by Jimmy Webb
I looked around me in disbelief. What was my engineer doing in this office? Were these guys communicating behind my back? Yes. Of course. Talking about cocaine and grass and such. Armin had set himself up as ex-officio executive producer of my pet project. Eventually I obliged their meddling paternalism by shedding a brace of tears out of sheer frustration.
I went away from the meeting with deep resentment for Jay and a feeling that bordered on hatred for Armin. Armin had been one of us. Bad form indeed for him to run tattling to the record company about some supposed laxity of mine, if that’s indeed what he’d done. I went back into the studio no less determined to create a flawless product. I didn’t change my mode of production. I used as much audiotape as I wanted. I scarcely spoke to Armin. Gone was the once-warm camaraderie we had shared. He had gone over to them. What an ass-kissing move that was.
Rock ’n’ roll was coming of age and the men at the top were determined to turn it into a rigidly controlled, corporate business. Modern-day fans can judge the efficacy of such stewardship.
It was during the Thelma Houston tracking dates that the Crew and I first noticed a startling metamorphosis in volume control expert Mike Deasy. When Deasy walked down the street people were apt to ogle his buckskin-fringed jacket adorned with wampum beads, matching pants, and Robin Hood–peaked cap with a pheasant plume. With his mountain man beard, he looked like a cross between Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, his midriff belted with a hand-braided thong and hung with a powder horn and hunting knife. Deasy’s favorite guitar was an aging Strat carved with Native American symbols.
One day, Mike walked into the studio for the date and everybody stopped short and just stared. Deasy was wearing a dark blue suit, wingtips shining, completely clean shaven. He looked like a freaking advertising executive. He played well, if not particularly inspired but drug-free, and when the session ended he walked out.
In dribs and drabs the story behind this unprecedented transformation became a part of Hollywood studio mythos.
Deasy and a friend had outfitted an old van with an eight-track professional recorder and old studio parts, effectively jury-rigging a mobile recording unit. On the weekends they would pull the old panel truck into an alley behind a club or concert venue and record whatever was going on. They went to Griffith Park one Sunday afternoon and recorded the Korean congregations worshipping outside.
The two musical gypsies were told about a group of free spirits who lived out on the desert, played some “far out” music, and were generous with various and sundry high-quality drugs. The latent frontiersman in Deasy must have leaped at the chance to go out under the night sky and sit among the sage and mesquite with a group of outlaws similarly inclined toward the philosophy of the pioneer throwback.
He went out to record the group a couple of times. One night, however, he was told the evening’s ritual would be a feast in his honor. The leader of the band, Charles Manson, let Mike know he was to be inducted into membership in the desert rats club and receive the privileges and assume the obligations thereto. He was to become head music teacher and guitar instructor for the clan. For how long? Well, Manson told him, forever or ’til he died, whichever came first. Mike felt the first pang of fear. He was more or less coerced into taking a dose of LSD by some pretty girls and persuaded to join in a ritual. All the participants stood around a fire with their hands linked and chanted Charlie’s poem for the occasion, said to be a blood oath.
Mike Deasy was missing for two days. He finally appeared at home, weeping hysterically and raving to his wife. “They tried to take my soul.” He went out and got a new haircut and a blue suit. A few months after completing Thelma’s album, he and his family moved to Oregon where Mike eventually became an evangelist.
Thelma Houston’s album escaped from ABC Dunhill. It seemed as though the label blackballed it deliberately. Sunshower has been praised for forty years as a seminal debut by one the greatest of America’s ingénue singers. Paul Shaffer told me once it was the best arranging and producing of my life. However, I watched in dismay as our dream project floundered at the bottom of the charts. One of the songs—“Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon”—made it into William Friedkin’s blockbuster drug flick The French Connection. A serviceable copy of Thelma’s record was included in a nightclub scene by a good group called the Three Degrees.
When artist relations go south at a label it often happens in a hurry yet invisibly. It’s like sitting and looking at a glass of milk on the porch and trying to guess the exact moment when it’s no longer fit to drink. I had missed it at Dunhill. I had no idea I was in trouble there until the day I saw Armin Steiner sitting in Jay’s office. No heads-up from Harv or the Devil or Howard Golden? We had grown complacent. I had salaried employees at Canopy Music pulling down $80,000 a year and not getting a single song covered in a film. I closed the expensive Canopy Productions office on Sunset Boulevard to keep it from bleeding to death. My father went to Curb Records. At about the same time Harvey Lippman succumbed to cancer and was interred with little pomp or ceremony.
Recalling the circumstances of my departure from Johnny Rivers Music, it is no less than astonishing that Harv had summoned Johnny to his bedside to ask for some sort of absolution. Johnny obliged him. One day I will owe Johnny such a phone call as well. My suddenly unstable continuum was seemingly turning sideways and unreeling on its edge. Like a toy gyroscope wavering on the edge of a glass, I was trying to walk it like an acrobat, striving not to fall into a worse mess.
1968, Las Vegas
I was invited up to Sodom and Gomorrah on another occasion by Mr. Sinatra to see his show at Caesars Palace. He made specific mention that I should bring my father as his special guest. This was a big deal for Dad, but I should add I was treated as nothing less than a visiting potentate. As we checked into Caesars Palace, pulling to a stop adjacent to the fountain, a half block long, we were swarmed by valets and bellmen. A uniformed hotel employee greeted me on behalf of Mr. S and informed me we were checked in and our money was no good in the hotel. There was even a marker waiting at the cashier’s cage for a thousand dollars, and he gave me the code. We took our keys up to a typically overstated Vegas suite on the penthouse floor that was flagrant in its abuse of columns, mirrors, carpet, and square footage.
In the afternoon I met with Mr. Sinatra in a conference room fitted out with a piano and, in a routine that would repeat itself many times, he sat comfortably in an overstuffed armchair and sipped at a highball glass containing Jack Daniel’s straight up while I played the piano and went through a dozen or so songs. On that occasion I remember specifically playing a song called “Winter Clothes” that he went for but was holding something back.
“It’s not done yet, is it?” I asked him with a smile.
“It’s such a great idea, kid. If we could rework the lyrics for me it would make a big difference,” he retorted with a wry smile. He took a couple of puffs on a cigarette, one of perhaps two or three he would smoke during a session. I knew the song was missing something and kicked myself for showing it too early. There is extremely delicate timing involved in exposing material to an artist. I had probably lost a cover by overplaying my hand but I was so damned anxious to please him.
That evening Dad and I had our own table snugged right up to the stage in the middle of the house. As our candle flickered and the density in the room increased ten-fold, I watched the spotlit curtain and listened to the band jostling the stage as they took their places. With a great blast of sound, the band hit the warm-up music, a very brief overture that accompanied the raising of a gilt lamé curtain that must have weighed hundred thousand pounds. Nelson Riddle stood in the center of the stage holding a baton, his assets arrayed around him. Stage right sat the ranks of a string section numbering at least twenty violins, violas, celli, and a couple of concert basses. Immediately behind him at his custom-made drum set was Hal Blaine taking some time off from the grind of Hollywood studio work. With him was a lineup of rhythm players, two pe
rcussionists with their glittering array of chimes, glock, wind chime, and other toys. Two guitarists sat huddled over their music stands bearing the “Nelson Riddle” logo, one electric and one acoustic. An electric bass player stood nearby and to his right a seven-foot Steinway with an elegant but graying stick of a man at the keys. This was Bill Miller, Mr. Sinatra’s lifelong accompanist. Stage left was a who’s who of jazz greats on six trumpets, five trombones including a bass, two French horns, six or seven reeds including a specialist on oboe and flute, two baris, a quartet of tenors, and at least a couple of alto saxes. This was a far cry from Monterey and my single chime.
The music paused. There was a tympani roll and a voiceover.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino presents a man and his music, Frank Sinatra!” There was a moment of implosion when it seemed all the air had been sucked out of the room. The familiar middle-aged man with a good tan and twinkling blue eyes walked on singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” (w. Cole Porter) A woman toward the back of the room passed out with a moan and the crowded sea of glitterati erupted in a volcanic shout of approval. This is what they had come to see, not the legend, not a disembodied voice on a tiny speaker, but the living, breathing animal. It was the fantasy we had seen in the movies: the posh nightclub, the full orchestra, and the timeless songs that had seen them through dates and proms, weddings and wars. I looked over at Dad. There was a glint of moisture in those deep blue eyes.
Somewhere in the cheap seats they were placing the unconscious woman on a gurney and wheeling her out for a hot toddy. The show barreled on hit after gargantuan hit. “Last Night When We Were Young,” (w. Yip Harburg) “The Lady Is a Tramp (w. Lorenz Hart)” and then in an interlude Sinatra said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to do a brand-new song by one of today’s most talented songwriters, a young fella who writes like a giant, Mr. Jimmy Webb.”
A hulking searchlight like a relic from a World War II battleship swung in my direction and lit me up in white like a specimen under the microscope. My first instinct was to duck under the table.
“Stand up, son, the man is talking about you,” my father chided, and I slowly got to my feet and received one of the rare moments of acclaim that guys in my racket enjoy. Mr. Sinatra was a lover of songwriters and never stinting in praise of the creators. Songwriters were credited throughout most of his shows and I learned a great deal about the history of my craft just by listening.
I resumed my seat and he sang “Didn’t We?,” a song engraved in history because of his and Barbra Streisand’s and a couple of other fine recordings. The rest is a blur. The surreal effect created by someone of such international and historic acclaim addressing a little song I wrote when I was a teenager was dizzying. Once the music ended, escorts materialized and we went backstage to talk to the great entertainer. In this case it really was “backstage” as Mr. Sinatra had a full-size house trailer sitting deep upstage behind the curtain that backed the orchestra. Dad and I walked up to the Airstream with our guard and knocked on the door as though we were visiting friends in the heart of a wilderness. Mr. Sinatra took my dad out front to teach him to play a little chemin de fer. At hundred dollars a bet, Pop didn’t last long.
We stuck around for a couple of days. One night Mr. S took my father and me to the Jockey Club for an early dinner and the two of them chatted away like old army buddies. They talked about the Andrews Sisters and Tex Beneke and the Big One. After a while they forgot I was there. The encounter changed my dad. He had a little more spring in his step after that. He started wearing a big diamond ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. He was a made guy.
1968, Los Angeles
When I got out of the elevator I could hear the phone ringing in my apartment. I sprinted to the door and skinned my knuckles keying the lock to get in and pick up the phone. There was much in the wind. I was loath to miss a phone call in those days.
“Jimmy?” It was Evie’s mellifluous alto on the other end.
“Hello, little mouse.”
“I can’t stay here. I need to get out.” She was sobbing. There was a hullaballoo in the background. Someone yelling.
“Can you come get me?”
“Watch for the car. I’ll pull up right in front.”
I drove as quickly as I could without drawing any heat. I pushed down busy Sunset Boulevard toward the heart of Beverly Hills, made a right on Benedict Canyon, and then another at trendy Tower Road.
A barefoot figure clad in flowing white came rushing down the steps of a big rancher. She ran out into the street clutching an overnight bag and a pair of shoes. Evie.
I braked quickly and leaned over and opened the passenger door from the inside. She slipped into the bucket seat, tear-stained and smelling of the same perfume she wore the night I met her.
“Oh, my God, he’s gone crazy!” She sobbed. I kissed her.
“We will get you away,” I reassured her with a hug and putting my hands back on the wheel revved the engine and almost took off. But just as the car began to roll another figure—this one bespectacled and wearing pants and a long-sleeved shirt unbuttoned at the sleeves, Leslie—threw himself in front of the car and splayed out over the hood, one of his hands right in front of my face on the other side of the glass.
I opened the door and got out. I figured we were going to have a jolly old duel of fisticuffs over the damsel. Maybe he really did love her.
“So, you’ve come into the light,” he heaved. “Why don’t you leave my fucking wife alone?”
“I’m here,” I said, looking at his hands.
“If you had any balls you would come into the house like a gentleman,” Leslie challenged.
“I’d be happy to.”
I went around and helped Evie out of the car and the three of us walked back up the steps and into the living room. I am sure the room was very opulent and calculated to impress but in the insanity of the moment my eyes fixed upon an item that I instantly recognized: a chord organ.
We had come to that moment when it was time for something to happen. An undignified scuffle probably would have occurred if David Hemmings hadn’t stumbled in from the hallway wearing a bathrobe and scratching his shock of blondish hair.
“What in the diabolical blazes is going on around here?” he complained, seating himself beside Evie and placing a protective arm around her shoulders.
“Oh, my God!” he suddenly exclaimed. “You must be Jimmy!” He jumped to his feet.
“What a pleasure to meet you, old boy! I’m a tremendous fan, you know, and a friend of Richard’s.” He pumped my hand enthusiastically.
Leslie was mortified. Here he was looking for an ally to join in on the vilification, and houseguest Hemmings had turned out to be a Jimmy Webb fan. He turned on Evie.
“So make up your mind. This jacked-up country oaf or me, what is it to be?”
She whimpered.
“Stop yelling at her, for Christ’s sake,” I said.
“Leslie, good fellow.” Hemmings shifted smoothly into the role of peacemaker. “Perhaps there’s a way we could just all sit down and discuss this like adults.”
Leslie ventured that since I wasn’t an adult he couldn’t see how that would be feasible.
“Evie, I’m going to go,” I said, my voice shaking a little. I strove to keep it strong and even. “If you want to go with me there is nothing that’s going to stop me from taking you out of here.”
I looked Leslie straight in the eye, but David got between us.
“Listen, James—Jimmy, is it? I would love to get together and have a dinner sometime when you’re in London perhaps,” David interjected, maintaining the social ambience. I recognized him as a perfect rogue, fundamentally untrustworthy and likeable to the core. I turned for the doorway after giving Evie a kiss on the cheek and pumping David’s hand enthusiastically. I walked out the front door, and halfway down the walkway Evie caught me.
“I’m going with you,” she said. She had her little bag wi
th her and we regained the cozy cockpit of the ’Vette. I fired up the ignition and flipped on the heater as we both shivered from the stress of confrontation in the chilly December weather.
My offers of marriage and hers of divorce hung in midair uneasily and I let it ride. After the weekend, she went back to her husband.
I, in turn, leased out the former Philippine Consulate.
Four blocks from Grauman’s Chinese Theater, it was a faithful copy of a grand Spanish hacienda on a street called Camino Palmero. I asked Harv to move in with me. “We need a house big enough for you and me and the Devil and lots of groupies and any stray hippie who needs a meal or a place to crash.”
Harv’s eyes got very big. “Really?”
He couldn’t get over the image of flower-clad free-love chicks draped all over the furniture. Harv took one suite of the house, I took the other. The Devil got his own room. A hipster mama cook, her handsome bartender boyfriend, actress daughter Patricia Highland and three-year-old granddaughter all moved in as well. The toddler’s name was Petrie, and she was screeching hell on roller skates. Who morphed into a fine young woman over time.
I signed two writers and sleeping arrangements were made for them as well. They would also theoretically back me in the band I was intent on putting together. My philosophy was, if there’s enough money, the more the merrier. And it looked like there would be enough money.
Word of our “co-op” travelled through the street scene rather quickly. A regular parade of uninvited guests began to show up for nourishment or shelter. The Devil and I made a rule for the entire household: do not invite strangers over for drugs.
My popularity was soaring. My picture and long articles had appeared in Time and Life. Fan pulps went wild with the story that I was dating Sally Field: FLYING NUN GOES UP, UP, AND AWAY. She was a wonderful girl and for a while my brother Tommy double-dated her sister Princess. The word “wunderkind” was bandied about. I had to ask someone to look up what that meant.