American Songwriter » Paul Zollo

Mary McBride Takes Her Music To Those Who Need It Most

Paul Zollo — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:29:46 +0000

(Mary McBride)

She rocked the house. With an amazing band featuring Blondie’s Paul Carbonara on guitar, singer-songwriter Mary McBride delivered an impassioned and inspirational show Tuesday night for the lucky residents and staff of L.A. Family Housing’s Valley Shelter.

And not only did this internationally-acclaimed artist provide a rousing two hours of great music to this lucky crowd right in the midst of their current homes, she gave even more: several of the residents were invited to sing with the band.

“We started doing that in shows a few years ago,” Mary said in an interview prior to the show. “There are a lot of really talented people out there with a lot of musical history, so we open the flow for them to tell their musical stories. Now we do it in every show.”

And they do it well. Part of the trick is to enlist top-notch musicians, who can easily handle any style. In addition to Paul Carbonara on guitar, she’s got rock vets Greg Beshers (Rhett Miller) on bass and vocals, and Mark Stepro (Butch Walker, Ben Kweller) on drums. “These guys can play anything,” she said, and it’s true. Carbonara lit the night on fire several times with incendiary rock guitar solos, while also shifting to pure country and then pulsating funk above the steady rock-solid groove of Beshers and Stepro.

“This is special,” said Lamar Holliday, a New Orleans native who was one of the chosen singers. “To hear live music of this caliber right here where we all live, it’s fantastic! She could be playing the Hollywood Bowl, and instead she brought her band here, to play for us. And she sings like an angel – a honky-tonk angel!”

Asked how it felt to sing with the band, he got a faraway look in his eyes, smiled, and said, “It felt like a dream. A dream I’ve been dreaming my whole life.”

It’s a dream Mary’s been bringing to homeless men, women and children throughout America since she started her own non-profit, TheHomeTour.org, in 2010.

Like other singer-songwriters, she was busy doing what musicians do: write songs, make records, do gigs, get songs placed in TV shows and movies (she performed her song “No One’s Gonna Love You Like Me” onscreen and on the soundtrack of Brokeback Mountain), and go after the breaks necessary to propel a career. And she got lots of them. She’s opened in concert for many luminaries, including Joe Cocker, Jerry Lee Lewis and Maria Muldaur, while Sir Elton John invited her to perform at the 35th Anniversary Concert of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

But her life changed when she went to the We Are Family organization in Washington D.C. “It was right after the Obama inauguration. Through them I visited a lot of home bound and elderly in Washington – When I told them I was a singer-songwriter they said to come back and sing. I wrote a song “Home” and called my album The Way Home. And I thought it would be a good idea not to do a regular tour, but go to the places where people live.”

She’s talking about the places where homeless people live, but as always her focus in not on the negative – that they have no homes – but on the positive, which is that they have a place to live. They are off the streets. It’s why she rarely uses the word ‘homeless.’ Instead the word she chooses to use the most is ‘home.’

And at LAHC, and other organizations around America, the aim is to provide service as well as shelter, to launch them on a trajectory towards a permanent home.

“I thought that I would do both,” she explained, “some club dates and some Home Tour shows. And we ended up doing almost all Home Tour shows. After doing these kinds of shows, which are so emotional each night, the club dates were so dull.” She discovered the connection that comes when an artist, as Woody Guthrie wrote, “injects himself directly into the bloodstream of the people.” When you get in people’s blood, you reach their heart.

(Lamar Holliday singing)

So after her first Home Tour in 2010, Mary formed a non-profit called TheHomeTour.Org to create ongoing tours of shelters and such. Her diligent and ingenious fundraising led to garnering the substantial support of the Starwood Hotel, which donates hotel rooms for the tour, the Gibson Foundation, the Enterprise Foundation and the Fischl-Gornik Foundation, established by the artist Eric Fischl.

“I was close to getting a bank to sponsor it,” she said. “I realized that they want to sponsor poor people. But not this poor. They want to sponsor people who they think they can help get their first mortgage. They are not a charitable enterprise.”

Acquiring the support of charitable foundations also proved to be initially challenging due to the intangible nature of this project.

“The foundations want to know what the impact is, and it’s hard to gage the impact when you’re not delivering meals, you’re delivering music. So it became a matter of finding people who understand the value of music, and who feel everyone has the right to live music. A lot of people love music but don't have the resources to hear it. It’s empowering for us to come to them, and it validates where they live.”

Mary feels it’s as rewarding for the musicians as for their audiences.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for us as musicians because musically we switch it up. We see the room and we change the music to fit. These guys are great, they can play everything, and it’s so much fun to do a big range of music, whether it’s a Ray Charles hit or hip-hop or a Christmas song.

“Also, it’s the only tour where you know you’re gonna be in a better mood when it’s over than when you began. That’s pretty rare. Every day is a new adventure – you never know where you will be, or who will be there, who will sing with us. There’s no pretension at all, it’s so bare-bones, we have like one amp. Paul, who has played with Blondie in huge arenas around the world, loves doing this just as much, and maybe more. There’s nothing else like it.

“And the people who run these places, they are angels. We get here and they’re so appreciative. We’ve been touring since 2002, and had a lot of great breaks. But nothing like this. So now we hardly ever play clubs, and that is great. If I don’t have to deal with a grumpy club owner all year,” she said with a smile, “I’d be happy.”

She strives to provide something for all ages. “Performers more often come and do shows for the kids. But there are a lot of adults who need music, too. So we perform for kids a lot. But also for adults and the elderly.”

Indeed, she has taken The Home Tour to an astounding range of recipients, from the seniors in Washington, DC to Navajo families in supported housing in New Mexico to the kids of the Treme’ district in New Orleans to farm workers in rural Washington State to recovering vets living indefinitely at a VA hospital in Long Beach, CA. And it goes on.

“It’s endless, really, all the places that want us to play. Just here in L.A., it’s a little like Sophie’s Choice having to decide which one to do. Because they are all incredible, these amazing organizations. We try to have diversity: women’s groups, kids, the elderly.”

On this night, Mary’s allowed some of the Valley Shelter’s secret stars to shine. Patricia Carter, who suffers from autism, was dressed in a pretty pink gown to join Mary onstage. But unlike the other singers who sang with the band, she sang “O Holy Night” a capella, with no accompaniment, and brought down the house. When she began, a hush fell over the crowd, and you could sense the nervousness of her friends in the audience unsure if she’d triumph. But that hush quickly turned to cheers as Patricia’s beautiful voice soared through the night, stunning the crowd.

Afterwards people lined up to hug and congratulate her. “I didn’t even know she could sing,” said her friend and fellow resident William Muse. “She knocked my socks off!”

The mother-daughter team of Veronica and Kayloni Long sang a sweetly gentle version of “Little Drummer Boy,” while Lamar Holliday got everyone dancing with a voice as sweet and soulful as Smokey Robinson’s.

Resident Gwen Bender came onstage and began to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” a little weakly and off-key, as if her nerves got the better of her. The crowd shifted uneasily, sensing her boat about to sink. But it was just a trick: she then turned to the band, said “Gimme some funk,” and as they laid down a solid R&B groove, she launched into a great soul rave-up with all the soulful swagger of Chaka Khan or Aretha Franklin. The audience loved it. “I tricked you,” she said later with a gleeful grin.

On their own, Mary and the band provided a great range of music, from her own originals like the poignant “Home” through contemporary standards like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonely I Could Cry.”

When I asked her earlier if there is any kind of music that universally got people everywhere happy, she answered immediately. “Gospel. Everybody seems to love gospel. Even if they don’t think they do, we start ‘Swing Low Swing Chariot’ and everyone gets into it. You’ll see. And then there’s always straight-ahead rock and roll.”

It’s an experience that has transformed her own life as profoundly as it has the legions of people throughout America who have been touched by her music. And it’s changed her own definition of success.

“We played at City of Hope for two people who were about to have bone marrow transplants,” she said. “Because of their condition, only two people could come in at a time. So we did a whole set for two people. Through our regular prism of what is a successful show, you know, did we pack the place? Did we sell out? It’s different. You’re playing a show for two people. But as a musician you know you are touching someone with your music, and it doesn’t matter if it’s one person or if it’s 5000. We’re reminded of that each day. So your measure of success becomes very different, which is a blessing.”

(Paul Carbonara, Mary McBride and Greg Beshers)

Marc Platt Delivers The Goods With Bitter & Sweet

Paul Zollo — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:52:13 +0000

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Marc Platt's Bitter & Sweet (Dream Wild Records) is a masterpiece, a chain of powerful songs beautifully produced and rendered. Platt has been writing great songs and making powerful albums for years. But this a new level of greatness for him. This is as good as it gets. “Songs should be sturdy,” Van Dyke Parks said. “They shouldn’t fall apart like a cheap watch on the street.” I thought of that quote while listening – and then relistening, many times – to Bitter & Sweet. These are songs written by a guy who understands the intrinsic architecture of songs. These songs are sturdy and solid, designed so they won’t fall apart on the street. Ever. Like the greatest songs, these ones endure. Not only don’t they fall apart, they get better every time you hear them. They bring with them the happy reward of recognition, of realizing that yes, indeed, this is as good as I thought, this is as powerful, as cool and unexpected. It’s those little harmonic or melodic divergences, unexpected chord changes, for example, that become the very element that lends the song its power and longevity, and makes you want to hear it again and again. Platt is well-known in Angeleno creative circles not only for the solidity of his own songs, but also for his vast knowledge and love of the pop-rock songs of past decades. He’s a guy who aims for the timeless in songs, those elements which make songs come alive at the moment, and for moments to come. When songwriters produce other songwriters, the results are often especially compelling, as when Walter Becker produced Rickie Lee Jones, or Jackson Browne produced Warren Zevon. Songwriters know what makes a song tick, enhancing the specific strengths of the song as opposed to forcing them into predetermined production styles. Lisa Nemzo, long one of L.A.’s most revered songwriters, has produced these songs with copious and palpable love for what Platt does, lovingly framing the songs to underscore the strength of each. She started with an idea often considered arcane these days, that the song is the thing. But it’s a good place to start when producing a songwriter such as Platt, whose songs are so cannily constructed that a producer needn’t invent new elements as much as focus and enhance what’s already there. “Sucker’s Game” is a good example, with a great built-in rave-up rock swagger that the Stones could play the hell out of – though this great moaning electric guitar throughout is closer to Fripp than Keith Richards. Nemzo allowed the song to come to life in the studio, locking in a solid groove spiced by rhythm and lead guitars. Nemzo also co-wrote five of the songs here, including the title track as well as the greatly affirmative “I Will Carry You,” which is at once both simple and complex musically, shifting through unexpected changes. Sidney Lumet once said the goal of art is to achieve a perfection that isn’t obvious: “inevitability does not equal predictability.” It’s a wisdom that connects all these songs, which never seem contrived or arbitrary and yet are also freshly non-imitative. Like the best of songs, they break new ground with much loving respect for what’s come before. It’s also wise to surround the songwriter with great musicians who know how to spark a song, and Nemzo did that, assembling a small group that does everything – even drums - as well as bass, keyboards, harmonies, guitars and more – all played by Platt and Nemzo along with Berington Van Campen, Keith Wechsler, Paul McCarty, Thomas Hornig, Jason P. Chesney and Dale LaDuke. (Dale is the only one on accordion.) The level of musicianship throughout is as elevated as the songwriting. “Must Be You” is a little gem, a perfect song in less than three minutes. A lovely declaration of new love set to two acoustic guitars with sweetly sparse piano sparkles, it unfolds without a single false note. Its bridge is further evidence of an inspired, seasoned songwriter at work; like a classic McCartney “middle-eight,” it cuts away to a whole other scene before seamlessly returning to where we started. “My Heart Needs Something New,” written with Patty Matson, is an ideal marriage of words and music, the title line sings with its music with absolute rightness, as if they both emerged together. It’s haunting and hopeful, bringing sorrow from past heartbreaks to meet up with a reason to believe. “We Don’t Get Along” has a classic and visceral, electric Neil Young meets R.E.M. vibe. Solidly set to a folk-rock groove and stinging electric guitar, it’s a song about saying the unsaid, the stuff that can’t be taken back. It’s point of no return time, but lovingly – that the singer wrote such a poignant song is evidence of real love, wrapped much more in resignation than rage. If Otis Redding worked with Steely Dan, it might sound a lot like “The Way It Has To Be,” which has a slick and snaky minor-key soul feel but with hip modern slant, another lovely fusion of the forever past with now. Nemzo-Platt saved one of the album’s most powerful songs for the end. “Alone With You In A Crowd,” which they co-wrote, has a gloriously charged melody, reminiscent of the way Roy Orbison shaped songs to ascend and swell before exploding into an anthemic chorus. It’s classic build & burst songwriting with a deeply tuneful chorus that takes the title and runs with it. It’s one of those titles that says it all, and by being so eminently singable highlights the issue at hand – that what’s on the surface isn’t showing the whole story. It’s savvy songwriting, which with different music could seem contrived, and yet with the soulful purity of these chords and this melody is poignantly dimensional and delicious. It’s an ideal candidate for a new theme song for so many who have felt this exact emotion and yet never had a song to define it. “The Life I Wanna Live” opens the album with a dramatic pulsating orchestral arrangement built on the rhythm of the chord changes, like a Brian Wilson track, with the drums (played by Nemzo) delicately commenting on the situation rather than dominating it. It’s a powerful opener, with Platt’s voice as clear and resonant as Willie Nelson singing about blue eyes crying in the rain. His vocals throughout the album, wisely mixed so as to clearly project the lyrics, are confidently soulful. These days musicians often don’t think in terms of albums anymore, leaning towards producing singles for downloads. But there’s an unmistakable power in the momentum of a great collection of songs, how they sound in sequence, and the emotions created by hearing the whole rather than its parts. This is one of those albums, like the ones we listened to forever growing up, of strong songs connected by a singular energy and vision that lingers long after the music is done. My plan was to listen to this just a few times so I could review it, but I found myself wanting to hear it over and over, which is a good feeling in these disposable times in which there are more albums than ever, but fewer good songs. We’re in an age in which technology enables artists to create remarkable sounding stuff even when there’s little there in terms of an actual song, something of substance. But when artists start with a real song – and craft substantial, inspired work before making the record – the consequence is something far more dimensional and moving than sonic confection. It’s something designed to last. And it reminds us what songs can do. Platt is someone who has never forgotten this truth. So take the time to listen to this. You’ll be glad you did. Music this good matters.

American Icons: The Test Of Time

Paul Zollo — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:27:22 +0000

(Photo: Lorca Cohen) “They just don’t write songs like they used to.” How many times have you heard that one? When I was a kid, people from my parents’ generation would often say this, referring to the great songs of Tin Pan Alley they grew up with as rendered by great vocalists like Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and comparing them to what they saw as the musical junk food we kids were then consuming, your Beatles, Stones, Monkees, etc. To them the possibility that some of these long-haired scruffy young men like Lennon & McCartney were writing great songs didn’t exist. The visuals then, perhaps as they do now, distracted from the music. And though all of us were intent never to turn into our parents, I hear my friends and peers frequently making the same kind of judgment – that nobody writes great songs anymore. Of course, what constitutes a great song is a subjective determination. Certainly if a song becomes a hit, then the marketplace has spoken. Although, as we all know, people make great records all the time of not-so-great songs – what makes a record great isn’t what makes a song great, and so commercial success isn’t always an accurate estimation of the song’s power. A much surer and purer test is the test of time: any song that people want to hear years after its emergence is a successful song. This is, after all, the requirements of a “standard” – any song that outlives its own time. And so while there were some doubts that no songs would become standards written outside of the age of Tin Pan Alley (the age that led to the writing of the mythic “Great American Songbook”), those doubts were unfounded. The numbers are in: among the top ten most recorded songs of all time are standards written by Gershwin (“Summertime,” with lyrics by Dubose Heyward) and Arlen (“Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg) as well as songs written by John Lennon (“Imagine”) and Paul McCartney (the aforementioned “Yesterday.”) “Yesterday” is, in fact, the world’s most recorded song. It’s a remarkable yet real example of the potential of a single song; there are a staggering seven million recorded cover versions by a necessarily vast range of singers, including Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Liberace, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Plácido Domingo and Daffy Duck. Muzak’s elevator and shopping mall music has included 500 different covers of “Yesterday.” Evidently McCartney did something right, even in terms Irving Berlin would respect. Even Tin Pan Alley champion Sinatra acknowledged the presence of new standards, singing what he called his “favorite Lennon and McCartney composition,” the song “Something,” written by George Harrison. And so we shouldn’t be too quick to pass judgment on songs we might deem worthless. I’m certainly guilty of it myself by turning on pop radio in the car. I hear what sounds to me on first listening like a lot of digital confection; artificially contrived musical confections that seem devoid of any warmth, soul or grace. It’s like wandering into a ghost town, having expected Times Square. Where did everybody go? And I catch myself. And it brings to mind what Leonard Cohen told me when I asked him if this happened to him, or if he felt meaningful songs were still being written. “There are always meaningful songs for somebody,” he said. “People are doing their courting, people are finding their wives, people are making babies, people are washing their dishes, people are getting through the day with songs that we may find insignificant. But their significance is affirmed by others. There’s always someone affirming the significance of a song by taking a woman into his arms or by getting through the night. That’s what dignifies the song. Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song.” This is an understanding that has opened my mind, and is beneficial for any songwriter to embrace. That although Dylan insisted, in my 1991 interview with him, that “the world don’t need any more songs,” in fact new songs are always necessary, songs to match the singular dynamic of the times in which we’re living. Dylan did add a qualifier to his previous statement: “Unless someone comes along with a pure heart and something to say.” So even cognizant as he is – perhaps more than most – of the sheer and staggering glut of songs that already exist in our world – he recognizes that a song from a pure heart, well, that’s welcome any time. Especially now. After all, the music industry obviously isn’t what it used to be, as any attempt to find a record store in your average American city will attest. But though the industry is in mid-cataclysmic freefall, music itself continues to thrive, and people stay almost constantly connected to some source of music, be it an iPod, a car radio, or a TV show. Regardless of one’s opinion of shows like American Idol, there’s no disregarding the fact that it’s about songs. And not only are great songs still being written, but they are being appreciated maybe more than ever. A great example is Leonard Cohen’s miraculous “Hallelujah,” which was never a hit for Mr. Cohen, and is a song that has been elevated to the level of a standard simply because it’s great. And like the great songs of the past, it’s a song many singers want to sing. It shows the world will always need new songs. And so, my fellow songwriters, our work is far from done.

Meet The Fuxedos

Paul Zollo — Thu, 19 May 2011 22:13:43 +0000

(Photo: Paul Zollo) HAVING BEEN A FAN of this remarkable band for several years, I expected something great from them. But this is beyond expectations. The Fuxedos' self-titled debut is one of the most audaciously inventive albums of all time. Just the version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” should earn them their own permanent gallery in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (although I suspect Cleveland might have issues with the band’s moniker). This is music both visionary and visceral, both hilarious and very serious, and it’s welcome now more than ever in this instant-message sensibility of modern lives, where people seem incapable of attending to anything that takes more time than a text or tweet. Here’s an album that is the evident consequence of vast and inspired studio hours, the kind of exhaustive craft pored into Beatles records as well as those by Brian Wilson, Steely Dan and Frank Zappa. A spirit of wildness permeates the proceedings, but it’s underpinned by a richly dimensional musical complexity. Yes. This is about passion. First time I saw the Fuxedos live in Hollywood – in a now defunct vaudeville series– it was a revelation – amongst snake charmers, burlesques babes, chanteuses, comics and smirky magicians come the Fuxedos – led by a fireball of operatic rock and roll showmanship, style, and genuine hilarity named Danny Shorago. Who knew something this smart, this funny, this hilarious – all set against sparklingly strains of rock-jazz-lounge-exotica – existed right here in Los Angeles? Though certain streams of brilliantly odd and ambitious songs seemed to have vanished ages past with the losses of Zappa and Beefheart, in the Fuxedos this spirit still lives. A Zappa-inspired ironic demeanor permeates their music, which – like his – are often hilarious and serious at the same time, wedding sardonic and surreal lyrics to viscerally virtuosic music. Danny Shorago is the lead singer and guiding spirit of the band. Onstage, he’s a wonder to behold, fusing soulfully fluid James Brown-like dance moves, a whirling and grinding dervish in a dizzy and surreal array of donned masks, hats, flags, guns, faux farm animals and more. In any one song comes a virtual encyclopedia of entertainment guises, from silent movie schtick to post-modern Goth bleakness to sham lounge lizard to heavy metal dude and beyond, all in the space of one song. The band plays tightly rendered and multi-tempo music with abrupt time shifts perfectly connected to his every movie. And the man is a dazzling dancer – with strands of Jagger, James Brown and MJ merged with Bill Murray, Red Skelton, Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce. So when I heard the band was in the studio recording their debut disc, I worried that they’d never be able to attain on record the unchained fervor and comic spark of their live shows, which rely heavily on visuals, live energy, and the spontaneous hilarity and brilliance of Danny. I was hoping for maybe just a fairly close facsimile of a live show – hopefully sans distortion. What I got instead is phenomenal – an album as infectiously inventive and wildly unpredictable in its production and studio craft as the band’s live onstage performances. It evokes the spirit of Zappa in a multitude of ways, not the least of which is that the comic abandon of live shows was always anchored in immaculately tight and virtuosic musicianship by the band. Like Zappa also, the music of the Fuxedos is groove-based – like any good rock and roll band – only their grooves constantly shift in unexpected ways. But this is so much more. Because like Zappa -- who presented in concert an astounding blend of virtuosic rock and humor, and then left to his devices in the studio, he took both dynamics – music and humor – even farther – Danny and the Fuxes have created something in the studio as intense as their live shows, but quite different. Produced and arranged by Shorago with Wes Styles, it’s a record that supplants the manic visuals with the full blossom of the band’s great musicianship; the self-generated inspiration of live performance blossoming instead into great studio inventiveness. Onstage there’s an ongoing clash – albeit an amiably intentional one – between Shorago’s unbroken theatrics and the earnest musicianship of the band. This is equaled out on the CD, where the music comes first. Like The Beatles, who poured the full force of their ingenuity into recording when they stopped performing live, exploring all the facets of multi-track recording and inventing new ones, Danny and company have come up with brand-new and invigorating ways to present their songs. And like Zappa, Shorago surrounds himself with musicians of the highest caliber. Drummer Ryan Brown shines here, as he does live, in his fluidly seamless shapeshifting of grooves, often several times within a song, and the solid, muscular soul of his playing. Like Charlie Watts, he’s a powerhouse rock drummer with the finesse of a jazzman, bringing in remarkable nuance while also being the engine for this ship. Multi-horn man Alex Budman, a prodigious jazz saxophonist who also adds flute and clarinet to the mix, lends explicit dynamism to each track, and like Brown is a rock player with the nuanced complexities of jazz. And Wes Styles, who plays all the guitars here plus some sitar, is an astounding guitarist who plays dazzling and often ferocious leads as well as orchestral rhythm parts. Add to that the excellent Steve Charouhas on bass – as well as Dan Andrews on sousaphone, Matt Lebofsky on keyboards and more – and you have an ensemble with evidently boundless possibilities. All of which Shorago explores and exploits with devilish flair. The history of popular music from about 1956 to the present is surveyed in the most astounding rendition of The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” ever recorded. Crazy purists might even find it scandalous, and I wish they did to the extent of massive CD burnings as few things are better for record sales (something the lads from Liverpool understood themselves). Live, this is hilarious and great, taking the famous record through about twenty different musical genres, each completely committed. But here in the studio, they’re able to completely produce each genre segment with delightful fidelity. Starting close to the bouncy pop groove of the original they soon veer wildly off track into a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through popular music genres from about 1964 forward and backwards. Before the end of the first verse it ignites into speed metal and from there punk, power stutter, reggae, goth-metal, expansive “Revolution #9”-like demonic collage, Johnny Cash-like country, and Brubeck jazz-swing. It’s dizzying and crazy, and like a good rollercoaster, there’s nothing you want more when it’s over than to get back on. This is an album designed to last. Unlike mucho musical confection we find littered throughout our culture, meant for fast food consumption and with the half-like of a gnat, this is a journey of symphonic discovery. This isn’t background music, though I guess it could serve as background music if you work in a bordello run by carneys, perhaps, or at the Nixon library (where the Fuxes have performed on several occasions). This is a rocket-ship shot directly into the heart of surrealism, in a world where Mickey Mouse is suspect while both Scooby & Scrappy-Doo exist within a milkshake. But examining these topics is like the countless Zappa reviews that would share only his words, without touching on the divine complexity of his music. This is a movie that needs to be seen to be understood, an experience that on the surface sings of the strange, mixing as it does assorted nuns with robot vampire wombats, cartoons, cephalopods, cowboys and more. It’s a little Fellini, a little Lynch, a little Lenny Bruce by way of Perry Como, resting at last on the odd figure of Mimsy, a frightened little girl in party dress and hat who represents the scared child in us all, the child alone in a world of ever-increasing madness, clinging to the frail hope of a little melody – a tiny portion of order inside chaos. So if you’ve been looking for something new and musical that can make sense of the ever-shifting, ever-expanding panoply of too much of everything at once and not enough time to take it in, look no further. You need this album. And not just one song. You need the whole album. And if the Fuxes come to your town – you might not want to tell you mother. Or even your husband or your wife. But get there. You won’t be sorry.

American Icons: Paul Simon

Paul Zollo — Mon, 02 May 2011 10:00:57 +0000

He told me years ago that he was more interested in what he discovered than what he invented. It seemed like a fine line to draw, so I asked him what the distinction is in his mind between discovery and invention. “You just have no idea that that’s a thought that you had,” he said. “It surprises you. It can make me laugh or make me emotional. When it happens and I’m the audience and I react, I have faith in that because I’m already reacting. I don’t have to question it… But if I make it up, knowing where it’s going, it’s not as much fun. It may be just as good, but it’s more fun to discover it.” And there, in his words, lies the secret to Simon’s ongoing greatness as a songwriter. Decades beyond the point at which most of his peers stopped looking, Paul Simon is still on a creative journey, still looking for new ways to combine words and music and rhythm and sound to create something new in this world, something that will be as resonant and enriching as the vast body of work he’s already given us. While it seemed he might become the Irving Berlin of his generation, working into his 90s, now Simon, with the release of the extraordinary So Beautiful Or So What, seems more like the Picasso of popular song, an artist perpetually evolving through various stages of creativity, forever challenging himself and us in the process, and seeming to enjoy the act of creation now as much as ever. Simon, of course, has busted precedents for years. Back in the ‘80s – some two decades beyond his first flush of success with Simon & Garfunkel and long past the point at which most of his peers peaked creatively – he created Graceland, a masterpiece of songwriting and record-making that changed the shape of popular songwriting, making new musical connections in the world which forever shifted the idea of what a song can do. Not content to repeat himself in any regard – in terms of his writing or the production which surrounds his songs – he fused formerly disparate elements – African-influenced music with American thoughts – and came up with one of the most engaging albums of all time. He followed it with subsequent masterpieces, including The Rhythm Of The Saints and Surprise, a collaboration with Brian Eno. All of these albums were created with a method that was the flipside of his former songwriting technique, in which he’d write with an acoustic guitar and a yellow legal pad. From Graceland on, he’d make a rhythm track first – often based on jams he recorded with his friend and fellow producer Roy Halee around the world from Brazil to Africa and beyond – and write songs to the track. It was a bold move for this guy who was already considered one of the great American masters of songwriting. But as always, it was a voyage of discovery for him, and he reached a new hybrid of lyrical and rhythmic genius that has impacted popular music as much, if not more, as his landmark work with Art Garfunkel. Here, the guy who was known as one of the most serious and even dour songwriters around was creating funny, joyous music – but without sacrificing his level of intelligence. Singlehandedly, he brought songs to a new place, through one of the most substantial evolutions in the form in decades. “It wasn’t until Graceland,” he said, “where [my writing] was sophisticated and simple at the same time... And that’s an objective. Try and do that. Try to simplify and simplify without losing what was really interesting.” And now comes a new chapter in the voluminous Paul Simon songbook. Just as he embraces conflicting ideas often in songs, he often reverses his ideas about how to approach his art. After creating the stunning Surprise, a remarkable sonic collaboration with Eno which effortlessly combined the new palette of digital recording with real-time instruments, he took a break from songwriting, and gradually eased back into his old method of writing songs with a guitar. The result is an astounding and beautiful album, one that weaves together elements from all his musical journeys while moving into new territory, that of found voices and loops. And so we have both the intoxicating rhythms of recent works with a return to acoustic guitar-based songs ripe with some of his most poignant melodicism in years, luminous harmonies, and even a dazzling guitar instrumental, “Amulet.” There’s also tracks which seamlessly fuse Indian percussion with bluegrass, but all into a gumbo which is uniquely Simon. All of which reveals that his journey is boundless, as he’s exploded through every limit imposed on musical artists, such as age, genre, and even immense success (a hard hurdle for many to clear), and continues to amaze. But how has he done it? How can someone who has been to the summit of the songwriting mountain several times continue to do great work? He answered that often it’s the journey itself, even more than reaching the destination, that matters, and perhaps it’s this understanding that propels him. “I just keep going to whatever it is that interests me,” he said. “But the experiment, the investigation, is important… What you find is what it is you are always interested in.” Later he added, “I mean, writing songs is what I do and I enjoy it. I’m grateful that people are still interested after all this time. That I can keep doing it… I’ve been interested in writing songs and making records since I was thirteen years old. And I’m still absolutely enthralled with it.”

Paul Simon Live At Pantages Theater, Hollywood

Paul Zollo — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:32:42 +0000

(Photos by Paul Zollo) Paul Simon at the Pantages was a joyous event, as the venue is one of Hollywood’s first and most ornate movie palaces, replete with awe-inspiring Art Deco wonderment throughout. And the man didn’t disappoint. At 69, his voice is remarkably as strong as ever – he sounds more vocally unchained and youthful as ever, singing with passion and purity, delivering a career’s worth of glorious songs, from 1964’s “The Sound of Silence” to new songs from the remarkable recently released So Beautiful or So What. It was the title song of that album, wrapped as it is around a strong guitar riff and a powerfully propulsive groove – and delivered by Simon with much pointed soul – that was one of the evening’s highlights. The problem with a Simon concert is that the man has written so many great songs – many of which are classics – that it’s simply impossible to do every one everyone wants to hear, and still weave in new material and some unexpected gems. So we didn’t get “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “You Can Call Me Al,” “The Boxer” or “American Tune,” and yet we did get great Simon’s work from the very start to the present, spanning decades, including songs which were hits long ago, such as the effervescent “Kodachrome” (now referring to an artifact of the past – color film – remember that?), as well as songs that were never hits, but which are very potent, especially “Peace Like a River,” from his first solo outing in 1970 – which resounds with even more power, perhaps, than when it first emerged. Also his most touching song ever for his former partner Art Garfunkel, “The Only Living Boy In New York,” was delivered with much love by Simon on his 12-string. From Graceland he included a few album tracks, all energized by great triple guitar work and powerful grooves, including “Crazy Love, Vol. II” which opened the show, “Gumboots,” the first song he wrote for Graceland, and “That Was Your Mother,” which exploded into a great New Orleans Dixieland closing jam, with everyone soloing joyously at once. The momentous “Boy In The Bubble” fueled by the huge bass & snare slams and serious accordion, was chilling. His 8-piece band is remarkable. It centers around the “masterful Mark Stewart” as Simon introduced him, who serves as ostensible music director, and is a genuine musical monster – he leads the band, signaling endings and such, while also playing electric and acoustic guitar, including those intricately intertwined African guitar figures that have been a mainstay of Simon’s music since Graceland (now 26 years old!), as well as clean retro Les Paul lines, distorted guitar hero leads and more. He also played some homemade flutes, and beautiful arco cello on “Love & Hard Times” (unlike most multi-instrumentalists who also play cello, Stewart plays with the rich tone of a real cellist) as well as joining the horn section – with electric guitar still strapped on – on bari sax. The wonderful Cameroonian guitarist Vince Nguini (“his majesty,” Paul called him, in reference to his saintly, lanky figure adorned in long robes and baseball cap) entwined African guitar lines flawlessly with Stewart throughout, as well as his own chromatic flourishes. Even when he’s on fire, Vince never breaks a sweat; he has a zen calm, at one with rhythm but completely focused. He also added some rich low tones to harmony vocals. New pianist Mick Rossi – who plays elegant acoustic piano on “Love and Hard Times” on the new album – recommended by Simon’s pal Phillip Glass - played beautifully on that song, as well as on “Still Crazy” and others which feature piano. And Tony Cedras – on keys and percussion – was a great utility player, tirelessly switching percussion instruments and keys throughout each tune. Also from Graceland is the great Bakithi Kumalo on bass – and though he didn’t get his famous bass solo in this show on “You Can Call Me Al” -- his mammoth bubbling tone fueled “Boy In The Bubble” and “Late In The Evening” – locking ideally with drummer Jim Oblon to create a formidable rhythm section throughout the evening. Oblon was robust throughout, capturing the often quirky tapestry drumming of many of the post-Graceland songs, while also keeping subtle reins on quieter tunes, like “Still Crazy.” Though he didn’t match Steve Gadd’s famous martial snare figure on “50 Ways” identically, he made it his own. New songs like “The Afterlife” were greatly charged by a strong groove built on Paul’s 12-string guitar rhythm and vocal phrasing, while “Rewrite” burst with an immediacy even more captivating than the studio version, and was the only song on the new album greeted by knowing applause by the audience. “Love and Hard Times,” the stunning ballad from the new album, was performed with just Paul on acoustic, Rossi on piano and Stewart on cello – and was beautiful. It was one of the most hushed moments of the night, and it was haunting. Simon played a few surprising covers, including a soulful “Mystery Train,” which he’s often said is one of his favorite songs, Jimmy Cliff’s buoyant “Vietnam,” (segueing seamlessly into a dynamic “Mother and Children Reunion,” which remains one of his most forceful and mysterious songs), and best of all, a tender “Here Comes The Sun,” reminding us that Simon was one of the only non-Beatles to ever perform the song with George Harrison – as they did on SNL in 1976. “The Obvious Child,” from Rhythm of the Saints, which matches a exceedingly propulsive groove to a tenderly mysterious lyric, like “Mother and Child Reunion,” was a pure delight, one of his greatest fusions of rhythm and melody. But most poignant of all was one of his often unsung masterpieces, “Hearts and Bones,” a love story that’s perhaps his most intimate, propelled by a quiet rhythmic insistence on triangle and various percussive instruments, with Simon outlining its lovely foundational riff on acoustic guitar. “You take two bodies and you twirl them into one/their hearts and their bones/and they won’t come undone…” he sings in the final verse of what is maybe his most beautiful love song, and one of the night’s most emotional moments. He performed six songs in the encore, of which “The Sound of Silence” – mostly solo Simon – was the first. Singing the melody which Garfunkel sang on the record to his lower harmony, he introduced a new melodic twist on one line in each verse, but unlike Dylan and others who often trainwreck beloved melodies with unnecessary divergences, his variation was thoughtful and right, enriching the now iconic splendor of this song. He also delighted the crowd by pairing two rhythmic classics: “Kodachrome” and “Gone At Last,” as well as the great Latin/New York horn-powered celebration of “Late In The Evening,” ending with “Still Crazy After All These Years,” with its great gleaming sax solo in the bridge. Though Simon rarely speaks on stage, his songs – and his voice – are such a beloved part of our shared experience, that he spoke through his music. Some of these songs have been a cherished part of our lives forever, it seems – while others are brand-new, but capable of standing boldly with the others. Though one leaves a Simon show often hungering for those great songs which weren’t included, this one was a thoroughly fulfilling journey through the decades with one of the greatest songwriters America has ever known. This is just the start of his 42-show tour through America and Europe – if you happen to catch him in your city, you’re in for a treat.

American Icons: Tomorrow Never Knows

Paul Zollo — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:00:40 +0000

I think what a lot of people don’t understand about songwriters is that to do what we do – write songs we want the entire world to hear – it takes a true measure of courage. You’re in the business of putting your heart and soul out there in the world, where any number of people feel free to criticize and tear down what you’ve done. And it hurts. Songwriters, except if they’re genuine hacks, feel things very deeply. And when somebody tears into one of your songs, it’s like an arrow straight to the heart. Because, as Randy Newman told me, songwriting is “life and death.” It’s everything. Nothing means more. Few things achieve the kind of bliss a songwriter experiences after completing a great one. And few things hurt more than unwarranted criticism. Sure, constructive criticism is good and even necessary. But destructive criticism, well, that is quite a different matter. The good news is that you’re not alone. All the great songwriters of this planet, with very few exceptions, take criticism much deeper than they do praise. James Taylor told me that after Rolling Stone dubbed him the worst of all the “confessional songwriters,” it paralyzed him for years. But it makes sense: Anyone who could write something as poignant as “Fire and Rain” is obviously a man who feels things very deeply. And all the songwriters I interviewed for my book Songwriters On Songwriting, and those who will be in the next volume – testified to some level of critical damage. Paul Simon said he was so downhearted by the poor reception of his album Hearts And Bones (which contains some of the most beautiful songs of his career) that he felt nobody cared anymore, “nobody was listening.” But rather than indulge in self-pity, he follo wed his muse to South Africa and recorded the beds of music that became Graceland. Figuring he’d lost his audience, he drowned his sorrow in his craft, and created a landmark in popular music. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for a serious songwriter to pay attention to what [critics] say,” he said. “It’s just too hard. And it’s not informative. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Unless you write songs and make records, you just can’t know what it’s about.” Often music execs can be as brutal as critics, if not more so. Dave Brubeck told me that when he brought “Take Five,” which Paul Desmond composed on his suggestion to their drummer Joe Morello’s 5/4 groove, to Columbia Records, they didn’t want to release it: “You don’t know the fights we had. It wasn’t in 4/4 time. The sales people said it could never work. Well, they were wrong. It worked.” To put it lightly. “Take Five” became the single most-played jazz record of all time. Record companies being wrong is nothing new, of course. Capitol Records was among the many labels in the US that famously rejected The Beatles not once, but several times. The prevailing wisdom at the time was that only singers can have hits in America – think Sinatra, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc. – but groups don’t. And per usual, that prevailing wisdom was entirely wrong, based only on the past with no vision of the future (the British invasion, which changed music forever and brought Capitol and others American labels enormous success.) Tom Petty told me when he brought in Full Moon Fever, he was told his label wouldn’t release it. The reason? They didn’t “hear a hit.” He waited six months, by which time many of those executives who didn’t like it had been replaced. He brought in the same record, and they loved it. It became one of the hallmarks of an extremely successful career, garnering not one but four hit singles: “Free Fallin’,” “Running Down A Dream,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “A Face In The Crowd.” What is the moral? As the late great Ray Evans told me, “Never give up. Nobody knows.” Ray, along with his partner Jay Livingston, created songs so famous they seem to have existed forever, such as “Silver Bells,” “Que Sera Sera,” “Mona Lisa,” “Buttons and Bows,” and “To Each His Own.” Livingston & Evans, who were both in their 80s when I interviewed them in 1987, were one of my first-ever interviews, and one of the first times I had met songwriters of their stature. It amazed me then, as it still does today, to sit with a person who has written standards and realize they are finitely human, while their songs are timeless, and everywhere at once. They quickly set me straight about the music business. “Every hit we had was turned down all over the place,” Ray said. “'Mona Lisa’ was not even going to be released. Nat King Cole said, ‘Who wants this? Nobody will buy this.’ … ‘To Each His Own’ was laughed at. They said, ‘Who wants a song with that title?’ … We played ‘Buttons and Bows’ for the head of Famous Music, and he said, ‘We might be able to get a hillbilly record out of it. That’s the best we can do.’” Even artists themselves often fail to grasp the greatness of their material, none more famously than Doris Day, who would only do one take of “Que Sera” because she so hated it that she didn’t want to sing it twice. It became the greatest hit of her career, and her theme song. “That’s nothing against her,” Jay said, “It’s just that nobody knows.” Well, there is somebody that knows. That’s you. The songwriter. You know better than anyone – be it a critic, an executive, a singer, or even a spouse. You know what you’ve got. So trust your heart, and trust you’re song. And know you’re not alone.

American Icons: Inside Songwriters On Songwriting, Part I

Paul Zollo — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:00:21 +0000

“If I knew where the great songs came from,” Leonard Cohen told me, “I’d go there more often.” It’s the same answer I received, though worded differently, from many of the legendary songwriters I interviewed for my book Songwriters On Songwriting. The guiding idea of the book was to gather together the wisdom of many of the world’s great songwriters – songwriters of all genres and generations, artists who had written songs which have already stood the test of time – to see if there was any kind of consensus about how people write great songs. There was and there wasn’t. Although none of them can offer an easy method of writing a good song, they all share their thoughts about the process, about what to do as well as what not to do. (As Lou Reed said, “I don’t know how to write songs. But I know what not to do. So I just cut out everything that sucks.”) And in the amalgamation of all of the thoughts, there’s much to be gained. As Van Dyke Parks said about these interviews, “What is transferable is this sense of courage, of derring-do. This is infectious. This is highly contagious. And confirmational. It’s as helpful as belonging to some religious sect. Hearing someone say ‘Amen.’” So for my next few columns, I am going to share some of this assorted wisdom culled from this collection of conversations. “It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun,” Cohen continued. “You’re married to a mystery.” Everyone agreed that there is no simple or easy method to write a classic song, no repeatable pattern. And they also agreed that this unknowable quality – this mystery at the center of the process – is something all songwriters come to embrace. Many acknowledged a kind of zen acceptance of the many unanswerable aspects of the craft. Van Dyke Parks said, “The highest praise for the form is that there is no one correct approach. That’s why I like it. I have never learned a repeatable approach pattern to songwriting. There’s no right way of writing songs.” Bob Dylan echoed this exact sentiment. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” he said. “There’s no rule. That’s what makes it so attractive.” As Dave Brubeck said, “The secret of a great melody is a secret.” Dylan also spoke about learning how to do consciously what he’d done unconsciously for years, and it’s a transition every serious songwriter has to make, from artistic instinct to artistic intelligence. Songwriting becomes a conscious attempt to delve into the unconscious. Even those writers who scoff at the concept of a spiritual source for their songs admit that the phenomenon of having them simply arrive feels magical. Paul Simon said that both the words and music for the phrase “Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down” all came at once. And he knew it was good. But he emphasized that was an extreme exception, and that “mainly it’s just waiting. Waiting for the show to begin.” Yet while waiting, Simon doesn’t impose himself on a song. Asked if he actively thinks about what he wants his song to say before writing, he said, “No, not anymore. I consciously try not to think about what a song should say. Because I am interested in what I find as opposed to what I’m planting … I like to discover it rather than plot it out… As soon as your mind knows that it’s on and it’s supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn’t or it produces things that are very predictable ... I’m interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up. It always picks up on something true.” Van Dyke Parks agreed that in songwriting, it’s truth that is the ultimate goal. “It is always the truth that matters,” he said. “In any song, there is a central truth. And you either find it, or allude to it. It’s the truth that everyone wants ... Songwriting is a matter of self-discovery … I want that moment of contemplation or meditation when you’re moving with this thing, you’re not in a lotus position, you’re working like a hornet out of hell; all of that work is supportive of the original revelation. Something is revealed to you.” Randy Newman also emphasized that one must remain receptive while writing, and not impose too much conscious intention while in its midst. “Don’t let the critic become bigger than the creator,” he said. “Don’t let it strangle you.” “It is a spirit being born,” said Rickie Lee Jones. “It’s a living spirit. When people hear it, a spirit happens to them. And you have to be quiet and careful when it is being born, and you can’t tell it it’s wrong, ‘cause it will just die.” Tom Petty agreed: “You’ve got to just let them arrive. You can’t question what you’re doing or that’ll get in the way.” We’d been talking about the way you can work on a song and get nowhere for months, and then suddenly a great one – like his song “Wildflowers” – just arrives. It’s not a job in which work always equals achievement. “It’s because you’re dealing in magic,” Petty said. “It’s this intangible thing that has got to happen. And to seek it out too much might not be a good idea. Because, you know, it’s very shy, too.”

American Icons: Livingston and Evans

Paul Zollo — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:00:49 +0000

Like so many legendary songwriters, their songs are much more famous than the songwriters who wrote them, songs such as “Silver Bells,” “Mona Lisa,” “Que Sera Sera,” “To Each His Own,” “Tammy” and “Buttons & Bows.” I was fortunate enough to interview both Livingston and Evans in 1987, an experience I liken to sitting down with a married couple coming up on their Golden anniversary—so familiar with each other that one knew the other’s opinions by heart, could easily finish the other’s sentence, and they would fall into occasional squabbles only to return to a strong appreciation for the other. The overriding sense I got was one of great love: for each other, for their remarkable catalog of songs, and for a life lucky enough to be spent making music. Jay Livingston (born March 18, 1915 in Pennsylvania) met Ray Evans (born in New York on February 4, 1915) while attending the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1930s. Upon graduation, they joined a dance band (Jay remarkably fluid on piano, Ray adequate enough on alto sax), and circled the globe on tour. After the glory of that gig, they decided to make music their life’s work rather than get regular jobs. The year was 1938, and the eternally optimistic Evans took a “crazy stab” and answered an ad in a New York paper requesting new songs for the vaudeville team Olsen & Johnson, then starring in the madcap Broadway revue “Hellzapoppin’.” Though the ad was actually a puff piece, the two ambitious songwriters went directly to the source, and showed up at the 46th Street Theater with songs to play. Their song “Goodbye Now” was well-received and quickly recorded by the vaudevillians, who, like Al Jolson and others, insisted on getting writer’s credit. The song raced up the Hit Parade for four weeks in 1940 with four names on it: Livingston, Evans, Olsen and Johnson. And a classic songwriting career was launched. But it wasn’t quick. Five years with no further success passed slowly, until friend Johnny Mercer landed them staff writing jobs for Famous Music—the publishing arm of Paramount Pictures. Within six months, they had not one, but five records in the Top Ten. As this was the era when the measure of a song’s success was how many different artists recorded it, their triumph was substantial; all five hits were separate versions of their song “To Each His Own” (as performed by Eddy Howard, Tony Martin, Freddie Martin & His Orchestra, the Modernaires and the Ink Spots). It was the first—and last time—five versions of the same song were in the Top Ten simultaneously. “You’re sitting in the studio,” Jay said, still seemingly astounded, “and they didn’t even know you existed, and all of a sudden the phone starts ringing.” Though the phrase “to each his own” wasn’t common when they wrote the song, it soon became part of the vernacular. As did another famous title they concocted, “Silver Bells.” Though it’s now so well-known that many people think of it as a folk song, it was actually written for a movie. Initially, reluctant to take on the assignment, feeling the world already had more than enough Christmas songs, when they were told Bing Crosby would record it, they quickly changed their mind. “A Bing Crosby song at Christmas,” Evans said with delight. “Thank God we did it.” Its original title, however, was “Tinkle Bells,” which they matched with the famous waltz-time melody and urban Christmas lyric (“The first time,” Evans said, “that anybody wrote about Christmas in the city”). But Livingston’s wife told him he was out of his mind to use that title because it had a “toilet meaning,” and so he substituted the word silver, and another standard was born. “Que Sera Sera” was inspired by the film The Barefoot Contessa, where those words are seen carved in stone, translated in the film by Rosanna Brazzi as “What will be, will be.” Jay recognized a good title when he saw it, and the team wrote the song, one of their only hits written without an assignment. Two weeks later, a call came from Alfred Hitchcock’s office saying the director needed a song for a movie in which Doris Day would sing to a little boy. Livingston, knowing this just-completed song was ideal, waited for two weeks so it appeared they wrote it expressly for Hitch, and went to play it for him. His famous response was, “Gentlemen, I didn’t know what kind of song I wanted, and that is the kind of song I want!” Doris Day, however, didn’t want it at all. She felt it was all wrong for her, and refused to do more than one take in the studio. “This is a child’s song,” she said, declaring that this would be the first and final time she’d ever sing the song. She was wrong, of course, as it became her theme song, and she sang it thousands of time. Nat King Cole, however, immediately liked the song “Mona Lisa,” which the duo first wrote to the title “Prima Donna,” before changing it. They played for him in person, knowing he hated saying no. Despite his affection for the song, he felt nobody would ever buy it and it would quickly be forgotten. He was also wrong; it was a colossal hit. Asked what these experiences taught them, both men said in unison, “Nobody knows!”—meaning that nobody can predict what will become a hit, and they related the story of their friends Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, who were told by the Paramount folks that “That Old Black Magic” was too long and, therefore, worthless. “It had a 64-bar melody,” Livingston explained, whereas most tunes were usually half that length or less. “But they were big enough to say, ‘We’re gonna do it anyway.’” Evans, ever the wordsmith, summed it up: “So never give up. Nobody knows.” Paul Zollo is the former Editor of SongTalk magazine and is Senior Editor at American Songwriter. His book, Songwriters on Songwriting, is a collection of interviews with 62 of popular music’s finest songwriters.

AMERICAN ICONS: Mitchell Parish

Paul Zollo — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:12 +0000

He’s written the words to many of America’s most cherished standards, starting with the classic “Stardust,” with music by Hoagy Carmichael, a song which he said he knew “in his gut” was important. Other standards to which he concocted the lyrics include “Deep Purple,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Moonlight Serenade” and “Volare.” He was born in Lithuania in 1900, and came to America with his family in 1901 on the S.S. Dresden when he was just a baby. The family went first to Louisiana, but quickly surmised New York City was a more hospitable home for a Jewish family. His given name was Michael Hyman Pashelinsky. As a kid, he fell in love with books, and was writing poetry and short stories by 11. A decent pianist, like George Gershwin, at 18, he got a job as a songplugger—traveling around performing hit songs at music stores in order to sell sheet music. It was, he has said, his “apprenticeship” as a songwriter, in that he learned from the inside out the structure and mechanics of hit songs. He was a lover of recorded music even before the record industry was in its infancy. “I’d go to the penny arcades,” he remembered in a 1992 interview, “and they had all these machines lined up—with Edison cylinders. You dropped a penny in the slot and the cylinder would play a song.” Above the cylinders were the song’s title and its writers, so Parish quickly grew wise to who was authoring hit songs. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” which was one of that era’s biggest hits, was, he noticed, written by Irving Berlin. Prior to then he had considered becoming a writer of novelty songs—jokey, punch-line ditties for vaudeville. But seeing Berlin’s name there, as well as the names of other successful songwriters, set him on the songwriting path from which he never veered. He teamed up with scores of composers, all who needed someone to write a lyric first—to which they would then compose a melody—or to match lyrics to an existing tune. “Stardust” emerged by this latter method. Hoagy Carmichael, who usually wrote his own words as well as music, had composed an extended melody that was beautiful, but which was a challenge for him to write words for. Parish heard it and was unimpressed. “I didn’t like it,” he said with a sly smile. “When I heard it, it was a swing tune, but I didn’t write it that way. It sounded just like another swing tune. It was nothing like the way it is now, which is sweet, mellow and romantic.” Victor Young did an orchestral arrangement of the song as a ballad, as opposed to a rhythmic swing melody, and Parish heard it then as if he’d heard it for the first time. “It was altogether a different mood, a different feeling. Really beautiful. And it became what it became.” Asked if he knew how important this one song would be, he said he did have a gut feeling that this was a momentous one. But had no idea it would become a standard. “You don’t sit down and write a standard,” he explained. “A standard evolves.” With Hoagy, Parish wrote two other songs which, though never as famous as “Stardust,” also became standards—“Riverboat Shuffle” and “One Morning In May.” Parish understood that a great lyric often emerged over time, and cannot be forced or contrived. “If I had to labor over a lyric too long,” he said, “if it became an arduous task where I sweated and toiled and struggled, I would drop it. And not because I shunned arduous work, but because I felt it wouldn’t be fair to the composer. The lyric would show its toil and sweat and that wouldn’t be good for the song. The sturm und drang would be evident.” Known for his famous titles, he was asked if he thought of the title first before writing a lyric. “In general,” he said, “most songs are written in that manner. Usually, the lyricist would think of the title. And if he had a good, catchy title, half of the song was written. Let’s say I got ‘Stars Fell on Alabama.’ I got that title and went in the arranging room, and there was Frank Perkins, the arranger. I told him the title. Told him to fool around with it, see what he comes up with. A few days later, he came in with the melody. Well, the song was already half-written! And that happened often like that—I would give a title to a composer, he would compose the melody, and then I’d write the rest of the lyric to his melody.” As for advice to today’s songwriters, he decried the lack of quality in most modern pop songs, saying “If Irving Berlin were around today, he’d go unpublished,” and then said, “The advice I’d give is to keep in mind this isn’t easy. Songwriting is a tough struggle. It wouldn’t be easy for me if I was writing today. But I say if you enjoy writing song, then keep doing it. That alone should be reason enough to continue. Remember, you never know when a hit song is going to come along!”