“I COULDN’T BREATHE: I WAS SO EXCITED!”
A Conversation with Arthur Schroeck
Arthur Bruce Schroeck, born Oct. 10, 1938 in Irvington, New Jersey, hence a Jerseyite like Sinatra, was one of the writers of “Here’s To The Band”. Schroeck has also worked extensively with, among others, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons as well as with our DSS Honorary Member Liza Minnelli, and earned additional fame for composing several award-winning TV jingles and popular commercials. As of 2011, he can still be heard performing in Las Vegas with his wife, Brooklyn-born singer-pianist Linda November (*1944), who starred in more than 20.000 TV commercials in the United States.
In this exclusive interview for the Deutsche Sinatra Society (DSS), Schroeck looks back at his long and successful career as a composer-songwriter and arranger, and provides a fascinating first-hand account on the origins of “Here’s To The Band” and its Sinatra recording.
DEUTSCHE SINATRA SOCIETY (DSS):
Dear Arthur Schroeck, we much appreciate your taking the time and effort to answer a few questions for our Deutsche Sinatra Society magazine.
“Sinatra”, that name, and the music tied to it, would play a very important role in your life obviously – do you remember how, and when, you first ever came across the name “Sinatra”, and his music?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
This is of course before “Here's To The Band”. I remember being three years old hearing FS sing on WNEW, a New York City radio station that played all the Big Bands, Dorsey, Harry James etc. We also had the 78rpm record of James “All Or Nothing At All”, which FS sang on.
When I was about six, my father and I went to New York to see Sinatra at the Paramount Theatre. When we got to the box office, the police men said the line began 10 blocks down the street! My father, not being that patient, decided we should go to a movie instead.
In the late 1970s, Sinatra was appearing at The Resorts International in Atlantic City, NJ. I would sneak into the rehearsals by putting on a tuxedo and carry an instrument case, and sit in the back and watch him rehearse. I didn't know him yet.
DSS:
Haha, that was very clever of you! Yes, Sinatra played The Resorts International quite extensively in 1979 and 1980. Some have said Sinatra wasn’t too fond of rehearsing - so, did you at the time sense any of that, too? And how did these rehearsals go?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
It was always depending on how he felt, whether he would come [to a rehearsal] from the beginning or come down later. In 1988, when he was playing Bally's Grand (in Atlantic City, BV.) a bunch of singers who were working there and myself use to sing his parts until he came down. What a thrill that was singing those arrangements.
DSS:
We’ll of course come back to Sinatra again later. But first, let us know about how you got started, during your early years. Did you want to become a musician from the very beginning, or did you embark on that “journey” later in your life? And what are your instruments?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
I don't remember not playing music. My family was very musical and always had music on the radio or a phonograph record, which I learned how to operate at three years old. We also had a lot of instruments in the house. I learned to play drums and Boogie Woogie on the piano. I guess I always wanted to be a musician. Now I play drums, piano and vibraphones.
DSS:
Whom would you name as early musical influences of yours?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton and pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet. When I was in High School, I bought the Sinatra album “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers” (Capitol Records, released in 1956, BV.) and when I heard those Nelson Riddle arrangements, I said that's what I want to be: an arranger!
DSS:
So one of Sinatra’s Capitol masterpieces played a direct role in what you wanted to strive for in your own career. What was your work like, as a musician, in those days? And whom did you work with?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Actually in the 1940s, my older brother Harold and I had an act, he played piano and I played drums. The act also included a tap dance routine. We would play in Atlantic City, and Gene Krupa saw our act and included us in his shows. You can imagine what a thrill that was!
ADDITIONAL QUESTION:
Certainly! Gene Krupa was a giant in the business, and one of the best drummers that ever lived, wasn’t he? What are your memories of him?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
A very nice man, and the man who finally put the drums front and center.
DSS:
You also got to play with another of those giants you’ve mentioned above as your main influence. How did that come about?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Yes. I was in Las Vegas in 1959, when I went to a music store to try out a Hammond organ. Lionel Hampton came into the store and heard me playing, and he sat down at one of the store pianos and started jamming with me. When we were finished, he came over to me and told me to come to the Riviera Hotel and join his band.
ADDITIONAL QUESTION:
Hampton had a reputation for always giving new talents and young musicians a chance in his orchestra, I think? (I’ve seen him several times in the 1980s and 1990s, when he was still touring tirelessly, and the band’s chemistry seemed perfect to me.) You stayed with Hampton for a couple of years?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Yes, for two years. He was another very nice man. If it wasn't for his wife Gladys (who died in 1971, BV.) he probably would have given all his money away. He loved to play. After many gigs, especially at colleges, he would go back to the dorms, get the rhythm section together and jam for a few more hours.
DSS:
You then continued to work as musician and arranger.
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
DSS:
…which originally got credited to Charles Calello?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
I know you are familiar with the term “ghosting”. Back in the 1960s, I just had come off the road, and Calello, whom I basically taught arranging to and who had been to High School with me, was into arranging for recordings at that time. He had a lot of hits with The Four Seasons. He helped me to get into arranging for recordings by having me ghosting arrangements for him. “Lightnin’ Strikes” was one of them. My reputation as an arranger got so noticed, that it came out that I was the arranger. Calello was the producer and conductor.
DSS:
Charles Calello later also worked on a very special Sinatra album, “Watertown”, released by Reprise Records in 1970.
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
I'm not at all familiar with “Watertown”, but I know Chas arranged it. Calello is a brilliant arranger. I had many encounters with him in our recording days. He was producing an album, “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession” for Laura Nyro (Columbia 1968, BV.) He wasn't happy with the drummers on the tracks that had been recorded so far, so he called me in to replace them and finish the album on the drums for Laura. Callelo and I later shared arranging jobs on a Frankie Valli album called “Romancing The 60s”, released in 2007 (on the Motown label, BV.)
DSS:
What moments, if looking back now, would you count as highlights among your professional work?
I worked with Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. I arranged their hit recording of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (Philips Records, 1966, made it to US Billboard’s Top Ten, BV.), and Frankie Valli’s solo of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (1967, reached #2 on the US Billboard Charts, BV.), for which I have a gold record hanging on my wall. I also did arrangements for Paul Anka and Neil Diamond. And for “The Lovin' Spoonful”, I orchestrated the movie “You’re a Big Boy Now”…
DSS:
… a 1966 Warner Brothers production directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Elizabeth Hartman and Geraldine Page (who won an Oscar nomination for her part), and with “The Lovin’ Spoonful” performing, among other tunes, the title track…
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
… and I also did two arrangements of those movie songs for John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, whom I already mentioned above. So, I got to work with my three idols in my life!
I had a hit record on a song I wrote called “Lovin’ Things”. It was recorded by The Ventures, who put it as an instrumental on their album “Hawaii Five-O” (released on Liberty Records in 1968, BV.), which went platinum-plus. And it was also recorded by Petula Clark (on her 1969 Warner Bros. album “Portrait of Petula”). I believe she also recorded it in German.
DSS:
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
In the 1970s, I wrote a song for Barry Manilow called “Let’s Take Some Time To Say Goodbye” (for his album “Barry Manilow I”, Arista 1973) and another one for Engelbert Humperdinck called “Remember The Good Times”, which I was lucky to have on the B-side of “After The Lovin’”…
DSS:
…Engelbert’s Top-Ten Single of 1976 (Epic), also featured on Engelbert’s 1976 album of the same name…
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
…this, in the record business, was considered a free ride.
DSS:
We’re approaching the late 1970s/early 1980s now with our next question – obviously at some point in those years, you got together with two other people, by the name of Alfred Nittoli and Sharman Howe. Tell us a bit about them, Nittoli and Howe, and how you first got to meet them?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
A lot of the songs I mentioned above I co-wrote with Jet Loring. She was Alfred Nittoli's wife at the time. In the late 1950s, we had a band that played on the road together, called “Al & Jet and the Nitrons”, I played piano and vibes on the band. Sharman I got to know later when Al was managing her. Al and I kept in touch but after the road didn't do much work together except for Jet and I writing together.
DSS:
Are Nittoli and Howe still around?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Yes they are. They do some producing for local artists in New Jersey. Al for a time was Joe Pesci's stand-in for some of his movies. He also had a bit part in the movie “Casino” (a 1995 movie directed by Martin Scorsese, with Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone, BV.). Sharman wrote some songs but never got a break with them. I think Al and her perform sometimes.
DSS:
So now, how did the idea for the song “Here’s To The Band”, later recorded by Sinatra, unfold?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Sharman and Al came to me with a song they wrote called “Here's To The Musicians”. It was a kind of Barry-Manilow-type song. I loved the idea but I told them, except for “My Way”, I didn't think [Sinatra] was doing rock ballads any more. I also told them it should be a swing song, and that “Here's To The Band” would be a hipper thing for Sinatra to sing. They left me their music sheet and the demo, and I went to work. That was at 5pm. I worked a little on the song that night.
The next day I was in New York City recording jingles, and in-between breaks I walked the New York streets, writing the song. I remember while walking on 57th Street, writing the the lyric "those magical notes, those musical pearls, / I've sung with all the Counts, the Dukes, the Kings and the Earls”. When I got home I put the finishing touches on the song. That was at 5pm again. I called Sharman and Al, they came over and I played the song for them. The flipped. They had very little to do with the new version, but I made sure they got credited for the lyric.
DSS:
So the song was in a sense born on the streets of New York, the “city that never sleeps”, as Sinatra sings in his New York anthem. That’s a fascinating story, Arthur! So at some point, you then recorded a demo version of the new song yourself, and had it sent to Sinatra’s people. Now probably, Sinatra received dozens of such suggestions per week. Which way did you chose to ensure the song would reach “the inner circle”, so to speak?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Joe Malin was a violinist that played on many of my recording sessions. He was also Sinatra's orchestra contractor and concert master…
DSS:
…yes, he started playing on Sinatra dates in the 1960s, and continued right down to Sinatra’s final sessions in the 1990s…
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
… and he was on a recording session we were doing and I gave him the music sheet and the demo I did on the song. He gave it to Sinatra on their next concert and that's the last we heard of it. (I was able to get songs heard a lot of different ways because of the respect I had as an arranger from the studio musicians.)
DSS:
So initially, once Malin had given your song to Sinatra, virtually nothing happened?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Nothing.
DSS:
But you would then try another way to push your song – and suddenly, Sinatra was doing it on stage!
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Two years later, I played it for my song publisher, Al Gallico (1920-2008, BV.), and he went bonkers. He called up Nancy Sinatra, Frank’s daughter. She came over and heard it and also went bonkers, and called her father right away and asked him why he wasn't doing it. He said there was a line in the song about “strings soaring” and that his current band didn't have violins…
DSS:
…yes, Sinatra had made an official statement in February 1981, that from now on he would prefer touring with a no-strings orchestra, in favour of what he called “a more Jazzy approach”…
ARTHUR SCHROECK
Nancy told him he was crazy if he didn't do the song. He then had Joe Parnello (Sinatra’s conductor from January 1983 to November 1985, BV.) write a quick arrangement so he could learn it and do it in his concerts. Sinatra introduced it at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City (on December 9, 1982, BV.), I was there. He then also performed it at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (on January 7, 1983, BV.). Al Gallico was there and said when Sinatra got to the hook, people got out of their seats and started screaming and cheering and toasting with drinks in their hands.
DSS:
Once Sinatra had performed the song on stage for a couple of times quite successfully, Sinatra decided to try to do a studio recording of it for Reprise Records. How did those sessions go, what arrangements was he using, and what was the final result?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
The session was called for a Friday, I think, in New York City’s RCA Recording Studios on 44th Street…
DSS:
…Wednesday actually, January 19, 1983…
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
…and I was there. It was a night session and the orchestra was about 50 men and women. Billy May did a new arrangement of the song and it was fabulous, but Sinatra didn't want to learn it. It was that night that we got the call that Don Costa had died, so the session was canceled.
DSS:
Yes, that must have been a sad night for all. Don Costa (1925-1983) had been working for Sinatra constantly since 1961 and had conducted on so many concerts and studio dates.
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
We came back the next Tuesday afternoon (January 25, 1983, BV.) and he recorded it with the Parnello arrangement. I was very disappointed that they weren't doing May's arrangement, as it was so great, but Frank was used to Joe's chart.
After the recording, they did a quick mix on it and sent it to William B. Williams…
DSS:
…William B. Williams (1923-1986), the famous New York radio DJ and close friend of Sinatra’s for decades, who coined the nickname “Chairman of the Board” for Frank…
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
…and he played it the next day at 11 AM and got a record amount of calls on it. He then played it every day. They finally did a master mix, and the 45rpm single came out with also the sheet music.
After that Sammy Davis started doing it and did it on “The Tonight Show”. I was doing arrangements for Liza Minnelli's London show. She at the time did a number in her shows called “My 12 Guys” where she introduced her band . She wanted a new song for that spot, so “Here's To The Band” was a natural.
DSS:
Let’s stay with Sinatra for another moment, Arthur. Did Sinatra record the song exactly as you had written it, or did he imply any changes?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
There was a lyric he left out from the original. After the band section, the original lyric is:
“they call them side men, but I'm proud to have had them at my side/Here's to those ladies…” etc. “Side men” are what they call the members of the orchestra, not the conductor. That's the history I know. He also made a few other slight changes, like instead of “I had a ball” he sang “I've had it all”, also “ladies and gentlemen” instead of “ladies and men”. He also made a few note changes.
DSS:
So you attended both of these sessions in January 1983. How would you, from your memory, describe in general the atmosphere at those sessions? How was it like being in the same studio, as “The Chairman” approached new recordings?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
It was a thrill for me! I never got blasé when I heard my arrangements or songs on radio or TV, and this was no different. The musicians were always at their peak when playing for Sinatra. There was a little melancholy that Wednesday night because Costa wasn't expected to live.
DSS:
Above, you made it a point that you were disappointed that Sinatra, for his Reprise studio recording as eventually released, chose the Joe Parnello arrangement instead of the newly written Billy May chart. What were, in your opinion, the advantages of the May chart?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
The May chart was more exciting, it had all the Billy May humor, like he had the band whistling in some places. Also on the lyric “drums pounding in my ear”, he had a battery of snares, bass drum, toms, tymps, congas etc. playing a thunderous explosion at that point. It was difficult for Frank to learn it.
Don Costa was supposed to be the producer of the session, and he would have talked Frank into doing the Billy May chart. He was one of the few people that could do that. But he was in the hospital and died that night. Joe's arrangement was not exciting and filled with old band clichés. But Frank was used to it from performing it the past couple of months.
DSS:
Do you remember how many takes it took Sinatra, on the second session (Tuesday, Jan 25), before he got the final version of “Here’s To The Band” in the can?
ARTHUR SCHROECK
Two takes.
DSS:
So after all, no less than FRANK SINATRA was doing “your” song on stage, and even issued a single with the studio recording of it. Now, how did that feel?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
When I went to see him at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City and the entertainment director told me he was doing the song, I couldn't breathe. I was so excited! You asked me before what were my biggest thrills in my career: That was it!
DSS:
Sinatra aside, some other singers have performed “Here’s To The Band” as well over the years. You have already mentioned Sammy Davis jr., who did it on the “Tonight Show” with NBC’s resident orchestra of Tommy Newsom (1929-2007). What do you think of his performance?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
I liked it better than Sinatra's. He had a lot of respect for the song and he sang it like he loved it. He even made the Parnello chart sound great.
DSS:
Another singer to be mentioned in this context, most notably, is Liza Minnelli, who for several years has included it in almost any concert performance. And you, Arthur, did play a role in what we get to hear there, didn’t you?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Yes. I met Liza through Joe Pesci…
DSS:
… the famous actor and Oscar winner (“Goodfellas”, directed by Martin Scorsese 1990)…
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
…he, Frankie Valli and I basically grew up together. Liza, Pesci and I would go to Piano bars and get up and sing, I usually played piano for them. Liza was impressed with my musicianship and asked me to do the arranging for her new concert tour, which included the TV special “Liza In London”.
DSS:
Her legendary appearances at the London Palladium in 1986!
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
While we were rehearsing for that tour, she had a song in her act called “My 12 Guys”, where she introduced the guys in her band. She wanted a new song for that spot, her conductor [Bill LaVorgna] said Artie's song “Here’s To The Band” is a natural for it, so that's how that happened.
DSS:
Talking about Liza: You did some other arrangements for her, too – for instance, “Teach Me Tonight”?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Yes, I kept arranging for her many years after that, and when she was preparing for her Radio City Music Hall show “Steppin’Out” (in 1992, BV.), she asked me to do an arrangement on “Teach Me Tonight”. She opened the show with it. I was in the 4th row of the audience, and it was one of the few times anyone got a standing ovation for an opening number. That usually comes at the end. I think the arrangement I did for her had something to do with it. It was very exciting. I wish that the Sinatra band arrangement would have had that excitement.
DSS:
How would you describe Liza as a person? And as a musician?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Liza was very musical, especially for not playing an instrument. When we were rehearsing she would sing horn or string lines as we ran down the songs. Most of them were better than anything I could come up with. She was also one of the nicest people I ever worked with, and she always knew what she wanted.
DSS:
If pressed, how would you describe Sinatra in but a few lines?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
He had sort of a split personality. Some nights he could be very nice and other nights not so nice. Sometimes cruel.
DSS:
Did you get to meet him in person often?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Not that many. When he played Bally's Grand [in Atlantic City], I got to see him there as I played in the lounge in 1988. He played there lot’s of times during that year. I had a dressing room around the corner from his. Some nights he would say hello, some nights he wouldn't.
DSS:
You’ve already mentioned the impact his album classic “Songs For Swingin’ Lovers” has had on you. What are other favourites of yours from the Sinatra album catalogue? How would you define the “essence” of his craft, so to speak?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
He knew how to sing those arrangements, like he was part of the band. My favorite time period for Sinatra was the Capitol years. When he was with Reprise, I thought he did some material that wasn't really his style. Later on he went back to the swing stuff, and he was home again. One of my top-5 recordings of all time is “A Man And His Music” with Basie at the Sands (1966).
DSS:
Arthur, thanks for sharing all these priceless insights with us. We understand you’re now approaching your 73rd birthday – so what does a man who wrote a Sinatra song do at that point of his life? Is it “Gone Fishin’”, or do you still do professional work and projects?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
I'm semi-retired here in Nevada but I still do arrangements, I can stay home to do that. I'm working on a vocal group album for Frankie Valli and a Christmas album for Kenny Loggins. My wife Linda November and I do some shows, here, locally. Speaking of fishing, I wrote a theme song for a local TV show here called “Fun Fishin'”, but I don't fish.
DSS:
So, there still never is a day without music, right?
ARTHUR SCHROECK:
Right: never!
DSS:
Thank you Arthur, it has been exciting to do this interview with you. Our best wishes to you and your wife, and many happy returns!
Note:
The interview was originally conducted in September 2011 by Bernhard Vogel in English language.
German translation: Bernhard Vogel.
The Deutsche Sinatra Society e.V. can be reached at
http://www.deutsche-sinatra-society.de
