Homeward Bound (10 page)

Over at 1697 Broadway you could wander up to Jim Gribble's office and settle into his waiting room alongside a dozen or more other hustling music people. Gribble was a southerner of the classic variety (tall, broad-shouldered, loud, forever cocooned in a blue cloud of cigarette smoke), a native of small West Tennessee town called, yes, Gribble. More important, he was a talent scout/manager/packager of rock and rhythm and blues acts, so it made sense for him to keep track of who was around, what they did, and how good they were. If he had a job for a guitarist, he'd get a couple of guys to open their cases and audition on the spot. Background singers? Let's see if that doo-wop group can really sing. Paul was a regular, so when one of Gribble's hit doo-wop groups needed to replace its lead singer in short order, the manager stepped into his outer chamber and pointed to Paul.

“Landis! Git in here!”

The Mystics was a five-man doo-wop group from Brooklyn best known for “Hushabye,” a Pomus-Shuman song they had taken into the Top 30 in 1959. The band made a couple of ripples when their next single, “Don't Take the Stars,” reached the lower rungs of the Top 100, but by the winter of 1960 they had lost their lead singer, and with its record company demanding new material pronto, Gribble offered the job to Paul. Was he interested? Sure! Probably! What would it pay? Gribble mentioned a number, Paul thought that sounded fine, and after a quick check-in between the manager and the executives at Laurie Records he was in. The group's members all got together to teach Paul the songs and determine who would sing what, and it didn't take much time for the others to figure out that this college boy from Queens was actually a great guy. He laughed when they teased him for being short, and he laughed again when they made fun of his high-pitched voice. Then he busted them right back, which made the Brooklyn boys laugh even harder. Gribble and the A&R guy at Laurie Records had already chosen the tunes. “All Through the Night,” essentially a faster version of “Hushabye,” featured a group vocal; Paul sang lead on “Let Me Steal Your Heart Away,” but is inaudible on “(I Begin) To Think Again of You.” The sessions went smoothly, and everyone had a fine time, but Paul had no interest in performing at any of the sock hops Gribble set up for the group, and when its original lead singer decided to come back, Paul stepped aside cheerfully. He had Jerry Landis's career to focus on.

From late 1960 throughout 1961, Paul wrote songs and found labels willing to bankroll recording sessions and release and then promote Jerry Landis's singles. The titles make Landis seem like a sulk: “I Wish I Weren't in Love,” “Play Me a Sad Song.” And sulk he does: “I've got no one to hold me tight.” And complain: “I can't do my homework … the way she treats me just isn't right.” And kvetch: “Everywhere I look kids are having fun, / But I might as well go read a book.” And ponder the abyss: “My nights are spent in misery / Without your love I can't endure.” In a lighter mood, he moans softly to himself: “I'm lonely.” It would seem that something is desperately wrong with Jerry Landis—except that none of it rings true; he mouths clichés that condescend to heartbreak. The music is just as void, always the standard doo-wop ballad progression, the same
ooh
s and
ahh
s and
doodle-doo
s from the chorus; the same gulping, cooing vocal style. By contrast, you can put on a Chuck Berry record and
feel
the hum of a well-oiled Cadillac purring down the macadam, and “Great Balls of Fire” leaves no doubt that Jerry Lee Lewis was as crazy as a goose and as mean as a snake. Even “Hey, Schoolgirl (in the Second Row)” has that cooped-up, about-to-bust feeling of those slow-ticking afternoon classes. Yet to listen to the Landis songs, particularly in light of everything that would happen in the near future, you guess that Jerry Landis had no idea who he was, either.

*   *   *

Over at Queens College, Paul Simon rose through the ranks at AEPi and was eventually elected president of the chapter. Unchallenged authority agreed with him. He was focused, cheerful, and generous with his fraternity brothers, and kept an eye out for the stragglers and outsiders. When a thuggish-looking kid found his way to a pledge party in a wise guy's shiny shoes, tight slacks, and shiny open-neck shirt, Paul's first reaction—his mouth fell open and a hand flew up to cover his astonished smile—made the streetwise recruit, the son of a troubled Brooklyn family named Brian Schwartz, suspect the worst. Instead, Paul beelined over and greeted him like a friend. After talking for a while and learning something of Schwartz's past, Paul took him around to meet the fraternity's other key members, and as the weeks went by he shepherded him through the pledge process. When Schwartz got tapped to join, he was certain Paul's efforts had had everything to do with it.

Paul's star continued to rise among the college's most influential students, his renown stemming from his reputation as a campus performer, as the impresario behind AEPi's golden Follies entries, and increasingly as the guy most likely to whip out his guitar and hold forth for anyone and everyone within earshot. Given free time between classes, he would find some stairs where he could sit and strum his guitar for a while. Every so often he'd get up in the cafeteria and sing a few pop songs, often with frat brothers Schwartz, Ronnie Pollack, and Elliott Naishtat hauled in to sing the Belmonts' parts while Paul put on his best Dion for “The Wanderer.” They harmonized on Kingston Trio hits, and Paul was particularly expert at the group's “Scotch and Soda,” always a crowd favorite. Assigned to make a presentation about his hopes for the future in a speech class, Paul delivered a paper that cast his Tom and Jerry experience as the first step in a life he was determined to build around music. Richard Milner, a classmate Paul had gotten to know over a few terms, came away from the recitation feeling both impressed and inspired. He'd never met someone his age with such a clear and confident vision of what, and who, he wanted to be.

One day between classes, Paul took Milner to an empty hallway to sing a few songs he had just written. Who knew that these songs would soon be released as singles on MGM Records? Milner certainly didn't. Neither did Joan Tauber, one of Paul's college friends. Ron Pollack, an AEPi brother who worked closely with Paul on multiple Follies productions, had no idea that his friend had recorded anything between his high school hit and the mid-1960s. “I wasn't aware of Jerry Landis,” Pollack said to me after a puzzled silence. “I've never heard that name before.”

Another time, Paul took Milner by the arm during a class break to tell him about an extraordinary thing that had happened to him the day before. Paul's subway train had been held at an uptown Manhattan station. When he heard singing coming from the platform, he hopped off to investigate. He followed his ears down a stairway and, at the landing, found a five-man clutch of doo-wop singers, all black, all his age, all locked in harmony. Paul listened for a while, and when they got to a tune he knew, he started singing along. He sang tentatively at first, but when one of the singers picked up on what he was doing, he moved aside and gestured for Paul to join them. Paul stepped in eagerly and was immediately one of them. Heads bobbing together, fingers popping to the same beat—the moment of harmony triggered something in Paul he couldn't put into words. He just shook his head in wonder. “The niggas let me sing,” Milner recalled him finally saying. He uttered the word with a tentative hush, trying it out on his tongue like Cinderella slipping the crystal shoe over her callused heel, wondering if the previous day's magic could possibly have been real.
The niggas let me sing!

 

CHAPTER 6

THE FREEDOM CRIERS

One night in the late spring of 1961, Paul went to a talent show at Forest Hills Jewish Center. He was in Jerry Landis mode, a persona now looking to become a pop mastermind. Sitting among the parents, neighbors, and friends, Paul looked for glimmers of real talent, measuring the singers' sound and presence, imagining them on a bigger, shinier stage and himself in the wings, tapping his foot to the clang of the cash drawer. He watched act after act, some of them decent but still so young, so hesitant, so not ready. Then came four kids from Parsons Junior High, of all places, three boys and a girl (shades of the Peptones!) singing doo-wop with real flair—rich voices, strong harmonies, a gleam in their eyes. After the show, Paul introduced himself. They knew they were really good, right? Did they ever think about making records? Well, he knew exactly how they felt because he'd come out of Parsons just a few years back, already knowing he had what it took, but with no idea how to show it to the right people. But he worked at it and then—do you guys remember Tom and Jerry, “Hey, Schoolgirl”? Yeah, that was me. So how would they like to do the same thing, only without the years of frustration he'd endured? He could guide them, step by step. All they had to do was everything he told them to.

Some of them weren't even in high school yet; they were just a bunch of kids having fun. Lead singer Marty Cooper and his garrulous pal Mickey Borack were just finishing up at Parsons. Falsetto whooper Howie Klein and Gail Lynn were in high school. Cooper had the richest voice; he could sing sweet on the love songs and then summon Dion's streetwise edge for the foot stompers. But they all had strong voices, and with Borack's big personality leading the show they had a spark.

To make sure they could gather and hold a crowd, Paul trailed them to a street corner singing session. Then he sat them down to explain how it was going to work. He'd write the songs, produce the records, and manage every aspect of the group's career, working in tandem with his new business partner, Bobby Susser, a super-enthusiastic kid he'd met while visiting his college friend Judith Tauber in the Jackson Heights section of Queens. Susser took care of the business, and Paul took care of the music, scheduling regular rehearsals in his parents' basement. In search of a group name that would stand out among the Fleetwoods, the Impalas, and the Coasters, Paul combined his favorite record label (Tico) with a flashy sports car (Triumph) and, ta-dah! Tico and the Triumphs. Cooper, as lead singer, would be Tico, but they were all in this together, Paul told them when they were together. Don't worry about it. Yet when they weren't together, Paul would tell Cooper a strikingly different story.

Paul opened the first rehearsal by handing out lyrics for a song he had just written called “Motorcycle.” A fast-paced rocker built to showcase the group's harmonies with engine-evoking chants of
Brrrrr-mmmm-boppa-boppa-a-boppa-bop-bop
. The tune was the hardest, and best, song he had written since “Hey, Schoolgirl,” and he wanted it sung just so. When Gail got through a few rehearsals and realized she wasn't all that interested in the showbiz life, Paul stepped in to round out the vocal parts and, now that he thought of it, take over the lead on “Motorcycle,” which he performed with a raw-throated fierceness he'd never achieved on record. Even the B-side ballad, “I Don't Believe Them,” was several notches above the typical weepy Landis fare, thanks to a soaring chorus and a soul-stirring vocal from Cooper. After a few weeks of practice, Paul was satisfied enough to go to Charlie Merenstein for the cash he'd need to finance a proper recording session (something like a thousand dollars, according to Cooper), then shopped the finished master around Midtown until he found a buyer in Larry Uttal, whose Madison Records released the 45 in October 1961.

Kicked off with the throaty blast of a revving engine (Paul's car, not an actual motorcycle), “Motorcycle” got to a quick start in New York, where it made the playlist of WINS-AM and nearly stole Murray the K's Record of the Week contest from Boris Pickett's novelty hit “Monster Mash.” Sales leaped across the Northeast, but just as the sparks started to fly, the record disappeared from the shops. Already short on cash, Uttal couldn't scrape together the money to keep the printing plants stamping out the vinyl 45s. When the label declared bankruptcy, Paul snatched back the master and ran it over to Amy Records, where Charlie's friend Arthur Yale took it straight to his printers and had them stamp out thousands of new copies. By the time the new discs found their way to stores in November, the momentum for “Motorcycle” had faded. It had a brief run on a few regional Top 20s, even topping the charts in Baltimore and, a few months later, in Puerto Rico. But those wavelets of interest weren't enough. Tico and the Triumphs' debut only just managed to crack
Billboard
's Hot 100, spending a week in the No. 99 slot.

Feeling they'd come agonizingly close with “Motorcycle,” Paul traded the car engine sounds for the thump of a steam engine and switched the revved-up
Brrrrr-mmmm-boppa-boppa-a-boppa-bop-bop
for the
Wooo-wooo
of the rails to come up with “Express Train,” which rocked just as hard as its predecessor, but with a more complex rhythmic texture and more inventive chord changes. Released by Amy Records in April 1962, Tico and the Triumphs' second single once again fell short. In fact, so few copies of “Express Train” were sold that its B-side, a deliberately exotic number called “Wild Flower,” went all but unheard. But listen to it now, knowing where Paul's long journey through the musical cultures of the world would take him, and you get a very clear preview of the revolutionary work he'd do decades hence.

The seed of “Wild Flower” arrived in “The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh).” At the time that Paul composed “Wild Flower,” the Tokens, another New York doo-wop group, had been riding high on the
Billboard
pop charts for months with a lyrically enhanced, retitled cover of “Wimoweh,” a nearly wordless South African song that Pete Seeger's folk quartet the Weavers had launched into the pop charts in 1949. The song, based on a Zulu chant that had been a big hit in Africa in 1939, had gained English lyrics after that, but it was the odd cadences and harmonies of the tribal original that ignited Paul's imagination.