A Homeless L.A. Musician Helped Create a Daft Punk Classic. So Why Hasn’T He Seen a Dime?
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MUSIC A homeless L.A. musician helped create a Daft Punk classic. So why hasn’t he seen a dime? Eddie Johns, whose “More Spell on You” was sampled on Daft Punk’s “One More Time,” at his supportive housing facility in Pico-Union. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) By AUGUST BROWN | LOS ANGELES TIMES EXCLUSIVE MAY 6, 2021 9 AM PT On the night of Jan. 26, 2014, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem- Christo of Daft Punk leapt onto the stage at Staples Center to accept the Grammy for album of the year. Even though the French electronic duo’s faces were hidden behind white and gold robot masks, they couldn’t hide their elation as they waved back to cheers from Jay-Z, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. Their album “Random Access Memories” and its smash single “Get Lucky” were crowning achievements in a career of immaculately produced dance music, played at pop-star scale. Meanwhile, somewhere in the flatlands of L.A., far from the limos and gowns at Staples Center, Eddie Johns bedded down for the night. Johns doesn’t remember exactly where in L.A. he was living back then, but it was almost certainly somewhere bleak. The Liberian-born singer, now 70, struggled with homelessness here for more than a decade; he had a stroke 10 years ago that left him unable to work and forced him onto the streets or into shelters. Pharrell Williams, from left, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Nile Rodgers accept the Grammy Award for record of the year in 2014. (Los Angeles Times) Four decades earlier, he helped put Daft Punk on the path to those Grammys. In 1979, when he was 28, Johns released an album, “More Spell on You,” with a punchy disco title track he recorded in Paris and released in Europe. Johns’ pleading lyrics about a desperate love — “I’m gonna put a spell on you, because that’s the only thing to do / So that you’ll never get away” — rode an uptempo, brassy production. It didn’t earn the singer much attention at the time. But when Daft Punk recorded its 2001 album “Discovery,” the duo found it and heard something they liked. They chopped the track’s champagne-fizzy horn sections into short samples (a portion of a previously recorded song) and, as the band verifies, rearranged them into new hooks for the track “One More Time.” That song became Daft Punk’s biggest hit to date and its first million-selling single. It grew the duo from a respected club-music act into one of the most popular electronic groups on earth. Pitchfork called “One More Time” the fifth-best song of the 2000s, and Rolling Stone called “Discovery” one of the 500 best albums of all time, in any genre. Johns says he hasn’t seen a dime from it. MUSIC Marianne Faithfull and Courtney Love talk romantic poetry, cheating death and the joys of sober sex April 27, 2021 “I help Eddie use the computer sometimes, and he showed me some of his music,” said Alyssa Cash, who since September has been Johns’ case manager at the supportive housing charity PATH. After Daft Punk announced its retirement in February, amid all the praise for their achievements, she wanted Johns’ part to be remembered too. “He showed me his album cover, and when I found this video talking about how it was sampled by Daft Punk, it was like a lightbulb went off. ‘That’s Eddie, this is his song.’” “I just hope I can get some credit, you know?” Johns told The Times (he is not listed as a songwriter on “One More Time”). He wants his family and the world to know that, whatever else happened to him, his music was important: “I’d like to have something to give to my daughter.” More Spell On You A representative for Daft Punk confirmed that they have, for years, paid royalties to officially license the sample of Johns’ song. “‘One More Time’ contains extracts of the recording ‘More Spell on You.’” the representative said. “Daft Life LTD. is paying royalties twice a year to the producer and owner of ‘More Spell on You.’ … Per the agreement it is the duty of the producer of ‘More Spell on You’ to pay (part of such) semiannual payments to Eddie Johns.” Subscribers get early access to this story We’re offering L.A. Times subscribers first access to our best journalism. Thank you for your support. The rights to “More Spell on You” — first released in France on the label Président — were acquired by a French label and publishing company, GM Musipro, that reissues vintage French rock and pop. It’s where Daft Punk pays its royalties for permission to sample “More Spell.” The firm’s founder, Georges Mary, confirmed via phone and email that his company does receive those payments from Daft Punk but did not specify an amount. “We have not heard from [Johns] since the day we acquired in 1995 a catalog from another label that featured this title,” Mary wrote. “We have tried to do research on him, but without any result. For our part, we are going to study his file and do the accounts to his credit. We will get back to him immediately on this subject, at the same time as we will inform him of his rights. “We ask you in the meantime to convey our sympathy to him,” Mary added. From Paris dance-floors to L.A. shelters On the sun-cooked back patio of PATH’s complex in Pico-Union, Johns walks slowly, leaning into his cane. He’s still got a flash of his dapper disco days, behind dark sunglasses and a brightly striped tie. After his stroke, he talks very quietly but still with a cosmopolitan tang from his youth in West Africa and in France. He lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment, with simple furniture stacked with books from PATH’s library. “It is very comfortable here,” Johns said, relieved to be somewhere stable. Johns grew up with seven siblings in Liberia. His father worked as an accountant for an American company and his mother was a nurse. “She was always singing or humming while doing housework,” he said. He discovered he had a gift for singing, and fell in love with American rock and soul artists like Aretha Franklin, Johnnie Taylor, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Floyd. He moved to Paris in 1977 to make records, though he sometimes struggled to earn money, and experienced bouts of homelessness there. The first song he remembers professionally recording was a cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You,” which came out on Polydor in 1978. The French composer Gérard Salesses, who worked with Grace Jones, arranged it. “I recorded it in one breath,” Johns recalled. “I thought, ‘My mom is going to be so surprised.’ I just wanted to make her proud and maybe get her some money.” MUSIC The sublime sadness of Mexican indie star Ed Maverick May 4, 2021 He played a few club gigs around Europe to support the record. Johns returned the next year with an album of covers and originals, including “More Spell on You.” It showcased Johns’ pleading, just-ragged-enough vocals, with distinctively keening horns that drew from American contemporaries like Chic and Sister Sledge. Jean-Paul Missey, who recorded and mixed “More Spell on You,” was the house engineer at Paris’ Grande Armée studio at the time. He said he only distantly recalled Johns and his sessions but loved recording during the disco-fevered Paris of the era. “I rarely knew the time I’d go to sleep,” he said in an email. “It was a rewarding time for music and a great time for me.” His favorite techniques helped define Johns’ sound: “Rhythmic bass, string accompaniments, brass and a chorus to finish the vocals,” as he put it. “It was a time when the soundman participated in the realization of an album,” which likely attracted the famously meticulous Daft Punk. Four-on-the-floor rhythms were popular among rockers then, but West African acts like Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango had become international stars, and Johns saw a chance to make it big. But he admits he didn’t know how to navigate the record business. “I was so caught up in everything that I didn’t get legal protection,” he said. He released another album, the suave and synth-inflected “Paris Métro,” in 1980. But as his music career stalled out, he didn’t quite know where to turn next. Like so many others, he came to California hoping for a fresh start. “I liked ‘More Spell on You’ more” You can go on YouTube and watch amateur producers slice up “More Spell on You” into a capable facsimile of “One More Time.” In real time, they cut, EQ and stutter- step the horns to re-create the song’s regal thump. Daft Punk and the American singer Romanthony wrote a new vocal melody on top of it, but the pieces from “More Spell” are the audio signature of the track. Daft Punk - One more time (Sampled from Eddie Johns - More Spell On You) Sampling is as old as hip-hop and forms the DNA of much dance music. In the 1970s, American soul and R&B bands upped their tempos into disco, and European producers twisted synthesizers into looping club music. DJs and producers playing Black and Latin gay clubs in Chicago and Detroit smashed both genres together to create house and techno.