More on Lori Lieberman

Back in February, I published an interview with singer/songwriter Lori Lieberman which touched on ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ – a composition which Lori recorded prior to Roberta Flack. We also spoke about how the song came about and the fact that in recent years, the song’s composers, Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, had gone into print to attest that Lori had had no involvement in its creation. Now, the acclaimed writer, Sean Derek, has shared her recollections concerning the true origins of ‘Killing Me Softly…’

Sean Derek writes:
“For quite some time I’ve tried to ignore this controversy, given my admiration for both sides and my preference to remain anonymous. However, I just can’t sit silent any longer knowing the truth about how it really happened.

I had the privilege to work for Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel in the 70’s. I can’t say I knew Charlie well, but I did become good friends with Norman.

Back in those days, while I was working for Fox-Gimbel Productions, Norman and Charlie eagerly promoted the fact that Killing Me Softly was inspired by Lori and the poem she wrote after seeing Don McLean perform live. Aside from it being absolutely true, it was great press for their song. At the time, no one doubted or questioned it, because if you listen to the lyrics, it is clearly from a woman’s point of view.

All of us that were there, now wonder why Norman and Charlie would suddenly change the story. Sadly, the only answer any of us can come up with: They are afraid that Lori has a legal claim as co-author, which would mean finally having to share a piece of an extremely lucrative pie.

I know Lori Lieberman; she doesn’t worship the almighty dollar as so many of us do. She genuinely loves creating music and has always been very proud to be the inspiration for what has become a timeless classic. She should be proud, without her there would be no Killing Me Softly.

Very sincerely, a firsthand witness,

Sean Derek”

Emerging From Self-Inflicted Horror

Taking The Chair

Where There’s a Wheel…

If anyone would like to read an update about what the last two weeks have been like, here it is:

So here I am. Still adjusting to wheelchair life, having swallowed enough mephedrone to rouse a rhinoceros and then jump off a flyover. I try to confine my communications to email and text. The other methods – phone and face to face – well, I might say something regrettable. I have made impact with the ground but I have not yet landed. Right now, my body ricochets from the surfaces it encounters. It hasn’t made the final thud. Hear Our Prayer… Lord In Your Mercy… except I’m not a believer, so I’m not sure why these phrases from Mass wriggle and writhe with one another in my mind.

First, there’s the appointment with a local wheelchair service. “Our driver is outside in Kilburn Square”. Well good luck to him, but that’s not where I live. No, it most certainly isn’t where I live and neither is it an address I’ve ever muttered over the phone. Am I just an ungrateful sod? I’m trying to play along with the system as best I can. He or she will just have to wait. I wheel myself downstairs. Another call. The driver is in Kilburn Square. I thought we’d already been through this. I don’t live in Kilburn Square. I’m extremely grateful that the wheelchair service wants to help, but I don’t know how many different ways I have of explaining that they’re at the wrong address. I rush, I flail, I flap. It becomes apparent from our interactions that they see things very differently: it is not they who are at the wrong address – it’s me. Why, I ask the driver, can’t he come to my address, wrong though it is? Oh, he can’t and that’s that. He has a script and he mustn’t deviate from it. Help me, someone. Why am I so interminably dreadful at asking for help? I get the distinct feeling they want to help. They are kind and considerate in their manner. But they can only go to Kilburn Square.

My mind darts back to the day I started my first full-time job at IPC Media, which then had the more attractive name of IPC Magazines. It was 1995 and I’d found a way into journalism by taking a job that was part administrative, part editorial. I remember a ridiculously chippy man at a party commenting that I’d only got the job because ‘Daddy runs IPC’. Why didn’t I stick up for myself? My father worked in an entirely different profession and had no connections whatsoever to publishing or media companies. I hadn’t got the job unfairly. Why did I cower in front of those little bullies? We’ve all met them; the people who pull you down, who devastate you with a killer line, even though you’ve never harmed them or hurt them in any way. And I’m sure I’m not alone in having that version of Stockholm Syndrome which prompts you to collude passively with your bullies, to take sides with them. What on earth are they here for, sharing this journey with us, those strange, psychological assassins? There’s such a sadistic pointlessness to what they do. I think back to my teenage tormenters at The Hurlingham Club (a country-club in Fulham that aspirational people, people blood-hungry for status, wait ten years to join). I remember the first day that my mother and I joined the club with the entirely different motive of wanting to swim and have fun. It was 1979 and I held her hand as we walked through the gates and found piles of autumn leaves to jump in and throw around with our hands. We had no idea how unpleasant the other members were. I recall the Catherines, Claudias and Mimis, the Jonathans and Sebastians. I could never understand why they ridiculed me at teenage parties and seemed to have a sixth sense for locating my most vulnerable areas – my emerging sexuality and my nervousness. I have never met people so unencumbered by angst or self-reproach, so cushioned by their glib sub-urbanity. But I suppose that’s how bullying works; it exults in its own sheer needlessness and un-called-for-ness.

So, back to my first job; someone else had been working it on a provisional basis. The job was called Features Assistant. Sophie, I think her name was, had been doing it pending approval by the editor. Well, if looks could’ve killed when I came for interview and landed the job on a permanent basis. I’ve never felt so hated. The job had been promised to her, and how dare they take it away. She found a place on another title, so I kept bumping into her in the building. She used to dart me the most awful paint-stripping glances when she saw me in the canteen. I can only begin to imagine the joy my current predicament (broken back, unable to walk, mentally incapacitated) would bring her if she ever found out about it. She really seemed to think that I’d got the job as a deliberate and personal affront to her own ambitions.

Back to now; I have pressed the ‘fail’ button. I’ve put several fingers on it just to be sure. I’m so scared. In my former life, I never had to muster the courage to have a shower. It was just something I did without thinking about it. I didn’t have to plan it, as though something might go wrong. Now, I reach out for the things that comfort me and which don’t require form-filling or phone calls. I watch ropey 1970s horror films (Italian or English ones are the best) and black comedies, and I listen to my favourite songwriters. Thank God (if you believe in God; I mainly don’t) that life has brought me into contact with these amazing people. First and foremost, there’s Pamela, a friend who has been with me through every victory and disaster and never loved me less because of my flaws. Then there’s darling Harriet Schock and Andrea Ross-Greene, who believed in me despite my failings. I think of Essra Mohawk, a musical pioneer who’s made many brilliant albums and whose Primordial Lovers deserves much more attention than it gets. And Catherine Howe, an RCA recording artist who has become a real friend.

Songwriters and lovers of songwriters came to my aid when I was lying, incapable of motion, at St. Mary’s Paddington. Lori Lieberman wrote a song for me. To say that I was grateful and astonished would be an understatement. The incredibly good songwriter, Renee Armand, sent me messages that never failed to amuse and educate. And then came Christopher, a charming man from Seattle, whose words of encouragement combined flirtatiousness and wisdom in hitherto unheard of ways. I am so lucky. Nice, interesting people flow into my life. There’s Seth, Eryl, James, Arabella, Sally, Andrea, Tom, Sarah, Adam, Nicky, Niall, Janet, Michael, Huw…where do I stop? These lovely people never judge or castigate me. There are many more of them, and I mustn’t slight them by leaving them out, but I cannot mention them here or this update will read like a laundry list. And my parents are the two funniest, lovely-looking and intelligent people I’ve ever met, never failing to make me laugh or feel exuberant.

At last I begin to think of how lucky I am. No, I can’t walk properly. I can’t don suitable attire and go for a run. But there’s so much I can do. I can cook (or at least someone is going to help me try, next week). I can play the piano, despite the metal in my left wrist. A wheelchair-accessible gym is just one minute away. With help, I can wash myself. An amazing company called Sweet Tree sends saviours to me every day who help me work out what to do and how to move forward. There is so much I can do, that instead of being overwhelmed by it, I am going to start doing it.

Pamela Polland…and her Missing Album

I am searching for a lost album. I don’t mean ‘lost’ in the sense of being an undiscovered treasure (though it certainly is that), I mean it literally. The master tapes for Pamela Polland’s Have You Heard The One About The Gas Station Attendant? from 1973 have apparently vanished. Help me find them! Because they deserve finding. If ever there were an album jumping up and down and shouting, “I’m brilliant!”, it is this one. Its most plausible resting place is with Sony in America, but so far it hasn’t shown up even when searches have been requested. And the greatest pity is that this album begs to be found. Not only is it one of the best albums I’ve ever heard, but I’m in no doubt that others would like it too. It’s by afore-mentioned singer/songwriter Pamela Polland (musos will know who Pamela is, the rest will catch on in time) and was recorded for Columbia Records in the early 1970s. It features an all-star studio cast, including Elton John’s band and producer, as well as backing vocals from Joan Armatrading and an appearance by Taj Mahal. Pamela’s songwriting throughout is visionary and expansive. It has to be heard to be believed.

Artwork for Pamela Polland’s second album
Photo: Michael Ross

Let’s go back a bit. Let me introduce you to Pamela, in case you don’t know who she is. Pamela is one of my dearest friends. Since 1998, she has been with me through every pratfall and resurgence. There is nothing about my life I don’t disclose to her and, possibly, vice versa. Rarely have I met someone who exudes such magic and whose personality is so much like a fresh, dripping slice of sunshine. It’s a friendship that I do my best to cherish. Pamela and I became pals simply because I found her 1972 album in a Notting Hill record shop many years ago, and dropped her a line to say that I liked it. Bit by bit our correspondence became more personal until we’d established a certifiable friendship that only grows. As I said, Pamela knows everything about me; the drugs, the prostitution, the hard times, the good times, the desperation. There is nothing I don’t tell her.

Pamela’s place in music history cannot be overstated. She’s a genuine Los Angelina. Her career began with early live performances with Ry Cooder when she was in her teens and blossomed to the extent that a few years later, she made her first album as part of the duo Gentle Soul (Epic Records). Pamela went on to join Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour and then forged an intermittent solo career. There is almost no one she hasn’t worked with and she is held dear by all those fortunate enough to cross her path. And we are fortunate. I cannot imagine a life without Pamela. In 2003, I had the pleasure of sitting at my upright piano and singing directly to her one of the songs from her first solo album in the intimate setting of my living room.

So, back to the lost masterpiece…following the release of her first album for Columbia Records, Pamela found herself in an enviable position for a recording artist. Clive Davis (a name now forever associated with Whitney Houston) told her to come up with a list of her favourite producers. The first album, on which Pamela accompanied herself on piano and guitar, had been a solid effort, but with sales of around 25,000, it had not been enough of a success to make her a name in the living rooms of America. This time, things would be different. Pamela was ready to make a statement as profound and personal as Laura Nyro’s New York Tendaberry or Joni Mitchell’s Blue.

“Paul Simon was top of my list. He told Clive he’d love to produce me but he also said he took at least a year to produce an album and he wasn’t immediately available. Clive didn’t want to wait. Norbert Putman was on my list, but Gus Dudgeon was higher up and when he said, ‘yes’, we were thrilled.” Pamela chose Dudgeon because of his work with Elton John and Joan Armatrading. “He showed an amazing breadth of style and creativity”.

Pamela was swiftly dispatched to London, recording at Trident Studios in Soho while living in Covent Garden. As a native Londoner, I’m fascinated by the way areas change. Today, Covent Garden is a garish extension of Leicester Square and most of the people who live there are not native central Londoners or creatives. I avoid it at every opportunity. In all likelihood its residents are a mix of money-loving people from the counties trying to be urbane and obscenely wealthy Europeans, working in oil or banking. Pamela – a transplant from Los Angeles – is more a Londoner than they’ll ever be. Back then, the area was still real. “It was the ‘vegetable’ district,” says Pamela. “Lorries came through every morning at around 5.30 a.m. Lots of artists lived there because it was cheap and centrally located. I never had to go far to get anywhere I might have wanted to go. My memories of it are very happy ones. I had a boyfriend, I loved Indian food which was inexpensive and plentiful, I was working on my music all the time…it was an artist’s dream come true”.

Pamela and her producer Gus Dudgron
Photo: Michel Ross

Recording her second solo album was an experience of unadulterated joy for Pamela. “Gus was wonderful. So funny, intelligent, generous and a true lover of music. He had a great sense of humour and an amazing ability to inspire.” And, as a consequence of sharing the same producer, Pamela met Elton John and found him to be a charming and kind figure totally removed from the frowning, petulant curmudgeon constantly lampooned by the tabloids. “I got to go to his house a couple of times. He was incredibly gracious and ‘real’. He was actually very kind to me for a few years after I left London, letting me in backstage when heʻd play the Bay Area arenas. One of my fave memories of Elton is when he gave Gus a Rolls Royce for Gusʻs birthday. How many people would be so generous?”.

But what we haven’t touched on yet is how it was Pamela’s songwriting that elevated the album to an inspired level. Something had given her a shot in the arm and Have You Heard The One About The Gas Station Attendant? was an incredible step forward. Whereas the previous year’s eponymous album was lovely – a sort of Carole King/Laura Nyro-ish confection – this new album was pure Pamela. No longer did she sound like anyone else. No more a follower; now she was all leader. It begins with ‘The Refuge’ – an uptempo pop song about Mexico, with wonderful backing vocals. Things only get better from this point. From the intimate reflection of ‘You Stand By Me’ to the exquisitely cosmic closer, ‘The Clearing’, in which Pamela finds herself at the fount of all wisdom and in possession of the meaning of life, there is not a single misstep.

Pamela is not modest about the album. And why should she be? “Those recordings, which are now 40 years old, still hold up today as beautifully well-produced songs. At the time, I felt I was in the hands of a true master and, to this day, I’m proud of the work we created.”

She remains in awe of the skilled musicians who accompanied her. “Good natured blokes,” she says, “professional, skilled, talented. The one we used the most was Ray Cooper, Eltonʻs brilliant percussionist. He would literally invent instruments, like the water gong he used on The Clearing. We all used to sit in the booth and gawk at his brilliance”.

Pamela relaxes in Hyde Park in between recording sessions
Photo: Michael Ross

Arrangements for the album were by Paul Buckmaster. Pretty much any time you see an album with his name on, you know you’re going to hear beautiful orchestral work. And then, on Wild Roses, comes a choir of Joan Armatradings. “Joan was a quiet women, hard to get close to, but fun to sing with. It was like we were from two different planets, but it was an honour to have her appear as a cameo artist on my album. Iʻve always admired her unrelenting uniqueness”.

Then the problems began. After a bit more recording was undertaken in America, then a bit more in London, the album was complete. “Three songs had extra recording work done in America. Gus had always wanted to work with renowned session players Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel. I was also able to bring Taj Mahal in for a track since we were friends. We worked at Columbia studios there for a couple of weeks. After delivering the masters to CBS in New York, we started working on the album art. I was told it would take about a month, but three months later it was still on the production line. We had all the elements. Gorgeous photographs, graphic art, lyrics, credits – everything was laid out and ready to be produced. Clive was hesitating because he didnʻt think I had a “single”. He wanted me to go back and record one more song, but thatʻs when CBS fired him.

“The whole company went into a complete state of chaos. The things Clive was accused of were activities that all record company execs participated in. No one felt safe, and all unreleased productions came to a screeching halt. It was an awful time. The twelve vice presidents at Columbia were all trying to figure out if they were going to be next in line to be promoted or fired. Everyone was so paranoid, not just at Columbia, but at all the labels. It was a huge game changer for the industry. No one at Columbia wanted to stand up for me, because I had been so closely associated with Clive. So they took my album off the release line and simply waited for my contract to run out, and then they didnʻt renew my contract. It was quite a let down after the happy year I had spent in London.”

The masters are supposed to be in New York or LA. When Sony Japan started to reissue Pamela’s work a few years ago, they launched an investigation and were told that the album could not be located. Pamela’s bold and naturally uplifted spirit has helped her come to terms with the loss. By the mid-seventies, she had reinvented herself as Melba Rounds, a bawdy madam with a knack for sexy, between-song banter and a fondness for performing jazz and blues. But getting over the unreleased album was not easy or overnight. “It was a slow process. At first, I just assumed the album would be released once Columbia got back on its feet after Clive’s demise. I waited around for almost a year before they dumped me. When they didn’t renew my contract, my manager and I just assumed weʻd get another label to pick it up. That was a common occurrence in those days. Label hopping. My manager shopped me and that album for three years. We started with the big labels and slowly worked our way down to the dinkiest of labels. But no one would touch me after Iʻd a) been dumped by Columbia and b) been so closely associated with Clive. It was as if I’d been black listed. It never occurred to us in a million years that I wouldn’t be picked up by another label or that my album would never be released. After three years of knocking on every door in the business and being turned away, my manager resigned from exhaustion, and I was left without representation. Always resilient, I simply kept singing and writing and performing, but the loss, shock and disappointment came upon me like a slow boil. In a way, I still canʻt believe it forty years later”.

The later chapters of Pamela’s career are indeed testament to her resilience. Her fictitious character, Melba, went down incredibly well in San Francisco in the seventies. Then she explored teaching – both songwriting instruction and vocal coaching. When opportunity allowed, she made further albums, the latest of which is Hawaiianized – a covers album on which famous hits are rearranged with ukelele-based accompaniment. Lest anyone fear, Pamela is no gimmicky dilettante. She’s been studying Hawaiian culture and music since she first moved to Maui in the 1990s.

Pamela will always cherish her memories of working at Trident. It’s no longer in existence, but its reputation is legendary. David Bowie, Tony Visconti and Marc Bolan, among many others, found their feet at the studio. Pamela explains, “Trident was a state-of-the-art studio at the time. Because we were working analog, mixing was challenging and sometimes weʻd be in there for 15-24 hours at a crack, working non-stop to get a mix right. In those days, you couldn’t save your work and come back the next day and pick up where you left off. You had to get it right in or start over from scratch, so it was the standard to just stay with a mix until you were happy with it no matter how long that took.”

She laughs to recall some of the old recording methods. “One of the engineers at Trident, I think his name was David Briggs, was a Moog specialist and created some great patterns for The Clearing. In this day and age, you just punch up Garage Band, or any number of
professional sequencers, and you have thousands of loops, patterns and sounds to create from and with. David worked for hours and hours dialling in one sequencible pattern on the Moog. My, how times have changed!”.

Pamela Polland’s Have You Heard The One About The Gas Station Attendant? should be right up there. Every time a documentary heralding brilliant 1970s singer/songwriter albums is aired, it is missing and unmentioned. I am in the lucky group of friends and fans who have heard it. “I worked with my dream producer and arranger in a dream studio for a year. I was very happy with the arrangements and production values and my own performances. I felt that Gus really did pull the best out of me that I could give at that phase of my life. There are no words to describe how disappointing it was to never be able to share the work we did with the rest of the world”.

If you go onto iTunes or any other digital retailer, you can find Pamela’s first album, which was simply entitled Pamela Polland. It is excellent but it is not the masterpiece. Get it anyway. And dip into further Pamela albums, such as Heart of the World and Hawaiianized. For the missing album, the work that makes Pamela every bit the equal of Laura Nyro, Bob Dylan, Janis Ian and Joni Mitchell (seriously, why aren’t we hearing from contemporary versions of these stars? Where are they?), you need to make contact with Pamela.

“I have, in my possession, a half track tape of the final mixes. I had it transferred to DAT about 15 years ago, because I knew the tape would deteriorate. My lawyer tells me that if Sony canʻt produce the masters, they wouldn’t be able to take me to court if I decided to release the album, but at this point, Iʻm not sure who would care. Itʻs hard to get anyone to purchase new music these days, so Iʻm not sure who would want to buy an album thatʻs forty years old. I have the music available for listening on my website. Itʻs slightly “hidden”, but anyone who really wanted to hear the project could find it with a little searching around my site.” With typical charm, Pamela ends our conversation by saying, “Thank you for the opportunity to tell this strange tale.” I can’t help thinking it should be the other way around. It is Pamela, through her mystical and earthy songwriting, who has told my tale. That’s how I feel when I listen to her music. Pamela sent me a CD of her lost album in 1998 and now I can’t get any of its songs out of my head. They need to be heard. And now. I did some investigating of my own. I contacted the Gus Dudgeon estate. Nothing turned up. I contacted Sony/BMG UK. The people were very pleasant but could not help. The next step for me is to contact Sony/BMG USA. We’ll see. I’m just glad to have written about the album. To me and others fortunate enough to be in our band, Pamela is one of life’s stars. From the maximum kilowatt eyes to the lovely singing voice that needs no pitch-correcting software, she is everything a singer/songwriter should be.

Wheel Life

This is wheel life (but I wish it were a dream).

‘Bad’ and ‘Good’ Paraplegia

In all the years I was a staff writer, I never wrote about myself. Now I discover you have to brace yourself for a bit of online heckling with a side helping of ill will. Messages include, “wanker!”, “dickhead!”, “ass!”, and “asshole!” (the latter two from the same person). I’ve also had messages intimating that I should have been left to die.

Then there’s an interesting strand of comment that seeks to separate ‘good’ accident victims from ‘bad’ ones. The former are people who fell off ladders while inoculating the sick and needy in war-torn countries, the latter are people like me. I’m reminded of those who separate ‘good’ AIDS sufferers (children and people who acquired it through heterosexual activities) from ‘bad’ (anyone gay or using IV drugs). I remember when Chris Morris satirised this concept on Brass Eye. And having witnessed the demise of someone in the latter category, I struggle not to feel contempt for the people who make these distinctions.

Overall, I don’t feel deterred. I was a bit taken aback about it yesterday, partly because I was worried that all the negative assessments of my character were bang-on accurate. Now I think, oh well, never mind. I’ve got friends, family, somewhere to stay, scope for getting better both physically and mentally, some degree of a sense of humour. I am grateful and fortunate.

A Mephedrone Horror Story

Meow Meow – Mephedrone is a Nasty Little Cat

Killing her Softly – the Trials and Triumphs of Lori Lieberman

While Roberta Flack collected three Grammys in 1973 for ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ (Record of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, and Song of the Year), a pretty, blonde Californian twenty-one-year-old was also in attendance, watching the ceremony unfold with decidedly mixed feelings. At one point, Flack waved across the room at the slender, slightly forlorn figure of the young girl, who did her very best to look cheerful and pleased for Flack’s success. Today, look at the composer credits for the enduring hit, and you’ll see the names Gimbel and Fox. But the song wouldn’t exist without the input of singer/songwriter Lori Lieberman, who not only provided its genesis, but also recorded it first, in 1972, on her debut album for Capitol Records.

Photo: Joseph Cali

Lieberman, who is about to return to England for her first performances since an early-seventies appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test, has had a long-lasting, bittersweet relationship with the song that slipped out of her grasp and became the career-defining hit for another performer. After a childhood split between Los Angeles and Geneva, she was signed to Capitol at the age of 19. “A girlfriend and I had been writing songs, and I performed in small clubs and at political rallies, while working for George McGovern’s campaign offices,” says the 61-year-old, who still radiates an unaffected, youthful girlishness, despite having swapped her long, golden mane for a neat bob. “One day, I came home to find a message from Norman Gimbel who had got my number from a mutual friend.” Gimbel was, at this point, already a name, having written the lyrics to ‘Girl From Ipanema’. “We met and he introduced me to his partner, Charles Fox. They were looking for a singer they could write for, manage, produce and publish, and they signed me.” A four-song demo led to the deal with Capitol.

Over the course of four albums, Gimbel and Fox wrote scores of songs from the narrative viewpoint of a young woman. For most of the material, lyricist Gimbel used Lieberman’s diaries, poems and recollections, writing material about growing up in Switzerland, overcoming adolescent alienation, first loves and youthful break-ups. The songs were invariably pretty fusions of folk, pop and jazz; orchestrated ballads with long melodic lines that suited Lieberman’s expressive, semi-classical approach to singing. She shared the qualities of Judy Collins’s voice, but with a more pronounced sensuality and a unique ability to convey yearning and sorrow. From the very first album in 1972, Lieberman felt overawed by her circumstances. “I was a very shy and protected young girl from Switzerland. Being part of the machinery was both exciting and daunting. My family was in the throes of divorce and chaos and suddenly I was a product. There were amazing opportunities – billboards, articles, press parties, schedules – but also a feeling of being swept along, viewed and categorised as ‘long haired singer with guitar’.

During the making of her first album, Lieberman attended a Don McLean concert at the Troubadour. “When he sang ‘Empty Chairs’, I felt exposed – as though he were singing about me and my life. It felt as though he was singing straight to me.” Unknowingly, Lieberman was about to create music history. “As the audience filtered out of the club, I wrote a poem on a napkin. Later that evening, I called Norman Gimbel, who’d come up with the title ‘Killing Me Softly With His Blues’, taken from a book. I told him about the experience I’d had. I read the poem to him and over the next few days he asked me where I’d been sitting, what I’d been feeling. The lyric was born. Together, we went to Charles Fox’s home and worked on the song. At one point, we toyed with the idea of inserting another song in the middle, sort of like ‘MacArthur Park’. I lobbied to take it out, the melody was altered to suit my range, and the song was complete”. But not before ‘with his blues’ had been supplanted by the elegant and more universal, ‘with his song’.

The album came out to positive notices, the machinery stepped up several gears, and the single started to make a dent in radio. But the prominence of Lieberman’s debut single was to be its undoing. It caught the ear of Roberta Flack when it was featured as in-flight entertainment, and she swiftly recorded her own version. With a more lavish pop arrangement and robust production by Joel Dorn, Flack’s version placed far more emphasis on the chorus, opening with it and then repeating it to an eventual ad-libbed fade out. The improvisational-sounding ‘La-la-la-las’, so memorable in Flack’s recording, had not been part of Lieberman’s understated, gentle interpretation. Lieberman recalls the first time she heard the rival disc. “I felt completely disconnected from it. In fact, I had such a lousy idea of what would or wouldn’t sell that I thought it would come and go. Today, I can hear the wonderfulness of her recording but at the time I thought it had lost some of its honesty and purity. Now I hear her inventiveness – she really expanded it in a way I would never have thought of. But it bugged me that some of the lyrics were changed.” Lieberman says that success of the song, in its Flack incarnation, did cause her some sadness but that this was something she only admitted to herself, twenty years later, on a therapist’s couch.

Lieberman made two more albums for Capitol, Becoming (1973) and A Piece Of Time (1974) both of them helmed by Gimbel, by now her boyfriend, and Fox. “One day, the head of A&R, Al Khoury, pulled the three of us aside and told us very candidly that he believed in me as a singer, and would pay to have any other producer come on board. While Fox-Gimbel and I could continue to write the songs, the production wasn’t to his satisfaction. I felt so loyal to Gimbel and Fox. I quickly answered, ‘No, we’re together on this, and thank you very much but we’ll stay the way we are’.” Lieberman adds ruefully, “It was perhaps the defining moment of my career and it cost me the Capitol deal.”

Lieberman’s fourth album, Straw Colored Girl, appeared on EMI and was only significantly distributed in the Netherlands, where she’d built a following. It was the final Gimbel-Fox production before matters deteriorated. Her romantic relationship with Norman Gimbel came to a bad end and Lieberman fled her contract. Shortly thereafter she was sued by Gimbel and Fox for leaving the agreement prematurely. The years that followed were not happy ones. “No record company would touch me with legal troubles at my heels”.

In 1978, she got another shot at the big time, with an album almost entirely self-composed and loosely conceptual. On Letting Go, which appeared on Millennium (a division of the disco powerhouse, Casablanca), almost every song was an unflinching, romantic post-mortem. Rarely has a breaking heart been so painstakingly documented. Lieberman had found her own voice. “It was the first time I was looked at as a writer. Jimmy Ienner, the head of Millennium, believed in me. He said, ‘You can do this, you can write your own songs and say what you need to say’. It was liberating, moving and pivotal in my life. He provided me with a springboard and once I began to write…well, I’ve never stopped’.

The times, however, were not in sync with her. “The music business was changing from singer-songwriter to disco. Donna Summer gave way to Quarterflash and Mr. Mister and my musical identity was truly tested. One awful meeting led to another until the day I walked into a publisher’s office,” says Lieberman, recalling the moment she called it quits. “I had never met him before and he was on the phone when I walked in. He put his hand up as if to say ‘hold on’, and then kept talking about his dinner plans. I looked at my watch and gave him five minutes. Then I got up, with him still on the phone, and walked out and got in my car. I remember thinking, ‘I’m done’. And I was.” With a mischievous laugh, she adds, “The same publisher is now a realtor and has friend-requested me on Facebook. Ha! I think I’ll keep him waiting before I confirm or ignore!”

Lieberman dabbled in television work, penning songs for the spin-off TV series Fame in the early 1980s, before retreating to her personal life in Malibu. “I was married and lucky enough to begin a new chapter – raising three children, tending to horses and dogs. For the first time, my life had true value”.

According to some accounts, Lieberman’s first career in music had left such a nasty taste in her mouth that, for a time, she couldn’t face attending concerts. But a chance encounter with a neighbour was to change all that. In the early nineties, Joseph Cali – who had played Joey in Saturday Night Fever – met Lieberman and remembered who she’d once been. He coaxed her out of anonymity and in 1995 her first album in 17 years, A Thousand Dreams came out on the independent Pope label. It featured a new recording of ‘Killing Me Softly…’ and, in an extraordinary echo of the past, one year later The Fugees had an enormous hit with their bracing reinterpretation, while Lieberman’s slipped under the radar, embraced only by her cult following. Nevertheless, success of a kind ensued. A Thousand Dreams and its follow-up were recorded live and marketed to the audiophile community. Lieberman found herself shifting a healthy 20,000 copies per album and being hailed as a ‘sales champ’ by Gene Pope, the label’s founder. Joseph Cali became Lieberman’s third husband and when the Pope label folded, he helped her to release further albums on her own label, Drive On Records.

By 2009, thanks to her enduring reputation in the Netherlands, she became a major label artist for the first time since 1975. Takes Courage (2010) and Bend Like Steel (2011) came out in Europe on the V2 Benelux label, part of Universal. Her forthcoming album, Bricks Against The Glass will be released by Drive On Records in America and on Universal in Europe. Lieberman explains, “I had toured in the Netherlands a fair amount during my Capitol days, and had a lovely fan base. But I thought I’d been long forgotten. When I began to record again, they came out of the woodwork to find me. It was incredible – I’d see them at concerts, communicate with them…they were still there for me, cheering me on”. She is visibly moved at the memory.

But as her profile has grown, with the funding and support of a major, the past has come back to bite Lieberman. Two years ago, rumours began to spread online, indicating that Lieberman had had no involvement in the creation of ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’. It turned out that they were being circulated by Gimbel and Fox, and they rapidly proliferated from site to site. The composers claimed that they had written the song with no input from Lieberman and that her contribution went no further than singing. “It was very painful,” she says. “I have never claimed to have written the song, but they were now saying that my involvement in it was just an urban myth”.

At first, Lieberman struggled as Gimbel and Fox continued to erase her from the song’s backstory. But then, articles and interviews from the archives came to her rescue. In one feature, which appeared in The Daily News on April 5, 1973, Norman Gimbel was quoted as saying, “She [Lori Lieberman] told us about this strong experience she had listening to McLean…I had a notion this might make a good song so the three of us discussed it. We talked it over several times, just as we did for the rest of the numbers we wrote for this album and we all felt it had possibilities”. And in recently recovered TV footage from the early seventies, a nineteen-year-old Lieberman talks about going to the club and writing the poem before relaying her experience to Gimbel (the composers were backstage in the green room at the time).

Despite the vindication, Lieberman spent some time reeling. “Forty years later, they decided to change the story. They say they wrote the song, played it for me, and I related to it. But anyone who was there – my dear friend and writer, Michele Willens, who took me to see Don McLean, Don himself, all the press, all the TV shows, and concerts – everyone can attest to it. It makes no sense”. Looking back, Lieberman can recall early warnings of this revisionism. “Gimbel said to me years ago that he didn’t know what it was about that Don McLean concert that had moved him so much – but he wasn’t even there!”

What hurts her the most is the lingering suggestion that she is dishonest as well as the attempt to airbrush her from the picture. “I did not ask for credit, for money. I even forgave them for the lawsuit and named my youngest son, William Charles, after Charles Fox. In a single act of kindness and validation, Don McLean introduced me from the stage last year when he invited me to his concert. He told the story of the song. And he sang ‘Empty Chairs’ to me once again. He invited me to appear in his documentary, American Troubadour, wherein I read my poem from long ago, and it meant the world to me”.

Attempting to put the episode to bed, Lieberman composed a song ‘Cup of Girl’ which appeared on her last album. Though the lyric is coded, it recalls her years at Capitol Records and portrays Gimbel as a shadowy, Svengali-esque figure, intent on exploiting and corrupting the young singer. Using the third person, Lieberman sings, “take her little shirt off…scrape away integrity, meddle with her sanity…rifle through her diary, write some words about her family…you broke this cup of girl, but greed just makes you fatter”.

“It was a difficult period in my life. My relationship with Gimbel was dramatic, consuming and out of control. I was physically fragile, constantly sick – now it makes perfect sense. I had very little sense of my own boundaries – or anyone else’s for that matter. I made some awful choices based on fear, intimidation, naivety, and inexperience. ‘Cup of Girl’ is the most revealing song I’ve ever written.”

Some of the anguish has been allayed by the unexpected momentum of her second recording career. “The truth is out there,” she says. “I don’t read what they [Gimbel/Fox] say anymore. I don’t pay attention to the darkness of whatever Gimbel feels he needs to say. It just doesn’t matter anymore. To me, it’s over. I take responsibility for my own choices. It’s all I can do, and my life is filled with great things”.

While she can relax about her forthcoming dates in the Netherlands, where she commands concert hall audiences, she is more nervous about her two UK dates, one in London, the other in Basingstoke. “I’m excited to return. I remember being on TV with Russ Ballard. It was hosted by Bob Harris. It will be cool to relate to an audience I haven’t seen in years.”

As the survivor of a contract that often left her feeling bewildered, overwhelmed and exploited, Lieberman has advice for anyone setting out on a similar path. “I’m a living cautionary tale! I would advise a good lawyer, a strong belief in oneself (good luck with that). Listen to your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, examine it and don’t say ‘yes’ too quickly. Don’t sign on a dotted line without guidance. Say, ‘Let me get back to you once I’ve thought about it’. Impulsive acts can be the pivotal moments of a lifetime”.

Lieberman is putting the finishing touches to her new album and taking stock of her unusual place in music history – not a household name, but well-respected and successful enough to keep going. “Here I am, forty years on, still able to sing and write. While I was recording, a photo of Joni Mitchell stared at me from my wall. I looked into that photo last night and thought, ‘Thank you, Joni, for helping me to find my way’. It’s such a blessed gift that there are people still listening”.

The title of the new album – Bricks Against The Glass – suggests riot, protest, civil unrest. But Lieberman reveals that hers are riots of an internal nature. “I’ve put all my pieces on a tray like a neatly fit puzzle, tossed them in the air and rearranged them. That’s what this album is all about”.

Many artists are persistently stalked by one element of their past. Carly Simon will always be asked about ‘You’re So Vain’. Carole King will continue to be followed around by the shadow of Tapestry, no matter the merits of her other albums. And Lieberman will always be pursued by ‘Killing Me Softly’. She has long since made peace with the song that encapsulates the successes and failures, the near misses and the triumphs that she has experienced. “I truly did not have any idea that the song would endure the way it has. There were actually other tracks on my first album that I liked more. Just shows you what I know! But today I love the song. And I have great compassion for the girl I was then and the woman I am today. It is the greatest gift in the world to have been part of ‘Killing Me Softly’, even with its challenges. It continues to test me and for that I’m most grateful”.

Lori Lieberman is performing on 28th February at The Green Note, London and on 1st March at The Forge, Basingstoke. Tickets available at www.lorilieberman.com

May 2013 Postscript:

The acclaimed writer, Sean Derek, has shared her recollections concerning the true origins of ‘Killing Me Softly…’

Sean Derek writes:
“For quite some time I’ve tried to ignore this controversy, given my admiration for both sides and my preference to remain anonymous. However, I just can’t sit silent any longer knowing the truth about how it really happened.

I had the privilege to work for Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel in the 70’s. I can’t say I knew Charlie well, but I did become good friends with Norman.

Back in those days, while I was working for Fox-Gimbel Productions, Norman and Charlie eagerly promoted the fact that Killing Me Softly was inspired by Lori and the poem she wrote after seeing Don McLean perform live. Aside from it being absolutely true, it was great press for their song. At the time, no one doubted or questioned it, because if you listen to the lyrics, it is clearly from a woman’s point of view.

All of us that were there, now wonder why Norman and Charlie would suddenly change the story. Sadly, the only answer any of us can come up with: They are afraid that Lori has a legal claim as co-author, which would mean finally having to share a piece of an extremely lucrative pie.

I know Lori Lieberman; she doesn’t worship the almighty dollar as so many of us do. She genuinely loves creating music and has always been very proud to be the inspiration for what has become a timeless classic. She should be proud, without her there would be no Killing Me Softly.

Very sincerely, a firsthand witness,

Sean Derek”

At The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital

The day I arrived here, I knew I was somewhere special. I remember Nurse Jackie (no, not that one) somehow sensing that I’d been through something gruelling at the previous hospital. She handled one of the most embarrassing aspects of my care with a kindness and sensitivity I will never forget.

So, here I am a few weeks on. I’m getting used to the strange feeling in my lower back where the titanium cage resides. I am happily tired from a day of swimming, gym and work on developing movement in my left wrist, which also houses some titanium. I try to walk but it hurts too much and so the wheelchair remains my primary mode of transport. Here, it feels normal. Everywhere I go there are nearly as many people on wheels as there are on foot (the latter mainly staff members).

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore has an extremely good reputation. The people who work here seem to be proud of that and very keen to uphold it. They succeed. Everyone is approachable. Not in my wildest dreams had I hoped to meet nurses, doctors, psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, urologists and case managers with such inexhaustible reserves of goodwill, talent and kindness.

There are times when I lock myself in a room for five minutes and cry. Remorse and sorrow at what I have done to myself become overwhelming and I gasp with renewed shock. The whoosh of air against my ears as I plummet 40 feet is a vivid memory that haunts me. For a few moments, I indulge myself in painful ‘what ifs’. What if, in the midst of the psychotic daze that nearly killed me, I’d turned left instead of right? I might never have found that drop. I certainly wasn’t looking for somewhere from which to jump. What if I’d remembered that dear friend whose house I was going to spend a few days at, coming back down to earth in a safe environment? Would that have worked out well, or would I have ended up simply endangering two people instead of one?

I like all the patients here, many of whom have greater physical and emotional challenges than mine. I have not had a single interaction with a nurse or healthcare assistant that wasn’t civil, temperate, good-natured and helpful. I remember on my second day here, Siobahn wrapping her arms around me while I wept. “We’re going to take such good care of you,” she said. That promise has been fulfilled in every possible way. I feel psychologically safe. Every night I draw the curtains to create the feeling of a bedroom. I change into a hospital gown and put on my toe-straightening devices. Strange, electrical feelings shoot up and down my feet, some of them painful. Occasionally, I video-call a friend. Then I lose myself in some piece of fiction whether televised or literary.

I may never run again (damn – just as I was getting a taste for it), but I am lucky that normal, fluid walking is not out of the question. I may have to be very patient. I think quite a lot about the friends I’m in touch with and the ones I’m not in touch with and try to be grateful for both. I almost ended my life. Now, no matter how my other goals, dreams and ambitions pan out (and of course, I’m deeply fearful that I’m innately flawed and that nothing will go the way I want it to!) – I do know that I will continue to have deep, authentic connections to other people.

Catheter Horror

There are certain models or brands of male catheter that I take one look at and think: no man could have invented that. This has to have been designed by someone who doesn’t have the relevant body part and will never have to use it. The cruelty may be unknowing and unintentional but it’s cruelty all the same.