Lunch @ Earlez Grill With Leon Haywood

Years ago at samaka and Deswab Records which sat on the washington Corridor, on the Westside, aspiring Hip-Hoppers and edging rappers alike would pop up to make beats and hang out arranging for the weekend gigs and all that blasts that goes with life in the studios.

During rehearsals, and when the atmosphere is up in smoke, the talks of rival gangs and rival recording studios takes up every discourse and the bad boys of samaka/Deswab would want the challenge to know what's around town with new talents and how to shop around. It was at the time of digging for more acts that I was told Leon Haywood ran a studio not too far from the block - on the Crenshaw Manor thoroughfare, a complex the seventies R&B sensation had bought when the fusion in the blend of soul-disco had waned for a generation, and rap music now dead, would explode from the corners of Sugar Hill Records which gave birth to Sugar Hill Gang, the first rap acts on any record label.

But as it had happened, I never knocked on the doors of Haywood's music and recording studio while overseeing the state of affairs at Samaka Records, until recently when I had thought of series of compilations in all music genre, and when I had scheduled plans to the subjects of my compilations and the liner notes which would need their attention and a one-on-one chat for details during the days of their performances.

I have bumped into Haywood in several occasions but we never had the time to chat. Haywood, born February 11, 1942, in Houston, Texas, is an American funk and soul singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his 1975 hit single "I Want'a Do Something Freaky To You", which has been much sampled by Dr. Dre and others. Born in Houston, he listened to the blues as a child and started playing piano at the age of three. In his teens, he performed with a local group and worked as an accompanist to blues musician, Guitar Slim. In the early 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he worked with saxophonist Big Jay McNeely.

Asking Haywood while we had a bite at the popular Earlez Grille in the hood, on the Crenshaw Manor thoroughfare about his journey through music way back from Houston, he acknowledged the rough road, and the hard times that comes with surviving and overcoming the "hype" that is Hollywood and the music industry.

On music of today, he noted all had changed and that nobody does music for pleasure anymore, or doing music for the "likeness" of it. "Music, nowadays is all about money and that's too bad the culture is gone."

On Stevie Wonder, Wonder was a good pal helping him through the days of figuring out his mission in the early 70s when he began to discover his path before his major hit which catalpulted him to the charts.

On Quincy Jones, he did session work with the studio rat back in the day.

On Leon Sylvers, they all hanged around in the hood upon Dick Griffey discovering SOLAR Records (Sound Of Los Angeles Records) in the 70s.

On why he never came to Nigeria at the time of his breakthrough with the SOLAR crew and other recording artists during Ben Bruce Murray's Silver Bird Promotions: "I didn't wanna go."


On my plans to buy over the studio, his take was "hey, I'm old now and can't do much anymore. Go for it. It's all yours my African brother."

On his hey days at the recording studio, he wrote and produced songs for many artists and, credited with writing the 1981 hit "She's a Bad Mama Jama" by Carl Carlton, which he produced in his own studio. His last R&B chart record was "Tenderoni" in 1984. After a few more chart singles, for Casablanca Records and Modern Records, Haywood disappeared from the charts. In the late 1980s he became associated in an executive/production capacity with the Los Angeles based Edge Records. Since the 1980s, he has produced blues albums by Jimmy McCracklin, Clay Hammond, Ronnie Lovejoy, Buddy Ace and others, all locals, on his own Evejim Records label.

Haywood will be 70 years old in a few weeks and should be entertaining friends and well wishers at his Evejim Records complex where I intend to recruit for the next explosion in musical genre about to emerge.

Since I'm not a soul-food kinda guy, I asked him about the food and he said 'soul food's the deal." Unless I was taking him to Beverly Hills for $50 a plate lunch, that he's cool with what had been on my tab at Earlez. Nice, soft-spoken man who had his time. "Im cool with that." And a whole lot will be changing when Samaka moves in to the neighborhood.