. . . what a scene we made . . .
In April, John's mom started tripping again. She was calling my mom nearly every day trying to get me to talk John into coming home and singing gospel songs at the church. I guess Sister Williams figured that if she couldn't stop John from pursuing a singing career, she would at least try to control what he sang about and who he sang to.
I told my mother, “John doesn't want to sing gospel. It's too limiting. He wants a much larger audience than that.”
She said, “Well, how large does he want it to be?”
I thought about that for a second. “I guess as large as he can get. And you know, some people don't listen to gospel music like that. Especially young people. John's trying to compete with rap music.”
My mom said, “Yuck. That ain't much to compete with.”
I didn't respond to that. We were from different eras. My mother grew up in the soul and disco era with my father, aunts, and uncles. I grew up listening to hip-hop and R&B with my brothers and cousins, and the times had changed. I figured that John and Tony had it right. If you wanted an audience in the nineties, then you had to compete with the music of the day, and not of yesterday.
“Well, how close is John to signing a record deal?” my mother asked me.
I said, “He's real close. We have another meeting this coming Monday up in Philly. We just haven't found the right people yet.”
“Well, how hard is that?”
I smiled. My mom made it sound as if getting a record deal was like finding a box of cereal at the grocery store, and it wasn't that simple. You don't just find it and grab it, you have to talk it all out. Or at least that's how I thought.
I said, “If you don't want to end up complaining about your deal like a lot of other musicians do, then it's real hard. But if you just want to make records and get jerked around, then John could have been signed last winter.”
My mother chuckled. She said, “Well, all right then. I wish you all luck. And by the way, how's your track season going?” she asked me.
I got excited about my progress and said, “I finally made the quarter-mile relay team. And we start our spring workouts for football soon, so I'll be ready for it.
“This'll be my break-out season this year, Mom,” I told her. “I can feel it!”
She said, “Well, all right! That's the spirit. You'll make it. You just had to be patient, that's all.”
I hung up the phone with my mom and felt good about my future. John's future was another thing altogether. I was pressed to get him signed because I wanted to start getting myself mentally ready to play football. Of course, John and Tony were pressed because they wanted to be signed already and working on that first big album. They had been telling me about this independent Philadelphia label called Old School Records, who had been signing a lot of innovative rap guys, and they were now looking to compete in the market with a fresh R&B act. I liked their label name because John and Tony were definitely old-school, but everything else had to be worked out.
I flew up to Philly Sunday afternoon for our meeting at eleven o'clock that Monday morning. I was planning to hang out with John and Tony that Sunday night and just kick it like old friends. I figured we would talk about the music when it came up. We had plenty of time for that. But they picked me up from the Philadelphia airport and immediately started talking about meeting the label's A&R man and marketing director. A&Rs were the artists and repertoire people, who were supposed to know great acts when they heard them. They were the gatekeepers to stardom in the music industry, similar to scouts in pro sports.
“They're two cool white boys,” John and Tony told me.
I looked at them and said, “Two white boys?”
We had mostly dealt with black A&Rs up to that point. I just figured that black people knew how to listen to black music. And of course, white people had the money to market it, sell it, and give out awards. But I was from the South, so what did I know about white guys up in Philly? Nothing.
Tony said, “Yeah, these white boys are cool, man. Kenny Klein and Matt Duggins. They even call them Double K and M.D.”
I grinned and shook my head from the passenger seat of Tony's old van. John sat in the back on a milk crate.
I said, “I guess I'll meet these guys tomorrow then.”
John just smiled at me for some reason.
Tony said, “Naw, you gon' meet 'em tonight.”
“I am?”
John said, “Yeah, we all meetin' up down South Street.”
“The one that Boyz II Men sang about?”
They both smiled at me and said, “Yeah.”
What could I say? I shrugged my shoulders and said, “All right then.”
First we dropped my things off at Tony's apartment, a large two-bedroom pad near downtown. At least John wasn't cramped there. But they had magazines and music equipment all over the place.
I said, “So what do your neighbors say when you two start blasting the music in here?”
John chuckled and answered me first.
He said, “We worked out a system of using headphones.”
“But what about the drums? You can't use headphones for that.”
Tony said, “I use a drum machine now. I mean, I still create off the drums, but then I copy the beats onto a drum pad. Them engineer guys said that you can do a lot more with the different levels that way. And then we just loop it and add shit while John does his thing on the keyboard.”
John looked at me and nodded. He said,“We know what we doing now, D. We got a lot of different things we want to do now. The headphones let you hear it better.”
Tony said, “Don't get us wrong. I mean, you still want to hear the shit pump out the speakers. But if you really want to create music that hits, you gotta do it through the headphones like them engineers do.”
I said, “So you two living together was a good idea then.”
Tony said, “It had to happen that way. You can't really keep a connection going from long distance. That's like having a long-distance girlfriend. You know you gon' fuck other girls. That shit don't work. It's torture.”
We all laughed about it before we left out for South Street.
Since Tony lived so close by, we went ahead and walked down. It was pretty lively that night, even on a Sunday.
Philly's South Street reminded me of that old Whodini song, The Freaks Come Out at Night. It was wild down there!
We met Double K and M.D. at this steak and cheese place, and both of them wore black baseball hats withOLD SCHOOL RECORDS on them in white script with red trim.
“What's up, D? We hear that you're the man to impress. My name's Matt.”
He stuck his hand out to me. I shook it and smiled.
“M.D.?” I asked him.
He said, “Yeah, ya heard about me?”
I said, “I heard of you.”
The other guy said, “And I'm Kenny.”
“Double K?” I asked.
“That's me.”
I could tell that these guys had been hanging out for a while. They looked damned near like family, both with that cool, white-boy movie look. They were the kind of cool white guys who got all of the blondes. Kenny was just a little shorter than Matt. So I figured that would be how I would tell the two of them apart, short and tall, A&R and marketing, respectively.
Double K said, “So I guess you know that your boy John is very talented.”
“Yeah, and with a name like Loverboy, I told him that I can't let him around my lady. She might start gettin' ideas,” M.D. added.
I smiled and chuckled at it. John and Tony just sat back and listened.
Double K said, “He reminds me of a new-school Marvin Gaye, or Teddy Pendergrass.”
“ Definitely the passion of Teddy Pendergrass, and the creative soul of Marvin Gaye,” M.D. finished.
Double K said, “This new song even has a Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown–like attitude.”
“Yeah, but the tag is just so much better. Loverboy, ” M.D. said with his hands up. “I can do lots with that! Aw man, I'm telling you! ”
John and Tony started laughing in the background.
I said, “What do you think about a video for the song? Stylin' 'n' Pro-filin', right?” I was throwing my cards on the table to let those guys know that I meant real business and was not interested in all that slick talk that they were doing. But they were good at it. I gave them that.
M.D. spoke first this time. That was his field.
He said, “At Old School Records, we like to do things old-school. And we love videos like everyone else, but so much is wasted out there, man.”
Double K said, “Some labels are spending close to a half a million dollars.”
“And a lot of their videos don't even look like shit,” Tony added from the background.
“So we want to take this thing right back to where it all begins,” M.D. told me. He paused for a beat and said, “At the nightclubs. I think that a lot of people have forgotten that. So we want to produce a cheap, quality video with John singing at the nightclub to a hot number who keeps ignoring him. Now, what guy can't relate to that?
“It's a simple formula of success,” he said. “Either you've got it or you don't. And we're not out to spend a couple of million dollars to find that out.”
Double K added, “And we're just being honest about that. John has it. So we want to market him in the most economical way and let his talent do the rest. That's what this thing is all about. We have these major labels manufacturing stars now, and that's a trend that we're not trying to follow.”
I said, “Yeah, but he still needs the money, right, to get his talent out there?” I wasn't going to let those guys tell us that John didn't need any money to market and promote, no matter how old-school they were.
M.D. said, “Yeah, we're gonna use what it takes. I mean, don't get us wrong, we're not talking about free cheese here. But we're just looking for real talent,” he told me. “That's what being old-school means to us. And those guys who manufacture their talents—they create 'em in Frankenstein's lab, package them, sell them, and then the next year they're out looking for new toys to play with, while your guy gets tossed in the old toy chest.”
Double K said, “And the majors all have those old toy chests, D. It's out with the old, and in with the new. But when you're poor like us, you really value every toy that you get.”
“Yeah, but we're not that poor, Kenny,” M.D. said and laughed. “We don't want D thinking that we don't have any money to produce these guys.”
We all laughed at that.
M.D. said, “But that's what we do. We value our artists. We work the clubs. We work the streets. We get you played on the radio. We get your videos played. And we do our job one hundred and ten percent. And if John does his part at even ninety percent, then we get our two hundred percent of success.”
M.D. looked me right in my eyes and said, “Now D, you tell me, and I want you to be honest about this. Does John have what it takes to be a star, or what?”
I froze and looked back at John.
He smiled and started laughing like it was all a big joke.
I turned back and said, “Hell yeah! That boy's a genius.”
Double K said, “Well then, you have nothing to worry about.”
“And that's exactly what we want to hear from you,” M.D. finished for him.
“As long as it's the truth, ” Double K added.
“Yeah, because we're not into the gimmick music game,” M.D. told me.
Double K said, “As a matter of fact, we don't even sign artists that we have to go out and find producers for. Most of our artists produce their own music. We just give them the studio time and the expertise to do it.”
M.D. shook his head and said, “Outside production can be a real pain in the ass. And it's expensive too. Some of these producers are asking for a hundred thousand dollars a song.”
“That's also how a lot of artists lose out on their royalties,” Double K said. “They end up not owning anything, with plenty of bills to pay.”
“That won't happen to us,” Tony spoke up.
John wasn't saying much of anything.
I asked, “Well, how many points does he get on his albums?”
M.D. said, “Hey, man, we'll talk about that tomorrow. We don't rape our artists, so we won't be asking you to take your clothes off or anything. But you're going over my head on that. You'll have to ask the Big Cheese.”
Double K smiled and said, “The Big Cheese is pretty reasonable.”
I said, “Well, how many years do you want to sign him for? Or how many albums, I should say?”
“That's the Big Cheese there too,” M.D. told me. “But we'd like to sign him for twenty years if he'll last that long.”
Double K looked at John and said, “You think you'll last that long, John? That's a whole lot of lovin'. Maybe you'll go after Wilt Chamberlain's number.”
We all laughed again.
John said, “That's a whole lot of years, man. I hope I can last that long. That's like Frank Sinatra and James Brown.”
M.D. said, “Well, who does it better, baby? Old Blue Eyes, and the hardestworking man in showbiz, James Brown. Those are two great performers.”
Double K said, “Nah, the Big Cheese generally tries to sign guys for three to five years. You get some labels that want to own you, but we want to make sure that you're happy with us. We don't want to be a pain in the ass to you—”
“And we don't want you being a pain in the ass to us,” M.D. finished again. “And if it's not working, we want a fair split. But our artists are all pretty happy with us.”
Tony nodded his head and said, “Yeah, they are. They all say that you're fair, and that you don't get in the way.”
“Hey, in this business, that's like saying that you're a saint, ” M.D. joked.
Double K said, “But D, since you're the man to talk to, what else would you like to ask us as far as the musical and marketing direction is concerned?”
I thought about it and asked, “What do you guys think about the song May I? ”
M.D. said, “We love it! We'd like to make that our second single, and push it for the urban classic stations and the late-night quiet storms. So we'd drop the club song first, and then push the love song. Isn't that what we all go to the clubs to do anyway, to fall in love? I mean, at least for a couple of nights or so. Then we go and try a new club.”
We all broke out laughing again.
M.D. said, “But just don't tell my girl that I said that.”
I said, “Okay, well, what about the title of this first album, and the amount of songs on it?”
I was making up anything to ask them at that point just to see how much these guys had thought about the entire package.
M.D. said, “Well, first off, we don't believe in putting twenty cuts of mostly bullshit on an album. And if you have that many songs that are bonafide hits, then we can save some of them and put a few songs on movie sound tracks to increase your exposure.”
Double K nodded and said, “Yeah. It's a big waste. And by the time you even do twenty songs, some of them are gonna sound alike anyways. It's better to go away, experience some new things, and come back with some new sounds for the next album. That way you're always fresh without burning yourself out.”
M.D. said, “Unless you're doing a sound track, a compilation album, or a greatest hits or something, twelve to fifteen songs are enough for one artist. And as far as the album title is concerned? Are you kidding me? Loverboy: The Album. It's just that simple.”
Double K nodded his head and said, “Yeah. That simple.”
Tony said, “ I like it.”
I looked back at John.
John smiled and nodded himself. He said, “It's like an introduction album. It builds the Loverboy name. It works, man. Then we can get creative on the next one.”
“Anything else, D?” M.D. asked me. I could see by then that Matt Duggins was the more aggressive counterpuncher, as he should be in marketing. Kenny Klein was more reserved in the lead as the A&R.
I asked, “When would the album come out?”
M.D. answered, “This fall. We work the first single for the summer, and then drop the album in October.”
“ At Midnight would be my next choice for the winter season after May I ,” Double K said. “People like to get warm. Then we could drop another up-tempo song for early next year.”
Those white boys meant business! Four singles! They had thought of everything. And I had to admit it, the two of them working together were hard to beat. I needed to rest my damn brain from them.
I finally said, “All right, well, that's enough questions for tonight. I'll save the rest for the Big Cheese.”
“Well, all right!” M.D. said, celebrating. “Have you ever had a cheese steak before, Darin?”
I said, “Yeah, when we were up here in January at the Philadelphia Music-Conference.”
“Did you like it?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, get ready to have another one on us.”
When we separated, around 1A.M. that night, to get rest for our meeting in the morning, Tony looked at me and asked, “So what do you think?”
I joked and said, “Did you practice that whole thing with those guys before I came up here?”
Tony and John both laughed at me.
Tony said, “Naw, man, that's just the way they are. They usually talk to us for, like, three hours and shit. After a while I'm like, ‘I wish these white boys would shut the fuck up. God damn! ’ But they just cool like that, man. And you can't manufacture cool either. They know what the fuck they talking about.”
John just smiled and nodded, playing Mr. Smooth in the background. I guess he was trying not to let it all faze him.
I said, “So what do you think about it, John?”
John paused. He said, “I'm just ready to do my thing, man. And they're white, but they just seem like the right guys to do it with. This ain't about race, man. This is about business. They're ready to move on it right now, and we're ready to move on it right now.”
Tony said, “Yeah, because when they first started talking that October shit to us, I was thinking, Can they really put an album out that fast with all the marketing and stuff that we need to do? And they basically broke it down and said that it depends on us. Could we finish an album in a month? I said, ‘Damn right! I got plenty of beats. And John can write a new song in an hour.’ Plus they have contacts with other musicians that we could use to collaborate on anything that we needed.”
John said, “It took us a while to take them seriously, because we were thinking about getting a big money deal with the majors. But after sitting down for the deals, and all of them were talking that little-fish-in-a-big-pond shit, we decided that being a big fish in the little pond could make us expert swimmers. You know what I mean, D? Because like they said, it's all about pushing your talent, man. And me and Tony already know that we can get down. We just need an opportunity.”
I nodded my head and felt pretty satisfied with things myself. Those white guys had said everything I needed to hear, and the only thing left to do was to hear the final numbers from the “Big Cheese,” as they called their boss.
I said, “Well, let's sleep on it and see about it in the morning.”
Tony said, “Yeah, and the lawyer said that he'd meet us there in the morning.”
I frowned at that. I still didn't trust that guy from Atlanta, who was talking percentages on us. I was hoping that we could just take the contract to someone else for counsel and bring it back.
When John and I were ready to crash back at the apartment that night, he smiled at me again.
“What?” I asked him.
He said, “How is track season going?”
“My split in the four-by-one dropped below ten seconds in our home meet yesterday. And I think I might be able to run a four-four forty this year in football,” I told him.
He nodded. “That's pro speed.”
I smiled and said, “I know.”
Then John started laughing, as if he had a joke in mind.
I said, “What's so damn funny, man? You've been acting silly all damn night.”
He said, “Nothing. I'm just thinking about tomorrow. It's contract time.”
John sounded pretty confident that this would be the one, and I couldn't find a reason to argue against it. The sooner he signed a deal, the better off we would all be.
I said, “All right then. Now you get to show and prove.”
John couldn't stop smiling all night. He was probably smiling in his sleep. And with all of that pure talent that he had, I was just amazed that he trusted so much to me.
At our meeting that Monday morning, I was the only fool wearing a suit and a tie again. Even the Big Cheese and his black lawyer were dressed casually. And our lawyer hadn't made the trip up from Atlanta on time to make the meeting. But none of us were nervous without him. We just went ahead and did what we needed to do. We knew what most of the terms were by then.
We met inside of their studio building on Delaware Avenue. They may have been called Old School Records, but they surely had all new equipment. But they tried to keep an old-fashioned look to the place, leaving the studio pretty much like a big warehouse, like you would see in old movies about musicians. I guess the acoustics of the music would sound more live that way, too.
Anyway, we talked about the length of the record deal, and we decided to push for a short contract of three albums. Since it was John's first deal, I just felt that it was safer that way. If he still liked his relationship after that, he could choose to stay as long as he wanted to.
We told them that we already had our own publishing, and since they were used to dealing with artists who produced their own music, we had no problem negotiating publishing terms. They understood that John would control his own destiny. And that's the way it should be.
For the recording points on the album, I started off referring to some fortunate artists who get up to eighteen points for their work. Of course, I knew that those numbers were out of the question for us, but if you start at the top, you kind of erase thoughts of starting from the bottom. So we ended up hitting the middle, at fourteen points. I figured that we could ask for more in the next deal.
Then we talked about the actual album production for the fall. The Big Cheese threw out an amount of $500,000 on the table, with the single and the video production of Stylin' 'n' Profilin' to begin as soon as we signed. Well, it wasn't a million in production dollars or anything, but since John and Tony crafted their own music so smoothly, I didn't think that they needed that much.
John looked at me and said, “What do you think, man? You want to wait for the lawyer?”
I thought about it. We still hadn't agreed to any specific terms with this lawyer from Atlanta, and I wanted the whole process to be over and done with just like John and Tony did.
I made a decision right then and shook my head. It was pure instinct.
Everything was explained to us in plain English, and I didn't want to prolong the inevitable anymore. John had to start from somewhere.
I said, “Nah, man. This sounds like a good deal to me. Go ahead and sign.”
Everyone got all excited but John. John kept his poise and nodded to me real slow, as if he was going over the decision in his own head. Then he picked up the pen and went for broke.
I was anxious for the entire plane ride back to Greensboro. I kept hoping that I had done the right thing. I kept rereading my copy of the contract on the plane, but nothing jumped out and alarmed me on it. If John was successful, which I had no doubts that he would be, I figured that he could ask for more points and money on his next deal.
When I got back to the dorms that Monday night, I immediately called Chester DeBerry at the home number that he had given me.
“Hello,” he answered on the first ring.
I didn't want to take up too much of his time, so I just came right out with it to get it over with.
I said, “Well, Mr. DeBerry, my friend John went ahead and signed with Old School Records in Philadelphia today.”
He said, “Hey, my man Darin from Greensboro. Old School Records has an account with us. They're good people.”
I said, “Yeah?” and took a deep breath.
Mr. DeBerry said, “I knew those guys when they started out in music twenty years ago. Joe is a fair man.”
Joe, first name only, like a real old-timer, was the “Big Cheese.”
I said, “Yeah, that's what everybody says. And his A&R and marketing director convinced me.”
“Who, Matt and Kenny? Those guys are real pros. We need more young black guys who know the ropes like they do. Young guys like you.”
I smiled from ear to ear and said, “Thanks. But I was just trying to get back to playing football. I wanted to make sure John was all right.”
He said, “That's what you're supposed to do. And I know you won't let John make too many mistakes, so you stay right on him.”
“Oh, you know it,” I told him.
I hung up with Mr. DeBerry and felt my freedom again. Not that it was all that bad working with John and the whole music business, I just wanted to concentrate on football.
John called me that same night and told me that our lawyer from Atlanta showed up pissed, saying that his flight was delayed and that he had accidentally left his cell phone at the office.
I said, “Tough cookie. I'd tell him we'll pay him for his flight, but now we don't need him.” And I really didn't care. John could get a new lawyer.