Michael Feinstein

done before. I was asked to do it at the Pops, and I primarily programmed classic American musical arrangements, ones that often are not heard for decades, or some that have never been publicly played before. We played for the first time live the original orchestration of Over the Rainbow, which was recorded October seven at MGM and has not been performed in its entirety since that time because the orchestration was lost and I just recently found it. Okay, what

is different from that than the well known version? The version that Serta in the movie is wonderful, but it was recorded with one microphone. There were different well, there were I should say one input. There were a few microphones, but it was recorded on one channel, so you don't hear a lot of things that are in the arrangement, and every time it's been transcribed, people have left out, uh, what what I think are essential parts of the arrangement.

But you literally couldn't hear it. So it was a revelation for people. People went crazy just being able to hear this iconic piece of music in this iconic arrangement that they thought they knew. But I've never really heard that way. Okay, you're really an expert. So let's go back at that time. Do they even have multi track recording? Yes, yes they did. They recorded on separate strips of film. It was optical film, so yeah, you get like the

Silver Street on the side. Yeah, and MGM was doing it as early as there's a there's a recording of a ballet by Dmitri Tiomkin that was written for an unreleased MGM film called The March of Time, and it

exists in multi channel. And they usually would only record multi channel when they did a choir, when they needed a separate voice channel, or where there was something complex, and oddly, with a Wizard of Oz which is a very complex score with a lot going on, there are only two cues that they recorded multi channel which was the overture and the cyclone music. The rest of it was recorded one channel, which I find a mystery because b movies, lesser films with lower budgets were recorded multi

channel at that time. Okay, So how many channels could they ultimately have as many strips of film as they wanted they could line them up? I mean, I don't literally know if there's but but but there are some that there are six channels, seven channels. And of course Fantasia was released in Fantas Sound in l A and at Radio City, which was a six channel process, and that's what they labeled fantas Sound. Yes, And was there any other movie in fantas Sound? Just just one? Okay?

So if it was six if the theaters at that time did they have multi channel exhibition rooms, they had to fit them specially for that, and which is why it wasn't, which is why they needs yet right, okay, So what else did you play last night? What else did I play? It was a salute to MGM, So I played the Barn Dance from seven Rights for Seven Brothers, the overture from High Society, which was orchestrated by Conrad Salinger.

The greatest Hollywood arranger, and Skip Martin. I played Love Is Where You Find It, which was an aria for Katherine Grayson because I found that original MGM chart. The MGM library was thrown away in the late nineteen sixties by a guy named James Aubrey, who was head of the studio, because it was a cost cutting measure. So every single MGM arrangement was destroyed. They were all put into a dumpster, or they were used as landfill for

the four oh five Freeway. The entire MGM library was destroyed, so all the musical greats that worked for MGM, their work was was destroyed unless somebody happened to keep a

copy themselves, and so this entire legacy was lost. So whenever you hear an MGM arrangement like Singing in the Rain or or any of those iconic things that they'll play, and they're always reconstructed, and Over the Rainbow is a chart that well, they saved the Conductor books, which is which is a rudimentary reduction of the full scores, and so they reconstruct from the Conductor books. But in the

case of Over the Rainbow, nothing survived. There was not even a Conductor part for the original arrangement, and so when I found it it was it was one of those Eureka moments. Well, once again, how did you find it? I found it at the offices of David Rose Music.

Angela Rose White, who is David Rose's daughter, had been moving some things in our office and I went over there and I saw a folder that said over the Rainbow, and I assumed it would be an arrangement that her father did in the nineteen fifties and instrumental thing because he wrote these incredible He did these famous mostly for

the stripper. Yes, and um. I opened up the folder and it said Loos Incorporated Production ten sixty and I lest I was looking at a set of original parts for the Over the Rainbow, which if David Rose had returned, would have been destroyed. So the fact that he didn't return it is why it survived. And he was married to Judy Garland from so it must have been borrowed for something and never returned. Did you find anything else

in Angela's trove? I found other charts that he created for for Judy Garland, and he worked so ubiquitously in Hollywood. There were charts for many other singers and he was married to Martha Ray and got he did some wonderful records with Martha Ray. And so this is the stuff that I spent my lift looking for. You know, I know we talked about this all the time, but let's go stay with the Pasadena Pops. Had you ever conducted

before you got this gig? No, And you'd think that, having worked with so many orchestras, that I would have turned around and paid attention to a conductor. I always took it for granted, you know. And when I started doing about Jesus Christ, this is hard. So what was the learning curve? Like? Tell us, Well, it's kind of like the actor's nightmare, you know, like being on a

stage and not knowing your lines. Because that first time, well they asked, what happened was I had done an appearance with the Past Lena Pops with Marvin Hamlets, who was their principal Pops conductor, a Cole Porter show, and

two weeks later he died. That turned out to be his last concert, and it was shocking to everybody and in terrible and about two weeks after his passing, somebody from the Past La Pops called and said, would you consider taking over Marvin's post, and I said, well, why don't you get somebody who's a conductor, And they said, well, we need somebody that has some sort of name value, and we we think that you'd be great. I said, well, I love pops music. I said, but I don't conduct.

And I said no, and they kept after me, and they contacted me again, say well, we've already asked her season and we're gonna we could possibly go under if we don't have someone to It was that, you know, no guilt trip. So I said, well, I'm willing to try it, but you have to understand I have never done this and I don't know how to do it. They said, well, we're willing to take that chance. I said, okay.

So I hired an orchestra to practice. I went to Seattle and Larry Blank, who's an amazing conductor, coached me. I went to Seattle and for three days I worked with an orchestra and had the musicians give me notes. And then I worked and worked and worked. And then June of next year whatever that was seven years ago or eight years ago. Uh and uh i uh. I raised my hands and they came in and they played and they really saved me, you know, they really were very kind and and uh, and it worked and now

I can do it. Now I know what I'm doing. But then I was what is the key? What? What do you have to learn to conduct? Of course, the rudimentary um signals UH, of of giving a clear downbeat, of having your arms raised high enough that everybody can see. It's it's clear communication when there are what we call corners, when there's a change in tempo, or when there's two things going on in the orchestra and you have to cut them off on the left and keep going on

the ride. And and so it's all about communicating um, a sense of the music and it's um. It looks easy and parts of it are easy, but the parts that are not easy can be fiendishly difficult. And one of the hardest parts for me is that there is always a slight time delay from the time you physically give the down beat and the orchestra plays the down beat. When I play the piano, it's instantaneous, but with an orchestra, depending on which orchestra it is, there is a time delay.

And in Europe there are even longer time delays, and the the conductors are accustomed to it, but it's maddening because you have to conduct ahead of the beat, and if you're accompanying a singer, you have to conduct ahead of the beat, so you will hit the down beat when they hit their downbeat in next bar. And it's It was one of the most difficult things I'd ever had to do. And I was talking to Andre Preven about it, who of course was one of the most

magnificent conductors, and he said, it's just conditioning. You just have to keep moving ahead because if you actually start to follow the orchestra, you'll get behind the beat. Let's just assume you were not on the podium and the band, the orchestra had all the music in front of them. With that work at any level, to what degree is the conductor necessary? To what degree does the conductor add? It's easy if it's a thing that just counts off

and it stays at the same tempo. Uh. It's very difficult if it's a maller symphony, because somebody has to give all of the cues. Uh. And there have been times where an orchestra has continued to conduct. Famously, when Tuscanini in his waning years I was conducting a Wagner piece and he was very proud of his Uh. I don't know if it was a photographic memory, but he

memorized the music. And he is in the midst of this Wagner piece and he forgot the music and he was so humiliated that he hung his head and he walked off the podium. And the NBC Symphony kept playing because they weren't going to stop, but they they knew to keep playing. And the default is the concert master. The first violinist is the one that that you follow. But if it's a piece that the orchestra has played before,

they have the muscle memory and the potential to keep playing. Okay, So when you have a great night, how much is the responsibility of the conductor as opposed to the players.

It's both, It's really both, because there are still times when they will save my ass and uh, where I'll miss a cue here or there, and there are times where I will bring them up because one of the other things that's hard without if it's a piece that doesn't have a drummer, keeping the pulse of the orchestra because it's a lot of people playing, and especially this is an outdoor vent so the acoustics are different from the back of the place to the front, and so

there's gonna be a delay with the trombone, so you have to tell them to play ahead of the beat. So one has to communicate the pulse. You have to keep the po I have to keep the pulse going. And when it's a piece of music that's difficult, the orchestra sometimes will will slow down. And the other thing that you learn as a conductor that I learned, and it's sort of counterintuitive, is that the beat has to

get smaller. And the tendency is when you want it to be faster, is to flail your arms more and move your arms more. But it actually you have to do the opposite. You have to become more economic with the beat and you have to bring it in uh, smaller, so they pay. I don't know what it is, but that's the way it's done. Okay, that's done so that the orchestra is not over loud. So let's play faster. So okay, the beat is smaller. Okay, let's go back

to the trombones. When you say the timing is different, you're talking about for the audience or for the conductor, the front of the house the back of the house. The timing is different in that for the sound to travel from the trumbo section to the front of the podium, it's a little bit of a delay, and I, well, that's what I found. Okay, So how many gigs a

year at the Pasadena Pops? We do five concerts every every summer, three of which I conduct, one I just sing, and then there's a fifth one that I that I don't conduct, and then I conduct another orchestra in in Palm Beach, Florida in the winter January, February, and March,

which which I do. Uh. Another three. So the other thing that's hard for me is that I'm not conducting all the time, so I have to get my chops up before I returned to the podium, and I have to practice, and I have to practice and get it's And mainly the practice is wrapping my brain around it. Then the physical movement, it's the visualization. Do you like it? I love it now, But when I first was doing it, it was so terrifying that I just would pray that I would get through it. And now I love it

because it's the ultimate to cut. Okay, you know where you can program anything you want. And I, because of who I am, collected music and orchestrations for decades, and now I have charts that I never dreamt I would have the opportunity to conduct. I mean, charts for for ladies that are not in my key vocally and things that I would just find and now I can play them.

And the amazing thing is that the response of the audience is so over the top for this music, which is so gratifying because most other orchestras are skewing younger. They're doing Elton John and Billy Joel and a lot of pop stuff, which is great, but but very few orchestras are playing classic pop music. So it's it's it shows that there is an audience out there, Okay for that at audience. You know, let's assume you go to see one of the classic rock acts. They have their hits,

they know there's going to get a huge response. Okay, do you have your tricks? Do you had to make up the so called set list the program and say, oh, I know this will get a big response or this won't, or how do you deal with that putting a setlence together for an orchestra as just the same as what I did when I started playing in piano bars. It's all about thinking of an opening number. It's sort of like like a musical, where you program each piece of

music that tells a story. That's a musical journey. There's a fast paced thing, there's an overture, there's a ballad, there's a medium tempo thing. Uh, different styles of music.

Uh so Uh. It's very carefully programmed. And I probably agonized more over the order of the pieces than choosing them, because once I've chosen them, I have to to project what kind of response it's going to get, and partially that response is predicated on how I introduced the piece of music, telling people what they're going to be hearing. Like when I played over the Rainbow, I told the story of this piece and it hadn't been heard in eighty years, and it got a huge hand at the end.

If I if they just were listening to Over the Rainbow, they would say that's nice, but they wouldn't know that this was something special. So that's part of it. Okay, you got the Palm Beach gig as a result of the Pasadena gig. Yes, and so we you see more of these in your future. Well, yes, the short answers, yes, even though the economics are such that it doesn't pay what what I make as a singer. So I'm doing

it out of passion. And the money that I've spent restoring these orchestrations has has been much more than I've than my salary has supplied. So okay. So when the players in these various orchestra like in Pasadena, you're nearer or Arcadia, literally you're near a big city. Who are the players in the orchestra, it's an incredible orchestra. They are uh players who often do Hollywood scoring sessions, like Jim Thatcher, who's our principal French horn player. He is

John Williams favorite. He does all the John Williams sessions. These are players that that play all kinds of music because they work in Hollywood. So it is a dedicated orchestra that it is usually the same faces, not always because there always are subs, but they are, but they

are they are a savvy group. And yet with every orchestra, the goal is to bring the music that will be fun and challenging, and pops concerts are often so dumbed down for the orchestra that they're bored, and so my goal is to bring arrangements that are exciting, that are fresh and will be challenging for the orchestra, so they're not just what they call sawing footballs, you know, playing whole notes that our company with someone singing yesterday, you know.

I mean, there could be a great arrangement yesterday by Johnny Mandel or Henry Mancini, or there could be one that's just boring as I'll get out. So I have to make sure that every chart is something that has some kind of substance. And how much rehearsal is there. We have two two and a half hour rehearsals, which isn't enough. But they're so great that that they always write to the occasion and it always is amazing to me how they do it. Okay, can you just find

the Great American Sound Great American song Book? From my audience, to me, the Great American Songbook is a body of work that essentially begins in the teens of the twentieth century, and it has no cut off point. Perhaps the golden age of the Great American Songbook was the nineties, thirties and forties, and that it was a period when we had an amazing group of songwriters including George Gershwin, called Porter,

Jogi Carmichael, Duke Gallington, Fats Waller. I mean, you go down the list that wrote classic songs that have survived. But I think we had another amazing influx of amazing of great writers in the sixties and seventies, you know, with with Carol King and Jimmy Webb and Paul Williams and Joni Mitchell and and uh Harry Nilsen, And I mean they are to me just as significant, but to

me the great. For a song to qualify being part of the Great American Songbook, it has to be a piece of music that transcends the time in which it was written, that it survives through the decades, and it is known to everybody and survives from various recordings. And so to me, uh, it's a song like over the Rainbow or Singing in the Rain or God Bless America, or There's No Business like Show Business, or maybe it's

We Will Rock You. You You know what I mean. There's songs that are universe universally known, that that survived the test of time and continually are reinvented and rerecorded and are known. And so I think there are songs written today that that will become part of the American songbook because I think it's ever evolving. There's no cut off for me, however we live, you know, in terms of a lot of these songs made their fame or got their fame as a result of being in films or

being on the hit so called hip parade. But in the Internet era, where everything is so dispersed and h the popular chart is dominated by hip hop music, you still think that there are songs being written that will be part of the song book. I do only because history has shown that songs from every era somehow survive, even though to me I couldn't tell you what they are. And uh, I think I think Frozen from Let It Go It's probably gonna be around for a long time,

unfortunately because the songwrives me crazy. But that's not the point, yeh. And it's true that many songs from the Golden Era came from films and came from uh other places. So I don't really know the answer, but just looking at history, I have to believe that there have to be things that that will survive. Name the two songs that are your favorites from the Great American Songbook. Oh well, that's that's almost like Sophie's choice, you know, but look the name.

More than that, name a handful that you just your top tier. Well, things that pop into my brain. Love is Here to Stay is a song that I never get tired of singing, And for me, songs that constantly stay fresh are ones that that our favorites. So I'm king one Gershwin song. It would be Love is Here to Stay. If it's a Manstine, it's two for the Road. Uh,

Jerome kern Um, probably the way you look tonight. I mean there are obscure songs that I love that nobody knows that our favorites of mine, like, uh, the theme from The Bad and the Beautiful, which has a beautiful lyric by Dorry Prevn. It's one of my favorite pieces, but it's completely obscure. Yeah yeah, but I was asking answer the question appropriately. We're not reading the bell of the audience today. It's all about you. Oh well, thanks, Okay, I'm Jewish. I'm not used to that unless it's my

mother scolding me. But at least your Jewish you have something to say. I remember going to college the first time I was involved when I went to a melting about high school. But you know, when I went to college, there were very few Jews, and I encounter people who didn't talk. Whereas you know the scene in uh, the Woody Allen movie where they're sitting around the table and everybody's talking over each other radio days. That's certainly how I grew up. But you talk about being let me

go before that. You're obviously both an ex spred in this field and very knowledgeable. Is there anybody on your level that you're aware of? Everybody has their niche, if you will, Uh, I don't know that there's anybody that knows as much about certain aspects of of orchestrations, of pop orchestrations, and there are people out there, but I think the conflagration of all the different things I know

about American popular song is perhaps unique. But Will Friedwald, for example, as a guy who knows a hell of a lot, and Vince Giordano, who is a specialist in in vintage big band music, has devoted his life to it, So they are certainly uh as knowledgeable or more knowledgeable than I am. About different aspects of American popular song. But each of us have unique corners of our brain that that are specialized, if you will, and how often

is your expertise called upon by third parties? Pretty often, because people will contact me almost every day asking about a song or arrangement. Are looking for something, especially other conductors. Are people working on projects that that want to find something because it's not easy these days. In spite of the fact that we have the Internet and we have so much access, it's sometimes not easy to find an

arrangement or where something went through the years. Uh, even a piece of sheet music now can be problematic because if you download something from the internet, it might not be the original because now we have all these iterations of different things. You know, it's like recordings where things are remixed and what you're what you're feeling on remixing, Well, they're so dangerous, exactly. We got the originals, like remixing Sergeant Pepper I got into this, the guy who did

originally and Giles who and remixed it. That's like sacrilegious. I mean, you got the one, you know, that's the one they put out. You can't change that. Well, it's like Capitol Records UH put out c D s issued c ds of several original cast albums the Music Man, Um, Funny Girl, Um, Somendheim's Follies, and I forget the other one. They did a bunch of them, but those cast albums were all mixed as if you were watching that from the audience. They had the microphone panning like Robert Preston

in the music Trouble My Friends. You hear his voice panning from left channel to right channel. Whoever produced that album sat in the audience and made notes and produced that where you hear the voices moving around. Well, the first CD releases the Capital put out, We're from the album masters, so they were the same as the album's transcribed to c D but they had a lot of hits,

so someone said, oh, we gotta remix this. Well, whoever remixed all those The voices panned absolute everything is pan center, and they are desecrations of those original UH productions, And people say, oh, well the CD is better. Well, no, it's not. Okay, not necessarily unless the original producer goes back. But sometimes even the original producers don't remember or you know, because it's in the moment and there's a lot of

other things going on. Okay, have you gotten any of these people to go back and do the best version of the original? Have I personally? I mean because I mean, obviously you're a person in the field, you and you care. Does that backlash, so to speak, have any effect? Or these multinational corporations don't care. Well for the most part, they don't care. I mean, I'm like you. You you complain because you care and you want and you want people to pay attention. And sometimes they do and they say,

oh god, that's great, I'm sorry. But then it comes down to the bottom line. You know, it comes down to how much is it going to cost to do this? And and and it's uh, it's sometimes heart sinking, but you know, it's the way of the world now. Well, the worst thing is that becomes the default version. Yeah. It makes me crazy, Like there are certain songs on the radio all here or the alternate takes. Someone got it from the box set and they put that up

that's that has a different change in it. How can you do that? Yeah, and it's like it's the alternate take because they didn't choose it exactly. Well, put okay, let's go back you talk about your digging, your archivist, uh side of your world, tell us more about that. For whatever reason, from the time I was a kid, I was intrigued by the history of the music that I listened to. When I was five and six years old and I discovered there was something called sheet music

where a song was written down. I was fascinated by the covers and the information, the names, even though I was just learning to read. And so I've always had an interest in where the music came from. And then I became interested in the songwriters and the process. And so as a performer, when I performed music, I always tried to go back to the original sources, being the sheet music, a copy of the of the manuscript of the first recordings, because they all give me keys to

how to interpret a piece of music. And there are so many parts of popular music that are oral traditions. For example, Summertime from Poor Game invest which is one of the best known pieces of music. A lot of people think it's a folk song. They don't know that

it was actually composed by George Gershwin. He wrote it in for an opera called Poor Game Best, and it's been recorded by everyone from Lantine Price to Janis Joplin, and the original sheet music of Summertime does not have a high note that every soprano and every production of Poor invest is sung since the beginning of time because it's Husha, little baby, don't you cry? And then in the opera the soprano sayings this high note that goes

on forever and it's this melting moment. It's not in the music, So the question is when did that start? When when did that go? When did that become part of poor game best. It's not notated there. So if you didn't know that, and you just go from the score, you wouldn't sing the high note, and people would say, where's the high note? You know? Or um? If I only had a brain, I could while away the hours confirmed with flowers, consultant with the rain. People are saying,

and my head I'd be scratched. That's not the way the music is notated, and my head I'd be The entire song is notated differently from the way everyone sings it. I can't help loving that man um the bridge of that as if he goes away, that's my rainy day. That's again, those high notes are not in it. The music as if he goes away, that's my rainy day. But anyone that sings that song always goes up because that's okay. Well, some of these songs, they were written

and they were conducted. Couldn't they have been changed on the fly in the original recording? Absolutely okay. Well, in the case of can't help loving that Man, I found a manuscript of Jerome Kern where he was demonstrating for some writer the way his songs are sung, and it says original the way I wrote it, and it has without the high notes, and under that it says way Morgan sang it, referring to Helen Morgan who introduced it in Showbout. So there is an acknowledgement of how it

was changed. Now. I don't know how jer own Current felt about that. Now. Julie Stein told me that when he was working on Funny Girl with Barbara streisand he wrote the song people with Bob Merrill, one of the great American standards. Now streisand when she sang it on stage and Funny Girl, she sang instead of people, people who people who people, she was sanging people people who

need pupils. And Julie said, Barbara for the first recording, would you please sing it the way I wrote it because everyone will copy you and I want people to hear just for the recording. And she said okay, and she went into the session and she sang the high note and sang the way she wanted and it drove Julie crazy. So now everyone says people people or the song at Last, you know, everybody does the edit James of Vision at Last and I Love has Come Along

and Live Live. It's a song. That's not how the songs written. At Last, My Love has Come along, My lonely Days are over in life is just a song. That's how it's notated. But every Wednesdays and Live is just the song. Everybody is copying the Edda James record. Thousands of people copying it. And she died only a few years ago, and boy was she pissed about that. Okay, So as you dig one thing that's been well known

at this point is a lot of these films were trashed. Okay, to what degree are the scores or the original song, uh pages extant? It depends on the studio. MGM threw away everything, I mean, music wise, paramount saved a lot of stuff. Universal. It's very spotty, a lot of stuff missing, but they do have some stuff. Um r k oh. Because they went under so many years ago, a lot of the stuff went into storage and a good chunk of that survives. Sam Goldwyn, most of their scores are gone.

Twenty Century Fox has a lot, but not everything, because people would borrow things and not return them. I was trying to find the original Glenn Miller orchestration from the movie of the song Chattanooga Cho. They didn't have it because somebody borrowed it along the way. So it's a case by case basis. And in some cases, as you said, some films are lost and are gone and that now finally well known Universal Fire. Nobody talks about all the films that were gone on all the television shows that

were lost, and so there's a lot. There's a lot that still is uh not spoken about with that thing. Okay, how about songs like you know what the original versions Gershwinds Rome Current in terms of their original writing, does that tend to survive? Uh? There are almost there were almost no Jerome current manuscripts. It was one of the like, why don't they survive? And then in uh, I was

happily involved with it. They're turned up at the Warner Brothers Music Warehouse, which became sort of a whole clearinghouse of many different publishers that had gone, that had been by succession become part of Warner Brothers Music Um. It turns out that there was kind of like the the Um, the Lost Arc of missing music manuscripts, and eighty seven Gershwin manuscripts turned up, and a bunch of current manuscripts turned up, much to the shock of the music world.

But the short answer is that a lot of a lot is lost, and there are certain songs for which we don't have the original manuscripts. And then in the case of some songwriters, there's a lot because they saved everything. Like Irving Berlin saved everything even though he couldn't write music, so his man his original manuscripts are in the hand of a copyist. Richard Rogers saved almost everything. But in the case of many other songwriters, they're they're just gone.

You know, Fats Waller would sell his songs for for the price of a couple of beers, or for twenty bucks for pocket money, so his his manuscripts are gone. There's a lot of Ellington stuff. Uh, and and things also morph. There's not always that aha moment like the Way You Look Tonight Jerome Kerrn, which was an Oscar

winning song sung by so many people. I discovered quite by accident that originally the germ of that was a piece of underscore for a nine Jean Harlem movie called Reckless, where the in the background of one seeing the orcasts playing duh uh just a little phrase. And a year later Jerome Current turned that into the way You Look tonight. Let's assume you go to Let's so it exists and you go to the archive. Is this stuff easily findable or is it like going down a rabbit hole and

you know it's somewhere. Uh, it depends, Like everything, it depends. Uh. The Library of Congress is in many ways the premier repository for this stuff, and their collections of Gershwin, of Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern are very well tended, and yet it's not always easy to gain access. Uh. If you can gain access, and if you have a legitimate reason, you can get in there. And they're a wonderful scholarly

archivists who can help. Aren't they years behind? Though? Well everybody is because it's a problem of economics, and they catalog things by demand. It's like I wanted to find a David Rexon piece because David Rexon's collection is there, and he's best known for writing Laura and was a wonderful guy and a good friend. They had never cataloged

his collection, which had been there for many years. And I asked why and they said, because Michael, you're the first person to ever asked for anything from the collection. And then there's the situation of a place like Harvard, which was one of the worst experiences I've ever had as a person trying to do musical research. I was treated very nicely by the archival employees there, and by the higher ups. They treated in the most humiliating way.

And it was because of the Johnny Green collection, which I knew Johnny Green quite well and was looking for something and I went to somebody and said, there's stuff missing, there's stuff that's not here, and they treat me like I was an idiot, and they said, well, it's just not there, and I said, I was at Johnny's house when the stuff was being packed up and sent to you guys, and it's a lot of stuff. They said, well, then it maybe disappeared through the years. I said, it

can't have there's too much stuff. And I called the acting head of the Department of the Special Collections. His name was Tom Horricks, and he essentially hung up on me, and one of the people who was one of the catalogers there sent me an email and said, I hope you're sitting down, And he said, I took to heart what you said, and he said, I started going through with my colleague and we started looking at bar bar

code numbers and stuff. It turns out that there were two hundred boxes of Johnny Green material that had been received at the at the loading dock that had sat there since like nineteen eighty nine or nine, and they were never cataloged and nobody knew they were there. Do you think I ever got an acknowledgement or an apology or anything from Harvard nothing except for my this wonderful So there's wonderful people on the staff there. It's just the fact that they were arrogant about it and treated

me like I was an idiot. That story stands alone. I don't need to uh make a comment about it, Okay. Now, in the Great era of the twenties thirties forties, the first people who wrote the songs tend to be different from the people who performed the songs. Then in the rock era, starting with the Beatles, they tended to be the same people. Once again, we're an era where they're separate. Uh. Do you believe that the people who did it solely as an advocation were better or dad had a different

insight or a different way of doing it. That must be noted. I think there were all kinds of motives for writing songs then as there are now. Some people write out of inspiration and some people write for commerce. Certainly, even the great songwriters were mindful of trying to write a hit song. But uh, the Gershwin's, for example, are the guys that write for Broadway musicals wrote for Broadway musicals back in the day. I had to write for

plot and for character. They had to write for certain things. Uh. I think that music always reflects the time in which it's written. It's it is our history. Irving Berlin once that history makes music, and music makes history. And regardless of the reason that the music for which the reason is written, or if it's inspired or not, it still is certainly a doc at historical document of what's going on in the times. I don't know if I've answered your questions. Are you kind of did as I say?

I'm just wondering whether you think people who solely right are inherently better or different from the people reform in their own music. Well, Michelle Grand wrote every single day, you know, I mean, regardless of where he was in the world. I mean, that was his thing. He just loved to write. Marilyn allen bergman, the favorite thing in the world. We're writing. You know that they love it and it's part of their blood. They have to write.

And there's a difference between songwriters who have to write because it's an expression of something that they have to get out and someone that writes to order, even though they can be one and the same. How about someone who is a performer primarily and insists on using their own material. Do you think that's inherently better or worse

than the people who soli are songwriters. I don't think it's better or worse, because sometimes the people who are encouraged by producer, Hey kid, you could write your own songs, so you get all the royalties and we'll split the publishing. They may start out that way, but sometimes amazing writers have come from that. I'm trying to think of an example, but I'm sure there are many people who didn't really know that they could write The Rolling Stones. One of

them that okay originally and then they wrote Okay. We're in era where people are suing for copyright infringement at a much greater quantity and velocity than they ever did. What's your opinion on things are still copyrighted, People still pay attention. Well, if you want it, you wrote it, they seem to, Yeah, I know, I'm just it's just, you know, copyright is such a ross. It's such a tremendous miss. Okay, but let's stop there for a second.

In a perfect world, what would it look like. Well, for one thing, in the world of songwriting, there is this crazy divide where things written after January one or in copyright much longer than anything written before that. And I think there should be a universal copyright for music. So it's all the same because right now Rapsody in Blue goes p D January one, two thousand, Yeah, public domain two thousand and twenty, And um, I think that

eventually things should go public domain. I think that there is a time when they absolutely belonged to the world. So I'm not hard nosed about it, but uh, there should be a uniform copyright law. And around the world it's different. You know, it's twenty years is it twenty years? In Japan and Germany, they're all different. And until recently in the in Europe there was not joint nous, which meant that the music of a song could go public domain, but the lyric would still be in copyright, so you

could write new music for the lyrics. I mean, it's so crazy, and so it needs to be uniform. Uh. But as far as um people sampling and using a piece of it, absolutely there should be payment for it. And I don't understand why there would be any question about I think to a great degree that's the case. Even if talking about hip hop music, where it's famous for sampling, they used to sample stuff. Now they write their own beats because they don't want to even get

into that. They don't want to an issue of infringement. They also don't want to pay. But we had the um, the Blurred Lines case. We have all these cases where people are suing today where there are a lot of similarities and saw it's in the past, and the people never sued. Yeah. Well, there was a famous case in nineteen twenty with Jerome Kern and Fred Fisher, and this is pertinent because Fred Fisher wrote a piece called darden Ella,

and Jerome Kurn copied the baseline. It was an astana bum bum bum bum bum um um um bum bum bum bum and he just took that bassline and put it in another song, and Fred Fisher sued Jerome Kern. The current song was called Kolua and the Fred Fisher

song was called darden Ella. And the judge ruled that technically it was a plagiarism, but he did not He's felt that Kern did not do it on purpose, because a man so eminent as Jerome Kern would not have needed to plagiarize, and Kern assumed that it was fair game, and so the award was one dollar to Fred Fisher. So he acknowledged it was a plagiarism, but felt that it was not on purpose. But he acknowledged that that

it was indeed a plagiarism just using that baseline. Well, of course, the opposite verdict would be the my sweet Lord she right, he's so fine. Yeah, but okay, let's go back to you originally from Ohio. Yes, we're in Ohio. Columbus. Okay,

when you grew up, what was Columbus like? Well, it wasn't a cultural hotbed because everything was about football and at my high my high school, Woody Hayes would come, you know and look for the next famous recruiting Archie Griffin went to my high school, won the Heisman Trophy and all that, and so, uh, we had a symphony, Columbus Symphony, which was always in danger of going under.

My great uncle lived in New York. It was in the music in theater, not musical theater, and he said that anytime the show played Columbus it was the death town because culturally nobody went. And I went to see Vladimir Horowitz, who played Columbus when I was in my teens, and it was the only city on the tour that was not sold out. So culturally it was not um fabulous. But my parents loved music, and I grew up, you know, with music by music. Would your father at that time

most women did not work outside the home. Was that the case with your mother? It was? Would your father do for a living. My father was He worked for cons Meats. Cons Meats was a company centered in Cincinnati, headquartered in Cincinnati. Their slogan was the Weiner the world awaited. Was it a kosher weiner? It wasn't kosher. And he eventually went to work for another meat company, and when it was absorbed by Sarah Lee, became a vice president of Sarah Lee. And when I was twenty years old,

I I stopped eating meat. But did he bring home a lot of weaers before that? Boy? Yes, And he always warned us, explained to us the difference between all be frightened, you know. And he explained as very taught us very early, I'd be careful with those hot dogs kids, right. I just remember my parents were only the Hebrew national That's right, because those were safe. Yeah. So okay. How many generations were your parents families in America? My grant,

my four grand parents all emigrated from Russia Lithuania. If you going back to check out where they grew up or their upbringing situation, I haven't. I haven't. I had an offer to go to Russia and then it was postponed. But I would love to go on to to do some concerts and that's what I will go there. And also right before she died, my father's mother mentioned in passing that she had a sibling whom she from whom

she was separated when she came to America. So there was a sibling that went somewhere else that I never knew about. So I may have relatives there that I mean, I may never find them. But it's that whole thing that there's people out there that It's funny because on my mother's side, Uh, both her parents came from very large families, one of nine, one of thirteen. And after

the war, you know, all these people re emerged. A lot went to what was then Palestine eventually Israel, and then they'd have the Jewish newspaper where you would advertise, like with one of our uncle, Saul, he came to America after being in the Russian Army, and he would advertise the Jewish paper, Hey, I have these relative does anybody know them? And that's how they found each other. So was your family in Ohio and your father go to there for work? Well, my parents were born in

in in Columbus. Uh, why so why did your grandparents go to Ohio? I asked my mother that not too long ago, and there was some job opportunity for one of them, and then others sort of followed suit. My grandmother, my mother's mother, came to New York and worked in the sweat shops, you know, in the garment industry. And uh, I don't remember exactly how she got to Columbus, but sometimes one would go and then the rest would follow, and then a community would be formed. Okay, so you

grow up? Uh? Are you accute as a member of the group and outsider just one of the great masses? How did you fit into a society? I did not fit into society. When did you realize that? From the beginning, I stayed in the basement of our house um reading books and drawing, and and listening to music and listening to old records. My grandmother had some seventy eight rpm records that she gave me, and I listened to them in the basement, and and my mother would say, honey,

please go outside, go outside. I was always pale. I didn't relate to any of my friends because I didn't listen to any of the music they listened to. I didn't like kids my age because I thought they were dumb because I was all around adults all the time, so I was it was very solitary. In high school, I got involved with theater and then I had friends, and then it sort of changed. But prior to that time, I was I was a lonely kid. And you had

a sibling. I had two siblings, an older brother and have an older brother and an older sister, and they were quote normal. My parents knew how to do with him, but they didn't know how to deal with me because I was the sensitive one. Okay, so they were half brothers and sisters. No, they're they're full okay. So at what point do you pick up a musical instrument five years old? When I was five, my parents moved into

a new home. They cobbled together enough money to buy a new house, and and they had an empty living room and they had enough money left to buy a little furniture. And my dad said, let's buy a piano. And my mother said, nobody's gonna play the piano. Uh. I was five years old at the time. My sister was nine and my brother was eleven, and my dad just loved music. He said, let's buy piano. Maybe one of the kids will play, and my mom said, let's get furniture. And I remember they took me to the

piano dealer in downtown Columbus. I don't know why they took me and not my brother and sister. And they they picked picked out a spin At piano, the cheapest piano they could buy. It was five dollars and they brought it home. And the next day when it was delivered, my dad was off at work, and I sat down and played dough a dear a thing I played with both hands, and my mother came in from the kitchen and said, who taught you that? And I said, nobody

taught me that. She said, well, someone had to teach your your your father must have shown you, because my dad could play like chop sticks or whatever. I said, no, I made it up. She sent me to my room for lying to her because she was sure that somebody had to teach me. And when my father came home later, they realized that I was playing the piano by ear. So I started playing immediately. Just from the get go, I could play the piano, and then you had lessons.

I had lessons. Briefly, I had a piano teacher at Capitol University and she would always play the lesson for me, and then she put the put the book on the piano, play the lessons, and I would just listen to her play the lesson and copy her. So after about two months, she put the book on the piano first and didn't play the lesson, and she said, okay, play this. I said I can't. She said why not. I said, well, I don't know what it says. She said, You've been

playing this for two months. I said no, I've been listening to you. And she got this look of rage on her face and she went out in the hall where my mother was waiting for me. She said, Mrs Feinstein, do you know your son has been playing by ear as if it was the dirtiest you know, expletive. And my mother said, yeah, yeah, I knew that, didn't you. She said no, so and I said to my mom I said I don't like piano lessons. So they said okay, and I just learned to play just on my own.

I just kept so, when did you learn to read music? Well, I still don't reading music very well. And that was like the biggest sticking point with conducting, because I have to work laboriously on a score to really learn it before I conducted, and Andre prevn when when I told him I was conducting, he said, well, can you read the transposed instruments on a score? And I said no. He said, well don't you think I had to do that? I said yeah, I said, that's why I'm so embarrassed

even discussing this with you. So I'm still learning a lot. Okay, so you get rid of lessons you continue to play, like every day. I don't play every day, but I'm working so much. No, no, no, when you're at that oh, at that age, at that age, yeah, I was playing every day. I was listening to songs and listening to things on the radio, and at that time there was the the contemporary pop stations that my sister and brother were listening to me. So I was hearing Carol King

and the Beatles and all that. And then my parents listened to w BNS, the easy listening, so I would listen to all the standards and they would play all the standard singers from Sinatra to Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Pegley, Nat Call. So I heard all that, and then my parents, um, like all households at that time, bought all the cast albums of all the music. Of course, that was before only gay people boughdcast albums enough and uh so I learned My Fair Lady and the Sound of Music and

all those Everybody bought those albums. When Mary Poppins came out, you know we did too, absolutely so. Uh So you're playing and you get the high school, well, and you say you become part of the theater group. What does that look like. Well, it was one of the places where I could I could fit in the music. I was kicked out of choir because, um, I talked back to the teacher too much. It was a real smart ass. I thought, I knew more than Are you still a

smart ass? No, not anymore. I've I've I've learned that it's important to fake humility and business. Now it was George Burns said, when you can fake sincerity, you've made it in show business. But the truth is that I'm not a smart ass anymore. But I was. I was. So you got kicked out for being a smart as? Yeah, okay, that was the choir. What about the theater theater? Um,

no problem. I became the head of the Maskers Club, which was out of the theater group, and I also did all the public address announcements you know in high school, you know, the I would I would put together these little, uh, little dramas, you know, these one minute sort of commercial and play old music and stuff. And it was this would be for the whole school before school started. They play over the speakers during home room. Okay, were you in the plays once in a while, Once in a while,

I was. You were responsible for the music and the I would sometimes put the music together for the players. I played the piano for the show. Uh. When we did Fiddler on the Roof, they cast me as the Rabbi, which was because I guess I was acting in many ways like an old man. So I wasn't a particularly good performer. But for some reason that year in my senior year, I was named best Actor, which was a sad commentary. Okay, did everybody know you were this uh

prodigy and piano? Yes? So that was where? Okay, were you a good student? Bad student? I was a terrible student, terrible more kind of grades um sees d s. In my senior year fs, I just barely graduated because I hated school. I didn't care about it. I didn't understand why we had to study mathematics, and I mean, it just it was incomprehensible to me. I just thought it was a waste of time. But what did your parents

say about that? Well, my parents, I didn't know how to deal with me, and I had them wrapped around my finger. My mother. My dad was traveling, and my mom, she she just she was so exasperated. If she got a call from me in the middle of the day. She know I did something wrong in school, I could say, and I'd say, moms, she said, what did you do? And I was kicked out of school at one point, and I wasn't allowed to return until I went to a therapist. Well, you kicked out for for talking back

to one of the teachers. They told me I had to do something and I said, well why. They said, I don't have to tell you why. I said, yes, you do. And they kicked me out for questioning authority. And then did you go to the therapist. I went to the therapist and we were dealing with anger issues and he helped me a lot, actually, And then I went back to school and I was allowed back after I had the note from the therapist, and and then everyone who was in their senior year and taking their

S A T S and you know all that. At and and UH, I decided I wasn't going to go to go to college because the guidance counselor who was who didn't like me at all. She said, you are not college material. You should not go to college. Really. Yeah, So I didn't go to college, and my parents never said anything about it to me. And one day I went to my mom and said, aren't you gonna ask me if I'm going to college? And she said, well, you never said anything about it, so we assumed you're not.

So then you knew it was cool. At what point did you know you wanted to make music your life? Well, in high school I had started working uh in a in a in a restaurant, and I was making good money, like at a piano bar, well playing I wasn't singing yet playing the piano, and I people started hiring me when I was fifteen and sixteen to play for weddings, and that was amazing. I never thought you could get

money for for making music. But after high school I didn't know what I was gonna do, so by default I was playing in in a piano bar, excuse me, and I was asked by somebody to sing, and I had sun in choir, but before I got kick and the hardest thing in the world was trying to play

the piano and sing at the same time. So over about a year, I, while I was playing in the piano bar the restaurant called the Dell, I kind of figured out how to accompany myself, and that was one of the most valuable things I could have done because but no teaching. You were self taught. Self taught, yes, okay, and so okay, you graduate from high school, you're still living in your family home. How long before you then move?

I this is in Ohio. I played for about three years in piano bars, and I still didn't know what I was going to really do for my life because I was convinced that I couldn't possibly have a life making music and I was playing in piano bars, so what what chance did I have of advancing? But I decided to move to California at the age of twenty because from the time I was very young, I had this insistent voice telling me to move to California myself. Same thing, okay, it just used to beg my mother

when are we gonna move to California? And you heard those beach Boy records? Mom, we got to move to California. And then I did, uh huh, yeah, I mean it was just it was it was a fad to complete that I was going to go. And my father, right around the same time, had had started traveling into California and he said, let's he said to my mom, let's move to l A. So independently of me, they decided to move to l A. But I traveled for a while.

I went to New York and moved traveled around. And then when I came to California, my parents had moved there before they but you traveled around working or just I went. I was in New York for a while, just sort of taking time and staying with relatives and just trying to figure out the music business. No, no, I knew I couldn't figure that out. Okay, so now

you come to California. Your parents have moved here. Yes, I stayed with my parents, which was weird, uh in in uh Canoga Park, Okay, which was actually the fringe of l A County. Yeah. Yeah, And I stayed with him for a couple of months and then I started playing in piano bars, and I moved to an apartment in Hollywood, the studio apartment. No goal, This is just what you're doing, just doing that, just trying to figure

things out. What kind of piano bars and where. The first one was in Panorama City, in the San Fernando Valley called Mother's A good place to be was the Slogan and it was run by a guy, owned by a guy who thought he was Humphrey Bogart playing that playing that song. I mean, I was terrified of this man, and uh. I played there for a bit, and then I got a job as a piano salesman because I thought I can't possibly make a living playing the piano.

And there was a piano dealership called Finnigan's owned by this guy, Bill Finnigan. He at four different stores, and again in the San Fernando Valley. I was a piano salesman at Finnigan's. And this guy was such a shyster. He had an old uh Steinway piano from the eighteen hundreds, and these people came in and said, it's a beautiful piano. He said. Richard Wagner wrote The Bulkyry on this piano.

I mean, he would make up these stories. Liveracchi first played chopsticks on this piano, and he would tell this pian and I would say that's not true. And he fired me because I challenged his authority, and and so I was out of that shop. But before you were fired, could you sell piano? I sold a few. I wasn't a good salesman because I knew what the wholesale price was, and I felt so guilty, you know, charging in the retail price. I mean, it was, it was. It was

just like that's another similarity between you and me. It's like I could tell you a few stories, but at your podcast. So you get fired from there? Yeah, I got fired. And then something very strange happened. I was collecting records. I had always been a record collector of seventy eighths and just different stuff. And at this point, people believe seventy eight have the best sound because of the speed in the deeper groove and their direct disc right. Yeah,

oh there. I have a huge collection of seventy eights going back to the church. Okay, so you're collecting record are you buying them all over the place? Because in seventies six and seventy seven. When I came to California, there were a lot of places where you could find all kinds of records. It was amazing. And Uh, I went to a place in Hollywood, uh looking for records by Oscar Levant, because I discovered Oscar Levant and Gershwin

and was looking for a rare Oscar Levant recording. And he was the greatest interpreter of the music of George Gershwin and an amazing classical pianist. And I went to the store in Hollywood called the record collector, and I said, do you have this Columbia album Oscar Levan at the piano And he said no, but we have some records that belonged to him. And he had this box of of acetates and air checks and test pressings all of

Oscar Levant, the dated back to n four. I said, where did you get these and he said, We've got them from an auction of the Levant to state. Well, I had to I put down fifty dollars on the box of records, and I had to borrow a hundred and fifty dollars from my parents to buy these records. And it was an amazing cash of all these studio rehearsal recordings of Levant from MGM and radio show with him and being Crosby and Gershwin recordings. It was incredible.

And I had met this lady at the piano store who knew agents William Morris, and I told her about finding these records and she said, well, you should call Levant's widow, June Levant, and asked her why she got rid of these records. I said, well, I would if I knew her, but I don't know her. And she got me June Levant's phone number and I called up June Levant out of the blue. I said, Hi, my

name is Mike Feinstein. I just moved here from Columbus, Ohio, and I bought these records that belonged to your husband. She said, well, I have on my husband's records. Where did you get those? I said, from such such a piano star. She said, well, I have them all and I said, well, this one has a letter tucked in the sleeve that's addressed to him. And I read her the letter. She said, oh my god, that's Skyler and she said call me back into our and she hung up.

I called her back. She's well, I think I have Oscars records. I just look, but can you come over and bring the records with you. I said, well, they're very fragile, but I'll come over. So I went over to see her, and she was visibly surprised to see this twenty year old kid at the door. And she had a guy with her whom she had introduced as an attorney because I think she was ready for some big legal battle. And she started telling me stories about her husband, and I knew every story because I was

a fan of Oscar Levant. And then she started looking at me like the dog looking in the gramophone horn, with her head cocked to one side. And it turned out that the records I had bought were sold at the Levant State auction, but she didn't know they were gone because she didn't go to the auction because it was too emotional for her and she didn't mean to sell them. She had put the records aside to save. So part of his collection was sold by accident, and she had of it, and I had bought the other

thirty percent of it that was sold by accident. So she we realized what had happened, and she said, you know what you can sold. You can keep those records, but just don't do anything commercial with him. I said, okay, and we became friends and she started taking me to dinner and telling me stories about Oscar Levant and about the Gershwins and all these people and and um, well, it's interesting to me for someone who didn't get along in high school and got kicked out all the time,

that you instantly got along with Oscar Levan's widow. Well, that's because I got along with adults. I mean, authority figures. You're right, I didn't get along with but June I was so thrilled to meet her, and she's telling me stories about this era of music that I love. But you kept the relationship up absolutely. That shows an interesting aspect about you. That's contrary. I mean, you explained it by being an adult. But continue, Well, I have a fascination.

For now, I'm not saying your interest. It's one thing to be one and done. I went, I met this person. Let me tell my friends. To keep the relationship required a certain amount of effort on your on your behalf. I understand, yes, yes, well I had no ulterior motive other than the fact that I know. But it is that part of your personality. You meet someone in your world, that you will pick up the phone and say, not only the first time, but after you met them, you

will continue the relationship. Yes, yes, if I if I feel something, absolutely okay. So you went, you were continuing to see Oscar Levin's widow. You went to dinner and and she uh took me around the parties and started introducing me as a protege. She took me to Sam Goldwyn Junior's house and I said, meet my protege. And they asked me to play the piano, and I sat

down and played. Love walked in on the piano that George Gershwin had demonstrated it for Sam Goldwin Sr. And then she took me to a party at the studio of Tony Duquette, and I played the piano, and I met Dolores del Rio and Southern and all these ancient Hollywood stars. And they liked me because I spoke their language, their movies and I knew their world. And and Dolores do Rio made a movie called Ramona. There was a

big hit song Ramona. I heard the mission bells above, and when they asked me to sit down and play the piano, I said, gee, maybe if I play Ramona Dolores del Rio will sing. And this one guest at the party looked at me and said, some dreams do not come true. So anyway, eventually June Levant introduced me to Leonard and Ira Gershwin. Ira Gershwin was eighty years old. Okay, just because they wanted work done or this was part

of our circle. June was very friendly with with Lee Gershwin, uh and uh Oscar Levant was close friends with with the Gershwin family. He had died in nineteen seventy two. This is nineteen seventy seven at this point, and June had periodic lunches with Leonard Gershwin. Ira Gershwin was house bound and she told Lee about me. She said, I met this young kid and he plays piano and it and Lee said, oh, well, we need all of our records cataloged and I need somebody and can you give

me Can you tell him to call me? So she called me up and she said, Lee Gershwan wants you to call her. I said why. She said, well, she and Ira have these records they need cataloged and uh, you should you should call her? And I said, okay, great, thank you And I said thanks you and she's, well, you have to be very careful. You have to call her Mrs Grosher, and she's a very tough, mean lady, and just don't screw it up. She's so I said, okay, okay, okay.

So I called Lee Gershwin and she and told me to come over and and she was very tough, but she loved me. She she either loved you or we were toast. And so she said, come over to the house. And there was sitting Ira Gershwin, this legend of American popular song who had written the lyrics to some of the greatest standards of the twentieth century, and he was

autographing a record album. And I was nervous, and I sat down and leonor his wife and her sister were in a corner sort of watching, and somebody had issued an album of demos of Ira Gershwin singing and he had no voice, and he anyway, I said, Mr gersh when I have that record, and he looked at me like I was crazy. He said, why do you have this work? I said, because I love your working, And he said, you're the first person I met outside of

a relative who has this record. And then to make conversation. I said, Mr Gershwen, I have a seventy eight record of gems from La La Lucille. He said, La La Lucille. That was George's first Broadway musical, nineteen nineteen. And he said, well, it must have the songs on it, the two hits Teota Lum Bumbo and nobody but you. I said, that's right, and Lee gersh went turned to her sister and it isn't that cute? He's telling Ira that's right. So that's

how my relationship with him started. Immediately we sort of hit it off and and uh, I ended up spending six years working for I doing what as his amanuensis, which is a fancy word for student. But I was cataloging stuff in the house and Lee Gershwin came to me one day and said, look, you've given my husband a new lease on life, and we need you in this house. She said, I know you're going to go off and do other things one day, but um, just

keep yourself busy and most importantly, keep Ira happy. So I basically was Irish companion, and then I became their eyes and ears to the outside world, and they would send me out to see a Gershwin production or if somebody wanted to do something, they would put me in touch with them to work with them to make sure

it was what the family wanted. And when he died, I became his literary executor until I had a falling out with Lee after I was death and they were able to push me out of that and I was bereft because I was separated from from them from the estate. And then a few years later we had a rap Rochemont and Lee and I stayed close till her passing. Okay, while you were working with the Gershwins, well you still performing in piano bars. I was okay. So in any

event he died, you're out of the estate. When does your so called it's not so called, it's when does your musical career begin. Well after after I was pushed out of Irish estate, I just started playing, dedicated, dedicated my time to playing in piano bars because I needed to earn a living and UM. At that point I got hired to play to place on Las angele Bolevard called three North that was opened by the same investor who's who. Investors who had invested in Spago and UM.

They were convinced that this was going to be the next big thing, and I was playing old songs in the lounge, and after two months they fired me because they said, you're playing old songs. We need you to play pop stuff. I said, that's not what I do, and they gave me two weeks notice. But in the two weeks, for some reason, a lot of people started coming in to hear me play, and the my job

was preserved. When that place closed, I was hired to play at the Mandrean Hotel, which had just been opened in a lounge, and um, it was in that same period that I became friends with Liza Minnelli. Just before that, Did you like this experience or you were solely doing it for the money? Well? I liked it too. Sometimes

I liked it and sometimes I didn't like it. I was playing five hours a night, and I was playing in gay bars too, because gay bars, in some instances were the only places that would hire somebody that played mainly old movie songs and show tunes and such. But they were very mixed places where a lot of straight, straight people would come in and wanted to hear uh standards.

Uh so how did you meet Liza Minelli? Well? I had met her father, Vincent Minnelli, who was the great Hollywood director, because he was close friends with Ira and Lee Gershwin. Um Ira Gershwe was best man at Vincent Minnelli and Judy Garland's wedding, and Liza was named after the Gershwin song Liza. So Ira Gershwan was Liza's godfather. So I had uh Christmas of whatever? That year was

eight four. I guess I was playing a lot of Christmas parties because people were hiring me to play private parties. And I played a party that Vincent hired me to play his his Christmas party, and Liza was there and Gene Kelly was there. So I'd play Singing in the Rain and I'd play like I like myself and obscure songs from their movies, and they look at me like right. It was so much fun. And eventually everybody left and I was still at the piano, and Liza sat down

next to me. She said, kid, from now when we're joined at the hip, really And I said, yeah, right, you know, and and and it was true she so, but that was the first thing she spoke to She hadn't been speaking to you during the evening that's correct. I had actually met her briefly previously at a party here that but it was that moment and we ended up going out to a place, a nightclub where we hung out and we stayed up all night and and played music. And I told her was working at the Mandre.

And the next night she came into the Mandre and and she came in every single night and brought people to hear me. She brought Elizabeth Taylor, she brought Gregory Peck, she brought at all these people. And then she decided she was going to host a party for me at the Mondrian. She said, at an inaugural party. I said, but I've been playing there for five months. She said, nobody knows. This is gonna be your debut party. And she hosted a party with Elizabeth Taylor, with Henry Mancini,

with greg Rypeck. You know, Jenny Jenny was there, Jenny Mincy um. It was the kind of party that if it hadn't been thrown from me, I never would have been invited to. And and she hired her publicists and it put me on the map. And then I was invited to be on the MERV Griffin Show, and I did TV shows, and then I was hired to play the Algonquin in New York and got made my New York debut and she hosted my New York debut. Uh. And then I got an offer, uh to play Broadway.

And then I got an offer from Ernest Fleischmann to play Raps in Blue at the Hollywood Bowl. Okay, what period of time were we talking about? How long a period this was? This was a two year period. Okay, now you meet lies to what degree we were star struck by these people? Well? I was star struck, but I also again could speak their language. Okay, So then you're playing at the Marion. How long after the inaugural

party do you end up on MERV Griffin? Uh? It was let's see, the inaugural party was May of nine and MERV Griffin was later and it was just like a month later. Okay, wasn't your mind blown? Yeah? And at this point did you have any so called people working for you? Manager, agent, publicist, any of that. I had a default agent who liked my playing in the piano barns A kid, I'll work you know, I'll represent you like he's doing me a forever. So he became

my agent and what agency do you work at? It was a p A and uh I got a gig in San Francisco doing a show because prior when I was still playing in piano bars, it was not a show. I was background. Then in San Francisco, they were opening a new hotel and they needed someone to play in the show room. They had small show room, and I was hired by default because they couldn't find anybody else. And somehow they hired me, and the critic for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote this rave review and that I

put together a show. I figured out what songs I was going to sing. I talked to the aufics before or after MERV Griffin. It was before because MERV happened well I don't know the exactly, I don't remember, but it was all happened within a couple of months, and uh I got this of review and suddenly the gig was sold out, the two gig was sold out, and they extended me. So my tom My agent flew up to San Francisco to see me do this show where he saw me talking and do I put a show together?

And I remember he came backstage and he was jumping up and down like a little kid, and he said, We're going to make a lot of money, and I thought, Wow, suddenly I'm worth something to somebody. That was you know, the Blessing and the curse. Okay, so you dur MERV Griffin. Uh? To what degree does that help your career? Uh? I don't remember any shock waves from it. And I asked Rosemary Clooney if she would go on the show with me because I was so scared, and she agreed to

go on the show. And how did you know Rosemary? She was Ira Gershwin's next door neighbor. So I met Rosemary during the time I was working for Ira. You basically knew everybody. Well. I had met a lot of people, and I played a lot of Hollywood parties, you know, so meet people. Okay, so you do MERV give Griffin, you play the Algonquin. Continue from there. Well after the Algonquin again, I got these fantastic reviews and they did a New York Times Sunday magazine piece on me. That's

a really big deal. How how long after the Mandrean inauguration was that? That was one year? So one year later, I'm in New York and playing the algon. Okay, but internally, aren't you like I mean, that's kind of hard to cope with all that success. Oh, I was. I was in shock, and I also didn't know how to handle with it. And I became at one point very arrogant, and I became I became an asshole a lot of times. That's not good for your career. It wasn't. But somehow

I learned. I learned pretty quickly, and I survived. I have I'm not gonna name names, but I was friends with a couple of people that I saw them destroy their career. The thing is that I, I'm fundamentally a good person. You know, I mean tolerate idiots, right, I just I mean I I was inappropriate. I was inappropriate and also when I got scared, I would lash out of people. And you did this totally by yourself or at some point your career if you had therapy. Well,

I started therapy. I started therapy in that period. And also they sent me out on the road and I didn't have a lighting person, I didn't have a sound person. I was going out doing concerts. I was all by myself. I don't even have a road manager. No I didn't. I mean, somebody I had the age they sent me up. I didn't, so I didn't know what I was doing. So i'd get scared. And I was trying to figure out how to light do lighting and it of course, and you want to be right, and I'm up there

and in there they're saying how's it sound? And I didn't, you know? You know this? So it wasn't until a couple of years later somebody said, oh, well, you know you there's people that do that. I said really, So then I got a road manager, and so I learned on the job. On the job, okay, And at what point did you get a recording contract? I was at the Mandrean and a man named Herb Eisenman, who was I believe the head of publishing a twenty century Fox Music, came in to hear me and he said, I'd like

to record you doing an album. And I said why He said, because I think could be a good album. I said, nobody's going to buy an album me and he said come on? And I kept saying no, and why wouldn't you say yes? Because I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't think enough. I was like, come on I'm playing piano bar and he said, finally said would you let me worry about that? If who's gonna buy it? Let me? I said, okay. So we went into a studio and we started doing a Gershwin

recording called Pure Girl. We called a Pure Gerze when it was Herb's Herb's Little Company again, I asked Rosemary Clooney if she did a duet with me, and she did, and uh I recorded this Gershwe album and I was still at the Mondrian when he had the first copies. I remember he brought them. This came out on twentieth Century Fox. Right. No, No, he started a little label for Parnassis and uh I remember he did cassettes and LPs.

We couldn't find a pressing plant that was available to do CDs because there was such a demand for CDs right, especially an independent company. We couldn't get pressing, So the CD didn't come out till much later, until like six months whenever he could get it. So he had these albums, he started sending them out to people and a DJ New York named Jonathan Schwartz who was on w n W who played classic American standards, paid attention to the album because there was a duet with Rosemary Clooney and

he played that track. So he started playing this record and the recording started selling, and it started selling several hundred thousand copies, and I mean suddenly it was selling because it was unusual for a kid my age doing Gershwin and and uh it it was selling. And then when I went to New York and did the Algonquin a year later, he recorded a live album because we came live at the Algonquin and Al Hirschfeld did the

cover of the so I had a Hirshfeld caricature. And then the next year, one of my second year at the Algonquin, Sardis did a caricature me. It was there was a caricature me and Sarties and I said, why are you doing a caricature of me? I haven't been on Broadway. I mean, it was crazy. And then I was invited to play the raps and he blew with the Hollywood Bowl. And and then in the next year, in nineteen d eight, Ron Daylsoner produced me on Broadway.

I was in a show called Michael Feinstein, Isn't It Romantic? And I did a Broadway musical and a tour all over the country. Okay, okay, at this point, you still have the same agent, yes, And did you have a manager at that point? Yes? How did you get a manager? I was playing at the Algonquin and a lovely guy named Winston Simone came up to me and said, I'd like to manage you. And I said, I don't need

a manager. And he said, I'll tell you what. I will manage you for free for the next year, and if you don't like what I do, you can tell me goodbye. And I said okay. And he managed me for about six months and I and I'd say, uh no, it was about four months. And I put him on salary because he knew what he was doing. Okay. So um, at this point, what are you feeling internally? Fear fear, afraid you're gonna be exposed? Absolutely? And are you making

any money? I'm making money, like crazy? Okay. What are your parents say? Well, Jewish parents, you know they were They're like, oh my god, my son and son. Have you met my son? You know they were they were over the moon. Okay, how did this affect your personal life? Well? I was suddenly traveling a lot. I was on the road and I was very lonely, and I was smoking a lot of grass. It never affected my performances because I was very disciplined. When did you start smoking grass?

Sometime after high school? Sometime after high school? So it was a musician thing, that's how you fell into it. Well, Uh, it was something that I was dead set against because some of my some some of my extended family had drug problems. But then I did it, and then I discovered that it opened music for me in a way that that was different, and I couldn't get to that place of connecting with music that deeply without it, which

was of course a dangerous thing. But um, it was something that I loved and it I have to say that I came up with a lot of arrangements when I was smoking, and a lot of stuff that I looked back at and listened to some of his recordings and they were good, you know, because people always say it gradually, but the truth is that if it only fried your brain, people wouldn't do it. Right. But do

you still smoke? Though I stopped for twenty two years, and now I do it maybe like every two months, I'll do a little bit, maybe just for a week, and I only do a little bit of it. And because I had gotten so addicted to it, when I stopped, I never thought I would touch it again in a million years. But I don't have a problem with it, mainly because the thrill is gone. It doesn't do for me. Did you stop years? I was. I was so addicted to it and and I couldn't stop. I prayed to

God that I could stop. I mean, it was it was something that was It was becoming debilitating because I couldn't do without it, and I was because I was using it to medicate emotionally, you know, my loneliness and all that stuff. And then one day I woke up and I flushed it down the toilet and I never touched it again. I didn't go to a program or anything. But how hard was that period? After you flushed down the toilet? The next couple of months, it was not

that hard, which was the odd thing. And I still don't understand it because prior to that, I literally it was like cold turkey. I mean, I just I tried and tried, and I had to I just like I would light up. I couldn't help it. Okay, So you're on the road. Now you ultimately get a manager and you're touring and you're making a couple of records. What's

the next step after that? What's the next step after that? Well, um, I was doing these touring shows, you know, doing a lot, did the Ron Delson you do the Broadway show, and then just doing concerts, touring during concerts and performing arts centers, and and the recordings they started to wane. Uh, aside from the first several albums. Well, my fourth album was my fourth album. Electra Records bought my contract and uh, they did an album with me called Isn't It Romantic?

With the orchestrations by Johnny Mandel, and that was very successful. It was never a million seller, but cumulatively I ended up selling a couple of million recordings. But that was long before sound scan, so it's not documented, but I did. But Isn't It Romantic did really well and it was a lush orchestral album. And then they could no one could figure out what the next album was. I said, let's do an MGM album and they said, great, Well,

nobody wanted an MGM album. But but up to that point, everything I did, people were it was four albums, but the people bought them, you know, the Algonquina of this, and they say, I thought everything would work and I didn't know anything about the music business and and nobody else knew what to do with me. So then after the next album didn't do very well, and the next one, and it was like this is this is kind of tough.

And then it was that whole period for years, and people are saying, well, you sold a lot of records, Let's see what we can do with you, and let's try this, let's try that, and and I made a lot of good records, but none of them really sold much. You know. I did an album with with Jimmy Webb that was a great record and we're both proud of it, but it didn't do much. But you know, the thing about a record is that it's there for a long time.

People can reevaluate and come back to them. And and uh, there's a lot of stuff I did that I don't like, and there's things I did that I do And a station like the you know, seriously Sinatra that will play my records, they play things that I don't like, and I was like, god, I wish they played these other things, But you know, that's life. It's still it's still all a blessing. Okay. And at this point you're touring, you're obviously making money. Uh you say you're lonely? Do you

just keep doing it? Yeah, that's what I did. And I did it for a long time, and then I got to the point where I was so burned out. I said I'm to take in a year off. And then all the business people said, oh, you take a year off. You know they'll forget about you. You did this is a really done No, no, no, don't do this. This is the worst thing you can possibly do. And I said, I'm taking a year off, and I did. And it was in that period that I had stopped

smoking grass. I met my partner and then my husband, Terence Flannery, whom I never would have met. I met him at a party. I had nothing to do, and someone invited me over to watch the Tony Awards telecast. And I hate Awards shows. I went because I had nothing to do. I had recently stopped smoking the grass, and and I met Terrence. We just started talking and and he never would have even spoken to me if he knew that I did drugs. But I stopped, and uh,

we got to know each other. And prior to that, I could only if the only way I could get to know someone is if I paid for them and brought them on the road with me. So anyone that I was involved with I basically had to support. Okay, had you had what was your relationship history prior to Terrence? UM? A lot of fun? Okay, So you dip your toe in the water, shall to say, but you haven't found

Mr Wright right? Okay? So after that year off? Yeah, and in that period, UM, I reevaluated, reevaluated and went back to performing with a renewed love for what I do and with less caring about about success. I mean, of course I still cared about success, but I really focused more on the music and started writing a little bit more. And we're talking about writing music. Were writing

music here and there. I worked on a show for seven years and ultimately it didn't happen, but it showed me that I could do it, and it's something that I still want to do more of. Okay, So how do you ultimately open a club in New York City? That was when I was working with Alex spirit Off as a manager and he said, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I've always had a fantasy of having a nightclub, but a nightclub is a

hard business. And he created the collaboration with the Regency Hotel and I had played a private party for the Tische family, the owners of the hotel, prior to that, and so I had this. Suddenly I had a nightclub, and uh it was a wonderful fourteen years. And from that came the opportunity to open other clubs. And I opened a club in San Francisco and one and here in Los Angeles more recently, and U um uh there's now we're working actually on we're gonna be opening one

in Indiana and there's going to be one in in Australia. Okay, As you said, nightclubs very hard business. Why is yours successful? Because I work with people who understand the business. And you have to watch the numbers so carefully. How much you spend on food, how much you spend on entertainment? Have I mean it is. It has to be very very finely calibrated. And there aren't too many clubs that have longevity. And there's bird Land in New York because

Johnny VALENTI knows how to do that. There's a blue note and such uh, And you have to understand with booking talent, the pay scale, how how to to pay a lesser a person who gets less money a certain amount so you can afford money to pay someone who gets more money and amortize it. And it's it's difficult. And what the ticket price can be that is justifiable

for patron and it has to be great. Food has to be comforted, has to be value for the money, has to be an incredibly comfortable atmosphere, and it has to be an atmosphere that has a unique purpose that somebody will want to go here, somebody in that setting and it's so wonderful that it's worth it financial to them. So it's it's tough, but it's it's when it works, it's fantastic. Okay, to what degree are you down in

the weeds in terms of booking, food, etcetera. I'm not down very far in the ways with with booking, but I am somewhat involved with it, and my name's on the room, so the buck stops with me. But I'm lucky to collaborate with wonderful people who who know how to do it like Brad Rowan and his partner Whore with with with Vitelos, that's now find Stein at Vitelos. We have a great relationship and it's a capacity there.

I think it's between one and one forty. And again with with that, the seating has to be comfortable and it has to have to be crowded to have a buzz, but it can't be too crowded so people can can relax. And it's a whole psychological thing. It's and putting a room together. The components are things that people never think about, the comfort of the chairs, the spacing of the tables, the the the the lighting, the sund down, the decoration,

the level of the lights. I mean the stage lining, but the level of the lights, so people feel like it's intimate. But I mean it in a room either works or it doesn't work. Okay. In all these cases, because it teems to be associated with other businesses, who's at risk you or them? Well, it depends on the on the partnership. In most cases it's them because in one case, uh, in two cases, my name is licensed uh. And it's the old joke, how do you go into

the nightclub? Business and have a million dollars. You start with two million dollars. So but it's it's but it's but it's ongoing despite all these challenges. Yeah, and how often do you play in the varying clubs? Um? The New York club which is now fine Stein's fifty four below. I play twice a year August because it's a tough month to get people to come into the room. So I do pretty well there. And then holiday time was my grandmother was a holiday time. And then uh, find

Science of the Tellers. We're still working out when I'll work there because I'm on the road a lot of daring concerts and other venues, large larger venues, and so I don't normally play nightclubs because economically it's not. But the thing about a nightclub, like playing Fine Science fifty four in New York, people will play it because of the attention it gets in the publicity it gets, and and it sets you up for a lot of other gigs.

So there's great value in doing it right. Okay, how about other things like radio and television that you've been involved in. Well, yeah, I had a radio series for three years on NPR that was called song Travels that I finally had to give up because it was too hard to do the darn thing with guests and live music and oh my god, it was. I loved it,

but it just was. It was. It took so much time to put together that one hour, because the music, because the music and making live music with with the guest, uh. And television. I've had a number of series on PBS and beyond and and uh. I want to do more of those things. And I'm so you found that rewarding. Yeah, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. Okay. So, at this point in the game, where your status still exists, what would you like to do in the future your

own personal career bucket list? Well, I still want to write a musical because I think there's a place for the kind of show that I have in mind, which would be an amalga mora uh an homage to the past,

but also is rooted in the contemporary world. Because one of the things that's interesting about the music world is that everything is always you know, the next, the next, the next, the news, the news, the newest, But there are so many underserved people who care about classic music, and I think that there's a way to combine the two, because when you get people are judgmental about what people like and what people listen to. And the truth is

that well illustrated with a store right. Elizam and Ellie years ago had a hit record with the Pet Shop Boys called Results. It was more famous in the UK, more popular, and she had a hit single in the UK of the song losing my Mind, and it was it was on the top ten, and she did the TV show Top of the Pops and and so she's suddenly touring and a lot of people are coming to hear her and because of her album with the Pet Shop Boys, so they think it's going to be this

pop techno music. And I said, what are you gonna do when these people come to your show and they expect to hear the techno stuff? And she said, Honey, all I have to do is get him in the seats. And I've never forgotten that, and so like, what's good is good? Wow? On that note, you're a great rock and tour We could go on forever, but Michael, amazing stories more to come. Thanks so much for doing the podcast. Well,

thank you. I admire you so much because I love the fact that you care so deeply about this world, and you are so smart, and you were so tough on people that need to hear what you have to say. So I'm very honored to be on this program. Well, all that stuff, I'm twelling right now, but the eye, you know, just conft. I'm astounded, And I did not expect all the similarities between yourself and me. I remember when I was a freshman in college, I had a

connection where you could get records and electronic goods for wholesale. Okay, and theoretically it could be a business, but I just could not charge the people retail okay. And as far as getting in trouble in school for talking people, I had that even in law school. It's like, you know, that is definitely I certainly go onto the shrink. My my opinion of external people has changed with a certain quay.

There's a song Dear Landlord by Bob Dylan. The famous version is the cover by Joe Cocker, and it goes each of us has his own special gift, and you know that was meant to be true. And if you don't underestimate me, I won't underestimate you. And I have found everybody's a genius in some vertical Okay, and I've learned that, but there's a lot of stuff I'm really I've got. I've gotten in trouble that happens all the time.

I just can't not tolerate the bs. I always end up saying something or even I'll get up and leave it. It was you got up and left. You know what it is the story and the other thing is, you know, the passion. I've had the same situation because we just remember first moved to l A. And I was going to law school. This was a couple of years after it was in l A. And I took a course uh U c l A extension. They used to have

these music courses. I remember it was there. Joe Smith you've probably been from really he lived at Tentelf North Roxbury, Are Yeah, did you know him back then? I met him a few years after. Okay, Well, I remember going up to him asking the questions, you know everything, and it's like it's the same time thing. I'm just thrilled up talking to the guy, right, you know, and it could be both good and bad. Some people who feel inhibited other people it's like, you know, the best thing

that ever happened to them. But you do a better job of I hate to say this, but I'm trying to say in a way that doesn't have judgment at me. You take advantage of the situation better than I do. I become intimidated. This happens. I meet these people saying let's get together, and I get too uptight. I haven't

got time. I'm gonna know what's gonna happen. I've learned actually recently, because you know, being a Jewish family, my mother always told me I was a ship head, and it's like you, you know, the point is you get older and you realize everybody's got their issues and if you go, it'll be all right. But I'm still dealing with that now. Well that's very revealing and intimate. If you're just revealing that, as I say, you know once

it's a similarity between you and me. But before we have our own private therapy session, I'm gonna end this. Thank you Michael so much for doing the podcast. Until next time, it's Bob left Sense