I Wrote That One, Too . . . Page 6

  When I graduated, my future was clear. It was the mid-seventies, and in the South there was a specific protocol one followed: after you graduated college, you immediately got married to your girlfriend and started a family. All of my friends at school were following that formality, so I figured I would, too.

  A month after graduating with an ABJ degree, which to this day hangs somewhere in a garage closet, I asked Nancy to marry me, and she said yes.

  Our big dilemma was where to live. Nancy was the only one of us with a real job, but I was finally getting a foothold with some of the other writers and musicians in town. Nancy agreed that the best thing to do would be for her to quit her job at the ad agency and move to Atlanta. Fortunately, with her experience and good references, it didn’t take her long to find a viable office job close to the cute two-bedroom duplex apartment that we rented on the rural north side of Atlanta.

  Now all we needed was for me to get a few songs recorded, make some real money, and save up to start a family. To both of our delights, the family part came fairly quickly. About ten months into our marriage, Nancy informed me that we were going to have a baby.

  Stephen Hartley Dorff Jr. was born on an exceedingly hot July day at Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital: July 29, 1973.

  With a gorgeous newborn and a stunning wife, I felt like a million bucks . . . even though I was still only making a whopping $150 a week.

  I worked at Lowery Music for four and a half years, and without question the single most wonderful thing that came out of my experience there had to be meeting one of my favorite collaborators and closest friends, Milton Brown.

  Cotton Carrier was the general manager of the publishing side of Lowery’s operation. As I wrote and demoed songs to turn in, I would play them for Cotton first. He would then put together a tape of all of the songs turned in by the various signed writers and play them for Bill at a weekly meeting.

  Cotton was a sweet man and a big fan of my songs. He loved hearing my new songs, and together we would make a wish list of recording artists or producers he would try and get them to. Even though no one was recording them, just the thought of these artists possibly being exposed to my songs was encouraging, and this meeting was always the highlight of my week.

  One day, I was in the office, meeting with Cotton, and he asked me if I had ever tried cowriting. Up to this point I was writing both the music and lyrics to my songs. Yes, I had cowritten a few things before at Herb Bernstein’s request, when I was a teenager, but for the most part I considered myself to be a fully self-contained songwriter.

  Cotton had been in touch with a songwriter from Mobile, Alabama, who was looking to affiliate with a publisher in the South. He was blunt:

  “This guy Milton Brown is writing some pretty lousy, boring melodies, but his lyrics are fantastic! Your melodies are amazing, but your lyrics are the weak link in your songs. I think the two of you should try writing some songs together.”

  I told Cotton I would be happy to look at some of Milton’s lyrics if he had a few that he hadn’t done the music to already. Cotton called Milton, who replied that he would put some things in the mail that day. This was before the instant gratification of email, and I waited four days before Cotton called me in and handed me five printed pages.

  It was the first time I set eyes on a Milton Brown lyric.

  I was blown away.

  The language, imagery, and sense of melodic fluidity—even without any music—was not something I was used to reading. I went home and I think I wrote all five songs that first day. One of them, written over forty years ago, remains to this day one of my most favorite songs we ever wrote together, “Tonight I Took Your Memory off the Wall.” Con Hunley would do a beautiful version of the song, but he never released it as a single. I still believe this song will eventually find its way to another great artist to record.

  I finished the simple piano/vocal demos of the songs and Cotton mailed them to Milton. Again, this was before the instant gratification of MP3s. It was old-school back then.

  I will never forget that first phone conversation I had with Milton. The phone rang, and when I picked it up, a voice with a dramatic Southern drawl like I had never heard before said, “Hello Steve. I just heard what you did with my lyrics, and I couldn’t be more amazed at the quality of these songs.”

  We talked for twenty minutes and agreed to meet in Atlanta for dinner to celebrate our newfound collaboration.

  About a week later, Nancy and I got together with Milton and his wife, Margaret, and Cotton and his wife, Jane. It turns out that my obese farmer was tall and thin with a full head of dark hair, and he was wearing a nice sports coat and tie. Milton and I had turned on the faucet, and for the next three years we cranked out song after song (all lyrics first). The results would soon start to get us a lot of attention at the Lowery Group.

  Needless to say, I don’t think I wrote another lyric for twenty-five years.

  A year before my contract came to an end, IT finally happened. A rockabilly/country artist from California, Dorsey Burnette, got a hold of one of Milton’s and my songs, “It Happens Every Time.” He recorded it, Steve Stone produced it, and Milton and I had our very first Billboard chart record.

  This was a huge breakthrough for us. We were now considered legit writers within the Lowery Group stable.

  With our sudden success as a songwriting duo, we were finally beginning to get some things going with some of the Lowery stable artists like Billy Joe Royal, the Classics IV, and some up and coming artists. Yet, I was feeling restless. The baby was now six months old, I wasn’t making much money, and I felt like I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere fast. I knew what I wanted to do and it was time for me to take the leap and do it: I had always wanted to go to California, where I could write songs and scores for movies and TV.

  That was always where I wanted to be.

  I still own the little stand-up Diapason piano, some four and a half decades later. Just before graduation and my move to Atlanta, I was able to buy it with the money I was getting from Lowery. I paid $600 for the little piano that still sits in my bedroom, which saves me a lot of time running up and down stairs on the occasion I have a tune in my head in the middle of the night. I wrote several big hits, including “Every Which Way but Loose” and “Barroom Buddies,” on that bad boy!

  9

  Knocking On Doors 3

  Snuff Garrett

  With my contract with Bill due to come to an end in six months, I felt stymied.

  I was still young, but I was impatient, and I felt like things weren’t happening fast enough. I always had a burning desire to write music for television and film. I craved something visual. Bill had sent me out to Los Angeles on a writing trip in 1973, and I was hooked. I loved the vibe, the weather, the palm trees. I could never get it out of my mind, so Nancy and I saved some money so I could come back and try to make a dent. My sister helped out, too, loaning me $400.

  I basically had enough money to last for one week.

  My son Stephen was only six months old—the same age I was when I was knocking my head into the crib. I promised him I was going to make him proud.

  Nancy, Stephen, and I drove to Mobile, Alabama, where they stayed with Milton and Margaret while I ventured out to L.A. on a weeklong trip that would change all of our lives.

  I stayed at a fleabag Motel 6 on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood, ready to make my mark. I had a backpack filled with demo tapes and a list of my favorite record producers. Every day, I would knock on doors and ask them if they needed songs. Every day, they said no. Mostly, a receptionist would say, “Leave your demo.” I was so excited to be in the game, I had no idea they’d throw my demo in the trash the minute I walked out the door.

  I had come to L.A. prepared with the knowledge of who the active and hot producers were in town, and the artists with whom they were working. If I could only land
one song with any one of these guys, I would feel as if the trip was worth taking, and hopefully would open up the possibility of me getting to move to the West Coast.

  One of the doors I knocked on was Garrett Music Enterprises. I was running out of demos and starting to catch on to the fact that everyone was most likely not listening to them. The guy behind the desk, Doc Babb, said in that bored voice I was getting far too used to, “You can leave the demos for Snuff. He doesn’t see anyone, but we have a song plugger who will listen.”

  It was my last day in town: I was worn out, disillusioned, disappointed.

  I left the demo and walked out the door, assuming that neither my demo nor I would get any traction. I felt like a failure. I felt like maybe my father was right and no one ever really made it as a pure songwriter unless they were a signed recording artist as well . . . which I was not, and was never going to be.

  I bought a hamburger with my last couple of dollars and got back to the hotel at 6:30, just as it was starting to get dark. I needed to pack because I had an early flight out the next morning. I started feeling sorry for myself. What was I going to tell everyone? I was going back to Atlanta with my tail between my legs. Back to my wife and kid. Back to . . .

  The hotel phone message light was blinking red.

  I quickly picked up the message. It was from a MaryAnne Rowan:

  “Please call Snuff Garrett when you get this message.”

  Confused and a little bit panicked, I picked up the phone and dialed. MaryAnne answered on the first ring.

  “Garrett Music Enterprises.”

  “Hi, uh, I got a message, this is Steve—”

  “Yeah, hold on for Snuff.”

  Two seconds later, a thick Texas accent came on the line.

  “How you doing, boy?”

  “Um . . . I’m good.”

  “Where are you and what are you doin’ right now?”

  Now, I was a fairly sheltered Jewish kid from New York, so when he asked me, “What are you doin’ right now?” I replied the way any sheltered Jewish kid from New York would.

  “I’m in the hotel. I was going to watch TV and go to sleep.”

  Snuff didn’t hesitate.

  “How fast can you get over here? Come now, I’m in the office late.”

  I stopped packing and drove to 6255 Sunset, at the corner of Sunset and Vine. Snuff was waiting.

  “Sit down and play me a couple of songs.”

  So I sat down and played him a couple of songs.

  When I was finished, Snuff said, “So, what’s your story?”

  I told him that I was still under contract to Bill Lowery for six more months but I had always wanted to live and work in Hollywood. I told him I had a wife and a baby. I told him I was dead broke.

  “I know Bill,” he said. “Bill and I can work some arrangement out. I’ll pay you $265 a week and move you out here. You’ll work for me. You’ll listen to unsolicited songs. You’ll learn the ropes and write songs and we’ll copublish with Lowery for your remaining six months. Sound good?”

  Um . . . it sounded very good.

  Snuff asked me to come back the next morning first thing to meet with the VP of the company, to go over details of my impending move west. I changed my flight by a day and went back to the office at 10 a.m. the next morning.

  Don Blocker had worked with Snuff for years at Liberty Records, and when Snuff went independent with Garrett Music Enterprises, he brought Don over to be general manager of the company. Don was a down-to-earth Midwesterner from Nebraska who loved to talk college football. He asked me a million questions about my family, aspirations, and expectations.

  “Are you sure you want to make this huge transition in your life?” he kept asking me. “Hollywood can be a tough place, and there are no sure things in this business.”

  My guess is that Don knew Snuff all too well, and maybe he was trying to warn me that if things didn’t work out for me there, I would be stuck downstream without a paddle in a big, new, strange place, supporting a young family.

  I finally asked Don, “Are you trying to advise me to stay in Atlanta?”

  He said, “If you were my son, yes, I would say give yourself a few more years there before moving out here to a situation that is iffy at best.”

  I was scared, but I told him I was determined to make it out here one way or another, and this was a golden opportunity I could never pass up. With that, he shook my hand, and said, “Welcome.”

  Don was my point person for the move, and was helpful in every aspect of our adjustment that first year in L.A. I hopped on a flight, packed up my life, and moved my family to California.

  Bill worked out a deal with Snuff where they would co-own anything I wrote for the remaining six months. One of the first songs I wrote at Snuff’s ended up being my first Top 10 record, “Hoppy, Gene, and Me” by Roy Rogers. It turned out that Snuff’s boyhood hero had also been mine. What a trip.

  After the first six months had gone by and I was clear from my Lowery agreement, I signed an exclusive three-year deal with Snuff, which I ended up extending for ten years. Snuff didn’t want to let me go. Before me, he had worked with Leon Russell. Leon was also a piano player and Snuff’s musical ears. When Leon left, Snuff needed new musical ears.

  I happened to knock on the right door at the right time and unknowingly be exactly who and what Snuff was looking for.

  Snuff Garrett was a song guy and a people person, but he was not a great musician. In actual fact, he wasn’t a musician at all: he had needed Leon just as he now needed me. Frankly, it was smart of him to admit this, as one doesn’t always need to be a musician to be a great producer. You just needed some luck, the ability to be a people person, and the uncanny ability to know a hit song when you heard one.

  And, no matter what people said about Snuff Garrett’s reputation of being a “tough horse-trader,” he had a great ear for a great song.

  Getting settled into my role at Garrett Music Enterprises, let alone living in Los Angeles, was exciting, scary, stressful, daunting, and rewarding, all rolled into one. Nancy’s and my first priority was setting up an apartment in North Hollywood. Stephen Jr. was a toddler now, and we had absolutely no help. We hardly knew anyone in California, and our first order of business was to find a babysitter.

  I was expected to be at work every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., which was also a brand new experience for me. In Atlanta, I worked out of the house and would go into the Lowery studios to record demos. I had never had my own office before. Now, I was to have my own beautiful office on the tenth floor of 6255 Sunset, replete with a full-on view of the Hollywood sign, which reminded me every day that I had arrived.

  In my mind, I was finally where I needed to be.

  The first six months were pretty much a period of listening and learning the ropes. Snuff would have me listening to songs from outside sources for acts he was producing, and he occasionally let me do a few secondary arrangements on album cuts for some of the lesser-known acts he was working with. His primary arranger when I got there was Al Capps. Al was a great guy and a talented arranger who was in high demand with a lot of other producers, as well as Snuff.

  What always impressed me about Al—and some of the other great arrangers in Hollywood, like Jimmy Haskell, Artie Butler, and Don Costa—was their ability to write such great arrangements so fast on demand. It would take me hours to work out what I wanted to do, where these seasoned skillful men would take forty-five minutes or less to churn out a brilliant chart.

  One day, Snuff walked into my office and said, “Al is working on some other projects and I’m in a bit of a pinch . . . I need you to do an arrangement for a Roger Williams session that just came up.”

  I froze. He was throwing me my first major arranging gig. Roger Williams was a piano virtuoso who had done many successful instrumental albums, mostly covering the
hits of the day. His record company, MCA, wanted to rush out a recording of Roger doing the theme to Murder on the Orient Express, which was a hit movie at the time.

  This would be a far different chart to any that I had ever done before. There was no vocalist. I had to write an orchestral accompaniment to a solo piano playing the lead.

  I spent the next day at Roger Williams’s house in the Encino Hills, going over every aspect of what and when he was going to play during the session. I recorded him on a little handheld cassette recorder and went home to begin the process of what I would have the orchestra playing behind him. It was my first all-nighter.

  I played the song over and over again, refining it until I felt it was right. Two days later, we were in United/Western Studio A with a thirty-piece orchestra and Roger playing a special nine-foot concert grand he had specially brought in. The session turned out really well, and I was thrilled. I had broken the ice with my first major recording session in L.A. When Roger was asked to do a recording of “Nadia’s Theme” from The Young and the Restless for his next album, he asked me to do the arrangement for that as well.

  The next arrangement I was asked to do was for a Jim Nabors inspirational album. I was thrilled, as I was a huge fan of The Andy Griffith Show growing up, and to actually get to meet and work with Gomer Pyle was going to be a lot of fun. Maybe he’d hear one of my charts and say, “Gollllleeeeee.”

  We were at Larrabee Sound in Hollywood, and we were using both studios: the rhythm section in Studio A, a small orchestra in Studio B. Lenny Roberts was engineering and Snuff was producing. I, of course, was pretty much in awe of the band we had, which included a few members of the infamous Wrecking Crew: Hal Blaine on drums, Tommy Tedesco and Al Casey on guitars, Glen D. Hardin on piano, and Carol Kaye on bass.

  In the back of the studio was a big church organ that had been brought in for the spiritual sound that Snuff wanted for some of the more inspirational songs like “Church in the Wildwood,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “Amazing Grace” . . . you get the idea.