Two-Hour, In-Depth Interview about My Music

 

a nearly two-hour interview by Greg Shanks about my music, with details 

I haven't written or talked about before

Watchmen 1.5: Some Enchanted Evening

That was the best thing about tonight's insane episode 1.5 of the insano Watchmen - "Some Enchanted Evening" - sung first by Sinatra at the beginning of the episode and at the end by some group unknown to me.  But my favorite rendition of the song that Ezio Pinza first sang in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific all those years ago has always been this one by Jay and the Americans.

As to the tale tonight, we get the back-story of Looking Glass, who's traumatized as a teenaged boy in Hoboken.  Yeah, I know, Hoboken, NJ can be frightening in our reality, but not that bad.  In the alternate reality that is Watchmen, Hoboken and nearby NYC are attacked by a squid that kills countless people.   Those squids, again, prompting the FBI guy years later to talk about a squid pro quo, giving tonight's episode an odd resonance to our own political situation (I was tempted to use that as the title).

I just want to take a moment here to say that I still have almost no idea what's going on with Adrian Veidt, which is one of the reasons I said I liked "Some Enchanted Evening" the best tonight.  I can only hope that he'll escape from his prison before this first season (I don't know, has it been renewed?) ends, and proceed to Tulsa or some place pertinent to the main story, which would give all these scenes of his trying to escape and failing at least some modicum of relevance.

I liked the Jay and the Americans' version the best because of the harmony.  I used to sing the song with my folk rock group, The New Outlook, in the Alcove at CCNY when we were still more of a doo-wop than a folk-rock group.  The Alcove was indoors, and we sang there rather than outside because we were worried about raining squids - no, only kidding, we liked the acoustics.

Anyhoo, see you here next week, when we'll learn the fate of Looking Glass, I hope.

In the meantime, one more thing: Don Frankel, in a group called Sundial Symphony with Robbie Rist which has recorded some of my songs on Big Stir Records - like Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning) - always sounded a lot like Jay.

See also Watchmen 1.1: Promising Alternate History ... [Watchmen 1.2: don't look for my review, I didn't feel like reviewing it] ... Watchmen 1.3: The Falling Car ... Watchmen 1.4: What We Learned

more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary

The Coming of Age of "Merri Goes Round"

Don Frankel and Robbie Rist = Sundial Symphony recording Merri Goes Round

Ed Fox and I wrote "Merri Goes Round" in the early 1970s - I wrote the lyrics, Ed wrote the music, and I sometimes spelled the title with hyphens, like "Merri-Goes-Round".  Truth is, it was a throwaway, bubblegum song, something we wrote after landing a contract with Buddah Records to release "Ring Around My Rosie," by a group called Protoza, and led by David Fox (no relation to Ed), who also wrote the words and music to Rosie.  You can hear that here.

But Ed and I thought so little of Merri that we didn't even think of including it on Twice Upon a Rhyme.  We did go into a 16-track studio in New York, and recorded a demo that came out so good we realized it was marketable as a finished master record.  We got Bruce Scott, a little known singer, to do the lead.  Our regulars Pete Rosenthal on guitars, Boris Midney on sax, and most of the rest were on the record, and I was wailing in the background with my usual falsetto.  The record sounded good.  But we were still amazed when we sold it to Jimmy Wisner's Wizdom Records, where it was released as a single under the group name Trousers (yep, I came up with that). It was soon forgotten.  You can hear it here.

Many decades passed.  Sometime around 2013, Don Frankel - who, as Donny Frankel, had played all manner of keyboard, including accordion, on Twice Upon a Rhyme - sent me a CD with a recording he and Robbie Rist had made of "Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning)," one of the best-known songs from Twice Upon a Rhyme.  Robbie, in case his name sounds familiar, was on the original Brady Bunch, has had a great career as one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the bus driver in Sharknado (also released in 2013).  Don and Robbie called their group Sundial Symphony, and they gave Sunsets a zestful performance (you can hear that here).  They followed the next year with their power-pop rendition of the lead-off track from Twice Upon a Rhyme, "Today Is Just Like You" (that's here).

And, then, about two years ago, Don surprised me with news that he and Robbie (as Sundial Symphony) were doing a song not on Twice Upon a Rhyme - "Merri Goes Round".  The thing is, I gotta tell you, from the moment I first heard their recording of Merri, I was blown away.  I think it's much better than the original - power pop works better for the song than bubblegum.  Big Stir Records liked it, too, first releasing it as an A-side of a single (with "Looking the Sunsets" as the B-side), and then including both on their Third Wave compilation album, with lots of fine recordings by other power-pop artists.

Here's Sundial Symphony's "Merri Goes Round":




I don't know about you, but I can't stop listening to it ...

PS - And here, as a bonus, is a just-published interview I did in July, with all kinds of old and new photos, about how I came to write the lyrics to "Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning)".

New Recording of "Looking for Sunsets (in the Early Morning)" by Sundial Symphony

Delighted to announce that HappySad Records has just released a new version of my "Looking for Sunsets (in the Early Morning)" by Sundial Symphony.

Sundial Symphony consists of Don Frankel and Robbie Rist.  Don played piano and organ on the original recording of "Looking for Sunsets (in the Early Morning)" that appeared on my Twice Upon a Rhyme album in 1972.  Don went on to have career in television, stage, and recording.  Robbie Rist was Cousin Oliver in The Brady Bunch, and has gone to appear in nearly a hundred movies and television shows, including Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles and Sharknado.

More about Don and Robbie below.  You can get the single either on iTunes or Amazon.


DON FRANKEL performed on off-Broadway stages in NYC including the Shakespeare rock musical Rubber Nickels, and the original cast album. Don’s TV credits include recurring roles on Gimme a Break, Dear John, Santa Barbara, and the pilot of The Proteens, along with several commercials. His film credits include Punch and Jody and Champion. His LA stage credits include performing improvisational comedy on the stages of The Groundlings and The Second City (Diving for Chickens). He also performed with the Los Angeles Children’s Theater. He performed with Jennifer Lopez on her Fiat commercial and her "Papi" music videos, and he performed in Broadway "Hair" Producer Michael Butler's production of "Pope Joan The Musical". Don is a multi-instrumentalist and singer. His musical credits include being a Buddah Records recording artist (on "Looking for Sunsets" by Protozoa, written and produced by Paul Levinson), and playing organ and piano on many of 
the tracks on Paul Levinson's TWICE UPON A RHYME (HappySad Records, 1972; reissued on Whiplash, 1972). Don has also recorded and toured with members of The Standells, The Grass Roots, The Brady Bunch, The Land of the Lost and The Office. Don is a songwriter and has had his songs on radio commercials as well as tv (Poltergeist, The Legacy) and movies (A Beatles Documentary). 

ROBBIE RIST has appeared in nearly a hundred television shows and movies, ranging from the Brady Bunch (where Robbie played Cousin Oliver), the Mary Tyler Moore show (where Robbie played Ted Baxter's son) to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (where Robbie was the voice-over for Michaelangelo) and Sharknado (Robbie the bus driver). Meanwhile, Robbie has been playing music since his teens. His group The Andersons! released "Separated at Birth" (2000) and "Family Secrets" on Smile Records (2001). Robbie has also performed as the lead singer, guitarist, bassist and/or drummer for several other Los Angeles rock bands, including Wonderboy, Cockeyed Ghost, Nice Guy Eddie, and Steve Barton and the Oblivion Click. He has also produced tracks for Suzy & Los Quattro, Backline, Ginger Britt and the Mighty, Jeff Caudill, Kingsizemaybe and The Mockers, and the Rubinoos album Automatic ToasteR. 

Don and Robbie performed together on the Jerry Lewis Telethon in Las Vegas, the Variety Telethon and other TV shows in the 1970s (see photos), and at such famous Los Angeles rock clubs as The Troubadour and The Whiskey A Go Go. Don always loved "Looking for Sunsets (in the Early Morning)," and in the Fall of 2013 teamed up again with Robbie - this time as Sundial Symphony - to record a brand new version of Paul Levinson's 1972 song.

Lyrics to "Looking for Sunsets" here;  Sundial Symphony page on Facebook here.