0:00

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take

0:02

apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell

0:04

the story of how they were made. I'm

0:07

Rishi K. Shiraway. Song

0:11

Exploder is brought to you by Progressive, where

0:13

drivers who save by switching save nearly $750

0:16

on average. Quote

0:19

now at progressive.com. Progressive

0:21

Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National

0:24

average 12 month savings of $744 by

0:26

new customer surveyed, who saved with Progressive

0:28

between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential

0:33

savings will vary. I

0:35

remember watching the movie Dazed and Confused when I

0:37

was a sophomore in high school, and the song

0:40

Lowrider by War came on. And

0:42

I had this strange moment of feeling like I

0:44

was hearing the song for the first time, but

0:47

I'd also already known it my whole life. It's

0:49

one of my favorite movie music memories.

0:52

And that song had been around my whole life. To

0:54

me, it feels like it's part of the architecture

0:56

of pop culture. The

0:59

band War formed in 1969 in Long Beach, California. Lowrider

1:06

is from their 1975 album Why

1:08

Can't We Be Friends. The

1:10

song was a hit as soon as it came out. It

1:13

went to number one on the Billboard R&B charts. And

1:15

it's just had tremendous lasting power ever

1:17

since. Besides being in Dazed and

1:20

Confused where I heard it, it's been sampled by

1:22

the Beastie Boys, it was covered by corn, and

1:24

it was the theme song for all six seasons

1:26

of the George Lopez show. For

1:33

this episode, I talked to War's band

1:35

leader Lonnie Jordan and their producer Jerry

1:37

Goldstein. The two of them

1:39

told me how Lowrider was made in

1:41

the studio through a combination of improvisation

1:43

and meticulous editing. Lowrider

1:49

drives a little

1:51

slower. Lowrider is

1:54

a real over. My

2:08

name is Lonnie Jordan. I

2:11

am the band leader, music coordinator,

2:14

and keyboard player of war. That's

2:17

me. Along with my partner,

2:19

I'm Jerry Goldstein. I'm

2:21

war's producer from the beginning. There

2:24

were seven people in the

2:26

band. Charles Miller, saxophone, and

2:28

vocal on lowrider, Papa

2:30

D. Allen on percussion, Harold Brown

2:32

on drums, B.B. Dickerson

2:34

bass, Howard Scott guitar,

2:37

Lee Oscar, harmonica. It

2:40

all started on the west coast

2:42

of California in a studio called

2:44

Crystal Studio. Crystal Studio on Vaughan

2:46

Street. We went into the studio and we

2:49

didn't have a song yet. We weren't

2:51

really writers. We didn't know nothing. Jerry

2:54

knew that. So

2:56

he just took us in and said, okay, let's see

2:58

what we can get. They'd never been

3:00

in the studio, so I try to make

3:02

him as comfortable as possible. We respected that

3:04

because of his past. The song's

3:10

like, hang on, sloopy,

3:12

sloopy, hang on. My

3:15

boyfriend's back and I'm going to get

3:17

a job. All that stuff. I

3:19

would stand probably over his shoulder

3:22

sometimes and watch how he was

3:24

writing things. And you would

3:26

just do it like it was nothing. I

3:28

did. The second I would come into my

3:30

head, listening to the tracks jamming. So

3:33

we did a 45 minute jam. It

3:41

was just part of the creative process.

3:43

We'd go in and we'd start recording, you

3:45

know, and most of the time we were

3:47

just jamming. It's

3:50

going along and all of a sudden, eight

3:52

minutes in or something, there's a nice groove.

4:01

Sucks. So

4:10

I make a note, because it was only a

4:12

small part of the jam that

4:14

I had checked off and said, this part's

4:16

interesting, we should work on this, you know.

4:18

Best editor in the world, Jerry Goldstein. And

4:20

that was all part of it. It's kind

4:23

of like betraying myself and the band and

4:25

the engineer, we were like a nine piece

4:27

band. And we all we ended

4:29

at the same time together, you know, feeling

4:31

it, creating it from scratch. That was our

4:33

baby. Okay,

4:50

check this out. Step by step. We

4:53

did this whole 45 minute jam. We

4:55

haven't developed any form yet. Now just

4:57

found eight minutes of it that I

5:00

like. That's it. And I

5:02

mixed the whole eight minutes and then edited

5:04

it to figure out what the record's

5:06

going to sound like and what's the order of everything.

5:09

And it was like a process. I mean, that's

5:11

epic. It was crazy at times. This

5:13

is the way we wrote. We

5:15

have tracks and ideas and

5:17

then we would just make records out of them. And a lot of

5:20

times they were written in the studio. Like

5:22

I had to create the beginning. There

5:25

was no beginning because it was part of a

5:27

jam. So I created the

5:29

beginning by putting the cowbell by itself. Papa

5:33

Dee did that beginning. That's

5:37

when we started creating the form of

5:39

the song. When

5:45

I used to play the timbales, I had my own style.

5:47

I did know people like Tito Fuente and

5:50

all these other percussionists was playing like my

5:53

own was and

5:57

Jerry liked it. I didn't like it. He

6:00

kept it because he knew it was different. Our

6:04

style was so eclectic and he had his

6:06

own way of playing them and they just

6:09

found the pocket every time and then

6:11

that was the trademark. Harold

6:22

Brown on the drums, he's singing along with

6:24

it in his

6:26

own way. Whatever is coming out of

6:28

his head, he's singing it down. But

6:33

it happened on all the things he did. But

6:37

even the leakage was in the groove. That's

6:42

BV. Great

6:45

line. BV

6:49

is like a very innovative bass player. And

6:51

I'm gonna tell you right now, a lot

6:53

of rock and roll bands back in the

6:55

day after we did that song, a lot

6:58

of rock and roll is simulated. The

7:00

bass line. We were ahead of

7:02

our time. Give me that bass. I

7:07

never re-recorded any of this stuff.

7:10

I always made the original jam work.

7:12

You know, it's more organic that way.

7:15

And that's why it's so raw

7:17

and that's why it's war. So

7:28

then we come back in and say,

7:30

okay, let's put some real lyrics on.

7:33

And it just so happened that Charles Miller,

7:35

our saxophone player at the time, walked in

7:38

the studio and he

7:40

had just parked his lowrider car

7:42

outside. He just bought it. And

7:45

we all went out to see it. 52 Chevy.

7:47

Ooh, it was nice. And I said, you

7:50

got that lowrider out there. Why

7:52

don't we write a song about you, about

7:54

lowriders? And he went out on the mic

7:56

and we wrote down everything that we wanted

7:58

to write about lowriders. and

8:00

the lowrider vibe and the

8:02

lowrider culture. All

8:05

my friends know the

8:07

lowrider. Charles

8:10

had his own real style of singing.

8:13

He was kind of brilliant in his own way and he was

8:15

a great sax player and he also had

8:17

a unique vocal sound. The

8:20

lowrider is a little

8:22

higher. The

8:27

lowrider culture, the beginning of it all

8:29

was happening in Los Angeles, East

8:32

LA. And we

8:34

came out with a culture

8:37

of people, Hispanics and

8:39

blacks, who shared the

8:41

same dreams of fixing

8:44

up a car and seeing who can

8:46

have the best car, who can drop

8:48

at the lowest. It was

8:50

a crazy scene at the time. The

8:53

lowrider drives a little

8:56

slower. The

9:00

lowrider is

9:02

a real goer. I

9:05

was in the studio playing the piano while they were

9:07

trying to work out the lyrics and

9:09

then I came back in to hear what they had and

9:11

then Lonnie said, why don't we try to take

9:13

a little trip. Take

9:16

a little trip, take a

9:18

little trip, take a little

9:20

trip and see. Take

9:22

a little trip, take a

9:24

little trip, take a little

9:27

trip with me. And

9:30

then acoustic on a song like

9:32

that, Howard

9:34

Scott. Howard Scott. That

9:38

piano sound is called an

9:40

RMI, RMI piano. Only

9:44

a few bands had those. They didn't really

9:46

like them. But I

9:48

like the attitude it had. Jerry

9:52

put it on tape and said, okay, let's

9:54

put it on there without thinking about it

9:56

because thinking for us was

9:58

a disease. Nobody thought we

10:01

just know things you did just do it.

10:03

Yeah All

10:05

of our music is sex And

10:09

our Monica That's

10:12

the horn section that's our horn section period

10:27

And that's me on the little xylophones People

10:34

don't even know the xylophones in there. No, they

10:36

don't but it's part of the sound You

10:39

know, it's like that's what we did We just did

10:41

what we felt and you know, there was a xylophone

10:43

there that day I didn't order it Previous

10:47

session I guess and actually

10:49

Stevie Wonder Worked in

10:51

the afternoons and we worked in the evenings.

10:54

So I guess Stevie had it or something, you know

11:00

The line is the hook all by itself If

11:08

you ask someone they said yeah, I know that

11:10

song you guys did that Yeah,

11:13

when I tell people who are younger, you

11:15

know You maybe don't

11:17

know lowrider and I sing the hook Everybody

11:20

knows that and then they think no Rider

11:42

I mean I spend days Editing

11:44

this thing to get it, right? Because

11:46

I had to finish the album and this is

11:48

the last song I was doing on the album

11:50

and It's six o'clock

11:53

in the morning and I'm at sound city

11:55

and I've got five edited versions that I

11:57

had done that day And

12:00

I took the shortest version because

12:03

you never get enough in

12:05

three minutes. Don't overdo

12:07

it. Just give them enough, just

12:10

what it needs. And that's it. I

12:12

had a friend on some local radio station

12:15

and before we actually released it, I

12:18

had this radio station play it. The

12:23

phones, the guy was saying, he's never had the phones

12:25

light up like it did. The

12:28

lowrider community and especially the

12:30

Hispanic community, I mean, they

12:32

made us. We had a

12:34

huge Mexican American following and

12:36

a huge Mexican following because we would

12:38

play towns like El Paso and get

12:41

more pesos in the box office than

12:43

dollars. Lowrider

12:49

has a life of its own. It's

12:51

been done so many different ways in

12:53

so many different times. I didn't even

12:55

know half of the rappers until they

12:57

started sampling our music. You know, the

12:59

Beastie Boys, a lot of rappers come

13:01

up on stage with us. What's the

13:03

name with the big clock flavor flavor

13:05

flavor flavor flavor. Flav came up on

13:07

stage. I said, wow. Yeah, it's kind

13:09

of crazy. Yeah. Before

13:13

I met these guys, I'd write the

13:15

song. I'd arrange the song. I'd

13:18

hire the musicians. I tell them what

13:20

to play. So I was

13:22

in total control of all the sessions and

13:25

then they came along and they were

13:27

different from anything I did. Wholely different.

13:29

The most interesting ensemble of people that

13:32

I have worked with. And

13:35

the one thing I always did is

13:37

allow everybody to do, you know,

13:40

whatever you are, you are, whatever you want to

13:42

play, you want to play. And it was completely

13:44

opposite of what I had done before. I

13:47

learned from them. We all learned from each other

13:49

too. And we had a good time. Coming

14:07

up, you'll hear how all of these ideas

14:09

and elements came together in the final song.

14:13

Thanks to Factor for sponsoring the podcast. Eating

14:16

better is easy with Factor's ready-to-eat meals.

14:19

They're chef-crafted, dietician-approved, and ready-to-go in just

14:21

two minutes. You get over 35 different

14:23

meal options to choose from every week,

14:25

based on whatever your dietary preferences are,

14:27

like Protein Plus, or Calorie Smart, or

14:29

Vegetarian, which is what I've been getting.

14:32

Get started today. Head to

14:35

factormeals.com/songexploder50 and use the code

14:37

songexploder50 to get 50% off.

14:41

Again, for 50% off, the code

14:43

is songexploder50 at

14:46

factormeals.com/songexploder50. And

14:50

now, here's Lowrider by War. In

14:52

its entirety. He.

17:47

He. all

17:53

of To

18:11

learn more, visit songexploder.net/war.

18:14

You'll find links to buy or stream Lowrider, and you

18:16

can watch the music video. War

18:18

will be on tour in the USA over the

18:21

summer of 2024, and you can get tickets for

18:23

that at war.com. This

18:26

episode was produced by Craig Ealy,

18:28

Theo Baucom, Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan,

18:31

and myself. The

18:33

episode artwork is by Carlos Larma, and I made

18:35

the show's theme music a logo. Song

18:38

Exploder is a proud member of

18:40

Radiotopia from PRX, a network of

18:43

independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

18:45

You can learn more about all our shows

18:48

at radiotopia.fm. You

18:50

can follow me on social media at Rishi

18:52

Herwe, and you can follow the show at

18:54

Song Exploder. You can

18:56

also get the Song Exploder

18:59

t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm

19:01

Rishi K. Shirtay.