|
|
|
 |
JOE E.
|
The mid-seventies were the tail end of an era in which any independent label could score a Top 10 hit. In those days, pop radio played an amazingly eclectic mix of rock, soul, disco, country, and novelty material. Anyone with a good voice, or a catchy song, could become a household name overnight.
Joe E. Neubauer was a South Florida construction worker and part-time stock car racer who’d grown up listening to singers who came out of nowhere and took the charts by storm. He was interested in singing from an early age. In the fifties, when Joe was a teenager, his parents tried to get him some musical training by setting up a meeting with “Preacher Rollo” Laylan, an eccentric jazz drummer who’d worked with Paul Whiteman and Bunny Berigan. Unfortunately, Joe never showed up.
“I didn’t make it because I was too scared…I just kind of backed down. Later on I thought to myself, ‘I wish I’d have gone.’”
Joe later went into the service. When he returned to civilian life, he put a band together and began performing in Holiday Inn, Howard Johnsons’ and Ramada Inn lounges in Deerfield and Fort Lauderdale. The group went through various name changes — the Country Crickets, the Brothers-In-Law, the Southern Sounds, the Images — and played energetic sets featuring Tom Jones covers, country and western hits, and plenty of Elvis. Soon, Joe decided he wanted to take things a step further, and started looking for a studio.
He found one a few miles away, in Fort Lauderdale. Started by Michelle Scott and Dave Chiodo in 1967, SRS International had become one of the busiest independent studios in south Florida. It recorded music in all styles, as well as radio station IDs and commercials, and even some obscure movie soundtracks. (Their promo materials also discuss a series of albums—which remain unearthed, to date—devoted to the “stories and songs of individuals who have traveled from one time to another and remember the journey.”)
With ties to Chet Atkins, clients that included Mickey Rooney, and over 200 hundred completed albums to their credit — many of which were released by their in-house label, Soul Deep Records — SRS seemed very well connected. And they also seemed eager to produce a hit record for Joe. After talking it over, Joe and his supportive dad decided to put up $20,000 for a chance at stardom.
In April of 1974, Joe signed a contract with SRS, essentially hiring them to “produce one record album including all musicians, studio facilities, tape stock, and to select all songs to be recorded.” The contract also called for SRS “to use all its resources in attempting to secure placement for this album with a major label or distributor,” and to provide Joe with 1,000 copies of the album for promotional use. To their credit, SRS’s contract explicitly gave Joe full ownership of the production after completion.
SRS swiftly jettisoned Joe’s regular crew of musicians in favor of their own in-house band, and insisted that Joe’s record would have a fighting chance only if it contained original material. Accordingly, they supplied him with publishers’ demos, including an upbeat, mildly risque soul number entitled “Come On Sign.” It was by Wayne Carson, an associate of theirs who’d previously written “The Letter” for The Box Tops, among other hits. Joe was told to take the songs home and learn them.
Joe laid down his vocals over the course of a few days, singing over a minimal backing track. A very short time later, Joe was amazed to find that his completed and pressed album included elaborate horn and string arrangements (played by moonlighters from the Miami Symphony) and the haunting backing vocals of “The Michelle Scott Singers” (which comprised SRS president Michelle and her daughter, overdubbed multiple times). “I was very, very happy with it,” Joe says. “They definitely earned their money.”
This initial pressing was titled Come On Sign, and credited to Joe E. Neubauer. It had a typical custom-pressing stock cover, with Joe’s signature overprinted in silver ink. As promised, Joe received 1,000 copies.
A year or so later, SRS issued a second pressing. Retitled Love Got In My Way, it sported a new cover photo, and an extended version of the title track, and was credited simply to “Joe E.” Graced with beautifully awkward liner notes that insist on “the difference between loneliness and being lonely” without ever quite explaining it, this second pressing was distributed exclusively via promo mailings.
The folks at SRS regaled Joe with reports of positive response from radio, and hints of future chart action. When Joe asked them what the next step would be, he was astonished to learn that they wanted to fly him to England.
“I was just flabbergasted. They said ‘That’s where you want to start. You’ll get the best reviews over there and that’s what we gotta do.’”
Shortly before the trip was to begin, Joe dropped by SRS headquarters and got the shock of his life.
“The doors were locked and all I could do was bang on the door. I went next door to a welding shop, and I asked them what was going on.”
To his dismay, he learned that SRS had packed up and left suddenly under cover of night.
“The guys at the welding shop knew that they were moving because they saw trucks out there. They’d never seen someone move so fast in their lives, and they were throwing things in the dumpster. So I looked through it — and found my tapes.”
Joe pulled his master tapes out of the garbage and took them home, feeling absolutely crushed. He soon returned to the construction business, abandoning not just his hopes for the album, but also his performing career.
As disappointing as SRS’s sudden disappearance may have been, it’s hard to believe that any other small label of that era could’ve created such an inventive and engaging setting for Joe’s voice. You can’t deny the eerily affecting quality of Michelle Scott’s production, or her ability to choose material that’s perfectly suited to the darker, deeper side of Joe’s emotional range. Many of the songs project an almost cosmic sadness, thanks to Joe’s mournful voice, soaked in his beloved echo, and the distant, glacial female chorus that drifts through the song like clouds across the moon.
Taken as a whole, the album suggests nothing less than a poor man’s Elvis taking aim at a Pet Sounds for the middle-aged melancholic, and coming up with a masterpiece that, to borrow a phrase from Theodor Adorno, comprises “a kind of training for life when things have gone wrong.”
With the cooperation and blessing of Joe E himself, Eabla Recordings has remastered Love Got In My Way from the original tapes, and released it as a deluxe, limited CD complete with incredible archival photos. The text above was adapted from the liner notes. For more information (including samples from the album and some of Joe’s more recent material), visit www.eabla.com. The following interview is one of several we conducted with Joe in 2007, while trying to piece together the curious tale of how his album came to be.
So you’ve lived in Florida your whole life?
From age 13.
Where were you born?
New Jersey. I don’t tell many people that. Morristown, New Jersey. It’s a wealthy town. I was the only one that wasn’t wealthy there.
How old were you when you made this album?
It was in ’75…35.
How did you hook up with the Soul Deep label? Did they approach you or did you find them?
That was through SRS International Recording Studios. I went there to make a record for myself and we ended up making an album and they ended up wanting to push it. They were the ones who found the label. I don't even know if it was their label.
Oh, it is definitely theirs. That was SRS International’s in-house label. Did they say it was an outside label?
I don't know. I was just so happy that we were able to do what we did. I wasn't even looking to see what label or anything was on it.
So you were just recording stuff for yourself, and then they suggested you work with them on it? When did they come up with this $20,000 scheme?
My dad was involved in that. He said that he would go ahead and loan me the money to do it. So he talked to them, and they talked him into making an album, and they would push it as far as they could push it. That's the way I understood it. He loaned us the money, and we gave it to them, and they ran with it.
Had you ever sung any of those songs before?
No. They just got them from a publisher's demo. They picked them out, got with me and had me learn them. I practiced on it until we finally got it, and then went there and started taping them.
How long did it take to get comfortable with those songs?
A couple of them were very easy, like “Table For Two For One.” I'd say maybe about a week before I felt comfortable. But the way that they went about it, I didn't feel as comfortable as I should have, to begin with. I was tight, you know.
You don't sound tight. You sound pretty relaxed.
I don't know. When you are playing and there's no music in the background, and you're singing, it's kind of hard to sing to a guitar and try to get some sound out of it. That's all I could hear was my voice and a little bit of music in the background. It didn't sound that good to me at all. Not until it came out on the record, and then it was all the difference in the world.
So when you recorded your vocal tracks, it was just a guitarist and you singing?
Yes, they might have put something else in it…a set of drums in the background, playing light. It wasn't very much. Not enough to where you could really loosen up and put a little extra to it.
I think you put a LOT of extra to it.
I felt I was missing something. I felt I could have done better.
I can't image how much better you could have done ‘cause it sure sounds good to me. You sound like you really connect with those songs. How many takes did you do?
“Come On Sign,” the beginning of that was hard…about three takes on that one. And the rest of them a couple of takes, and a few that went through with one shot.
So when you were doing the record, did you hear any songs you thought had potential to be hits?
“Love Got In The Way” was the one at the time that I really felt impressed with, comfortable with it all, because it’s kind of a country-type song. They call it “middle of the road.” It seemed to me on the country side. I felt very comfortable with that.
Did they piece together any of the tracks from different vocal takes or did they just let the tape roll?
They let it roll, but then they had to go back when I was off key and fill that in. They'd bring it up to a certain place where we had to start again, and they'd cut it back in.
Were there any songs that you recorded that didn't end up on the album or rehearsed that you didn't use?
No, there were ten of them and that's what we ended up with. We just kept plugging at them and got them all done and that was it.
The arrangements and the production and all that sound fantastic.
I would imagine Michelle was the one who did that part. She was pretty smart. Smart enough to outsmart me!
Did you meet any of the other acts that they worked with?
No, they'd come and go. They had schedules set up for everybody and I'd see them. I might be in the next room and hear somebody singing.
So that was a pretty busy recording studio?
Yeah, they had Mickey Rooney in there and there was another guy called Earl Nightingale. He was a guy that was on at nighttime on a talk radio show, and they took care of him. Mickey Rooney was the only one I knew of that they were handling that had any name factor to it.
How long after you put down your vocals did you hear a version with the full band?
Maybe wasn't more than a week. It was quick.
Do you know why they did the two different covers and which one came first?
The Come On Sign with the red burst on it was the first one. It caught my eye. It just stuck right out there and I thought that was great. And then we were going to change because I liked the other song, “Love Got In The Way.” Since we were doing that as the lead song, they went ahead and made the album with the picture and I think at that time, they changed it to "Love Got In My Way." That's what they did, but they didn't make too many copies. I could be wrong, they might have made 1,000 copies, but I can't remember more than a hundred. I said, “Can I get some air time on this down here in south Florida?” And they said, "No, not in south Florida. Don't even try." That's what they said. I never carried it anywhere South. Now that I think back now, after they left me in a jam like this, there must have been something shady going on there. I know I got some air time in north Florida, but nothing down here in the south part, because they told me not to push it. I didn't ask any questions because I was trying not to turn over any rocks. So I just kind of let it go.
Did they give you any input into the packaging or design, or the order of songs on the record?
No, I let them carry the ball on most of it. I told them it looks great. They were doing a great job
Did they decide on shortening your name on the second version of the record to just Joe E. and not having your last name?
I just wanted to go in with just Joe E, because the name “Neubauer” was to me a little bit too long and didn't fit the music era for me. I just didn't feel it set where Joe E would. It's like it used to be, Tommy D and the whatevers.
Did you perform the songs from the record live after it came out?
No, because it was too complicated, because it had all the strings and horns and all that stuff on it. You’re up there with just the guitar, the drums, the bass...I didn’t think it would work.
Did you ever discuss with Dave and Michelle what would happen if the record took off?
Yeah, we did. That’s when they told me, "Well what we've gotta do—our first step—is get priming for England. This was a shock to me. They said there was a lot of money to be made. That was the main conversation. And it wasn't long after that when they went away and left me hanging.
Were they going to pay for you to go to England, or were you going to have to pay for that?
Pay didn't come up, so I assumed that they were going to take that out of the $20,000—or at least part of it would come out of that—because I didn't know what it cost to make an album. So I thought it must be at least ten thousand to get us there and back, and whatever money we'd make while we were there would pay for whatever else to get started. I don't know how they operate so I didn't really get into it.
But soon after these conversations, you showed up at the office and found the place vacant, and your master tapes in the garbage.
You are correct. About a month afterwards. We were talking England and the next thing I know, I found out that they weren't there any more. They couldn't have been gone too long, or the garbage would have been taken away already. I found a couple of my tapes and a few more off the wall—a few I never knew. And the publishing demo of Wayne Carson, I found that in there also. And some tapes of Mickey Rooney. I think we sent those back to him. [Writer’s note: Mickey Rooney did indeed self-release an album entitled Merry, Merry Micklemas, recorded at SRS International Studios in Florida.]
Did you keep playing?
I think we did a couple more gigs after that, but not much. I had to get back into the construction and not devote too much time to that. And I had just given all my tools away! We were getting ready to go to England and I had thought I was never going to do construction again. And when I found out what happened, I had to buy all those tools again.
Did you try hunting the SRS folks down?
I didn’t know where to look at that point. They were from Tennessee or Alabama. Michelle knew Chet Atkins. Wherever he was, she was.
Chet Atkins was involved in this label somehow?
Yeah. I don't know how. All I know is he was involved. That's what she said, and you don't ask questions when things are going your way. You think, this is great, let him be in there, maybe I'll get to meet him. Which I didn't. Never even spoke with him.
Did you ever have any premonition that something was not quite right in your dealings with SRS?
I thought everything was going perfect until I found out that they had left town. That's all it took and my heart fell to the floor. I lost everything I thought I had.
What have you been doing since this album came out? You mentioned construction.
I got back into that. It’s boring, the same thing day in and day out. But it’s what I do, so it’s what I stuck with.
Was there ever any talk about doing a 45 single of any of the songs off this record?
No. But I know I made a 45 for somebody called “Bahama Mama.” Somebody wanted their song put on a record. Michelle and Dave didn’t have anyone to sing it, and I was available at the time and I said “sure.” They just said “here are the words, here’s the tune.” I don’t remember if I even practiced it…it was so simple, like a fifties-type song. They all sound the same! It came out pretty nice. I never got a copy of it, though.
Did it come out under your name?
I don’t know. I never even saw the record.
Do you think they charged that person money to have that record made?
I think they might have…I never heard another word about it. It was one of those in-and-out deals. It was a jumpy-type song. It was pretty neat. I wish I had the words and the melody today…I’d put them together just for the heck of it. But I don’t remember it.
And that was the only other record you ever made then?
Yeah. Since then I’m in the process of trying to make my Christmas record for the family and once I get that together I’ll send that out. I’ve got some other stuff that I’ve done—Elvis-type imitations—which doesn’t get you far today. Back then if I’d done them with Preacher Rollo, I’d have been ahead of Elvis, but I wasn’t smart enough to think ahead. I was scared.