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Once again it’s always an honor and privilege to speak with those closely affiliated with Sugar hill Records! As I have always said, this label was as important to me personally as the Motown label was to my parent’s generation. Its always exciting to hear the behind the scenes stories, and to get a chance to ask the questions that I have wondered about for nearly thirty years. So to add to my list of Sugar hill band members, artists and affiliates here is the story of the man behind the drums on some of raps first recorded jams: Keith LeBlanc. JayQuan: How did you get into music,
who were your influences, and what instruments do you play other than
the drums?
Keith: Well I play
most percussion instruments. I can remember being about 3 years old and
figuring out quarter notes, eighth notes, 16 notes and 32nd
notes – but they were too fast for me to play with one hand. I always
loved listening to music on the radio, and I grew up listening to stuff
on the Stax label, Muscle Shoals, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett,
Archie Bell & The Drells – which was much later, and James Brown.
All that was pop music when I was growin’ up! JQ: Where did
you grow up? KL: Connecticut….the suburbs of Connecticut. I had a problem in school, and it was dyslexia, but they didn’t know about dyslexia back then. But I was hyperactive, and they were gonna give me drugs. They gave my parents the choice of putting me on medication, or buying me an instrument, and they bought me drums. But before that I remember seeing the Beatles on Tv, and I made myself a drum set – that’s my first musical memory. I learned all the drum parts off of different records. When I was about 8 years old this kid named Tommy Reamer was in the orchestra and he played drums. He was so good that they let him play at the school dances. He kinda took me under his wing. When I first heard him, that was the first time that I actually heard real live drums and I was blown away. I joined the orchestra, and I was the only one out of all the drummers that could read music, so I got to play all the time. From there I took all the music and art classes that I could, ‘cus it was the only thing that I was good at with my dyslexia. I actually
didn’t find out that I had dyslexia until I was about 40 years old. I
just thought that I was a bit strange. I had lil bands and we did James
Brown stuff in the town I lived called Bristol. Then I started getting
into bands doing original music, mostly fusion type stuff inspired by
Herbie Hancock, Billy Cobham and people like that. I used to go to clubs
and jam, and there was this drummer in Hartford named Harold Sergeant,
he was leaving Skip (Mc Donald) and Doug’s (Wimbish) band. He
introduced me to them after hearing me play, and I actually got the gig
and played with Wood, Brass and Steel for a while. That’s how I ended
up going to Sugar hill. Skip and Doug didn’t wanna go, but I
couldn’t wait, because I heard them talking about recording studios
and stuff!!! Doug and Skip had already dealt with Sylvia Robinson (of
Sugarhill Records), but I joined after they left Sugarhill. So I played
with Wood, Brass & Steel when they were on their last legs. When
Rappers Delight came out we figured there might be some money over
there. But back to my influences; I loved Hendricks, Mitch Mitchell and
when I heard Miles Davis that totally took my head off! The first thing
I heard by him was Bitches Brew, then I got into Tony Williams – and
many drummers have influenced me over the years. JQ: Did you dig Clyde
Stubblefield (James Browns Funky Drummer)? KL: Oh yeah. I
listened to his music for quite some time without even knowing it. I
just loved music and I made no distinction between Black or White music. I liked the Beatles, and I didn’t even know that they were
imitating Black music, and the music from the states; I just liked their
music. The time that I came up musically was a great time to come up. My
goal was to be a session musician. JQ: So the gig
with Sugar hill was your first big break? KL:
Well no, I had done some sessions for advertisements and commercials,
but Sugar hill was the first time that I played something that came out
on a record. That was the first time that I was able to play and
actually hear what I played, so I was getting paid and learning at the
same time. But Sugar hill had a band before we showed up. JQ: Positive
Force? KL: Right – they
had that record We Got The Funk. They were good but Sylvia
didn’t like them for some reason….and I forgot as far as influences
I played lots of Jazz stuff, especially when I went to England to live. JQ: You
mentioned Miles Davis, and a lot of musicians mention him as being
innovative, even Prince gives him props, and he doesn’t give too many
people props, so what is it about Miles that was so great in your
opinion? KL: I think that it
was what he didn’t play…..the spaces he left.. JQ: That’s
exactly what Prince said, that he used space as an instrument… KL: I agree with
him, and Miles had some of the baddest musicians on the planet playing
with him. That did not hurt either!! JQ: Who are some
of your favorite drummers? KL: Steve Gadd -
the drummer for all the first Steely Dan records. He practically
invented studio drumming. Billy Cobham , Kenwood Denard from Manhattan
Transfer. He teaches at Berkley now. Later on when we opened up for
Parliament, Dennis Chambers influenced me. Mark Mundase also later
influenced me, and he is also one of my current drum buddies. I gotta
add Tony Williams who played with Miles (Davis) since he was like 14. He
also took lessons from the same teacher that I did – named Allen
Dawson. Tony was a child prodigy like Bernie Worrell from Funkadelic. When we toured with
Sugar hill, I got to play with all the great R&B bands like Faze –
O, Rick James, Skyy, Cameo – all the bands in that period we played on
stage with, so I was influenced by that as well. In D.C. they had EU
(Experience Unlimited) and Trouble Funk, and those boys kicked ass! I
remember Trouble Funks drummer had like a million drums and he was
hittin’ all of em!! That sound was indigenous to D.C., and everybody
who played D.C. got thrashed. When we went back I said "what do we
have that sounds remotely Go Go"!! The only group who escaped
unscathed was Parliament. Even Cameo got their asses kicked, and they
were the top group at the time. But we used to wear the crowd out,
having such a big hit, and it was rap with crowd participation. There
was a lot of envy from other groups, and they would turn the house
lights down on us and sabotage our set. The Sugar hill Gang didn’t
have that many songs, so we would play for like 40 minutes before the
Gang came out. We were playin' bits of Wood, Brass & Steel stuff.
The only group the respected us back then was P Funk. They invited us to
open up for them on the Knee Deep tour. But the first time that we saw
Flash & The Furious 5 at a high school in New York, we knew that
bands were about to be over. Flash was playin’ the beat box and
spinnin’ records and I remember askin’ Doug (Wimbish) did he miss
the band and he said no. I didn’t either…. JQ:I always ask
musicians that were affiliated with rap groups – did you respect rap
as a form of music. Not the recorded rap, but the essence of 2
turntables extending a breakdown of an already recorded song and people
rapping/harmonizing on top? KL: Well for me I
just liked what sounded good!! And I do all kinds of stuff- like produce
records, mix and engineer. I have worked with drum machines since they
came out – they were taking my job!!!…..and it didn’t happen for
me like that anyway. See when we were Wood, Brass & Steel we used to
play this club where the dj talked over the records. I heard this stuff
for months, and then one night he played Rappers Delight. I liked it a
lot. I didn’t see it as anything groundbreaking; it was like a natural
progression from the guy talking over the beats. In fact I thought that
the song was just a dj talking over Good Times, I didn’t know that it
was actually a group! I didn’t know about the people who were actually
pioneers until I was signed with Sugar hill. I remember Furious showing
up with a record that they did for the Enjoy! label and it killed me
when I heard it. I always liked that group!! They took a lot of Cameos
shit for their show and made it their own. They had a very theatrical
show, and I don’t even see anybody today that comes close to what they
pulled off on stage!!! I will tell you who took them to the next level
– Kevie Kev – Waterbed Kev (from The Fantastic 5 Emcees). He came
with all this leather and stuff. That’s when they started pushing the
envelope as far as fashion. JQ: What was the
first Sugar hill release that you played on? KL: That horrible
Sugar hill Gang album!!! JQ: What did you
not like about it?
JQ: Were you
there when Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie did their parts for “Sugar
hill Groove’?
JQ: I heard
Ronald Isley used to come through there a lot. KL : Yeah he used
to hang out with Sylvia. They go way back ‘cus Hendrix was hooked up
with Sugar hill when it was All Platinum. That’s why the Isley's sound
like Hendrix, because they were all hanging out. Hendrix used to borrow
Sylvia’s guitar. They actually cut some records there. JQ: Philippe
Wynne from the Spinners released an lp on Sugar hill right?
.....but Philippe
did his last lp at Sugar hill. I first met Philippe when we were on tour
with Funkadelic. He was on the Knee Deep tour with them, ‘cus you know
that’s him doing the scat at the end of Knee Deep. I was lucky to be
on that tour with them, because to me that was the height of Parliament.
Knee Deep is one of my all time favorite tracks, along with Funkin’
For Jamaica by Tom Browne and Flashlight by Parliament. JQ: Im gonna name some Sugar
hill songs, and I want you to tell me whether you played on them, and
any interesting or funny story associated with them. That’s The
Joint by Funky 4 – I played on that. As soon as we did it we knew
it was a slammer. Like I said they hated the first track, but Jiggs came
back with a killer. Funk You Up by
Sequence – Yep I played on that. It was their first song, and I
used a Sinn drum, which had just come out, we cut that at the old nasty
Sugar hill studio where everything came out mid range, no matter what
you played!! Freedom –
I played on that, and played kazoo on it. In fact we all played kazoos
on it, they were just handing them out. And of course we did the party
track, or clap track. Sylvia always wanted a clap track no matter what.
But Freedom was infectious. It's Nasty –
Yeah I changed the beat from the Tom Tom Club a little bit. I put a
quadruple bass drum on it, which no one had done before. People did it
on drum machines, but not on live drums. JQ: How was the
recording process. Like were the Emcees in the studio at the same time
as the musicians, or did you record the tracks, and then bring them to
the Emcees? KL: The rappers
would be there a lot of times. Jiggs would get the music straight, get
the rhythm section down. They had just started to work with click tracks
(metronome- which is a sound that aids the musician in keeping time) so
they had me in the studio with a click track, and Skip & Doug were
in the control room. They would record with me just for the vibe, then
go back and do their parts, once they heard the drum track that they
liked. Doug & Skip were able to overdub themselves and try different
licks, punch in and everything, but I had to get it right all in one
shot. I was kind of jealous of that – they didn’t punch drums in
back in those days. JQ: Back to the
songs Showdown with
Furious 5 & The Gang – Yeah I played on that. I don’t
remember much about cutting it, but I played on it. JQ: Maurice
Starr & Michael Jonzun came with that track right? KL: Yeah that’s
right. Sylvia didn’t care for them too much. They just did that one
track because something about the business side didn’t work out. Those
guys were tryin' to come in and move us out. In fact Jiggs and Ed
Fletcher (Duke Bootee) tried to come in and take our spots, until they
heard us play!!
I got a lot of that at first being a White drummer. When
people saw me with the Sugar hill jacket on, I just told them that I was
the bus driver. I had so many drums in front of me on stage that nobody
saw me most of the time anyway. But a lotta wild shit happened on the
road. Being down South with a bunch of rappers from New York was wild.
When we got off the tour bus to go eat I was the first one in line!!!
When you take a bunch of guys who have never left the Bronx to a place
where things move so slow it’s a trip. I mean these guys are from a
place where if you don’t speak up fast enough in line the person
serving you will skip you and move to the next person!! One time we had 2
or 3 buses, and we were doing a Sugar hill revue. We stopped at a
fireworks place down South and some of the guys from the Furious 5
bought some fireworks. Well one of the buses broke down, and we were
waiting for help when we looked and the whole center of the highway was
on fire!! Flames were to the tops of trees – it looked like fuckin’
Vietnam. Well we finally got the bus working, and we just got out of
there, I don’t know if anyone called the fire department or what…. JQ:How was it
being the only White cat around at the time? KL: It was an issue
some times, but most of the time it was no big deal. I remember much
later after Sugar hill I was out in L.A. with Afrika Islam, and Ice Ts
group Body Count was gonna come through Islam’s crib. Islam had asked
me to stay at his house, and this was not too long after the L.A. riots.
What I realized was that Body Count used to be a gang, now they just
have guitars!!! Well I ended up staying, and I walked in with drumsticks
and they were messin' with me. Well they were all sittin' around laughin’
and telling jokes, so I started laughing and Moose the bass player said
“what the fuck you laughin' at?” I said well I just got from
England, im here in L.A. its sunny and I get to meet you guys – and
the joke was funny!!! Then the drummer says that he likes my stick bag
and he comes and takes it off of my arm. I went and took it back and
said “well you play with Body Count im sure you can get a whole box
full! I had learned how to go left on people, and diffuse situations,
because people expect you to act one way, but you mess them up when you
do the opposite. Being on the road with all the rappers taught me that. There was actually
some fighting going on between the rappers. We were all stuck on the bus
once and someone put in a kung fu movie. By the end of it there was a
fight in the back of the bus. They were tryin’ to throw Jazzy Jeff
(Funky 4) out of the window at 90 MPH….Once everybody had guns with
‘em, and there were a lotta problems on that tour. Once the police
were so afraid of Hank (Big Bank from the Sugar hill Gang) that they
stuck a gun right in his mouth, and took him to the police station like
that. They didn’t believe that he was part of the band. The wildest shit
was at the first ever Rappers Convention at the 145th st
Armory. Sequence wanted to do a ballad, and we told them that wasn’t a
good idea, but they did it and gunshots rang out. Skip & Doug ran
for the dressing rooms, and I got under the drum riser. Fletcher was
under there with his lil 22. This girl got under there with us and said
what are we gonna do. Fletcher was like “what do you mean we?” These
2 cops come up and ask whats goin on out there, and Craig Derry says you
have the guns why don’t you go see!!!! It was a massacre- 20/20 was
there filming with a mobile studio – it was a mess. I remember Kurtis
Blow getting booed and shit getting thrown at him down South , ‘cus he
came out with a Dj. Middle America wasn’t quite ready for that. People
were like “I can play a record at home, I didn’t pay to hear you
play a record!!” When
Adventures On The Wheels came out, I got a bunch of the first pressings
and gave ‘em out in clubs in Conneticut and Jersey. As soon as the Djs
played it they tried to do the same and fucked it up!! But Flash used to
mix all kinds of spoken word Dirty Harry shit in with his music, and
that’s where I got the idea for Malcolm X (No Sell Out). Adventures On
The Wheels was a hell of a record, and the story around the studio was
that they treated Flash to Mc Donald’s or some shit for doing that
record – he didn’t see any money from it. That record changed the
industry. JQ: Yes it did.
I remember the day I brought the record home. My mother and grandmother
hated it. KL: That’s how
Joe Robinson felt, but he was putting the money in his pocket. But that
record was a groundbreaker.Flash used to mix spoken word over beats all
the time even before that record. JQ: When did you
leave Sugar hill and why? KL: Well they
started paying Skip & Doug salary, and me by the session – lil
divide & conquer techniques. But the place was about to close up
anyway. Doug & Skip were about to go to Philly and do some stuff.
The last thing that I did at their studio was Malcolm X No Sell Out.
That really raised my stock, and I went to Tommy Boy, and I was able to
bring in Skip & Doug. We did the Force Mds first lp, I did a song on
the Masters Of The Beat compilation, and we did Unity with James Brown
and Bambaataa. We also took all of our stuff that wasn’t commercial and
compiled it under the name Tack head. When I signed to Tommy Boy I moved
to New York and got a loft on 14th st, and that was the
hangout. Every rapper in New York knew that loft. G.L.O.B.E., Pow Wow
and even Vin Diesel came by tryin to rap. He wasn’t called Vin Diesel
back then, but I remember he couldn’t keep time. He kept blaming me,
and I got mad and kicked him out. He had one White and one Black parent,
and I was told that when he left he said “the White part of me fucked
it up”!! The James Brown
experience was funny. He made everybody call him Mr. Brown. He made
Tommy get him a limo to go 3 city blocks. We went to the New Music
Seminar with him 3 days after we cut Unity, and we had to reintroduce
ourselves because he didn’t remember us. Everybody was doin that Mr.
Brown shit and he tried to pull it on George Clinton, and George told
him that he would embarrass him in front of everybody, and not to try
it. James started getting all friendly with George. …..No Sell out
got a lot of play in Europe, but Joe killed it in the states. He had a
lot of Djs in his pocket. JQ: Now there
are some copies of No Sell Out floating around on the Sugar hill label,
and it’s credited to the Sugar hill All Stars. It’s a rare record
that goes for a couple hundred dollars on Ebay. How did it get released
on Sugar hill? KL: Joe Robinson
recorded it off of the radio, and pressed it up. We went to court over
that record. He tried to say that it belonged to them, because I
recorded it in their studio. JQ: Lastly, I
read somewhere that Malcolm Xs wife Betty Shabazz had an issue with you
doing the No Sell Out record. Is that true? KL: No not at all. Here is what happened.I had already done the song, and I had just read the autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. I saw at the end of the book that Betty Shabazz was an administrator at Medgar Evers College. I set up an appointment to meet with her. I went in with the tape all excited , and I thought that she would listen to it right there. I went on and on about how I had worked hard on the track and so forth , and she said - look stop talking. This is my life I will listen to the tape and call you after I have heard it. The only number that I could leave at the time was my mothers, so I left that. Two days later my mother called and said that Malcolm Xs wife had called , and that she said that I was a wonderful musician.
But Marshall Chess , whose father owned Chess records was doin' some administrative work at Sugar Hill because Joe had just acquired the rights to the Chess catalog , and didn't know what the hell he was doin. I told Marshall that I was about to do this Malcolm X Record , but that I didn't wanna do it at Sugar Hill because they wouldn't do the right thing , and I wanted to make sure that Betty got paid! She didn't really care for Alex Haley and others who had dealt with Malcolm because they didn't pay Malcolm or her. Alex Haley's whole career took off because of Malcolm. There would be no Roots book or movie without Malcolm. I went to Tommy
Boy and put out Malcolm X. Mr. Magic had advance copies , and was
playing it on the air. Joe Robinson recorded it , and pressed it up
under the name Sugar Hill All stars or some bullshit. Then he took me to
court , and I won. I didn't see any money off the record because Tom
Silverman and Tommy Boy used all the money to fight their other legal
problems, so I had a falling out with Tommy. I remember in court
every morning the judge would ask out lawyers where the gangsters were
(referring to Joe Robinson's lawyers), so he knew Betty told me that she always knew who killed her husband, where they lived and what they did (for a living). She also had a tape that Malcolm made of the FBI telling him that they would give him any protection that he needed or make anybody disappear if he would give them Elijah Muhammad's head on a platter. Malcolm replied that they must be fools to ask him something like that. Most likely they went right to Elijah Muhammad with the same offer for Malcolm's head. Right around the time that the Spike Lee movie came out, I was having breakfast with Betty , and she looked at me and said "wow I was married to a Prince!"......around that time I was offered $20,000 to do a remix of Malcolm X. I told Betty that i would give her $10,000. The money ended up going down to $10,000 , and I told the record label that I would rather not do it at all , if it meant that I had to change what I had told Betty. The producer ended up doing it for free , and I said I would do it for free , so we ended up giving Betty the $10,000 that I had promised. She was in South Africa at the time , and we wired her the money. She took the money and opened a school in South Africa , and named it after Malcolm. So in the end some good did come out of that record. Betty was a sweet lady and she treated me like a son. I remember when they ran the advertisements for the song they had my name real big and Malcolm X really small. I said that I didn't need my name big - to reverse it and put Malcolm's name big. She told me to leave it like that , but she never told me why. She later told that many Black artists had a chance to do something with Malcolm's speeches , and not one attempted , it took a White guy to do it. Doug & Skip told me that I was the only one who could have pulled that record off without starting a riot. Joe Robinson had people like Al Sharpton on me saying that I stole Sugarhill's song - it was crazy for a while. In the streets people would make gestures with their fingers like they were shooting me. I kept a shotgun in my apartment while that trial was goin' on.
©2006 JayQuan Dot Com. No part may be copied without authors consent.
RELATED CLIPS :
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KL:
See Doug & Skip had worked with Sylvia before, and the business
wasn’t right. Now she wanted them along with me to come and do the
tracks on this lp. Well Doug & Skip weren’t giving up anything!
The album wasn’t really all that because of that. Not too long after
that lp she got into an arrangement with Jiggs Chase who would write
arrangements based on break beats that Djs like Flash and groups like
the Funky 4 would bring in. Jiggs would write the arrangement based on
the break part then add something to it. I remember when the Funky 4
came to do “That’s The Joint”. Jiggs had this arrangement that the
guys hated!! They said that it sounded like it was for an older
crowd….they said “this is shit, we don’t like it”. Jiggs saw it
as a smack in the face, but he came back the next day with what you now
hear as “That’s The Joint”.
KL:
Yes. It messed Tito up because he was used to his Latin grooves, and
wasn’t used to rap, but he went in and killed it. Dizzys part didn’t
work so Sylvia took it out. I also remember when Reggie Griffin went to
work with Arif Mardin on “I Feel For You” for Chaka Khan. Arif
distrusted Sylvia so much that he sent just the section of tape that Mel
was supposed to rap on. It was this little tiny spool of tape!!! I heard
one time that Wilson Pickett punched this producer in the face there. I
wasn’t there to meet him, but I heard that he was kinda wild. Man a
lotta people came through that place.
KL:
Yeah, and he was a very nice man. Also Bunny Sigler – he could sing
his ass off. He was this huge guy, and he carried around this little
Casio keyboard that he did all his arrangements on. I remember we were
doin’ a track for Lou Rawls and Bunny was singing the pilot vocal, so
Lou would know how to sing the song. Bunny starts killin’ it, and
Jiggs (Chase) stops the track and says, “ hey this is for Lou, he has
to sing on this, pull back!!!” 
8TH
Wonder by Sugar hill Gang – Yeah I played on that. I really like
the middle part of that song. But when I was out with Parliament I was
hanging with their drummer at the time – Dennis Chambers, and he
introduced me to Teddy Pendergrasses drummer. He was kinda nasty towards
me; he was like “yeah yeah Buddy Rich type”, but anyway 8th
wonder had just come out, and we ran into each other again. After the
gig he said to me “Dennis told me that you played on that fuckin’
record, but I didn’t believe it, I had to see it for myself”. He
shook my hand and stuff and it was cool.
That’s when I knew that I had some good shit!!! My grandmother said
“ you paid 4 dollars for that? It sounds like its scratched, turn it
off – its noise!!!
She
really liked the song, but I had some gun shots at the end. She asked me
to take those out. You have to remember that Malcolm X was still a taboo
subject in 1984. Also Malcolm was killed right in front of his wife and
children , and now they were dancing to this record , which they really
enjoyed , and Betty didn't want those gun shots in there , because
Malcolm was even a taboo subject in her household.
what they were about. In court Sylvia went up to Betty and told her that
she was honored to meet her and Betty said very loudly "get out of
my face , you are a pirate and a liar". Sylvia just slumped down in
her chair. Then Betty nudged me and said "that was just for
effect". The judge said that he had a special interest in this case
because he was the D.A. in Malcolm's murder trial. Betty said " I
was there and I don't remember you", and he said "we have all
changed over the years , but it was me". 
When
I got the call that Betty had burns on 90% of her body I found it odd
that her grandson could have done anything like that. This was a strong
woman , I don't see that happening unless someone held her down and
poured
gasoline on her. I wasn't there of course , but I always found that
story odd. Betty was a Princess and it was a life changing experience
meeting her. I used to wonder , how did this kid from Connecticut get
involved with this Princess?