Rock and Roll; Interview Cynthia Robinson and Greg Enrico

Priest I had an ear. It's OK with us. The way he told stories of the way he the way slide told stories in a song or you know the lyrics and he. And he could express and get across to you that you were somebody and and you felt that it no matter what walk of life you were in you heard that loud and clear without knocking. You know the absent party but just let you know that you have control and you don't have to let people keep you down and just you have to keep that sunshine going though you know that something positive and just you just got to keep you know I need to just keep it made people feel like they could really change their own lives and which we can we do have the power but sometimes other forces make us believe that we're just not going to get the chance. He

is what he wrote he seemed like he wrote for whoever was going to do the part if he decided this line was going to go here or. Or if this lyric was going to go there or he considered the person that was going to play it or sing it or beat it. And so that it wasn't out of their capabilities even if they thought they couldn't do it at first when they started working with it. They found that hey I didn't know you know I could do that you know. Right. The type of things that he wrote for Greg he he wrote things that well when he wrote a song he considered each person that was going to be a part of this song is what I'm so he considered their personality. And so he wouldn't have you doing something that you would might feel

you know awkward or uncomfortable or didn't like doing and gave you the option to if you didn't like it let me know and I'll write another one. And what is it. Because of most writers write a song they say well I wrote this for Whitney Houston I wrote this for James Brown. And when they gave it to somebody else to do you know what I mean it turned out to be a great song or they did it themselves and it was even better than. But he wrote for that person he didn't just write a song. He he considered the people that were going to be included and their personality and and what he wanted to get across also I mean he just the whole ball of wax is like this when he comes in here to play he considers the acoustics and the wattage of the amplifiers in the spacing and who's going to stand where and where other you know that the voice backs are going to be so you can

hear yourselves and what my even hearing that special Mike that he chose for me to use when I recorded that he shows something different. For Jerry for his horn texture. So I'm just in four voices. And but I don't think he was just intentionally doing that it's just that he was that aware of what was needed and he was doing that just as a matter of having that knowledge. And revere our lines or would that be restored. You. Should check. Out this link go about. There's a

drum with you in this. Well there were rock drummers it was a there wasn't rock drummers but the time at the time we started to grow. You say in the late in the middle 60s to middle to late 60s drums were more or less light like I had mentioned TV for like paint on the wall you know it was really it was considered an instrument that was. Needed to be there but just just for a rhythmic purr just to keep temple more or less just the time I needed to say exactly what you just like. I don't ever think like I said before I'm sorry. I thought OK OK you can edit that out. OK. Yeah. Wait a second that you just. OK yeah. Oh yeah drums at that time were more or less like paint on the wall.

They were considered an instrument just of temple more than creative suggestions and inspiration and I never heard I mean I've always heard drums was always so exciting to me when I was a kid and you know I used to listen when a band played Would there be just a guy with an accordion and you know like at a wedding reception which was where I bought my first pair of drums when I was 14. It would excite me to listen that I hand into the snare and bass drum. And so I've always I had a different inspiration about I had a different pitcher and I mean you know thank God I was born at the right time to where I you know had opportunities to to to be in it you know in a vehicle to where as I could express these feelings I had about rhythm and in about music because I would hear rhythm in music as one and not separately not just as keeping time but I would

hear it I hear colors I'd see colors to chords and melodies into different you know lyric expressions it would be different pitches I get my mind so the drums were a way for me of expressing that you know like I said fortunately I was with like as you know with sly and Family Stone I had it was you couldn't ask for a better vehicle to to experiment express those those feelings you know with me. Thank you. Yeah. So I know where you're with me early on Buddy Rich was definitely he was inspiring because he had long in jeopardy. He had he was he was a big. His personality was he was very aggressive and he was he had more or less.

He was arrogant you know which kind of fits with with the drums because you have to be aggressive you know in contemporary you know rock and rhythm and blues and the part required that more to be the more aggressive as opposed to like say pre 60s like I was talking about the old days where rhythm was more of a timepiece rather than an expressive instrument of music. So like Buddy Rich he had long in jeopardy and he had had the chops. He played in for a big band drummer he played with a lot of feel a lot of personality. I was like that. And then there was you know far as rock you know goes I used to listen to I used to practice to record like Little Richard like Lucille. And you know Fats Domino those records and all the way you know from that to you know who's. I used to listen to here in San Francisco as a station and then if a sly was a disc

jockey on Caswell and I played all the R&B records and the rhythm and blues records. So I used to listen that sometimes on Sundays we'd listen to the Gospel stations like early in the morning you know and you could get some rhythms and that's just wild stuff that just came across on the radio like nothing else you know. So I got a lot of inspiration from that. What about you James Brown I used to practice that stuff too. He fits you know I mean he has stuff he would establish a groove. I mean his music was real simple but it was very powerful. And you know it would cut a swath swath through or wherever it landed you know he would establish he'd lay on it and he didn't give it up you know to the record ended it from the second it started it was every place that it went musically which we didn't go to a lot of a lot of places but where it did go it was big and definite and you could hang onto it you know.

So he was he was very influential in that. Look at that. OK there's a riot going on album where sly started using. Rhythm machine. And he the way he is that he applied it as opposed to like James Brown using his rhythmic accent would be on the one. Definitely. Sly took the rhythm machine and he was writing it without the go he had moved to L.A. So without the group being there and whatever else was going on you know he'd need rhythm to write so the rhythm machines had just come out and they were you know in the early days and it was actually there was a couple of them they were pretty simplistic compared to what's available now but there was a couple of them that had like these they used they were the Latin

rhythms that they had preprogrammed in you sings and they were kind of funky you know if you but it but he would it he would take it he would turn like you count one two three four one two three with one camera. He would turn around he'd start the phrase on the three or on the two. And so it began there and then if you listen to it and you stablish that that's where the one was rather than where it was conceived by the programmer. It turned into this obfuscate your funky thing and it was from outer space it's great. So he would take that you know and lay the track down on tape and then start writing and establish the one in a different place other than where it was conceived. And it would really make for some. That's it. Okay great.