Morris Day- The Quintessential Essence of Cool

Book Reviews, Entertainment — By Buddy Sampson on February 6, 2020 at 1:00 am

By Buddy Sampson

Morris Day will always be cooler than you are. Just when you think that you are the coolest in the room, Morris steps in, and while you may be a facsimile of cool, he captures its essence, and that’s why we love him so much. His stage manner is smooth as silk, but offstage, he just reminds you of the cool brother you have a cold brew with that will have you laughing until your stomach hurts.  Famous for his hit song, “Cool,” produced by Day and Prince,  Day appeared at UCLA on a chilly, Westwood, California day that matched his persona of cool to promote his book, “On Time, A Princely Life in Funk,” with David Ruiz.

During the two-hour event, Day recounted how he started as a drummer in a group called Grand Central. When asked about his beginnings, Morris of course had a cool retort. “Yaw’l still have to buy the book,” laughed Day, when interrupted by a lady that said she had purchased the book. “Well now you have to read the book.”

Day attended a high school dance with the intentions of meeting a young lady and saw Grand Central, a group that had a young Prince as the one of the stars. “Prince was on lead guitar, Andre Cymone on bass, his sister Linda on keyboards- some of these names you may not know- Lou Downey (sic) on congas, and Terry Jackson on timbales,” said Day. “Prince was doing these guitar solos-he was 14 years old and playing like he was 25 and the whole band was just incredible. So, I forgot all about the girl, I was mesmerized.” Day began an association with Andre Cymone and, one day, while hanging out with Andre, Day had the opportunity to show what a skillful drummer he was. Cymone was impressed. “I didn’t know you could play like that,” said Day of Cymone’s reaction. It led to an audition, and let’s just say he did okay. “I brought my drums by, I set them up, I played a few cuts for him and my drums never left, and I never left, and I was in the band ever since.”

When asked if Prince was always a virtuoso, Day was candid. “I think Prince was born a virtuoso,” he laughed. “When I got in the band, he was playing keyboards like nobody’s business. He used to duet with his day in church. He was incredible. But not only that, Prince was Prince. He was very strange back then, you know. I was in the band for two weeks and he never said a word to me. We talked arrangements, other than that, he’d just be looking at me. He would be in the doorway in the dark standing there and I’d feel these eyes looking at me. It took months before he started talking to me directly.”

A drummer at heart, Morris Day was content to stay behind the drums, singing occasionally. “I was very comfortable being a drummer and I planned on being a drummer, but I’m glad I ended up being a singer,” he laughed. Prince, after auditioning several singers for the new band he was forming, finally asked Morris to do it. “I said, I don’t think I could lead up the band, I wouldn’t know what to do,” said Day. “He said, ‘just be cool.’ I said, I can do that.” And cool he was. Morris Day has turned cool into a new art form.

 To the delight of the audience that attended the signing, he revealed something surprising about the musicians on the cover of The Time’s first albums. “They weren’t actually band members yet, they were models,” laughed Morris Day. “The first two albums were basically cut by me and Prince. We had people that came in that sang backgrounds, keyboard solos, stuff like that, but the basis of it all was me on drums and him on bass, so that’s how all those songs started.”

When asked how he’s able to do such energetic shows at an advancing age, Morris had a cool response- “I never did splits and all that, so it’s not a big deal,” he laughed. Morris Day, however, isn’t living off his past coolness, however. He has a new single just released, “A Little More Funk.” “There’s an album coming out, but it keeps changing,” laughed Morris Day. “We have a lot of great music and we’re continuing to do collaborations. I think at the end of the day, it may end up being me doing collaborations with a lot of different artists and some really unexpected collaborations as well.”

“On Time, A Princely Life in Funk,” is a book that traces his life, his experiences with Prince and the travails of being on the road with a legend and superstar.  On Amazon Books, Day’s book illustrates that once again, he’s the quintessential essence of cool. And he’s cooler than any of us will be.