I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together

During the first year of the Fridays show Smith-Hemion Productions were producing an original one hour show for Linda Lavin. It was called “Linda In Wonderland”. Much to my surprise, delight, and apprehension, Ian Fraser asked me to be an arranger on the show.  He told me to meet with the special material writers Ken and Mitzie Welch. I had met Ian before but I honestly had no idea who Ken and Mitzie Welch were or what they had done in the past. If I had known I would have surely been intimidated.

Ken and Mitzie Welch were a songwriting and producing team. Mitzie had been a big band singer and Ken had begun his career as a child performer playing the accordion in Burlesque houses across the country. Ken moved from Kansas City to New York when he was in his early twenties and found work playing piano, writing songs and performing with cabaret singers. At one audition he was playing for a young performer as she sang. She didn’t get the job but Ken was so moved by her he chased after her down the hall and introduced himself and gave her his card. More than a year later she finally called Ken and they met. He wrote a comedy song for her called: “I made a fool of myself over John Foster Dulles”. At the time Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was considered the most boring man in America. She performed the song live on the Gary Moore show (Ken was the pianist for the show). It was such a sensation that the show got a call from the Secretary asking if she could do it again the following night which she did. The following Sunday she performed the song on the Ed Sullivan show. In less than a week the iconic career of Carol Burnett was born. Among Ken and Mitzi’s many credits was the first Barbra Streisand television special “My Name is Barbra” in 1965. They were responsible for coming up with the idea of doing “Happy Days Are Here Again” as a ballad which became her theme song. This was followed by The Carol Burnett Show. By the time I met them they had won Emmy Awards, Christopher Awards and were considered one of the best writing teams in the business. I think it was better that I had no clue when I walked into the room for our meeting. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

I was to be given two numbers to arrange. One was an original song for Lynn Redgrave called “Too Tall” written by Ken and Mitzie Welch. The other was a long medley of Broadway songs for Lynn and Linda to do together.

Their number had a very funny premise: each would sing famous Broadway songs of parts they thought they would have been perfect for but were never cast. It was a long medley including songs from Cabaret, Oklahoma, Evita, Gypsy and others with an intro and ending written by Ken and Mitzie. Lynn and Linda enjoyed doing this bit so much they performed it together many times through the years. I had no experience writing show tunes so I boldly asked Ken and Mitzie to go through each song with me when I picked up the assignment at the Smith-Hemion offices in Beverly Hills. They patiently walked me through it while MItzie, though gracious, was suspicious of me, warily watching me. When I left I immediately went to the record store to buy cast albums of all of the shows in the medley to research what had been done in the originals. When I got home I was mortified that each song in the medley was the first verse of the original songs I found on the cast albums. Almost every song was orchestrated with pizzicato strings. With the albums being of little help, I was forced to follow my instincts such as they were and plow ahead. What made the other song difficult for me to write was that it was a waltz. Normally I would have thought to use strings so I could use all the tricks I learned studying Ravel’s “La Valse”.  Unfortunately for me this was a low budget show and we only had a small band and no money for strings. The session was on the following Friday night. Thankfully it was after the Fridays show wrapped so I could go to the session. I worked all through the week and I knew I wouldn’t finish in time so Thursday night I went to Bill Hughes office to finish up through the night before I was due at ABC Prospect in the Hollywood Hills the next morning. Bill’s office was a dicey place, especially at night. Quietly working alone, I noticed a rat running across the floor. I realized then that the crew was right and the coffee cans served a good purpose. Knowing that by the end of the next day I wouldn’t be in very good shape to drive so I hired a limousine to take me across Hollywood from ABC Prospect to Group IV recording on Wilcox Ave for the session. It was my first gig with Ian and all went well. Another day, another gig. The next fall I was astonished to discover that I had been nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Music Direction. I was barely 26 years old and so out of touch I had no idea of the significance of this achievement. Christy and I went to the ceremony which was held at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Being at a formal event seated at a round banquet table for 10 I was completely out of my element. It was the first time I had eaten in a tuxedo and all I could think about was: “I hope I don’t spill my food on my suit”. When it was announced that we had won I walked up to the podium and had no idea what to say or do. I mumbled thank you to Gary, Dwight, and Ian and that was that. Billy was so proud. His boy had done well. Some years later he told me it had taken him 3 years to get Ian to hire me. Ian kept asking Billy: “what is he good at?” Billy’s response was: “he can write anything”.