It was the “Secret Weapon” of “We Are the World”. 39 Years Later, Here's His Story

From the song backup on Elvis Presley's 1968 TV comeback, dedicated to writing Michael Jackson's “She's Out of My Life” and covering vocals on Billy Joel's An Innocent Man, Quincy Jones' longtime collaborator Tom Bahler has had an incredibly jam-packed musical career. But as he sees it, the culmination of it all came in January 1985, when Jones invited him to arrange the lineup of vocal superstars on “We Are the World.”

With a new documentary about the song, The Greatest Night in Popout now on Netflix, Bahler, now 80, looks back on the song's creation in the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music now podcast. Here are some of the highlights of the conversation. to listen to the entire episode, which also includes interviews with Sheila E. and documentary filmmaker Bao Nguyen, go to here for your podcast provider of choice, listen Apple Podcasts the Spotifyor just press play above.

Quincy always said you were his secret weapon in this session.
Oh, I think we were all there for each other. [Manager] Ken Kragen really brought it all together. He called Lionel, then he called Quincy, and Quincy called me. One of my favorite things was a night or two before we actually recorded, we went over to Lionel's house, and it was Lionel, Ken, Quincy and me. We usually don't sit around and think about what could go wrong. We usually go to a place and say, yeah, we're going to kill this thing. But no one had ever had 46 people in the same room before, and there were so many strong creators in the room as well. Stevie Wonder, if you take a breath, he'll come up with something and it'll be good. But it would be a mess. Diana Ross is another. She's so sharp and so on. And if there's dead air, man, he'll fill it. what a singer and what a wonderful, wonderful artist she is. So we sat down and thought, okay, what could go wrong? And then let's have an answer for that. You don't have to go to war if you are prepared.

Michael Jackson was obviously one of the main creative forces behind the song and you had worked with him before in the late 70s and 80s. What do people not realize about him as a musician and recording artist?
I learned so much from him. He was the most prepared artist I have ever worked with. But he was also very shy. Quincy unlocked his cage because at Motown, there were only two people who were allowed to speak, to contribute their own ideas: Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. Michael kept saying, “Hey, we can…” and he hears, “no, no, no, just do what you're told.”

But the thing about Michael, he was just from another planet, so prepared, so ready. I remember when we did The Wizhad memorized of all lines. And Quincy protected him. He was not used to being protected by elders. I enjoyed working with him.

What was the first thing you heard about 'We Are the World'?
Quincy called me and said, “Hey man, I just got off the phone with Ken. Have you heard this song? 'Do they know it's Christmas?' It's a great song, but no one will be playing it in March. They fought. [Bob] Geldof knows that.” And so Ken had Lionel write a song and Quincy brought in Michael to finish it. And he said, I want you to do the vocals because we're going to do it with all these people after the American Music Awards. I had already worked with at least half of these singers and Ken sent me albums for all of them.

It was your job to decide who sang what. What were the first steps to putting the vocal arrangement together?
Quincy said, “Dude, I want you to set this up, but I have two requests. One is that Lionel was the first to write this. So it should be the first voice we hear. And then because Michael came in and they finished it together, Michael got to sing the first chorus.” And then, that's his humor, he said, “and I think you should bring Diana [Ross] for the second half of the first lesson, because some people think it's the same person.” And I went, okay, okay. And he said, 'the rest is up to you.'

And the first thing I heard was with Michael's clear voice on the first chorus, I wanted him to growl the second chorus. Well, the boss. I thought after Lionel, I'd like to hear Stevie. With Tina Turner, I wanted her lower range, which was so warm and so rich. So I put her on her line and Quincy looks at the chart and goes, “man, I don't think Tina can pull this off.” And I said, “maybe, trust me on that.” That was all he questioned.

The most radical transition in the entire song is from Dionne Warwick to Willie Nelson — how did you figure that out?
It was instinct. I heard her and then I heard him. I wanted Willie because, to tell you the truth, Willie sang “She's Out of My Life” and my favorite recordings are Michael and Willie because it's so pure.

And you very optimistically picked a place for Prince, even though he hadn't actually agreed to be there.
We were going to put Prince in there, but I felt like Prince had a problem with men. With him everything was with women. It made him feel good. But he and Michael didn't dislike each other. Michael was comfortable with him and wanted him in “Bad”.

Prince said he didn't want to sing the line “the butt is mine.”
I think that was one of his excuses, but I think he was afraid of Michael. This is pure speculation on my part. Michael was not afraid of him. Michael was not afraid of anyone. He loved everyone.

People obsess over how uncomfortable Bob Dylan looks throughout the recording.
And I totally got it. Because he works alone and doesn't consider himself a singer. Yes, he can sing, but he does what he does. And suddenly we're like, “Hey, do that line.” I think one of the funniest things all night was when Stevie sings it to him [in a Bob Dylan imitation]. And Bob says, “Oh, okay, cool.” So he reminded Bob who he was.