![]() |
·Home ·History ·Listen ·Shop ·Links ·Contact ·Bernds´Space |
Bernds Story - Page: 11 of 14 At my housewarming party in 1979 in Cerritos, California, one of my Switch guys, Jody Sims, met a young lady he later married. She was from Hawthorne, California. She introduced Jody to a high school music group. Their group name was "Legacy". In 1981, Jody got me involved to educate them and their parents about the music business, because the parents were unfamiliar with the music business, and the kids were minors. We got them a deal. It was not so successful, but two of the members reached musical fame. Michael Norfleet a keyboardist for different acts. Today he is with Switch. Also Karyn White was part of the group, who later had No. 1 pop hits. She was around us a lot and met Terry Lewis (famous producing team Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam) thru Chico DeBarge. Terry Lewis and Karyn White got married to form a family. Karyn and me both share October 14 as birthdays. I can add to this on day she was born I had ball on my birthday at the Italian Rivera. In the eighties and nineties I went around to a lot of music conventions in the R&B business. I like to mention one of them in downtown Los Angeles at the Biltmore Hotel. It was Sydney Miller´s, Ed Wright´s longtime associate, Black Radio Exclusive Convention. It properly was around 1981 or 82. What a great night of performances with Lionel Richie and The Commodores, The Family Stone (on Source Records) with Sly joining the Band like a shining flair by taking the whole thing into Cloud Nine, and Stevie Wonder´s unforgettable performance with an incredible speech following. Early 1984, I got a call from Greg Williams. Greg then lived in New Jersey. He told me about Chico´s great talent and asked me to get involved with him. When I first came thru the DeBarge home in December of 1976, Chico was 10 years old. Now he was 17. Chico lived in the San Fernando Valley, California at the home of a young lady. He told me about the material he had, and that he needed to go to a studio to get his demo material together. I was able to get us some studio time at Crystal Recording Studio in Hollywood, California, the same studio that Stevie Wonder rented for one year during 1972 thru 1973 to create "Innervisions". I went straight to work to get Chico´s career going. An associate, Paul Kish, introduced me to Edward W. Wright, former President of Liberty and Philly International Records, co-founder of the American Black Music Association, and former manager of Bobby Womack and the O´Jays, etc. I invited Ed to the session. Everybody saw a whole lot of talent in Chico. Chico, Ed Wright and I decided to have Ed with his company, Global Management, officially represent the management, and get a limited partner for financing Chico $1,500 a month until he signs with a record label. Global Management and I were then the general partners and taking care of the daily management duties. |
Buy CD now with Amazon! ![]() Or buy with CD-Baby! ![]() ![]() NAGEL - Restaurant Hamburg |
||||
© 2001 - 2025 BURNDSMAN.COM |
||||||