Hands Down, the Best Find: Columbia Adventures, Hip‑Hop Roots & Meeting Bob James

• Recap Episode 1 and your new tradition of weekend treasure hunts.
• Introduce the theme: “Today we’re taking y’all with us on a Columbia adventure — antiques, vinyl, hip‑hop history, and the moment we met a jazz legend.”
• Mention your growing Bob James collection and how hip‑hop led you there.

We have pulled the songs for you and created a playlist of all the songs mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAtDhNqC3U7M

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody and welcome back to Moving Together as we drop the needle on our new chapter in life and we are coming on Gran Kids Era. And thank you for listening to episode Kack for more of our earliest and just enjoying music. My name is Sean David and we are here to talk about Instagram the best find Columbia's Adventure, Hip Hopes, and Meeting Bob James. So it kind of gives you a little bit of what we're talking about. So as we mentioned in our last episode, we like to take weekend road trips. And this particular weekend road trip led us to the Columbia Jazz Festival. We got there, it seemed like we got there a little bit too late. As once we were there, there was no parking spaces, right, Dave?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah, we drove around a couple times, and unfortunately, everywhere we went, there's cars everywhere. People were turning around and just getting lost and confused. So we, you know, we just couldn't get into that festival there.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah, and that's unfortunate. But I heard that everyone had a great time. And so we didn't want to waste our day trip on not being able to go to the festival. So we did a quick search map quest in our car, and we looked for some antique areas that antique places that were in the area, and we found a couple of them that we wanted to go to. Uh, we knew we wanted to do that before we got something to eat and got back onto the road. So the first place that we went to was Old Mill Antique Mall. Manass located a little bit towards downtown Charleston. And when you first pulled up on it, well, Dave, what were your thoughts when we first pulled up on it?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, I thought it was different because it was a mill. So the outside it was bricked up. So I thought that was pretty okay. And it looks like it had a few other different shops around it. So I was like, you know, maybe there could be some musical magic in here, but who knows? Let me go check it out.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, definitely thought it was much smaller than what it actually is. And this particular day was pretty warm, also. So when we went in, you could tell that it used to be a mill, still had the original hardwood floors. We even made a story up as we walked around the place. Like, I wonder if this was where the old people used to work at, and if upstairs was where the boss was. So it is a two-story building, and it was packed. And as we said before, these antique malls can be a little overwhelming because everywhere you turn, it's just stuff. So you have different corners and booths, and they had some pretty decent prices, some good china that was grouped together to go some good, some good pieces on that. I'm really into the bone china, trying to find those cute, unique pieces, as well as you guys don't know, but I used to also be a baker, so I have a uh fixation on different rolling pins, ancient, uh, ancient, antique rolling pens, not ancient. So, really right now looking for some French rolling pins, but I digress, I get back on to my story. But always, always looking over in the corners to see where any records are hidden at because that was that's been our main goal these uh last few months in looking for uh vintage albums. And Dave, did we find any?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

No, but before we well, actually, we did find some albums, but before we go there, yeah, you're not giving enough credit to the heat in Columbia, South Carolina. So one thing about this place, it is the old mill, like Sean was saying, but there is no air conditioning. There is no air conditioning, and it's summertime in Colombia. And if you've been to Colombia in the summertime, you know 90 degrees in Colombia is not the same as 9 degrees in the Charlotte metro area. So needless to say, I was sweating buckets, but that's okay. It is, like you said from the outside, it is bigger once you walk in it. There is a lot of things to see within the actual antique mall. I did notice something, and I pointed it out to you if you remember. There was a clown section where a person had about 300 clowns, and the clowns were not for sale. Yeah, you can look at them, and I was like, oh, I didn't know. Yeah, they had a big sign. I guess, you know, whatever you're into, it kind of reminded me of Howard's mom from the Big Bang Theory. Yeah. This is what Howard's mom's bathroom made. Probably look like. But yeah, but anyway, yeah, we we did find records there, but the records weren't, they were kind of the prices for me that were the end of the rainbow. I like to call it the end of the rainbow price, the price for the person who they just gotta have that album and they gotta pay that price up. I'm not that person most of the time, so there weren't any records there for me, but you know, they had some Donna Summers. I remember Donna Summers being out there. I think they had, I wanted to say they had Lisa Lisa Colt Jam. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And they also had a lot of sports memorabilia out there in the upper floor. And and you're right, it definitely we had some stories we were telling, like, oh, I bet you the manager could see over the entire meal from the second floor and and watch the people who are working and maybe they're calling out, like on Willy Wonka, where they had the workers looking for the the candy and looking for the golden ticket. I imagine that was happening in that building. Henryetta or something. Maybe I can I can't remember. Uh that's what it gave me the mindset of. And so anyway, uh you know, what what were you thinking when you when you kind of went through and saw the records there?

SPEAKER_00 6:59

You know, it the the heat was such an interesting tale. I tell you what, I about forgot about it. I didn't know if I was having a hot flash with my menopause or it was just a whole bunch of heat. But the fans definitely were not helping at all. I mean, it had that old smell. Ah, well, I won't even go there. But anyway, what they did have was a lot of uh memorabilia, they had a lot of local stuff, local stuff that had to do with Columbia. I mean, you're right, the records were definitely into the rainbow prices for that, and they had some interesting tchotchkies. Question mark. I did end up getting a porcelain angel, and I think that's it. I always try to buy at least one thing out of each one of the antique malls that we go into. It's similar to what we say w about the uh grocery stores in these uh food deserts. If you don't Patreon, they eventually close. So, you know, that's just my little tribute or contribution to the stores. So I do try to buy at least something out of there, a small trinket or something like that. So if I'm rating this mall for me, I don't have to make a trip back down there for that particular antique mall. It just just wasn't my cup of tea, but it might be yours. Like I said, they had a lot of China, wasn't bone china, but they had a lot of China, they had a lot of sports stuff, they had a lot of local stuff for Columbia, South Carolina. So if you're interested in any of that, it was two stories. I would just recommend going back there maybe in September or October when it's a little bit cooler. From there, we weren't quite finished. We wanted to give Columbia another chance at that, so we ended up going to the second antique mall, which was called Refine.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, Refine. So we put it back into the machine, and the machine said Refine had a pretty good rating. So we drove down, and Columbia is a really nice city to drive to. I didn't know it was that nice to drive to. Some of the areas is really nice, and we arrived at Refine, and it kind of looked like it was an old car garage or something along those lines because it has a lot of glass, but it seemed like there's a place where the cars would be repaired, so it was pretty cool looking, and I was excited about what could possibly be on the inside of it, and I definitely felt like it may be dripping this time for sure with musical magic.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Well, I'm glad that you got that because I didn't, because the first thoughts for me was mmm, this is probably just gonna be something really small. Like you said, it looked like a garage, an old garage, maybe like uh a speedies or auto zone or something like that. So I didn't think it was that big, but lo and behold, it was huge, and the thing went on for days. But one of the things that it had that I definitely appreciated, it had air conditioned, guys. It was air conditioned, and guess what? At the front part of the store, they had a whole machine that you could buy, water and soda and stuff like that. Like they were just prepared for the heat, and I can appreciate that. And on the inside of it, it was beautifully organized. I mean, it it had a lot of booths and everything, but it was more modern furniture, more put together, clearly marked with the different booths. It different booths had the tickets and everything that you could see, and again, it just went on and on for days. It had artwork and 1960 furniture, and it had some 1930s furniture, and I can say the 30s because they had the pictures and they had the little signs that even said it was 1930s. I ain't gonna lie, a lot of those boots were definitely into the rainbow prices. Again, not necessarily in my pocket range, but it was very pretty to look at, very pretty to see, and I can appreciate the organization that was in that in that mall. And as we kept walking, we got all the way to the back, and we turned our head to the left, and what we find.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

We found a treasure chest full of records. Oh, yes. Well, it wasn't actually a treasure chest, but uh it was actually uh containers and crates, but uh to me it was a treasure chest of records.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Oh man, oh man, I I forgot the name of that booth, I don't have the the booth name, but it's literally at the back of the store to the left, if you cut up that way, and everything was organized, everything was categorized, so it had a section for country, it had a section for rock, it had a section for jazz, it had a section for movie soundtracks, and everything was categorized and clearly marked with price. You y'all have no idea how much that is uh appreciated when you're going to these malls, and guess what? The records that he had so many records that were three, four, and five dollars. Um I think that we ended up getting probably about ten records from there. But what we found, what we found, and what y'all gonna find out later on in life, or later, later on in these episodes, some of our favorite jazz players, and one of our favorite jazz players he had the record for that we've been looking for for a while, which was Bob James Hands Down uh record. I love it because it's been sampled a lot in RB and sampled a lot in hip-hop, you know. So definitely wanted to add that record to our collection, and we were willing to do what we said before in episode one pay up on those records, but this one did not have a price on it, you guys. It didn't have a price on it, but we were hopeful that they might have had the price once we got up to the register, and so we walked around, we found some more records, but not as much as we found in that in that particular shopping area right there.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, I mean there they they definitely have a lot of records in this location. Picked up some a Grover, Washington, and that you know was really good pricing on that. And I actually when I one of the things I picked up there was not a record. I thought it was a record, but it turned out to be a Mariah Carey laser disc. And I have no way of playing that. Uh, so it was a missed opportunity. I was thought I had a Mariah Carey record right in my hands, and I got home and I looked at it, and it was actually a laser disc. That was that was uh that was not expected.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

That's alright. It's alright. The record had you feeling emotions.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Uh oh yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

I would do my Mariah Carey impression, but I'll spare you guys the ears. Um, but one of the I like to take some time to drop some nerdiness on for you guys. One of the reasons that we are into Bob James, as we stated before when we first started dating, little mission in life was to find the the records, the sources to all of these samples that our RB and hip hop artists were using before. And Bob James kept coming up, Bob James kept coming up now. I'm familiar with Bob James from Angela, the theme song from Taxi, but I had no clue how much he had his DNA in this music thing. Dave, you want to read some stats for them?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah, so Bob James definitely has a lot of, like you said, a lot of samples that have been utilized in in hip hop over the years, and one of the ones that has been most sampled is Nautilus. So we got Ghostface Killer who sampled that, Slick Rick, Eric B, and Rock Kim, LL Cool J, Run DMC, and over 200 others. Uh it's really amazing how many folks have sampled Nautilus. And when you hear that, when you hear it, you're gonna know it right off the bat. Also, Take Me to Mardi Gras has been sampled so many times. Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Missy Elliott. And also Westchester Lady has been sampled by De La Soul and Mary J Blige. Just a few of the songs that you know from this album that has been sampled, so it's definitely awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

So finding that uh just made me happy, and plus it was a couple of weeks at the time before Father's Day, and I wanted to start my gift, was to get Dave a couple of those really hard-to-find albums, so I thought that that definitely fell into my lap. But alas, it was not for us. When we got up there, the lady did not have a price listing for the records, and sometimes that happens, but she ended up calling the guy that owns the booth, left a message for him, and I left my contact information uh for them to get contact with me back, but they never did. So I had to start searching for something else. So you guys, as you get into this antiquing thing, you'll find different ways to do antiquing yard sales, of course, estate sales, of course, these antique malls that you have, and you know, you have some online stuff, so you can go to SD, you can go to eBay, so those were the two places that I looked. eBay kind of struck out it was a couple of people that had it, but they wanted it for $45-50. You know, I don't mind paying up, but I was definitely not paying that price. But if you didn't know, SD has people that sell old records as well, so I ended up getting it uh from there, and also on Amazon, they have a used or clearance section, and though they do sell used records like some vendors will get on and sell on Amazon as well, with used records for that. So I ended up getting hands down from SD, and then I said, Well, if I'm doing this and if that's my thing, I need to go ahead and get the other Covenant Bob James album, which I love, which is two, and on two, you have Take Me to Mardi Gras on there and some other cuts that are on there, so I ended up doing a almost two-week search for these two albums that I had to have to have. I wanted to make sure that the hubby had that for Father's Day, and I was very successful in getting those. And the one that I found uh for two, I found on Amazon, and it ended up being the vendor sold that to me, and it was a gold stamped album, and it was a limited reissued edition, and I got number 301 out of 1500. So that made it a little extra, extra special when he opened that for Father's Day for that. But you know, if you're determined and you're focused and you know what you miss and what you have, it makes the hunt more more fun and more satisfying once you get it.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, I mean, that it was a great Father's Day gift. I definitely enjoyed listening to them on the turntable, you know, through the Ankyo systems, and just everything sounded wonderful. So I truly uh thank you for for those gifts there. Bob James, you know, we have no shortage of Bob James records, but to get those Grail type records into our collection really made a big difference.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yep. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, eleven Bob James albums, and you think that we got all of them, and we don't. This this young man has a multitude of albums. Uh, and it it'd be my pleasure to fill out my Bob James collection for sure. But we we have the classics, like I said, now we have hands down, we have two, we have one, we have H, we have Touchdown, Two of a Kind, uh, Double Vision, Jazz Hands, Sign of the Times, and a a couple more. So I am excited and really, really like Bob James. And Bob James has an interesting history as well. You know, he was born in 1939 in Missouri, and he was a piano prodigy, and I know when you listen to him, he just plays it so effortlessly. And did you know that he was discovered by Quincy Jones at a jazz competition, and Quincy signed him immediately. And his career has been rooted in avant garde jazz before shifting over to that smooth. Jazz and fusion that we're used to hearing from him now.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, and Bob James is like we said, he's considered one of the godfathers of hip-hop sampling. So a lot of his tracks, as you start to listen to more of his records, you're gonna hear the building blocks that DJs and producers have been using for years. You know, especially like I said, with Nautilus, that's a song that you're gonna, when you hear that song Nautilus, you're gonna be able to be taken back to the roots of hip-hop, as well as Take Me to Mardi Gras. Those are just like two of the most sampled tracks in the history uh of time. And, you know, we talked a little bit about it last week, but he's worked with a lot of great artists as well. You know, he's worked with you already heard Quincy Jones, but also Grover Washington Jr., David Sanborn, Earl Clue, Kirk Whalem, Nathan East, Harvey Mason, Eric Gale, and Lee Rittenauer. So he he's just worked with all the who's who uh of Martin Jazz here.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So absolutely. And so as you can imagine, he his music career has spanned the test of time, and he's brought in a lot of people that now have uh gone off and are famous in their own right. You have Harvey Mason, who is the legendary drummer and founder of Foreplay. Foreplay. Love foreplay. Awesome. Foreplay, not because it's foreplay, baby, but foreplay because it was four people playing. Isn't that dope? And Bob James was also part of foreplay. You'll hear us talk about that later on. Nathan East, bass for Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, David Sanborn, one of the most influential saxophonists in modern jazz. And we know Day uh Grover Washington Jr. started with him and pioneering in the smooth jazz and Earl. So this this is pretty awesome. Pretty awesome, the DNA that he has left in not just jazz but music overall.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, I mean Earl Clue and Bob James have several albums. We have them on their record shelf behind us here. So at least we have three or four Bob James and Earl Clue albums that all sound really nice. So I I enjoy listening to those two every time they get together on a on a musical connection. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

So as you can imagine, Big Girl Time had to find something to eat at this point. These two shops is hot outside before I make my way back up to our homest our homeland. I needed to get something to eat. So sometimes, sometimes my stomach will allow me to try the local restaurants, but today I wasn't feeling it. So we went to our uh tried and true Chili's, which was about 10 minutes away from Refine.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah, I mean Chili's is great. Chili's is not sponsoring this spot, but you know, they got a great double burger out there and the freaking what do you call it, molten volcano cake. That thing's good. So it's it's usually a good time. And they have very, very upbeat RB and funk music down in Columbia for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah, definitely playing, definitely playing that up in Chili's. I definitely did not mind the background music, and we were quick to be seated. It was clean, uh, the bathrooms were clean, and more importantly, the customer service was fantastic. They never let us have an empty cup, came and checked on us, brought us our chips and sosa. So we definitely had a good time there. So 10 out of 10 recommend. It was a good vibe, it was a good time, and we had a lot of little tchotchkis that we could take home and and and and listen to. So I enjoyed that. So we're we're getting to the end towards this. To let you know, you know, we had a full circle moment with everything. Uh ended up going to Middle Sea probably a couple months before we went to Columbia, and we had the pleasure of seeing Bob James and hearing him play some of our favorite songs that we had uh from him. And again, like I said in the last episode, Middle Sea is a beautiful place to go to because it's an intimate area. You get opportunity to meet the artist after the concert and take pictures with them if they have merchandise and buy it and sell it. And this was no different. We bought his most recent album and he signed it, and all of the other musicians that were there with him, they also signed it, and he took a great picture with us, so we we definitely printed that out and put that up on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, one of the best songs I like from that concert was Feel Like Making Love, the song we talked about last week with Roberta Flack. He was on that track back then, and he really loved to play that song now. And if you haven't heard the way he plays it, you can check it out on YouTube. They do a live version recording, and it sounds really awesome on your speakers.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah. So we're gonna start ending this up with this. But what I like to reflect on is that you know, we love to antique, but the more beautiful thing was I got to spend time with this guy right here, and we always have fun, we always laugh and talk about silly things and just relax, you know. During the week, we work very hard, we have very demanding jobs, people uh need a lot of our attention throughout the day, Monday through Friday. So it's just nice to have somebody to kind of relax the weekend with and not talk about anything work, but talk about personal goals and careers, and I love those long road trips, sweetie, so that we sit and talk and listen to our playlist on on the radio and just get to know each other a little bit better. So definitely always have fun with that.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yeah, it's always great to unplug with you and just listen to some good music, traveling time, and enjoying each other.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Absolutely, absolutely. So we're gonna uh end it all here, but do want to let you know, uh, next week we're gonna be talking about not necessarily antiquing, but going to a different place that we can find antiquing, and we're gonna be doing some comparisons of uh with that. So hopefully you uh didn't get bored with us on this episode, did run a little long, apologize, uh, do better with the time of next week, and uh yeah, hope to see you next time. So, hopefully, next time when we have our next episode, you'll grab a coffee and see if you next week.