Friends & Legends with Skip Martin
Host: Skip Martin
Summary:
Skip Martin sits down with his longtime bandmate Bobby Harris, founder and leader of the Grammy winning Dazz Band, to go back to where it all started. Bobby tells how a Cleveland jazz fusion band called Telefunk became Kinsman Dazz, named after the street he grew up on, and how a packed audition landed them a record deal in 1976. Then came the shot of a lifetime: Marvin Gaye was set to produce their first album, until illness forced him out. With ten hotel rooms, three rental cars and the clock ticking on their own money, Bobby refused to go home to Cleveland empty handed, and a name he spotted on the label president's desk changed everything. Then, recording in California, their engineer dragged them next door to see a 19 year old who played every instrument himself: Prince. Skip and Bobby also relive how Skip joined the band out of Youngstown, the Dazzmobile, and the Cleveland winters that toughened them up.
Main Topics:
Telefunk and the birth of Kinsman Dazz
Naming the band after Kinsman Avenue in Cleveland
The audition that landed a record deal in 1976
Rehearsing with Marvin Gaye, then losing him to illness
Talking the label president into one more shot
How Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire came to produce the debut
Watching a 19 year old Prince in the next studio
Why Cleveland prepared them for the world
How Skip joined the band from Youngstown, Ohio
The Dazzmobile, frozen car doors and the Lake Erie hawk
Seven albums in six years
Intriguing Quotes:
"You can never tell where your blessings come from." - Bobby Harris
"Lose the keyboard player." - Tony Camillo, as Bobby remembers it
"I am going to have a ball working with you guys." - Marvin Gaye, as Bobby remembers it
"Cleveland is another kind of place, man. You can't go back there without what you said you were going to come with." - Bobby Harris
"In order to be successful at anything, you have to have the courage to go to an environment that's uncomfortable and less convenient to make your way." - Skip Martin
"It's not what you know, it's who you know." - Bobby Harris
Key Moments:
[00:00] Skip welcomes Bobby Harris
[01:23] Telefunk, the band before Kinsman Dazz
[02:34] Naming the band after Kinsman Avenue
[05:01] The audition that packed the club
[05:54] Lose the keyboard player
[06:25] Signed in 1976, 50 years on
[07:05] In the studio with Marvin Gaye
[08:09] Marvin Gaye falls ill
[09:01] The label president jumps on his desk
[09:42] We can't go back without a record
[10:12] Philip Bailey's name on the desk
[11:23] The kid next door was Prince
[12:27] How Cleveland trained them
[13:37] Finding Skip in Youngstown
[17:47] The Dazzmobile
[19:05] Meeting the hawk off Lake Erie
[20:53] Seven albums in six years
[22:12] To be continued in Part 2
Notable Resources:
Kinsman Dazz (1978), produced by Philip Bailey, featuring "I Might as Well Forget About Loving You"
Electric Shop Recording Studio, Las Vegas
Connect with Bobby Harris and the Dazz Band:
Website: https://www.thedazzband.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theoneandonlydazzband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedazzband
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPtN1sSbm7vOMHVwuSKJRyA
Connect with Skip Martin:
Website: https://www.skipmartinmusic.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/skipmartinmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skipmartinmusic/