SE:  So, you grew up in a little small town, was it Glen Oak?
SA: Oak Glen.  Yeah, Oak Glen is an apple growing community between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.  It’s over 5000 feet elevation.

SE: Oh, wow.
SA: My great-great-grandfather pioneered the area and, originally, he had his apple ranch, but he also ran bootleg whiskey.

SE: Yow.
SA:  So, he was a colorful character, and then my grandfather inherited the property, and I don’t think he ran as much whiskey.  He started turning it into an apple ranch, so I was raised up there with my three brothers and my sister and my mom and dad and, I mean, really, like out of the Waltons.  I went to a one-room schoolhouse for a couple years.  I rode my horse to school.  I mean, I had a small town, basic upbringing.

SE: (laughs) It sounds very little.
SA: Yeah, it was really great.  Of course, when you’re a kid, and you’re growing up, and you’re in the sixties, and you’re in a little town like that, it’s like a prison, it’s like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to get out and see everything.”  But now, when I look back, I’ve got such a deep appreciation for having such a carefree, wonderful, safe environment to grow up in, especially when I look at kids today… oh my God.

SE: Yeah, frightening.
SA: Yes, it’s terrifying.

SE: I keep saying everyday, I look around and I go, “We need a draft.” (laughs)
SA: Yeah.  Do you have kids?

SE: I have three.
SA: Oh boy.  God bless ya.  My husband and I don’t have any but all my brothers and sisters have ’em and, yeah, it’s terrifying for parents now.

SE: Yeah, if they have good common sense, then you’re just blessed.  If they’re healthy and they have common sense, that’s all I want.
SA:  Exactly.

SE:  So, as far as music goes, what were you listening to growing up during that time?
SA: You know that… it’s a funny thing, because I love so much and the reason is because when I was a kid growing up there was all the influence from my mom and dad.. Sinatra, and Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington, and you know, the great music from the forties, the big band stuff.  And so I have a real affinity for that, but also at the same time, being one of five children, as I was growing up and as the oldest daughter, both my parents had to work, so I did a lot of babysitting, and I got very addicted to musicals.

SE: Ah.
SA: Yeah, any of those MGM musicals. So I fell in love with that stuff.  But my first big turn on into rock music that I remember was Dell Shannon’s “Runaway.”

SE: Oh, great song!
SA: I’ll never forget it.  I was outside, and I had this little white, plastic radio, with a giant dial on it that you can get like four stations on it, and when Mom and Dad were gone, I could flip it over to the rock and roll, take it off of their station, you know, and this song came on.  It was the first time that I had this impulse. It was like a knee jerk reaction.  I just turned it up as loud as it could go.

SE: Right.
SA: And it was just the most exciting thing I’d ever heard.

SE: Really.
SA: You know? And that’s my very first, distinct memory of getting turned on to the whole thing.  And then you know the Beatles came on, on Ed Sullivan, and my life was never the same.

SE: (laughs) Neither was anybodys.  I think I was like three and I remember watching them on that show, too.
SA: Yeah, and it was funny because I didn’t relate to the screaming part of it, even though I had mad crushes on them.  But, I was just… what they were saying was… it just got to me.  And Bob Dylan.  Bob Dylan had a huge impact on my life.

SE: Right.
SA: Because I was tall, I’m really tall, and as a young girl growing up, I got my full height pretty early on and I felt very out of place like I didn’t know where I fit in.  People always thought I was older than I was and that I should know a lot more than I could possibly know, you know.  And you don’t think your mom and dad could ever possibly understand anything you’re going through so, you know, I was always getting a little comfort from what the songwriters had to say and I was really lucky to have great poets in the sixties.

SE: Yes.
SA: You know?  So that I always felt connected to something, a bigger picture than just my little life.

SE: Hm.  So, at that time, were you thinking about acting, too?
SA: It was a secret that I harbored all myself.  I was a very shy kid and maybe it had to do with being so tall.  I was very shy growing up so,  I lived pretty much in a fantasy world, you know? When mom and dad were away working and I’d watch the musicals, you know, I’d have a fantasy about being in show business, but I never thought a moment about actually doing anything to make it come true. So I was going to be a nursery school teacher and marry my high school sweetheart.  And one day, he saw an ad in the local paper about this local beauty pageant, and he dared me to enter it because he thought that I might enjoy the fact that there was talent portion… because he knew that I liked to sing, and I’d joined the choir in the third grade so I could go to Disneyland, because the choir got to go to Disneyland, and I had to see, you know, Mickey.

SE: Oh yeah.
SA: So, I had never sung in front of anybody.  The only person who’d ever heard me sing was my poor little sister.  I’d make her… I’d make believe I was in a musical when, you know, I was babysitting, and I would get the inside roll of the toilet paper –

SE: (laughs)
SA: — and that’d be my microphone, and I’d stand on the hearth of the fire place, and I’d sing and she would be my captive audience when she’d much prefer to play with her Barbies.  But, I made her be my audience, you know, so she was the only other person who knew that I sang.. and then my boyfriend knew that I liked to sing as well so,  he dared me to enter this local beauty pageant and I decided that I’d go ahead and do it, and get up on stage, and sing.  I sang, “Since I Fell for You”.  It’s the first song that I ever sang on stage.

SE: Hm!
SA: And you know, I’m sixteen years old, from this little town, with this background that I told you, and I decided that I’m going to torch, you know, because when you’re sixteen, you’ve got so much to torch about.

SE: Oh, yeah.
SA: (laughs) So, being the drama queen that I was, I did that and I actually won.  And I didn’t realize that it was a preliminary to the Miss California pageant ..so, I went on to the Miss California pageant and I won that.  And then I went on to the Miss America pageant, where I finished second runner up.  And I jokingly say, on stage, that the little bitch from Michigan won.

SE: (laughs)
SA: (laughs)

SE: (laughs).  Yeah, you know I didn’t even know that you were in that. I mean, I didn’t watch the pageants when I was a kid, but I hadn’t heard that you were in that.
SA: Yeah well, you know, it was long before you were old enough to be interested in girls at all.

SE: Well, I don’t know about that.  (laughs)
SA: (laughs)

SE: But, finished second?  That, I can’t understand.
SA: Well, it was so funny.  I tell this story, because I have to laugh about it.  It was back in the day when Bert Parks hosted the Miss America Pageant.  They would narrow it down to the five finalists and then, one by one, he’d ask us to come over and he would ask the all-important question, you know, to determine the next Miss America.  So, it was my turn, and he asked me, you know, he said, “Now, Miss California,”… I’m sixteen years old, you know? This is the biggest trip I’ve ever been on in my whole life, all the way to Atlantic City, and he said, “When do you feel is the proper time to marry?”

SE: Uh huh.
SA: And I’m thinking, well, this is the dumbest question I’ve ever heard, you know?  How the hell do I know? So, I couldn’t help it, I just blurted out, “When you’re pregnant.”

SE: Aaah!
SA: (laughs)  And the audience, you know, totally cracked up, you know, I got the biggest laugh.  I went over and sat down, and Bert Parks followed me back to my chair, and said, “What’d you say?” ..because he didn’t even hear it because it went by so fast.  And I told him and he cracked up and, obviously, I lost, but NBC and TV Guide had this huge spread on the cover and… you know, “Did Miss California’s flip answer cost her the crown?” and “Did the Miss America Pageant change their questions after that?”  There was all this big whoopdee do over it,

SE: You gotta find that tape.
SA: Yeah, I know. It’s probably in the NBC archives.

SE: Yeah, you’ve gotta find that tape.
SA: I know, I’ve gotta find it.

SE: (laughs) That would be a perfect thing to play in between songs on stage.
SA: Totally, totally.  It was so funny.  So that, uh, that’s one of the reasons, you know, I just kinda kissed that crown goodbye with that little answer.

SE: (laughs).  Great answer though!
SA:  I thought so!

SE: I don’t think anybody would blink an eye today.
SA:  No, not today.

SE: No.
SA: See, nowadays, that wouldn’t even be a reason to get married.

SE: Right.
SA: (laughs)

SE: So what was your first big break in singing, or acting?
SA: Well, I guess the biggest break was, ironically… because even though I did a lot of clubs, you know, I was the little girl singer in the band at the hotels and the lounges where you’re on Saturday nights, you’d do a set, and then you take fifteen minutes off, and you do another one. So you’re on from like eight until one in the morning.  So, I did that kind of stuff.  But, actually, it was a commercial.  I got a national commercial for Muriel Cigars.

SE: I remember those.
SA: Yeah, and I would sing in those commercials and it was a huge deal because Edie Adams, who was really famous back in the fifties, she had been so associated with Muriel Cigars forever, and she had the catch phrase, “Why don’t you pick one up and smoke it sometime?”

SE: Right.
SA: So, there was a lot of national press when I got this campaign.  And I went on The Tonight Show, and then I started doing Merv Griffin, who had a show out in LA, that was really, really popular in syndication.  And I went on and I would sing. And he had me on like every month and then I did a ton of The Tonight Show.  And then Fred Silverman, who was at ABC, saw me and that was the last few days when you could still do variety on television, just before it was, you know, totally dead.  And he signed me to a deal at ABC, and then when he went to NBC he signed me over there.  And I had four of my own variety specials and then I actually did a series.  I had a thirteen week variety series with Mel Tillus that the Osmonds produced out of their studio in Orem, Utah.

SE: Yeah.
SA: So, then I would say that my first big break actually came with Muriel Cigars because in the commercials I actually sang.  So, I would say that the singing really came first.  The commercials, then the singing, and then that led to national exposure. And when this producer was looking for a girl for this film that he was doing, called “Golden Girl,” about this genetically engineered track star who was six-four, and blonde, and goes off to the Olympics and wins five gold metals in the running events, he contacted me after he saw me on The Tonight Show, and so that sort of started that ball rolling.  So it all kinda hit at one time.

SE: One thing after another.
SA: Yeah, it took ten years to get the ball rolling, but once it started rolling, it was going pretty good there for a while.  And then they signed me to Columbia.  I got signed there and Jack Gold, who used to produce a lot of Streisand stuff… they signed me there.  It was a funny thing.  Nobody ever really knew exactly what to do with me, and I was so young that I didn’t have any real direction myself as to what I wanted to do.  So I would try and do whatever anyone else wanted me to do, you know, “You want me to sing that material? Ok, I’ll do that.  Now we’re gonna go over here?  Ok, let’s go over there and do that,” you know?

SE: Yeah.
SA: So it’s only recently that I really am doing the music that I wanna do.

SE: Yeah, I was gonna ask you,  you’re best known for doing the Torch songs and the, what they now call lounge songs, and the standards, and so, is this like a hidden side of you that you’re just unleashing now?
SA: You know, it’s funny.  I’ve always, always done this.  I think it’s more that, if people know you work in Las Vegas, or Atlantic City, then they assume that that’s what you sing.  Because the truth is, I hardly ever had that in my show.  Like, when I used to play Vegas a lot, when Vegas had a lot of showrooms back in the eighties, my opening number was Earth, Wind and Fire, “Into Stone,” and my closing number was The Eagles, “Heartache Tonight”.  So I’ve always done contemporary material with an occasional standard because I have an appreciation for that music.  But I think it’s just the assumption, the connotation that people put on Vegas, you know?  So we all kinda, you know, put it into a pile.

SE: Yeah, I think they just recently stopped thinking of Elvis and Vegas together, you know?
SA: It’s true, it’s true.  And now Vegas’ image is now slowly shifting too, you know, because it’s certainly not what it was, and that era is obviously over.  It’s done. There’s no more Frank Sinatras and Sammy Davis Jr.s, coming along. That whole era is just over.  So, it’s primarily driven by, you know, contemporary big concert acts, or production shows.

SE:   You know, I’d heard that you had a great Elvis story.
SA: Oh god, yeah!  You know, when I first started working here in, god, it had to be 1971, and I was singing in a production show at the Hacienda Hotel, which no longer exists, but Elvis Presley had seen me, and he thought that I was kinda cute, so…

SE: Kinda cute!
SA: Yeah (laughs).. so I got word one day from one of his guys, that Elvis wanted to see me and, you know, I’m a cop’s kid, my dad’s a retired detective.

SE: Yikes!
SA; Yeah, so I had a real strong sense of, I don’t care who anybody is, I’m not gonna be impressed and so what, so I sent word back that if Elvis was interested in asking me out, then Elvis could come over here and ask me out himself! (laughs)

SE: (laughs)
SA: So, sure enough, a few weeks went by, and I’d get these dozen yellow roses, week in, week out, and one day I went over to see Tom Jones, at Caesar’s Palace, because a friend of mine was his opening act, a comedian named Pat Henry, who’s long since passed away, but I went over there, and Elvis showed up at the end of Tom’s show which, when Elvis wasn’t working, he’d just hang out in Vegas anyway.  And, inevitably, he’d show up at the end of Tom’s show, and he’d get up on stage and together they would do the American Trilogy, so it was pretty amazing.

SE: Wow.
SA: And, so, I was backstage afterwards, and that was when I met Elvis for the first time.  And so there was Elvis and all his bodyguards and Tom Jones and all his bodyguards, and Elvis is doing karate moves, and then everybody decides to go over to Elvis’ penthouse at the Hilton and I’m invited to go along.  So, I decided to go along with my friend Pat Henry, and I felt relatively safe in the environment, so I said, “Ok, let’s go.”  So, here we are over at the suite and there are all the bodyguards, with their guns and things, and Elvis is sitting there on the sofa next to me, and he’s so shy!

SE: Yeah?
SA: And here he is, Elvis Presley, and finally he turns to me and he goes, “Come here, I wanna show you something,” and I thought, uh-oh, but I knew my friend was there, so I said, “Ok.”  So he takes me into the master bedroom.

SE: Uh-oh.
SA: And… but the truth, and I’m thinking, what’s coming here, but the walls are covered in all of his gold records and blue ribbons and awards and plaques and tons of teddy bears that people had obviously given him.  You know, he’d traveled, obviously, with a lot of home around him to keep himself comfortable, and there was this chair, kind of red and almost like a throne, but not that ornate, and he said, “Sit down.” So I did.  And he went over to the bookshelf and got a book and he came back and he sat on this little footstool.  He opened up Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”…

SE: Right.
SA: And he proceeded to read to me.  And I was so touched because, literally, he would follow the lines in the book like a child when they’re first learning to read, with their finger?

SE: Right.
SA: And that was all he wanted to do, was just read to me this book that he had discovered and loved so much, and he wanted to share it with me.  And then he signed it and he gave it to me, and I lost it.

SE:  Lost it!
SA:  I lost it.

SE: Oh, man.
SA: I know, I lost it.  I mean, hopefully it’s in one of those boxes somewhere where one day I’ll open it and go, “Oh my god, here it is.”

SE: Geez.
SA: But that’s my Elvis story and I never saw him again.  Never saw him after that.

SE: Well, that was probably his peak period, so it might have been best.
SA: Yeah, I think so.  You know, I remember the day I heard the news that he’d died.  I’d gotten a part.. I was just starting to get some breaks acting.. it was an old show, it was Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert, called “Switch,” and I was doing a guest star part on that.  I’ll never forget.  I was on the lot at Universal, and you could hear the people going up and down, all the working areas, saying “Elvis is dead, Elvis is dead.”  And we all went on the set and turned on the TV that was part of the props there, you know, and hooked it up.  Nobody moved.. everybody was just kinda shut down.

SE: Yeah, you know, it’s really funny.  I’m into Elvis too, a bit, and I don’t really think that he gave a damn about the fact that he was married.  But it’s ironic that ever since his divorce, he just totally went downhill at a fast rate.
SA: Totally downhill.

SE:  I mean, his voice wasn’t gone, but his power was gone, his control was gone. His looks were gone.
SA: Yeah, it’s true, it’s true.  I mean, yeah, you look back at that special the he did, where he wears all that leather with  “JailHouse Rock.”  I mean, my god.

SE: Right.
SA: And that session that he has with the guys and they’re just sitting on folding chairs with their instruments?  It’s so, I mean he had everything!

SE: Yeah, and you know, I listen to him in the studio going through tracks and it sounded like he really had a talent for knowing what sounded right, much like Sinatra did.
SA: Yeah.

SE: They couldn’t really create anything, but they knew how to deliver it and how it should sound.
SA: Uh huh.

SE: He was on top of it, you know?  But, if you listen to his later stuff, in the late seventies, it sounds like he wasn’t even on this planet.
SA: Yeah.  He probably wasn’t.

SE: Yeah.
SA: Because I know, when I met him that night, it was clear, I mean, I didn’t know anything about drugs, I was so incredibly naïve.  I mean, I look back at situations now and I think, “That’s what was going on.”  But I remember now, you know because Elvis was sitting next to me on the sofa and was kind of a little groggy, and he left the room with this other guy, who I now know was his physician, and when he came back into the room he was all fine.

SE: Yeah.
SA: So when you look back you’re like, “Oh that was what was going on.” And it was so upsetting when I heard the news that he had died, because what I’d got when I sat in the chair that night when I’d watched him read, was that he was just a kid. And he’d hit this incredible fame, at such a young age, and Colonel Tom took over, you know, when his mother died.  And then, when his marriage finally did die, it was that death thing all over again. And he was, he was totally adrift. And he didn’t have the skills of a mature adult.

SE: Yeah, and every one of his records was nothing but sad, torch songs after that.
SA: Yeah.

SE: Unless he put out a live record, but then his live record would be the same as his last live record.
SA: Yeah.  And the great tragedy is that he didn’t get to do “A Star is Born,” because who knows what would have happened with that, given the chance to creatively rise to the occasion, and raise him from his stupor, because what was the point about him being creative about anything?.. Because he’d done it all, they weren’t taking him anyplace new, and he just allowed Colonel Tom to totally dominate his every move so,  it was like “Groundhog Day,” over and over again.

SE: Right.
SA: Where’s the creativity there?

SE: Just like his records.
SA: Poor Elvis.

SE: Yeah, poor Elvis.  You know, everybody who I’ve interviewed pretty much has a great Elvis story that I’ve never read or heard before.  This is another one. . . So you went from being in a little town near LA and then just wound up moving to LA?
SA: Yeah, it’s funny.  After my year as Miss California, because you travel around for a year, and you cut ribbons and you do that sort of thing, and my high school boyfriend then was in college, he went to a college in Pasadena, and so I followed him there, and got myself a little apartment.. because in those days, you didn’t even think about living together so,  he was on campus and I had my little apartment.  And I was in Pasadena and I really didn’t know how to get into show business, or what to do.  I was cleaning offices at night, you know, doing the Carol Burnette scrub woman thing, and finally going on auditions,  finding one of the judges who’d been at the Miss California Pageant, his name was Eddie Foyd III, and there was the famous Eddie Foyd and he was one of the kids and he’d been a very successful casting director, so I contacted him and said that I needed some help here because I wanted to do this with my life.  And he said, “Well, let me hook you up with this piano player” and so I met Larry White, with whom I occasionally still work. Yeah, every now and then I’ll still hook up with Ol’ Larry, who I’ve known since day one.

SE: So was the L.A. nightlife in the seventies as swinging as I’ve read it was?
SA: You know, I’m sure it was, but I was never a part of it.  I was out in Pasadena.

SE:  (laughs)
SA: You know, I didn’t start to get out there, you know, start to really get out there and give myself permission to have fun with anything until probably about ten years ago. (laughs)  Being the good girl, raised in the little town, with detective Anton as your dad,  I just really walked the straight and narrow. So I never really got to check that out.  But the funny thing is that a month ago, I played The Whiskey.

SE: Oh right.
SA: And it was such a kick because the realization was, you know, there was that great article in Vanity Fair about The Whisky.  And so, have you read that?

SE: No.
SA: Oh, it’s a great article. It’s about two months ago.  You ought to check it out.  They have a great article about the great rock and roll, and jazz, and that time.

SE: Yeah.
SA: And so, there’s a great piece on The Whisky. So it was really kind of wild to actually, finally.. after all of these years I now get to have my seventies experience.

SE: (laughs)
SA: (laughs)

SE: Well, better late than never, and better when it’s safer and you have your wits about you.
SA: Yeah, that’s for sure.

SE: So, you’ve done a lot of stage shows, a lot of plays and musicals and what not?  How do you compare the vibe from acting on stage to the vibe you get from performing and singing… like the concerts you do?
SA: Oh, well, obviously they are so incredibly different, you know, I always think about that question.  If there was only going to be one thing that I was going to do for the rest of my life it would be singing live with my band.  That I think is the greatest joy and I enjoy it more and more the older I get because there is so much freedom, more permission.  You know, you are not out there to please everybody. You don’t have to be a pleaser, at least I was anyway.  I mean, I was a Miss America contestant, for God’s sake.

SE: Right.
SA: So, it was a Stepford Wife, kind of thing.  And now, it’s so much fun and primarily, it would be great to have a big hit, so you can play a big arena, obviously, and have all the best elements.  I toured with Kenny Rogers for a couple of years because, back in the eighties, I had a top ten country record that I did with Fred Noblok, that James Stroud produced so,  I toured with Kenny Rogers and it was amazing.  Because we’d travel on his jet, and then we’d go out into the meadow lands, and then we’d have this perfect stage, and this fabulous sound, and forty thousand screaming people, and thank God they were country fans, so that they were very nice to the opening act, you know, versus, “Get off! We came here to see Limp Bizkit. Go away!”

SE: (laughs)
SA: So that obviously would be a great thing, but  the reality is that, for me, I love the small clubs where there isn’t the big pressure to put butts in chairs and it’s really about people coming to enjoy music and the journey that you can take for that night.

SE: I agree.
SA: I mean, that’s how that whole CD happened.  I had been doing a show here in Las Vegas for seven and a half years, a production show that was an incredibly wonderful steady job to have in this business for years, you know, but creatively I was completely toast.  I was doing the same things over and over and over again, and you know you’re going nowhere with it, but you’re certainly paying your bills.  So, after that closed, I called my band and said, “You know, let’s just do it. Let’s just do a show, for ourselves, kind of acoustical.  Let’s just do the music that we like to do, that matters to us, and tell a story that we wanna tell, and let’s play L.A.”… because we’d never played L.A. together as a band. And some of my guys have been with me for twenty years.  So, we went in to the Cinegrill, at the Roosevelt Hotel, and really hipped the place up.  We threw down, you know, it looked like an opium den, it looked like a hippy revival thing.  We had the rugs, and the pillows and the tapestries and the candles going.  And the response was so incredibly wonderful that I said, “You know, let’s record this thing.”  So we got the studio on wheels, and they came in on the last night and we did it in one take. That was it! So this is as live as anything could ever get.

SE: Wow.
SA: You know, one night, one take, that’s it.  So, that’s the CD.  That’s why we’re gonna call it “One Night.”

SE: No overdubs and touch ups?
SA: You know, I couldn’t do any vocal overdubs because the drum leak, the bleed was so great, the separation between the drums and the piano and the vocal? So, my guitar player, Michael Cunio, he’s the guy that mixed it all down, he was able to add some guitar stuff, and he was able to fix some background vocals and, with technology, he was able to get my voice back in pitch when I might have fallen off, which, of course, never happens (laughs).. but, basically, he wasn’t able to really sweeten it up much at all. Because of how the bleed was, with the track, the separation just wasn’t there, so if you tried to do a new vocal, I’d have to try to do exactly the one that I did which, you know, what’s the point? Just fix the one that was there. And if there’s any kind of a hook my CD has, it’s that it truly is, I mean, it truly is one night, one shot, one take and that’s that, because we’re on such a shoestring budget.  My God, this is my own out of pocket project here.  And we didn’t have the luxury.  I mean, had we had better separation, I’m sure I would have said, “Hey, let’s fix that, let’s do that,” but, it wasn’t an option.  And on some tracks, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to listen to it, but the bass is a little too out front.  And we tried to pull the bass back, but you know the rest of the track would drop out and you’d lose all the energy, because you couldn’t bring the drums up, because then the piano was like,  “Oy vey!” Because one of my favorite CDs is Bonnie Raitt’s “Road Tested” and I don’t know how much they got to back in and fix or do, but clearly, they also probably recorded who knows how many performances to splice together and, you know, get the best take.

SE: You know, its like you said, it’s probably best that you weren’t given that luxury to go in an redo it because, you know, you might have gone around and went full circle and start screwing up something that had a good magic to it.
SA: Exactly.  And you know that was the whole intention anyway because it was being received, it was like this happening, this mini happening.  People were coming and the unfortunate part of the live album was that all the stories aren’t on there, because it’s like a comedy album.  It’s funny once, but how many times are you gonna listen to dialogue over and over again on a record, so we opted to take all of that out, but it was just like this little happening that was just so much fun every night and we wanted to have a memory of it.  And at the time, the Red Seravan, I mean, we didn’t know who they were and they certainly didn’t know who I was, so I was just gonna have it to put on my website or sell when I do concert dates, and to have something.

SE: Yeah.
SA: And if it keeps having, like, this little life of its own, which is just, really gratifying..

SE: Now, you’ve covered a wide variety of music styles.  Which would you say is your favorite or that you’re the most comfortable with?
SA: Boy, you know, rock, with a lot of R&B flavoring.

SE: Yeah?
SA: Absolutely, absolutely.  Tina Turner is right in the pocket for me.  I love Bonnie Raitt a lot too, but Tina gets to be a little more rock than Bonnie.  Yet it’s got all that great R&B, where you get to bend the notes, you know, and just really have a great time.  It’s got a lot of sassiness in it and I like that.  I like to be able to just let it rip! So, for me, it’s rhythm and blues, rock and roll put together.  If I were to narrow it down to one, it would be that.

SE: Sounds cool.
SA: Unfortunately, when we played the Cinegrill, we couldn’t do that kind of stuff because the room was so small that you couldn’t go in there, because the people.. their ears would be bleeding, you know.  It wasn’t the venue for that.

SE: Right.
SA: So when we did The Whisky, we got to do a lot more of that kind of stuff, which was fun.

SE: I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of anything you’ve been doing for a while and I just happened to be driving through L.A.  with my girlfriend and we were driving down Hollywood Blvd. and we saw the sign at the Cinegrill, we saw your name up there, and I said, “Man, Susan Anton’s playing!  What is that?  What is that place?  Write it down, I wanna see what that place is about.”
SA: (laughs)

SE: And the first thing I thought was, “Why the hell doesn’t she play in San Francisco?”  (laughs)
SA: Yeah, really!

SE: I mean, that’s the perfect place for her!
SA: Oh, I have to check it out.

SE: San Francisco would go nuts over you.
SA: You think so?

SE: Oh, please!  You know, I was gonna ask you what you thought about the fact that a lot of kids today are rediscovering, or discovering for the first time, a lot of female singers from the forties, fifties, sixties, like Dusty Springfield…
SA: Yeah.

SE: Petula Clark, and Lanni Hall, of all people.
SA: Really?

SE: Yeah, people are really looking for, like Sergio Mendes and Lanni Hall records.  Astrud Gilberto is another one.
SA: Uh-huh, hm-mm. Oh, that’s great.  I love that. Yeah, you see, that’s the thing, good music is good music.

SE: Right.
SA: And leave it to the kids, you know, if Madison Avenue has the age discrimination conversation, the kids don’t have it, and I don’t think we as a culture  have it, but Madison Avenue is always shoving it down your throat, same thing as TV, always gearing it toward twenty-something year olds, but those kids wanna know what else is going on.  They’re curious about before and past and everything else.  I think that’s so cool. I remember seeing, uh, Joe Turner, not long before he passed away, and it would have been great if he were around today for people to appreciate him.

SE: Oh, yeah.
SA: And I mean, it was unbelievable.  He was playing at this funky little club out in Hollywood somewhere and there was hardly anybody there, but a friend of mine is a big Joe Turner fan, so we went to see him.

SE: Oh, he’s great.
SA: Oh, yeah.  You know, he’d just take his teeth out, sit on the stool and just sing.

SE: (laughs)  Yeah.
SA: It was the best.

SE: You know, I was going through your TV credits and stuff in this little bio thing, and it can’t be complete.  There’s got to be a bunch of other stuff I remember seeing you on.
SA: Well, the thing is that I did like a hundred and fifty commercials for one thing.

SE: Yeah.
SA: Yeah, I did a lot of commercials, and then I was on TV a lot with all the talk shows, and I only had a couple series of on my own, the two variety shows, and then I had an  episodic thing that was on ABC called “Cliffhangers”  which was one of those wheels, where there were like three different shows within a show.  Mine was kind of like a take off on “The Perils of Pauline,” where I played a photojournalist and each episode ended in a peril that would be resolved in the following episode. And then, for the most part, through the eighties, I did an occasional thing, an occasional guest spot, whether it was on ” Civil War’s” or whatever that half-hour comedy du jour was.

SE: Yeah.
SA: But, for the most part, I’ve been on the stages, you know, whether it’s Broadway or touring with Kenny for a couple years, or, you know.  I did a couple of seasons for “Baywatch,” where I played one of the recurring characters, the mom to Nicole Eggart, who was a lifeguard on the show, so I did that. But I haven’t’ done. . . it’s funny because I’ve been on TV, but not much lately, and it’s been a while.  Its’ kind of sketchy.  I haven’t done that much when I look at how long I’ve been in the business.  You know the majority of all my time has been spent in live performances.

SE: Yeah?
SA: Yeah.

SE: Well, you gotta saturate that tube again because you know what happens when you stay away from that too long.
SA: Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m trying to get that ball rolling again, because…

SE: You turn into a cult figure.
SA: I know! (laughs)… that’s the thing.  My doing that show in Vegas for seven and a half years really took me off the market.  Because six nights a week, ten shows a week, that’s it, that’s your life.  And I only thought it was gonna last a year.  Next thing I know I turn around and its seven and a half years later. So now it’s a matter of getting back in there and saying, “Hey, remember me?”

SE: Well, they do.
SA: You know, I’m so lucky because they do!   You know, I’ll walk through an airport and people will always know who I am.. it’s the damnedest thing! I’m very grateful because I’ve only had that one top ten country thing, top forty on the pop and, you know, and that was a long time ago.  And then this matter of TV this and that and everything, but I’ve never had that bona fide thing to hang my hat on.

SE: Right.
SA: Where, you know, “That’s the girl who had that hit record, or was on that show. . . ” or whatever, but wherever I go, people still know who I am, and so for that I’m very grateful.

SE: Well, they know the face, they know the name.
SA: Yeah, and hopefully I’ll have the CD which will give me an opportunity to get out there and promote it and have conversations and have people go,  “Oh, there she is.” And once you get back into that stream of consciousness, then hopefully people start to think of you for things.

SE: Right.  Didn’t you sometimes have a duet act with Dudley Moore?
SA: No, you know, we periodically.. because I worked at the time, in Vegas and in Atlantic City, or whatever, and when we were together, often times he would travel with me when he could.  He would always get up and play the piano and we would do some stuff together, and he had a few restaurants that he was involved with and he would play the piano.  But we never toured professionally.  It was always just if we were out together as a couple and there was a piano.  One of our great joys was to just jump up and do something spontaneous.  Funny, just the other day, I was hitting golf balls, I love to play golf, and so I was hitting golf balls at this driving range, and who should walk up to me but Ray Brown, the world’s sweetest upright bass player.  You know who he is, right?

SE: Right.
SA: And Ray played a lot with Dudley and they played a thing at the Hollywood Bowl.  And Ray played at a birthday party that Dudley threw for me and I’ve worked with Ray a lot, so it was great to see him and reminisce with him.  But, that’s the kind of music that Dudley and I did.  We never toured.

SE: Yeah, I thought you guys had like a club act or something.
SA: No, no, no.  That’s funny, we never did.  He would just crash mine.  (laughs)

SE: (laughs)
SA: And I was always happy when he did.

SE: Yeah, I’m sure.  I mean, I never really got deep into his music and all, but it seems from what I’ve seen that he’s got a real gift.
SA: Oh, I’ll tell ya, he was incredible.  Unfortunately, now, his illness is… he can’t play the piano anymore.  It’s so tragic, but I never even knew who Erroll Garner was, until I met Dudley, because Dudley could play Erroll Garner like Erroll Garner, which is pretty hard to do.  His talent was unbelievable and his passion for jazz was just great.  He did a lot of stuff with Cleo Lane, and like I said, Ray Brown.  He was just a brilliant musician, as well as classically trained as well.

SE: Yeah… So you’re doing a lot of work with children’s organizations and a lot of cancer organizations?
SA: Well, for two years I was the honorary crusade chairperson for the American Cancer Society.  When I did the gig here in Vegas, I had to step aside from that position because I wasn’t able to travel and take on as much as I had at one time, but I’m always involved with that and AIDS Pediatrics as well and Special Olympics.

SE: Wow.  What inspired you to get into all that stuff?
SA: Well, without sounding cliché, I love kids!  There’s just something about children and dogs that knock me out. And I would rather hang out with them than almost anybody I know! With the exception of my husband.  Just give me a little kid and a  dog and you’re in total truth! It’s wonderful!

SE: That’s true. (laughs)
SA: I think being one of five kids, and just really recognizing just how profoundly blessed I am with a wonderful family and the health that we all share, and all my cousins, there’s been health issues, but we’ve been pretty fortunate to not have some horrific situations, with as many of us as there are.

SE: Yeah.
SA: So when you are in a celebrity capacity people come to you and so I decided to get involved with the causes that involved children because I knew that was something that was a no brainer for me.  I’ll do anything to help kids.

SE: Right. That’s cool… So this new live album is your third album is it?
SA: I guess it would be because there’s that one I did for Columbia at the beginning, and there’s one I did with the Scotti brothers that had the country stuff on it, that James Stroud did, and, actually, that was a big hit in Japan.  I’ve got my little gold record on my wall from Japan.

SE: Ah, nice.
SA: (laughs) Yeah, and its funny because the album, we finally found.. we actually just finally found it, because I didn’t even have it, and we found out through email that this guy had it so, he sent it so we could make some copies of it.  Verese might re-release it, which would really be be fun, because predominately it’s all that country pop, not hardcore country, but when country was beginning to become the thing you know?

SE: Yeah.
SA: And James Stroud has gone on to win a ton of CMA awards, and Fred Noblok as well, as a songwriter.  But, there’s one song on there that was specifically for Japan and it’s a disco song.  It’s so funny because you’ve got this one song on there that’s called “Foxy” and the rest of it is kind of like, Don Henley’s “For My Wedding.”

SE: (laughs)
SA: Very funny.

SE: Have you thought about going in and taking that disco track and doing a remix?
SA: Well, you know, yeah, that’s a great idea.  Actually I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t had a chance to listen to the album yet because I don’t have a turntable anymore, so the label’s going to dub it down on a CD for me, which they hadn’t had a chance to get around to yet. So, I’m anxious to hear it, but that’s a pretty great idea.

SE: Yeah, I mean because then you could just find the master tapes and just have some DJ just sample what they need, and then you’ve got another hit.
SA: Sure! Absolutely!  And you know, that’s a pretty good idea because everyone always looking for that retro hook to get you in the door.  That’s something that I could actually lay claim to outside of being  “Golden Girl” you know? (laughs).

SE: Yeah!
SA: Running around in shorts, and whatever! (laughs)

SE: I’m sure the first time they spun that Cher song a few years back in the clubs, I’m sure people were saying, “Who?  Who’s this?”
SA: Sure, sure.

SE: So, when you did this new album, were you pretty much involved in the production, the picking of the songs, the mixing?
SA: Oh, completely.  It was a real collaboration between me and the band because our intention was never to…  we didn’t select the materiel because we were thinking,  “And then we’ll record it,” because that wasn’t even a thought.  So, we were simply putting a show together that was going to be fun for us, that had the music that was going to be more… When we played in the past, it’s always been to the big venues.  And sometimes we have to accommodate the environment that we’re in, and so sometimes the music would have be a little bit more subdued than we would like, or a bit more familiar, you know? More standard stuff that everybody would recognize, so we decided that we just wanted to do a show where every song had a purpose for being there, that came from a personal place.  So the material I would bring, I always had tons of ideas, and I’d bring ’em to the band because they know me so well.  We would go to the process of just selection and selection, and just go, you know, “It sounded like a good idea, but now that we hear it, eh, it doesn’t work… ”  And then we wanted to try and make things very acoustic, as best as we could.  That’s why there’s a lot of ballads in there.  The Mark Cohen stuff, and the Don Henley thing, because acoustically, it was just nice for us to not have to power through stuff.

SE: Yeah.  Are you already gearing up for the next studio CD?
SA: You know, not yet, but that’s definitely something that I would like to do now, now that I’ve gotten back into this, and rediscovering just how thrilling it is.  And nowadays, it’s so do-able.

SE: Yeah.
SA: So, Michael Cunio, my guitar player, he’s got a fabulous studio because he does a lot of work doing music for commercials and stuff like that so he’ s got a great studio, and he’s also a brilliant songwriter, kind of in the Sting vein.  Yeah, I think it’s time to start collecting material and listening and when we get enough stuff together that makes sense, just go in there and actually do a studio thing, which would really be fun.

SE: You know, before I let you go, I gotta ask you, when you look at your gold record on the wall, do you ever wonder who’s ever really on it? (laughs)
SA: Yeah, you know, isn’t that the truth? (laughs)

SE: (laughs)
SA: I know, it’s probably some Japanese thing.  (laughs)

SE: So what can we expect to see next from Susan Anton?
SA: I don’t know.  I think the thing now is to find the proper venues, the cool kind of venues like the ones you were mentioning, the Fillmore, and Bimbo’s and those kind of places, to get out there when it makes sense and start to let people discover me.  You know, who I really am, what I really am about, and that I really am a singer.  It’s one of those things where you’re known more as an image, then people just think, “Oh, that’s cute, now she’s gonna try and do this,” but it’s like, no, no, no, I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years, and this is the way that I’ve been taking care of myself pretty well for a long time now.  This isn’t just a notion for me. This is my love, this is my career.  So the thing is to kind of play the cooler clubs so people can discover me and I can hopefully shift the perception out there.

SE: Hm.  In between all that, you should start a book, too.
SA: Yeah, you know, it might be time to put down some of these thoughts because I look back on it and I’ve never been one to save memorabilia, but in a situation, or when having a conversation like we’re having today, and I start to recall things, it’s like, “Oh my God, I toured with Frank Sinatra.”

SE: Holy moly!
SA: Oh, yeah, you know?  And Sammy Davis Jr.  And George Burns, for that matter, and Bob Hope, and oh man, I was really lucky to know some of the greatest people ever!

SE: Wow.
SA: Yeah, pretty great, pretty great.

SE: So, what, you opened for Frank Sinatra?
SA: I did.  We toured back in, what was it, eighty-four when the Olympics were in L.A.? And ATT sponsored a tour during the summer, bringing the torch across the States to the L.A. Coliseum, and I was on for the entire summer, and then Frank would do a week, and then go off for a week and come back and on the alternating weeks, one week would be myself, and Frank Sinatra, Buddy Rich on drums, and David Brenner doing the comedy, and that was one week.  Then the next week it was the Beach Boys, America, and George Burns and myself.

SE: Oh, wow.
SA: Isn’t that a bizarre thing?  There you go.

SE: Geez.
SA: So I spent the entire summer with Frank and it was pretty amazing.  I’d sit in the wings, I watched every show and there was no one, I mean, I’ve never seen anybody else on a stage that has what he had.

SE: Oh, yeah.
SA: It was just… and even towards the end.  The last time I saw him perform, he has a golf tournament, actually, out in Palm Springs, I just came back from it, he started it up about fifteen years ago for the children’s hospitals out there.  He used to always do the entertainment, and the last time I saw him was probably five years ago, at the golf tournament, and he didn’t entertain that year.  They only asked five people to be the gala, and do the show that year, and sing Sinatra’s songs, and I was the only girl that was asked, so I was really flattered. So, Frank was there, and he was sitting at the big table right in front of the stage, and I got up there and I started to sing “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and I got to “I’m gonna love you like nobody’s loved you, come rain or come shine,” and I said, “Wait, I have to stop.”

SE: (laughs)
SA: And the orchestra, we all stopped, and, I don’t know, it’s  about five thousand people or whatever, and I said, I’m looking at him, and I said, “You know, I can’t believe I’m singing this song to you, that I’m singing to Frank Sinatra.”

SE: Yeah.
SA: It was a moment, and the whole room got it.  Everybody got what that was, they could all relate to it.  And then I went back and finished the song.  It was an incredible memory that I’ll treasure forever and that’s the last time I saw him. But he had it then, and he still had it, even though, he wasn’t what he was.  You could tell he wasn’t well, but he got up on stage at the end, and he hit the last note of “New York, New York” with all the rest of us, and it was Frank.  And he was amazing.

SE: Geez… well, I could probably talk to you for another twelve hours, and then we’d have a book. (laughs)
SA: (laughs) That’s right!

SE: What do you think of all these, you know, eighteen, nineteen year old girl singers that are, I don’t know… do you really think they have a gift, or are they just up their doing vocal aerobics?
SA: It seems to me that a lot of them really do, but then again, you do have some great people out there, you know, Alanis Morissette and people like that who are writing wonderful material.  They are obviously unique songwriters and they have their own voice and expression.  But you’re right, there is a huge instant pop kind of thing out there, and it’s amazing that these kids can sing like they do, but it’s all imitation of the same old thing, and it’s just like, ok.

SE: And they’re all trying to sound like Stevie Wonder did.
SA: Yeah! Obviously, there are a lot of talented kids out there, I mean, there have been and there always will be, but with MTV and technology, I just don’t think there are that many that are the real thing.  There’s just a lot of techno stuff that’s just produced.

SE: Right.
SA: Clearly, they turn them into TV shows.

SE: Right.  Do you think a lot of these girls, like Britney Spears and people like that, that they’re just emphasizing more on the sex object image than the singer?
SA: It’s so image driven, so image driven. because you see that when they came on the scene, and my neice is nuts for her, I took my niece to go see her in concert, and she puts on a nice little show, you know, I’ve got nothing bad to say about Britney Spears, but you see how they’ve just totally got her tweaked out.  It’s all about hair and make-up and exposing your body, and it’s like, come on! What about the music?  It’s the fad that they’re going through now.  When I was in the sixties and stuff, it was like, pretty girls were like the outcasts.  You had to be the interesting, earthy thing.  The Joan Baez thing, you know?  (laughs)

SE: (laughs) That’s pretty earthy.
SA: (Laughs) But you know, those were the serious artists.  You had to write your own music.

SE: That’s true,
SA: Look at the body of Joni Mitchell’s work now.  It’s awesome! Oh my God! Now That’s a talent.

SE: What about you?  You gonna try doing some writing?
SA: You know I’ve always toyed with it.  And I am a person who likes to collaborate, and I think that I. . . I need to know that I actually have a possibility of something, just to sit around for the hell of it?  For me, it would just be like jerking off, but now that I can actually have a venue to go and maybe do something with it. . . I probably will hook up with my guitar player, Michael, who writes, and give it a go.  I think I might have a few things to say.  (laughs)

SE: So you’re more of a word person?
SA: I’m a word person.  Because melody, since I don’t play an instrument, I think that I would probably just get too obvious with my melody.  I don’t think it would be interesting enough.  Because I used to, actually, Dudley had a lot of things that he had written, and I would take his songs and I would write lyrics to them.  So the Elton-Bernie, thing?  I would be the Bernie thing, and I need an Elton.  (laughs)

SE: (laughs)  Don’t we all.  Well, I’ll let you go and have dinner, or whatever you have to do, unpack…
SA: Yeah, well, that’s true, I need to go unload the car.

SE: Yeah, so thanks for spending so much time with me.
SA: Oh well, thank you. I enjoyed it very much. Well, thank you for your time, and hopefully I’ll be able to come out to the Bay Area before the year is out, and you’ll be able to come to the show.

SE: That would be great.
SA: Ok.

SE: Ok, well, take care.
SA: You, too.  Bye bye.