Working with one of the 'Greatest Sax Players' of all time!

Ernie Watts

Many of you may not know this man, but you've definitely heard him on many of your recordings. Mr. Ernie Watts. I knew about Ernie, because I've read album credits most of my life. I would hear this sax solo on a Gino Vanelli record, or The Jacksons record and look to see who it was and consistently it was Ernie Watts.

Ernie's superb sax work has graced many albums by artist diverse as Barbara Streisand, The Crusaders, Christopher Cross, Boz Scaggs, Rickie Lee Jones, Earth, Wind and Fire, SWITCH, etc, etc, etc.

I was very familiar with Ernie's work like I said and when SWITCH recorded their first album Jermaine Jackson called Ernie to come and play on our recordings. The saxophone solo on "I Wanna Be Closer" one of SWITCH'S biggest hits is Mr. Ernie Watts. Like I said, you've heard him but many of you may not know who he is.

Ernie Watts - "Chariots Of Fire"

Ernie ended up playing on a number of SWITCH records so I got to know him over the years. In 1982 Qunicy Jones produced an album on Ernie Watts called "Chariots of Fire" 
My brother James called Howard Hewitt and myself in to sing backgrounds on Ernie's album. It was my first time meeting Quincy Jones and it was nice to have 3 guys from Akron, Ohio all working together on the same project.

But more importantly it was also nice to be able to sing backgrounds on Ernie's record since he was such a part of of SWITCH'S career. James, Howard and myself ended up singing 2 songs on this project.

The Dude Tour 1982

After singing on Ernie's project in the early part of 1982 later that summer when Quincy Jones was doing "The Dude" tour we were all together again.

I sang backgrounds on that tour with Edie Leighman and Phil Perry and Ernie was one of the horn players in the band. If you look at the picture on the left, you can see Ernie with the sun glasses on in the upper right hand corner.

Ernie has always been a gentleman, very nice and very unassuming.

Ernie doing what he does best

It would be years before I ran into Ernie again. The last time I saw Ernie was when we worked with Quincy Jones again at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2011 with "60 Years Of Quincy Jones". Ernie was part of the horn section and I was singing backgrounds on that concert. (I wrote about that concert on this BLOG, back in September 11, 2011)

Even after all these years Ernie is still the same. It was an honor to meet him back in 1977 / 1978 when he first played on "I Wanna Be Closer", but over the years he's remained, one of the greatest Sax players of all time. (Ernie Watts)


 Until Next Time - Phillip
 

Serenades of Life - Doctor's in Concert

The Smith Center in Las Vegas

On Saturday, October 27, 2012 the Nathan Adelson Hospice Center put on their 18th annual "Serenades of Life - Doctor's in Concert" event. This event is a fund raiser to help support the hospice foundation. The event was held at the beautiful Smith Center in the heart of Las Vegas.

Alter'd Ego - A Band made up of doctors? YUP!

This is a unique event where Doctors, Surgeons, from many fields perform for this event each year. Some of the doctors sang, others performed in a rock band, a jazz quartet, opera and even a violinist. Much of the talent was very good. You don't tend to think of your Doctor as having musical talent but they did. 

Brad Garrett from 'Everybody Loves Raymond' was given the first 'Brad Garrett Humanitarian Award'. This award will be given to different recipients in the coming years. This was given to Brad for all the work he has done with the hospice center.

Clint Holmes performed, and then the various doctors were singing and playing their songs. After the doctors performed, Chris Mann, who came in 4th on the 2nd season of "The Voice" sang a few numbers and then Sheena Easton closed the show.

Our show was a scaled down version of our regular show. Usually our shows are about 90 minutes but because of the many different artist our show was scaled down to 25 minutes. Sheena said it's the shortest show she's ever done.

The show went well, Sheena and I only performed one of our duets, "We've Got Tonight" instead of the usual 3 that we do in the show. The Venue was fantastic, it sounded great and as always we had a lot of fun.

The Vdara

Rebecca and I drove down to Vegas on Friday and stayed at the Vdara Hotel. Very nice! For Rebecca and I it was a mini-vacation with a 25 minute show.



 A unique event, a great venue and a nice hotel. We were very happy to be part of the Serenades Of Life-Doctor's in Concert event.

Until Next Time - Phillip
 

Rams Head Center Stage - LIVE!

Rams Head Center Stage

On Thursday  October 18th Sheena Easton performed at the Rams Head Center Stage in Hanover, MD near Baltimore.

Talk about a lively crowd, that's an understatement. From the moment the band walked out unto the stage to get into position the crowd started cheering, so we knew we were going to have a good time.

Even Sheena told the audience that it's not even the weekend and they were already partying. We had a great performance. The Venue holds about 300 so it made for a nice intimate evening. But from our opening number to our last note the crowd was up dancing, singing to the music, and having a good ole' time.

Maryland Live Casino

Every Thursday night, Maryland Live! Casino features a headlining act on the Rams Head Center Stage. Well this Thursday, the whole band was 'hot'. Earl Campbell, our drummer with Sheena, is from the Baltimore, MD area so he was at home and they came out to support him. His solo on "U Got The Look" was pretty amazing. The boy can play anyway, but I think he put some extra sauce on his solo since he was in his hometown.

The Bacharach Medley that Sheena and I perform was very well received. Our show is about a 90-minute show and even for me the show went by really quick, that's when you know that EVERYONE is enjoying themselves.

When Sheena and I were performing "U Got The Look",  towards the end where Sheena and I do our ad-libs, Sheena had me laughing and I couldn't even sing. I told the audience that she was silly. I got my composure and finished the song.

Next weekend, we'll all be in Vegas. The band, with the exception of myself, all live in Vegas. We will be doing a fundraiser at the Smith Center with other performers for a local hospice center. I'll tell you more about that after it happens.

As you know it's always a pleasure for me not only to perform but see some of the friends I haven't seen in years. Well I got to see a friend of mine that I haven't seen since about 1979. We have known each other since 8th grade, so I got to see her and one of her sons and get caught up.

After the show there is a true SWITCH / Phillip Ingram fan that I met when we were in Philly. His name is Doug. Well this time Doug had all 5 of SWITCH'S albums for me to sign. It was great seeing him again as well.

Hopefully in the future I'll get to see you at an upcoming performance. I have to say though that Thursday night's performance at the Rams Head Center Stage was all the way LIVE!

Until Next Time - Phillip 

"If I Were Your Woman" (Pre-American Idol)

A SWITCH MOMENT

Switch's 2nd Album

 After the success of SWITCH'S first album, as we were working on our 2nd album, we would have various meetings at the Motown building and from time to time we would have meetings at Berry Gordy's home.

On one of our meetings at the Motown building the whole band was together. So imagine 6 young guys who just had success with a hit album and we're all together having fun. I actually don't remember what the meeting we attended was about but I do remember what happened when we got downstairs in the lobby.

SWITCH playing on the iPhone

There was this girl that ran up to us as we got off of the elevator saying, "Switch, hey you guys are Switch...I love your music". We thanked her for supporting our music. Remember we had just finished a meeting and we were either on our way home or to get something to eat or on our way to band rehearsal. She met the whole band and at this point we were being very nice to her. But then....

She begins to tell us that she could sing, but before we could say anything she started singing, and it was like American Idol because SHE COULDN'T SING! - She started singing, "If I Were Your Woman, and you were my man"...by Gladys Knight. Here comes the sad part, Tommy DeBarge fell out in laughter because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Tommy's laughter triggered the whole band's laughter and it was hard to control. Tommy was laughing at her, the rest of the band was laughing at Tommy's laughter.

The girl obviously got her feelings hurt, and just like American Idol, when a person is rejected then they tend to attack. This girl got mad at us and said, "well you guys don't look like your album cover" and this made me say..."Well how did you know who we were?" which caused more laughter from the band.

The sad thing is meeting her started nice, she was a nice girl, she let's us know that she can sing, we didn't ask her to show us, she choose to show us on her own, she couldn't sing and thus this little moment which could've ended well ended up in disaster, or laughter depending on how you want to look at it.

Thus a little SWITCH moment in history of many, many more to come.

Until next time - Phillip

SWITCH today, sharing some of the moments from the past with some of our newest band members. 

 

COMMERCIAL BREAK - Mountain Dew

In 2006 / 2007 I was in Japan performing with Sheena Easton. As I spoke to my wife Rebecca on one of our daily talks, she let me know that I had been called to do a commercial with 'Groove Addicts' a company that I have worked quite a bit with over the years. This company does 'radio station id's', commercials, TV Shows and Filma.

The commercial was scheduled on the day that I would be arriving back in the United States, which meant I was going to be pretty tired, jet-lagged, but I agreed to do it.

This was the commercial with Chuck Norris which you may have seen. This is where a couple of guys are on a website with Chuck Norris face on an ostrich. One of the guys says "we're up to a million hits, sweet"...Then the doorbell rings they ask who is it and the answer is "Chuck Norris", then the guys say "yeah right". They look over the balcony and find out that it is Chuck Norris and then they begin to run.

The rest of the commercial is the 2 guys running away from Chuck in various scenarios but holding on to their Mountain Dew. The commercial ends with Chuck catching them, snapping their picture and taking away their Mountain Dew. Then he sets up a website where he's now kicking their butts. The website is called "Payback".

The music playing in the background was similar to the Shaft theme from old and the singers were singing "Chuck". That was Alex Brown, Carmen Carter and myself. As tired as I was I was happy that the music wasn't something that was really involved. Sometimes you're so tired you're punch drunk, and I think that's how I was feeling that day just arriving from overseas.

I have to admit though that it was nice to come back from Japan and to do a commercial because at the time I hadn't sang on a commercial in quite some time, but at least I got to 'do the dew' for that particular commercial.

Until Next Time - Phillip