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My First Real Job!
During my stint in college, I got a phone call at 3:am one morning. A friend of mine "Bob Bullock" was calling from Kenny Roger's studio in Hollywood and wanted to know if I would come to the studio "right then" to record a guitar solo! I said "are you kidding me?"
So it's 4:30 am, I'm sitting in the recording studio, playing my Les Paul guitar through a prototype of a "Rock Man" amplifier; Which was a little blue box with no speaker, just a headphone jack, that sounded like 10 Marshal stacks and about 5 thousand dollars worth of sound effects. (remember the band Boston... their first album was recorded with one of these.) I had one of the first units available, even before they hit the market, because I worked in a music store at the time (Plaza Music in La Palma).
Les Paul
The man, Les Paul himself, comes waltzing into the studio; he was in town to receive his "Grammy" for inventing the multi-track recording system. This guy is a music legend! He sees me playing guitar, and wants to know what amp I'm using... I showed him this little blue box and he was amazed! Being the inventor he is, he wanted it! He said he wanted to buy it from me so he could take it apart and see what made it tick. I explained that it was just a prototype and it wasn't available yet, in fact it wasn't even mine... but he said "I don't care, how much?" He started taking hundreds out of his pocket and putting them on the table..."how much do you want" he said. Eventually, realizing I'm sitting here with a legend, I gave in and let him have it. You'll never believe how much I charged him! Les and I became pretty good friends that morning, we had a lot in common, particularly the fact that we both ate popcorn every day. He gave me his number and told me to call him sometime. Well, before I could, he called me about a week later to tell me it was a damn "chip"; that's how they made the amp sound so good, he just knew it! I hung up thinking, "Oh my God, Les Paul just called me" go figure.
I saw Les in New York a few years later and he treated me like an old best friend. Man, that felt so great, I'm sitting in a night club watching him play and he see me... he was like "Hey, look who's here, it's my friend from Kenny Roger's out in California, 'Eric McClune'" (he got my last name wrong, but remembered it later). So he invites me on stage and asks me to jam with him and tells everyone about when we met at the studio and so on. I didn't have a guitar, but "Skunk Baxter" from the Doobie Brothers was there and Les asked Skunk if I could play his guitar... talk about being on cloud nine (whatever that actually means). I got to Jam Live with Les Paul at the Iridium Night Club in New York. Someone at the club just happened to videotape the show and offered to send me a copy. I'll post here (here) soon. I've been back several times and Jammed with Les Paul. He's getting very very old these days, I should give him a call. (Hang on, I'll be right back) Got his answering machine, but he usually answers the phone himself. "I'd like to get all the great guitar players in the world together and do a tribute to that guy."
So back to the night I met Les, this guy named Kin Vassy comes in, and takes a listen. He said I was an OK guitar player but he asked me if I wrote any songs. I said that I had a few so he wanted me to send him something the following week. I did, and one week later, he called and offered me a job... as a staff writer / producer for Kenny Rogers Productions. I was shocked... I was a rock and roller going to work for Kenny Rogers... it made no sense. My new boss was Kin Vassy. He jokingly said "I'll get chu inna pair of cowboy boots fore you know it son"... and "sho-nuff" I was writtin' country western songs and wearing Kenny Rogers brand cowboy boots before I knew it!
Now, let me just say... country music, is a son of a bitch! There's some real "pickers" up-off-in-there boy. Translation: "There are some great musicians in country western music.") It doesn't matter what instrument you play, if you're from Nashville, or anywhere in that whole neck of the woods I guess, and you're a really good musician, you're a "picker", it doesn't matter if you play the piano or the trumpet, your still a "picker". I found that rather interesting.
Ken Vassy
Let me tell you about Ken Vassy, what a man. "Just a wiggle in the road"... that was his saying when times got tough. He had the sweetest daughter, "Karla", whom he loved to death. He used to say, "I miss your face and I love your guts, my little person!" He was my mentor, my friend and had one of the most amazing voices you'll ever hear in your life. This guy taught me more about music than I'd learned in my whole life. He used to play with the Christy Minstrels, and the First Edition with Kenny Roger. He played with Frank Zappy and he's written songs and sang background vocals on some of the biggest hits in the world. I loved him, and he cared about me. He hired me, for one thing, and he believed in me. I must have wrote a hundred songs with him. The last song we wrote together was called "After I'm Gone" I'll let you hear it a little later. Ken could sing his ass off. I used to wonder, "why isn't he as big and famous as our boss, Kenny Rogers." We both worked for Kenny at Lion Share Studios in Beverly Hills, Ca.
That last song we started to write together, unfortunately was in his living room, late into his illness, "lung Cancer". Ironically it was called, "After I'm Gone" and I finished it with two other writers who were very close to Ken, Elfreda Chay and David Mac Kachnie. I sang that song, eyes full of tears, at his funeral. He died at a young 51. Ken touched so many lives in so many special ways, which he never could have done if he had become as big as a "Kenny Rogers". I've got his picture on my desk in my retreat, and I think about him and talk about him kindly now and then, that's what he wanted me to do.
Talk about a beautiful place to work, this studio was probably... not not probably, it was! The best recording studio in Hollywood at the time, and I had my name painted on a curb in the parking lot! One day it would be Rod Stewart and Lionel Richie, the next day Toto and Michael Jackson. From Bruce Springstein to Donna Summers to the Pointer Sisters to Van Halen to Dolly Parton and of coures, Kenny Rogers, everybody came through the doors of Lions Share one day or another. I remember Kenny coming in the studio one night (morning) at 4:am. He said to me: "I heard you worked here almost every night till 4 or 5 AM, I just wanted to see for myself. Now go home."
As a musician, songwriter, producer, I couldn't have even imagined a better job. I was 22 years old and making a ton of money. Kenny Rogers found these two singers from Australia, a beautiful tall blond named "Jackie Love" and a tall good looking mate named "Patrick Mc Mann". He said, Eric, write and produce 4 or 5 songs for each one of them. On top of that I was writing with Ken Vassy, Robbie Long, Elfreda Chay, David Mac Kachnie, ( ) and a bunch of other really talented musicians, I can't remember all of the names... I'll remember them in a minute as soon as I stop trying... Anyway, I used to hire different guys to come in and sing vocals on demos for Kenny. It was like the "Harvard School of Songwriting". I wrote a song for the Oakland Raider called "How Bad Do You Want It". I co-wrote a song with Meredith Stewart, for a Japanese Super Star being produced by Humberto Gatica, she was like the "Madona" of Japan. Her name was Naoko Kawai. It was called "Only In My Dreams" and it went to #1.
I used to work with this local guy named "Richard Marks", I told everyone, this guy should have his own record deal, he's a great song writer and an amazing singer. He was one of the guys we used to hire to sing demos for us. Of course he went on to become, the "Richard Marks" with hit after hit song.
Now, it's a good thing that I have a lot of integrity because I have out takes and unreleased recording from people like Prince, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers to name a few. I'm sure they'd be worth a lot of money to some tabloid TV, but being a musician myself, and knowing that there are some pretty rough recordings of my own floating around out there, I'd never let anyone get a hold of these recordings. Actually, I can't believe some of my stuff I'm letting your hear on this website... I recorded some of it by bouncing cassette tapes back and forth between two ghetto blaster's while playing a new part live each time!
Skat in A "A newer Secret Sity"
I met some long haired rock and roll dudes in a band called Montserrat from Orange County believe it or not at the studio one day and later started to jam with them for fun at a few gigs. We opened for Deep Purple at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena and played a few Secret Sity songs. The band actually recorded 2 or 3 new songs I'd written and added them to their set.
When that band, disbanded, as most band eventually do... I snaked the drummer, the bass player and the rhythm guitarist and started yet another "Secret Sity". Eric Rollins on Bass, Brad (something or other) on guitar and Randy Hansen on Drums. These were the "big hair" days... Poison, Rat, Van Halen, White Snake, these were the popular bands. So now I had another excuse to have long hair and I went to LA and got hair extensions. I could never grow my nappy hair that long, so I figured, hey, this is Rock and Roll, this is Show Business, I can do whatever the hell I want, right! Got me some long ass heat and joined a rock band! Now some people said, you look rediculous eric, but my real friends basically understood to my face anyway... maybe they laughed like hell behind my back, but I didn't give a damn. It felt good, It looked good - to me anyway and that's all that mattered. By the way it was "real" human hair, and I paid good money for it, so it was "mine" which theoretically means... it was "my real hair"!
I have short hair now and I just relax it a little so it ain't so nappy. What the hell does nappy mean, where did that word come from? I'm sure it's a black thing, just like the word... "ashy." When black people have dry skin, they call it "ashy".
Ok, man did I get off track or what! Anyway, we started playing around Orange County. We used to rehearse in the warehouse of this Sex Shop, called the Pleasure Factory. The other guys in the band had day jobs there shipping toys all over the country. That was was a crack up! Hey, it was free and in a industrial zone so we didn't bother anyone late at night. Its so hard to find a good place to practice.
We played at Danny Cadaro's, brother's Pizza Parlor in Cypress one night and my old drummer, Philip came to see us. Well, soon after that, Philip was playing drums with Secret Sity again and we wrote several new songs from 1989 until now.
I owned an Alarm Company in Laguna Hills Ca, at the time and work, buying a home, etc, consumed more and more of my time. So music was put on the back burner and pretty much just something to do for fun after awhile.
I began to do Charity work with my 6 year old son back in like 92 - 93. That took off and landed me traveling all over the world doing benefit concerts and fundraising.
To be continued...
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