Music Producing Icons Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Are Still Just Getting Started
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Select individuals and groups, in terms of songwriting and production, surpass legendary status—Gamble & Huff, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Quincy Jones, Babyface and LA Reid, and of course, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
The latter met in 1973 in Minneapolis. Jam, 63, reflected on meeting his musical partner while they were in opposing bands during our familiar Zoom call. “Terry’s band would kick my band’s a** and then [vice versa]. We finally were like, ‘man, if we teamed up, that would be great.’”
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When they did ultimately join forces, Flyte Tyme was born and the men started their joint career touring with Morris Day and Prince. Together, Jam & Lewis went on to work with nearly every musical phenom including Janet Jackson, Usher, Boyz II Men, and Mariah Carey. Fast forward 50 years and the duo is about to celebrate their coveted induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for Musical Excellence. The feat, however, was something the pair admittedly never expected. They were opposite sides of the same coin. Jam grew up on harmonious pop while Lewis was raised on funk and soul. It wasn’t until they created “Just Be Good To Me” for the S.O.S. Band in the early ’80s where they felt “we found ourselves.”
Being one of the few songwriting-production duos to be inducted is a concrete, mainstream marker of their place in music history.
“For me, it just means that when you write music history, we’re in there somewhere,” said Jam. “You can’t write music history without our contribution to it in some way. So, that feels really good. The other thing is that all the people that have been part of our journey, all the artists, the engineers, the other producers, our mentors, the Gamble and Huffs, the Quincy Jones’, people like that, as well as Clarence Avant, all share in that with us.”
Ahead of their long-awaited induction, the men spoke VIBE about pivotal memories from their career, embarking on their first headlining tour in 2023, why they may never retire, new music, and a potential Jam vs. Lewis showcase.
VIBE: It’s been 50 years, what are some of your vivid memories that you feel led you here?
Jimmy Jam: *chuckles* Well, first of all, meeting Terry Lewis is the first pivotal thing that happened in 1973. Growing up in Minneapolis, Black people were 3% of the population around that time. But you had this nucleus of talented people. Morris Day, Jelly Bean Johnson, Alexander O’Neal who was our lead singer in Flyte Tyme back in the day before the Tyme. But growing up in Minneapolis, that was the thing that really drove us. Then of course, Prince and getting a chance to tour with him.
Last year, you released your debut album, but it took 35 years. Why?
JJ: We started the album around the time that we started working on Control with Janet. John McClain [her A&R back then] came to listen to the album. We played all these records and then he said, “I just need one more.” We said, “No man, we ain’t have anymore. But listen to our album that we’re working on.” About the third track in, he goes, “That’s the one I need for Janet.” I said, “What are you talking about? That’s for our album.” He said, “No, I need that for Janet. Play it for her, and if she likes it, give it to her.” The next day, we went to the studio [and] played it for her. She said, “Who’s that for?” And we said, “You if you want it.” That song became “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”
Oh wow.
JJ: So that started her career and basically ended our album. When we [were inducted in] the Songwriters Hall of Fame five years ago, they said, “What is it that you haven’t done yet that you want to do?” And on the red carpet next to us was Babyface. We looked at him and we said, “We want to do a song with Babyface and we want to finish our album that we started and we’d like to tour and sing our own songs on our tour.” So, the first two we were able to take care of, obviously. Hopefully next year, when we’re celebrating Jam & Lewis 50, we will go out and be able to play all of our jukebox full of songs live. We’re looking forward to doing some festivals, some orchestral dates, and really just take what we’ve done in the studio for all these years and put it in a live setting.
That’s so exciting.
JJ: Glad you think so. We’re excited too.
How did you go about selecting who to include in your debut album?
Terry Lewis: Well, we have a lot of favorites and a lot of friends. Availability is everything. It was really difficult to get anyone to do anything [during Covid]. How could we not have a first album with Janet on it? You have to pick and choose how to be partners with people. And this was the group of people that we could partner with best at this time.
JJ: A lot of times we don’t want to step on what everybody else is doing. It’s like, no, we want to be a compliment to your album, not a competition to your album, but those are the kinds of things you need to take into consideration. Volume Two is coming along really good. We love working with the legends, the people who we’ve always wanted to work with, but then there’s also new acts that we really like that we’d love to work with across all genres of music.
Speaking of which, who are some new acts that you’re interested in?
JJ: Top of the list, we always put H.E.R, although she’s pretty established now. And then I always mention Cleo Sol, who’s my absolute favorite. Her husband Inflo, is an amazing producer. So we’d love to collaborate with him at some point in time and with her. We hear new things every day that we really like, so it’s really about the intersection of where music meets and being at the middle of that intersection.
Would you say that’s why you define your music as newstalgia?
JJ: Yes, that comfort of something familiar, which is always good, but the excitement of hearing something new.
Before tour, can fans expect Volume Two?
JJ: Definitely, [with] our 50th celebration next year, we’re definitely going to have Volume Two out and ready to go. We still have a few surprises from Volume One though. Like a Mary J. Blige remix coming out. I think each album will be different and it’ll be a different kind of musical experience, if that makes sense. Because there’ll be new artists, there’ll be young artists, there’ll be even artists from different genres of music. So going back to your retirement question, no I don’t think so ever. I mean we did take a hiatus a few years back and that was important for us to live life.
How important is it for you guys to “live life” when it comes to songwriting? Do you add personal touches into your music?
TL: I think it’s all perspective. Sometimes living life is not just your life, it’s the view that you have of others’ lives. I think it’s more of that. It is a little combination of all that you’ve seen, all that you experienced, all that goes into songwriting and making music.
After 50 years, are you even remotely considering retiring?
TL: What is that? I don’t even know what that is. Whether I’m listening to a song or I’m thinking of a song, “Ooh, that would be a good song. Writing a title down.” That’s what I do every day. So no matter what, if I did it for money or if I did it for free, I’d still be doing the same thing. So I don’t know how I would retire from what I love to do.
JJ: I totally agree.
Circling back to the very first question, since you guys mentioned that you grew up listening to very different styles, would you ever do a Jam vs. Lewis album?
JJ: That’s interesting. It was funny because speaking of Verzuz, I said to Swizz Beatz, we should do a Jam vs. Lewis because we both have songs that we really like or we really feel or represent us. We never did it obviously, but I always thought that was interesting. It would be interesting if we did a playlist of the songs that influenced us and then people would be able to see the commonality in where the different influences came. That’s how we fell in love with music like that. So, that would be fun to do.
Lastly, if you had to define this moment in your career, especially with the anniversary and induction, how would you define it?
JJ: Wow, that is a good question. I don’t know, but I just feel like hopefully what we are for people is inspirational. Not because we make music so much, but because we’re 50 years together. If you want to look at lives that are individual in their togetherness, it’s Terry and myself. Our foundation was, at least with our business, we shook hands 40 years ago and just said 50-50. By doing that as the foundation, everything else that we did, it didn’t matter. There’s songs that Terry wrote 100% of, but it’s 50% mine. That’s the way we always kind of approach things. We each get to do exactly what we want to do individually, but then we do it together. Hopefully we’re just great examples to people of how relationships can work. It just happens that we do music, which is, what we call the divine art. We get a chance to do that every single day and we absolutely love it and love doing it together.
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