Page 76 - The Westerner Magazine Halloween 2018
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listen to them rehearse. If you like them, I’ll than that, it was a stiff. Nobody would play
sign them.” So, I went and listened to them it.
singing around the piano and I said, “I hate
this song you like called ‘Rock the Boat’ but Is it common for a record to lay around
I have a song I wanted to do with the doing nothing and take off all of a
Friends of Distinction called ‘Freedom for sudden?
the Stallion.’ If you let me cut this song with Well very similarly it happened to “Grazing
them, I’ll cut your ‘Rock The Boat.’” He in the Grass” by Friends of Distinction.
agreed and “Freedom for the Stallion” Nobody played it for months until Pat
turned out just great and “Rock The Boat” is McMahon, a program director for KRIZ
awful. It’s unlistenable. I wish I had a copy who a friend of mine, and Billboard’s radio
of the original recording with Ron Tutt. It station program director of the year said he
was terrible. would take a chance on the record. He broke
it. If he hadn’t, I would have been fired.
How did you end up with the giant hit
that became “Rock the Boat?” What happened next to Hues
Corporation?
“Freedom for the Stallion” started going up
the charts and white radio is playing it. Well, Wally said that he had the pulse of the
Black radio won’t play it because it’s too group and I didn’t, so he wanted to make
white. Well, Hues Corporation had some more records like “Rock The Boat.” I didn’t,
clout with the label and wanted to go back so I quit. He just wanted to feed the hit
into the studio to recut “Rock The Boat.” I machine and I wanted to make interesting
said, “Over my dead body. I hate it.” Well music.
Don Berkheimer convinced me to go back
down and we came up with a new What was the difference between working
arrangement using a new rhythm section and at RCA and Bell?
an arrangement from Tom Sellers. I The music center of the world studios at
remember hugging their manager, Wally RCA was the lobby of the RCA building.
Holmes, in the studio and saying, “Will you That was the melting pot. You had all the
listen to that?” when we heard the final cut.
He said, “I told you,” to which I replied, “It phones, so musicians could call their brokers
proves you can put a beat to almost anything and find out where they were working.
and it’ll sound decent.” I still wouldn’t Musicians and artists were all coming in and
out all the time, hanging out with each other.
concede. It was a total bomb and didn’t do There was a sense of vitality. Bell was a
anything for several months until a nightclub three-person office. Harvey Cooper on
in New Jersey started playing it off the promotion, John Rosinger who was a
album. The first major station to pick up the
record was WABC in New York, which is promotion man in charge of the office, and I
the biggest in the nation. It all came from the was the staff producer. The three of us.
record being played in a dance club. Other While we were there a very, very talented
agent called Wally Amos from William
