Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Chapter 17: Tempted and Tested

          Here's one that Jack and I wrote together in record time. It was one of those inventions mothered by an opportune necessity to place a song on an album of promised prominence that was already in production. [Hint: it involved Jack's niece and a son of a Detroit Motown™ Temptation in L.A.]   It is the fourth and final entry in the “Well Ain’t She Suite” series.

          This was 1998. I had moved operations from Avery Street [in (Detroit Tiger Hall-of-Famer) Ty Cobb's old neighborhood] to Clinton Township—a Met-DET suburb near its northeastern extremes. Ask anyone who was around in the Avery studio [S. A. S. Productions] and they'll tell you we left a lot of good memories…fortunately, we still have most of the music in one format or another. [Note: Look for the release in the medium-near future of some of the best of this on a release titled "The Avery Tapes".]


Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Chapter 16: I'm Faithful



         I wrote "I'm Faithful" in 1990, with no idea of where I might place it.  It is the third entry in this 4-part series.  All my connections were R&B or Jazz.  And this post-New Wave club piece was going to take loads of dough, dropping wax, and greasing palms to do something independently of the majors.  I had watched one of my collaborators (Herschell Masten; White Limousine) dole out big funds doing such.  At the time, buying food and keeping a roof over my family's heads was my other choice of investment.  Aside from the monetary logistics, this was best launched as a Pop thing.  I didn't know anyone with the voice capable of conveying the feel without sounding wannabe.