Ry Cooder, Jerry Garcia, The Drifters, Clyde McPhatter, Wanda Jackson, Aaron Neville & a Mystery Guest.
I spend a lot of time in Book Shops.
And it’s clear from the groaning shelves that Recipe Books are very popular indeed.
So, here’s my pitch for a new title :
‘The Record Company Recipe Book : 4 Ingredients for guaranteed success!’
1. Perspective :
Most people can’t see and hear the significance and potential of what’s right in front of them.
That’s because they’ve accepted, usually unconsciously, the assumptions and prejudices of the culture they grew up in.
So it’s a great boon if you encounter a native culture through the perspective of a stranger.
Someone who can see the veins of gold where others see only bare stones.
2. Intellectual and Emotional Intelligence :
It’s one thing to see potential it’s another to imagine how that potential could be realised in the form of artistic achievement and monetary reward.
So, you’re going to need a sharp and innovative mind and honed emotional antennae because you’re in a business where you have to consistently please and win the loyalty of both loose cannon creatives and the great record buying public.
3. Build a Team of All the Talents :
OK. You’ve found some artists who have real talent but that represents only the above the water part of the Iceberg whole.
You won’t get Hits regularly and generate tons of greenbacks unless you have a talented and committed team driving every aspect of the process that results in the bonanza of a big fat Hit.
So – find songwriters who know music, who know artists and who can write songs that play to the strengths of those artists and the tastes of the men and women gathered around the Jukebox and the Record Shop counter.
So – find a group of flexible musicians who will definitely turn up for the session and who can play brilliantly in a wide variety of styles so that whoever’s in front of them sounds like the leader of a superb band.
Add in a Whiz Kid Engineer/Producer who makes the resulting record sound fantastic on tne radio, in the bars and juke joints and on the home Hi-Fi (even it’s actually very Low-Fi).
So – find business managers and marketing staff who are hard headed professionals completely wedded to the cause.
4. Keep the Recipe to yourself and add a magic ingredient :
So, Keep the team motivated and loyal.
You’re a band of brothers not a corporate clique!
And, you know that when it comes to Singers in particular there’s a deep mystery as to why some voices turn on all the coloured lights and have people begging for more.
So, if you find one of those Singers – move heaven and earth to sign them up and get that whole team on the case so that those coloured lights burn bright all over the nation.
I know this Recipe works because it’s exactly the one followed by Ahmet Ertegun the founder and presiding power behind the enormous success story that was and is Atlantic Records.
He had the Perspective as the teenage son of the first Turkish Ambassador to the US who fell instantly head over heels in love with Black Music – Rhythm and Blues and Jazz on first encountering them.
With brother Nesuhi he found deep veins of gold in Milt Gabler’s Commodore Music Shop to the extent that they amassed a collection of over 15,000 78s and became acquainted with musicians such as Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton.
They promoted concerts and traveled to the sacred music sites in New Orleans and Harlem to listen first hand to the music and so develop a keen awareness of contemporary musical tastes.
There’s no doubt he had the intellectual and emotional intelligence.
When his father was recalled Ahmet knew his future lay in the US and that he could found a record company that would prospect for and discover black singers and musicians who could reach way beyond the, ‘Race Records Market’ if their work was professionally recorded and marketed.
Surely, that cat Ray Charles should stop trying to imitate Charles Brown and cut loose in the studio like he does at his shows?
The man’s a genius and I’m going to tell him so and together we’re going to revolutionise the music world!
People are going to know a Rhythm and Blues (so glad I brought Jerry Wexler who coined that term into the fold) record on Atlantic is guaranteed to get your heart thumping and your hips loosening and once they do they’ll be queueing up for each new release.
Team of Talents?
Well how about songwriters like Jesse Stone and Leiber & Stoller.
Musicians like ace Guitarist MIckey Baker and Sax Sensation Sam The Man Taylor.
How about that Kid Tom Dowd who Is an absolute wizard in the Studio! He keeps asking for new equipment and I keep saying yes because he makes our discs just sound better and better.
How about Miriam Abramson and Francine Wakschal in publishing and accounts. They know how every dime is spent and nobody gets to rip them or us off!
Magic Ingredient you say?
Well how about the time I want to see Billy Ward & The Dominos at Birdlland (mainly to hear Clyde McPhatter) and found Billy had just fired Clyde!
Now, though Clyde was the reason those Dominos’ records sold so well he didn’t get the credit as most people assumed Billy himself was the lead vocalist.
Not me!
Clyde has captured true Gospel fervour and combined it with down and dirty R&B so that you gotta say, ‘OOOH – WEEE’ right along with him.
Lets sign him up and get him in the studio as fast as possible with some great singers behind him.
Jesse says he’s got a sure fire hit with a song called, ‘Money Honey’ (great title Jesse).
Sex and Money – top of pretty near everybody in the world’s wish list!
Can’t wait to hear Clyde light that one up.
Going to call the group, ‘The Drifters’.
Clyde knows the singers whose talents will perfectly frame his own.
Bill Pinkney has a smooth baritone, Gerhart and Andrew Thrasher have such sweet tenor voices while Willie Ferbie holds down the bottom end.
Got a feeling this ain’t gonna be no one off Hit.
Landlord ain’t gonna be ringing our Bell.
Lord, but this is going to sound great.
I’ll bet we sell a million and that years from now people will still be recording Money Honey – one thing I can tell you nobody will ever out sing Clyde!
No Siree.
No one ever topped Clyde for roller coaster, thrill a minute, I may just have to scream I’m so excited vocal drama!
There’s a wonderful confidence and certainty oozing from every second of the song as if everyone knows they’ve sure hit pay dirt this time.
Money Honey was recorded on 8 August 1953 as The Drifters debut 45.
Straight to the top of the R&B charts and taking up residence on the list for almost 6 Months.
And, straight into the affections of generations of singers and musicians.
Here’s Jukebox Hero Ry Cooder really getting into a groove before a live audience.
Ain’t no doubt about it Ry can really make that Guitar talk!
It’s the mark of a great musician to put their own stamp on a well known song and make you listen to it with a new sense of its depths and joys.
Ry is always welcome here and soon he will feature in an extended Post solely dedicated to his storied career.
Remember I talked about Clyde McPhatter’s roller coaster, thrill a minute, I may just have to scream I’m so excited vocal brilliance?
Well here’s the stupendous fireball Wanda Jackson proving that she can set your heart ablaze just as thrillingly with her own vocal pyrotechnics!
How can you not fall deeply in Love with Wanda!
And, Now, The Jukebox introduces the promised Mystery Guest.
Duffy Power is something of a secret hero of the 1960s British Blues and Rock’n’Roll scene.
He had plenty of talent but somehow the alignment of the fates and his own troubles meant he became a marginal cult figure whose sales never matched his achievements.
Listen to his take here and see if you agree.
Jerry Garcia was a true music afficianado.
With The Dead and with his various side projects he payed loving homage to the music that had inspired him in his youth.
He obviously got a great buzz out of playing Money Honey – returning to it decade after decade.
Well wasn’t that a Kick!
Now to conclude, sadly in the week that brother Art Neville died, a glorious version from the one and only Aaron Neville.
I think Clyde will be singing along with this one on the celestial choir.
Old school relaxed brilliance.
Owing more than a little to the presence of Keith Richards on Guitar.
Got to admit that one had me resurrecting my cartwheeling skills!
The sun may shine and the wind may blow.
Lovers come and Lovers will surely Go.
But today’s lesson is that a song like Money Honey is here to stay.
What Bacharach brought to the popular song was immense slegance and sophistication in the conception and construction of melodies, instrumental colour and arrangements.
A Bacharach song has a jewelled Faberge radiance that seduces and dazzles the listener.
A spell is cast, especially when sung by a singer of taste and discretion, that lingers on and on in the imagination.
Bacharach’s genius was to cast and recast that spell adapted to the particular talents of the artist he was working with.
Of course, this wizardry would attain its apogee in the breathtaking series of sides he cut with Dionne Warwick.
For, ‘Mexican Divorce’ Burt’s conjured a melody that takes you gently by the hand as it unfolds its tale of longing, loss and painful regret.
The lyricist partner for Burt here was Bob Hilliard a music industry veteran who had already had notable successes on Broadway, in Hollywood, and on the Pop Charts.
We all know Bob Hilliard songs – think; ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning’, ‘Our Day Will Come’ and, ‘Tower of Strength’ just for starters.
With, ‘Mexican Divorce’ there’s a lovely flow and economy of words which tells a heartbreaking tale that all of us can recognise the truth of.
We know that finding love can take so long. So long.
Alas, we also know that though walking away from love must be wrong and a Sin we do it over and over again.
Millions of footprints in the sand headed for the Broken Promise Land.
There’s no house so dark as one where the light has been turned off by a lover who doesn’t want to live there anymore.
And, sometimes, all you can do, though you know it’s fruitless, is to beg, beg in between tears:
‘..My love I beg – please, oh, please, don’t go!’
Carrying off the lead vocal duties with deep died melancholia was the tragic figure of Rudy Lewis (that’s Rudy on the right below)
Rudy had the gift of bringing life and drama to a song so that it stays etched in the memory.
Supporting him with characteristic subtlety and sureness of tone were his colleagues in the 1962, post Ben E King, version of The Drifters.
Giving the song an extra layer of poignant theatricality were a quartet of extravagantly talented session singers.
Leading these singers was Cissy Houston who brought tempered Gospel fervour and warmth to every record she ever sang on. She’s pictured below with The Sweet Inspirations.
Dee Dee was a superb back up singer as fine lead singer as singles like, ‘We’re Doing Fine’, ‘I Want to Be with You’ and, ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’ attest.
But it was the younger sister, Dionne, who caught the ear of Burt Bacharach. He recognised that her voice had an airy pellucid quality which would make her perfect for a new batch of songs incubating in his imagination.
During the session for, ‘Mexican Divorce’ Burt asked Dionne if she would like to sing some demos for him.
And, the rest, as they say, is History!
Providing the arrangement ( no doubt head to head with Burt) and conducting the strings was Claus Ogerman.
Claus was a deeply schooled Jazzman who had found a niche for himself at Verve records working with major artists like Bill Evans, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Wes Montgomery.
On the Pop front he arranged, Leslie Gore’s ‘Its My Party’, ‘Cry To Me’ for Solomon Burke and ‘Don’t Play That Song’ for ex Drifter Ben E King.
Manning the Desk were the legendary duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller who always wanted to make sure a great song became a great Record.
Bacharach, Ogerman and Leiber & Stoller all loved the Cuban and Latin musical accents rife in New York City Dancehalls and on the airwaves.
Together they gave, ‘Mexican Divorce’ a flavour of the exotic.
Mexico is different and the song reflected that.
Scroll forward a decade or so and much nearer Mexico Ry Cooder brought his own unerring instinct for finding the heart of a song to, ‘Mexican Divorce’.
Ry and his superb Band take the song at a languorous tempo like a lonely sleepwalker on a hot night finding his way back to the house where he was once happy.
Plas Johnson plays the all hope is fading heart rending Sax.
‘The Jukebox. I lived beside Jukeboxes all through the Fifties … You want to hear a guy’s story, and if the guy’s really seen a few things, the story is quite interesting’ (Leonard Cohen)
‘Oh I know that the music’s fine,
Like sparkling wine go and have your fun,
Laugh and sing, but while we’re apart,
Don’t give your heart to anyone.’
(Doc Pomus/Mort Shuman ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’)
Once in a very Blue Moon you turn on the radio and a song comes on that you know, know, from the first instant you hear it, is a song you will love for the rest of your life – however long that may be.
It’s a song you’ve never heard before yet at once you feel familiar with it.
Somehow, it seems you’ve been waiting for this song.
A song that you know, know, is true.
You know, know, this guy is telling you a story ripped from his heart.
You know, know, that this song really mattered to this guy and now it really matters to you.
This is a song that speaks to you.
A song that speaks to some essential human yearning.
Once in a very Blue Moon you hear a song like, ‘Save The Last Dance For Me’.
The Drifters glorious original recording from 1960, indelibly sung by Ben E King, shimmered then in the New York night skies and now it shimmers all over the globe.
Shimmers anywhere a lover burns; oh Baby don’t you know I love you so – Can’t you feel it when we touch?
With every baion beat of your heart you vow I will never never let you go.
But, what if she lets you go?
For the one who caught your eye will surely be given the eye by other guys.
What if she is so intoxicated by the pale moonlight and the sparkling wine that she forgets who’s taking her home and in whose arms she should be when the night ends?
What if when he asks if she’s all alone and can he take her home she says Yes instead of No!
Ah, ah, there’s the rub!
For, however agonising it may be, Love only thrives in freedom.
You make a prisoner of Love and it sickens and dies.
So, sometimes, you have to paste on a smile as your Love enjoys the pale moonlight and the sparkling wine with another right before your very eyes.
You have to have Faith.
You have to have Trust.
The Drifters, led by Ben E King, with Dock Green (baritone), Elsbeary Hobbs (bass) and Charlie Thomas (tenor) soar as they bring all these emotional tensions to quick, quivering life scoring a permanent mark on your heart.
Ben E King had a wonderful gift for balancing strength and vulnerability in his vocals.
There’s a special poignancy in a strong man confiding the intimate terrors and the torments hidden under the confident, life and soul of the party, smile.
It’s one of the reasons ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’ is immortal.
Before you have a record you need the song.
And, for the song you need songwriters.
Save the Last Dance for Me was written by one of the greatest songwriting teams of the 20th Century – Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman.
Think of, ‘A Teenager in Love’, ‘This Magic Moment’, ‘Little Sister’, ‘(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame’, and, ‘Sweets for My Sweet’ just for starters!
Now, if there was ever a guy who had really seen a few things and knew how to tell a story that guy was Jerome Solon Felder, known to the world as Doc Pomus.
Doc Pomus, born in 1925, grew up in Brooklyn, a fiercely intelligent bookish boy who became obsessed by the sounds of Jazz, Blues and Rhythm and Blues you could listen to 24 hours a day on New York radio stations.
Doc was not the kind of guy who had casual interests.
No, when Doc took something up he dove in – head, neck and feet.
So it was with Doc and the Blues.
And, certainly his intimate understanding of the Blues grew in depth when in his youth he was stricken by Polio.
It didn’t stop him writing and singing the Blues.
It didn’t stop him heaving himself on crutches up on to the stages of Jazz and Blues clubs throughout the 1940s.
But, but, it did stop him from triumphantly sweeping his new bride round the dance floor at his wedding.
Instead, he had to smile as other men held her tight waiting for the night to end when, finally, they would share a last dance of their own.
Doc remembered those conflicting emotions when he wrote, ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’ on the back of one of the invitations to their wedding.
Doc’s lyric throbs with love and longing. With yearning and anxiety.
It’s a mixture that cuts deep into the listeners soul.
Doc’s writing partner, the urbane Mort Shuman, read the lyric and, inspired, devised a melody that has the glittering sheen of tears in the eyes.
So, now you have an emotionally complex and true lyric and a ‘you’ll never forget this once you’ve heard it the first time’ melody and a vocal group with a dynamite lead singer.
You’ve got the song. You’ve got the singers.
What more do you need?
Well, what you need is savvy Record Producers, songwriters themselves, who know from bitter experience, that a great song does not guarantee a great record.
What you need in New York in 1960 is Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
They will bring in superb musicians like Bucky Pizzarelli, Allen Hanlon, Gary Chester and Lloyd Trotman and frame their expertise in an arrangement that will ensure the great song and the great singers make a great Record.
They’ll make the record start like a beating heart.
They’ll have subtle latin rhythms seducing the ear throughout.
They’ll not shy away from bringing in the sweeping strings when they’re demanded.
They’ll balance the urgent lead vocal with tender echoes from the rest of the vocal group.
They’ll listen and listen again and polish and polish and polish until they’ve made a Record that nothing less than a masterpiece of American Popular Music.
Together, Songwriters, Singers and Producers will make a Record which will never fade for true stories are always true and always recognised as such by open hearts.
An open heart like that of Leonard Cohen.
Leonard will likely have heard, ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’ on a Jukebox in a cafe in Montreal habituated by fellow Poets and Writers searching for inspiration, recognition and the redemptive fires of love.
Leonard, a Ladies Man if there ever was one, confided that in those days he was no student of music – though he was certainly a student of cafes and waitresses.
But, once he heard a song that really told a guy’s story in a way that he could believe he remembered the number of that song on The Jukebox and punched it in again and again.
And, when he came to have a Jukebox of his own he filled it with Records that told interesting stories.
Records like, ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’.
Leonard was a Gentleman and a Scholar of the dance of Love and the dance of Life and knew as a Poet how emotionally powerful precisely chosen words, of the right weight and rhythm, were once set to music.
So, embarking on a career as a Songwriter and performer in the late 1960s he brought all his considerable gifts to his new vocation.
Over the next half century he created a body of work that stands with any in the history of Popular Music.
Deep currents run through Leonard Cohen songs.
Songs about every aspect of the love between men and women and between human kind and God.
Beautiful Songs that illuminate our search for Love without disguising the frequent ugly betrayals we are heir to all our lives.
Leonard knew that Life was so serious that often the only proper response was laughter – sometimes ironic sometimes wholehearted.
Leonard understood the steps and missteps in the Dance of Life.
He knew that we all want someone to dance with very tenderly and long.
He knew that we all want someone to dance with through the panic till we’re safely gathered in.
We all want someone to dance with to the end of love.
As the end of his life approached Leonard reached back to those Jukebox days and began to sing, ‘Save the Last Dance for Me’ in concert.
It was, in fact, the last song he ever sang in public (though the version featured here is from Ghent some years earlier).
Leonard knew, as Doc Pomus knew, that in dance we stretch out our hands and our bodies and make a connection which can sustain us through the panics and perils of life.
Leonard Cohen and Doc Pomus, each in their own way, danced, danced, danced to the end of love.
Listen to The Drifters and canny old Leonard and make a promise that you’ll save the last dance for the one you love.
For there is one Dance we all do alone as we journey through life to death.
Until that day stretch out your hand.
Take your partner in your arms and dance!
Have Faith.
Trust.
Save the last dance.
The very last dance.
Notes:
There’s a fine biography of Doc Pomus by Alex Halberstadt ‘Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life & Times of Doc Pomus’
The film documentary ‘AKA Doc Pomus’ by Peter Miller and William Hechter is a must watch.
I highly recommend Allan Showalter’s Blog cohencentric.com for all things related to Leonard Cohen.
When I get home I’m tired and beat. That’s why I come up here.
Up here, up on the roof where the air is fresh and sweet.
Up here it’s as quiet as Brooklyn gets.
A man can drop his shoulders and take a deep breath and let his mind roam free.
Last week I was forty four years old. Forty Four!
My folks married in ’17. A War wedding.
Dad said to Mom, ‘I won’t wait. The world won’t wait. Let’s get married now!’
I hop they had a sweet time in the short time they had together.
Dad never made it home from France. Never made it home.
Two things in life I’d like to do.
Take Kathleen and Mom with me to lay some flowers and say a prayer at Dad’s grave.
And see Billy Boy and Maureen go to College and make something of themselves.
Oh, and if I could turn back the hands of time I’d love to see The Dodgers play one more time at Ebbets Field.
One more Lucky and I’ll go back down.
Maureen (16)
Up here, up on the roof, the stars put on a show for free.
Which is just as well ’cause Mom and Dad ain’t exactly giving me a free pass to see any of the shows I’d like to see at The Fox or The Paramount.
They’d keep me out too late and I might meet the ‘wrong sort of boy’.
Of course anyone outside an apostle is the wrong sort of boy.
And, Jimmy would definitely be the wrong sort of boy.
Strike One – He ain’t Catholic.
Strike Two – He’s 21 and that according to them is way too old for me.
Strike Three – He’s a College Boy with too much money and not enough sense.
But, oh but, but, but Jimmy dances like a dream, he makes me laugh and he makes me feel like no one ever knew me before he met me.
I won’t be able to see him for two whole days.
So I come up here on the roof and turn the dial on the radio to WINS and when ‘Will you still love me tomorrow’ comes on I know that he will be singing along too just a few blocks away.
And the stars above are our stars and it’s our show.
Billy Boy (14)
Up here, Up on the roof you’re immune from all that rat race noise down in the street.
Two places in the world where I can be myself and let my thoughts roam free.
This rooftop and The Central Library.
You go in through those Bronze doors and you feel you are somebody and they got a million books.
A million books!
You read a book like ‘Catcher in the Rye’, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ or ‘The Invisible Man’ and pretty soon you know that there’s a whole lot more to the world than a Brooklyn tenement.
I never had any interest in Baseball even when Dad took me to see The Dodgers play at Ebbets Field.
But, I liked it being just me and him together and I liked the names – Campanella, Snider, Reece, Robinson, Koufax.
Up here, up on the roof looking up at the stars I feel like I’m going to write my own stories one day.
Kathleen (35)
Up here, up on the roof it can seem as if my cares just drift right into space.
Thinking of Bill, Maureen and Billy Boy if only I could just wish and make their worlds trouble free.
I was only 16 when I met Bill. And he was all of 21.
He said I made him laugh and that when I danced with him for the first time he felt more alive than ever before.
And, he ain’t been anything but sweet to me since the day we met.
He misses the Dad he never knew.
Maybe I can persuade him to take that trip to France – what else are savings for?
Kathleen has grown up so fast. She’s almost as mature as she thinks she is.
Bill wants to shield her from the wicked world. I guess that’s Dad’s and Daughters.
Maybe it’s time we invited that boy round. You never know Bill might take to him.
Maureen says he’s a lifelong Dodgers fan.
And, Billy Boy. He’s so quiet. His nose never out of a book.
Other Moms got to worry about their boys and gangs.
All I got to worry about is how much time he spends at The Central Library!
Maybe I should encourage him to write stories of his own.
Somehow up here, up on the roof I feel everything is going to turn out all right.
Up here. Up on the roof.
In 1962 Carole King and Gerry Goffin, one of the greatest partnerships in songwriting history wrote, ‘Up on the Roof’ a song which, to this day, seems to whisper enchantments in the New York night air.
The recording by The Drifters with Rudy Lewis’ magical lead vocal is the very definition of romantic uptown Rhythm and Blues.
Such a song will always be sung.
For Carol’s enticing melody and for Gerry’s heartfelt, heart stirring lyric.
Carol and James Taylor provide contrasting meditations on a theme before the inimitable Laura Nyro lifts our hearts and souls into the empyrean beyond.
The Immortal Jukebox 