B009HOTHPE EBOK

by Paul Anka

  While I was finishing A Body of Work I got to get away and stay with Phyllis and Dennis Washington from Montana, who have a house in Palm Springs. They and their two sons have been my friends for over thirty years. In September of 2006, Dennis and I took a trip on his boat over to Victoria, British Columbia, to have some time alone, which I really needed after the intensity of the Body of Work sessions.

  When Sinatra had his comeback with “My Way,” he was the age I am now. It ignited a resurgence in Sinatra’s popularity. At his last Chicago performance in the United States in 1994, he thanked “a little guy named Paul Anka who gave me a song that did a great deal for my career, ‘My Way.’” So I always figure, “Who knows?”

  When you’re on the inside of the music business looking out, you see that many of the guys that you came up with for one reason or another didn’t last. I thank God every evening around seven o’clock that there’s still an audience out there for me. It’s great to know that people still want to hear you and you hope your best work is in front of you. You need to keep telling yourself that because performing is almost like a drug. How could you possibly walk away from it? Also, it’s an absolute necessity these days to put asses on seats. CDs are now, for all intents and purposes, just calling cards.

  * * *

  One of the hardest things for me was witnessing Sinatra’s long decline. By the time Frank played Lee Iacocca’s birthday party in 1997, he was having problems. He was sweet and happy, but he wasn’t himself.

  Steve Wynn recalls the last time he saw him. “At dinner with the Iacoccas and my wife and I, he was sweet and charming. Toward the end of Frank’s life he had very few good days—they were mainly bad, but there was one moving thing he said to me over the phone that always touched me. ‘How’s your mom?’ He asked that and quickly added an affectionate, ‘I wish you good luck, kid.’ He paused and said, ‘You know, I have good days and bad days.’ And then put down the phone. On my birthday January 27, 1997, my secretary Joyce handed me the phone. ‘Hey kid!’ I knew that voice, it’s what Francis called me. ‘It’s your birthday huh? Thank you for helping me out.’

  “It was on Sunday night after the show, and he was sitting in the front dining room, drinking Jack Daniel’s. I asked him a question: ‘Frank, of all the women you’ve known, who was the best in bed?’ Dean Martin was sitting there with him, the two of them, sitting side by side. ‘Easy question!’ they said, like they were one guy. ‘Angie!’ Angie Dickinson. I would have thought Frank would say Ava Gardner, but she was tough. A beautiful, remarkable creature, drank in the Hall of Fame category—she was too ornery for Frank. No, it was Angie he loved the best.”

  He died a year later in 1998 in May. We all went to Frank’s funeral, which took place in a Catholic Church called the Good Shepherd. His son spoke, and at the end of the service they played his theme song, “The Way We Were”—it was incredibly moving. What a moment that was. He was one of a kind.

  Angie Dickinson was there. In front of the church at Frank’s funeral she became nostalgic. I asked if Frank had ever proposed to her. “We were coming home one night,” she told me, “and he asked me to marry him. We’d had the most fun relationship, we had such great times, and I thought to myself, if I become Mrs. Sinatra it’s all going to change. I didn’t want to rein it in, so I turned him down.”

  One of the stories going around about Angie Dickinson was that she’d given someone a blow job while driving along Mulholland Drive. And somehow that came up once, somebody asked her about it. Angie didn’t even blink. “Yes,” she said, “that was me. I was in the car with my husband Burt Bacharach; we were married at the time, we were driving home in the car, and I gave him oral sex.” Angie was so cool, she didn’t skip a beat. She let the guy think about it a minute, then she said, “And I, by the way, was driving.”

  * * *

  In my time I’ve been involved in a lot of aspects of the music business other than singing and songwriting. Over the years I’ve tried to help other performers, tried to make a difference. I brought David Clayton Thomas down from Canada and signed him to Atlantic Records. I also remember early in our relationship that rainy night in San Francisco, when I brought David Foster down from Canada on my Learjet. We are at the San Francisco airport, and I arranged for him to get his green card. I also brought John Prine from Chicago and introduced him to Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records, and got him signed him to the label. I’ve also helped John, Steve Goodman, and Odia Coates at various points in their careers. Then along came the incredible Michael Bublé. I was taken with his talent immediately.

  At first nobody was interested in him but eventually I got a friend of mine from Australia to put up half a million to record him. Only after that we got him signed to Warner’s, much to the chagrin of my Australian friend who otherwise would have made a small fortune.

  When I did the Michael Bublé album, I saw a window for a revival of The American Songbook of swing music in Vegas (even though from my point of view it never really disappeared). He could re-present the Sinatra catalog. People have always been fascinated with the Vegas vibe and the Sinatra stuff, when it started to emerge again through Robbie Williams and all other artists who were into that. Michael’s voice is a great transmitter for that music. He would come to Vegas, get up on stage with me, watch me work, and throw himself into the process. To underline what he was trying to do I gave him some of Sinatra’s arrangements that Frank had given me. After all Frank had given me, I felt so good to be giving back to Michael. I am so happy for his success and how he is handling himself. He is a good guy in a business full of traps. And none of this would have been possible without the astute handling of Bruce Allen, Michael Bublé’s manager, who’s one of the best in the world, for my money.

  Later on, a label in Germany, Centaurus, wanted me to do a swing album. A group of German investors—mostly doctors and lawyers—looking to lose some money! The German government offers an attractive tax credit for film and recording projects.

  Initially they asked me to record an album of standards in the Sinatra style. But I said that I wanted no part of it—too obvious, too predictable. I was all for doing a big band album but I didn’t want to duplicate Bublé’s bag of standards and all the obvious songs. Those had worked for him because of his youth and his demographic appeal. I wanted to take hard rock songs, put them in the swing vibe, and let them have another life. The idea was let’s try it and if it doesn’t work we’ll throw it out. So, that’s how Rock Swings came about. Rock Swings’ success started in Germany. It was thanks to the buzz emanating from Germany that Lucine Grange, the head of Universal Records in London, called me and asked me to come to London to make a deal for worldwide distribution. We did—that started the ball rolling. Lucine Grange is one of the smartest record men around in the business. I must give thanks to my German buddies and team who helped bring the project home: Alex Christensen, Juergen Hohmann, Gotz Kiso, all of them stand-up citizens.

  I decided to concentrate on songs from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. I said, “I’ll only do it if you allow me to find an original approach. For instance, there are songs from the ’70s and ’80s that are as important to that generation as ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ was to an earlier one.” I had Billboard send over a box filled with the charts covering those decades and made a list of my favorites, then set about making them swing. I turned “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky III into a quasi Mack-the-knife tough-guy thing, complete with a growl at the end. I added the sexiness and romance of the bossa nova to “It’s a Sin” by the Pet Shop Boys.

  I was pretty familiar with the material because I had five daughters and that stuff was always playing in my house. “Daddy, you gotta listen to this.” “Daddy, you have to hear these guys, they’re so cool!” They played all kinds of stuff and that made it very easy for me to get to know these singers, these songs. I was apprehensive in a sense, but I’m a music person. I’ve been making records since 1957. I’m not someone who’s going t
o go to do rap or go urban—I see the musicality in Dr. Dre and Eminem but that was a little too much of a stretch for me.

  Anyway, as we developed the concept, and it morphed into its own orbit, we saw that this idea might actually work. My focus was now to get it past the critics because, if they took to it, the word would get out and listeners would have an easier time accepting it. I knew there was going to be an initial knee-jerk reaction to me doing this stuff—Anka does Nirvana, what a travesty! I knew some people were going to nail me for it. But I wanted them to at least listen to it. I hoped anyone open-minded enough and musically astute would look at it and go, “You know what, God damn it, I didn’t want to like it, but the integrity, the quality is there. These are great songs; let’s not pigeonhole them as rock songs.”

  It did very well. Surprisingly I found I was attracting a younger crowd and it opened my music up to a broader audience. It’s cool (after fifty years of doing this) to still be around, period. It’s been an incredible journey, and when you finally settle down and look back on everything, you realize how quickly it could have disappeared. The album might seem kitschy to some, but it’s not a joke. It’s not Pat Boone doing heavy metal—it’s no novelty record.

  Why court the derision that Pat Boone, a friend and a gentleman, suffered with his album of heavy metal cover songs? On Pat Boone’s In a Metal Mood, he did a whole sendup. It was camp. He wore the leather. From the get-go, it was funny, and he naturally came in for a lot of flack for it. But this was a totally serious project. The message was: Let these songs find a life in another genre.

  I got to use my favorite, Studio A at Capitol Studios in L.A., where Sinatra cut his sides, and where I had worked for years. I hired the best musicians and the best arrangers—Randy Kerber, Patrick Williams, John Clayton—and topped off with Al Schmitt engineering, his assistant Steve Genewick, and a talented producer from Germany, Alex Christensen. There was nothing humorous about this project.

  On “Black Hole Sun,” I decided to start out doing it as a ballad and then swing it, because with that song, both treatments work. Backed by a seventeen-piece band I tore into “It’s My Life,” turning Bon Jovi’s hit into a brassy swinging song that would not have been out of place at a Sinatra show.

  Every decade has its own form of poetry. I saw the grunge thing happening, I dug it, but I thought to myself, now how do I pull this off? Where do I tie into this? “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is an anthem, but I figured if I could keep the integrity, do it my way, and still keep it believable, maybe it’ll work. I love the melody, the swing style, and the shout chorus. I think what I brought to it mirrors the angst of the original record. Hey, it works for me. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” works with a swing arrangement because it’s poetry and it has a real cool melody to swing to—we did a romping chart on that one. I wanted to take unusual songs and do them a different way. The standards, those I can do in my sleep, they’re easy. But this stuff was challenging.

  David Grohl, Kurt Cobain’s former drummer, saw me performing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on TV and said, “It wasn’t until halfway through the first verse that I thought, holy shit, that’s ‘Teen Spirit’! And I thought it was fucking amazing,” he told Rolling Stone. “I thought it was so great.” Well, al-right!

  There was no doubt I was sticking my neck out on this album—and I did get a few whacks for it. The Hamilton Spectator said, “Chihuahuas should not be crossed with great Danes. And Paul Anka should not be allowed to sing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’”

  When people ask me why I’m still so hungry for a hit, all I can say is: “I think I know what I’m doing at this point in my life. I can handle it. Could I have done it twenty years ago? Would I have had the balls? Probably not.” If the guys who reviewed Rock Swings, or played it on the radio, thought it was a giggle, all the better. People have chuckled at me all throughout my career, so I’m used to it. I take it as a compliment, actually.

  Back in 2005 and 2006 when I was recording Rock Swings and getting ready to release it, I had a chance to go with Sony Records but after meeting Randy Lennox, who runs Universal Records in Canada, I realized what a great CEO he was. Going with him was one of the best decisions I ever made. I was proud to be associated with Randy, Shawn Marino, Tyson Parker, and the whole Universal group. For introducing me to Randy Lennox I have to thank Peter Soumalias, who founded Canada’s Walk of Fame in 1996 and inducted me in 2005. After meeting his new wife Barbara, who Lisa and I cherish as friends, we arranged for them to be married at the home of my dear friends Bob and Audrey Byers in California. My neighbor, Frank Visco, helped to arrange that special event, which meant so much to Randy and Barbara and his family. Rock Swings brought me together with a group who are brothers forever, and then business associates. Shawn Marino is as close to perfect as you will find, no business bullshit, right to the point. He has great passion for his work. Tyson Parker totally focused on getting the PR job done. Yes, that entire Universal Music Group. Rock Swings, swung, because of those guys’ efforts and my go-to guy and great agent, Jeff Craib. Because of their efforts, indeed, success had many fathers.

  * * *

  Performers have glamour and that has enormous appeal to business-people, and to the world at large. We walk in this separate kind of world, and people who are successful in business—these CEOs of big companies—they have everything, but there’s one thing they don’t have, and that every self-respecting performer has to have: charisma. They crave it like mad, because that’s the magic magnet. That’s the reason that guys with the power and the ego all want to sit next to actresses and they all want to get laid. They love the glow of celebrity, they love being around it, so we always have to be careful about who wants us and for what and deal with it accordingly. I’ve found that businesspeople tend to gravitate to me for favors, maybe make a phone call to someone they want to meet. Or else it has to do with some business deal, someone they want an “in” with. One of the things I’ve learned about billionaires that that their “yes” is usually a “maybe.”

  The people who come to Vegas are a very transient group: there are the high rollers and there are the tourists who come there like they would to Disneyland. Vegas is Disneyland for adults anyway, and you never know night to night who the hell is going to show up. I was working down at the Golden Nugget for Steve Wynn in the mid-eighties, and I get a call from the maître d’ Johnny Joseph, one of the best in town, who was always on top of his game.

  “There’s this Saudi guy who’s been to a few shows, Prince something-or-other, and he wants to meet you.”

  “Well, why, do you think?” I ask.

  “Don’t know, but Steve would like you to say hello to him.”

  We finish the show, and this guy comes back, he’s dressed in Western clothing, but he carries himself with that whole Saudi royalty demeanor. A Saudi princeling. He has his banker with him and he proceeds to explain the meeting. Likes my music, says, “I know that you know Adnan Khashoggi, who used to be the representative for the Saudis, but I do the deals for them now, for the arms and the planes.” He’s impressing me with who he is. Meanwhile I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “But I want you to do me a favor,” he says.

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “I know you know Brooke Shields. ’Cause she used to be at Khashoggi’s parties, and I know that you know the mother, and also the father.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So I want to meet her.”

  I’m thinking, Great, another Arab who wants to get laid. God gave us a penis and a brain, but not enough blood for both.

  So I say, “Do you mind me asking to what purpose? I just can’t call her mother out of the blue, because as you know this is a young girl with a mother who’s all over her and I don’t want to be put in any precarious or awkward position.”

  “Well, let me tell you…”—so thick Middle Eastern accent—“I hear she wants to do a Brenda Starr detective movie and I hear she can’t get the financing. And I w
ould like to give her the money.”

  And I’m going, “O-kay. But why?”

  “Well, the truth is, I just want to just meet her. If you just get her the message, tell her she’s got the money, then we can all meet wherever you say. I will send my airplane to wherever she is and we can all meet somewhere on the West Coast.”

  “Hmm … Let me think about it overnight and I’ll let you know.”

  “Well, I’ll come back to the show tomorrow night,” he says.

  The next day I call Brooke’s mother. She puts Brooke on the phone. I tell her, “Look, don’t kill the messenger, but here’s what it is. There’s a guy, a Saudi prince, and he wants to give you backing if you’re still looking to do this Brenda Starr movie.”

  “Yes! I’ve been trying to get financing for ages and no one will put up the money. I can’t get it financed to save my life.”

  “Well, look, don’t hold me responsible for any of the left or right kicks, any of the dynamics that may go down—you’re on your own with that, you’re a big girl. But in the meantime I’m going to arrange a meeting with this guy at my house in Carmel.”

  So I call the prince. “Great,” he says, “I’ll see you tonight, yes?” He comes down to the club with all his people, and says, “Follow me.” We go out after the show and I see about fifty people outside of the Golden Nugget, all of whom are murmuring about something they’re eyeing on the pavement. The crowd separates and I see this huge custom-made car called a Zimmer, it’s a neo-classic car, sort of like a Stutz Bearcat, an outrageous over-the-top retro vehicle, just short of a pimp car. It’s got wood paneling and leather seats—all decked out. An incredible car—huge and long as a ship. He hands me the keys to the car and says, “It’s yours.”

  I say, “Well, I don’t … uh … you don’t have to.…” The truth is I don’t really want the car, it’s a bit of a monstrosity.