POV: C.R. Ecker

LIKE SONGWRITERS AND PERFORMERS, EVEN SONGS

HAVE TO BE PATIENT SOMETIMES TO MAKE MONEY

By C.R. Ecker

Sometimes you hear a song that seems to have been written right now, just for you.  But other times, the song that provides what you think is right smack in your time worked its way to you through a series of twists and turns more pronounced than those on Mulholland Drive, in a creative journey starting long before you heard it.

Let’s begin with the song “As Time Goes by,” named the Number 2 film song of the 20^th Century by the American Film Institute.  It was written by an “add-on” songwriter supplementing the main songwriting duo doing the score of an early 30s Broadway musical called “Everybody’s Welcome.”  (It lasted just 139 performances over a 3 ½ month period beginning in October, 1931.)

So the musical wasn’t a hit, nor was the song.  It got picked up by the then well-known singer Rudy Vallee, but was not a chart breaker for the ages.

Fast forward to 1942, when the movie “Casablanca,” set in war’s shadows, was made.   The song was sung on celluloid by Dooley Wilson with a simple piano accompaniment then heard as background in and out of the film.  (There was a musician’s strike going on at the time so Wilson could not release a single of the song.)

So the studio dusted off Vallee’s eleven year- old recording and it became the Number 1 song of 1942 at a time when the phrase “As Time Goes By” presented a special meaning during the beginning of World War II, at a time nobody was sure how much time would go by until war’s end.

Since then, “As Time Goes By,” originally an add-on for an unsuccessful play has been covered by 31 artists, most recently Rod Stewart!  Over the years, it’s made millions.

Let’s move on to Mel Tillis and his song “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”  In the late 60s, I heard more than one DJ relay the story that the song was not written about a war-damaged soldier’s sorrow over his girl’s cheating ways during the Vietnam War, but rather the lament of a fighting man disabled by combat some 15 years earlier in Korea.  I swear I heard the radio DJs correctly because I was one of a few living in the 60s who actually remembers everything.  Today’s website sources I reviewed do not take this point of timing on.

But to reinforce this timing and I take this phrase word-for-word from a web source -- “hit covers” were done by country singer Johnny Darnell in 1967 and Kenny Rogers, making his transition from rock to country, two years later.  By this reasoning, there had to be an original artist somewhere.  (See what I have learned by watching CSI Miami too much.)

So it would appear Tillis wrote that song way before it became a hit although I can’t find conclusive proof other than what I heard from the likes of the New York City DJs I listened to attentively.  And being a teenager back then,   I knew Boss Jocks were rock solid bastions of truth, freedom and the American way!

The end result -- the Darnell “cover” of “Ruby…” reached #9 in the country charts then faded.  And Rogers’s cross-over version sold some seven million copies in ten years and has been covered by 15 other performers over the years.

There are other examples that come to mind too -- Dolly Parton singing “I Will Always Love You” with Whitney Houston years later making a memorable cover chart buster that is still played today, and The Animals recording “House of the Rising Sun” traced to a 16^th Century British folk tune put onto a record in 1933 by two Appalachian folk singers, Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster.  All these songs identified with a certain time, but written previously.  And I would say that the song brought millions to the songwriter, but nobody knows who the songwriter was!

And now for the capper, and I know this story first hand from start to finish!

There was a group of musicians in 1991 in Los Angeles, looking to hit the stage and strike it rich with a bunch of country songs, one summing up the economic challenges of the big recession of that time, so bad where they lived that the Los Angeles Times called it a “pocket depression” in that city.

That last song of about 18 written for The C.R. Ecker Band was called “Bushwacked (Bewildered, Beat-up Bad and Broke.)  But with no funds, any stage show was “no go”.

That meant it sat in a box for twenty years until C.R. (me) brought the songs out and put together an album for digital distribution from various studio sessions.

Now this song is probably going to be something like “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” was during the Depression.  Maybe that is why it is featured on the increasingly important 99ers.net website set up for jobless people who have run out of their unemployment benefits and with many facing serious financial challenges.  (It even sat as a link on a “Brother…” website for two months after its introduction but can’t find it anymore.)

That song was the hit record of 1932 with versions by Vallee and Bing Crosby being played on Victrolas all over the land.  Don’t know how many copies were sold but the songwriter was glad for what he could get during those days.

I hope my song is not going to be played any longer than the time this economic mess ends.  And maybe 100 years later, people can read about the two songs in a “Great Tunes from Crummy Times” website. But it sure provides a musical background for our current economic challenges.  One listener called it his “personal pep rally,” there when he needed it.  That’s all I can ask for.

So if you download it for a buck, you will hear a song that never made it to the public until the new digital music revolution made it possible for thousands upon thousands of Indies to be heard.  Not a word changed over 20 years!

Artistic freedom wins out.  Now to figure out how to make money…

Editor’s Note:   The C.R. Ecker Band album “Bushwacked (Bewildered, Beat-up Bad and Broke)” is available on iTunes and all other major mp3 aggregators here and abroad.  Also, the songs are featured on Spotify and two upbeat cuts, “I Just Wanna’ Meet Girls” and “My White Collar (Makes My Red Neck Itch)” appear on The Starliners Radio Network, which broadcasts throughout Western Europe.  The author composed words and music to all the songs save “White Collar…” which he co-wrote with two others.  And if all goes well, the man whose band bears his name says there will be a second album in the spring. For more information, Google -The C.R. Ecker Band.