As told to the Awizard list by Mark "Moogy" Klingman...
Part 6
8/3/99
Interesting note about those times. When I played with Hendrix, we were called "Jimmy James and the Blue Flames" it was the year before he appeared at the Monterey Rock Festival, but the set was almost exactly the same. Foxy lady.... etc......and the clothes, sound and look were almost the same.
We got $5 a nite a piece. but Hendrix was fully developed..... fully formed as an artist. One could tell 10 miles away, that he was a superstar. James Taylor ... a year or two later, at the night owl cafe with his band "The Flying Machine", was doing all those great songs from his first Apple album before he ever recorded. "Nite Owl" and "Knocking Round the Zoo". He played and sang and had that look of his...at $12 a nite. fully formed! He was every inch a star, even back then. And Imagine, no American record labels had any interest in signing either Hendrix or James Taylor (with or without the Flying Machine) Both artists had to move to England to be discovered. James played The Village for a year with the Flying Machine. Hendrix for about 6 months.
Todd Rundgren was not fully formed when I knew him. When I first met him, he wasn't singing any lead (with the Nazz). and when Todd was signed to Ampex to do his first album, he'd never sung lead in public. He was incredibly shy. Too shy to sing you a song at the piano or guitar. But he got signed. He didn't have to move to England. In the beginning, no one knew if Todd was going to be able to cut it live and sing and entertain. That's why there was so much movement against him at the label, even after "We got to Get You a Woman"... He just faked it and got better as he went along. It's was during the Utopia tours of 74 - that he really hit his stride as a performer.
Moogy
8/15/99
You'd have to break down the AWATS album, track by track, to say who played what on what. Many of the tracks are all Todd and many of the tracks are Todd with Moogy and the Rhythm Kings. (Ralph, Siegler and Siomos). The whole thing was recorded in my house and was the first album we did after the studio was built. Many nites, Todd would walk into my apartment half of the loft, and pull me into the control room to hear his latest mix... and I'd say wow!! Now, that you got my brain going...
It took quite a while to wire up everything himself. I don't think he even had any assistance. He made the studio from home audio equipment and build the board himself. It took him several months, as I recall. Every day he'd come in and wire things all day long. I think he really loved that work...kinda like building the interocitor...I helped soundproof and get the studio room looking good. But TR liked wiring everything up himself. When he lived in LA, around the Ballad period, he spent much of his time in his house on building a giant electric train set, that he wired and built and he even constructed the forests and towns, it went thru.
So, TR wiring up the studio was like he was building a giant train set, and I don't even think he knew if it was really gonna work 'til the very first session. But he did it, (the control room) all by himself. Solitary confinement and I think he loved it.
I think I can remember the very first session at secret sound. It was Todd working on "International Feel" and playing all the instruments himself. When he started working on it, it didn't sound like anything, but then, as he finished it, it sounded great. When we brought the band in, Todd would engineer and then get the sounds and run into the studio and play the take with the band with no person left in the control room. Actually recording a band live with no one at the controls...
As AWATS wound down, the same band, sometimes on the same day, would record songs for Moogy 2, which is now on" Old times, Good times"... a lot of the piano and drum sounds for AWATS are also on Moogy 2, cause Todd already had the sounds set up from his AWATS session and we would go into a Moogy song later that nite or the next day. It was shortly after recording those two records that TR asked us to join him in Utopia.
For further study of that period, I suggest you get the new CD - "Old Times, Good Times"...which includes the Moogy 2 sessions and more from that period.
Moogy
8/21/99
[ Could you offer more info as to the recording of the following songs? Were they recorded for specific projects? ]
[Mr. Freedom And I]
This is actually an out-take from the demos to my first album, done by Moogy and the Rhythm Kings (Schuckett, Seigler, and Siomos) which actually was the only song (of 4) from that date not to end up on the actual album. "I Can Love", "Making the Rounds at Midnite" and "The Man at Ease", all ended up on the first album, which necessitated removing some material, which was recorded a year earlier. Can you dig that? Capitol sat on my first album for a year before releasing and I insisted that they put some of the new songs, that my new band was doing at that time, on it.
At the time (1972), I didn't think that "Mr. Freedom and I" rated. But finding an old tape of it at the bottom of the closet and listening, I definitely have changed my mind. After not hearing it o'er these many years, my opinion has definitely changed. It is a beautiful song and I sang it simply. The band grooved on a country waltz and Schuckett and Seigler even sang some beautiful harmonies!
Now, here is the real flash about "Mr. Freedom and I". When I started hanging out with Bette Midler in 1976, and was preparing to produce her album. She gave me a tape she had recorded of "Mr. Freedom...". It was for her second album. With Barry Manilow playing piano and arranging. I never even knew she had recorded it! Nobody told me! Not my publisher, nor any of Bette's people.
Kevin Ellman was the drummer in Bette's band back in '72. I hadn't met him yet, but would shortly. He would become Utopia's first drummer, after a brief stint with Buzzy Linhart. Apparently, I had given Bette a tape of the song with several others, and she had never told me that she recorded it. Because, apparently, it didn't make the final cut for her 2nd album. But she sang it well...though Manilow's piano arrangement left something to be desired.
So after "Mr. Freedom and I" was recorded and rejected by both Bette and myself, I give it to you, dear listener, a mere quarter of a century or so, later. -- I can now say definitively, we both made a big mistake.
[Nothing In The World]
"Nothing in this World" was recorded solo by me in the earliest days of Secret Sound... the studio Todd Rundgren built in my loft. I played all the instruments, sang, and engineered it. In those same sessions, I did the same with "Save a Dance for Me" playing and singing all the parts. (both are on the "Old Times, Good Times" CD). With flanged piano and moog synths, it was a love ballad in the tradition of TR, with Billy Joel type chorus and a James Taylorish verse. It's an excellent ballad. TR himself was impressed when he heard the solo songs I turned out by myself in his control room. This song has sat in vaults since the time it was recorded back in '73. And I don't think anyone has ever heard it.
"Save a Dance for Me" on the other hand, was recorded by The Hello People on their Dunhill ABC album, with production by TR and me on the keys. Utopia even performed it live for a few shows, before cutting it from the tour.
[A Long Long Time Ago --- without question the most down-home singing-around-the-campfire tune that TR has ever been involved in. LP surface noise added to enhance the sentiment. Would be cool to hear a cleaned up version of this one.]
I didn't add surface noise to enhance the sentiment. I actually found this song on an old acetate and wasn't going to put it on the CD, 'cause of the surface noise. After all, all the other songs are from the original 2 track masters... But, when I listened to the lyric, the scratchy surfaced noise seemed to work perfectly. The lyric went, "I'm letting my mind just drift away to a time that was so very long ago. Such a long, long time ago." - this is the earliest song on the album. It was a demo made for capitol (1971) before they signed me, and as one song of six... got me my record deal! The fact is, I have no tape of the song, so I couldn't remove the atmospheric crackling if I wanted to.
Moogy
8/26/99
The new release on Rhino of TR's Something/Anything will feature much previously unreleased material. Included in the CD will be "The Todd Rundgren Radio Show", which was a Todd audio autobiography of his life in the music business 'till then (1972). It's been available on bootlegs only - over the years. Do you folks know it?
Todd narrates his life story in the music biz with extended excerpts from his various productions and bands. About mid-way thru this audio bio, he discusses meeting me and then plays "Crying in the Sunshine" from my Capitol album "Mark Moogy Klingman". This cut (which I wrote), is a love duet with TR and I. Todd plays the female role and sings his part in falsetto. On my Capitol album credits, we were called Lance and Lisa Brentwood. It's a hot track with a horn arrangement by TR and played by the Paul Butterfield horn section. John Siomos on drums, Tommy Cosgrove on guitar and Stu Woods on bass. The song was later recorded by Thelma Houston, in a very hot and commercial recording, but never released.
Then TR describes how we jointly produced the James Cotten album "Taking Care of Business", and plays a cut from that. It's the opening cut, that I arranged and played piano on. It's called "The Sky is Falling" by Danny Kotchmar. And also features Richie Heywood from "Little Feat", on drums. Matt Murphy (from the Blues Brothers ) and TR on guitars. Todd then describes the band we put together and plays "Lady on a Terrace" by the Runt band, recorded live on the radio, from some recording studio. I'm on organ, Stu Woods on bass, N.D. Smart on drums and Todd and Tommy Cosgrove on guitars. Tommy Cosgrove sings lead, and it's a song he wrote. The credits, unfortunately, say that Todd sings it. Hmmm. At least, that's what it said in the add in Rhino's magazine.
Moogy