Here's a bit of writing, editing and adaptation for Lena Z

Perisphere · Here's a bit of writing, editing and adaptation for Lena Z

Here's a bit of writing, editing and adaptation for a Lena Zavaroni tribute site. Recently I read a book on the history of Stax Records, the company who gave the world music by such soul legends as Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding and Sam and Dave....and licensed Lena Zavaroni's first album and two singles for the US market. I decided to adapt an excerpt of the book detailing what was going on at Stax, and what happened with Lena's US records, for the interactive tribute site www.lenazavaroni.net, to explain this to her fans.

LENA ZAVARONI ON STAX RECORDS, OR, GOING NOWHERE, AMERICAN STYLE

Written and adapted by Jay Pemberton, with excerpts from the book SOULSVILLE, USA: THE STORY OF STAX RECORDS by Rob Bowman.

It often comes as a surprise to record collectors and soul music fans in the United Kingdom and elsewhere outside the United States that Lena Zavaroni was, in the United States, on the same label that had brought the world such musical greats as Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Booker T and the MGs. Stax Records had enjoyed much success through most of the 1960s, but by the early 1970s several changes in label ownership and distribution channels (by 1974 it was distributed by CBS), along with rapidly changing musical tastes, had left the label with a considerable amount of financial difficulty.

Not that the Memphis-based label was resting on its laurels. On the contrary, they had grown quite ambitious as to the breadth of new artistes they signed, trying their hands at gospel, jazz and country music, among others. Unfortunately, most of these efforts came to precious little.

Into this bleak situation came a deal with Lena's managers, Phil and Dorothy Solomon, for the North American rights to her records. Here's how Rob Bowman, in his excellent book SOULSVILLE, USA: THE STORY OF STAX RECORDS, details what happened, and what went wrong.

"Ten-year-old Scottish singer Lena Zavaroni . . . was a pop sensation in the United Kingdom who had originally come to the public's attention through a TV talent show called "Opportunity Knocks." She was also a regular feature on the UK's "Junior Showtime" television program. Astonishingly mature for her age, and with a set of pipes to die for, Zavaroni possessed across-the-board appeal, selling equally well to teens and grandmas. When Stax inked its deal for Zavaroni, according to the company's publicity the young artist had already sold over one million albums in Europe. The repertoire included on her MA! HE'S MAKING EYES AT ME album reflected Zavaroni's diversity. The title cut, a top 10 smash in the UK, was originally a music-hall ditty dating back to 1921.

"John Burton [executive assistant to then-label president Al Bell--ed.] was the official at Stax who was most excited by Zavaroni, and it was he who flew over to the United Kingdom to outbid a number of United States record companies including Capitol, RCA, and (ironically) CBS for the North American rights to the album. From the Stax perspective, this was a coup and a major step in the company's ongoing program to diversify and expand the label's activities. Al Bell was also excited because Philip Solomon, who managed Zavaroni, was also in a position to license to Stax the soundtrack for THE WARRIOR from a South African stage production called IPI'N TOMBIA. "I saw the opportunity," relates Bell excitedly, "to get into South Africa."

"Released in September 1974, IPI'N TOMBIA's marketing was part of Al Bell's larger pan-African agenda. His long-range vision included aggressively marketing Stax product in Africa while promoting and selling African recordings in the States. If Stax had survived to enjoy the world-music phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s, Bell would have been hailed as a genius. In 1974, IPI'N TOMBIA sold just under five thousand copies. [One of the songs from this production was "Mama Tembu's Wedding", which was later recorded by Lena, and included in her album PRESENTING LENA ZAVARONI. --Ed.]

"As things stood in 1974, the Zavaroni deal looked quite foolish. Despite making her debut American appearances on the Johnny Carson and Mike Douglas shows, substantial promotion on the part of Stax, and the shipping of some 670,000 copies of the album on the first day*, Zavaroni didn't translate well for American audiences. Her "Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me" 45 struggled its way to the 91st slot on the BILLBOARD pop charts. The album was a total stiff, stalling at just under 115,000 units. Part of the problem, according to those at Stax, was that CBS was not getting Zavaroni or any Stax product into the marketplace.

"[Stax promotion head] Bill Williams, for one, was particularly frustrated. He felt that CBS was deliberately ordering large numbers of Stax product and then simply warehousing the material. "I had that feeling," says Williams, still evincing anger, "[but] I couldn't prove it. People would write me from areas like Utah and up in the Dakotas wanting to know why they couldn't get her record, which was already released. To me it looked like there was some kind of deliberate attempt to keep the product out of the stores. . . . Why [couldn't] these people buy our record? It just doesn't make sense. It appeared to me, from a personal standpoint, that they were trying to suppress Lena in terms of getting her out there.

"I saw some little things that gave me the idea that they weren't really, really stretching out in our best interests. To nail it on the head remains a little bit impossible because if they were doing it, they set it up that way so that you were not able to really know. It's hard to prove but I saw some things that just didn't look kosher to me.

"It was very frustrating because you know you have artists here with great sales potential, with great talent, and you know that they can sell records and you're sitting in that office and wondering, 'Why? Why aren't the records moving? What's going on out there? You know they're getting played so what's wrong, what is wrong?' It would drive me up the wall.""

*: In the May 15, 1974 issue of BILLBOARD, Stax took out a brilliant, full-page ad for the Zavaroni album. Headlined "She went 9 years without a hit record," the ad compared the Scottish thrush to Judy Garland and Bette Midler before closing with copy that read "Lena Zavaroni, the 10 year old with so much talent she probably could have been a star years ago."

BoB

Interesting Perisphere

Did she not make it in the USA then?

Perisphere

Short answer: no.

I only saw her on three programmes: first Mike Douglas, then Johnny Carson and Carol Burnett. She only appeared once on each of them.

From what I understand, she was also on a couple of others, one the Sonny And Cher Show, the other, a children's programme called Wonderama. Back in 1974, I lived in Tucker, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), and few were the telly stations. Wonderama wasn't syndicated in Atlanta, so I'd never heard of it, and the only way I can think of, as to how I didn't catch Lena on S&C, is, the station must have superceded it for a Billy Graham Crusade programme. They did that sometimes, which irked my parents and I, when there was something else other locales got to see on whatever network.

Lena later that year was on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, and we missed that as well. My parents didn't like it either, and didn't know she was going to appear....

AFAIK the last time Lena was in the US was in December 1975, when she sang at the White House at the request of President Ford. And to the best of my knowledge, that wasn't televised.

I think some of the trouble had to do with the repertoire she recorded; many Americans just didn't know how to take her.

As for Stax, they were in deep financial shite that just kept getting deeper....it was a big, complicated mess that ended in a forced shut-down in 1975. They couldn't afford to keep much of anything going. Quite sad.

Unfortunately, no other label in the US ever took a chance on Lena, so folk like me always wondered what happened to her (until the internet that is). Her first album, and two 45 singles, were the only recordings of hers ever available in the US, and then very briefly.

RockitRon

There is some similarity between Zavaroni and Susan Boyle, both suddently thrust into fame by talent shows and neither apparently able to cope with it.

I actually saw Ipi 'n Tombia in the 1970s. Not sure how authentic or PC it would be considered now but it was a damn fine show and musically first-rate. I still have the LP.