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August 8, 2011

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Not many people can claim to have not previously known Prince, finally met the man, called him a “lying m****f****” to his face but still ended up landing a gig in Prince’s fold as a musician with the group The Time without having to audition. Jesse Johnson has always been different. Being himself works.

As The Time’s guitarist, Johnson was that dude who rocked a Jheri curl shag, pink suit and pink guitar [polka dot sometimes, too] with a fierce confidence that made most people stop, lean back and say, “Damnnnnn!”His guitar cuts through Time classics he helped create such as “Jungle Love,” “The Bird” and “Ice Cream Castle.” A solo career with his own group, Jesse Johnson’s Revue, produced memorable tunes such as “Be Your Man,” “Can You Help Me,” “I Want My Girl”and “Crazay.”Before swag was even a word, Johnson had it. He still does; Verbal Penetration: Vols. 1 & 2, his current two-disc set, is a testament.

EBONY.com caught up with Johnson, who played his guitar throughout the interview but still gave it up.

EBONY: Last year you dropped your long-awaited CD Verbal Penetration , Vols. 1 and 2. What moved you to do an album after more than a decade of not releasing a new project?

Johnson: To be honest, every time I’m looking for music, I can’t find anything that appeals to me. I guess there isn’t much grown-folks music—there’s hip-hop and all that kind of thing. It’s hard to find new music that caters to a certain age group. I wanted to do an album that wasn’t trying to be 19; I don’t want to be 19 again. Please, Lord, I don’t want to be 19. And then I wasn’t trying to do a record [on which] I was trying to be current in whatever the style or the sound. I wanted to do an album that was just based on music and something good. I attempted to make a record like [artists] used to make in the ’70s. I remember that albums had great liner notes. They had incredible messages. It was the whole lifestyle. I was really trying to do that.

EBONY: What’s up with the album’s title?

Johnson: People, especially young kids, have so much focus on sex nowadays. I don’t remember it being like that when I was growing up. I remember walking in the room and my mother’s friends were listening to Smokey Robinson sing “Ooh, Baby, Baby.”They’d rush me out the room and say, ‘Ah, get out of here, boy!’ I guess those lyrics were deemed too risqué for a kid to even be hearing. Little did I know, those lyrics were risqué, because they were so cleverly written. They were not vulgar. They were intelligent, because people who wrote that stuff were smart. They were educated. Now, people basically just say, “I want to f*** you,” and that’s it. That’s about as deep as they can get with it, because that’s pretty much the extent of their intelligence level. In working with people in hip-hop, I’ve asked them while [we were] in the studio, “Why do you still talk about the same thing you did when you were 17? I mean, haven’t you had enough sex now that you think about something else?” That’s the thing about sex: When you first started to have it, that’s all you could think about because it was new to you. But I’m like, “Now wouldn’t you start thinking about something else?”So I wanted to say “verbal.” Unfortunately, when people hear “penetration,” for some reason they only think it’s sexual, and it’s not. I remember telling Q-Tip, ‘Man, I’m going to change the album title, because every time I mention[it], people think it’s something sexual. I’m so disturbed by that. I’m so insulted by it. Because it says ‘verbal,’ it’s verbal.” Q-Tip was like, “No. Don’t change the title, man. The title is perfect. Don’t change [it].” What I’m saying is that people need to stimulate their minds. They’re doing enough of the other, given that every record nowadays talks about sexual stimulation. What’s not being stimulated is the mind.

EBONY: You did the album on an indie label, Bellavenix Music.

Johnson: It’s on my own label because I didn’t want it to have an expiration date. With a major label, there are pluses and minuses. Sometimes the pluses outweigh the minuses. I think for my age, the minuses can outweigh the pluses. My whole career, I’ve been told how I can’t put something on my record. I can’t do it anymore. I had a song on an album once called “Black in America.” It’s a very, very positive song. But the reaction I got from the record company or even A&R people at that time, they just didn’t like songs like that. I don’t know if it’s something record companies have against positive Black music. I think about all the Curtis Mayfield music and how he had to do all that on his own. He had his own label, so he was able to do and say whatever he wanted. He didn’t have that restriction at all; I didn’t want that, either. Plus, I really wanted to take my time and make a record not based on, “You have to be done by a certain time.” My whole career was based on time. Most of my experience being in the music business was under that kind of gun and looking at Billboard. I was just really ill about that. I didn’t want to do that anymore.

EBONY: During the long span between 1996 until 2010, where were you? Why such a delay?

Johnson: Because it’s really difficult. I’m a blues player. I hate the term “Black guitarist,”but you can pretty much ask any Black guitarist and they’ll tell you, there’s really no home. For me to have a home, I’m only going to have the home that I create myself.

EBONY: Most people know you got your start with the group The Time. What led to your exit and who parted ways first?

Johnson: I actually wasn’t the first to leave. The first—well, Jam and Lewis didn’t leave; Jam and Lewis got fired, which [never should have happened]. But they got fired and Morris left. When Morris left, I was still there. I rehearsed the band that was on Purple Rain and all that stuff. Morris wasn’t really there. He came in and did the movie, but I don’t even think he was living in Minnesota anymore. I was the last to leave and I left because I was told I wouldn’t be able to write. I wouldn’t be able to sing anything. I was like there was no reason for me to stay.

EBONY: Did you feel like your back was against the wall?

Johnson: No, I was always planning on leaving. You really can’t fulfill whatever your personal goal is through a group situation. You need something that’s just all about you and something that massages your own ego, if you will.

EBONY: Did you always know that you wanted to be a musician?

Johnson: Yes, I knew really early on what I was going to do. I was 12 or 13. I started on drums and bass. Then I played guitar. That’s the one that I zeroed in on and found out that was the one I was born to do.

EBONY: Did you grow up around music?

Johnson: My mother and father played all kinds of music around me. If you look in my music library, it’s really vast, from The Beatles to the Bee Gees to Mozart to Beethoven to Muddy Waters. It’s everything. I mean, I have Mahalia Jackson to Bo Diddley. You name it, it’s in there.

EBONY:What was your defining moment with music as a kid?

Johnson: I was probably around 13 or 14, and I was in a car with my foster father. I remember“Red House” coming on the radio. It was by Jimi Hendrix. There was just something so hypnotic about it when I heard that song; it just floored me. I was forever changed.

EBONY: Where are you from?

Johnson: I was born in Rock Island, Ill. My parents split up and my mother moved to East St. Louis but, while I was growing up in Rock Island, I would still spend a few summers on the South Side of Chicago. I have a lot of relatives there. I have two brothers and a lot of cousins on the South Side. My mother lived there for quite a few years until maybe four years ago. At a young age I moved to East St. Louis, which played a very defining role in my life because that was my first exposure to real Black radio. When I was about to be 16, I moved back to Rock Island with my father. Then I went from Rock Island to Minneapolis.

EBONY: Is it true that you didn’t have to audition when you met Prince?

Johnson: Yeah. The Time was originally just Morris Day and myself. Prince invited me to a show through Morris. I didn’t know who Prince was, though.

EBONY: What?

Johnson: He was already famous and shit, but I didn’t know who he was. I came from a really small town. Rock Island’s really tiny and there was no Black radio there, so I didn’t know who he was. He invited me to a show. I went to the show at First Avenue and saw him for the first time. I was like, “Oh. OK. Cool.” Then the next day we met and I said, ‘Yo, you really dig Hendrix.’ He said, ‘I never watch him.’ I said, ‘Aww, you lying m*****f*****!’ Morris was standing behind him, [signaling] “No, no, no!” Prince kind of fell on the floor and just started laughing. He was just dying. He was cracking up [because] everybody else in the room knew who he was and they were acting different from how they were acting before he got there. So I figured he must have been a big shot or something. Then he said, “Morris said you could really play,” and I said, ‘Well, you want me to plug in and play?’ He was like, “No. I like the way you look. I like your look. You have a cool look.” So that was it.

EBONY: On the very first Time album, did you play at all or was that really just all Prince and Morris?

Johnson: Yeah, that was pretty much Prince and Morris on the first album. I’m not on that at all.

EBONY: So you actually started playing on the album What Time Is It?

Johnson: That’s still [primarily] Morris and Prince, but I’m on it.

EBONY:When you left the group, were you surprised at how quickly your solo career took off with back-to-back hits?

Johnson: I don’t even remember, because all that stuff was such a whirlwind. It was so new, and I was by myself for the first time. Everything was on me and it was just like, smash, smash, smash, smash. You just don’t remember a lot of it. It [becomes] a blur. That’s why it’s best to film it and photograph it, because you’re not going to remember it. Luckily, I did film almost all of it.

EBONY: There was a song that was amazing because you seemed to have done what no one else had been able to do: pull Sly Stone from out of the ashes. That might have been one of the last times that people really saw him do something like that on the song“Crazay.” How did that collaboration come about?

Johnson: John McClain was my A&R person. He was the cat who signed me at [the label]. He put all that together; I had nothing to do with it. He suggested it and I said,‘Hey, you make it happen,’ and the next time I heard, it was mixed. I didn’t meet Sly until the video.

EBONY: You didn’t actually work with him in the studio?

Johnson: No. I was doing my albums in Minneapolis. John would come in and he’d go, “Let me hear your record; let me hear what you got.” Then he’d say, “Let me hear what you don’t like.” Then I’d play what I didn’t like, and that was one of the songs I didn’t like. It was a song I wasn’t putting on my record. John heard it and said, ‘That’s a smash.’ The rest is history.

EBONY:People believe, out of sight, out of mind. You waited your time out for a minute. How did that play out?

Johnson: I was just keeping busy. As long as I’m doing music, I’m pretty happy. What I didn’t want to do—no disrespect to Teddy Riley, he’s absolutely brilliant— but when he came along with the New Jack Swing thing, every record company wanted you to do that. They were basically trying to tell me and every other artist on other labels that we needed to work with producers to do [that kind of] music. Of course, I was not doing it; it was not happening. That was really one of the reasons why there was such a long hiatus, because I had a contract for years and I had to wait [it] out. You couldn’t do anything else until that contract ran out. I wasn’t going to work with other producers and do what wasn’t me. I wasn’t going to do an album that wasn’t me and hand it to a label that really didn’t care about me.

EBONY: You did songs for soundtracks, such as The Breakfast Club’s “Heart Too Hot to Hold.” What made you get into doing soundtracks?

Johnson: It’s more money than albums. You can almost do it anonymously, if you will. You can do it, and it’s pure business. It’s music, but the business part of it is a little more hiked up. It’s not a lot of drama and a lot of A&R. It was just less hassle, and I would rather do that all day long than to have to be told the kind of music that I need to do is this and that.

EBONY: Hmm. OK. You worked on Chaka Khan’s Grammy-winning album Funk This. And in addition to theBreakfast Club soundtrack, you worked on others, including Pretty in Pink, Another 48 Hrs, The Five Heartbeats and White Men Can’t Jump. Impressive.

Johnson: Yeah, I was just doing quite a bit underground when people thought I wasn’t doing anything. I was working a lot.

EBONY: What’s going on with The Time reunion? Is something in the works?

Johnson: I don’t know if you’d call it a reunion, but there is definitely a new Time album. I can’t wait until you hear it, because you’re not going to see it coming. It’s turning out really beautiful.

EBONY: Why did you say it’s not called a reunion album? Aren’t the original members part of it?

Johnson: I just never really think about it like that. Because even if I’m off doing something else for five years and they’re doing something, we’re all the nucleus. We’re always still in touch all the time and we still do things together. So it’s just always sounds weird to me to say reunion. We are family. Our kids know each other’s kids. This is crazy. We’ve been knowing each other too long.

EBONY: Is there a certain member of the group that you’re closest to?

Johnson: Terry and I have always been, whether we’re at each other’s throat or loving each other, we’ve always been pretty close because we never BS’d each other. We’ve always been really close, and I admire him very much as a businessman. He’s a great father, too. He’s one of the best fathers I know. He has a big heart. He’s a really nice guy. So I’m closer to him as far as The Time goes. Then, of course, when I was doing the other stuff, I was pretty close to Prince.

EBONY: For people who are on the outside looking in, some might think, ‘Oh, Prince is this mystery, this strange person.’ What would you say?

Johnson: You learn over time it’s very seldom that you meet like-minded people. Sometimes you walk in a room with somebody and you have on a certain kind of outfit and your hair is a certain way. You feel really out of place with everyone else. And then you meet like-minded people. You just click. You walk in a room with Miles Davis, and he’s got on psychedelic pants, [with] no qualms whatsoever about wearing it. People like that tend to gravitate toward one another more. Prince is never weird to me. I mean, he’s just a normal cat to me. But then again we might wear shit that somebody else–that most cats–wouldn’t wear. I don’t see anything I wear as gay, feminine or anything like that. I just got a unique style, and I think it’s a huge part of my personality. It’s not a costume, it’s not an outfit. It’s actually what I wear; it’s what I dig wearing. I think that when you see things a little differently than the average person, then you tend to kind of be more off to yourself. Other people can see it as eccentric. I used to live with Prince. He’s as normal as all get out to me.

EBONY: Nothing strange? C’mon.

Johnson: Weird? Strange? OK, honestly, the only thing that used to freak me out about Prince was, I would wake up in the morning and he would wake up in the morning. He would get out of bed and he’d walk upstairs or in the studio. His hair was always perfect.

EBONY: [Laughs] When he would wake up?

Johnson: Yeah, he would wake up, get out of bed and you would still see he had pajamas on, but his hair was just perfect. And I’d go, ‘Man, how do you do that? Are you sleeping standing up? ‘Cause my shit sure was twisted, so I was like, “How is he doing it?”

EBONY: [Laughs] What was the trick? How did he keep his hair so perfect?

Johnson: I never knew how Prince’s hair would just be perfect.

EBONY: When did you live with him? Were you a member of The Time?

Johnson: No. I hadn’t met Prince until when he left to do the Dirty Mind Tour. Then he had me stay in Minneapolis because I didn’t live there. I was really just trying to make my way through or whatever. He had already made it when I met him. I stayed with him after the album 1999. We did the tour thing with him. It was a really long time. It was an eighth-month tour. So when we came home we were in preparation for the movie [Purple Rain]. We had to do acting school and all kinds of craziness like ballet lessons.

EBONY: Have you had any regrets throughout your career?

Johnson: I actually haven’t had any. I kind of look back and I have my same teeth and my same hair. I look pretty decent. I’m OK. So I’m good.

EBONY: The Time is working on a new project. Is it going to make people think back in the day or is this sound contemporary?

Johnson: We don’t have that mentality. We don’t say, ‘Oh, what is the latest thing everybody’s doing.’ People that dig what I do are older. So I think music and whatever you do should mature. It shouldn’t be the same. It is absurd to me if I were to sing about what I sang about in ’84. That would be so corny. I didn’t know as much as I do. I hadn’t experienced enough life to even think about what I can write about now. I do something that’s not easily digested because it’s not whatever is current. It’s not that. I’m always trying to strive and reach and do something new. I’m never trying to play it safe. It’s truly about the love of the game and then remembering why you do it. It’s not until you buy a BMW. No. You do this because it felt so good to hear music. There’s nothing in world that can fuck with that magic. Nothing. I mean absolutely nothing.

EBONY:On a personal note, how many children do you have?

Johnson: I have four children. Only one lives where I live, though, and that’s the youngest one. The others live in Minneapolis.

EBONY:Are you married?[No response, just the sound of Johnson’s guitar, begging and pleading for mercy. Penetration is powerful.]

Okay jesse johnson I will give ur cd or whatever it is a shot!

As a Guitar Player I give Jesse the edge, but it would be SO COOL 2 hear Prince, Jesse & Dez in a Guitar "Cipher". THAT would b SWEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!

As a Guitar Player I give Jesse the edge, but it would be SO COOL 2 hear Prince, Jesse & Dez in a Guitar "Cipher". THAT would b SWEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!

Well, that answered the question I had about the new Time album (still in the process), if not about a tour with the original members. Seems like a down-to-earth, upfront guy, for the most part.

woogiebear said:

As a Guitar Player I give Jesse the edge, but it would be SO COOL 2 hear Prince, Jesse & Dez in a Guitar "Cipher". THAT would b SWEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!

That would be cool. I'd like to see that as well. You know they'd play well together.

Cool interview. Jesse is a character. I like what he said about like-minded people. That is so true.

"Then the next day we met and I said, ‘Yo, you really dig Hendrix.’ He said, ‘I never watch him.’ I said, ‘Aww, you lying m*****f*****!’"

That was funny!

Why does jesse look like he is made of clay?

formallypickles said:

Why does jesse look like he is made of clay?

Cuz black don't crack.

Cool ass Jesse man...

woogiebear said:

As a Guitar Player I give Jesse the edge, but it would be SO COOL 2 hear Prince, Jesse & Dez in a Guitar "Cipher". THAT would b SWEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!

I'd love to see that!

Great interview from Jesse.

Can't stop laughing at that hair comment.

Jesse is so choosy about music, that the new Time album has got to be tight as HELL for him to be praising it.

Also I'm glad that it seemed like the original Time are still working on their album. Just don't set a date until it's ready, okay guys?

very cool.

sosgemini said:

Can't stop laughing at that hair comment.

I know! It brings us back to the 'Prince wears/has worn a wig' thread...

Nice interview !

Spinlight said:

formallypickles said:

Why does jesse look like he is made of clay?

Cuz black don't crack.

That's not black that's ashy play-doh skinned

really cool interview. It's great when artists are down to earth and talk straight. Will we ever hear the new Time CD?, seems like the window of opportunity has gone i.e. when they performed at the Grammies a few years back.

formallypickles said:

Why does jesse look like he is made of clay?

plastic surgery or a little airbrushing of the photo?

...and before you ask another stupid question....

- no, Boyz II Men is not a day care center

- no, General Motors was not in the army

- and no, buying subway tokens will not get you onto Soul Train

holding something together that is falling apart

I LOVE this interview and LOVE Jesse's cd and music overall. Awesome!

Can't wait to hear the new Time album.

formallypickles said:

Spinlight said:

Cuz black don't crack.

That's not black that's ashy play-doh skinned

it's just the way the photo was processed. Look at the background. Same thing. Cleary his eyes were brought out white cause their is no white point anywhere else in the shot.

BlaqueKnight said:

woogiebear said:

As a Guitar Player I give Jesse the edge, but it would be SO COOL 2 hear Prince, Jesse & Dez in a Guitar "Cipher". THAT would b SWEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!

That would be cool. I'd like to see that as well. You know they'd play well together.

Cool interview. Jesse is a character. I like what he said about like-minded people. That is so true.

"Then the next day we met and I said, ‘Yo, you really dig Hendrix.’ He said, ‘I never watch him.’ I said, ‘Aww, you lying m*****f*****!’"

That was funny!

That was very funny ...and the hair thing too.... dude.

safetypin said:

formallypickles said:

Why does jesse look like he is made of clay?

plastic surgery or a little airbrushing of the photo?

...and before you ask another stupid question....

- no, Boyz II Men is not a day care center

- no, General Motors was not in the army

- and no, buying subway tokens will not get you onto Soul Train

holding something together that is falling apart

Calm down ! it was just a joke.

Terrific interview!! Prince, take notes. This is a "real" interview. None of that fake, cryptic bullshit.

alexnvrmnd777 said:

Terrific interview!! Prince, take notes. This is a "real" interview. None of that fake, cryptic bullshit.

now that we can agree on!

wonder505 said:

alexnvrmnd777 said:

Terrific interview!! Prince, take notes. This is a "real" interview. None of that fake, cryptic bullshit.

now that we can agree on!

Really good interview.

Jam and Lewis got fired, which [never should have happened].

"was bullshit" ? I wonder what he really said before the paraphrasing.

I liked all the stuff about not bowing to pressures to sound current, and when NJS came in he didn't kowtow to record company pressure then. It's so true that when music changes the established acts are pressured into mimmicking the newer stuff - not just in black pop music, although you see it there so much with hip-hop taking over everything.

I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and Jesse being Jesse.

Jesse has always been a guy that would tell you what's on

his mind. No bullshit. It's why he was largely pretty much my

favorite artist from 1985 to 1991.

alexnvrmnd777 said:

Terrific interview!! Prince, take notes. This is a "real" interview. None of that fake, cryptic bullshit.

I agree

Kool.