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I got no girl, I got no time to do the work.Gonna rock these shades, gonna scream my name. Make your shot now, honey I'm gonna make you
One child born with a silver spoon Another one ain't got nothing You can't give as you see fit But sharing ain't caring till you meet it Sometimes you're sure you'll win Sometimes you're full of doubt Everything, everything
Some things seem so primitive Other things cut the edge What used to hold things together Now it drives a wedge One man lies down peacefully Another one cries in pain You might think they're not equal But surely they are the same Sometimes you're sure you will win Sometimes you're fooled
Give it till you live, give it till you give Often times it feels too real, sometimes it's a dream land But every time it is revealed, the castle's made of sand
Many folks just see the trees, some folks see a jungle Plenty people walk the path, others slip and stumble I just try to fly away, the sky is open wider Way up high, the stars are bright, I keep getting higher
Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you
♪ Give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give it to you, give
Stir it up and see just what we've got What we've got is enough of a chance To learn from our mistakes and try to make a stand We're jammed together in a mixed up nation
So maybe we can use it to further our existences.Think us well, we're all in this together.And there'll be times when it's more than we can weather.With communication, respect, and harmony, yeah.Here's to diversity.Here's to diversity.
Here's to diversity, yeah.
D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.U.P., D.
You gotta know about the past Achieve equality and make it last How we gonna do it?Is anybody scared?
It was Free World from their brand new release, and we got Richard Cushing on the line right now.Hey, Rich, how you doing?
Hey, Richard, how are you doing?I'm doing great.
Good, good.Now, this is the first time you've been on our show, and we always like to start off by giving our fans an opportunity to get to know you, to get to know who you are, not only as an artist, but also as a person.
So give us the story of Free World and, of course, of Richard Cushing.
Well, thank you so much for having me.This is quite an honor. Um, so myself, um, I'm born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee.I've been playing on Beale street since, uh, 1986.
I was fortunate enough to be mentored by a man named Dr. Herman Green, who was a BB King's very first saxophone player back in 1947.Herman toured the world of Lionel Hampton back in the late fifties, early sixties.
He got to play with folks like Coltrane and Miles Davis and backup folks like Sarah Vaughn and, uh... you know everybody he was he was the man with the band what we were a bunch of young
you know, punk, college kid, jazz, bow, blues guy, wannabe, you know, white guys.Back in 1987, when we started, we decided to put a band together and we went to Hermit down on Beale Street.He was the man.
He was the man in Memphis and we went to him and said, hey, we want to start a band and we want you to be in the band with us.
Of course, even though we were young and kind of stupid, we even knew then that if we were going to go anywhere, do anything with our band, we needed someone with some credibility.
So we went to Herman and went to one of his gigs down at King's Palace and went up to him on set break and said, Hey Herman, we want you to start a band with us.And he looked us over like, I don't think so.
He said, what he said was, I will do this, but you got to be serious about the music.Yes, sir.You know, we will definitely.So he took us under his wing.We stepped up and he taught us not just about the music,
but about how to connect with one another, and how to connect the band with an audience, and how to deal with a club owner, and how to get paid, and all the things that are essential for being a band, especially if you're looking at any sort of longevity.
And of course, 37 years down the line at this point, I think we took some of his lessons to heart.And so the band started in 1987.
Came up with the band name Free World from a brainstorming session and it really seemed to fit us well because we've always been a very broad spectrum band as far as what kind of genres we will touch on, about what kind of music we like and we'll play and we never really try to pigeonhole ourselves in anything in particular.
Of course we do play on Beale Street three to five nights a week and for the entire time we've been a band.
People come to Beale Street from all over the world every day because Memphis and Memphis music is a musical mecca to the world and people come there and they're looking for a certain thing, they're looking for that Memphis vibe, that Memphis sound.
So, and we give that to them.
We start our gigs off every week with, you know, we start off with the blues and we start off playing the old school R&B and soul that came out of Memphis and we move into the rock stuff and we eventually end up, you know, at our own music and what it is we do and the amalgamation of what our band has been called in print before, sort of the best of Memphis, New Orleans,
in San Francisco and Jamaica all kind of combined into one thing, you know, where it's unique and it's interesting, and we take the soul and the songwriting from Memphis, which is very important, the funk from New Orleans, a bit of the soccedelia from San Francisco, and some of the reggae from the Caribbean, and we mix it all together and it becomes Free World.
And that's kind of been the ethos of what we've been the entire time.This is our eighth album, and All the rest of them have done quite well.Of course, we're not Taylor Swift or anything, but we've sustained a career.We're continuing to be creative.
We haven't turned into a tribute act to ourselves as of yet.We're still putting out fresh music and doing that kind of thing.It's been fun, exciting, creative. It's a loose collective of people.It's myself.Herman passed away in 2020.
We were sort of the core.David Skypek was our drummer emeritus that was with us for a long time until he had health issues and could no longer play.
But other than that, the band has been a large rotating group of men and women, black and white, American, foreign.
uh... but for any kind of you know if it's free world it's it's a little bit of everything and uh... it's it's it's a beautiful thing to behold and the people going to hear and uh... we enjoy it and it seems that our fans enjoy it which is good
you know it's interesting because you had mentioned that you know of course you do the blues uh... and you have all these other influences that have you know kind of uh... made its way into your music uh... one of the things that i've always been a proponent of is that the blues is not a stagnant uh... genre that it is an ever-growing in evolving john in fact if anything that is the the real
historical attribute of the blues is that it constantly evolves.So, you know, I have an issue with the whole keep the blues alive thing.
For me, I think it's allow the blues to live and allow it to grow and allow it to expand and allow it to incorporate all of these influences within itself.You know what I mean?
absolutely for it to be a a living breathing genre of music and you look at the grammys you've got traditional blues but you've also got contemporary blues and it allows the music to to take in other influences and it allows it to to to evolve and you know it's still you can still tell things are blues and you can still there are there's still a basis and uh... you know uh... a foundation of blues underneath what we and other artists do
But without allowing it to grow, change, develop, and become something new, fresh, and original, if you're not living, if you're not growing, then you're dying.So I think it's absolutely essential that the blues allow itself to be molded by
the world you know it really it means that it's gotta happen so i agree on two percent you know the uh... uh... the genre itself uh... you know you look at like country music it's a country music constantly evolved
and you know we only we have to allow blues to do the same thing we gotta uh... embrace new artists new sounds new ideas and allow this music to you know to uh... to live and breathe and exist as as a growing entity you know i agree and as much as i can appreciate and love folks like uh...
uh... alvin youngblood hardy played a very traditional style of blues and i'm as much as i love that you know a band like southern avenue both the order from a personal friend of ours you know that they're taking it into a new realm and i i love it all i love the book it's it's all necessary and needed
Okay, now let's talk a little bit about You as a songwriter because you know every good release starts with good songs When you sit down in front of that blank page, what is the mechanism?
That helps you tap into your muse You know I've I've written a lot a lot of songs over the years some better than others and
as as we all do you know you can i gotta get through the chat before you find a week and uh... for me anyway uh... there are many different avenues to to to arrive at a song i have often sat down written lyrics first
I've often sat down and intentionally composed the music and then put words to that.
We've often, as a band, jammed and recorded stuff and taken that and chopped it up and, okay, well, this part could be a good bridge and this part will be a good verse and this, you know, and then arrange it.
So to me, there are a lot of different ways to get to a song.And I think it's important to allow the views to lead you, you know.For me,
uh... i i i i don't really one of those ways that that is more prominent than the others uh... we've written a lot of songs and a lot of different ways and also for me uh... the arrangement of a song is also very important and we've written songs that start off you know your standard template of intro verse chorus verse double chorus modulate don't know that there there's there are standard template we've also written song to start off with
with an acapella chorus.We've got songs that start off with the bridge first.And to me, that's kind of what keeps it interesting.
If all your songs sort of stick to the same template on a record, I think it wears your ears out somewhat, that things don't change around somewhat.So I think it's important to broaden one's horizons as far as what you will allow to inspire you.
And for me, and I also, Like you said, songwriting, that's the basis of a record, the basis of a live gig.You've got to have songs that capture people.
If you're playing at a bar, if you're not playing big festivals and you're playing for people who are drinking and hanging out with their friends and talking and whatnot, occasionally you want them to turn their heads and look up at the stage and go,
That was interesting.Those lyrics were good.There was a twist in the music that you wanted to capture their attention.The way you do that is by the hooks.Memphis has a long history of great songs and great songwriting.
different styles of music here that have come out of this town over all the decades.But one of the primary concerns here in Memphis with the artists as we collaborate with each other and all learn from each other is writing good songs.
And to me, the hardest part for me sometimes, I think, is to come up with a topic that I feel like hasn't already had a billion, jillion songs already written about it, you know, cars and love and girls.
And, you know, and if I come up with a topic that I consider to be worthy of my time to write lyrics to, I can go crazy.I'll write, you know, eight or nine verses so that I can go back and pick the best few to make the best song.
To find a way to say things that's a little bit different than maybe someone else might say it, I will often write down
uh... list uh... the left list is is agitated the middle is is now the adverbs birds and try to cross match things so that you're not just saying the same thing in the same way can you find a a more unique way to say something that might catch somebody's ear that might be a bit but that's a bit too unique that you're that your own thing that your own way to to go about it so lyrics are really important interesting music is important and with our band especially
Any one of us may bring a song in to a rehearsal, but we don't write, like, we go through phases.
When it's time to make a record, we go into a writing phase and we're all, you know, I keep a book constantly that I'm writing ideas down and song titles and suggestions, you know, different ideas for songs.
And we bring things into rehearsal and even if I may consider this to be relatively a completed song, I am open to my guys make free-rolled eyes at it, if you will, you know, and getting, suggesting, well, what about this?And what about that?
And what about these words instead of those words?And maybe you could add this, or what if we shorten the intro, move the bridge?You know, there's a lot of different ways that songs can be massaged, if you will.
And I've always wanted and allowed the guys in my band to take my songs, and we do this with each other,
and and and mold them into something that's that may be greater than that was brought into rehearsal in the first place and that's what to me that's what makes a band it's not free world featuring richard cushing a richard cushing's free world it's free world and we all contribute so that's i think that's it's important for the band as a whole now what are some of the artists that you look to as inspiration or uh... you look up to as songwriters
Oh wow.There's a lot of great songwriters here in Memphis that I have long studied.There's a lot of great people that are recorded at Stax and recorded at High and a lot of the great blues people.
A lot of the people, like Herman Green, my mentor, he was a really great songwriter. It's one thing to listen to records and get inspiration.I think it's something else to be around people and watch the process.
And also, you may know this, songs evolve.I mean, I'll bring a song into rehearsal and it'll get free world eyes and become something else and we'll play it for a little bit.
And you know, while you're playing songs, sometimes they themselves, if you let the song play itself, you know, if you, if you, the song will tell you where it needs to go.You're playing it live and, and you can just feel it.
You'll actually, this, this part needs to stretch.This part needs to be cut down.This, this, this, this, you know, you can, you, you, you allow the song to play the band and as opposed to the band to play the song.
But as far as individual songwriters, um, ah, geez, there's a bunch of, I really love, uh, the current bands, uh, like, uh, Southern Avenue, uh, love, love their music, love listening to them play.Um, Kermit Green, primary songwriter.
I really loved, as far as our instrumental songs go, I was really a very... Inspired by folks like bogatini and jeez and the meters down in New Orleans.They're great.Yeah.
Yeah, definitely All right now, you know Every songwriter has a toolkit, you know Whether it's just a pad and a pen or they use their cell phone to capture ideas Or even a home recording studio to kind of lay out some melodic or rhythmic structures and then write to that
What are some of the tools you have found to be indispensable to you as a writer?
I Mentioned a moment ago.I keep a book what we write we did put out a record every three four five years and During that process.I've got a book in my office that I'm constantly adding ideas So it comes around to where we're in a writing phase.
I can go back to this and
And I will also use my phone, you know, when you're out and about, or hopefully I'm in my car, but, you know, there are times when I'll grab my phone and sing something into it, or, and we also, as we play live, there's one of the songs on our master song list called Take One.
And that's basically, I turn to my drummer and say, you know, give me a funky beat. And I'll come up with a cool bass line and folks will follow in.Or before we do that, it'll be like, what's the chord structure of this one?Let's do a 1-6-2-5-1.
And what key are we in?And we'll take off.And I've got as part of my my effect unit, it has a looper, it has a eight channel digital recorder in it.
And if what we're playing, it wouldn't come up with live on stage is inspiring me, I'll hit that recorder and lay that down as we're playing it live.And then I can go back to that at a later point and take pieces or parts of it.
I also have a mobile home up in the Ozarks that I will often take a sabbatical to. and sit up there away from all technology, away from everything.
And the mobile home is way back up on top of a hill, way back down the highway, down the side road, down the gravel road, up the side of the hill, and there's nothing there.And that's a great place to write.I've written a lot of our songs there.
So there are a lot of different, again, ways to get to it.I don't own personal recording equipment in my home. Because as soon as I do, I will become the Kermit guy in the back room of the house that never leaves.
And I don't want to be that guy just yet.Maybe later in my life, I'll do that.But right now, my music is outside my home primarily, and that's kind of where I'd like to keep it for the moment.
okay now uh... let's talk about that process a little bit now of course once you get a song written and like you said it constantly evolves it evolves in the studio uh... it even you know he falls later on when you uh... take it out on the road after you recorded it just constantly evolves but you have to uh...
Get in the studio and create its sonic identity, not only for the song, but also that sonic sound that identifies you as a band.Tell me a little bit about that process when you get in that environment.
Ideally, there is a pre-production process.
So after you've written a batch of songs, we often will go into not the primary studio that we're going to record in, but like a friend of ours home studio and lay it all down just ourselves without a producer or anybody.I tend to
I want to have a producer involved in our music.Not many people are capable of being parents, if you will, and being able to play all the instruments and produce yourself.And I think having a
an unbiased outside party who's not emotionally connected to this music, who can listen to it objectively.
And I know that I've produced other people's music here in town, and it's a lot easier when it's not your baby to listen to these songs and, okay, let's cut the intro in half, let's double the chorus at the end.
It's real easy to look at things when they're not yours. So I think it's important to do pre-production before you hit the studio.As you know, time is money in the studio.You don't want to go into the studio with a bunch of half-baked ideas.
You need to get there and get it recorded, get it done, get out.Unless you've got unlimited funds, which I don't know how many of us have unlimited funds.
In the studio, we've also done many different things in the studio as far as, you know, one of our records, the one released in 1999 called Diversity, it was, we didn't use headphones, we set up baffles in the studio, we basically played a live gig and had our friends come in and, you know, just basically had it, because we wanted that feel, that vibe, we wanted the record, you know.
Sometimes it's difficult.You get in the studio, and you're isolated, and everyone's wearing headphones, and the pressure's on.It's just a different environment, especially when you're primarily a live band.
Like I said, my band evolves and rotates, and often that involves younger people.Free World not only is a band, we've also always been a school. always from the very beginning when Herman was the teacher and we were just in kindergarten.
Now I'm the dean and then we got kids in my band who had never been in the studio until we recorded this last record.So there's that part of it where you gotta
get the vibe straight, you gotta get people's heads straight, you gotta rehearse the music enough so that they're not in the studio, and they're not all that worried about it.
You've played it enough live, and you've rehearsed your head off, and you've recorded it once in your friend's home studio, and everyone's kind of relaxed enough that you can get a good performance out of people without them being uptight.
That's the killer of a vibe in the studio is people being too worried about, oh my god, this is for posterity, and they're like, okay, I can't mess it up. You don't want that vibe.You want people to be loose and happy and feeling good about it.
Absolutely.You know, and also for this record in particular, every other album we've ever done, I was, if I were to send that record off to someplace to book a gig, I wanted us to be able to show up and sound exactly like that record.
That was my, it was like a calling card.The album was, was, was a photograph, a sonic photograph of the band as we stand.This time around,
my primary concern was to make the best studio album that Freewheel could make, like Latter Day Beatles or Steely Dan or whoever, who basically weren't a touring band.
They made studio records and then they did whatever they needed to do to make the music sound as good as it possibly could.Serve the song.You know, leave your ego at the door and serve the song.
And there have also been quite a few Freewheel band members over the years who had a significant tenure in the band, but their time in the band didn't necessarily fall over one of our records.
So I wanted to invite as many people back to the studio as I could this time around, so the folks who could say in their career, yeah, I played in free roll between this date and this date, And I'm also on this record now, too.
So I wanted to have a bunch of cameo appearances by people who were good friends of the band, who had been in the band for an extended period of time at some point in the past.
I wanted them to be able to come in and cut something on the record and be able to point back, yeah, that trumpet solo's mine, that guitar solo's mine, that vocal is mine.So we did a whole lot of that in this record.
We invited a bunch of people back and had a bunch of cameo appearances in it. It made the Free World family feel really good about this record.And what we as a band, like I said, we've always been an extended collective of people.
Well, not extended collective of people, is represented on this album.And it feels good.It feels real good to have your old buds maybe you haven't seen in a while.They moved on to other things or moved out of town.
Also, the advent of technology these days,
There were several folks who had played in the band over the years who didn't live in Memphis anymore that these days you can send a track digitally off to Florida or Chicago or in one case to Australia and have somebody put something on it and send it back.
And you know, you don't necessarily have to fly somebody in from Australia to have them on the record.You could just, you know, email them the track.So that was kind of a different thing for this record than anything we've done in the past.
Okay, well tell me a little bit about the lineup.Who is on this?
So, on this record we have myself, I'm the band leader, bass player, play a little percussion on the record as well.My drummer, Matt Sweat, he's the youngest guy in the band, he's only 23, did a fantastic job.
I was a little bit concerned about him, he had never really been much in the studio before, and he came in and killed it.He's gonna do great things, I can tell you right now. Our guitar player was Walter Hughes.
Walter Hughes also been playing on Beale Street with his brother Eric Hughes.You may know the Eric Hughes band as well.A blues stalwart on Beale Street and Eric's been playing with his brother for many years and he's our current guitar player.
our band's secret weapon, Mr. Cedric Taylor on the keyboards.Cedric is a fantastic musician.He's the musical director in his father's church here in Memphis, and you can feel it, you can hear it.He plays with that church thing, and he's a badass.
He's a free world secret weapon at the moment.I love him to death.Now, horn section, Peter Clyney is our longtime Saxophone player.He's my he's the general.He's the he's a lieutenant.
He's and he's my number one guy He takes care of that side of the stage right at the horn section and all that is his he Arranges all the horns.He keeps all that stuff straight.He keeps everybody in line and He's a fantastic musician on his own.
Not only does he play all the different saxes, you know, alto, tenor, bari, he also plays an eewee, which is sort of an electronic wind instrument, eewee is what it stands for, and he played like a saxophone, it's sort of a synthesizer play, and he just, that's really something special.
Freeman Stortz is our trombone player.Freeman's dad and myself were in like a dorm room band in college back in the early 80s, and so I've known Freeman since he was a kid,
uh... his dad used to bring him out to all the gigs because he's a bone player and he wanted to hear what a band sounded like with horns and slowly but surely he started sitting in with us and now he's a regular band member so that's great and then uh... our trumpet player is Alex Shutrump
Sheetrum, Alex Sheetrum, he's great.He's got a master's degree.He's just, he's all around.He's been playing all over town for years.He's a younger guy, but he's got a lot of enthusiasm and great chops.
And then as far as our guests were concerned, so Kevin Houston was our primary engineer He also was our co-producer.He's worked with us on three or four of our former records as well.So he knows the sound of the band.He knows where we've come from.
He knows where we're headed to.He's also a horn player himself.So being in a horn band and to having a guy who's a horn player help to produce a record is not a bad thing, right?
So myself and Peter Clyney and Kevin Houston, and then Matt Tudor, who is a free world alumnus, He's a great singer, a fantastic guitar player, and a great producer.We brought him in as well.He layered over a bunch of guitar stuff.
He sang lead on the lead-off track.He had a lot of great ideas.He's a great producer.It's also somebody who hears music differently than anyone I've ever known.
Just the way he subdivided it in his brain, the way he hears stuff, it's unique and it was essential for this record sounding the way it does.
our most recent uh... keyboard player chris stevenson he just moved uh... i guess last year to florida so uh... he helped to co-write some of these songs and so we had him sing one of the songs he helped to co-write and he's got the fantastic voice he's down in florida killing him in the west coast of florida's blues scene down there he's killing it we had uh... the lead singer of the bb king house band jerome chisholm we had him sing the song called more love
Now, I wrote that song, I asked myself, what's one thing the free world's never had on any of our former records?What's something that could be unique on this album?What I came up with was, we've never had a song with a full gospel choir on it.
And so I had to write that song, first off.And I'd like to say that I wrote that song, but I would really at this point really more say that I channeled that song.It was something that, you know, sometimes songwriting is a craft.
Sometimes you can take a long time to really craft a song.This was a gift.I sat down and it poured out of me. in a space of a very short period of time.
And I layered it over a bass line I've been sort of toying with for years, just this thing that I often thought was something else, and ended up it's not, it's my own.
So I wrote these words, but it's very much a gospel-y kind of a feel song, and not that I don't sing well, but it really needed somebody to sing it with some authenticity.
And so we had Jerome, who's the, like I said, the lead singer in the house band of BB Kings on Beale Street.We had him come in and he just, he did exactly what I had in my mind and my soul for that song.
He brought the, the, the churchy authenticity to it.And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a masterpiece.It's, it's a beautifully well-written and well-conceived and well-conceptualized song.Just amazing.
Walter White sang some vocals, Delaney Tudor sang some vocals, Benjamin Thelonious, I.Q.Sanders.I.Q.has long been the free world poet laureate.He will jump up on stage with us and do spoken word things.And we got him to come.
Actually, he lives in Australia now.We set a track to him and he
it spoke to you what do you know what it does he's real big on the first music and those that created it in the history of it and beale street and all that so he he tied everything that he's like ever done including song titles off the new record and the current band members and that he tied it into herman green and the past of beale street and and and bobby blue band the beginning he he he he's he's got a gift and uh... the poet laureate of free world like you said there's we had a herman i've had passed away in twenty twenty
But in order to honor him, we recorded one of his songs on the new record, and I thought it would be cool to put the original band back together.
So I got Ross Rice and Willie Wallman and Clint Wagner, the trumpet, keyboard, and guitar players, respectively, who started the band with me back in 87.And we recorded the Dr. Herman Green song.
So basically, as a tribute to Herman, we put the band back together.And a lot of that was done remotely.The rhythm sections were all... You asked before about...
uh... stickler even though i wanted to have a bunch of cameos are pretty much stickler for i want to read them sections of all the fault because a lot the bass drums keyboard guitar i want that basis of the songs to be feeding off of each other feeling each other that you layer off the horns and vocals and the percussion everything else about that but i really insist on the the rhythm tracks being cut live but then that particular song that was not the case uh... the drums
The bass were cut live, but we layered on an original guitar player, an original keyboard player, and our original trumpet player.That was to honor Herman.We brought in Gene Nunes.
aubrey mccrady and zack mack we had their own local guitar players who's should have a play with us on a regular basis like i said free world to a collective of people and they're part of the collective and i wanted them to have a piece of the record so we've had to come in and cut a solo on uh... various songs hope claiborne who is a uh... a former saxophone player and uh... fantastic musician great uh... chicago saxophone flute she sings she has her own band she's amazing uh... we had her come in and uh...
play alto, sax flute on the track.Joe Boogie Simmons, Joe Boogie played him, B3.We rented his B3 and we started recording the day.There was a really bad ice storm here in Memphis and it happened to be that was the week we recorded.
And the heater was out in the studio, so we're like all freezing to death in the studio and recording all these songs.But our keyboard player, he lives way out outside of Memphis and couldn't make it in the first day.
And Joe brought his B3 and we rented his B3 for the gig.He got to be on the record because he was the keyboard player there the first day. And we brought in Hector Diaz to play percussion, congas, various things, a couple songs that didn't need it.
Again, you served the song, and some of the songs told us they needed percussion.And then, as I said, we had the Tennessee Mass Choir come in, Jason Clark's the director, and I forget how many, I'm not gonna tell you something.
To have a full gospel choir of people who are from the church and are real people and are coming from the right place and have an open heart, an open soul, to have this large group of people singing your music back to you, to me, to have them sing my music back to me was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had.
uh... the softball more love and they brought all the love to the song and uh... it was if you've never been around before gospel choir especially if they're doing something that that is connected to your creativity to your music to your art to your words it's uh... it's quite a moving experience so that's that's pretty much the personnel on the record uh... okay we thank you uh... we had never thought engineers that contributed but that's that's pretty much the best
all right now uh... now once you get a record of course you gotta get it out yet to get it to radio and in you know create the buzz and you're working with betsy brown from blind raccoon another memphis native uh... via i guess england uh... tell me a little bit about that relationship and how it's been going so far this is are the third record that betsy has worked for us and she doesn't absolutely fantastic job
You know, she sends our stuff over the entire planet.We get radio airplay and print reviews and online reviews literally from all over the world.You know, all over Europe, all over Australia, all over the United States, South America.
We've had, over the course of, I guess, the first record she worked for us came out in 2012, I guess. And then the next one in 2017 and this one now in 2024.And she's just great at what she does.She knows a lot of people.
And she knows who to put them, whose hands to put them in, whose ears to put them in.And it's been invaluable to us.As a band that doesn't really tour, we did a lot of touring back in the day when we were a younger band.
But at this point, we don't have to tour.We play on Beale Street, the world comes to us. But our music tours, Betsy sends it out all over the planet.
And we get a lot, and these days also with the technology that people, you know, they can buy the record online anywhere they are.And with her getting the word out the way she does, it's really easy for people to go online to, you know,
Amazon or iTunes or Apple Music, Spotify, whatever it is, whatever platform they prefer.Our music is everywhere through our distributor here, Selected Hits, which is, I think, one of the country's largest music distributors.
It happens to be based in Memphis.They've worked every record we've had since our first one came out in 94.
So the combination of having local distribution, Betsy working it from here, and also Memphis Record Pressing, also one of the country's largest record, vinyl pressing.We actually got vinyl made this time, that's great.
Every other record we've ever put out has been a CD.This record is vinyl.And we pressed up some limited edition vinyl.And that's... I always wanted to have some free roll vinyl.We got David Lynch.He's a local artist, a muralist.He does fantastic art.
We've used his art on the last two records as well.But this time we actually had him custom make an album cover just for it.He's gonna take one of his pieces of art and slap it on our logo and the album title on it.
We had him actually make the album cover as a piece of art, his own.And David Lynch, you should look him up.His work is very unique.
very uh... interesting very colorful and uh... in in talking to to brandon at memphis record pressing i was was kind of uh... didn't really know whether i wanted to uh... to press finals will be expensive it's kind of a niche market we want to do this and corporate his job to sell me on it but his his idea was look you play on beale street right if you make sure that your art is memphis centric and it pops
There will be a certain percentage of people at your gigs who will buy the record, and they never open it.They're going to buy it for the art.They're going to buy it to stick it on their wall.They're going to put it on a shelf.
They're going to love to look at it.It's a souvenir for them.It's going to remind them of their trip in Memphis, and your band, and the music.So Brando's like, don't spend the money making multicolored vinyl with bells and whistles on the inside.
Put your money on the outside.
and so that was uh... one of the if you're looking at the record it's it's fantastic out nice okay now you know um... i get into a lot of conversations with musicians over a wide variety of subjects and some of the most contentious ones um... i find really interesting one of which is of course the whole world of artificial intelligence
Now, usually when I bring up the subject, you know, I get the side eye, I get that look of horror that most musicians have when you mention AI.
But the fact of the matter is, is AI is here, is going to affect all of our lives, some to the good, some to the bad, but it's going to be part of our new reality, let's put it that way.
Where do you see AI's influence on the music industry and as we move forward into the future?
Well, I agree with you.It's here.And there's nothing we can do about it one way or another.And we're going to have to learn to live with it.I think it's... It can be used as an inspiration.I don't think it's necessarily all evil.I think it may...
It may cost some people some jobs, you know, as most new technology does.It takes some people's way that thing, you know, you may have heard this phrase many times you see it in businesses or what not.
It says, you know, the death knell of anything moving forward is the phrase, well, that's the way we've always done it. And if you want things to advance and to evolve and to get better, you kind of got to leave that phrase behind, right?
You can't just always be stuck in, well, that's the way we've always done things.So I think this AI, if utilized properly, you know, it can help.You know, it can also, I think, like I said, there are people who go every day,
in nashville in particular i'm thinking who who meet up every day in their or cubbies with their other guys and they and their job is to write songs you know that's what they do and it's a craft and it did it's worth it it's hard you know to write a three-and-a-half minute song that has plot and character development and rhymes and is interesting and has a look at that that that's it's hard to do it but we have tried that it's difficult you had a really good song that hit song and if you can just feed from
basic information into a computer and have it spit out a hit song, one after another after another, that's going to cost people some jobs.
It's also, depending on how it's used, again, you may end up, music may end up becoming more plastic, if you will, more generic, or I guess it all kind of depends on what you feed into the computer and what you ask it to do.
and if you're creative enough or outside the box enough to feed some interesting ideas into a computer and have it spit out some songs that maybe you might not have thought of on your own or maybe no one would have thought of.
I think it can be used as a tool for good.I'm worried somewhat that we're gonna start hearing songs on the radio.I don't think it's ever gonna supplant actual musicians doing their jobs.
You know, people playing live and there's some sort of connection there that people get, especially I see it on Beale Street every day.
People coming down there, they're never going to have the computer generated band up on stage, you know, playing computer generated music.That's never going to happen.So there's always going to be people making music.But I think
maybe maybe it's possible for a i to be utilized in a way that that can be combined with with humanity with the human humanity part of songwriting the humanity part of of creating chord arrangements and chord progressions and lyrics maybe it can help maybe it won't i guess time will tell well you know it's interesting because you know i tend to agree with you uh... to a certain point
I do see AI on the creative end of things being more of an inspirational tool than a creative tool.You know, I'm old enough to remember when the drum machine first came on the scene, when MIDI first came on the scene.
And of course, the whole music industry was in an uproar over this because, you know, music is going to become metronomic.You're going to suck the life out of it.Broadway musicians were
you know, running around with their hair on fire because you could score a whole play with a sequencer and a synthesizer.But now they're tools.They're tools that come with every DAW that you purchase.
There is a drum machine, there are synthesizers and MIDI involved in that DAW.So it's become just a tool that we use to, whatever, create music. AI on the creative end is, you know, as a songwriter, you're constantly looking for that turn of phrase.
Whether you overhear a conversation, or you see something on the internet, or something in the newspaper, or whatever the case may be, AI is nothing more than having a conversation with a larger brain to give you different perspectives on something that could spark that human creativity.
You know what I mean?Sure.And, you know, in the studio, I could see it being a help because, you know, we're having an issue with recorded music not being a product anymore.
So if we can become more efficient in the studio, you know, using things like isotopes, ozone for mastering or neutron for mixing or, you know, nectar for, you know, the right vocal, you know,
You know sound then that helps Save time become more economic in the studio But that's not where I see the strength of AI for the music industry going forward if you think about it the you know just to give you a scenario and This is not as outrageous as it may sound because all the components exist right now
If you could take your new release and upload it to an AI engine and have it analyze the sonic signature of your music.
out there on the internet on spotify pandora uh... these are all of these streaming services are feeding us all of this data on demographics who's listening to watch
You take that sonic signature and you say, okay, here's the meta tags you need in order to attract your potential fan base.Here is your potential fan base because these are the people that are listening to music like yours.
I mean, that's already happening on Spotify.If you like this guy, you'll like this guy, you know? So, bring that back to the personalization, and then one of the biggest strengths of AI is taking data, analyzing it, and giving you actionable items.
So, now you take this sonic signature, and you take this potential fanbase, and you say, okay, what kind of content does this fanbase, or this potential fanbase, is most likely to engage with?
and it will give you a list of the type of content you need to create.
You create this list of content, you give it back to the AI engine, you say, okay, schedule a marketing campaign for this particular fan base utilizing this content, and boom, it starts pumping it out on a schedule to all of these social media platforms.
Doing your marketing for you, so you don't have to do the boring work To me that's the strength of AI going into the future I Can see that
yeah perfectly uh... was legitimate consul concept for you utilizing it i just i thought my i i i'm down with all that my mike what what struck me as odd is one of my former guitar players right after it i guess it came out he asked it to analyze all the songs he had written for free world back in the day and it's lyrics and to to to to write a song for him in that bank so i did spit out a set of lyrics and and a set of court changes
It could have been written by him. but it wasn't.And that really sort of struck me as a whoa moment, you know, like, wow, he's using it not as a creative help, but almost as like a creative crutch, if you will.And that one aspect of it concerned me.
But what you just said, that's, you know, absolutely.If you can use it to do the hard work and make it easy, boom. You know, boom.
Yeah, and and and to me that's where I see that that power is going to be utilized Because I mean let's face it.
You know we're in a position right now where we have as musicians We need to number one take back the music industry from I guess you know the the the Spotify's of the world You have you know like this whole world is streaming if you think about it
we're going into the fourth generation of music consumers that does not have a frame of reference of having a physical product in their hands.That they no longer look at music, recorded music, as a product.It's a service now.
And the revenue from streaming is not sustainable as a business model currently.We can't continue like this.
It's not directed towards the engine that's pulling the train.The engine pulling the train are the people who are writing, recording, and creating the music.
But they're not the top of the totem pole as far as the revenue stream goes, and that's a problem.
It's a big problem.And you know, the TV industry, the movie industry, they seem to have been getting a handle on this and able to kind of create
A decent revenue stream, because they're still paying the actors, they're still paying the cameramen, the directors.Everybody's still getting money, you know, from that, you know, that content.But the musicians are not.
They're not, because there's no entity to negotiate for them, and there's no real entity to negotiate with. And you know one of the biggest problems.
I see in the music industry is the fact that it is glutted in the middle Billboard had an article where they stated that of all the money that's generated by the music industry only 12% ends up in the artist's hands And that's a problem
You know the music industry is yeah, if that I mean that's that's if you're you know, you're Taylor Swift You're getting 12% of all the money that the fan spends on your music That's getting filtered through this whole middleman section and you're not getting your fair share and
What I'm seeing happening now is there is a trend towards a decentralized music industry.Give you an example.There is a new streaming service that's been developed that's called Audius.co.
And there's several of them actually that are being developed that utilize the same technology that cryptocurrency uses to secure itself, the blockchain. And one of the biggest advantages of the blockchain is that it is a decentralized system.
In other words, no company, no person, no board of directors can own this service.It is owned by the artists who put up their content and the fans who pay for it.It's this direct artist-fan relationship.
And because of that, they claim that this audience service can pay up to 80% of the incoming revenue directly back to the artist. Because there is no middleman structure.
There is only running the network, which takes 20% of the revenue, and then the rest goes back to the artist.And it's all based on smart contracts that are embedded in the block. So, once it's embedded in the block, it's there forever.
And you can look at it, it's very transparent, but you can't change it.So, as soon as your music is accessed, you get generated a payment.
You know immediately gotta figure out a way to direct the general populace to that as opposed to Spotify Amazon well, I mean think about it the the consumer out there really loves new technology Now what is one of the big advantages of this new technology is you get a better listening experience because you can stream WAV files and FLAC files and you know loss lossless
audio files as opposed to the you know the streams that currently are coming from spotify you have a better listening experience and you know we as independent artists if you look at the statistics uh... according to uh... chart metric
uh... you know spotify has you know stop giving payments to any stream tickets less than a thousand or any track tickets less than a thousand streams a year uh... right and chart metric went and looked at the songs that are on spotify eighty one percent of the music on spotify is less than a thousand streams
now if you had another nine percent just being conservative that means ninety percent of the music on spotify is from independent artists i can say that conservatively easily without any any quorums if that's a huge potential market if you went to your gig and you said hey if you show us that you're following us on audius
or you, you know, you've got an Audius player on your phone and you follow us on Audius uh... we'll, you know, take a picture with you and post it on social media and tag you or we'll give you a sticker or whatever the case may be just we as independent artists can start to move the industry as opposed to following the industry and start moving consumers to this new technology
Now, there are another offshoots to this as well.Now, there is...
uh... song vest and royal dot i o and in a few others that also took this technology and say okay how can we replace the record company because we really don't need record companies anymore so uh... what they do is they allow you to create shares like stocks
in your songs that are based on the streaming or on your publishing royalties.And now your fans can purchase a piece of your songs.They're not donating to you anymore.They're active investors in you as a business.
uh... to give you an example naz did this one of the rap artists and he was able to generate six hundred thousand dollars off of two songs that he made enough of these shares to cover one-half of the streaming royalties of those two songs in addition he had this huge base of fans that had an economic interest in making sure his music is streamed
This, I think, is an interesting new business model for the future of the music industry, where you're going for a more fan-artist relationship, as far as revenue stream is concerned.
And through, like, SongVest or Royal.io, it's a two-way street, because now the fans are getting an economic benefit from the success of the artists that they listen to.
I mean, you can go up on SongVest right now and you can buy a piece of Beyonce's songs.I mean, there are a lot of artists that are starting to look into this technology and how this all operates and utilizing it now to create other revenue streams.
Well, I sure hope something gets done because, you know, I really had an existential issue even making this last record.All the rest of our albums, over time, have made back the money that we spent to create them.
I had a concern with this next album, our current record, that I didn't think it was, this probably isn't gonna do that. You know, I can't give CDs away anymore.I got some vinyl to sell.
And, you know, twice a year I get a printout from Selecta Hits, our distributor, and it's, you know, 58 pages and it's 168 countries and our music is being listened to all over the world.And it's very impressive and makes you feel really good.
And you get to the very last page and the bottom line is $38.17.
Yeah, it you can't you can't sustain you know what you and these days it's it's all about you know live shows and merchandise and your t-shirts and Stickers and all those stuff that that's what keeps artists even the larger artists That's what keeps them alive is is the merchants.
It's not the music anymore, and that's it.It's sad and the things you're describing are
Hopefully they will pick up and take over and put these other things like Spotify out of business so that the artists can actually start making some money again off their music, which is, I mean, it's like a duh, right?
But the fact that it's not happening now, the whole paradigm has shifted so that the artists are the last people on the totem pole that are making any money.It doesn't make any sense.But I can tell you from my own experience, my sons,
who are 23 and 25 at this point, I don't think either one of them have ever spent a dollar in their whole life on music, ever.They listen to music all the time.You know, I don't think they've ever spent a dollar on music.
And I know, as a kid, you know, we were, I was running around doing extra chores around the house so I could go up to the mall to Camelot Music and buy the new record that just came out and come home and play it and have my friends come over and take it to my friend's house.
And it was a deal.It meant something to me.Now, like, I think you said it, music is no longer a product, music is just, it's something that they feel entitled to.It's not something that they feel like they need to go buy.It's just there.
You know, they go to YouTube or wherever and it's just there.They're not gonna spend any money on it. And no one stops to think about, well, you're not spending money on it.It means the people who are creating it aren't getting paid anything.
And so if we can somehow or another get that general word out to, you know, I haven't seen things recently.You've probably seen them too.One CD, one CD sold off the stage at a gig is the same as what, 5,000 streams, right?You know, and,
If you get that information across to your fans, look, you know, I appreciate you listen to our music, and I thank you for listening to it on your phone and online.I appreciate that greatly.
I'd appreciate it even more if you'd actually buy one of these LPs, you know?
Well, you know, I'll be honest with you.As a consumer, I don't think the fans really give a shit.You know, I'll be honest with you.
I mean, you could tell them, hey, we make more money if you buy a CD, but they're not, like I said, we're in the fourth generation.
that of of of consumers that really have no frame of reference of doing that you know and they're very happy with the fact that they can go on spotify and access pretty much everything that's been recorded in the last hundred years in fact according to they're not having to haul anything around to us right is a is a good point of that they don't have to have a big record collection a whole bunch of cds or anything it's all everything's on everybody's phone these
Right, it's all there.In fact, according to Chartmetric, as of January 1st, there was 872 years of music on Spotify.I mean, think about that.
I mean, if you started listening 24-7, seven days a week, the day Leonardo da Vinci finished the Mona Lisa, you still would not be done until the year of 2402.
I mean, you know, I can, just today, I posted, my son got married this past weekend.
and i posted a picture on instagram and but but but uh... it you know you can tag music to your post of course and i tagged it mendelssohn's let's go over that you know
sixteen seventeen hundreds maybe yeah so yeah it would be a regrettably available that right away for me yeah yeah i mean so you know i did the fact of the matter is is that we as musicians we need to look at what the technology is now and how do we move the industry to this new technology that is fairer to us
We need to go to this decentralized system where it's a direct artist-to-fan relationship, or at least as close as we can get, so more of the revenue ends up in our hands and not to this middleman structure of the industry that we really don't need anymore.
We don't need 90% of what's out there sucking the revenue away from us. You know spot is spotify You know is a you know right now.
We don't have a choice, but participate because it's the biggest game in town But that's right one of the things that I have noticed about the music industry Is that especially during the digital revolution?
Every time we come we came up with a company that we thought was going to dominate the industry forever They got replaced LimeWire was replaced by Napster.Napster was replaced by iTunes.
And, of course, when Apple entered the game, we all thought that, oh my God, you know, Apple's going to run the industry forever.They're going to own music.And then along comes Spotify.And, you know, who has an iPod now?
You know, they're all sitting in the kitchen junk drawer just collecting dust.
you know yet and so it just stands to reason that spotify will be replaced it's just a matter is what is it going to be replaced with and how can we as independent artists guide that new technology to the consumer and get them to adopt something that is uh... how could avoid a more equitable to us as artists
You know?Amen.So that's why I'm constantly looking at, you know, this Audius and Eminate and all of these new technologies, these new streaming technologies that make a lot of sense.
uh... the thing with audience is that it's being backed by like katie perry uh... jason to relo uh... uh... naz push it to you there's a lot of artists behind it uh... and if you get a chance to check it out i think you'll you'll find it interesting uh... and the sooner the better to yeah yeah well i mean is that i mean let's face it did the the new product today is the brand
uh... branding yourself as an artist has become the new thing with social media because people are now investing in the brand of an artist as much as they are the music of that artist they kinda identify them with that brand and a lot of that has come you know kind of matured during the pandemic when artists started to create content
Putting it up on social media as a way to stay connected to their fan base whether it was a live stream or music video or Even just showing things like a reality show mentality that you know they do on the side You know these are my hobbies.
These are my kids these are my pets, my barnyard animals.We've become a society of short-form branding content.My wife, every night before she goes to bed, it's puppies, babies, and kittens for at least an hour.
content creation and social media marketing has become an important part of an artist toolkit, so to speak, in order to get their branding and their music out there.
And, you know, like I said earlier, AI will help us with that in the future, but right now that's kind of a task that we've now have in front of us that we have to participate in.
What are some of the things that you are doing with content and social media marketing that's helping you establish the brand for FreeWorld as well as get the word out on this release?
Well, first off, the last song on this record is the audio from a music video we created back in 2021 and 2022.One of our songs from our record that came out in 1999 is called Dieppe.Here's to diversity.It was literally August.
of 2020 during the pandemic.We were fortunate that one of the clubs on Peel Street, the Rum Boogie Cafe that we play regularly, were really intense about keeping all the rules straight.
And we got to come back to work much earlier than everybody else did.And it was 2020, the summer.It was George Floyd.It was the pandemic with everything else.
And I was singing one of our songs, and it was like I'd never heard the lyrics of my own song before. It struck me as well.Maybe we should.This song is perfect for what's going on in the world right now.Maybe we should go back in and rerecord it.
Maybe we should go back in and rerecord it like a Memphis.We are the world.And I can get everybody I can possibly imagine into the studio.Not necessarily one time or wear a mask and whatnot.
But if I can represent Memphis and the music, the song is called Here's to Diversity.So, you know, black, white, brown, male, female, old, young, gay, straight, Jewish, Christian.
I tried to get as much of a diverse aspect of the music community as I could in to re-record one of our songs.And then when I went to, I was gonna submit it to the Memphis Film Festival.
The way you do that is you go to filmfreeway.com, which is a website, you set up a project page and you submit it.I discovered at that point
that there are fourteen thousand uh... uh... video music awards and film festivals around the planet that you can submit it and so um... i ended up submitting to i don't know i i use their
filters and got it down from fourteen thousand to four hundred of the estimated to about a hundred and we've got outright one about twenty five to thirty a video was a really great video the song was a great song the presentation was was on point and exactly everything that i had on stage singing that song and my my concept that i that came to me in the middle of that gig it basically came to fruition uh... through nico lewis who is our producer
justin jagger zeroes or videographer but that video uh... sort out all over the literally all over the planet was a huge um... it will have to use uh... uh... hit video promo company dot com uh... and and that video being put out which was huge in getting like you said i'll our the the band not just the band but but the uh... the the the the
It's not just the band and our music, but it's our concept and getting that out through social media all over the planet.Once people get a taste of your music and they like it, they're going to come back for more.
Right now, I'm trying to leverage that video.We use the audio from that video on the CD, which is helpful. And that's when that song is played on the radio, off of this record here and there, people may remember, oh, I saw that video.
Oh, it's a new record by that band, let's go check it out.And of course, you gotta make videos for the new songs, and we're constantly pumping our gigs online.We're primarily a live band, and we put records out every four or five years.
And of course, you want it to do as good as it can.I'm under no illusion that
i'm going to become the next bruce springsteen you know where we are what we are and and i'd like it that i could hire betsy and betsy does a great job through uh... why reckoned with to to publicize what we do and get it out uh... in in print and uh... on online and and what not to talk i'm really uh... i have yet to i probably will end up hiring somebody to do our social media sites at least at least for the next couple months
who can, you know, like you pointed out a minute ago, you don't just have to learn how to play music and how to write songs.
These days you have to have a marketing degree as well, and you yourself, or hire somebody else to do that, because it's not just about writing songs and playing music, putting out a record.
If you wanted to go anywhere, you've got to learn how to leverage social media, and you've got to learn how to use every aspect that's available to you to try to get the word out, because It's a glut.It's an ocean and we're a minnow.
And it's really difficult to stick your head up above water and get recognized.And that's a good and a bad thing.
That there's so much music that you can find things that you like online that may be different than what the mainstream record labels are trying to push at you.Maybe you're not.
Maybe, I don't know, Beyonce and Taylor Swift, maybe you have a little bit more of a I'm going to collect your musical taste, and you can find that online, and that's a good thing.But also, there's so much content online that you get lost in it.
I'll probably end up hiring somebody here pretty soon to help push our stuff on social media. I'm not as adept at that as I need to be.
OK.Well, you know, I really appreciate you coming on the show today.It's been a real pleasure to have this conversation.And we're going to give everyone out there a double shot from your new release.You guys are going to love this.You know what?
Just turn up loud.Screw the Navis.We're going to have some fun.
the the the Music playing
More love into the night.Summoned by Herman's flute and sax, Skypeck's rhythm conjures a red room.Ghost River memories as Beale Street Sunday comes to life.Hope, Virginia, and Cuba blend harmoniously.
Two saxes and apprentice slide heartstrings over street.Dr. and Ross boogie fingers mellows out of Loki's big star bell. We remain Earth Mother's children.Mid-South blessings, heart on the table, wrapped tamales, our souls of barbecue sauce.
Memphis music's sticking to our ribs like steam on grits.Richard's bass extends double-fingered funk.We rock this color trip out of sight as the grid is deal. Highs, Blush City, Wax, Sun to Stax, Most Known, Unknowns, Royal to 1070 AM WTIA.
Keep on smiling, collector soul of Sonic Majesty, Made in Memphis, Legacy.Peter on sax, Matthew on drums, Walter on guitar, Alex on trumpet, Friedman on the trombone, Cedric on keys, and Richard on bass.Every Sunday night, down on Beale Street.
We be Slam's keys, Joy's pop song.We be B.B.'s tears, Lucy Campbell's keep going on.We be Boba Fett's loan, Aretha's gospel home.We are home of the blues, birthplace of rock and roll.We be Memphis music main, IQ and free world, play on.
Gonna rock these shades Gonna scream my name Make you shout now, honey I'm gonna make you
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