The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Alan Leeds (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Music executive, producer and award-winning writer Alan Leeds talks about his life and what it was like managing tours for artists like James Brown, Prince, KISS and Chris Rock. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. The following program contains language that some listeners may find offensive. Listener discretion is advised. Ah, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Questlove Supreme Archives. This is the Alan Leeds episode. I believe that Allen was definitely in one of our first 10 episodes.

The Team Supreme made a pilgrimage to Minnesota to talk to the revolution. And we figured since Alan Leeds was there, we'd knock off two for one. And of course, it was an education. We did sort of a sequel to that episode. We did it in two locations at Electric Lady Studios in New York with a special appearance by one Michael Eugene DeAngelo Archer, who infamously gave us the shortest response ever. It's more R&B. Anyway, this is the very classic, edjimicational, Alan Leeds, giving you the 411, the science of his life. as a tour manager on Quetzlof Supreme Archives.

Yeah. Quest Love Supreme. Yeah. We're taking over. Roll call. Suprema. Suprema, sub, sub, sub, supremer, roll call. Suprema, sub, sub, sub, suprema, roll call. My name is Steve.

Yeah. And we and many. Yeah. I got the sugars. Yeah. Even though I'm skinny. Roll call. So, Supremma, Submina, Roca.

Ceprema, Submina, Roca. I'm unpaid. Yeah. I can't complain. Yeah. The weather's right. Yeah. For purple rain.

Roll call. Yeah. Supra. Supraima roll call. Supremma, sub, sub, sub, suprema roll call. False bills the name. Yeah. Need to stay in my lane.

Yeah. Because I can't write rhymes. Yeah. And that's a real damn shame. Rocah. Supremma, Submraima, Roca.

Supriva, Supraima, Supraima. So happy to see ya. Yeah. Don't tell Alan Leeds. Yeah. Sometimes I believe her.

Roll call. Surrema. What's your name? I'm a believer. Sometimes. He got some of this song. My name is Apple. Yeah.

Yeah. Roll call. Hey, Al. Suprema. Subrema. Subrema. Role call. Perfect.

Supreme. So, Subrema. Supremma. Supreme. And gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. How y'all doing? Good, man.

Road trip. Yeah, road trip. This is amazing. Road trip. Ladies and gentlemen, we are still on our road trip thing up here in uptown, Minniewood, Minnesota. We are very extremely, extremely honored to have a guest. that I know is personally tired of me bragging about his life and his achievements.

But I, you know. No, his real life is life goals. Yeah, it is, it's serious life goals. I mean, I'll say that it's, it's he's tired of. No, well, it's just to me, the most interesting part of the car. I mean, people might see the car and see the flash, but I, love engines. I love to see... What drives it? Yes, I love to see how it works. And this, this, I mean, name it. Alan Leeds has been there for peak James Brown, not just like, oh, I remember James

Brown the Blues Brothers or that, no, mustache. Like, yeah, like, even before Mustad. Like, this is, you know, he handed him the poster that has the sex machine lyrics on it for James Brown, for Peak Prime Prince for Kiss for Maxwell for DeAngelo for Chris Rock for Raphael Sadeek

for me for you ladies and gentlemen please give it up for Alan Leeds and I'm still waiting for my first record to come out Yeah Alan

Like you you know I know it makes people cringe whenever I try to like overdo it with the with the mushy accolades. So I'll try and do less of that. But, and I know you hate that more than anything. But only publicly.

At home, I play the tapes over and over. See, this is me. You're that? Well, you know, well, I guess if we are cut from the same cloth is the fact that you know the value in what history will bring, or you least have the neck to know that this might be an historical moment. So I'm one of those sentimental pack rats that never throws anything away just in case it'll have historical value at the end. And I'll say like being at your house, there's so many artifacts and so much history in it. But I kind of want to go back to the beginning. You were born in Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania, correct? No, New York. You were born in New York? Yeah. Wow, all these New York surprises. Where were you born in New York? Jackson Heights, Queens. Wow.

I thought I knew everything about you last. See? Wow, I didn't know. So what was your childhood like? Because the journey, what makes Alan Leeds very distinctive amongst

any human being that I've known is that your role in black entertainment's journey and the fact that you i mean a person's lucky to catch one maverick in their life you've caught six of them and peak moments not just like at the at the like you from the beginning of an experiment to seeing it at its climax and at it in a historical note so what was your entry into music period like did you come from a musical family? I came from a music business family kind of indirectly.

I had an uncle who played saxophone in the orchestra that backed Perry Como on TV. I had another uncle who was program director of 10-10 wins in New York when they were the rock and roll station. Ten-ten wins? He pretty much invented the top 44 men. And he had Alan Freed, Murray the K, all these legendary disc jockeys on his station. and I would go out there and I met these guys and get tons of free records. So as a kid, my childhood was really about baseball and records.

And I also had an aunt who worked for a publishing company. Amongst her clients was a young Quincy Jones. Okay. So, you know, I had these people in the extended family that were very much in the business. My mom and dad were not, but they were music fans. So free records was just, that was your interest. the thing. I was a very popular kid once we hit teenage and everybody wanted records because I had them. Would you DJ socks and these things? No, no. I wasn't that interested in sharing them because usually I didn't like the records they liked.

So what were your contemporaries listening to at the time? They were listening to Elvis and Ricky Nelson and whatever was on top 40 radio. And what were you into? He was Smith and the clowns and the coasters and Chuck Berry and Little Richard. So you were the hip guy, the hip white guy that knew what was going on in juke joints. Yeah, well, I mean, I didn't know about juke joints yet. I just knew that in these boxes of records that my uncle would send me, there were always these, you know, there were all the pop records. They were on the boring-looking labels I call it me in RCA and Capital and Deca. And they just looked like, you know, I already had an anti-establishment attitude about age five.

I don't know where it came about. But it was like, these are some boring-ass labels. But then there's this label that's got yellow and black stripes, and it's called Specialty Records. And that was Little Richard. Right. And Tootie Frudy did not sound like any of that other stuff. The first little Richard record, this is actually a funny story,

the first Little Richard record I heard was Long Taw Sally, which was his second hit single. Right. And I heard it on an Alan Freed radio show, and I went ballistic, like, what the hell is this? I got to have this record. And I remember telling my mother that I had to have an advance of my allowance so I could go to the store and buy this 45 that I'd heard on the radio. And she's like, what is it? Is it a new Nat King Cole record or something?

I was like, yeah, that quite. Right, right, right. Now, mind you, let's see, 56, I'm nine years old. So she took me to the record. story. She says, I've never seen you so enthusiastic about something, so she's dying to see what this is. So we bring the record home, I put it on and play it.

And she just has this steering the headlights, look, that wasn't negative or positive, it was just, what the hell is this? And I remember saying to her, because she never let me forget it, Ma, isn't it pretty? Wow.

Now, you know, I've heard that record a million times since, and I'm not sure the only thing that is an I can think that I would have thought was pretty was the malism in the singing style because it's a screamer. I mean, it's not like it's a ballad. So to use the word pretty to describe

long time, sound like a little richard is pretty much a stretch. But there was something in it that struck me. Yeah, I was going to say, what spoke to you that the battle Davy Crockett or, you know... Well, I mean, I watched that, but the music was corny. And you knew even at nine. I don't understand me.

I like that King Cole. I also had, and you know, I get to be very careful about this because it's not politically correct. But I had an obsession with black culture, and I have no idea where that came from. You know, I would watch it and watch the same TV that everybody else watched, which was very limited then. You know, once Dick Clark had an American bandstand, at least there was something different. But, you know, other than that, it was variety shows with very little R&B, a rock and roll. And I enjoyed Nat King, but I always went to the black artists.

I loved Louis Armstrong. I love Count Basie. I love Nat King Cole. Sinatra, I ignored. My father, like Sinatra. It was played in the house. It was like, yeah, that's okay, but I didn't pay any attention at all. Did it read as more authentic to you or just?

I suppose. Were you into the blues records as well? well? Eventually, not yet because I hadn't been exposed to it. Okay. But once I started actually taking books out of the library to read about the history of black music and heard about people like Lightning Hopkins and Howlin Wolfe, and of course I had to go check those out. But that came later. That came in my teens where I was beginning to actually understand that there's genres and there's tastes and there's the music

comes from somewhere and represents something. But as a little kid listening nine years old, You don't know all that. It's no, there's no cultural aspect to it. You just heard something and you either liked it or you didn't. So, no, I mean, I like white rock and roll too. I like Bill Haley in the comments. But basically because I hadn't heard Joe Turner's original of those songs. Okay.

You know, that's what was on radio. So did, can I assume that the trickle-down effect also affected your little brother, Eric, we should know Eric is a saxophone, God in his own right, played with James Brown, Prince, of course, his own projects. So are your music taste now affecting him as well? Yeah, I think inevitably, not so much because it was about me and my taste, but just because when you have two brothers in a house and one's five years younger, older brother who's opening a lot of doors and whatever doors will, you know, if I'd have been into country music,

he might have been attracted to that. I think it was just circumstantial at first, because this is what he heard me playing. And it's older brother. And when you're five and your brother's 10, you look up to your older brother. So when you... That changes later. Now, in your teen years, because I know that you, you did stints on, on radio and whatnot, like, what was your entry into this is the business. There's really two answers. The first time I knew I wanted to be in the... I mean, I did use the DJ at home.

I had a turntable and a really, really primitive walkie-talkie system and ran the court across the hall to my brother's bedroom, and I would DJ for him. And, you know, actually talk shit, had my own top 40 list that I typed up every Friday. from my imaginary radio station. Nobody heard but my brother. So that was practice,

but that was just because all I wanted to do when I got home from school was play these records. Somebody had to hear it, because it was pretty stupid talking to myself, so he became the sucker that was the guinea pig audience because you had to have one who you felt dumb. But I went to the first R&B show that I saw was in 1962, so I would have been 15 years old.

What show was it? And it was Fats Domino. It was the impressions. Curtis Mayfield, it was still the impressions, the original gypsy woman that just come out. So it was very, very early in the impressions. I don't honestly remember who else was on the show. I could look it up, but it doesn't matter.

But I'll tell you what was on the show. was five dancers called the Twisting Parkettes. And I later learned that there was a choreographer in New York, Lou Parks, a woman who became quite famous for choreographing popular dance in black music circles, and these were some of her protégés. So they were the twisting parquettes, and this is back in the ear when the twist was a big deal. But as a 15-year-old, looking at these five sisters, and they had short little skirts, and there was nothing nasty about it at all,

compared to today, they were conservative. But at the time, that shit was hot. And I sat there. I don't remember anything about Fats Domino's set because I was sitting there daydreaming. How do you get on the bus? These girls ride a bus every night. And how do you get on that bus

so you can hang with them? Bus driver. Yes. I thought a little bigger than that. But, you know, there was an MC, and I said, maybe that's the ticket. Because, you know, I don't sing. I don't play. Probably should have been a musician, but I never had the patience to learn the instrument.

I took drums for two weeks, and the teacher got mad at me for tapping my foot to keep time. If he would have explained... How dare you use your thing to keep time? But, I mean, you know, if he had explained that you need independence to play high hats and bass drums and you shouldn't, you don't want to have the habit of patting your foot. I would, I think I would have understood that. But he didn't say a word except just slap my knee and tell me to stop. So the anti-authority in me lashed out and said, the hell we're too.

Plus, we were on practice pads. It was the second week. Yeah, no one ever. Trust me, I didn't test the drum still like three years into it. Yeah, yeah. And that was no fun. So my drumming career consisted of turning over to waste baskets at home and creating his set and playing Lone to record.

And I had good time. I was about to say, I never asked you. Why didn't you actually choose music? Because as virtuoso as your brother is, I would imagine that you could have also been a virtuoso musician. I'm usually pretty humble, but I probably would have been, I probably could have played my ass off if I, It stuck to something.

Wow. But I never fell in love with the instrument. Drums were easy because it was physical. It wasn't melodic. Didn't have to learn music, you know, chords and so on. I was lazy, really. I just didn't have the commitment or the self-discipline to put into learning how to play an instrument properly.

And honestly, I think that's it. It was just lazy. him like self-discipline. That's weird, because you're the most organized person I know. Now. We are here with the great Alan Leeds here on Questlove Supreme. I guess you're foray into what I knew you for, which is tour managing. Can I safely assume that starts with James Brown, or did you, or is that you jumped

from DJing to promoting your own shows. Well, I did a little promoting because myself and another couple of younger DJs at the station, I mean, the station basically advertised and or promoted all the R&B shows that came through Richmond, which were a lot. At that time, there were three or four clubs that had shows every weekend. There were concert halls that had concerts on an average once or twice a month. So it was a really busy scene. Anybody who played Washington and was headed south,

came through Richmond. So, you know, the Otis Reddings, the Sam Cucks, the Jackie Wilsons, the drifters, you know, all the classic soul artists came through town at least two to three, and sometimes four times a year. Okay. So are you saying that it was just they happened to stop through or was it like today things are planned? Like, you know. No, they were both these were legitimate businesses. There were clubs and promoters and concert promoters and these were real shows. Okay.

But understand something, too, because artists didn't tour back then. They worked. And they worked as many weeks out of the year as their success on records allowed them to work. Because it wasn't, like, it wasn't huge money. And they weren't playing arenas. They were playing dance halls. I mean, we did a James Brown show in an aluminum barn at the fairgrounds. In the wintertime with no heat, the band played the warm-up set with their coats on.

Really? And still had like 3,000. and people there, go figure. And when you say work, do you mean like they work just like regular jobs? Like they had, you know, you say they didn't tour, they worked. No, I'm using work as, you know, metaphorically.

But they didn't think of it as touring. Like, even when I joined James in 69, we didn't say, oh, hey, it's time to go on tour. It's like the show was on the road 51 weeks out of the year. Yeah, because tour insinuates that you're going to stop. You got to stop. Exactly. Exactly.

And like, it's, it's, you know, you got a new. albums of your tour. Well, it wasn't about albums. It was about singles. And there was a new single every three months or so. And the idea was this is what you did for a living. You got your station wagon or a bus, and depending on the level of success you had, you went all over the country. Whoever would hire you and pay you to play, you showed up and played. And hopefully, you worked 52 weeks out of the year because that's how you supported yourself. So since James Brown's situation wasn't the average situation in R&B. Right.

I mean, I know that everyone has a level of what they call the Chitlin circuit. Well, I guess back then, the main houses were what the Regal and Chicago. Well, there was a theater circuit in the major cities. There was the Howard and Washington. Riggle in Chicago, uptown in Philly, Royal in Baltimore, and, of course, the Apollo in New York. and there were a couple of theaters in Detroit that did show several times a year. Like the state theater?

Was that still? The state in Philly? No, the state theater in Detroit. It was usually the Fox. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So, and then in between, then you would go to the smaller markets and it was sort of like up in the air. Yeah, whoever would have you.

Or the aluminum barn. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, you might play a tobacco warehouse. You might play a fairgrounds, arena of some kind basketball arena, small theater, big club, dance halls. Well, okay, since James

Brown's situation is quite different, I would like you to, could you explain to us what the average conditions of a chitlin circuit date would

consist of? I mean, just in terms of well, I ask that because like, okay, so, you know, when we first started, there was such a thing as a rider. Like, put, I could put Captain Crunch cereal and have it every night. I could have Dr. Bonner's peppermint soap. Like, you know, but obviously the glamour writer thing was obviously the thing that was started in the 70s and the 80s. But in the 60s, if you are, let's say you're Johnny Taylor and you have kind of a hot record that's that's that's that's cooking a little bit.

I mean, what is the average scenario for you? Are you traveling by yourself? Do you have an entourage? Do you have your musicians with you? It depends entirely on. There's no set rule. The idea was you get a hit record to get you out there. Your first hit actually gets you out there because everybody wants to see who has a new hit on radio.

And the first time out, you're probably making $500 a night. This is like mid-60s. Is that good? No, it couldn't be good. Okay. But, you know, you... No, I don't know if the 60s level, like, was that okay money? No, I mean, you might make less, actually.

If you're a support act, you might make $300 a night. And when you figure that you've got to pay for hotels and gas for the station wagon and whoever you've got on the road, you've got to pay them, no. Even $10 a night in a hotel. It still adds up. Everything's relative. But the point being, once you had two or three hits, then the goal was, the first goal was to have a rhythm section of your own.

So some of these artists would have to go to town to town. Let's take an example. Let's say the impressions. Curtis Mayfield's impressions. They had a hit Gypsy Woman, and they toured behind that. Curtis played guitar, so they didn't need a guitarist. and they used whatever band was on the show. If it was a theater like the Apollo,

there'd be a house band. If it was a club, it would be like if they were in Richmond in my town, there'd be a local band that would be told to learn the impressing songs. They'd come in in the afternoon. They'd do a quick what you would call a sound check. They'd do a rehearsal. And hope for the best.

Now, side note, you actually knew the Winston's, correct? Yeah. The Winston's... Amen Brother, right? Amen Brother, they did the infamous Straight-out Compton break. But were they like the local band that would be there when...

Well, here's the story there. The Winstons themselves were not. But G.C. Coleman, Gregory Coleman, who was the drummer in the Winstons in the famous break, he had a local band in Richmond. And that's how I knew him because we did gigs together all the time.

And his first wife was the female singer, and it was like a seven, eight piece band with a horn section. And they would back other artists, like back to the impressions, for example, who'd come through town. And they would back them, and they'd do a set of their own. They might play school dances. They might, you know, them too, they would do any gig that came their way. But they were basically a local band. Now, in J.C. Coleman's case, he was a good enough drummer that he got recognized, and somehow he ended up on the road with the Marvelettes as part of the Motetown

Motortown Review shows. And he was the Marvelettes personal drummer. He went from there to Otis Redding. And he and several of the members of the Otis Redding band were laid off when Otis decided to tour with the barcais. This was shortly before he died. And at that point, those guys who came out of Otis' band formed the Winstons. And they became a club band that was actually based. in D.C.

And the regular gig was as a house band at a discotheque in D.C. called Rands, R-A-N-D-S. And then they got a deal. They cut color him father. The A-Men break was the flip side, which was... Oh, that was a B-Side.

They actually... They actually, I left something out. They had actually toured, strangely enough, with the impressions for several months as their band. Now, this is once the impressions reached a certain point where they had more hits,

and the money got bigger than they put together their own band. Because everybody hated playing with these local bands because it was always raggedy. I was going to say, like, were they all of them? Was it just like someone comes with core charts and says, here, read this or you just knew their hits? Because usually these guys didn't even read music. Most of these local bands, at least in the South, didn't even read music. Now, the house bands in the theaters of North did, and they wanted charts. Like, you played the Apollo.

If you didn't bring charts, you'd get your feelings hurt. but down south in the clubs nobody read music so it was like learn their records the band would just learn the records before the group came to town so the impressions come to town they do a little run through before the club opens and they just wing it

and I mean I've seen I used to emcee shows in these clubs and I remember the drifters who traveled with only a guitar player they never had a band and they had huge hits but they never had a band it was just the vocalist and a guitar player. And the guitar player would just be literally calling out changes to the band as in the middle of the gig.

It was crazy. Wow. Now, keep in mind that this was the peak of soul music, which was the singer's genre. Okay. So, and those guys really needed to sing. Because crowds wouldn't, you know, if you really couldn't sing, you weren't going to last out there very long.

You get your feelings served real quick. so most of the people that went to those clubs as long as the vocals were clear and you could really feel the vocals and the rhythm section kept time the audiences were usually happy but so you're saying that they had Apollo mentality

in other places other than the Apollo as far as if your show wasn't tight or yeah you you better come correct but the point was correct the relative turn. Wow, people had standards back in the day.

Yeah, of course. Imagine that? Of course. If you suck, you suck. But, you know, that didn't just happen in recent years. I feel you. And there were a couple

acts who had hit records that would come through town and really lay an egg because they just didn't have it. I wonder, were the black crowds harder on people? Probably because the...

Harder money to see a show? I think that, that, but also because black music in the 60s was really a singer's art, whereas particularly after the British invasion, it was about the band, and it was about the hairstyles and the British clothes, the guys were wearing, and the girls would scream and didn't even hear what they were playing. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver 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 Podcasts, or 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 2, 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. I'm Ego 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 him 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 of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So eventually, I guess, I mean, what was your first James Brown experience? And what about that really called out to you as far as, I mean, did you, was it a, moment where it's like, oh, this is my destiny or is it just like, I'd fall in love like everybody else with the first live at the Apollo album because it was just so totally apart from everything else.

I mean, it was just so obvious. Like soul music is soul music. They were great, a ton of great artists. But once you heard that record, you're like, okay, this is some of this stuff. This is really the gold standard here. So, okay, to explain to our listeners. So James Brown came out. the box with please, please, please, which was an instant hit.

And then I guess he struggled for two years to come up with a follow-up hit. And how many singles do you reckon, like at least 15 or 16 before Try Me? Maybe not 15, but probably nine or ten. Okay. So a bunch. An amazing amount of misses, which, you know, nowadays. I mean, he actually got dropped and Try Me got him his deal back. Really?

Yeah. He cut a demo of Try Me that he played for Sid Nathan at King Records who had dropped him. And he said, you know, please, Mr. Nathan, listen to this. It's a hit. Literally try me. Exactly. Please, please, please, please try me. Exactly.

And so once, I guess maybe three or four years into his career, James Brown decides that his audience needs to, who needs to feel what his live show, or at least the energy of what his live show is about, and then they'd be more open to him. So enter James Brown Live at the Apollo Volume 1, which came out 62? 63. It was recorded in October of 62.

It came out early 63. So what was, you know, I mean, I have my favorites, and obviously because I'm more closer to break beats and, you know, like, what my standards for James Brown and a certain type of funk, of course, I don't have a sentimental attachment to Volume 1. I mean, I understand why it's effective,

but, you know, my favorite is personally volume 3. But what was it about that record that spoke to you and spoke to America? Because DJs would play this from beginning to end. and like as a one song. Yeah, they really did. I mean, first of all, it was, it was, the dynamic was so apparent because he, really, if you listen to the album, you realize it's one long medley.

Okay. He had segues in between the songs. Oh, never stop and never? Never stopped. Okay. Never, never stopped, which was totally different because every other act in those days, they play a song. It would end with a big chord.

They'd take a bell, you know, then introduce the next song. But with James, it was just nonstop action. And you could just, not having seen him perform yet, you would just sit there and fantasize about what this must be like because it's just, it's crazy. And lost someone, and understand something too for James Brown, people of your generation. When he cut that record in the 62, he was already the king of that circuit.

He was already setting house records at the Apollo in the Howard Theater and places like that. But he hadn't crossed over yet. And most of the white America had no clue who he was. But the majority of his hip records at that point were slow songs. They were what we call gospel blues, R&B, soul, whatever tag you want to call it. But, you know, very church-influenced style of singing. Okay.

And really straight out of the gospel quartess. and but the energy and the passion is just unlike anything else that was on record at that point because nobody, first of all, nobody would Ray Charles had made a live record. So you really, unless you went to the shows, you really had no concept of what those little 45s turned into with a full band,

an arrangement. Okay. And it was obvious that James, first of all, he had a killer band. that was ridiculously well rehearsed. And that alone set him apart from everybody else because there was nobody else in R&B

except maybe Ray Charles who could afford that because the economics of that circuit were such that even somebody like Jackie Wilson or Jerry Butler or Otis Redding at the beginnings of their careers. Well, Jackie Wilson never had a band of his own. Otis did, but it wasn't ever again.

good band um well so so so so james's thing really was was very unique on that circuit i mean he came to do business so when he came to virginia uh i mean how did you two first meet like what was the well i went to a show and this was long before i was on really well i shouldn't say long a couple years before i ended up on the radio station i went to one of his shows about And this was also in 63. And it was a concert in the theater. It wasn't a club show. And there was like a smattering of white kids, you know, that had discovered James Brown.

I'd say it's what we call the landmark theater now. Then it was called the Mosque. I'm sure you played there with DeMaggio. Holds 3,000 people. Maybe there were 100 white people there. So it was at least the live album had begun to attract. some white fans, but he still wasn't on pop radio, so that, yeah, rich white kid didn't. Still didn't really have a clue who he was.

But, I mean, the show was everything I dreamt it would be, and I was just, you know, blown away like everybody else was. But a couple of years later, fast forward, I'm working for the radio station. James Brown's coming to town. The station is promoting the show, and I just begged the program director, and let me go interview him at his hotel to hype the show. Because it was kind of traditional that if an act came to town early enough, in the day, they would either come down to the radio station to do an interview.

And the whole idea was two-fold. It was to plug the current single and encourage the DJs to continue playing the records. And it was to hype ticket sales for the show that night. A lot of the ticket sales for those shows were walk-up, unlike today where shows are pretty much sold out in advance. I was going to say, though, black shows are still walk-up. It's not like that. Because I'll, you know, I'll advance the show. They'll be like, yeah, man, you only sold 12 tickets.

We might have to cancel. I'm like, no, man, it's black people. And then, like, it sold out that night. You know, but. No, that's still a dynamic. But, I mean, back then it was just rule of thumb. It wasn't the exception. It was the rule.

So at any rate, but James was big enough that he wasn't going to come to the station. He might send Bobby Bird down to do an interview or, you know, one of the support acts or Macyo or somebody. So he rarely came to the station just to? He used to. But by the time I went to work at the station, he had kind of graduated past that. So the idea was, let me.

This is 65. So I'm like, let me take a tape recorded to his hotel. And that's what happened. And, you know, I met him. And we talked for about a half hour before we went on tape. And for whatever reason, he took a liking. to me and I've always wondered why I don't mean that from a humble sense

but we stayed in touch and every time after that he would come through town I would go backstage hang out in the dressing room and we would talk music and you know I was I was the typical little kid who had all kinds of questions

what's your next single where did you record it did you use the road band who's in the band now who's the lead who's the new lead trumpet it, you know. Oh, Amir. Okay, I get it. Exactly.

Exactly. And he would engage you. Totally. But after I went to work for him, I discovered he did that with any disc jockey who had prime time because it was like, so, you know, I mean, he made me feel like I was the only guy in the world he's talking to like this, right? I mean, we're talking business. I actually turned the tape recorder on when we were just kicking it without him knowing

it. And you hear us in the background. conversing and we're talking about things like the Motown review and what promoters Barry Gordy used and he should have used a black promoter and James is just going off about, you know, we're talking business and I'm a little pimply faced high school kid. It's like, I was just blown away. It's like, I love this guy. That he engaged you.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I know that he always said. You think I'm going to be the next Dick Clark. It's like, son, you're going to be big. You got the prime time. You just, you know. Well, his, yeah, his rule of thumb, I guess, one of his books he said that

he always made the intern or the person who, not Lewis on the totem pole, but pretty much. He'd make them feel important because he figured that in about five to six to seven years

that they will soon be the station manager. Exactly. Yeah, they'll be the music director picking the records, wouldn't that? He started that concept because all of us just took that and went with it. That's real, right? No, yeah. Like I was taught that was the first thing I was taught to do every college interview

Every and now Sure Every every Rinky Dink college interview ever done Now ends with 10 years later like Some CEO of some corporation That's like you don't remember this button Brown University

You played out home coming You gave me my first interview And like you know That's now I'm doing something else for them That's you know way big So it's it's I see how that circle plays So at what point did he take you serious enough to

Take over or at least start working for it? Did you start off as tour manager or? No, no, actually started doing publicity. What happened is that I used to chase the show around. I mean, anytime it was anywhere near where I was, 100 miles, 200 miles, I'd go to D.C. at the Howard Theater. I'd go to Norfolk, Virginia, I'd go to West Virginia. And, you know, just anytime the James Brown show was within radio,

yes, I was there and really just totally make it a pest to myself. But I got to know his manager. I got to know his road manager. And not to mention, made friends with Bobby Bird and some of the guys in the band. And, you know, for whatever reason, they let me hang. So fast forward to 1969 and I'm in college in Pittsburgh. The little radio phasing ended thanks to the Vietnam War, trying to draft everybody.

It wasn't in college. So I decided better get in college or I was going to Vietnam. So career was abruptly halted in favor of a college career that lasted for about two years until he hired me. But what happened is when you asked him for a job, he just said. Actually, his manager called and said he's coming to Pittsburgh and he's got issues with the program director of the Black Station there. So he needs a local watchdog for the promotion of the concert. Would you be willing to do it? And what would that entail?

That entailed buying the advertisement, newspaper ads, radio ads, monitoring it to make sure the ads are played right. You did your own custom ads too, right? Yes, yeah, yeah. That's the way I knew they'd be the way I wanted to be, and didn't really trust anybody to do them. Okay. And it was part of the fun because I enjoyed doing it.

And, you know, putting up posters, I mean, literally driving around and with a trunk full of big window card posters and with a staple gun putting them up on telephone poles all over town, putting them in barbershop windows. You were the street team. You were the bad boy street team. Exactly. It was the old school version of a street team.

And suffice it to say the show sold out. But what really got him was I showed him a bunch of newspaper stories that the local paper had done, the local daily paper. and at that point daily papers didn't pay a lot of intention to black shows seldom reviewed them and very seldom wrote them up in advance but what i didn't tell james was that the entertainment editor of the paper happened to be a friend of my dad's oh okay so i had the the white privilege paid off and i got i got um you know so i got a bunch of stories in the paper and he was like blown out he's like you're shown in this you got this yeah yeah yeah it's

Exactly. So I showed it to him in the dressing room after the show. And he's all geek because the show is sold out. And we were in the civic arena. That's like 13,000 people. So it was a real deal. And he was like, Alan, you did this here. Can you do this everywhere? And of course, I said, yes. And I had, you know, my dad doesn't know anybody else in any other city. Right, right. I'm not going to sell it in that. You know, so that was the gig. I was hired to come to Cincinnati, where King Records was in James's office space. was within King Records, and I quit school, drove to Cincinnati and started my job as publicity director. So was it a learning curve for you? Totally. Totally. I was just a kid.

You aren't old enough to drink yet, right? Without the aid of, I mean, of course, technology makes us all lazy or could make us all publicists in this room right now with our phones and our computers. But, I mean, what resources did you have to even know, you know,

to get coverage in the times or there was a marketing book that listed all the country's newspapers okay i got hold of that and once i got to cincinnati they just threw an itinerary in my in my lap and said this is where the show's going do your thing you got it and there was really nobody to supervise so it was kind of like i can invent this and you know do whatever because nobody had done it for him before in-house. So you were his first publicist? Pretty much. I mean, he had a few independent people that would plant stuff in the Washington Afro-American

in the Amsterdam news and stuff like that. But in terms of like calling the dailies in major cities, no. And that's what I did. I just cold-called the newspapers in every town where the show was going and would ask for the entertainment editor of the paper. And they weren't used to getting calls like this because nobody did it. Now, I didn't know that. I'm thinking everybody must do this.

Okay. But really, they didn't. So at what point do you stop doing publicity or were you doing, because I know in the James Brown organization, people do double duties. After about a month, what I didn't get paid. See, what I also didn't understand in the James Brown organization, first of all, I'd always called them James until I went to work for him. Then it was made very clear now it's Mr. Brown.

So when you were friends with him, you were allowed to call him James? Yeah, I was a kid. I didn't even know any better. Okay. And I was also a disc jockey, so I could have called him anything. He was going to be cool with it because he wanted his records played. Right. But now I'm working for him.

Now, it was reciprocal. I mean, he called me Mr. Leeds. Everybody in the organization was Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. whatever the case may be. But what I didn't know was that he had gone to the president of King Records and told him that he should pay me. I brought this kid in. He's a great publicist.

You pay him. Then he went off on the road. Well, the guy, Hal Neely, it was the president of King Records. He didn't know who I was. He'd never met me, nor could he care less. So long and short of it is, I didn't get paid. So after about the third week, I'm like, well, you know,

the first week, the office manager is telling me, well, it's just the payroll's got to catch up. Because the pay would come from the road. every Sunday the road manager would wire money to the office to pay the office staff and there were like you know a couple of clerical people and a receptionist and so there was a home office staff and a road staff and the guys who booked the shows okay who literally because James um he he booked his own shows he had guys on his payroll who would call the buildings and call promoters and book the shows instead of using an agent

It was all in-house. Okay. So I'm watching these guys do this because I'm sitting at a desk in the same office, and I'm just paying attention to what they're doing. One of them got fired, and, I mean, I left out the point where after I didn't get paid, I actually left for about a month and a half. Okay. Brown was on tour in California.

I couldn't get him on the phone. And the guy at King Records said, hey, sorry, kid, but it just didn't work out, you know, kind of a thing. So I was mad. and you know my friends at school in Pittsburgh had thrown me going away party you know big shot leads he's going to work for James Bram and then you're back home I could not go home

oh you couldn't even go back home I wouldn't go home oh that's that's tragic and I wasn't I've never been a person who wants to be tragic so I drove to New York and I knew a guy who was cooling the gang's road manager okay and he hooked me up with Gene Red Jr. I met his dad. And he hooked me up with Gene Red Jr.

Cooling the gang were just breaking. Their first single was just hitting. So I actually got a gig with them for about a month. But that was also no salary. That was like, you get a piece of the gigs you book. Commission.

And most of the gigs I was booking were DJ gigs up and down the East Coast and DJs didn't always pay you. Yeah, I was going to say what I learned was that. That was a whole other hustle. The Black Axe were kind of at the mercy of the radio station. Totally.

That would throw these shows. So no one could actually make a living. It was tough. You know, as a musician until... So you had several hits and could really sell tickets on your own. So afterwards, you just gave up and came back to James. Well, what happened is one of the guys who was booking the tour got fired. And the guy that was still there,

had stayed in touch with me. And he convinced me that James would rehire me. And I'm like, rehire me, I never got paid. Right, right. As far as I might have worked, but I wasn't hired. So as far as James Brown is concerned, you're still there doing something, and he didn't know that you were going.

Oh, no, he knew I was gone. Oh, he just, you knew I was gone. He was just like, yeah, nice kid, but didn't work out, you know. But the long sort of is, is, is, James told his fellow's name was Buddy Nolan and Buddy called, and he said, Mr. Brown said that if you could be in Rochester, New York, tonight, you got a job, and he'll break you in as the tour director, assistant tour director, and so on, and you'll help book the dates and promote the dates.

So it's no more publicity. Now it's like we're, you know, promoting the shows. And I was in New York with very little money in my pocket, scraped enough together, bought a bus ticket, went to Port Authority, a bus to Rochester, showed up at the gig right as he was coming off stage, got backstage, shook hands, said, welcome back, son, said something patronizing.

And an hour later, I was with him on his Lairjet flying to Cincinnati. So, you know, I went from a greyhound at the Port Authority with no money in my pocket to a job that actually paid me in a seat on the Lairdedge. So it's a good day. That is, yeah. That isn't bad at all.

Can you tell the story of, okay, I wanted to give her an example of the time when you assumed that James Brown was going to be sick and cancel a show. That was not one of my bitter days. Must a year's, must a year's a grin. Yeah, he was, we had a, he was, he was, what he would do because he had a lead jet, he could fly in and out of one-nighters in B markets. So he might base himself in New York, for example. If he had gigs, let's say Fridays in Boston and Saturdays in Providence and Sundays in Hartford, he would base himself out of a favorite hotel in New York and just flying in and out of these places. And, you know, be back in his hotel in New York and buy one in the morning, right?

So he was staying at the Americana now the Sheraton on 7th Avenue. I was home at Cincinnati and we had a gig in Providence. and Bobby Byrd, who traveled with him, was a quasi-leader of the band at the time, and traveled with James, was in New York with him, and he called me in the morning. I forget if it was he or Danny Ray, the MC, but one of them called me and said,

Mr. Brown was really sick. The doctor's here, Mr. Brown, it's got the flu, he's got a fever of 104, he can't hold any food down, he can't drink water, he's sweating up a storm, he tried to get up and go to the bathroom, and he felt faint and couldn't even make it,

And I'm like, so are you telling me to cancel the show? Did he say cancel the show? Well, he didn't say anything. Mr. Leeds, he's out cold, but, you know, I'm just telling you, the man's very sick. So I'm in a situation of like, okay, what do I do? On one hand, it kicks in right away that the sooner you cancel the show, you cut your losses because the longer you wait, the more expensive the cancellation is going to be because you've got all the labor costs in the building.

You can stop it at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. You don't have to pay the ushers. You don't have to pay the police. You don't have to pay. It's a lot of people you don't have to pay that you would have to pay if you cancel at 7 o'clock at night after they've all showed up for work. So that's on my mind. But by the same token, I know James Brown is not, very seldom cancels a show.

And was the kind of guy who just kind of didn't believe in sick. He thought sickness was weakness. I mean, I actually got laid off for three weeks once because I got sick and couldn't come to work for a few days. Like what? If Mr. Lees is too sick to come to work, I'm too sick to pay him. You know, it's like that. It's like he just thinks you're supposed to will. So I was very reluctant to cancel the show.

But, you know, they're telling me the guys on his deathbed. So, you know. Okay. So three or four calls back and forth. Every hour I'm calling him. How is he? How is he? Oh, he's, he's going nowhere.

leads he's really sick i'm like okay so now mind you this is before cell phones and pagers and all of this and it's a sunday so now i have to call the radio station that's promoting the show i have to find the road manager the band i have to talk to the venue director and most of these are switchboards that are closed on weekends um so it wasn't easy getting hold of people but after a couple of hours of going around about and managed to get hold of everybody and officially canceled the show. So after all that was done, I called the hotel in New York back to see how he was doing

because we had a show the next day somewhere. And his wife, Dee, Dee, he answered the phone in his suite. And I said, oh, Miss Dee, I'm so glad you're there with him. Is he feeling any better? What's up? What's up? What's up? She said, I wish I knew. And I'm like, huh? And I said, what do you mean? She had just gotten there

if she had flown up from Georgia because her husband's sick, right? Right. And she said, about time I got here, he'd already left for the gig in Providence. Oh, no.

Yes. Okay. So you canceled everything. Now I got to, you want to talk about feeling like a fool. Call all these people back and say, oh, by the way, the show had canceled two hours ago,

it's back on. Go back on the radio and tell All of those people you told to get refunds tomorrow that, oh, by the way, forget what I told you to. You know, I've blown the credit of all the radio stations, you know, and I'm sure I blow my job. I'm just, I know it's history, right? Right. So he, obviously, he gets there. And I'm sure we took a hit.

I can't remember the exact numbers. Half empty. Yeah, like a half a house, right? So, of course, I get out, I get a told my girlfriend this phone. Was he told yet what happened? I'm sure somebody told him. He had, you know. Okay.

Of course. I mean, the band hadn't gotten off the bus. Right. You know, they hadn't even expected to set up. They were getting ready to turn around and go to the next town. So I told my girlfriend, I said about 10.30 tonight, this phone's going to ring and it. It's going to be real ugly. and it was suffice as I say it really was misleads 1030 he calls he yeah quarter 11 but as soon as he got off stage he found a phone

oh god and called me son i know you're worried about me i love you for that and then his voice just got higher and faster and higher and faster until he was shrieking and the thing was bobby bird had a little hit record they'd call it, I need help. Right. And he said, why in the world you're going to take Bobby Byrd's word? You know he needs help. Don't you never cancel a show

unless I tell you? And he's like, I've got to be up here sick and work to have a house. Oh, God. So, yeah, things happen. You know, it's not one of my bitter days, but... But you still kept you cool? No.

Oh, no. Did he fire you? No, actually he didn't. I was astounded. He didn't. I mean, how many times do you reckon you've gotten, was getting fired and laid off always like a thing with him? Like, was it a running, not a running joke, but.

I got fired twice, which was not a lot in that camp. I mean, there were some guys, I mean, he's like anybody, any kind of self-made man who runs his own business, he has a very, very keen knack of reading people. and knowing how far to go with every, he knows who will take certain things and who won't. And, you know, the guys that are vulnerable, they get fired once a week.

And it was usually right before payday, you know? Oh, Mr. Brown. So when did you leave the organization? What year? Finally 74. So you were there for the mustache period? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give the list of some context for the Mustang.

We referenced it a lot, but I don't think they know. You don't understand that this is a generational thing because it's like I didn't realize until I went to work for Prince how because James had lasted so long and gone through so many metamorphoses artistically that every generation has their own James Brown. And you know, like you said, your favorite Apollo album is three. And mine is probably two. But, you know, it depends how old you are and what your personal taste and so on. But, you know, very few artists have that many phases that are so distinctly different. But when you're that close, you don't think of it in terms of the records. But, you know, when you say the month, when you guys first started talking to me about the mustache period, I was like, huh?

I had to go back and look at pictures to see when you wore a month. Because I'm not like clocking this mustache. Right. Did the music change when the mustache came? Right, right. Well, I would call that the payback era. Because that was like the big comeback record and arguably his last great record. So were you, did you go to the Zaire?

Were you there for the Muhammad Ali? No, no, unfortunately. You left by that point? I don't remember if I had left, but he wouldn't have took me anyway because. So when you tour managed, you were always in the home base in Cincinnati? No, no, it was back and forth. What would happen is we'd work in the office Monday through Thursday, and on Friday, one, if not both of us, meaning the guys who were booking the shows, would fly out and join the tour for the weekend. And usually it was just one of us.

We'd take turns. That's why I was home when he was in Providence and sick in New York. It was my weekend to be home. But I wasn't a road manager in the sense that I was on the bus constantly. Okay. It was very much back and forth. I mean, it was, it never, never two weeks went by where I didn't see the show somewhere. So what happens after 74?

Now, I know that your period where Prince was, you started in 82, 83, well, the last ages of 19, so you came in 83. 83, early 83. So what were those 10 years, what did you do in between those 10 years? Like, what other acts or? Well, actually, I got married and had a kid, which kept. me at home for a while and then I was I was actually promoting shows um putting little R&B at a backer and a partner and we were putting little packages together and taking a tour like the shylights

and the stylistics and the Detroit emeralds take three or four bands put them together and and book a four-day run down south somewhere maybe play Charlotte or I'll eat Richmond you know that kind of a thing now had touring conditions changed by the mid-70s than it was in the in the 60s? They were starting to. They were starting to. It had dramatically changed in the pop world. It was a little bit ahead of the R&B world.

But it wasn't so much that the business changed as much as the culture changed. I mean, just the face of America was changing. The lifestyles, the living conditions, everything was changing. at least on the surface things weren't as overtly segregated meaning that here's an example

back in the 60s if you're going to play New York you play at the Apollo theater I mean you could count on one hand the black artist who could do enough business to play the garden but you would play the Apollo and do four shows a day five on weekends

so if you play Apollo for a week and the typical booking was you opened the show opened on Friday 1 o'clock of the afternoon the first show on the first show is at 1 p.m. Yep and the second show is like four seven and ten wow and how long are the shows how long is each show two hours good god but inside these shows were comedians yeah yeah it was it was it was not just you sang it's for two hours straight no it was kind of no because there would be support acts okay and the star might do 50 minutes, hour, depending on who the star was. I mean, did the audience feel satisfied

that, okay. Totally, because that's what they were used to. They didn't know anything different. I'm just used to, you know, the lead person doing a two-hour show. Yeah, but nobody did that then. Oh, okay. Nobody did that. There's very few people doing that now. Not till Prince. Right. Right. Yeah. Nobody's giving two-hour shows now.

That's very rare. No, I mean, we would tour and have, say, the stylistics is a support act. after they were talking about stylistics when they were on maybe the third or fourth hit single. Oh, like rock, rock and roll baby. Yeah. No, the hits, but the first hits. Right.

Well, I'm in like the round two album and you make me feel brand new. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And they'd get 20 minutes. 20 minutes? Yeah. They ain't got but three jams. What are they going to do?

Exactly. In my research, they would do some cover songs. Yeah, but that's what they did after they did. they ran out of their heads. Everybody did Alfie. You know. Yeah, you're right. Delphonic did Alfie.

Everyone did Alfie. Yeah. They do Alfie. I mean, that's a very 70s thing. But, but it's, you know, nobody expected them to do more. So was Kiss your first foray into the rock world? Yeah. Really the only one.

Now, why did they seek you out? They didn't. Oh, you... Believe it or not. The only act I ever chased was James Brown. Everything else came just by being in the right place at the right time. It was just God looks out for fools or something. I hope so.

The only show I really chased was James Brown. But I had been off the road for several years. Okay. And was looking to get back in it and paranoid because the business had changed. This is now 1981. So after they took the makeup off? No, it was actually, the Creatures of the Night was the album, which didn't sell, and it was their last tour with makeup before it came off. Were they still playing stadiums?

Or they come down in theaters? They were playing arenas but sea markets and half filling them. It was really a low- Calamazoo, Michigan. Exactly. Yeah. High school stadiums. Pretty much. Okay.

Pretty much. But they always had big productions still. It was a big show. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They had to satisfy their fans and they hoped to recover. What was that experience like?

Loud. Really? Yeah. I mean, I can honestly say, and it should be a shame to say this, but I can honestly say I did not know one of their songs. Wait, you weren't, you didn't know, like, I was needed for loving you or. I didn't listen to that mess. I knew it.

Christine 16. No clue. I loved Kiss, man. No. James Brown had gotten in my head, man. If it wasn't funky or if it wasn't jazz, I was not listening. But the Dynasty album,

they was trying to get a little funk in that joint. The author of the word is trying. Right? Tell of Alex. I mean, you know, I was an impressive old seven-year-old kid at the time. No, I get it. If I was seven, I'd have probably been impressed too. I don't know that I'd have caught their records,

but not impressed enough to buy the record. Look, I'm just saying that I'm not. I wasn't a kiss fanatic. But, I mean, I grew up in the household in which, you know, you develop your musical taste and your formative years from the other adults in the house. Now you're going to blame it on your parents. With all your sister, his name is. I know, I'm just saying, Dawn.

She was in the kiss? Well, no, I'm just saying. Oh, he's mine. Dawn, the particular high school. So you're saying my mother turned me on to James Brent? Oh, man. I'm just saying. the whole gets to do it.

Everyone has a cool, older figure. I'm just saying that I, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I mean, look, it's all good. I just, for me, I mean, I was in the South. They had makeup on. That was like, you know, it was some devil shit. All right, all right.

I'm going to tell you something. That's real, though. That's pretty much. I'm kissing Twisted Sister. All that shit all. See, but you're missing the 70s and the 80s. I know you've worn a little bit after me. A lot of it after me.

And all fell in the same character. Like, white men with paint on. No, I'm gonna, that shit reminded me of it. Stephen King. I just, nah, man. I'm good with all that shit. No, I'm just like when. Yeah, you sound like him pretty good.

We already established. The reason I have the show is because my sponge memory for stupid details. Okay. Oh, okay. Like, even asking the Alan questions, I don't want to know about, like, does he still have the poster with the sex machine? lyrics on it. I want to know what James Brown's rider was

in 1973. What was James Brown's writer in 19? Yo, I've heard crazy rider stories from various groups. I think see that came later, we didn't have riders. You know what I think about it? Do you know the contracts that we have were like one page?

And it was just like pay us or nothing. I mean, show you one. Literally, it was just like, yeah, this is the date. This is the time of place. So it never occurred to you guys, the number one touring attraction for black music in America probably second to the Motor Town Review

which I guess lost steam after 62 or 65 66 it never occurred to you guys once to like hey maybe we can have because he brought everything these donuts no he brought everything anything he wanted he brought with him

okay and I mean his dressing room was full of stuff but he paid for but he would just bring it Because the promoters didn't do that. I'll give you an example. Teddy Powell, I don't know if you know who that was. He was a major, major black music promoter based in Newark, but he promoted all over the Northeast.

And he took tours out. He took single dates. He played gospel shows. He played jazz festivals. He played R&B tours. And whenever we played Newark, we always play for Teddy. He was, you know, our promoter in Newark. And he would occasionally buy dates and put him.

in other cities too. Teddy had a Marvin Gay tour shortly after what's going on, broke. And Marvin had a rider. And this was when I was in Pittsburgh. And I went to the show basically to see Teddy

and hang out and talk shop. And he's like, home? He called everybody home. It's just a real old school kind of, you know, rough promoter. Always had a suit and tie on, but it was always wrinkled, you know, that guy. And he's like, home, I got to

tell you. I've been promoting shows for 20 years. Now I'm a rug merchant. You know this guy, Marvin Kay? I mean, I know he's got a big hit, but it says he wants carpeting in the dressing room. We're in an arena. Arenas don't have carpeting in the dressing room, but I

got him. Wow. He laid out newspaper and taped it to the floor. You can't make this up. I saw it. And that was his way of saying, get the hell out of here with your writer. Okay?

Really? Yeah. So no one took it seriously to Van Halen with the Brown Eminem's. It took a minute before the artists had the juice to make those kind of demands of promoters. The whole balance of the relationship. Back in those days, the promoter was God. This is the guy that paid you.

You worked for him. I guess. You got to start out the kiss gig. Yeah. A classified ad in variety. They took an ad out. They took an ad. They were being managed by a business manager.

Their longtime manager Bill of Coined, they had parted ways. So their managers were a couple of guys who were really accountants, Glicman and Marks. Howard Glickman, I forget. Right over here. Howard Glickman. Gotcha. So you know all about it. And they were not really rockedman.

and roll guys. Long and short of it is, yeah, they put an ad. They needed a road manager because they had a tour manager, but they needed somebody to handle all the travel and the logistics because the tour manager was too good to do that stuff. It was that kind of a thing. And I was looking for a way to get back into business. And as I said, the business had changed a lot.

It was on the verge of turning from a low-tech to a mom-and-pop business into something that wasn't quite high-tech yet, but it was on the way. It was changing. It was definitely corporatized and particularly with Kiss because they were a corporation and ran things that way. But long and short of it is, I guess, the only way they knew to do it because who would ever think to put an ad in variety for a rock and roll road manager? I mean, it was insane, but it was like... Were they saying it's for Kiss? No, no, no.

In fact, it was an employment agency that placed the ad on their behalf. I mean, a place, like, I went to a place. So, like, I went to apply for this job with no idea of who the group was. And it was the kind of employment agency where there's, like, 20 people taking typing tests to go to work as clerical people in offices. Like manpower. Yeah, exactly. Oh, wow, manpower. It was, like, insane.

Wait, which manpower? Ah, manpower is a typical. You don't know what manpower is? It's where people who eat more go to find jobs. No, right. No, it really is. It really is. Manpower was like,

if that's where you went, if you, you know, you didn't have like no kind of degree or nothing like that. Like Job Corps? It's not quite, it's like manpower

and then job core is like the bottom of the... Like Phil a job. Remember fill a job? Yeah, but at least you get in the office and manpower. Yeah,

manpower and get office. Yeah, they sing you like third world country. How do you know this? That's Peace Corps. Oh, it's peace. No, I think it's job.

Anything with core on it. Whatever. Anything with core on it is not good. Yeah, it's bad. No. Green Corps. B score. All the core.

All the core. It's like gardens and projects. Rhymed about job course. So I knew it was bad instantly. D. But no, I knew about I used to work. I had a temp job. I got, uh, before, uh,

who did you do? Uh, I had a couple of them. He managed to kiss. Exactly. No, I had a, uh, I worked in a call center. I used to call. Oh, me too.

Nice. I just called people for the government. Oh. For the government. Oh. Well, you wanted, they, they wanted their money back or? No, it was like some kind of survey that they wanted to dude. It was some bullshit.

But I would just call and fuck around. That's why I have a good speaking voice on radio. Hey, man. I started in the call center. And then after that, I went to work for Blue Cross. Ah, all right. Okay. Another call center.

Things you learn. That shit sucks. Never mind then. Forget 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 Podcasts, or 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 2, 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. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego 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, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him 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 of luck.

Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. So what was your experience with Kiss? What was the difference between Matt and James Brown? I know that I would assume that you could say that James Brown was high maintenance. So what was the difference? The difference was James Brown, I always raced to see the show. Would kiss the gig was get back to the hotel. I didn't have to see the show.

I mean, I saw it once. I was impressed. It was cool. But I would think that you had to always just be there to hold hands. No, because they had a tour manager. And as long, it was way more important. I mean, they were a well-oiled machine. they had the right kind of security,

the right kind of tour manager. They just needed to know that there'd be the right fruit salad in the room when they got back to the hotel. Can you tell a food salad story real quick? Okay. Yeah, I mean, it was like... He's literally telling the truth about the fruit salad. It's like that was the most important thing

was there had to be a fruit salad for Gene. They all had an idea, a menu for what they wanted in their rooms. And I'm talking it should be in the room when they walk in. The makeup is dripping and the suits are still on and so on, but the food has to be there, proper temperature, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which is fine if you're in at risk caught, but if you're in a holiday inn in Dubuque, Iowa, where the kitchen closed to 10, forget it. So that's how I get out of having to watch the shows, because I would actually take the limo after I dropped them at the show.

Once the show went up, I take one of the cars and goes shopping and actually find a supermarket it and make the fruit salad because and the reason was there was like about the third or fourth show out um i get a call from jean right after they got in the room walked them up met him in a lobby walked them up to let them to their rooms go back to my room and about five minutes later phone rings come to my room okay come to this room this is a fruit salad and it means all of a sudden this rock and roll star in makeup still got the uniform on and he sounds like Jackie Mason

he's like what he's like you called this a fruit salad sort of like Rodney Dangerfield and he picks up a piece and I mean it was like about four slices of orange and like two slices of pineapple and something

this is what this holiday in called a fruit salad right? He needs a mango some kiwai. He's like this is not a fruit salad this is shit this is what I pay you for so it's like okay I got it I'm gonna make the fruit salad so for the next you know

the rest of the tour I made the fruit salad So you're trying to tell me that dealing with Kiss was no It's a totally different game Was no Van Halen like wait I'm like Fruit salad what about the women And the groupies and the like Were they beyond that now

And now it's just like all right I'm off stage Where's? No Gene was still seeing both Dan Harris and Cheris So he was juggling them. What? Say what's going to? That's right. 1981. He was.

Diana Ross and? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And how long did that last for? One tour. It was like three months, two months, three months, something like that. So when it was over, you thought you were coming home?

I thought I was coming home. They shared a production manager with Prince. Prince was out on the 1999 tour. And the production manager caught me in catering at like the second to last gig on the kiss around like a typical conversation what are you doing when you go home i don't know i don't wait for the phone to ring and um and he says well you're interested in the prince gig because he just let somebody go and that was like the second or third tour manager he had on that particular tour and i was like of course i'm interested nobody pays me to go home yes i'm interested now the reality

was i had already fallen in love with prince it was very obvious this guy's going places and it was a show I'd enjoy seeing every night. Now, I had no idea what the gig was going to be like. I heard he's difficult, a little crazy. But, you know, I didn't really know much. I didn't know anybody in the camp. So I really went in there blind. Did that worry you that he already went through two or three during one tour?

No, no. There was only a month left on his tour. And it was either that or go home and sit on my butt until the phone rang. And I loved his music. So to me, it was terrific. It was like an opportunity to get in a day. the camp that had a future. But I meant worry as in, like, I would think, like, when someone changes their cell phone

number twice in a year, I'm already thinking, are you selling drugs? Like, I question someone that changes their self, like, their life and, okay, what life life decisions have you made that brought you here? Right, right, right. It's like the spinal tap, like the whole joke of, like, you went through like eight drummers, this is a night drum, right? So I would figure to go through a couple tour managers in such a short period of time that this person is difficult.

Yeah, that was in the back of my head. But is it that you, once you dealt with James Brown, you felt you can handle anything? Maybe that was it. I mean, you know, was that in the back of my mind? Sure it was. And as I began, because I didn't know anybody on the tour except the production manager. And he had warned me the first thing he said. And the first thing, Farnoli said when he hired me was, don't approach Prince until he's

comfortable with you. He'll let you know. He'll send you a sign somehow he'll let you know when he's ready to communicate with you. And that was normal sounding to you? No, of course not. But I was working for him. It was his house. And it's like, so I don't have to put up with the artist in my ear giving me instructions all the time.

Great. Can't mess up something I'm not told to do. But someone has to be your information person. So the first week out was out there. And, I mean, I went up to him. He shook my hand the first night. Welcome aboard, something like that. That was all we talked about.

Third or fourth day, I needed to talk to him about picking hotels. And traditionally, I would go to an artist and say, here's where we're going. Do you have a favorite hotel in these cities? So as to make sure that they were booked where they would want to be. And being new in the camp, it sounded like a logical question. So I came up to the dressing room before a show one night. and I talked to Big Chick

said, I need to see Prince. Well, buddy, I don't know if that's a smart thing to do. I'm still new blood, so everybody's like patronizing me. And he says, well, here's the thing. What do you want to talk to him about? Now, Chick called himself looking out for me. I'm thinking he's blocking me, right? Because I still don't get the dynamics of the person.

You know, I'm new in camp. And he says, well, and I said, well, and I said, well, and you just talk to him about a few hotels for the next few weeks. weeks. Buddy, here's the thing. He hired you because you know what you're doing. And if you ask him about hotels, he's going to think you don't know what you're doing.

And why did he hire you? So you knew that logic was out the window. Right. And so it was up to you to guess what his preference is. Yeah. So I went to Bobby Zee and I went to Farnoli and I said, where do you guys stay? It's like, okay, he doesn't want to talk about hotels. So maybe a week into me being there after four or five, six shows, whatever.

We're in St. Louis, and we're in a hotel after the show. I'm in the lobby bar with the whole band, I think, was there, all five of them, probably. So they hung out? Occasionally. And it's one of those deals where you're in a boring hotel, and it's after hours, and you're leaving first thing in the morning, so you're not going to go out the street. And everybody just met. I'll meet you in the bar.

We'll have a drink, right? Just to unwind after a show. So we're sitting in a huge round table, and the band has, you know, had a couple drinks, and it's kind of lively conversation and so on and so on. And suddenly we'll look up, and here comes Prince and Chick walking across the lobby towards us.

And what fascinated me was the conversation stopped. There was a tension at the table you could feel. Really? And I'm like, dang, now all of a sudden, everybody's scared to talk. Because whatever it is they're saying, they don't want him to hear it because what I didn't realize is that he has a way of taking what you say out of context, twisting it around to mean something else and so on. So their whole thing was, let's just don't say anything unless we're asked.

Now, I'm from New York. I don't know from that. It's like I'll say anything. Pick what you want, you know. So as luck would have it, the only empty chair at the table was next to me. So Chick and Prince head inside of the table, and I get up to offer my seat to Chick, figuring Prince will take the empty seat, and Chick kind of physically pushes me back in the seat.

Which was the right thing to do? He's the bodyguard, but I'm being polite because I'm the newbie, right? Right. So we're sitting at the table, and now it's like awkwardly quiet. And everybody's waiting for him to say something because now the boss is here. And, you know, they were talking about how the show was and so on, but maybe he didn't like the show.

So they're afraid to express anything. They want to read him first. Did he like the show or did he not? Is he here to pick a bus? Read his mood. Did we miss the cue? Did they want to read his mood? Right.

So there's this awkward silence for about 60 seconds. And then he just turns to me in my ear and he says, tell me some James Brown stories. Wow. And I don't know. I thought of something real quick. I only knows what I told him. I have no recollection at all.

And from that point on, we talked. So that was, okay, you're in. You passed initiation. Really? And after that, I couldn't get him to shut up because now it is the guy calling the room every 10 minutes with, get this, do that, get this, do that. Knowing what I think I know about him,

I would have thought he was testing you. to see would you spill any secrets? Like, he was testing your loyalty. So the story you told must have been humorous enough to give just a little bit of information. Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't. Well, this was that one time when I caught James Brown doing it. You're like, oh, no, he's not.

No, no dirty laundry. But that's two or maintenance. You won't know one. You never diss a previous artist with the new artist. Because, wow. You just don't. So when you entered the, the realm of the prince tour

what preparation of any that you were given like what you're... I still don't know how you just jump in head first to an already existent situation. You know, you just dive in. You figure out what's been done, what hasn't been done. But the biggest thing in that situation because I wasn't used to jumping in midstream

was just kind of observe. The whole thing was like, let me clock everybody and see how this works. catch the dynamics of the personalities who's outspoken who's a problem who's cool who oversleeps you know just get a sense of of what you're dealing with

because you know you can't reinvent it you can't come in cold and reinvent the wheel because whatever they're doing it's working did you have to babysit all three acts or was it just Prince and each act had a role manager

but they're they all answered to you yeah pretty much because I was the one who was telling him what plane were on and what what hotel were going to be at and so on. They didn't have a voice in that. What three X are you talking about? Van AduSix in the time is who I'm referring to. So was it well oiled even with those acts?

Like were they professional? Everybody was very professional. He was obvious that he didn't tolerate any bullshit. So it was a very professional operation. Now, still, there were a lot of opinionated people. And it was, there was some, you had a real sense of drama. And obviously it didn't take long to learn. A lot of it had to do with what had happened with Jimmy Jam and Terry before I joined

when they had broken away and missed a gig because they'd been in the studio in Atlanta and so on for the listeners who don't know that story. Yeah, quick side note. So Jimmy and Terry flew to Atlanta to produce, Just Be Good to Me, right? Mm-hmm. And then an ounce of. of a drop of snow came in Atlanta and shut the airport down, thus forcing, I guess, Brown Mark and Lisa and Prince to fill in the Times music backstage.

Were you witness to that? No, no. It was before. It was before. It was before. Okay. So, I mean, by that point, though, I mean, could you? I mean, the bands weren't speaking.

first of all there was a musical rivalry between the bands because the time could kick their ass and often did they being the revolution I don't understand that though Musically you mean that right yeah yeah okay I mean because

but Prince did he not have his well it was he designed that he designed that he wanted that well I know that but when I hear like oh the time kicked our ass tonight like I think it was like the Frankenstein monster that kind of went beyond his control like I think it was I think the

was him just kind of getting his funk nut off like I just do this kind of funk shit but you know for a while and I think even when we talked to brown mark and them right you know they were saying that I mean because you know after a while the time was I mean that was like the black audience so yeah they were a little bit more accessible I think it was a stylistic thing as much as anything else because the nature of the songs the repertoire was was different. It was more R&B. Yeah, it was hardcore R&B. When you get, I mean, you can't fuck

with a 10-minute vamp on Cool. Little Red Covert is, it's a tremendous song. Right. But it ain't going to do to a house what 10 minutes of cool does. Right. Right. Or 777. I mean.

I get it. So, I mean, they were just at best cordial to each other by that point. At best. And then there was, the Vanity Six thing where he'd already been you know been through the vanity thing they'd already

broken up but he was trying to make people think he was still in there and they would hang together but she was making everybody aware that it was just a hang that she was really done with him and Susan Moonsie's still his like sometime friend but she's not sleeping with him either right and Jill Jones is there and I mean it was it was crazy at just levels of awesome juggling that one day

if I'd take a little you and I will discuss life goals man life goals life juggling yeah I guess I guess by the point

you by the time you join the tour did the the fabled purple notebook ever show itself

I mean how much talk of we might do a movie or this sort of thing well I heard that. I heard that because

some of the guys in the band were talking about it. Jill Jones was talking about it. I remember Vanity and Susan Moonsie telling me, you know, he's writing in this notebook and these ideas he thinks he's going to make a movie. And everybody kind of like, the sense I got was that nobody really

believed it, but everybody was too afraid of him to express it. So everybody acted like, yeah, we're going to make a movie. But, you know, but like, they didn't believe it. At what point, Did it become like, oh, crap, this really is going to happen? About a month after I was in Minneapolis and we started doing casting calls.

Well, but the one thing that I noticed when Elise were searching the notes of the music that went into Purple Rain was that he was on a serious deadline. Because once the movie got greenlit, songs still weren't finalized yet. And so when I'm reading the Warner Brothers logs, the Warner Brothers studio logs of how songs got created and how fast and close to deadline that they were, you know, like the beautiful ones really wasn't created until like mere months before they had to shoot this stuff. Once I think take me with you came like during.

Well, that's my point. And the fact that, I mean, it's easy to take for granted that his talents were endless and metaphorically speaking. He was just shooting three-pointers all day with his eyes closed. The film people worried about that, but we didn't because by then I knew what everybody else in the camp do that this was a guy who would go downstairs and in six hours to create a new song. And at that point in his career, the songs he was creating were consistently good. I think it didn't take long once shooting began to realize,

A, that nobody in this cast was going to threaten Merrill Streep or George S. Scott. What were those preparations like? Did you witness like these ballet classes? When I first got to Minneapolis, as Farnoli said, you're an off-road road. Because I said, what's the gig? You're an off-road road manager with three bands. why wouldn't Farnoli come in to do the legwork?

Because he lived in L.A. and he didn't want to live in Minneapolis. Leeds get Lings to do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this was kind of the Gopher stuff. It's like we had an acting coach who had been hired from California to come in and work individually

with the people who had the most speaking roles. We had a dance class down, downtown that was just basically just basic dance and energy as much a workout as anything else. So it's just to keep them in shape, not? Exactly, exactly. Like was the 1990 tour making them lazy and like, oh. No, but I just, just figured. You're putting on the pounds.

Yeah. And then there was the rehearsals. And you had Vanity Sixth, you had the time, and you had the revolution. and they were all rehearsing. So it was my job to stagger their schedules to make sure everybody knew where to go and win. The dance classes were like three times a week downtown at the Minnesota Dance Theater.

Three times a week downtown. Yeah. And it would be like in late morning so that we could have the day for rehearsing. And everybody would go to that together. So that would be all the groups together. And anybody else who wanted to. So 19 people is your job to wrangle 19 people?

Yeah, pretty much. Included and... Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then Gwen and I would go and Gwen would get in tights and work out with Susan Moosey and it would just all hang out

and silly and Jerome would clown and drive the dance teacher crazy. It was hysterical. I mean, we should have had footage of that. The dance theater stuff was a riot. Prince included? Sometimes. Not always, but sometimes.

I'd say half the time he was there. So, I mean, was it easy at all for you to make this move or was it like? No, it's pretty true. dramatic, actually. Because it was like leaving a girlfriend, leaving New York, neither of which I wanted to leave. To live in a town, I had no designs of staying in.

But it was like, this is the offer you can't refuse. And I really played hard to get with Farnoli when he called me. Because it was like, you know, I ain't because he could tell. I ain't feeling Minneapolis, man. I mean, how long am I to be there? Well, maybe forever. I was like, no.

Well, you were lucky enough to pull Gwen into the circle. Yeah. I can't imagine like pulling my girl into like, okay, well, I tried that once. Like, how did it end? We broke up at the end of that. It ended. The Dean's all I'm talking. But wait, that's what you just said, Alan.

You said that was a part of the deal. Like it's either both of us or. It was part of the deal at a certain point because after I was here for a while and I realized this was a keeper meeting the gig. I was really concerned about our relationship because the relationship had just gotten to the point where this is like getting serious. But, you know, she had a good job in New York.

She was public relations director for the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum and Natural History. Yeah. Had been there for several years. All her friends were in New York. She'd never lived anywhere else except when she went away to school. And so the idea of her moving

just didn't even seem worth... you having a conversation about. Never occurred to me. But something happened at the planetarium. They had a change in management, and the new regime was not to her liking, so she was starting to job hunt. So Fait just said that if she was ever going to consider a move,

this was the time. And my thing was that eventually we would tour, which is what I lived for. If I'd want to be in the movie-making business, I would have moved to L.A. and got in that business. This was just something we were doing until we got to the next tour. That's what got me excited was hitting the road and making music. Making a movie was tedious to me.

It was just boring. Plus, you didn't know whether or not it was going to work or not. No, but I knew with or without the success of the movie, one day he's going to tour again. He's got a band. He makes new music and he's popular. We're going to go out in the road and do what we do. And at that point, I don't want to be away from home for six months. So the thing with Gwen was like once she came, she came to visit,

and then the job situation for her turned into something that became unpleasant because the management change. And she was like, you know what? And I miss you too. Maybe this is what I'm supposed to do. So lo and behold, she was willing to move. So at that point, I was like, okay, if we're going to tour, she's going to become my assistant. And it kind of morphed organically because there was no pace.

Park there was no office and so kind of by default my apartment living room became the office that's where guys would come to pick up their per diems and you know and packages would come that I'd have to take the Prince of rehearsal so it it was kind of the headquarters for PRN productions until we finally had an office a year later so needless to say Prince got used to calling me He got used to Gwen answering the phone, and very gradually he started asking her to do stuff for him. Oh, so he had a vision this evening.

Yeah. So he was like, and I don't know if he was testing her or what, but he was like, you know, did a package come for me? Well, I think so, but Alan's at the store. Well, I need the package. Can you bring it out to the house? You know, or at one in the morning, it was like, you know, I'm in St. Paul, and I ran out of.

gas can somebody bring me some gas to put in the car? Wait, why would do that a lot? He would do that a lot. Really? Yeah, I got it probably half a dozen times that he would call the house and say, I ran out of gas and we'd have to go get gas.

Or we'd call somebody who was already out, either his brother, Dwayne, or we'd find somebody. It wasn't like it had to be me, but, you know, somebody got to bring me some gas. And it had an error without cell phones. I can't even imagine. Exactly.

Exactly. That's crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. But he got used to Gwen doing stuff, so it just became like, okay. And then fans had discovered his house, the purple house. And whenever he and I would go to New York or go to L.A. for meetings or business or just to get away for a few days, he was getting nervous about leaving the house empty. So there were a few times he asked Gwen to house sit for him when we'd be out of town. and so on.

Was it a gate at the house? Yeah, there was an electronic gate and so on. In fact, once there were some fans out there, and she accidentally opened the gate and had heart attack because they came in. But that's a Gwen story. But long and short of it is, she just became part of the family.

I mean, it was, you know, she became very friendly with Susan Moonsie, particularly, because Moonsie didn't drink the Kool-Aid. She was more like a very grounded person, which appealed to Gwen, because she was totally baffled by the whole rock and roll thing. She was from the planetarium from the museum world where every postage stamp counted.

And now it's like rock and roll. It's like, hey, send something counter to counter, which was before FedEx. And she just couldn't get with the sense of entitlement and the waste and the excess of our lifestyle. So it was a little bumpy. for us, but, you know, she adapted pretty quick. And he accepted her.

Well, I'm just amazed that. Can you describe the, I guess, the work ethic is what I'm really trying to grasp, because I've never seen anyone who is up at the crack. Or, I mean, what time did rehearsals normally start? like three-ish two three o'clock in the afternoon really yeah okay so and when did they end though totally varied depended whether it was just a rehearsal or if it was something specific and the closer you get to that specific gig or tour then the rehearsals might go to midnight one two in the morning but the average day because i mean he'd rehearse all day everybody's on retainer so he would rehearse constantly even if there wasn't a tour around the corner and those rehearsals might be i mean if he went to studio and recorded a new song he'd want to rehearse it with the band so they'd learn it even before the record ever came out without even knowing whether the song would make an album so we were always rehearsing and those just for the lack of better way of putting it those kind of everyday rehearsals without a serious purpose would maybe three o'clock till eight o'clock

at night or something like that. Five, six hours. So not as intense as... No. But then if it's a tour three weeks away, then they get really, really focused

and longer. But the thing was, the rehearsal might last three or four or five hours. But then he'd want to jam on night. Oh, after the rehearsal? After the rehearsal. Once he'd done whatever he wanted to rehearse,

then it was like, okay, then he'd like all of his sudden started playing body heat and vamp on it for like an hour were they generally enjoying it or was it like no one of them was like yo man i made plants to yeah there were those times but they knew better than to make plants you just didn't dare make plans but i'm certain someone gave you like the eyes like oh yeah of course it's my kid's birthday like that sort of but none of that matter no it was It's all about him indulging his. That's what retainers are for.

You're on call, baby. 24-7. In fact, let's play First Avenue tonight at midnight. Get out of bed and come downtown. What was the most 11th hour request you've ever had to make happen in your history of this organization? The video for Alphabet Street. I knew it. I knew it.

Really? I knew it. That was a, oh God, this might not happen or? No, it was a phone call on a Sunday morning in a snowstorm. But, I mean, it's Minneapolis, so that's... No, but it's still a Sunday morning. And he was no advance notice whatsoever. It was literally like 10, 10, 11 o'clock Sunday morning phone rings.

I want to see the video. Okay. When? Now... Wait, time out. Was there even like a hello? Hello's Alan there? No, very seldom.

Just, hello? I want to shoot a video. Yeah, he'd just go right into it. He'd never say hello. Like, he used to drive going crazy because he'd never say hello to her. And like, she would answer the phone, Alan there? Not is Alan, just two words, Alan there. That was, ooh.

He said, ooh. And she did what you would probably do. She said, oh, hi, Prince. How are you? You know? Just. Hey, Prince, how you, hello. Exactly.

Wait, were you all allowed to call? Even, I can't imagine him. I can't imagine calling him Prince. That was his name. Yeah, what else was he come? Mama name is Clay. I'm gonna call him Clay. This is long before.

I'll like that. Anyway, all right. You know. So, Alan, I guess, can you tell us at the time when you're taking this tour on the road. Like, at what point does this become like Beatlemania? As soon as we got to Detroit,

the first show. What is it about Detroit? Like, he, was it the fact that Electrifying Mojo just had the city on fire for him more than any other DJ? I mean, that wasn't around then, but I think it was one of the first cities where he really

blew up. And for whatever reason, it just worked. And Billy Sparks is also from Detroit, correct? Billy Sparks is from Detroit. But when you really think back, Detroit, Motown aside, Detroit, when you think of P-Funk, and the fact that the early Funkadelic came out of Detroit,

there was always kind of a unique merger of funk and rock there that wasn't necessarily elsewhere. Okay. And maybe that speaks to it. I'm just guessing here. I always wanted to know, How did Billy Sparks get his position in Purple Ring? Like, was he just always...

Billy Sparks is a promoter by trade. And an actual... He worked with Quentin Perry and Jeff Sharp, who were our tour promoters. Okay. And had been with Prince since the controversy tour. So it was before my time, even. And continued to be the tour promoters.

And Billy's gig was that he did all their radio, and he was like their publicist. He was their promo guy who would go to all the radio stations and hype the shows. But I mean, obviously there was something personal about Billy that Prince took a liking to. Prince took a liking to him.

I mean, he had a, he was, Billy's a character. He's got a really outgoing personality and a real flavor to him and good sense of humor. But enough to say, I'm going to put you in my movie. and yeah but i mean this is a guy oh you just thought that was natural like oh yeah we'll put

dude he put me in the movie why wouldn't he put his sparks in the movie put everybody in the movie yeah by the way alan it uh for those who don't know alan no to point is the point is about me it's about he put everybody in the movie it was like you know that was his that was his thing we're gonna rule the world everybody's going to be part of this his dream once we'd all live in a gated community i can't Anacin and Bill's Keyword Park And you know

When we're kids We'll have a nursery center Inside Paisley So we never have to mix With it was real Howard Hughes shit It's like No it's more like Dr. York Yeah

Exactly Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh No I'm just joking No no

No no That's a whole Yeah With its own soundtrack Yeah All right So you're just saying It was very natural

For Billy Sparks To just Yeah It was like, it's part of the gang. It's the purple crew. Oh. The purple gang. At the height of that tour,

um, I mean, did you think that it was over was, I mean, what kept you on? Because he stopped touring for two years, but yet you were still there, correct?

Yeah. Um, you were just there on standby in case? No, because by that point, whatever he did, I was part of it. even if it was just for the hang.

That was just part of whenever he traveled, I'd go with him. And it was, it was, I mean, there was a valet, there was a chef, and there was me. And I was like the road manager. And even if it wasn't a tour, I was still managing his moves in and out to hotels and clubs and whatever.

Okay. So it was just, you know, there was just that point in time whenever he moved, I moved with him. So were you just told that? And understand something, too. all this time from the day I got to Minnesota, what it really, really was,

was as much as anything, was I was like the liaison between Prince and the management because his management, Cavallo Ruffalo and Farnoli were based in L.A. Okay. They did not want to move to L.A. If they had, I would never had a gig.

So you were the silent member of that firm and you decided to live in Minnesota, I see. I see. So at what point, are you just told that you're the president of Paisley Park or? No, it's just, it's like, okay, we got the money. We're going to build the building, you know, and. Now, as a Prince Van Nupt. And I was his guy. I mean, I was the guy on site.

I mean, there was Farnoli, who I answered to, and Cavallo and Ruffalo to it. agree. But in terms of on-site, I mean, now there were a lot of other guys by then. By the time we built Paisley, it was a pretty big crew of technicians and engineers. And we hired a studio, the guy who actually ran Paisley, the facility, the studio manager, the building manager, was a guy named Harry Grossman, who had run Maurice White's complex in West Hollywood. We hired him away. As a music observer, I always notice that whenever someone chooses to upgrade, that also marks the beginning of the moment, like kind of the beginning of the end, but it's like Barry Gordy taking Motown out of Detroit and going to L.A.

Wu Tang leaving the Riz's basement to a more posh Hollywood studio I mean there's other examples of you know cleaner studios and that sort of stuff

and then it loses its it's appeal did you feel I mean not saying that you could answer from I wouldn't call you a Prince fan but I would at least think that you admired some of his music

big time Did you necessarily feel like this might be a jinx situation where, like, you know, all this magic is coming out of the warehouse in this particular studio? Not a jinx situation. I think would, I know where you're going with this, but I look at it a little differently, but maybe with the same result. My brother always accuses me. He says, how come you always like every artist's early work the best? and I do tend to and I think it's because

there's a sense of adventure when an artist is developing when an artist is growing and learning is he or she goes along and discovering new things to their skill set that they didn't even know they had necessarily

and you're going to get that in their early work now that doesn't mean it's their best work but just the way my DNA is, that's what appeals to me the most. And the more you're established, the more you've defined yourself, then it's starting to get to the point where you can become derivative or just repetitive. Because you pretty much have done what you have to have. do and now it's just about how can I

do this differently. But you've kind of learned what you're going to learn. There's just a point where you hit a ceiling as an artist and you, I don't want to say run out of ideas, but you know, you're going to do another adore. It's just going to have a different

name. It might be even as good. She's all that. I'm sorry. We had to say that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Have you heard this song? I've not heard she's all that. Have you heard this She's all that, Alan? That's not fair. Wait a minute.

Have you heard it? Yeah, of course he's heard it. Okay, that was during your reign. Are you allowed to say what you thought of it or? You should probably tell them who it is first. Okay, well, I don't know. You're going to play it or something? No, we can't.

No. And even if we could, I don't think we would. Is it that bad or is it nasty? Well, there was a point where, okay, so when, Carmen Electra. Oh, you can stop right there. Okay. We can stop right there.

All right, Questlove Supreme. Only open to her. We're with Alan Leeds, ladies and gentlemen. No. Yeah, so he... With Carmen Electric... First off, you should probably tell the significance of the song Adore.

Well, you tell me. Well, it's like the fan favorite print song. Really? What's your favorite Prince ballot? See, that's the thing. That's the thing. It's a door. It's a door.

No. It's a door, trust me. No, but what's your favorite? Forget what anybody else thinks? What's the most popular? What's the best? What's your favorite? A door.

Insation. Close second. When we're dancing close or slow? Here's the thing. I'm going to be real honest with you. I technically have been very much indifferent to print slow songs. Uh-uh. No, no, no.

No, no. No, no. Like, I don't know. I'd skip these shits. You move for beautiful ones. It moves you. When I got to join, then I'm like, all right, I'll put some Prince things on it. But I don't like go.

Look, look, I acknowledge, I acknowledge that Do Me Baby is probably his best. See, that's mine. Vocal performance. Yeah, but it's like, really hearing a 10-minute song of Prince having sex is not my go-to thing. So I think that. generational. I think that's your generation of males who feel uncomfortable embracing a ballot unless you got a woman under your arm.

Yeah. I can respect it. He's the babies, Alan. Tell them with the young boy. It's okay to like a ballot. Oh, I'm a baby now. No, no. I'm saying I just never like slow songs. I just had a flashback to the end of graffiti bridge. Sorry. The kid won. And with the ballad. Damn. But you get a pass, but my point was there was a point in his career. Wait, I can't believe that. When you heard his ballads, they just sounded like, okay, this is the new version of Dumi Baby or Ad Door.

Exactly. And it's like, Scandal This might be a dynamite ballot if I never heard the other ones. Right. But if I heard scandalous first, that's the joint. I like condition of the heart, but I don't consider it a ballot. No, that's a great song. The narrative. The point being, there's a point where you've done.

define yourself as an artist. And you can't help but be repetitive because it's what you do now. You've kind of stopped learning and growing. And yeah, you may find a new way to mix it, or you may tinker with the instrumentation and approach it. It's different ways to do things, but you're basically still doing the same thing you've already done. And that's what I knew was eventually going to happen,

but it would have happened with it without basically part because it happens to every artist. Well, to explain to our listeners, the sort of taboo, blasphemous thing that Prince did in terms of Carmen a lecture and some sort of Ted Turner colorization way was he took his much loved Ador ballot and gave it to Carmen to wrap over a song called All That. Sorry. I'm all that. Yeah. Yeah, it was a bad idea. Well, suffice it to say, God burst his soul.

He was a little confused with the advent of hip hop. And hip-hop's crossover into mainstream acceptance just at best bewildered him. Were you around for his hammer observations? Because I think more than run DMC and public enemy, I feel like a lot of diamonds and pearls was derivative of the hammer reaction. Thunder was definitely sexy motherfucker Definitely that

I can't think of a particular song But there's a conversation That we had alone in Studio A And I don't recall how we got on the subject But I'll never forget What he said He held up a copy of billboards, hot 100 And

Hammer and Vanilla Ice both had hits at the time Huge hits. And he pointed to the chart and he said do you know what it feels like to spend your whole life learning a craft and look at this and see hammer and vanilla ice who cannot sing and cannot play an instrument and i can't get in the top 20 he didn't get it and i would say okay fuck hammer fuck vanilla ice what i put public enemy right well that's a good politics but it ain't it ain't they can't singer they can't sing a play you know i i don't think he really respected the art of sampling and

mixing but he wasn't mad at those prey checks either well of course well no of course no of course like 11 million but but it it certainly influenced as you said you know there was a point where you can't beat him join him because there was a point where he looked up and realized that you know this is a guy who threw out the the bulk of the 80s was the he was the leader he was the guy who was building the new the new he was setting the new trends right you know he was at the forefront that he was he was cutting edge everything he was doing was what everybody was biting now all of a sudden it's not his day anymore there's new kids on the block bad bad pun but um um you know all of a sudden there's something else and it's something he doesn't

do and something that he doesn't i mean Look, I know the brother grew up in North Minneapolis. And, you know, North Minneapolis is to Minneapolis. It's the hood. But it ain't like growing up in the Bronx in the 70s. When we moved to Minneapolis and saw the hood, the first thing we thought it was like, damn, projects look like a holiday in. Everything is relative, okay?

Right. Dude did not understand hip-hop culture. Okay. He may or may not have liked a given record, but the culture didn't relate. to him. Blackness aside, it wasn't where he came from. He grew up in Minneapolis. You know what I wish? Not Brooklyn. You know what I wish, though? I wish someone was there to actually just explain to him. He was actually hip hop and didn't even know it. Like, he,

that's the fun. The funniest thing was that he didn't even know he was showing the blueprint. because in my mind all he did was provide the blueprint because everything he did from his work on drum machines. That to me was hip hop. Irresistible bitch. Yeah. I'm not even talking about the times where he just rapped a song. Like even when I was like 83. No, no, I know.

But even then I didn't think like, oh, Prince can rap. I was just like Prince sometimes just spoke shit. But I've meant his attitude was more. Or his castoffs. In his head, those are just the silly little songs we have fun with. They're not the serious work. Right. But even then, like everything he did from his, the stories that he would concoct in early interviews to, I meant his exploitation of our fair, scared, exotic women.

That's your definition of hip-hop, which is very broad. but his is much narrower. Hip-hop to him only meant two things. You didn't play and you didn't sing, but you still made records. But to me, he was more hip-hop when he wasn't trying to rap. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

And I mean, the proof in the pudding is that when he, you know, when he suddenly realized that, maybe not suddenly, he gradually realized that he was no longer at the cutting edge of things and had to reconcile that. Then all of a sudden he's singing into a microphone shaped like a gun, and he's got somebody spitting rhymes in his band. And the guys who were trying to get him into hip hop

were actually the wrong guys because they weren't prime examples of that culture. They were people who rapped for a living or tried to, but wasn't Chuck. But weren't him and Michael Jackson going through it? It seemed like at the same time. I said it felt like Michael Jackson and him were going through. through that at the same time. At some point, they both must have felt that's that way because they both were artists in a whole not a sense.

Michael Jackson, everybody in the industry felt that way. He adapted, though. He adapted way better than Prince did. Michael Jackson worked with, like, actual rappers, and we got the gold nigger album from from that. But I think the important thing is Michael never tried to be somebody. He

wasn't. And when Prince is singing into a mic, Mike, shape, like a gun and having a rapper in the band who isn't good, that's trying to be something you're not. And this is only... Was there... I'm sorry, go ahead. And this is only like a few short years

after the song, Dead on it, where he basically calls out rappers. Yeah. So was there a general feeling of relief when the Batman soundtrack sold like 7, 8 million units, or was it just like... Was it like, okay, the lights are still on? Or was it...

Well, I mean, nobody was, nobody was feeling doom. Well, okay, well, okay. I mean, don't understand me. Diamonds and Pearls was a huge selling record. I know that. So did he feel vindicated? And, you know, Love Sexy was a flop by his standards, but there's a lot of artists would have to have those sales.

I mean, everything is relative. It wasn't like he was, you know, he just was no longer at the forefront of things because the world had caught up. And people were listening to different things. they got used to him. There's a point where no matter how good you are, people get used to. You're only new once. I would like to ask you about your take, or at least what you can indulge on the Japan run,

which for many Prince fans know, that was like the last hurrah of the revolution. How, not how easy was it to... This is 86. I believe there's 86. So I guess the legend is that once Wendy and Bobby saw Prince Smashes Cloud guitar twice actually When you watch the... Have you seen the clip?

So he's doing the Pro Rain solo And then he just looks and then he just takes the cloud guitar And stamps to the ground, marches offstage But what's so funny is that The staff is so efficient I know he wanted to be like the one and done Like this is done and I'm walking offstage, but then the guitar tech had another one ready for him.

And so I was like, ah, man, you... Kill my moment. You ruined the momentum. Now I've got to go back. So then he came out, did another solo. And then he smashed that one, too, and this time really marched off stage. And, you know, Wendy was like, oh, God, I knew that was the beginning of the end. I mean, you've been there for a lot of, I guess, awkward, silent,

car rides home. Did you think, did you know if you had a future after that, you know, after that moment where you figured he was going to disband the group or? I didn't take it as seriously as they did. Oh, so even if you didn't have a future,

you'd just be like, oh, on to the next. Well, I thought I had a future because I figured somebody's going to play with him. Okay. You know,

I wasn't there. The band didn't hire me. He did. Okay. So, so that didn't, I didn't for a minute think that that would affect me. I had a different idea about the thing

because by that time there was a lot of tension in the band for whatever reason. And I'd been around the, you know, everybody in that band, this was their first real taste of anything major. They'd all come from bar bands. And all they knew was this. And it was almost a disservice to their career.

to blow up to the proportion that they did because it's deceptive. It's like the real world isn't like Purple Rain, but that's their reference point. Wow. And I had been through so many artists and so many bands, have been through James Brown going from Macyo to Bootsie and all of those kinds of transitions. And I was fully aware of the fact that there's only one name on the marquee

that sells the tickets. And that as long as the new band is good, Prince is gonna be a-haid. Now, people are going to fundamentally miss the old band and do to this day for good reason. But I never for a minute thought it wasn't going to be I. But isn't the whole starting over again? No, because his music was growing.

And the irony is that when he and Lisa had so much to do with opening him up to new music. But so did Eric and so did Sheila. in their own ways had brought him to things that he hadn't heard before and the point here is not who did it but that his palate

had grown so tremendously that five pieces wasn't going to handle it i.e. here comes Eric and he says get a trumpet player so we can do parts the counter-revolution movement and now it becomes the counter-revolution

but the real point being that he just, his, what he heard was so much bigger than what Purple Rain was, in terms of just from a musical standpoint. And I think he saw those five pieces as a limitation. And it has nothing to do with the quality of musicianship or the personalities or anything. It was just time for a change. And he wanted some new blood and he wanted a bigger group and an opportunity. to explore different kinds of music.

And I think something else I picked up from James Brown was that when you bring new people into the band, it reinvigorates you. Because when you feel you've gone as far as you can with the people around you, the only way

to keep from being derivative is to freshen up the people around you. And James did that all the time, particularly with drummers. He may not change his whole band, but he went through drummers like crazy. And every one of them had a very identifiably different style. Jabbo Clyde.

You're right. So you were president of Paisley Park to win? Well, technically I was vice president of Paisley Park Records. I was the president. He was. Oh, right. Obvious. I forgot that one.

I took over the label in January of 89. So was it a real label? Like, Warners respected you guys and? They wanted to. And up until I took it over, really, there was no Paisley Park Records. It was an imprint. I mean, it existed on paper, but nobody ran. You know, Cavala, Ruffalo and Farnoli were supposedly running it.

But, I mean, if you wanted to call Paisley Park Records, there was no number to call. You would call Cavala Ruffalo Management. And maybe they'd have time to talk about it. But it wasn't their focus because they ran a management company with a lot of clients. So it was just a vanity label. their eyes to him and I think they initially really wanted it to turn into something the way Maverick did in the sense that

one of these artists will catch on. Yeah, because he was a guy who had been able to produce Manic Monday, Sheila E, the time, Vanity Six. This was a guy who could write and produce good records for people. And they expected he would do that in-house. When did you realize, like, maybe perhaps you should make your exit then, what, 91, 92 or? Yeah, it ended up being 92, May of 92.

It's just one day you wake up and realize you've been in the same place too long. And you're just not excited. But you never left Minnesota, though, like you... No, but I'd say place. I'm talking about a career position. I don't mean geographically. Was it quasi-amicable? I mean, at least at the time.

Yeah, I mean, actually, it hired me back. for a couple of one-off projects. I came back a year later to put together a Japanese tour form. I didn't do the tour, but I assembled a crew and dealt with the promoter and worked on all the contracts and the riders and so on. And then I came back to do the liner notes for the hits project. So we spoke. I mean, we were cool. It was just that he had the, the Paisley Park label was a no win. It was a win. It was a... a joint venture with Warners, meaning it was owned 50-50 and funded by Warners. Okay.

But his contract was up, and he wanted, he was in the midst of renegotiating his own contract. And there were a lot of things about those negotiations that I wasn't keen on. We just didn't see eye to eye on certain things. From a business standpoint, it wasn't, you know, as much as anything else. but he was convinced that the failure at Paisley Park, and I've never met an artist who would say anything different, was because Warners didn't prioritize the product.

And I knew for a fact because as the head of the label, I was spending better part of a week to 10 days out of each month working out of Warners in Burbank, and very close with Mo Austin, Lenny Warnock, or Benny Medina, the whole gang. And I knew what they were willing to do. to do if we had the product they wanted. And it just wasn't there. They expected him to make

cutting-edge records, or at least contemporary radio-worthy records. And not that all the records were bad, we made some good records. We made a couple of great jazz albums with my brother. One of which actually did very well on the jazz charts. Things Left Unsaid

was the top 10 jazz album that year. But jazz albums were selling 20,000 units at best. Right. Um, we had George Clinton record. That was one of the least interesting George Clinton records. It was old stuff that he had recorded for another label. The deal had fallen apart and Pritz did it as a favor. Um, and the idea of signing George was that they would work together.

Never happened. I mean, Pritz gave a couple of tracks, but. Wait, none of that. Never really happened. It was one song. It was the worst song in the album. Yeah. What song was it?

The Bump. No, it was the big pump Win it with a big pump Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, that one Good, yeah And then he signed Mavis Staples

And that was a good solid old school soul record But it wasn't time for her to come back yet Thankfully she has She's had a lot of success lately Thrilled for that, much deserved The Mavis Stables records were good records

But there were no hits There was nothing at all It was contemporary radio work not when hip hop was blowing up and you know that's those were the records we were doing and warners was just like come on guys we love Mavis and George

but there's a reason they don't have deals they're not selling records wow now I'm depressed a win is a win a win I don't care what I'm saying yep that's me Cliver 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 Podcasts, or 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 2, 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. I'm Ego Wode. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him 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 of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always brag about you have a, you have this artifact in your house on this cassette. you have what my opinion is some of the greatest recorded moments in answer machine history

of which these these notable music gods are leaving you messages but but you still get a inkling of an idea of what the the time was like like I guess with James Brown's message it's because he left a few messages I get the feeling that was like one of the first times that James Brown was dealing with a modern answering machine. That was one of the, you know, like, the, the news guy doesn't know he's on the air yet. Like, yeah. Wait, wait now. Oh, oh, hey, guys, hi, this is, da-da-da-da, from Channel 6 News.

Like, that's how James Brown's message is. And then, like, next comes, uh, I guess Prince left you a message about, you know, uh, leaving a piano for my father to play in this. but it sounded like that grasshopper kung fu voice I don't know if he mentioned 17 days or I think he mentioned one of his singles

that was iconic I don't know I've only heard it once and then then George Clinton calls and talks about you know I might sign the Paisley Parker that sort of thing and then like it's just it goes through throughout history

and you get to see the scope of, you know, of what Alan's life is like. You know, there's one. Even DeAngel calls like, what had happened was, and then. There's one that's missing that I never, that somehow erased and never, never transferred. What?

And that was Miles. Oh, wow. And it was, tell that little purple motherfucker to call me. Well, Yeah, I had it for about a month. I saved it and then one day it was gone. Oh, damn.

Well, I know that, I mean, even though you made a life and soul, I know for a fact that you are a jazz fanatic. I mean, if anything, I think that you would have loved to, how come you never pursued, I know that your love for Weather Report kind of surpasses, at least in my eyes, any any music that you've worked with like i know that your fandom for that particular unit how come you never i don't know about surpasses but it's certainly i know you love some other report yeah big time big time and miles so how come you never and probably the number one is any form

so at no point did you think like i want to manage these guys and um just wasn't my world and they didn't but I figured if you can conquer they didn't have well-paid tour managers yeah there you go I was about to say the gigs weren't there okay said jazz was 20,000 right I'm about

so when you made your exit did I mean do you ever fear I mean I guess the life of a tour manager is like you're only as stable monetarily at least as the act that you're with until you get to your next

I feel like it's almost like a trapeze thing. Like you might catch the, you know, the bar of the trapeze line or you could just fall into the pit. I mean, there were phases in my career where for just simple economic reasons, I was concerned about what's next. And fearing the fact that I might have to take a gig I didn't like or worse yet, just go through a year without gigs because sometimes the phone didn't ring. But, you know, it was very blessed because it was 10 solid years with Prince would a paycheck every week. So that's not a typical tour manager situation. It was five, five and a half solid years with James Brown, except for the three weeks I got fired because I was sick. Otherwise, with a paycheck every week.

So that was not a typical tour manager's thing. Now, the rest of the time, it's been kind of freelance, except once I got back with DeAngelo, now is his co-eastern. manager, of course, that's an entirely different relationship. And it's about management contracts and so on, which is a whole different kind of compensation situation. But, you know, there were times, but I've just been really, really blessed because it's, it's like the Prince thing. I mean, I had become a huge, just to make a long story short, I didn't get into Prince

until controversy. and before I met my wife, Gwen, and was dating a girl in Pittsburgh who worked at a radio station that said I got front row tickets to the controversy show, Prince, and come on, let's go. Because she worked for the station and they were promoting it, so on and so on. And literally front row center. And I'm like, I don't want to see that shit. I like the record, but, you know, I want to see some little guy in bikinis.

What am I going to miniature chippendales? It was like, I had a... absolutely no interest but you know new girlfriend so i went and i walked out of there like yo i got to work for this guy someday and it wasn't just the music it was the whole package the lighting was dope the pa was dope everything about his thing was was like what's like gold standard and i'm like you could see this is this is the real deal and obviously an amazing performer um and i didn't know a soul with that outfit and I was out of the business. A year later I'm working for Kiss and lo and behold the production manager says hey you want to go to Prince? Okay. You know. Um and kind of DeAngelo happened

to this. I mean I met Chris Rock because he came to a Prince show. He came to Love Sexy. This was even before SNL and he was with Nelson George brought him to the show and we hung out after and it was like that kind of like hey man one day I'm going to be and I want you to run my shows. Like, if you run this, I want you to run my shows. That's how you got to? Literally. And it's like, yeah.

Was Chris Rock next after your Princeton? No, no, no, no. But I'm saying that's how I met him. Okay. And, you know, we kind of stayed in touch, ran into each other once or twice a year. He'd come to Minneapolis, pay a comedy club, and call me. And once he blew up, and it's now, it's been five Chris Rock tours. And the Maxwell thing happened.

And somebody, a friend of mine who worked for Sony, gave me the first CD, the Urban Hang Suite before it came out, said, this is a kid from New York. You think it's right up your alley. You're probably going to like this. Just gave it to me. And I'm like, oh, shit, this is kind of dope. I'm driving around the lake one day playing it in the car. And Gwen says, what's that? I'm like, there's some kid from New York Maxwell.

She said, oh, my God, I haven't heard anything fresh in years. So on it's. And my wife has real old R&B ears. So for her, it's from Luther Vandros to Maxwell. That was the evolution. But I'm like, okay, if she loves it, this is going to work. And like three months later, I get a call from an agent who says, I got a new kid who's going out, and he's kind of difficult, so I thought of you.

I don't know if that was a compliment or not, but, you know, it's the rep I got after Prince and James Brown and so on. And it turned out to be Maxwell. And that's the record I've been in love with for three months. So I do several Maxwell tours. Brown Sugar comes out. I fall in love with that. I'm a DeAngelo fan.

Saw him once or twice on shows that I was with other artists. Didn't know him. Never met him. Wasn't that impressed with the show I saw because he was a guy in the trench coat sitting at a piano. You didn't really work the stage yet. This is Brown Sugar era. So are cats in trench coats and soul music.

That's what's missing. At least he had pants on. Okay, okay. But I finish a Maxwell tour. I don't remember which ones. It's the third or fourth Maxwell tour. And I'm in New York at a meeting, finishing up the accounting with the business manager,

planning to fly home in the morning. I've been on the road for three or four months. And I'm walking across the lobby of my hotel, and my cell phone rings. And it's like, Mr. Leeds, my name is DiAngelo. And I've heard about you and so on and so on and so on. And I thought it was Maxwell playing a prank, honest of God. So I'm like, yeah, right, Max, get out of here.

Because I just left him at this meeting. We'd been on the road for three months. Right. He's testing your loyalty. Yeah, he's playing with me. So I'm like, yeah, right, Max, you can't get me. You know, I'm the phone up. And two minutes later, it rings again.

It's like, seriously, this is DeAngelo. And, you know, I'd like to see if you could fly into New York to have a meeting. And you guys were working on the last month or so of voodoo at the time. Right. And I stayed over. I said, well, I happened to be in New York. I canceled my flight. Went to meet with him and Dom.

God bless his soul the next day. And that was 15 years ago. What was hilarious was that we didn't, I think I told him the night before that you were going to come to like one of the rehearsals. I don't know what you were, I recall that you came to SIR to watch us do something. I don't know if it was the very beginning of the tour or whatever.

We were just starting to rehearse the tour. But I remember the night before, like, D and I were, like, rehearsing our lines. Like, okay, we don't want to freak him out. So maybe we shouldn't ask that many Prince questions and Chase Rowan questions. So we're just like, we're going to play it real cool when he comes in. Like, don't. Let's not geek out. And I think that lasted all for like five minutes in there.

Right. So you guys were like the anti-Prince back then? No. When Prince and Allen first started talking, he was like, tell me some James Brown stories. Yeah, we were like, tell us some Prince stories. So, yeah, I was going to say, like, if, I mean, what drives you now? Like, what's your passion? Same thing that always did to music.

I'm still a kid who's a fan of the music, and that's the blessing, is that every other tour manager I know may have started out that way and then got jaded because they had to take that gig they didn't want, or the artists they were in love with turned out to be a jerk, or they had too many months off between tours and couldn't pay the bills, and all that passion for this life of traveling and meeting interesting people and going interesting places and doing interesting things.

things comes to a halt and you know but my first wife once said you know what are you going to come home and get a real job and I'm like I think it's real money paying the bills isn't it you know I don't know what you call a real job but you know I'm one of the few people on the planet that's blessed enough to actually enjoy what I'm doing to get and get paid for it but I love the music and I guess at the end of the day. I mean, people ask at this age, what in the world are you doing on the road?

Because my knees hurt when I get in a bunk on a tour bus. This is not fun anymore. But when the lights go down and people scream and the vanguard hits, the fuck out of here. I get paid for this? Wow. That's all you can say, I guess.

Wait, before we wrap up, I just personally want to know. I mean, out of, I mean, you've seen a lot of, historical things in your years as a manager, tour manager, you know, do you think you can actually come up with like a top three historical moments like I was there when blah, blah, blah, blah was conceived or, you know, that time when Prince and Michael Jackson, you know, whatever, like, Do you have a personal top three, like, reflection? I was actually there when this happened.

They're all a sex machine. So you mentioned the poster with the lyrics on it in Nashville, which was the first recording session he did with the new band that was Bootsie and his brother Phelps and those guys, which kind of reinvented his brand of funk and opened things up. So did you feel, James Brown was about to be played out by that point or something. It was played out.

The records weren't selling the way they had. I can't. But in 1969, I'm still thinking like, Mother Popcorn. So you're saying that to younger kids, Mother Popcorn was a huge hit. But we were living in the era of the still living in the era of the single. And you were only as good as your last single. And after Mother Popcorn came Funky Drummer, which is legendary, but you couldn't give the record away. It didn't sell.

So James Brown's one flop in his whole... No, it wasn't his one flop. Well, his streak between the 65-75 streak. And let a man come in, which was a nice record, but it wasn't a real hit. Really? No. I mean, it did okay, but it wasn't like a number one record. Brother rap, that was another one.

It did okay, but it wasn't a number one record. But sex machine was hot. Sex machine was like all of a sudden people are calling. and kids are bugging out, the attendance at the shows picked up. And the fact that we had a new band and had gone through the bad press that came when Macy and him left. And Marvel Whitney had quit and did an interview dissing James. So the press had been really, really negative. And all of a sudden we got this new band with these new kids and this fresh hit.

And it was like in a period of three or four months, we'd gone downhill and come back up. So that was cool. That was pretty major. I think payback because there again he was cold he'd had several records that you know you might consider worthy but weren't huge hits

and payback was a huge hit and and didn't sound like the other ones and then obviously purple rain I mean that's just the premiere of that just the movie and just you know the premiere and the idea that the reviews

and the box office, the opening week, that like, my God, we're really, really part of something that's going to be huge. That's amazing. There's a story about the Purple Rain premiere that you tell a lot that I don't think all of our listeners have heard about you guys being in the limo approaching the theater. Can you tell that story?

Yeah, we had a procession of limos going to the premiere. The premiere was it the man's, Groundman's Chinese theater in LA. Hollywood Boulevard. And, you know, big red carpet affair. MTV was out front and everybody else was out front. And, you know, a lot of celebs invited. Weird out.

Typically, yeah, right. Typical L.A. rock and roll movie premiere. And we had a, we were staying in Westwood at what was then called the Westwood Barque. I think it's a W now. And we had limos for the band. Wendy and Lee. who were in one, I guess, Bobby and Fink were probably at New York. I forget how we were divided up, but we had several limos.

And I was in the car who was just me, Prince, and Chick. Chick was in the front. I was in the backward prints. As we came out of the hotel, he grabbed a flower from the garden in front of the hotel. There was just a little garden in front of the hotel along the curb, grabbed flowers, and he was holding them in the car all the way. Now, this is, again, before cell phones and high-tech stuff. So we had walkie-talkies and we had security already at the theater.

They were going to orchestrate how the cars pulled up in what sequence and so on and so on. And as we got within about five or six blocks of the theater, one of our security guys radioed a big chick and started telling them how crazy the scene was. Like, man, you won't believe this. There's thousands of kids in the street. The police are going crazy trying to control the crowd. this is just the biggest thing I've ever seen it's madness so on and so on and so on and Prince overheard

we in the backseat kind of overheard some of it and all of a sudden his voice kind of broke and he said chick what did they say and chick repeated it to him and I looked at his face and it was the deer in the headlights

It was like all of this preparation, the whole ordeal of making the movie, of making the album of doing the preview shows that we did at First Avenue and so on. All of that had led up to this moment, this whole fantasy that nobody believed what happened but him, or at least he claimed he believed it would happen. And for a split second, he really lost it. And he grabbed my hand and he said, what did he say? Say it again. I mean, just really lost it. And it lasted for about, his hand was shaken. And it lasted for about 10, 15 seconds.

And then all of a sudden he stiffened up. He got his game face back on. And from then on, it was typical prince. And I don't think he ever broke again. So he was human. He was human for, 15 seconds? For like 15 seconds. And that was the only time he ever did that in front of you?

In front of me. Wow. that's amazing did you have a human moment and I sat next to him at the premiere graffiti bridge oh shit all right just rely on man

give me something give me something where he got up and left before the lights came up oh no is it one scene or okay do you love this film why yeah

no I mean but it was the birth of Kevin Campbell so you know it has a special place in my heart really all five minutes he was on. Yeah.

And Ingrid Chavez. Thank you. See, I was close. She was pretty. Whenever she was. I actually liked her album too. I don't know what any of them were.

My wife was pretty. She ain't in the movie. Too-sha. Damn. Well, I ain't got nothing to say about that. Alan, I know that, you know,

doing all this emotional mushy stuff is you can't stand it. And I appreciate the fact that you let us pick your brain. If you got a second, let me put one post script on the last thing we talked about momentous moments. This is something I want to share. And it's embarrassing to share it to you.

I wish we're talking to somebody else because it looks like I'm trying to butter you up. But once we're in a car coming from a show and Chris Rock, I don't know where. He said, yo, what was the best tour you were ever on? And he was like, you know, James Brown, Prince, but I'm sure he's. he was fishing for a print store because you know chris is you well know he's a princel file like the rest of us yeah and i you would think i'd stop and think about it but before i could even think it it just came out as if i were programmed voodoo well i knew you wow really wow wow just came out wow i would even even think to ask you that question to get that answer i didn't think about it i didn't

think of and once it came out i was like yeah he's right You know. And why? What made that the best? Yeah. I'm talking to him. Did you see it? Alan.

That's what Chris said, because he was stunned. I'm stunned. And the only thing I could say to him was, did you see it? And he said, no, I missed it when it played town. I was out of town and I missed it, damn it. And I said, then I can't tell you. The biggest disgrace in my whole career is that we didn't professionally shoot that show, that there isn't a professional shoot of that show.

I mean, there's bootlegs of the Brazilian shows, but you weren't there and we didn't have the set. They don't count. It was awesome. Yeah, I got to say that, you know, I think maybe I downplay it just to. No, dude, it was the perfect show. The perfect material, the perfect arrangement. Just a key piece in harmony in my own backyard list. That was not, it was, well, I hear that too.

Yeah, I, I guess I could probably say that, probably say that. that probably say that probably the most magical times of my drumming career came, where there's that tour. I don't know. It's like in our mind, I think that we just created the show hoping that one day, like we get the pat on the back approval from the big brother approval thing. And it didn't happen.

but we still went to that city and I felt like who were you looking to get the pet on the back from? I don't think that was the best show though. It was good. They were in Minneapolis, Fonte. Oh, I missed the Minneapolis Fonte. Okay, I get it.

So you thought that show was just okay? No, I, you know what? Your brother got on stage and... Yeah, he ruined Jock's life for about a month. No, I... maybe okay maybe i was just caught up in the whole it was a good one but i think that was just the whole prince aura thing did magic of it all i mean because the thing was it could have went either way and i felt like what i didn't i didn't want to we could have slammed dunked it or we could have

been like uh what's his name on the alando magic that missed those four uh free throws that uh Kenny Anderson. Yeah, yeah. Or we could have Kenney Anderson and missed them and lost our championship goals. No, on the worst night that show was dope. I mean...

Yeah. Just for the listener-wise, though, you and D eventually did get like a pat on the back. Maybe it wasn't for voodoo, but like, creatively, at some point... No, we always had his... We had his respect.

Yeah, we had his respect. Tell us who was in that band in the Voodoo Tour band. Well, miraculously, he got probably the best thing about that tour was the fact that he got a lot of cats to just leave their day jobs, much of the chagrin of whatever situation they were in. So, like, Roy Hargrove was part of the Horn section, Pino Paladino, who, I mean, by that point, I mean, even before then, before 2000, I mean, he was. severely in demand as a session-based player. Cats like, I'm about to say Anthony Anderson. Oh, wow.

Right before he did blackish. Right. Anthony Hamilton was... Shelby Jay. Yeah, Shelby Jay, James Poiser. J.K. At one point, Bilow was... That was before.

Yeah. But, um... Didn't he get fired or something? The bang... Below never got fired. I could have swore somebody got fired. Balao just things like,

I got fired. No, he just got a record deal after that. You know, I mean, there was a time lapse between the gig that Balao was on. That was like 98. 99 of the Essence Festival.

You know, by the time we got voodoo finished, it was a new millennium. So. But spanky and... Yeah, Spanky, Alfred Chalmers and... Jeffrey Johnson. Jesus, yeah, I forgot about, yeah, God rest his soul to, Jefflea Johnson.

Anyway, so, Alan, I would like to thank you for coming. Give it up for Alan. Yes. So, so our time. What a great. Thank you for having me. This is a bit fun. Thank you.

I appreciate you coming. I guess it's a fruit salad. Yeah. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver 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 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 here. 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. I'm Ego Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and The Big Money Players Network. work. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo. Woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him 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 of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we're about to wrap up.

We've learned a lot. Fontegolo. What did you learn today, bro? What did I learn? I think the most interesting thing I learned just from listening to Allen talk is how similar the business of, you know, yesterday or yesterday, rather, is very similar to the business now and that it's very much singles driven, you know what I'm saying? This is not really a thing of, you know, it's not really about the album per se.

When you talk about James, we put out a single every three months. That's pretty much what all the guys are doing now, particularly in, like, hip hop. And, you know, his cat's just kind of putting out, you know, just singles. That's just what's kind of doing. That only tells me that we need, I mean, well, the Beatles changed all that once Sergeant Peppers came out. Then it was like, ah, the album can be the format. So I guess now, any day now, someone's going to release the album format that will make

everyone believe in a bigger vision than just the single. And maybe they will do it only on Pandora. So, unpaid Bill. Yeah. What did you learn today, bro? Two things. One, I could listen to the hell who needs a dog for fucking ever, man.

It just got like, it was amazing. And two, it was interesting to listen to a guy who has been going off his instincts, his love of music and what he likes and how that shaped his career. is a pretty inspiring thing. It's the music he loved, and so he followed it. And he continues to follow it, and I think, as a person who dabbles in music, that that's a great thing.

That's amazing. There's very few people that get to make a living off of what you love. You know what I mean? You have to sometimes just kind of do the shit you hate in order to make that rent. And those people are in this room, which is also kind of cool to share that. Just trying to make rent, man, every damn day.

Sugar Steve. What I found interesting about that album was among the things that made him uniquely qualified to do what he did and to have the career that he had was I think that at all the different stages I think you did what my father tells me to do which is make yourself useful so like in addition to doing your actual job of tour managing

you did the publicity for James and then you did the imprint label you were running that for prints so you were doing making yourself you know worthy of a sense salary, you know, worthy of having a weekly paycheck rather than just the tour manager checks, you know,

kept your employed, you know. So I thought that, you know, I was thinking about my father because it said, make yourself useful, you know. Jew wisdom. That's good. My dad told me that, too. Your word is not mine. Laia.

Oh, my God. So much. What did I learn? Well, I learned not to give up. Um, because Alan, you have showed me that through your passion, you can live life in a joyous way, and that's my goal. I have also learned that, um, yeah, working with musicians is a doozy. I've also learned that I need to take a mirror in a corner and slow drag with him and to a nice prince ballot because show what is wrong with life. I'm just saying, all of that. I learned some more too.

Okay. I ain't get that much time. Boss Bill, what did you learn, bruh? I learned that I'm too reliant on technology and I wouldn't have made it 40 years ago. Yeah. I love technology. Not as much as you, you see.

Napoleon. And all that note, ladies and gentlemen, we will see you next Wednesday, 1 p.m. Pacificly, yeah. At 10 a.m. Pacific. Specific. Piscetti, 10 a.m. Piscetti time. This is Questlove Supreme on behalf of Fonticolo,

on behalf of Boss Bill, unpaid Bill, and Sugar Steve, and Laiia. Do we have a proper moniker for her yet that doesn't make me seem misogynistic? Margaret. We're live. We'll see you then. Thank you. Quest Love Supreme is a production of I-Hard Radio. This classic episode was pre-19.

Produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 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, unfiltered conversation, 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio 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 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. This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.