The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Ray Parker Jr.

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Musician and songwriter Ray Parker Jr. talks about finding his voice, working in Motown and Stevie Wonder's surprising driving skills. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Of You, I got you. What's Love Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove and this is QLS Classic, in which we hear at Questlove Supreme, dig into our archives to bring us some amazing stories from past episodes. This was a really great episode with Ray Parker Jr. Talking about his life as a musician, working with Barry White,

with Stevie Wonder, with Shaka Khan, hanging with Prince, giving Quincy Jones stories even, and even Huey Lewis. This is one for the music fans. We really hope you enjoy this Questlove Supreme episode with Ray Parker Jr. Suprema, Subma, Subma, Subma, Role Call. Suprema, Subma, Subma, Subprema, Subprema, Role Call. Supremma, Subma, Submina Roll Call.

My name is Questo. Yeah. Is that understood? Yeah. Let me tell you something. Yeah. Must it makes me feel good. Suprema,

Subra, Subra, Roe Call. Supremma, Subrema, Role Call. My name is Fonte. Yeah. My favorite album is Voodoo.

Yeah. Because that woman needs love. Yeah. Just like you do. Role Call. Suprema, Sna, Supremma Role call.

Supremma, Ssa, Supremma Role Call. My name is Sugar. Yeah. I love to ball. Yeah. You know my number.

Yeah. So who you're going to call? Roll call. Supremia, sub, sub, sub, sub, sub, subprima roll call. Supremma, sub, sub, sub, suprem a roll call. I'm unpaid bill. Yeah. There's something strange.

Yeah. You stole my shit. Yeah. And I'm in braids. Ro call. Supraima, sub, sub, sub, sub, suprema roll call. Supraima, sub, sub, sub, suprema roll call. My name is...

Yeah. Car crash. Yeah. You've been taking a bill? Yeah. To Suprema, S-S-S-S-S-S-Rima roll call. I'm sorry, now. My name's La-Ea.

Yeah. No, I'm not Jill. Yeah. But if I'm with Mr. Parker, I'll go up any hill. Roll call. Oh, Supremea, S-Sah, S-Simperma roll call. Suprema, S-S-S-Sprima role call. My name is Ray.

Yeah. Torres born in May. Yeah. I'm my love is strong. Yeah. Grab my guitar, I play with it. Oh, ha, sub, suprema, sub, supremer roll call. H.R.

H.R. Srema, Srema, Srema, Srema, Supremma roll call. Supremma, Rope call. We have an amazing show for you today. Our guest is someone I really wanted to get it on the show since we launched it. He's an incredible, talented singer-songwriter, Kedaras, M. producer. He's worked with some true legends of soul,

including Mr. Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gay, Barry White, so many more. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ray Parker, Jr. is on the show today. Now, before we bring them on, let's check in quickly with Team Supreme. How are you doing, Fonte? Man, I'm doing okay.

I'm kind of tired. I'm kind of tired of making goddamn decisions. I'm mentally exhausted. So, now, me and my and my... me and my lady are finally moving into our house. And so now... You've been moving this house for the longest. Dude, it's like, because it's just been a lot, man.

It's been like, well, hell, I ain't been home. I've been running around with y'all all that week. But, uh... But no, it's just that. And then it's like changing bills, like getting stuff from your old place to your new place. And like, I'm working. My lady's working.

The kids is working. And it's just a fucking lot, man. Wait, the kids are working? Get them out of the house. Well, I mean, they're in school. And, you know what I'm saying? And like... Well, this is a question for.

from a person that's not a father. Okay. Okay. So how, what's the report card system like now? Do they just email you the report card? Oh, man. Yo, the report card system now. Do they bring it home to you?

Nah, nah, it comes straight, get in the mail. They come straight to your handset, baby. Oh, damn. So no more. I can't, I can't, uh, Ferris Bueller my way out of the... No. Nah, bro. Like, it's, everything is electronic.

You can log on. Um, you can see if they're skipping class. You can see, like, absences, tardies they got. Do you live in a police state? I think we all have. Holy shit right now. Okay. Yeah, man.

Some serious helicopter parenting right there. All right. I just want to play one Ray Parker Jr. song and radio before he comes in. Because we need to relax. So he's going to have all these crazy stories to tell us. I want to play one of my favorite joints off the two places at the same time record. It's Tonight's Tonight by Ray Parker Jr.

And Radio. This is Quest Love Supreme, only on Pandora. Come on, baby. Who that's right? Mm. If you want to get done. Tonight's the night Tell Thomas Edison

We don't need his life That's right And remind Dr. Bell Not to ring this phone tonight Sing it right Yeah We got live vocals right here Ray Parker Jr.

This quest love supreme If you want to lay down Tonight's the night That's right Calm down a lot of you That was tonight's tonight Night, Ray Parker Jr. on Radio. With air conditioning.

Here on Quest Love Supreme. Yo, this is... There's some story behind that song. You should not let that just drift. Oh, I'm never. We want to ask all the stories. Every episode is a blessing. But this one in particular is like...

I mean, this man is the consummate musician, session player, producer, songwriter, personality. I mean, he's one of the coolest people alive. You don't understand. No, this is real, not it. Seriously. It's real.

Straight up, straight up. This is cool. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the greatest Ray Parker Jr. Yes. That's love. Thank you, guys. Good to be here. Thank you.

Man, this is a dream, a dream. Thank you. Thank you for coming to do our show. We are going to ask every question ever. Please. I wanted to ask you. right now. Tonight's the night.

The kid is not my son. Tonight's that. Okay, tell me, usually I start of the beginning, but what was the story behind tonight's tonight? Tonight, it's an interesting song because I don't know if you recall, but I used to play on all the Herbie Hancock records, and I wrote a lot of songs with Herbie. So I was over his house one day, and we were kicking it. And if you know anything about Herbie, he never plays the same thing twice. He just doesn't, you know.

And his chords changed like every half a beat. There's a different chord. And it's like going on forever. and he ran across these three chords. I was like, whoa, that works, but you just got to slow it down. He's like, what are you talking about? I said, slow that down.

And he said, that ain't working on my song. I said, I ain't talk about your song no more. I'm done with that already. Slow it down. And I had to get him to play the chords in segments where it would just hold for two bars. He says, what do you mean? He says, what am I doing for two?

I said, you're not doing anything. Just hit the sustain pedal. Just hold it. Let it drift. And I end up talking to me. I said, you know, I can write a whole song off of that. So what I did is I took his synthesizer and his move, unplugged it from right where we were at his house, which was off of Doheny, put it in my car, put him in the car in front seat, put his stuff in the backseat, drove him to my house to my studio, right? Plugged it back up.

And I said, now I want you to do exactly what you're doing at your house. I just want you to do it like in one 12th a time. So everything lasts two bars, and he had one hell of a time done. We spent a long time because he just couldn't hold those cords at long. He says, man, this is stupid. I said, don't worry about the stupidity of it. Just do it. And let that hang.

And then he played the bass on it, then put the bass on second. He was playing way too many notes for us. Slow that down to just do, do, do, do, do. Which still is a lot for me. That's his version of slowed down. Then we took the synthesizers back to his house and finished his song. What's wrong was it?

I don't know. It doesn't matter. I just remember tonight's tonight. I was so enthralled with my song. I forgot what we were doing for him. Is that hard for you to do? Like, I'm often frustrated because obviously jazz cats have a bigger, wider, expansive vocabulary than the average musician.

So to get them to just simplify, I think it's a pride thing. Like, they feel like everything has to be this elaborate, chromatic, knife-cord thing. And they don't understand the beauty of simplicity. Do you think that's because, like, they just think they're above pop music or? Yeah, in a sense. They're like in more notes as more. something, you know. I've learned that the less notes you play,

the more money you get, you know, pay you a lot of money for the space, you know what I mean? But, you know, it's like, you know, most of my friends, and I started off like this too. I used to play jazz and the whole stuff when I was younger. You want to play something that the musicians sitting next to you cannot play. So it's that kind of a thing.

Like, watch me do this run and you can't do this run. When actually, when you're making music, you want to play something that the person next to you can play. Everybody can play. Even if they play it bad, you make them try to play it. So they think, I got it, I got it. So it's actually the opposite thing. So what you feel is that resistance from people, when they locked into jazz,

and they say, I got it, this is it. They're locked into their world, and they just can't see anything else. So they're just over there, you know. I don't even know if they think they're better or anybody. I don't think it's better. I just think they think they're different, and they think that the difference is correct. I also think it's easier for jazz guys to do the more difficult composition stuff. but it's literally impossible for them to play something simple.

Yeah. So I want to go back to the beginning. You're from the D, right? I'm from Detroit, yeah. What part of Detroit? Are you east side or west side? No, west side. West side.

Grand Boulevard, Dexter. Actually, Virginia Park and Dexter. Okay. But I was born halfway between the Grandie Ballroom and Motown. Really? Yeah, right in the middle. I could walk either way. If I walked northwest, I was going to the Grandy Ballroom,

in which I was a kid, not old enough to go in. You could hear Jimmy Hendricks playing upstairs, you know, coming out the window. And for those of y'all who don't know, the Grandy Ballroom was like a white rock club in the heart of the ghetto. Black people everywhere. And it was almost like a demilitarized zone. They could go from their cars to the club and back without being harmed. Without being hassled.

But if they went another block either way, that was it, you know, or half a block either way. And it was like holy sacred ground, but it was right in the middle of the ghetto. And all of the rock bands were played at Ted Nugent, and Amboy Dukes. That's when he had a group called Amboy Dukes, and all the rock bands were famous for playing here.

And then if I went the other way, it was Northwestern High School, which I ended up graduating from, and then there was Motown down the street. So I could walk to Motown, too. First of all, was guitar your first instrument? No, no, no. I played clarinet at six years old.

I assumed that was school? That was elementary school. I had a teacher named Alfred T. Kirby, and he's probably the most important person in my life because at five years old I was in kindergarten and I hated kindergarten because the gym class didn't have you dance these Russian dances with the girls

where you got to change you know partners and all that stuff I wasn't into no girls you know that's another story took me a long time to find girls when I found them it was dangerous but you know so I didn't want to do this so at the type of person I was out going at you know came time for the first grade now I'm six years old

I said, I ain't doing it. I'm not going to do it. So I wasn't going to talk to my parents about it because they didn't really know I was talking about. So I decided to find out who's running this school. And so they told me the principal. I said, well, where is the principal? And so I marched out of class,

went to the principal's office and said, look, I ain't digging the gym thing with the dancing with the girls. Is there something else I can do? So the principal looked at me. I'll never forget to look. First of all, the principal said absolutely nothing for maybe a, it seemed like 60 seconds.

Like, is this little kid coming in here talking this crap? You know, so it was like more of that. Then the principal said, okay, I got something for you and took me to the music class. He said, if you don't want to be in this gym class doing these dances, you can take a music class. I said, what's the music class? You pick an instrument and you go play.

Now, what was nice about the music class that I just, this is a god-given, just a gift, is my only had two best friends in the world. That was Nathan and Ollie. And both of them were already in the music class. Ollie Brown. Ollie Brown, the drummer, and Nathan Watts. Nathan Watts.

You weren't just elementary school with her? Absolutely. Wow. Jesus crazy. Wait a minute. You're serious? Yeah. So I go to the class.

I walk into the room. There's Nathan playing his trumpet. Nathan played the trumpet. Ollie was playing the drums. But at that time he had a snare drum and we hung a symbol from the ceiling, you know. And so the teacher asked me what I want to play. Well, I was a young kid. I wasn't going to say the tuba, right?

Take tub on. So I wanted to play flute. And all the girls had taken the flute. So I said, what's the next? next smallest instrument. And the next smallest instrument was the clarinet. And so Mr. Kirby, who was a genius guy, I wish I could talk to him now. Mr. Kirby, he looked at me, he says, a young man, this is about a week into it. He could see that I was less and enthused as Ollie and Nathan were. He says, we're going to start a band. And this band is a big call the sting race,

which was named after me. I didn't figure that out for 20 years, but the band was named after me. And you know, who else didn't figure out, Ollie and Nathan, they were too stupid to figure out. I didn't even know radio was named after you until later. That's what went on the story. And I think he named it after me because I needed the most, I needed more encouragement than Nathan and Ollie did, you know.

And so it was interesting. We did a parent-teacher conference stuff, orphanages and a whole bunch of stuff. And our hit song, which was hit in the neighborhood, local hit. It was called Airplane. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D. You know, and that was it.

Wow, that's the airplay. And, man, we were really, we were popular. That's excellent for somebody. This is under 10 years old. Six years old. I can't. I don't. It's no.

We were six years old. Six. We were rocking. That's the show, ladies, you know. It was dancing to one of your songs at six years old. That is crazy. So that's how it all began. on the clarinet, Nathan played the trumpet,

Ollie played the drums. Any other notable session monster musicians also go to the school with you during this time period that you might know. Dianna Ross went to that school. Not when I went. Temptations went to that school. I think, yeah, there was a lot. No, this was a famous area. Casually. Yeah, Diana Rossville. Now what you got a picture, I'm sure you've noticed

that a lot of famous people have come out of Detroit. It was just a small area. So everybody was going to either that school or the school next to it or cast tech or you know, we were all in the same genre, so to speak. Kevin Tony went to high school with him. He still plays with me now, the guy from the Blackbirds, Rock Creek Park. Yeah. Yeah, he was in, we all went to school together.

That's, we're going to get to his story for sure. Damn. That's another story, dude. He's a jazz guy. Okay. And, you know, so that's a whole story. But, and just to show you the progression later, we met up with Sylvester Rivers, who was one of our good friends, too, who ended up doing all of the piano work

and Invictus and Hot Wax and the other stuff. And Sylvester had a band for the first time we had, we thought we were smoking everybody. I mean, we were jamming. So now let's fast forward. It seemed like 20 years, but eight years old, eight and a half years old. We're going to fast forward to eight and a half years old. The biggest thing that happened at eight and a half years old is we heard Sylvester's band. And Sylvester's band had a bass guitar and he was playing a keyboard.

We never really thought about chords, right? We didn't even have a bass drum yet. So all of a sudden now we're hearing chords. for the first time, and we're hearing the bass note on the bottom. Man, that stuff seemed this big compared to just the trumpet, the clarinet, and the snare drum, you know. So, Ollie immediately, you know, I guess his parents borrow some money. He got a bass drum, so he could get some bottom on it, at least the drum, so you could get a kick going, you know, foot going. And I'll never forget, Sylvester wanted Ollie to join his band, which was a more sophisticated band because their drummer wasn't happening.

And Ollie was on the floor crying, you know, because he didn't want to leave his home. me, you know. So he's trying, okay, I'll never leave. I said, man, you need to leave. I ain't going to do this anyway. I'm doing something else. I still wasn't committed at that age. And by that time, I was playing a little bit of saxophone, but the big thing, the big life change was my dad bought a Magnavox tape recorder about this big with reel-to-reel. And I had the only tape recorder in the neighborhood that was real-to-reel. So. You were the studio. I was the studio. Believe it and I, still liked that today. But I was the studio. I had the tape recorder and my brother

had a cheap box guitar and I remember I had a busher saxophone. I took my brother's guitar and I put the microphone in the guitar and it amplified it. It was an acoustic guitar but I put the mic in the thing, past the string, stuck it up in there,

turned the tape recorder up and it was like, whoa, that's cool sound. Plus I got more than one shot. I couldn't play anything since it hit the strain. But it was more than one note at a time and I was tired of breathing and stuff anyway. So Ollie left the band. I didn't like this reason. And by the time, you know, I was starting to get a little taller, a little more,

10 years old, starting to get a little more handsome, you know, growing a little hair. You were really advanced. I ain't found the girls yet, but I'm just saying I was just starting to... You're growing into your own. Yeah, I'm getting taller. You know, I'm getting taller. You know, it wasn't happening. So, Ollie quit the band and went with Sylvester and the bigger band.

So I just decided I'm going to play the guitar. And, you know, and we were still playing together sometimes, but they didn't want me to play the guitar. me to play the clarinet. And I said, if you don't let me to play the guitar, I ain't going to record y'all. That's just the way it is. So that's how that went. Okay. So now I'm going to let you all take it back over. I'll be talking about.

No, I know. This is awesome campfire stories on Questlove's Supreme. We should tell him who Ali, who he keeps the Ollie he keeps. Well, now everything's coming to me now because I was trying to figure out how Ali and Jerry hooked up. And of course, Jerry was also in radio. So

that explains. Oh, yeah, I hooked them up years later. That's way. I now see. I now see it, but I don't want to jump that far ahead. Yeah, don't jump that far. So, okay, so were you self-taught, or did you have formal instructions? Self-taught on the guitar. And is this normal for everyone in Detroit? Like, am I the thing that everyone's a wonder kind prodigy at their instrument?

You know what? Yeah, it does seem like it. But let me tell you this. The level of musicianship was so high that before you could even tell anybody you played the instrument, you had to be good, right? It's just like, I don't know if I forget, Norm Nixon told me one time. He said, all his guys he went to school with, all six or eight of them went to the NBA. Because the level of practice that they all commanded from each other.

It was so much higher than when they showed up with everybody else, the whole group was higher. And I think that's how Detroit was, you know, when I was a young kid, like 14, I'm playing at the 20 grand. Well, you know, James Jameson was sitting next to me. Right? So that's just the way it played. James Jameson was sitting here. You know, Jack Ash was over there. Robert White sitting here.

I mean, you got to play. Well, you got to play. You know, there's no way around it. And if you're not cutting it, everybody's pointing at you. And I got telling the truth. When the bad notes get played, it wasn't me because I was perfect, right? I had to be perfect. I'd be out.

But they'd all point to me anyway. Because you're the youngest? I get hit with the drumstick anyway, because it's the youngest. So did you play with the Funk Brothers? Or were you a generation ahead? I didn't play with the Funk Brothers on the original. Well, no, no, I don't mean that. But did you ever play with those guys?

Oh, every day. So the 20 grand was just the epicenter of musicians. I was in the house band at the 20 grand. So it was 14, 15. It was Michael Henderson would play sometime. Bowenhanon was the band leader. He was the guy that brought me in. Hamilton, Bohan.

Yeah, Hamilton, Bohananan brought me in the band. Michael Henderson would play when he's not on tour with Miles or Stevie or somebody. But Jameson was there just about every night. Eddie Willis would play sometime. Wawa was there all the time, right? Wow, Wawa Watson was from the Detroit as well? Yeah. You know the guitar, Wawa's playing?

The thick, L5. Yes. That he puts the phone in and get the, the Wawa pedal? Yeah. That's my guitar. That ain't Wai'i's guitar. He still owed me $300. Well, I was going to ask who patented that... When I was playing jazz,

I put the phone in there because Melvin Sparks and George Benson had done it, and I bought a L5, you know, to play some jazz. I was playing jazz. Wai was living with this white chick and she stole everything he had. So he had nothing. He came home, the carpet was gone. She took all the money.

He would have killed her, but he didn't have enough money to go get fined her to kill her. She took a head. And Wawa had a thin body guitar that he was playing all the time. And so I said, look, I ain't going to play jazz much no more. You can buy my L5. And he didn't have much of choice. He gave me $100,200, $200,000 and said he paid me the rest, which I never ever got.

He never did. But that's how he got that guitar. And then once he started playing with it, the Wai Petto and the Box guitar feeding back gave him his new sound. He was like, oh, I like this. So he's been playing it ever since. Now, we got a deal because he smokes a lot of cigarettes. And so I say, if you croak early, I'm going to my mom. my guitar back.

Even now. That's part of the deal. That's probably the deal even now. So I guess some previous episodes before, we learned the idea of the house band, which was various acts would come to town. Yeah. Learn the records whoever, you know,

how much warning did you have? Like, give us an example of you being in the house band and someone coming to town. Is this? Okay, we're in the house band. Let's say Gladys 90 Pips come to town. Okay. Chuck Jackson.

He was a big guy to become, the spinners become, they're in a warning. Okay. You show up and this week they say the spinners thrown, they put the charts up there, and it's time to, you know, you rehearse a little bit with the charts. So these chord charts or actual, like, they're chord charts with some notes. Wow. So the guitar is going, d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- or d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d, that'll be written. Right.

Then you go back to chords. Was that the same, you mentioned Chuck Jackson? Was that the same Chuck Jackson that worked with Natalie Cole? No, no, no, no. There was a guy that singer Chuck Jackson had big horn section of everything. I know Chuck Jack and Martiniansy, too. Yeah, I did some of Natalie's records. Yeah, you're on sophisticated lady, right?

I believe. I know I'm on Our Love. I remember that. Okay. Because she was pregnant at the time. Right. Okay. So, okay, so you're saying that without warning, someone puts paper in front of you

and blame what you can notate it? Yeah, you got to go. Okay. And I got my first gig at Motown, even before Hamilton, Bohan, even before the 20 grand, is with the spinners. and Billy Henderson had a chart called Fascinating Rhythm He says I don't care how old you are You can read that chart

You got the gig So I pulled out my guitar I read that chart and now I got the gig And so he came to my mom And they take us out on weekends You know And we go play with the Spinnus They were nobody at the time

They had Felipe Wynn hadn't even gotten the band yet So this is Detroit Spinners Detroit Spanors yeah But at the 20 grand Which is interesting Felipe Wien got in the band At the 20 grand

They didn't have no hits And they weren't signed At Philadelphia But I do remember Felipe Winn turning out the audience, two shows a night with no hits. He just started doing that half, half, half. He was just the most energetic guy you ever seen.

And when nobody knew what he was singing, right? It was like exciting anyway. I've heard his level of performing was unbelievable. Yeah, so Flute Bay win was off the chain. And I heard he was like the greatest like ad liver. He would just come up with stuff off the cuff. They said Tom Bell was shortened all the songs to leave a long faith because they just would let him have to fade.

Wow. So if you look at the spinner songs, you know, two minutes, it starts to just go to the fade. Also, notes, there's a formula on spinner songs because when you're, the same with Slime and the Family Stone.

Like, I used to think that Filippe sang everything. Whereas, you know, I'd notice that one of the other singers would sing the main lyrics and then it was time for the end straight, all Filippa.

He rarely would get a song by himself, like rubber band man, maybe one. of a kind, but it was kind of like a formula. At the 20 grand. So could you describe what a typical night there was like? First of all, was it a

nightclub? Is it a theater? We need another nightclub like that. It was an all-black nightclub in the center of the ghetto. Capacity, probably four or five hundred people, but it would be packed. I mean, this place would be packed. Seats everywhere. Glad this night would have a line going outside

in the wintertime all the way around the block. Wow. So if it's in the center of the hood, was there any concern where once you became of a certain stature, say if you're like Dinah Ross. Right. Are you still going to the 20 grand to see? Norman Whitfield was there every night.

I mean, he used to pick on me as a kid saying, what's he doing here? And I said, shh, you know, don't have the drinks, shut up. You know, he would, like, call me out routinely, you know. Oh, you were coming underage? Yeah, yeah, I was way underage. I mean, me and Norman Wilfield,

we couldn't be friends for like another four years because he was calling me out. It took a while. Why did you? I don't know. He was just picking on me. And then he talked to me like third party too. He'd be like, why is he here?

He's obviously too young. He was just picking, you know, I was like, really? Initiation. Like initiation. Yeah, like I guess, you know. He didn't know through you, he might have someone that was sort of one level with Dennis or? No, he didn't feel none of that. He wasn't feeling.

So it was all about Dennis and no one else? That was a little kid punked out on the stage. I mean, just what that was, it wasn't headed that way. But the typical day is, you know, we go in, rehearse the songs. Or like, say it's showtime. We do the first show. almost like clockwork every night in the middle

between the two shows me and Jameson would hang out Jameson had a black fleet with Broham we go to his car and I was a really nice kid Jameson would go in his glove box and that's wintertime

so we got the Rindos rolled up we got a little bit of heat on it's cold and then he had a bag of weed then the bag of weed was sitting on his gun you know the gun I'm sorry the gun was sitting on the bag of James

James Jameson First of all just by everybody in Detroit got to get used today You don't go to where without your gun in the glove box, you know. But he had a weed under the gun. So he would get the weed put in the pipe and he started smoking the weeds. So I told my mother on James James. What?

I said, you know, because it was making me feel weird, you know, contact. It just wasn't happening, you know. So, you know, I had to talk with my parents and they told me what to say because they didn't want me to get all, get him in trouble. So I went back and I said, you know, Mr. Jameson, Mr. Jameson. How old was he at the time? I don't know. He probably is. It's late 30s, I'm guessing.

Okay. And I think I was 14, 15. I said, you know, I can't sit in the car with you no more because, you know, you're smoking these things. And I can't, you know. I feel weird. Yeah, yeah. He promised me he'd never do it again. You know, he said, you know, this is a week later.

He said he missed our hangout in the car, you know, because nobody else is hanging out. Because he liked to drink a little bit. People were gone. So he told me he'd never do it again. So I said, okay, cool. And then we got back together. back to his car, listen to some music,

kick it, you know, I didn't know he's going to be famous or anything. I just, you know, just the bass player. Well,

I was going to say, was he, alleged, because I've never heard any James James James James James, he's stories whatsoever. For those that don't know,

James James Jamerson is like the standard for which I personally judge every bass player I ever play with it. For those of you that are fans of, of DeAngelo's Voodoo

and you praise Pino Pino, Pino Paladino is basically these, second coming to James James James James. Like his finger game is bar none. I mean, he's emulating James James. The standing in the shadows of Bowtown documentary is a good one day.

They go all got Jack Ashford, Jameson, everybody. And they talk about the 20 grand as well. Yeah, yeah. So was it a generation separation? That's what I want to know. It was sort of a generation separation, you know. But they were good guys to defunct brothers. You know, my mouth was probably a little too big.

I remember the first song I learned to play was I'm losing you. And I had it down. I mean, I had my red 335 back pick up doing jink gling. And the bottom note, I had the whole thing put together. And so I was showing Robert White. You know, we were sitting in the studio and I'm showing Robert White sort of not just playing for him, but sort of like, look at me, watch this, you know, I'm the man. And Robert White looked at me.

He says, he says, that's really nice, young man. I played on the original record. You know, not just. He can't out do the master, man. I mean, you know, I'm like, really, you play on that? And I found out he played mocked on. Don, don't, don't, don't, don't. That's him on my girl.

I mean, I was like, I got quiet, you know, I got shut up. But those guys were teaching us. So, you know, Robert White taught me a lot of rhythm stuff and tricks and how to phrase it and how to use the thing. So they were real helpful. They were real good guys, all of them. So am I to assume that there's what I think are three classes? because obviously when Norman Whitfield

really started kind of taken over where Holland Dozer Holland left off. If Holland Doja Halland really utilized the Funk Brothers to their full ability, I feel like Norman Woodfield took Dennis Coffey's band. Wait, was it Dennis Coffee's band? But he just took Dennis Coffee and Wawa, basically. But even the rhythm section was different

than that of the funk brothers. He still used some of the same guy sometime. Yeah. Jameson was on some of his stuff before they could not get along, they had some fights, you know. Right. So, I mean, by the time

that they had made their exodus to Hollywood, what were you facing then? That was a godsend that Holland Doja Holland left Motown. Really? Yeah, because Jack Ashford, Dennis Coffey, Robert White,

they had Motown sewed up. I did some Marvin Gay albums when Marvin wanted to be different. I did one thing with Smokey and the Snake Pit, but most of the sessions were done by the Funk Brothers. So when Holland Doja, Holland left, the Funk brothers weren't supposed to be there.

So that left me and my boys, me and Sylvester. That left us. Oh, yeah, that left us. We won it. Young men, single and free. So we hit all that. Oh, of course it is, yeah. All that kind of stuff. Chairman of the board, Laura Lee, Free to Pay. I mean, that's us doing all that, those records.

So that led us in on the thing, you know. So you were the house band for Invictus. Yeah, I'm on most of it. That's all? Oh, that's me, yeah. We're having a good time. Marvin Gaye cutter record. I remember the first release was Your Demand, which I'm playing two or three guitars on.

That's me at 15, 16. And I'll never forget, I made like 20 grand in a month. My father worked at Ford. He only made 16 grand all year. So this posed a real interesting problem. First time in your head makes more money than you bought. My dad, my dad, my dad, no, I had already told my dad, I don't need no money. I told him that at 13 years on.

I got the money thing. I'm good. You don't have to pay nothing for me no more. But what was interesting is now I'm starting to make so much money. My dad thought for sure I was selling drugs. He was 100% sure. So he hired my older cousin to follow me around. Now, this may have been prompted by, if you ever saw the movie Superfly,

the blue Cadillac with all the stuff on it. Marvin Gaye had one just like it, but it was burgundy with a burgundy top. It was cold-blooded, bug eyes. I mean, you know, this thing was that. So Marvin's at the studio one day. and he's smoking a joint. And I'd already kind of said, you know, I think Bohannon or somebody told him,

you know, Ray would to join him. So Marvin felt bad, but he wasn't going to stop smoking his joint. He just felt bad about it. So I'll never forget what he did, man. I don't know if I had a driver's license or not at the time. But he looked over at me, he says, man, Ray, why don't you take the car for a spend? Go out for a couple hours and have a good time.

And I'm like, really? Man, let me tell you, he let me drive the Pimp Mobile in Detroit? I was leaning so hard. I think me in the mirror were like, centered up, center up, you know. I'm driving through the neighborhood. So I know, so I'm just trying to protect my dad. Now, you know he saw that too.

He at least heard about it. He said, man, we saw your son driving a $50,000 cattle. Now, you said he made how much money last month? You need to check your own home. He started talking about us. So I'm pulling up to the high school. I'm leaning hard, right? I can't get none of girls in the car because I can't stop

because I'm scared to stop. I'm just leaning. And if the police come, I don't care, I'll take it. I'll shot at it. But I drove around for a couple hours. Went back to studio, best time in my life, you know. So your father just had no clue

that you were a working music? Pretty much a genius at your craft at this point? He thought that first of all, if you weren't playing the saxophone, why are you playing any music? He says, nobody wants to hear anything about the saxophone. And my father was much older than me, by the way.

I should say that. He had me at 46, 47. So in his mind, all he knew is the jazz musicians that old days, they live out of the suitcase, they make $5 and they broke. Right.

So that's all he knew. He didn't understand what recording was or any of this stuff. Okay, so what would a session musician in Detroit make on a typical session? First of all,

are you your own agent? Yes. Okay. We had no agents. They just call you on the phone. McKinley Jackson for Invictus would call up and say, hey, we're cutting at such and such a time.

Can you make it 10 o'clock? $90 for three-hour session. How long do you have to learn the song? you don't have long. They spend half an hour on the drum sound. You go in there. There wasn't no amplifiers. Everybody had a little oratone speaker next to them.

And in the main room in Motown, everybody plugged in the same speaker. Clavenette, bass, guitar, everybody plugged in the same thing. Then they had the drum booth for the drums. So you run the song down. You run a few times. But you got to get three songs in three hours.

Don't nobody want to see you no more. You got to get three songs. No room from mistakes whatsoever. No. So you got to get three songs. a half an hour setting up the thing. You got to change the stream. Whatever, y'all got to tune up, whatever. That's it. Now, let's play. And they come in and change the parts and they run it down and

you had to get it. But what was exciting is you could hear your song on the radio within 10 days. They'd get it out really quick back then. And it was a single's world back then. It wasn't a lot of albums. So everything we cut was supposed to be a hit single. All right. So during this period, what is your proudest moment of like, like, ah, that's my guitar. Like, what's your... Man, when I heard everything good is bad and everything bad, and everything bad is good, come back. It had four of my guitars on that.

And I was up loud. Wait, how many tracks were? 16 tracks. Okay. So what year is this now? This is 1970, I guess. 6970, yeah. Okay.

So the studio used, is this United Sound or is it? No, no, this was, Holland Doja Holland had their own studio. And it was in a burned down movie theater on Grand River and Joy Road, which was having to be two blocks over from the Grandie Ballroom, which was interesting because, I always wondered why they had a burnt down movie studio and why they put all this sand under the control room floor. And when I first built my studio in Hollywood, American studios,

I didn't want a burned down movie theater, but I did put sand under the floor, which made it work, right? And now that I'm older, I traced it back to Memphis. The old Royal studio was in a burned down movie theater, and they got sand under the control room. And so it all really started in Memphis. Really? They were trying to imitate, you know, stacks.

Yeah, exactly. Stacks, okay. And Willie Mitchell then. During the Holland-Doha-Holland period and the Marvigay period, and I was just graduating out of high school. You know, I got out of high school of 17, so I'm now doing a year of college, let's say, in the middle of the first year, which I hate it.

Man, I was drafting car parts for Ford Motor Company. I mean, if you can imagine me with a suit and tie on, you know, drawing car doors and trying to make it fit, you know. That didn't work out for me. And Stevie Wonder called me on the telephone, and I'd never met Stevie Wonder, for my mind was my favorite album of all time, which they recorded in this building

by the way. They did. What effect the music on my mind have on you? I never heard those sounds before. Just to hear, like I'd never heard someone that was in that era describe it. I mean, I know what it is in hindsight as an adult. By the way, that's my

favorite album that he's ever recorded. And it's him playing all the instruments, but it's all these experimental sounds and it's a breakaway from the traditional Motown sound. It's just just him experimenting, 100% free and experimenting and just trying something totally new. And so I had pretty much, you know, when I first heard it, I'm not sure I liked it that much because it was so new. Then as I, then a month later, I had thrown away every other

record I had just had the A track of that in my car playing along. Which one, which one grabbed you the most on the album? Like the first. You know what? I can't, Mary wants to be super, I can't, I can't even say. I just would play the whole A track and just let it play. And I used to drive from Detroit to Cincinnati and back in eight hours just so I could just, nobody could talk to me. I just turn it up loud and just drive and just listen to it. It was that, you know. So what happened to me is right around my birthday in 72, right before my 18th birthday, I got a phone call from Stevie Wonder, and this is a truth drive told before. I hung up on him, you know, because I figured. That's a common theme for every, yeah, no one not believing no one believes the ball. I mean, I'm playing the song,

the album in my car every day, I ain't got nothing but that. So it's got to be one of my boys messing around with me. It got to be, you know. And he called two or three times. I hung up two or three times. Four times he called back. I said some not so nice things and then still hung up. Good thing.

He had a sense of humor. So he called back a fifth time. He says, look, he says, we ain't communicate. Say this, Steve Wonder, he says, listen to this. And he played me the rhythm track. He had just started with superstition. And I almost hung up again because the rhythm track, the superstition starts off with marching drums.

And I was like, oh, that's a bull, you know. Then before I could hang up, I heard, I heard that, boom, boom, boom, boom, da, then I heard that and I went, oh, my gosh, I'm hanging up the phone, Steve. And there was still this issue of the college with the door parts and learning that thing, you know. And there's major problem there

because my dad wanted me to finish college and get a real job and have a pension plan. Wait, this still wasn't a real job. $20,000? No. No, $20 in one month. Right. Now, remember, I'm doing the $20,000 a week at the $20,000 in cash, no taxes.

We didn't pay taxes in Detroit. $350 a week. $3.50 a week. He's right here, ladies. Yeah, all right, yeah. Well, shoot, 10 years ago, the mayor didn't pay taxes. I was about it. Don't go back too far.

The hip-hop mayor. So we make $3.50 a week at $20,000. $90 every three-hour session at Holland Doja Holland. And then that one month with Marvin Gay, and Jewish bar miss for some weddings on the weekends pay like $35, $40. And we could do three, four, five of those. Easy.

So we're making money in Detroit. So you could have, like, bought your dad a house off of some of this money. Pretty much, yeah. But instead, I bought myself a really nice concrete cash. That's crazy. And the first house I bought my dad at a house. I did do that.

Just so you know, when I made sense, some real money. I bought my dad, a house, mom, took everybody, paid all the bills. They never paid a penny more for the rest of their life. And he still didn't say you should still finish college. No, by the time I was 22, he was done talking. Okay. Parents do that. Parents do that. Like, just deciding, deep into Eladolph Half-Life, my dad was still getting the, you got to get a real job.

Exactly. Like, it's my third record. He's still like, you got to get a real job. You're something I love you. You got to, come on. Straight enough. What you're going to do? Yeah, I got to. I didn't get it. It didn't get real to my mom until she saw me on the cover of Double XL. What? Like when she saw it's on Double XL and then like the source, like, see me in magazines, that was when.

So by your second album, it was like. It was like, okay, it's real. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform.

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

And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream,

this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Ego Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day,

and I was like, and Dad, I think. I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved.

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

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

If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. So with Stevie, did you finally, when did you move to Los Angeles? I moved to Los Angeles as soon as I quit Stevie's band. And I stayed in the band a good eight months, I guess, something like that, you know. I always wanted to go to L.A. I just felt like, you know, even in Detroit, it's good as I always felt like the Stork made a mistake and, like, drop me in the wrong neighborhood.

It just felt like that for some reason, you know. Like I saw the Beverly Hills on TV and I was like, wow, that's, I like that. around row, you know, swimming pools, movie stars, and the sunlight. And, you know, I remember seeing Leave it to Beaver. Nobody ever stole Beaver's bike, and he rode it to school, you know. I was getting knifed up in my jacket. I'm getting knifed up in my jacket, and everybody got guns,

and we'd be going to pick each other up in the alley and go to school and the group and all that kind of stuff. Beaver didn't have to do none of that stuff, you know. So I just, I didn't know the difference. I just would ask my parents, where's that at? And they'd all say California, meaning everything was, movies were done in California. I just thought, well, they don't rob you in California.

So I mean, it should be cool if they rob you in a different way. Yeah, they sure do. I learned that when I got there too. They steal your money and you takes you a year or two to figure out that you lost that. Like, what happened? So when you're touring with Stevie, I mean, you're with the heavy. I mean, again, I know in hindsight, I don't think you saw it as, oh, man, these are the heavyweights. But, I mean, it's like, you know.

Denise Williams and. Wait, was Raymond Pounds with you? Or was it, Ollie first? He wasn't there yet. He wasn't, though. It was somebody before Ollie. I got Ollie in the band after Stevie and the drummer, I think his name was Chris, they had a fight.

And the drummer said blind for me. I'm going to kick Stevie. How about this? Stevie Wonder is used to being blind. The drummer thought he could put a thing around his eye and make it even. And so he went for blows. And Stevie, every time he... Wait a minute.

They fistfought? They got into a fist fight. Oh, so they said, let's even it up. They said, let's even it up. It's a question. It's a question. I didn't think that was evening it up. But they even ended up.

And of course, you know, Stevie, every time the guy even turned his head, bam, Stevie was boned. Wow. With nobody calling plays. Like, to the left, three-clock. No, it was, it was bad. Stevie was like, Bane. And so we all had to step into the darkness.

I was born in it. Pronged by it. Wait a minute. It didn't take long before we had to stop the fight. And then this guy still got fired. Dang. So he lost his gig. Got fired in.

And that's an accessible thing. But we did have Randy Brecker. Yeah. David Sanborn, Denise Williams, you know. So it was a, yeah, there's a lot of people in this band. Yeah, heavyweight. Scotty Edwards, you know, it was a great band. So were you part of the infamous Rolling Stones tour?

Absolutely. It's the first tour I've been on the big tour. But why not just started the top? What was the reception? Yes. No, no, I mean, how to, well, this is the thing. So we interviewed the Revolution some episodes back. And, of course, and I've heard mixed side of the story as well.

and he was like, well, you know, he's on stage and his underwear, so of course they're going to throw stuff at him. The Revolution was basically saying that, you know, Rolling Stone's audience wasn't receiving them well, and they got booed and pelted with the Jack Daniel bottles. I was there when Prince got hit with the Jack Daniels. Oh. I was at that.

He got hitting the head with the bottle. Wait, no. I was at that concert. He got hit in the head. Somewhere in L.A. He got hitting a head with a Jack Daniel about to get off the stage. He got hit in the head. They said, plays them wrong and roll.

I mean, it was like bad, you know. I mean, he came out of the gate smoking with a guitar solo still. There's theories behind that. But what was it like with you? Was there fear like, no, we might not. First of all, I was too young to know anything. I thought the Rolling Stones had already come on. I thought Stevie was the headline.

Okay, so it took me a minute or two. By the time the tear gas got in the limousine, I figured out, okay, something else has happened here. It was like life came and all the thing. So it was the whole thing. Now you got to remember, this was, I haven't really discovered girls yet, but I was about to discover lots of girls. And things were in a short period.

So this is the first really big tour, like go away from home and stay for more than a week that I'd ever been on. It was the Rolling Stones Tour in 1972. And they were wonderful guys. We all had a great time. No one booed Stevie Wonder off the stage or told him to get off. We didn't have that same experience that some of the other groups had, you know. Maybe because he got the respect.

And then we'd always go play a few songs with the Stones. And, you know, we got to go to Playboy Mansion, which I never been to before. And how old are you like 16? 18, 18. Yeah, I was going to say, there's a documentary of it called the, you ever see the Cox Suckers, Blues? The Rolling Stones documentary, yeah. Yeah, they show, I guess you guys playing satisfaction with doing uptight. The little skinny kid with a red guitar, he, really skinny band for, that'd be me.

So were you ever, like, on their airplane? That's supposed to be the penultimate standard of just, rock and roll excess yeah yeah that's supposed to be the beginning it was pretty bad really there was a lot of going on there was a lot of things yeah because if you don't like to smell a weed like that

I didn't do that I didn't partake in that type of activity unless you do it but I do remember that you know last I had checked cocaine was white their cocaine was crystal clear I'm sorry what it was clear

and it went up in a cone like that high and people could just go by and just get all they want you know so this was only for eight months the the the ronstones tours for about four months but i mean you're your tenure with stevie then we just went on a college tour with stevie after that so this is also i mean his morphing into something other than little stevie wonder oh yeah big time yeah yeah he had changed and he became uh i mean he's an interesting guy but he really was we used to hang out all the time like we race cars you know and uh we crash he went drive?

Oh, if you didn't let him drive, you get $50 fine. Wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. I have to let Stevie drive me. This, I feel like this episode is going to fuel all the Stevie ain't blind. You know what I'm saying? All like the conspiracy theorists that don't believe the Stevie's blind.

This episode is not going to help. If you're sitting next to Stevie, you know he's blind and he's driving the car. Now, he insists on driving. Does he insist on you being in the passenger seat, though? Yes. Oh. giving instructions, yeah. And what's worse than that is he insisted on me driving,

and then we'd have to race the car next to us. Oh, my God. Now, he didn't care about hitting the cars. He said, well, hit him then. I was about to say he's been in, and he's been in car accidents, and he still drives. Let me tell you something. He hadn't been in the car since then yet.

This was in until 703. I still got some reservations about what happened then. Uh-oh. I'm going to leave that long because I wasn't there. That was a couple of years later. But I wasn't there. Exclusive. But you know how you hear something on the radio

Like all that Cardage and stuff You'd be like, well, what really happened? What really happened? How does a limousine crash into a log thing and, oh, boy. So, I mean, you just, you know, come on. Switch. Switch. Switch.

You get in the back. You get in the side. Now that we're in the 70s, was Barry White next? Now first I left, let's see, I left Stevie's band. Because he was teaching me how to write songs. I had buddy. Miles playing the guitar upside down on some of my songs. And me and Stevie cut a bunch of stuff with us singing.

But somehow he wasn't going to release it. It took me a minute. But I figured out he really wasn't going to let me put it out. And so that sort of broke my heart because he didn't want me to lead a band. So I wanted to lead a band. You're Ray Parker Jr., man. You're too valuable. Well, at the time, I was to get his guitar player.

So he wasn't feeling it. You know, I was supposed to be his boy. So he took it kind of personal that I left the band. But we were still really good friends because after that I got Nathan in the band. which is a story into itself. Let's talk about Nathan is still in the bank, right? Yeah, what's interesting, Nathan's the band leader. He's been in 43 years.

But the great Nathan Watts, by the way. Yes, master base player. I had got, this is a year and a half after I left the band. Me and Stevie was still drive around L.A., and we part and hang out. And I got Reggie McBride in the band. Because me and Reggie used to play together at 12 years old. Wow.

The time this guy, Tom, Gary, we used to play at the 20 grand in the other room. And so Reggie left the band and went to Rare Earth. and then Stevie said, well, I want somebody else from Detroit in the same neighborhood. He wants that type of human being, that type of vibe. The only person left was Nathan who played the trumpet, right? And I said, well, I got my buddy Nathan who plays the trumpet.

He wants to play the bass. He says, I said, but he can't play the bass yet. He just started, you know. And Stevie said, well, have him come out there. He says, he's a fast learner. I said, well, he's a fast learner, but he ain't got the bass yet. Right. So he had some kind of cheap harmony base.

And I remember Stevie heard him at audition and said, man, sounds really weird, you know. So then Nathan took my bass and went an audition for Stevie on my base. And the way the story goes, Nathan told me he was 18 other bass players there, and everybody could outplay him 10 to 1. But he still got to get, you know. What do you think it was? So he learned how to, because Stevie just wanted somebody from Detroit in the club,

down the street from me, the whole bit. And so he basically taught Nathan how to play the band. Nameda how to play the bass. It was his first gig. His first gig ever in life was a stream. And apparently he's only given him. Right. So how does he, because he can't see, is it a lot of...

Or can he. Yes, he can. He cannot see. So how are you guys learning? First of all, how is he writing these songs? I've heard... He writes him in his head. And he can just play.

He remembers every part, every, everything, and he can play all the part. Like, I was in a studio with him 100% the whole time when he did Living for the City. And he started with the Fender Rose, no click track. One of no click tracks at those times. So he just played it like this. and it really got weird when it dun dun

you know those chords going off beats you know I was like uh oh home boy you know might be smoking but I mean you know

then he would layer it and then would come together he always puts the drums on last always put the drums on last really yeah he always puts his drums on last usually the drums the drums of her

sounds kind of backwards but that's interesting yeah see me I put a couple of parts down but I need to put the drums down and then re-lock the bass and everything back to whatever it is. But he just puts it down and puts the drums on last. I always wanted to know how does he notate ideas,

especially when he can't, well, I'm sure that he writes, but I mean, for you guys to know what he's thinking. He hears it in his head and he'll give it to you. But mostly on his records, that's him playing most of the stuff a lot of the time. Then he'll overdub what he needs. Oh, so you're only getting the finished product. Yeah, yeah. He plays the drums and stuff.

Like when we did maybe a baby to try. was pretty much done. Okay. And more trivia, it's funny. The second engineer, we did that at Crystal Sound in L.A. Turns out years later, the second engineer was Steve Perry from Journey. Wow. Wow.

Yeah, he was the second engineer on the date. That's crazy. Steve Perry. That's exclusive. Wow. So, you know, old Sherry fame. There's a lot of stuff going on at that time. You know, it's an interesting time, period in life.

I mean, I look back on this, I hope much credit. But at the time, it was just what was happening? That was it. Well, I wanted to ask about that when you did Barry White, was it just studio sessions or was it also touring with him? Yeah, I did both. Okay. How did y'all get paid? Because money had like 70 people in the bank.

Like every show about the other guys, but I was getting triple scale playing with Barry White in the studio. But I came a little late. Like I missed a do-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- because I was playing with Stevie-1 tour. and I met Barry White the next year, the following year. Okay. And he was a... My first, my last, by everything. Even before that.

But he was like a roughneck kind of guy from the hood. I was going to see a gangster. Yeah, gangster from the hood. And I was a Detroit boy. I wasn't, you know, that clean, you know. So I had my Afro, I had my Link Continental. And Gene Page, famous arranges. We need to get him an award on...

He needs a... All his arrangement. Yeah, he's unbelievable. All Lionel Richie. He even did the Righteous Brothers song. Yeah. So he was a good friend of mine from Detroit. I mean, he lived out here, but I worked with him in Detroit. And he brought me to the session.

Barry White wasn't paying me no attention. I wasn't on the session. And Barry White liked to play his music back, loud, need console, speakers all the way up, you know, stuff's whacking, orchestra jam, and that stuff was going. And I had an idea for a tune. And, you know, what did I have to lose? I was all coming from Detroit.

What do I care? You know, so I push stop on the tape recorder, you know, and all the music stopped, you know. You did it yourself? I did it. Oh, Lord. And Barry said, and Barry White looked over.

He says, Shook Night Moment. He says, oh, yeah, it was a Shook Night Moment. Yeah, big time. First of all, he says, what the fuck? What was that the, what the,

Frank, what happened? And then he looked around there's me in the corner. I said, excuse me, Mr. White. And it got real quiet in it. He said, he looked at somebody. He says, who the fuck is that? Right. And then he looked at Gene Page like,

you brought him here. You know, like the other thing. And I said, excuse me, Mr. White. That's a really nice song. But it's missing this guitar. part. And he looked at me and before he could punch me or kick me out, he said, well then get the fuck in there

and play it then. So I went in to play. This is Joe Jackson Tito Jackson moment. I whip your ass first and then I'm going to start an empire. Tensions rise. The original Lucian lion. Tensions rise. Right. Tensions rise. So I go out there and

I'm starting to play the part and I think like anybody else, you know, I hope he likes it because I know I know what I got to do. So I hit this line. The line was do do do do do that kind of a thing, you know. And he loved it. And so I said, okay, we'll roll the tape back.

He says, fuck you. Keep playing it now. The only thing that's missing on the record is fuck you, keep playing now. But you hear me out for a bar and a half, two bars. Right. And he said, keep playing. So I just start back up playing it. And he just left it like that because he didn't believe in fixing it.

He just left it. Really? Yeah. On the record, it drops out for a bar and a half where he told me, fuck you. What is this? It's on this white gold album. They mean Barry White.

I'm not going to say we were boys, but I thought we were boys, you know. So his thing was he got all these writers sound. He said, nobody gets a song with Barry White. No way, no how. Y'all write for these guys, write for these guys, write for all this time. And so I was determined to get a song of Barry White.

So I got Gene Pace to write out the charts, and I had the music, demo tape cutting all this stuff. So I put Barry where I had a little Mercedes convertible by this time. This is later in 74. And Barry came out the studio. I said, Barry, listen to this. And I pushed him in my car by accident.

I had the door open. I pushed him in. But I didn't know he's going to cut himself. So he cut him on the window because he was too big to get in the Mercedes. He was too big. It was too big. But he got in there. But he didn't want to acknowledge that he was too big to get in.

So that worked in my favor. But anyway, I got to play him the track. You know, he said, yeah, Ray, that's nice. So what about it? I said, well, you let me cut the track. He said, man, we're doing this. So we went back, cut the rest of his stuff, you know, da-da-da. And Barry White had a specific thing.

He says, everybody's getting triple-skirts. I'm cutting eight songs today. I ain't paying y'all penny more. You can cut it in one hour, you can cut it in 10 hours. I don't care what you do. But once we get these songs, sessions over. So this is one of those days. We were done already.

We got like two or three hours left. Everybody wanted to go home. But they all my boys, David T. Walker, you know, Lee Ridding, I, J. Graydon, Dean Park. All cast things. Casually. He just casually mentioned the 12th

Zipe brother. It was Junis and, Mark. You know, Sam. Shad, Rack, And Mary Magdalene over the corner. And to show you what kind of guy Gene Page was, and I owe him way too much,

he had already the night before written all the charts out for me for the whole band, right? And so when we got done, I said, Barry, man, you remember the song I played you? Let me cut the song, man. He says, Ray, we're done here, man, we're going home. I said, why don't you do this? Why don't you go home?

And I cut the track, okay? And he looked at me like, that little snotty-nosed kid. I mean, he's really pushing himself, you know? And so he went home and I got Joe Sample and Wilton Feld, all the guys, you know, to stay. Wow. To stay back with me and cut the track. So we cut the track in like 20 minutes.

And I drove it up to Barry's house. And he listened to what he says. That's on the album. Wow. That's how I got a cut on the White Gold album, which did really well. Wait, what's the title of the song? Always Thinking of You. All right.

Let's go into Always Thinking of You, written by Ray Parker Jr. for Barry White. White. Love and Limited Orchestra. It's supposed to love Supreme on the Hondane door. That's a million reasons why. Why I all... Who engineered this?

Frank Keshmer. Frank Keshmer. Who else was on the sessions? Well, on the Barry White Sessions was Ed Green played the drums. All right. All the time. Wilton Felder, who was a saxophone player for the Jazz Crusaders,

played the bass. And for those who don't know, he also played on all the Jackson 5 hits, too, and a whole bunch of other stuff. So when you hear A, B, C, that's Wilton Felder, the sax player playing. the bass. Really? Yeah.

Okay. Joe Sample played the keyboards. Gary Philman played the vibes. Had the vibes. And on guitar would be myself, Wawa, David T. Walker, right? Dean Parks, sometimes either Jake Radin or Lee Rittenauer. Timeout. Dean Parks?

Yeah. The great Dean Parks was... My boy, Dean Parks. We played together many years on whole much stuff, yeah. What is Dean Parks doing in the Barry White session? was on all the Railway sessions. No, I just, that's just, I can't imagine. Dean Parks just.

What do you know Dean Parks from Bing? When you, the song you mentioned. Do, do, do, do, do. Yeah, Midnight, that's Jean Park. I'm playing on there too. But, but that's, I think that's me, Dean, and Lee, but we're playing one-note apiece, but they're all sunk together. Because Barry wouldn't let you play the whole part.

So we're playing one note to be, do, do, do, do, do, and we're sliding it up. And that's all three of us drag in. So that's no overdubbing? No. He doesn't like. I like the overdone. So it's just normal to have four guitars playing at the same time? Five.

Why, four? Don't stop it for. Five. He just didn't want to overdub for monetary reasons. No, he just didn't like it. He mixed on the Neve console where all the faders are here in the monitor section here. And he just, he believed that he should bring the mix up here. And if he didn't hear the echo on the drums, take the whole takeover.

So he wanted everything to sound like a record right here. He says, forget all that, do it later. If I can't get it here, I ain't got no record. got no record. So it's up to the band, the engineer, and everybody else to give him his record on those faders. And all he wanted to do is play with the volumes on those faders. But if he couldn't get the snare, he couldn't get it,

cut over. So even mixing, like, there's no, like, okay, let's take a day out to mix the stuff. No, because you already mixed it. It's already over there. So you're hearing it the way he wants to hear it. What happened afterwards? By this time, I would have figured you guys have figured out my ego.

Of course, I want more. I want a song that Barry White sings and me and him do together. I went through something very similar at my apartment where I live. Upstairs, Barry White's, one of his manager guys lived there. So I figured out from the manager when Barry was going to show up, right?

And I was going to pull the car up real fast and play him this new cut I had. Right. I'm going to talk him into it. I know. Most people are saying, you should quit while you're here. I'm like, why are you pressing your local way, man, man.

I'm so not feeling. So here it comes. I see Barry White pulling up. I can't wait. Now I know where he's going, but I don't want him to get out his car and go ring the buzz and go upstairs. I want to catch him while he's downstairs.

So I see him come up the street because I've been waiting all this time. So as soon as I see him come to the street, I leave my prior, go downstairs, get in the car, and I pull to the front. But when I pull to the front out of the parking lot, it opens the gate. Barry White had parked this white mark seven and the front of the gate illegally, but it was too close. And I had already triggered it when I saw it was too late. Oh, shit.

The gate was rising. He had parked and was getting out. The gate lifted up the door. front of his car. The car was too heavy. The car went back on the gate. It ripped the gate off the thing, and it fell on top of his Mark 7.

Oh, dang. So I wrecked his Mark 7. Wow. But I did get to play him the song. I was playing the song. Was that how you repaid it for the damage music? He said, thanks, Ray, I needed that. But it was his fault.

He parked around space. But anyway, I did get him to listen to the song, and he did cut the song. And so I was one of the first people to end. ever get a song that I wrote with Barry White, maybe the only. And it's called You See the Trouble with Me. And we sold like seven or eight million records. And then a group called Black Legend redid it in 2002 or something.

And it went number one around the world again. So it's on all his greatest hits records. And I think he was just very kind to me to do it. First of all, he was kind enough not to beat me up after I trashed his White Mark 7. You know, so he's a good dude. That's crazy. So, okay, so eventually you quit while you hit. But we skipped Rufus and Shaka.

How did you get Tell Me Something Good? No, that's Stevie's song. Now, let's go. Oh, wait a minute. Let's get some more drama now. Oh, oh. I know you guys like drama. Okay, so I wrote the song for Barry White and Stevie.

None of them will cut it. So next door to me is this girl Shanka Khan and Andre Fisher, who I'm working with. And so me and Andre Fisher and David Foster are doing sessions for $35 for flat-topping cookie at Icontina Turner Studio. This is starting out in the 74. We're doing budget dates. We're trying to make some money. V. David Foster.

Yeah, well, he won the... Back then, he was like 16 or... No, he was... He's older than me. He's about 23, 24. Okay. But I don't know if you know, he wrote that song. Don't cry, she's a lady.

He wrote... Wildflower. Yeah, he had been wild child. That's how he got my respect. David Foster wrote that? I was like, man, we used to play that when I was a kid in the band. What are you talking about you wrote that?

I knew about after the love is gone. I fell up his own. No, no, no, no. David Foster, yeah, he wrote, yeah, don't crash these ladies. Everybody used to play in their band, all the rest of the stuff. Yeah.

And so it was one of those things where nobody would cut the song. So me and Andre, we go in the studio and we lay it down, I play the guitars and rest of stuff. He says his band, a roof is going to cut. I'm like, unknown band. Whatever.

Cut my son. Unknown band, you know. So we cut the songs, Chaka sings on it, and she sings really, really, I'm like, who's that singing? She says, this is going to be something. I'm thinking, oh, man,

it's going to be hot. And then she tells me the story. She says, you don't even remember me, huh? I said, what are you talking about? I remember you? She says, well, you know, when you back last year, when you were playing with Stevie Wonder, me and my sister, I gave you the tape to listen to.

You gave me an address to your house to mail it to in San Francisco. She says, and you don't even live in San Francisco. And you were trying to bang me, and you wouldn't, you know. So by then you discovered women. And I was like, guilty, guilty, guilty. But, you know, but I said, you really. sang good, but she was pregnant with the time of the time. The make a long story short, the record

was going to be the first single called You Got the Love. I mean, we were jammed. And her sister being Taka, Taka Boom? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So here comes Chakhan. She sang a heck out the song. I'm liking the song. But nobody knows who no Rufus is. They are invisible band. Nobody ever heard of it. Now, I just quit Stevie's

band. So you know, Stevie's got to teach me a lesson. I mean, because he's upset. Now, I'm going to ask you this question. How in the world does Stevie wonder who just won eight Grammys, if he's going to cut a song, why does he cut it on the most unknown singer on the planet? Because he found out

that you were about to... I'm not saying that. I'm just saying... Well, I mean, she was... She was fine. I'm just telling you that out of all the records on the planet Earth, somehow he ended up with a single in front of mine. Y'all must have had this conversation, though. Did you cut, you got

the love first? Yes. And then where he got to Stevie? I'm just saying, out of all the records in the world, he could have his choice to doing anybody on the planet. How he migrated all the way to mine, which was wonderful because tell me something good. Open up the album and then my single came out and blew up. Did y'all ever had a conversation you and Stevie?

Well, whenever we had those conversations, it's like the Queen of England. Did you see the movie? No. Okay, well, I didn't see it either. I mean, it was an amicable parting, I assume. It wasn't so bitter to the fact that, you know. We love each other, but we've had some interesting. you're not going to speak to each other

for a long time session then he apologized and we hug and kissed him and then I was nominated for an Oscar with him he wouldn't speak to me again until he won until he won that year he hugged me and kissed me

and we were good again you know what we all nominated for with the Oscar because he was a woman in red woman in red yeah I just called the sale of love you so I won the British Oscar

and the 50s 57 Oscars opened up with me performing it, what they spent like a half a middle of it, but they didn't ask him to perform. And I sat, they sat me in backing him. I mean, I had my hands on him.

Net Prince was over here, had my hands on Stevie here. And, you know, I mean, he wasn't saying anything. And I had a funny suspicion that if I had won that Oscar, I think that would have been

the end of the relationship. I just think that would just be that. He'd never forgiven you. Well, I think we'd be done. We'd so be done. You know, I think we'd so be done. By this point, do you have, like,

personal aspirations of your own to be the artist or you're just like like what do you want to be? Do you want to be the consummate side man? Do you just want to songwriting and publishing? Is that where it is? Or do you want to be the star? Well, first I wanted to be the guitar player. Then I figured

I might not make enough money doing that. And I really like nice things. So I thought, wow, and when I work with Stevie, I like the songwriting and all that kind of thing. I said, why, you write the songs. That works. So that's right the songs. But it really wasn't until I took that Shanka Khan record home and the

Barry White, White Gold album to my mom and dad, because they thought I was failing in California. I should move back home. I lost my Lincoln Continental for this little small Mercedes that didn't have electric seats and stuff. They came out to my house, which I thought was cool, but my house

was on top of a hill, swimming pool view of the city, and my dad looked at it and said he couldn't afford a house on the bottom with everybody else. They stuck them way up in the middle of nowhere. We had to go down this windy road. And his house wasn't even made out of bricks. He's had some stuck old, you know, mud-built house they put together. So they were really, they were depressed.

They thought I wasn't doing so well, you know. Then I brought the record home to my mom, and it was really my mom that gave me the rude awakening. You know, my mom said, I said, hey, mom, I got this big hit on Shaka Khan, I mean, on the Rufus, you know. She was, what's a Rufus? I said, that's the name of the band. I guess she thought it was my band.

I don't know what she thought, but, so I gave my mom the record, and she took the record, and she looked at it and looked at it. looked at the front. She saw people. She says, I don't see you. Right? Now, you got to understand, I'm going home with an ego.

I like, making I'm Hollywood. I thought the song, Barry White song. You know, she says, I don't see you. Then she took the Barry White Rock, she looked down, I don't see you. I said, that's because Ma, I wrote the song.

Now, I'm still feeling high and mighty and justified. So she pulled out the record, and I'll never forget, ABC Dunhill at the time, had a black label, and they write your name of silver. And so I said, see, Mom,

says right there, Ray Parker, you know, it's me. And she looked at it. Now my mother's in her late 60th of the time. And she was like, boy, go get my magnifying glass. She's just messing with you, man. No, she wasn't. So she gets her magnifying glass, and she holds it back.

And she's doing like that. And it says, R period, Parker. And I'll never forget these words. This is where I got it. You know, sometimes simplicity, like you said, simplicity of a song, simplicity is better. She said to me, she says, is that you, our period. at Parker. I said, yeah, that's me. She said, the period took one space. Couldn't they just

give you another space and get your A-Y? Get the A-Y on there? And, you know, so when I left home with a lot smaller head than when I got there, you know, I figured I said, you know, I'm not coming back until I get a record with, I got to get my face on the record. That's just it. My mama does not understand what it is I'm doing. I couldn't even explain to my mom what I did. And my mom couldn't even see me. My name was so small. I didn't like the way it felt. By this point, you were also on the silver screen, correct? A little bit.

And it's uptown Saturday night. I was going to say, you know, that's too brief. Well, I mean, it was still like, you know. Your mama. Yeah, that's too brief. Mama, I blink. Yeah. I got to be on the screen.

Did you explain your mama that the little name on the back of the album makes a lot time more money than the big face on the cover? Yeah, than the names above. She didn't eat. Okay. She was. You know what? I could have explained it, but money wasn't the issue here.

The issue is my mama's sitting there like she didn't even know what I was doing. She's sitting there like, you know, I'm coming home tomorrow. I got it. I won. I want. She's like, what? You know what? I don't see nothing.

You know, so that struck a quartermaster message. I'm going to cut, I got to cut something that my mama can see me on the cover. That's just the way it's got to be. This is Kwest Love Supreme Court. If you're just joining us, we're almost through hour two of our conversation with our guest, Ray Parker, Jr. We learned about his work with Stevie Wonder, Barry White, Shaka Khan, and we're digging deeper into his attempts after years of working in the music business to prove to his parents that he was a success. I guess my question is, who did you fish for to get a record deal?

I have fished nobody. Okay, well, okay, this is what I want to know. I want you to describe Clive Davis. Now, we got to lead into Clive Davis. You got to let me lead in the Clive Days, and I'm going to try and make it as brief as possible. Oh, make it as long as possible. Okay. After the you got to love Barry White, all that kind of segment, I got a singles deal with A&M records to do this girl Anita Sherman, at which she sang one song,

and the secretary at the studio said a few words to me. She burst out in tears. I had four hours of studio time left, and I had to sing the song myself because she was crying. She blew my entire record deal. And when I went to the A&M lot, out the corner of my eye,

it looked like in the next building over, there was Quincy Jones standing there. And I was like, Quincy Jones, oh my God. Gosh, it's Quincy Jones standing over there. I mean, Quincy Jones. I didn't know what to do with myself, because we played Killer Joe in the band

when I was a kid with Bonhannon and all the stuff. So I got to go meet Quincy Jones. I got to go meet Quincy Jones. So I just got this record deal with A&M. My egos. I had plenty of ego at the time. Maybe I did much. So I went over to Quincy Jones and I said,

hi, you don't know me, but I'm the guy that's going to teach you how to produce hit records. Oh, no. Wait. No. Exclusive. Exclusive. I'm the guy that's going to teach you how to produce hit records.

Well, to make a long story short, a couple of months later, the brothers Johnson came out, and he was number one on the pop charts and I-B charts, and they had sent me to Bernie Grimmons, which happened to be in the back of the A&M lot, to get the box of records, the only ones in existence besides the radio, the swamp radio in Florida that played my record.

And as I was being escorted off the lot, the one thing that that was good for when I said that is Quincy Jones saw me like this with my records going off the lot. Now, by the way, by the time I got to Bernie Grumman's thing, and they had already told me I was fired. So I'm doing a really good job of this. I'm trying to get to Bernie Grumman's, get the records, and get to my car. And my Adams apple is all choked up. I mean, I'm about to cry. I mean, I'm holding all

this in. But my Adam's up is hurting right here. It's choked up. You know, I've been a little kid. So I mean, you know, all I want to do to get my records and make it. And I was almost to the gate where they let you in and out. And I was getting ready because my car's parked outside. I can't get on a lot no more. So I was about to leave. And then somebody said, hey, young man, I'm waiting on my production lessons.

Oh. Hey, all I can say is I look like Linus with the towel and the tears. And he felt so bad. He immediately stopped whoever. He might have been talking to Herbout before I don't know. But he left those guys immediately. came over to me, put his arms around to me, he says, now now, son.

I didn't mean that. He said, it ain't that bad. Yeah, he said, it ain't that bad. And he says, he says, I don't know who you are. He was just joking with me because he had a hit, and he's kidding him. He didn't know how to take it that bad. He says, I don't know who you are.

But, you know, you're obviously doing something right or else you wouldn't be on this lot. And that's what he said. And he says, what you need to do now is just pick yourself back up and get back in the game and do it fast. is don't take all day. He says, get back in it and do it quickly. And then I left that lot and went to H.B. Barnum and Wawa at the studio

where they gave me another ragging on and made me cry again. So it's a bad day for Ray. So at the time, was Herb Albert and Jerry Moss, were they in name-only executives? No, no. They were running. In those days, they were running it. So what do you think it was?

Like, they just didn't see? I didn't have a hit. Yeah, let's get off the lot. You don't have a hit. Get out of here. You're fired. Hey, and the guy at A&M. told me, he said, Mr. Parker, and I only sang because the girl started crying, she

messed up my record deal. I'm like everybody else. I'm blaming on somebody else. It wasn't me. But she didn't sing the song. She started crying when the other girl was hitting on me, you know. And I was like, oh, no, she didn't even say anything. Come on, you know.

In those days, you only had X amount of hours for studio time. They let you in the studio for six hours. Six hours you're done. So I had to sing the song, the guy looked at me, Kip Kohn was his name. I never forget his name. He says, Mr. Parker, you do a lot of things, write guitar. We like what you write. He said, but you got to let this singing thing go.

You ain't going to be no star. This ain't you. He says, that ain't going to happen, you know. He says, that ain't going to happen. The famous last words. So now we're going to get, we're leading into Clive and all that stuff. So hold on, here we go. Does Leo happen?

No, that's between it. That's what leads me to climb. So then I'm working with Richard Perry all the time doing a bunch of sessions. He's paying me triple scale. He's got a studio at the Paramount Lot with Paramount Universal Lot. And so he had my name on the concrete, says Ray Parker Jr. So whenever I pull up, I pull on Paramount La Park right there in the Ray

Parker Jr. space. We were boys, man, we're cutting. Barbara Streisand, Carly Simon. I mean, everybody. Whatever he did, I was his guy. He had Dave, the juice man, come every day. They bring him cocaine and weed, and they bring me watermelon juice. You know what I mean? I was like, eventually

he's juice, right? Like, so yeah. Watermelon juice for Ray Cook. And so in those days, we didn't have, like, tape recorders and stuff like you have now with your iPhone. So I had a song that had written at home with the little click drum machine. I'm beating on the thing on my maestro rhythmase. And I just wanted to see what it sounded like.

So I told Ed Green, you play this, John Barnes, you play this. And so we all played our parts. And then Richard comes in at lunch break and says, man, that's jamming. What is that? I said, well, that's the song I wrote at home, you know, just on lunch break. He says, well, can we cut that on Leo Serre? And I said, well, I don't know. Yeah.

He says, but I mean, I got to get my part of the song. So he promises me my part of the song. It's not like it's a mystery issue. I didn't know that I wasn't getting my part of the song. the record came out. So the record comes out. It's jamming. And I don't see my name on it anywhere.

I stand in Tower Records for two hours trying to find my name on a 45, if you can imagine that. I just knew it was going to appear. I'm there for two hours. And the lady that was a security guard comes down to me who ended up being Bernadette, the meeting in the ladies room girl, you know? Yeah. Climax.

Climax, yeah. Yeah, Bernadette Cooper was the security guard. Because I'm not in the mood. She was a security guard. She was about to arrest me. He said, you're going to buy this record or what? Really? I'm not about to start crying again.

There's a lot of crying for a big dude. So I'm about to start crying again. She said, you're going to buy this record or what? Then she finds, oh, you're a Ray Parker? Then what are you doing? She knew me from being a guitar player. She says, well, you got to listen to my music. I'm not listening to anything right now.

I'm trying to figure out what happened to my song, you know. And so I had given him two songs. I had given him that one and Jack and Jill. Right? And so Carol Childs, who was his head of his publishing company, and he felt so bad because he kept saying, well, Richard's going to make it right, and Richard also told me that he's going to do a whole album on you.

I like, you know, I like that. Feed him, feed him, feed them, feed them, just postpone, postpone, promise him the world. He says, you're going to be Barbara Streis. He's going to cut a whole album on you, and it'll be by Richard Pair, and you'll be on Warner Bros, and that'll be the end of that. Okay, well, then the contract came,

and it was like everything for him, nothing for me, you know. And I was broken harder because I'm like, how could you do this? I thought we'd been working again on records. I've been helping you out, giving more ideas. than maybe I should. Right. And he promised me a piece of the song.

Wasn't like he had to give me all the song. Just give me my share of the song. So he didn't do that. And Carol felt so bad. Carol Chowns is her name. At the time it was Carol Pinkis. She felt so bad about it that she took the song to Roger Burnbaum, who, when I was at A&M, used to go get the hot dogs.

Right now he owns the whole planet. But at the time, Roger Burnbaum was the guy who got pizzas and stuff for us when we had the meetings. Roady. Yeah. But I always treated him nice. Now he's the vice. president of Arrista. So he plays it for Clive. Clive falls in love with Jack and Jill.

Clive calls up, I don't want to talk to any more white people in a suit and tie. Just don't. You know what I mean? So I won't even meet with Clyde. So this goes on for a month or so. Then Clive is very clever guy. He calls back. And he says, you're a respectable guy in the music business. I'm a respectable guy in the music business. Let's say we don't talk about any of this stuff. And we just have lunch. He says, that makes sense. He says, how could you refuse just having lunch. I was like, okay, he's going to come correct. Okay, we just go go have lunch. So Carol comes with me, we go to lunch and one thing leads to another. Clive says, so what do you plan on doing with all of a sudden? Before he could finish, Tom, Carol says, Ray should make a

record. Did they start negotiating. They started negotiating. I was like, whoa, whoa, I thought, like, yeah, like, this has been prepped and I'm part of it. I'm out the loop again once again. And so that's how we started talking about that stuff. And, you know, he said, I'll get you the best. Yeah, we were talking about. what to do. And to me, I said, I don't want to have an album like David T. Walker where they just kind of played on the jazz stations on that. I said, I want to be on Kiss FM, Top 40 Radio. And so he told me what had to happen if I want to be on top for the radio. He said, well, if you make a record like all name with all them notes and chords and da-da-da. If you cut it like Jack

and Jill where I get the three chords, boom, we got it. So we made a deal. I told him, I'll never write a song, Hemmer on Three Cords. Okay. It's going to be intro, verse, verse, course, it's going to be very predictable. Intro, verse, verse, course, bridge, intro. You know, I'll, you know, I'll never write a song. I said, I'm going to do that. It'll be three minutes and 45 seconds long, and it would be some chords, and we have some great lyrics and story, and that's the end of that.

We see the melody. We ain't going to cover up the melody with a bunch of playing and that. And he was like, okay. I said, but can you get, I want to be on Kiss FM and da, da, da, da, da. So we had that conversation. And then we had an interesting conversation.

He said to me, I'll get you the best producers. I'll get you the best studio record playing. I get you the best of everything. And I just told them, you know, I really don't want none of that. What I like to do is just go home, to cut it at home because by that time

I put a little 16 track and board and all that stuff and me and Reggie Dozier, my Dozier brother, we wired the whole thing ourselves. It took us two months. I mean, when I say wired, I don't mean plugged in. I'm talking about all the solder and joy. It's wired everything. Oh, okay. Did the whole night, but then I had to give him

my TV set to keep going at one point. I wish I had a video. That was a crack deal. Pretty much like a crack deal, you know. And for those who think I wasn't dedicated, I recorded my brother's band ABC in early 74 wiped out $27,000

which was a lot of money in 1975. And then I had spent $87,000 on studio equipment and putting the studio in the house of which everybody then was 100% sure I had lost my mind. At the same time I lost the song

with Lil Sair and getting kicked out of A&M and just a whole bunch of things going wrong. So at that point, everywhere I went, they would say, there he is, there he is. I can't believe that's the end. it right there. He spent all his money. He plays a hell of a guitar, but he's losing all his money doing other stuff, you know. And just to clear, what was the song with Leo Sayer? You make me feel like dancing. You make me feel like dancing. Yeah, yeah. So things are

going like really south in a fast sense. So we wired a studio and I just told Clim, I like to cut it home if you don't mind, right? And his words to me, he thought about it and he said, okay, he says, but if you screw it up, you know, we'll listen to it. If you screw it up, then let's do it the other way. I thought that was fair. That was fair. Right, so give me a good shot at it. And I thought I could deliver it. The next thing that happened, I had done boss gags and a bunch of other stuff with Bill Schnee, who was

a really prominent engineer. I think he did the Asia album for Steely Dan. He'd won Grammys, and at the time, he was probably the most prominent engineer in the business. All of a sudden, Bill Chene, who I've been working with for years, he shows up at my house, right? Now, I know this is

the work of Cavala Ruffalo and Carol Chiles and everybody else. They're like, Bill, Rock and roll ruffles. They keep coming up. They keep coming up with it. Were they your management too? Yeah. That explains everything.

Well, wait a minute now. That explains everything. They were with Earth went fire. I know. Okay, so they come over to my house to listen to the music and so they had no chair for them to sit in. So they're standing up and they're thinking, what kind of place is this? I got cables on the roof, the stuff, the drums in the bedroom, and mics hanging in front of the thing.

We didn't have enough money for mic stands, you know. So things are looking pretty raw and rough. And so they're sitting. send Bill Schnee over in my house to talk me out of it, basically. And Bill listens to the song the way I cut it, and he goes back. He says, well, besides eight of the tracks are out of phase, and it don't sound that bad. He says, it's not what I would do.

He said, but if it's a hit, it's a hit. I'm mentioning this because the turning point at that stage is when before then, everything I did was stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, right? Except write something good songs and play the guitar. once Bill Schnee said that that record was going to be okay nobody ever questioned about any of my studio stuff again ever in life that was the end of it I had the big boy come over he put he put his hand on me that was it right

next thing I know after that Prince was coming over right because he came over and he was like what is he came to Caballo Reflo and they were trying to sign Prince and he wasn't signing he says what y'all can do for me is take me over Ray's house because I hear he's got a studio in the house. That's all he wanted to do. So they called me up. They say, man, Prince wants to come over your house.

We're talking to him about that. He says, but he just wants to see the studio in the house. He ain't saying nothing else but that, right? And they said, well, you know, he's going to come over and he ain't going to talk much. You know, he ain't going to say much. Wasn't like that at all. When I got done when I said, he didn't want to talk to you guys.

We were hanging, right? I was taking for a ride to Rose Royce, and we were cruising Sunset Boulevard. And, you know, and he just, wanted to get the studio equipment this house. So we, he didn't have quite as much money. So we didn't get him a J-H-24, like I had the MCI stuff. So we

got him a Soundcraft board. Then I got my guy, Steve. Soundcraft? Yeah, Soundcraft. My guy, Steve flew back to Minneapolis, and we put it in there. And I remember he had a BMW 636. And so I got a stereo system done in the car, like my stereo system was done in the car. And we were hanging out, you know.

And so Warner Brothers wanted me to produce the next album. I think it was sexy dance around and all this stuff. So he comes back. to my house the next trip to L.A. And he plays me what he got. You know, we're supposed to be working on it. And, you know, I mean, I probably talked myself out of a lot of money. But I just told the truth.

I was young. I heard the album, I said, I don't know see what to do with this. This sound great like it is. You know, so I told Warner Bros., y'all should leave him along. This sounds great just like it is. And so they put it out like it was. And the rest is history. It's a hit.

The rest is history. Yeah. In fact, I'm finishing a studio now. And what's so sad about it is every studio I've ever built, Prince was one of the first guys there. Really? He is not coming to this one, unfortunately. I was planning on, you know,

when I started working on this one was like a year or so ago, I'm like, oh yeah, we'll get my boy over here, bless it. You know, we go back to the way the old days, the way we used to do it, you know. And this would be the first one. He ain't making it to you. That was important to me because here's another guy that had one hit record at its time.

But at least what it made me think is I wasn't a complete idiot. Because remember everybody's making me feel like an idiot. So now here comes Prince coming over. The only thing he cares about is what's he doing over there? I want to do that. Then Larry Graham came over, and he got the same stuff I got and cut one in a million on the same,

same system, same way. Wow. And it's like in his home? He cut that. Oh, yeah. He put the same. He said he did, Larry told me he did exactly what I did. Put in the bedrooms, boom, cut it, and that was it.

I mean, but was the sound that radical back then to? Well, what was wrong in a studio is unlike it is today, you guys have amplifiers, everybody brings in their own gear each studio there had its own sound sort of, and each, the engineers all stayed with sort of one studio. And so you would be with their sound.

And it's not that their sound was bad, but if you wanted to do something different or you had something different in your head, if you're paying $200 an hour, you can't think about it. You know, you got to move. There's no one for experimentation. Yeah, so what Prince want to do is just play

with the guitar sound. Let me play with a different sound. Let me play with a different drum sound for me. see what that would do. And so when you had equipment at your house, it would allow you to do that. Bucking out the system, I said. Yeah. And it was just the beginning of it. So everybody kept saying you can't do it. The walls don't work. This doesn't work. And it just wasn't true. Everybody said the equipment would break. You need a tech person. I never had a tech person. Nothing broke. And so it was, you know, it turned into a different scene. You know, if you read Clive's book, was nice about his book. First thing he says is, yeah, we did this a year before Prince and

a year before anybody did. We had experiment with that and did it. Okay. And it made. And it me feel better by myself just to see some other people that I respected thought that I wasn't crazy because I had been hearing, you're crazy, you're crazy for so long to hear two other guys say, yeah, I don't think it's that crazy. That's all that good idea. And then they go do it and have success with it too. It was really rejuvenating. Well, I would figure, especially this is the era in which Stevie, who's constantly reinventing himself and doing the one-man thing by himself, I would figure that all the labels would have been salivated. him for like, you know, we want our, you know.

Yeah, you would think so. But they didn't understand it. They just wanted somebody in their box. Yeah, they didn't understand it. They just wanted somebody in their box and, you know, send them to the record plan. You know, their thing was get this engineer, get this arranger, send him to the right plan. Let's see what happened.

Get this producer, get, you know, someone sort of producing, let's go, you know. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way,

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

and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space. For honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be.

Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either.

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

I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Ego Wadam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had to be a lot.

lunch with them one day and I was like and dad I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent. He said if it was based solely on talent I wouldn't worry about you which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes but there's so much luck involved. And he's like just give it a shot. He goes but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written, down. It would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah. It would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

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

Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I got to tell a funny story about this. I don't even think Ray knew this. When Ray's sitting with us at the Tonight Show, and we're going over this, right? Now, this is about, like, four months

after, like, my dad's passing. It was weird. I knew one of these days someone was going to trigger the floodgate of tears, but I think it's going to be the sound of Ray Parking's New Year's voice. You said that at the time. You said, man, you just broke me out. My whole goal was just like you wanted to escape A&M records without, like, people saying you break it down and cry.

I was like, all right, I got to get out this room and I got to make it to my office. You know, with none of the roots here, so they don't clown me. I try to get glass. I didn't know glasses, nothing. I'm, like, bawling like a motherfucker. So I think I just ran out the room like I was dabbing, like. Right. The longest dad,

it was this song, Jack and Jill, particularly? Yeah, it's like, just hit him. Just hit him from some reason. It's just, well,

because that was the first song, I sing in the second grade pageant, like at performing arts. You had to display some sort of talent or whatever. And so I remember I sang Jack and Jill, the second grade pageant. I can't.

And I see my parents in the artists. Yeah, right, yeah, right. And so it was just a memory. But I mean, it was nothing like the song, like, make me sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that's grief, though, man. Like grief, it's unexpected like that. It puts you in that place.

Yeah, but it was just such an unexpected thing. And like, I was like, man, I cannot see the roots and Steve and Ray Parker, Jr. See me crying. Crying. But don't you think it's interesting because I was thinking about your music. And I feel like Ray Parker Jr.'s music, especially for 70, late 70s, 80s, babies, it gives them their members of an era. Like, it's kind of like a joyful time. when you were,

you had no worries and you was my mama's first crush. That was when my aunt had money. My aunt, like she loves you. I mean, she was how I first got introduced to your music. And she would always buy, you know, the records and stuff and, like, she had all the radio albums and everything. And it was interesting to me hearing you talk about your journey

to becoming a singer, how, you know, that was something that I guess maybe you were a little reluctant to do. But I always thought you were like the coolest motherfucker ever. Right. Thank you. Here's the trick. See, I was a musician first, and I knew what it's supposed to sound like. So when I first started singing, it was out of tune.

I mean, I didn't need nobody to tell me. I hear it myself. So I surrounded myself with people who could sing, and then I started working on it. It's just like lifting weights. If you do it long enough, you get your voice and you get to go. But it wasn't until, I think, the third album when I did, A Woman He's Love is the first real commercial record I sang all the way through by myself. you know like jack and jill is me

but it's also jerry and it's also r&M Jerry's sitting up in high notes by the way doing the ad-lib right woman need love album that's the one in the white pants and the peach back and the peach one that's the other woman was the one that was the one see that's why I said it was

some of it was doing the cracker years because that was that was that was the one I just can't get over loving you that's like 86 87 we got to we're still in recreation cocaine period

yeah right right why are we always associated with drugs. Just say no. No, no, I know that. No, I didn't do it, but you're absolutely right. You got to think of the worst tragedy to black people just to associate. Like, oh, this recreational drug period. But yeah, that was the thing.

Like, I would always play your records. And the thing that later on, I mean, I'm listening to this stuff as a kid, but listen to it later on, the thing that I always thought was genius about what you did is that your presentation was very, like, smooth and, like, very sophisticated.

But the lyrics, like, you would be singing about some of them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, damn, like the, I don't want to know about yours. You don't know about mine. Yeah, right. It don't make sense to look too hard for what your heart don't want to find. I don't want to find.

Shit. Yeah, dude. It's like, look. He made affairs sound like, oh. Yeah, a woman needs love. It makes sense. It's like she, yeah, yeah, your woman, she'll get, you'll get your heart broke out there, homie.

Yeah. Don't get caught slipping. So how did you, how did you organize radio? I mean, at what point did you bring our was Arnell Carmichael and he was in my brother's band Arnelle and Vincent What was your brother's band's name? Energy

Perry Comu had a really good quote And they said like what's the secret to your success And he says well I never reach Me and I don't try it too hard But again it's that where it's where our love go Theory you had it especially with with Jerry Knight Someone that can sing S-A-N-G you know to provide

that but what gave you the wisdom especially on your first album because i'll be honest with you i didn't learn this lesson until 20 years into my career like i've yet now that i have the wisdom i'm gonna try and apply it to the next week's album but it took 17 records when you figure out like no all this complex stuff you're doing like you got to do something right simple but there's art to simplicity like i don't know like people would tend to look down on it but what gave you the wisdom to keep it at a digestible level that wasn't so complex that it wasn't alienating. I mean, but it was still

appealing, but yet... Here's what took me down a path, let's say. And I think it was a small tunnel. And this is why I asked your opinion on Clive Dennis, because I know that he has a very narrow tunnel. Oh, yeah. Of, this is a hit, this is not a hit.

Exactly. He just... You stay with him for the longest, so obviously you had it's figured out. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a narrow tunnel, especially when you think about music, you have to think about what is your gift to music? What are you talented at doing? What can you do? What can you

not do? I can't dance like Michael Jackson. Still can't. You can put me on dancing with the stars. I'm good for the first week, but I can't do the spin. I just can't do it. I don't have to, my bones don't beat with the drums. Like, they ain't going to happen. It ain't going to go. So, I figured out a long time ago,

I don't think I'm ever going to sing like Luther Vandross. I'm not going to sing it like Gladys Knight. I'm not going to do it. So, therefore, take that away from the I mean, I ain't going to get like Marvin. Take that out the puzzle. The people who play way too many notes and way too much jazz, which I could have done, they never got on top 40 radio.

So take that out the mix, right? Can't do that. Now you got the musical genius guys, the Stevie Wonders, all that kind of said. They can figure out complex chords, Maurice White Earth and find them. Somehow I get back to another chord, 80 chords later, and it still works on the radio, Steely Dan. I don't know what they're doing.

I don't understand that. Take that out to mix. So now you left with my hero that I have, I'll try to pattern myself off of on the first record, Casey and a sunshine band. Wow. This came out of nowhere. Wow.

But you are right. I don't want y'all to go to sleep. I'm trying to keep you awake. I heard Casey sing Get Down Tonight, right? It was a number one record. It was jamming. The people were up dancing. And I said, he's singing two notes.

Do a little dance. Make a little love. Get down tonight. Even the verse, Honey, honey, me and you. And every night. in, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. And that was the big one.

Right. But everything else was a little dance to do. You know, and I thought about it. I said, well, you know what? He ain't singing all the notes like everybody else. He's got to hit. I mean, I could do that, right? I may not be able to do that Gladys Night, but I can do that.

And so I said, you know, there's got to be a way. You just got to channel it right to get those simple chords and to get it to move in such a way that is comfortable for you. which I think Mick Jagger and a whole bunch of other people have really done really, really well. They figured out their style, their sound, and just play those chords that work for you. Man, the things you learn on Questlove Supreme. Man, only on Pandora?

K-C. I wouldn't have put that one together as wild. Two notes. But you, two notes. You're making absolute sense. Did the light bulb just go off over your head? Dude. Right before a new book.

My career is not shit, man. It's got a new life to it. That's right. And the lyric. thing for me, which we were talking about, I'll never forget if a couple of companies I went to early on, they kept saying, your lyrics suck. I got tired of hearing your lyrics suck.

At what period? When I was like 18, 19 years old, they kept saying your lyrics suck, your lyrics suck, you know, and I said, you know what? I already got the music thing. I'm going to work on this lyric thing. So I started listening to, like, me and Mrs. Jones from a whole new standpoint.

When I heard it was a kid, I heard the orchestra, bum, bu, bum, bum, bum, bu, bu, blah. I said, that sounds like Lawrence Welk. What are they doing in Philadelphia? Then I never heard. We meet at the same cafe every day. I mean, I was just too young to get it.

Then I started listening to songs like, that's a hell of a story. No way they like that. You know, I re-listen to Let's Get It On. I was listening to a different way that was going. It seemed like all the songs had deeper meaning to me, especially the Holland Doja Holland songs, okay? Which they always had nursery rhymes,

and they tongue-in-cheeked, if you could beat me rocking, and you can have my chair. Feed five, four, fun, I can smell the presence of somebody. You know, somebody else been sleeping in my bed.

I was going to say, what was their secret to, did they tell you, well, our formula is. Well, they ain't had no formula. First of all, Lamont and Brian and them, they get in the week, they say they just go,

you know, sit in the house for two or three hours and write four or five hits and be done with it. That's what I said. That's what I said. I said, there ain't a lot of encouragement,

Lamont. I just sit down, Brian's thinking. They sit down. Brian had the classical stuff. So that's him putting, on them classical chords. Lamont would come up with ridiculous lyrics,

and Eddie did a little bit of everything, so he had stuff. But they really just sit down and say, well, you know, Barry call us up, say, we need one on the four times. We need one on dying Ross, you know. We know it's a big meeting with smoking everybody there. So we just write four five up, you know,

knock that old weekend. Then we go back to the rest of what we're doing. He said the records were coming in so fast they were just giving them out to their friends, you know. They said, gold records. They would come every weekend. We just get rid of them. They'll get them out of the house.

So there's, and again, that's a different group. Now, Prince was in that group. You know, we have, me and him would have a lot of dead space on the phone because I call him up and I'm cutting a woman he's love. And I know I got a smash. I'm working on this album. I'm polishing and I'm getting it right. And then he'd be talking about, you know, I cut 12 songs.

He's talking about he cut 80 songs. So we sit on the phone and I'm like, thinking myself, hell you do that for. Why don't you just cut 10 good ones, you know? When controversy was out, he sent me all in 1999, all the purple rain and all of the time, all of the girls. I got all this music. I'm like, what the heck is this?

Right? He says, he says, with a 1999 album is a double pack album. I said, why are you that double pack album? Nobody's buying that from no black folks at the time. You can't sell it. He says, I'm going to sell it at this regular price. He says, I just, Warner Brothers taking them too long to put the records out. I don't want the stuff to get old, so I got to just put them in the record.

You said, I got the second record. So he's trying to work. He said, this is the movie. So he's trying to do the movie when controversy just came out. And ain't anybody even heard in 1999 yet. And I'm like, I like that little red Corvette song. But what's this? I'm here, do, do, do, do, do, do.

I'm like, what the heck is that? So he would just write that many songs. You know, then it became apparent to me later. You know, I think I was soliarity and he was Mozart or something. You know, you get that. I watched the movie. I was like, I don't know, feels familiar. Yeah.

And, you know, I never forget, you know, there was one time, like Holland Doja Holland, the same thing. There was one time he went to Rio and he wanted a piano at the top floor. So they took a helicopter, flew the piano, knocked the windows out. We heard the story. We knocked the windows up, yeah.

So he's supposed to be there a week, doing whatever. He stays a week and they knock it, knock it out, take the piano. He comes back home and says, yeah, I wrote a couple of albums. So you know what? And how about this? It sounds crazy. But if that motivated you to write a couple of albums, I wish I got. I knocked the windows out. you can get me two smash albums, you know.

Even a good friend of mine who just died. Rod Temperton always said he don't write nothing unless he's at his apartment on a freeway in Worms, Germany. This is Questlove Supreme Court, and Pandora, and if you're just tuning in, we're into Hour 3 with our special guest, Ray Parker Jr. And we're talking about the process for finding the right lyrics for a hit song.

So where's your sweet spot? Like, where did these hits come from? Where do you have to be? I start with the lyrics. I like a good story. You could be telling me about you and your old lady and you can let something slip out and I go, oh. So you're sourcing information from your friends?

Oh, yeah, I don't like to be saying about myself. That ain't good. That's like taking your underwear down in public. I like to expose, you know, especially if you put two or three relationships together. You can see a path. It's a composite. Then I take that. Oh, yeah, we're going with this because like a woman needs love.

I don't even know how much of that I wrote. I mean, I have five girls in the studio. And while I went out to the story, do something. How about this? back, I'm sitting at the board and they're just gossiping. Yeah, honey, he got things coming. If you can think that, that's the way things used to be. You can hear him

talking about, you know, back in the day. Back in the day, you know, guys, I used to tell people, don't tell anybody, don't tell anybody. No, I don't care if you tell or not. If he could do it, I get me some too. Now, you know, he's getting, I'm getting it. That was like, look at this. And then Gloria Allred was on the news at the time. All right. I bet you're saying she was in the studio. She was a lawyer as well.

But the girls were writing the song. They was talking about times have changed. Things ain't the same. I'm like, oh, no longer will we be taking this. Oh, I like that. Yeah. And one girl's like, yeah, yeah, he could do that if he wants to. Come, leave me saying, come home, get his feelings here.

I said, ooh, I like that. One day you come home early from work. Open up the door and get your feelings here. I just start matching the thing together. No longer will the women or today be accepted. I said, this is it. It's a song. This is it.

And I tell you, the biggest thing in the song, and this is why women are so sensitive to the lyrics, I said, she will fool around just like you do, was not a hit. Didn't work. She will fool around meant that she will fool around. That's wrong. She can fool around.

She has the option to. She has the option to. Let me tell you, when I changed the she will to she can, all the girls smiled in the studio. You gave us the option. If I had said she will on the radio, I don't even know if that would have worked. When I went to She Can, it was a crowd pleaser.

All the girls were like, what do you mean she will fool around? I was like, well, I'm trying to say to she can. As soon as I hit Cam, that would work. All the girls went to, so does she can? And I was like, really? Y'all just over one word I either got to hear. Yeah, because the She Can leads you in a little bit of suspension. She Can means you did it.

It puts it back on you. You did it. If she will, she's already doing it. And you know what I at that point in my life, all my songs were so beautiful. and romantic and the girls and everybody loved me, you know. I wanted to beat a bad boy a little bit. I just, you know. That helps, though.

You said it's all the show. You told Diamond. I wanted to show just a little other side. I mean, it's not, you know, yeah, I got it. Did you feel a little pressure that like, okay, it's 1982 times it changing? Like, I better come out with some edgy. I mean, because you didn't even really feature your guitar mastery, let alone your rock guitar mastery. all that much on these records.

You've been really contained. But that song, yeah, it was. Because I want to make sure I wasn't a guitar playing on the record first, you know what I mean? But I started saying, yeah, I can play a little more guitar. But I heard, I tell you what inspired that song was Rick Springfield had a tune called Jess's Girl. Yeah.

Jessica, I wish I had a girl like Jesse's girl, you know. And I thought, what a punk attitude that is. You know, I wish I had, go take the bitch. Plus love Supreme. Exclusive. I just thought that ain't no, that ain't the attitude. I wish that had. I wish, and he's sitting back dreaming about wishing what he had with he had.

Go get her. But you kind of had that attitude as well on Jamie. Well, you back it up with saying, she always mine. She was my girl, but he also said, like, you know, keep it to yourself. Like, I want to hear no shit. I all hear about it, yeah.

I was going to like, would he have to bust somebody up there? I saw your lady the other day. But, you know, the other one, I'm just the average guy. Fool around a little on the side. Never thought it would amount too much. Never met a girl who's love was so tough. Now, who would have thought of one night stand could turn into such a hot romance?

But when she did it to me, I slept and fell in love. I mean, it was just a true statement, you know. No, that's real. Calm about that. And then you go to reason. I knew the rules of the game. You hit it once. Breakaway clean.

I should have never gone back, I know, but I had to. have just a little bit more. Teach the baby. My friends laugh, and that's all right. I may be a fool, but I know what I like. I hate to have to cheat, but it feels better when I sneak.

Okay. Then the enderline Clive Davis likes. Oh, this affair is unique. All my life, I've never met such a freak. She keeps me going strong for so long. that by the time I get home, it's all gone. Makes me want to grab my guitar and play with it all night long.

Okay, so when you're taking us to Clive. He heard that and just went, oh, that's it. I love that. He heard that, he said, oh, that's it. He says, by the time we got to make me want to grab my guitar, he says, play that again. And for to play with it all night long, he says, oh, that's smashed. But do you know what a unique position that is?

Because the legend of Clive Davis and being so hard to please as far as him knowing instantly when there's a hit. Like that's some rare, rare shit to make him that enthused about anything. He loved Jack and Jill. It was his most enthusiastic song. He said smash. He loved the woman.

He loved the other woman. He was not so into, can't change that. That was a hit. He didn't like it. He wasn't into it. In fact, they were canon in the whole album. He said, okay, pick one. We put it out.

If it's a hit, we put the album out. If not, go back and record. That was that kind of ear. So you can't change that. That's what got that album release. Yeah. But what was interesting, and it's me bragging on Clive, is that he really did do the right thing.

He said, okay, you pick one. You think that's it? Let's put it out. And he didn't like, let's teach him and not put no money behind it. He actually went and promoted it and gave it, it's all. And the song blew up. So he says, okay, it was it. That's it.

And the other one he didn't really like that much was Ghostbusters. Whoops. Wow. He said, you can take that to Giffin when you go. You know. Oh. The shade. So you say he didn't like the rock or an album at all?

No. He didn't like that. He wanted to start over. Really? Yeah. What didn't you like about it? He didn't like nothing about it. He didn't hear no hit.

He didn't like anything about it. And, you know, everybody was, because Jack and Jill was a novelty song, they thought it was, you know. Which I thought was, here's what I thought was funny. Lamont Dojan and McKinley Jackson were teasing me about writing a nursery rhyme. But I learned. But I learned it from you guys. Talk about.

You know, y'all the guys taught me how to do it. Wanted young man singling free. I mean, y'all taught me this stuff. So I was right in imitating them, you know. So can I ask, when did you dissolve radio? Like, and what was the arrangement made? Were you guys like, okay, are we really a band or is it just like? Let's talk about that because that's fun.

First of all, I love all the guys in radio. And we're best of friends today, the ones that are left. And when I first put the band together, I was a young kid. and I just want to split everything. Now, even though it was my record deal, they were signing me, I had the studio, I paid all the money,

I wrote a song, it didn't matter to me. I was like, let's get five guys, let's split everything. That was my thing. Good thing God made sure that didn't happen.

The band led by Jerry, the funny thing about Jerry Knight, he's the biggest troublemaker, but he was my best buddy and he would apologize for it later. He didn't hold back. He would say, man, I don't know why I did something

that stupid. He broke up with Jerry and all him. So the whole thing was Jerry was the first guy to put the pool the band again and say, look, we don't want to be signed to that white label, Arrister, that has the Bay City rollers and buried man law. We don't want to be signed.

Why don't you sign? We just want to get paid a salary. So that took me off of the split the money thing. What? Wait, but that was his words? That was their words. They all collectively got together. But what was another option for them?

The option for them was to sign the record, do only take one fifth or one piece of the band. They didn't want to do that. Nothing. They didn't want no piece of the band. They didn't want cash. Oh, man. They couldn't see the big picture?

The final... It was spearhead by Jerry. I tried to talk them out of it. They weren't hearing it. They all wanted money. And they wanted money I didn't have. I think they wanted $500 a week on tour or something like that, me buying an instrument.

So I went and borrowed like 200 grand from tour support from Eresta to pay these guys ahead of time because the record has just came out. I had no money. And what was interesting is when the record hit, the single went gold album went gold Jack and Jill album went gold in London now we're playing Hammers Methodia in London

and I go out with the head of the British company right and we go out to some club and he's saying yeah man things are going to grass man life couldn't be better I said like a dream come true he says well I don't know how to tell you but your band wants a separate deal without you because they had met

some British producer I forgot who he was inspiring them to leave some of your guys he said some of your guys are leaving and I'm like, they told you this. This is the president of England. Right. Not Clyde, but the president of English company.

He's speaking of British accent. I'm like, he thinks of black people all look the same. He thinks I'm somebody else. What's he talking about? Right. Then he names the names. Man, I was about to cry so hard again. I had to get up and go to bathroom.

I had to get up and go to bathroom. I'm choking. I had to go recompose myself and come back. Tell me what you just said again. I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel. So then we have our blowout. meeting at the hotel. And I'm sitting with the guys. I'm saying, what is this that you want to deal by yourself? What is this? What are you doing? Then it all came out. Well, you're getting all the

royalties and we get nothing. I said, you're getting the money you asked for did I borrowed and I'm still paying off on the last tour all the money that you took. And you took the keyboard, threw it off the stage. That was three grand of my money, you know, and I bought all the instruments. Through it off the stage? Throw it off the stage. Who's y'all the who? They must have saw the movie or something. You know, so it was interesting. And then, you know, Jerry looked at him and said, no, he's made $5 million net on the tour. Five million net on the first tour.

They were eating popcorn when we were playing, you know. But he thought I made $5 million net on the tour and another $5 million on the album. I was like, really? Because I'm in the hole trying to be a surface above. And it wasn't, so immediately three guys in the band quit right after the first album. I think it was Charles, Jerry, and one, Vincent.

And Vincent wasn't even studio. guy said please don't leave Vincent you know they can't use in the studio you're not going to anything don't worry we're going with Jerry Jerry's going to sign into a deal well Jerry got a deal and didn't sign none of the guys he let them off so they're on overnight cessation none of the none of the no they're not on none of that stuff ain't no stopping us none of that and so Jerry Jerry got in with Don Kirshenbaum yeah the producer was it brainstorm was he I'm messing up the name but that's it don not not Kirshinbaum yeah David Kirshenbaum I'm sorry And he had cut a rock and roll record.

So, you know, Jerry came out here, man, I'm sorry he did this. So I looked at Jerry. I said, you know, Jerry, this is 1979 women. I said, you heard a crossover? You got on R&B radio first. If you got a top 40 radio, it says, they ain't going to play none of this stuff.

Okay, so I talked to him in the cutting overnight sensation because he didn't have that on the album. I always thought there was a radio record. Of course it sounds like a radio record because I had to get him. It was the funk. How about this? Even though he broke up the band, I'm still trying to save his butt, right? I'm saying, man, look,

The record you played me, ain't nobody playing that. It was all rock and roll. I said, you need to cut. Why don't you cut one and stick it on the back and see what, you know, and the one record was overnight sensation that saved him. Then we started Ray Parker Jr. in radio. And then when I think another guy left, and Clive just said, that's enough of all this personnel change.

We go on to Ray Parker Jr. That's it. So he switched it like that. But in the meantime, after Jerry messed up his album, then he got out. He didn't hire none of the guys in the band, so they were left in the cold, man. So they didn't have my gig.

And they didn't have his gig either. So the leader, the leader, what is that like for them? It was terrible. They never recovered, you know. So the leader left them in the cold. And the next thing was, was hooking Jerry up with Ollie, you know. So I got those two together. And he looked out for him again with it with him, Jerry.

And so him and Ollie, they cut a big smash record with, you know, there's no stopping us. And then Jerry would go on stage without Ollie. But if Ollie be in the dressing room, Jerry's already out there performing. He would just do crazy stuff, you know. He'd come up front. He was clean with it. He says, man, I did it. You know, even before he died, I'm the one.

He wanted to got him out the hospital a few days before he died. When did he pass away? Cancer. He died in 1997. And we spent most of that year together. He probably knew he was sick, and I didn't know he was sick, you know. And he told me some things that I never dreamed of. Because in my mind, I was always trying to help everybody.

Because there's plenty of money for everybody. Y'all go do it. But he always wanted me to sign him and take his publishing. He always wanted me to do it. Now you say, man, I can't do that. I'll show you how to do it. You can take the money. Like he did a bunch of songs with the Jets.

I was going to say he wrote Curiosity. Oh, y'all really meant those Jets. The Ryan Jets. He wrote Curiosity and two or three other big hits for the Jets. Crush on you. Crush on you. And when he played me those songs, they sound like Jerry Knight Records. And then all of a sudden, he was 50-50 writer with Aaron Zigma.

I said, who's Aaron Zigman? The song sounds the same as it did last week that you played for me. Well, he got the deal and he can get it places. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? It's the same song. Amateur hour. Yeah, and so he ended up splitting it

and giving him all the production and what the rest of it. And in the end, it was an interesting conversation. Jerry looked at me, he says, he says, you know what? I'm a genius number two guy, and he was. Even after he left the band, we would always talk. He'd coach me on lyrics on the other woman.

He said, no, you can write a better verse or you can write. He was a guy. He says, I'm a genius number two guy. He says, but you're the number one guy. You should have signed my publishing. I would have been better off. And in hindsight, you know,

what, he's right. I didn't see it. Maybe he saw it. My thing was, where everybody can do this? Let me just show you how to do it. But everybody can't do everything. You know, everybody can't. It would have been better off because I would have paid him on time,

represented songs. He would have been cool. But he said, he says, I'm a number two guy. He says, he said, leaving by myself, he says, I'll destruct everything. He says, I'm destructive. He says, I am. It's that sabotage I told you all about this. He says, I can't help my job.

It happens. Yeah, it just happened. He was conscious of it. He said that's what it is. He said, ain't know, change. That's it. He said, but if you had led it and you had taken it, we would have got through this, you know. A win is a win.

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

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for, raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So,

if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

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

I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you get your podcast.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice

ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up-and-coming town. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah.

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

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

Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. For those just joining us, we're still talking to the great Ray Parker Jr. Going down, not even going down, getting life lessons.

this is Questlove Supreme on Pandora. Getting life lessons and we haven't even gotten to Ghostbusters. I know. Let's jump in the pool, brother. Let us jump in the pool. Are you allowed to tell the Ghostbusters story?

What Ghostbusters story? Exactly. I will tell you everything you want to know to the best of my ability. Okay, so as a guy who's done a little bit of scoring work and whatnot. Yeah.

You know, I often have clients that will say, you know, let's take a song. Like, let's take Drake's Hotline Blink. Like, you know, for my show. Cut us something like that. Yeah, cut us something like that. Exactly. So to least hear Huey's side of the story. Huey who?

Oh, no. Who's that? Who's that? All right, to hear Huey Lewis's version. am I to believe that they pitched him the Ghostbusters movie he thought it was rather silly

and didn't want to license I want a new drug to them because he thought the movie was silly and kind of dismissed it and you know just took his ball and went home and then

is this where they come to you like well first of all let me give me my take on it yes give me your I never heard what you heard if they were trying to get that song. I never ever thought that Ghostbusters sounded like I want to do it. I still don't think it's something like.

Yeah, I don't either. I never thought it did. Yeah. But just this, here's what I found out later. And this was only after I heard that they were doing a lawsuit, something like that. I guess they approached him first to write the song and write a theme song. I don't think they wanted his song, but I think they wanted him to write a theme song. And then they put his song in the temp track, along with three other songs that sound just like that song.

Yeah, they all the time. have one four or five chords, a bar band cord. Right. So if you were in the room as a musician, you would know not to write neither one of us a ballot because you noted the guy wants an uptempo bar band song. So they hid you in that direction. I had no idea to approach him. I had no idea about any of that kind of stuff. I think it was unfortunate that he named me in the lawsuit and named, you know, and all that

stuff. I tried to take him to dinner in Germany, but I guess his guy said, don't talk to that Ray guy. We're about to get paid. Yeah, yeah. Don't talk to that rega. I had no idea what they were talking about. When I go, I ain't free no ghost, da-da-da-da-da. None of that sounds like the same song to me.

But I think that maybe he had a case because they called him first and they put his song in the tempter. I think that's a thing for him in the movie company to discuss. Now, on that, on the settlement or whatever you call the settlement, or whatever they got for it, and I can't talk about the case. tell you why. Because I have a genius lawyer named Don Passman. And Don't know.

Oh, he wrote the book. Donald asked me. Donald. Yes. That was like my text. What book? Donald Passman is lawyer. He wrote a book called Everything You Need to Know About the music business.

The music business class I took in college, that was our textbook. It was that and the Kashif book. Those were our two textbooks. But that was like the Bible for all things publishing. Straight up. Well, Donald Passman's oldest client as me. Wow. I've been with him since the beginning.

And that's a whole other story. that goes through Bill Cosby back to Bill Cosby again. Because Bill Cosby was represented by this firm that's not in the yellow pages or anything. You know, and the only way you get into the firm is somebody bringing you. So Bill Cosby brought me into the firm, and that's how I met Don Passman at the beginning. It's like the film.

It's like the Bullets. It's very much like Tom Cruise, the friend. It's very much like that. Because a couple of people I told about it says, I can't find a phone number. I don't see any advertising. They don't advertise. They handle their elite.

group of people. And so my lawyer came to me. He says, okay, things have worked out or whatever. He said to me, do you want to know what happened? Right? Ray Parker answered,

do you want to know what happened? Is that got anything to do with me? I mean, I'm talking. What are we talking about you? Right? He said, nothing to do with you. I said, oh, that's interesting. And then he says, I just prefer not to tell you. He says, because at the end of the day we have a gag rule on this finding for whatever they're going to do.

He says, doesn't affect you. And if I don't tell you about it. You don't know, you can't tell. You can't talk? Okay, so I've never broken the rule because I don't know anything about the rule. I don't know what anything of it was. So that means...

Has nothing to do with me. My name's on the song. I don't know anything about it. Nothing to do with me. I don't have... So I never talked about it because I don't know anything about it. But he talked about it. Why the gag roll?

Like, who does it protect? I don't know. I don't know anything about it. My lawyer said you can't talk about it because you don't know about it. That's a smart lawyer. He says, I know you ain't going to talk about it because you don't know nothing about it,

which he's correct. So now, in 2003, I think it was, VH1 was coming and calling me several times a week, which I thought, wow, I ain't that popular. Why am I getting so many phone calls to be on TV? And come to find out they had his version of where they now, and they want to have me on where they now

and play them back to back, right? So he said a bunch of stuff in which I sued him and I won. He broke the gag on. Yeah, he broke the gag room. It was on TV. And how about this? I like Huey Lewis in the news.

I don't have anything bad to say about him. I never met him. You guys seen each other in the last three years? We've never seen each other ever. And I think the sad part and the irony part of it, I think he takes it more personal because of however it happened

is one of those things. Just the bomb built itself. But I really have, had nothing to try to do that. And I think if he had any gripe, maybe he should have had it with the other guys. They did it. But for some reason, it seemed to be directed in my direction more than I think it should have been. Like I hear people talk about him.

They say he's a nice guy. Other people say I'm a nice guy. Now, when they're approaching you to do this. Yeah. And I, okay, so the end result is, I mean, it's, it's really a dead, and it's a dead heat tie. between who owns the national Halloween anthem. I mean, it's either you or Michael Jackson, neck and neck. I prefer to think I'm the winner.

I mean, I love Rod Temper. I love Rod Temper. I mean, you know, like, I took a picture. I'm just saying around this time, like, this is when your, this is when your checks start looking real nice around this. So you're thinking like that. I'm starting to get concerned because I'm the only living songwriter from Halloween left. Oh, no.

My Bobby Boris Pick, I did some shows where he's gone. Yeah. Now Rod Temperton is gone. I mean, I'm... You're kind of lonely here. I mean, but I guess who you're going to call for Halloween? I mean, Ray Parker Jr. You ran out of numbers to call, yeah.

So, I mean, at the time, were you thinking, like, yo, if I write the right song, this will be played... This will be the happy birthday to you of Halloween songs. No. No. No. No. No. but you got to admit that it's never died. Yeah, you're talking about the answer. And is it a burden?

Is it a burden that? No. Is the winning lotto ticket a burden? Does it ever get too heavy to hold? You know what I love you? Right. You know what I love you? Because, dude, my ringtone, I mean, the screenstay.

You're the screenstaper is the ghost busters. Play your ringtone. Give the people what they want. Oh, my God. I mean, you know, give the people what, people call me, they tell me, don't answer the phone. Let it ring through, you know. And so it's just, you know, this screen saver is the Ghostbusters logo for those.

Yes. You can't see that. We can't see it. And if you ring the phone, it plays not who you're going to call, but who are you trying to call? Leave your name and number after the tone. Who you're trying to call? I mean, you know.

Can you call in right now? Call me. Call me. Nick, call me. Yeah. You're going to like this. Oh, question of excuses. Another question of a excuse.

Ray Parker, somebody called Ray Parker Jr.'s ringtone. Oh, keep calling on. Yes. That's awesome. And number after the tone. Not who you're going to call? Hey, talk. Please speak clearly.

Who are you trying to call? Be clear. That's awesome. Okay. Is that available on some other platform? We should make that available. But as with all Ray Parker stories, you do want the juice, right? Always.

Yeah. Because you guys are leaking for, but you're way over there. and it starts over there. All right. Take us there. In the Barry White days, it was a guy named Gary LaMelle who ran Barry White's publishing company,

Aaron Schroeder at the time. Right. Okay. The other woman got a temp job working for Gary LaMelle at Columbia Pictures, who I just happened to be, me and her were doing whatever we were doing.

And so that hooked me back up with Gary LaMelle who wanted me to save him by writing the song. Oh, my old friend, Ray. That's how we, made the connection. Wow. Okay.

So he brought the project to you. Yeah. And so he figured that I could, he says, you got the right humor. You got the right thing. He says, I think you're right for the job. I'll give you 50 grand. Just go write the song. If we don't use it, you keep the money.

What the heck? They had it like that, you know. And it wasn't going to be no record. It wasn't going to be any of this. It was 20 seconds of music at the library scene. So I wrote a minute and 15 seconds of it just because I don't know how to do 20 seconds of music. By the time I do one group and go to the other groove, I got a minute and

a half, a minute, 15 seconds, a minute, 10 seconds, something like that. And so I played the guy at a little snippet I had, and that's what he loved. I haven't right, he just loved it, right? Went to the meeting, he loved it, called me at three in the morning, I was sleepy, getting the stuff, girl. Now, there's some magic

to those girls yelling, go, but there's a really hard. Okay, so now, I was dating a little valley girl in the valley girl. I woke her up at five in the morning and told her to get her high school friends together because the messenger's coming at 8.39 o'clock

and I need to get these voices on. And it was their first time they were being in the studio so they were excited as they could be like six, seven hours. And this is you recording at your house? No, this is recording at American studios. Oh, in America. Okay. So they're screaming and yelling Ghostbusters, which I think made the magic in the record.

That's how the song came about. And then we took two tape recorders and started linking the tracks together to make the song for a message. minutes long because I only had a minute and 15 seconds of it. And then the breakdown section that's just me playing some stuff over the same groove without the guitars in the bass

and overdub and just making sections out of it. But it's really only a minute and 10 seconds of music. See, you can't, you can't, but not that. I think that when you tend to overthink it or try to like concoct, like I'm going to make an anthem for Halloween, it never

happens. You just got to do it. But he just wasn't even overthinking. It was just like, to you, was this just some arbitrary, he grabs this 50 grand and see what. Exactly. I take the money. I told my account,

you ain't going to see it. I'm spending this because it's my bonus. When I'm making this. So at what point did you, at what point was the, oh, God, like the holy shit, the. This is my, this is going by. This is going too fast. Let me tell you how the best idea of my life came.

Okay. Okay. The first thing is I got the music really quick. I had all the stuff. I was jamming. I could not, the guy wanted the words ghostbusters in the song

or I don't get my 50 grand. Well, we're from Detroit. You don't get your 50 grand. Just don't get it back. We ain't get it back. I'm gonna put it in there. But it was impossible to sing ghostbusters, right?

I mean, it was just, it wasn't even ghostbusters. I created that. It was Ghostbusters. It's what they kept saying. Ghostbusters, we want Ghostbusters in the song. You heard it now, so it's not fair. But at the time, they hired plenty of writers

over the span of a year and nobody could get that word in the song. It was a stupid word to sing. He can't sing Ghostbusters. It just doesn't sing. So you're saying other people who were trying to demo Yeah. Yeah, the guy said they had been doing this a year. They don't like none of the song.

Direct you don't like none of them. Who? I don't know. I don't know. Some famous people tried. But it's interesting, he says that because that's the same thing like Bobby Brown did on the second Ghostbusters. He didn't sing it either. No. The on our own joint. Yeah, yeah. He didn't sing it either. He wrapped it. Yeah, but he was off

the hook. They wanted Ghostbusters was in the song. Right, because he didn't have to say ghostbuss and Bobby Brown. He already got a theme song. So here's what we're at. And I'm sitting there. So I got the song done and I haven't called the girls yet because I don't have anything myself.

So it's like now it's 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning. My 50 grand is starting to float out the window. You know. And then this commercial comes on TV, which I wasn't really trying to write a commercial. But I remember the part of the film, they had the Ghostbusters with the backpacks and they had the phone number under it. And when I was half asleep trying to stay awake, but trying to write this lyric,

I was dozing off half asleep, and on comes this commercial on TV with like some insect repelling guys or the exterminator guys, and they got their backpacks. They look just like the ghostbuster guys to me. Or the washes, troubles down the drain and whatever that, you know, rotor guy,

some kind of guy like that. And so I'm looking at it when they got the phone number, who do you call? And I went, that looked just like the ghostbuster guy. We're going to make it, who you going to call? right so that's Detroit I said yeah

I said well I'm just gonna like not sing the words Ghostbusters I'm gonna let the crowd go Ghostbusters and I just go who you're gonna call so my song is who you're gonna call I had no idea it was gonna be commercials

and rest of it I mean didn't take it but that called on like wildfire as soon as I sung that the director loved it he says oh man I like the way you're going and he was a Jewish guy so he says I'm not afraid of any ghosts he said but you going, what are you saying? I said, no, man, it's like, I ain't afraid no ghost, man. He says, I like how you phrasing that. He says, I like, he said, I like the phrase.

He says, he said, I said, I had a background. He's, no, I like how you're saying it. I like you go out, I'm not afraid of any ghosts. I'm like, and I'm looking at him like, where we at, dude, where we at. And I'm saying, no, I'm saying. And I'm saying, no, I ain't afraid no ghosts. He says, say it again, slow. I said, I ain't afraid no ghost. And I hadn't really thought about what I was saying. I said, no, I ain't afraid no. no ghosts. He says, I like that. Man, so we did, re-reded it, and that's what changed the whole world because when they licensed the song for commercials,

it has nothing to do with the movie because they don't license Ghostbusters. They license who you're going to call, and they put their own name in back of it. Ah, that's real. Okay, my question is, are you, is this your song, or is this, like, whenever

someone wants to utilize Ghostbusters, do you have to go through a whole protocol of getting the movie company and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Come on, you're like hoping. Come on. I'm like, Donald Patman,

he was on it. It's pretty much my son. I knew it. Now, now there are protocols. Okay. If the movie was released like this film, there's a three-month moratorium on each side. Dude, I totally forgot. Ghostbusters got released again this year.

That's right. Yeah. There's a three-month moratorium on the front where they didn't want people to do it. I have such a wonderful deal that if you offered me a million dollars to do it within that three-month period, they can say, no, you can't do it, but then they give me a million dollars. Oh. So I still don't lose the money. Oh. But I mean doing it as in you can't perform it anywhere?

Oh, I can perform it. I'm just talking about it if they want to use any commercials or other stuff. You know, when you do a film thing, they don't want you in conflict with the film. Right. So you can't do any commercials for the first three months after it comes out. Yeah, for after. Now. But you own the words, too.

Like the merchandising of the words. I wrote the whole thing. So the merchandising of the merchandise. So we're coming out with a clothing line, a Ray Parker Jr. Collection's clothing line. Because I think they figured out that on the words. So they want to put the words with the characters. So we have a T-shirt line and clothing line coming out.

Did they use the yours and the two? I haven't seen part, the new one. This is part three, by the way. Oh. They used a snippet of it. In my opinion, they should have played the theme song. It didn't open the film? It didn't open the film?

It is. No. But they put it in there some parts. But, you know, every time, to me, Indiana Jones, that's how you know the good guys are kind. Just play the same thing song. I hope next time they do that, you know. But they played a little bit of mine.

Then they have 20 other versions where they mixed it up and did it different ways, you know. And then they cut a whole album with these guys, I mean, I got rights to probably 10 songs on the album, but nobody had a hit on the album. Wow. Movie did well. They tried it.

Yeah, they tried it. They tried. Maybe next time they'll know who to call. Oh, yeah, really. Call Ray Parkin Jr. I hope, you know. So when you're turning in this master, at what point do you realize

I have the national anthem for Halloween in my head? Two weeks after it comes down. And it will never die. It will never like. Oh, no, Halloween we didn't know until later. I hadn't even think about Halloween. So you're not seeing a grand level. No, I'm not even thinking of Halloween.

The only thing I knew is the record came out. Well, I'd already been told what's going to happen. You know, the movie in those days would come out almost nine months later, overseas in different places. So Clive had already said, okay, we released a single in front of the film, and then when the film comes out, we wait and release it overseas, da, da, da, da. And in those days, they want to stop as many imports as possible, so they just let it low, low.

And within the first two weeks, we had sold so many records. And Clive says, what do you think is happening to export in the records? We got to ship it out overseas. He said, but the movie's not coming out for eight, nine months. We're going to be way ahead of the film. He says, I'm torn between putting it out. He said, but my distributors are making me put it out because they're selling so many of them.

And I think within the first few weeks, we sold three and a half million records overseas. There were exports. So they forced him into releasing it. He says, why do you think they're buying this? They don't understand what you're saying in Italy or other places. I said, if I knew that, I would have cut a bunch of them.

What are you talking about? I don't know why they're buying a record. Put the record out, you know. So, and by Meadem, when Meadam came, that February, we were up to like, I think they gave me a record with 15 million selling albums or something like that. It was just crazy.

It's one of those songs that took off every, everybody, there was something in the song that so infectious, so happy that you didn't need to know what language it was, you didn't need to understand everything. It just went number one in 52 countries. It just went everybody. And it wasn't a burden on you like, oh no, all that money to everything to the banks.

What are you? I said what? We're weighing my pocket down, my pants. What was your family saying now? Oh, then? We're like, okay, you got a job. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's all right.

He's all right. He's going to be all right. So aside from the ghost verses, we read that, like, you're, I think, the highest pay guitar, like the highest. Oh, that's nonsense. I read that thing. Yeah.

Well, you know, what I like about it is, you know, you read, you can't believe everything you read. First of all, my kids, they come up to me, said, Dad, we read. your net worth $2 million, right? All these different things, two million dollars. I'm thinking, where do you get that number from? We just spent a million dollars just on the studio in the backyard.

Okay, what about the rest of the place and whatever to do with? And then that article comes out. He's the highest pay. He's worth $400 million. He just made an $89 million last year. I'm like, I did. So it's somewhere in the middle. I don't even know if it's the middle, but you know, somewhere in between this.

It's kind of crazy this thing. I mean, who comes up with this stuff? Who writes this stuff on the matter? And then my neighbor, he's worth like, 80 million. I mean, all these different numbers. And Denise Williams was worth almost a billion dollars. Denise Williams? Yeah. She's worth like 950 billion dollars.

How? On the same website. The same website that said I was worth $2 million. Don't be silly. Get it? So I'm just saying there's all these numbers. And I'm telling my kids, I say, you can't believe everything you read. Look at this right here. You know. What other stuff were you able to put your money in and like invest in and stuff?

Just to stay, you know, stay on time. Well, you know, I lost lots of money. ago, especially in the stock market when I got too greedy. But recently I had a really a good landfill. I bought a bow bunch of that Tesla stock. When was that $27? I mean, I'm meaningful a lot. Enough where I made in five months,

a few million dollars. I got to leave. And you know what's even better? Because I'm older and wiser, I actually cashed in most of it. I still got a lot of it, but I cashed in and took most 80% off the table. I was smart enough to finally, you know. So I look for little things like that.

I mean, I do the safe stuff now, real estate, a little bit, bonds, you know, that kind of stuff. Stay out of trouble. Pay your taxes. Don't be going to jail like the other guys. You know, keep the country rolling. And just do normal stuff. If you pay attention, the key thing with money is just not to buy more stuff that you got money for. Everybody wants to look like this.

If you like this, it's okay to look like that. Don't go up there, you know. Just don't get out of hand with it and get stupid. Life lessons. Life, yeah. So, okay. I guess doing the tornado of the success in the single. I noticed that in 84 you didn't put a record out though.

No. We put out Ghostbusters and they had me all over the place. Did I, was sex and single man that year? That was later. We did put a record out. Chartbusters. Chartbusters. Right.

And that was Clive Davis's thing. Greatest hits? Yeah, the greatest hits, which we'd already had a greatest hits out the year before. I said another greatest hits. Let me tell you something. We packaged the greatest hits. had a cold on one of the songs. He said, just put the thing out.

Cut the stuff, sold a million plus albums. Wow. So, Clive was right again. I mean, it was an unbelievable payday for not a lot of work. So that really happened great. Was, I don't think that managed to sleep alone. Was that on Sex and a Single Man? No, that's on the Geffen album.

So, okay, what was the end of Arista? The next record. Sex and the Single Man was the end of Arista. Yeah, that's what they didn't promote anything. They just kind of let it go. but okay that was just one slight blemish and you wanted it off or was it oh no no I was off for Ereston in 83 before Ghostbusters oh yeah and it was it was one of those things where I think it was a misunderstanding I never wanted to leave

Arista but Clive wanted me to do a Dionne Warwick album and he called my manager and somehow they were arguing about the price and he says well if it's going to cost that I wanted to what is it take to renegotiate Ray and we we We think, what do you re-negotiated rate for? I got four more years left to the contract. You know, somewhere in there he wanted me to do an album, and to me it was a total misunderstanding. And things got out of hand,

and he had offered some really low amount of money, and everybody got nervous. And David Geffen offered, like, an enormous amount of money. And it was too late to turn back, sort of a deal. Yeah. So I ended up signing with Geffen. Did he hate losing you? Yeah, but we remained friends.

I actually went back to him a little bit later. and so when I cut Ghostbusters I was really already sort of leaving so it could go either way but I gave it to Climb because I said well you could put it out fast and he didn't like it I said well you don't have to like it

they're going to pay you all the money to promote it just take it and press it and fill it full of your album filled out of your artists and go which he was wonderfully happy about you know okay the greatest part of gift ever

let me tell you I'm a very foreman I was a fortunate guy because after that I went to Geffen and we got that I don't think man should sleep alone day the dark album, which did well. Went gold in England. They kind of missed the ball here, crossing it over Pop. The usual way did we do all my records

because David Geffen was selling the company at the time. And I remember the numbers on my, I think he gave me a million dollars up front, another million to do the record. And he said, I'm getting out the music business, I'm selling the whole company. And if you go to MCA, you can keep all the money, you have to pay it back.

I was like, I'm down for that. He just keep the money on to pay it back, you know. So that meant I went to the MCA, but I kept my contract where they owe me all the money, and I'm free and clear, and I'm starting to zero. Oh, wow. It's all in the same umbrella. So I'm starting to zero.

So I said, that works. The only problem is I got to MCA, and even though I had a hit on Bobby Brown and those guys, you know, the-old-man. Yeah, I had another artist on there. I was going to reference in the roll call, but. Yeah, I had another artist. And I had an artist, Randy Hall, signed there too.

Yeah, Randy Hall. Randy Hall was your artist? Yeah, you signed me. Okay. And I signed him to MCA. And so now I'm going to MCA after all of this or while it's gone. And they were like, they wanted to have an A&R meeting and listen to what I was going to record and all that. I just wasn't feeling that.

It was like. Kind of like making an actor audition after he's all he had. My contract said I could do whatever I want to do. And you give me, I think it was a million bucks up front. Just give me the million bucks when I start. So I hadn't got my money, right? And they were talking about, well, you can come on in. I said, come in, where?

Come in, where is my million dollars? What are my money? And I had a bunch of more albums that they had to take, like several more albums. And so the conversation came up as to, and my parents were sick at the time. So I really wanted to spend more time in Detroit. It was hard for me to record. Okay. And so that's why I said this worked out perfect time.

They decided to get rid of me. Right, but they... Was this under Joel Busby? No, he had just left. Okay. Ernie Singleton and... Little... Little...

Los Angeles Jr., yeah. Okay. Love both of those guys. But they were going to do it this way, which was fine. So the idea came, let's buy reality. So believe, I thought my lawyer, I thought he was crazy.

I said, they'll never do that. You know, they'll just make me cut all the records and they'll go sell them and do whatever. Well, you know what? They wrote me a big, fat check for all the next several albums. I didn't have to do anything. that is unheard of.

That is unheard of. I mean, how do you deal with the changing times when the advent of hip-hop coming in and like, how are you dealing with this? I've heard various, if you heard the infamous Michael Henderson rant in Japan, there's a famous Michael Henderson and Norman Connors. Yeah, a Japan rant where you just...

Bring this motherfucker down. to a risk where he's just, you know, kind of ranting over the changing times of music and how it's, it might be leaving him behind. Like, how are you taking it at that moment? You know what's the interesting thing. I never really thought about getting left behind

and I never really thought about changing. I think I do so many things in the music business. There was a time I took a life's long vacation, which is probably after that. I got my check. I just felt like, you know, I moved to the mountains. I bought an airplane. I started flying around the country, you know, water.

So you just wanted to take it easy and chill? Yeah. I bought a really nice airplane that I could fly at like 25. I could fly out of New York and back, you know. Some people take vacations of me, I know. It's amazing. You see my face right now, right? It's amazing concept for you to understand.

And Stevie Wonder. Yeah. In an airplane. So I got a little out of control. So I got a little out of control, but you know, I was like water skiing. Everything that I dreamed about that, I bought a house in the mountains

and lived up 8,000 feet overlooking the lake and the fresh air and ride with snowmobiles, ski 80 days a year, just had a wonderful time of it. Girls couldn't even find me because they didn't know where I live.

I fly my airplane to the girls' house, have a date and I split and go back home. But nobody finds life. I was having a great time. And I did that for several years. Wait, that's allowed? Yeah, yeah. If you got a plane,

you do what you want when you're popping. I have motorcycles, dirt bikes. I mean, I just was having a great time. This went off for a while, you know, until I met my future wife. What finally made you decide to get married? I don't know. I met a girl like none other that I would rather watch TV with and go bang a couple of other ones.

That's real. Yeah, but just a... That's romance. Yeah, it was real romance, I think. And I feel that way today, even. I want to say that as my wedding valve. Yeah, right. But that's...

I want to watch TV with you. That's real. You have a record, a song on the Mexico. when you talk about that. Was that inspired by her or your wife? No, I was just in Mexico, write some songs, just fooling around. Wait till you hear the next record. I mean, I'm almost halfway done with it.

But it's funky. It's 1983. He said he don't write about his life. He's other people. And then what I'm doing now, this is, I'm cutting me. What am I cut? This new record sounds like me, funkadelic, Rick Jane. I mean, it's that era.

You know, it's back to my era. If the instruments were created much after that, I ain't going to have it on there. That's our era. And you know, what's interesting, I don't feel the least bit because I'm not really money motivated to make the record. So I don't feel the least bit,

I got to listen to us on the radio and try to go boobab, booboooo-bobo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo. I just want to do it my way. And just keep it true to what it is, you know. And somebody says, well, how are you going to sell? I don't know. Maybe we sell it, maybe we don't. But I never really made music to try to make money.

I was always trying to make music because I love the music. How do your kids feel about your career? Like, do they know that you're the coolest dude walking the planet? No. My kids thought nothing until they saw me get a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

Really? That got, let me tell you something. I never, they don't move over anything, right? But we came home from the star ceremony and my youngest son took the picture of somebody down to hung his star up that I gave you. And I was like, really? I mean, y'all really, we got to y'all.

I mean, we finally tapped you just a little bit. How old are you kids now? I got a 30-year-old, 28, 16, and 18. so the younger ones, you know. The older ones, you know, they grew up with all this nonsense. They ain't getting it, you know. But for some reason, even the older kids, the star on Hollywood Boulevard was a life changer.

That was the game changer. Forget all the money, forget all the rest of stuff. They know they live in the house that the money bought. They got that. But that's just their thing. But for some reason, the star thing, everybody got, you know, even my wife, we were driving home and I said, I don't know about your other boyfriends,

but I bet you they weren't know Hollywood. Stop. Where they put you? you right okay let me tell you something i thought we were gonna have something going right and she looked at me she says i'll let you slide with that one i'm not even go with that i'm gonna just put the blinders she didn't even you know she let me she let it go she even let that one go so that was a interesting thing with your kids like how do you because they grew up you know particularly old ones growing up growing up in that kind of ghost bus yeah yeah how do you teach them like the importance of work ethic

and like what are they into i kicked them out the house and cut them off hey that'll do it for you Like four or five years ago Well, you know, they started The problem of it is the kids They think your money is their money Cosby lessons. Yeah, yeah. You know, so I kick my kids out

And you know what? They all fell to the ground And now they're all making a lot of money Doing well. Yeah. And so hopefully the younger ones will do the same thing. And it's really painful to the fire.

I told my kids the old story. It's going to hurt me more. It's going to hurt you. But guess what? Get that fuck out. I came home one day and both of them were supposed to be looking for a job. One of graduated college, one had dropped out, and they were at the swimming pool drinking margaritas, and it was noon. I said, what's up with the job?

They said, we searched all day. All day, it's 12 o'clock. So how old were you finally put them out? They were late. 22 and 24. Okay. That's reasonable. You get lessons?

I think that's every one of, that's every black council. That's right. I was 18. It may have been 21 and 23 because the oldest one had graduated. Right. So maybe it's 23 and 21. That's why you give them an extra couple years. And the other one dropped out.

Right. I said, well, it's perfect timing. Y'all can move together. Share my spending. It's got the cost. Bruh. That's real. Like, did you ever have a deadline?

Like, when I was 20, my dad was like, yo. Really? Something got to happen. Mine was 18. I'm lucky. I got my record deal like within a year and a half. But I got super lucky It was 18 for me

And I knew once I graduated high school I was just like yeah I can't come back So then I went to college And even coming back for the summers was tough You know what I'm saying? You had to pay something? Yeah I totally

I was working in the summer Everything So then finally my senior year Me and my buddy We got our own apartment And so that was But then I also had a kid on the way I had my son on the way

So that kind of way You double down on Yeah that'll double down panic. So I was hustling. And then I graduated and then we signed our first deal. We complete the list in like a couple months after I graduated. So what about you,

unpaid Bill and Steve, your parents were like, get the fuck out. I still live with my parents. He's like, Rod your danger, Phil. Don't stay home. Let your parents take care of me. Right. Back to school.

Are there any last? I have one last question, but I have to rewind back a little bit only because it means so much to me. But I just have to say, like, your theme to Pryor's place? Oh, yeah. Oh, that was one of my favorite shows ever. Like, what was it like working with Richard Pryor? And how did you get that?

Man, that was wonderful. I got that because I was dating the director's daughter. The other other one. You're a croft. I'm a show. I need one more like campfire story about rating the ladies. We're going to leave the rest of that alone too. Some white pants and the peach in the back.

So her dad asked me to come in and write the song, you know, and working with Richard Pryor was wonderful. It was like a dream come true. Then they put me in the video and I'm bouncing basketball. Richard Price came in. I'm like, oh, man, this is as cool as he can get, right? And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the ratings come out, the thing is going great.

And it says kids cartoons, I mean, kids thing. So I'm thinking, wow. this is every time. This is it. I got it. Then Richard Pryde just says, I don't want to do it no more. Man.

Like after several episodes, and everybody's like, what happened? I thought we said the ratings good. The ratings are good. Richard just doesn't feel like doing it anymore. So it wasn't the ratings that did it. No,

he just didn't feel. It was changed his mind. It was the Black Sesame Street. Yeah, he just changed his mind. I remember. I remember a process place. It came on 1130 right before Soldier. Yeah.

He just decided I'm not going to do no more. Wow. And, you know, and when that happens, you're like, What about us little guys? You know, come on. It must be nice.

Must be nice. Just walk away right in the middle of it. Don't care. Let's go. Okay. Any, I mean, your new addition session was it? Okay. You're going to like this.

So I wrote Mr. Telephone Man right alongside Jack and Jill and some other stuff, all at the same time, right? And I thought a stupid song, Mr. Telephone. I don't know. Why did I write that? So I can it and I don't do anything. with it and we end up recording it on this kid on geffin records kid junior Tucker and they they for some reason they throw his album way david foster cut some first j grade and it comes on they

didn't like anything and they gave it to me at discounted budget and i actually finished the record for him got a done then they just canned the thing and he didn't do that way but somehow the new addition heard it through this guy Dale kawashima used to work for michael jackson and uh they loved the song. I didn't know that they heard it. So Gerald Busby called me up in Detroit while my parents were sick and he says I want you to fly to New York, Boston

hear these kids singing because, you know, they want you to work with him on a song. That's all. He didn't say write it. He said work with him on a song. And my parents were sick. I'd been in Detroit for months. It's freezing cold. He wants me to go to Boston this January. Not even. Not feeling

it, right? So I tell Gerald, thanks, Gerald. I don't think so, man. I don't think so, man. I got a feeling. So Gerald, being the smart guy he was, called back a month later, a few weeks later. He says, how about we take the jet and go to the Bahamas? I stay at the Trump thing there and go to the restaurant

and we party. I said, that works. We can do that. So we fly down to the Bahamas. We rent motorcycles. We go in a casino. We eat at the same restaurant. Donald Trump's stand over there.

We're sitting here. And we party so hard. We get to the kids' concert. They walk off the stage. age. Right. There's Mr. Parker. How did you like our song?

I ain't even heard it yet. I ain't even heard it. Gerald looks at me. I'm looking at him like, oh, man, we're late. We missed the whole thing, you know. And we're like, oh, yeah, that was great. Yeah, I was, that's what, you know. And so I go back and I'm feeling bad now because I'm like, man,

Gerald, man, my parents are sick. Really not feeling this write the song thing and go back to, you know, just, he says, oh, man, you ain't got to write the song. He said, they were playing yourself. song, they just want you to record it, you know. I was like, what song? Mr. Telephone, man, how do they hear that? He says, no, they worked out there, rain.

They know what they want you to cut it just like those stuff. So we got, I went back to California. And the kids say, look, just cut it just like, in fact, we buy the old track. I said, no, that belongs to you can't buy it old track. But it's me playing all the instruments, so I'll cut it again. So I put all the instruments together. Yeah, it felt so vintage, even with the...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's me playing. I put eight of drums. and overdub. I'm like Stevie. I put the drums on last, you know. So I played the bass and all the rest. Well, that's how the master taught me. I'm just doing it like he did it.

So I put all the stuff on. We get the track done. We get the singing on. Ralph sings the verse. It sounds great. Nobody can sing the chorus except Bobby because he's, he didn't want, he said, I don't sing. I said, well, you got to sing because ain't nobody else singing it.

So he's yelling and screaming up high. So we get him on up high. Later, he tells me, you know, I saw him a few weeks ago. He told me he says, well, Ray Parker Jr. said I can sing, so, fuck it. I quit the band. and say, I do my own album. I said, boy, that was a confidence building.

You ended in the new edition. Yeah, he said, I'm gone, you know. But it was interesting. They cut, we cut the record, turned it in. And they were a little out of tune on some parts. It was worked to get the vocals done. So Gerald Buzzby looks at me and he says, man, can you cut four or five more songs, you know?

I said, man, I can't do that. I'm doing this. He says, well, get your boys, Ollie, and wasn't even them to do it. He says, they can ghost it for you. He says, you got my permission. So I go to my boys and say, man, y'all want to cut this. I got pockets full of cash burning here.

You know, do this. They're, oh, we don't want to do that. We don't want to do it. I said, yeah, but they're saying, we don't want to do it. Nobody wanted to do it. Why? I didn't want to do it. No, I couldn't get all that.

I mean, people who needed my idea. People had integrity in 1985? I guess, yeah, too much integrity or too much poor judgment. So nobody would take the money to do it. So that's how I ended up with just the one song. I turned the song in. And believe it not, that's the same week when they call me for Ghostbusters. So when Gary LaMelle called me from Ghostbusters, you know, I had been in Spagos,

and I was sitting with the lady right there, Claire, we were looking at that red, I mean, black poster with it, it just had a circle on it, something like that. I was saying, and I said, I got a phone call from my friend about that. And what Gary was saying was, you know, spent a couple of days, I paid a right to sign. I said, man, I'm not doing this sign. I'm going back to Detroit. He says, he says, you're not doing music. He says, what are you doing here now?

He says, I'm doing a new edition. He says, we don't know what are music there? What are you talking about? My money ain't good, but there's it. So that's how he talked me to doing it as I was already in town doing the new edition. So he said, stay two more days, 50 grand. So that year I had Mr. Telephone Man and Ghostbusters, came out the same year. Game changes.

Game changes. Yeah. Ray Parker, Jr., thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. It's wonderful. New edition, Ray Parker Jr., almost didn't happen, just like. Ghostbusters almost didn't happen.

Just like Jack and Jill almost didn't happen. Man, I don't know what lesson. Like, there's so many the... I don't know if it's that. I should start dating all the daughters of all the men I work for. Mine is I'm kicking my kids out of the house. Yeah. You really have to know that information.

You're like exactly what is. Yeah, I'm like, what was the day? 22 and 24. That's the lesson. Because I haven't been raised after the 27th century. I have yet to roll a right of Ghostbusters. So, yeah, they got to go. So if your kids' damn numbered already?

Oh, yeah, man. That's what you're taking for this Ray Parker Jr.? Yeah, they got to get out. They got to go. I mean, once they... They're not legal yet, though. Yeah, they're not like 15 and 10. But...

No, my basically saying in three to seven years, is 15 got to get out. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was like that for me. You know what I'm saying? I did.

I ended up in a room with you. motherfucker so shit. I did all. So you said that a child has to suffer to make it in life? I don't think

you gotta suffer. I just, you know what, man, it's tough because, like, we were talking about this is a cardum night.

Like, you know, looking at, what was it, it was you God, right? Right. You know what you're saying?

Like, his kids are like super nerds and shit. Yeah. So a lot of ways, like hip hop and the kids of entertainers, hip hop has

afforded the kids way better lives than the fathers and mothers. You know what I'm saying? Right. So that's the good thing. But then in some aspects, you kind of lose that thing that made your dad, you know.

Hunger. Right. Or whatever, a hunger drive, whatever. So you kind of got to walk that line. It's like, okay, do I want to give my kids everything that I didn't have or do I want to make them live like Antoine Fisher? So I'm just kind of like, I mean, not like, not like, not. You know, I mean, not. I mean, mine is like here.

I'm still strong. Oh, nigger. I don't know who your people be So, no, I mean, so that's my, that is my conflict Because I want to give you the things I mean, I don't want my kids to, like, grow up Like in a crack house and shit, like I experience But at the same time, I don't want them, you know, to just be soft

And be push-fired In tree of margarine is by the pool, right, right? Yeah, you're supposed to be looking for a goddamn job At noon. Yeah, nah. So, so that's, That was my list from Bray Parkin, Jr. Kick your kids out of the house.

To Coleman children. I'm sorry. I just wanted a radio show to nerd out a little bit. I didn't want this to be a moment of your life changing. So, Bill, you seem to agree about kicking my kids out of the house. You would kick one daughter out. You know it. Like tomorrow.

No, I'm playing. But you're not. I'm not. I don't, you know, I haven't given much thought to kicking my kids out. How is it feel like five days a few years ahead of me? Yeah, your kids, your daughters are much younger too. So you got some. I mean, there are days.

Come on, speak in mine. For those that are late joining, there's two kids in unpaid Bill's life. Yeah. And one might be testing his patience just a little bit more than the other one. Testing everybody's patience, not just mine. But do you feel, I mean, is it too late? She's only three, right? She's four.

Is it too late to do what? Give her back? Give her back? Yes, it's too late for that. I have about three friends who thought, one of them infamously said, you know, he had a son and a daughter. He says, well, you know, I'm going to save my bail money up for my son, the college tuition up for her. And now they're older. It's the complete opposite.

The angel is now a nightmare. I've heard that they switch. And I heard that. Right. So who knows? Like the apple of your eye might, you know. it might be bail money time i mean i hope i have just give them all the pole i have a bail yeah that's what i'm about saying he's like anything you do about girls is keep them off the pole

it's the only thing you need to do i've heard that all right so steve drop drops the science man what would you learn man i i thought some of the interesting things he was talking about was the stevie wonder playing drums on his stuff last yeah yeah what the hell's that i mean that's that makes a lot of sense and it's just so it's just mind blowing how does that make No click. So he's playing to what? Well, because Steve is one of the most adventurous high hat players of all time. That just makes a lot of sense.

The fluctuation of his drumming is because he does it last. And I might have to try that. It's never the same. I'm going to cut a song like that. Roots album. Every part. That's what I was thinking the whole time. You know, got to try this.

I love that. Well, in two weeks. Let's try that idea. That's something cool. And also Stevie Wonder's apparent competitiveness with Ray Parker and trying to kibosh him on the shock account thing and all that. And then that. Pugilism skills as well. And that Barry White didn't like overdubs and he was doing all that.

No, but in general, we're choosing people here that seem to know everybody who seem to have done everything. thing and it's like it's just so much data going you know we need to choose somebody who just did like a one-hit wonder so lie what did you learn besides the fact that you might possibly want ray parker junior to be your baby dad or just at least the soundtrack to you know me and my baby you know what i learned and i learned this every week on this show excuse me not jokes but i learned that you got to pay attention and it's funny because y'all made the joke about having a one-hit wonder on the show and i'm like you know a lot of people listening might think that ray parker junior was a one-year-old hit wonder. So it just goes to show that you, and not to plug our own show, but you need to pay attention to Quest Love Supreme because you will find out some shit that you never knew. And then I think at the same time you should have your phone open on Google and discogs

or whatever else you need to do so that you can be, you know, more musically educated person. Bill? Yeah, what's up? What did I learn? I learned that it's a good idea to maintain relationships. Because you will never know when you will need certain

people again. Any other last? That's words of boss, Bill. Like, as far as stuff. Maintain relationships. Yeah, maintain relationships. Ray Parker Jr. Still one of the coolest dudes in the planet. Yeah, man.

Still. He talks like he sings. Right. Y'all think Drake's going to be that cool when he's 60-something. Drake isn't that cool now. Okay, yeah. Okay. Amir.

I just realized we forgot to ask him, Ray Parker, what it was like to be Lando Calrissian. He stole. And good night. Good night, ladies and gentlemen. This is another episode of Quest Love Supreme. Boss Bill, tune in the next week. He wasn't Lando Calvice.

He wasn't. Nah, no, that wasn't him. Laiia, Sugar Steve, unpaid Bill, Fonte. Edit. Scott Spur. Wait, what's it? Scott Yeo. Scott Yeo.

Scott Spurn. What the fuck is that? You're thinking about the unpaid meal. This is Questlove. Come next week, again, at 1 p.m. Eastern. Easter Standard Time. 10 a.m.

Pacific standard time. And we hope you still are listening. It's Questlove Supreme, Pandora. Thank you. Questlove Supreme is a production of Iheart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfilts of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network, on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast,

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From hidden traits, teams look for, to the biggest mistakes franchises make, to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else.

If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slice of Life 12 and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.

You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Ellen's, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.

Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last. target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.