Disco Delivery: A.J. Miller

Showing posts with label A.J. Miller. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Vintage Articles:
“Get Dancing” - AJ: West Coast’s Gold-Plated DJ -
by Christopher Stone // The Advocate -
August 13, 1975

Concluding this series of articles from The Advocate’s August 1975 Discos! issue, is an interview with A.J. Miller AKA A.J. the D.J., by Christopher Stone.

Other than a spot on the Legends of Vinyl DJ Hall of Fame, there isn’t much trace of A.J. Miller these days, or whatever became of him. When this was printed, Miller appears to have been quite a heavy hitter in the LA disco scene at the time, later presiding over at least a couple of disco record pools (for which he was quoted in Billboard a couple times). Miller also appears to have been a close associate of producer/songwriter Bob Crewe, whom I’ve covered here a couple of times in the past. Miller is thanked/credited on two of Crewe’s albums from the time - his “Street Talk” LP as The Bob Crewe Generation (see Disco Delivery #66) and the first Disco-O-Tex & His Sex-O-Lettes album, whose hit song “Get Dancin’” was apparently inspired by a AJ having a moment on the mic at an earlier gig, when Crewe was tagging along.

Miller was also mentioned in the last transcribed post from this issue as the DJ at Our Side, which had formerly been The Paradise Ballroom and before that, Dude City. Apparently both venues were owned by notorious LA underworld figure Eddie Nash. No word on what was the case with it’s brief turn as “Our Side,” but apparently it was only known as such for a brief period, changing its name back to The Paradise Ballroom after its competition across the street, named The Other Side (briefly described in the last post as Hollywood’s “chicken de-light disco”) mysteriously burned down. The venue would also be known as 836 North for a period, eventually becoming Probe in 1978. Probe would last for a good 21 years before closing in 1999.

Miller also figures in yet another interview I transcribed earlier, from the April 7, 1976 issue of The Advocate where Donald von Wiedenman interviewed Bob Crewe. Miller appears as one of Crewe’s interlocutors while in the studio finishing his “Street Talk” album. His comments about Bob Crewe in this interview seem to foreshadow that Advocate cover story, some 8 months after.

I have to say, I enjoy Miller’s comments here, talking not only about good gigs and career highlights but also being fired from his first gig and how one can seem to feel a good or a bad night coming on. This interview also traces some evolving elements of disco at the time - from DJ’s on the mic falling out of favour, to just how influential discos and disco DJ’s were in breaking records that would have otherwise fallen through the cracks, like Barry White & The Love Unlimited Orchestra’s “Love’s Theme." It’s the one specific song mentioned more than any other in this issue alone, which I should add, earned Miller one of the gold records he's pictured with in the article.

Can’t help but wonder whatever happened to A.J. Miller, whether or not he continued DJing into his old age like he suggested he would. Either way, this is an interesting interview showing just how influential disco DJs, in particular gay disco DJs and audiences were becoming at this point.

____________________________________________

“Get Dancing” AJ: West Coast’s Gold-Plated DJ
By Christopher Stone

“Get Dancing!” Howled disco jockey Tony Miller night after night. His bid to boogey was a familiar one to patrons of The Barbary Coast, San Diego’s first gay disco bar.

What Tony, a.k.a. AJ the DJ, didn’t know then was that his command to “get dancing” would be the inspiration for the international disco anthem and a record that would catapult Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes to stardom. Tony remembers the fateful Friday two years ago:

“Bob Crewe, who has written or produced about 56 gold records, was in town to visit my roommate and me. That Friday night he came to The Barbary Coast where I was working. It was cooking. I was doing my thing on the mike. I was screaming, ‘Get dancing!’ and what-have-you.

“Bob had been to discotheques in New York, but he said it was at our club that it first struck him how important discos were going to become. Bob frightens me because he knows today what you and I are going to be into tomorrow.”

Tony and Bob spent the weekend clowning around, listening to old tapes, and even staging a mock musical with the jock’s idea of discotheque stage performance. Tony’s concept was eventually developed into the Disco Tex & His Sex-O-Lettes album.

“Bob called one night, months later, and said. ‘I’m sending you something’.”

That something was an advance copy of “Get Dancin’,” which Tony premiered at San Diego’s women’s club, Diablo.

“Those girls didn’t know it, but that night when I broke ‘Get Dancin,’’ they were the first people in the world to hear it. I have never been so excited about a record in my life. I called Bob Crewe when I got home - about four in the morning. I woke him out of a sound sleep and started screaming about the record.”

Because he was the first to break the record in discos and because he fought to get it radio airplay, Tony was awarded a gold record by Chelsea, distributor of “Get Dancin’.” This marked the jock’s second esteemed platter. 20th Century Records gave him gold for being the first to introduce “Love’s Theme” in discos. (To his knowledge, Tony is the only disco d.j. on the West Coast to have a gold record.)

“Convincing 20th Century to release ‘Love’s Theme’ as a single was a real struggle. Barry White went around and around. He didn’t want to release the song. He released four other cuts instead, and they went right down the tubes. It took six months to convince him that this was the hit off the album.

“By that time it was in every discotheque in the world. ‘Love’s Theme’ has sold over 2 1/2 million copies and it’s still selling.”

Lest you think Tony’s disco road has been paved with gold: “I was fired from my first job as a disco jock the fourth weekend. I was scared to death. I knew how it had to sound. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t stop shaking long enough to get the records on.”

Tony was scared because he had created a monster. With the introduction of a discotheque, which was the d.j.’s idea, the sluggish club caught on in a big way and our boy was in charge, if not in control. Later, he stopped shaking, was re-hired, but continued to collide with the boss.

“He wanted a lot of talk. He wanted the club to be like a radio station. We know now that talk doesn’t work. I knew it then. People don’t want to hear jokes and they don’t want to hear the time and temperature. If that’s what they wanted, they’d stay in their car and play the radio.

“Inside a disco the music takes you on a trip. It gets you involved and excited. If some clown gets up and tries to tell jokes or promote the bar, it breaks the momentum. It interrupts your trip.”

Since November of last year, Tony has been spinning platters his way at Our Side, formerly The Paradise Ballroom, in Hollywood. Whatever it takes to make the crowd “get dancing,” he has it.

“There’s no one formula for success. It changes from club to club and group to group. Every time I devised what I thought was the formula, it worked for awhile - then it didn’t work, There’s no formula, but there is a feeling. A group reacts off each other. I take my cue from the group. You have to. You can’t bring your personal problems to the club. If you’re having a bad night - get ready. Your people are not going to stay, because they can sense it. It’s how you play the records. If your heart’s not really in it, they can sense it.”

Record companies have been using discotheques for showcasing new products that wouldn’t normally receive attention within commercial radio’s restricted formats. Now Tony observes that playlists of successful discos are becoming tighter.

“You can’t overdose people with new things, even in a discotheque. I have to decide what’s really hot and then filter in the rest of it later.”

On the other side of the disc, the jock doesn’t believe there’s any such thing as old records: “Any record that is played like it’s brand new, can sound new.

“I honestly love what I’m doing. When I’m 65, I’ll probably still want to be a d.j. Whether or not the crowd would relate to someone that old playing ‘Lady Marmalade’ is something else.

“The most substantial thing that gay people have contributed in the last five years is the discotheque. We’ve got people turned on to music they never heard before. I think it’s the most beautiful kind of sharing thing that we can do. We have shared something that has sort of been our secret.”

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Vintage Articles:
'The first step in getting ahead is getting started.’ An interview with Bob Crewe. -
by Donald von Wiedenman //
The Advocate - April 7, 1976

Something to add on to the previous Disco Delivery post on the Bob Crewe Generation's Street Talk album - I found this interview back when I was researching through back issues of The Advocate for nothing in particular aside from anything that seemed interesting and relevant to my interests (and there was plenty). I had quoted a section of this interview in the previous post, but I figured I might as well post the entire thing here for posterity. The article, written by The Advocate's features editor at the time, Donald von Wiedenman - an interesting figure himself, descendant of Bavarian nobility footnoted in rock history for his brief marriage to the late Mama Cass Elliott - is perhaps one of the most vivid descriptions of Bob Crewe that I've read.

Although he's widely acknowledged as a gay songwriter now in his death and in light of his portrayal in the Jersey Boys musical and film, it's interesting to note that even while speaking to the leading gay magazine about a record that more than hinted at homoeroticism, he's nonetheless gently evasive about his own sexuality in print. Even when the topic of the gay community comes up, he never manages to implicate himself as part of that community, even while talking about it. Although one can fill in the blanks and realize that someone who speaks about it as knowledgably as he does has to have more than an outside passing familarity with it all.

Although he reportedly wasn't entirely happy with his Liberace-lite portrayal in Jersey Boys, having only seen the film thus far, what it does seem to do well, just as this article does, is portray the infectious charisma that Crewe seemed to have when in his element as a writer and producer. Taking inspiration from everything around him and in turn inspiring those around him; notwithstanding any camp liberties in the storytelling, his inspiring personality is one thing in evidence in the film, just as it is here, and just as it is when hearing old friends and colleagues speak about him.

Apart from producing the award-winning "Leader Of The Pack" cast album in 1980s, the volume of his musical credits seem to drop off after the disco era into the 80s. He appears, as many do, to have turned a new chapter and dedicated much of the last part of his life to his visual art and philanthropic efforts. Prior to his passing this past September 2014, Crewe's health had apparently been diminishing rapidly following a 2010 accident which left him in hospice care and suffering from dementia. The statement left by his surviving brother spelled it out quite grimly. Looking at this interview from 2008, which must have been one of his last, he nonetheless seemed determined to remain as active as possible as a creative person, well into his later years. If anything, this article captures him at a high point, as the quintessential dream-maker, to paraphrase the article, with a million things happening around him and all the connections to back it up...

____________________________________________

‘The first step in getting ahead is getting started.’ An interview with Bob Crewe.
By Donald von Wiedenman

It is early in the morning (for me anyhow), and I am slouched on Bob Crewe’s leather-covered bed at his home high in the Hollywood hills. The house is a shambles. A bevy of workers are gutting, sawing, ripping, hammering and generally making pests of themselves as they tear out the inside of Bob’s house, making it ready for the new era to come. Down where we are, on the lower level that harbors his bedroom and makeshift office, we sit among the debris of a life lived in madness. Golden records here. Golden records there. Autographed photographs, record jacket designs, mislaid mottos and a bookcase that contains, among other goodies, Cities of Destiny and The Suicide Academy.

Bob Crewe is the man of the moment. One can’t dance at a disco these days without dancing to records that Bob wrote and produced. No overnight success, his career goes back to “Tallahassee Lassie” and “Daddy Cool.” Today, he is one of the most powerful and successful record producers in the wonderful world of rock-and-roll, and his recent hits include “My Eyes Adored You,” “Swearin’ To God,” “Disco-Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes Review,” “Lady Marmalade,” “Get Dancin’” and “I Wanna Dance Wit’ Choo.” He had created stars, made millions of dollars and exerted an influence that has definitely had an effect on all of us.

From upstairs-- almost drowning out the noise of the carpenters -- Bob’s latest 45, “Street Talk,” is blasting away on speakers that are bigger than a bathtub. The music is lush, sweeping and sensual. It is Wagnerian rock, an all-encompassing, third-world sensation of unearthly delights. It’s the kind of music that makes you want to lie down, take off your clothes and fuck your way to The Big Dance Floor in the Sky. It is, to put it quite simply, very horny music.

Crewe is talking about 10 things at once. His chatter is the patter of jumbled jargon, obscure references and the first names of the biggest names in the business. To listen to him is to be confused and elated at the same time. I have the feeling that everything he says is a special confidence intended only for me. So I listen and I watch, keeping careful track of all that surrounds me. Observations are what it’s all about and if it works for him, it’s bound to work for me.

Crewe tells me that he is deep in the midst of expanding the theme of “Street Talk” into what he terms the world’s first trisexual rock ballet. “I don’t know whether to spell it with an ‘i’ or a ‘y’ “ he muses. “I suppose it should be trysexual, as in try anything.” He laughs, pleased at the sound of yet another undiscovered secret. He knows that everything he says--everything he thinks--is only the fragment of an idea that can be developed later. The world is an adventure to him: Everything leads to something else.

Bob goes back a long way, and for a man somewhere near the age of 40, he is remarkably young. Tall, goodlooking, he has a boyishly lived-in face that is handsome in the classic sense. In many ways, he is as immediate as his music, yet he has a kind of timeless quality, as if he’d be just as much at home dancing the Hustle as he would the Madison. Today he is a vision in blue. Faded jeans, a blue pullover, blue suede sneakers, and shades of the ‘50s white socks. His body seems to light up, as if his energy can actually be seen by the naked eye. Even when he is calm, he never sits still.

He is telling me more about his trysexual rock ballet. As he talks, he pulls out a copy of After Dark, flips through the pages until he comes to a drawing of a lustily innocent boy with his underpants coyly pulled down over one hip. It is unmistakenly the work of Los Angeles artist Toby Bluth, a lusty young man in his own right.

“This,” says Crewe, “is how I see the hero of ‘Street Talk’.” He smiles. “I call him Cherry Boy. The ballet--or rock opera, film, stage musical, whatever--begins with Cherry Boy going into a disco. He is young, naive, never made it one way or the other. He’s hot. He’s street talk. Everyone notices him, wants him, desires him. Of course, he gets picked up, by a guy and a chick named Rod and Selma. Rod is for Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Selma is Selma Avenue in Hollywood. The music we hear is called ‘Menage a Trois,’ a very sensual understatement, not sordid at all. These two people keep him.

“The mood shifts with ‘Back Alley Boogie,’ a really funky sound.” Crewe pauses, thinking of the next logical step. “At the end of the piece, we see Cherry Boy with a chick on his arm going into a disco and picking up another boy, the new street talk. It’s a very circular piece. The hunted becomes the hunter. It’s a microcosm of our own lives.”

Of course, this all hits home. From the hunted young man to the hunting older man, the story is universal; a come-to-grips-with-reality morality play that never knows a final curtain.

Crewe decided to call Toby Bluth and discuss all this with him to see if Bluth will do the illustration for the album jacket. I am amazed at the speed with which Crewe works. Right in front of my eyes an unfocused concept has taken on a definite form. I feel as if I am in the middle of rock & roll history.

As Crewe talks avidly on the phone, I notice a sign on the wall that reads, “The first step in getting ahead is getting started.” My heart stands still. It is the very core of reality for those of us who dozed through the last decade in a haze of smoke and a pile of pills.

Crewe is off the phone. He starts “Street Talk” from the beginning again, takes the phone off the hook and tells me that he first came to Hollywood in 1960. At that time he wanted to get into acting. He already had a long string of hits behind him, and he wanted to try something new. But the meatmarket approach to acting in Hollywood was too much for him. Although he was attracted to the glamor of it all, he was too afraid of failing to really pursue it very far. So he went back; back to producing records, back to New York, back to the safety of doing what he knew best.

“Those were incredible days for me,” he confesses. “I had so much fun doing what I wanted to do that I didn’t know it was work. Do you know what I mean?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I always thought work was something dreary, something that was alien to one’s being. It took me a long time to realize that I was actually working when I was having such a great time. I guess that is what it’s all about--getting paid a lot of money for what you like to do best. I used to think that I wasn’t suffering enough.” He pauses, throws a jaded shrug at the work ethic, and adds somewhat obscurely, “I was more daring then. I guess it was the time. I often think that a lot of that was just so much shit. Or was it? I mean, I got dressed-up in an ape costume, for example, and went to Philadelphia to plug Frankie Valli’s ‘I Go Ape.’ Can you imagine? And another time, I took a bunch of my friends back to Newark, where I grew up, to see my humble beginnings.” (I can only think of Diana Ross in Rock Dreams, her eyes scanning the darkness of the past.) “And do you know what?” Crewe asks. “Everything was gone. Nothing was like it had been before. I felt saddened because no one would ever see it again.”

We talk about the popularity of his music--and disco music in general--in the gay clubs. The hot records break first in gay circles, leading the way for the non-gay world to follow. Crewe knows his business very, very well. He answers without hesitation.

“I think gay clubs are the most honest forum for determining the success of disco music. First of all, the patrons are very affluent--more affluent and more independent than the men and women who go to other bars. Most of the gay men that I know are very proud. They work for a living (unless they’re kept), and they have a lot of money to spend. And they spend it on themselves--whether it’s buying drinks or paying a cover charge.

“Another big factor about gay bars is that everyone there is into dancing, much more than at a straight bar. As a rule, you can’t bullshit gay men and women. They’re looking for music that will make them move, and if the music doesn’t get them onto the dance floor, it’s no good. The club closes down. It’s very much cause and effect.”

The door opens. Lou Ann (sic), his right hand woman, comes in with assorted messages that need to be dealt with. Someone upstairs starts “Street Talk” all over again. In the middle of discussing a check for the architect, which needs to be sent right away, Crewe smiles at me and tells me that when he was eight, he was one of Lippel’s Cutie-Cutes.

Cutie-Cutes? Oh yes, he tells me, it was a school for dancing for bright young things like himself. Even today, I realize, after time and the tides have taken their toll, Crewe is still one of the Cutie-Cutes, just a kid out on the boards trying to make his dreams come true. Get down, get back and get dancing--life can be just as fun as you make it.

The next day I bop down to Cherokee Studios where Crewe is laying down the tracks for his Street Talk album. I walk into the pounding, grinding, tantalizing sound of “Menage a Trois,” a perfect melody, I think, for the collection of lovelies around me. First there is Cindy Bullens, who is co-arranging this opus with Crewe. She is slight, boyish, determined, loose and immensely likeable. Then there is AJ, the Great DJ, his hair the color of a dye job gone wrong, his face looking suitably dragged out after being up all night, one supposes, playing the music that brings happy feet onto the disco floor.

Toby Bluth comes in, portfolio under his arm; a tall, thin, jaded young man named Jock (or possibly Jacques) in tow. They smile at the multitude. The multitude smiles back. The studio receptionist, who looks as if she won the Philadelphia David Bowie look-alike contest, swoops in, listens to a few heady bars and floats out. All around me--converging on the plate of shrimp with the lusty gusto of those who live under only the darkest of rocks--there are assorted technicians, artists, musicians and hangers-on.

Crewe, noting in the confusion that Bluth needs to be tended to, heads in his direction, asking AJ on the way if he’s seen Cherry Boy. “Seen him?” AJ grins back. “Darlin’, I’ve had him.”

Somehow in this dialog, complete with jaded smiles and a thinning air of decadence, flashes me back to London in the Sixties. Again, I am reminded of how much things stay the same, of how the same lessons I learned years ago are the lessons people are still learning today. I have the feeling, as one often does in the windowless world of recording studios, that I am in a time warp. Yes, that’s it. It’s straight from the “Ed Sullivan Show,” but the emphasis is not on straight.

In the midst of all this craziness, Crewe, with a cigarette constantly in his hand, is in control of everything. Working the complex controls of a million buttons and levers on the magic dashboard of the rock & roll spaceship, he is definitely the mastermind behind the mastermind. He punches up the piano, punches out the violins, turns this knob to get that effect and no one knows that all that hard work is really a piece of cake to the man who can’t understand why everything is so much fun.

In front of me, there is either a woman or a man undulating to the music, a thin, androgynous shape that is at once yesterday’s unisex and tomorrow’s way of life. Crewe comes over to me. The music in the control booth is so loud that it is impossible to concentrate on anything else, the very purpose of it all, I suppose. He starts to sing, and, cliche or no cliche, the room stands still. He sings the words that only he knows, the words that hatch as he thinks, the words that follow will form the shape and content of the world’s first trysexual rock ballet.

I am thinking that all of this sounds a little far-fetched, that it smacks of being just a little too unreal to be believed. But then I look around the studio at smiling faces and good-time graces, and I know that only a dream-maker can make a dream come true. Bob Crewe and street talk--they are the very heartbeat of the music in our souls.

All things considered, that’s not bad coming from a Cutie-Cute who never grew up ■

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Disco Delivery #66:
The Bob Crewe Generation - Street Talk (1976, Elektra)

"your ass is your ticket to paradise, you're gonna have to pay the price.."

The Bob Crewe Generation - Cherry Boy
The Bob Crewe Generation - Menage a Trois
The Bob Crewe Generation - Street Talk
The Bob Crewe Generation - Back Alley Boogie
The Bob Crewe Generation - Welcome To My Life
The Bob Crewe Generation - Free (Medley): I Am.../Free.../Keep On Walkin'
The Bob Crewe Generation - Ah Men!
The Bob Crewe Generation - Time For You And Me

B.C.G. - Street Talk (12" Unedited Main Theme) (1976, 20th Century)
B.C.G. - Street Talk (12" Var. II) (1976, 20th Century)
B.C.G. - Street Talk (12" Var. III) (1976, 20th Century)

A little known piece of homoerotic disco theatre, this album has long been a point of fascination to me and given the release of a double CD of Bob Crewe's Elektra recordings last week, I figure it was time to stop holding off from writing about it.. Despite being known for all those Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons hits written with Bob Gaudio ("Can't Take My Eyes Off You," the gay love song you never knew about, for one), Bob Crewe's disco period is perhaps one of the most interesting phases in his work. After a frustrating period as a staff writer and producer at Motown (where Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons also languished for some time), Crewe would end up tapping into disco quite early on, charting a small string of disco singles, like "Hollywood Hot" by the Eleventh Hour, a retooled disco version of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," by Gerri Granger, one of Frankie Valli's comeback hits "Swearin' To God," "Get Dancin'" by Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, easily one of the most flamboyant iterations of disco camp and perhaps biggest of all, "Lady Marmalade." Although made famous by Labelle under Allen Toussaint's production, the song was originally written and produced by Crewe and Kenny Nolan for their studio group The Eleventh Hour (and included on both Eleventh Hour albums). According to his official bio, having apparently helped start one of the early record pools - the LADP (Los Angeles Disco Pool), Bob Crewe's contributions in the earlier part of disco, from 1974-76, represent perhaps his last major period as an active, on-the-pulse record producer and songwriter.

Despite his portrayal in Jersey Boys (I had seen the film only recently), Crewe was by many accounts much more discreet about his sexuality while he was alive, only ever publically admitting to being bisexual, for one thing. Whether that was an honest statement of identity or a half-measured coming out dictated by the fashion or limitations of the times; it wasn't until Crewe passed away this past September at the age of 83, that I had ever seen him openly referred to in the press as a gay man. Perhaps an open secret for those in music industry circles at the time, one close listen to this album would likely dispel any remaining speculation.

Although this album was billed in a 1976 cover story in The Advocate as a "Try sexual disco-rock ballet," the lyrics in "Cherry Boy" - "your ass is your ticket to paradise," or "Ah Men!" - "we're all alike, ah men! ah, men! That's what I like, ah men!" - left much less room for ambiguity, especially when one considers that this was also the man behind the unabashedly camp, gay sensibility of Disco Tex and The Sex-O-Lettes just prior to this. Released under his Bob Crewe Generation banner, (which he had previously used behind the lounge classics "Music To Watch Girls By" and the Barbarella soundtrack), given the synergy between disco and the burgeoning gay scene, it was perhaps no surprise that disco would form the backdrop for this newly homoerotic, sexually charged side to his work.

"Street Talk" was originally released as a stand-alone 12" as part of his 20th Century Records deal, where it became another disco hit peaking at #8 on Billboard's disco action chart in early '76. Vince Aletti in one of his Record World columns made a point of singling it out as one of his favourites at the time, calling it "a lush but hard-punching instrumental that even at its longest is constantly involving." Upon signing to Elektra as an artist (on a tip from Jerry Wexler at Warner), "Street Talk" would eventually form the basis of this album, his first under his Elektra deal which he described to Billboard's 1976 Disco Forum as a concept album for what he hoped would be "a Broadway-bound disco-rock ballet."

The loose story was essentially centered around a basic Hollywood narrative - the innocent midwestern naif who arrives right off the bus from "Nowhere, Nebraska," with hopes and dreams of stardom, and the pitfalls and pleasures of Hollywood's seamy sexual underbelly that he has to navigate along the way.. Speaking to Donald von Wiedenman in The Advocate, he would flesh out the concept more fully:

"I call him Cherry Boy. The ballet - or rock opera, film, stage, musical, whatever - begins with Cherry Boy going into a disco. He is young, naive, never made it one way or the other. He's hot. He's street talk. Everyone notices him, wants him, desires him. Of course, he gets picked up, by a guy and a chick named Rod and Selma. Rod is for Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Selma is Selma Avenue in Hollywood. The music we hear is 'Menage a Trois.' A very sensual understatement, not sordid at all. These two people keep him.... The mood shifts with 'Back Alley Boogie,' a really funky sound... At the end of the piece we see Cherry Boy with a chick on his arm going into a disco and picking up another boy, the new street talk. It's a very circular piece. It's a microcosm of our own lives."

While the circular story Crewe talks about is evident; right from the outset, with the "Cherry Boy" being the album's sole object of desire, a listen and a look at the lyrics make it seem like the protagonist was ultimately more interested in one sex than the other.. In Side Two (where Crewe does much of the lead vocals) one can't help but read the familiar tropes of a coming out narrative, especially towards the final section of the album in the "Free" medley.. with lyrics like: "High time for celebratin', feelin' free.. Tell everyone it's been a long time coming....Thank God I am who I was born to be," which is followed by "Ah Men!" - "Ever since Adam, when little Eve had 'em. Good for the grabbin' - All Men. Love 'em all, the short and tall. Let's keep ballin' - All Men. That's what I like! That's what I like!" All of which comes to a conclusion with a love song, "Time For You and Me," led by Crewe singing solo in notably gender non-specific lyrics - "We walk in wonderland day by day - hand in hand. Lovingly.. Time for you and me." Draw your own conclusions..

Although the title track, "Street Talk" is the album's main attraction at just over 8 and a half minutes, its 'unedited' 12" version, released previously in early 1976 on 20th Century in a promo 12" sporting three versions (two shorter edits on side two curiously separated by a locked groove, likely to make it easy for DJs to mix out of one version, without the needle running into the next) is not that drastically different. The album and 'unedited' versions clock in at roughly the same time (despite the labelled duration of the on the 12" as 9.22), however the 'unedited' 12" mix packs much more punch than the LP version, with more of its percussive elements higher in the mix..

Aside from the title track, "Menage a Trois" was released as a single, with special disco mix (included as a bonus track on the Elektra Recordings double-CD). Although not an official single, the side two opener, "Back Alley Boogie," is easily one of the album's best tracks. Taking the raucous party atmosphere (a Crewe trademark) as previously heard on "Get Dancin' " and "Hollywood Hot," but rendered with a little more funk, focus and finesse (one may have mixers Tom Moulton and Tony Bongiovi to thank for that), it's one of the album's high points and could-have-been singles. While not officially released, according to Discogs there's an acetate of an extended/unedited version of the song still floating around out there..

If the concept itself wasn't enough, a look at the extensive list of credits reveals the ambition of this project. Entirely written by Crewe with either Trevor Veitch or Cindy Bullens; recorded in LA, New York and Philadelphia with around 63 musicians credited - 3 lead vocalists, including Crewe, himself and 1950's starlet Lu Ann Simms (on "Menage a Trois") and 19 backing vocalists, including big session names like Patti Austin, Gwen Guthrie and Philadelphia's Sweethearts of Sigma - along with Tom Moulton on board mixing (or, rather co-mixing, with either Jay Mark or Tony Bongiovi) much of the album. The back cover even features a front and centre quote of endorsement from A.J. Miller - then a leading L.A. Disco DJ.

Despite this, Bob Crewe's "trysexual rock ballet" never did come to fruition. Given that the album didn't end up doing too much and having come just before anyone was seriously marketing disco on film or stage, let alone one that also had gay and bisexual themes front and centre, it's perhaps not all that surprising. Following this album, Crewe would do a 180 from disco and release a solo record as a singer-songwriter entitled "Motivation" (1977, Elektra) (stream on Spotify), an R&B tinged album recorded under the auspieces of Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett in the storied Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. Regardless of how well this record did or didn't do at the time, "Street Talk" remains Bob Crewe's disco opus - a notable time capsule and personal statement from one of America's greatest pop songwriters.

RELATED ENTRIES:
vintage articles: 'the first step in getting ahead is getting started.' an interview with bob crewe. - by donald von wiedenman // the advocate - april 7, 1976 (tuesday march 17, 2015)
disco delivery mix #4: disco pride '14 - street talk (saturday june 28, 2014)

PURCHASE:
bob crewe - the complete elektra recordings (2 cd) (2015, second disc records/real gone music)
real gone music | amazon.com | dusty groove

LINKS:
discogs: the bob crewe generation - street talk lp
discogs: b.c.g. - street talk 12"
discogs: the bob crewe generation - menage a trois 12"
discogs: the bob crewe generation - ah men!/back alley boogie 12" acetate
frontiers media: bob crewe, gay music legend, dead at 82 (by karen ocamb) (september 11, 2014)
the guardian - music: bob crewe obituary (by richard williams) (september 17, 2014)
new york times: bob crewe, songwriter for frankie valli and four seasons, dies at 83 (by william yardley) (september 12, 2014)
rolling stone: bob crewe, singer and four seasons songwriter, dead at 83 (by jason newman) (september 12, 2014)
windy city times: 'jersey boys' discuss fifth gay 'season,' aging in movies (by jerry nunn) (june 18, 2014)
wikipedia: bob crewe
bob crewe - official website

CATEGORIES: DISCO DELIVERIES, IN MEMORIAM

Pages

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Vintage Articles:
“Get Dancing” - AJ: West Coast’s Gold-Plated DJ -
by Christopher Stone // The Advocate -
August 13, 1975

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Vintage Articles:
'The first step in getting ahead is getting started.’ An interview with Bob Crewe. -
by Donald von Wiedenman //
The Advocate - April 7, 1976

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Disco Delivery #66:
The Bob Crewe Generation - Street Talk (1976, Elektra)

Search this blog

Pages

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Vintage Articles: “Get Dancing” - AJ: West Coast’s Gold-Plated DJ - by Christopher Stone // The Advocate - August 13, 1975

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Vintage Articles: 'The first step in getting ahead is getting started.’ An interview with Bob Crewe. - by Donald von Wiedenman // The Advocate - April 7, 1976

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Disco Delivery #66: The Bob Crewe Generation - Street Talk (1976, Elektra)

Search this blog

Vintage Articles:
“Get Dancing” - AJ: West Coast’s Gold-Plated DJ -
by Christopher Stone // The Advocate -
August 13, 1975

Vintage Articles:
'The first step in getting ahead is getting started.’ An interview with Bob Crewe. -
by Donald von Wiedenman //
The Advocate - April 7, 1976

Disco Delivery #66:
The Bob Crewe Generation - Street Talk (1976, Elektra)