You were in a high school band called the Gay Intruders [named after the 1948 comedy film], and that was your first time going into "a real studio" to cut a song.
I was the drummer, and I also sang. We got the band together, and we had a guitar player named Bruce DeSousa. His mother happened to work at United Artists in the city in the accounting department. We would go into Manhattan to see her, grab lunch, and then we were in the building. We couldn't get kicked out, because everyone there knew us. In that building, on the second floor, was a little recording studio called Dick Charles Recording – a demo studio. Later on, I found out that Carole King and all the Brill Building people had used that studio to make their demos. I was a kid listening to the radio, getting turned on to music during the '50s and early '60s.
How old were you, at this point in time?
About 14-years old. That was the heyday of pop music. Rock 'n' roll was fusing with the pop market, combined with a new feeling coming in from R&B, gospel, country – all mingling, all coming together to make rock 'n' roll happen. There I was, in the midst of the New York center of that music! My father and uncle both worked for the phone company. My uncle had a tape recorder that I was fascinated with as a kid, but I didn't get my hands on one myself until I was about 15.
You had your eyes on home recording equipment for eight years before you got to record anything?
That's an important element to my story. I was building up pressure and steam. This desire, this unobtainable wanting to get certain things. Not that my parents were poor, but they were frugal. If I'd asked them for a tape recorder, my father would have said, "You're not getting that. It's too much money!" A tape recorder cost $79, or whatever it was. Then he would say, "And the cost of the tape – and then you need a microphone? Next, you're going to be asking me for a guitar!" It wasn't going to happen, but it all played into creating the drive in me, and the desire.
When you finally got a tape deck, you were exploding with creativity. By the time you had the infamous nine-song demo at age 19, you'd been recording for about four years?
Yeah, combined with 11 or 12 years of learning to play piano, learning to play guitar, and being surrounded by music. I joined the school band in fourth grade. I was a drummer, because drums excited me.
By the time you were ready to start showing people your demo recordings as a songwriter, it was a natural extension of what you were already doing when you were visiting the United Artists Building with your friend.
That's the secret. I tell the story that I walked into the city and, in one day, Merna Greenfield sent me to RCA. It was not one day. It was many, many rehearsals, over several years. That "one day" was the show. The show lasted one hour, and then it was over. An "overnight success" is not an overnight success. In my case, I walked into the city with a tape that I had made on a home tape recorder, a TEAC, with nine songs. I walked into 1650 Broadway, and I went up to the fifth floor. Years earlier, I had read the lobby directory card, and I knew what was in that building. I needed a reason to be in the building that had something to do with me. I'd been in the building before, and people were like, "What are you doing in this building?" I had no answer! With my own nine-song tape, I had an answer. The Dick Cavett Show was in that building. Kama Sutra Records – The Lovin' Spoonful were on that label. There were things going on in this building. Gil Music – they published The Beatles' first sheet music! I'm standing in that building! Follow the dots; it's so simple. Go where you are led to.
But eventually, you need to have a reason to be there. Eventually, you had to have your nine-song reel-to-reel tape to show people.
I didn't know any of that consciously at the time. I recently saw a documentary on Steven Spielberg, about how he came up during those same years. I identified with his story, even though it was about film. He went onto the Universal lot in L.A. and opened up his own office there. Then he came back the next day, and the next day, and the next. If you do things like that, people see you. That's how he did it. You probably can't do this anymore. But that was the same timeframe: the late '60s and early '70s.
You didn't want to take your master tape with you when you went into the city, so you made a dub of it at a store on Long Island.
