the lyric to 'Carousel' is my only memento of Jennifer Berne.   i have no photo or anything else she wrote.   we were friends, and briefly, lovers, in 1962, the year we met.   i contacted her once more, possibly in 1977 on a brief stay in New York City, but then lost track of her permanently.   the story of how we met, however, sheds a little light on my very first attempt at popular song-writing, which somehow was lost in my memoir narrative.   i think it's worth including here.

in 1962, i was still fully engaged in my studies of classical music at Queens College NYC.   i had, however, begun to take an interest in other genres.   there were several students and one faculty member in the Q.C. music department who had tangential connections to the jazz, big band, and Broadway scenes.  one of them, a trombone player named Shelby (all i recall here are first names), enlisted me to do orchestrations for a student musical.   i had something of a reputation in the music department as a budding wunderkind and was sometimes tagged for tasks that were far outside my practical purview.   my orchestration for the show was an example.   it might have had its own merits as an amalgam of Kurt Weill and Stravinsky, but it was hardly Broadway idiomatic.    the musicians were bewildered by it and i considered it a failure.   as realized by student performers, it didn't sound very good.   still, my friendships with these 'outside' people continued.   i don't remember how it was that a tenor sax player named Stan interested me in the idea of writing a 'pop' song for a 'record producer' he was doing some sessions for.   whatever the circumstances, i must have had a minor inspiration.   i came up with a little ditty called, 'I'm So Happy',     i give the first verse here.   the song was lost long ago:


the song had a simple, bouncy, little tune and must have been appealing.   Stan's 'record producer' friend liked it.

enter Ed Valone, 'record producer.'    i recall my first meeting with Ed Valone because it gave a concrete meaning to the phrase 'shark skin suit'.   to this day i have no idea what type of fabric is referred to by the term 'shark skin', but i do remember that when i met Ed, he was dressed, rather formally i thought, in a suit made from some leaden gray, dully luminous material that i imagined looked like real shark skin.   this was (ahem) fitting, because Ed was something of a shark, himself.

Ed Valone was my very first exposure to the record business, and a careful analysis of his character might have told me everything i ever needed to know about it;  if i had been capable of, or interested in, character analysis, which i wasn't.   i was mostly just curious, and my little song would give me the chance to learn more.

Ed might have been succinctly described, in the business as it existed at the time, as a 'bottom feeder'.   in brief, he was a handsome, virile, personable nobody, who had appointed himself a 'record producer' by firmly gripping his own bootstraps.   except he wore those shiny, pointed loafers that had no strap.   his only tangible, if tenuous, connection to the record business was through his son, Alan, a sometime, modestly talented, disco-band singer, and his through a 'friend', who i would meet later, an I-talian gentleman who ran a one-bit record label that specialized in exploiting the young and stupid.   his 'friend' would have had more credibility except for the word 'mafia' tattooed prominently across his forehead.   i would learn that the function of people like Ed was to front for people like his 'friend' by showing a marginally plausible facade until the cuffs were snapped in place.

Ed was very friendly, in that carefully delineated, New York-Italian way.   he was a man's man.   that is, his conversation was mostly laced with disparaging references to the female of the species and how their intellectual inadequacies might be exploited for sexual purposes (shades of John Guilotti, my seventh grade 'piano teacher' ).   Ed introduced me to his girlfriend, a very pretty, friendly, airline hostess, and then proceeded to talk about how, behind her back, he was cheating on her all the time, because, as he said, a man needs some 'strange ass' to keep him, you know--what?   to keep his pathetic male sexual ego pumped up, is what,  Ed, you jerk.

all the talk about sex was, in a way, less about Ed's personal life than it was a fishing expedition.   was i a potential chauvinist 'goombah/guido' like himself?   could i relate?   was i 'trustworthy'?   and mostly, could i be manipulated and cheated by exploiting any 'weakness' i might display if i confessed to being a degenerate like himself?   it was a game.   i knew it even then.   primitive disgust saved me from being too vulnerable to Ed's blandishments.  i was curious though, and i did want to see my little song 'produced'.   i sort of played along without showing too many cards.

Ed did, in fact, arrange a recording session at a real studio to do it in.   this must have cost him a few bucks, so he wasn't all bullshit.   the hook for me was this:  not only was i the author of our project, i was also slated to be the 'lead' vocalist.   this was going to be my first record.   i was genuinely excited by the prospect.

the day came.   we convened.   the track was laid down.   Stan, the multi-talented one, played a very credible banjo track to give it some flavor.   nice touch, Stan.   i took my place at the microphone and did my damnedest:  'i'm so happy...'   and i was, too.   i fit right into my new role as a potential pop idol.

it was at the recording session that i met Jennifer Berne.   i was the young, cute, pop singer.   she was a 'publicist' or something.   probably she was just a friend of Stan's, but it was a little thrill to be at a real 'recording session', and there she was.   she was duly impressed, and i was not above a little 'sexploitation' of my own.   i put the moves on her, with predictable results.

Jennifer turned out to be a very nice, sensitive, and sincere person.  i responded by not acting like too much of an asshole.   we had a good relationship that eventually matured into friendship and collaboration.   hence, 'Carousel'.   over the next five years, i did my best to give Jennifer what opportunities i could as my 'career' took shape.   i think i used 'Carousel' first as the flip side of the 'Forever Children' single on ABC records, and then again on the Rig album.

so what happened to my first shot at the big time?  not much.   we pressed a demo from the session and Ed took it around to his 'friend' somewhere off 7th Avenue in the 50's.   his friend grunted, snorted, made some other animal noises, and said, in mono syllables, that he liked the song, and that i was the 'woist' singer he had ever heard.    'dis kid's gotta go',  was his firm aesthetic judgment.   since Ed's 'friend' was his only contact in the record business, i went.   fortunately for me, although i was very disappointed, it wasn't necessary to resort to cement shoes.   i went quietly.   enter Alan Valone.   it's possible that this greasy, Italo-crooner had been waiting in the wings all along.   Ed was slippery as an eel.   it made perfect sense that the whole charade had been structured from the start to promote the fruit of his loins.   Alan came in and re-did the vocals.   why this great improvement failed to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse remains, of course, one of life's inscrutable mysteries.   the record went straight to nowhere.   oh, well.

there was one other good outcome of the whole affair, beside meeting Jennifer.   this Alan Valone had a back-up band.   i went to hear them at least once.   they were pretty good, for a club band in New York. but i was more impressed by the guitarist.   i spoke with him after the show.   i took his number for future reference.   this was Jack McNichol, whom you've met later as the guitar player in Black Betty.