Joe Bataan
Growing up in East Harlem in the ’40s and ’50s, Joe Bataan had to learn street smarts. Time spent with the local gang led him to prison and upon release he turned to music, making his first steps into a life-changing direction. He soon formed his first band, blending the local boogaloo and doo-wop sounds. The release of “Gypsy Woman” in 1967 was his first success and lead to more albums and production work. In 1973, he combined salsa and soul and co-founded the Salsoul label, one of the most memorable imprints of the disco era. He left Salsoul later in the decade due to financial disagreements, but not before a chance encounter in a community center led him to record one of the first raps, “Rap-O Clap-O.”
In this lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy, this giant of NYC Latin music recalled his childhood, the first recording sessions and how the boogaloo proved a cultural changer in NYC.
Hosted by Jeff Chang We have with us today one of the giants of Latin music and music from New York City over the last four decades. In fact, this is your 40th anniversary this year of making music, isn’t it? Joe Bataan Thanks for reminding me. Jeff Chang Mr. Joe Bataan has been making pioneering sounds since 1966. He began with the doo-wop soul sound, moved into boogaloo, was a pioneer of salsa and one of the first artists signed to Fania Records, moved on and pioneered the Salsoul Records label, which many of us know, and have their records in our crates to this day. And then he made one of the first rap records. Before “Rapper’s Delight” he made a record called “Rap-O Clap-O.” So please join me in welcoming the legendary Mr. Joe Bataan. Joe Bataan Before I do that, let me explain to everyone here, because a lot of times you come and meet an artist and you don’t know anything about them. I’ve learned to share with my audience, my life, what I do, and how it affects my music.
You might be a fan of my music and not know anything about me. It goes hand in hand. When I thought about coming to Australia, I was talking to my wife, who’s with me, saying, “Wow, we’re going all the way to Australia, another continent. Think we can make the trip?” It was very difficult, and yet when I decided to come here I asked, what do I have to offer? I always ask myself that question. I’m a self-taught musician, but gee, I do have 40 years in the
business and all I can show you is my world experiences and how I was involved in music and the roads it took me down. That can help you only if you’re interested in a career in music and in knowing the pain and the struggle involved in the past. Like anything else, you must know your history, what was
involved then and what’s involved today. They talk about selling records out of the trunk of your car, rap artists do that, I was doing that in the ’60s. I learnt about the business of sales, and getting your records played on the
radio. I went through the whole payola bit and the gangsters who said they wouldn’t play my records. I went full circle like Morris Levy, the same thing Frankie Lymon
went through. I want to share that with you so you know my story wasn’t a fly-by-night thing, that I wanted to do this and I went to school. No, I couldn’t afford to go to school, I did a stint in the reformatory, I did five years for being a bad boy. I was the neighborhood tough kid with aspirations for doing something and, of course, being from New York, you always try to find
short cuts. Being a minority at that time, you had only two ways you could make it in life, either as an entertainer or an athlete. I struck out as an
athlete, I was too short. I couldn’t be a basketball player, I couldn’t reach the rim. Then music came along and saved my life… the universal language, God blessed me and I’m happy that I’m here today to speak to you about it.
Nevertheless, I was very fortunate in being able to accomplish the things I did in such a short time. After being released, I went to the neighborhood, and you have to realize back then our form of entertainment was radio. TV
wasn’t really a hot issue back then. We grew up every morning listening to the hit parade. What played was Patti Page, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, The Four Lads and once in a while we’d get Nat King Cole or Pérez Prado. And that was the extent of my upbringing with music. So, as you can see, my first influences were with white singers. That influenced my style, my diction and how I
pronounce the words. You have to understand when you listen to records, not everybody will understand if you really have to bend your ear. If you’re from
a native tongue, some people muddle their words; it comes from a lot of soul sometimes, and it comes from a way of growing up. All these influences, I found myself actually pronouncing these words. That was important. Jeff Chang This was ’64. Joe Bataan It was ’64, I was looking for a band and prior to that I’d sung in the hallways but nothing serious. I found this group of kids that were at William Ettinger Junior High School in 106th Street. This was way after my gang days. I was a member
of The Dragons; the neighborhood gang, we had rivalries for years with The Viceroys. That was a way of life, we didn’t come to your neighborhood, you
didn’t come into ours. So, despite all these different things you had to fight with this peer pressure, where people didn’t like you because of what you wore, or you were from a different nationality. So, you couldn’t walk down our block
because you were lighter skinned or you were darker, we didn’t like the way you dress. All those things, surviving and trying to make it in life was very difficult. Jeff Chang And the other thing was you’re of Filipino, black, African-American descent, but everyone thought you were Puerto Rican. Joe Bataan Well, that was the whole argument. It didn’t make any difference to me, I grew
up without a prejudiced bone in my body. I went to school with Jewish kids, Japanese kids, that’s just how I grew up, not everyone else. Being from Filipino heritage, my father was from Manila, my mother was black, she was from Newport
News [in Virginia], but here I was in the midst of Spanish Harlem so I had to learn the language. All my friends were Puerto Rican, they spoke it, I spoke it and I blended right in. They would fight you and take you downstairs and chop your head off, if you said I was anything else. That was the argument for years. After people heard my
songs on the radio they’d say, “Yeah, that’s the Latino guy, he’s great. That’s Joe Bataan, he’s my man.” And then a brother would come up and say, “What are you talking about, homeboy? He’s a brother, his mother’s from
Newport.” That argument went on for years. Back and forth, back and forth. “What is he?” I tell everyone I’m universal, I’m rainbow, I’ve got a little bit of everything.
My kids have even more. I married a Puerto Rican so they have Puerto Rican, they have the full spectrum. Jeff Chang But the music you were listening to back then? Joe Bataan I told you, I want you to get that feel of the transition. I was listening to Patti Page and then along came Alan Freed and he introduced rock & roll and
it was something we’d never heard back then. Who’s this kid singing “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” with this high voice like a girl’s? Boys wouldn’t sing
like that, you sang with a lower register. Jeff Chang Like the Michael Jackson of that time. Joe Bataan Exactly. We tried to imitate these groups. Then along came The Limeliters and The Heartbeats and I went back to prison. I violated parole and was sent up there and tried to polish my music while I was up there. I was under the
tutelage of Mark Francis, he was a graduate of the New York Conservatory in Manhattan, which really had nothing to do with me, because he couldn’t get me
to read a lick. When it came to theory I could never, never follow it. There were theory notices, he wouldn’t let you pick up your instrument if you
couldn’t read or didn’t know your theory. Knowing a minor six or a major third was always Greek to me. I finally got out of there and got a band. The group of kids who were in that auditorium then were 11, 12, 13 years old. It was a bit of history, they were the youngest band in Latin music, it was unheard of for a group that young. I was 19, the oldest. When I walked into that
auditorium I stuck a knife into the piano because I was the neighborhood thug. They all knew me, knew my reputation. I said, “I’m the leader of the
band.” They all said, “Yeah, you’re the leader, no problem.”
It’s like a Cinderella story. These kids didn’t know their left foot from their right, didn’t know rhythm or how to dance, they just knew their
instruments. We learnt together as an entity. The singer we had, he had a Spanish accent and at that time the boogaloo was starting to
happen. There’d been success with “Watusi,” “Bang! Bang!” by Joe Cuba, “I Like It Like That,” “Boogaloo Blues,” and he was attempting to do this song in English. We tried to explain to him, “Look, you need to pronounce the words a certain way.” He got upset and said for me to do it my damn self. So, I did and the rest is history, I haven’t stopped singing since. They all said: “Joe, you do the songs.” George Goldner, who was responsible for Roulette Records, said, “You don’t want to sing, you sound too sweet, we need someone like James Brown.” And I’m glad
I didn’t listen to him, because we walked away from him and got a contract with Fania Records and recorded “Gypsy Woman” at Beltone Studios on 33rd
Street. That day is interesting, you’ve got to imagine, here’s this 19-year-old with a bunch of kids, and we had no charts. All the music was inside our head. Every break, every beat was in our heads. The discipline that was needed, I can’t imagine. If I flinch this way [gestures], they knew what that meant. If I said, “Give me two,” they knew. That’s how intense the rehearsals were. You could only do it with that group of youngsters. You couldn’t get a bunch of adults to do that, me telling them: “You’ve got to do this, dance this way.” It
was because those kids were young I was able to do that. When we got into the studio, I don’t know if you know how they record, but you normally do the rhythm section first, then you bring in the horns, then you bring in the strings. Well, we sat there and the recording director was Johnny Pacheco, he said, “Are you ready?” I said,
“Yes.” I sat down and sang every song of that album while playing the piano. That was unheard of, you normally overdub. And everyone else played. They were
so nervous they were going to tell us to leave, and this was our great opportunity, that we finished the whole album in four hours. The guy was amazed, “Don’t you want some more time to come back?”
“No, please sir, please.”
By the ninth song, I started losing my voice and you could hear the raunchiness which I have now, it stayed with me and eventually became a style. Jeff Chang What song was that? Joe Bataan That was on “Ordinary Guy.” I was on my last breath because I didn’t want the guy to throw me out the studio. Jeff Chang Why don’t you play that? Joe Bataan OK, play it. Jeff Chang This is “Ordinary Guy.” Joe Bataan 1966. (music: Joe Bataan – “Ordinary Guy”) Joe Bataan That’s how I like to identify myself, you can always find me talking to my audience at a gig, as you’ll find out if you come tomorrow, that I like to share. I enjoy this business, most people should bring something to the table, there’s no sense of doing it just for the love of money. Forget it, you could
go broke. If you don’t have the proper timing for a hit record, if you don’t know the proper people, you’re going to get ripped off. If you don’t know the business of music, your craft, the business end of this whole magnificent world of music, without it you won’t relish the rewards and you’ll be
sorry. You’ll be crying the blues for another 30 years, wondering what happened to the talent and the financial element you didn’t get. Jeff Chang That’s some truth. Let’s talk about the style and the stylistic changes. You
had “Ordinary Guy.” Actually, I didn’t hear the raunchiness in the voice. Joe Bataan It was there [laughter]. Jeff Chang It was beautiful. The other stuff you guys were working with included boogaloo and the sound that became known as salsa. Tell us about all the other
influences that went in. Joe Bataan “Gypsy Woman,” everyone knows was a Curtis Mayfield song. I turned out to have another style where I could pick songs. I knew songs that had the potential to
be something, even though they were before. I knew songs that I could attempt to do differently so people might get a refreshing ear. That’s what I did with
“Gypsy Woman.” I took the same song, put different music to the same lyrics and we had what we call a cha-cha with a backbeat. It was “Gypsy Woman.” This was one of the first that crossed over into the American charts. (music: Joe Bataan – “Gypsy Woman”) Joe Bataan That was one of my first songs and it really put Joe Bataan on the map. I was really gearing for the Latin community, but it got a big black audience also.
For a long time, you had people who loved Latin music, but they couldn’t understand it. If I said… [says something fast in Spanish], you wouldn’t know what I was talking about. What it did was allow the other masses that normally wouldn’t listen to Latin music, because it was done in Spanish, to listen to this. Some people called it boogaloo, I preferred Latin soul, and that’s probably why I survived those other boogaloo artists, because I had the mindset to change and say I was doing Latin soul and that’s what I’ve been known for 40 years. Jeff Chang You’ve said something very interesting in interviews, which is that boogaloo as a style, whose heyday was pretty much ’66 to ’68, ’69, was actually run off the air, was suppressed. That’s really interesting. People might think kids were dancing to it, but then a new style came along, they did something else. But you said the mambo folk, the mambo kings, the purists suppressed the music. Joe Bataan They chased us off the air. It’s taken 40 years for people to know what happened and if they ever do a movie about it, people will know the truth. The
boogaloo saved Latin music. There were times when a lot of Jews and black people would go out dancing. When the boogaloo came about, it was so tremendous
it was like the twist, people would come and see people dancing, stomping their feet and clapping their hands in harmony, that allowed those purists in
bands that had been playing – like Pérez Prado, Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente - couldn’t follow in the same vein. You probably know this when you play to people, but you can take a black person, who normally has a history of soul and doesn’t listen to
Latin and you attempt to get him to play it, he doesn’t know it. The same thing is true for the Latino who has grown up listening to mambos or the cha-chas, he has no knowledge of the backbeat. So when you put those people in your group, there’s a teaching process. I’ve been able to do it. If you find the purists, they keep to their own people. That doesn’t happen anymore, but it was happening like that for a long time in the business. It was very difficult to find bands who could play both authentically. That means doing on clave and then to really hit it back and do harmony and doo wop or disco. The story goes, back when it came to prom time and they’re having their
graduations, the black kids would say, “We want Kool & The Gang,” and the Latinos would say, “No, we want Tito Puente.” Because they couldn’t agree
they’d get Joe Bataan. I was able to do both, so because of that I’d get a lot of the work. I was fortunate [laughter/applause]. Sometimes it doesn’t work for you. I mean, this business is a tough business. I’ve always been on the outskirts, of almost always making it big time. Maybe it’s a blessing, and I keep missing. Someone wrote in England, “Yeah, he’s an ornery cuss. He’s always fighting with the record producers and the companies.” That’s partly true. The only part that he said, “That I was still pumping gas in East Harlem,” that part wasn’t true. Nevertheless, I did have a lot of arguments, because I felt what’s right and what belongs to me, that comes from my mother. She was 4’9” and she used to fight for me in school, all right, and I believe that if I’m right about something, there’s no damn way in hell that I’m gonna succumb, to sell myself out short of making a dollar. For a long time, Joe didn’t make any dollars, I’m barely making a couple of dollars now, but I’m very wealthy. I’m wealthy because I have my health and strength. I have a family. I got my home that I had, and I’ll tell you that story, and a lot of other things that people who did end their lives successful, are not here any longer. I’m not a youngster. I’m younger than the sun, but I’ve seen a couple of decades. I’ve been through the ’50s, the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s, and here I am here today. God has blessed me and I want to bring you the message, so you’ll here that tomorrow. As I said, it was very difficult. I was able to make those transitions because, after that era, when the boogaloo came, I believe it was... Jeff Chang Well actually, can I stop you? Part of what I think is really incredible about your story is that you ended up trying to fight for artists’ rights all the time. You were working with
some of the most – well, you don’t want to speak ill of the dead, or people you don’t know – but some of the most notorious for their deep exploitation of
artists; people like Morris Levy of Roulette Records, the
Tico folks. You didn’t sign with them because you figured out a way to work it. Joe Bataan Let me tell a story. Here I am in New York trying to grab a recording contract and everybody’s trying to get hold of Joe Bataan, everybody’s trying to rip me off silently.
One thing you should know, Bataan is not my real name, it’s my first name; my last name is Nitollano. The Joe came about when I was about to play in a club one day and a business card I had said, “Call Joe Bataan or Carmen,” so a businessman thought that was my name and he started calling me Joe and advertising me all over the place. It sounds great, Joe Bataan, whooh, a new identity, it changed my life. The gangster guy, the guy who was always causing trouble, they didn’t
know he was the same guy. So people came to see me play, they’d say, “I know him, he’s the guy who took my coat in high school.” I’m going to tell you a
funny story, it’s embarrassing now, a guy called me up from a venue in Las Vegas, “Joe, we’d like you to play in Vegas.” “Great, I haven’t played down there.” “I used to know you from up in East Harlem.” “Yeah, what’s your name?” “Winston.” “Yeah, great.” “I remember the old days, you know? You took my coat once, but you gave me back my hat.” I was so embarrassed. Those stories come about, life was a little difficult. Jeff Chang You were talking about the record labels. Joe Bataan The record labels. I was going into Roulette records, which was notorious at the time. If you’ve seen The Frankie Lymon Story, the guy with the big cigar, that was Morris Levy. He was a gangster. I walked in there and I was with José Curbelo, who was a band leader. He said, “Come here son, I’m going to show you how to do this. You know what publishing is? [whispers] I’m
going to get you your publishing.” Morris was sitting there with his big cigar, “Alright, what do you want?” This was when they first had intercoms on the telephones. He said, “Mo, the kid wants to record, but he’s scared.” “What’s he scared about?” “Symphony Sid says he won’t play his records unless he signs with them.” “That faggot” – excuse my language – “get him on the phone right now, put him on the phone.” Phones him up. “Sid?” “Yeah, what do you want, Mo? I’m sleeping.” “You faggot. You told this young kid you won’t play his records because he won’t sign with you?” “What are you talking about?” “I’ve got this kid over here, named Joe Bataan.” He says: “I don’t remember.” “Well, you little fuck. You work for me, you do what I tell you, you hear me?” “Yeah, Mo, yeah.” [Gestures slamming phone down.] Jeff Chang Symphony Sid is the biggest radio
guy in the city. Joe Bataan So, he said, “What else do you want?” So I whisper, “Well, I’d like to get paid for the session?” “You got it. What else do you want?” “Well, what about publishing?” [Shouts] “Publishing! What are you, a wise guy? Who told you about publishing?” “I write songs.” “OK, we’ll talk about that. What else do you want?” “I’d like some money up front.” “Get out of here, get out of here!” Then lo and behold George Goldner walks in, whose responsible for The Chantels
and a lot of big R&B groups and says, “I know this kid, I’ve got him signed to a contract.” “What? Get the hell out of here!” Another guy walks in and says, “I know him, too, I’ve got
him signed!” So he says, “Well, you little wise-ass guy.” Jeff Chang You had three different contracts? Joe Bataan They were trying to rip me off, that was the only way I could protect myself. I signed everything Joe Bataan, that wasn’t my name. I didn’t know anything about the legal side, but I knew one thing. I knew if I signed my name but it wasn’t my name, they didn’t own me. They could kill me, torture me, whatever, but if I found out you were trying to crook me, you didn’t have a binding contract. So that’s what I did, I signed with everybody. They tried to rip me off. They said: “You’re a wise guy,
we’re going to fix your ass. Get out of here, you’re not going to record with no one.” So, I walked out with my tail between my legs. “Gee, I really blew it.” Then someone called me up about a young guy, ex-cop, who was
starting a record label with Johnny Pacheco. “I’m going to send him down to see you, and if he likes you, he’ll give you a record deal.” So he came down,
he was very nervous, probably as nervous as I was. He asked what I wanted. I said, “Publishing.” He didn’t know what it was either. He paid me for the
session and the rest is history. I started making records. It wasn’t the greatest deal, but at that time it was probably the only deal. Jeff Chang What was the name of the label? Joe Bataan Fania Records. Today it’s owned by Emusica, and there’s a resurgence in boogaloo around the world. Records are selling like hot cakes in the market, from the UK all the way down to Italy, you name it. Emusica is part of V2. Jeff Chang You ended up becoming one of Fania’s biggest lights. They had Willie Colon and you and Ray Barretto, and
the three of you were the top sellers consistently. Joe Bataan We were young, fresh and wild, like one of my songs says. We had no inkling about tomorrow, we were living for today. We did everything under the sun and
at that time you’ve got to understand the Vietnam War was going on and there were girls left behind in the neighborhoods, so there was an abundance of sweethearts that we had because everyone was over there fighting. It was just
one of those things with the hippie movement, LSD and all those things came into play. It was a growing experience. I did go behind the Iron Curtain, I don’t
know if you want to go there yet. Jeff Chang Let’s stay with the music. You recorded a song called “Riot” and I want to play that song. Joe Bataan “Riot” is a song by Smokey Robinson. I started getting good when I listened to songs. I’d change the music around and keep the words. Smokey is one of the greatest lyricists the world has ever had, one of the most prolific. When you listen to his lyrics you’ll know what I’m talking about. He did that as a B-side, he never thought he was going to use it. It’s called
“It's A Good Feeling” and when I incorporated the sounds, the conga, the cowbell and everything else, I called it “It’s A Good Feeling (Riot)” This song was so successful in New York in 1968 that it outsold every artist four-to-one. It was my first gold record. We used to play this song and no one could follow us on stage, because of the emotion and high energy it had. I played this song for an hour straight on a boat ride and when we did the conga line, which we’re going to do tomorrow, the boat was rocking. They begged me, the Coast Guard came, because the boat was going [gestures boat rocking side to
side] and we wouldn’t get off stage. The ”Riot“ song had that much energy. If you ever danced to a song you didn’t want to end, that was “Riot”. Jeff Chang Here we go. (music: Joe Bataan - “It’s A Good Feeling (Riot)”) Jeff Chang So, how long were you playing this song on the boat? Joe Bataan We played for an hour straight. When the band really came together it’s like a baseball team or a soccer team, when you get everyone on the same wavelength. The routines we had for dancing, the audience participation, was unheard of at that time in New York. It was the thing to do and I’m just happy I was blessed to do it. Jeff Chang You can hear the emerging sound of salsa. What did that mean to Nuyoricans in New York? Joe Bataan Well, the term hadn’t been coined yet. That was in the ’70s. It had always been around. We called it the mambo, the cha-cha-cha, boogaloo, but salsa, the main name, hadn’t evolved yet until later on, after the Yankee Stadium concert.
“Salsa” means “sauce,” but somebody coined the word and it became a household name. Then everything that followed with Latin connotations was called salsa. Jeff Chang But it was basically a catch-all term? Joe Bataan Yeah, just like rap had to be identified because nobody knew what it was. They would say “Clap your hands,” at first, or “Stomp your feet,” with the first rap songs I heard. No one even had a name for it. I think I was the first with “Rap-O Clap-O,” after that they started naming it. They had rappers, but
nobody put the name to it. Jeff Chang I want to play another record to show how you were developing your sound in this era. Then we’ll come back to the story about East Germany. This is “Nuevo Jala Jala.” (music: Joe Bataan – “Nuevo Jala Jala”) Jeff Chang If I remember right there was a dance back in the ‘60s called Jala Jala. Joe Bataan Right, that was Richie Ray that made it famous. I think he took it from Colombia and brought it back to New York, like a lot of those bandleaders did, like Willie Colon brought the “Che Che Colé,” that was instantly successful in New York. What you see is that a lot of those phases and crazes were brought from other countries and people modernized them and put that to music and something was created again. Just like the clothes keep returning, everything
has a cycle of repeating itself. We’re waiting for Beethoven. Jeff Chang You’re waiting for Beethoven to come back? You might have to bring him back next year. Salsa actually describe a wide range of sounds. Joe Bataan It wasn’t their intention but that’s how it is. If you spoke to someone in Italy and mentioned salsa they’re going to take the full spectrum, but those purists that did it in New York, they only meant their particular music, they meant salsa as their heritage. But it got bigger than them and everyone else. It’s over three-quarters of the world, Latin music. Jeff Chang If you go out and get these records that have been reissued on Fania, like Riot has been
reissued and Saint Latin’s Day Massacre has been reissued, you hear a lot of styles, which was always your thing, of presenting all these kinds of music. Joe Bataan Exactly. Jeff Chang At the same time salsa is becoming the sound of a new generation of Nuyoricans, expressing brown pride and all that kind of thing. So this has led you to do some other work, like going to East Germany with Angela Davis as a representative of that heritage. Joe Bataan I’ve always been a person who didn’t follow the norm. I had played for a Young Workers’ Liberation Party at a dance once, and some of the youngsters
approached me – I guess I was naive at that time politically – and said would I like to go and play in East Berlin. I said, “East Berlin? No one can get
in.” They said, “We’ve got a way to get in, would you come with us?” And they were going to take me on to Moscow, and this was in 1973. And when I found out
I was going with Angela Davis, it was a great opportunity. Of course, I was discouraged from going. They said, “Joe, if you go on this trip you’re going
to be blackballed.” Like in the McCarthy era. I thought, “Wait a minute, that’s not my political views, I just want to play music.” They said, “Yeah,
but you’ve got to be careful, some people are going to follow you.” I said, “Get out of here with that cloak and dagger stuff.” I traveled with these kids who became good friends of mine through the years. There’s no place I can go in the US without having somewhere to stay. These people that I travelled with, that festival was sort of a melting pot like this. This is a great idea what Red Bull is doing, bringing the minds together, it’s so important, don’t lose it. And I’m glad that I did it when I made that trip to East Berlin.
Those people there are still my friends; they tried to educate me, but maybe I was too ignorant at that time because I was a musician first, not a political
activist. But when I got to East Berlin, you’ve got to understand I was going across Checkpoint Charlie and I was with Angela Davis who was notorious at that time, she got locked up, the prison break. A brilliant lady, I had no idea she spoke nine languages, was so well versed in political science, I really got an education in what was going on in the world besides East Harlem. When I made that trip someone remarked about a young lady who was on the run from the FBI, called Assata Shakur. She went to someone’s home looking for refuge and they turned her away, not knowing what party she was, and it turned out to be a question. I said, “Gee, you’re telling me you’re the Young Workers’ Party and talking about women’s rights and these things that have been done to you, why did you turn her away?” They said, “I wasn’t involved in that, I can only go a
certain distance and that doesn’t involve us harboring someone who was wanted by the FBI.” I said, “Would you do that to your friend?” And that was the question. Would you turn someone away for fear of being damaged yourself, even though they might have ideals that are right? So, I was pulled by the same kind of questions, but nevertheless I made the trip. When I got off the plane, I noticed something curious; here I was in a country that most people couldn’t get into. When I went through West Berlin it
was very colorful, just like the United States. But when I went through Checkpoint Charlie everything was drab. There was no red, there was no blue, only grey. And as I walked down the streets, I started to notice the people; everyone was young, there were no old people. Everybody greeted me, everyone was so warm, I couldn’t understand. It was the time of the Afro. I guess the East Berliners hadn’t seen so many blacks, not with Afros. They’d come out and touch my hair, I was signing autographs, man, not because I sing, but because of my Afro. They didn’t have a lot of things, man, they had no ice, refrigerators, modern equipment, which they were closed off to. But they said to me they had signed a law to outlaw racism. I said, “Why?” “Well, after what happened in the war, we thought we’d outlaw that.” This is not at all like I thought it would be. They said, “No, they keep churning the propaganda out there. We want you to come in
here. They don’t want us to go out of here.” I made a lot of friends. I brought Joe Bataan albums and spread them over communist Germany. Jeff Chang You brought Riot out there? Joe Bataan I was stopped at customs, because the Riot album depicts a lot of violence, a gang having fights. The guy at customs said, “Why are you bringing this into
our country? Are you sure you should be giving this out to our people?” The rest is history. We had standing ovations everywhere we went. They were so appreciative of my music and I found that was something that happened throughout my life. Same thing in Moscow when we went there. That was an experience that I hold onto, meeting people from around the world just to see what was going on. Now, we don’t have any great wall any more, but that’s a part of history that I have and I can tell everybody about. Jeff Chang Now, you’re also beginning to have a lot of issues with Jerry Masucci and Fania Records. What were those issues and how did you deal with that? Joe Bataan Well, everyone likes to get paid. I found myself having to change a flat tire in East Harlem and I didn’t have the money to pay for it. “What the hell? Joe Bataan, my ass. I can’t even pay for a flat tire! Who was making the money?” I was so popular, everybody knew me, I was a household name. I said something’s wrong here and I went up and asked for my reviews, and he said, “You’re still in the red for money you
owe us for the recordings.” Things I was ignorant about, which you should know about in the business. After that I read about the Brooklyn Dodgers, they had two pitchers called Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. And they told the Dodgers to kiss their ass, they weren’t going to pitch for them anymore. I took a
little from them and said, “Kiss my ass, I ain’t making no more records.” He thought I was joking and he made me starve for a year, but he eventually sent
someone out and we settled on something, and I got me a little co-op. Jeff Chang But before this you were talking to the other artists. Joe Bataan Yeah, I was trying to organize a lot of the groups there, a lot of them sold out. I’m sorry to say that. They were satisfied with the crumbs or their
picture on the billboard. I wasn’t, that’s why you’ll never see me in the movie Our Latin Thing because I refused to be on it. Those guys didn’t get paid. To this day a lot of them don’t have benefits. They have no medical insurance, they have nothing. It’s time for people to organize, you youngsters, when you get into the business, make sure there’s something. We’re
in the, what, space age? It’s unheard of. Everybody’s got a union. The musicians have nothing. Even the DJs should organize and get a union for
protection. It’s a shame. It’s like that guy said, I saw him on TV, David Suzuki, he said, “We’ve got a lot of responsibilities, but we go around talking about Paris Hilton, Michael Jackson doing this, or this guy throwing this girl off the window or this guy beating this guy in the bathroom. And we got issues, we got a water problem here in Australia, we got all different things and we don’t pay no attention to it.” Same with music. I know one ingredient David was missed – spiritual, which I believe very strongly has a big part to play in environmental things that are happening today because we’re on a collision
course. Hopefully, you people will come together. There’ll be some of you with ideas about changing the scope of things to be done and bringing people forward. Jeff Chang Thanks for that Joe, thank you.
Joe Bataan After breaking with Fania Records and Jerry Masucci, I’d finally had it. I said, “You’ve got to let me go.” It was sort of the gangster coming into me, I said, “You’ve got to let me go, you hear what I’m saying?” And I guess he knew we weren’t going to hit it off any more, because he was ripping me off and I wasn’t going to make any more records for him. His interests were going nowhere, so finally he gave me my release one day. I’m sure he regretted it, thinking that I wouldn’t be able to do anything. And as I said before, it’s a lonely feeling once you’ve left. Once you leave high school, you’ve got to go someplace else, you start thinking about that next institution you’re going to. You’ve been used to your friends for four years; I was used to the label, now I’m looking and I’m searching. If you’re searching, like my teacher said
some time ago, by the time you’re 30 you better know what you’re doing for the rest of your life. Music is the same thing. If you’re going to pursue it, you better damn well know what you’re doing by that age, you can’t keep waiting and waiting and waiting for something to fall off the ceiling. He let me go, and I did some research. There was a little label called Mericana Records, they did pantyhose and selling things down in Florida to the mafia, I don’t know. Jeff Chang There was a record label that did pantyhose? Joe Bataan Yeah. Don’t ask me why [laughs]. I’ll tell you, there’s so many stories. They were just involved in anything that made money and the record label was
just a side thing. When the pantyhose was bad they’d try to sell some records. So I walked in and saw the guy. “Yeah, what do you want?” “Well, I’d like to
make records for you, this is what I think I can do.” Similar to what happened with Fania. He said, “OK, I’ll take a chance.” And he gave me a few grand and
I went in and recorded this album. Of course, they had no idea of how to promote an album, what to do, where to go. I said, “I’ll take care of that end.” And there I was again, at the forefront of this music business. I had to promote that record, and I got it played on the radio. That’s not an easy
thing to do, to get a record played on the radio. First of all, you’ve got to get an appointment and if you’re an artist they don’t want to see you. There’s always the risk of payola. “Why are you coming up here? Don’t you have a
person to bring that record up?” There’s a load of things you’ve got to learn at that end of the business. Finally, I got them the record and I didn’t know
that Frankie Crocker would play the whole album, which he did. He played the whole album, and I think at that time I sold about 15,000 records, which was unheard of back then. They were so excited, the record company, they said, “Let’s finish the album.” That’s when I had them. I was able to ask for the money I felt I was entitled to, and I got it. I gradually grew there and I told them I wanted to start my own production, I wanted to work for the record company. Similar to what I’m going to propose to Red Bull. That was a joke!
Anyway, he finally bit and I signed to that label. He said, “What do you want to call the label?”, I said, “Salsoul Records.” He said, “Why do you want to call it that?” “‘Sal’ meaning salsa, ‘soul’ meaning soul. And the
combination of the two is going to grow into something bigger than you’ve ever known.” He said, “What do you mean?” “It’s going to be the Salsoul of Motown, it’s going to be similar to Motown but its own genre. It’s going to be Salsoul.” He said, “OK.” That first album did so well that I recorded with
some of the great studio musicians of the world, Cornell Dupree, Jon Faddis, the Brecker Brothers, we had Richard Tee and, lo and behold, we had Marty Sheller who did “Watermelon Man”. I did all these songs for the album and I had one particular song that a friend of mine, Gil Scott-Heron recorded called “The Bottle.” He had sung it and he had a problem because he didn’t have the finances to release the product. I sort of knew that and I said, “I won’t
touch the record or try to emulate what he did singing because he did such a terrific job, but I will attempt to do it instrumentally.” This is another
phase of the business I was learning to get good at. I had Marty write the arrangements, I showed him what I wanted. As we went into the studio... Jeff Chang Who was the arranger again? Joe Bataan Marty Sheller, who’s responsible for “Watermelon Man.” We went into the studio, I believe it was at CBS Studios, and as I said before, normally the
rhythm comes, then the brass, then the strings. But everybody showed up at the same time - unheard of! - and it was three o’clock in the afternoon, I had a bunch of people just like this living room here today, and I said, “God, what am I going to do, everybody’s here?” And they all looked at me, “Joe, what do you want to do? We’ve all got things to do.” These guys charge by the hour. I said: “Do you
want a hit record?” “Yes!” “Well, let's do this!” Oh, shit, how do you attempt to place all these guys for one session. But the engineer said he could do it. So he set up everybody, they’re all looking at me. Then this little white guy, he’s
supposed to be playing lead on the saxophone. I looked at him, and said, “Who’s this, Marty?” “That’s the guy I told you about. He can blow his ass
off.” The kid sat over there. He warmed up his horn and we got ready to start the song. What happened that day has never happened in my life since. We did that song in one take. After it was completed there was total silence, the seats were on fire, the horns were smoking. This kid turned out to be David Sanborn. We knew we had something here in “The Bottle,” which we named “La
Botella” – that first week when we played it went on to sell 80,000 records. That was top 40 nationally and the rest was history. He’s had a fabulous
career since then, David Sanborn. (music: Joe Bataan – “The Bottle (La Botellita)”) Joe Bataan I don’t know if you caught it, but you can see there are parts of my life where I was able to change. This is important with anybody in any business, you can
get outdated if you don’t stay in touch. I still go out to clubs to see who’s dancing, because if they’re not dancing to it, it doesn’t make any difference. You might like it, I’m the last judge of my own music and there’s always a testing ground, like DJs testing on the crowds when they come into their clubs. I do the same. Jeff Chang One of the interesting things is when you were trying to reinvent yourself, this is now the mid-70s, right? And you... JOE BATAAN Wow. You’re probably wondering how old I am. Come tomorrow, and I will expose that… Jeff Chang He’s about 25 right now; experiencing his 40th anniversary, and he’s 25. The whole way that you switched up in the mid-80s, or mid-70s excuse me, is very interesting. JOE BATAAN Yeah, I had to. Jeff Chang You told me yesterday you were listening to a lot of Philadelphia International Records, Gamble and Huff and that kind of thing, and that when you sat down with the folks at Mericana you were saying, “I can be your A&R person, and this is what I would do. I would bring in Cornell Dupree. “I would bring in Jimmy Young, Jon Faddis, Richard Titus,” all these folks to bring in, and yet you would also add on to it your own kind of flavor. JOE BATAAN Right, the Latin flavor, which is the conga and the timbales, which it had been done before, but nobody coined it. The Temptations were doing it. They used the conga in, I forget them songs ... Jeff Chang “Message To A Black Man” and stuff like that, yeah. JOE BATAAN Right. They were doing that all the time, and when I noticed it I said, “Wow, check that out. It’s some Latin there. People are not even really identifying it, but it’s there. Dennis Coffey, a lot of the guys. Ah yeah, and I did do that. The Philly sound was very instrumental in Salsoul, without a doubt. After a while, they eventually used the same guys. What they did to embellish it was to bring in Latin percussion. Of course if you had a good song, that only could help. Jeff Chang The sound of disco really is interesting because I think the Latin influence in disco is always kind of understated. JOE BATAAN Back then, you gotta understand, I’m growing up. I’m getting older. I’m going through different phases, and you gotta try to work, right? If somebody tells you, “This shit, there’s not work for your band.” Everybody was doing tracks, so I got out there and got my tracks. Traveled to Germany. I went to Italy, everybody, and I was singing disco. I was able to survive, while other groups, that still had their bands, just stayed dormant. They either broke up, they couldn’t follow the disco trend, or they didn’t want it. That’s why a lot of them hate the disco. That’s why they hated the boogaloo. You always had haters in every type of music. They hated the twist, but it’s there. It’s gonna be there. You gotta know how to get through that wave of influence, and keep going on and hold whatever you have together. Jeff Chang Can we play some of the other Salsoul music that you made? JOE BATAAN Sure! Jeff Chang Yeah? OK. This is one of my favorites, this is “Latin Strut,” and we can talk a little bit about the history of this afterwards. JOE BATAAN Yeah. Okay. Jeff Chang That was from that first record that you had done for Salsoul, called Salsoul. (music: Joe Bataan – “Latin Strut”) JOE BATAAN Latin Strut actually was Deodato song, and it was called “Soul Strut,” but because I was in the Latin market, I changed the name to “Latin Strut.” Of course he still had credit, I put his name there and everything, but that’s what that did. It got a resurgence after the UK picked it up on Soul Jazz, and they started playing on their compilations. So you never know. I think somebody wrote in England, he says, “You know Joe Bataan had no idea what he was doing when he coined the term ‘Salsoul’.” It’s true. I was a young kid, and I say, “Salsoul,” never knowing today I would be talking about it 40 years later, about my music. Sometimes, some of the things that I visualized and felt when I was writing songs, cause sometimes I cry… I’m a very romantic person when it comes to my songs, and I start to think about all the effort and the things that I went through to put that song together, I said, “Nobody’s gonna understand.” Then here it is 40 years later, somebody writes something about a song that was obscure. He says, “Look what this guy wrote back then. What the heck was he thinking about?” Then you start to see, “Man, you mean really, I’m gonna get appreciated?” Because nobody said nothing for 40 years. Then here somebody writes something, and it’s worth the wait. It’s worth the wait, you know? Jeff Chang That’s wonderful. You were always keeping you ear to the ground. All the new sounds that were coming out. I wanted to play two more tracks, actually. First, just play this one, and then there’s a little bit of a lead up to the next 1 that I want to play, but this was “Aftershower Funk,” which… JOE BATAAN Let me ask you something. Jeff Chang Oh, OK. JOE BATAAN Do you have any slow songs? Do you have “My Cloud”? Jeff Chang I bet you I do. Let’s see… JOE BATAAN The reason why I mentioned that is, in New York, I’m notoriously renowned for my ballots, but every place else that I go, I never get a chance to sing those romantic songs. There was a time that people used to ask for my phone book, because all the girls would be lining up there for these songs that I used to sing slow. Nobody ever asks me about the slow, only New York and California, when I do the oldies’ show. You gotta understand, that when I play with my band, I have different avenues that I can go. I can play pure Latin all night for you, or I can do Latin Soul, or I can do the thing where they do with the groups with harmony, four-part harmony and the groups singing like R&B. Sometimes I get called to those shows. Where I don’t bring a band, they have a band already. We go there and we play with The Moments, The Stairsteps, you name it, jazz bands, all those big groups. It’s amazing how I’m able to step into to different areas and meet different people. I guess that’s what’s endeared me to a lot of people, especially the underground. Jeff Chang That’s actually a really important point to make, because in the dances that you’re playing, they don’t just want to dance, they want to slow dance too. Joe Bataan I would hope so. Jeff Chang … with your partner and that kind of thing. Joe Bataan How do you know? How do you know? Jeff Chang Oh I don’t know, I’ve never experienced any of that kind of stuff. I found it. I found “My Cloud” so you hear this? Joe Bataan But you know that I’m married, right? So I can’t dance with you. We’ll do it later on… Here’s “My Cloud.” (music: Joe Bataan – “My Cloud”) Joe Bataan Thank you. Jeff Chang You had taken a big break actually between 1975, 1976 or so and 1980. You, actually… Joe Bataan I made it to 1979 that’s when “Rap-O Clap-O” came out. Jeff Chang Let’s talk about that, because Salsoul took off, but it ended up taking off without you in a way. Joe Bataan Yeah, it left me in the dust once again. We had our arguments, I couldn’t get along. I think I had some vices, I used to like to gamble. I guess it didn’t go hand in hand with what happening. Living the fast life, this business can be cruel. One day I went to get my check and there was no check. I guess they said they didn’t need my services anymore and I didn’t have any type of agreement that would have binded them and I was in the street again. Of course, having my pride, I would never go back to beg for anything so I just went about my way. If I would have known then what I know today, that there was help always for me, it might have been a little easier. I guess you learn by trial and error. I went along and started to raise my family. Actually, we were involved with karate a lot. All my kids are black belts. My wife also. I carried the bags for 11 years. Actually, I wanted to join. Every time I went to join, one of the family members jumped in front of me. The last one was my wife. She said, “No, I want to do this!” Finally, I ended up carrying the bags. I knew everything about karate, I knew how to speak Japanese, the whole doggone shebang. People thought I was a grand master when we would go to the tournaments. They always be bowing to me. “Oh, sensei!” They wouldn’t know that I didn’t know the first thing… It was one of my dreams to get the kids into the Olympics. We studied Shotokan. Wouldn’t you know it - that particular year, after 11 years - when the Olympics came along, it was Taekwondo. So, we didn’t even qualify. Eleven years went down the drain, everybody was mad at me. Jeff Chang Before that though, with the Salsoul thing ... You had a quarter, I understand, you had a quarter of the Salsoul ownership… Joe Bataan Yes. Jeff Chang At one point. Joe Bataan What had happened was, I made an agreement with Salsoul, I was getting up there with popularity. I said I wanted to start my own label. He said, “Well, what are you thinking of doing?” I said, “Well, I got a name called Salsoul that I want to incorporate and start.” They said, “OK, fine.” They would have did whatever I told them to after the success I had with “The Bottle” and everything else that was happening... When they started to get the notion that there was something advantageous to owning part of this name, they sort of convinced me, for a few dollars, that they should be partners with me in this label. Of course it was divided between three brothers; the Cayre,
brothers and Joe Bataan. Actually, after that – and I’ve done this a lot in my life, not proud of it – I always found myself selling whatever I created. Always with the notion in my mind that I could always do it again. That’s very dangerous. In life you probably can, but faith might not have it that way. You might possess the talent to do something continuously, but your lifestyle and what you do might not allow you to do it. That’s what I didn’t figure on. It’s like I have a closet full of Joe Bataan records ... I gave all my records away. To people that came to the house. “Hey, can I get one?” “Yeah!” Never thinking that the closet would be bare today. I can’t even get my own records. I got people that bring my records to me, collectors and stuff. They say, “Hey Joe, here’s a copy.” “Oh, thank you.” That’s how I got my collections. I gave everything away! There was no difference with the label. When that happened, I had no idea that it was going to develop into the monster – yes, I did. But, never going to the point of financial end. So, I didn’t follow my dream fully, and I left her. I said I’ll do it again and I’ll start again. Actually, I did start another label called Ghetto Records, and that’s starting to come out now. Jeff Chang The flipside of it is that you ended up working with young people again - Joe Bataan Yes! Jeff Chang In Harlem, in the late 70s, you started hearing new stuff. Joe Bataan I worked in a community center in Harlem, right in the midst of 110th Street and it was called Hell’s Kitchen, and it was hell down there. Everyone sat down on the stoop outside that center and you’d have to sweep the people away too. Everybody hung out there with hangovers from the night before, or shootings. Everything you might expect in a neighborhood like that. One day
while opening up, someone wanted to rent the place, bunch of young kids. That night I stood at the door collecting the money, all these young kids come in, setting up with turntables, this was 1978, ’79, and I looked – there was ten people on the dancefloor and the next thing you know, it’s packed. I said, “What the hell’s going on here? I don’t see no band playing.” Someone said, “They don’t have no name for it.” And you could hear [makes shuffling
noise] their feet shuffling on the floor and it was a sound where you knew something was really going to transpire. Then in the middle of the record
everybody’s clapping, someone’s talking on the mic. I said, “What the hell’s that shit? How much did they pay to get in?” One dollar. There was a thousand
kids in there. I thought, “Let’s see if this is just a fad.” Someone said, “They do it all the time.” “All the time? Is this on records?” “No.” I had a brainstorm. “Whoa, this isn’t out on records, I see something big.” So, I was not the creator of rap, but I talked to these guys, the guys were Jeckyll &
Hyde. One became CEO at Motown. Jeff Chang A boy named Andre Harrell. Joe Bataan Right, right. I spoke to them and said, “How would you like to put this on records?” They said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I guess, they didn’t believe who I was, they didn’t care. I hadn’t done anything for a while, they thought I was full of shit, but I went out and borrowed some money, got RCA Studios, got everybody ready. At that time they weren’t thinking about using musicians for rap songs, I got these four guys. I put down the music and had everything done. There was a young lady named Jocelyn Shaw, who you might know as Jocelyn Brown, lives in the UK now, tremendous singer. Gordon Edwards said: “Do you want a singer who sings like I play the bass?” He brought her, just another David Sanborn, and she sang her ass off. She sang on one of my records. She did the background and I had the chills. “Clap your hands everybody.” “What have we got here?” I waited and I waited three hours and nobody showed up to the studio. Jeff Chang Jekyll & Hyde were supposed to come and record? Andre Harrell didn’t show up? Joe Bataan None of them. I guess they thought I was bullshitting them. I’d spent all this money, how was I going to pay these guys, how was I going to pay the studio? It was RCA. Luckily, I had a little line of credit. So I thought about Jocko Henderson – if you don’t know, he’s a DJ back in the ’50s and he used to talk on the mic, similar to Frankie Crocker. He would say smart things like, “Whoo whappa-do, how do you do?” And I started thinking I could do this myself. I test silently in the back, I didn’t want nobody to see, maybe I’m too old. I was about 39, a 39-year-old rapper. I was hiding in the toilet. I tried it with
all kinds of methods, and then when the music played I just sort of walked through it. It was like it was made to order. When I got out there, I was really gun-shy. The girls started clapping, I tried that. Then I did the song, “There’s a new thing out.” Boom! The rest is history. I took that around to all the record companies. They all threw me out. “Get the hell out of here, Joe, you don’t sing any more?” I said, “This is something new, you’ve got to listen to this.” “Don’t give us that shit.” Then I took it to a guy named Luigi at Prelude, I believe, and there was a young kid in the back and Luigi said, “What have you got here?” I told him it was something new. He said, “OK, I’ve got to get this guy here. He listens to everything we do and we listen to what he says.” “I don’t want no young kid telling me about my music.” He said: “Then it’s not going to happen because we all listen to him.” Turned out to be Larry Levan from the Paradise Garage. Still nobody for music like Larry, to this day. Larry came out and we played the record and he started jumping up in the air like this [moves hands up and down very fast]. I said: “Holy shit!” And he’s smiling at me. I thought this might be good for me. The guy said: “What do you want?” I said: “I want an advance.” “We don’t do advances.” “Goodbye.” I started walking down the stairs, Larry came after me, “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go. Bring it to my club, let me play it in my club.” “Fuck those guys, man, they don’t know about music. I’m trying to show them something new and they don’t even have the insight to see it. Hell with them, they don’t want to pay no money.” So, I kept going and met a girl named Denice, and she was working with Salsoul. I was still in touch, even though I wasn’t with them
anymore and she said, “You’ve got to let Kenny hear this. He’ll be raving about it, this is great.” I said, “No, me and Kenny don’t get on.” “Look, I’ve
talked to him, I’ve told him that you’ve got something great.” And the word started filtering around the industry, Joe Bataan has something once again. One DJ summed it up, “This guy comes around every two or three years with something new, and we’ve got to listen because he’s always bringing us
something.” So Kenny said, “What do you want?” “I want to release this.” “I’ll put it out tomorrow.” I didn’t know he had a distribution deal with RCA – he could do that. I didn’t have no money. I thought I better not end up losing this because everybody’s going into get wind of this new stuff, everybody’s
going to be doing it soon. Sugarhill Gang already beat me out. Fatback Band beat me out. Jeff Chang Actually, Sugarhill came out after yours. Joe Bataan No, they came out first. It looks like that because I had the big hit in Europe and we were following each other, doing back to back tours, and they
had it on first but New York wouldn’t play me. Rap was taboo at that time. He said OK, and finally we agreed. The brainstorm I had is that when I signed the contract I put a small notation in the bottom which he didn’t read. I finally
got back at him. It said, “This record is only released for domestic purposes.” If it’s being played internationally, they must seek my permission.
The record started selling like hot cakes. Larry Levan was playing it, he sold 20,000 copies the first week through playing it in a disco – not radio, a disco. It was unheard of. People didn’t know that discos could sell records. This was a novelty back then, but they all know it now. What kind of club could generate this amount of sales? That was Larry Levan and the Garage. He released a record, and of course RCA had no idea what they had, they sent it around the world. Glen LaRusso and Saul Whitman called me up. “Joe, they want you to go to Holland. That record is a hit.” “How the hell can the record be a hit? It’s
only been there a week.” “Believe me, I know the business. If Holland says something, so goes Europe.” “A little country like that. What do they know?” “Joe, they want you to fly over.” “Get out of here. For what?” “To do TV.” I’ve got no home, I had no money, I was struggling for money, I’d lost my paycheck from Salsoul. I went down and bought myself a black t-shirt, similar
to this and I put a disco model of a girl dancing on roller skates, cost me $3. Then I got a gold star which cost 50 cents and a fake diamond and I pasted on a $1.50 pair of red suspenders. I put those suspenders on and I went to Holland. They said, “Joe Bataan, Joe Bataan next.” I was ready to go on stage and I realized I forgot my shoes in my hotel room.
“No, I didn’t do that, I didn’t do that!”
I looked around. What do you do? All these kids are jumping up and down waiting for me because the record’s a novelty, they didn’t know about rap. I found this old pair of track shoes, I put them on and went on stage. It
became the rage of Europe, I found kids all over Europe imitating that dress code. Everywhere I went it was “Rap-O Clap-O.” I was signing autographs in every country, from Luxembourg to Belgium to France. In Belgium it was No 1, Holland it was No 2, France was No 3. And the sorry part was I’ve been trying to get to the UK for 40 years, and they keep keeping me out of there. The UK people said, “What are you talking about, Joe?” Let me tell you a story. “Rap-O Clap-O” was selling in the millions, I never got home. I stayed in Europe for six months going from country to country selling records. No pay, but never knowing the money I was generating, because you see
in Europe, as opposed to America, the residuals are seven times that which you’d make in the States, especially if you owned the publishing. They would
literally kiss your ass if you own the publishing to a big record. You could retire. I lived off “Rap-O Clap-O” for 10 years, still living off it. It’s
the biggest record I ever made and it’s one of the records I’m not known for. So, “Rap-O Clap-O” is going on and then here it was… the UK really could have put us over the map. They were playing the record across the DJs, they don’t want to hear nothing, if it’s something that they like, they’re going to play it. But, to get it played on the air, I had difficulty. I didn’t know the politics at that time. Someone in England, I don’t know who it was, got word back - if he gives up half of the publishing, we will play his song. Of course you know that I told them to shove it. The record was never played to full potential that it could have. Joe Bataan could have been a household name by now. Of course, as you see, all through my life I kept missing. I kept missing. Everywhere I went I was second in this. When I threw a concert at Shea Stadium, I was second to that. They just happened to go to the moon that day and the whole stadium was rained on… So, here it is… 40 years later, I’m set to go to the UK. I’m going to the - What the name of that club in England? Jazz Café. So, they got me settled, it’s on the Internet. Everybody says, “Joe Bataan’s coming!” I’m sorry to say, they wouldn’t pay me the money that I requested. Not a lot of money. Nothing in the Madonna scale. It was very cheap, I’m sorry to say. Joe Bataan didn’t go. Once again, I told them, I said, “Let me tell you something – I’m not going to the UK to whore myself to satisfy you, because you’re gonna sell a few tickets and you’re gonna make some money on me coming there.” I said, “I’ll wait.” I said, “Eventually, I will be in the UK.” When I thought about coming to Australia, I know my next step is the UK. With God’s blessing, tomorrow when you come there, we’re going to make history. If you do come, you will see what I’m talking about. Eventually I will get to the UK. Those purists, I will tell them, “Kiss my ass,” and I’m finally going to play the music that I want to play for those people over there that do love my music. That’s just a little part of my story. Jeff Chang Why don’t we play “Rap-O Clap-O” and then take questions from the audience? Joe Bataan Sure. Jeff Chang One thing I did want to say is, you did come back and make an album in 2005, a great record called Call My Name. Actually, do you want to talk about that before? Joe Bataan Let me just skip back a little. Eight years ago Joe Bataan died. I literally physically died. Let me tell you what happened. I was working my job, I’m a tour commander in a prison. See how funny life is? The same place I was locked up as a kid, I’m in charge of running now. I give back to the kids that get into
trouble and I tell them my story and it gives them some feeling that there’s a possibility they can get out of the rut that they’re in, similar to what I
did. I’ve been doing that for 25 years, I’m getting ready to retire next year. I was there working the night shift and I started feeling something in my
head. You know that feeling you get in your body when something changes? And I started twitching. What the hell is this? I guess it was tension. I went down to the infirmary and I told the guy, “Hey, take my pressure.” He said, “Joe, your pressure is 190 over 110. You know what to do? Go upstairs, turn the lights out and start rubbing your neck.” The guys, when I told them, started
laughing. “What kind of damned diagnosis is that? You’ve got to go to the damn hospital.” I didn’t listen. You know how you are when you first start taking
medicine. I was taking medicine for blood pressure and sat back, turned the lights off, and started rubbing my neck. Made it through to the morning, got up, I’d just got paid. I carry a bag all the time and my whole life is in that little bag. Right now, I’ve got it in my hotel room with my wife guarding it.
But anyway, I called my wife up and said, “Let’s go and see Star Wars.” Just
like a kid, I wanted to be one of the first in the neighborhood to see the movie, so I could tell everybody about it. We went to see Star Wars and I started buying the popcorn, the franks, soda, lemonade, everything. The movie is on first thing in the morning. We got there about seven o'clock, it started at nine o'clock, it’s about 11 o'clock now. I approached the car, started it up, grabbed the wheel, rolled my window down. I reached into the back seat to make sure my bag was there, because it had my pay, I just got paid. Everything was intact, except I started bleeding out of my mouth. Now, you might bleed
sometimes but this blood, this was different, it was flowing in abundance and I started getting dizzy, and everything was going blurred. I spat the blood out
of the window and I reached for my bag. Shows you how life is, you love material things. I reached for the bag, here I am about to die and I’m looking
back for my paycheck. I got back some sort of sense and my wife was having a conversation with my daughter and I started choking her [gestures throttling action], literally choking her. She didn’t know what the hell was going on. When I analyze it now, I was mad because she didn’t know what was going on, that I was about to die. I had no control over it, if it ever happens to you,
you’ll know what I mean. I was choking her and she got out of the car to get help. I jumped out and started banging the hood. Boom! Security guard came, I punched him, took 12 people to restrain me. The rest is what I’ve been told. I woke up in a hospital 10 hours later, unconscious… What are the chances of your whole family being called to your bedside? Because while I was in the bed, in a coma - I had one of those tubes they put down you - my wife, my daughter, my grandkids were all around the bed. And this is what I like to say happened, I do use this in my testimony when I play every time I perform. A hand reached down while I was drowning in my subconscious and said, “Joe, you keep running away from me. I gave you so much talent but you’ve done nothing with it, you haven’t helped anybody. I want you to stop running away from me and do my work.” The hand pulled me up and back into life and I opened my eyes and saw my family, but I couldn’t talk. If you ever get on that bed, you’d better pray for a pencil and paper so you can say, “Get that damn tube out of my throat so
I can talk.” And my daughter said, “He’s trying to say something, he’s trying to say something.” And I wrote, “Get the tube out of my throat.” They finally got it out. Whoosh! [gestures pulling tube out] “What the hell’s going on
here?” Everybody kept quiet but they wanted to tell me I had had the last rites, I had a brain tumor. I don’t know what went on, but I have the shirt with all the blood over it and I keep it in my car to remind me, if I ever get too big for my britches, what the real meaning of life is, that I’m here on borrowed time to do something. I’m secondary, I’m nobody. The Lord is my master, he’s teaching me, he’s guiding me and he allowed me to come to Australia to talk to you. If you have someone you love and you haven’t told recently, call that someone and tell them you love them, whether it’s a grandmother, a little kid, even a little dog. Nothing’s promised, we don’t
have to be here tomorrow, as you know from the tragedies you’ve had here in Australia. So, I’ve been dedicated to that in regards of what I do with my
music. I’m trying to let people know about the goodness in life and what we can do to build a world that is pleasant and peaceful. So, I thank god that I’m here. [Applause] Jeff Chang Thank you, Joe. Some music and then questions? Let’s play “Rap-O Clap-O.” (music: Joe Bataan – “Rap-O
Clap-O”) Jeff Chang [To audience] This is your time now… Audience member [Inaudible – asks Bataan to play] Jo Bataan Now, you have to remember that I had no musical training. Everything I did was by the seat of my pants or what I saw other people do. I was very good at watching people. [Playing the electric piano] First three chords I ever learned on this were C, C minor and E minor. And I was able to find out a little secret about myself because I didn’t have all the other tools to work, so what do you do? I
loved the piano but we couldn’t afford a piano when I was a kid. I couldn’t afford music lessons. I learned how to sing, but mostly by ear, and when I learned those three chords I wrote my first song. When people started coming into the audience to listen to what I was doing I thought, “Maybe I really
have something here.” What I recommend is, anybody that writes, learn an instrument. It really helps you and I guess it took me in another direction
because I was handicapped by the only three chords that I knew. I had to embellish upon it and do things that were not conventional, things that other people do. When you write a song you always have A, A, then you have the bridge and revert back to A. So I tried to start a song in B, start with the bridge, and when I learnt about modulation and I found a lot of people weren’t using it. I had to find out how to do that on the piano so I could go into another key, because I knew that would broaden life. And when I finally found out the difference between minor and major, about being sad and happy, that brought another element into my writing. I’m still learning. After a while I got so good I was able to take short cuts. There was a time in my life when I was broke and I didn’t have a piano and I still had to write. I had a contract to do an album. “How the hell do you write if you don’t have an instrument?” And God blessed me, because what I did was put on the radio, and I actually listened to the radio and all the songs that they played, and I took excerpts from them and placed them in my mind. Finally, when the piano came along, I
was able to translate that into the music. The first way I learnt how to sing is that I read a newspaper. This is great training, I don’t know if anybody does that. If you notice some of my songs, I have a habit of saying too many words.
Instead of saying “Baby, I love you,” I say, “Whaa, whaa, whaa, whaa, baby I love you,” and put too many words in there. But it takes training to do that, I didn’t know I was developing a style, so what I did was I’d read a newspaper and challenge myself. Whatever was in that paper I would sing. So there was probably a war somewhere, or an uprising, and I would sing about it and play these three chords.[Plays piano and sings] “There’s an uprising and I don’t
know what to do / But darling I love you.” And I would do things like that and then I’d say, “Well, gee, I keep playing the same song,” so I would change it
around and I’d play it fast. [Plays faster and sings] “Can’t you feel it, can’t you feel it?” And then I’d start getting into the cha-cha vein and I could change the rhythm of songs. I found out whatever I did slow I could do fast, and that became a style of mine. One song I wrote recently, maybe in the ’90s was “The Good Old Days”. We wrote it in the car before I had a piano and we didn’t know how it was going to sound, but we’d open up with it some time and it would go like this… Joe Bataan I really enjoyed that. Jeff Chang Joe Bataan. Joe Bataan So, as you can see, that was a growing up experience that I wanted to share with that. If you come tomorrow, you will see how a lot of the songs I incorporated that way. I’m just so blessed by the Lord and finally realizing it in my old age is what’s making me enjoy this so much more. You have no idea that you could really become alive again. See there’s no reason for me to be here. I’m 64 years old and I feel like a kid. I do all the things that the kids do, all the things that you do. Try to do my exercise, the best that I can do. Ride my bike. I play ball. I got a hell of a jump shot. I do these things and now I got the opportunity to play my music, which I love so much. This is not an accident. I’m here because he sent me. Got a question? Audience member Yes. I was saying how amazing you really are. Joe Bataan Thank you. Audience member Just wondering if you ever license some of your music to film or television? If you could share some of the business side of it… Joe Bataan Sure, OK. The first thing, there’s a book called The Business of Music. Get it. By Clive Davis. I think they have several editions since then. He goes through the spectrum of things you’re supposed to know as far as your publishing, contract, signings, when you need to get an attorney. All those things that you do know. The merchandising part of it is also mentioned in there. I know that book was what guided me and that was some time ago. I know there’s probably better editions now, but you do need to read up on the business that you’re going to get involved in whether it’s film or whatever. I recently did a little part in Liberty Kid. That’s going to be released. They’re going to use some of my music from what I gather and I guess we have to go through the ropes. There’s a law called rear view window law. If I can put it into effect. I have all the product, all the songs that Joe Bataan ever did are going to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a rebel. All those songs belong to me. Come and get me. All right. I’ll re-release them if I have to. They said, “Wow, you can’t do that.” What do you mean I can’t? Take me to court and I’ll get you for copyright infringement. You know that after a 28- year period, you’re supposed to put in your agreement with the copyright office so that those songs will come back to you. Well, I didn’t, but also in my contract there’s a clause for hire. If that’s in there then that’s all they had. They don’t really own me. You see? All that stuff belongs to me. They’re not going to fight me. They’re not going to come looking for Joe Bataan. But I got to look at it spiritually also. I’m blessed. Most of the guys who did what I’m doing are not here any more. I’m still here to carry on a legacy and to teach people about what happened to us. Before me there were others. Read and wrote. Before them there were others then. I think it’s only until recently that a lot of the artists are getting paid. Believe it. It’s a lot of the rap artists. A lot of the people singing up there today. They’re getting paid. They don’t blow up the studio, but they’re getting paid. I’m getting paid. I’ve done a lot of deals. I mean I hope I get paid. I’m getting paid. People are not doing what they did years ago. You’ll find that the big companies don’t have time to teach you. If they have to go public, they have to answer to a lot of people. So you’re better off with a large company, I would say. Unless you independently try to get into a company that you control yourself. Open up a publishing company. The first thing you should do… It’s not that difficult. Find out how. Copyright your songs, your ideas. Mail it to yourself, don’t open up the envelope. It’s legal. Get an attorney. Get on the internet. I never had an internet to find information. You have a world at your feet. There’s no reason for anybody to be ignorant about the music business. The hustle part, that has to be learned on your own. If you have the gumption you got to keep yourself in shape. I believe if you have these three ingredients you’ll meet success. That spirit. You must believe in something that’s going to guide you. You must take care of your body, your health everyday so that you’ll have the energy to do what you want to do. And knowledge. Do not let one day go by that you do not learn a new word or a new something. Do not waste your time idly with not learning something every day. It’s only going to enhance the other two and they work together to hopefully let you get what you want to achieve. Yes? Audience member Is the microphone on? You said your kids were experts in karate. Joe Bataan I didn’t say they were experts. I said they took it. That’s the difference. I tried to be humble. Audience member Did you ever teach them music? Or did they ever express any interest in learning? Joe Bataan It’s like anything else and you’ll find it. Are you a parent? Audience member
No. Joe Bataan Okay, you don’t have any kids. Let me tell you. Take your time before you get married. Make sure you know what you’re doing and what you’re getting into. We have too many kids raising kids. You got to know that this is a responsibility. You have to take care of those kids. Kids don’t always follow what their parents do. My kids are no different. They had all the tools there for them to follow in the line of music, but my first thing was physical with them. That they had to learn how to walk up the stairs. I didn’t want any lazy kids in my house. We ran track when they were three years old. They were doing cross country running… yeah, or we leave you behind! Let me tell you why. I got all girls in my family. I got one boy and for a long time me and him sat on the couch every time my wife went to the hospital to have a child and we would wait to see what was coming. When we heard it was a girl he said, “Not again.” Nothing has changed. Now these kids have had kids, and it’s still girls! And we say, “Not again.” But it’s a blessing because the girls don’t leave you. I’m going to start a singing group. I will make them play a band. Those girls can do everything a boy can do and they’re not tomboys. They took up karate because they had to defend themselves. I knew that my son was going to have a hard time. He said, “Dad, I can’t keep running out there defending them. They’re always getting into some argument.” So, I had the girls learn and it turned out to be pretty good. We studied Shotokan and they can take care of themselves. You got to be very careful with the martial arts. You got to learn what it’s really about. That it’s open hand. That it’s only for defense when you need it. You’re not supposed to go around using it. You’re not supposed to boast about it. You’re not even supposed to talk about it. That’s something that’s instilled in the way of life. All it does is it’s supposed to help you with the other things that you want to do. Unfortunately that didn’t happen in my family because some of them were sore losers and they didn’t want to lose. They would come in second and they didn’t want to lose. We had to get out of it. Yes? Audience member At some point in your life you were able to see that rap was going to be the future of music, the new thing coming. What do you think is going to be the new thing in music nowadays? Joe Bataan OK, well I grew up through a lot of phases, from rock-and-roll, before that it was rhythm-and-blues... Actually my first love of music was show tunes. The Gershwins, Cole Porter, things like that, that’s how I grew up. Annie Get Your Gun, Carousel, stuff like that I love. Especially “Rhapsody in Blue” is my favorite. I saw these changes, I saw the Twist come, I saw Chubby Checker get that from Hank Ballard. I saw that craze come, I saw Elvis Presley come through, I saw Frankie Lymon with rock-and-roll, then I saw the disco era come through, and then when the rap era came through… [and then] reggaeton was happening. How long that will last, I don’t know. I’ve always been at the forefront of bringing something back, which I’ve been trying to do for 40 years, I haven’t been successful. What I want to do is I want to bring back the squaredance, but I want to bring it back hip. So hip that I have to get somebody to help me put it together because I’ve got to have the right exact music. I’m thinking about R. Kelly. He might be the right guy. I think I made some notes, because he’s really a genius. Listen to the stuff that this guy does. I believe that when he did that reggae “step, step,” this is what I see with the square dance, but the square dance we will definitely do “do-si-do, grab your partner,” and I’d see all these people having fun on the dance floor, but it would be done hip. It won’t be like “Get your partner [shrill],” no. It will be like Get your partner [gruff],” and it will be hip. That might be the next wave of music. Audience member Hello. Actually thanks, first of all, for your music and when you mentioned Salsoul record label. I was so happy because [inaudible] by Salsoul Orchestra is one of my favorite records. So I actually really appreciate it. How does it relate to the Salsoul Orchestra, which were a large band to your record label, because it was a gold mine. Joe Bataan Well, let me tell you. Salsoul wasn’t existing when there was nobody there. I was the only one there on the label. There was no artists, they were dealing in Mexican music, guaracha. Songs like that that they were importing and selling cut-outs. When I introduced the word Salsoul as a company, my first album was called Salsoul. The concept was to bring together, merge Latin and soul. Later on, when I had my arguments with Salsoul, and they felt that they picked my brain for everything that I gave them, I showed them the Philly Sound, I showed them Jimmy Young, they actually got some of these musicians to come down from Philly to play for Salsoul. The end result was a Vince Montana that came down. He wrote a lot of those songs, he became the leader of the Salsoul Orchestra, but he did not start Salsoul Records. The whole concept was mine. He was very successful, so were a lot of the other artists, so was Kenny Cayre. They did this in the absence of me, when they actually booted me out of the company. Audience member How was it to have those singers, related to most important disco hints in that era, and did you ever meet Patrick Adams or any producers like that? Joe Bataan Yeah, I don’t remember all their names. Patrick was a good friend, he was a very talented guy. He was always understood, he was at the forefront of bringing a lot of those acts. You’ve got to understand, Ken Cayre, at that time, let everybody come up to the studio. You’ve got to understand, Salsoul was like Motown. Everybody and their mother wanted to be a part of Salsoul, so everybody came up there. There’s no way in hell that you’re not going to see everybody. Every DJ in the country was calling Salsoul. Every producer from Tom Moulton to Patrick Adams, but they all went up there and they all brought their products, and some of it got paid and some of it used, some of them made a few dollars, but the essence was, they didn’t start it. They came in after, to be a part of the Salsoul family. That’s the only inkling that I have with the Salsoul record label, that it was my concept, my idea, and my name. Patrick Adams, all those guys, I’ve worked with them and they’re very talented. You got what’s his name, Patrick – oh, boy, I forget all these names, all these groups… BT Express, the guy that did with him, all those guys, they had different labels and they had made different deals with different record companies, at that time. Disco was a wide-open market, so if you look at those records, you will notice that most of those records were played by the same guys, like Bernard and those guys, they were the hit-makers during that era, similar to Motown. That group that played all those hit records, they never got credit. Until recently, when they made the movie, that you knew that these guys played in all those big hit records for all those R&B artists. The same thing holds true for disco. The Babbits… all those guys and the Cornell Duprees… They all played on those songs, but, of course, they were in the background. They were making money as side-men but they weren’t in the forefront of their own records until some guys like Bernard [Edwards] did Chic and stuff like that. Audience member You had said something Gil Scott Heron and I just wanted to know how was that experience for you? Joe Bataan In the UK, they had that hit record, “The Bottle”, in New York, and it was on a label, I forget the label. Salsoul? Right. and it was an independent label, I think something from Harlem, and they ran into financial trouble. One of the hit, biggest disco record of that time, and when they were playing it, they didn’t have the money as you know. If you don’t know, you can go broke with a hit record. Let me explain. It takes eight weeks to break a record. Now, if you want to have any kind of luck, you got to get this record played all over the country at one time. There’s very few people who can do that. RCA, Sony? But a little label like Salsoul, back in that time, it couldn’t do it until they got bigger… They’re not going to do it, they don’t have the manpower, they don’t have the money to put that record. Just to produce that record, you know how many records you would have to make? Suppose you don’t get it played, you got to eat the records, then you go broke. That’s why you’ve got all these record stores going bankrupt. I believe somebody just went bankrupt now – Tower Records. I’m probably not going to get paid, I had some records in there. They knew what they were going to do, they started selling everyday cut-outs, started selling them for a dollar. You watch any of these record stores when they start selling things for a dollar, because they’re getting ready to file Chapter 11. So, there’s no difference in the industry. They had to put out this record, they had no more money and they sold about $50,000. Great. So, when it came time, the stores were demanding more records, they had no more money. That means the record was going to die and they were going to go broke. That can happen to a lot of people. So you have to be on time. You have to know exactly your market. For instance, if I came to Australia, and I wanted to play a record and I wanted to make sure everybody bought it, I would have to have a nucleus, what would be a nucleus that everybody would enjoy before I take a chance. I wouldn’t bring here a merengue song thinking that everybody was going to buy it, and they didn’t understand it. So that’s where you can go broke. You should be the last one to praise your work. You should always ask others, outside interest, so, that you know you’re getting some sort of help. Jeff Chang Did you actually bring in Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson then when you were doing your cover of “The Bottle”? Joe Bataan No, he was gone. Jeff Chang I just happened to… I met him later. He was so happy and proud what I did to his song. He mentioned it in his last documentary I hear, he calls me the mayor of New York. Hopefully I’ll meet the guys when I go get to the UK. Jeff Chang Do another question? Oh, back this way. Audience member Were you ever involved with the Latin freestyle? Joe Bataan I’m sorry I didn’t hear that? Audience member Were you ever involved with freestyle? Jeff Chang Freestyle, you know… the freestyle sound. Joe Bataan Oh! Yes, well I did “Shaft.” It might not be a record that was recognized at that time, but there was a Francis, who played at the Sanctuary, and that was one of the discotheques over at Cemetery that we used to go to. The first time I went there, I went ... Jeff Chang Francis Grasso? Joe Bataan Yes. Yeah, and he was one of the first DJs to play Joe Bataan, and a lot of us weren’t even thinking about their records to DJs, and I had found a gold mine when I was allowed to come into the club, you know? I went up to him, he introduced me, he listened to the record, and he played it. Then I was finding out a source of energy and sale marketability that no one else knew in New York, and that was the disco. I was on the forefront of the club scene before most artists, promoters. They didn’t recognize it. They didn’t know what could be generated out of a club, and Francis played that “Shaft” I’m telling you, he played the hell out of it so much that I was selling records before it was even played on the radio. They forced the radio to play my songs. He was one of the first and of course then there was Larry Levan. Jeff Chang During the 80s, when they had the freestyle sound, like Nocero or Noel or, you know, Exposé, different groups. Did you do any work at that time or was that more of a Miami type of thing? Joe Bataan Well, I did work, a little, traveling to Europe, you know, doing tracks, you know what I mean, with “Rap-O Clap-O,” and things like that, yeah. That’s it. Jeff Chang By the late 80s, not ... Joe Bataan No, no, I was sort of in a self-induced retirement. Jeff Chang Uh-huh. Nice. Other questions, comments? Joe Bataan Guess everybody wants to save their energy for tomorrow. Jeff Chang Yeah. I think so. Well, ladies and gentlemen ... oh, right here. Mic, okay. Audience member [Inaudible] Joe Bataan No. That was done in 1969. That story was actually about me. When I write my songs, I used to challenge myself, as you will notice if you look into my song, I rarely mention the word love, because I tried to describe the emotion in love with other words. I wanted to be known for something that was different than every other artist, because I know I didn’t have the great voice, so I had to bring something else to the table that I would be remembered by, so I tried to adapt my songs so nobody could copy them. I would take it someplace else, or I would use a lot of words, where it wasn’t natural, and that was my only protection beside of copyright of anybody trying to steal my songs or something and then it developed into a style. “Young, Gifted and Brown,” as it starts, as you could see, and then you could tell my age, “On a rainy Sunday morning in 1942, my mother was blessed with a son who grew up to be young, gifted, and brown.” Audience member You mentioned that song is about the attempts to change the world around, and that’s… Joe Bataan Kind of funny, I mean, when I wrote that, a guy told me about “My Cloud,” he said “Joe, you were preaching back then and you didn’t even know it.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Listen to the words of Mike Cloud, and look what you’re saying. ‘Thank you, Lord, for the clouds you made for me,’ and it’s a testimony… it’s the Lord.” I never wanted to be alone. I always had to be with somebody. My wife has been with me for 35 years, and we’re inseparable. We got our problems, and things like that. It got so that when I stopped playing, she actually took me out of the business. There were a lot of women, and things like that, you know what I mean, and I finally had to psych her into joining the band. I got her to learn how to play the maracas and sing, and now she performs with me, so I’m allowed to go everywhere. Jeff Chang We’ve got one more question… Audience member [Inaudible] Jeff Chang Great question. Joe Bataan Let me explain. I think I understand what you’re saying, but let me round it out into my story. Here I am, 9 years old, and I’m looking in the mirror on a tenement in 104th St, and I’m saying, “What the hell am I?” I look at my hair, and I touch it, and I say, “Why can’t our hair be like this?” You’ve got to understand growing up at that time who our heroes were. We didn’t have black history. The music that was played wasn’t our own, and I was looking for identity. I was the only kid on the block that was part Filipino and black. Most everybody was Latino, and going to school I kept thinking that I was short-changed in life that I wouldn’t be allowed to go here because of the racism that existed in the world. I couldn’t go here, and I couldn’t do this, if I didn’t do this, so right away I was sort of handicapped. It wasn’t until later on that I was able to appreciate my heritage, because I grew up with Latinos and they all thought that I was Spanish, and I would give you an argument. I could speak Spanish. Then I had that part of me being black. My mother… you could see it, we’d go down to the neighborhood. She was from Newport News, Virginia. There was no mistaking my mother was black, all right. Here growing up, my friends were of all different races. I never had a racist bone in my body until I grew up, until I started seeing the world, until I went down South, and the guy looked at me, and I got on the bus, and I sat where I wanted to sit, because all I know is what I grew and how I grew up in New York, and they say, “Joe, you’re crazy, you can’t do that.” Then I say, “Shit, ain’t nobody telling me nothing.” I had this attitude. Maybe it was a mistake. Nobody bothered me down South. I don’t know why. I said I went to the movies, ain’t nobody touch me. I was waiting, I was hoping somebody’d say something to me. Having grown up in New York, being free to do what I wanted to do, I didn’t realize I was ignorant about things that they were throwing lye in the pools in St Augustine in Florida, they were hanging people, they were shooting people in the back, I had no idea until later on, until I started to become self-conscious in civil rights in the things that were being done to us. Then, I was angry, and it wasn’t until 1976 that I recorded an album, and I said, “What the hell am I now? Shit, I’m tired. I keep identifying myself. I’m a human being. Why the hell do I got to be anything anyway?” I named the album Afro-Filipino. Nobody took notice of the album. The guy asked me to do the song for Chico and the Man with Freddie Prinze and Jose Feliciano beat me out. Jeff Chang My family did. Joe Bataan I found that out later, when we heard about the yellow seed, and all the different things that it involved, with Filipinos nowadays. I found that there were a lot of Filipinos like me, that were of mixed heritage. In New York, in the barrio we don’t see no Filipinos. The few that we saw used to gamble upstairs, you know. Asian people love to gamble. When I went to California, then I started to get a consciousness because I started seeing a lot of Filipinos, and they were just like me. Then I started to realize, “Hey, I’m part a Filipino,” and be proud of being part Filipino and black, and then it came out and lo and behold I have a following now with the Asian community, which is a blessing because it’s coming forward because now, if you will see, when anyone comes to see Joe Bataan perform, there’s no telling who’s in the audience. It’s been like that for some time, and I like it like that. You don’t know who’s in that audience. You can’t depict that it’s one particular nationality. I’m known for a song in every different country. Somebody has a favorite of mine. When I went to Colombia, South America, they made me get off the plane, and they made me sing to prove that I was Joe Bataan, because they said, “You look like his son, and Joe Bataan has got to be about 92 years old in a wheelchair. You’re not going to fool us out here and take our money,” so here I was singing a song that was three octaves higher than what I did when I was a kid, and they let me come into the country. Japan, I think I was known for “The Bottle.” New York, “Ordinary Guy.” California, “My Cloud.” UK, I don’t know, they’re starting to play some of the Spanish songs, from what I hear. They’re playing me all over the old radio last year. Italy, it’s “Rap-O Clap-O,” “Latin Strut,” “Ordinary Guy.” Bossa nova style, so I’m just so gratified and blessed that I’m able to say that, that I’ve lasted this long and I hope it’s just the beginning. Jeff Chang Joe Bataan. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. [Applause]
[Laughter]
[Applause]
So, Joe, you’re from Spanish Harlem. Tell us something about Spanish Harlem; some of us have been to it, a lot of us have not. Tell us about the musical
and street vibes about growing up in that area.
[Applause]
The first thing that Jeff said, growing up in East Harlem, there seemed to be a mystique. I hadn’t done anything for maybe the last 10-15 years, I was
stagnant. You know how you lose your confidence if you don’t do something continuously? And I was no different, it happened to me. I had had all this success with different forms of music, and here I was, I was idle. The music business was changing, I had seen it change maybe four or five times, but I didn’t know anybody, my contacts were all gone. It was different, younger
people creating the music, the same doors you went in before are not open anymore. So, growing up in East Harlem it was a constant struggle to find what
exactly you do. I came out of prison. I was always an advocate of singing in the streets and hallways, having a hand cupped over my ear to get an echo in the subway stations so you could do harmony by ear. I could do harmony before I could even read – that ear training
is so important. I don’t know how I would’ve developed my style if I’d been a student and had those opportunities and the absence of the emotional feel.
[Laughter]
They all looked at me and I said, “If you follow me, I’ll take you onto achievements you’ve never dreamed of in your life.” I had the spiel, the gift of the gab. The only problem was I had to convince their parents; because I was the neighborhood thug no one wanted their kids with me. So, I walked them home every night after rehearsal. I’d have to convince their parents: “Look, let them play with me, I’ll bring them home every night. I don’t do that stuff any more, I play music. I want to do something with my life.” I had made these promises to these 11 or 12-year-old kids. The second-hand horns had holes in them, we
patched up some drums, we had cans. Whatever we could get. We were practicing three hours a day for six months. After six months, we were making records.
[Applause]
So, you’d actually recorded about eight albums for Fania Records in a course of five years and they couldn’t figure out a way to give you what you were worth.
You’d really helped build the label up, but you decided to break off. You held out for a year, but you decided to set up your own independent label, which was unheard of for an artist at that time. You helped start up a little label that became known as
Salsoul. Can you tell us about that?
[Applause]