"I was contracting and playing studio sessions, and hired Cornell for many of the dates – so we started recruiting for the band. One day at Rudy Van Gelder’s – I remember it was a hell of a job; it was for Queen Esther Marrow, great singer. George Benson was on the job, Bernard Purdie, and Richard Tee on keyboards. Esther asked me if she could use the band for a club date she had lined up – a club called Mikell's in New York City. We did play there, and Richard Tee stopped by one time and he started coming every night. We only worked Monday through Thursday, and Mikell’s was packed, wall to wall, round the block."

"Steve Gadd came by one night to sit in with us, as did Eric Gale, and they both became a part of the band. We were rolling heavy, and one night I was approached by Michael Lang, the gentleman who put on Woodstock, who said he was sure he could get us a record deal – were we interested. Sure enough Warner Bros. flew in from California to hear us live. They liked us, but we couldn’t use the name The Encyclopedia of Soul – it was too long. I remember we were in a diner that was on the corner by Atlantic Records one day; there was me, Michael Lang, Cornell Dupree and Erma Dupree and we were trying to decide what we would call the band. It was Erma who said, “You know Gordon, you always call everybody stuff, I don’t care who it is. You should call the band STUFF."