Lee Fields is living proof that doing what you love does not have an age limit. “I feel that every human being’s purpose is to do what their inner voice says to do,” Fields (65) said in a press release earlier this month. “And my inner voice, my driving force, wants me to put out music and keeping making better records.”
In his mid-sixties, Fields released Special Night a few weeks ago with his band the Expressions. It has groove, smooth vocals, positive vibes and more than a few energetic tunes that set your hips to wiggling. Flowing in the vein of Al Green, Marvin Gaye and Lou Rawls, Special Night brings us back to when soul and delivery was king.
Getting his start in the clubs of New York City in the late sixties after leaving his home in North Carolina at seventeen, he recorded his first single in 1969 and was an early member of Kool & The Gang. Special Night is his fifth recording with the younger Expressions, giving the album some modern-day sizzle over Fields creamy vocals.
Glide spoke with Fields recently, who is about to start touring in December, hitting Europe in January before returning to the States in February, about maintaining his love for music, learning early lessons from Kool & The Gang and spreading positivity through his songs in a world gone mad.
When did you start working on your new record, Special Night?
We started working on it in February of this year and it took us about two and a half months to complete. I took off from touring and it was like going to the job every morning, it was an everyday process. I’d meet the guys in the studio around 11:00 or 12:00 and work about five or six hours a day. Then I would take it home and ride around with the tracks and think of things I really wanted to say.
Let me give you an idea of the process of what I do. I believe songs are just like construction. Although it’s not a physical construction it’s built the same way. Like if you want to build it strong, you have to get some good material. And the material in songs are the words. Now if I use bad words, that song wouldn’t be able to stand the weight of people’s thoughts. So I try to use the strongest material in regards to words and build a foundation that has a positive leaning because I do believe that what goes into the mind sort of shapes the mind. I try to sing things that are going to shape people’s minds into a positive way, in a good way. In other words, I don’t sing for financial gain. I hope after the material is released that it will be a success but my principle is to believe that choosing good words and good ideas as opposed to something that I could sell. So I am so proud of this because I feel myself and the Expressions chose some good quality word products.
Would you say that positivity or love is the main emotion going through this record?
Oh yeah, absolutely, because I think love can change the world. We’re living in a world now, there’s so many nuclear warheads and so many weapons of mass destruction and all that kind of stuff. So something is wrong. So I believe that love is the panacea. I believe that love is the answer. In other words, we can sing songs and make them as interesting as we want but the theme of it all is the love of each other. You know, people take a lot of time and they go to extremes to find the right kind of food to eat to keep their body healthy. They run, they jog and do everything else. But nobody is talking about the mind. I think it’s a reason why the world at large has all this negative activity happening today. So I’m going to try to make the best mind products by choosing choice words to sort of soothe them and put them in a positive state of mind.
Have you always been that way, very conscious of what you write in your songs?
Well, in the beginning I wasn’t as conscious because I was naïve and I wanted to write what I thought I could sell. I was trying to write for selling a record and at that time being so young I was given an opportunity and I think whatever I done in the past I probably would have sang just about anything to make a dollar. But after all these years I’ve seen and believe that artists have such an influence over people. I mean, if a pop artist wore a certain jacket, all of the people that like the music will wear that kind of jacket. Back in the day when I was growing up, Superman was a hero to all of the little kids. Everybody wanted a cape. So now it seems to me that that theme probably still exists today. Whoever their heroes, they want to be. So heroes can lead people into destruction or they can make people go in a positive way. Not saying that I’m a hero but being a singer to whomever likes my music, I’m probably a likable guy to them. At this point now, I’m trying to make the best quality music that I can and not be boring with it and sing them songs that hopefully will give a good impression if you were in a room playing a record and your kid walked in. That’s what I believe. But I’m not a doctor or anything and I don’t know how the mind itself works. The only thing I know is what I see so I’m trying to write something good and I feel good about that. I’m trying to write something when I’m no longer on the Earth, my progeny will say, “Hey, I like what great-grandad did!”
Did you start singing in the church?
Yes I did. I started singing in the church years ago. When I was a kid, you had to go to church or we had to go to Sunday School. When we were about eight or nine years old we had to be in the church so I watched the preachers and I watched the choir and sang in the junior choir. The church plays an important role. I used to hear my mother say that if you raise a child the right way, if they stray they will come back to it. So I guess that’s what happened to me. The church was highly instrumental.
Working with the Expressions, has that been something that keeps you inspired and excited to play music?
No doubt. These talented individuals, they give birth to new ideas and they give me an incentive on trying to keep up with them.
Do you think guys like Mayer Hawthorne have what it takes to make it in the long run, to keep bringing soul music further into the future?
Yes, if he follows his heart. If he has a set of principles in mind, because the music business, show business, is just like the ocean and unless you find a rock to cling to, if he finds a rock and the idea is to cling to it, regardless of what way he goes, he knows where he is. Of course he’ll be able to last as long as a person can last in the business, no doubt. He opened up for us a few years ago. I like him.
What about Sharon Jones? [our interview took place before her passing on November 18]
Sharon is definitely amazing. We go back from the beginning, from the beginning of her career. I was there first and I saw her, this amazing budding flower. I think she’s great.
When you first went to New York when you were a young guy, what was it like for you coming from North Carolina?
When I got into New York, I was just like that song that Stevie Wonder wrote, “New York just like I pictured it, skyscrapers and everything.” [“Living For The City”]. I was like a rather ambitious young kid but it was just like I pictured it. I was a person who was raised up in the church and everything was so much faster there than I was accustomed to. But I realized that you had to cling on what you were raised on. I realized that quick so I was able to be in a place with all kinds of activities but I clinged to what my mother taught me. As a matter of fact I live in Jersey now, and the band, we record in Brooklyn and Long Island City so I’m in the city all the time. I love that city.
What was one of the first big moments for you in your career?
It’s kind of hard to say cause when I came into New York I joined this band. Well actually I didn’t join the band. Gene Redd, the manager, put me in the band (laughs). And the amazing moment to me was when Gene Redd put me in Kool & The Gang in the beginning. Not the Kool & The Gang with all the hits but the Kool & The Gang original crew. I stayed with them about six months. They were so adamant about rehearsing and rehearsing, and I just got in from North Carolina and I couldn’t believe these guys wanted to rehearse like that. Then after my departure, I watched that band grow to be the superstars that they became. I was totally amazed. And that was probably one of the most defining moments of my life. Then I felt like maybe I should have rehearsed with them more. The band we had in North Carolina, we would rehearse but nothing like that. These guys were out there and would come off the stage and they wanted to go back there and talk about the next show. But in North Carolina, we’d come off the stage and everybody just be free for a while and have some fun till the break is over. But they weren’t like that.
Why is making music still so exciting for you after all these years?
Because music, songs, are like a person being formed. Every song, if it’s a good song, if it’s really a good song, it has a life of it’s own. It becomes a part of people. That’s why you have record collectors who spend all kinds of crazy money to buy certain songs. If you really have a good song, it’s going to become a part of someone’s life as long as they live. Then people that wasn’t even born at that time will hear that song somewhere and they’ve got to have that song. It might not be selling millions and millions, but the ones that sold millions and millions at that time, people don’t look for that in the future cause a lot of things are hyped up for the moment, and not necessarily saying all hit records are hyped up, but certain records that really have a life is going to live, probably until there is no more sign of life on the planet. That’s the reason why I enjoy it, because if you cut a song the right way, and I’m not saying I cut it the right way, but if you put it to the point where that song becomes a living melody, that melody lasts. So it’s a way of extending my stay, expanding my life.
When you’re writing songs, does something usually trigger it or do they just come to you?
When I write a song, I write what I see. People used to care about communities, they used to care about human needs. There is so many of us who have attached ourselves to things and actually a human being is not a thing. A human being is a spirit. Matter of fact, the spirit will be considered nothing because you can’t measure it, you can’t touch it, so I try to write songs that are what I see. And the world has less love than it ever has but I believe the love will win. I believe regardless of how smooth-talking individuals come in the world to divide us, love will win and we can make the world better if we can come together. We call this the United States and we should keep it that way.
Like what they are telling us now, they say to us that somebody is taking our jobs. Ain’t nobody taking our jobs. Artificial intelligence is taking our jobs. The adversary is not man against man, it’s technology, artificial intelligence. You call a place, you want to talk to somebody in a big building but you’re talking to a machine. Most of the things that we do now, we’re replacing people with machines. They’re getting ready to put all of these cars on the road driving themselves. What is going to happen to the taxi driver? What is going to happen to the truck driver? Planes are already flying themselves. They have pilots up there just to make you feel safe. So what I’m saying is, man is not man’s adversary. We need to be focusing together on trying to fix the ozone layer. Machines don’t need ozone layers. We need to come together and try and help these refugees that we bombed and they got nowhere to go. So what I’m saying is, love is the answer, and compassion.
It’s like back in the old days when I was growing up, my dad didn’t even have a decent job because people of color in North Carolina at that time, it was very difficult to find jobs. But what he did when food got kind of scarce, he’d go hunting, get a rabbit. We had something to eat and I’m still here now. We might not have been eating filet mignon but what we were eating tasted good to me. Matter of fact, I wish I had some of that stuff right now (laughs). We need that old time love right now. That’s what we need today and that’s what this album is about. This whole album is about that, and appreciating each other.
Lee Fields and the Expressions’ tour kicks off this Wednesday in Solano Beach, CA – check her for more dates and details
Portraits by Sesse Lind
