Feelabeelia: One-Hit Wonder? Snap Classic

Snap Judgment - Snap Judgment and PRX

In a nostalgic episode of Snap Judgment, host Gunn Washington recounts the legendary story of Nick Murphy and his funk band, Filabella, who

Key takeaways

• A moment of genuine celebrity encounter can transform ordinary artists into lifelong believers in music's magic.

Main topics

• 1984 music scene and cultural impact

Notable quotes

"I just couldn't believe how great Stevie Wonder's voice is... it was perfect pitch, perfect control, no technology on it, just a pure voice."

Conclusion

The episode closes with a reflection on how fleeting yet profound moments—li

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:02) Snap Studios. I like to cook, right? Lots of things, but I'm known for my chili. With some cornbread, it is all of that. I've got a friend who's all, this recipe you sent me is missing something. It doesn't taste like yours. I'm going to watch you make it. Okay. So I start with the onions, the kidney beans, the tomatoes, the garlic, the ground beef, if you like it. Add some chili powder. I tell her the secret is to use a little bit of brown sugar. She says, stop playing with me. Everybody knows about brown sugar. Okay, well, you got to lightly simmer it. Don't cook it too fast. You know, got to get some salt and some pepper to bring the flavor out. And she's getting angrier and angrier at my antics. And the truth is, she has a point. And I'm wrong for this. I am a very bad person. But every good chef saves a couple secrets back. The magic that can turn something delicious into something extraordinary. So when I ask her to please pull me a beer from the fridge, she doesn't see me add a couple heaping tablespoons of my ploy green Thai curry paste to the bubbling beans. But a few minutes later, when she tastes it, Speaker 4 (1:43) She screams bloody murder at the top of her lungs. What did you do? What did you do? But then Snap Judgment was looking for that extra ingredient, that special something that turns the mundane into the sublime. Snap probably presents Feel Abelia. My name is Gunn Washington, and you should never act innocent to people who are holding kitchen knives when you're listening. The Snap Judgment. We're going to begin by sticking your tunes into the cassette deck of the DeLorean. Because we're traveling back to 1984. Nick Murphy is a man with big hair and bigger dreams. He and his funk band have just signed a Cinderella deal with Warner Brothers and the Quincy Jones. We're going to drop another recording session at a studio deep in the English countryside. Take it away, Nick. Snap Judgment. Speaker 3 (3:02) We're working on this track, Feel It, one Saturday, and we get a call on the studio phone. Speaker 5 (3:10) Okay, pause. I need you to fully appreciate the moment that we're in before we can go any further. Speaker 5 (3:22) It's 1984, a.k.a. the most prolific year in modern music history. If this band were to put down their instruments and turn on the radio, the newest hits, like from the last six months, would be Time After Time, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Born in the USA, What's Love Got to Do With It, Kama Chameleon, When Doves Cry, and literally a hundred more tunes. that will go certified platinum in approximately 2.5 seconds and reach the highest echelons of notoriety in the Pop Culture Hall of Fame for decades to come. Technology is on a tear. You don't have to be a millionaire to get your hands on a sweet synthesizer. Phil Collins is giving us the quintessential sound of the 80s, gated reverb drums. Speaker 5 (4:18) And the music video for a little song called Thriller is single-handedly putting the heretofore struggling MTV on the map. In 1984, the music industry is living it up. It's a nonstop party where nobodies with mullets are becoming somebodies with mullets overnight. And Nick and his friends in the studio? Speaker 3 (4:46) They have just been ushered behind the metaphorical velvet rope. I was a bin man. I used to do Speaker 5 (4:52) the dustbins, you know, the trash. They're not used to rubbing elbows with elites. But soon, everyone would know their name. Speaker 3 (5:00) Philabelia. Yeah, Philabelia. Speaker 5 (5:03) They said, Speaker 3 (5:04) what does it mean? I said, absolutely nothing. I said, that's perfect. Speaker 5 (5:08) Because worldwide success doesn't have to make sense. Not in 1984. Speaker 5 (5:16) Okay, now that you're caught up, let's get back to that studio in the English countryside. Speaker 3 (5:25) We're working on this track, Feel It, one Saturday, and we get a call on the studio phone. Nick put Speaker 5 (5:34) down his drumsticks and picked up the receiver. This guy goes, hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm Stevie Wonder's manager. Superstition. Isn't she lovely? Higher ground. And by that point, 12 Grammys to his name. That Stevie Wonder. Speaker 3 (5:52) I was a bit like, is this a hoax? The first thing I thought, is it one of my mates rang me up? And I said, yeah, this is Isaac Hayes. And the guy goes, no, no, no, I really am Stevie Wonder's manager. Stevie's doing a show tonight at the Birmingham NEC. Afterwards, he says, Stevie would like to come and record at the studio. Speaker 5 (6:15) Stevie was in the middle of a huge UK tour. But he was also on deadline to finish up a new song for the soundtrack of an upcoming movie. And those soundtracks could be crazy lucrative. Remember that searing 1984 romantic thriller Against All Odds? Of course you don't. Speaker 6 (6:35) Nobody does. Speaker 5 (6:36) But what does live rent-free in your brain is the Phil Collins mega-hit Take a Look at Me Now from the soundtrack. That song minted money, nabbed a Grammy nomination, and is currently being belted out in a karaoke bar somewhere in the world at this very moment. Stevie's manager had asked around and found out that the studio Filabilia was using had the exact same equipment Stevie used at home. Could Stevie and his band just borrow the studio for a few hours? So I turned around to Speaker 3 (7:07) the lads in the studio and I said to them, what do you reckon? And they all said, well, if it really is Stevie, yeah, no problem. If he comes and we just meet him, even if it's just hello and that's it, and then security, don't let us anywhere near him, you know, whatever, you know, that's worth it. So we said, yeah, you know, come. Speaker 5 (7:28) And Nick settled in for one of the longest waits of his life. Speaker 3 (7:33) I'll be honest with you, from about 8 o'clock that evening, every minute seemed like about an hour. We sort of half recorded and half messed around, you know, Speaker 5 (7:43) playing soccer in the garden and stuff. They drifted between the recording studio and the garden, unable to focus on anything but the clock. Speaker 3 (7:54) About 10 o'clock, we were snacking, I suppose, really, and just having a few beers. Speaker 4 (7:59) What do you reckon? Speaker 5 (8:00) Do you reckon it'll Speaker 4 (8:02) happen? Speaker 5 (8:02) And we were all like, you know what? Yeah, I do. Now that they were signed to one of the biggest record labels in the world, yes, anything was possible. When Quincy Jones and Warner Brothers first brought them to L.A., they ran into Whitney Houston. Speaker 3 (8:16) Whitney, you know. Speaker 5 (8:18) But this wouldn't be just another celebrity sighting. To Nick... Stars didn't come any bigger or brighter than Stevie Wonder. Speaker 3 (8:26) Stevie Wonder, to myself, absolute hero. My father was a jazz pianist. Since I was 14, 15 and stuff, my dad used to play You Are The Sunshine Of My Life in his band. I used to play for my dad's band when his drummer was on holiday. Not knocking anyone, they were all good. They were all really good, but they didn't set the sights high enough for me. I want the Speaker 5 (8:52) world, you know. All this was turning around in Nick's mind as the night stretched on. About quarter Speaker 3 (8:59) past one or something in the morning. All of a sudden, you could hear this engine outside, because the studio was about three miles out of Farnham, so it literally was in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. It was an old farm. There was no other traffic that time of night down that road. Speaker 5 (9:17) The other inhabitants of the farm were on high alert. The Speaker 3 (9:21) farm had geese, and they all started, because they didn't recognise anyone. Yeah, they're better than any guard dogs, geese are. Speaker 4 (9:29) We go out the front door and it's like a big Speaker 3 (9:32) drivey bit with all pebbles and stuff on it. We were expecting Stevie, when we were in the car, with maybe his manager or something, we weren't expecting a coach to be out there, right, with about 50 people on, because it was all of the people that were on tour with Stevie. So they all just exit the coach and descend into the grounds and then descend into the house, into the kitchen. And then... As if conjured out of thin air, he appeared. Speaker 5 (10:04) And Speaker 3 (10:04) then it was like Stevie came in. He said, evening, gentlemen, like that. And he sort of said it in a sort of British accent. He was bigger than I expected. He's about the same build as me, about 6'1", 6'2", something like that. He's in a grey tracksuit and he's looking fit, man. You know, like, bumting, as we say over here. Yeah, someone said bumting. That's like, yeah, hench, you're looking good. We were like, just gobsmacked, you know, just like, oh my God, Speaker 4 (10:39) you know. Speaker 3 (10:40) It really has happened. You know, it's one of those things. They said, we'll be gone by the morning. And we said, we don't care if you stay all weekend. We're not bothered. Speaker 5 (10:50) They gave Speaker 3 (10:51) Stevie space to Speaker 5 (10:52) do his thing in the studio and went to hang out in another part of the building. Speaker 3 (10:57) So we were now in the kitchen with the rest of the band. We met Wunderlove. Wunderlove is Stevie's backing singers. They're just amazing singers and they've worked with him forever. We were just having a good time, you know, just listening to tracks and drinking. They were all wide awake. They weren't tired. So we're partying in the kitchen and then Stevie comes in with his manager and one of the guys is eating some cake and Stevie's like, who's got a cake like this? It was like, oh, you want some? So one of the guys cuts him a piece, gives him a bit of cake and then he wanted to go to the bathroom and it was like, oh, someone said, I'll show you. He goes, it's all right, I already know where it is. He said, I can smell where it is. He comes back into the kitchen and then he goes back to the studio. And we saw our chance and thought, let's go and have a look, see what he's doing. So myself, Mark and Andy, who was