"Who's Going To Take The Weight?" Now there's a story. What happened with "The Weight" was that we were rehearsing in this day care center back in Jersey City. And uh, I don't know if you want to get deep into this but what happened was there was a, uh, a person who I will not name, conspiring something to happen here. And someone planted some drugs, in a couch in the day care center. And five minutes later, here comes the man, as we called it back, the man. Here they come, and uh, we got arrested for this. It was actually a plant, someone had planted the plant. The first thing the officer said was, "Who's Going To Take The Weight." And from that we wrote this song, "Who's Going To Take The Weight." But that's the real story on "The Weight". I don't know if you wanted to get into that. That's how that song came about. Then it turned into a whole lot of issues behind that fact, the fact that we, uh, got arrested for something that we didn't do. So then we just decided to turn this into a worldly issue, and then it got, because we felt that we were treated unjustly, unjustly on the fact that we got arrested for this thing. So we decided to take it to the creator level. And from there we made a song called "Who's Going To Take The Weight," sort of to remind people of judgement to come on the world at some point. And that's what "The Weight" really was about.

Now, you mentioned there was a strong Sly influence in ...

In the horn part, in the horns, yeah, very strong. I mean the guitar section --

You need to go back and say, there's a strong Sly influence.

There was a strong Sly influence in "The Weight" through the horns and the guitar, uh, riffs. Um, at that time Sly was slamming everybody, so we kind of picked up on what they were doing. Uh, at that time.

What was special about the way that Sly dealt with horns?

I think it was the close second harmonies that he used with two horns that, you know, made it sound a lot closer or fatter. Uh, he um, he used a lot of close harmonies. And when I mean close harmonies, I mean second, minor seconds, it gave it a different sound, other than like being, like major chords, where you play a major chord, he used a lot of close second chords in the horn harmonies.

Could you demonstrate it? And just say, Sly played all these close chords.

Well, Sly he played a, a lot of uh, close harmonies, for example, would play something like this. Instead of playing a major riff, like that, it was more like this. So you have suspensions happening there, so that's what he was doing, as the funk went about him. Sly.

Talking about funk, what is funk?

You know they asked me that question in Japan. Funk. Funk is the same as soul, the same as dope, the same as butter now, it's just a phrase to describe a deep feeling that you feel, I would say.

And how does that translate in musical terms? What is funk music.

Bottom. Bottom and on the one. More, uh, funk in terms of music, um, I would say it's the drums and the bass, more so the drums, the bass and a little bit of guitar. But more so funk, drums and the bass to describe it musically. It's heavy bass and drums, that's funk.

When I say James Brown what comes to mind?

Funk. Funk, comes to mind funk. Rhythm.

I need James Brown in your answer.

Okay. James Brown. What comes to mind when I think of James is funk, total funk. Grandfather of funk.

What were the funky tunes that you remember? You remember "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "Cold Sweat"?

"Papa's Got A Brand New Bag", "Cold Sweat". I remember we played "Cold Sweat" in Elizabeth, New Jersey, we turned the place out, "Cold Sweat" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." I remember the first time I heard that. I was about seven I guess.

As a musician about Brown about that sound, what was it about James's music that was so different.

Um, well at the time, the first time I heard James Brown, my mother bought an album "Live At the Apollo." And I listened to that album over and over again, because it was live. And it was a lot different from what was happening during that time because it was, it was, it was funky, for one. Um, it was different, uh, it um, I think a lot of other things were a lot cleaner. It was more of a loose playing rather than structured, you know, music. It was more freedom you might say, freedom.

What was it about the way he used horns?

Well, his horn section, James Brown's horn section was a lot of accents. He had a lot of accent horn things, uh, particularly in like "Cold Sweat." Although you never heard him say "Cold Sweat" except for when he broke out into it, but the horns were saying "Cold Sweat" throughout the whole track. For example, "I don't care -- dah-dah." They're saying "Cold Sweat about your past, cold sweat. Cold sweat." You know."

I would love if you would give that back to me. Because you described his horns like they were his backup singers.

Yeah, yeah. James Brown's horn section was more like backup singers. You know, he didn't have backup singing, he had backup singers. But to me his horns were backup singers. So, you know, like in particular, uh, a song like "Cold Sweat," he had the horns singing "Cold Sweat", not they were singing as they were playing "Cold Sweat." You know, for example, you know, "I don't care -- dah-dah, mm-mm, cold sweat, about your past, cold sweat." It was cold, yeah.

Tell me about how Sly, how you felt about him.

Sly and the Family Stone. One of the best. It's hard to describe what Sly was doing, he changed the music so much, influenced everyone I think. The first time I heard Sly, I think it was, I think it was "Let The Music", was it, uh, well, the one that really got me was "Simple Song," "Sing A Simple Song." Then it was "I Want To Take You Higher." Then I went back and listened to some of the earlier things like "Dance To The Music". Because I hadn't really been listening to "Sly" until "I Want To Take You Higher" and "Simple Song." But "Simple Song" was the one that won me over. I went in, and his music was so, you know, the lyrics along with the rhythms influenced everyone. It was such an impact that it took us a couple of years to try to develop something from that, you know, from his sound. We had a guitar player in the group by the name of Woody Sparrow who passed, but he, uh, he was into Sly and Hendrix a lot. But Sly, you know, Sly was, had a great impact on our horn section, on our rhythm section and we used to try to emulate him all the time. But Sly definitely is a giant. I mean still today, still trying to, you know, catch up to the rhythm track on "Thank You." So thank you, Sly, for letting us, you know, be ourselves, again.

All right, tell me the "Soul Makossa" story.

The "Soul Makossa" story. Well, the record company wanted us to record "Soul Makossa" after the album, "Good Times", you know we had fell off the charts there a little bit, not that we were really on there yet. So what happened, they came to us and suggested that we record "Soul Makossa," because, you know, our last record flopped, it really did flop.

We're going to need a little setup to what "Soul Makossa" is about. So what I need you to do why did the record company ask you. But tell me about that guy who came to you.

I want to tell you a story about "Soul Makossa." A record company person by the name of Gene Red (?) who's no longer living, but anyway, that's neither here or there. But they came to us and said, we want you to record "Soul Makossa". And by the time the records had fell off the charts. And we said, what! "Soul Makossa"? Yeah, "Soul Makossa". We decided that we would make up our own "Soul Makossa." And so we went to the studio that morning and made up "Hollywood Swinging," "Jungle Boogie" and "Funky Stuff" all in the morning, recorded it that night. And that was the end of that story. But the story about "Soul Makossa" was they wanted us to actually record "Soul Makossa" because we had fell off the charts. But from "Soul Makossa" we had come up with that.

I need to go back over that. Tell me where you all were when this happened.

Around 1973, '74, we had an album out called "Good Times" and that fell off the charts, it wasn't doing that well. So the record company exec came to us and said, We want, you heard that song "Soul Makossa"? We want you to record that song "Soul Makossa". And we said, what? "Soul Makossa", I mean we're doing remakes now, so we thought our career was over. So what we did from there, we just went in and said, man we can make up something like that. So we went into the studio, the rehearsal hall that morning, and made up "Hollywood Swinging", "Jungle Boogie" and "Funky Stuff" and recorded it that night and that was the end of that story.

What was it about "Hollywood Swinging," "Jungle Boogie" and "Funky Stuff" that you felt fit the "Soul Makossa" formula? What was it that y'all that you went into the studio, we can do "Soul Makossa" our own way.

Well, we actually, thinking about it, we didn't actually think about "Soul Makossa" at all. We just knew that "Soul Makossa" was a hit, and we wanted a hit like that. We know that they wanted a hit like that, because we were into jazz. I mean most of that album has a highly jazz influence on it. So we said, okay, it's time to make some commercial sounding music. So we went in and we made up this funky stuff. "Hollywood Swinging" and "Jungle Boogie" from the fact that "Soul Makossa" was a major hit.

Now tell me about "Hollywood Swinging."

Frankie Crocker. Well, "Hollywood Swinging" came about because Frankie Crocker was on the radio, and he called himself Hollywood, so we just figured we'd just blend that into the times. You know, Hollywood is swinging, and he told a story about Kool and the Gang story in that song. "Hollywood Swinging."

Frankie Crocker a chief rocker, Hollywood swinger. Frankie Crocker was very important to, ah, just giving us a barometer of what was on the radio 'cause he would play a variety of music, BLS was slamming, you know, at that time, they always slamming. They, you know, and Frankie Crocker would play things to give us and say things to give us things to feed off of, you know. Like, for instance, "Dolly was Swinging" song, actually came from him, he said this is Hollywood Frankie Crocker on the radio, your chief rocker on the radio. So we said "Hollywood Swinging" and we actually dedicated that song to him somewhat, you know, from, you know, we got inspired, we became inspired from that, from him generally.

"Jungle Boogie", tell me about that? Where did that voice come from?

Okay, "Jungle Boogie" was our answer to "Soul Makossa" actually, it was the African thing that was in "Soul Makossa" so we got, we got to come up with something that sounds African being that this is happening like that. So we came up with "Jungle Boogie". Actually the first name of that song was "Jungle Jim" but that didn't work. So we just called it "Jungle Boogie". And "Jungle Boogie" that's …

Tell me about that voice.

Oh the voice, okay Donald Voi, Donald Boyce was a rodeo artist who had, he has multiple talent, he has a multi talented voice. They called him the man with the thousand voices. And we just put him on the track one day and he just came up with this thing on "Jungle Boogie", actually is one take. So when we got to the end when it started really pumping, he started sort of like rapping and I think a lot of the rap actually became, the rhythm of the rap became bo., became born from what he was doing, ah, like, you know, he'd say - get down with the boogie now, ugh, ugh. Get up now, ugh, ugh. Let it go know, ugh. You know and it sounded like some of the stuff that they started doing in the, in the seventies from the rap era. But, yeah, that's Donald Boyce, Donald Boyce, the man with a thousand voices.

Okay, watering down the funk. In other words the crossover.

…

Okay, at one point we decided that we needed to sell more records so what we decided to do was take a, a, more pop approach to the music. At that time Earth, Wind and Fire and the Commodores had Lionel singing. You know we actually grew up with, these are our peers. So we didn't have anyone that could sing in the group. So we decided to take a pop approach to our music so that, that would mean taking out some of these rhythms and chords that we were playing. So we decided, we decided to take that approach and our records started selling more actually when James Taylor came to the group.

In order to crossover, you had to water down the funk. Give me an example of how you would change something, leave something out.

Okay, in order for us to crossover, make our music crossover, we had to sort of take out, you know, what was called funk. You know it was like a closed chords or seventh chords and turn them into majors like something like this. [MUSIC] Chords like that and change it into chords like to bet a more pop sound. So we watered down the funk and then came up with a pop sound.

What was Earth, Wind and Fire what comes to mind?

Ah, Wind and Fire, comes to mind is Earth, Wind and Fire. They had a fantastic show. Their music was, was, it was uplifting. The lyrics, you know, said a lot about what was going on in the seventies, very spiritual. I used to listen to their albums day and night a lot, you know, heavily influenced. You can hear a lot of Sly influence in his vocals and everything, the horns. But Earth, Wind and Fire, their music was very uplifting to everyone I believe for that time period we were going through in the seventies. So they were a very important group.

The Isley Brothers?

The Isley Brothers Whoo. Well, first time I heard the Isley Brothers I think it was sixties when they were singing, ahm, "Shake it up baby", shake it up baby, twist and shout. Yeah, "Twist and Shout". But the Isley Brothers they're like giants. They, you know, they.

You were saying you all shared things. If you could tell me how that went.

Okay, we sort of like, ah, we, we would like take, not take but actually use our deals from each other. Like, let's say if we were on a show with a Parliament and they would something, we would add something to our show and Earth, Wind and Fire and the Commodores, we'd come sit and watch each other and, you know, just take a little bit from here and there and add it to our show or add it to our music. And, you know, the Bar-Kays used to do that a lot, ah, even with the music. I mean we all had to do it. We, we were all influenced by each other, you know, musically as well as, you know, doing live performances, so.

Parliament, P-Funk what kind of things did they do that you loved?

A lot, P-Funk, I loved the P-Funk. Make my funk to P-Funk. They, they were just like the best that did it I think as far as funk is concerned. I mean, you know, after all, we talk about James Brown, P-Funk was James Brown, a part of James Brown's band. P-Funk was the best that ever did funk, I, I would say, you know.

What was it that made them the best?

Well P-Funk would hook, would stay on the one, I mean, so hard and heavy and never move, they just drove that thing into your subconscious and by the time you realized what was happening, you was hooked. You, you was hooked on the funk 'cause they kept coming with it and it would go on and on, they would just keep driving it and the next thing you know and they would switch the song and it would still be happening, that same one that they would start with at the beginning of the cut. Say, like, a lot of time, we're …and all they had was the bass drum first and that was going from about, this was in Baltimore, for about ten minutes they just had the bass drum going… And all you heard was. You know so they drove that for about ten minutes and then the bass would come, right and then the next, the guitars would come and Bernie would come…