Morris Hayes, the esteemed keyboardist and producer known for his extensive tenure with Prince and The New Power Generation, shares profound insights into his illustrious career and the intricacies of the music industry. Central to our discussion is the exploration of his collaborative endeavors, particularly his recent work with Maya McLean, emphasizing the importance of resilience and creativity in the face of personal challenges. We delve into the complexities of performing alongside legendary artists, the nuances of musical direction, and the ever-evolving dynamics of sound production. Hayes also reflects on the legacy of Prince, contemplating the future of his music and the cultural impact that continues to resonate with fans worldwide. This episode not only highlights Hayes' remarkable contributions to music but also serves as a testament to the enduring spirit of artistic collaboration and innovation.

Takeaways:

• Morris Hayes discusses his extensive career as a keyboardist and music director, particularly during his nearly two-decade tenure with Prince and The New Power Generation.
• He reflects on the cultural impact of Prince's music and the significance of preserving his legacy through unreleased material and live performances.
• Hayes shares insights about the challenges of being a music director, especially in managing diverse personalities during large-scale tribute shows.
• He emphasizes the importance of collaboration and adaptability in the music industry, particularly in light of evolving technology and trends in music production.
• The conversation reveals Morris's commitment to mentoring the next generation of musicians, highlighting his recent projects and collaborations with emerging artists.
• Hayes expresses concerns about the current political climate and how it contrasts with the inclusive spirit that Prince embodied, underscoring the need for artistic voices in social discourse.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Prince
• New Power Generation
• Prince
• O2
• Vegas
• Maya McLean
• Kips
• Michael Jackson
• Will.i.am
• First Avenue
• Nacdl
• Maserati
• The Time
• Jill Jones
• Maceo Parker
• Larry Graham
• Eddie Minnenfield
• John Blackwell
• Patrice Rushen
• Stokely
• Fernando Jones
• Columbia College
• DOA
• Kirk Johnson
• Tommy Barbarella

Hey, hey.

This is your man, Mr.

Hayes, former keyboardist with Princeton and New Power Generation.

You're watching Musicians Reveal with Joe Kelly.

Welcome to Musicians Reveal.

Joe Kelly here.

And I'm extremely excited.

I haven't talked to this gentleman for quite a while and he is a tremendous world class musician, keyboardist, producer, musical director.

He's busy.

He also was in Prince and the New Power Generation for close to 20 years and was the music director for a good portion of that.

Morris Hayes, welcome to Musicians Reveal.

Hey.

Hey, man.

Joe, Great to be here, brother.

Thank you for having me on, man.

Yeah, we were talking.

The last time I think we spoke was on radio.

You were, you were at the Rio in Vegas.

What year was that?

2006.

Seven.

Yeah.

Yeah, man, that was, that was, that was the time.

Now, do you prefer something like that?

You know, you're there, you got a.

Nice room and you know, it was, it was incredible because around that time, man, was like the whole thing with the O2 and Vegas was like this whole residency kind of thing.

And I, I thought it was like, bro, it was like the best thing ever for me.

I just thought, how cool is this where we can go set up shops somewhere and then have, you know, transient type of population of people just coming in out of Las Vegas or, you know, or set up at the O2 in London.

And then just for two months you have, you know, half a million people come to the show.

So it was, it was phenomenal, man.

I mean, I'm not a super Vegas guy because, you know, the thing about Vegas is it's a cool place to visit, but the thing they let you do in Vegas, they can, you can smoke inside.

Yeah.

It's like, that's what, that is kind of crazy to me.

Yeah.

And I can't, I can't breathe and smoke.

So I, I love, I like Vegas when it comes to like the, all of the stuff you can do, all the stuff you can see.

But it's like that smoking thing, it's just like, bro, I, I can't deal with it.

But it, but it, you know, it was a, it was a great time though, man.

I mean, we had shows, we changed the shows.

We had so many people come through the shows, you know, we had on stage and stuff.

Will, I am.

And you know, Michael Jackson came to the show and came backstage.

I mean, so it was cool, you know, I enjoyed that time.

Yeah, you brought up the smoker.

I had forgotten about that and was walking through the casino.

I was on Eastern time, going to get a coffee.

And I was like, whoa, this is like a throwback time.

Oh, yeah.

It's crazy, you know, because it's like they want to keep the people at all costs.

And it's like, yeah, it's got to be the only place in the United States, with the exception of, like, Lake Tahoe or somewhere, any casino where you can just smoke in the building.

And I mean, a lot of people smoke.

So it was really crazy.

I was like, wow, they can smoke in there.

So it's pretty bananas, you know?

Yeah.

So, hey, listen, you've been real busy with working with one of your old bandmates, Maya McLean, right?

Working on her album.

Yeah.

What's been going on with Mayan and Kips in the mix too, right?

Yeah, yeah, man, I, I.

Let me tell you something, man.

It's been, it's been one of the great moments in my production, you know, just on my independent production, to be able to work with me.

And, and it's.

It's really cool, man, because, you know, she called me, man.

She had been going through a few things, you know, personally, and, And I told her, I said, you look, man.

I said, look, come out to the woods and don't worry about the producer.

Cats that, you know, had ran into some issues with.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about all of the stuff.

And out of the other things, come on out in the woods and we'll work and we'll just put some stuff together.

We'll.

We'll do, we'll work on it.

We'll put it out.

We'll do whatever thing.

Just come out and just, let's do it.

And, and that's what she did, man.

And it's some really great work.

We worked hard on it.

A lot of, A lot of great music, I think.

So we know her as a singer and choreographer.

Excuse me, a dancer and a choreographer with her twin sister, the twins.

How about as a singer?

Was that always one of her aspirations?

Well, you know, they sang background with Prince on some stuff.

They, you know, we did some award shows.

We did some concerts in here.

You know, he let them sing backgrounds.

They even let him play some guitar stuff on a couple of songs where they, they played on that.

But she has since.

And let me tell you something, man, every single day when she was here, and she, she stayed here for maybe close to three months over a period of time.

Let me tell you something, this girl would get up every morning with her regimen, man.

She'd come and do A voice warm ups.

She'd do all of the things that, that she needed to do to like really just get her vocals like there.

And so she was really killing it, man.

Just coming in, working hard and it shows.

When mayor told me that she wanted to come and work, you know, I said, hey, well hey, come on out.

We'll do the thing.

She had a great work ethic.

She, she.

Every day when she would get up, she would start doing her vocal warmups.

Every day, every day going through the thing.

So it was very cool, man.

And it showed.

Her whole thing had come up in terms of like her ability to like work her vocals and play her guitars.

All of that had elevated.

And you got a busy gig with May is opening up for We Were the New Power Generation in July, right out in Minneapolis.

Yeah, we gotta have a little talk about that.

Yeah.

Do you have to go buy.

We wear the New Power Generation.

Is that another state?

Yeah, well, I mean the estate put a moratorium on, on all the.

Well, I don't know about all, but certainly on us in terms of the, the licensing for using the name.

Okay.

You know, they, they owned all of that.

That's all, you know, things of the Prince estate.

So while they're figuring out kind of what they want to do, you know, they're not you knowing the license to use that name.

So we have to basically, you know, we are former members of the New Power Generation formerly were.

So that's what we have to kind of say at this point.

And it's very, you know, it kind of makes it difficult when you're trying to, you know, go do gigs and stuff because, I mean, it's like a band with no name.

It's just like, you know, friends could get away with it, but I don't think that we could.

So, you know, it's that type of thing.

Guess you got to roll with it, you know, and, and at least it has record.

You know, we, us Purple fans, we all recognize it.

So.

Yeah, I mean people know who we are in terms of, you know, me and Levi and Tony and you know, and Mike Scott and all the people that work with us.

I mean.

But yeah, it's, it's a challenge.

It makes it a.

It makes it a challenge trying to deal with stuff, I guess.

So let's talk.

I know it's a little far out in advance, but tell, tell the viewers and listeners the gig where it's going to be out.

Yeah, it's.

It's going to be in at First Avenue, you know.

Yeah.

Man, it's going to be, it's, it's for a cool cause.

Nacdl, I think that's the, the, the entity that's.

That's putting it on and, and I think they wanted to grow it outside of their, their private situation.

I think they were going to have.

And so they decided to open it up.

So we're at First Avenue now, which is great.

I always love playing at First Avenue.

It's just a legendary place.

You know, Prince loved the place and we love the place.

So nobody just happened to be going back there.

Yeah, I'm sure you have a packed house and you be in your element again.

I'm gonna move.

I'm gonna do the videos, man, and tell people, Come on down.

Come on down.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, I saw you.

You've been hyping it up.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna keep doing that just until.

Because I wanna, I kind of want to get my.

Get a Star on the Wall.

I don't know what would be called.

It'll be the band.

But don't name Star on the Wall.

Like, you know, you sell it out, then you get a star.

Yeah.

So I want to do that.

Yeah, you guys are definitely due for that.

So we'll figure out a way.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, I forgot to ask the important question at the beginning of the interview.

Do you still have the Prince controversy ticket in your wallet?

I.

I do have the ticket.

I still have the ticket.

Okay.

Wow.

It's a.

It's a little battered now, but I do have a digital copy of it.

Like, I have a digital copy, but I just.

It's almost like it was a.

I don't believe in luck, but it was just like a good luck piece.

It just always been in my wallet since, since that day.

You know, I've changed wallets.

It goes in the new wallet and it's just always been with me, man.

And so I still have it and I lost my wallet four times now over the Austin 40 years.

So that's.

That's one time a decade, but.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Did you ever show Princeton?

Yeah.

Got to talking about it and I took it out of my wallet and I showed it to him and I don't think I had.

I hadn't told Prince the story because I always kind of like felt like if I, you know, I didn't know how you would react to it.

He may think, oh, this kid's hokey or something.

Like, I didn't really know, so I didn't really give him the whole story.

But I was telling it to Shelby, and he was sitting, like, right over from Shelby, and he kind of said, is that true?

Like, is that true?

And I'm like, yeah, man.

I said this.

This ticket is from that show.

And.

And I think that's when he, like, found out.

At least that's when I told him about it.

Because, like, I said, Prince was kind of, like, even with my music and stuff when I was writing music, you know, I was like, man, I don't.

I don't necessarily want Prince to hear this.

He'd probably shoot it down.

And I didn't want my feelings hurt, man.

Be like, you know, press kind of like a hero.

And he's like, yeah.

He must be like, nah.

Cause he gonna tell the truth, man.

He gonna tell the truth.

I'm just like, I ain't gonna tell him my story.

You think I'm just hokey or whatever, you know?

Yeah.

We just had Lester and Zap Troutman from Zap on the show a few days ago, so that they were part of that tour.

Right.

I know that.

Not that.

No, that.

That triple.

That was the.

That was the triple threat.

That.

That was vanity 6.

Morris Day in the Time.

It was the time.

Yeah.

So.

So for.

For.

For the one that.

Where he came.

That's.

That's what we're picking us from.

Yeah.

So I gotcha.

Yeah.

Yeah, I screwed up.

That was my first tour, too.

But I saw it.

It was February or March 83, the same tour, and I was something.

Yeah, it was killer, man.

I.

I was, like, blown away.

I mean, it just.

It galvanized what I wanted to do with my life and my career.

I just said, all roads lead to Minneapolis.

I said, that's what I want to do, man.

That's.

That's.

That's the pirate's life for me.

I got to do it.

Yeah.

Dreams come true, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you've been in the right place at the right time for several points in your life.

For the viewers that might want to hear some of the early story, but you're from Arkansas, and what was your first gravitation towards music?

Oh, man.

I mean, I started in the church.

I mean, everything was like, you know, growing up here in the south and growing up in, you know, everything started in the church.

I'VE been going to church since I was a baby, you know, and, you know, I don't even remember my first time in church because it just, like, I was always there.

And it just, like.

As you come into the consciousness of remembering what you did, that was.

Church was always a part of that consciousness.

Because I don't remember, like, an introduction to church, you know, Just, like, I just.

When I came to, like, because I.

If you ask people, like, what do you remember when you were 2 or 3?

I don't remember anything.

Just, like, a couple of things that I can remember when I was like, two or three.

Like, it's only a couple of things that I can remember.

I remember opening the car door while we was driving down the highway, but still sitting on my mom's lap.

I remember that moment because it was like she freaked out.

It was like, oh, my God, you know, the door came open.

I just like, what does this thing do?

Like, click.

And the door just opened up while we're driving down the highway.

And so.

And I remember her freaking out, you know, and back then, you know, seat belts weren't really required for everybody.

You know, you didn't have to wear a seatbelt.

And so that freaked her out.

And I just remember her freaking out.

And.

And so that memory is kind of indelibly burned in my brains when I was that small.

And I think.

And I remember talking to this.

This lady from church.

My mom had me, like, hold me on her hip, like, you hold a kid on your hip.

Yeah.

And the lady was talking real close to my mic.

Hey, little boy, how you doing?

And I said, oh, your breath is bad.

And I was.

My mom was like, oh, no, no.

You know, so I can remember those incidents being small enough to be held on my mom's hip.

There was a couple of, like, little incidents, but.

But church is like a blur, like, because I don't remember the first time I went to church.

It's just like I was born there or something.

I just always remembered it.

So.

So getting to the music, was it always keys?

Yeah, I mean, that's.

That's all we really had back in the day.

I mean, you know, everybody got a whole recording studio at church now.

Everybody got, you know, baffles and drums and consoles and all kind of stuff.

Back then you had a piano, an organ, if you were lucky.

And so we had a piano player, and then we got an organ, and I started playing on the organ a bit, and I was terrible, man.

You know, But I grew into it, you know, just one of those things.

And.

And then I did.

My first synthesizer was a Moog synthesizer.

And I put that on top of it.

And I just used to make these.

And it was just like.

They were like, man, he's.

They just let me do my thing, man.

I had it set up that I would do it.

And then it just like.

It was.

It was.

It was crazy, man.

I think about it, you know that.

Like a little country church like that.

I had to synthesize the church.

Nobody had that at the time.

It was just like.

And I was doing weird stuff, like making, like, Roger Troutman, like, bass sound.

Oh, yeah.

And it was like doing stuff like that.

I just had this, like, really cool glendo thing that I could touch a note at the top and then I could just go spear one.

And it was.

And the folks was like, tripping, man.

It's funny.

Yeah, they loved it.

I hadn't.

I haven't even thought about that in.

In ages, man.

Like.

Like, that was just something that was you.

I.

I never saw anywhere else.

I don't care what size church it was at that time.

I didn't see synthesizers at church and.

And a situation like that.

But I just was fascinated with it, man.

And they.

And they let me do it, you know, and so that's.

That's crazy, man, because I had.

I really even thought about this, like, ages.

But, yeah, that was great.

So.

So the story is that you were playing in a band in Memphis, right?

And Prince was doing an after show and came in and that's your first introduction with him?

No, we were doing a show and Prince was in town, you know, and the band was like.

This is like, right prior to me.

So the.

The band was.

Was playing this place.

I think it was the New Daisy or Western frontier.

One of the Western frontier, new days, one of the two.

And.

And it's around 84 princes, you know, doing the.

They were on the big tours and doing this stuff and they.

And they just like in Memphis and just like we would always do just.

They would come and find a.

Find even find out after.

Make an after show or find a band plan.

And they happened to cross the Fingerprint and Fingerprint man, even when I went to see him prior to that event, I went to see him at.

Because I was frat brothers with the lead singer.

He was from Memphis and he came to Arkansas to go to college at my school here, University of Arkansas.

That's how I met him.

And, man, they were meticulous about whatever song they played.

They wanted it to sound like, the record they would program, they would get the parts.

And it had to be like the record, man.

I mean, they were like, on it.

So I think Brown and them came in and, you know, you know, princess musicians and they.

They all came in and.

And after it was over, they went down and was like, bro, we.

We see a lot of people that play our stuff, you know, but you guys sound like us.

Like.

Like.

I mean, y'all are playing it.

Like we play it, you know, like, the parts are right.

The, you know, the energy is right, the singing is right.

You know, they were impressed and came down and said, so, you know.

You know how they do, like, Gilligan's Island?

You know, people come to the island, it's like, oh, wow.

And then they get autographs and everybody said, we're gonna get you off the island.

And then everybody.

Yeah, but.

But it was that kind of a vibe.

And, you know, they exchanged numbers.

And then later on, when.

When Mark got Maserati, Maz came to.

To Memphis, and we also did a thing in San Antonio, like, we opened up for them a few spots, and then we would open up like, you know, the jets and.

And New Shoes and Sly Fox.

All of these people that was rolling in the 80s, you know, and.

And that's kind of like put.

Put us in the sights of.

Of the Minneapolis sound, you know, and that whole thing.

And then we eventually got the call to join Maserati, Greg and I.

That's another situation by names, the Bad Boys of Paisley.

Right.

Or they had to change it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like.

It's funny because it's like it always seems to be a group like that or some situation like that where it's like the outcast, the outliers, you know?

Yeah.

That sort of thing.

So.

But.

But, yeah, it was cool.

It was.

It was a great learning experience.

You know, I like the cats that we played with.

And I only did one show with Maserati.

You know, we rehearsed a very long time, and then we did one shows, and then it just dissolved after the record company switched over from.

We had signed to Motown.

Right.

And.

And then after.

After we went offline with Motown going to mca, they dropped the ban, and then they just participated, you know.

Yeah.

So, Mark have any interest in maybe putting together some kind of configuration with that?

I know you guys are playing together in July.

I know they had.

They had.

At one point, they had reached out to me about doing a kind of revisitation of Maserati.

And since.

Since we've had.

We lost a screamer.

Craig.

Yeah, yeah, but.

But they wanted to do something.

My, My thing was this.

Terry Casey was a.

Was a very good front man.

You know, Greg saying was a good front man.

Terry Casey was a very good front man.

I, I have a thing.

I, I like strong front men, right?

That's, that's designated frontman that do what they do.

And I just felt if, if, if we were going to have a lot of other cats that wanted to be front guys and, you know, and everybody was good in their positions.

I like, you know, everybody in the positions.

But, you know, I personally, man, I know what my role in the band is and I don't, I don't berate nobody else's thing was what you.

You can do.

But I just said if I'm going to be involved, if I am, and I don't.

One monkey don't stop a show.

So I'm just, But I'm just saying, like, if it's going to be me, I want whoever's up front to be front people and be strong in that position.

I'll play keyboards.

I don't have to try to come out and do nothing.

I do my thing, you know, I know my place in the room.

It's all good, you know, but I, but I definitely wanted some consistency with regard to whoever's in front to be a front person who knows how to handle that, who knows how to do that.

I'm comfortable in that role.

I mean, personally, you know, if you, If I'm, if I'm doing my solo thing, then cool, I could do whatever.

I could try to sing and try to do whatever.

But I think in that situation, I just wanted to see somebody in the role that was going to be a front guy and that was his job, you know.

You know, so that was my only criteria for working in the situation, is that that's what I would want to see.

Or else I just like.

Because I don't feel like it's going to be successful otherwise.

I don't feel like it's going to do anything.

It's.

So there's no point in like, wasting time and doing something that, you know, you don't feel that confident that it's going to be the best possible situation.

And so there's no point in wasting time.

To me, yeah, it's, you know, brings to mind what you were talking about as far as the place in the band.

Michael Bland kind of says something similar like that.

And you guys were there for some of the longest tenures of in history with this.

Yeah.

And I love Michael.

Michael.

Michael is the.

The.

The epitome of, you know, here's a guy who doesn't like to play drum solos, but then when he does is one of the best drum solos that.

That drummers want to learn is just like, you know, he's the best, but he's just like, he's comfortable in the pocket.

He's comfortable, you know, tempo.

But.

But that doesn't mean he can't do it.

And that's the same thing I'm saying about the other thing.

They're just.

That's where he is comfortable is in the pocket.

And.

And that's why Mike is great and why so many people love him.

You know, I had Whitney Houston come up and talk about him.

I had Steve Tyler tell me, like, he said, I work out to that dude.

You know, he said, your drummer is bananas.

Like, I work out to that dude.

That's Steve Tyler Toba.

So.

So the bottom line is Michael was le legendary for that.

It still is.

Is a quartz crystal in his butt, dude.

Some.

Some give some clock like that.

He is amazing.

So.

So that's.

And that's what I'm saying.

I mean, Mike is comfortable doing his pocket and he kills it.

So getting used to different drummers, specifically with Prince's bands, I mean, 20 years you've had different drummers.

Is it a big adjustment for yourself?

Well, fortunately.

Fortunately, Prince was a great curator of musicians.

And, you know, and everybody had their strengths and had their things, you know, that.

That they brought to the table as far as their position goes.

Like, Blackwell was a great show drummer.

Like, you know, as far as all of his tricks that he could do and all of the stuff that visually was, you know, aesthetically was cool, you know, Kirk had a really great pocket.

I like, you know, Kirk was just real solid, you know, he just had a great, you know, he could solo too.

But Kirk had a really nice, solid pocket, you know, that he had going.

And so, you know, and then you got Cora and then you got like all of these folks and, you know, like.

So I was fortunate to have played with, you know, I played with Sheila and, you know, a couple few things in a drum position, and she's phenomenal.

So he's a great curator of musicians.

And even if they have some quirks, it usually gets worked out if they stay for any length of time, because he will train you into the spot and then he uses the strengths you have.

Like, I'm not like a.

I'm not like barbarella I mean, Barbarella could just, like, sit down piano and.

And he could do this whole thing, and he could solo, like him and Renato and, like, Cassie.

I don't.

That's not my thing.

I mean, I can do what I have to do, but I'm not really.

I wasn't super great at that.

But Prince knew the other technical stuff and.

And the gospel stuff.

You know, he played on my strengths and the things that I did do well and let me do that.

He told me sometimes, like, he said we had to think of ourselves like the Chicago Bulls championship team.

He's like, you know, Rodman gets the rebound.

I shoot the three.

You know, he got this.

Everybody's got a role to play, you know, and so that's.

That's the way he kind of formed the group.

And so I did what I did well, and I did the technical stuff.

I taught, you know.

You know, I showed them even how to do it.

And so then that ended up working out to be what I.

What my strength was.

I remember you were talking about.

I don't know if it was on my show or somewhere.

I read that, you know, you had all these samples and, you know, you made a lot of things go during that period for Prince, and you ran out of space or something.

You had to delete stuff before a show.

Yeah, that's a lot of stress, right?

Yeah, man.

I mean, what's crazy about it the day before, you know, Prince sometimes, man, he.

You know, when the girls were around, he would kind of.

He could kind of clown you, you know, man, he got to be the big boss, and it's like, you know, just work on your man.

And the day before, we got really got into it, man.

Really got into it to where I was really pissed off, and.

And I wanted to choke him out, you know, that kind of thing.

I'm just mad, man.

And so the next day, man, he comes in the soundstage.

We had moved everything out of.

Out of Studio C and moved it into the sound stage.

And.

And I'm still feeling a little salty, man, because I'm like, you know, you didn't have to get on me like that, you know, in front of his girl and everything.

And.

And so, man, I'm just a little.

I'm sitting on my organ.

And he had wanted these new songs in, and I told him, I said, prince, I need new hard drives because I've maxed these out.

And.

And it just kind of fell on deaf ears, because hard drives back then for that capacity were a Lot of money.

They were crazy money back in the day.

But anyway, we had to go through this whole process where the accountants approved this and that and the other.

And I did just like a bunch of bureaucracy in their tapes type stuff.

And I just told him, I said, man, and it's just like, that's somebody else's thing.

Anyway, he came in and he said, morris, like, how long before the.

The songs are in and ready?

And now I'm sitting on my organ, man.

I'm just kind of sitting there.

And he comes walking over there and he's standing next to me while I'm sitting down.

So now he's like standing up on me like this.

And, man, my.

My papa always told me, man, don't let no man stand up on you.

Like, you know, so, man, so I'm 38 hot from yesterday.

So I just basically stand up off my organ and just put his nose in my chest and say, man, I said, prince, when you come back, it still ain't gonna be ready.

All right?

It still ain't gonna be ready.

So.

So then he goes into his eyes.

You know, his eyes can get all big.

He has big pretty eyes.

His eyes got all big.

And then he turned around and marched off.

He like, left, like, click, click.

Them heels clicking on the floor.

All right, back to the.

Click, click, click, click, click, click, all fast.

And I was.

Because I was like, man, I'm ready.

I'm ready.

I'm be ready like Freddy today.

You're not gonna clown me today, bro.

I'm not taking it.

And he.

He marched out.

But I tell him, I said, I don't.

When you get.

When you come back, it still ain't gonna be there.

So now what?

And so he ended up coming back and he told me to grab my tablet and come under.

I had a.

My keyboard rig was under the stage.

Because I told him.

Basically the problem was I had maxed out all of the room.

I had 128 songs in my thing that we could do.

128 is the maximum number as a prince, I maxed out.

I don't want to arbitrarily pick one of these.

Pick a few of these songs to take away.

Because the minute I do that, with my, you know, the luck I have, you're going to call the songs I've taken off of this thing.

So he ended up coming over and going through my entire list and he said, you can take that one out.

You can take this one out.

And then, then I was able to free up Some space and put in the new stuff, you know, and.

And so we.

We just had to have a.

A moment and then.

And he got.

He understood the situation because it's just like he would be very impatient sometimes and, you know, just the.

The.

The devil was in the details.

And he just said, I don't want the devil around, Morris.

I don't want the devil around.

So it's just like, yeah, but you got to.

And so that when I'm telling it to you, you're not just, you know, mad for no reason.

So I want you to understand why I'm in account of a quagmire here.

I don't want to make a judgment call and be on the wrong side of the issue.

But it worked out.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, eventually all of the stuff would, you know, we'd have a few moments like that, you know, and especially as it was around the tech stuff, you know, he knew I was a geek and, you know, that I knew what I was doing on that stuff.

It just like he just.

Patience was not one of his worst virtues.

So that's all I gotta ask you.

Yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

No, I just said just.

It just was a matter of just trying to finesse that, you know?

Yeah.

I gotta ask you, as a music director with Prince, were you sometimes to go between with other band members and himself to straighten things out?

Is that a big part of the job?

That's a great way.

That's a great way to put it.

And the funny thing about the go between thing is I would have to go between while he was actually sitting there.

They could hear him, but he'd tell me, and then I'm gonna tell them.

And I'm like.

But I'm like, they can hear you.

Like, he's sitting right there.

It's like, right.

You know, so that was funny to me.

Whenever he would do stuff like that, I mean, it was always very awkward because it like, you don't need me in the middle of this thing, man.

You.

I mean, they're sitting here, you can just talk directly to them and, you know, but he'd just be like, ask Morris about it, you know?

I remember Cat Dyson was asking him a bunch of questions, but he was like, talk to Morris about it.

And it was just so funny, you know, because it's like, she heard you.

I guess he couldn't change his ways.

He'd been doing it for so long.

Right?

Yeah, it just was funny, man.

But, you know, everybody kind of knew, you know, Prince's ways how you kind of could do stuff like that and how you could do it.

So it just was funny too.

Yeah, I wanted to.

You've done tons of shows and.

That was a really special show split in two parts.

You know, correct me if I'm wrong, there was a lot of lights turned off on the stage in the first part of the show.

Prince wasn't even singing on the microphone at some points.

What, do you remember preparing for that show?

Yeah, it was.

It was interesting, man.

You know, just.

Just the.

The whole thing of how he went about it always, you know, he wanted to do something different, you know, so just.

Just a different approach.

Even though, you know, I see a lot of acts at Montro Jazz Festival.

It's not really jazz, you know, just like.

Oh, no, this was Montreal.

Sorry, Montreal up in Canada.

Oh, yeah, Montreal.

That's right, Montreal.

It was.

I think it was right after his parents had passed away.

Yeah, yeah, man, that's right.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Roy Hargrove came.

I wrote the Elevator with him to the show.

Oh, wow.

I remember that now, man.

Oh, wow.

That's the show I was talking about.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cause I'm tripping, man, because I'm like, wait a minute.

Because I'm thinking about that date.

Okay, yeah.

Oh, man.

The Canadian show.

Yeah, that was.

That was kind of weird because like you said, it's right after.

I think his mom had passed around that time.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And so, so yeah, came, man.

That one is like, yeah, Larry opened up and.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I remember it was almost like a Miles Davis feel to the first part.

And then there was an interaction and then it was the hits.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, but that's the one.

The festival director said that was the best show he's ever seen in 25 years.

When they.

They asked.

The 25 year anniversary.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, but you know, man, Prince just always kind of had a way of doing those things.

And that.

That was right prior to my second leaving.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah, right.

My second leaving.

That was it.

Was it.

Prince was idol at that time.

And Macy just made an offer to.

You well, you know, Prince always had a healthy respect for, like, the legends.

You know, you're talking like, George Clinton, Mavis Maceo, Larry Graham, like, all of the legends, like, of that that we came up checking out.

You know, when Prince got the opportunity to play with Mason, play with Larry, I mean, it was just like.

Like a.

Like a glove on a hand, you know, it was like that.

That was the move.

And so we love Maceo, of course, you know, and what he had done with funk music.

You know, Prince always would tell me and anybody else that Maceo defined funk saxophone.

It's like, he said he'd take them three notes and beat your brains out with him.

Like, he's like, three Macy's gonna take three notes and whoop anybody, you know, because of the way that he phrased everything.

And, you know, he used to tell me that all the time.

And so.

So, yeah, man, that just was part of the thing.

And.

And, yeah, around that time, Larry Graham was like, yeah, that's.

That's crazy.

So you replaced Will Bower at the time, right?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, Will, I think, wanted to take a little time, and.

And so they called me to do the European run.

And.

And.

And it's funny because I said, well, how long do you think you may want me to be around?

I'm just trying to figure out what I need to pack.

And he says, well, I don't know.

So we.

I said, okay, well, let's go.

And, man, it turned into a really cool thing, I have to tell you.

Playing with Maceo was one of the other great highlights in my career, because Mason Prince were two entirely, like, kind of different kind of leadership type of situations, you know, Prince was more closer to James, but not as diabolical as James.

You know, James was hard, man.

I.

I've heard all the stories about James, and I've seen, you know, the movies and the documentaries and all of the stuff.

He was a great.

No, no.

No question about it.

One of the greatest in terms of, like, musicians that was in the game.

But he was a tough cat.

He was a hard cat.

And Maceo kind of approached it, like, I feel like that I would if I was a band leader, you know, I just, like, I'm not that Ma was easygoing.

He still was a consummate professional, but it just wasn't that kind of hard pressure in Macy.

It was just fun.

And, you know, we went everywhere that Prince didn't go.

You know, that was what I.

I went to places that I always dreamed of going to, and That's.

I went to those places with Maceo because you south of France and teed, you know, like all of these places, man.

You know, like Mallorca, Menorca.

Just all of the, the dope places, man.

Mace went to everywhere that had a club, basically.

So it was great.

So, so in relation to Prince and James Brown, did Prince give you back the money after he finds you?

No, because I, I had a couple James musicians said, oh, a couple weeks later he gave the money back.

No, I guess if we look at it in that kind of manner, he always it that for what I would give him for it.

It was more of a lesson.

It wasn't that, you know, like he needed the money.

I mean, Prince always took care of me.

On the financial tip, man, I, I, Prince would do so well sometimes when it came to money that I actually had to go back to him and say, hey, man, I think he made a typo on this thing that this, this check is like a hundred grand.

So I'm like, I'm pretty sure that wasn't right.

He's like, no, no, that's what I meant to do.

And I'm like, like what?

You know, like, that's that kind of stuff.

So I mean, my little couple few hundred that I screwed up and just had to pay into the Love for One Another charity fund because that's where the money would go.

He put the money in they Love One Another bucket and that sort of thing.

And so it wasn't like.

But it was more of a lesson, like, you got to stay on top of your thing, man.

You know, you gotta.

It wasn't like, I'm just.

He'll make a joke.

Like he but just bought me a new pair of boots.

But it didn't really.

It just went in the Love for one.

Yeah, but, but, but, but that was just the thing.

But yeah, I, I made out way better than he did.

Way better, you know.

Right.

Yeah.

Our, our viewers should know that you played a crucial part in the welcome to America box.

I bring it.

It's.

It's on the floor here, but it's a heavy deluxe.

I was gonna bring it over, but.

Yeah, that's incredible that an album you were heavily involved with, it never was released and then rediscovered and put together.

Yeah, yeah.

It just was one of those things, man.

Look, the reason why I love music so much, man, because you never know the shelf life of music, especially with one of the greats like Prince, you know, and, and that's one of the things that I, I hope the estate, you know, I'm.

I'm kind of on the outside of it and, you know, and I've.

I've always been like, where I offer my services in a way that I can help with regard to anything that the estate.

Because it is important for me, the proliferation of Prince's legacy.

That, that's what the bottom line for me, I don't have no dog in the fight other than Prince's proliferation out in the game.

So I'm hoping that they, you know, would focus on, you know, really releasing this music and a little bit more frequency and those types of things.

I, I think that's what the fans want.

They want to hear that music.

They want to.

There's a lot of content.

There's a lot of concert footage that Prince would film.

All of the concerts that we did.

Yeah, that's, that's what I want to see.

Yeah, so it's like, I want, I want you to see it.

I want everybody to see it.

You know, Prince.

For those who didn't get a chance to see Prince and didn't get a chance to see the mantra jazz, you know, we have all of that stuff.

And I think everybody should see the greatness of Prince and all of it out there.

So I might, as always, my door is always open to them in terms of any two cents that I can bring to the table.

You know, these, these folks, you know, l is a great lawyer and they have great people down there.

But like I said, I was in the situation, work with this man on a daily basis.

And, and so if they, you know, want to use that expertise, and then not only myself, there are some others that, that work with me that have the same insights and have the same thing.

I would really want it to be a conglomerate of people that work with them that just like, what.

How do we proliferate this, man?

How do we put it on the levels of Michael Jackson and Elvis and Jimi Hendrix and other people like that, that have estates that, that disseminate that music.

I want for us to be at the top of that list with all of those greats.

And certainly he should be, and certainly he is.

You know, so I just want to make sure that I've done everything that I can to make sure that that's.

The case and the amount of footage that still hasn't seen the light of day.

You mentioned that other great artists.

And he prints the amount of material so much.

It's, it's, it's so much different.

I mean, it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, a lot of those people's wads have been shot in terms of like all of the footage for Elvis.

And we already know what that is.

You know, there's not going to be a whole lot of more stuff that's like, oh look, we just uncovered a, you know, know 20, you know, 50 Elvis tapes.

You know, it's just like, that's not going to happen at this point.

Prince, that's already the case.

There's tons of stuff that's untapped.

It's like sitting on a giant diamond mine, you know, it's just like, you know, he's got untapped resources that's in there.

And then, you know, he just, just like stuff is in the ball, you know, he just puts it back in the bolt.

And I was glad.

Yeah.

What was when they, when they discovered that in the ball, what was the, the stuff that you had to do to, to add to it and get it ready for official product?

What was going into that?

I don't think it was, it was a.

That's the thing.

There wasn't a lot added to it at all from, from what I did last.

Most of the stuff that I did, it was done then and it didn't have.

The only thing I told Princess was this one song when she Comes.

I loved it so much and because he told me to just work on anything, everything.

And I told him, I said, prince, this is so good.

I said, man, this is like old Prince to me.

And I just said, I love it, man.

I said, I don't want to mess it up.

I think this is a Claire Fisher song.

I think you should call Claire and he do a string arrangement like, like, you know, like I, I said, I don't want to muck it up, I don't want to mess it up.

He said, yeah, maybe I should call Claire.

Like I said, yeah, dude, that's Claire Fish all day.

Just, just let him do that.

And, and, and because I want it to be so, so great and what I would do to it.

Cannot even breathe in the same room as Claire Fisher.

So just call the man.

Ain't be call the man is what I was basically saying, you know, just.

And he said, yeah, I may do that.

So, but, but it never got sent out to Claire.

You know, he kind of just tabled it and you got that, you know, Brandon, Claire Fisher, it was his favorite, I mean, all time string arrangers.

I mean, it's like the cats, you know?

Yeah.

Together.

I mean, under the cherry moon and onward.

They're just great, great stuff, you know?

And, And Brent, equally.

Was.

Was crazy.

I mean, Brent did some stuff that I didn't actually realize that.

That he did that I thought was Claire, to which I was very happy to find out that.

That it was him, because I just thought when Claire died, it just died with him.

And I was just so happy to know that Brent could do it.

I was just like, thank you, God.

Like, Brent is still able to just do that.

And one day, I'm putting this energy out there.

Brent is going to do some of my stuff.

Yeah.

I've already sent him some stuff that he likes.

I got to get my little change together because he got a bunch of people that play for him.

Give him a little change together, right?

Yeah, yeah, some of my stuff.

But, but so, so your own stuff.

What can our.

Our viewers look forward to?

Your own music?

You know what?

I, I.

I've been working with Kip.

Kip came.

He's.

He's staying with me now, and I had him come over and work on some music for me with.

With mayor and the other mayor that I'm working with, Santiago.

I've done three songs with her and got one out right now that's doing pretty.

It's pretty cool.

And so we.

I just said, you know what, man?

This.

It went so well to work with Kip.

I put him in my back studio, and I just said, this is going great, man.

So what I want to do is I want to get some of my tunes, do this thing.

And Kip said, morris, you know, you should just do your own record.

You know, so many people in the, in the game, man.

Just get one, you know, all of these people, you know, to just guest on some songs and just do a whole album where you got guests.

So I did an interview yesterday, man, with DOA that I was in.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah.

On Sacramento.

So he.

So after our long interview, I told him, I said, man, I said, kip had a suggestion that I should do this.

And I said, so, man, I'm.

I'm recruiting you, man.

I want you to do this right?

He said, bro, I'm there, man.

Me and Bobby Gonzalez, I'm.

We're there.

You trust and believe.

And so I'm just gonna call on some folks that I've worked with over the years.

You know, King and, And.

And all of these folks kept saying, he's gonna, he's gonna work with me.

I know I can count on Mayor McLean and, you know, I can count on her.

And.

And so I'm just gonna call on some folks, man, and just do a record, man, and just have some cool stuff.

Yeah, I mean, they.

They appreciate your working, working with them.

So that's.

Yeah, you just wrecked thing.

Name after name was like, oh, man, those are great musicians.

So.

Oh, man.

Killers, you know?

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

We had Eddie Manyfield on last summer, maybe in the fall.

Yeah, man.

He's with the doa.

And John Paris was on.

Oh, yeah, John Paris.

Great drummer, man.

Those guys are killers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, I wanted to ask you about the.

The last proper tour you did with Prince.

Welcome to America.

Went into welcome to Canada and came back to Chicago and everything.

What was the decision, the configuration?

Three keyboardists on tour and you're not in the pit?

Was that just a amount of room or was it something that you guys worked together, you wanted to be somewhere else?

I mean, I have.

I have a.

I have kind of a theory about it.

I think, you know.

You know, once we got on the Symbol stage, that there was a limited amount of real estate that you could have.

And Prince kind of grew my setup to the point where it was too much to be on that stage.

I would have ate up a big percentage of that stage.

So, you know, and putting Renato and Cassie on the stage and then putting me out by the soundboard on my own stage, I had all of my Hammond mold, all of this other stuff to play, and just kind of like do it from out there.

I think by that time Prince probably realized I was on my way out.

And that was just kind of a.

A nice phasing out kind of thing.

It's like.

It makes it seem like I got a lot of stuff and a lot to do, but I just was like, off like.

Like over there, like.

And then a lot of my parts kind of turned into percussion and bungos and.

And other stuff of that nature.

And so it was just like I.

I could see the handwriting on the wall and.

And, you know, me and Prince were fighting about finding about sound, you know, like feedback and stuff.

And I'm like, you know, Prince, I'm not a sound man.

I'm.

I'm like, that's not my job.

And I don't.

I'm telling you that this thing you're trying to do with the.

The monitors going through the front of house is a disaster, you know, And I'm telling them, like, nobody does it like that, Prince.

It's like, nobody does sound that way.

We're the only ones.

And there's a reason for that, because this is a disaster.

And he did not.

He was not happy about that, me telling that, you know, because it's like we got this feedback.

You know, we spent hours and hours in soundcheck working on sound.

And then because it was coming from the same console now, I think a lot of that now has been able to be.

You know, a lot of these boards now are so sophisticated, they can actually do that kind of thing now.

But at the time, it wasn't.

You know, if you change the eq, if you're on a stage and you do the sound on the stage, you get it like you want, and then you go off the stage, go in the front of house, it sounds completely different from on the stage to what the people hear.

So then you start eqing for the house, which is changing the sound on the stage, but you're not there, because you can't be in two places at once.

Yeah.

And so we spent hours and hours doing that.

And it was very difficult to, you know, he thought it was a ruse, just another way for people.

People to get money and these types of things.

And I just.

Like Princess.

It's.

There's a reason why they don't do this and anybody else's show but ours, because it's.

It's crazy.

And, and.

And we need a monitor guy, a separate guy, because his board has EQ that we would like, and the front house got an EQ that they would like.

You know, that just was a thing for me.

And I.

And, and he did not appreciate that, me telling him because it just sounded like a bunch of excuses, like, you know, well, Morris, this is kind of some excuses.

I'm like, no, it's not excuse.

I'm just saying we can do whatever you want.

But I'm just telling you this.

This is very unorthodox and it's.

And it's highly troublesome, and I don't think it's going to work.

And.

And I remember when he called me back to.

I had been let go at that point, but he called me and said Third Eye Girl was within Anaheim and he wanted me to come.

And I was kind of busy and I didn't really want to go, but I didn't also didn't want.

And I had been.

He had asked me a few things before and I didn't go and I didn't do it.

And I didn't want him to think that I'd gotten sour grapes and was acting funny.

Style.

So I tell my wife, I said, you know what, man?

I'm gonna go ahead and go and go drive out there.

I hated that traffic going to Anaheim, especially at the last minute.

So I just said, I'm gonna go ahead and go.

And I'm.

Thank God I did, man.

I'm so glad I went, you know, because like I said, I didn't want to thank.

You know, I get this person who I got a vendetta or some sour grapes kind of crap.

I wasn't.

I was busy.

I didn't really feel like that drive.

But thank you, Jesus, that, that I.

I went and went to that show because it was the last time I saw him alive.

And so.

And I went to the show and, you know, he called me out and everything.

I'm standing in the crowd and he was talking to me during the show and people were like, who are you?

Like, he knows you.

Like, he keeps talking to you.

And I'm like, yeah, I used to work with him, whatever, but he makes you feel like a million dollars, man.

You know, Like, I felt like a million dollars.

And then after the show, you know, you know, all of the people around, I mean, a lot of celebrities were there that night.

And so, you know, I don't try to sweat Prince, man.

I was talking to Eda and the girls and everything.

I'm cool, you know, I'm like, I've been talking to Prince for two decades.

I'm like, I'm good, man.

But he saw me and he waved me over to come over, you know, come over and then.

And I told him, he said, what do you think, man?

I said, man, I said, princeton was great, but I did get him.

I said, but, you know, that sound was a little rough.

You.

Let's.

A little feedback going there.

And he.

I got.

So I got a little laugh out of him and told him, yeah, sound was still jacked up.

So it wasn't me.

It's still the same jacked up sound.

So.

So there's that.

You know, I got a chance to get him back with that, but.

But I was glad to see him and, and told him, I said, man, I'm.

I'm so grateful that you called me to come.

And.

And he did a great job.

And, and it's good to see you, you know.

Yeah, it's good you have that.

That memory of that's your last Face to face, right?

So that's the last Face to Face.

I talked to him on the phone after that and, you know, he called me about some stuff Some other, you know, just some.

Helping the musicians out with some stuff from afar.

And that was cool.

But I mean that.

To shake his hand and see his face and let's be on good terms, you know, man, it was cool.

And I'm just, I.

I just remember driving home saying, like, man, I'm glad I went.

And it was cool.

He made me feel so good, you know, just saying all this stuff from the stage and, you know, just pointing and, you know, people were really like, man, who are you?

Like, man, that's crazy that, you know, he's tough talking to you.

He must be somebody.

Yeah, it was funny, man, but.

But it was cool, you know.

It was cool.

Yeah, you're speaking about the sound and it's kind of amazing that his career, he's seen all kinds of sound things and still having that kind of issue that laid into his career.

But yeah, but you know what, man?

Prince was his own worst enemy in that regard because, you know, he knew enough to be dangerous.

He.

He knew a lot of, you know, enough about everything, man, and he micromanaged everything.

We always had the best sound engineers, Cubby.

All of those dudes are the best sound engineers in the game.

You know, the guy we had at that time was Rihanna's guy, you know, we had Shade's Guide.

Shade.

I went to Shade's concert, man, at the, at the, at the Garden at the Paramount in New York, man.

It was one of the best sounding shows I ever heard in my life.

It sounded like a record.

It just sound like a record.

Not an ounce of feedback.

Nothing of the sort.

And I went back and told Prince, I said, Prince, man, I said, oh my God, man.

I said, I just.

That show was incredible.

I said that the sound was just unbelievable.

He said, did you talk to the sound man?

And I said, got his number right here, you know, like that, you know, Right.

And I, and I messed that dude up, man.

Because, you know, friends called him, we got him to do our thing and, and he was great.

And Prince wanted him to make a build of sound system.

And he's like, I don't build sound systems.

You know, it just like he would, it would go to this next thing.

Like we got PMC speakers.

And then they are studio grade speakers.

But Prince loved them so much.

He wanted them to have them for live sound.

They're like, we don't do live sound.

It's just like the concept to him was like, these sound great.

I want to take a bunch of these that you got in the studio and, and put them on the stage for.

And they're like, it doesn't work like that.

It's.

That's.

It's not a live sound system.

It's a studio sound system.

And so it just.

In theory he had it in his mind like we could do these things like this.

But they were like the practicality is that that's not how it works.

These are studio speakers.

They operate in the studio setting.

You know, live sound equipment, microphones.

Although you don't use studio mics on the stage, the only person that I know that does it is Enya.

In your will use like a capsule that you only use in a studio.

But, but it, it wreaks havoc for any sound man to try to use it.

They're too sensitive.

They pick up everything around them and it makes.

Doing live sound, it just wreaks havoc.

Right?

And so you have to have things that are designed for live and for the stage that, that you know, like you can't really use like omnidirectional type mics.

And because they pick up sound from the front and back, you only want the sound to be focused where your mouth is.

So not on the sides, not in the back of the mic.

Because then that's where the feedback comes from and that's where all of those.

For people that, that listen to shows like what is that screechy sound?

That's like when sound is like repetitive and it's, it's feeding back on itself and it creates this super discomforting.

I remember when I was with Maceo and we opened for him for, you know, Musicology and Prince would have the guitar in his voice.

It was so loud.

I remember we opened and we came back for his show and it was so terrible and so loud that we left.

It's just like I, I looked, I went to Scotty and I said, scotty, turn it down.

Jesus Christ.

You got people wincing and kids.

Parents holding their kids ears.

Look at these people.

He said, prince likes it like this.

I don't want to piss him off.

I said, scotty, look at these people.

They are not enjoying the show.

It's too freaking loud.

Turn it down.

You know.

And so he said, man, I.

I got a job here, you know, My princess.

And so Prince asked me the next day, what did you think?

I said it was.

I said, prince, we left.

I said it was, it was not good.

I said, we left.

He said, what do you mean?

I said it was so loud.

It was so painful that people were wincing, people were holding their kids ears it was so loud.

It was just disturbing.

And so we went to the dressing room because we couldn't bear it anymore.

And he's like, is that musicology or what?

Was that musicology?

Yeah, musicology, yeah.

He's like, wow.

Like, he was shocked.

And I.

Because I ain't got nothing to lose.

I'm playing with Maceo.

It ain't like I'm gonna get fired.

So I told him, what's up?

I mean, and I would do that with him, but I certainly was going to do it with Macy.

He asked me a question and I told him the truth.

I just said, it's.

It was.

It was unbearable, bro.

I said, there are people, like, holding their ears and stuff.

And I just said, it just was too loud and it was piercing.

Like, the top frequencies were super.

Just.

And so he said, oh.

And he went, man, and totally revamped his.

I think I got Scotty in some trouble because, you know, he just was like, at that point, now it's Scotty's fault, you know, and that's not what I wanted to do.

It's not.

It wasn't Scotty.

He was doing what he was told to do.

And so, you know, so I didn't want to get Scotty in trouble.

But the bottom line is, you know, Prince wants it to slap off the back wall.

He wants to hear his guitar, he wants to hear his voice.

But I just was like, Prince, the balance is so off kilter, man.

It just.

You're not on.

You're not in the crowd.

You're on the stage.

You can hear it bounce back on the stage.

But I assure you, sir, it is not a pleasant thing.

And he fixed it.

He fixed it.

He came and redid sound check.

The next day was a very long sound check and.

And I stood out in the audience and I just kind of gave him the thumbs up or whatever and he fixed it, you know, so.

So that was cool.

I mean, you know, I don't know what it ended up being because we only did a couple of those shows when he did that, but.

But that was always a thing.

But the ban of my existence was the sound with Princey.

It just was like.

It's a wonder I still can hear now.

Yeah, the.

Yeah, right.

The only equivalent I had to that was when I used to DJ parties.

I was setting up for a wedding.

I was DJing reception.

And as I'm playing music, I'm hearing the classic rock station blasting through my speakers.

So I went in the back, that went to change into my tuxedo And I asked a worker, I said, is there something going through my speakers?

Is there a problem here?

He says, is this your first time playing here?

I said, yeah.

He says, the transmitter from the 50,000watt radio station right behind the venue.

So fortunately there was like a four piece band that was playing like dinner music, live music, and when I started cranking it, it overrode the, the radio station.

But that was.

Wow, that was.

I didn't even think, I didn't even think about that because the FCC has, you know, warnings on all of the, all devices that that type of interference is possible that you can have.

It's just an FCC thing.

And it's just like all of those things have to kind of play together.

And so you can't just say, well, these guys are on.

It's just like everybody's covered on the FCC thing.

And that's something we all had.

They always had to be cognizant of when it came to wireless stuff and that you could get that kind of interference in your electronics, you know.

That's crazy though, man.

Yeah, we used to have problems like that.

Oh, you used to have problems?

Yeah, on shows.

Yeah.

But with the wireless stuff, especially if there was another concert and the bands kind of got crossed up because, because it's just about selecting a channel.

Like you get a channel band, you have to find one that's like isolated and so that everything can operate on that.

Because if you're sharing channels with something, guess what, it's coming through the system.

So you just have to make sure that nobody was using the same bands that you were using, because everybody makes the same gear.

We're all using the same equipment, you know, so it ain't like, you know, sure, brother sure made a interface for us, but it was all of the same equipment and you just had to find the band to be on, you know.

Yeah.

A lot to go into a show.

Oh, absolutely.

Hey, well, I'll switch gears just a little bit.

You, you've been involved.

Jill told me that you.

I didn't even know about this.

How'd you get involved in that?

Well, a dear friend of mine, Bill Banfield, who was a, an instructor in, in St.

Paul and he worked with Bobby McFer and a lot of people he did, was a composer and did a lot of stuff, taught there in Minneapolis, St.

Paul area.

He had become a professor at Berkeley of African music studies.

And, and, and he Invited me, and, man, it was awesome.

It was.

Patrice is one of my heroes, man.

You know, since I'm in high school.

When she was on Soul Train, when she was pretty young herself, I saw her on Soul Train and just wish that I had up in the roads like she did.

And the lady heard me and said, oh, yeah, I got one loose.

I don't like it.

You can have it.

We owe 600.

You pay the 600 and it's yours.

Like, oh, my God, these things are, like thousands of dollars.

So.

So that was all on Patrice.

I mean, had I not been watching her playing and doing her thing on the thinner roads, I would have never seen at it, and I would have never had it.

And that keyboard was a big part of my growing up and having my own portable keyboard that I could play at a gig.

And so it's just one of those things, man.

It's just, like, part of my story and my tapestry of, like, how I got to be in the game.

And so it was really cool to see.

To go and do a thing.

And, of course, Stokely is a Minnesota hero, like Prince, you know, him doing his thing.

And so for us to go and do a situation where we are.

Do a situation where we are plugging the power of this thing, iPad just sucks it down to where I am with them doing a master class, kind of like a thing of, like, how is it to work with Prince?

And, you know, how is it, you know, Stokely does what he does and Patrice, that's what she does, you know, so it was really cool to be at Berkeley.

It's like Jedi school, man.

All those kids in there are amazing, man.

It's.

They're amazing.

Yeah.

A good friend of mine, she.

She works there, Barbara Thomas and she.

We went up there.

Actually.

I've only been to Berkeley once.

It was for the.

The charity concert for Gia Blackwell, John Blackwell's daughter.

Oh.

She did a scholarship concert.