Hey everybody. Welcome to the show. I hope you know where you are. The 9 @ 9 with Expert Talk with me TGo. And this is really, really fast. We go from nine o'clock to 9:09. My producer doesn't play around at 9:09. He's cutting me off no matter what I'm saying. And today, today we've got our good,

good friend platinum, or he's a member of this great band. I got to tell you found out a couple of years ago that I actually had this man's poster with his band on my wall. When I was a teenager, this man is a member of Switch platinum recording artists, Switch, but on top of that, he is the host of one of the shows we produced called The Playground.

This man interviews musicians from all over the world, that tells stories that you don't get to hear about. When you sit in those front rows wondering, what happens backstage? Now you can know what The Playground today we have. Mr. Eddie Fluellen. What's up, Eddie, how you doing? Hey, Theresa, how are you doing? Glad to be here.

Thank you so much for having me. The hair on the poster? On the wall? Whenever I talk about that, I say that was about a hundred pounds of hair ago, by the way, I love your story. As long as we've known each other, I got to talk about this. As long as we've known each other, Theresa just told me a couple of years ago that she just realized that,

Hey, when you were talking about the poster, we'd known each, we'd known each other for so long. And then she realized, wait a minute. I was just thinking back and Hey, I remembered that that was your poster that I had on my wall back in the day. I'm like, Actually, I didn't remember a friend of mine actually told me,

you know, you had, is their poster on your wall? And I said, excuse me, get out of here. Eddie's like, my brother. I'm like, excuse me. And they're like, oh yeah, yeah. Had his poster on the wall. I'm like Our business partner Ann Anders is out there and she says, Ha! a hundred pounds of hair.

I paid much money for it. I paid much money for it to be taken care of. Believe me. All right, Eddie, you know, one at a time we got to get this stuff. Tell me about The Playground. Who's coming up. What you doing? You're in season two, what's going on? I'm Loving to having a great time with the guests that we're having.

And as, as you mentioned before, we get a chance to talk to people who had pretty much been there, done that. The Vets of the business, as a matter of fact, tonight, look forward to the lead singer of the mighty mighty Manhattan's. Gerald Austin's going to be on tonight. And he pretty much talks about like what it took for him to get there.

You know, the new things that he's doing. And he's more than just a vocalist with Manhattan's. This man has got it going on on business-wise music wise. I mean, he's, he's got it going on. And again, that's pretty much what the show is about. At, I usually tell people it's more a teaching tool for those people that are coming up in the business.

You want to watch these guys and see what bumps and bruises of the things they had to go through to get where they got. You know? So if you want to know, you think these are the shows to watch, right? And on The Playground you guys, I mean, you really go in, you tell the stories. I mean, you tell what it was like I'm sitting there listening to people,

talk about being, you know, behind Gladys Knight and, and, and Barry White. And I'm going, wait a minute. Every time I hear what the story is, I call you up and say, I hate you. I didn't know. You knew those people. It's like, How come I wasn't there? you know, Some of these stories are pretty amazing. As,

as you've seen, we had Charlie Singleton on back at the beginning guitar player for Cameo who talked about going to, to getting this full ride scholarship to college on French horn. Like I've only known him as like the funkiest guitar player around and he gets a full ride scholarship for French horn. So, I mean, when you hear stories like that and Bill Champlin with Chicago,

I mean, some of the things that he's done and everything it's, it's amazing. Some of these people that, that I'm able to talk to truly blessed. Yeah. You even had on, oh my goodness. What's his name? Sound guy. Mr. Brown. Andrew Brown. Yeah. You had him on talking about, and this guy, you know, I'm a,

I want a different world kind of nut, you know, I, I still hear the song. When I say the words, he was power. I'm like I hate Eddie. And hes right here in Vegas too. Brother from another mother. Definitely. I mean, he's, we've, we've, we've, we've been there and done that too, you know? So yeah. So what do you think,

you know, before we, before we move on, I got to ask you, we got to talk about the fact that it's audio it's video. People can watch it on Players.fm Players with an s.fm. It's every Thursday at 8:00 PM Pacific time. Y'all can just go to Players.fm and watch it there. You can watch it on Eddie's Facebook page. We have a,

The Playground Facebook page. It's on YouTube. It's everywhere, but it's also audio. You've got it. You know, on iHeart it's like out there, you know, No matter what favorite pod what's your favorite pod station is, or streaming network is you'll find this there. And fortunately, because of you, I'm able to get it's it's being seen as being pretty much shown if not nationally,

all over the world, you know? So I'm definitely glad for that. Wow. Okay. I got to ask because Ann just popped up and said Do music scholarships still exists? And as far as I know, yes they do. Do they, Eddie? Yes, They do. Yes, they do. You can pretty much. I, I,

man, there are so many of you pretty much have to like do a search or whatever, or, you know, whatever your favorite college is, ask them about it because they're definitely available. You know, I was told not too long ago by a musician that a band scholarships, there's so many millions of dollars out there for band members and people don't even know it.

So they're like stop worrying about, put your kids in basketball, put a trumpet in their hand, put a trombone in their hand, you know, because there's tons of scholarships out there for college to be in marching band. And I'm glad you mentioned that too, because we need, we need musicians and nothing gets vocalist or whatever vocals. I mean,

I love you all or whatever, but we need musicians. We need people to get behind instruments to get up there and play, you know, play piano, learn the instrument, not just the technology behind it, but learn the actual instrument. You know? You mean Play like you, you mean play cause you play man. You better than me. You claim that.

I remember the first time I met you, I sat in the coffee shop going, is he really going to play my shelf really well, my mouth, you know? I mean, they just give you music. You're like, all right, I'll see you on Tuesday. You play, you play. okay. We're we got to run really fast. I've only got a couple of more minutes.

I've got to ask you, how are you guys feeling about it? All the stages, opening up all, everything coming back. Are musicians going back to work? I mean, from the, you know, from the bars and the lounges to the super stages, you know, Are they coming back Well, we're looking forward to getting back out there and playing,

you know, you know, most of the people that I've spoken to, they're really looking forward to getting out there and play so truly excited about it. Truly excited about it. Are there, I mean, I'm hearing about concerts and residencies coming up in, in Las Vegas, you know, Earth, Wind and Fire's coming in November. We got Usher.

I think next month, things are really starting to open on the major stages. I've also heard of things, you know, when the park concerts they're doing a lot of parks stuff, but what about like the clubs, the lounges, that kind of stuff are those they're opening back Up. They're opening. I just did, just did a gig. W what last week at the D down here in,

in Las Vegas. But for most of them, most of the people I've talked to most of my musician, musician, friends here in town, they're playing and they're, they're talking about how excited they are to be back on stage after a year and a half. And you can only imagine what that's like, you know? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

Well, I will thank you now because I know if I asked the next question, this, this man that's producing this Allen Estrada, he loves cutting me off. So I got to tell you, I love you and thank you Eddie now, You too, Thank you for having me I really appreciate it. but you know, we got to get down to Fremont street, man. Cause Fremont street, I heard they opened and the stages are back Live down there,

we got to go down and laugh, at the laugh at the tourists. Really Allen really? I was 10 seconds away from being done. Okay. Everybody. Thank you for watching The 9 @ 9. I know you can't see me because Allen cut me off again. But I'm TGo and I will talk to ya next time.