Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Chic Story: The Legacy Of Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards [Episode 330]

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The Chic Story: The Legacy Of Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards [Episode 330] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: Mixing in some funk in R and B with our
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Speaker 1: rock and roll. It's the story of she Coming up
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Speaker 1: next with author Chris Sutton. I'm booked on Rock.
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Speaker 2: We're totally rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you
0:12
Speaker 2: you're reading little hands this, it's time to rock and
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Speaker 2: roll up. We are totally booked.
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Speaker 1: Everybody. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for
0:25
Speaker 1: those about to read and rock. Excited to have back
0:29
Speaker 1: a friend of the podcast for another guest visit, Chris Sutton.
0:32
Speaker 1: He is the author of the book titled The Sheik Organization,
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Speaker 1: Every album, Every song, part of Sonic Bond's Great series
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Speaker 1: on Track. Welcome back, Chris. How you doing I'm doing right?
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Speaker 2: This is the I think I've told you before. This
0:45
Speaker 2: is the sixth time now.
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Speaker 1: That I've been on You're up there. You're in the top,
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Speaker 1: in the top, upper half. And from what you were
0:53
Speaker 1: telling me before we started recording, I know we've got
0:55
Speaker 1: some more visits coming up soon, which you know we
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Speaker 1: can talk about if you like. You get to that,
1:00
Speaker 1: but let's talk about CHIC, or more specifically the Chic Organization.
1:05
Speaker 1: That's important because that's an umbrella term that's used for
1:08
Speaker 1: a collective of musicians who appear on these records. Thats
1:11
Speaker 1: you cover in the book. But at the heart of
1:13
Speaker 1: it are two guys. One of them has produced several
1:17
Speaker 1: rock albums, which we'll talk about, but let's talk about
1:19
Speaker 1: the two main guys and the umbrella that is the
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Speaker 1: Sheikh Organization.
1:24
Speaker 2: So at the heart of this it's Bernard Edwards and
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Speaker 2: Narl Rogers going back into the nineteen seventies. Nile on
1:32
Speaker 2: guitar as everyone knows, and Bernard Edwards the phenomenal bass player,
1:37
Speaker 2: and they owned the Sheik Organization name, and they brought
1:41
Speaker 2: in people they knew to play the other instruments. They
1:45
Speaker 2: would use regular musicians, and they not only worked on
1:48
Speaker 2: the chic brand which people know. But it's Na still
1:52
Speaker 2: tells people to this day in concert they worked on
1:55
Speaker 2: other people's records, produced, brought their own musicians in wrote.
2:01
Speaker 2: But because these records were under other people's names. I
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Speaker 2: know NA still thinks this day that people perhaps are
2:07
Speaker 2: not aware of exactly how widespread the Sheek Organization is
2:12
Speaker 2: on records in the nineteen seventies. So if you go
2:16
Speaker 2: and seem live, for example, he'll tell you all this
2:18
Speaker 2: is Diana Ross songs. Will be doing it, you boi.
2:23
Speaker 2: We played on this and we did this. So the
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Speaker 2: biggest selling albums by Davey Bowie, Madonna, and Diana Ross
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Speaker 2: for some considerable time were all ones produced by Narle
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Speaker 2: Rodgers and featuring the Sheik Organization.
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Speaker 1: Now Rogers at one time was a member of a
2:39
Speaker 1: touring version of the Sesame Street TV show. Take us
2:44
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of how She formed.
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Speaker 2: Well they started up. I think Bernard Edwards was asked
2:49
Speaker 2: to put a band together to play on the road
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Speaker 2: for a singing group called New York City who had
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Speaker 2: a big hit with I'm Doing Fine Now, which came
2:58
Speaker 2: out in the mid seventies. He put a band together,
3:01
Speaker 2: got Narl Rogers in for that and that went well.
3:05
Speaker 2: They then formed a band called New York City themselves
3:12
Speaker 2: and they started recording and doing covers, and eventually this
3:16
Speaker 2: led onto the Chic brand name being set up and
3:20
Speaker 2: they went off with that in about nineteen seventy seven.
3:25
Speaker 2: It's very very interesting, I think the early years of Chic,
3:29
Speaker 2: how they get together and how they bring in these
3:31
Speaker 2: these phenomenal musicians, and it's a very very identifiable brand
3:35
Speaker 2: that they have, isn't it. I mean you can hear
3:37
Speaker 2: it running through all those key records in the seventies
3:41
Speaker 2: from the people that we just mentioned, but mainly the
3:44
Speaker 2: Sheik organization, and I guess Sister Sledge would be the
3:48
Speaker 2: other one that people would probably know that they work
3:50
Speaker 2: strongly on as well.
3:51
Speaker 1: The most recognizable part of the k sound probably now
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Speaker 1: Rogers rhythm guitar. Tell us about his guitar of choice
3:58
Speaker 1: and why that's go to guitar.
4:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's hit and mak a guitar in his style.
4:03
Speaker 2: He actually developed it. There was a song which came
4:07
Speaker 2: out in the mid seventies called Scorpio by Dennis Coffee
4:11
Speaker 2: and if you listen to that, that kind of chucker
4:13
Speaker 2: chucker guitar playing that Nile kind of patents. He's very
4:17
Speaker 2: evident on that, and that's one of the big components
4:21
Speaker 2: of Chic sound, as everybody knows as time goes on
4:25
Speaker 2: and actually experiments with even playing rock guitar. There's some
4:31
Speaker 2: solos on the early eighties ship gaut but the if
4:34
Speaker 2: I just played you the solo, you'd be going, oh,
4:36
Speaker 2: who's this? You know, which which rock band is this
4:39
Speaker 2: I'm listening to? And it's actually nil Rogers key on
4:42
Speaker 2: there would be the title track of the Real People
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Speaker 2: album and he plays some absolutely scorching league guitar on
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Speaker 2: that sounds nothing like Nil Rogers at all, but it's
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Speaker 2: that kind of the rhythm and the groove and the
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Speaker 2: field that runs through most of their records sprinkled B
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Speaker 2: ballads as well, well, but when they hit that groove,
5:02
Speaker 2: it's just phenomenal, really phenomenal.
5:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't forget the importance of Bernard Edwards and
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Speaker 1: his bass playing. According to Nile, Bernard has a unique technique.
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Speaker 1: Talk about Bernard's approach to playing and it came out
5:14
Speaker 1: of the fact that he didn't want to use a pick.
5:16
Speaker 2: No, no, he doesn't use a pick, which is surprising.
5:19
Speaker 2: He tends to play with his fingers and kind of
5:20
Speaker 2: plucking kind of style. And I mean, he was interviewed
5:25
Speaker 2: once and he didn't even know what strings were on
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Speaker 2: his base at all. He hadn't changed them in years
5:31
Speaker 2: and used the same strings. He was asked what strings
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Speaker 2: he played, and he said, which other strings come with
5:36
Speaker 2: this bass? He said, it's a kind of a standard
5:42
Speaker 2: I think in bass playing, and I'm going to say
5:45
Speaker 2: in the disco kind of genre and you know, this
5:50
Speaker 2: was kind of very, very tricky when when I was
5:53
Speaker 2: getting into music. I'm not sure how it was for you, Eric,
5:56
Speaker 2: but you were kind of in kind of tribes and
5:58
Speaker 2: groups and that was what you liked and what you did.
6:02
Speaker 2: But I never kind of sat in with it. If
6:06
Speaker 2: you asked me what kind of music I was into
6:08
Speaker 2: growing above, it said glam rock and heavy rock and
6:11
Speaker 2: prog rock, and that was my thing. But I was
6:13
Speaker 2: quite happy diving off into other areas. I don't know
6:16
Speaker 2: if that's the same for you.
6:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know which group I really felt like
6:20
Speaker 1: I belonged to most. I could kind of go from
6:22
Speaker 1: one group to the other. I could be the Olt
6:23
Speaker 1: rock guy or the Gothic rock guy, or a cure
6:25
Speaker 1: or glam rock or seventies rock.
6:29
Speaker 2: I think it was even a case of when when
6:31
Speaker 2: I was offering to do this book and I spoke
6:33
Speaker 2: to Sonic Bond Steven there about what I wanted to
6:38
Speaker 2: do next, and I kind of imagined his reaction at
6:41
Speaker 2: the other end, I mean, he was glad to have
6:43
Speaker 2: it because it filled a kind of a gap in
6:46
Speaker 2: the range at the time when I started working on it.
6:51
Speaker 2: I remember back at the time when some of these
6:53
Speaker 2: records came out, you couldn't go around to some people
6:56
Speaker 2: I knew and say, oh, that record I Want Your
6:59
Speaker 2: Love by Chic, that's great. They'd be thinking, what's going
7:03
Speaker 2: on with him? Right?
7:04
Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, because people label them
7:07
Speaker 1: as a disco band. Yeah, and that's not really a
7:10
Speaker 1: fair label. They're part of the disco era, but yeah.
7:15
Speaker 2: That's broadly because where the records were played on the radio,
7:18
Speaker 2: and you know, you could dance to these records, but.
7:22
Speaker 1: It's funk, it's R and B, it's rock and roll.
7:24
Speaker 2: There was a very famous feature in the New Musical
7:27
Speaker 2: Express by a journalist called Danny Baker, who you may
7:30
Speaker 2: have heard of it. He became quite well known in
7:32
Speaker 2: the UK, and he did this kind of review of
7:36
Speaker 2: Sheikh's Say Chik album where he was going, you wouldn't
7:39
Speaker 2: expect me to say, but this is a great album.
7:41
Speaker 2: These are great songs, and I love it and I'll
7:43
Speaker 2: passionately defend it, and he was anticipating flak coming his way.
7:51
Speaker 2: I think they don't really get the credit they deserve
7:55
Speaker 2: at all for what they did and what they achieved
7:58
Speaker 2: and what's going on musically these records. One of the
8:02
Speaker 2: advantages of doing a book like this, you may have
8:06
Speaker 2: had the same experiences. You keep having to listen to
8:08
Speaker 2: the songs again and again and again and again and again.
8:12
Speaker 2: What's he like on headphones? What's it like on the stereo,
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Speaker 2: and you find all these details and things, and you're
8:18
Speaker 2: just constantly blown away by things you hadn't noticed, things
8:21
Speaker 2: that you've discovered. What they wanted was for dinah Us
8:25
Speaker 2: to go global and huge and not just be lumped
8:29
Speaker 2: into the Tamla motown kind of bracket. And they knew
8:33
Speaker 2: that Niall and Bernard were capable of delivering that, and
8:37
Speaker 2: controversially so as we're undoubtedly going to talk about, I
8:40
Speaker 2: would imagine because Tamla were not happy with what they
8:44
Speaker 2: got completely and this is a complaint that you would
8:47
Speaker 2: see coming through from time to time regularly. Or you've
8:51
Speaker 2: made our artists sound like chic and you're thinking, yeah,
8:57
Speaker 2: you know, the Johnny Mathis album, for example, sounds exactly
9:00
Speaker 2: like Johnny math Is singing with Chic and that took
9:02
Speaker 2: decades to get released because they sat on it because
9:08
Speaker 2: it didn't sound right to the company.
9:14
Speaker 1: We can't forget Tony Thompson Chik's drummer powerhouse player. Yeah,
9:18
Speaker 1: and an interesting story. The way things start with him
9:22
Speaker 1: in the beginning is that he learned early on to
9:24
Speaker 1: simplify his kit and learn how to groove thanks to
9:28
Speaker 1: now In Bernard. This is from an interview he did
9:31
Speaker 1: in OH five. In this interview that your quotes are
9:33
Speaker 1: in the book, they had him remove a lot of
9:35
Speaker 1: the parts of his kit, right, and they said, you
9:37
Speaker 1: don't need all that stuff, let's get just focus on
9:40
Speaker 1: the groove.
9:41
Speaker 2: Absolutely correct. I mean that's the big thing. If you
9:46
Speaker 2: take a song like you can take any Chik song,
9:50
Speaker 2: but the one that I drive people mad with most genuinely,
9:55
Speaker 2: he's probably Spacer by Sheila Ba de Vosh. And it's
10:01
Speaker 2: a song that almost anybody I think listening to this
10:04
Speaker 2: podcast will know when they hear it straight away. It's
10:07
Speaker 2: been covered and been sampled. But the groove at the
10:10
Speaker 2: heart of this is just absolutely to die for. These
10:14
Speaker 2: guys are playing, which is Nile Bernard, Tony Thompson, Sami
10:17
Speaker 2: Figueroa just play this incredible, just relentless groove that they
10:22
Speaker 2: get into. And they used to do it in one
10:25
Speaker 2: go as well. If it kind of went wrong, they
10:27
Speaker 2: would do it again start to finish. There's no kind
10:31
Speaker 2: of patching parts in or anything of that nature.
10:34
Speaker 1: Right. They move fast during recording sessions, you're write.
10:37
Speaker 2: Oh dear God. Yeah, I mean to the point where
10:41
Speaker 2: they were recording the Sey Sheik album and the Sister
10:44
Speaker 2: Sledge We Are Family album simultaneously in two studios. So
10:51
Speaker 2: they're doing both albums simultaneously, and the horn section are
10:55
Speaker 2: coming in and doing brass parts the songs. They don't
10:58
Speaker 2: even know what they're for. I interviewed the horn section
11:03
Speaker 2: and told them that they were on the second album
11:06
Speaker 2: by Sister Sledge, and they didn't even know.
11:08
Speaker 1: They were given the charts. They just said, okay, it.
11:11
Speaker 2: Would be like, okay, we're going to do this and
11:13
Speaker 2: the covenent melody, Oh you want to kind of like this,
11:16
Speaker 2: But they wouldn't know. I mean, this is what they're
11:18
Speaker 2: telling me. They didn't know that they were going to
11:20
Speaker 2: be I Want Your Love, for example, doing those brass
11:23
Speaker 2: accents at all until the record came out.
11:27
Speaker 1: Rob Sabino my keys to it in the early days.
11:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, Rob Sabino, I mean she had some wonderful, wonderful keyboards,
11:36
Speaker 2: piano players, and Sabino is a guy who runs through
11:40
Speaker 2: pretty much everything that she'd do. Robed Sabina. He would
11:43
Speaker 2: be the fourth probably member of the core band, which
11:48
Speaker 2: would be musically guitar, Bernard Edwards Space, Rob Sabino, keyboards,
11:55
Speaker 2: Tony Thompson drums. That would be the four and then
11:58
Speaker 2: Figure over comes in and percussion of the piano players
12:01
Speaker 2: are brought in, so instrumentally, that would be the core
12:05
Speaker 2: of the Sheikh Organization band.
12:07
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken. Sammy Figueroa, I think he's on
12:11
Speaker 1: David Lee Ross Crazy from the Heat, the EP with
12:14
Speaker 1: California Girls.
12:15
Speaker 2: And I don't know I've hand, but he's on everything
12:18
Speaker 2: pretty much. There's nobody listening to this podcast. I think,
12:21
Speaker 2: who won't have Sammy figure out somewhere lurking on their shelves.
12:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me just check the credits because I feel
12:27
Speaker 1: like I've seen that name. Let's see, Yeah, Sammy Figueroa,
12:33
Speaker 1: let's see personnel there. He is, Sammy Figurea percussion. He's
12:39
Speaker 1: on all four of those songs on Dave c EP.
12:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's great.
12:43
Speaker 1: The first sheet hit that comes from the self titled
12:47
Speaker 1: debut album from seventy seven, the song Dance Dance, Dance
12:49
Speaker 1: Yawser yaosy Yawser, title inspired by a film starring Gig Young.
12:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they shoot horses, don't they. I think it
12:59
Speaker 2: was the film, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't say I've
13:02
Speaker 2: ever seen the film. I was aware it was from there,
13:04
Speaker 2: and it's a decent starter. And you can hear luf
13:07
Speaker 2: of Andros singing on that. He's part of the big
13:10
Speaker 2: chorus at that stage when they did that song Dance
13:14
Speaker 2: Dance Dance, and not even Tony Thompson's on that song.
13:18
Speaker 2: They used a session drummer instead. You can kind of
13:24
Speaker 2: hear where they're going with it. I don't think it's
13:26
Speaker 2: the best of Sheikh's songs. Singles has its moments, however,
13:32
Speaker 2: Everybody Dance, which is the next one that comes along,
13:34
Speaker 2: is well, I tell you put that on And as
13:38
Speaker 2: soon as Bernard plays that bass, I mean Heaven I'm.
13:41
Speaker 1: Gone and Dance Dance Dance top ten single.
13:44
Speaker 2: Yeah absolutely. It's then finding their footing really and at
13:47
Speaker 2: that point they haven't got the kind of the dream
13:49
Speaker 2: team vocalists in place that normal gene Wright who went
13:54
Speaker 2: off on a solo career pretty much immediately and they
13:57
Speaker 2: did her album and this is the difficult thing. This
14:01
Speaker 2: is the hardest part of doing this book. There were
14:04
Speaker 2: so many little paths to follow and try and pull
14:06
Speaker 2: it all together, and that was extremely difficult to do.
14:09
Speaker 2: And literally every song that they did in this period
14:11
Speaker 2: is in there, cross checking and making sure I got
14:14
Speaker 2: it all right. But it was it was very, very
14:18
Speaker 2: difficult to do compared to the other ones I've done,
14:21
Speaker 2: which were much more linear and focused on one. Actually,
14:24
Speaker 2: it's been a challenge a.
14:27
Speaker 1: Lot of moving parts with the lineup.
14:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just following the path and trying to make
14:33
Speaker 2: it logical. And then you become aware that we're always
14:38
Speaker 2: talking about when an album is released as the key
14:41
Speaker 2: thing for us, you know, when did this album come out,
14:44
Speaker 2: But when you look at the organization, quite key for
14:47
Speaker 2: them is when these things were being recorded because they
14:50
Speaker 2: were so busy.
14:52
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so timeline was also a challenge in that way.
14:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it hadn't been so much as a problem before.
14:58
Speaker 2: When doing Black Sabbath Alice, they see DC it's fairly
15:02
Speaker 2: linear and very easy to follow, but this was kind
15:05
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, I mean they're doing like three or
15:07
Speaker 2: four albums a year at some point, man for themselves
15:11
Speaker 2: and different artists and to this day I think, I mean,
15:16
Speaker 2: I did a signing session for this, and there were
15:19
Speaker 2: people who were for example, we didn't know they did
15:21
Speaker 2: Carly Simon, you know. And there's a huge song over
15:24
Speaker 2: here called why, a very very popular song, part of
15:29
Speaker 2: the lyric kind of big thing, and there were people
15:31
Speaker 2: in the record shop who were going didn't know this
15:33
Speaker 2: was chic, but it is. They wrote it.
15:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wrote Ley Freak. That's the song that tapped
15:40
Speaker 1: the charts in nineteen seventy eight from their second album
15:43
Speaker 1: titled Say Chic. I want to talk about the music,
15:46
Speaker 1: but first talk about the origins of the lyrics and
15:48
Speaker 1: its connection with Studio fifty four.
15:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were going to see this is Narlon Bernard.
15:54
Speaker 2: They were being invited to see I think it was
15:56
Speaker 2: Grace Jones at Studio fifty four, and they inferred there
16:01
Speaker 2: was a bit of kind of racism and a bit
16:02
Speaker 2: of a problem going on, but they weren't letting basically,
16:07
Speaker 2: and they should have been allowed in, and so frustrated
16:10
Speaker 2: and angry they went home and started. Originally the title
16:15
Speaker 2: was can we say this on your podcast? Sure? Yep,
16:18
Speaker 2: it was fuck off.
16:21
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have gone over where on the radio.
16:23
Speaker 2: No, So I mean that's what because they're angry, not
16:26
Speaker 2: so what they came up with, and that was them
16:28
Speaker 2: shouting that, you know, with the dormant bands who hadn't
16:31
Speaker 2: let them in, And that's how it started, was with
16:34
Speaker 2: that sort of anger and volatility, and instead you get
16:37
Speaker 2: this kind of astonishing, very disco flavored track this time.
16:43
Speaker 2: And Lafreak is interesting because you know, there's a lot
16:46
Speaker 2: of songs and you'll know about this in the music
16:48
Speaker 2: that you like that you don't listen to them kind
16:52
Speaker 2: of anymore. You don't engage with them. You know them
16:55
Speaker 2: so well, like you know your whole lot of loves.
16:57
Speaker 2: You stay away to him and ain't talking about love
16:59
Speaker 2: or whatever. You know them well, you don't even have
17:02
Speaker 2: to put them on. So what I'm trying to do
17:07
Speaker 2: with this book parties to get people to go back
17:09
Speaker 2: and go, actually, I'm going to listen to that again
17:13
Speaker 2: almost in you. That would be my hope that people
17:15
Speaker 2: will go, you know, I hadn't noticed that, I hadn't
17:17
Speaker 2: picked up on that.
17:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, like the like the strings on that track, right,
17:22
Speaker 1: that's the arrival of the celebrated Chikh strings. In the
17:27
Speaker 1: vocalist duo of Alpha Anderson Lucy Martin.
17:31
Speaker 2: Alpha Anderson. You know, actually I'm telling the truth. I
17:33
Speaker 2: actually have goosebumps now just saying Alpha Anderson and Lucy
17:36
Speaker 2: Martin that those two together are just incredible at what
17:40
Speaker 2: they do. And there's a lovely bit on the Freak
17:46
Speaker 2: where Alpha Anderson goes flat deliberately, just slightly off and
17:55
Speaker 2: and she says, I'm sure you'll be amazed, and she
17:57
Speaker 2: goes flat unamazed, and you kind of here delights in
18:02
Speaker 2: it when you I'm sure you'll be a Mason just
18:04
Speaker 2: goes flat and Nile was like, oh, and he thought, yeah,
18:07
Speaker 2: that kind of works. So she just It's just beautiful
18:11
Speaker 2: the way these little accents and these little details come in.
18:14
Speaker 2: One of the problems with the sheet vocalists, with Alpha
18:18
Speaker 2: and Lucy's is they sit so well in with the music.
18:21
Speaker 2: You never hear anybody talk about them outside of Sheep fans.
18:24
Speaker 2: You don't hear anyone going, oh, one of my favorite
18:27
Speaker 2: singers is Alpha Anderson or Lucy Martin unless you're a
18:30
Speaker 2: hardcore Sheep fan. But what they do is they sit
18:33
Speaker 2: harmonically well within the music. It's kind of like they're
18:39
Speaker 2: not a buff. It's generally I'm not putting this terribly well,
18:42
Speaker 2: am I. It's like you notice them, but you don't.
18:45
Speaker 1: Well would it be would you say it's much like
18:48
Speaker 1: Steely Dan, Yeah, right, where people always look to Donald Fagan,
18:53
Speaker 1: Walter Becker, but all these great musicians, which people will
18:58
Speaker 1: say there's a ton of great musicians that work with them,
19:00
Speaker 1: but the average person will not be able to cite
19:04
Speaker 1: those names exactly that.
19:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for coming up with that and helping me out.
19:10
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, if you said to people, tell me
19:12
Speaker 2: about Sheik, you get now people are mentioned, now, you
19:14
Speaker 2: might get burned Tony, But Alpha and Lucy I don't
19:18
Speaker 2: think they ever fully got the credit and respect they
19:21
Speaker 2: deserved at all.
19:25
Speaker 1: Nilan Bernard, they worked with Sister Sledge for the seventy
19:28
Speaker 1: nine album We Are Family, title track, huge hit. You
19:31
Speaker 1: mentioned that in that same year, Sheik released the album Risque,
19:35
Speaker 1: another number one single with good Times. There's another song
19:38
Speaker 1: that to this day gets played all the time. You
19:40
Speaker 1: say that song is not overtly euphoric a song as
19:44
Speaker 1: it might seem to be on casual listening. What did
19:46
Speaker 1: Nile have to say about the irony of the lyrics.
19:49
Speaker 2: Well, it's going back to that kind of the dust
19:51
Speaker 2: bowl era and the recession, so there's a lot of
19:55
Speaker 2: that in them. If you actually listen to the lyrics
19:57
Speaker 2: that you picked that up, it's kind of about getting by,
20:01
Speaker 2: about getting through and coping. So it's when they're singing
20:09
Speaker 2: these are the good Times, it's almost as though it's
20:11
Speaker 2: kind of like willpower and trying to believe that things
20:16
Speaker 2: will get better. So I think it's kind of quite
20:20
Speaker 2: under the radar on that, and of course I know
20:24
Speaker 2: you're going to mention it, bro I'll getting At the
20:26
Speaker 2: time that they were recording good Times, John Deacon of
20:28
Speaker 2: Queen was sitting there in the control room. This is
20:32
Speaker 2: a fact. And while another one bites that dust doesn't
20:37
Speaker 2: sound exactly like good Times, you've certainly got to say
20:41
Speaker 2: that he was kind of remembering a little bit what
20:44
Speaker 2: he'd heard from Bernard's bass, but that definitely.
20:47
Speaker 1: Must be so inspired by it. For sure.
20:50
Speaker 2: Inspired is the word we're going to use, absolutely, and
20:53
Speaker 2: good Times I think is a candidate for Sheikh's best song,
20:58
Speaker 2: particularly if you go for the extended mix and a
21:03
Speaker 2: key feature of it, which we haven't We had it
21:06
Speaker 2: a bit on everybody dance. You heard it on that,
21:09
Speaker 2: But this one has got this great sheet breakdown and
21:13
Speaker 2: this is a part of a lot of Chik's best songs.
21:16
Speaker 2: It's where they just drop the music down to one
21:19
Speaker 2: or two components, maybe the bass, maybe the drums or
21:23
Speaker 2: both or whatever, or just Niles guitar, and then bring
21:26
Speaker 2: the instruments back in one by one by one by
21:28
Speaker 2: one by one till you get to the full sound again.
21:31
Speaker 2: And it's a quite magnificent trick that they pull on
21:34
Speaker 2: an awful lot of songs. You can hear it Honor
21:37
Speaker 2: once you Love, you can hear it some good Times
21:39
Speaker 2: and he drops right down to banandspass.
21:42
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yeah, well that's just going back to what
21:45
Speaker 1: your goal is, going back and listening to these songs
21:48
Speaker 1: that become a part of They're almost in the background
21:51
Speaker 1: when you hear them. Give them a listen again and
21:54
Speaker 1: listen to that. I got to listen for that. That
21:57
Speaker 1: approach to the production.
21:59
Speaker 2: It's brilliant. You're here. I mean, good Times is as
22:02
Speaker 2: good a one to start with, and by the time
22:03
Speaker 2: you finished and you actually focus on that, you'll be
22:05
Speaker 2: there going. Man, I've got to listen to more of
22:07
Speaker 2: these guys. But maybe one of the best breakdowns is
22:11
Speaker 2: on the album they did for their singer Gone Solo
22:13
Speaker 2: Normal Gene Right, And there's a great song on there
22:17
Speaker 2: called I Like Love. And I've got to say that
22:20
Speaker 2: lyrics generally are not Chiek's best suit. They just sort
22:25
Speaker 2: of fit the music and can often be a little
22:27
Speaker 2: bit maybe trite at times, but there is a very simplistic,
22:33
Speaker 2: life affirming feel to a lot of their lyrics. I
22:36
Speaker 2: Like Love just does what it says on the tin.
22:38
Speaker 2: It's kind of like for anybody who's been in love love,
22:41
Speaker 2: somebody is missing, somebody happy about being with somebody, and
22:44
Speaker 2: that's what he does, and it's relentless in that and
22:49
Speaker 2: you just have to give in and go, yeah, okay,
22:51
Speaker 2: I'm in I'm along for the ride, and it's very
22:55
Speaker 2: life affirming stuff a lot of what they do.
22:57
Speaker 1: Chris Sutton is the author of The Sheikh Organization, Every Album,
23:00
Speaker 1: Every Song Say Chic and risk Ae both top ten
23:03
Speaker 1: and platinum selling albums, and as we know, disco had
23:05
Speaker 1: begun to fall on a favor at the beginning of
23:07
Speaker 1: the eighties. Ic released four albums, nineteen eighty's Real People,
23:12
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one's Take It Off, nineteen eighty two's Tongue
23:15
Speaker 1: in Chic, and nineteen eighty three's Believer. The albums in
23:18
Speaker 1: the singles from those didn't match the commercial success of
23:21
Speaker 1: the past, but that doesn't always mean that the quality
23:24
Speaker 1: of the work wasn't still there. Tell us about those albums,
23:27
Speaker 1: what you think of them. I think it's kind of
23:29
Speaker 1: mixed results. I know, well, there's one album there you
23:32
Speaker 1: weren't a big fan of. I think it might have
23:33
Speaker 1: been Believer.
23:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a definite sense. If anyone listening wants to
23:39
Speaker 2: go straight to the best chic albums everybody, I think
23:43
Speaker 2: he's going to say, say Chic and Risk. It's packed
23:46
Speaker 2: with hits that most people will know. The album tracks
23:50
Speaker 2: are also pretty strong. Going back then, you know at
23:54
Speaker 2: Last Time Freeze one of Sheik's best songs, and it's
23:57
Speaker 2: a ballad and that's terrific track. Interestingly, on Real People,
24:04
Speaker 2: that's where Nile experiments be playing some rock league guitar
24:07
Speaker 2: on the title track and does it extremely well. I
24:11
Speaker 2: think you'd be very surprised if you play that and
24:14
Speaker 2: thinking is that really nahlif they've not got somebody else
24:17
Speaker 2: in But yes, it is there's a definite sense of
24:19
Speaker 2: the Chikh. There's great moments on those albums. There's some
24:24
Speaker 2: really good songs, but there is a sense of them
24:27
Speaker 2: not really knowing where they're going or what to do anymore.
24:33
Speaker 2: It's very tight as a brand what they do and
24:36
Speaker 2: how that works, and it also became quite successful for
24:41
Speaker 2: other people will probably move on and look at their
24:43
Speaker 2: work directly with other people that would be I think
24:47
Speaker 2: to be good to look at. But she definitely the
24:50
Speaker 2: whill start coming off in the nineteen eighties, So you're
24:53
Speaker 2: looking at albums and you go, yeah, some crackers on there,
24:55
Speaker 2: some great songs, but the overall quality of the album's
25:00
Speaker 2: is there with the peak of say Chic and risking
25:04
Speaker 2: for Now.
25:04
Speaker 1: And Bernard though at least they've got work. I mean
25:07
Speaker 1: in fact Now specifically he wasn't lacking work, so he
25:13
Speaker 1: was making the paychecks were coming in and a high
25:16
Speaker 1: point being part of the Diana Ross album from nineteen eighty.
25:22
Speaker 1: They were both both part of that. Yeah, then the
25:24
Speaker 1: album Diana.
25:25
Speaker 2: I think the thing that did it was they did
25:27
Speaker 2: the normal Jeene write album in seventy eight called Norman
25:30
Speaker 2: Jene that was their former singer on the first album,
25:32
Speaker 2: she and it's a really good album and there's some
25:36
Speaker 2: great songs on it, but it wasn't pulling up any
25:38
Speaker 2: trees or doing well sales wise. If you're a Sheep fan,
25:42
Speaker 2: you've got to go listen to it because some wonderful
25:43
Speaker 2: stuff on there. But the big thing for them comes
25:47
Speaker 2: with that Sister Sledge, with Our Family album, their Sister SLEDGEWK,
25:50
Speaker 2: you know, going along okay, lower reaches of the charts,
25:54
Speaker 2: doing okay, and that album goes stratospheric the way our
25:59
Speaker 2: Family album them, and it's got thinking of You on it.
26:04
Speaker 2: It's got He's the greatest dancer lost in music, the
26:08
Speaker 2: wonderful lost in music we have. These are big, powerhouse,
26:11
Speaker 2: big songs. So what they've done was take a band
26:14
Speaker 2: who were doing okay and suddenly make them enormous, enormous.
26:19
Speaker 2: And they'd written all the songs, played on all the songs,
26:22
Speaker 2: brought the shekh back inquir of vocalist in on all
26:25
Speaker 2: the songs, produced it. So I think people watching in
26:30
Speaker 2: the industry you'll know this, they'd be thinking, like, if
26:33
Speaker 2: those guys can do that for Sister Sledge, what can
26:36
Speaker 2: they do for our artists, our people and so in
26:42
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty you get that Sheila and B Devotion and Spacer,
26:46
Speaker 2: the absolutely phenomenal song Spacer is on that, and then
26:49
Speaker 2: the big one Dying a Us Upside Down coming out
26:54
Speaker 2: My Old Piano, And they turned in this fantastic record
26:59
Speaker 2: with went okay, and so they had it remixed and
27:05
Speaker 2: had her regular engineer Ros Tarana worked on it to
27:09
Speaker 2: make it more Dina Ross like. They felt that it
27:13
Speaker 2: was too much of a sheet record, so they wanted
27:15
Speaker 2: to tone down the sheetness and make it more of
27:18
Speaker 2: a Dina Ross sounding record. When they put out the
27:21
Speaker 2: deluxe edition, you had the benefit of getting the Sheik
27:24
Speaker 2: original mixes. Yeah, I mean there are big winners, like
27:28
Speaker 2: my Old Piano is just so much better on the
27:32
Speaker 2: original Sheek mixes with this huge, long jazzy solo from
27:38
Speaker 2: Narl Rodgers, and I think it sounds great. But equally so,
27:44
Speaker 2: some of the dynamics that Ross Trana puts in on
27:46
Speaker 2: the remix are probably better than what Ala Bernard got.
27:53
Speaker 2: Kind of dynamics doesn't seem to be such a big
27:55
Speaker 2: thing on their records. I've noticed whe when people have
27:58
Speaker 2: remixed or remastered their work that the dynamics tend to
28:02
Speaker 2: be better.
28:05
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into Nile some more. In the production
28:07
Speaker 1: work he did, he worked with so many classic rock artists,
28:11
Speaker 1: most notably David Bowie. He co produced nineteen eighty three's
28:14
Speaker 1: Let's Dance with Bowie, huge hit album hit singles Modern Love,
28:19
Speaker 1: the title track China Girl. Stevie Ray Vaughan on Gatari,
28:23
Speaker 1: then relatively unknown guitarist at the time, talk about how
28:26
Speaker 1: Bowie at that time, he's without a label and he's
28:29
Speaker 1: looking to make his biggest record. Yet why did he
28:32
Speaker 1: choose Nile to produce.
28:34
Speaker 2: He chose not to produce because he wanted his biggest record.
28:37
Speaker 1: Yet there you go, simple as that.
28:41
Speaker 2: It is as simple as that. It really is as
28:43
Speaker 2: simple as that. He it's a case of putting the
28:47
Speaker 2: Davy Bowie nous onto whatever Nile and his band could contribute,
28:54
Speaker 2: and Nile used all of the Sheikh alumni who were
28:57
Speaker 2: available to him at that time. There were issues with
29:01
Speaker 2: Tony Thompson and there were issues with Bernard Edwards by then,
29:05
Speaker 2: which were down to reliability, and that was because of
29:11
Speaker 2: kind of issues that both guys and Nol himself and
29:15
Speaker 2: probably everybody concerned him making records around that time would
29:19
Speaker 2: have maybe had issues and challenges, should we say, but
29:24
Speaker 2: Nle didn't want to ruin the sessions or delay the
29:27
Speaker 2: sessions on such an important album, So Bernard Edwards only
29:30
Speaker 2: plays on one track and Tony's I think on two
29:34
Speaker 2: or three or four tracks. Bernard Edwards is on without You,
29:37
Speaker 2: which obviously is my favorite track on Let's Dance, because
29:41
Speaker 2: it's our fully set of Sheikh alumni that we get
29:44
Speaker 2: on the album, and I do really like that. It's
29:48
Speaker 2: a curious album Let's Dance. When you look at it,
29:51
Speaker 2: it's certainly very much targeted at the mainstream, and the
29:56
Speaker 2: whole idea was was that it would bring in people
29:59
Speaker 2: who weren't Davey bow fans, and I remember at the
30:03
Speaker 2: time it certainly did that. There were people buying that
30:05
Speaker 2: record who who hadn't got the back catalog on URCA
30:10
Speaker 2: or maybe got one or two items from it, and
30:13
Speaker 2: he did it. It was success. It's the least biggest
30:17
Speaker 2: selling album.
30:18
Speaker 1: I remember it well as a kid that there were
30:20
Speaker 1: people in my neighborhood that had the cassette knew nothing
30:23
Speaker 1: about Bowie's music prior to that.
30:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it sounds ridiculous to say that doesn't it.
30:29
Speaker 2: But you go back and you think he really did
30:31
Speaker 2: push him to a completely new level. Davey Bowie, you know,
30:34
Speaker 2: the all these hit albums was taken to a new level.
30:38
Speaker 2: And when you look at the album, it's the sequencing
30:41
Speaker 2: is quite interesting. Side one is where the hits are
30:45
Speaker 2: plus without you, and then inside too you get some
30:47
Speaker 2: songs by outside songwriters coming in as well. So it's
30:53
Speaker 2: not that I would say that it's anywhere here who's best.
30:55
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody. I've never met anyone who would
30:58
Speaker 2: say it's Davey Bowie's best album, but it's his most
31:02
Speaker 2: successful album.
31:03
Speaker 1: Stan Harrison played the sax and flute on the album.
31:06
Speaker 1: He told you about that experience. What did he have
31:08
Speaker 1: to say about working with Bowie and now, well.
31:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean everybody interviewed, but he has a bad
31:15
Speaker 2: word to say about working with Niall and recording sessions.
31:19
Speaker 2: They found him very intentive, a very easy person to
31:22
Speaker 2: work with and get on with. And surprisingly also I
31:25
Speaker 2: thought David Bowie seems to be an amazingly easy guy
31:29
Speaker 2: for people to get on with. Sammy Figueroa talk going
31:32
Speaker 2: off and having something to eat and coming back for
31:34
Speaker 2: a nap while he'd recorded the percussion parts for Let's Dance,
31:37
Speaker 2: And you know, he sits there and then they roll
31:40
Speaker 2: the take back and play per David and he goes, yeah,
31:43
Speaker 2: that's great, well done. And Stan Harrison had exactly the
31:48
Speaker 2: same kind of experiences as well. He found the very
31:51
Speaker 2: easy guys to work with. Bernard Edwards appears to be
31:56
Speaker 2: the one who would be more tricky, more of a
31:58
Speaker 2: discipline area and more. Somebody would have people on point
32:02
Speaker 2: then not Rogers was.
32:04
Speaker 1: He produced three songs now did on Mick Jagger She's
32:07
Speaker 1: the Boss from eighty five. He and Bernard they appeared
32:10
Speaker 1: on a couple songs on Paul Simon's nineteen eighty three
32:13
Speaker 1: album Hearts and Bones, and that that same year I
32:16
Speaker 1: didn't know this, they produced the in excess single Original
32:19
Speaker 1: Sin Share the Story of this one now called any
32:22
Speaker 1: Special Guest.
32:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well though, and this is the thing when you're
32:25
Speaker 2: not Rogers and you and you're recording with him, He's
32:28
Speaker 2: got his book handy, and he felt they needed some
32:30
Speaker 2: extra on the backing vocals to handle that in the
32:35
Speaker 2: harmony vocals. So he just calls Daryl Hall, I gotta.
32:38
Speaker 1: Listen to it again. Can you pick up on his
32:40
Speaker 1: voice in there.
32:41
Speaker 2: Can I be Seid totally honest with you? No, no, eh,
32:44
Speaker 2: not for me, No, But I'm not hearing where he
32:47
Speaker 2: is on it terribly well. But I can understand why
32:51
Speaker 2: in excess were impressed by by his ability to do that.
32:56
Speaker 2: And the other one from that area that we have
32:58
Speaker 2: to include is Madonna. I mean, that was the biggest
33:01
Speaker 2: album for Ages that the Virgin album, because you get
33:07
Speaker 2: the unlike a Virgin, you get you get where she
33:11
Speaker 2: were and where sheika going. So the actual band play
33:15
Speaker 2: on about half of the album. You look at the credits,
33:18
Speaker 2: and then on about half of the album it's Nile
33:21
Speaker 2: and the synth and so on.
33:23
Speaker 1: But that's an example, Chris, I never knew that they
33:25
Speaker 1: were part of that album. How many people even know
33:28
Speaker 1: that I'm the hardcore fans.
33:30
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody does. I've never met anybody. I'm
33:35
Speaker 2: doing this book. People were going like a Virgin. In fact,
33:38
Speaker 2: when I did this signing session, I was telling that
33:40
Speaker 2: they were going like really, yeah, really?
33:43
Speaker 1: Did she talk about it a lot?
33:47
Speaker 2: Nil has this thing where he feels he said in
33:51
Speaker 2: the pasting interviews that people like Bowie and Madonna have
33:56
Speaker 2: done the pr and the publicity for their albums, but
34:00
Speaker 2: haven't exactly played up the contribution as much as he
34:04
Speaker 2: films they could have done.
34:06
Speaker 1: Yeah that I mean, yeah, I don't. I don't know
34:08
Speaker 1: any other way to really put it. I mean they
34:10
Speaker 1: are partially responsible for the fact that we don't know
34:14
Speaker 1: these things.
34:15
Speaker 2: It's it's a curious thing, isn't it. I mean, if
34:19
Speaker 2: you look at the like of Virgin album, you look
34:22
Speaker 2: at that track list and we're looking at well, like
34:25
Speaker 2: a virgin material girl dress you up a cover of
34:29
Speaker 2: love Don't Live Here Anymore Angel, It tells off towards
34:33
Speaker 2: the end, but you do get the best song on
34:35
Speaker 2: there for Sheep fans, he should we do without a doubt,
34:39
Speaker 2: beautiful guitar part from Nalini and it's very very chicicy
34:43
Speaker 2: in the sound on it. As I say, about half
34:47
Speaker 2: the album is the full sheet band completely backing vocalists
34:51
Speaker 2: and everybody's on there, brass section, strings, the works, and
34:57
Speaker 2: then the other half of the album is sort of
35:00
Speaker 2: and Rob Sabino and since and so on. So you
35:04
Speaker 2: hear that kind of thing going on some of the
35:06
Speaker 2: other tracks, but it is to all intents and purposes
35:10
Speaker 2: yet another one a Chic album. The difference series is
35:13
Speaker 2: they don't write anything. They're not involved in any of
35:16
Speaker 2: the writing. On this one, he's purely Nile producing, doing
35:20
Speaker 2: the whole production and then them playing on it. So
35:23
Speaker 2: you do get that difference this time around.
35:26
Speaker 1: Let's get to the nineties. There was a Chic reunion
35:29
Speaker 1: in the nineties. They released ninety two's Sheikhism and then
35:32
Speaker 1: Now released a solo album in ninety six called Chic
35:35
Speaker 1: Freaking More Treats. Then there was there was a live
35:38
Speaker 1: Chic album released in ninety nine called Live at the
35:41
Speaker 1: Buddha Khan. This was taken from shows in nineteen ninety six. Sadly,
35:45
Speaker 1: Bernard's final performance was it during the final show that
35:49
Speaker 1: he wasn't feeling well and then was he was urged
35:52
Speaker 1: to go to the hospital, didn't and passed away.
35:56
Speaker 2: It's the show you actually see on the DVD which
36:00
Speaker 2: all that. Now you are literally watching the last performance
36:06
Speaker 2: that Bernard edwards.
36:08
Speaker 1: And how long after that show did he pass that night?
36:11
Speaker 1: That night?
36:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe, depending depending what time the show actually finished,
36:16
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what time he'd have gone to bed,
36:18
Speaker 2: not sure, maybe three or four hours and.
36:21
Speaker 1: He pushed through that show. Nile was telling him before
36:24
Speaker 1: the show, we don't have to go on go to
36:26
Speaker 1: the emergency room. If you got to do that, do it.
36:29
Speaker 1: I'm worried about you.
36:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if he'd done that, he would have saved
36:32
Speaker 2: his life probably.
36:33
Speaker 1: Probably What was the cause of death, Well.
36:37
Speaker 2: I think he hearts attacked, pneumonia. Ah, he was extremely ill.
36:42
Speaker 2: And Nil talks about how he he woke up in
36:46
Speaker 2: the middle of the night with like a kind of
36:47
Speaker 2: a shove and a push and a feeling, and that
36:50
Speaker 2: was the exact moment, so apparently that Bernard Edwards had
36:53
Speaker 2: passed away.
36:54
Speaker 1: So in other words, he had a hunch that something
36:56
Speaker 1: was wrong or did he literally hear.
36:59
Speaker 2: It kind of woke him up in the night that
37:01
Speaker 2: something awful was happening.
37:03
Speaker 1: Wow, how old he was only in his what would
37:07
Speaker 1: he been in his forties or fifties?
37:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, I'd have to check how old
37:11
Speaker 2: he would have been, not an old man, especially imagination.
37:18
Speaker 1: So look, those are the tragic ones when something could
37:21
Speaker 1: have been done, but they feel like the show must
37:24
Speaker 1: go on. I'm going out there. I'm fine.
37:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was good. I mean on the Sheik is
37:28
Speaker 2: an album, He's probably some of the best work that
37:31
Speaker 2: he'd done. I think really Bernardaause his bass playing is
37:35
Speaker 2: extremely good on it. NIH's good on it. I don't.
37:39
Speaker 2: I don't think the sound and the songs on the
37:42
Speaker 2: Hole as good as their seventies era. The vocals I
37:46
Speaker 2: think were a bit more solely then Alpha and Lucy
37:49
Speaker 2: had this kind of they kind of had this kind
37:52
Speaker 2: of glide over the songs that really worked with what
37:55
Speaker 2: they were doing, and they fitted in well. I think
37:58
Speaker 2: the vocals stand out a bit more on on Chikhism
38:00
Speaker 2: for me, which is probably why I'm not quite sicking
38:03
Speaker 2: on them. And there are some moments on it. There
38:05
Speaker 2: are some good moments, as are two or three good
38:08
Speaker 2: songs on Chikhism, but I think fundamentally probably they've never
38:14
Speaker 2: really got back or got close maybe one or two
38:18
Speaker 2: times to that.
38:20
Speaker 1: There was something that Bernard said now during that Japan
38:24
Speaker 1: show that ultimately led to the new era right with
38:28
Speaker 1: Nile and Chic, because he hadn't intended to continue with Chic,
38:32
Speaker 1: but it was something Bernard said to him right when
38:34
Speaker 1: he looked out at the crowd.
38:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think they realized then that what
38:38
Speaker 2: they got, the brand that they got was capable of
38:41
Speaker 2: going on for a lot longer. The popularity. I don't
38:44
Speaker 2: think they'd realized just how popular and how big Chic were,
38:49
Speaker 2: and I think they realized that Bernardsby would have been
38:52
Speaker 2: anything that happened to him, that Nile should carry on
38:55
Speaker 2: with the band. It took him a while, and of
38:57
Speaker 2: course then it becomes rebranded eventually is not Rogers and Chic,
39:02
Speaker 2: which is fair enough because there's nobody in that band really.
39:06
Speaker 2: Since then, who goes back to the original sheet line
39:09
Speaker 2: above than Nile.
39:10
Speaker 1: And what year would that have been? They had the
39:13
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen album that they put out now Rogers in Chic,
39:16
Speaker 1: But what year did they reform? In the two thousands?
39:19
Speaker 2: In the two thousands and they came back and they
39:22
Speaker 2: slowly built the brand up, and what they've been enormous
39:25
Speaker 2: over here got to be said. I mean, Chic sell
39:27
Speaker 2: out over in the UK and Europe everywhere they go.
39:31
Speaker 2: I mean, they are enormous and part of the reason
39:34
Speaker 2: for that. I don't know what happens in America with
39:36
Speaker 2: them or whether you get them over there, but you
39:38
Speaker 2: see the setlist that they can put together is phenomenal.
39:43
Speaker 2: Inasmuch as if you were going out with your friends
39:45
Speaker 2: and you go into a festival or whatever, and you
39:49
Speaker 2: know how it goes. These guys are going to come
39:51
Speaker 2: on and ladies and they're going to play a load
39:54
Speaker 2: of songs that you know, they're popular songs. You even
39:57
Speaker 2: know the words to a lot of them, and you're
39:59
Speaker 2: going to have a good time.
40:00
Speaker 1: A handful of songs that are just slam dunk automatic.
40:05
Speaker 1: Crowd's gonna go crazy when they hear it. Do they
40:07
Speaker 1: play the songs from the other artists that they worked with?
40:09
Speaker 1: Did they do the Diane Rossa? Oh?
40:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. Will always make sure that you're aware that that
40:14
Speaker 2: the reason they're doing these songs is because he we
40:17
Speaker 2: wrote them, we produce them. You know, these are as
40:21
Speaker 2: much ass songs in a way. So they do Let's Dance, for.
40:24
Speaker 1: Example, they do Let's Dance cool.
40:28
Speaker 2: Oh, and they've even done Modern Love off that album
40:31
Speaker 2: they've done. They've done some of the Madonna songs, Sister
40:35
Speaker 2: Sledge that they'll do stuff and they can rotate the
40:37
Speaker 2: sets around to cover many of these songs.
40:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you put those songs in the set list.
40:43
Speaker 1: You've got You've got what ten eleven, twelve tracks that
40:48
Speaker 1: are automatic hits. That are guaranteed.
40:52
Speaker 2: I mean, they did the Glastonbury this year, not just
40:54
Speaker 2: in chic and they just said effortlessly, we're one of
40:58
Speaker 2: the best, if not the best fans on the on
41:00
Speaker 2: the day because they got this enormous crowd and they're
41:03
Speaker 2: going on and they're playing Shake Song, Sister Sledge, David Bowie,
41:08
Speaker 2: all these enormous hits and the crowd know them, and
41:11
Speaker 2: the crowded there all jammed together on a hot day
41:14
Speaker 2: having a great time.
41:17
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
41:19
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
41:21
Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
41:24
Speaker 1: at old glory dot com over three hundred thousand officially
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41:40
Speaker 1: glory dot com, make sure to use the promo code
41:42
Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
41:45
Speaker 1: show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock dot
41:48
Speaker 1: com and click on my deals now. Unfortunately, you weren't
41:51
Speaker 1: happy with a twenty eighteen album. Though it's about time.
41:54
Speaker 1: There were three. It was hampered by three difficulties, you said.
41:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, did I get it down to three difficult is.
42:02
Speaker 1: Well?
42:02
Speaker 2: For start off? Before the album came out, they released
42:07
Speaker 2: one of the best chic songs and I'll Be There,
42:11
Speaker 2: And it was a phenomenal comeback. I've used that word
42:13
Speaker 2: a lot, phenomenal, I know, but this was just amazing
42:17
Speaker 2: and it kind of viewed some samples, some bits from
42:19
Speaker 2: old cheek songs and they got Alpha and Lucy Back
42:22
Speaker 2: and Fancie Thornton were there singing as well. Absolutely amazing
42:26
Speaker 2: track I'll Be There. I loved it by the time
42:30
Speaker 2: they'd reached the album, It's about time, the pun being,
42:35
Speaker 2: of course, it's about time we did an album, you said.
42:40
Speaker 2: And it's chock a block full of guest vocalists, none
42:43
Speaker 2: of whom are one at all. I don't think they
42:49
Speaker 2: really added anything at all much to the songs. The
42:52
Speaker 2: songs themselves are often not great. They're okay. There are
42:58
Speaker 2: moments where some of the songs that are good, but
43:04
Speaker 2: it's not what he could have been, and I don't
43:07
Speaker 2: think that's ever possible unfortunately, And.
43:12
Speaker 1: As far as the guest vocalist. Do we have.
43:16
Speaker 2: Well, Elton John's on there, Lady Gargar is on there,
43:21
Speaker 2: and Lady Gaga is one of the ones where he
43:23
Speaker 2: goes a bit wrong. I mean she does, she does
43:27
Speaker 2: I Want Your Love, And I think that would have
43:28
Speaker 2: worked better if it had been done very differently. I
43:33
Speaker 2: think it's similar to the point where it doesn't work.
43:38
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the problems with it. And
43:41
Speaker 2: there are various other people who, to be honest, I've
43:43
Speaker 2: never really heard of.
43:46
Speaker 1: Right, I'm looking through it here, Heiley, Steinfeld, Lunch Money, Lewis.
43:53
Speaker 2: Who are these people? I looked them up and I still.
43:55
Speaker 1: Didn't that nail. Yeah, you would think though with well,
43:59
Speaker 1: there was a Prince song that there was going to
44:00
Speaker 1: be he was going to include on there, but when
44:02
Speaker 1: Prince passed away he pulled it.
44:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a shame, wasn't it, because that might have
44:05
Speaker 2: been a good song. It just feels a bit of
44:07
Speaker 2: a jumbled and you know, do you have records where
44:12
Speaker 2: you listen to them and they're kind of fatiguing, right,
44:19
Speaker 2: And to me it's one of those where I just
44:20
Speaker 2: feel tired about halfway through the reallesseners of it.
44:24
Speaker 1: I should clarify it wasn't a Prince song. It was
44:26
Speaker 1: a song about Prince that now wrote. It was a
44:29
Speaker 1: conversation that he had with Prince.
44:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't see them ever releasing another studio album
44:34
Speaker 2: because it turned up in bargain bins and so on
44:37
Speaker 2: really quickly. You can buy it for like next to nothing.
44:41
Speaker 2: And it's a shame to say that, But these things happened,
44:45
Speaker 2: don't they. I mean now it turns up on people's
44:47
Speaker 2: records to this day. I mean, look what he did
44:50
Speaker 2: for Daft Punk. It's gonna be one of the biggest
44:53
Speaker 2: records of the last ten twenty years.
44:56
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard his work there with Dave You're
45:00
Speaker 1: Phil filltle Mouth, David ly Roth. Yeah, interesting album, it's
45:05
Speaker 1: it's it's panned by fans, and I think some critics
45:09
Speaker 1: appreciate it. It's very different from anything else that Dave
45:12
Speaker 1: put out.
45:13
Speaker 2: Well it will be yeah, yeah, yeah, he would be Yeah.
45:17
Speaker 2: I mean Narle's capable of doing that. I know when
45:20
Speaker 2: he won't be Brian Ferry. They just, for example, they
45:22
Speaker 2: get him in the studio and just tell him to
45:23
Speaker 2: plug his guitar and just play, and he remember him
45:27
Speaker 2: no letter Well, what do you want me to do?
45:29
Speaker 2: And he was just do Nile Rogers, So he just
45:33
Speaker 2: chuck chucking away on the guitar and they just would
45:35
Speaker 2: record him playing for like half an hour or whatever
45:38
Speaker 2: and see what they got out of it. And he's
45:41
Speaker 2: absolutely brilliant. I mean, as the Daft Punk records saying,
45:44
Speaker 2: I mean that's that's one of the biggest kind of
45:45
Speaker 2: floor filler, party tastic records probably over the last ten
45:51
Speaker 2: twenty years. And that's Nile's guitar at the heart of that.
45:54
Speaker 2: That's that's doing that the people.
45:57
Speaker 1: And he continues to work with other artists. He forums,
46:00
Speaker 1: he producers, shek are still going. So he's he's doing good.
46:05
Speaker 1: I think didn't she get into the Rock and Roll
46:07
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame or he did as a producer?
46:11
Speaker 2: Not sure that men he made as a producer. Very
46:14
Speaker 2: probably he would. He would be in there. She there.
46:17
Speaker 2: That would be an interesting one if they did. I mean,
46:20
Speaker 2: they deserve their place. They deserve the credit that they get.
46:22
Speaker 2: I mean so many, so many great albums and artists
46:25
Speaker 2: that they didn't. I say that Carlie Simon song they
46:27
Speaker 2: did Why He is one of their best songs that
46:30
Speaker 2: they did for the soup for one album, the Johnny
46:32
Speaker 2: Mathews Album's Really Good, which eventually came out decades later.
46:37
Speaker 2: The Debbie Harry album.
46:38
Speaker 1: Is uh, that's the other one.
46:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's not That's probably for me, one of
46:43
Speaker 2: their least successful works from that era. You've got Debbie
46:46
Speaker 2: Harry and Chris Stein coming in with with what they
46:49
Speaker 2: bring to the table, and you've got Chic coming in
46:51
Speaker 2: with what they bring, and the potential sounded really impressive,
46:55
Speaker 2: but the album never really kind of takes off, has moments,
47:02
Speaker 2: but it's like it sort of grinds and doesn't necessarily
47:05
Speaker 2: work so well for me. And also I think lovers,
47:09
Speaker 2: I am to say this, but Debbie herself gets a
47:12
Speaker 2: bit exposed at times on the album. But I mean,
47:17
Speaker 2: this could be controversial, but I wouldn't say that Debbie
47:20
Speaker 2: Harry's got the greatest voice for me, That's my personal opinion.
47:25
Speaker 2: I think if she sticks within her range and what
47:27
Speaker 2: she can do, she's fine. But at times on the
47:29
Speaker 2: album with Chic, it just doesn't sound quite right to me.
47:34
Speaker 1: Pushing too hard.
47:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you actually hear this on if you
47:39
Speaker 2: listen to the like of Virgin album with Madonna, she
47:42
Speaker 2: has a range, and when she's in that range, she's
47:45
Speaker 2: really really really good, really really good at what she
47:50
Speaker 2: can do. And shoeby Doo is my favorite song on
47:55
Speaker 2: that album. And Madonna's well inside her comfort range and
48:00
Speaker 2: she's terrific, absolutely terrific, as she's a material girl as well.
48:06
Speaker 2: But there's a couple of tracks on the Debbie Harry
48:10
Speaker 2: album where you can actually hear that you can tell
48:13
Speaker 2: what Alphad Anderson or Lucy Martin would have been able
48:15
Speaker 2: to do with her songs. They would have suited their
48:17
Speaker 2: voices well.
48:19
Speaker 1: Going back to David Lee again, that was that's been
48:21
Speaker 1: the criticism of him. If he stays within his range,
48:23
Speaker 1: it's great, but he tries to go outside of his range,
48:27
Speaker 1: and he continues to do so, and he's been doing
48:29
Speaker 1: it for years and people are just miffed by that.
48:32
Speaker 1: They don't understand, why not just sing the Van Hillens
48:35
Speaker 1: songs the way they were a song initially, which they're
48:37
Speaker 1: in a range you can do, but he's trying to
48:39
Speaker 1: sing higher. But yeah, that's their prerogative.
48:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to kind of make anyone annoy
48:47
Speaker 2: anyone who's listening talking about this kind of thing, but
48:50
Speaker 2: these really are facts that everybody has a range. You
48:54
Speaker 2: go to the top of your range, you could be
48:57
Speaker 2: pushing it and he might struggle. That is what happens
49:01
Speaker 2: to almost any singer. You're not talking about people like Whitney,
49:05
Speaker 2: Houston and so on and so forth, or you know,
49:07
Speaker 2: these people have got these incredible ranges and can just
49:10
Speaker 2: do anything. My dad was a singer back in the day,
49:16
Speaker 2: and he used to listen to the records I was
49:18
Speaker 2: playing and he would say, this guy's not a singer
49:22
Speaker 2: or whatever. And what my dad meant was was there
49:24
Speaker 2: are people who can do scales and can sing and
49:29
Speaker 2: as singers. And then in this book there were other
49:31
Speaker 2: people that I'd be listening to who got a good voice.
49:34
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's a singer and then there's a vocalist. Right,
49:37
Speaker 1: two different things, and they're both. You can be great
49:39
Speaker 1: at one and or great at the other.
49:42
Speaker 2: But his point would be that if you are, if
49:44
Speaker 2: you're a singer, you're not going to get nodes and
49:46
Speaker 2: so on and struggle and losing your voice, et cetera,
49:48
Speaker 2: because you trained and you learn this. And a casing
49:51
Speaker 2: point is how Davy Bowie went for singing lessons sometime
49:55
Speaker 2: around the Heroes era and suddenly he starts warbling and
49:58
Speaker 2: kind of doing these scales things which he never used
50:01
Speaker 2: to do before because he taking lessons. And then you
50:04
Speaker 2: get people who've got great voices and they would just
50:07
Speaker 2: kind of wreck their voices. And now rough might be
50:12
Speaker 2: somebody like that. I don't know whether maybe he has
50:14
Speaker 2: kind of wrecked his voice over the years.
50:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, a great vocalist is somebody. It doesn't
50:18
Speaker 1: matter what the ranger is, it's just the way that
50:21
Speaker 1: they the way they present the lyrics, what they put
50:25
Speaker 1: into it emotionally, or the character in the voice things
50:30
Speaker 1: they'll do. And David is to me one of the
50:33
Speaker 1: greatest vocalists of all time. So just to put that
50:36
Speaker 1: out there.
50:37
Speaker 2: But there's people I'm a big fan of Alice Cooper.
50:40
Speaker 2: I don't think I would call him a great singer,
50:42
Speaker 2: but i'd call him a great.
50:43
Speaker 1: Vocalist yep, exactly, and.
50:46
Speaker 2: Something like under my Wheels even schools out he puts
50:48
Speaker 2: that across, and my god, he puts it across really
50:51
Speaker 2: really well. But if you listen to those songs, and
50:54
Speaker 2: if you try at home singing along to them myself,
50:56
Speaker 2: a you're going to feel the strain.
51:00
Speaker 1: Find the book down Rock website at bookdown rock dot com.
51:03
Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
51:06
Speaker 1: the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
51:08
Speaker 1: of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
51:11
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51:16
Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the bookd on Rock blog.
51:19
Speaker 1: Find your local independent bookstore. Find out all the latest
51:22
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51:25
Speaker 1: booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked on
51:28
Speaker 1: Rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com
51:32
Speaker 1: the Sheik Organization, every album, every song, the books out
51:35
Speaker 1: now find out where overr books are sold. You can
51:37
Speaker 1: look forward at to your nearest bookstore. Go to bookdow
51:39
Speaker 1: on rock dot com to find your nearest independent bookstore.
51:43
Speaker 1: Now people can find you online, Chris, in maybe just
51:46
Speaker 1: a few days or by the time this episode's out
51:48
Speaker 1: online on your own website.
51:50
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the website should be up in a couple
51:53
Speaker 2: of days from now, so I'm not sure when you're
51:55
Speaker 2: putting this out, but yeah, I've decided to do that
51:57
Speaker 2: partly so that I can kind of somewhere people can
52:00
Speaker 2: see the books that I've been doing. I'm also going
52:02
Speaker 2: to do lots of reviews about catalog things and put
52:06
Speaker 2: things up about what I think about old albums, particularly
52:09
Speaker 2: the older albums, and then linked to podcasts and YouTube.
52:13
Speaker 2: And this kind of happened. When I did the Sparks book,
52:15
Speaker 2: which you were kind enough to have me.
52:17
Speaker 1: On earlier this year, I got great responses from fans.
52:20
Speaker 2: Well, god, do you know something, I've never had such
52:23
Speaker 2: a big response to anything I've done in my life.
52:25
Speaker 1: I mean, boy, yeah, I kind of looked a little
52:28
Speaker 1: silly because I didn't know much about them, you know,
52:30
Speaker 1: and then people are like, I get these people commenting
52:33
Speaker 1: of how hardcore of a fan they are and they
52:35
Speaker 1: know so much about them. But again, I don't mind.
52:38
Speaker 1: I'll embarrass myself in pursuit of discovering something new. I mean,
52:43
Speaker 1: it's never too late, that's for sure.
52:46
Speaker 2: Well, partly thanks to you. They were kind of coming
52:48
Speaker 2: and battering down in my email and my door and
52:51
Speaker 2: their messages, but all very nice people. I've got to say,
52:56
Speaker 2: they will be lovely, I mean, wonderful people. And thanks
53:00
Speaker 2: to yourself and all of these people, That's why Sparks
53:04
Speaker 2: in the Eighties is happening right now. I'm working on
53:07
Speaker 2: that as we speak, because all those people and.
53:11
Speaker 1: We shou admit it. Will it be Chris Sutton dot com?
53:13
Speaker 1: Will that be their website is as simple as that.
53:16
Speaker 2: It's it's called Words and Music dot Online.
53:19
Speaker 1: Ah, so okay, words and Music.
53:23
Speaker 2: Dot on online. And it's so new that I was
53:26
Speaker 2: working on it before talking to you.
53:29
Speaker 1: Words and Music dot online dot online. Remember that, folks.
53:33
Speaker 1: I'll put it in the show notes too, and.
53:35
Speaker 2: It'll be up in the day so and it'll love links.
53:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to go and find all your stuff on
53:39
Speaker 2: YouTube and do links to the conversations.
53:41
Speaker 1: That we've had all right now, can you share what
53:46
Speaker 1: we were talking about before recording? What do you have
53:49
Speaker 1: in the works? You've got two three books?
53:53
Speaker 2: Great, The Sabbath and Do one took longer than I
53:59
Speaker 2: expected it too, and that's partly because the Sheikh Organization
54:02
Speaker 2: one was so consuming and ridiculous in terms of the
54:07
Speaker 2: scope that's in it. You know, there is no other
54:09
Speaker 2: book out there I think that covers so many artists
54:11
Speaker 2: that I know of in this way. But Sabbath and
54:15
Speaker 2: Dio is now finally done and should be out. I'm
54:20
Speaker 2: guessing in the next couple of months.
54:21
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Black Sabbath, and Deal.
54:23
Speaker 2: Okay, and that also includes Heaven and Hell. So we've
54:27
Speaker 2: we've gone to those albums.
54:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Reformed line.
54:30
Speaker 2: All of anything with Tony, Geezer and Ronnie and so
54:35
Speaker 2: has been covered, including all the live albums, is a
54:38
Speaker 2: lot more than you might think live recordings, and some
54:42
Speaker 2: very interesting interviews in that about the the remix of
54:47
Speaker 2: the live Evil album, for example, which was when Davis
54:50
Speaker 2: did which is to Die for absolutely phenomenal. So that's
54:54
Speaker 2: coming out, and then I'm working on Sparks in the
54:58
Speaker 2: eighties and I'm all so working on an entire book
55:02
Speaker 2: on Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies, which nobody knows will now.
55:06
Speaker 1: Oh so you're gonna break down the whole album, the tracks, the.
55:09
Speaker 2: Album, the tour, that street tour, and I've got more
55:13
Speaker 2: people to talk to me than did last time around.
55:16
Speaker 2: So there's some new names that are going to be
55:18
Speaker 2: featured talking about that, and I'm not sure how that's
55:22
Speaker 2: going to finish up that book. I know what I
55:24
Speaker 2: would like it to be, which would be like a
55:27
Speaker 2: coffee table book.
55:28
Speaker 1: Okay, And we're talking twenty twenty six release.
55:32
Speaker 2: If I'm very lucky.
55:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, it just depends. But we've got the Sabbath
55:39
Speaker 1: and DAL want to look forward to next.
55:42
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing with the Sabbath and d O
55:43
Speaker 2: one was always about the name I think of the band,
55:46
Speaker 2: and I honestly think that, but they shouldn't have called
55:49
Speaker 2: it Black Sabbath when Doo came in. I think that
55:53
Speaker 2: you can completely understand.
55:54
Speaker 1: Why for marketing reasons, and that.
55:58
Speaker 2: Really is the only reason to do that. I think
56:00
Speaker 2: it was such a new phenomenal project that he deserved
56:03
Speaker 2: to have its own name. I think Ronnie James Dio
56:06
Speaker 2: never got the credit he deserved. And by that I
56:09
Speaker 2: mean he was the singer in Rainbow and he come
56:13
Speaker 2: from Rainbow. But I only realized how much he must
56:15
Speaker 2: have contributed to Rainbow when I heard Heaven and Now.
56:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the way, I didn't speak to you when
56:21
Speaker 1: as he passed, just your quick thoughts on what was
56:25
Speaker 1: your what was going through your mind when you heard
56:27
Speaker 1: that he passed away, and your thoughts on that final
56:29
Speaker 1: concert that he put that he would courageously did really,
56:33
Speaker 1: I mean, and now when you know in hindsight that
56:36
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be around much longer after that.
56:38
Speaker 2: Well, to be totally honest with you, I didn't think
56:42
Speaker 2: it was going to be around much longer. When I
56:44
Speaker 2: saw the concert, I was actually shocked when I saw
56:50
Speaker 2: him on the stage and you could actually see. I
56:53
Speaker 2: thought that how much of an effort it was to
56:55
Speaker 2: do what he did. It wasn't actually surprise, And I
57:00
Speaker 2: know a few people who have said the same that
57:02
Speaker 2: none of us was surprised when he passed away, perhaps
57:05
Speaker 2: not as quickly as he did, but I'd actually been
57:08
Speaker 2: around birming. We've been around Birmingham, going to all the
57:10
Speaker 2: places where there's the bench and.
57:12
Speaker 1: The right which you mentioned you're from Birmingham.
57:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So we've gone into Birmingham to for
57:20
Speaker 2: the gig and stuff, and we were actually went around,
57:21
Speaker 2: did all the tour of all the places to look at,
57:24
Speaker 2: and then he passed away. The reaction in Birmingham surprised me.
57:31
Speaker 2: I think some years ago would have been black Sabbath fans,
57:35
Speaker 2: maybe some others, but this you're looking at almost the
57:37
Speaker 2: entire city. I didn't expect that.
57:42
Speaker 1: There'll never be another like him.
57:45
Speaker 2: No, I did spend an afternoon with him once. That's
57:50
Speaker 2: when I met him and he was a really really
57:53
Speaker 2: nice guy then and that was on his first tour
57:55
Speaker 2: blist of OZ. He made his first appearance back in
57:58
Speaker 2: Birmingham and he'd done signing session at Virgin Records in Birmingham,
58:03
Speaker 2: and you know, you got the signing, the signatures and
58:06
Speaker 2: stuff were hanging around and there was only about two
58:08
Speaker 2: or three of us left and he said, oh, we're
58:10
Speaker 2: going back to the hotel now, and do you want
58:12
Speaker 2: do you want to come for a drink? So you're thinking, okay,
58:15
Speaker 2: well we're not going to fit in the car, but
58:17
Speaker 2: there wasn't a car. You literally just walked through Birmingham
58:20
Speaker 2: City Center down Corporation streets at the hotel and a
58:24
Speaker 2: lot of people didn't know who he was. Would have
58:26
Speaker 2: been different years later, but at that point, what you know,
58:29
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one, he was still kind of not
58:32
Speaker 2: that well known.
58:33
Speaker 1: Were you there in a working situation or as a fan?
58:38
Speaker 2: Hi fan. I used to work in Birmingham City Center,
58:41
Speaker 2: so it meant you could always get to the Odeon
58:43
Speaker 2: or the town Hall venues, and I very very quickly
58:46
Speaker 2: learned if you got to any of these venues in
58:48
Speaker 2: the afternoon, if you had a long lunch hour you
58:51
Speaker 2: finished work early, you could meet anybody. I used to
58:54
Speaker 2: go to like the Oudion and go down the side
58:57
Speaker 2: ramp when they were unloading all the gear or whatever gig.
58:59
Speaker 2: The band would turn up and they post a photo
59:02
Speaker 2: sign autographs. That's so cool, and they were absolutely fine
59:06
Speaker 2: about that. And I got into so many sound checks,
59:09
Speaker 2: countless sound checks that I watched, and they were absolutely
59:14
Speaker 2: fine about it. Come the actual like six seven o'clock time,
59:18
Speaker 2: and he'd be like battened down the hatches, ready for
59:19
Speaker 2: the gig and all that. And then you couldn't meet anybody.
59:22
Speaker 1: That just says a lot about Ozzie though. He just
59:23
Speaker 1: wants to hang with the fans. You guys want to
59:26
Speaker 1: come along, let's go.
59:27
Speaker 2: Well he did, and it was him and Bob Daisy
59:30
Speaker 2: League kerslate Randy Rhoades, who who was a lovely guy,
59:34
Speaker 2: very very very quiet guy, didn't have hardly anything to
59:37
Speaker 2: say really, and as he was actually quite quiet and
59:41
Speaker 2: down to earth, people forget this. He'd turned it on
59:44
Speaker 2: on stage, but off stage he wasn't like that at all.
59:48
Speaker 2: I think he becomes like that as time goes on.
59:51
Speaker 2: He starts to talk about who he is and the
59:54
Speaker 2: Prince of darkness and all this sort of business. He
59:57
Speaker 2: certainly wasn't doing that back in eighty one when I
59:59
Speaker 2: met it.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Chris Sutton has always Thank you so much and we'll
1:00:02
Speaker 1: talk to you again soon.
1:00:03
Speaker 2: Thanks Eric, It's always a pleasure. That's it. It's in
1:00:15
Speaker 2: the books.