Episode 1 - Soul Unlimited - Gotta Go To Hollywood

Stuart Larch, a music writer and broadcaster, shares his admiration for Barry White's music. He talks about his childhood influences and how he immersed himself in White's songbook during lockdown. Larch discusses White's career, from his childhood in South Central Los Angeles to his success in the music industry. He also mentions White's arrest and the tough challenges he faced in Hollywood. Larch highlights White's determination and the valuable connections he made. The episode also touches on the Watts riots and White's role in the music industry. It's in LA? Yeah, Southeast Los Angeles. And you know how you're getting ready to start back to school, you want your clothes together and you get sharp, you're getting ready. I laid my clothes out the night before school started and my birthday is September 12th, so school happened to hit this year on my birthday. But when I got up the next morning, I wasn't going to school, Joe. My mother said, you're going to Hollywood today. I started putting on the clothes I was going to wear to school to Hollywood, for Hollywood. When my mother discovered that I wasn't going to school and I was standing there combing my hair in the mirror and I said, Mama, I'm not going to school today. She went crazy. She was like, baby, you got to go to school, it's your last semester, you're going to graduate, brother. You got to go to Hollywood today. Hello, I'm Stuart Larch. I'm a music writer and broadcaster. I think if you asked me, I'd say I was around six or seven years of age when I first heard Barry White's music. That would make it the mid-seventies. Music had primacy in our household and my early influences came from my mother, father and older brother. In fact, if I close my eyes, I can still see that much coveted reel-to-reel tape recorder which churned out a myriad of genres. It was in my early teens that my own taste took shape and as soon as I had a pocketful of Pretty Green, I couldn't spend it fast enough. Initially, it was Two-Tone Scar, then Tamla Motown and Mod, of course. All three make complete sense to me. My admiration for Barry White has been a mainstay over the years. I'm happy to admit that it was during lockdown that I fully immersed myself into his songbook. Nineteen studio albums, 20 gold singles and he became 20th century record's highest-grossing artist within three years. Sure, that got me thinking, but it was the moment of serendipity, something that hit me between the eyes, that really sealed this project. I'll tell you about that as we get further on. Unkindly dubbed the Guru of Love, those who really understood White knew that as deep as that bass baritone voice was, wide were the breadth of skills he had to develop his vision for a unique brand of music. Once he realised his own potential, it was about when, not if, the industry would catch on. We'll start with his childhood, plot his journey to becoming a global success story and how his career was cut short due to his untimely death at 58. I'm Stuart Large and this is Soul Unlimited. Let's talk a little bit about your childhood. You grew up in South Central Los Angeles. What was the neighbourhood like when you were growing up? And this was, what, in the 40s and 50s? Yeah, in the 50s and 60s, yeah. It was rough. Things were very hard, but you make the best out of whatever you got and you go on and that's what we did. You write about how you were arrested at the age of 15 in 1959. What for? For burglary, for stealing tires, so we stole $30,000 worth of dual 90 tires and my neighbour snitched on me. He saw us putting the tires in my garage and he called the police. I ended up going to jail. If I saw that guy today, I would thank him. Refusely, believe me. What was it like around Hollywood for a young guy trying to make a difference? Very tough. It was tough, big and far. It depends on who you were, though. If you were a guy who could read music, had a car, little bankroll, apartment, nice clothes, it wasn't that tough for you. But if you were a young kid, 19, 20 years old, who has two children and a third one on the way and refuses to leave them, you found life a lot tougher because there were no salaries yet. Yeah, but see, I came into it knowing what I had to offer. All I had was the will and the love for music. But what I loved about it was you were always able to meet somebody interesting that was doing something. Leon Rene of Class Records gave me my very first gig, not salary, but payment. It was on a song called Tossin' Ice Cube, three girls and me. I went in there one take and laid it out for him. He gave me $100. He gave me that $100 bill, and it was a $100 bill that I had earned. In spite of my poorness, the people that I met took a very serious liking to me because they knew that I was a young man who was very serious. I didn't come to Hollywood for the ladies. I couldn't afford to go to your parties. I was invited to them, but I didn't have no clothes to wear. But they gave me valuable information. I started working for Bob King through Paul Poletti, who wrote those oldies but goodies. When I was on the road with Jackie Lee, we almost got killed out there. We went to jail. The day that I decided to come home is amazing because I was in New Orleans, and that was the first flight, first time I'd ever been on an airplane. It was Delta coming from New Orleans. I got home that evening. The next morning, I get a call from Paul. Do you want to be A&R man? A&R man? What the hell is A&R man? He said, we'll figure that out when you get here. On August 17, 1965, six days of rioting in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles came to an end. This is where it began. This is where the fuse was lighted, the dusty corner in an old neighborhood. This is where the fuse was lighted, the dusty corner in an old neighborhood of modest homes and new, low-priced apartments. It began with the arrest by white officers of the California Highway Patrol of two young Negroes, one on a charge of drunk driving, the other his brother, his passenger. Their mother, who lives nearby, came to the scene. There was an argument. There was a scuffle. By then, a crowd of several hundred Negroes had gathered, and the story of police brutality quickly spread through the community. I was working at the police department as what we called a radio telephone operator, meaning a dispatcher. I got the call, 911 is what it is now, but I don't know what I said back then. And I got the first call, officer needs help at 116 blank, blank, South Avalon. No, he didn't even say where he was. Officer needs help, officer needs help. And then, where are you, 7A, whatever. And nothing. Stuffling sounds, and then finally I got him, and he told me where he was. And so now I scream out, officer needs help, and, you know, the riot manifests. But you got the office. I did. I got the office. And what did you have to do? He offered me $40 a week salary. I said to Bob, if that's too much, you can make it $20, because I'm always willing to earn my way. Was this Bob Keene? Uh-huh. Bob Keene. In six to eight months, I was running the whole operation. It was amazing. And that's when I developed my writing skills to not write hits, and I had a couple of number one records in Europe while I was there, but to learn what I didn't know. So on the one hand, there was White recalling how he landed that first salary job in A&R for Delphi Records. I think you'd be hard-pushed to say he hadn't earned it. But on the other, he would have been living through the civil unrest which resulted in the Watts riots in the summer of 1965. You see, I think we're starting to see the forming of his persona here and an indication of how far he was prepared to go to reach his goal. So you have to have time to develop. You have to be able to be in a place where a piano is, where you can sit there all day, all night, any day, in, out, figuring out what you know and what you don't know. Do I sound like somebody else? And I got an opportunity to do that there. White wouldn't have realised this at the time, but his unremarkable hit, I Feel Love Coming On, which was performed by Felice Taylor, would resurface again with far more clout in the 70s, when US sold imports would provide the stimulus for an underground music scene which swept the north of England. In the next episode of Unlimited, we'll hear about how Barry met Larry. Paul said, Larry's looking for you. I said, Larry who? He said, Larry Nunes. It was like a ton of bricks fell on me. I said, Larry Nunes! This episode features Barry White, Joe Smith and Terry Gross under creative commons or fair use policy, all music used under the same licence. Regina Jones gave a personal account. For more information, visit www.unlimited.com