Tom and Dick Smothers were a comic folk-singing duo who had worked their way from the coffee house and college circuit to a nationally-televised television show. I was a big fan, from the days of their first album. Here’s their version of a Lonnie Donegan hit; please come back when you’ve finished:
When the TV show began airing, I was still living at home, up the California coast, and driving to L.A. once a week or so, looking for work. Mostly, I was answering classified ads in the Los Angeles Times, posted by employment agencies who’d send applicants (well, me at least) to finance companies, looking for someone to loan money at usurious rates to people who…needed money and couldn’t land a bank loan. Evidently, there was a fairly substantial turnover in those jobs.
“But,” I would explain to the employment agency guy (always a guy), “This isn’t what I want to do — I want to work in the entertainment industry.”
“That’s all right,” they’d reply. “This job [at the loan company] will keep you afloat while we find what you really want.” In other words, they were sending out applicants who they knew didn’t want the job, and would leave it at the earliest opportunity. And. of course, picking up their commissions. Nice.
Finally, out of desperation as much as anything else, I asked myself, what do I really want to do? The answer: work for the Smothers Brothers (hell, if they thought Bob Einstein was funny, I’d be a shoo-in).
Somehow I got a number, which I called from a phone booth in Westwood. Whomever I got (Denny Shanahan, probably, who was their in-house publicist) was polite, though discouraging.
Years passed, and I got my first job in the music biz rather than TV. Many years later, as a reporter, I dealt with Shanahan, then working as publicist at Knott’s Berry Farm. Years after that, I worked briefly as a publicist for Ken Kragen*, who’d been the Smothers’ co-manager (with Ken Fritz) back when I made that call from Westwood.
Funny ol’ world.
Now, I wonder who’ll play me in the movie.
* main client at the time: Kenny Rogers. Also Dottie West, Gallagher, and a couple more. A story for another time.
I’d always been a big fan of the Lovin’ Spoonful, so when John Sebastian played the Troubadour to promote his first solo album, I couldn’t have been more excited.
He sang Spoonful songs; he sang terrific new stuff from his new album (“Red Eye Express,” “Rainbows All Over your Blues,” etc) that I was hearing for the first time and loved immediately.
(not from that performance, obviously)
In the middle of his set, he broke a guitar string. As he was putting on a new one and tuning up, Sebastian started fooling around a bit with a melody that I suddenly recognized as the guitar solo from one of my favorite rock and roll oldies.
“Party Doll!” I yelled out, very proud of my expertise at spotting spontaneously rendered guitar solos from old Buddy Knox records.
Sebastian grinned — as he tended to do a lot anyway — replied “Yeah!” and launched into what I was thrilled to see: an impromptu set of classic rock and roll songs from the era; “In the Still of the Night,” stuff like that.
Not just for that, but because I so enjoyed the whole show, I went back a few nights later.
He sang Spoonful songs; he sang terrific new stuff from his new album that I was now hearing for the second time and sill loved.
In the middle of his set, he broke a guitar string. As he was putting on a new one and tuning up, he started fooling around a bit with a melody that I again recognized as the same guitar solo from one of my favorite rock and roll oldies. And he followed up with the same set of classics as he had earlier in the week — and, I’ve now little doubt, the nights I wasn’t there, as well.
Ever since then, I’ve appreciated showmanship on a somewhat more sophisticated level than before — he still made the routine look absolutely spontaneous, which itself is an enviable talent — but I haven’t let myself be fooled again. Usually.
Don Lanier demonstrates “that” solo.
[Bonus lesson: if an act has a bunch of hits to its name, hasn't performed them, and calls for audience requests, you're going to hear most of those hits, no matter what the audience asks for -- which will for the most part will consist of those hits, anyway.]
[Second bonus lesson: If you're going to save your biggest hit for an encore, be damned sure the audience is going to want an encore and isn't leaving the theater during "Lucretia MacEvil"]
A music website has been compiling posters’ “desert island” discs — you know, if you were to spend an indefinite amount of time on a desert island, what records would you want, and why. They preferred selections where we could provide the record via YouTube, which leaves out albums. Well, not really — we could always post a track from an album. Some other time, maybe. They were also asking for a personal connection, where possible.
We were asked to make eight selections; then add a book and an “object.” Here’s my entry:
My earliest memories were whatever was on the radio at the time – I vaguely remember The Weavers’ “Goodnight Irene, “Kaw-Liga” by somebody or another who wasn’t Hank Williams, and Les Paul and Mary Ford. But while I liked those records at the time enough to remember them now, I’ll have to say that in retrospect Gordon Jenkins’ orchestrations ruined The Weavers (though he gets a lot of respect for helping them get on what was then a major label); “Kaw-Liga” still is far from my favorite Hank Williams song; and I’m still not all that fond of Mary Ford’s vocals on Les Paul’s records, though I appreciate the craft that went into them.
So the first record – or at least the earliest – I’d take to the desert island is something by Nellie Lutcher. Her version of “Cool Water” was in my grandmother’s collection, though I still have no idea what she was doing with an album (in the old sense of several 78s in a binder) by a black jazz/lounge singer; and why, of all the songs therein, I’d be especially drawn to her rather drowsy version of a song originally sung by the Hollywood cowboy vocal group The Sons of the Pioneers, and written by its Bob Nolan.
As life went on, I became a major fan of the Sons of the Pioneers (particularly their ‘30s and ‘40s stiff, before they sort of went uptown with the – again – orchestrations), and was even privileged to meet Nellie Lutcher. She was to appear at the Cinegrill, a local bôite, and I interviewed her for the newspaper I was writing for at the time (they trusted me to write about pretty much anybody I liked, provided I mix it up and include some popular “names”). If she was taken aback by my story of having been introduced to her through my grandmother’s record collection, she kept it to herself. As nice as she was talented, Nellie later sent me a small cooking grill. I don’t cook outside (living in an apartment) and ethics should have prohibited me from accepting it anyway, but it wasn’t an expensive one (I reasoned), and wouldn’t it be unforgivably rude to refuse such a kind gesture?
All that said, for my desert island stay, I’d prefer something a little slinkier. And after a few weeks of exposure to the island sunshine, I might even qualify as the subject of her lust.
My father (from Nebraska, which is as mid-American as it gets) was an Anglophile; to the point where he subscribed to “The Illustrated London News” and “Punch,” bought me a subscription to “Boy’s Own Paper”, and – to my lasting gratitude – introduced me to the works of authors including A.A. Milne and Geoffrey Williams. He also had a few records by Englishmen in the collection: Flanders & Swann, “Beyond the Fringe,” and – more obscurely – the “Albert” poems of Marriott Edgar, recited by Stanley Holloway. Somewhere along the way, I also became enamored of musical theater.
The first album I remember buying was Tommy Dorsey’s “Hawaiian War Chant,” which launched my lifetime love of big band jazz, despite my mother’s being scandalized by the sarong-clad woman (quite demure, really, and somewhat obscured by red light) on the cover. My second album, as I recall, was Ritchie Valens’ debut; and my third was Gene Vincent’s second, the one with the color photo of Gene and the Band looking especially cool.
There was a lot of variety in Gene’s early albums – I still think he’s severely underrated as a ballad singer – and the band was both hot and “cool” in the sense of cool jazz. I met Gene in 1969 through a mutual friend, and was invited to attend the sessions for the two albums he recorded for the Kama Sutra label in Los Angeles. The first, where Gene was backed by members of the Sir Douglas quintet plus a few ringers, I wrote up as my initial contribution to “Rolling Stone.” Some discographies show me as a background singer, along with the producer’s wife and girlfriend, both of whom were living with him at the time. Trust me: though we were all present, none of us sang on the album. Possibly, the producer listed us on the invoice to the record company, and pocketed the money. Possibly not.
While I like the Kama Sutra albums, particularly the first one, for the desert Island I’m taking an earlier, Capitol cut. Like a lot of rockabillies, Gene had a sentimental streak a mile deep.
Can’t be on a desert island without a Beatles record, right? Well, I can’t. It’d be easy for me to pick one for each: today it’d be “And Your Bird Can Sing” for John; “If I Needed Someone” for George; “I’m Down” for Paul; and, well, “Boys” would be as good as anything for Ringo. But pick one song to stand for all four? That is, as the King of Siam would sing, “a puzzlement.” How about “Rain”? I could spend months, trying to figure how those bass and drum parts were inspired.
Chuck Berry, too: the man who owns as much claim as anybody to have invented rock and roll guitar, and to this day one of the music’s cleverest lyricists. Again, what would I not get tired of hearing? First choice would be the instrumental he released at various points (all different recordings) as “Rockin’ at the Philharmonic,” “One O’Clock Jump” (with the Basie riff somewhere in the background), “Rockin’ at the Fillmore,” and – the definitive version – “Liverpool Drive.” If I were to learn guitar, I’d be tempted to play this to the exclusion of everything else. Maybe on the desert island… (The one here is cut off at the beginning and sounds like a different take than I’m used to, but it’s close enough).
I’ve always enjoyed the Everly Brothers, less so during their brief “psych” period, maybe, but there was always something. Generally speaking, the more “country” the better. But when I first heard this update of an old Perry Como ballad on my car radio, I literally pulled over to the side of the street (Loma Vista; I remember it that well) to find out what the hell the record was, and who was performing it.
Anybody who knows me knows my love for country music; I grew up listening to it and watching a lot of great weekend shows (Town Hall Party, Cal’s Corral, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, the Spade Cooley Show, etc.) on L.A. television. Even I’m surprised at my love for country music of the ‘70s, often polished up as it was. But the writing and singing were never better than during those years I like uptempo stuff as much as anybody, but I also go for ballads that can break your heart. To me, this 1978 single is probably the best record by my favorite female country singer of all time. She wrote it with producer Billy Sherrill and the man she married after her divorce from George Jones.
Finally, the record I sometimes think may be my favorite single of all time, by anybody. Lyrics, melody, vocals…even the typically-thin Motown string arrangement (maybe a little beefier than usual) works here. I could easily listen to it countless times; thanks in part to the way the song and arrangement shift around. In time, I might even learn the dance steps to go with it.
There are a couple of books I try to read every couple of years; both of them stand up to that treatment. “A Confederacy of Dunces” is one of them; richly comic and almost terrifyingly autobiographical – or maybe it just seems that way to me. But the book I’d take is Thomas Berger’s “Little Big Man,” which is even funnier than the movie; and also, I would expect, a pretty well researched trip though the latter years of the Old West. Part of the fun is trying to determine whether narrator Jack Crabb is making up or hallucinating his tales of life after being adopted into a Native American tribe and leading up to his participation in the Battle of the Little Big Horn (and beyond), though ultimately it doesn’t matter — of course he’s making it up: [i]it’s a novel[/i]. Many years later, Berger returned to the territory; the sequel – “The Return of Little Big Man – isn’t as well known, but it is pretty much as good as the original. In fact, it’s just about time for me to read them both again.
And an “object”? Sort of depends on what’s already on the island, doesn’t it? Presumably something to play the music is included (as well as a power source), I’d probably turn vegetarian, so no use for fishhooks or fancy cutlery. Will I need a blanket for those cool desert island nights? And I’ve learned not to treat women as objects.
Maybe a deck of cards. Or a computer with WI-fi and a very long extension cord.
He was rightly (or, in the parlance of those days, “righteously”) steamed because the reviewer, evidently “seeing’ the set from the Palladium VIP lounge*, claimed that the band’s horn section was out of tune — and, Donahue screamed over the phone, Stoneground didn’t have a horn section!
Not knowing how to handle Tom — who, after all, could demand that the record label pull its advertising — I turned the call over to Harvey Geller, who was running the office in those days.
Cool as could be, Harvey assured Tom that “you will never see that reviewer’s name in Cash Box again!” Not mentioning that the reviewer in question had left of his own volition the week before; I was his replacement.
(the reviewer wound up in the a&r department of what was then a major record label — though not the one stoneground was on!)
* a bar, off the lobby, where guests could hobnob during intermission. Many used it to wait out the opening act; though the sound was muddy, you could hear when they’d finished..
Through the years, one of the most fun and (at least intellectually) rewarding things I’ve done professionally is writing liner notes for albums by recording artists ranging from the Jazz Crusaders to the de Castro Sisters; from Pat Boone to the cast of “Bonanza,” and from Mel Blanc to Rick Nelson. I’ve done several dozen of them, for numerous big and small labels, and I can’t think of one I didn’t enjoy researching and writing.
The college I attended (at least the one I claim) is a “great books” school, where students rely entirely on primary sources: you don’t read “about” Euclidean geometry; you read Euclid. In Greek. And so on.
For various reasons, I only lasted two years at St. John’s, but that was enough to instill some values in me; one of which was to go to the source, wherever possible. I’m not distinguishing myself from other liner note writers, most of whom also try to deal with the artists whenever possible (some don’t bother; others, including me in a couple of cases, are warned against dealing with an artist the label doesn’t want to “meddle” in the project). And of course, some of the times, the artist is no longer available to be interviewed by anybody, being dead.
Still, there’s usually somebody available; and in many cases those on the sidelines are at least as informative as the artist.
Songwriters are my favorite; they always have interesting stories, and unless they’re household names (usually as performers), they haven’t been overburdened with interview requests through the years. I’ve also spoken with recording engineers, arrangers, producers, sidemen, label executives, and members of the act’s bands. Anybody with first-hand experience. I may not be the only person who does this, but I like to think of the use of a lot of firsthand quotes as a sort of trademark. Oddly, perhaps, nobody from a label has ever mentioned that; I wonder if they even notice, or care. Also, I will occasionally see where the writer has conducted some firsthand interviews, but uses few if any direct quotes. “What a waste,” I think.
I’ve had some exceptional fortune. When I was writing about Frankie Laine, Clint Eastwood spoke with me about “Rawhide.” I’d been trying to get to Johnny Cash to talk about himself (generally relative to an upcoming personal appearance) for decades without luck; it wasn’t until I was writing about Rick Nelson’s “Restless Kid” that Cash, who wrote the song for “Rio Bravo” (where it wasn’t used), would speak with me.
Other times, I’ve had less luck, Two musicians significantly involved in Frankie Laine’s records went on to long and distinguished careers under their own names. Laine considered them proteges; neither of them wanted to talk about their work with the singer. I went back-and-forth with one’s publicist for several months; I actually spoke with the assistant of the other, who always referred to her boss as “the maestro.” Both were said to have been “on tour,” to places, presumably, without access to telephones.
I’ve had no luck with film directors, either: Blake Edwards through his assistant wasn’t available to talk about the Frankie Laine vehicles he’d directed in the years of his career pre- “Pink Panther’ and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”; likewise Taylor Hackford, who early in his career worked on a Rick Nelson documentary. George Sidney, who’d directed three Ann-Margret vehicles including “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Viva Las Vegas”, wouldn’t speak to me on the record (he did take my call, then clammed up) until he received permission from the actress.
Speaking of whom:
I’d tried to get Ann-Margret for a year, through her management, who came up with one delay after another. And the day (literally) of my deadline, she came through. I took some quotes and plugged them into what I’d already written. And this was for an Ann-Margret box!
Another time, I’d spoken with every member of Steppenwolf except keyboardist Goldie McJohn and lead guitarist Michael Monarch, though I’d sent out missives trying to locate Monarch, especially, all over the place for some time. The day after I handed in my copy, the phone rang. “Hi, this is Michael Monarch. I hear you’ve been trying to get hold of me.”
I've been kicking around the entertainment industry and journalism for several decades. I've worked on staff and freelance for record label advertising and publicity departments and the Capitol Record Club; written and segment-produced syndicated radio programs (Earth News with Lew Irwin and American Top 40 with Casey Kasem); was a staff reporter/reviewer for trade publications Daily Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Cash Box); and edited magazines (Record Review, KIIS - The Newspaper and Ampersand).
For several years, I was the entire pop music staff of Los Angeles's second-largest circulation newspaper, covering pop, rock, country, jazz and pretty much anything else that wasn't "classical" ; for a decade following that, I covered the Ventura County theater beat for the Los Angeles Times, each week writing feature articles and reviewing local amateur and touring professional productions.
While writing for The Times, I freelanced television and music reviews for Daily Variety.
And then there's the weird stuff, like selling pipes and electric shavers at The Broadway department store; converting the Greek Theater's mailing list to punch cards; and writing, directing and editing in the talking toy department at Mattel.
