Bette Midler Page 9
One of Bette’s close business associates tells of the confusion: “The first album, which she had labored on for over a year—she made them go back and redo it. And she forced Atlantic to let Barry produce a few of the cuts, and Ahmet went with it. The stuff that she left on that [album] from him [Joel Dorn] is superb, but the rest of it she wasn’t ready to release, and most of it she never did. She did subsequently release ‘Old Cape Cod,’ on the Songs for the New Depression album, and ‘Marahuana.’ After they remixed it with [male singing trio], Gotham doing the backups—which was much better in the original Joel Dorn version, because the way he had it, it sounded like an old seventy-eight being played with all that scratchiness and everything. It was fabulous. Those tapes are amazing. She also did Joni Mitchell’s ‘For Free,’ which she has never released, and a few other songs. But she wanted other stuff on the album. She had an idea, and Aaron did help her to convince them that she shouldn’t be able to do this and run over budget and over schedule” (35).
At this point in his career, Barry Manilow had never produced an album cut before in his life. His work on TV jingles and a couple of failed singles with a group calling itself Featherbed were his two main forays into the complicated world of the recording studio. However, he told Ahmet Ertegun that he could produce a record, and he insisted that he knew how to record Bette the way she needed to be recorded. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Ertegun gave Manilow his lucky break. With Ertegun in the control booth, Manilow was about to get the best on-the-job training available. Barry figured that if he could produce the sound that everyone was looking for onstage, why couldn’t he simply reproduce it in a recording studio? He knew that Bette’s real energy came from performing in front of a live audience, as opposed to standing in a glass booth recording her vocals to an engineer and a producer.
In order to get the magical sound that Bette had during the Carnegie Hall concerts, Barry’s first order of business was to change the mood of the session—from a cold glass-encased sound booth—and to have her record live with musicians and background singers in the studio with her. Manilow later recalled, “I would create an atmosphere as close to a live performance as I possibly could. I hired Bette’s band instead of the veteran studio musicians Joel had hired. Bette’s band was fresh, enthusiastic, and excited to be there. Then I rented some theatrical lighting and had it hung in the recording studio. I invited an audience of about twenty close friends of Bette’s and the band’s. I set up the Harlettes and the band as if we were doing a live performance. I had some drinks and food brought in for the audience and kept Bette busy outside in the hallway while Ahmet and the engineer got the levels set on the band” (43).
The first song they tackled was “Superstar,” which is about a woman deeply in love with a guitar player. According to Manilow, “From the outset, we knew it was going to work. As soon as Bette could feel and react and play to a live audience, the previously missing energy was there. Ahmet, who was in the control booth, kept giving me the thumbs-up sign. Even Bette was having a good time” (43).
Over the thirty years since its original release, Bette Midler’s The Divine Miss M still holds up as one of the best, most varied, most exciting, and most perfect debut albums ever released. Cut for cut, it still represents one of the highwater marks of her entire recording career. The other Midler albums that are up to this same dramatic mood-swinging peak are Bette Midler (1973), Thighs and Whispers (1979), and Bathhouse Betty (1998).
The secret to the success of The Divine Miss M album is that it is so incredibly diverse in mood, song selection, and style—there is pop, rock, blues, ballads, and swing, and somehow it all holds together as a unified album. On one song Bette is the forsaken lover (“Am I Blue?”), then she is the trashy biker chick (“Leader of the Pack”), then she’s brought to tearful sentimentality (“Hello in There”), then she is all three of the Andrews Sisters (“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”). There isn’t a mood or a mode that she misses. This album was perfect in 1972, and it remains timelessly perfect over three decades later.
Part of the reason for this is that half (actually, five) of the songs were finely crafted and very tastefully produced by Joel Dorn, and half (actually, six) of the songs were produced and arranged in an exciting and lively fashion by Barry Manilow. The juxtapositioning of these two production styles made this album breathtakingly successful. (Although those six cuts are credited on the album’s liner notes to Manilow, recording engineer Geoffrey Haslam, and Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun, clearly 90 percent of the credit belongs to Barry, who understood Bette’s voice, appeal, and energy better than anyone else).
Dorn’s production on the opening cut, “Do You Want to Dance?,” is stripped down, slowed down, and made into an achingly pleading invitation to dance. The original 1958 Bobby Freeman single had been a catchy, sock-hop-worthy, medium-tempo pop/rocker. Bette’s slower, more sensual rendition transformed the song into a dramatic, sexual come-on. It still holds up as one of her best and most emotionally electrifying recorded performances.
Then, in complete contrast, it is directly followed by Barry’s production of Midler’s speeded-up, trashier, and flashier take on the Dixie Cups’ 1964 classic “Chapel of Love.” It is frantic and rocking, and nearly out of control with energy. Ending with Bette’s cackling laugh and the comment, “This is the ‘pits’ ending for a really terrific song,” it shows off just enough of the bawdy Miss M persona to poke fun at the whole affair—making it suitably campy and very tongue-in-cheek.
Next is the song “Superstar,” which was originally written by Bonnie Bramlett, Leon Russell, and (uncredited) Rita Coolidge. Most people don’t realize that it was actually written about Bonnie’s and Rita’s separate backstage crushes on guitar superstar Eric Clapton. The original studio version of the song was recorded by Bramlett, and the original “live” version of it was sung by Rita on the famed 1970 Joe Cocker all-star concert album Mad Dogs & Englishmen. Ironically, it was Bette’s nemesis, the ever-tasteful Karen—and Richard—Carpenter who had turned it into a million-selling Top 10 chart hit in 1971. However, it was Midler who here really milked this song for all of its bittersweet passion and pain.
Then the mood swings again—this time into the totally slutty “Daytime Hustler,” which is overtly sexual in content—then back again to touching emotion on “Am I Blue?” Back and forth the pendulum swings until every base is covered, song after song.
On John Prine’s touching “Hello in There,” Bette’s performance takes the listener into the eyes of a sad old woman who is wearily looking back at her life. With “Delta Dawn,” Miss M dramatically tells the story of a disillusioned girl in love—in a song extravaganza that perpetually builds like a five-minute-and-sixteen-second mini-drama. And on the anthem “Friends”—penned by her friends Buzzy Linhart and Moogy Klingman—Midler received the true signature song of her career. It is on that song—which is presented twice on this album—that the contrast between the Joel Dorn recording approach and the Barry Manilow approach is best illustrated. The Dorn-produced version is centered and evenly plotted, while the Manilow version is wild and festive and sounds more like a raucous party in the studio than a formal recording session. Both styles are valid and satisfying, for different reasons. Between the two approaches, different shadings of Midler’s personality are highlighted to maximum effect.
It is also interesting to note that in the background was a fascinating “who’s who” of top-notch singers and musicians. The voice of Melissa Manchester can clearly be heard in the background of “Chapel of Love.” And it is Whitney Houston’s mother, Cissy, who leads the choir on “Do You Want to Dance?” Fittingly, Manilow handles the piano parts on all of the songs he produced, which also featured Midler’s touring band—Dickie Frank on guitar, Michael Federal on bass, and Kevin Ellman on drums. Also, percussion wizard Ralph MacDonald (Saturday Night Fever) is heard on several of the cuts, as is noted jazz bass player Ron Carter. Yet, amid it all, the star here is clearly Miss M
herself.
The end result was a brilliant fusion of style, substance, nostalgia, sleaze, heartbreak, joy, and celebration. Regardless of the production credits and the behind-the-scenes story, the finished product, Bette Midler’s The Divine Miss M album, is brilliant, and she sounds great in every song. Somehow, every side of her multipersonality musicality comes through. In theory, an album consisting of so many divergent styles shouldn’t have worked and should have failed to find an audience. But the LP was an instant smash, and over 100,000 copies were sold in the first month of its release, when it hit the stores in November of 1972. From the poignant “Hello in There,” to the trashy “Leader of the Pack,” to the rocking “Daytime Hustler,” every cut stands out. Like a jigsaw puzzle, each song represents another equally valid piece of Midler’s singing talent. Each song is like a vignette or a one-act play. She convinces you that she IS that dejected senior citizen in “Hello in There,” that she IS that gum-chewing motorcycle slut in “Leader of the Pack,” and that she IS all three of the Andrews Sisters—Patty, Maxine, and LaVerne—on “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” Talk about an incredible album!
After a year in the making, finally, this album was the ideal debut album for Bette. She showed off her ability to really connect with a sensitive and heartfelt ballad. Joel Dorn was the perfect producer to bring out this side of her vocal talent on songs like “Do You Want to Dance?” and “Hello in There,” while Barry Manilow was perfect for showing off her bawdy, trashy, retro-loving side on “Chapel of Love,” “Leader of the Pack,” and “Daytime Hustler,” which were fittingly ragged and wild. This became the mass public’s introduction to the rock & roll side of Bette Midler’s career.
At the time of the release of The Divine Miss M, Mike Jan of Cue magazine wrote, “Considering the spectacularly funny nature of her career thus far, she would have been forgiven for seizing the opportunity to goof off on the record, to present ten or twelve puffy parodies of old rock songs and popular songs from the thirties and forties, and that would be it. Few probably expected more. Yet Miss Midler has provided much more. Half the album’s ten songs are ballads. Nobody opens her recording career with five ballads without shooting for vocal respectability. Miss Midler clearly is and for it she richly deserves praise” (44).
“Do You Want to Dance?” became a smash hit when it was released as a single in December of 1972. The song made it to Number 17 on the Billboard charts. When it came time to release a second single, Barry Manilow and Bette went back into the recording studio and completely rerecorded “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” with a punchier and much more modern arrangement. For this one single song, it was Manilow—alone—producing Miss M. Like the original Dorn-produced LP version, it featured Bette singing all three of the vocal parts. On the Manilow-produced version there is a brief section without instruments, where three different Midler voices—in slightly different keys—can distinctly be heard harmonizing together. The Manilow-produced single version of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” became Bette’s first Top 10 hit, peaking in Billboard magazine at Number 8.
To further illustrate the contrast between Dorn’s approach and Manilow’s style, one need only listen to the two versions of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” back-to-back. Joel’s version is on The Divine Miss M, while Barry’s is featured on Midler’s 1993 greatest hits album, Experience the Divine. The Dorn one is more faithfully 1940s-sounding, while the Manilow version is snappier and has more sassy bounce to it.
Originally released in 1972, The Divine Miss M album made it to Number 9 on the LP chart in America, and it was quickly certified Gold, signifying sales of over half a million copies in America. A single version of “Friends,” with “Chapel of Love” on the “B” side, was released in 1973 and made it to Number 40. Very quickly, because of the unprecedented success of The Divine Miss M LP, Bette Midler wasn’t just a New York City cult performer anymore; she was suddenly an overnight national sensation.
6
HIGHER AND HIGHER
With the release of Bette’s The Divine Miss M album, the obvious course of action was to go out on the road and promote the hell out of it. That’s when Aaron Russo really swung into action.
Russo had come from a New York City garment-district family. The family business was women’s undergarments—and Aaron had no interest in that line of work whatsoever. Instead he opted to get involved in the rock & roll scene. He worked for a nightclub called the Electric Circus in New York City, and in the late 1960s he moved to Chicago, where he managed a group that never made it big, called the Flock. His biggest claim to fame in the Windy City was as manager of a multimedia entertainment club known as the Kinetic Playground. He was also involved in the East Town Theater in Detroit.
In the early 1970s, Russo had been following Midler’s career from afar, having seen her on The Tonight Show and having been in the audience with his wife, Andrea, when Bette performed at the Bitter End in New York City. His growing infatuation with Bette was said to be the reason for the demise of his marriage. When Bette had become something of a local legend in Chicago at Mr. Kelly’s, he plotted his course of action and won her allegiance.
His timing was perfect. Things were beginning to happen so fast for her that she was frightened of fouling it all up before she really hit the big time. How could she break away from the Continental Baths and the gay scene and into the mainstream without alienating anyone in the transition? And how was she going to break into the big time without having to become some sort of “cheese bomb” Las Vegas creation? She knew that she needed help, and all of a sudden . . . there was Aaron Russo.
With her debut album busy disappearing from record-store shelves, the time was ripe for Aaron to make good his promises. In November of 1972, Bette performed again at the Continental Baths. This engagement, at long last, was her final farewell night at the steam bath that had made her a star. She joked onstage that Steve Ostrow was having a difficult time filling her spot—and her bra—at the Baths, now that she was playing there for the very last time. She announced that Josephine the Plumber (actress Jane Withers’s fictional character in 1970s kitchen-scouring cleanser TV advertisements) had been approached, but not even SHE could remove the stains from the drains at the Continental! But beneath the jokes, Bette was not at all happy about that last gig.
Steve Ostrow had obviously sensed that this was to be his last shot at exploiting his gay bathhouse with Miss Midler, and he was going to take full advantage of the situation. So many people were jammed into the place that last night that it was a true fire hazard.
Bette later recounted, “When I looked out and saw how many people that bastard Ostrow had packed into that place, I was sick!” (45). Although Ostrow was made out to be the villain, one of Midler’s intimate friends confided that Russo “was the one who made her go back to the Baths, because he thought he could milk them for a buck. And she was furious with him ever after for that. He packed the place. She didn’t want to do it. Ostrow has been asking her to come back, but the place was small and everything, and she at that point was very dedicated to growing. But Aaron knew that there was a buck to be made, and he packed the house. It was like sardines in there” (35).
Looking back on her experiences at the Continental Baths, Bette later stated in her book A View from a Broad, “For some reason, which will forever remain a mystery to me, the idea of a woman entertaining an audience dressed only in towels—an all-male audience, and homosexual, yet—is to every reporter I have ever met at once repulsive yet endlessly fascinating. . . . I always performed en costume. It’s true that occasionally I did wear a towel. But on my head, with some bananas and cashews hanging from it, as part of my tribute to Carmen Miranda and all the fruits and nuts of the world. . . . And by the way, just for the record, I never laid my eyes on a single penis, even though I was looking real hard” (46).
In any case, Midler’s days at the tubs were officially over, and it was on to bigger and better gigs. Although she was a legend in New York City at this point
, there was a whole country out there that didn’t know what she was all about. Right after the Baths she headlined several small rock clubs that were famous launching pads for recording artists: the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the Boarding House in San Francisco, and the Club Bijou in Philadelphia.
The real triumph came when she returned to New York City in December of 1972 to headline two sold-out concerts at Philharmonic Hall on New Year’s Eve: one early show at 8:00 P.M. and one late show at 11:00 P.M. Those two shows at Lincoln Center were the hottest tickets in all of Manhattan that New Year’s Eve!
Bette dazzled the crowd from her very first seconds on stage. She was carried in from the wings in a sedan chair swagged in red velvet drapes, so that only a dangling leg protruded. When the curtain was drawn, there was Bette sheathed in white satin, with a big “shit-eating grin” on her face. The crowd went wild that night, especially at the late show when she made an exit before the stroke of midnight and reappeared in a diaper and a sash with the numerals “1973” emblazoned across her chest. The audience was aglow in silver and sequins, and she made it clear for them that the new year was going to become known as “the year of Bette Midler.”
The press had a field day, lavishing her with praise for her appearances during the last two months of 1972. The New York Times called her “a bona fide original . . . an enormously theatrical young woman who possesses an uncanny singing talent. . . . the first white show woman of the current pop era!” (47). Billboard magazine exclaimed, “Bette Midler showed how spellbinding a true entertainer can be in this era of mediocrity hiding behind the banner of laid-back naturalness!” (2). And the New York Daily News’ rock critic, Lillian Roxon, who was blown away by Bette on New Year’s Eve, declared, “It was heaven. . . . I can’t remember when I last saw a performer work so hard and give off and get so much love. . . . she does all the things no one does anymore, and I wish the rock & roll brigade would learn from her. . . . [She was] stalking and stomping around the stage like a hyena on speed!” (49).