What's up, y'all, It's on pay bill here to give you the latest quest. Love Supreme Classic episode Back in October, Allen leads with a fifth guest on Quels. That conversation which I heard you all to check out has been re released, but even three hours down was not. He came back for a two part interview. Here's Allen Leads a second ql S appearance from right this one. He talks a lot about it. Here's James crowd some really great stuff about playing the Chiland circuit and put it together. Those epic James Brown review shows. You can hear why Allan Leads deserves three episodes. Episode one oh one. Enjoined to volume dolls and hipp yats across the nation. This is a special distide of course, Love I always wanted to talk like uh like a fifties sixties radio jock Uhlas and gentlemen, this is the quiet edition. Of course, Love Supreme saw many crabs outside, so should be backing about a mom. I'm the only smoker here and everybody else right exactly, Ladies and gentlemen, Our guest today needs absolutely no introduction. If you're a longtime fan of the show, this is one of our rare repeat guests. In my opinion, our guest today is probably one of the most organized humans in show business. At least I'm like to believe that you are. He's shaking his head right now, Denial. I would say that he is the glue that really ensures that you would have gotten your money's worth if you are seeing your favorite act perform in concert. Speaking of which which acts would they be? You can name them all from Colony Gang, the Bootsies, Robert Van to Kiss, to Print, whoever that is Uh, to Chris Rock, to D'Angelo to Rathfiel Sadiq to Maxwell Uh and of course the main reason that we're all gathered here today me My name is Sugar. No, of course, I'm speaking of his time with James Brown, which probably a domino effect his long standing power um and offered him the credibility to pretty much stand next to a kazillion geniuses and in music, his book, Thank God, there's this book entitled There Was a Time on post O Press, recently released this late winter. It was it was late February. Okay, yes, yeah, still we don't know that yet anyway, Um, yeah, There Was the Time offers a rare glimpse into the world of the Chipland circuit, or outside the Chipland circuit as it morphed into regular show business for most R and b X one of my favorite human beings on Earth. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Alan leads back to screen. Were good. Thank you, Alan. I'm Alan hates. That's where I get it from. When you guys say that I assue compliments, compliments and praise. Alan often cringes when I have to say that as well. Not on the inside. Gwen tells me it's because you don't know how to take compliments, so you pretend you don't care. Trying to be cool. Compliments are very hard. Um, I get it. Well, Steve, you're a great guy than you everybody. So do you how weird is it for you to be at this phase in your career? Like, are you the type of person that it was like when you write the book this is sort of end of a life chapter or I mean not to sound super morbid, but I just mean usually like the people came to me writing books like I was like, no, I have more life to live and I'll save it for later. Yes and no, okay no, because I started this book thirty years ago. Really, okay. I actually thought it when my first marriage broke up and I was sitting around nothing to do, and I said, okay, at least diaries in papers and while it's frushing my mind, let me start putting stuff down. Now. I couldn't write a lick at that point. It was terrible because I've got there. That was after. It was after. Even the early line notes are pretty poorly written. But um, talking about the payback, he thanks very much. I was asking because that's the first one. He did write the line of notes for the payback on the inside, right, Yeah, that's gonna be a mother Damn. I forgot that. That worked. Ye, that work. There was There was a James Brown called Hammer, Oh yeah, despite the title was Christmas record, and I wrote the line notes for that, and a jew writtening liner notes for a Christmas album. It's kind of an anomally to start with. What did he ask you to write? Yeah? Really? Yeah, because back then, you know, you had to put information on the back of the album. Well, he thought it was a genius just because I could write publicity releases. James Brown is coming to town and I could do that. One page in newspapers would take it and fill their pages up, and so he thought it was Shakespeare. Um so he said, let so you started thirty years ago writing in this book. Yeah, and it was. It was the kind of thing where you know that original draft besides of fact, they just poorly written. I'm looking to the finished book. It's just um, that was a bunch of drivel. It was really a tour diary. It was. It was like personal tour diary in fifty percent James Brown Body he was born and made that kind of stuff. And as time went on, realized that the diary was self indulgent and had a lot of stupid stuff that was no interest to anybody, not even me. And um, you know it was like what I had for breakfast before the show was dumb stuff. This guy actually act. But I was smoking a lot of weed that and it's like so you kept note, see that's the thing like I that was the horder So am I Yeah, Well, OK, half my houses I think we knew that. Um No. And when he left King Records for Paula Door Invent one, we're cleaning out the office and there's tons of foul cabinets full of old tiner hereies to routings, publicity pictures, UM, all kinds of stuff, the kind of stuff you would think would be in our office like that. And also we're recording session reports UM music Union session reports with dates and who plays what and that tracking sheets in sessions like saying loud and Funky drummer. The original tracking sheets were in the office. Yeah, not inside the real box where they were probably copies in the real boxes. But you know, it just meticulous with filing back, Like how did you know to save all that stuff? Like how did you know? Because I was a fanatic. It was just I was already you're one of us. He never did you already knew that of his history by then. No, I knew. I wanted it. It was purely selfish, I think it really, it really was. This comes from the fact that he never had credits on his records right right, So to a real fanatic, it was like, Okay, who's the drummer around this session? Who's the guitar point this session? Wouldn't did this guy leave the bands and replaced by the next guy. I was that guy who wanted to know who did everything on his records and here's the Holy Grail, and it's a copy of the King Master Book, which tells you the recording sessions and locations and dates and what time of day and all that kind of crap. So this is to somebody who was compiling the discography that that never really dreamt anybody who gives a shit about except me. But I wanted to know, so I asked him. They're gonna trash all this stuff literally dump put it in the dumpster because we're moving to New York, well some of us to Augusta. That's all another story that the book tells you about. But but and I just said Mr Brown, can I And He's like, yeah, something to somebody want to keep it? It's history. He knew it was history. I knew it was a collection. I wanted. It was like baseball cards to me, I want the collection that was it? Okay? And of course time went by and you begin to realize that this is gonna be worth something. One as as his his stardom becomes a kind of classtic and so on. Time goes on. You really be getting to get this incident like, okay, I really need to preserve this and documented properly and so on. I mean, I've got a four hundred page discography that has every session's produced and even has the bootlegs of the concert recordings that I mean, it's it's stupid little publishers that stuff. I mean, it's read it. I'll read it an obsess over it. No, I'm serious, it's very important that but it comes out exactly it's important. So I can assume that if they can do for the Beatles, they can do it for times as in a side. Everybody I've talked to says, well, making a coffee table book, you don't need all the details, And I'm like, no, no, no, it's all about the details. They just don't get it because they're just looking. It's a research book. Yeah, it's not a coffee table book. It's not for the casual casual fan. It's it's it's for us. Right, So can I assume that the So you really were the source of most of the information in the startime box set. So you're so anytime I read who was on what and blah blah blah. So without that we would have just been guessing. Literally now, mind you, as time would go on, every time they'd have a session and This discontinued for years after I stopped working for him. Um, I would call Fred Wesley or David Matthews the arranger, and you know any sessions lately where when, what did your record? Who was on the session? I'm used to drive them crazy. Matthews talks about it his wax poetic story. He's like only that never really knew what he did, but he used to drive me crazy about details of the sessions, and he would write everything down. Um so yeah, do you have any of the original charts or the charts also in the office as well, like the horn arrangements and stuff. So they just write them down and then leave him at the studio. I think most of them were head charts really, just you know, he would do recordings like It's a Man the World with an arranger like Sammy Low, and it wouldn't be his band. They were charts for that. I never saw him the charts for that. I'm sure David Matthews did charts for his arrangements. Um, but as far as the the bulk of the hit records that James would his own band, those were all head charts alright. So then for James Brown himself, uh, would he could I could. I say that, I'm assuming that he freestyle a majority of this stuff, where like he just would have an idea and right down four lines. And it really varied. Um ofttimes there'd be an idea and many times I shouldn't say, Matty, but quite a few times ideas would come from having changed the arrangements of pruvious hits. Okay, you know, like the vamp becomes the new song exactly, Okay, I get it. I mean sex Machine came out of a guitar lick that they were doing and give it up, return it loose. At some point they changed the guitar part and give it up, return it loose on the road the road arrangement, and he liked that part and ended up building a song around it was sex Machine. I see. So then with but I'm saying, like what I mean, a song that has actual lyrics like black and proud. I'm certain it was notated on paper whatnot, but then maybe maybe not, because the story goes I wasn't at that session, but Charles Bobb it was, and Bob a Dolt was claimed that it was a very impulsive thing, like they were talking in a hotel late at night, and Brown was staying, there needs to be a song like this, and I've got a lyric, and I suppose he went to pee and said, let's cook something up around this lyric. And you know whether whether they did it in the studio or the night before in the hotel, on the bus or whatever. But but I'm saying it has actual lyric structure. It's a poem, right, but for something like escapism, doing it? Escape it? All right? So alright, so Key's playing a song like escapism? Is it Escapeism? A long version, I think it's it's like a twenty minute it's ridiculous rap session where they just talk, actually talk about that session in the book and tell the whole story. But the short version is he was out of the club in Cincinnati where the de Police trio What's the House? But and this was a cocktail trio ja as you know, soft jazz trio that mostly played standards, and he used them for a couple of records where he dreamt the bean Sinatra for a minute. There was a time accident exactly exact example exactly. He was hanging out at this club and somebody used the word escape pism in the context of a casual conversation, like they had a drink and said, you know what's wrong to its kids. It's all escapism. They're not paying attention to what's going on in the New world. So and I just heard the horn squeal in my exactly. He came into the studio the next day and I was there. This wasn't an anti during one time. And as a matter of fact, my brother Eric should be here to tell his story because he actually said it on the session. He didn't play, but but he was in the booths the whole day. The session was for and I know you got sold, Bobby Burn. Okay, we're about to record very real quick exactly, that's what the session was for. But James had this obsession with the word escapeism. So he comes in the running over the trap, which was ostensibly gonna be for a you Got Sold and at some point Jesus bird, I'm gonna do this one, and he had libbed to escape by sometimes I don't down the night, abody looking for it, everybody looking for the day. And according to Eric, who was actually in the boots, I was in the office. I couldn't hang out. It was during the afternoon so I had to be busy. I couldn't just hang in the studio or you know, how far is the studio from proximity for where the home offices were the same building. It's just you know, go down the hallway, go through a door, up a ramp in your in the studio because you hear them or was it like it was the studio there was a warehouse between that you had to kind of walk around, but it's in the same it's a huge factory like building. So no, you couldn't hear a thing. But so Eric was saying, yeah, so he was hearing, and he said that that you know, James just loved the track and he was dying to do something with this thing escapism, and listened to the record, you realized there's, as you say, there's a lyrical structure. It's just him, just him fucking with the band and at the limping ship. And it gets to the port where he's out of ideas. So he starts walking around the studio asking who's where are you from? You know? Okay, So when he does that, okay, So during this period he does that a lot, a lot on the JVS records, where he'll talk to jabbo and talk to various members of the band. Where is he holding a free mic in his hand as he's doing it? Or is it like a traditional studio set up that like, you know, are they like he set up like his stage show? No? No, actually, a few times I saw him record with the band. Um, probably have dozen, It's not a dozen times. First he'd be recording live, okay, and much to the engineer's chagrin, he'd sacrificed separation in favor of chemistry, vibe chemistry. So ofttimes the band was in like a semicircle and he would just be in the middle so he didn't have to walk with the mic. He could just you know, like I'm talking to a mic now. And he was just looking to hey, Jimmy from North Carolina, tell me about old Carolina. What do you have for breakfast? Fred? Where are you from? L A, Yeah, Lower Alabama? And to you know, this is just what he did. Okay. The track goes on and on and on, and of course the group was ferocious, and um, he walks in the I guess table was running out Ron Lenn HAPs the engineer probably signaled to him like, yo, dude, you know and he walks in and he says, whoa. And Eric just wrote this down. He had to remember it, and he says he could quote it perfectly. Um, he said. He walks into Run looking up and he said, well, Run, that's a long one. That's gotta be ten minutes. Ron said, Mr Brown, it's twenty one minutes. And Brown looks at him and said, well that's enough for part one, two, three, four and five, all right. And so of course after that they recorded I know you got so Old with its own left because of right Eric, yeah, whatever else. But the thing is is that they also do this live, and at least on the live of the Apollo did they often do Escapism live and recreate um because it's almost like, yeah, it's sorry to recreate, but they kind of matched on the Apollo record. Or he just knew, here's something interesting. When we were going through tapes back when the tape Vault was in Edison, New Jersey, and we had access, We're doing Start Time and a few of the other early CDs Harry and nine, Harry Executive Universe A Universal, we would go to the tape Fault and just spend days in there going through tapes and my whole mission. Again, it's my discography, what's in the tapes, what's on the tape boxes. So I'm just running around and making copies because they had a studio there where I could put the tapes up and burnt cededs or not sorry, make exactly and um, you know. And this all help because I'm listening to unishoot stuff that I can then document in the discography as well as the complete versions and stuff and get data. Anyway, long story short, So we're going through the tapes for Revolution of the Mind, which was the third live at the Apollo album, recorded in seventy one, shortly after he joined poland Or Records. They recorded eight shows and pulled from the eight shows to sequency album. And yes, yeah, I mean I don't think they used portions of all. Maybe they used portions at two or three, but they had eight shows to draw from, and no, I haven't listened to all eight shows. But here's the point. Someday we'll do with deluxe version. And you know then I've been on Harida. You know, it's it's university there you go, so it'll come me for you and bringing this up. But that's why I bring it up. But here's here's the interesting thing. The only show he did Escapeism, all the other shows are identical, meeting the sequence is identical for all for the seven of the eight shows. He only did Escapism on the first show. Now, was that intentional because he wanted the title on the album but it wasn't really part of the show yet, or didn't he like cow it came off? I can't tell you why. I can just tell you that there's only one live version of that. Whereas we had eight shows, there's one escape him Now after the record came out and hit, it was in the show, but very briefly, and I honestly can't remember what it was like. I just I can hear the audience actually channing, you know, the lyrics, which I was like, wow, like they I'm just baffled that a spontaneous conversation is now a hit single, or at least where people are repeating a lyric back. That was actually my first thought when I first heard. I was like, wow, this this this was a hit record. Like it's strange people of course, who did that? I mean, can you see this reading I'm talking to Steve Cropper breakfast? Like that wasn't good appen So for that particular album, do you remember, all right? So if all the shows were recorded, um, were they all done night after night? Or were these like, okay, we'll record the twelve o'clock show, the three o'clock show, now he was doing. But then instead of doing the old four or five shows a day, he'd cut. He convinced the Apollos that for his appearance as he would just do to at night and maybe three on weekends, so he would do at seven o'clock, in ten o'clock something like that. And ye, when did that same thing stop in the seventies or early seventies? So was it that system for the live of the Apollo two albums? So in nine was seven the apollowed. There was a jun Juno sixties seven and they recorded two and a half shows that we found. We have two complete shows and about half of the third show. But what I'm asking is for that particular run at the Apollo, was that the one o'clock in the afternoon, the two o'clock, the three o'clock. Yes, okay, So, and I don't think we went through this the last time because I'm still trying to imagine how you squeezing five shows with I'm assuming that he at least had sort of a cavalcade of at least four acts. I mean it's Bird doing some solos. Yeah. In fact, on the deluxe edition, they didn't record Bird sets, but they did get two songs on tape and we used to we used to he did Sweets Sold Music, Arthurchly Sweet sould Music. And did we use a second track? Is? I don't think so? Um, you got to change your mind or ye that later. I think the only thing that we found with Sweets Sold Music. But what I'm asking is he's not not The show ran, yes, okay, the band would come out and and this was the shorter Obviously, you're doing four or five shows a day. They're shorter than you would get in a arena or a concert hall where you're just doing one show at eight o'clock, and the shows would maybe run three hours. In the Apollos had run maybe an hour forty five. Okay, okay, the band would come out and just do one or two instrumentals, whereas on tour they might do a half hour of instrumentals. For example, the the the nine eight Boston show that's on video, they recently discovered a reel with the instrumental set and they're doing five or six instrumentals before anything happens the band is but in the Apollo they do one or two just as a warm up. Okay, then Brown would come out and all right, let me think back. Um, he would come out and he would would go right into his his nightclub set where he does. That's life for if I ruled the world in Kansas City. All right, now I'm trying fifteen minutes. I'm treating you as a DVR right now, I'm pausing the show. So with someone of his stature ego at least, why would he deflate the balloons early and not come out with a bang? Like? Why was startime so late? Where? Like was it even fan fair? He was just building out? Yes, absolutely so he would play. See what the m C would say, Now, surprised the star of the show, James Brown. He's blown out because who expects him to come on the show just started ten minutes ago? What was his logic? Like, people know that I'm gonna show up earlier. It logic by then, and this was understanding everything. Apollo Too album is just as he's beginning to change his format. But even in the old days before that, he would come out earlier and play Oregon with the band for a half hour, and that wouldn't ruin the surprise. Really, No, it was all about building. It was all about building, and and his idea was that we're gonna save the explosions for the end, of course, for the climax. And he would come out and he would do back to Let's stick with the Apollo to seven. He would come out, Let's see he did. That's life. I want to be around both of them. He's sitting in a stool and just playing nightclub crooner, which was new for him. That was new, He'd never done that before. And he would do this at the Apolo. Yes, it's on the record. What was and what was the purpose though for to do that Frank Sinatra stuff at the Apollo. The purpose was to show another side of him that he was expanding beyond just a predictable soul singer with a predictable review. He was like, I'm an all around entertainer. He was hoping to get gigs in Vegas and Miami Beach in the lucrative showrooms and and expand his his horizons and his audience. All right, so let me pause here. Okay, so let's go to the copa more my i Ami. Now, if he's at a place that's the opposite of the Apollo, wouldn't right, So wouldn't the highlight them be the crooning stuff and then sort of be like this might be this might be too little rally for them, giving them a kind Yeah, it's a good point. You kind of know what you're getting, um and we would they be disappointed? Is a bathroom time or popcorn? His whole thing was it's about making a new audience meet him in his world. It was like, I'm not I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna make changes and I'm gonna grow. It isn't hard. It's gonna show a different side to me, but I'm still gonna be true to who I am. I'm not gonna do anything that's going to disappoint my die hard fans. He's like, you know, if I can attract that vagance audience, great, but I'm never going to turn my back on the hood because that's my base. Okay. So it was like it was like, you got to come to me on my terms. This is who I am. And I'm not going to deny that. So if you don't like hard funk, then you can leave. But I'm gonna get you because I'm an entertainer. Even if you don't like my songs by records, I'm gonna do something that stage that's gonna make you stop and pay attention. Even in the seventies, so even by seventy two when he's just like afrowed out and well he had stopped doing the ballads and and that stuff like that. Um, And since I'm really dissecting every now, I wasn't. I wasn't joking about the food stuff and whatnot. Because the main reason why I probe and probe and ask you these questions for the last twenty years i've known you it is simply because I mean, had I been born thirty forty years earlier, I would have been the musician on that stage. So I'm just curious to see, as a working musician, how are our lives compare like the quest level of the late sixties. So what I want to know is, Uh, it's gonna be like a stupid question, but I always wanted to know, right, Okay, So with with with a show that high energy I know that bottle water wasn't quite invented yet in the late sixties early seventies. How are they replenishing themselves on the state like is there boy on the side or intermission? Oh so you weren't allowed to bring a drink on stage or that's not professional. That's why I asked you. Would he allow that towels even up for police? Please please with the capes so only for him, So the band would have to meet jehold by the head of towel on the floor next to the kid. But don't let nobody see it. And I've never seen in any of the photos. I've never seen set lists, no tape to the oh, so you would have to know. But I mean, basically, remember this is this is a show that was on the road fifty one week. Saw the worked sometimes four nights a week, five sometimes six or seven, depending on the venues and the routing of the They could probably play it in the sleep exactly exactly, and the show gradually changed. It didn't change overnight. The set list, Um, I mean, like I said, the Apollo three and Apollo two for them, and the set lists were the same for each show because they were there were segues in different dynamics that set up each song, and it was carefully structured. I mean it was you know, there was there was a method to the madness in terms of the pacing so that he could catch a breath. Um, you know as still where the ballots go and so on. Mean it's it's the chop one on one. Um, so all right, he's croony, yeah, continue, Okay, So he does that center fifteen minutes, whatever it takes to do that. The last song that that said is Kansas City, which is uppeat, which means that he kicks the stool back, and halfway through Kansas City he jumps up and starts dancing a little bit. It's a tease. The band is smoking and he's giving it a tease of James Brown. That that James Brown, who slides across the state jump want foot, just the tease. Then he disappears, and here comes Bobby Bird to do two or three songs on two or maybe four songs and the Apollo maybe two. Then here comes Marvel Whitney. Then here comes James Brown again. No introduction, lights go dark, he walks on stage, lights come up, and he sings into Man's World. For fifteen minutes. Okay, right, there was a really long version that's that's on the Apollo To album. It's longer on the Deluxey d and it was on the album for out of us reasons, um. And that's another show stopper because it was a huge hit and it's a very dynamic, and he incorporates a medley of some of his older tunes within it, Bewildered, Lost Someone, some of that stuff to satisfy his older fans, and then he goes off stage again. Then either there's a comic. Clay Tyson was our own house comic who traveled as part of the show, and he'd come out and do ten minutes of old jokes and then would be an intermission, questions pause. I forgot that there's the JB Dancers who come out and do five minutes of dancing while the band plays Caravan or something. So when that stuff is playing, so when I'm listening to the stuff on YouTube, they're dancing the JB Dancers are playing or dance into those instrumentals. No, No, they get a feature in the first part of the show before and mission where they're introduced as the JB Dancers and their downstage center and they do a routine too. Oh they use different itsr metals. On the sixty seven Apollo it was caravan Um. Later on in the sixties it was the Massa Killers grazing in the grass and it just picked an instrumental and work out that that's there in the spotlight. So there's always been a Vegas element to issue. But but you know what it when you say Vegas, it wasn't cheesy, right, I mean sometimes maybe it was, but but let me put it this way. If it was cheesy, it was black cheesy, okay, But was it cheesy to you watching it in sight? No? The girls were hot, ask Okay, So right now I'm at my board phase, like I go through three. They weren't out there long enough for you to get put so bored. Well no, no, no, I'm just saying that when I when I go through my board phase, then this is when I start embracing uh nineties James Brown, like I'll look at can't get any harder for sake. No, no, no, I'm just saying that out Like last week I watched uh his would Stop three performance, which was exactly I don't know when when the rumors of the when the when the was James Brown murdered rumors started seeping out. Then I just, I don't know, I felt the need to just look at the last ten years of his life to see what his show would become of, which he never straight away from the formula. Like in my mind, I never thought that there were dancing girls and this cover song and that sort of thing, because on the live album, you're just getting the James Brown show as you know it. And then once I discovered the tapes, then I realized, like, oh, there are dancing girls and there are that sort of thing. Well that That's why I was so happy with the expanded to c D version of Apollo too, because we were able to take the tapes from the two and a half shows and to the best of our ability, recreate what the show really flowed like. Because the album the original album, because of the length of songs, they weren't able to sequence it with any logic really, and the whole mission with the c D was, let's create the show with the flow and then you know, the ebbs and the peaks was actually was. I was really appreciative that the Frankie Crocker intros were included in that too, So yeah, yeah, d O J. Yeah, Um, can I see that? Letting Crocker or O J or a person of the day introduced the show was sort of like a greasy palm. Let me well, they Frankie and Audio J. And it was also Rocky g who was the program director in the mid in late sixties. Um, they would sponsor shows at the Apollo, not just James's where they weren't really promoting the shows because it was in house the Apollo, but the Apollo would spiff them to put their names on there, so it would be Frankie Crocker, Video J Present James Brown and and that's something the Apollo had been doing for years and years. Wait slight slight jump into the future because I always wanted to know fast forward on your own leads remote control. Okay, so at the that you were uh tour managing. Uh. Crocker also introduces Vanity six. What was the lot? Like? Whose idea was that? Was it just hey, if you want me to? Was that you? Or was that I wasn't at the New York show? Was that I came in right after that? Oh? So I can't but but I'll tell you what I do remember. I remember before I went to work for Prince, when Vanity six record came out and Nasty Girls took off. I happened to be home in Brooklyn at the time with what was What was it? Then? Kiss? What's? The station was w L. Frankie was less at the time, and um, they did a promo studio visit with Frankie did I happen to hear? And U just happened to have the radio and the part in Brooklyn, And because I was a fan and Prince and Nasty Girls paid attention, and um, they seemed to bond. I mean, it was a really playful interview that was memorable, exactly exactly exactly all the remembers they kept saying every time, I mean he'd asked them a question, Um, Susan and and V would go like Frankie, Frankie Panky, Frankie pranky, and and it just stuck with me. It was like, okay, okay, I want to meet them, you know, and with no idea that I would you be connected them forever. But you know, look, everybody knew Frankie had juice. I mean, he was in New York radio and um, you'd be crazy to come to town and not let him get on stage and say hello if he wanted to. Just as good to you as it is for you. You get so much with the Frankie crocod touch, after all, how can you lose with the stuff I use? Turn up the lightinghole, MITSI. Frankie says, it's just got to be all right. Closer than white song, right, is closer than coals on eyes, closer than a collas on a dog, closer than a hay Amazon, our country home, really young, and do ain't never had enough of nothing? Definitely ready if you need it, be steady. Everything's gonna be everything. But remember if you can't stand it, please don't demand it. I don't let your eyes get your mind messed up with your heart and soul desires something you know you just can't stand. Really, all I have to do is set the needle to the tracks, separate the soul from the wax lay and the groove, and hope to make you move. Okay, So he comes out and does the this gargantea in It's a Man's World. This whole episode is going to be about. And then you said that, Uh, Comedians So does this formula I assume that we're going to get the star time after intermission? Right, of course, does this formula work all over the United States? It's full proof, not one person trying to boo klay Tyson or Oh, they were people who didn't want to hear him. Sure, they were kids who didn't want to hear him, and that there were people who did. Because let's let's have to And this is really difficult to explain to anyone under the age of fifty. I suppose, um, this all came out of vaudeville, right, and that was that was Brown's template for creating a review of self contained show. Remember that most solo artists traveled solo or with their own accompaniment and so on, but they didn't have reviews because they either couldn't afford them or just weren't interested. Um, James Brown's idea was like, let's do all this in the house. I'm tired, you know when he was when he was younger, before he was had to influence in the success to to take over things. Um, he would be like everybody else and they'd be on shows where they'd be different acts every night, depend on you know, if you were in Chicago, you might have Martha Van Della's or Gene Channel or the Impressions or the Drifters on the show with you. And then you go to Cincinnati the next day in and so this writing and Carla Thomas, and you never know because the promoters would. First of all, they never felt that there was one entertainer who could sell out the theater or an arena on their own, so they felt obligated to take two or three semi stars and a bunch of one record acts and put a package together. And the idea was to have nine or ten acts, most of whom just did two or three songs. The star would do half an hour, and you had those tours and you've probably seen the vintage posters of that stuff, and they would go all over the country. So that's what people were used to. James Brown said, why do I have to share the revenue with all these other acts? Let me get my own acts. Let's stop Bobby Bird do three songs, so let's let Baby Lloyd, one of the other Flames, do a couple of songs. Let's get a girl singer who's cute and can hold a note, and let's she do three songs, and they were on salary, so I'm not paying uh, the promoters and paying Eddie James or the drifters and so on. I got my own review. And the template, of course was vaudeville, because that's where theater shows came from. And and if you go back and look at the bills, the weekly bills of the Apollo Theater throughout the sixties and going all the way back to the thirties, but even in the sixties, at the height of the soul music area, there would always be a median, there would always be a vocal group, there would always be a male singer, it would always be a female singer, and then god knows what else they needed to fill up the show. It was always a package unless you were Duke Kellington, you know, who would also play the Apollo. But even he would have his own, his own singers that would get a you know, promp Basi had Joe Williams for years and years, and and Ellington had singers. So people expected variety, a variety show, and the idea was that you have sex, yeah, something for the guys, something for the girls, and you have some laughs and you have some good instrumental music, and you had to have all those things to be a complete show, and that's what audiences expected. The Roots have failed. A question back to the Roots comedy because first, since since we're at the intermission of the show, UM, so far besides the comedy, it sounds like the band is out there the entire time, the same band. All. I just want to make that, make that clear to the listeners. Absolutely, but it should be noted that James Brown often at two or three drummers. Yeah, yes, in the basis they all went to the to the same gigs. But I mean so they would switch out. No, no, no, there was one band that traveled on the same bus and went to the same gigs. Absolutely, but different drummers would switch out for different acts, for different songs, different songs. I mean they were listen when he recorded. Um. I mean that's a whole lot of tangent. For a second, um, I want to get back to the Roots comedy just for a split because I had an inspiration. I had an idea that it's it's it's so obvious. You probably don't want to do it because it's too it's too obvious, but you can do Thank you. Notes translate that something to the stage. You know what, because either you or Arka somebody has to do is do they. I hate to say this, but when James is on these shows with us, it's like they get mad if it does not do thank you notes. They yell thank you notes now. And it's not just one more note. That's good, Okay, my other question, sorry, and we'll talk this. The show also sounds like it's, like you said, it's supposed to build, but it also sounds somewhat chronological. Is that is that correct as far as like his earliest and then his and then leading me into the big single or my latest. Not necessarily, but but you save the hits for the start time segment. Obviously, even his oldest hits Yeah Try Me and Police Please Please were the oldest songs that he would continue to do until he stopped working. Um, we're always in the startime set, so after intermission in startime, Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, it's start time at the Apollo Theater. Million dollars seller, chry Me Please Please Please. Papa's got a brand new bag. This is a man's World. Puss constructive tune of nineteen sixty six don't be a dropout recently recall it. Let yourself go, baby, don't you week? Let's pick him on right now, everybody, the heartest working man in show business. I'm gonna let you say his name, James Brown, Lady and gentleman. And that's a half hour, thirty five minutes start. It's usually ran about an hour. I mean in the old days. In the old days, in the Apollo when they still had more support acts. For example, Apollo one was recorded in nineteen sixty two and on the show was Bobby Womack and the Valentineo Solomon Burke. There were other real recording artists on record, not exactly like Pigmy Markham. What was on the show? Um? You know, so Brown would do? I mean the Apollo one album is about thirty five minutes and there's only one song cut out, so so he was doing forty minutes. But by sixty seven Star time, I mean, he had so many hits it pretty much was an hour and that that pretty much stayed that way until he changed the format late seventies. So you're saying from the instrumentals all the way to Clay Tyson, it's man's world before intermission. That's kind of like forty five minutes. I mean the bathroom breaks ten minutes obviously, and then he does fifty minutes to an hour and into the show. Okay, and your observation. They're doing this four to five times a day. They were up until sixty nine not kissed this when he started. Where do you feel the best show normally? Is like? Or was there? No? There is no Ah, he didn't do that much energy tonight as opposed to like can he keep it up all five shows? No? So for you. But but what James Brown, the difference, the difference between the slow show and the hot show, it's not that vast. So who's in the audience that the one one clock on a weekday? Some old ladies, some drunks. School really so it's a weekday one pm. Police aren't in the audience, like shouldn't you be in school? They may have occasionally, I don't know. These says were sold out, No, they weren't sold out. Was he disappointed? Were like the late sixties? They were? But but it wasn't typical to sell out every show. You couldn't do me m hmm. Okay, I mean there were times where you would played a half a house at one o'clock in the afternoon, and that was not deflating to his ego or nothing. He was understanding that, oh it's one o'clock in the why would that? I mean, you got to see, this tradition goes back to the nineteen thirties, and I mean, I guess we've surmised that people in the nineteen thirties didn't have that much to do, and I don't know why, but but it's it's always been that. I mean it it's you know, the white vaudeville theaters in mid Tawm, Manhattan. We're doing the same thing, but they were doing it with Sinatra Woody Herman instead of James Brown, Duke Ellington. Um, it was just the world we lived in, and people would go to, you know, people who didn't want to fight the crowds at night because obviously the seven and ten o'clock shows were the busiest shows. And so depending on the demographic that in artists appealed to, Um, you know, it might be kids, it might be older people, it might be people who were bored and have nothing to do. I'd like to think that maybe the seven o'clock was the better show because that's where, yeah, you're off work and it's date night or something like that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just sleep weekends. But to answer your question directly, the hottest show was the midnight show on Saturday. See, I figure he'd be worn out by then. He might be, but but all the players is there. The audience is hot. Okay, you could you couldn't. You couldn't. You couldn't skate okay. And the other one was the Wednesday night Late Show because that's the amateur night that brought out the serious audience that was dedicated to amateur night. So we're amateur night fitting late on a Wednesday show on the Late Show? What time like after James is over? You know, I can't honestly tell you. And it was a separate audience, separate letout let it no, no, no, no no. It was like a movie theater. If you bought a ticket at one o'clock, you could stay there all day and all night. You could watch kids could come in on Saturday morning and watched four shows. Oh they didn't clear the no theater. Is it standing room or seats? There were? I mean, there's there's a little stupid in the Apology, they're standing room in the back, but it's of course it's seats. So but the people where they're pre brought tickets back in the day, like James Brown is coming May nineteen. No let me go and get tickets. You just lined up outside and as people left, they let people in. So it's like a nightclub in the theater exactly, you know, if if if, I mean there were times where they'd be lined up and actually be standing in line through a whole show that's going on inside because they're hoping they can get in for the next show. Now that's if you're hot. I mean, it wasn't typical of every week in every show, but by the time Brown really really got hot in the mid sixties, it was frequently like that, and there'd be a line around the block all the way up. But I would think that they would do a show, clear the place and let people buy tickets, like he could make more money, of course, and that's where he never once started that. Of course they did, and he insisted they do that at a certain point, and I want to say that point was either in or early sixty nine is when he went to the Apollo and said, look, what I'm doing this is do two shows. I'll do three on Saturday, and you got to clear the house. And was that foreign to them back in the day, Yes, absolutely, because it was the same. It was that's just how the theater was running. And it was typical of all these vaudeville theaters. So I could have bought a James Brown ticket for five dollars, walked and walked to the apollog two bucks three and seemed like calendar in sixties, one for me, one for you moms, two dollars in the nineteen sixty seven, that's me spending two bucks today. Maybe I don't know, but I mean I bet the earliest show and we were saying one o'clock, but maybe he was two o'clock, three o'clock, but I don't know. But never any later than that, and the first show was probably for a buck except on weekends. I mean envisioned an old movie theater. What a time to be alive. Yeah, I mean it was crazy. Now, obviously shows had to be an automatic pilot at some point, because it's it's just how can even if you're not physically tired, how do you get mentally amped? Particularly somebody like Brown or his band who worked so hard and then you come off stage and they basically show a film. Yeah, but but like yeah, short in the joke all was was they'd find the worst movies because they were trying and encourage people to get up and leave. Really yeah, okay, um, I'm cheating right now on my calculator. By the way, So if I were to play two dollars to see James Brown in, yes, fifteen bucks and okay, so that's still cheap. Yeah, and you could have seen like four shows that day for absolutely and so the standards of the day and back then, because then I would think, Wow, you see this joke before or you've seen this song before, like the same people. But no, I mean obviously everybody didn't do that, right, There's there's a handful of nuts who just either really love the artist. I'm raising my hands. They got they got absolutely nothing else to do, you know, they found some good weed. They don't want to build their group, so they just okay, um, wow, for two bucks, you could just have the best entertainment of your life right all day? What's this? What's this merch teme? Look like we're there t shirts back then or like programs program There were programming books starting in I guess the earliest when I was, but that was from a tour. Wasn't in the theater. But they saw programmed books. And they used to have hats that would have a little picture of him in the band and um, you know, different jokes. But they never had T shirts. T shirts were the thing then. It wasn't some programmed books and photos. You get a glossy or button. You know, they had saying loud buttons they sold. Well, okay, okay, So the show is over, and how long does it break? Before forty five minutes? Maybe an hour? I mean I have to sit and do the math. I can't, you know, it's been a long time. But all right, so let's say forty five minutes. I'm his drummer. What am I doing? All right? There's there's in all these theaters. And this goes for the Howard Washington uptown in Philly, in regally exactly from that circuit again old Vaudeville thing. There's a chalkboard backstage mhmm, and the stage manager of the theater puts up what's called the half hour, and in Vaudeville parlance, what that means is this is a half hour before the next show starts. If the next show is going to start at eight o'clock, then the half hour seven thirty post that in advance to let everybody in the cast know, you gotta be back here at That was the rule. You gotta be back in the house a half hour before the show starts. Okay, Now what you do up until that time is your business. So you can go up to the dressing room and go to sleep. You can go down in the basement and shoot craps, you can go down the street. Those dressing rooms are small as hell though, and I'm certain that James and his enter I Stuart taking up most rooms. So where does the band go in the basement? Don't now the Apollo is nice now, ye, No, the basement looked like rats. Yeah, it was rough. I mean, it wasn't anything like it it's now. It wasn't. It wasn't puddles of water in the corner. It was like the basement of some factory or something. That's so weird because in the basement I think would hurts there. Actually, the shows would open Friday. They would play Friday through Thursday, and on Thursdays. The next days the new show would rehearse in the basement. So when you're upstairs the James Brownson was playing up there, then there might be Sam and Dave in the basement working with the house band to get ready for tomorrow's opening. While that shows the that's crazy. So wait a minute, um, So in the laundry room in the basement of the Apollo, there's now a sign that hangs. It says like this is now the Flip Wilson room, because Flip Wilson would play here five nights a week and he would just set up Uh. He would put a couch in the laundry room and sometimes sleep here overnight. I would assume the saved cash whatever. But you're saying that the basement was less than desirable. It's not want to spend the night, but do what you gotta do. Wow, okay, okay. Food wise, is there catering back then or do you you just if if you could afford it, you sent some gophers out to go down the street with James was like, are you kidding? Really, dude, we would get on his lerid jet. Now I'm fast forwarding to like seventies seventy one, we get on the ridge. He got it in sixty six. You're right, Um, but I'm talking about when I was there, and I don't speak when I was there and Danny raised one of his many gigs was to make sure there was food for Brown after the show went and there it because frequently we'd fly out, depending on what city we were in. He didn't like spending the night in small towns. So if we were playing Making Georgia, we would fly to Atlanta because he had a favorite hotel there. If we were playing, well, the same same thing wherever you were, if you were in you So he had, you know, different places where he liked the hotels and where they had late night food and things to do and so on. So so we gotta look if you happen to be flying with him on the jet play the jet only seats five or six people at Forget, but small. It's a small plane. And um, it would be Danny Raid who was just fatily, and Henry Stallings who was a bodyguards hair stylist, and maybe his wife, maybe his girlfriend, right, and then there'd be room if if he wanted to talk to one of the musicians, maybe Will be pe we your Fred the band leader, because he'd have an idea for a new song or want to change something in the show and make them fly with him. And on the weekends, because I wasn't on the road constantly. Our job was in the office Monday through Thursday, and then on Fridays, one or both of us would fly out and meet the show wherever it was and hang on the weekend and then go back to the office. Um, unless we had to go to another city to advance the promotion of an upcoming show. Let's say tickets were slow selling in Nashville, so maybe Brown, so you better go to Nashville and go visit the radio stations and give the promotion to boost you know that kind of thing. So we're not on the same schedule as the show. Um, but he you get the jet and there'd be food for him, but nobody else, nobody else, and you just sit there and watch the meat and it was you know, and you just realize he's the boss and this this, this is how he rolls, and and everybody else is on their own, and you know it's like, Okay, I can feed myself. I'm not gonna beg for food see my rule is that it's a different time by I have to buy five times as much because each member of the Roots is going to ask me for a little bit. Well listen, each one of the band could ask James for food, Do you gonna have a fronch frying? And he'd say no, that's all he got to learned his Nope. I always wanted to know, Um, because of the way that Otis riding passed away. Was he ever afraid of flying on lear jets afterwards? Or you know, was he like no more flying for me? He was a little afraid all along, even before Otis's accident. I mean, he was always a nervous flyer when it was bad weather. And I was actually in the jet in a lightning storm once and it wasn't fun. That thing bounced around like like ping pong ball. Um, it's a small light along to the next gig, Mr Brown, pretty much it was a bit of an adventure and you could see him tightening up. I mean he was you know, he wasn't crazy, but he loved the convenience of it, the idea that he could play some stupid town and then and I mean, if I use the same example if we played Making Georgian, he didn't want to stay there. We'd be in Atlanta in the hotel by twelve thirty. You know, show comes down at ten thirty or eleven, and he drives off and you get out and you're in a plane by twelve, and you know, well, okay, maybe not twelve thirty, but wonder one thirty. You know, it's still doable hours in a major city, you can probably still find something decent to eat. I have a question about advances. Normally, at least a day, tour managers collect the money now, at least in our standard today, when you book an act, uh, you're supposed to have half the money up front in months in evance, three or four months in evance, and before said act goes on stage, maybe an hour before, you're supposed to settle advances and get the rest of the deposit before they go on stage. Was it always that protocol or did you guys have to wait until all box office for seats were counted Because we were promoting most of the shows ourselves. We were waiting for somebody to pay us. It was our money. So who's there to count like, who's there to make sure that you know manager personal manager when I'm on the road, me or Bob Patton, who was my colleague with booking New Tour, whichever one of us was there, we were all there. We would all go up and we would do the settlements. But the settlements wouldn't You had to wait for the box office to close. So if the show started at eight, chances are you can't start settling until there's no deposits because we're renting the buildings. Were the promoters? I see? So who's to stop? Said? Uh, let's all right in. We're in Chattanooga, Tennessee, right now at a at a theater. So who's to stop the I mean the guy that the house manager, somebody from letting is eight family members in for free? Like you know that there's six hundred seats in the theater and you know the show sold out? Sir? Are you saying that, okay? Well six tickets at you know? Whatever? Are you? Who's doing force? If someone comes short? All right, here's what happens the box office. And you know there were variations on this, but let's use the the standard rule. The box office of a venue would give you a report at some point on ten o'clock at night, and on that report would be how many tickets were sold at which price, because you have different prices, three tickets, all tickets or whatever, how many comps came to the door, And if the number of comps was reasonable, you wouldn't squawk about it, because if if, if, if you had a successful date and and the manager of the building one to let his kids in. To use your example, it's like, I'm not going to make an issue of that because we want to play that building again, and I want this building manager to give us first DIBs at good dates. We would even tip them literally literally tip them. Yeah, I mean, these weren't city employees. And I talk about this in the book too, and how different the business was about then basically what the book is about. And um, they were city employees that made, you know, very middle class if if that income they're on salary from the city that manage these these m arenas. Oh so they weren't privately owned, No, it's it's it varied. Do you take five venues, the structures of them might be completely different if you're playing a theater and might be privately owned. If you're playing a dance hall, it might be it might be a local promoter who rented the building and you're dealing with that promoter. Um, if you play the apollo, you're dealing with in the theater. But if you're playing an arena, which is mostly what we were doing when I was there, the guys who run those buildings are they're usually city owned buildings. Okay, you go to Roanoke, Virginia's Cincinnati. Um, there's there's no Donald Trump building arenas there was, you know, and this was before they were sponsorships in the arena's all had names of banks and stuff on him, because he didn't have that. And even then, if if, if, if the bank is sponsoring an arena, it doesn't mean they run. There's still a guy who's got the job to run the arena, run the box office and so on. And these are not guys get rich. They're just start a city salary. If it's assuming it's the city owned building. So um, you know, so you can look together. Way as long as the cops were koshers, you know, five comps gonna fight, but you know, if it's twenty, who cares? And mind you, we would also give out comps to radio people and newspaper people, and you know, anybody was going to help us build the promotion. So cops were like, it was you know, it was a commodity that we could use to influence the promotion. So there'd always be a certain amount of comps. But but here's the deal. If you didn't trust the promoter or the building for any reason at all, the only way you could deal with it then was count the ticket stubbs to see if the ticket stub counts. Because you get a stub, they tear the ticket when you come in and throw it in a bucket and keep the stubbs right. So there were nights where we literally had to sit down and count thousands of ticket stubs, and you'd be there till two in the morning because you felt something about the report was fishy. It's like, well, I mean, if there's ten thousand tickets ten I was in seats in here, the place is jam packed, and you're telling me you sold tickets. M hmm, it's bullshit. So now I'm going to count the ticket stubs. Now. What stopped them from pulling out a thousand stubs before I got up there? Nothing? So there were sometimes where we actually would put a guy on the door with a clicker really to count the people that came in so that you could then match that. In some venues, the tickets were just rolls of tickets and were numbered, and you get the number of the starting ticket so you could do the math at the end of the night. It was a moment pop business. So I have a question. I would assume that you guys were the standard or the best game in town for a black tour And during that period, what stopped MYB activity from wanting to I was getting ready to go there? Yea, what stops MYB activity from saying like, oh, like now, it's hard to do because corporations, like if you remember that Sopranos episode where where Tony's guys like going to the Starbucks for the first time and they're trying to shake down the Starbucks and then it's slowly realizing like, oh, this isn't like a mom and pop operation like art, and they realize like, oh, ship, we're dinosaurs because we can't shake down a corporation like we used to, so or not? What stops like have people try to I want a piece of the action. How do you wrangle out of that? Like how do you You don't have a manager who's mommed up, you don't have a booking agency that's mobbed up, and you're not on a record company that's mopped up. And there were mobbed influences in all three of those areas, but there were protects you. Who protects you from someone trying to edging? Who's to stop age Knight of the sixties. The only thing I can say is this. When I went to work with James, one of the things he told me is if anybody fishy ever tries to buddy up to you and acts like they want in or want to get next to me, or become your friend and make offers that sound too good to be true, let me know immediately. And that was his way of saying, don't let that happen. Mm hmmm. And I can only say that he was smart enough and discriminating enough about who he hired that there was never one of us in a position that could have encouraged that kind of development. And I'm sure it was trying meeting to listen to my I've had pieces of studios, recording studios in New York. The Mob had certain a lot of independent record labels, were bopped up. There were several booking agencies that booked Black Guardians that were mopped up, not all of them. They were everywhere time out, Time out, ladies and gentlemen. I knew you hate when this happens, but you know it had to happen. Yes, you're gonna have to wait for a part two of this story with Allen Leads. Of course, he has a gazillion stories. And yes, you Prince fans, I'm not gonna leave you out. You know good and well. He's gonna tell some print stories in addition to Moore James Brown stories. So tune in next week for another epic episode of the Allen Leads Quest Love Supreme return show. Thank You Court Love Supreme is a production I Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app Apple Podcast Asked or wherever you listen to your favorite shoes