Thanks to my Editors - Gandalf4217 & Fuzzywuzzy
It was nearly 3AM in the morning, and from the sound of the fighting going on next door, I wouldn't be getting any sleep soon, so I got out of bed, got dressed and went back downstairs to the piano in the small bar area. If the past was any experience, I'd find out what was going on quite soon enough. Sure enough ten minutes later, she came downstairs into the semi-darkened empty bar where I was playing, pulled up a bar stool next to the piano and laid her forehead right against the top. "Déjà vu, all over again... isn't it".
I laughed weakly and gave her a wane smile, and said "Well, I guess it's good that if you have to tell your troubles to the piano player, there's an advantage to at least choosing a piano player that already knows your name and most of the problems. A real time saver, it is that way!" I stopped my playing, I was just running random chords trying to pick out a new melody anyway, and added softly, "It's all over now for good this time, isn't it Elizabeth?"
She kept her head down on the piano and didn't look up, but managed a "Yes, I really think it is this time". We said nothing more to each other for a good long while, and I softly played for her a few old show tunes that she had once requested of me a long ago. Long, well not quite, seems it was only last month on that cruise from Athens, but let me try and explain the story from its very beginning.
My name is Saul, but most of my music friends call me Smiley. I'd been in the music business for nearly 25 years (I had made my first recording on an already obsolete shellac 78-rpm record in 1961 at the age of 17) mostly playing piano or keyboards, and had gotten my start as a studio or session musician for other artists as the rock and roll explosion of the 1960's took off. I had developed a good reputation of being able to learn a song in just one take and play exactly what the record's producer was looking for (usually as the drug addled band member I had replacing looked on). My name became known in session circles and I was in constant demand in the recording studio and even occasionally as a band member replacement or backup musician for large touring bands and I worked steadily into the 1ate 1970's. As the stadium rock era grew, the demand for computer electronics and synthesizers grew, and there became less work for old piano dogs like me. I managed enough odd day jobs doing over-dubs for 2nd rate and worse bands that didn't rate the normal full production package to keep the food on my table and keep up the payments on the seaside house I'd bought in Marin County when times had been good. I also played with several Bay Area retro "Dinosaur" bands full of "B- Team" guys just like me enough to keep the fun alive and get an occasional decent paycheck, but as the 1980's began I found myself working a little bit less each year and sometimes had to teach music part-time to keep all my financial wheels steady on the road.
That was my biggest blessing that I had been relatively smart with my money and had put away nearly half of what I had ever earned when times were good and the paychecks nice and fat. The problem was my investment wasn't paying off particularly well yet. For 20 years, I had been buying up the music rights for long forgotten bands, one-hit wonders, and other relics of vintage music history that no one seemed to care about. Certainly the major record companies didn't seem to, and rarely seemed to care about repurchased lapsed rights to talent they considered had little if any reissue value. I had seen the future, CD's, and thought someday if they became cheap enough to produce, recording fanatics would want a modern "newly remastered" CD reissue rather than rely on an increasing rare slab of worn vinyl or the scratchy original shellac. Maybe someday, but for now I could still afford to wait for my ship to someday sail in.
It sailed in sooner than I expected! Well, not that ship, but another nearly as good. In the middle of the night one early summer's day in 1982, I got an overseas call from an old friend Randy in the UK music business (naturally he'd forgotten about the +10 hour time difference from Greece to California). He had been mostly working as an Agent these days, and he had been landed a plum job opportunity that required at least "B+" grade talent, but was in a jam. One of the major Aegean cruise lines had contracted for piano player to handle a main lounge show every night. He had contracted for an artist to handle the gig with 3 Gold records to his credit from the 1970's, but was definitely on a steep track downwards nowadays. The guy had disappeared with the travel money advance and hooked up again with his old heroin fixer, and was now very much out of commission. Randy needed someone on a flight to Athens "yesterday" and if I would just say "yes" my plane ticket would be waiting for me at the airport, and I would get the star treatment for a few months.
Sounded like fun to me, there was just one catch. I couldn't sing, nearly not a lick. Sort of like Grace Slick, I only have a musical range of about three notes, but instead of being able to shatter glass, it was more like the rumble of granite rubbing together. I could manage a bass backup for a vocalist without embarrassing myself, but I was no singer. That was why I had never released a record with my name on it since that one side on 78 shellac in 1961. Randy thought fast and said he knew of a girl that was available to accompany me. "Edna would be perfect! She's kind of a 'throwback', like you - she's got a fetish for "Hot Dance" blues and jazz music from the 1920's and 1930's." Wow, that did sound like my kind of singer.
I agreed to a more than fair compensation deal and we reviewed the travel arrangements. I turned off the gas and electricity, wrote a check to my mortgage banker that nearly emptied my account, but would keep my bills paid while I was gone, made a few calls to let folks know I was out-of-town, and then started to pack. I needed one bag of "performance" clothes, including formal dress for dinner, some odd casual pieces and I stuffed my largest suitcase with vinyl. Old, rare nearly one of a kind stuff that I knew, loved and could play by ear or by heart and that she just might have the inclination to sing. Every one, reissues of old Depression era 78's when Jazz, Blues and Country sounds intermixed into the hottest music of the pre-Big Band era.
