By Sam Gnerre Staff Writer (Andy Holzman / Staff Photographer)
'Palisades
Park' singer Freddy Cannon has recently written a book. Here he is in his
Tarzana, CA home one April 18, 2012.
Freddy
Cannon's new autobiography, "Where the Action Is!" chronicles the fascinating
career of one of rock 'n' roll's most charismatic performers.
Born
Frederick Anthony Picariello Jr. in Lynn, Mass., on Dec. 4, 1939, Cannon broke
into stardom with his 1959 hit "Tallahassee Lassie."
He went on
to record a series of enthusiastic, high-energy rock 'n' roll hits, including
"Okefenokee," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," "Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy,"
"Palisades Park," "Abigail Beecher" and "Action," the hit theme to the 1960s
Dick Clark-produced music show "Where the Action Is."
Cannon lives in the same Tarzana house he moved into in 1963 when he signed with Warner Bros. Records, and has been married to his wife, Jeannette, for 56 years.
FREDDY CANNON ON DICK CLARK
Freddy Cannon on Wednesday's death of Dick Clark, who was influential in his career:
"Dick's death
came as a shock to me. He did so much for not just me, but for many other acts.
So many performers owe him a great debt of gratitude.
I'm just one of many he helped over the years. By putting me on `Bandstand' so
often, he was a great help to my career. The difference with me was, we
also became very close personal friends. Our families were close, we had
barbecues and did other things together. I just wish we could tell him in person
how much he meant to us and how much we love him, but maybe he knows that up in
heaven."
We spoke with him recently about his life and music.
So tell me about your co-writer on "Tallahassee Lassie."
Well, it was my mom. She wrote a poem and said I should put it to music. So I did. This was in 1958. I had a band at the time, and we went into a studio and paid $35 to record it on a four-track reel-to-reel machine. Swan Records released it in 1959, and it became a top 10 hit. To this day, it's my favorite of the songs I've recorded to perform.
You also hold the record for the most appearances on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand." (Clark died Wednesday, two days after this interview.)
Yes, Dick Clark always was very good to me. I appeared on "Bandstand" 110 times.
That's amazing! So where did the "Boom Boom" nickname come from?
It came from a rock 'n' roll DJ in Boston. They tried out all kinds of nicknames for me when they would play my songs on the radio. One day he called me "Boom Boom" because of the big sound we got on the records, and it stuck.
You toured with all kinds of acts. Who inspired you the most?
I was very good friends with, and admired a lot of great performers, Bo Diddley, the Drifters, the Coasters, the Shirelles. But without a doubt, Chuck Berry was my biggest influence. Chuck was the one who set the direction for me to go in. In his prime, he was unbelievable onstage. The audiences loved him. He was a great performer, and he wrote his own songs. In the quote on the back of my book he called me "A rock 'n' roll original," and no compliment I've ever received means more to me than that.
Tell me about the 1960 English tour with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.
I joined the tour for a couple of weeks, replacing a British act that had dropped off the tour. Gene Vincent was headlining, I opened and Eddie Cochran was in the middle. But it soon became clear that Eddie would
Several gold records hang in Freddy Cannon's Tarzana, CA home April 18, 2012. The musician has recently written a book about his life and music. (Andy Holzman / Staff Photographer)
end up headlining. He stole the show every night. The English kids were crazy for him. He became the headliner.
My dad was with me on this tour, and one day we were in the hotel getting ready to head for our next show. Eddie Cochran called my dad and said, "Is Freddy ready? We're gonna grab a cab for the airport." My dad told him we were still packing up and would join them later. Next thing we know, we're hearing about the horrible taxicab accident which killed Eddie and injured Gene Vincent's leg permanently. It was such a tragedy. Eddie was a great guy, very down to earth and humble. And very talented.
It's amazing to me that he's not as well remembered here in the U.S.
Well, in England, they take the history of the music very seriously. They cherish the original performers. They love Eddie there still.
Did you resent being lumped in with all of the teen idols of the early 1960s?
Yes, I'm always fighting that tag, it bothers me a lot. I was put in that category, but I never was that, I didn't want to be that. The Bobbys, the Johnnies, the Tommys, they sang the soft songs or the bubblegum tunes. That wasn't me at all. I was a rock 'n' roller. They would put me in the teen magazines, but I never wanted to be a teen idol. It was all so stupid, it wasn't me.
You toured with a lot of black acts. Did you ever play before segregated audiences?
I don't specifically remember seeing that. We would play big places such as National Guard armories, where you couldn't see much of the audience because it was so dark, so it might have happened. I can tell you this - when we toured in the South, we'd have to buy food from the restaurants for the acts who couldn't go in because they were refused service. We would check into one hotel, and they would have to check into a lesser one on the other side of town. It was terrible. We were all friends, Bo Diddley knew my family, we'd visit each other's houses. They were all great people, and so talented. It didn't make sense to me. To this day, I still don't understand it.
Unlike a lot of artists, you ended up owning your own master tapes.
When I was with Swan Records, they ripped me off on royalties. Here I had all these big hits, yet they were always telling me I was in the red. They would say I owed them money for albums, or find other ways to doctor the books. When I signed with Warner Brothers Records in 1963, everything changed. They treated me like royalty. I had several hits, "Abigail Beecher," "Action," during my seven-year contract. When it expired and they chose not to renew it, they offered me all of my master tapes instead of paying off the contract.
Even your Swan material?
Everything, over 250 tracks from my entire career. So now I can make my own deals licensing my songs all over the world. There's only a handful of acts who own their masters, I'm one of the lucky ones.
I've noticed that your reissues are always of high quality.
Shout! Factory did a great job on the 2009 reissue. ("Boom Boom Rock 'n' Roll: The Best of Freddy Cannon.") The label's run by some of the same folks that used to run the Rhino label. They're very nice people, and I really enjoyed working with them on the reissue.
Let's talk about some of its songs. You mentioned Bo Diddley. "Buzz Buzz A-Diddle-It" has a great Bo Diddley beat.
It's my second-favorite song after "Tallahassee Lassie," because it really rocks. That's the kind of record for which I want to be remembered.
The story of the song is that Bernie Binnick from Swan Records heard this band playing as he was walking around in the back area of this gym where we were playing a record hop in front of about 2,000 kids. He called us over when he heard this riff being played live and we flipped for it. The band was called the Saturday Nights. So Bernie asked its leader, Bob Bollinger, if the band would come to Philly to record the song, which was just an instrumental at this point. They did, and Bernie, producers Frank Slay and Bob Crewe and myself then wrote the lyrics. It was an exciting track.
"Palisades Park" certainly was huge for you.
What I remember most about that song was playing the park it was named after in New Jersey 10 to 12 times while it was a hit. Lots of acts would play there at a big open-air stage at the park before thousands of kids. But my song was also piped in over the loudspeakers at the park, so you'd hear it over and over again all day long. The owner was excited that I had helped put his park on the map. You know, Chuck Barris of "The Gong Show" wrote that song.
And an actor played you in the movie about Barris, right?
Yes, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." An actor played me singing "Palisades Park." I never believed that Chuck was a CIA agent, he was just this little guy, he was about 5-foot-3. But thank God he wrote this great song that lives on. Even now, guys and girls are getting together at amusement parks, riding the rides and looking for romance and he captured that feeling just the way it was supposed to be.
Is that your most-licensed song?
Yes, that's the one people ask for the most. The most-requested in order are "Palisades Park," Tallahassee Lassie," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" and "Action." Those are the ones that everyone wants to use.
They just held the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. I think you deserve a spot there.
Well, that's nice of you to say, but of course I don't have any control over that. Sometimes they wait until after someone dies to give them their due. Del Shannon, for instance, he deserved to be honored when he was still alive, but they waited too long. Another one who should be in there is Gary U.S. Bonds, he made great rocking records. But they bypassed a lot of acts and jumped forward to more recent folks from the 1980s and 1990s. But if I were to be inducted, it would be a great honor.
Some of those inducted this time didn't show for the ceremony.
Yes, I heard about that. Maybe they're protesting something or other, I don't know, but it is a big deal and a big honor. Maybe they had good reasons.
It seems like not everyone has a sense of history.
You know, if not for the pioneering acts of the past - Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino - we wouldn't have this music we have today. I loved all the blues acts as well - Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Joe Turner. When I hear the huge drums on records today, I think back to the great early rock 'n' roll records, you'll hear those drums as loud as you can hear it. Listen to "Shake Rattle and Roll" by Big Joe Turner, its backbeat is like thunder. What today's acts do with technology just mirrors the beat they created on those R&B and rock 'n' roll records. We owe everything to the early blues and rock 'n' roll acts. I feel like I was the student and they were the teachers. I learned stagecraft from the best.
Did you have any hesitation about including critical remarks about Dionne Warwick and, to a lesser extent, Cher in your book?
No hesitation, not at all. In fact, I hope they both read it. Dionne Warwick acted very egotistical toward me. In talking with others, I later found that I wasn't the only one who found her tough to get along with. Cher was just young and already acting like she was a big star already - that happens. But I mostly was disappointed with Dionne.
Any gigs or recordings planned?
We just heard that we will be playing the Summer Jamboree festival in Senigallia, Italy, on Aug. 11. We'll be playing with a bunch of other acts, including Bill Haley's Comets (Haley's backing band that just was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). That'll be great, we'll be able to go over and see some sights in addition to playing the gig.
Also, we've cut a song I wrote called "Covered by the Rolling Stones." It turns out they recorded "Tallahassee Lassie" during the "Some Girls" sessions. The band says that song inspired them to write "Brown Sugar." Its version of "Tallahassee" wasn't released at the time, but it's a bonus cut on the expanded double-CD reissue that came out recently.
You're still doing your pencil drawings?
Yes, I still draw. Someone just requested a drawing of what I think Abigail Beecher, the science teacher from my song, would have looked like. I drew a young lady, blonde, with ponytail, because that's what I envisioned when I wrote the song. The requester loved it. Lots of my drawings can be seen on my website, www.freddycannon.com. I draw entertainers, sports personalities. The Boston Celtics, and the Red Sox, of course.
I hear you're a Dodgers fan as well?
I like the Dodgers. I wrote and recorded a song, "The Dodgers Are the Heart of L.A." for a recent anniversary album they released and sold at the stadium.
It's probably hard to give up being a Red Sox fan.
It is. I miss Boston sometimes, but who can not love California? It's the best of all worlds.
Where the Action Is!
What: Autobiography by rock 'n' roll musician Freddy Cannon, with introduction by Dick Clark; available at bookstores and through online booksellers.
Information: To find out more about Cannon, go to www.freddycannon.com
Read the article at:
http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_20444856/going-where-action-is-rocker-freddy-cannon
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