Babyface

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin, Kenny, Babyface Edmonds is a pillar of R and B. His discography is vast and varied, and in my opinion, he's one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And as a producer, he knows how to get the most natural vocal performances from the best singers. I'm talking powerhouse vocalists like Arita Franklin, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Ariana Grande, and Stevie Wonder. As a label owner, Babyface created the Face Records in the late eighties with famed record exact La Reid. Together they went on to release classic albums from Outcast, TLC and Usher, among others. Although Babyface's career is most often associated with pop and R and B hits, he started writing songs and the singer songwriter tradition, pulling from influences as surprising as James Taylor in The Beatles. He taught himself guitar in sixth grade and started writing songs about young love and heartbreak. Many of those experiences served as inspiration for the hundreds of songs he's written since. On today's episode, I talked to baby Face about those early childhood memories and he plays a song he wrote in high school that he considers to be the best song he's ever written, and it's never been released. He also talks about how Bootsy Collins christened him Babyface and how his nickname made female fans flock to him at the end of shows. He also reveals how he was on the verge of making a new album with Whitney Houston just a month before she died. This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's my conversation with the baby Face from the Village Studios in La. How long you've been playing guitar? I started playing when I was in sixth grade, picked it up. It was my what was my brothers guitar? But it was he had a little a band that he was saying, and so the guitar player let him music acoustic guitar. Brought it to the house and told us not to touch it, and out of that guy, I touched it. Anytime you tell someone don't touch some time to do with my kets. Don't touch the piano, don't touch the guitar yet, don't ever, that's a good idea. How impactful were your your older brothers on your music sensibility from one brother in particular, Melvin. He was impactful in the sense that he brought in that guitar. He also was in a band called the Soul Innovations and and he was like the front man, and it was it was just incredible to watching him. He had a great voice, and I think that's that clearly made me think that maybe I could do something like that, you know, yeah, And I wasn't sure though. What was it like seeing him performer? It was great because he was a great performer and he was like he could sing, but he also and at the time, this is like sixty nine seventy, well this is like when James Brown is hot and in the Temptations that everybody so you had to sing as well as you had to also be in the scream and dance like James Brown. So he used to do all of that and it was pretty incredible to watch to see that, and ultimately he ended up joining group after seven. And it's funny when I think of who he wasn't after seven Top posted who he was as a kid, because he had so much more energy and just dancing and everything as a kid. So it's interesting what do you think the evolution was for him from fiery James Brown? Kind of It's interesting. I think he did it really well. But then there was some other people in the neighborhood, this guy named Albino Manson who was really good at James Brown. So they used to kind of spar off at each other, and you know, I beat him one day, so I think he decided I'm just gonna sing. So doing them splits that wasn't easy, ye Was it a competitive thing with you guys? Like when you saw was it was it like I want to I want to do that, but better. It was never competitive to me. I always thought that he had the better voice. I always thought my brother Carona had the better voice. I was always just kind of like songwriter and and just you know, whenever I can make my song sound good. I was always easy, comfortable to be in the back, so it was I didn't have to take the lead, So in that sense, I never competed. It was some of the earliest songs you you loved. I think one of my first memories. I remember in sixth grade there was I mean, obviously I loved the Jackson five when they came out with I also was love Smokey Robinson The Miracles, And as a matter of fact, one of the first songs I sang in front of a class, I sang two songs, this song I'm a Girl Watcher and Smoky Robinson was here I Go Again. And me and like three other guys, we created a little singing group and singing in front of our class in sixth grade. And that was also the same year that I between six and seventh grade, when I sing for my brother's band. They had an event at my high school, one of those mixers, and they needed somebody to sing in Michael Jackson songs. So my brother auditioned, myself and my brother Kevin, and I won. I don't know how I want what I won. And then you know that I sang who was Loving You? In front of this crowd. And that's and the thing that's it's always funny. I can remember for the longest time when I would hear I Went You Back, because that's the music that they would play as I walked on the stage, and I get so nervous just the thought of hearing that have to walk up on that stage. I'd just be I turned to miss my heart without start beating hard, and every now and then when I hear it don't good at Dune Dud, it could still get me just a little bit to this day. Really, Yeah, that's one of the most joyous songs of all time. Yeah, they're like, oh show time. So do you think do you think you've ever gotten over that sort of I don't know if it's stage fright or I think not. I think it's an interesting thing, those stage frighten and those triggers, those things that make you that you can't control. And I think ultimately I thought I learned how to control it. And then a few years ago I didn't dance it with the stars, and I found myself right back in that same place where I couldn't get rid of the nerves. Yeah, you know. And then for the longest time to this day, there's a song that we did. I did a remix of the X five theme, and so now when I hear X files, I get a little that song has been kicking my ass for years anyway, terrifying. So it's funny. It's funny how how these triggers can work for you. Yeah, music triggers. Yeah, Smokey Robinson, that's a great in terms as a songwriter. I think we forget how Smoky was amazing and just and he just did it so natural that I think that's why how we forget because it was like a conversation for him. Yeah, you know, and so he clearly was a huge inspiration in that way. Yeah. Yeah, because you were playing guitar, did you gravitate more towards that music, like a Bill Withers or anything like that? Or I liked Bill Withers, but when I was playing. When I started playing, Bill Withers wasn't around, and I didn't learn how to play the guitar to learn what other guitar players were doing. My brother, he would come on, he came home and played these chords, so he started that. It wasn't that part. I added that later, but it was first and I was like looked at I was like, that's crazy. And then um, I would go and when he'd leave, I'd go and in another room and pick up the guitar and try to do it. The other thing was he was right handed, so it was a right handed guitar. So that's why to this day I played upside down. And so at one point he came to me and said when he finally catched me playing it, he walked in and he goes, I don't care what you do, you will never be able to play that as good as me. And that made me. That pushed me to work harder doing that. And unfortunately that's not here anymore. But I wanted to ask him because I always thought that was mean for him to say. But at the same time, it just occurred to me just here recently. Maybe he was saying that because I was left handed right and I would never be able to finger it the way that he could finger it, and so I won't get it quite the same. And that's a mystery. It's wild that you play it so like left handed as beautifully. I just I don't know how you do it. Well. I think it's it's however you pick up anything. If you don't know the rules, then the rules don't count. Absolutely. There are certain things that might be easier for me to do with there's certain things that are harder for me to do when it's the right handed. Yeah, so you just got to figure out your way around it. But I think once I realized you played upside down, and when I listen to your music, your song sound in a way so different that sometimes I feel like, oh, it makes sense that it's upside down, like it's it's the core was there less rooted in the bass, and you know, it's just just interesting. I hear a looseness, you know, Yeah, I mean it's probably something to that. I think. I always like to say even when I played, learned things on the piano I play. I'm not really a piano player. I learned things to support my songwriting, and that's what I did. Then I turned that into my first song, you know, the song he just played a song I just played that was like I ended up. I didn't write Here I Go again, I go here I go falling in love again. That was my first song, and I wrote it for a girl because I was like in love and stuff, and so the guitar really was just an instrument for me to get these songs out of me. And so I wasn't really trying to learn any songs that were on the radio, and it was all just songwriter. So I was just learning chords to support out my little songs. Wow. And for you, songwriting was about writing songs for the girls you were in love with, crushes rushes, and it was it was purely kind of an escape, so to say, wow, it wasn't anything but that. I didn't think they were going to go anywhere, but that was the that was the drive, and you would have been like eleven ten, eleven twelve. Yeah, yeah, So started in sixth grade, started picked up, picked it up. Then then by time eighth grade came, I was kind of in folk swing and then had a number of little bands I was part of, and a lot happened in a short amount of time. I was. When I look back at it, it's kind of crazy to think of how much we did as a little band, because obviously you will not find today thirteen and fourteen year olds having a band and trying to play music that way, and yeah, not even in in rock, you know. Yeah, it's hard to find that period. And back in the day for us that was we were all trying to be in a band. Yeah. You know, how did you get to Manchild, which was your first group people to record out with. Yeah, and in high school, starting at a sophomore, joined this well, created this band that we called Tarny Silver, and we played from my sophomore year to my senior year we played everything. We were like the go to band for the mixers, the proms and everything, and in fact, we had did it so much. One year, I think it was my last year as a senior, there was another guy that that was challenging us. Decided to challenge us because he said he wanted to play at the mixer that year the homecoming, and I said, I'm fine, we don't. But people were saying, well, now we think we want tarn Silver play. So I think their band was called Destiny, and so we actually had a school vote about what band will play for the homecoming and we won. It was quite disappointing to him, but dave Man was his name. But we played. We played all those things, and that was playing these colleges on the weekends. We played for you know, IU and Purdue and ball State, so we were like semi popular. So in my senior year, the drummer that we had a guy named Rayfred Griffin, who's actually was a really good drummer. He went on to play with John Luke Patti and George Dukan and Stanley Clark. So he was an incredible players, an incredible player. He was like way too good for us. So he was in our band and he was getting ready going away to college. And then our saxophone player he was getting ready to go away the college. So the band was going to break up. And it was my senior year, and all of a sudden I woke up. I realized and my other friends they were all getting ready go to college as well, and I hadn't prepared. I was just like being in a band. I didn't know what I was gonna do. And we had this one last show that we did at a friend's house and one of the guys, Rayfred Griffin, his brother Reggie Griffin, who was a man child, and he was an excellent musician, Like he played sax he played keyboards, clevering, and he played a guitar, an excellent player, and he came and saw our shot and he asked me that night if I would consider joining manschild, And so he saved my life at that point because I had no plans, no band, and no band, and I did not know that they were on track to getting a record deal. So I really at high school. The year I graduated, I joined a band and that at a record deal. That's wild, and so I got really lucky. You know and then I want to play I want to play one of the songs off the first record that you wrote and sang on funky situation you guys were going. Man, So I actually wrote this when I was in Turning Civil and uh so I wrote that in high school because it was part of it was one of our one of the songs that we would actually play, you know, when we when we do these gigs. So we were obviously inspired. We were heavily inspired by like Earth Winning Fire. Then we were also inspired by the chick Career and and Stanley returned Forever to turn to Forever, and so we we were like, so we tried to be jazzy too, So that's what because it goes to a little jazzy and then inspired by stev under two and all that. So all that was kind of end up being mixed, not done very well, but still the ideas was was there, but it was part of being a little confused, not really knowing how to put it all together, not knowing how to make it hit, not knowing how to make something commercial, but just trying to make that we thought it was commercial, but that that was one of the first songs that you know that man child took from me that it's funny to hear it right now, and I can. I definitely wrote that on acoustic guitar, and I was trying to be like I was trying to be funky, you know, fucky situation. But we were so influenced by Earthwin a Fire, Yes, so influenced that I went to see her twenty five with the silvers and stylistics, and I actually had a chance to interview Maurice White. And you interviewed Maurice White in the seventies. Yes, I had lied and said I was a news reporter and got into meet him. And me and my friend Daryl, we were so into them. So we watched the show and they were kind of new then, so nobody was completely familiar. It was more of a black thing. They hadn't quite crossed over yet. So when we would go, we learned their songs and play their songs live. We take their whole routines and do it. We did it so well that actually a couple of years later, there was a friend of ours that went to was going to school in Boston, and he called us in a frantic He said, you know, you guys need to sue this group. I just saw this group and they stole all of your songs and stole your whole act. You need to sue down talk. That's how Earth Wind and Fire we were. So when when I listened to that record, that's what I hear, I hear, I hear all those influences of from Earth Winnifire to Return It Forever to Stevie Wonder, and it's all it's all mixed. And it sounded a little parliament too, like just really on the maybe like some Boots solo records or something that sounded very not quite yet. I think later on these records never came up. But later on I think I was like Reggie was definitely Parliament influence. But I think we never really messed with that. We never. And that's the interesting thing because this band, Man Child, I always think that I missed the group up when I joined it. Why that because the band was so funky before and I was just learning funk that was real funk yet that was it wasn't all the way there, but it was trying to be there, but I was just learning it. And the thing is, when we were in Turn Silver, before I was asked to join. We used to play all these as I told you before, we put all these colleges, and they were always more of a white audience. So everything we played, all they wanted to do is dance and drink and dance, and so we thought we were amazing. You're like, this is there's nothing, there's no crowd, we can't win. Before before we're over there dancing and they're running around him. You know, it's the best audience with it. And we just thought we had we was the ship. Then one day we got a gig to play for Tech High School, which was a all black school, and we got it to play for their problem and we went and started playing, and they sat there with their arms folded looking at us like like what is this ship? You know? And we even pulled out one of those who win fire songs I think Devotion, thinking that was gonna get them. Nope, what is it? As soon as we stopped playing, they put on the Ohio players on it the DJ and they was all on the floor dance instant and like realized how how unblacked we were at that point and how funky we didn't know anything about black and men that same time period. We were asked to go down to this little club called the in Crowd, which is where Man and Child played, and they let us come down there to open up for them. We performed and they were kind to us, and then next up came out Man Child. I think this is the first time seeing them. And when they came out, there was like dry ice coming out and they had did this version of Chaka Khan Rufus and Chaka Khan, I'm a backbone. Yeah, I'm a woman, I'm a backbone, and so the chorus all that was I'm a woman, I'm a backbone, and they came out I'm a man Child and I'm a motherfucker I'm a man. It was just so funky and so and it was like, oh my god, I didn't know. And then they also included you know, returned to Forever Licks and they were so they were very good and Chuckie Bush was the key wild player who was who played with us for a little bit, so he was everybody was. They were like next level musicians. I thought that's when they were at their best. And when I joined the band, I think they were looking to stretch and go further so and try to be a little more melodic and go other places. They had. The lead singer was gout named Flash Farrell, who was one of the best front men I've ever known, I've ever seen. He was like Mick Jagger. He was like he had a rough voice, so the songs that I was writing wasn't necessary for him. And I was, I was saying, writing these soft love songs, and and he wasn't really feeling it, and neither was I think Bobby was a drummer, and they kind of like didn't really completely like it. In fact, they gave me a nickname, which wasn't a nice nickname, but Waterfall because really, yeah, I said, all you do is waterfall music, you know, and stopped bringing that bucking that as waterfall music. And that's all I knew what to do, except every now and then try to do funky situations. But they were like such one of the best funk bands and I had ever seen and never heard at that particular point, and I feel like had they stayed kept that direction, then it might have been something else with them. And I think I changed that direction. We ended up getting a hit song that I wasn't really a party with it, especially for you that was that did well, but I don't think I think it was meant. It was a place for me to learn how to how to write music. It helped me learn how to do be more urban, do more R and B. Because I was like a waterfall kid. I listened to James Taylor, and really, you know, when I go in my car on Sundays, I love to listen to James Taylor. So I did like acoustic music. I like John Denver, so I like bread Yeah. So I was like in the Beatles, so I would do that. I always would be on my acoustic guitar, so things would be prettier in that sense, and then i'd write the slow songs were pretty that way. So so I was just kind of on a different page. When did you get into the Beatles back at the same time, I was into smoky yeah, because we had a black station that was TAILC, and then we had the pop station which was w IF. So on Sundays when I would go to church, soon as the choir would be done, i'd go sit in the car and I wouldn't listen to TAILC because it'd be just church music. So that's when I got educated with pop music. That's why I first heard James Taylor and listened to the pop stations. What were the James Taylor songs and Beatles songs that kind of pulled you in? You've got a friend Beatles. It was everything from I Want to Hold Your Hand to ultimately Yesterday and everything. It was everything the Beatles did, really gorgeous sounding. Yeah, it was just great copyrights. Bottom line. I was just soaking all of it in. It didn't always have a place to put it, but I still soaked it in. Well, I gotta say, I want to play song for much later in your careers. You wrote and produced for Whitney Houston. I want to play because it made me think when you were talking about that, like coming out of church and with the choir and then tuning into you know, hearing James Taylor and these things. It's like in your music, I feel like I really hear like the combination into the personalness of the singer songwriter thing. And I know you're famous for love songs, but in a lot of ways, sometimes your love songs to me feel greater than just romantic love. It feels almost like a devotional kind of thing and exhale, which you wrote for Whitney always felt I want to play a little that always struck me that way. Sometimes sometimes your crime life never chose the winds. O why when you've got friends shoot where? Oh my god, if there is such thing as a perfect song, that's it. I remember in writing this because I was thinking of songs that you've seen in other films that were haunting. And there's a couple of years before that, Bruce Springsteen did the Streets of Philadelphia and it was a haunting kind of film. So I wanted this to have a haunting kind of thing, and I wasn't exactly sure I was going to do it. And this song wasn't necessarily always supposed to happen because whitn't he hadn't necessarily always agreed that she would sing on this album. So this is kind of like one of the last ones to show up, you know, because we also we needed a theme song for it, but until she sung, it wasn't gonna being I did. I worked hand in hand with Forrest Whittaker, who checked, who listened to every song. So I was down at this production offices and I had my whole riek there and he bringing something for me to put some music too, and that's and he'd give me a reference to something that he wants something like there was never a reference for anything like this, but everything else there might have been a reference to h And then I had to kind of write for the scene and see if it would fly. And um, I think almost every time I did something, he always liked it. And we did all this without Clive being a part of it, yeah, which was very chancey, but it was for the film. So but this was the first time I actually ended something in the clid with Clive had note notes. I don't have Clive ears, but yeah, still I know that's a perfect song. Well, it just felt good, you know. And it was also at an interesting time with Whitney because she wasn't singing as strong and as you know, the big songs. So it was it was nice to come in and do something chill is. They're going for the the big you know, I'll always love you other, So it was it was great to do a left turn. Yeah, like there's so much wisdom in that and yeah, I mean, what does what does it sound like? That come from? It comes from watching the movie, comes from watching and watching the relationship with these girls and imagining what what Whitney's character would say to those those people. So a lot of times you find wisdom and just watching people and and and watching how they how they love, or how they hurt and how they fuck up, you know, and and there's something that you can you can take from that. And the one thing I would say today is that in terms of writing, with what I say in writing today, I see a lot of kids like I think Scissors like an excellent writer because it's not just her melodies, but her words and how she says them, how her words are today, how people would talk, and how people think. She does it in such a clever way. Yeah, And I'm like a student of that at this particular point, learning that because we were able to write simpler things before and say these words, and the simplicity of it was was enough. Today it's got to be a little bit more. Yeah, it's a little bit more clever and a little bit more how people think and how people talk today. Right, it doesn't we don't talk the same way. Yeah, we don't hear the same way. And so I think because of that, I won't say easier to do it. It was just of the time. I think it's just different. I mean, it's funny because I don't think people in the nineties necessarily talk like people in the fifties or sixties either. But there was a universality still to music that could you know. But I do think things have changed that. I don't know that obviously, that music still connects to people today and kids are still finding it. They don't necessarily it still talks to them. It's just that when you're doing something today, you need to talk to them how they talk, on their level. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll come back with my conversation with baby Face. We're back with more of my conversation with baby Face. What was the creational girls' night out? Like, I could hear a baby Face on this new record, But to your point, I can definitely also hear you trying to do what you do within the context of what the singers now are doing. Yeah, the extual concept of girls now now I came from my partner who helped me put the record together, Za Rika, and so she had come to me and said, you know that the way it did versus and versus, I got so many more new followers and a lot of younger ones, and so she was like, you know, you got to figure out a way to connect with them. You got you know, you can't just do what you've done before because they won't really speak to them. So maybe the best way to connect with them when you're writing and everything is to work with younger artists like exhil. Maybe you work with girls again and you connect that way, but don't just write it for them. Write with them, you know, collaborate with them, make sure you're speaking their language and they're speaking and you guys can actually work together. And that's ultimately what it came down to. We went in the studio with each artist basically had a day to do it, a day to write it, and a data basically get the basic recording. You'd bring in a concept maybe and then we start right there, go fresh with a nerve racking to going like that. No, it was it was either gonna work or not. You know, there was no pressure. It was like, you know, we tried and if it doesn't, it didn't work. That's some people we came we couldn't figure it out, and some people we figured it out. But we have to come back and finish it up in terms of old dubs, but the basic idea of every song was always done in that day. Wow, And that was kind of the magic of it a little bit. I mean, look, do I feel like I did a album full of hits? No, I did an album full of moments, and those moments that we whatever happened in that moment, that's what That's what we came out with, and we tried to make it the best that it could be. Would you think about music previously like that, like, oh, is this an album full of hits versus or were you always doing moments? Well, sometimes you do want to necessarily do hits. You do want to do something that's gonna like really gonna hit everybody and gonna hit everybody in the room. Yeah, and if it's not there, then you want to keep working on it. Didn't get it, you know, and we didn't have that luxury. We just kind of like, this is it, this is a moment, and we'll roll with it. Yeah. So in that sense, I do I think I could have maybe even made it better, yeah at the time, but we just took that moment and that was kind of like the experience. Yeah, you know, that's what I'm saying. And because of that, you know, also not just working with you know, the girls, but also working with some younger producers that come with tracks and things that that allowed me to also kind of like get into that and build from there as well. So it was all an effort of trying to speak to an audience that I don't normally speak to, but speak to them through another form of artistry. So to say, yeah, collaboration, Yeah yeah, out of any of those collaborations, do you think you forwarged any you know, lasting relationships, Yes, no question, And I'm sure we'll do more work together and that that's great. So I think that the process was fun and the results was, you know, came out nice. So came out great. I gotta say, like, you know, it's interesting. Rolling Stone recently put out like a list of like two hundred greatest singers. I looked at the list and I was like, yo, it's not it's like something like I read that one that makes sense to me and some of the things. But I started making it, just jotting down like what do I think are my favorite singers? And I started putting them down. I'm like, man, you know, like maybe it's just a time thing. But I didn't really have anyone beyond the nineties, and I didn't sort of think of I don't think it was because I'm biased towards that music, but not that there's no good R and B singers. Now there's some great singers, but there's no vehicle. Sometimes I think these days for like for a great vocalists to show how great their vocals are. But it sounds to me on this record like you really I don't know. I realized, like, man, you really know how to work with singers, because these days there's a lot of effects on voices and things, but you still found a way to kind of create something where they could really drive the song. Man. Yeah, I think it's it's that's just emotion so and it's it's not about how many rips you do or anything. It's really just about our emotional Can you get on it? Yeah, I feel like you've been given something. There are a lot of really good vocalists girls looking sing today. There there's a lot of them, and it's like there weren't that many back in the day, you know, where we could just count on you know, there was Brandy, there was Monica, there was Whitney, you know, Deborah Cox, and you know, we had a few, but not as many as there are to day. There's so many girls that can really blow and what some people that we don't know and even as many, just as many that you can find out on TikTok are. The singing wasn't like that before. Also the difference in terms of like how even with how it used to be so rare to find whether it's a white kid or that they could sing, sing and really have riffs, and that changed completely, you know, like you can find so many of these kids, like these young white kids that can like clearly blow and that it sounds like they grew up on gospel sometime and that was clearly just left for you know, initially there was a Tina Marie who was that? Who was that girl? Then? Yea, yeah, and she know she was more. Yeah, she got a little pass sometimes, uh, Lisa Stansfield got a little bit of a pass, but not clearly not like I like Tina, I like Tina, not like Selene Dione okay, and just kind of tore it up and to really have like to move their voice where where Whitney was like okay, she say, yeah, right, so and that that all changed and like, like I think it was McDonald's anyway, Um, you think it was McDonald's. Something happened, something was in the water. Um, but I think overall just I mean, what the real answer is is that black music and R and B. So it became so infectious that when people listen to things enough that it becomes part of them. Yeah, you know, and the same thing applies for even like overseas, even for like the K pop Yeah, say, man, come on, and that was you man. I mean, I feel like we should say that flat out because you may not want to, you know, and others and others. I was in the group with other people and others. The question help help influence. It's like there's a point R and B was on the charts like race music, you know, by the nineties, for nineties it was it was all included. Nineties it was there was not really you could you couldn't tell the difference hardly between the R and B chart and the pop chart. Yeah, because what was black was also pop as well. Yeah, Bobby Brown and boised them in and you know, even I had some things that were in pop at the top tens that I didn't even I didn't know that Whipperpill was a top ten Pop one album of the year nineteen. I didn't know. I didn't know it even touched that stuff. So because I always thought of it just R and B. So, but there was a point where it was that now it's um, it's changed again where um I mean, hip hop is the one thing that's you always gotta keep watching things because you don't know how things will slide. But the influence is crazy and it has been and always has been. So when when people speak of the future of R and B in the future, just black music in general, it's always here because it's always influencing. It always is. And you know what's funny, man, It's like, you know, rock and roll and hip hop take a lot of air out of the room and look great, you know, no doubt. But when you think about it, R and B really is like the great American art form because if you go back nineteen forty, Louis Jordan, the nineteen fifties, Ray Charles, nineteen sixty, you got Motown Stacks, all these great Atlantic artists in the seventies with you know, Stevie Finally, really come out Earth Winning five and you know then the eighties, Yeah, come on, man, R and B is kind always right there. It started here, It's in everything, so it always has been so. And I think that's that people get. They get tunnel vision on just one particular sound and one particular thing. I love the changes and I love to see people experimenting with it and and and and grow making letting it grow. Yeah, So can I play a deal song sweet November that I'm gonna play a little just a little bit of it. I feel like this has something to do with with your name. That Wow, man, that's a that's a great song. I wrote that right out of high school. Out of high school, yeah, I was. It was because I was a man child. So it's second year or something, seventy eight or so, seven to eight seventy nine, right in that time. So it's a girl. It was like this one girl, she was like the most. While we were in high school, we were really good friends, and there's no way I would have ever thought I would have been with her. But when I got out of high school, we we started talking and then we actually started dating. I remember Daryl was like, how Tamas this even happening? How do you have her? And then I remember we went to go see Brookshield's Endless Love when I saw Endless Love together and then something happened, I think right before we were going out going away in man Child, all of a sudden, she stopped calling me and I couldn't I couldn't reach her, and I don't know what happened, but it was just like we're just like broken up. And then there was no cell phones, there was no good you couldn't return upon and social media. It was just done. And I was really messed up about it. And and that's when I wrote this, you know, because you know that was the time period. It was in the fall, and it was sudden. I was thinking maybe maybe when I come back, maybe maybe this November, we'll get back together and find it. So that was actually a lot of song that was written way back then. And would you have written the words or would you write the sorts piano and wrote it that the piano? Yeah, wow, So because it's kind of beautiful even just divorced from the music if you just look at the words like high level, you know, yeah, it was when autom first to arrive you when my lady was weird dating. It was the second rain of autom We shared a feeling. Yeah, come on, that's it's like we started dating and then all of a sudden we like, I remember it was raining and like it looks like something's going to happen here. Yeah, it's like. Which that's an interesting song because that the history of this song too. It's also that it's the song that ultimately got me to be able to sing on the Deal album because I did this. I recorded this song, did the demo I had alreadys always had the song, but when I got in the Deal, I actually demoed it. And this isn't very far from the demo at all. And so when we were working on the second album for the Deal, Reggie Callaway from Midnight Star was supposed to produce their album and he did not because they had fell out with our manager and our manager was the same manager they had, so they didn't want to do anything everything to do with us. So it was suddenly in our hands, me in LA's hands too. Did Griffy said you guys should produce it, and we were a little afraid, but we thought we'd try. And this song I had submitted to did Griffy to see if I could place it on the Whispers. I also sent this song, gave the song to Luther hoping that he would sing wow, and he never answered on it. But I gotta Casette taped to him so he would potentially do it too. And so it never got to the Whispers because Dick Griffey had heard it and he said, who is this? LA told him this is you know Kenny. I wouldn't baby face yet Kenny him and he goes, this is Kenny goes, so why give this Whispers? Why don't you guys do this song on your album? And then La says, well, we don't have anybody that can sing it, and said, what are you talking about? You got who's singing? Who's singing this? He said, it's Kenny singing it. He said, well, how come he sing? He said, because he's not the lead singer. And Dick said that's stupid. He should be singing. Then La had to have a group meeting to see if I could sing, and once they had the group meeting, they voted me not to sing. Still, I had no problem with it because I wasn't trying to be a singer every time I was doing these songs. It wasn't like I was thinking I was gonna do a record with it. It's just me writing songs. Yeah, what what you do? Yeah? And so Dick Griffy came back said, well, if this ain't on the album, if he ain't singing it, then you guys ain't got no album. So that's how I was able to sing Sweet November on that album. What were they saying, you can't sing, you're not lead that it's a beautiful vocal. They didn't want me to sing because they were already two lead singers. You got it, okay. So it was a it's a power thing, yeah, you know, like, look, we got our singers. We don't need any any more confusion. And I got that. I wasn't. I did not join the group to be a singer, yeah at all. And so Sweet November is ended up being that song that you know, heartfelt song with a song that ultimately got me to start singing in the group to begin with. And it kind of solidified your name right well, the name was had nothing to do with that. The name just came because everybody in the deal had a great name. There was La Ko d Carlos Stick and Kenny Emmonds, and we were looking around trying to find names. We tried Romeo not really it, and a couple other names. There was turning nothing, nothing was sticking until one day La and Ko were in the studio working with Boots, helping Bootsy do a demo and I walked in the studio and Bootsy looks at me, goes baby Face, and that was kind of like where it started. I didn't like the name. I thought it was a little soft, and I didn't like it all, but he said baby face anyway. So then this was probably in eighty five, so much after the song. So we're like in now eighty five, we're out on tour. So d goes one night. I would sing this song every night. One night he'd go, that's Kenny Etmans. Give it up to Kenny Etmans, and you know, there'd be a little bit of love, a little bit of something. But then one night he said give it up to baby Face. It was a completely different reaction, and that night a whole bunch of girls came back looking for a a baby Face. I sang that song every night the same I swear it was not any different, but singing it as baby Face suddenly made it a whole other thing, which just taught us a lesson of just being commercial a name and everything branding, you know. So it was a lesson and I became very comfortable when the girls came back. I was comfortable with having the name baby Face at the point. Yeah. Yeah, questions. So that song was really personal, Yeah, exhale was more from watching the movie. Watching the movie. You don't necessarily have to write from personal experience. You can, you can, but you can watch others. And yeah, it's really about watching others and how they how they feel, and how they imagining having to go through that. I'm always asked, how are you able to write for women? Yeah, and he said, if you just kind of think of it and think of whatever they go through and think how you'd feel, you know, it's not that hard to figure out. Damn, that spoke up. I feel, you know, I think all right about that, you know. And as a kid that was always falling in love and thinking I was in love, feeling like you're in love, you know, That's what it was. My very first song was about a girl named round the New Would I always say her name? And that was in here I go falling in love again. And the second song later wrote that I clearly remember was about the same girl, which was two years later from sixth grade to eighth grade, because she broke my heart was called the Better Taste of Life. Oh those are feelings that I that I had, and everything was exaggerated. I had written a song called so Shy, So there were pieces, there would be pieces of things, of songs that I would write. I wrote a song called Tanita, wrote a song called Shelley. One of the best songs I ever wrote was a song called Last Song Forever, which was I wrote that when I was in my senior year. I can never record it, I think so. I think I let a group record as if they turned into gospel. Do you remember any of it? Yeah? Could you play little of it? I don't know when my voice is like right now. But when I think Spats, I removed a special feeling, sweet Sha, Then I think spahow moments I thought a special times you told me you can you know when please will blown away? I hope you know my love, my love will always I love you for it. You know my love can can no better song? For I got um how to go then I do right now and for that's a little piece of many wait. But so that was in my senior year. Wrote that song for a girl that that liked me for a long time. And it's funny, it's interesting. It was it was a it was a um white girl that liked and in high school at that time. It was like, you know, you don't do that, yeah, And we were friends and we and we did music together. We liked doing musicgether and Daryl and and everybody would go to her house and write right music and create music, and so we always vibed with each other, and she really got a crush on me. She was like she lived really close to the school and I lived so far away. She was like asking, let me come over to your house and pick you up and take you to school in the morning. And she wanted to do everything in the world for me. And I was like, that's great, but I didn't want this girl to that one same round neighborhood picking me up and stuff. And so I was like and I just realized at the point I was like being very it was almost like reverse racism to a certain extent for me, And I was like, would have brought a lot of heat. I'm sure, yeah, would have brought heat. And back then they call you times and stuff like that. Yeah, but in our school that was just you know, it wasn't like it was. It never happened, but it would sometimes. So one point she had gone away on a spring trip, so she went down to Florida or something, and when she was gone, I really missed her. So I thought to myself, you know what, forget it. I don't care. I don't care what color she is, I don't care anything. When she comes back, I'm gonna tell her let's do this. Yeah. And she came back. She had a tang, she was fine as but I waited too long. When she came back, she had changed at that point. She wasn't interested anymore because she had tried, and so she she finally met someone else. I waited too long, and then that was it. And then I wrote that song, and it was just interesting to me because it was like, you know, when someone's pushing for you to like you and trying to like you, and you're pushing them away for reasons, not because of how you feel, but because of what everybody else thinks. Yea, And when if I had it just not cared about that, Yeah, then maybe it would have been different. But then it had that not happened, I don't know if I'd written the song, so we wouldn't have the best song he ever wrote. How many other great songs do you have sitting I'm not sure. There's a lot of things I can remember back in those days, just stuff I've written on the guitar. I can go through things to see songs that I've written over the years that I don't necessarily love. But it feels like a lot of the things that I wrote that were hard felt from the guitar out. I don't necessarily think they're the commercial songs, but they're songs that I love. You know. Yeah, you did that record playlist like maybe fifteen or so years ago. It was kind of more like it was sort of more just you and an acoustic in a way. It was covering some of the some of the things that inspired you know. But doing a record of like that with the originals would be yeah, maybe would be cool capture a moment right throughout it all, there were songs that I would I would write and these feelings that I would have, you know, as a kid, and that's what the whole idea of Waterfall came from. Doing things like that. We're gonna pause for a quick break and then come back with the rest of my conversation with baby Face. We're back with the rest of my interview with baby Face. You didn't mention her name, but the girl that you wrote sweet November before? Do you ever know what happened to her? Did you ever figure that out? Yes, she's she lives in ended that post. And did I ever follow up and ask about what happened? I did. She said she had just met someone else and felt really bad about how how it ended, and I don't really care. I even met with Round the new Boat. I met with her from the whole sixth grade things. That's a whole long story. And I actually talked to her as well because I wanted to see I was so interested to find out if my memory was the same. Yeah, did did things happen the way that I thought they happened? It? Did they kind of remember the same day? It was pretty close, pretty closet, It was pretty pretty on it, which was mind blowing to me that I, you know, that I really remembered it kind of the right way. So wow, it seems like you carry things, you know, like with you. My memory of those days stay with me because there was something very powerful about when you're young and when you're in love and how powerful that is, and that that feeling you want to die, you know. That's like when I wrote Breathe Again, I was writing from that perspective of like thinking, you know, if you leave me, I'll never breathe again, and that kind of desperate thing that kids feel because it's the first time and it's like everything is, you know, amplified by a million And I used to love to go to that space sometimes. If I'm writing a love song, a heartfelt love song, then it's great to go to that space too, you know, as a reference, Yeah, you know, for those feelings, so you can contra up that. So as I carry these stories, I carry those feelings too, amazing and able to call on those in that way, Maybe we should listen to a bit of breathing. I love hearing your songs if you're if you're cool with it. That song was when I was writing it. I did the music first, and I was writing in lococo and I was actually writing it for another artist, writing for an artist named MacArthur, who's Melvin Gentry, who was partat of a Nice Star. And initially I was coming up with the track for his album. And then as I did then and those chords came to me and those lyrics in my hand said oh no, this is not for him, this is this is a tony song, you know. And then all of a sudden, it just you know, like flushed in the whole idea of it. And and I was able to go back to that that little kid, you know, that was like destroyed in eighth grade and and thinking of those words. And that's that's how you know, you go to those moments, and that's how you can revisit those feelings again and again. Yeah, it doesn't always have to be what's going on and you're life now, I can be about either watching someone or going back to his actual feeling that you may have had someone. Yeah. Wow, you tell me about your relationship with Daryl Simmons, Like a strong partnership. You guys had many Darryl's a great guy. Darryl. I knew him since I was in I think ninth grade. He used to come over to my house. He was friends with my brother when I was in eighth grade and he used to come over and his memory of me was that he had heard that I had a microphone and they had a band, and I think I had a microphone and my brother Michael played guitar as well, and so they started this band and I was still playing guitar a little bit, but the guitar electric guitar I had, I shared it with my brother Michael, and Michael would take the guitar and leave it on rehearsal all the time. It's the wrongest in the world, but it was when I first kind of met there where he was like wanting me to be in the band, but my brother Michael, he voted against it because he do want mit it. So it was a little bit later where we met me and my other friend, a manual officer, where we had just became this little singing thing called the Elements, and we had this group called the Elements, which all of it's a long story, but basically Darrel joined that group and we became, you know, friends. And I was always a writer and Darrel sometimes would be around helped me write, and then sometimes it wasn't that he would help me write. It's just that his being there, mate, all of a sudden, I would think of something sometimes as you have a person that doesn't know I always write the songs, but them just being there all of a sudden, you think of something that you wouldn't have thought of. Yeah, you know, it's just their energy that kind of helps in songwriting. I think it was a communication thing. That's just like the way you guys communicated, like, yeah, it's just one the kind of thing is I don't you just might think of a word that you but you might be joking around something and then all of a sudden the word hits you. They helped kind of help you get your creative juices going. It's not always particularly always just songwriting and stuff. Sometimes it's just their vibe and and you know, we've been friends ever since. I've a few friends, a couple of friends for sure that I've known since I was a kid, you know, And that's rare to have to be friends with people for that long. Well, especially when you're in inhabiting the world that you're you're in and must ye be really grounding and great. It's it's it's a blessing in that way. And not everybody is is in it, Like, it's just having somebody from Indianapolis that kind of knew you when you're growing up and and seeing you change, you know, seeing you go through the changes in your life and who you become and who you were at the time. So do you still write with them? Ever? We don't write that much together, but we talk all the time. Yeah. Well, when was the last time you guys got together? And I think, I mean there was part of the love, marriage, divorce um and intended return of the tender love. He didn't writing with me there in the last ten years or something. Yeah, it's I think when you're a writer that's writing today and you're constantly writing with younger writers, the writing kind of changes and so you lean towards other people in terms of like when you because it because they're they're speaking differently, and if you're not doing it on a continuous basis, what you have to offer isn't quite the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do want to ask all the great things you work with. You wrote a song that Aretha did Willing to Forgive There was a hit for her. What was working with Aretha like that was surreal to actually go on with the Wretha Franklin, and she was so nice to me. She wasn't always nice to everybody, so that's why I felt privileged. She was such a pro She like, you get you maybe get one, you maybe get three runs down maybe, but she'll come and say I'm gonna do it once, I'm gonna do it twice, and that's it, you know. And could you kind of direct her beforehand and say, hey, you know, every now and then she might let you. But for the most part, she just kind of like she'd do her homework and then she she'd go. I mean, she would have been with me and we were able to do some things. But I think probably my fondest experience with was was doing hurts like hell excel the way she she that was a one time through. That was one time wow, and it was just unbelievable, and I think my best work with her, and I ended up doing kind of the greatest hits records with her with we were doing covers and stuff. But to be honest, her voice wasn't quite the same anymore. It was like you could hear what she could when she was trying to do, but it wasn't quite the same anymore. But so having her have done that with hurts like hell. She loved the song and she and she's singing like she loved it. Her voice was still her voice at that point in Muslims. Hearing it in like just us in a studio space was it was like just like here. She just came in and she said, let's go, let's do it, and it was it was done, unbelievable. He told me the story making End of the Road. So End of the Road was written for Boomerang went to see the movie before it was. All the music was there and there was one particular scene that I thought would have worked great, and we got the word that boister Man might do the song. So I definitely was writing the song in a very old Philly you know way, so that whole that whole sound of Philadelphia so close, that's where they were from. So definitely writing in that kind of like that. And so as I as I started putting it together, I had a little house in Atlanta that I would go to write up my songs for this project in general, and so I got it pretty far. I was pretty excited about it, written that most of the words and stuff, and then I then I called Durro over to see, asked you I really got one, and Daryl was like, this is one, and so I demoed it and he helped me finish it up. And initially I thought the song was so strong, I almost considered trying to keep it for myself, you know, yeah, because but I wasn't going to be an artist on this boomerang thing. But hindsight, there's no question it was supposed to be boys to man. When they started singing and it was, it was automatic. So we just flew up there to Philadelphia. They were on tour, and they came in at just one afternoon to sing it down and uh, and that's how we That's that's how we started. Is it true that Jane wasn't vocally in the best shape Wanya was. They were on tour, so he was like a little bit of a code and stuff like that, and they were all kind of a little bit because they were out there singing. But it was fine, you know. Obviously. Yeah, it was new for all of us because like we hadn't worked with a group like that before, and so coming up with these parts. They were great because they could help come up with parts on top of it, and a lot of the notes were already there, you know, because I had done the armies and stuff, and then then we built on top of it and created on the spot. Yeah, and it felt like it just felt like it was a natural thing. Yeah, you know, and it's ultimately that rolled over into you know, I'll make Love to you. Yeah. Man, setting up in my room at such a different groove from from from so many songs from that era, even yea, it was setting up in my room was once again going back to funky situation, you know, be trying to figure out how to do do funk, you know, way years later, just trying to get something that was supposed to be just be one particular scene. I think the the music that was there in the scene first was Aliyah back and forth, yea, and I needed to have something that just kind of grooved a little bit. So that was what I came with with and I hadn't and I knew it was going to be for Brandy, So I was trying to imagine how she would sing it, you know. Yeah, and then when she came and sang it, I was blown away how good she is. That's such a cool vocal. Man, She's just so good. She's Brandy is so good. I think I can put Brandy up in the top ten of like singers. In terms of studio singers, there aren't very many that could. They're as good as she is. Wow, They're just aren't even at that young age. Even at that young age, they just aren't very many. She's like, she's a beast. Who else would you put on that list? I mean, some people you put on the list based off because their vocals are just crazy. I mean, obviously Whitney, you know, because it's Whitney Houston. What I'm talking about is not just a great voice, but also somebody just knows how to really just kill it every time. It sounds almost perfect every time. I don't know that I could. Brandy's just one of those people I think I was impressed by, you know, I was very impressed by money Long and um when she's singing scissors ridiculous. So there are people that you know that just have it. I mean, the list could probably I could probably go down and listen get more, but I would always just say that in terms of somebody I always feel that underrated would be Brandy. Yeah, is there was there any one you wanted to work with it you just missed Like you mentioned the lead. I was thinking child, I've always wanted to work with her. I think, isn't she making music right now? So she's got yeah no, but that doesn't mean thing, because she's got so much pain in her voice that I would love to work with that. So that that's the one that sticks always. I just want to play one more cut. This was from the Preacher's Wife soundtrack. My Heart is Calling was Witney because I'm trying to ovations station. It's incredible, Man, I do it better today with what would you do different? The groove wasn't The group was good, but it wasn't like Whitney. It was all the way on the pocket with it is that wanted it to be? Uh, and I would have made this core stronger. Okay? Yeah? Was it tough working with Whitney, Like was it similar to reata where you'd only get a couple takes or Whitney she worked? Yeah. Our problem would be we'd be sitting around joking and laughing and stuff all the time, and they okay, we should work and uh, and then we finally get it down. But a lot of times we would just be always laughing about stuff. So one of the great joys of my life is that we got three Michael albums with Quincy and then but one of my I wish we could have gotten like a full Whitney baby face record, you know. Yeah, I think there would have been a shot that that she, you know, had she lived longer. We were certainly in talking doing work together again. You guys were talking again. Clive had called me and and said, you know, she's ready. I think she's about ready to do this, and then she you know, you know, she was. She was right on the road of turning everything around and getting it back. When was that Clive call in comparison to maybe a month before we started to collect songs already and not yet I was. I was waiting to see if it was true. We didn't see whether her voice was back there because I wanted to do it with her when her voice was in shape and yeah, and I wanted it, you know, because I loved working with you know. So was there ever a chance to do a more work in the nineties, like Beyond the sound track? Because it was a big gats like night and there's like a big yeah, I think we were just um. Thanks. She was just on a different page and I was on a different page at that points. You know, man, the way she interprets this, see what somebody with you on the greatest question? Man? Well, thank you so much, thank you, appreciate you. Yeah, yeah, this was great. Thanks again to baby Face for talking through his career and playing for us. You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite baby Face songs along with others he's written introduced at broken Record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast. We can find all of our new repisodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrell, Ben Taliday, and Eric sad Our. Editor is Sophie Craig. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content an uninterrupted ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review us on your podcast app I theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,