B005S8O7YE EBOK (8 page)

Ahmet and Jerry listened with interest as I played each song in turn, in response to their nods and words of encouragement. When I had finished playing the last song I looked at them expectantly.

“You got talent,” Jerry declared.

Ahmet looked at Jerry and then at me.

“Yeah, man, very soulful. Come back and see us when you got more songs.”

As I rode down in the slow elevator my shoulders sagged with disappointment because they hadn’t offered me a contract or an advance, but by the time I got to the lobby my optimism had returned. After all, they hadn’t said, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” I took that as a triumph and walked to Seventh Avenue with
my shoulders back and my head high. Anyway, there were other record companies.

The next afternoon, inspired by their chart-topping success with Paul Anka’s
“Diana,”
I called ABC-Paramount. The secretary who answered the phone said, “I’m sorry, we’re not seeing any new artists.” I had practically worn out my copy of “Diana,” not only because I loved the song but also because I couldn’t figure out what instrument had played the distinctive sound in the catchy instrumental hooks. That recording, by a Canadian only seven months older than I, was so popular that I was certain his A&R man would want to hear my songs. Even if they weren’t seeing any new artists, surely they’d see
me
. I kept calling until a secretary named Betty Berlin gave me an appointment with her boss.

Don Costa had started out as a guitarist. He and Bucky Pizzarelli had played the dueling guitars on Vaughn Monroe’s
“Ghost Riders in the Sky.”
Later in his career Don would produce, arrange, and conduct for Trini Lopez, Kenny Rankin, Donny Osmond, Marv Johnson, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra. In 1957 Don was head of A&R at ABC-Paramount Records. His job included signing artists, choosing songs, producing, and arranging.

The day of my appointment I spent the entire subway ride to Times Square trying not to be nervous. By the time I entered the impressive reception area leading to ABC-Paramount’s suite of offices at 1501 Broadway, I was bold and confident. I gave my name to the receptionist. She put down her
Vogue
magazine and called Mr. Costa’s secretary. After confirming that I had an appointment, the receptionist pointed to a seating area, asked me to wait there, then resumed perusing her magazine. As the minutes ticked by, my confidence began to wane. How foolish of me to expect an important A&R man to be on time! When at last his secretary emerged, my self-assurance had all but vanished. Betty Berlin introduced
herself to me, escorted me into Mr. Costa’s office, presented me to him, and walked out.

Mr. Costa could not have been more affable. With a few pleasantries he made me feel that this meeting was no less important to him than a meeting with one of the label’s top artists. Then we got down to business. He invited me to sit at the piano and said, “Let me hear what you’ve got.”

The first song I played was “Leave, Schkeeve.” As soon as I started playing, his attentive demeanor and my familiarity with the material restored my confidence. At the end of the song, he asked if I had another. I played five songs with no visible reaction or comment from Mr. Costa other than, “Do you have another song?” Finally I ran out of songs, and the outcome I least expected happened. Mr. Costa offered me a recording contract.

Oh my God, I thought. Is he seriously inviting me to be on the same label as Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gormé, Lloyd Price, and Paul Anka??

He was.

Moments before, I had been a high school student pulling pages of self-composed pop songs from a school notebook. Now a man with the power to make such decisions was offering me a recording contract with a major label. As I pondered the possibilities, I was brought back to reality by the recollection that I hadn’t wanted to be a solo artist. I had come hoping to get my songs recorded, and if the subject of who would sing them came up, I was going to propose an audition for the Cosines. But when I explained all that to Mr. Costa, he said, “I don’t see any reason to audition the group. You have more than enough talent to be a successful artist on your own.”

Talk about conflicting emotions! I was ecstatic that he wanted to sign me and at the same time anxious about breaking the news to my fellow Cosines. How could I tell Iris, Joel, and Lenny that I
had been offered a solo contract and the A&R man had no interest in hearing the rest of the group?

Mr. Costa signaled the end of our meeting by standing up and saying that ABC-Paramount’s legal department would give me a contract on the way out for my parents to sign. He extended his hand and said, “I look forward to working with you.”

Returning his handshake, I said, “I look forward to working with you, too, Mr. Costa.”

“Call me Don,” he said.

As I began to gather my books and my music, I remembered that I hadn’t asked him about the sound on “Diana.” When I did, he confided almost conspiratorially that it was a guitar and a saxophone playing in unison. I was thrilled to learn this, first, because I never would have figured it out on my own, and second, because he considered me worthy of sharing an arranger’s trade secret.

Escorting me out of his office, he asked if I’d like to attend one of his recording sessions later that week.

Would I? Were Steve and Eydie married?

My providential day continued when I found both my parents in a period of reconciliation at home. When I burst in with the news and showed them the contract, they were as delighted as I was, and they were particularly proud that I had accomplished this entirely on my own. But they had some reservations. Their primary concern was making sure that the contract wouldn’t keep me away from my studies. I assured them that it wouldn’t. A lawyer friend of my father’s came over after supper to review the contract. Once my parents determined that the only thing required of me was that I record a certain number of songs every year for the next three years at ABC-Paramount’s option, for which the record company would pay me what the lawyer confirmed was a standard beginning artist’s royalty after certain costs were recouped, all three of us signed the contract, thereby making official my status
as a recording artist with ABC-Paramount Records, Inc. The perils of the “after certain costs are recouped” clause wouldn’t become known to me during my term with ABC-Paramount. I would never sell enough units under that contract to recoup the cost of the coffee Mr. Costa—Don—drank at my first session.

If Lenny, Joel, and Iris were disappointed the next day when I told them I had been signed as a solo artist, they gave no sign of it. All three of my friends were generous in recognizing the offer as an exceptional opportunity, and they encouraged me to take full advantage of it. That afternoon, as I pushed my way onto a crowded Manhattan-bound express with the signed contract securely tucked among the pages of my loose-leaf notebook, recoupment was the farthest thing from my mind.

O
n the day of the recording session to which I had been invited, the train could not go fast enough.

Don Costa was scheduled to record a full orchestra with top studio musicians, including Charlie Macey and Al Gorgoni on guitar and Buddy Saltzman on drums. When I arrived eight minutes before the session was scheduled to begin, most of the musicians were already in the studio. Making my way through the hallway to the control room, I passed a musician on a pay phone confirming the location of his next gig. Two others were standing near the coffee machine complaining about the producer of a session on which they had worked the previous day. Inside the studio, players were variously drinking coffee, chatting with the musician in the next chair, or eating a familiar New York breakfast sandwich: scrambled egg on an onion roll. While some instrumentalists were warming up or tuning up, others wouldn’t even bother to pick up their instrument until they heard “A-one!” Pronounced “uh-one,” that command tells English-speaking musicians that a countoff is beginning: “A-one! A-two! A-one-two-three-four….” If you ever need to quickly get the attention of a roomful of American
musicians, “A-one!” will do it every time. Warning: do not use this command frivolously.

Don was in the control room when I entered. As soon as he saw me he stood up, greeted me, and introduced me to the engineers. Then he escorted me into the studio and presented me to the orchestra. Surely Don Costa had better things to do than delay a session to introduce a teenager to his colleagues, but he clearly enjoyed being a genial host in what was unquestionably his domain. When at last he stepped in front of the podium and picked up his baton, every musician came to attention with his or her instrument poised to play. I watched from a folding chair on the sidelines as Don began to go over the arrangement.

Fifteen minutes later they were still rehearsing when Don had to leave the studio for a few moments. Not wanting to see the orchestra lose momentum, I stepped up to the podium and picked up the baton. I don’t know what made me think I could conduct an orchestra. I knew how to read music, but I had never read a score or performed the physical movements of conducting. Still, I had heard the orchestra run through the score several times, and I believed I knew the arrangement well enough to be able to move my arms in something approximating what I’d seen Don do. I lifted the baton, the players lifted their instruments, I counted off—“A-one! A-two! A-one-two-three-four”—and I was leading the orchestra.

If Don was flabbergasted when he returned and saw me at the podium, he never said a word. He let the players finish the song, helped me down, took the baton, resumed the rehearsal, and, after a final play-through, began recording. Watching and listening from my folding chair, I was oblivious to everything but the fact that I had just conducted an orchestra.

I
n the mid-fifties, the recording industry turned mostly on singles. The A side was a song that the record company believed would be a hit. The B side was usually considered filler, though never by the writers of that song, who were delighted to receive a check for the same amount of units sold as the writers of the A side.

I recorded four songs for ABC-Paramount with Don Costa producing and arranging. I played the piano and sang while other musicians played drums, bass, guitar, and saxophone. Don hired background vocalists for some of the records. The first single was
“Baby Sittin’,”
backed with
“Under the Stars.”
I wrote the music and lyrics for both. I shudder to recall.

Baby, baby, baby baby sittin’, I’m-a

Baby, baby, baby baby sittin’, I’m-a

Baby, baby, baby baby sittin’

You know the baby I mean—he’s seventeen

And the B side was almost as repetitive:

Under the stars, we kissed good night

Under the stars, you held me tight

Under the stars and the moon above

Under the stars, we fell in love

The second single was
“Goin’ Wild,”
backed with
“The Right Girl”
—or maybe it was the other way around.

My lovin’ baby’s got a special rock & rollin’ style

Every time we dance he really drives me wild

I’m goin’ wild, I’m goin’ wild

Goin’ crazy goin’ batty ’bout my rock & rollin’ daddy

Goin’ wild

If that doesn’t convince you that I needed help with lyrics, consider these opening lines from “The Right Girl”:

I know I-I am the right girl

The right girl for you-uh-oo-oo

And you-oo-oo are the right boy for me too-oo-oo

Uh-oo-oo…

Though I wasn’t good at writing lyrics myself, I knew how important they could be in a pop song. Lyrics gave a singer the ability to express an emotional dimension beyond “La la la la”—not that there’s anything wrong with “La la la la,” or, for that matter, “Bum doo-bee doo-wop.” Lyrics aimed at my generation didn’t need to be good, but they needed to be relevant to the burning issues of a teenager’s life. As far as I knew, the biggest concern of teenage girls in the fifties was, “Does he like me?”

Years later I would learn that the biggest concern for many
teenage girls in the fifties was the sexual and physical abuse they endured on a regular basis, often from someone in their family. Unaware of such abuse personally, I never even knew it existed because victims were too ashamed to speak of it. I was also unaware that some teenagers had feelings for others of the same gender. Even if I had been aware of such things, I wouldn’t have known how to put them in a song. Instead I wrote about what I knew—the naïve yearning of a girl in puberty for love and devotion from a boy.

Because girls didn’t ask boys out in those days, I was spared the risk of rejection. Since I couldn’t ask a boy out directly, I had to be creative. Sometimes I used the “asking a question about homework” ploy to initiate a conversation that I hoped would end with the boy asking me out. Unfortunately I never got the invitation, only the answer.

I didn’t know that boys, too, worried about rejection. If a guy wasn’t on the football team, if he was short, overweight, wore glasses, had pimples, was brainy, or, God forbid, didn’t smoke, he was definitely not cool. With every molecule of testosterone raging through his out-of-control body, a male teenager who didn’t have the right look despaired of getting a girl to say yes to a date, let alone the ultimate yes. The right look was exemplified by pop idols such as Frankie Avalon and Fabian, who were wholesome, and movie actors James Dean and Marlon Brando, whose darkness of mood and image made them
beyond
cool. Under their influence boys wore cigarette packs in the rolled-up sleeves of their T-shirts, hooked their thumbs in their Garrison belts, and tried to look misunderstood.

If boys aspired to be as cool as James Dean, Natalie Wood embodied everything girls wanted to be. She played young, beautiful teenagers with bad-girl overtones. Her characters were sexy, romantic, and often tragic. Though I had explored forbidden
things such as smoking cigarettes and sneaking off to Greenwich Village, no one considered me cool or a bad girl. I was so far from resembling Natalie Wood that it didn’t even occur to me to try to be like her. Any hopes I might have had were dashed the day I heard a boy say my name in the stairwell below me.