![]() A novel was new terrain for me when I set out to write one, but very comfortable. I had written in almost every other form.TV, series, several stage musicals, several stage plays and obviously Pop songs. So, it was more a matter of not to write a mystery, but, it was new to write a novel. When I wrote for theatre, most of the things I wrote took on a mystery format. ![]() Q - Besides being a singer / songwriter, you're also a mystery writer?Ī - I always loved mysteries and was a mystery reader all of my life, from nine on and always knew that I wanted to write mysteries. sing it, 'cause there are times when you would never know that it's not him. But, it's kind of amazing to hear Sinatra Jr. I would've been the happiest guy on the face of the earth. Unfortunately, medical things took a turn for the worse for him and he never got to do it. did, that his father had been intending to record the song "The People That You Never Get To Love". And he has said in a number of interviews, Sinatra Jr. That's not too bad, you know, in one's life to have your music arranged by Nelson Riddle. One charts by Billy May and one is by Nelson Riddle. He does two of my songs in his nightclub act. The thrill of my life is that I wrote a song called "The People That You Never Get To Love", which I have a recording of Sinatra Jr. Do you agree with that?Ī - I couldn't be more with you. The only thing people can do is go back to the day when a singer just stood there singing in a suit, like Frank Sinatra. Everything that can be done, has been done. Rock 'n Roll has seemingly gone about as far as it can go. Q - You're actually in sync with what's going on. The next thing I write may be set in the 50s or 1820 and if I write music for it, I'll try to write what's somewhat appropriate for that period. But, it doesn't mean that's where I'm now going to do all my work. In telling a story about a Swing Band musician, a mystery story set in 1940, I felt very comfortable in trying to write music of that period that was referenced to the novel. So, it's a style in which I feel very comfortable. I wrote the chart in an exact Big Band style. I set it in the Big Band era and I re-assembled the Glen Miller Orchestra just for that one cut. On my very first album, "Widescreen" in 1974, one cut was essentially about a saxophone player who never gets to take a solo. I'm trying to find a way that if I write music, it's not me trying to compete with some twenty-three year old or some nineteen year old who has a lot of talent and deserves their day in the sun. If he came out with a new album with all new tunes, I don't know how I would feel about that. I'm not going to be comfortable when Mick Jagger is 73, watching him. I think there is a time when artists need to find a way to create and yet grow up at the same time. But, if you write for a period work such as a Broadway show where the action takes place in 1895, or 1940 or 1970, or for a novel that's set in the Big Band era, or set in the 70s, or set in the 50s, you can write the music for that era and you can draw upon a vocabulary and certain musical styles that you might not be able to get away with if you were making a contemporary record. In other words, you can't write a lyric like "I'm wild again, I'm beguiled again, a whimpering, simpering child again, bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I." That's standard Rodgers and Hart classic lyric. How can I best explain this to you? When you write for contemporary radio, if there even is such a thing at this point, you are limited to the language of the now or the language you invent. The Pop music that I created was in a certain era of Pop music. Q - Rupert, have you left Pop music for Swing music?Ī - No, no, not at all. as a college student at Syracuse University. Rupert Holmes talked to us about that song, his success in the music business and his days in Syracuse, N.Y. That song, that record, was "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" The singer / songwriter of that song was Rupert Holmes. A Number One record we should say, in not only the United States but Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan. He was the recording artist who had the last Number One record of the '70s and the first Number One record of the '80s.
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