by Steve Dorff
“How soon can we hear it?”
I hadn’t had a chance to make a demo yet. Again, I figured it was most likely not going to fly. It didn’t even come close to Latin percussion, and it sounded nothing like John Sebastian or Pat Metheny.
“Come over when you can and I’ll play it for you.”
An hour or so later, they arrived at my house in Studio City, which was a fairly short ride from the Warners lot. I watched them park and approach my door: the Holy Trinity. Suddenly, a wave of panic came over me. This was really happening. I actually wrote a song that sounded nothing remotely like what they asked for. They were going to hate it.
After a minute or two of niceties, and me explaining John’s and my process, I took a deep breath and played the song. It was the longest thirty seconds of my life. When I finished and looked up, all three producers were smiling.
“That’s exactly what we wanted.”
We started to talk about who could sing it. All sorts of names were thrown about before we settled on B. J. Thomas, a terrific legacy artist and a friend of mine who had recorded several of my songs. B. J. put his signature vocal on the track, and it was the perfect fit. The show aired and it was a monster breakout hit, which clearly demonstrated how little I knew about network TV.
As the second season approached, the producers asked if we could do the theme as a duet. We hired Jennifer Warnes, who had an absolutely amazing voice and was coming off a big hit single of her own.
From the moment the vocal session started, I had a feeling we were in for some trouble. Although Jennifer ultimately did a great job singing the song, she seemed to have an issue with it being too “commercial-sounding.” Jennifer had been gravitating in her own career toward more Leonard Cohen–sounding songs. She told me after we were finished recording the sixty-second version that she was worried that it sounded like it could be a radio hit.
I was concerned.
“Jennifer, why is that going to be a problem? Isn’t that what we’re after here?”
She looked at me matter-of-factly.
“I don’t know if I want to deal with having a hit record, Steve.”
I thought that to be a bit odd, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Her duet version with B. J. kicked off the second season, and the show was as hot as ever, soon becoming the #1 sitcom on television. By now, everybody was asking me to record a record-length version for a possible commercial release to radio. Jennifer had made it pointedly clear that she did not want to be a part of that, so we replaced her with Dusty Springfield, who happily had no problem with having a hit record.
John and I added a second verse, made the record version with B. J. and Dusty, and we had a Top 10 single.
Growing Pains was my first half-hour, and when you have one hit, everyone comes a-calling. I next did the theme song for My Sister Sam and had Kim Carnes sing “Room Enough for Two.” Then I did the theme song for Just the 10 of Us, “Doin’ It the Best I Can” with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers.
I suppose because of my background in doing records I brought something new to TV theme music. Producers wanted their theme songs to sound like hits on the radio, and John and I were able to deliver. We were among the first to really cash in on the pop music connection, using pop icons to do television themes, as opposed to anonymous studio singers. A lot of the artists I’d worked with—Kim, B. J., Dusty, Jennifer Warnes, Bill Medley—came from relationships I had from the record business that John and I were able to bring to television.
I did a lot of television theme songs over the years. Murphy Brown was probably my favorite, Spenser: For Hire was the most challenging, and Growing Pains was the most well known.
Bettis and I were asked to write a song that would be featured in a special one-hour episode of Growing Pains where the intrepid Seaver family goes to Hawaii on vacation. While they are there, Kirk Cameron’s character, Mike Seaver, falls madly in love with a Hawaiian native girl. The producers wanted a beautiful flowing ballad that they could thread through the entire two episodes. John had a fabulous title, “Swept Away,” which perfectly captured the mood of the piece.
As we sometimes would, John and I got together and wrote what would be the chorus refrain first. It just fell out. I kept hearing a high, pretty, Art Garfunkel–type voice for the song.
John had been working with Christopher Cross on his last album, and he said, “How about we get Christopher to come in and write this with us?”
It was a fabulous idea.
A few traded phone calls later, I made a plan to get with Christopher and show him what I had started musically on the song.
I first met with Chris at his place in Pacific Palisades. He had a great little studio in his basement. What struck me most about him, other than his unmistakable voice, was how great a guitar player he was. I had no idea he was that skilled or that he had such a unique style of playing, with which he ultimately put his musical signature on our song. It didn’t take long at all before he had a great verse melody that seamlessly flowed into the chorus. It was a painless writing session.
Later, John and Chris would get together to finish the lyric and write a short bridge. We had the song.
The show’s producers were ecstatic. Christopher liked it so much that he went in and also recorded it for his new album. The ratings for the Hawaii episodes were through the roof, the song was charting, and we got nominated for a primetime Emmy Award.
This would be my fifth nomination without a win.
Clearly, we had a great chance. We were the only song nominated that was an actual “hit song,” and Christopher had already won an Oscar and five Grammys, so this would nicely round out his award mantle at home.
Emmy night is always exciting, especially when you’re nominated. We were feeling pretty optimistic about our chances as we took our seats at a great table along with the producers of the TV show, Mike Sullivan, Dan Guntzelman, and Steve Marshall.
Wouldn’t you know, the first award to be announced was our category, Outstanding Achievement in Music and Lyrics.
Here we go . . . who was I going to thank first?
As they opened the envelope, I could see Christopher start to push his chair back a little to get up.
“The award goes to: The NBC Kids Search for Santa!”
Our collective eyes rolled. The guys who wrote that had only won about forty Emmys between them, and I guess their old friends in the voting academy felt like they needed another one.
After a few minutes, the shock of not winning began to wear off, and we decided to go have a great dinner at Chasen’s in Beverly Hills rather than eat the rubber chicken they were serving at the awards dinner. Sour grapes? Not at all. We knew the politics, accepted it, and celebrated the nomination and the Top 10 record we were going to have. Nope, never got to hear the Santa song that won.
I’m pretty sure 99 percent of the world’s population never heard it, either.
Christopher and I have remained good friends over the years. We wrote a great song together for another one of his albums with Cynthia Weil called “Is There Something,” and Chris also recorded a Christmas song I wrote with George Green called “The Best Christmas,” which I still hear every holiday season.
Growing Pains ran for eight seasons, which again shows how much I knew about network television. All of the actors, producers, and production staff became a family. Mike, Dan, and Steve couldn’t have been more supportive of the music for the show, and they were always open to hearing any creative ideas I had. It was truly one of the more fun experiences I’ve ever had in television. I wish all the television shows I worked on could have been that enjoyable.
Alan and I remained friends for many years. When he first came to L.A. from Toronto, he hired me to do some record arrangements for him. We became social friends as well, because our kids went to school together. Andrew and Robin were in the same class
.
In addition to being a TV star, Alan was also successful as a songwriter, penning several theme songs including “Different Strokes” and “The Facts of Life,” which he wrote with his then wife, Gloria Loring. Because he was a star, he was often asked to go on talk shows and give personal appearances, where he would play a medley of his themes.
The host would invariably say, “Alan, you’re not only a star, you write theme songs. Play us some.” And Alan would play the same medley every time: “Different Strokes,” “The Facts of Life,” and “As Long as We Got Each Other.”
In fairness, he didn’t say he wrote them all, but he also never said he didn’t. I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me and said, “I thought Alan Thicke wrote the theme song to Growing Pains.”
It was with great sadness that I learned of Alan Thicke’s sudden passing this year. His personality was a bright light in any room, and he had that rare gift of always making everybody smile who was around him. He was fun, intelligent, good-looking, super-talented, and a great father to his three sons. I was lucky to call him my friend. The other legacy he left us all was the character of Jason Seaver, an iconic “father knows best” for future generations who watch Growing Pains.
17
Reba
Sometimes, one bad apple spoils the whole barrel. Especially if he is a producer who mistakenly believes he is a musical guru.
I first got to work with Reba when my friend Keith Stegall asked me to do a few string arrangements for an album he was producing. Reba wasn’t there when I overdubbed the string session in Los Angeles with Keith, so it wasn’t until later that I would actually get to meet her.
Keith and I pretty much started in the business at the same time, and we had known each other for many years. I really like the records Keith makes, and I’m thankful he often thought of me to do the strings for him on projects ranging from Alan Jackson to Sammy Kershaw, Billy Ray Cyrus, and, of course, Reba.
I would see Reba and her husband, Narvel Blackstock, from time to time at awards shows in Nashville, and they were always kind, although we didn’t really know one another until I officially introduced myself one night at the BMI Awards and told her how much I enjoyed working on her album. Narvel always kept the door open for me to send Reba songs when I thought I had a good one for her, and I’ve always appreciated that. I came close a few times, but unfortunately never made one of her albums with a song that I had written.
One day, I was driving home from Hollywood over Coldwater Canyon when my phone rang. It was Narvel, calling from Vegas. Reba had just finished taping a television pilot for Fox, and he asked me if I would be interested in doing the music for the show. Now, I hadn’t done a half-hour show in quite a while, and I was trying to move away from that format to concentrate more on films and theater. But how could I possibly say no to Reba?
She and Narvel thought I was the right guy because they knew that I was familiar with both country music and the rigors of weekly television music. Narvel set up a meeting for me with the creator and executive producer of the show, Alison Gibson.
It was a fairly typical meeting—I had to pretty much audition for the gig by submitting cues from other projects I had done, and then explain how I would make this show sound totally unique in flavor. That process never ceases to amaze me, as most of the people making music decisions don’t know much about music. Alison, however, did know music, and I liked her from the start. We had a great meeting, and the next day my agent, Cheryl Tiano, called to say she had made the deal for me to do the series.
Reba’s show was really fun for me to do . . . at first. The cast was awesome and the writing was funny and fresh. The only issue I had was a bit of annoying meddling from one of the other exec producers, who I assure you, did not know a C-sharp from an X. Let’s call him “Mr. Musical Genius.”
On almost every TV show I have ever done, the postproduction staff have been wonderful and extraordinarily helpful, and for the most part have given me the creative freedom to do what I do best . . . write music.
This show was different.
I had a few people working in postproduction who knew their jobs very well, and one who seemed to know my job better than I did. It would be one thing if Mr. Musical Genius remotely knew what he was talking about . . . but he didn’t. It would be like me stepping into a script meeting and giving notes to the writers, or suggesting editing trims to the film editor, or telling a cardiac surgeon how to operate on a heart.
Other than my infrequent bumping in to Narvel or Reba on the set, they weren’t at all involved in the postproduction of the episodes. Besides, it was not my style to complain or do an end around with the star of the show. Post was all under the supervision of Mr. Musical Genius.
Reba was the star, and she was involved in every detail of the show, from scripts to set design to production and, oh yes, headlining the series and acting every day. By the time I was given an episode to score, they were already two shows ahead of me.
I loved doing the music. George Doering and I were having a great time recording keys and guitars at my house every week, and, at Mr. Musical Genius’s request, I would attend the dubbing sessions whenever I could. Inevitably, he always had an issue with one or two of the music cues or transitions.
“Could I make it a bit more happier . . . sadder . . . more purple?”
Seriously? I wasn’t exactly sure of how to make a cue a color. Did he want violet? Mauve? Aubergine? Was he looking for a peppy lavender sound, or more of a poignant plum cue?
Geez, this wasn’t Gone with the Wind. It was a twenty-two-minute television sitcom with maybe a dozen or so six-to-ten-second music cues or transitions. I would usually have to go back and rescore a few things just to satisfy this color-obsessed control freak.
By the end of the first season, I was drained. I never wanted to bother Narvel with this, so during the hiatus I asked my agent to find a way to creatively get me out of doing the show. I’m quite sure Mr. Musical Genius was thrilled.
From a strictly musical standpoint, it was not one of my better television experiences, I’m afraid. I had been totally spoiled by Mike and Dan of Growing Pains, Diane English of Murphy Brown, Rick Hawkins of Major Dad, Tim O’Donnell of Uncle Buck, and all of the other great producers who thoroughly supported me in all of my creative choices for their shows.
For the very last episode of season one, however, there was a very beautiful moment where Reba holds her newborn baby granddaughter and sings a lullaby to her at the end of the show.
I’m proud to say I wrote “My Angel’s Lullaby.”
I had finally gotten Reba to sing one of my songs after all.
18
The Eighties Were a Good Decade
The eighties were a good decade for me professionally.
I was one of the networks’ go-to guys, and they were using me for everything from sitcoms to movies of the week. The heart of this business is the marriage of talent and relationships. I was fortunate to have built up a lot of strong relationships, thanks to my agents, Mike, Sam, and Cheryl.
Hal Needham, who directed all of Burt Reynolds’s Smokey and the Bandit movies, was one of them.
I was in the studio recording the score to a movie of the week called Bandit, based on the Burt Reynolds movie, which Hal had also directed. I was recording a rather lengthy action cue with the orchestra. The bandit was being chased by the bumbling sheriff, on road, off road, through water, and back on road, where he finally escapes.
For whatever reason, the cue I had written was just not working. It was falling flat, and not elevating the excitement of the chase, even though I was hitting all of the desired moments. After about forty-five minutes of trying to fix the piece of music, I was frustrated. I needed some distance in order to have better clarity, so I moved on to a different scene.
A few hours later, at the end of the session, Hal came in a
nd wanted to hear some of the cues put to picture. He was delighted with everything until I played him the big chase scene. I had pre-warned him that I wasn’t totally happy with this important sequence. We watched it together, and I kept sneaking a peek at Hal to see his reaction.
When the scene ended, Hal looked at me and said, “This isn’t working for me. You’ve got all the right excitement in the band, but it’s missing the most important element.”
I looked at him, stumped. I had tried everything. I was certainly open to his suggestions, but I hadn’t anticipated his excitement and certainty when he confidently said, “There’s only ONE WAY to move a car on down the road . . . with a banjo!”
Spoken like the great stuntman that Hal Needham was.
Somewhat dubious, I called George Doering and asked him if he could come back in and overdub a banjo on the cue. George had already been doing the guitars on the entire project that day, so he knew exactly what I wanted. He came back in and played it perfectly. We all listened back in the control room, and I thought, “Damn, if Hal didn’t call that one on the nose.”
Sometimes the director does know best.
And sometimes the star knows best.
Peter Falk was one of the legends with whom I had the great fortune of working. Who didn’t love Columbo? The character that Peter Falk created so brilliantly was certainly one of my favorites. I could be in the middle of almost anything, and if a rerun came on I would immediately get sucked in watching it. Peter was doing a series of two-hour Columbo mystery movies for Universal. I got a call to meet with the man over at his offices on the Universal lot. He was looking for a specific score for a film he was currently shooting called Death of a Rock Star. The plot was set in the pop music world, and he needed the score to have elements of rock and the traditional Columbo orchestral flavor.
I was excited to meet him. When I first saw him sitting in his office, feet up, puffing on a cigar and looking a bit disheveled, I smiled. Peter Falk and Columbo were one and the same. I sat down opposite him at his desk, and before he got into the conversation about music, he talked about his beloved basketball team, the New York Knicks, and showed me his collection of Knicks memorabilia. We jumped around various subjects, and the more we talked, the more I was completely surprised that I couldn’t distinguish between Peter Falk the actor and his alter ego, Columbo. It was fascinating.