“That’s right. Is there a problem?” Lee asked inquisitively. “Oh, we know you didn’t write it, but you do it so well we think it would put you over the top.”
In silence, all of us were all thinking the same thing: Just how was this million-dollar hit single raging across the country like a hot lead bullet going to look with the drummer singing lead? “Holly” was my number, chosen primarily as background music for the unhip dinner set before we cut loose into our act. It was a crooner’s song. The only reason I could sing that stuff was because my father used to sing all the Bing Crosby stuff around the house twenty-four hours a day when I was a kid. It was such a throwaway song for us that I never even memerized the words! I used a cheat-sheet that I taped to my high-hat cymbal.
What was Eddie going to be doing? Merely play the tambourine and dance while I kept a light four-four beat and crooned? The guy in the lead singer’s position usually had the voice on the first hit record! Imagine Charlie Watts singing “Satisfaction” while Mick posed as window dressing. Get serious!
“Don’t that beat all?” Toney said, gazing disappointingly out the window.
Here we were, breaking our butts to be the next Rolling Stones with “James Brown” out in front and Lee wanted to turn us into a twenty-year-old version of Perry Como.
“Look, Rusty, you sing it, right?” Lee asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s the matter with Eddie playing drums, while you do that song? Or a hand instrument or something, just for that song. Then Eddie can sing other ones.”
“So people hear ‘Holly’ and expect that kind of music when they come to our concerts?” Eddie asked in confusion. “And then we go back to our regular show and they think they’re watching Pat Boone on acid.”
“There can be a happy medium,” Lee soothed. “You can do both.”
I thought to myself, I have that natural timbre to my voice that lends so well to that song and style of music that I know we can chart it. Unknown—or perhaps all too well known—to Hazelwood, this was setting up a power shift in the band. Ronnie had done a lot of theater and had a feel for that kind of music and could live with it. Toney and Eddie were dead-set against it from the start.
And that left me.
The phone was ringing in my apartment the following day as I was getting home. It was Jerry.
“If the group turns the offer down,” Jerry was saying, “then you have to make the decision to stay with them or take our offer by yourself.”
“I know, I know,” I said, running my hand through my hair as I sat on my pull-down bed.
“Rusty, listen, bands break up all the time. A singer goes solo. It’s no big thing. I think you know what I’m saying. Why don’t you let another drummer take your spot and we’ll produce you as a lead singer? Your voice is suited perfectly for what we have in mind. Here’s your brass ring, man! Better take it. We’ll even sign Ronnie to be your Musical Director if you like.”
“It is a big thing, Jerry,” I objected. “Loyalty means a lot to me. These guys are my brothers. I can’t dump my friends. Leave Eddie in the lurch to pursue my own agenda? That’s not the way we started.”
“You’re not ducking your friends,” Jerry countered. “You’re taking advantage of a business opportunity.”
“Jerry, isn’t there another way to get around this problem?” I sighed heavily and walked around the room dragging the phone. “If I left and took Ronnie with me, the group would be finished. Eddie and I started this and look how far we’ve brought it.”
“As in any business, things change,” Jerry said.
“Jerry, listen…I can do that kind of music in my sleep. I didn’t come to Hollywood to be that kind of a singer.”
“Yeah okay, I understand. You think about it and we’ll talk in a few days.”
“Right.”
“But remember, Rusty, offers like this don’t come by that often. Think hard. Do you want your own career or stay in the band and be part of their career? I’ll talk to you later.”
Jerry hung up.
“Man, I can’t believe this,” I muttered. “All for one and one for all.”
Pssssst! a hidden voice beckoned at the back of my head. What if The Pacific Ocean doesn’t cut the mustard? Huh? What if you pass this deal by and things don’t turn out the way you planned with the band? This is life, remember? Things have a way of turning to Shits-ville after the gravy cools. This could be your Big Break. Would they want the best for you? You want the best for them, don’t you? If you become a millionaire, then you could help them!
I groaned, trying to shut out the voices in my head. Upstairs I could faintly hear the sounds of a couple lost in the gyrations of summer love.
You better think this one out before you cast your fate to the wind. A record deal doesn’t come along that often, kid, and these guys at the label are crazy for your voice. Dig on it a while before you pass it by so casually. Maybe this is the Big Band Leader in the Sky’s message to you. What if it’s one record with Hazelwood, then wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and they move on to the next singer? Toodle-oo, Rusty ol’ boy. We’ll catch you on the flip-flop, El Drummer With No Group-o. It was nice, babe, but since it didn’t work out, better luck next time. And, oh…By the way…You owe us your first-born for the studio costs that we never recouped on “Holly.” Take two unemployment checks and call me in the morning…I mean our lawyer will call you in the morning! Damn! It’d be back to the salt mines in Montebello all over again.
These were the dreams that haunted my sleep for the next three days. At The Factory gigs at night, in between movie stars and rock and roll, the guys would ask me, “What’s up? Are you going to take their offer or what?” Without hesitation, each time I would say, “Of course not! Why would I leave a band that’s making great money for a chance at a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road-type record, when I got you slugs to weigh me down?”
After four days of pragmatic consideration, I dialed Jerry’s number from my apartment.
“Listen, thank you for the offer, Jerry, but I’ve decided to hang with the band. We’ve got way too much time invested to break up now.”
“I understand your decision. I hope it’s the right one. You’re a talented kid, Rusty. I sincerely hope your dreams come true. Good-bye and good luck.”
I’d made the decision to stay loyal.
Still…What if? I sat and stared blankly for a moment, taking it all in.
Outside, a plane flew low over the buildings and my apartment windows shook slightly.
“Hope that’s not a sign.”
I sat at the back of the stage out of sight from everyone. I secretly watched Eddie and remembered when Eddie told me how he felt when he took the stage—feeling the seductive power of the audience behind him. After years of entertaining large audiences, he instinctively sensed his power as the ringmaster of the journey. His costume was perfect; his body was set. His pulse quickened, anticipating the moment the music would start, transforming all of us from ordinary folks into radiating beings of musical light.
Caught in the focus of ten thousand staring eyes, Eddie would take the audience on an uninhibited voyage. Thundering, pulsating emotion would be the vehicle. The music’s exhilarating addictive power was endless.
Toney plugged in his guitar. Ronnie turned on the Leslie speaker to his Hammond B3 organ. I walked from backstage and eased myself down onto the black-leathered drummers throne with all the precision of formula race car driver. I thought for the millionth time that drummers had the best seat in the house. Their vantage point was always the highest— watching the entire room. It struck me funny at times when I would pretend the audience was dancing puppets.
The band members all watched as the skillfully adorned Beverly Hills hipsters mingled, spewing token jive to the suited and gowned Kens and Barbies.
As Eddie called the first song, I had a funny thought: that all these kings and queens of the world were being driven to rock and roll euphoria nightly by four working class young men—young
men that were anxious like all young men to make their mark in the world.
But we were sensing once again that we were falling short and suffering the churning, gut-eating insecurity of being a jukebox dance band. We were prevailing heartily, though, to push on until the break came.
“They love us live,” Eddie had said on more than one occasion. “The irony is almost comical. We’re right in the middle of show-biz land. We’re making the entire business dance and we’re still dry on the national record front.”
His frustration summed up the way all four of us were feeling, posing a strange irony because of where we stood at this very moment.
I began a driving Rolling Stones drumbeat. The large cowbell signature clank, clank reverberated through the club, grabbing the movie folk by the gonads. My fear about the band’s lack of commercial success laced itself tonight in a tightness in my stomach. Like always, I’d laughed at my fear. Eddie and Toney seemed to physically beat it out of themselves in their nightly performances. Ronnie shrugged off fear with comedy.
The music lifted us in some essential way we needed, I thought, like a sports fan watching his weekend football.
But would we ever be more than a club band?
Over the next twelve months at The Factory, many attempts were made to land the proper recording deal. Hundreds of singles were handed out to prospects. Boxes of Pacific Ocean albums were handed to anyone and everyone we thought might be able to help get us a connection. Life in all its stark and bleeding reality seemed to be catching up with us—for the ump-teenth time. One dead end led to another. Finally, when we were given a two-week notice that our time was up at the movie star connection, it came as no surprise. It was just that we had nowhere else to go.
Each of our individual resentments built as we watched our career fall short in front of the very people we dreamed of becoming.
“A record label has to be behind you,” an experienced pro told us as the closing week hung over us like a notice from the draft board. Hard drinks were lined around the table as our momentary mentor drank tequila.
“You can get signed, that’s no problem,” his eyes now looked like bloodshot road maps to hell, “but if the label isn’t personally moved by what you’re writing and performing, you stay on their shelves for years wasting valuable time.”
“We’ve been down that road,” Eddie said, his face clinched in strained concentration, obviously angered by the work invested to no avail.
On the closing night of The Factory gig, we sat quietly around a table that used to be filled with well-wishers.
“Maybe we were too close,” I said, staring at the dance floor as the rich and famous danced in front of us, seemingly happy with their careers, wealth, and status.
“What?” Toney said over the music as it gushed from the ceiling speakers played by a band-break DJ named Tim.
“Maybe we were just too damn close all this time. You know?” I turned to face Toney as if I’d had an urgent idea. “Too close. Too much a part of the family, and no one here could take us seriously because they saw us every day.”
The other three thought of this. Eddie looked around as if dreading the next set.
“Maybe, Rusty.”
Patty Duke approached the table from out of the crowd. “Hi, you guys. My friends and I were wondering if you could play something by the Beatles?” she asked sweetly.
“Sure,” Eddie said. “Right away.”
“You guys are great, hope you make a hit record,” Patty said.
We smiled and said thank you as the bittersweet words from her sweet mouth on our last night stayed with us.
As Patty walked away from our table, I sang over the DJ’s music the Patty Duke Show theme song that we’d grown up with.
“Because we’re cousins, identical cousins everyday. We laugh alike, we talk alike, we even da-da-da alike.” I spread my arms in an Al Jolson impersonation for effect. “’Cause Cousins…Are two of a kiiiiind!”
“We’re dying and he’s singing,” Toney mused.
Eddie slowly leaned across the table, his dark brown eyes glowing in the candlelight. Smiling, but with a serious note, he said, “Only you, Johnson. Only you.”
“It’s his defense. I rather like it,” Ronnie said.
The dancing music ended as the DJ announced, “Well, all right, people! Good dancing. Now we’ll turn it back to the fabulous Pacific Ocean. Thank you.”
Eddie clapped his hands and said with a it’s-now-or-never look, “Ah-yeah-sir.” His tone was flat and unemotional. We mounted the stage for the last two sets.
At 3:30 a.m. we were back on the streets. The parking lot attendants were the last to leave.
“We could always go back to Gazzarri’s,” Toney said.
“No, I don’t think so,” Eddie said. “Ronnie’s getting married and moving back to Montebello.”
Ronnie smiled slightly.
“Let’s just take some time off and restructure our thoughts. Might be a nice break to not have to play six nights a week for a while.”
“Something will come up,” I offered in a low voice.
“Life’s catching up to us,” Eddie said, letting out a long sigh.
We each turned and exchanged hugs and patted each other on the back as if we were going on a long trip.
As Eddie and I drove away down Santa Monica Boulevard in our individual cars, my stomach ached with an emptiness I wanted to fill immediately. The uniqueness of this band could now be lost because we couldn’t make it happen.
Ronnie and Toney continued down Santa Monica Boulevard toward the freeway.
Eddie and I drove up Doheney following each other. Eddie turned left to go over Coldwater to Sherman Oaks where he and Kaija had found a small house.
Eddie and Kaija, a girl Eddie had been seeing for a while, had been married a few months prior to all of this. Losing The Factory gig and the band must have preyed on his mind as he considered his new wife.
I made a right onto the Sunset Strip and drove slowly two blocks to Gazzarri’s. I could feel myself slipping into a sad and reflective mood. I stopped the car across the street from Gazzarri’s.
Sitting there, I imagined our earlier days there and wondered why we still hadn’t connected with a large record company.
“Gazzarri’s,” I said under my breath.
A hundred thousand memories pulsated with the blood that ran through my brain. Growing anxious, I reached for a cigarette. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
When Joey and I were together, I thought, we worked until we were torn apart by forces beyond our control.
Now it’s happening all over again
14
Mack the Knife
Back east, Joey was doing well as a recording engineer. He had moved up to the lead position and was now working with Jimmy Miller, one of the top record producers in the music business. Joey wrote me regularly and it was very clear that Joey had become Miller’s main man. Joey had been assigned to Jimmy through The Hit Factory six months ago for a two-night session. The two had hit it off so well—and Jimmy was so taken with Joey’s ability in the studio—that Jimmy never used another head engineer.
Jimmy had great ears for the rock and roll business, but he also trusted Joey’s instincts. Miller and Zagarino together possessed some strange and powerful gifts in the recording studio together.
Joey told me about one particular night that changed his life. They were recording a band by the name of Great Jones, when the phone on the top of the recording console silently flashed a red light. Jimmy answered it.
“Yeah, sure. Here, man.”
He passed the handset to Joey.
“Yeah. Yeah? No shit!” Joey stood up. “I’ll be right there!”
He turned to Jimmy’s questioning face. “I’m gonna be a daddy!”
“No shit!” cried Jimmy.
“Bye bye, boys! She’s on her way to the hospital!”
“You want me to come, man?” Jimmy asked.
“Su
re, man, we’re partners now, right?”
“You got it, partner.” Jimmy hit the intercom button. “Listen, you guys. We’ll pick up tomorrow night at midnight. Joey’s wife is on her way to the hospital to make him a daddy-o.”
The band broke out in applause and yelled “Good luck.” Joey heard one voice say, “I hope it’s a guitar player.”
“I’ll call you all tomorrow,” Jimmy promised as he got his keys off the console and grabbed his jacket and leather-strapped bag that was hanging over the chair.
“Later,” Joey said as they waved at the band and split.
At the hospital, Joey held Karen’s hand and reminded her to breathe deeply.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’ve been better,” she said between jabs of pain.
“Breathe deeply,” he said worriedly. “Keep it up now.”
The nurses came in and wheeled Karen away.
“I love you,” Joey said as she was wheeled through the door.
“Me, too,” she barely got out.
Twenty minutes later, Joey and Jimmy were in the waiting room. Joey paced and swatted a magazine against his right leg very rapidly, as if keeping beat to a song. Jimmy was on the phone talking to the studio when the nurse came in.
“Mr. Zagarino, you’re the father of a beautiful baby girl. Mother and daughter are just fine.”
“All right! A girl. ‘Melinda was mine till the time that I found her’,” Joey sang.
“Huh?” the nurse said.
“That’s what we’re naming her if it’s a girl,” Joey explained. “Melinda. Like the song. You get it, right?”
The nurse didn’t.
“That’s okay. Which way to the babies?”
“This way, sir.”
“Dad, if you please!”
“Oh. Right. This way, dad.” She moved on ahead of him. “Are you guys musicians?” she asked.
“Naw. We’re the guys that make musicians,” Jimmy quipped from behind them as he followed Joey down the hall.
Joey looked back at this statement. “Don’t let him fool you, lady, I’m a great musician and singer. I just turn knobs in the studio until I can get a million-dollar album out.”
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