Tito Jackson

Tito Jackson

Photo: James Watkins

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Tito Jackson On His New Blues Album 'Under Your Spell' & His Better-Late-Than-Never Solo Career

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Unlike his brothers in the Jackson 5, Tito Jackson didn't release a solo album until decades into his career. Now, he's releasing his second, 'Under Your Spell,' an homage to how the blues have shaped him from childhood onward
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Sep 7, 2021 - 1:06 pm

"If Tito wasn't in the Jackson 5, would we really miss him?"

Charles Barkley broached this jarring rhetorical question about singer/songwriter Tito Jackson, the third child in the sibling superstar band. (The NBA analyst prefaced it by comparing them to the Miami Heat, with Michael as their all-star shooting guard Dwyane Wade.) "That really rung a bell with me," Tito tells GRAMMY.com. "I said to myself, 'They don't see the contribution you bring to the group because you don't have any records out.'" 

Indeed, unlike his brothers—Michael, Marlon, Jermaine, Randy, and Jackie—Tito hadn't yet released a solo album. He made this right in 2016 with Tito Time, an R&B/pop album with contributions from Big Daddy Kane, Jocelyn Brown and 3T. For its follow-up, though, he decided to dig deeper into the sounds that formed him and bring his unconventional career full circle—with a little help from Stevie Wonder, George Benson and Joe Bonamassa.

Read More: George Benson Talks Tribute Album To Chuck Berry & Fats Domino: "The Songs are Still Ripe"​

That album is Under Your Spell, which was released Aug. 6. Earthy, upbeat and feel-good—with elements of funk and R&B throughout—it's the product of a man with a one-of-a-kind legacy and nothing to prove. But as originals like "Wheels Keep Turning," "Love One Another" and "That Kind of Love" attest—to say nothing of B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby"—it just feels good for him to sing the blues, simple as that. And thanks to his rock-solid, unpretentious delivery, his joy becomes our joy too.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Tito Jackson about how the blues runs in his famous family, where the American form fits into the modern music landscape and the realizations that led to his better-late-than-never solo career.

Tito Jackson

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Under Your Spell is framed as a return to your blues roots. What's your foundation in this artform? How did you grow from that soil, so to speak?

When I was really, really young—I'm saying around five—my parents always listened to Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, B.B. King and all these other blues players. I basically fell in love because my father and his brother, Uncle Luther, used to jam every weekend with their guitars. They'd play all these blues songs that are classics today. Basically, I would just sit there and stare at them because I loved the music. You know, I'm a young man wanting to be my dad and that whole thing.

He would always say, "When I go to work, don't touch my guitar." And me being a kid, that's like hearing the opposite. I'd been watching their fingering and all these other things and I wanted to try them. My mother would let me play the guitar and tell me "Put it away! Your dad will be home within the hour." So I put it away and she never said a word to him, until one day I broke the little E string. 

He got really upset at me and gave me a spanking and all that. Then, he put it in my lap and said, "Show me what you know." I was playing the little things I knew and my mom said, "He's really trying to play this thing! He's not playing with it; he really wants to play it." So, surprisingly, my father gave me the guitar. I think it's called an Airline.

He told me, "I want you to learn every song you like on the radio." And, of course, at that time, it was the Temptations, the Motown sound, the Isley Brothers, James Brown. I would be learning these songs and my brothers started singing backup with me. We had a little trio: My older brother and my younger brother. Michael and Marlon were just babies—they were playing with toys on the floor still. We were four or five years older and said, "You're too young."

We heard Michael singing ballads at school. We rushed him into the group after that and Marlon too. But at that time, we did do blues at our show. We did a lot of B.B. King and Bill Doggett and Johnnie Taylor and other artists. By the time we reached Motown, the only time I got to play the blues was when there was a mishap on stage, like when a microphone went dead. They'd holler, "Tito, play some blues!" and that's when I would get my little shot. It only happened a few times.

After those occasional rendezvouses, when would you cross paths with the blues again?

From that time, we had done a whole lot of things with our career and we decided to take a break in 1985, '86, something like that. I hadn't played new music in a long time, so I grabbed some friends of mine since I was living in Oxnard, California, which is a much smaller town than Los Angeles or Calabasas. These guys were musicians, but they were secondary musicians because they had main jobs. They were longshoremen. One owned an auto body shop. The other one was a mechanic. Things like that.

They couldn't leave their jobs to go on the road, but I was very shy at the time. One of the guys owned a nightclub called Roadhouse in Oxnard. We rehearsed there and some of the guys who worked in the fields would come in there and play pool. They didn't care about blues or anything. We'd just be there rehearsing and singing and that whole thing. 

Then, I started going to [play] church benefits and weddings and grew from there to do a few club dates and had a small tour in America. That grew to the cruises and then I started playing in other parts of the world—Europe and Japan and Spain and Brazil. From there, it just grew and grew until I'm at where I'm at today with the music.

What compelled you to become a solo artist like your brothers?

My brothers did solo records back in the day and I never did anything, since we moved companies from Motown to Sony. It's Sony today; it was Columbia back then. We were on the Epic Records label. But on Motown, they did records for Michael, Jermaine and Jackie. Then, later, Marlon did one. I believe it was on RCA or Capitol. But I never did anything because I had three sons and I wanted to make sure they were straight. Chasing the Jackson 5's career and having a wife and kids was never for me.

It got to a point where I said to myself, "What's the point of having a record? You're already in the Hall of Fame. You have a star on the Walk of Fame. You've played for the Queen of England and kings and of things of that nature. What do you really have to prove?" But looking back on saying that, every sibling in my family—even my kids—have had records out there. I was the only one out of that original generation that didn't do anything.

So, I didn't want to be that trivia question: "Which Jackson never had a record out or did anything on his own?" I decided I would do a record, which I did. My first album, called [2016's] Tito Time, is more in the vein of R&B, pop and that type of thing. Basically, just trying to do something for my fanbase: "Get it Baby" and "One Way Street." But I always said that if I wanted to do an album, it would be a blues album. My heart was with the blues.

What made me really do it was for two reasons. One being there was a survey online saying, "Will Tito ever do a record?" The needle was slightly pointed toward "Yes," but what really made me do something was Charles Barkley, the basketball player. One time, it was the Miami Heat playing in the playoff final game. He said, "The Heat played like the Jackson 5," [Dwyane] Wade being like Michael. He said, "Tell me something. If Tito wasn't in the Jackson 5, would we really miss him?"

That really rung a bell with me. I said to myself, "They don't see the contribution you bring to the group because you don't have any records out and you haven't sung any songs." I said, "I'd better do this record so they know what I have, or what I can do." So that's when I decided to do that.

What was it like collaborating with Stevie Wonder and some of your other colleagues for Under Your Spell? What was the rapport like?

Stevie was great. I've recorded with Stevie before on some of his projects. He's always great to work with. The guy's so talented. You don't have to coach him at all. He just gets right into it. Just his harmonica rhythms are Stevie, you know?

Now, with George Benson, we were working together about five or six years ago in Las Vegas. Of course, we had conversations: "Hey man, let's do something one day," whatever, which never comes. I was on the road in the B.B. King with [his] blues band, and it just so happened that the road manager knew George Benson and had mentioned that I was out there with him and this and that. We were headed up to Nevada and he wanted us to stop by.

Meanwhile, B.B. King's daughter, Claudette King, and I were talking about doing a tribute to B.B. King. We had decided we were going to do this song, "Rock Me, Baby." The sax player had it cut and then when we went up to Arizona, we played it to George. He volunteered to perform on it and that's how that came.

Now with Joe Bonamassa, I didn't know him at all. That's through [songwriter, guitarist and producer] Mike Zito. But I did want him on my album because he's probably one of the hottest—if not the hottest—out there.

Tito Jackson

Tito Jackson. Photo: Laura Carbone

I feel like blues music is pushed to the fringes of the mainstream these days. How do we bring it back into the center of the conversation, since all American music arguably comes from the blues?

That's basically what I was trying to do with this song, "Love One Another," and this complete album. I didn't want to do the traditional, slow "My baby left me" blues kind of thing. I wanted it to be danceable. I wanted it to be an album you can put on in your car while you're driving and enjoy it or at a barbecue or family gathering or whatever. I tried to give the blues a little bit of wiredness by adding people like Eddie Lavert or Stevie Wonder. These guys are from the pop music rank.

That attracts attention to the music, to the genre, which needs customers. It needs listeners. I've been listening to blues radio for quite some time, but some of the stations—I'm not talking about internet radio, but radio radio—I notice some of the music they play, they don't include up-to-date blues. They play six or seven really old folk-blues probably from when your great-grandfather was a kid.

I think they should do it the other way around. Look at what is R&B music or rock music. It all has the blues—a slight change to it as time goes on. Blues just bends its wills. I think the more blues players try to think outside the box, [the more] they can create something that makes it more appealing to the listener. Just doing I-IV-V chords with basic time gets a little boring.

How would you pitch the blues to a young person? What comes to my mind is the universal emotion. Our fundamental human problems haven't changed much since the turn of the century.

Exactly, but what's even more important, I think, is trying to get some of these popular artists in collaboration. What if Bruno Mars did a blues tune with somebody? Or put a blues-element type of feel tune on his album? That type of thing. That's what I think we need to go with, because kids are followers, basically. Anything he'd do, his fanbase is going to like it.

I think that's one of the ways. Not only him, but a lot of popular artists. Your Snoop Doggs, your Drakes. It'd be nice to have Taylor Swift singing "At Last" by Etta James or something like that, you know? It doesn't have to be the single. Just have it on the album. That's called giving blues a chance.

"I think it's important to keep on singing a song as long as there's a song to sing." - Tito Jackson

When you look back on the arc of your life and career, what emotions bubble up in your mind?

I'm proud of my career. I wish I had the head I have now about my career when I was much younger. I could have done a lot more when I was younger. But I'm proud of my accomplishments—the records that we hold as well as the inductees and all of these other things. Like I said, what else do I have to prove? And I'm proud that I did this blues album and I plan to do more. 

It's just been great, you know? The brothers don't record like we used to, but I think it's important to keep on singing a song as long as there's a song to sing.

Jon Batiste Talks New Album 'We Are,' His Brain-Breaking Itinerary & Achieving "Freedom" From Genre

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Yola

Yola

Photo: Joseph Ross Smith

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Yola On Reclaiming Her Agency, New Album 'Stand For Myself' & The Evils Of Tokenism

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On her new album, 'Stand For Myself,' singer/songwriter Yola doesn't want to be viewed as a moral authority or a representative of a nebulous global community, but as a nuanced human being
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Aug 10, 2021 - 10:15 am

In the wake of George Floyd's murder, a feeding frenzy for diversity officers and employees of color began. While this sea change in culture speaks to a valid and long-overdue reckoning, singer/songwriter Yola sees an insidious threat even in well-intentioned spaces. That menace, to her, is tokenism—the act of perfunctorily recruiting marginalized people so as to not get yelled at.

To Yola, tokenism isn't just a side effect of trying to do the right thing: It's a calculated wing of white supremacy. "The second that you find somebody that is different from you, you group them with a bunch of people that are different from you, so you have less work to do," she tells GRAMMY.com. "You're economizing." Because of this, Yola made Stand For Myself, which celebrates individuality over arbitrary pigeonholing based on melanin content.

Stand For Myself, which was released July 30, is a blend of soul, country, blues, rock and R&B, which shows both Yola's flexibility and how Black innovators created all those styles—a reality that remains depressingly lost on many. The music, however, is merely a vehicle for Yola to communicate who she is at her core, which may not jibe with what the public expects her to be. 

"I'm a massive softie. I'm sentimental as heck," she says. "I want to be treated with a sense of nuance and tenderness. I don't have to be tough because I'm a Black woman. I don't have to be servile because I'm from some other community. I don't have to be 'Put up or shut up' because I'm seen as a moral authority."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Yola, who kicks off her national tour on October 7, to discuss the individualist philosophy behind Stand For Myself, why Black musicians still aren't given ownership of their inventions and how she exercises her agency in her music.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In the press release, you mention an insidious component of discrimination: Tokenism. Can this form of overcorrecting be destructive?

It's funny: I don't really think it's overcorrecting. I think it's an actual function of the white supremacist paradigm. The second that you find somebody that is different from you, you group them with a bunch of people that are different from you, so you have less work to do. You're economizing. That was a mainstay of my life for a long time: The sense of people economizing. They go: "I see a Black person." Can you tell one from the other?

I have a dear friend who gets mixed up with Mavis Staples. There's nothing [in common between them]—least of all, the considerable decades separating them. It gets to the point where you're not listening with your ears anymore. You're listening with your eyes. So, tokenism is one thing that is part of that paradigm: That "You're all the same, really."

Like, "Isn't it weird that you're in country music?" No, it's Dolly Parton. She's got records everywhere. "But isn't it bizarre that you're in this space?" It's all part of the grand paradigm of the supremacist's assumption that white people create all the music, when it isn't even remotely true. It's the colonization of our ideas. So, when you get tokenized, it's a way of disempowering you. You get put into a small box. It's a way of taking away your ownership.

Read More: Jen Shyu On New Album 'Zero Grasses: Ritual For The Losses,' Overcoming Grief & Discrimination In Enlightened Spaces

Your contribution to rock 'n' roll, for example. It sort of goes around on the Internet at the moment: My interview with Channel 4 News in the U.K., speaking to Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who I adore as a journalist and generally. We were talking about navigating the industry and I said "I've heard a person from an A&R from a major say 'Nobody wants to hear a Black woman sing rock 'n' roll. That's not what we want right now." 

I'm like, "That shows you don't know the history of who created it! You don't know anything about Sister Rosetta Tharpe! She created rock 'n' roll!" We have a problem here. If you don't understand the lineage of something, if you minimize it, you become reductive to any marginalized group. You reduce their contributions to society.

Do you think it may not be as simple as the "bad guys" engaging in this? That some of the good guys might be driving this?

Yeah! We've all seen liberal moments gone wrong, right? [Cringing voice.] "Oh, no! Oh, sweetie! Sweetie! You tried, but no!" It's a big thing. People aren't realizing that programming is something done to them and they have to police it. People say no baby comes out with cognitive bias, right? No, no baby does. They're right. They know that. But they come into a world that is absolutely strewn with it. 

The second they hit air, they're learning supremacist programming. It's in advertising. It's in language. It's in the structure of how wealth is distributed. It's in the laws that govern the land. It's in everything. It's in so much of the politics. Supremacy is in so many things. Is it possible to escape it? What you have to do is be aware of it and police it. Someone's trying to program you all the bloody time.

I don't think racism is a thing you can be cured from, like we're searching for the cure for the coronavirus. Like, that's not how it works. Do what you can and police and pull out the things that keep jumping up into your life, because we all have it. It's not that white people are the only people to get supremacist programming. Black people get it too. Brown people get it too. You see it jump up in people where they haven't policed it and they start championing paradigms that's beneficial for their own people themselves.

Yola by Joseph Ross Smith 1

Yola. Photo: Joseph Ross Smith

The title of Stand For Myself seems to imply individual identity and action, not a sense of belonging to a nebulous, easily pigeonholed "community" of people with similar melanin content.

[Long laugh.] I actually couldn't put it better myself! To not be part of this nebulous community, but to have this sense of standing up for your right to nuance. Standing for your right to tenderness. To be like: I want to be treated with a sense of nuance and tenderness. I don't have to be tough because I'm a Black woman. I don't have to be servile because I'm from some other community. I don't have to be "Put up or shut up" because I'm seen as a moral authority. 

[It applies] whatever way you are: You don't have to be extra-camp because you're part of the LGBTQIA+ community if you don't want to be. It's past individualism and gets to the point of authenticity. Not faking it. Actually just being you. I know it's kind of a trite thing to say, but actually do you.

So, let's say somebody comes to Stand For Myself with an open mind. What do you hope people take away from it and learn about you?

I'm a massive softie. [Knowing laugh.] I'm sentimental as heck. The flesh of the record, the very innards of the record are highly sentimental and seek authentic connection through friendship, through the process of work and collaboration, through love, through my family, and all of these things. You hear it across the record.

People try to put this "strong Black woman" paradigm on me, and there's so much of my life when I wasn't that. I was a real bloody doormat. So, to be able to see the nuance that I have as a person is really, really the function of writing from my lens. I want to speak about my life experience. I want people to know about the nature of my life and the steps that I've taken.

Read More: Press Play At Home: Watch Yola Perform A Rock-Solid Rendition Of "Stand For Myself"

I want people to see the whole of the person. I want people to see me as I am in spaces, across spaces. I want people to see what it sounds like when I'm taking the helm a tiny bit more. I'm actually able to choose the co-writers, whereas on the first record, I didn't know anyone in Nashville yet so I couldn't choose any co-writers! 

This is the very epitome of my agency, so I want people to see what that looks like for me.

For Charley Pride, Black Country Music Was A Self-Evident Truth

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G.E. Smith & LeRoy Bell

G.E. Smith (L) and LeRoy Bell (R)

Photo: John Peden

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G.E. Smith & LeRoy Bell Talk New Politically Charged Album 'Stony Hill': "It Speaks To This Present Time"

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GRAMMY.com caught up with the music veterans to talk about how their timely debut album offers a nonpartisan, universal perspective on today's societal issues and how their rich individual careers inform their newly formed duo
Joshua M. Miller
GRAMMYs
Aug 24, 2020 - 4:00 am

Even before this challenging year, singer-songwriter LeRoy Bell was getting tired of the negative grind of daily news. He couldn't understand how the United States allowed migrant children to be separated from their families.

His frustration spawned the song "America," which appears on Stony Hill, his new debut collaborative album with veteran guitarist G.E. Smith, out Friday (Aug. 28). In the song, Bell sings, "God only knows how I miss those days / She only knows how I miss the way we were." 

"I just thought that we would be so much farther along as a nation, as a country," Bell tells GRAMMY.com during a recent interview. "And in the last couple of years, it just seemed like it was going to hell in a handbasket. I just wanted to write a song, and it was a healing process for me, and I just thought that a lot of other people can relate to it."

After Bell showed the song to Smith, the two started working on what would amount to a politically charged album full of like-minded songs. Stony Hill is a contemplative and honest look at where American democracy stands today. Rather than angrily pointing fingers, the duo instead offers constructive criticism in a nonpartisan way aimed at finding a more perfect union.

Smith and Bell use the wisdom and experiences they've gained through their long and wide-ranging careers in music to inform Stony Hill.

Best known as the former ponytailed musical director for "Saturday Night Live," Smith is a one-time member of Hall & Oates and a sideman to musicians such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. 

Bell has written hit songs for a variety of artists, including Elton John, Jennifer Lopez, Teddy Pendergrass and The Three Degrees. A finalist for "The X Factor" in 2011, Bell has also made a name for himself via his work as a solo artist and with his former soul duo, Bell and James, alongside Casey James. 

For Smith and Bell, their newly formed duo welcomes a pairing that's long been in the works.

"I'd been looking for a great singer for 30 years," Smith says. "And I've been looking for just the right voice. And [my wife] said to me, 'Hey, listen to this guy. This is the voice.' And I heard it. I said, 'Yep, that's him.'"

GRAMMY.com caught up with G.E. Smith & LeRoy Bell to talk about how their timely debut album, Stony Hill, offers a nonpartisan, universal perspective on today's societal issues and how their rich individual careers inform their latest project.

The songs on your new album, Stony Hill, feel like they were written for this moment in time.

Smith: Well, we recorded the record in 2019. We had it finished up by the early fall and then did the postproduction. And it just happened that a lot of the songs that LeRoy had written are very relevant to what's going on now; songs like "America," "Under These Skies," "Let The Sunshine In." It just speaks to this present time as things worked out.

Bell: I don't think this happened overnight, and so a situation we're finding ourselves in, it's not like I predicted anything and saw it coming. I think it was just a feeling that was going on in the last couple of years, the way things were turning. But I had no idea that it was going to end up like it is now and we'd be in this position with the pandemic and the civil unrest that we have at this point. But I think some of the signs were there.

What's the story behind the album's title, Stony Hill?

Smith: We were looking for a band name; there [have] been so many bands at this point, it's really hard to come up with a name. [My family and I] happen to live on Stony Hill Road. And so there that was, and then that image of pushing the rock up the hill just fit right in. That seems like what we're all doing now.

While writing the album, you made a point to make songs such as "America" nonpartisan and from a more universal place. Why was that important?

Bell: I think politics go back and forth, and, depending on who's in power, people use politics as a tool to control other people. And that's why I used those lyrics that way. I think you can interpret it how you want, but I think it speaks to the times that we have right now. But I think it's also a political stigma that can speak to any time, because a lot of it is general, although some of it is specific to this time.

What was the inspiration behind "America"?

Bell: I was kind of down and watching too much news on TV, which I finally just got rid of because it was just messing with my emotions. I saw this one thing where they were separating kids from their parents and putting kids in cages, and I just kind of balled up. This is not where I thought we would be in 2019. I just thought that we would be so much farther along as a nation, as a country. And in the last couple of years, it just seemed like it was going to hell in a handbasket. I just wanted to write a song, and it was a healing process for me, and I just thought that a lot of other people can relate to it.

"Black Is The Color" is a rocking modern take on the traditional folk ballad. Why did it feel like a good time to revisit the song?

Smith: I've always loved that song. I've been playing that song for 40 years at least. And most of the versions that you hear of that song are slow and beautiful. Nina Simone is the famous one that comes to mind. But in the early '60s, a lot of what they called folk artists—Joan Baez, people like that—everybody was doing that song, and everybody did it slow. But I'm kind of a rocker, bar band, guitar-player guy, so I wanted to rock it up. I love the lyrics and I really thought I'd fit in with the rest of the material that we were doing. I've always really enjoyed rearranging traditional songs like that, taking a more modern approach to them, because the lyrics are great in a lot of that traditional stuff. The stories are universal. The stories are timeless.

"Under the Skies" talks about the hopes and fears people have in this country. There's a lyric about the longing for finding the way home. Why was that an appealing metaphor?

Bell: A metaphor to finding the way home to peace and love—that's what I mean by that. Finding a way back home to reconciliation, to getting along, to where we're supposed to be as humans with each other. Like we just got so far off-track of where we should be. I think this is … just about as far away from where we should be that I can remember [in my life].

Read: Bruce Hornsby Talks New Album 'Non-Secure Connection,' Working With Spike Lee And His Ongoing Support Of Civil Rights In His Music

How did the two of you originally meet?

Smith: Taylor Barton, my wife, was listening to LeRoy. I think she found him on Spotify, or one of those places, and I'd been looking for a great singer for 30 years. And I've been looking for just the right voice. And she said to me, "Hey, listen to this guy. This is the voice." And I heard it. I said, "Yep, that's him." 

So Taylor got a hold of LeRoy, and he lives in Seattle. We're on the extreme East Coast, out on Long Island [in New York], and we invited him out January of 2019. And he came and we sat down with our guitars and started playing, and we just had a great time. He had recently written "America." He showed it to me, and within two days, we were in the studio.

Did it feel like a good pairing?

Bell: We're fans of a lot of the same music—that would be old-school music. We played in a lot of different bands that had a lot in common, and we were close to the same age and grew up in the same era. Once we started playing together, we just hit it off. It just felt very comfortable.

Smith: You never know, when you get together with people, everybody can be really talented, but it doesn't always click. Thankfully, this time it did. We got along right away, musically, because, as LeRoy said, we had grown up listening to the same records at the same time— we were [just] in different rooms. You've got to be able to like the people and hang out with them and spend time with them. So that all was very easy and comfortable right away—thankfully.

Each of you has histories of collaborating with others. How have these lessons and experiences carried over to this project?

Bell: I think when you've been collaborating with other people, you learn to listen and pay attention to what that other person has. Music is cool, but you don't want to just play it by yourself all the time; you want to be able to enjoy playing with other people. And so, collaborating with somebody else that's giving you ideas and cool things to work off of is a joy, especially if you get along personally. It's fun. It's creative.

Smith: You don't dismiss your own ego, but you've got to put your own ego aside a little bit and work with the artist, the person that day you're supporting. As a guitar player, sideman, you work with them and you try to make the idea that they have shine. You try to make it good. So LeRoy comes with these songs and then I like the songs, and then I could hear right away what I want it to sound like; it was just a great experience to be able to do it. We're looking forward to recording the next album.

Are you planning to tour together whenever things get back to normal after the pandemic?

Bell: Yeah. We were already planning on touring and then the COVID-19 [pandemic] hit, and then that just pulled the rug out from under us. But we would love to get out there and get to the people and bring them music. There's nothing better than playing in front of live audiences. 

Smith: In the middle of March, when this COVID thing really took off, we were supposed to go to South By Southwest [SXSW], play two or three shows while we were there, introduce the band and the recording. They were going to release "America" right there. But of course, that got canceled, along with everything else.

On "America," you talk about not standing idly by. Have you been involved in the community beyond music?

Bell: Not so much. My main way of being involved is through my music. I'm not out there in the streets, physically, but I try to lend my voice and my time to the causes. Somebody needs me to be there, phone lines or vocally or any way that I can that way with my support; I try to do that. But physically, as far as being out in the streets, I don't really do that. Mainly, it's just through my music and what I can bring that way.

Smith: For me, I've never been political at all. It never seemed to make much difference to me, as a musician, who was president or governor or anything. It was the same for me when Reagan was president or when Clinton was president or Obama. 

But Trump, he came along and just ... To me, he's very wrong on so many things. I hate the way that he's encouraged the white nationalist people. And he seems to thrive on this chaos; he likes it. He thinks it makes him look good to his people, I guess. I've never voted in my life, but I'll tell you what. I'm registered now. And I'm going to vote in November. I'm not going to vote for Trump—you know that.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Fantastic Negrito On How His New Album, 'Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?', Is A Timely Commentary On American Society

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Press photo of Valerie June

Valerie June

Photo: Renata Raksha

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Valerie June Dreams Of A Better World On New Album 'The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers'

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Singer/songwriter Valerie June tells GRAMMY.com about how her latest album, 'The Moon And Stars,' urges listeners to dream big in seeking change in the world
Joshua M. Miller
GRAMMYs
Apr 16, 2021 - 11:01 am

Valerie June misses the electric atmosphere of playing live in front of her fans. The Memphis, TN, singer-songwriter, nonetheless, is thankful: Her time off the road over the past year, due to the pandemic, has given her a chance to fully explore her creative identity in music, art and poetry.

"It's the first time I ever actually took the time to be an artist," June tells GRAMMY.com of her time in quarantine at home. "Usually, I just do art while it happens, while I'm doing other things. But because we had a huge [amount] of time, I actually spent hours every day … I dedicated [to] it like it was school."

That confidence and ambition shine through on her latest album, The Moon & Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers, which she co-produced with GRAMMY-winning producer Jack Splash.

Astronomy and the pursuit of living out one's dreams are at the core of The Moon & Stars, which deals with the dreamers' journey seeking positivity and "choosing to create a new world, a world similar to this world Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] described when he said, 'I have a dream,'" June explains.

Many of the album's songs underline the difficult experiences of being a dreamer. However, June knows the finish line is worth it and exudes positivity throughout The Moon & Stars. It's a message that is emboldened by June's charismatic vocals that carry a childlike sense of wonder, further heightened by a dynamic soundscape of swirling, airy R&B and folk-pop-orchestrated melodies.

In addition to The Moon & Stars, June recently released Maps for the Modern World, a new book of poetry and illustrations. For June, it felt gratifying to carve out as much time as she needed to fully explore wherever her creativity led her. Still, she admits she isn't sure she'll be able to fully give up her newfound creative muse and go back to her pre-pandemic way of life.

"I'm still going to do some shows, but I think I'll have to keep carving new time for art because it's been really important for my spirit," she says. "With all of the heaviness and the challenges that we faced in the last year, I felt a great need … to be the positivity."

GRAMMY.com spoke with Valerie June about why the moon and stars are significant metaphors on her new album, what she learned working with legendary singer Carla Thomas, and why it's important to dream big and push past failures.

Why do you think the moon and stars are a relevant metaphor for dreams?

When you have an aspirational journey, like the dream of Dr. King, it is something that seems huge. It seems bigger than you. It seems almost unattainable. And I do believe that dreams are bigger than any individual...It directly affects everyone in your friend circle and your family circle, in your city, in your community, across the planet, across the universe...And stars and moons make people think in that terms of other planetary realms. And so, it's important, first of all, to have the moon and stars be the first part of the title, which puts people in the mindset of magic. Puts people in the mindset of imagination and adventure in other worlds.

And then once they're in that mindset, then you start to talk about the prescriptions for dreamers and dreams. And the fact is that dreamers need prescription because manifesting dreams, as we say with Dr. King's dream, it's not easy. It's huge and it takes years, and you're going to get weak. And you're going to need something like art to give you courage, to keep going, to keep believing, because dreams can wither...When you hear that song and you look at the protest, then you believe in the fact that we can change and [have] the human capacity to grow.

Producer Jack Splash has worked on a variety of projects, and it seems to have seeped it with a diverse collection of songs. How did his knowledge help you fine-tune the songs on The Moon & Stars?

Well, Jack Splash, his knowledge is the wizard of my record. He is the main force that was able to take all the dimensions and all the galaxies that I was imagining and exploring and brand them into one solid phase. He produced the record; he also played instruments and joined the band on many of the songs. And he introduced me to powerhouse musicians and arrangers like Mr. e or any of the Miami-based musicians who play on the songs and the L.A. musicians who play on the songs.

He told me that there was an email that came from the GRAMMYs and it was around the first time we worked together. He said, the email's said that we need to start addressing and lift up more female producers in the music industry. And Jack said, "What do you think about it?" And I was like, "Well, I think that's a good idea. We'll see if it happens."

He thought it was an amazing idea. He started to teach me how to produce, and I sat beside him all the way through this record. He was not only believing that we should have more recognition for female producers, but willing to be one of those people who's in the industry and is opening his door to training more people, to more female producers.

On "Call Me A Fool," you talk about not letting anything stop you from trying to live your dreams. Why is that important especially in these times?

Society isn't built to support dreamers. If you want to follow a path that's paved, then you will have an easier way of life. But if you want to go down a path that is very rugged and full of plants and thorns, then the world's like, "No, no, no." So, you might be called a fool for [not] following their path. But, if you have the dream and you have a vision of what it's going to look like is as you go on down the path and once the way is clear, then you have to do it. Because if you don't, then you'll be on your deathbed and you'll be wishing that you had—life is too short for that.

"Call Me a Fool" features the legendary Carla Thomas and follows her contribution on the album's preceding track, "African Proverb." What was it like working with her?

It was amazing. At some point, I hope we can get on the stage and perform together …

I think she deserves to be noticed and honored for her contributions to American music. When I was with her, it was truly amazing. She sang with Otis Redding, and she'll tell you all kinds of great stories about that … She's the fairy godmother of the record, because all records or every dreamer's journey has to have a fairy godmother.

Read: Roots Musician Amythyst Kiah: From An Awkward Hobbyist To A GRAMMY-Nominated Professional

What's the biggest way she's influenced how you've shaped your own career?

The biggest way would be that she's from the same part of the world that I'm from. And she knows what it's like to be a Black female artist in the South who loves all genres and music.

I watched the documentary on Tina Turner recently on HBO … Tina talks about what would it be like to put out a record and not have her picture on it and people not knowing that she was Black. [She talked about] … how would that affect her ability to be who she wants to be as an artist.

I thought about people like Carla and people like me, and now I'm still asking that question. What would it be like if my color or my skin wasn't something that came up when I was making music? I think it's starting to change. But people like Carla Thomas and Tina Turner, women here who are from the same part of the world as me, they help me put change here. That's what she's done for me and what she's done for so many other amazing female artists from the South.

You recently released a new book of poetry and illustrations, Maps for the Modern World. What was your inspiration for it?

It was a very sad inspiration because my father passed four years ago. When he passed, that's when I started to [write poetry.] One of my friends from Memphis, who is a New York Times bestselling author, said to me one day, "What happened to writing? You told me you're writing a lot when your father passed." And I said, "It was going OK. I have a lot of poems I've written." She was like, "Why aren't you doing anything with them?" And I was like, "I don't really know. They're really just for me." And she said, "Well, I want to introduce you to my literary agent."

She introduced me, and I took hundreds of poems … and I showed them to her, and she loved them. That started me down a path, and the path was that I should put all of these poems together … I love Shel Silverstein … and poets who illustrate their work. My mother is a painter, so I always have loved art. And so, I started to put the illustration to [the poems] because of it.

I think that anyone who has a talent or an art or is creative, they should do that with their energy right now because we have a portal open in the world. Because they're starting to come back and we have the ability to use this portal to reset the world and to put more mindfulness and kindness out across the globe.

If you have a talent in art, that can lift people up and give them courage and empower them right now, then you should do it. So, I'm trying to do every single one I can: art, poems, and music.

You collaborated recently with Amanda Shires and a number of others for "Our Problem," for the recent anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. What did it mean to be part of that song and mark the occasion?

I'm so honored when Amanda reached out to me and asked me to sing on the song. I thought it was a very powerful song. I cried a lot when I was working on it because there's a poem, actually, in my book that addresses a woman's right to choose … I think about how much energy we put to work saying that a woman shouldn't have the right to choose.

It just seems so unfair when we could put that energy toward making it easier for the living, for people who are already here. Because once we start opening up the doors and making it easier for people … then we also make it easier for young mothers to be able to raise their children. We make the world, our world, and our nation more harmonious and more balanced and equal and fair. That song is super powerful, and the whole movement of Roe vs. Wade is very important for women and for freedom.

And I think that's important that we make life better every day. I imagine that the world could be a lot like what John Lennon [was] saying in his song ["Imagine"], that, "[The world will be as one]."

On "Fallin'," you say that it's OK to fail in pursuit of one's dreams. Why do you think so?

When you're dreaming, you go for it. One of the things about it is, you might be successful, but you also might fail, and the chances are that you're going to fail. You're going to fail if you're a dreamer. I've failed so many times, and I've fallen. One thing you got to know about falling is that it's OK.

Mickey Guyton On Navigating Country Music As A Black Woman: "My Professional Journey Has Been Very Difficult"

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Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

Photo: Rebecca Sapp/Stringer via Getty Images

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Mogul Moment: How Quincy Jones Became An Architect Of Black Music

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In his work, which spans seven decades and counting in the business, Quincy Jones has proved time and time again that Black music is America's music
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Mar 4, 2021 - 3:51 pm

Ahead of Quincy Jones' appearance at the Inaugural Black Music Collective GRAMMY Week Celebration during GRAMMY Week 2021, GRAMMY.com explores how the producer, composer and arranger built a launchpad for some of the most revolutionary voices in Black American music.

Quincy Jones has the stories of a townful of people put together. He's eaten rats to survive, attended his own funeral and claims to know who actually shot JFK. He can show you a scar on his temple where an icepick nailed him—and another on his hand thanks to a switchblade. In between, he's helped Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, George Benson, Michael Jackson, Donna Summer and scores of others make some of the most beloved music of the 20th century.

All those artists happen to be Black, and Jones understands profoundly their work's vitality to the American fabric. Between working on classic films like 1966's Walk, Don't Run, 1967's In The Heat of the Night and 1969's The Italian Job; producing bubblegum hits like Lesley Gore's "It's My Party"; and co-producing the celebrity smorgasbord "We Are The World," Jones has spearheaded quintessential Black American albums like Ella Fitzgerald’s and Count Basie’s Ella and Basie, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and George Benson’s Give Me the Night.

In his work, which spans seven decades and counting in the business, Jones has proved time and time again that Black music is America's music. For his trouble, he's collected 28 GRAMMY Awards, 80 nominations and a GRAMMY Legend Award. Ahead of his appearance next at the Inaugural Black Music Collective Event, a virtual event focused on amplifying Black voices, during GRAMMY Week 2021, it's worth noting how Jones helped architect Black music throughout his career.

"I believe that a hundred years from now when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among [other] elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens," Jones told NPR's “Fresh Air” in 2001. (He worked or hobnobbed with all five of those Black geniuses.) "I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music—gospel, blues, jazz and R&B—is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you."

That elevation of Black expression is the headline of Jones' life and work. Here's how it became that way.

For Quincy Jones, Music Changed Everything

On March 14, 1933, Jones was born on the wrong side of town during the worst economic downturn in history. "I wasn't born in Bel Air, man. I'm from the South Side of Chicago," he told Dr. Dre in the 2018 Netflix documentary Quincy, citing an area with a history of violence and poverty. "In the '30s, man, during the Depression, damn, you kidding? We lost my mother when I was seven, and my brother and I, we were like street rats." At first, he didn’t have musical dreams, but those of a life of crime: "I wanted to be a gangster 'til I was 11. You want to be what you see, and that's all we ever saw."

With his mother was in and out of mental institutions, Jones and his brother Lloyd stayed at his grandmother's—a former slave’s—house without electricity or running water. According to his 2001 autobiography Q, they were so impoverished that she fed the boys "mustard greens, okra, possum, chickens and rats, and me and Lloyd ate them all."

Jones’ mother, who often sang religious songs, introduced a young Jones to music. "When I was five or six, back in Chicago, there was this lady named Lucy Jackson who used to play stride piano in the apartment next door, and I listened to her all the time right through the walls," Jones told PBS in 2005. Plus, a next-door neighbor, Lucy Jackson, played stride piano next door; Jones kept an ear to the wall.

When Jones was 10, the family moved to Bremerton, Washington. In his early teens, they relocated to Seattle, where Jones caught word of a skinny, Black 16-year-old kid in town with frightening musical talent. "[He] played his ass off. He played piano and sang like Nat 'King' Cole and Charles Brown," Jones remembered in Q. "He said his name was Ray Charles, and it was love at first instinct for both of us."

Despite Charles' blindness, he was utterly self-reliant, renting an apartment, going steady with a girlfriend and shopping, cooking and laundering for himself. His independence and creativity were galvanizing to Jones, illuminating a path he would follow for the rest of his life.

"Ray was a role model at a time when I had few. He understood the world in ways I didn't," Jones wrote in Q. "He'd say, 'Every music has its own soul, Quincy. It doesn't matter what style it is, be true to it.' He refused to put limits on himself."

Soon after, Jones enrolled at Garfield High School, where he honed his craft as a trumpeter and arranger. He earned a scholarship at Seattle University, transferred to Berklee College of Music in Boston, traveled with the future GRAMMY Special Merit Award Honoree Lionel Hampton's band at age 20. From there, he was off to the races.

Of course, Charles went on to live up to his maxim of artistic limitlessness, cross-pollinating R&B, soul, blues, gospel, jazz, and even country music, on 1962's Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. And Jones remained an integral part of his story, writing and arranging "The Ray" for 1957's The Great Ray Charles. Heavy, bluesy and swinging, the tune telegraphs Jones' admiration for The Genius.

Jones Alters Rock ‘N’ Roll

Fast-forward five years: Jones was in the midst of a fruitful stint as a writer and arranger for the Count Basie Orchestra, on albums like 1959's Basie One More Time and 1960's String Along With Basie. 

Meanwhile, over in rock 'n' roll, an extinction event had hit. Buddy Holly was dead, Chuck Berry was in prison, Jerry Lee Lewis was in the hot seat for a marriage scandal, and a post-service Elvis Presley was flailing from one lightweight flick to the next. Little Richard, for his part, had become born again and forsaken rock 'n' roll, pivoting to Jesus with 1960's austere Pray Along With Little Richard.

Understanding that his earlier, cat-in-heat hits like "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally" had a lot in common with gospel music, Jones lit a fire under Richard by way of 1962's The King of the Gospel Singers, a project he joined via Richard’s old producer Bumps Blackwell. 

Over Jones’ revved-up arrangements, Richard sounded less self-righteous and more tapped into the wild, frenzied heart of holy devotion.

Deeper Into Jazz…

Ever since he was a kid, Jones had been a fan of bebop, a harmonically advanced, blisteringly fast form of small-group jazz. The virtuosic trumpeter, composer and educator Dizzy Gillespie was one of the style's principal architects.

Come 1963, and Jones would produce his hero's excellent 1963 album New Wave!. The album braids American mainstays (W.C. Handy's "Careless Love") with bossa nova standards (Antônio Carlos Jobim's "One Note Samba"). As a whole, it provides as effective a gateway as any into Gillespie's innovations in the Afro-Cuban sphere.

...And Soul & Pop

For the rest of the decade, Jones arranged for Black vocal dynamos Shirley Horn, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan. 

In 1973, Jones produced Aretha Franklin's Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky), which is neither as muscular as her peak work nor as luxurious as '80s albums like Jump To It. Regardless, that in-betweenness—and the strength of its material—makes Hey Now Hey an intriguing look at the Queen of Soul in a state of transition.

At the time, two members of Jones' band were George "Lightnin' Licks" and Louis E. "Thunder Thumbs" Johnson, known as The Brothers Johnson. Jones went on to produce four successful albums for the brothers. Three singles in particular—1976's "I'll Be Good to You," 1977's Shuggie Otis cover "Strawberry Letter 23" and 1980's "Stomp!"—all topped the Hot R&B Charts and remained classic examples of Jones’ contributions to Black music.

Enter Michael Jackson

Around this time, Jones was highly active in film. While working as a music supervisor and producer on 1978's The Wiz, a film adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name, he was impressed by the precocious co-star Michael Jackson, who had already made waves in The Jackson 5.

After filming wrapped, Jackson told his label, Epic Records, and managers, Freddie DeMann and Ron Weisner, that he wanted Jones to produce for him.

"[T]his was 1977 and disco reigned supreme," Jones wrote in Q. "The word was, 'Quincy Jones is too jazzy and has only produced dance hits with The Brothers Johnson.' When Jackson approached Jones about this, he laid the young singer's anxieties to rest: "If it's meant for us to work together, God will make it happen. Don't worry about it." (In the meantime, Jones produced 1979's funk-soul gem Masterjam by Rufus and Chaka Khan.)

The music the pair made together may prove the existence of a higher power: Jones produced 1979's Off The Wall, 1982's Thriller and 1987's Bad.

"[W]orking with Quincy was such a wonderful thing," Jackson told Ebony in 2007, 25 years after Thriller’s release. "He lets you experiment, do your thing, and he's genius enough to stay out of the way of the music, and if there's an element to be added, he'll add it."

By now, all three albums have been codified into pop culture. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" could compel a corpse to cut a rug, everyone who's watched TV has seen the "Thriller" video, and the exuberant "The Way You Make Me Feel" can still lift one out of a bedridden depression. Together, the three albums won more than a dozen GRAMMYs and were nominated for a pile of others.

Give Him The Night

While Jackson ascended in the pop world, the jazz guitar great George Benson began singing more and hewing more commercial, with Tommy LiPuma-helmed albums like 1976's Breezin', 1977's In Flight and 1979's Livin' Inside Your Love. In 1980, Jones partnered with Warner Bros. to form Qwest, a subsidiary label that gave him extraordinary creative freedom.

"Much to my luck, he still wanted to make a George Benson record," Benson said in 2014's Benson: The Autobiography. "Let me ask you this: Do you want to go for the throat?" Jones asked Benson. "Quincy, let's go for the throat, baby," he responded. "Let's go for the throat."

The result was 1980's career-making Give Me The Night, which garnered three GRAMMYs at the ceremony that year: Best Jazz Performance, Male for "Moody's Mood"; Best R&B Instrumental Performance for "Off Broadway"; and Best R&B Performance, Male for the title track.

Jones has been wildly active ever since. In 1993, he convinced Miles Davis to take a rare look back at his modal-jazz years with Miles and Quincy Live at Montreaux, recorded mere months before Davis's death. In the ensuing decades, he's produced concerts and TV, given no-holds-barred interviews, and soaked up his stature as a titan in the music industry.

In 2018, when Vulture asked Jones if he could snap his fingers and fix one problem in the country, one word flashed in his mind. "Racism," he responded. "I’ve been watching it a long time—the ’30s to now. We’ve come a long way but we’ve got a long way to go. The South has always been fucked up, but you know where you stand. The racism in the North is disguised. You never know where you stand.

"People are fighting it," he added, with Charlottesville in the immediate rearview. "God is pushing the bad in our face to make people fight back."

America may remain in the thick of a racial reckoning, but all the while, Jones has tirelessly facilitated and championed artists of color. He’s seemingly lived a hundred lifetimes and been a force for good in numberless ways. 

But when he brought the best out of his fellow Black American visionaries, that’s when he really went for the throat.

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