When you came to the Blue Notes, what kind of group was it then?

Let me see if I can remember back that far. When I first became a member of the Blue Notes, uh, I was a drummer. And uh, I joined the group first as a drummer, as a percussionist. And at the time the group was doing hotel lounges, uh, Playboy clubs, Las Vegas, the circuit, what they call the hotel pop circuit. So we were doing a lot of show tunes, a lot of standards, just a little bit of whatever was popular for the day, as well as a little bit of oldies from the '50s. We had a, a broad variety of songs that we did. But basically it was just a mixture of show tunes, oldies, and popular songs of the day.

How did that change when you all met up with Gamble and Huff?

Well, how did it change, it changed, uh, drastically. Because between the time I joined, and the time we met up with Gamble and Huff, I went from becoming, from being the drummer, to being the lead singer, all within the same, uh, within the same group.

How did that happen?

Well, uh, it's a long story; it's a long story. I used to sing while I was on the drums, because a lot of the time the group would be a little late coming to shows, so, uh, the band would hit and we would start the shows, and so I would take over the lead parts and I would sing some of the lead parts. So, as a result of doing that, that's when Harold discovered that I truly had a gift to sing, which I had done previously to playing the drums. I was a singer anyway. Drums was my second love, next to singing. So there was a time where I had decided it happened in French West Indies, I remember clear, I thought that I was tired of playing drums, I wanted to go back to singing. So Harold convinced me to stay with the group and become the lead singer with the Blue Notes. So I figured, well, that's as good a start as any, rather than go back home and create a whole new group and start all over again. So I just moved from the drums and moved to the front. I just changed roles. Which was great, which was great. I got a chance to tell the guys in the band what to do now, you know, from being told what to do, so it was great, it was a great change. It was one of those times in my life that, uh, for me marked a significant direction towards what it is I really wanted to do in life. I just wanted to be part of music any way I could, but uh, to actually become the lead singer meant I was doing what it was I really wanted to do. Uh, after that point, uh, we met up with Gamble and Huff maybe a couple of years later while we were performing in a club in Camden, New Jersey. And at that time, Gamble and Huff had just started their new PIR label, Philadelphia International Records. So, uh, we were one of the first acts that he saw, or that they saw, I should say. And we were performing in a club and they loved what they heard.

What kind of rep did Gamble and Huff have at that time. I mean when you signed with Gamble and Huff what were you expecting?

I tell you they at that time had started to become pretty well known, because they had had another label prior to Philadelphia International Records, and they were doing artists like the Intruders, which was artists who were singing in the '60s, and they had really started establishing themselves as promising writers and producers. And they decided to, uh, start their new label, Philadelphia International Records, once I suppose they had gotten a deal with, uh, a record deal with Columbia. And I don't want to tell their story, but for me and for us, it was an opportunity now to really just to move out into bigger and better things. So once we got the word that Gamble and Huff were interested in signing us, that again was just, uh, a dream come true for us, really a dream come true.

What was it like actually working with them? They seemed to know how to design the song around the singer.

Exactly, exactly. They truly did. And that's the key word, design, tailor, those adjectives describes exactly what Mr. Gamble and Mr. Huff were best at, along with being able to accurately tell a story. They took plenty, they didn't just write songs, it wasn't just putting a poem with music. Uh, their songs had depth and meaning. They were, and still are, songs that reach not only, uh, your soul, but they gave you something to think about. They were, uh, truly masters of creating not only a song but an environment and atmosphere telling a story, giving you something to, they would take what was going in any given situation, bring it to a piece of music and make it something that suddenly everybody was concerned about, or made you aware of what was going on in the world. So they weren't just songwriters to me. And uh, I really had no expectations when I first got with them. For me it was just an opportunity to, uh, do what it was I always did, to use a gift that I had been given, something that I had been wanting to do all my life. So my expectations were to try it, to get involved to do the actual best that I could. At that time I was just a, uh, a young buck that was raring to go. I was just a wild horse, um, and uh, whatever it was asked to do, I did it. Those were just the days where we would stay in the studio until we got it right. And it was just wonderful, a wonderful experience being involved with men who had such a connection with music and words, and it really left a lasting impression on me as to what, uh, I should expect from a song. So for me, it was a school, it was not just a place where I sang songs. It wasn't just a record company where we, um, sang music and, and sold records. It was much more than that. It was an opportunity to understand what it was that you should be singing about and how to define your own persona through music.

That's something that they seem to be really talented at in terms of taking the right artists and knowing how to bring out the best in these artists. When you were in the studio, I wondered if you could give me a sense of what it was like to be there. How did they operate?

Well. It was truly a, when you say -- you know, you've heard the expression, I'm sure everybody has heard, you know, family oriented businesses? Well, this was truly a family oriented record company. We all worked together to create what it was we wanted to, um, to say. Uh, it wasn't Gamble-Huff didn't create me. I was who I was. It was who I was that inspired them to write some good things they wrote. So it wasn't what they did so much for me, as what it was that we did together for us to create, uh, the whole ambience, the whole atmosphere, the whole projection, the whole, um, the whole frame, they framed who I was through music, through my personality, who I was, who we all were at the time, and what was going on. So, Gamble would use whoever he could to say what it was he wanted to say. But when it came down to whatever it was that needed to be said, let me say that. But in terms of personalities, we all concentrated very much on who we were as individuals, and what we should and should not say based on what could be carried off, what we could sell, what was believable from us. So when we got in the studio it was all, uh, it was all sitting around for as long as it took to sit there and come up with the right moods to say the right things. And once Gamble and Huff got to know you as an individual, then it became less necessary for us to sit in the studio with them, but we always did, we were always together while we were creating because the story was always built around who I was as an individual.

"Be For Real", that monologue, did you come up with that?

Yes, yes. It's amazing that you said that, because, uh, I had some friends to my home to our home, my wife and I, one evening about, uh, sometime late last year, late '93, and we were talking about that monologue, and it just so happens the radio was on, and the radio station that we were listening to, it was kind of under the conversation, we weren't really listening, it was just background music. It came on, just totally coincidental, totally coincidentally, so that monologue for me was, um, another example of how we all were just so in tune with one another. That was totally spontaneous, it was just off the cuff. That's how I am, that's what I do, I do that really well. I don't get started until the writer finishes, or if you allow me to start before you start then I will start in either way. And we've, we've had built that kind of rapport away from music and in our music. We just, we were just so intuitive to one another. They just started the track, and we knew what the substance was about, what the story was all about. So I just started to talk. And it was a live session, which is unheard of these days, in the '90s. Actually, a live session hasn't been done since probably the '80s some time, except for my last album, I must say I do a very active live session, I had to. Because there's nothing like it. We just started the music, the musicians started to play, and I started to talk, and as the more I talked the more the story unwound, and when we got to the very end of the monologue, just intuitively, the musicians just da-da-da-da. And I said, [sings] "Be for real." It just happened, it was one of those magical moments that you can never take back, or neither can you ever duplicate. I can never duplicate that again, because it was just that moment in time, it was that environment, it was that atmosphere, it was what was going on in the studio at that that time, that night.

Gamble and Huff were really working with some fantastic musicians. I wonder if you could talk to me about that, especially in connection with say "Bad Luck."

Musicianship was the foundation of anything that went on in the studio. It was, if the musicians weren't in tune to one another and didn't understand the producers and didn't understand who they were recording for, then it didn't work. It's quite simple. It's very, very simple. The musicians had to be the kind of musicians that number one, were extremely gifted, but more than gifted, they had to be compatible with one another. They had to have played together so much until they know exactly how each other thinks. It's like a band that's been together for 20 years. Nobody can make a move unless the other one knows he's going to make it before he makes, and it's that kind of togetherness that was a part of the Gamble and Huff sound, because the musicians were just the best. Norman, the Bakers, the Ronald Bakers, the Norman Harrises, the Earl Youngs, I mean you name them, we had a slew of them. And they were just the best. And being a musician, when I went into the studio to work with these guys, I would give input as to what it was I needed for me. And I could talk to these guys because I'm a musician. And they needn't feel like I was trying to take over their job. And there was no animosity at all. We got along --

About Mr. Brown.

Mm-hmm. James Brown. I don't know what to say, it's just, to me is uh, it starts and it ends with James Brown basically. He is truly one of the, uh, the most influential people, persons, people, person that has kind of shaped who I am today. Um, James Brown is truly responsible I think for the reason I started playing drums. I started playing when I was about 13, at my mother's restaurant, or where she used to work, an Italian restaurant called Sciola's. And so I would stay out of here I would go mess with the instruments on stage while she was working on Saturdays. So I started playing "Cold Sweat" with my fingers, no drumsticks. And that just kind of evolved into, you know, my learning how to play drums. I started learning from James Brown's "Cold Sweat", and man when I got to learn that song, I thought I was just the greatest drummer on the face of the earth because I could play "Cold Sweat". And for me James is probably the best at, at, uh, funk tracks, I mean the best at what he does. There's nobody better.

When you say funk, because that's what we're dealing with in terms here, what is funk?

What is funk? Okay, when I say funk, funk can be defined many different -- and there are many different, uh, artists who truly deserve, um, the right to be called funkateers or funkmasters, or those who have created their own brand of funk. James's, James's brand of funk was just a rhythm that nobody else had. It was a syncopated drum rhythm a lot of times that was just separate and different from anybody else's. Funk basically though is just -- how do you describe funk? Um, number one it makes you want to get up and dance. But it certainly has a, um, I mean, the music moves, the music is, is, is, um, it's difficult to explain. The music moves. Generally the drum patterns are, uh, are played in such a way that, uh, it just, I don't know how to explain it. It just makes you want to get up and dance. I really don't, you know, how do you explain what is funk. Because it comes in many different packages. But James's funk, brand of funk, is just for me the best. It's just what I enjoy the most. How do you explain what is funk? Funk could be many different things. Go to the bathroom, you come out, that's funk.

But there's also a cultural thing about funk. Funk is not just a sound.