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Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monáe and Paul Williams at the 2017 ASCAP Expo

Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monáe and Paul Williams
Photo: Lester Cohen/Getty Images

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Stevie Wonder: ASCAP Expo Keynote Message Of Love more-innervisions-stevie-wonder-music-politics-love

More Innervisions: Stevie Wonder On Music, Politics & Love

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The iconic GRAMMY winner infused his keynote interview at the 2017 ASCAP I Create Music Expo with helpful advice for musicians and messages of creativity and love
Nicole Pajer
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

If you want be successful in the music industry, be prepared to pour your blood, sweat and tears into your craft. This was the message that legendary 25-time GRAMMY winner Stevie Wonder shared during his keynote speech April 15 at the ASCAP I Create Music Expo in Los Angeles.

In a special onstage interview with GRAMMY-nominated R&B singer/songwriter Janelle Monáe, Wonder regaled the crowd with his personal career insights, including the commitment he makes to music.

"You have to put work into [music]," said Wonder. "Your commitment has to be that you give to that what you love. It's a relationship. If you love, you have to put into that relationship."

Wonder followed up with an explanation of how he puts this commitment to work in the studio.

"You have to … listen outside of yourself," he said. "I find myself listening as a producer after I sing something. Do I like the way that I sound when I sang that? Does it feel right? Does it sound believable?"

But when is a song finally right? Wonder noted that he only stops working on a song when he is satisfied as both an artist and a producer, even if that means spending hours listening back and making adjustments. To illustrate his point, Wonder recalled recording his 1976 GRAMMY Album Of The Year-winning Songs In The Key Of Life.

"I had this little transmitter. I would hook it up and listen and listen," said Wonder, who recalled re-recording the songs "Black Man" and "Contusion" over and over again until the songs had the exact feel he was going for. "So it's all about the feeling, every time."

Watch: Stevie Wonder wins Album Of The Year for Songs In The Key Of Life

When Monáe asked if he aims to finish an album by a certain date, Wonder replied, "I wish I could do that. Everyone at Motown would have loved if I could have done that. The bill collectors would have loved if I could have done that. Family vacations would have happened on time if could have done that." 

"If it's not done and it doesn't feel right, it's just not done. You want to give your best and each project is different than the other so it's not based on, 'Well, I want this to be better than this.' You know how you want it to feel."

To tie this concept to an example, Wonder revealed how this exercise played out on 2016's "Where's Our Love Song?" He'd written the piano part for the song seven years earlier, but couldn't come up with the right lyrics. Instead of forcing the words, Wonder held onto the song until the right inspiration hit, which finally came during the 2016 presidential campaign. He used the song to address the negativity in America at the time.

On that note, Wonder reaffirmed his desire to address politics with his music. He touched on a well-known example of this, the 1981 single "Happy Birthday," which he wrote in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Motown head Berry Gordy warned that political messages might cause people to stop buying his records, but Wonder was undeterred.

"I feel like those of us who have been blessed with the gift of expression, we have to express ourselves lovingly," said Wonder.

Across his five-decade-plus career, Wonder's passion for confronting political issues and creating positive change through his music remains as strong as ever.

"It's my motivation to challenge those things, to confront them, as a lyricist and songwriter and singer, and sing about them and move us forward," he said. Wonder challenged the audience to do the same: "Don't be afraid to express your truth but do it with love."

(Nicole Pajer is a freelance writer and reporter based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Billboard, among other publications.)

Want more Stevie Wonder? Go inside his GRAMMY history

 

 

GRAMMYs

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper

Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images

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Poll: What's Your Favorite Love Song? poll-whats-your-favorite-love-song

Poll: Are You Feeling The Love With Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder Or Lady Gaga—What's Your Favorite Love Song?

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From Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" to Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's "Shallow," what song gets you in the mood for Valentine's—or Galetine's—Day?
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Feb 12, 2021 - 12:20 pm

Valentine's Day is around the corner on Feb. 14, and we hope you're feeling the love in the air.

For GRAMMY.com's latest poll, we want to know what romantic jam you'll be playing to celebrate the love you feel for your partner, yourself, your furry friends or anyone else close to your heart.

Vote for your favorite love song now in our latest poll below, which includes timeless classics from Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Al Green, as well as lovely tracks from Adele, Rihanna and Lady Gaga.

Polls

What's Your Favorite Love Song?

The Supremes Were A Dream, And Mary Wilson Dreamt It

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Bongo ByTheWay

Bongo ByTheWay

Photo: Courtesy of artist

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Record Store Recs: Bongo ByTheWay bongo-bytheway-stevie-wonder-record-store-recs-producer-music-of-his-mind

Record Store Recs: Producer Bongo ByTheWay Shares The Music Of His Mind

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In the latest Record Store Recs interview series, the powerhouse producer brings us to his favorite L.A. digs and shares the records that shaped his rich sound
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Feb 2, 2021 - 4:45 pm

With the unprecedented global disruption of COVID-19, it's important to support the music community however we can. With Record Store Recs, GRAMMY.com checks in with vinyl-loving artists to learn more about their favorite record stores and the gems they've found there so that you can find some new favorite artists and shops.

Nigeria-born, Los Angeles-based producer Bongo ByTheWay, a.k.a. Uforo Ebong, has crafted tantalizing beats for heavy-hitters in R&B—including Jazmine Sullivan and H.E.R. on "Girls Like Me," Ant Clemons and Justin Timberlake on "Better Days," and several Teyana Taylor joints—as well as in gospel and hip-hop, Pop Smoke among them. In the latest Record Store Recs, he brings us to his favorite L.A. digs and into the records that shaped his rich sound.

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What are three to five record stores you love?

Amoeba Music in Los Angeles

The Record Collector in Los Angeles

Vinyl vendors at Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles

The Last Record Store Recs: Luna Shadows Invites Us Into Her Los Angeles Vinyl Daydream

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Why do you love these shops? What goodies have you found there?

Amoeba is one of the records shops I've always rocked with. It's pretty well known, but the location at Hollywood in L.A. recently closed [and is moving down the street]. There's another store on Melrose called The Record Collector that's pretty dope too. The most frequented place I get my vinyl records from is the Melrose Trading Post; they have a few booths that sell records but I don't know the vendors' actual names.

As a producer, I'm a big texture guy. I love the different textures of music and vinyl records have an innate texture of their own because of the medium. That grittiness, tone and the overall feel is incomparable. Even though you can synthesize sounds to get that feel, at the end of the day, there is nothing like vinyl. You can find some great, classic records at these shops, so it's always a unique, memorable experience every time. For the most part, I solely pick up vinyl when I visit [these stores].

I collected a few record players, too, over the years. It's turning out to be a collection as well! I have one that Keyshia Cole gave me, a few that I got from record shops and another one that I bought from Urban Outfitters—that's another place I purchase records from. They have a good section of new vinyl releases too.

GRAMMYs

Ebong with Erykah Badu's 'Mama's Gun'

Another Record Store Recs: Darius & Wayne Snow Take Us To Paris, Berlin, Tokyo & Beyond

Please share a recent record or two you bought at one of your favorite shops. What do you love about that record/artist?

Recently I bought Marvin Gaye's In Our Lifetime (1981), Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun (2000) and Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind (1972).

Those records and artists remind me of my time growing up. Anything Marvin reminds me of those years discovering music and sound. I'm a sucker for old school '70s soul—so all those obscure groups that begin with the word 'the' was it for me. The Manhattans, The Main Ingredient, The Four Tops. I was always enamored by that whole sound and movement. Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder are two of my all-time favorite artists and they both complement that appreciation of music I have, which developed from childhood.

It's funny looking back at those times because I remember vividly, as a teenager, my childhood best friend Lawrence and myself having hardcore, intense debates on who is better: Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye. He would tell you I was always #TeamStevie but recently I've been opening up to more Marvin Gaye and now find myself listening to him a bit more often today. 

Another funny memory with Lawrence came to me recently when I picked up Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind. When I was vinyl shopping, I saw the cover to Music of My Mind and it made me think of the time when we made a whole album on a four-track tape recorder, in one take, just for the hell of it. Once Lawrence finished everything, he drew our mockup album cover that I thought was so cool at the time—it was a jewel, abstract graphic.

From that moment to today, I thought he came up with the concept by himself. Come to find out, it was an exact copy of Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind album artwork. [Laughs.] He just drew it over! I only realized it recently because I never saw Stevie's cover art until I was at the vinyl shop that day. I was like, "Wow, Lawrence, you motherf—." [Laughs.]

Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun album changed my life, so I had to cop that one. That album is a strong example of how an R&B album should be created, even though it's neo-soul-driven and not what some would think of mainstream R&B per se. The way she expressed different concepts and ideas, the overall album cohesion was well done and stands the test of time today. That's what I love and appreciate from albums like Mama's Gun, Things Fall Apart by The Roots (1999) or anything from Slum Village.

GRAMMYs

Ebong with Marvin Gaye's 'In Our Lifetime'

More Record Store Recs: Salt Cathedral Talk Favorite Brooklyn Indie Shops & How To Support Artists Of Color

What's an upcoming or recent release you have your eyes on picking up?

No new releases come to mind because I never know which albums will have a vinyl edition. Also, you never know what you may find when shopping for records and I like that. It makes that moment of stumbling across a record even better. I will say that I've been collecting any J Dilla records that I can find; I have a few in my collection right now.

What were the first CD and first vinyl you remember purchasing? 

The first CD I bought had to have been either Slum Village's Fantastic, Vol. 2 (2000) or Madlib's Shades of Blue (2003). The first vinyl purchase was another Stevie Wonder joint… Innervisions (1973)!

GRAMMYs

In your opinion, what can music fans do to better support Black artists and businesses? 

Stream their music, for sure. That's the most obvious and easiest way to show support for artists. Also, if there are people that you are real fans of, there are always other ways you can support them. Take me for example. Because there are people who want to support my work but can't directly, because they aren't in the industry or buying beats does not work for them, I have my #ByTheWay merch that they can cop to show their support and appreciation.

So that goes for artists alike. Support the music and their other business endeavors—especially right now when touring, which is the main means where most artists get revenue from, is nonexistent. The same goes for Black businesses. Share and promote that business you frequent because people will check out their friend's recommendations faster than anything else. That third-party endorsement matters, and it could prevent a business from falling on hard times.

Diamond Platnumz Talks Growing Up In Tanzania & Breaking Into American Popular Music

Solange & Beyoncé

Solange & Beyoncé

Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

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Poll: What Is Your Favorite Black Power Anthem? poll-beyonc%C3%A9-solange-aretha-franklin-james-brown-kendrick-lamar-black-power-anthem

Poll: From Beyoncé & Solange To Aretha Franklin & James Brown, What Is Your Favorite Black Power Anthem?

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From Kendrick Lamar's triumphant "Alright" to Nina Simone's ground-breaking "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," these songs represent strength, resilience and the ongoing struggle for equality. Which is your favorite?
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Feb 1, 2021 - 1:07 pm

Feb. 1 marks the beginning of Black History Month. Countless Black artists—from Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin to Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé—have celebrated Blackness through song and fueled the ongoing fight for equality in music. In commemoration of their contributions, we'd like to know what your favorite Black power anthem is.

Vote in our latest poll below, and scroll down to listen to the powerful tracks included in the poll.

Polls

What Is Your Favorite Black Power Anthem?

Related: Fight The Power: 11 Powerful Protest Songs Advocating For Racial Justice

From Aretha Franklin To Public Enemy, Here's How Artists Have Amplified Social Justice Movements Through Music

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Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

Photo: Jacob Blickenstaff

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Gabe Roth Of The Dap-Kings Talks Sharon Jones gabe-roth-dap-kings-talks-sharon-jones-legacy-new-covers-album

Gabe Roth Of The Dap-Kings Talks Sharon Jones Legacy & New Covers Album

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We spoke to the Daptone Records co-founder and Dap-Kings bassist ahead of the release of the lively new Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings album—a treasure trove of covers from the archives, arriving four years after the loss of the soulful singer
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Oct 28, 2020 - 4:14 pm

There's a special power, a comforting feeling, in truly timeless music, in songs and rhythms that age like a fine wine and remain deeply meaningful as the years go by. Think of the gems from artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Earth, Wind & Fire and Prince, tracks that can be played at every wedding, birthday party and graduation and never get old. At Daptone Records in Brooklyn, N.Y., launched by musicians Gabe Roth and Neal Sugarman in 2002, creating authentic, soulful, timeless music runs through everything they do and release.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are one of the label's acts that truly embodied this ethos. Jones' powerhouse, rich vocals and ecstatic, inviting stage presence paired with the funky instrumentation of the full band—the all-stars musicians of Daptone, including Roth on bass and Sugarman on tenor saxaphone—was an energic force of pure soul and heart. Sadly, their leading lady died in November 2016 from pancreatic cancer at age 60.

Their final studio album, Soul of a Woman, was recorded with her but released in November 2017. Now, on Oct. 23, the world was gifted a treasure trove of gems from the archive of the GRAMMY-nominated band in the form of 13 lively covers on Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In).

Read: Terence Blanchard On The Music Behind 'Da 5 Bloods,' Working With Spike Lee And The Lasting Impact Of Marvin Gaye

We spoke to Roth—who was also the primary songwriter and producer of the group—ahead of the release of the new covers album to learn more about compiling the project, the stories behind the sessions, Jones' legacy and the not-so-secret magic of Daptone.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In) comes out soon. What does it mean to you and the band to share this collection of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings music with the world?

It's nice to be able to keep putting out music. We recorded a lot of stuff over the years, and a lot of it didn't come out or was never really widely released. We did songs for commercials and movies and different things, and outtakes from albums and stuff. So it's cool to be able to keep putting stuff out, and hopefully introduce some new people to Sharon and all her music and to the band.



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@sharonjones & the Dap-King’s new collection of covers will be available on LP as an exclusive RSD Black Friday release. The LP features a tranluscent blue with black splatter color vinyl. Also available digitally October 23rd. Listen to the new single, "Little by Little” via link in bio. Throughout their career, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings remained in high demand both publicly and privately to recreate and often re-imagine songs by other artists. More often than not, these covers were recorded by request – commissioned for placement in movies, television programs, tribute albums, or for samples. This album compiles some of their most popular as well as never-before-heard renditions. #RSDBF #sharonjones #daptonerecords #daptone #sjdk

A post shared by Daptone Records (@daptonerecords) on Oct 8, 2020 at 11:42am PDT

What was it like working on the album, digging through the archives and putting it all together?

You know, it's bittersweet. It's hard. Obviously, I miss Sharon a lot. She was my sister. And hearing her voice sometimes tears me up a little bit. But is also pretty cool to kind of revisit all those things, particularly because these sessions, we went for all these covers, and they came from so many different places. Some of them went back really far into the beginning of her career, stuff we recorded in 2000, and some of them were more recent, shorter before she passed. And so it was kind of cool to revisit all those old sessions, and go through a bunch of stuff.

It was a little bit of a hard process picking out what to put on there because there's actually a lot of covers and stuff that we didn't put on there. But between the band and everybody at the label—and everybody kind of fought it out—I think we got it down to a really nice collection of songs. It was a little bit bittersweet but it was fun too.

And it was a lot of research trying to find the old tapes for some of this stuff, stuff that I remembered recording, but nobody remembered where the tapes were or what it was called. There was a little bit of just excavation on it.

I really like the range of genres and decades that the music came from. There's Stevie Wonder, there's disco, there's folk. It is really cool to hear all those different sounds with the sort of soulful flavor that Sharon and the band give to it.

Yeah. It was fun to try to—putting it together, it gives a sense of that. I mean, the band's mostly done originals, particularly on the albums and stuff. We haven't done many covers. But something about when you do a cover tune, in some ways, it kind of lays bare the sound of Sharon and the band because it takes all the composition and arrangement out of it, and says, "Okay. Well, this is how these people make music." If you take a song you already know, this is what it sounds like coming through these people, in this room. That's cool in some ways. It kind of distills the sound of the band in a particular way.

And I think particularly when you start looking at, well, here's a Stevie Wonder song ["Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours"]. Here's a Prince song ["Take Me With U"]. Here's a Dusty Springfield song ["Little by Little"], and you kind of span the genres, like you said, I think that it even more clearly illustrates what the sound of the band is. Because as unique as all these different things sound, there's this common feeling that runs throughout it. Regardless of what song it is that the band was playing, there's a common sound. And so it's kind of cool to bring that into focus a little bit.

GRAMMYs

Gabe Roth in the studio | Photo: Bryan Ponce

That's so true. Do you have a favorite memory—it can be more than one—from recording any of these covers?

Oh man. There's a lot of stuff on there that I really enjoyed. Even the earliest one on there is "What Have You Done for Me Lately?," which I think was one of a couple that was on the album. And that was for the first album I did with Sharon, and we'd done 45s and stuff before that. It was actually my sister's idea to try to cover a Janet Jackson tune to get something from the late '80s and put our sound on it.

So that was pretty fun, that one in particular, because I remember trying to rearrange it. And then I think for the press release for that record, when that 45 came out, we did a fake newspaper article about how Sharon was suing Janet Jackson for stealing her song, which of course wasn't true. It was just a cover of a Janet Jackson song, but we tried to fool people into thinking this was the original version. We had a lot of fun with that. And Sharon really dug into it over the years. That was a good one.

That's the other thing, most of these were done on commission. Meaning, somebody came to us and said, "Hey, we need a version of the Dap-Kings playing this particular song," either for a TV commercial or a movie, or for a sample for a rap, or whatever it was. For a compilation, a tribute record, or something. There are all these different reasons over the years that people would come to us and say, "Hey, can you do a cover of this song for us?"

And it puts you in a different mind space than when you're working on your own records, your own music. I mean, you're doing something for somebody else. And there's something in some ways—I don't want to say you take it less seriously—it's always kind of casual and loose. There's always a more laid-back approach. I think you hear it, even on [Musique's 1978 disco track] "In the Bush" or something like that. We never would've thought to cover a tune like that. That was for the soundtrack to The Wolf of Wall Street.

They didn't end up using it, but they asked us to record it. We ended up being the wedding band in one scene in that movie. They had us record all these songs and they only ended up using "Goldfinger" and one other one, "Baby Got Back," which is a really weird one. But we recorded a lot of stuff for it and "In the Bush" was something we recorded relatively quickly, and didn't really overthink it, we just had fun with it. I think that's why we tried to do a cover that was a little more lighthearted for this one too.

And even though I'm real proud of them, they came out great, at the time we weren't really thinking of them as an album or something that was even—a lot of them we were assuming would be anonymous.

And it's interesting because I think some of the tunes on there, for example, like a Stevie Wonder cover or the Gladys Knight cover ["Giving Up"] on it, those were tunes that people asked us to do, basically replays. Meaning, they couldn't afford the original master so they figured they'd pay the publishing, and then we would play the tune the same way. That happens often for commercials and sometimes for other things, where somebody wants the music, but they can't afford the Motown license, or something. So those are types of things we'd done over the years, kind of anonymously for commercials or something like that. The publishers still get their money, but basically we were trying to recreate the masters.

And those were interesting because they were really learning experiences for us, not just as musicians, but as far as arrangement, recording and everything. Listening to a Motown tune or something like that, and really trying to get your head inside how they put this together, exactly what every instrument's doing and how they sound, and trying to recreate that, those are kind of fun.

And then there's other tunes that are the opposite of that, like the Prince cover. That was something that we tried to deconstruct as much as possible, to the point it was barely recognizable. We were like, "Okay, we really want to do our own thing with this," and see how much the composition would tolerate as far as being taken apart before it is completely unrecognizable.

So some of those things, we really were much more creative as far as rearranging them, and doing our own take on them. And the album has a nice blend of stuff that was very kind of rote replays of us trying to make it exactly sound like Motown or something, and other things that are very much reimagined. And then other things that are kind of in the middle, like a casual cover of a tune. So it was pretty fun to put together.

Listen Up: From Aretha Franklin To Public Enemy, Here's How Artists Have Amplified Social Justice Movements Through Music

That's really interesting and something I never really thought about, the composition of cover songs for ads or whatnot. I guess I assumed you could buy the sheet music, but obviously you're not just playing it on the piano, it's with the band. So, how do you approach it? Especially with a song like "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours," that's so well known. How do you get to the "recipe" of what makes it sound like the original?

I mean, the sheet music wouldn't help you that much, unless somebody had really chartered out every instrument or something. You just listen. You get in the studio, and you put it on, everybody listens to exactly what's happening. "Oh, there's two drum sets, one's on the left, one's on the right. One's playing these fills. One's playing this rhythm. Then there's the tambourine, and this is the rhythm. There is a piano. Piano is kind of buried. It's dark, it's down there, it's playing this chord, but playing that inversion."

Just getting the details of every part of it, the horns, and every layer of your arrangement, with every guitar. And particularly with the Motown stuff, it tends to be very layered. It's not three or four people. It tends to be a lot of musicians playing a lot of different things. And the way it's mixed, it's kind of subtle. Not everything is upfront. There's some things kind of buried in the mix. And it's fun, particularly when it's a tune like that, that's not just iconic, but a tune that you've known and loved and listened to your whole life, because you think you know it. But then when you get in and try to pull it back layer by layer, and really figure out exactly what's going on in all the instruments and how the arrangement comes together, you realize all these cool things that are going on that you never really noticed. You might've kind of felt them, but you never really noticed some piano or second drum set, or third guitar part, or whatever it is, these things in the background.

So it's a little bit painstaking, but it's really fun. And for me, at least, and I think for everybody it's kind of educational to hear these great pieces of music that you think you know, but you go back into them and it's like an academic exercise. Like, you may read Shakespeare, but then you go to a literature class and they go into it and say, "Look what he did here. This is iambic pentameter. And this is a sonnet, and a couplet." Just figuring out the language, and the patterns, and the intricacies of why something works, that was really interesting. And I think stuff like that has really contributed to the sound of the band.

I mean, even things that we didn't record, particularly at the beginning of our career, the Dap-Kings and Sharon, we always used to do covers and stuff in our live shows. We'd be on the road in the van listening to the same mixtapes together, and there'd be some song we'd all be real turned on by. And then we'd work it out in soundcheck, and play it as part of the show. I think doing that is really important. Right now, I think people shy away from covers because they feel like there's some kind of lesser integrity or something to playing a cover than to be playing originals all the time. But the thing about playing a cover tune is, there's great music that came before us, and it's pretty narcissistic to think there's nothing worth playing that you didn't write.

When you dig into that music, particularly music that you love and that influences you, and you play it, you feel it differently than when you just listen to it. Your muscles start going through the emotions of those musicians you love. And you take it into your subconscious, into your bloodstream. People are always talking about their influences, but when you actually play that music, it becomes part of you in a deeper way. So I think covers are really important for every band. I mean, not as much that people need to hear them play it, but it's just good for the musicianship, and the sound of a group to be able to kind of throw out those things, and play them, the exercise of it.

I'm always drawn to covers because I feel like, in most cases, it brings new life or a new imagining to a song. And it's cool when, especially if we're talking about younger people, a cover could bring them to the original artist.

Sure. I mean, it can be an arrow in both directions. It can be people who don't know who Sharon Jones is, but are avid Stevie Wonder fans. They may hear that tune, and find out about Sharon and all of a sudden discover a whole new universe of music. But even more so, it could be Sharon Jones fans that maybe never got that deep into Gladys Knight or something like that. They hear that like, "Man, that tune is amazing." And they go check out the original, like, "Oh, that's even better." Then they check out even more stuff. So yeah, it's a really good way to kind of bridge worlds of music, and for people to check out more stuff, find music that they love.

Read: Deep Asymmetries Of Power: How The Recording Industry Spent Decades Denying Fair Payment To Black Artists

And for the album, did each song have to get okayed by the artist or their estate? Or how does recording covers work, generally?

Well, there's a statutory rate when you perform somebody's composition. And so whoever wrote the song gets paid a certain amount of money when it gets recorded and reproduced. If you start changing it, like Al Yankovic or somebody does, you really start changing the composition, then you have to go to them and get permission and work it out with them because it becomes a derivative work. That's a little complicated. But if you're doing a straight cover, like pretty much everything on this record, and you're respecting the lyrics and the melodies of the original, you don't really need permission. You just have to pay them the publishing side of the income. It's their income, whoever wrote the song. Not the artist [unless they wrote it] to be clear, though, because it's not their performance.

I think the biggest thing that people tend to not understand, and it leads to a lot of confusion—there's two different copyrights to any record. There's the copyright to the recording itself, that performance, that piece of tape that has that performance on it, by that artist, those musicians, that singer. And then there's the composition. And they're two totally different copyrights. For example, "This Land is Your Land" was written by Woody Guthrie, he owns that composition. It doesn't matter who performs it. He owns it. If you want to use it and make money off it, you have to pay, the publishing money has to go to him. However, whoever performs it and records it, they own the master copyright, the recording copyright, to that version. So our cover of his tune, then it's our master and his publishing.

It's like when the Beatles did "Twist and Shout," the Beatles or Capitol Records or whoever's in charge, owns the master rights to that, but the publishing is owned but the Isley Brothers. It's always going to be owned by the Isley Brothers. So it's interesting. And there's, there's a lot deeper stuff as far as the way it works with radio income and public income, and how it's different in America. In America, when your song is put on the radio, the artist gets zero.

I know, it's crazy. Shifting gears a bit, what does Sharon's legacy mean to you?

She wasn't just a great singer, but an unbelievable performer. She was really like a superhero. Her live show, and how she was on stage, and her energy, and soulfulness, and the way she connected with the audience and stuff? Man, I don't think there'll ever be another like her. That's, to me, one of the most important things, as far as my responsibility to try to not let that be forgotten, to let her stay in the mind of everybody long after I'm gone.

Personally for me, she's probably the closest person in my life I ever lost. And she was a sister to me, and she basically helped build my whole adult life and my career. And even the way I feed my kids today, I know it's all basically on the back of her, and the way that she hit the stage, that everything came out of that. All the success the band had, and all the success Daptone Records had, and everything else. And my ability to make money as a producer and a songwriter and everything else, it all came out of her sweating on stage.

I miss her a lot. I'm very grateful to her, and I do everything I can to try to let people know about who she was. As years go by, and the people who were at her shows get older, and the younger people aren't familiar with her, and there's new scenes popping up, and she becomes a little bit less and less connected to the present, I feel it's important, particularly with records like this, to remind people who the queen was, and make sure she doesn't get forgotten. It's important to keep her music fresh in everybody's ears not just because she deserves it, but because I think people deserve it. They deserve to hear her voice.

"I feel it's important, particularly with records like this, to remind people who the queen was, and make sure she doesn't get forgotten. It's important to keep her music fresh in everybody's ears not just because she deserves it, but because I think people deserve it. They deserve to hear her voice."

I love that. And can you give me a little bit of the origin story of forming Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Daptone Records? How did everything sort of start?

Well in the '90s, I had a different record label, Desco Records. At Desco, we had brought Lee Fields in to do some records. And we brought Sharon in too. At the time was going out with Joe Hornback, the saxophone player, who I used to play with in our band at the time, the Soul Providers. He brought her in to sing background. And we hit it off, and she started singing bits and 45s for Desco. And then when Desco shut its doors around the turn of the millennium, we kept working together. We kept doing shows and recording together. We worked on an album, and we ended up putting a band together that was kind of all the all-stars at Desco. Homer Steinweiss, Leon Michels, Neal Sugarman and Binky Griptite, all the guys that were the best musicians coming out of that old stable became her backing band, became the Dap-Kings. And I think one of the first gigs we had, we went to Barcelona for a month to do a residency.

That's really when it crystallized. We were playing the same club every night, five nights a week, and staying in apartments, getting fed and taken care of. I think that's when the band really kind of gelled and became a sound. And then from then on out, we were off to the races. We got in the back of a van, and rolled around the U.S., and Canada, and England, and Europe, and just kept touring little by little. And it really became—some people came and left the band—a real, real tight family of people. Really it always felt like brothers and sisters. It was a really tight group, and still is, a lot of the band, to this day.

So we just got rolling, man. And there were some big moments. We had some records that did well and sold a couple of hundred thousand copies, and we hit some TV shows. And the band ended up backing Amy Winehouse [on Black To Black]. And I think to a lot of people from the outside, they would say like, "Oh, that is when you guys really exploded." But, from my perspective, the band never really had that kind of overnight anything. It felt very gradual. We would go play a club in Detroit. We'd set up on top of the pool tables in a little bar and play for 30 people. We've played shows that had less people in the audience than the stage.

But then when we'd go back, people told their friends and it was 80 people. Then it was a couple of hundred, then it was 800. There was a thousand, to the point where there's a lot of cities all over the world we were playing with 1000 or 2000 people, sometimes more. Sometimes 3000 people, outside of festivals which were always huge crowds. But it was real gradual. And they were all places that we went to over and over again. Little towns in France and stuff, that we'd go play and start out in somebody's basement or at some restaurant or something. And the next time we'd play a club, and the next time play a theater, next time headline a festival.

So it was a lot of hard work, but the thing about it is I think it was always tied, like I said, back to Sharon hitting the stage with this energy, and this rhythm, and the band being the baddest band in the land. Everybody linking up, those shows were just fire, man. The energy was so high and it was just a really unique experience. And I think once people saw a show, they told their sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and cousins and boyfriends and neighbors, and the next time we come back, there'd always be two, three times as many people. And those people would tell their friends.

I think it was very personal for the fans. I think it was something that we always had a very direct relationship with the fans. And a lot of that, again, was Sharon being on stage. The way that she approached the show is coming out of [singing in] church, and even coming out of playing weddings where she didn't see herself as some magical artist that was above everyone, looking down and blessing people with her music from the stage. She was very much an equal. Everybody in the room, her, and the band, and the audience was all part of the energy. We'd get worked up together and sweat it out together. I think people really connected with that.

That was how that band grew, always out of that. And even though we had some very good people helping us, publicists and booking agents and everything else, it really always came down to what she could do with that band on stage. Like I said, it built everything.

Daptone Records is loved for its classic funky sound and the soulful essence that all of your artists embody. What do you think the Daptones "secret" is? And then what do you look for when you sign artists?

Well, it's not very much of a secret because it's a particular group of people, you know what I mean? It's those musicians. It's Homer Steinweiss, it's Dave Guy. Joe Crispiano. It's people that have a certain sound, and have not just a common love for music and for the kind of music they want to make, but the philosophy. The philosophy in the studio, this kind of no bulls**t approach to music—the feeling is the only thing that's important. And it's not important what you think somebody is going to buy, or how fast you can play, or to show off as a musician how clever you are. It's about the feeling, and whatever you can do individually to help collectively make the thing feel better, that's the most important thing. That's what makes it soulful music, regardless of the genre.

And I think that unique group of people, including Charles Bradley, and Naomi Shelton, Cliff Driver, and The Frightnrs and Victor Axelrod, there's a lot of people, but all the people in the roster, there's a reason they stuck around. And the reason they gel together and made so much music together is that we all had something in common in the way we approached music, and the way we put heart and sweat into it, and took the ego out of it.

And I think that's kind of the sound. And not getting distracted by anything else, not getting distracted by what did they do at Motown, or is this a vintage microphone, or whatever that stuff is, all distractions. Or how clever is this thing I wrote? Or how impressive is this? Or how much do you think they'll play this on the radio? Those are all distractions. We just try to concentrate on how does the music feel. That's the driving force.

Like I said, I don't think there's any secret to it. That and really hard work. And being honest, like no bullshit. I think that's a big part of it, too. In the studio, most of the stuff we record, we go back into the control room and we say, "Nah, that's whack. You're playing too slow. I'm playing too... This could be better. That part feels dumb. That bridge is corny." A lot of that. A lot of hate coming back. But it's really, that's what you need to do.

I've been in sessions, particularly out in L.A., where somebody hired me, and you go in and play a take and everybody goes in the control room and starts immediately slapping each other on the back. Kissing each other asses, "Man, that was magic. Oh, man, so beautiful." And I'm thinking, "Man, you guys are full of s**t." At Daptone, that's not how we make music. We're very, very honest about it. We're not going to let the emperor's new clothes s**t slide by, where everyone tells each other it sounds good. If it doesn't feel good, somebody will open their mouth.

And it's not just the musicians. Nydia Davila at the label, whose run marketing and everything else for over a decade, she's the same way. I'll make some record and I'm proud as hell of it. I think we killed it. I'll be like, "What do you think?" And she'd just be, "Meh. Not great." And honestly, that's what makes the stuff good. It's not just what you do. It's what you don't do. All the chords you don't play, all the songs you don't put out. And being kind of hard on yourself, and working hard, demanding more of yourself, and doing stuff over and over and over again until you got it the way you want it.

Man, you listen to these old outtakes, and you hear, on some marvelous track or something, somebody say, "Okay, take 58." Nowadays, people get to take four or five and they start saying, "Oh, if we don't get it by now, we're never going to get it." And I'm thinking like, "You're all lazy, man. You've got to put some work into it." Anyways, I think hard work and feeling, there's no substitute for that stuff.

Bootsy Collins: "I'm Hoping The World Comes Together Like We Did On This Album"

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