The Beginning of the Whole Mess

It started with a dame.

I was 17, and there she was on my TV screen – a recently-promoted blue-eyed blonde news anchor named Robin Chapman. I was captivated, and in due course sent her a fan letter. I was not expecting a reply, but a few days later there it was in my mailbox! “You have a very creative writing style,” she wrote. “Have you ever considered a career in journalism?”

I had in fact been studying journalism and writing for the school paper for the past two years, but mostly just because it was an easy elective. What I had really been planning was to become a clinical psychologist; suddenly journalism was forefront in my mind. Especially after Robin invited me to tour the station.

She was surprised (and chagrined) to find that I was just out of high school, but still offered encouragement, career-wise anyway. I watched Robin on TV all that summer, and in the fall enrolled in college, where I was inexplicably made editor of the school newspaper. I also got an internship at the local daily newspaper as a feature writer, so my days were busy, writing some fairly good stuff and some pretty bad stuff, too.

At the local daily, I was assigned to the features desk, where I wrote about teen nightclubs, the latest fads, and other fluff. But one day I accompanied my mentor 
Steve to a celebrity interview of Carol Channing. She was friendly, funny, and self-depracating, and afterward I decided I should do celeb interviews, too. How hard could it be? I learned that Doc Severinsen was coming to Portland with his show, and, with my editor’s blessing immediately sought an exclusive interview with Doc. This mostly entailed daily calls to his office at NBC in Burbank, where I was (mostly) politely put off. But not put out. After a week of dogged requests, his manager said, “Doc won’t have time for an interview – he’s going to be busy auditioning singers for an opening in the group.”

“Really?” I said. “What vocal range?”

A pause. “He needs a tenor,” said Doc’s manager.

“I’m a tenor,” I said, in for the kill. “Can I audition too?”

Much longer pause. “Who ARE you?” said Doc’s manager.

After several more calls I had secured an audition before the concert, but no interview. No matter; I was going to review the show as well, so I was certain to get a decent byline. I knew from grilling his manager that Doc traveled with an eleven-piece band, so I guessed at the instrumentation and wrote and arranged a song for my audition.

When I arrived at the auditorium and met Doc’s manager (his name was Bud) and then Doc himself, they had just finished sound check for the night’s performance. I got out my chart and I offered to pass out the parts to the band. Yet another pause. “We’ll just use the piano,” said Bud, incredulously. He and the road manager Rick looked at each other; Doc just smiled.

I sang a couple of songs, accompanying myself on the original one, and waited for their verdict. It was, literally, “Don’t call us – we’ll call you.” This from Rick, the road manager. They offered me tickets for the show which I declined, since I already had mine. I thanked them, then went to dinner.

That night as I watched the concert (which was great!), I was simultaneously taking in details and wondering what they really thought of me, and imagining myself up onstage. Afterward I went home, wrote the review and turned it in the next morning. Then to school, and business as usual.

Two weeks later, Rick called. “Can you be here in Burbank on Friday? Doc wants to hear you again at the callback.” You betcha! “2:00 Friday at NBC.” It was then Monday; how would I get there (and back) on the $74 I had saved? As it turned out, by bus. Twenty-five hours down, twenty-five hours back.

Twenty-five hours on the bus gave me plenty of time to learn a new song while Not Sleeping A Wink. I arrived in North Hollywood at high noon, and took a city bus into Burbank, where I waited at NBC until the appointed time. There were three of us being considered for the opening – the other two guys looked groomed and chic and oh-so-Hollywood, whereas I appeared to have just stepped off a bus from Podunk. I listened to the other two guys sing, and then it was my turn. I decided to let Ross the piano player accompany me this time, but when I had finished and Bud was starting to excuse us Doc said “Hey Portland! Do that song you did before!” The Hollywood boys glared at me.

So I sat at the piano and played and sang, and then Bud said “We’ll let you all know in a couple of days.” I brazenly mentioned I would be on the bus again for the next 25 hours, and was there any way I might find out yes or no before I left that evening?

Bud got That Look on his face again, but said they would talk it over, and would I like to watch the taping of “The Tonight Show?” Hell, yes! “We’ll let you know before you leave town,” said Bud.

I was given a seat in the front row, right next to where Ed McMahon did his announcing, and waited nervously. Just before the warm-up started, Bud came out from backstage to where I was sitting, just stared at me for a minute, then said “Congratulations! You got the job. Rehearsals start March 3rd.” And walked away.

I don’t recall much about the rest of that evening, except that the people sitting next to me were so excited, they bought me dinner and took me back to the bus depot afterward, and that I slept most of the bus ride home.

When I got off the bus in Portland the next night, my father was there to meet me. “How did it go?” he asked.

“I got the job!” I excitedly told him.

My father looked at me for a moment. “You got a phone call while you were gone. The New Christy Minstrels want to hire you. I told them you were in Burbank, but I didn’t know how to reach you.”

I had submitted an audition tape to the NCM the previous summer after meeting and working with their former lead singer at the Miss Washington pageant, but had not expected to hear back from them after all that time. But no matter. When I returned their call later, they offered me a spot playing banjo and singing “Green, Green” and “Walk Right In” and touring the US by bus; whereas Doc was offering me Vegas, Baby!, with the best jazz musicians in the business, air travel and the best hotels. I thanked the New Christy Minstrels, and took the job with Doc.

It was now February 15, and I had two weeks to quit school, leave the newspaper, and find an apartment and move to Burbank before rehearsals started…