"That-one-song" writer, Allee Willis talks shop from her days as a songwriter for Earth, Wind & Fire and The Rembrandts.
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Of course. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. What up, y'all? This is like yeah, and this week's quest Love Supreme Classic is all about a true legend. Her name was Allie Willis. We lost her a couple of years ago, but before that, she sat down with the Quests and Team Supreme September nineteen as she was also being honored as Songwriter of the Year. Uh yeah, who is this person who has the color purple, friends, and earth, wind and fire in common. It's Allie Willis and we break it all down this episode, So listen, learn and celebrate the life of a really cool lady. Sum sumo roll call, Subma, roll call, Suprema Suprema roll call. I'm slightly out of it. Yeah, I'm a little sick. Yeah, my favorite gam of all time. Yeah. September by Taylor Swift roll Call, Subprema, Subprema road Call. My name is Sugar. Yeah. I always wanted to ask how high are you when you wrote New Tron Dance Supreme Suprema roll Call, Suprema Subrema roll call. Yeah, all's here, Get up. Yeah, I'm so high. Yeah. We're about the steering up. Rolla suprema roll call subprema subprema roll call him alle Yeah from the valley Land in New York. I'll take that sa suprema suprema road. Wow. Okay. We were a little scared when we started the theme because it was only normally it's like nineteen billion of us. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very anemic Question Love Supreme. I'm your host, Quest Love. Uh, the show must always go on. Uh we're here today with it's like Yah and Sugar Steve. Hello people. I will say that if you know me or if you know us well at the Quest Love Supreme, we've been here for a year and some change. Uh, then you know that we're all about looking under the hood to see what's under the surface. And today is no different. Uh quick quick backdrop story. So back in March, when uh Taylor Swift pulled a a Master three Michelin star troll move, were there were there were there were their cover of the uh the Cousin Pete Family Reunion Barbecue approved rendition of September most of us called the raisin Potato Salad remix. Um. You know uh as expected, black Twitter was up in arms because that's what Taylor Swift does well. Um. But little did we know that we had a lesson coming to us, and so we were most of us were beyond certain that all the authors of that song, uh were the blackness of the black. We just we just knew we were spitting up all of our facts and everything. And I mean we just yeah, that's that's the barbecue. Like to me, that's the blackest song since uh, coming up the rough side of the mountain in my opinion. Anyway, we just naturally assumed that the authors of the song where the members of birth, Win and Fire and Um. That theory was extinguished quick fast and uh with the help of the University of Google. Uh, we quickly discovered that our guest today has indeed earned her PhD h her her lifetime barbecue pass by writing, um, and I don't I don't even say like classics or hits like she's she's damn never written half of my memories and some of that. And I'm not talking about like the outright here, I'm talking about like I've never played the game of oh crap. She wrote that too. I've never had more fun discovering her, her her legacy, and and and her her songcraft and her life more than our guest today, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to of course Live Supreme. Ali Willis's White Willis. But but the right was the right alley? Well it's plus everyone thinks I'm a black man when when I meet anyone, they go, ship, you're a woman and you're white, So you know, uh so I should note that you are getting inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Yes tonight. What can I ask? What took so long? Because exactly exactly, which is why I never gave a ship about being in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, because there were a lot of people you know who uh we're in there, who had hits definitely not necessarily ones that you might know fifty years from to day. So I just assumed, you know, I was passed over. Didn't mean a lot to me, And then when I got it, I was so excited I couldn't stand it. So it doesn't mean a lot. And I'm elated. Well I'm I'm elated for you because you know, well one you know, as as a person that lives for uh liner notes and credits. I mean, maybe it's just easy to overlook a name or something. You know, you you've been, You're ubiquitous, yet you're under the surface in the eyes of many a liner note rat. But once we discovered what you did, it was like, yeah, it's I you know, I'm the world's best kept secrets. So well, hopefully hopefully not for long. Um, So I want to go back to your beginnings you were now even though you said from the valley, and well where half of that I was. I was born in Detroit, the greatest city in the world. What part of the George east west northwest? I went to Mumfordwest on the show, Yeah, Northwest. Um, A lot of people came out of my high school. The Winans went there, the Clark sisters went there, Earl Clue, Jerry Bruckheimer, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was what was your entry into music? Because I know that you had a history as a a copywriter at Columbia Columbia. I was a journalism major with a minor in advertising at the University of Wisconsin, and someone told me that they had advertising departments at record companies. So, um, I got a job as a secretary at Columbia and epic. Um almost didn't get the job because I they sent me upstairs when I interviewed for a typing test, and I literally was on my eleventh time of failing and the typing to do, you know, like you have to do like a hundred words a minute. I was taking the something to you and yeah, you're actually reading something and you have to type um, and I just I wasn't getting it. But then the head of the advertising department called upstairs where I was taking the test and said send her down because they just found out that day that the secretary was quitting. So um, I got the job. But then within a month I was bumped up to junior copywriters, so my I was in charge of all the minorities, which were blacks and women. That's all I cared about anyway, And um so sometimes I broughte the liner notes, but usually I was writing print ads for like Rolling Stone cream uh line, and it's for all those Columbia records, so like, well, no, it was up to me to actually get the acetates as soon as the artist finished the record and then write all the advertising for it. So that was radio commercials, print ads, some cases, TV but not so my main people that I well, I met Jannie Choplin the first day that um, I was actually a secretary. She passed away five days later, but I got in there and then I eventually moved into her apartment. So yeah, I have a lot of stuff like we like I saw Otis Redding's plane crash. I mean I have a lot of stuff like this. Tell us well about Otis. Did we start with Janet because like he said, you met her Jane well, and then I was writing promo for Pearl, the album that came out actually right after she died, but of course we didn't know she was gonna die. So um, Johnny Cash, I did early stuff for my main artist that I was in charge of, the Laura Nero, uh Barbera Stars and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Um. They were consigned to Family Stone. Were they considered an urban act? Yeah? They were put in with the Black Act because they had horns? I yes, yeah, not not explained to me. I'm glad you hear it because well, it's not like we have Clive on the show ever. Uh he was like, yeah, so this is the closest I'm gonna get to it. Um, do you remember what the atmosphere was like when you guys we're given the final master too, there's a riot going on because I figured that on the heels of stand and Woodstock and the Greatest record. It's like, oh, this is gonna be the monster and you get it and it's a whole other thing. Yeah, what was the what was the room like? Um? Uh, people who were die hard Slide fans loved it and felt like he was progressing. But I think most of the record company they wanted, you know, dance to the music and everyday people and they were getting you know, thank you for letting me be myself or you. Yeah, so there it was a mix. I remember there was some like panic in the room that maybe this wasn't gonna be a hit think but uh, you know we were coming up from Detroit. Yeah. I want to ask you at this point how your parents felt about your journey, because we know that Joe Daddy wasn't really Yeah, we can thank him for my career though, because the more resistant, the more it pushed me. Um, he was not a bigot though, he really wasn't a bigot. He did it more to push my buttons, you know, and he knew that the Black Thing was gonna be like the thing that put me over the up. Yeah, Archie Bunker though, I think believed it a little more than my dad. You know. My thing is growing up in Detroit. I grew up right when Motown was like formed and coming up. So I used to go down there every time I could. Started when I was twelve, I think, and Uh, I would sit out on the front lawn because you could just watch people, you know, walking in and out. But most importantly, you could hear through the walls. So yeah, to certain instruments. You could hear bass, you can hear drums. Sometimes you could hear background from the law. Yeah, because it was just in a little house, so you know, if you were sitting close enough to the house, which is how the Supremes got discovered, they were also sitting out in front. And uh, I think Mickey Stevenson, who was head of A and R, came out on the front porch and said, can anyone sing? I mean, I wasn't there for that. How many people are sitting on the lawn on the day. You had to be really dedicated. There were always like tourists around, but there were a few people who were like planted there. Was it a twenty four operation? I'm thinking of the safety like okay, well not to really blew up their spot. But like in Brooklyn, uh, the the the depth tone uh headquarters, which was Sharon Jones, people like their operation is very similar. Where it's in a neighborhood, Um, I don't I'm not quite certain or a where if the neighborhood knows what goes on in that house. Um, But I always wonder, like with Motel, like, was it a twenty four hour operation? Was it secure? It's you know, I mean we're like was never I was never there at night? But my understanding is yes, twenty four hours. Yeah, yeah. But you know during the day there'd always be tourists there, um, and then there would be you know the lawn sitter. Um. There's actually a little patch of dirt now you know today right in front of the big you know those big historical landmark, those green and gold they're not plaques, they're big, they're like five feet all and it says Motown Studios and it gives the history. So there's a little patch of dirt because people stand there to read the plaque. But um, I'm really friendly with everyone running Motown now, which is headed by Barry Gordon's niece Robin Terry. So there's talk of naming that patch of dirt for my ass space. Yes, yes, which would be my proudest moment ever. So when did the Motown people, whether it be Berry or whoever the artist is, when did they discover that you were who you were? Like? Uh? Not until Motown the musical? Oh really yeah, because I never got inside. I was always outside. And then when when September first came out, and then and then Boogie Wonderland, Um, the Detroit Free Press did a thing, you know, like the Local Girl Makes Good and that that was the first time I was ever in the studio because they did the story in the studio. Then I never ever went back in until I did this project that I worked on for five years, and this would have been maybe two thousand fourteen that I actually got into Motown and we recorded a piece of the this project there, which was a five thousand detroitters as lead singers. Uh doing a song about Detroit. Um, five thousand lead singers? Yeah, and uh yeah. It was crazy. Took five years, and there's also a visual component to it. All self funded. Nearly killed me, but I love that city and I'll do anything. And then only within this last year was I introduced to Rob and Terry. They heard about my collection because I have a very vast uh pop culture kitchen kitch pop culture kind of off the center line. So they came out to see it because I have a lot of Motown stuff, like really obscure stuff. And then I became inseparable from them. They they flew out for a day. Uh. And then just in Detroit, like three weeks ago, they threw me a party and and I had my birthday uh at Motown. That was a surprise party that happened there. So everyone that was on the tour her, you know, they stopped. They played this little film when you start the tour. It's the have you ever seen that film? Oh my god, Oh you'll have a heart attack. It's like classic Motown footage, but not that you usually see. And it's the first thing that they show you when you take the tour. So then they stopped the tour and they said, uh, you know, ladies and gentlemen, we know how much Motown means to you know, everyone, but there's a certain person that you know is here today because you know, I never learned how to play. I write the music too, but I don't know how to play, and it's I write the exact same way that I did when I sat out on the lawn, because I learned bass parts because that's what you could hear, or i'd learned like drum patterns, and I still right that way. I'd like kind of hear something and you know then it uh, it goes down anyway. So they they said, you know, it meant more to this person than anyone, and then the whole place saying the happy Birthday was pretty unbelievable. That was amazing. Yeah, that was amazing. So my Motown thing, though, is new, and I never met Barry Gordy, which was a quest of mind forever. And when Motown the Musical opened in Detroit, it's at a theater that is literally right down the block from Moto down. Um and uh, but one of my friends directed Motown the Musical, Charles Randolph, right and uh, he said, you're meeting Barry Gorty. And I had had a camera because I have videoed my life since nine, so really, yes, literally every significant moment and trillions of the insignificant ones and uh everything, everything's out of there. And uh, anyway, so I saw Charles go off to Barry Gorty and I could hear Barry Gordy going she wrote what? She wrote what? And then I got to meet him. I have all of this on filmed, and uh, you know, as I'm giving him kind of my final hug, I thanked them and he said no, thank you, which to me were the greatest words ever uttered to me in my life because I idolized him forever. I mean, we're still thinking thank you. That. That's crazy. Wait, so how old were you when you left? At? How long did you when I went to college, which was seventeen. Then I would come home for vacations, and then once I was twenty one, I went to New York. Yeah, I went to New York and that was it. So what was the uh did you have any twenty grand experiences up into Choita? Only in that I was always nine to go there, you know. I mean I went a couple of times. But that Baker's Keyboard Lounge. Do you know about Baker's h Bakers is really where the Funk Brothers came from. It's still in existence. It's a jazz club, and um, you know the Motown the Funk Brothers, they were all jazz players, so um, most of them came out of there. But it was you know, my father did not like me, uh having the he's uh tastes that I had for black culture, so I wasn't really allowed to go out. He couldn't stop me from going to Motown, especially once I got my driver's license. But I always like to say I did get the last word with My father passed away in two thousand two, and the very very last words that I said to him, I leaned down and I whispered in his ear. I just got the gig to write the color purple and he was gone within the hour. So whatever he put me through, I got him good. Oh God, sibling wise, are you the only sibling or no? I have an older brother and sister, one still in Detroit. My sister lives in Omaha, but they did not have a fascination with Detroit the way that I did it child youngest. Yeah. Um, so back to so when you left and uh college and whatnot? When did you did you go to Ellen Nixon? Um? I, well, I had the job at the Record company from sixty nine actually to seventy four. But in nineteen seventy two I wrote my first song and I took it to my boss at the record company, the head of the advertising department. Actually I took the first three that I wrote, and UM he took those two a guy named Ron Lexembourg. He was the head of every at the time, and then Alexembourg, not knowing it was me because it was a conflict of interest to work there and being our and I didn't want to lose my job. Um. Alexembourg liked it and then took it to Clive, so Clive had to sign off on it, and then I got a deal, so I had to quit UM. And I had one album that came out first ten songs I ever wrote, did not make it actually got great reviews, but it had zero sales. So UM I was doing four. I only did four live appearances. I was terrified of performing UM. The first performance they put me opening for a folk singer, I had an all black band dressed as sequin vegetables, and everyone in my band like went on to do something great. Yeah, well Bob Babbitt, who was UM. They liked me. I don't know. The greatest thing is that tonight at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, the background singer is the very very first singer singer that I ever hired to be in my band at the time, Fonzie Thorn. He's getting no no, he's he's singing, uh backgrounds on Neutron Dance in September, which like Luther, like just name it, like well, like best friend Luther since kindergarten. But the amazing thing is Luther was Fonzie's piano player and and Fonzie actually had a group. There were three of them, and so I ended up hiring the three of them and leaving Luther behind. Luther was pissed off, but Luther that that was my very first music click. That was like family to me. Now that you're here, all right, I gotta ask you, quasi person, does the name Billie Jackson mean anything to you? I mean, I know, uh formally other times. I know he wrote so in Love for the Times, but he was also a staff producer at Columbia. No, I don't think I know the same Billie Jackson. But uh, so in Love is absolutely my favorite all time records anyway, So um, Uh, so what happened was, so I go out on tour. It was disastrous. I never relaxed one second on stage, and um, I didn't want a tour anymore. And then I lost my deal like four months after the album came out. That night, one of my my best friends were the Harlotte's. They sang you know, Bette Midler and one of them Sharon Red, who went on to have like a bunch of like disco things. Sharon Red, that was my best best She was a Harlot Sharon Red, Yes, and as Charlotte Crossly Charlo do you know Sharlo? I don't know that name, but yeah, Sharon Red, Yeah, who were sharing ray? Why should we know her? Well, she had a bunch of disco here, you know. Yeah, you just but as I know that name. So I lost my record deal. She said, you shouldn't be alone come to this recording session I'm doing. I don't want to be at a recording session if I've just lost my deal, you know. Um. But she was like adamant about it, and I went and it was another one of these unbelievable things that I am blessed to have happened to me. We opened the door to the studio was the Hit Factory, which is where I also recorded my one album that came out and produced by Jerry Ragavoy by the way, and UM opened the door and the singer, who I didn't know, took one look at me, and she literally ran over to me and got on her knees and started bowing and said, what are you doing here? You should go home and write me a song. And it was Bonnie Ray. So I got my very first cover the next day, and I went on the road with her for a short while, singing backgrounds, and you know, then you figure, well, it's gonna roll, But it didn't roll. I'd get a couple of things cut a year, but nothing significant. And then Patty LaBelle in same person Sharon Red had my songs because the Harlott's got a record deal and it was with the same producer was doing Patty LaBelle. Patty heard the songs and then flew me up to San Francisco. I was living in l A by that time, and flew me to San Francisco to make demos because they didn't have any money to make demos. She was just hearing like piano vocals and then Patty became the first one to regularly cut the songs. She said, I have a friend who's also up here recording. Go into Studio B. He needs lyrics. I hated just writing lyrics, and I didn't want to be with the friend. I'm finally with the big Cheese, So what do I want to be with the friend for? So for two days I avoid going into the studio. Um, she was in Studio A. He was in Studio B, way down the hall, and I was going walking down the hall and the door to Studio B open and I go ship that's the guy, and I head into the bathroom. So I'm in the bathroom. I had to pee anyway, So yeah, well it's I wanted to be with Patties. So um, anyway, I'm like sitting on the toilet and the door to the bathroom I fence, and I hear clump, clump, clump, and these two male feet slide under the bathroom door, and all he all are in this like deep voices like Patty said, it's a really good writer, you know, come into Studio B. So I go into Studio B, and I figure I'm trapped. I'm like a speed writer and out coming to the bathroom. No, no, no, it was no because I knew I was messing up by not going in. I mean, I'm, you know, I finally meet like a star and I'm already not doing what she you know, said, Yeah, well, this was overwhelming because we had he had all these tracks, and so I'm sitting across from him and were just firing these lyrics off. And it was not until the middle of the second song Swear to God that he had a phone call, and I really started staring at him, you know, and I went, oh, my god, it's Herbie handcuffed. Wait, do not tell me. This is how just Gonna run into Me got written? Yes, exactly exactly. That was the first one I we were out that before I realized it was Herbie Hancock. Sha. See, this is what you don't know. And I can't even believe you know that song. No you with This is what you don't know. That song is a very significant song to my my generation. My click. Another detroitter that you might not be aware of. A producer named Jay Diller. Oh you've heard of that? Yeah, he his gift If you're the term like oh musicians, musician or songwriter song. Yeah. Usually it's like an obscure person that the regular people don't get, but only the special people get. Yeah, he was the producers, producers, producers, so and not even to put myself in that category, like only the special people got this guy. But what he managed to do, of course, you know hip hop works. A lot of work is derivative off of other people, you know, sampling and all that stuff. So, uh, which is weird. I'm saying this as of this date, eighteen years ago. Uh, Fantastic Volume two came out today as of this speaking. I'm sure that this will go on way, this show be it right right? Yeah, but uh, you know, normally in an album like Sunlight wouldn't have necessarily gotten a second look. I mean there's some classics on it, but it wasn't until Jay Dillon made us pay attention to it and especially just come running to me. That means that's almost like you know, you're tired of people telling you, like how much the friends theme means to them. I never get tired of it. That's like for the Neil Soul generation. Yeah, yeah, that that means everything, like of all you like, of all these things you've done. Yeah, that song means the most to be that is so shocking because I couldn't even sing it to you. Now, that's like how little. I mean, there's the reason why I like, I hired vote order players and stuff. Even when I was like really like that's what you worked with, I got everything else, like why that's all amazing? Well, we we wrote like three or four songs like that Day, of which that was you know, one of them, and then it was The Feats Do Fail the next album. Yeah, and it was almost like the sequel to it. Yeah, but that's you know, dog, the fact that that almost didn't happen and you were avoiding. It only happened because he had nerve to come into the bathroom. I wish Bill was here, man can yes? Okay, So basically, uh uh okay, play the original. I haven't done this in so long because you know, I haven't heard it since then. So basically, literally I have maybe the last time I heard this was night. I listened to this about ten times a week. I don't understand how you write something like this without knowing how to just fall on I mean, because I didn't, I didn't know how to play, so I had to, like teach myself. He wrote the music first and told you to come with lyrics music. Well, yeah, and then I sat with him and we wrote the lyrics. Yeah. That's it's crazy to me because I don't even is this the first time that he sang lyrics to? Yeah, And it's why I never put together really that it was Herbie handcut, because what does he need lyrics for? But he had just gotten the vote co order. Wait, I never, like I heard Herbie sing before. Yeah, h m hm, unbelievable. I haven't heard that in so long, so for us at least, um, hang on one second, Oh, you're gonna get the day, yes, of course. What was your singing voice? Like? Uh, my singing voice is as high as my speaking voice is low, like like in the oh zone. Yeah, it's like my hand Well wait, that's the thing I want to know. Um well, I really want to get to boogie wonder Lamp. But you're the imagery, like what all your subject matters and yours are just on the next level, Like as far as the imagery, if I'm left to my own devices, they it is. But um certain so, like I was very upset writing September, even though I was so excited I couldn't stand it. But it was such a song lyric lyric, and you know, I was this journalism major. I wanted to write this you know, incredible poetry or uh, you know, story and not have lines be as common as do you remember the September Love was changing the minds of pretenders while chasing the clouds away that cloud line. I was ready to slip my wrist. But um, you know you're writing in that case with Maurice and uh and al McKay also, who's unbelievably fantastic. But the lyric end of it was just with Maurice. Um. But for such a happy song. Yeah, well dark as Boogie Wonderland, that's the one that's really dark. Well in the verses. But um, but I learned an incredible lesson, the single most important lesson of my songwriting career from Maurice during September, because I was very Um. He always used the term or the nonsensical word body when he would write anything. So if it was like he was doing that's the way of the world, you know, he would have gone yeah. Um. So that came right at the top of the chorus of September You know Body, Sadie, remember Body dancing in September? Body, I never was a cloudy day. So I kept saying throughout the writing because we wrote September to be the only the a new single on the Greatest Hits, and at the same time we were writing the whole I Am album, so um, it took you know, months to actually complete any of the songs because they were all being written at once. Um. So for September, I kept saying, oh my god, this is such a hit. We can't leave Body. It's gotta be like real words. And at first he was kind of humoring me. It's like, okay, well like replace them, but we don't need to do it now because we know this section works. So we are at the at midnight. Uh. We were at Sunset Sound in l A. And uh, um, the whole album was due, plus September had to be out of the studio at midnight. It was like ten minutes to midnight, and I went into the studio and I did literally get on my knees and I'm clutching his thighs. The man had the best eyes in the music industry. I gotta and yeah probably and um begging like we have to change body out of real words. In his biography, he actually says, I was crying, Wow I did this. So I was very emotional about this because I think, oh my god, this song's gonna go in the toilet because no one's who's gonna know what body means? By then body was in the earthword of fire Alexica. They had done yeah as prominently, but yes, yeah, and uh like sun goddess or something like um in your head what would have fit? That was part of the problem. Everything was corny, you know, because you only have three syllable examples, like well, when we did try and white words, it was still stuff that nauseated me, like you know, oh my love or you know yeah, yeah, no, no, it was hitting. It was hideous so um anyway, but I'm still begging him, and you know, he was calm. It took a lot to like rile him. I to this day, like never saw him angry or anything or lift his voice to it, you know, to anyone, just this serene being. And so I finally said, I like, scream, what the fund does body on mean? Um? And he just said, who the funk cares? And that was That was the end of it, and then the record was out in three weeks and my life changed. Are tell me change? Because that was the barbecue jam. Yeah, no, it still is. It's the song that Wouldn't Die. It's it literally gets bigger every year. I mean to know more about body, I like we did Maurice. I mean, it's just a random sound. They've just always you know, since that's the way the world open our eyes. They just I could tell you about do you know? Uh, I know you'll know it, um hot dog it because that, to me is one of my favorite Maurice vocals. And that's all uh I can't really actually remember who's that dogging around is the only actual vocal in there. Otherwise it's all type just phrases and sounds. All right, we we Major Lee skipped went straight to earthword Fire. I want to get to Can't Let Go. But let's let's go back to another one that I thought insignificant, and that song let Go. Yeah that is. I still that's still my DJ like that to me, that should have been I think it was a B side of something think yeah, but it should have. It should have been hit like that. To me, that's incredible that it's my obscure more. I'm scared ones that you like what I love indible Wait wait talking to Angelfield anyway, I don't know the title track to be one album that really didn't make it. Something about You said, is it between two Tough and Angel of the Night. But the Angel of the Night. Here's the funny stories that even though that didn't get much I mean of her first four records, like my Dad was the biggest Angelo Buefield, that album I didn't get that much play. But here's the funny thing, uh growing up and be don't touch my don't touch the stereo household. There was a scratch on side one of that Angelo Bufield record. So you're and so you know, the way that our stereo was position was like far away from We had speakers all over the house, universal speakers, but the stereo was in the living room, so like if you want to change it, you gotta go downstairs. Like you can listen to it in anywhere with the house, but you still had to. Yeah, and so because of the way that the wax culture is, I think it's the first line of the second verse of Something about You, which I thing is you've been hungry too long? It always skips my cousin's wizen dirty words as you hug me too, hug me too, since you've been ship used to always skip and that memory that is etched in my brain liken't I can't even remember? Was the courts, like yeah, that's all I remember though, Yeah, but it's just like yeah, But the thing is is that I used to word that. He used the word hungry all the time and lyrics though, so I know that's me all the time. So what were you hungry for everything all the time? Okay? So as a songwriter? Okay, I'm taking back to her seventy seven year in the bathroom. So yeah, how how terrified was it living check to check? Like? And how does a songwriter make a living in l A Like? This is like you just wait for the quarter to come? Did you get a publishing deal? Did you? Like? How does that work? I know I was pretty starving to death when I first lost the job at um Columbia Epic. I became a hat check girl at comedy clubs, so at catch Arizing Star and then there was a club called Reno Sweeney, which was a cabaret that bet Melissa Manchester Barry Manilow Manhattan transfer came out of there. Yeah. So I um was hanging coats at Reno Sweeney and well at both of the clubs. Yeah, and I was also hanging posters. I was going around the city with like glue and ship. Um. But I moved to California because it was if I'm gonna starve to death, I'm doing it in the sun. So I actually moved in seventies six, and uh no, I was getting I was on unemployment, um really not making money at all. I did get one publishing deal with like a five thousand dollar advance, which to me was like a million dollar. Um was going home back home ever an option no, because of my father situation and letters like hey Dad, I'm doing fine, and it was like yeah no. And every time I got a record cut, it was by a black artist and then I'd have to go through the whole like conversation again. So not. I only got re at Hatch to Detroit, uh, seven or eight years ago, and then I became obsessive about it. I always loved it in my heart, but I wasn't going back constantly. Um So, so he wasn't impressed with September and dad, I got a number one. Not not to my face, but I always heard from all my friends like, you know, if we see your dad walking down the street, we got to go to the other side because they'll talk about you for two hours and he'll show us clip he'll show them clippings and all of this, but not not to me. Really didn't give it up until right at the end, and then I sent him out with the color purple. So even so, how do soul writers get paid? Is the artist like, Okay, i'll see your starving. Here's here's a couple of hundred bucks just to it was really, you know, all my friends were songwriters, my whole little click. Some became performers. Those people we're making money. But the ones that were just songwriters, we were basically just starving together. It was quite an illustrious group. Everyone went on to like have hits and all pretty much around the same time. We all kind of hit at the same time. But no, we were collecting unemployment and um, really that's it. Like when Patti LaBelle paid for me to go to San Francisco, that was it. It's you know, my the Harlettes were up there, you know, which is how she heard it, so they were like giving me money for food and she paid for the tickets. So so that tasty album, Yeah, Patty, was that the only time you work were there? Before you got to Stir It Up? I was on a couple albums of her. I had a couple of songs per album for two or three albums. Yeah, Stir it Up was like way a well relatively way off. Okay, okay, uh so with I know that you also, Okay, I gotta get to it's it's big in b s. No, it's a lot. But how what was on your mind? I can tell you exactly. I've been waiting for this movie Other Jewels. She hold you too about the other one with oh yeah, okay, um okay, So Booky Wonderland I wrote with John Lynn. John Lynn had written Sun Goddess for Earth Wind and Fire, and he was kind of he was managed by the same Cavalla Ruffalo who you know managed Earth Winn and Fire. Denise Williams like yeah, Prince, yeah, oh that's the story I need to tell you. So remember Prince um and uh so, Maurice kept saying you you two should write together. So um this would have been in March, I think in eight, so I already knew I had a whole bunch of earth wind and fire stuff coming out, but nothing had come out yet. John had had something out and uh. We wanted to use the word boogie because every song had boogie in it at that time, but we didn't want to use it in the normal sense of the word, which you know, to dance. And um, I the night before I had seen the movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which Diane Keaton movie. She goes out to disco's every night like her life is completely falling apart, but she gets into the club and you know, her life is all of a sudden magical, and she brings home a different guy every night to sleep with. And uh, the audience has led to believe that one of these guys as a serial killer. Not what you thought you were going to hear from Boogie Wonderland. So we wanted to write a song about someone whose life was falling apart but would escape into this world of dance every night where everything would be okay. So we knew we wanted a really dark verse and we wanted a really sparkling happy chorus. So um the uh, and we wrote the song actually in order. Um, so the uh you know that verse which people always come up to me and they say, you Wonderland. It's such a happy song. And I always say, have you listen to the lyric? So, but people sing it like you know, you sing it phonetically. People sing along with it, but they don't know what they're singing. So the verses, uh, midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men who need more than they get. Daylight deal is a bad hand to a woman who's laid too many bets. The mirror stares you in the face and says, uh, baby, it don't work. You say your prayers though you don't care. You dance to shake the hurt. Then we wanted to Uh. The song was actually written in a different structure than they recorded it in because they go from that, they do the little dance boogie Wonderland chant, and then they go right back into sounds flight through the Night. I chased my vinyl dreams the boogie Wonderland. I find romance when I started to dance in Boogie Wonderland. Um. But we inserted the chorus in between the verses, so it went from this dark, depressing you're looking in the mirror and feeling like shit too. All of the love in the world can't be gone, all the need to be loved can't be wrong. All the records are playing in my heart keeps saying boogie Wonderland. Um, and we wanted that to sound almost Broadway ish and how happy that that music was. It was supposed to be like a a bipolar mood swing to the chorus. Yeah, um, and uh do you write these lyrics? Uh? Do you just come out with the complete prose or like, are you thinking of rhythmic structure? Are you thinking of because that's a lot you're You're placing a lot of poetic thought into the imagery. Yeah. But in my head, I'm like, Okay, well, how's this going to fit this line and this line and that line, and how can we Well we were we we we definitely wrote the music. We wrote the music to the verse first and then put the words to that. Then we jumped to the chorus music and lyrics. I mean every song is different. Um. I knew we were actually trying to write for Earth Wind and Fire. Um, but uh, you know, so we knew it had to have, like, you know, a certain rhythmic thing to it, and because the chords were so dark in the in the verse, that seemed to fit. And the first few lines of the chorus came easy, but we still didn't have boogie in it, and we we didn't know how to work it in, and we didn't really know what to call the song. And the course was last yes, and the words Bookie Wonderland War was the very last thing that we got. So what was it was originally called Johnny's Casino Lounge. So and we, yeah, we got the phone book out because we said, well, let's look up names at clubs. So we looked up clubs and we looked up bars, and one we like Johnny's, and then there was another one called the Casino Lounge. So the original chorus started out, um, come to Johnny's Casino Lounge. That was the original thing, you know, And then then we went, no, no, it doesn't sound important enough. Earth Wind and Fire is not gonna sing Johnny's seeing no lounge. So then we came to, uh, you know, all the eleven the wood can't be Gone. And when we got to all the records are playing, a mark keeps in. When we got there, it was we wanted Broadway, we wanted Cinderella, we wanted you know something, So that just felt like it was this incredibly broadway ish line. Neither one of us like theater at all, but it was you know what, is like my fair Lady or something. It just felt like that kind of melody to us. So once we got rid of Johnny's Casino Lounge, we tried to fit it in the end uh movie Johnny's Casino Lounge. You know, when you're writing these songs, are you thinking, first, let's write a hit, or you're just trying to express an idea. Well, in my head, I always wanted hits. So because I love later that's so complex. It is like it didn't dawn on me that anything was different about it, which it was, Yeah, because I my whole thing was there used to be this massive discussion between what is art and what is commercial. And I grew up on Top forty radio. I loved Top forty, So to me, the greatest songs were when you could mesh those two things together as opposed to making a decision between going one way or the other. So I was always trying to shove that in that song felt the whole way through, like, Okay, that is exactly what we're doing. So um but but Boogie Wonderland only came about because we realized that even though we set out to write a song using that word, we hadn't used it. So we went, okay, screw it. Instead of the club name, boogie Wonderland is gonna be. What this needs to be is the state of mind that this person is in when they go into the club. So that state of mind became boogie Wonderland. So are you having these philosophical discussions as you're doing it? Yes? And I love writing that way. So is there like a vision board or something like? Okay, so what do you want to write about? And I mean, you know, I I have written with thousands of stupid people. Thousands. It's a drag to write with someone stupid because you can't have these kind of discussions. I love having these kind of discussions because you really like break it down and you like, has became my all time this this is But John Lynn was someone you could have those kind of discussions with. So um uh, you know that was really one of those songs where you're kind of intellectualizing it the whole way. See, I just always felt that Boogie Wonderland was a I mean that to me was the when we talk about troll culture, uh the v V especially like in today's uh in internet society, when you speak of troll calls the the art of of of provoking someone whatever. Now usually in in the cannon in the songwriting cannon of Earth Wind and Fire Bookie Wonderland isn't necessarily in anyone's top ten, but I always surface earth Win Fire fans were like, they try to do a disco song, just missed it. And I always had to argue, I'm like, yo, like Boogie Wonderland and hey yeah are almost in the same He is in the same category. Like Dre's actually making fun of the audience that's embracing it, and he says like they're not even listening to the lyrics, where like he's literally saying, you know, people are just want to shake their ass, but they're not even peeping the darkness of the song. And I noticed always felt that Boogie Wonderland was done with a week. I thought it was let's make fun of this go well it was with a week. I need to get you the demo a Boogie Wonderland which you could actually get you right now because they do have it on my website. But um, it was we always felt like we wrote it as a song. They cut it as a groove like it was never meant to be all orchestrated like that. Um so, once you had the demo with the lyrics, then they can do whatever they So when you heard the final product, what you think, Uh well, I was at a bunch of the sessions. It took me to hear that song as an oldie to go, oh my god, it's really good. At the time, I thought they sucked it up. Yeah, yes, even though I was very excited, like we were at the string and horn sessions that just in terms of being in the room, but those kind of strings, those kind of horns, was exciting, but it did not feel appropriate for the song that we had written. I mean now, in hindsight, um, you know, I I absolutely adore it. But at the time it's like, what is all this stuff doing on here? You know? But even in your Broadway vision of it, because Earth One and Fire is theater, they are high, high theater. So yeah, we don't think they knew it at the time. So I always felt this is a multilayered troll. I can see that. Yeah, But the the demo was was different. The demo um, you would have to hear the demo John singing lead on that I will get you the demo. I think that would be really into a thing for you to hear. Also within in the Stone, we can't ignore that you wrote in the sto, Yeah, what is that about? At the time, I had no idea. You know, the first thing he ever said to me, Maurice, literally the very first thing was do you what do you know about Eastern philosophies? And it was like I knew nothing. I didn't even know what he was talking about. That I always say, I was as evolved his pop rocks. I was like, I was like strictly you know, pop culture, top forty radio, television, and you know, I knew he was into all this, you know, deep ship. So I said, I didn't know anything. So he gave me a list of books and sent me yes and sent me to a store in l A called the Bodi Tree, which was the Yeah, like just you could smell the incense like a mile. No, there's a I meant the culture is still there. That's it's not physically still there place. Yeah, someone that was associated with that place, that has another place similar to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. So. Um. He gave me ten books and he said, the one you have to start with. It was called The Greatest Salesman in the World. And I thought, oh, it's about advertising. I got this down and I opened it up and immediately it's not about advertising. It's you know, the profits and there in the old Egypt. And I got so confused immediately immediately, Um, but uh um in the Stone on that album, and I Am was supposed to be the song that kind of really got all of their philosophy in there. So I never understood it. As we were writing, he would basically tell me what he wanted to say, and I would give him ten different lines that that said that. Um, now, of course I understand everything. It's very let alone the phrase I am. He said, that's what I'm going to call the album. I said, what does I AM mean? Now, it's in every spiritual philosophy. You know that that there is, but you know very much about presence being in the now, in the stone. The fact that that um, you know, uh, culturally that everything kind of is pre written that man kind of there's this mindset for what man is and we have passed, and he very much believed in past lives and future lives. But that one I was flying by the seat of my pants. Did you have a good report and friendship with Maurice White? I'm only asking because, uh, what makes I AM really significant is the fact that even though even though all right so uh like and uh Steve, even though Maurice's Richard Nichols, which was Charles Stephanie, yeah, passed away, uh kind of leaving him to hold the ball and hold everything together, which I mean for the all into our record. I felt like that the just the sheer adrenaline of okay, now I have to drive this car and made Charles proud of me. But I always felt like because you, I mean, you come into play. But also David Foster, he brought us the same day, we were both brought in. You two were brought this. Did you guys work together per se or were you like separate kIPS? I know, on some songs together, and then I also did He had a solo album with Jay Grayden called The Airplane. Oh uh yeah, So Graydon and Foster were kind of a team at that point. You know what, I've had that Airplane album forever. I didn't know that was David Foster. Yeah yeah, okay, things on it record? Yeah, another I can't remember the single. I think, could it be all right something like that? It's a yacht rock classic. Okay, yeah, well I like it then, okay, Well, I mean if you like did this office rock? Yeah, it's smoothly not a classic. Well no, no no, but I love like that cheesy Kenny Loggins. You like kitsch art, yes, I love kitchen music, Yeah, so I do. The Airplay album is right up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was very one, which is when it was yea all that l a musician Toto. I live for this stuff, are you O? No? Toto was recording next door to us the whole way through I Am. We had both studios locked out for like a year. It's Set Sound or at Hollywood. Uh yeah. I AM was cut both at Hollywood Sound and at Sunset Sound. I have a good Hollywood sound story because Verdine Well Michael Jackson was recording next door to us a lot of the time. He would record during the day, total would come in at night. Um and uh so Verdine kept saying, Michael Jackson wants to meet you, and um, it just we never coincided that we were there at the same time. And I think it was eight one, I guess. Finally we're there at the same time, and he said, let's go right now, he's there. I go in. Michael Jackson stands up. We he grabs my hand, were shaking hands, and someone runs into the studio and says, Richard Prior just set himself on fire. And Michael Jackson's hand just like went limp in my hand and he like fell back, and I thought, I gotta go now. And that was the only time I met Michael Jackson. It was just not the laughing. But remember that, yes, oh for the record, no, but yes, I remember. You know that was in April of eight eight Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that news hit like lost it. Yeah, that was something else. Anyway, Wait, so didn't speaking of Michael Jackson, didn't we bring up Greg Phillip Gaines, who was one of her best ties. Yeah, yeah, God, go way back with him he show. Yeah, no, I've heard the podcast. Um, but the question, but I know you asked him a question, and I don't he either didn't know. The answer didn't answer was whether Earth went and Fire played I don't know on their records, and Ali Willis knows the answer. Yeah, Oh hey, I have to say in my day, yes they did. They played every instrument. There were people like Pauline you know, you know the cost that was coming in, but they played all their stuff. Later it started changing up a few years, just a few years later, um, and I think Maurice was also getting conscious of um hearing certain things and going what we want to sound like this, which to me then really deadened the Yeah, I think it's impossible, but it's kind of like Dr Drake like it's I think it's impossible because by that point, I mean, after nine they were such a force on the road. I'll give a big example like the Beach Boys, to the point where if if as a unit, the Beach Boys were always touring on the route and kind of Brian was was at home maintaining that. So I always felt that there were more whoever could deliver the greatest performance musically on their records after I could do it. I mean, I definitely feel it for I mean on the Rais album, on on their eighty one Raise album There's Yeah, by that time it was shifting, but certainly before it was absolutely, at least when I was there, it was all them. Yeah. So that's always been a question, but Maurice's kind of talked about it in this book as well. Um, okay, So I always felt that you were the spiritual whisper. You have to tell me about working with NARDA Michael Walden And is he always like that? He just comes me. Oh, I was thinking the other way. He's hype. So yeah, he's hyper on bang bang bang bang. To me, it's like my science teacher from third grade. He is I would say he's fifty that way, in fifty percent the other way, and there's no metal metal. He is an unbelievably great guy. Um, I love him. I worked with him recently. Um, but we started when he used to open for Patty LaBelle. So when I started getting my Patty stuff started, you know, hitting me up, let's write together, let's write together. And I almost immediately got sick of songwriting as soon as they started having hits. It was just because it was too much. Everyone and their mother, the people knock on your doors, then the pressure tomb. Yeah, And I think because I was so associated with Earth Wind and Fire. People assumed I was just the lyricist that drove me nuts, and in a lot of earth Wind and Fire I was, but with no one else was I and it never was as interesting for me just writing lyrics as you know, versus writing music and lyrics. So by the time Narta got to me, which was after September was out, um I was trying to weed out who you know, um I was. I was writing. I was getting over a hundred songs cut a year, which so I was a machine. I would write five six hundred songs a year. I mean I was writing three four songs a day. So how do you not get numb from that process? I did. I stopped enjoying it almost as soon as I had hits. How do you what's your creative process? Because the number for you to turn out that many a day, it's like, how do you not get it was mostly writing lyrics, and I just started hating it. It was exciting at first because you get on everyone's album, but I didn't think musically most of the time. It's like, if if I had been co writing the music bar five, we would have been somewhere else. You know, so um. It eventually led to it led to really me being kind of miserable. The more songs I got caught between eighty eighty one is when I really started feeling like I can't keep doing this. This is it's gonna make me hate music. Yeah. And then eighty three it happened with a Manhattan transfer a song they had me write lyrics. There was a spiro Gyro song called Shaker Song, and so they had me and David Laslie, who was a frequent collaborator, mind incredible UM put lyrics to It's like, what are we gonna do with with Shaker? You know what what is that? And it took us forever, you know, we finally figured out, oh, he can't Shaker as opposed to Shaker. But what they wanted was a jazz song where every single phrase had a lyric to it with very little repeat. So it was a four page, single space lyric. If it just that went linear, you know, the their four lines repeated where Shaker was it would repeat otherwise it constantly changed. Took forever to write. Um. So they I was really good friends with all of them, and they called up one this was I was already at the point of like, I'm not interested in doing this anymore. It's just it's too much. Because we write that many songs, what is there to say? Um, and I'm writing mostly to music that I didn't care about, but I was getting on these huge albums. So um, Tim how Her was the you know, his group. He called up and he said, now we want to do pick up the pieces Average White Band and so write a lyric to that, and we need it like on Monday, and it was my birthday that weekend. I'm a huge party thrower. That is my number one skills. Parties play above music, play above music. So um, I thought, oh god, now I have to do what I did to Shaker Song, which was nightmarish. Even though I loved the Shaker song, but it was really hard song to write. So you think about Average White Band, you know, it's like, oh my god, I gotta do this all the way through, and I know there can be very few you know, repeats. So it ruined my birthday weekend. I just you know, sat there writing around the clock and I handed it in and Tim said, oh, we just wanted the chorus. Yeah, And that was at the point where I went I'm out, I can't do this because I also what I was doing is I would wipe with a group or you know, an artist, and I'd write seven or eight songs and then maybe they would do one. If you were lucky, they would do one. And I just felt like songwriters get so taken advantage of It's not like you're getting right, and it's you know, don't make me do eight songs if you know you already got nine songs on the record, So what am what am I doing this for? And then uh pick up the pieces that like put it over the top. So I spent the next two years being completely miserable, but still getting a lot of songs cut, which is a lot of the reason why I don't know the Angela Beaufield song or you know, probably you know tons of them because there were so many in there, an incredible burden a half because it's every these words are just pouring out of you, and I'm presenting this romantic version of like the guys are just pouring words out of you, but it's like but words that you stopped caring about between writing so much and not caring about some of the music, feeling that the music could have been so much better. So when something doesn't make it, where is it in the garbage camp? You didn't know somebody else? Well? Yeah, oh no, I mean for every song I have out there are ten others sitting there. Nothing happens with them, especially if it's not music that you thought was that great and you were writing with a specific artists. So, um no, it was. There were hundreds of songs, just like you know, dead Fish, you know that. It was. It was literally like, where is that? Pick up the pieces. I'm the world's biggest average white bean fan, so just as a completest, where is that? I'm sure I've got it somewhere? You know I have it, but you know and uh so, So I decided right there and then something has to change. Took me a couple of years. Uh but out of total frustration, I started to paint. And I was writing, working with one of the go Goes at the time, and Jane Wheedling guitar, and she came in the very next day and bought my first painting. So I thought, oh my god, I have this built in you know, music audience. I'm gonna keep doing this. So I just started painting. Uh it led to a lot of like a sculptural things and whatever, and that's what I mainly did in the eighties. I was still writing, but the art was the main thing, and I wanted to combine the art and the music. So Neutron Dance became the very first motorized piece that I did. So I had um. I wanted to get the kick drum on the record to trigger the movement. I couldn't figure that out though, so it was only my interpretations of what the songs were and I would cut out, you know, people and buildings and everything would be moving. I did Neutron Dance that way. I then went back. I did Boogie Wonderland. I did what have I done to deserve this? And the biggest fan of my motorized art was James Brown. Really, yeah, that was and I have video of every inch of him ever, like being in my house because you said you had a story, because he was the reason that you started. Well, James, you know, I always collected memorabilia and I loved black memorabili of specifically late sixties, early seventies, massive afros, the fashions. Oh uh yeah, speaking you need a trip to Willis Wonderland. That's what you net. Um, But you know I wasn't originally, you know I was. There were sambos in there, there were Mammi's and James burn Down went around my house. Uh he asked me for a grocery bag. You gave him, gave him a brown grocery bag and uh. Now, but mostly my stuff was the massive afros, But there were Jemima's in there and other things. And he would go and he would pick it up and he'd hold it about four ft in the air, and then he'd go bing and he'd let his hand go and he could hear it smashing in the bag. Because I have the bag too. I have all the smashed pieces. So um, it's like an art piece you can make. Yeah, no, I know, I know. So he was the one that really said this stuff is not cool. And but the rest of my stuff, he said, you have to keep collecting this because black people did not know these things were around. There wasn't enough money to distribute stuff. So if something was made in Detroit, it wasn't gonna get past Cleveland. And very specifically is a couple of games that I had, one called Slang Lang nineteen sixty nine made in Detroit. I think Irene Carter is the company's black bingo. So instead of B I ng O, it's b L A c K and yeah, and instead of that middle free space, it's, uh, we are free people. And then instead of the numbers, it's Chitland's uh funky Broadway Cadillac, Uh gold tooth. I mean, amazing stuff it is. She might have it. Actually, have you talked to the Smithsonian about some of yourself? You know, you're like, you know, no, I'm I'm ready to talk. You have to introduction to Timothy and Burnside at the Smithsonian. Who, well, wait, this is an unbelievable conversation because in I was supposed to have um a pretty major exhibition of my collection and my work and how it worked together. And this morning before I came here, I got a thing that the CEO of the Child's Right African American Museum, which is the second largest African American museum next to the Smithsonian now in Detroit, she resigned this morning. So there went the exhibition. So yeah, yeah, as soon as we're done, ye know, And I've got a couple of things because I know the color purple's there earth when fires in there, so I'm dying and they have a like mammy section and a about that, so you would really appreciate, Oh, I would love it. But my stuff is all like one of my favorite things is it's uh do It's called the do it yourself Black Power coloring Kit, and and all it is is a you know, you got a couple of little paints and then you get a figure that starts out as a white man and you paint him black and he fifth. Now that was sixty eight, I think, Oh no, we didn't even And then like talk about the correlation between your house and Peewee's house, Well that people used to think that I did the set, which I didn't. We at that time were like inseparable. We were best friends, so we had very similar aesthetic. Um uh but but I actually didn't have anything to do with that. I did, though, write the title song that we did as a duet to Big Adventure, But Danny Elfman, who you know did all the music for that, said, ain't no one else doing the title song. But I do have that the duet between me and Pee Wee, that's the Circus one right the second movie, Uh that no that was Peewee's Big Top that it wasn't Big Adventure was the personal But you wrote lyrics to that theme? Yes, and no no no, no, no, no no no. That was Mark Mother's bow that because it is awesome really yeah no, the only thing that came back loaded, right, Steve. I just figured you would wake up to that, but apparently you just. I was gonna do it, unbelievab that's Mark Mother's and Sydney Lawper singing. So no, you're talking about the theme to his television. Oh that's what I'm talking about. Okay. I was the movie. Yeah yeah, but the duet did come out on Warner Brothers. They made five picture discs and that's all so oh um. Anyway, Greg filling Gaines playing on it too. I have a question, since we're on your memorabilia stuff, Um, what's your record collection like? After all? Um? You know, like I converted everything to digital because I couldn't stand slapping everything around anymore. I still have my favorite favorite favorite albums, mostly Motown, but it's not I don't have it out though, but I have a lot of music memorabilia. So um. But James Brown was the one who um said to me. You have to keep collecting this stuff. You know, you could have a museum with the stuff that you have, because people don't know this stuff is in existence. So I, you know, was the Godfather saying call act. So I just kept going. So you just collect any type of kitch art or pop culture or everything. Uh, well, it's very specifically the periods. I'm I used to be most interested in the fifties. Now way more interested in sixties, seventies. Um uh kind of a soul stuff, atomic stuff, kitch stuff. The kitch stuff didn't happen until later. I hated kitch but then I art directed. Why I just didn't it was too I was into like more like fantastic design, and kitch kind of was over. No, I wasn't into that stuff. But then I art directed and production designed Julie Brown The Julie Brown Show, which was the very first Downtown Yeah. Yeah, I used to watch that. She was good and it was it was the very first MTV clip show where someone was commenting on videos. So we would make fun, you know, of all the the videos and um and and so that set had to be really kitchy. And me and her, I remember we went to the Long Beach Swamp Meat and there was a painting of two clowns drinking a cup of coffee, and I I thought, there's something hideous about this, but I knew it was right for her set and my deal because there was no budget. We would shoot ten shows in three days, and we did like, you know, like every three months we would do another ten shows, and um, I uh, we bought that painting and I just went I could feel it that I just had crossed a line. And then I went crazy because they became this whole new thing to collect, you know. So like I can hider that Black Power statuette part of my Kitch collection because they could have made him tan to start out with. They didn't need to make him like pure white, you know. So um, a lot of stuff like that, Like I have the unbelievably great graphic on these pantyhose called Touch a Soul, and you know, it's this almost nude woman almost like she's praying and she's in the middle of like this you know, red green and black circle thing. But then the shade of the panty hoses off black, which is not right, you know, and and or the supremes, you know, the Supremes had white bread out. I've got the bread rappers white bread and they got killed for it. I have Mary Wilson on on film talking about how they just it's you. It killed them because the pumpernickel raw. But when the choice they have made, they could I mean, but literally Supremes white bread, I mean it's un were you always the visual art piece? I want to say that we see today as far as wardrobe. Once I got on my once I started cutting my record in nine two is when the clothing I was. Yeah, before that, I was like, you know, what would a college girl wear? You know, like not expressive at all, and then someone took me to a thrift shop and my life changed. Before we understand the story, um, so well, we've kind of ruined the impact of the story because we know who it is now. But um, there was this kid that always hung around Earth when I Fire had their own label, when i AM came out called Arc and there was this weird kid always hung around the office, didn't talk to anyone, but he was there. Yeah, and um, I uh um. I had heard all of the I AM album complete and I never heard of sequenced. So um, when I got the call, come up Maurice's you know they're on the road. Go in Maurice's office. It was a real to reel and you can hear the album sequence. I knew this was going to be an incredibly emotional thing for me because I knew this album was going to change my life. You know, I'm still on food stamps at this time. So um, I go in in the whole like a couple of days before. I'm like so excited, and this is I'm gonna be in Maurice's office when I have this moment to myself, I'm gonna cry. It's gonna be unbelievable. So I get up there and I'm closing the door and uh, someone comes over and says, can't they used to call him the kid? Can the kid listen with you? And I thought, shit, that's this weird kid and he never says anything. And so here's the real too reel. Here's the weird kid. Maybe four feetback from the real to reel. I'm back like at Maurice's desk, so I'm maybe eight feet behind him, and I couldn't even concentrate on the record. I just kept looking at the guy going fuck you. You know, what are you doing to myself? Like, what are you doing in here? My moment? And then four months later, I Want to be your lover came out and I went, oh, my fucking god, it's Prince. Was there no small talk or anything? Nothing? Not a word? Did I ever circle back to each other? Never? No, not a word. But you know, there's my Prince story. I'm really good friends with Wendy though, Wendy and still but the friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know we there's so much that we missed. I actually wanted to know how fast This is gonna be the most obscure music question I asked of the day. How fast did it take you to write shopping from me Zo? You are pulling them out? What you think? You're just on the show because they told you, Like, I just didn't know it was you. I didn't write it as fast as The fastest song I ever wrote was Neutron Dance. That was the fastest um That was fifty eight minutes for lyrics and thirty two or whatever it is. How do you remember that? Because I um did not want to write the song that was really that was the first time I was in I had so many hits in a row and I had nothing, And it was at a point where I was miserable writing and really feeling like I had ruined my career. Um, and uh, there was should I tell you the new Tron dancewery okay? Um that there was a a movie called Streets of Fire. Yes, but all they told me about this movie was that it was a handsome guy, cute girl and a black doop band and they're out of town. They're only ones to escape in nuclear holocaust. That's all I believe. Streets of Fire was the first PG thirteen uh rated film. This is where I can dan harmony. Well that so this was that was the spot that it was written for. And it was Joel Silver's first movie too as yeah as a producer, as a producer and um, anyway, so they said write this song. I didn't have any com it is that I could write good anymore. Uh. My publisher put me with someone who had never written a song before. But they signed him because his brother had the biggest record of the year the year before, which was Maniac n Simbello. Yes, but because he was Michael Simbello's little brother. So and I only found out that he had never written before, like five minutes before he was coming over. And so when I were, you're telling me that Danny Simbello's entry into music, he's written a lot of ship. That was his first song was Newtron Dance. But you're saying to me that, like it was nepotism that got him in the door. Absolutely, he would have been the first to tell you that too. Yeah. Really yeah, because his name just pops up everywhere audition stuff. Yeah, Michael, like every one of my favorite deborators ever, so is Naruta. But but Danny really unbelievable. It was just a nepotism move. Yes, that's and he had been in Stevie Wonders seventeen at the time, and he had been in Stevies band since he was fifteen. So um So, the only thing I knew was that he could play, which was great for me because I can't play. Um So I put a timer on when he came over, because I said, I only have an hour, and I thought, and he came over and he had that he had like a little bag lunch, and he had a hockey uniform on and he was sweating. It was just like the worst thing that could have happened to me. Um and uh, and I knew we had to write for a doo wop band, so I just said to him, play the tritest fifties baseline that you could think of. And he immediately, you know, boom boom boom boom bum bum bum blah blah blah blah ba bum bum bum bum and uh, I can sing a melody to anything. Start tapping those water bottles together. You'll have a song in thirty seconds. So um uh we. So I know the music was done in eight and then we started on the lyric and I knew it had to have something to do with you know, it was a nuclear holocaust, so you know something. There's gotta be like burning in their exploding, you know something and story because I'm like, what does this have to do with Beverly Hills copy, Well, yeah, I know, so um we though the original title of Neutron Dance was Barbecue, I'm just burning on the barbecue that was original. So I was you know, this was a song we were writing. We weren't writing for a particular artist, so I it was very autobiographical because I just I felt like, you know, my career is over what's happening in my life, and I knew I had to make a change. If I don't get off my ass and do something, it's all over. So and that's the you know that lyric I don't wanna stuff. Well, there's something very exact about that line because we wrote the first verse. I don't want to take it anymore. I'll just stay here, lock behind the door, just no time to stop. Get away works hard to make it. Every day. I look out of my window and there are two kids picking the lock on my pink corvetre. So I race out of the house and I'm thinking, I gotta get this kid out of here. This song is like a piece of ship. So I'm running out of the house into my driveway to chase the kids away, and I yelled back the line someone stole my brand new Chevrolet, which is how that how that happened. But they didn't steal it. No, I caught him and they were kids, so they ran away as soon as I got out there. And then by the time I was back because I'm just racing, it's like, why am I putting I'm into this song? My careers over? Who's this kid? So then I had in the rent is due, I got no place to stay, and so that song was finished. He was out of the house in fifty eight minutes. Yeah, and handed it in. They rejected it, you know from the movie, which to me it was like this piece of shit song written in under an hour, so didn't surprise me. But my publisher really liked the song, got it to the Pointers. Pointers cut it, but it was they were at their height. They had already chosen five singles off this next album that was coming out. How did I had nothing to do with that at the like, Yeah, that was yeah, that was strictly my uh, my publisher did that, and um, anyway, Pointers cut it. And then I get a package in the mail that had a cassette and a letter from Jerry Bruckheimer. He's doing his second movie. They you know, need a song that sounds like a song that's on the cassette and it's Neutron Dance. Did he know you from Troy? And he no, no, no, But they certainly had to have known I was the writer of Neutron Dance and they're sending me this thing to copy, which they I knew they sent to every writer in l A. Because all my friends were calling me up and everyone knew, Oh it's Eddie Murphy that you know this is gonna be hot. Yes, we're gonna write a sound of like to Neutron days. Is that the process for most soundtracks at least then back then? Yeah, they put the temp music in sent him I want a new drug. Yeah, and um. Anyway, so I got so sick of my friends telling me that they've ripped me off that I called Danny up and said come over. And so we stripped a Neutron dance demo down to the drums, used all the same sounds, wrote an exact parallel lyric, and handed that song in rejected for Beverly Hills cop And three weeks before the movie came out, Um, I found out that Jerry Bruckheimer had gone into his garbage can looking for a cassette to tape over put played the first few seconds of this song that he pulled out of the garbage and it was stirred Up. So stir it up, and yes, listen, listen to the lyric of stir stir it up, and listen to the lyric of Neutron Dance, and they there are the exact same song I'm doing something I haven't done it A long story, Yeah, it's it's yeah. So that's how. That's how those two. That's the crazy story I've heard since The Human Nature discovered for Quincy Jones. What from Steve Picaro, Yeah, like, yeah, the cassette was on auto what do you call it when it goes to syb automatically? Yeah, whatever, It was on side A. Yeah, not from Steve but from the other guys in the group. Yeah, and they were recording over his cassette. Suddenly, Yeah, me and Steve wrote a song. Michael Jackson wanted a song like Human Nature and we wrote a song. Was my first time working with him and I Steve was going to meet him in Las Vegas or something, and then Michael Jackson died. So there is a song on the new Latest Total album called The Little Things that Steve actually sings the lead on that was supposed to be The Human Nature sounded like that went to Michael Jackson, I gotta make a note, you said, with the name of that again, the Little Yeah. So a lot of stories like that where we at right now, But we didn't even get to the color purple and let the parties and the Jennifer Lewis besties, and well, she's one of my best friends, and we need to show him the US from last week, her doing leading a little sing along her book chant thing in order to sell the book at her house, the cast of Color Purple with a full like choreography, but in the back doing a choreography too. Yeah, it's a minute. A minute happens if Jennifer Lewis cannot come when I throw a party, I changed the day. What I changed the day because she ends up hosting the parties with me all the time. Jennifer Is. She she's knowingly responsible for the success I'm having with my current book. Right now. I heard usually right before, I didn't want to do an audiobook. This is like my fourth book, and I'd like try to uh stave off the publisher from making me do an audio. So once I gave in, then I was like, all right, let me do some research because what I want I don't want to board people with my voice. And someone recommended to me listen to how she tells a story on her audio book, and I listened to her. You gotta listen to get the audiobook of Jennifer Lewis and another she's the most compelling storyteller, Like she uses her voice inflections. So that's the reason why I decided, like, yo, well I don't have the gift of like then I told yeah, like I I didn't have that. So I'm figured, like, what's my version of Jennifer Lewis. Oh, I'll do skits, so like I put Actually I have like actors and stuff like people like rereading and Stevens. Who are you Steve so like so proud. But you know, Jennifer Lewis has a similar type story of being inspired by someone in order to get a movie part that she got when she went up for what's the Disney movie that she's in? Sister know the and the character is Mama. It's one of the Disney movies like yes, six seven years ago. She's been in a lot of ship yeah, and uh, she didn't know what voice to used for the character. And she owns a lot of my art that I've done and beautiful by the way, don't you. In nine, I took it on an alter ego named Bubbles the artist who I manage, and Jennifer started buying up Bubbles stuff, RuPaul and Lily Tomlin owned the most. They battle each other. Are you saying, have they ever been in the root? All these people been in the room. Oh my god, No, it wasn't cars. It was like the Princess and Princess and the Princess. Yeah, okay, that's it. So um Anyway, So one of the paintings of mine that she owns by Bubbles, the artist who I manage, but it's actually me um is a thing of Moms Maybee. So Jennifer goes to the audition and she has no idea what to do, what voice to do, and she said she flashed on the painting of Moms. And so if you listen to her character in that movie, it is Mom's maybe. Yeah, I used to listen at tapes of Moms my dad driving a school like incredible, and you painted her? Yeah, I love Moms. Well, Bubbles painted her. I just managed her, right, Okay, it would it would actually uh, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention obviously. Well, okay, I'm certain that you're gonna say, yeah, I wrote it in five minutes. Didn't mean anything to me, and just and it just became one of the biggest thing when when did you actually write remembrance I'll be there for you. I'm sorry, Um, that was written in four I did not really didn't want to be a songwriter anymore because I had gotten onto the internet. Came up with a concept for yeah, social network in my CEO became Mark Cuban and uh we no one understood because Beck then it was the super information Highway life. Yeah. Um. I wanted to take anything that could be done in an online environment, which was not a lot and there was maybe one of each of these things, but you could sell things, you could play games, you could do email, um, you know, it was very limited stuff. I wanted to take everything combine it together in one place, which wasn't done. Then if you shopped for the one car that maybe was online, you'd have to take ten minutes, log off, then go to where you would you know, play a game. You were always in this black hole of cyberspace. So I wanted to combine everything. I'm the first one ever that said the Internet is a social place, that this is about people connecting to each other. So there could be collaborations, and there could be friendships, and there could be all this kind of stuff and at the same time. You could sell them cars, and they could collaborate with each other, and they could get information, they could do anything. And we're going to create this fictional community inhabited by these fictional characters who are going to be the guides into cyberspace for people who did not understand what cyberspace was. And I prototyped it throughout the nineties, but we were just too early. What we were talking to Mark Zuckerberg, No, uh likely. And I had a ton of resentment that took me forever to get over because all those they ignored the issues that we couldn't solve and therefore didn't do it. What happens to copyrights? What about privacy? And we just didn't know the answer to it, you know. But um, but so I was interested in that, and I still had a publishing deal to you know, a quota to fulfill, and quotas had never been I've never had one before. But it never would have been a problem in the old days. But now I'm interested in something that's nonlinear, that's totally interactive, and I'm not interested in a three minute song that goes from here to here and the artist is the only one that has a say in it. I'm interested in what is music now that anyone from anywhere can impact what it is you're creating. So every time I thought I had written enough songs, the publisher would say, no, you know you haven't. Finally got down to iota seventh of a song and they said, there's this TV show coming out. No one thinks it's gonna be a hit right this year, out of your deal, so um ship. So the music Michael Skloff had written already, he was married to one of the producers, and gave me the song. I thought, this is the whitest thing I have ever heard in my life. It's gonna ruin my career. But everyone said, don't worry, because who's gonna hear this? No one's ever gonna hear and so handed it in and it blew up instantly, and ah. So it was a forty five second thing that a disc jockey in Nashville made a cassette of and played it back to back for forty five minutes. Rembrandt's got it because they were the only band signed to Warner Brothers who were in l A at that time that weren't on tour. So yeah, no one associated with this song, really wanted anything to do with it, and um uh it became the biggest airplay record. It was unbelievable. So for me, that was the official end of my publishing deal. So it was perceived that I'm going out on a high note out when in fact I was like barely crawling, you know, yeah, because I wanted to do this cyberspace thing and no one knew what I was talking about. So um, that was yeah or whatever. It was a gift, total gift. Okay. So in the ending, can you confirm or not confirmed from me that one song can change your life? Because usually a movies, movies and TV gives you this impression like that one hit single you could just live off that. Oh that's not true. Yeah, yeah, that's not true at all. It's like if if you only wrote September, well, if I had to own it and the modest life, yeah if I yes, if I had only written Septemps, I do live a modest life because I'm a self financed artist. So any of these other ideas, I get. It's that song and a few others that are carrying the whole thing, you know along. Um, but yeah, I mean I think if you wrote it by yourself, if you produced it, if you sang it, you know, may and it was a gigantic hit that remained a classic. You could probably live a comfortable life. But those things happening at the same time are so rare. Uh that that? Yeah, no, I know that. So you gotta you gotta write, you gotta just own, you gotta do everything. And I was never in that position, you know. Yeah, and you know the publishing like if you write for TV, that that publishing is gone, you know. Yeah. So and an earth Win and Fire those were my first song, so I got less of a writer's share then I should have. And my publishing was owned by A and M, so you know, everyone gets their cut. Oh yeah, lunch money, I see yeah, so okay, yeah, I see, uh okay, Gun to your Head. The three songs that you're the proudest, So I'm really salty. They're so. We didn't talk about all American girls. We didn't talk about well, she's going to invite us to her house and maybe a show live were Cante Jennifer Lewis, Oh my god, I'm getting emotional to to go living. I would like to do that. She lives really close. Yes, yeah, I'll meet you. Make it happen, okay when you out there, so no, but we're gonna do it this year. Ready, ready, Well, I thank you, thank you. This is wow. I could forever. Well. I'm so impressed with what you know. I always knew that you knew a lot of stuff, but you were digging him out from the bottom. I'm really boss Bill and Fantigolo and unpaid Bill. You missed eight Doozy today, Like I feel like I'm the least knowledgeable of the six of us on this show. So feel like that. I mean, if Bill and Fonte were here, I barely get a word it would I mean, they'd be freaking out over you know. Oh God, you wrote I should have loved you. Oh yeah, Jesus Christ. That should have been a contin Yeah. And Randy was seventeen years old. Randy Jackson him on the show coming up to Yeah, it was seventeen years old when he first played that. And he sounds so much like Bernard Edwards anyway. Yeah, yeah, I think that was conscious too. I think we were talking about that. Yeah, it felt like a she grewp Yeah all right, anyway, I thank you very much for coming on Ladies and Gentlemen. Will he saw riding Hall of Fame two thousand and eighteen. Yeah, we we've lost to uhur world. So it's like with you by anyway. Uh this is of course, of course Love Supreme. On the next go round, I'll see of course Love Supreme is a production of My Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. 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