One night Brenda announced, “I’m going to take you to this party, and you’re going tomeet a big record executive, Jerry Greenberg, and it’s going to be great.”
Sure, why not? I thought. I was feeling enough professional confidence to let her dragme to an industry party. I was doing sessions and had a deal brewing1 at Warners for one ofmy songs to be used in a movie. I wasn’t too invested in this party being the party. Whileshe had a generous heart, Brenda could also be pretty zany, so I sometimes took a lot ofwhat she said with a grain of salt.
We were going to get dressed at her house in Jersey2, since she had all the clothes,makeup3, and accessories from being on tour and having some money. She was supposedto pick me up from my apartment. I waited in my cramped4 vestibule, slumped5 on the tilefloor, for over an hour (mind you, there was no texting back then). Finally, she appeared,revved up, full of energy, and ready to party. Her excitement was infectious.
We started our going-out ritual in her large bathroom. Brenda had all the mousse, hairspray, combs, and curlers you could imagine. With her mixed Puerto Rican and Jewishheritage, I could certainly work with what she had. I attempted to create one long, uniformcoil all around my head by twisting sections of hair around the rod of a curling wand. Ifinished it off with a straight bang. I borrowed a little black dress from her (what else!). Ihad brought a pair of my own opaque6 black tights, but I couldn’t fit into her shoes; theywere too small. So I layered my black Vans sneakers with ribbed slouchy socks. I toppedoff the ensemble7 with my one statement piece—that Avirex jacket from high school.
I really tried with my look, and it was all right. Brenda told me the party was tocelebrate a new record label, but since, by this time, I was interested in the big labels withthe big boys and big artists, I didn’t have high expectations about who would be inattendance. The new label was the collaboration8 of three well-known industry guys whohad come together to form their own label, WTG Records. “WTG” stood for Walter,Tommy, and Gerald. It sounded like a tire business to me; I didn’t really know whoanybody was yet. But Brenda knew Jerry (Gerald Greenberg), who she told me was a bigshot in the industry (in 1974, at thirty-two, he became the youngest-ever president ofAtlantic Records). When she explained this, the party started to get a bit more interesting.
I now understood why Brenda wanted me to bring my demo with me (not that I everwent anywhere without it)—she’d brought me there to meet a guy from Atlantic Records.
When we got to the party, I was surrounded by “industry people,” though I still had noclue what that meant. As I walked around, I took in the scene. Some handlers weretraipsing a female artist around, like a show horse. She was very blond, very pretty, verywhite, and very dolled up and coiffed, with a flurry of label folks forming a tight, buzzingcloud around her. There were large blown-up pictures of her all over the room. I guessedwe were supposed to ooh and ahh in her presence. But I wasn’t interested in her. I was justthinking, Who is she, why should I be excited? To me she was just someone they weretoting around. Frankly9, I was unimpressed by the whole scene.
Brenda and I sat down at a table. We were trying to have a good time in the room fullof suits, but all I could think was that I could be at the studio working on songs orsomething. That was where I always wanted to be. We got up to go to the bathroom,making our way through the crowd to get to the staircase that led to where the restroomswere.
As we bounced up the stairs, I saw him.
He wasn’t anyone I would have normally noticed: not particularly tall or short, notstylish or tacky. I’m pretty sure he had on a suit. He would’ve been totally forgettable if itweren’t for his eyes. Our eyes locked, and an energy instantly rushed between us, like amild electric shock. He had a piercing stare.
He looked into me, not at me. I was a little shook—not in a bad way, but not in a loveat first sight way, either. I kept going up the stairs, this time at a slower pace, as I adjustedto what had just happened. When I closed the bathroom door, the odd sensation was stillpulsing through me. What had happened? I didn’t know who he was, but I recognized himsomehow. I knew it wasn’t from TV or anything like that. It wasn’t his face; it wassomething else. I recognized his energy, and I think he recognized mine.
Brenda was all excited. “Did you see how Tommy Mottola looked at you? I did!” shesaid, her eyes wide.
“Who’s Tommy Mottola?” I asked.
“Girl.” She looked at me quizzically, a sense of seriousness about her. “‘Who’sTommy Mottola?’!” She began to sing a familiar refrain: “Tommy Mottola lives on theroad?… You don’t know who that is; you don’t know that song?” I shook my head. Shesang a little bit more: “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh cherchez, cherchez—”
It hit me. “Oh! Yeah, I know that song!” I joined in: “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, cherchez,cherchez.” It was “Cherchez la Femme / Se Si Bon,” by Dr. Buzzard’s Original SavannahBand.
I let her know that I used to like that song when I was a little girl.
Brenda said, “That is the Tommy from that song. He’s one of the biggest record guys,ever.” Brenda and I headed over to the spot where they were all standing10.
I was standing by wondering, if he was such a big shot, what did he want with me?
The party was filled with prettier girls, with professional makeup and far better footwear.
Tommy said to Brenda, “Who’s your friend?”—the most intense three words I’d everheard.
Brenda directed her answer to Jerry. “She’s eighteen years old; her name is Mariah.
You gotta listen to this!” Just as she went to hand Jerry my demo tape, Tommy’s handswiftly cut her off mid-extension. He snatched the tape, got up, left the table, and left theparty. It was bizarre and bewildering. I was like, What kinda shit is that?
That was an important demo. It had some of my best songs—“All in Your Mind,”
“Someday,” and “Alone in Love.” Had this Tommy guy just taken all that work (andmoney!)? I wasn’t sitting there thinking, Yay, I just gave my demo to a big-time recordexecutive. I was focused more on the fact that I was out one more copy of my demo. Iknow this Tommy guy’s never going to listen to it, I thought.
The popular story goes that Tommy left the party to get in his limo, where he couldimmediately listen to the demo. I didn’t know what was the reason he left the party soabruptly. But after he did, I was ready to leave too. So I did.
Eventually Tommy came back looking for me, apparently11 not believing what he hadjust heard had come from that same girl on the stairs, the innocent-looking kid in Vans andslouchy socks. All those dressed-up girls in high heels were working so hard to get theattention of W, T, or G—and T came back looking for me.
Tommy was already the president of Sony Music, so getting my phone number wasnothing. He called me and left a message on my answering machine.
Josefin and I made performance art out of goofing12 around and doing silly voices onthat answering machine. I’d come in from the studio at five in the morning, and we’dmake these crazy messages. In the one Tommy heard, I was mimicking13 her Swedishaccent: “If this is the super, we need some help here! We have flies in our cats’ tails.
There’s no hot water”—followed by hysterical14 laughter. It was funny to us, but it was alsothe truth. The conditions in our apartment were pretty gross. We had sticky flypaperhanging from the ceiling and on the walls, which our cats would brush up against. Wereally didn’t have hot water either; it was a mess. But we were young, giddy girls, and wemade a joke out of our circumstances.
The first time Tommy called, he hung up. But he didn’t give up. He called back andthis time left a curt15 and serious- sounding message: “Tommy Mottola. CBS. SonyRecords.” He left a number. “Call me back.”
I couldn’t believe it. I immediately called Brenda, who confirmed that indeed,Tommy’s office had called her manager, and he wanted to sign me. This was the first ofwhat would be a strange and fantastical series of Cinderella stories in my life. But I wasnot swept off my feet, and trust and believe me, Tommy Mottola was no Prince Charming.
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收听单词发音
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brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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ensemble
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| n.合奏(唱)组；全套服装；整体，总效果 | |
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collaboration
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| n.合作，协作；勾结 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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goofing
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| v.弄糟( goof的现在分词 )；混；打发时间；出大错 | |
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mimicking
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| v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的现在分词 )；酷似 | |
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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