How I started my involvement in mixing, was, uh, back in '72, uh, I noticed there was a lot of frustration in the music. They were all 2-1/3, three minutes long, which you're basically playing 45s. And after three minutes, you know, the crowd didn't know whether to finish dancing to what they were dancing to, or try to be getting into something else. And I thought God, it would be great if you could extend that feeling. And uh, I went to a record company, because I used to be in the record business as a promotion man, and uh, I asked this friend of mine, May James, did she have an instrumental version of any of the songs that I particularly liked on that label. She said, well, sure I have one. And I took it home and re-edited it and put it together and they liked it so much they said, why don't you, um, try to do it for real in a studio. And I said, okay, it'll probably be fun. And uh, that's basically how it started. Of course, you never asked me my name. I thought that would be the first question. Was I okay, did I explain it?

…

I have a tendency to babble on, so you have to sort of stop me.

So what I'd like to do is in the next questions, to. One of the things we're doing here is we're telling stories here. Pictures are what I need. Facts are okay, but pictures, just in going back to that time and reliving it. Roll please.

The very first record that I mixed was, uh, "Do It 'Til You're Satisfied." That's the song May gave me and it was by a group called Brothers Trucking. Well, that name didn't go over too well with us anyway. Uh, I don't know where we got the idea for BT Express, but it sounded like the New York Train, so we thought that would be happening. Anyway, it was basically a three-minute song, and when I got through with it, it was 5:35. And it was interesting; radio stations would not play records that long. But as it turned out, not only did the clubs like it, but the radio stations played the long version too. Very exciting, exciting for me, because you're used to hearing a song three minutes, and now all of a sudden you hear a 5:35 version. And uh, New York stations were really the first to jump on the long version. Is that all right?

You said that one of the things that you discovered in doing this was that that the bass didn't quite work the same way.

Oh, okay, I'll get back to that, the mastering of it. That's interesting. People hate me for that anyway.

So I want to know how all that came together.

You know, I think back now to a very funny story, after I finished the BT Express, I went across the street to Bell Sound to master it. And uh, the engineer sort of laughed at me and said, uh, you can't make a 5:35 record. And I said, why not? He said, well, there's too much bottom. There's, you're not going to have any level. And I said, well, what do I have to do. He said, well, you can't have all this bottom. And I said, oh, okay. So we went back and did it again --

I'm sorry, cut, we have to -- there's something that, what's 5:35.

That's time. Five minutes and 35 seconds. Oh, I'm sorry, I assumed… we were talking about three minute records and now we're talking about the 5:35 version, I just assumed I didn't have to say minutes.

You can't put it on a 45 essentially.

Well, you see, you have to start dropping level after three minutes, you have to drop, so the longer the program, the lower the volume will be on the record, and it will get so low, that all you hear is sssshhhhhhhhhhh. So you want to keep your program level above the noise of the actual vinyl.

Why do you need to drop out the …

Well, because it's a 45, and there's only so much space to put the music in. You have to cut it within spec. Otherwise if you played it on a changer, if you cut it beyond spec, the record would automatically reject off.

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Because basically, in order to fit --

The grooves.

In order to fit it all in the record, that's the explanation I need.

So do I start from the mastering?

Yeah, exactly.

I remember after we finished BT Express, "Do It 'Til You're Satisfied," took it across the street to Bell Sound, which was a mastering lab, and uh, there's no problem with the A side, which was the, I think it was 3:10 at time, 3:10 meaning minutes and seconds. Uh, the other side, the dance version was 5:35, which was a good two, two minutes and 15 seconds longer. And the engineer said to me, well, we can't put this on the record. And I said, well, why not? And he said, well, with all this bottom, it takes much room, and there won't be enough space to put the whole side on the 45. And I said, well, how can I get around that? And he said, well, get rid of all the bottom. And I said, great. Well, he was joking, and I thought he was serious. We went back into the studio, and I put the bass drum up, took the knob, rolled off all the bottom so it got a knock sound. Same thing with the bass, got rid of all the low end, so the bass sounded more like a guitar rather than a bass. We brought it back, and I said, now can we master it? He said, it sounds horrible. I said, yeah, but it's kind of a new sound. And that's how that, that's how that knock sound in the bass drum became so popular.

So in turn, in making the vinyl or actually cutting the master, the bass you have to cut deeper. And when you cut deeper it also cuts wider. Bass takes up much more room than treble does or your high end. So by dropping the bottom level makes the grooves thinner so you can put more information within the specs of the 45.

Now I want to go back to --

What I didn't mention was how the break was created. I think that's very important, what they call the percussion breakdown.

What is the percussion breakdown?

Well, you know how a record will start. Well, now they use it to begin with, but in the old days there was no such thing as a break. The break was created because the song modulated. And once I got into two minutes of the song, the song had already modulated to another key. So by trying going back to the beginning of the tape to use the music it was in the lower key. So I had a very difficult, I said how can I use the first part of the song because I wanted to use the guitars in it. And the only way could do it was to take out everything musical. So I would get up to a certain point, you know, like a da-da-da-da-da-da-dum! And all of sudden I would like the faders and pull all the music out so all you'd have is percussion and rhythm. Then I would bring the tambourine back in –

Okay, stop don't go any further. That's exactly what I want you to give me.

The Italian approach.

Yeah. But is there another word for modulate that is simpler, that people will understand?

Where is Alex Trebek when you need him? I don't think I've ever heard that question -- another word for modulate, give me a break.

Explain to me how it breaks.

It's interesting how the break was created. I get credit for that but it really was done by accident. and it was really done out of necessity. Uh, there's a song called "Dream World" by Down Downing. And the song modulated meaning it would go into another key maybe three quarters of the way through. And uh, the song was I think roughly around two minutes and 50 seconds. And I was able to do the first part, but then I wanted to use the front part of the song again, but more the rhythm track, the guitars, and build it up to this again. And as I tried it, it sounded terrible when it, the modulation dropped down once it had gotten to the higher key. So I said, I, I didn't know what else to do so I have to take out everything musical, meaning leaving the rhythm and the percussion, the tambourines or timbales or, uh, whatever. So I, what I did was I built the song up to this point. Then I would drop everything out that was like the bass, vocals and the strings and horns. And then I'd start back at the top of the tune and bring in the bass, then the guitars and build the song in. So it actually sounded like the song modulated twice, which it didn't.

A break would go something like this, the music would go da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-boom! Badda doom, badda doom. Like that, that's how it would go. And yet, then I could bring it back to the beginning of the tune and you wouldn't know what key it was in. So when you'd introduce the bass it would almost sound the same. You wouldn't know the difference.

We're going to jump around a little bit. I want you to paint a picture of what the scene was like and your interest in the black music market. And also you had mentioned something about people always seem to leave the floor on. So, let's start off talking about that experience in going to this club in Fire Island. If you could paint a picture of it.

The very first time I was familiar with discos, uh, was, was back in '72 and it was on Fire Island. Someone suggested that I go out there and said you're going to die when you see this place because it's all white people dancing to black music. And I thought, my God, this is wonderful because I've always thought I was strange because I mean I like white music, but I also like black music. But I never categorized it like that. I mean if the record's good I liked it and if it wasn't good I didn't like it. Well, anyway, it was quite a thrill to go out there. And I mean there were a couple of blacks dancing but they were mostly whites, and they were dancing to all this black music. And I'm saying, Johnny Taylor, they're dancing to Johnny Taylor, and Eddie Kendricks, I said, my God, this is really strange, because they were really into this soul music, what I call Southern soul. Even Al Green. Uh, and it was quite a thrill to see that.

Then take me to where, it's not long enough.

It's funny, watching, uh, the, uh, all the kids dancing, this is in Fire Island, uh, it was so exciting to see, and you could feel the energy and the excitement, but it was only three minutes worth. And you could sense when this new song was being mixed in, it was sort of limbo. And I said, my God, you could almost feel the excitement that they were trying to get and I said, God if I could only stretch it out and make it longer to keep this feeling and maybe it could bring them up to another level. So I asked the guy who owned the place if I could try to make a tape. And he said, sure, why not? Well, I didn't know it would take 80 hours to make a 45-minute tape, but it was absolutely perfect. And I did it by repeating sections and stretching it, so it would start off on one tempo and it would slowly build and build and build. But I didn't do it by mixing two songs together. Because I observed people dancing, they would always go 1, 2, 3, 4. And any time they would leave, they would always leave off on one. So I thought maybe I could trick them into dancing to the next song. So the song would be ending, it would be going da-da-da-dah! da-da-da-da -- They're already dancing to the next song. By the time they realize it, they've already, already moved five or six steps. So they're going with it, nobody'd walk off the floor, but if you constantly build the tempo each time, slowly, and I did with varispeed on my turntable by slightly pitching it up each time. Not so you could hear it, but the intensity of the dancing would seem to be more and more. And by the time you had them for a 45 minute set…