John Wilson Interview, 2009

Abstract

John Wilson is a musician and music industry veteran who was born in Cleveland in 1949. In this 2009 interview he discusses growing up on Cleveland's east side, his life long involvement with rock and roll music, and the issue of racism, both within the music industry and in Cleveland. As his family was one of the first black families in his east side neighborhood, Wilson experienced racism at a very young age. He also developed a love for rock and roll as a child, and he describes this as well, talking about the artists he listened to, the places where he heard music, and the performing groups he formed with his friends. Wilson also speaks more generally about racism in the record industry, both now and in the past, and the nature of race relations in Cleveland in the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. Throughout the interview, he connects the subjects of rock and roll music and racism, describing the social and political messages in African-American music, the effects this kind of "protest" music had on black communities, and the ability for music to bring people of different races together.

Interviewee

Wilson, John (interviewee)

Interviewer

Aritonovich, Dana (interviewer)

Project

Rock and Roll

Date

11-8-2009

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

112 minutes

Recommended Citation

"John Wilson Interview, 2009" (2009). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 200008.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/31

Related Resources

Rock and Roll @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Dana Aritonovich [00:00:04] Okay, why don't we begin with you introducing yourself. Tell us your name, where you live, and what you do now.

John Wilson [00:00:11] My name is John Sly Wilson. I'm Sly, Sly, Slick and Wicked. And I'm living in Los Angeles. And we're still, you know, performing. Next year, we'll celebrate 40 years of being in the business. Hmm.

Dana Aritonovich [00:00:28] Okay. And could you tell us what year you were born and where you grew up.

John Wilson [00:00:33] Uh. Oh. Uh. Oh, okay. Well, I guess it's no secret I was, because I'm in the music history book. I was born [...] 1949. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dana Aritonovich [00:00:49] Okay, and what neighborhoods did you grow up in Cleveland?

John Wilson [00:00:54] I grew up on 87th and Quincy and also on 173rd off of Tarkington. I attended Bolton Beehive, Charles W. Eliot, and John F. Kennedy High School. That's where I graduated from. And I attended Tri-C, Cuyahoga Community College, and the Music Settlement.

Dana Aritonovich [00:01:13] Okay. Oh, okay. And could you tell us a little bit about your neighborhoods? What were your neighborhoods like when you were growing up?

John Wilson [00:01:21] Well, growing up, actually, I was too little to remember, but I lived off 46th Street. My earliest memory is right there on the corner of 87th and Quincy. And, you know, it was a nice neighborhood. I played baseball in the street. Of course, there was no parks around there, but always, you know, people were- You know, there was music around me. And I remember the Valentinos were actually the Womack Brothers. Bobby Womack didn't live too far from me. And I remember the neighborhood talking about them at the time.

Dana Aritonovich [00:01:57] And was your neighborhood integrated or no, at the time?

John Wilson [00:02:00] No, it was mostly a Black neighborhood in my earlier part of my life. And then we left Quincy and moved out to Lee-Harvard, again on 173rd off of Tarkington. And that was basically, we were the first African Americans on the street. And that was a great thing, but also not too nice thing because we were called bad names, you know, the N word by some of the neighbors. I remember my father at one time, the kids riding by, and I don't know exactly what happened. And my father was a very peaceful man, but one day he got a shotgun and stood watch in a chair out the window. My parents, unlike many parents, were not from the South. My parents were from Kansas.

Dana Aritonovich [00:02:53] Oh, okay. So when did you- You probably became aware at an early age of racial discrimination.

John Wilson [00:03:03] Yes. Well, yeah, absolutely. In fact, not only being approached, as I said, like that, and the kids calling me the N word. I remember my father was a brilliant man. He was an electrician and refrigeration person. And he loved space. NASA when it was first starting. And I remember out of 100 people, when NASA was coming to Cleveland and opened it up, he applied for it. And out of 100 people, he placed second. But he was passed over because of his color. And I remember my mother consoling him. He had went to the backyard, and I think he was crying because he really wanted to do that because he worked on the railroads up until, I think, 56 or 57 when they went down. So he really wanted to do something for us that he really liked because he always liked space. And he would bring, know, maps of space home and jet planes and stuff for me to play and build, you know, and he always liked discussing the stars. So that was that. I really knew that it was divided. And plus, when it hit me again, as I said, we lived right there on 173rd off Tarkington, and 271 wasn't even built. So I used to play in those woods. And I remember I went over, and that was McCracken Road. And this white lady says, why don't you go back onto the other side? We don't want you over here. I was probably maybe about eight. Eight years old. Seven. Eight years old.

Dana Aritonovich [00:04:39] And. And how did you feel when she said that? I mean, you probably did you immediately know what she meant by that.

John Wilson [00:04:44] Yes. And I mean, we're talking about Cleveland, Ohio, not, you know, Mississippi.

Dana Aritonovich [00:04:49] Mm. And did you tell your parents about that incident?

John Wilson [00:04:53] Yes, I did.

Dana Aritonovich [00:04:54] And. Okay. How do they react?

John Wilson [00:04:56] Well, they sat down again and, you know, tried to explain to me that, you know, that, you know, people are people, you know, we all have the same heart, the same blood, and, you know, you're going to experience that as you're growing up. You know, and again, my parents, being from Kansas, even though Kansas was supposed to be, you know, a melting pot, they experienced it. And, you know, also being part African American, I'm also part Native American. My mother's father was a Creek Indian who was born on a reservation in Oklahoma. So, you know, she was trying to explain to me, you know, what the Native Americans had experienced as well as the African Americans were experiencing at the time. And then, you know, that's when the Civil Rights Movement was just came up. And I remember over in Kerruish Park when it was really starting to hit home, when Martin Luther King came and spoke over Kerruish Park, and I was only like 10 or 15 feet from it.

Dana Aritonovich [00:05:56] Wow. So since you mentioned that, were your parents involved in any kind of civil rights activity? You know, with NAACP or Urban League or anything like that around Cleveland.

John Wilson [00:06:09] Actually, my mother was the president of John F. Kennedy PTA and she actually won an award which is on our wall, know, there in Cleveland to this day. And so my mother was very active and my father not so active because when I told you what happened to him at NASA, St. Luke's Hospital recognized his talent and hired him. That was probably like 1960, 61. And he became the head electrician refrigeration for St. Luke's Hospital. In fact, the new part of that, my father wired and did the refrigeration itself.

Dana Aritonovich [00:06:47] But your mother was kind of, you know, active in, like, social organizations and things.

John Wilson [00:06:51] Yeah. Mama never really worked, dad. Dad didn't allow her to really do work. He says, I married you to, you know, take care of the home and I'll go out and, you know, make money. So Mama basically would talk to us about, you know, the civil rights and also, again, being active on the school PTA and the neighborhood watches and the voting. She was very active. Both of them really were. Politics was always discussed in the whole politics and religion because my parents were two ministers’ children. My father's father was a Baptist minister and my mother's father was a Methodist minister.

Dana Aritonovich [00:07:31] And how many siblings did you have?

John Wilson [00:07:34] I'm the oldest of three. I have two younger brothers.

Dana Aritonovich [00:07:37] Okay, okay. And tell me about the schools you went to. Were the schools integrated at all in your neighborhood, Bolton?

John Wilson [00:07:47] I don't remember being integrated at all. Beehive, which as we're talking now, I just got an email that they're now tearing it down as of 90 years old this year. And that was somewhat. Yes, that was integrated. And then from there I went to Charles W. Eliot, which was integrated. And then John F. Kennedy was integrated, but it was predominantly Black.

Dana Aritonovich [00:08:16] Okay, so do you remember any kind of racial tension among the students in the schools that you went to that were integrated?

John Wilson [00:08:24] No. Basically everybody got along. But also I remember once when the Black Panther Party started and they surrounded the school and Mr. Mills went out there and talked, actually took a shot at him, if I remember everything right through the window over by the parking lot, and he went and calmed everything down. But as far as the student was concerned, we pretty much got along. I think out of three or four thousand kids, I think there were only like five or six white guys, but nobody ever bothered them. And everybody interacted. There was really no problems.

Dana Aritonovich [00:08:59] Okay.

John Wilson [00:09:01] Or at Elliot either.

Dana Aritonovich [00:09:03] Okay. And tell me a little bit about the friends you had. Who were you hanging out with when you were like a teenager or younger?

John Wilson [00:09:10] You mean, in what way?

Dana Aritonovich [00:09:12] Like anybody that, you know, friends from school or friends in the neighborhood. Did you have friends, you know, white friends? Did you? You know, what kind of things did you guys do for fun?

John Wilson [00:09:22] Oh, yeah, absolutely. Eddie Skirness and, you know. Oh, God. There was a guy, Roman Konitis. His father actually was a German pilot. We all got along very well. I mean, the kids got along. There was an incident where one of the mothers came down and called my mother the N word. And that wasn't very pretty. But as far as the kids concerned. Butch Olekski lived across the street from me. And mom and dad got along with them very well. Mr. and Mrs. Frito lived two doors. You know, we- You know, I played with the kids. We all played together. I mean, as I said Kerruish Park, which is now a park. All that was woods. And we took all the lawnmowers and cut us the baseball diamond. Andrew Agate and all these other guys, you know, we didn't- We didn't look at each other as color. We sled ride together. So was never no problems with us.

Dana Aritonovich [00:10:21] And so what do you remember being like the first music that you heard? Either that your parents were playing? Or that maybe you heard, you know, on the radio or on TV or something?

John Wilson [00:10:30] There was always from time. I guess I could. My first memory. My father played upright bass. And my mother sang with the Benny Moten Band. As I said, they were from Kansas. And when, you know, if you know anything about the music scene of the ’30s and the ’40s. Kansas City was the hub. So there was always music in our house. In fact, my mother and father really liked classical music. And so there was a mixture of classical music. As well as the music of the day. And then also on Sundays. All the spirituals from the great singers. Mahalia Jackson, that would always be played. And also the great Cleveland disc jockey. Who I understand is still living, Mary Holt. That was always in our home on Sunday from WABQ.

Dana Aritonovich [00:11:19] And what do you remember about the first record that maybe you went out of your way with your own money to buy?

John Wilson [00:11:26] The first record that I can actually remember that I actually went crazy over was 174th was having a street party. And this had to be about 1957, '58. And it was "Quarter to Three" by Gary U.S. Bonds. I would have killed to have a copy of that record.

Dana Aritonovich [00:11:46] And what was it about that record that appealed to you so much?

John Wilson [00:11:49] I'm sorry. It was the groove, the way it started out and just the whole beat. I mean, it drove me crazy.

Dana Aritonovich [00:11:59] And so when you started listening to this kind of music, this more popular music that was youth oriented, what did your parents think of that? Did they approve of that music?

John Wilson [00:12:08] Absolutely, they approved of it. And then, in fact, there was another person who was very flamboyant, who actually I ended up becoming friends with to this day. And the second song that drove me crazy was "Good Golly, Miss Molly." And Little Richard and I are friends to this day.

Dana Aritonovich [00:12:24] And how did you meet Little Richard?

John Wilson [00:12:27] Actually, his nephew who lives in Cleveland, and this is in the ’70s. He became our keyboard player. His name was Ron Penniman. And as everybody knows, Richard's real name is Richard Penniman. And so as we were traveling, I ended up meeting Little Richard. And we'd been friends for 30 years plus. Very good friends.

Dana Aritonovich [00:12:52] So where did you, like, you and your friends, where did you guys go to listen to music, either recorded music or live music?

John Wilson [00:12:59] Well, we're talking- We're still talking about. I was only eight years old in 1958. So it was either on radio. I would sit there. In fact, I was so taken by music and was playing it all the time. We had a little record player that you used to pick up and screw the legs in the bottom and sit in the room because our house was really small and my brothers and I lived in one bedroom. And dad actually put a jack, as I told you, he was an electrician. He made a jack in the back of the record player with a little pillow speaker that I could actually put and play the records and put under my pillow at night. And also he put a jack behind his radio. So when I would listen to WABQ or WJMO and I wouldn't wake up my brother, so I would put it on my pillow and listen to it. Huh.

Dana Aritonovich [00:13:43] That's pretty cool. And you mentioned WABQ and WJMO. Were those the main stations that you listened to?

John Wilson [00:13:52] Yes, because WHK we're talking about now from a period from 1958 to about 1961, '62, WHK Mad Daddy, who actually, as you listen to him, he had all these, like, bubbles in the back. He was in a cave. I would listen to him. Then Ken Hawkins at WJMO, '58, '59. Jockey John Slade. And they were the first remote that I had ever seen. They came over to the Lee-Harvard Shopping center. And that's the first time I ever saw a real live disc jockey. And that was Jockey John Slade and Ken Hawkins.

Dana Aritonovich [00:14:33] Cool. And what record stores did you go to?

John Wilson [00:14:39] There was a record store, the first one that I could ever remember going to was on Lee Road, right near Judson. Before you get to Harvard, it was a little tiny record store right there in the middle. But what I used to do, going to Beehive in elementary school, right on the corner of Lee and Miles, on the northeast corner was a drugstore called Sanford Drugs. And I used to go into that store because I was a school guard—a school crossing guard. And when I would get off, they had Hit Parader. And I used to go in there and look at the books and see what was number one, number two and number three. And then the record store was right up the street. And so I would go and look through the little bin. I can't remember who owned it at first. I know Mike Payne and Denver Wilborn owned it later. But I would look through there and look through the records. Coming home from Elliott or coming home from Kennedy.

Dana Aritonovich [00:15:38] So what other artists appeal to you? Like when you first, you know, when you were. You know, before you were 10 years old and you started listening to music, what other artists were your favorites at that time?

John Wilson [00:15:49] The Moonglows, "I Only Have Eyes for You," Teddy and the Twilights, of course, Little Richard. I'm trying to think. Who else was there? Oh, there was a group out of Youngstown around '57, '58. And I found out they were still in school, called the Students. "I'm So Young." What was the name of the song? And so those are the groups that I used to listen to up until about 10, 11 years old. Anything that came out now, I'm starting at that time. I'm really starting to take everything else. Frankie Avalon. In fact, there was a show which is a church now, it still exists on 131st and Miles, which was called the Avalon. And when the Beach Party movies came out, there was two reasons I would go to the Avalon. One was because to see the movie and also the girls. But I was more interested because the Frankie Avalon and that one of the killer movies had great soundtracks. And I could get to hear the songs, see the people who were making them. And so that's why I would go to the Avalon show.

Dana Aritonovich [00:17:04] And do you remember the first time you heard a Motown song?

John Wilson [00:17:10] Kind of, yeah. Okay, now we're about 1962. Right there on at the end of Tarkington, there's a school. It's Canaan Baptist Church now, but it used to be called Clara Tagg Brewer. And now I had just graduated because, see, I was a trumpet player, a classical trumpet player. I'd been playing since I was 6. And I was going back and forth to the school contests on the West Side. And I was winning it, like getting an A superior or excellent rating. My father would take me. But even though I was playing classical trumpet, I still like, you know, the rock and roll and. Hold on, please.

Dana Aritonovich [00:17:50] Okay, okay.

John Wilson [00:17:54] I'm sorry.

Dana Aritonovich [00:17:54] That's okay.

John Wilson [00:17:57] So they had the canteen. Now I'm 12 years old. They had the canteen there where you would pay 25 cents on Fridays and dance. And so they would play all the latest Motown. And I remember the first Motown song that I really, really liked was. Was "Two Lovers" and "I'm Not Ashamed," which was Mary Wells. And, of course, Smokey had just came out with "Shop Around." But at that time, I wasn't so much into Smokey. I was really into Mary Wells. "Two Lovers," "I Ain’t Ashamed." That really stands out was the first two Motown songs. I really, really was interested.

Dana Aritonovich [00:18:37] Okay.

John Wilson [00:18:41] And I take that back also, too. There was another group that a lot of people don't even realize was on Motown was the Monitors with "Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)."

Dana Aritonovich [00:18:49] Oh, okay. And do you remember the first live performance that you saw?

John Wilson [00:18:56] Absolutely.

Dana Aritonovich [00:18:57] And who was that?

John Wilson [00:18:57] Absolutely. I was probably around 16 years old. This is 1966 or 67. And I went to Leo's Casino and I saw the Temptations and the O'Jays battle on the same show with Flip Wilson, MC. I was 16 years old.

Dana Aritonovich [00:19:15] And what do you remember about that experience? What do you remember about the crowd and just the feeling that you got watching these bands?

John Wilson [00:19:23] Well, it was like. I mean, when I saw. First, I saw the O'Jays at the stage. They were first. And to see, you know, hear the excitement and the band and to see the groups and, you know, hear the harmonies and everything, I mean, totally. I mean, I'm blown away because now I'm seeing it for real. Even though I had had my group, which we'll talk about later, I had my group together four years at that time, but this is. Now I got a chance to see what it's real like. And then when I saw The Temptations come out, you know, and they had these great suits on and the girls were fainting and everything, I was totally blown away.

Dana Aritonovich [00:20:00] Well, since you brought up your own group, why don't we talk about how you came to start playing instruments? And you said that you played classical trumpet since you were six?

John Wilson [00:20:09] Yes.

Dana Aritonovich [00:20:09] Was that the first instrument that you picked up when you were a kid?

John Wilson [00:20:13] Yes.

Dana Aritonovich [00:20:13] Okay. And how did that progress for you musically? What did you play after that?

John Wilson [00:20:19] Well, from the age of six, I was encouraged to play an instrument. So I picked the trumpet. Actually I wanted to play the piano, but we couldn't afford a piano and we had really no place to put it. So I picked up the trumpet and played it all the way through elementary school. As I said, going to the different contests on the West Side in Cleveland and getting an excellent or superior rating in the solos I was playing. And then when I went to Elliot, I was 12 years old and I went into a class. Of course, when you go to elementary school, you're in one classroom all day long. But now you're going to different classes in junior high school. And I was sitting there and one friend that I had known, his name was Michael Johnstone. I had known since I was eight years old. He was sitting next to me and he knew another friend who was sitting next to him. His name had to be Irvin Holmes. And another guy named James Sizemore was sitting next to me. And I started humming this song going. And all of a sudden Jimmy started singing harmony. Michael came in and started singing harmony. And then Irvin, who was the bass, boom, boom, boom, boom. I said, wow. Turned around. We all looked each other and said we might have a group here. And so then we had another person who happened to be Don King's nephew. His name was Allen Edwards, who lived up the street from me. He was in another class and I knew that he may be able to sing. So I formed a group and it was called. We called ourselves the Impalas first and then we name changed it to the Tamalas T-A-M-A-L-A-S, Tam-A-Las. And we were all 12 years old. And then how we started singing in front of people was that in our math class we would finish early and one of the teachers found out that. That we could sing and she would let us sing at the end of the class. And I was all 12 years old.

Dana Aritonovich [00:22:23] And so what kind of stuff were you guys singing?

John Wilson [00:22:25] We were singing all the doo-wop stuff like "What's Your Name" by Don and Juan. That was the first song we ever learned as a group because Jimmy's brother, Ronald Sizemore, he had a little bit more experience. He was going to Thomas Edison at the time and he's like 2 or 3 years older than us. And his brother-in-law at the time had a group over in Adams. So we would go to Jimmy's house and Ronald would teach us how to, you know, harmonies, how to structure harmonies. And so we were singing songs like "What's Your Name?" "We Are Made as One." Things like that. That had a lot of harmony, like, a lot of doo-wop to it.

Dana Aritonovich [00:23:06] And then where'd you go on from there musically?

John Wilson [00:23:08] Well, then, you know, this is junior high school. And so we sang at Shaker-Lee Hall there on Lee Road. We started singing at parties. We started singing in Italian, you know. Well, that was from 12 to 15 years old. Then we started attending John F. Kennedy. So we kept the group going, and now we're singing at different parties. We're singing in school at the talent shows. And then the big talent show at WHK Auditorium there in Cleveland. Missed. Oh, golly. I can't remember her name, but there was a lady who used to give the talent shows there, the whole citywide. And basically, we won that talent show because our only competition that was not professional was a group called The Imperial Wonders. They went to Glenville, and that was our only competition. And basically we beat them out. They still talk about that show to this day.

Dana Aritonovich [00:24:04] Great. And that was when you were. You said about 12 to 15 years old. That was going on.

John Wilson [00:24:10] That went from 12. The group stayed together from 12 till about 19 years old.

Dana Aritonovich [00:24:15] Okay, 12 to 19. Okay.

John Wilson [00:24:16] That was about seven years.

Dana Aritonovich [00:24:18] Okay. And then what did you do after that?

John Wilson [00:24:23] Well, when we graduated, two of the guys left. Michael and. Well, actually Alan, who was Don King's nephew, had gotten into a little trouble, and he left. And he was replaced by Paul Woodall, which, you know, we'll talk about him later. And Paul Woodall came to the group at Kennedy. And after Kennedy, Paul left to go with the Out-Of-Sites, who was recorded on Saru Records. And Michael left, and he went to school down in Dayton. So he was replaced by Billy Kelso and Harold Beverly. And so we started performing at. We still called Tam-A-Las, but we were doing clubs around Cleveland at the time.

Dana Aritonovich [00:25:11] Okay, and what clubs did you perform in?

John Wilson [00:25:15] Specifically the Psychedelic Shack, which was on Euclid, the Continental Lounge, and then also again, Shaker-Lee Hall, because they used to have cabaret parties. So we were doing all, you know, like, nightclubs around Cleveland, the Red Carpet, stuff like that. And we were still called the Tam-A-Las.

Dana Aritonovich [00:25:36] Okay.

John Wilson [00:25:37] And that was. That was probably, like, 1969.

Dana Aritonovich [00:25:42] 1969. And did you ever perform. Excuse me. When there were, like, you know, major, like, national acts coming through, did you ever have any interaction in a professional way with, you know, anybody from Motown or anybody else coming through Cleveland?

John Wilson [00:25:58] No, not yet. Not as the Tam-A-Las. But we used to rehearse down at Leo's Casino sometimes. And especially when they would get Ms. Ross. That was her name. Ms. Ross would get these citywide talent shows, and then they would let us rehearse down at Leo's Casino. And I could never forget the feeling. I walk off stage and I said, I'm standing on the same stage that the Temptations and the O'Jays stood on. You know, here I am now, and I'm singing through the same sound system that Smokey Robinson and Jerry Butler and The Impressions were singing through.

Dana Aritonovich [00:26:36] What do you remember being the first song that kind of had a message, like a social message or something like overtly political?

John Wilson [00:26:47] Okay, I guess that would probably be. There's two songs that stand out now. We're getting into about 71 or 72, which was “Choice of Colors” by Curtis Mayfield and “Message from a Black Man” by The Temptations.

Dana Aritonovich [00:27:08] Okay, and what do you remember about that time that those songs came out?

John Wilson [00:27:16] Well, actually. Okay, the times. You know, I guess I say, and I was thinking about this the other day. I guess I'm lucky enough to be born in this time period that I was born because I watched civil rights take place. I remember when John F. Kennedy got killed. I remember when Martin Luther King got killed. And this whole country was basically turned inside out. The only people that basically could really get along with each other was the people in the music industry. I never met anybody. There was really no color barriers. Because, for example, the James Gang was from Cleveland. Carl Maduri. At one time, we were signed to him, and he had Wild Cherry. And there was. We would see each other, Davacy and the Choctaws, because Davacy was the only African American, American group, you know, and they were on the Big Five show. We would basically see each other all over the city. And we know there was nothing between us. We would kind of cheer each other on. So, you know, we were, you know, musically, we were saying, okay, “What’s Going On”? Like Marvin Gaye said, “What’s Going On”?

Dana Aritonovich [00:28:29] And so why do you think even, you know, even before, you know, the late '60s, when music was becoming a little bit more of a social force with, you know, like, Sly and the Family Stone and Marvin Gaye and people like that. Why do you think it didn't- We had the same issues going on in the '50s and early '60s. We had, you know, especially in the South, and we had segregation all over the country. And so why do you think it took- Maybe I should say it like this. What do you think the turning point was for artists, musical artists especially, that they finally decided that they needed to start speaking out through their music?

John Wilson [00:29:03] Well, I think it. Because finally, in the '60s, especially for African Americans, we said, we're tired. And I think for the whites, they said, okay, all right, we're tired. To the ones who really were tired because they saw that music wasn't stopping integration. And now with the television showing beatings and everything from the South now, people were. It was coming home. Now here also, too, you had the Vietnam War raging. So not only do you have songs of protest against racism, you have songs of protest against the war, because now it's out front. Do you mean to tell me that as soon as I graduate from high school, I got two choices as a man? Either I go to school or I go to Vietnam. Okay, so now I got to go to die for my country. But, you know, but when I come back, I can't even go and get a place to eat. Now, this is right in front of everybody's lap, because now television is showing. So now as music now, you know, the most powerful voice in the world is music. So now all of us are huddled together, black and white, and say, you know what? This has to stop. It's got to stop. Now we're brave enough to make this stuff, because now you're telling me now to fight a war. And now it's really hitting home with my friends, who. I have some friends from my neighborhood die in the war. I got drafted. I never got a chance to go, but, you know, that was facing me. So here, you know, I got a voice to speak out of this. And plus, remember the voting age at that time, before we stepped up and change, it was 21. And then we banded together in high school and said, listen, if we're going to go to war and die, we need to vote. And so that's why the voting age was changed to 18. We all got together. That's another thing that they really don't talk about, where all the high school kids got together all across the country and changed the voting age to 18 years old, because we figured if we could go to school, I mean, if we go to war and die in Vietnam, then we can vote.

Dana Aritonovich [00:31:18] And what about the, you know, you mentioned, you know, Black artists feeling like, you know, we're tired, we want to say something, and white artists kind of saying the same thing. I know there's a perception in. Especially in the early days of rock and roll about white artists kind of stealing this. This Black music. And a lot of people. A few other people I've interviewed recently have mentioned Elvis and a lot. There's a lot of controversy about, you know, Elvis being one of the people who really, you know, ripped off Black music. How do you. How do you feel? How do you look at that?

John Wilson [00:31:53] Well, see, I feel the same way. And I'm kind of. Okay, let me just say this. What I'm really upset about is not so much Elvis really ripping off the music. It's what actually happened when Elvis came out that nobody talks about now. And I have footage of this, and footage is probably available on YouTube and you can see it. If not, I'll run you a DVD.

Dana Aritonovich [00:32:18] Okay.

John Wilson [00:32:18] When Elvis first came out and. Excuse me. And I'm going to have to say the words in order to drive my point out.

Dana Aritonovich [00:32:24] Please do.

John Wilson [00:32:26] They called him a n----- lover. This was the white counterparts. They broke his records. And I remember one guy saying in an interview, he says, this guy Elvis has reduced himself to the animalistic music of the Negro. Now all of a sudden he starts selling records and he's. All of a sudden the white people say they can make money on him. And then all of a sudden he's the flavor and he's the king of rock and roll. Where his own people denounced him when he first came out. That's what I have a problem with, and that's what Little Richard is hollering and screaming about, is that he says, I was the architect and founder of this music. Which In a way, 90% of that is true. But he also has to acknowledge Big Joe Turner, Big Maybelle and Louis Jordan in the ’40s who was doing this music and rapping, which is a whole 'nother point later. But my point is that that's what I have a problem with Elvis because now he's the king of rock and roll. And now everybody's putting him on a pedestal and everybody else is. All the artists that he basically idolized went into obscurity or died penniless. Because. Also, because, for example, a person who wrote a lot of Elvis records was a very good friend of mine. His name is Ben Weisman. He passed away a little while ago. In fact, he did all the Blue and white. If you notice, Elvis never wrote any of his songs. None.

Dana Aritonovich [00:33:58] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:34:01] So, you know, and then, you know, he wouldn't even acknowledge that in the ’50s that his music actually and his influence become from Black people. In fact, he made the statement one Time he said, there's nothing a Black person could do for him but shine his shoes. So that's what I have a problem with. I have a problem. And see, now, if we go back further, people who fought for Black artist rights were like Frank Sinatra, who fought for Billie Holiday. He said, if I'm going to play this. This club with Billie Holiday, she's going to walk through that front door just like me. She's not going to come in the service elevator. So that problem had been existing for years. For example, I'll ask you a question. You heard of the Grand Ole Opry, right? I'm sorry.

Dana Aritonovich [00:34:48] Yes.

John Wilson [00:34:49] Okay. Do you know that actually that was named after a Black guy?

Dana Aritonovich [00:34:55] Oh, no, I didn't know. I never heard that.

John Wilson [00:34:57] When you- When you get through with the interview, Google "DeFord" - like the Ford car - DeFord Bailey.

Dana Aritonovich [00:35:04] Okay.

John Wilson [00:35:05] And he was actually- The Grand Ole Opry was named after him.

Dana Aritonovich [00:35:08] Huh?

John Wilson [00:35:09] And from 1927 to 1940.

Dana Aritonovich [00:35:12] Interesting.

John Wilson [00:35:13] Yeah, absolutely. So these are the things, like when you talk about Elvis, you know, I know I'm getting off the interview a little bit, but this is why, I guess everybody else you interviewed is saying this, because we were alive to see that and see the change and see him come. I remember when I first saw him on the Ed Sullivan Show, you know, and everybody was yelling and screaming to him. And then with Pat Boone ripping off Little Richard and not getting the credit. And "The Twist." Hank Ballard actually wrote "The Twist" and had it out first. But Dick Clark wanted. He saw these Black kids doing his dance, and they said, what is it? He said, "The Twist" and said. He says, get me a record. And he remembered that Hank Ballard had made a record called Twist and went and got Chubby Checker and cut it. But, you know, that's the real story of "The Twist." But see, these stories is like, what we were all upset about was that we were putting this music out, but we weren't getting the credit. And still to this day.

Dana Aritonovich [00:36:22] One thing about, like, the music business, too. I know even the white artists weren't always getting- At least, maybe they were getting credit, but they weren't getting paid either. I know the issue with actually making money from this music that, you know, that you're creating. Either you're producing it, you're writing it, you're singing it. Not a lot of people really got the money they deserved either. I know even, you know, a lot of the Motown artists didn't get the money because it was about the business. It really was. And it was about creating money for Berry Gordy or for, I mean, Sam Phillips. He sold Elvis, you know, for a very small amount of money. And he says he doesn't regret it. And in the minds of some people, that's strange because, you know, you would think that he'd want to hold on to somebody that has that kind of potential. What do you think about the way the music industry itself has treated. You know, this music is all. It all comes from Black roots. All of this music, you know, whatever direction has gone in. What do you think about the way the music industry treated its innovators?

John Wilson [00:37:23] First of all, okay, that's a very loaded question.

Dana Aritonovich [00:37:26] Yes, it is.

John Wilson [00:37:27] I'm gonna try to answer that. You know, it's short because that would take an hour. But first of all, I'm very upset. And any Black artist will tell you this. There's a difference to this day of how a white artist is treated and how a Black artist treated. Case in point, Dana, I have never seen you, but I take it that you are a white artist. Let's say I was going to put- I just found you, and you're doing rock. And I just found Beyoncé. Okay, she's not famous yet. I could take- I would go to a record company, let's say RCA. I would get 3 to $400,000 to produce you Beyoncé. I would get probably 50 or 60. That has been always true back then. And to this day, the white artists budgets have always been bigger. That's how come you see the white artists living in big homes, or even if they don't do any music anymore and they only had one hit, they have boats and they're living well. And that's with a good 90% of them. Not unless they took it and did it up in drugs or something. And so that is true the way the artists were treated. The second part of your question is that again with the innovators, like, for example, now, here's something that happened in Cleveland. This was told to me by Carl Gardner of the Coasters, also by Little Richard. See, I sit on the Truth in Music board. I am the baby of the group. On the board with me is Mary Wilson from the Supremes, Arlene Smith from the Chantels, Bowser, John Bauman from oh,

Dana Aritonovich [00:39:09] I was going to marry him when I was little.

John Wilson [00:39:11] Hello.

Dana Aritonovich [00:39:13] Oh, yeah, Bowser. He was my husband when I was a kid. I loved him.

John Wilson [00:39:16] All right, well, he's one of my best friends.

Dana Aritonovich [00:39:18] Oh, wow. Oh, my God, that's exciting.

John Wilson [00:39:21] To this day, in fact, what I'll do When I get it off, I'll email you a picture of the Truth in Music Board. I just got through. I just had lunch with him not too long ago.

Dana Aritonovich [00:39:29] Oh, wow.

John Wilson [00:39:30] Frank Maffei. Joe Terry of Danny and the Juniors, Beverly Lee from The Shirelles, Herb Cox from the Cleftones, Herb Reed from The Platters, and Carl Gardner from the Coasters. And we all lobbied in the House of Representatives artists rights. But I'm saying all this to say is that Carl Gardner told me that when they opened up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they had the big concert down at Cleveland Stadium, that all the old doo-wop acts that were on the show had to find their way to the stadium where the Paul McCartneys and all of them were limousined. Now, also, if you ever see a tape of that show, you'll notice that all the artists, from James Brown to Al Green who performed that show, all the R&B artists only did a half a song or one song, where all the rock artists did a whole song and two songs. This is the problem that all of us are having to this day. And all the old artists who I stand on their shoulders. Who. I just told you, that's on the Rock and Board, the Truth in Music Board, that's what they're very angry about, is that they built all this. For example, here's another example. Carl Gardner told me who was the last surviving member of the Coasters, who's very ill right now. You ever heard the play Smokey Joe’s Cafe?

Dana Aritonovich [00:40:55] Yeah. Yeah.

John Wilson [00:40:56] Okay. That's basically about him. And because the Coasters sang Smokey Joe’s Cafe, so he went to the opening and went back and basically went backstage and they told him to get the hell out of there. He says, well, I'm Carl Gardner. The play is about me. Well, who are you? I'm with the Coasters. We made the song first. He told him, get out of here. If that had been about the Four Seasons, and Frankie Valli walked in, you know, what's the name of the song? Brooklyn Boy. New Jersey—Jersey Boys.

Dana Aritonovich [00:41:30] Jersey Boys. Yeah. Yeah.

John Wilson [00:41:32] They would have treated him like royalty. These are the things that have been deeply rooted in the music industry for years. Just like Roy Acuff I just told you about DeFord Bailey. Roy Acuff lobbied until this day. He died just to get the Country Music Hall of Fame to even recognize DeFord Bailey because he was the cause of why the Grand Ole Opry even existed.

Dana Aritonovich [00:42:01] So, I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is the music industry itself still has these issues with racism and just in general, just not recognizing the people who. Who deserve the credit for this music. So on the other side, what do you think about the music fans themselves? What do you think the impact of this Black music, whether it's sung by Black artists or white artists? What do you think that has been on regular music fans as far as recognizing racial differences or in some cases, just ignoring it and just enjoying the music as music?

John Wilson [00:42:36] Okay, could you please rephrase that question, please?

Dana Aritonovich [00:42:40] So we were talking about racism that's still blatant in the music industry up to this day. And on the other side, what about the music fans? Do you think that music fans have been able to, throughout the years, overlook or just not really care about racial differences in the artists who are singing? And like I said, this is all Black music. In essence. Do you think that music fans have made more progress as far as being colorblind? I guess I can say it like that.

John Wilson [00:43:15] Yes and no. Okay, I'm gonna tell you two things that happened to me. Hopefully that'll answer the question.

Dana Aritonovich [00:43:20] Okay.

John Wilson [00:43:21] The first was as a producer, as you know, wait for me. Sly, Slick and Wicked. I produced some of some of the top acts in the world, from Janet Jackson to Barry White. One day I was in the studio producing a Japanese artist who ended up going gold on. This was about 20 years ago. And so I ended up producing a rock band that was actually from Greece. They were from Greece, grew up in New York, and came out here to Los Angeles. So after I finished producing them, the engineer's wife worked for a major record company. She came in and heard what I did and completely flipped out. Says, John, this is great. I said, well, you know, like to hear it. She says, well, why don't you let me take it to the RCA? And I said, okay. So I said, go back to Japan tomorrow. I said, if anything happens, let me know. So anyway, I went to Japan. I come back. She said, John, I'm so glad you came. You came back, because they really, really love the song and they want to have a meeting with you. I said, great. So I went. You know, as I went to the meeting, and I'm walking down the hall, I'm hearing the songs play, and I go into the conference room, and I'm talking with Joanna. As I'm getting ready to walk in the conference room, she said, John, they want to really sign this act. The act was called the Bronx.

Dana Aritonovich [00:44:50] Okay.

John Wilson [00:44:50] Okay. So I walked in and everybody looked, and I thought maybe my pants were unzipped the music, whole mood changed. So Joanne sat down and said, this is John Wilson and who produced the music. And one of the guys said, yeah, man, this is sound good. But you know, we just got through talking and we decided to pass on the project because our roster is full for this year. Joanne jumped up and said, what are you talking about? You just said that you wanted to sign a two year deal with him. And then one of the guys just came, asked me point blank. He said, well, look man, I'm just going to ask you point blank, where did a black guy like you learn to produce rock music like this? I said, well, actually I come from Cleveland, the home of rock and roll, and I know some of the James Gang and Joe Walsh and people like that, Donnie Iris. I said, so I thank you very much for your time. The group, when I told the group that they went back to New York and then I understand they went back to Greece, they said, they're completely out of business. They said, the business is like this, we don't want no part of them. The second thing that happened to me, there's a club here that used to be here called FM Station over in North Hollywood, which was an all-rock club. And somebody came over and asked me would I come over and listen to this band play. So I went over there and I'm sitting there with another friend. Basically I'm the only Black person. And this guy comes up to me and he says, I see you're in here, man. He says, this must be a completely different type of music for you. So. And this is like 10 years ago.

Dana Aritonovich [00:46:40] Oh, wow.

John Wilson [00:46:41] So I mean, so I had to sit down and educate and I said, you know, if there wasn't any Jimi Hendrix or no Chuck Berry, this wouldn't exist.

Dana Aritonovich [00:46:50] Mm.

John Wilson [00:46:51] So. So to say that I say in a lot of instances is that, yeah, it's a lot better now. But still it's still divided because just in, let's say gospel music, when you say gospel music, you're looking, it's Black music. But if you say Christian music, it's white music of God singing about God. So that division is still there. And all you have to do is turn on the TV or turn onto your X channel, you'll see Christian music, which is all Creed and all the white artists singing about God. But then you go gospel, you know, that's Kirk Franklin and all that. So it's still a division.

Dana Aritonovich [00:47:36] And do you think that that's the fault? Do you think the blame lay more with the music industry or with the fans or a combination for those kinds of divisions?

John Wilson [00:47:48] It's both.

Dana Aritonovich [00:47:49] Okay, it's both.

John Wilson [00:47:50] And again, the music industry. I mean, if you were doing country-western. And I produced you. They would look like me crazy if I walked into Nashville producing, you see? And that's the thing that we still have to overcome.

Dana Aritonovich [00:48:06] Well, you know, part of the version of this paper that I did back in the spring. And I wrote a lot about what was going on nationally. I was looking a lot at the Billboard charts. And how when Motown started becoming really, really popular. In about '64, Billboard changed their charts. And they got rid of the R&B category. And they made everything under the pop category. But that only lasted a little over a year. And they went back to having the divisions again.

John Wilson [00:48:34] Okay, I'm sorry.

Dana Aritonovich [00:48:35] No, go ahead, Go ahead.

John Wilson [00:48:36] I say how that started was basically with the Beatles. Because if you remember, before all that, let's say the Beatles, the British invasion in the Motown, there was really just one chart where Little Richard was on there with Perry Como. And Elvis was on there with Frank Sinatra. It was all one chart. But then when Motown started and started dominating the charts, because you have to remember that Motown actually had to change its album covers when it went down South, okay? Because, you know, the white teenagers didn't want their mothers to know that this was basically, you know, Black music they were listening to. And we have to thank them hiding that because they thought they were listening. Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons. That's what the parents thought that their parents would listen to. Len Barry, you know, 1, 2, 3, that type of thing. Not knowing that these were really Black artists. Righteous Brothers and all that. So then when the Beatles came on, that's when that chart split. So now they had to create a chart where it was R&B. Because basically, not only was the Motown dominating. But what we call the real soul charts. Where you had, you know, Joe Tex and Stax. You know, Sam and Dave and all that, they started dominating. So they had to split the charts up. And so now. Now you had the Jimi Hendrix come along. And they really didn't know what to do with him. Yeah, you know, and so now we really got to start splitting this chart up. Because, like Little Richard said, we can't have the little white girls running after us. Now, how that hit me in the face. Now, when Sly, Slick and Wicked, we played down in Morristown, Tennessee. And we were playing on the mountain. The crowd, of course, was integrated. Now, we're not talking in the '50s or '60s. We're talking about in the '70s, early '70s. So we played the club, and I went back- After we got through, we went back to the hotel room, and there were cops all lying all around the hotel with lights on. And I told Charles, who was Slick—I said, Slick. I said, charles, I said, man, what just happened? Is somebody breaking our rooms or something? He says, I don't know. Maybe we should go to the front desk. So we went to the front desk, said, excuse me, sir, did anybody get hurt? Did somebody break any rooms? He said, no. Said, well, why are these cops out here? You know, there's like three or four cop lights with their lights spinning. And he says, that's to keep your n-----s away from our white women.

Dana Aritonovich [00:51:13] And what did you think when you heard him just say that to you? Like that, right to your face?

John Wilson [00:51:17] What could we do?

Dana Aritonovich [00:51:18] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:51:18] And in fact, then we went on down into Alabama. I needed some toothpaste and, you know, and stuff. And deodorant I'm running low on. Because we used to leave home in January and come back in September. That's how long those tours were. And so I walked into the store in Birmingham, and I was looking for something. And the guy says, can I help you, boy? And I said, yeah, I'm looking for your toothpaste and everything. And he starts laughing. He said. He said, don't you know the blackest thing I serve in here is coffee?

Dana Aritonovich [00:51:47] Oh, my God.

John Wilson [00:51:52] Yeah.

Dana Aritonovich [00:51:54] And did you ever experience anything even close to that, you know, like in Cleveland? I mean, I know we were a very- It was a very, very segregated city. There was a lot of racism. It wasn't- It wasn't the same as in the South, but there was still a lot of people who were overtly racist. What do you remember about experiencing that kind of thing in Cleveland?

John Wilson [00:52:13] Well, you remember I said when I was playing in the woods over there, where the 271 is now, and I went there on McCracken, and the lady said, go back onto your own side. And plus, it was unheard of, which is totally different there in Cleveland now. It was unheard of for a Black family to live on the West Side.

Dana Aritonovich [00:52:31] Yeah, that's true.

John Wilson [00:52:32] It was completely Cuyahoga River separated, all that.

Dana Aritonovich [00:52:36] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:52:38] I didn't even know what it is to go to the West Side and start passing through on 71 and going to Columbus. Not even till I was grown.

Dana Aritonovich [00:52:50] And how old were you the first-

John Wilson [00:52:53] Time I went on there? I remember just going to the West Side just to chill in my 20s.

Dana Aritonovich [00:52:58] Oh, okay.

John Wilson [00:53:00] But I mean, you know, I was born and raised in Cleveland and that's a place we did only time that have. In fact, we used to watch Ghoulardi at night. And to us, Parma was born like a whole other country.

Dana Aritonovich [00:53:12] It is, right.

John Wilson [00:53:15] You know, I'm sorry.

Dana Aritonovich [00:53:17] No, no, you're fine, you're fine. Let's talk a little bit about sort of things that were happening that weren't necessarily musical in Cleveland at the time. What do you remember about- Part of the research that I, that I was doing the last couple weekends was looking at the riots, the Hough riots and Glenville riots. And what do you remember about that time? About maybe- I don't know if you were- I know you were probably playing music around that time when you were a teenager. What do you remember maybe your parents telling you about that or just something that you were hearing on your own about maybe the causes of the riots or the reactions to the riots?

John Wilson [00:53:56] It wasn't nothing our parents were telling us. We were right in the middle of all that.

Dana Aritonovich [00:54:00] Okay.

John Wilson [00:54:00] Because remember again, I remember when the guy blew up the Shaker police station, okay, and you know, again, racism was very blatant. It was in our faces. For example, my school, John F. Kennedy High School- And this is what's sad is that it was in the whole United States, it was rated number three. If we had have been all white, that would have made the papers all over. It wasn't even talked about. Mr. Mills is one. On one of our 20-year reunion, Mr. Mills spoke about it. John F. Kennedy High School placed highest, not in sports. Now we're not talking about sports, we're talking about academically. We placed number three in the nation for three or four years straight and nothing was said about it. Mr. Mills was the first Black principal of a high school. I had John F. Kennedy. And again we graduate. To this day, we've graduated more doctors, more lawyers, more professional people out of high school than any other high school in the country. John F. Kennedy was built to fail. They gave us because we would have went to Adams, but Adams was overcrowded. So they said, well, we're going to build this new high school. We know they're going to tear it up. But we did the exact opposite. So what I'm saying is that we knew what we were facing. I knew, you know, being pulled over by the police one night, it was snowing real bad and the police pulled me over, you know, told me to get out, emptied my glove compartment. I was all 16 years old. And started laughing and, you know, these white cops and said, we got better things to do than mess with you. Than to mess with you. So we knew that sooner or later, something had to give. Because, remember, we're watching the Vietnam War now. We're starting out. Why should we go and kill people? And plus, Muhammad Ali was very popular then. We're watching what he was going through.

Dana Aritonovich [00:55:59] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:56:00] You know, and so we're saying he was basically calling it straight out, says, you know, excuse me, I have to use the words again. Like, Muhammad Ali said, well, you know, no Viet Cong ever called me nigga.

Dana Aritonovich [00:56:10] Yep.

John Wilson [00:56:12] So he was saying, so we're watching him, and we're, you know, we're teenagers, and said, well, wait a minute. He's going to stand up and do. And do it. In fact, Muhammad, I got to meet him, and one of his daughters and his second wife were very good friends. Oh, wow. And so. And then I'm also had the chance to meet and hang out with Malcolm X's daughter.

Dana Aritonovich [00:56:32] Oh, that's interesting.

John Wilson [00:56:33] So I'm saying at the time, so we're seeing this powder keg. We're watching Vietnam erupt. We're watching our friends in our neighborhood get killed. We're watching, you know, our friends in our neighborhood coming back from Vietnam still messed up to this day, but yet still, you know, you want us to stay on the East Side of Cleveland, we can't come to the West Side. You know, we can't even come on certain parts of the East Side over there where they got the guy, Demjanjuk.

Dana Aritonovich [00:57:01] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:57:02] We couldn't even go into that part. And that was the East Side. Don't go on to Little Italy. Only reason I was one of the very few African - I say Blacks - that could go into Little Italy because Tony DiBenedetto, who owned DiBenedetto Construction, and Ray Calabrese, who managed the dance band, you know, the names tell the story. I could go in Little Italy with them, you know, and not get questioned. But don't let me go on to my own. And that's east Cleveland.

Dana Aritonovich [00:57:33] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:57:34] Or. Or Coventry. Don't go around Coventry. You can't go over there. You can't go into Shaker. So where can we go? Where can we go? So I knew sooner or later, something had to give. All of us did. But the thing is, as they say, we weren't going to go quietly into the, into that good night.

Dana Aritonovich [00:57:59] Yeah.

John Wilson [00:58:01] So something had to give. So I remember, you know, the powder keg and the boiling cake and, you know, Glenville riots. And, you know, and watching the riots going across America, sooner or later had to come to Cleveland. And then especially when Martin Luther King came over and spoke over a Kerruish Park. And I have footage of that on my 8-millimeter camera, which I transferred to DVD.

Dana Aritonovich [00:58:26] And what year was that that he spoke there?

John Wilson [00:58:28] 1968.

Dana Aritonovich [00:58:29] 1968, right.

John Wilson [00:58:31] '67 to '68. Right before he got killed.

Dana Aritonovich [00:58:33] Okay.

John Wilson [00:58:33] It was either '67 or '68.

Dana Aritonovich [00:58:37] One thing I'm glad you also mentioned Martin Luther King. Another part of my project, I do talk a lot about James Brown and the night that Martin Luther King was assassinated and James Brown was performing in Boston. And they were afraid, you know, because there were riots already even before he died. And they. They needed to make sure that people were going to stay. Well, Black people. They want to make sure the Black people stayed inside, of course. So they decided to make his. Well, the mayor asked him if he could, you know, put the concert on public television so that everybody would stay home and things could kind of stay calm and they didn't have, you know, major issues in Boston, at least that night. And I know somebody actually mentioned to me a couple weeks ago, and I. And I did read something in. In the Call and Post from- I think it was 19- It was during the Glenville riots about WABQ actually had to go to the FCC to get permission to stay on the air longer than they normally did. So they could kind of do a similar thing and kind of kind of keep a lid on. On any potential riots that could happen in Cleveland. Do you remember anything about that?

John Wilson [00:59:42] Yes, I do.

Dana Aritonovich [00:59:42] Okay, tell me, tell me what you think.

John Wilson [00:59:43] Yeah, because WABQ was, and I think it still is, a dawn-to-dusk station. And basically, who was one of the people and one of the programs that kept Cleveland quiet was Carl Stokes. And they had a program called Cleveland: NOW!

Dana Aritonovich [01:00:00] Okay.

John Wilson [01:00:01] And Cleveland: NOW! was where they were employing young African Americans, and they had little headquarters over in like, 105th and everything where you go to school. And when that happened, the people at Cleveland: NOW! and Carl Stokes basically kept Cleveland Quiet with WABQ, and that was Mike Payne. And J. J. Johnson was on the air then. And Mike Payne, who passed away about three or four years ago, he was the one, because Mike Payne was like a serious hero in Cleveland. And he went on the air and said everything and kept it all quiet. I remember that well. I remember that very well. Because again, Cleveland was getting ready to explode and did explode. Yeah, it did explode with the Fred "Ahmed" Evans case.

Dana Aritonovich [01:00:47] Yes. Actually, I was just Reading about that yesterday. What do you remember about that?

John Wilson [01:00:50] I remember that. That, again, they were tired. Okay, well, let me start with this. I don't know how true it is, but the story that I heard at the time of why this guy blew up the Shaker police station was that he was a Vietnam veteran and that he was trying to park a car, and the police came and gave him a hard time, and basically he snapped and he wired himself with explosives and went over there and blew it up. And he blew it up so bad that basically, on the original site, all that's there to this day is a tower. They built it across. Okay, so to answer your question. What was the question again? I'm sorry, I lost my train. Hello? Hello?

Dana Aritonovich [01:01:44] Yeah, I was just asking what. What you remember about. About the Evans case and. And the. The circumstances surrounding that.

John Wilson [01:01:50] Hello?

Dana Aritonovich [01:01:51] Can.

John Wilson [01:01:55] You.

Dana Aritonovich [01:01:58] Okay, okay. We were talking about the Ahmed Evans case and what you remember about that and blowing up the Shaker police station?

John Wilson [01:02:08] Okay. And so people were getting tired. And so I remember Fred "Ahmed" Evans, and this was one of the things that hurt Carl Stokes, because Fred "Ahmed" Evans was a Vietnam vet, and he was, I think, one of the heads, if he wasn't the head, but one of the heads of Cleveland: NOW!. Yes, yes. Okay. And so he just got tired and decided to put an abandoned car in the middle of the street. And when the police answered, they opened fire. They were tired. Tired of being oppressed. Tired that you can't do this, you can't do that. You know, again, there's certain parts of the city, even on the East Side, where was supposed to be, where we could go. There's certain parts that we couldn't even go in. So everybody got tired. Forget about being in Pepper Pike or again, or what they call Deep Shaker. Forget that. No, no Blacks own homes there. You know, you weren't even allowed to be there at night. So people just got tired. And I remember when Fred "Ahmed" Evans rioted, you know, and did that, and then the Black Panthers were also in Cleveland. Pretty heavy at that time, too. And something had to give. Something had to give.

Dana Aritonovich [01:03:22] And what do you remember about the Black Panthers involvement in any of that activity?

John Wilson [01:03:27] Well, I remember I had only met one of my friends, and I'm trying to remember his name as I talked to. He became a Black Panther and he went to Kennedy. Basically, they weren't as. Well, at least the Cleveland chapter wasn't like in Huey Newton, as they portrayed him to be, because what they were doing is distributing food. And you Know, you would get this government cheese. It would come in a block, I guess, you know, to feed people. You know, cheese would just clog up your heart. I mean, my mother had two big blocks of it. It's like putting two bricks together. It came in this cardboard box, and that's what the government would give you, cheese to eat. Isn't that insult?

Dana Aritonovich [01:04:04] Yeah, very much.

John Wilson [01:04:06] Right. And, you know, and so, you know, people were tired. I mean, you know, jobs. Yeah, the jobs were just beginning to start to move away. And then this government cheese. And the thing is these songs that everybody was singing, like, "What's Going On?" And, you know, everything is all still relevant to this day. You know, Lake Erie was polluted. People couldn't fish. You know, some of those people were fishing to eat. Yeah, but you couldn't fish in. You couldn't fish in Lake Erie. And again, you couldn't go on to the West Side. That was a. No, no, stay on your own side, on your own side of the fence. Something had to give. So, yeah, I remember those riots very well, and people just got tired. And people in our neighborhood were saying, yeah, you know, you know, go for it because we're tired. They understood the frustration.

Dana Aritonovich [01:04:59] Well, and that's something interesting, too, because, I mean, when I was looking at the newspaper coverage of the Hough and the Glenville riots, and when I looked at the Hough riots, I was looking at the Plain Dealer and at the Call and Post, and it's just so different the way they covered what happened before the riots. I mean, on the Call and Post, I was telling somebody yesterday about this. Every week there was a front page editorial about something. You know, basically what you were saying, something's going to happen, something's going, going to give. And they were kind of, you know, warning everybody, like, you know, we have to try to calm the situation down before it goes out of control. And I know there had been an incident like about a month before the riots with a young Black child. I don't know what neighborhood it was in. And there was some small thing going on that kind of looked like this, something's going to happen from this. But in the Plain Dealer, it just kind of all of a sudden the riots happen. It didn't seem like there was any lead, lead up to the riots, you know, and just looking at the difference in the way those two papers, I mean, and obviously there's going to be a difference. The way they covered the riots themselves wasn't too different. But, you know, everything that led up to it, it just seemed like In a Plain Dealer. It was a surprise to them.

John Wilson [01:06:06] Right, exactly. And this is what I'm saying. It's basically not only Cleveland, but across the whole country, everybody was turning a deaf ear to what we were trying to say. Now, Martin Luther King was saying that, John F. Kennedy was saying that. Robert Kennedy was saying it. You know, Muhammad Ali was definitely saying. And so was Malcolm X, but nobody was listening. Nobody. They said, well, you know, they'll calm down. They're just uppity and, you know, they'll calm down. But yet still, you know, as the television. See television and music again was playing a big part because now the artists are, you know, because the first thing people who listen to the radio is from age 12 to 18, okay, now age 12 to 18, you're becoming, you know, a young woman. You're becoming a young man. And with a young man, we're facing Vietnam. And but yet still, now it's really hitting home because the artists are saying, well, you know, you hear the records of Sly and the Family Stone and Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan, Hendrix is playing all this, playing the Star-Spangled Banner. Something's got to give because we cannot go to Vietnam and die. What did these Vietnamese ever do to us? They didn't attack us like Japan attack us. What did we do? And here I see my people, my kids, my friends coming back in body bags, you know, mentally messed up. And you're asking me to go and fight a war, which I kind of come back here. And physically, I remember when my mother got sick, we were playing down south, and this is in the ’70s. I took the Trailways back to Cleveland and we're stopping through Indiana, and it's still, you know, colored only sign in Indiana. So I knew, you know, something had to give in Cleveland. They were calling it the best location in the nation. But yet still. And getting back to the music is that Cleveland was the hub where everybody, all the record companies touched their artists and broke their records there. So something had to give. Something had to give musically, had to give in the community. It had to explode. And if you notice that the West Side was completely immune.

Dana Aritonovich [01:08:12] Yeah,

John Wilson [01:08:15] it all happened on the East Side. Because the West Side, there was no Blacks over there anyway. So, you know, let them go ahead and ride as long as they don't bring it over here. That's what they were saying. Yeah, you know, we can walk around freely as white people on the West Side. We can walk around real free again. They had us in holes. Are you there?

Dana Aritonovich [01:08:38] Yeah, yeah.

John Wilson [01:08:40] Hello?

Dana Aritonovich [01:08:40] Can you hear me? Hello. Okay.

John Wilson [01:08:50] Okay.

Dana Aritonovich [01:08:53] Part of what I'm. What I'm focusing on also is the role of young people in all this, because this music really was geared towards younger people. And it was really the first time in music that music was made for and by younger people. And I think that might have a lot to do with the fact that it did become, you know, a revolution. Even in the '50s, it was doing. Even though it wasn't talking about political things back then, it was political just by fact that, you know, Black kids and white kids were listening to the same stuff and just enjoying the music together. And then by the end of, you know, the '60s, when, you know, everything in the world is exploding and young people were the ones who kind of had to be, you know, the ones to stand up and say, you know, we're not going to take this anymore. And they were also young people were the ones blamed for all these riots as well. What do you think about the role of young people in making this music into something more than just something to dance to?

John Wilson [01:09:45] Well, actually, it started in the '40s. I have some recordings by Louis Jordan and Tympany Five about being drafted in World War II, which at that time would be young kids. But then the next record that I can think of in my head wasn't until the late '50s with Hill, with "Greetings, this is Uncle Sam." But there wasn't- I mean, the Vietnam War hadn't hit here yet. So to answer your question is that, yeah, the records were always there, but now with the television, because you remember now television played a big role as well as the music side of it, because now the people could put the music to a picture, to a face.

Dana Aritonovich [01:10:29] Okay.

John Wilson [01:10:30] Because, you know. You know, because in World War II, you actually had to go, you know, to a theater to see the newsreels.

Dana Aritonovich [01:10:36] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:10:37] And that. That's what they cut up and wanted you to see. But now it's in your home, as they say, it's in your home. And now that music is going along with. With what you're seeing on tv. Just like Marvin Gaye said he would have never wrote What's Going On if he didn't talk to his brother. His brother said, hey, man, I've been in the war. What's Going On? Yeah, I mean, I've been away. I've been away from the world. So my point now is hitting home. So now again, you're 16, 15, 16, 17 years old. You're looking at the prospect that you're going to be drafted as far as A male was concerned. You either got to go to go to school to keep you out of the war, or you're going. So now with. So now we're looking at the. Again, we're looking at the community, and Muhammad Ali is saying, we want to go. So now we're writing songs and saying, you know. You know, we don't want this war. We didn't start it. You're invading other people. You know, it's different than World War II, again, where we were attacked. That's a different ball game. But here we're going to dealing with another person's war that we don't know nothing about. And people are dying, you know, for what. What did they do to us? So now we're questioning. We started questioning the government. Why are you sending us off to die? With songs like He'll Be Back by The Players and, you know, Marvin Gaye. And now we're starting to get high and. Because we don't want to come back. And, you know, we're turning into junkies as soldiers because in order for us to deal with this reality in the field fighting, we got to turn to these drugs, you know, to keep us, you know, high. But now the drugs, the events are bringing the drugs home with them so they can cope with the war, and they're telling their friends the experiences. So now we're starting to experiment. Like Timothy Leary says, turn on, tune in, and drop out. You see? So that's. So now the songs are starting to enter, to get into our hearts and minds and saying, listen, we got to start questioning this system. That's when the system was really being questioned through the songs. What are we really doing here? What is going on here? Why are we being asked to die? Why. Why can't we as a people? We all got red blood. How come I got to sit in and I can't go to the West Side of Cleveland? How come I can't go and sit in a counter to eat? Now we're starting to question this, question this. And that's the first time in history that actually as. As people other than the American Indians stood up and said, wait a minute. Whoa. Stop. And that was through the music. Stop this. If you don't. This whole country is going to be torn apart because it's already torn apart with the racism and with the war effort. We're all marching. We stop this government. You're lying to us. That's when we really stand out. Kennedy. And then seeing Kennedy get assassinated, I think that was another thing. That hit home because I'll never forget that day. I was still in junior high school. It was about 1 o’clock in the afternoon when it came over the loudspeaker that Kennedy had got shot. Now we're saying, wait a minute. The only person I know got shot is Abraham Lincoln. But now it's hitting home. They say, wait a minute, what is going on? You mean to tell me now we were waiting to hear that somebody from another country shot Kennedy. But here's a man, a man, our own person, shot our president. And I never forget the eeriness and the stillness and how quiet everything was. It was eerie. You know, the whole country stopped. And so in the same now, not only did. And now here's a man the year before stopped us from going to World War III. Yeah, okay, but then here's something else happen. Now you kill him. Now the songs are starting to come hold. Now here goes Martin Luther. I mean, then goes Malcolm X. Yeah. So now we're really starting to look at around and so we're finding we're killing ourselves because they're killing the messengers, the people who are really talking about bringing this country and this world together. You're killing them off. Then I remember we were supposed to. Robert Kennedy was coming to Cleveland and John F. Kennedy High School marching band, we were supposed to play. And then Martin Luther King, King gets killed and we didn't get a chance. And now we're looking at each other and again we're saying, What’s Going On? John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, now Martin Luther King. What's happening? Then Kennedy gets killed, the other brother. Now we're really saying this. It's got to stop. It's got to stop. Just like, for example, ever seen the movie Tuskegee Airmen?

Dana Aritonovich [01:15:45] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:15:45] Okay, there's a great line in there where they're sitting in around the camp after they just got through saving, you know, the bombers' lives. Actually, my uncle by marriage was a Tuskegee Airman. And he says, you know his uncle, the guy says, I think it was Cuba Gooding Jr. Says, My uncle was in World War I. He was heavily decorated, fighting for his country. He came home to Mississippi with the medals on. And how did they thank him to lynch him? So my point is, is that all that is going? Because now even at home in our minds, this is what our parents always tell me to tell you. And I don't know if you ever heard this, but they would say, remember, you got to take three steps forward because they're going to Knock you two back.

Dana Aritonovich [01:16:30] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:16:30] Meaning the white- The white person will. And you got to be 10 times as better. Okay, so my point is. So through the music, we're saying, as I was saying earlier, we didn't look at each other as having any problems because there was some camaraderie there in the music industry. So now let's stop this madness. So the music was very important. I think it was the most important ingredient in stopping all this. But also causing the rise and say. And giving people enough courage to say, we're not taking this anymore. This is madness. This has to stop. So we started writing the songs. The Temptations and Curtis Mayfield and Sly and the Family Stone. We started writing these songs. Dylan saying, stop this. Just like the Beatles. The Beatles, when they came in, John Lennon started seeing all this stuff for himself. See, because remember, they're sitting in England, which is a little bit different. Ball game. But now they're hearing about this stuff. So they visit America and see this. That Black people cannot go and eat. And now here's something that's never really talked about that. Asian people were considered just cattle until 1965, until Johnson signed them, signed a bill, just said that they were now not cattle anymore.

Dana Aritonovich [01:18:02] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:18:03] And here's John Lennon, Mary, Yoko Ono, who knew this. So. And then being Native American, you know, is that. You know, that's the whole story in itself. So, you know, now you have. What's the song? Not America. Hey, what's the matter with you?

Dana Aritonovich [01:18:25] Oh, yeah, I know. I know that song.

John Wilson [01:18:26] The group, I think, well, "Come and Get Your Love." That was all Native American guy. I met the guy, I think he was a Cherokee that sang that. So we were on. And then not even talk about the Hispanic, the Mexicans with war and Malo and those guys, we were all saying, this has to stop. War is somebody else who they don't give credit. That was very influential in the music, with their music with the World Is A Ghetto, Deliver the Word All Day Music. That's another group. And I'll tell you, another group they don't talk about that was instrumental in Stop the Chi-Lites. They talk about Old Girl and Have You Seen Her. But they had great songs like “(For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People” for God's Sake. They wrote a lot of protest songs. So those were, you know, again, people, you know, got tired. And it was the music that basically made all the changes.

Dana Aritonovich [01:19:36] And what about a song like. Shortly after the Martin Luther King assassinated was when James Brown wrote “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud”. And what about. Do you remember the first time you heard that song in particular?

John Wilson [01:19:47] Yes.

Dana Aritonovich [01:19:48] And how did that make you feel? Because that was really the first time that somebody came out and said anything like that, let alone through a song.

John Wilson [01:19:54] Well, no, he actually wasn't the first. Well, yeah, Black and the Proud. But there was another song. There was two more songs that I said that was just as powerful. One was "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke.

Dana Aritonovich [01:20:06] Okay.

John Wilson [01:20:07] Okay. I was born by the river in a little tent and you don't know me by Ray Charles. Those were double. What you don't know me was a double entendre song.

Dana Aritonovich [01:20:19] Okay.

John Wilson [01:20:20] You know, you give your hand to me then you say goodbye. I watch you walk away with that unlucky guy. Oh, you never know how. You think you know me well, but you don't know me. He was really saying to a white person, you don't know me. I give your hand to you. I give my hand to you but then you take it back and then a chain. I was born by the river in a little tent, but just like the river I've been rolling in ever since, it's been a long time, a long time coming. But I know a change is going to come. That was the last song that Sam Cooke met. So to answer your question by being part of James Brown's First Family of Soul, which I am. Okay. You know, we were with James Brown from '72 to '74.

Dana Aritonovich [01:21:00] Wow.

John Wilson [01:21:01] And. And I'll send you email you the. The picture with all those together as being part of the Black artist song. I remember when I first heard that song “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud”. And actually the heat that he took because he was taking heat from Black people, which actually forced him to make that song because he was wearing his hair still processed up until that time, which, you know, which everybody else was playing wearing Afros. So basically they were telling him, you know, hey, man, what are you doing? You know, you have your hair processed and all this. And so he said he turned around and he made "Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud." The song had a profound impact on me and The Temptations. No matter how hard you try, you can't stop me now. You know, those songs, two songs really hit me hard and was hitting everybody else in the neighborhood hard because it was straight there. And the Impressions, if you had a choice of colors, which one would you choose? My brother, if there was no day or night, which one would you prefer to be? Right. And where I first saw that done was a group called Smoke, Heat and Fire that was playing at Leo's Casino. And they came with one white glove. They put on one white glove and one black glove. And they did a routine to that song that hit home with me real hard. Because one of the members, actually, that was in that group was Joe Pep, who became the leader of Undisputed Truth. Smiling faces sometimes, you know, pretend to be your friend.

Dana Aritonovich [01:22:38] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:22:40] So my point is that was really a protest song.

Dana Aritonovich [01:22:46] And what kind of impact do you think those songs had on the Black community beyond just being, you know, just being. Let me see how I can reword this. What those kind of songs obviously were. You know, it's different from singing Tutti Frutti, you know. And what. What role do you think that kind of message that those songs were putting out there? What. What did that kind of impact that have on. Not just on the Black community as far as, you know, being empowering and what about the rest of America? Do you think anybody else really had any kind of an awakening when they heard that. That Black artists were finally just coming out and saying, this is what we're thinking. Because people weren't really asking. I mean, Berry Gordy wouldn't even let his artists be openly political through song or even just in their private lives.

John Wilson [01:23:39] Well, that's not true. Because if you notice that for a while that songs like The Temptations and especially The Temptations were putting out a lot of protest songs along with. Because Marvin Gaye basically opened that floodgate up.

Dana Aritonovich [01:23:54] Oh, yeah.

John Wilson [01:23:55] You know, and then. And then the song "Dancing In The Street" by Martha and the Vandellas.

Dana Aritonovich [01:23:59] Yes.

John Wilson [01:23:59] People thought, you know, calling out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat? Actually, instead of being dancing the street, a dance party, basically, that song was interpreted by the Black community. Come on, babe, let's tear this place up. You know, let's tear this place up, you know, so we can get a change. So the white community, I think, was looking and said, wait a minute, hold on. These people are getting vocal now. It's not only the Black music, the R&B music is getting political and being vocal, but now Bob Dylan is. And now we got Sly and the Family Stone with interracial group. You know, they're saying, you know, you know, don't call me n-----, whitey. Don't call me whitey, n-----.

Dana Aritonovich [01:24:43] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:24:44] You know, releasing that song openly on the public. That's the first time that radio started playing, you know, as we say, four letter word songs.

Dana Aritonovich [01:24:54] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:24:55] So now the whole climate is changing, see? And so I think that the white America says, wait a minute, wait a minute. They're being vocal now. So there is some type of change. And then you had the leaders following suit. You had. Now the African American, Jesse Jackson, them are now starting to wear Afros and dashikis with peace medallions. And then the white kids are now rinsing their hair with vinegar and growing afros and turning their straight hair into Afros. That's how, if you want to make an Afro, just wash your hair in vinegar.

Dana Aritonovich [01:25:30] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:25:32] Okay. So now the white kids are wearing Afros. So now, you know, and you know, now they're banding together. Now here comes Woodstock, where you got almost a million people on a farmland saying, let's stop this madness. We're all together under one roof, living free love, you know, we're at this concert in protest of the war and stop the madness of racism. We're on this planet. And me personally, now, I've been around the world 18 times, visited every continent almost. I've been on every continent, rather, and made friends in other countries. And they asked me the questions, basically, you're asking. And I was just in Tokyo, you know, two weeks ago, and I got into this conversation with some artists and how I was growing up at that time. And then another big influence, you have to remember, that gave people hope, too, to change. This was a TV show called Soul Train.

Dana Aritonovich [01:26:39] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Wilson [01:26:40] Which we performed on in 1973. In fact, if you go to our website, you'll see it. There's a clip of it.

Dana Aritonovich [01:26:51] Oh, yeah, I'll look that up.

John Wilson [01:26:53] Okay, I'll send it to you. And so my point is that Soul Train, because we know the bandstand up there that time was very squeaky clean. But Soul Train got down to the nitty gritty. And everybody was watching it because it not only was a dance show, but it was a show where you could see the latest style, which, for example, if you see kids wearing Afro now, now they very. They have very little idea how that came about. When you're wearing an Afro, you see, and platform shoes, that meant that you stand taller than what you are. See, the meaning is being lost now, because now what we're talking about, I just got through doing a television interview earlier today on a local channel here and talking about where are the protest songs today? Protesting the Afghan War is because now it has become too sterile. And it's a good thing that the children do not have to go to war. You join to go to war now. But back then, we had no choice. So now the War, the Afghan War and the Iraq war was too sterile. It didn't hit home because these kids, these young men coming out of school now, they didn't have to go to school or didn't have to go to war. So now the Kanye West's and the Beyoncé's and the Christina Aguileras and the Britney Spears, where they should be making protest songs. Now here comes Theo now. He just did a remake of "A Change Gonna Come." But the thing is, where are the new protest songs? Where are the songs against the war? Where are the songs against the health care that we're getting? Like Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues," Curtis Mayfield, "We the People who are darker than blue." Where are these songs at? Now that's how come that Bush got away with what he got away with.

Dana Aritonovich [01:29:03] Absolutely.

John Wilson [01:29:04] Because the artist was not there to stop him.

Dana Aritonovich [01:29:08] And why do you think that is? I've actually talked about this with some, with a few other people about, you know, we have a lot of the same issues still going on, you know, especially with war and economic disparity between races and classes and how come young people are not as riled up these days as they were back then?

John Wilson [01:29:29] They orchestrated to keep us, because they saw what happened before with us. They see, as they say, the power of the people can be. And they needed to stop it. And first thing they had to do is stop the Black community. That's how come this is the first time within 15 or 20, let's say 20, 25 years that there has not been. Who is the Black leader now? Yeah, there is none. You know, you had the Martin Luther Kings, you had the Adam Clayton Powells, the Thurgood Marshalls. Where are they now? Jesse Jackson's not going to get in that fight. And Al Sharpton definitely is the wrong guy.

Dana Aritonovich [01:30:06] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:30:07] So they had to take away the leaders. The last one they had was he was. I didn't agree with him, but at least he was out there. And they definitely Farrakhan—he’s way off base. But again, there are no new leaders for the people now. Even Obama. Now, let me tell you, let me ask you this question to prove your point. What is the most significant event that has happened that is just as significant as Obama getting elected president? That has happened in the last 11 months. Something just as significant. And let me tell you, that event may be in your house right now.

Dana Aritonovich [01:30:46] Huh? Let me think. I don't-

John Wilson [01:30:49] Just to prove my point.

Dana Aritonovich [01:30:51] I, I don't, I don't know. I can't think of anything major that's happened in the past year. Besides that.

John Wilson [01:30:56] Something major and maybe even more major.

Dana Aritonovich [01:30:59] Huh. I don't- I really- I don't know. I don't know how to answer that.

John Wilson [01:31:04] Okay. Okay. In your purse maybe. Or maybe not. You may have a quarter now. You know, on quarters, they have, you know, the states, right?

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:15] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:31:16] Okay. Just in April, a new quarter was issued for the District of Columbia.

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:26] Okay.

John Wilson [01:31:26] You know who's on that quarter?

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:28] No.

John Wilson [01:31:29] Duke Ellington.

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:30] Really?

John Wilson [01:31:31] Absolutely. I have it. I wish I could put it through the phone and give it to you.

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:35] Wow. No, I didn't. I didn't even hear anything about that.

John Wilson [01:31:38] That's right. You can go Google it. Ellington is the first African American on money.

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:42] Wow.

John Wilson [01:31:43] And he's a music musician. And it's been kept real quiet. If that hadn't been, Frank Sinatra would have been all over there.

Dana Aritonovich [01:31:50] Oh, yeah.

John Wilson [01:31:52] I showed it to the people in Japan. They were floored because the Ellington family is a very good friend. Are very good friends of mine. And April called me when. When Obama signed it into law for them to. And I have one of the first minted ones that were given to you out of- [inaudible] Dana Aritonovich [01:32:09] That's amazing.

John Wilson [01:32:11] You see what I'm saying? So they have to keep these events down, just like Jimmy Carter just said. And Clinton said that there is serious racism against Obama.

Dana Aritonovich [01:32:21] Absolutely.

John Wilson [01:32:22] Right now, Carter said it two months ago on his 80th birthday. He said there is definitely a conspiracy of white people against Obama in the White House. And so Clinton said it a week later.

Dana Aritonovich [01:32:41] So in light of the fact that we still do have, you know, blatant racism and people who, you know, and like, we saw a lot of it this summer with Obama calling him a socialist and a communist and all these things, because they don't want to call him something else. They're using those words instead of calling him what they really want to call him, which, I mean, I think most people can agree that's, that's really what that whole, you know, all that stuff going on was really about, was just, you know, another way of calling him the N word without saying the N word.

John Wilson [01:33:11] Absolutely. So the music industry has now been geared. Don't talk about it.

Dana Aritonovich [01:33:18] Yes.

John Wilson [01:33:20] You know, because you see how when Kanye West came out, was it Kanye that came out against Bush?

Dana Aritonovich [01:33:25] Yeah. During Katrina.

John Wilson [01:33:26] Yeah, right. Exactly. And see what- You see what happened to him.

Dana Aritonovich [01:33:30] Yep.

John Wilson [01:33:31] Now let me tell you how. Even- Even though he became- He became a great president, he also did the same thing with Lyndon Johnson.

Dana Aritonovich [01:33:39] Yeah, he did.

John Wilson [01:33:40] He did it to Eartha Kitt. Because you know, Johnson owned all those television stations. When she spoke out against the war, Johnson said, I don't want to see that woman working anywhere anymore.

Dana Aritonovich [01:33:50] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:33:53] So again, you know, there's always been musicians who had the heart. And just like with Billie Holiday when she made "Strange Fruit."

Dana Aritonovich [01:34:03] Yes. I'm actually doing a project on that. I'm sorry, I'm actually going to be doing a project on that song.

John Wilson [01:34:09] Yeah. And, you know, you can actually see her doing it on YouTube, you know, and so to my point, she was one of the very first to ever speak out. You know, I mean, to speak out about it. And the way she got away with it because her manager, John Hammond, was white.

Dana Aritonovich [01:34:24] Yes.

John Wilson [01:34:27] You see what I'm saying? That's how she got away from it. And also who went to bat for her was Artie Shaw.

Dana Aritonovich [01:34:32] Oh, yeah.

John Wilson [01:34:33] So my point is, is that what we were tired of? Here's something else that we'll say. We were tired of a white person having to speak up for us that we have to have. So we said we have to stand our own. This is what James Brown was saying to in the song, you know, stand on your two feet.

Dana Aritonovich [01:34:52] I can get the door myself. Yep.

John Wilson [01:34:55] Open the door. I can get. You know, I don't need. I'll open the door. I'll get to get it myself. Absolutely. So this is what, you know, what was different than what was happening, you know, before us. Now, all of a sudden, now they saw what happened in the '60s and the '70s and they said, we can't have this. So they're taking the information and look what happened when Ice-T made "Cop Killer."

Dana Aritonovich [01:35:18] Oh, yes, I remember that.

John Wilson [01:35:20] But he was right. And look, the label threatened to do all kinds of things to him. It was death threats from the police against him. So now these young artists and Ice-T is now telling them what happened to him, they're scared, too. They don't want their careers, especially the money that they're making now.

Dana Aritonovich [01:35:38] Yeah. So even though we still do have these issues in the music industry and in society with racism, the music still obviously had some kind of an impact back then. Do you think there was a point when maybe. I don't know if it maybe had to do with, you know, the end of Vietnam and things just in general were changing and maybe calming down a little bit, especially, you know, as far as white people were concerned. They were mainly concerned about, you know, Vietnam. I mean, that's just my theory. What do you think? You know, was there a point in this popular music that this Black created popular music when maybe it stopped being. Being relevant socially or politically.

John Wilson [01:36:28] I don't think it ever stopped being relevant. One of the people who they also don't talk about, who actually spoke out against directly to a president was Stevie Wonder.

Dana Aritonovich [01:36:40] Yes.

John Wilson [01:36:41] With "You Haven’t Done Nothin,'" that was directed directly to Nixon. Okay? I think that, you know, everything is still relevant. Again, pose your question to me again, I'm getting off track here.

Dana Aritonovich [01:36:56] You know, since we do have- We have a Black president now, we have a more progressive society, you know, in general, we still have these racial issues, even though people might not want to identify them as racial issues. You know, like we talked about, you know, people calling Obama different names and, you know, and the music, especially in the late '60s, early '70s, was so charged, you know, with political messages and, and ideas of, you know, of unity and peace and all that. And then it changed, you know, in the '70s, you know, disco and there were other kinds of music that were just kind of, kind of bland almost. Do you think there was a point when the music stopped. Stopped being socially relevant? I guess is my question.

John Wilson [01:37:40] I don't think it stopped being socially relevant because even disco, which again was making us mad because they were trying to disarm the Black community, you know, with these disco records. That's why they say R&B hates disco because, you know, they were trying to water us down and calm us down.

Dana Aritonovich [01:37:59] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:38:00] But then, you know, when you had artists, you know, like Barry White and these other ones, you know, it didn't ever not become relevant. What they did is try to take the power against. Away from us. But now, now they've really done it because the artists are scared to speak out. This is supposed to be a free country. And here's a man, Kanye West speaks out about Katrina and they basically tell him to shut up. Well, this is a free country. Isn't it supposed to be freedom of speech?

Dana Aritonovich [01:38:30] And what do you think changed to cause that is it the industry itself became more afraid of for financial reasons?

John Wilson [01:38:38] Absolutely.

Dana Aritonovich [01:38:38] Okay.

John Wilson [01:38:39] And so became more afraid that, you know, we're going to get, you know, attacked like Warner Brothers was attacked with when Ice-T made “Cop Killer”. So they're saying don't do it. But still they never really stopped the artists because the artists were forcing it. But now the kids are making so much money, they said if you, you know, we, if you do this, you're going to stop that, that, that like Beyoncé and, and Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, who all of them command 1.2 or 2, 1.5 million dollars a night. They said if you don't do this, that money's going to stop. So now they're scared, which is sad because it's all a strategic move to stop it. Just like when Obama said his favorite group was Earth, Wind and Fire with Ralph Johnson and Philip Bailey and Verdine White. I know them very well and you know, even, you know, they had, they're real quiet now. Since Obama made it, the announcement that Earth, Wind and Fire was his favorite group, all of a sudden you don't hear too much about them now.

Dana Aritonovich [01:39:55] So what do you think the role of music and artists? What kind of obligation do you think they have to speak out on whatever issues are plaguing society?

John Wilson [01:40:08] I think they have a tremendous obligation because the only way, for example, I said this in Japan a couple of weeks ago in the seminar is that we may not speak the same language, but if I put that song on our heads and our feet are going to tap in rhythm, music is the most powerful force on this planet. And again, I produced in Japan, New Zealand, Africa. I produced on almost every part of this world. I just did 145-voice choir for peace where not only did I have the top American artists like George Clinton and Brian McKnight and Edgar Winter and Taylor Dayne, but I also had the top artists from around the world, the first time it's ever been done. And I had pressure put on me by the Chinese when I had David Lee, who was one of my best friend, who's from Taiwan, and I had Jane Zhang from China next to each other. And so the next day after I got through doing the course, the Chinese told me that they wanted me to block out David Lee from Jane Zhang. And I told him, I will be glad to do that, but I will go to Darius, who's the bureau chief of CNN, who's a friend of mine, and tell them that I want to talk about how I was told by the Chinese government to block out David Lee in the cause of peace and they backed off. Then the Israeli government came after me because I had Liel, 18 years old, the top singer from Israel next to Andy, who's I've known for over 20 years, who's a top Iranian artist. And I said the same thing to him. I said, so I'll go on CNN and tell them that the Israeli government, Israeli government wanted me to remove Andy from next to Liel in the cause of peace on a song.

Dana Aritonovich [01:42:10] Wow, okay.

John Wilson [01:42:13] And they still haven't released that song yet, huh? I had 140, including Patrick Swayze.

Dana Aritonovich [01:42:20] Oh, wow.

John Wilson [01:42:21] And Christina Applegate. This was right before Patrick got sick.

Dana Aritonovich [01:42:24] Oh.

John Wilson [01:42:25] And he was standing right in front of me. I have footage of him teasing me. As, you know, when they're doing the making of, he's teasing me. And when I, you know, and he's right in front of me, I'm directing him. I taught him the song. I'm directing it. And then when I finished, he gave me a big hug and brought me water. And he says, man, I'm so glad that you made me a part of this. Him and his wife. I have footage of that.

Dana Aritonovich [01:42:47] That's great.

John Wilson [01:42:48] So my point is, is that we have an obligation. Okay. I'll turn 60 years old this month. Okay. I don't know. I got more years behind me than I got in front of me now. And I'm trying to tell these young artists is that we have the. As recording artists and producers, we have the most powerful voice on this planet next to the powers that be. Basically, we have more power than them because we can reach through our music on YouTube and other MP3 files to anybody we need to get to in the world. And it's our responsibility to try to make peace in this planet and better understanding between people. I am the only president, I mean, only producer. Barring Quincy Jones, barring Babyface, David Foster. I'm the only artist to ever have hit records on artists and Vietnamese artists, Japanese artists, Chinese artists. And I did that for a reason. In order to try to make this a better planet and to knock down misunderstanding. I have friends in other countries that wouldn't even have a black best friend, otherwise wouldn’t even have the chance to interact with another Black person that I call best friends in other countries. In fact, I'll send you the link. The reason I came back from Tokyo earlier is because my best friend, who was the Iranian artist, his name is Andy, he sold 60 million CDs in the last two years.

Dana Aritonovich [01:44:24] Wow.

John Wilson [01:44:25] He asked me because he was playing here at the Kodak, the same place they do the Oscars, and he wanted me to perform “Stand by Me” on stage that he just did with Bon Jovi, and I did it. That's on YouTube right now. So my point is, is that as an artist and at 60 years old almost in a few weeks, that I have the ability to reach out to other people on this planet through my music. From a poor kid from the poor side of the tracks from Cleveland, to be able to go around the world 18 times now and reach other people and speak, you know, some Languages. I speak Japanese. I'm about 50% fluent. Something I thought I would never speak or interact with.

Dana Aritonovich [01:45:14] Yeah.

John Wilson [01:45:16] And just here's another thing, just to show you the power of Cleveland music. You know, Julio Iglesias, you know who that is, right?

Dana Aritonovich [01:45:23] Of course.

John Wilson [01:45:24] The person who managed him is a half black, half Japanese girl that grew up on 173rd that went to Kennedy.

Dana Aritonovich [01:45:30] Oh, wow.

John Wilson [01:45:31] Shirley Brooks, huh? He wouldn't make. Julio told me out of his mouth. He wouldn't make a move without Shirley Brooks.

Dana Aritonovich [01:45:40] Huh.

John Wilson [01:45:41] Responsible for his career.

Dana Aritonovich [01:45:42] Yeah. So what do you think that the legacy of this music that you've been part of your whole life, what do you think that the legacy is and should be if it isn't what you think it should be?

John Wilson [01:46:00] Say that to me again one more time, please.

Dana Aritonovich [01:46:02] What do you think the legacy of the music that you grew up with, the music that's been part of your life since you were a kid, what do you think the legacy of this Black-inspired and Black-created music is for either, you know. Well, in two parts. What's the legacy for the Black community in Cleveland and across the country, and what's the legacy just for humanity in general?

John Wilson [01:46:25] Well, I think the legacy is that we made a difference and we're trying to make a difference. And listen to what we said. We drew the map. The road is very easy. We made the map for you. All you have to do is follow the road.

Dana Aritonovich [01:46:39] Mm.

John Wilson [01:46:41] That's the legacy that we tried to do something and make a difference in this, a real difference, not talk about it. We made a difference and we were very vocal. Some of us lost their lives. Some aren't here anymore to speak up. But at least the ones that we still hear, they're able to talk about it, that we're lucky enough to have a voice. The legacy that we're leaving is to follow our map, follow our road. We gave you the map. We drew it. Just keep rolling with it. Keep on pushing, because sooner or later, a change has to come. Not it's going to come. It has to come.

Dana Aritonovich [01:47:16] Absolutely. And what do you wish young people today who don't know anything about this music, what do you wish they understood about the music of '50s, '60s, and '70s?

John Wilson [01:47:28] What we were really trying to say as the kids sample us to this day?

Dana Aritonovich [01:47:32] Yes, absolutely.

John Wilson [01:47:33] You know, they sample us and they don't know what really went into that music. For example, as I was saying, today, when we die, within the same 20 years, most of us will be gone 25 years. What they're not going to pick up. Or what they're missing now is what really went into making a song where you had, you know, 15, 20, 25 people, possibly on one song, all together on one mind to make that record, whether they be a hit or not, that is gone. Because some kid laying up in his bedroom with Pro Tools and a computer and making records and making millions of dollars, they're missing the whole art in the creative form. Who really spoke out about that recently was Alicia Keys. So my point is that please understand and try, because it's all there. The history is, especially with YouTube and everything. Everything is there. Now. Please listen to what we say. We left the roadmaps, we left the history. There's biographies and stuff that now, even more than was before, the media is there to look and understand what we were really trying to say and how it was done. That's what I want these people to understand. And yeah, it's great to be new and innovative, but be innovative in a positive way where it doesn't take away that this music is an art form. These were artists to the truest sense of the word. And we thought deep and we did it musically. And even when we performed it on stage, we lived it on stage. We were not afraid to say what we were doing on stage. Funkadelic is somebody else who they need to talk about with the songs, you know, “One Nation Under a Groove”.

Dana Aritonovich [01:49:34] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Wilson [01:49:35] Chocolate City.

Dana Aritonovich [01:49:35] Chocolate City is one of my favorite albums.

John Wilson [01:49:38] Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen to George Clinton, because George Clinton actually was in the choir that I produced, and him and I talked a long time. Listen to what we were saying or trying to say. Study us under a microscope “Deliver the Word,” like War said.

Dana Aritonovich [01:50:01] and so why do you think this music is still relevant? What is it about the music of that time that the people, the younger people like myself. What do you think is appealing and has. Like most of the people who are on the radio right now, we're not going to be listening to the music in 50 years. Why do you think we're still listening to that music that you grew up with?

John Wilson [01:50:25] Yeah, 50 years now. You know, the Motown and. Because it was what we were seeing, the rhythms, the way it was recorded, you know, where there was no computer. Computers where you had a person playing bass and guitar and playing pretty chord changes and jazz chord changes. Because remember those people. You saw the movie, the DVD, Standing in the Shadows, right?

Dana Aritonovich [01:50:48] Oh, yes.

John Wilson [01:50:49] Okay. You see, they were actually jazz musicians who pulled from Ellington and Basie and played with those guys and knew about music and chord structures. We were new. The guy who taught me about harmonies were Walter Williams and Eddie Levert, William Powell, the O’Jays. He taught me the intricacies of harmonies, you know, and where they got it from. Like Walt said, I got it from the Cadillacs and from the Flamingos, you know. And so we studied these people and knew now, because a guy has Pro Tools or Cakewalk, it's all gone. It's gone. To know what a producer does, to bring a bunch of people together and from scratch, make a song that is meaningful and writing the lyrics and looking around not at this paycheck, but look at that about home health care, people still living on the street. That's what has to happen. You know, you have to look, like Marvin Gaye said, look around and say “What’s Going On”? And then write about it, sing about it on the stage. So what if the record company says they're not going to put it out? Still do it on stage. Stage. Still do it.

Dana Aritonovich [01:52:03] Are there any artists out there who are performing today that you know, who. Who you think are trying to get a message like that out there?

John Wilson [01:52:11] I think there's only one artist that will be around that's out there. Now, I have great respect for Alicia Keys, okay? I think that she will be the one that will basically take it under her and say, you know what? There's something I gotta say.

Dana Aritonovich [01:52:27] Okay?

John Wilson [01:52:29] She will probably get tired of doing the same old stuff that started. I just feel that I may not be around to see it, but I feel that she will be the one that will probably take the reins and say, okay, enough of this cutesy stuff. Let's get down to the meat.

Dana Aritonovich [01:52:49] Interesting. Okay, well, you know, I think that's all the questions I have for you about this topic, but I would actually like to interview you a second time to talk to you more about Sly, Slick and Wicked and everything that you did after 1971, which my paper ends in 1971 with “What’s Going On”. That's why I end it then. But I would like to interview you a second time and talk more about the other part of the career that came, because it sounds like you have a lot to say. You've given me, like, eight pages of notes and lots of great quotes, and you are really helping me prove my point here. So if it's okay if I can call you back another time, we can talk about the other part of your career as well.

John Wilson [01:53:29] Just let me know when I'm ready.

Dana Aritonovich [01:53:31] Absolutely. Thank you. John. This has been amazing. This has been a great conversation. Very enlightening. Wow. This is great.

John Wilson [01:53:39] Anytime. I'm really happy that I can help. And I'm looking forward to doing the second one.

Dana Aritonovich [01:53:44] Absolutely. And thank you again for all the links that you sent me earlier, the YouTube clips and all the names and stuff. It's been. You don't even know how helpful that's been. It's been great.

John Wilson [01:53:54] You're welcome. Just let me know what you need and I'll send more.

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