The Shaped by Sound podcast is made possible through support from Come Hear NC, a program of the North Carolina Arts Council within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Anthony Hamilton, thank you so much for being here.

Just so stoked to have you here.

So I wanted to start out with, you've said that if we want to know your music, it all begins in your childhood in Charlotte.

Yeah.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Yeah, you know, the style of music that you hear me sing, it's something I heard coming up, whether it be the church or on a set, which is a record player.

And it feels like home to me.

And so when getting in a studio and starting to think about my musical career, you want to know like, man, what is my real picture?

What is the real texture of my story?

And so musically, this is what it sounds like, because that's what I lived before I got to the music.

And so it's Southern, it's laid back, it's Sunday morning, and it's family.

Yeah.

And so... Can you talk to us a little bit about your childhood in Charlotte and what it was like to grow up there?

Charlotte, it was a really relaxed childhood.

Things moved a little slow.

People weren't in a rush.

Everybody spoke to you, whether you're driving by in a car or sitting on the porch.

It's a lot of family energy in the neighborhood.

Church was a really big part of my upbringing, church on Sundays and during the week.

Good food.

A lot of good food, a lot of great cooking.

And I was a middle child of three siblings.

My mom had us.

I lived with my mother.

And my father, he was not far away, but he didn't live in the house with us.

I had a lot of free time to myself to dream.

And I always dreamed about being a singer.

I said to myself numerous times, "I'm going to be famous singing."

And I didn't really know what fame was, but I knew singing was the thing that I wanted to do.

And most of my life, if I wasn't playing with bees or ants or getting stung by wasps, I'd be dreaming about the next big song.

So you were starting to sing.

What were you singing?

Was it church hymns?

You know what?

I did.

I sang in the church, but I wasn't really ready to be out in the front.

I was one of those shy kids when it came to performing and singing.

But yeah, I listened to a lot of Michael Jackson, Ben.

Ben was one of my favorite songs.

It was something eerie about it, but beautiful at the same time.

I remember just getting really close to the speaker and listening to Ben.

And it just sounded different to me, I'm sure, than anybody else.

Natalie Cole was a big favorite of mine.

Bill Withers.

I used to watch Lawrence Welk.

Yeah.

Yeah, the Lawrence Welk show and Solid Gold, Hee Haw.

And my grandmother was a really, really strict Christian, so I heard a lot of James Cleveland and Andre Crouch and things like that coming up as well.

Yeah, so you were sort of all over the map then.

Absolutely all over the map.

That's why on any album you'll hear a country rendition of a country song or blues or something with a hip hop drum because I grew up around a lot of music.

When did it start to become a little bit more serious for you?

And maybe serious isn't the right word, but when you started to really be like, "I want to do this."

I think about 13 or 14, I was like, "You know what?"

I wrote my first song, had no idea I could write.

My brother had a musical company in Charlotte, it was called C&C.

And he was doing a lot of great things in the city, but I was like, "It's got to be bigger, it's got to be better."

Were you sort of kind of competing with your brother then?

No, I was tying to him.

But I was just like, "Okay, he's gotten me this far and he's done this much."

But I think there's another layer, there's another level to it.

So what was sort of the next steps for you then?

To be heard by those who... There was a guy by the name of Mark Spark from down in Waynesboro.

He had worked with Mary J. Blige, some really big hip hop guys, Salt-N-Pepa, he did Shoop for Salt-N-Pepa.

Wow.

And so he was going back and forth to New York, but he was taking artists.

He was almost like the Harriet Tubman of the music business from North Carolina, man, he's taking people up.

I know he's taken at least about 200 people to New York and LA, I kid you not.

Because there were 40 of us in one house.

But I wanted to get the attention of those who had been in that space.

And talent shows led me to meet a guy who knew Mark, and he was a big fan of my voice.

And he promised to take me to New York.

And he was like, "We're going to go such and such."

Now this is a couple of years later, and he never showed up.

And so at this time I'd gone to barber school.

I was in my early 20s.

And fast forward in a few years, and I get a call in a barber shop like, "Hey, somebody's looking for you, Anthony."

Some guy named Eli, who's now my manager, was looking for me for Mark.

Eventually conversations led to another one, and I finally got to New York back in '91, '92 for the very first time.

Those talent shows, those walks around the block singing with my headphones on, it all paid off because I had landed my first deal a couple years after that at Uptown MCA with Andre Harrell and Jimmy Jenkins.

And Puff was there, Sean "Puffy" Combs.

That's where he started.

So I used to see him around as well.

I'm kind of curious, what was it like for you to go from Charlotte to New York City?

You know what?

The thought of it before I got there was even scarier.

And I tried to get enough money.

I was like, "I know it's going to be expensive."

You see New York on TV, and it's like all this fabulous stuff.

I was like, "I'm going to need a lot of money."

But I could not make more than $67 to save my... Nobody needed a haircut at the time.

And so I was like, "You're either going to go with this $67 or you're going to miss the opportunity."

So we got in a Suzuki Sidekick and we rode up to New York.

And when I got there and I saw those buildings, I was like, "Wow, this has got to be a magical place."

And the energy, the cars, the honking, the people moving around, man, it was just a different kind of beast.

And so I submerged myself into that energy and created a new drive for myself.

I went up there smiling and speaking to everybody.

That wasn't a cool thing to do.

Yeah, there's a different sensibility up there, right?

You don't say hello to people on the street.

No, man.

I thought that's what you do.

"Hey, hey."

This guy was like, "Do you know me?"

I said, "No."

He said, "Do you know me?"

I said, "No, I was just speaking."

He said, "Well, don't speak to me."

I was like, "Oh."

And I had already known, "Don't look up if you are not from here.

Don't look up because they'll know you're new and you could probably get taken advantage of."

So I never looked up, not when people were looking.

Yeah, one of those early lessons in big city life.

Absolutely, man.

I lived in New York City for a little bit myself, and I feel like the first thing I learned is that there's always somebody else weirder than you in the room.

Always.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So if you're being a little weird, it's okay because there's somebody else that's definitely feeling it more than you.

Oh, man.

It'll allow you to be yourself fully and add on if you needed to.

Right.

So it seemed like when you went into New York City, you had all this courage.

I want to know a little bit about how faith comes into this, to your life.

Not just in a religious sense, but maybe in a sense of self.

Yeah.

The thing about faith is you have it and sometimes you lose it.

And there was a few times when I had faith that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

And then getting there and realizing that even though it's something you're supposed to be doing, it's going to take some pushing through the doors to get to it.

So believing in being able to get to the next level is very important.

Sometimes you don't see how it's going to happen.

Sometimes you don't see who's going to be the main person, the main character in the next part of your story.

But if you just believe you're in the right place and you're doing the right thing and making the right steps, it tends to keep you in a place of having a little solitude in your walk.

And you get your prayers in early morning, midday, and at night, and it keeps you grounded.

But you can't give up.

You can't give up on the unseen.

How are you able to do that?

I mean, it's beyond just keeping it in your brain, but what are the ways that you were doing to kind of just keep that persistence?

You know, I tried to surround myself and be in spaces where people who probably thought and felt like me before, to stay around that type of energy.

People who were actually making things happen, whether it be doing backgrounds in the studio or going to a concert or just watching these guys on the corner, making things happen, just beating on buckets or dancing outside, just being around creativity.

I think it ignites you each time you see somebody else who, whether they're doing it on a level like a Beyonce or Ed Sheeran or Kanye or somebody who's just panhandling.

I think it all is important in your life.

I want to talk to you a little bit about, you said that you never got a four-year degree, but that you had a year's worth of education as a touring member of D'Angelo's band.

Yeah, I don't think there's a university that can offer what I was honored to be around and had the experience of taking in.

Can you give us a bit of a timestamp on when that was?

This was back, I had a first album that was supposed to come out back in '93, '94 on Uptown MCA and Brown Sugar was supposed to come out at the same time.

So Kid Al Massenburg would come over and play Brown Sugar and Tony Polk, who were great producers would play Ecstasy, my album.

So the word got out that we were supposed to be rivals and the moment when Uptown folded and I never came out, D'Angelo was inquiring about me, "What happened, whatever happened to that guy that was supposed to come out?"

I said, "No, no, man, he's just kind of..." He said, "Well, you think he would be willing to do background for me?"

And they came to me at this moment, I was signed to Soul Life and Sunshine Anderson had blown up, heard it all before.

So I got the call and I had to go beg my label to let me be a part of the D'Angelo band.

I was like, "Hey, I know I'm supposed to be working on an album, but this will make me so much better."

You had Royal Hargrove, Pino Palladino, Jacques Swarzbach, Frank Root Lacy, Dante Winslow, James Poyser, Questlove, this caliber of musicianship that you can't go to college and be around that.

Right, and you get to be a part of that.

You are one of those all-stars.

I was brought in, I was drafted to be a part of the Soul Aquarians and it changed my life.

I was able to see front and center, a genius every single day, every night for a year and a half, maybe two years.

That must have been like a roller coaster for you.

It was absolutely amazing.

Being in Brazil with D'Angelo and singing "How Does It Feel," the parties are amazing as well.

Yeah.

We had a ball.

I know that you were very close with him and obviously he just passed away.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

And such a huge part of, I mean, just music in general.

I don't want to put him to any pocket of any sort of music.

He just, he had everything.

He carries pockets all for pants, man.

There's no pocket to hold that guy.

I want to talk a bit about from that moment to the first album that did come out, "Coming Where I'm From."

Right before that all happened, I was just at the verge of kind of giving up.

Really?

Yeah.

So Mark Batson, who's one of the main producers for my successful songs with "Charlene" and "Coming From Where I'm From," he had a studio down on 34th Street in New York and I had met him through James Poison.

And I called him.

He said, "Hey, man, just come through."

I'm just at the studio noodling around and he'd let me come down and record for free.

And we just had no idea what these songs were going to mean to my career.

And I remember getting "Coming From Where I'm From" and I was like, "This is different.

It feels different."

"Charlene," "Sister Big Bones," all these songs, but I had no home to put them in.

And so I just kept going down and kept going down.

And eventually in between the time of giving up and getting signed, I got invited to do a Grammy brunch, Londell McMillan's Grammy brunch.

I didn't know who was in the room, who was going to be there.

I was like, "Well, yeah, I'll do it."

And I ended up going, "Coming From Where I'm From."

I was introduced on stage by Isaac Hayes.

Right before that, I'm sitting in the back before going on and it was Kimora Lee Simmons.

And I had just started wearing a trucker hat and boots and flannel shirts, fresh off the Nappy Roots thing, and she was just staring at me and I act like I didn't notice it.

And when I looked up, she said, "You have a great look.

Really have a great look."

I said, "Wow, that's Kimora Lee telling me I look..." I just thought I looked country.

So Isaac Hayes introduced me on stage and I go on and I sing "Coming From Where I'm From" like I never had another chance.

I would never have another chance.

And as soon as I got off the stage, Michael Maldon, who's Jermaine Dupri's father, was like, "There's somebody I need you to talk to."

I said, "Do you have a minute?"

I said, "Yeah."

And mind you, in this audience, you had Prince, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, and God knows who else.

And Isaac Hayes introduced me.

I had no idea until I started looking around.

I was like, "Wow."

I came out of my own bubble.

And so I spoke to Michael Maldon and he called Jermaine Dupri and said, "This guy is the conversation that we had.

He's standing in front of me.

I want you to meet him."

And he set that up and I went to So So Def, to Arista at the time, and he made me sing it about 10 times.

Then he made me go into L.A.

Reid's voice and I'm singing this song and L.A.

Reid's like, "I can't believe that's him."

"No, man, he ain't singing."

I was like, "I'm live."

And so it was just so raw and so gritty.

Jermaine Dupri pretty much signed me right then.

He kind of bullied himself into my career.

He came to all my showcases, bought all the tickets, brought all his staff.

I was singing at SOBs in New York.

And from that, it's a thing.

He outworked everybody.

He made me believe in the vision he had for me, which was to leave me alone and let me be the guy that he met.

Yeah.

What was that?

I mean, you went from- And that was 2003.

You have to say, you went from a barber to doing that.

And in that moment, what were you thinking?

What was going on?

Were you like- You know, being that I was a singing barber, not just a regular barber.

A singing barber, excuse me.

I was a singing barber, man.

I was always singing.

I was dreaming.

It's like a dream come true and I'm getting closer and closer to it.

And the moment I got that big deal, the next big deal, this was bigger than my first one and I was like, I think this may be the time.

This may be it.

So it was a refresh for me.

Fresh start and I felt like the team was strong.

The infrastructure, the team, the vision.

I felt like this is it.

This is your chance, Anthony.

I've been signed for 10 years and maybe, maybe the good Lord is going to let me out the gates this time.

What did you want?

What were you trying to say with that album?

What did you want people to know about you?

I wanted them to feel the energy of my voice, the soul of Anthony Hamilton and all those red clay dirt roads I had to run up and down, going to the store.

The trees I climbed, the cornbread that I smelled coming up.

I wanted them to feel that and I wanted to tell the stories that I had seen of people that loved me and people that hurt me, people that I looked up to and people that let me down.

So I wanted that book to be unscripted.

I wanted it to feel good.

Whether it was a painful song or not, I want you to feel good about listening to it because it frees you in a way.

Yeah.

It's so interesting when we were talking with Bill about your set list and everything.

It's first seen an initial pass at the set list and Bill goes, "Gosh, these are all really sad songs and Anthony is such a happy person."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How does that play into what you do?

You feel like you have such a warm, beautiful personality, but these really tough, deep songs.

Because I've been through it.

I've been through a lot of tough, deep things and I learned how to smile through it.

But it's a part of who I am.

It's a part of the cloth.

But a big part of my life was happy and jokes and laughing and climbing trees as well.

So it's a good balance.

But those are the ones that came out.

I think those are the ones that was like, "Pick me."

We're ready.

This part of your life is ready to be heard.

And I think the timing of what people were going through, I think my spirit knew that these are the songs that are going to get you to where you need to be.

And it's going to make you, it's going to get you into the hearts of people and this is going to change your life.

Especially after heartbreak.

I got my little heart broken too, so that made a big difference.

That brought on the sad juice.

But sometimes it has the, I guess, this is a really bad analogy here, but it's the sweetest at the same time.

It is because I could feel I was alive.

I could feel it.

I know pain sucks.

Heartbreak sucks, but you're alive.

And if you make it through it, then there's a story to tell and there's some healing to do and there's some strength to come out of it.

Yeah.

And I mean, everybody can relate to something like that.

Absolutely.

Just like a good piece of cake.

And I want to say, since then you've gone on to sell, I guess, over 14.5 million records.

Of my own stuff.

Of your own stuff.

50 million, over 50 million with collaborations.

Which is just unbelievable.

It is.

Incredible.

And I'm just so curious, from all of that, what has been sort of your North Star as you've kind of navigated all these different turns in your career?

Consistency.

Being able to do it over and over again at a level that seems to have been consistently balanced and kind to me and being able to tour.

Doing it on the level that people probably don't ever really get a chance to do it like that.

I haven't put out too many albums, but I'm able to tour as if there's a new album on the shelf now.

So having the love of the fans and building my fan base and still letting people know one handshake at a time, like, "Hey, I'm Anthony Hamilton and this is my song."

What brings you joy, like performing for people and being on the road?

I think being able to look out there and see that this song meant something to them.

And so now we're all here celebrating, making it through.

I think that's a good sweet spot.

To hear them sing it back as if it means something more than just words.

That's rewarding in a big, big way.

I bet.

You've talked about listening to music first and then finding the story that's inside of it.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

When you hear music, just music, just instrumentation, to me, it's singing already.

It's saying something.

Each track to me is saying, it's communicating with me.

And I'm able to hear it clearly and I'm able to take that and blend my story with it.

Make it even sweeter.

So it's seamless when you hear it.

It's not like, "Oh, he's jumped on a nice track," but he's just on a nice track with a song.

No, this is, we were born together.

So it's a different feeling.

That feels like sort of a kind of a religious experience to me.

It is.

It's absolutely divine.

Yeah.

And to be able to kind of tap into something like that and just immediately connect and then draw from it.

It is, man.

I tell people all the time, it's a godsend.

You go in an empty room and you come out with this beautiful piece of art.

Yeah.

And that's maybe not always for you.

It's like to be shared sometimes, right?

Or hopefully, right?

Most of them you want to share.

You're like, "Yeah, dude, sometimes, nah."

Yeah, sometimes you want to just shut your mouth and put the oven on it to fill up.

[Laughter] Has that changed for you over time, like over your career?

Yeah, some songs, yeah.

Even with the music, sometimes you have to dig a little deeper.

It's like, "Okay, I hear it.

I know there's something there, but there's something else in my head."

And then at some time when you're creating music from just here, to be able to articulate that to a musician, to get them to hear your vision, it can be a little harder.

Because you have to tell this person what you're hearing and they have to try to be you and hear it in the way that you're hearing it.

That's a little harder than just having the music that's already produced for you, coming from scratch.

But it's all beautiful, though.

I think the end goal is to have something that's special.

Yeah.

A little hard work ain't hurting nobody.

Yeah.

I agree.

So, I'm going to go ahead and name drop a lot here, so bear with me a little bit.

He said it, not me.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you've collaborated with Nappy Roots, obviously, The Gorillaz, Jill Scott.

That's just a few.

I mean, I could go on for a whole list of people.

You've been in the American Gangster movie, Django Unchained, obviously.

But there is a moment that, where I got to really see you live for the first time, and I will say, rattled me to my core.

And it was, I had the opportunity to go to the 2019 NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte.

And you sang the national anthem.

And I think I definitely cried, but it was one of those things I was like, "Wow, what a moment."

You know what?

That's special for me, because I normally turn that song down, because I felt like that song wasn't for me.

It's betrayed me on so many levels.

We won't get into all that.

But this particular time in my life, I felt like, you know what?

So all the soldiers that did so much, and the ones we've lost, and just the people going through whatever they're going through, they believe in me, and they believe in my music for a certain reason, and my voice does something different than just any old singer.

I said, "So I'm going to go out here and make this moment special.

I'm going to get out of my way.

I'm going to let all the stuff that dictates what you like, what you're going to do, I'm going to put all that, just put it away.

I'm going to make this moment special, not just for me, but for our country, for the team, and for the players."

When getting this rendition of the national anthem together, I wanted to be able to do it my way.

I asked them if I could do it and have accompaniment, my bass player and guitar player, Lamont McCain and Chago, and we got together at my house and we went over.

I was like, "No, I want it to feel more country.

I want it to feel more down home.

I want it to feel like me."

We came up with it.

When I got out there to sing it, man, I was a little nervous, but that went away pretty fast when they started playing the guitar and I could hear that music.

When I looked over and the players were just engulfed in the spirit of the song, I saw tears and I saw people just like, "Wow," just mesmerized.

It made me sing it from even a deeper place.

I was proud of myself.

Sometimes the ego has to die for a bigger cause.

It seemed really special because it felt like you were singing it for this group of people from Charlotte.

It felt like a North Carolinian thing on a world stage.

It also felt really special to have you be that person.

That's my home, man.

I am Charlotte.

I am North Carolina to the bone.

To put the city on my shoulder, on my back, and to carry this torch for people who dream like me and believe in me, it's big.

For my grandmother and grandfather, who probably didn't have as sweet of a life, I'm singing for them as well.

It's a lot in North Carolina that people may know and people may not know.

You carry a lot with you.

Absolutely.

You've spoken about building a legacy beyond your own life.

When you imagine that legacy, what do you hope that people remember and what do you hope that they feel listening to your work years from now?

I want them to remember that I did it.

I did it for real.

I did it for the beauty of people and the love and the freedom of just living and loving.

For my family, my kids, for them to be able to do the same thing.

Not walk in the same boots, but put on their own boots and strap them up and do something special.

Not just for yourself, but do it.

Do it for something that can change somebody else's life.

I want them to know that the music that I made, it's timeless.

Whether you listen to it while I'm alive or when I'm gone to the big blue, it's still going to be special and timeless.

Keep listening, keep singing.

I might send something down too.

Oh, I hope so.

Yeah, I'll send a butterfly, a singing butterfly down.

Perfect.

That tracks for PBS too.

Absolutely.

I want to transition into food for a second.

Oh man, let's do it.

You have a cookbook out and you have this corner store project.

What is it about food and gathering that speaks to the same impulses, sort of where your music comes from?

I think food is a way of expressing, some people eat when they're happy, some people eat when they're sad.

I think it's a comfortable place to be vulnerable and it brings people together.

You can say, "Hey, come over to the house and let's get together."

They say, "Okay, I see what's going on Thursday."

"Come to the house, I'm cooking.

Let's get together."

"Oh, what time?"

It's one of those things that food can make you extremely, extremely happy and it brings people out the house and gather.

It's that piece of soft linen that just kind of covers us all and it's just like, "Ah, these greens are so good.

This chicken is so good.

This beef ribs, all of it is so good."

I'm able to just let go and enjoy the moment and it's kind of opens your spirit up a little bit.

Yeah, it seems like it's a real facilitator of togetherness.

It is a togetherness facilitator.

And yeah, man, it's so good.

Especially here in the South, right?

Man, yeah.

I love to cook too.

What do you love to cook?

Wow.

I do the whole Thanksgiving, man.

The turkey.

I do lamb for my family.

You do lamb on Thanksgiving?

Yeah.

Dang, I want to go to your house for Thanksgiving.

Yeah, I'll do lamb.

I'll do a turkey.

I'll do curry corn.

My cabbage is really good.

Potato salad, dressing.

Yams.

Yeah.

I do greens with Swiss chard and cabbage.

You're getting me hungry.

Yeah, I do it.

I do it.

Yeah.

That sounds awesome.

I love it.

And I can make cornbread, fish, and collard greens if I have to.

That feels like a staple.

Yeah, it is.

So when people come on the show, we created this show because we were thinking about how music shapes us as people.

How does it create communities?

How does it influence our daily lives?

And so we'd like to ask people who come on the show, how are you shaped by sound?

I think it gives me a confidence.

I think there's a song that you can hear, man, and you're not having a great day and you're about to go into an interview or meet somebody for the first time and you put on some music, man, it just gives you a different kind of feeling.

It puts a cape around you sometimes and it just gives you something to theme your life behind.

Yeah.

And that's almost like a hidden friend in a song.

Somebody to walk with you.

Like, "These lyrics are walking with me.

We gonna come down.

We gonna go ham."

It almost feels like those friends can evolve with you too, right?

Yeah.

And that makes it even more special?

Absolutely.

As I was doing some initial work and review of you and your life, I kept on seeing the story about your grandmother talking about you singing into the spatula in the kitchen.

I wanted to know, for the kid in Charlotte right now that's singing into a spatula, what would you tell them?

Sing louder.

Grab the spoon.

Grab a fork.

Keep doing it and eventually it's gonna happen for you.

You're gonna have the right thing in your hand and singing the right song and somebody's gonna hear you and it's gonna change your life.

At this point in our conversation, we kind of like to go through the set list and talk through the songs a little bit and just see if we can get some more context behind the songs and learn a little bit more about them.

So the first one is "Sucker For You."

"Sucker For You."

Mark Batson, again, a great producer, one of my favorites.

You know, we wanted to do something upbeat.

We had done "Charlaine" and we had done "Can't Let Go" and all these songs and we wanted to have fun.

And so I came into the studio and I heard this, "Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh."

I was like, "This sounds like an electric circus."

I need to, this song has to be fun.

It has to be, I feel like I have to conquer something.

So it's about conquering this woman and being a sucker for her or conquering the man and being a sucker for him.

And not sucker as in weak, but just, I'll do it.

I'll do it for you, you know, cause I'm into you.

And so I wanted to do something that reflected the energy of that music.

"Cornbread, Fish, and Collard Greens."

Wow.

"Cornbread, Fish, and Collard Greens."

into Lucille, by the way, right?

Yeah.

"Cornbread, Fish, and Collard Greens" is produced by James Porzer, who's one of the Roots and you see him on the TV show.

Great producer out of Philadelphia.

He's just, and he played with D'Angelo as well.

So I wanted to do something that was funky, Southern, but had a different kind of musical approach to it.

And he came up with that and got his clav out.

So we're jamming around.

I was like, and he's Jamaican.

So we were talking about his life and my life and just how the similarities came about.

And so this song co-wrote, written by a Deirdre artist, we wanted to have fun and bring the Southern sound to Philadelphia and share that with them.

She's from North Carolina.

I am too.

And we were hungry.

And so we were talking about the things that we grew up eating, the things that made us happy.

And that's how that song came about.

Yeah.

What's it like to sing that one now?

It's fun.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Yeah.

Because I say I'm a pimp, but I'm not like pimping women.

It's just like, I got everything you need.

You know, a pimp act like, you know, I got everything, baby.

Yeah.

So whatever you need, if you need food for thought, if you need love, if you need a little money, I got you, baby.

What about "Southern Stuff"?

That's another great one.

That one, I did that back on, what album was that?

"Southern Stuff."

That was one of those albums.

I just wanted a song that felt like I was in a, you know, an old Lincoln sitting in the backseat and speaking about this girl who had seen the Southern thing, sweet, tender thing with pretty hair and going to school, maybe on the college campus or church grounds.

But she had a Southern swag to her.

And I wanted to sweet off her feet with these, you know, sugar daddy lyrics.

Yeah.

What's the Southern swag like?

It's stripped in, "Hey, how you doing?"

And it moves not so fast, but it ain't slow.

It ain't dragging.

Right.

It's intentional.

It's like, "Hey, I'm gonna move a little slow, slow motion.

I'm gonna speed it up and I'm gonna slow it down."

It's just a tease.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a tease.

And then we've got "Walk In My Shoes."

Wow.

That one.

That was a little more personal.

I was married for 10 years and was working on the album.

I was signed to Jive at the time.

And so the label was like, "Hey, you know, you're going through your divorce and things, and the album is good, you know, and all that, but we don't really hear what you're going through.

There's no real, like, you know, pain."

I was like, well, at that moment I was like, "Well, there's nothing I want to say about it."

Yeah.

And so I'm in the studio with Mark Batson.

We were recording in Nashville, most of that album, at Blackbird Studio and House of Blues.

And I came into the studio, because he likes to go in before me and prepare music.

So I get there and he was playing that music.

I was like, "This is it.

This is 'Walk In My Shoes.'"

And I was like, "Okay."

I'd been through some things.

At that moment I had, you know, wasn't my best self, so I ended up getting a DUI.

I was, you know, just wide open, country fool.

You're going through a divorce.

I mean... Yeah.

You know, it was coming out in different ways.

And so I ended up speaking, you know, that was something I had to speak about.

Because it was on TMZ and people had seen it.

So there's no hiding it.

And so I just bared my soul.

I spoke about losing my wife, the things I was losing, and being arrested, and just being in that vulnerable place, the place of not being your best self.

And so it was time to bounce back, but I had to let it out.

And so, you know, you could judge.

You could say, "Hey, he could have been a better husband.

You could have done this.

You could have, you know, been more responsible."

But if you're not walking in my shoes, you don't know what I could have done because you don't know the space I was in, the mental space, the spiritual space.

And so, yeah, that song came about from real life.

That's a real, real, real life song.

Yeah.

And I remember that you were like, "Okay, record company."

Yeah, now take that.

Yeah, you wanted something that was really heartfelt.

They loved it.

Yeah.

I bet they did.

I hope that they did.

Yeah, pay me for it.

Yeah.

Now, this is a classic.

"Charlene."

Wow, I got my little heart broken back once I was living up in the New York, New Jersey area.

And that was a pretty hard relationship to sever from.

It changed me.

It changed me in so many ways.

I had to really grow up.

I had to really get to know who am I. I had put so much faith into this person, but I had put so much energy and time into my career, and the two weren't meshing well.

And so it forced a breakup.

And that's the song that came out.

I was in Harlem at the time, living in Harlem.

And I went to the studio with Mark that day because I needed to get some stuff off my chest.

And "Charlene," I don't know where that name came from.

God gave me that name.

Her name definitely did not come from "Charlene."

Yeah.

"Charlene" is not a—she is a fictional person in this song.

Yes.

Yeah.

Real story, but a fictional person.

Right.

Yeah.

It's very interesting to like—because you're at that moment in your career where it's like, do I pick love or do I pick this other love, which is your career?

And those two just couldn't coexist at the same time.

It's hard to beat music.

Yeah.

I mean, women are amazing.

I've met some amazing, beautiful, smart women, but it's hard to beat music.

If you can respect it and we all can lay down together, me, you, and music, then we'll make it.

If not, then it's going to be pretty hard on you.

Yeah.

It's going to be hard on me, too.

Yeah, I bet.

Yeah.

And then I've got "Fine Again."

"Fine Again."

It's a song—this song is for people who have been let down by life, by people, by society, by politics, by the systems, by family.

And you know, the ones of us who seek to have a better life and a quality life, we want to be assured that we're going to be okay again.

And this is a song.

You know, there's a few guys who are street guys and thugs, and it's just like, man, they just need a hug.

So I speak about passing our hugs to the thugs to heal their souls.

And blue-collar suffering.

Oh, Lord, heal us all.

So it's a cry out.

I'm crying for people and letting them know we're going to be fine again.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're going to be fine.

We're going to make it.

Got to.

I always want to close with, you know, is there anything else that you would like to add to this conversation that I haven't had a chance to ask you?

No, it's just I'm grateful and I'm so happy to be a part of this North Carolina legacy.

PBS has been around for a long time, since I was a child, and my kids will look back and see like, "Hey, we did some great things together."

So I thank you all.

Thank you for being here.

We are just like—we are the grateful ones here.

Thank you so much for coming in and for the whole band to come in.

Incredible.

We are so excited.

And it's just—it's been such a wonderful time.

So thank you so much.

I appreciate you.

And thank you all out there for listening and giving me somewhere to sing.

Thanks for joining us on the Shaped by Sound podcast.

If you'd like to hear some of the songs we discussed today, you can find them on our website, pbsnc.org/shapedbysound.

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