JazzWax

Interview: 'Ronnie Singer Was My Brother'

At the end of September, I posted on guitarist Jimmy Gourley. In that post I wrote about Gourley's friend, a Chicago guitarist named Ronnie Singer. According to those who heard Singer live, he was on par with Jimmy Raney. Whether that's true or not is beside the point. Let's just say Singer was exceptional. [Photo above of Ronnie Singer on guitar with an unknown group of musicians, courtesy of Joyce Singer-Glantz]

Born June 9, 1928, Singer played bebop in Chicago in the late-1940s. Singer, like a significant number of jazz musicians at the time, became addicted to heroin for reasons we'll never know. In 1951, he married a woman named Jeanie, who provided hope. Sadly, she, too, became an addict.

They were both in New York in December 1953 so Ronnie could play with the Artie Shaw Orchestra at the Hotel Lincoln's Blue Room. For whatever reason, they both committed suicide by overdosing in a room at the Colborne Hotel in Greenwich Village.

There are audio samples online that claim to be Ronnie Singer playing guitar (go here), but, sadly, no albums were ever recorded. All that was left when Singer died was the legend and the word of other musicians.

I did manage to track down Ronnie Singer's sister, Joyce. Now in her 80s, she is as sweet as can be. She still misses her brother terribly, having been robbed of a lifetime of joy with him by an addiction that was completely avoidable. I had a chance in past weeks to interview her by email. Here is our back and forth...

JazzWax: Where did you and Ronnie grow up?
Joyce Singer-Glantz: Ronnie and I grew up in a northern suburb of Chicago that at the time was known as Norwood Park Township. It was very close to where O’Hare International Airport is now. Back then, in the late 1930s, O’Hare was all dandelion fields. I’d ride my bike there to pick the yellow flowers and make bouquets for our dining room table. Ronnie would make sure my bike was in tip-top shape, checking the tires, especially. He was a loving brother.

JW: Were your parents musical?
JS-G: Our father played the saxophone, primarily, and our grandfather had a music store. We had many instruments in our living room, as well as records and sheet music—a collection our father added to consistently. Our mother loved singing and dancing. They had met at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom, singing and dancing their way to a happy marriage with two children.

JW: What did your parents do for a living?
JS-G: Our father, Ed, was a master salesman for many companies. Being very friendly and caring, he had a wide range of customers who would deal with no one else. Our mother, Lee, was the epitome of a homemaker. She was a fabulous cook, our home was beautiful, and she was especially loved by all her nieces and nephews. Everyone went to her for a hug when needed.

JW: Did your parents encourage Ronnie's interest in music?
JS-G: My parents were more than encouraging—they were always involved in his music. We even made music together as a family. Our home recordings—there were many—were some or all of us singing pop tunes. There also was a lot of joke-telling. Of course, most of the tapes were Ronnie alone or with our father. We had wire and tape recorders with stacks of empty disks waiting to be cut by the four of us. Unfortunately, time took its toll. Those recordings we made at home were found in 2020 stuck together or cracked. So sad.

JW: When did Ronnie become interested in playing guitar?
JS-G: When he picked one up in our living room. We had had a bass in there, a xylophone, a marimba, a Hawaiian guitar among other guitars, an accordion, and many other instruments. Ronnie played many of them, as did our father. Ronnie took guitar lessons from a small music store that was within walking distance of our house. He also played with school bands.

JW: How about listening to records?
JS-G: We had no end to commercial recordings. They were primarily 78s of the artists of the day, like the Ink Spots, the Andrew Sisters, Danny Kaye and Spike Jones. There was a wide variety. Ronnie also loved Tchaikovsky, Liszt and other classics. Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite was high on his list of favorites.

JW: Was Ronnie's career put on hold during World War II?
JS-G: When the war came along in 1941, Ronnie and our dad led the way in our community of first-generation Germans participating in the war effort. They played together in the many patriotic-type bands of the day. They were in parades, played gigs at halls both large and small, community and private, and they volunteered and organized patriotic events at schools and community groups such as the Rotary Club and Shriners.

JW: What did Ronnie do during those years?
JS-G: Although many of Ronnie’s musical peers enlisted, primarily so they’d have an opportunity to continue playing in military dance bands, he was too sensitive to hold a gun. By the mid-1940s, he was listening to records by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and by age of 17 he was deeply involved in bebop.

JW: Did you have career ambitions?
JS-G: I was six years younger than Ronnie, therefore still in a child’s world. I adored my brother and was in awe of his big world in Chicago. It was mystifying to me. I was a good student, as was Ronnie until he reached the age where classrooms bored him. He was a self-learner, reading novels by Russian authors and Lebanese writer Kahlil Gibran. Slow-moving school studies were less important to him. After finishing high school, he didn’t want to go to college. He was totally immersed in his music.


JW: Who did Ronnie play with in his "big world" in Chicago?
JS-G: I could give you a lengthy list of the music greats that Ronnie knew and played with. I learned about this from his few remaining colleagues who are now in their 90s. Until I met them—in particular Irv Rochlin, who also used the surname “Craig”— I’d never heard of guitarists Jimmy Raney and Jimmy Gourley. While researching Ronnie in later years, I discovered an impressive list of musicians and singers and actors who were a part of his world. [Photo above of Ronnie Singer on guitar (behind vibes) courtesy of Joyce Singer-Glantz]

JW: What did you think of Ronnie's wife, Jeanie?
JS-G: To my youthful eyes, Jeanie was a fairy princess. She was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. They married in Chicago. I saw them together only twice, both times as a quiet, soft-spoken couple very much in love. She had the sweetest demeanor, and I was so proud to have her in our family.

JW: When did Ronnie fall in with the wrong crowd?
JS-G: The so-called “wrong crowd” was the only right crowd for Ronnie, as fate would have it. There were no bad habits at home, save for our dad, who loved his pipes and cigars. I never heard a swear word or extreme anger expressed in our home. We spoke with regard to each other’s feelings. We were a warm, considerate family with many friends and close relatives. This may sound odd to those in today’s world, but that’s who we were back then.

JW: So Ronnie was at the mercy of those he was playing with?
JS-G: Irv and Ira Sullivan, great musicians and friends of Ronnie’s, both told me he was out of place in many of the clubs where they played. He was well-liked and had a good sense of humor, but he never quite fit into the “wrong crowd” scene. He must have known this. When he and Jeanie began dating, he didn’t want her to be at his nighttime gigs because, according to what they told me, he was protecting her from the bad elements around him.

JW: How did they become heroin addicts?
JS-G: He was enamored by the way of the world of jazz musicians. Charlie Parker didn’t force him to take drugs, but they played together often when Charlie was at clubs in Chicago. That’s just how it was for all the musicians when they got together. Charlie and Ronnie had mutual respect for each other when they played.

JW: So was there group pressure?
JS-G: I wouldn’t know if Ronnie had been pressured into trying narcotics or if he was trying to fit in or was told he’d play better if he used heroin. I just know that heroin then was a big part of that environment in that era. It seemed to allow musicians to become less self-conscious and less uptight. We now know the cost, and I suppose they knew the cost then. For years, I hated Charlie Parker for putting my sensitive brother in such jeopardy. Ronnie was one of the youngest Chicago bebop players, making him even more susceptible to Bird’s influence.

JW: What did you think of Clint Eastwood’s portrayal of Parker in Bird?
JS-G: In recent years I made it a point to see the movie and at this time in my life, I saw the light. If the two of them played together and appreciated each other, how could have things have turned out differently? In the movie, Bird is shown in despair at having inadvertently affected the lives of so many young musicians who looked up to him for his talent. I now put him in the same sad spot in my heart that I have for my brother.

JW: Did Ronnie try to get clean?
JS-G: Twice Ronnie tried to break away from drugs by voluntarily checking in to the U.S. Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Ky. Twice he returned to his past life. Ira told me how Ronnie hated the life of drugs. He had come from a lovely home and was raised with good solid moral standards. Perhaps this is why his fellow musicians thought of him as not quite belonging to the nightclub scene.

JW: How did your brother wind up in New York committing suicide with his wife?
JS-G: At the time, in 1953, Ronnie was heading to New York to meet Jeanie and play with the Artie Shaw Orchestra at the Hotel Lincoln's Blue Room on Eighth Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets. On the road from Chicago, Ronnie made a stop at Jeanie’s parents’ Pennsylvania home, where her mother greeted him warmly with a hug and a meal. There was no sign of emotional trouble brewing. I believe once they were in New York, the addiction overcame them and they chose the only way out of the drug scene together. [Photo above of Artie Shaw at the Hotel Lincoln's Blue Room in 1939]

JW: How did you find out what happened?
JS-G: The news was picked up by many newspapers. It was a shocking story. This wasn’t another musician overdose. It seemed to be planned by both of them and clearly they were despondent or depressed to the point that suicide was the only way to end the cycle. The news was very difficult for me to digest, needless to say. Obviously, I’ve never gotten over it.

JW: Why wasn't Ronnie recorded commercially?
JS-G: I have no idea. Perhaps being soft-spoken held him back. Or perhaps he didn't fully appreciate his ability enough to push for that. As a sister, I could never imagine him being self-centered in any way. To sum it up, my mother used to tell me regarding Ronnie's genius, "It’s not good to be so smart.”

JW: Your parents must have been devastated, yes?
JS-G: Beyond. They were shattered. Our Dad passed away in his mid-40s, as did his three brothers, all at the same age, of heart attacks. Our mother passed away at age 99. Luckily she had a large family as a support system. They all came through for us. [Photo above of Lee Singer, courtesy of Joyce Singer-Glantz]

JW: Do you have Ronnie’s personal effects?
JS-G: Ronnie had very few material items when he passed. What I have is his guitar and sheet music, primarily written in his own hand. What I especially treasure are the two books he bought for me. One was entitled The Little Possum That Didn’t, a children’s book. I’ve always kept it. The other was a book of Kahlil Gibran’s poetry, which I loved. I also saved that. As for audio, all we have so far are the clips you can hear at his tribute site. I’ve been fortunate to find the few you see and hear there. I did find some sheet music that he composed. For these I’m very grateful.

JazzWax notes: For more on Ronnie Singer, go here and here.

Ron, Bond and Dennis

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Ron Howard and his brother Clint Howard for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). How do two kid actors in the 1960s who can't read or write memorize scripts and deliver lines with emotion? It's a process. Ron and Clint tell all. Ron and Clint's new memoir above is here. And if you haven't seen the four-part Gossip documentary series on Showtime that Ron Howard recently co-produced, be sure to watch. Here's the trailer...

Countdown. Just 3 1/2 weeks to go until my next book, Rock Concert, is published by Grove Press. How the small R&B revues of 1951 held in boxing arenas evolved to become an $8 billion industry, all in the words of those who were part of the changes. Pre-order now so you get my book early. Go here.

007. Last week, I heard from many readers on my James Bond post. Here's an email from Mark Rabin...

Hi, Marc. I enjoyed your post on the new James Bond set. While I was too young to see the films at first, I could watch "I Spy," "The Avengers," "Secret Agent," "The Saint" and others on TV. The James Bond themes and TV spy music became ear worms for me in my teen years. One album that made it into our house was by Roland Shaw And His Orchestra—"The Return Of James Bond In Diamonds Are Forever and Other Secret Agent Themes." Shaw sold millions of copies of spy theme instrumental albums. His dynamic performances combined with London Records' Phase 4 stereo mix were entertaining, especially on a cheap stereo. For a little more insight with some samples of the Roland Shaw/London Records Phase 4 sound, go here.

John Dennis. After my post last week on lost pianist John Dennis, I heard from dozens of you. Here's bassist Harvie S...

Marc, I can’t stop listening to John Dennis. Thanks for hipping me to him.
Wish we knew what happened to him. He would have been a major cat. Harvey Pekar mentions somewhere that he died in 1963 at the age of 33. In doing some research on Dennis, I found this interview of Walt Dickerson, Dennis's friend, by Dmitry Zhukov that touched on him. Go here.

Jelly Roll Morton. Last week I heard from director Raymond De Felitta who sent along a great clip of Jelly Roll Morton's music...

Hey man. I’ve been reading Gunther Schuller’s book, "Early Jazz." It led me into a deep dive into the Jelly Roll Morton discography, specifically his Red Hot Peppers sides. Schuller’s point is that the sophistication of Morton’s orchestrations, which he did himself and which predate Ellington, clearly shows him as a guide to all jazz arrangers who followed by only a few years. Jelly’s New Orleans sound made him obsolete by the late 20s, but to my ears he was as modern as Duke in that era and perhaps a little ahead of him.

Then I ran across the following YouTube compilation. Every one of his records from the New York years (1928-30) are astonishingly tight and polished. I think they kick hard, and I had never given much thought to him to be honest. Thought you and JazzWax readers would dig. Here's a lot of Jelly...

CDs you should know about.

Denise Donatelli—Whistling in the Dark: The Music of Burt Bacharach (Savant). Having interviewed Burt several times, once at his home in Los Angeles, I can tell you that Denise on this album totally gets his music. Singing Burt's melodies is back-breaker business. They aren't easy by any stretch, nor are his changing keys and time signatures. Take the title track, for example, from his album Blue Umbrella, with lyrics by Daniel Tashian. Or Toledo, with lyrics by Elvis Costello. Denise sings the nine tracks with the ease and the sound of dreamy desperation that Burt loves. Instead of the Dionne Warwick blast or Cilla Black hysteria, Denise's voice is soft and caressing, bringing a new level of sophistication and conviction to the music. Dig Walk On By, with Denise's pauses in just the right places. Here are the tracks, with arrangements by Larry Klein: Whistling in the Dark, The Look of Love, In Between the Heartaches, Toledo, Anyone Who Had a Heart, Walk On By, In the Darkest Place, Mexican Divorce and A House Is Not a Home. My only hope is that Denise has Part 2 on the way. Go here.

Ray Charles—True Genius (Tangerine). The tracks on this six-CD retrospective were smartly chosen. Every post-1960 album is represented here and, when combined in a musical narrative, provide a fabulous cross-section of one of soul's forefathers. Released on Charles's Tangerine Records, the set includes a previously unreleased live concert from Stockholm in 1972. The set also doubles as a coffee table book, since the CDs are housed inside a 46-page hardback with rare photos and narratives by multiple authors. A marvelous holiday gift for those who woudl love to load up an Apple Music folder with the Genius and listen to tracks carefully selected for their emotion and significance. Go here.

Sammy Price radio. On Sunday, Sid Gribetz will host a five-hour show on WKCR-FM in New York celebrating the boogie-woogie of pianist Sammy Price. To listen from anywhere in the world, tune from from 2 to 7 p.m. (ET) here.

Bernard Purdie radio. Recently Chris Cowles devoted three hours of his Greasy Tracks show on WRTC-FM in Hartford, Ct., to the music of Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, one of the most recorded studio drummers. To listen to the show in the archives, go here.

And finally, here's Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga singing Cole Porter's Love for Sale from their new album of the same name...

The Beatles: Let It Be

In May 1970, the Beatles released Let It Be a month after they disbanded. I remember hearing it for the first time at age 13 on the driveway of my next-door neighbor in the suburbs. The neighbor was on his bike, I was on my green Schwinn Sting-Ray and two other friends were on theirs. His older sister was in her room with her boyfriend and they were blasting Get Back. The four of us listened and exchanged glances until one finally said to her brother, "Are your parents home?"

From the start, in 1970, the Beatles' final studio album was recorded and produced with seething frustration and drama. From the outside as a young teen, the album was a parting gift. Apparently, being a Beatle wasn't all it was cracked up to be. There was the relentless business stress, fear of crowds, creative struggles, the loss of Brian Epstein, spouses gaining studio influence, internal bossiness and a loathing of each other's musical quirks and agendas. It all took a toll. When the album was completed early in the year, John and George wanted their creative lives back. Paul and Ringo, to some extent, did, too, but they didn't quite understand the urgency to split up. After all, the Beatles together were rock royalty. No other band came close. Embarking on a solo career meant liberation but it also came with the terrifying risk of limited appeal and declining fortunes. Besides, they were childhood friends.

I spent the past few days listening to the new six-disc Let It Be: Super Deluxe Edition of the reissued package released today. The set was newly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell in stereo, 5.1 surround DTS, and Dolby Atmos. The new stereo mix of the original album was guided by the version produced by Phil Spector. In addition to the remixed original album, there are four discs of outtakes, demos and previously unreleased material, including Glyn Johns’ original version of the never-released Get Back, and there's a big-sounding Blu-ray recording of the album. The set comes with a 100-page hardback book with an intro by Paul McCartney, track-by-track recording information, and many unseen photos, notes, and more.

The music is more beautiful than I remember and at times edgier and more muscular, with knotted tension. Many of the songs are distinctly John's handiwork or Paul's, and a number of tracks still sound unfinished. What makes the album fascinating is this tearing-at the-seams quality. There's little cohesion from one song to the next, and you can hear powerful emotional and creative forces pulling the four musicians in different directions. In some ways, it feels like a backyard birthday party by parents who are about to announce their divorce. The tables aren't as pretty as they should be, the food isn't perfect and the cake seems a bit lopsided. But it's a grand party just the same that would turn out to be a wake.

Even though the group was on its last legs as a unit, there's a certain unmistakable energy that's both melancholy and glorious, like Frank Sinatra's Only the Lonely, Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin or Lester Young's final recording for Barclay in Paris. The story of how Let It Be reached the marketplace was a strange journey fraught with fatigue, betrayal and recrimination. The thread that runs through it all is the pure pop genius of the Beatles, George Martin and Phil Spector. As for the music's creation in the studio, we get to hear more than we knew through the vast trove of bonus material.

Here's my own Let It Be story: At the tail end of August in 2012, I flew to London, rented a car and drove northwest on the A40. About an hour or so later, I exited and navigated the small winding roads through the picturesque Cotswolds. Before long, I pulled up a stone drive and parked in front of an elegant and compact country estate. There, I was greeted by Sir George Martin and his wife, Lady Judy. I was there to interview him on a wide range of subjects for a Wall Street Journal Cultural Conversation, which is what these types of in-depth pieces were called back then.

It was a beautiful late summer day. The temperature was in the mid-70s, the sun was bright but the sky was changeable—a dramatic harbinger of an English autumn to come. After some small talk, Sir George, Sir George's publicist and I headed up a sloping lawn to a gazebo at the top. After sitting down, I placed my digital tape recorders on the table and turned them on. Sir George did an amusing air check "Testing, Testing, 1-2, 1-2" and off we went. The interview lasted about an hour and a half. During our conversation on a wide range of Beatles- and post-Beatles related topics, I asked him about Let It Be:

Marc Myers: How would you have produced Let It Be differently than what we hear now?
Sir George Martin: Well I had produced the original [laughs]. Let It Be is a big sword in my side. By then, John had gone off to New York and didn’t seem to like anybody at that point. He was going through a very moody phase. He was sloughing everyone off—Paul, George, Ringo, me and [their music publisher] Dick James [of Northern Songs Ltd.] in particular.

MM: Where did things start to go off the rails with the album?
GM: From the start. John came to me and said, “I want to make this clear: we don’t want any of your production crap on this.” I said, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “No overdubbing. We do it live. We do it for real. We’re a good band. No additions of other instruments. None of your orchestrations. We’re a band. We’re a good band. We can do it.”

MM: That’s pretty blunt.
GM: It was. John laid down these strictures. He continued, “Moreover, we’re not going to edit. All of our masters will be finished works in the studio.” This meant no splicing if there were mistakes or sound problems. If that happened, we’d have to do complete re-takes.

The result, Sir George told me, "was a mess." Ultimately, Sir George put together an album, warts and all, and gave it to EMI. It was never released, he said, "Thank god." The Beatles, through Paul, approached Sir George to record again, with Paul promising that John would be on his best behavior. But instead, John and George, Sir George told me, decided to take the EMI tape to Phil Spector, who produced the album that was ultimately released. As Sir George told me, "I was very disappointed with the entire affair, and even today, talking about it is painful."

While the Beatles' breakup hovers over the deluxe set, a good chunk of the album remains solid work. Paul's Two of Us already has a Wings sound, Lennon's Across the Universe is dreamy and idealistic, Paul's Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road and Get Back are masterpieces, Harrison's For You Blue is loopy but has a certain appeal and Lennon's early composition One After 909 is a throwback change-up. The rest are good.

The deluxe edition with its many studio takes, conversations and bickering is revealing. The previously unreleased tracks shed light on John's temperament and impending revolution against George Martin's polished production standards, John's angry realization that those standards were a necessity, the friction between bandmates, the belittling of George Harrison and George's decision to walk out but return days later, John's newfound cockiness, the Apple rooftop rehearsal, the betrayal of George Martin and all the rest. The grit and dissolving unity make for a startling work of art.

Let It Be was the Beatles last stand and, in many ways, the title track serves as a requiem for a band that did more to supersize rock, rock celebrity and the rock concert than any other. After the breakup, Paul and Linda would eventually form Wings, George would embark on a solo career recording all the songs John and Paul rejected, Ringo would embrace the American songbook, and John went to work with his new writing partner—his wife, Yoko Ono. A year later John and Yoko would collaborate on what is certainly John's greatest song, Imagine, in some ways his answer to Paul's Let It Be.

Think of Let It Be as the final episode of a mutlipart saga, with all the score-settling, explosions and emotion without pretense. In the hands of Giles Martin, the Let It Be reissue and all of its bonus tracks, has become multidimensional and easier to appreciate and understand. It's also more tolerable and easier to untangle all these years later. The material also sounds a heck of a lot better than it did on my neighbor's driveway that early summer day 51 years ago.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find all of the reissued Let It Be formats here.