Almost Oliver

“Skip?”

The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Leonard Goldman, a middle-aged, balding booking agent who’d latched on to me the first week I arrived in New York in 1965. Leonard was a veteran from the early days of the folk scene, a soft-spoken man who’d been a fixture at Café Society, that glorious club in the Mid-1940's that saw a range of performers from Billie Holiday to Pete Seeger to Josh White. In the early 1950’s, he’d been blacklisted and unlike most who’d been destroyed by McCarthy’s purge, Leonard wore the curse like a badge. It wasn’t that he was innocent of the charges. He had been a member of the Communist Party and for all I knew, still was.

“Leonard the Commie?” I fought my way into the early morning sunlight after a very late night recording session at Bell Sound. “Is that you?”

The voice chuckled. “No, it’s Lyndon Johnson. You awake?”

“I’m always here for you, Mr. President.”

“Very funny.” The agent paused, then turned his business voice on. “Skip, do you know Denny Munson?”

“Sure.”

I closed my eyes and pictured the pop singer from the late Fifties who’d recorded a string of hits that would have made Lawrence Welk proud. California blond hair, pastel colored orlon sweaters, slick polyester pants, white Guccis. Munson had parlayed that cute-boy image into a small empire that now included record producing, publishing and personal management.

“He caught your act at The Old Chelsea Saloon last month. Wants to talk to you.” I knew Leonard was calculating percentages while he spoke. “Get a haircut. New strings for the guitar. Wear a nice sweater. Denny likes sweaters. Take five of your best tunes, some charts, be polite. Munson likes polite. And don’t’…”

“Calm down, Leonard,” I said. “What are you, my mother?”

“You should only be so lucky, Schmuck-boy.”

I pushed the covers back, and swung my legs out of bed. “Don’t be Jewish, Leonard. Remember, I’m just an innocent kid from the country.”

“And Hitler was a pacifist.” Leonard’s voice turned serious. “This could be your big break, Skip Brooks. You’re a talented kid. Don’t blow it."

“Eileen!”

The voice on the intercom was insistent.

“Coffee!”

Eileen Cameron stopped, turned and walked back to her desk. For the fiftieth time that day she tucked a long curl of light brown hair behind her left ear and tapped the intercom button.

“Yes, Mr. Munson.”

Eileen smiled, walked across the gleaming hardwood floor and while pouring coffee into two royal blue Denny Munson Enterprises custom designed ceramic mugs, she glanced out the window at the traffic on Central Park West. Squiggly lines of heat rose in waves from the sidewalk making the grassy slopes of the park shimmer like green satin in the distance.

“New York, New York,” she whispered and wondered as she always did why this city had been such a magnet for her. It was nothing like Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville was spacious and open and relaxed. Victorian homes with quiet shady lawns, spectacular mountain views, the genteel southern life. She smiled. But it was sooo boring. Perhaps that was why she’d come North. To escape the sameness that results from a well-to-do, marry a lawyer, raise perfect unquestioning children, have a few discreet affairs with your husband’s law partners, grow old and eccentric life.

She left the reception area and turned down the long dark corridor of what used to be an old family brownstone, glanced at the stylishly matted black and white photos of her boss hanging on the walls, each illuminated by its own tiny pin spot, and entered Denny Munson’s private office.

“Ah, Cameron to the rescue.”

Denny motioned to the young man seated on the stool across from him.

“Eileen, this is Skip Brooks. Skip, Eileen Cameron, my personal assistant. Eileen keeps my feet on the ground and my ass out of trouble.”

The young woman smiled, set the coffee mugs on a small table, leaned forward slightly, and shook my hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Brooks. Welcome to Denny Munson Enterprises.”

The young man took her hand and squeezed it gently.

“Hello.”

Eileen heard a slight raspiness in the voice. His brown eyes smiled, betraying an openness that would be deceptive if dishonest, dangerously naïve if it wasn’t. She felt the beginnings of a smile at the corners of her mouth and thought it odd. She was not normally a smiler. Two years in the music business in New York City had cured her of spontaneous smiles.

“If you need anything else, Mr. Brooks, Denny will let me know.”

The young man had turned, picked up his guitar and begun to tune it. He raised his eyes and smiled again.

“Thanks,” he said and went back to tuning.

Denny Munson leaned back in his leather and chrome chair, propped his tan Guccis on the desk and smiled. “So play me something. One of your own tunes.”

I settled the curve of the Guild D-25 on my knee.

“You want up-tempo or ballad?”

Denny ran his left hand across his beige cashmere sweater. “It’s your audition,” he said. “Take your best shot.”

Hey brother,” I sang, “betcha’ got a dime, I need it for my mother.

Hey sister, nickel or a quarter will do.

Hey Daddy, I’ll get it back to you a week from Friday,

Hey Mamma, take me away with you.

I followed Hey Brother with a ballad I’d written years before in Baltimore. The song spoke of the loneliness of life on the road and if I say so myself, I sang the release with a sensitivity that belied my years…

Half of gettin’ anyplace is goin’

And sometimes paradise is on the run.

Half of gettin’ anything is dreamin’.

Half of you is me and half of me is you...

I closed with Hang Up Your Guns, a tune that had grown out of a booking conference I’d played in the mountains of East Tennessee. I took a moment to retune the Guild to an open tuning and and then jumped into the first chorus…

Hang up your guns when you come to see me.

Hang up your guns when you come to call

Hang up your guns when you’re half crazy

Hang up your guns when you’re off the wall.

And then, it was over and Denny was applauding. “Terrific, Skip. I love your tunes.” He came around the side of the desk and shook my hand. “You do have more hits like those in your bag now, don’t you? Terrific, just wonderful stuff.” He pulled a chair in front of me and straddled it backwards.

“Let’s talk,” he said and crossed his arms over the top of the chair’s back.

“Sure, Bob. What do you want to know?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six. That was certainly simple enough.

“Married?”

“No,” I lied.

“Thinking about it?”

I smiled. “Not even close.”

“Good,” Denny said. “You’d be amazed how a wife can slow you down. You’re on the road playing your little heart out and she’s either hassling you on the phone—she needs money, clothes, her mother’s telling her you’re out there fucking every barmaid in East Kishnev or worse, she’s fucking all your buddies while you’re gone—or even worse, she’s pregnant.”

Then he smiled and leaned the slightest bit closer. “Straight?”

I lowered the guitar into a stand next to the stool, ran my hands through my long brown hair and laughed.

“Straight. The Army thinks I’m gay, but they also think we’re winning the war.”

Denny shifted in his seat and I got the feeling that along with his interest in my work which seemed genuine enough, Denny Munson might be trolling.

“So you’re 4-F?”

I remembered my pre-induction physical four years earlier. The great American ego leveler. Today, Mama’s home cooking, tomorrow —Viet Nam.

“I came on to the Army shrink. Nothing overt. I tried to give him the impression I was confused.” He smiled. “Don’t misunderstand. Some of my best friends are…”

The entrepreneur smiled. “Confused?” He raised an eyebrow. “Mine, too. Got any bad habits? Booze, dope, bicycle seats, farm animals?”

I laughed. “I haven’t got time,”

Munson got up, walked to the wet bar and poured mineral water from a crystal pitcher. “Oh come now, Skip. Surely there’s a kink or two beneath that tousled boyish demeanor.”

"I might have a couple beers after the set, can’t remember the last time I bought a bag of weed. I work, Bob. I write, arrange, practice an hour or two a day, do sessions, and I’m on stage most every night trying to get somewhere in this business. Like I said, I just don’t have the time to indulge myself.”

“When and where were you born? City, State, time of day?”

“Baltimore, Maryland.” I scratched my head. “October 2nd, 1942. At 10:14.”

Munson raised his glass and took a long drink. “AM or PM?”

“I don’t know. Morning. I think it was morning.”

“Don’t guess. It’s important.”

“Pretty sure it was morning,” I said. “10:14am. What difference does it make?”

“Before I sign anyone, I have their astrological chart done. I know it sounds weird, but if we’re going to work together, I want us to be compatible.”

The look on my face caused Denny Munson to laugh.

“Listen, Skip. The music business is the toughest business in the world. It’s inhabited by the highest of the high as well as the lowest of the low.”

He held one finger up.

“Agents who’ll book their mothers into topless bars for the right price.”

Another finger popped up.

“Record guys who pick their noses better than they pick hit songs.”

Two more fingers.

“So called personal managers who’ll take 25% off the top, head for Vegas and you won’t hear from them for a month, and artists whose only interest is to be a rock and roll legend with all the trappings—groupies, booze, dope, the main street in whatever shit town they grew up in named after them, and a tragic death before they’re thirty. If I take someone on, it’s got to be a hundred percent from all directions. Even the cosmos.” He smiled, spread his hands in front of him, palms out. “Sorry. Sometimes I get carried away.”

I stepped off the stool, lifted the guitar from the stand, slid it into the case and snapped the buckles shut. This guy was either crazy smart or crazy nuts. I stuck my hand out. “I appreciate your time, Denny. I hope we can work together.”

Munson smiled and took my hand. “It’s my pleasure, Skip. Give me a week or so and I’ll get back.”

I got a call from Leonard Goldman a few days later.

           "Skip?"

           "What's up, Len?"

           "You were born 12 hours too early. Munson sent his apologies for your mother's inability to keep you in there a while longer."

           "Story of my life, Leonard." And to make it worse...I'd called home to make sure. My mother let me know I was born at 10:14pm and I should get a haircut."

           "He signed BIlly Swofford." Leonard chuckled. "Changed his name to 'Oliver' and is in the studio recording a couple songs from 'Hair'.

          "Thanks, Leonard. You do know how to brighten my day."

"I do what I can, Skip. Welcome to The Showbiz!"