Luck or Something Like It (21 page)

The agent explained to him what I was up to. Still new to the office, the president asked: “Can I go in there?”

“Of course you can, sir,” the agent said. “You’re the
president
.”

He came in as I was wrapping up my shoot with the first lady. I had brought a copy of my photography book
Your Friends and Mine
to sign for Hillary as gratitude for her time. Now that the president was there, I thought I would sign it for both of them. Not wanting to presume to know how to address an inscription to a president of the United States, I asked, “How would you like for me to sign this?”

You could see it all over his face. He had no idea. Finally he said, “To President Bill Clinton, I guess. I haven’t got this protocol down yet.”

With photography or anything else, really, I don’t have to be number one. Just get me in the top of the group and let me hang around for a while. It
is
important to me that I have the respect of the professionals in the field. When I started playing tennis, for example, it became important to me to be able to hit with pros like Chris Evert or Jimmy Connors. I didn’t need to beat them, but just to have them say, “He’s put in his time. He does it well.” With photography, I’ll never be John Sexton or Yousuf Karsh, but I want their respect.

Several years ago I had to have throat surgery and the doctor was concerned I might not be able to sing anymore. He couldn’t understand why I was not terrified at that prospect. I said, “Doc, I don’t get too upset over things I have no control over. And if I do lose my voice, I’ll just spend more time on my photography, be more broke, and be perfectly happy.”

Chapter Fifteen

Around the World

My connection to the
world outside of the United States came not only with personal appearances. It also came with an increased consciousness of global problems brought to me largely by other artists. That sounds kind of lofty, a little bit out of the league of a country singer from Houston, but it’s really not. A compassion for suffering everywhere is as down to earth and human as a simple phrase: We are the world.

In the 1980s, Ken Kragen was managing Harry Belafonte, Kim Carnes, Lionel Richie, and me. It was a good, well-rounded roster of talent. We were all friends who ascribed to the idea that “Success without sharing is unacceptable.” Because of that, when Harry started talking to Ken about an awareness-raising anthem about the plight of starvation and the need for famine relief in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa—the anthem that came to be known as “We Are the World”—Ken contacted his other clients and me and we all jumped on board immediately. If I’m correct, the original intent was for Lionel and Stevie Wonder to write the song. Stevie, however, was unavailable to help because of prior commitments but did appear vocally on the record and as always was great.

Lionel presented the idea to his friend Michael Jackson, who understood both the concept and the need for this song right away. This put the two of them on a mission to write a “global” song that would make people all over the world acutely aware of the tremendous crisis of poverty that existed in Africa.

After Lionel and Michael wrote the song, only finishing it a night before the actual recording in 1985, the job of bringing it to life and creating the historic recording went to Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian, another highly respected music producer. Originally, I was told, Ken thought that only Michael and Lionel would sing the song, which in itself would have been quite an event, but once Quincy got involved, the concept grew into something much bigger.

Quincy quickly realized the American Music Awards ceremony was coming up, and a who’s who of stars in the music business would be in attendance, meaning they would all be in L.A. at the same time. Things got very exciting right away. A list of performers was put together and selected. I don’t know how the selections were made, but everyone involved was sworn to secrecy as to the time and location of the recording. The mere thought of a throng of fans outside a studio when these stars showed up was scary and might have sabotaged the whole event. This was about allowing big stars to come together and share their gift of music without the hassle they would normally go through in their everyday life.

Ken helped with about every aspect of the project but the singing. When the number of artists agreeing to come reached twenty-eight, Harry and Ken decided they had to cut it off. A few people were a little angry with Ken because they wanted to participate, but Ken held firm. Then at the last minute, Michael asked if some of his brothers and sisters could come. No one had the heart to say no because of all the work Michael had done for the project, so the number went a little higher.

At that time, I owned my own recording studio, which was called Lion Share, and I agreed to donate all the studio time they needed. In addition, Lionel and I agreed to put up $200,000 for related video and audio costs. We wanted all the proceeds to go for their intended purpose, not expenses.

Lionel held a “staging” rehearsal at his home the night before to determine the placement of everyone in the studio. If he hadn’t thought of that, the whole thing could have been a disaster. The original tracking of the music was done at my studio. Michael and Lionel did a vocal guide for everyone’s part—kind of a musical blueprint.

Quincy’s group had printed sheet music that notated all the parts and their exact sequence. Thanks to the respect everyone had for Quincy, his now-famous
CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR
sign, boldly displayed above the studio door, was pretty much followed. There was a lot of talent in this room and the potential for ego flare-ups was enormous, but I think this group of people, in itself, was too intimidating as a whole for any one performer to dare to ask for or expect special treatment.

The truth is, everyone was given special treatment. Thanks to the vocal arrangers, Tom and John Bähler, the parts were given out not on the basis of how big of a star you were but according to who sounded best on each particular part of the song. I didn’t hear one person complain about what they were singing or when they sang. The magnitude of this event was truly humbling for all of us.

I’ve been involved in a lot of big things, but nothing in my life has ever come close to this. Here you have more than thirty of the biggest and best singers in the world standing side by side on little risers. It looked like a high school choir getting ready for a Friday-night recital. Everyone was humming or singing their parts to themselves in preparation for the start of the music.

The adrenaline was pumping everywhere in that room. I was standing next to Paul Simon and Diana Ross, with Lionel and Michael Jackson next to us. Once I had finished singing my lines, I was awestruck to listen down the line to these great singers all with different styles, different backgrounds, and different timbres to their voices, singing this incredible piece of music as if it were written especially for each one of them. We had completed about six takes when Quincy announced: “Last one. This is it—show me what you’ve got.”

And we did. In the end, it didn’t sound like a free-for-all group sing that you might hear at a big all-star concert. It came together, as music, better than anyone had hoped.

Once the last note was sung, there was dead silence in the room. Everybody there knew that not only had we done something good for humanity, we had been a part of something that could never be repeated. In our hearts, this was our moment.

Now try to imagine this. I decided to ask Diana Ross to sign my “We Are the World” sheet music. She then in turn asked someone next to her to do the same. From then on, there was complete chaos in the room—any organizational structure that may have been there before was gone. It was everybody in the room, pencils and sheet music in hand, going from star to star trying to commemorate this singular moment with autographs and perhaps extend the night as long as we could.

Over ten million copies of that single, under the supergroup name USA for Africa, were sold worldwide and more than $63 million was raised for African famine relief. It also won four Grammys. Harry and Ken’s dream had come true, and for everyone in that room that night, we realized, many for the first time, that “we are the world.”

As a side note to that momentous event, I was later given an award that is dear to me. Sometimes it’s easy to underestimate the power and strength of someone you know really well. An example would be my friend Tom Johnson, publisher of the
Dallas Times Herald
and the
Los Angeles Times,
who also ran CNN for a few years. How could I not know he was powerful? He was simply my friend. But at some point along the way he submitted me for one of my most prestigious awards, and one that I think that I appreciate as much or more than any other: the Horatio Alger Award. It is an award given to those who rose from humble beginnings who achieved success and give back to the community. I think he based my submission on having been involved with Harry Chapin and his work with world hunger, which was the lead-up to Hands Across America and ultimately to my involvement with “We Are the World” and USA for Africa. Tom saw much more in me than I did, and I thank him for that.

The constant touring
in
the 1980s, however exhausting and mind-numbing it was at times, covered the physical world, too. Nashville hits became worldwide hits. I’d like to think that in some small way my music helped introduce the art form of country music to areas that had never heard it. Songs like “The Gambler,” “Lucille,” and “Coward of the County” were surprisingly well received in most major foreign countries.

In Shanghai, China, while dining in a restaurant, I listened to a young musician playing a traditional Chinese instrument, the pipa. She came up to me at the end of her set with four of my albums that she happened to have in her car. She had no way of knowing I would be there that night. I always found it interesting that I’d go to some countries and could not carry on a conversation, but they would know all the words to my songs.

While traveling through Jamaica with Jim Mazza and our families, Jim and I ended up in a little Jamaican bar. We sat there thinking about how lucky we were to have this lifestyle and enjoy these incredibly beautiful places. After about twenty minutes, we noticed in the corner a group of Rastafarians, dreadlocks and all. Now I know this is profiling, but the way they looked at us scared me to death. Jim and I both agreed that we should not just leave, we should get the hell out of there. As we started to the door the entire table started singing “You got to know when to hold them, mon . . .” We spent the better part of an hour talking and laughing with our new Jamaican friends. The music may have begun in Nashville and L.A., but it played everywhere. “Islands in the Stream,” for example, was at one point the biggest hit around the world.

As I continued to tour in the United States as well as around the world, I began to expand my stage performances beyond simply a standard concert of my best songs. Somewhere in the middle of the ’80s I was performing at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. It was the middle of December and I was cruising through my greatest hits when, from the back of the auditorium, someone yelled, “Hey, Kenny. It’s Christmastime! You gonna do any Christmas music?”

“Sure,” I replied. After about thirty seconds with the band to establish a key I could sing in, we decided on “O Holy Night.” I was actually shocked at how good it sounded without rehearsal. The audience response, perhaps because of the spontaneity of the moment, was amazing.

I had done Christmas music before, but not onstage like that. As I mentioned earlier, Dolly and I had done a CBS Christmas special in 1984 that did really well—
Kenny & Dolly: A Christmas to Remember
. Our Christmas album,
Once Upon a Christmas
, included music from the special and went on to sell seven million copies. Ironically, we shot the show in L.A. during the hottest part of the summer.

So the next year, after my Fox Theatre experience, without any prompting from the audience, I did two Christmas songs to an even better reaction than the year before. After two years, I got it: people want to hear Christmas music at Christmastime. Who would have thought?

Now, having done my thorough and exhaustive scientific research, I was ready to honor the audiences’ request. This was creatively very inspiring and provided me a chance to sing great Christmas songs and give the hits a break. My goal now was to make every year bigger, better, and more spectacular than the last.

It was somewhere in here I realized this was too big for me to do alone. It was no longer just seasonal music. We needed production value. So what did I do? I brought in my tennis pro, Kelly Junkermann.

Actually Kelly had become my right-hand man and a damn good producer in the time we had known each other. When I discussed my Christmas tour goals, he told me about seeing Sting when we were on tour in Australia. He had used a choir in his show and it was truly majestic. Kelly thought he could line up local choirs in every city to sing with us when we got to their town. I mean, isn’t that what choirs did? He had another idea. His cousin Becky was a music teacher. He thought he could have her contact local music teachers and we would use local kids in the show as well. It would be perfect, he said—Kenny, kids, choirs, Christmas! It would really have a family feel to it.

Every year we would come up with a different concept or theme for the show. We had been doing a lot of the shows at Chicago’s Pheasant Run Theater. The director, Diana Martinez, was great helping Kelly and me cast as well as tweak the staging for each of the shows. One year we decided we would start the show off with a bunch of elves decorating the stage. They would break into a medley of songs before I would come on. We cast the elves at Diana’s theater.

Little did we know that two of those elves would move on to Los Angeles and star in their own television series. Sean Hayes, from
Will & Grace,
would go on to win an Emmy. Not only did he open the show for us, he played the piano for the auditions as well! Another of the elves, Rosa Blasi, went on to star in the Lifetime series
Strong Medicine.
What are the odds of two people from our Christmas show going on to star in their own series?

Kelly had another idea for involving the local towns that we would be in. Why not have puppies in our show? He reasoned that each year parents went out and bought their kids puppies for Christmas. Why not do some good and contact the local Humane Society and have them provide us with puppies that could be adopted? The puppies would fly onto the stage in a wrapped Christmas present and land under a tree. The kids would then unwrap the gift and cuddle up with the puppy. It all worked just as planned. That is, until unfortunately someone forgot to “walk” a puppy. When we opened the box, the smell was not pleasant and kids scattered everywhere. Nobody onstage tried to hide his or her reaction to the “accident.” Ah . . . live production. It doesn’t get any better than that. But we did do some good. In one city alone we had fifty puppies adopted by people in our audience. That was pretty impressive.

We soon noticed an interesting thing. Very few artists toured at Christmas, so we had some great talent to choose from each year. It was a chance to have some fun and make new friends as well.

Garth Brooks’s first tour was with me on my Christmas tour. You could tell early on that he was going to be something special. It was also a really fun tour. He and his guys loved to play basketball, and every town that we played we found the local gym and battled his band and crew against mine. I will go on record—at least until Garth’s autobiography comes out—as saying we beat them every time we played.