Steve Arrington, legendary vocalist, drummer, songwriter, and former frontman of Slave and the Hall of Fame, joins Joe Kelley in this 2009 radio archive.

Steve discusses his comeback album Pure Thang, the influential Dayton, Ohio funk movement, his transition from drummer to lead singer in Slave, and the inspiration behind classics including "Just A Touch Of Love" and "Party Lights."

He also shares his spiritual journey, discusses honoring Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks through music, and reflects on fellow Dayton legends including Roger Troutman, Zapp, Lakeside, Sun, and the Ohio Players.

Originally recorded on WVOF 88.5 FM Fairfield, Connecticut.

A new record.

Great opening track right there from a legend.

And he's going at it strong once again from his album Pure Thing.

That is right here, right now.

And right now you are listening to WVOF 88.5 FM right here in Fairfield, Connecticut.

And we are joined by the artist the Invade, Mr. Steve Arrington.

We welcome Steve to the up room with Joe Kelly.

How are you?

Yeah, we're doing great.

And man, that track is slamming right off, off the front right there, bringing the goosebumps on our arms.

So thanks to bringing the real funk back.

Yeah, absolutely.

I just wanted to come back strong, you know, and just be heavy hitting with the funk.

Now we know you from days with Slave and of course your own band, the hall of Fame band and solo work.

How long has Pure Thang been in the making?

Some of these songs, how far do they go back?

Well, actually it goes back three to four years.

It's so funny about all of this because as those years were going by, I became more and more like, you know, I'm really gonna come back.

At first I was just thinking about just dropping a little something on my website, but as the music started to develop and get going, I'm like, you know what, it's time for me to seriously reemerge again.

So Pure Thing basically saying, you know what, this is totally from the heart.

This is just me giving it my all and bringing it from the heart.

It's the Pure thing.

It's the real essence of Steve Arrington today.

And I'm looking back and I'm bringing the funk, I'm bringing some blues elements, some jazz elements, things that I've just enjoyed through the years.

And I'm bringing it in a whole new package in Pure Thing.

And we should mention Steve has his own record label, God Factor Records, and his official website is steveerringtonministries.com and you can go there to listen to music off the new record Pure Thing.

Tell us the other places people can buy the record or Download the tracks.

CD Baby.com DigStation.com it's just been released, so it hasn't gotten around to all the digital outlets yet, but it will be on itunes shortly.

Amazon Rhapsody and all the digital outlet stations.

And also you can order it from your record stores in the area near you.

You know, when we put the word out that Steve Arrington was going to be on the show, I mean, I'm a huge admirer of your work throughout all these years, but I'm always impressed by, you know, our listenership and Especially musicians who have made comments.

I'm gonna read something to you right now because he's a friend of ours as well.

Jonathan Sugarfoot Moffat, drummer with Michael Jackson.

I'm quoting exactly what he said.

I don't know if you saw this, but he said, steve Arrington is absolutely one of my very favorite funk artists and songwriter producers of all time.

Please say hello for me to him in a snapshot.

He is the bomb that makes us weak in the knees.

Jonathan Sugarfoot Moffitt.

So he's showing you love right there.

And we know people have admired what you're doing.

Oh, that's awesome.

I love his work as well.

As a matter of fact, I just went to see Michael Jackson's this Is it film, and I saw Sugarfoot Moffat doing his thing.

Much love to Mike.

I love Michael Jackson.

And for Sugarfoot to say that about me, hey, that.

I. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the love, and I'm just out here just giving my all and doing it from the heart.

So I appreciate that big time.

Yeah, he was on the show last week previewing the movie in his own Christmas record.

But, you know, that was cool to see him writing that about you.

So.

Wow.

Yeah.

Steve Arrington's based out of the Dayton, Ohio, area, but you're born in Illinois.

And when did you first get the bug and knew that music was gonna be, you know, a way you wanted to travel?

Well, when I was a kid, my parents, the family would get together and they would do their thing and have, like, their birthday parties, right?

And the family would come over.

And I remember when I was a little dude, I would stare at the records as they turned around on the turntable.

And I would do it so long until my parents used to do this thing when my family members would come over and they're doing their thing, they're partying, and I would put the records on.

I couldn't read them, but I knew what the label was, the colors and everything.

So they'd say, put on Aretha Franklin's Thinking.

And I know the Atlantic label, and I'd put Think on it, and they used to do that.

I loved music as long as I can remember.

I used to hit on pots and pans playing the drums.

And I remember the first song I ever liked was Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa Pop by Little Anthony and the Imperials.

And music has just been a part of me as long as I can remember.

And then you got together with the Cats from Slaving years after that, right?

Yeah.

Well, see, the thing About Dayton.

First of all, the Ohio players went boom.

But at the same time, there was a scene in Dayton where we did the Battle of the Bands and also the talent shows.

There would be lines at the different high schools.

It was like major acts coming into town.

And you got to understand who these local acts were.

There was Lakeside at that time.

They were called Young, Underground, the guys from sun, the guys from Slave, and these were all local acts.

And we were all doing battle.

The Faizal.

We were all doing Battle of the Bands and doing talent shows.

So when the Ohio players hit, all of a sudden we had that spark.

And they hit so big.

The players were huge.

And so that gave us that focal point that if the players could do that, we could also do it.

And so you had this movement that came out of Dayton, Ohio, from the late 60s all the way up into the mid-80s.

I mean, we were just bumping.

I'm so proud to be a part of that movement.

And for me, coming up through the ranks like that, I then left.

And here's another thing that used to happen at that time.

There's not a lot of industry infrastructure in Dayton.

So a lot of the groups like Lakeside, another group of Platypus and other songwriters went out to California.

California to make it.

So Lakeside went out to la.

I left after high school and went out to San Francisco, started playing with the Escavito family, Sheila E, Pete Escavito, and initially Coke Escosito.

And both Pete and Coke played with Santana.

So I went out there, did my thing, and the next thing I know, boom.

I hear Slide on the radio.

And I'm not knowing who this is now.

I'm like, slide.

I'm, like, feeling that.

So I go and I buy the record and I flip it over and I see my homeboys, who I used to play with in this Battle of the Bands and talent shows back in Dayton.

Just so happens they give me a call not too long after their second album, say, hey, won't you join with the group?

I had just finished my stint with the Escavitos, came back to Dayton and joined Slave.

And that was 78.

Now, how did you get the role as being the lead singer with Slave, besides playing drums?

Right.

I was initially called to do the drum gig.

I started playing drums and I sang with a group called the Murphys.

And this was also in between Slave and right in between the Escavitos.

I was.

I did come back to Dayton once to do the lounge music thing.

Like, I was on my way to Vegas.

It was an act that was heading in that direction.

So I sang all different types of music.

From Tire Yellow Ribbon, around the Old Oak Tree, Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Stevie Wonders if youf really Love Me.

All different types of music.

But Slave really knew me as a drummer.

I developed as a singer with the group called the Murphys.

So when I got with Slave, we started jammin and you know Tiny, who is Tim Dozier, the original drummer with the group, he also sang.

And so there was a mic and I started to do my thing a little bit.

But there was Floyd Miller, there was Danny Webster and Mark Hicks.

All of those guys sang and so I just sort of fit in.

But it wasn't until Just A Touch of Love that I really started to open up as lead singer with the group.

And that basically happened because one of the singers left the studio for two or three weeks and we were waiting for them to come back to finish the track.

We had did the music to Just A Touch of Love, but there was no vocal.

And so everyone took a turn at the mic since the guy who was actually going to take a stint on that song wasn't there.

So we all wanted.

And there was no part that was already established.

It's not like we had the parts and he just wasn't there to sing it.

It was like we didn't know what we were going to sing.

We were going to take turns at the mic and see what happened.

Since he was supposed to do it and he wasn't there, we went through the different turns.

My turn was at the end and I'd make me shine.

Only that time I didn't have the words.

I was just doing the melody and they were like, yo, man, we're feeling that direction.

So it was like, let's get some words going.

And so we just started moving in it.

And the next thing you know, my melody just fit really funky with the track.

And the next thing I knew, Just A Touch Of Love was born.

And I became a drummer that sang and I turned into a singer that also played the drums.

And the great, great history of Slave and Steve Arrington, his brand new CD we're showing to the cameras here on our channel 65 TV audience Pure Thang.

Steve Arrington is with us.

You can get the CD go to his website, stevearingtonministries.com we'll talk, of course, about his ministries and life all through these years.

And of course you got to pick up this album, Pure Thing.

We're going to get into another cut right now, which Kind of when I first heard, I thought kind of like a.

A message song with the P Funk vibe song for Coretta and Rosa.

Really nice track there.

And tell us about writing this one and who, who's playing guitar on the record.

Well, the song for Coretta and Rosa, you know, Coretta Scott King is gone.

Rosa is gone.

It's like it hit me, man.

You know, it's an end of an era.

And also at a time today where music has changed and females are being talked about in derogatory ways, I just thought it was very important to bring to the table that the civil rights movement wasn't just a male movement.

It was male and female.

And Rosa Parks was really the spearhead.

I believe God used her as the sort of the point person to just start that spark.

And many people, this little lady, Rosa with the sweet name I say in the song, encouraged and gave so much courage to males and females all over this country to stand up and not take the abuse any longer.

Because she stood up.

And I saw Coretta Rosa, I mean, Coretta Scott King, I saw her in this light.

And that is, we know she was marching and she was there.

She went through all the attacks that her family went through.

But think about this.

I started thinking about the fact that she had to live without him.

He was killed and then she had to live without him, this great man, this great powerful man, this world changer.

She had to live without him.

And I thought she did that with such dignity and such honor and such power.

And to be able to look up to her as a women looking up to her.

I could see that in an awesome way.

And so I wanted to make a song about her and Coretta.

I'm sorry, Coretta and Rosa and I wanted it to be a blessing to young women out there and also a blessing to men to say, hey man, we need to honor our women.

Well, I think it's a great tribute and great song.

We'll listen to it right now here at wvof.

This is Steve Arrington from Pure Thang and it's a song for Coretta and Rosa by a lot of the lyrics from Steve Arrington's Pure Thang in previous recordings.

Obviously he has God minded activities and you know, just a positive guy.

And tell us about.

I know you had really a revelation in New York, right?

There's an interesting story on bringing you to a born again Christian.

Yes, absolutely.

I was in the studio working on what became the Positive Power album.

But I remember prior to that I was on the bus, we Were touring Hall of Fame.

And I just remember sitting.

Well, actually, I was laying in the bunk, and I just thought, man, it's got to be more to it than this.

And what I meant by that, just, I was enjoying myself.

But there was something else I felt that was missing.

Now, you have to understand, my heroes are guys like John Coltrane.

John Coltrane, he did his thing, and then he went and he went a spiritual direction.

He felt that his music needed more than.

Than what he had going at the time.

And at the time, he was such a tremendous saxophone player.

He was just.

He was the greatest.

But he felt there was something more.

Carlos Santana did the same thing.

And so for me, I had always been spiritual and minded.

I used to write poetry when I was a kid, and I always seemed to move into realms about God and the spirit.

But as I'm sitting and laying in this bunk, I'm just thinking, there's more to it than this.

And then some months later, I'm walking down the street and I see a guy wearing a sign and holding a sign saying, the Lord is coming back.

And I was.

It was like, you know, what do you mean by that?

And so we talked.

Now, mind you, a lot of people may have looked at this guy and thought, this dude is weird.

He is strange.

But for me, I wanted to know what he was talking about, because something had been tugging at my heart saying, there's got to be more than this.

And so anyway, he opened up the word of God.

He was not a weirdo.

He was not a freak.

He was a person who was willing to look stupid or whatever anyone thought about him in order to maybe touch somebody that day.

And that somebody was me.

It may have been others that day, but I was there.

I had just left the studio on a break, and he led me to the Lord.

He showed me in the Bible where salvation through confessing Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

He took me to other scriptures about leading up to that and why I needed a personal savior.

And I accepted the Lord right then and there.

And I've never looked back since.

And also I felt that my music now in the traditions of not only John Coltrane and Carlos Santana, who brought spirituality to their music, but then also people in the traditions of Marvin Gaye in his middle period, and also some of the great gospel artists, Mahalia Jackson and, you know, I just felt this was a tradition that had gone on in black music, Al Green.

And I felt that I wanted to continue in that way also to bring spirituality into my music.

Earth Wind And Fire had done similar things also.

Now I have spirituality in my music, but I have also social content there that speaks on what's going on from the social climate.

And I also have music that are great love songs that speak to the relationship side of life.

And so what I want my music to do is to speak more to the human experience.

And part of that human experience is our spirituality.

Steve Arrington's with us here on the Upper Room with Joe Kelly in WVOF and his brand new album.

We'll hold it up to the camera.

Once again, Pure Thang.

And you can get it through Steve arringtonministries.com and also through cdbaby.com and all the different download sites on his own record label, God Factor Records.

And you know, we're gonna play another cut from the record.

This is the first single called I'm On Fire.

And tell some of the recording magic working on this track from yourself.

Well, I'm On Fire is just me taking a look at the social climate of the day and just feeling funky with it, you know, the invade.

I come to hit the track.

I'm coming with a vibe, I'm coming with an attitude.

And my attitude is to speak the truth and be funky with it and bring that swag and have a good time at the same time.

So that's what I'm On Fire is about.

And he's with us right now.

The Invade, Steve Arrington.

And this is from Pure Thing.

I'm On Fire right here.

Wvof, first single from Pure Thang.

That is I'm On Fire.

And we're having fun talking off air.

I was talking about the, the song Party Lights with Slave and the little intro.

All these years I have the answer to the question where you guys are shouting out about somebody named Joe.

And.

And you know, if you want to quick synopsis on.

On the meaning of that, be interested in hey Joe.

What it means is, you know, back in the day we used to crack up laughing when you see your homeboy down the street and you say hey Joe.

And he go, oh yeah.

So he gets his trot on.

Now he can't run too fast.

He can't be too.

He's got to get his little stroll.

He got to get his swag on.

When he's trotting up the way he can't get it, you gotta.

Gotta do it real smooth.

And so we would, we would always do this little skit.

We'd say hey Joe.

And one of us would sort of get real low and sort of get our trot on, as we're saying, okay, we bout to turn our party lights on.

So we go, hey, Joe.

To get him to come down to the party.

And of course he's gonna hang out with Slave with the Funky Brothers.

So he gotta have his swag and he gotta have his nice trot.

He gotta come in right so he can hang.

Now, how often do you stay in contact with the guys you created all this music and Slave, do you hear from some of the guys?

Yes, I talk to him all the time.

I talked to Kurt Jones just last week and we spoke about going to see this is it.

That's the last conversation that we had.

And I talked to the rest of the guys who now Kirk Jones lives in.

In Jersey.

Yeah, those guys live in Ohio in the Dayton area.

So I seen those guys and talked to them many times through the years.

Yeah, so I. I mean, I was thinking back here in the earlier conversation that you were talking about Dayton, Ohio, all the great music that, you know, I asked, you know, some of the guys from P Funk and at the time, were you guys aware of what, you know, this big movement and influential music coming out from your area.

How about yourself with Dayton?

I mean, we were talking off air about Roger Troutman and Zapp and all those bands and your own music coming out of the area.

Were you guys at the time, you know, were you guys on to how much you guys meant to music or were going to mean to music?

Well, when the Ohio players did their thing in such a huge way, the bands that came behind them, we were all original.

What was so cool about it is that Zap didn't sound like Heat Wave, who didn't sound like Slave, who didn't sound like Lakeside, who didn't sound like sun, who didn't sound like Faso.

I mean, it was.

Everybody had their own original style who didn't sound like Platypus.

So we realized that, you know, we've got something here.

Something's going on in Dayton.

People say, man, I don't know what's going.

What's in the water down there in Dayton, because it's a small town compared to Detroit or San Francisco or New York, Memphis.

Some of the great areas that have had these great movements.

Philadelphia hate.

Dayton is a small town.

But man, we had really gotten onto something and we did some original, great music.

And I'm proud to be a part of the Dayton music family.

I speak about it in the first.

On the first song right here, right now.

Dayton is in this piece.

And it's all day I'm shouting out to Roger Trotman, who is gone now.

Rest in peace, Roger.

Nothing but love coming from the Invade and the rest of the Dayton family.

But Roger's impact has been so important.

Sugarfoot, the Ohio Players, their impact.

Juni Morrison from the Ohio Players, who went on to play with P Funk and did some great stuff.

One Nation Under a Groove with P Funk.

And like I said, Lakeside.

I mean, you can hear Lakeside.

They're doing so many commercials on Fantastic Voyage and movie soundtrack stuff.

I can just go on and, you know, I'm just a part of a wonderful movement and I'm so excited about it.

Steve Arrington's album Pure Thing, available right now.

Please go to his website, stevearingtonministries.com supporting the real positive funk, R B, blues.

Got a little bit of everything in there, some great ballads, and of course, bringing that funk there and otherwise.

I wanted to bring this up because I saw something on your MySpace page.

You can also check out Steve Arrington on MySpace.com, but you had a little blog about the guitar being absent in R and B music and in pop music as general.

Yeah.

What happened with that?

Because we love guitar and hard bass and drums and you guys melded it all together.

But what's going on there?

You know, I'm not sure, but I did hear something that made sense to me, and that is they said, hey, man, they traded the guitar solo for the 16 bar rap.

And I said, okay, but, you know, there's room for both.

So on this record, I bring guitar solos back into the mix.

And I also thought I'd go back and bring something into the music that people had forgot about.

And that's like.

And that's the bottleneck guitar, the slide guitar sound from people like Muddy Waters, people like Hound Dog Taylor, Elmore James, who played that classic slide bottleneck guitar.

And people hadn't really heard it in funk.

So I thought, man, I wanted to bring that bottleneck sound.

And that was my.

My appreciation for the history of the music.

Old gospel records, back in the day, they were playing some bottleneck guitar.

So I wanted to bring the guitar solos back and just bring guitar into the music.

Because guitar is an important part of what I consider to bring the emotional impact of my music.

And I. I just posed the question, you know, where's the guitar at?

Right.

What's happened?

And, you know, it'll come back around.

I just decided I wasn't gonna wait till it came back around.

Right, right.

Take matters into Your own hands.

So.

Exactly.

You, you've been working on putting a new band together and talking about going out on the road and playing some of this great music live.

How's that going for you?

Oh, it's going great.

Got some nice, nice cats, man.

And we're looking to do the old music, the Slave catalog, the hall of Fame catalog, the Steve Arrington, as in the dance music stuff that I was into, dancing in the key and feel so real in those joints and then into Pure Thing.

I'm just going to do my whole catalog and I have a really, really good band that can cover all that material and cover that ground.

Yeah, of course you'll keep us up to date on Steve Arrington ministries.com and hope you can make it to the east coast because we're only an hour north of New York City and you're welcome to come in and studio and play live.

We'd love to have you on.

Oh, man, can't wait.

Yeah, we're definitely going to be heading that way.

I gotta thank you, brother Steve Ayrton, you know, all these years wanted to have you on the show and you know, you come to my home.

I got, well, all your music there.

So, you know, thanks so much, you know, for gracing us coming on the show.

Oh, Joe, it's my pleasure.

Thank you, Connecticut.

Hey, love you guys.

Appreciate everybody, you know, vibing on my new Pure Thing cd.

I've been away from the game for such a long time.

I mean have.

I'm having a wonderful time.

I'm having so much fun.

I'm enjoying it.

So thanks for having me, Joe.

Yeah, pick it up.

Pure Thang.

We'll be re airing this in its entirety with additional music from Steve Arrington and his more music from Pure Thang and some of the oldies from Slave and the hall of Fame Band.

And please go to his website, Steve harringtonministries.com and we're gonna go out right now with I like what you do and second right into nobody can be you.

So, hey, appreciate it and thanks so much, Steven.

Thanks to your wife, Leslie.

Oh, thank you, Joe.

And that's from the Arringtons down this way.

Praise God.