The songwriters behind the hits of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Franke Previte, John Denicola and Stacy Widelitz exclusively reveal the how the stars aligned to create one the biggest films and soundtracks of the 1980s.
Jason Barnard: Guys, it’s great to have you all together to talk about the background behind the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing and the songs you wrote. Firstly, Stacy, could you talk about the origins of “She’s Like the Wind”?
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah, we actually wrote it when he was working on a different film called Grandview USA, which was a very unforgettable or forgettable film with Tommy Howell, Jamie Lee Curtis and Patrick, whom I call Buddy. That was his nickname with friends and family. We lived around the block from each other, two houses away. I was writing music for television, a lot of themes for TV shows and things like that. And he called me up and said, “They’re looking for songs for Grandview. I’ve had this idea for a song for a couple of years and I can’t get anywhere with it. You want to work on it with me and submit it for Grandview?” So I said, “Sure, come on over”. So he came over with his guitar that evening and I was at the piano. He played me what he had, which was only the chords C to E minor. He sang me the first four lines or so and I liked the first two lines. I didn’t like the third and fourth lines, however, and I rewrote those. I think the turning point was when we realized that “She’s Like the Wind,” rather than just being the opening line of the song, was also the hook and title.
Yeah, I actually knew a little bit about the film because by this point, Buddy and Lisa, his wife, were living in a small ranch north of L.A. and they had a barbecue. I met Kenny Ortega there, the choreographer, and Eleanor Bergstein, who wrote the film. And so they were telling me about it. Eleanor was even demonstrating some of the dance moves, which was interesting. But my main business in L.A. was composing to pictures, scoring work, not songwriting, and by this point I’d been picked up by an excellent agency in L.A. as a composer, Triad artists, which, coincidentally, Patrick was with as an actor. That came to be an advantage for us when we made the deal for the film. Anyway, the word on the street was that it was a bad movie. I talked to my agent, and he said, “Well, you’ll get a couple of thousand dollars for the license fee. But the word on the street is that it’s Vestron Pictures, who have never done a theatrical release before. And so it’ll be in the theaters about a week and then it’ll go straight to video and then that’s it. But it’ll be a nice thing on your resume.” So ultimately, even when we were recording the final version of it, at Michael Lloyd’s studio, I was really not that excited. And then in the almost a year in between that recording and the release of the film, it really fell off my radar emotionally, intellectually, everything because of what people were saying about it. And I remember going to the cast and crew screening with Wendy, who was my girlfriend at that time. We walked out of it saying, “You know, that wasn’t nearly as bad as everybody said. It was actually kind of warm hearted and good, a little cheesy in parts.” And then the soundtrack was released a little bit before the film with “Time of My Life” being the first single. It basically tanked because there was nothing to support it. And then the movie came out and became a sleeper hit and everything exploded. It was really remarkable how wrong everybody was about this movie.
Jason Barnard: It’s amazing how the material for that film was organically placed. “Hungry Eyes” was originally a Franke and The Knockouts track a few years before.
Franke Previte: Yes, through Jimmy Ienner again. Franke and The Knockouts were on his label, Millennium Records. We’d had two or three hit records with them. Top ten songs “Sweetheart”, “You’re My Girl” and “Without You (Not Another Lonely Night)”. And then Jimmy decided to shut down his label because his deal with RCA wasn’t going the way he wanted it to, so he sold us to MCA, who wanted us to sound like Night Ranger. Even though we thought Night Ranger was a cool group we said to MCA “No, we want to sound like Fatko’s. We had already established a sound that radio had embraced so, why would we want to change in mid stream? So they dropped us and two years had gone by and out of the blue I got a call from the same guy who closed his label, Jimmy Ienner. You know, all during those two years, I was writing songs with various people while I was working with a friend, David Prater, down in his basement, in Montclair, New Jersey. David told me he was working with this guy, John Denicola, and he’s got some really cool music you should take a listen to, and I said, “Ok”, David played me a track that I got an instant vibe for. So, I asked David, “Can I talk to John and maybe see if it’s ok if I try and put a melody and lyric to it.” John was all in. Yeah, that very first attempt bore fruit. A song called “Hungry Eyes’ ‘ which was written for the fourth Franke and the Knockouts 4th album was created. We’ve written so many more songs together since. So far obviously, “Time in my Life” and “Hungry Eyes” was our biggest commercial hits. But I have to say, it was a really good year for John and I, winning an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Grammy nominations and one of my favorite awards, the Ascap Song Of The Year. I’m living beyond my dreams. But there are other songs I can truly fully say that I like just as much that John and I have written.
So that’s kind of how “Hungry Eyes” was created. When Jimmy asked me to write something for this little independent movie, basically I said, “Jimmy, I really don’t have time.” He said “Make time. This is going to change your life.” and I’m like, “Yeah, right. You’re going to change my life?” so he goes, “No, no, I got a good feeling about this movie.” and I said, “Well, what’s the name of the movie?” and he said, “Dirty Dancing” that’s when my hand went to my forehead and i thought OMG “Jimmy’s doing porn. He’s doing a porn flick.” and he’s like “No no, this is a really good movie.” So , I knew at that moment the first person to call was my buddy John Denicola, so, John got the call. I told him the good news that was we have a chance to write a song for this little movie but, the bad news was it was for the last scene of the movie, which was seven minutes long. I’m thinking we’ve got to write MacArthur Park. John, why don’t you tell them the rest of the story?
John Denicola: Well, Jimmy had given Franke sort of direction about what he had with a closing scene. We didn’t see any footage or anything, but he told Franke that there was a dance instructor and the girl, his wallet has been stolen and he’s in trouble. And so when Franke gave me the call we were working together already. But since it was going to be a dance song, I put a call to my friend Donny Markowitz, who I was working with also on some other projects, because he had…
Franke Previte: A drum machine.
John Denicola: A machine which was brand new at the time. It wasn’t even a MIDI drum machine. It was a DMX, if you know what that is. And so I went over to Donny’s and we basically pound it out. From the description that Franke got from Jimmy, we kind of pounded out something that started slowly with some strings and then picked up to a tempo that they could dance to. And they referenced the Blues Brothers song, I don’t remember the name of it. And they also referenced Irene Cara from Fame “What a Feeling”. So that was those two references of course. “What a Feeling” made sense. But Blues Brothers? I still couldn’t wrap my head around what they wanted out of that, and so we just shedded it and came up with about seven minutes of music. We went to that bridge and everything and we just sent it to Franke. And Franke can tell you the story of where the lyric and the melody of the “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” popped into his head.
Franke Previte: Well, basically, I took that music and I called Jimmy and I played it over the phone. And he said “I really like it. Make it a song.” So on my way back to that studio up in Montclair on the Garden State Parkway, exit 140, I stuck the cassette in my dashboard back in 1986. And I start jamming and that’s how I write a song as I jam to the track. So this track that John and Donny sent me kind of inspired me to jam the lyrics while driving and the first words, I had “The time of my life”, spit out of my mouth and the song was born. While driving I scribbled “Time of my Life” on an envelope. And that’s kind of where the seed of the song started. And to tell you the truth, the man upstairs wrote the rest of the song because I didn’t know what the movie was about. John didn’t really know what the movie was about. And I wouldn’t have written that song in a million years because it was out of the realm of who I was as an artist. “Hungry Eyes”, yes, that was me as an artist. But “Time of my Life”, that kind of was a special moment for me because it was outside of my musical box of what I was doing at the time. But that all got inspired by what John and Donny wrote, those chord changes. That grooves created the melody and then these jam lyrics of a title. When I met Patrick, at the Academy Awards he said to me “It was like you were here, man. How did you write those lyrics?” I said “I have no idea, the man upstairs wrote those lyrics.”
Jason Barnard: Stacy, what did you know about the film while it was being produced? You had a friendship with Patrick. Now you think of what is probably a billion dollar industry, but from what I’ve heard, it was more low budget, low key at the time.
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah, I actually knew a little bit about the film because by this point, Buddy and Lisa, his wife, were living in a small ranch north of L.A. and they had a barbecue. And I met Kenny Ortega there, the choreographer and Eleanor Bergstein, who wrote the film. And so they were telling me about it. Eleanor was even demonstrating some of the dance moves, which were interesting. But my main business in L.A. was composing to pictures, scoring work, not songwriting, and by this point I’d been picked up by an excellent agency in L.A. as a composer, Triad artists, which coincidentally, Patrick was with as an actor. Which came to be an advantage for us when we made the deal for the film. Anyway, the word on the street, because when I found out that they were going to license the song for the film, I asked around. I talked to my agent and he said, “Well, you’ll get a couple of thousand dollars for the license fee. But the word on the street is that it’s Vestron Pictures, who have never done a theatrical release before. And so it’ll be in the theaters about a week and then it’ll go straight to video and then that’s it. So it’ll be a nice thing on your resume. So ultimately, even when we were recording the final version of it, at Michael Lloyd’s studio, I was really not that excited. And then in the almost a year in between that recording and the release of the film, it really fell off my radar emotionally, intellectually, everything because of what people were saying about it. And I remember going to the cast and crew screening with Wendy, who was my girlfriend at that time. And we walked out of it saying, “You know, that wasn’t nearly as bad as everybody said. It was actually kind of warm hearted and good, a little cheesy in parts. But, you know, Jerry Orbach was great. And then the soundtrack was released a little bit before the film and with “Time of My Life” being the first single, it basically tanked because there was nothing to support it. And then the movie came out and became a sleeper hit and everything exploded. It was really remarkable how wrong everybody was about this movie.
Jason Barnard: Absolutely, John. And I understand in terms of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”, a number of artists were considered. But when you think of it now, Bill and Jennifer. You couldn’t think of a perfect pairing.
John Denicola: Alluding to what Franke said, that song was kind of out of his wheelhouse. We really didn’t know who was going to sing it at that moment. And Franke actually sang it up an octave from Bill Medley. Well, I should say it the other way around. Bill Medley sang it an octave lower from where we presented the demo. I guess we knew at some point. After it was written that Bill Medley was going to sing it and of course everybody was like, “Wow, how is he going to sing it?” Franke is a tenor. He’s a baritone. Of course, they dropped it down the octave. But Franke could maybe help on this. I think there was about seven female singers.
Franke Previte: Donna Summer, I think it was that
John Denicola: Diana Ross. Of course, Jennifer Warnes. And a couple of others I don’t remember.
Franke Previte: What a perfect match because Jennifer Warnes was with Joe Cocker for “Up Where We Belong”, an Academy Award winning song. And Bill had always wanted to sing with her. And for the longest time, Bill had turned down being the vocalist on the song. He was, I believe, having a child. And he’s in New York and he didn’t want to come back to L.A. and they kept calling him and he kept saying no. And then they finally got Jennifer Warnes to sing. And then he was like, “Yeah, all right.” But he was like, “How the hell am I going to sing this?” The song’s too high. They actually filmed the movie to the demo that John and I and Donny made. So I’m singing a tenor. Rachelle Cappelli is the other duet partner with me. And they were like. “Let’s just drop it down an octave. Leave it in the key of E.” So then all of a sudden Bill sings “Time of my Life” in a lower range which worked out perfectly, now he could do his Bill Medley thing, which when you look back at the movie and you think of a contemporary movie that was trying to depict 1964. That’s when Bill Medley and the Righteous Brothers were really popular. And so he was the thread that connected this commercially pop contemporary song to the past. And I think the culmination of Patrick, Bill and Jennifer and all of the story line, you change one of those elements and I don’t think you have the phenomenon.
Stacy Widelitz: I will say something that I’ve told to you, Franke, and you, John, before. Knowing Patrick/Buddy, very well, he said to me at one point, he said, “You should have heard the original demo. It was so much better than that final version. He loved the demo.
John Denicola: We had a synth like an RX, DX7. It was more contemporary at the time. We had a drum machine at the drum machine and Michael Lloyd used a real drummer and bass player, although there is a synth along with that bass player. But I think the idea was to bring it into 1963. I thought I was going to say before it was 63. Was the summer of 63 right before.
Stacy Widelitz: Was it Paul Leim I’m on drums and Dennis Belfield on bass on your song as well? I know that was the two of them on “She’s Like The Wind”.
John Denicola: I always thought it was Abraham Laboriel. But Michael Lloyd set me straight not so long ago.
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah. I think it was Dennis who lives here now and as does Paul Leim.
Franke Previte: So it’s funny how they got demo-itis, listening to these demos. And even Eleanor Bergstein, the writer of the movie, will say to you, “I love what Bill and Jennifer did, but my favorite is when Franke sang it.” It was the first time they heard it. They had to listen to 149 songs to that point and “Time of my Life” was the 150th song. And they were getting ready to film to a Lionel Richie track. And I think they had done some choreography to it. And then somebody walked in and said, “Hey, wait a minute, we got one more cassette. Well, we might as well take a listen to it and see what the hell it is.” And so they played it. And then Kenny Ortega, I think, was like, “Is it because it’s the last cassette? But I really like this song.” [Laughs]
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah, the demo-itis was on “She’s Like the Wind” as well. Michael had hired a synth-keyboard player for the session, Stuart Levine. I know all these names because I was there, so and. Jimmy Ienner was there and Stewart was doing the synthesizer parts and he turned to me and he said, “That just doesn’t sound right. What did you do on the demo?” And I said, “I used my Oberheim OB-8.” He said, “Where is it?” And I said, “It’s 10 minutes away.” And he said, “Go get it.” So I ran down to my apartment, brought it back, and I ended up recreating all the synth parts that I did on the demo.
John Denicola: Yes, you can you know, sometimes that’s what makes the song, and you can’t get around it. That was one of the only duets that was submitted to them.
Franke Previte: The only duet. Earlier on Jimmy had asked me to sing “Hungry Eyes”, then, John and I found out while looking at writing for another scene that Eric Carmen had been asked to sing the song and I was out. I said, “Ok, it’s great. I mean, Eric’s a great singer. The Raspberries are really cool, but somebody should have told me because now I’ve got egg on my face with all my players and, you know, what am I supposed to do?”. And basically the answer was just be happy. You got a song in a movie. So I said, “I’m happy”.
Jason Barnard: It’d be good to talk about after the release of the soundtrack and the film and how that just took off. And then there’s an Academy Award which kind of takes it to a crowning achievement. It is almost the pinnacle as a songwriter.
Franke Previte: Back in the day, my dad was an opera singer, so there was always music going on. I was just fighting not to sound too Italian, you know those long Italian notes. My dream was maybe one day to hear myself sing on the radio. That would be like a big accomplishment for me as a songwriter, as a young kid. I mean, I had my first record deal when I was 15 on London Records. But, you go through these phases and learning periods of your career and, having the seed being planted by having the music that was in my home and parents that always supported me. And it gave me the ability to stay in the game. And I think that’s a really important part of success is having that parental guidance and pat on the back that, “You can do it, you know, don’t ever give up, fight for your dream.” And I always had that. So I really thank my parents for that. And then, you know, to think beyond your dream. And that’s what happened to John and I and donny. We won an Academy Award that year, we won a Golden Globe, we also won ASCAP Song of the Year, the most played song in the world. We had a Grammy nomination. And now you talk about beyond your dream. Walking up on that stage, you float. You’re there, but you’re not there. And you’re in this moment. Just going for it. I think being a performer all my whole life, I was used to being on stage. But, you don’t realize the magnitude of the moment and just how important the song was until much later.
John Denicola: Yeah, it was a slow build, like Franke said. I remember being in the theater. I had already seen a quick cut. It was before they really edited it and it was much longer and it was a little more like an R rated movie. And I remember coming out. I think you were there, Franke?
Franke Previte: Yeah.
John Denicola: Yeah, it was like I guess. But then they did, then they cut it up and made the perfect edits and it flowed much better. But it’s an intangible, you don’t know how this is going to take off. And I remember one of the first weekends it was in the theaters. I was living on Eighty Third Street at that moment. And I went to the theater and it was pretty crowded. But the whole movie was over. People looked excited. But I saw the people directly in front of me sitting and waiting and waiting for the titles to go down. And then they went and as soon as the “Time of my Life” came out, they went, “Oh, that’s the song that’s the time in my life.” That’s when I knew, you know, maybe we have something here. And as Franke and I have spoken before, first, the movie kind of pushed the song. And then the song got momentum and it kind of pushed the movie, so it was a kind of a once in a lifetime experience, really. I mean, I don’t know if I guess it’ll happen again sometime. Somewhere, maybe it happened, I guess, with the bodyguard or whatever. But with streaming and all that stuff, I’m not sure you’ll ever have a similar experience with a song.
Franke Previte: But they don’t sell CDs anymore. So you’re not going to sell fifty million CDs.
John Denicola: So 55 million streams, you’re going to get about
Franke Previte: Forty cents!
John Denicola: 500 dollars. It’s a sad truth. Every time I get in one of these interviews, I try and let people know, if you really want to support an artist. You stream it, OK, but go buy it. The CD, buy the LP, buy the download from iTunes or whatever. That’s how the artist is going to see some coin. Otherwise it’s chump change. And there’s no way you can sustain yourself as a songwriter on Spotify. And, even Apple Music pays a lot more, but it’s still nothing. You know, it’s not livable. And we’ll see if the model changes. It may have to. I don’t even think Spotify makes money, so I don’t know where all the money goes.
Franke Previte: Stacy was right in saying that they were going to put the movie out for a couple of weeks and go directly to DVD.
Stacy Widelitz: VHS. DVD wasn’t even invented.
Franke Previte: Right. And within that two week period, there were, I think, 300,000 records backordered and RCA was like, “Oh, shit. You know, let’s get some records pressed here”. And by the time that they could press records and get them out to their distributors, I think there were a million records back ordered.
Stacy Widelitz: Michael Lloyd, I remember when he called me to tell me that I was getting a gold record for the soundtrack, and I was really excited because, you know, again, record business was not my business. I was in TV and film and so I was really excited about it. And I was so naive about it all, so I thought, like, “It arrives the next day, you know?” And so I didn’t realize there’s a process. So I think a week and a half went by, maybe two weeks. And I called Michael and I said, “When will I get the gold record?” And he said to me “Oh, you’re not getting a gold record.” And I said, “Why? You told me I’m getting one.” He says, “No, now you’re getting a platinum.” And for those that don’t know and outside the industry that represents gold represents 500,000. So platinum is a million sold.
Franke Previte: And so look at the wall behind you.
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah, that’s 11 times platinum where it peaked in the US. And anyway. So I said to Michael, “You’re kidding, that much?” and he said “Last Sunday it sold 280,000 and and that’s when he said to me, “We’re riding the wave of something and none of us have any idea where it’s taking us.” And that was interesting because that was also dead on.
Franke Previte: The stars aligned, it was the right time for Patrick and Jennifer and the song and the movie and Bill and Jennifer again. And like I said, take one of those elements out, take the song out, take Patrick out, one of those elements and you don’t have the phenomenon.
John Denicola: You might even go to Emile Ardolino, who is the director of it. He was a perfect choice that Eleanor made.
Stacy Widelitz: He was hired because he directed a dance documentary, which was excellent. And the dancer that it was about just died within the last two weeks. Jacques d’Amboise was one of the great male dancers. And it was Emile’s documentary about d’Amboise that made the producers and Eleanor want him for Dirty Dancing.
John Denicola: “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’” was the documentary.
Stacy Widelitz: Yes, exactly.
John Denicola: He was unbelievable, you know. Did you ever meet him, Stacy?
Stacy Widelitz: No, he was the one person that I didn’t get to meet
Franke Previte: Very, very sweet guy. You know, we met him in New York when he called us in for that other scene. So was Patrick. I mean, you knew Patrick way better than John and I did. But from my three or four times of meeting it was almost like Johnny Castle was him. He played himself.
Stacy Widelitz: The thing about him that didn’t come out in a lot of his movies, although he did in Wong Foo where he’s in drag, was that he actually also had a really good sense of humor, almost a goofy sense of humor. But he loved practical jokes. We used to play practical jokes on each other. I once called him to tell him that I bought a Corvette. I said “I bought a sports car.” He was a big sports car fan. He had that stupid DeLorean, his ridiculous car. I left a message on his service saying I bought this sports car Corvette and I took it out for a drive. I came home and there was a message on my service from him saying, “You didn’t buy a sports car. You bought a 15 foot fiberglass penis extension!” [laughs]
Franke Previte: And that’s funny.
John Denicola: What was the DeLorean then?
Stacy Widelitz: Oh well, I had to drive it home one night at about two o’clock in the morning over Laurel Canyon Boulevard, which goes like this. And because he was a little out of it and I hadn’t driven a stick since high school. So it was a lot of fun. I did Laurel Canyon in second gear the entire way by Emile.
John Denicola: Emile did say that, though. He said it was a confluence of stuff you couldn’t put together. It was just an alignment. As Franke said, just everything came together. Songs, acting, script, that’s hard to recreate. You know, it just happens sometimes.
Franke Previte: And Patrick had called me after “She’s Like the Wind” was a hit record. And he said, “You know, I want you to tell me something. RCA wants me to do a record. And if I don’t, I’m not really an artist. And, you know, do you think I should do a record? And I said, “Absolutely. Do a record, but do it how you would do it. So the integrity that you portray is real.” And so basically, he was asking for advice if I thought he was good enough to be a singer. And listen, Mick Jagger has a style. So just be Patrick Swayze. So yeah, absolutely.
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah, there was one name in his head that caused him great fear about that. And that was David Hasselhoff. That would be somebody that would be possibly commercially successful but reviled, critically. And that really concerned him.
Franke Previte: And rightfully so.
Stacy Widelitz: He did a couple of other songs, though. He did a song with Larry Gatlin in Next of Kin. He sang a song in Roadhouse. It was used for like 30 seconds that he and I and a third writer wrote. So he did do some other stuff ultimately.
Franke Previte: Ultimately, I think if he could have done something that was a little more bluesy, dirty, so his integrity of who he was stood out, as opposed to just trying to write pop songs.
John Denicola: He might have made the right decision, though, because it is very difficult for an actor to get credibility in a pop world.
Franke Previte: Kevin Bacon is trying, you know, he has a band, but. Right. Still very difficult.
John Denicola: Probably somebody out there that we’re not thinking of. But it’s not easy.
Franke Previte: Rick Springfield.
Stacy Widelitz: Yeah, but he was a singer before he was an actor.
John Denicola: So it’s a little different. When you’re on the big screen and in some big movies, I don’t know. I just think people aren’t that quick to embrace that.
Franke Previte: Yeah.
John Denicola: You know, it’s just like Michael Jordan playing baseball.
Stacy Widelitz: Well, the other thing that happens when you have tremendous success. There’s a great line from a song that Mose Allison sang, which is “Why people tear the seam of anyone’s dream is over my head.” And it’s like you have a huge success, like what he did. And all of a sudden there’s a target painted on your back. Because I remember when the reviews of Roadhouse came out, which is now a cult film that’s incredibly popular, but it was torn to pieces. And even his performance in Ghost, which is a great movie
Franke Previte: And I love Ghost. I think it was even better.
Stacy Widelitz: He looks too much like a dancer. He doesn’t look like whatever he was supposed to be a stockbroker. Yeah. So that’s what he was up against. And I know it wore on him personally.
Jason Barnard: I must give you guys the space to kind of talk about a few things that you’re doing now, maybe start with Stacy.
Stacy Widelitz: Sure, when I moved to Nashville years back, I got very involved in the arts community here and got involved with National Film Festival, then leadership music, national opera. And I’ve had the honor of now in my fifth board presidency of the National Opera Guild. I was president of the opera three years ago/two years ago, and actually served four years as an elected official here in Tennessee as well, which was a hoot, let me tell you. And about five and a half years ago, I discovered black and white photography. It was first a hobby. And now it’s actually turned into something where I had a gallery show downtown Nashville two years ago. Four of my pieces have sold at pretty good prices and I actually have a meeting at the gallery this Friday to discuss the second show and new prints of stuff I shot in Berlin and London. And so that’s been a whole other thing. And we called the show “Second Act” because that sums it up. And that’s been really fun.
Franke Previte: I’ve seen some of your black and whites on my Facebook, It’s really, really good stuff.
Stacy Widelitz: I think I sent both of you that picture from the Dirty Dancing festival.
Franke Previte: Cool. So for me, in the past four or five years, I’ve been producing different shows and the most recent show is a kind of a celebration or a tribute to Taylor, Simon, King: James Taylor, Carly Simon, Carole King. And so what I did was a friend of mine, Tim McLoone has a supper club here in Asbury Park in New Jersey, where I’m from. And he said, bring the group in and do a video here. So, we filmed at his club. Of course, nobody in the club, because obviously you have a pandemic going on. And so I filmed nine songs for an EPK, an electronic press kit, and I thought, “You know what, this came out so good. Maybe I can make it into a streaming event and then call different charities and see if they would like to stream it and raise money for their charity.” So about three weeks ago, I did one for the First Responders Children’s Foundation. and so we played the show. I had a seven time Emmy Award winning host: Scott Sanford and a co host Phil Paz interview the singers and placed those interviews in between each songs before playing the live stream.
So there was about forty five/fifty minutes with these little interviews in between. And so we raised a decent amount of money. And so now on June 17, we’re doing one for Alzheimer’s. So if you go to taylorsimonking.com, you can purchase a ticket. It’s fifteen dollars. Autism is the charity that we’re working with in June. June is Alzheimer’s Month, and it’s called The Longest Day, which is June 17th. So we have a bunch of charities and we’re putting them out. Now, the show finally, because things are opening up here in the States, got booked for July 7th and 8th at the Count Basie (Vogel Theatre), which is a beautiful historic theatre. It’s sold out in twenty two minutes. That’s a tribute to great songs and just how starved people are to listen to live music.
Jason Barnard: Wow, I think, you’ve been raising money through the Dirty Dancing demos as well.
Franke Previte: After Patrick passed, thinking about what I can do to help? And so I found out that Lisa Swayze was working with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. And so I put in a cold call and Pamela Acosta Marquardt, the founder, picked up. The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is the largest charity for pancreatic cancer in the world. So I said, “We have these demos, “Time in my Life”, “Hungry Eyes”. John and I have this other song called “Someone Like You” that’s in the stage play Dirty Dancing. I’d like to put them on a CD and sell them and see if we can raise some money for pancreatic cancer.” So we’ve raised about twenty thousand dollars. My pitch is to all the Dirty Dancing fans, you can own a piece of history, the music that Patrick and Jennifer actually danced to. So that’s what John and I and Donny are doing together to help give back.
Jason Barnard: John, you’ve got solo work.
John Denicola: So because of the position that the Dirty Dancing songs put us in I was able to start a small imprint label. And so I’ve been working with more indie artists. One of them, ended up being Maroon 5, they were called Kara’s Flowers. So I’ve been doing that. And then after years of always thinking for another singer or writing for an artist and getting into people’s heads. I think it came about because of another song Franke and I wrote that was in Avenging Angelo a Sylvester Stallone movie, and Steve Holy sang it in the movie, but it never was released as a song. And so I wanted to take that song, it’s called “You’re the Only One”. And I wanted to redo it in a way to put it out there again. Maybe somebody else would pick it up again and get into other people’s heads. And then when it came time to find somebody to sing it, I had a new studio here in the barn and I threw my voice down on it and people responded pretty well to it. And so after being in the business for 45 years, whatever it is, I decided to do a record of original stuff. Mostly songs that I had already written that say, John Waits sang or Eddie Money sang or, you know, people like that. And then there were some songs that I thought could have been done or been hits, some of them with Franke, some of them with other writers. And so it’s called “The Why Because”.
Franke Previte: John actually does a version of “Hungry Eyes” on this record that went to number twenty five on the charts. It is really cool.
John Denicola: Billboard mentioned that, they said, Dirty Dancing still 35 years later, still spawning top 20 hits, which was quite an achievement. But I’m now just finishing my second record. And these are all songs that I’ve written now for myself, which is the most fun I’ve had in the music business because it’s telling me who I am as an artist, which is a good thing to find out after all these years.
Franke Previte: Pretty cool stuff, John.
Jason Barnard: What a pleasure to talk with all three of you and hear how the music that you all made still touches people’s lives.
For further information on Franke, John and Stacy: radiotv.com
