Page 92 - My FlipBook 1

THE SONG The progression went left to right. Sometimes peo- believe it was a ripoff. He says, I hope you don’t
(continued from page 87) ple messed up and Jones had them start over. This mind that I stole it. And I was like, What? You did
meant that Richie sang his line more than anyone, a good job of stealing it, because I didn’t notice. I
SOME TIME PASSED BETWEEN THE END OF THE and the people way down on the right—Kenny Log- guess he was referring to the intro, kind of a pump-
chorus and the solos. At one point, Springsteen sat gins, Steve Perry, Daryl Hall, Jackson, Huey Lewis, ing bass line, like my bass line. That was in the bath-
alone on the risers, nursing a Budweiser. Jackson Cyndi Lauper, and Kim Carnes—got the fewest takes. room. There weren’t that many places to go.”
and his personal photographer, Sam Emerson, Hall says that it didn’t matter: “I hate to say it, but Joel saw Jackson wandering off frequently to “a
were sitting nearby. Springsteen got up and left the I did my part, and that was the end of it. Some of remote part of the studio, with this makeup cos-
beer can. Emerson said to Michael, “Hey, Mike, let these people had to stick around and overdub them- metic kit. And he kept, like, putting his nose on.
me take your picture with the beer can.” selves a number of times, because they couldn’t pull Because I think the tip of his nose was kind of fall-
Jackson said, “No, no, I can’t do that.” it off. I wasn’t nervous at all. I opened my mouth ing off, and he kept dabbing at it with makeup or
Emerson said, “Come on! Who will ever see it?” and sang. Plenty of people were nervous, and that smearing it with something.”
They did the photo, Jackson sitting straight- sort of separates the proverbial men from the boys. Winter, Jackson’s publicist, a legendary guy who
faced, holding the Boss’s beer. I’m just a person who can do things. I open my had worked with Elton John and Dylan, was on the
The next week, Emerson says, it showed up in mouth and sing. I left early. A lot of these people soundstage, with all the other peripheral people.
the New York Post. Emerson’s agent called him and had to stick around to get their stuff right.” But Winter didn’t like being a peripheral person.
said, We’ve got big trouble. Emerson just about fell But some of the soloists took the multiple takes He kept hounding Harriet Sternberg, asking to be
to the floor. Who had leaked it? His agent said he as opportunities to experiment with their line. After let into the recording studio, saying Michael wanted
would investigate and call him back. all, you got only one little line, and zero rehearsal him in there. And then he started going around
Turns out Jackson had had his publicist, Norman time, and you were likely singing harmony with loudly telling anyone who would listen that Jackson
Winter, plant it. As a joke. someone you not only had never performed with had written the whole song himself, and that
Later, Trbovich saw a chance to approach Dylan. but had never even met. So the only time to play Richie—her boss’s client—had nothing to do with it.
Almost twenty years before this night, Trbovich with the delivery was live, on take after take. Sternberg alerted security that Winter was no
was working for Johnny Cash in Nashville. One Dionne Warwick was ninth in the line of soloists. longer welcome, and he was escorted out. “He was
night, Cash invited him over for dinner at his house After the first chorus, she came in with “Send them out of line,” Sternberg says. “That was the one per-
along the Cumberland River. Trbovich showed up your heart, so they know that someone cares.” The son I kicked off the soundstage.”
to find Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Dylan, and a first few times through, she sang it dreamily, the
few others. After dinner, a guitar was passed Warwick of “Then Came You.” “Won’t you send HARRY BENSON, THE PHOTOGRAPHER WHO
around, and Nash played a new song he was work- them your heart . . .” But about the seventh time it chronicled the session for Life magazine, was wear-
ing on, “Marrakesh Express.” was her turn to sing, she belted out the line like a ing his sport coat and looking for moments. Diltz
So Trbovich went up to Dylan before the solos burst of gunfire: “Welllll, send ’em your heart!” was also hustling. Benson kept scowling at him, but
got under way and said, “You don’t remember The lyrics Joel was given to sing did not move Diltz kept shooting. There was also Emerson, whom
me . . . .” He reminded Dylan about that night back him in the same way. Jones was handing out solos— Jackson had brought. “I’m sure Benson didn’t know
in the late sixties. Dylan looked at him, nodded, and “Quincy was culling the herd”—and Joel felt hon- what these other couple of dudes were doing there
almost smiled. “That was a lovely night,” he said. ored to be pulled aside. He studied his line on the with their cameras, but he didn’t like it,” Diltz says.
“You were there?” sheet music. Tina Turner would sing, “We are all a By the time the solos got down to the end of the
part of God’s great big family.” row, Kim Carnes—“When weeee stand together as
4:00 a.m. “Then me: ‘And the truth, ya know, love is all we oooooone!”—was worried whether she could even
RICHIE CLAIMS HE GAVE HIMSELF THE FIRST need.’ I looked at those lyrics, and I went, That’s sing her part. She had a sinus infection—there was
line of the song so he could get out of the way. what I get? ‘The truth, ya know’? And it was kind of no way she was telling anyone that—and the part
“I looked at the talent that was coming that night, a low part, too. I think a lot of people were trying she was given, the end of the bridge leading back
and I wanted to get out of the way early, because to be virtuosos when it came to their part. I know into the chorus, climaxed on a soaring note that
when you start thinking Ray Charles is coming in that Cyndi did—Cyndi jumped into this whole other would have been high in her vocal range even with-
lineup, there’s Springsteen sitting over in the corner, octave. Ya yay ah-ya! But she can do that. She’s a out a sinus infection. Plus, Lewis was harmonizing
and there’s every major power singer in the world great singer. I think everybody wanted to put a lit- on the line, while Lauper backed them up with an
coming down that pipe—you know what? I wanted tle filigree on it, so they jumped out. I looked at my aria of “yeah, yeah, yeah!”
to get out of that barrage as soon as possible,” he says. part, and I thought, Don’t even try. Just hit the mark Lauper, who was next to her, worked with Carnes
Still, he got the first line. and shut up. It wasn’t a time to show off, for me.” on her line until Carnes could nail it even through
The soloists stood in a semicircle, each taking a Joel and Turner were chatting, looking at their her cold. “Cyndi was incredible. She knew. I said,
line, with the next person coming in on harmony, parts, and Turner put her hand on Joel’s shoulder Oh my gosh, this is high for me, and I’ve got such a
then doing their own line, and so on. After Richie and told him she had a headache. He happened to cold. And she said, Let’s figure it out,” Carnes says.
and Stevie Wonder opened the song, the next duo have an aspirin in his pocket, which he offered to
was Kenny Rogers and Paul Simon. Rogers was a Turner. “She said, No, I don’t take that! I only use 4:30 a.m.
big guy, six feet tall. The way he moved around was homeopathic,” Joel says. “I told her, I don’t know SUDDENLY THERE WERE HAMBURGERS.
big, his hands were big, his beard was big. what that means, but I ain’t got any.” Trbovich didn’t get many breaks throughout the
Simon was five-foot-two. night. He and his crew had to capture everything.
Their voices, together, created perhaps the great- THERE WAS ONE BATHROOM, OUT IN THE HALL Nobody knew what time it was. Trbovich was
est unexpected alchemy on the recording: Simon’s toward the anteroom. Hall had to take a leak and filming away, and then through the blur of activ-
avian, pitch-perfect smoothness cut with Rogers’s found Jackson in there, too. ity, Diana Ross—whose reputation was more diva
drawl, rising from somewhere down under the “Michael was in the bathroom, and he asked me than cuddly—walked over in her bare feet and said,
floor, was the aural manifestation of whatever if I minded that he had ripped off ‘No Can Do’ and “You haven’t eaten!” She was wearing one of the
genius lived inside the head of Quincy Jones. made it into ‘Billie Jean,’ ” Hall says. “Which, I don’t white cotton usa for africa sweatshirts that were

92 SUMMER 2020