Episode 18: Father and Daughter: The Bond Beyond Music Part 1

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[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome in to another episode of Talk To Me Michele, I am your host Michele.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: What's poppin' everybody?

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Another episode is here and this episode is near and dear to my heart because

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I will be talking to my father, music executive and author, T.C.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Tompkins.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So today we're going to be discussing the Bond Beyond Music.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: That's catchy ain't it?

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I like that.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the Bond Beyond Music.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Now most of you guys do know of my father who is a music executive who's worked with

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_01]: many artists, but let me give you guys a little rundown on my dad.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_01]: He is known as T.C.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Tompkins in the music industry and is a legendary music executive.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: He's got a career spanning decades in the music industry.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Starting at the age of 21 with Stax Records and then he moved on to roles with Capitol

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Records, ABC Records, CBS and Epic Records where he served as VP of marketing and promotions.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_01]: My dad also played a crucial role in launching iconic artists like Chardé, Michael Jackson

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: to stardom.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Beyond his industry achievements he also has a book out so he is officially an

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_01]: author sharing his insights and experiences in his book When Radio Was King.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_01]: As a father and grandfather, his journey reflects a successful blend of family life

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: and a remarkable career.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The overview of my dad's career in the industry spans over five decades of experience.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: He began his career at Stax Records, quickly made a name for himself with his exceptional

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: talent in marketing and promotions.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Throughout his career he has held key positions at Capitol Records, ABC Records,

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: CBS and Epic Records, eventually rising to VP of marketing and promotions at Epic

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Records.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He was instrumental in the success of legendary artists like Michael Jackson, Chardé and

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Luther Vandross helping them to shape their careers bringing their music to a global

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: audience which gave him the reputation as a visionary in the industry.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Today he continues to influence the music world through his company Tompkins Marketing

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and his authorship and sharing his vast knowledge and experiences.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: This conversation I wanted to have with my dad because I wanted to discuss not

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: only his career but our bond as father and daughter.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We have a very special relationship and it has shaped both him and myself in profound

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: ways.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a connection that goes beyond family ties.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to go through the influence that he gave me.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: In this episode we'll explore the unique challenges and rewards that come with this

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: bond, particularly when balanced with a demanding career in the music industry

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: and we're also going to get into personal stories from moving across states, facing

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_01]: challenges such as racism and transitioning into new roles as the family grows.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Through these experiences we'll uncover how the father daughter relationship evolves

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_01]: over time, the lessons learned and the enduring strength of this special connection.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Alright everybody welcome back and it is my honor and pleasure and sometimes,

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: ooh Lord the strength I need to deal with my own father.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome in daddy.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, thank you.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we had a little back and forth beforehand but that's normal.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just a father daughter thing.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes it is, yes it is.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm glad you were able to join me today.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I've been wanting to talk about the father daughter relationship that we have and everything

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_01]: involved in your music career.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I really would like for you to start with your early life career beginnings because

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I know I've heard the story a bunch of times but I want you to just break it

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: down how it all started.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Well after leaving Vietnam where I met your mother while in Vietnam as pen pals.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: That's how we first met and we fell in love and I went to Mississippi where she

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_02]: was teaching as soon as I got back from Vietnam.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I spent some time with her.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_02]: She came up, spent time with my family, met my family and I went to Memphis

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and met her family and we got married.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_02]: We got married in December right after I got back from, I think I got back in June

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: or something like that but we got married that same year in December.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I went to college.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I attended Bishop in Dallas and I think after my second semester your mother got pregnant.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder how that happened.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: She fell on something and something happened.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: As a matter of fact she came down to Dallas while I was in school.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Many guys used to love for her to visit me because she cooked.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Wherever your mother went she cooked.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_02]: We had a hotel room at a Holiday Inn on 75.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I never forget this.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It was not that far from the school and she brought a hot plate.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: She brought a hot plate.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_02]: She shopped and she cooked me a full meal the whole time that she was down there

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: in Dallas visiting me while I was in college.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, I started getting sick or having problems, having headaches.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I was having some kind of problems anyway.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: My partner that I was staying with off campus because I had been kicked off of campus.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to stay with a friend of mine, a guy named Cecil.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I never forget he's a teacher now, a principal somewhere.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: He was real crazy.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Cecil and I were standing together.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Cecil told me, he said, man you sure you hadn't gotten Ernie's pregnant or something?

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I said, man get out of here.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So I called your mother and asked her, I said, baby are you pregnant?

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_02]: She said, oh no.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_02]: She said, I'm thinking about a little later, something like that she said.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I said, well I've been getting, you know, having sickness.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I had problems the whole time.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: You get nausea?

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I would have back problems, nausea.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I got sick the whole time your mother was pregnant with both you and Rocky.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And matter of fact, I lost my first job because of that.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I quit school, moved to Memphis, moved with your grandmother and grandfather, Gladys and James Taylor.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I stayed with mama's parents for the first probably by six months.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I've married or so or something until I got myself off the ground.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_02]: My first job was with International Harvester that was in the foundry.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_02]: That was some serious work.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds serious just in the name of the company.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So they made engines and I worked in that part of the foundry where you mold engines and put them on the line.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So it was 150 degrees in there every day.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_02]: They had sulfur.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a serious work environment.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, I got fired because I kept getting sick and I kept telling the guy at International Harvest.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I said, man, it's my wife.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: She's pregnant.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm having these boys and the sulfur that they used in the foundry was making me sick.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, and naturally they thought I was lying.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So naturally when they called me a liar, I quit.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: See, people wonder where me and Rocky get it from.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_02]: When they said, you sound like that sound like bullshit.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I would be the union rep.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't forget this.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_02]: The union rep was there with me and they would try to keep me to keep you job.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought, no, man, fuck him.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm quick.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and I have a dad to my name.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, but I got bad.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So I quit.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I got another job.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I got a job with Kimberly Clark.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I got other jobs.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you were born, I was unemployed.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And thank God.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I think your birth cost three hundred and fifty dollars.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Boy, I never forget that because I paid cash.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have no insurance.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Man.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you were born at Baptist Hospital and I had gotten a job with Zales Corporation by then.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: By the time that you were born.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So I started managing their stores.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I managed a store that they had on third and doing a jewelry department.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I was in a war coat.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They had department, jewelry departments and war coats.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And my secret desire was to get into music industry.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I wanted.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, I had spoke that they say in existence when I was in Vietnam.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: When I was asked what I wanted to do when I get back to the States.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I said.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I said, I want to be in the music industry because I had just a deep love and appreciation for the creativity of music.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and I used to sell a lot of the guys from Stax Records jewelry.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: They'd come over and they want custom jewelry made.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_02]: They want their initials and diamonds and all kind of stuff like that.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I had a hookup.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Downtown Memphis was a jeweler named Nelson Indycott.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I know we'll forget him.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: He was a wholesale jeweler down there.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And I could draw a picture, anything, and he would make it up.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So he made up jewelry for a lot of the guys over there.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And I sold, I think the members of the Tim Pree something and Eddie Floyd and William Bell, those kind of guys.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I sold them rings and stuff and a opening came up.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But the opening came up first was that your mother had a job at Stax Records.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember that.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: At the tape librarian.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think mama was babysitting you.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: She used to pick me up from school and I would go with her to her office, which was overseeing the studio.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was overseeing the studio and she had a big glass window in there.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She was in charge of all the recorded material that they used to keep on 12 inch tapes and a vault.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_02]: They had a tape vault and she was in charge of the tape vault.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So it was so convenient because your mother, your grandmother's house was on Gaitha Parkway.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Your school that you went to was right in the next block.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And Stax Records was right around the corner.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_01]: All that's in the winter.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Right around in that same neighborhood.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: What about a six block radius?

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it was probably about three blocks.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was all right there together.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It was all right there together.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, it was and we moved finally once we got a house.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_02]: We bought a house out in South Memphis, right close to Stax.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Was that on Charter?

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was our first house.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Charter Road.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02]: That was our first house we bought.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a three bedroom wood frame house.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I never will forget our house note I believe was $96 a month.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh God, don't be saying stuff like that right now.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Our house note was 96.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I don't think matter of fact by that time I had gotten the job.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_02]: At Zales, I was making $800 a month.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I was making $800 a month as a store manager.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Now on $800 a month, we had a house.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I had a brand new Grand Prix.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: We paid house note and all of that on $800 a month.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Geez.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I was making.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I need a time machine.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And I left that job and went to work for Stax.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I started making some money.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Then it was with Stax Records and Express Account.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It gave me a car.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know how to act.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know how to act.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, I was...

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I had a nine to five.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I was in charge.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I was the manager of the store.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I had employees and everything but I had to punch a clock.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But when I got my job at Stax, I was my own boss.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have no hours.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to be at a certain place and all that stuff.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But I got into their sales department and I started traveling

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_02]: because Stax was trying to start their own distribution.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And if anybody buy my book, they'll find out that I believe that CBS put Stax out of business

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: because they would return almost everything we would ship.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Stax was hot as fire back then.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I remember Stax.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I definitely recall you traveling quite a bit.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And with this being the first, really your first music position to start your career.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, because you were traveling.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: You're a young married couple.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: How did you manage the household and handle your career?

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_02]: What happened was once I got to work with Stax, I used to drive a four state area

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_02]: that was a salesperson.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I was a salesperson for Stax.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So I used to drive Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It was three or four states.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I used to drive those areas and sell product to stores.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: What really tested us in the beginning.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But you know, me and my mother, we were in love.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: We were young because I stayed away from them.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I first got my job at Capital.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_02]: You and mama stayed with grandmama and I stayed with Darryl in Dallas, Texas.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I slept on a couch at Darryl's house.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Because when we when I first got that job at Capital Records, when I, you know, I kind of saw

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_02]: the handwriting on the wall with Stax and I knew they weren't going to be in business too much longer.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So I started interviewing at other record labels.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I got the position in Dallas.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have no money or anything.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So I just happened to have a cousin that had just started a job with Plow.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_02]: They had just gotten married.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I was such an inconvenience for him.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, I really and I've thanked him a million times for that because they had a one

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: bedroom apartment with a couch in the living room.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I used to sleep was on that couch in that living room when I got that job

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: until we bought a house in Grand Prairie.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was our first real house.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah. It was Grand Prairie, you know, because we had a little nice little house though in

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Memphis, but it was a cheap wood frame.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember the house on Charter Road.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember it was a nice house.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It was just, you know, very it was a little small square footage house.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Rocky was in the picture about in on Charter Road.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she was born before we moved.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I thought.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, because I remember her having a crib in the house.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I will never forget our outing one night when we went to see Robin Hood's Walt Disney.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Was that in Memphis?

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_02]: That was in Memphis.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was in Memphis that they you were older.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_02]: The record was such an arm baby then she couldn't go.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: She couldn't go.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: So me and you went to see Robin Hood and all mean we laid it on.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I bought you everything they had.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: The hat, the bowl, the arrow.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: All the junk, the food and got sick of the dog.

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you were you do it.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You did it up, baby.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to tell you.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, one thing about it our whole life though is our family is that I just

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_02]: really enjoyed you and Rocky, you know, as my daughters.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But I just we just had a great family life.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Now we did.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It was, you know, a lot of people even when that time $800 paying all the bills.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_01]: You got now two daughters, a wife and you sleeping on your cousin's couch.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_01]: When you're a kid at the time, I knew you would be gone.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just didn't know all the struggles that you were going through just to maintain

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and start building up your career.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, I didn't care what I had to do.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I really was not a proud person when it came to that.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I come from the country.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I grew up on a farm.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I grew up with my grandparents.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, my granddaddy would beat my behind if I didn't work.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to work.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it wouldn't know if ands and buts about it.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_02]: If I was in the bed when I was a teenager after 630, he'd be in that whoop in my behind.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: He won't know why I was I still in the bed.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, so you know, and we had a not like a one day job.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't work on farm, but we raised pigs.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I raised pigs.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I did the garden.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I did chicken.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I did you know, people that knew me in the music industry would never think.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh no.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Now if people know that I was that kind of person at this point of your life and

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_01]: didn't know the early humble beginnings like he was a farmer.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's one of the reasons that chased me to the music.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: That was the ball.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I knew I had to get out of there.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: My granddad didn't play.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we had a big piece of land that I, you know, back then they had push mowers.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: There were no power mowers.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to mow all of that.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_02]: We had a plumb archer that I had to get the plums out of.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_02]: We had peaches and pears, pecans.

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you don't know how good you got it.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I could go out in the backyard and go get fresh eggs out of the chicken coop.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And we have a smokehouse.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Now you're talking about stuff.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: We had hams hanging in the smokehouse.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_02]: My granddaddy had all of that kind of stuff.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And he owned his own construction company.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I talk about that in my book is that I just didn't know what he had to go

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_02]: through as a black man to own his own construction company.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was growing up in the 40s and the 50s.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't imagine.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_02]: That kind of pressure.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Racism.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I cannot even imagine, man.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I respected my grandfather and knew that he was a serious person, not nobody to play with.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I just didn't realize the command that he took over things around him and the

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: way he acted.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I got a lot of that in me.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I was just about to say you got a lot of your grandfather's will and determination

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: in your DNA.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So he has a lot to do to make me the person that I turned out to be.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I used to hang up under him.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_02]: He couldn't leave the house without me being in the truck with him.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: He had an old Ford truck.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I used to be in there with him wherever he'd go.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_02]: That's where I would be, in that truck.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_02]: He died when I was 12 years old.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Now during the career, this is one thing Rocky and I detested.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We're proud of all your achievements.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_01]: We detested a moving van because throughout your career we relocated various times.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did you feel it was necessary to move out of state for your career to take place?

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I know y'all were too young in the beginning for it to really matter, but when we started

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: getting to Chicago is when it really started taking effect on y'all because y'all were

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_02]: attending school and everything.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to leave Dallas to get a position with CBS, which was in Chicago.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_02]: After we got to Chicago, we weren't in Chicago for about two to three years.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I think maybe three at the max.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think three years.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I got promoted again when we moved to New York.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_02]: During that time I had to leave y'all again and find a house.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: We had to find a house in New Jersey.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the only house I've ever picked was that house in New Jersey.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: The one on Englewood?

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh man.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Mama picked all the houses everywhere else except that one.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That move to New York, New Jersey was a real time stand for both me and Rocky

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and your career.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a different era then as well as it not being southern.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: We straight east coast now.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well y'all grew up really in New Jersey in T-Neck.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_02]: That's really where y'all had your teenage years was in New Jersey.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Y'all was hidden.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh man, let me tell you something about T-Neck, New Jersey.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01]: One thing I loved about the time in T-Neck, like I said, it was a small town.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Isaac Brothers has got a lot of history in T-Neck.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_01]: You had a great career during that time period.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time our childhood was definitely...

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh y'all were killing.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we loved growing up in T-Neck, New Jersey.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll be sure.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh man.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: King's did.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even about the celebrities that we met.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: That was a perk.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time we had simplicity that we enjoyed.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: We would go down to the rink in Burgenfield where we roller skate.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Then you got Volte Park.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_01]: We would go swimming every summer.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: We used to always talk about our skin tone when we come back after a good swim.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01]: We all knew each other.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_02]: T-Neck was a great family town.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It really was because y'all could walk anywhere where nobody messed with you.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_02]: There was always cops on the routes for kids that were coming home and all that stuff.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And y'all had everything.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You used to have that, like you said, ice cream place right down the street.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_02]: You had your park right down on the other end with the pool.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So I mean y'all had everything.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: For kids it was a great time.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01]: No, it was because arcade spots were real hot.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But I also remember at that time that you were working at CBS.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is when you had a, I mean you've always worked with great artists.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But this is like the cream of the crop.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I got to New York in 78.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We went to New York in 78 or 79.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_02]: That was just a year I guess that everything really started happening for me because

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I started working.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_02]: First big act I started working with.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But I worked with a lot of big acts in Chicago.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You know.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: That's where you gave me the track for Bill Withers.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, lovely days.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember this like it was yesterday.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: We drive down the highway and I just, we could not make up our mind on what single

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_02]: we were going to pull off of that Bill Withers album.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I asked you because you were always into music.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You've always been into music.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I said Michelle, what should we pull off of Bill Withers album?

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And you said lovely day, daddy.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Lovely day.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I never forget that.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I said okay.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I said.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I would suggest that.

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, so but Chicago was really where I started coming to my own because I worked

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_02]: with a ton of major acts up there and a lot of acts that I really admired like Minnie

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Rippleton, Bill Withers, Herbie Hancock.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me see who else.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: George Duke, Stanley Clark, you know, and then a ton of blues acts.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Joe Tex, Tyrone Davis, which was one of my favorite people to hang out with.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: He was so ignorant.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Johnny Taylor, Tyrone.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me see.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_02]: We had Denise Williams as Earth, Wind and Fire.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: CBS back then was just a mega monster with talent.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Epic really didn't have that much many artists back then.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It was mostly Columbia.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_02]: They had Earth, Wind and Fire and all those big acts that I was just naming.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But when I was in Chicago as a regional, I worked everybody's product.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But when I went to New York, they took me and put me into Epic and I started running

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Epic.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I was first the national director at Epic and Epic really didn't have that many

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: black acts.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Not surprising.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Clarence Avon had a label over there.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I had a taboo record label and he had SOS Band.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_02]: That was the first big record that I got my hands on with first move to New York.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Clarence Avon and SOS Band were the first big act that I had a chance to

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_02]: work with.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And during that time right about that time is when Epic signed the Jacksons.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember those early Jackson days.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember when they were...

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Destiny and...

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Going Places.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember all those albums.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they had four or five albums.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: The group Gambling Huff produced one album from Going Places, the one you're

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_02]: talking about.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they had Destiny and Victory and a whole bunch of other projects.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just happened to be there at the right time.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, God put me right there when Michael Jackson, which he is one of

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_02]: the main reasons he had came to Epic is that he wanted to do a solo project.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So he did his first solo project.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It was right before Black Sunday.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was Black Friday, you know when CBS fired, it shat almost everybody.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_02]: They to put me in charge of everything and naturally one of my first official

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_02]: acts was to fire about 20 people.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So hey, gotta do what you gotta do.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Gotta do what you gotta do.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_02]: As long as I wasn't on the list.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I understand that but I know when you did start working with Michael

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and I remember you used to bring us promo material from all the artists that

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_01]: you were working and I remember the vinyls, the covers and everything.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But that Off The Wall album got so many songs and good memories to it.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, you go to Thriller.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Now was being raised in TN, New Jersey was exposed to a lot of artists.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean we were very blessed not only to have you and Mama as our parents,

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_01]: but with you being a music executive exposed us to the behind the scenes

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_01]: of the music industry and had us.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_01]: We know Mama would cook so good.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Matter of fact that artists used to come to the house to eat all the time.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they run banks.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Dramatics would be over the house all the time during the when we were in

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_02]: the Dallas Grand Prairie days and everybody started coming over there

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_02]: when we moved to New Jersey.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was just like Thanksgiving.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Would your mother used to love to do that kind of stuff?

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, she used to love the home.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_02]: She loved to entertain.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_02]: We'd have we'd have 15 to 20 people over to the house and she just she

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_02]: just lay it out.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: She'd be playing in those meals forever.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess my marriage to your mother has spoiled me to the point that

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_02]: just that's just what I expected of marriage, you know, right?

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Because a lot of people that I knew that knew me during our marriage

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_02]: about time together like Don Carter from Motown would talk about everybody

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_02]: used to talk about how your mother was spoiled me make my clothes.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, when we first moved to New York, your mother made all

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_02]: my shirts and all my stuff that I used to wear all my custom silk

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: shirts and all of that kind of stuff.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Your mother made all of that stuff for me.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_02]: She matter of fact, your mother would even make furniture.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I look for y'all listening y'all understand all the hats mama wore.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean beside being a good homemaker wife mother.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_01]: She took on so many different projects outside of cooking entertaining.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_02]: She loved to entertain.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: She loved to be involved in project, you know, I mean and as I

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: tell anybody this is quiet as it's kept your mother was a reason

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_02]: why my I was so successful in my career because I didn't have to

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_02]: be concerned about my house whatsoever.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have to worry about what my children being taken care of was

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: my bills being paid was my so-and-so, you know, I just didn't

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_02]: have those concerns whatsoever, you know, my biggest concern

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_02]: was to make sure that you know, she got everything she needed

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and then your mother was a little sheltered when we first met.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, she wasn't exposed to a lot of stuff.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was a different kind of person for her, you know, matter

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02]: of fact her mother told her, you know, I like him.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a he's a good-looking boy, but he's a little wild.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So that was her warning to me.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: There were we got buried your mother was just not exposed

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_02]: to a lot of stuff.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_02]: She was a little more reserved.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02]: She was very reserved and it was just the way she had been raised

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and in her heart.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_02]: She was a dear she was wild as she wanted to be.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay in her heart.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_02]: She wanted to do what I mean, she was open to anything.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but her mother and her father had raised her so

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_02]: strict.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And okay.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So I and I do believe that it affected a lot of stuff

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_02]: that she wanted to do because there's a lot of things

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_02]: that she had passion for right that she did not get a chance

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02]: to fulfill like she wanted to be an interior decorator,

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_02]: but mama and them wouldn't let her go to school in California

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_02]: right or something of that nature, you know, and some other

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_02]: thing, you know, but she has so many skills.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_02]: She she bake she'd make these cakes.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_02]: He's wet all this stuff that you see with flowers and stuff

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_01]: what she could do all of that call her the black mother

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_01]: stew.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she could do all of that.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You do all the arranging for the season.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: She would change the house every season.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Trust me.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I know.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'm trying to take she'd redecorate every season.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So it would have a different theme every season every season.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02]: She'd have a different thing.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I mean she'd go through that.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't care where we had moved to or where we were

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_02]: to make it she's gonna make it work.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_02]: She was gonna decorate it and I have to honor her which

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I said in the book is that I think we moved 11 times probably

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_02]: about 11 or 12 times probably but if we counted a different

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_02]: houses, I think it's 14 or 15 because we moved three times

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_01]: down here in Houston.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's true.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Well the relocating I'm telling you like I said, even

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_01]: though we spent the bulk time of our childhood in New

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_01]: York, New Jersey and Nashville Memphis, Atlanta.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Chicago Chicago.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_01]: We were in Texas before we were we are currently Texas now.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It's our second trip to Texas second go around in Texas

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and I'm telling you I'm not second drill around in Memphis

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_02]: to second or third.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we moved to Memphis two or three times.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: That's true.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we had great houses in Memphis.

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_02]: We had a real nice house over on South Parkway and

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Tangle while a Tangle what Tangle wood?

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, real house.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Your mama really liked that house because she decorated

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_02]: we decorate we redecorated the whole house was pretty

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_01]: much refurbished.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and mama loved the project.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean from the process of getting the floors.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_02]: She custom painted it.

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_02]: She did the blinds the curtains.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it was a it was a project in motion.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, she loved it.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she loved that house.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, love that house.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_01]: That was it.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a nice historic house.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, the only thing like I said, that was

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: drawback is like as we're getting older, we're moving

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_01]: to different areas and that you get connected to,

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, you go to schools.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You have favorite teachers favorite friends and I think

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_01]: that was probably the only thing major thing that

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_01]: we complained about.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Y'all complained about it.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Especially when you moved to Nashville.

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, y'all did not want to move to Nashville.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_02]: No, because y'all just knew it was going to be

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_01]: hick town, but it was a nice city.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It was nice.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But see this is when we moved from Jersey, right?

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I know you're Nashville and Jersey.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: That's two different places.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_01]: That ain't no where I keep turning it off.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in Jersey, we spent a majority of our really before

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01]: we hit preteen.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We've been in Jersey and then right before high school

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_01]: lets out we got to move.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so yeah, we moved.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: We mean y'all did not like it and y'all like Chicago

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_02]: because of all the snow.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: The snow was it.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, y'all cause that was new to y'all.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It was it would be so much snow.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Man, it had 88 inches of snow.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I think first year we moved there and your mother adapt

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_02]: real well.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_02]: She did to that to that weather because we had that

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_02]: old Volvo.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I remember the Volvo.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we had a Volvo back there that car was reliable

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_02]: as it could be now at this point in life.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody should know that racism does exist in our

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_01]: great United States.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I want you to kind of go through some of the

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_01]: encounters, you know briefly on what racism you

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_01]: experienced while you were going through the music

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_01]: industry.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I did I experienced it before that with your

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_02]: schooling.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That was our first bout when you went to school

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_02]: in Grand Prairie, Texas.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, I recall.

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_02]: That was a real racist time even our whole state

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_02]: matter of fact in Grand Prairie was race was racist.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because there was that early 70s.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I had just got back from Vietnam and you were

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: in the first grade or something like that.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it was integration and it was ugly.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was real.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I did not like that period.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Another period was when we first moved to Chicago

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Chicago and working with CBS CBS was as racist as

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_02]: they come.

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I was kind of blown back to how racist CBS was

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_02]: because you know, I had worked for Stacks.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes was a black company.

[00:35:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Then I worked for Capital which capital was not

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_02]: into the black business enough to be racist.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_02]: They were just trying to get trying to get in there.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so they didn't it wasn't a big black staff.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't a whole bunch of black people working

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_02]: there.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was the only black person in the Dallas

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_02]: branch.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't really experience too much, you

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_02]: know at Capital because I was more of a satellite

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_02]: then at ABC.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't because I worked out of the house at

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_02]: ABC.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But when I went to Chicago with CBS the manner

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_02]: in which they treated blacks was was kind of

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_02]: surprising matter of fact, there was an incident

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_02]: when I first went to London with CBS somebody

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_02]: called Billy Paul a nigger one of the branch

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_02]: managers of the CBS branch called Billy Paul.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I was kind of blown back when I first got

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_02]: there, but how openly it was.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, you know it was kind of kind

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_02]: of surprised and I think it kind of made

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_02]: me develop the attitude that I had with CBS

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_02]: because you have to develop a thick skin, right?

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it became a point to me that I

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_02]: was not going to let them disrespect me like

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_02]: that.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I had seen some of the stuff that they had

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_02]: done to blacks previously the blacks that

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_02]: had worked there before me and Ethan and

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Chaplin got over there and some of the shit

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_02]: they had them doing you were just just

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_02]: it was ridiculous dressing up as slaves

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: doing down, you know, they'd have these sales

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_02]: meeting and they they have all kind of ridiculous

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_02]: stuff for black people to do, you know, so

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_02]: you sort of have to develop a thick skin,

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, if you're going to advance you

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_02]: cannot become very because I had a lot of

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_02]: people interview me about that.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_02]: How did I deal with that?

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_02]: How did that you know, because if you are

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_02]: a proud person, which I am, yes, you are

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_02]: okay, you know, it became a point to the

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_02]: fact that they knew better.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You don't don't not that one.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, not that was you know, they

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_02]: like they knew better matter of fact,

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I have an incident that I would tell

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_02]: you about that happened Luther van draws.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and I will own tour and we had

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_02]: just come back from Detroit and I was

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_02]: exhausted, you know, and you know how I am

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_02]: when I'm tired.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I was exhausted.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a marketing meeting going on.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So there were several big black one stops

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: in Detroit back then before they put all

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_02]: the black people out of business digital

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_02]: put a lot of black people out of work.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, so I got back to the office

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_02]: and there was no product in Detroit.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_02]: They had sold out of all the looters

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_02]: and we were on tour.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We did a press tour with Luther in Detroit.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So I come back into the meeting and

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm expressing I said it was embarrassing

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_02]: to have Luther in the market, right?

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_02]: We go to the major black retailers

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and he sold out.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I said why didn't we do a deal and

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_02]: do something to get more of a layout

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_02]: on this product?

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So the vice president of sales which

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_02]: was Paul Smith hate him to today.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_02]: He says what do you expect me to do

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_02]: put product in every shoes shine shop

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_02]: in America?

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, he did.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, he did.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: They had to pull me.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_02]: They had to grab me and physically

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_02]: pull me out of the meeting.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would never forget the bar

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_02]: front row.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I think was a white boy great big white

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_02]: boy because I just came up on it.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I reacted before thought about it

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_02]: before I thought about it, right?

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was like, oh, I'm going

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_02]: to kill this kill this.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I said what did you say?

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You know another person was like

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that was Greg pick.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to talk pick down several times

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_02]: that they will make the slighted

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_02]: remarks or slighted thing and the

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_02]: thing that was most disgusting about

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_02]: it because we were making major

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_02]: money and making major move.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Not that we were paying their damn

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_02]: salary the black division of Epic

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Records, which was Michael Jackson

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_02]: and to me.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I was on we're paying everybody

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_02]: salary.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: We were the one making all the money.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, because the only thing that

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_02]: they had hidden right there back

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: then was Cindy Lopper clash

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_02]: clash Culture Club Culture Club.

[00:39:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Adam Ant.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_02]: They tried to you know a couple

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_02]: of other European acts.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_02]: They would get most of their

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_02]: white acts from Europe right back

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_02]: then but we were killing at Teddy

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Pendergrass.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_02]: We had by the old J's where

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Patty LaBelle had to tell you

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the story about your mama and

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_02]: LaBelle.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I hear it.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Patty had left Epic had left

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Philly International.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Pat they did not treat Patty the

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_02]: way I thought they should have

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Patty had a single she had an

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_02]: album that she owed Philly

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_02]: International.

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_02]: She was leaving going to MCA right?

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_02]: She had a record called new attitude

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_02]: that she's finna do with MCA,

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_02]: but they were not going to release

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_02]: the Patty LaBelle album.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They were just ready to pat it

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_02]: was gone.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So Tony Martell, which was the

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_02]: vice president of Associated

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Labels gave it a project to me

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and asked me did I think it

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_02]: was worth releasing this

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: project because she's no longer

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: with the label right?

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and I took it home

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and me and your mother listened

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_02]: to it and listen to it and

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_02]: there was a track on that

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_02]: album.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I was sold on another track on

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_02]: that album and it was between

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_02]: that track and if only you knew

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and your mother insisted that

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_02]: that track was if only you knew

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_02]: she said that's a hit baby.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_02]: She said that's the that's the

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_02]: one only one single that your

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_02]: mama pulled.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I can understand why she

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_01]: pulled it.

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a beautiful song.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's beautiful.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the best Pat LaBelle's

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it is ever did and

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: it's the only number one

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_02]: record Pat LaBelle has ever

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_02]: had.

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01]: See your wife had that touch

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_01]: she had it.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_01]: She had no patty there.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Touch.

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I know why mama

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_01]: picked a record being a

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_01]: woman because it's speaking

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_01]: on a woman's love for a man

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_02]: the death and you just don't

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_02]: know.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you don't know the

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_02]: depth in which I love you.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's what she's

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_02]: singing about in that out in

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_02]: that track, but you know,

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_01]: it's funny that you had to

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01]: go through all that with

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_01]: your career and at the same

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_01]: time, you know, why can't

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I get a little taste of

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_01]: racism in school?

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you said there was

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01]: bias teachers that would make

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_01]: it very obvious on where they

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_01]: stood and Lord let's not

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_01]: get involved with the

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_01]: students where they would

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_01]: just call us a nigga.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, like that was

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_01]: our given name.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm sure it's still

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_02]: like that.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm sure it's still

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: like that, you know,

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_02]: but I don't know if it

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_02]: may hopefully is better.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope it is.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, hopefully it's better

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_02]: but you know, you and

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Rocky and we were the

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_02]: guinea pigs because that

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_02]: was a new thing.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a new thing

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: back when y'all guys was

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_02]: coming up.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So y'all had to be the

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_02]: guinea pigs for the

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_02]: experiment of mixing white

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_02]: kids and black.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't even try no

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_02]: moto.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_02]: No, they really don't

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_02]: have no choice.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_02]: They don't try anymore

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_02]: because they did it.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They did it differently.

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Now they do it by area

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_02]: codes.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, they don't do you

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_02]: in a nice it's like us

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_02]: the only reason why Kevin

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_02]: went to a school one

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02]: year that was a Latino

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_02]: black school was because

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_02]: they hadn't built enough

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_02]: school for the zip code

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_02]: that we live in because

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_02]: the zip code that we

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_02]: live in a for being

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_02]: county zip code right is

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_02]: one of the highest

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_02]: districts in the state

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_02]: as far as education and

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_02]: it's because it ain't

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_02]: no cheap homes over

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02]: here, right?

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's all

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_02]: half-a-million-dollar

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_02]: houses up.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So the educational

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_02]: system is much better.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you know

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_02]: from from the education

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_02]: that they did with

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Kevin.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was very

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_01]: satisfied out in

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the middle of the

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: been.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you guys

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_01]: enjoyed part one of

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_01]: this interview.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we talked

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit longer.

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So make sure you

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_01]: guys tune in on

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: the next episode

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_01]: where we will have

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_01]: part two of this

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: amazing conversation

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_01]: with TC Tompkins

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_01]: my dad.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_01]: guys follow subscribe

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and share and

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: follow me on all

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_01]: social media is

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_01]: talk to me Michelle

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: on all social

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_01]: media platforms and

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_01]: we are doing

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_01]: occasional live streams

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_01]: on our YouTube

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_01]: and if you like

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_01]: the episode you

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_01]: love the content.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you support

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[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: by me a coffee.

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So until next

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[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you looking to

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[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for

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