Rock and Roll; Interview with Earl Young [Part 1 of 2]

My Name is Earl young and these are my work too and I call this part of the sound of Philadelphia. OK. My Name is Earl young. OK let me go next question here because we never considered a rock n roll. So it's it's really music. And I don't know some people say rock n roll rhythm and blues but it has always been just generally music to us. When you come in a studio you just you just here to play music and it was this disco rock n

roll R&B that's just music. Well going back to the early days really started up land in a place called the Uptown Theater which is something like the Apollo Theater in New York City and working as a house drummer. You get a chance to work with some of the best entertainment in the world. Like I played for Jackie Wilson and actually his drum wouldn't show up. So being a house drummer I had to stay to play as it plays music and I was like scared to death because I'm a Jackie Wilson Wow. And just luckily they gave me the music and I just sat around and often that was one of the greatest expanse of my life. Well actually I was planned before Gamble and Huff started

out with my two partners Norman Harris and Ronald Baker which is which Yvonne is a bass player and Norm is a guitar player. They have to cease now but we used to have a call like a street band and you go from clubs to clubs and you put your stuff on the back of a U-Haul and you go out of town and play. So we played we actually played together for a while and Norman got into the studio I would say first and he was working on a couple projects little things. Then Ronnie came in as a bass player and just happened one day a drummer didn't show up and they say will you call me up I said go into the studio and play after that. I'm used to really just playing in the house bands and clubs. So I went to I went and I was kind of frightened to death to say look don't worry about it just go ahead. When I when I wept when I had just make a film because I had no experience of studio work. And I got in the studio and I played my first record and I say jeez I did it and I got paid a hundred dollars. And after I made a hundred dollars I disagree on what to

do for the rest of my life. And I studied I got books and likely learned myself how to play. I mean nobody sat and taught me how to play or what I should play I just play what I felt and it came about coming on all records. And I've actually when I ran to gamble and Gamble Huff was coming into the studio and he was putting some tunes or stuff together and Norman and Norman went in there first and Ronnie went in there so they got me again I say will love this. They always play together so we want to put them all together that kind of form the rhythm section 5 by travelling all the all the time we had like a close bond and we were I think we started out with with artists like Joe Simon John the Sea of Love and the intruders. And like once you get one hit record it's like it's like a thing where I won't use anybody else because there was like a good luck thing. And we just started recording together and it was Vince

Montana and it was Bobby Ely and. Where one went we all went because that formed a sound and the sound wasn't just because they would say well of this is what I want you to play. I would say it sounds started because I brought into the studio what I thought just sound good on a record. Vince Montana brought in what he thought Bobby Ely norm and soulful and when it came together it came together actually of everybody planned their self and when everybody played a song for what they felt Want To Song after they've heard the song it just it just with so much energy it was just so much energy and a recording that it had to come out to be a hit record. Well by being by love and drums by love or drums

you know what I have always will. I had a certain kind of music I preferred to do which is I call those days to call a fat bag like I'm on. I'm a really A on B drum I like hardcore music I'm not really a jazz drummer which I can play jazz but I like hard core funk music and I would say one of the greatest person that I was in my experience working with Wilson Pickett he's a real funk master. So this is what I like to do. And when I when I was with the O'Jays I when I say the old days of going to record I ran to the studio because I know the kind of music that they were going to be doing. You know it was it I mean it was like like me creating my own songs. And that's just what I like to do. Well my impression of funk is is something that you feel inside of something

that you feel inside of you when when it's I like to dance. So if you like to dance. You like dancing. I like I love dance music and is it's a vibe that you can feel like like a fuse playing with a singer and a singer. It sends off a certain vibe that makes you feel good you play good I don't care whether you're playing jazz if you're a jazz musician and you could and the whoever's leading that they have to be able to lead you and you just feel those certain vibes. And right like when I play I play I play within my I mean like my whole body my whole body is playing and I just I have to the music charts. I play with my my whole body and I keep time. I mean that I keep it like keep in time you have to be able to do that. Would you like to buy some funky.

OK I just say. That these guys think you're here any more because they don't use the fork anymore I mean parliament the powerless only pay to hear that. But as market enemies as in my kind of music I like I like the fog you know. Folk master funk master number one. That's about dad. James Brown is definitely the number one fuck man. I mean he's always been and always will be. He just sense of when he has to stage or any ways that he just sends off a message to God that just got to get with me.

Just get with me and and if you can get with him here you know I know it because he's got it I mean like See I like to work. I like to work with all artists like Otis like Otis Redding this is a people I admire because they didn't have to have music they didn't have to have music to go to to get down they just can go interview. When I walk into a room and just start stop and you know this is going to be on fire. You know that's like my experience with with with the world and Pickett who I think is always back from the land of a Thousand Dances when we did a Wilson Pickett. This is a little bit on that when when he came to Philly and I said I was going to Wilson Pickett Wilson Pickett we're going to Wilson Pickett. I was in my glory because I mean this is a man that I admired. I have always in my sense since we stopped playing when I was on the in the basement dance and you know and when he came into the studio it was like the room lit up. I said are we going.

Jaron and I were going to Dan the day. So so GAM of them came by and we recorded a song called Don't let the green grass for you. And when you hear the title you have no idea of how song goes because you have musician or you know we don't let the green grass. It could be a ballot. So they give you pastoral charts out and they will say hi girls goes down to Green grass. So pick it pick a walk in the room the way Mitt Romney what I want. OK I I TELL YOU WANT TO ONE OF MY REAL greatest experience when we were at at Sigma and we was going to record Wilson Pickett.

So we're sitting there and they said Wilson Pickett is common in the US. Oh my God. Wilson Pickett. So we passed all the music out. Wilson comes in the door he comes in the door the Vives. I said she's been gone. Funk this up today really. So we pass all the music around and gamma was explained to us this is how the song goes it goes Look there or led to green grass I said. Because you don't know you don't really know how the song goes. So I said this can't be. I said how does NOT play this as it is a shuffle. Because because Pickett don't do a lot of shuffles I say what is ok to be like a shuffle like rock n roll is that OK so we try a little bit of it and I said Mr.. So it would stand in the back he would stand back and listen to that's why I said stop stop that in there this is where I want to get stepped up there that that that that I said now we gotta kick it out boy. Now that is it. So I sat down there he said.

Not as a group I mean we we ran it. I mean this I think by playing drums. I was so busy just watching him over the thought that this wasn't him over there just shaking his head you know because you forget all of you really forget all about plant but with him standing there and every beat I think I was planned. He was he was just there like he was on a live gig and I think that helps a lot of energy when an artist is there with you because when the audience is there you'd know exactly where a lot of times they don't have the singers they're with you and just give you a little piece of music and you have to figure out how they're going to sing it. But that's one thing I would say about the feel of your sound because we always had the artists there with us. And before we do any kind of recording we always have a chance to talk to the artist get a personal feel about a little joke and a joke and you laugh and then all of a sudden they tell you what they want. So then a joke and stuff but then you get in you get to

know him for it then when they do they are singing the song and once they sing you the song you know exactly what to play. So it's not just picking up a piece of music in the sand I wonder how this song go. They stand there and they show you hired how they wanted to feel that they want an energy and when it comes out on on our record it was just like they were there singing and they had to sing over top which you're playing but it's just like they were staying alive. And that's that's really part I would say that helps the felucca sound. The let me say they were always in the studio because because usually the gamble we would go over there would go over a song with them while you're while they're there and you would play and they would they would sing and they were saying it right there why your plan and I will give you the idea of hired girls. I will you know I would know whether I can make a

fill here or whether I should make a fill there or if I have if they feel what I'm playing and if maybe what I'm Banbury unplanned or wrong groove and they can't get into it. So we always had the artist with us always and it was it was good because it I mean we we got to know the artist personally and I was glad because if I was out of work and I needed a drummer I can always call and say look man you me again you know and that was just a fun part of it. Oh. I love I love music was really like a it was like a groove. A lot of the songs that were a lot of the songs that we recorded was just done on the spot like like Norman my starter a little groove or Bobby Eli would miss my start a groove and that and then I might pick it up with something like this here

that's the groove to I love music. And if I was playing something like that there was a faster mouse. Then I might. Have like a hundred hundreds of different drum feels in my head so it's whatever one that the producer likes. I'm I have an idea or something I like and I think that will fit but I'm glad it worked but he's paying me so I have to make him satisfied. So when I came up with that one like. Perfect we're going to use that and then the combination of what of another musician fall in on I grew. Add in this part you might say by OK you get man you place a Bobby might come with a figure like that you can do to a group of if you do that and it just fits right in a pocket and then see my comment on Norman. So we we automatically what we wind up having is an instrumental

Without where I mean that the music was so good you could take the words off of the songs that I have put out as a as a stand in to happen with the sound the philosophy with the Soul Train theme and just take words off and put out instrumental because the music was the band with just that type. So we create a week we create in the studio. I mean everybody is if anybody ever asks what is the sound of a Lafayette nobody can say that they are responsible for the sound of philosophy. It didn't belong to anybody here it belongs to everybody because everybody came in the studio and did what they felt and put their own ideas and energy on a chord chart and a chord chart is only made up of basic changes it doesn't have to be based on one voice doesn't have that you just have four bars eight bars 16 bar whatever.

Then you use what you got up here. So when they say the sound of you belongs to gamble and it belongs to Gavin half because we as musicians and as a unit came together. He was paying us to play for him on his songs. But the sound of the life it does not belong to gamble it doesn't belong on the harp it doesn't belong to me or to any of us it belongs to the whole unit because if you took out one person the sound would change if you took out a drummer if you took out a guitar player Vives or piano player. That's where our starts at just me of becoming a player plays piano. But he can sit there and play that piano all night long and will be nothing until a bass player came in with his thing like the song Bad love the bass line do these things that you know these are things that you know write on charts.

When you hear bass line like doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. These are things that somebody came in and said Man take a set. And Claire and I my semester sounds great. And that's it. And the song is put together just that way with one musician playing something another musician here in it put in his idea to it and it comes out to be bad. Dan and and and but we don't own a song so they can say that the musicians did this they had to say it was a Gamble and Huff song but they did tell us what the play on that sort of sound of love is based around all the musicians live in and the ones dead.

Now I won't say strings and horns cause because the strings and horns were used like the FSB is is basically almost the same with the South so opposite because they use the same people don't any difference and that is that there's a Ranger's are different. Like best my town I would arrange his way and his sound. Bobby Martin would arrange his way. Norman Harris would arrange his weight and Bobby Ely would arrange his way so it's up to the rangers up here of how they feel that a lake to go fishing go back back back back back back to that. So this is what the difference and and and each song and Philadelphia because. Gamble Huff and Bell what Tommy Bell used to arrange most of his stuff but Kenny Gamble Leon Huff didn't write strings and horns they would give you or they would give you a piece of the song when it's finished and said Here you put some horns on this here.

So it's very seldom that people look at a record and say ah this was horns done by Vince Montana or horns done by Norman Harris. They would look at just one thing. How Melvin The Blue Notes I said. So the little people never get credit for what they do on records you know. And that's why this is this is like this is like a joy to me because now people people are really saying what a musician goes through how much time they put into their tools. And but it's Enjoy this is what this is what we do. To me the difference.