David Porter Recounts the Hits He Made At Stax Records

when did you first become aware of there's a job that's making records i had no idea about making money i had every idea about making music you had to get a job at a grocery store was it the grocery store right next to stacks right across the street i was able to convince them to give me an audition when i did the audition it's that i froze but i bought some people to play on my demo William Bale who became a star at stacks right this and you love the signature horn player booker T Jones a booker T&M G there's this collective that continues to work on different records for different artists you're talking about four guys that are the core part of the rhythm of that music you guys are already cooking and then odys ready he just kind of fits in he will walk around the room hum the horn bars to keyboard bars all of that before he would sing a note and the rest is he sure with that stuff all right um before we start with the music can you just introduce yourself right here i'm David Porter thank you for coming it's great to have you here i'm going to play a song to to start us off just a little bit of one for a teaser i picked this song because it's the name of your book how did you get the title from for your for your book it came about very organic yeah still we say Isaac created that title by the way usually i come up with the titles but i think was uh got the influence out of a detour at michigan experience and then we had to always with songs come up with concepts to make the message of the song have a fresh connotation to it and so i had to come up with a concept for it you know when you come up in a time when when times were challenging to say at least i was born in the 40s and coming up in that time and getting the message that you were supposed to be less than you're not supposed to be educated you all look alike and that kind of mentality was what i was born into and having to also find through that i had to find where me was going to be everybody has a self and a me in them i wanted to find the best means what is it about Memphis why is there such a musical why is there so much music come that comes out of that city what is it that makes that city special and this is the place that you were born raised spent your whole life why why is it like that so many people come came from so many other places to come to Memphis Arkansas Mississippi some even as far as Missouri so all kinds of influences and kind of auras inside of persons were a part of that melting part what Memphis was and out of that came the opportunity for you to find yourself and in finding yourself you find little pieces of other things that you make a better self you grew up one of your best friends was was Maurice white like just like from the neighborhood you guys like live down the street from each other you started seeing together as kids and he went on to start earth wind and fire what do you think the odds of that happening of just two kids and it's not just you two there's more but what are the odds that just two kids we're seeing together in a church group both go on to be so successful as musicians interesting thing about Maurice and I I was born in November huh Maurice was born in December we were same age yes you well know he passed a few years ago but we started out as kids gravitating teacher I came from a large family Maurice was in Memphis by himself yeah he and I started gravitating each other almost from birth when we were able to to move around on our own and as we started that we started developing a respect and a mutual really comfort level in being together even though I had brothers and sisters I didn't have the closeness that I had with as I had with Maurice because he was into wanting to to play drums he didn't have a drum set he beat on cans I wanted to play trumpet but I didn't have a trumpet so but I also wanted to sing so my singing and his and his beating on cans we developed a sense of abilities for music to begin with and then when we were pushed to the church at the top of that heel it just started giving us that that foundation so that bond started at a very very very young age and it stayed with us throughout our lives I'm he was my best friend if you read his book you you see him saying that and in my book certainly I said it as well I imagine you guys also pushed each other like without a doubt let's keep like it's almost easier when you're with someone else and they're in like let's go let's let's sing let's let's get more kids together like let's like do another rehearsal let's keep going let's get to church you're not just doing it by yourself well Maurice was was very shy yeah people who knew back in in the earlier times knew he could sing because we was singing in church yeah but I was the guy that was a little bit out there and talk it even all that kind of thing it was anxious to sing yeah and Maurice was anxious to participate but he didn't want to get in front to be singing so he was more happier happier playing and that without an instrument and so just the beginning of that experience of the church and what I want to do and what he want to do we just start our growth from that I want to play some some early songs that you mentioned in the book this is from 1952 you know how to really bring that emotion out of a guy don't you tell me about hearing that when you consider that all of those songs the most earlier times were done with each of those individuals finding the uniqueness in themselves even though they're talking about the same subject they are no I said it's all the time they are no new emotions so they find a fresh way to talk about common emotion so they would find signature ways to make it pronounced to make it more meaningful in your ear even though they're talking about the same thing and so I begin to learn at a very very young age how powerful that was and these types of song the earth angels the moon glows the coasts the fast dominos and those other artists made me establish a credibility to the value of being an individual and how you would go about what you would do when would you be hearing this music as a kid like what what was your experience list obviously we talked a little bit about church and music you would hear there but how are you hearing pop music as a kid well you have to consider that early on it was it was Pat Booms and that kind of the radio was not feel would would would black records yeah those records came about in 1947 48 at that time I was six years old so now I'm beginning to hear something that makes me feel a sense of fascination pride and and wow that's that's different and it's like brand new totally brand new and the thing that made it magical was the individuality of each of the things that I was hearing from the from these artists yeah and it also made me aware of the creativity that was involved in that because none of the things sounded alike and yet when you get into the meat of the messages of those ideas they were generally talking about the same thing yeah they just found an innovative fresh way to go about it and that became so fascinating to me so it evolved into me walking around the streets humming ideas and singing ideas and listening to their songs and trying to find new ways to do things off of what they've done and how can I find these new interesting ways to do I was not that analytical about it but I was doing these things and eventually I began to understand that I was doing something that was creative and and it just became something that became a part of the fabric of me a couple years later to very different sounds you got passed all of these kinds of rhythms all of these kinds of feelings in each of them you find an effort to find the individuality in each of those and they would take you on a journey through the message of it that that was the other thing that was fascinating to me about that period each of the ideas that I was listening to was was almost like a movie in your mind because it takes you take you on a journey this is 1954 you're probably not seeing fat stomino you're hearing them more and that's part of it when you have this movie in your head you're like nowadays you see tick-tock Instagram YouTube before that MTV whatever this is pre like he's not on TV very often so you're making this image like the whole thing is the sound the whole thing is the record the image that you create when you would hear these these artists like this is an image that they would only aspire to look like how they looked inside of your mind because the power of their creativity was so magnificent so powerful in the confidence that they exude inside the presentation of their songs were so I mean just magnetic to you to before I saw what a true stupid Super style look like they were super in stars to me. - It was just in here, yeah. - It was all in your head. - When did you first think to your, like become aware of, okay, there's a job that's making records. Like some, it's not just about coming up with these songs. You were talking about humming, walking down the street, coming up with melodies, but then translating that to, actually, let's, I wanna put this on wax. I wanna go to a studio. People do that and then they go to record stores around the country. Actually, I was singing on talent shows in high school. My research was playing on the talent shows with the drums. And what was happening for me was I had aspirations to be what I was hearing on the radio. I didn't know how to go about that, but I know that's what I wanted. And so here comes the kid, getting out of high school, trying to find a way to do what he'd heard on the radio. And I was so adamant about that. So much so, anybody would take a minute to listen to me saying I wanted to sing for them. And finally, I got someone who I didn't, I cannot even tell you the man's name to the state. Listen, he listened to me. So I wanna record you. Oh, I was a static. - Fine. - I was totally a static. And so he recorded me. He recorded me on a song called "Fair Whale" that I'd wrote. Right out of high school, 12th grade coming out of high school. This is before stacks. And what happened was after the record was released. It was played on the local small radio station in Memphis, Tennessee. I never saw the man again. So I had no idea about making money. I had every idea about making music. And I didn't know at that particular time that David, you should have taken care of those steps that are necessary for you to make-- - See you that I'll later. - But hey, I wanted to make it right. - It wasn't about, it wasn't even about this idea of the business at that point. You were just, there was a magic, the same magic that when you heard something on the radio, you heard a record that you saw it in your head. You wanted to make that magic. - You want to do that. - So what was that feeling like the first time you went into the studio to record? - I went into a studio on Main Street in Memphis. Now that tells you how small Memphis was. Recording studio on Main Street. I went in at studio and a guy by the name of Jean Bolex Miller was going to what I'd call a producer now. Because he led me through that experience to make the record. And I went into that studio and recorded that record with a feeling of wonderment as I was trying to get in to remember in the song that I've created. And it was like-- To this day, I cannot truly explain with clarity how much it meant to me other than it was so valuable for me to do it. Because as I mentioned, the guy I made the record with, he disappeared, I had one copy of the record. I never saw the record in the record stores. I'm assuming that he sold some of those. None of that mattered to me. It was just the experience of going in there and feeling in wonderment through the process and not knowing with total clarity. What I was doing is if I was doing what I wanted to do, which was to make music, not understanding the making of music had other tears to it that I needed to know about as well. So you had to take this really important step. You had to get a job at a grocery store. I was one of the best cyclists you ever saw in your life, because I wanted to be able to perform. But as a means to an end, I had to have some income. I had to go and find a way to make some money. As I talk about it in the book, a managed little guy coming out of high school made a little mistake, and he became a daddy. And so I had to find a way to provide for a family. And so that was a part of that. Getting a job, working at that time at a grocery store while I would try to find ways to sing at night for two or three dollars at clubs around the city. And that was the journey that I was on. This was really right before Stacks records came on the street. Wasn't the grocery store right next to Stacks? Or right across the street. Right across the street. So there was a proximity and maybe you never know who's going to come that close. You never know. Right after I graduated, I was still working at that grocery store. As I was doing that, I was seeing some construction going on across the street at an old converted movie theater. And there was a country label being developed there. It was called satellite records. And that's when I started going across the street, asking questions about it. There was a record store that was connected to that same project, the same family on that building that purchased that building. The lady who ran the record store was the sister of the guy who was running the recording studio, the country label. And they were satellite records. And that was David Porter working at a grocery store. It already had the experience of a record that he didn't know anything about. Now, still trying to get into the music business and going over meeting these people who were with country artists, satellite records. They had a country artist. And me trying to see if they would take a listen to a kid who wanted to sing music other than country. And I was able to, over time, to convince them to give me an audition. [MUSIC PLAYING] Jack, you just taken me on this journey that gives me so much clarity. When I did the audition, it's thanks. What happened was, I bought some people to play on my demo demonstration. I bought William Bale and some members of his vocal group called "The Day of Reels," the same background on my demo session. I bought "And You Love" to play "Tenner Sacks" on my demo session. I bought a young kid that was behind me in high school by the name of Booker T. Jones to play "Berry Tone Horn." That was my audition for that record label. I flunked on the audition. I froze. I couldn't find a pitch to sing in tune for anything. But what I had done was I had bought William Bale, who became a star at "Stacks Records." I bought "And You Love," who became the signature horn player along with Wayne Jackson of the horn section at "Stacks Records," called "The Memphis Horns." I bought Booker T. Jones, who became the leader of a group called Booker T and E. M. G's, playing "Berry Tone Horn" for me. After doing that, and me trying to convince these people to consider letting me get involved with Black Music in a serious way for them, they decided because there's a dish I could about a name of Rufus Thomas, who you just heard. They decided to give Rufus Thomas a shot at Recording. Well, I'm still going over there back and forth. Jim Stewart didn't know any musicians to play on this record. Without being a part of that situation, I got Booker T. Jones to come and play on this record that you hear. "The "Berry Tone Horn" on this record, of course, I love you. That's the kid that I went to school, got him out of school and bought him to the studio, and that's him playing "The "Berry Tone Horn" on this record. That's Booker T. Jones. So, I was doing A&R, label, and didn't even know that that was a job as well. But that was the me showing the persistence of someone who wanted to get seriously into the record business, but not realizing I also was giving Jim Stewart the vision to start recording Black Music. At the time in Memphis, it's very segregated. Right. There isn't a lot of mixing. Not at all. But this is a record label that's owned by a white brother and sister. Right. And you guys are great, and their intentions do country music. And you're introducing them to this whole other universe. I just think that that's a really interesting and important, I'm curious to hear your perspective on this, on the early history of stacks, the racial integration that's happening. Well, what really transpired there was I didn't realize at the time that I was making a tremendous difference in musical culture in the city because I was just trying to get in to make music on my own. But what happened was I introduced this folk to a consideration of doing Black Music, and I'd bought some of the greatest talent potential they could ever try to, inside of their facility. But here was a sensibilities of Jim Stewart who by that time had decided that he had to change the name from satellite records to stacks records. So he used the ST of his last name, which is Stewart, and the AX of his sister's last name, who are married name, which was Axton. So STAX was stacks, and then he sensibilities for recording Black Music started. Now at that time, I was the first staff writer for the company during Black Music. And I started encouraging Black talents to come. But there was a couple of folk that was around. Right before they changed the label to stacks, there was a guy by the name of Chips Moment. If people research Chips Moment, he was the guy that produced Elvis Presley's suspicious minds. He also did Neil Diamond and so many records. But he was at the country label satellite records before it went over to R&B Music. But as that transition happened, Jim Stewart opened his facility up to a couple of other kids. One of those kids was a kid by the name of Steve Cropper, who was a rhythm guitar player who was passionate. And also he was working, he started working in the record store and Jim allowed him to come in to studio. He had a buddy by the name of Duck Don and Duck played bass, Steve played guitar, the most respected young drummer in the city was a young man by the name of Al Jackson, Jr. And so here is Booker T. Jones who I bought into the facility as a baritone horn player but who also played other instruments. And Jim was trying to find a core rhythm section after the cost I love your record, which was not those guys. And here it was, those four guys got together and started playing. And the rest became history as the saying goes, Booker T and M. G's there we go, Booker T and M. G. That's Andrew Love, the young saxophone player that I bought a boy. So tell me about the sound of those groups, which are, there's a lot of overlap, right? Well in the, the marquees, that's not Booker T and the M. G's, there are a couple of other players inside of that. But they were community guys, but Booker T and the M. G's, which is Al Jackson, Jr. Steve Carpenter and Duck Don, became what we call the core rhythm section or what was going to be the key part of what was going to be making records. As I mentioned, I was the first staff writer and I'm trying to develop a relationship with a young talent, a young friend of mine by the name of Isaac Hayes. And we were fascinated with the success of Motown with Holland, those are Holland, those writers. So here was GM opening up his facility to those four guys, Booker, Al Steve and Duck and they became more and more for me with each other, more comfortable with each other, trusting each other. And then they were on a path to doing some, some significant things and here I'm developing a serious relationship creatively with Isaac Hayes. He and I coming up with a signature and a concept about how we would go about creating songs. And here's the rhythm section coming up with a signature and a concept of how they would try to find individuality on each of the artists they would be making a record on. Because they visually became Booker T and the M. G's, but they start out just recording the rhythms behind other artists. So the intention was, because there's only four players in the rhythm. It's only three horns. You got to try to make records sound differently if you're going to have more than one artist. How do you do that? Isaac and I came apart, a significant part of finding the signature for doing that. Because we came up with a concept of being creative on what we call the low end. The bass, drums and guitar. As signatures, Motown was tremendously impactful with what I call the straight four beat with these beautiful melodies on top of what's straight four beat. Buried back on how David, Isaac and I were huge fans of what tremendously impactful and created with the melodic essences of some beautiful chord arrangements and those kinds of things. We could compete with either of those. But we could find our signature out of something that was foundational in our lives and that was the church. And we use the essence of those kinds of rhythms to give us sensibilities of trying to create a concept that magnified the credibility of that energy. And that became an effort on the low end inside of stack studios of all the records that were being made. People were trying to find ways to create signatures on the low end. Be it the blues, records of a born and a bad sign, whatever it is, all of a bad sign. All of the rhythm grooves of knock on woo with Eddie Floyd are the signature grooves that Isaac and I did on Sam and Dave where you don't know like I know it. All of those were efforts to find, to stay true to the sound that we were created with the effort of consciousness about the direction we were going to that would keep us separated from Motown and other things at that particular time. And fortunately it worked. Let's listen to a Motown, Holland Dozer Holland one for a second just to get a taste. You could feel that straight forward energy going going going going yeah we respected that but we know we could not top them on that. Now you feel it two and four and the signature on the low end for us. Good line signature. It's fascinating about how we made records. As I mentioned we used the thought of concepts and sometimes when you come up with concepts we use something that you can reference something to a musician. On this particular record I went to Al Jackson I referenced a record out of New Orleans called Get Out of My Life Woman by an artist by the name of Lee Dorsey. If you listen to the beat and listen to the record of Get Out of My Life Woman in the drum beat of that record you will hear the essence of where Al was able to take that influence and incorporate that into the drum beat groove of Hold On I'm Coming. So you guys are hanging out at studio and you put that record on and you're like check this out. Listen to that drum. No. How does that work? I was thinking I would write a song if Al said for instance Hold On I'm Coming came out of a bathroom action inside of my book I talk about that. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. I'm coming. That's literally right. And then you said you put it together 20 minutes. I came out of the restroom and said hey I got one he said what I said hold on I'm coming. We wrote Hold On I'm coming in 20 minutes and in that essence our Isaac said well I said well look let's make this a rescue song. He's okay great. So Superman was a popular TV show at that particular time. We talk in the six small TV screen. He said let's rescue song. He said man I got a horn riff a horn pattern that he had put down a couple weeks before with Andrew and Wayne and he said let's go up in the control room. Wayne you can play tapes and hear it and that's what we got that that that that that that Isaac had put that down a couple weeks before. So now we got a horn pattern that we're going to put around a theme a concept of rescue and we got the idea of Hold On I'm coming so we set out on the piano and he just start playing and I sang the song just like that. It came through me just like that 20 minutes the whole song. And because of that Hold On I'm coming if you listen to Hold On I'm coming there's repeat of the first verse because I was too excited to try to come up with a third verse because those three changes first, second, and bridge were so on point in that energy from the title Hold On I'm coming with so there I just repeated the third verse again. So we had the whole song so now we in the studio and now we're taking our concept and creating that energy around what our thoughts are inside of the creative process with each of the musicians. So no I said that that thought child Jackson about the drum pattern in the session on that day at that particular time. And Isaac came up with the nuances of the horn patterns and arranged at that particular time. Sam and David never heard the song when they came into Memphis I taught them the song and then when they would sing on the microphone they're on one side of the mic. I'm on the other side of the mic directing them so they don't forget the patterns that we've already worked on in teaching my song. Strange enough there was no going home and learning the song in two days and coming back and record. None of that was done that way. It's happening really quickly. Oh wow this is one of our favorites. Yeah. Why is this one of your favorites? Isaac and I was fortunate enough to do one record call let me be good to you which we thought was great but we had the wrong what we called pocket on it really money. So we were trying to come up with something that would be more a little bit more dance motivating but would not get too far away from that innocent you know palatable kind of presentation that Carla Thomas would do with her vocals. So we wrote this idea B A B Y and spelling it out making it a young coming up with a concept of trying to have somebody chanting B A B as a chant vocal chant. Booker T. Jones, which Generally, Isaac and I would have all of the patterns worked out of ideas. Booker T. Jones was on that session with us, and Booker said, "What about a pattern like this?" And we never ever did anything like this. Booker played that bass pattern that you hear on the piano, and we used that pattern for the bass pattern on this record. So that is one of the few songs in our catalog that we let someone else come up with a bass pattern on. How is this experience of working together with all these people, like over and over again? And it's pretty unique, right? There aren't that many times in music history where there's this collective that continues to work on different records for different artists, and you have this familiarity that's going over years, not just with Isaac, but with the band, and everyone else, what's that like? - The magic of that was when you consider that we're talking about the '60s, and we're talking about a time when there's racism and all of that. And you're talking about four guys that are the core part of the rhythm of that music. Now, you can get caught up in colors that people want to, so for their convenience, I said they were two white guys and two black guys. All of those hit records that you hear coming out of Stacks Records, the rhythm of those records, though we say R&B and soul music, it is soul music, but it's soul from people who are coming from their soul regardless of how you think they look. Or what you want to call them. And the purity of that was coming from the confidence, and the comfort that each of us had in being willing to let someone else take the lead and shape in your creative direction for what they wanted you to do. And so that's why the individuality of each artist was magnified from artist to artist from Johnny Taylor, to Eddie Floyd, to William Bale, to the emotions to whoever it was, because of the purity of passion of people being totally committed to making the music out of the appreciation and respect from one person to the other in the core way of how people should be with people. And we did that very, very effectively. And the world gravitated to all of this music at a time when they didn't realize that the bond and unity of who was making the music was examples that they need to follow for being a better people. And so that was what Stacks records was. And it was done at a time when you would not have imagined that would be the case. And it was done in such a powerful, powerful way. - There are all sorts of myths and rumors out there about the room, about the studio, and the room itself contributing some, the shape of the floor or something. Do you buy into that? Do you think that that's part of it, too? - I'm not only buy into that. I went to the bank out of that. And this was a movie theater converted into a studio with a slope floor. When Jim Stewart started converting that space into a recording studio, he didn't change the floor. But here is the brilliance of Al Jackson. Al Jackson was set at the bottom of that floor, playing the drums. Now here, as you well know, Jack, the core of any record is the beat of it. And the significance of the beat lives in the villages to make all of the parts marry each other in a unified, comfortable way. So here's the guy at the bottom of the floor, hearing something with a bit of a delay to it. And here he is locking into the rest of the music. You go up the floor a little bit there, Steve Kropper, a little bit elevated to the floor. There's eyes right beyond Al Jackson on the drums. There's the whole in place a little bit further up. I've got Sam and Dave all the way to top of the room. Doug Dunn is further away from Al Jackson than Steve Kropper is. And Sam and Dave are, like I said, the top of the room with a baffle between them. So we're on the other side of a baffle directing them and locking into where the music, what we call the pocket of the music is. And here's Al Jackson's union, this amazing drummer, keeping all of that together. We only had one take to make it right. There was no such thing as we're gonna splash the tape. We're gonna cut the tape and make it. No, when you say one, two, three, four, and the down beat of the next one, you had to have everything correct at that time and all of those records were made with that in mind. That's why the soulfulness of it. When you asked earlier about why the Memphis and all of that, it came from the abilities to do that. To when it's time to be together, be together in a legitimate way on a legitimate level. And the beauty that comes out of that will probably surprise you. And it is a prize us. What I noticed about all these records is they sort of jump off the tape or whatever into their life, their life. And it's exactly it comes from what you're describing. The room that they're recording in is an instrument itself. It is. There's this aliveness of the people playing together. You almost feel like you're at a concert with these. And that's why this is a live record. A lot of this stuff sounds familiar to what you hear. And that's so rare to hear these records that records can sometimes just sound a little-- Yes. --they don't have that life to them. That's what all of these do. Part of what makes Stacks Records so special is that the emotional connectivity through the experience was a real one. There was no protestiveness about, well, I'm going today just to play music. I can't wait to get through with this. No, when you went in that room, you went in that room for the full understanding of, I'm going to give it these four, five hours of whatever it is in a real way. And you didn't eat until everybody was ready to eat something together. And then it wasn't a big spray laid out. It was something that would take you to the next period of where you got to get back to recording again. But the commitment was, let me be pure, totally in the energy necessary, the soulfulness necessary to make the session go quicker so I can get a legitimate break. But I can't get a legitimate break by being false with intentions just to want to break. I get a legitimate break by being passionate about the experience that I'm going to put in each of these songs. It's the same thing from when you were a kid that this thing that you want, that you are so passionate about, that you want to do always forever. It became the template of life, and it still is. Let me ask you about this guy. ♪ These arms of mine, they are journeyin' ♪ ♪ Yerning, I'm walkin' you ♪ Who's that odys ready? The emotion dripping off of his voice is so real that people are shocked to know that this was the song, the first song that Otis did at Stacks. This was a song that was his audition at Stacks. He was a driver for a guy that Stacks was recording Johnny Jenkins. And he asked if someone would take a listen to him. No one was interested in doing that. Finally, Al Jackson Jr. convinced Steve the tale Jim could we take a listen. This was the song that Otis sang. His original song changed all of what we believed to be music at Stacks. This guy, this guy changed all of that. When did you hear this or him or went like that day? Yeah. That I was there. So what was your, what was your reaction? First place I had no idea. He sang like that. None of us did. 'Cause he wasn't singing Johnny, the guy he was robin' for was singing. Who was not good? So how would you think that the driver would be better than the guy that he was robin' for? The guy he's robin' was already flunked. And no one was interested. And finally, Al Jackson Jr. who deserves all that credit, convinced Kropper, Steve, decided Jim to take a listen. And Steve said this, we all felt that when Otis sang as nervous as he was 'cause he had been lying on the floor in a corner as nervous as he was. He got up and sang that song in the rest of his history for us. He also was doing all of the arrangements for what he was doing. 'Cause no one understood where he was coming from. He would walk around the room, hum, the horn parts, the keyboard parts, the guitar parts, the bass, all of that before he was singing note. And then he would go on the microphone and make up the song there. There's no Larry Sheet there. He was that pure with his gift of talent, more so than anything we'd ever seen. But he was also an eye omel in a motivation for all of us at Stacks. You guys are already cooking, doing your thing. We're cooking. People are starting to come through. Right. And then he just kind of fits in to this. He took it to the next level. Yeah. He not only fit in, he took it to the next level. Yeah. He was truly amazing. And on stage, he was unbelievable. You talk about in the book, this trip to Europe. Oh, yes. When did you guys go over there? '67. This is your first time. First time ever out of the country, yep. We go to this place in the world. Well, one, you never imagined you'd ever go to. One, you're flying over the water. And we get there, and the people love us. We were right as famous as writers and producers, but not to the extent that you would think they were knowing the thing about us. They knew how many brothers and sisters I had. They knew where I was born. I mean, they were fans of all of us to a degree that is unbelievable. Concerts were searched that you can see some of the videos of some of the concerts. People were going crazy over it, and so it was eye-owning to say the least, but it also made us aware of the power of the music. We had no idea that the music was resonating like that in other parts of the world. Europe showed that to us. It made us ever so mindful of that. And Otis Redding and Sam and they became a testimony to the greatness of so-for-music out of America. Later on, much later on, when you started hearing some of these songs, some of the songs that you wrote being used and sort of reshaped in hip-hop, someone like the Wu-Tang clan, like Rizza. I mean, I talked to Rizza about the music that you guys did. How did that feel to you as a musician? The respect that you give for somebody that is able to take something that you created and create an aura to it, separate it apart what you initially thought, and make it palatable to an artist globally is something that warns all of respect possible. The world changes. And so we had our time. We were more than proficient at our time as the world changes. People find new ways to do what we call the same old thing. Just call it something else. And so, rap and hip-hop and sampling became that and we were just marveling at the fact. The dream level on Mariah Carey was a song that I did. And the rhythm that you hear on the record, when the record starts out, that's a rhythm track that I did in 1973 and it stacks records. I mean, getting jiggered with it will smear. That's the kids that I use on the record in 1973. That's who you're hearing them that. So, I mean, who shot you, that's something that we did way back in the day. Some of those kinds of things happening with the music that we had done many years ago, never imagining that times would cause one opportunity for people to express those same songs in a fresh way was something that, to this day, I still marvel at it, in respect of the fact that these talents were able to find creative ways to do that. As that same emotion that's coming through from when you guys first did it. That's the soul hidden in you again, right? Exactly. All right. The last song, just to. ♪ Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting in the evening car. ♪ If you listen to those first lyrics, "Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting in the evening car." That was the last verse of "Sitting on the Dark of the Bay." I told us to flip the last verse and make it the first verse and flip the first verse and make it the last verse. He came to my office before he went on the trip and before he recorded his song, he wanted me to hear an idea that he said was something different, but he think it could be something special. And he came in my office and said on my desk, on my desk would accuse to guitar and played that song and sang it to me. And I suggested he flipped those verses. And that's what he did and the rest is issued with that song. Books out everywhere. The book is out everywhere. The soul man, life a song writer, David Porter, and hopefully a lot of what I'm saying is expounded until even deeper to do it. We barely scratch, barely scratch the service. We got to listen to some good songs, but reading it, I mean I was listening to all these songs over again as you're recounting these stories and it just, it transports you and it's amazing. And thank you for sharing your story. Thank you so much Jack for having me. I really appreciate this. It's so great to meet you. It's an honor. It's an honor. Definitely my pleasure. Thank you Spotify for the extra support this week. It means the world to us. If you aren't already watching on Spotify, you should because Spotify is awesome. All right. See you next time. Peace. Thanks for listening. See you next Wednesday.