Luck or Something Like It (9 page)

When I arrived, Mac proceeded to play me five or six songs, all of which were great. Then the seventh was one of those songs that you know is going to be something special the minute it starts. He said he had played it for a bunch of other artists before me, but they were afraid of it, because the lyrics were too sexual. Well, that immediately piqued my interest.

If I wasn’t going to do drug-related songs, maybe I could get away with some serious sexual content. Once he started the lyrics . . .

You lie in gentle sleep beside me.

I hear your warm and rhythmic breathing.

I take your hand and hold it tightly.

Listen, can you not hear our young hearts beating?

. . . I knew this song was made for me. And I was even more convinced when he got to the pulsating chorus.

Can’t you feel it, baby?

Can’t you feel it? . . . here it comes.

Feel it! Feel it! Fire! Fire!

Something’s burning, something’s burning,

Something’s burning, and I think it’s love.

I loved the fact that “Something’s Burning” was blatantly controversial. “Ruby” and “Reuben” were both controversial songs for pop radio at the time and were embraced, I think, because of their frankness. I knew “Something’s Burning” would stand out in the mix of new songs constantly being released. It fit the times. After all, a movie all about sexual freedom,
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,
was one of the big hits of 1969. I was chomping at the bit to get in the studio. Jimmy Bowen said, “If you feel that strongly about this song, you should produce it yourself.” I clearly felt that strongly.

Still, there’s a big difference between making a suggestion or two during a recording session and being responsible for the end result. I was excited and frightened. Whatever Jimmy thought about the song, he clearly believed in me, so I had to give it a go.

My plan was simple—to make this the sexiest record ever made. Instead of playing down the sexuality, I would play it up. This was a bit before the massive success of romantic crooners like Barry White or Luther Vandross. Otherwise, I would have never tried to shoot so high.

I wanted this song to open with an actual heartbeat. So we found a recording of an actual heart—
Thump THUMP, Thump THUMP
—but it felt weak. So I tried playing it backward, like Mike Post had done with Glen Campbell’s guitar, and damned if it didn’t work.

We were off and running on my first production project. After the success of the songs where I was singing the lead vocal, I had developed more confidence in my own musical instincts. Plus, the rest of the group could sense my passion and went along with it.

Finished, with all the vocals pounding this “orgasmic” message and the track as exciting as I could make it, we headed out to radio. I could not wait to hear the praise from the people who would be playing this hot song for a sexually pent-up nation.

Much to my surprise, Mac was right. Everyone was afraid of it. Real heartbeat or not, American radio stations would not play this song.

Initially I was totally deflated. I had put my heart and soul into this record and it wasn’t working. Then I asked myself,
What would Jimmy Bowen do?
Of course! He would do an end around and think of an outside-the-box strategy, just as he had done on “Ruby.” So, after consulting with Mike and the others, I asked Ken Kragen if he could book us on
Tom Jones
in London to do this song.
Tom Jones
originated from the ITV Network in Great Britain, but also played on ABC in the States.

My thinking was that England was much less afraid of sexuality than this country at the time, and an English audience would at least give the song a fair hearing. The producers agreed to pay me to come but not the entire group. We all agreed it was worth a try. So off I go to jolly old England alone, to do “Something’s Burning” on British TV.

My little scheme worked. Once the song was heard in the States on
Tom Jones,
there was no stopping it. Radio, so afraid of it before, now pounced on it. I think station managers were secretly looking for a way to play it all along and needed a little ammunition like a successful TV appearance. So, thinking like Jimmy, I gave them a way.

Sometime after I appeared on
Tom Jones,
the First Edition was touring in Europe. While we were there, we were invited to the wedding reception of Bee Gee Maurice Gibb and pop star Lulu, along with eight hundred others. We didn’t really know them well, so we were seated in the top tier of a theater. As the reception was breaking up, I spotted Tom Jones sitting down at one of the floor tables. The group was so excited and asked, “Can we go down and meet him?”

“Sure,” I said. “We got pretty close when I was doing the show.”

As we made our way through the crowd to his table, I turned back to Terry and the rest of the group for a split second, at which point “my good friend” Tom stood up and walked away. I’m sure he wasn’t being rude; he just hadn’t seen me. So, as persistent as I am and as important as it was to the band, we followed. At the bottom of the staircase, we looked up and saw Tom. As I raised my hand to him to try again to introduce the band, he turned and walked away. Now I am beginning to take it personally. Being this close, I was not going to give up. He went into a room at the top of the stairs where Lulu and Maurice had gathered with all the Bee Gees and the Beatles. Tom was trapped. There was nowhere he could go.

As only Mickey Jones could do, he reached out to shake hands with Tom at the same time Ringo Starr was pointing to something. Ringo’s finger ended up in the middle of his handshake and stayed there through the entire hello and handshake process. I’m not sure Ringo even noticed. Nevertheless, I’d lived up to my promise and introduced the guys to Tom Jones, not to mention Ringo’s finger.

The songwriter Alex Harvey,
one of the men behind “Reuben James,” soon became one of my best friends. He was one of those writers, like Mickey Newbury, who wrote from a place I could really appreciate but could never seem to get to with my own writing. I wrote or cowrote some hits, like “Sweet Music Man” and “A Stranger in My Place” (with Kin Vassy), but my accomplishments in this regard are modest compared to those of soulful writers like Alex. A great example is the song he wrote for the First Edition called “Tell It All Brother.” Here is a song that asks people to take a look deep inside themselves and examine their own conscience—at least to internally “tell it all.”

His opening line spoke volumes:

How much you holding out on me

When you say you’re giving all?

And in the dungeons of your mind

Who you got chained to the wall?

Tell it all brother . . . before we fall.

Tell it all brothers and sisters.

Tell it all.

The first time we ever performed this song was at Kent State University in 1970, shortly after what has since become known as the Kent State Massacre, where four students protesting the American invasion of Cambodia were gunned down in a hail of sixty-seven bullets by the Ohio National Guard. Nine others were severely wounded.

In the middle of “Tell It All Brother,” the entire audience stood up and sang along with the chorus. People were crying and waving their arms in remembrance of their fallen cohorts. It may be one of the most moving moments of my life. I was so proud to be a part of something so spontaneous and heartfelt. That doesn’t happen often.

It was clear that we were impacting people, but within the group we were encountering our own problems. That year, Mike Settle decided to leave the group to try and save his marriage, but it was too late. The damage of years of travel and estrangement had been done, and unfortunately he and his wife divorced anyway. It’s always a tough situation for a musician—to be torn between the desire to play and make music and the knowledge that the only way to make a living doing this is to be on the road all the time. It’s not easy on anyone—certainly not a husband or a wife.

Mike wrote so many great songs for us, among them, “I Found a Reason,” “Rainbow on a Cloudy Day,” “But You Know I Love You,” “Shadow in the Corner of Your Mind,” “I Just Wanna Give My Love to You,” “Once Again She’s All Alone,” “If Wishes Were Horses” (one of my favorite lyrics), and a host of others. We knew the band would sorely miss him. Mike would continue writing songs and at last count had more than 130 BMI songs to his credit. He is now a journalist and music critic.

I don’t think the group was ever the same after Mike left. He and Terry were the organizers and the heart and soul of the group. Now Terry and I became the principal decision makers. Mike was replaced by Kin Vassy, a great singer and guitar player from Carrollton, Georgia. Kin brought with him an incredible amount of unbridled energy. Sometimes a guy like Kin can reincentivize a group. He was a great singer and rhythm guitar player and a good friend. What an asset he became.

In the fall of 1971, we embarked on a completely different journey. After a successful hour-long music special, we were given our own TV show on Canadian television (CTV) called
Rollin’ on the River,
later shortened to
Rollin’.
It lasted two years, was filmed on a Mississippi riverboat set, and was syndicated on 192 stations in the United States and Canada. Again Ken Kragen worked his magic and took a special and parlayed it into a series.

It was a weekly variety show, and Canada had no other variety shows at that time. Anyone having a record to promote had to do our show—there were no options. We had the biggest names in pop music every week—Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, Billy Preston, and Canadian rocker Ronnie Hawkins, to name a few—and no executive ever second-guessed us. It was a star-studded lineup every week. We did the entire run of the show from Toronto.

Some of my favorite shows were with Gladys Knight and the Pips, where I got to duet with Gladys, or when Helen Reddy came on and sang with Mary Arnold.
Rollin’
was the last show that singer Jim Croce did before he died in a plane crash in 1973. As we went along doing the TV show, we added new members to the cast, like my friend from the Kirby Stone days, Gene Lorenzo, a classically trained piano player and naturally funny stuntman.

We really enjoyed watching other groups perform in rehearsal. Some were peaceful and quiet, did their music, and left. Others were considerably more volatile and unpredictable. To say we were shocked when Ike Turner reached in the front of his pants and pulled a gun on his own drummer for not playing well during rehearsal is an understatement. I got the feeling it wasn’t the first time. But Ike knew how to get someone’s attention. His drummer was rock solid after that!

B.B. King, on the other hand, just emitted soul and inner expression. He is a man who loves his music and totally exemplifies simplicity. Along with me and the band, all the stagehands in the studio wanted to watch B.B. play. While playing along with his original background track of “The Thrill Is Gone,” the director noticed that his fingers didn’t match his original guitar solo. This meant that he couldn’t edit between the rehearsal and the show performances if he needed to. As politely as he could, he asked, “Is there a chance you could play the same solo so it matches?” B.B.’s answer was like his music—short, sweet, and soulful. “No, sir, I can’t be there but once.” He got no argument from anyone.

One of my high school buddies, Larry Cansler, a cowriter with Michael Martin Murphey on
The Ballad of Calico
, an album we did later, was brought on as musical director for the show. Larry had a great feel for comedy as well. He wore pink glasses, so we used them in every comedy skit that we did. Between Larry, Terry, Mickey, Mike, Gene, Mary, and me, we took the current hits on the radio and did parodies of them. They were really fun for us, and the people loved them.

Rollin’
served a lot of different purposes at a time. It allowed us to do comedy as well as music and gave us a constant TV presence. It was a unique opportunity, given that it came right at the end of the era of TV variety shows of any kind. All in all, doing this show was a great opportunity for us to meet and spend time with some of our musical heroes and to create some lasting memories.

Over the eight years of our existence, all of us First Edition members had some incredible experiences we would have never had on our own. One special one for me happened in the mid-1970s. The First Edition was working the lounge at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas, and Elvis was working the main showroom. Out of nowhere, he showed up at my dressing room door one night after our show. I have to admit that was a bit of a shocker. For some reason I remember seeing him standing there and I subconsciously looked back over my shoulder. I have to confess for a moment I thought I was in the wrong dressing room for Elvis to be there.

I don’t remember what I said. I’m pretty sure it was some sort of incoherent babbling, but I remember specifically what he said. He said “Hey, man—I really like your music.” I was so shocked I don’t think I even invited him in. I said, “Yeah . . . I like yours, too.” Once we were over that awkward moment, he came in. We had a chance to sit and talk.

I was truly surprised by his candor. He told me he would slip into the back of the lounge and watch our show after his and said how much he really enjoyed the group. It was a thrill but a hard moment to get past for me. Here was Elvis Presley telling me how much he enjoyed the show, and I hadn’t been to see his yet.

He invited me to come see him the next night. Needless to say I was thrilled, and needless to say I did. Every time I went to see him he would always introduce me as “his friend” and invite me to come backstage after the show. I think he realized that I wasn’t a hanger-on and I assume he appreciated that.