BONUS: James Alexander on The Bar-Kays' Rivalry With Cameo
In a bonus clip from James Alexander’s two-part conversation, he recalls witnessing The O'Jays and The Temptations go toe-to-toe musically on stage in Cleveland in December 1967. That showdown—shared amid Alexander’s reflections on Otis Redding’s final days—led into a previously unreleased account of how his band, The Bar-Kays, developed a rivalry with Larry Blackmon's Cameo—a situation rooted in showmanship and cash. Steel sharpens steel...
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Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radios. Up.
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Speaker 2: Y'all, welcome back to another mini episode of The Quest Left Show. So this month we dropped a banger, if you will, a two parter with James Alexander of the Barcays. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the full in studio conversation on the QLs YouTube channel. It's nearly two and a half hours, not exactly Jimmy Jam length, but you know, not seven hours, but two and a half hours is a lot. And trust me, he brought the stories. James actually flew in from Memphis to hang with us at iHeart Studios in New York. And one thing you won't hear in the episode happen when we were talking about that faithful moment in December of nineteen sixty seven. Of course, I'm talking about the tragic plane crash where James law four of his bandmates and his dear friend and leader Otis Redding. So at one point he got sidetracked talking about the Ojs and the Temptations, who had played a show the night before in Cleveland.
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Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to know what the.
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Speaker 2: Last twenty four hours were like before the crash happened. And he told this really compelling story about just having a night off seeing the Ojs beform, seeing the Temptations beform. They had, you know, hung with each other, had some fun, went to see a concert, and then they were going to head up to Wisconsin to do a show, but they went to Cleveland, and that led to a whole conversation about bands battling each other on stage the old fashioned way with music, ego and pure showmanship. And he even mentioned a similar rivalry between the Barkays and Cameo. Sometimes, like really good stories wind up on the editing floor, and we definitely didn't want this to be a part of that, so we wanted to share that moment here. He walked me through the December ninth, like the day before, just whatever that.
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Speaker 3: Time period was.
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Speaker 4: Like December the ninth, we had a show in Nashville, Tennessee at Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt was like the Harbor of the South. We had to show barcades and otis reading at Vanderbilt University. We played Nashville Deep some of the eighth then were supposed to play Cleveland, Ohio December the night so rather than spend the night in Nashville because he had his own plane. Hey man, the o Jason the Temptations in Cleveland. When we get through it our show, let's take the plane and fly to Cleveland and catch their last show because they was doing two shows or early show in the late show. So we left and went to the place which we were going to be playing there on December the ninth. The Temptations of Ojas were there on the some of the eighth OJ's were opening act, and I mean the Temptations were on fire at that point. And the OJ's this was back when they had five members. The o Jays turned it out. They had one song. They had a song called I'll be Sweeter Tomorrow than I Was Yesterday.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 4: When they got through doing that song, I mean people just stood up. I mean kind of like about a ten minute standing ovation. The Temps didn't want to come out. Now the temps, man, you they had all these hits, and you know the Temps.
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Speaker 3: They were there, tall, well dressed, they were the shit.
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Speaker 2: Eddie Livett don't play fair. Yeah, I've seen him many times in concert. He does not play fair.
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Speaker 4: They came out there and they ripped it right, So being around a lot of that kind of stuff like that, you know, So we came to an era where we're gonna. Don't know if you know anything about this, you ever heard of people saying we're gonna We're gonna cut your head. Yeah, ah, you know our head cutting.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm in a band, you're the band. I'm in the band.
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Speaker 4: So we had we know it's time we did some balance with Cameo. We that was one of our main battlet groups. But anyway, I'm gonna get to that they kicked our as we were playing the Reunion Arena and I never will forget it. In Dallas Reunion hosts twenty thousand, the venue sold out, right, So we actually had Larry Blackman's Cameo to be do a two day run with us. I think they were supposed to do Dallas with us and Houston played the Reunion Arena and the Summit, which, by the way, the Summit now is Joel Old Things.
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Speaker 3: Church, gotcha.
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Speaker 4: Anyway, I think we paid them, you know, forty grand for the two shows. So the deal was Cameo is supposed to go on a nine to thirty, so it's nine thirty and you.
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Speaker 3: Know, we're still in the dress room, but we don't hit on music.
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Speaker 4: How come cameos not on? So I said, my ropeanch around and see what Camerao's not on. Well, you know, Larry Blackman don't feel too good right now, so man, he need to be on stage right now. Dude, we done paid him this money. So as it turned out, he'd have looked out at the audience and saw the place is sold out and said come back, and the message got back to me, He's not going on unless you get five more thousand dollars.
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Speaker 3: So I'm the band leader.
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Speaker 4: And back in those days we had what you call a democratic band, you know, the majority rules.
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Speaker 3: All of that.
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Speaker 4: So I said, man, I said, I went back and tell my band, said, man, we got an issue. Larry Blackman does not want to go on unless you get five more thousand dollars. And fuck but I know if the MC go out there and say, Cameo would not be performing tonight.
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Speaker 3: And they was hot. I think they had out keep it hot.
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Speaker 4: I mean they had out shake your pants all that stuff like that. So I had to make I had to make a leader decision. So I told my guy to go around to the box office and uh, you know, I mean we had maybe one hundred grand in the box office.
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Speaker 3: Go around there and get them five thousand dollars so they can go on mission. And so a guy that'd be, oh man, you're weak.
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Speaker 4: But if if the MC had went out there and announced the Cameo is not gonna perform, they would have told that place up. We would really have a problem then. So we gave them five thousand dollars. They go out onstage. They kicked our ass bad. So with the cycle logical and all of that, and you know, getting the five grand, so our guys, you know, was feeling some kind of way. But we went out there and did the you know, just an okay show. Cameo show was right here, Our show was right here. So I said, oh, hell no, so we won't do you know, we're supposed to spend the night in Dallas, you know, I said.
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Speaker 3: Look, everybody, we pack it up, we leave it tonight.
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Speaker 4: We going to Houston rental room, I mean, get one of the rooms inside of the venue and set us up there. We'd yes, you know this, this can't happen like this no more, never again.
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Speaker 3: We had to come back at him, and you said, the old Jay's kicked the times ass.
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Speaker 4: The same one kick the ass smoked them and they only had one hit.
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Speaker 3: Tims had multiple hits. That's all it takes.
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Speaker 4: This is when David Ruffing was in the group. Got you, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, Oldis Williams, and.
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Speaker 3: Who am I missing? Melvin Melvin Melvin freend Yes, oh I can I forget? Yeah?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, so Lara was still playing.
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Speaker 3: Yeahlara was still playing drums. Oh got you? Yeah? Oh yeah, okay, I know that area of pre pre red Cup.
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Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but it was about nine to ten people on stage.
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Speaker 2: We had actually had Larry Blackman, founder of Cameo, on the show a few years ago.
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Speaker 3: Classic episode. If you haven't checked it out, check it out.
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Speaker 2: And I kind of love seeing how both of those guys are still carrying with their bands to this day, still entertaining audience, still making art. But stay tuned for more bonus content from the Quest Left show. We've been getting your mailbag, questions and comments, and uh I've even been jumping in and responding online here and there.
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Speaker 3: You can always drop us a note.
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Speaker 2: Find tons of info at questlove Supreme dot com, or if that's too much, just dm us give us feedback. We read it, we love it all right, enjoya
