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By JayQuan
 JayQuan: Where are you from , and how did you get into music?
Frankie Smith: I'm originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , and I've been playing keyboards since 1961. When I was in college I discovered that I could play by ear.
JQ: Who were your influences?
FS: Oh, Oscar Peterson & Herbie Hancock. Originally I wanted to play Jazz so most of my stuff is Jazz orientated with an R&B flavor.
JQ: So you didn’t have aspirations of becoming a vocalist?
FS: No , I just wanted to play Jazz piano. I was majoring in elementary education , with a minor in music , but my scholarship ran out and I had to drop out of school. I have been playing by ear now for more than 40 years.
JQ: Was Philly International your first professional gig?
FS: Yes, I walked into Philly International and met a performer , producer and writer named Bunny Sigler. He told me to keep coming back. I did and Kenny Gamble gave me my own room with a desk, tablet, tape recorder and piano to write original songs. He put my name up on the door and all the artists would come to my office to hear new music – whether it was Teddy Pendergrass , The Blue Notes , Dee Dee Sharpe or The Jacksons who were on the label at the time. Also Archie Bell & The Drells, McFadden & Whitehead and Billy Paul. So I was a member of the writing staff there from 1976 through 1979.
JQ: So before 1976 you were just trying to break into the industry?
 FS: Right. I was just at home playing keyboards and writing lyrics. But Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff taught me everything I know, along with McFadden and Whitehead. They sat me down and showed me. There is a formula to writing hit records and they showed me! They even sent me to engineering school.
JQ: What happened after 1979?
FS: Philly International shut down in ’79 , and I took what I learned there and created a song called the "Double Dutch Bus".
JQ: What was the inspiration for the "DDB", and is it true that Fat Larry (of Fat Larry’s Band) was involved in the early stages of the record?
FS: I was sitting in my living room one day watching the Lil Rascals , and there is a character named Froggy with a scratchy frog like voice. I was never a vocalist, and I didn’t want to be in competition with real singers so I said I could use a voice like that, or like Popeye. I saw girls outside jumping rope in 90 degree weather, and they were sayin’ “25 , 35 , 45 hey you missed!” I put that to a rhythm right there in my living room. I was just snapping my fingers , not even at the piano. I came up with a song I called "Double Dutch" NOT "Double Dutch Bus".
I put the frog voice to it and took it to WMOT records where Fat Larry happened to be an artist. I wanted some studio time, and I got booked on the same day that Fat Larry was recording 3 tracks for an upcoming album. I asked him to play a drum beat for about 5 or 6 minutes. I told him what was in my head , and how I wanted him to play. He played and I was beating on a cowbell with a drum stick. After that I built on the track with bass lines, keyboards and lyrics.
Around this time I had applied for a job with the Sceptor bus company. They told me I could start in 2 weeks , and that they would give me a call. 2 weeks came and went with no call ,and I wondered what happened. When I went to the studio to do my vocals for "Double Dutch", I started with a few choice words about the bus company. The lyrics that I wrote were not appropriate for a record , and the engineer advised me to take them out , because no radio station was gonna play it like that. So I played around with some stuff and came with gimme a ho if you got your funky bus fare. I started makin' up lyrics and it was a fluke that I just put the word bus at the end of my song that was titled "Double Dutch".
JQ: So the B side of the DDB single, called "Double Dutch" was actually the original song?
FS: Correct. If you listen to the pig latin that Missy Elliot sampled in her song “Gossip Folk” , she took it from "Double Dutch" , not Double Dutch Bus.
JQ: According to the RIAA how many copies did "DDB" originally sell?
 FS: They say it sold 500,000 45s and 600,000 12” singles so it was platinum. Back then a million was platinum. Today it's more than 6 million that ive sold. It was so much stealing going on its hard to say. That was a unique record, and they didn’t know how to characterize me. They didn’t know if if was a rapper or what. Then it had the pig latin – and they didn’t know if I was cursing or what. Snoop Dogg gave me my props that I was the one who originated the slang he uses with that foe shizzle.
JQ: But Pig Latin existed long before your record.
FS: Yes, but I called what I was doing Pig Latin Slang. Everything I do has the letters illz in the middle of it. See I say the beginning of a word, put illz in the middle then say the rest of the word. So hey is hillzey and girls is gillzirls. I have a patent on that actually. Speaking Pig Latin as it was traditionally done is difficult for the listener to figure out , and its hard to stay on beat rhythmically. So as the bible says in Ecclesiastics “there is nothing new under the sun”. I didn’t invent Pig Latin , but no one had captured it on a record before. I feel really blessed. I'm 69 years old and that one record isn’t just a hit anymore, it’s a classic. "DDB" is in 182 countries….. places that I’ve never been before.
JQ: Wow you look like you could be in your early 50s. I had no idea that you were almost 70 years old.
FS: Well I don’t do any drugs or drinking, just Pepsi Colas and Cheeseburgers!!
JQ: You were touring with Zapp and those groups as well as Grandmaster Flash and The Treacherous 3. Did you consider yourself a rapper?
FS: I didn’t know how to market myself, and neither did the label. They were too busy stealing. I had so many opportunities to do commercials and shows with the Mc Donald Girls and The Fantastic 4 (double dutch crews). I didn’t find out until later that companies were approaching the label with offers, but they were so busy stealing that they weren’t interested , and they never even mentioned to me that I had the offers.
JQ: After "DDB" blew up , did you ever run into Gamble & Huff?
 FS: Oh sure, all the time. They warned me against going to WMOT. Everything they said was correct. In fact it was even worse than what they warned me of. WMOT was depositing 5 million dollars every 30 days from laundry and drug money. Over a year they deposited over 60 million dollars. Because of me exposing the stuff that went on at that label , you can put $9,999.99 in the bank with no problem , but put that extra penny in , and the IRS is gonna want to know why you are depositing $10,000.00 in the bank, where did it come from?.
When I went to the IRS to file my income taxes, the label was stealing so much that they out smarted themselves. They gave me a check for $23,000, and the record was Platinum. They looked at the check and looked back at me and said didn’t your record go Gold? I said no Platinum, but I cant pay taxes on monies I didn’t get. So they promised to help me find my money so I could be a good citizen and pay my taxes. When they kept seeing these 5 Million dollar deposits to overseas bank accounts and the name Larry Lavin kept popping up , my lil money became small potatoes!
Your next question is probably can’t you still get your money? Nope after 7 years there is a statute of limitations, and every one who I went after filed chapter 7 , 11 and 13. All they had to do is pay me!! When they didn’t pay me it put up a red flag to the IRS and Larry Lavin (WMOT CEO) is in jail for life!! Larry didn’t beat me. He was just laundering his money through that label. The bigger the record got the less he paid me. That’s stupid!! If you’re stealing all that money pay the artist!!
JQ: Where did the image come from with the big mustache, big cowboy hat and gun & holster.
FS: Watching the Lone Ranger. I love Westerns! I wouldn’t dare put the guns on these days. There wasn’t all the shooting , killing and glamorization of guns back then.
JQ: You had a song on your Children Of Tomorow lp called "The Auction". It had the western feel to it. Did you write that?
FS: My partner co-wrote that with me. His name is Bill Bloom. He was playin' around on the Honkey Tonk piano on that one. That was gonna be my next single , that’s why I did it on Soul Train. I had been on tour about 18 weeks straight opening for Rick James. I was given a $40,000 check. The label told me they had $80,000 and I was getting half.
 They didn’t know that I had a teller at the bank tell me that there was really $515,000. If I disclosed her name she could have lost her job, so I didn’t. Next check was $32,000 supposedly, and me & Bill Bloom split $16,000. There was still about $400,000 to the good somewhere. I came off of the road, which was a mistake because I could have probably stayed out there and gotten paid under the table. All Larry wanted to do when he got into the drug game was make $50,000, and he started by selling marijuana. He was making so much money that he kept raising his goal of what he wanted to make. He got greedy. But he didn’t beat me, he wasn’t running the label he had a limo company and 3 or 4 other things goin on. I have never even seen him before. WMOT sold the company to TEC records…
JQ: Yeah Lady B had a single on Tec called “To The Beat Y’all”.
FS: Yeah Lady B helped blow the "Double Dutch Bus" up! ( Lady B is a Philly radio personality and early female rapper).
JQ: So how did your label Frills come about?
FS: After I got taken I said I would just start my own label! All you gotta do is take $800 dollars and go to Delaware where there is no tax. I called it Frills for Frank’s records, just using the slang again like Frillsankie. But all I did was write a song about girls jumpin’ rope and people have gotten killed and are in jail!!
JQ: Are you getting paid when people sample your stuff?
 FS: Yes. Some people didn’t go through the proper procedures , so it costed them , but I do get paid for samples. Also Raven Simone actually re made the song , and I get paid for that. Her remake was for the College Road Trip soundtrack and as soon as the movie finishes overseas I can get paid. But I go way back with this music. I was playing jazz piano in Jersey at the Latin Casino in the lobby , before people would go into the main ballroom to see Gladys Knight and the Pips and those major acts. I went under the name Franklin Franklin , and this was back in 1970!
JQ: What was some of the stuff that you did at Philly International?
FS: My first song was called “Hard Not To Like You”. That was Archie Bell & The Drells. I wrote that along with McFadden & Whitehead. I did stuff wit the Futures, Dee Dee Sharpe and we cut something with Teddy Pendergrass that didn’t make the album. Only 8 songs were on an album back then. 4 were gonna automatically go to Gamble and Huff. The other 4 writers had to wait their turns for. So I worked with Lou Rawls , The O Jays , Billy Paul and all of those guys. But your song didn’t always make the album. Also I did something with Michael Pettison Jr.
JQ: With the "DDB" you were able to do Merv Griffin, American Bandstand, The American Music Awards, and Soul Train is that right?
 FS: Yes. I opened for Rick James when he had Street Songs out , and I was an opener for Frankie Beverly , Carl Carlton & Smokey Robinson. It was a good experience. I remember Eveyln Champaign Kings mother worked at Philly International. She kept telling Gamble & Huff that her daughter could sing. They kept telling her “all things in time”. Someone took her right to RCA where she had her biggest song with "Shame". She never looked back.
JQ: Its been an honor. Thanks for your time. Frankie Smith departed this life 3/9/19 - May He Rest In Peace ©JayQuan Dot Com. May not be copied or reproduced without authors consent. |
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