PART II
Chapter One
I was on the East Coast in 1967 when the Monterey Pop Festival took place in Monterey, California. By the time Woodstock happened two years later in upstate New York, I had already moved to the West Coast. In the ensuing years, every time someone asked me where I had been for both events I was obliged to confess, yet again, that I had been on the wrong coast each time.
“Holy shit! You missed Monterey Pop and Woodstock??”
“Yes.”
Inevitably the response was, “Wow. Bummer!”
No kidding. But the real bummer was getting divorced from Gerry. When we separated he was twenty-nine and I was twenty-six. We’d been married for nine years. Though I was too upset to write with him, our conversations were civil enough that we could agree on some basic principles. We didn’t want our divorce to be ugly or bitter; we would divide our financial assets equally; and the girls would live with me under joint custody.
In practice, Gerry was free to see Sherry and Louise whenever he wanted, and vice versa, so our girls didn’t have to deal with the additional hardship of their parents’ bickering over who got them when. But divorce at best is never without difficulty, especially for the children. On the other hand, if my daughters had been asked to compose a list entitled “What I Like About Living in California,” proximity to the beach, not having to wear multiple layers of clothing, and running around barefoot in March would have competed for first position.
The day after we took up residence on Wonderland Avenue I waited at the end of our driveway with the girls for the big yellow school bus that would take them to the Wonderland Avenue Elementary School. After they scampered on board, I watched the bus make its way down the street until it passed out of view. Involuntarily, I sighed deeply, inhaling my daughters’ trepidation and exhaling my own along with theirs. Then I turned, walked up the driveway, climbed into my newly leased black 1968 Mustang convertible, started the ignition, pushed the button that slowly lowered the top, and backed out of the driveway. As I drove down Wonderland, I was elated to see the tops of trees that would have been hidden by the fixed roof of a sedan. I turned right on Lookout Mountain, then waited at the light until I could fly down the canyon the way other drivers did. Released by the green, I turned right onto Laurel Canyon and reveled in the rush of wind blowing through my hair. Other drivers were cruising up and down the canyon without a specific destination, but I was going to the West Coast office of Screen Gems–Columbia Music, Inc.
Donnie had chosen Lester Sill to run Screen Gems–Columbia’s West Coast office. In 1952, when Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were starting to attract some notice in L.A., Lester had run their publishing office. More recently he had been the “Les” of Philles Records (Spector being the “Phil”) and the music supervisor of the Monkees’ movie, Head. Screen Gems–Columbia Music was a thriving publishing operation located—where else?—in Hollywood. The building that housed it in no way resembled the corporate office building at 711 Fifth Avenue that I had come to know and loathe. The structure on the north side of Sunset Boulevard east of La Brea Avenue was three stories high with pink walls made of concrete blocks. Palm trees grew in front of a façade that resembled a car grille. After dealing for years with the expense and difficulty of parking a car in Manhattan, it was an unexpected gift to be able to drive into a free parking area where I had no trouble finding an unoccupied space. From the parking lot it was less than fifty steps to the lobby, where an elevator was waiting to transport me to the second floor.
When the elevator door opened, Lester was there to greet me. I felt comfortable with Lester partly because I had met him on previous trips and partly because he had the haimishe demeanor of a warm Jewish uncle. After proudly showing me around and introducing me to his staff, Lester brought me into his office and told me who was looking for material and what kind of song each artist was looking for. It was a detailed briefing by a capable, knowledgeable publisher, and it made me hopeful about my ability to continue to earn a living as a songwriter without Gerry. When it was time for me to leave, Lester walked me to the elevator and invited me to bring Louise and Sherry to his home for dinner that night.
I ran errands, gassed up the car, and got home in plenty of time to put away the groceries and unpack a few more boxes from New Jersey before I heard the school bus outside. As I ran out to greet my girls I couldn’t imagine how the bus had made it up the narrow winding streets of the canyon without scraping some of the cars parked in places they ought not to have been. I should have recognized the random car-parking as an early clue to my fellow canyon dwellers’ lack of respect for authority, but I was too engrossed in listening to my daughters’ stories about their first day at school. Then they dropped their books in the middle of the living room floor, kicked off their shoes, and ran out the door to play Gilligan’s Island in the backyard of their new friends down the street. I was so caught up in their abandon that I had forgotten for a moment that I was a parent.
“Wait!” I called. “What about homew—?”
Gone.
It’s okay, I thought. Homework can wait.
Bad mom, said my conscience.
No, I thought defiantly. Young mom.
Amazingly, my girls did it all. They played at being Ginger, Lovey, and Mary Ann. Then they came home, washed up, changed their clothes, and finished their homework in time to leave for dinner.
The Sills lived south of Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, an attractive neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. In contrast to the grid of streets north of Ventura, their street, Valley Vista Boulevard, wound around the base of the foothills from Coldwater Canyon to Woodcliff Road just east of the 405. Valley Vista’s gentle curves gave the impression that it wasn’t really in the Valley. Each bend in the road revealed a new image of lush greenery and brightly colored exotic plants that fairly screamed, “Look! We’re even more vibrant than the plants you just saw!”
We pulled up to the Sills’ house, got out of the car, and were greeted by the entire family: Lester, his wife, Harriet, their four sons (their youngest, Lonnie, was close to the age of my daughters), their female collie, and six adorable, purebred tricolor collie puppies. The puppies were so irresistible that by the end of the evening we had agreed to adopt one of them. To keep our new puppy’s name consistent with the names of his litter-mates (all began with “Mac”) we decided to call him Macduff.
All the Sills except Harriet would attain success in Hollywood as part of the Sill/Kaye music publishing and music supervision dynasty, now in its third generation. Harriet achieved her own success as the matriarch and fighting tigress of the Sill family. You did not want to mess with a Sill or with Chuck Kaye, Harriet’s son from a previous marriage.
Lester’s success as a music publisher was fueled by his friendships with various West Coast producers and artists. Like Lou, Lester had also earned the trust and respect of the Everly Brothers and other artists who recorded in L.A. but often flew back to Nashville to retain their original connection with their fans and their roots in country music. In addition to Lester’s ability to get covers, there was also his corporate connection with movie and television productions.
I had taken a great leap of faith across a continent. But it was clear to me that there was a wealth of opportunities available to an L.A.-based Screen Gems–Columbia songwriter, and I felt that I had landed in a safe place.