Remembering The Mac Man & Black Moses

A nation is saddened at the news of the passing of these two giants (who worked on a last film together: the upcoming Soul Men with Samuel L. Jackson). I first met Bernie Mac while on the Club Benson & Hedges tour in 1996. Ironically, it was during the Olympics in Atlanta, that I was staying at The Mondrian in L.A. I got into the habit of rising at dawn to go for a walk down Sunset Blvd, and pick up a morning paper. The Mac man would be the only brother outside waiting for a car to bring him to the Moesha set. Somehow it went beyond the usual nod of the head and we'd have warm conversations about life, career, and choices. One thing he told me that I don't seem to be able to verify was that he was not the first person in his family to have success in the public eye. He mentioned a brother who played Major League Baseball and another who sang with The Chi-Lites. The last time I saw Bernie was while I was a publicist working on The Kings of Comedy Tour.

One of the last extensive interviews Isaac Hayes gave was with Tasty Clips in 2007. It was tough to get due to him being in recovery from a stroke suffered in 2006. I pursued it because a good friend 'Freddie Boy' Sawyers sang backup with him for years and used to tell me what a great guy he was. Ledisi started out singing with Isaac too and shared a couple of great stories that I edited out of our interview due to space. He started off slowly in the scheduled 15 minute phoner with one word answers. I was frustrated that after 10 minutes I had barely anything. However, as a caregiver at the time, I knew to be patient. Suddenly, at our cut off time something changed and he opened up in a number of ways you'll understand after reading the interview here.