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

The winter of 1971 I sold my album collection and a chocolate brown Gretsch Tennessean, packed a duffle bag and my Gibson Heritage and bought a one way ticket to Los Angeles. One year earlier I had met a gentleman named Bill Barnett at a coming out party I was performing for in Kansas City. Bill was taken with my music and offered help in introducing me to people in the music business in LA. After one foiled attempt to move out there and a grueling winter long tour of the Midwest college coffeehouse circuit, I finally managed to make that California trip.

Hollywood in the 1970s

The plan was for me to crash on Bill’s couch until I got on my feet. In less than one week I found a job petitioning door to door for a solar energy company. A few days later I snagged a $49 a month apartment across from Paramount Studios. The four story ocher colored building had survived several fires over the decades but it looked like it could go up in flames again at any moment.

I lived in one small room with a bathroom. For cooking there was a hot plate which sat atop a tiny knee high refrigerator. Both looked as old as the apartment building which was built in the 1930′s. There was a Murphy bed, the kind that folds up into the closet to make more room for entertaining. The bathroom was so cramped that the toilet stool lid hit the under side of the sink when lifted.

A trip to St. Vincent DePaul’s for a dented skillet, an equally abused pot, one chipped plate, one cracked bowl, one set of dinner ware, a dull knife, a rusted serving spoon and a flimsy spatula and I was ready for culinary experimentation. I cooked a lot of beans and rice that first month. Rationing was the key to survival on my meager budget so I made a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese and a dozen eggs last one week. Sometimes I’d splurge on a quart of cherry tomatoes. Each morning I would consume one slice of cheese, one slice of French bread, two or three cherry tomatoes and an egg. That would be my meal for the entire day.

Just before moving in to my pad Bill Barnett arranged a meeting for me with Stan Farber. Stan was a renowned studio singer who was part of the most in demand group of  singers in the business. He also produced several albums for  Andy Williams. Stan knew Bill from working on one of his projects at Screen Gems Films. Since he knew just about everyone in the business Bill thought Stan might be interested in shopping me around to some record labels. Stan dropped by Bill’s one afternoon and I sang some of my songs for him. We hit it off immediately and he proceeded to make appointments with all the major labels in town.
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