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Book 4. Continued…Tales of The Second Coming.5 And Book 1. Isla Grande .4
Book 4. Continued…Tales of The Second Coming .5
I am in the muddle of, ah…middle of, preparing for three very important occasions, and the April 15 tax deadline.
First, Sula’s One Hundred and Eighth Birthday, (the 22nd of April).
Second, The release of my new CD “The Virgin Islands Songs, The Musical. In Concert” Containing my new single “Surrender To The Sun” and
Third, A benefit Concert for COAST (The Council On Alcoholism and Drug Dependency, St. Thomas, St John) on April 25th at French Man’s Reef in St. Thomas, and…
yes, I filed online, just in the nickel of dime.
We have completed the production elements of “The Virgin islands Songs, The Musical, In Concert” and are now snaggled up in the manufacturing process.
Shari Brandt, Digitaldave (both from MAAC, the collective that I am involved with here in the states) and I spent much time on the cover last evening and that element looks great. Shari had a photo of a “Golden Sky” that she took in the Virgin Islands.
The photograph is wonderfully representative of lines from “The Virgin Islands Song”
The Virgin.Islands Song
Have you ever been, to a Virgin Island?
If you answer no, come let’s go come let’s go
Have you ever seen what Virgin Islands mean?
If you answer no come let’s go, come let’s go
In this world of gray on gray
I know where the rainbow day
Is born upon the golden sunrise
That scatters the stars turning diamonds to sky
Over Amalie… an emerald in the sea
Her perfumed mystery, bold as love longs to be.
Have you ever seen what Virgin Islands mean?
If you answer no come let’s go, come let’s go
In this world of grey on grey
I know where the rainbow day
Is born upon the golden sunrise
That scatters the stars turning diamonds to sky
Over sisters three… like emeralds in the sea
Their people’s history, bold as love, wild and free.
Have you ever been, to a Virgin Island?
If you answer no, come let’s go come let’s go
Have you ever seen what Virgin Islands mean?
If you answer no come let’s go, come let’s go
If you answer no, come let’s go, come let’s go…
And our upcoming single “Surrender To The Sun”.
Surrender To The Sun
Go down by the sea, surrender to the sun
Find the one you used to be, forget what time has done
Go down by the sea and heal your heart,
Too many memories are tearing you apart
Your eyes show you’re tired so
Of love of lose or win
Old friends know you’ve got to go
And let your heart begin again.
Instrumental
Your eyes show you’re tired so
Of love of lose or win
Old friends know you’ve got to go
And let your heart begin again.
Go down by the sea and heal your heart,
Too many memories are tearing you apart
Go down by the sea, surrender to the sun
Find the one you used to be, forget what time has done
Go down by the sea and heal your heart,
Too many memories are tearing you apart,
They’re tearing you apart…
We need to work quickly as I am scheduled to travel back to St. Thomas on Tuesday the 20th of April, for Sula’s Birthday Party on the 24th and the Benefit Concert at French Mans Reef on the 25th. I would like to have at least fifty copies of the new CD to take along. The CD is a double album so we are actually burning and printing 100 discs to make 50 copies.
The package looks great (Thanks to Shari Brandt of MAAC) the production quality is great (thanks to Digital Dave of MAAC) and the content is interesting and unusual.
(The printing and burning is being done as I write, by John E. a once well-known New York City recording engineer who is also a part of the exciting MAAC collective)
In terms of content, the CD contains what I believe to be a selection of good and appropriate “Virgin Island Songs” (of which there could have been three times as many) poetry, and lots of what we call (down in the Islands) “schupidness” aka (in the USA), as “humor”. I think that folks will find it interesting, amusing, and worth their while.
This is our first co-production with MAAC (The Middletown Area Arts Collective) and this afternoon the media committee is meeting to discuss and create an action plan for getting the product (most especially the single “Surrender To The Sun” to the public. We do believe that there is an audience for this song and this recording of it, and the trick is how to get the recording to its audience. Specifically,
1. How to get exposure for the recording.
2. How to make the recording available to those people who would like to have it
3. How to collect sufficient pennies, nickels, dimes and dollars from sales of the recording to be able to create more recordings…
We think that this recording is close to the perfect one to help us develop and establish a promotion and distribution (and collection?) process that we will be able to utilize for future products.
Of course we have no freakin’ “mowker balowker” (moolah boolah) (At last report it took an investment of $250,000 to get a hit) to pursue the traditional or established promotion and distribution processes. Which includes printing thousands of promotional copies and shipping them to radio stations, hiring an “independent record promotions person” who would “get our release to the top of the pile” hiring a publicist to get us as much “press” as needed, shipping copies to and getting the interest and attention of ”reviewers” inclined to “rave or even rant” about our humble offering, and mounting a “Promotional Tour” to get exposure and support for the release” so, we have to uncover and discover new ways to achieve our goal. Which is in a word,.. ah six words, “To make this record a hit”.
We are certainly interested to hear your ideas and to engage your help in this. Please write to me at scott@lilfishrecords.com with your thoughts, and suggestions. I (and we) thank you very much.
P.S someone is saying “Scott you’ve got to bribe folks! Urging me to offer “half a bag of Hershey’s Kisses as a grand prize” Continued…
Book 1. Isla Grande .4
I walk right up to it and stop and stare almost every day. The house on South Catherine, it was my sister Gale’s home. We were here together loving each other as much as a brother and sister can. What fun we had rambling through the house shouting or mumbling silliness in English, Spanish and Calypso, in and out of yesterday, today and tomorrow. (incidentally, that’s the fun of being a “grown up” you get to shout and laugh and yell as loud and as often as you want to, and turn the music way up high).
Who in the world could have imagined that Gale would have to split? Not to California, not to Florida, but completely. Clean gone outta here, off the Earth…Not here there or anywhere, and not back tomorrow either. Gone gone gone. It’s unbelievable.
So, I walk right up to the house and stop. Almost every day. I just can’t believe she’s gone.
She would have loved “The Virgin Islands Songs, The Musical”, The MAAC Collective (right here in her little town, Middletown,) and her brudder bonehead’s new recording of “Surrender To The Sun”. After all, she was the one. She was the one that first heard the whispers in the wind, that realized a new kind of music was being birthed, one that she and her little brother Bonehead, belonged to, and were born to be part of.
It was the beginning of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Bill Haley and The Comets, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, The Platters, The Moon glows, The Flamingos, Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, their music, the idea that their music was OUR music, that spoke, that sang our freedom became our strength, the sweet salve, solace and succor for the soul, that we, that Gale and I, in that time and in our place, so desperately needed. Continued…
Book 1. Isla Grande.3 Continued…and Book 1. Cortijo Y The Symphonic Friction of Silk, Skin and Satin
Book 1. Isla Grande.3 Continued…
It’s difficult for me to write about our time in Puerto Rico, in Condado and our next move, to Ocean Park, because revisiting how I felt in that time and place is completely depressing, and frankly, I have worked long and hard to not feel that way any more. Depressing for me, for Gale, for Mud, for our little brother Larry (who was born during that time and started life sleeping in a drawer) for Howard, and for all of those suffering in poverty and humiliation everywhere.
Puerto Rico wasn’t the problem, Puerto Rico was an entire universe and the universe after all was beautiful. The problem was that we were living in the predictable consequences and painfully pitiful side effects of acute alcoholism, and were ignorant of that fact and further, powerless to do anything about it.
I have been both actively and acutely strung out on alcohol myself and I have been a child in the middle of the chaos of familial alcoholism, and I will tell you that in my experience, being a powerless kid is by far the worse of the two, because there was next to nothing that we could actually do about it. And…Just as alcoholism is a progressive condition, so too is the ever-growing psychological AND physiological malaise you experience as you feel progressively worse and worse about yourself and your ever more pathetic situation.
There were other kids in the building, well, mostly in the big breezy one, more “Yankee/Ricanio” kids who unfortunately tended towards the uppity condescension’s of “Americano/ Castiliano kids” rather than the more proletarian “egual egual” of regular “Ricanio” kids. I could list blow-by-blow, enough humiliations, embarrassments and disappointments to sink a ship, but going through it all Uno by Uno is just too friggin’ depressing and who needs any more of that.
I remember having a fight over something that one of the rich kids in the building said about me or my mother or my sister, or Howard and being too friggin’ weak to win. The boy sat on my scrawny chest holding my wrists taunting me and I was not able to budge the bastard even the slightest bit, it was among the most frustrating and humiliating things that I’ve ever experienced. I wasn’t a namby pamby, and was well used to rough and tumble in St. Thomas, but I was unable to contain my self, and I burst into tears of rage, frustration and humiliation.
Even then tho, I didn’t have the good sense to.. ah..I mean actually giving up was out of the question even then, so when the poor rich kid finally got tired of winning the blasted fight he had to let go and run for his life back into the rich peoples building and safety. Yep.
It’s funny how perfectly well I remember the helplessness that Gale and I felt watching friends laughing with one another, leaving for the movies, the amusement park, or the ball park and not being able to go. In fact, not even invited because they knew, and looked upon us with (God help us) pity, because we wouldn’t have the money to go, because we never had the money to go.
The flippy flappy fluppy flupping of the soles of your shoes and then the worn through cardboard, Gale’s cracked lense, broken and scotch taped glasses.
I remember with great sadness one Sunday morning with nothing whatsoever to eat and mother taking me to a tidal pool on Condado Beach, armed with a safety-pin on a string looking, hoping, to find something, anything to eat for breakfast, and failing completely. The little man that wasn’t, the little hero that couldn’t.
I can only imagine how Mud must have felt.
Life that way, is like living in some debilitating floor to ceiling drone that sucks the spirit, the light, the hope and the joy out of you. Leaving you more and more physically weak, and more and more psychologically vulnerable to insult and humiliation and more and more subject to the seeds of a focus less self-pity, a faceless anger and resentment.
I will mention that among other things we (our little family) got “boils”. Big fire red volcanic God awful biblical curse killer boils, that left you dizzy with pain and shame for days and weeks and when they finally exploded, well, you can imagine that mixture of revulsion and relief.
I got a hernia that went untreated for lack of moolah. Food poisoned by another Castilian Abuelita when her friendly grandson brought me to their house to play, she fed us lunch, and then told me to leave and to go directly home. Within the hour, alone in our apt, I was experiencing the worse sweats, trembling and abdominal pain of my life. I realized that if I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t be going back to play with her grandson anymore. Gale was sick in bed for many, many, many weeks with TB that went undiagnosed and untreated (years later it was diagnosed by the scarring on her lungs). Both Mud and Howard wound up in the hospital at the same time for a month (she having complications and then a baby, he having Delirium Tremens). Followed by a long stay in the VA, leaving Gale and I to have a grand adventure taking care of ourselves on our own in Puerto Rico at 9 1/2 and 11.
Of course the first thing to go by the wayside was school, (we were going to “La Escuela de Santa Teresita” on Loiza Street at the time and we could never afford the tuition anyway).
My job was to go out every day looking for, rather “hunting and gathering”, Coca-Cola bottles to turn in for deposit and for the pennies thrown away (two at a time) in the cellophane wrapping of cigarette packages. Cigarettes sold for twenty-eight cents a pack in cigarette machines and the two cents change was stuck in the wrapper. With my earnings Gale and I would go to the store and buy sugar and flour. All the ingredients we needed to make our favorite dishes, fried sugar and fried flour cakes.
We would set the table like civilized children and gobble up our dinner as if we were on top of the world.
However, we lived in acute fear that someone would tell the authorities that we were living all by ourselves and we would be caught and sent to…God knows where.
Fortunately, the only adult interventions came in the form of the bright red apples or neatly wrapped sandwiches or containers of Spanish rice that we would occasionally find leaning against the door when we would come back to the apartment from our flour and sugar runs. Continued…
Book 1. Cortijo Y The Symphonic Friction of Silk, Skin and Satin
I recently attended an interesting event in observance of “Virgin Islands/Puerto Rico Friendship Day” a discussion of the impact of Puerto Rican music on the music and culture of the Virgin Islands. For those of you who don’t know much about the music of Puerto Rico, it is as varied as “Trio Los Panchos” is from “Cortojo Y su Combo con Ishmael Rivera” with every kind of Jibaro (Puerto Rican “hillbilly”) thrown in for double good measure.
Afro-Cuban is more well-known in the states, and I have nothing negative to say about “La Muisca de Cuba” but being “all but Borincan” my self I must confess a personal affinity for “La Musica De Puerto Rico”.
I am not on the panel this year, but the influence of La Musica De Puerto Rico on my music and on my excitement with the idea of making music, is very powerful. I am very happy to offer my recording of “El Gringito” as a demonstration of that, it is a classic Jibaro style song and arrangement, and our Guitar based recording (as opposed to the piano based one) of “Surrender To The Sun” as partial confirmation of the fact that we’ve got a serious case of Borenquen in the soul of the Virgin Islands. (That is the great Jeff Medina playing those beautiful guitar lines).
The great Emile Francis of “Milo And The Kings” ( by far the most popular virgin Islands band of the last fifty years, was all but a Ricanio himself, and the band (with many players with familial ties to Puerto Rico) was second only to Cortijo when it came to full blast sizzling hot Mambo and Meringue.
In 1959 and 60 Tuts and Anibal and I were working at a dance hall that doubled as a skating rink or vice versa. “The Carousel”.
Skating was/is great fun, and being a skate boy/bartender at fourteen and fifteen, was certainly the best of both worlds. Leaping and spinning and flying around the rink at speeds exceeding eighty or a hundred miles per hour (I don’t care what the physicists say about the limitations of ball bearings in circa 1960 skates, or resistance of masonite floors, skinny kid legs and the self-limiting properties of all the atoms involved, as conclusive proof that actual speeds were probably no more than one-third of those claimed) we were flying and when you dipped too low and slid too far on a turn, smashing your shinbone into the sharp edge of a door jamb or support pillar, you knew, and everyone else that heard the crash-bang and the screamin’ and cussin’, would agree, that you had to have been doing at least a hundred.
Sweet “styling” for the teenaged girls, and being ever-present and accounted for on the Saturday Night Rock and Roll radio show that originated at the center of the universe, the skating rink, was great great fun.
But when “Cortijo Y Su Combo Con Ishmael Rivera”, was there, and the scratchy forty fives were replaced by the live blasting trumpets and blaring saxophonicas and banging timbales Congas and Bongos, guiro, maracas, clavos, Guitarra, bass and crazy piano along with simply the best of the best singers in Ishmael Rivera, all together “tedando” the hottest mambo in sixty galaxies, and the giant mirror ball (on top of the rum) had the room and everyone in it spinning in eight directions at once, and the mounting scent of the sweat of pure passion and the perfumey fumes rose up to your brain and voodooed into it as tight as a Turkish towel and the sandpaper sound of oh so tightly wrapped and bursting at the seams, silk and satin bottoms frictioning and bumping, rubbing, and sliding one against the next ‘til the place was about to spontaneously combust like a flambo..
All a lusty young lad boy had to do, was solo dance himself out to the middle of the floor where he would find himself transported to heaven. Crushed breathless amongst and betwixt the mambo frenzied bums of five hundred panting, heaving mamacitas. Each cheek and Chica fully charged, and determined to out shake her neighbor… demonstrating for their dance partners and every one else in the world (or rather, anyone that dared to look) exactly who had the hottest haunches and the sweetest salsa pot, and further, exactly how these endowments could be expected to perform as soon as time and place conspired to align and allow them to do what they could do. (what we used to call “de ting”)
And, perhaps most importantly, and paradoxically beyond the immediate promise of things to come, was the clear once and for always illus/demon/stration of what “the poor pendejo who wouldn’t proclaim his love and fling down his life for her, this very night and forever more”, would and could surely count on missing every day and night of the rest of his miserable God forsaken time on Earth.
Many more than one of Uncle Sam’s poor intoxicated swabs found themselves swept up in this divine, elemental maelstrom, missed his boat and was sunk. Other wise good men who have had to answer questions like these ever since, “Son, how could you disgrace the family by getting a dishonorable discharge?” and “Dad, how long did you have to stay in the brig when they said you deserted from the Navy?” and “Dad do you think they’ll ever forget what you did and let you get a good job and move us out of this trailer park?”
I suspect that the concerned family members are quite puzzled when an odd sweet smile followed by a faraway glazed look is the only answer they get.
We of course had our own band that (as soon as we figured out how to play anything beyond “Perfidia” and “Ruby Dooby Doo”) would be just like Cortijo.
Tuts played the trumpet, I was the singing sax man, Anibal, played “an instrument to be named later” and our friend Guillermo who played the conga, was so taken by the excitement that we think he ran off to Old San Juan, where he may have tried a “stick up a mulberia” to get a set of timbales, and is probably still in La Princessa Prison, just outside of Rio Piedras.
Anyway, I don’t think I will raise my hand and try to offer that kind of testimony from the floor this time, but by God when it’s my turn to be invited onto the dias, I will have this and much more to say. Yes indeed,
Book 1. Isla Grande Continued…Book 4. “Tales of The Second Coming” Continues..
Book 1. Isla Grande Continued…
While we were living at “Parada Vente Cinco, Y El Fangio” I was enrolled in “El Colejio de San Juan Bautista”, a fine and upstanding Escuela, wherein not a word of English was spoken..
None, no, nunca, nada, except of course for the odd combo/ patois dialect passing for English, spoken by yours truly.
The experience at San Juan Bautista was after all is said and done, one of the most instructive and educational of my entire academic career, and I would recommend it for anyone. The experience of becoming and being “El Estupido” simply because of language is like becoming the Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Louie the leper over night A most illuminating and ultimately, empathy producing exercise that I think ought to be a required part of every ones education.
While at Parade Vente Cinco, I made a friend, Terry (who lived nearby, but away from El Fangito). Through Terry, I was introduced to “Abuelitas” (a Spanish term for “little Grandmothers”).
My friend Terry’s Mother was “Puerto Ricania” his Father was a state-sider as I recall, but out of the picture at the time… In any case Terry and his Mother were living with his Abuelita, in a beautiful old “Spanish Moroccan” style, mini Hacienda, A very “Castiliano” pad and atmosphere (in those days the “upper class” considered themselves “Castilians” or “Castilianos” pure or semi pure “Spaniards” as opposed to the “lower classes” which were made up of a mixture of Spanish, African, Indios, and, well you name it. All together known as Puerto Ricanios, Boricuas, Borenquenios, as fine a Sangria of humankind as can be found any where on the Earth.
Americans occupied a position in the Castiliano hierarchy below the sub heading of “Vulgar” “Vulgarians” were tolerated more or less in direct relation to the individual’s power or financial status. And God pity the vulgarian who was “poor” “ese no vale nada”, their only redeeming quality was the fact that by their existence, they proved the natural superiority of Castilianos.
Castilianos who were of course, by divine preference, selected by Dios as most appropriate to “discover”, civilize and rule the new world. Ah yes… there had been some mismanagement, setbacks and perhaps even a few mistakes, but as long as “los Castillianos” held true to their superior attitude and ideation, this too would pass, this too would pass. Terry’s Abuelita was one of those.
It was through her intervention in our friendship that I given my first introduction to an interesting new point of view on my natural place and relative worth in the world.
Terry and I were talking about ways to make some money, (actually I suppose, I was the one concerned with making money because he always seemed to have all he needed, while I had none.) One block over from Aveneda Fernandez Juncos, was “Aveneda De Diego” a far more ritzy Aveneda, than Fernandez Juncos, On Aveneda De Diego, was where you would find “El Nilo”, a well-known breakfast and lunch type restaurant with these fabulous giant glazed donuts in the window (that I was dazzled and dizzyfied by but could never afford) always on sale for only “un bejon” a nickel.
Further along Aveneda De Diego, there was an empty lot in which a little traveling carnival set up a few rides. Among them, these great looking little cars that you got into and steered around a wooden track. I wanted more than anything in the world to be able to give them the quarter fare needed, and take my turn around the track. It happened that the day that my dear Mudder dear had sufficient discretionary funds to give her dear little bonehead dear a quarter, was the very day that the little cars had packed up and left. I was very sad and disappointed.
I know that things were worse in the Fangito, that my self-centered materialistic material wants, were wants, not needs and in the grand scheme of things blah, blah, blah. However, the experience of “having not” and “getting not” over and again, brings a sadness to the spirit, and the question of “hey, wot th’ heck, what’s goin’ on?” and” hmm, what the matter with me?”, begins to bubble sweetly beneath the consciousness, silently building to the subtle burp and overt belching of odd and uninvited emotional and cognitive bub-splosions and disturbances from time to time.
There was a big air-conditioned movie theater on Calle De Diego that was advertising and showing a really interesting looking grown up movie “Carmen Jones” starring a really interesting grown up actress, Dorothy Dandridge. The posters outside showed a strikingly beautiful lady of color in the starring role, (which even an eight year old knew was very unusual) I was really intrigued by the posters and knew there was no way that I would be able to pay my way in, so we decided to ask the movie theater man for a job. To our surprise and delight he said something like “sure, I’ll give you un peso each to sweep up and clean out the theater after each show”. With that he took us into the theater, it was enormous, but we got right to work…a sweepin’ and a pickin’ up and a moppin’ and a pickin’ up and a moppin’ and a sweepin’ and a “oh oh” a scrapin’ gum and a god knows what and a sweepin’ and as always, Terry’s Abuelita wanted him home for lunch, which meant that he had to leave before the job was over..Which meant that I had to do it alone, which was no fun, not even a little.
When I saw Terry later, he said that his Abeulita had told him that he couldn’t do that kind of work, that theaters “were filthy and full of spit” and that she said “while I could do it, she wouldn’t allow him to go back there anymore”. When I heard that I wondered why if he couldn’t, I could? While I didn’t quite understand what that meant, I knew it implied something that didn’t “feel” right. Something was wrong and further, it left me cleaning up the whole filthy place all by my self.
Fortunately we moved to Cacique Street before my soul sank completely through the sidewalk and “el estupido” got demoted all the way back to the first grade.
Cacique Street was interesting for a few reasons, One, because we lived in a house completely devoid of any furniture or furnishings (knives, forks, plates) of any kind, what so ever. And Two, because Gale and I had never been so all out blasted and interminably hungry in all our lives. It seems to me that all that Gale and I did on Cacique Street was wait and wait for an adult to bring us something to eat. It was crazy.
The only thing in the house other than our hunger and our suitcases was a radio…Gale and I played it day and night. Not surprisingly, the piece of music that I remember best from Calle Cacique was a bouncy melodic advertisement (in Spanish) for “Fruta Melocoton…..Libbys!” A jingle for Libby’s brand Peaches and Apricots, I’m telling you, it made a deep Impression…to this day “Melocoton” is one of my favorites of lip and lingo.
In a stroke of good fortune, we were unable to pay the rent, and had to move again.
This time to a furnished apartment at 1700 Ashford Avenue, in “El Condado”. Condado was a relatively upscale section of Santurce, that ran parallel to Condado Beach. 1700 Ashford Avenue, was an eight to ten story wonderful Spanish style old world apartment building overlooking the ocean, The coconut trees swaying in the breeze along the silver strand, the morning sun rising up golden and good out of the idyllic blue. It was beautiful.
We lived in a little apartment over the garage behind the main building blocked from the sea breeze and the view, still it beat the flaming heck out of tragico El Fangito and the crazy hungry nights and days of Cacique.,, Continued
Book 4. “Tales of The Second Coming” Continues..
Last evening, Your sixty four year old singer who will not take no for an answer, continued his voyage of discovery in pursuit of his ever elusive audience, up to and into the Capital of the great state of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. He was accompanied by un congero Puertoriciano que se jama Rafael, a blond Croatian guitarista Goddess that calls her self “Barbie” and a “visually challenged”, well…a blind stick tappin’, ex NYC recording engineer and whiz-bang computer wizzit, John “E”
The object of their objective was a small (but big inside) bookstore and coffee joint called “The Midtown Scholar’ where he would be auditioning via their “Open Mike”, for a coveted one hour slot in their performance schedule which and when, there-upon therein, he would be allowed to put out a tip jar and possibly pass the basket.
We were met at our Capital City objective by the spark plug and leader of the MAAC (Middletown Area Arts Collective), Shari Brandt www.middletownarts.com (Middletown is “The Gritty little City that Glows” ever since Three Mile Island made it the shiniest place on the map) MAAC’s radical new Theater and Media group may be producing “the sixty four year old writer who won’t take no for an answer’s” new mini opus “Three Mile Island, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth, The Musical” we shall see…
Shari was accompanied by her husband handsome Dave and Bob The Train Engineer. All there to provide a kind and much appreciated collective support experience.
Meanwhile, your boy knows more than a little about “passing the basket” being a veteran of Greenwich Village in the sixties and Washington Square Park, in particular. (The best spot was under the arch where a singer could count on a nice echo effect) in fact the very spot in which and where in, he had accidentally discovered that the most astounding, surefire and guaranteed success with a singular “ basket pass” had little to do with the quality of the performance and everything to do with the visual effect of the comely wench making the round of the crowd, basket in hand. Remembering clearly that his most successful basket pass of all time occurred when his wild redheaded earth mama sweetie Annie’s proud young gravity defying pink and ivory breast had found it’s way out of her hippified peasant blouse to astound, electrify and thrill the crowd out of $80.00 (eighty dallah) cash money in Pennies, Nickels, Dimes. Quarters, Dollar bills (even a twenty) and sundry bells, buttons joints and medicinals. (yes, yes, I know, I’ve promised a “G” rated Memwa? but Annie is the Mother and Granny Mother of two of my girls and I think the story may be important and potentially useful for them to reference, when heated discussions arise over their own behaviors and wardrobe choices)
The question tonight here in Harrisburg, will be will these neo-hip folks object if we skip the songs and go directly to having the Croatian Goddess Barbie, flip, or float one out, basket in hand, for a quick killing. We shall see…
The problem turned out to be, that the person your singer needed to impress to get the gig, didn’t bother coming, and nether did the sound guy. So your boy stepped up to the mike, electric guitar in hand and offered up his performance in honor and remembrance of forty-five years of folkies, Earth Mothers, basket houses, bazooms, high falutin’ coffee house waitresses, rainy nights in the village, dark streets flashing reflections of red amber and green, neon lights and pouty lipped girls.
Your sixty-four year old “comeback kid” screeched a splendid and heartfelt medley of Zimmerman tunes artfully scrunched in between the Donovanian epic “Catch The Wind” in a trans Atlantic, sense defying audition tribute to what was, what is, and what will be, this moment, that moment, and forever, etc. Quite something to hear as the vocal mike was live live live and the guitfiddle amp dead dead dead.
Ah well, it certainly wasn’t the first time, nor will it be the last… We arranged a second audition with the decider, and the singer will keep his spirits clean and sober and high high high, because it turns out that for him, life and love and music, is just better that way. Continued…
Book 2. And Book 4. “Surrender To The Sun”
Book 2. And Book 4. “SURRENDER TO THE SUN”
I wrote todays post recently, on the day of the vocal session for the new recording of “Surrender To The Sun” here’s the song and the lyric.
“Surrender To The Sun” (by Scott Fagan and Susan Minsky)
Go down by the sea, surrender to the sun, find the one you used to be, forget what time has done.
Go down by the sea and heal your heart, too many memories, are tearing you apart
Your eyes show, your tired so of love of lose or win, old friends know, you’ve got to go, and let your heart begin again
Istrumental..
Your eyes show, your tired so of love of lose or win, old friends know, you’ve got to go, and let your heart begin again
Go down by the sea, surrender to the sun, find the one you used to be, forget what time has done.
Go down by the sea and heal your heart, too many memories, are tearing you apart, their’re tearing you apart…
It’s a simple, surprisingly beautiful lyric that I wrote while visiting Patty and The Bix in their pad overlooking Hull Bay, in St. Thomas in 1976 We recorded it not long after as the “Theme Song” for a Canadian Film called “Recommendation For Mercy” (The film was about a young Canadian teenage boy, who had been accused and convicted of Murdering his sweetheart, lots of folks felt very strongly that he was innocent and had been railroaded by the authorities. I am happy to report that his conviction was recently set aside, he was declared innocent and released from prison.
(You can find the original recording on youtube or at http://www.lilfishrecords.com) Warren Schatz produced and arranged it, and it was released by RCA as a single with “Many Sunny Places” on the other side.
“Surrender To The Sun” went to become #1 on what was then the #1 station in New York City, however it was never distributed beyond New York, so no one outside of New York ever heard it. It was a beautiful record, and led Sid Bernstien to the verge of singing me to a management deal. Had he done so things might heve been very different. Why no distribution? I don’t know. Why no signing? Yo no se…
Nevertheless the recording did bring about quite a positive change with at least one neighbor of mine, I lived on the NE corner of 76th and West End in those days and there was a fellow living at 76 and Broadway, who had a powerful resentment towards me, having to do with fire hydrants and curbing dogs (his dogs) and other city silliness. I couldn’t walk up 76 street at night ‘cause when I did, inevitably a baggie full of doggie nitro, would come flying down from his 10th floor window, I had some mighty close calls. When “Surrender To The Sun” was #1, he confronted me on the sidewalk one day wanting to know if I was the Scott Fagan on the record. Expecting God knows what, I confessed that I was. He stepped forward and stuck out his hand and said “My name is Bob Brown, and I think that your performance on “Surrender To The Sun” is the first perfect vocal that I’ve ever heard.
I was mighty relieved, Bob turned out to be a great piano player with his own state of the art eight track studio. We did a number of recordings together including the original sessions for “Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer” (song and story) and a demo (the only recording anywhere) of “Sure Has Been Good Loving You Baby” which you can find here…
Bob Brown was a great and mighty piano player, singer and personality, I hope his is alive and well and rolling in the clover. Hiya Bob!
In any case “Surrender To The Sun” is one of a number of songs that I have written that I don’t believe have had a fair shot at finding their audience, (including “Sure Has Been Good” which I wrote with my partner “The Great Cocacola” Joe Kookoolis. In the 60’s) I have recorded a few of them more than once, in an effort to find their audience.
We recorded “Surrender To The Sun” for “Dreams Should Never Die” (The V.I. Songs Vol ll) as an interesting Latin Calypso arrangement, with a beautiful guitar solo by Jeff Medina. (Worlds champeen guitar from Trinidad by way of St. Thomas) When I wrote the Musical “The Virgin Islands Songs” I realized I wanted to reprise more of what we had captured in the original recording. Interestingly, Jeff Medina and I have been working together on and off since I recorded the original, and put a band together called “ting”(as in Scott Fagan and Ting which has meaning in the islands) because Sid Bernstein was going to sign me and we thought that we would be going on the road to promote the record. Yo no se!
In any case, life, fate, destiny, happenstance, persistence, determination, luck, irony, serendipity, Warren Schatz and God’s good Grace has allowed me another whack at the tune, another chance to record this beautiful song with this beautiful arrangement (and with what I have learned over these long years in spite of my self)
I will give it the very best of my heart and soul for once and for all. I hope to make it one for the ages. Or as they say at the old Sixto Escobar stadium “Un Bataso Largo”
Ok now, the session is over and I have done my vocal, I was in good voice, I sang it with all my heart, it is a beautiful song, beautifully arranged, beautifully played, beautifully produced, and beautifully recorded..now we shall see once again if we can get it to the people, and if we can, if they will embrace it.
I’m fully charged, it was done in one take. We did another as a “safety” and now I feel ready to do at least four, four hour sets for forty thousand people..or carry on from here ‘til dawn.
There is always the question of what to do to come down. This (post performance time) is a dangerous time for singers and musicians, as we have such an intense level of energy, begging to be burned. It used to go to the wenches, but tonight I think I’ll walk it off. I’ll go down by the sea at Lindbergh, and surrender to the cool night breeze and sing to my self up and down the beach until the energy is back to manageable.
We sent the track with the vocals oback to Warren via “You Send” (an online company that allows for the transfer of large music files, fairly quickly) so that he can do the mix. I am anxious to see what he thinks of the work that we have done.
I have a long history with the Wonderschatz, whereas Derrick recorded my voice for the first (but hopefully not the last) time yesterday, Warren has been recording my voice for forty five years. Consequently he is familiar with the instrument and how to mike it (which microphones to use, at what volume, what the bass, mid range and treble concerns and settings ought to be and so on) He started as a recording engineer at Associated Studios on 7th Avenue (above the Metropole) between 48th and 49th streets in New York City, just after I came to New York and started doing demos there in 1964. Many young singers (my self among them) got their early recording experience in demo sessions, doing the vocals for the “latest and greatest” new song from this, that or the next writing team or publishing company. Demo sessions were often stressful and certainly hard work.
You would show up, and there would be a song or two or three that you had never heard before in your life. A collection of professional studio musicians and other, often female, background singers (each one more beautiful and exciting than the next..and all very very good). And you. Often the youngest, and in the beginning at least, certainly the greenest. And above all (yes pun intended) there was the omnipresent tick tock “every moment is money” clock on the wall.
Demo sessions were scheduled for one to two hours at the most. The expectation was that without question, the tracks and vocals were all going to get done within the time allotted. No ifs ands or buhbuhbuhbut’s about it and boy, you don’t want to be the one who is gumming up the works. It was like a crazy musical version of “The Weakest Link”.
“Dear Lord don’t let me forget how this odd melodic change goes in the second release, and have to go back to the islands to explain to one and all why the singin’ fool of a white boy from dung de road is a big fat failure already,”..Or “Dear God don’t let me have to go back and tell Doc that he was wrong about me, that I am just a goofy teenager (with a fondness for drink) from the Islands, who ought to be learning how to whittle coconut trees into toothpicks or free dive Queen Conch sixty at a time, a hundred feet down off hammerhead point” . or “Dear Lord God, what about me poor Mudder”
These and many other things were banging around in my head as I would step into the vocal booth to sing the lead and “make this song a hit!” but I have to confess that there was no more powerful consideration or, immeadiate, heart pounding inspiration for me, than to be singing with the “oh so ultra divine Angeles of the ‘OU WAA”. The background singer girls. I loved them then and I love them now.
Good God awmighty, I just love those girls.
Any way, Warren was the engineer on many of those sessions, and he, like all the rest of us was subject to the tyranny of the tick tock and the idea of the instant elimination of he that faltered. In short, he learned to get it right, quick! (And has been getting it right for forty five years). Those demo sessions were, all things considered, heady, exciting, great fun and above all intensely educational. (Did I mention the beautiful background singer girls?)
Will the Wonderschatz listen and say, “oh poor Scotty, his future is way behind him. They were right, he left his best performance echoing through the catacombs beneath the Pilgrimage Theater in Los Angeles, thirty seven years ago, or, unfortunately I left his best performance in the trash bin, on twenty feet of edited eight track in 1976”. Or might he say “Hmm, the boy has finally learned how to sing a little, s’bout time” or “Too bad he’s finally learned how to sing, but now his instrument’s gone all wavery and quavery all over the place”.
At least I have a comeback prepared for the last possibility. It goes like this, “Oh Yeah? Well If you were sixty four and you tried to sing a song like that, I bet you’d sound all wavery and quavery all over the place too!” The fact is, if all I can do is waver and quaver all over the place, even I would acknowledge that perhaps I really ought to reconsider “whittling as a way of life”.
Ah well, I do hope he likes it, I just have to wait and see…I’ll be looking for his email today And here it is, and..here is what Warren had to say.. “I LOVE this vocal! So heartfelt and special. Boy!!! You still got it son!”
Sheesh!! What a relief! God bless the Wonderschatz. And now the work begins. We have to accomplish something that we have never been able to do before, and that is to get a Scott Fagan recording to its audience. How to do it? How to do it? We will have to work on that next.
Scott Fagan's Mem.wa? 