Questlove SupremeLegendary radio DJ and television VJ Donnie "Green Eyes" Simpson spoke about getting into radio at 15, breaking some of the biggest artists and songs of his time and the key to success: being true to yourself.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
What up, y'all, it's unpaid bill Fromquest Love Supreme. As you may have seen throughout June, we are celebrating black music model by releasing an episode every day. So every day you added here especially picked QLs Classic, and on Wednesdays we are dropping new two part episodes with Wayne Brady and the legendary James Poyser, both of which were filmed in studio. Black music is deeply important to me and has been an influence throughout my entire career.
It's also something to celebrated here at QLs.
Back in twenty seventeen, we had Donnie Simpson on QLs, the Radio Hall of Fame inductee, spoke about his journey, his impact, and cultivating a personality that emphasized the power of broadcasting. We are so glad you're tuning in.
Here we go.
Supremo, Sun Supremo Row, Suprema Sun Supreme O, Row called Suprema something something, Supremo roll call some Prema.
Some some Supreme roll.
Cool Quest Yeah, Yeah, I Got soul, Yeah, Donnie Simpson Cool Yeah, Life Goals.
Cora something Supremo, roll called Suprema something something Supremo roll.
My name is Fante, Yeah, rocking your world.
Yeah, when my hair gets dry, Yeah, I use Donny's Supercurl roll.
Supremo roll Come, Supremath something Supremo roll call.
My name is Sugar Yeah like Sugar Ray. Yeah, it's great to be here with a real DJ. Suprema Son something Supremo roll paid Bill. Yeah, I ain't got no problems. Yeah.
Out out to North Korea and Dennis Rodmin.
Pray Son Supprame A roll call Supreme Son Son Supreme.
Roll is here. Yeah, not far from Mars. Yeah, shot for the Moon. Yeah, still among the stars.
Roll call, Pray something Supreme A roll call suprameer some something Suprame roll.
It's like and damn it, I'm hip. Yeah, Simpson in the place.
Something something up. Roll call. My name is Donnie.
Yeah.
They called me green Eyes.
Yeah.
If I could finish this rap, yeah that would be a surprise.
So Pray s Sun Up Brave A roll call, so Pray sup Prame A roll call Supramo, roll Suppramo Son so Supreme.
People out, So you quite audible with telling you you're gonna say Donnie Simpsons year right.
I'm not said written down?
Okay, run anyway.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest Love.
I'm your host, chuss Love.
Uh.
We have teams Supreme with us. Uh like you in the place sees love in the house.
Yeah, Quest Love is always in the house. Sugar Steve is here. We got fun take alo uh unpaid Bill?
Yeah, Hey, how you doing.
I'm happy to be back.
You've been so quiet that last few and I'm so glad that you're here.
And bost Bill's here as well.
Uh.
I will say that every culture UH needs a pioneer, and our guest today is beyond pioneer. For thirty years his.
Morning show and WPGC the Doninice Simpson Morning Shows trail Blazed and dumb wonders for the culture of soul and R and B. And I guess you could say that he's attained god status in the eyes of all of us in this room for seventeen years as the host of Ola La Video Soul norn BT, which practically gave the world its first view of artists like Whitney, Houston and Usher. You've done in depth conversations with greats like Aretha Franklin, anybody from the Purple Camp that I've not seen on any other networks.
Jesse Johnson, Yes, Jesse.
I mean the time, the list goes on and on, and he's just known for his his his grace, his his his knowledge of music. I mean, do you imagine that once upon a time there were hosts of radio shows and video shows.
That actually had knowledge of the music. And yeah, that's who would have thought.
That's that's a novel that's sadly missed right now. But more than anything, this this episode will probably be a masterclass on how to host.
Such so you can use Yeah, it would sound like an amateur my favorite. Please welcome Dottie Simpson to ourself.
Thank you, well, thank you, thank you, quest love appreciate you bro.
Yo, he just said name.
Of of all the episodes, this is probably the one that I will be the most nervous because I mean, I we all grew up with his voice and always a Managine the day that we have an opportunity. I never thought that my first time sitting with Donnie Simpson would be on your show, not this show.
Well, I'm honored to be here man, I really am. This is awesome. Man. I'm a big fan of yours.
Bro.
I yeah, I know it sounds like false honesty whenever I say like, I can't believe you.
Know I'm alive, But I mean that's really.
Oh for really man, mad respect for you, Thank you, thank you, thank you, and a lot of people in this room, not all of them, but a lot of sorry that.
He shut you down.
So you're you're actually I know that we're lucky to have you today because you are going to induct uh your friends tonight.
Well I'm not actually inducting them. I'm just there, sport, Yeah, just there in support.
It's amazing.
Yes, I know that no one is a bigger fan of Jimmy dam and Terry Lewis and the Time Family been.
Oh no doubt you are.
Even to this day. I still watch your interviews on YouTube with those guys.
And yeah, man, and those are my toughest interviews too. It's funny because yeah, because they were we were boys. You know, we're so close. So my toughest interview you mentioned Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis and Smoky like those really boys always the toughest interviews because you know, you know them so well, and then all of a sudden you're in this formal setting. You know, you got to ask questions, and they're like, well you're asking me that. You know that, But it's just weird to me.
It's like those are your especially when you when you did the I think the Pandemonium interview back in like nineteen ninety.
One, yeah time.
Yeah, like that was the first time where you know, normally there's there's a cool demeanor about you, but then like I saw you just as the Billy Press into their beatles, like the Times. Wow, it was just like, oh, well, Donnie Simpsons just like he's one of the one of the crew, and he was on the records.
That's yeah, that's right, the Pandemonium malvel Wow, that's right. Well, you know, that's very flattering to say that. And I remember when they got their starring the Hollywood Walk of Fame, they said, man, all day long, all we kept saying was just one person missing man, you know, and that just you know what an honor. I mean, it wasn't me, it was Billy Preston, but no, but you know, we we are We're just friends like that. That that day that we recorded that show, before we recorded it, Uh, Jimmy and Terry set me down at the board in the studio and they're playing the album for me, the Pandemonia malvel So I'm sitting there and the intro comes on, and you know, I do the intro. I'm doing this intro and I'm sitting there like, how wait, what wait? That's my voice? How did I can figure it out? How they got me to do this introduction that I didn't record. And what happened was that they had lifted it from like five or six years prior to that. I went to present them, just to introduce them at the Minneapolis Black Musicians Awards shown and uh, and they lifted it from that and used it as the intro for the album. Man, I just it was just what an honor to open up, to open up for the time.
That's right, because they briefly when Mars did fish Nets. I guess they briefly reunited as the time for that. Were you actually introducing them back in eighty seven as a full unit or were they just going on to get an a warld.
Wow in eighty Yeah, that was a full unit. Then, yeah, that was the time that was everybody before Fishnet. As a matter of fact, fish Net was a part of that show that you're talking about. I think that I think we introduced that then.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
There's a video on YouTube of you and the studio with them and they were playing the track for fish Net.
Is that right? Yeah, yeah, they were, They were in the studio together. That that was a few years earlier though.
The song was so hot. Man.
So you know you're those that know you well know of your love affair with music. But yeah, where did it start? Where did your what was your childhood into you? As far as your relationship with music.
I was always around music from the time I was twelve. Well, actually, I'll say even earlier than that. I remember when we got our first record player, and the first record we got was The Drifters Save the Last Dance for Me, and we would play that thing over. It is the only record we had, so we played it.
Over and over.
Forty five yep, forty five and big was the household? Oh it was six kids. I had a five boys, one girl, my mom and dad, and so it was eight in a little tiny house.
Man.
We had two bedroom house. Mom and dad had a bedroom, my sister had a bedroom. Boys were upstairs. It was like army bears up there lined up. Man, I'm telling you, but you know, but my mother decided to open a record shop when she when I was twelve, and so I worked in that record shop from the time I was twelve. So it was always around music, you know. I knew when music came out, the day it came out, you know, everything. And then we used to have a little contest between each other. We go, all right, so what do you think this is going to do? I said, you know, I think it'll go number one R and B, top ten pop, you know. And I would be right all the time. Man, I would always be able to predict them, you know. And I this other thing, And I don't know if it's like I don't maybe it's not psychic. Maybe it's just from experience of knowing people. But I could see you coming across the street to the record shop, and I'd go to the shelf and pull off, say three songs and guarantee that they would ask for those three, you know, and not two of the three, but all three, you know. I would do it all the time record with that. It was really good, really good. Really?
So what city is this? Detroit from you were born?
So I grew up under Motown? Said wow, so don't I'm not even can't even give Mama's Record Shop credit for that. That's going back to the Motown Review, you know, living there in Detroit under Motown with the temps. Man, you know, I remember as a kid man, I used to watch every Cadillac that went by, hoping you're gonna see David Ruffman one of the Tempts, are some smoky or one of their cousins would have just been just just cool anybody man related. Sitting at the Motown Review, my wife Pam is here with me, and she can she remembers that so well. We would go down there, man, I mean five shows a day with the Temptations, four top supremes, Bobby Taylor to Vancouver's junior Walker, Smokey Robinson. It was just endless, you know. So to grow up under that, how could you not have a love for music, man, you know? And so I was just always in that. When I was fifteen, this radio station there, WJLB, had a group that called the WJLB Sol Teen reporters. One student from each public school came in once a week recorded a little sixty second spiel about what was going on at their school. We'd beat Pershing High last week, fifty four to fifty two, cap and gown measurements of Friday, the Lovers of the Week ad and the number one song is you know that kind of thing.
So I thought it was the upfront. I was like, wow.
So they had asked me to do that for my school, and so I kind of wasn't interested at first, but finally my mother one day had a live broadcast with a local DJ who came out and did his show from there from the record store. And man, I went into that booth and saw him doing his thing, man and he's sitting here patting his foot to the music man and grooving, And I was like, man, I could do that, you know. And that was the very day I fell in love with radio that I said, I'm going to do that, And so I went and joined the reporters, and in the I got so popular from these little sixty second things that ran once maybe twice a day, that I was more popular than the DJs because I was his kid with a heavy voice.
You know.
And so they started putting me on on weekends for three hours on Saturday, and that lasted for about two months. They fired a guy who did eight to midnight weeknights and asked me to sit in for him for one week to give them time to find somebody else. I sat there for seven and a half.
Years, a teenager with a radio job.
Oh yeah, I mean I couldn't even do my whole show live because I couldn't work past ten thirty, you know. So I used to go in after school.
Yeah, so you've had that golden voice since you were a teenager, since.
My voice changed between the summer between seventh and eighth grade. And I remember well because I was in the choir. Man, I was the only male first soprano, which I love because I sat with the girls. Next time I come back and I'm this baritone, you know. But yeah, so, I mean, so you know, I was really blessed to have a start like that. Man, it was just it was just heaven sent.
So for you, was it always radio aspirations? Did you have music? Like did you want to maybe be a singer or.
I still want to be a singer, but I don't think I'm gonna make this. Will tell you, she tells you two things. He ain't no singer, and he ain't no rocket scientist.
No no.
But I mean, you know, I've always felt that anyone who doesn't sing wants to sing or wants to be a musician. As a matter of fact, I said, this is my part of my induction speech when I was inducted in the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, which was I said, this is just such an honor for me because I've always felt that musicians always the cooler people in the room, respect, questlove.
You know, you're definitely learned from you.
I offered as advice, I mean, as as proof. Prince appearing at the Oscars, So you got the biggest stars in the movie stars forty fifty million dollars a movie Prince walked on that stage. They were like little girls, you know, musicians man. And I said, you know, for one night, y'all, let me in your group, you know, And I appreciate that, just for one night. I could never be I just always wanted to be cool enough to be a musician. I just I just ain't gonna make it.
So did you have formal training when you finally started to do this radio because most people they'll go to artf programs in their colleges to learn how to you know, do upfront and be prepared.
We're going to put you to the test on that back. Yeah, So you was it a learning curve where you just had to learn on the spot how to do these things?
Or well, it's you know, I started so young. I mean I did go to school eventually. I mean I was in school or in high school, but I went to college and studied radio and TV also. But I was already doing it. I mean, you know, I mean I was one of the most popular DJs in Detroit and here I am going to college. It was like the experience. Nothing beats that, and you know that nothing beats doing it, and so you know, I think it was just kind of a natural, god given gift that I had, and you know, they certainly taught me how to develop it. Like in school, I learned how to use my diaphragm, you know, those exercises like singers, you know, because I remember, yeah, I remember my teacher coming up to me in college one day. He walked up behind me and he said, and I didn't know he was there. He says, So, Donnie, how come you always talk like this and hall? Because I'm a brother, That's how we talk in the hall. But he's you know, he taught me that you have to use your diaphragm, that you you know, it's like a backhand in tennis. You got to practice it so much that is second nature, that that is the way you talk, and that you can still be cool and talk from here. You don't have to talk from here to be cool.
You know. Have you ever interviewed Barry White?
Oh yeah, Oh my god, I love Barry.
Anybody ever seen interview Barry White will suddenly find themselves trying to.
No, man, I love my little boys too much. I'm trying to get down there with beer.
Okay.
So this is whenever, whenever we have anyone that has a notable radio experience on the show. Uh huh, we asked them to front celle or back sell of song. I'm pretty no, I.
Don't even want to.
He'll know he just ang hit it.
Okay.
Now see, now I got to pick this the perfect song with either a short into or long into or middle intro.
What should I do? I think a long intro.
But longs are easy, just so they're easier.
But no, but what if it's.
But if it's very wide extasy next, that's a one minute minute. That's a woman in six Temptations.
Papa was rolling Stone's to sixteen, so Jock worked for me to actually hit that post once really to sixteen?
Like, man, So wait a minute.
If if there is long space in the front, are you expected to fill every last ounce in?
I don't think so. Well. You know that's interesting because I think most radio people feel that you do.
Uh.
But to me, I love music so much that sometimes the music should you talk all over? Love's Theme by Barry White and the Love and the Orchestra. No, I mean, you know, some of the music is so beautiful. It's vocal in itself, you know what I mean. It's it's you know, it has a moment where it's the intro is over, song is started.
Okay, yeah, are you ready for your I think so listen, here we go.
Oh it's magic onetle two point three. You're listening to Dottie Simpson hanging out with Questlove. Weve got my boys on the stage now, man, these dudes do it right. Let's gonna get hot in here not hot enough norse to sweat. You know, he doesn't sweat, He just kind of SATs a kiss.
So does this also mean that you have to study the song? Yeah, as in you.
I mean when you went at the at the at the height of you being immersed inside of your your your radio days, would you pick a designated day to just study all the songs?
Definitely?
Not, definitely not. No, would never study. It's just knowing it. It's just appreciating it. I know it because I love it.
I see. You know.
No, I've never studied songs. You thought, Wow, sit there with a stop watch. This is eighteen seconds. You just feel it, you know, you just know, you know, you know where the song is.
My songs usually have like a four bar eight bar or whatever intro.
Okay, all right, I see if you write it too, it's a rhythm thing because that's what you were just doing.
You were writing it, Yeah, like a musician. So again, like a musician.
Oh man, you wanted to make sure. So I will say that Detroit is also.
A very unusual town as far as music culture is concerned, because of their appreciation for other cultures as well. You know, at one point I knew that, Uh, I forget that the Jay gile Bands song that that was like number two on a particular station up there.
I used to play, used to it was all kinds of stuff about jailes.
So what was it that made such a black city so open to.
Gary knew the talking heads or fail out or like just because I would look up old playlists from all their radio stations up there, and.
It was endless. There were no boundaries on what was black music.
Right. I don't. I can't. I wish I could tell you why we are that way, But I was always that way, man, love, you know, and I feel like this, you know for radio program directors or programmers that you know, radio people feel that people's ears are a lot narrower than they are. You know, people like different things, man, And you know, I mean growing up in Detroit, I mean I played I played all that stuff on the radio, man, Without doubt, the biggest moment in my radio career was breaking Benny and the Jets by Elton John. I've been sitting around with my boy, man, he's turning me on to Elton, right, And so I kept this went on for a week, man, I said, Man, I love this song, Benny and the Jets, man, And but I was scared to play it because you know, black folks didn't really know Elton, you know. And so finally I said, Man, Claude, I'm playing this song, and I played it.
Man.
I played it twice that night, and I played it the second time because the phone was jumping off the hook from the first time. I'd never seen anything like it before or since. It was so instant. The next morning, the morning DJ calls me at home, wakes me up at seven thirty, Donnie, what is this song you played last night, Jitny and the Nets or something. Man, you got to bring that down here. We got to play it so fast that in two days Elton was on the phone really from London called wanted to know what's going on here. Benny and the Jets is breaking black in Detroit.
You know.
He comes to Detroit four or five months later to present me with a gold record for I mean, and this is at the height of his career. Man, this is you know, man, that just turned me out. Man. It was just it was amazing. Man, It was just an amazing moment. And always use it, especially now when I tell that story. It's important because it saddens me that there are young people in radio now with good ears that can't express themselves musically. You know, sad to me, man, you should be able to have a moment like that to come in. I mean, DJ, I'm supposed to be turning you on the music so it is understood.
And then whatever radio station you go to that you have that some kind of freedom in that way where you can play what you you.
Can take out in that way.
Okay, you have freedom to play whatever.
Absolutely, that's care because that's amazing because it's.
The programming director that was ringing the emergency line. Like I'm certain every radio station has that, the red phone.
Whatever they do.
Man, bro, you can get me starting.
Are you playing Princess Dirty? Like I'm just saying like.
They don't they know not to bother me with that. I mean, I just you know, And I don't mean that to sound vain. I think that I just you know, they know that that's the only way I can work. I'm not going to do this if you're going to tell me how to do me, I can only do me and uh and if it works. I told in a negotiation for this return of mine. I said, Look, it got caught up in a while, and I just finally said, look, let's make it real simple. I do what I do. If it doesn't work, you tell me, I take my records and go home. You don't have to boun the rest of the contract. Nothing. I'm just gone, all right, Oh, I mean, you know, I just I have to have that kind of freedom.
Man.
You know, I'm a look out the window kind of guy. Man, how does the day feel? You know, because it's a spirit that connects us all man. A computer can't do that. You can't tell me that this song works today, this day feels a certain way. I used to get it when I did the Morning show Man once an hour, I would get out and walk around the building just to smell it. I need to smell the day, you know. And I know it may sound strange to people, you know, and you gotta have that to me, you know. And as far as like calling jocks, you know, I programmed WKYS in Washington for twelve years. I mean, and you talk about a meteoric rise, I mean, and I didn't even I kind of bumped into it. I wasn't trying to program. I never wanted to program. I just wanted to be a jock. But station was in sixteenth place. We were losing so badly, and they said, what's wrong with the station? I told him what I felt about it. I said, well will you do that?
Wow?
Yeah, okay, I mean I felt like I can at least do better than sixteenth. Man, we went from sixteenth to number one and nine months, you know, and it was just with feel, you know. I you know, I don't have anything against research. Research is cool as long as you use it. Don't let it use you. You know, It's just another tool if you want to use it. But I remember this programmer coming to me once had done this big research project, payed like sixty five gram to research all these songs, and he came to me and he said, man, can do you know what the number one song tested for us was? Said Marvin Gay, Let's get it on. How did you know that? I was like, I'm a brother, I live, this dog ain't on safari, you know. So, but you know, when I was programming, I wanted to just bring this up to because it's you know, and and I certainly don't mean to come off like I'm like chastising programmers. But you know when I programmed Man Hotline hot you would it would never ring. I never once called one of my jocks during the middle of his show to tell him something was that was bad. Hell, I know you know what, you know what you did it. You know it's bad more than I do. Why would I call you at that moment? Sacrifice the last two hours of your show for the first two that just and and then bigger than that is that. What happens is that then you start talking to me because you're afraid of me. You're to that phone ringing. I don't want you talking to me. I ain't got nothing to do with this. Talk to the audience. Man, This is about y'all. You know that's and I gave my jocks freedom, you know, I just I'm old school like that. Man, bring your records, man, do you think you know? Just express You'll be amazed at the performance you get from people when you entrust them, when you let them do what they do, when their name is on it instead of just them representing you.
It's like you hired them for a reason.
That's what you hired them for, right.
Let them go, man, because this way of thought is not very prevalent right now, have you ever I mean, I know it's another burden, but have you ever considered ownership?
Yeah? I used to think about it. We had looked at it a long time ago, and god, radio stations had gotten so expensive then it was just kind of crazy. But you know, I don't know that it's a business that I would be that interested in now.
You know.
It's uh, you know, the dollars have dried up to great degree, as you know, I mean with everything that is that advertising based model, radio, television, print, those dollars have gone to the internet, you know. So it's a different day, you know, and radio and TV are lucky most of them are just suffering pay cuts, print shutting their doors, you know. I mean it's a different day. So you know, No, I don't have that level of interest in it now.
No, speaking of the uh you're breaking Elton John and bending the jets. What were some of the other notable artists that you had a first thing like, I feel like this person's the next one.
Well, I had a I have a gold record at home that says thank you for being the first to play Whitney Houston. You give good lack.
I literally only pulled that out there.
Oh I thought you knew that.
No, I was just I was like, oh, I know you gave Whitney Houston what I saw her very when she first came to Video Soul.
Yeah, I remember that interview.
But remember Shade first interview with Shade, her first interview I think I know in America, if not on television period, was with me. You know, So you know I you know, I certainly don't want to sound like I started all of these careers.
This is why you're here. This is a masterclass.
Seriously, there's a lot of artists that we probably wouldn't know about if we hadn't seen them on Video Souls.
You know, you introducing them to us. So you are a very important part. Well, you know, it's thank you, and you're allowed to seat your own horn.
No, and I wont, but it's it's it's so flat. I had Big Daddy Kane on my radio show yesterday and he was telling me. He says, man, I just want to thank you for the first time I was on Video Soul. Man, he said, I was so nervous. Man, I couldn't believe it. But he said, what blew me away was that I came in there, man, and you treated me like all the other artists. You treated me with respect, and I thought it would be just like, you know, all right, we got this rapper in here. Let's get the rap thing out.
Of the way, he said.
And it was just so different, you know, which blew me away that he thought I would treat him, you know, as I told him on the area yesterday. I said, kin man, if President Obama walked through this door right now or the janitor, they're gonna get the same level of love and respect for me. Believe that, you know so. But it's always fascinating to me that so many artists come up to you and tell you what you meant to their careers.
You know.
I remember going to see New Addition one night. This is twenty five years ago. No, not new Addition, I'm sorry, new kids, not that new kids on the block boys.
Men.
So I go backstage and they go, oh my god, Donnie's here, look at it. What's the date? April whatever? One of nineteen eighty seven. They all knew the date. They came on Video Soul. It was that significant to them, you know.
Oh married, don't you week? Acapella? They were the team better than me.
Wait only okay, because I was in the Motown Philly video. So even me and my parents were like sitting there with a VCR open, like like the video is going to come on because this is the first time that I'm seeing the video, Like, yeah, no, that was And we all went to high school together, so that that was like a moment like someone from my homeroom classes that still it was me two thousand and thirty five cents, thank you.
Uh you know is legit like on on Video Soul?
Yeah, it meant something to sit on that couch, you know, and uh, that's that's that's flattering. That's really an awesome thing.
How so, well, I want to ease intwo video sol.
How did how are you convinced uh to Well, you didn't totally abandon radio when you did video solo?
Oh no, you did both. But did you figure that?
Okay, it's time for the black version of MTV too, uh to come to fruition and I want to be a part of history.
Now, Well, this has not happened. I mean, it wasn't my creation. I got a call from Bob Johnson asking me or actually was Jeff Lee his right hand man said, we're starting this show called Video Soul, and we liked for you to host it. At the time, I was still doing radio, of course, but I was also I just started doing TV locally in DC. For the last two years, I was a sports anchor George Michael, Yeah Michael backup for George Michael Sports much Machine. So you know, so, yeah, it was cool. I mean, I enjoyed that, but I like music, you know, sports is not what I do.
So anyway, thank you, go ahead.
So sports that you're thinking, that's actually how how I know you. I went to school down in College Park, Maryland in late eighties, early nineties, so I was watching the George Michael Sports Oh Wow.
Cool dream Machine Sports sports Machine sports legend Donnie Simpson. Yeah.
So so anyway, they said, wanted me to do this show, and I'll be very honest with you, my first answer was no. You know, no, I didn't want to do it. I've always been very careful about what I get involved in because all I have to sell is image, you know, so I'm very protective of that. You know, it's got to be right. And b e T in its infancy wasn't a pretty baby. Yeah, right, exactly, exactly right. So I didn't want to do that, but I thought about it for two days and then finally the bottom line became this, that this is our first black television network. If you have something to offer it, you have to do that.
Period.
Let's go. And so I'm glad I did.
Man.
I mean it was, uh, you know, it was amazing. When we first started, we were in one and a half million homes. When I left, that number was like forty five million. You know, now it's like one hundred or something. I mean, it's just crazy, you know. And uh, you know, it put me in black houses all across this country, you know, just.
Like you know about your radio career.
I just yeah, most people around the don't get shocked when they find out how do radio? Yeah, but uh yeah, but you know it was really something special. Man, it was uh you know. Uh, Terry Lewis we were talking about it recently and he was saying how that I was just telling him about the love and respect that I get and how it just blows me away, you know every time, and uh, he says, it's because you mean something to people. You know, that you represented a time when music was fun. You know, the videos were fun and all of that. You know, it was clean, fun, you know, and you represent that time. It's like, well, I've never thought about it like that, but you know.
It's uh.
I remember one night the VH one did a series called Black in the eighties, and then he had interviewed me for it, and so they told me there's coming on. So I watched it that night. It was an hour long and the first fifteen minutes they did Brian Gumbele, the first black to host the early morning national television show. Then they did or Senil Hall, first black to host a late night talk show. Then they did Cosby The Cosby Show, and first black TV show where the mother and dad were doctor and a lawyer, not a plumber and a janitor or something, you know. And then they did Donnie Simpson and Video Soul, and man, I'll never forget it. When the show ended, all I could think was, well, how the hell am I supposed to sleep tonight? Seriously? Because I never had it put in perspective like that, you know what I mean.
It's like.
A line from that I've always loved from Elton John rocket Love not rocket Love, that's Stevie wonder rocket ma man right when he says in all the science, I don't understand. It's just my job five days a week, you know, I mean, you think this is a rocket man an astronauts. It's like it's so glorious. You know, your DJ is a glorious You know, Man, I don't care who you are or what you do. It's just what you do.
So at the time, you weren't thinking that you're doing a historical service for mankind. That there's a bunch of eleven year olds watching you and recording this because we will record the show and watch it over and over again.
Crazy to me, No, I never thought. I mean I've had three or four the ESPN anchors come up to me and tell me you're the reason I do TV because I used to watch you.
It's like.
That, Man, that's mind blowing to me. Of course, I'm telling you.
Man.
Between you and probably probably the only person that could challenge or even match your cool might be Don Cornelius.
Like you two are parents. Yea cool one the next. And that's the thing.
You always pervade this, this level of intelligence and cool and knowledge, no matter who the artist was. Like if I were interviewing like Wild Animal era Vanity, I would have been sweating profusely. But you gave her the same level of respect that you would have done for Sergio Mendez or or Side Garrett or Quincy Jones or I'll be short, like you know what I mean.
Like that to me was was even more amazing.
Like it's one thing to interview someone that you love and that you're you know that you have history of, Like I'm sure that you know if a Motown luminary comes on the show, then you know you're just giddy about it.
But how do you prepare yourself.
For an artist that you might not know of, Like say about first year Karen White comes on the show, and you might not know that much about her, but.
I ask her, ah, like you did. Seriously, that's how I prepare. There's no herd for like ten years, but there there's no preparation. I mean, every artist I've ever had on Video Soul, they would give me a bio and a list of questions and I would take a car right sit down on the side. Seriously, I would never look at it because I felt that there's nothing wrong with me not knowing you grew up in Tuscaloosa, that I can ask you that. I mean, this is an interview, this is getting to know you. What's wrong with that being the first of where you grow up at? You know, Oh, I grew up in Philip oh Man. What happened to the Sixers the other night? That's conversation.
Okay, you know it, that's just you know.
I mean, if it's somebody I knew, I'm telling you this may be the depth of the preparation. I'd go, all right, Luther's on this show today. I'm riding in and I go, what is it you want to know about Luther Man? Why you why does your weight keep going up and down?
I said, all right, that's what I'm going to ask him.
And you know it's but you could ask him that though I don't think nobody else could get away with.
But you know, and and that is a blessing for you to say that you get it. That it's just like h on with all due respect, I'm going back to Johnny Carson the Tonight Show that when the conversation with Johnny was always different from any other host I ever saw, because they had so much respect for him. He could ask things that others might not because they just lose. But Jimmy's like that too, because he's so cool. You know when when you're cool with people like that man, and they feel you and it's real, it's not stage questions. And you know, when you've read the bio, the chances are I'm gonna ask you a question based on that bio. It's something that you've been asked a thousand times already before.
What was your first interview on Do you remember your very first interview on the show?
Who was your first My very first interview is with the Fat Boys? Eighty three or eighty four? God, so like that, yeah, man, the Fat Boys. Second one was with Rick James.
Bitch, Okay, what was that?
Like?
Okay, we have yet to have a potential Off the Chains guests.
We're kind of entertaining that, like all of our guests are either like super legend or we've worshiped them. Yeah, but okay, Rick James a perfect example. If someone has the potential disorder be off the Chains.
Oh, how do you reel them? And how do you how do you maintain how do you drive the car and not have them drive the car?
Wow? That's wow, what a great question because.
You still have to steer and navigate.
Yeah, you still gotta steer and.
Right.
And it was the eighties, so we know that Rick might have been on that, you know, so you don't know where the conversation was going to go.
But I've never had that problem. I never had anybody, had anybody go rogue on me, just you know, go crazy, go just it just never happened.
But a little left, you've had some people maybe go a little because even.
That every everybody left, you know, shoot.
Has an interview going a little weird, and you guys had to do a lot of editing.
Magic well back in the day for like what we're gonna do is like most of the years on Video Soul, we were live. It was live until the last three or four years.
Yeah, yeah, I never do that.
Yeah yeah, we used to do it live.
Man's risky.
Well yeah, but today that's the way I liked it because that made it like radio for me. I hate tape. I hate recording. It's just it's a different pressure that you perform better when it's live. For me, you know, when it's live and I know you don't get to back it up and then it's real because for me, when you're backing it up and editing, then you're trying to make it perfect. And like I never ever ever watched video soul. I don't listen to tapes of my radio show because I feel like then I'm trying to make myself perfect and I'll never be that. All I need to be is me. That's it, That's all I need to be, Donnie Simpson.
Does that mean a programmer has never pulled you in aircheck meeting and.
It said, oh lord, no, since you were a teenager.
There's never been a boss, because I mean most I know people know this, but like in radio, usually your boss will at some point at the end of the week, pool you in a room and say, let's listen.
To what you did here. You know what, for one period, when I first moved to DC in seventy seven, we did have a program director and oh my goodness, it was crazy for me. For a year and a half I did live under that. I've forgotten that because it was such you know, that's out of how many years got I started in sixty nine, so you know, one and a half years of slavery. But you know where he would walk in with a stopwatch and go. That was seventeen seconds. You had to come in under fifteen seconds on anything you said, you know, I mean, it was just so finally I was gone.
I was gone.
I said I can't do this. I'm leaving. And I had a job offer in LA and so they offered me the music directorship to keep me. So I stayed and then I worked under this music director. My music director was he's a brother, but he had so much or it was let me be careful.
Yeah.
We know, wink, we get it.
Yeah, we need Muller to investigate this one. But he we would have our record meetings or every week, you know, the music meetings, and he'd go around the room. I was the music director under him. He was the program director. And I had two assistants, and both of them were political appointees. This is DC. One was David Brinkley's son, the other was his senator's son. He go around the room. He play, uh, I'll never forget this. When he played Beast of Burden, rolling Stones, you know, so he goes, so, John, what do you think of that? Oh?
I love it.
I think it's great. David, what do you I think it's great? I think Donnie what do you think. I think it's great. We can't play that ship you, right, you know, I mean I love it, but it's got the fit brothers.
Can I assume that that was the single after Miss You? Were you guys playing Miss You?
No? That was that was before Miss You? Because I Miss You came after, as I recall it, because I played Miss You as a program director, so I wasn't programming then. Yeah, we I'm pretty sure we could. We could check the records. Yeah, I think that's the way it went because I played Miss You. That works. Beast Burden does not. Little Riverband reminiscing. We can't play that, man, you know. Yeah, it's it's.
Because you also got to consider the area, right, Like, it's not just the.
People in the area in d C and go go baby.
You know it was hard. Yeah, that's my next question.
Okay, Now, as the the top taste maker of DC that had the world's ears, how is such a beautiful subculture like go go, how's it met?
So men?
Me obstacles and I feel like the ripple never gets to expand west west more west than West Virginia or Ohio, West Virginia or Okay, It's like let's let's just go back to Virginia.
Yeah, but it's you've lived in DC for decades. I assume you still do.
Oh yeah.
How is black people's jam bam music not resonated to the rest of.
The United States of America at least?
I have no idea why that is. It's like, I mean, we thought it was going to break out when we've had Yeah well.
And good to that movie came out.
Chuck was the first bust and Loose was the first number one go go song in the country. I mean, it was number one song in the country. That was Go Go and uh. And then the second was the Butt by EU with the help of the movie School Days.
You know.
So we're thinking, man, this great breakout now, and it never did. Those are the only two to this day that ever went number one in the country. You know, you had people like Grace Jones, some people used it elements, yeah, used elements. Yeah, but it just never broke out for some reason. And I don't know, you know, I don't know why Western world never caught on to drop the bomb on the White boy.
You know, I just don't get I.
Don't know.
We see no idea how that didn't work out, shocker.
So on the other side of that coin, though worrying about someone going rogue, there could be the other side of that coin of having artists that are signed reclusive. Now, as as I as obsessed as I am with all of David Rich's work as a as a writer and read both of those Aretha books, I know that she was a frequent guest of yours on the show, and you go into her house and her plan for you and she you know, she was rather loquacious. She talked a lot, which if she didn't know you, you could tell that. You know, there's a distance there. So how did you what was a hard interview for you, like for an artist that wasn't that talkative? Or did you ever interview Prince ever.
In your career?
Yeah? On radio okay with Soul? This was about seven what years ago?
Oh you seventy?
I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no no, because you remember Prinsident He had done that one interview I think it ran on MTV and he interviewed himself.
Actually, I was watching a click on on YouTube today of you introducing that on video Soul.
Yeah yeah, yeah, so no, and it was Prince and Michael were the only two artists that I always wanted to interview, you know, but never got to have them on Video Soul, you.
Know, even though we ever get them.
Yeah, oh yeah, being Prince were friends. And you know, as a matter of fact, the night you referenced earlier when we went to UH flight Time for the Pandemonium album for the time, Uh, we partied at UH at Paisley Park that night. You love this story. This is so funny.
Yes, we bring the story.
Uh that Wednesday, we're recording Video Soul. I had David Bowie on the show, and who was so cool and uh so after the show we were talking and I was telling him I was going to Minneapolis that Friday to do this time thing, and he says, I'm playing Minneapolis Friday. You got to come to the show. I was all right, cool, I'm there, So get my buddy to go with me, Sugar, Ray Letter. So we rode to Minneapolis and we do the thing.
I don't.
We that's me and Ray hung every day man, my boy still to this day. But so anyway, we get to the show that Friday night and they set like eight seats at the sound board right so we go to sit in our seats, and so I'm going by and I bump this lady in front of me and I excuse me, ma'am. And Prince turns around. So what he says, Hey, Donnie, Prince Man, so sorry about that. And so then he turns back around a minute or two later, he says, I'm having a party at Paisley Park tonight, you and Ray are to come. I said, all right, cool. So we go to the party. Man, you know, it's like twelve people there.
Man, he always parties were just yeah, six people.
I know.
It's me, Prince, Ray, David Boy and his band members Cat. He was dancing with him and my boy Jeff Newman, who produced my show video Soul. And I mean that was like that was it, you know. But we had the greatest time. Man. It was just the coolest night. And he played the Black Album that night. Okay. And now now this is so years later he tells me, because you know that album was notorious because it wasn't released. And so years later Prince told me, he said, you know you're the reason I didn't release the Black Album. What And I said, why? What do you mean? He says, you remember what you said that night at Paisley Park. I said what he said, you said, this is such a groove, and I was about so much more. Wow, And I thought, wow, is he serious or is.
He just.
Seriously? That was really deep to me that because that is what I said. It's like, man, this is such a groove, you know. But but what Prince needed to know is that you could be about that much more. But I can't hear it. I don't hear lyrics. I hear groove, I hear vibe, I hear feel you know, I know where it is. But man, it could be thirty years later and I'd be like, damn, that's what they were talking about, you know, too close.
He was, See the thing is, It's like, the thing is, I know I know that you know a lot of a lot of his.
Earlier Nelson George reviews of his post Rise post nineteen ninety nine, Rise kind of got under his skin and that he didn't want to be that philosophical and he just wanted to let y'all know that he was still down. And I've you know, that was his statement of letting y'all know, like, yo, I'm still down, and this is me but and you validated you're still down because that's such a groove. But maybe there's that itch in his soul that's just like say the deep statement, and you're.
Right right, and we're stuck with love sexy.
I got to tell you this is going back to something you said earlier. But it's so cool that because Jimmy and Terry, my boys and my mom introduced me to the time. That's who told me about the time, how well I was in DC. Mom still at a record shop in Detroit. You talked about that diversity. Simpson's Record out still there years fifty years, man, fifty years. Yes, I've never been there.
No, I always shop. I always shop in uh gross point blank. What's gross point in Michigan? Yeah, points a place called Melodies and Memories out there that I do all my digging.
But Simpson's Record Shop is still there. Yeah.
Yeah, a mom and pop YEP, mom and pop record store. When I told you that's where I started my career. Still there.
Right now, Stephen doing a week tour of America record stores.
We have more hot dogs and candy than she does records.
Now, can I interject the question, Donnie, So, what's your what's your record collection looking like these days?
Oh?
We said, oh wait, there's a frown over there. Are you in a situation where you had to get rid of stuff and put it in storage?
Marriage my records?
Yeah?
Are you asking? What am I into?
Or what? Do you still have your physical like that?
I still have everything everything, man, I would assume it's worth some money. Man.
Okay, fire in the house hypothetical, that's a Knockwood situation. Yeah, fire in the house. You're saving five records?
Okay, top five? What albums?
What's your forty five is into? Okay? Yes? What out? What five albums are you saving?
What's going on? Hot Buttered Soul?
Yes?
Who off the wall?
Wait now before you name the last two, I also mean that I'm certain that you have rare items of your your action as well.
Can just save his whole collection? We'll all we'll all show up at the fire and help him get out.
Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road. I got one more. That's hard. Well, look at they all fighting, they trying to get out the fire. Oh wow, one left? Oh god, I got Marvin.
Let's see fires.
Okay, Stevie's anthology. I'm cheating that off here STEVIEE right, wow one Stevie.
Oh my goodness, man, you get Sophie's choice, you'll stream, you can stream the rest on Pandora. I'm just saying that, ah fulfilling, this first Finaley, that's the Stevie one, Jod, I don't know.
That was a great cruschetto. I mean, what would you say?
That's what we're talking about, because out of the Genius period, that's my least favorite Stevie record of the Genius period.
Really, that's the one I know the least songs on. I know it, but I mean besides my mind.
For me, I don't know why I like Music of my Mind out of the five of them, because it was the first of the five. But even then I was like one, So I mean it was the first of the five. He was just more raw and that it was the first of the five, or do you first?
It was the first five? Yes, my first.
The first record I ever bought was by Stevie. It's tight. Really, that's the first purchase I ever made.
Of music, the first your your very first record.
Yeah, because that's before my mother. I didn't buy records for law because you open the record shop and then I got into radio. But yeah, I paid sixty nine cents for Babe Bit Everything is all right?
So forty five were sixty nine cents back in Well that came out sixty sixty.
Yeah, sixty six or sixty seven.
Well, I also know that you your you as a concert spectator, that you've probably seen some of the best shows of all time.
Now in your radio career. You told us about your your childhood career.
But what what were the experiences like, because I'm certain that you know you saw the very first Mothership Connection shows like stuff we take rant it now, like the ideas of the Jackson's levitating or earth Wind and fire levit taking all that stuff, like, man, what concert will stay with you forever?
As far as like.
All the Michael concerts really, I mean he's just the greatest ever to me, Yeah, without doubt, Michael the fire you know, see earth Wind and fire Man in their prime, you know with Maurice, you know, was amazing. The very first concert ever saw in my life, James, you know where Cobo Arena in Detroit. This had to be sixty seven, Jesus something like that, maybe sixty eight? Did he do say it loud? So? No, it was before said Loud, SOI say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud with sixty eight, you know. And James was my king, right, you know. And I used to tell them that all the time. Man, you're my king, I'm your soldier. There ain't nothing I wouldn't do for you. And I meant that, man, because he taught me to be proud of who I was. You know, my skin color man said loud was the most significant song ever for me. There would never be a song more important than that for me, you know. And so James gave me all that that sense of prime.
You know.
Me had assists from Curtis Mayfield and you know, but but it was James. So to see James and concert was just amazing early on because I remember as a kid sitting there at twelve years old. So wow, I was twelve. So that was that was sixty six and all I can think of. I'm not a musician, so I don't know why, but I'm like, damn, this dude's got two drummers. He's gonna wear one out.
He knows that ain't gonna make it.
So wow, I saw Sammy Davis Junior. That was amazing to see Sammy. You know, wow, wow, you'll appreciate this, and I know shifting gears a little bit, but say it people that I've had the opportunity to spend time in the studio with Tell Okay, now, of course you know there are a bunch of them. But before the just when I think back on my life in my career, to just blow me away, Marvin Sly Prince, Prince invited me in the studio one night, and that's rare. He didn't, you know, yeh, didn't have people in the studio. Uh and Stevie, you know, to spend time in the studio with Stevie, man, it was just oh my goodness.
You speak of watching Marvin in the studio. Can you speak of watching Marvin in the studio?
Actually it's kind of cheating because he wasn't He wasn't doing his album. He was recording the Originals. He was producing the Originals. Yeah did you know that, you know?
Yes?
Yeah, they yeah, yeah, But uh, Pam was with me. She was just my girlfriend. Then she's my wife of forty three years now. But I'm crazy, said she only forty four. But I remember Pam saying to me like because Marven was trying to show him how to sing the song, and she goes, why didn't he just sing you can't nobody do that? Yeah, but you know Marvin, when he invited me to the studio, how cool is this. I'm hanging out with ron Banks of the dramatics.
Wow.
Yeah, me and Ronnie. Ronnie was my best friend and that side of the music, of the business of music. Ronnie was my best friend, all the dramatics, but Ronnie in particular. And uh so we're riding down the street and we see Marvin going in his house, going up the driveway, and uh so, Ronnie says, it's Marvin. Man, let's stop and say hello to him. I'm sorry. Cool. So we stopped and uh he introduces He said, yeah, man, I listen to you every night. Man. I was like, all right, cool, And he says, you ought to come in and check me out in the studio. I said, all right, I'd love to do that. He says, well, I'm going in tomorrow all night. He says, but here, let me give you this phone number. Call me tomorrow morning, man, because I'll get up in the morning and decide to climb Mount Everest and I'll be gone, you know. And he said it in such a way as like I'm not trying to act like I'm eccentric or something like that. I'm just telling you, dog, you need to check because I do that. Right.
He's known for that, right, he is known for that.
Yeah, man, So how many cats know that Marvin lived in a bread truck for seven months in Hawaii?
Oh? Yeah?
Is that right?
Right after Dream Lifetime came on, he took his remaining money. That was right before. I thought it was before a minute love.
I thought, well, yeah, after dream before he did that, before he moved to Belgium and lived in the monastery.
And what you call this is round eighty. Yeah.
Yeah, he purchased a bread truck because I add a good room into it.
Oh you mean our lifetime? Yeah, in our lifetime, I'm sorry, in our lifetime.
If I had to pick one voice, I mean one artist, I mean, Marvin's my favorite vocalist ever. I just love Marvin. But the most intimate is that the right word. Most emotional moment I ever had with music was with Marvin. One night, I was sitting there listening to Flying High in a Friendly Sky, and I'd heard the song for forty years. I told you I don't hear lyrics, right, so not really. I mean flying I in the Friendly Sky, all right.
I guess it's.
Commercial for uniting it. I don't know, you know, but that night I'm sitting there and I'm listening to it, man, and I heard every word after It had to be thirty years at that point, and man, you know, I'm telling you, bruh, I sat there and cried for forty minutes, and I mean bawling, man, because I saw Marvin's life and his drug addiction. It spells it out so well. You know, my second oldest brother was classic Vietnam case, you know, came back from the non decorated war hero addicted to heroin, you know, and watched that struggle that he went through and sent my family through. You know, we you know, we all got touched by that thing. And you know, I just sat there, man, It just it just took me to a place where nothing but music could take me to where I went that night, you know, But you know, I go to the place where the danger waits me self destructions in my hands. You know, in the morning, I'll be all right, but then the pain soon the night comes and the pain. Oh man, it's just I was out running yesterday morning, and that's I always have my iPod on random, yeah, on shuffle, and that song came on. I'm running crying. You saw me, you thought I was sweating.
So can I ask? I mean, it's no secret that.
Where we are now in twenty seventeen is a long way from where we were in nineteen sixty seven or sixty nine when you first started. So I know that it has to be bothersome to not necessarily watch the evolution of where black music and black cultures go, the evolution or yeah, just the the evolution of it.
Does it worry you that very few.
Members of the next generation aren't necessarily grabbing onto the baton that the forefathers had and sort of not even dropping it, but just having a disregard or a sheep oft shrug like eh okay, yeah, like is it?
Well?
I'm just saying that you seem to be an open book culturally to everything, like you know in sixty nine, you.
Know, say loud, I'm black. I'm proud changed your life. I'm certain that.
Prince's arrival with or the the onslaught of dirty Mind and what he would later unleash was new and shocking, but you seem to be.
A board of it and what came after.
Yeah, at what point and you don't have to specifically mention names or whatever, but at what point or at least the year did you were the seeds of indifference there for you? Or it's sort of like, man, like, I guess, I guess this is what this is what passes for talent, or this is what passes for music or m I guess I'm just getting older.
Yeah, well, you know, well, first of all, I have to tell you this that I was, I was always has to. I never wanted to make the statement that they don't make music like they used to, okay, because I felt like every generation makes that statement, and they're right, they don't make it like.
They used to.
They never have, they never will. It's always changing. So and then I remember when we did the interview with Quincy Jones from his house to back on the Block album.
I was gonna say you committed him on being open minded, and that always stuck with me, like I never want to be the old guy that's like exactly, you know, I hate this music, right, And you said that and I was like, oh, okay, that's what I need to be.
Yeah, like Quincy, you know you look, I mean that album. I go to do this interview with Quincy. I mean there's Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Big Daddy Kane, iced Tea. You know, let me kick my credentials, young player bread in South Central LA, Home of the body Bag You Want to Die had colored rag. I used to walk in stores in the LA down you finish a inch a ca Spray.
Who Man I just wrapped with He said, you deserve that.
But the first time I heard that, Me and l A. Reid had this conversation because I was telling him, said, man, when I first got that album, I was listening to it. I said, it took me forty minutes to get through the first song. And he said me too, because you know, I mean, I know, Gula Matari, Quincy Jones. You know I'm right. And then I opened up. The first thing I hear is this gangster rap. But then all through the album was like a lesson to me that you know, you can embrace it all all right. So now they're doing the human beat.
Box all right?
So all right, little Let's get Ella Sarah Sarah, Bobby McFerrin and take six no instruments. All right, well, let's do that. You know, it was just he could make it all work, all right, Now get past that, and I'll have to tell you that in the last five, six, seven years, you know, it's not like there was any particular moment where I felt like, well, where are we? Where is R and B? But you know, I look at the charts. It's like me and Jimmy and Terry have had this conversation like it's just like it's just hip hop and pop, you know, like we're not there.
You know.
I miss those days. Man, when the top ten pop songs, you know, half of them are black, you know, and I mean black black, you know, right, so the soul charge, right, you know, I miss that. It seems like it's just it's changed. And that's very frustrating for me, you know. And and uh, you're asking me the question, but I ask you the question. Is it Is it that the musicians have bailed on it they're just so nonchalant about it, or is it that the music companies don't I have thought that ever giving it voice.
I have a theory. No because they're there.
I could name about six or seven people on the Internet that are like killing that might not get a shot because they're not easily digestible. But I also feel as though I don't know where black people are spiritually. Yeah, I don't know where we are spiritually now, as opposed to fifty years ago where we relied on the church.
As a training ground for singers.
Yeah, now that's true, you know, and musicians. I never thought about that.
I'm going to be This is probably the most explicitly honest I've ever been concerning my spirituality on this show.
But just lately, just as far as the the political turmoil.
That we're living in right now, House of Cars season six, Yeah, pretty much, and what's been going on in the past three years as far as.
Justice is concerned, as far as the unarmed killings of black boys and black women. You know, I used to question on Twitter, like, well, you know, where's the spiritual center that says that this is wrong? Like if this were if the injustice that was happening in twenty sixteen, all those unarmed shootings were happening in sixty six, sixty seven, I would have heard from the church from now and I'm not saying that, Okay, well, I'm maybe question you know, because it's so blasphemous for black folks that have been raising the church to even have thoughts.
Of atheism or whatever.
But you know, just where the idea of Christianity in twenty sixteen, it seems very tainted to me then it was when I was a kid growing up in church. And you know, your grandmam took to U church, you had to be there for eight hours. So I know that if I'm sort of questioning that, then I know there's a lot of people that are just like me that are moving away from that spirituality. I'm not saying that, oh, well, God doesn't exist if all this injustice is happening, but I know that, you know, our answer was always primarily always hang on to the Lord.
The Lord will make it all right.
And just you know, and I don't know if black people are there now, like even in our singers, like the hero now is Rihanna, who is about is not in the church anti She's more the mall or the you know, like I don't know where, like her home base is where you think of a reef, it's like, oh that's the church. Do you know, but the generation that Rihanna's raising isn't spiritual based.
Like Lauren Hill in a way that yeah, that's that's and.
It's not just blank. I mean you look at what the Christian right just allowed to happen in our last election, you know, I mean, if you can give him a pass for talking about grabbing women how he wants to grab and that's okay, Yeah, we've.
Just lost spirituality, not even religion, but just spirituality. So I just feel like.
That that reflects in the music and if that's not there, then we've pretty much lost soul music unless the spirit of it has just gone to the UK where.
There's still people there, and.
We're also becoming more inclusive as a people as wells and I think that has a lot to do with it too. We weren't, you know, we can know, I mean not watered down for lack of a better term, but you're talking about the sixties and when music was made then it definitely was not as inclusive as it is in twenty seventeen. And then you have to do with the cultural appropriation and who's making the money off of this sole means, I just.
Point out a labels not wanting to do more work than you know, if they can just market one artist one certain way instead of having to do it a whole bunch of different ways to target you know, all these different.
Audisms, and if they can sing soul and not be black and capture two different audiences.
Who So do you find it ironically weird that some of the more popular soul artists are not looking like the person in the mirror when you're listening to it.
Like or is that to you?
Just I'm sorry you no, no, no, I'm saying that now if you think of soul music, nine times out of ten, it's sam right right, right.
Right right right? Oh? I know, yeah, it's strange. Yeah, it's it's strange.
You know.
And I mean I don't fault you for that, you know, I mean you got sold. I mean the artists that you just named very soulful and I love their music, you know, but you know, it reminds me of watching and gosh, should I call this out in American idol or you know these shows? And you know, my wife and my daughter gets so mad at me.
Was it?
They finally just stopped watching it with me because I'm sitting oh god, he's so crazy. It's like what you know, So you you like, I take you to church this Sunday and find and just on this Sunday and find you three four voices better than anything you've heard on this whole season.
You know.
That's that's how I always.
Felt about Fantasian.
Jennifer Hudson, Well, yeah, there were moments, right right.
The thing that I find problematic about reality shows and the contest is that, you know, I feel like since ninety seven we've negated the idea of subculture or an underground you know, Aretha Franklin wasn't.
Made in thirteen weeks.
Yeah, it was made in seventeen years, started at eight, you know, and it took slow development in her father's church, in a subculture, and you know, because of the rush, because music is more as a means of escape for poverty for a lot of black folk. You know, it's it's more or less probably used now as a means to survive as opposed to express your spirituality. So yeah, I'd find those shows rather dangerous. But that's a whole another episode, of course.
And those shows aren't really about music, They're about TV, you know, I mean it's not about that, you know what I'm saying about who's the greatest. It's about That's why you get William Hunks out there.
Right right, like try to get you to watch.
So what would you?
By the way, I found a CD at my mother's record shop of Aretha singing in her church, in her father's church when she was twelve. How good is that my ma had that in the record shop. Oh my god, I haven't she doesn't have anymore.
I was just gonna say, did you guys sell a Reverend cl Franklin's ceremony?
Yeah?
Yeah, oh yeah, man, we're making a pilgrimage because I know somewhere in the storage unit.
There's a gym in there.
Yeah yeah, oh yeah, we are going up there. She more or less specializes in gospel music now anyway. As a matter of fact, Wow, going back, I remember I used to send Elton gospel music to London because he couldn't get it right right. I'd send the stuff, send him stuff from my mom's record shop. Man.
Yeah, all right, we are coming to Joy.
Is that where? Okay? So it's right because the record store is still in existence, right.
Yeah, it's still for right now, it's struggling though.
It's tight because it sounded like he might have half of the records in DC too.
No, yeah, well I got a few.
We'll come and save the store. Don't do no worry. We wait.
I want to ask one this kind of backwards, to go back then. But since uh, there's a movie about Detroit coming out in August about the sixty seven riots, I want to ask, how was your mom's story, How was that unscathed from because sixty percent of the city went up in flames during those riots up there? Like, how are you guys able to protect the store and not have it affected?
Well, we also had Simpsons patrol service got started first. Actually my dad had a rent a cops service, so he actually he protected the store. Plus you know, she was protected anyway, everybody in the neighborhood knew. They knew. Okay, oh yeah, she was protected. They weren't, you know, Mama was They.
Weren't going to burn the jams.
No, they weren't going to burn no, none of that. No, but uh, you know, and mom has always been cool. Man, like you go over there. My mother has always say it has the best security force there is, the Winos. They don't miss no days.
Don't.
Yeah, you know, And they were always so cool with mom. You know, if they need a cigarette, whatever, man, you know, Mom's got them. Man, just whatever. MISSI they called Mississippi, but uh, you know she come to open up. Man, they'd be standing in front of her store. They stand there, make sure she's in. Okay, Once she's in, they gone across the street because they know it's bad for business, you know, but let somebody come in there looking threatening the enforced Baby.
I'm telling you what side of Detroit? Was it on east side?
Yeah? Not far east? Yeah? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah right yeah. You start thinking about your pilgrimage.
I was like, I want to ask you, do you still keep in touch with any of the old crew, like Sherry Carter.
Madeline, like all those everybody you just named? Yes?
Is it a Facebook group somewhere that y'all have?
Yeah, you'll be going in yeah yeah yeah yeah, no we still talk?
Yeah? Yeah?
Man?
Did they ever talk on it? I was just a strength of what you just said.
Is there ever talk of like a full out reunion on B E T with you everybody?
Okay?
That that was a very quick are you no? You know for me, you know, when it was done, it was done, and that's the way I am when i'm you.
Know the end. When When was when the video so officially in that's a cool question. No, it was hold on the Planet Grooves.
Wh It was like nineteen ninety seven, I think. I know because they brought me back to do a special Millennium show or the Top Videos of the Century, and so I came back for that. But for the last two years that I did the show, I'm telling you, man, it was on New York Avenue, and every night I would drive up New York Avenue and all I could think was that, God, forty minutes more and you could be at the Bay having dinner with Pam. That's all I thought about every night. And that told me that it was time. Yeah, that it was time. I didn't want to do it anymore, you know, And it just changed for me, I think because I started. They started before. We used to do it in the afternoon at one o'clock, and sometimes for a number of years we did at three, but always live. And then we started recording it at seven o'clock at night, and you know, with me doing my morning radio show, it's just too much. I just it didn't feel same to me. I didn't. I just I don't know. And it was fourteen years, you know, and so no, I you know, my it was done. It was people always go mad. God, don't you miss it?
You know?
I don't. I mean, well, I missed the people. The show was fun, But I always think about those last two years, man, where it's just like, no, it was time. Everything has its time, you know. That's the way I feel, man. And we had our run and it was cool, it was great. It served his purpose for that moment, and we're done with it.
But you did miss TV because you came back with Donnie have the Dark a little bit?
Yeah, yeah, I decided I wanted to. That was Pam's fault. Really, she wants you out of the house.
Quest.
Let me tell you how she put it though. She said, Donnie, everywhere we go, all you hear is how much they love you and want you to do something else. You know, God has given you a talent that you should be sharing with people. That's the way she put it. What I heard was get out. It's been five and a half years.
I brought you out of the house records.
Because I didn't do anything for five and a half years. Man, What was that like?
We're going from just going going going, having years to chill.
It was cool, man, it was great. I tell everybody I started. I started a shuttle service. Yeah, I would shuttle grand babies back and forth.
And I was good at it.
And in the summer I became a pool boy, you know, for my grandkids. Man. So so I loved it, man, But but I'm happy to be back in the game.
You know.
It's you know, I love music in particular, and I felt like it was five and a half years of me not knowing what was going on, you know, and I don't and I never experienced that before. I've never been out of loops as the time I was twelve, you know, I always knew what was happening, you know. So you know, so it's been cool, man. And then and then the love of the people give you two man.
You know, It's just.
You know, it was almost like me and Ray Leonard had this conversation because we were talking. He took off for five years before he came back and fought Hagler, and he was talking about how it was so much more intense when you came back because you know people, you know, they're used to you, and then you're gone for this and you figured that's it, there's no more, and then all of a sudden you come back and it's a different level of appreciation, you know, and uh, you know people just people treat me swell.
But when did you realize that you probably could never do radio anywhere else but the DMV, Like the DMV might not let you.
Was there a moment where you realized that you came.
Or that you just wouldn't a dog you got you painting them straight up gangs now.
Him right like you on Ben's chili bowl wall now like you can't leave?
You are like, no, I never felt like that, like they wouldn't let you leave. I mean, you know, I mean because I was always so you love DC across the country anyway. I absolutely love d C without doubt.
Because I'm certain that at one point you could write your own ticket and let me see what it's up in Chicago.
Or go to l A or But for what I mean, you know, I mean d Yeah, and I love Detroit. I mean Detroit, that's you know, that's home. Baby. But you know, I mean, I'm already. I've been in Chicago. Be Et video Soul put me in every city in this country. I don't need radio to do that. I've never felt the need to to leave to go.
You know.
That's another reason why I've never felt pressure to do syndication. You know, I'm ask you know.
B E.
T put me in more homes, and syndication could ever put me in from radio, you know it could that could never be matched with radio what B E.
T did for me.
So that's not that big a deal to me, you know. And when I've had those conversations and I go, well, I play some of everything, you know, So what happens on this station in Detroit kim all the time? What happens when I play uh Drake or Tupac or whatever, you know, whatever it is. I'm like, well, you can play them, but you know, and you can talk about them. But we'll cover the Tupac song with Luthor. Oh no, no, you won't, you know, because you know, for me, it's not like I'm not a bit driven show, you know. I just I play music, we talk about it, and you know that's what I do. So music is such a big part of what I do. I can't. You can't take them, you can't cover It's got to be like a listen line. I mean, you know, you got to listen to the same thing in Chicago and San Francisco that they're listening to in DC. You can't cover my music with something else, right, you know, that's part of that's the biggest part of the experience to me.
And sometimes it's good to be local, you know. Sometimes I'm telling you, man, this is one of those cases.
Where be local is to be better.
And you know, I'm old school in that way. I like that. But again, I'm very blessed in that TV gave me that thing that most people in radio are seeking through syndication. I had it in TV already.
One question I ad to you was in regards to the culture of BT when you talk about the early years, and you were saying that it wasn't pretty, you know what I'm saying. I remember those early years, and I remember it was kind of rough, but it was also really real. And I mean just from watching your show, and I remember there was this other show I think you just come on after the video, so the it was a movie show, and it was this lady had a segment called Popcorn and pig Feet what. Yes, But in this this particular episode was notable because they dissed Graffiti Bridge, like I mean straight up smashed Graffiti Bridge.
And I was like whole, Like, I mean, there was that segment.
There was another segment where like Dwayne Martin was going through the record store like holding up records like on some like Kiss of the disc kind of shit like Yo, this new Tony Tony Tony album is crazy, Yo, this is the new t Shir Campel album.
This shit is whack.
Like, I mean, they were just it was ruthless, you know what I mean, and so and even like on your show, I mean you would give like I mean, god man, was.
It like vertical hole. I think that was the first place seems too much too visually. I remember that interview.
She had had a cold, ye, so like you don't remember so much so real and it was no PC, no cut card. It just seemed to be I mean, as as much as you described those early years as they were kind of rough and kind of ugly, to me, that was the charm because I knew I was getting just uncut.
When did that change?
Do you or do you remember when it kind of shifted and they were like, all right, maybe we gotta polish it up, like we can't just you.
Know, be this, and people like I can't play commercial, you know, No, I don't.
I don't know, I can't play what the rough Side of the Mountain commercial I found.
Coming up Jesus.
But no, I don't know when that when that changed. Man, I don't know. You know, I've I've always felt like you got to keep it real. Like there are times when I play a song to this day and I'll go, you know, wow, my boys will kill me, but almost say it anyway, Cooling the Gang celebration I played that you are talking about that song on the air, is like, God, I can't take that song anymore, I said, I you know, I mean, I'm happy for Cooling the Gang that this every bar, it's for wedding, any celebration you got over the last thirty five years they played that song, I said, But when I go down to Jamaica and I hear it's a celebration, it's like.
You can't escape it.
Escaping it, you know, give me some of the other cooler stuff. That's but you know, I think that people appreciate that because it's real, and that's just my opinion. You know that if everything is great, then you can no longer be believable because everything's not great. You know, Yeah, you should sometimes say yeah, you know that song is not for me, but I play it. It's popular. People are crazy, you know.
Well, Donnie uh, we thank you for coming on the show and this has definitely been a master class in man.
Man, thanks for having me. I wanted to have one final question.
This is from my mother, who like absolutely loves you. She wants to know I guess I want to know, did you have a smoke before you went on the air.
No, Man, definitely not always waited to laughter the show. How people used to ask me that all the time.
And one show I actually came out I addressed that. I said, people always ask me that, and but no, I am not high, I said, but when I smile, I squeimped my eyes closed. They would try out kind of make up and stuff trying to get my eyes to look more open, and it's just that's just.
Who I am.
It just so I explained all that on the air, and I said, so anyway, so no, I do not get high, but let's get our show started. We're gonna play this video and I'm gonna go in the back smoke a joint. We'll be back in a minute.
Oh god.
I thank you Donnie Simpson for all that you've done for us. And you know raising, I don't want to put it like no, he.
Pretty much raised like any any left of center like black stuff you got put on like it came through video.
So thank you, hey man, thank you very much. We appreciate you. One more time.
Thank y'all.
I won't be happy to be here.
I won't be happy here, Sugar Steve, Boss, Bill On Bifield, bron Tickelo.
This is Quest Love. You've been listening to Quest Love Supreme only on Pandora. We see you on the next program. Thank you.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
