Songwriters Corner

We entered CBS studios in downtown Chicago in the fall of '69 with four songs that Bob and Frank had selected. It was our second time at CBS. The first session was a total disaster due to the fact that the equipment was second rate and mainly used for jingle voice overs ("Remember, only you can prevent forest fires" etc.). Our managers guaranteed us they had since put in new equipment and re-did the acoustics. Cautiously we entered the sterile confines.

The four songs we cut were "Something Coming On", "Lead Me Home Gently Father", (my first try at a spiritually guided lyric), "The Sky is Falling" (Inspired by the story of Chicken Little and later to appear on our first album). And a thing called "Vehicle". The session went well overall, though it was a bit disconcerting to see Dick Dearborn our head engineer put on his hat and trench coat, grab his brief case and head out the door to catch the 6:00 train, in the middle of a take! (Union rules are Union rules!)

A few unusual things happened while recording "Vehicle". First off, I broke a string on take one of the song. Rather than waste time changing a string, I put down my prized '68 Les Paul Gold Top and picked up Larry's incredible '65 Epiphone Riviera. Strung with lighter strings, the RIV seemed to play itself on take two!

The real pivotal moment came at the overdub session a few days later. While we were dubbing the brass section, the second engineer (whose name has conveniently slipped my mind) pressed the wrong button and erased 13 seconds of the multi-track master (our chief engineer was already on the train home-Thanks Dick!). I still remember the ashen faces in the control room and the hushed expletives being exchanged. The Ides knew something had gone very wrong. In those risky pre-Pro Tools days we had very few options. Our saving grace turned out to be "take one". In about an hour the second engineer (we'll call him Patch) asked us to come into the control room. He had taken 13 seconds from the same section of take one and spliced it into the multitrack of take two. Multitrack editing was still in its infancy and the chance that take one's tempo, tuning, attitude and feel were even in the same zip code seemed remote. We listened closely-it was perfect! You couldn't even tell it was a different guitar with five strings.

I only had to redo the vocal in that section. (For you curious types, you can find the splice starting at the second "Great God in Heaven" all the way up to the first note of the guitar solo.) Had the erasure gone through the solo, we would have lost a magical performance that I'm still not sure how I played. Someone must have been moving my fingers because after that I had to learn it note for note off the record.

Finally it was mixed and finished. The other three tracks were completed uneventfully and were pretty good. But for some reason we put "Vehicle" last on the demo reel that we sent to WB. In those days, we made a distinction between good "live" songs and those appropriate for records. It didn't matter that the Valley View Young Adults Club went crazy when we premiered "Vehicle" a few weeks earlier. We were sure the other three songs were the ones WB was looking for. So we put that "strange cut" last.

It took about four days to hear Warner Bros. resounding opinion. We had a smash-ola, a Go-rilla (As Kal Rudman, tip-sheet pundit used to exclaim). A pick to click, an amazing teen slanted, horn driven ditty-basically a #1 hit. No, the song wasn't "Lead Me Home Gently", it was "Vehicle"!!!!! We were surprised but exuberant!!! I guess our neighborhood friend Tommy was right.

Our management team trotted the fresh acetate of "Vehicle" down to the Chicago A.M. radio giant WLS to get a response from Art Roberts, the esteemed night jock, highly paid emcee, and all around cool guy to see if our song had a chance on their "Silver Dollar Survey". (By the way, if Art said yes, it was good for about 50 stations to add the record.) He told our managers he thought it was a sure #1 record if one element was added. He felt the "Love you" and "Need you" lyric needed a vocal answer-a call and response. We instantly thought it was a great idea, especially because it came from Art (Excelsior!) Roberts.

There was only one problem-we were out of recording tracks. In 1970, eight tracks was state of the art and they were all used up. Dick Dearborn came up with the solution. We would sing along with the 2 track mix and dub it simultaneously to another 2 track machine. Primitive, but effective, known as wild-tracking. This procedure accounts for why the background vocals (Sung by Larry, Mike and Bob) sound slightly different on the mono setting, and why there are no background vocals on the multi-track.

That night when we heard the final playback we were justifiably celebratory. We headed right over to Salerno's Pizza (16th Avenue location, of course) to consume mass quantities of the best pizza on earth and pitchers of coke (!)

Flash forward three weeks: The Ides had just finished a great gig at Westmont, Illinois' Blue Village (a former grocery store converted to a teen club complete with black lights and plenty of psychedelic wall murals). As we passed through the bar at Salerno's, on our way to the dining room, somebody said they had just heard our new song on the radio. Oh sure-he's drunk, we thought. But as we were driving down Riverside Drive to Larry's house to unload our gear, and listening to WLS suddenly from the dashboard darkness we heard Art Roberts announcing a hot new record from a local group- The Ides of March. As the first horn blast filled our turquoise Corvair Greenbriar Van (Remember how great A.M. radio used to sound in the car?) Larry floored it and suddenly we were going like 55 MPH down Riverside Drive-windows open-whooping and hollering like the college kids we were. Another car pulled up beside us at the light with the song blasting, not knowing who they were sitting next to! That one evening became an indelible memory for me and was probably more responsible for my future in music then any other evening. I wanted to feel that again and again!

As the song came to its end and we were rounding into the driveway, I couldn't help sitting there a little longer thinking about the events that led up to this moment. All the great guys in The Ides of March, the hard work, the road testing, the blood sweat and tears (pun intended), Bill ---, our young but tenacious management team. But most of all, the girl that inspired the song-wondering if she was listening to it now-wondering if this might be just the thing to win her back-who knows. I slept well that night, on the possibilities.

Within weeks the song shot to #1 on the WLS and WCFL charts. It became the fastest breaking record in WB history. The song was #2 on Billboards Hot 100 and #1 in Cashbox. The festival offers were pouring in.

Amidst all the commotion guess who calls me to see if maybe we could "Try it again". You guessed right-Karen. I came right over to her house in my brand new '70 British Racing Green Datsun 240 Z, that I bought for cash with my first royalty checks. I knocked on her front door and with guitar in hand and in my most soulful voice sang "I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan, won't you hop inside my car." Now 30 years later, that girl is my wife. Our 9 1/2 year old son is singing "Vehicle". And Karen, "I'll still take you anywhere you want to go!"