{"id":917,"date":"2013-03-11T12:17:40","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T16:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/?p=917"},"modified":"2013-03-11T12:18:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T16:18:33","slug":"cherchez-la-femme-tommy-mottola-and-dr-buzzards-original-savannah-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/2013\/03\/11\/cherchez-la-femme-tommy-mottola-and-dr-buzzards-original-savannah-band\/","title":{"rendered":"cherchez la femme: Tommy Mottola and Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tommy-Mottola-HItmaker\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m fairly immune to the musical charms of the many recording artists whose careers were launched into stratosphere by Tommy Mottola, “one of the most powerful, visionary, and successful executives in the history of the music industry.”\u00a0 Mariah Carey, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, New Kids on the Block, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez…\u00a0 Well, let me take that back: my immunity to the hits and deep tracks of Hall & Oates grows weaker year by year.\u00a0 In any case, Mottola has an autobiography out, Hitmaker: The Man and His Music<\/i>.\u00a0 It’s no one’s idea of a gripping read, with a lack of literary flair extending to the tired book-cover design (most famously associated with Frederic Dannen’s 1980 book, Hit <\/i>Men<\/em>), but it effectively documents his central position at the helm of Sony Music through the last heyday of the music industry, before the MP3 liquidated the industry’s business model.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"HitMen\"<\/a>

Notice the resemblance of book covers?<\/p><\/div>\n

Give this to Mottola: he’s got a ‘pair of ears,’ as they say in the business \u2014 a real sense of what makes a hit.\u00a0 Among the first-person testimonials scattered throughout the book that give Hitmaker<\/i> a much-needed sense of perspective, Daryl Hall has this to say:”When it comes down to art versus commerce, Tommy will invariably come out on the side of commerce” (pg. 104).\u00a0 (This testimonial is surely ambivalent, given the 3-year deep-freeze that Mottola, then Hall & Oates’ manager, put on Hall’s now roundly-appreciated 1980 solo album Sacred Songs<\/i><\/a>, a collaboration with Robert Fripp.)<\/p>\n

Furthermore, there’s an urban basis to Mottola’s ‘ears’.\u00a0 An Italian-American from the Bronx, he was steeped in the in-your-face culture and interethnic cultural stew of New York City.\u00a0 His first wife was a nice Jewish girl whose father was a legendary “record man” himself, the founder of ABC-Paramount Records.\u00a0 As Hitmaker<\/i> quotes veteran music writer Dave Marsh:<\/p>\n

To succeed in the record business, you have to understand the subtleties of race relations in America.\u00a0 For instance, Tommy knew how to position Mariah on the edge of three racial groups: black, white, and Latin.\u00a0 That was Tommy’s skill (pg. 253).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These ideas provide some context for the story I opened up Hitmaker<\/i> to read about: how Tommy Mottola, then a hustling 25-year-old song plugger for Chappell Music, was immortalized in one of the most enchanting songs of the disco era, “Cherchez La Femme” by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.<\/p>\n

\"dr_buzzards_original_savannah_band-sunshower\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was more than a band, it was a carnival, almost a dozen kids from the streets of the Bronx who had grown up taking in the sounds of their neighborhoods.\u00a0 They blended Latin, black, and pop into the most unique music and visuals I’d ever come across.\u00a0 The music was only half of it.\u00a0 Watching the Savannah Band was like watching one of those Busby Berkeley movies from the thirties.<\/p>\n

The group’s costumes were not costumes.\u00a0 Their costumes were their street clothes.\u00a0 One of the leads, August Darnell Browder, wore zoot suits every minute of every hour of every day.\u00a0 He probably slept in his zoot suit.\u00a0 Other guys in the band wore baggy pants and old newsboy caps.\u00a0 The lead singer, Cory Daye, wore antique dresses from the forties and fifties.\u00a0 They all took on their own personas and lived them.\u00a0 They were 100 percent the genine article.\u00a0 If these kinds would’ve had their feet on the ground and not gotten drunk on their first sip of sccess, they could’ve become one of the biggest acts in the world.\u00a0 Not only that, they’d still be here today! (pp. 107-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fresh off his breakthrough success discovering and managing Hall and Oates, Mottola sniffed another winner in the Savannah Band.\u00a0 Led by Stony Browder, the group’s commitment to a unified sound and look had already baffled a handful of prospective labels, but Bronx native Mottola grasped their concept right away. \u00a0He persuaded the Savannah to take him on as manager, got them signed to RCA Records, and shuffled them into the studio, where producer Sandy Linzer perfectly captured their big band jazz-meets-Latin disco fusion.\u00a0 In turn, August Darnell looked behind Mottola’s workaholic bluster to see the pathos of a man whose marriage had slipped away, turning out the melancholy lyric for the Savannah Band’s 1976 dance-your-blues-away single, “Cherchez la Femme.”<\/p>\n

Tommy Mottola lives on the road
\nHe lost his lady two months ago
\nMaybe he’ll find her, maybe he won’t
\nOh, no, never, no, no
\nHe sleeps in the back of his big gray Cadillac
\nOh, my honey
\nBlowing his mind on cheap grass and wine
\nOh, ain’t it crazy baby, yeah
\nGuess you can say, hey, hey,
\nThat this man has learned his lesson,
\nOh, oh, hey, hey
\nNow he’s alone, he’s got no woman and no home
\nFor misery, oh-ho, cherchez la femme<\/i><\/p>\n