Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: There we go, my brother.
Technology is a wonderful thing. So it's all good.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: It's like any vehicle you've ever owned. If it works, it's all good.
The minute. Clink, clank, clunk.
I'll never buy another one again.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: You buy another one, you just learn how the first one works so you can save down the cost a little bit later.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: So we're here at UPH in Saratoga Springs, and I was willing to meet you anywhere. I was willing to be up on stage, backstage, in the studio, wherever, and you kind of leaned towards uph.
So what brought us here to UPH today?
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Well, there are a couple of reasons why early in my professional career as a band leader, we were one of our early fundraisers at Soul Session back in. Geez, the early 2000s, a minute ago. So band has been in existence over 20 years now. So we were asked to be the band to do the fundraiser to start this project for Universal Preservation Hall. And I was already on the rise in the area, in the capital region as an entertainer with other band and projects that I've been a part of.
And it will go down in the annals of personal history. Where we had to go meet at O'Dwyers is where the fundraisers was taking place. Universal Preservation hall was still a church that was being used, a Methodist church, and what was going on, a Baptist church. Excuse me. And I was asked to emcee and be a part of the whole process there with the band. And Ms. Millie Pie later became another fundraiser that we did that was a part of the history of this building. And this place has had a. It made me feel like home at all times, even when it was gutted before they started building it. And then, of course, as it became a professional venue where musicians are now blowing up and coming up here, I call it Proctor's North.
And they installed the Thomas Edison hall of Fame in this building. And I've been honored to be a part of that history here.
This is my. This is my building. I love it. It just makes me feel. Every time I walk into it, I can sit here for hours and just be still or bring an instrument and chill or hang out with the amazing staff here, led by Ted Foster, executive director. So there was really no other place. We can meet at Starbucks, right, and get like, you know, that grande or whatever, that thing. I refuse to use those labels. This is large, medium, small. I don't use those things. We can meet there. We can meet in a whole bunch of other places, but this is the place to have Any kind of conversation about my life or the arts.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: And I've known you early on in my experience being at all the cool places together. I, I've seen you as a musician and first, first off as a magic, as a m. Musician, a magician sometimes.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: And then depends on where the microphone goes.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Oh, and, and, and a, and a frontman, a band leader and things like that.
Was music always a part of your life or did in a sense music find you? Did you find music?
[00:03:13] Speaker A: There's two ways to answer that question. The first one being a musician that is relatively new over the last 25 years, but music. I am not sitting in front of you without music. I don't even know where my life would be without it. It gave me.
It gave me the language to understand the world, right? Even my. I grew up with my family with huge jazz people, right? So it wasn't even just having, you know, English or lyrics in a song. It was just the music. This unlocked a feeling that I couldn't explain. And it gave me.
It gave me the entire template for how to express myself. So how I walked, how I talked, how I wanted to dress as they call it in hip hop, it's like the total kwan, right? So to speak. It really just affected.
It affected my ability to relate to people. I was a really, really shy kid, right?
[00:04:16] Speaker B: And which is amazing to think of.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: I tell people this all the time and they never believe it. I tell my daughter the same thing. She's way more out there like amongst people than I would have ever been at the same age. I was like, no, it just. But music allowed me to use music gave me the connect tissue to other people.
When I can talk in music prose or you know, I can talk about yo. But you hear that one line and all the melody in this one line or the way the shaker was in the song, like it gave me something to really not feel weird and not feel like I was on this desert island of being misunderstood.
So many of us do. We find the arts as a whole to be the way to do it. And music gave me the language. So that was number one. Number two, especially becoming a musician later. And I actually went through school, I was like fledgling on the end. And then I wanted to go eat a real gig, make some real money. Music was like, you know, as a job option, wasn't really a thought.
But it got to a point where I couldn't shut up anymore. And I was singing all of the time, like in all kinds of odd jobs that I was doing. And then I realized that if.
If God put this blessing in me and it's meant, and it really makes people feel good.
And in essence, I get the reciprocal feeling of being cool.
What if I'm able to do this in a way that brings people together, either not only functionally in terms of work, but to really bring everyone together and we can all help uplift each other so we don't feel so alone anymore? And that's what I say, you know? But how do you do that? And that's what started my hardcore jumping in, like, doing the work, learning instruments, learning how they work together, learning how to speak other languages the same other people are doing. And that's what music did in those two folds for me.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: And you're not a native Saratogian as much as you are part of Do.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: A Dabet style, brother. That's how we do it, man. You know what I'm saying? Even though I'm saying that's. I'm a Brooklyn kid. I was born in Manhattan, but I just.
But I was. I'm a Brooklyn kid to the max, straight up. So grew up essentially in Bed Stuy for many, many formative years.
All the cool parts that you hear about in hip hop songs from back in the day. Well, yeah, I can relate to that. And then we moved to Crown Heights, where my family kind of still exists. My mom still rocks down there, but we're from all over the city, but just. But generally speaking, a Brooklyn kid. And when I had an opportunity to come up here, you know, go to Skidmore College, and after I was graduated at the state and it's. And even though for a long time I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge, just know that to put it bluntly, it just wasn't enough colorful faces in the community for me.
And. But what I started realizing as I was maturing into a man, that something about this place felt like home. I just didn't know how to fit in it yet.
And a lot of those things kind of came together.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: And what was like, again, part of the reason why we. I launched this during February, and I had this list of important people that I want to meet with. And you. Obviously, one of those key components of this is that we are in Black History Month, and I talked to, you know, Professor.
Professor Winston Grady Willis and then Tasha McBride.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: You know, about history and things like that.
What was it like? Because, I mean, you were. You were at Skidmore.
Late 90s.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Early. Early 90s. Okay, early 90s.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: So what was that like in A sense, not a lot has changed because you look at the demographics of Saratoga county, still.98.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Not even. Not even 2% African American. Yeah, I got you. You know. Yeah.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Skidmore, liberal arts college, in a sense, broad strokes, welcoming liberal arts people. Call it hippie central, things like that.
What was your feel when you were there? Because as you said, there were not a lot of faces like you there. So what was that like in the early 90s that you didn't like?
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Well, you know, let me jump in real quick. I just think that it's. What's interesting is, you know, you can take the. You can take the brother out the hood, but the hood, you can't take the hood out the brother, right? So fortunately for me, in my formative years, be it my mom's upbringing or just the fact that I was straight Brooklyn.
And I can't stress to you, yo, it's planet Brooklyn. That's how we call it.
And because coming up here, I wasn't necessarily concerned about losing anything.
I felt that this was another opportunity to learn how to. How. How to be in the world that that was more reflective of on the TV than it was in my neighborhood. Right. So seeing it as an opportunity to see.
To learn how the other side lived, so to speak.
My college essay, so always I make reference to that, by God's grace, gave me the foresight, the. To ask the question is, what's the difference between living and surviving?
And my leaving the coupe, so to speak, from being very comfortable, uncomfortable in what my existence was, was I really wanted to see what living looked like and not just having to survive. You know, this is a Brooklyn state of mind, right? So at. Especially at the time, the apex crack on the street, you know, unfortunately, a lot of black on black, high black on black crime rates, primarily because of the alternative economies that were going on at the time.
Again, one can see that as a negative. One can see that it is being in college too. It just depends on how you see it. So I just wanted to get out and to do something different. So moving up here was. And it was like, all right, this is winter wonderland for a whole bunch of reasons.
And what I realized very quickly was that wherever I went, so did my experience.
So I had to make very clear in my head that I was representing my brothers and sisters that did not get the same opportunities that I was afforded, right? And it's not like I was special by no stretch of the imagination. It's just I got lucky and I did some work that put me In a position to be lucky. And so coming up here, I was focused on how to live.
And I had no idea what that meant and just be right. And so I felt that. And I was a little cocky about this in the context of I felt that blame it on Malcolm X, as I like to say. Right.
Is that came up in that frame of mind, is that wherever I went, so did my experience. So I had an even in my youth, I had just as much to say as the doctor professor who lived a little bit, but did not grow up in my background.
So knowing that I had something to add to the conversation didn't make me worried about being in this winter wonderland.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Soul session began early 2000s.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: So we are both very young men, dude.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: I had things replaced on my body, man, you crazy? Your boy falling apart, man.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Anyway, but what was the thought? What was that epiphany to create Soul Session and what you wanted Soul Session to bring? And how has Soul session evolved over 20 plus years?
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting that you asked that question.
First of all, it's a blessing going back to what I was mentioning about how music brings people together, right? So this is why I'm such a blessed dude, like, you know, I'm such a blessed brother. Because being with other people in this unique experience, there had to be a lot of things that would have to align that set Soul Session up. And the first thing that happened was I started meeting amazing musicians that were encouraging to be a part of a community.
Right. Some of these people are on the wall that we were going to talk about later with the Eddie Award. But it's just they were so encouraging to say, well, yeah, we work together and if we can help make our community better by being together, then you affect essentially everyone that comes into our community. And that rising tide lifts all ships.
So I was able to jam out and find amazing musicians who were just incredible. And at the time, I was at a another band that was a wedding band at the time called the New York Players. And I was the front man for that band as it was getting on its feet and we exploded.
But I felt that it was something that was missing from my spirit that was more in line with the ability to do community work, original material, and at the same time continue to spread this message of love and positivity that brought people together, not just to the club to dance. There was something else operating in my spirit. I just didn't know how that was gonna work out yet. So in 2003, I aligned myself with several other Musicians in the area that were just amazing. Like, you know, Mike Steiner, who was one of our area's most fantastic musicians, but one of the most. The illest guitarists that you'll meet. He went legit. That's a conversation we have later. Pete Pascucas, who's a fantastic singer, songwriter, amazing blues guitarist in the whole nine. And then another brother of ours, Mike McCluskey, who played percussion. And we really had this vision in my head of like, hey, let's do something like a black Dave Matthews that has a Marvin Gaye swing to it, right? Let's go in that direction. And we can kind of be soulful and we can kind of just do it that way.
But within the back of my mind, knowing that the pivot was gonna really be aligned with Soul Session as a name in itself, is that I didn't want us to be a performing act that would just play at spec. Right. So to speak. I wanted to basically de. Emphasize our importance and make it more about the community.
So in a dream, what hit me was basically session, where we can all be like, if we're in a session in a round circle and everyone is equal, I just happen to be the person leading the group and facilitating, but we're all equal in a circle. So that was the session concept. The soul concept came from the Bible, 2, 7, Genesis, right? And then God breathed into man, into Adam, the breath of life, and he became a living soul. And to me, soul essentially, not only from a music style that's embedded in the African American tradition, but it was just about life, putting life in the music, in a session for which we can all relate to.
And that pretty much puts a thread through everybody's cultural experiences. And that, to me, is where the concept came from. And we took that and just ran with it and everything. Of course, we had to get paid musicians had to do things. I've evolved it with different players coming in that blessed me in and out of the unit.
I've had my current configuration for roughly about the last nine years now. And it's.
But what's amazing about them is that they help to keep me honest with, like, oh, yeah, because you can get pulled away into the music and what you want to do. But what we stand for is, I believe, what keeps people around.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: What was your.
I'm going to use the term spirit, spiritual journey, because.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Great question.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Community, scripture.
You embody it.
No shame?
[00:16:44] Speaker A: No, not at all.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Was it always there? Because, again, you're a Ben Sty kid. I don't know how much growing up and surviving.
Were you, in a sense, soulful at that point, or was there a transition and we. And we change as people.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: We, hopefully, we all grow and evolve. Evolve and hopefully learn.
What was that?
I don't think it was an epiphany, but what was the journey? To get you to see the world as you do now, in the way that I know you people know you, and the communities are attracted to you, your message and your music.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: That's a multifaceted question that can keep us here for a couple hours, but it's. I'll truncate it to the best of my ability.
Yes. My father was a spiritual religious guy. You know, he had, unfortunately, in his journey through his young life, but he was called home. He was called home early at 37.
In his young life, he's had a lot of struggles, but he saw the church as a sense of, you know, the. The Baptist tradition more in the sense of forgiveness and redemption. I think most people do. But he. He was seeking something that will allow his life to make sense. My mother's journey. Religion was basically contextual, right? You know, going through a little bit of church with regards to, you know, Baptist, Jehovah's Witness and stuff of that nature. So what I came along with growing up in a city environment where, again, I'm in Brooklyn, so I'm surrounded by every conceivable faith you can imagine. Everything from the big three, especially when we move to Crown Heights. I live down the street from the headquarters of Hasidic Jews in New York City.
And then you have all the big three. Judaism, Christianity, you know, Islam. Then you have, like, the nation of 5 percenters. You got the numerologists, you had. You had all these other side entities that I was kind of surrounded by. So I was a sponge to a lot of that spiritual leanings. But that didn't square with what I was seeing in my community.
Something about this sense of being delivered while my. I just buried a friend of mine who just got shot, you know, like. And. Or like the domestic violence incidences that are occurring in and around. Right. They didn't square with me. So the religious part of it was not something that I was a big fan of, but I was still moved by the spiritual aspect of it. It was something about realizing that if we're bringing ourselves together as a community and try to uplift each other, that just requires fellowship, which produces the spiritual app, the spirituality that helps to create the institution of faith in the first place. So I kind of went back a step and Said, you know, well, why do people gather, right? What makes this so important? Why do we fellowship and are generous to each other? How do we give our time, our resources, our faith to other people if we believe in something? And then, of course, my ability to be more gangster with it came with Malcolm X. And one of my favorite books of all time, of course, is the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I quote this everywhere I go because Malcolm said there's a passage in his book where he specifically said that, you know, if we are trying to help our people, we can't be afraid of our people.
Like you can't be afraid of the very entities that you want you're a part of. So you know how you in city mode. You know how I always laugh, didn't tell people as a joke? You know, you travel down in New York City, right before you get to gw, for those who are natives, you start putting on your armor, right? Because instantly you start getting strapped up to get back. You're going back in coach, right?
And there was a period of my time, my journey in my teens into college years, where it was like, instead of walking with my head down, look up and look at people.
And it's amazing the minute you take that small step, just that one where of course it's different for women at times, of course, because you do that, some dudes might thinking you're trying to invite something. I get it. But for my life, the minute I went from looking down to looking at and making a concerted effort to look at people in their eyes and let them know I'm open, can you be?
It's amazing what happens in that spiritual exchange. How we now instantly become connected and I'm not special and you're not special. We're special, right? And that to me, that one little step helped me put my money where my mouth was. If I truly believe in being a part of my community, being a part of the spiritual foundation, you have to see. See people as yourself.
And the minute that happened, it set the foundation floor for me to have to start doing more for my community. And everything else started just piling on. I just didn't have a means to do it. I didn't know how I would do it. I wasn't some. This nerd. I didn't have this Ms. Malcolm X like ability to speak. I wasn't this prophetic prose author like James Bond. I had none of those things. I didn't have the weapon of choice.
And my weapon of choice happened to just be what God blessed me with. Natively. And that was my voice.
And that with looking at people and being able to stand for people, those who. You see, your brother and your sister as yourselves, that changed everything. And everything that's piled up on top of it.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: So in the beginning, I talked about. We've seen each other a lot, a lot of different things, a lot of great things.
And still resonating with me less than a month ago was the Martin Luther King celebration here in Saratoga. And you were music performer, you were an emcee.
And I said to my wife, I go, I should have been running video, because I could just take this package of garland and like, just send it in for a TED Talk to say.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Oh, geez, get this.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Get this guy on stage.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Be the glory.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Because this is.
That entire room was there for all the right reasons.
The message, the messages, multiple speakers, different things was phenomenal.
People of all color and races, religions, you know, were embracing the day that what it was.
But you were just, again, fanboying.
You were just a shining star. You were.
I was.
I love music. I love musicians. I'm not a live guy, per se, because a lot of the live stuff is the big amphitheater stuff, not the club stuff, which is where you get the real deal.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I gotcha.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: But in that building, in that moment, just you going from musician to emcee to at times, spiritual minister and messages, is that your domain right there?
Or is it just that day, this was it.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: No, no. That's my space.
That's what I'm here to do.
In a nutshell, as I've been alluding to with the questions that you. The great questions you've been asking.
My journey has been a confluence of all of these intersections. Right. It's. Yeah.
Can I tear it down musically by God's grace? Yes. Right.
Surrounding my people to allow that to happen. You know, can I be a voice of reason and understanding similar to that spiritual journey that. Yeah. By God's grace, you know, can I be a part of the community, be out picketing with anybody else? Yeah, absolutely.
But how do you use, in this very modest way in our. In our capital region, to use all of these assets that I've either tools I picked up along the way or just. I finally blew off enough dust off this area to rail. Oh, that. That's what that's for. Right. You know, those things coming together. Me also becoming a parent. No. My daughter's unbelievable. So she. It gave me a real sense of selflessness. Right. I always thought before that I was already a selfless guy. But taking that to the next level also helped to put everything else now in perspective. So that is me. That is what I am here to do exclusively when I'm. When it is, when God calls me home, that. That's where I'm going to rest my head on knowing it. Yeah. Thank you for using me. That I was able to be used in a way that helped improve the lives of other people. That's what it comes down to.
That day specifically was different, right? That day was different only with regards to what was happening in alignment in the rest of the context, but not really different in terms of having this again, more to the point, the inauguration of our former president being MLK Day, everyone kind of swinging hard left, hard right, and. But just reminding people like, yo, hey, hey, you know, if you think about the context of history in this country, this is just another day.
There are a lot of other days that were a hell of a lot worse. Right? But if we are helping each other, regardless of where you sit ideologically, then ultimately, as far as I'm concerned, righteousness will win out.
And our righteousness is defined as not right, is might. But understanding that community for where you are will ultimately be the battleground for where we all end up. And if we're doing things to divide our community, then we can't stand, as Abraham Lincoln once said, but if we're doing things to find consensus, which moves a little bit right, a little bit left through all history, then we're still acknowledging that we need to work together.
And that was what that my message was around that area.
And that was the minister kind of coming forth a little bit, being inspired by the ultimate minister. Dr. Marlowe? Rep. No. Dr. Martin Luther King. So that was where my mind was.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Who are your influences as.
As a man and as a musician.
And they can be dynamically different. But who are your influences?
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Thank you. It's funny that you mentioned that, because I do separate the two in terms of musical influences to my life versus what informed me as a man. They are completely different worlds. Thank you for pulling it out.
The first person that influenced my biggest influence is my mother.
She has been, you know, she kept us alive, you know, and she had to do it with trying in that sense of selflessness of trying to. I have an older sister, and she kept us alive. It wasn't always pretty, of course. It never is. Right. But given that, if we're not having the breath of life breathed into us, the story's over anyway, right? So keeping us alive, whether good, bad and Ugly was something that she tried to do and give us a foundation of pride to stand on. Even in a situation where there was pride less when you couldn't really feel good about it. But realizing that if you see that there's something on the horizon, then just keep moving. It can be at 2 miles an hour or can be at 200 miles an hour. Just keep moving. It can be in a straight line, it can be in a swirly line. You could do a couple of 360s and not know where you are with a bag over your head. Just keep moving. And that's the one thing that. That. That woman has done that for my life.
Not because she made all the right choices, of course not.
But the one that matters the most was to keep moving.
And, you know, then along the way, I think we all, as people, I hate putting emphasis on those, period. Oh, this person was that person. Because God has placed in my.
In front of my path whatever direction I was going in.
People guideposts to help me to keep moving, whether or not I agree or disagree with them, whether or not it was romantic or just McQueen's person on the street, people would just kind of be in my path and something or some word or something that would just keep me moving. And even at the time, I might not have realized what was happening, but retroactively or retrospectively, excuse me. You start to say, oh, okay, that makes sense, you know, and you just keep moving.
But musically, that's a different. Like, man, come on, man. I got too many influences to go down. You know what I'm saying? But you know, the one that I could tell you emphatically, I talk to my clients because, you know, part of my business is I also do wedding and events that help fund my ability to do other things.
And I tell my clients all of the time, I call them brothers and sisters, not really clients. And that the song and the band that matters the most to me happened on the year of my birth. Ramsey Lewis and Earth, Wind and Fire.
There's an album. I gotta tell the story. It's the funniest thing, right? So Sun Goddess is that song, right? Now, if anyone's familiar with Ramsey Lewis. No. Titan jazz and pianist and Earth, Wind and Fire. Because Maurice White worked as the drummer for Ramsey Lewis for a long time before he started Earth, Wind and Fire. Right. So it was only natural that they would cross collaborate from time to time. So this album cover had a picture of what I would argue was like king tutorial, like, you know, on album covers. So when I Was born. Apparently as a kid, my uncle, God rest his soul, would always play this song. My moms would always play this song, right? And it's like. And it's a song that doesn't do anything. It's like, you know, of course it's get jazz changes, but with Earth, Wind and Fire sing like it's just like. It's just amazing. And it removed me to this day. So as a kid I used to go. My uncle had all these albums and racks on the floor. So I used to be a baby and crawl over to the rack and I would find that album jacket, pull out the record and imitate what he was doing. Because that song he was playing just made me feel so good, right? So I would take his album on a wooden floor and I'll slide it down and I would start spinning it on the floor. He went through three or four albums. Cause I would always find that record in his out. He had to move it like to a high place that I couldn't get to. Because that song hit me so hard. Hard about just the blending of these voices, the sonics of how this, this. The song has kept growing in intensity even though it was only like four chords, right? It was such an amazing song. And that song in itself had the biggest impact on my spiritual well being, right. Followed by. As I started becoming more aware of music. Start like this, this like the slide in the Family Stones, the Heat Waves. Notice that these bands are multiracial bands, right? Of course, aside from, you know, Motown, of course, was all up in the hood. Grover Washington was playing. And then that these are artists that had the sonics of the energy that these songs and artists produced moved my ass full stop. And so I bring that into my musical life now as much as I can. And of course, now that I'm a Bill Withers dude.
And the simplicity of.
I call it black folk, specifically. Not only because he's a brother who plays guitar. You know. Hootie, I'm quite sure got that tag for a long time. Darius Rucker, before he became Darius Rucker, he's still Hoodie. Hey, you gotta. Can you play some Hootie? So no, my name is Darius, you know.
But his sound, his songwriting style took me to a different planet. Because it was. Even though it had some southernisms in, was just. It was just the style of him putting really basic lyrics, pumping it with a feeling and just presenting it raw. That to me, yeah, he didn't need to. He didn't need the whole like sparkly suits. Even though that was cool. I'm a Brooklyn kid, like I said. Right. But when you have to pull out that experience of, yeah, you know, like grandma's hands wrapped in church on Sunday morning, like, playing the tambourine. So. Well, like those basic lines of, like. Yeah, that's exactly what my grandmother does on the weekends that follow with the acoustic, the stripping it down, man, you can't do like that. I could talk about Stevie forever, but that was the one that Bill Withers is the dude that got me.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: What's near perfect Nights. I don't think there are perfect nights.
The great night. What's the great session? The great gig for Soul Session.
What's happening that you're seeing and that you and everyone behind you are delivering?
What's that?
[00:35:11] Speaker A: It hasn't happened yet. You know, most artists will tell you, like, oh, that hasn't happened yet. I'm still working towards that. I can tell you that. Yeah. But truth be told, you know, I've been blessed to have several projects operating in my life. So not only from doing recording jingle work and stuff like that, or doing. Being brought in as an artist and singing original projects.
Soul Session, my other quasi spiritual gospel group, A Joyful Noise or Reflections or other things that I'm a part of, what makes me feel that the night that's it is when I can't remember what happened.
Right. Being.
Sometimes it can get a little. Having all these roles at the same time can make you too aware of something else happening all over the room. So for those. Of course, you don't have a video podcast. What I'm doing is moving my arms all over the place. Right. You have 25 different roles and I'm committing at the same time, and I'm in tune to every single one of them to make sure that what people are feeling is an authentic version of us. Right.
That can be a bit distracting for what my job is, per se, but.
But that's the uniqueness of my job, so I can't take away from that. But when I. When all of those things are going and I can't quite remember what happened the last two to three hours ago, that's when I know it was exactly as it should have been and how I explained that. Meaning that we put ourselves, or I put myself in a space where I was irrelevant and we just became a conduit between the spirit God, by which I call, you know, God by the downloader, if the people who are atheists, the downloading of the spirit to the people.
When I'm aflow back and forth.
That means what happened? I don't remember what happened. That's when I know that's the perfect night, when it's not about me.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: When we talked earlier, I said I wasn't going to give you the gotcha question. That's not how this is set up or anything like that. I said the toughest question is.
Is at times the toughest question. But it comes across as what's next?
What can be next for Garland Nelson? What could be next for Soul Session? Because they are synonymous as one, but they are separate.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, I have a question for you then. Let me flip this back. You know what I'm saying? This is part of what I do. So if you asked before you get to this, this is not me ducking. I'm gonna come back to answer that question. But, you know, in your mind's eye, obviously you've seen me in a variety of different capacities.
What do you see as something I should be looking at moving forward based on your journey with me over the years?
[00:38:02] Speaker B: I think it's almost like that dad who sees his kid throw the ball and he knows if he gets the shot, he's going to make it to the bigs.
I want to see Garland Nelson's Soul session at the Apollo, a different administration at the Kennedy center, because I wholly embrace the message and the music, and it's too good to just be here as a big regional name.
And I think hopefully there's opportunities and I then get the privilege, as I've had a couple times, to say, you know what?
I interviewed again a couple times, that kid, when they were eight years old, was this my boy that's pitching in the major leagues. I interviewed that kid who's now playing for the Chicago Bulls, which my wife's thrilled about.
You know, Kevin Herderson.
It. It's again, those people you meet along the way that made the journey so worthwhile.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: And that will. That will stay with you again until the time.
And it'll still be a story. Even though.
Even though he'll know I get up there, I'm still going to tell the story.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: And that's kind of where. That's where I. I think.
But everything has to align. It's got aligned professionally. It's got to align personally. You know, you're here, you're in Saratoga. Things are great that your daughter got worried about your daughter, you know, when she's older and has her own family.
Is that the shot or is the shot now? So for me, I would just Part of this was I know Garland Nelson.
Hopefully our readers and our listeners will know more about Garland Nelson.
And then it's like, again, big picture, what's next?
Bigger, bigger, you know, bringing that sound and paying homage to those Earth, Wind and Fire and Bill Withers and getting that message out of music. But alone. Again, I'm, I'm all for the TED Talk and like we talked about when.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: We did some break dancing on the.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: Stage, doing the photos and things like that, that NPR tiny desk moment. I'm all for.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's cool.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: That's on, that's on my, my bucket list for you.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: Well, thank you. I, I, I, I appreciate that tremendously. And I, and I wasn't trying to dodge the question and flipping it back, but it's just interesting. I, I find over the years asking how everyone has their own sense of their own connection to me in some way, shape or form. You know, I'm always, I'm the one that will instantly cut it down. Like, I'm just a man. I'm just, I'm like you.
We're the same is this, we have different methods of affecting people with our blessings that we've been given. But I see blessings as a responsibility and less about the fact that you were blessed with it. Right. So my responsibility has a lot to do with, for example, while we're in this building. Again, to come back to that question and I, one of the coolest things personally is my bucket list check off is when, when, when. Right before COVID and my band and I were the first to win with the Capital Eddie Awards coming up back in 2019, which is coming up soon. Coming up. I'll come back to that in a second. So when we won, me being the R and B singer of the year and the band being, you know, the band of the year within the COVID capacity and that and being on the wall.
My bucket list moment happened when the executive director, Teddy Foster, like my daughter was with me and she dragged her over to see this super sized photo of her dad, right? That when she, she said like, yo, this is your father up there. And that moment of feeling prideful, of saying, okay, my journey wasn't in vain, right? Because the thing that matters the most to my life, existence, of course, is my child. And given that she can now see it and say, well, yeah, my dad did something and hopefully that'll have an effect on, maybe she can reach higher for herself to do whatever her dreams will take her into.
So maybe she can skip past my beginnings and start at another place in the line and go higher. So if she decides to have children, they would feel the same way about her.
So that's the bucket let's check off.
But professionally, professionally, which is interesting is that at every single rung in my ladder it's come with a different way of being based on what was needed, similar to what's gonna happen. Being my journey got me to the place where now they know Brock Proctor's reached out to me in order to honor another incoming, soon to be enshrined hall of Famer Emerald City, which is a similar band. The soul session is back in the SEM asked for me to put together a band as kind of this pay tribute to them. Like that call happens as a result of my journey when I am asked to be a part of at the boards for various arts organization, not as a performing artist, but to be on the boards like Saratoga Arts, which is no longer in existence or MLK Saratoga. When I'm asked to be a part of that. That's journey talking, right? These blessings of being asked to sit in the room with people who make decisions about the arts and the crafts and community related events. To talk to Todd Shimkus with the chamber president or you know, or Darrell Lagier from the Discover Saratoga or even do stuff down in Albany with the city that those phone calls and emails that come my way as a result of the journey that I've made. The ability to pull bands together for various fundraisers or other artists like that to us to work together the Aaron Harks and everyone else and other enshrines on the hall of Fame.
That's because of what I've done to this point.
So moving forward, I had to show respect to what I did to get here.
Moving forward, I'm excited for all the other elevated, excellent opportunities that come along with my journeys. Now that I am fundamentally and wholeheartedly all in with this conflicts, this, this kind of. This intersection of all of these parts that are operating through me. So I'm always operating creatively towards new projects which is always in the mix. I'm an artist. That's what happens.
I'm always very in tune to our community, which seems to be a little bit energized these days for obvious reasons.
And I'm always doing these things now, whether or not that takes me to a state level, a national level or international level, we'll put that in God's hands. But I'm always striving to. I operate like I'm at the international level. Anyway, even though I might be regional.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Like your music, like your event at mlk, and just talking to you, you've set the bar so high for everybody else who's gonna follow you to God be the glory, but on this podcast. So I just. I'm beyond thrilled that we found the time to be here and talk about you and your life and your journey.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: I'm gonna stop you real quick, man. Okay, again, let's not make it about me, man. This is not. I don't get down that way. So again, it's just, you know, what's moving you these days. I know you can cut this out. I know this is one of you, and cut this out. I got it. I know how editing works, but it's just what's moving you these days, like, what's like in the community. How is this, what's happening in the community that makes you so more energized to even want me to be a part of your podcast series?
[00:46:03] Speaker B: And I talked to Teddy about this earlier, is I'm a kid again.
You know, we both, you know, we're both of the, you know, the golden age now. We're both over 50, and I spent 22 years in sports. And I told Teddy, I said I was spoiled. He'd show up at a soccer field at 4 o'. Clock, two hours later, score says three, two, we have a definitive winner. There's no questions asked, maybe some grumblings of how we got to those goals or votes, but it's set in stone. Talk to a coach, talk to a kid who scored a goal. I'm done. Peace out.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Life was so easy for 20. I never knew how easy I had as a sports writer. But the people I met along the way, unfortunately, some of them have gone.
So many are still around.
So many I still see.
Can't. Can't tell a player without a roster, so I can't recognize anybody, but I'll see them. Oh, you. You covered me when I swam at Shen. I'm like, great. How's everything? Graduated, got married, have three kids. I'm like, I must be a thousand years old.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh, my God.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: And so I go to the Gazette, got that opportunity five years ago. And then there are so few things that came out of COVID that were positive. But one of them was my world changed from being a sports writer, sports photographer, to being a feature writer, a full time photographer, and now evolving into the digital team.
My focus was so small as a sports writer that I had no idea how the rest of the world really lived because everything was a clock. It was. It was there. And the epiphany was Zach Matson, who was the education writer who I sat next to at the Gazette early on. And I was at the Gazette for six weeks.
And then I had a seven week furlough.
That was my Covid experience.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: That's the COVID experience.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: Zach. Zach Mattson's on the phone and they're talking about the school's closing. His. His question and his concern going to Miles Reed, our editor, was how are they going to feed the kids?
I had no idea what he was talking about, and I had to ask him.
And then he explained to me, these kids, if they don't go to school, they don't eat.
And this was a lightning bolt that came. That came through me, that I shared with my entire immediate family who's up here. We've been together now almost 40 years together as a unit.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: A family of love, not blood.
And I'm like, guys, this is not what you're seeing. This is not Detroit. This is not the Bronx. This is Schenectady. This is 15 minutes away.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: This is right from Halston Spot. Absolutely.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: This is a concern and it was an opportunity.
So every day I'm learning. Every day I'm like, I'm like the new kid on the block as a reporter, covering news, covering. You know, I'm at trials now and I have had to pinch it for one event.
And then you're taking photos of trials and elections and you're becoming more in tune to what's going on in the community around you. And it's enlightening. It's scary because 50 plus year old man. And I'm like, I've got to ask, how do you phrase this? What is this? Who is this? And you're.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: It is. I've been given keys to the kingdom of faces and personalities that I was going down a hallway before and I was going into one auditorium and really cool. Everybody knew me, loved it.
Still learned, you know, if you've never seen field hockey. Took myself and Jimmy Schultz 20 years. The rules.
But we loved it. Yeah, we absolutely loved it. And people appreciate the coverage and it's the same thing in everything else we do. So the things I'm doing now where, you know, again, 22 years with a Saratogian in sports, I've never been to UPH before this year.
Had only been to proctors. Never was there for two graduations. And now I'm there a lot.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Food distribution, you Know lines of cars through Covid at Saratoga Fairgrounds.
They sneak them through like Disney pallets and pallets of milk and cheese. They ran out food banks giving every week throughout different areas, taking those photos because people need to know this is still going on.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Dude, like, what you're saying right now is that you're explaining exactly why I do this, right? Is because of.
This is we are the community.
That's not some just a phrase on a wall, right? You are a part of the community.
And that all pieces of the community are singing the same sheets, singing the same song, so to speak. And how do you bring whatever gifts that you have to help? Like your weapon might be in this case a podcast or your pen or the camera, but that helps to shed light on an area of the community that may be someone who's been, for whatever reasons, you know, some altruistic, some horrible might not care.
And what you do is you draw attention to that. This is your mission.
I did the same thing with arts and entertainment, right? And I think that what. What moves me in your testimony right now is not only your level of passion for it. So if you can see my man here, my boy is. He's all hyped up right now, by the way. You know what I'm saying? Like, we happen to be bald dudes and we're still like, getting all glistening. So, like, even with regards to that is thinking, I wear a Kufi. I can capture that. Anyway, but the whole point behind it, that level of passion, we are in the people business.
That's what this is about, right? It's not about. Even if I were to turn into Bob Dylan, by the way, the great movie, right? I wanted to go is all of a sudden, they got me all inspired. I've been singing Bob Dylan for the last two weeks.
Oh, my God. Anyway, but even with. Even if we perform, they wrote songs like Bob Dylan.
It's about people.
This is what this is about. It's like, it's not about, look at me, look at me. I'm the sugar honey iced tea, right? It's not that.
It's about how do we help each other as a people.
So we can all just raise the damn water level and the boat and the tides will take every boat up, right? Don't get me wrong, there's some a holes that definitely wanted this. Say, screw you. Go. Go be in a pond somewhere while they're cruising on over on the French Riviera. But the point still remains that we are in the people business.
And when we are called home.
What do we call riches?
The lives that we affect.
That is being rich. Can't take the other stuff with you. You might set up your family, but you won't know if they screwed it up one generation after you're gone. But you know you will impact lives immediately right now by being in community with everyone that is in your community. And what you're saying to me is inspiring. That's exactly why I do it.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: Let's get out of here and play some music Box.
