The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: David Porter

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Questlove Supreme's celebration of Black Music Month continues with an classic David Porter interview. David is a true architect of the Memphis sound. Isaac Hayes's longtime writing and production partner tells Team Supreme about making hits with Sam & Dave, The Bar-Kays, Carla Thomas, and more. A longtime Stax Records artist, producer, songwriter, and executive, David Porter also recalls the label's glory days and its downfall and talks about his songs which have become sample staples. This interview first broadcast in 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. It's that time to put on your jersey and wave your flag, whoever you root for. Why do I watch the walk up? That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fit.

It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American football on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence.

Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kot me. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Listen to Joy 101 on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new stuff you should know doing science playlist.

Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor? Simplest Explanationation. is usually the right one, we got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park? Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody,

turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner, and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the stuff you should know doing science playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He left Nigeria, he conquered Hollywood, and he never forgot where he came from.

David Ayelho is one of the most powerful storytell. of his generation. On this episode of 154, we go deep. Nigeria, identity, navigating Hollywood at the highest level, and the responsibility that comes with using your platform to change the world. This is 154. New episode streaming now. Don't miss it.

Listen to this episode of 154, available now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or whatever you get your podcast. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akela Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up

in a majority black city in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. What's up, y'all? June is Black Music Month, and every year we use this time to acknowledge something that really can't be overstated. Black music is one of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now, back when Team Supreme and I were doing the Questliff Supreme, and now on the Questlove show, we've always tried to create a space for those stories.

So for the entire month of June, we're bringing you an episode every day, focus on the history, influence, and ongoing evolution of Black. music. The team and I dug through the catalog and selected episodes that feel especially meaningful for now, conversations that inform, entertain, and connect the dots between where this music comes from and where it's headed. Now, alongside those, we'll be releasing four new episodes of Questleff Show featuring trailblazers, innovators, and cultural connectors and visionaries who represent the past, present, and future of black music. I want you to enjoy this. Thank you. What's up, ladies and gentlemen?

This is another episode of Questlove Supreme. I'm your host Questlove. With me is the family. We got Laia. Hello. How are you? I'm well. Hello, sir.

Doing well. Yeah. You're back in L.A. right now? I am back in L.A. Yeah. Yeah. Gloom and doom. Yeah.

Gloom and doom. Yeah, May Gray, June, Bloom. People don't know this about L.A. Get it into it. Okay. Okay, that's good to hear. Fon Ticol is in the blue room. Yeah, man.

Yeah, man. You got a new light ball, but I think previously you were going purple. Yeah, I was going purple. I went blue. I went cool, you know what I'm saying? We got a legend in the building with us today. So, you know, I tried to make it cool for him. So, yeah, it's what it is.

SIGA, Steve, what's up, bro? How are you doing? Hi, everybody. What's up? Everything's good. Everything's good. Thank you, Steve. Ladies and gentlemen, I will say our guest tonight is, I mean, I feel like all of our guests are legendary, super legendary, but our guest tonight, world famous songwriting Hall of Fame, member having damn near pinned over close to 2,000 joints.

Wow. In his illustrious career, he is the architect, in my opinion, the architect of the sound of Memphis, you know, a city that has rich musical history. and, you know, as a staff member, as a writer, as a producer for Al Bell's legendary Stacks label, he has given us so much magic over the decades, along with his songwriting partner, Isaac Hayes, and on his own, of course, you know, he's worked with too many legends to name. There's Sam and Dave, there's Otis Redding, Bar Cays, Carla Thomas, the emotions, Albert King, Rufus Thomas. and of course Johnny watch out for Jody Taylor

even if those names I mentioned are slightly before your time I will say that if you're a hip-hop head can we say that his composition might be the musical backdrop of the East West L.A. Beef? Oh man! Oh my gosh! Well, no, no, no, because the word is that

you know, Pock got A lot to foot on it. Yeah, Park sort of felt that, you know, who shot you was about him, which, you know, we have clear evidence that Biggie did that rhyme with Keith Murray for the Mary J. Blige

interlude, you know, long ago. But the truth didn't matter at that point. The truth didn't matter. Yeah, the truth didn't matter. I guess the perception was bigger than what reality was. You know, we live in a time where facts don't matter.

And so I will just say that, you know, between like Biggie and Wu-Tang and Kane and M-O-P and Will Smith and so many others have used his work. You know, we're in the presence of a legend, and we're honored to have the one and only great David Porter on Quest Love Supreme. Welcome to the show. Yes. As Kelly Reed said, how do you top that? It's really an honor. No, you laid the foundation.

So I'm just, you know, regurgitating your life's work. So were you right now? Are you still in Memphis? No, I'm in New York. I was a speaker at the AIMP summit, which I left there and came right here. That's why I have this loud jacket on. I was, along with your fan and your friend, Doug E. Fresh, he wanted me to tell you hi.

Oh, okay. We had Doug on the show. We had him on the show. Oh, yeah. Doug my love, yeah. You know, I was going to ask, like, do you normally dress this swanky every day? No, I'm a sweatsuit guy. That's me. Okay. Well, that's what I'm rocking right now.

I just keep a loud jacket on it for these folk. But Doug is wanted me to be sure to tell you hello. And, yes, it's an honor for me to be here. Thank you. With you guys. Can you tell us your first musical memory? Well, you mentioned one of the cornerstones of those memories, and that's Maurice. I was born on a...

Adelaideon Street in Memphis, Tennessee. My next door neighbor was a family called the Cunningham's, and they were drummers. And we sang up the street at a church called Rose Hill Baptist Church, where if you read Maurice's autobiography, he mentioned that in his biography, which is true. And Kelly Cunningham and Leander Cunningham

were the brothers that were older than Carl Cunningham, who just so happened to be the drummer that was in the airplane crest with Otis Redding. He was the original drummer for the Barcais. four doors up the street on the left-hand side of the street was Maurice White, and we came together eight, nine years old singing at Rose Hill Baptist Church right on that same dead end street and the stimulus for the impressions and the motivation for creativity and people making us thinking that we had some singing talent because they were clapping and shouting, and we didn't realize

it's because they were worshiping. We thought it was all about as young kids, but the motivation to want to have the passion for music really stemmed out of that experience. So you were nine years old when you started playing in your church? Well, actually, I was, before nine, we were going to church. But actually singing in a kind of a quartet is not the right kind of word, but little kids singing together, Lynn, Kelly, and Maurice and I was about 89 years old. We were going to Rose Elementary School and singing in church on Sunday. That was a real experience of learning how to feel good about doing that in front of people.

And you were born in Memphis, Tennessee? I was born at 290 Virginia Street up against a building called Coal Manufacturing Company, which was the last house at the bottom of the hill. When it rained water would roll down the hill and up against that 10 building and very close to going into our home. And the next door neighbor was the Cunningham's, which was, Carl was the drumming, and right up, going up the hill was Maurice. And that was it, right there.

Like, I know a lot of legends were born in Memphis. Aretha Franklin was born in Memphis. Was she known? Yes, she was. Yes, she was. Her father preached, Reverend Franklin preached my father's funeral, you know, at Great White Stone Baptist Church, yeah. When I told Aretha that years later, it just blew her away because she had recorded,

I take what I want, one of the compositions, Isaac, and I told her then. And she, it just blew her way. Yeah. But yes, she was born in Memphis, Tennessee, right near 4th Street. So just tell me, like, the general, like, why is that town so musical? Well, in 1947, 48, there was a radio, the first black radio station in the country was WDIA in Memphis, Tennessee. And the fact that that, that before that, all of the music you heard was, you know, the pop-flavored kind of, kind of vibe. And so the energy for the originality, and I'm going to speak for in just a second,

didn't come to bear until WDIA start playing all of those amazingly emotional connecting music by black artists. And the one thing that happened that was really, really meaningful and impactful on young kids during that time was the individuality of artists to artists. You know, back then you had a four-piece rhythm, bass, drums, guitar, and keys. And so in order for that kind of magic to happen in a unique kind of way, artists that you will listen to on the radio, one thing that as a kid,

one thing that really manifested itself to you was the individuality of artists. You listen to Chuck Berry and what he was doing with the guitar and his rhythm, essence of how he was doing what he was on, even though he had a rhythm of compliment, but the focus was his guitar playing, and he listened to Lil Richard

and his piano playing and what he was doing, the individuality, in addition to his persona as a singer, was his personality. Fats Domino with the same piano playing, the individuality of Fats was the Fats vibe. So you were able, Jackie Wilson, with the range and the magic and his tones and things, you were looking at as a youngster, those kind of impressions that were, in turn,

motivating you to understand that the magic happened through music was trying to find something that identified you in your uniqueness. And so starting from that kind of foundation, all of us start trying to find that magic. So when you mentioned Al Jackson, his father was a musician in the drummer, but Al started finding his own niche out of an individualistic way for himself. And by the time we got to Stax with the slopped floor in the room, the stacks was an old movie theater, and the floor was sloped. And we'd get in there doing our records. Al will be at the bottom of the floor. We'd be doing the vocal of the top of the floor with Sam and Dave or Johnny Taylor or Aber King or whoever.

Isaac would be near the mid floor and Steve will be a little higher than that. Al heard of the late when he would play and his pocket was feeling where the true essence of the tempo was with that laid back kind of essence that was coming throughout the room. But everybody worked to find the individuality cause of the motivation of the music

that we was hearing coming from WDIA, even with the BB King before he blew up, there was that magic that he was finding it within himself. Bobby Blue Blaine and Johnny Ace and all these people had their own persona, which was also in turn motivating us with aspirations to do. music to try to find that for ourselves.

Actually, I'm glad I have you now because, you know, even though it's been kind of six months since the release of the movie, as a director, Baz Luhrman kind of has us at arm's length a little bit with his, you know, it's, when you make Hollywood biopics, it's either like, did these facts really happen or is this a Hollywood tale? And I want to believe the Elvis movie, but I got to hear from someone that was at least in proximity. The way they portrayed it was like, you know, he was just hanging around the way amongst the brothers and whatnot. I mean, is that a fact or was that more embellishing? Beers-Lerman came to Memphis and asked, as a if he could talk to me.

So he came to my studio at Memphis. The reason he came to the studio at Memphis because HBO did a special called The Searcher on Elvis Presley. If you saw the searching, which they showed it for a couple of days in a row and it was a few years ago, then you saw me talking about Elvis on that special.

The reason that I was able to talk about Elvis when I was a kid walking up from Virginia Street where I was born up to Bill Street, which wasn't that very far, Marist did the same thing. We would see people, because we were not able to go into clubs or anything. Like, we would just walk up the street and just see people. I was a poor kid, like I say, from a large family. My dad died when I was two years old. And so I had a little bit of freedom, a beautiful, amazing mother.

So I was able to go and just with these aspirations that wanted to do music to get that kind of vibe. And so there was this young kid, white kid, hanging around the street. I didn't know it was Elvis personally anything like that. Nothing akin to that. But I found out that that was, in fact, Elvis, a white boy that wanted to sing Black. And so what I did was

I really told Beers where Elvis got the vine from. Elvis got the vibe from Roy Hamilton. If you saw the movie the searcher, the reason that the name Roy Hamilton is mentioned in the movie is because I told him that's where it came from. Otis Blackwell, who was the writer, who didn't get all

the money and certainly didn't get all his writer credit was a writer of so much of the Elvis stone and if you listen to Otis if he was alive you see where Otis also got it from but but Roy Hamilton the flavor and the nuances of Elvis singing came from Roy Hamilton check us out of some of his early catalog I used to yeah I used to listen to uh I think Isaac covered uh don't let go right yes right so my dad my dad used to play the the roy Hamilton version and I always thought that was Elvis The turntable was too high for me to see what was on the label. Yeah. Yeah, for the longest, I thought that was an Elvis Presley song.

With this being straight up in Rio, there was an authenticity about Elvis' comment being influenced by black artists. And that was, in fact, true. Elvis would go to, it was an event that WDIA would hold in Memphis called the Good River Review. Elvis was short backstage at the Good River Review. there are pictures of Elvis with Rufus Thomas and BB King. So, but that's real. So was he the only white gentleman to do that?

Is that why I felt so special? Because he would just by himself. Listen, the individuality of black talents was a template that American used to break talents like that. Them finding ways to replicate some of nuances of black talents was the cornerstone. Right. It became whatever you want to call it even up into this day. So no, no, he was not, he was not the only one.

And not the first, I'm guessing either, just the, maybe the most talented out of the... He just blew up, but he, no, he, he was, there was so much magic happening around Bill Street. That's a famous music street, Memphis, a lot of poor people, but we were, people having a good time inside of what they had to deal with. And that was the place they would go to do it. And there were clubs and the like on that street, there was magic. And like I said, the individuality of people being proud of who they were would manifest itself, not only in the way people would perform on stages, but even the way a guy who may have been working on a garbage short were dressed for the weekend and just to be having a good time in his own world.

In the bias and the racism that was going on at that time, you could not kill the spirit of a people. And that was what it was. And then there was some folk, like Elvis, would come and hang around that vibe and that spirit. And obviously we eventually found of what it ended up being for him. Well, let me ask you. So, you know, having come of age in the mid-70s, early 80s, I'll say that, you know, your average soul singer is pretty much at this point, like emulating Stevie Wonder, like with his soulful voice and whatnot.

And so, you know, I've, of course, because I wasn't born during the time when Elvis first came out, I didn't know firsthand like so everything I learned was you know sort of like later in my life and I always knew you know the theory of like you know if I could find a white boy this thing's like a black guy I'll make a billion dollars from you know

Colonel Tom Parker saying that but like in your opinion was Elvis's voice in your opinion as a true blue Memphis in that in that area was that the actual voice of a black guy like was it if you were to put him on was it sort of like

Bobby Carlwell well well yeah I mean I know I agree with the Roy Hamilton thing but is that sort of snarling thing that was going to was that the actual voice of

because if I'm thinking of that time period I'm thinking more like Ray Charles and whatnot but is it just was it just typical for black singers to have that sort of voice that else hasn't no no no no you got to give him a little bit of him

finding what the black brother couldn't give him. That's the whiteness of who he was. And so the nuances that that gave him a little bit of a twerk came out of him not being able to replicate with the trueness of what all these talents were. And you consider what Otis was doing, Otis Blackwell, who wrote the songs. I wish you could heard. I met this brother in knowing that there were a lot of credits that were given to Elvis, and I knew Elvis didn't write the songs with him, but he's written the songs with Otis Blackwell. Things that I heard those kinds of things. But you can listen to him and you can hear this guy saying and you can say, I ever's got some of that from him.

Ever's got some of that from Roy. Ever's got some of that from him. And so he was able to put those things together, but I also found a niche that gave you a little bit of what he was about as well. And it became a combination of those things. But it was magnified by the uniqueness of the black contribution that he grew from. Fast forward, Justin. Without a doubt. You know, the interesting thing, if you think about the 70s and before that,

Listen, Teddy was Teddy. Otis was Otis. Johnny Taylor was Johnny. Albert, who couldn't read and we would whisper the lyric. I would be on the mic when he would sing, say the line before we were singing, but the uniqueness of Albert, playing to get us hitting the line.

The uniqueness of Albert was inside of his personality as Albert. Oh, wow. Only he could do those kinds of things. You give Johnny Taylor the melody that Isaac and I, we wrote, I've got to love somebody's baby because somebody had been loving mine. Now, we wrote the song, and Dave Borda song into teacher, when Johnny sang the song, the individuality of Johnny took it to another kind of ever, a blue song, little blueberry.

We wrote that one, listened to it. The individuality of the artist, even with the Haitian Porter's song, would take it to the persona that was the inside of their uniqueness. And then by the time we get the Sam and Dave, and we're doing the church thing, which is what we're doing, the individual of Sam with the combination of Dave, and I would direct them like a choir. If you listen, I thank you.

You're going to hear me holler at the very intro of I thank you because I make the mistake in holl and we kept that tape. But that's because I'm on the other side of the mic directing them, but I cannot give them the individuality that brings out the uniqueness of what they were, and it became an identity thing because they were focused on making the fares. And so that's what all of those are. So even before Stevie, the individuality that ultimately ended up being Stevie grew out of some of the influences that he heard as a youngster. Because the first record I heard on Stevie fingertips, I didn't hear Stevie Wonder like Stevie Wonder.

Later on, I heard Stevie Wonder like Stevie Wonder because he stopped affecting the uniqueness that was truly him. And he magnified it. And then everybody says, to your point, we'll start trying to follow that template. But those who followed the tip and never got to the strength that Steve had. I see. I see. Class. Pride Month, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence.

Iheart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride. Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride, Canada. Your 24-7 radio stream and the only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations. Pride is so great because it gives a whole bunch of people this visibility that they've never had before. We have a ton to celebrate Toronto. Happy Pride! Iheart Radio. I love the sounds.

The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great.

A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer,

listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges, I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression.

I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new stuff you should know doing science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor? Simplest explanation is usually the right. one, we got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park. Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody, turn down the gas on your

bunsen burner, and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the stuff you should know doing science playlist on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and our Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game.

His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall.

And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stopped by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah.

You figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For you, when do you, sort of credit the moment that you started your mission, like your, not your come-to-Jesus moment with music,

but that this was something that you professionally wanted to pursue. I was, how real should I be with this? All the way real, let's go. Super real, go ahead. I was so, so poor from a family of 12, with an outdoor toilet in Memphis, I told you who my neighbors were, and we all were that way.

Maris said I moved from where we were to a housing project called Lamoine Gardens, the same time, which was a house of it. I just felt that I had to find a way to do this thing. I thought I was a singer, and to do this thing, and I was trying to find an identity

and didn't know where that was. And so here's a key. working at a grocery store, just getting ready to graduate from high school, from Boogartee Washington High School, where Maurice White and I graduated in 1961 from. And I'm working across the street from this movie theater, which was satellite records. And I would go over there because there was a little record shop there,

and I had no money to buy the records, but there was a lady inside of there who said they had a recording company, and they had a label, I asked her about it, So they said, we record country artists. So I said, well, could you audition me? Would you listen to me? She said, well, you can talk to my brother, but we just record country.

So I went in there and I talked to Jim Stewart who didn't want to listen to me or anything such as that. He had a guy working with him by the name of Chip Smallman. If you Google the name Chip's Mom, he became legendary later on. But he was the guy that was working with Jim Stewart before. There was no stacks.

It was called satellite records. And so I got the audition there and froze in the room on the audition. But I bought to them, I got some of my classmates to perform on it for me. I got Burry T. Jones to play Baritone Horn on the demo. I got Andrew Love to play tennis sax on the demo. I got William Bell to sing background along with James Austin on the demo. William Bell became, yes. And my demo was a song, original song, because he asked me that I have it.

Did I write songs? I told him, yeah, I didn't have any. He asked me, well, did I have a band? I told him, yeah, I didn't have one. And so he had two artists, Nick Charles and Charles Hines, country. I convinced him to let me do an audition. I then got the guys together to do the audition with me and froze on the demo and flopped. It didn't work for me. But Jim Stewart met Booker T. Jones, who he used to play baritone on Rufus Thomas record. William Bell, he recorded

You don't miss your water until you're well-run dry. And the rest is history. I mean, so what it showed me was that I had a long way to go. And I started trying to find out who I really was if I wanted to be this. And I realized that I couldn't be the artist.

I tried a couple of other records. I recorded for Savoy Records. I recorded with Willie Mitchell, Kenny Kane. But you said Little David? Yes. It's on Savoy Records. I didn't know that was a story. Savoy subsidiary? Really? No, no, no. Savoy was different. The war wasn't Stax

records. Okay. That's what me out hustling, trying to find a pair. Oh, okay. I get it. Okay. That's important. But so in trying to do that, I get with this guy who we used to sing on talent shows at the Palisade on Bill Street by the name of Isaac Hayes. So Isaac and I started talking and said, let's form a writing team. Now, to come to Jesus moment was me figuring that if I'm going to get in the music business, I'd already fail with the audition trying to sing, but I bought this guy all this amazing talent. And so I didn't get right in. I got with Isaac and we formed the label called Jeannie Records and there's a record on a guy

by the name of Homer Banks called Little Lady of Stone and ain't that a lot of love. If you find that record, that's a record that I did with Isaac before Stacks Rickers. Then I went and convinced Jim Stewart to give me an hour. opportunity as a writer. I became the first staff writer for Stacks records given a six-month trial. And the rest is history. I started billing the writing staff and all of that. What year was that? I want to say it's 1963, but I could be slightly, slightly off because I was there in 1961. Yeah, yeah. There's a record called The Life I live on Barbara Stevens, that I did with Marville, Thomas. That was before even Isaac and I really connected. So it was a lot

I was just. You mentioned Willie Mitchell. What was it like working with him at that time? Willie Mitchell was working with a company of high records. High records. Working with London as a distributor. And Willie was not on the inner loop of high records. Willie was working with a guy about a name,

a white guy by the name of Ray Harris. And they didn't really realize what Willie Mitchell was. And so I found a way to convince them to let me make a record there. And so Willie and I wrote a song, you can Google this, called Practice Makes Perfect. You'll see written by Porter Mitchell. That's Willie and I. Kenny Kane is David Porter. But this is before they allowed Willie to be Willie.

And Ray Harris got out of their way, and Willie got the opportunity with some kind of deal. He worked with Joe Kooky and Nick Pacey and those guys and became the guy that Royal Studio became and high records became. and the rest of his issue would really mention. That's all I got my comment to Jesus moment of finding that writing was my in-road to finding a path for this. So was it mostly a trial by fire

in terms of, you know, even with me, like, with my musical education, a lot of my knowledge of, like, the first year that I came to a studio was more or less like, what does this do? What does this do? And, you know, I didn't,

no one told me about 16, bar structures and, you know, how to find my own sound. So, you know, a lot of my education of music production just came from like the first three years of trying to see what works and whatnot. But how do these people know to trust you if you don't, was expected for you to like be accredited songwriters and have experience like writing out charts and knowing arrangements and all those things or you just are you singing to the each band members like this is what you do or yes yeah all of that but we didn't do shots Isaac hayes did not write music out david porter did neither no he didn't and so we we went through the whole process of head

arrangements the great artist the greatest creator of that was odys reddy if you were able to be in a studio with odys reading during a session you would marvel at how he would come up with the bass line, the horn patterns, the guitar direction for Steve to play out on on those records. Isaac and I were motivated from the church. We realized that Motown had the straight, full beat with these beautiful melodies on the top of that, and it was amazing how they did that. But we also realized, because we talked strategically about how we were going to find a path inside of this industry to do this, we realized that if we want to have an impact,

we had to find an identity. We had records before we did the Sam and Dave. There are quite a few of those records, but we were trying to find the identity way for us to be affected, and we realized that that opportunity came from the spirituality of the church on the low end of things. And so we start focusing on the bass, drums, guitar lines, rather than the straight four kind of things. And that's why they became patterns inside of all of the songs that we were doing.

But those patterns didn't come from us writing a chart for it. That came from what's given the musicians, the actual patterns. Hold on I'm coming. A perfect example of that the drum beat on Hold on and Coming did not come about where that's just starting to sing and they start playing. No, I went to Elle and said, hey, I remember the record, Get Out of My Life Woman by Lee Dawson. He said, he played that beat. He played that beat.

I said, check that. That's the beat. That's the beat we want, Hold on I'm coming. Isaac had the horn, just a horn lick on that that lick. it put that down two or three weeks before we even thought about Hold on I'm coming. Hold on I'm coming came one night late. We left a club after we were jamming, went to the studio by 2.30 at night. I went to the restroom. Asa was trying to get me to hurry out

of the restroom. I said, hold on I'm coming, man. And I said, God, it came out of the room 20 minutes later. We wrote, hold on I'm coming. The drum pattern, we did all that. That's the movie story. That's the What a movie. That's the God's, but it's true. It is the real deal. I already see that acted out in a whole dramatic trail. The magic of Stax Records happened because of the inner spirits inside of the creator juices that came not from somebody doing, sitting out and writing a charts from it, but somebody giving the people the essence of where their songs were.

And the individuality was only magnified through that. Okay, then I got to ask you this question. Okay. You guys have this like 10. minute song on presenting Isaac Hayes called I Want to Make Love to You. And it is one of the most ambitious arrangements I've ever heard. It's like part jazz, part blues, part serious soul, part comedy, but there's so many parts to this song. So if it's not notated, like, how for these like extravagant arrangements that you guys are doing, because it's not just like, here's the A part,

Here's the B part. Here's the A part. Here's the B part. Here's the Cota. Like, you guys are writing these, like, extravagant arrangements. Like, how are they able to maintain that memory of what to do if you guys aren't notating that stuff? Well, first place, I didn't produce presenting Isaac Hayes. Okay.

But let me tell you, because Isaac and I walk from the core, I can tell you how the things that the core foundation of all of the records was inside of the base patterns. Now, there was charts done on the up end of the charts. Isaac used Anzahe Horns. We used Dale Warren, Frick. I mean, we use cats to put the orchestration on the top, but that's also coming out of Isaac's head. That's not some guy he'd given the track to it, say, okay, create the parts. That's not how that happened. But because there was such an authenticity of remembering things, all the directs from

Hold on them coming, the soul man, you don't know, those are things that are things Of course, the records was, what, two minutes, 40 seconds long? Your point is, well, how are you going to do this on a long, long, long, long record? Well, on a long, long, long, long record, if you were inside of the Stacks room, and, you know, everybody's standing up looking at Isaac and Isaac is the record and curing on the porch, the guys will write down four bars here, eight bars, here, four and the cats would know if you hold up, hey, it's the next, it's the next pass, it's the next pass, it's the next pass, or whatever it was going to be.

So I wasn't in the room when he was doing it, but I'm sure that the same kind of processes that did on the victim of the jock album which you've put it's the same thing because that's what I did. So what are Al Bell's basic thoughts when you guys and I'm going back to stacks in the 60s but I'm just curious like when this turns into Enterprise and you guys are making serious albums, what are Al Bell's thoughts

when some of these album cuts are seven minutes? 13 minutes. 22 minutes. not radio-friendly at all. I know that the age of FM radio was sort of like we play longer cuts or not at least

the first five years of the 70s, but I mean, you guys were almost like the anti-Motown because I know Motown's whole thing was like has to be three minutes and 30 seconds and easily digestible and so was that by design or? That is amazing question

because the truth needs to be told. Isaac was the first to do the extended creative of the song, the very first. The way that happened was Al Bell now was being in control because Stacks, all of the masters that Stacks had recorded, Atlanta got those because Jim Stewart had signed one of those funny contracts and didn't realize they'd given the catalog away. Then Al got into power control of the company and ultimately ended up owning the company. And so what Al did was in order for us to get back in the move,

in the competitive way, said, listen, we got to create product and get an abundance of product to get out there. He encouraged Isaac to do their album. He encouraged Isaac going. Isaac said, because we were already in the power position, Isaac said, if I'm going to do it, I got to do what I feel I want to do. Elle had no idea that Eisenville was going to take it there, because Isaac always was influenced by the jazz catch.

I mean, he always, but that wasn't not the kind of records that we were doing. So when he got the freedom to do it the way he wanted to do it, we used to go to the club called Club La Run. We would go there and just jam before we'd go back to the studio. One night we were jamming and singing some of the stuff at the club to run, but something is wrong with my baby

and some of the other songs that we had written, and they were popular songs that we were singing. And Isaac went into a vibe with the sustained thing on the Hammond Beach 3 organ that was there and started talking and he would start talking and the message was on a song by Glenn Camel called By the Time I Get to Phoenix. And Isaac started talking

with me standing up on the stage with him and I know what the heck he's doing and him started and they were getting in to listen to him and he just started making it longer and longer and he didn't have it written out. It came to him in the natural way that these lines I'm telling you

and the horn patterns and he talked the whole thing out and hit by the time I get the Phoenix with the B3 loud and whatever and the cast was just trying to follow him, which they did. And by the time he got the opportunity to record and told Al on the second, because presenting Isaac Hayes, the album did not really work. So on the second, he told me to do it again. I just say, I want to really do it the way I want to do it. And that's why there are four tunes on that album. And the first motivation was that Fiennes thing that we did at the club of Ron. And that was, what, 19 minutes. long or something.

Would tape ever run out? Would tape run out at all? Well, that didn't know that. But, you know, Isaac, we would be in the studio jam, and we ended with a lot of tracks that would enter writing songs off or later on just by the extended part

that we didn't use on a record. So Katz would know that, and by the time I get the finish case, that had to be a new reel of tape. Cats would know that he was going to do extended version. They just did not know it was going to be that long. So I don't know I wasn't in the room on Phoenix, but I can tell you. So can you explain, especially like with the tension that's happening in the mid to late 60s,

especially in the civil rights movement. How was it socially, especially with, you know, cats like, you know, Donald Duck Dunn, Steve Cropper, like, because, you know, the sound of stacks, even though it's government, gut bucket soul gut bucket funk like this this is an integrated intersectional kind of of organization with men and women black and white that sort of thing so how easy was it navigating especially with sort of I guess culminating to King's assassination like in Memphis what is the social atmosphere of these white musicians and black musicians playing together. Like, what's a work dinner look like? Inside the student. Well, to the question,

if I think I understand it correct. This is, this is the interesting thing about that period. Racism was still rampant during that period. It was still there. But because Stewart was smart enough to see that the black contribution of talents were far exceeding where Steve was and duck was, but these requests that were able to integrate, for lack of a better word, into the vibe of what we were doing because they were able to listen to where we were coming from. And it was, it was showed the, the possibility of seriously making some, some money until there was a willingness to follow the lead of the black talent. And when I say that, when you consider there as Booker T. Jones in that's in that combination of talent, we call it the

big six. There was Al Jackson Jr. in that combination of talent. That was Isaac Hayes in a combination of talents. That was David Porter in the combination of talents. And here is Steve and Duck. And the leading parts was either coming from Booker or from Isaac or from I as well as relates to where a lot of the originality come from. The ability is to adapt and to be affected with it was coming out of the rhythm creatives that Kropper would bring to many of the songs. And Duck was amazing at remembering and containing patterns and giving you the right kind of energy. for that. Like, what about once y'all left the studio because, like you said, y'all were the leaders and the individualities, but y'all couldn't eat in the same places, stay in the same

places. That is so, so true. And then we didn't make a norm of that. They would go to a place called the Four Way Grill with us, which was a black restaurant on Mississippi Walker. And when we wanted to really eat together, we would go to the Four Way Grill. And the Four Way Grill, if you read the history of it, that was also the place where Dr. King would go. That's also a place where Jesse Jackson would go. At the front of the four-way is the door. People would come in from the street, but they had a back entrance. At the back of door, James Brown, and a lot of, we would go in the back door there,

and we would eat some of the best soul food you ever want to have. But that was a place. When we would do, I was a vocalist, working 10 MGs on the road playing the college circuit. To your point, we get in the car. This is Booker TN EMGs. We do sessions. We work at the college trick on the weekend.

We get in the car and go play geeks. And we had a lot of instances where we could not get in the hotel in a real comfortable kind of way. We go and play the gig on the college state, come back and be in the studio on Monday. So it wasn't the kind of thing where you'd see a lot of, let's go out and hang out together. There were black clubs and they were white clubs.

And that was still going on in Memphis. By the time you went into the stacks rooms, to do the work, it was a unity there, but it was also a willingness to follow the lead of the black talents who was really making the thing. And that's why the magic came from an Otis Reddy who showed everybody what all of that meant, what I just said, because there was no one who could do it to the degree that Otis could do it.

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Did you personally feel some sort of way when like your sound and your formula are being used by other Memphis? Like in other words, like if you were to, if anyone were to listen to like let's stay together. Yeah. You know, the sound of the brass band in the front and the basic gut bucket groove of that song. you know, someone to say to me like, oh, that's probably Stacks records or something like that. And, you know, even though you guys are in proximity of each other in terms of mileage, like, I'm certain that Willie and his organization were way different, it might be like one or two musicians that are the same. Are you guys feeling some sort of way that, like, the sound that you help make the blueprint architects is sort of now being,

even outside of Memphis, because I'm certain that, you know, there's, the cats and muscle souls are also, I'm thinking that they too are, you know, Memphis based and whatnot, like especially with the work they were doing to brief it. Like, did you feel some sort of way when your sound is sort of like identified with that whole region,

but some of those things that you had nothing to do with it just sounds like you did? Well, the beautiful thing about it is we had so many artists that we have to use other rooms to do this. The reason that Mussel's show's sound became revered as they did because we sent so many artists there, so many, many artists there. How far was Muscle Souls from Memphis? Maybe a little bit more than two-hour drive.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the album that I did that has the victim of a joke, the song The Masquerade is over. Wait, time out. All right. Come on, go on, dude. Okay.

Are you really asking us right now? We know I'm afraid the masquerade is over. But, but that, that was cute. You mentioned earlier about hair stuff. That's one of those kind of things. I had a mic going around the room with headsets going in a homing lies since the to catch the play.

But that's also one of the dumbest mistakes I made because the second half of it, which has nothing at all to do with the original song, which I was giving the head arranged to it. And that's where all the samples came from. Do you know how many millions of dollars I gave? away with that. All of those those, how many, that's another story, but, but, but,

we're going to ask about that too, but but, but, but, but, but, but, muscle shows was so many ours, Johnny Taylor, uh, the staple singers, Carla, the emotions. We, so many that we, we, we went to those women cut. What Willie was doing over at high, that's Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson on the horn section. A lot of the patterns,

and I can show you some patterns that they're guys, we're going to, but, We had already did the patterns on the track over there, and they got into whatever on the L track, and there's a line that we did on it. So, man, what the heck? But we were so, so unified, and the magic that was happening out of Memphis,

there was no animosity or anger toward what Willie was doing, nor was that coming from Willie what we were doing. We were just simply happy that all of the stuff was connected, and then there was magic with Al Green. The magic with Al Green was reminiscent of the magic that we felt when we lost on this ready. So there was a joy and a happiness. And then Willie come up with a record that's stupid great, like, I can't stand the rain. I mean, just great, great, great, great music.

So there was, no, it was in a lot, some of the players were the same. It was that kind of spirit in Memphis during that time. At any point was Al Green ever going to go to your direction? to stacks at any point or does he immediately went to high? No, no, Willie discovered Al. But did you know about him before Willie discovered him? No, no. I don't think it was nobody.

No, that was Willie. Willie heard something in him and took into a space. Al didn't believe he was. Al was a hard singer. Willie forced him to find the identity thing that I was talking about. Willie forced Al to find that thing. And that he's not that thing for him. The way he's singing on his first album is very different.

Backup train, yeah. Back up train, yeah. Listen to the vamp of love and happiness. And you'll see that's where Al really is. Willie controlled how Al found himself. And when Al really found himself, then A.R. magnified the persona of what that should be. And that's why some of those vocals that he would do on those songs were just crazy,

because he was having so much fun and discovering new nonsense inside of what he was doing that was even freshen. He even imagined, I would imagine. He became unbelievable. But the same thing was happening with Otis as well, Johnny Taylor as well. Can you tell me or recall

the experience of hearing what happened to Otis Redding and the original Barthie? Well, let me say this, because this is an interesting story. When Otis came to Memphis to record sitting on the dock of the bay, my office at the Stax building, the door to the office was on the street because by then we had bought the other location. There was a cafe next door to the theater, and there was some other things on the other side, and there was a grocery store on the other side. We had bought all of that and converted that into part of the space.

Otis came into the room in my office and said, I want you to hear a song and tell him what you think about it. Because he, you know, he, that was a mention of respect there. So he came and he sang with an acoustic guitar, open-strained acoustic, and he sang sitting on a dock of the bay to me, the whole song. And he said, what you think? I said, well, I think you ought to make the first verse,

the last verse, and the last verse, the first verse, because the story sets a better know he said, he really thinks he is. He went into the studio and he caught sitting on the dock of the bay. Now, it was not complete because he had a plane to catch. And he then left Memphis, got on, got, did his flight. I was, as I mentioned, the vocalist for Booker 10 MGs. That weekend, we flew to Ohio and played a college up there, NNOI up there. So I'm, we're in, we had finished the gig.

We're in the airport. I get a call from my wife at the time. I get a call saying that they said that Otis Redding was in an airplane crash. And I said, I couldn't believe. So I said, no, what are you? And I, I didn't believe it. And she reinforced it in a really emotional way to me. And I told the guys that I was told up when I told the guys that.

and we were getting ready to catch a plane to come back to Memphis when we found out. So we were coming from a gig. Otis was going, they were going to another gig. And the devastation of finding out about that was when we were on another gig. Matter of fact, I think I want to say it's in Bookerty's book, if you read, Booker talks about it as well.

That's when that was found out. Did you know James Alexander well, the basis of the barquees? Well, then you don't know the story about how the record came about. They had a record, a track that they had. And it was just a track. Isaac and I went into the room. It was a track.

Jim Stewart was standing over there listening to it. They didn't know what it was. They played the track for us. Isaac Hayes came up with the title Soul Finger. I said, let's put some kids on the record. I went outside and got 25 or 30 kids. bought him in the room, got two cases of Coke. Ask James Alexander when you interview him about this story.

Got two cases of Coke, gave him the Coca-Cola. I directed them like a choir. Every time I raise my hand and do this, you scream, Soul Finger. And then when I do this, you say Soul Finger. And so Isaac gave the title Soul Finger for the record. I put the kids on it. That's the record. So James Alexander definitely knows David Porter and Isaac Hayes.

Definitely does that. The getting jiggy record with na, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. That's what I did on the barcase, gave them, I did a head range, gave them 50% of the song. But I came up with it, put the kids, the same thing again.

I got kids off the street. I directed him like a choir and had them sing na, nine, nine, nine, nine, and did the track on the barcage. Singing dance, right? You're singing dance. Yeah. So, yeah, real close to James. I've always been curious.

And, you know, he's definitely, he's definitely like one of our bucket bucket list guests that we want to get. I would love to get any point. Just let me know. Oh, please. That's him and Jazzy Fay. Like James' son is Jazzy Fay. He's to lay on the floor in the studio. It's like, Jazz Day. Yeah. Do you know like how

he was able to bounce back and start the group all over again and just how he felt? Because I believe the story is that I don't know it was a coin flip or not. The thing was that only a certain amount of people could fit on the plane. I believe the legend is that James Alexander is like, look, I'll just catch a commercial flight. Him and Carl did that. Not Carl Cunningham, but another Carl Caw Cells did that. Cause Carl Sim was going to go with him. And James and Carl Sims did that.

That's true. Okay. It was 8th, something like that, whatever the number of seats was. But James and Carl couldn't get on it. And James took a commercial flight. That's true. James was the one that was asked to go. Because Zellma didn't want to, if she wasn't the most able to do,

James was the one that went to identify how this. I know that was such a devastating loss to the label. Like, how are you guys, especially with a transition of, you know, moving into the 70s and whatnot. Can you explain just the feeling at the time, like, especially post-King? By the time, the time, the same. 70s comes, like, what are you feeling in terms of, like, where music is or where Stax is as an organization?

To really appreciate the energy that Otis brought to our environment. Otis was a driver for another guy that was being recorded at the time. Otis came in as his driver. Otis pleaded with Al Jackson Jr. To, would someone take a listen to him sing? Mm-hmm. Al told Steve, if you got a minute, man, people that already was leaving and already left. Would you take a listen to this guy? He just wanted somebody to listen to him.

Otis Redding sang these arms of mind with Steve Cropper, who is not a piano player, playing tributist on the piano. And the rest is history for Otis Redding. then because no one understood Otis better than Otis because Otis was a huge fan of Little Richard. If you listen to the B side of these arms of mine, you're going to think it's Little Richard because that's where Otis was. But the V's Arms of Mind song,

Otis showed where he was. And that was a thing that resonated inside of that room. And no one could do that but Otis. And Otis was given the leadway to show where that came from. And then Otis was the one that started really magnifying the head of rain kind of vibe of what, what often became the cornerstone of everything we did there. So the loss of Otis created a kind of emotional kind of devastation to all of us. That is no way to explain the level of it because then we began to feel what could have been

with the magic that was coming from this man. I mean, he would go in the studio. and this like fast as get up would be able to come up with all these parts and these tracks and just do them and then go on the mic and make up the song on the mic. That's me singing harmony with him on FFFEPF.

I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, yeah, but that's, that's, I didn't know when they come. He says, I said, when you go come in? He said, you're feeling. And then it was like, but that's the magic of this, it's God. The thing is that Otis Redding was 27 when he died. Was it that typical for during the time that you guys having between the age of what, 20,

he came to you at 23 or 24? I don't, I can't, you could be right. Yeah, 23, 24. There's 20s, but I can't remember. Like, were you guys saying to yourselves back then, like, this guy has a way older voice than what his age allows or was it just the stress of living in that time? just brought that age and that experience on your typical singer back then. When you listen to the B side of, as I mentioned, of these arms of mind,

and you hear Otis there, and you listen to what Otis was doing, Otis was so brilliant as far as seaman and the individuality that magnified with people. So you could talk to Otis, and I was, yeah, how are you doing? Everything's fine. Then he said, you came dead, dead, you know. I mean, all of this was with a purpose, at locking you in to the persona that was Otis Redding. There was no, Otis didn't talk like that, George.

So that was a character? You better believe it was. But he also perfected it in such a way that the uniqueness of him because he would stumble up on other things that he would do. And he's making up things on the microphone as well. It's just, that was a character, man. Even on Trump, where he's like talking to all countries,

whatever, like. Whoa, is real what I'm telling you. This man was brilliant. And the brilliance were manifested in some of the patterns that the guests were able to play, which was motivating Isaac and I to get better without patterns. I thank you, the record on I think you, was motivated out of Otis Redding. I would dare say, Black Tennessee Walker horses on the drums, Al. Just the magic of Otis Redding and seeing what he was doing.

the room was that catalyst for so much of what happened through all of us. And so us trying to find our traction to get into the ballpark of that was to your point about a little bit of the decline before people were getting to find their way. That was part of it. We had lost the magic marker for what we could ultimately be when we lost that guy. Who do you think he was trying to emulate since that wasn't his natural voice? Otis Reddy. When I say that, individuality was the cornerstone of the magic of what was happening in their stacks. I'm saying that that became the signature thought for everybody on every record. William Bell, his records in the Sweden, he said, Booker and William wrote in the songs,

everybody loves one of those songs. That's William going into a character. That's one of my best buddies to this day. That's also inside of the character of where he know his slot was. Yeah. What you're saying is people, there were alter egos before there were Sasha Fierras. That's what you're saying. Hello.

Hello. You know what? I'm learning that right now because I just found an interview with Bobby Wormack talking about Sly recording. There's a ride going on. You know, one of the questions I had about Sly was like, well, how come the voice of Sly's on that record where he's like clear his day on his record? And Bobby was just like, man, Sly is an actor.

He was just fucking around. And I see now. Like, I don't know. It's just that to me, just that voice is so seasoned. Like, it just, and again, like, I heard that voice when I was 10, so I just thought that's like my grandfather's voice. So when I found out he was, you know, I'm thinking 27, I'm thinking, you know, like Chris Brown's voice or bad era Michael Jackson voice,

like sounds like young. But it's, he just. just sound so old and seasoned. I just thought that was unusual. I came from a period where people who looked like me in order to connect in a market that inhale all the access of internet and all those kind of things had to find a way to make the possibilities of that more real. And the best way to do that based on the evidence of time was to find the individuality to create an essence of uniqueness for you. And inside of that kind of thought process was the desire to find that. And in many instances, when people would find that, they would find themselves

and they would know where that pocket was. Bobby Womack, Schiff's moment left Stacks Records, when Satellite turned into Stax, and Schiff went to a place called American Studios. And because Bobby couldn't get into Stacks records, where did he go in Memphis, Tennessee? Bobby went to American Studios. And if you go by the early music of Bobby Womack, you'll find out that Bobby Womack was in Memphis, Tennessee, recorded. over there, Danny Thomas and Chelsea at Chip's Moment Studio. Check it out. And so, look, when we did gigs, and I'll say this, and I'll be,

when we did gigs on the college circuit, and we'd go and do these gigs, some of these white colleges would have two acts performing. Some of these appearances were Booker T&MGs on one end of the floor. Because they didn't know that Booker had a vocalist, which was me, they would hire another group to sing and perform. Who did they hire one of those gigs? And this was a guy that came a buddy of mine.

They hired the Ozzy brothers. Who was playing guitar for the Ozzy brothers? At these college days? Jimmy Hendricks. Who came to Memphis with me to try to get some gigs, some sessions with me in Stacks Records? Jimmy Henrig's. So all of this, all of this speaks to people understanding

that they had to find an individual element that gave them an end to where they wanted to go. Jimmy is another essence an example of that because he was a bad mother shit your mouth. Playing, bro. But when he got time for him to find him, he knew how to integrate those nuances that became the rock thing and go in that whole look.

He knew how to do that, and he did it to the bone. So you're basically saying that rap music isn't the only genre in which someone's everyday voice, a. Sean Carter. And Jay-Z is you have to be a character. I just thought

that was hip-hop. The land of make-believe didn't start with hip-hop. And I thought that. The whole nuances of what, in my opinion, many of those talents got to where they got to was realizing that James Brown

seemed like, sound like James Brown and Teddy Pendergreens sound like Teddy Pendergrass and somewhere in between that, Slice Stone sounds like Slye, and somewhere in between that, you can go down the line. And the magic happened when people perfected the essences of who they were with the purity of an emotional connecting way to an audience. And that was where the magic was.

And so I think that when you find all these records happening on the tonic and Cass trying to find a way to trick their boys to make themselves sound, whatever they're doing. They got that undenoyance to them, possibly, of the influences that came through their grandmother, their uncle, whatever, talking about how they're like, I like that, James Brown. I like, why are you doing that kind of stuff? And then they found a way to make it work for them, and they make it work to the hill. And so, Nas and these other kids, and they told me

that, you mentioned who shot you, which, which my guy, Biggie did do for me. But they told me biggest audition tape was a song of mine. And what, a writing, I forget the magazine. Blind Allie. Alie. Came to Memphis to interview me, and he told me that, I said, what are you talking? He said, no, his audition was, I've never heard that. And so, so by the time I, the only thing I heard was who shot. So the point, I'm just saying they were looking for ways to find the individuality

that was uniquely them, and they perfected it. So when I listened to Biggie and heard where he was coming from, and then I listened to Kendrick to say, what I'm saying, this is stupid stuff. Because they all find a way to find the magic within the center. You mentioned Jay. They all find a way to do that. Those who become affected with it. And as soon as they get the pocket of money, they move to the heels.

Hey, what's wrong with that? Ain't nothing wrong with that, bro. I'm playing. I'm playing. I'm playing. But that's real. Wait, whoa, whoa, let Steve ask this question because I cut Steve off. I'm sorry. Oh, I forgot my question. No, I'm just, ask you question.

Oh, Steve, come on, Steve. The story you mentioned earlier about sitting on the dock of the bay that it was unfinished. did you oversee the finishing of that song or how did that get finished? No, no, no, property did that. Steve, Steve did that. So what had to be recorded after his accident? I don't know. I wasn't in the session, you know.

All this said sang the song to me when he came to my office and then I just gave him that suggestion. Then he went in the studio and recorded, you know, I don't know to what degree he was, it was not finished. I really don't. All right. Well, I have a follow-up question then. about Hendricks, why didn't Stax sign Hendricks, or I'm trying to imagine Jimmy Hendricks as a Stax artist, or what that would be like.

Was there any talk about that? He was a blues guy, you know. Yeah, he wasn't Jimmy Hendrys at the time. Right. He was trying to get on successions. Mm-hmm. There was no essence of Jimmy being Jimmy at the time. Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah. And then Steve had a lock on the studio of being honest with you. He wasn't easy to get in some sense. sessions, you know, and he just came to see if he could. How many studios were in total, rooms? Well, there eventually became three rooms in there, A, B, and C, but it was a while before we got B. It was a while before we got that.

So what's scheduling like? Oh, it's crazy. We ended up, as I mentioned before, having to do bookings at, what was the place in muscle shows? Oh, muscle. Okay, I get it now. Jackson, Mississippi, we did some bookings. You know, we, we ended up because they had so many acts to do.

Was Nashville ever an option? Like, did Nashville have any potential of having flavor? Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Or, nah. No. So do you feel the, it's funny, I'm like, I know you know about the, I got to ask about the Black Music Museum, because there's only one Black Music Museum in the country,

and it's in Nashville. but it's it's supposed to feel like a situation where to make folks come. Do you feel like that or do you feel like that it should be in Memphis? It should have been Memphis. But honestly, I, Henry Hicks, the guy who came to Mexico before was built and we met in all that stuff. And I supported him in the effort because it was difficult for me to believe that what actually happened in Nashville. If you know, Nashville, it was difficult to believe that.

but he pulled it off. And he got, he honored Patty LaBelle, Teddy Roder, Kirk Franklin, and myself as a program that we did there several years ago as he was bringing notariding disability to it. He would bring several artists

that had to talk about Nashville and what it. And that was part of the surprise for me to see that he was a brother that was really believing he was going to pull it together. And he did. Oh yeah, him and quite a few people. Shout out of Deanna Williams too. And big John Platt.

It's a nice community of folks that are involved in that place special. And where it's placed, like, right in downtown in the face of, like, the opera. It's like, we hear. Right. In the face of the opera. Yeah. So I give those guys credit for pulling off something that one, I found it difficult to believe that would have to be, but also the level of it being that it is. I mean, it's beautiful.

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the announcers calling the place soccer, football at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football,

a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game.

The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you your podcasts.

Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new stuff you should know doing science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor? Simplest explanation is usually the right one? We got you covered.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid.

He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night bases on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers,

why he got the ball, like, After you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to ask you, David, about you talk about characters and, you know, the singers and everybody wanted to be individual. Rufus Thomas, man. What was he like? I loved him.

I mean, watch that was all I saw him on. But, yeah, what was he like? Just as like, A-O cleat. Do you the fuck? Y'all ready for? Y'all ready for it? If you told Rufus Thomas that he wasn't an artist, he'd cuss you out. Rufus knew that he could go into a persona that really magnified marketability for himself.

If you try to get him to sing-s-same, he was not what you'd think in terms of that. But when he was seeing one of his original composition, he could sing-s-saint-us-no-one could do it better than he. to it and he could sell it in such a way that it was magic. He was an extremely confident man. He was up in age when he started recording. But he was extremely confident. And he also felt that he wanted to be able to compete with Sam and Dave or Odison or whoever was on the stage.

So he found a way to get outfits, even though he wasn't getting paid the kind of money that others were getting paid on the gigs. But you can tell that because every time he hit the stage, he'd be sharp as sharp to be. And when he'd go into his thing, he could do it to help. And so, but that was because he just, he just knew where his niche was.

And he perfected as we talked about earlier, the individuality that was powerful for him. Carla was his daughter, correct? Paula was his daughter. How was it when she came along? How did that work? Well, Carla came along at a time when Jim still recorded Rufus and Colleen

on a record called Cause I Love It, which they said it was a hit, but it really was a marginal kind of record. But Jim, saw something in Carla and asked her if she had any original songs, and she had a song called G. Whiz. And Carla played a little piano, and Carla recorded G-Wiz.

It really became the doma for Stax and the relationship with Atlantic Records that initiated the really power of the deal for us. And so that was what that was. And then Isaac and I had the biggest record on Carla, because we wrote a song called B-A-B-Y, and we produced that on Collar, and that was her biggest record. But yeah, no, she was, she did some, some stuff.

And the record, as Quest mentioned, with Tram, was she, Otis brought out another kind of person out of that. It's very effective. We talked about soul, man, but there's a whole, like, barrage of classic songs. I'm just going to name some. Can you recall the stories of how, or tell me what the songwriting process is for some of these songs,

like when something's wrong with my baby. Yeah. I was, I was a manish boy and got a girl pregnant high school. And my mama said, you got married. And I married 19 years old. I married it. And so I'm living with a kid and fantasizing as I'm trying to get in the music business in an effective way about love and what would be the power love.

because the young lady didn't love me and i didn't love her but but we had a kid and so i would dream about things and and so just i would have a pad up under the bed which i still do that with a right and sometimes i'd wake up with a thought and idea and i would write it down when something is wrong with my baby was one of those ideas that i woke up in the dream wrote the title down got up wrote the whole song out, call Isaac. We couldn't get into the studio, as I mentioned, we didn't have a lot of rooms at this time. Couldn't get in the studio.

We went over to Sydney Kirk's house, one of Isaac's friend, got his piano, wrote when something is wrong with my baby in about 25, 30 minutes, because they had the melody already in the head and the rest of this history with that song. But that was like, when I mentioned the title of Isaac, he said, man, I love that, and we wrote it.

And so old man came about just as equally, because Isaac heard something out in Detroit, said, man, we need to write a song called Soul Man. And then here comes Soul Man. We wanted to be a motivational song for our community. So I talked about getting an education. I was educated at Woodstock. I was brought up on the side.

We talked about I'm a beginning. The whole manifestation of motivating people, the double meaning of Soul Man. And the Woodstock line in there, that was before the festival, Woodstock. And when Belusian Aggro was saying, people thought that we had Woodstock, as part of that song,

Woodstock was a county school. school in Memphis, but but all of those things came about with us trying to think of ways to to make ideas that people can relate to, but also motivational for people inside of a subliminal messages in our writings. And that's what we were doing. When you and when you and Isaac worked together, how did y'all work like did you, were you on piano? Was he on piano? Were you more lyrics? Isaac was on piano. Okay. I started out as a lousy trumpet player that stopped trying to play trumpet in high school and wanted to be a singing star. Maurice was the drama in high school,

and Booker was below us in high school, and said, I started thinking I was this great, great singing and put down the instruments. And so by the time Isaac and I got together, I understood melodically how to do exactly what we need to do, lyrically how to do that. And Isaac, we started out, I started playing triplets on the piano

before he started his stretching himself to do all he could do. And all of a sudden, he started discovering things that he would hear inside of his head, which were where the head arranger came, and I start finding things I would hear inside of my head, and then when we sit down to write a song or come up with an idea, if we hadn't put some piece of something down on another tape to use it as a reference for something possibility, we would then sit down and create the songs right from scratch, right at that point, we'd schedule a writing, we'd go and do a gig at a club or something like that and come to the studio and just start writing.

And we would do that from artist to artist, song to song, individuality to be it a blues song on Johnny Taylor, a blue song on Albert King, a lover song on the soul, children, a pretty song on the emotions, a flat-down song on Sam, we focused on doing it the way we felt it inside of the room, but it was generally, Isaac and I sitting at the piano, me coming up with the melodies and the lyric of the song, singing the song,

and we coming up with a musical direction that we would go inside of that. The head arranging part of that comes when we were going into the room, we talk about the concept of it if we wanted to. Hold on him coming. It was one of those examples where he had a horn pattern down weeks before, and we talked about coming up with this idea

after I came out of the restroom, and then we talked about an idea about Superman, a rescue kind of thing, and a motivation for people. And that was where the thought was. And once we said that, 20 minutes later, we had the son. Don't you ever feel sad,

you know what times of bad, today comes you're down, a river trouble and about to drown. Hold on, I'm coming. And we talked about the unity and the bond between people with that. When you were recalling the story of something's wrong with my baby for half a second,

I was like, oh God, this isn't a love song. He's talking about his newborn kid being sick and I was like, wait, Where's you about to go with this story? Like, that's what he means, literally a baby. No, I was trying to think about what it would be like to have a real woman

that I could really feel all of that for. I feel you. I believe in 91, 92, back when the idea of a box set was a novel idea, these eight, nine, ten, 11, 12 CD sets, like a history of a label, started happening for the record industry

because literally if you buy the stacks box set from 1991, you can hear the entire history of the Wu-Tang clan. I want to know, have you ever met the Rizza? And what were your initial thoughts in the mid-90s when suddenly... The thing about Rizza and his sampling method

is... It was even jarring... I don't know if I could speak for Lai, Steve, or Fonte, but his level of sampling was really jarring. Like, I'm very familiar with the sweet inspirations, like why Mary and all that stuff. Yeah. And so just the very unorthodox way that he sampled that,

why Mary is criminology. Yeah, right. I knew it was always different, Rizza. I knew it was never, it ain't easy. It wasn't never easy. And he wasn't afraid to use voices either. Like, he would, generally, when you would chop samples, you would try to get out of the vocal, you know what I'm saying?

He would almost intentionally, like, incorporate the vocal. Yeah, it was very, very. So when you're hearing, like, or I guess, you know, you have to get permission. I don't know what the process is. Like if your publisher just says, hey, I give permission or they got to go to the songwriter. Sometimes we got to have a conversation with the songwriter. Sometimes it's just like, yeah, you could clear it. But when your work starts getting a lot of traction in the early to mid-90s with Biggie,

with even MOP with Annie up, Soul Sister Brown Sugar, I believe. Yeah, yeah. Like, what are you feeling? Are you feeling like, chiching, I'm back? Or is it like, wait, I didn't intend my songs to sound like this. Like, what are they doing? The respect for the creative process was something that I marvel at. I know Isaac Marvelette.

and the fact that I just simply felt good, they found an interesting way to interpret something that I was part of the creation of. When Riza and I met, Rizza, we've met, I've even introduced them on some shows and stuff, and he's come to my studio and everything. Just the level of respect that those guys had for the catalog

was just amazing to me, but also find the interesting ways they found to interpret the song, like Cream. I mean, like, I mean, I kind of. Come on. Wait, let me interrupt you, because I got a question. With as long as I got you, maybe like four, five years ago. Actually, I think during the Emotions episode, I played it, the emotions have a version of as long as I got you, which is even funkier.

It sounds like a demo. Why wasn't that version ever released? Because it probably sounded like the demo that you're talking about. you know, I really, I really don't even remember the Emiltshire's version. Oh, my God. Do you not embarrassing that is for me to say that? Nah, you got too many. You made over 2,000 songs.

Like, we'll forgive you for forgetting one. Yeah, I can't remember everything. You're safe here. But, again, you've done over 2,000 songs so you can forget a few. Yeah. But the version that we did with the Sharmels, uh, Isaac was, was, uh, I don't want to bust him out, but he was, he was a little remandedly fascinated with one of the girls with that.

Because we weren't even, they were not looked upon as an act that we're going, let's go out to, and we're going to record this group called to Sharmill. We knew them, Mary and, and, and, and, we knew them. But when I had to come, he said, man, we ought to record them. I said, what? He said, so we did. And one of the banner things that we did, the one banner thing that we did that I just marveled it

was as long as I got you. And that was also one of those things that we naturally felt the power of when we just wrote the song. And then Barbara, who was the lead singer of it, her text on it was amazing. Isaac is singing background on some of the parts in the record. Wow.

That's not all the girls. saying. So, so, so it's, it's, it was one of those things that I was shocked at how it ended up being sampled so much, even the, the Nicole Bus sample of it. I mean, that's Barbara singing that part of it on the record. That's the actual record on, on, on, on, on you, on the cold. Okay. You know, we got to, uh, mention, you've also worked with, uh, the legendary Sissy Houston and the sweet inspirations. not Sissy, but the Swedish racist because Sissy wasn't with her.

So she left the group at the time? Yeah, she left the group at the time. Yeah, it was three of them at the time. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sissy wasn't with them. And wishes and dishes and you're wrong when you don't get it at home in those songs. No, Sissy's not on that. So were the emotions the only group that weren't necessarily quote unquote homegrown? was the main protocol of Stacks records to just have like Memphis homegrown talent or like how to do you know how the emotions came to the label

and what was it like working with them? Purvis Staples bought the emotions to us. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, and he bought him to Isaac and I. And they were very, very young. 16 years old, very very young. Sheila was younger than 16th. Well, I think Wonder was the oldest one, I believe.

Right. But Purvis brought them to Isaac and I take a listen to. And their father was, Joe was like a little guitar player. He wanted to be a part of the group. He was their father. And so we listened to them

and we said that Joe wanted to be a part of the group because he was impressed with, you know, pop staples, you know, with the staples. And so we said if we would do them, we'd have to do just the girls. And so we did the girl. But Purvis was the one that brought them to us. Wow.

Okay, so you mentioned it earlier. I was saving it for now, but you got to tell me. Like, what is the story behind? I'm afraid the masquerade is over. Because every time I have a breakup. Yo, it's every time I have a breakup, like, just, that is one of the saddest songs ever. And now, and that's another example of, like,

there are crazy arrangements in that song. And now that you're telling me that you guys, are going off Philly and all that stuff. And I'm walking around the room. Tell, what was the genesis of that song? Actually, behind the second album, which had Hang On Snoopy on it, I don't know if you ever heard that. I know it.

Yeah, yeah. But I didn't quite hit the mark with Hang On Snoopy. But I liked the concept that I had with Hang On Snoopy. So when I came over the concept of creating acting scenes, inside of the next project. I knew I was going to create something different. So I wanted to have acting scenes. Who is she?

Who's the woman? Who's the woman? That was my secretary, but also my wife, my second wife was also in that. That's when the car scene I'd come up, Ronnie, that's my second wife. The girl I've talked to about the girl that I'm fascinated with,

the girl that was actually. That was actually my wife. Wait, timeout. There's two women on that song? Yeah, well, if you go to the very beginning, not on that song, if you go to the very beginning of the album. Yes. I know that I'm on, yes.

Yeah. And I go, you open the door, and I go into this party, and I'm talking. Well, the girl that's talking to me about the other girl, that was my wife. I wrote out the story as I would go, and I then select. the songs that would fit the concept of where I was going to take the story to.

If you notice the last song on it was airplane, ticket, bus ride, can I borrow your car? I wrote that at the last minute because I'd gone through the whole storyline and didn't have the close-out song. But the masquerade is overcame about where I wanted to create something that gave the essences of all the things that I haven't prior to that period in the album where this acting scenes. So if you notice the breakdown comes and I start rapping, well, I didn't have it written out. I knew the concept. I didn't have the rap written out on that. So I knew the concept, and I talked the concept after I did the head arrangements for the parts.

So you're singing it as the band sort of reading your face at the same time? No, no. I did the track first. In my mind, I'm going through the emotion of this. I'm going to feel inside of the very. transition. That's why the piano part, that's Ronnie playing the piano, I'm humming the piano part for running to play.

The signature has been seven dollars and something. That's one of those things where a piano player, and that's what to play more. Right. Just play that. And stop. Just that. And when I clue you, stop on that. That's what that was. But so after

that was done, now I get ready to sing the song. Now I do the rap. And I'm feeling where the parts are before I do the horns and I'm feeling all of that and I'm making, I promise you, I'm making it up. I'm

the extended part, not the accident some, I'm making it up the whole time because I know where the storyline is going to ultimately end up and where it's going to lead to the next some. But not that I ever counted bars, but in your mind you're like, okay, we're going to do 32

bars of a break and I'll figure out something to say in these 32 bars. No. And then it's over. Like you... No. It wasn't... I know by Cannes, we do that, but not on this song.

I see, you got... I'm walking around the room talking in the microphone, directing cats in the microphone. I'm going around the road while the track is, while I've got the bed foundation of the track. Right, right. Oh, my mama, I'm telling you, this artist was done. I'm walking around the room humming the parts.

I don't know how many bars I'm going to make this. I just want to make the emotional connectivity be authentic enough for me to feel something that I need to feel when it's time to make the transition. That's why you hear some cold flubs and things inside of the track. Listen, I know you know that's why you hear some of that. But the attitude of it was why I kept a lot of that. The wrong is it. Listeners of QLS right now, I'm doing the Jim Carrey, dumb and dumber realization jiff. I can't believe this.

Wow. Okay. I was to ask David, were you a fan by chance of David Axelrod? Did you listen to any of his stuff? No, I never, really? Okay. I just both of you, y'all always like. Now you got me going to listen to Dave.

as well. Oh, man. Yeah, both of you guys, y'all kind of have, like, this really dark, yeah, dramatic, like, big, like, it's big and, like, beautiful, but it's also kind of dark

and kind of macabre as well. And it's really classy, it's elegant, but it's really, like, dark, and it can be like, oh, you listen to that, listen to it in the dark, you might be freaked out a little bit. Wow, wow.

But really beautiful stuff, man. I just, I just wondered if y'all were fans of each other. Well, you know what? I would tell you this, man. And I feel that I've been so blessed because what has come through me is the grace of the man upstairs because I have a nonprofit program where I teach songwriting, record producing, all of that, called the consortium MMT. It's 10 years old. A lot of what you get coming out on if it's a piece that have gone through my program in songwriting all this guy. I've got 130-some videos with everybody.

Stevie, Boris, Phila Bailey, Jimmy Jam, a body. Womack, Eddie LaBerg, I mean, let us see, I mean, on video, talking about their concepts, the creative process. So all of this, I had to come up with a set way to understand how I do what I do for the success of those things to come out of that. Because if I was relying totally on how I felt, people don't care about how you feel. They care about how you make them feel. So I had to find a way to make the magic of that be resonating to others. And I had to, also in order to replicate it again, find some way to understand it. And part of what Isaac and I would talk about, and sometimes he would think I was crazy

because I was so far into that. But it was a gift. And Maurice White and I came from Virginia Street. Maurice, if you read this book, you see that he's talked about me being one of the first person. He ran the name Earthwind and Fire Down to. Why? I flew to L.A.

I was a hot producer. Maurice was with Ramsey playing to Hong Kong by the Central Plaza Hotel. I flew to LA because he wanted to tell me something. He did the gig the next day, we're walking up sunset. He's going to tell you a concept I got. Maurice created an earthquake and fire off of a concept in a direction that he had from the get-go and knew exactly what he was going to go in in the creative process

because he knew he wanted to have an identity that created a uniqueness that was totally him. That is the essence of what comes out of Memphis in such unique ways that no one can understand it, me, except it's a God-given gift. Was Maris' metaphysical direction? Was it jarring to you at the time?

Because what Maris was trying to convey with Earth, when and fire, was like, which is kind of the exact opposite of, even though he was using gospel overtones in the Southern Church, but he's really using metaphysics and things outside of Westernized Christianity. Was that a little weird for you at the time?

Like, what did you get into, Marys? Like, how did you perceive this kind of spirituality that Maris was conveying with the band? We were walking up the street, and when he said, tell me what you think about this. Earth, when, and fire. Consider the time period that we're talking about. Ohio players. All I meant. If you go down to, here comes a guy who says earth,

wind and fire, and this is the concept, David, and then I'm going to fuse jazz. He ran all of that down to me. He's going to fuse that inside of it. What I thought was, was he's going to make something work because we always talked about how I stumbled from the spirituality of what I was doing to make it work. And I just believed he was going to make it work. I just didn't know how he was going to accomplish in the climate that we were living in, because it was going to be so innovated, it had to be. But when I heard the sound of what he did, because he had a group before, when I heard

the sound of what he did with the group, he was, he was, it was. It was over. And we stayed like this. I would fly to LA when Maurice had the park and just to get him in the car and ride in the street because he was through touring. We were that close and we talked up until the limit. So his thought about what he was going to do, because he had that thought about what those processes was going to be and what the musician was going to be before he put it together.

The only thing he told me differently while we were on sunset, he said, I'm going to bring Verdeen out here to California. He told me that. But other than that, he was going to put all of those ingredients together, and he did it. But, yeah, I just, because we worked off of concepts in a direction and identity and all of those things. We lived off of that. I just didn't know he would pull it off like he did. I believe in him.

Close your eyes, and you can hear the entire world come alive. 20206 FIFA World Cup is on and you can stream it all live on TSN Radio from the opening kickoff to the final celebration every match, every moment listen to FIFA World Cup on TSN Radio is Canada to the liftoff available on IHeart Radio

I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football, at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force.

From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture.

I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

podcasts. Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new stuff you should know doing science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor? Simplest explanation is usually the right one? We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park. Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody, turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable Labcoat and listen to the stuff you should know doing science playlist on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about

defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I gather to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reed. He has to guard Julius Randall.

And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball like, After you go through a training camp with that, I said, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's one important question I forgot to ask. As a kid that grew up in a 3,000 album household, and especially a kid that was afraid of clowns. dog who was the artistic visionary behind the the album cover for a victim of the joke in the clown when he says you can't handle the truth listen i'm not just joke that's a joke i didn't know how smart i was i just thought that because i had some tennessee walker horses out in shelby farms i just thought I want to do this cover and I want to have a clown outfit on, and I want to be, I want to sit on a drum, because I want to make this an opera,

call it victim of the joke. I want it to be, and I want to make it like, who's the clown? And so, but I, this is before I wrote out the script. I had that. So that was one of those things where, because it came from another kind of space. It's like when something is wrong came from another kind of space. Whole arm coming came from another kind of space.

The toilet was there, but it was somewhere else. But it's just from another kind of space. When was the ending of stacks as we knew it? The ending of stacks happened with Isaac still there. Me still in charge of five labels ahead of A&R. Steve Kropper was gone. Duck Dunn was gone. Al Jackson, Jr. was there.

And so it was a situation where we didn't know what was going on with the business part of the company, but we knew that Al Bailey became such a revered person, certainly after the white stacks that we did, which was amazing within itself, until it was almost, I had the feeling that the business white community were the biggest were, when they found out that,

because we had a line of credit with a particular bank thing, when they found out that this black man was what he was, was doing what he was doing, that it was almost, they called the line and came at us in such a way that they got Al Bell indicted, 18 kind of indictment, and tried to destroy him foreclose on the company. And the last thing we knew was Isaac couldn't get any money, his money, which he, it was millions of dollars there. And the company actually folded because of, foreclosure. Isaac then left Stacks

when it was foreclosed and then signed with the other label. But he didn't sign with another label before Stacks closed. And so, but it was an attack on destroying a powerful company that was creating a great amount of jobs and a tremendous amount of notoriety for Memphis, Tennessee.

And you put that with what Willie Mitchell was doing. We were a power base in a city that was seeked in a kind of bigotry that was not in its own interest because the credibility that we was bringing to the city was tremendous in itself. David, were you around when Al Bell formed Belmark,

his indie label that they put out, they ended up putting out, there it is, but tag tag tag. Al moved to California when he did that, you know, he had an office building on Hollywood there. You know, I was definitely around. When Al, when Stax was over, and everybody thought Al was over,

Ellie ended up, you know, creating Bell Park, as you said. Wait a minute. He was still in a brilliant mind. Yeah, and I think he did. He did Prince. Most beautiful girl in the world, yeah. Oh, crap. Yeah, yeah.

I forgot. In Motown. And Motown. Say what? Al Bell worked with Barry Gordy in Motown for a minute. Them bells. I'm trying to death. But check that out, Joe.

You know, I'm going to say, I've listened to you guys. And I just modeled in how much information. What a hell? Was fantasy records at all associated with Al Bell? Because there was a period in the early aughts, like in 2000 and whatnot, in which, ah, damn. See, I'm messing up right now. One of the executives that used to work at Geffen,

who signed me, went to fantasy. And was like, yes, we have all the fantasy masters and all the stacks masters, like, Can I ask a question? Was that, was that Ernie Singleton? I know Ernie Singleton, but no, it was not him. No. Okay, okay.

Because Ernie worked for fantasy at that period. Okay, but, okay, so I guess they connected in the early arts. Well, you know how the fantasy deal happened, right? No, I don't know. Okay. Stacks closed, was totally closed in 76. Here comes to people, came to me, and asked me, would I create a, a seven and a half tape

of what was in the Stacks library. And would I do that? Because they didn't know what it was. The bank had foreclosers and they were just trying to figure out how to get rid of stuff and they didn't know what they had. And so what happened was

they had to pay me $100,000 to put it seven and a half tape together for about 45 minutes. And fantasy records came to me after that and asked me what I hate, of the label for them. What they wanted was to release the catalog of the music.

And they wanted me to move to Berkeley, California. I said I would not move to Berkeley, California. If you interested me doing it, I would have to do it in Memphis. And I also would have to have the right to sign some of the artists to the label and you release records on. So we don't really want to do, I said, well, I'm not interested. Well, they would not have known what to do with the catalog. long. So they made the deal with me. Ernie Singleton, who later became the president of MCA,

and that's why we closed to this day, was working for fantasy records. Another guy by the name Bob Urshy was working there. I released a record on the emotions. They had a record called shouting out love. I released a record, I album in Isaac called Hotbed. I released a record on the barcage called Holy Ghost. I released a record on the soul cheering called Can't Give Up a Good thing. I had another act by the name of Shown up. And if you go to eight should be and you Google 78 Billboard magazine, you'll see there were four or five records on the national charts of with Stacks fantasy on it. And then when I told a guy, we have an opportunity to be successful. He says,

no, I don't want, I said, we can be big. I said, I don't want to be big. And then I left the deal because I realized what time that was. Wow. I won't go deeper than that. Anyway, I wasn't interested in in that. So that's what happened. So after that, whoever signed with fantasy, I lived in 78 after those records were released. If those records that I mentioned, Holy Ghost, they hit on the barquees, that was after Staxson, Clems. I was going to ask, what was the, because they were on Mercury at the time,

like, was that in their, that was just in the vaults or something? That was, I got that out of the vault. I got the album out of Isaac out of the boat. I got the half of my own emotions out of the vote. I recorded an elbow Shirley Brown. See, but because the thing is the Barcaze era I want to know about is, again, the

post, you know, the 70s barcais, but maybe you know the answer. With the exception of Holy Ghost, why is every song they ever released like derivative of someone else's hit? Like, Did they not think that we wouldn't put two and two together that shine was, you know, Earthwood and fires on your face or, you know, shake your rump to the front,

might be Shining Star or, like, were they just the type of 70s band that would just get the 45 of the moment, study that 45 and figure out, okay, what's our formula for that? because literally Holy Ghost is probably like even on stacks like a song like it's on the cold blooded record. It's like one of my favorite barcage joint which is basically kind of derivative of when the world's at peace by the OJs.

It's um... Wow. No, literally Jimmy Jam and I like pretty much kept a record of every song that the barcais has ever created. Oh, this is a song called Fighting Fire with Fire on the Stacks era

Barquays, which, you know, is also a popular sample for hip-hop, but there's almost one element in every... I mean, even on those earlier records, like, there's Slide in Family Stones is dance to the music,

and it's like, don't stop dance to the music, don't stop. Like, were they not afraid that one day they might get caught in sort of litigation with... Well, you have to understand, the guy who ended up taking them over in total, who didn't have the control of Stacks Records and then being kept in a particular direction

that records could be sold on was a guy by the name of work with us by the name of Alan Jones. Okay. Alan Jones became the producer, the only producer, and the manager of the barcase, and he came up with the direction that they were going to go in. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be sure to get James, so you. can interview. Yeah, please do us that salad. It's done.

It's done. It's done. But so Alan was the one who was given them this particular direction. And I will rather, I won't butcher it up. I'm going to get James and he'll, he'll, he would tell you. Ask him about Alan Jones. I appreciate that. And Larry Dodson, who was versatile and his vocal could emulate those, be it, be it

old boy out players or whoever. Larry Dodson is probably one of the most underrated soul cats still. in fine form with his, but yeah, the legendary Alan Jones, who, you know, I forgot to ask about Cole Feet with Albert King and I'll play the blues for you and all that stuff.

Yes. Legendary, legendary. Man, this is such an honor to just talk to you and to finally get some in-depth stories from you because we've never seen any feature-length article on you or anything.

And you're just a genius and a gentleman, and we thank you for being on our show. Yeah, straight up, man. Yeah. Shout out to DJ Khalil, too, real quick. For everyone to put this together. Again, thank you. We appreciate you doing this.

Unpaid Bill, bruh, you missed a... Yeah, seriously. You missed a masterpiece of an episode. I got to let you know. You know, on behalf of Sugar Steve and Fantigolo and Laia and Unpaid Bill and the great David Porter, thank you so much. This is another classic episode of... Questlove Supreme, and we will see you guys on the next go-round.

Thank you. Quest Love Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. For more podcasts from I-Hart Radio, visit the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. It's that time to put on your jersey and wave your flag, whoever you root for. Why do I watch the Walk Up?

That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fervoir. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots.

Listen to American Football on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey. toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.

Listen to Joy 101 on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new stuff you should know doing science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor?

Simplest explanation is usually the right one? We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park. Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody. Turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable lab coat

and listen to the stuff you should know doing science playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He left Nigeria. He conquered Hollywood, and he never forgot where he came from. David Ayelho is one of the most powerful storytellers of his generation. On this episode of 154, we go deep.

Nigeria, identity, navigating Hollywood at the highest level and the responsibility that comes with using your platform to change the world. This is 154. New episode streaming now. Don't miss it. Listen to this episode of 154, available now. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or whatever you get your podcast. Every family has its secrets.

But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.