Paul Jackson Jr. Interview on
The TrevBeats Show 

Paul Jackson Jr. — The TrevBeats Show [00:00] Paul Jackson Jr.: You’re absolutely right. Back in the day, if you wanted me to play on a session, you had to call my house. Like you said, it was the dial-up phone. I’ll tell you a funny story about that. Michael Jackson called the house once, and my mother — your iconic, classic Black mom — answered the phone. [00:29] Paul Jackson Jr.: The phone rings. She says, “Hello?” He says, “This is Michael.” She says, “Boy, quit playing on my phone,” and hangs up. Fortunately, he called back. [00:43] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Real quick, if you’re new here, welcome to The TrevBeats Show. Make sure you subscribe if you want to stick around. And for the regulars, if you ever feel compelled to throw some extra support our way, check out the membership options next to the subscribe button. That’s strictly for those who want to help us do more, but your viewership is already supporting us. Now back to the show. [01:22] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: All right, everybody. Welcome back to The TrevBeats Show. Normally, I go through a whole bunch of introductions and all that, but I’m not even going to waste your time today because the guest speaks for himself. If you have listened to the radio — I’m not even going to say in the last 30 or 40 years — if you have ever listened to the radio, you have heard my guest today. [01:45] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: I’m talking about Thriller, Bad, Whitney Houston, Daft Punk, and thousands of records that are in the DNA of the music you grew up on. Without further ado, my guest today is the incomparable, insurmountable, unbelievable Mr. Paul Jackson Jr. [02:15] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Man, I am so happy to get you here, bro. We’ve been friends my whole life, basically, but I’m still such a huge fan. We’ve worked together plenty of times, but what you have been able to accomplish is unbelievable. Once again, thank you for pulling up to The TrevBeats Show. [02:38] Paul Jackson Jr.: Thank you. It’s funny — there’s a scripture in the Bible that says, “I was young and now I’m old, and I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken.” The funny thing is, I work with Andrew, the engineer, and I worked for years with his dad. I work with Harvey Jr., and I worked for years with his dad. Then I work with you, and I worked for years with your dad. That is just the goodness of God. [03:05] Paul Jackson Jr.: I’m not calling myself an old head, although I am an old head, but it’s the goodness of God that I’m still doing stuff, still in the game, and still able to work with my buddies’ kids. It’s amazing to me. Anyway, to make a short answer long, as I have to do, I’m happy to be here. [03:22] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: I’m happy to have you here. You touched on something I wanted to talk about because I heard stories from my dad that, back in the day, if he wanted to book you for a session, he had to call your mom because you were underage. That means that love and connection goes way back. You were doing sessions before you were even 18 years old. When did that start? [03:49] Paul Jackson Jr.: It started when I was about 18 or 19. I was still living in my mom’s house. You have to remember, this was before cell phones, before pagers, before answering services, before all of that. My service, my pager, my everything was Blanche Lucille Jackson. She knew how to find me. [04:06] Paul Jackson Jr.: The funniest one was when I was at the gym one day. I was in the locker room, and the phone rang. They paged me: “Is there a Paul Jackson Jr.?” I picked it up, and it was, “Your mom wants to know if you’re available for this session.” I was like, “How does she find me at the gym?” But that was the thing — she always knew where I was. [04:33] Paul Jackson Jr.: So you’re absolutely right. Back in the day, if you wanted me to play on a session, you had to call my house. It was the dial-up phone, and I’ll tell you a funny story about that. Michael Jackson called the house once. My mother, you know, she’s your iconic, classic Black mom. The phone rings, and she says, “Hello?” He says, “This is Michael.” She says, “Boy, quit playing on my phone,” and hangs up. Fortunately, he called back. [05:11] Paul Jackson Jr.: Yes, to book me for a session, you had to call my mom. [05:15] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That is amazing. I like to talk about people’s origins and how they became who they are. Obviously, this is taking place in Los Angeles. Some people would call it South Central, some people wouldn’t. Coming up in that time period, in the ’70s, what made you decide that you really wanted to do sessions? The road can be glamorous when you’re young, and sessions are behind the scenes. You don’t really get seen or get a lot of shine. What made you want to go the session route? [06:13] Paul Jackson Jr.: When I started really focusing on music, all I knew was that I wanted to be the best guitar player in the world. Then, through Patrice Rushen, I met Lee Ritenour. I saw what Lee did and thought, “Okay, he’s doing sessions.” [06:26] Paul Jackson Jr.: I was also taking guitar lessons from an amazing guitar player named Greg Poree. I was his only student, and he was a session musician. Years later, Greg and I ended up scoring The Martin Show together. But at that time, I was learning firsthand: there is this thing called a studio musician, where you go in and play on records. [06:59] Paul Jackson Jr.: Then I met Frank Wilson. Frank wrote “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “Keep On Truckin’,” and song after song. The famous E-40 sample — that was the first record I played on that actually got released. I had done demos for Frank before that, but that was the first released record. [07:40] Paul Jackson Jr.: So I saw firsthand what a studio musician was. Then, to show you how God works, I got saved and started going to church with drummer Ollie Brown, who played with Stevie and produced Breaking. Ollie Brown was best friends with Ray Parker Jr. [08:03] Paul Jackson Jr.: I met Ray at the time he had started Raydio and was having hits, so he stopped doing as many sessions. What Ray would do was, if he got two sessions, he would send me on one and Charles Fearing on the other. If he got four sessions, he would send me, Charles, me, Charles. I started learning firsthand: you come in, you start making up parts, you make the song feel good, and you come up with things that support the music. That’s what a studio musician does. [08:43] Paul Jackson Jr.: Because of recommendations and people guiding my career, I learned what a studio musician was. [08:52] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That speaks to so much. Everybody you mentioned, I’ve known throughout my life. I want to go back to another breadcrumb moment because you mentioned Greg Poree and working on the early beginning of Martin. I’ve known Greg my whole life, and both of his sons, Emile and Justin. I gave Justin percussion lessons when he was a kid before Ozomatli, and I played drums on the first demo of the first theme you all did for Martin. [09:24] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: I still have the picture from that day. That was one of my moments of realizing I wanted to do sessions. I had about four snare drums set up. The small-circle nature of this thing is real. I try to tell people in these interviews that no one operates by themselves. You can start putting these backgrounds together and see how connected everything is. [09:59] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: You’re from L.A., and pound for pound, in my world, I call you the most recorded guitar player. Relationships and having the right energy in and out of the studio can give you a long career. How long have you been doing sessions professionally now? [10:29] Paul Jackson Jr.: I’ve been doing sessions for 48 years. You hit it dead on the head — everything is relationships. I even tell people when I preach sometimes: people don’t go to hell because they do the wrong things; people go to hell because they don’t have the right relationship. Everything is about relationships. [10:55] Paul Jackson Jr.: Ray Parker recommended me, and then I was on a session with Joe Sample. Joe said, “Ray has been playing for us. I want to see how you work in a different situation.” Because of that, I ended up recording with The Crusaders, Barry White, Gene Page, and Johnny Mathis when I was 19 years old. [11:16] Paul Jackson Jr.: Then I met Sonny Burke. Sonny would say, “Let me see how you work on this and that,” and I ended up playing acoustic guitar on “Cruisin’.” I became tight with Smokey Robinson, and everything was relationship. Everything. [11:31] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Wow. “Cruisin’,” you did that with Gatson then? [11:38] Paul Jackson Jr.: Yes. And David T. covered the electric stuff at Motown. [11:45] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That is amazing. There are so many thousands of records in between. You and I just did a Smokey record last year. We’ve done movie stuff back in the day. You have been one of the fixtures of Los Angeles and the music scene. [12:04] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: For the listeners who are not familiar, you can check out the link in the bio or description because I think you’re going to be blown away. The one record that we all know — though some people may not know you played on it — is Thriller. You did pretty much the majority of things with Quincy Jones. When did your relationship with Quincy start? [12:37] Paul Jackson Jr.: That relationship started in about ’82. He didn’t call me to work on Michael’s work at first. The first thing I did with him was a record for James Ingram called It’s Your Night. That was between Off the Wall and Thriller. Then he called me to work on the Thriller record, then Bad, then things for Patti Austin, more things for James Ingram, The Color Purple, and a whole litany of things. [13:06] Paul Jackson Jr.: I worked with Quincy right up until the time he stopped being in the studio. He did a documentary I played on, and he went in to rerecord a lot of masters, and I did those for him too. It started around ’82 and went on for years. [13:28] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That brings you to a certain point where you get the call for Thriller. We’re all re-enamored with that time period because the movie brings back the nostalgia of how huge that level of stardom was. I don’t think we’ve seen anything resembling that level of stardom since. [13:47] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: All of those parts that people love and have heard their whole lives — this man right here is on guitar. That is amazing to me. You can learn an instrument, go into the studio one day, and it becomes the soundtrack of generations of lives. When you were in that room with Quincy and that was happening, what was the energy like? Did it feel like it was going to be something special? [14:36] Paul Jackson Jr.: First of all, Off the Wall had sold around eight million records or something crazy. So going in, you knew it was going to be a hit. You just didn’t know how big of a hit. Nobody knew it was going to be 40 million, then 80 million records. [14:59] Paul Jackson Jr.: The cool thing about Quincy was that he would let you go for stuff, and then he would steer it. When I was in the studio doing the guitars for “P.Y.T.,” it was Quincy, Bruce Swedien, Matt Forger as second engineer, and me. Quincy said, “Just create. Just play.” [15:18] Paul Jackson Jr.: I have an app now called This Is How I Did It, where I revisit those songs. The first one I did was “P.Y.T.” because that is the one everybody asks me about the most. I sat there and came up with stuff. The second part I played ended up being the majority of the record. I played and played. [15:46] Paul Jackson Jr.: In the bridge — “Pretty young thing, you make me sing” — I brought in a sound, and then in the vamp I dropped it out. Quincy said, “No. Once you bring that sound in, you have to keep it in because it’s big. It takes the record to another level.” He gave me a bunch of tracks, maybe seven tracks of guitar, and let me create. Unless he heard something specific, Quincy would let you go. [16:20] Paul Jackson Jr.: I remember the record “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” with Patti Austin and James Ingram. We were in the studio playing around David Foster’s keyboard parts. There’s a big drum fill that John Robinson does going into the bridge. I was sitting close to him, and he hit the cymbal and choked it. Quincy just knew those moments. [17:23] Paul Jackson Jr.: Quincy would say, “You’ve got to catch people within 10 seconds.” Back then, everything was radio, but it’s still true now because people have a short attention span. If you don’t catch them in 10 seconds, back then they changed the station. Now they go to something else streaming. [17:38] Paul Jackson Jr.: He had this thing about ear candy. Even with “P.Y.T.,” the opening guitar things were meant to keep you listening. That was actually two different guitar parts. The first phrase was guitar two, and the answer was guitar one. Quincy and Bruce knew how to take those things and make them work. [18:12] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That breakdown is epic. The soul and funkiness of that guitar playing makes that whole section. To think Quincy said, “Just create,” and you created something that generations are still hearing is amazing. Because the movie is huge right now, people are rediscovering that era and understanding the significance of what you contributed. [19:02] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Herbie Hancock said you are the guitar player who could play anything. When it comes to the science of the groove, if somebody calls you for a session cold, what gear is getting dropped off, and what is your mental process for finding exactly what they need? [19:30] Paul Jackson Jr.: If it’s a cold call, the gear that gets dropped off includes various electric guitars: a Strat-style guitar, Les Paul-style guitar, and hollow body guitar. On “Late in My Life,” I used a 335 with my thumb, like Wes Montgomery. I’ll also have a few different amps, pedals, and effects because you don’t know what direction they may go. [20:02] Paul Jackson Jr.: As Reverend Dr. Sugar Free, under the auspices of Elder DJ Quik, said: “If you stay ready, you ain’t got to get ready.” [20:36] Paul Jackson Jr.: The thing is to be ready for whatever they may say. You also have to be able to read music because some people are better writing it out than explaining it. Some people are better explaining it than writing it out. The key is also to listen. You want to listen to what the drummer, bass player, keyboard player, vocal, or lead instrument is doing. [21:14] Paul Jackson Jr.: It’s like the first report cards you get in kindergarten: plays well with others. You get into the concept of space, range, rhythm, and the first rule above everything else is to make the music feel good. I don’t care what you’re playing — straight-ahead, country western, polka — it has to feel good. [21:50] Paul Jackson Jr.: Think like a drummer. I’m not saying that to flatter you. That came from Freddie Green, who played with Count Basie. Freddie Green said a guitar player should be a drummer who plays chords. If you listen to Count Basie records, everybody except Freddie and the bass player are going places. Freddie is holding the time. [22:47] Paul Jackson Jr.: When I was teaching at USC, I would tell guitar players, “You’re a drummer. You have to figure out which drum you are.” If you’re the hi-hat, you might be playing a certain rhythm. If you’re the snare, you might be playing the backbeat. The idea is to figure out which drum you are. [23:24] Paul Jackson Jr.: Another thing is that the drummer is always right. I don’t care where he puts it. Your responsibility is to figure out where he puts it and put it there. Every drummer has their own clock and their own feel. They put it a little differently, which is fine because that’s music and personality. My responsibility is to figure out where they’re putting it and put it in the same place. [24:00] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: All my guitar players, notice he didn’t say play all the fills. He didn’t say play all over the place. It’s about knowing your place and matching the drummer in a tactful, musical way. That concept makes so much sense. Throughout history, you hear the backbeat and the rhythm parts and the hi-hat-type parts. That’s an amazing analogy. [24:47] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Talking about the evolution of the industry, I remember doing a session with you probably close to 10 years ago, and you were the first person I saw with a Kemper. I think it was The Big Short or some movie thing we did. I had never seen that before. Is that something you still use instead of actual amps? [25:22] Paul Jackson Jr.: I use different iterations of the same concept. Right now, I use a Fender Tone Master Pro, which is amps in a box, modeling, the whole nine yards. I use some pedals to give it more warmth and realism. I also use a pedalboard built for me by a company called Ike’s Pedalboards, in conjunction with a Fryette GPDI, which is a small tube amplifier made to go direct. [25:57] Paul Jackson Jr.: One of the things you can’t be afraid of is technology. I tell people, when you stop learning and stop grinding, you should quit because you’re not going to get any better. [26:16] Paul Jackson Jr.: The idea of the Kemper, Axe-Fx, Tone Master Pro — you’ve worked with and produced a lot of artists, so you know there has been a shift away from having a bunch of stuff on stage. First, we went to in-ear monitors and got rid of wedges. Then people realized they didn’t want big, blaring guitar amps on stage. Speakers went below or behind the stage. Then it became, “I don’t want to hear them at all.” [26:48] Paul Jackson Jr.: If you’re singing and dancing, you may not want to hear giant power chords. The question became: how can we have a quiet stage and still get a great sound without making a bunch of noise? [27:05] Paul Jackson Jr.: With gear like the Kemper and Tone Master Pro, the sound is repeatable and replicable. If you do a show in upstate New York and the next show is in San Diego, the stage, sound company, microphones, weather, and backline are all different. But if you’re using something like a Kemper or Tone Master Pro, your sound is exactly the same. [27:38] Paul Jackson Jr.: When we were doing American Idol, I used a Kemper and bought a second one that we kept at Ricky Minor’s recording studio. We would record, save the sounds, and then take them to the stage. On stage, we had the exact same sounds we had on the recording. You can’t be afraid of technology. [28:11] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That leads to the next topic: tape machines, the old-school way, DAWs, and remote tracking. What percentage of what you do now is remote versus going out to sessions? [28:37] Paul Jackson Jr.: Now I would say somewhere between 90 and 95 percent is remote. I’m in a group called Jazz Funk Soul with Jeff Lorber and Everette Harp. Everette lives in Phoenix. If he writes a song, he’ll say, “Paul, can you lace this track for me?” He sends me the files, I put a bunch of parts on them, and send them back. [29:06] Paul Jackson Jr.: Before, if I had all my gear brought to a studio, there was the price of bringing it, setup time, miking, and getting sounds. Now all my equipment is at home, set up and ready to go. If you send me a track and ask me to lace it, I turn on a couple switches and I’m recording. Everything is wired and ready. [29:43] Paul Jackson Jr.: I have a room big enough to track in and I’ve done drums there a couple times, but most drummers, including you, have setups of their own. If I want to do a session with you, I can make the drive to the Valley — or the files can make the drive. You do a few passes, then we go to lunch. Or I can bring my Kemper or Tone Master Pro to your room, plug it in, and we’re tracking live with everything direct except the drums. There’s no bleed. [30:42] Paul Jackson Jr.: Technology has enabled us to do things we couldn’t do before. My buddy used to make fun of me because I had a tape machine, and to punch in I would put the remote on the floor. I took one of the rubber feet off a power amp and put it on the record button. I would play along, and when I had to punch in, I would hit it with my foot. [31:15] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That’s wild. Pretty soon you’ll be able to configure it verbally. That leads to the next part of the evolution, which some people think of as a dirty word and others see as natural progression: AI. I’d like to get your take on it musically, and also whether you use it in non-musical life. [31:47] Paul Jackson Jr.: I use AI a lot for search-engine-type things. I’ve been on a health kick, so I’ve been researching supplements, exercises, and what different things do. I use it a lot for that. [32:09] Paul Jackson Jr.: In terms of music, I did something similar with my students at USC. If I was trying to teach a certain song to a guitar player, I would put it into a program like Moises and take the guitars out. If it was a vocal thing, I would take the voices out. Then I’d say, “You replace it,” so they could play with the actual track. I was able to separate stems — individual tracks of instruments — and remove things for teaching purposes. [32:46] Paul Jackson Jr.: It gets back to what I said about technology: you have to embrace technology. My dad used to work with computers, and back when computers first came in, they had a saying: garbage in, garbage out. AI is obviously a more advanced manipulation of data, but I’m of the ilk that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. You still have to give it the right information and the right input. If you give it great input, AI can come up with amazing things. [33:33] Paul Jackson Jr.: Will I use it to write songs? Absolutely not. Will I use it to enhance songs? Probably. [33:44] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Speaking of input, let’s talk about mentorship. You mentioned Ray Parker, Patrice Rushen, and others mentoring you. Then you and Patrice ended up mentoring thousands of students at USC. How important is mentorship in today’s music scene? The proving ground of going to clubs and making your rounds through a city seems to be going away. [34:36] Paul Jackson Jr.: Mentorship is extremely important for a lot of reasons. I heard Myles Munroe say you don’t want your brilliance, or what God has given you, to go into the grave with you. You have to leave some knowledge. [34:53] Paul Jackson Jr.: I play at church at Faithful Central, and there’s a young guitarist named Chris McCorkle who is dope. Every time he sees me, he calls me “the legend,” and I joke, “Did he just call me old?” But we talk about sound and approaches. We listen to each other. I ask him what he played, and he asks me what I played. We’re going to get together because he wants to come over and talk about sound. [35:29] Paul Jackson Jr.: The Lord has allowed me to get to a certain level. I tell people I played on the number one record in the world 35 years apart: the first one being Thriller, the second being Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. That has to be God. The Lord has given me a lot, and it would be a tragedy — I would almost say a sin — not to share knowledge with people. [35:59] Paul Jackson Jr.: Give people your phone number, give people your email, be accessible if they want to ask questions or learn. That’s vitally important. [36:10] Paul Jackson Jr.: That’s how I approached USC. I was always buying boxes and bringing things in. We talked about quiet stages and getting a great sound without making noise. There are a variety of ways to do that. You may not like Kemper or Helix by Line 6. Maybe you like pedals. Let’s figure out a way to do it that way. Maybe you like an all-in-one multi-effects unit. Let’s figure that out. [36:49] Paul Jackson Jr.: I would bring gear into the office and say, “Try this.” They had amplifiers, but I wanted to show them things they could take from school and hit the ground running. [37:10] Paul Jackson Jr.: Whenever I did a show, like the Oscars with Ricky Minor, I would bring in the charts. I would say, “Today you’re going to play the opening theme from the Oscars.” I’d have a track and the music. “There’s a sound change here, a patch change here, you go to rhythm here, there’s a lead thing here. These are the parameters. Go.” [37:29] Paul Jackson Jr.: Or I’d bring in a track from a Christmas special where Tori Kelly sang “This Christmas.” The original Donny Hathaway version didn’t have much guitar, so I had to create something. I’d give the students the track and chart and say, “You’ve got 45 minutes to come up with a guitar part. I’ll be your engineer. I’ll rewind, fast-forward, whatever you need, but you’ve got 45 minutes.” [38:00] Paul Jackson Jr.: That’s the real world. You go into a session and someone says, “Great. You’ve got 45 minutes to come up with the part.” That kind of mentorship is vitally important, and as long as the Lord gives me breath, I’ll continue to do it. [38:21] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That shows why, in music school — especially popular music — it is impossible to properly teach this area if you’ve never done it on any real level. People are paying money to be instructed by people who have only gone to school to become instructors, not people who have actually done the thing. [39:04] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: When I see someone like you, who is hands down the king of sessions as far as I’m concerned, that information carries so much more than someone who read about you trying to teach it secondhand. USC was smart to have people like you, Ndugu Chancler, Patrice Rushen, Ronny Washington, Reggie Hamilton, and people who actually did it and are still doing it. [39:41] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That’s how you learn how to really make it. Otherwise, students come out of music school and ask, “What am I supposed to do now?” Then they go back to school to become teachers because they never actually got to do the music thing they spent all that money on. My daughter plays guitar, and she’s killing. I’d love for her to sit with you one day. [40:04] Paul Jackson Jr.: For sure. Come on. [40:18] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: As far as legacy goes, looking back at a discography of well over a thousand recordings, is there one part or rhythm that is your personal favorite? [40:45] Paul Jackson Jr.: If I had to pick one, it would probably be “P.Y.T.” That was a situation where I sat there and had to come up with something. It’s also the song most people ask me about. [41:13] Paul Jackson Jr.: Record-wise, obviously Thriller. There was a record I did with Ella Fitzgerald when I was 19 that would be another one. Random Access Memories. Probably what I played on The Weeknd song “I Feel It Coming,” because it was such a huge record. [41:27] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Wait a second. I didn’t even know that. Come on, Paul. [41:43] Paul Jackson Jr.: I was in the studio with Daft Punk after Random Access Memories. We were recording for a day, coming up with stuff, and it never came out. I didn’t think about it. [41:54] Paul Jackson Jr.: One day I was driving in Culver City, and I heard this record by The Weeknd come on. I thought, “That sounds pretty good. The guitar sounds pretty good. Wait a minute.” Then I realized it was a collaboration between The Weeknd and Daft Punk, and one of the songs we cut that day turned into “I Feel It Coming.” [42:32] Paul Jackson Jr.: Another favorite is the guitar solo on “This Place Hotel,” also known as “Heartbreak Hotel,” for Michael Jackson. The reason is because he sang it to me. I went into the studio, and he put in a cassette. For those who don’t know what a cassette is, it was a little box with tape in it. He had sung the part on the cassette and said, “I want you to play this.” So I played exactly what he sang. [43:13] Paul Jackson Jr.: Those kinds of moments that ended up being iconic are special to me. Also, my first solo record, I Came to Play, because it got nominated for a Grammy, and I was able to take my parents to the Grammys. That was a big one. [43:29] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Let’s talk about that. At a certain point, you started putting out records and beginning your journey as a frontman and artist. How was that transition? [43:58] Paul Jackson Jr.: It’s interesting how that happened. I bought some recording equipment and was cutting all these demos because I was convinced that I needed a band. One day, and I believe it was the Lord, He said, “You need to make some jazz. You need to make some instrumental music.” I said, “I can’t do that. I don’t play like Earl Klugh or George Benson.” [44:18] Paul Jackson Jr.: I was producing a sax player and came up with a tune called “I Came to Play.” The song ended up falling into my hands. I had done all the demos on guitar and played it for Sylvia Rhone at Atlantic Records. That became my first solo record, I Came to Play, which was nominated for a Grammy. [44:33] Paul Jackson Jr.: It’s still going on. I’m in Jazz Funk Soul with Jeff Lorber and Everette Harp. We just released a record, Simpatico, and had a top-five single I wrote with Jeff. We’re touring, I’m still doing solo records, still putting out music, still grinding. In the words of Reverend Dr. Rick Ross, “Every day I’m hustling.” It never really stops. I’m going to come out with new solo music this year. There are a lot of opportunities, a lot of places to be creative, and a lot of ways to get better. [45:19] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: You’re definitely keeping it going. It’s an iconic career and amazing story. The fact that you’ve been in L.A. this whole time, built a career here, and are still here speaks to the fabric of Los Angeles, especially at a certain time when so many incredible people came out of it. [45:43] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Paul, I can’t thank you enough for sitting with us. Everybody, go look up the discography. I’m going to help you in the description, but you will be mind blown. [46:03] Paul Jackson Jr.: I have to do one shameless plug along the lines of leaving a legacy. A filmmaker named Keith O’Derek and I decided to do a video series called Paul Jackson Jr.’s This Is How I Did It. There’s a link on my website and Instagram. I revisit songs that I played on. [46:17] Paul Jackson Jr.: The first unit is Michael Jackson songs. I did “P.Y.T.,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” and “Another Part of Me.” I’m getting ready to upload “Dirty Diana” and “Love Never Felt So Good,” which I also played guitar on. On the app, I break the parts down, explain why I played them, and include charts and tracks to practice with. [46:47] Paul Jackson Jr.: The idea was to leave a legacy. If somebody says, “What did you do, and how did you do it?” there’s a tangible way they can get it. [46:59] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: That is amazing. Is it a web app or iOS? [47:05] Paul Jackson Jr.: It’s a web app on the Udemy platform. If you go to my website, PaulJacksonJr.net, and click the link, it will take you right to it. [47:12] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: We have to give it up again for Mr. Paul Jackson Jr., one of the greatest to ever do it. Paul, thank you for being gracious enough to sit and talk with us. It’s inspiring to hear your story, and hopefully it will touch a lot of people. We’ll talk again soon, and we have to go to the range. [47:39] Paul Jackson Jr.: Yes. We won’t mention what we have, but we do have to go. [47:48] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Didn’t I tell you I’m an instructor? [47:51] Paul Jackson Jr.: Yes, you’re a firearms instructor and range safety officer. [47:56] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Yes. I did all that so our musician community could be a little more well-versed in that world. It’s nothing to be afraid of. It is a skill and a tool. I already took Greg Phillinganes out. [48:18] Paul Jackson Jr.: It’s fun. [48:25] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: Absolutely. Thank you, Paul. Ladies and gentlemen of The TrevBeats Show, Mr. Paul Jackson Jr. [48:35] Paul Jackson Jr.: Lord bless you real good, and stay funky like I always say. Thanks, Trevor. [48:43] Trevor Lawrence Jr.: All right, everybody. I appreciate you rocking with us. Share this episode with somebody in your circle who is on their musical journey. You never know who needs this conversation. Subscribe, like, and comment. Follow us on Instagram at Trevor Lawrence Jr., and stay locked in. The TrevBeats Show has new episodes every week. We out.