MMM, MMM, Baby

So I’m hanging out with my sister in Atlanta, and we hear a little girl’s voice saying, “Mommy, Mommy, there’s goes that man Mommy!”   Then another female voice saying, “MMM, MMM… sure is, baby.”

We look around a see a little girl pointing at me and tugging on her mother’s dress!  (They were both smiling, so I figured that it would be a “Facebook drama free moment! Whew!”)  We started talking and I found out that they had seen me singing at a couple of the local events in the Atlanta area.

After the conversation, we all said, “Good bye,” and we overheard the little girl say, “Oh, I like him Mommy!”   Then the mother took a deep breath and said, “MMM, MMM!”

Well, my sister teased me about that all day long.   In fact, every time she sees a guy she thinks is attractive, she says, “MMM, MMM Baby!” and we laugh long and hard.

One day she said it and it brought up a lot of memories of my dating life over the years.   As I went down memory lane, the idea for this song to be kinda autobiographical began to develop.

When I was in high school, I was an All  American basketball player, I played bass in a popular local rock n roll band, named ATTIC, and was a member of the school dance club, we’re I performed modern, jazz and ballet.   As a cradle Catholic, my dating habits were kinda interesting, but by the time I started going to Case Western Reserve University and University of Akron I started to spread my wings.   After graduation and a Marketing Sales Assistant job at IBM, it was time to leave Akron and I moved to Atlanta.  (LeBron was only two years old!)

I’ve been blessed to have had heathy, loving relationships, with amazing women and much of my life is very similar to every other Baby Boomer and GenXer.   We’ve all had some successes, some false starts, and flat out failures. But, we are in no way ready to throw in the towel.  We have a lot more life to live and are excited about our next big thing!

When I decided to write this song, I knew that I wanted it to be very musical.   The opening line is “I was 18 in ’81,” and I know that anybody who grew up in the ‘60s, 70s and 80’s will be able to relate to this song.  I had considered several producers and kicked around a few ideas, but didn’t really get what I needed.

So, I’m at my parent’s house on New Year’s Eve and Darryl Swann comes over. He’s a multi-platinum Grammy award winning producer/songwriter who arguably invented the Neo-soul genre on Macy Gray’s first project.  More importantly, he grew up across the street from me, used to be in a band with my brother that rehearsed at our house, and later was in a rival band, named “Haven.”   Having known him since he was about 5 years old and having so much music history together, he was the perfect person to co-write and produce this song.  He knew all of my musical influences, knew my story, and more importantly, was excited about being a part of this production.

Since I live in Atlanta and he lives in California, we wrote this song over the Internet.  I sent him an a cappella version of the song with a click track, and he sent me the bones of a full production.   We went back on forth several times tweaking, deleting, adding new instruments and sections to the song to give it an authentic Old School flavor, but with a current feel to it.   Also, it was important to me to make sure that the live element of the song was truly represented.

The first phase of the vocal recording was done at Black On Purpose Studios with Michael Campbell.  He is a veteran sound engineer whose most recent work includes John Legend’s latest projects.  Since the chorus of this song is so important that it’s the title of the song, I needed a very special voice.   Additionally, I needed her to be able to sing the ad libs on the live concert part with unbridled passion.   After auditioning a couple of vocalists, I asked Tammy Harper to blow this track out of the water!  She has an amazing spirit and a willingness to go beyond the call of duty to make sure the project is excellent.

The other principle voice you hear lacing the song with “Aye Papi” and other words and moans of passion, was actor/dancer/choreographer Audi Lopez.   She has been a long-time friend who has been a salsa partner, translator of my song, “I Do,” and hopefully, the host of Tenderness Radio, a show for survivors of domestic violence and abuse that is an off shoot of my song Tenderness.  She’s bi-lingual, has a wealth of life experience, and brings all of it to the studio and stage.

The little girl in the song is my special “little girl,” Sydney L. Martinez.  She’s was one of the rappers on “I’m Catholic Cool,” a dancer in the “The Bride Slide” video, and featured in the “Little Girl” video.  It was only natural for her to be a part of this project.   I’ve watch her career since she was five years old, including her latest performances in the Tara Simon showcase.  She has an amazing future.

As with every project, once you get started, you hear more parts, and keep improving on the original idea.    As I listened to an early version of the song, it became blaringly obvious that I needed to have live horns on this song.   So, I called my sax player Darian Emory who has played on We Married-The Bride Slide, First Dance, All My Love, and performed with JT Taylor from Kool and the Gang, Jennifer Holiday, international drummer Sonny Emory.  When I told him I needed a trombone player, he brought one of his Saturday Night Live friends Christopher Burns and they knocked their parts right out of the park!

Darryl sent me the first “final mix” and we both decided that there were parts that needed to be redone to give the feel that the song really needed.  Mike was not available so I called Tara Simon, and she invited me to hear new recording studio. (Thanks for hooking that up Sydney!)

When all is said and done, this was one of the biggest projects that Darryl ever produced.  I think I sent him over 250 tracks of different takes and approaches to various parts of the song. (He’ll probably use it as a case study in one of his classes!)

So if you’re “so blessed to live another day, still have your hair, but some are gray,” you are going to love this song!   And if you play it loud enough you might hear one of the kids say, “Oh I like that song!”