Smitty: No, I don’t.
DB: It was called “Vibrations.” It was a number one song. He had this hit when he was around 17-18 years old. He went on to do a couple other albums. Eric lived next door to me as a kid growing up. Eric heard me playing rock and roll guitar. When I was practicing loud, he came over to the house and said “Who was that playing guitar?” And my mother said, of course, it was me and I had a chance to meet him.
Eric McClinton was a songwriter, he was a singer, he was a producer, and he had been in the business for a very long time. He was the person who really influenced me a lot, and as my years went on, I kept saying “Eric, I have a band. Come check me out. Finally when I was a senior, he finally came and saw me and he saw our band, he loved it. He said “That band’s fantastic,” brought in his people, and his people said “Hey, we need to record you” and from that point on we recorded with him and his sister—he had a sister named Arrinett McClinton—they sang background along with us, we’d create the music, the music came out, and it sparked interest. And it kept going and kept going, and it got to Quincy Jones.
Smitty: Nice!
DB: Jones heard the music and then signed the group that I was in to a record deal. Now, unfortunately, I was not in that deal because of other things that came up. So they went on to do the recording. I did do the first album with them and I did play guitar and I did sing too on it. I didn’t get any credit, but, you know, that was kinda part of the nature of things then.
Smitty: Right.
DB: At that time, the group The Time was the big thing, or The Time which was kinda like a funky little thing from Minneapolis, kinda like a spinoff of Prince. Yeah, and since that group was sorta like what we were trying to do, or I guess we were actually imitating them, they thought that they should take it a different direction, which conflicted with the beliefs that I had in music, so I just wished the guys the best.” Quincy Jones did sign them. They did do two albums. One of the songs on the first album I believe was like in the top hundred or maybe in the top fifty.
Smitty: Oh, that’s cool. Your career had just blossomed even at that point early on.
DB: Yeah, I had a chance with Eric. Because he was so into that production stuff, he actually started me recording and showing me how recording goes, how to get the most out of a singer, how to get the most out of a musician as we’re in the studio, how to work in a studio, how to work with an engineer, how to work with a board, how to hone in the talent to get ready to go in the studio so you don’t waste a lotta time. Eric and another gentleman from Detroit named Paul Reiser, who was also part of Motown, and Paul Reiser was a great string arranger. He arranged strings for likes of Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, people like that. Gladys Knight, of course Stevie Wonder, and of course Ashford & Simpson.
Smitty: Impressive.
DB: He actually took me into his house and he showed me how to do production. He even brought in a whole string arrangement on a song that I had recorded and he wrote all the strings out for those people to play, and when I got to the studio, it was so beautiful, just like crying.
Smitty: (Laughs.)
DB: This guy created my song, a string line that was when I heard it, it was just beautiful.
Smitty: Yeah man. Now, when you hear something like that, especially being exposed to something like this for the first time, how does that open up a new world for you musically speaking?
DB: Well, it actually…see, what music is all about to me, it’s about concert, it’s about playing together, it’s about getting his feel into your creation or to your song or to a song, and having that person’s feel, be that person’s feel, be with that person’s feel, and they come all together and they make a song. Now, so much music today, they use a lotta sequences and computers. But that’s what that was about then. Having that foundation and knowing where everything came from and bringing it up to today where you can’t always have the musicians play live with you would actually allow me to grow and understand production much better, so it changed me in the sense that I can see things through other people’s eyes and it doesn’t offend me if it’s not what I see. Look at it as creativity and something that they bring into the song to make the song better.
Smitty: Absolutely, man, and it’s always a beautiful thing. Talk to me about One Wish.
DB: One Wish, oh man. One Wish. Well, One Wish was my attempt at putting out a vocal group. Like I said, my first instrument was vocals and, you know, as I went through college I studied vocals as part of my college training in music, and after I got out of college, I decided, okay, I’m gonna do a vocal project, and at the time there were several groups out like Jodeci, Silk, Boyz II Men, and I figured, well, if that’s what’s happening, I’m gonna put out a vocal group. So I put together some guys who I knew from our town, we put together some songs, and what I did was something really strange. Because I was a product of the Eighties and I understood the MIDI production system, I decided to do the whole project—man, this was unheard of—on guitar.
That’s the only instrument I use and I use the MIDI system to create the other sounds. Like you hear the piano, but I’m actually playing on guitar. You hear the bass, but I’m playing on guitar. So I did that because I didn’t really have a lotta musicians that I could work with, so I just decided to do it all myself, and then I brought in the vocal groups, the two other guys who I work with, a guy named Venturi Gaddis and another guy named DeAngelo Webster, who are actually two brothers, and we formed the group One Wish. We had a song that was out, it was called “Tell Me Why” and it was on the TRC record label, and the song was in the top hundred when it came out.
Smitty: Wow.
DB: It’s kinda incredible.
Smitty: That is incredible.
DB: Yeah, and we were a vocal group at the time.
Smitty: Yeah, you won some awards with that song.
DB: Yeah, we were up for a Nashville vocal award, which was impressive. I really liked that. And we won the best song recorded by a local artist in a magazine in Detroit called The Metro Times.
Smitty: That’s pretty incredible stuff, man.
DB: Yeah, that was pretty incredible. I loved that idea, although in those projects, I never actually played—whenever we performed live, I never played my guitar, I just sang.
Smitty: That’s interesting.
DB: (Laughs.)
Smitty: You know, to have done as much as you had accomplished with the guitar, you had to go back to those roots, huh?
DB: Well, I always played the guitar, but I didn’t play it live. I didn’t play it when we performed, I should say. I mean, I would play with other groups and I would play guitar or play background on jam sessions and that kind of stuff, but when I performed as One Wish, I never even held a guitar.
Smitty: That’s pretty cool.
DB: (Laughs.) Yeah, it was kinda fun. I had a great time with that group. Unfortunately we had to disband because people had other ideas of how the group should go.
Smitty: Yeah, that happens.
DB: Yeah, so we disbanded from that, but we did make some really good accomplishments and we learned a lot.
Smitty: And that’s the thing. If you’re growing in that process, then that’s what you want anyway.
DB: Absolutely.
Smitty: And case in point is Shelby Brown.
DB: Yeah, Shelby Brown was a project that I started with a gentleman by the name of Gentry Shelby and that project was started because—I’m gonna tell you the truth, Smitty—I don’t even know if I should repeat this, but this is how I felt. I’m gonna tell you the truth. One Wish, they had fell out at that point, and I’m thinking I’m trying to do something else, and I really wanted to get into guitar because my mother said “Well, Dee, when are you gonna play the guitar again?” I was like “Dang, okay. Yeah, Ma, yeah, I do wanna play.” So I heard Norman Brown playing guitar on the Smooth Jazz station in Detroit.
Smitty: (Laughs.)
DB: And I listened to him and I’m like “I’d like to try that.” That’s what I’m thinkin’. But I was in a studio recording and I met a guy named Tim Bowman.
Smitty: Yup.
