Hello my friends, I'm Ted Stilles and once again, I'm taking you behind my process.
By 1980, I had a solo record. Bhang was pressed, distributed, and gaining traction on college radio. But a record without a business behind it is just a conversation starter. I didn't know that yet. I was about to find out.
It started with a cassette.
After years of traveling between New Jersey and the Manhattan club scene â recording blues sessions for Spivey Records, where Victoria Spivey had introduced me to everyone from Muddy Waters to Bob Dylan to Johnny Winter â and after my time in California with Buzzy Linhart, I had accumulated years of demo recordings. Cassettes were the medium. I made a master tape, ran off copies, and started selling them. The demand surprised me. Enough people wanted the music that pressing vinyl made sense. Once the first boxes of records were delivered, I found a local distributor and got things moving.
I didn't have a fully formed plan. But I committed to figuring it out. That decision changed everything.
My neighbor at the time was Steve Washington â a legend in the world of funk. Steve had built Slave, and from that foundation came Aura, Young and Company, Civil Attack and Steve Arrington's Hall of Fame. He heard Bhang and loved that I was doing something completely different. We spent countless hours together in the studio. He often discussed the philosophy of commercial songwriting, engineering, and production â everything I needed to master if I was going to make sense of what I was building.
In 1981, the bass player from my record, TM Stevens, became musical director for the artist Stacy Lattisaw who landed the opening act slot on the Jacksons Triumph Tour. That was exactly the situation I needed. After that experience, I knew what I needed to learn. It would soon be time to get back to my solo career.
Around that time, a friend introduced me to her neighbor, Professor Kellis Parker at Columbia Law School. He taught contract law. He mentored me until his passing â a loss I still carry. And through a connection in Stevie Wonder's camp, I met Senator Amadou Thiam, who had been a marketing major at Baruch College. He took me under his wing and groomed me in that world too.
By the end of the decade, my distributors wanted more product. But I wasn't ready to give them more of the same. I had learned too much. I took an advance, went back into the studio, pulled the strongest songs from Bhang, added new material, and made a stronger statement.
That album was When Music Becomes A Tool.
The title wasn't metaphor. It was a literal description of what had happened. Music had become the instrument I used to learn the business â songwriting, engineering, production, manufacturing, distribution, law, marketing. Every room I entered, every mentor who gave me their time, every stage I stood on â it all fed back into the work.
The tool was working.