Joel
Selvin's new book, "Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and
the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues," is an epic excavation of a key
but forgotten figure in American music who died at the apex of his influence after
a brief but meteoric ride.
From his
first Top 10 hit, Solomon Burke's anguished 1962 breakthrough "Cry to
Me," to Erma Franklin's original recording of "Piece of My
Heart," released just weeks before his death in 1967 at 38, the songwriter
and producer lived his life like a lit fuse.
Fuelled
by the knowledge that the rheumatic fever he contracted as a child had damaged
his heart to such an extent that doctors said he'd be lucky to see his mid-20s,
Berns transformed his hidden torment and angst into jukebox gold by putting the
right song in the hands of the right artist.
Finding his niche
A
soulful, street-smart Jewish kid from the Bronx with no formal musical
training, Berns was hardly a wunderkind. He spent his 20s slowly learning the
ropes of the music business, and didn't find a home at Atlantic Records as a
staff producer until his 30s. But once he came into his own, he parlayed his
love of Cuban music and New York rhythm and blues into a trademark sound that
helped reshape pop music and with hits like the Isley Brothers' ecstatic
"Twist and Shout" (which Berns co-wrote), the Drifters'
clave-inflected "Under the Boardwalk" and Burke's impassioned
"Everybody Needs Somebody to Love," a song on which Berns and Jerry
Wexler cribbed co-writing credits, an all-too-common practice in those days.
When the
Beatles launched the British Invasion, it was Berns who brought New York
R&B to swinging London, where he produced "Baby, Please Don't
Go," the first hit by the Northern Irish band Them, led by a young Van
Morrison.
Emotional stamp
Berns
wasn't a conspicuous auteur like Phil Spector. He didn't impose a particular
sonic vision on every tune, though with Tom Dowd as Atlantic's house engineer
his tracks sounded better than almost anything on the radio. Whether working
with established acts or discovering new artists like Morrison and Neil
Diamond, who both made their first recordings for Berns' Bang Records, he
dialled the songs he produced to a heightened emotional pitch.
"Berns
was writing about his life," says Selvin, former long-time pop music critic
for The Chronicle and co-author of Sammy Hagar's memoir "Red."
"His songs reflected some deep inner turmoil. As a songwriter he liked to
push singers into desperate corners, right on the edge of hysteria. On the
surface 'Cry to Me' is a love song. Solomon Burke is singing to his girlfriend,
soliciting her affection, but the lyrics dwell on loneliness and emptiness. The
chorus has him crying. There's so much torture in these Berns songs, often
wrapped in this mambo gloss."
Not
always an easy read, "Here Comes the Night" bristles with names and
telegraphic descriptions of more than a hundred characters. Selvin sets the
scene for Berns' rise by detailing the way rock 'n' roll and R&B disrupted
the stranglehold of the major labels in the late 1950s, giving a colourful cast
of hustlers the space to sign and record artists while often helping themselves
to undeserved songwriting credits.
Sometimes
it's even hard to keep track of Berns, who published many of his songs under
the name Bert Russell and recorded under the name Russell Byrd.
Concerted campaign
Over the
years there have been a few attempts at taking stock of Berns' legacy, most
significantly, the British label Ace Records' two-volume anthology "Twist
& Shout 1960-1964" and "Mr Success 1964-1967." Now Berns'
obscurity is about to come to an end. "Here Comes the Night" is just
the first salvo in a concerted campaign by Brett and Cassie Berns, who never
knew their father, to raise him to his rightful place in the pop pantheon.
Brett recently completed a feature-length documentary on his father,
"Bang: The Bert Berns Story," and he and Cassie are producing an
off-Broadway revue, "Piece of My Heart," opening this summer at the
Signature Theatre.
Chatting
with the siblings last week at Selvin's book release party as they shared a
cigarette outside the Matrix, where a DJ had no trouble filling up an evening
with classic Berns tracks, they talked about getting to know their father
through his music.
"That
was really the best part, learning all these songs," Cassie said.
"He
knew he was going to die, and he said my children will know me through this
music. As a kid, what do you get from 'Hang On Sloopy,' 'Cry to Me,' or 'Piece
of My Heart'? We realized from Joel that the songs were autobiographical."
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