Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 282. Dennis Lambert

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

Gilbert and Frank chat with Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter Dennis Lambert ("One Tin Soldier," "Nightshift," "Ain't No Woman Like the One I've Got") who talks about working the Catskills as a boy singer, shopping songs in the Brill Building era, producing hit records for the Four Tops and the Righteous Brothers and co-creating the much-maligned Starship hit, "We Built This City." Also, Neil Diamond hawks holiday tunes, Carole King demos "One Fine Day," Gilbert "covers" Glen Campbell and Dennis becomes a superstar in the Philippines. PLUS: Freddie and the Dreamers! The artistry of Levi Stubbs! The versatility of Steve Lawrence! "Billy Jack" gets a message from God! And Dennis breaks down the construction of a Top 10 hit! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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that come on sticks, in spirals, with bite-sized bursts of flavor and more. From pork belly bites full of barbecue flavor to skewer sensations that will keep the grill

going for dessert. Make this your best summer yet with PC. Hi, this is Kenny Loggins, and you're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and our engineer, Frank Verderosa. Santo Padre, and our engineer, Frank Verderosa. And our guest this week is a musician, recording artist, and Grammy-nominated record producer and songwriter who's responsible for some of the most popular pop and rock hits of the last 50 years. Some of the songs he's written, co-written, or produced include

Wantin' Soldier, Don't Pull Your Love, Ain't No Woman Like The One I Got, Keeper of the Castle, Two Divided by Love, Rock and Roll Heaven, Rhinestone Cowboy, We Built This City, Baby Come Back, It Only Takes a Minute, Night Shift, just to name a few. He's also produced records for or had his songs covered by a who's who of 20th century musicians, including The Four Tops, Dusty Springfield, Jerry Lee Lewis, Glen Campbell, The Temptations, The Commodores, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Jefferson Starship, Kenny Loggins, The Righteous Brothers, The Moody Blues, and Santana. His songs have been sampled by Tupac Shakur and Jay-Z. And get this, he even worked with Burgess Meredith.

He did. He's had over 75 songs on Billboard's Top 100 chart, including number one records on the pop, R&B, hip-hop, rap, country, jazz, and dance charts. His songs have received 11 Grammy Award nominations, and at one time, four of his songs appeared simultaneously on Billboard Hot 100, simultaneously on Billboard Hot 100, a feat previously accomplished only by the Beatles. Please welcome to the podcast a man who's composed over 600 songs, yet another brilliant songwriter from Brooklyn and a folk hero in the Philippines, the multi-talented Dennis Lambert. Hi.

Dennis. What an intro. I feel like doing Jack Benny. Oh, Dennis. Yes, I know. Welcome, Dennis Lambert. Thank you. Thanks. I'm happy to be here now we we have to get to your biggest crime of your career and that's you wrote the song we built this city on rock and roll with others

yeah yes yes it took an army to write that one. Yeah, and like Blender called it the worst song of all time and said it was a reflection of what practically killed rock music in the 80s. Screw Blender. Well, they're not here anymore, and I'm still 10. That's right. That's true. Blender is defunct and Dennis rocks on.

How did that come about? The song? Yes. It was an interesting story and it's unusual in the sense that it came to me as a demo by one of my friends who I'd written songs with

and he was doing some work with Bernie Taupin. And he brought me this song because he knew that I was producing the Starship. And he thought it would be a good song. He brought me several songs. And this particular song just had something about it that was very haunting and very interesting. And it was mostly in the lyric. It didn't really have a commercial structure.

It didn't sound anything like the record we made, but there was something about the body of the song that was compelling. So I asked, Martin Page was his name, my friend, if he and Bernie would consider doing a bit of a rewrite because when I had played it in the original form for Grace Slick and the group and Mickey, they sort of were attracted to it, but they recognized that it wasn't a commercial-sounding song.

It was a dark, kind of a brooding demo. You can hear the demo. It's on SoundCloud. I heard it today for the first time. Very brooding and esoteric. Yes, absolutely. So Martin said, let me talk to Bernie. I don't think he's going to go for that.

That's not his thing. I said, okay, you know, just hopeful that he'll let you do it or that he'll take a shot. You know, it's more musically that it needs some shaping than it is lyrically. So he came back to me a few days later and he said, you know, Bernie's not into doing that, but if you want to take a shot at it as long as we have the right to approve it then we'll you know we'll let you do it and i talked to peter wolf who was my good friend and co-producer and i said peter do you want to take a shot at this because martin and bernie don't want to i said there's no promise we don't know if we'll wind up doing anything they'll like. And if they do, there's no

deal made in advance that we're going to be writers on the song. We just have to do it on good faith. And our interest was getting a good song for the group. So if we didn't wind up as co-writers, it would have been okay. That had happened to me once before. I did some work on a song and didn't get any credit and didn't ask for any. So we did. We just reshaped it. We turned it into the song You Know. And we had this vision of it being a very in-your-face, tightly produced, commercial-sounding song, which we thought was not doing an injustice to what was there.

We liked it. We liked it perhaps better than the original. And when they heard it, they weren't thrilled with it because it was so in your face commercial, but they said, okay. And then they talked to us about what they felt we should have as a share. and we said, fine, and that was the end of it. We then recorded it, and it was a big hit. A big hit, a monster hit. Monster hit, yeah. How did Grace, I heard she asked you in a way that was like, hey, I'm getting older.

Grace Slick. Yeah. Yeah. I just want some money to put away. She wanted a hit song didn't yeah yes absolutely well they've come very close with uh the prior starship album and they made some noise they had a couple of records on the charts they just didn't have a major breakthrough and and they were looking for that obviously and and certainly mickey thomas was such a great singer sure the two of them were very

dynamic as vocalists so uh yeah they Grace said you know I'm getting older I don't think anybody 60 should be in a rock and roll band she was very clear about that and she said I paint you know this is my passion and I want to have some big hits. I want to tour for a couple of years, make a bunch of money and then pack it in. And those were my marching orders. So when I brought the reshaped We Built This City along with other songs we brought to them, they were very positive about it and they reacted very strongly and said, let's do this. I read an interview with Bernie, and he said that you and Peter were smart to do what you did with that song, to take it from an esoteric, non-commercial song

and make it a hit, and said he feels like he owes you guys for helping put his kids through college. I don't think he needed that. But I appreciate that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he understands. And we've had a few songwriters on and a few others who've worked at the Brill

building, and a lot of times they seem to have it scientific in their head. What is the sound of a hit? Do you have that in your head? Like, oh, if I put this and this and this, this could be a hit. Oh, I don't know if I have it in a sort of formula, but in the earlier days of my career,

at the peak of my career, which was probably 70s, 80s, I probably had a sense that if I came up with a good idea for a song that I could execute what would sound like a hit to most people. And that wasn't so much for the bravado. that I could bring my skills to artists that were looking to me to find them or write them great songs, and that gave me the confidence that I could do that. I was saying, Gilbert, before we turn the mics on, weren't you and Brian known for being, in part, among other things, being known for the guys you go to when when your career has has sort of hit a lag to to bring them to bring them back to get them another hit i guess that you did a lot of that

with the righteous brothers with starship in the case you you just gave us yes i think when you do that the industry takes notice and they think well these guys are like the doctors you know they they can fix a problem. We did it with the four tops who had been a little bit cold. Sure, sure. And then, as you say, later on I did it with Starship to some extent, although they were certainly in the mainstream and having reasonably good acceptance at radio.

But, yes, the other people that you mentioned for sure they had stumbled a little glenn he had been glenn campbell he'd yeah he'd been off the charts for three or four years and uh and you brought him his biggest hit yeah it was he was incredible to work with and and can we go all the way back? When did you start? You started really young. 10 to 14 by the time i i got to be 14 i'd already been signed to my first record deal i was signed to the tokens they were the production company that signed me they were making records not only for themselves you know lion sleeps sure i had and others um but they were producers and they were doing quite well. They had Randy and the Rainbows

and a few other big acts and their own stuff. And they signed me. And that was really my introduction to the music business and what went on behind the scenes. And I was smitten. I thought, this is it. I want to do this. And as much as I was pursuing a. I thought, this is it. I want to do this. And as much as I was pursuing a career as an artist,

I was equally interested in developing my skills as a songwriter. I had a lot of music in my head. Sure. I just didn't have all the tools. And you weren't classically trained at all. No, I never even studied at all as a kid. Yeah, that's what's so fascinating.

Yeah. And I think it's sweet. Go ahead, Des. No, I was saying I had a lot of music in my system because I was going out with my charts under my arm and going to little places where there was a trio or a quartet, sometimes just a piano player, and I had to walk people through the arrangements

and i had to know the music and know what happened where and and of course i had a repertoire of hundreds of songs that i could do and and i had charts probably for 50 so my my act never got overly stale i just kept switching things up and And when you were a kid in the Catskills, you had a bunch of songs that were certainly for an old Jewish performer, not so much for a kid. And an Italian performer. Yes, yes. In some cases. Can you give us a sample of some of those things you used to do in the Catskills to entertain the old crowd? Well, I mean, I did, you know, I told an occasional joke and I did songs in languages, mainly Yiddish, because that was primarily the audience. They were, you know, mostly Jewish, and they were mostly older people. They may not have been any older

than the people that we confront now every day, but they seemed very old to me then. I was so young. Sure. They were probably like my parents' and grandparents' age. But I would do Holidays, that song that Mickey Katz and Joel Gray had done. Can I please hear you sing some of it?

Well, let's see. Lots of folks, hey boys like me, don't know from Yiddish kite. All we know is football, dances and the fights. But I've got news for all you folks who think I've gone astray. My heart just bursts with pride at every Jewish holiday. Oh, I love basic.

And then it was like a song about every Jewish holiday that you... We love that stuff, Dennis. Were you singing in Italian, too? Yeah. Femina, tu sei una malafemina. It was ridiculous, really, coming from a kid. A kid, right.

He's singing about an evil woman. You've scorned me. coming from a kid. A kid, right. He's thinking about an evil woman. You've scorned me. Right. So you were a little Jewish kid being an angry Italian grown-up.

Well, you know, I don't know how angry I was. I was pleasing the audiences by kind of spoon-feeding them the things that they liked. And, you know, like everybody loves dogs and animal acts and they love kids. Yeah.

I think it's sweet, too, that your mom was a stage mom. And she never gave up on the idea. We talked about this on the phone. She never gave up on the idea of you being a star, of you being the next Paul Anka or the next Neil Diamond. And she pushed hard. She drove you places. She was a promoter. She was an agent. She

was a booker. That's right. She did all those things. And after I started writing and producing and didn't really want to sing anymore, not in those venues and in that kind of music, she would still occasionally approach me with a gig that she felt I should do. And I think I might have talked to you about how I met Don Arden and Peter Grant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's what led you to Brian. Yeah.

Yes. Well, the Sniffin' Court Inn was a club in Manhattan back in the 60s. And I forget the guy's name he was he was a uh the owner of the club and very well liked and an important figure in that world you know that cabaret world at that time it's got to all be gone now it is it is gone i'm sure but my mom said you know there are gonna be big managers there and big agents and you know you should go and do a set. I said, okay. I'd already been writing and I had my little office, but I went. And I did my little three-song set and the band was amazing. You know, they fake everything, but they knew the songs. And as I came off the stage, you know, these guys

approached me and they were an odd-looking trio because one one was a little, short, rotund guy. That was Don Arden. And then there was a big, rotund guy. That was Peter Grant. Don Arden is Sharon Osbourne's father. Yes. That's right. And, you know, an incredible entrepreneur in the music world.

Yes, he was. All through the 60s and 70s, managed so many of the big acts along with Peter. and 70s, managed so many of the big acts along with Peter. And then the third guy was a guy named Mark Wildey, who became a very close friend because he wound up moving to the States. And so over the years that followed, I spent time with Mark and he became a close friend. But Don, once he met me and Peter met me, they came up to my office. They listened to a few of my songs. They took them back to England. And two, three weeks later, they were flying me over to make records with some of their artists. And how old were you again?

17 at that time. Is this when you wrote Do the Freddy for Freddy and the Dreamers? Yes. Gilbert loves that one. Okay. Okay. You got your piano ready. We have to do this.

He wants to sing a couple of bars of Do the Freddy with you. Dennis, will you indulge him? Sure, but I do it in a little bit of a fancier, cooler, jazzier way. Okay. Okay, let's hear you sing it. Well, I'm trying to make

up for the fact that the song is really so bad. So I, you know. So I don't hear the happy feet dancing to the beat of the Freddy. Put a guy in front, make a line in back, then you're ready. Kick your feet up, swing your arms up to move your head both ways like you see me do. Then just repeat to the swinging beat, do the Freddie. Do the Freddie. Do the Freddie. I love it.

I love it. Hey, not bad for 17. Yeah. Looking back now, you're critical of it, but you were a teenager. And that guy. Yeah, it is what it is. But I thought at the time, why not write a dance song for them? They had had

I'm Telling You Now. Of course. Gilbert and I were just singing that one. They were all over TV, and people knew they did that crazy little dance. How Do You Do... What is the other one? How Do You Do What You Do To Me. That was another one. He looked

like if it was like if Austin Powers and Jerry Lewis had a kid. Yeah, that's right. And the other three guys in the band looked like his bodyguards. Yeah. You know, they had black suits and little ties and they were kind of burly. Yeah. Before we get to it, we'll continue with the part about you going to England

and meeting your eventual songwriting partner, Brian Potterter but i but we don't i don't want to lose this thread when you're in the caskills and we were talking on the phone do you remember some of the performers that were either on the same bill with you or that were passing through sure because we love this stuff sure well uh the biggest show i ever did was over a July 4th weekend, and it was at Grossinger's. You know, that's a major hotel. It was an important hotel, and it had a great reputation, and the people that Jenny Grossinger was a famous person for operating that hotel. Anyway, over the July 4th weekend, I don't know if it was 60 or 59, I worked with Eddie Fisher.

He was the headliner. And Juliet Prowse. Juliet Prowse, Gilbert, from South Africa. Yeah, African-American Juliet Prowse. That's right. And I was the opening act. I did a little short set. You know, they gave me a shot. I think my mom got me that gig.

She must have, you know, hucked Lily i think my mom got me that gig she must have you know hocked lily in until she couldn't what about some of the comics do you remember any any of these guys of course yeah well i was up there a little bit i worked with people like mac robbins i don't know if you know that name gil mac robbins better run that one by Cliff. Yeah. Yeah. He was a big comic in the Catskills in the 60s. I worked with Lou Menchel. Lou Menchel. Lou Menchel.

That sounds familiar. Another popular comic at the time. Dick Capri. Dick Capri. Oh, of course. We know Dick personally. Yeah. Yeah.

I might have worked. I thought I worked with freddie roman ready roman about this because i've met him many times sure uh and and then i would see all the great comics in the shows that i went to if i was going to go my mom would like say you got to do the late show at the new roxy i say okay you know because it was a hotel with a great band, and they would let you come up and do a few songs at one in the morning in this bar. And in those places, the comics would congregate, sometimes Buddy Hackett. Wow. And Freddie Roman and Jack Carter.

Jack Carter. Wow. Did you see Myron Cohen or Corbett Monica? Corbett Monica, absolutely. All of them. I didn't work with him, but I saw them all the time. Right, that's great. And later on, it's so interesting

how sort of things go around and come around. Years later, in the late 60s, when I moved to California and started my career there, I met Eddie Fisher. I was producing him. So I did a record with him. And I go to his house to rehearse with him. And Don Costa was my mentor.

A legendary Don Costa. Yeah, a legendary guy and an incredible talent. So he said, I want you to work with Eddie. And I had written a song for Eddie. So Don said, go up to his house, you know, get it set up and rehearse with him, get ready, you know, make sure he's prepared. And then, you know, you can cut the record with him. I said, great. Don said, I might do the chart, which I thought was incredible. So I go up to Eddie's house. It's up in the hill

somewhere in Beverly Hills. And I rang the bell and Connie Stevens answers the door with two babies. One's in her arm and one's in a stroller. Fantastic. And they were literally a year and a few months apart. And, of course, they were Eddie and Connie's kids. And so there began a lifelong friendship with Connie to this day. She's one of my dear friends. Oh, we love her.

And she's such a great, great person and a great friend and a big talent on so many different levels. Yeah, yeah. And so there was my introduction to working with Eddie when I'd worked with him as a 13-year-old on one show. Did he remember you? Not really. Yeah, okay. But I told him about that show, worked with him as a 13 year old on one show did he remember you not really yeah okay but i told him about that show and he sort of vaguely remembered the show but who knows yeah do you

remember anything about eddie what it was like to work with him yes i mean he was lovely he was sweet uh he was not difficult although i think he was struggling a little bit with his problems, even when I was working with him. And he needed me when we were recording the vocals. He wanted me to be out with him next to him on mic. And he wanted me to give him like a little tap when it was his time to come in with his line. So either he needed that extra support or he wasn't sure of the song and he needed me to remind him where he comes in. So I thought, well, that's a little odd, you know, but it turned out fine. And in the end, he did a nice performance and I'm proud I have an Eddie Fisher recording. Remember, as a kid growing up in Brooklyn,

I listened to Oh My Papa with my grandparents, probably 500 times. Oh, that's sweet. Okay, I got to ask you to sing Oh My Papa. What about? I'm sorry. Oh, I have to ask you. He wants you to sing a little bit of it.

Oh My Papa. Oh my papa, to me he was so wonderful. Oh my papa, to me he was so good. That's it. Fantastic. Oh, wow. Fantastic. Oh, wow. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast right after this.

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Oh, it's New York And now, back to our show When did you start working with... We talked on the photo about Steve Lawrence Somebody we've wanted on this podcast since we started it five years ago And haven't had any luck. When did you work with, did you work with Steve and Edie separately or together? Well, separately, but at the same time. Okay. I wrote, I got to write a couple of songs with

Michelle Legrand, who I just loved. Another legend. Legend and an incredible songwriter. And I thought, how am I getting an opportunity to write with him? Because I'm not necessarily known as a lyricist. And if anything, when people met me and Brian Potter, they thought he's the English guy. He doesn't sit at the piano like Dennis does. So he's probably the lyricist and Dennis is probably the music guy. But that really was not the case. lyricist and Dennis is probably the music guy, but that really was not the case. Brian contributed a lot to our melodies and to our music, was a great sounding board, was a drummer. He understood music. It was, you know, in his blood. And I was always a very proactive lyricist. I would never just hand it off to anyone. So where were we? Steve lawrence right yeah steven awney right so okay right so uh michelle legrand i get this call michelle legrand would like to meet you i thought wow somebody

i forget exactly who but i owe them a great debt told him that i was a really good lyricist and i'd written a lot of hits and he called me and i met with him he said I'm doing this small movie and maybe that's why because he didn't feel like he could call the Bergmans or someone much more famous that he'd worked with because it was a very little project okay he said there's not much money in it you know whatever I'm doing the score and I'm writing a couple of songs and I'd like you to work with me I said said, oh, I would love to. And he played me the melodies and they were Michelle Legrand gorgeous melodies. And I took them and I wrote the lyrics, came back and he loved them. That was what was most important. I have to say it was one of the most nerve wracking moments singing him the songs, his

melodies, my lyrics. And he played for me, and I'm singing with him. And that was a trip unto itself. And he loved them. And he said, well, now we have to think of who we can get to sing them. And I said, well, I have some ideas. One of the songs was a song about New York in the 40s and 50s, and that was the song for Steve.

And it was about what the movie was about, really. The movie was called Falling in Love Again, and it was with Elliot Gould. Oh, I know that movie. Yeah, sure. It was a very quaint little love story. Yeah, I know that flick. And I think Michelle pfeiffer was

like that may have been her first movie uh if i'm not mistaken she was in it anyway uh i said what about steve lawrence and michelle loves steve lawrence he said that's a great idea do you know him i said i do actually and i had gotten to know steve became a friend, and he knew that he was one of my idols, so was Edie. And then the other song was a ballad, and that was a female song. And I said, what about Edie for this? And he said, if you could get Edie for this, we'd have an incredible package. And I went to see them both, played them the songs,

and they said, let's do it fantastic so i produced both of the records for the soundtrack with them and i got to work with my dear friends what a renaissance man he is i mean we were talking on the phone that he could do anything steve lawrence absolutely good comedian good actor great storyteller that's why we wanted him here so badly he always seemed like someone who didn't take himself too seriously. I think that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Great guy to be around. Warm and funny and just a beautiful guy. And they used to be on TV constantly, Steve and Edie. Yeah. Edie Gourmet, Neil Sedaka's cousin. Yes. Yes. There's some extra trivia's cousin. Yes, yes. There's some extra trivia.

We leap around, obviously. That's okay. You've caught on to that, Dennis. And eventually we'll get to you and Brian meeting up in the U.K. and all the great hits that you guys produced. But talk about setting up shop that you decided. You were still a kid. You decided to go and open up an office at 1650 Broadway,

a building only slightly lesser known than the Brill Building for these kind of songwriters. Who was in the building? At that time. Yeah. At that time, it might have actually been a more popular building. Is that so? Than the Brill Building.

Yeah, it might have been. The Brill Building had history that 1650 didn't have it was a beautiful art deco building and 1650 was not but when i started showing up there and opened my little office there which was you know in the early 60s that's where don kirschner and al nevin that's where Al Don was at 1650. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where Neil Bogart and Casablanca in the earlier days were located. And a lot of companies, lots of publishers,

lots of little record labels, every office. There was very little else but music companies. And you could walk those halls, as I often did, looking at the names on the doors and listening. Sometimes you'd hear the conversations of somebody playing piano. And it was very inspiring.

And for a kid, it just filled me with the desire to do what I knew those young people were doing, like Carol and Jerry and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and Neil Sedaka and Jack Keller and Allie Greenfield. Everybody was there. There were so many. Yeah. Jeff Barry and Allie Greenidge. Yeah, well, they were a different company, but yes, they were.

Right. Yeah. And Jack Keller. Yeah, you said them all. Everybody was there. Why, and this was just something that I found in my research research and why are so many of these wonderful songwriters jewish is there is there something and so many from brooklyn right well i would say firstly brooklyn was probably you know the world's largest jewish ghetto and and uh so it's no surprise that's where most of them came from.

Some maybe from the Bronx, but, you know, the majority from Brooklyn. And I think songwriting was always very appealing to the Jewish people. It was a way to be self-employed because, as we all know, Jews never really loved to work for people. They wanted their own business, which is why I think our ancestors had their own little, you know, they had their carts, and they conducted their business because they didn't want to answer to anybody.

You know, that was in their ethic. So it appealed to people. You know, I could write songs. It's something that was in their heart and in their blood. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that we all were nurtured on music in some way by our grandparents and our parents. And so, yeah, I wasn't surprised. It was something that the Jewish, the young Jewish people liked the Carols and the Jerrys and the Barrys. Well, it's fascinating.

Jeff Barry, Jack Keller, Mort Schumann, Doc Pommas, Jerry Goffin, Barry Mann, Sadek, Howie Greenfield. Lieber and Stoller. Lieber and Stoller, yourself. The list goes on and on. What's in the water? Neil Diamond. Neil Diamond, yes. Barry Manilow.

Yeah. The list goes on. And something that Frank and I have laughed about a few times is that every classic Christmas song. That too. The Jews wrote every classic Christmas song. Yeah. It's kind of crazy, but it's true. Yeah.

I had a manager in the Brill Building, and some of those guys were still in there as recently as the 80s. Johnny Marks, M-A-R-K-S. Sure. Do you know him? A little bit, yes. Yeah. The Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer song. Absolutely.

Tell us the Carole King story that you told me on the phone, because it's fun. And then Joe McGinty said you had a neil diamond story too yeah i do uh the carol king story i was signed to the tokens and uh they were allowing me to come up to their office and go into the room that had the piano and use it so after school literally almost every day i would would take the train, come into the city, use that office. I was 13. It was okay to travel on my own. I mean, that's the way it was in those days. And I'd sit in there, and it had the yellow pad and the pen and the pencil and the ashtray. And I would work and teach myself and work on ideas and try to learn to play things I loved. And like, what makes Up on the Roof so great?

And I struggled a little because I knew the music in my head, in the lyrics, but I needed to teach myself how to play it. And that was a process, needless to say. I did a lot of reading. I studied a little later on in my in my life and in my development but uh so sound like great romantic days looking back it was great yeah it was really great and the tokens were very kind to me and and jay siegel who i still talk to uh-huh uh it was lovely then he is lovely now and he still sings great and he's still working a lot.

And unfortunately, Hank Medres and Mitch Margo, two of the original tokens are gone. Yes. But Phil Margo is still alive. He's in Los Angeles. So they told me one day, listen, we need the room. You have to leave the room because someone's coming up to play us a song. I said, oh, okay, no problem.

He said, have you met Carole King? I said, no. I said, oh, okay, no problem. He said, have you met Carole King? I said, no. And I knew who she was, of course. I worshipped her even then. Well, she's coming up because they had He's So Fine, which was number one that they produced with the Chiffons. Carole was coming up to play them a new song that she thought would be a great follow-up to He's So Fine. And so they said, you could stay. So I did. I didn't go in the room. I was like right out in the hallway there.

But she came up and she played One Fine Day for them live. Wow. I had never heard it. It was brand new. And I was there. What a thing to witness. It was incredible. Yeah.

And yeah. What a thing to witness. It was incredible. Yeah. And yeah. What's the diamond story? The diamond story is that I knew Neil from the streets around 1650 and the Brill Building. I always thought, you know, he's a different kind of guy. He's more erudite.

He's less of a braggart. He doesn't have time to just hang around on the corner and tell you about all the next records he's got. He was busy and he was purposeful. And I kind of respected that. And we got to know each other a little, just high. And I knew a little bit about the fact that he'd been signed, I think, to a company called Roosevelt Music as a writer. This was before he had any hits. So I'm in my office in 1650 one night working on a song and I kept the outside door locked

just so that, you know, nobody would walk in. And there's a knock on the door and I open up the door. It's like there's a one inner office and a little outer waiting room. I open up the door and it's Neil. He knows me, you know, from seeing me around and me, him. I said, hi. He said, is this your office?

I said, yeah, this is my little company. Fling Music, it was called. Fling Music. Fling. I love it. So he said, well, I said, what can I do for you? What's going on? He said, I have some songs that I'm trying to place.

They're Christmas songs. I know it's May or June. There you go, Jewish guy with Christmas songs. He said, I'm trying to place these. And in those days, if you had a loose song, even I did it once in my entire life before I had my own little company, Fling. I remember writing a song with Lou Courtney,

my first collaborator, and we took it to Shapiro Bernstein, big publisher, and sold them the song for $50 and signed a contract, but they gave us a $50 advance. So that's the sort of thing that you could do if you had a song and a publisher liked it. They'd say, how much do you want? Or they would offer you something. And it wasn't that they were buying it outright. You still had an entitlement to some royalties, but that was the incentive. So he comes in. I said, well, I'd be happy to listen. And I said, I'm kind of curious too. And I knew May, June is when you get busy with Christmas songs because by the time you get to the fall, it's too late. So he comes in, he plays me these songs.

He was so good even then. And the songs were good. And when we were done, I said, you know, they're really good, but I think I wouldn't be doing you any favor if I made some kind of deal with you because this is like a one-man show here, a two-man show. It's me and Lou, and we work on our own songs, and it wouldn't be easy for us to shop something around. We don't

have a staff. So that was it. Well, years later, like I would say mid-70s, it had to be 10 years later or more, I was in Beverly Hills in one of the restaurants. I think it was Nate and Al's having breakfast. And he comes. I didn't know it was him, but he comes from behind me and gives me one of these incredible big bear hugs. And I look up and it's Neil. And he never forgot. I hadn't seen him in all that time.

Wow. And he had not forgotten that we once had that meeting in my office 10 years earlier. So that was a beautiful moment. That's nice. I was doing a little research on 1650. I sent you that article from the Wall Street Journal. Were you able to open that? I haven't yet. Gilbert, you know the

building. You know where Ellen's Stardust Diner is? Oh, yeah. That nostalgia diner? That's the building. And I think Iridium Jazz Club is in there, and I did some deep research. I think Martin and Lewis used to rehearse in that building. Do you know anything about this? I don't. Yeah.

No. Yeah. It's fascinating. I mean, it's still there. I also read that they were approached, the building owners were approached to put up a plaque, to erect a plaque on the building to acknowledge all of these everything that took place there and they shut they shut the idea down really they didn't they didn't want it i don't know if they didn't want the publicity or what tell us about three or four years ago i i asked

if i could walk around the building they've got oh you went back you know that's cool yeah and the guard said yeah go ahead and he let me go and i went up to the top floor and worked my way down every floor i think there were 10 floors in that building, something like that. It's not a particularly big building. And I frankly couldn't even remember my own suite number. Wow. I just don't recall.

I know we were on a low floor, maybe four or three, but I don't remember. But I got off on those floors and nothing looked the same. It had been redone a lot. Is there music publishing in the building still? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. A little bit.

There's all kinds of stuff entertainment related. And I guess that's part of the legacy of the building. Did you meet Spector in those days? Phil Spector? No. Never met him? No, I don't think I ever actually had any kind of face-to-face with him. Interesting.

And in the Catskills, did you ever run into any young men? Yes, absolutely. You saw everybody. Yeah, well, they played there. I mean, they were the headliners in the bigger hotels. But the hotels that were like the Concord, like Brown's, like Grossinger's, Nevely, Kutcher's, they had the bigger acts. You played all of those rooms?

Not all of them. I played the lounge in the Concord. I could never get, you know, Charlie Rapp, he was the big agent at the time. He wouldn't book me. He had too many bigger acts. So I had to work with the He wouldn't book me. He had too many bigger acts, so I had to work with the people that would book me. As a result, I worked in a lot of really low-end

places. They were fun to work in. The audiences were great, but it was Leibowitz's Pine View. Leibowitz's Pine View. That was a typical... That was my call on Wednesday.

Dennis? See, had Gilbert come along 10 years... What, 15 years earlier, Gil? Yes. You would have been playing in those rooms. He sort of just missed that wave. Yeah. And how many hotels were there in the Catskills back then?

I would have to venture a guess. 300. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. You wound up playing the Nevillee, didn't venture a guess. 300. Amazing. You wound up playing the Neville E. didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was a hotel on every corner.

There were bungalow colonies and they had shows. Great days. They were great days. They really were. They were great. And that's kind of where I learned what I needed. I learned what I needed. I felt what I needed to know to venture into the music business. I just felt like I had the best training.

If you could survive that and do well there, you could pretty much do anything. So you did a little bit of everything. You had a doo-wop group. What was it? The Dayhills? Yeah. You did a little doo-wop. You were right.

We're going to ask you later when you worked with Burgess Meredith because that's just fascinating. But you were doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You told me on the phone you wrote a song for Jerry Lee Lewis. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Yeah, that's also fun. But eventually, in what you were talking about before, you met these three big shots don arden and uh and um grant grant yeah

peter grant was managing what led zeppelin they brought then it was the yard birds yard birds but right they brought you over there and you met brian potter your song you who would become your songwriting partner and then you guys how did how did you make the decision with with brian i think we can write together it's just one of those sort of things that's like destiny. Yeah. When I met him, it was in 65, and we didn't actually get together until 69. So four years went by, and during those four years,

a lot happened. I mean, maybe not so much in terms of what he looked at as his life because he was working in the same business. He was with Don for a few years. Then he worked for Lionel Bart, the composer of Oliver. Yeah, sure. Also doing essentially the same thing, running songs, writing a little bit. And so, yeah, I met him and i he he was uh assigned to me you know dennis is very

young he can't get around he doesn't know london so you have to take him wherever you know we're sending him and they were sending me to rehearse with the nashville teens yeah i remember the nashville teens yeah they had a huge hit called Tobacco Road, and I got to produce the next record. So Brian was accompanying me everywhere, and I just thought, this guy is sort of like one of a kind. He knew more about America than I knew, or that I think anybody I knew knew about America.

He knew more about the music business in America than anyone I knew or that I think anybody I knew knew about America. He knew more about the music business in America than anyone I knew. He was an avid fan of jazz, not that I was. I wasn't, but he grew up in England in a little pub where they had soldiers stationed during and after the war. So you had to go to the UK to meet a guy who knew the most about American music or anybody that you had ever met. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Pretty crazy. But we really had an incredible friendship.

A real bond was formed. And then he stayed in England. I went back. I continued to work. And then I got drafted. I went into the Army for two years. So that's a lot of time and a lot of territory, you know, that separated us first meeting to when ultimately I said,

would you like to come to California? I'm getting out and I'm going to go right out to California. Don Costa's waiting. Brian knew who he was, of course. And I said, you know, maybe I can get you a job running the songs because I knew that Don didn't have anybody doing that yet. It was a new company. He was just getting it established out there. And when it actually came to shove and I offered him the job when I was in California a few months, he said, no, I can't accept it. And I thought, what? And he said, if I can't write songs, I can't accept the job and come as a publisher and misrepresent what my first love is.

I'll run around a little bit with songs once I know the city and do that. But I have to be able to write songs. So I have to say no. And I went back to Don and I said, this guy is so committed to writing songs. What do you think? Should we bring him and let him write? And I wasn't thinking it would be with me. I thought maybe we'll write something. But he said, sure, bring him.

So I go back to Brian. I say, it's okay. You can write songs and run songs as a publisher for us, as a plugger. And he said, great, I'm coming. And March 1969, flew to California. I met him, lived with me and my then wife for three months till he got settled. And during...

Go ahead. I was going to say, during those months, we started to fool around with some music. Yeah, what was the process? Because you were saying before, people assumed that you would play and that he was writing lyrics, but it wasn't necessarily that way.

You would... No, and he knew how I worked. I mean, you know, I don't know that... Yeah, he heard me play. You know, when I was in England, I sat down and played some things. And I knew that he'd written a wide variety of interesting songs as well with different people. He played me his demos. I played him mine.

And I remember leaving him three or four of the songs he really liked that I played him. And he got a couple of them recorded by acts in England that were doing well, that had chart records. Wow. So he was coming through for me. And I thought, this is incredible. He was very generous and unselfish and focused.

And we had this thing like brothers. We were instant brothers. That's so sweet. It's so nice when it clicks like that that when that chemistry kicks in what was the breakthrough lambert potter song was it one tin soldier yes it was i think it might have been if it wasn't our first it was our second song we we uh we i remember you know we had this group that we found. They were Canadian, and they were like a pop rock sort of group, folk rock at that time.

They were really good. They had an incredible lead singer. Dixie Lee Innes was her name, and she was amazing, like a Karen Carpenter kind of a singer, great voice. And the band was good, and they were very organic. And we said, you you know we need to write them some songs they had good songs but they didn't have anything we thought sounded like a hit so we wrote once in soldier for them and when we finished it we we looked at each other and we said

where did this come from it was just like it's an anti-war song written by a Jewish guy from Brooklyn and a Brit. Yeah, it was kind of crazy, you know, and I think it was one of those moments that we actually thought it must have been channeled through us somehow. Because it wasn't a conscious decision we made to come up with that idea and make it into this little fable and turn it into, you know, I mean, Brian knew I had very strong feelings about the war, having served and being kind of conflicted about it. You know, my own peers were doing things very different than what I was doing for the two years I was in the army. So I was thinking, well, you know, I'm just doing what millions of other Americans

have done before, serve our country in a time of war. Whether you think they're right or they're not, you serve. You were called and you do it. My peers who were not in the service, of course, were, you know, busy protesting and burning draft cards and going to Canada and taking over administration buildings at universities. And I was very divided and conflicted by all of that.

I didn't know what to think and feel, which is, I think, partly what pushed me to throw out to Brian that we should try to write something for them that's like a bit of a protest. That just sort of sprung out of the two of you. I think so. Can we hear a little bit of One Tenth Soul? Sure. Gilbert and I like this one. Listen, children, Listen children to a story That was written long ago

About a kingdom on a mountain And the valley folk below On the mountain was a treasure buried deep beneath a stone and the valley people swore they'd have it for their very own so go ahead and hate your neighbor. Go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of heaven. You can justify it in the end. There won't be any trumpets blowing.

Come the judgment day. On the bloody morning after One tin soldier rides away Fantastic. Oh, great. Thank you. Great, thanks. How did it end up in Billy Jack?

Yeah, that was kind of crazy. Great. Thanks. How did it end up in Billy Jack? Yeah, that was kind of crazy. We were working, Brian and I, for a little company that we were kind of a part of forming called TA, Talent Associates. So they said they were trying to build their TV company and they wanted to bring in a guy named Steve Binder, who was a very, very well-known television director. We had him on the show. Okay. We had Steve on the show. Okay. We had Steve, yeah. Dear friend. Good man.

You know, another major mentor of mine. Oh, we love him. Meets me, says, I want you to run this little record company. I mean, I've got to do my TV stuff, and I'll be involved. Of course, it's my passion. But I want you, and Brian was with me, so he said, you guys can kind of run it day to day, do your thing, write songs, make records. So he said, you know, you guys can kind of run it day to day, do your thing, write songs, make records. So we signed the original cast. We make this record comes out.

It did pretty well. You know, it was on the charts. It didn't go all the way, but in Canada, it was number one where they're from. And it was, I think top 30 or something like that, you know, on the chart. So about a few months after it had been a success, I get a call in the office. I pick it up and it's a guy calling me by the name of Tom Laughlin, who I'd never heard of. Billy Jack. He introduced himself. Yeah. He said, I'm a director. I'm an actor. I have this movie I'm making. And I heard a song that I was told you, he's, did you write One Tin Soldier? I said yes. He said well I was camping in Canada in the middle of nowhere with my wife

we do that kind of thing and he said I heard this song on my radio and I thought this is being sent to me directly from God. Great. And I need this song in my movie because it is the story of my movie and i said wow that

is so great i was thrilled it was maybe my first opportunity to get something in a movie so uh of course i go to the business people at our label and the first question they have is how much are we going to get for giving it to them to use in the movie? I said, well, it's not for me to negotiate, but I think we should be thinking we should give them this song and have a shot at additional promotion and the good that could come out of it, more exposure, because we all were a little disappointed with what happened in the end with the original cast, that first record.

Nope, they wanted money. And when I first record. Nope, they wanted money. And when I told Laughlin that they wanted money, and it wasn't an insignificant amount. I mean, they wanted like 10 grand or something. He said, well, you know, they're going to force me to record it on my own. And instead of asking me would I do it, because I might have figured out a way to do that,

he just went in and did it on his own with a group he found that was coven coven yeah and uh i think he had the guy who wrote the musical score to billy jack produced the record and when we heard the record we thought okay i mean it's very similar to what we had done they copied copied our record. Wasn't, in my opinion, as good, but the movie, of course, was the, you know... It elevated it. Uplift, yeah. Yeah, of course. We will return to

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 your dish. Going for a run or just running late? Do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Introducing TD Insurance for Business, with customized coverage options for your business.

Because at TD Insurance, we understand that your business is unique, so your business insurance should be too. Whether you're a shop owner, a pet groomer, a contractor, or a consultant, you can get customized coverage for your business. Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. And now I have to jump totally out of left field and go back to the Catskills. I asked Neil Sadaka to do this, and he did. Did you ever sing My Yiddish Amama?

I did, actually. Can I hear some of that? Gilbert, you hit pay dirt. Oh, man. I'm trying to think if I can remember the Yiddish lyrics. My Yiddish lyrics. We make you work on us. My Yiddish amame. I know the English.

Yes. I miss her more than ever now. My Yiddish amame. I love to kiss her wrinkled brow I love to hold her hand once more as in days gone by and ask her

to forgive me for things I did to make her cry. Beautiful. Beautiful. He takes requests, Gilbert. Great. Thank you, Dennis.

Thank you. I didn't know it in Yiddish. I just can't remember it now. Wow. That was great. Great, great. We're going to play that at your service, Gil.

So, Once in Soldier Wow. That was great. Great, great. We're going to play that at your service, Gil. So One Tin Soldier puts you guys on the map as songwriters, as songwriters to be reckoned with, and Don't Pull Your Love was the next hit? You mean Brian Potter? Yeah, you and Brian. Yeah. Yes, the next really big hit. We had written it. uh a favorite I recorded

it I recorded it as a group called the country star they were a little kind of uh you know studio group me singing lead studio musicians the wrecking crew kind of guys, you know, actually some of them. And we thought we were going to release it on TA Records. But it didn't come out because we were experiencing a hiccup with the funding for our label. The bosses, the owners, were not expecting us to be hitting them up for more money as frequently as we were. I see. And they just didn't opt in for that. They thought this was going to kind of pay for itself somehow.

And we were all a bit disillusioned. But that was just the way it was. So I took the record thinking, we've got to do something with this song. So I took the record thinking we got to do something with this song. And I thought maybe I could get it placed on another label since we saw the end was near. I went to see Steve Barry. Another music legend. Yes. Legendary producer, songwriter, head of A&R for Dunhill Records.

You know, very powerful, important guy. I didn't know anything about him, but when I met him for the first time and met his wife, who we had just married then, I met somebody that was going to become a lifelong friend, both of them, and to this day they are. Dear, dear friend. That's nice. So I go in and I play Don't pull your love by me and steve absolutely

flips for the song on the spot and says i want to play this for the grassroots i mean this was like a dream come true the grassroots had like 10 consecutive top 10 singles they were coming off like i'd wait a million years number one and uh okay, you know, how are you going to say no to that? Yeah, I sort of passed on insisting it be me and my record. I thought to get a grassroots cut, please. You know, this is what I really was dreaming about. So we give him the song. And then, I don't know, a month later, he tells us, they just can't get it.

It's not working. And I was devastated. Rob Grill couldn't sing it. No, he couldn't sing it. And I got to know Rob Grill really well. And at one point, I signed the grassroots when they left Dunhill to my little label. I loved Rob Grill. He was a great singer.

But I guess there were things that maybe he just couldn't feel. And this was, you know, a little bit of an odd feel, the song. And so Steve says, no, they can't do it. But he said, all is not lost. Well, as far as I was concerned, you know, all was lost. But he said, I have this new group I just signed. And he tells me they're Hamilton, I just signed. And he tells me they're Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds. I said, oh, he's signing law firms. I said, you know, who are they? He said, yeah, that's their name. Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds. They're guys. Danny Hamilton, Joe Frank, Carollo and Tommy Reynolds. OK, let me try it with them. Well, I was not going to pull it away from him. I said, OK. Okay, let me try it with them.

Well, I was not going to pull it away from him. I said, okay. And he did it. And he was reporting to us that he thought it sounded amazing. And then we came in to hear it. And when we came in to hear it, and he said, and everybody in the company thinks it's going to be number one. And we were excited about that. He, in that meeting, said, I'd like to introduce you to Jay Lasko, the president, because if you guys are interested, I'd love to bring you over here to Dunhill.

And I was like, what? You know, this was an incredible opportunity. I might have gotten there with the questions, but he beat me to the punch. And he walked us up to meet Jay and a few of the other people. And in a minute, we were there. We had an office.

We had a piano. That's great. We had access to the studio. We weren't employees, but we felt like part of the team, part of the staff. But Jay made a great deal for us and gave us autonomy and gave us control. And that was because Steve said, let these guys do what they do.

And Steve knew that they those were the right guys to record that that record i guess so yeah i always thought elvis would have knocked that one out of the park don't don't pull your love because danny hamilton is a little bit like that kind of that kind of singing voice yes absolutely like suspicious minds yeah bring to mind yeah yeah we love that one. Here's another strange request. Every songwriter we've had on, I always love it, every great songwriter has that at least one song that they just cringe that they wrote. You know, they just go, oh, God, how did I do that? Well, the man's written 600 songs.

Yeah. So do you have one? 550 make me cringe. Yeah. 550 make him cringe. Do you have one you could think of that you go, oh, God, how horrible? My son, who, of course, knows a lot of my music. Yes.

Your son, Joey. He holds my feet to the fire although i have to say he's one of my big fans yes and you know always been incredibly supportive thinks that you know uh i'm half black i mean he thinks like where did you come up with some of these jams you know like but he's a good question song i wrote that he came across years ago called caught with my heart down caught with your heart down i gotta hear it and you know the analogy of course so we are using all of those kinds of analogies in the song that you know like i didn't know i turned around and something was loose and the next thing i know, I'm caught with my heart down.

So I don't even remember, frankly, how it goes, but I can tell you that was the one I've paid dearly for. Well, you're going to have to come back and sing that one. Caught with my heart down. But since you mentioned... I'll learn it. Since you mentioned writing for black artists, and, you know, those Temptation songs, excuse me, those four top songs, you also work with the Temptations, but specifically the four top songs, fascinating.

Again, that you guys could write not only something like Keeper of the Castle, but Ain't No Woman Like the One I Got, which they said those songs were as good as anything they got at Motown, which must have flattered you guys tremendously. Yeah. Oh, it did. And we knew that's what it would take. When we heard that they were leaving Motown, I kind of ran into Steve Barry's office. I said, have you heard that the Four Tops are leaving? And he hadn't yet. And that put in motion setting up meetings.

Jay Lasker had his people call their manager and you know we we of course pitched why we wanted them to come in and that we wanted to make an album with them multiple albums if we could and that we thought we could deliver the hits and Jay said well you know no one ever left Motown that ever made it and And we knew that. And we said, it's because they just didn't have the songs they needed to have a career outside of Motown. That's all it really would have taken, commitment to promotion and marketing and the right music.

And there's nothing magical about a particular label, although I think Motown was, you know, there's fairy dust sprinkled on that company. And I always loved their artists and their music and their people. Yeah, agreed. But, you know, Jay said, OK, let's bring them in. And so we had meetings with them. First, the business was done and then the creative meetings.

And as nice as they were, and they were incredibly nice. And we had a great series of meetings talking about music and their records that i loved so much and brian loved so much we thought how are we going to follow what they've had hits with i mean the greatest r&b songs possibly of that generation it's a tough act to follow yeah and uh but that was the challenge. And I particularly loved the group. And I loved them in part so much because they were a group that played the Catskills. And I saw them multiple times in the 50s when they were working at the big hotels as a kind of a four-freshman Mills Brothers type group. You know, harmonies, songs that adults would understand. No rock and roll. I mean, a few little things, but some blues songs and stuff.

But, you know, nothing that you would call pop. I knew how great they were. I knew how deep their talent was. And I knew, I learned were. I knew how deep their talent was. And I knew, I learned that Lawrence Payton, one of the four original guys, was the primary vocal arranger for the group. And he was capable of doing things that they had never done on record.

And I thought if we could write them songs that are a little more complex for background vocals, Lawrence will kill this. He'll arrange these things, and the beautiful thing is they invited me in to sing with them, which was such a thrill for me. What a thrill. Did you play them all at once,

Keeper of the Castle and the other songs? Yeah, pretty much. We spent like six weeks writing for them, doing nothing else, and I think we came up with about six or seven songs that we really liked in that period. Not every song, because then we knew they might have a few. You know, Obie Benson, one of the four tops,

wrote What's Going On with Marvin Gaye. And so, I mean, he had songs. And all the guys had something. You know, Lawrence did. Not Levi so much, but Lawrence and Obi. What was the thrill to suddenly hear your words and your music coming out of the great Levi Stubbs? Because you've been a fan for so long.

Oh, my God. What an experience. It was just incredible. And he could think on his feet and ad lib on his feet. He knew how to take a song from that first level of intensity. He knew when to pull back a little bit and then went kind of double down. And you were into like, you know, the end, the fade. He was the greatest ad-libber. He could come up with these inspirational little lines and little lyrical ideas that he pulled from the body of the song. And it was thrilling. And we made that first album, which had, I thought, five songs in it that could have been hits.

I thought five songs in it that could have been hits. And unfortunately, and even then, I remember us, Steve Barry and I and Brian going to Jay and pitching him hard on the idea that let's not abandon releasing singles because the albums are where you make the money. Because in our minds, if you had four or five hits, you'd sell a ton more albums. Yeah, sure yeah sure yeah that was the writing on the wall yeah even in you know 1972 but uh they didn't see it that way they thought you know it's run its course we had two top tens you know they were

big records ain't no woman and keeper of Castle. Time for another album. We had songs on that album like Remember What I Told You to Forget, which we loved, which Tavares had a hit with. We had a song called Love Music that we loved, that we thought was a smash, and they never saw the light of day. Of course, people covered them. Are You Man Enough was on, that came later? The second album. Second album, yeah, also great.

Oh, thank you. Can I push you to work again and do a short medley on some of your hits, which I'd just love to hear from me. Regardless of who did them? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. All right. So.

Alright, so... Every day the sun comes up around her She can make the birds sing harmony Every drop of rain is glad it found her Heaven must have made her just for me When she smiled so warm and tender A sight for sore eyes to see Ooh, ain't no woman like the one I got Oh no, they don't come bitter To make her happy doesn't take a lot You don't ask for things, no diamond ring Sewed together like a hand in glove like pages in a letter

ain't no woman like the one i love say you don't know me my face Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place Knee deep in the hoopla Sinking

in your fight Too many runaways Yeeting up the night Marco replays the mamba Listen to the radio Don't you remember

We built this city We built this city On rock and roll And I'll just end it there. Cool. Oh, thank you. I like what you've done with that. Thank you.

I like what you've done with it. I did that live, so I kind of jazzed it up a little bit. And I started off the interview with kind of mocking that song, and I love the way you sing it just now. Oh, well, thanks. I love every version of that song, so sue me. Yeah. That made me really appreciate that song.

You won me over. Well, thanks. What about Night Shift, Dennis, which we talked about, too, on the phone? And you said that that song has an interesting creation, an interesting process. Yes, absolutely. Because you asked in advance if there was a song that I could talk a little bit about how it got written, the process itself. Yeah, we're curious. And then we'll talk about the Philippines. Yeah, okay. So I was called by Motown to meet with the Commodores. I was excited

about it. I always loved them. I knew that Lionel was officially no longer in the group. He had just left to pursue his solo career. And that was, you know, the writing was on the wall. Everybody could see that was coming. But they were great friends and I think they still are. So I went to meet with them and they were like a bit gutted and a bit confused and somewhat in doubt about their future and I understood that. On the other hand, they had 13 consecutive platinum albums

and Walter Orange, Clyde as he's referred to, the drummer with the big glasses, he was the original lead singer who did most of the early stuff. He wrote and sang Brick House and a bunch of the other early songs. And I kind of felt that he could easily sing other new songs we do and pull them off. It didn't require Lionel. And I also thought that maybe we should be doing things that are more rhythmic and not ballads per se, like they'd been doing a lot of with Lionel.

So in the process of writing for them and getting songs gathered and meeting with them individually and collectively to hear what they had started or what they, you know, ideas they had. Clyde, he and I had a kind of an instant bond, such a lovely guy. He and a great drummer. So he said, I want to just play you something. And he plays me a cassette of a little groove that he worked on at home, you know, like a home demo. And it was just, there wasn't any music, just a groove. And there was actually a little plucking guitar. And it was like, And I remembered loving the groove. I said, oh, that's a cool little groove. I like it. And he gave loving the groove.

I said, oh, that's a cool little groove. I like it. And he gave me the cassette. So now I tuck that away in my pocket. And we're talking a little bit about the song and maybe me working on it with him. And he says to me, what do you think about a song that would be a tribute to Marvin Gaye? Because he had just died that year. And I said, well,

if we're careful and if we could pull off a great song that's not preachy, that's not heavy handed, it could be good. He said, you know Marvin was a friend of mine and when he said that to me a light bulb went off because it was like the the opening line the line in and I sometimes you need that you know you need that way in right and it was an unusual situation because I was writing a lot with Franny Goldie she and I wrote Don't Look Any Further and we wrote Night Shift and a bunch of other songs as well for a lot of different artists that I was writing a lot with Franny Goldie. She and I wrote Don't Look Any Further, and we wrote Night Shift and a bunch of other songs as well for a lot of different artists that I was producing. And I love working with Franny.

She's a great songwriter and an incredible person to be around. So we have a date to meet in the studio. I'm already starting some stuff with them, and she comes in, brings the bagel, sits early in the morning. We're going to sit at the piano. I play her the groove. I said, you know, this is something Walter played me. I really like this groove. She listens to it. She says, Yeah, it's a great little groove. I said, you know, we can cop that on the piano. I mean, we don't need to have that a full demo, you know, going. I said, he tells me that, you know,

he was a friend of Marvin Gaye's. And he said, Marvin was a friend of mine. And I said, I thought, wow, what a great first line. You know, Marvin, he was a friend of mine. We didn't have the melody yet, but, so she's into it, she gets it. And before we could blink, I said to, I said to Franny, you know,

what we should try to do if you like this idea, I said is first,'s let's include jackie wilson because if you remember jackie wilson had been like in a coma yeah a long time yeah like eight years and he died the same year as marvin and i said he's a legend he's michael jackson's idol we should include him she said yeah absolutely okay so now I said what if we take

the best parts of all their hits and lift little parts of the lyric in our lyric to make it seem familiar but it's gonna be a delicate process. Very clever. She understood that.

Yeah, she said, that's a great idea. So before we knew it, we had the verses pretty much written. But, you know, so we had like, Marvin, he was a friend of mine And he could sing a song His heart in every line Marvin, Marvin

So we finished the verses, but we didn't have a chorus. And when you develop a song, didn't have a chorus. And when you develop a song before you have a chorus, before you have a title, it sort of like puts you in this place where you're stuck because you think, what are we trying to say? What is the point of this? What pays off for this story about Marvin and how he sang things that made us feel things we hadn't felt and connected to things that were important social issues and Jackie who was this incredible dancer and you know set the world on fire and and was working out you know workout baby uh and I remember we're thinking and we're struggling we're trying to find a title for it,

and nothing was coming, and Franny just looked at me and said, what about the night shift? That it was the night shift that they were on because they're gone now. And I looked at her and I said, that is just fucking brilliant. That's great.

That is exactly what we were looking for. And once we had that word, that phrase, it put the period at the end of the sentence. It was easy to back into what we were going to say. Going to be some sweet sounds coming down on the night shift. Sweet sounds coming down on the night shift. I bet you're singing proud. I bet you pull a crowd.

It just opened it up for all the things you could say about how they get together in heaven and do that thing. We love that. We love how songs come together and are constructed. neil took us through uh oh amazing together yes told us he borrowed do it again from from brian wilson and it and basically he built love will keep us together off that yeah off that riff yeah that actually was the winning record of the year the same year we were up for record of the year for Rhinestone. 75? 75. Yeah, very good. And they won. We love this. We love how songs

come together. With the 10 minutes we have left... Oh, wait a second. What? We gotta talk about his journey. We haven't... We have to get to your journey, but we haven't sang Rhinestone Cowboy together. Let's do it.

You're not leaving here unless I sing Rhinestone Cowboy with you. You want to talk about the Philippines and then close with that, Gil? Or you want to do it now? Yeah. Okay. Each one of you should take a section. Okay. You first. Where hustle's the name of the game

And nice guys get washed away Like the snow and the rain There's been a load of compromising On the road to my horizon But I'm gonna be where the lights are shining on me. Like a rhinestone cowboy. Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo. Like a rhinestone cowboy

Getting cards and letters From people I don't even know And offers coming over the phone the phone Like a rhinestone cowboy Thank you. You know you weren't leaving without us doing that. Okay, I'm happy. You scratched

his itch, Dennis. Oh, that thank you. We'll come back to Glenn at the end, but let's talk about the Okay, I'm happy. You scratched his itch, Dennis. Oh, thank you. We'll come back to Glenn at the end, but let's talk about the documentary that we all just watched and your magical trip to the Philippines. Yeah. The promoter that tried to get you to go there for what, 30 years? Yeah, 30 years.

What was his name, Brendan? A little bit more. Yeah. And wasn't it your career, after 600 songs, you are kind of like, I'm sorry, how do you spell your name? Like, it had become like that, like, that people didn't know you after 600 songs. Well, that's not uncommon.

Yeah. You know, people in the industry sort of knew me and still do, many still do, who love music and follow the history of songs and songwriters. But the public typically doesn't know the songwriters, they know the artists, and the artists get most of the credit for having brought those songs into the world, and that's okay. In my case, since I started as a singer, and I always wanted to sing and always did sing on my records that I produced with many of the artists, like I mentioned with the Four Tops,

inviting me to be one of the background singers on every single song, loved it. I sang a lot with Natalie Cole. I sang a lot with lots of artists. They always heard me sing, and they said, hey, why don't you do a lot with Natalie Cole I sang a lot with lots of artists they always heard me sing and they said hey you know you do a part with us so that was great I got my fill but Steve Barry who heard me play and sing a lot of our new song said you should make an album and I would love to produce it and we'll you know we'll do it on Dunhill it'll come out and I thought wow what an

opportunity and and the thing that I thought, wow, what an opportunity. And the thing that I thought also was interesting is that we, Brian and I, were used to putting on a different hat every day for a different artist, try to think like them, what would we do for the Four Tops or for Smith or for the Grassroots

or for Hamilton, Joe Frangin, you know. And each of them were a little different. You know, you had to think female, male, pop, more R&B, whatever. This was an opportunity to write singer-songwriter kinds of songs, but still with a, you know, fundamentally commercial ethic and underpinning. So it was a great chance to do that. And again, we woodshed it.

We wrote the songs. We were very proud of them. We thought they were really good. And Steve did a great job. We labored over it, made a really good album. And the label loved it. The label thought it was going to be really big. They thought I was going to have the male tapestry

because Carol's album had just come out 72 very yeah same year as mine yeah hers was a little ahead of me and you know started to do really well and they said this is like that this is that kind of album and they were making the comparison she's the songwriter from the brooklyn and so are you you. So they went after it and they spent money and they did a good, I thought they made a concerted effort to promote it, but it just didn't stick. And I'm not sure what went wrong exactly. We all thought the music was right.

We thought we made some hits, but they just didn't stick. And so we moved on. And, you know, I wasn't all that broken hearted. I was disappointed a little bit, but I had plenty of other things going on and lots of songs being cut and things that were becoming big hits in that same time frame. So I didn't have any time to sulk. Right. Didn't have any time to sulk. Right.

About six months or so or a year later, we started to hear from the people that worked in the international department that the record was really big in the Philippines. And they were kind of making a joke about it, you know. And I thought, well, since I hadn't seen any real money coming from there, what could it really mean? I just underestimated the importance of that market and the 60 or whatever 70 million people there that love music with a passion yeah and uh and they're a unique a unique race and a

unique breed of people and uh somehow because of that promoter who was then then a young DJ on a big station in Manila, and have the ability to choose what he wanted to play. He found my album, he fell in love with it, and he started to play it and play it a lot. And it started to stick. And one of the songs became a huge, huge single. And so much so that it became the unofficial national Valentine's Day song for the country. That's of all the things. Of all the things. It still is. Yeah.

You're our third guest composer who found major success, surprise success in the Philippines. Okay. Paul Williams has been on this show. Major star in the Philippines. Okay. Paul Williams has been on this show. Major star in the Philippines. Yeah. And Charles Fox.

Yeah. And Charles Fox also? Yes. Major star. I do. Yes. You guys all had big success in the Philippines. Charles as an artist or his music? I guess his music. Yeah.

Okay, yeah. And as a matter of fact, I was always in love with the musical score to this movie Zapped with Scott Baio, which is one of these tits and ass teen comedies. And I thought the movie's bad, boy i like the music and he said that me and the people of the philippines are the only people who appreciate that music score i i have songs that they know over there and and worship it's amazing that i that i had no idea until I spent enough time with people who really get deep into the musical trenches. Like, I went back for the second time about three years ago, and I did two shows, and they were in big venues, not like the Araneta Coliseum, but beautiful.

They have an area in Manila that is like Vegas on Manila Bay. There's all these gorgeous big resorts with casinos and gambling and showrooms, big theaters. So one of the people that I co-headlined a show with, a very popular artist in the Philippines, a lady by the name of Joey Albert. She said to me, of course, you're going to sing hardcore poetry, right? I said, what? I mean, I hadn't listened to hardcore poetry in probably 10 years, no less played it. She said, oh, I mean, that's like one

of your biggest songs. And everybody knows you wrote that because they put that together even though it wasn't my song as an artist it wasn't on my album it was on a Tavares album but Tavares are very big in the Philippines also made this yes and when they discovered this song by Tavares and that I had written it they they just put it in the same league with of all the things. So in an impromptu kind of way, we put an arrangement of it together that very day and sang it. And my wife couldn't believe she was with me on that trip. She didn't go the first time. So she said she was sitting where I could see her.

And we start the song with the intro. And I don't even think I can play it now. I don't remember it. It's a difficult song to play. And I learned it just for that concert. But I'm playing the intro. And I'm seeing everybody in their seats. And they're all clapping.

And I start the song. And they're all singing with me. They wouldn't even let me establish the song. That's great. The entire audience sang every word from the top of it to the end. And my wife said to me, that was the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. That's great. And it was

amazing, I have to say. So Renan was asking you, the promoter who was a DJ then, was asking you what, for 30 years, for 40 years, something like that, to come to the Philippines ever since Bags and Things came out in 72. And you were too busy, and you didn't want to disrupt your life, and you didn't want to disrupt your career, and there never seemed like a good time to go until you basically

retired from the music business. Almost. I mean, I wasn't really officially retired. Not officially retired. Yeah, but I was living in South Florida. Right. And my wife wife my son my daughter everybody was saying to me i mean what's stopping you now i understand when you were you

know in la and you're crazy with projects and even in new york i had a record label i was running it for five six years you know he would come to me then too and i said no i'm too busy you know finally they said well what are you too busy with now a condo like i said you know my wife said you know the real estate isn't going anywhere it'll be here if that's what you're worried about she gave you good advice yeah but i said you know it's not about that it's about it's so daunting to get an entire show put together of songs. I mean, I'm going to go over there and be in these big venues. He's promising me that you've got thousands and thousands of fans. And the more he said that, the more frightened I was. Right.

And you had to form a band over there. You didn't bring a band with you. That's right. And I had a band that I wanted to bring, and at first he was going to let me. And I thought, great, that's great. That's my security blanket. I've played with them.

They're great. But when he decided it wasn't going to be just one or two concerts in Manila, we were going to travel around the country, his partners all said, oh, no, if you're going to bring Dennis Lambert, we must have him in Cebu. So all the people that he would do things with said, we got to have him in cebu so all the people that he would do things with it's fascinating we gotta have him so okay and then it became i can't afford to fly your whole band from city to city it's just too expensive so if we can bring a local band from here we can rehearse here and then i don't know why that was so different, but maybe because they're locals, they get a different kind of deal.

I don't know. Bottom line, they were already there. There was no international flight necessary. So I rehearsed in Manila. We felt prepared. I gave myself a little extra protection in how I did the show. So I had live elements. You saw I had a guitar player and background singers, but I had the show. So I had live elements.

You saw I had a guitar player and background singers, but I had a box that had a lot of pre-recorded tracks. But they were fed to the mixer, and they sounded amazing. They really did. So that's how we did it. And it was incredibly life-changing. And your son Jody went with you and made a documentary about it. Yes, very wisely.

He talked to a few of his friends. And he said, look, this could be nothing, but it could also turn into something crazy. Look at this story. What a journey. I mean, I was saying to Gilbert, one day you're selling condos, and the next day you're performing in manila for 16 000 people in an arena i know and getting standing ovations how bizarre yeah but it's so it was really bizarre it's great that you went and did it it's great that you went and scratched that itch and so you

don't have to go through the rest of your life never knowing that's so true and and of course once i did it and i felt that i prepared properly and and reconnected with all of my songs, learned how to play them and sing them and get comfortable again. I didn't want to stop. Once I got back, I said, I have to work with this band that I have locally and do as many gigs as I can because it's too much fun. And now I feel like I can do it. I'm ready.

So we started working. I wish we worked more, but we do, I would say, you know, on an average of maybe 10 gigs a year. Okay. You know, they're usually nice gigs, you know, I go to Joe's pub in New York. I went to, yeah, you know, that's how I met you through McGinty, Joe McGinty at Joe's pub. Yeah. And I worked, I worked at his little club. Yes. And in the Philippines, it shows. I mean, when you're on stage, it's not other singers doing your stuff. It's you, and you're like Elvis Presley to them.

Yeah, not quite. I remember my son said, Dad, no dancing. There was a point at which I got up on one of the early shows because it was a track. I didn't need to sit at the piano. So I got up, and after the show, he said, Dad, no more dancing. You know, Sadak is 80, and when you go see him, he dances still.

Yeah. I get it. You know, we all feel it. That's right. Of course. I didn't exactly do a tap routine. I got up and moved a little bit. Your son Jody is a filmmaker.

He wrote a movie with Chris Pine and Michelle Pfeiffer that came out, People Like Us. He's having success in the movie business. And then when the documentary started doing the festival circuit, there was talk of a feature adaptation. And what's going on with all that? Okay. Well, I can't tell you too much because of what's going on at this very moment. What I can tell you is that when the economy tanked in 2008, a lot of the smaller companies that were

distributing documentary films went out of business. And had they even not gone out of business, I'm not sure that any of them could have afforded to pay the licensing fees we would have needed to pay to get this released commercially as a documentary. There's 31 songs in that documentary, and everybody wants to get paid, even if it's a modest amount. So it was the reason we couldn't get it released. And it sat there and we were very frustrated because in the festival circuit, where it had played probably in 25, 30 festivals around the world, around the country,

it was so well received. It was getting awards. It was audience favorite. People were falling in love with that little movie. And we thought, what a shame that we can't find a wider audience but it was going to be in excess of a hundred thousand dollars to license the music got the videos so it's sitting there and then out of nowhere jody gets a call his agent or somebody that warner brothers wants to meet with him and he met with them and they

said we know your doc, we've seen it. People on the staff there that Jody knew. And we would like to talk about optioning the rights to do a feature film with Steve Carell as your dad. And, you know, we were excited about it on the one hand. And on the other hand, we quickly learned that there wasn't really going to be much of a role for us to play in it.

They wanted to give it to Carell, let him do his thing with his people, his writers. And in a vote of two to one, Jody being the vote against the deal, we said, we're going to do the deal with Warners. And we did. And he was right. Two years later, we got the rights back. They wrote a bad screenplay. Carell didn't like it. The studio didn't like it.

Nothing came of it. And so we got it back and it was just sitting there. And we were trying to figure out like a few years ago what we could do to resurrect it. Maybe it's not too late, but we were beginning to think it was. And then, like once again, and I think it is destiny, Jody gets a call from an executive that he knew who had left a place she'd been

and joined a big company and said, tell me about the doc. Does Warner still have it? He said, no, we got it back. She said, you know, truly got it back completely up well i just happened to float the idea the other day in a creative meeting and everybody's eyes lit up and everybody wants to talk about this and and the bosses want to meet you and so he went in and

and we have since made a deal with them fantastic Fantastic. And it's in active pre-production. Bravo. Fingers are crossed. Bravo. That's the only thing I can't do because it hasn't been announced. No, don't tell us that stuff. Yeah, but that's great news. And it's a story that should be told and seen.

It's a wonderful idea for a movie. I can tell you that Jody has written an incredibly great screenplay. Great. It's really really good and what a tough job to take a doc and and and be so close to it yeah he's close to the material and and create a narrative story that works that feels really important and and is entertaining and funny and heartwarming and doesn't lose the spirit of it. The core of the doc is a warm, sweet story, I think.

And I could tell you from all the festivals that I attended that audiences were constantly coming up to us afterwards and saying, this has redefined for me what getting older means and how I need to let go or how I need to rediscover what I love. Yeah, because it's a second act movie. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

Yeah. Wonderful. We loved it. We all watched it. Dara, too. We loved it. Oh, great. Gil, you want to let this man return to his life?

Yeah. Well, I can't think of any songs offhand I want to do with you, so I'm going to have to let you go. Against my best wishes. And there's so much we didn't talk about, Dennis, but we'll do it another time, because I'd love to have you tell us that

great Gloria Gaynor story that you told me on the phone. Maybe next time the Tom Jones story. And the Tom Jones story next time, and we'll talk about Glen Campbell next time too. But we could do a four-hour show with you. If this movie gets made, if we know that it's green-lighted,

then I'll let you know that, and then if you decide you want to have me back to talk about that a little, we'll go over some of these other things. I'd love to. I think we'd love to do that. Well, thank you both so much. This was fun, and thank you both so much. This was fun.

And thank you for the music. We just want to thank Joe McGinty, too. Our pal Joe McGinty. And Abe Oleksianski. Did I get it right, Abe? Close enough. Let's do it again. Abe Oleksianski.

It's hard to say. Holy moly. Abe Oleksianski. Yeah. There we go. Our engineerne. Olex Niansky. Abe Olex Niansky. Yeah. There we go. Our engineer, our guest engineer down in Florida. So I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre.

And we've had the pleasure of talking to the great Dennis Lambert. Dennis, what a treat. Write a memoir, for God's sakes. Yeah, I'm working on one. You are? Yeah, in conjunction with the movie. It's all on good faith. If the movie gets made, I'll finish the book.

I mean, I might finish it anyway, but we'll see. These songs have come up on the podcast, as I told you. We've talked about Don't Pull Your Love. I think Gilbert sang Rhinestone Cowboy by himself about a year ago. Wanton Soldier we've discussed. So it's great to finally meet the person behind these songs. Thank you. It's great to meet both of you.

I've been a big fan of yours, Gilbert, for a long time. Oh, thank you. There you go. So this is fun for me and I really enjoyed meeting you, Frank. So this is great. meeting you, Frank. This is great. A pleasure, Dennis. We'll talk again.

Yeah, write that book, man. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, see you. Just lay me down, cry for a hundred years Don't pull your love out on me, honey Take my heart, my soul, my money But don't leave me drowning in my tears You say you're gonna leave Gonna take that big white bird

Gonna fly right out of here Without a single word But you know you'll break my heart When I want you to close that door Cause I know I won't see you anymore Don't pour your love out on me, baby If you do, then I think that maybe I'll just lay me down Right for a hundred years

Don't pour your love out on me, honey Take my heart, my soul, my money But don't leave me drowning in my tears Haven't I been good to you? What about that brand new ring? Doesn't that mean love to you? Doesn't that mean anything? If I threw away my pride and I got down on my knees, would you make me beg you pretty please?

I'll just lay me down, cry for money again Don't pour your love out on me, honey Take my heart, my soul, my money But don't leave me drowning in my tears There's so much I wanna do I've got love enough for two But I'll never use a girl if I don't have you Don't pour your love out on me, baby If you do, then I thank you, baby

I'll just lay me down right for a hundred years Don't pour your love out on me, honey Take my heart, my soul, my money But don't leave me drowning in my tears. Don't throw your love out on me, baby. If you do, then I thank you, baby. I'll just lay me down right for a hundred years. Don't throw your love out on me, baby.

If you do, then I thank you, baby. I'll just lay me down right for a hundred years. I'll just lay me down. and John Bradley Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to John Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn.