And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 76: Paul Anka

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

This legendary guest is an acclaimed songwriter, entertainer, and actor. Born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, the enormous success of his first number one hit, “Diana” made him a star at the age of 15. Soon after he found himself traveling by bus with the ‘Cavalcade of Stars’ which featured the top names of the day. He honed his craft surrounded by the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Lymon, and Chuck Berry. And he is the youngest entertainer to ever perform at the Copacabana in New York, as well as the Sahara and Sands Hotels in Las Vegas. The best-known titles of his early career included hits like “Put Your Head On My Shoulder,” “You Are My Destiny," "Lonely Boy," and "Puppy Love," (which also was recorded by Donny Osmond). By age 18, he had five Top 5 hits to his credit. After a few hit songs, he gained confidence in his talent as a writer and wisely knew that being a songwriter meant the power was in the pen. As a result, he went on to write for Connie Francis, Leslie Gore, and Buddy Holly (including the last song Holly ever recorded, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”). Other hit songs include the Academy Award-nominated theme for the 1962 film in which he starred, ‘The Longest Day.’ And he notably penned the longest-running theme in television history for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (“Johnny’s Theme”). In the early ’60s, he became a junior associate of Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Even with the British invasion, he still had chart records. He moved to Italy and outsold the Italians, selling an astonishing 4 million records there. In the late ’60s, he wrote “My Way” for Frank Sinatra and by the ’70s, he had another string of hits like “(You’re) Having My Baby”, “Don’t Like To Sleep Alone”, and “Times Of Your Life” which confirmed his status as an icon of popular music. Additionally, he’s written with Michael Jackson (“This Is It” and “Love Never Felt So Good”) and Drake (“Don’t Matter To Me”). He’s been named the 21st most successful artist in Billboard’s history, putting him alongside music greats Elvis Presley and the Beatles. And he is the only artist in history to have a song in the Billboard Top 100 over 7 consecutive decades. And The Writer Is…Paul Anka!This episode is sponsored by BMI and ABKCO. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Season 5 of And the Writer is with your host, Ross Golan. Before I get my spiel, I want to acknowledge the music army that listens to this podcast every week. Since starting this, the And The Writer is community has literally changed the history of the music business by helping pass the music modernization act, gotten songwriters added to album of the year for the Grammys, and still is advocating for positive changes for our industry. industry on a daily basis. So thank you and congrats. Now, as you know, I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I'm producing this with the great Joe London, Big Deal Music Publishing, and

mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear, go to our website www. And The WriterIs.com. This episode is brought to you by Abko Music, a proud independent music publisher and advocate

for the songwriter and artist community over six decades. worldwide. Abco is home to iconic songs and writers of the 20th century, including Sam Cook, Ray Davies, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Bobby Womack. And into the 21st century, with chart-breaking hits like Mariah Carey's We Belong Together and More. Find out about Abko by visiting their website at www.abco.com. This week's episode is sponsored by BMI. At BMI, music moves their world, just like it moves mine. BMI is my performing rights organization. They're the bridge between people who create music like me and the businesses that bring it to the public. They make sure I get paid when my music is streamed on apps or shows, played on radio,

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Learn more at BMI.com. Welcome to And The Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's epically legendary songwriter, an artist, an actor, and entertainer, has written not just hits, but like the hits. He was one of the original teen-heartedly, throbs at only 16 years old after releasing the smash Diana and put your head on my shoulder

before crafting defining evergreens like I did it my way for Frank Sinatra and she's a lady for Tom Jones my way by the way has been covered by everyone including Elvis and the sex pistols I mean this man toured with buddy holly Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Barry he wrote the Johnny Carson themes song. He's sold more than 60 million records worldwide and racked up over 150 million airplays. And that explains why he received the highest honor. The songwriter Hall of Fame gives the Johnny Mercer Award. Oh, and most of his songs were written all by himself or with one co-writer.

What an era and one honor to have today's guests. and the writer is The Paul Inca Wow, what an intro I'm leaving Exactly, and now that's it You nailed all of them right Except the original title was put your legs on my shoulder Oh my God, please say that's true

Back in the 50s You know that wasn't going to work But I was just a motivated teenager, you know I mean, okay so you're from Ottawa And I mean obviously a lot of your story is Wikipedia Bull. But for those who haven't read your book, literally, let's give a little background.

So you're born in Ottawa. Born. Okay. Like everybody else. Two parents. Two parents. One, two. There were immigrants?

No, they were born in Canada. Oh, they were born in Canada. My wife is Lebanese. I saw that you have Lebanese. Your wife is Lebanese. I got Lebanese in me. I know. Where's your wife?

Where's your wife? Where's your wife? Oh, she's in the kitchen. You just don't change your ways, you're Lebanese people. Yeah, well, yeah, Lebanese, that's, I was kind of brought up at a Greek church actually in Ottawa, Canada. But my parents were, you know, old world, but great parents. And it was a different life up in there until my life changed at, you know, 15 when I left home with some money in my pocket. And got lucky in New York with Diana.

But how did you, you know, I would imagine. even now it would be difficult for an aspiring singer in Ottawa to be discovered in New York. Yes. How do you go from being, you know, are your parents' musicians? No. Workers. Sears Roebuck and my dad owned a restaurant. And you're absolutely right.

It's a different business today, as we all know. So there's no equation between me leaving at 15 with, you know, a few bucks in my pocket and very tenacious. Today, you just don't do it that way, obviously, in our business. But I had the full support of my family. My mom was my big ally. My dad was, you know, you can remember back then pop music was in its infancy stage. And nobody had anything to relate to in terms of, you know, there's eight shows up there and the voice and all the stuff that's out today.

There's nothing to relate to. So they were kind of curious and somewhat taken aback in that all I wanted to focus on was be this singer-songwriter at a time when it was unheard of. Who introduced you to that concept? Well, I was a fan, first of all. I mean, I started singing. Everybody that was around, rhythm and blues, listened to a lot of the, you know,

in the still of the night was one of my first records, Earth Angel. Then being a Canadian, we had all the Canadian groups that would cover all the black music. So thus, you'd have the four lads, and you'd have the Rover Boys and the Aces, and there's all of these white acts that were doing all the black music, thus you'd have Pat Boone doing Little Richard, et cetera, et cetera.

So I got smitten by the music business just listening to all of that music and starting to take lessons from a woman around the corner, Mrs. Reese, and looking at it and going, well, you know, I'm too young, I was going to listen to me, so I'd better start writing for myself. But they were inspiring to me, you know, the groups, the R&B stuff. How did you record your first music? A lot of it I wrote on paper. and some I went to a tape machine.

What's your instrument outside of, like, what do you write on? I write an inspiration. I write on a piano and a guitar. So when you're writing out these chords and you're writing out, you're actually doing the notation. Yeah. This is, at that point, mid-1950s, right? I started writing in 1955, 54-55.

I'd taken some classical, music by a choir teacher. So I knew how to put the notes down and write the chords. And 55, yeah, we had tape machines that we could put some of the stuff on. What's the first song you wrote? Was it Diana? No. First song I wrote, I came out here to Los Angeles and I was given two book reports to read.

One was called Prestor John, written by our ex-governor general, John Buckin. and there was a town in there called Blah Wilde the Beast Fontaine and I was so fascinated by this town in Africa Blah Wilde the Beesfontein. So I came out here to visit her an uncle and I used to go down to Wallach City which was the music stored down on the corner of Vine and sunset. And the record at the time was called Stranded in the Jungle by the Cadets.

And I loved that record. And in that interim period, I started writing this song, Blah Wilde to Beesfontein, blah, wild to be spontane where love is so splendor. And no one could remember at midnight night. So I had this song I was 14.

And then I was parking cars and selling candy over at this La Cienica Theater where my uncle worked. And I said to my uncle, I said, you know, can you drive me over to Culver City? There's a record company

called RPM Records owned by the Bahari brothers. And I want to sing in my song. He said, you're crazy? I said, no, I got nothing to do. I'm vacationing. And I don't want to go over there. So he drove me over and he waited in the parking lot.

I walked in and there was his two brothers and their sister and they're sitting at the front desk. And you saw their big hit was this stranded in the jungle cadets. And the guy looked, he said, what do you want? I said, I got a song I want to sing for you. He says, how old are you, kid? I said, 14. He said, you got a song?

So I think they had nothing to do, really. They said, they had one hit. They sat around worrying about where they'd be in business a few months later. So he said, oh, I sing a song. So I stood in front of him and I started, blah, why? to be sponte, blah, while our love is so splendid.

And they were like in shock. I could see the jaws drop. What the fuck is that? So now the guy's checking me out. He said, where's your parents? I said, they're in Canada. He said, but my uncle's outside.

He said, yeah, you know what? We'd like to record you, right? So I bring my uncle in. And he says, what's up? And they said, we want to record your nephew. Is you kidding? So fade out, fade in. about a week later

I go back and in the garage in the back of the place these guys walk in the cadets that had the number one record in the country stranded in the jungle

and the guy Barry says say hello to the cadets that you said yeah he says they're going to sing with you so now I start we go in Ernie Freeman was the arranger he was just starting out

who later went on to do massive hits and we rehearsed and we did blah while to be smoked they were love so that was my first record

I was a failure at 14. It came out. But I'm going to Chicago and Buffalo meeting these disc jockeys. And that was my first song. I don't know. Maybe we sold 500 records. But that was my first song.

Did you sign a contract? Yeah, I signed something. So how did they not have you for the next? You know what I mean? They didn't want me. Oh, so they tried it. They were like, oh, this is it. So they thought it was going to be huge.

The thing was stiff record. And kids weren't making it back then. I was unheard of. What did your parents think when your uncle calls and it's like, uh, now he's going to be traveling to Buffalo and all over the place? They were happy for me because I was very tenacious for a good year and a half before that. I had a group called Bobby Soxers.

We would just travel around town and sing at proms. So they knew I had it in me and they knew that they weren't going to sway me and they knew that I was just going to, I was totally focused on my goal. So they were very happy and they said, yeah, go do it. And then you're going back to school at the end of the summer, which is what happened. Right. How was it going back to high school after, were you the coolest kid in school or were they just, were kids like, did the song come out in Canada? Oh, yeah, came out and went.

It got some play. But, I mean, if a song comes out and you go back to high school and you've just released a song, I imagine you're the coolest kid. Very, very cool. Yeah, everyone was very, very. you know, wow, you know, it was like a small town. And it didn't, you know, take off the way I thought it would. Of course. But it set me up for Diana.

Sure. But everybody was very cool about it, yeah. Who's Diana? Diana was a girl that I would see a church in the choir and then I kind of knew each other socially. But she was like three or four years older than I was. And back in the 50s, you know, the whole vibe was, you know, if you're shorter, if you're younger,

and if you're, you know, guys should be older than girls. I mean, the restrictions and the parameters were different. And she knew I liked it, but she wanted nothing to do with me. You know, girls historically have been always much cooler and hipper and mature than us. You know, even today, I look at my 14-year-old son and the 13-year-olds were going on 21. So back then, she wanted nothing to do with me. And I got really motivated. We weren't swapping spit or anything because I was just out of her realm, you know.

So I sat down and I wrote this story. song, you know, Diana. And I played at parties and I'm banging away and kids were digging it. And that was about it until I had about two more songs and left for New York. But Diana at that point was just totally an inspiration. What did she think of the song? She thought it was cute. They should look at it and listen. What do they think back then? There's nothing to relate to, but that had the one semi-reel-reel-hit, blah, wild. Beesfonte. So I made this left turn, right? So she thought it was sweet And this young guy

Was writing something for me But that was about it You know I mean she didn't really spend Until I got back I was traveling all over the world Number one record Came home

Been to France everywhere else Had a big taste of it I kind of looked at her It was over I mean I was just hey Nothing happening here Let me get back to France Bridget Bardot

You know bring them on Japan I mean it was all in the world for me So You get to New York and now it really unfolds really quick. Big time. Life changer.

Yeah. Those first three, four songs that come out are all just kind of just massive. What does a 16-year-old do with being the biggest artist in the country? I mean, how do you deal with going from, I'm in a...

I mean, Ottawa's not small, but it's not... It was small than 200,000 people. Even just doesn't compete with... You can't explain what that's like to be the biggest artists in the country. And probably, I guess, the world, you know, 1950s, 6 through 59. It's just huge. How do you communicate with people? How do you learn how to be a human in that environment?

So those are such, those years are so important in the growth of a person. Well, you have to realize that when I went down to New York, I'd been there prior to that. I want a contest collecting soup wrappers. so I needed to get close to New York and get a vibe. So there was a contest for IGA food stores and whoever collected the most Campbell soup wrappers won the contest in each district

and you went to New York. So I went and got a job packing the groceries at IGA and I'd clock all the women buying Campbell's soup. But anyway, I went and I go down and I'm in the YMCA and I'm looking at these buildings in New York. I got to get back here with my users. I've never seen anything like, we never said anything like that back in California.

Anyway, so I get the vibe, and I'm listening to Alan Fried and blah, blah, blah, and I go back home. When I go down at Easter and Don Costa, you know, success has many fathers. And, you know, if you don't have that team effort in life, in anything, even today, you're just not going to, you hit a wall. So once I landed in New York, Costa hears me again, call the parrots, fly them down. They sign me up. They give me $100. And I'm now working for ABC Paramount. but my life totally changed when that happened to me.

So it was really, I realized that even with all that success, you know, that every one of us are not born sophisticated. Now, if you're given that gift and success comes to you, you're in there just kind of fighting for your life to keep focused, stay straight. And the big thing they hit me, I kept saying, but how do I not become an asshole? Because everybody all of a sudden is catering to me and it is, or kissing my ass, and what can we get?

you and I'm in this small town kid is now in the big lees with people twice by age. So my whole thing was to try and just deal with it the best that I could. It was a huge change of life, you know, to go from the life that I knew into dealing with people that I didn't know why they wanted to know me, who I was meeting, meeting people I never dreamt I was going to meet. I was still a fan of all the artists that I wound up working for back that working with at the New York Paramount, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino guys I listened to.

All of a sudden I was on the same bill with these guys. So you had to really get the right people around you and I got very lucky with a guy named Irvingfeld and Izzyfeld. And they owned drugstores down in Washington, but they were the promoters of all these rock shows

that I was on. And they really mentored me and became my partners. So they, your peers at that time, and I was like, actually thinking about this where where we're at now because you were so young when you came in that all those artists

that were in their 30s and most of them were in their late 20s 30s 40s that you were touring with it feels like right? Yeah, maybe not 20s. There were some but it seemed like

you know there aren't a lot of people that share your story right now that that like can relate to being to breaking in the business when television was new. Right. To break in the business when it was the first time people could mass, like, support an artist.

And really, when you come out, it's like Elvis and you, and there's like a handful of guys that can relate to the public pressure. I can't imagine, you know, it's sort of like a video going viral now, but on speed, because in the history of humanity, no one saw artists the way that they saw you guys. Right.

When they put you on TV, were you getting nervous or were you excited by it? Did you have any idea what was happening? All those performances that you started doing, you know, where there are two channels that people can tune into in their home. So everyone's watching you. It's not like they didn't have other options.

They all watched you. Correct. Well stated. Did you know what was going on? Yeah, I did in the sense that TV started at 5 o'clock in Ottawa. And every Sunday we watched Ed Sullivan. American bands tan hadn't started. It was very much, very frightening to me that, you know,

after seeing artists on Ed Sullivan and realizing that the business was really small to just a few record labels, I mean, jumping ahead a bit, even when I met the Beatles, nobody heard them over here. It was my agents, Normie Weiss and Bernstein, that went and brought them over here. So we're in this very small community, if you will, of artists. But it was frightening to me that all of a sudden you were totally in the spotlight.

The record comes out, hits number one, and now you're going on Ed Sullivan. Now this was a guy that I would sit home and watch and all of a sudden I'm on the show, scared to death. I did everything to keep it together to just, you know, get across what I had to, knowing that I went from a studio band and a certain sonic and a record

and now I'm playing with this big orchestra with all these old musicians so that was concerning because I couldn't really emulate the record so all of that came to play to where you were you didn't have the mileage even though I had sung prior to that what I realized then was even though

all this was happening to me I needed to get some mileage under my feet to really find out who I was and what I was doing and realized later a few years later that most artists need that mileage to find out who they are to get the experience. But it was frightening.

It was very concerning in that I didn't really know what I was doing all the time as a performer. And I had the wherewithal or the tools to really own it. Like I learned a few years later when I started working with the Rat Pack in Vegas. So all of that came to play in terms of everything coming at you from the morning, the day you got out of bed,

to doing a show that night and trying to keep it together, just trying to keep yourself together and feed off of whatever the reaction was. Reaction being that most parents, you know, of our fans, didn't like us. They didn't like Presley, they didn't like me, they didn't like, they didn't know what this music was. So we were these pioneer of musicians and singers on a bus nowhere else and traveling throughout the United States,

but, you know, we had a lot of controversy attached to it. And we were scared to death. You know, we were trying to do. make the best of it, but it was, you know, in some cases the only white kid on a bus. I'm traveling down south and I'm witnessing all the shit that went on down there and I'm getting off a bus to get my friend's food and then they go to a separate bathroom. This is all hitting me, right? And I'm realizing how fucked up a little bit it is, you know, and I'm going, what's going

on here? Why are they doing this? So with all that kind of pressure and being in the middle of it, you're just listening to, you know, my father always said, just, try not to be the smartest guy in the room all the time. So I had people around me that knew better and were older and wiser. And with that kind of input, it was just tough trying to keep it together. Who introduced you to the idea of writing for other people?

Well, it was kind of my thing because from the moment I started writing, I kind of felt that I don't know how long this is really going to last because everybody was always telling me that, that this may not last. So, you know, behave yourself and, you know, and historically, all the guys that I listened to, some of them went by the wayside other than maybe Chuck Berry and, you know, fats

and guys like that that that I knew. But primarily, I said, look, I'm the writer. I wasn't sold as a pretty boy out of Philadelphia. I was not a good-looking kid. And, you know, they were trying to make the best out of me that they could and do this with your hair and wear this, I don't know, whatever. But I was a writer.

My whole gravitas was the writer where the other kids I hung out with weren't writers, you know, from Philly. They weren't writers. It was written for them. So I was the only one writing. So my whole foundation for me was you're a writer first.

That's what got you here. And yes, this may not last because my voice hadn't changed yet. I was still up in like dog country. And my first, you know, real commitment to that was Buddy Holly, who, you know, was my friend. We started out. not friends because all the guys I traveled with Jerry Lewis and Buddy and they didn't like me

because I was this young kid, you know, getting more money, 200 bucks a week and billed higher than they were. So they really did the whole thing that kids do, you know, mean. So these guys were down on me and Buddy wasn't happy with me because I knocked him out of that'll be the day. But when we started getting on the road, I realized what a great guy was, how talented he was, how influential he was, because I went to England right away and, you know, everyone over there was copying him and Chuck and what have you.

And he became my friend. So when we traveled on the buses together, he gave me a guitar and he taught me some chords. And he said, I want to do what you're doing. I'm having a fight with my manager. And I need the money. And I want you to write for me. So he taught me a few chords in the guitar.

And I wrote, it doesn't matter anymore for him, which turned out, unfortunately, to be the last song. He recorded. And we came here to New York and in the studio. He was that with Dick Japes, and I played the song. We came up with the string arrangement. And he was my first. He was the real first artist that I wanted to write for.

Thus, when it came out, and we put him on that big tour out there, Irving and I, and unfortunately, the plane went down because he shouldn't have gone up in it because he was taking pilot lessons. But Buddy and I were going to open a music company. So when I had the success with him, I realized that, you know, I wanted to write for others. is because with just looking at the numbers and life's about numbers and eventually money,

you're never going to always have a chart record. So it started with Buddy and then it went to Connie Francis and I went from there and just giving stuff away right up to the turning point of writing my way for Sinatra. Going back to Buddy Holly real quick, I had assumed at that point when you almost everything happened, gone your way.

You put out the next few songs you become as big as you got and you're on tours with people that you listened to growing up. When Buddy died, how did that affect your outlook on your future? Well, it affected unilaterally all of us that were friends of his emotionally and we were totally shocked. But in terms of my future, I'd lost a friend. I'd lost somebody that was part of my future because we were going to open a music company.

But other than that, it was just inspiring to continue to go ahead. But it didn't derail me in terms of my artistic goals. It was just a terrible life lesson and of somebody that I really loved, that was a good friend of mine and took a long time to get over it. What was that company going to be called?

I don't know. I don't know what the name was. We're going to start a publishing and records and what have you. And I don't even know that we got to what it was going to be called other than we were going to do it. Did you ever end up starting a record company? Publishing company? Which company was that?

Well, I started with ABC Paramount, you know, who signed me up right away. And I started to, after a couple of years, you know, I started to get the feeling that, you know, they shouldn't be getting that and doing this, that, and the other. And in the late 60s, or maybe a touch earlier, I started a company called Spanka and Flanka Music, only because I felt, you know, what were they doing for me? And it was my life. And ultimately, I said, look, I got $250,000 in the bank.

And I want my rights back. I want my master's. You know, I'm going to publish my own stuff. And they were kind of happy to do it because they didn't really believe there was going to be a future with me. So I went to RCA Victor and I went there because, you know, up until I signed with RCA Victor, I was traveling all over the world, never where I went, you know, our business even today in a forum is about marketing and distribution. I never saw ABC anywhere. I'd go in a hardware store.

I'd go in a store in southern Italy and I'd see RCA washing machines and toasters and then records. I said, these guys, they got it all covered. So I said to With Irving, I said, let's go to RCA We own everything And that's when I started a record production company Cammy with RCA Victor And then I moved to Italy

And started recording there And then won this big festival And sold 4 million records of this song Became the first million seller in Italy And I tipped off Ray Charles When he left Atlanta And came over to ABC When I was winding up over there

I said, get your master's man Own your own stuff And that was the turning point for him. He started owning his masters when he started at ABC when I was there. Explain how you end up with the rat pack and how you meet those guys and how that relationship started. Well, in the 50s, you know, at 16, 17, 18, me, Bobby Darren, Frank Amelon, you know, we were kind of trucking along. But, you know, we knew that we had to change and do something different. and Darren and I used to just talk about, you know, we got to swing, man.

We got to be like those cool guys in Vegas. Because Vegas was the big entertainment capital and for everything. And in our industry back then, you know, the mafia ran everything. You worked for them record companies. They were behind the publishing. They're behind the jukebox. They had all the clothes. You know, that was part of Americana that you really realized early in once you keep your nose clean.

But that's what you're working for ultimately. So we realized that Bobby and I That we had to You know Get that whole vibe from Vegas Do swing albums, what have you And one of my first album was called Swings for Young Lovers with a big band

So I was swinging at what 17, 18 And then of course Bobby You know he did Mac the Night for their friend Richard Weiss and West And we wanted to be like the rat pack Okay so that's our goal That's our focus And how do we do that

So I'm doing all my little kid songs and what have you But I'm starting to, you know, grow out of it. And I'm very concerned on I can't be doing puppy love, you know, all my life. And I started to kind of poo-poo it. But then I got smart and said, give them what they want. So how do I incorporate that and really become a performer? So we started the Copacabana, New York, which was the place, the Maab Own Club. And if you made it there, then it would spread.

So they took a chance with me, and I became, you know, not only the youngest in Vegas, but the youngest to work to Copacabana. And we're selling the place out, and I put together this whole act, you know, a big band and swing and special material until a few years ago, my one claim to fame was the fact that my name rhymed with Sankha. I'm a do-it-yourself type song, man, I'm a do-it-jit-jit. So I did all that kind of shit to really endear to everybody that I was going to be like those guys, right? So anyway, I start at the Copa, and then I start in the clubs,

but I still need to get to Vegas. So I get a call, and it was from the guys in Vegas, and I fly out and I meet with them. And they said, you know, we'd like you to work out in Vegas. And they first put me with Sophie Tucker. Now, most people don't know who Sophie Tucker is, but she was this great grand dame of our industry. Big, you know, imposing woman.

And so these days you're going to miss me. So they fly me out to meet her because they want to break me in at the Sahara opening for her, right? But my goal is still Vegas, we got to be like those guys. See, you don't remember, rock hasn't hit, there's no Beatles, there's no Hendricks, everybody's locked in this zone, right?

Yeah. Vegas is it. So, and I need to give you this background just so you'll see the way that we whirl into it. So I opened with Sophie, and for the first time, all these parents are bringing kids into a showroom. And a place is like kids screaming and yelling

and all that shit going on. And she says, my boy, I'm going to open for you tomorrow night. I can't follow that. So now I'm a big hit. Then we go over to the Sands Hotel, like maybe early 60s, and I'd gone to see all those guys work in the late 50s. Anyway, we sign up to work to Sands Hotel. I'm meeting Sinatra, meeting Sammy Davis, Dean Martin.

And the moment they signed me to work the sands with them, that's when I'm one of the guys now. Granted, I'm a kid, they're twice my age, but I'm in there. I'm in a health club, all the girls and all the shit that went on. I said, who do I give no money back to? This is unbelievable. I'm hanging with these guys. It was like, flip the page, there I was.

So that was the first time. And from that day on... Did they all treat you while? They treated me well because, okay, did they like the music where I came from and Presley? They hated it because they were doing the songbook. But, you know, we all worked for the mob. So when the mob was making money with whomever and it came down from whomever to them, he's making money, just be good to the kid.

So my nickname was the kid. Frank would call me the kid because I was, what, 20? They're like way up there. And yeah, they treated me well. And I was the kid, you know. It really, it kind of maximized after my way, then all of a sudden, because I was 25 when I wrote that. That's when I really got real cred from them in terms of, wow. How did you present that song and who did you present it to?

Well, the history of my way, and it's 50 years actually this year. I got married in Paris in the early 60s, and I loved France and the culture, and I was traveling all over the world. And I had a home that I'd rent down the south of France. And my wife was top model back then, but she was working through Europe, the United States. And we'd go down to this little town called Moujean. And I was sitting around one day, and I heard this record on the radio, French record.

It was called Comte d'Avitude. And it was a typical French song, very graphic. If you understand the French language with, you know, As Navur and those guys, it's poetry when you hear it in French, unlike what we can do, really. So it was, you know, the married couple And we're not getting along

But I love your armpit And it smells in the blue I mean all the shit That they, Jacques Braille That they can only write But there's something in the melody That I liked And I was a music guy

You know, I started my publishing company And I had James Brown catalog back then And I was always, my ears were always open to whatever And I hear this melody I fly to France I fly to Paris And it was a small community of people And the guy back then was Eddie Barkley

and he ran the mob in France. They caught on from us Americans. So now you had the French mob and the Nusarzacan. So they had this company. So you're spoken for us. So you're like, cool with him because he's like, yeah, yeah, you're covered.

I'm covered. So long and the short is, I sit down, I said, I want that song. He said, yeah, what do you want, Paul? What do we do for you? And we weren't buying the pyramids. I mean, it was like the song, right? So the guy, we grew up a contract.

And I owned it. So fade out, fade in. I come back to New York and it's just hanging around. And meantime, I'm doing my gigs. And I'm working now down in Florida, the Mabo and the Fountain Bloom. And we're all working there, Sinatra and everywhere. So I go down there and Sinatra is doing a movie. And he called me up.

Say, hey, kid, he said, come and have dinner with me after your show. You know, when he calls, you take your passport. Because you don't know what country you're going to wind up. You'll get on his plane and you're in Mexico. group. So I go to dinner and we're sitting there and he was with this young actress, Mia Farrell at the time, right? Meanwhile, he's like, what, 50? And we're having dinner and he said, I'm quitting show business. I'm going to retire. I had enough. Rat packs over, getting hassled. You know, because the FBI, they were all over him because of his supposed

connection. So he'd walk in his ruin. They'd be drilling new holes to put the phone in this day one step ahead. So he's just tired of it all. He said, I'm quitting, but I'm doing one more album with Costa. Now, Costa was my guy who found me, and I introduced him to Sinatra. And that great album, sidetracking here, of Sinatra and Strings are one of the best ever. So Don started recording him, and Don was going to do this last album. And he said, you never wrote me a song, because she always teased me. You're going to write something for me, but I never had the balls to sing anything that I was writing then.

So I come back to New York. I'm in my apartment and it's hitting me, Sinatra, Quitting Show Business and couldn't believe it. None of us could believe what was going to happen. This is like Frank Sinatra.

So I take the French song and I'd already started it on piano and got a different vibe but it was just laying around waiting for its moment, you know, what it's like waiting for that thunderbolt. And I sit there and those days

I was typing everything out because I worked at a local newspaper when I was a kid because my dad wanted me to be a journalist. was. So I did everything typing and I'm sitting at the typewriter and I had the melody

and I said what would Frank do? How would he write these lyrics if you were writing this? So I started metaphorically in a sense of and now the end is near retiring and I started using all the kind of jargon that you know ate it up

spit it out. I mean shit that he the way he talked. He was eloquent and you know self-taught but there was that rough side of him and it was like I've never had a writing experience quite like that other than the longest day for the film but it started to like write itself and it was just like him writing it so in answer your question I finish it in five hours a huge thunderstorm outside blah blah blah blah and I call him in Vegas he was at caesar's palace I said sir I got something that you might like

he said bring it out so I fly out with a demo and I go out and I present the song to him. I sing it. I had a demo so he could walk with it. And he looked at me. He said, kid, I'm going to do it. Two months later, I get a phone call. I'm in New York. He was with Kost in a studio in L.A.

Western or Sunset Sound. I don't know which one. He said, kid, listen to this. And he took the phone, he put up to a speaker. And I heard my way for the first time. I started to cry. Because I knew it was going to take me to a whole other level that song from everything that I'd written. And that's the My Way story.

I like it. You can tell it again. Okay, so that's the end of the 60s. What's interesting about the songwriting profession is that where you started in the 50s and in the early 60s, there are a lot of artists who will take outside songs, even if you were the artists in the 50s. But once the Beatles come in and Bob Dylan comes in, all of a sudden, labels are looking for, well, does this person write their own music? Correct. So to have a hit like My Way in 1969 is really interesting, timing-wise, because they're

just, those kinds of hits were not popping through, we're not becoming, you know, Evergreens at that point. That's of a different era. So amazing to have done that. Not to go back, but just to talk about, because you mentioned it, you know, working in for TV themes, film themes. After your 1950s run, you end up writing a theme for

one of the most popular movies of 1962, I believe. And then to also have the Johnny Carson theme at the same time, did it make you question whether you should be writing specifically for film or TV? No, it just, all of my focus part of that was to really learn my craft

because I really didn't have a full capacity of diversity of writing, you know, all of a sudden getting inspired the longest day and what have you. It was all part of my goal to learn as much as I could from the greats, Sammy Kahn, all the guys that I would hang out with or know, to really know my craft and how to write for different situations. So it was never my feeling that, you know, I'm just going to write. It was only that if this didn't go anywhere as an artist and all that failed, I was always the writer.

And if I don't establish myself with the gravitas of being the writer, which was a great thing to fall back on, then I'd have nothing. And I was prepared to go back to Canada and bye. But what happened was it really gave me chops to sit down and get away from the strongest emotion is love. And if you write about it in any way, it's going to hit with somebody. But it helped me diversify to say, yeah, let me,

let me see if I can get this done with Zanick, the longest day. Because this was a film that I was an actor in, but there was going to be no music. Because when I was over there and we're shooting the film. So real quick, the longest day is about D-Day, Normandy, you know, for those who don't know it, It's, you know. The classic film.

Yeah, it's a classic film, Academy Award winning, many nominations. I was nominated. I wasn't going to win because I was too young. They looked at this kid again, right? But it was a huge, huge film. I mean, you were probably 20 during some of that. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, so I just, I like the vibe of it, you know, being diversified and they kind of looked at me different.

You know, you're constantly, and even today, you're as good as your last hit. You know, it's, they're dead in our industry. It's a total bullshit business and the crowd you have to deal with every day because you're just as good as your last hit and they don't care. So as I kind of embellished, if you will, that I could do something like that,

I was always alive. I was always, you know, relevant where all my friends all of a sudden disappeared. Nobody cared. They didn't make the transitions. And even when I first met the Beatles in Paris where I was working, you know, you know, they'd say,

oh, we want to do what you're doing, publish and write and produce and all that. And we hope to come. to America one day? Because nobody knew them. It wasn't a media-driven society as today. It's like a blank. You know, back then I'd come home with Beatle records. Then I played for my friends and people, they go, what the fuck is a beetle? What do you mean, beetle? You know these guys in England? I said, they're amazing. They said, yeah. And they wound up some little label out of Chicago, chess records. So I finally, Normie Weiss, who was my agent back then, you know, I said, Normie, you got to check this

out. It's unbelievable. They flew over, brought them over, and apropos to what you said, when the Beatles hit, what it did was open the door from where we were to where we were now accepted in Madison Avenue, adults, you know, everyone in the media started to say, wait a minute, there's something to all this music? Well, you know how they changed everything. So I was happy to see the Beatles hit.

I was happy. And then even though it wiped a lot of us off the radio, I stayed relevant with that. My writing side, to go back to your question, it kind of helped me stay in the... the pocket and in the ballpark you know and that's primarily why i went to italy because i found out from traveling there was a world out there and i knew that one day it would be a global society i'd be in japan i'd be in france i was writing for all french people for italians you know hits a hit how often

were you writing you know when you first start you're living and breathing rock and roll yeah it's like almost every day that's what you do you had to crank out three albums a year you had assignments to do so you're almost in the middle of it, living, breathing for at least two, three, four years. Every day. Every day, it wasn't where you had a three-month block. You just kept waiting. This episode is brought to you by Abko Music, a proud independent music publisher and advocate for the songwriter and artist community over six decades worldwide.

Abko is home to iconic songs and writers of the 20th century, including Sam Cook, Ray Davies, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Bobby Womack. And into the 21st century, with chart-breaking hits like Mariah Carey's We Belong Together, and more. Find out about Abco by visiting their website at www.abco.com. This week's episode is sponsored by BMI. At BMI, music moves their world, just like it moves mine. BMI is my performing rights organization. They're the bridge between people who create music like me and the businesses that bring it to the public.

They make sure I get paid when my music is streamed on apps or shows, played on radio, at live shows, or in bars, gyms, basically anywhere where music is played. And they do this for over 900,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers with more than 14 million songs across genres. But it's more than that. They help us navigate the music industry. They create opportunities for aspiring writers and composers through stages at festivals, song camps, and workshops. And they connect us with the right people. They're also on Capitol Hill fighting for copyright protection and fair royalties.

And they work hard to ensure the future of music. They have my back and they'll have yours. Learn more at BMI.com. Fast forward, you know, my way is huge, but so she's a lady, which really sort of defines Tom Jones, at least for me, like when I think of like the quintessential song. Did you ever want to keep that song? Like my way makes sense for Frank Sinatra. That sounds like Frank Sinatra. Right.

But she's a lady sounds like you could have released that too. Like who, how did that song get to him? I'm in business. I'm really running a business at that point. And my way, you know, kind of everybody was, you know, okay. This cat can write, you know. So I always looked at it as the hat of a writer, had as an artist.

Could I do it as well as if I got somebody else to do it? So what happened with that was I met Tom Jones and his manager. because we were with the same agency and we got very close and they invited me over to do this TV show in England. He had a show over there and in all of that they said you got to write something for Tom

because everybody was stupidly could we get another my way there is no other my way. He just doesn't say to write that kind of song, you know. That never changes. I mean that's the music industry you write one song everyone wants that song Yeah. So I said, okay, let me think about it.

So I watched what was going on. It was a whole sexuality is what his whole thing was. Plus, he had a great voice. Still does. And I kind of looked at it and went, okay, women, you know, the vibe I knew where to put it in the pocket for him. And he'd never had a number one record up until she's a lady. So I went over to England and did the show and I was flying home on T.W. and I started writing an idea down the back of a menu, TWA menu,

and I had it formulated. And then once I got home, got the demo done for them, I sent it over. And they went in, did it, and there you have it. Do you still have the TWA menu? No. I have a box of all the, if I ever had like a scribble of a song that worked, like I have a box of that.

Yeah, I got books and papers. I got a ton of stuff. There's a few, though. They're actually pretty. some of them are actually really pretty crazy how significant they ended up being for me where it's just like just the thought process during that one day and how illegible it is you're trying to write it fast enough so you don't forget it isn't that the truth you know you obviously started writing for other pute but then then you come back as an artist why being an artist

sucks because I was told you need to come back I hadn't had any hits you know and by this At this point, you start, you know, you're now in your like late 20s, early 30s. Yeah, I'm, let me see. My way, I was 25, that's late 60s. So I'm late 20s. And, you know, I'm hearing, you know, aren't you making records? And, you know, you haven't had a hit in a while. You know, that kind of grates on you a little bit.

And I said, okay, I'm going to, you know, and everything's timing in our business. You really have to respect the fact, timing really plays. And I started writing again for myself. And I've always read a lot. I'm a big, big reader, you know, four or five hours a day. I just learn a lot from all that stuff. It's like I tell my son, if you can just read a lot, you don't have to go to school anymore, frankly.

So I started with a song, Do I Love You in Jubilation? I went to Buda Records for Neil Bogart, who was the hot guy right back then. And he got a hold of me. He said, you're going to have him. again. So I started with Do I Love You, Jubilation, made a little noise, and I started getting into the flow again. And it wound up to where I was up in Tahoe. And I was at a hotel there, and I had him put a piano in there. I just started writing again for me. And the first was having

my baby and one man, woman, sleep alone, all that stuff. And then I went to United Artists from Neil's Place. And they said, yeah, what do you want to do? I said, well, I've got these songs but I want to go to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I want to get out of this LA vibe, you know. So I hooked up with this guy, Rick Hall. And I go down to Muscle Shoals and great. The vibe out of those musicians and the life stuff is great. You know, you're in the motel and you're writing,

and you're going to eat some chicken, and then you go in the studio, and you don't have all of other stuff taking your mind off it. And it was a great, great experience for me. And I cut those hits with the Muscle Shoals band. It's interesting. One of the things I've learned from doing this podcast is, you know, you end up condensing somebody's life's work in an hour, an hour and a half. And you look at somebody's discography and you see two years of, you know, lots of hits

and two years of nothing. And what you don't realize when you just, when you look at it, you don't recognize that what's happening in the years where nothing's happening is all the preparation for the years that things are happening. And the years that things are happening, you're too busy those years to actually write the thing that's going to happen next. So you end up with these valleys and they're, they sort of is the opposite of the years that you actually work. You know, when it looks like, when it looks like there's not as much happening, that's when all the work is happening, all the grinding, all the recording, all the prep, all that stuff is

happening during those, what seem like lulls to everyone else. And they're like, why aren't you writing hits anymore? Like, I am. I'm just, I haven't released it yet. And you can't. You know, the other thing was, as everything kind of got into the new form, if you will, you didn't need to do three albums a year anymore. So you were sitting there preparing for what the next one would be because it was impossible for everybody to be on the charts. It was just impossible. Was it just that there was an abundance of people who wanted to do it And so it got so crowded that it was like Why are we releasing three albums a year?

Well, that and the music was changing And the demand was different It went to folk and then it went to this Then it went to that Then I went to disco And it was just so much you could put in that hole In terms of radio and you know What was happening then

And at that moment So you'd have to re-gear Because there's just so much room To get on radio back then I mean your music evolved a lot if you listen through 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s it evolves with what's

popular sonically but your writing doesn't feel like you were chasing those genres it felt like the recordings of them became sonically more relevant for their times but it never felt like you were trying to do like a folk music thing it didn't feel like

Darren tried it you know and I said Bobby wrong move. What he said? What did he say after he said that? He said the jean jack and the guitar. He said, no man, I'm going to do what the fuck I want. And he was marching and civil rights. I mean, all good stuff that way. But artistically, you know, I said, Bobby, that's not who you are. And they don't want to hear that from you. You know, right near the end of his life because he knew he was dying.

You know, he went back to the tuxedo in the Vegas and he had, you know, some relevance to it. The only, you know, I started writing with a lot of people because I wanted that experience. And the only, you know, the real challenge in a way, and apropos, what you said, was trying to take Michael Jackson into a different vibe because I wasn't really working with a musician per se. I mean, his genius was all just on his brain,

and he would ooh-ah and e-e-e-e-all and all the stuff would come out, and try to stay with it. So he wasn't really a keyboard player. And that was my biggest challenge in trying to keep him in something different, but what I was about and not chasing it. How did you meet Michael Jackson? I knew Michael Jackson and his family for years.

They would come to Vegas and see my show and they see Sinatra. And, you know, the father was kind of driving it all. And they were a show business family. And he had them for a very young age. This is what you're doing. Thus, they wanted to go and learn from the best through what was happening. So I knew them from, you know, visiting me backstage, et cetera. And then I was doing my album.

It was my first Sony deal, and it was a duets album. And I was writing, I had, you know, Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins and Foster. Peter Satero was on there. Everybody was on it. And I had a couple. Chicago kid, like, you know, anyway. Satera, it's a great, Chicago. It's a great band.

You know, they're great band and Saterra is great. So I got a call from this press agent that knew Michael. And, you know, I started to, you know, hang with them and, you know, me and Michael McDonald and Baccarac and we'd hang with this guy that was his David, I forget his last name at this point

and he said Michael would like to write with you for your album. I said, great. So the thriller hadn't hit yet. But we all knew his music people that any moment

it was gonna, you just know someone's gonna take off. So he came up to my house at a studio, I built my home up in Carmel and I put my kids in school and I was living up there

and recording up there and he came up and lived with me up at my guest house and we hung and hung and hung and we just started writing together. And it was the most different experience I've ever had writing with anybody. But I knew that he was going to hit big time. The, you know, in our business,

you really start finding out what people are about based on things that happened to them and who's a mensch, as they say, the business of who is? And he stole the tapes because we were coming down here to finish them at a studio down here. And we didn't stole the tapes, he didn't want to finish the project. And I said, what? I've got to deliver this album.

He said, well, I got the tapes and that's it. So I wound up in his new lawyer then was John Branca and Zifrin, who were my lawyers. And he just started with them. And I said, hey, guys, what's going on here? Well, you know, Michael, blah. I said, but I got a contract. I said, look at the contract. They said, well, you know, we can't find it.

We don't have the contract. You wrote the contract. Didn't they write the contract? Yes, yes. I said, look at the contract. There was number 37 in the file. So they really played hardball, and I knew walking out that we had a problem. The reason I'm giving you this, you know, background is because it shows you have what karma does.

So I said, look, I'm going to litigate. And I don't like litigating. takes your eye off the ball. I said, this is bullshit what you guys are doing. Now, thrillers coming out, and it's making all kinds of noise. And we get to the point where they realize they don't want to get in this litigation. And they send me back my multi-tracks. Okay.

Years go by, you know the Michael story. Great artists, great influence. We'll leave the other shit aside. I get a call from Harvey Levin at TMZ and he said there's this big record coming out and it's called This Is It and the tour and blah blah blah

but we hear that you wrote it and not Michael I said that line I don't know any song called This Is It He said I'm going to send it to you and he sends it over and my first line of the song was this is it here I stand

but the title is called I never heard I never heard a single word about you they changed the title they go into his room and they find these tapes

thinking it was new estate and the lawyers they changed this title this is it my old title which I copyright was called I never heard as soon as I hear the song

I go that's it that's never heard heard, right? So they sweetened up the multis that he copied, which I didn't know. And you know the rest of the story. So it was like that afternoon it was, hey guys, it's me again, the lawyers, and you got four hours to settle it. I want 50% of everything. We're going to court, you got no tour, blah, blah, blah. And we settled it. Man, if you read the Quincy Jones interview about Michael Jackson that came out maybe two years ago,

years ago and Vulture, it all just reflects that that other side. They didn't end well at all. Quincy won that lawsuit. Yeah. I mean, it just seems like all the things where he's just like, you know, Michael stole this, Michael stole that, Michael copied that,

and you're just like, man, Q. Yeah. I don't know him. I don't know why I call them Q, like I'm friends of them. I love Q. I go way back with them and I was on the back of the big Leslie Gore hit. It's my party. I wrote the other side, Danny, which did pretty good. But I go way back with Q.

Q's great. He's a great influence, great musician. Well, the three of us can go have some cocktails. Yeah, we'll do that. And then, just to finish the story, I get a call from, let's just say, the estate. And they said, well, thank you for settling it. We found some other stuff.

And, you know, your stuff was the most different and the best of the other boy. He said, we got this other song. Let me play it for you. And then I hear, baby, love. never felt so good and I doubt that it and I said to the guy said I wrote that too you got that

he said you wrote that too I said yes so what are you going to do with it so that came out later with what L.A. Reed called me and they put Justin Bieber on it so I had the second record and the last one is the one I just had with Drake. It don't matter to me which is on Drake's scorpion album

Did you meet Drake? Oh yeah I came to my house he heard about the track right and Somebody had played it to him. And I get the call and he says, I'll come to your house, blah, blah, blah. So the SUVs, they're all piling in my house over at where I was living. And, of course, my kid knows what's coming.

So I got a house full of kids and Drake walks in and he's just as nice as it's going to be and sits down and I want to do this track and I want to use your track. And I said, well, you've got to break the code. What's going with it? I got to hear what you're going to marry it up to. So we make a deal, and he wanted to do it. And I think they nailed it.

They recorded it up in Toronto, and it was a pretty good record. There are a few things that I wanted to go back to. One is, why is it, if you're going to bring up Drake, Justin Bieber, you know, some of these classics like Bouble, Celine Dion, the list of Canadian artists that come in and own their, Lane in pop music, the weekend, so many of these incredible Canadian artists. Why? Why not?

It just seems like such a disproportionate amount of people. What's wrong with us up here? I don't know. I mean, I would assume that there has to be... You think it's in a proportion? Well, I think about how many people are that. Those are the tops. We only send the best.

We don't fuck around. I mean, it's insane. You guys have all this bullshit and there's a thing. I'm not going to go further. with that. But when we get in it, we say, we're saying, we're saying you are best shit. You know, you got to remember, we lived under the shadow of this country.

If you were from Canada, nobody looked at you. Nobody cared. When I came down, there's no Canadian artists. It was all in Nashville and New York. So nobody really cared about Canadians, you know? But we were not unlike the British when I lived in England. You know, they would sit there and listen to all this shit. We dominated their

charts. And meanwhile, they were nailing it, you know, Clapton. And you listened to all the great artists out of there. They were doing Chuck and they were doing buddy and they were doing and they made it better and they're they're like thousands of miles away so we're up in this shadow no he's paying attention to us right but we're not stupid you know we're looking at it you know as a craft we're looking at it as the potential and everything in it and thus our directors knew how to make movies and that starts then the influx of all these artists but we always realize we have to be as good or better as Americans we learned our shit

better because we wouldn't make it otherwise. Even right now the biggest producers, the Frank Duke circuit, just the amount of Canadians that dominate American radio is... But you know, you know what it is, the world is split up in three breadbaskets. Whether you're politics, financial, we have to realize that from Canada down is one breadbatch, South America. Then you've got Europe and all of that that's happening. And then you got China that rules.

and those are the forces I mean to where it's you know when you say Canada and US we all speak the same language we're all influenced on each other you know what I've always said is let's just become a part of the US

it's the same what's the fucking difference I mean the advantage you get if you're Canadian is that you have you know what is it 40% of radio has to be Canadian artists you know there's a lot of local content so you know that's how Carly Ray really gets her start is because of

the real push from Canadian radio which of course Bieber hears when he's at home and it's like this you know so there's a lot of Canadian pride that if we in our country actually invested in the next generation the way Canadians do in theirs

or South Koreans doing theirs maybe we'd actually have a shot at our next generation look at Korea now granted our bands don't want to dance like that anymore so these guys are like dancing them off to stage and amazing, right? And then another language.

But, you know, we don't want to do that. But, you know, years ago, even when I was touring in Japan or an Asian, you know, they would admit to me, the Japanese, you know, we can do anything. We can make anything. We can make anything. The only thing we can't do are your movies and your music. They said, there's no way we can do it. And now look what's happening with Korea.

Look what's going to come out of China. I mean, there's shit going on out there, you know, on all levels that is going to just change the landscape. Yeah, it'll go, I mean, now all the deals for all the DSPs, Spotify and whatnot, is all based in India, you know, continuing to move westward. And this will get real dorky, but the history of music has moved west from, you know, mid-1800s when you go through Vienna, through, you know, Germany, through France, through UK to New York, to L.A. and now to Korea. And it will continue to, it's the, somehow music art seems. to move west and it has for 250 years. And financially, you know, what's called the Silk Highway from China.

They've got trains going right across through Afghanistan and Duktustan and all those places. The wealth and the stream from that Silk Highway is going to take over. I mean, they'll surpass us in 15 years financially. The mob. What did you owe them? Like, when it's always like,

it's always like, ah, no, we were good. if we were with the mob, how did they, you know, I can't understand it coming. I understand Paola and the music industry and a lot of the history, but somehow the idea that the mob really helped push the music industry and the rap pack

and you guys along, what does that mean? When you say, oh, yeah, the mob, who are the mob? Okay. I don't want you to get shot or something. No, no, I've got, listen, I'm not owned by anybody. I was never owned by anybody.

It was a business. And everything that I did in my business and all of the people you hear about and the pioneers, the mob controlled. Now that means the Jews and the Italians. You had Meyer Lansky in Florida, smart guy. You had the mom out of Cleveland and Chicago. And it's a great country we have.

And what you have is, you know, from when everybody emigrated here in this what is not a homogenous society, you had the Jews and the Italians and the Irish working their asses off and work on their way up. But in that whole process, you had, you know, the mafia that was born out of, you know, Sicily over to New York. And it's just a bunch of guys that are in business. And they did business differently. Now, it even got into government.

I mean, don't kid yourself. However you want to paint the word mob or mafia. or whatever you want, it's in politics then. It's in politics today. It's in business today. It's in corporations today. So any way you color it is still a form of a mafia relationship type of vibe that happens. Back then, you couldn't avoid working for them.

Now, did that mean a guy showed up and said, you know, kid, you're going to give us 50% of your money. And if you don't do this, no. You knew to keep your nose clean. you knew to just listen. How do you do, sir? These guys were gentlemen. They were soft-spoken.

They were shortened ties. My godfather was a guy called Carl Cohen. And Carl was, you know, out of Cleveland. Took me under his wing. He protected me in the sense. Nobody ever would mess with me. And Carl was the guy. And he worked for this network of guys

that controlled the music and the clubs and the booze. And that's America. That's America. Now, if anybody stepped out a line, not unlike governments who do it in a deceitful way, maybe, or other fractions, they would just blatantly go out and you're dead. You just don't cross them.

And it was usually with their own. Not unlike today, where you've got gangs and all that other stuff. Innocent people are getting nailed and what have you and don't have the intellect that they had back then, where they ran this part of the business. They were acknowledged for running it. And when it got out of line a little bit,

the government would step in, but there was always something behind that. So that when they got too big in Vegas, it was a government move to bring Hughes in, to buy them out. But don't kid yourself. You know, Hughes was there. He bought everything. But who still ran it?

The boys. The money was still flowing out of there. He was going to Florida. You know, everyone is now privy today via books and media and what have you. What that machine was. Now, it's changed today. It's not like it was. Because the moment people started ratting out.

and things kind of changed and guys went away. It kind of went underground a little to where today you've got the Russians and the Colombians and the Mexicans, what do you want to call them? So if you're talking in the sense of the way they conduct themselves, that hasn't really changed. I mean, back then it was a lot cleaner than stuff I read about today with saws and ripping off limbs and it's out there. Yeah, that's crazy.

It's just totally out there. So we worked for them. They were good to us. We had a good working relationship. You'd shake their hand. You know, got business guys today, even if you've got a contract, they're going to fuck you. Not back then. Your word was something, and you shook a guy's hand, and you worked for those guys, and that was it.

And everybody knew it. End the story. We're going to this next segment of five for five. I'm going to name five things, and you can just tell me, you know, sort of what comes off. the top of your head. Okay. So let's start with Johnny Carson. Smart guy, the best at what he did, no matter who followed him, somewhat complex,

loved his booze, big drink. What was his drink? You name it. I mean, big hard liquor. Comes to my mind, you know, when I knew Sinatra and Jilly, who was. Sinatra's sidekick. We'd go to Jilly's bar, restaurant, New York. Carson really loved Sinatra.

Sinatra really, like a lot of people, he didn't like you, you never got near him. Thus, Johnny, after work, would come to Jilly's Club, and he'd be Blitz, and he played drums. He was a drummer. He loved playing drums. Johnny Carson? Yeah. And he had drums at home, and he'd come and play drums at Jilly's Bar,

and he was like, you know, one night he comes in really blitzed, and he started to come on to these girls at the bar. And you have to realize that back then the mob guys, Friday night was for the mistresses and then the side dishes, and then the wife on Saturday night. So they go out with the wives on Saturday, but the side dishes, the girlfriends, they were Friday night. So he messed with the wrong girls because it's Friday night,

the girlfriends and these guys took it a lot seriously than the pipes. So they grabbed them, they threw him down a flight of small stairs and jillies. And they started beating up on him until somebody yelled jilly. They're going to kill Johnny Carson. So he went down and broke it up. So the booze side of his life was real. You know, some people are happy, some are quiet. He just went the other way.

But not to take anything away from the brilliance of the man. He was very well read, very smart. and as I said, he was the best of what he did. But that's something that just stood out because I was young again and he was just doing his thing and I'd come off of the theme with him which was supposed to last a year and then became the longest running theme.

So I had an alliance in a sense with him but never professed to say that I knew him really well. But that's the side of Johnny along with the real good side of the ledger of his contribution and a pioneer. was that side of him. There was a dark side. Don Costa, one of the greatest A&R men ever.

Don Costa is like all the unsung heroes. And what I learned from Sinatra and those guys early is you'd better have some great arrangers around you. And what most people don't realize, and some of us that are humbled by what we do but are aware of the facts, to sit down and come from that school, where a guy can sit down with a score

and put the strings and the voicing. That ain't easy to do great. Because good is the enemy of great. Costa was one of those great guys that could voice strings they learned from Robert Farnham. But the guys like Quincy and Costa, Costa was the master of being a producer,

an arranger, and a great, great guy. and the reason I'm sitting here with you, he saw this young kid and really taught me a great deal. But the way he used to voice and write those arrangements was brilliant. And I tell anyone, go get Sinatra and strings and listen to some great string writing. The Rat Pack.

The Rat Pack, a very important part of Americana in this country in terms of how an entertainment entity, like them could influence so much that these guys could get together build pretty much the foundation of a city to what it is today when it really failed and a guy got shot

for failing. Bugsy Seagal was a little ahead of his time. The Rat Pack really put their stamp on the Great American Songbook and what it was like to be an entertainer and learn your craft. And they were the model for all of us.

And when they got up on stage, It was like going to college. It was amazing because we, again, didn't live in this media-driven society where everything that you did was out there a second later. Thus, they just behaved the way that they wanted. So you're sitting there one day and they're doing their thing. And then John Kennedy's arriving and then he's hanging out and I won't go into description what everybody was doing.

But there's Kennedy showing up, every movie star is showing up, all because of these guys, the rat pack in Vegas, where it was the thing to do, the place to go. your kids my kids um the most important part of my life i think that what you hopefully learn with success or without it as a human being that if you're lucky enough to marry well um that it's very important to have a family uh my kids are great kids uh i'm very proud of all of them and nine grandchildren and they're the biggest and important component in my life today or my family and my kids.

Finally, your parents. My parents, they were good people. You know, living and hearing today all the negative and unfortunate dynamics that have occurred in families and parents and etc. I had two great parents. My dad was very hardworking. My mom was a great lady. I knew she was dying. and she became, you know, very important part of my life

because she was the one that believed in me. She was the one that, you know, would work every day, but come home and what do you need? You know, here, go buy some music sheets, go buy some records. So both my parents were there for me. They opened that door and allowed me to pursue the dream that I had that they shared with me. I look back at them and,

respect them even though they're not here I respect them in memory for the fact that they never hurt me and that they were there for me especially my mom that was taken away from me

when I was 18 years old my first royalty check I bought her home because we didn't we weren't rich people and moved her to New Jersey I bought her a home and that's where she died

but I've got great great memories of great parents well thank you for doing this thank you for having me You know, we've been fortunate enough to talk to a lot of venerable writers and people who've been through different eras of the music industry. And one of the things that we talk a lot about is the value of patience. And your career started off going 100 miles an hour.

And you managed to not run out of gas. and I don't know how many people in the business right now, I said this earlier, can relate to the path you've taken because you were so young when you started, but you achieve such a high level of output and artwork the whole time. And, you know, as a writer and as, you know, somebody who's in the circuit right now and going through it, it hasn't changed all that much

and yet it's changed in every way but so much of the the stories that you talk about seemed like something that you could have just you could have just had that conversation yesterday with, I mean you did with Drake it's not that different now than than it was but

you know whatever we're doing now is a result of how your generation open certain doors and the idea of learning, yeah, well, own your master's, own your publishing. If you can get to that point,

absolutely you should. To be entrepreneurial. To be a good songwriter is to be a good entrepreneur. There are a lot of good melody writers and good lyric writers, but a lot of them are really bad entrepreneurs and they disappear just because they can't

figure out the business. So for you to have led the way that early and to introduce other artists and other writers into that. I mean, kudos to you. It's, it's, I appreciate your story. I appreciate your work. And again, thank you for being here. Well, thank you.

You know, I think that, you know, I'm very close to a guy named Michael Boubley, who, you know, opened that door for him and produced. And David, and I talk to him all the time. And, you know, I like to give back and share it. I've done it from his far back as David Clayton Thomas to John Pryne and on and on. But all I tell them is that, you know, don't blow this. And, you know, you need the patience and you've got to learn to fail a little bit. And don't get, don't think it's the end of the world when there's a dip, you know,

because you just, you've got to find yourself and have some character, some backbone. Like, it was a big problem trying to teach Presley that because I would sit with him. And, you know, he'd unfortunately passed. very young. And I used to say to him, I say, you're Elphus Presley, man, it's okay. You know, you're getting older and wrong. You're not going to beat that. But just have some patience with it and sit down and remember you respect it out there and you can still do it. But, you know, it doesn't have to last forever. I don't ever look at it like that. I look at it like, you know, there's some great books that you'll read where the writer's written one or two books. And he's written out. That's it.

He doesn't have to write 50. And it's the same in our business. You know, you can't, just because you get lucky or you've really got something and, you know, in an environment today where, unfortunately, it's not all about good music anymore. You know, you go in and it's, there's another way that they're making the music,

and I won't get into that. But the inevitability of change is there. But you doesn't mean that you're going to be around all that long. You know, it's just, something that you've got to prepare for the downside. You know, you've got to stay in cash flow in today's business because the day may come where it's going to end. And that's your ride, man.

It's like Elton, you know, he's had his ride. Great writer, both of them. And, you know, I go way back to Dick James and where they started. But, you know, you look at today the big payoff is all those big acts that are doing all the business. They don't necessarily have hits anymore because their body of work is so strong. You know, the guys and the women

and the guys that are putting out records today, and we won't name them, the stiffing. They open with something that's passe, and they do 50,000. Nobody cares. So it's not trying to change and be what everyone else is, it's to realize whatever the hell you got,

write it out. And that's all that I've tried to do, is look at it, write it out, and, you know, if there's asses in the seats, like I'm going on a tour of Europe and my tour ends next March. You know, do the business right down, my people follow me,

and I know what I have to do to please them. But for anyone else I'm giving advice to, it used to be being an accountant, learn your business. You do that because you're going to wake up one day and somebody's stolen it from you. And if you really read, you know, look at it all historically,

everybody got screwed. All of us got screwed. I got screwed, you know. And you just have to apply yourself and do it. And, you know, Michael's a great example. I think Bubay's, you know, doing the best that he can. He's doing very well.

And I love that project because it was about the American songbook, the world that I came from to, he was the guy to do it. So find that young guy and went in the studio with him and Foster and he listened and he learned. And then my rap with him today is,

hey, it's not going to be stadiums. You know, get ready. Go and sign now at Cesar's and get your Vegas thing because in five years you're going to be. And you know, the hypocrisy of all of that elongating my adieu to you and goodbye is, you know, I've worked Vegas and I stay true to that.

And everybody used to, you know, a lot of the acts you know, oh, we never work Vegas. Oh, we don't want that stigma. Well, look at these hypocrites. They're all winding up with residencies. They're all, oh, we love Vegas. Why? Because it's all about the money.

Everything in life is all about, not money, all about the money. So they sit there, their profit margins go up. They're not on the road out doing each other. And they're now playing Vegas. It's the thing to do. Why? It's all about the money.

But thank you for, I really enjoyed this. A great deal. Smart dude and they were really good questions. Thanks for having me. We'll have cocktails with Quincy soon. Well, if we can get him out of the house, he gets up around four or five in the afternoon.

Perfect. All right, thanks. Hey, thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out Spotify playlist or visit our website at and the writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us.

You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah and published by Big Deal music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.