Today in Forgotten Hits, we wrap up our four part series with Paul Evans, talking about his new book "Happy Go Lucky Me: A Lifetime Of Music" by having a very candid conversation addressing where I felt there was more to the story that could have been told.
I want to thank Paul Evans for taking the time to do all this ... and for being such a good sport about doing i! (He probably feels like he could have written at least half another book by now!!! Lol) But please know that it IS appreciated ... and I hope you sell a TON of copies and do two dozen more interviews as a result of our little promo piece here.
(Again, any disc jockeys on the list who may be interested in having Paul on their show, please contact me at kk@forgottenhits.com and we will be more than happy to set this up for you. A great chance to play some of Paul's music, some of the songs he has written for other artists that became big, big hits ... and the chance to talk to just a really nice guy.)
Here we go ...
KENT KOTAL / FORGOTTEN HITS: You started out telling the story of your career in parallel with the events of the time ... but abandoned that fairly early on ... I think the way your career and the rest of the world were "linked" made for an interesting storyline and analogy and would have liked to have read more from that perspective ... especially the early days of rock and roll where your parents "banished you to the basement" for playing it! (lol)
PAUL EVANS: I would have liked to stay on track with that as well but my publisher kept telling me that they needed the book ... that I had to finish it up. They literally told me at one point to stop writing ... and when I laughed about it, they said, "No, seriously ... STOP WRITING!!!" I think at that point I was probably more focused on finishing it up and just never went back to that initial narrative. I can appreciate what you're saying ... as I would have liked to have continued in that vein as well ... but the publisher needed me to wrap things up so I sort of switched my focus to making that happen, even if it meant not being able to tell the story exactly the way I would have liked to have told it.
kk: I would have liked to hear more about the Elvis connection ... and how you beat the system by standing your ground. Think about it ... how many songwriters ever got Elvis to record one of their songs, much less several. I felt like that put you in a pretty elite group of writers ... and, as such, more explanation there would have made for some very interesting fodder ... plus the fact that despite all these connections, you never actually got to meet the man! Still, you beat the royalties system!
PE: Cut-ins on writer’s royalties by important recording artists, and I’m going way back to Al Jolson here, writers, some record companies, and publishers was probably much more common that you might think. Here I’m thinking of the early 20th century and my reporting about the shenanigans of some of the Mills Music staff. The simple truth is, this practice has been going on since there was a pop music business. Unfortunately, the competition among so many writers to get records by so few artists that can sell records is great, and the pressure to get those records leaves the writers vulnerable to the attack.
I appreciate your honoring my standing my ground against the Presley organization's cut-ins (Not Elvis, who, you're right, I never did meet). It came from my anger that they were making lots of do-re-mi and didn’t need to take any of my royalties.
And oh, that letter, signed by so many top NYC writers, making the cut-in a necessity for getting an Elvis recording. Grrr.
I also had heard that the Colonel never registered Elvis as a writer with ASCAP, so the kickback that he demanded from all of Presley's songwriters wound up never being put into the pot that was shared by all the writers who received ASCAP royalties.
Another burden borne by writers was that publishers, including Elvis’ publisher, would deduct the cost of the demos for every song that they accepted to be shown to Elvis. When enough writers complained after seeing the deductions on the royalty statement for their first Elvis recording, Freddie Bienstock, H&R’s manager, agreed that they would only deduct the demo costs for the songs that actually made it onto vinyl or into the movies. It seems that publishers didn’t want to pay for anything but their offices, and wouldn’t even have to pay for that, if only they could have found a way to charge it off to the writers. That’s a bit harsh I must admit, but sometimes it seemed that way to this songwriter.
The question of who paid for demos became moot with the advent of music programs for the computer. It wasn’t long after that publishers would only listen to songs that were presented on demos.
Kent, you also wanted to know how many songwriters had several Elvis recordings in their catalogs. Ben Weisman was the all around king of Elvis recordings with an incredible 57 songs to his credit. The team of Doc Pomus and Mort Schuman scored 25 Elvis recordings and Leiber and Stoller had 20. The very prolific hit songwriter, Otis Blackwell, wrote several Elvis hits, including my favorite, “Don’t Be Cruel.”
There were also writers who wrote many songs for Elvis’ movies. My friend, Randy Starr (who wrote and sang “After School”), wrote 12 songs for Elvis’ movies, including “Kissin' Cousins,” the title track for the movie and a single for Elvis. Another of Randy’s songs, “Almost in Love,” was also a movie song and a single (the other side of “A Little Less Conversation”) for Elvis. The team of Sid Tepper and Roy Bennett wrote 42 songs for Elvis movies, including two title songs, “GI Blues” and “Stay Away” for the movie Stay Away, Joe.
kk: You had mentioned to me some time ago that you already had a song "in the can," so to speak for a future release at the time of Elvis' death. We talked quite a bit about "I Gotta Know," which was the biggest hit Elvis had with one of your songs ... but what about some insight into some of the others, like "The Next Step Is Love" which, by the way, I always thought was the stronger side of the "I've Lost You" single ... and that's fifty years ago before I even knew you or that you had written it!
PE: Regarding "The Next Step Is Love," first of all, thank you, Kent, for the compliment. A friend of mine, Johnny Vallis, once sent me a link to a video of a very relaxed Elvis rehearsing the song with his band. In it, he sings, “the next step is sex.” It was fun to see Elvis rehearsing my song and to hear Elvis playing with the lyrics.
As for “I Gotta Know,” one day, just for the fun of it, I decided to see how closely Elvis’ record of “I Gotta Know” matched up with my demo. And I was surprised and flattered that he sang the the song in the same key that I had sung it in (in spite of the fact that he had a higher voice than I had) and at the same tempo that I had cut it at. The only major addition was the Jordanaires (who copied some of the backgrounds from the demo).
And I must add that When Elvis passed away on August 16, 1977, I lost a little piece of my life. And I don’t mean just my musical life. I mean - my life.
When I heard “Heartbreak Hotel”, I felt a connection with the music and the artist, something that I never felt with the “standard” singers … Perry Como, Vic Damone, Eddie Fisher, etc. And when I saw him on the Ed Sullivan show - I loved the guy. He was breaking the rules and it felt right. Then he cut my song “I Gotta Know,” and I felt like I had joined the top of the writing mountain – the “King” had cut my song.
Elvis was about to head for California for a recording session and he was holding two songs of mine when he died. There was never a certainty that he’d record those songs, but I had high hopes. Here are the demos of the two songs he was holding.
kk: Let's go back to the conversation that many of your biggest hits were written by someone else ... your career (that most of us would notice anyway) was primarily spent as a songwriter ... and you had success writing songs for other artists ... but other than "Happy-Go-Lucky Me," the rest of your biggest hits were written by someone else.
PE: “Seven Little Girls” was written by Lee Pockriss and Bob Hilliard, who hired me to record their demo-turned-master. That song kick-started my recording career at Guaranteed / Carlton Records. From then on, at Joe Carlton’s urging (he shared in my songs’ publishing royalties), I wrote my own hit recordings. “Midnight Special” - my arrangement of a Houston prison folk song, “Happy Go Lucky Me” (co-written with Al Byron), and “Hello, This is Joannie” (co-written with Fred Tobias).
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Although "Hello, This Is Joannie" never charted here on the US Pop Charts, it was a HUGE hit overseas in England and Australia, even hitting #1 in South Africa! - kk]
I’m flattered to think that after my stints with RCA, Atco and Carlton records, 15 more labels had enough faith that I could have another hit with my own songs, to sign me up and release my records, mostly my own songs. Do I hold the record for being signed to the most record labels (18)?
kk: Tell us a little bit about what it meant to BE a songwriter at this time ...
As we touched on in an earlier conversation, once The British Invasion hit, most of those artists became successful by either covering old American rock and roll songs from the '50's and early '60's ... or writing their own material. This is what put the concept of The Brill Building out of business to a great extent ... outside songwriters were no longer needed ... especially once these bands learned for themselves how lucrative it could be to write your own material, even if it just meant sticking something on the B-Side, as that earned just as much in the way of royalties as the A-Side did, based on total sales of the record.
PE: When the Beatles hit, and the British groups just kept coming and coming and dominating the charts, it was like a dark cloud had wrapped itself around the Brill Building. And I knew that the 50’s and 60’s party was over. But there was another party available next door – at the advertising agencies.
The Lennen & Newell agency had purchased the rights to my song, “Happiness Is” for a three-year-plus ad campaign for Kent cigarettes. And that was my clue that I could still do what I loved – I could sing and write my music – only now I wouldn’t be at the mercy of music publishers. I’d be at the mercy of the ad agencies. Of course there would be new obstacles to overcome, but I found a new home for whatever talent I might have, among the clique of talented and successful studio singers and commercial writers.
So it would be correct to say that the British Invasion actually helped me discover a career of new worlds to be explored, and they all had to do with music. Exploring them fit my personality like a glove, and I could wear that glove as long as I had the energy and love for music that I still have.
As my niece pointed out, my book, Happy Go Lucky Me – a Lifetime of Music, has put an exclamation point on my career.
As to your indicating that the British groups discovered that “B” sides were a good source of income, it was not quite the same as having the “A” side, which benefited from ASCAP or BMI performance money, but good enough. My song, “Let’s Pretend,” was on the other side of Lulu’s “To Sir, With Love,” a big hit in the UK. And when the record was released in America, it became the best-selling single of 1967. Lucky me. Except that the producer had put one of his own songs on the back-side of the song here. What a blow that was.
kk: And, since we covered it, maybe you can tell us just a bit more on the early ABBA connection, which I just find fascinating.
PE: ABBA! What a treat to tell this story!
When my publisher and friend, Stanley Mills came back from Sweden with the American rights to “Hej gamle man” (“Hey Old Man” - a song about an old soldier - written by two writers, Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson) he put my co-writer, Paul Parnes and me to work on an English lyric. We wrote, and I recorded, “For Old Times Sake.” I had no idea that according to Carl Magnus Palm, an ABBA historian, I had the honor of having the first recording of an Andersson/Ulvaeus song by an American artist. If I had known it, I would have forced my way backstage after attending an award show for the two writers in London, to tell them that I was that “some country guy” that they had mentioned in a 1972 interview as having recorded the song.
kk: And then, after being out of the spotlight for many, many years, along comes a MAJOR, successful comeback with "Santa's
Stuck Up In The Chimney" ... over three million YouTube views (and
counting) ... and several interpretations since you did yours ... I mean who has
this kind of a comeback over the age of 70?!?! I think this deserved
playing up a little bit more in the book. To me, this was a HUGE accomplishment.
PE: In 1993 I decided to form my own label and I flew down to Nashville to record four sides for an EP on the label. Mistake! A series of errors, forced and unforced, made me understand the foolishness of messing with my own label.
One of the four songs was “Santa’s Stuck Up in the Chimney,” and in 2007 I decided that it would make a good You Tube video. I knew that this was a shot–in-the-dark decision and could wind up where my own record label went – nowhere. So I asked my wife for advice and she did what she always did, and supported my career decision. Another case of “behind every lucky man is a good woman.” With her agreement, I hired an artist who was doing some work for Disney at the time, and the result was a video that has gathered almost 3,200,000 views to date. 1,940 views in the last 28 days as I write this in March, 2022. One of the reasons for the success of the video was that many teachers organized their Christmas parties around their classes singing and acting the song out. I also found videos of groups dancing to the song. One of these videos is from a dance group in Malaysia no less.
kk: And while I think it's AMAZING and SO fortunate that you were able to spend your whole life in the entertainment business (and by that I mean in ALL phases of the entertainment business ... as a writer, a producer, a recording artists, a television star, a ship singer, theater, etc., etc., etc.), I felt that some of this was inproportionally accounted for in the book, often being given "equal space" and attention to many of your greatest and best-known achievements. Keep in mind, that many of these other successes weren't necessarily known by the bulk of us out here ... one had to personally EXPERIENCE Paul Evans in these "roles" in order to appreciate them ... and that honor was limited to a select few. I think that's why I felt some of the items mentioned above deserved a little more attention ... in order to better balance out the whole Paul Evans story.
PE: The fact that I was able to spend my whole life in the music business ... in the entertainment business ... I can't even begin to express what all of this has meant to me. It was ALL important to me, even when things didn't go exactly according to plan ... and writing this book brought all of this back to me and made me appreciate it all again ... probably more so in many ways, just being able to tell others about it. Earlier you said something about the overused phrase "living the dream" ... well, as you pointed out, I lived the dream ... I just didn't know it at the time ... but writing this book brought it all back to me ... I'm not exaggerating when I say the book saved me ... it really did. And I think others would enjoy hearing about all these experiences that I've packed into my 84 years.
kk: Thanks again, Paul, for taking the time out to do this. Now that we've finally got it up on the site, I hope to hear from some of the jocks on the list ... and some of your long-standing fans who I'm sure would be interested in reading your book. I will also talk to Joel Whitburn about having a possible Billboard connection ... there are other industry movers and shakers on the list, too, who may be able to help in this regard. (And seriously, if somebody can get Paul an interview with AARP, please let me know ... that would seem to be the perfect forum for something like this!)
PE: Thank you, Kent ... this has been fun. I have enjoyed writing my notes - it’s put me back into book writing mode!
Thanks to everyone for sticking with us for this very special week-long tribute to Paul Evans.
And now,
THE PAUL EVANS HIT LIST
Paul had three Top 20 Hits in the course of twelve months, 1959 - 1960 ...
1959 - Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat (#5 CB / #9 BB)
1960 - Midnite Special (#14 MV / #16 BB)
1960 - Happy Go Lucky Me (#8 MV / #10 BB)
Other Top 20 Hits written by Paul Evans include:
"Roses Are Red," a #1 Hit for Bobby Vinton in 1962, "I Gotta Know," a #20 Hit for Elvis Presley in 1960, "The Next Step Is Love," a #14 Hit for Elvis Presley in 1970 and "When" by The Kalin Twins, a #4 Hit in 1958.
Paul Evans has had songs he has written recorded by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Bobby Vinton, Ed Ames, Homer and Jethro, Johnny Tillotson, Peter Lawford, Dorsey Burnette, LaVern Baker, Jimmy Dean, The Ray Coniff Singers, Leonard Nimoy, Wayne Newton, Slim Whitman, Cliff Richard, Bobby Rydell, Pat Boone, Lulu, The Sandpipers, Troy Donahue, Jackie Wilson, Frankie Lymon, Tab Hunter, The Coasters, Freddy Fender, Shelly Fabares, Dickey Lee, Jim Reeves, Bobby Goldsboro, The Tremeloes, Patty Duke, Sonny James, Bobby Bare, Fabian, Reba McEntire, The Lennon Sisters, Roy Clark, Burl Ives and Chad and Jeremy ... and literally dozens, and dozens and dozens more.
Now THAT'S a career in music!!! (kk)
And this just in ...
AN UNEXPECTED ENDORSEMENT FOR “Happy Go Lucky Me – a Lifetime of Music”
It has just been nominated for the 2022 ARSC Awards for “Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research” - the winner to be announced in September.
The Association for Recorded Sound Collections is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings.
When my publisher asked me to write a book about my 60+ years in the music business, who’d have thought (other than my wife) that it would get reviewed as well as it has and be nominated for its Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research?
Certainly not me!
Paul
Pick up your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Go-Lucky-Me-Lifetime/dp/0857162187/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A7JTITM58FMA&keywords=happy+go+lucky+me&qid=1650162367&s=books&sprefix=happy+go+lucky+me%2Cstripbooks%2C71&sr=1-1
