Interview with Beverly Leech Part II
In
Part I of our two-part interview with acting coach, author, stage and
television actress Beverly Leech we introduced you to her career and her
book ACTOR MUSCLE A Professional Guide to the Business of Acting. In
Part II of our interview with Beverly Leech she talks about her book and
particularly the scams that seek to take advantage of young actors and
the provisions that have been put in place to protect actors. She also
takes us back to her early days in the entertainment industry.
“My goal was to (write a book) about how to go
about a career in sequential steps and how to actually do it. There are
really good books on how to do an interview, how to do a commercial
audition and how to read for TV, but they are separate.
I was teaching all of (those things) and teaching them in a
semester long course, as the academies wanted me to cover everything, so
I thought this is great, now I can go ahead and make my teaching
materials available to fifty or one hundred kids in my class. I wanted
to make it available to everyone in the New York, Chicago and Los
Angeles markets, because they are also inundated with a lot more
shysters. It is very
important for me to take them through each step of the process and teach
them how to look at a contract and to know what you are looking at. Most
of the kids don’t know anything about contracts when they are starting
out. Managers appear to be very similar to agents in their
responsibilities and their take of the commission, but they are very,
very different and if you don’t pay attention to the fine print, you are
going to get hurt.
The city attorney here in Los Angeles is really clear about what an
agent can and can’t do in the city of California. The Krekorian Scam
Prevention Act prevents agents who still try to sign actors to
contracts, which aren’t
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Ricky Z Interview
He
was listening to Beck, Bogert &
Appice (Jeff Beck – The Yard Birds; Tim Bogert – Vanilla Fudge and
Cactus; Carmine Appice – Vanilla Fudge and Cactus) when he was in grade
school and he performed at the White House with Gloria Estefan as an
adult. Ricky Z born Ricky
Zahariades, in Phoenix, Arizona, but a native of California from the
time he was three years old and his family moved to, in his words “a
small dusty town” called Fontana (San
Benardino County). He has also worked with artists such as, The
Sweet (also known simply as Sweet),
Michael Buble, Lauryn Hill, Josh Groban and Jessica Simpson.
Ricky Z sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine to discuss his new
album The
Long And Dusty Road, which
features all original songs, his career and his musical journey.
Discussing his
childhood in Fontana he says, “It was a great place to grow up and there
was all of this music around, so that was kind of cool. I had older
brothers and I started getting access to their great music and I was
soaking it up.”
Whenever his
brothers would bring a new record home he recalls, “I would just sit
there. I loved Keith Emerson, Zeppelin, (Black) Sabbath, Peter Frampton,
the Stones and The Yard Birds. I was a music aficionado by the sixth
grade. It encompassed my whole world and I hadn’t even thought about
playing it. The summer before the eighth grade my brother’s best friend
brought over a guitar with a little Silvertone amp and he left it there
all summer. If I played it, nobody knew, so I just ran and in there and
started making noise. I played it whatever way it was tuned and only the
three big strings on the top. I played along with the records to find
the ones that fit. I bugged my mom, mom please can I get some lessons.
She hooked me up with a local teacher in town and I studied with him Read More
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Diane Marino Interview
On
the eve of releasing her new album
Loads Of Love it was to
Riveting Riffs Magazine’s delight that we had the opportunity to chat
once again with Jazz singer, arranger and pianist Diane Marino from her
home in Nashville, Tennessee. Ms.
Marino who grew up in Queens, New York City was reunited with her friend
and saxophonist extraordinaire Houston Person who played on ten of the
rejuvenated standards that are featured on
Loads Of Love.
Diane Marino
possesses impeccable phrasing, her voice has beautiful colors and tones
and the new arrangements are lush without detracting from yet another
wonderful recording from a truly magnificent vocalist.
The album opens with Cole Porter’s “Get Out Of
Town,” written for his 1938 Broadway musical
Leave It To Me! The song is
introduced on Loads Of Love
by Frank Marino’s upright bass, eventually joined by Diane Marino
accompanying herself on the piano. Houston Person has an extended
melodious solo, followed by Ms. Marino’s lively piano solo.
For those not familiar with the
song, the singer’s former beau arrives on the scene and she bids him to
go quickly, before she falls in love again and has her heart broken once
again.
Acknowledging that she is definitely a
romantic, Ms. Marino says, “I didn’t really set out to do an album about
love songs, but if you look at it, it is all about love.
Subconsciously I guess that is what I was thinking of (she
is laughing). I wanted to do an album of good vocal standards, but
standards that haven’t been done a zillion times. I didn’t want to do
that. I wanted to bring something fresh to that concept of the Great
American
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Jon Herington Interview
Jon
Herington’s current album Time On
My Hands is a departure from previous solo albums
Like So and
Shine Shine Shine, because he
decided to make his guitar the centerpiece of the songs. That might
sound odd at first, because he is solidly entrenched as one of the music
community’s most highly regarded guitarists, who has been the guitarist
for Steely Dan for the past thirteen years and who also regularly tours
with Madeleine Peyroux. Add to his resume past tours with Bette Midler
and with The Dukes of September (Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen and Michael
McDonald) and it may sound incredulous that until
Time On My Hands his guitar
has not played a more prominent role on previous albums.
Jon Herington
says, “I got many comments from a lot of listeners, after
Like So and
Shine Shine Shine saying they
were surprised and disappointed that the records didn’t sound like
typical guitar player records. I think they meant the guitar was less in
the spotlight than they expected and there was maybe less of a featured
role for the guitar. They were exactly right and that was my intention.
I was thinking about the songs and I wasn’t thinking about the guitar
playing so much. I certainly wanted to play the guitar and I wanted to
play well, but the songs seemed to call for a short eight bar guitar
solo in the middle, like on a Beatles’ song or something like that, so I
would do what the song seemed to call for. It seemed like the natural
thing to do and to make those records sound good.
I
started thinking about it and I wondered could I make a record that
people wouldn’t say that about it and they wouldn’t say this is a
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Barbara Payton On Tour
One
might suppose that a person whose parents were music teachers and who
grew up in the Salvation Army, playing a brass instrument and going to
music camps, might have a better than average chance of having their
adult life closely linked to music. What might come as a bit of a
surprise for someone growing up in that somewhat conservative
environment is when you learn that Detroit singer and songwriter Barbara
Payton, in addition to carving out a splendid solo career, has also
toured extensively (as a background singer) and recorded (Face
The Promise – 2006) with Rock and Roll legend Bob Seger & the Silver
Bullet Band, as well as Kid Rock.
Payton has also opened for Joe Cocker, Pat Benatar, Lou Gramm,
Eddie Money, Jonatha Brooke and Terri Clark.
“I
grew up in a musical family in Port Huron (Michigan) and part of my
family is still there. All of my cousins, uncles and grandparents are
(musical). It was not expected necessarily, but it was a flow to go
right into music, learn how to read music and to pick an instrument. I
grew up in the Salvation Army, which had a brass band, so playing a
brass instrument was very appealing to me. I picked up the equivalent to
a French horn, an alto horn. The alto horn is an upright and it almost
looks like a small baritone. It is not the sexiest instrument to play
for Rock and Roll. I wish I had picked something else,” she says
laughing lightly, “but it was what I was drawn to at the time. I played
the French horn in the band in high school and I had my dad as a
teacher, but he certainly didn’t play favorites. In fact I think he may
have
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Adrienne Pierce - My Heavens
It
was about five years ago in the West Coast Canadian city of Vancouver
that we first met Adrienne Pierce who was opening that night for Jane
Siberry, who has since renamed herself Issa.
Although, the audience that
night had come mostly to see Issa they had completely embraced Adrienne
Pierce by the time she had completed her solo set, accompanying herself
on guitar. Over the years Ms.
Pierce has firmly established herself as a good songwriter whose
melodies and lyrics flow more like well written poetry that is further
enhanced by her ethereal soprano vocals.
If you are looking for a genre label, something for which this
magazine has little regard, Adrienne Pierce could best be described as
soft Pop.
Adrienne Pierce is back with a brand new album
My Heavens and she wrote the
music and lyrics for six of the ten songs and collaborated with her
hubby musician / songwriter Air Shine on the title song “My Heavens,”
“Oh Well,” our favorite tune “If Ever,” and “Something Silly.”
The duo also self-produced,
recorded and mixed the record.
If commercial radio was not mostly driven by money
instead of good taste “If Ever,” would be a chart stopper. This is the
best song that Adrienne Pierce (in collaboration with Ari Shine) has
ever written or recorded. Nicholas Allen Johns’ accompaniment on keys is
marvelous and his drumming adds another layer.
The arrangement and the orchestration are simple but pretty and
Adrienne Pierce has never sung better than she sings “If Ever.”
This is a song about a
relationship, but it is more than that, it is about two people who are
forever
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Alaina Blair Interview
Twenty
year old Alaina Blair’s debut full length self-title album opens quietly
or so it seems until at the thirty-eight second mark of the opening song
“Sweet Talkin’ Lola,” when she launches into a Rock number driven by
thundering guitar riffs and Blair’s edgy vocals with lyrics that have a
bite to them turn her into a Rock temptress. Ron Blair (no relation to
Alaina) of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is featured on slide guitar,
vibes, keys and bass, Billy Alexander who also produced the album plays
electric and acoustic guitar and Tony Morra backs Alaina Blair, playing
drums. Ron Blair, Alaina Blair and Billy Alexander co-wrote “Sweet
Talkin’ Lola.”
Alaina Blair talks about writing “Sweet Talkin’ Lola.” “I talked to Ron
and I asked him if he was interested in writing a song with Billy and I
and he was yes for sure, come on over. We were all sitting around in his
living room and he got all of these random instruments that he could
find. His whole house is just filled with music and it is so awesome.
Every time that I go in there I feel like a kid in a candy store.
He got a mic set up. We
recorded everything that we had been working on and we didn’t have any
lyrics until the next time that we got together. Our working title was
“Oh The World Didn’t End After All,” because the day that we wrote it
was the day the world was supposed to end.
The next time that we got together Billy had the idea of “Sweet
Talkin’ Lola,” he brought it to the table and we talked about it. A
friend of his was in a situation where this kind of sleazy girl was
always getting what she wanted and there was not a man she couldn’t
manipulate kind of a thing. I loved that idea (for the song), because
there is always that girl who knows just what to say and how to just get
the guys to do what she wants. Not many girls sing about a girl, but the
idea behind it was something that I liked and something I wrote about.
We laid down a
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Cherie Currie - Rock Legend
In
1975 when Cherie Currie was fifteen years old and sitting in the Sugar
Shack, a popular Los Angeles nightclub for those twenty-one years of age
and younger she was approached by sixteen year old guitarist, singer and
songwriter Joan Jett and her producer / manager Kim Fowley, about being
the lead singer in a band that would later become known as The Runaways.
The band also featured the late Sandy West on drums, guitarist Lita Ford
and bassist Jackie Fox (during
Currie’s time with The Runaways). The fifteen year old Cherie
Currie, a native of Encino in the San Fernando Valley had already built
a reputation with her classmates as being edgy and having a chip on her
shoulder. For the next two years of her life she would tour the world as
the lead singer of an aggressive all-girl Rock band whose signature song
“Cherry Bomb,” as well as “Queens of Noise,” and “California Paradise,”
would capture the imagination of teenagers worldwide. Some of the bands
that opened for The Runaways included Cheap Trick and Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers.
Recently, Cherie Currie from her home in
California took time out from her busy schedule, which includes a soon
to be released new album and her chainsaw art business, as well as being
mom to her twenty-two year old son, producer, musician and
singer-songwriter Jake Hays, to talk to Riveting Riffs Magazine. In
recent years, there has been somewhat of a renaissance, a renewal of
interest in The Runaways and the role that they played in terms of
paving the way for women musicians who would follow them. The feature
film The Runaways starring
Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and with
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