Yeah. Most of [Fugi’s backing tracks] at that point was Black Merda music. Matter of fact, he didn’t create any music, period. Lot of times, we would just do a track, and he would write a song to it. We should’ve really taken songwriting [credits], but we never did. He didn’t write the music. I came up with the bass line for “Mary,” and the rest of the guys did their parts—that’s how we usually did songs. He loved anything we did! [ laughs ] At that time, we didn’t think too much of the songs. That’s part of the reason we weren’t concerned about royalties. It was stupidity on our part. Why did the band decide to go back to Chess to record the second album? Y’know, we talk about that now, but we don’t know why. We were out [in Los Angeles] with Eric Burdon and War—War had a couple songs, but they weren’t a huge group; Eric was more famous—and they were pretty enamored with our sound. But I don’t know – things weren’t working out in L.A. So, when we got a call saying [Malcolm] Chisolm wanted us to come back to Chicago and do this
What bands did Black Merda play with? At that time, there were a lot of variety-type shows where there’d be different acts on. There was a cat named Bobby Franklin and Insanity. The Parliaments, before they became Funkadelic. We used to be on different shows with them. We were dressing with the freaked-out style before they were. When we started to do the al- bums, it was more rock oriented, so it didn’t appeal as much to Black people. Why did you guys go in a rock direction on record? We saw ourselves as a big, super rock group. Which was what Mar- shall Chess promised to make us when he came to Detroit to see what we were about. How did you meet Marshall Chess? Fugi knew Marshall Chess [through writing songs for Chess Re- cords]. He was raving to Marshall about Black Merda. He wanted Marshall to come to Detroit to meet us, which he did. He either came at the beginning of ’69 or the last part of ’68. We had to audi- tion, but he came to our house. Our house was all decked out psy- chedelic with black lights. [ laughs ] The legs were cut off of our fur- niture. It was like Japanese furniture: on the floor. Marshall comes in. Black lights are flashing. A big poster of Muddy Waters [from Electric Mud ] over the fireplace. So he came in, and he goes, “I’m convinced.” [ laughs ] He didn’t ask us to play a lick. He had heard us playing on Fugi’s stuff or whatever, but he didn’t ask us to audition. He said he wanted to sign us up. Went to Chicago. Sent us a letter saying that he had plans to make us a supergroup. But! He went to England and became the [manager] of the Rolling Stones. I think he was serious [about his promise], but I think he had a problem, because the company was old and stodgy and into the blues, and he was bringing [us], this whole young thing, and they weren’t really into that. Though Marshall was the one who got Electric Mud done. [When Chess was sold to GRT, following cofounder Leonard Chess’s death in 1969], he went to England. [GRT] just fulfilled the contract and didn’t do a lot of promotion [for the first record]. When did you write the songs on the first album? We wrote the songs in advance. I’m a primary songwriter, and so is Wolf. On the records, I play bass, but I’m a guitarist as well. Wolf and I have been writing since an early age. One of the songs on Black Merda , I wrote when I was fifteen: “Windsong.” It was actu- ally a vocal. We did an instrumental version of it, and we named it “Windsong,” because, in the studio, they had a little wind ma- chine that you turned by hand, and we wanted to try some effects. On [ Black Merda ], Wolf and I are the primary songwriters. I think somebody credited all the guys on the Chess version. Whoever wrote the song usually sang the leads. I had written “Cynthy-Ruth” and “Reality.” What did you guys dislike about Tom Swan’s production? He toned down the power of the sound we got. The engineer, Mal- colm Chisolm, understood what we were trying to do. He had this big, round sound. The drums sounded like thunder! [ laughs ] But when the album was finished, we were so disappointed, because it was like half of what we heard in the studio. We didn’t feel like sup- porting the album. At least you guys released “Mary, Don’t Take Me on No Bad Trip” with Fugi on Chess, which was a local hit.
next album, I think things weren’t going too smoothly. What was different about the second album?
We were different. We were in a different mental space, for one. [Producer] Gene Barge knew [drummer Bob Crowder], and we were looking for a drummer, so he brought him in. [Crowder] didn’t know any of our songs. That’s why that album isn’t as tight. He was like a fish out of water. He did well under the circumstances. Gene Barge had done a lot of pop and rhythm and blues records. He was an R&B guy. That was another thing: the people assigning the producer had no idea what Black Merda was about. We had never even heard of Gene Barge! [ laughs ] We weren’t that thrilled [when we met Barge], but we figured, “Maybe it’ll work out.” He was a more conservative-type guy. But he really dug the songs we showed him though. And all the experience [with Marshall Chess’s departure] pre- ceded the second album. So, I was disappointed. And we wanted success, so we tried to think of a little more com- mercial thing. That first album, we just did what we liked. I think it shows in the way it came out. That first album is Black Merda. The second album, we called [ourselves] Mer-da. At the time, we didn’t think about the name change, but, in retrospect, we subconsciously knew there was a change [in the group]. We kind of toned down. Also, when Tyrone got out of the group, that was the end of the original Black Merda. How do you feel about Black Merda’s recent resurgence? We have had young people tell us [our] music sounds like it’s cur- rent today. So that’s probably why it appeals to them. They can hear influences and say we have influenced other people. There is a fate twist to this whole thing. People know us for the Black Merda phase, but a lot happened to us before that. Even that was like fate. . Sources Mills, Fred. “The Merda Files.” Metro Times . December 1, 2004. Porter, James and Author. Liner notes. The Folks from Mother’s Mixer . Compact disc. New York: Tuff City, 2005.
Veasey, VC. Personal Interview. August 30, 2004. Veasey, VC. Personal Interview. April 24, 2006.
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