\n
Plummer- Well to me the groupies are the ones that hung around. There were two types of groupies, there are the ones hanging around for a free ride, free meal. See, I would take my people (entourage) out and have breakfast after the gig was over and I would pay for it all. So I had an entourage of about 10 or so people. That’s why I told you I didn’t make any money, you had to rent the van and carry the equipment. Those were my expenses. The other type of groupie were the dancers and they use to follow me around because they felt they were having a good time and also a lot of times they could get in the clubs for free because they were with us.<\/p>\n
Troy- So there was never that 3rd type of groupie were chicks were pulling on you trying to get with you sexually in the bathroom or after the party?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No I didn’t experience any of that until the Trammps.<\/p>\n
Troy- I am surprised to hear that. O.K. I am going to throw out some names give me some feedback on them any way you like or as long as you like. First up Grand Master Flowers. Now what I have on Flowers is he darkened the labels on his records. Flowers also made you expand your music after you heard him play James Brown and Babe Ruth together.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Oh yeah I thought that was cool. Flowers was different kind of mixer. You go into the gay clubs and they use to play a lot of hustle type dance music. They also played with the music with the highs and lows and mix with the sound effects and stuff. But they would not pull out the Funk, or they would not go into rock. Flowers was sort of like a Jimmy Hendrix he would do everything and you were always learning from him. But the thing about him is he played these games, he would darken his records and stuff. A lot of times we knew what it was and if we didn’t we would make it our business to find out. But it wasn’t a cut throat type of thing. He and I had a pretty good relationship, we didn’t ever sour our relationship. People would talk junk but we knew it was just that, junk. But you know between myself, Flowers, Maboya and Pete D.j. Jones you heard our names on the radio more than anyone else.<\/p>\n
Troy- So did you know about his drug addiction and later death?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes I knew about that because a few years afterwards they had a reunion party in Brooklyn and Flowers wasn’t there and somebody told me then that he had this addiction to drugs. When I talked to Sedley a year ago he said he seen Flowers \u00a0some years earlier, went up to him and actually tried to help him out get straight. Sedley said it hurt him because Flowers didn’t want any help. When I found out Flowers died I wasn’t really surprised but I was hurt as well. See I heard about the folks he was hanging around with as well as the rumors of him hurting his self.<\/p>\n
Troy- So say all your contemporaries are standing in a room, you, Flowers, Pete D.J. Jones, The Smith Brothers and Maboya… was Flowers looked at by all of you guys as the King because of his skills and showmanship? And I don’t mean that in a negative or sarcastic way but did you guys look at him as though he was truly the most skilled artist at what you guys did!<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Ah…it depends on who you talk to, some people were really into the stuff Flowers played. Now let’s separate when they met Flowers, because Flowers also wasn’t the most personable guy on the planet. I got the chance to know him a little bit so the stuff he would do wouldn’t phase me or anything. So, we had a pretty good relationship but he could turn people off that didn’t know him pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
Troy- So he had an arrogance about him?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes there was, if you didn’t know about that arrogance and you listened to the music and you were into the funk, the west coast stuff, the rock stuff you really thought he was god-like fantastic. So a lot of people thought he was better than anyone else. If you were more into the Philadelphia sound, you were more into hustle and two-hand dancing. People were doing all kinds of creative stuff with the hustle both fast and slow. And when I say two-hand dancing it is hustle dancing, though similar to ballroom dancing and we were doing it with disco music. The tempo of music was up-tempo so they were coming up with all kinds of creative stuff and let me put it this way there was a lot of partner dancing.<\/p>\n
Troy- So did Soul Train have any effect on you at all?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I would have to say the Soul Train era had some effect on me, the music anyhow \u2013 it was going on during the same years. The Motown sound base I would say because that was basically Motown stuff it then evolved when Don Cornelius expanded a little bit.<\/p>\n
Troy- Alright tell me about that James Brown and Babe Ruth mix by Flowers.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yeah when Flowers played that I didn’t know who Babe Ruth and The Mexican jam was and so when I heard this high shrill voice and with this Spanish sort of sounding instruments in the back and I thought this was cool because it just blended so nicely and only Flowers would do something like that, at least at that time. Later on everybody else started doing stuff like that as well. So Flowers helped me because then I would play J Geils Band (Give It To Me), mix that into one of my records because it really had a great danceable break in it. I remember Loggins and Messina (Pathway to Glory) with an equally danceable break…I came from an R&B WBLS kind of back ground so I wasn’t really that hip to rock. Although I liked Jimi Hendrix I wouldn’t say I was a big Jimi Hendrix fan.<\/p>\n
Troy- I am not either but\u00a0 I do care for The Watch Tower and maybe Purple Haze after that I can’t really swing with too much else.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes, he was just such a good musician.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Troy- So what about Santana did you also incorporate that into your music?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Oh yes he had a lot of danceable music. See that Latin music you would not hear in the gay clubs but we played a lot of Latin as well as Salsa. See the Cheetah was the big thing around in NY at that time so all the Salsa stuff was at the Cheetah.<\/p>\n
Troy- O.k. next up Pete D.j. Jones.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- My man Pete.I don’t remember how I first met him most likely at a gig. But Pete and I have always had a good relationship. We hit it off right away and we never had any bad words towards each other.<\/p>\n
Troy- He definitely seems like a super nice guy.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes I remember he was a lot older then I am and he too had a day job.<\/p>\n
Troy- He was taller then you also?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes much taller. Pete is like 6’4 6’5 or something like that.<\/p>\n
Troy- I think more in the 6’6′ area and a ball player back then.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- O.k. and I am like 5’10. Pete had a city job working for the city of New York doing all this stuff.\u00a0 Like I said he was much older than I and he had been doing it longer. I remembered looking at Pete and saying he had not gotten into the mixing thing like Flowers or the gay clubs had and I was learning very quickly. So in a way I looked at Pete as not being a real good mixer but Pete played the right music for the crowd. The crowds that were listening to the radio, the top 40 kind of stuff, Pete had that crowd and he ruled that type of crowd. And I wouldn’t say he wasn’t skilled because it takes skill in learning how to play the right records at the right time but he didn’t have the finesse of the actual technique of mixing and he would tell you that wasn’t really what he was into. He was about having a good party.<\/p>\n
Troy- There were times during this interview you have said, “Us.” Did you have a back up d.j. or something like? I don’t think you played every night, all night, through your sets by yourself.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- In the early days during my time I did, it was just me. Then towards the end I would let my girl friend at times and others from the crew relieve me on the turn tables. I didn’t get married until 1977. What happened was that we accidently booked two gigs the same night and \u00a0were trying to figure out how the heck were we going to do that. I had enough equipment so that wasn’t a real issue. So my man Norman Thompson, Rob and my girlfriend went to one place known as the City Center which was a big tall building in the 50’s on the west side,it was in way up in this skyscraper in a club on the 40th floor. So my girl friend and my homeboy played there while I played at Jimmy’s that same night and I ran back and forth. So to answer your question I didn’t really have a back up. When we did that at the two clubs at the same time it had to be about late 1975 going into 1976. So she was really the only one and sometimes the crew because they heard me enough that they pretty much knew my mixes.<\/p>\n
Troy- So did your girl get pretty good before you left?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well what happened is it never took off and it is not because they were \u00a0bad mixers, people were saying they paid to see me so that was the disappointment. So in that case I could have been having a bad night but they still came to see me.<\/p>\n
Troy- Alright, is there anything you could say about Frankie Crocker?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well WWRL and WLIB-FM had basketball games and they would challenge each other to these games down at Riis Beach in the summer and the games would be on Sundays, and that was how the crowds started coming. And this was before Riis Beach really got unruly where the fights started and the nudist and the gay folks came, and other kinds of issues that broke out. So this was before all of that. So it was primarily an African American hangout, and people would come out and see the basketball games and oh by the way there was this great music.<\/p>\n
Troy- Basically your name was being mentioned for the Riis Beach thing was it mention for anything else?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Riis Beach was when it was first being mentioned after that I was on the radio all the time, because promoters were promoting their gigs. So they would buy time on those radio stations to do their promos. People got used to, “Plummer is going to be at such and such club. Harris and Lindsay spectacular this and that featuring D.j. Plummer.” So all that stuff was going on back then.<\/p>\n
Troy- So how was your relationship with the promoters were they getting more then you were, and you were the one bringing all the party people in?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well how it would happen is they would say can you play at such and such place, what’s your fee etc, etc, etc and we would then negotiate and that would be that, they are the ones that would make the deals with the club owners.<\/p>\n
Troy- So was there ever a time you considered being your own promoter?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Not really because remember what I said earlier my heart was into having a good time and once it became a job I started losing that edge and that interest.<\/p>\n
Troy- So what was the pay like at that time?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- $150 a night is what I remember.<\/p>\n
Troy- and that’s for you and you got all these other people working with you.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Exactly…sometimes $75. It ranged depending on where I was playing. Say a place like Jimmys or The Promote which I played a lot. A lot is relative just because I don’t remember. It wasn’t like every single week but sometimes it would be, at least two times a week and it was weekends, other than later on towards the end when I started playing out in New Jersey. Who ever heard of a D.j. coming to play at a place on a Monday night. So it was primarily Friday nights and Saturday nights<\/p>\n
Troy- Well the $75 to $150 dollars for 1975 was pretty good.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well it was more than what the most other folks were getting, I think. Now there were other folks that did make it a business and I understood they were making much more because towards the end I heard people were making $500 a night and stuff like that. But I had not gotten to a point where I was negotiating those type of fees because I had relationships with these groups of promoters and we covered a lot of New York City. I mean I was always trying to get more money but I wasn’t trying to negotiate for the maximum possible. I just wasn’t that business mature in a sense at that time.<\/p>\n
Troy- Did you ever have a problem with any of those promoters during that time as far as pay?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Oh sure, sure, we had our spats. Sometimes when they had a bad day they would try and welch out, because they had to cover their costs. If a lot of people didn’t show up and stuff they had to go into the hole, so of course they are going to try and see if they cannot pay you. Now I got to pay for this truck, I got to pay for all of these people and stuff what are you doing to me! There was one memorable event though that I had and I have talked to with him a couple of years ago (we are friends today), was with M. Morton Hall (Plummer chuckles). I think I was at Jimmy’s and something happened where there was a disagreement. I don’t remember what the disagreement was but I am playing and I am in the middle of my set and he comes up on the stage and wants to talk to me. He’s upset about something so he wants to talk to me and as he comes up on the stage he accidently hits against the table where my equipment is on and so the record skips. Now everyone knows Ron Plummer is a mild mannered person. No one ever has seen me get upset at anything, so I look at him and gave him this stare because you know I was in the middle of my thing and he kind of interrupted the whole thing. I gave him this look and I went back to playing my music and then he did it again. All I know is I went over and grabbed him and lifted him up. I didn’t throw him off stage. I must not have because I know later it would have caused a lot of commotion. But, for me I just remember it being totally out of character and all I remember is when I looked back on the floor everybody had stopped dancing and was looking up towards the stage and I really felt embarrassed. I must have recovered and went on and did my thing. But I didn’t want to speak to Morton for a long time after that becauseI was so pissed.<\/p>\n
Troy- So how did you guys get pass that?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Oh yeah, yeah yeah I played for him after that. I know what happened, I played for him and he didn’t pay me so I said I am not going to play for you again. (Plummer laughs.) But any way and my wife and I had lunch with him a few years ago about 3 or 4 years ago down in Brooklyn at Juniors Cheese Cake place.<\/p>\n
He got in contact with me through the Internet and he was telling me about how there\u2019s a lot of commotion in the industry and people were misrepresenting the truth. He was telling me that people from the Bronx were saying one thing, being denoted as the beginning of hip hop and this and that. Well he really felt hurt because he really felt it was unfair and I kind of had to agree with him from the way he looked at it because when we were coming through we didn’t share about any of this stuff and we were doing all before those particular times. What I said to him was since I wasn’t there I cannot speak to what was going on somewhere else but just like any kind of research project once you are in academia you learn how to do real research and \u201cif it isn’t written down it didn’t happen.\u201d And if it is written down some where you can authenticate and verify it, you can find out the truth, you can get to the bottom of things. See you can get the information and put pieces together and come up with the evidence and stuff. But the thing is real truth has evidence so I told him just go to the radio stations. They are supposed to have that stuff archived and there lay the truth because when you get to our age you forget from one age to the next. Who the heck knows who was out there first? First of all there were radio jocks that were doing it 10 to 15 years before us.<\/p>\n
That guy’s name is Jocko down in Philadelphia. (Douglas “Jocko” Henderson, “The Ace from Outer Space”, was a pioneering radio broadcaster whose career spanned five decades. Born in Baltimore in 1918, Jocko began his broadcasting career in 1952 on radio station WSID. The next year he moved to WHAT in Philadelphia, adopted his enduring nickname, and a few months later went to WDAS, developing a rhyming style of delivery that can be seen as a forerunner of many later rap artists. “This is your ace… from outer space… not the duplicator… not the imitator… not the impersonator… but the originator!” It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Philadelphia radio legend, Doug “JOCKO” Henderson, Sr. He passed away at the age of 82 on Saturday, July 15, 2000 at 5:40 pm after a prolonged illness. Broadcast Pioneers member Gerry Wilkinson (former WDAS Operations Manager) said, “Jocko had one of the most unique and pleasant voices in the industry. He was everything legends are made of. He had class and elegance.”)<\/p>\n
Then you have Pete D.J. Jones who was out there and is 10 years older than me and he was out there long before I was. There is a guy out in Brooklyn name Q J.<\/p>\n
Troy- Yes I heard about him.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well he used to be out there too and he use to have these four inch reels of tape. He had reel to reel tape recorders and he was mixing with those suckers. QJ had preprogrammed music and stuff but he would take off and put another one on and mix it right on in. <\/p>\n
Troy- Well first of all I am surprised M Morton Hall had anything to do with that, you surprised me with that. But the thing is there are different sounds and that is why people are saying it started in the Bronx and Harlem first. And preferably the Bronx where KoolHerc had did it. It’s just different sounds. Like I asked you what did you play dance, Disco or what would you categorize that and you basically said it was pretty much close to Disco…<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well the stuff I played in the beginning was more dance stuff, more Philadelphia stuff but very quickly I started looking at what other people were playing and I changed and added stuff so I added funk kind of stuff as well as rock kind of stuff. When I was talking about the spoken word Sedley, and mind you this is 1972, Sedley would talk over the music and have this cadence. That’s why I said if you listened to Hank Spann on the radio, now take that voice and take that cadence and now put it in the middle of two mixes. It was poetry of the spoken word that is out from someone who dances and who has good timing. Then you have these guys that are called the City Steppers who are doing this crazy dancing and twirling. So you put all this stuff together and that stuff was going on. Now the element that the folks in the Bronx had was a different element but all of that stuff contributed to the hip hop era.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Troy- You make a good point.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- The other thing you can’t leave out it is when Grand Master Flash started playing for WBLS that’s when it really expanded because that is when people heard it. Well I should say there are different corners where things are starting at the same time. So you would have the d.j.s like ourselves who are on the radio all the time and people would come and see, now most of these clubs we played at you had to be of legal drinking age or you couldn’t get in. So there were no high school kids in these clubs; there were no 13 year olds in these clubs.<\/p>\n
Troy- I\u00a0 got you a more mature crowd. Shoes and silk shirts with slacks.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well some people would dress up and other people wouldn’t, but they just didn’t want people coming in jeans and shorts and stuff like that. I kind of had a problem with it even though I grew up in a military household. I had a bit of a problem with authority and so I had a problem with that whole thing about the dress code and stuff because I felt that was fake at least at that time. See I thought it was more of a class thing, but it was just the promoters were trying to make sure that they didn’t pull in a crowd where fights and stuff were going to start. That was their way of minimizing that probability and therefore liability.<\/p>\n
Troy- But in the early 70’s wasn’t that just the standard of dress? A silk shirt, polyester pants and shoes. What was the other popular dress of that time for the night people that like to party!<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well people wore all kinds of stuff but if you go to the gay clubs they wore all kinds of stuff and it looked like Hollywood. There were some clubs like the Dow Twins clubs that wanted the more after work crowd, you know the shirt and tie folks. So at their clubs they specified that kind of attire of business or casual, but not every club was like that. But at the same time some who didn’t want that after work crowd, the motivating factor was they didn’t want trouble. So what happened is people would hear about us and there was probably stuff going on in the parks and all of that at the same time but the thing that I was most amazed about when I look back on that was stuff transpired so quickly considering those days and times, you think how a message gets across it usually takes a half a decade for societal changes to occur, this stuff happened within a year to a year and a half. It was just massive change within that period of time. So I can’t really say who was first and the only way you would know is o.k. you say you played XYZ at place ABC, prove it.<\/p>\n
Troy- Well I have a large collection of those tapes from back in the days, but of hip hop parties, so I can easily paint a picture of the brothers from back in the days. But I understand what you are saying, as far as those reel to reels and even the flyers from back in the days can tell you a story as well.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes and I need to buy a reel to reel because I have some old reels with stuff that I did. The thing is I can’t date them because I don’t have it written on the label when I actually did that.<\/p>\n
Troy- Well you can possibly still find out the dates because your m.c. is on there talking and most likely he is saying things that will give you a time frame, also the music that you are playing is going to give you a time frame as well.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes that would help, it would narrow it down to…well you are right. But still I can remember when we came out 1972, 73 the gay clubs had been out there they were firing it up. They were spending a heck of a lot more money so their systems were phenomenal and the systems we built were not, you know Magnavox systems. We had sound reinforcement systems so when we went to these parks we had really good quality systems it wasn’t somebody bringing their home system out there.<\/p>\n
Troy- No I hear you, you were very fortunate you were in the right spot at the right time.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes being at the right place at the right time, but I was with the right group of folks so that notoriety spread pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
Troy- Well you bring up a lot about the gay clubs how was that for you going up into those spots? I know you love the music but…<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well I remember the first club I went up into was Hollywood which was on 45th and maybe 5th avenue and I was scared and as I look back on it now I know what it was. I was scared somebody was going to make a pass at me or something like that. I was going to get upset and we were going to go to fist-a-cuffs or something like that.<\/p>\n
Troy- Or hurt somebody and you might go to jail and all that other stuff.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes so I didn’t know what to expect. I guess I must have conquered my fears and I went anyhow and nothing happened and I really liked the music. I just sat there and listened. I was in the back I didn’t talk to anyone. I just sat there and listened to the music.<\/p>\n
Troy- So that music was so good it just started telling you to go to these other gay clubs as well to hear this music!<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes because I thought it was cool it was a kind of thing where this was a world these folks had and they dressed extravagantly they were really having a lot of fun and the music that they were playing and the mixing you knew they didn’t just start that day, they had been playing for a little bit.<\/p>\n
Troy- So can you remember any other gay D.j.s that deserve recognition other than Larry Levan?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- There’s Tee from Better Days in midtown. David Mancuso,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Troy- So were there any other options other than the gay clubs to get a feel for good music?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I don’t remember but put it this way when I got time off I was at the record companies, I would be trying to work on my equipment or figure out how to get better equipment, I would go and visit some of the guys like Pete and Flowers and them. I would go to a couple of these gay clubs occasionally but I wasn’t the party animal so I wasn’t out like every week or something like that, so I was very limited in a way.<\/p>\n
Troy- Alright so what about say Studio 54?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I never went to Studio 54 as a D.j. I went to Studio 54 when I started working with the Trammps.<\/p>\n
Troy- So would it have been similar to a Larry Levan jam?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well it was like some of those other clubs but I really didn’t have the chance to get involved because I was working then. When I was with the Trammps I was the guy in charge of the sound when we were on the road and anything that went wrong with the sound and stuff I was the guy.<\/p>\n
Troy- O.k. before I get into that tell me about Larry Levan.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well I met Larry through Richard Long. David Mancuso and Larry were good friends as well as Richard Long.<\/p>\n
Troy- Tell me about The Smith Brothers.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- They were on the same circuit we were. They were cool, they also were into power; they were also power freaks. What was interesting is if you were into the equipment…Pete D.j. Jones had good equipment and he would experiment with like BGW and stuff like that. I was the one that would buy Phase Linears, very few people wanted to mess with Phase Linear because they were very temperamental they massive power but when they blew up they took a lot of stuff out with them. You had to keep them cool because they got really hot. The Smith Brothers spent a lot of money on their sound. They bought Crown amplifiers. Crown is an American company from Indiana and they are well known for making high quality audio amplifiers and pre amps and stuff like tape recorders, studio type stuff. The Smith Brothers used to have all these Crowns. They had a good quality sound system and they were from Brooklyn. They were actual brothers but I am not sure if they were twins. We hung out but outside of disco we didn’t have a relationship.<\/p>\n
Troy- O.k Mayboya<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I saw him at a couple of places like Riis Beach but we didn’t have a relationship what so ever and then all of a sudden Maboya disappeared. M Morton Hall told me the rumor was he went back to Panama .<\/p>\n
Troy- Alright The Dow Twins<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well they were promoters, they were trying to make it and they did well. I don’t know anything about their business dealings and stuff but they seem to have the older 25 and up crowd and the well dressed after work crowd and stuff like that. They were the ones that put Leviticus and Justine\u2019s together. They also had a club in Queens I can’t think of the name right now on Linden Blvd. Later on when the Intrepid came to New York they would do these annual parties around September on the Intrepid.<\/p>\n
Troy- So the Dow Twins were really just promoters and not D.j.s?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Right. One of the twins passed away recently. I think Harold is the one that buried his brother Norman.<\/p>\n
Troy- Alright Elmo the Magic Christian<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes I remember him. Elmo, M. Morton Hall, Winston, Harris and Lindsay and there are a few more but those are the main ones that were pretty much shuttled to all the big clubs between me Pete, Flowers, Maboya and Smith Brothers and that group.<\/p>\n
Troy- KC the Prince of Soul<\/h5>\n
Plummer- A good rapper, a very jovial guy. I remember him being in the middle of all that. I believe K.C. came first and then Sedley with me, as far as rapping on the mic.<\/p>\n
Troy- Is there one thing you can say you seen other D.j.s make a mistake at as you started making your bones?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well remember the arrogance I told you of Flowers and this maybe because of the way I am and remember when I told you my goal was to keep people partying, well Flowers after awhile was so good at his music and knew his music so well he wouldn’t change his music if the crowd just wasn’t into it that day, he played what he wanted to play.<\/p>\n
Troy- So people would be standing around looking at him saying what the hell you going to do and he didn’t care. ( Troy is chuckling.)<\/h5>\n
Plummer- It was rare, but he didn’t care<\/p>\n
Troy- So he started getting like my man that plays the trumpet, Miles Davis and turns his back on the crowd!<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Oh yeah, exactly, you know that is a good analogy, I never even thought of that before. But Flowers would be very much like Miles Davis, you know a genius with all that talent built up in him, but could care less.<\/p>\n
Troy- Any other D.J.s that were like that?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Flowers was probably the most extreme that I remember, somebody that just knows they are good.\u00a0 Troy you hit it, Miles Davis is probably the best comparison.<\/p>\n
Troy- So now how did you move on to the Trammps and what was your role with them? Also were you already a big fan of their music?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes I was a fan of them, they had a record out on Columbia records which I pretty much wore out. That Pink album.<\/p>\n
Troy- Was this before the Saturday Night Fever album and movie?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Before the movie and album I got with them. They got really famous after that and that was when we started traveling around the world.<\/p>\n
Troy- So how did you get on?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- There was a club in Brooklyn, King\u2019s Palace (formerly Club My Way) that I was playing at that was right down the street from Kings County Hospital and they had live entertainment. I was the D.j. that was supposed to play that night and The Trammps were going to be the live music. So I was playing music and The Trammps came and their sound system suddenly stopped working during their performance, they didn’t know what to do and I said well plug them into mine. I wasn’t afraid of anything when it came to technology. So I plugged them into mine and they did their show and then Doc Wade who was sort of like the leader of the group (in the sense of the business part of it) came up to me and asked what did I think about traveling. He said go think about it and if you are interested bring enough clothes for a month and meet us down in Philadelphia on 17th street at their office. I don’t know what happened but it was destiny to be in the right place at the right time and I went. I had nothing to lose, the next thing I know I was on a bus going to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Troy- From that night you walked out of that club you were on the road for the next few years?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I was on the road for about 2 years up until the summer of 78.<\/p>\n
Troy- And you walked away from the whole business of being one of the most popular D.j.s of your time?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yep (Plummer laughs.)<\/p>\n
Troy- Now did you get any response from any of the club members while you were on the road or from your girlfriend like, “Where you are at everyone is asking for you!”<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well my girlfriend was trying to do some of the gigs, keep it going because people wanted the name and stuff like that. It didn’t really last that long because they didn’t have the energy. So that eventually petered out after 3 or 4 months. And yes people did try to get me to come back.<\/p>\n
Troy- When you were traveling with the Trammps were you still trying to D.j. like opening them up, or doing after party jams for them?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Nope, nope wasn’t doing any d.j.ing<\/p>\n
Troy- You never spent a record again?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- For myself personally sometimes when I was home because sometimes I would get the itch and I would play something here and there. Even to this day although it is all computerized now I will still experiment with some things and I will say, “Ooow I wonder how that would sound” and I would try something but I don’t have enough time today so I have very little bit of time to do stuff like that today.<\/p>\n
Troy- But still even with The Trammps you didn’t miss the fame of D.J. Riis Beach Plummer?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No and I don’t know why…see because with the Trammps that was a full time job. We would go to a city, we had to set up, we would do a sound check and I was the one responsible for all the sound. So it was a real tough job because I learned how to be a fire fighter, I guess, doing that job. Because when these groups go on the road there is no such thing as the show has to stop because of the sound system or something.<\/p>\n
Troy- The Show must go on!<\/h5>\n
Plummer- The show must go on, but it helped me for what I ended up doing professionally for the rest of my business life, becauseI learned how to think on my feet in critical moments. I remember one time we had our mixing board just stop working and we didn’t have a spare but I knew it was an op amp so I went to radio shack got the correct integrated circuit op amp stuck the sucker in and the thing came back to life so part of that was grace…part of it was luck. (We both laugh.) Part of it was learning to think on your feet and do what you need to do. and I learned all that from that experience, because when you are on live it doesn’t matter if you are sick today you have to get up and give them 100 percent every time. That’s what they expect. You asked me a while back how I dealt with the groupies and stuff. Now that was nothing compared to the music industry…it was like night and day. I mean the groupies that hang around the music groups that is a whole different thing and they had everything you name it.They got the drugs and all kinds of stuff. But I think the thing that kept me out of trouble was because when they asked me would I like to do this, I was like \u201coh shoot\u201d what have I done now; because I had never done anything like that before and I\u2019m going to be in charge of their sound and I’m going to\u00a0 be fully responsible. I didn’t think I could do it and so what I did was I went to the book store and started buying a bunch of books and I was going to read up and get myself smart because I don’t know anything about this industry and because the road stuff was completely different. It wasn\u2019t anything like disco. So when I showed up that next week with my stuff and \u00a0bunch of books, somehow I got the reputation of being a book worm. So when I look back I feel that kept me out of trouble, because what would happen is they would protect me from all the temptation. I was the local book worm, I was the one that had an answer for everything and I was into the books. If you wanted to know something just ask me. (Plummer chuckles.)<\/p>\n
Troy- So were you and the Trammps all basically the same age?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No, the band members were all about the same age as I am, but the Trammps themselves they were about a good 10 to 15 years older than I am.<\/p>\n
Troy- O.K.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Earl Young I still have contact with him and he is about 70 today and maintains and shows an antique sports car.<\/p>\n
Earl Young <\/strong><\/p>\nTroy- Do the Trammps still today go out together and perform?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well they broke up and now there are two different organizations. Earl Young played drums and he was the drummer for MFSB and the Sal Soul Orchestra. If you look at all that Sounds of Philadelphia and stuff and you looked at who played drums that was Earl Young. He was also the bass vocalist for the Trammps. He was the guy that use to say,”Hello Baby how\u2019ve you been?” But that was Earl Young. So they broke up and Earl tours with a group and the other group has what is left of the other original singers and they all are starting to have elements of health problems that are related to age and drinking. Now the thing I can say about and remember, without any names and stuff the older guys tended to be alcoholics and the younger guys tended to be into all the drugs. God and grace was looking down and shining on me because I didn’t get caught up in any of that mess.<\/p>\n
Troy- Yes I can say you are truly blessed going from the D.j.ing all over New York which in the 70’s was a drug factory, and then you go with these Rock Stars across the world. When you got with them they had not even done Burn Baby burn yet, am I right?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Not yet but even before that they were much better known overseas. Like in England they were big.<\/p>\n
Troy- I guess so because I didn’t know about them until the album Saturday Night Fever came out.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I see, no they had a record in like 1972. The Pink album which was a phenomenal album and they had \u201cZing Went TheStrings of My Heart\u201d which, was even earlier than that album. But the thing about it like I said was they were well known around the globe. The most notable trip I took with them was to Brazil . We spent the month of December 1977 in Brazil . We played in that big soccer stadium in Rio de Janeiro. I\u2019ve never seen anything that large in my entire life. That place could hold a 125,000 people.<\/p>\n
Troy- So you had to hook up the sound there as well?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No that was all taken care of whenever we traveled to these big coliseums or stadiums the sound was all taken care of. See when it’s that big of a venue the promoter hires out\u00a0 a sound company and I would be the one at the board mixing. I was in charge of making sure the Trammps sound was the way the Trammps wanted it to sound.<\/p>\n
Troy- So what were your thoughts when you saw the movie Saturday Night Fever being as you were once a D.j. and this stuff is still going on although you have moved on?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well I remember when I went to the club and it looked nothing like the movie, I was so disappointed. That club is down in Bay Ridge down near the Verrazano Bridge. The club doesn’t exist anymore but I remember when we played there and were so disappointed when we went in there because it looked so tacky and dirty and everything. I was like wow you would never know looking at that movie.<\/p>\n
Troy- So what was your length running with the Trammps.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- I went back to school in September 1978, so it was until the summer of 78.<\/p>\n
Troy- So you had a two year run. So while you were with them you were considered the New York boy, being as they were all from Philadelphia?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Yes but I was more considered the book worm and they didn’t know my notoriety in New York because they were in a different world. During that time musicians didn’t really care about D.j.s because the D.j.s were taking their business and anyhow, it was competition. They looked at it as they were getting less gigs because people were paying less money for a D.j. for recorded music then to bring in a live band.<\/p>\n
Troy- Right, theirs all these band members with all these instruments and this guy comes out with two turntables and an amp and he got the whole dog on crowd. So now you parted ways with the Trammps because they were on a decline?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No they weren’t they were still going strong but I think what happen was I started maturing because I got married which was in 1977. My first child was born in 1980. I know what was happening was I was getting bored. We were traveling around and I never really got the chance to site see and the reason why I bought up the Rio thing is two reasons one was the coliseum in Rio.<\/p>\n
See that was something in the industry because when I was traveling we had a lot of fun, we played together one summer with Bootsy and that was fun because he had the Horny Horns with him and that was Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker who did the horns for James Brown. Those guys were crazy. So we ran into a lot of people. We also played with Gloria Gaynor so I met a lot of industry folk during that time.<\/p>\n
I remember we were also in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre but Rio was when I really started noticing that these guys were really hard partying dudes. I was captivated and had a life changing experience of noticing the huge disparities between the haves and have nots and how they were so correlated with skin color; something I had up to then assumed only existed in the United States and South Africa . Coming from NYC, I wasn\u2019t afraid to put some old jeans and sneakers on, go up into the hills and follow my curiosity; although I probably should have been. Rio was one of the most physically beautiful cities I have ever been to, but I couldn\u2019t get past the stark contrast with the people who lived in the adjacent hills; whole families residing in wood shanties. That left a permanent mark and I realized then that I needed to re-think my life.<\/p>\n
Troy- So what about Clinton?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- We didn’t run into Parliament the show, in other words it wasn’t like George Clinton show or anything but if he came to hang out with Bootsy then we saw ruminants of it. Now what was interesting when I went back to engineering school I met George Clintons daughter and she was a music major and she was in the mist of getting a part time job with Jimi Hendrix\u2019sElectric Lady Studio in New York down in the Village. She was a musician but she wanted to understand some of the engineering basics so she took some of her electives in the engineering school. To me I was like,”wow how things go around. I get out of the industry and I met George Clintons daughter.” In 1982 took a job with Bell Telephone Laboratories.<\/p>\n
Troy- So when you walked away from The Trammps and finished school the bug still never hit you to D.j.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well I did one party and that was on campus and that was because someone realized I was this guy they considered another generation that was a famous D.j. so they wanted me to play and I played one party, and that was it like ho hum! (Plummer chuckles.) I was now excited about something else, I was into a different world I was into technology I was into computers, I was into building things. so I didn’t have that passion that I had before for D.j.ing. Although like you said there was that itch, so o.k. I played it but I didn’t get that same thing that I got years earlier.<\/p>\n
Troy- Ok so although you did not get that itch were you staying in Queens going to school?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No I was in New Jersey going to the Rutgers University, College of Engineering. I was married then living in Plainfield New Jersey. Like I said earlier this was around 1978.<\/p>\n
Troy- So Rappers Delight still had not come out yet and hip hop is starting to explode and you got all these D.j.s as far Flash, Theodore and in Queens you got these guys Ciphers Sounds, D.J. Divine and the Infinity Machine as well as The Disco Twins and you knew nothing about it because you were not living in the 5 boroughs any longer!<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Well I knew nothing about them because I was in a different world then I was now in a high technology world. I was working in a UNIX\u00ae systems development group.<\/p>\n
Troy- So you caught UNIX when it first started?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- Not at the beginning, but sort of in the early days and it was close to home so that was cool. So that was the beginning of my other career and I\u2019ve been involved with technology every since. As far as my neighborhood, I\u2019ve always been involved with some kind of community project, whether it was advocating for my children within the school system, working sort community related education projects or like for the past five years, I\u2019ve been running a martial arts leadership program down the the Boys and Girls Club in Trenton New Jersey.<\/p>\n
<\/ins><\/span><\/p>\nTroy- God bless you my brother. The last question I have for you is have you ever been back to Riis Beach since those early days?<\/h5>\n
Plummer- No I heard its different, I heard today it’s a wildlife sanctuary, it’s like a national park.<\/p>\n
Troy- Thank you Mr. Plummer it was great talking to you.<\/h5>\n
Plummer- no problem and thank you also for giving me the time.<\/p>\n
\n D.J. Ron Riis Beach Plummer Today<\/strong><\/p>\nI want to thank a real good brother in Mike Barnes\u00a0for getting me in contact with D.J. Riis Beach Plummer as well as Mike Barnes contributions to the story.<\/h5>\nThank the Lord for my beautiful wife India and my two sons Shemar, Troy Jr. and my daughter on the way.<\/h5>\nPraise God and God Bless You.<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summer 2010 Troy- Alright Mr. Plummer I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to interview you, thank you very much. First thing first where were you born and raised? Plummer- I was born in the Bronx in Morrisania hospital. I lived for a while on Boston Road and 160th street, I believe. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[32,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oldschoolhiphop.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}