Oh, my God, that's great. Yeah, but he just having to work with me.

Yeah, I was going on in high school. Okay. But, yeah. It fit for a reason. It's a, like, he doesn't even know I'm alive was, I felt that was the blackest record as far as, two-step barbecue boogie. Like, it felt like on the beat by the BBQ band or that sort of thing.

Yeah. Whereas, even though the other songs were relentlessly funky, it was class and polish. And I felt that you guys were really planting your flag in Minneapolis and saying, now we're the standard. Yeah. And it's a great bridge between, you know, the typical songs and then the two songs that end the record, too. Yeah. Well, okay, so you're absolutely right.

It was the first song we did. And how it happened was when we knew we were going to record Janet, Spencer Bernard and Lisa Keith were married. And so Spencer did production and writing and stuff for us. He had his own band called King's English that never saw the light of day, but was great. Very new. Very Durand-Duran-ish type of stuff. we're doing black dudes white dudes oh dude's all white is white white spencer is white oh so is leases so is leased so is lees yeah lees yeah lees yeah yeah lez yeah lez yeah making love in making love in the brain that's wow yeah

wait you completely ignore her solo album in perspective since the 19 oh yeah you should check you super nerds yes you you finally i didn't know that yeah you should actually look you her solo album is very good it's very good she's an amazing singer and you and i are together This is the first time ever you know. I'm just happy. I know who she is and I sound so black when she sings. That's ill. She's amazing.

Janet is singing backgrounds on that right. Yeah. Yeah. That's Lisa's lead. Yeah. They're singing together on the backgrounds. Damn. I thought Lisa was like.

So Lisa was like our background's secret weapon. Like she was on a ton of records. If you remember the color of reggae. Is that her in a criticize? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And she, yeah.

She's white. Like Bobby Caldwell. She's on a bunch of records. Why Should I Cry? Nona Hendrix. That's her on that. And I'm trying to think there's another one that she's pretty really prominent on too.

She's, I'm blanking now. But now, she was like the secret weapon. She was. She sure was. Was that her on a pillow as well on her effort album? Was she on that one? Yes. Yeah.

Pillow. Yep. That's her record. Yep. Jesus Christ. Okay, show over. Thank you very much. We only made it to 86.

So he doesn't know him alive. Just to wrap it up. Yes. So we said to them, we're going to be doing Janet Jackson. And if you guys got a song, do it. So they wrote it.

She demoed it. And for us, it was, it became the song that when Janet came to town and we, you know, the story is that we didn't do anything in the studio for like four or five days. it's absolutely true. We can't do.

Hung out, got to know her, talked. So that's important. Yes. Yeah. Research. Yeah. Research for them. That was.

Can we go to dinner tonight? That was the. No. No, that was that was, that was, that was, that was, that was the key to that. And, and, and, and so, so truly she came, I mean, we went to movies. We went, we hung out at the lakes because the lakes in Minnesota are amazing. in the summertime, and this was like June. And we just kind of hung out.

And then after about three or four days, she said, what are we going to start working? Yeah. And we said, well, we already been working. And we showed her the lyrics to control. Wow. And she said, oh, wait, this is what we've been talking about. Because she told us a whole story about leaving home,

and she's going to get her own place and this whole thing. And we just worked making mental notes. And then Terry would go home and jot notes down and stuff. And we started like, okay, let's figure this out. And so once we said that to her, and she says, well, wait, so the album's going to be, like, whatever we're thinking about, and, like, whatever I think, that's what the album's going to be. And it's like, yeah. It was like a light bulb went in her head. She was like, okay, well, I want to talk about this, and I want to do this.

I mean, it's like, it was like, because think about her albums before, we're all, Leon did a bunch of songs, going and sing him. You know, Jesse did some songs going and sing him. Georgi Omero Maroder did some sort of people out of whoever was going and sing them. I mean, that was it. We were actually asking her input. And it was at a point where she really had something to say. And she didn't think of herself as a songwriter. And technically, she probably wasn't technically a songwriter,

but the ideas and what we talked about were what became the records. But he's credited on the record. Oh, absolutely. Because the records wouldn't exist without her. We wouldn't write control without her. So at what point are you guys actually in a room together as is E3 and writing songs? on that album, not at all. Okay.

No, no. That album was sitting in a room like this, telling stories. And like you would say something, and we go, that's cool, and we write it down. And both of you are wordsmiths? Yes. I'm trying to figure out, who's this strength? Oh, Terry is, Terry's the poet. I call them lyric master.

See the rhyming dictionary up there? Oh, my God. You're right. Okay. So did nasty come from like a funny story? Because I'm trying to figure out these are all. Okay. Yes.

Nasty came from one of the first days we were hanging around. So there was a club. Oh, damn. I was a James DeBart's story. There was a club downtown Minneapolis. I can't remember what it was called. And we were all hanging out. And we were actually, we weren't even in the club.

We were just kind of, it was kind of in a building that was like an office building. So you could just hang in the lobby. You never had to really go in the club. you could just hang out, right? So we were all just kind of hanging out, and these guys came up and started talking to Janet. And they were kind of saying some kind of interesting things to her, right? So we're kind of watching, you know, we're just kind of watching.

We're just not doing anything, right? And she keeps looking over at us, like, would they come over and help me look? And we just kind of stand there, and we're just kind of looking at her. And then people start saying to us, I think those guys are bothering her. Why don't you, are you going to go over and say something? We're like, no, we ain't going to let nothing. We got an eye on it. We're all good.

So after about 10 minutes or so, she comes over to us and she goes. And she's funny, because you've got to remember it. She's like eight, I think just a turn 18 at that time. It was still very sheltered and very like this little girl. And she said, did you see what those guys were doing? And we were like, well, they were talking to you. Oh, my God, but the things they were saying, and, oh, my God, why didn't you come over and help me? And Terry said, well, obviously you didn't need any help.

You're standing right here right now. And she said, oh, yeah, I guess that's right. So those kind of moments needed to happen for her to get to that. But she said, I don't like nasty boys. I don't like nasty something, something. And Terry's like, okay. And that's it. I mean, so that was the way.

So the hanging out part where we weren't working, we said to her, you know, we're already working. So she needed a life experience for you to sing about it. Exactly, because that was what's going to make the album her. And it's her, yeah. And that was the whole thing. So he doesn't know I'm alive was basically because it was already done. When we went into the studio, we said, okay, we got a song for you. And we just went in and sang it.

It was already demoed. It was already done. And that gave us our insight on what notes she could hit, what couldn't she hit, just all kinds of things. There's a kind of right kind of mic to use on her. It was almost like the test ground for her, but also a song that we all liked. So from that point, then everything else kind of jumped off from that. How did you? Oh, I was going to say, my question for you about Janet, her background vocals,

you talked about how you were a big fan of America and all that stuff. To me, that was always her superpower, more so than even the dancing and all of that. Like, her background vocals was always amazing. I heard Ralph Trezvent. Yeah, same thing. That's right. So did you guys, did you arrange it? Was it just by ear or as a keyboard player, did you actually play it out and say,

okay, this is your note, Janet? That would, with Janet, I would always do, I would always have her sing the notes in the court, which isn't the normal way to stack vocals. Because what happens, of course, when you're playing some on a keyboard, you have notes that are dissonant to each other where they're right next to the title, right? Yeah. And it always, singers are, they can't hear that most of the time. It throws them off to hear that.

And so, but we worked up over time, we worked up a thing where she would just trust me. Like, I'd give her a note and it would totally sound so wrong. But then when you play something around it. Love will never do without you. That's a great example. That's a great example. Body that loves you as well. Yeah.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah. So that was a thing, but she would just do it. And I got a certain point, she would quit going. She wouldn't even say that doesn't sound right. I would just go, trust me. And she goes, oh, I trust you, I know. And I'd be okay.

And she also had the stamina, where she would stay in there for hours and hours and hours. And we'd stack every note at least four times. So if it was a, you know. Four times a note? At least. Yeah. Wait, there's no pro tools, though. Well, okay, so.

48 tracks? No, because we didn't start with 48. We only had 24. So what we would do is you would make, we would take the vocals, but everything would always get bounced down on the spot. so we would it was always strategic like you could you could have

we'd make a work we'd make a work tape because remember we're not going off of we're not using Simpy all right so we so we so you could do you could do the track

and let's say you used I don't know 19 tracks or whatever you could take those two tracks bounce them to two bounce them to two tracks right put them on to a half inch tape or whatever play the half inch tape

back to the 24 track and now you have two tracks now that leaves you with 22 tracks to work with technically 21 because you couldn't go on the Simpty track and and you weren't supposed to go to the track next to the Simpy 23 right but we always you still did that rule yeah we broke that rule so anyway so that would give us a thing so if we did a harmony so let's say we did 16 tracks so a four-part harmony four times 16 tracks we'd take that harmony bounce it to two tracks so now it would just be a stereo mix we couldn't change it and we would always try that it was good, that it was okay. Yeah.

And so it was great, though, because you couldn't go back and do stuff. And normally the decision you made on the spot was always the best decision. It wasn't about going back and tweaking it and, oh, we should have done, you know. Has this song bit you in the ass during the mix down? Like, ah, damn. Like, no, actually, not, not really. We had an engineer back in the day, we had an engineer named Tavi Mote. back when we were doing a song called Heartbreaker with Climax,

which I'm not even sure of that song actually. Yeah, it did come out, I think it did. But it was on one of those 24-hour sessions, and he decided that he could spot erase something on the tape, on the master tape, a vocal thing. And we were like, no, it's okay, Tava, we can just mute it on the board. No, no, I can do it. I can do it. And so normally on tape, what you do is you put the tape into,

the position and then you'd hit record, but you wouldn't go play the tape. You'd just hit record and just get rid of that one little spot. He said, no, I could do it on the fly. So it's like, okay. And the word was, the word was fresh. Let me get this ready. Let me get it ready. Okay, here we go. So the, the, the lyric was, uh, a heartbreaker, so fresh. Right. And then there was like a fresh click. So he said, I get rid of it. So he goes, we do it. And he goes, we do A Heartbreaker, So Fresh, Click. Oh, I missed it. It's okay, man.

We can just mute it. No, no, I got it. A heartbreaker, so fresh click. Oh, man, I missed it again. No, it's okay, Toby, really. Now, I got it this time. A heartbreaker so fresh. I think I got it.

And we're like, yeah, you got it. Half the damn word. And it made it change the song. so that instead of instead of it saying that it would say it every other time well so we would just go oh I'm so good I'm such a mess and then we'd leave it blank so no but but you know that was a crazy mistake and that never happened again we never worked with Tommy again wait a minute wait you just said something though uh-huh so if you really didn't believe in sympathy and weren't lining up stuff then how did those cool summer mixes turn out so perfect? Because we would wild sync. I'm a DJ.

I hate you right now, man. So you would just live. The cool summer mix, yeah, the cool summer mixes were fun. Hell yeah, they were fun. Yeah, so we would, so we would just take, I usually would take like the 808 or something, and I would just sink it. So I would just have the 808 on a track or two tracks or whatever.

I'd play the original tape. Right. And then I'd and then I'd turn the drum machine on at the same time. I'd kind of adjust the speed. When it locked up, I'd hit record. When it drifted, I'd stop.

And then we'd start it up again and when it hit, and then I'd go in. So it just was a process. We had it down. You are really a DJ. Yeah. I was. I can't do any of that stuff anymore.

Oh, my God, man. I can match, I can match that kind of stuff. And then we go back and then, and then, you know, just re-record the keyboards and stuff on that. I'll tell you an interesting, I'm sorry, every story veers off. The cool summer mixes is the reason we ended up working with George Michael. So when we did Monkey, if you remember, he had Monkey on the aisle. He was on faith, yeah. And he called us and he said, hey, I want you guys to do a remix.

a monkey and we said okay cool and we said what do you want what are you looking for exactly he said he said okay you know those cool summer mixes you do he says you know how you put chords on it but it still stays funky he said that's what I was trying to do on that record and every time I tried to put chords on it it wouldn't be funky

and we were like okay yeah cool summer mix okay yeah we got it we can do that right so then when he heard what we were doing he said oh no I got to re-sing it now and so that's how it turned from a remix to a production and that That's how it ended up going. If you have the version of the album that was made after, I don't know, a million copies or however they had already your version.

Yeah, it had our version on it. Because that was what he always envisioned the song as being. Have you heard the nasty Cool Summer mix? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They released it on the fake box set of the 25th anniversary. So you're talking about the Herb Alpert remix. I was talking about the Diamond Cool Summer remix. Oh, diamonds.

And the nasty. On the 12 inch. On the 12 inch. Yeah, the 12thage. Okay. I'll play for you. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah.

Damn, this is a cool summer mix. Are there mixes that didn't see the light of day that you guys did? No, I don't think so. I think, I mean, we pretty much did them. We always did. I mean, I loved doing it. It was always a lot of fun. And I always like the idea of, it was really two chains of thought,

because sometimes remixes back in the day your remix was just you know the drums would be fatter or it would literally be a remix where you wouldn't really be changing a lot but just more the sounds you know at an echo here you do that but I felt that was the best lesson you guys learned from Prince because the first time I heard someone totally

like that little red corvette remix that totally I was like oh you put something in the relative minor and make it a whole new song and that's sort of thing And that's what you guys were doing to, like, those songs, like totally making them new again. Right. Which I thought, okay, now maybe she'll do this in concert that way and that sort of thing. Sometimes she did, actually.

Sometimes she did, which was kind of cool. But, no, I enjoyed doing that. It was just a cool, creative way of doing it. I remember we did, like, one of my favorite ones was crucial by new edition. Oh, hell, yes. Yes. That was one of my favorite ones. That remix.

Yeah. Yeah. That's on the new Heartbreak re-released the ages put out. Yep. Yeah. See, I like that kind of stuff was always really cool.

Is that one where L.L. wrote Mike Bivens rhyme and he gave him a shout out for that? Okay, I have two things we need to talk about really quick. One, my favorite remix you guys ever did was, or the 12 inches,

Sherell's Fragile, Handle with Care, with the extended percussion outro which is a gift from God. Thank you very much. Wow. Second, new edition, Heartbreak album, the interlude.

What is Ralph saying? Yo, Jam, hit the button now. Okay, so what he's saying is... Hit the pussy button! He's saying the Alps button. The Alps button, right? But what it actually is, is the Oaks button. Oh, shit.

That's what I thought it was. They never sounded like that. Because they never called it the Oaks button. They just knew in the app's button. So they knew in the middle of the board, there was the button that you pressed when you wanted to hear it loud over the speakers. Okay.

Whatever we were mixing, and it was this button, and it said awks on it. And that was what it was. You pressed that button, and then everything came back loud and on the big speakers. So that was the whole thing.

So every record, when we got done, they would say, and it just turned into this kind of running thing, and we just said, oh, let's put that on the, on the record because it's just kind of funny but yeah, I've been trying to figure that up.

The Alps button. Wait. Now, okay, okay, okay. I see. Now I've got to hear. Joe, Mike, don't even sweat it. Jim, hit the Alps button. No.

The Alps button. Yeah. That's funny. But no, we love doing, once again, that was an album. The great thing about that album, we talked about hearsay. We didn't talk about it, but we talked about it offline.

Those records, we controlled those records. The sequencing of the records, all of the songs, even if we didn't do them, we were like the executive producers. And so the ability to put, to humanize those records by putting little things like that into it or the interludes on hearsay where they're at a party and the whole thing, you know, or whatever. I hate to be the bear of bad news. Yes, I hate to be the bear of bad news, exactly. So, I mean, that to me was why those albums, they were actual albums to me. And that was always... It was like a running concept.

Exactly. And that was always the goal. And the sequencing was always really, really important. And at a certain point when everything became very piecemeal and you did your one song and you really had no say-so, I never liked the idea of that. But, I mean, it is what it is. You just do what you're, you ask to do two songs, or you do your two songs. But I like the idea of... Well, I always wanted to know why...

with the Human League's record, was that concept not allowed to fly? Was that more of a tug of war situation or just? Human League was interesting because there was a lot of, well, okay, so first of all, human league was a John McClain. And how did you guys get them to say swing? Swang.

They were up for anything. I mean, they were very cool. I must say, and Phil Oake, particularly the lead singer. was amazing dude. Amazing dude. You guys flew over there to do it? No, they flew to us. Okay.

So it was weird. So you got these guys coming from England, not even London, England, but Sheffield, England, which is, you know, small town. Coming to Minneapolis and the debt of winter to work with, you know, two blokes, two black blokes, I guess. You know, it was a bit of a culture shock, I guess, I would say. and the underlying kind of elephant in the room that whole record was that Phil the lead singer was going out

with one of the girls in the group Rumors time So I think it was Joanne I think the Darkhead girl Okay So it set up this interesting thing Because they had already written A bunch of the songs themselves

And they just wanted us to produce them And that was great but then they wanted us to add our own songs to them. So it was like, okay, cool. And that was the first album that Steve Hodge actually engineered for us, because we engineered the control album basically ourselves, and Steve kind of fixed it because we recorded it totally wrong when we did it. But he fixed it.

But he said, I'm going to come up and show you guys how to record. So Human League actually sonically is probably one of our best albums because it's really done well. but the idea of creating was interesting because you know we had the songs they were down with the songs but in particular human um Terry did the vocal on that song produced the vocal on it and it was like a week at least a week of every day because think about you almost have to unteach Phil how to sing because Phil was always very robotic and always very stiff

that's what I'm saying you made them sound human yeah human But that took, it took a lot of, so Terry, that was a Terry Lewis masterpiece to me. And I remember hearing the finished vocal and just going, man, that's amazing. And I remember watching his faces he listened to, because after he did the vocal, then Terry comp the vocal and everything. And I remember watching his face and he just was like amazed how he sounded, right? And so we went in and when we did the backgrounds, actually the backgrounds on the song is Lisa Keith. And Terry, they're the ones that are doing the, ooh, human.

It's a combination of those guys. Because Terry used to also be Mr. Background. We used to call it Mr. Background. So, anyway, I remember we played it, and Phil was like, wow, that's really good. We were all like, wow, that's great, that sounds great. And I remember the girls being like, who's that other girls singing on the track? And we said, oh, it's, yeah, we said, oh, that's Lisa Keith. Hmm, not sure we like that.

Not sure we fancy that. Such and such and such and such what, you know, we didn't get a chance to sing and, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. And we were like, okay, we'll figure it out tomorrow or whatever, whatever, whatever. So they left. And Terry was like, they can't sing this. And so we're like, yeah, we know. I mean, it's not that they couldn't sing, but for this particular song,

the texture that we're trying to do, it didn't fit. So that's when Terry came up with the idea is I'm going to give them a spoken part. Oh, wow. That was the olive branch. That was the olive branch. So we're going to do this. We're going to do the spoken part. But before the olive branch happened, the next day, Phil, the next day Phil came back to the studio.

And everybody was with him, but only he came in the room. And he kind of walks in the room and he has this look on his face. and we said, What's up, Phil? How's it going? He says, good, good. And we said, what's going on? And he goes,

I just have to say that we're against the other girl being on the track. And Terry and I said, huh? And he says, I just have to say we're against that other girl being on the track.

And Terry, he's been a ransom note. They is treating us. Yeah. We all chill it and shit. So we and Terry look at each other, and he says it again. And then we said, oh, oh, okay. You just have to say you're against the girl being on the track. And he says, yes, I have to say.

I mean, we say, we got you. We got you. Don't worry about it. We got it. Because we know what went home. He went home with the girl, you know, to the hotel, and she was in his ear all night or whatever the heck it was. They didn't get smoking mirrors back then? Nope.

Nope. And they was a neat feeling. I would have known, I would have not known any different than, you know. Yeah. So it was very funny. So he did his thing. It's like, okay, Phil, you're off the hook. You told us what you needed to tell us.

What you said you tell. That's great. We came in. We did, you know, Terry showed the girl, Joanne, I think, did the purpose. part. She said, here you go. This is the part you're doing, right? We're done with the song. Songs totally done. I don't know at that point whether they beefed to the record company or whoever it was. And we just said, okay. And we've, I don't think to this, I don't remember us ever doing this on any other project, certainly not to that point. But we just said, here's our

thing. The songs that they brought, that they did, they can mix them however the heck they want to do it, they got it. The songs that we did were mixing exactly the way we want them. And as far as human goes, if we don't get to do it the way we want to do it, we're just taking it off the record. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no.

You really did hit the off button. Hit the outf button. No! But that might have been the only time that that happened. And it was interesting because I've read some articles where Phil has talked about making the record now and he says we puppets and whatever. He has a whole different kind of recollection of it than we do. And, you know, hey,

that's the way, you know, but it's like you hired us to make your record. You had made your record, basically, as demos, and you wanted us to do it our way. So basically, it was like taking what they did and then I would play the parts or I would have them play the parts or whatever it was, but it was just you hired us, we did what you hired us to do. There was no puppet anything to me and that was the only so I can assume that they didn't write I need you 11 oh no no no but did they write the last song the song that closes the record nothing else even matters or love love is all that yeah did they write that no we wrote that

okay yeah so yeah but I was going to say like if you're given the human league and you know their history it's it's very telling that you really brought them to your side of the fence brought them down to our world. As opposed to, because I would have figured that you guys would have been like, all right, now it's,

all right, so Prince's concept with the family was, you know, we'll get some of that Duran Duran money. Right. You didn't think at one point like, yo, now's really time for us to show

cash me outside. All the, all the Middle America, like all the Middle America AM radio said that we've learned, we can now use them as the calling card, but

no because we didn't feel that that that was what they necessarily were I mean they had obviously big records but there was a reason that they had come to us anyway to me even with the big records that they had because I remember fascination was one of my five I mean don't you want me was great but fascination was my record I love that

and so to me the fact that they were coming to us was you're coming to us for a reason and it's not to make AM pop radio it's to make I'm just saying like a song like I need you loving Yeah. You don't think Alex would have

tore the shit out of it too? Oh, of course he would have. Of course he would have. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. But it was fun.

Listen, we played them stuff and they picked the stuff they like. They like that song. They love that record. And we like the idea of doing a record like that on them because it's not the kind of record you would expect, you know, to hear from them. Yeah, I did not expect that at all. Totally did not expect it at all.

Me and Zoe, we covered humans some years back. Like, on the old. on our 80s record. Yeah, y'all did. That's right. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment,

and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Cliverts Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes,

follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands.

I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Ago Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell.

Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about it. which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot.

He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcasts on the IHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.

You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Lesbian and Michael Naranjini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So with, it's weird, though, because it's like, I felt like, I felt like, control was your most important record, but I actually feel like heartbreak was your make-or-break record because what that allowed you to do was really cross the bridge into what young people are into, which, you know, not even, I don't even consider it as like, oh, can Jam & Lewis handle New Jack Swing? but more or less like the standard of it you know what i mean like it i felt like that was a real make-a-break record for you that allowed you to then grab folks that are even younger like did you see that did you even see that as a challenge or was it just like okay well we're just

getting new addition and yeah i think we just thought we just were just do a new addition like It's like in the moment, I don't, it's easy to look back historically and go and, you know, that that was some sort of turning point. I mean, it was the first time that we really, it was probably the first time we really adopted a lot of hip hop into what we were doing, or at least a lot of that kind of sound and a lot of, you know, was it a discussion between you two? Like, okay, now our straight up funk might be dated by 88, 89. and we got to figure out what's going on with New Jack Swing and that sort of thing. What was your impression when you first heard the Guy record

and the Key Sweat record? Love at first to listen. Absolute love. Matter of fact, I remember having a conversation. When the Key Sweat record came out, I remember having a conversation with Babyface about that. We were at a club somewhere. And I remember we were talking about it.

I said, man, you heard this dude Key Sweat? and he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I love that record. I love that record. That record sounds like y'all's record. Because it was, if you think about it to me, the New Jack Swing record, I don't know what the first New Jack Swing record, but the first, for me, one of the first New Jack Swing Records was actually nasty. And the kind of fluty string sound on that,

to me is what I won her was, but they were using, Teddy was using more of... Yeah. But that was that same thing. And I remember we were talking about that, and I remember Facer, it might have been L.A. said, well, you know, Keith's cool, but you know who the real dude on that record

is this kid, Teddy Riley. He's like the dude. And we're like, oh, really? Who's it? Oh, he produced the record. And we were like, oh, shit. Okay, so we went then on a Teddy Riley quest at that point.

And trying to find, you know, other, you know, more records that he had done because it was just still brand new. But that was an amazing record and an amazing album, too. I mean, so yeah, no, we love that. We've always embraced pretty much what's out there. We've never really had the attitude of, I mean, we certainly have things we personally like and don't like, but we've never had the attitude of... You didn't scoff at some of the patches, like some of those like Stanley Brown cheesy saxophone.

Yeah, like, think of the saxophone, like, the greatest love of all. Yeah. Like, you weren't scoffing at some of the patches, like, all right, this is a little amateurish. You know? No, well, I don't think so. Because your patches were always classy, like. You guys always used just presets, though, right? Yeah, I was a big preset guy.

I said in an article a long time ago in Keyboard Magazine that somebody would give me a keyboard, because companies would start, it was at that point where people would just give us keyboards, right? And they go, man, this one's great, man. And the great thing about it is, man, you can really tweak the sounds. And I said, I don't want to tweak sounds.

Somebody's getting paid a bunch of money to put really great sounds in this. I shouldn't have to tweak it. I should go through the presets. And when I go through the presets and I don't come up with a song idea, that keyboard's going back. You know?

So if I get a keyboard like, like, so we're, you know, probably one of my favorite all time was in Sonic, and, you know, in Sonic's funny because En Sonic got no respect as a keyboard company,

a nun, but control, but they were simpler. The horn hits, the horn hits on when I think of you, Marage. The sound on nasty, the gong, gong, going all that,

Mirage. The little flutie sound on nasty, Mirage. The Janet Jackson's signature. Really? Because I was going to ask about that. I was about to ask about that. So I said in an article,

I just mentioned, I said, oh yeah, that's a Mirage. And preset? Like, I could have those noises. Yeah, they're actually floppy disks. Because they're samples. They're floppy disks. DeAngela probably got this. Wait for that. They're not bag. So, I mean, that was the thing.

So that keyboard inspired, there wouldn't be nasty without that sound. Okay, so the keyboard inspired that sound. So I was an Sonic keyboard fan just from that. I remember they sent us a whole bunch of other keyboards, but the one they sent us was this keyboard called, I think it was called an MR-76. And not to skip around, but velvet rope,

90% of that is MR-76 keyboard. The drum loops, all the road sounds, all the... Do you use all the stock stuff? I use all the stock stuff, yes. Because to me... That's crazy! Yeah, but the thing is to me,

is that, and obviously, and I can't diminish it, I mean, I can't, not diminish it, I can't put enough importance on. Steve Hodge mixed it. So Steve Hodge made it sound the best it could sound. But a lot of stuff,

we talked about, let's see, Body That Loves You, we mentioned earlier. I'm trying to think of another song. Anytime, any place, for instance. Part of it is the way that you play the patches.

You know, a sax patch can sound totally cheesy if somebody plays it if they don't play it like a sax player. Like I'll tell you that one, I'll give you one, that's the way love goes. So the guitar part that goes, bing, bink, bink, bink, bing, bing, d...

Right? No, it's an S3. I don't even have a noise for that I'm sorry this is all I got Oh my God Really? Yeah But the way you play it

If you play it like a If you play it like a That's a keyboard Yeah Yeah And so if you So if you play it Like a guitar player

Would play it And see that's where Terry Would come in Because Terry If I did something like that he'd say guitar wouldn't play it like that or bass player wouldn't play it like that

and so he always kept me so whenever I played him a track and I did like guitar my little fake guitar stuff on it if he said oh man who'd you get to play guitar you know you got something I knew I had something so anytime any place is one

where there's it kind of sounds like a jazz guitar this kind of goes blimp blimp blue it sounds like a West Montgomery West Montgomery West Montgomery time of Ronnie I was thinking of Ronnie

he just passed away. Ronnie Foster. No, no, not even Ronnie Foster. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. I know that song. He's from London. Oh. Toby, from Ziriqua?

No. Damn, like, you got us. Ronnie Jordan. Running all. I don't know. Ronnie Jordan from... Keep singing, like here. Don't stop.

Somebody would be looping. He passed away. Yeah, I thought, like, you guys had Ronnie Jordan or somebody to... No, every... Like, on that particular song, if I'm not mistaken, I think every instrument on that song is from the same keyboard, and it's all... It's all...

It's all stock sounds. I'll give you one more like that. If... There's no guitar. on him. Wow. Just think of the opening. That's a shit.

No, this is the guitar. Okay, I can... But the whaling guitar at the beginning. Okay, so you kind of, you mentioned something, which tells me that there's still a level of respect between you two.

But what song have you two done and which it could have gone to humanly confrontational levels. Have you two ever argued? Terry and I? Yes. No. What? No. Have you ever fist fought? No. Not even close. We haven't even raised we've never we've never even raised our voices at each other. At least passive aggressive like we're passive aggressive like poke them in the eye or anything

you step on his foot. Nothing. No, we never have um it's you know it's a it's a a unique relationship because it's over the years it's just kind of evolved into first of all there's we're not joined at the hip there's a thought that we're joined at the hip and we do everything together and I think if we did

there would probably be more of a you know a friction or something that could just happen just because of being in proximity to somebody so much but um we live different lives we have um you know for instance um

um I, you know, well, here's a good example. I do an interview, although Terry's actually under the weather today, but I like talking music and that. And Terry does too, but not to the degree I do, you know. But it's what makes Terry... He'd be out after an hour of this. Yeah, oh, yeah, he would have been, he would have been long gone.

He would have, actually, he would probably enjoy... Well, no, he wouldn't. But he wouldn't. But he would enjoy talking to you. Like if we were at dinner and we were just hanging out and having dinner and talking, you guys would have a great conversation with him. Because he's such an amazing mind. And also talking about his lyrics.

See, the thing is great about lyrics with him is that part of the beauty of a great lyricist is you can say what you need to say in a few words. And I'm very long-winded. And so that's the reason I think I think I'm not necessarily that good of lyrics. I can say what I want to say, but it just takes me too many words to say it. And a perfect example was the Janet record, Living in a World, they didn't make. And we had been watching, it looks like the way CNN looks now pretty much, honestly.

But just all kinds of just craziness in the world and school shootings and just all kinds of stuff. And we just felt like we got to do a song that addresses that. that it's not the kids' fault. It's the world that we've built as adults for the kids, right? What does that song need to be? So we're like, we need Terry, right? Because it was just me and Janet talking about it. And Terry was actually at the time at our, then, our new studio,

putting, you know, we were building it at the time. So Terry walks in the door of our old place, we're still at our old place, he walks in the door with, like, carpet samples and all kinds of stuff. We're like, Jam, what do you think about the carpet sample and the whatever, whatever? No, no, Terry, we need lyrics, man. We need lyrics. He said, okay, what's the concept?

And I said, okay, because, man, these kids, man, parents are making the bad decisions, and the adults are making the bad decisions, and the kids pay for the mistakes that we make, and such and such. And I go into this big, long thing. And Terry, at the end of it just goes, living in the world they didn't make. Walks into the room 10 minutes later, hands Janet the lyrics, and goes, here you go. Wow. So,

damn. Yeah. So that's, and then he goes, no, which carpet? Let's go. Shat.

Yeah. And Terry's a really good multitasker, too, so he could do that. His brain could work like that. But that was a thing.

But because we're not joined at the hip, and we each have things that we do really well, even in picking projects, very much like picking,

you know, what radio show to do, for instance, or a podcast or whatever, whatever the decision is. Sometimes we, if we, neither of us feel it, then it's just a no, you know. If one of us feels it, then it's like, you know, we'll explain to the other why we feel good about it.

And we just kind of know now, you know. I remember, I mentioned your show to Terry, you know, three, four, five months ago and stuff. And I said, you know, we should do Questloaf show, you know, whatever. or whatever, whatever, whatever. You know, what's a show about us? So it's just, it's really good. It's really in depth.

And, you know, it's kind of cool. He said, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, sounds, okay, it's interesting. You know, it's like, you know, there you go, but I love, I love, I love, I love, yeah. Okay, but not I love, I'll do it. I just, I love quest love. Okay, so, cool, okay. So I know that going into it. It's like, okay, cool.

So then I'm like, okay, is that something, but no, I, I really want to do it, and I think it would be interesting to do it would be a great conversation, whatever. Okay, so that's what, but we do projects the same way. And I swear to God, there's, there's people that will swear to God that Terry does all the work and I don't do a thing. What? And there's, and there's people that will swear that I do all the work and Terry doesn't do a thing. I swear to God. I feel like your pen and he's teller.

You're saying, Bob. And I understand. And a speaking way in, yeah. No, no, I think he doesn't work, but because we don't have a game. for his personality that I'm just trying to figure out okay pinnetteller's an interesting analogy I thought you were the lyrics guy because you talked the most of the two right no that's crazy I'm not I'm not I remember one of the songs I actually did a lot of the lyrics on was just be good to me and I remember

thinking the whole time I was writing it this is way too long six minutes yeah I remember that I remember that and and and and I remember remember, it's funny because I also remember, like, Saturday Love, like, I came up with the hook on that. And I was, like, so embarrassed. Like, when I was at my house, and matter of fact, the piano I wrote it on is the piano that's downstairs, which is also the Tinder Love piano, by the way. But I had it in my little apartment, you know, I had my first little apartment stuff. So I had the piano in there, right? So anyway, I write Saturday Love where I have the chords and stuff, and I got the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and I'm jamming. And I'm thinking, oh, man, this is cool.

So I get to the studio and I'm like, Terry, I got this song, man. He said, yeah, yeah, what is it? And I said, it's like the days of the week. It's already sounded stupid now coming out of my mouth. I'll sing it, man. And I said, oh, okay, well, it's like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. And he starts laughing. He says, oh, that's funny.

He says like Sesame Street. I said, yeah, I said, yeah. I said, forget it. Forget it. Forget it. Anyway, he said, no, no, no, no, it's cool. It's cool. I get it.

I get it. I get it. So anyway, we do the song. Here's what we, how much we really didn't think a lot of the song. The first and second lyrics. Zach same. Exact same. Second verse, same is the first.

Oh, wow. Two. Second verse, save is the first. Damn. Oh, wow. Yes. They just sing them different. Why did you freaking say?

It's the same. It's a lazy afternoon. Yeah, well, we just didn't. We don't know how to write hooks. It was like, we got to turn this record in tomorrow. Just repeat it over again. So, yeah, so that was the thing. So that was what we thought of it.

And even when we put it on the aisle, we were kind of like eh yeah and we remember we released I think you look good to me as the first single and you look good to me was doing well and it's moving up the charts and it was everything was doing well and I remember it got to about I don't know 30 or whatever and it just kind of started slowing down told you E and we were like going what the hell's going on and so we called the record company we said what are we what's going on with the record and they say hey man everybody's jumping to this Saturday love cut and I'm like on told you Because I remember, too, the challenge was if you could really get it in the right cadence, like you felt good about yourself. I remember that time when I finally got it. I was like, yes, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, love. Weren't you three when that came out?

It didn't matter. I remember singing it. There was a sense of accomplishment. In nursery school. Speaking of which, I've seen Sherell open up for New Edition once. Yeah. Rick Wren and Dan were like, dog, they were so freaking. charismatic and their own

Yes. How come Rick Ran and Dan were not their own group? They were. Who was Rick Ranan Dan was like Like you remember when Prince had his Jerome and his two bodyguards Like has his pips. Okay.

She had her own pips. Yes. And they was like funky. They were like straight up. Like I wanted them to be a group. They were a group. Wait. Rick Ran and Dan.

They were a group. They were a group. Who recorded them? Well, we started recording them. You produced a song for Rick Rand and Dan. Yes. But, tragically, Randy died in a motorcycle accident. He was Sherell's husband, right?

Sherell's, I don't think they were married, but certainly her boyfriend. Yeah. Yeah, Randy Randi Rand. Oh, Randy, who wrote, That's Been a Night for Johnny Gil. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so he would, so. How do you know that?

Yeah. One of my favorite albums. I love that album, man. He said, that's my job. I'm supposed to know. That's why I'm here. That's why I got the redhead phone. No, but Randy was amazing.

And I remember Shirel introduced us to him. And she said, yeah, I want you to meet my boyfriend. This is Randy. And he's got this group, Rick Rand and Dan. And whatever, whatever. And we said, okay, cool. We'll check him out. We'll check him out.

And then so when we did you look good to me, we put him in the video. We put Rick Randen down in the video of You Look Good to Me And the plan was that yeah We were going to make a record with them Like that was the next thing we were going to do They were the first cats ever seen do the snake Yeah, that's right That's right

The first time I've seen that Seymour and Soul Training We all started doing this shit No they were they were crazy talented As a group And but Randy as a writer and producer He did a lot of songs He did, I'm trying to think.

I'm totally blanking, but he produced a lot of, a lot of songs for us back in the day. He was very, very talented, super nice dude. But he got a motorcycle, man. He just was, you know, and just a motorcycle accident. Yeah. I want to ask you about perspective records and, like, how did, when you guys first started, was Sounds of Blackness your very first act? Yes, yes.

That was the very first. Very first act. And sounds of blackness was the story with them was, all 40 of them signed that contract. I was wondering about that script. $150 a week? Yeah, that's right. See how optimistic y'all lot now.

You know, the ironic thing about that statement, though, which is very true. It's one of the reasons that we never, criticize Prince's decision because, you know, it's kind of like it's tough to criticize the boss if you've never been a boss. And so we didn't agree with a lot of things that Prince did, but we were in the position we were in because of the things he did do, or whatever those decisions were, we looked at where we were at and realized we wouldn't have been there without those decisions, even the decision to kick us out the group, which was the best

decision he could have made for us because we wouldn't have left a group on our own. It was like, no, we love being with the group. So you never knows. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It was that, you know, sounds of blackness like, that's an expensive group to get around. And we, and we dug in our pocket to do it because we believed in what it was. Janet was actually, we took Janet to a show when we were working on Rhythm Nation. And we took her to a show. And the whole show, she was nudging me because the whole thing about Sons of Blackness

it was all celebrated all the different kinds of black music. It wasn't just, it was gospel, but it was jazz. It was blues.

It was everything. And every time they'd launch into a different thing, she'd nudge me and go, oh, they're doing a jazz song. Oh, they're doing a gospel song. Oh, and it was like,

yeah, Janet, that's what they do. Like, we knew them because we would play like on the same gigs as them as flight time. We would play like... They were around that long?

Yeah, oh, they were around. Their first album was in the 70s. Yeah. What? That's right. Yeah.

Same members? Same members. Same director. And Nesby. Gary Hines. Yeah. The guy. With a nice fro.

Yep. They were like guys. It's kind of like Lady Smith Black Mombazo. Like they were. Yeah, exactly. So they were around forever. So when we started the label. And so Janet said, she said, wow, you should sign them.

And we thought, yeah, we should. That's a good idea. We should sign him. And so I remember we talked to Gary after that show and we said, you know, we want to make a record with you guys. We're starting a label. And our theory was real simple to me, which was we wanted to build a big, tall building.

But in order to build a big tall building, you've got to dig a foundation. And Sounds of Blackness was our foundation. And Terry would always say, you know, sometimes you've got to give people not what they want, but what they need. And they don't know they need it until they hear it. And then they go, oh, man, I needed this.

We needed that. Yes. And that's what Sounds of Blackness was. Now, it was funny because, you know, the business always comes into it. So we were at A&M records, and I remember A&M was still Herb, Albert, and Jerry Moss, the original two A&M guys, right? And I remember doing the record. And I remember the A&M, the guys that were kind of running at the time, they said, we had them, I think Sounds of Blackness was in. I want to say Philadelphia.

I want to say for like a conference or something, maybe I am or something. Oh, yeah, I am. Okay. So we had them there for the conference. So we said, and it wasn't the whole group. We had a touring group. Okay, we had a touring group of 20. So we said, we want to take them to New York and, you know, take them to some radio and do some stuff.

Optimistic had just come out as a single. And they were like, oh, you don't have a budget for it. There's no budget for that. And we're like, well, we're already in Philadelphia. I'm just like, let's just go up to New York. No, there's no budget for it. So we're like, okay. So we just went in our pockets and just said, here, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to go to New York. And at the time, I can't remember. I think Frankie might have still been to BLS at the time. I can't remember, right? And we just called the radio stations. It's like, hey, it's Jammin, Louisa. Can we bring them group by? And everybody was like, yeah, yeah, bring them by.

And we'd bring them to the station, and they'd sing and blow everybody away. And then we'd be like, we think we'd be there for 15 minutes. We'd be on there for two hours, right? So we'd leave the station, the phones would all be lighting up and stuff. And then we'd go to, like, what Sylvia's, I think was the place back then, right? So we'd go to Silvias and we'd eat, you know, we'd feed everybody. But then they'd treat everybody to a show. The chefs, we'd have the chefs and everybody come out and stuff.

And, right? So when we left New York and went back to L.A., well, to Minneapolis, actually, not to L.A. And when we went back to Minneapolis, the next week the record got to, like, I don't know, on both, whatever the two outlets were at the time, were both like 60, 70 spins a week, like huge. And they're all going, you know, all the marketing, all the people that, they're going, what happened with this? What's going on with this sounds of blackness record? And I said, well, we took them to New York. Like we said, and, you know, they have that kind of impact.

We just need to get them out. So I remember Herb called me And he said He said hey Jam, it's Herb And I said, oh Herb I said, great news man I said we're number one most added The Sounds of Blackness record

And we're this and that You know we got this many spins And we got whatever whatever And Herb says I didn't call to hear that bullshit He said I called to tell you that I am so proud to be associated with this record

and you guys that you brought this gift to us at A&M Records and I was like, wow I said, okay, thanks man. He said, that's it. So I called so I called his girl,

his assistant, who is still his assistant to this day. And I said, yeah, I just got a call from her about the record. Is he there? I just, I forgot I was going to say something to him. And she said, well, you know, it's the funniest thing. You know, he drove into work.

And I kept thinking, why isn't he coming in? Like, he's just sitting in his car. And he was just listening to it. And then she said, and then when he came in, I could tell he had been crying. Whoa, right? And I was like, wow. I said, okay. I said, okay, well, thanks.

Don't bother him, you know. It's all good. We spoke already, whatever. She said, okay. But the fact that that record had that impact on him, it said so much about, to me, that we were doing the right thing, but also that we were with the right partners who understood what it was we were trying to do in our vision of what we wanted to do and what we wanted the record company to be. Unfortunately, Polygram came in and bought him out, cast them out for, I don't know, $300 million or whatever the heck it was, and what I call the new A&M, which was Alcafaro and Milt Olin, came in.

And honestly, Milt was just a numbers guy, business affairs guys, and everything was about how much something cost or whatever. And Al, bless his heart, was just a, he inherited us. And he looked at our deal and saw that our deal was against his bottom line, because our deal was a huge, huge deal. Because Herb and Jerry were like, at first they said, we can't afford you. But then when they knew the polygram money was coming, they called and said, we can afford you now. Right?

So it was cool. But it never was the same. Right down to the Grammys. I remember that year at the Grammys, A&M had, they were in New York that year. And I remember A&M had, I think, the police or Sting or whatever, and show Crow. And they had all these records that were up for awards. The only one that won a Grammy that night was Sounds of Blas. And I remember running into Milt Olin in the elevator, or no, coming down the stairs somewhere.

And I said, hey, Milt. I said, great night, huh? And he said, yeah, yeah, great for you guys. And I said, what do you mean great for you? And he said, oh, great, well, it's great for you. Yeah, you guys won. And I said, well, we won. I thought we're partners.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And I thought, man, I thought, okay. So here's what we're at now. We're from her calling me crying to this. And it was doomed.

It was doomed. I mean, the records that were successful were successful despite, you know, the folks that were there. That's what as a Christmas record? Duh. The sounds of blackness. We did this. Yeah, sole holiday.

I mean, but once again, it's, I mean, it was like all the things that we wanted to do. We just did them. Is this why she went to virgin? Who? Janet. Janet. No, because this was,

after that. This was, this was, see we're talking, Janet went to virgin in 93. Sounds of blackness were 901. 91. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, but that was part of the problem is because we got asked why, when we brought sounds of blackness, the question we were asked, not by Herb and Jerry, who Herb obviously loved what we brought, right? But the Al Kaffaral-Mil-Olin regime ask we gave you all this money why didn't you bring us another Janet Jackson

record? Or bring us an act like Janet Jackson and it's like well because we have a plan of what we're going to do we're going to build that I mean just watch what we do just let us do our thing we know what we're doing or at least we think we do

but we're going to create some great records for you and so we did the we did the sounds of blackness record we follow that up with the mid-condition record The very first one. The very first one. Yeah, meant to be meant. So Al listened to that record said, there's no hits on this record.

We said, wow. Okay. So we said, okay. So Sheila Eldridge, who you guys probably know. So Sheila, we went to Sheila, and we said, Sheila, what can we do to drum up some support for, we got this single coming out, pretty brown eyes, whatever, or breaking my heart? And she said, oh, let's do a, let's go to the colleges in the D.C. area and stuff.

and we'll do like a video contest and whoever comes up with the best video. You remember that? Yes, and it was a Howard girl. Yes. The Howard girl won. Yes, but not for the second single for... It was for...

It was for... Ever in your eyes. Yep. So that was the concept. So Terry went out with him in like a Winnebago. Like, he was staying at like hotels that didn't have fax machines.

Didn't even have fax machine at the hotel. I'm like, hey man, can I send a fax to you, Terry? I ain't know facts of this... This Roach Hotel. Yeah, you know. So it was like one of those kinds of things. things. So all of a sudden, I remember we're sitting in a marketing meeting and, you know, everybody's sitting around the table and everybody's talking about, you know, you name whatever

indie white act you could, sold 100 copies somewhere. Oh, we sold 100 copies in Des Moines. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And then we got sticks and stones over here and they sold 50 copies in, you know, Minot, North Dakota. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that's great. What do you guys got? Into the meeting.

What do you guys got? And we said, okay, well, we have, and the guy goes, oh, my God. You guys got 75 spins at the pop station in D.C. What is this song? Who is this group?

We're like, oh, yeah, men condition. Oh, my God, this record is like, how'd that happen? And I said, well, Terry got in a Winnebago and we did a video contest and they were like, oh my God. And the next thing you know

we had a top five pop record on the album with no hits. Literally, we had to prove ourselves over and over and over. No matter what we did, we came out with a low-key record next, straight to number one on the R&B charts.

That's the I got a thing for you. I got a thing for you. You know something? Now that you've been, you know, mention it. Do you remember the first time we met? No. Oh, yes. At college. At that college. Yes. Addoor stage thing. Yes. Yes. Yes. I do remember. With, what was their name? India? A little red boot. Yes. Angel Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel. That's right. Yeah. I forgot that you guys. And that's a thing. When someone, when the college promoters said, hey, Jimmy Jammer and Terry Lewis out there, they want to know if they can open for you guys real quick. And we Like almost lost it like, who?

That's funny. It's like Jimmy Jammer and Terry Lewis want to open for us? Like we totally didn't get the context that it was in. And I was just mind-blowing that you guys were that accessible. You were like our idols freaking promoting with your artists. Like I'd never seen such a thing where it's like, you know. We were always big believers in that though. Because even when we knew that perspective,

we knew we were done in perspective. Our deal was almost up. How was the deal? Was it like for a number of albums that tried to put out? No, it was just a number of years, and it kind of changed as it happened, because when we first started, we went in just, it was a joint venture.

And we went in and we basically were going to just release, you know, three records a year or whatever. That then turned in, they were shutting the whole black music department down of A&M. There was a whole thing where a lot of the company started just losing the black music department. So what they said to us is, why don't you guys

just take over the black music department, which was great, because we inherited the Barry White record, which nobody thought was a hit. And, yeah, with practice what you preach and all that stuff, right? And they said, oh, that's not a hit. And we took it over. And a funny thing was, we took the record over, but then when a record went

number one, yeah, it was A&M. Oh, A&M, yeah, we did it. I didn't know that. And we're going, okay, well, we actually championed and worked that song. But okay, anyway, so as we got toward the end of the deal, we had this group called Solo. Yeah, I was about asking.

Discovered them on a street corner in New York. Actually, fell in love with them, made the record. And that was the only record, probably I would say on A&M, that they really, I remember Alcafaro coming to town and saying, we want you guys to stay, and we're going to show you what we can do with this solo record. And I think we ended up doing like 800,000 units on that record. So it was a very successful record.

They actually got us, our only time ever working with Hype Williams. We actually got a real video budget and, you know, all of those things. But what we knew we were leaving. So our whole thing was we had an Ann Nesby record, and we had the Mitt record with, what kind of man would I be? Definition of a band. Definition of a band. Yeah, definition of the band.

So we had those records, and we wanted to make sure that when we left, those records were set up as good as possible. Like, we can get you to the goal line. You guys got to get it over because we're not going to be there, but we're going to get it as far as we possibly can. And I remember we wanted to go visit the branches, right? Because, you know, there's people that are working in these branches, because this is still in the physical distribution, right? So you're taking records to stores. You're doing this, right? Our whole thing was, man, let's go visit these people.

and we'll take mid-conditioned with us and we'll take Ann Nesby with us. And that's important? It was the most important thing. They didn't think it was important. We thought it's important. So once again, we financed it ourselves. We just did it ourselves. So what we did is we went, we called the branches.

The branches were like, what do you mean you want to bring them by? So we just want to bring them by? Like, what time do you guys do lunch? You guys have like a lunch hour or something? You have like a lunchroom or something? And they're like, yeah. And I said, okay, we're coming. So the employees would all be in there eating lunch.

We'd all bust in. we go, hey, we're jamming Lewis and whatever, and everybody go, oh, shit, right? Y'all must have started a trend because other artists started doing that at distributions. Of course they did. Of course they did. Oh, yeah, we did. I'm like, yeah, I think we did it too.

It's important, though. It's to me, it's important. It's like, because how did you know that was important? Because it was, we were getting to the age of, it was fax machines, the beginning of the internet was happening. The idea, cell phones were beginning to happen. It was kind of the idea that you didn't, you know, two-way pagers,

it was the idea of personalization was out of it you know where you weren't really spending personal time with people and to me that was getting lost plus there was kind of this thing where the stars were here but the people really in the trenches that were doing the work were getting no respect and as people that we always felt we started in the trenches I mean I'm the guy remember at a beginning of our thing I'm at the record store telling the guy

order a thousand of these and we can I'm putting out my little playlist thing and I'm doing I mean that was my thing and Terry the same way we were like entrepreneurs we were like no no no no we got it's about the personal interaction where if I tell somebody this record's going to be a great record they trust me because I'm looking in the eye and I'm saying this so if we actually bring the talent to them when they're out there fussing with an account about you know well we can only stock this many of them and you've actually met the They're going to remember me. Yeah.

It's like, no, no, no. We met these people. They actually came. And what we would do is we'd visit the branch during the day. And then at night, we would rent a club out, and we'd have everybody come to the club. And we'd invite, you know, we'd say bring your people, right? And then we'd do, like, a full-on performance. And we went to, like, about six or seven branches, and we did that.

And I remember the day or the week we left, I remember what kind of man would I be? Was it number two? It was already set to go number one. We already had the spins. We knew we were sat there. Anne's record, I can't remember where we were at with Anne, but she was getting ready to go top ten urban. Like, she was there, so we were good.

And I remember we left, and I remember the next week when what kind of man would I be with number one. I remember they called Mint, because Stokely told me, and they said, see what we can do now the Jam and Lewis are out the way? Wow. So, and we laughed and we were like, because I mean if they were out of our studio, we were laughing. And I said, okay, I said, well, just remember we were in the Winnebago with you. So just remember that. When it came time to do their next video, they told them there was no budget for it.

And they called us right up and they said, they just told us there's no budget for the video. I said, oh yeah, they used to tell us that all the time. They said, well, our videos got made. And I said, yeah, because we took the money out of our pocket of major videos. You know. So that's what we dealt with. And, you know, can I ask, though? Sure.

So we did an episode with Babyface, and he explained that the only way for LaFace to really be successful was that those two had to separate. And, you know, Antonio stopped producing and become full-time CEO of the label. Yeah. Was there at any point where you thought, okay, I'ma handle all the music or you handle all the music and I'm going to go be Barry Gordy or declarant. Yeah. President.

Never. Yeah. Never because that would have been Terry. Terry would have been the Barry Gordy and he didn't want to do it. He liked doing music too much. He has the business mind and all of that to do it. And he would sit on the marketing calls and sit on the promotion calls. great because we learned, I mean, when we inherited the music department, we learned every

facet of the record company business, which was fantastic. That was great. But we talked about it. It was about one of the shortest conversations we probably ever had. And it's like, Terry, would you ever think that you would want to do it? That was basically it. I mean, literally, that was basically the conversation because he had no, he had no interest in doing that. He loved making music too much. And so, no, we never really had that conversation. And talking about perspective, the thing I remember, too, that I always felt very proud of. And this includes L.A. to this day, when L.A. talks about, because FACE was very successful, label.

But L.A. to this day says to me, like, man, y'all were like the label that everybody wanted to be, because y'all had sounds of blackness. Like you had like a real group that meant something and you had, you know, mid-conditioned like a real band, like the last real band that was out there. And I remember that other companies would call for our stuff. Like our promotion people and that, you know, would be like, hey, can you send me such and such and such and we go,

who's that? Oh, that's so-and-so over at Atlantic or that's so-and-so over or whatever. Like the other labels had more respect for our product than our own. Than our own label. Yeah, than our own label. Yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, it was a crazy time.

And, you know, but it's, you know, it's about partnership. You know, there's a reason me and Terry get along and we've been together for, I've known Terry for 45 years. And there's a reason why. There's also a reason why a partnership with Herb and Jerry would have been great. we had a potential partnership that we thought we were going to have with Doug Morris and then Doug Morris got kicked way upstairs at Universal. But Doug Morris used to be like somebody we really vibed with.

He had a piano in his office. He was a great music guy. He's a music guy? Yes. Yes. I didn't know he was. Yeah, no, he was. And that was the great, that was cool.

And back when we mentioned a little red boat and when you talk about Angel Grant, that was when we did the label with, with Universal, that was the whole thing. That was Doug Morris' thing. And Doug loved Angel Grant. And he said, I love this girl. I really get it. This is going to be great.

And he would fly. When he was flying from L.A. to New York, he'd stopped through Minneapolis along the way, listened to the sessions, that kind of thing. So he was into it. Around the time the record came out, he got kicked way upstairs to the head. Because his whole thing was,

Universal was just a little boutique label. And his whole thing, was I'm going to show people how to make a label. This is how you're going to do a label. And so we were part of that kind of master plan that he had. So when that happened, all of a sudden now we're dealing once again with the business affairs guy. Monty, Liffman? No, it wasn't Monty.

He was like the attorney and stuff. He, like, ran stuff for a while. And it was super nice guy, but just no offense, he just wasn't the music guy. Like, we got into it to be with another music guy, and that didn't happen. So, you know, it's just trying to, it's, it's all about the partnerships and, and, and the relationships at the end of the day. It doesn't really matter what the label is. If it's the right people in there, it's anywhere is a great home. If it's the right people.

But sometimes it's just not. And then you find yourself, you know, you're just, you're just spinning your wheels, basically, because you're working really hard on something that you really believe in. But if the people aren't believing it with you, then nothing's going to happen with it. It doesn't really matter who you are. And that's it for part two of our conversation with Jimmy Jam. Thank you for tuning in, guys. Join us next week for the third and final installment in Questlove Supreme Flight Time Trilogy with Jimmy Jam.

Quest Love Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from IHeart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying.

Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast. Network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl,

Eric Galko, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make, to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear

anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slice of Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Ellen's, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of

internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.