The Musician's Shed Podcast

THE MUSICIAN'S SHED PODCAST: DAVE "DOC" WATSON (Full interview)

• Samar Newsome

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In this episode of The Musician’s Shed, Samar Newsome sits down with a living legend of the horn section: Dave "Doc" Watson.

If you’ve ever danced to the "Apache" beat or felt the soulful swell of an Alicia Keys ballad, you’ve heard the work of Dave Watson and Chops Horns. With a career spanning over four decades, Dave has navigated the evolution of music from the birth of Hip-Hop at Sugar Hill Records to the global stadium tours of The Police. 

But perhaps his most enduring legacy isn't on a gold record—it’s in the classroom. Dave joins us to discuss his 26-year journey as a cornerstone of music education in New Jersey, proving that you can be a world-class performer and a world-class mentor at the same time. 

In the Shed Today:

  • The Sugar Hill Era: Dave takes us back to the legendary sessions at Sugar Hill Records, providing the brass foundation for the tracks that defined early Hip-Hop.
  • The Savoy Connection: A look into his work with the Savoy Records Gospel Division and how the discipline of Gospel music shaped his professional standards.
  • Stadium Status: Behind-the-scenes stories from the road:
    • Touring with The Police during the iconic Ghost in the Machine era. 
    • His deep collaborative history with Alicia Keys, from "Songs in A Minor" to "As I Am." 
  • 26 Years of Impact: Dave reflects on his dual life as an educator in the New Jersey Public School system (Bayonne and Harrison High). He shares how he balanced high-stakes touring with the responsibility of shaping the next generation of musicians. 

Key Takeaways:

  • The Versatility of the "Yes Yes Man": Why being able to play everything from R&B and Jazz to Rock and Hip-Hop is the secret to a 40-year career.
  • The "Educator's Heart": How teaching makes you a better musician, and why giving back to your community is a professional necessity.
  • The Chops Horns Blueprint: The mechanics of building a horn section that legends like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan call on speed dial.
"You have to be a student of the craft before you can be a master of the stage. My students kept me sharp while the road kept me inspired." — Dave "Doc" Watson

🔗 Connect with Dave "Doc" Watson:

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  • Host: Samar Newsome @samarnewsome

#TheMusiciansShed #DaveDocWatson #ChopsHorns #AliciaKeys #ThePolice #SugarHillRecords #MusicEducation #NewJerseyMusic #SaxophoneLife #MusicMentor #TheYesYesMan

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SPEAKER_01

Hey, this is Samar Nusome, and this is the Musician Shed Podcast. Today I have a very dope musician that I got to play with, jazz musician, educator, all the things. He's gonna tell you about all the things he's done though. This is my man Dave Doc Watson. What's up, Dave? Hey, how are you?

SPEAKER_03

How are you? Thanks to uh guys like Ray Chu and some of my friends in Canada. I just want you to know Dave extended my name.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, what is it now?

SPEAKER_03

So not just is it Dave Doc Watson, it's Dave Can't Stop 100-watt sugarfoot Watson.

SPEAKER_01

Ah, I like it. Dave Can't Stop 100-watt sugarfoot Watson.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, the sugarfoot came from Ray.

SPEAKER_01

Nice, nice, nice, man. So tell tell us about like a little bit how you got started. I mean, tell us what you do, first of all.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Well, I'm I'm a retired music teacher of 26 years. Yeah. Uh, I've been a professional musician for 40 plus years, and I've been a member of the Chops Horn section, which I now lead um for 30 plus years. And my partner in crime, Daryl Dixon, who founded Chops Horns, he and I are still together. And on a side note, we've both outlasted our first marriages. He's married again, and so am I. And we chuckle about that.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know if that's good or bad, but that's that's good that y'all outlasted it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the point.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know if the wives will appreciate that, but that's all right. That's why they're exes, right? But listen, man, it's uh it's a pleasure to have you here. Uh, you have a wealth of knowledge in this industry as a player, as an educator. What um what got you started in you you play trumpet, correct? Saxophone. Saxophone. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Which saxophone? I play all the saxophones, but I'm known for tenor, baritone, and the flute.

SPEAKER_01

Got you, got you. So now tell me how you how you get started. How'd you fall in love with music like that?

SPEAKER_03

Well, my dad played saxophone. Okay. And he we lived in Jersey City. He used to go out on the road, and when he would come home, he would stand in the corner to practice.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And I learned from him later that the reason he did it was because of the bounce back of the sound. Right. He felt that it helped him with his tone. So he'd stand in the corner and play, and I was this little five, five-year-old, four-year-old, and I would sit on the couch and just chill and listen.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because I knew when he finished, when he put that horn in the case before he closed the case, he let me come over and push. Push the buttons, push the buttons. Push the buttons. You know? And um, that was my introduction to music. And um, I always was fond of wind instruments. Anytime I heard something with any kind of horns, it would always catch my ear.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. That's amazing. And that's a good start. I mean, my my start, my mom was an organist, so I was sitting at her feet in church, just you know, absorbing. So that and you catch a lot in that. You just not even trying to. Right. You're just doing it. Um, so what about like how did you get started now when you actually picked up the instrument?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, okay. In my town, I lived, I moved from Bayonne to Jersey City when my parents broke up, and I lived three years with my father's grandmother, and she's the one that slapped the brother in shape. Okay. Sent me to school every day in my shirt and tie, and you had to change your clothes when you came home. Uh-huh. You know, it was one of those things.

SPEAKER_01

Different clothes.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. You play clothes and your school clothes. Yeah. And my school buddies during the summer program, they were giving out instruments. Okay. And they had instrument summer programs. So the guys say, Let's form a band. Yeah. So everybody picked what they wanted to play. And you know, I picked the saxophone. Of course. We all went to the school, number two school, and we all got our instruments and we made it through the summer program. At the end of the summer program, all of the cats gave their instruments back except me. I held on to it and I got involved with Mr. Amato, I think it was, that next school year to play in his orchestra. And I was playing alto saxophone for quite a while, you know, through school. Um, but I didn't really consider music kind of as a career until I got to high school. Um, and I also sang, I was kind of in the choir and I played in the band. And my band director, Zavin Masmanian. He was a little weird-looking guy with a short arm, but he was brilliant. Wow. And um, he had a genuine love for all of his students, and he gave me the bug.

SPEAKER_01

Nice, nice. And we, as educators, you're an educator too. I'm sure that you've inspired some of your students, same like I've seen along my journey as well. Um, and we're not trying to, we're just doing what we do. You know what I'm saying? You just you're just being yourself and showing the most excellent opportunities that are out there for our kids, and then they just grab it.

SPEAKER_03

No, no, no, I agree. I was lucky enough to have a musical director, Miss Joan Rosen, who used to always say, I'm an arts advocate. Anytime she got in front of a mic, you knew those are the words coming out of her mouth. Hi, my name is Joan Rosen. I'm an arts advocate. Wow. Um, she saw something in me. Uh, because I had been out on the road with the police. Oh, you know, so I came home wearing leather pants. You know, education wasn't really something I wanted to do. But my father instilled in me, look, if you go to college, why get a performance degree? Because when you go to audition for a gig, you don't pull out the degree and say I can perform.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and say, look, look, I can play.

SPEAKER_03

No, they say put that horn in your mouth, man.

SPEAKER_01

Let me see what you got.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he always felt that education was a good way in his mind and in a lot of people's mind as something to fall back on. Right. Um, because to be honest, I don't know a lot of musicians that said early part in their career that, you know what, I don't want to play. I want to go help kids. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01

You know, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03

My vibe, and probably yours as well, um, was to get out there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And after I got out there and, you know, toured with the police and recorded with the Rolling Stones, um the the first in-house rap horn section for Sugar Hill Records. We did Sugar Hill, Grandmaster Flash, Sequence, West Street Mob. Wow. We were like the uh Motown guys. Yeah, yeah. But at Sugar Hill with uh Brass and Steel, with Brass and Steel was the rhythm section cats, duck skipping those guys. Um we were an in-house group. So we we did all of this. Then when my performing career had a lull, I decided to become a substitute teacher.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And when I got to the school and and met some of these kids and saw the whole scene, uh Joan Rosen mentioned, she said, you know, our band director is leaving. And um, you know, would you be interested in replacing him? So I did. Um, not hadn't had been away from college for six years. Okay. So, you know, they give you all these instrument classes where you learn the woodwinds and the brass or the book of methods, yeah. Because you know all that stuff. Man, I had to get out my books. What's it was the trumpet fingering? Um but um so I did, and she said something to me that always stuck. She said, you know, the reason I hired you, Dave, is because your heart is in the right place, and if you work for me, I know you're gonna be here for the kids. Right. And that's what a lot of folks are forgetting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

When you're a teacher, you're not there to say, Oh, I played with this one, oh you're there to show them that you did all of these things, but also nurture them in a way to give them the bug that you have. Absolutely. You know, inspiration. Yes, yes. So Joan let me start um one of three in the state at the time, uh bona fide jazz class. Wow. Five days a week. Wow, I got to meet with my jazz band uh in a real class, not in a morning or after school rehearsal. Right. Y'all know about that. All your band directors out there. Yeah, you know, you can't do it. Always extra, yeah. Yeah, yeah, always extra. So I I worked it out. So I had a theory day, I had a music history day, I had an improv day, and I had two days that we worked on charts. Nice. Now, something you mentioned when we first started talking was how you give things to students and don't realize you know how that's going. And what happened was all of the kids in the class got the bug. I had this little short girl playing baritone sacks, she didn't understand reading, but while she was in that class, the light bulb went off and she finally understood. Oh, that's what happens. Mama foot goes up and down. Right. I'm like, duh. Yeah. So that was, you know, her. But out of 12 kids, man, six of them became music teachers. Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Man, and I'm so proud to say that they did. And one of them, Vinny Downs, plug plug, uh he's still he's working as a classical guitarist at Bayonne High School. Wow. And the dudes got five records out. Wow. You know, and uh you can't get any prouder than that. Absolutely. You know, so that's that's kind of how how that transpired. And then when I I stayed at Bayonne, the high school I went to for 10 years, and you don't know what it's like going back to your alma mater and picking through the uniforms and finding yours. Wow. You know, that was a thing. Yeah, I fit it for about one year. But but yeah, yeah. So I stayed there for 10 years. Then I went to Harrison because I was married to the um principal secretary, and when we kind of broke up, she was there longer than me. And I thought it was weird having a Ms. Watson downstairs and a Mr. Watson upstairs. So I did the gentlemanly thing and left. And I wound up in Harrison. Okay. Uh stayed there for eight years, um, and I did everything for that program. Now in Bayonne, there were three other music teachers, and I I only had a certain amount to do. When I got to Harrison, I was the only music teacher. Okay. So the 10 years of working in Bayonne and watching these other teachers, I learned so much. So now I was able to teach chorus, all instrumental groups, uh, general, general history, I mean general music history. But at Bayonne, there was a um a choral director, Lydia Magali, who I would call when I was in Harrison. Yo, yo, what? Uh start with this song, do this. And one, you know, sometimes you think you have a handicap, but that handicap can can turn out to be something that's worthwhile. And my handicap was, which is something that you do that I wish I could do, was play piano.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You know, you got piano chops. I didn't have piano chops, and now I got a choir. So how am I gonna sit behind a piano? So Lydia mentioned, she said, Dave, do a cappella tunes.

SPEAKER_01

You could do that too.

SPEAKER_03

Don't, don't, you know, don't worry about playing, do a cappella tunes. And what it did for me was it helped me teach these kids intonation. They had to hold their notes because the piano wasn't helping them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And and they became better singers.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Because they had to use their ears.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so my handicap uh became something kind of positive. And the other thing I did was uh because I was living in Bayonne and driving to Harrison, you guys know that trip to work, you gotta have some sounds on, right? I would put on songs that I wanted to learn in other languages, oh well, like Portuguese, um, French, uh Spanish, uh and as I would go to school, desame mucho, como si fueras, you know, I started learning the words of these all of these different languages. And once my kids started singing in these different languages, there was no stopping them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, that's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, you what one thing I that stands out in those stories is like you said, being innovative in the like like you call it handicap, but like whatever it is that you have, using what you have to its best and using as much of it as you can. I mean, you know notes, you know singing, you know uh how to teach those things, but without the piano, you are forced to find something else, and that you know, some people could see that challenge and just kind of give up and say, Ah, I can't do this. What's what's another like challenge or trial? Because that would be one as a teacher, but what's the trial like as a as a working musician that you might have had to overcome?

SPEAKER_03

Well, uh, one was being able to play in tune and get a good sound because I would, as I was teaching, I would go to some of these jazz conventions, and you'd see cats burning, playing a thousand notes, beautiful lines, but it it sounded like you were stepping on a cat's tail. You know, they didn't have the sound.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03

And then I'd hear somebody like Kirk Whelum that would play four notes and make you want to throw your hat off, like, oh, oh, because of the sound quality. Yeah, and tone. So listening to guys like him, uh Grover Washington, um, oh man, I got a long list. You'll be here all day. Um, these were the guys that I I kind of keyed in on their sound. So I think that was one of my first obstacles. And my second obstacle was learning how to read music.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, oh wow.

SPEAKER_03

Because I grew up right next to Cool in the Gang. They were in Jersey City, I was in Bayonne. And Amir Bayan, the one of the younger ones, was a guitar player. Uh, he did a lot of writing, and and I went to see him play, and he's playing these lush chords, but I'm looking at his fingers and he's only playing three notes. Wow. I'm like, dude, how can you get so much sound? He said, Man, you need the colored notes. I don't need all of the the notes that the piano plays. I don't need the root color, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need the fifth. Yeah, I need that third and that seven and that nine, yeah, yeah, you know, to give it the color.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And a light bulb went on him. That was another moment. Yeah. It was like, oh, but he couldn't read any music.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

He was a great player, but he couldn't read. So I noticed the type of gigs that he did, and I noticed the type of gigs that he couldn't do because he couldn't read. Um, but there are a lot of guys, and I'm gonna say this, there's a lot of y'all out there that can't read, but you are a playing fool. Yeah, you know, so much respect for that. But excuse me, from a horn player standpoint, if you learn how to read, it opens up so many more gifts for you and types of work. Yeah, I never would have been an in-house horn guy for Ray Chu from the Apollo. Right. He never would have hired chops if we couldn't read. Right. Um, the wedding bands, yeah. The wedding bands had books. Yeah, you know, you gotta be able to read that stuff and write on the spot.

SPEAKER_01

Like just showing up to the gig and reading it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. Yeah, and that's a whole nother story. Getting into learning how to sight read, where you know, if there's a little fly mess on there, you can read that. Oh, that's oh, wait a minute. That was a stain. Yeah, that was a stain. I wasn't supposed to play that note. Um, so that's a whole nother thing. So I think those were two main obstacles, yeah. And God blessed me with companions. Some dudes are out there on their own. Yeah, you know, and it's difficult. I had Daryl Dixon, Melvin L, and Marvin Daniels, three members of Chops Horns, and these cats, I had a buffer, I had people to lean on. Um, and that helped me get to where I am today.

SPEAKER_01

For sure, for sure. I mean, that's that's also something that we talk about, uh um collaboration. Like that's just almost a lost art in the day of bedroom producers, and the day of all those things. But you're always gonna need some some collaboration just for networking purposes, of course. For for uh testing, seeing what's what's good, what what's not good, and really just knowing where you are, sharpening your iron, you know, as the Bible says. Yeah, yeah. Um, that's great. Um, what what was your favorite moment, your highlight of your career, like as of as of what you've done today?

SPEAKER_03

Ooh, that's a tough one because I've I've been involved in a lot of different things. But one of my early highlights was I mentioned when I was working with Bayonne, my jazz band used to go to sp specific um competitions. And this one was at Carteret High School every year, and the best bands from the state came there. And the smallest band was 18 pieces. Wow. Five saxes, four trombones, four trumpets, full rhythm section. And I came in there my first year with um four saxophones, one trombone, three trumpets, and a rhythm section. Wow. Out of 13 bands, we came in 13th. Okay. And so I'm saying, okay, like you said about finding strength in what I call my weakness, right? You call innovation. Yeah, yeah. So what I did was I started finding songs that I liked, and I would open up their score, and I would rewrite it for a smaller group. Like a lot of times in the trombone section, the first and second trombones are playing stuff, and the the third and fourth trombone are usually doubling the fourth trumpet or one of the saxophones. Right. So I would throw out all of the doubling parts and have all of the major parts in there.

SPEAKER_01

So you get all of those harmonies. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Then I would pick music like from a clarinetist, Eddie Daniels, um, and I would transcribe his solo.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03

And I had this girl, uh Margaret, that was a great clarinetist. So I remember giving her a solo that took her two years to learn. Wow. You know, but she worked on it, and and I did stuff like that. And I would do Tower Power.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

You know, kind of little bigger kind of funk, funky kind of stuff. And these all all these other bands were swinging.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

They weren't funking yet.

SPEAKER_01

They are now, yeah, but they weren't back then.

SPEAKER_03

Um, so that was we we kept doing that, and we went from 13th to 9th to 6th to first place. Wow. We won that competition. Amazing. And and it was a highlight in my teaching career. Um now for my musical playing career, dude, there's a long list, but I have to say, when I was touring with Alicia Keys, uh Ray Chu was um orchestrating some of her music. Okay, and we were gonna be at the Hollywood Bowl. Nice. And he orchestrated her entire show because it was uh it was a swingy, swingy kind of show. We had the white suits, and she came out like Billie Holiday. Okay, and um great tour. Um, and I also got to MC that I would come out in the beginning of the tour, and that's where I got the name Sugarfoot because I would dance my way off. But really. Ray Chu orchestrated her show for a 52-piece orchestra. Wow. Right? And in her show, she had a costume change, and I got to play a solo saxophone thing, uh, uh Sonny or one of those tunes. And I'd hit the melody and I'd hear them strings behind me. Ray wrote the hell out of that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And because, you know, he had been to a lot of shows, he knew what I was gonna play. And I'm one of those guys. When I'm doing a show, I usually play the same kind of stuff to keep it consistent.

SPEAKER_01

Keep it consistent because it's a tour, so it's not like one show.

SPEAKER_03

Right. And a lot of people don't realize when when you spend all that money on a ticket for a show, you don't want to say, oh man, he sounded better last night. Right. You know what I mean? Right. You you want that consistency, and and I developed that through touring, by the way. Yeah, um, so that was one of my big moments because I remember feeling when I came off stage, and I know this this might sound dark, but when I came off stage, if somebody would have put a gun through my head, I would have said, I'm good, man. I've lived my life to be in a solo situation with the spotlight, with a 53-piece orchestra behind you, on tour with Alicia Keys. That's amazing. That was definitely one of my highlights. And uh let me see if I can give you one more. Um recording for the Rolling Stones and sitting down in the control room with Mick Jagger, and he saying he wanted a tenor solo on this thing, and you're standing there, and he's standing where you are looking at your bell, and you're trying to give him what he wants. That was uh that was another highlight, and most of my big highlights come from working with Chops Horns and being an in-house horn section for Ray Chu for almost 12 years at the Apollo. Yeah, we did a show for Stevie Wonder. I mean, and 90% of the black RB artists came through the Apollo, yeah. So we got to play behind them. And Stevie, they they did a show for Stevie, um, and Chick Career was on the show. Oh, wow, you know, and uh Tony Bennett was on the show, and I I remember Chick going off on one of these songs, and Stevie grabbed his harmonica, and the two of them went in, and he looked around uh, you know, at the rest of the band, like what y'all gonna play? We were scurred. You hear me? These brothers were hitting so hard that we didn't want to jump in, but obviously the rhythm section did, and those were moments to remember.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. That's great, man. What what was a time in your career where you had to pivot? Like things like you you you mentioned it before, like when you how you got into teaching. Was that like the the main place where you figure like you had to just change course, or is there another thing that happened like that?

SPEAKER_03

Well, touring with Alicia, um MTV brought us all to China.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

14 hours on the plane. So touring ain't all what it's made up to be. It's hard work. So we get there, and you know, we have our tour books, we're getting ready to do an Asian tour. And and her financial manager, Dave, um, sits me in a keyboard player down and says, uh, by the way, you know, MTV paid to get you guys here for these two shows. After that, we're sending you guys home. Wow. It's like, what? I got my tour book, man. Well, the buses are smaller, yada yada yada. He gave us a bunch of lip service. The truth to the matter is, he had to make his job seem worthwhile because he's saving, he wanted to save her money. Right. And from his standpoint, which I can understand, you know, you got two extra musicians you're paying, yeah, and you already have a musical director, Andre, that plays killer piano, you play piano, right, and you don't have any horns on your record. So why do you need this guy dancing around playing saxophones? Um, so they sent us home. Wow. So I'm on the plane, uh, going home, had left my teaching job, you know. So it's been, I was on tour with them for over a year, so my teaching job was definitely gone. Yeah, yeah, you know. And I'm on the plane coming home, and um, I gotta think about the relationship that I have with God. My man, when I pray hard enough, and this, and I know a lot of people will agree, you know, when you pray, it's like your subconscious sometimes talks back to you. And for me, that's my man upstairs. So before I left to go on tour, my father was deathly ill. I only had one sister at home to look after him, which she did a marvelous job. And I prayed. I said, Man, should I leave my father to go on tour with Alicia? You know, come on, come on, I need some help. And uh God said, Go, and I got your back.

SPEAKER_01

Oh.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Ask my dad, Dad. He said, Well, you know, she's young, but I've been looking, she's on television a lot. I think you should go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you should go. Him being a musician. All right. So I go on tour. Uh, and now, year later, I'm on the plane, yeah, 14 hours back, and I get a quiet moment. And I'm all upset, man. Well, what kind of work? What am I gonna do? Uh rah-rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. And God said, wait a minute. He said, When you went on tour, did I say Alicia Keys had your back? Or I had your back. Wow. I said, God, you're right. You said so. I didn't want it eat. I said, Well, I guess I'm gonna be alright. Yeah, but I but I didn't know the future, and that's something very difficult for musicians not knowing what the next thing is. Yeah. I get home, um, I wind up going to church, and this is a quick story. Um, they had a special speaker there, and they showed a video of a pastor. And and the speaker said, you know, the pastor's got the same suit on that he had in this video. He said, The first 10 people that come up here and put$100 in my hand, your Baptist, y'all know about this, put a put a hundred dollars in my hand, I'm gonna give you a special blessing. So I looked in my wallet, I had$130, but one of them was a hundred dollar bill. So I said, you know what? Hey, I'm gonna step out on faith.

SPEAKER_01

Let me bless this.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, let me bless because the minister, I love them. Right. So give them the$100 bill, two days later, I got a phone call from a band leader in Jersey, um, Jeff Dieterleaves, trombone player. Um, and he says, Dave, I heard you're off the road. My sax guy's messing up. I got 10 jobs. You think you could take these 10 jobs? Then I'm thinking, I said, what do they always say? If you give something up, God's gonna give it back to you tenfold. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So it was uh it was uh it was a moment. So that's what happened. Came off the road. Once people knew I was home, I started uh built filling up my calendar.

SPEAKER_01

Now that's amazing. That's how it happens too. Yeah, which people know they they they they know who they know who you are and they know what you do.

SPEAKER_03

So at the end of the day, yeah, but that's one thing I want to uh caution you tour guys that want to tour, realize once you start touring, you are out of the pocket from all of the work that you have at home, and and this is a true statement. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, that's true, you know, and then when you come back off tour three months later, folks, it's like uh Dave Who?

SPEAKER_01

Right, right, like they forgot about you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Now what's what's I love that what's what's been your go-to routine to like warming up your chops or getting yourself to where you need to be for tour or when you were teaching, teaching young people, like what's the routine you teach them, or like I said, you still do to this day.

SPEAKER_03

Well, one, two main things, and they're gonna sound corny, I'm telling you now. One is if you drink or do drugs, you gotta get away from that because it's not gonna help you in the long run, and it might feel good at the time, but it's not gonna help you. And number two is taking your ass to bed. Folks want to stay out finger popping on that. Oh, oh, oh, I'm on a tour. Oh, we got parties every night. I'm going every night. Oh, oh, because I did that with the police, 24 years old, and I'm out on tour. Man, I partied every night till about three months went by, and I'm combing my hair, looking in the mirror, seeing little blue lines starting to go on my face. I was like, okay, so I'm telling you from experience, obviously, I'm not gonna go into all of that, but I will tell you stay away from the drugs and get your rest. Those are the main two things. And the horn players, it's about long tones, and everybody tells you that you go to any YouTube thing, they all say play long tones, but what they don't tell you is playing long tones, what kind of songs have long tones in it?

SPEAKER_01

Classical, classical, and what else? Um, jazz, not a style of music. Okay, what what particular yeah, yeah. See, I'm putting him on the spot now. You want to ask me a question? What what songs have long tones?

SPEAKER_03

I would say vocal songs, singers, vocal songs, but the main answer I was looking for, which you didn't give me by the way.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I I failed the test is ballads. Oh, right, right, right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So that was my thing. And another quick story. Um, Rachel's wife, Vivian, is is an advocate of music education, and she has a thing called, I think it's called Power to Inspire. Okay. And what that organization does is I don't know where they get their funding from, but they get funding to sponsor 10 to 20 um musicians between the ages of 18 and 23. Oh, wow. Right? You fill out the application, do whatever. Once you are accepted into the program, what she does, because she's been in the business forever, and with her contacts and Ray's contacts, they call the folks that they know that are that are doing it. Yeah. And say, yo, I need to set up uh uh uh interview with you. Um what do you call it? FaceTime, or what's the other thing that they don't call it FaceTime. FaceTime, yeah. Yeah, okay. FaceTime with you, and what they do is they set that time up. You have a subject that you're talking about, then all of the people signed up for that class, they sit and they watch it.

SPEAKER_01

Like a master class.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yeah, and not only do they watch it, those classes are recorded.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

So for the first three years, uh, she used me as a mentor, and I would get to talk to the kids. Something about my personality. So I had this one particular student that I happened to meet at a gig because Chops Horns, we put our own band together. We did some gigs in Long Island, and a guy, Everton Braille, had um uh a young group, he would teach the little guys, and there was this 13-year-old saxophone player there, and man, that dude was asking me a thousand and one questions. Well, how do you do this? And what do you do this? I said, then I said, This dude is gonna play.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

So a few years pass, he's 18 or 19 now, and he got into Vivian's uh power to inspire, right? So he and I hit it off. His name is Luke Walden, right? And after the thing was over, um, Vivian told us, she said, you know, if you want to continue with some of these students, you can.

SPEAKER_01

Right, we can't pay you, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03

But if you want to help these kids out, right? So Luke and I connected. Right, right, right. And I gave him some private lessons. And we were talking, this all comes back to the long tones. Yeah, now I can finish that part of the conversation. So um, I'm telling him long tones, long tones, and he's like, Man, that's like watching paint dry. You know, come on. I said, Okay, all right. I'm gonna give you a couple ballads. And the first ballad I gave him was Amazing Grace. Okay, and he learned it. Uh, and and and every time he would play it, I said, play it slower. Yeah, played it, no, slower than that. You know, kids, stay in the hurry. So now, after a few lessons, he tells me, I got into Berkeley in Boston. Yeah. So you don't need me anymore. You're going to Berkeley. They'll they'll have all the teachers. They're gonna take care of you. Yeah, you have all the teachers you need. So we kind of parted ways. Right. So when he's a senior at Berkeley, he hits me up and says, Yo, Doc, I'm I'm working on some original material.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

And can you give me some pointers on things I could do, things not to do? So we went through all of that. And um and he always would invite me to his shows. Two weeks ago, he had a show at the cutting room. Wow. And he invited me. He said, Oh, it's an original show, you know, you gotta come out. He played all original music. I didn't have any buttons on my shirt that night, but if I would, they would have popped off. So proud of this guy. Wow and his tone quality, everything was beautiful. His his ideas, he had a killer rhythm section, which we spoke about afterwards. I kind of threw them a couple pointers to increase what they do with him because they they, you know, he's the star. You gotta push him out there. Yeah. The dude starts the show off from the side of the stage, and the rhythm section's on stage, and he starts playing this ballad. Amazing Grace.

SPEAKER_01

Right. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03

Tear came down my eye. Come on, he was 19. Now he's, you know, 28, 29.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And he still remembered that. And I said, Man, you did amazing grace. He said, You know what else? You taught me about rotating reeds. I still do that. So back to what you said at the beginning of this interview. Um, you never know who you're gonna influence. Yeah, but it all comes, folks, from a love of what you do. Absolutely. That's the same way about having the same kind of love for God. When you have that, people feel they don't know what it is, yeah, but there's something that they feel from you. And if they ask you and you tell them, sometimes that helps them get on a good path.

SPEAKER_01

So no, that's right.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

One last question, man. Okay. What if you could go back and talk to your starting off music self from right now, what you know now, what's some advice you would give yourself?

SPEAKER_03

I would give myself advice that my father tried to give me, but I was too cool to listen. And that advice was transcribing solos. Don't go to YouTube and buy the book with all the transcribing solos, get out a pen and paper, and sit down and learn every note. Because what it does, which I know now, which when I was 18 or 19, my dad told me to do it. Listen to my excuse. Yo, Pops, I don't want to sound like anybody else. I want to be an original. Yeah, I want to have my own. And he laughed and said, okay, son, go ahead. Go get go get your own. But the whole thing is, and it's kind of like learning another language. You gotta know how sentences are put together. You you gotta know which words your voice goes up and when when they go down. Yeah, you can't learn that in music without copying the masters. Now, after you copy a solo and it becomes internal, and if you regurgitate some of that stuff on stage, um what's gonna happen is you're not gonna play it just like my man played it. Right. You know, Dexter Gordon was my guy. Well, he's my first guy. It was Dexter, um oh uh uh Lester Young. Um there was only a few of them that I did at first. Um You said Grover earlier, but yeah, yeah, Grover and Stanley Turnteen. Okay, gotcha. You know, and sax plays out there, don't sleep on Stanley Turrentine because he was the first smooth jazz sax player before there was smooth jazz. Wow. Now when Grover came along, he he really smoothed it out. Right, but Stanley Turnteen, he wasn't playing all of those bebop licks, he was he was kind of making it a la a little more palatable uh for the average person, right? So that so that's what I did copying those guys, and that would be what I would tell my old self.

SPEAKER_01

All right, that's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_03

So that's my answer. Transcriptions.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, that's good. That's that's big. Yeah, trust me. Yeah, that's a lot, man. So listen, man, I appreciate you. Where where can they hear chop horns? Like, first of all, we didn't go through really your resume, but just tell us like all of the different records they could hear chop horns or you on. I mean, if you can remember a few.

SPEAKER_03

I can remember a few, um, but your best thing to do is to go to our website, which is www.chopshorns, all one word, lowercase, s on both words.com. Okay. There you can see it all. We got started uh doing gospel with on Savoy Records, all of those artists. We did 26 records for them. We did all of that sugarhill gang stuff and Grandmaster Flash, but we da da da, all them horn lines and stuff like that. All that should be all that stuff that was used.

SPEAKER_01

Always still in the club, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But the big one that I still hear today that gets me is Apache Bim, bump, bump, bump, bum, bum.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And then Will Smith and them did it on the uh Fresh Place. Please, please. They played that over and over on there.

SPEAKER_03

And uh, who was it? Uh SMW SWV. Yeah, SWV. Yeah, SWV, copy some lines, you know. Oh, yeah, done da da da da. Yeah, that was on uh anything. There you go. Yeah, yeah. They had that on their record. So those are two things. Uh you can search the gospel, you can search the early um rap stuff. We also made our way to Philly International, nice, and we did the OJs. We were scheduled to do Teddy Pendergrass. Wow. We had the date, we had the recording date. Two weeks before the date, the brother got in his accident.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03

You know?

SPEAKER_01

So let me ask you this question. This is uh, I'm sure, not as popular a thing. Do you recommend young horns to put together groups? Because I'm sure there's not a lot of people that's like forming groups, but you guys did that early and you see the payoff from it. Like, would you advocate for somebody doing that?

SPEAKER_03

I think it's a good idea because um success comes in numbers. You know, there are some people that have. Have the type of personality where you know they don't want to do it with anybody else, they're their own superstar, and that's great if you have that kind of confidence. Yeah, um, but if you don't, find some folk that like to do what you do. Um, and there are there are a couple brass bands out there, yeah, that are doing quite well.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Listen, man, I appreciate you coming. Thank you for dropping all of these uh wisdom nuggets for us. But um, yo, definitely check out www.chopshorns, and I'm sure they'll see Mr. Doc Sugarfoot Watson somewhere. Uh yeah, because you're still performing now, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but lastly, guys, um I've been threatening to put some smooth jazz stuff out for about three years. Um, I'm I'm almost three or four songs in, and it's getting real close. I lost a close female vocalist friend of mine that I work with for almost 30 years, and it hit my heart in the way to say, man, you better put some music out. So yeah, so it's time. Yeah, it's time.

SPEAKER_01

Man, so we look forward to that, man. Yes, yes. You can catch him and you can catch me. This is the Musician Share Podcast. We'll see you for the next episode. See y'all later.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks for listening. To stay up to date between episodes, follow us on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, and make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel. If you liked what you heard today, or if there's something specific you want us to dive into next, leave us a comment. Catch you in the next episode.