"Tones" Magazine - Interview with Jellybean Johnson

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Jellybean Johnson has known Prince since he was 13 years old when they were attending Lincoln Junior High School in Minneapolis. He has known Morris Day since he was 12 years old. The journey that would take him from his childhood through a whirlwind of success including performing with The Time and within the movie Purple Rain, would return him home to Minneapolis and the music scene that found him. Things are a lot different for Jellybean now, but the music still matters and flows through him to his audience with power and passion. Jellybean Johnson is a soft-spoken man who plays guitar like lightning and still performs as the drummer with The Time when touring outside of Minneapolis. When Jellybean looks back at his role within the spectrum of what was the "Minneapolis Sound," he speaks of being a peacemaker. When egos flared and old school friends grew famous, Jellybean walked softly through the mayhem and offered a stable disposition to the dynamic. You can see the reason Jellybean was welcome in the circle that was turbulent at times with movies, concerts, fame and fortune always tugging at the seams. He has an old soul, a comfortable way about him, and a strong and trusting look in his eye. He doesn't seem to rattle when confusion stirs around him, and from atop his tall frame he never looks down upon those around him. A confident man, yet humble, he seems to be at peace with where he's been and where he is. Jellybean shared some thoughts with us one evening just before a gig with his band The Routine at the Minnesota Music Cafe on Payne and Seventh avenues in St. Paul.

TONE: How did you get the name Jellybean?

Jellybean: We were playing at the Flame Bar on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, and Robert Martin said, "We sound like a buncha jellybeans!" The next day they got me a T- shirt that said Jellybean on it, and it stuck. We used to play there six days a week as Flyte Time and the Standelles. Cynthia Johnson was the vocalist in the band until she left to sing "Funkytown" for Steven Greenberg around 1980.

TONE: You guys played in '77 at my Eden Prairie High School prom at the Marriott Hotel. You guys wore orange jump suits. You got the entire group of us kids in a circle and we did the Soul Train thing: everybody takes a turn dancing in the middle. We had a great time!

Jellybean: Yeah, that was our P-Funk phase, when we wore the tuna suits.

TONE: I recall running into, I think, Terry Lewis at Berns Music in Bloomington in '80, an old house full of music stuff in a back alley. I told him we really enjoyed the prom. I asked him what clubs to look for the band at, and asked if they were playing a lot. He told me that it was hard because club owners didn't like the kind to of clientele the band brought in. Was there racism that was obvious! What was it like trying to find gigs!

Jellybean: Right about that time,'77-'78, we played a lot at Acirema, which was America spelled backwards. We were young and black. We used to play hotels, black sorority houses, The Fox Trot, and the Flame Bar downtown used to have us. We were a nine- or ten-piece band with horns and keys. Originally, there was a big rivalry between Flyte Time and Prince's band, Grand Central. We'd play at festivals in Wheatley Park all day and all night. That's where it all started.

TONE: Prince was developing his talent, evolving.

Jellybean: I remember going to see him do a concert at the Capri Theater. It was a movie theater in North Minneapolis. It was packed. It was strange to see your friend Prince up there, girls screaming all over the place. I was impressed, with how far he'd come, his talent. In '78, he came out with "Four You."

TONE: Was it "4U," or "Four You."

Jellybean: "Four You.

TONE: So he actually spelled s**t back then!

Jellybean: (laughing) Yeah.

TONE: As he was making it, what were you doing?

Jellybean: In '79-'80 1 was at the U of M studying speech communication.

TONE: What did you want to be?

Jellybean: A DJ or sports announcer or radio announcer.

TONE: But you became a musician.

Jellybean: I was originally a drummer. Morris Day, who is a phenomenal drummer, and a lefty, and I used to set our drums up next to each other at his mom's. I started messin' around with guitar. Drums are very physical. Guitar is a spiritual and emotional thing for me.

TONE: Tell me about when Prince hit and what that meant for The Time.

Jellybean: I'I1 never forget it. After I saw that concert at the Capri, we were in the studio trying to cut our own deal. He would tell us that he'd like to help us but he couldn't do anything yet. We'd seen him make it, watched him establishing himself. We're spending money on this demo, a bunch of snotty-nosed Northside guys. Prince and Morris had a deal. He had been touring all around the country looking for musicians for a movie. He found Jesse Johnson in Illinois. Then there was the fateful meeting, and I wasn't invited! Finally, Prince comes to us and says, "This is what's going to happen." Jesse Johnson moved here from Illinois, Bobby Z was his drummer, and Prince and Morris wrote a song called "Party Up." His gift back to us was to put together a band. It was, at the time, Flyte Time with Alexander O'Neal. After the meeting, Alexander O'Neal pretty much said, "If there isn't going to be a bunch of money, then I'm not in."

TONE: O'Neal went on to some success, didn't he?

Jellybean: Yeah, he has three gold records. The Time has four albums, three gold and one platinum.

TONE: So how did The Time shape up after Alexander left?

Jellybean: Morris was going to be lead singer, Terry Lewis on bass, Jesse Johnson on guitar, and Monty Moir and Jimmy Jam on keyboards. I played drums.

TONE: And this all for the movie Purple Rain?

Jellybean: Yeah. We started taking acting lessons everyday.

TONE: what was that like?

Jellybean: We were taking ballet, pirouetting and s**t across the floor. In a weird way, it was quite exciting, at 5 a.m. we're on this movie set, which was killer, until 6 or 7 p.m. in the evening, for three months, non-stop!

TONE: Tell me about working with Prince.

Jellybean: He and I had a fight scene that got edited out of the movie. He accidentally hit me. He was quite apologetic. The scenes were fun. During the shooting of "The Bird," Prince was making us shoot it over and over again. There was a lot of just hangin' around at First Avenue and The Union Bar.

TONE: Wasn't there another big "real" fight that happened?

Jellybean: This has been written about in other books, but yeah. A couple, I mean. I was always in the middle. Prince used to always treat Jimmy the worst. Because they're both geniuses, they clashed. Now, in hindsight, Jimmy deserved most of that s*'t. Prince fired Jimmy and Terry when they missed a gig. It wasn't their fault. I quit, and Prince asked me to come back. I was having my first child, Bianca. Jesse said, "C,mon let's do this thing." So I came back, but Jimmy and Terry didn't. I was asked to fix it, but it was years later that Prince, Jimmy and Terry mended fences. The other fight was between Morris Day and Prince. It was during filming, a fistfight, and I had to break it up. These are two enormous egos, and eventually it came to a head. There was one big show at First Avenue that was supposed to happen. After the show, Morris was OUT the back door into his waiting Porsche with his girlfriend and GONE! The Time disbanded. The next time I saw Morris (laughs), he was talkin' about the "Oak Tree."

TONE: What happened after Purple Rain and all of that was over?

Jellybean: Prince kept me on. I just followed him around on tour. He was engaged to Suzanna, Lisa's (guitar player for Prince and the Revolution) sister. He was putting together a group called The Family with Paul Peterson, Jerome, Eric Leeds and me. I was just hangin' out. It was a bit funand sad.

TONE: Tell me about The Time now.



Jellybean: There are four original Time members still with the band; Monte Moir, Morris Day, Jerome Benton and me. Jellybean Johnson still tours with those four original members of the Time periodically, recently performing in New Orleans. His other band, The Routine, performs Tuesday nights at the Minnesota Music Cafe in St. Paul. He also plays guitar with the TC Jammers at Bunkers on Washington Avenue in Minneapolis on Thursday nights.