In February of 1971, I had just rented an apartment near Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. With little money and limited prospects, I began searching for work. I was performing in a duo with my good friend, Elliot Gibbons and though we had a agent in New York, the gigs were few and far between.
Likely perusing the classified ads in the Boston Phoenix, we found a posting that said a music publisher was looking for composers to write songs -- for money! Perfect. We were both composers who wrote songs and needed money, so off we went to Tremont Street in Boston to Five Star Music Masters. FSMM was a so-called "song-poem" shop, one of those places that advertised in the back of magazines "looking for lyrics for song and recording consideration."
The owner of the company, Lew Tobin, sat behind a big oak desk and offered Elliot and me a folder each, which contained about 20 sheets of paper, some typed, some handwritten -- with poems that were to be set to music. "Two dollars and fifty cents for each song you set to music and notate on music paper." He said he had a guy from Berklee School of Music who did 80-100 per week. "Come back next week and let me see what you've done."
Elliot and I dutifully set to work on composing. After a week, combined, we had fewer than 8 songs. Hardly an auspicious start; it was obvious that we weren't going to be competing with the Berklee guy. We actually tried to write good songs, not realizing until later that our competition was dashing them off as fast as he could write the notes down. For the most part, the poems were pretty atrocious; unpredictable meter from line to line, little rhyming, and no consistency in verse structure.
In the end, this turned out to be very good practice for songwriting. It was quite challenging, and helped to hone our composition chops. Also, two other necessary skills had to be developed: writing on demand and writing fast, both of which would come in handy when I was later to try composing for film. But that’s another story…
To be continued next Thursday!