QLS Classic: Herb Alpert

Published Aug 12, 2024, 4:01 AM

Jazz musician, songwriter and co-founder of A&M records Herb Alpert talks about the art of the trumpet, writing hits with Sam Cooke, the secret to outselling The Beatles and how he really feels about getting sampled by Biggie.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

This is Sugar Steve and On this week's Quest Love Supreme classic jazz musicians. Songwriter and co founder of A and M Records, Herb Alpert talks about the art of the trumpet, writing hits with Sam Cook, the secret to out selling the Beatles, and how he really feels about getting sampled by Biggie. Originally released October fourth, two thy and seventeen.

Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome, Welcome to a very special one on one edition of Quest Love Supreme.

Well so one on one.

Well you're here too, Sugar Steve's always you know, one of the one of the great things about one of my many jobs that I have is the interaction I get to have with an endless parade of musicians and artists that come to the tonight show so kind of off the cuff and spur of the moment I thought it would, I'd be remiss.

If I behoove you like behoove.

No, That's why I said remiss instead of behoove. Well, I changing my style, Steve, that you know, if I didn't have an in depth conversation. Uh with I meant to say, renaissance man is almost cliche at this point. I guess if you like do three things well or four things, well, you're a renaissance man.

But hey, I can chew gum too.

Okay, now, now he's a renaissance man. Tell me the world's greatest gum cheer of all time. Please welcome to a very questlove supreme special. Uh mister Herb Albert.

Well, thank you very much. Hey, well, what a round up? Applause?

Thank you? How are you today?

I'm feeling good.

You're good?

Yeah?

Good. I guess as of this recording, you're in New York doing a residency yet, right, Yeah.

We play at the Cafe Carlisle. There's our fifth time there. Okay, I enjoy it. It's fun.

You know.

This is a small little group of people. I think the room holds about ninety people, and it's really up close and personal. In the sixties, I used to play for the Height of the Tijuana Brass. We were playing for like twenty thousand people at the Big Arenas.

I was going to say, what do you prefer, like the intimate setting or like the.

Actually I prefer a room that has a good sound with an intimate setting, you know, that's the best. In the old days, it was like you never really got a feeling of the audience. They were just way out there someplace. And that was the days, you know, when people smoke, so you could see people light up cigarettes, and for the most part, you don't see that anymore. But I like the intimate setting. It's more fun.

Oh cool, cool. So I had to say, we have to discover your music. When I was a child, I had a father had a very extensive record collection. I'm sure that I'm not alone in which I thought you were naturally of Mexican descent.

Episo did I for while?

No.

I used to go to bullfights in Tijuana in the springtime for about three years I did before I just decided I don't like bullfighting anymore. But you know, that was an experience for me. And I never heard mariachi music. But I heard this brass band in the stands that kind of knocked me out because they would like introduce all the events of a bullfight, you know, like before the bull would come out, they'd come up with but bang the bull shows up, you know, and then another fanfare for the matador and the picadors in them, So it was kind of exciting, you know. And I tried to translate that feeling into a song, and I had a good melody from a end of mine, and that became The Lonely Bull and that record we released. That was the first record released on A and M nineteen sixty two, and it took off like a rocket ship. So it was a good feeling.

So can I assume that before nineteen sixty two in American culture sort of the the mariachi sound or even the sound of Mexican music wasn't fully developed yet as far as I mean, how popular was it at the time, Like was it introduced to you because you specifically went to these bullfights?

I'm not sure, you know, it kind of just morphed into me. I was, you know, I like cal Jader and Predesprato, Macheto and those type of Latin groups. I remember seeing one time Macheto here in New York and it was a real eye opener for me because I got there early. The band was on the stand, Machito didn't arrive yet, and the band was very loosey goosey. They were playing some stuff that was really kind of straggling along, you know, everyone kind of not in the groove of things. Then Machito came out with the cow bell and bing bang bing bang bang, and all of a sudden.

Everybody everybody alive.

Yeah, everybody came alive at the right time. It was beautiful. So I mean that I've had several experiences where it really hit me that is not what you do. It's the way how you do it, and that's the way I've been been operating.

True, I can agree with you.

I do agree with that's the way how you do it.

Well, it's as far as your your your your musical development, your your childhood. What was how were you when you first picked up a trumpet?

Well, I had this great experience in my grammar school and there was a music appreciation class. I don't know if they call it a music appreciation class, but it was a class talking about music, and there was a table filled with various instruments. I happened to pick up the trumpet because I liked the feeling of it. I was very small and the trumpets seemed to fit my hand and I tried to make a sound out of it, which I couldn't do. I was just blowing hot air into it and that didn't work. But when I finally you know, made sound out of the instrument and started working on it, I realized that it was talking for me because I was very shy as a kid. I'm basically an introvert, but.

More so than all musicians.

Well, you know, it's yeah, I guess one of those things. I've met a lot of great musicians in my days now, but yeah, I was so anyways, the trumpet was talking for me. It was it was saying things that I couldn't get out of my mouth. So it was been a great friend for me through the years, and I've learned a lot from it. We've had our ups and downs, like all musicians do. Jumping forward, Dizzy Gillespie was a friend of mine, and Dizzy used to say, you know, the closer I get, the farther it looks okay.

Well, how first of all, what type of what trumpet do you play?

Like?

I know there are different types of saxophones, altos and sprint, but yeah, it's.

A regular B flat trumpet. You know. I've had different models through the years, and I played all the Tijuana brass records on a Chicago Benz trumpet. But it's not the trumpet. You know. I ran into a huge problem playing the instrument around nineteen seventy, going through a divorce, and I don't know, my body wasn't feeling good and I was not mentally in good shape. And I had a real problem was it was a struggle to play the instrument. I was stuttering through the horn. I was like, a couldn't get the note out in time, really right. So I took some time off, and then I started studying with a teacher here in New York, Carmine Caruso, and he was known as the troubleshooter. You know. He could teach brass instrument, he could teach any instrument. Never played the trumpet, but he taught the trumpet. He taught trumpet players from all over the country and all over the world. And he used to tell me, man, it's not the trumpet. The trumpet is just a piece of plumbing. So you're essentially playing Yeah, that was his description of the instruments. A piece of plumbing. Man, you're the instrument. Doesn't matter what kind of mouthpiece of user, kind of trumpet you're playing. You know, the sound is inside you, and that's, you know, the sound I've always tried to make, you know. I went through a period of thinking, well, man, do I can I play like Clifford Brown? Heck no, you know that guy was a genius beyond you know, and then Miles and Louis Armstrong and all those great players. I was thinking, well, I was trying to imitate them for a while, and then I realized, who wants to hear that? They've already done it? So I was looking for my own voice.

Well, I think you found it because I'll probably say that next to Miles Davis, I could probably tell Dizzy Gillespie's tone and about if you give me about twenty seconds, I know, and maybe a touro, like there's certain Freddie trumpart. Yeah, there's certain trumpet players in which you could tell instantly. But with you, you have such a distinctive tone and voice with your playing that even yesterday, of course, like we all get very nervous when our heroes come to play with us, and you know, the rule number one is like try not to freak out in front of you. So the quieter the quieter the roots are when rehearsing like you best believe we're on our cell phone.

Like I enjoyed playing with you guys. But I had the supreme compliment from Miles. Miles said, you hear three notes and you know it's so it's.

I mean, well, I want to know how how much practice did it take as far as your craft is concerned before you knew? Okay, this is my lane and stay in it. And I know that you know, were you ever tempted? Like for me as a drummer, I guess I've made my mark playing flat footed. When I was young, Bernar Party once told me, he says, dude, I keep food on the table with the two in the four. You want to keep food on the table, or you want to like, do you look mino? You know, because drummers are or musicians always want to flex and let other musicians know I got more technique than you and that sort of sure, But I'd followed this advice and he's like, yo, just if you just do the two and a four that that will last forever like a good tuxedo.

Well, yeah, that's true to it. Agree, But I mean, you have to be authentic, you know, you have to be real. I don't think you can fake fake that. You have to do something that's you're passionate about. And if it's two and four you're passionate about, great, go ahead.

But during the time period in which like you know, Miles is pushing the boundaries with you know, in a silent way and bitches brew and all this stuff, are you thinking like, damn, like I got to catch up or you know, or for you it's just like.

No, I wasn't thinking about that. I wasn't really thinking about making hit records. I mean, that's jumping forward. But you know, I was drafted in the Army out of UH. I went to University of Southern California for about a year, and I really didn't take to college. I just didn't have that feel yet. But after the Army and they sent me to Well, first off, I told them that the only thing I know how to do is play the trumpet, you know, I said, And I lied a bit. I played with Dizzy, and I played with you know, Count Basie, and I gave him the whole story of anyways, I was a trumpet player and that was my m O. So they sent me to band school in Fort Knox, Kentucky and there were like about ten trumpet players there, and these guys were all better than me, and you know, and I was coming from a situation where I was the number one trumpet player at my school and all these gigs in Los Angeles, and I realized that these guys could play higher, faster, louder, read better, and the jazz was for the most part, I mean not all of them, but most of them, you know, were just pretty darn good. And I thought, if I'm ever going to make it as a professional musician, I have to come up with my own style, my own voice. And that's what I start started pursuing. I heard this record by the guitar player, how High the Moon Les Paula and so Less was layering his his guitar on this on these tracks, and I tried doing that at home. I had two tape machines. But believe it or not, I'm saying two tape machines. You know. When I started, are you sitting? I said, I had a webcre wire recorder.

It was a wire recorder, wire recorder, this pre tape.

Yeah, it was pre tape. And it was like, you know, if you wanted to make an edit. You needed a soldering iron anyway, So I got the tape machines. I got the Ampex Mono machine, and I had two of those, and I used to go from one machine to the other, layering the trumpet, and all of a sudden, ah, that's a nice sound. Was the Tijuanna, the genesis of the Tijuana brass sound and the stacking the horns, And when I hit on it, it felt like right. And then you know, came The Lonely Bull and this record, uh, you know, it was a big hit record. And I got this letter from a lady in Germany. I chuckled when I first read it, but she said, dear mister Aubert, thank you for sending me on this vicarious trip to Tijuana, you know, which made me think, Wow, that music was so visual for her, it transported her. And I said, well, that's the music that I really like to make. Make music that takes you someplace, you know, post a elevator music, which is it's music. It's not bad, not good, it's just there. You know, you don't go out the elevator whistling anything.

But it wasn't invented at the time. What's that It wasn't invented at the time, So you know, I don't consider elevated music to be like a four letter word.

No, no, no, it's cool.

But I think it's ubiquitous, like okay, like it's beyond your home stereo, beyond your headphones, beyond your car, which is like the three places that people mostly listen to music. You know, when your music is in supermarkets and in dentist office and that sort of thing, then it's like it's it's in another dimension.

So right, So anyways, that letter kind of stuck home, and of course, you know, we haven't talked about it, but I learned a heck of a lot from Sam Cook. You know, I worked with Sam. We wrote a song together, Sam and I and lou Adler. We wrote don't know much about history, don't know my trigger. We wrote that song and Sam was.

A wait, you're singing you wonderful world, wonderful world.

Yeah, but Sam and Louis I did not know this, well.

Yeah, I didn't know.

He was the les Paul the trumpet, like the first one to over it. So you're saying you were the first or one of the first to layer trumpet.

I don't know. If I was the first, but that was the sound, you know, that was the start of the tea Wanna brass sound. But I learned a lot from Sam. Sam had a really unique style. He came out of the gospel field. He was with the Solsterers, as you know, and Lou Adler and I were partners. And it was right after we were hired by Keen Records as staff writers, and it was right after Sam had that big record of You Send Me and we became friends with Sam, who was an extraordinary guy. I mean, he just had he oozed talent. He used to walk around with a notebook filled with lyrics. One day he came up to me and said, Herbie, what do you think of this lyric? And he opened his notebook and I was looking at it, thinking myself, just to myself, Man, this is corny. This is really corny, you know. I said, how's the song? What does it sound like? He picked up his guitar and started singing this song, and I was thinking, Holy moly, man, he turned this corny lyric into something magical because of his authenticity, his intent, his passion. Where he put the notes, how we put the melody together with the notes, and you know, the rhythm, the feel, and that was just a real big aha for me. That was the you know, it ain't what you do, it's the way how you do it feeling moment.

There's also like a simplicity to Sam Cook's lyrics and his singing style. So did you pick is that part of what you picked up from him? Sort of that keep it simple?

No?

I don't think he thought about keeping it simple. I think he thought about being authentic. I mean he was doing the follow up to You Send Me, and he was singing I Love you for sentimental reasons. And the owner of the company kind of dabbled as a piano player, but not professionally, And we were in the recording booth listening to the playback of one of the takes, and the owner goes up to Sam and says, Sam, you know here in bar twelve and bar eighteen and bar forty four you can put in a who wo.

Yeah, that's what that live or something.

Yeah, I mean that's the one that was the kind of the hook of the you send mething, right, And Sam looked at him and said Jack, And his name wasn't.

Jack, right?

He says, you can't just put in.

A who wo.

Whenever you want, man, you gotta feel it. Yeah, And that was Sam. You know, he was.

Feeling emotion.

He was totally into it, you know he was. I loved him.

That's amazing.

So is that what you ended up looking for to skip forward in Ben's and artists that you were signing? Is that specific thing that you're talking about right now?

Well, you know I learned from him that. I'll give you another example of him. He was he started, you know, he was the first artist to have his own record label called SAR remember that. And he was auditioning this artist from the Caribbean, beautiful looking guy green Eyes, came in with a little stool to put his foot on hi as he was plucking his guitar, and I was looking at him while he was singing, thinking that, man, this guy is great. This guy really has something magical. And Sam looked at me. He said, And I was in the control room and this guy was out in the studio and he came in. He said, what do you think of this guy? I said, well, I think he's pretty good. You think I should sign him? I said, I think so. He says, we'll do me a favorite turn your back on him and listen to him for five minutes. So I turned the chair around and all of a sudden, I didn't receive anything. The guy wasn't talking to me. And so at that moment I realized that there's there's something to learn. And Sam, you know, didn't sign the guy, and he told me that, you know, it's not about how you can razzle dazzle somebody with your looks or with your movement. You know, it's just it's it's does he does it touch you or does it not touch you?

You know, if only Sam knew sixty years of now.

Well you know, yeah, well you're absolutely right, but man, it changed with you know, computers and video and yeah, the music videos and yeah, if you can razzle dazzle somebody as a dancer and as a as a.

Well now it's like singing and talent. Really, I'm not even being sarcastic or bitter sounding like I think it's maybe even fifteen percent of the factor and it's more about your personality.

Yeah.

Well, there's an artist out now that currently has the number one song and their whole appeal basically rides on them going on Instagram live like they're so charismatic as a person that it makes you cheer for them, and they have like serious marginal talent. But even I find myself cheering for marginal talent now in twenty seventeen, which is.

Yeah, well, yeah, I agree with you. There's a different That was a different time though, when I'm talking about it. And then Sam taught me how to close my eyes and listen to the artists. And that's what I did with A and M. When you asked me, you know about auditioning certain artists, I would always go in there with my eyes closed and hear the music and make a judgment on that. I mean, there was an artist I don't want to mention her name, but she called me. She was an an M artist and she says she had this single that was a smash man. You can't miss with this thing. This was beautiful and she was in the studio and she begged me to come by and listen to it. So I did. Walked in the studio, closed my eyes, sat down on the couch. I said, okay, play it, and they played this thing and I couldn't find any part of my body to move, you know, I couldn't. I couldn't find my tota tap or anything, you know.

So there's no goose bump.

There was zero goosebumps. And then I finally opened my eyes and the artist and the engineer and the producer they were dancing around the room. Man, they were just having the best time, and I just did not get it at all. And so well that That's always been my measure. You know, if it gets in me, then I'm good at that.

Can I take one while, guess? Yeah? No, not read it.

I liked reader. You know, Rita was part of the group that the Mad Dogs in Englishmen. Yeah, yeah, that was a pretty amazing moment for me too.

Would I would like you to at least explain to me, I guess the perception of California musicians, and I mean, I'm putting you kind of in the jazz genre. I don't know if do you consider yourself a jazz artist or an instrumentalist.

Or I think I'm an improvisational artist in well, see, that's a whole long discussion, because I think jazz needs a renaissance, it needs a revision. And Miles had it, you know, Miles kind of took it forward. I think he understood the genre just about probably better than any other jazz musician. You know he would, I don't know. He was involved in the melodies, in the feel, and always choosing the right musicians to play with. And I think we need that. I think the day of playing the song and then everybody taking a course and then playing the song again, I think that's old hat.

Well, I'm only asking because like the perception of I guess the perception of the New York musicians snobbery, which New York is considered cool and cold and not as laid back as California. So thus it's sort of the perception that you have to suffer for your art, or it's a gritty you have to come from a gritty environment for your art. Whereas you know, you look at these California musicians, and I know that New Yorkers sort of looked down on them. Like was there as far as like the perception of your contemporaries at the time, like were you mixing it up with Chet Baker or you know, the California instrumentalist of the time period of the late fifties.

Definitely, yeah, no, but I was in high school. Chet was playing with the quartet with Jerry Mulligan at the place, a place called the Hag and I used to go there to see them in high school. Uh, and it was it was a great experience obviously, you know, there was no piano, just based drums and chat and Jerry Mulligan and the and the four of them just made some music that was very very avant garde and beautiful at the time. And I remember when they wanted to take a break, Jerry Mulligan would get up to the microphone and say, shortly.

Cut to the chase, Yeah, just shortly, so about the Tea Wana brass. Can I assume that that was just the Wrecking Crew and name only like or was there a point where you actually like on the record that has to be the recond Crew because it was so clean sounding right well up.

Through the Whip Cream and Other Delights album. That was not all the Wrecking Crew, but it was definitely Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kay sometimes on bass, and guitar, mainly bass. Yeah, I used musicians of my choice, and that's how it started, because you know, I had this idea of how I wanted the record to sound, and I knew the musicians in town, so.

But when it came to reproducing that.

Live, yeah, well, after the Whip Cream and Other Delights album, I got an actual group together, and it was always different, you know. It always gave me a feeling like it's not quite the sound that I made on record, but it's okay. I had a great drummer, Nix s so Roli, and I went to the musicians that I found. I went to their strength. Instead of trying to give them something that they couldn't do, I tried to see what they could do really well. And the music kind of took a turn from that point on.

What were your audiences looking like at that time period?

Wow? When when the Tijuana Brass really hit after the Whipped Cream album, it was young and old, it was it was a basic I had this experience in Seattle, Washington. We were playing there with the new group and the my partner Jerry moss I recorded a record called third Man Theme. He loved it, you know, and on b side was a Taste of Honey. So in Seattle, Washington at the Edgewater End, every time I played Taste of Honey, the audience went wild. I mean they loved it for some reason. And sometimes I played it twice in a row, and I called.

So, it's only two minutes, so how would.

You well, I mean, you know, they liked it so much they let's hear it again. So I called Jerry said, man, you're on the wrong side. It's taste of honey. He says, Ah, Man, you can't. He says, it's not a good radio song. It's it's uh, you know, stops in the middle twice and it slows down and you can't. You know, it wasn't suited for radio. I said, look it, man, there's a focus group up here, and I'm telling you it's taste of funny. Let's try it. So we eventually turned it over and that that's the record that really opened the door for the Tijuana Brass because after that then we started performing in all the major shows, you know, the Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin and Andy Williams and Danny k all those big shows wanted us. So from that point on we were sailing.

So let's bring in Jerry Moss. How did you how did you two meet?

Well, we met, Uh. My story is we met him in New York. I met him in New York. History is he met me in Loss Lou Adler and I did a record that was a huge monster here in New York called Alioup and our friend Ted mutual Fred friend Ted Fagin was the head promotion man Madison Records, and he went to school with Jerry and he introduced me to Jerry. And Jerry was a promotion man. He was just getting going, but he had a great feel for records and a great field for people. He's a real you know, he's a real person. And we got together in Los Angeles started talking about producing a couple of records. What he wanted to do a record with an actor friend of his. And I had this record that I was fooling around with called tell It to the Birds that I was singing on, and we put out Tell It to the Birds, and we put out this record that he wanted to put out and tell It that the birds started popping up. It started happening in San Francisco and Los Angeles and we turned it over to Records for distribution. They gave us I think five hundred dollars for that plus a percentage, and with that money we recorded The Lonely Bull, which was an offshoot of my visits to Tijuana and I played it for a disc jockey friend, b Mitchell Reid was a friend of mine that he was the number one jock in Los Angeles, and I played the demo for him before it was released, and he said, where's the hook? I said, what do you mean the hook? He says, you know you need a hook. I said, man, this is an instrumental. It's not a vocal. He said, you think about a hook. And that's when I called Ted Keeps at Liberty Records, who was the head engineer, and he had this tape of thirty thousand people screaming Ola had a bullfight, and he gave it to me to use, and that was the thing I used, right in the front of the lonely bull, and that was the supposed hook, and that Cada pulled it. The record. Man, it took off, and it took off in it broken in San Francisco, right and there was a disc jockey, Jim Lang who's also on The Dating Game, was the MC of that for a while, and he broke that record, and I went up to San Francisco to thank him. You know, I walked into the control room and I introduced myself. He was excited and I said, man, I want to thank you for playing that record. Thank you so much. He looked at me and says, I wouldn't have played it if I didn't like it. And from that point on, I never thanked the jock for playing the record. I thought that was a very appropriate thing to say. You know, I would hope to think that they liked the record, that's why they're playing it.

Wow.

So wait, Well you mentioned Lou Adler, which I'm thinking because you two went down similar paths, and I know that eventually he did a distribution thing or association thing with his label. But did you two never discuss, uh, starting a partnership together, like starting your own label at one point.

Or not a label. We were partners, you know, we wrote you know, Lou dated my ex wife, Oh boy, no sound effects. But that's how I met Luke he was married to after that, he was married to my ex wife's girlfriend, Damn Lou, and we became friends. We're very I love the guy. I remember, We're very close. And we started He wrote poetry and I wrote some melodies to his poetry, and we took around these demos after making demos records, and this one, well, we took this demo to Specialty Records in nineteen fifty seven or so, and Sonny Bono was the head and and R guy Specialty Records at the time, and so he listened to our records and he said, look, I want to be honest with you guys. I think you guys ought to get out of the business. But we like Sonny. He was an interesting characters col Yeah, that was cold. That was a coold thing to tell anyone. You know, I'd never do that, you know, even at A and M and I interview and audition groups, and I tell them if I didn't get it, I say, look it, man, just because I ain't receiving anything, don't mean you ain't sending something. So don't give up, you know, do whatever you know you're passionate about doing. Anyway. So when I you know, got this job, I told you before as writers for Keen Records, And that's how we met Sam Cook and have been bit of boom. A lot of things happened from.

That because because of his because of his New York association. Have you ever done anything in the Brill building at all or considered going to?

No, But you know all those writers, those great writers, you know Backreck recorded for us and Carol King and all those I know they came out of that place. And Jerry Leeber and Stoller. I knew those guys. Liber went to Jerry liber went to the same high school I went to. He was a couple of years ahead of me. But he was an extraordinary guy. He uh, he was very innovative. You know that that record of There Goes My Baby by the Drifters, it was his idea to put strings on. That was before anybody put the string section on a record. And the story of him dancing around the studio kind of telling the string players you know what he wanted to hear. It was very vivid. And those guys you know, obviously made some wonderful, wonderful records together.

So how easy or challenging was it to form your own label, because you know, I mean, today it's so do it yourself. People can make a complete album on their laptop very little resources, and the quality is just as good as spending you know, at an entire budget in the studio. But you know, why did you not consider, like, oh, maybe we should take this to Columbia, or maybe we should take this to you know, mercury or something like an established label, because I tend to think that to be to be a creative, it's just hard enough. Now you've got to be a creative person and you got to be a businessman, right.

Well, lucky for me, you know, I'm not a businessman, and my partner Jerry Moss was is.

But it's still your business though. I'm sure that you guys have to have like a fifty to fifty kind of like. Okay, I got to make some decisions and come to meetings and shaking.

Oh yeah, definitely. But I had this major experience. Yeah, I recorded for RCA Victor before I ended records. I recorded for them for about a year and a half, okay, maybe two years, and I was I filed everything I didn't like about how they treated me. You know, I was a number to them, I was. I wasn't the Herb Albert. I was three eight two five one take three, you know that type of guy. And in this recording facility they had that was very ice cold. It was you know, white on white on white on white, and then in the control room it was no different. It was a cold place. And I was listening to a playback of one of the songs I did, and I wanted to push up the bass channel because I needed more bass on the sound. And I went over to the board and I lifted the bass up and with the pot and the engineer slapped my hand.

I get out of wow, no wait, yeah, you don't allowed to do that.

No, and uh, you know I he said, don't ever touch this board again. This is a union house and blah blah blah, and yeah yeah yeah, And so I filed all that, thinking like, man, shouldn't a record business company shouldn't revolve around the artist, you know, And that's what I tried to do at A and M and was a really peaceful company and we were thinking about the artist and had this well, you know, when the Lonely Bull happened, our distributors around the country said, why don't you guys take the money and run. You know, you got lucky with this Tijuana brass thing, your close proximity to Tijuana, and it's not going to happen again, Like that's an instrumental. Instrumental zon't happen that often. And those that gave us fadder for trying to hang on to it. See how long we could hang on. They wanted a Lonely Bull album, which we gave them, and that sold well, so we tried to hang on to it as long as we could, and we started recording a couple other artists and the big aha for me, and this was the moment that I realized that A and M was going to be successful. We signed Waylon Jennings. Whylan was living in Phoenix, Arizona, and he was He played with Buddy Holly and he was for some lucky reason, he didn't get on that airplane, but I used to fly down to Phoenix. We signed him to a four year contract. He used to fly down there and record him and he really wanted to be a country artist. And I you know, did a record with him called four Strong Winds that was excellent. It was really had a good feel. He got this call from Chad Atkins who heard that record and made some you know overtures to UH to Whalen, which he probably shouldn't have done because he was Whalem was under contract us. But he said, you know, when when Whalen gets free, he'd like to talk to him. Whalen told me about that, and at that point I wanted to take Whalen just a little more pop. Whalen wanted to be a country artist, so he was all excited about chat Atkins calling because chet Adskins was the messiah of country music at that time. He was the an R head of RCAA Victor and so we talked it all over. I talked it over with my partner Jerry, and we decided to let Waylan out of his contract so we could go with Jet and we had about three more years on his contract. And I remember the day that we signed his release and I looked at Jerry. I said, this guy's going to be a big star, and Jerry said, yeah, I think so too, and we let him out. And I thought, from that point on, man, if we could be that honest, that authentic and that caring for our artists, we were going to do. We were going to do.

Okay, who was the first artist you guys signed outside of releasing your own music.

Well, there were a couple of hours. One was George mccerrn, who was the bass singer with the Pilgrim Travelers and that was like the number one gospel group in the which I learned a lot from, by the way, just thinking back on that as you mentioned that because I used to watch them record and it was just the five guys with George mccern who called himself Oopy. He was singing bass, and then just a guy playing snare with brushes, no big deal, no big backbeat, you know, no two and four slamming at you, and these guys would would just make you feel like, Wow, this this unrelenting time zone that these guys were in, and the feeling and the the energy that they had, it was just like swinging swinging hard. And I thought from that point, man, you don't need all that stuff to make a good feel. It has to just all the musicians have to gel together in a common cause, you know what I mean. So George mccurrn was one. We had a group called the Kenjelaires that was a vocal group. Didn't do very well, but they had a nice sound. And then Wayland came along. Yeah, but the Tijuana Brass was We were kind of supporting A and M a long until around nineteen sixty seven or eight we signed a group called the We Five. You were on my mind. It became number one record and then sixty six, well, in sixty six we signed Brazil sixty six, Sergio Mendez in Brazil sixty six. That was a big one for us because they had a really unique sound. You know, we auditioned them and remember walking in this room and hearing this hybrid sound of Brazilian classical jazz, Brazilian jazz, American jazz pop. They had that whole thing. And then my wife, Lonnie was the lead singer.

I lost my mind when I realized that. I think she was promoting her book and when she mentioned that, and then it finally hit me that, oh my god, she's the one of the female voices of Brazil sixteen.

Yeah, so she was not one of them, she was the singer. Yeah, I doubled her. I got that hy puppa, the t want to brass twist on her on Sergio's thing because they had another girl. There were two girls, yeah, and one girl was very beautiful, but she was not a recording artist. You know. She just have that sound.

And when I heard my wife was that voice.

Yeah, she had that voice, and that was her sound on you know, Maski, Nada, Fool on the Hill and all those early records that I produced with Sergio.

What was the question, Well, no, I'm just going through your initial roster of Vietnam, dealing with those those artists, and I guess in the in the seventies.

Well wait, we're getting awfully close to CTI.

Yes, let's not skip CTI. Yeah.

And Quincy, well, Quincy Man, you know, Quincy is Quincy. He's a unique character. Yeah, he's one of those guys. You know, you don't have to you don't see him for eight ten months, a year or three, and you're like old buddies right from the get go. He has a magnetic personality, he's brilliant. He has eighteen balls going up in the air at the same time, and they're all, you know, worthwhile, they're all doing something interesting.

We had the we had the fortune of recording our show at the former and M Studios, which is now Jim Henson Studios, which I guess was formerly the Charlie Chaplin Studios. You know, even now past I'm sure that anyone that goes through there that has had some sort of history there, there's there's a feeling that you get in that environment when the gates closed and you're just inside of that world, in that environment. So the entire a M Operations was inside of the former Chapman Studios. Like that's where as far as the studio was concerned, in the offices, everything was in the well.

Not in the early days. The early days was in my garage. I mean that's where we started, yeah, I And then we had an office on Sunset Boulevard for a while that was, you know, little modest place, but then we bought the studios. I think nineteen, I don't remember the year.

How did you avoid the the ugly side of the business, because I know that to be an upstart to get your stuff played.

I know there's a lot of hand shaking, kissing, babies, politicking, grease and palms. I know that, you know, the the element. What's the New York guy used to have records, Mars Leavey.

Yeah, I believe.

Like, how do you how do you deal with people that see you like, oh, getting success in Hey, I like a piece of that or you know that, because I mean you guys were essentially always an independent label.

Right yeah, well I personally side stepped all that stuff.

But how can you when people are like, hey, you know, let me let me bring my wife sings and let me get a piece of the like again, you have to be a business person also, like how do you avoid how do you avoid that? Especially when the late sixties and the early seventies was so record label were so corrupted. I mean, you didn't hear about that with your label, you didn't hear that, but with Moe Austin at Warners. But you know, definitely, I know that a lot of those mom and pop labels that were trying to get the status of a CBS or a Mercury, you know, there's a lot of grime that they had to avoid and how do you sidestep?

Yeah, well I never got involved personally. I heard about it, but it wasn't something that interested interested me. And I wasn't good at that, you know, I didn't. I just know about trying to be me. You know, it's it's not enough just to be yourself, you know, and work in that world. I'm an artist, you know, I'm eighty five percent on the right side of my brain. I paint, scope make music, and I'm a lucky guy. So I always you know, when we A and m started growing and we had these business meetings every Thursday with lawyers and count and and all that, Man, my eyes would glass over. That was just like Holy moly, man, this ain't me. So I kind of found a way to, you know, get out of that thing because it was it would it would dig into my creativity.

So at on the business and what was your role? Did you look for new artists that you listen to tapes? Jerry? These brothers and sister act that we gotta sign. Man, their harmonies are really crazy. They're called the Carpenters. We gotta do it, Like, how do you convince?

I didn't have to convince anybody when I wanted. I signed the Carpenters because I loved them, period not. There was no you know, we didn't have a committee, you it was just my office was right next to Jerry's and I just said, you know, I'm signing these kids. You know they were great, but I used the Sam Cook method with them. You know, they heard I heard this tape, put it on in my office and closed my eyes and it felt like Karen's voice was coming right up and sitting next to me on the couch, I said, I got to meet this girl. You know, she's has this very interesting voice, and she didn't think of herself as a singer. She was a drummer and a pretty darn good drummer too. So signed them, and luck be having.

When you heard these tapes, were those harmonies hitting you like the way that the final product was.

Oh yeah, No, there was something there because Richard and it wasn't just Karen. It was a combination of the two of them. Richard Carpenter is a very creative guy. He has great taste and songs, and he was great with choral harmonies, and he was very instrumental in their success. But in nineteen seventy, you know, they had a couple of records that didn't do great, and people in my own company were saying, wem man by just signing these guys. I mean, that was the rumble I was hearing. You know, they're a little too cute, they're little, they don't fit on on radio, blah blah blah.

So people thought they were like more bubble gummy.

Yeah, bubble gummy music. No, uh huh. And so then I gave them close to You. I had that song that Bert Backreck and how David wrote and they recorded it and I didn't like the recording. Karen was playing drums and they recorded again. That wasn't it. I said, we need more we need, you know, let's get them guys, Let's get the wrecking. So Hal Blaine came in and Joe Osbourne was on bass and they made that record. And that record I remember after they finished it, I played it for Bert over the phone and he flipped out and that record was a monster. And then, of course, after all the same people in my company that were saying, why'd you sign those guys, all of a sudden thought I was a genius.

Christmas bonus time, Right? Did you give Bert backack his? Were you the start of his? Because I know he wrote this Guy's in love with You? Correct?

Yeah, he wrote this Guy's in Love with You with Hal David. Yeah. And that was their first number one record, which was really interesting. Man, it was their.

First So that started the ball rolling for.

Well, not for them, oh no, they had my humpteen hits before that, but that was the first number one. Yeah. No, they have all sorts of records that were beautiful. I mean they're really Bert is a very very unusual artist. You know, he has his own voice, his own style. You can't really second guess his melodies. They just kind of take his someplace and there there's a logic to it, but only he knows how to get there.

What made you decide to sing one This Guy's in Love with You?

Well, there was a television show we were doing for NBC and the director, Jack A. Lee Jr. Asked me to try and sing a song, you know, because he was tired of photographing me with the trumpet my mouth. So I called Bert and asked him if there was a song that he he you know, starts whistling in the shower, or maybe a song he recorded but didn't like the recording anyways. He sent me this Girl's in Love with You that he recorded with Diane Warwick, and I liked the song a lot, but the gender had to be changed because it was written for her. Called hal David flew to New York. He was living in New York at the time, and I was there while he was changing the lyric, and I asked him the same question as I was leaving his house, and he sent me close to You, and I was going to use that as the follow up to This Guy's in Love with You, which was zoom to number one in two weeks. That record was number one after the television show hit, and so I recorded close to you, and I had a pretty good recording and the engineer who was a friend of mine, Larry Levine, I said, listening to the playback, I thought it was good. I said, Larry, tell me the truth. What do you think? He says, Man, you sound terrible singing this song.

He's this that blunt honest with you.

Yeah.

Well he was a how many naysayers in your life?

Man?

No, that's good. You know.

I'm not saying your life should be full, yes, Ben, but.

Oh look at I'm I like to have people around me that give me the truth.

That's that's was he right?

Well?

I think he was right, although I still liked the record, but I put it away. I didn't, you know, I got a gun shy.

Wow.

So in nineteen seventy, when the Carpenters had a couple of records out there that didn't happen, then I gave Richard Close to You. And that was the start of their monstrous career because I mean that man, that when that once that door opened for the Carpenters, it was like watch out, man. It happened all over the world. It was fantastic.

Okay, So what was your relationship like, how did the Creed Tailor Association come to be.

Well well Creed. In my opinion, Creed is one of the most He was one of the great jazz producers I think of all time. He just had a field for what to do with Wes and do you know, he made some extraordinary records with Bill Evans, and he just had a feel for how to market them, how to how to package it. You know, they packaged the record properly, and he sequenced it properly. I think he knew what to do. That record he made with the organ player Jimmy Smith, Jimmy Smith, that's one of my favorite records, you know, the one he did with Walk on the wild Side. And I don't know, he was just looking for a different distribution deal and we were honored to have him because I just love him as a producer.

Were you guys not worried, well, because you guys had a lot of distribution deals. Were you guys not worried at all about I don't know if branding was still the thing the way it is now, Like people want to have their branding set now and in motion, make that front and center before even the product. But you know, was there any fear that because I didn't even know, like I know, I guess now that I'm an adult that you know, like Tapestry is and in related even though it was on Lose Album and all those Cheech and Song records, well it was on records. Yeah, but you know, but I'm just saying that, was there any fear of like the label not being up in front and you having these other subsidiary labels under you.

No, I don't think we ever thought about that. We were just putting out good music. You know. My partner Jerry had the same feeling I have about music. We try to make you know, in the early days when we started in sixty two, you know, there were a lot of record companies operating out of the trunks of their car, and a lot of companies would you know, get one hit record and then they make an album with fillers. You know, they'd have the hit record and they have a bunch of junkie records you.

Know that are hardcovers.

Yeah, just things that were just economically good to do or I guess, I don't know, but we never wanted to do that. We wanted to, you know, give the public a fair shot and make music that we would purchase ourselves. And then when the Lonely Bull and the tierron and brass started happening, we hired a guy that was working at the pressing plant and turned into be our quality control person. So all the records and all the masters that came out of it, and we're really as clean as they could be. So we weren't thinking about how much money we could make, how much you know, good music we put out there, and still, you know, be honest, didn't make a good living doing it. That's what was it. That's what we were pursuing.

How big was the staff once you guys got to the Chaplain Studios.

Well, at the Chaplain Studios we had thirty three people at that time, started with the two, then there were three, five, ten, you know, and all of a sudden it got way out of hand, you know, towards the end. I didn't know anybody in the company.

In the beginning, you knew, well, well, in.

The beginning, it was just Jerry myself, you know, that wouldn't be make all the decisions.

And who was your if you can recall who was like your star an R? Who was the an R guy that like just brought to you like your top five favorite acts to the label, like who was the one guy that you could depend on?

Well, you know, there were some guys in in London that did really well when we.

Got okay, there we go, squeeze, well squeeze yeah.

Yeah.

But then.

So you're saying that there was an A and m uh division in London, Well yeah, because that would plase and yeah the place and Joe Cocker and okay.

Yeah, well we am we had super Tramp which they were huge in Europe.

So all the all the British associated An m acts, Yeah, they came out, were signed and right when did you guys expand past?

Yeah, okay, that was around nineteen sixty nine, I believe you know when Jerry you know, thought that, you know, our image at the time was kind of easy listening, kind of cool music, and he wanted to you know, jump into the five pan Yeah, the real stuff, the stuff that was happening, you know, a little more edgy, and that's when Joe Cocker and Mad Dogs and Englishmen you know, got going. And that was the first time I was kind of indoctrinated into that type of music because I was not a stuff shirt. But you know, I came up through the classical field and then I was making my own music. And when I remember walking into these sound stage when Cocker and Leon Russell was playing piano and they had two drummers and Rita Coolidge and the singers were doing the thing with they were rehearsing for upcoming upcoming tour. I remember walking into the sound stage. I listen to him and I had my eyes closed, you know, the way I usually do. It was open enough to see where I was gonna sit. I sat on the sound on the stage and all of a sudden, Joe started singing and I got goosebumps, you know, I said, Wow, that's a sound. And I opened my eyes and Joe was gyrating like he was playing guitar or something, you know, as he was singing and totally into it. And I said, hmmm, I like that. So that from that point on, I was the door opened for me for rock and roll and that other type of music.

So you always kept that Sam Cook theory of I gotta I got to hear it first before I see it, before I opened my eyes.

See what.

Definitely I use that always. Yeah, there was a there was a female group that was floating around New York. I can't remember their name, but they all the record companies supposedly were interested in signing them. Yeah, so I flew to New York and I think they're Basil. They were playing at that one of those clubs, Basil.

I don't rego, okay, sweet Basil.

Yeah, or they were playing, and so I walked in there and had my eyes closed and kind of open enough to see where the seed was, and I sat down started listening to him, and zero man zero came out. I didn't get them at all. I finally opened my eyes and these checks, you know, with tattoos, and they were playing you know, this stuff that was like loud. You know, certainly give them credit for that, but I didn't get it. So I didn't have no interest in signing them. And actually I don't think they even signed to another lady.

I was going to say, who they wind up being.

I don't think they signed. So yeah, no, I used that approach. I think that's that's the one. And it got harder and harder because you know, like when MTV he came along, and like we talked about before, you see these guys dancing like wizards and Uh, you know that that all of a sudden people started listening with their eyes and that was a whole other groove.

You know, it should be it should be noted, especially for our listeners that aren't that familiar. You kind of were the not the impetus, but uh, a lot of those promotional videos for our listeners out there. If your band had international hits and they weren't able to travel to certain countries at the at the snap of you know, in a snap and get there immediately, that was the initial reasons why promotional performances were used for those artists. So say, if the Lonely Bull or Taste of Honey is is really hidden in Chili, or or or in Japan and you can't get there immediately to you know, to tour, you would send a promotional clip of you playing and then they would play them on these particular shows. Hence the idea of early videos. But your your performance videos at least you know, all the ones that I that I binged on on YouTube, they had concepts to them, like you it's kind of the music video.

Well, you got to think it through. You can't just throw something in there. You know. We've had an artist that didn't want to do music videos. There was Joe Jackson who had the number one record, you know, and not a particularly good looking guy. Or he couldn't dance, and he couldn't you know.

Didn't have his interesting though lucky come on.

I'm saying that probably from him from his point of view, you know, I think, and he just didn't think it would be appropriate for him to do a music video, which she never did. So and then you got, you know, artists like Janet Jackson who like she had it, you know, she didn't get by on on Michael's talent. Janet had something, you know, she was she had her own magic. And it seems like these these artists that could dance had an upper hand because if he could dance really well, they could swing. They always put these songs in the in the proper, proper groove, and they always made you feel good, you know.

You know now now that I think about it, even beyond the Tijuana Brass videos and whatnot, your videos for it, particularly when not you know, when I was coming up as a teenager, you know, BT was playing the mess out of Keep your Eye on Me and and with diamonds. It's weird though, I love the fact that I wonder now that as an adult, was it important to you to have such a heavy anti drug message, Because even with keep your eye on Me, with the plane going by and just.

Kind of an ugly thing right there that happened, you know.

No, no, no, I know, but like it actually, and even in the Diamonds video, some some stony kid comes up to you and You're like, just say no to drugs, kid, and I'm like, were you imagining that? Like some thirteen year old kid in Philadelphia is looking like, okay, herb, I'll just say no, he told me to stop smoking outside just an hour ago.

Oh god, he did, he did?

Yeah, No. But my point was that watching a string of your videos, they kind of pressed pushed the envelope, even though you did the putting on the Ritz video, which I think was like a one camera.

Take camera one at six takes, but one camera.

So are these ideas coming from you that, like I know you're saying that, you know it shouldn't be visuals should be audio like the the the musicality should give you goosebumps and Matt's what sells you, which I agree with you, but you can't also discount the fact that you've kind of went the extra miles and a lot of your videos way above what people were going through at that time. You know, with with with visuals, like even with the Whipped Cream album cover, like you had to know that visuals play an important role with it. And I can't believe I skipped the whipp Cream album coming.

Yes, that goes without saying that the Whip Cream Album was mighty influence in so many ways.

Yeah, he sold six million units and that's the reason why he sold more records the Beatles in nineteen sixties.

How many units did just the cover self?

Well, I mean the album sold fourteen million, but I mean the cover, it wasn't.

Hard to get all that whip cream on that girl.

Well, I'm in the record stores. Was it seen as a risk.

Because well, at the time it seemed risky, but obviously.

Looking at it now, it looks like she's wearing a wedding dress.

Yeah, well then she's wearing shaving cream, by the way, and she was three months pregnant, by the way, and by the way, the sky comes up to me like a month and a half after that record was released, he says, Man, this is the greatest album cover I've ever seen. I love the girl, I love the concept, the whip cream blah blah blah. I said, thank you so much. What about the music, he says, I haven't had a chance to listen to it.

So that's who is the girl?

Uh, Dolores Erickson. She was a professional model and she's so beautiful. Yeah, she's beautiful.

Yeah she was. Now, now I see where the Ohio players got their inspiration the honey up. Yeah, so I guess the roots need to make it. I'm called sugar, just keeping with sweet snacks.

I think Stanley Turrentine has the sugar category covered.

C T.

Yeah, I know Sugar can't give us more CTR stories.

Like Gulamatari is I mean? I mean, wow? Was that done at A and M Students? Yeah, she's ct I stuff was done there.

Quincy was on an M. Quincy wasn't on C T I.

Yeah, but yeah, do you mean very early the A M, the A N M C T I.

Oh, I guess I can assume that. Uh, because of the proximity of the brothers Johnson and Billy Preston's band and then winding up on A and M via with Quincy is some sort of and in connection as well. But I mean, at what point are you able to kind of back away as the a in Albert and Moss and just let it run on its own? Like are you driving in the car one day and you hear Strawberry letter twenty three and you're like, oh cool, Oh that's all my label.

No, we didn't give up. We were always there, you know, Jerry and I made the major decisions together. The everyday nuts and bolts I was not a part of, but the overall brushstroke of the company and the feeling and the artists that come came through, Yeah, we were there. No, we had Tommy Lapumo was producing records for us. It was you know, got his start with us.

And I was going to say, who was the Did you guys have a house system where you had your house producers and your house engineers to engineer that sound.

Yeah, we had our own recording facilities, so you know we made those state of the art, the best equipment and great acoustics, and you know, like I had, like I said, I had that experience at RCA Victor that the studio was cold. So I was very intent on making our recording facility these very user friendly colors and feel. I think when you walk into a studio like the studio we're in right now, you know, you know darn well the sound is good in here. It has that feeling.

And incidentally, we're at Electric Ladies Studios in New York City, the House of Hendrick.

So we wanted to make sure if we had that vibe, and I think the art appreciate that. In Studio B, I put in this huge crystal, like h eight hundred pound crystal embedded in there in the wall, and a lot of artists would come in there and and like.

Uh, it's still there, Well, well it's he took his I took them.

I took the monster out and.

They replaced they they put a different one in there.

Yeah okay, yeah, and uh, you know, artists would come in there, even if they weren't recording in that particular studio, they'd stand in front of that crystal. It would be like they're at the Whaling Wall in Jerusalem.

You know, it's energy. When Shaka Khan walked in that studio with us, uh, she acknowledged that, you know the energy of the crystal. So I I know that as an artist, there's one particular project.

I wanted to talk to you about Synchronicity.

No, I'm talking about Herb's own career. You did an album with Hugh Masekuila. Yeah, really, and I believe seventy seven Soul Train is one of my all time favorite shows and kind of the thing that I've done as an adult is collect every episode. So seeing you kind of make the quote Graceland move before Paul Simon did was very interesting, especially in nineteen seventy seven when people's eyes and you know, you had South African artists and you know, kind of world artists with you on this project. What was your intent? Was your intent to bring attention to or relief to those artists from South Africa?

That not really? You know, I just liked I liked Hugh. I liked the way he played, and when we talked, he felt that the music I was making was kind of similar to the groove of what they do, you know, not not necessarily all the rhythm stuff, but that there was a compatible sound. And so we recorded together and I think that that one record we did, man, I think is great. Uh Skochian, Yeah, it's it's it happens man, And there's you know, we had great musicians. Uh, and and let Umboolu was singing in the background with my wife Lonnie. And I had this great guitar player from the Caribbean, Freddie, who was, you know, a groove machine, and a couple of the guitar buts. I can't think of their names right now. But Freddie used to every morning I'd come in when we were doing the album. I said, Freddy, how you feeling? He'd see everything? Is everything? Say that every day? Uh? But I know, I loved working with you. We traveled, we did concerts together and had a great time. It was all always you know, fresh, it was always lively.

He did one studio album, one live album.

We did exactly that. Yeah. Yeah, studio album came first, and we did we recorded our concerts and they're both good. They're both good albums. And some unusual players. Guang Wa from Butswana was playing trombone and man, this guy sounded like a wild element elephant and he just had a whole different concept for playing jazz. So it was really it was fun playing with them. I enjoyed it.

I guess I'd be remiss if we didn't mention. Also, Billy Preston recording for the label who of course you know Steve and I are are We can go on and on about the artists that have been on the label. I'm also forgetting that this Max Pistols at one point, and I want to know, I do want to know what that week was like. Uh, but who are your just in your general you're you're, you're, you're starting five? Who were the five artists that you're like, I'm so proud that I've had them on the label.

I'll tell you who comes to mind first. Is Kat Stevens a little bit? What what about Cat was just a real talent. I mean he just had he oosed talent. He was him and a guitar, his passion, he was something special. Of course, the the uh, the police, those those three guys far I mean one, two three, It sounded like seven eight guys army. Yeah. And I remember seeing it at the Whiskey you go go in l A and thinking, wow, that's a good sound. And then Sting was jumping around the stage like he was on a pogo stick. And they were all fine musicians, really good musicians. And of course when Sting went off by himself, you know that was a whole other dimension because Sting is a is a brilliant guy and a very sensitive, emotional and good guy. You know, so he would be one. Let's see. Of course, There'sio Mendez and Brazil sixty six, of course, and Burt Backrack and Janet Jackson. Of course, there's so many artists that it'd be hard to nail down my top Wheeze.

Right, Squeeze would be probably in the top five. I'm I'm I'm being I'm trying to make it.

He's Squeze fan.

Squeeze fan.

Yeah, okay, but uh.

And no, there's Super Tramped. There was Frampton, there was.

Yeah, well Frampton is another guy. Man, this guy, you know, he was really a good looking kid. When you know he recorded Oh Baby, I Love You right that thing. But he was one hell of a good guitar player. The guy could really play and then you know, he had that look, and he was a really good artist and a gentleman. I mean, I tried to surround myself with artists that really had a nice vibe. I can't. I couldn't hang with the sex miristles. I mean, that was just something that was going against my grain.

Whose idea was it to introduce it? I mean you you do acknowledge that they're culturally relevant. Oh yeah, but you know whose idea was it to sign them? And whose idea was it to drop them two weeks later?

Well it was I guess that came out of the office in London. But uh, the uh?

Like, did you do? You? Are you? Because I can't think of any artists that you have that have been controversial? But did you not see that the controversy of offending the world could be a thing that can also move units and as long as long as they're talking about this, that's all that is.

No, I didn't care about that stuff. It's uh. I didn't like the energy that they brought to our lot. To tell you the truth, I passed that on. But no I didn't. I don't. I don't get that that that that doesn't work for me.

Yeah, it's it's crazy. Has there any been an artist that you were in pursuit of that you almost had?

Yeah?

That?

Who?

Who's like? Your your three regrets? Like I really wish I had them more?

Well, the number one would be the Beatles.

You had a chance to sign the Beatles ship. Yeah you can say that and I'll say it to ship.

Okay, Yeah, well, you know everyone had a chance because they were like going around to uh get some distribution deal and blah blah blah. So anyways, I don't know if we had a door into getting them, but yeah, I think they were available around that time we started. Okay, so yeah, Prince, what I heard those STAPs? I said, man, let's sign this guy. There is something happening here. And my partner had lunch with him and his manager, and he told me that he was like, didn't have any charisma, that he was very quiet and very reserved. He didn't think. Then all of a sudden, you know, people were offering them all sorts of money, and Warner Brothers offered him, you know, eight zillion dollars. So we passed on them. But I knew this guy was going to be an artist.

He was an artist, wow, based on charisma, because I would think that if you're eccentric, when you see eccentric artists, then Matt to me is the sign of they're going to make it. Because I don't know any artists that's just all that combative. Do you show me a compatible, friendly artist, I'll show you someone that's not at the top of the.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. But you know, the people were throwing around these big companies, big corporations. You know, we were just a we were just a partnership. And you throw around a couple million bucks to an artist and you make a mistake, Hey, your entry. You could be in trouble.

So that was monst You have a chance.

With h Well. I think most of the other artists all worked out. You know, we had some great jazz artists. Stan Getz recorded for us, Paul Desmond, Jerry Mulligan, Willie Bobo. Of course, Wes Montgomery was on CTI West was you know he was he was something special, you know that that sound of his you know, I thought it was like, wow, what a magical sound.

You know.

I was doing this television show and Wes was on the show. I was the MC and I was waiting for Wes to come in for the rehearsal, wondering you know what he used as a setup. And he came in from with a little Fender guitar amplifier that was all. It was small, it was, you know, filled with cobwebs in the back, was dusty and funky, and he plugged in and banged. There was there and there was that magic sound. So there there again. You know, it's it's all the sound comes from inside the artist. It's not the instrument. It's that sound that they want to hear, and that's the sound comes out.

Okay. So in eighty when you well, seventy nine, when you did Rise, which you know, brought you back to the forefront, were you surprised at all by the success of it? And in the reception?

This ribes was recorded live in the studio, I played the horn off. We're doing the track, and.

I'm sorry, I'm laughing at one reason. I'm sorry whenever that breakdown happens. Yeah, I'm a DJ and my monitor speakers allowed as hell, So of course you know when that breakdown happens and you guys are like laughing at each other in the background.

Yeah, that was at it. Obviously.

I always look at my MC guy because I think he's I'm always looking at him like, why are you talking on the microphone, and he's like, that's not me, that's the record. And it happens every time I spend that record.

Yeah, well that's a really really good record. And when I was I think It was the third take listening to the playback in the studio and I got goosebumps. I said, Wow, this could be a big record. This has something. And I remember walking up behind Julius Wector, who was playing marimba on on the cut. I said, ma'am, what do you think, Julius? He says, I don't dig it. What's wrong with it? Yeah? You know he said, you know he couldn't handle that boom boom boom forward to the floor. You know that bothered him.

He thought you were trying to go too much disco.

I don't think.

You know.

What I learned from Sam Cook was to be an audience to my music. I don't when I'm recording, I don't listen to the trumpet player. I don't listen to anything but the overall feeling. If the overall feeling strikes me, I'm in. If the overall feeling doesn't strike me, I try to do something to make it work. But Rise had that feeling. I don't know. There was something about it. And you know it didn't start out like that. My nephew, Randy badass out but wrote wrote it with the drummer right. No, he's not a musician. He wrote it with the with the Andy Armor and they had but they wanted to do it as a disco. It was originally at one hundred and twenty beats per minute, and I said, wait a minute, no man, this is a nice melody. Let's slow it down. And we finally slowed it down to one hundred beets per minute. I said, you know, every now and then people want to dance together, maybe this is the chance, because I just didn't want to make disco music.

Very wise moves on your choice. How did you feel about Biggie's resurgence of it?

And well, you know, obviously it's a good record and it was a huge record, But I'm not crazy about people taking your stuff. I think it just shows that they don't have the creative to do something themselves.

Yeah, but you know, yeah, I mean there's a generation of Yeah, absolutely, Rise will now last forever in people's memories.

Yeah, No, I love it. I love the checks that come in from that too.

I got I gotta say that of your entire song book, Root one on one is I will probably go on record and say, and I've never done this, this is probably my favorite song of all time.

All Right, I'll give you some other ones to think about, but the Root one one is good. I did that album with one Carlos Calderone, famous Spanish composer, arranger overall good guy. Rest is soul be passed about four or five years ago and Jose Quintana, the two of us produced that record and Root one on one is definitely a good one. But if you listen to other a couple other ones on there.

Well, I love the whole Fandango record, Yeah, the Fandemic. I felt that was a return to your element, did you because the groove based stuff of the Beyond record, and I forgot what came out in eighty one, the album after Beyond, but it was Fandango was sort of like a return to form where.

Yeah, no it was. It was a good one and one on one it is one of my favorite songs as well. But I was all set to do a world tour with that and then I got hepatitis and that I'll put the cabbage on it, so that that record didn't receive the attention that it could have. But there are some other records that I did. I think I don't have to think about that. Since you've labeled that as your favorite.

Well, it's just for me.

It's it's saying he knows about fifty five million songs, so that's saying something.

Well, I'll tell you the record we were doing last night that we you know, didn't really do the whole thing, but rotation. If you listen to that, rotation, rotations are really good, it's a good feel.

Well, all your stuff is good feeling. Actually, Well, there was an album you made in eighty five that, uh, all I know is that when you promoted it on Soul Train, you had a young Lenny Kravitz on keyboards back when he was a Romeo Blue.

Yeah, that's how I knew him as Romeo. He was used to rehearsing our studio CE and he was introduced to me as Romeo and I thought of him as Romeo talented guy.

Was he ever a part of your touring grew or he just did that promotional appearance on soul He just did that, Okay, Because I was going to say when when the drummer introduced himself he said, yeah, not badass, and I was like, wait, did he just curse on Soul Train? So that's why I was trying to make the connection Oh yeah, if your drummer was badass with jam and Lewis and keep your Eye on Me.

Well, those guys were really original. They really had a flair for picking out the right song, the right grooves, and and I flew to Minneapolis to record. They said they had this great song for me. And they played the song and I said, well, what's the title? They said, Sausage. I said, no, man, I don't think so. Yeah, well that was that was keep your Eye on Me. That was the original title they had was sausage. But these guys are good, you know, they're they have a great sense of humor. I was doing this interview for one of the news channels and the phone was ringing rang in the studio and Jimmy picked it up, said, Sinatra will tell him. I'm busy. I'm working with herb Robert right now. Will you tell Sinatra call him back?

You know? Oh man, that was kind of cool. I also love the way that you guys kind of did the Janet Jackson trick on the Diamonds video.

Yeah.

I always wanted to know. I guess I would have to ask her how easy is it to say no to your boss?

I think she was doing. She was someplace else in the world. But all right, it all worked out. It was kind of a fun thing to do.

I enjoyed it because I was waiting for it, because I swore that was her in the limousine, the.

Way that was lit. Yeah, well, the little kid that it.

Turns out to be an eight year old kid. So in eighty okay, in eighty nine, you guys decided to sell the label. At what point, like, how did you well?

I was into selling a forty nine percent, That's what I wanted to do, and then keep fifty one and keep control of the company. They kept upping the ante, you know, and it reached a point where I thought, maybe it's time. You know, the Internet was coming. The Internet was making noise. I'm not saying that I saw what was going to happen with file sharing, but there was something about it that said, maybe the time is right. So when they finally made this nice offer and they wanted to buy the whole company, we agreed. And I'll tell you what the interesting part of that whole thing was. Jerry and I started the company in nineteen sixty two on a handshake. We never signed any contract together. Lots of millions of dollars went through the doors in various ways, and we ended up signing over to Polydor, and that was the first time we ever signed a contract together. And we concluded with a big hug and Jerry is still one of my dear friends.

That's good. Yeah, so you're trying to figure out a way for us to remember the company, Steve, Oh no, no, no, anyway, Well, her, I thank you very much for sharing a story on Quest of Supreme. There's so much.

There's more, there's more, there's part two.

Yeah, we gotta do a part two. I have one more question. Okay, what does your record collection look like?

It's not very extensive, you know.

Because are you asking for that? CTI No, I was curious.

I'm just curious a man like this, you know.

I have a few I have some classical music that I like a lot. I'm crazy about ravel, you know. Daphnis and Chloe is one of the things that I love to listen to when I feel a little down. The Fourth Movement knocks me down, knocks me out, you know. I love Miles like all of the musicians, and Charlie Parker was the guy. He was on another planet. He was doing things that will resonate for years to come. I love Paul Desmond. Jerry Mulligan was a dear friend of mine. Stan Getz and I were like brothers. Stan was a guy that I really really, really really really had a feel for it because he was he always just said I never played a note that I didn't mean. You know, I love that about musicians. And we were so close, you know. He said, do you want he wanted to give me lessons. I said no, I asked him, I said, how about giving me some bebop lessons? I never played with Charlie Parker and Coltrane and all those guys you played with. And he said sure. So I'm in my studio with Stan and I said, do you think I should work on these two five one chords in every key? Which is page one of Berkeley School of Music and all the other you know, Manhattan School. That's what they teach, you know, that's just basic. Do you think I should work on those in all keys, these two five one chords? He said, what's that? Which was like a real man. These guys didn't think like that. They were playing from another point of view. They were looking at music from another angle. And you know, the music's tried to break it down what these great jazz musicians were doing. Uh so it was let's see, there's another part of that Stan story. I wanted to tell you. Oh yeah, yeah, so I mean yeah, So he gave me some lessons and we talked about jazz. And here's a pro I said, tell me that you what do you what are you thinking about when you're playing? Because I did this record with him. There's a beautiful record I did called a Pascionado and one of them the songs was a waltz for Stan and he played this thing. It was gorgeous, and I said, what are you thinking about when you're playing something like that? He says, well, I think about that I in front of the whaling wall in Jerusalem and I'm dobvining. I mean, this guy was. He was fabulous man, he was. He had an extraordinary life. He was you know, went through all the drugs imaginable to man, and then the last four years of his life he was on macrobiotics and he had cancer and you know, so he had a kind of a split personality when it was all when he was on drugs and one of the musicians that it was either al Coon or Zoot Seems when they asked him, you know what was stand like? And he said he was the best bunch of guys I've ever met. But I loved him and he was beautiful. He was a real, real good friend.

Well, okay, in closing, we had to say that you have a new album out, yeah, music Volume one, I believe, and hopefully there will be a Christmas album coming to you.

Well, there is a Christmas album. It's called The Christmas Wish and it's with orchestra and choir and it's it's darn good, if I must say so myself.

Well, you're her a man, the best come to of all time.

Well, you know something, I think, if you don't believe in what you're doing, why should you anyone else believe even what you're doing?

Those are wise words. Well on behalf of Sugar Steve and the Missing Alumni and court Love Supreme. This is quest Love signing you off. Thank you for listening, Thank you her palper Pleasure again, thank you for coming to the show. And I will see you guys on the next go around only or on Pandora. 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.

Questlove Supreme

Questlove Supreme is a fun, irreverent and educational weekly podcast that digs deep into the storie 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 397 clip(s)