Dana Cooper, ca. 1974

I would rather bathe a cat than write this last chapter of the Elektra saga. I’ve procrastinated for weeks, weeding my yard, talking to the IRS, poking myself in the eye, anything to avoid writing about the demise of my record deal. Funny, it still bothers me.

Once the tour was over I retreated to sleepy Santa Barbara California where I shared an apartment in the hills with my girlfriend Mary Ann. While she worked on her Occupational Therapy internship at a local hospital I fidgeted around our little apartment and tried to figure out what had happened over the last year. Off the road I felt directionless. I wasn’t writing much. I had no gigs. Elektra was lukewarm about the prospects for my follow up album. Weeks slogged by before they issued a request that I demo some songs for their consideration. What could I do but comply?

Marlin Greene offered to produce. He scheduled a day for a demo session and I drove the two hours from Santa Barbara biting my nails all the way. It felt odd pulling into the parking lot for the first time. I never owned a car when I lived in Los Angeles. I always walked to the recording sessions. The four secretaries and one receptionist who sat at their desks surrounding the Spanish courtyard lobby always looked up from their work and gave me a friendly hello. Not today. Everyone’s eyes remained downcast as I passed through to Marlin’s office. Before I got there my presence was requested by the west coast treasurer. She proceeded to further question me about the long distance phone call confusion. Even though I assured her I had already made arrangements to settle the bill with the phone company she lambasted me for being a troublemaker.

In this environment Marlin and I set out to record my little handful of songs in hopes of reigniting Elektra’s fervor. Three songs I had already recorded in my living room, another one, “Isaac” was a track recorded for, but not included on the first album. Marlin and I recorded four new songs plus a solo version of “Isaac.” Marlin continued to believe in me and he fought to keep me on the label. He stuck his neck out for me when everyone else’s stayed stuck in their shell. It was his faith and hard work that kept me sane during this time of waiting for final word from Elektra.

Then came the long awaited Rolling Stone review of my record. I rushed out to buy a copy, and read it before I got out of the parking lot. I couldn’t budge. Stephen Holden started out comparing me to Joni Mitchell and Dion. I was excited to read more. Then I wasn’t. This wildly mixed review brought me down worse than anything so far. Some of Holden’s quotes were so good that I still use them today. My favorites are “driving acoustic rocker” which I am ( just check my odometer), and “rife with sexual ambiguity” which I ain’t. Still, my name was spelled right and it was Rolling Stone. On the cover, Paul Newman smiled in his wife beater and fedora from The Sting. Damn. And I liked that movie.

I reached for my boot straps with numb fingers. Days piled up slowly while I took long walks chasing inspiration. For fuel I drank three pots of black coffee and smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.I had no idea it would take years to find a true, comfortable voice as a writer or a performer, that the process is everything, that the more pressure I placed on myself to produce new songs the skimpier the harvest. I felt tapped out and lost as an artist. Still I kept digging. I convinced myself that the Rolling Stone review was meaningless and that the powers at Elektra would fall in love with the recent demo, allowing me time to finish new material.

One golden afternoon while deep into writing I heard the phone ring. That was unusual. Stranger than that, when I picked up the receiver I heard Al Billings on the line. Hadn’t heard from Al in weeks. We caught up on each other’s lives since the tour and discussed the disheartening Rolling Stone review. During one long pause in our conversation Al said he had something to tell me. My manager, Denny Bruce had just called Al and told him Elektra was not going to renew the option on my contract. Denny didn’t have the heart to tell me, so he asked if Al could break the news. I felt sucker punched in the solar plexus. Weird though. I felt a great relief too. It was over. I could stop wondering about it.

Al was a true ally, supportive of me and condemning of the label. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for him to make that phone call. He was being loyal and I loved him for it. When I hung up the phone all my mistakes and immature conduct of the last few months hit me. I felt sick about losing my great opportunity and even worse about disappointing all the good people at the label who had supported and believed in me.

I phoned Denny Bruce and Marlin Greene and Stan Farber to thank each one of them for all their hard work and to apologize for letting them down. They all continued to show me kindness I felt I did not deserve. Several weeks later Marlin invited me to visit him one last time at Elektra. He was also leaving the label and wanted to explain more clearly what had transpired. So, on yet another sunny California day I drove one last time to the offices on La Cienega.

Now the charming courtyard lobby felt chilled. Fewer secretaries sat sentinel. Everyone seemed smaller, worried. Even the bold, tiled centerpiece fountain bubbled less enthusiastically. The light, always muted and inviting had been ramped up, unflattering and unforgiving. A couple of women who had worked there since my first arrival gave me sad smiles. I gave them my best.

Marlin’s smile hadn’t changed a bit. He greeted me with such sincere respect and friendship that I still get teary eyed thinking about it. Nothing had changed between us. Marlin and I sat there in his office where we first met almost two years past. Now I felt I had let him down but he wasn’t having any of that. Marlin agreed that I made many mistakes along the way but he insisted there were other reasons for the collapse of my record deal. Ultimately it was purely a business decision. David Geffen was merging his Asylum Records with Warner, Elektra, and Atlantic. Geffen cut the bottom one third of the artist roster along with most of the Los Angeles office personnel. My album didn’t sell enough copies to survive the changeover.

Marlin confided in me about some of the other bizarre inner workings of Elektra. An unpleasant rivalry had always existed between the New York and Los Angeles offices of Elektra. My being signed to the label through Marlin’s efforts generated hostility with the pugnacious head of A&R in New York. You may remember her as the dame who decked a journalist at my Greenwich Village gig. She griped to Jac Holzman until it drove him crazy. This, coupled with my unwitting snub of Jac’s attentions on our first meeting, apparently set the stage for discontent.

Of all the heads lopped from shoulders and rolled onto La Cienega Boulevard, Marlin’s was not one of them. He chose to leave the fickle, fucked up company churning all around him. He already had an offer on the table from Kaye/Smith Studios in Seattle. If the deal came through he would produce record projects of his choosing and he wanted me to be one of them. Marlin gave me hope that day.

We shook hands on the promise of our future. He offered to see me to the door but I wanted to say goodbye to some people first. A handful of friends remained, some were already packed up and ready to go. Our bonds were forged in this building that none of us would enter again. Out the door we would blow in different directions. I thanked each person for all their work on my behalf. We exchanged wisecracks and  precarious smiles and the big door closed behind me. I was freed.

About one year later, while in Seattle recording a wonderful project that would regrettably never be released, I had the realization that losing my Elektra Records deal was the best thing that could have happened. Continuing down the path I was on could have quite possibly killed me. The perpetual party would never be paid for. Now I was free to grow as an artist at my  own pace, to gain valuable life experience along the way, to write and perform for the sheer joy of it.

With the benefit of hindsight I would have relaxed about the change. I would have realized that change was constant, that it led to something more, that I was not a failure. But I panicked often and drove myself to find the next path toward success. For now that path began in Seattle. I was ecstatic to work with Marlin in the studio. I stepped outside into a clear Santa Barbara morning, into that scent of orange blossoms that stirs the heart like an unexpected kiss and in that moment I felt alright.

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As long as I’m telling you these stories, I may as well share with you some of the music that I’m telling you about.  I found the demo recordings from the final weeks of my Elektra tenure in attic recently,  just as they had been recorded back in the 70s, on quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape.

We had the tapes digitized, and the sound quality is not exactly superlative, but we did manage to salvage five tracks that I’ve added to the collection over in “The Parallel Universe of Dana Cooper” — where, with the click of your mouse, it’s suddenly 1970-something all over again.

Continued from Part 2:

Are we having fun yet?

The day after the accusatory dinner with the Atlanta radio program director, Roger (the promoter who maybe wasn’t doing his job…) took us for a drive up Lookout Mountain to another radio station that was spinning my record in heavy rotation. The Program Director there, a fellow named Frank, invited us to tour the station and meet some of the DJs and staff. Frank was a cross between Fog Horn Leg Horn and Colonel Sanders. He was a tall, barrel-chested man with boot black pomaded hair and a pencil thin mustache to match. He wore a seer-sucker suit with a white belt and white shoes. He spoke in a slow, booming Georgia drawl. I liked Frank even though I thought he was full of bull right from the get go. Frank gathered a couple of DJs, technicians, Al, Roger and me into his office. We all sat in a circle while he opened a big bottle of Cuervo. The bottle went round several times and tongues loosened up. Somebody mentioned their latest office party and they all sniggered in a secretive, knowing way.

Frank told a tech to break out the party photos so we could have a gander at what they all found so humorous. Frank, being the big boss man, took the first look, peeling off each glossy in the stack and sending it around our way. Everyone studied the pics for a few seconds, laughed out loud and passed them on. Roger did likewise and handed the first one to me. It was an 8×10 of a man in a suit apparently passed out on the floor surrounded by four other men in suits standing with their dicks in their hands pretending to urinate on their unconscious friend. I blinked and handed the thing to Al.

Tequila kept going around too and the laughter grew more raucous as the photos got raunchier. Two women appeared in the pics, dancers hired to entertain the revelers. I hoped they were paid generously for the humiliating acts they were bid to perform. The faces in the pictures were the same faces grinning at me now. Eventually I stopped looking and just handed the vile images over to Al as we traded unamused glances. No one seemed to notice or care, they were so caught up in hilarious reminiscence of their big party.

Well, the photos thankfully ran out and the bottle emptied. It was time to get back to town so we said our thanks and goodbyes. Frank sent us off with guffaws and back slaps. His handshake was moist and sticky, his eyes glazed from cactus juice, his voice Wagnerian in volume. He was having a good old time. I made a mental note never to party with these people again.

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Phil Ochs, ca. 1973

Phil Ochs was a ravaged man by the time I met him in Washington, D.C. at the legendary venue The Cellar Door. Once a vibrant activist singer/songwriter, he appeared to be bitter and frail now. He was still robust enough to out-drink Al and myself though (and we drank quite a bit). This truly was the beginning of the end for him. In less than three years Phil Ochs took his own life. I don’t recall having any pleasant conversation with him and, in fact, I remember avoiding him. I was young and, sadly, had no idea how to relate to him.

Ochs received several encores after every show. He would stagger through the backstage door and relieve himself in the toilet which had no door while the crowd downstairs stomped and shouted for more. He would stagger back down, the crowd went crazier, he would play one more, stagger back upstairs for a quick drink, stagger back down and play another. He did this every set, every night.

A cadre of homeless men milled around on the sidewalk in front of  The Cellar Door. One of these fellows reminded me of Popeye after too long a sea voyage. To get to the dressing room one had to exit the front door of the club, walk around to the uphill side of the building, turn the corner and climb the stairs to the second floor. Every time we finished our set and popped out to climb the stairs this one guy would hone in on me. He tried to engage me in conversation but I never understood a word he rattled off. He was short, muscular, anywhere from fifty to sixty years old and his one unsquinting eye shone wild blue.

Al and I had just played our first set of the last night. We stood in front of The Cellar Door in the warm spring evening talking with Ron Stone, head of A&R for Elektra in Los Angeles. Popeye loped up and began slurring something at me. I smiled, keeping it friendly, straining to decipher what he wanted. He hooked my right hand in his and we stood there in a prolonged handshake while he kept baffling me with gibberish. I kept asking him to repeat himself. He became more and more agitated, his eye glinting hotter, his hand gripping tighter. Maybe he was Popeye’s evil twin after all.

Then he reeled back still clutching my hand, swinging his left fist, slamming it into the center of my chest. As I tried to pull my hand free I saw him haul back to take another swing. He fidgeted with something in his left hand and I saw it was a switch blade knife. He was drunkenly trying to get the damned thing open. Seems his first attempt at stabbing me had failed but he was a determined guy. The two of us lurched around for a while. No one else knew what to do but watch us in our grotesque waltz. Finally I managed to fling him to the ground and break his grip on me. The police were called while somebody detained Popeye. I left in shock and went for a walk around Georgetown to clear my head of what had almost happened. Someone I did not know had just tried to stab me in the chest. Fate is a funny thing. Once I stopped shaking I walked back to the Cellar Door where we played our last set of the weekend.

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Yes, we were all young once...

Not too long after my Elektra LP was released, my hometown newspaper, the Independence Examiner, ran this feature story about my burgeoning career.

Reading this article from the perspective of several decades later, I have determined that my brain was not yet fully developed.

The connective tissue between my mouth and my still callow brain had a tendency to unsnap and reknit awkwardly in those days. Occasionally, it still unravels. Especially during interviews where — in the final reading — I don’t recognize having said anything of the like. Kind of Gingrichian.

So much for the disclaimer. Once I get over the initial humiliation this tickles me. I hope it tickles you. Take a big dose of salt before reading. Check out the movies that were playing in Kansas City and Independence at the time. “Grizzly Adams” and “Stepford Wives!” Several really good ones too. Also gotta love the moustache. That’s the one I got caught between my teeth while biting into a Chunky bar. Maybe that’s how the connective tissue came undone!

The LP is out! Just click the album cover to visit "The Parallel Universe" and listen to it.

I felt poleaxed standing in the middle of Tower Records Store on Sunset Boulevard. A thigh high block of stacked LPs, over 1,000 of them, sat fat together in prominent display, all with the same cover staring back at me and the face on the cover was mine. I wondered how many more thousands of copies were crammed into a warehouse somewhere and who outside my immediate family and friends was going to buy all those albums.

In the weeks to come, Elektra Records would  release a single to radio, distribute to record stores and I would tour the country, following the record around from town to town. I’d be opening concerts for Townes Van Zandt, Leo Kottke, the Persuasions and Phil Ochs, scheduling radio and press interviews from New York City back to Los Angeles.  There was basic tour support offered from the label but not enough for a band. I could afford to take one accompanist. I called on creative guitarist and friend Al Billings to join me on my four month tour.

Al didn’t own a worthy instrument at the time so I went to Elektra seeking an advance to buy him a guitar. This meeting led to a bit of a yelling session between the Vice President of the New York office and myself. I could have benefited from having a manager who would take on these sorts of negotiations but I was on my own. After Elektra spent tens of thousands of dollars on production of the record and were so modest in tour support a few hundred dollars for an instrument didn’t seem all that unreasonable for me to expect. Apparently I was mistaken. I paid for the guitar out of my own pocket.

The Vox "Student Prince" Guitar

Al and I also found a great little guitar in a Santa Monica junk shop. It was called The Student Prince. I first spotted the Student Prince perched on top of a five foot pile of tangled odds and ends. It seemed to sing out to me. Untangling it and brushing away some of the dust and grime we discovered it was in pretty good shape. There were a few dents and scrapes and the strings were probably thirty years old, at least, but the wood was rich and resonant. The crusty old fellow running the place had no idea what it was worth. We offered him ten bucks and the Prince was ours. Some new strings and a higher nut and we had ourselves a funky little acoustic lap slide guitar.

I believe it was Marlin Greene who referred me to a potential manager named Denny Bruce. Denny was the original drummer for the Mothers of Invention and he represented two of my guitar heroes, Leo Kotke and John Fahey. Denny invited me to his home in the Hollywood hills. He was tall and lanky with an impressively deep voice and a dry wit.  We agreed to work together with the understanding that it would be difficult for him entering into negotiations after the record contract had been signed and the album was ready for release. He would organize tour dates, travel and accommodations and do what he could to establish good relations with Elektra. In retrospect, I am amazed at what a good job he did.

Al and I rehearsed for a couple of weeks in my tiny garage apartment in a Venice alleyway. A vine grew through the kitchen wall. We ate omelets with Wolf Brand chili every morning until I got sick. Once we honed a polished set list we boarded a plane for New York City with four guitars and two duffel bags. Our green station wagon rental car was waiting for us at Kennedy airport. I drove into Manhattan for the first time tingling with excitement, quickly adjusting to the clamoring pace of city traffic. It tickled me to see vast herds of non-chalant pedestrians picking up pace and then scattering across the wide boulevards, fleeing the onslaught of taxis never once turning their heads in acknowledgment as if they possessed invisible radar.

Pulling up to our apartment building we were greeted by a bevy of black prostitutes elaborately and outrageously costumed in tube tops, skimpy skirts and impossibly high heels. Their skirts kept riding upward and their tops kept sliding downward while they half heartedly wrestled everything back into place all the while offering us grinning, enthusiastic promises of exotic pleasures. Once they got a better look at us under the street lights clutching armloads of guitars they realized the futility of their efforts and went clacking and giggling on up the dark street.

We climbed a few flights of stairs to be greeted at the door of our loaner apartment by a smiling record promo dude. He looked to be not much older than me, with shoulder length hair and a skimpy mustache. In one hand he held a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other a vial of cocaine. This was Johnny, son of a record distributor in Texas and head of record promotions for Elektra on the east coast.

He led us to the living room where two beautiful girls, one blonde one brunette, sat book-ended on the couch. Johnny sat down between the girls and introduced them to us declaring the party had already begun. We could see that well enough. There was a shortage of comfortable furniture so Al and I sat tailor style on the carpet. We passed the bottle around and jammed on our guitars while Johnny and the girls consumed most of the coke. When they finally left us alone the distinct odor of bullshit still lingered in the air. This was my introduction to the elaborately expensive party called record promotion that I would ultimately pay for.

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(If you missed the first installment of this saga, you can find it here.)

(Listen to “Lover Baby Friend,” the first single from Dana Cooper’s 1973 debut LP, while reading the post that follows:

01 Lover, Baby, Friend by Dana Cooper

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I sit listening to my first album from 1973 and I am overwhelmed with emotions. They run all over the place. Always do. Looking back is not what  I want to spend my life doing. Yet, I do it everyday. Aren’t all our lives spent balancing amongst what we’ve done, what we are doing and what we hope to do? I am no different than you. Only our experiences vary.

The Entrance to the Elektra Records Studios in Hollywood, ca. 1973

The seventh decade of my own particular balancing act has already begun.  On the night of my 60th birthday (April 2)  I was fortunate enough to perform at Ebeltoft Kulturhus in Ebeltoft, Denmark with my talented young friends, The Sentimentals.  Fact is, I’ve always been fortunate even if I didn’t realize it at the time. I’ve been on the road since I was 19. That’s 41 years and counting. There I go again; then, now and someday.
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Marlin Greene, ca. 1970-something

By Marlin Greene

Los Angeles in the 70′s – Elektra Records – the house that Jac built. I occupied a small room in that house for a couple of years. My job description was assistant to Russ Miller, A & R person for the West Coast. What that meant was that I was a nerve ending for Russ and Jac Holzman in terms of ferreting out promising candidates for an Elektra recording contract from the slush of bric-a-brac that arrived every day.

Not all of the tapes and disks came in the mail; a lot were delivered through the door by agents, cousins, lawyers, girl/boy friends and sometimes by the wanna-be’s themselves. My long-suffering secretary was my screening mechanism – if they convinced her they got to see me. If they convinced me, they might get to see Russ, etc.

Into this unfair and haphazard mechanism for gaining celebrity and becoming fodder for radio-land’s insatiable void, one spring day came Dana Cooper towed by his producer, Stan Farber. They had made it past my Brenda because Dana let Stan do the talking. Stan was a Hollywood veteran of the record biz – Dana was from Kansas.

Dana opened his guitar case to “audition” and sang two or three of his songs. They were all impressive, but the one that got my attention was “Oklahoma Rodeo Queen.” As far as I was concerned, this put Dana on the songwriter shelf next to Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Dana also put up a nice appearance and played a mean acoustic Gibson, adding up to a pretty good candidate to impress Russ and Jac. I signed on.

After hearing Dana, Russ and Jac signed on too. Without realizing it, Dana had insured that I would not be evicted from my little room any time soon and that Elektra would make an album. However, Elektra was by this time was mostly selling units, not poety set to music. Dana had one hindrance that he would never overcome: finely burnished poetry set to music is not for everyone and doesn’t move a lot of units.

I had a dream somewhere around this time. I saw Dana clear as daylight performing in a very prestigious venue – maybe Carnegie Hall. The house lights were dim. Dana was playing solo in a spotlit center stage. Of course he was singing “Oklahoma Rodeo Queen.” I never told Dana about this. Maybe it will still happen. Maybe it already has and I got the venue wrong.

Dana, thanks for hanging in there. I always knew you were a magician who sets words to music and now I learn you are a conjurer as well.

–Marlin

By Stan Farber

I met Dana Cooper  in Los Angeles in 1972. He was visiting an advertising  exec  friend of mine, who had met him in Kansas City and advised him to come to LA and  meet record industry people.

He played and sang a few songs and impressed me immediately on his song writing ability and voice.  I took him around to various record companies in the next few weeks to play live instead of making a taped demo.  Many companies were interested, but we chose Elektra as the best fit for his artistry.

The music was produced at various studios in LA that had been used by many famous artists. The studio musicians were some of the best in the recording industry, among them two from James Taylor’s band, Russ Kunkel and Leland Sklar. Many of the tracks were recorded live with the musicians and Dana recording together, i.e. “Jesse James” (magic happened)  Dana had not had a lot of recording experience at that time, but took to it like a pro.

“Oklahoma Rodeo Queen” and “Lover Baby Friend” remain two of my all-time favorite songs, now 38 years later.  Unfortunately, just after the album was released, the record label changed executives, namely David Geffen. He immediately trimmed over 30 acts from the label and brought in his own favorites.

Such were the vagaries of the record industry, their mistake, Dana’s misfortune. And yet, he is still thriving, on his own, continuing to write great songs, and touring the land, ever the quintessential troubadour.

Stan Farber
Austin, TX ,March 2011