Date: 6/24/04

Interviewer: Jacob Robinbach

Interviewer: So you were born in Memphis, TN?

Mickey Gregory: Mmm hmm

Interviewer: What year?

Mickey Gregory: 1938.

Interviewer: 1938.

Interviewer: Can I just ask you to speak up just a little bit? I want to make sure we get everything.

Mickey Gregory: Okay. Interviewer: Thank you very much. Um alright so, let’s start with this. So what defines soul music for you? Mickey Gregory: What defines soul music? Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: I should have done you like the president does people. Make sure we’ve discussed what I’m going to answer and what I’m not. Interviewer: Oh no Mickey Gregory: Because I’m not used to things being thrown at me. … I’d have to think about that. It’s just something I’ve never thought about. [1:00] Mickey Gregory: I have to, you have to be able to feel it to play it correctly or to record it correctly but it is not my choice of musics. I’m always jazz minded so I never really think about it. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do automatically. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: I’ve never had to categorize it. Interviewer: You just sort of felt it and did it. Mickey Gregory: Yeah Interviewer: I think that probably defines it pretty well. Mickey Gregory: Same thing with blues and I don’t know why but normally if I’m writing, its blues. My best song, that I still receive residuals on, is a blues I wrote back with King and it’s always continuously making money. Interviewer: Which one was that? Mickey Gregory: “Drowning on Dry Land”. Interviewer: And when did you write that? Mickey Gregory: About 70, 71. [2:00] Mickey Gregory: I really wrote it earlier because I got the feeling from my grandmother when I got married. [Laughing] and there’s uhh there’s a little thing in “Drowning on Dry Land” that says uhh there’s a little dog sitting by the railroad track one day. The train cuts off part of his tail. He never looked up he just peaked over the rail, lost his whole head over a little piece of tail. That’s what my grandmother told me when she found out I had gotten married. So… Interviewer: You just lost a little piece of your tail. Mickey Gregory: No, I lost my whole head for a little piece of tail. Interviewer: [laughing] Okay. Mickey Gregory: The tail wasn’t really that important. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: But I thought it was at the time. Interviewer: I see. So you lost your whole head over a little piece of tail. Mickey Gregory: Yeah. Which a lot of us do that. Interviewer: It’s a popular, It’s a popular thing to do I think. [Both laughing] Interviewer: Umm and so and that, did you put that lyric in the song? Mickey Gregory: I put that lyric in the song and it was I think recorded 70 or 71 by Albert [3:00] Interviewer: Do you remember when you first played it for Albert? Mickey Gregory: I uhh think I played it for Albert’s producer Alan Jones maybe 69, late 69. And he says “Okay I’ll do that but you’ll have to give me fifty percent of it.” I’m saying “No, forget it.” And as time went on I … my position began to soften a little bit because I needed the money. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: So I gave him half rights and we did the thing. Uhh the latest recording of it that proved to be financially wonderful was, I think the guys name was Paul Buchanan. You ever heard of him? Interviewer: Uh-uh, maybe. Mickey Gregory: He was a guitar player. I think he’s deceased. Uhh bout last year … [mumbling] ... It’s been recorded by a lot of people. Lots of people. [4:00] Mickey Gregory: Junior Parker, OV Wright. A lot of people rerecorded it. Interviewer: What’s your favorite version? Mickey Gregory: The Junior Parker version. It was an uptown version and I can’t find it anywhere. I think it was Junior Parker and an organ player, jazz organ player that he was doing things with. I can’t recall his name but I haven’t been, I haven’t been able to find that version of it. Interviewer: Now uhh when did you first hear what we call R&B music? Mickey Gregory: [sigh] I started playing about 53, 54. [5:00] Mickey Gregory: Prior to that, in my home, my aunt used to sit at the piano and all she did was play and sing because she had to babysit me. My mother past the same year I was born and she did everything Nat Cole did. Whatever he did, she could play and sing. So I was like brought up on standards and or ballets whichever one you want to call it. But after getting into ninth grade high school at Manassas. The band director gave me this little trumpet. It had more holes in it than a sea. So I put gum over the holes, patched it up and he told me if you learn to play this thing I’ll give you a better instrument. If you learn to play it by spring. So I lit into that horn cause I had a concept, I guess it was inborn, they tell me my mother was a pretty good piano player. [6:00] Mickey Gregory: By the spring I had gotten professional enough to not only get another instrument but to get into concert bands as their trumpet player. And I think my first real solo that I would standup and play at the football rallies was an R&B thing called Come on Baby, Let the Good Times Roll. Interviewer: Oh Mickey Gregory: It had this tenor saxophone solo [making solo sounds] and I learned this thing on trumpet. I got such a response from my peers so I’m saying “yeah this is cool.” And I got into the R&B stuff and I started playing down in an in area of the city we call West Junction, way down there. And they were doing blues, a mixture of blues and what you now call R&B. [7:00] Interviewer: What were the clubs called down there? Mickey Gregory: hmm? Interviewer: Do you remember what the clubs were called that you used to play at then? Mickey Gregory: They had three clubs. It was Jack Tampers, Grady’s and the Bungalow. We played all three. Interviewer: Which one did you like the best? Mickey Gregory: Grady’s, it was more like a club, like a supper club. Interviewer: Yeah. It was classy. Mickey Gregory: Eh, it was okay. Interviewer: Big music stands? Mickey Gregory: Pretty big band stands, pretty big band stands yeah. Grady is dead, rest his soul, so he won’t mind me saying we found out at a later date that the corn whiskey still was directly under the band stand. [Both laughing] Mickey Gregory: And it was piped into [inaudible] … his home but playing there I got, I had so much freedom to do what I wanted to do. I was the youngest guy in the band. Only really kid in the band. [8:00] Interviewer: How old were you? Mickey Gregory: Probably fifteen and I became quite proficient on the instrument. I had very good band directors, very good band directors. And we were playing one night, I think we were at the Bungalow, no Rufus was at the Bungalow and we went and some of us sat in. So I was getting seven dollars a night down at Grady’s. Rufus offered me twelve … Interviewer: That’s Rufus Thomas? Mickey Gregory: That’s Rufus Thomas. He offered me twelve. Needless to say I a member of Rufus, the bearcats. And that was a very good gig. I learned a lot from Rufus. He was, he was a guy with I don’t know. He had this great work ethic. [9:00] Mickey Gregory: We used to pick him up from this place called American Finishing Company. That’s where he worked during the day. And pick him up for the gigs. He’d work that job, he would do the American Finishing thing and the gigs and the radio. I’m saying “when does this guy sleep.” And uhh … Interviewer: Maybe there’s no time to sleep when you are Rufus Thomas. Mickey Gregory: I thought he couldn’t. I, I always said “this guy can’t drive.” Cause we always picked him up you know. But he [both laughing] he was fine on the band stand. Rufus had, he always had the finest musicians in town. Whoever the players were and in that day most horn players and piano players, whatever, were totally rounded. We played, everybody played everything. You could practice doing blues then you could practice doing an R&B gig. You could practice doing a jazz gig. [10:00] Mickey Gregory: Everybody learned to play well rounded music. Interviewer: Was that in all, was that in all walks? Because it seems like Rufus Thomas had a lot of that going to. By kind of what you said he wore a lot of hats he did comedy, he sang, he danced. Mickey Gregory: He did everything but he used more of jazz musicians. Interviewer: Would you say that uhh that in that time you basically had to be proficient in a lot of different areas to really get work? Mickey Gregory: I wouldn’t say you had to be. It was just what everyone did. There was um … a teaching institution, you may say, at Mitchel’s hotel which came to be Club Handy. All of the musicians that left here as jazz musicians and the ones that, the older ones, that are still in New York today all met up at Mitchel’s hotel and were more or less taught by a tenor player called Bill Harvey. [11:00] Mickey Gregory: There were a couple of piano players uhh one was once my band director Auntie Horne and Bob Tally. They would do arrangements and what have you. Rufus worked with all of them. We just aspired to play music without boundaries and we were fortunate enough to do that. My, the street I lived on, the area of the city that I lived in was sorta like an incubation area. The school that I attended starting with the old Jimmie Lunceford band. Jimmie Lunceford was from my school I attended. Um alto player Frank Strocher, trumpet player Booker Neal, New York’s finest tenor player today George Coleman. [12:00] Mickey Gregory: Also George Coleman’s brother, Lucian, who nobody really knows. I don’t know why Lucian never became that great musician that he was that nobody ever knew. Isaac Hayes and myself used to worship Lucian. So we’d just sit on the on the front porch and Lucian would play. During those day Isaac wanted to be a saxophone player and I don’t know, we just wanted to be able to play whatever you needed. And as results it kept us eating. Interviewer: When did you first meet Isaac? Mickey Gregory: We lived in the same general area. I was, what am I? Four years older than Isaac. Something like that but I lived on the street called Woodlawn. He lived more between Woodlawn and Tully on a street called Lyman. And everybody that has the music aspiration knew everybody. It’s a small neighborhood in a big city. [13:00] Interviewer: Now, Beale Street at that time in the late 40s and 50s was not what it is today. Mickey Gregory: No. Interviewer: What was it like then? Mickey Gregory: No. Some people make Beale Street to be this rowdy street where this transpired and that transpired. I never saw that. Uhh not in the 50s. Everybody had fun. The uhh festivities really started after the pawn shops closed. All the pawn shops were on Beale at that time. There were little cafes that had booze, clubs. I never played one of them cause I was considered one of the crème de la crème. [14:00] Mickey Gregory: We had three clubs in the city of Memphis that were the clubs: Curry’s Club, Tropicana Outlawed, the Club Handy on Beale and, fourth I think, no, the other Hernando and the Flamingo Room which was right off of Beale on there. And I always played the Flamingo Room. Interviewer: What was the Flamingo Room like? Mickey Gregory: It was an upstairs place. One forty and a half Hernando. The half bean upstairs. We did, umm, the major three clubs. For your first set you always play jazz, always. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: Second set you came on with the R&B and that’s what you went home with. Uhh, most gigs were from ten to two. So from ten to eleven you played jazz. Everybody sit back and sip their drinks, eat, or whatever they were doing. [15:00] Mickey Gregory: And by the time you came back to the second set everybody was ready to hit the floor. That was the fun part of it. Club Handy was a little different in that respect. They played the jazz scene. They did it with a big band and the next set was normally a bluesy type thing because the owner of the Club Handy was a booking agent for BB, Bobby, and those guys. So their thing was like pretty much blues. Flamingo Room and Curry’s was R&B. Interviewer: And what were the crowds like at the Flamingo Room? Mickey Gregory: Packed. Interviewer: Packed? Mickey Gregory: Packed. Interviewer: Everybody dancing? Mickey Gregory: Everybody. We did Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and blue Monday party. [16:00] Mickey Gregory: The blue Monday party was always played by Willie Mitchell. Willie Mitchell played his R&B is the only guy I’ve ever heard have a band that could play so you could have a conversation with the person next to you or two or three tables over and hear. You know, everybody could hear what everybody was talking about but he still grooved. I mean the groove would be there but it wasn’t like [imitating horn noise] it was just there. Interviewer: You know that … Mickey Gregory: [interrupting] You felt Willie you didn’t hear him. Interviewer: That’s such a great description because even when he went on to do Hi Records he kept it so cool with those grooves. Mickey Gregory: Yeah Interviewer: They were so cool. Mickey Gregory: I don’t know how he could do it with a, I mean, the joint is packed. You never heard Willie you felt him. And you, everybody would be on the dance floor. Nobody was bug jumping, you danced cool cause it was … [Both laughing] [17:00] Mickey Gregory: And it was R&B! He had this singing group called the Four Kings. Donald Bryant and the Four Kings and they did everything that was popular and it was still in that same, the level never changed. Willie was just creative, on the band stand and on into the studio, he was. Interviewer: And he had an idea of what he wanted music to sound like. Mickey Gregory: Always. Interviewer: So whatever he did … Mickey Gregory: He knew what he wanted. I used to hear him play these, tasty solos on his trumpet and I’m saying, you know, “I can outplay Willie.” [Both laughing] Mickey Gregory: But what Willie was playing was making money. What I was trying to play only made a few dollars if you were in New York City. Interviewer: Right. What was New York like in terms of R&B at that time, you know in the clubs that you played in New York? [18:00] Mickey Gregory: I never really played clubs in New York. Maybe smalls or something like that, go sit in or whatever. But I’ve never been on the New York R&B scene. When I was going to New York it was shows. Starting with, uhh, [sound interference] had a band called The Upsetters and it’s the only band in the world that played with everybody and never had a record. Interviewer: Well they were a road band. Mickey Gregory: They were a hot band and we ended up, I ended up with The Upsetters. They bagged Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson … Interviewer: How long did you play with them for? Mickey Gregory: Umm, I think I left The Upsetters right before I came back to Memphis, maybe 65, 66. Sam Cooke had gotten killed. His brother LC decided to take a show out and like sort of a tribute to Sam. [19:00] Mickey Gregory: I stayed with LC for maybe a year with the same Upsetter band. Which was headed by a guy, tenor player, named Grady Gaines. And, well two tenor players, Grady Gaines and Clifford Verke. There’s a guy in New York that was the manager of the whole show and he still in New York at one of the booking agents. I think he’s with Morris, what’s the, something, William Morris. Uhh, Henry Nash. Nash is still in New York booking and he’s got to be older than me. Interviewer: How did you get started with The Upsetters? Mickey Gregory: I was playing a jazz club on 105 and Eklund in Cleveland, Ohio and some of the guys, they, the group played Cleveland and they came through. [20:00] Mickey Gregory: And the drummer from Memphis named Joe Grey and introduced me to the guys of the band and they thought I was this phenomenal trumpet player. And they extended an invitation for me to join the group. The money was pretty good but I really had no interest in it. They said they were going to, I think, Saginaw, Michigan the next night and if I changed my mind to give them a call. That night I got into some trouble and my mind was telling me “you better get the hell out of Cleveland.” Interviewer: What kind of trouble? Mickey Gregory: Eh, trouble. I had trouble. Not criminal trouble. Just trouble but I, uhh, told my wife, I said “look I’m going to Michigan with this group.” [21:00] Mickey Gregory: “I will send you some money real soon.” [21:00-21:14 Mumbling] I had to get out of town and I called them and they told me “well you’ll have a ticket at Hopkins airport.” So that was the beginning of my Upsetter days. It was ok though. Interviewer: Was that with Little Richard? Mickey Gregory: No. Richard was preaching or whatever but they were a real fun group, they were. You’d have to dance on the band stand. It was a totally uniform group. They had all of these homemade uniforms that fit real tight. Everybody uses powder, lipstick, makeup. Everybody’s hair was fried, dyed, laid to the side. [Both laughing] [22:00] Interviewer: That was sort of, I think they had a big influence on James Brown and The Famous Flames. Mickey Gregory: Well yeah, uhh, they played behind James Brown. Let’s see it was Sam Brown, Sam Cooke, Five Royals, Jackie Wilson, Solomon Burke, uhh… Interviewer: Were you with them when they played behind Solomon? Mickey Gregory: Yeah. Solomon was kinda, he really liked this drummer, Joe Grey. Interviewer: And uhh and uhh how did you feel about Solomon as a performer at that time? Mickey Gregory: Solomon has always been great and when I heard him getting ready to do the Stax thing here. Sitting out front with his big old self in the chair, upstage in magrice I’m saying “Solomon’s still got it.” Interviewer: He really does. Mickey Gregory: He’s great. Interviewer: I saw him in New York a few months ago. When he opened his mouth to sing it was the biggest thing I’d ever heard. Mickey Gregory: He is great. [23:00] Mickey Gregory: Always has been. Always will be. Interviewer: Absolutely. Mickey Gregory: This kid I was telling you about, Joe Grey, Joe used to live down there on Mcelroy and when Joe lived on Mcelroy I never knew he was a drummer. I never knew him until I saw him at The Upsetters. Solomon was sort of like his, he worshipped Solomon Burke. Solomon is an artist’s artist. Interviewer: Yeah certainly. Now in the mid-60s, you know, that was when you well the early 60s, mid 60s that’s when you first started playing with Isaac Hayes in the group called The Swing Cats, is that correct? Mickey Gregory: I think when Isaac had The Swing Cats I may have been on the road. I left The Upsetters, I think, in 65 and came back to Memphis. Probably after that I had the band at the Flamingo Room. [24:00] Mickey Gregory: In that band was uhh I’m sure you heard of Booker Jones. Well Booker was the bass player. He wasn’t playing organ. Interviewer: In the Flamingo Room? Mickey Gregory: Yeah and uhh Maurice White, Earth, Wind, and Fire, was the drummer. Andrew Love of the Memphis Horns was the tenor player and we had a little piano player named Richie Chan. Richie died a few years ago. No I mean a few months ago but that’s what I was doing when I think Isaac was doing Swing Cats thing. He had left uhh a club called the Plantation Inn and he played over there. Interviewer: That was in West Memphis right? Did you ever play over in West Memphis? Mickey Gregory: Yeah, everybody played the Plantation Inn. You didn’t like it because I think it was forty-nine dollars for six or seven nights. [Both laughing] But you played it. If you needed to work you’d work at the Plantation Inn, so I did play the Plantation. [25:00] Mickey Gregory: When uhh when we were playing together as a group. It was Isaac fronting the group, it was Sir Isaac and the Doo-Dads. Interviewer: When was that? Mickey Gregory: That was after 65. That was between 65 and 70. Interviewer: And you guys auditioned for Stax? Mickey Gregory: No. Interviewer: Nope? Mickey Gregory: Everybody was here. Yeah, umm, we used most of the Bar-Kays as the rhythm section, the early Bar-Kays as the rhythm section. William Bell had a club, Mcelroy and Bellevue, called The Tiki Club and that’s where we did most of our giging. Interviewer: And did you ever play with William? Mickey Gregory: William Bell? Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: Yeah William Bell was with me when I was Flamingo Room. It was William Bell and The Del-Rios. Interviewer: Oh Okay. Mickey Gregory: Yep. Interviewer: He’s a real great singer. Mickey Gregory: William is just a great person. Interviewer: Oh yeah. Mickey Gregory: His wife and my wife were first cousins. Interviewer: Okay. Mickey Gregory: Yep. [26:00] Interviewer: So you’ve known him for a long time. Mickey Gregory: Oh yeah Interviewer: What would you describe his personality like? Mickey Gregory: Cool. [Both laughing] With his pipe. William has never changed he’s always been the same. He had, in my opinion, fate kinda got in his way. Got the hit on “Don’t Miss Your Water” and service called, the army called but uhh William is my guy. We uhh, before coming to Stax we played together a long time at the Flamingo. It was a group that he had had, called The Del-Rios. Interviewer: Now were you playing on the Stax sessions in the mid-60s? Mickey Gregory: Yeah Interviewer: Which sessions were you playing on? Mickey Gregory: Hmm, just about everybody that come through here. Interviewer: So did you play on “Don’t Miss Your Water”? Mickey Gregory: No I didn’t play on that session. [27:00] Interviewer: Now, you say you were playing with the Bar-Kays? Mickey Gregory: That the Bar-Kays were the rhythm section with Isaac when we were doing it. Interviewer: Right. When you were the Doo-Dads. Now that was an interracial group. Mickey Gregory: [sighs] No. Interviewer: The early Bar-Kays? Mickey Gregory: We used Jimmy the guitar player, Carl the drummer, and uh [inaudible] the bass player. Interviewer: Okay, but you were playing with interracial groups in the 60s when you were over here working with the Stax group? Mickey Gregory: Oh yeah. I think we had uhh, oh who was it, the first interracial group. First group to play … I don’t know if it was the first interracial group or the first group to play at a club. It was an interracial group, yeah. [28:00] Mickey Gregory: We played a club on Cleveland called uhh I can’t think of the name of that place. I don’t know whether if Ben [inaudible last name] was the band leader, I think he was. Or … you get me to try and remember things that… Interviewer: It’s alright. [Both laughing] Interviewer: What was the, what was the response when you first started playing with an interracial group? Mickey Gregory: Nobody really paid it any attention on the band stand. We uhh, everybody knew everybody. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: Yeah like, it’s just everybody knew everybody. Like I said I come from north Memphis where, I went to Monasus it’s down the street here on Monasus and Elvis went to school up the street on Monasus at Humes. [29:00] Mickey Gregory: Everybody knew everybody so if you were grooving your audience didn’t give a care. Interviewer: Right Mickey Gregory: You know, the groove. Interviewer: Sounds like music really played a hand in integration in that period then. Mickey Gregory: I’m sure it did. I’m sure it did. Some of the best uh all white clubs always used the black bands. Willie Mitchell being at the top uhh I would say we worked quite a bit behind David Porter. David Porter was a very well loved as a vocalist around Memphis. Called him Little Dave and made pretty good money with Dave for a long time. Interviewer: And of course David Porter went on to create Sam and Dave with Isaac. [30:00] Mickey Gregory: Well yeah. As a matter of fact when we first, when I first went out on the road, whatever. It was as band leader for David Porter and the Sole Spacemen and I don’t think we did but one gig. Isaac was also on the gig. Eh, the spectrum in Philadelphia, that’s where we played but I didn’t like really desert David it’s just that it was natural for me to go with Isaac, he’s my partner. And uhh, in those days since I was married so much so that those guys and I had kids um that I was going through a dramatic period in those days. Isaac just picked me up and held me up until I could walk and for that I’m truly grateful. [31:00] Mickey Gregory: I don’t know where I would be if it don’t be for bubba Hayes. He was uhh surely the highlight of my financial career. I never made the money prior or after Isaac. Interviewer: And a friend too. Mickey Gregory: There was a period when he may have thought that I let him down but I sort of like ran him away from me. Reason being, after that bankruptcy everybody else… Interviewer: Which bankruptcy? Mickey Gregory: Isaac’s. Everybody else kept doing what they, what they did. I don’t know, it affected me differently. Interviewer: When did Isaac go bankrupt? Mickey Gregory: Uh, 76 I believe. Interviewer: After Stax collapsed? Mickey Gregory: Yeah but it affected me quite a bit differently. [32:00] Mickey Gregory: I don’t know, I just sat down and I went through this drug thing and by the time he got better to rebuild I was so far gone. Didn’t want him to know it all, I thought he should have known it or whatever but I wasn’t any good to myself let alone him and he was making plans to restructure and whatever. I remember we were coming back from Atlanta after he came back from Europe and he was saying “okay this is what we are gonna do. It’s just going to be the three of us.” He and a guy named Benny Maybone, that’s still with him, and myself. I’m listening and listening and listening. He had come to Memphis and paid my rent up for several months but there was no, I didn’t know how I was going to make it after that. And I don’t know, I just went off. I just, you know, the problem was like really bad. [33:00] Mickey Gregory: I didn’t realize it at the time how bad it was but I think when we got back to Memphis and pulled into my driveway I think Isaac said “Have a nice life Mr. Gregory.” And I said “You have a nice life.” We didn’t speak for a long time after that but I don’t know. For some reason he makes sure that I always have whatever phone number I need to, to reach him. So… Interviewer: So you guys are still friends then? Mickey Gregory: Yeah. [Laughing] We don’t talk. I think he called me about two months ago and gave me some revelations on what was happening, some changes that he had to make in his business. Asked me a few questions about some things that had transpired but it’s just, I don’t call him unless I’m telling him some friend passed. [34:00] Mickey Gregory: I think he and Benny calls me the grim reaper. [Laughing] If I call, somebody just died. Interviewer: Someone died. [Also laughing] Mickey Gregory: Cause I worry them, you know. But um, working from … I remember Benny telling me once that, uh, something to the effect that “You don’t understand, you not working for, for the Bubba that you knew. You working for Mr. Isaac Hayes.” But that had never been the way I felt about it. I felt that I worked with Isaac rather than for Isaac. Nothing Isaac could ask me to do that I wouldn’t do but I didn’t call it working for Isaac. Interviewer: He was a partner. It was a partnership. Mickey Gregory: It wasn’t a partnership. He was just a guy that reached out when I really needed someone to reach out, reach out. [35:00] Mickey Gregory: There was just nothing that he could ask me to do that I wouldn’t do. Uh, he treated me like, I could act like a kid. If he bought a mink coat I could pout and get me one. He bought me my first Eldorado convertible, jewelry, whatever I’d stick my mouth out. [Laughing] But, and uhh, he was very good to me, very good to me. And to this day, you know, I believe if I needed him he’d be there. If he needed me surely I’d be there. It was like, I’ve always felt that I could do more for Isaac than anybody because his mind really came from here and I had a little business sense. I, every time that I brought money into the company I used to say “Nobody ever brought any money into the company other than you but me.” [36:00] Mickey Gregory: But it was a, you know. In the latter years some bookings or whatever. We tried to keep things going but it was probably the highlight of my music thing. Interviewer: Playing with Isaac? Mickey Gregory: With Isaac. Interviewer: Now is Johnny Baylor the road manager when you were playing with Isaac? Mickey Gregory: I don’t know what Johnny was. Uhh, Johnny and I tolerated each other. Interviewer: Right. Mickey Gregory: Okay, uh, we probably had sorta like the same mentality. Cause even though I was born in Memphis I spent a lot of my young life in Ohio as a member of the Johnny Walkers which was a gang. So we had, you know, “I respect you, respect me.” We tolerated each other. [37:00] Mickey Gregory: I don’t say that Johnny liked me and I don’t say that I liked Johnny but we found a way to get along. And what Johnny’s relationship with Isaac was at the time I really don’t know. I won’t say manager, uhh, cause Isaac has never really had, from my viewpoint, a manager. He made most of his own decisions. He had people that carried out his wishes. Things necessary to be done. You could give him suggestions and if he agreed with your suggestion then you carried it out. But, my position with Isaac, I started just doing everything but mostly booking horns and strings. I’d sometimes travel ahead of the group setting up horns, strings, rehearsals, whatever. [38:00] Mickey Gregory: Security, I was probably the only guy that had a weapons permit. Interviewer: But Johnny used to carry one too. Mickey Gregory: Yeah. Sometimes I had to carry theirs. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: Put them on the plane or whatever cause I had a permit. But Johnny had good artists and Luther. Luther had a beautiful voice and I think that was primarily Johnny’s thing. He provided some uhh, some security while, I mean, for Isaac and Isaac provided an orchestra and uhh or arrangements for Luther. Interviewer: Did Johnny’s security ever really get out of hand? [39:00] Mickey Gregory: [sigh] I don’t know. Apparently not, he was always there. Interviewer: Um, now do you remember when, uhh, when you and Dd Parker and Isaac had to have a meeting with the mayor because they didn’t want to lift the curfew they had set because they were afraid of rioting, this was 71? Mickey Gregory: Oh yeah. Interviewer: What was that like? Mickey Gregory: I don’t know. We took a city councilman and I can’t think of his name but he rode with us and we went out into the most troubled area. Which at that time was probably being Hampton. Isaac was just a guy that everybody loved and respected and we got out of the car, the limo and just got right into the mix with the hardcore. [40:00] Interviewer: Now why were they threatening to riot? Mickey Gregory: This was the Martin Luther King thing, no it wasn’t that, what was it? Or was it that? Yeah. Interviewer: I think it was a young man who was beaten to death by the police. Mickey Gregory: I don’t even remember the circumstances it’s been so long ago and my mind is getting whatever. But we got out, we slapped hands, we jived around, and everybody would holler at Isaac “We want an autograph man.” In every community when we finished having our whatever with the guys, Isaac said “Alright you guys need to get on off the corner, go on in let this stuff die down.” And everyone would just, the crowd would dissipate. They just really respected him. Interviewer: There’s a real history of that, I think, in the community. [41:00] Mickey Gregory: I’m trying to think of this uh the city councilman’s name. He was a great guy. He had nerve just to ride with us but he felt comfortable. In those days, well Isaac had a pistol for every [inaudible] used to “Oh show the hostlers.” And we, we just, we were a couple guys that were pretty much fearless, really. We did the same thing I think when we did, uhh, our first black congressman, Harold Ford, decided to run for congress. We rode around and he went all over the city shaking hands with everybody. And we were in the back of the limo, Isaac on one side me on the one side. I’m like “We’re not musicians. What are we bodyguards?” But it was really a friendship thing, you know, with Harold. But uhh that riot that night we quailed it. [42:00] Interviewer: And there was a, now they were threatening to put a big curfew on the city and you guys were going to have a benefit concert that night. Mickey Gregory: Yeah Interviewer: And that, and so basically had a meeting with them to lift the curfew so the concert could happen. Mickey Gregory: Right. Interviewer: And did you expect they were going to lift the curfew? Mickey Gregory: They were pretty much, the city [inaudible] didn’t have a clue as to what to do. So I think they would have gone for any idea to help the situation because even while we were doing what we were doing they still remained vigilant and ready. But as to whether or not they thought we would be successful I don’t know. We knew we would be. Of course who didn’t know Isaac and me for that matter of a fact. [43:00] Mickey Gregory: Everybody knows Mickey Gregory, even for the police department. [Both laughing] Everything went fine. Interviewer: Now, uh, Wayne Jackson was a trumpet player in the Memphis Horns. Mickey Gregory: Yep Interviewer: You worked with him? Mickey Gregory: Yeah Interviewer: What would you say the difference is between your style and his style? Mickey Gregory: Wayne could do pretty much anything you tell him to do in the studio. He, uh, had total control over the instrument. He was very dependable. Here all day, all night. I was like a renegade. [44:00] Mickey Gregory: I just didn’t fit any specific mold, mold at all. I don’t even know if there was a mold built for me when I was born. I was really loose in those days. I always had this stigma attached and even if it wasn’t correct if I heard about it I would try to make it fit just because. If you wanted to say I was a butthole, okay let me try to be one cause he thinks I’m one so let me see what I can do about that. [45:00] Mickey Gregory: I wasn’t just [inaudible] but pretty close to it. Yeah. I’d come still make sessions every now and then but it just, it wasn’t something that really grooved me to do. And in the early days a lot of the guys that did make sessions were, like I said, pretty much jazz musicians so Joe [inaudible], Willie Mitchells man did things on the piano, Richie Chan from the group we had downtown, did things over here, the tenor player at the time was not Andrew Love but, um, oh what’s the guy’s name? I can’t remember his name. Gilbert Caples, Floyd Newbar… New-man, Newman, sorry. It was a baritone player and they came up with this, uh, hit on a group called the Mar-Keys. [46:00] Mickey Gregory: And it was pretty much integrated but there was nowhere to send an integrated group. It wasn’t happening in this area. So consequently they sent, uh, the white kids out who couldn’t play too much further than what was on the record. They played “Last Night”, the “Night Before”, the “Morning After” they were about through. Interviewer: White kids played on the “Last Night” record though that was the first record. That was Packy Axton and Don Nixon, those guys. Mickey Gregory: Gilbert Caples and, and Floyd Newman and those guys. I think the drummer was Curtis Green I believe but, uhh, Nix, umm, Packy, Bush. It was like, Gilbert did the solo I remember that. [47:00] Mickey Gregory: [inaudible] was on the baritone, it was Floyd Newman. When they went out it was Nix and Packy and those guys but, uhh, the original group was pretty much integrated. But they couldn’t go out as a group in the south. Interviewer: No huh? Mickey Gregory: And like I said the white kids couldn’t play too much past what the things that had been done in the studio. Interviewer: Yeah Mickey Gregory: They just, you know, they weren’t that proficient. So the group, the Mar-Keys, began to, began to lose that name. Periodically they would do another album and give it the title the Mar-Keys. As a matter of fact I think the last album out of here as the Mar-Keys, I think I did all of the arrangements on it and, uh what’s his name, Creeper produced it, Henry Bush. [48:00] Interviewer: Why do they call him Creeper? Mickey Gregory: [Laughing] You could be in the studio and doing this and doing that and doing this and you could look everywhere for Creeper and couldn’t find him. All of a sudden you’d look around and he’s just there. [Both laughing] “Where did the creeper come from?” Interviewer: You call him Creeper to his face? Mickey Gregory: Yeah that’s Creeper. I mean that’s, we just renamed him. That’s Creeper. As a matter of fact he was on the road for the [inaudible] and do sound and stuff. [more inaudible] Interviewer: I like that, Creeper. Well, thanks so much for talking to us today. Mickey Gregory: Okay Interviewer: It was really great. Mickey Gregory: Good to be here. Interviewer: You’ve done some pretty incredible things, I have to say. Mickey Gregory: I’ve done a lot of incredible things and some crazy things. Interviewer: You’ve done a lot of incredible, crazy things yeah. [49:00] Mickey Gregory: Life’s great and there is a God and I’m not him. Interviewer: Yeah [Both Laughing] Mickey Gregory: We all gotta find that out. [Both Laughing] Interviewer: That’s a tough one. Mickey Gregory: This is my sixty-sixth year around this particular planet. It’s been good. It’s been good. God’s been great. Interviewer: Now, are you still married? Mickey Gregory: Yes? I am. I don’t know if my wife is or not. Things happen, I have a lot of kids. No, a lot of kids. Interviewer: Oh yeah? Mickey Gregory: Yeah Interviewer: How many? Mickey Gregory: Maybe past twenty but keep that off the camera. Interviewer: Are they musicians too? Mickey Gregory: No