reconstructing

DJ SHADOW
1
1
ISSUE 66

ORIGINS 6
THE AVALANCHES 10
DANNY HOLLOWAY 14
CYNTHIA ROBINSON 20
LEON SYLVERS III 30
DJ KRUSH 50
DJ SHADOW 60
DAVID AXELROD 82
OUTRO 104

DJ SHADOW
BY B+
FRONT COVER

DAVID AXELROD
BY DAVID ALEXANDER
COURTESY OF CAPITOL
RECORDS ARCHIVES
BACK COVER

EDITOR BRIAN DIGENTI

MARKETING DIRECTOR DENNIS COXEN
CREATIVE DIRECTOR FREDDY ANZURES
ASSOCIATE EDITOR TOM MCCLURE
EDITOR-AT-LARGE ANDREW MASON

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS B+
MICHAEL GONZALES
DAVID MA
CHRIS WILLIAMS

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS MICHAEL A. GONZALES

DAVID MA
ALICE PRICE-STYLES
DAN UBICK
CHRIS WILLIAMS
DANNY MASAO WINSTON

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS B+
DERICK DAILY
KIM GOTTLIEB-WALKER
STEVE GULLICK
ASHINA HAMILTON

2
MYTHS AND LEGENDS

I first heard David Axelrod had passed from Now-Again Records owner Eothen Alapatt. ADVERTISE@WAXPOETICS.COM
718-644-2244
Which is fitting, since Eothen had introduced us nearly twenty years earlier. I remember stand-
ing in the bare kitchen of my Brooklyn apartment, waiting nervously for the phone to ring. I WAXPOETICS.COM/SUBSCRIBE
had interviewed some iconic artists before, but this was different; David wanted to talk to me. SUBSCRIBE@WAXPOETICS.COM
For years, the name David Axelrod was shrouded in mystery yet whispered in secret cir- 818-963-3372

cles, like an incantation, a wish, a dream. After Buckwild’s remarkable remix of the Artifacts’
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“C’mon Wit Da Git Down” in 1994, word slowly got around that the sample, “Holy Thursday,” MELANIE RAUCCI
came from Axelrod’s 1968 debut solo album, the impossibly rare Song of Innocence, which was DISTICOR MAGAZINE DISTRIBUTION SERVICES
ultimately bestowed “holy grail” status. Then, two years later, DJ Shadow dropped his now fa- MRAUCCI@DISTICOR.COM
631-587-1160
mous Endtroducing… (which turned twenty last year) whose lead single, “Midnight in a Perfect
World,” contained a haunting piano refrain from “The Human Abstract,” off of 1969’s Songs of RECORD STORE DISTRIBUTION
Experience, Axelrod’s second solo album. I was now gripped by an obsession. I tried my best to TYLER MCWILLIAMS
find all of David Axelrod’s records, including the albums he produced or in some way had put FAT BEATS DISTRIBUTION
TYLER@FATBEATS.COM
his mark on, including the Electric Prunes, Funk Inc., and every Cannonball Adderley album 617-412-6698
on Capitol Records. And so I decided to create a rudimentary website and track my progress;
little did I know the man himself would catch wind of it. PUBLISHED BY WAX POETICS, SPRING 2017.
PRINTED IN THE USA BY QUAD/GRAPHICS
When I picked up the phone, a gruff, animated voice greeted me. David was excited be-
DISTRIBUTED BY DISTICOR MAGAZINE
cause he could feel a comeback was in the air. Shadow and partner James Lavelle had just DISTRIBUTION SERVICES. ALL RIGHTS
tapped him to remix UNKLE’s “Rabbit in Your Headlights.” More people seemed to be RESERVED. UNAUTHORIZED DUPLICATION
talking about Axelrod now, especially in England. And so he wanted to call me to thank me WITHOUT PRIOR CONSENT IS PROHIBITED.

for my website, for my small part in spreading the gospel. During our conversation, I would
ISSN 1537-8241
soon learn that David, a Los Angeles native, was incredibly successful during the 1960s as a
in-house producer for Capitol Records. Hit records by Lou Rawls and Cannonball made Axe © 2017 WAX POETICS
a wealthy man. But everything is fleeting in this world. As the 1980s progressed, he traded his
Encino mansion for a “tarpaper shack.” After years of being broke and nearly destitute, life
would somewhat improve when his dear friend, fellow Capitol alum H. B. Barnum, brought
Axe and his beloved wife Terri out of the shack and into a modest apartment in North Holly-
wood. “I got first and last,” Barnum told him regarding the rent, “but the rest is on you.” Soon
after, Axelrod would start hearing about producers sampling his music; but it wasn’t until 1999,
a year after our first phone call, that a godsend would fall upon him in the form of Dr. Dre’s
“The Next Episode,” which interpolated David’s composition “The Edge.” This respite from
poverty would be followed by various reissues and compilations, as well as a new album for
Lavelle’s Mo’ Wax label. The myth was growing.
Over the years, I stayed in touch with David, even traveling to London to see his perfor-
mance in 2004. Then, in 2005, Eothen suggested that we interview him for this magazine.
People have frequently told us how much they love our interview because of our amusing
back-and-forth and how cantankerous Axelrod seemed, sometimes outright rankled by our
questions. Re-reading the piece, I remember how we chose not to indicate who was asking
the questions, but you can actually tell when it’s Eothen talking by how testy the answer was;
David loved ribbing him. But what people didn’t know is how much he loved us. He treated
many of us like family, for better or worse.
In my fifteen years as editor, I’ve come across countless musicians whose tales are question-
able. And David’s stories always seemed too wild to believe. While we helped perpetuate the
myth, I often wondered how much was really true. But stories by musicans he worked with,
including Barnum, and a trove of recently unearthed Billboard articles written about Axelrod
by Eliot Tiegel have corroborated everything. The man was more legend than myth.
DJ Shadow, someone who has helped spread the word about David Axelrod as much as
anyone else, has also dealt with myths in his own career. Shadow’s debut longplayer on Mo’
Wax has taken on mythic proportions, and he quickly accumulated a fanatical following that
made it hard for him, as an artist, to escape the shadow of his early work. While it seems he
would rather talk about anything but his debut album, we went to his home in Northern Cali-
fornia and got him to open up about the crucial, early days that led up to the important release.
In this issue, we also talk to Shadow’s Japanese labelmate DJ Krush. Then we return to
Los Angeles for our conversation with Leon Sylvers III, who led his siblings to fame as sweet-
soul-turned-disco group the Sylvers. Finally, circling back to Northern California, we offer up
another family affair, that of Sly and the Family Stone trumpeter Cynthia Robinson and her
daughter Sylvyette Stone. And don’t miss next issue when we drop our second Prince tribute.

4
 ORIGINS
A sampling of some
of the many records
that laid the foundation
for Endtroducing…,
the debut full-length
album by DJ SHADOW.

6 ORIGINS
ORIGINS 7
8 ORIGINS
ORIGINS 9
THE AVALANCHES keep sampling from becoming a lost art.
After a sixteen-year absence, Australian plunderers Robbie Chater
and Tony Di Blasi return with Wildflower, an epic—but whimsical—
journey through obscure outsider-artist vinyl samples that shows
life is dark and, ultimately, beautiful.
RARE EARTH
by Alice Price-Styles
“Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo / It’s a world of
fantasy.” The comforting choral refrain
from the Five Stairsteps’ “World of Fantasy”
perfectly captures my feelings, and I daresay
most fans’ feelings, toward the Avalanches,
who sample the 1966 Stairsteps song in
“Light Up” on their long-awaited sophomore
album, 2016’s Wildflower.
All music, to varying extents, can be a
means of escapism, but there is something
so truly captivating about the way that the
Avalanches layer up mind-boggling amounts
of samples to create the most whimsical and
nostalgic make-believe world full of sound
bites and funky grooves. Pressing play on the
Avalanches is like falling down a rabbit hole
and coming out the other end into an aural
utopia where Blowfly shakes a tail feather
with Françoise Hardy at Club Med.
“It’s a weird sort of paradox, because
[music] can really transport you,” Avalanches
cofounder Robbie Chater reflects. “And
especially using samples, it can play with time,
using old recordings, and there’s the history
of that record. So in one sense, you’re playing
with time and nostalgia, but in the moment
[of listening] you’re extremely present.” It’s
true. It’s a very visceral and profound form of
escapism, in ways more immediate than most
everyday-life experiences. Chater continues:
“Music soundtracks your life; it’s connected
to what you’re experiencing at that time. It’s
wonderful like that.”
Forming in the late ’90s in Melbourne,
Australia, the group’s lineup has varied
somewhat over the years and now consists
of just Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi
(previous members included Darren
Seltmann, James Dela Cruz, Dexter Fabay,
Gordon McQuilten, Manabu Etoh, and Peter
Whitford).
10
“I lived in my imagination a lot as a
kid,” Chater admits but states that he wasn’t
exposed to vast amounts of art and culture
growing up in suburban Australia. “I think
that came later as I really began dedicating
myself to making music. It was always
sample-based music from the start. So it was
a parallel journey of my musical career and
searching for what I need to make songs but
also of discovery and finding out what I like.
As a young kid, I absorbed my old man’s
record collection, which was the Band and
Bob Dylan and all that kind of stuff, but I
wasn’t exposed to a wide world of film or
anything like that. There was a piano in the
house, and then I sort of taught myself how to
play guitar. When I was young, I was always
really curious and loved music, I always
fucked around making it but didn’t think it
was something I would want to do. When I
was twelve, thirteen, I became obsessed with
hard rock and playing guitar and growing
my hair long, ’cause AC/DC are massive in
Australia. Suburban Australian music, you
know? I just wanted to smoke pot and play
guitar and listen to heavy metal,” Chater
says with a laugh, and adds, “I knew that
there was a path there somewhere for me.”
It makes me think of Joseph Campbell’s
theories on following your bliss.
“And then about fourteen,” he continues,
“I started mucking around with four-track
tape recorders, making loops and recording
by myself. I guess that was the beginning
of the journey that I’m still on. [A few years
later] I was sharing a place with Tony. We
were seventeen, had just moved out of home,
and were doing our thing, taking drugs, and
listening to music,” Chater says, laughing. “A
really close friend of ours, Jo, lived with us
as well, and then she met Darren [Seltmann]
and started seeing him, and he moved into the
house as well. It was this small house meant
for two people and ended up being four of us
living there. The three of us started making
music together, and it kind of began there.”
After the guys settled on the name the
Avalanches, they released their debut single,
“Rock City,” in 1997 on Trifekta Records.
This led to their first EP, El Producto, being
released on Wondergram Records later that
year. Then, based on the success of the EP
and playing shows with big-name artists such
as Stereolab, Public Enemy, and the Beastie
Boys, the group was signed to Modular
Recordings to start working on their first
full-length album.
Recording for their debut LP began
in 1998, a time which Chater describes
as “a whirlwind…eighteen months of real
creativity.” It was in 2000 that they released
Since I Left You, a seamless sonic journey that
dances with nostalgia, grooves, euphoria,
and melancholy. It is rumored to contain
over 3,500 samples, so it makes a lot of sense
when Chater talks about the records that
influenced and inspired him and cites De La
Soul’s seminal debut: “First [record I] fell in
love with was probably 3 Feet High & Rising.
It blew my mind. I think that was the first
sample record I heard. I didn’t know what it
was, but I was intrigued, and I knew that I
liked it. That record is still a part of the DNA
of what we do. There’s a sort of joyous feeling
in the production. And like a lot of musicians,
I went through a phase of being obsessed
with the Beach Boys and the weirder ’70s
Beach Boys stuff. They also had this sort of
strange humor, and in my head there’s a place
where those two different things, where
there’s common ground, where we forged
our own identity from.”
 There is indeed a unique mélange of
playfulness, sadness, and ecstasy in their
music, and when asked how this relates
to reality, Chater simply muses: “Life is—
simultaneously, it’s beautiful and it’s fucked
sometimes.”
Since I Left You received high acclaim upon
its release, with singles “Frontier Psychiatrist”
and “Since I Left You” being praised as prime
examples of the possibilities of turntablism
and the wonders of the plunderphonic style.
But the longer that the Avalanches took to
follow it up with a sophomore album, the
more mythic Since I Left You and the group
(left to right) Tony Di Blasi and Robbie Chater are the Avalanches. Photo by Steve Gullick.
itself became. There were numerous false
or unfulfilled announcements from the
band and record label, which led many to
believe that a follow-up album would never
arrive. After sixteen years full of cryptic
messages and high hopes, the group finally
released Wildflower in the summer of 2016.
Like a Technicolor magical mystery tour
peppered with rappers, cartoon characters,
and the acidic spectrum of human emotions,
Wildflower is a rich and unforgettable trip.
“On this new record, we wanted it to
feel like you’re moving through a city, to
hear snatches of conversation and really get
a feel of where you are,” says Chater. “We
wanted snatches of overheard conversation
rather than big chunks, so the listener brings
their own interpretation to it and fills in the
blanks. It’s more powerful that way than
telling someone exactly what’s going on.”
The most striking difference between
Since I Left You and Wildflower is that Wildflower
features an array of guests, including MF
Doom, Warren Ellis, Toro y Moi, Danny
Brown, and Camp Lo. At first, the lineup of
collaborators seems as eclectic as the sample
material sourced (who would have imagined
Biz Markie and Father John Misty appearing
11
on the same record?). But upon deeper
inspection, the commonality between them
all becomes clear: a certain originality or
non-conforming je ne sais quoi. Chater says
that for this project they were attracted to
unique artists who are “hard to categorize,”
and he explains the method to their madness:
“There needed to be parallels, because a
lot of the music we were sampling was—
nowadays, they call it the outsider artists—but
strange old recordings and musical mavericks
who were doing their own thing. That was
really inspiring to us during the making of
this record, so people like Danny Brown or
Warren Ellis had that quality.” Wildflowers,
as it were. “In terms of the vocalists, it was
pretty hard; we had to think carefully before
we approached anyone. It was a long process
finding the right voice; even down to the
tone and the timbre of people’s voices, we
were pretty specific.”
And there are some sublime pairings
on the record: Toro y Moi on “If I Was a
Folkstar” is pure enchantment; Jonathan
Donahue (of Mercury Rev/the Flaming Lips)
blends into the swirling magic of “Colours”
like a turning kaleidoscope; Biz Markie’s
inimitable voice and vibe work in tandem
with the playful boom-bap style of “The
Noisy Eater”; and the combination of David
Berman (of Silver Jews) and Josh Tillman
(Father John Misty) on the hypnotic final
track “Saturday Night Inside Out” is the
perfect closing note.
As can be imagined, over the sixteen
years between albums, a plethora of music
was made. Not everything could make the
final mix, and there are enough yet-unheard-
but-surely-dope collaborations that didn’t
make the cut to make a fan’s head implode,
including work with the one and only Kid
Creole. “He was so lovely, so cool,” Chater
says. “That was one of my favorites, actually.
It’s this long spoken-word thing, and the
12 THE AVALANCHES
music’s really beautiful. Some days, he would
just sign off like, ‘Life is beautiful’—stuff like
that.”
Of the anticipation and pressure that
inevitably built up over the years, Chater says
it was “something that we had to work past”
in order to be free in what they were doing.
“The last few years, we weren’t thinking
about it at all. We got to a place where we
were comfortable with what we were doing
and just doing it for us.” By transcending the
external pressures and expectations, they
were able to distill the sounds and textures
that best fit together as a cohesive whole
and finish up Wildflower. It was ultimately
an intuitive and personal process, according
to Chater, despite the many onlookers: “We
knew when this one was right, when the
structure and all the songs were there. That’s
something we just knew, and that no one
could probably tell us.”
Hearing Chater talk about the experience
of creating music is just wonderful because
you can sense that the purity of his love
for it is still very much intact: “Sometimes,
songs can be painful and laborious to finish,
but as that initial spark of an idea is coming
along, I’m just high. It’s amazing, because it’s
connecting with a feeling inside and creating
a loop between how I’m feeling, and it’s
starting to actually sound like that, feeding
back into how I feel. [Making music is] a real
privilege, actually. It’s a beautiful thing.”
To accompany Wildflower, the group
worked with video artists Soda_ Jerk on
the short mash-up film The Was. “To me,
that piece better than anything sums up the
feeling of the record,” Chater says. “I think it
really captures something, just how beautiful
life is and how sad it can be as well.”
The Was is a perfect video translation of
the Avalanches’ style, sampling clips of Good
Burger, The Wiz, Space Is the Place, Saturday
Night Fever, Beavis and Butt-Head, The Warriors,
Beat Street, and countless other films. It’s like
it teases you with every possible epoch you
could have been born into or ways that you
could style yourself and your life now. Just
like the Avalanches’ music, it awakens you
to see the scope of life out there, to marvel
at it, and to want to embrace it all. When
asked about this aspect, Chater sums it up
perfectly: “It’s an art; I constantly have to
force myself to not fall into a mental routine
or rut. The human mind loves patterns and
loves getting into the same old thing day by
day. I find that I really have to break free of
that to stay inspired and live life to the fullest.
I guess, I’m always chasing that feeling with
the music and with the piece The Was. Maybe
it’s not [the same] for other people, but
personally, I just have to really constantly
remind myself to kind of wake the fuck up.
There’s so much out there to experience and
a lot of the world just seems so corporate and
safe. I want to shake things up, in my own life
and externally.”
“The only bad part about flying is having
to come back down to the fuckin’ world,”
narrates Rat at the beginning of the 1984
documentary Streetwise. The pertinent line
is cut into “Zap!” on Wildflower and holds a
sentiment that could also relate to listening
to the Avalanches and entering their world
of wonder and whimsy. The only bad part is
when the wax runs out and the needle stops.
When an Avalanches LP ends, you have to
come back to the real world; but, hopefully,
you come back renewed, transformed,
inspired, and a little shaken up. .
14
As an American living abroad and working for British music magazine
New Music Express, DANNY HOLLOWAY met Island Records owner
Chris Blackwell, who would offer him the job opportunity of a lifetime,
helping to introduce reggae and Bob Marley to the States.
ROOTS MESSENGER
by Dan Ubick
Danny Holloway’s record collection is as
deep as the Caribbean Sea, and he loves
music. The all-around music man is also
behind the Los Angeles club nights Blazing
45s and Fuzz, co-owns the popular 45 label
Ximeno, and has DJed for TED conferences,
boutique hotels, and Damian Marley’s
Welcome to Jamrock Reggae Cruise.
However, his pedigree and passion for music
started many years back as a journalist with
the British music mag NME, which led to a
gig with Chris Blackwell and his Island label,
working with Jamaican icons the Heptones
and Bob Marley and the Wailers. I sat down
with Danny at his home away from home, in
the Los Angeles offices of Dublab, where he
is a frequent contributor.
(opposite) The Heptones & Co. at Harry J’s in Kingston, Jamaica, 1975. (left to right) Danny Holloway, Island executive Charles Levison, Earl Morgan, Island’s U.S. publicist
Jeff Walker, Barry Llewellyn, and Leroy Sibbles (kneeling). Photo by Kim Gottlieb-Walker (lenswoman.com) from her book Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae.
(above) Wailers flyer designed by Danny Holloway, 1973. Courtesy of Jack Lowe Archive.
Tell us about how you first became
interested in reggae music, Danny.
Well, here in the States, there were three
really big songs—“Israelites” by Desmond
Dekker, “Hold Me Tight” by Johnny Nash,
and then one Jimmy Cliff song, “Wonderful
World, Beautiful People,” maybe—that were
hit reggae tunes on the radio. They never
called them “reggae” though. In fact, they
never called it a genre at all. So I hadn’t heard
a lot of Jamaican music till I got to London,
and what I heard was not very good—a lot
of songs [with] “Humpty Dumpty sat on a
wall”–type lyrics, you know? Anyway, at
the NME [in London], one of my jobs was
reviewing all the singles every week. And
they were putting out all these Jamaican
things, so gradually I started to like it, mainly
because some of the vocals reminded me of
soul music.
When did you first hear the Wailers?
While I was at the NME, Chris Blackwell
asked me if I wanted to go to Island for a
session for the Wailers’ LP Burnin’. I went
to the session and hung out for an hour or
so while the band was doing overdubs, then
they took a break. I was in the control room
with Blackwell and an engineer when [Bob
Marley] said, “Do you mind if I play you
a tune? I want to know if you think it has
potential for the States.” And he played me
“Get Up, Stand Up,” you know? But it was
slow. The way they recorded the tune was
at a rocksteady pace. So after I heard it, I
said, “This tune is an anthem, but the tempo
is too slow. In the States, if you want the
crowd to...put their fists in the air, it’s gotta
be more urgent.” He responded by telling the
engineer, “Can you speed it up using VSO
[vari-speed oscillator]?” So they sped it up
and looked to me for a reaction, and I said,
“It’s not fast enough.” He asked the engineer
to speed it up more, and I said, “That’s it!
That’s the right tempo right there.” I told this
to [producer] Mario Caldato years later and
he said, “I know you’re telling the truth with
that story, because I heard the original multi-
tracks and I was shocked at how slow the
song was.” That was one thing that happened
before I worked at Island officially.
I also interviewed Mick Jagger a few
times while I was still at the NME, and so
they asked for me to go and cover the Stones
recording Goats Head Soup in Kingston
[ Jamaica] at Dynamic Sound in 1972. I
spent a week or two there and knew that I
was going to have some spare time, ’cause
the Stones weren’t available all the time. I
interviewed Prince Buster, Byron Lee, and
the Wailers.
15
Once you were hired to Island Records
shortly after, what projects did you work
on with respect to Jamaican music?

There were two things that were always

a priority in the London office; one was
to break Bob and the Wailers; the second
one was to help spread the popularity of
Jamaican music to a new audience. Our
plan was to slowly, bit by bit, take it to the
world, you know? We [also] did the This Is
Reggae Music compilations. There’d been a lot
of compilations for the U.K. market, but we
started doing it for the States and the rest of
the world, trying to turn them on to Jamaican
music. At that particular time, the thing that
really cut through and got a lot of people that
weren’t into Jamaican music into it was The
Harder They Come movie, which was done
before I got there. It came out in [1972 and
1973 in the U.S.] and was magic for so many
people. But right when The Harder They Come
was [so popular], Jimmy Cliff’s deal was up.

Good timing for him.

Yeah. Well, the way Blackwell told me, he

said, “I couldn’t [renew] the deal with Jimmy
Cliff because he asked for a house in the
country”—right? Now, a house in the country
is, like, kind of an estate, you know what I
mean? That’s a lot of money, and [Cliff]
hadn’t recouped yet; he hadn’t paid back for
all those years that Island had paid for him
to record and all that. So, Blackwell couldn’t
buy him that house until he was caught up
more. So he said, “Sorry, I can’t give you
[what] you want,” and [Cliff] went to EMI,
they gave him a bunch of money, and he left
[Island]. That left a void of, like, who’s gonna
spearhead the reggae movement now? Then
Marley walked into Blackwell’s office.
What was Blackwell and Marley’s
relationship like?
[Chris Blackwell] looked after [Bob] like he
was his son. Bob asked for the Island Records
office in Jamaica very early on, before he’d
sold any records, and Blackwell found a way
to do it. So, in a way, Jimmy Cliff didn’t get
his house, but Bob did. There were so many
sympathetic things about Bob—he wasn’t
materialistic, he just wanted to get his music
out to the world. For instance, Bob gave me
a tour of the Wailers’ headquarters at Hope
Road once in the mid-’70s. When we went
upstairs, he showed me his small room and
there was a single bed, a small table with a
lamp on it, a chair, and on the bed was an
acoustic guitar. He always seemed to live
very simply. His wardrobe was basic and he
didn’t have many possessions.
We had a meeting one time with
Blackwell, and he gave me the recap after
Bob left. He said, “Bob wants to be thought
of in the same sentence as James Brown, Jimi
Hendrix, and Bob Dylan.” And, to us, it was
a really encouraging thing, because when
you have an artist sign to your label, you’re
sweating blood for that artist. You’re doing
everything you can to make it happen and
when you hear that they’re prepared to make
sacrifices and their sights are on taking it all
the way, you know?
What Marley LPs were you involved in?
I worked on three Marley albums in a row:
[1973’s] Burnin’, [1974’s] Natty Dread, and
[1975’s Live! At the Lyceum aka Live!] with “No
Woman, No Cry.” On Burnin’, I transcribed
all the lyrics that are on the original package.
I made a couple mistakes, but [laughs] I did
that. I also coordinated graphics. On Natty
Dread, I didn’t do a lot, just coordinated
graphics again. The sessions were closed
because Bob was really having to concentrate
on creating a new sound after Peter [Tosh]
and Bunny [Livingston] left.
Then on the live album, the Wailers
were on tour in the U.S. and doing very, very
well supporting Natty Dread, right? One day,
Blackwell calls me and says, “How’d you like
to produce Bob Marley and the Wailers?”
I just had a sarcastic look on my face, like,
“Yeah, right,” you know what I mean?
“That’s your job.” I was waiting for the punch
line; I thought it was a joke or something. He
goes, “Look, we need to record this show, and
I don’t want to be out in the truck. I wanna
host and look after people. Can you do that?”
Now, Island had an excellent mobile
[recording] truck, but it was being used by
Led Zeppelin. All of our best engineers
were also obligated, so we got the Rolling
Stones’ mobile truck and the two guys that
came with that. I’d done a lot of research on
live albums, and what I realized was that
people in 1975 were trying to replicate the
studio sound; many didn’t give you a [true]
representation of a live show. So when I
walked through the Lyceum with the two
Rolling Stones engineers the afternoon of
the first show, I noticed that forty to fifty
feet up there were rafters. I asked the guys,
“Can we hang microphones on long leads

16 DANNY HOLLOWAY
 above the audience’s heads?” And they said,
“Yeah, we can do that.” We had no idea that
there would be these spontaneous reactions
to songs, the crowd singing along without
being encouraged. That whole unique
concert experience was captured because we
had those mics there.

You saw so many great reggae shows

while in Jamaica, Danny. What were
your favorites? You saw the Mighty
Diamonds then?

Well, when I went to Jamaica to produce

the Heptones’ [Night Food] LP in 1975, [the
Mighty Diamonds] were huge. You know,
they had “Right Time” and “Back Weh,”
and it seems to me that it was the first time
the Channel One sound became massively
popular. I mean, on the radio, in the dance
hall, everywhere. When the Diamonds came
with their hits, it was launched into the
mainstream more. The Channel One sound
is one of the most classic sounds to come out
of Jamaica, and Sly Dunbar had a lot to do
with it. Some of my best memories, though,
were just seeing Bob play in tiny little places,
you know? Those gigs were real magical—
they’d start with “Rastaman Chant” and
you were able to get so close to them, really
feel their energy and essence. That band
with the Barrett brothers was a really, really
special band, and they created such a raw,
soulful thing.

(above) Lyceum flyer and Holloway’s backstage pass for the date he recorded
Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Live! album. Courtesy of Jack Lowe Archive. DANNY HOLLOWAY 17
Bring us into your time with the
Heptones.
At that time, Blackwell didn’t have time to go
down to Jamaica, so he gave me a list; “Can
you check out these things,” right? One of the
things was finding out what was happening
with the [overdue] Heptones album, because
Chris hadn’t heard any progress. Another
was to find and sign Burning Spear.
Anyway, when I got down there, I talked
to the Heptones and said, “So what’s going
on, how far along is your album? How many
songs have you cut?” They said that they
weren’t recording! For some reason, there
was tension between [studio owner] Harry
Johnson and the group. He hadn’t even
expressed to them why they weren’t working;
he just kind of avoided the question. The
group was very frustrated and said, “Can
you produce?” I go, “Well, I’ve had some
experience [in the studio],” and they go, “You
do it,” you know? [laughs] “If you do it, we
can get it done now.” And that’s what ended
up happening. I think I called Blackwell and
went ahead and [produced Night Food].
You ended up recording Night Food at
Harry J’s, right?
Blackwell was helping to fund Harry
Johnson’s operation, so that was our trump
card. We stayed there and we cut tracks with
a basic band of Robbie Shakespeare on bass,
a guy called Touter [Harvey] who played
keyboards with Bob [Marley and later with
Inner Circle], really nice guy, great keyboard
player. We had Chinna [Earl Smith] on
guitar from Soul Syndicate, and different
guys on drums—Benbow [Basil Creary],
Santa [Carlton Davis]—two or three different
drummers. One of them kept falling asleep.
Like whenever he wasn’t playing, he’d fall
asleep.
Like narcolepsy?
Yeah, he must have had narcolepsy or
something, because we could be listening to
a playback that was really loud and he’d be
asleep. [laughs]
I’ll tell you a funny story about the first
day: I was used to the way sessions flowed
in England; everybody looks forward to the
day, and everybody’s got it written down.
So, first day, session is at one o’clock and
nobody’s there, you know? [laughs] Then at
like 1:30, 1:45, someone shows up, and I’m
like, “What’s up, where is everybody?” I’m
18 DANNY HOLLOWAY
relating in kind of a first-world kind of way,
and they’re all from the islands and more
relaxed, you know? So, I was [trying to] get
used to this. I went to Robbie Shakespeare’s
house—he was still in bed. I went and picked
up the drummer, Benbow, I think, and he
had his drums at a bus stop. [He was] waiting
for the bus to take him to the studio! It was
literally like a scene out of a comedy movie; I
had to go around and pick up all these guys!
Then I realized if I could pay them for the
session at the end of the session, they would
show up on time next time. They’d know that
they were gonna get paid that day, you know?
A lot of times at Jamaican studios, they were
being offered twenty dollars a tune, and they
wouldn’t get paid; they’d have to chase the
man to get paid. So, I just figured if I pay them
in cash, they’ll show up on time, and they did.
Tell us about the Toots and the Maytals/
Heptones U.K. tour.
That was in 1976, and it was right around Were the Heptones on first, and Toots
the time that Night Food and Toots’ album headlining?
Reggae Got Soul came out, so they were
both promoting new albums. It was a really Oh yeah, Heptones opened. I came up with
positive experience for everybody, I think. this idea, kind of a stupid idea, that the band
Everything was underwritten by the label. would be onstage playing warm-up music
Leroy [Sibbles] was now living in Toronto, and then Barry and Earl would come out
and the other two guys were living in followed by Leroy who would make his
Jamaica. They hadn’t really seen each other entrance on a motorcycle [laughs] just to get
that much, so when they arrived in London, people to go, “Whoa! That guy just rode a
they all came together as a group again. We motorcycle onstage.”
got them clothing to wear onstage from They had to get a ramp up to the stage
Chelsea. and Leroy would put it in neutral, rev it a
Anyway, the same guys who booked the few times, jump off, get on the mic, and start
Marley tours booked this tour, so we were singing. You know, just a little bit of show
playing universities mostly. Toots was always business [to] grab people’s attention. Man,
the first guy on the bus, every day. On some they loved the Heptones that night, boy, I’ll
tours, the big star would be the last on the bus tell you. Toots and the Maytals probably had
and make everybody wait, but Toots was the to work a little bit harder at the London show
opposite. He had a little boom box, and every because there were so many fans that hadn’t
day he would play this Grounation music, ever seen [the Heptones] perform. They’re
and he would chant for hours, fine-tuning shoutin’ out song titles from over the years—
his mood for the day. I never saw Toots get the reaction was really strong. .
angry—he was a gracious, kind, kind dude.
All those guys from Toots’s band were
cool and calm: Hux Brown, Jackie Jackson,
Winston Wright. Great band, great players.
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20
CYNTHIA ROBINSON was a single mother when she joined Sly and
the Family Stone as a trumpeter and vocalist in 1966. As one of the
band’s most prominent figures, she became lovers with Sly, giving
birth to their daughter, Sylvyette “Phunne” Stone, in 1976. Years later,
as Robinson carried the torch with the Family Stone into the next
century, Phunne would have the chance to join her mother onstage
as a vocalist.

FAMILY AFFAIR
by Michael A. Gonzales

When Sly and the Family Stone trumpeter/vocalist Cynthia Robinson died from cancer on
November 23, 2015, it was a sad day as well as a haunting prologue for the next few months of
musician deaths that included David Bowie, Natalie Cole, Maurice White, and Prince. Formed
in 1966, Sly and the Family Stone consisted of Sly on organ, brother Freddie on guitar, bassist
Larry Graham, drummer Greg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and Cynthia Robinson on
trumpet; singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, who was Sly’s younger sister, joined the crew two
years later. While Robinson’s funky horn on their innovative albums like Dance to the Music,
Stand, and There’s a Riot Goin’ On and classic tracks like “Higher,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,”
“Everyday People,” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” was important, she was
always humble about her contributions to the greatest band to emerge from the Bay Area
in the late ’60s.
From 1967 to 1971—the year the group began to splinter over Sly’s continued descent into
cocaine and PCP hell, as well as money issues—Sly and the Family Stone was one of the biggest
acts in the country, performing at Woodstock, appearing on television programs, and touring
the globe, before showing up to the gig became just another of Sly’s problems. “My thing
was whatever Sly wanted from me, and I would try to do it,” Robinson told me two months
before her death. “Some things I might never have attempted on my own, but if Sly wanted
it, I’d try my best to do it. All that music came from Sly’s mind, so I can’t tell you much about
the recording of any songs; it was like one big gig to me: go to the studio, go onstage, go to
rehearsal.”
Although Sly Stone, birth name Sylvester Stewart, was a mack daddy from as far back as
high school (where they first met), the kind of brother who always had multiple girlfriends,
he and Cynthia became lovers, and in 1976 she gave birth to their daughter Sylvyette Stewart
aka Phunne Stone. “My mom loved Sly’s musical abilities and his mind,” Phunne says from her
home in Sacramento. “Sly was very clever. She would try to explain his logic, even if neither of
us really understood it. My whole life, my father and I have had an up and down relationship,
but she never said an unkind word towards him.”
A forty-year-old mother of two daughters, Phunne is a singer currently working with the
Family Stone touring band with original saxophonist Jerry Martini and drummer Greg Errico;
for ten years before her death, Cynthia too performed with the band and was instrumental in
getting Phunne involved. “I never imagined that I would ever be singing beside my mom,” says
Phunne, who had been working as a janitor before joining the Family Stone. “I worked hard for
very little money; and my mother loved me so much, when she was in town, she would come
to help me out. She was just a loving mom and my best friend.”

21
(opening spread) Sly Stone on organ with Cynthia Robinson and the Family Stone, circa 1966.

Bandleader and sax man Jerry Martini

says, “I put Phunne in the band when
Cynthia gave me the go-ahead. I watched
her develop. I asked Cynthia, ‘Do you think
she can sing Rose’s parts?’ She said, ‘She can
sing everybody’s part, and if you can get her
out that day job, she can sing Larry Graham’s
parts.’ I asked, ‘Do you think she’s ready to go
join us?’ Cynthia said, ‘Hell yes.’ ”
Phunne’s relationship with Sly has never
been the greatest as one could expect from a
musical genius who has a reputation for being
a notorious junkie whose life is a cocaine
cautionary tale. “Sometimes he would call
and tell my mom to come to the studio to
work, but it wouldn’t be worth shit. Wasn’t
nobody really working, they’d be down there
getting high, running around, with my mom
standing there with her trumpet like, ‘What’s
going on?’ ” There were a few instances when
one of Sly’s women would try to test Cynthia,
but soon discovered that wasn’t a good idea.
“I’ve seen her knock out a couple of broads
in the studio who were being disrespectful.”
There were never any regular visits,
but, Phunne said, “Once or twice a year,
he might pop up at the house with two cars
full of his sidekicks and a White girl dressed
like a ballerina. When I was ten, mom and I
were evicted, and we lived with Sly for ten
months; I got to spend time with him, but
the environment was cuckoo.” It was during
that period that Phunne saw her mom doing
hard drugs, like the time she walked into her
father’s room just as her mom was about to
do a line of cocaine. “The coke was on a tray,
and I knocked the whole thing on the floor on
purpose,” she says. “Sly went crazy and started
screaming, ‘Get the hell out of my room!’ ”
In 1993, when Sly and the Family Stone
were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, Phunne was a seventeen-year-old
pregnant teenager who hadn’t seen her father
in a while. “It was maybe four years since I

22 CYNTHIA ROBINSON Cynthia Robinson with Sylvyette at home in Oakland, 1976. Photo courtesy of Sylvyette “Phunne” Stone.
 last saw him, and I gave him the coldest look
ever. He didn’t say hi or I love you; he just said,
‘Where your mama at? Tell her to call me.’ ”
Through it all, Cynthia stayed loyal to Sly
as well as his legacy. Although Sly Stone has
been the subject of non-fiction tomes, essays,
regular reissues and boxsets, documentaries,
and at least one novel (the entertaining Please
Step Back by Ben Greenman), Robinson still
felt as though Sly Stone hadn’t gotten his
due. “He made a big contribution to music,”
she said, “but he doesn’t get his props. Some
people in charge of giving credit or blame
[would] rather give him blame. Sly has never
been the type to brown-nose for recognition.
He knew what he had and knew what he was
capable of; I’m just proud he took the time
and put it into music.”
Bay Area author Joel Selvin, who
interviewed the entire band (with the
exception of Sly) in 1997 for the excellent Sly
and the Family Stone: An Oral History (1998),
says, “Cynthia was a pretty sad case when
I met her. She was practically homeless,
sleeping on her daughter’s living room floor
and making sandwiches during lunch rush
at a local deli. She was delusional about her
relationship with Sly, something he no doubt
exploited ruthlessly. To me, it seemed as
though she was the victim of tremendous
psychological abuse. It wasn’t a pretty
picture.”
A decade later, Cynthia and other band
members started doing shows together,
and she toured with them until August
2015. Upstart trumpeter Arnetta Johnson,
a student at Berklee College of Music
and a protégé of soul singer Jill Scott, saw
Robinson perform in 2013 and was blown
away. “She was playing great—singing,
dancing, taking over the stage, hyping the
crowd. Afterwards, I spoke to her a little. We
talked about what kind of horn she used. She
was very encouraging to me. She told me,
‘Music is a dog-eat-dog world, but you can
still have fun.’ ”
When Robinson suddenly became ill
in September 2015, Phunne went to spend
time with her mother. “You could visually
see how she changed so quickly,” Phunne
said. “Her weight, the way she was moving,
the expressions on her face. It was bad. I was
crying all the time until my mother said,
‘Goddamn it, girl, you going to cry every
fucking day?’ She sat me down and said, ‘I
have lived my life. I have beautiful kids,
grandkids, I’ve traveled the world three or
four times; and, most importantly, I was
blessed to do what I wanted to do.’ ”

Cynthia Robinson and her daughter Laura Marie in San Francisco, 1973. Photo courtesy of Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. CYNTHIA ROBINSON 23
 §§§

Growing up in Sacramento, California,

young Cynthia Robinson experimented
with a variety of instruments before being
called by the spirits to play the trumpet.
Having started off playing the flute in fourth
grade, Robinson played tenor sax, alto sax,
and mellophone for the next few years; but
it wasn’t until junior high school that a final
decision was made. “I heard this guy playing
the trumpet, and I was like, ‘Whooh, what
is that?’ ” Robinson told Selvin. “So I was
standing by the room waiting for this guy
to come out of rehearsal. I asked him if I
could try and he said yeah. So, I wiped off his
mouth piece and I couldn’t get a note out of it.
I couldn’t get a staff bar, but I knew I wanted
to play. That was it. After I was introduced
to that, I didn’t want to play anything else.”
The trumpet was considered to be an
unfeminine instrument in the late ’50s (even
today, few women play it professionally) and
her constant practicing, perseverance, and
perspiration didn’t make her popular with
the boys in the band who believed she had no
right to play it at all. “They hated the idea,”
Robinson told Selvin. “They said, ‘Why
don’t you go play violin or flute.’ By the time
I got out of high school, I went through so
many changes with the same kind of shit, I harmonies; his writings were more advanced time Stone stepped to Cynthia a year later,
knew there wasn’t no guy that was gonna than the average person could comprehend.” he was ready to break away from Autumn,
let a girl play in a band, ’cause I was already Sly was twenty-three when he spread his wings, and soar in a completely
brainwashed into believing that.” approached Cynthia to join his band, but he different direction.
After graduating, Robinson played with was already a musical veteran who’d recorded As Sly’s favorite pop poet Bob Dylan
a few local bands, but it wasn’t until a few his first track “On the Battlefield for My Lord” observed, the times were a changin’, and he
years later that she reconnected with an old with the family gospel group the Stewart had every intention of being a part of it. As
high school buddy she’d known by the name Four when he was a kid; his deeply religious part of the local S.F. music scene, he was as
Sylvester Stewart; the brother was working parents were members of Church of God in down with the hippies as he was with the
at Bay Area radio station KSOL and had Christ, a Pentecostal house of worship whose homeboys; he was also friendly with future
changed his name to Sly Stone. A Texas native sanctified membership included future stars Billy Preston, Grace Slick, and Jerry
who moved West with his parents when he Tower of Power vocalist Lenny Williams Garcia. Sly knew what was bubbling in the
was two, Sly was a paradoxical young man and gospel sensation Tramaine Hawkins. Bay Area music underground, and he was
who had been both a gospel singer and pimp, In 1961, while a senior in high school determined to assemble a team of musicians
who also proved to be a musical genius who in Vallejo, California, he recorded “Yellow to help him nurture his own visions to life.
would change it all. Moon” with one of the first integrated doo- Cynthia Robinson was a single mom
Within a few short years, he would wop groups, the Viscaynes; the song became with a two-year-old daughter named Laura
become one of the most important musical a local hit. After graduation, he studied music when she accepted the invite to blow in
(as well as literary, often penning lyrics that composition at Vallejo Junior College and, in Stone’s band. Although he would later
were clear in their abstractions) artists in the 1964, was recruited as an in-house writer/ open up her musical world, hippin’ her to
country, whose eclectic sound would inspire producer for Autumn Records, owned by the Beatles and other rockers, during that
and influence the future of funk (George disc jockeys Tom Donahue and Bobby time she was still listening to soul and jazz
Clinton, Rick James), soul (Curtis Mayfield, Mitchell. Young Sly crafted rock/pop hits for cats like Red Holloway, Nat Adderley, and
Prince), hip-hop (Public Enemy, the Coup), Bobby Freeman (“C’mon and Swim”), the tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. “He’s
and jazz. “Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Beau Brummels (“Laugh, Laugh”), and the my favorite,” Robinson said of Turrentine
all the great jazz guys loved Sly, because he Mojo Men (“Dance With Me”). In addition, in 2015. “I could play him over and over
was beyond notes,” says saxophonist Jerry Sly recorded two solo singles for Autumn again. Just that feeling in him and the way he
Martini, who’s known Sly since the ’50s. “He Records (“Buttermilk” and “Temptation attacks a solo. There is never any resistance in
was so into what he was doing; his voices, his Walk”) in 1965, but both 45s flopped. By the him; he just jumps in with both feet.”

24 CYNTHIA ROBINSON
 ALL
THE
SQUARES
GO
HOME!

Cynthia Robinson (top left and bottom) and Sly Stone (above). Photos courtesy of Sony Music Archives. CYNTHIA ROBINSON 25
 The first group Stone and Robinson
were in was Sly and the Stoners, but the other
band members were older and not as serious
about it, so, in the winter of 1966, they were
scrapped. Sly talked his younger brother,
Freddie, into letting him mine his band,
Freddie and the Stone Souls, for talent. Soon
after, Sly had a fresh crop of young, creative
musicians—including Freddie. Cynthia
came by his parent’s crib to meet the rest of
the group. By design, Sly wanted a mixed-
race/multi-gendered posse. Standing in the
basement of that house in San Francisco, that
first night no one picked up their instrument,
but the vibe was already right.
“That first day we all got together, we
didn’t play, we just talked about what we
were going to do,” drummer Greg Errico
says. “Cynthia was shy, but cordial; she didn’t
have a lot to say back then, but she was always
friendly and present.” Jerry Martini adds,
“She was very shy, but Sly brought it out
of her.” The following day, when the band
finally rehearsed, the first song they played
was a cover of Ray Charles’s then-recent
single “I Don’t Need No Doctor.”
In the center of the action, Cynthia was
so impressed with her bandmates that she
forgot to play her part. “It was so powerful
that I literally had to put my horn down and
watch,” Robinson told Selvin. Within Sly’s
rearrangement of the bubbly R&B piece,
he crafted these punching funky lines for
the sax and trumpet that she’d never heard
before. “It shocked me, because I had never
played [with] a group that was that together.
I had heard it on record before, but I’d never
been part of it. I knew from the first note that
this is going to be something.”
With Sly writing the lyrics and music
while also rearranging covers, he and the
Family Stone practiced hard for the next two
weeks. “We rehearsed and rehearsed and
rehearsed; it was the most rehearsed band I’d
ever been in in my life,” Martini says. Two
weeks later, they began playing weekly gigs
at the after-hours spot Winchester Cathedral
in Redwood City, often sharing the bill
with the Chocolate Watch Band; their
residence lasted from December 16, 1966, to
April 28, 1967.
Vintage photos of the band circulating
online shows Sly and the Family Stone
performing on the Cathedral’s crammed
stage shows that the band was already
dressing cool threads, though not as out as
they would later go. One faded snapshot of
them playing the “New Year’s Freakout”
party shows a permed-hair Cynthia clad in
26 CYNTHIA ROBINSON
blue plaid pants suit, blowing her horn as her
daughter Laura plays at her feet.
“The club was owned by our [first]
manager, Rich Romanello,” Martini said. “I
quit a great paying gig at Caesars Palace in
Vegas paying a $1,000 a week, which would
be like $15,000 today, to join Sly and play
for $10 a night. I had to move out the house
and move in with my in-laws at the time; my
mom didn’t talk to me for two years until she
saw me on Ed Sullivan. Mom said, ‘You’re just
a gypsy, always on the run,’ but after she saw
me on television, she called and invited me
to dinner.”
When Sly and the Family Stone first
started their stint at Winchester Cathedral,
they were doing some cover songs. Freddie
sang “Try a Little Tenderness” and Cynthia
Robinson played a stirring version of “St. James
Infirmary,” a classic dark jazz-blues number
that trumpeter Louis Armstrong recorded
several times, and as early as 1928. “Cynthia
doing a version of ‘St. James Infirmary’ was
particularly amazing,” recalls Greg Errico.
“She and I played that together. I’ve always
dug horns. To be a part of this band with
those horns, every song. Those arrangements
that Sly did, they were always so much
fun—up-tempo, with sharp horn punches.”
Forty-nine years after those early live
performances, Robinson talked about those
shows that became part of their pop-star boot
camp that also included hours of rehearsals
and gigs at small clubs like Frenchy’s in
Hayward, California, in the East Bay, and the
Losers’ in San Jose. “Sly paid attention to all
parts of something,” Robinson said. “He paid
attention to the sound in the place we were
playing, and that’s how he knew where to put
the microphones. They were set according to
how high the ceilings were, the acoustics, all
of that.”
While jazz trumpeters usually stand
in one spot, soul and funk horn players are
expected to perform in a different way. “I
think it’s the most difficult genre, because me. Sometimes, I look at YouTube clips
you have to play the horn lines, rhythms, and of her early performances, and seeing
all that intricate stuff while also dancing,” her with her horn is a powerful image.”
trumpeter Lessie Vonner says from her In 1967, Sly and the Family Stone
Brooklyn apartment. A graduate of the New recorded a one-off 7-inch single, “I Ain’t Got
School, the Dallas, Texas, native is a member Nobody (For Real),” for the San Francisco
of electro-fusionists Space Captain and label Loadstone Records that was owned by
considers Robinson a spiritual mentor. bus driver Walter Curry Stone. Although the
“Growing up in Dallas, they played a lot record went tin, it caught the attention of
of Sly Stone on the radio,” says Vonner. “It’s Epic Records executive David Kapralik who
hard now to be a female trumpet player; I contracted Sly (and eventually became the
can’t imagine what it was like back then. To group’s manager).
see her doing her thing and be a prominent When asked what he remembered about
part of the band, that was inspiring to those first sessions for Epic, saxophonist
Martini laughs and says, “Every single note,
we had to do it so many times. We recorded
that album on Sunset and Gower in L.A. at
the old CBS [studio] on a two-track. My lips
were hanging down to my kneecap. We lived
and slept in the studio. Sly would book it for
twenty-four hours. CBS loved that, because
they made millions, because it all came out
of his royalties.”
Drummer Greg Errico says, “In the
studio, when it came to doing the horn
parts, there would be days of sessions when
they would really dig in. Sly sat down with
Cynthia and Jerry and worked out horn
arrangements. It wasn’t just like throwing (left to right) Greg Errico, Cynthia Robinson,
Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, Rosie Stone,
some excess baps and patterns; they were
Jerry Martini, and Larry Graham.
intricate parts of the songs. Between the Photo courtesy of Sony Music Archives.
three of them, they took the time to figure
out what they were going to play. If it was
going to be there, it had to mean something.
Sly had a very unique way of voicing the horn
arrangements that was very unusual and
helped us define a signature sound. It was
very unique. It had a bigger sound than what
it actually was; it sounded like a whole horn
section instead of just two people. Cynthia
and Jerry really had a great chemistry playing
together.”
CYNTHIA ROBINSON 27

Released in the summer of ’67, their
ambitious debut A Whole New Thing opened
with the rip-roaring “Underdog,” a horn-
heavy track whose lyrics (“I know how it
feels to be expected to get a fair shake, but
they won’t let you forget that you’re the
underdog”) were clearly about themselves.
“That kind of said it all,” Greg Errico says.
“That song really represented a whole new
thing. That song was a good representation
of what we wanted to do musically, just break
all molds and expectations of a musical group
at that time. Musically, that song represented
the mind-set of the band.”
28 CYNTHIA ROBINSON
“Their sound was so different that
it influenced so many people,” rapper/
producer Boots Riley told 247HH.com in
2016. “Sly and the Family Stone came out,
and Stevie Wonder changed his style… It set
a new agenda. Sly came out with this sound
that was way dirtier than even what Stax
Records was putting out… In a way, he was
just playing hard and dirty blues—and funky
and danceable.” Nevertheless, folks weren’t
yet ready for the Sly experience.
“That first album bombed,” Martini
says. “It was too diverse, and it bombed. I
remember when our management wanted
us to sound like the 5th Dimension, but
Sly was a visionary man.” The following
year, with the release of their breakthrough
Dance to the Music (whose title track features
Robinson notoriously roaring, “All the
squares go home!), Sly proved to be a musical
chameleon and production genius on par
with George Martin or Brian Wilson. A
multi-instrumentalist, Sly was comfortable
juggling blues-based soul, beige pop, and
kaleidoscopic psychedelica; better still, he
figured out how to make hits.
The only person who ever got rock-star
rich in Sly and the Family Stone was their
damaged leader and the sharks that swam
(top) Phunne Stone and her mother Cynthia Robinson performing with the Family Stone for a video
shoot in the summer of 2015. Photo by Ashina Hamilton.
around him. Unfortunately, Sly squandered
his cash on a sordid and extravagant lifestyle,
IRS bills totaling in the millions, lawsuits
over damaged properties and missed shows,
and a number of other self-inflicted crises
over four decades. Through it all, the one
person who never judged him and was always
there when he called was Cynthia Robinson.
“She just loved Sly all of her life,” Jerry
Martini says. “Thank goodness for that.”
Months after her mother’s passing,
Phunne was still getting used to performing
without her mother by her side. “I would
look over to my right and see my mother,”
she recalls. “She would be there smiling and
swinging her trumpet, and I knew I was
standing beside a very special lady.” .
Special thanks to author Joel Selvin for sharing
the complete transcript of his 1997 interview
with Cynthia Robinson.
THE BIRTH OF HIP-HOP’S GOLDEN ERA
NOW AVAIL ABLE AT AMAZON.COM
30
MY BASS PLAYING HELPED
ME BECAUSE I WOULD USE
THE HARMONIC OF THE
BASS NOTES AS A HARMONIC
TO MY MELODIES.
I never had the bass and my singing melody be the same notes.
It would always be a harmonic to my melody, and that was part
of my writing and producing sound. When it came to writing,
I didn’t have any help, other than listening to Motown.
I was a fan of Smokey Robinson’s melodies and lyricism,
and, as a songwriter, Curtis Mayfield. As I became older,
I was influenced by Gamble & Huff and Thom Bell.

31
32
 Gifted songwriter, bassist, and producer LEON SYLVERS III led his siblings’ group THE SYLVERS
from their teenaged harmony-tinged sweet-soul beginnings to mainstream disco heights.
Then, in the late-’70s and early ’80s, he helped usher in the new wave of synthesizer-driven R&B,
writing and producing hits for everyone from Shalamar to Gladys Knight and the Pips.

SILVER PLATTERS by Chris Williams

Leon Sylvers III is regarded as one of the most transcendent music
producers over the past four decades. He helped shape a catalog of
harmony soul and disco records for his and his siblings’ eponymous
group, the Sylvers, as well as a handful of solo albums, such as for
younger brother Foster. After his family’s success through the late
’70s, he branched out as a freelance producer and pioneered the post-
disco, synthesizer boogie sound of Los Angeles’ Solar Records.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Los Angeles,
California, Sylvers spent his formative years in Nickerson Gardens—
one of the notorious housing projects located in Watts—where he
became enamored with the Motown sound. Their signature hits
piqued his curiosity for the bass—a key ingredient to his future
musical success—and vocal harmonies, which he would practice
alongside his siblings. Under his father’s tutelage, Leon and his three
siblings (Charmaine, James, and the eldest, Olympia) mastered four-
part harmonies and formed their first group, the Little Angels. Their
group performed on numerous television variety shows, such as Make
Room for Daddy, You Bet Your Life, and The Spike Jones Show.
Labels everywhere were looking for the next Jackson 5, and the
siblings (now six in total with the addition of Edmund and Ricky)
were eventually signed to a recording contract by MGM Records,
who created the subsidiary Pride Records for them so that they
weren’t competing directly with the Osmonds. Legendary singer-
songwriter Jerry Butler and his production company were called in
to help craft the Sylvers’ debut album, and Leon was able to study
underneath producers Keg Johnson and Jerry Peters to learn the craft
of producing quality, hit recordings. Shortly thereafter, he and his
family received their first taste of success on the musical charts when
their debut album, The Sylvers, was released in 1972. Sylvers penned
his first hit singles, “Wish that I Could Talk to You” and “Fool’s
Paradise.” A year later, he penned another hit Foster Sylvers entitled
“Misdemeanor.”
After spending three years on Pride Records (with three group
albums and two solo records from Foster), the Sylvers left for greener
pastures and inked a new deal in 1975 with Capitol Records, where
they transformed from a lesser-known R&B act to mainstream disco
superstars (with the addition of three more siblings, Foster, Angie, and
Pat). At Capitol, Leon got to work with another legendary producer,
Freddie Perren, who had been part of Motown’s famous production
ensemble the Corporation, as well as a former Jackson 5 collaborator.
Needless to say, Leon was thrilled to absorb the knowledge Perren
could provide the budding producer. Their partnership yielded
two albums, Showcase (1975) and Something Special (1976), and three
top ten hits: “Hot Line,” “High School Dance,” and the massive
“Boogie Fever.”
By the end of their relationship with Capitol Records, Sylvers
assumed producing duties and took a leadership role in the promising
careers of his siblings, as well as in his own profession. They recorded
one final album for Capitol, 1977’s New Horizons, before signing
with Casablanca Records. After recording 1978’s Forever Yours for
Casablanca, Leon was itching to branch out from his siblings to expand
his producing career, and he became the in-house producer for the
new Los Angeles label Solar Records. Here, Sylvers would solidify his
standing as one of the elite, prolific producers of the late 1970s to the
mid-1980s by constructing numerous hit records for artists such as the
Whispers, Shalamar, Dynasty, Lakeside, Tavares, Carrie Lucas, Real
to Reel, the Spinners, and countless others. What remains evident is
the impact his timeless sound has left on popular culture today.

(opening spread) Leon Sylvers at his Los Angeles home with his Rickenbacker bass, 1975, in Los Angeles, California.
(opposite) Leon on May 22, 1975. Both photos courtesy of Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.

33
When you were growing up in Los
Angeles, California, what kind of role
did music play in your and your siblings’
upbringing?
Leon Sylvers III: My mother was studying
to be an opera singer, because she had an
incredible voice. This is how things started
for us. I was into the Motown sound. The
Motown sound caught my ear as a kid. I didn’t
realize how fanatical I was back then about
it, but I would take clothes hangers and put
them together and use knives as drumsticks;
then I would take the hard part of the broom
and hit it like a rim shot or snare and use the
hangers as hi-hats and the box springs as the
kick. I was fanatic about everything that had
to do with making music. I was obsessed
with the Motown melodies and choruses.
So I started teaching my brothers and sisters
three-part harmonies. The harmonies from
Laura Scudder’s potato chip commercial are
what I taught them, because it was easy.
My mother was hearing us in the room,
so she told my father that we were doing
three-part harmonies. I didn’t know what
it was back then, but I just knew we had to
do harmonies. So he heard us, and he had an
ear because he was into the Four Freshmen,
the Ink Spots, and the Hi-Lo’s. He was
into that type of music. He taught us four-
part harmonies, and he got us into a more
complicated style of singing. While we were
singing, we held the harmony notes. This
is when I realized, my youngest brother [at
the time], James, had the best ear out of all
of us. He was like three years old. When we
would forget our notes, he’d tell us what they
were. He had the better ear as far as hearing
harmony notes and all that. He became a
keyboard player.
What was the first instrument you picked
up, and how many more instruments
did you learn?
The bongos were my first instrument, because
I loved percussion instruments. I was eight or
nine when I first started playing them. This
was when I was teaching my siblings how
to sing background vocals. I loved playing
the bongos, then I moved on to the bass. I
played the congas as well. I remember we
were singing on those television shows as
the Little Angels. We went to a place—and
it’s still on Sunset Boulevard; back then, it
was called the Moulin Rouge. At the time,
they did this Christmas show, and we were
invited to perform on it with many top artists
34 LEON SYLVERS III
like Sammy Davis Jr. Since it was Christmas, each one of them would nail it every time.
they had gifts for us. My Christmas gift was I didn’t have to teach anyone how to hold a
a guitar. Because I was into the Motown note. Everybody had it like that. I never had
sound, I took the two high strings off, and to go over notes with them, just lyrics and
I knew the bass only had four strings, so I melodies. I feel like we were just supposed
began playing the lower four strings and to do music. When it came to writing, I
started mimicking the Motown stuff. I was didn’t have any help, other than listening
going to be a bass player regardless, because to Motown stuff. I was a fan of Smokey
I didn’t care about the guitar back then. I Robinson’s melodies and lyricism, and, as a
added that to my writing style. songwriter, Curtis Mayfield. When I was
I was into Mongo Santamaria back young, these two really made me want to do
in the day as well. He was a bad dude. My music. As I became older, I was influenced
friend Luther Moore, who was the congas by Gamble & Huff and Thom Bell. I learned
player for the Sylvers, we grew up together how to be a perfectionist from my mother
in the Nickerson Gardens projects. He was and father. I applied that to everything I did.
into him too. We used to go up to the Watts
103rd Street Park and play every weekend.
The congas guys would be up there playing
in the park. That’s where I honed my bongo-
and conga-playing skills. I wasn’t great, but I
knew enough to hold my own in that type of
environment. I learned how to hit my hands
on the bongos and congas.
Tell me about your first family group,
the Little Angels, and your musical
growth during your early days?
The Little Angels weren’t a lead singing
group; we were a harmonic group. My
father taught us those same kind of four-part
harmonies from the Four Freshmen. We had
a four-part harmony. There were four of us,
and he called us the Little Angels. We got a
manager. My brother James was three years
old when we performed on Art Linkletter’s
television show. We didn’t have any steps
or choreography, so there wasn’t anything
to rehearse except for the songs. On the TV
show, we just stood there and sung four-
part harmonies. For our ages, I guess it was
exciting for people to see. So we all had our
different talents. As we became older, I had
to become the leader and set rehearsal times
to make sure everyone practiced and come
up with moves and steps. I didn’t come up
with every move, but I made sure we had the
best moves. All of these experiences led me
to become a music producer.
Being the leader of our group helped me
with my people skills and producing other
acts. My bass playing helped me because I
would use the harmonic of the bass notes
as a harmonic to my melodies. I never had
the bass and my singing melody be the same
notes. It would always be a harmonic to my
melody, and that was part of my writing and
producing sound. When I gave my siblings
their notes, it wasn’t a long process because
Everyone put their ideas in the pot.
And the best one was chosen.
You had to give everybody the right
to be wrong as well as right.

The Sylvers rehearse at home on June 29, 1972, in Los Angeles, California. (left to right) James Sylvers, Edmund Sylvers,
Olympia Sylvers, Leon Sylvers, Ricky Sylvers, and Charmaine Sylvers. Photo courtesy of Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. LEON SYLVERS III 35
After the TV work, how long did it take
for you and your siblings to obtain a
recording contract?
I was into music and sports. I played basketball
just as much as I played music, even more so
when I was at Verbum Dei High School. I
was kind of thin, but I was wiry, strong, and
fast, and I had a good jump shot. [laughs] I had
good enough skills, plus I was six-foot-three.
Back then, six-foot-three wasn’t real tall, but
it was tall enough to get into UCLA. UCLA
drafted talent from Verbum Dei High School
first because they liked the system at our
school. When I was in the tenth grade, the
varsity coach got hired at UCLA. So my path
was set; the coach liked me.
At the same time, we performed at a
talent show at Verbum Dei. Ironically, [Louis
and George Johnson]—the Brothers Johnson,
but they weren’t called that at the time—were
in a group. Because we didn’t have a band, we
had to perform a cappella style. We would’ve
won the talent show if we had a band, but the
brothers Johnson won first place and we took
second place.
This guy named Wiley Brooks was
there. He gave us his number, and he took
us to MGM Records, which at that time the
Osmonds were getting ready to come out.
The guys like Mike Lloyd at MGM Records
heard us, and they liked us. They knew they
were going to sign us, but they didn’t want
competition because they were fixing to
have the Caucasian family singing group, the
Osmonds, be in competition with the Jackson
5. It was a Black and White thing, so they
didn’t need another family group mucking
up their party or their momentum. So they
signed us and waited until the Osmonds had
their reign, and Mike Curb put us on Pride
Records. The President of Pride Records was
a friend of his named Mike Viner. He wanted
to get into the record business. Mike Curb
had a heart, and he knew we were put on
the shelf, so he created Pride Records for his
buddy Mike Viner to head up. They created
that label to put our group out.
Once you were signed, how did you
begin working with Jerry Butler and his
production company?
Mike Curb hired Jerry Butler’s production
company, and Keg Johnson, Jerry Peters, and
Richard Aaron were a part of that. Those
three had a production company of their own
after they met with us. Keg Johnson and Jerry
Peters were the producers. They’re the ones
36 LEON SYLVERS III
who discovered us, because Keg Johnson was
interested in our writing abilities. When Keg
Johnson heard us, he disregarded what Jerry
Butler wanted us to do. He said, “Let’s do
your stuff.” I remember when Jerry Butler
found out that we weren’t doing his song,
he was kind of upset. The deal was made for
him to produce us and his company. I guess
Keg Johnson overstepped his bounds, but he
got to know us, and he probably knew that
I wasn’t going to do that music because I
heard the stuff that he wanted us to do. It was
on a lower level than the Osmonds and the
Jackson 5. It was too cute. The music wasn’t
hip, and it was too simple. It was horrible. I
guess he was only interested in [my brother]
Edmund, because Edmund could sing better.
I was always the type of person to get to the
bottom line. When it came to music, I got
right to the point. I liked Jerry Butler and his
record, “Never Give You Up.” I liked a lot of
his stuff, but when it came down to our stuff,
I knew it had to be better.
I knew it was somewhat selfish, because I
knew I had to learn, but I was going to learn
while pressing an edge on what I wanted to
do. So that’s how far I was pushing my songs
and our stuff. All of us were writing music.
I wasn’t appointed the leader; I just did it. I
asked them, “What are your ideas as far as
steps, songs, melodies, and lyrics?” I’d get
together with everybody, but when they
didn’t want to; they were more interested
in going outside and playing. I was more
interested in writing and doing melodies,
so I did that. When they heard what I was
working on, they’d say, “Oh, I like that. I like
that one. What about that one, Leon?” So
that’s how we did it. It wasn’t someone saying,
“Get in here and sing.” But at the beginning,
it was like that, because Foster wanted to play
outside; but at the same time, he wanted to do
stuff too. I had to tell him, “No playing; we
have to rehearse.” He’d get mad sometimes
and cry to get out of it, but he really wanted
to do music. He was just the youngest one.
He had that talent though. He ended up
being a better bass player than me. He was
twelve years old, and he could beat me out
with that. He had extra talent. I chose music
because it would last longer as a career than
playing basketball, and it was a quicker way
to get everybody out of the hood. We were
living in the Nickerson Gardens projects.
Once they took us to MGM Records, I was
out of school in the eleventh grade. We went
to private school after that.
(opposite) Edmund Sylvers, Ricky Sylvers, Leon Sylvers, and James Sylvers play basketball at their
Los Angeles home, June 29, 1972. Photo courtesy of Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.
What was it like having a recording
contract being that young?
Well, I was about sixteen or seventeen when
we signed our deal with MGM Records
[in 1971]. My sister Olympia was the only
sibling older than me. As I said earlier, we
were trying to get out of Nickerson Gardens
because it was getting worse by the day. We
were happy to be signed to MGM Records.
They cut one of the records I wrote called
[“I’m Just a Lonely Soul” b/w] “Come On,
Give Me a Chance,” and I think that was just
to appease us. Then, we just sat for a while.
We still lived in Nickerson Gardens for a little
while after we signed our deal with MGM.
I remember playing our record to this girl I
liked back then. [laughs] We [finally] moved
from Nickerson Gardens, and we were able
to get a place off of Olympic Boulevard and
La Brea Avenue. It was a big house.
They cut another record with us. It
was an old Berry Gordy record called
“You Got What It Takes.” Mike Curb was
the President of MGM. He was…a young
Caucasian guy, but he was really sharp. He
knew about commerciality, and he cut that
record on us. It was cool, but I hated it. I
didn’t like the song. He wanted to meet with
me for some reason. When I met with him,
he said, “I like your stuff, but it needs to be
more commercial.” I was hearing him, but I
wasn’t trying to hear him. He didn’t know
about R&B music, as far as I was concerned.
I was a young teenager, and I talked to him
as such. I asked him, “What do you know
about R&B music?” He responded, “Okay,
yeah, you’re right. I don’t know anything
about R&B music. I know more about pop
music. But what I do know is commerciality,
whether it’s R&B or pop, it has the same
end result. I understand what a commercial
R&B record sounds like. I don’t know how to
create like you, but I’m saying you’re going to
learn it because you have talent.”
That’s all I needed to hear, because I was
little too deep with the words and stuff. He
was mostly right. I started learning about
that. We had a good meeting. From my
conversation with him, I let him know that
I didn’t want us to go pop. We were into
some of the other stuff. [laughs] This is when
he started a division within MGM called
Pride Records for our music to be released
on. This is how I started my style of writing
when I wrote our first record called “Fool’s
Paradise.” That was still kind of deep, but it
worked. [laughs] This started our sound.
I was into music and sports.
I played basketball just as much as I played music.

LEON SYLVERS III 37

38 LEON SYLVERS III
LEON SYLVERS III 39
 What was the collaboration process
between you and your siblings?

At first, it was mainly me producing the

songs. As we kept going, I wanted everybody
to write. So we would sit and have sessions
together. The main time we did that was on
a song that we wrote called “High School
Dance” [from 1976’s Something Special]. James,
Foster, Ricky, Edmund, and I wrote the song.
All of us had parts in writing the verses. It was
cool and fun. Once that started happening,
everybody started writing more. Everybody
applied themselves in different stages of the
process. My sister Olympia was the best
spontaneous dancer out of everyone. She was
a free spirit, and when she danced freestyle,
she could kick anybody’s ass. I remember one
time, [my younger sister] Charmaine and the
girls had some steps they had to learn that
were different than ours.
During the performance, there were a
couple steps Olympia forgot, so she started
freestyling; and people started looking at
her because she was just doing her thing,
and Charmaine got mad because she was
doing the steps. [laughs] It looks funny when
one person is doing the steps and the other
one is doing something different. Olympia
said, “Charmaine, I’m sorry. I don’t know
what else you wanted me to do. I forgot.”
Charmaine said, “You just wanted to do
that.” [laughs] Olympia would start dancing
on her own and people would stop to watch
her. That is how good she was at dancing.
Foster knew his bass, melodies, and
harmonies very well. James had his thing as
well. Ricky picked up the guitar and started
playing and writing. Edmund liked the
drums, so he jumped on the drums. James
picked the keyboard and learned that. All
of us could write, even the girls, but they
didn’t do it as much as the boys did. The
creative process was easy. There wasn’t any
bickering. The only time there was bickering
was during rehearsals. Sometimes, people
wanted to stop early or arrive late, but other
than that, we worked hard. My thing, as the
leader, was to have everyone put their ideas
in the pot, and the best one was chosen. I’d
wait until everyone put their ideas in. As the
leader, you had to give everybody the right to
be wrong as well as right. If they never got a
shot, then they’re not going to be as truthful
with you. I didn’t want to play political games
to get my way. A leader is supposed to spend
more time getting it right and working hard
to make sure it is right. This approach helped
me as a producer later on.

40 LEON SYLVERS III

What did you learn from Keg Johnson
and Freddie Perren that made you ready
to helm sole producing duties?

I was excited to be learning from these

guys. I was a sponge, really. They were two
different sets of producers. Freddie Perren
was a calm, laid-back, quick, smart type of
guy. Keg Johnson was flamboyant, a life-
of-the-party type of producer, and he had a
great ear. He knew music because his father
used to play horns for Cab Calloway, so he
was around an entire family of music. I liked
his style when I was a teenager, because he
was a little more flamboyant. Everybody
liked him, and when there was a problem,
he knew how to pull people to the side. He
was more confrontational than Freddie. He
was from New York. When it was time to do
music, he knew how to make everyone feel
comfortable. He had a good, direct speaking
voice. He was a bit of jokester as well. He was
a really likeable guy. He was more aggressive
than Freddie, but they both had their ways of
handling situations in a room full of people.
I remember Freddie was calmer and more
methodical. Keg had a feel approach. If it
didn’t feel right to him, he’d stop it. Both of
them knew music and were great musicians.
It was a great learning period for me to learn
from these guys. As I grew as a producer,
I began to understand what made them
different musically.
Freddie was the last thing I needed in
my musical journey. He was exceptional at
putting the best melodies and lyrics together
at the right time. When someone is working
with kids, you have to have a tolerance
level from here to Japan, regardless of how
talented the kids are. [laughs] He had that
kind of tolerance level, so did Keg Johnson,
because he was working with my brother
Foster [on his solo albums]. Freddie’s calm
demeanor and logic was the [final] thing I
needed. I applied both of their styles to mine,
but my music was different. I always liked to Butler. They produced our first records: of production I experienced and learned
look at things logically, after I created a song “Misdemeanor,” “Fool’s Paradise,” and through him. He was a master at production.
or sometimes before. It just depended on how “Wish That I Could Talk to You.” I was It was great for me to learn from a producer
I approached a song. Sometimes, it would just learning back then. I played bass, and at his level. He was a part of the Corporation
come to me as a lyric in a verse; sometimes it Keg asked me, “Do you want to play on the from Motown. He did more music than Keg
would come as a chorus; sometimes it would songs?” I replied, “No. Go out and get the Johnson and them. They were top producers
come as a concept before I had a chorus for it. best bass player.” I didn’t even trust myself as well, but Freddie came from the Motown
Then sometimes—which was a lot—I’d hear a playing the bass on our stuff back then. Keg camp, and he was more poised at creating
bass line and then I’d put a harmonic melody was smart though. He wanted to get the hits. He was my second learning phase, and
to the bass line. And sometimes it began with exact notes I played, so he hired the best the last phase was myself with Dick Griffey
a melody. All of that is how I wrote my songs. bass player at the time. It was either Chuck and Solar Records.
It never just came to me in one way. Rainey or Wilton Felder. They played the
My first lessons on production were notes the same way I played them. After I
with Keg Johnson, Jerry Peters, and Jerry got with Freddie Perren, it was another level

(above) Charmaine Sylvers and Olympia Sylvers. LEON SYLVERS III 41

How’d you meet Dick Griffey and begin
producing for Solar Records?
I met Dick Griffey when he was a promoter.
He was doing a Soul Train tour, and he wanted
the Sylvers to be on it. I was still in the group
then. We did one of the Chi-Lites’ songs in
our show called “Are You My Woman?”
We had some steps that we did while we
performed that song that were kind of tight.
I’d notice that Dick would be on the side of
the backstage looking at us every time that
song would come on. I found out later that
he personally liked one of our moves. He
42 LEON SYLVERS III
said, “That was a bad step right there.” He
promoted a gig with Natalie Cole that we
were on, and there was a party after the gig
that I attended. I was eighteen at the time,
so I was able to go. I met with Dick, and we
hung out and met with a mutual friend of
ours, Richard Aaron. A little bit after the tour
ended, Dick was starting his label because
he was leaving Don Cornelius—they [had]
created Soul Train Records after the tour
was over, but it was costing Don too much
money.
Dick wanted to keep on going. So he
changed it to Solar Records [in 1977]. Our
mutual friend, Richard Aaron, found out that
Dick needed some songs and producers. So I
went and had a meeting with him, and played
him some of the stuff I was going to do for
the Sylvers album. He loved it. He said, “I’m
going to give you a chance to work with this
group named Shalamar.” We did our first
production contract off that one song. The
song was called “Take That to the Bank.” So
I called Kevin Spencer. He was the Sylvers’
bass player at the time, but I knew he could
sing and play keyboards as well as the bass.
He was an all-around dude like myself. He
was better than me as a musician because
he could play keyboards and bass. I liked his
keyboard playing so much that I wanted him
to work with me on this song, and we created
“Take That to the Bank.” We wrote it, but I
produced it. I liked his chords, and I wrote
well from them.
What was it like working for Solar
Records when you were first brought in
to be the in-house producer?
Well, I didn’t have an exclusive contract
with the company during the early days. I
produced songs per group. In other words,
Dick would make a deal with me to do some
songs with so-and-so. Right after [Shalamar’s]
“Take That to the Bank” [from 1978’s Disco
Gardens, on which] he had me produce five
or six songs…he wanted me to produce
Shalamar’s whole [next] album, [1979’s Big
Fun]. So we made a deal for me to do their
whole album. He [originally] hired me to do
two or three songs with the Whispers [but
I ultimately wrote, arranged, and produced
on seven of their albums from 1979 to 1984].
For Lakeside, he hired me to do their whole
first album [on Solar, Shot of Love].
At the beginning, we did the production
deals based from the [Sylvers]. When I did an
exclusive deal with him, it wasn’t until after
the Sylvers were dropped from Casablanca
Records. They wanted to come to Solar
Records, so I asked Dick if he would sign the
group. He said, “Yeah, I’ll do it, but you’ll
have to sign an exclusive deal with me.” So
I signed an exclusive deal for a year. This is
how we did things in the beginning.
LEON SYLVERS III 43
Talk about your work with Dynasty.
Some of my hits came to me in a dream,
like the song I did for Dynasty called “I’ve
Just Begun to Love You” for Solar Records.
I dreamed that chorus. I used to have what
I call “lick savers.” I used to have a small
recording device where I would save my
licks and melodies on. I used to have one on
my desk where I used to fall asleep at and
one in my car. If I had some melody on one
device, I’d leave the other one at the house,
but I always had my lick savers ready. When
I dreamed of some things, sometimes I
couldn’t remember them after I woke up.
For that song, I woke up one night and put
the lick saver on, and I had the melody and
the words “I’ve Just Begun to Love You.”
That’s all I had. I didn’t have any words for
the other parts because that’s how dreams
go. The bottom line is, I woke up and put
it on the lick saver, and I went back to bed.
It became Dynasty’s biggest record. Actually,
two people wanted that song.
Berry Gordy wanted me to produce this
group called Kagny and the Dirty Rats. I
was supposed to record three songs for this
group. Rick James hooked me up with that
gig. We met at one of the clubs that Foster
and I used to go out to. Rick and I started
our conversation, and he said, “Yeah, man. I
want you to do something with me over at
Motown.” So we exchanged numbers, and
he hooked me up with [Berry Gordy’s niece,
Motown vice president] Iris Gordy. Iris and
I hit it off.
At that time, I was in the process of
working on Dynasty’s next album. She
wanted me to work on something for Kagny
and the Dirty Rats. Her [cousin], Kerry
Gordy, was in the group. Benny Medina was
the lead singer, and there were two other
kids in the group. I was supposed to rehearse
with them, and that’s when I began to learn
my political posturing as a producer. [laughs]
The group had three managers. Benny had
a manager, Kerry—who is [Berry Gordy’s
son]—had a manager, and the other two guys
had a manager. So there was three managers
and the record company to deal with.
I told Iris, “If we don’t cut these three
records before March, I have to do them
for Dynasty, because I’m scheduled to do
their album right after that. So I need to
cut these songs by the end of this month.”
They responded, “That’s great, Leon.” Then,
I met with the group, and they were cool,
but I could tell they were writers too. They
wanted to do their shit. They were supposed
44 LEON SYLVERS III
to go to Japan, and we were supposed to cut
these records before they left. They were
scheduled to go to Japan a week before I
was scheduled to work with Dynasty. One
day, they were rehearsing, and I showed up
there ready to go to the studio. When they
were done, they were supposed to meet me
at the studio, but they didn’t show up. So I
called Iris and said, “The guys never showed
up.” I think they thought I was making
up an excuse. Then, the second time only
Kerry showed up to learn the songs. Kerry
said, “You know, Leon, man, I don’t know
if this is going to work.” I replied, “Well, I
understand. I know you guys want to get
your shit off first. I know you want them to
hear your stuff first before they decide on
using me.”
Iris and Berry Gordy flipped on using the
songs. The three songs were: “I’ve Just Begun
to Love You,” “Groove Control,” and another
one. All three of them I put on Dynasty’s
record. Kerry tried to pull something and said
it was my fault and tried to come up with an
excuse, legally, to keep the songs. I told them,
“That ain’t happening, because I called and
left messages for each manager and singer.”
I sent faxes to Iris Gordy and each of them.
I sent a registered letter to Motown Records,
plus, I knew about poor-boy copyrighting
[mailing the song to yourself to date it]. So
I sent that registered letter the same way to
each one of them, and Berry Gordy still tried
to hold the songs. Dick [Griffey] had to get a
meeting with Berry Gordy to let him know
that they couldn’t keep the songs. After Dick
and Berry met about it, he realized he didn’t
have any legal stance in his favor. See, they
were trying to keep the songs for their new
girl group. The song ended up being a top
five R&B hit for Dynasty.
Tell me more about working with the
Whispers, as well as Lakeside, Midnight
Star, Shalamar, and Carrie Lucas.
Both Steve Shockley from Lakeside and
Reggie Calloway from Midnight Star asked
me if they could come and watch and hear
my music-making and writing process to
learn. Back then, I told them, “Sure.” But I
had to ask the artists that I was working with
if it was okay, because they may not have
wanted another artist to be in their session.
So they understood that. Most of the time,
the artist didn’t want another artist in there
with them. When it was cool with the artist, I
told them that they could come through. My
style was to hand down the knowledge I had.
I liked that because it made me a stronger
producer. If you wanted to become the best,
you had to be competitive with the best. You
had to be in the fire just like anybody else,
and that’s what we used to do back in the day
at our listening sessions.
When I was the top producer, the
Whispers would have their listening
sessions. Lakeside didn’t need theirs, because
they wrote their own. The Whispers wrote
sometimes with Dick, but they didn’t write
their whole album themselves, because I
was the producer for two or three songs on
their albums. Shalamar wrote but not nearly
as much as everybody else, so I was the total
producer for them. Solar would give listening
sessions, and I’d be there for all the artists
like Carrie Lucas, the Whispers, but not
Lakeside. There would be all kinds of writers
at these listening sessions. These listening
sessions were held at the Highland Hotel in
Hollywood. He would get a suite and people
would come there to pitch their new songs.
I remember it became so big back then that
Diane Warren and other top writers on
big projects would meet there to be on the
Whispers project. Dick told me I didn’t have
to come, but I went because I wanted to stay
sharp. At one of the listening sessions, I was
with my writing partner, Dana Meyers, and
we were getting “It’s a Love Thing” together
to present to the Whispers. Dick [Griffey]
loved it, and the Whispers loved it. I just
wanted to stay sharp, because I knew there
were always top writers there.
Seems like you were extremely busy.
It was really busy. We were at Devonshire
Studios [in North Hollywood], and I had
my mixing studio on Mulholland in Beverly
Hills. I had a house that was a studio. It was
first owned by some Arab kid who had a
lot of money. It was a great studio to mix
in because it had a lot of the top-line shit in
there. We also had three or four rooms going
at Devonshire. Devonshire Studios was a big
facility that had seven or eight studio rooms
in it. David Foster recorded some stuff there.
I had about three or four rooms at the time
that I used to finish up projects. At that time,
I was doing a lot of stuff because I was trying
to build up these producers. The strategy
was right, because it was already working.
The talent of the guys was there. I was trying
to build a home for my producers. This was
going to be the next step for me.
LEON SYLVERS III 45
How would you best describe your
producing style at that time?
I used everything at my disposal. I can’t
say it was just one thing. Mainly, I stayed
open-minded. My production style is open-
mindedness, because you don’t know what
idea can take your sound to the next level.
As far as I’m concerned, a song is based on
three components: music, melody, and lyrics.
Each one of those should be part of writing
a song. The Dynasty band played on most
everything I produced for Solar. I made sure
musicians were credited as writers if they
contributed something extra to one of my
songs. Steve Shockley played guitar licks on
[the Whispers’] “And the Beat Goes On.”
This is why I put him down as a writer. I
didn’t have to do it, but the bottom line is
that it sparked things creatively.
When we were in the studio cutting
[Shalamar’s] “Second Time Around,” Steve
Shockey was in there doing a guitar exercise,
and he was going up the scale. I was like,
“Hold up! Hit those first two notes again.” So
I was doing a bass counterpoint against what
he was playing, and that became the bass line
for “And the Beat Goes On.” He added to
what I was playing, because he knew I was
going off of syncopation. Will Shelby got into
the chords, and we had that whole groove
before we cut “Second Time Around.” I said
to Steve [Hodge], who was the engineer,
“Run the tape for four or five minutes.” We
played that groove, and Wardell [Potts] was
playing the drums. It wasn’t a song yet, it was
just a feel. The feel that he put on the guitar,
and Will jumping on the keyboard, allowed
me to finish the song.
I wrote the melody and lyrics, but because
I heard his guitar, it made me think of the
bass playing. It started from Steve’s exercise
on the guitar. He wasn’t even trying to write
back then, but that’s the point I’m trying to
make about when a person hears something
and how it sparks something in someone else
creatively. You have to give credit where it’s
due. Steve and I would’ve been producing
together, if he wasn’t already in the group
Lakeside. We got along. When he played the
guitar to my bass, it was a natural lock and
flow. Lakeside became a great group, and we
had great chemistry.
How did you begin working with
Tavares and the Spinners?
The plan for me was to let some writers
evolve into producers. I had a camp of writers
46 LEON SYLVERS III
and producers. What I was eventually trying
to do was to turn my writers into producers,
so I would have a staple of producers. It
started off right. There was this guy who
was the top A&R for Atlantic Records back
then, and the Spinners and Tavares were
on his label. He really wanted me. I had a
meeting with him at the studio, and I knew
he wanted me, but I knew I had a couple of
pending projects and I didn’t want to turn
anything down. So I told him I had these
producers, and I had all the paperwork on
what songs they wrote and where they placed
on the charts. Some of them went gold on the
albums. The producers were Dana Meyers,
Vincent Brantley, and William Zimmerman.
But mainly, Dana Meyers and William
Zimmerman were the producers I was trying
to push. Dana had a good personality. It was
not offensive, but he knew what he wanted
to do. He wasn’t a pushover. He wrote, sung,
and had great skills in controlling a room.
He was a pleasant guy, and he was great at
writing lyrics and producing from being
around me.
These were the guys I was trying to sell
him on, but he said, “Well, you know, Leon,
I want to make a deal with you.” I replied,
“Okay, I understand; but check this out, I’m
going to have to say no, because I’m too busy.
But I want you to remember these names,
because they’re going to be producing most
of the stuff I’m cowriting with them. They’re
going to be building their careers. These are
the guys I believe in. I may call you later or
you may call me. I know you’re going to be
hearing from these guys. I’m putting myself
on the line.” So, he said, “Okay, Leon. I’ll take
a chance on them.”
He didn’t even want to wait after that, and
it worked. He hired them. They produced the
Spinners, Tavares, and Lenny Williams. But
he passed away before the music was released.
If [an A&R] gets fired or dies suddenly, you
know what happens with that. Whatever he
was doing, the new guy that comes and takes
his place, has their own agenda. That is how
companies worked back then politically and
bureaucratically. They didn’t want to take on
someone else’s project. Because the guy died,
the record [Tavares’s 1983 album Words and
Music] didn’t get its due, and they had some
good records on their album. This was the
first stage of me setting up production for
these guys. I didn’t work with Tavares—they
did. My production company name was on
there, and I was executive producer, but they
were the ones who produced Tavares.
What about Gladys Knight and the Pips?
The Gladys Knight thing [1983’s Visions] was
real cool. I remember, at that time, everyone
had worked with her, from David Foster to
other producers, and no one could produce a
hit for her. When I got the call from Larkin
[Arnold] to work with her, I jumped at the
chance because I was the new guy on the
block, and I had nothing to worry about.
If I couldn’t come up with a hit for her, it
wouldn’t have been a big issue. I looked at it
as if I do come up with a hit for her, then I’m
going to get a lot of work. At the time, that’s
all it took.
See, back then, I was the up-tempo type
of producer. I was at a pivotal point in my
production career when I started working
with her. When I first met her, everything
went cool. She liked my stuff, plus we had
chemistry in the studio. I always liked her
as an artist. Anyone who was on Motown, I
was happy to work with, because I was just a
big fan of Motown Records. They played an
important role in my career, because growing
up I listened to nothing but Motown. “Save
the Overtime (For Me)” became a big record
for her [in 1983]. It became a gold record,
and it put her back on top. It made me feel
like I could produce anyone, not just Solar
artists. It was a pivotal point in my career
because of the situation and circumstances I
was in. Gladys and I really hit it off. Working
with a professional like her really made the
difference. She was real.
What about the group Real to Reel, who
only had a pair of 12-inch records in ’83?
At that time, Terry [Lewis] and Jimmy [ Jam]
were with me, because I had met them at a
celebrity basketball game. They were just
hanging out, and we told them we had to go
to back to the studio. They asked us, “Can
we hang?” I replied, “Yeah, cool. Come on.”
At the time, I was working with Real to Reel.
Terry and Jimmy said that they had some
stuff they were working on. Real to Reel was
already signed to Arista Records by Clive
Davis. So I said to them, “Well, let me hear
what you got.” They had a couple of songs
that were real nice. They said, “We can get
something together for them.” After hanging
out in the studio, they went back and wrote a
song, and I had them produce two songs for
Real to Reel, “Can You Treat Me Likes She
Does?” and another one.
Real to Reel were a good, young group.
They were friends of the family. Clive [Davis]
liked that I was producing them, and he liked
the songs that I had for them. We had little
meetings to secure the record deal with this
group. If the group would’ve stayed together,
Clive would’ve been behind them. I would’ve
kept working with the group. Right after I
signed them, I had to file for bankruptcy. So
I had to do some stuff. This was at a time
when I had too many things going on. But at
the time, I secured all the stuff I’d previously
done with record companies. I finished all
my projects with the companies and turned
them in, then I filed for bankruptcy.

LEON SYLVERS III 47

A decade later, you were writing songs
for Blackstreet’s 1994 debut album.
How did that happen?
Teddy Riley always liked me as a producer.
[His] manager called and asked me, “Do
you have anything for a new group called
Blackstreet that Teddy is putting together?”
I was working on a musical thing with a rap
group with my wife and her sister. That was
the only thing I had finished, and he said,
“Yeah, no problem. That is cool.” So I sent
that. Teddy’s brother, Markell, loved it. Teddy
already wanted to get me down to Virginia,
so I agreed to work with them. Basically, they
wanted me to go back with them to set up and
go get a place to live, because he wanted me
to work exclusively with him for a minute.
He was working with a lot of singing groups,
and he wanted help with vocals. It was great.
So I went [to Virginia] with them when they
went back.
At the time, they were out in Los
Angeles finishing up with Bobby Brown and
Whitney Houston. I went to the studio and
met Teddy, and we went back up to the hotel
room to talk. He said, “I want you to come
back with me.” We really hit it off. I looked
for a place to live out there, and I moved my
whole family there.
While we were doing the Blackstreet
project, his uncle Chris told me a story about
the time when he was a teenager back in
the day when I was in the Sylvers. We were
doing a gig at the Apollo with Al Green and
Black Ivory. This kid won a contest to meet
and hang out with the Sylvers. We got to the
Apollo late, and we were just ready to go
onstage. My brother Foster told me, “Hey,
Leon, that’s the people from the radio station
that won the contest. We were supposed to
hook up with them before the show.” They
were backstage and the guard was trying to
put them out. I went over and said, “They’re
with us. They won the contest, so they’re
going to wait until we’re ready to go onstage.”
The guard replied, “I’m sorry, they have to
go.” I replied, “Okay. Well, check this out:
either they stay or we don’t go onstage, and
I’ll explain that to the promoter. It’s your call,
but I’m not going onstage until I get word
that they can stay back here.” The guard said,
“Okay, okay, okay. They can stay.” It ended
up being Teddy Riley who was the little
boy and his uncle Chris, who was seventeen
at the time. Teddy didn’t even tell me. His
uncle told me. [laughs] When he told me, I
remembered the incident.
Teddy was so excited when I met him [in
48 LEON SYLVERS III
L.A.]. He was excited to hear about anything
that I went through with the Shalamar stuff
or Solar artists. He already made up his mind
that I was going to go back with him. I didn’t
know that, but I found out later. We really hit
it off musically too.
He wanted me to work on the New Kids
on the Block [comeback album, 1994’s Face
the Music], and he asked me if I had anything
for it. I had a song that got Teddy interested
and led to me working with the group. I had
the song on a cassette. I played it for him, and
he said, “Oh, I like that. Where did you cut
this at?” I replied, “The masters are in your
vault.” He said, “What!?” I made sure I took
any masters I had, and I sent them to the I always liked uniqueness over just good
engineer ahead of time and told him to put stuff. I liked a unique hit because everybody
it in Teddy’s vault. He didn’t tell Teddy, and can copy something, but the more unique it
I forgot to tell him too. This was the first day is, the harder it is to copy it. My producing
we were in the studio together. He flipped style started off by using a bass rather than
out. He said, “Oh my God!” So he pulled the a keyboard. I played on everything I wrote
track up and he had the synth code already, back in the day.
and he linked it up to his computer. He was
having a field day, and he wanted me to stay As you reflect on your stellar career as
up all night to work with him on it in the a legendary producer, what are your
studio. It ended up being a song for New Kids feelings about the impact your work has
on the Block. After some time passed, he cut made on popular culture?
some more stuff, and he had me write on the
tracks. I was supposed to produce the songs Well, I’ve never looked at it like that before.
with him for them. The songs were “Never I’m looking at it like, as long as I’m in the
Let You Go” and “Girls.” “Girls” was a song system, I can keep going. [laughs] I give thanks
that Pharrell [Williams] and I worked on. He to the Lord that I was able to be a part of the
didn’t write the song, but he was doing some record business before the change in music—
stuff on top of it. This song got Pharrell in to because sampling has become a big thing. If
work with Teddy. This song ended up being you were in the system back in the day like
for New Kids on the Block too. So Teddy and I was, you get sampled a lot, and you get a
I hit it off from the very beginning. chance to make money off something you
did a long time ago. I remember when Will
Many people credit you with construct- Smith recorded “Miami,” they sampled “And
ing the format for contemporary R&B. the Beat Goes On” track by the Whispers.
Were you creating music organically, or There were three writers on it back then, and
did you have specific template in mind? when Will Smith did it, there were four more
writers added to it, so it ended up being seven
Well, making music starts from creating writers on it by the time it was sampled. I
organically. I used other musicians, but the made more money off the song the second
bottom line is, it was based off feel and what time around. I was like, “Whoa, okay. Thank
sounded good. I understood my role as a you, Jesus.” [laughs] I had no clue about it. I
producer. The last ear to hear something was made a nice publishing deal off of that. Well,
mine. [laughs] If the music didn’t work, it was once you get something right, it’ll always be
going to fall back on the producer. I always there. .
took the approach of, I had to put my foot
into whatever I did. I wasn’t going to make
the mistake of going off somebody else and
it failed. A producer has to be able to keep
the ship going, or go down with it. You have
to know what you’re doing. If you’re going
to claim success, then you better do it. This
is how I was raised. I’m glad that I was a
sponge when I was learning from the greats.
50
 After splitting with his crew in Japan, DJ KRUSH embarked on a journey with British label
Mo’ Wax that found the turntablist/producer using hip-hop’s breakbeat foundation
while pioneering a new genre of abstract instrumentals.

BREAKBEAT SAMURAI
by Danny Masao Winston

Hideaki Ishi, widely known as DJ Krush, was part of the first
generation of b-boys in Tokyo that started their own version of hip-
hop after getting exposed to the burgeoning youth culture via Charlie
Ahearn’s seminal film Wild Style in 1983. Following a few years of
honing and showcasing his turntable skills in the streets of Harajuku,
he formed his group Krush Posse in 1987 with DJ Go and Muro, who
was an MC at the time but is now a globally renowned DJ and crate
digger. Krush Posse established itself as an authentic hip-hop act that
brought the true essence to the table at a time when hip-hop was often
misinterpreted or misrepresented in Japan.
But while the other members of the group were focused on tracing
and recreating what they were hearing on wax coming out of New
York, Krush was more experimental in nature and was interested in
taking the music to a new plateau. Krush Posse broke up in 1992 due
to creative differences, and DJ Krush decided to push on as a solo
producer.
After releasing his debut album, Krush, on a Japanese label in
1994, he teamed up with James Lavelle of the influential British label
Mo’ Wax and released the innovative, forward-thinking instrumental
album Strictly Turntablized later in the same year. While the debut was
a stylish jazzy affair featuring jazz musicians and vocalists, the second
effort was a mind-bending journey into an expansive universe of
dusty, warped samples and crunchy, head-nodding drums. The album
displayed a decidedly darker, heavier, more atmospheric, and abstract
sound than his prior releases.
Following up with Meiso in 1995 and MiLight in 1997, DJ Krush
became one of the leading and defining figures behind Mo’ Wax’s
“trip-hop” movement alongside DJ Shadow. With creative and
intricate sonic layering and samurai-sharp turntablism, DJ Krush’s
music became responsible for opening minds to the concept of
instrumental hip-hop—hip-hop music that doesn’t require rhyming to
captivate the listeners.
His stint at Mo’ Wax lasted until about 1998, but his creative
streak continued until 2004, spawning several albums, singles, and
remixes, with each release revealing new sonic depths in his ever-
evolving sound. His music has touched and inspired countless souls
in all corners of the globe across generations, with people like Flying
Lotus citing DJ Krush as a major influence. He continued to tour
extensively, and after putting out a string of singles in 2011 and 2012,
came back with a new album in 2015 entitled Butterfly Effect, his first
full length in eleven years.
In 2016, at fifty-four, DJ Krush continues to keep a hectic DJ
schedule. And when he’s not out on the road, he remains in the lab,
crafting beats and sharpening his skills. I had a chance to chop it up
with the legend before a show about his early days and his iconic
releases on Mo’ Wax.

(opposite page) Promotional photo circa 1995.

51

You’ve mentioned in interviews about
how watching Wild Style when it first
opened in 1983 inspired you to take up
DJing. When did producing become a
passion of yours?
I started making beats after I formed Krush
Posse with Muro. Back then, we didn’t have
great equipment to choose from. I had a
four-track recorder, and I would record
myself playing doubles of a breakbeat on one
track and then punch-in scratches on top. It
was a lot of work to make one beat back in
those days. I had a Boss sampler that could
only record a second of a sample. Eventually,
better drum machines came along like Akai
and Casio RZ-1.
After Krush Posse disbanded, you put
out your first solo record, Krush, in
January 1994. It was released through
a label named Chance, a Nippon
Columbia subsidiary. What was the
story behind that album?
Before that, while I was still with Krush
Posse, I was asked to do remixes of a few of
the tracks from [ Japanese cult film] TVO’s
soundtrack. That was released as an EP [in
52 DJ KRUSH
1991] and that was what got me noticed
initially in the U.K. “Acid jazz” was a big
movement at the time. In Japan, we had
acts like Mondo Grosso, UFO, and Monday
Michiru. Overseas, there were people like
Galliano and Brand New Heavies. I was kind
of seen as part of that movement.
Muro and [DJ] Go were really into soul
and funk music that was sampled in hip-hop,
but I wanted to go a different route so I was
sampling a lot of jazz. Then Krush Posse split
and I went solo. A guy named S-Ken heard
my TVO remixes and the stuff I did with
Monday Michiru and liked what he heard.
He was just starting his own label under
Nippon Columbia and asked me if I’d like to
release an album through his label.
At the time, my mindset was like, “What
can I do by myself?” Since I didn’t have an
MC with me anymore, I wanted to see if I
could do hip-hop music without any rapping.
That doesn’t seem like a far-fetched idea now,
but back then I didn’t know anybody that
really did that. I was also part of a band called
Jazzy Upper Cut, so I asked the musicians to
play over my beats. I decided I do want to
include some rapping on the album, so I asked
[Gang Starr’s] Guru to rhyme on a track.
I’ll never forget what one of the band
members had told me once. He said, “What
can you really do? All you do is scratch
records. Can you even do a solo?” That really
got to me. I decided that if I’m really gonna
do this, I have to take it to a musician’s level.
Being in the band really molded me to have a
musician’s mindset.
Guru raps on “B-Boy Mastermind,” a
track found on the Japanese release of
Krush. I read in a previous interview that
when you first met Guru, you gave him
a rare record as a present.
I gave one to DJ Premier too. When Gang
Starr first came to Japan, they were the
sub headliner—Dream Warriors were the
main headlining act—and we [Krush Posse]
were the opening act. It was in Kawasaki
or something. We were big fans of Gang
Starr, so we went to their dressing room to
say hi. I was especially excited to meet DJ
Premier. I had with me a vinyl compilation
of the instrumental breakbeats they used in
Wild Style. At the time, you couldn’t get that
in the States, but stores in Japan had them.
Premier and Guru saw it and they were
like, “Where’d you get that!?” They looked
extremely jealous, and we felt bad, so we told
them, “We’ll go to Tokyo later and get it for
you.” They were very excited to take home
that record.
Then in August of 1994, the EP Bad
Brothers came out, which featured your
remixes of Ronny Jordan tracks. How
did this come about?
Man! I hadn’t thought about that record in
a while! And R.I.P. to Ronny Jordan! I was
devastated to hear that he passed away [in
2014]. Bad Brothers happened out of the
blue. Apparently, Ronny Jordan had heard
my track “Big City Lover” from Krush and
 decided he wanted to work with me. I got
asked to remix a few of his tracks, and I was
honored. It was pretty rough though, because
I only had a week to finish it. But it was my
first big commission from overseas, so I was
delighted to do it.
One thing that left a big impression on
me was how he treated me as an artist even
though I was a DJ and an up-and-comer.
Though it was a remix project, the contract
was set up so I’d receive proper royalties from
sales and that helped me a lot. I’ve been in
situations where DJs and hip-hop producers
were seen as unimportant or taken advantage
of. He showed a lot of respect, and I was
grateful for that. I’m happy I got a chance to
do a session with him before he passed, when
he did a show at Blue Note in Japan some
years back.

How did you link up with James Lavelle?

My first album was only out in Japan at

the time. Over in the U.K., people like
Paul Bradshaw, who was the guy behind
the magazine Straight No Chaser, and Gilles
Peterson liked my TVO stuff and some of the
demo tapes that I had sent over there. James,
who was working for Paul, heard them as
well. Back then, I was making a lot of beat
tapes. I would have a new cassette full of
beats like every week. James and Gilles both
liked the demos and offered to put out an
album on their respective labels, Mo’ Wax
and Talkin’ Loud.
I wasn’t sure which label to go with.
Then Paul did a Straight No Chaser tour in
Japan, and I got to meet James Lavelle in
person. He was really young, but he had a
vision. I liked his enthusiasm, and I decided
to go with Mo’ Wax.
If you listen to Krush, you’ll notice I
threw in weird little breakbeat tracks that
sound a bit different than the rest. I put the
tracks in there because I was already getting
bored of “acid jazz,” and I felt like the vibe on
those tracks was the direction I wanted to go
in. So I threw those in there as kind of a taster
of what’s to follow. James loved those tracks
and said that he wanted to do a whole album
of that sort of vibe, and that’s exactly what I
was thinking, so we were on the same page.
I felt like that was the way to move
forward. A form of hip-hop music that
doesn’t rely on rapping nor instrumentation.
And not just a simple, Kenny Dope kind of
looped beat, but a track that has twists and
turns. With abstract, obscure samples.

(top) DJ Krush working with Guru for 1994’s Krush. (bottom) Krush Posse posing with Guru and DJ Premier
of Gang Starr during their Japanese tour. Photos courtesy of DJ Krush. DJ KRUSH 53

That vision is realized on your second
full length, Strictly Turntablized, also
released in 1994 on Mo’ Wax.
Before I had that album out, James, DJ
Shadow, and I went on a tour in Europe. [The
Mo’ Wax Headz tour in 1994] We did shows
in about seven cities in Europe. I don’t think
DJ Shadow was really known back then, and
neither was I, so the people that came out to
the shows were mainly fans of the Mo’ Wax
brand.
I remember playing some really heavy,
low-tempo stuff at the shows. The people
would kind of look confused because they
couldn’t really dance to it, but I didn’t care
and I kept playing whatever I wanted to play.
I wanted to establish a brand for my music,
even if a lot of people didn’t get it right away.
Eventually, people would start to catch on.
After the tour, we immediately went
into the studio in London, and I made
Strictly Turntablized. I had brought my drum
machines, Roland MC-50 and AKAI S-1000,
and a bunch of demo tracks from Japan. But
after doing shows outside of Japan for the first
time in my life, I got all this new inspiration,
and suddenly those tracks didn’t sound right
to me anymore, so I remade most of them
54 DJ KRUSH
right on the spot in the studio. I would stay
up for hours recording tracks.
How were those shows in Europe
different from shows in Japan?
I felt the audience was more open-minded. I
was able to be myself and just do whatever I
wanted to, and they would generally accept
it. So I told myself that I was just gonna do
me. Do my version of hip-hop.
What sort of sets would you DJ at these
shows?
It was all vinyl of course, and I couldn’t take
too many records with me, so I had a bag of
about a hundred records and I had several
routines I could do with those. It would be
hip-hop, or it would be breaks, and I’d layer
some jazz on top or something. Some Miles,
Jimi Hendrix’s guitar solos, Funkadelic’s
Maggot Brain, stuff like that. When I layer, I’d
make sure the records would be in key too.
It was common for DJs to scratch vocals
on top of beats because that doesn’t have a
key. But I liked blending songs live because
I was used to playing with musicians, but
when stuff is out of key it’d sound horrible.
So I really trained my ear to be able to play
long samples on top of beats and stay in key.
Being in the band helped me in DJing and
production.
What was your impression of Mo’ Wax
at the time?
From the music to the cover artwork, they
were cutting edge. They weren’t catering to
anybody’s needs; they were just doing what
they wanted to do. They were at the frontier,
picking out and showcasing the newest
innovations in music. I really liked how
James thought. Being an Englishman, I felt
he had a different view than Americans.
Why do you think your music was more
accepted in Europe than in Japan or the
U.S. at the time?
Europe was more open-minded, I think.
Instead of just putting out something, they
put their own spin on it. That’s why genres
like drum-and-bass and dubstep were born in
the U.K. I liked their experimental nature. In
America, there was a sense of, “If an MC ain’t
rapping on it, it ain’t hip-hop.” Hip-hop at the
time in the States seemed kind of limiting.
So I couldn’t make a name for myself in
America right away. I wanted to though,
but I decided to make some noise in Europe
first, and then take my music to the U.S. And
then eventually, I came back to Japan. And it
was funny, because now that I got stamps of
approval overseas, people in Japan were like,
“Krush! Krush!” even though most of them
didn’t give a damn about my music before.
[laughs]
It was difficult to find an audience in
Japan. Even when I was with Krush Posse,
we were often told we should do something
more in line with what was popular back
then. People didn’t get what we were doing.
What was the Mo’ Wax tour like?
Mo’ Wax didn’t have much money, so we’d
spend nights cramped in a dirty van. James
in the passenger seat up front, Shadow in the
middle seat, I’d be in the back. We’d only get
to sleep on a hotel bed every few days or so.
We had many shows crammed into a tight
schedule, and we didn’t get paid that much,
but it was so much fun. James had a vision,
and he took a chance bringing Shadow from
the U.S. and I from Japan. We all shared
the same ethos, and I felt like what we were
doing would pay off later.
 It felt like this attention I was getting
from the U.K. was my last chance at a musical
career. My career wasn’t going anywhere in
Japan. Japanese record execs would tell me,
“I think your music is great, but stuff like
this doesn’t sell here.” And when Krush Posse
split, I felt lost because back then, I couldn’t
imagine a hip-hop DJ having a career
without an MC. I was almost about to give
up on music altogether. I had a family to take
care of. But I told myself I was gonna make a
living off of music, and I didn’t want to give
up that easily. So I set myself a deadline. If
I can’t make music a viable career within a
year, I’d quit. That’s when I started getting
noticed in the U.K. through my TVO work,
and Mo’ Wax offered me a deal.
I’ll never forget what my then-girlfriend’s
father, my father-in-law now, said to me. He
saw me on the turntables and said to me
condescendingly, “You’re not going to make
a living doing something like that!” That’s
when I vowed to make music my career.

From the music

to the cover artwork,
Mo’ Wax was
cutting edge.
They weren’t
catering to anybody’s
needs; they were
doing what they
wanted to do.
They were
at the frontier,
picking out and
showcasing the
newest innovations
in music.

DJ KRUSH 55
 When DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing… came
out in ’96, what was your initial reaction?

I was in awe. I listened carefully to that

album. It was a classic.

Was there a rivalry between the two of

you?

We collaborated on my track “Duality,” so I

already knew what he was capable of. But I
never saw him as a rival. I was impressed by
the way he programmed beats, and his music
was incredible, but I always felt his stuff and
my stuff were pretty different sonically, even
though both of our music are rooted in the
same hip-hop breakbeat mentality. I give
props to James too for discovering somebody
like that.

When yours and DJ Shadow’s music

started getting described as “trip-hop”
music, did it irk you?

It was just something people were saying. I

think most of us artists didn’t like that term
at all. I wasn’t making anything that could
easily be put into a neat little box anyway. But
I don’t really care what people call my music.
Back then, I’d say to people, “I don’t make
trip-hop music, I make DJ Krush music.”
[laughs]

Talk to me a little about your sampling

method in those days. What sort of
records did you like sampling from?

I was never the type of producer to just take a

big chunk of a record and loop it up and call
it a beat. I’ve always liked taking elements
from here and there and construct a beat,
so I’d need a big palette of sounds. I always
thought jazz was a colorful music with a lot
of nuances, so I’d say I probably draw from

I wanted to establish a brand for my music.

Even if a lot of people didn’t get it right away.
Eventually, people would start to catch on.

56 DJ KRUSH
jazz the most. I’d avoid records that I know
other people sampled from. I used a lot of
popular drum breaks but never popular
loops. I wanted to paint using different colors
than others. The fact that I was in a jazz band
probably also affected my choice of sampling.
Did you listen to a lot of jazz growing
up?
My dad was into jazz heavily. But he also
played other stuff too, like James Brown,
Santana, everything. When I was in junior
high, there were these older guys living next
to me that were really into ’60s and ’70s funk.
I’d go over there often to borrow their 45s.
I’d listen to rock and other stuff too, but
Black music resonated with me the most.
And then, when I discovered hip-hop, I
realized they were sampling all the music I
had grown up listening to. I still keep a pretty
big collection of 45s at my house.
On Strictly’s “Yeah,” you sample Miles
Davis’s Bitches Brew.
Members from Jazzy Upper Cut put me onto
Miles Davis, and I started listening to him a
lot. I was like, “He’s doing everything we’ve
DJ Krush and DJ Shadow practicing. Photos courtesy of DJ Krush.
wanted to do!” I went through his catalog
and listened to everything he did.
But when I sample, I don’t think like,
“Yeah, I’m gonna sample me some Miles
Davis!” What I would do was I’d build a basic
beat, and then I’d play different records on
top to see which one fits, which one is in key.
I would just look for certain elements in songs
that I needed for that particular track. It just
happened to be Miles Davis sometimes, or
some obscure Japanese records other times.
That’s how I did it.
Major labels in Japan were very careful
about sampling. I would have to give them a
list of all the samples I used on the record and
they would go through it one by one, getting
permission. At the time, a lot of record
companies were getting sued for sampling.
Labels in Japan were terrified of getting
sued. They would tell me, “If you’re going to
sample, make sure it’s unrecognizable.” So I’d
break stuff down and warp it when I sample.
Would you say that necessity to make
sample sources a secret contributed to
your music becoming as abstract as it did?
I guess that was a part of it, yeah. I’d lower
the pitch down significantly and then make
a beat out of that sluggish sound. Man,
tracking down everybody to get permission
for a sample was a huge pain for us. A lot of
the records I’d use, the labels that released
it would already be out of business or
something and some of them would be
impossible to reach. Sampling became such a
hassle for us producers, and that’s why some
of us stopped sampling altogether, and others
just made sure that it was unrecognizable.
Do you remember what you sampled
to get that strange melody in the single
“Kemuri?”
I forgot what record that was, but it was a
jazz record, I think. Maybe James gave it to
me. On “Kemuri,” all the samples you hear
are in reverse. I made a remix of that track
[“Kemuri Untouchable Mix” from Stepping
Stones: The Self-Remixed Best], which has all
the samples in its original form. Of course
the drum break is a famous one [Dalton
& Dubarri’s “I’m Just a Rock ’N’ Roller”].
And all the high-pitched noise you hear me
scratching is from a scratch record my friend
DJ Honda made.
DJ KRUSH 57
 (top) Krush working with C.L. Smooth on the track “Only the Strong Survive” off 1995’s Meiso. Photo courtesy of DJ Krush.
58 DJ KRUSH (bottom) DJ Krush with engineer Ken “Duro” Ifill. Photo courtesy of DJ Shadow.
You put out your third album, Meiso,
in 1995. You decided to recruit some
rappers this time around. Why?
On Strictly, I wanted to see if I can do an all-
instrumental album and make it work. But
as I got ready for my next album, Meiso, I
started to wonder what it would be like to
have rappers from America over my tracks.
I was heavily influenced by American hip-
hop, so I definitely wanted to have that flavor
in my music and focus on that market. So my
concept was to have half the album be hip-
hop tracks with rappers, and other half be
the instrumental stuff that I was becoming
known for.
I went to a studio in New York to record
with rappers. I remember it was a lot of work
to get all the raps recorded. C.L. [Smooth],
for example, was scheduled to come in
during the day, so I was waiting at the studio
but he doesn’t show up. Later in the evening
he shows up with a few of his friends, and he
tells me he hasn’t written any of the lyrics
yet! So I had to wait while he writes his lyrics.
[laughs] People just operated differently than
in Japan, and I had to get used to that.
Besides C.L. Smooth, you got Black
Thought and Malik B. of the Roots on
the album. You also reconnect with
Black Thought and Questlove on Zen
(2001). And “Hardware,” the lone single
from Black Thought’s aborted MCA
solo debut, Masterpiece Theater, was a DJ
Krush production. How did you get to
know the guys from the Roots?
I first met the Roots when I went to England
for a show. They were with Talkin’ Loud
at the time. It was a show put together
by Straight No Chaser called London Jazz
Festival, and acts like the Roots, Bjork, MC
Solaar, and myself shared the stage. Man, it
was an incredible lineup.
Your fourth album, MiLight, came out
in Japan on Sony in 1996, followed by
an international version on Mo’ Wax in
1997.
I signed with a major, Sony, when I did Meiso.
For Meiso and MiLight, Sony owned the
masters and Mo’ Wax was the licensee for
overseas releases. Guys like Shawn J. Period
and Mos Def, I worked with them before they
were big. After they did my album, Rawkus
blew up and they were suddenly big names
in the hip-hop circuit. When I did Meiso, I
carefully selected every feature and I did a lot
of preparation, but MiLight was more loose
and spontaneous. My engineer, Ken “Duro”
[Ifill], would tell me who the hottest names
were at the time, and I just shook their hands
in New York and asked them to hop on my
album. I tried a lot of different ideas in the
studio.
I would say on MiLight, I didn’t draw my
sword out like I did on Meiso. I kind of think
I kept my weapon by my side throughout the
album. I think it was a more subtle album. It
reflected the times. I remember, there was a
bombing in Oklahoma, and I saw a picture
of a fireman holding a burnt baby in his arms
on the front page of a newspaper in the studio
in New York. I had a child too and that just
affected me on a deep level. That inspired
the theme on the album. The album had a
message for the future, and the sound was a
reflection of how I felt at the time.
Looking back on the Mo’ Wax days,
what are your thoughts?
The ’90s was an interesting, inspiring era. I
think London was especially exciting back
then. A lot of new music was being invented
and exported out to the world from that place,
thanks to people like the Mo’ Wax guys. Plus,
we didn’t have the abundance of information
that we do now, which meant that we had
to go look for things. Not everything was
already laid out on the table in front of us, so
we had to experiment, explore, and try new
things ourselves. That really made it fun for
someone like me. .
DJ KRUSH 59
THE IDEA
OF SHADOW
IS ACTUALLY PRETTY
STRAIGHTFORWARD.
At the time, if you go back to 1989 to 1990, you started to see this
trend of producers like Marley Marl, Hurby Luv Bug, and even
Mantronix, stepping into the forefront more. You can almost tell the
managers were like, “The rappers are getting all the shine; you need
to put yourself out there!” I came from an era where Jam Master Jay
was dressed in black, and no one saw his face. I always liked that
aspect—that the DJ was considered the silent secret weapon of
the crew. And for me, ideally, I’d rather be the director not the star,
because no one knows what the director looks like, but they’re the
ones pulling the levers behind the scenes.

60
61
62
 The late 1980s and early ’90s saw the dawn of a new day as sampling was at a high point with hip-hop’s
golden era. Following in the footsteps of Double Dee & Steinski, Prince Paul, and the Dust Brothers,
DJ SHADOW would push the boundaries of sampling with his early Mo’ Wax releases.
His first full-length album, Endtroducing…, further shined a light on the art form, as the album
exploded through popular culture and put the reluctant star in the spotlight.

IN THE BEGINNING by David Ma

Inside DJ Shadow’s studio, what first strikes you is the overflowing
ephemera. Sure, there are shelves full of records and off to the side
are turntables, the same ones used on many of his masterworks. But
there’s also a framed, gold De La Soul record encased in glass. There
are plaques on the wall that at one time belonged to James Brown.
There’s a Melvin Bliss original Ampex reel. There are books and
memorabilia to behold, all of which surround his workstation, a mod­
est, minimal setup for someone whose projects are known for their
baffling, expansive depth. “I’m actually music’s biggest fan,” he says.
When it comes to pioneers, you wonder how they got that way.
For Shadow, born Josh Davis, it was a keen interest in music early
on that sparked an obsession with hip-hop. It was personal ambition,
fulfilling curiosities about DJing in an age before know-how could
be Googled. And it was the kindness of others who saw in him a
prodigious talent and were compelled to help.
Says Shadow: “My DJ mentor was a guy named Oras [Washington]
who had a local radio show, and he let me borrow his turntables when
I was young. [Bay Area FM station] KMEL let me walk into their
station office and hand them my mixtape, and eventually they gave
me a show. Now, I’m not the type of producer who can walk into a
studio and make ten hot beats a day. It takes me months to complete
just a few minutes of music. But my successes, especially early on, have
really been due to the kindness of others.”
Leaving your hometown and making it big is often romanticized.
For Shadow, he did the opposite and stayed in the Bay Area, attending
college at UC Davis and playing on local radio before going global.
Through the last twenty-five years, his work, particularly his bold
1996 debut, Endtroducing…, has been described with epic language—
genre defining, game changing, Coltrane-esque even.
Endtroducing… was a first of its kind, an instrumental hip-hop
album in which the narrative was solely driven through a pastiche
of measured samples. At a time where rap beats were mostly vocal-
less takes of originals, these textured takes signaled a sea change that
would be copied for decades thereafter. It defied easy categorization,
and implicit in the songs was a desire to nudge the norm forward, to
rattle the ennui. Endtroducing… was, ironically, according to Shadow, a
very specific and purposeful farewell to his early approach.
“The reason Endtroducing… is called End-troducing,” he says,
emphasizing the End, “is because it was supposed to signify the end of
that sound. That’s how I saw it. Ironically, I still get asked by people,
‘Why don’t you make music more like Endtro?’ But the title, to me,
says it all. I was already trying to actively move away from what I
thought people thought my music was. I mean, now I’m totally at
peace that people want me to continually make this sound. I’m used to
it by now. But even then, even with that first big project, I was trying
to do newer things.”
The Mountain Will Fall—his latest as of this writing—has similarly
effusive intricacies as some of his earlier work but is also a noticeable
artistic pivot with more features and a more current sound. There’s a
larger context of ascension here; he’s student of the history that came
before him. His almost encyclopedic knowledge of music recently
came into play through the recent death of maestro and composing
legend David Axelrod. In a recent interview, Shadow said, “What
separates him from his contemporaries in striking fashion is that he
refused to specialize and was willing to tackle a wide breadth of genres
in an era when most producers strove to establish brand recognition
within the rock, jazz, or vocal field.” In more ways than one, this is and
has been, Shadow’s musical worldview and approach. “As a producer, I
count him as one of my biggest influences.”
In his studio, holding a small green booklet with a picture of Louis
Armstrong on it, Shadow says: “What I’ve done has been what all
artists whom I’ve admired have done. This isn’t anything new. Look,
this pamphlet has Louis Armstrong on it, and if you notice, it’s from
1948. People were calling record collecting diggin’ back then. This was
likely a pamphlet that they circulated at trade shows or conventions.
It’s all about knowing where you came from. I just always felt, even
since I was at a very young age, like I could do something that was
unique but that was still inspired and informed by the past.”

(opening spread and opposite) DJ Shadow in 1995. Photos by B+.

63
64 DJ SHADOW

Let’s start with your moniker. Why
Shadow? And what did your first mix
sound like?
For context, these were some of the early
days, and I was involved in a crew called
Bigger Than Life Productions. The dude
who ran the crew was from Oakland, and
he came up with a mega-corny name for me,
which was DJ White Lightning! [laughs] At
the time, I was toying with DJ 24KT too.
[laughs]
The idea of Shadow is actually pretty
straightforward. At the time, if you go back
to 1989 to 1990, you started to see this trend
of producers like Marley Marl, Hurby Luv
Bug, and even Mantronix, stepping into
the forefront more. You can almost tell the
managers were like, “The rappers are getting
all the shine; you need to put yourself out
there!” I came from an era where Jam Master
Jay was dressed in black, and no one saw his
face. I always liked that aspect—that the DJ
was considered the silent secret weapon of
the crew. And for me, ideally, I’d rather be the
director not the star, because no one knows
what the director looks like, but they’re the
ones pulling the levers behind the scenes.
The issue was, and I was talking with
QBert recently, is that Q’s crew at the time
was known as the Shadow DJs. So we were at
a rap summit in Berkeley around 1991, and
we were both doing mixes for KMEL and the
names were a little too close and confusing.
And this dude Marcus Clemmons, who
used to manage [Bay Area rapper] Paris, for
(top) Cassette tape artwork by 8th Wonder for Shadow’s 1991 tape Hip-Hop Reconstruction from the Ground Up.
(opposite) DJ Shadow in 1996 with his portable turntable, listening to records purchased on a digging trip in the Central Valley.
Photo courtesy of Josh Davis.
some reason he overheard the conversation
and said, “Okay, Shadow, you’re dope,
and, Q, you’re dope. Both you guys should
be worried about bigger things than y’all
names.” Shortly after that, Q began calling
his crew something else; this was before they
called themselves Invisbl Skratch Piklz.
The very first mix I did as DJ Shadow
was for Tommy Boy. It was a mix that never
came out, and they didn’t like the mix. But
James Lavelle from Mo’ Wax heard it years
later and thought it was very drum-and-bass,
and he wanted to put it out. It still has never
came out. [laughs]
I want to further contextualize your
start. I’ve read that you had a mentor
who was immensely impactful named
DJ Oras Washington.
I actually met up with him for the first time in
like twenty-five years recently. He’s still kind
of around. He’ll do a wedding here or there
or a comedy show and is still in Oakland. He
was the first person to have a hip-hop show
on KDVS, the [college] radio station in the
town I grew up in. He was definitely into
stuff like the Time or Rick James; if you were
a mobile DJ at the time, that was your shit.
But you still had to play hip-hop and stuff
like Egyptian Lover and the more clubby shit
that people were digging at the time. Oras
was the first to let me borrow his [Technics]
1200s. Growing up, I couldn’t afford real
turntables, so I just used busted belt-driven
ones. That’s how I learned to scratch, because
on a belt drive you can do whatever you want
until the point where your hand physically
releases the record.
Basically, around 1985, I started calling
Oras up during his show and was like, “Can
you play this or that?” and he’d pause and
say, “Who is this?” I mean, Davis is a small
suburban, liberal town and very much a
college-rock-type place. I don’t think there
were many people into hip-hop; in fact, I
know there wasn’t. There was one other
dude, Tom Curry, who was the first person
from Davis to put out a rap record. If you look
on Discogs, it’s Tee Oh DCB Posse. It’s hard
to find now but used to be all around the late
’80s and early ’90s; you’d find it everywhere
sealed. He was a cool dude and was kind of
the first person to be on the map.
Around 1986, I spoke to Oras again and
was like, “Yo, can I come down to the station
and watch you work?” And he was always
super down. He was just stoked to have a fan,
you know? So I was thirteen or fourteen at the
time, depending on what side of June it was;
I’d ride my bike down there. And they’d get
all these promos, and, of course, most people
at the station didn’t want to play rap records
or R&B—or any Black music really. But I’d be
able to see what was coming out soon, and
when it did, I’d rush and go try to find it at the
record store. Around early ’87, I asked Oras
if I could play a mix, and he actually said yes.
I’m pretty sure you could even find it online,
because I made it available for free on one of
my sites. On it, you can hear Oras say: “We
have Josh here, he’s sixteen years old with a
mix for you!” It starts off with a Mantronix
song then “Cabbage Patch” from the World
Class Wreckin’ Cru. You can hear what I
sounded like scratching- and mixing-wise at
sixteen on all this real primitive equipment.
What was it about rap music that caught
your ear, and how did it eventually
progress to collecting records and
DJing? Was it sort of all at once or a slow
process?
For me, it was fascination with hip-hop
culture as viewed through the lens of what’s
accessible for a twelve-year-old. So, I mean,
ever since about age five, I had a little
second-hand transistor radio, and I was into
whatever else was happening around me.
When you’re six or seven years old, you’re
into whatever is out there, so for me it began
with disco then later Cameo and Rick James,
and after that, early ’80s funk. KFRC in that
time was heavily rock. I mean, they’d break
records by Jefferson Airplane and stuff. But
by the late ’70s, they were playing R&B and
broadcasting from the city, and I’d be able to
pick it up on my AM dial in Davis because
AM travels farther than FM. And then one
day, I heard “The Message.” I mean, I had
heard [Blondie’s] “The Rapture” before, and
I knew what rapping was; but to me, I didn’t
get the cultural connotation that came with
hip-hop culture until I heard “The Message.”
Then I heard “Planet Rock” shortly after.
I’d see videos like “Hey DJ” by the World
Famous Supreme Team. You’d see people
scratching in the movie Breakin’. As a twelve-
or thirteen-year-old, that’s what struck me.
I thought to myself, “I cannot see myself
rapping, but this DJ thing is fascinating.”
DJ SHADOW 65
At what point did you move toward
listening for drum breaks within songs,
with the intent of using it later?
So my family disbanded shortly after I began
taking interest in hip-hop; my dad stayed in
San Jose [California], and I went with my
mom to Davis. So I would see him every two
weeks, and sometime around 1984, I asked
him, “Do you know what rap is?” And he was
like, “Yeah, I think so.” He grew up going to
Tower of Power concerts and stuff like that,
so he was a music head. I then asked him if
there was a radio station I could listen to that
played more rap, and he was like, “KSOL!”
It would eventually be people like Michael
Erickson, who was also my hero, and then
people like Cameron Paul came later.
So I’m hearing records around ’84 or
’85, and you have things like “AJ Scratch” by
Kurtis Blow or “One for the Treble” by Davy
DMX—scratching is starting to become part
of the arrangement on all these records. On
the Davy joint, you hear them scratching the
stab at the top of the “Ashley’s Roachclip”
break [by the Soul Searchers]. They’d scratch
on the drum fill leading into the break on
“Take Me to Mardi Gras” by Bob James,
and simultaneously I’m hearing these same
sounds on different records. So I started to
become fascinated by these sounds and was
like, “Why do these DJs know what these
things are and I don’t?” Because, at the time,
I didn’t know what breakbeats were yet.
Eventually, you start to hear more of the
break being played. For me, a big moment
was at the end of “The Magnificent Jazzy
Jeff”; he let the rest of [ James Brown’s]
“Funky Drummer” play, and I was like, “Oh
shit, you can hear the moment within the
moment!”
So as hip-hop became more willing
to let the breaks ride for longer, I came to
realize everything was pretty much all from
Ultimate Breaks & Beats [and] Octopus Breaks.
That’s when I started becoming fascinated by
breaks. But it wasn’t just, “I want to scratch
like this DJ or that DJ,” but rather, I wanted
to be able to just do what they were doing.
Around that same time, in America, before
The Source, everything about hip-hop was
always something negative, always stuff
about riots at concerts and how it was terrible
music. All these magazines and publications
were built to sustain rock and roll, and you
couldn’t find anything positive or educational
about rap.
66 DJ SHADOW
Being in the Bay Area, I’d imagine it
wasn’t too easy to get your hands on
stuff about hip-hop at the time, at least
right away.
There was this store in Davis that imported
British stuff. U.K. magazines were a different
story than U.S. publications. NME or Melody
Maker were from the U.K. and would have
Just-Ice on the cover, and you’d open it and
there’s a ten-page spread about Mantronix
and a list of his top ten breakbeats. I was like,
“Oh shit!” It was mind-blowing! I mean, if
you live in New York or Philly, you could go
to any store and get Ultimate Breaks & Beats,
but on the West Coast it wasn’t like that, at
least not in the Bay Area. So as an aspiring DJ,
I had to put the pieces of the puzzle together
over time. When people ask me what drew
me to hip-hop, since it was so far away, it was
the same thing that likely drew Krush from
Japan, same thing that drew this dude from
Brazil, or this dude from Europe. Something
was happening thousands of miles away and
you’re just piecing it together because you
knew something important was happening.
So I remember in 1987, I went to a
record store with the sole purpose to buy
breaks that were on my list. And there was a
store in Davis called Recycled Records, and
though it was only open for about four years,
I remember going there and buying James
Brown’s The Payback and Herman Kelly’s
“Dance to the Drummer’s Beat.” And the
records were only like three bucks! At that
point, that had only been out about ten years,
so they weren’t super valued yet. I remember
reading an interview with Biz Markie in
1990, and by then things had changed and
everyone loved rap, and it was mainstream
and making money. In it, Biz mentioned that
one of his favorite breaks was Skull Snaps’
[“It’s a New Day”], and I had never heard of it
and was like, “Oh, Skull Snaps, I’ll go buy it.”
So I just walked into a record store, and there
it was. Back then, it was easy, especially out
here, because nobody even knew what this
Skull Snaps record was.
When did all this lead to actual hands-
on experiments with sampling?
It definitely took some time, but one of
the first records I used was in my dad’s
collection—it was an Isaac Hayes album.
Public Enemy was also a huge influence on
me, and they still are. They’re top three most
influential alongside De La Soul and Beastie
Boys. Over the years, I felt like those three
were constantly setting the pace. When I
heard “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” on
It Takes a Nation [of Millions to Hold Us Back], I
was like, “Oh shit, I know exactly what this
sample is!”
I soon came to find that between my
dad’s collection of records and the stuff I
was buying, I felt I had solid early finds,
including stuff like the first Boobie Knight
[and the Universal Lady] album, which [was]
eventually used [by a few big groups]. I was
young but was like, “I’ve had this since ’88!”
I mean, the thing is, everybody had those
records before people picked up on it and
made the records famous. So around that
time, I thought, “Okay, I think I can do
this,” and my main thing was saving up for
a four-track recorder. Not sure if you had a
chance to listen to this on my website, but I
sold this thing called The 4-Track Era in which
there are three volumes—one is original
productions, one is remixes, like if I had an a
cappella of something, and the other side are
KMEL mixes. And all of it is from 1989 to
1991 made from a sampler I eventually saved
up enough to buy for.
If you live
in New York
or Philly, you
could go to
any store and
get Ultimate
Breaks & Beats,
but on the
West Coast
it wasn’t like that,
at least not in
the Bay Area.
DJ Shadow in 1996 sampling “Moment of Truth” from the soundtrack Gator,
as he’s wrapping up production for “Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain.” Photos courtesy of Josh Davis. DJ SHADOW 67
I always wondered if you play any
instruments.
I grew up playing piano for a few years. I
can hear when things are out of tune. Even
on famous records. I grew up in a pretty
argumentative household because my mom
always encouraged us to have an opinion on
things, so I was probably pretty precocious,
and I’d say things like, “Those songs suck!”
Funny enough, Michael Jackson is obviously
peerless, but there are certainly pitchy
moments on some of his records. I don’t think
that’s a very controversial thing to say. You
listen to certain records, and it’s totally fine
because it’s a single moment—and I’m sure
Quincy or whoever was there noticed but
probably kept it because it had a great energy
or whatnot. But in other music, there’s always
been moments where I’m like, “Why didn’t
they fix that?” [laughs]
In terms of using a sampler, did you also
have a mentor or was it a process of trial
and error?
No, I’m totally self-taught. My heroes were
Prince Paul and DJ Premier. I mean, all the
early Def Jam stuff mentored me. If you
follow them as a label, when records like “Can
You Feel It” by Original Concept came out,
you’re hearing more and more progressive
records with scratches and samples. And of
course, Rick Rubin’s stuff. With labels like
Sleeping Bag and groups like EPMD, and as
a result, you start to hear all this new stuff
being looped. And living in Cali, I was of
course a Dr. Dre fan.
poached Cameron Paul from KSOL,” but
that was a huge signal of change. I still have
one of those early Cameron Paul mixes on
cassette that I recorded, and that’s where I
heard Steinski for the first time.
How did it immediately strike you?
It had already been out, like, two years or
something, because it came out in early ’84,
’85. And I think it got bootlegged years later,
and I’m pretty sure that’s how all those mixes
became accessible for all those DJs out here.
If you go back to ’86 or ’87, a lot of the music
was techno synthetic, and I love freestyle and
what people called Latin hip-hop and Miami
bass. But when this dropped, it felt like the
antithesis of all that. It felt dangerous.
It was just that Led Zeppelin break
without any addition to it and no
enhancements—just drums. It felt like such
a gearshift in the mix. So as a result, I’d go
back and re-listen to all the original records
he used. It also fed into this thing where I
was like, “I have a list and I have to go grab
all these songs” and that was “Lesson 3.” That
was my first time with the Steinski mixes. I
also heard “The Payoff Mix”—[which was
Double Dee & Steinski’s mastermix of
GLOBE & Whiz Kid’s “Play that Beat Mr.
DJ”]—as part of this double album [from]
Tommy Boy.
What were your surroundings like
leading up to your first single on
Hollywood BASIC, 1991’s “Lesson 4”?
Around this time, I was making mixtapes;
this was 1990, and I was living in the dorms
in Davis. My family had evaporated into
a million different directions. My parents
went into the foothills, my brother went to
Hawaii, and I was actually the only one who
stayed. For whatever reason, it just made
sense to put me in the dorms, which, was a
strange experience because I was the only
local kid in the dorms when everybody was
from elsewhere. And so, in addition, it made
it easy for me to go to school. And since I
already knew where everything was and had
lived there, I felt like I had more free time
than everyone else who was still getting
acclimated, so I spent a lot of time with
equipment, and mixes, and sampling, and so
forth. I kept all my equipment and records at
my friend’s place—who went by 8th Wonder.
He was a graffiti artist who did the art on all
my early tapes. He also did the art on the “In/
Flux” picture disc [on Mo’ Wax] and stuff
like that. He did the early Solesides art too.

Talk a bit about Double Dee & Steinski’s

“Lesson 3 (History of Hip Hop Mix)”
and how it impacted your progression
towards sampling and production.
When did you first hear it?

First time I heard it was ’86 or ’87. This was

kind of an important moment for Bay Area
hip-hop history because KSOL went under
as a direct result of KMEL switching to an
“urban format.” Because, in the early ’80s,
people were playing stuff like the Cure,
and everything was more of a progressive-
rock format. And then one day, I remember
hearing Cameron Paul on the radio and I
wasn’t sure what station it was for. I’ll never
forget because KSOL was 107.1 and KMEL
was and still is 106.1. But back then, no one
had digital displays; you just had a knob that
you turned. So I was like, “Okay, KMEL

(above) Picture disc art by 8th Wonder for the 1993 picture-disc single on Mo’ Wax, “In/Flux” b/w
“Hindsight.” (opposite) Shadow’s studio in 1994, where he created “Midnight in a Perfect World,”
68 DJ SHADOW “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt,” and other early Endtroducing… tracks.
DJ SHADOW 69

It was in Davis, in the dorms, where you
linked up with Solesides, correct?
I met Lyrics Born, then called Asia Born, and
Chief Xcel at the same time. Around ’89,
both Paris and Oras had graduated and there
was nobody doing a rap show anymore for
KDVS, our local college radio. Then I’m at
Tower Records one day and saw a flyer for
a radio show by a guy named DJ Zen near
the new arrivals 12-inch bin section. Zen of
course is writer Jeff Chang who went on to
become a scholar on hip-hop and race. But
back then, on the flyer, he had listed his
info, and I was like, “Oh shit, that’s cool,
someone’s doing a rap show again!” And of
course, I had this provincial ego in the sense
that this is my town. And he wasn’t mixing
or doing anything super technical, but he was
always injecting the importance of social and
political ramifications of every situation with
everything he does, which is great. And that’s
an aspect that’s always been with hip-hop as
well. So I called him one day and was like,
“Hey, can I come down to the show?” We’d
talk about breaks and music, and seminars,
and upcoming shows and whatnot.
One day, I went down there and he
introduced me to Lyrics Born and Xcel,
and they took one look at me and was like,
“Who’s this Herb?” [laughs] But that’s when
I realized the value of the radio station’s
record library. They had loads of records.
I’d be like, “I heard the J.B.’s made a record
after they separated from James Brown and
it’s on a weird label?” And the library was so
deep, you could just pull out a copy of Maseo
and All the King’s Men. “Oh here’s that one
70 DJ SHADOW
Meters album before Reprise,” or “Here’s
that weird rock shit called Silver Apples.”
It was crazy to me. And instantly we were
all like, “Hey, what record is this?” or “Oh,
you haven’t heard this?” It quickly became
a pissing contest. [laughs] Tom [Lyrics Born]
was from Berkeley, so he was closer to the
source, and he looked at me like, “You’re
from Hicksville!”
Their view was like, “We’re going to
school here; we have nothing to do with this
town.” We all thought we were dope until
DJ Zen was like, “Wait a minute, you guys
are all into the same shit and all want to do
the same things; why don’t you put your
resources together?” That’s how it started.
And although we weren’t friends right
away, I quickly realized that Xcel is one of
the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. So, I
remember, prior to Jeff sitting us down to
unify, he reached out to all of us individually
and had us bring our best breaks. I think
we all thought we were gonna impress each
other, but that night we learned that we were
very much on the same wavelength.
Looking back, how comfortable were
you making and recording music at the
time? In what ways did the your early
beginning add to your later successes?
I mean, to this day, I wouldn’t say I’m
comfortable making music. [laughs] I do
often feel like a lot of people who were a
part of my timeline were just kind to me;
like Oras letting me borrow his turntables,
for example. Even when I walked up into
KMEL and said, “I want to do mixes for you
guys,” they just looked at me and laughed.
But later they were still like, “Okay.” King
Tech was doing their mixes at the time and
started blowing up and not really doing them
any more. And Theo [“DJ Theo”] Mizuhara
at the time was starting to incorporate Janet
Jackson and more R&B stuff into his mixes
as well as more pop-oriented stuff. So I was
like, to KMEL, “You guys need a straight up
hip-hop hour,” and they eventually listened.
Your first project was an unreleased
tape that eventually got you your first
mention in The Source. How did The
Source and other music publications
impact your narrative?
My first release were these tapes that I made
and sent to The Source, Profile, Tommy Boy,
Wild Pitch, and others. They were all hand-
done and unique. When I was in the dorms,
(above) Flyer by DJ Zen aka writer Jeff Chang circa 1992 or ’93. “This is where it all started—
the hallowed halls and record racks of KDVS at UC Davis, California,” says DJ Shadow.
Courtesy of djshadow.com.
The Source had become huge, like majorly
huge. It was being distributed on the East
Coast, and they were already on issue eight
or nine, and it blew up even further because
it coincided with the first full-fledged wave
of hip-hop crossing into the mainstream—
I’m talking about guys like MC Hammer
and Vanilla Ice. Suddenly anyone who had
a magazine and was into hip-hop was like,
“We need to take a stand right now.” And
for people like myself who at that point
had invested themselves in this culture and
music, The Source was the publication that
was the litmus test to see what people were
listening to and liking and at the time. Each
issue was epic. And we felt like we wanted to
move our culture in the direction we thought
it should move in. That’s how invested you
were in it at a time where it still felt like a
movement that was completely yours.
So everyone would write in these very
passionate letters and everything was very
serious, and this phase only lasted a couple
years. So around the time, I wanted to be a part
of it still. I wanted to inject some seriousness
back into it, I felt. There was a writer, Matty
C, who had the Unsigned Hype column, and
I was always like, “This is what I’m making
these tapes for, might as well send them
in.” When it was received and accepted by
Matty to write about, I was beyond excited.
In fact, I memorized the answering machine
message that I got, and I actually recorded it
and saved it for years. Matty called up and
was like, “We want to feature you in the next
issue,” and I had also reached out to Dave
“Funkenklein” [Klein] who also wrote for
The Source. And prior to that, I used to read
his column in a magazine called Dance Music
Report, which I used to buy at Star Records on
Capitol and McKee over in San Jose; that was
my spot in San Jose that I always got my dad
to drive me to. Dave wrote that column with
Hank Shocklee from the Bomb Squad, so
immediately there was this inherent sort of,
“Wow, this dude’s opinion matters.” And he
would knock stuff and rip into stuff that he
thought was bullshit, and I’d like and respect
that because people who only talk about the
positive and the good you’re doing adds to
this sort of injustice. I mean, eventually you
have to separate the good from the bad. So I
sent a tape to Dave Klein, and pretty much
the same day or a day later that I sent one
to The Source, Dave also called back and told
me he had work for me, which was around
the same time he started Hollywood BASIC.
And that’s how everything directly led into
“Lesson 4.”
What do you remember about popular
rap at the time?

At that point, hip-hop was super mainstream;

basically, it had become pop, but there were
tons of stuff and the production was getting
more and more slick. And while certain stuff
from ’91 either aged well or didn’t, some
was just very fast and very club oriented, so
I thought it would be interesting to do the
complete opposite, like a serious production
track. At that point, I had finally got my
hands on a copy of Ultimate Breaks & Beats,
so I thought it’d be interesting to make stuff
that was totally out of tune and out of time
with everything that was going on musically.
That’s how “Lesson 4” came about.

It doesn’t feel like many people are aware

of your early work with Paris. Talk a bit
about how that came about and how you
guys coalesced.

I came across Paris because Oras showed me

[Paris’s] first 12-inch. Prior to Tommy Boy,
Paris had an EP [Scarface Groove], and to me,
it was the first rap record from the Bay that
didn’t feel novelty, it felt serious. I felt the
same way about Sway and Tech’s first records
too. I mean, I have a lot of respect for Too
Short, but his stuff felt like he was making
a rap record for the sake of making rap,
whereas these records felt like it was hip-hop
and was saying more. Of course, the Paris EP
was hugely inspired by Public Enemy, and
the record was really, really good.
He was going to school in Davis with
his sister, and I eventually met him through
Oras. And Paris, a lot of people don’t know
this or think this of him, but Paris is a real
funny dude. Back then, no one was big and
everyone was approachable, and I don’t walk
around with a chip on my shoulder and I
don’t care what people think of me, but Paris
definitely used to clown me. [laughs] He used
to be like, “Who is this dude?” all the time.
But we would eventually talk about James
Brown and P-Funk, and he could tell I was a
music head. We just both really hit it off. So
then he graduated in, like, 1989, and I didn’t
hear from him for a while until I saw “Break
the Grip of Shame” off of The Devil Made Me
Do It in a record store, and it was on Tommy
Boy. I was like, “Damn, Paris is making
moves!” I got a call later on that he wanted
me to work on some tracks for an album he
wanted to call Sleeping With the Enemy.

(top) Early Solesides release (1993) with DJ Shadow and Asia Born.
(above) DJ Shadow in The Source’s Unsigned Hype, 1991.
Courtesy of djshadow.com. DJ SHADOW 71
You touched on it earlier, but tell what
it was like for you growing up in the Bay
Area in the ’90s.
I’m from the Bay Area; I consider San Jose my
home just like I consider Davis my home. And
my dad used to take me to S.F. all the time;
we’d take BART and public transportation
to a lot of places. And anytime I ever heard
or saw a flyer about anything I thought was
dope, even though I was underage most of
the time, I would try to go. This dude, Chris
Davis, would try to go to events too. He one
time called me through Oras and asked me
72 DJ SHADOW
to scratch for some project. He was in Davis
at the time and in a crew called Bigger Than
Life Productions, which I mentioned earlier.
They all had jet bomber jackets, and if you
had a bomber jacket back then, everyone
wanted to be down with you. [laughs]
And there was this dude named DJ
Macaroni whom I haven’t seen since 1990
and have no idea where he is. Anyway, he
lived in a remote part of Oakland, and I had
gone to his house and he was the first person
to show me Ultimate Breaks & Beats. And
he had about six volumes! I had explosions
happening in my head! At the time, I still
(above) DJ Shadow exploring the basement of Records record store in Sacramento, 1995. Photo by B+.
never had a list, so this was just incredible to
me. I think that’s what a lot of people don’t
understand about the era—there were no
resources whatsoever. Knowledge for DJs
was sacred back then.
We all eventually disbanded because
it was one of those things where Chris was
about ready to graduate and move to the
Northwest. And I was about to graduate
high school anyways. I don’t think anyone
was really tripping, but my early time in S.F.
and Oakland was a lot of good knowledge for
me. I still remember crossfader-transforming
a part of LL Cool J’s “Jack the Ripper” and
I think that’s what
a lot of people
don’t understand
about the era—
there were no
resources whatsoever.
Knowledge for DJs
was sacred back then.
people were, like, amazed and thought it
was the coolest thing. But then I went to a
DMC [World DJ Championships] final in
1990-something and saw QBert and was like,
“Okay, this is next level.” Because people then
would be stoked if they even heard a halfway
decent DJ, especially in a place like Davis.
Once I met QBert, Eddie Def, and his crew, I
was like, “You guys are not from this galaxy.”
QBert is widely considered one of the
best ever, especially the scratching
aspect. How did you guys meet? What
was the scene like around that time?
He was using a cane back then, which I think
he was using because of a previous accident
he’d been in. I’ll let him speak about it, but
I didn’t know that at the time and thought
it was an affectation. So I was like, “Who is
this dude with a cane, who’s this guy think
he is?” [laughs] But it was my own ignorance;
I didn’t know he needed it, but he always
made it part of his style. Him and his clique
of DJs came from a part of the city that was
pretty wild, a lot of parts were much wilder
then, not like now. So to me, I always had a
bit of complex about being with QBert and
his homies. I was always aware that I was
from the suburbs and had always looked up
to people in the city, because they had the
access and were cooler and got everything
first because they’re living in the middle of it.
I was jealous. One of the lesser-known facts
of this time frame is that I met Peanut Butter
Wolf—we actually had the same manager for
a while.
PB Wolf is originally from San Jose as
well. Talk about your paths crossing.
Somewhere along the line, I met Wolf through
a guy named Dave Paul, who was on the scene
early. We were probably around nineteen
years old at the time, and I was driving myself
to the city quite often. Dave was looking after
a rapper named T-More, who was dope, and
who was being touted as the next big signing
from Elektra. He was getting a lot of A&R
shine around the time. I remember Bored
Stiff was around too. Dave introduced me to
a guy named Matt Brown who worked for
Charizma and PB Wolf, and he wanted to
handle my gigs and essentially manage me. I
was like, “Yeah, sure,” so he made press packs
for me and PB Wolf and Charizma. Literally
a few weeks into the relationship, Charizma
was killed. As a result, Wolf lost his deal with
Hollywood BASIC because they were just
signed. Wolf and I both knew Dave Klein as
well, so there were all these connections and
similar relationships.
Talk more about your work with
Hollywood BASIC.
Dave Klein, known as Dave “Funkenklein,”
would literally call me and leave messages like,
“I want you to do a mega-mix of our releases.
I have a budget of three grand. Call me back.”
And, for me, who was working for minimum
wage at a pizza joint, and at that time
minimum wage was $3.55 an hour, and to
have someone throw around those numbers,
I was like, “Oh shit!” He was very direct too.
He’d be like, “Start over, that sucks!” And I
later realized I needed that. I needed that sort
of real feedback initially. And he liked me, he
liked that I was different. He liked to fuck
with really weird shit. His original vision
for Hollywood BASIC was that he wanted
it to be international—an artist from Japan,
one from the Netherlands, one from Africa,
which eventually was Zimbabwe Legit. He
had a vision for a specific roster that had all
these different acts, but in the end it wasn’t
commercially viable.
DJ SHADOW 73

James Lavelle and DJ Shadow
of UNKLE, 1998. Photo by B+.
74 DJ SHADOW
Is that why your work with Hollywood
BASIC just abruptly stopped?
I stopped working for Hollywood BASIC
because Dave’s health declined so quickly.
His column in The Source and Dance Music
Report was actually called “Gangsta Limpin’”
because he had these tumors that kept
returning on his spine, so he literally was
limping everywhere. And shortly later, he
was wheelchair bound, and it eventually
killed him. I’d done about three things for
Dave, a couple mixes and some work on
Zimbabwe’s album [Brothers from the Mother].
The label was already on the down slope
by 1993, and that was literally the moment
James Lavelle steps in. It couldn’t have been
more serendipitous.
So your work with Hollywood BASIC
directly led to James Lavelle and
working with Mo’ Wax?
I think Lavelle and a lot of people were
inspired by Hollywood even though it
eventually folded. When I met Lavelle, the
first time we spoke on the phone was around
November 1992, and he was a huge fan of
the Zimbabwe Legit record. One of the first
things we talked about immediately was
Funkenklein and his vision and why it was
unique. What he was doing was so dope
because it was a worldview to it. None of us,
and certainly I, had no concept of what was
commercially viable or what wasn’t. I just
knew that a lot of stuff that was on the radio I
didn’t care for. Lavelle and I had more phone
conversations, and I felt he ate them all up.
And I don’t know if he already had his eye on
DJ Krush or not, but he was a Major Force
fan and Japan at the time seemed very exotic.
And back then, nobody flew around as often
like people do now. Lavelle really wanted
his label to have that Hollywood BASIC
aesthetic. He liked the idea of working with
an American and the idea of working with
someone from Japan. That’s how everything
with Mo’ Wax began.
Touch on The Time Has Come, the first
UNKLE EP you were on.
Well, the UNKLE project was originally
a creative musical outlet for Lavelle via a
producer named Tim Goldsworthy, who
ended up [cofounding with James Murphy] a
really seminal label in New York in the late
’90s called DFA. So when I first started going
to the U.K., Tim was already there, already
a part of the setup and a part of what was
going on. I first met him while promoting a
Blackalicious track called “Changes” that I
produced. Around ’95, UNKLE was already
going and Lavelle, as with me and others
after me, he used UNKLE as a way of having
artists make the type of records he’d like to
play. Because he’s not, at least at that time,
he wasn’t a full-fledged producer and didn’t
know how to work the equipment. UNKLE
was always Lavelle’s thing conceptually, and
others have come in and breathed their own
life into his projects. So he had me come in
and do a remix for this release.
What was working on the first UNKLE
project like?
It was tough, in all honesty. First of all, I
relished the challenge. Without getting too
tied down in the timeline, because it gets real
messy around this time—around the spring of
’95, Lavelle, Tim, and I convened in L.A. to
work at the Beastie Boys’ studio in Burbank.
Lavelle has always been a massive Beastie
Boys fan through the mid-’80s and mid-
’90s. So we worked out of their studio and it
became very apparent to me that we weren’t
working together real well. As I alluded to
earlier about my sometimes headstrong
attitude in the studio, this became an issue.
So in that two- or three-week trip, I realized
I don’t do the collab thing very well. I can
work with vocalists, because I am working
with their voice and what it brings. But with
producers, I feel like it’s harder.
So I told Lavelle, “Look, if you want Tim
to do it, let him do it. If you want me to do it,
I’ll do it. But I’m not just gonna sit here in the
studio to try to foster some sort of positive
experience that I know is gonna negatively
affect the track.” So I essentially told James to
choose Tim or me. By the summer of 1996,
James had told me that he wanted me to do it.
So I finished Endtroducing… and went straight
into [working on the UNKLE LP Psyence
Fiction], which I felt was a huge opportunity.
The new MPC had just come out, and before,
it only had twelve seconds of stereo sampling,
but the new MPC now had sixty seconds! I
was able to do so much more. I felt like my
craft grew exponentially. Again, I was being
told I was the dude who could do this. And
when people believe in you, you rise to
the occasion.
How was it working with DJ Krush? Was
there a language barrier?
I first met Krush on tour in early 1994.
I think there are some photos that exist of
him and I on that tour. Someone is actually
making a documentary on Lavelle; they’re
still working on it, I believe, and I gave them
access to a lot of stuff. I used to record a lot
of video around that time. To answer your
question, working with Krush was dope. I
always respected him from day one.
For example, I liked James [Lavelle], and
to this day I think he’s a very good DJ, but
I think, and he would probably admit this
too, that with him it’s not about anything
technical. He’s a crowd-pleaser. Whereas
my favorite DJs are the kind that can read
the room and are technical as well, in the
same way Shortkut or D-Styles and Krush
can do. These guys are artists enough to do
something really cool and technical for the
five percent in the room who care, but won’t
lose the other ninety-five percent just to pull
it off. So Krush and I became good friends
doing these crazy tours.
There also wasn’t much of a language
barrier that got in the way of what we had
to do onstage or in regards to the tour. Like,
we’d be DJing together and I’d hold up a
record and he’d be like [ frowns] or I’d hold up
a record and he’d be like [thumbs up, smiling].
It also helped greatly that his management
would never let him go anywhere without an
I felt like my craft grew exponentially.
Again, I was being told I was
the dude who could do this.
And when people believe in you,
you rise to the occasion.
interpreter. So whether it was us recording
in New York or in Japan, he always had
someone with him. He speaks very little
English; about as much as I speak Japanese.
[laughs]
Talk a bit about the making of Krush’s
“Duality,” which eventually became
one of his hallmark tracks. What was the
division of labor like?
Amazingly, this was the first time I was in
New York. For some reason, ’94 and ’95
are jumbled in my head, but Krush was
working on his album out there. And this
was before people did internet collabs, so it
was definitely unusual for two beatmakers
to work on a beat together. If I’m honest,
I’d say I was a little hesitant in doing it. At
that time, especially in the studio, I was a bit
too headstrong about how I thought things
should be. I’m sure the Solesides guys could
attest that there were moments where I was
less than eloquent where I was just like, “No,
it has to be this way!” And I don’t know if it’s
right or wrong, but that’s how it was at that
time. And I had so much respect for Krush,
and, you know, he’s no pushover either, but I
didn’t want to get into any confrontation, so I
suggested the idea of us each doing our own
part and then joining it in some way.
I also think it had to do with the fact
that Krush at the time was influenced a
lot by a very downtempo, very New York,
very sparse chops, not a lot of programming,
nothing fancy—just head-nodding stuff.
When you think about a lot of records at that
time, it had a lot of that quality, this sort of
post-Nas sound, and I was again trying to do
something really different. I knew the drums
I was going to use, and Lavelle was always
complaining that he never had enough up-
tempo stuff to put out, so that’s how that
came about. And Krush was really cool about
my suggestions and ideas. I also came up with
the title because of the obvious concept.
DJ SHADOW 75
76 DJ SHADOW
I really want to dig into a couple of
releases, since they really not only set the
tone for Endtroducing…, but also changed
the framework for instrumental hip-
hop that followed. Talk about the “In/
Flux” b/w “Hindsight” release.
At the time when I met Lavelle, of course
I mentioned that Dave Klein’s health was
failing, so he wasn’t able to send me work.
So I was doing mixes and demos for Profile,
Wild Pitch, and Tommy Boy. I remember
Funkmaster Flex, who was doing A&R for
Profile at the time, he told me, “It’s dope, but
then it gets a little nervous.” [laughs] Which
was essentially his way of telling me he didn’t
recognize the samples I chose. If you think
back to that era, what was popular was stuff
like Nubian Crackers’ [Cracker Beats], which
were basically break records that you’d take
whatever this record just used and use it
yourself. My favorite of that era was Kenny
Dope’s “Supa Cat.” It would be a phrase that
was just repeated, no rapping came in, but
different beats would come in. And it was
a great club record. People would recognize
parts of songs and be like, “Oh shit, that’s the
part from ‘The Bridge’!”
So at the time, if you were going to
attempt an instrumental rap record, that was
what you were expected to do, these sort of
club records. So the first and only person to
come along and want me to pursue the weird
shit I did on the Zimbabwe Legit record was
Lavelle. He was like, “I don’t want you to do
what Diamond D is doing,” or whoever was
hot at the time. “I want you to do you,” is
what he said. And at the time, I wasn’t even
sure who that was. For me, what it was trying
to do—and this really comes to the core of
what I do—and sounds weird for me to even
say this, but I wasn’t just trying to make a
beat. I was trying to tell a story within the
instrumental form. With a record like “In/
(opposite) DJ Shadow in the basement of Records record store in Sacramento, 1995. Photo by B+.
Flux,” there are all these departures and stuff
comes back around, and I really wanted to
take people on a journey. For me, it wasn’t
just about a beat without rapping on it.
Through the years, people would be
like, “You’re really dope, you should check
out so and so,” and I would finally check
out the artist and be like, “Are you fucking
serious? You think we’re both trying to do
the same thing here?” That used to kind of
offend me, because what I loved about my
favorite records like 3 Feet High and Rising,
or Paul’s Boutique, or It Takes a Nation is that
there is this incredible amount of effort and
thought in those records. I love that moment
in Buhloone Mindstate where someone is
telling Prince Paul to use this beat or use this
loop or something to that effect, and he says,
“Yeah!” and it goes straight into “I Am Be,”
which isn’t a regular rap song; to me, it’s an
ultimate masterpiece. So that’s what meant
a lot to me, records like Bizarre Ride or even
later, like Mike Dean’s production on Last
of a Dying Breed by Scarface. Like, I always
really liked when people like Tony D would
use stuff like Watts Prophets. I liked spoken
word, and I liked the political stuff. That’s
what I’m always listening for, is a genuine
vision and effort.
The next release in the lineage is the
“Lost and Found” 12-inch. Discuss that
a bit. It’s been widely bootlegged and
there isn’t much info about it.
This was a track that, in ’94, a lot of critics
seemed to love, and so it was in my head
that perhaps people are liking what I’m
doing, and I sat down to make something
great and something ambitious. But this era
coincided with my early twenties—I think
I was twenty-two at the time. I wasn’t fully
financially stable yet and had to occasionally
go back to work for minimum wage. There
was a lot of turmoil; I was living with Xcel
one year. I had to move my shit around all
the time. I ended up having a falling out
with 8th Wonder, who was a good friend
I had all through the ’80s and ’90s, and
now I had to move all my equipment out
of his parents’ place. There was just a lot of
upheaval happening around me. So that was
the environment I was in while making this
record. At the same time, I also felt like there
was a lot of expectations for what I was going
to do next. This one is an outlier. It was
intended to be a complete 180. I wanted to
test people who thought I was making “acid
jazz” or whatever they called it at the time.
The other sort of paramount track I
want to discuss is “What Does Your Soul
Look Like.” Talk a bit about where your
mind was at during its making.
When I think about that summer, it was ’94
or ’95, and I think about how I knew I had one
year left in college. College was very valuable
to me in the sense that I excelled much more
in college than I did in high school. But
once I felt like I understood the value of
hard work and juggling all these things and
tying to make a little money and trying to
go overseas and tour, I felt like I had learned
a lot and had grew up a bit. What is different
about this record and “In/Flux” is that at this
stage people were starting to write about my
music. Mo’ Wax got really good press, and all
of a sudden all these magazines that I used to
read growing up, like NME, were covering
me. And, really, Lavelle stopped me and was
like, “I want you to do an album.”
Basically, even though this record was
unfinished, I was only given a couple weeks
to wrap it up and make everything feel like
it gelled. But it also really freaked me out,
because here I had thirty-three minutes of
music that took me three or four months to
make and by putting it out, it was basically
asking me to make another album. The
music I make now and the music I made
then isn’t easy for me to make. It’s very time-
consuming, it takes three weeks to a month
to make a single track. I’m definitely not the
kind of producer that can sit down and make
ten hot beats a day—it just doesn’t work that
way with me.
DJ SHADOW 77
I wasn’t trying to make a trip-hop record,
or an electronic record, or an alternative record.
I was trying to make a hip-hop record,
albeit an adventurous and progressive one.
Yet, you then go on to do Endtroducing…,
an epic record in scope. How long did it
take you to go through all those bits and
pieces of samples? Were these already
accumulated; did you have these ready
to unleash?
Well, what I thought at the time was, “Okay,
they want to release these four finished songs
as a single; I better get back to work making
new songs.” So in essence, I had to start the
album all over again. Because I had no real
public profile yet, there was no pressure to be
productive beyond what that which I put on
myself, and of course I wanted to make Mo’
Wax happy. I would work on the album for
a time, and then do something else, or go on
tour, or get distracted doing Solesides stuff.
This went on for about a year and a half.
During that time, I was always “digging,”
always looking for elements to complement
the songs I was working on. I remember
going with James [Lavelle] to DJ in Australia
in December 1995, and us deciding that
I needed to make finishing the album a
priority, so from January to June of 1996,
that was when the real core album work
took place—the difficult decisions and final
touches. I basically did nothing else during
that time.
When one looks up all the samples, there
are just so many. And the crazy thing—
that I don’t even remember about the
record—is that there are so many hip-
hop samples. I guess I just want to know
a little more about your thought process
at the time; were you purposely trying
to make it super dense?
Well, remember, I wasn’t trying to make a
trip-hop record, or an electronic record, or
an alternative record. I was trying to make
a hip-hop record, albeit an adventurous and
progressive one. And if you consider that
my primary influences were people like
78 DJ SHADOW
Afrika Bambaataa, Double Dee & Steinski,
Prince Paul, or others, I think you can see
where I was headed. I wanted to ramp up
the creative, mind-expansive side of hip-
hop instead of the crass commercial side.
I knew full well that some people would
question my roots, question who I was and
whether I had paid my dues. I actually used
to relish people trying to test me, because
I would leave them kind of stunned, like,
“Damn, this dude knows his shit.” The
whole point was that I felt that hip-hop had
become conservative and kind of twisted,
but rather than go around ranting about it, I
decided to make the kind of record I wanted
to hear someone else make. Something that
respected and was informed by the culture,
but resisted the blatant commercial clichés.
And, yet, I didn’t allow the record to be some
kind of “Let’s take it back to the old school”
manifesto, because, to me, that’s too easy.
Sample-wise, I was just trying to live up to
and pay homage to classics like Paul’s Boutique
and 3 Feet High and Rising. They set the bar.
You mentioned that you’re the type of
producer who “can’t make ten hot beats
a day” and that one song could take
upwards of many months. What was
your working process on Endtroducing…
like? Were these concepts and ideas fully
realized or came about as things were
constructed? The aim of this question is
to get inside your head a bit.
I recently was reading Philip Bailey’s
autobiography [Shining Star: Braving the
Elements of Earth, Wind & Fire], and in it he
described the process that arranger/producer
Charles Stepney took. Basically, playing tracks
over and over in his studio, adding twenty
little things at a time, and stripping nineteen
of them back, only keeping the elements
that really gel, and then starting the process
again. That’s a pretty close comparison
to the way I work. I get songs to a certain
(opposite) Original takes from the Endtroducing… album cover shoot with Lyrics Born and Chief Xcel
at Records record store in Sacramento. Photos by B+.
point, and then let them marinate until I
can revisit them with a fresh perspective. I
find that I sometimes try to fool myself into
thinking something is “close enough” simply
because I’ve become wary of messing around
with it and I’m trying to trick myself into
thinking it works. But with the benefit of a
few days away, I can very quickly determine
what truly works and what sticks out like a
sore thumb. I call it my “bullshit detector.”
[laughs]
When you’re asked about Endtroducing…,
what do you think is the most common
misconception about that record and
what you put into it? As a lifelong music
fan yourself, how did you think it fits in
the pantheon of instrumental albums?
And how does it strike you now?
I guess I would say that the most common
misconception at the time is that I was
trying to diss rapping and rap music. I was
somewhat horrified by this interpretation,
which I felt was often used by “rock”
types, as in, “I hate rap music, but I love
DJ Shadow!” That freaked me out a bit. I
loved, and still love, rap, old and new. I felt
that this was really an uninformed take on
what I was doing. They also seized on the
title “Why Hip-Hop Sucks in ’96” as further
ammo for their own warped interpretation
when obviously that was a tongue-in-cheek
title by someone who clearly loved hip-hop
culture, loved it enough to criticize it. As far
as where [the album] fit in. I was just trying
to be me. I wasn’t trying to be anyone else.
I knew I was proud of the record, but I had
no expectations beyond that. After twenty
years, I have learned that for some people, the
album has certain indefinable qualities that
I can’t deny, but that I also can’t take credit
for. I didn’t sit down and try to make a classic
or anything like that. I tried to make good
music that lived up to the high standards set
by those who came before me.
DJ SHADOW 79
I want to intersect the collecting aspect
of your narrative since it has, through
the years, driven your production work.
When did it become a definitive facet of
what you do? It certainly is tied to your
rep and, of course, output.
I find that a lot of people are really fascinated
by digging culture. It’s one of the most
common things I get asked. It’s something
that is so much a part of my life and so much
a part of my identity that I am in some ways
very protective of it. It really affects whom I
interact with on a digging level. I get emails
from people who are like, “Yo, I got your
email from so and so, let’s meet up and talk
about records,” and I usually just let those
go. I find that so many people miss what it’s
about. To a lot of people, it is about grails,
how much you spent on records, how many
records you have, that type of stuff. All of the
people that I have close relationships with
before there was the internet and before
these records were worth anything have
a totally different take on the concept of
digging. I just feel like it’s one of those things
that need to be said.
There’s a guy name Ben Nickelberry, for
example, who goes by Beni B, he’s an OG.
There are very few people around when we
were doing it. My homie 8th Wonder and I
would go and there wasn’t anybody around.
If there was, it was English dudes looking for
“northern soul.” No Americans were doing it
at that time. Obviously, there are a few dudes
in every city, and I am specifically speaking
on this region.
To us, the records were cheap and they
weren’t worth much yet. Once people started
assigning value to them, I encountered all
these dudes who called themselves diggers,
and I couldn’t relate to them or understand
their aesthetic, not even one percent of it.
Because, again, it was about ripping dudes off,
and “I traded with this idiot for a $500 record,
how cool am I?” And to me, it was hideous
and just fucking up the game. So for me, I
went inward and was like, “I fuck with these
four people and that’s about it.” Occasionally,
you meet people who are on the level, like
Supreme from the Northwest or others
I know who have a lineage there and an
understanding that goes beyond the internet.
What’s a trip you took in search of
records that’s particularly memorable?
I did my first cross-country digging trip
in 1993. I was actually sponsored by the
80 DJ SHADOW
Austrian government to do it. I got a call
from Dave Klein, and he was like, “Yo,
Shadow, I got this call from this lady named
Katarina who wants a guide to take her and
buy records, and get the contacts, and line
up interviews with old soul artists. You’re
of course the first guy I thought of. Call me
back.”
So of course I was down, and I went to
L.A. and she flew in. She apparently worked
for their equivalent of an Austrian NPR
radio show or something. We went to New
Orleans in 1993, and literally there were at
least eight places in the French Quarter alone
with over a half-million records. And literally
every store had records, didn’t matter if it was
a bookstore, a furniture store, thrift store, it
didn’t matter—records were everywhere
because they weren’t of value. Then, literally,
within about five years, it was all gone.
On that trip, I was able to hook Katarina
up with Eddie Bo, and he hadn’t been
interviewed since the ’80s at that point. And
he had been missing for years because he was
in a cult. He was the sweetest dude, but he
was even like, “Those were dark times for
me.” So I was given a wage and a budget,
and I got to keep all the records. All I had
to do was transfer all the records onto DAT,
and after she would call and say, for example,
“Okay, we’re going to do a Kansas City
episode,” and I’d have to send over music that
would help facilitate whatever her show was
covering. It was also the first time I was in
Music Exchange, this store in Kansas City.
I passed out where the 45s were because I
hadn’t eaten or slept, and she literally woke
me up amongst the 45s. [laughs]
Cut Chemist is intertwined with your
narrative, certainly the digging aspect
and a number of huge projects. Speak on
that relationship a bit.
I think we met around ’95. Obviously at that
time, we were both aware there was another
person who did a record called “Lesson 4.”
I remember DJ Zen telling me about it and
saying it was dope. Around that time as well,
[ Jurassic 5] were making forays up to the Bay
Area for shows and radio shows. So I met Cut
at a record show in Berkeley. I remember
Matthew Africa was there, and Beni B as
well. And we just started talking about hip-
hop experiences and records. It’s not very
often you meet someone, and at that time,
you used to sprinkle the conversation with
little things to see if people would pick up on
what you’re referencing. And if they did, then
(above) 12-inch single for “Midnight in a Perfect World” (photo by B+) with “The Number Song (Cut
Chemist Party Mix).” (opposite) DJ Shadow in 2016. Photo by Derick Daily.
you can go to the next level and speak more.
So I’d talk about Mantronix and how
dope he was, and Cut is the kind of guy that
could jump in and talk about each and every
one of his remixes. He’s one of those people
where we realized our experiences aligned
incredibly well in terms of when we heard
pivotal things and our home experiences as
well that allowed us to hear these things.
People in the ’90s started calling us brothers,
and I think some people actually thought
we were brothers. [laughs] I mean, we were
similarly passionate about the same stuff and
thought the same stuff was wack. It was kind
of inevitable that we’d become tight. I kind of
formalized the relationship by asking him to
remix “The Number Song.” I actually asked
him and Jazzy Jay, but Jay ended up calling
me and telling me he didn’t know what to
do with it. So it eventually was just all Cut.
All the other stuff we did through the years,
it seemed like people just gravitated towards
our projects. He had his fans, I had my fans,
and together it was like having circles that
overlap that creates a new shape.
Where do you think you fit into modern
music?
I never really know, man. Honestly, my ex-
manager had a good saying: “You’re only
good as the last burger you flip.” It’s like, I’ve
done stuff that I think people have liked a
lot. I’ve done stuff that’s been ignored, I’ve
done stuff that’s celebrated, I’ve done stuff
that people have hated, I’ve done stuff that
people are receptive to. I find solace and
comfort in seeing other artists do what they
love and keep doing for a long time. And I’m
not comparing myself to Miles Davis in any
way, but he was a hero, like Neil Young, or
Lou Reed, people who have ups and downs
and there are times when their energies and
perspectives align with the mainstream, and
there are other times when it doesn’t.
I think that the only thing that other
artists do that disappoint me is when they
give up and stop trying. Inevitably, there’s this
moment where they say, I’m tired, I’m just
going to do what they want me to do. And
that’s the exact moment where as a fan I lose
interest. I’d rather have them fail miserably
and fall flat on their face while reaching
really high for something rather than doing
the same thing over and over. I’ve now also
have come to terms that not everyone shares
that perspective, and I think there are a lot of
people who’d want me to keep making the
same stuff. But to me, it’s a rhetorical dead
end or intellectual fast food. It would taste
real good for a moment, but ultimately it’ll
be full of empty calories.
Music critic Robert Christgau said The
Mountain Will Fall is “heavy on first-rate
texture, rumble, and of course beats,”
and your “best since The Private Press,”
which he says “is a sound effects record
by comparison.” What’s your reaction
to that?
I certainly feel like when I sat down to make
it, I felt ready and I felt inspired. I think
one of the defining decisions that help set
the course for the record was that I knew I
wanted to mix it myself. I haven’t mixed any
of my stuff since Endtroducing… And that’s
not to say that in any of my songs I let people
do whatever they want with my records. I’m
always there sweating and having people
move things up and down a tiny bit here, a
tiny bit there. I’m always extremely hands-
on, but one of the things I didn’t know when
I made Endtroducing… was that I didn’t know
what compression was or other technical
things. All I knew was bass, treble, left, right,
up, and down. I didn’t know reverb or any of
the other things plug-ins now allow us. A lot
of it has to do with Ableton and how intuitive
it is—it certainly speaks to the way my mind
works. Before Ableton, I always felt like I was
in over my head or just a little bit lost and
Ableton helped.
After I stopped touring for the last album,
I fell into DJing again. So I was playing a lot
of other people’s music, which led me back
into this sort of discovery mode in a really
immersive way. I hit the road in 2013, and
my only concept to myself was to only play
music from that year, so literally I could
only listen to hundreds if not thousands of
songs to build my set. And in the process of
doing that, I was able to determine what I
was comfortable playing. I wasn’t going to
do any EDM, but I’d do post-dubstep, pre-
trap, beats that felt hard and rap influenced.
For literally decades now, I hadn’t subsisted
on a diet of purely rap; I always augmented
it with drum-and-bass; stuff like Portishead,
you name it. I was always on the lookout for
beats that were more fierce than rap beats.
And in dubstep I felt there was that feeling
that wasn’t in techno or house. They were
more menacing and more swag than other
electronic music that I tended to ignore. First
getting into U.K. dubstep, I felt there were
ideas that didn’t exist when I first started
making music, outing snares and kicks
together then mixing them together and
doing other stuff that wasn’t available to do
back then in 1996. .
David Ma is a longtime contributor to
Wax Poetics and has written for The Guardian,
Rollingstone.com, Ego Trip, Pitchfork,
The Source, and other outlets. He runs the
audioblog Nerdtorious.com from the Bay Area.
DJ SHADOW 81
ALWAYS AHEAD
OF HIS TIME.
He tried to show us the future at Capitol Records
in 1968 with his music, but, unfortunately,
we didn’t have his vision.

–Alan W. Livingston, Capitol Records President,

1962–1970, on DAVID AXELROD

82
83
84
 Producer/composer DAVID AXELROD landed a dream job at Capitol Records in 1964,
immediately working with jazz legend Cannonball Adderley and lifting soul singer
Lou Rawls to great heights.
A DREAM
introduction by Brian DiGenti photos courtesy of Capitol Records Archives
Born in 1931 and raised in what is today known as South Central
Los Angeles, David Axelrod spent his youth boxing, brawling, and
checking out blues and R&B at local clubs. “My father died when I
was twelve,” he told Eothen Alapatt in 2001. “And the War was on.
My mother couldn’t control me, and there were no guys around that
could—they were all in the service! So more or less, I did whatever I
felt like doing. My friends and I loved to go to these clubs. And I think
there were only a few of us that picked up on the music; most of the
guys were going just to drink. It was corrupt back then. Cops didn’t
care; they were getting paid off. You just had to be cool.”
In the early 1950s, while in his early twenties, Axelrod was
hanging out in the L.A. club the Turban Room, listening to the
Gerald Wiggins Trio and waiting for the man (these were the days
of his heroin addiction). When an irritable bartender tried to get Axe
to settle his tab, Wiggins—inexplicably—came to this skinny junkie’s
rescue. Baffling Axelrod even further, Gerald Wiggins would become
a father figure, taking him under his wing and introducing Axe to
the city’s great jazz players over the next few years. “I started hanging
with him eighteen hours a day,” Axelrod said. “We went everywhere.
It was great. He introduced me to so many great guys—sitting around
and listening to them talk jazz. You can learn a lot from listening.
He introduced me to a lot of great guys that I made great music with
later in life.” Ultimately, Wiggins would teach him how to read and
write music, a singular act that cannot be overemphasized since it set
Axelrod onto a path to greatness.
After hustling in the music business doing promotion and sales,
Axelrod got a chance to produce jazz records for Motif and Specialty.
Axe eschewed the West Coast jazz sound in favor for the hard bop of
the East Coast, which led him to produce Harold Land’s now classic
1959 album, The Fox, for HiFi Records. Later, in 1962, Axelrod was
working with good friend H. B. Barnum at Plaza Records, where the
two would arrange and produce novelty 45s for actresses Tuesday
Weld and Mae West—a curious circumstance that seemed to follow
Axe and Barnum to their later stint with Capitol. It was here in the
Plaza offices that Axe first met Cannonball Adderley, who exclaimed
when the two were introduced, “Ah ha! The Fox! I knew our paths
would cross some day!”
And so, when David Axelrod was hired to be an in-house producer
for Capitol Records in 1964, and Adderley jumped ship from Orrin
85
Keepnews’ sinking Riverside Records to Capitol, the sax legend
asked to be paired with The Fox producer. Their working relationship
eventually turned into a deep friendship. “Cannon became the best
friend I’ve ever had,” Axe said. “The most intimate… There’s no
adjective to describe how close we were.” Axe was by his side when
Cannonball and his keyboardist Joe Zawinul put down funky roots
and crafted a new soul-jazz sound that propelled the saxophonist to
sell millions of records with the faux-live album Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!
While at Capitol during the 1960s, Axelrod and H. B. Barnum,
who joined Axe as an arranger/conductor, worked with a slew of TV
and film stars—Beach Party’s Donna Loren, Don Grady of My Three
Sons, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’s David McCallum—and older
singers trying to make a comeback, like Kay Starr, Clara Ward, and
Maria Cole. But R&B was really their bag, and they cut many fine
45s that never made a dent on the U.S. market but ultimately found
rotation in England’s northern soul scene—acts like Frank Polk, Tina
Mason, Cindy Malone, Ernie Andrews, Calvin Grayson, Round
Robin, Patrice Holloway, a young Billy Preston, and a handful of
singles by Barnum.
Things would change when Axelrod ultimately helped catapult
Lou Rawls into the highest soul stratosphere, establishing Capitol as
a force in the R&B game, something that even the brass didn’t think
was possible. “They had hired me to do R&B,” Axe said. “I loved it,
but I’m signing all these Black artists and no one is selling anything!
There was absolutely no promotion. So I had an idea—why not start a
Black music division… The very next record we made was Lou Rawls
Live!—sold like a million and a half!”
With the success of Lou and Cannon, Axelrod had newly minted
clout and was able to record his own projects—sweeping in scope and
ahead of their time: 1968’s Song of Innocence, 1969’s Songs of Experience,
and 1970’s Earth Rot. “Composer Axelrod has always been ahead of
his time,” wrote music critic Eliot Tiegel in Billboard in 1979. Tiegel,
who wrote about Axe’s career from 1964 until it basically came to a
halt in 1980, often repeated this theory: that Axelrod was “probably
the first U.S. composer to create fusion music.”
The following photos are from Capitol Studios from various
1960s sessions that Axelrod was overseeing. The quotes—some new,
some from other sources—are from Axe, the artists he worked with,
and people who were influenced by his music and by the man himself.
 Brothers in arms. H. B. Barnum and David Axelrod. “H. B. Barnum…that is my brother; he is so close to me,” Axe said
of his good friend. “H. is one of those guys that if you see him [perform], he’ll knock you out. He was an incredible entertainer.
86 DAVID AXELROD He had so much energy. You could never capture that on record, and that’s happened with so many people.”
 David has never
known what
a trend is. He
always sets his
own trends. It’s
hard to realize
that his Song of
Innocence LP was
a pacesetter that
was followed by
the Moody Blues,
Pink Floyd, and
ELO.
–AL COURY, Vice President of Capitol
Records who helped develop the careers
of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Pink
Floyd (press release quote circa 1977)

I don’t have words to describe David.

He was my brother, man. We spent so
much time together away from the music.
I’m godfather to two of his kids; I went
through his marriages; I was best man at
his weddings. We were brothers.
Our last moments together were me
making him get his hair cut, and he fussed
the whole time and then said, when it was
done, “I look good, don’t I?” I said, “Damn
right!”
For fans of great music, we lost a
great musician, and for his friends, we
lost a brother.
David was always pushing the edge.
There were a lot of things he did—how do
I say this?—you just had to trust him. The
things he did didn’t make sense when he
was explaining them, but when the album
came out, we’d go, “Oh yeah, of course.”
David and I trusted each other. We had
respect for each other’s judgement. Ours
was more than a friendship. I have your
back, you have my back. That might
sound corny, but that’s how we became
brothers. We never lost that trust.
I lost my soulmate, man.

–H. B. BARNUM, 2017

Axe during the Songs of Experience sessions, 1969. DAVID AXELROD 87

The hardest thing with Lou was: ninety percent of my time was taken up looking for material. The sessions are easy.
Lou is one of the easiest artists to work with that I’ve ever known. Never argued over anything. I used to give him the songs:
“Call me and give me the keys.” A week later, he’d call me up: “Okay, here’s the keys.” –DAVID AXELROD, 2005

(top) Axelrod and Lou Rawls discuss the playback. Note Lou’s ring.
88 DAVID AXELROD (bottom) Axelrod and Barnum (with sax) discuss the chart with Lou (with scarf) outside the vocal booth.
 He seems to
be able to dig
out a hit song
for an artist, and
if he can’t find
the hit, he’ll write
it himself as he
did for me with
“Dead End Street.”
–LOU RAWLS,
Record World magazine, 1975

Lou and Axe talk during the sessions for 1966’s Carryin’ On! The drum charts for “Something Stirring in My Soul”
(written by Jimmy Radcliffe and Buddy Scott) can be seen in the foreground. DAVID AXELROD 89
To people who say “Don’t meet your he-
roes,” I reply, “Your hero isn’t David Axel-
rod.” I talked to so many people before
I spoke to him that I didn’t know what I
would get from a musician I already
knew as peerless. But my first conversa-
tion with him was full of friction and fire,
humor and light. I will never forget his
coarse laugh, and the memory always re-
minds me of our first conversation.
For over twenty years, I’ve been try-
ing to describe his best music: in 1996,
there didn’t seem to be much of a depar-
ture between Songs of Experience and
DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…, though
thirty years separated those releases.
Axe’s best is still indescribable, not just
by me, but by all of his acolytes. The best
minds I’ve encountered in music—all of
whom are Axe fans—stumble when trying
to draw a parallel from his first solo works
to anything before or after. Axe himself
couldn’t do it, vacillating between fusion
and something else—R&B one day, jazz
the next, heavy-metal the next.
Like the best things one finds in life,
Axe’s music is singular, of an era, but not
indebted to it, progressive but not pre-
tentious. I can’t think of a person I’ve met
who I didn’t want to share Axe’s music
with, and who I didn’t think would be en-
tranced by it.
If I’ve taken one thing from my study of
Axe’s music—through conversations with
the man that developed into an intense
friendship, through discussions with
the army of session musicians who fol-
lowed his battle cry into Capitol’s studio,
through conversations with real music
folk, his peers in their prime, who shone
with respect every time I mentioned his
name—it’s that the best of a person’s
work has the potential to be timeless, if
he creates from his soul, and if his talent
is pure, if he doesn’t over think it, bow
to constraint or commerce. Axe will live
on like his hero William Blake, then, “one
of the hippest people to walk the Earth,”
as he once said. I’m just thrilled to have
known him.
–EOTHEN ALAPATT, 2017
I found out about his music around 1993,
when I was taking all of his records from
KCSB. I knew that H. B. Barnum had pro-
duced one of my dad’s records, and I
knew H. B. Barnum and Axelrod worked
90 DAVID AXELROD
together, but I didn’t put two and two to-
gether till I met Axelrod at Capitol in 2000.
I couldn’t believe that he knew my dad’s
music—and that he really loved it.
He was great because of his tech-
niques, his writing, his arranging, be-
cause of the musicians he chose, the
style of music he created, and those good
drugs.
My favorite album of his is Songs of
Experience. I’ve sampled every song on
there, at one time or another.
There never will be another person
to do what he did. The only music that
sounds like the music he made as David
Axelrod is music he produced for other
people. No one is king like him.
–MADLIB, 2017
It’s 1993, and I’m goin’ diggin in ATL with
Q-Tip and (De La Soul producer) DJ Big
X, and we’re in a spot called Fantasyland
Records. Q-Tip pulled out the Electric
Prunes LP Release of an Oath, which
David Axelrod produced, and asked me
if I had it. I said no, and he said, “Check
it out.”
Now, mind you, nobody had touched
it yet, but Tip still put me up on it. And
when I got home, I was blown away by the
orchestration , arrangements, and psy-
chedelic funk.
Recorded in the late ’60s, it sound-
ed like something that could’ve been
released in ’93—it is that timeless. From
there, I purchased more titles by him,
which led to [sampling him for] songs like
“MC Iz My Ambition,” “The Hiatus,” and
the “Soul on Ice” remix [for Ras Kass].
The latter garnered me a phone call
from the man himself, who told me he
loved the flip I did with [“The Mental
Traveler”]. He said he wished he had ar-
ranged it that way for a few bars in the
original recording. I was humbled and
honored for his good critique of the way
I used his music. He said, anytime I want
to use his music, I have the green light.
We stayed in touch off and on, and on his
2001 self-titled LP, track five is titled “The
Dr & the Diamond,” named after Dr. Dre
and myself, two producers whose work
he really liked and appreciated. Thank
you, Dave.
–DIAMOND D, 2017
I sampled David Axelrod a few times. I es-
pecially remember using him for “Rude-
boy Salute” for Fat Joe, Buju [Banton],
and [Big] Pun on the Terror Squad joint.
But I think what’s most notable was on
the Artifacts remix I did, [1994’s] “C’mon
Wit Da Git Down.” I think I can say, it’s
considered a classic, because that’s the
one people ask me about. Song of Inno-
cence is what I used, and it was so early
on in my career too. And at that time, I
wasn’t as known as the other producers
then.
Axelrod is such an amazing composer
and arranger with all the range too. He
had his own style and brought his own
flare to the game. I don’t think there’s
anyone that even came close to Axelrod.
He gave me props in a magazine along
with Dre and Diamond D, and I thought
it was a pretty big deal. I just really wish
I had the chance to meet him before he
died and ask him questions like how he
set up the orchestra and what kind of
mics did he use. The strings he uses are
something you can just feel. How did he
get all those rich feelings? That’s what I’d
like to know.
–BUCKWILD, 2017
My introduction to David Axelrod came by
way of his song “Holy Thursday” around
1990. It was soulful, lush, and a head-
banger all wrapped into one. His drums
were knocking in support of this hyp-
notizing melodic jazz/soul/fusion. I was
hooked. I love his sense of space mixed
in with a full and rich orchestral arrange-
ment. It’s no surprise that those very
elements that David used in his compo-
sitions made its way to some of the great-
est hip-hop records every made. “C’mon
Wit Da Git Down (Remix)”—ridiculous!!!
I never thought to sample Axelrod but
instead just listened with full appreciation
of his artistry. He was and still is one of my
inspirations. If you’re up on Luke Cage,
you will hear the reveal of David’s influ-
ence on the score. One of the treasures of
musical art is that it lives on and touches
souls long after the artist’s earthly body
has left. May David’s artistry continue to
inspire pummeling hip-hop brashness for
the masses!
–ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD, 2017
Drummer Earl Palmer with David Axelrod. “Earl brought this thing with him from New Orleans,” Axe said, “which I call the ‘swamp beat.’
Cannon loved it the first time he heard it.”

Axelrod having a word with Wrecking Crew session guitarist Al Casey. “Some of these guys made so much money—
and were doing so many sessions,” Axe recalled. “They would segue from a motion picture to a rock-and-roll date effortlessly.
They are the greatest musicians in the world. And I was fortunate enough to work with all of them.” DAVID AXELROD 91
 The Ladies of Capitol Records. (top left) South African legend Letta Mbulu. See “Welele” from 1968’s Free Soul.
(top right) Singer and Beach Party actress Donna Loren. See 1964’s “Blowing Out the Candles.”
92 DAVID AXELROD (above) Singer Ann Dee. See “Woman in a Man’s World” from 1967’s Free Again.
Songs of Experience sessions with producer Axelrod and the coolest musician in the building, the French horn player. DAVID AXELROD 93
Pop instrumental music is becoming se-
rious music as contemporary composers
attempt to meld a bit of jazz, a bit of clas-
sical, and a bit of pure rhythm.
Dave Axelrod, a pioneering composer
who blended jazz with rock in 1967 on the
Reprise LP Mass in F Minor, said, “Today
you can get away with anything because
people are so flexible.”
Axelrod, whose career spans both
composition and record production, said
today’s college student has the patience
to sit and “dig Mozart and Santana on the
changer at the same time.”
The head of Heavy Ax Productions is
into atonal music, calling it “contempo-
rary avant-garde music.” He cites Can-
nonball Adderley and Miles Davis as the
leading jazz musicians who have gained
acceptance with young people through a
blending of true jazz with improvisation
which has taken them into atonal music.
[…]
[Axelrod’s] Song of Innocence LP,
released under his own name on Capitol
in 1968, was innovative in that it showed
the legitimate utilization of rock and jazz
techniques. That LP was followed by
Songs of Experience in 1969, and Earth
Rot in 1970. As a result of writing “Ten-
sity” for [Cannonball] Adderley, Axelrod,
Adderley, and the 58-piece Oakland
Youth Symphony performed the work
at last year’s Monterey Jazz Festival to
standing ovations.
In exploring for new ways to say
things, Axelrod used feedback in the
orchestration for the Mass LP. He used
spots of atonal vocal harmonies on Earth
I’m the golden boy!
Rot in which the parts were based on a
series of six tones (not twelve) like Stra- I’m the Oscar de la Hoya
of Capitol Records!
vinsky’s “Threni.”
The point is that instrumental music
matches the adventurous spirit of pop
songs with a serious lyrical message.
Instrumental music is international in
I could do anything
scope, Axelrod pointed out, and it is a
strong force in both pop, rock, and jazz. I wanted to do.
–ELIOT TIEGEL, “Axelrod: Trend to Blend –DAVID AXELROD, 1999, on his success with
Sounds,” Billboard, July 17, 1971 Lou Rawls, Cannonball Adderley, and David McCallum

Don Randi (on stool), David Axelrod, and company chat in between Songs of Experience sessions,
as the orchestra awaits the next take. The charts for “The Sick Rose,” “The Fly,” and “A Little Girl Lost”
94 DAVID AXELROD can be seen in the foreground.
Axelrod claimed that Karl Engemann, Capitol’s VP of A&R, visited Henry Stone at his record store in Miami. Stone pointed to the
Song of Innocence LP on the wall and said, “This guy’s a genius. Why does he only have one album?” When Engemann returned
to Los Angeles, he told Axelrod to make another record. “Songs of Experience came about because of Henry Stone,” Axe said. DAVID AXELROD 95
No one has given my playing abilities
more support and confidence than Dave
Axelrod did in the late ’60s. When he
produced Hardwater on Capitol, I was a
young hippie who thought he could play
well on a local level but had little confi-
dence about competing with all the big-
name pickers of the time. He contracted
me to play the solos on Song of Innocence
with my idol, Howard Roberts, playing
behind me. That in itself was enough to
clear my doubts, but the encouragement
that he gave me has kept me going all
these years. The Lou Rawls dates, other
odds and ends I did for him, were among
the most treasured memories of my mu-
sical career. The top-level musicians that
I played with in those days gave me expe-
rience I’ll never forget. I’ll always owe a lot
to David Axelrod.
–Hardwater guitarist PETE WYANT
(from his website)
96 DAVID AXELROD
When I met Axe, I was playing guitar on a cause [we were all jazz players]. You
date, and he had a cast on his arm. And I know, Earl [Palmer] was a jazz player, so
thought, “Dude, this guy is wild.” I think it was Don [Randi]. We were all jazz play-
was about ’61 or ’62. Yeah, he was wild. ers. He had the brilliancy to put us all to-
He hung out with all the jazz guys. I think gether and create this brew. And he was
I met him through H. B. Barnum or some- absolutely right—he directed it all.
one like that, because I was still playing
jazz jobs. I hadn’t started playing bass –Wrecking Crew session player and all-
yet, but I was just about to. around bass legend CAROL KAYE, 1999
He was gruff guy, but I liked him.
’Cause any time you meet a gruff guy that
has got a good sense of humor, you know
he’s a good person. I started to work for
Axelrod, and we hit it off. He was beau- We were b-boys,
tiful.
I always liked to work for Axe. He had and it was all
a way of letting you do your own thing.
There was a lot of freedom in the studio. about the beats.
He’d write out sketchy arrangements. Re-
ally, he hired us to invent. Axelrod would
And David
set the whole thing by hiring us. He liked
us and we liked him, and he knew what
was the king
type of job we could do, as far as invent- of the beats.
ing lines and things. And, a lot of times,
you were trying to scratch your head as
you had no idea what was going to go on
on top of [what you played]! –Mo’ Wax founder JAMES LAVELLE
You see, Dave is jazz, though. He (from Worldwide FM with Gilles Peterson,
knows what jazz is, and he hired us be- February 8, 2017)
(above) David Axelrod with guitarist Pete Wyant during Song of Innocence sessions.
Wyant and Carol Kaye. “Carol was so incredible,” Axe said. “I don’t know of an electric bass player that can play like her.” DAVID AXELROD 97
He was a bit eccentric, but also he knew
where he wanted to end up too, as a pro-
ducer. A guy who you might not under-
stand where he’s coming from, but he
knows where he wants to end.
Axelrod, he loves concept albums. He
approaches the album as a whole album
project, not a song-by-song project. He
knows it’s going to start and end—some
place. So working for him is really hard;
you have to really concentrate, and his
pieces are long compositions. If you don’t
pay attention, you get lost. So you have to
concentrate on it and make it good. And
all of a sudden as you’re doing it, there’s
a whole section that says, “Go for it” or
98 DAVID AXELROD
“Ad-lib solo,” and you just take it out for
as long as you want.
When I played on Dave’s own album
sessions, I said, “You’re playing human
emotions.” I love that; I’m a moody piano
player. When I play live, I never know
what I’m going to do, and that’s a perfect
setting for me. Usually, with Dave, he
doesn’t let you do things two or three
times. He gets it pretty quick. You may
rehearse it, but when the takes start
coming, you get it.
You know, we never knew where it
was going to end up. Because when we
were doing it, it was that moment that we
were doing it for. We were hoping that
something would happen in the next six-
ty days, not in ten years. We might have
said to ourselves, “Are people going to
get this?” But we would not say anything
to Dave, because Dave was a visionary.
And, you know, we were just some busy
studio musicians, and we didn’t have time
to sit down and make an analysis of it. But
some of the stuff Dave did was so far out
that the only way you could look at it was
that it was either going to be a very pop-
ular thing or nobody was ever going to
know about it. There was no middle of the
road. He was not afraid to go for it.
–Pianist and conductor DON RANDI, 1999
Axelrod and Wrecking Crew pianist Don Randi during various Songs of Experience sessions.
“An incredible pianist!” Axe raved about his dear friend. DAVID AXELROD 99
100 DAVID AXELROD Axe, Barnum, and McCallum discuss the chart for the Byrds’ 1965 hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!”
With McCallum, everything we did went
top ten and gold. But I don’t think that
people were buying the music. I think
they were buying the little autographed
pictures that we put in the albums. The
little girlies were so in love with that guy!
He was so cool; he just did his thing and
people loved him.
It’s a funny story how I got him to come
to Capitol. I had read somewhere that he
had broken Clark Gable’s record for the
most fan mail received in one week. I
thought, “Whoa! This little dude is doing
something.” I had met him before when I
had produced The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
theme—David starred on that show. Now
make no mistake—David came from a
musical family. His father was a concert
master and David had studied the oboe
from the time he was a kid till he was fif-
teen or so.
Anyway, at one of our weekly A&R
meetings, I said I wanted to sign Mc-
Callum to Capitol. [Vice president] Voyle
[Gilmore] asked what I planned to do with
him. I knew he couldn’t sing, and I didn’t
want to have him recite spoken word over
some lush arrangements, as was popular
at the time. But I knew I’d do something!
(above) David Axelrod and David McCallum go over the music for “We Gotta Get Out of this Place”
by Eric Burdon and the Animals for McCallum’s 1966 album Music: A Part of Me.
Voyle, who led the meetings, said, “That’s
just not good enough.” He moved to the
next order of business. The term genius is
But before we could do anything,
[president Alan] Livingston—who’d just
a very overworked
been looking at Voyle and me—looked at one today. Out of
me and said, quietly, “If you can sign Da-
vid McCallum, do it.” That was it. Voyle all the artists that
got red in the face, but that was el jefe!
The chief had spoken.
I have recorded
in the last fifteen
[My composition “The Edge” that I wrote
years, only two
for McCallum’s 1967 album Music: A Bit really fit in that
More of Me was about] third-world coun-
tries. There are these areas of ramshack- category. They
le houses that stretch for miles. People
actually live in the containers used to
are David Axelrod
ship Coca-Cola bottles. It’s terrible. I saw and Frank Sinatra.
it in San Juan. I thought that it couldn’t
get much poorer than South Central,
L.A. Well, guess what—dirt streets and –JIMMY BOWEN, producer of
these “Coca-Cola shacks” for miles. That Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby,
was “The Edge”—the edge of the world. Sammy Davis Jr., Glen Campbell,
Where else can you go? Well, you could Lee Hazlewood, and David Axelrod’s
kill yourself. But those people have so 1975 album Seriously Deep
much spirit that they would never do that. (from Billboard, April 1975)
–DAVID AXELROD, 1999, both quotes
DAVID AXELROD 101
In 1993, I drove to the San Francisco In- One of our most untapped resources.
ternational Airport to pick up Mo’ Wax
owner James Lavelle, who had flown in He is a reservoir of musical and creative energy.
from London. We had spoken several He was the first to combine jazz with rock
times on the phone but had never met
face to face. James climbed into my ’77
rhythms, and it’s a dreadful shame that he has
Cadillac Sedan de Ville and we drove never received the credit due to him.
away. As we talked about plans and all
of the record stores we wanted to hit, a –JULIAN “CANNONBALL” ADDERLEY
cassette tape that I had made some days
earlier played in the background. It was
the music of David Axelrod. “What is
this??” James asked, excitedly. Later, at
home, I introduced him to “Holy Are You”
from the Electric Prunes album [Release
of an Oath].
Over the course of James’s visit, Da-
vid Axelrod’s music became a reference
point for everything we valued in music,
and everything we wanted to accomplish.
The Axelrod aesthetic—intellectual, un-
derstated, moody, artistic—inspired our
own, and made us feel that we weren’t
crazy for seeking an alternative path
from our peers. Since this was all pre-In-
ternet, we had no way of learning more
about David; his identity was obscure to
us, which made him an even bigger hero
in our minds. Five years later, we would
track him down and ask him to do a remix
for “Rabbit in Your Headlights,” a song on
our UNKLE project, which featured Thom
Yorke. Our adoration had come full circle,
and we were overjoyed to be able to ar-
ticulate to him that his vision had inspired
our own.
David and I became friends, not that
we “hung out” together much. David’s
temperament was intense and mercurial,
reflective of a soul committed to the more
difficult paths in life. Axe was a principled
man, stern and steadfast. Other than
family (which he adored), he valued fellow
artists the most. And, to his credit, he was
in no way dismissive of sampling or hip-
hop (although he despised the industry
and legal red tape that interfered with his
ability to benefit justly from his contribu-
tions). I’m grateful that, to whatever small
degree, I was able to help expose listen-
ers to his genius. His legacy is unique and
pure, and he remained a true artist to the
end. I miss him terribly.

–DJ SHADOW, 2017

(top) Axelrod with Cannonball Adderley and his wife, actress Olga James, at Capitol Studios.
102 DAVID AXELROD (bottom) Axelrod and Adderley during a mid-’60s session.
I’m not sure why I’m relevant
today and what is really going on,
but whatever it is, I’ll take it.
–DAVID AXELROD, 2001 (video interview from David Axelrod CD on Mo’ Wax)

Special thanks to Eothen Alapatt, David Ma, and Kristof Indeherberge for help with the quotations. DAVID AXELROD 103
DAVID AXELROD April 17, 1931 – February 5, 2017

104
105
remembering
DAVID AXELROD