Andre' Saunders Music is a site designed to showcase new music and some unreleased masters I produced when Disco was King. When I walked away from the music business, I had just recorded masters on Darnel Williams, Jessie from the hit daytime soap opera, "All My Children".
I'll upload this and other stuff to ASAUNDERSMUSIC you can download...some free and some not.
Click on theBookbutton and get the first fifty pages of my autobiography, "A Musical Life"free. Enter the life of a young musician when the chitlin circuit still provided a living for entertainers with talent. And we'll take a toke or two as we head into the disco funk of the seventies.
So, visit ASAUNDERSMUSIC often because things will be added continually.
THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN AT THE TIP TOP NIGHTCLUB IN B'KLYN, NY AROUND 1965.
I WAS 19
30 pages
This is my story, but in a way, it is the story of many musicians. I'm all you young musicians, just older. How I became a professional musician and why music consumed by life covers the music industry from the 1950'S chittlin circuit and 1960's R & B through the 70's/80's Disco era. Young readers will read my story and think how long ago things happened, but to me, it seems like just yesterday.
I was lucky enough to start my career in New York City, when musicians could put a nightclub act together, and earn a living without being signed to a recording label. Before integration changed neighborhoods, every African-American community had a local bar or nightclub that hired live talent for the week-ends. This is what's now called "The Chittlin Circuit". These shows usually consisted of a MC who told jokes, an exotic dancer and a house band that played and sang all the latest songs. On special occasions they hired singers or singing groups that had their own band; my group was "The 3 Gents".
Come walk with me through my many adventures as a young musician into the rehearsal halls that dotted New York's Midtown Seventh Avenue. Meet some of the Washington Square characters who later made up such groups as "The Village People". Meet Fat Daddy Walker and find out how I met Richie Havens and went to Woodstock.
You'll find both fun and laughter and some recognizable names, so enjoy!
Andre' Saunders
One day I was at Billy's house listening to him play some songs he had just written when he started telling me that he wanted to do more than just write. He said that it had always been his ambition to be a singer.
Billy was a friend and someone I knew to be a hit song writer for Millie Jackson, B.T. Express and others but he was not the best singer I had heard. But by that time, I had worked with many singers and felt that I could work with Billy so I asked him to let me produce a record on him.
We decided to do one of the songs he played that day "Give Your Body Up To The Music" and another of his songs "Diamond Rings".
After listening to the songs I thought they were too funky and did an arrangment that was more disco oriented. After laying the rhythum tracks I went back in the studio and I did all of the percussion breakdowns by myself to add a latin flavor.
One day the door to the control booth opened and it was Mel Cheren, President of WESTEND RECORDS wanting to know if he could listen to what we were doing. After listening for a while he asked if I would let him have the first chance to buy our record.
These are the last records I produced, my last artist deal and is a major reason I walked away from the record business.
My friend Antino Fargas had gotten a part on the daytime soap "All My Children" and hooked me up with Darnell Williams who played the part of Jessie.
The story of how it all went down can be found in my book "A Musical Life". But here is the short version of the tunes my partner Dee Coley and I produced on Darnell Williams, Jessie from "All My Children.
The B Boys are the oldest and youngest of Myrtle Bell's sons. Buzzy the youngest wrote, sang and played most of the the parts himself.
I acted as his engineer, producer, sometimes suggesting changes to improve what he was doing, occasionally playing a part. All the while feeling proud of my baby brother.
A few years ago I bought a keyboard that had 740 different sounds of instruments and 16 track recording. "Just me and my keyboard' is just that, me playing my keyboard, trying to get some of what I'm hearing out of my head.
"LOVE TO BE THE " is a musical arrangement and production I did for Winston Negron. He was school teacher who came to me having written a poem and asked me to produce it for him.
This is what I did.
