jitterbug – Tony Shimkin speaks about unreleased demo



Madonna goes “all the way” as Mae Mordabito, jittering her bug with co-star Eddie Mekka – A League of Their Own director, Penny Marshall’s co-star in Laverne and Shirley

Exactly five years ago, this very week, I visited the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC to listen to a number of Madonna’s rare unreleased demo tapes.

One or rather, two of the most interesting tapes on file at the LOC are what has become known in Madonna myth as “The Rain Tapes”. If you haven’t heard of them before, “The Rain Tapes” are two cassette tapes containing a number of demos from the Erotica album that were filed at the LOC by Madonna’s Erotica co-producer, Shep Pettibone – the existence of the tapes were first brought to light by my old friend, Bruce Baron in his 1999 article “Madonna – From Genesis to Revelations” in US magazine, Goldmine.

On one of the two Maxwell UD II 90 minute audio cassette tapes on which the Erotica demos are recorded (LOC reference: Pau.1.605.641/643), in between two demos of Thief of Hearts is a clip of a song called Jitterbug. The song is listed as “Jitterbug” Rough 1/17/92 on the handwritten cassette cover, spelt incorrectly with a “G” and corrected with a bold “J”. All songs on the tape are credited to S.Pettibone/M.Ciccone/T.Shimkin (Shep Pettibone, Madonna and Tony Shimkin).

When Bruce Baron visited the LOC, he was given a number of hours to listen to and review the demos. I was given permission to review the demos over a four day period, so my notes about the song differ slightly from Bruce’s original online report:

Madonna sings in a cartoonish/I’m Breathless style, “Jitter, b-b-b-b-b-bug, Get up, u-u-u-u-u-up”. The music is like a modern take on the swing music of the 1940s, but incorporates some house style piano and synth horns. The music continues and Madonna mock scolds in her best Cry Baby “Nu Yoik” voice, “That’s not how you do it!” (Do what – the jitterbug?) The music continues and Madonna says, “Is this gonna go on forever?” no less than twice and then says, “Somebody end this damn thing,” continuing, “There were some cute ideas in there”.

A few days after my trip to the LOC, I interviewed Madonna’s Erotica co-producer/songwriter, Tony Shimkin, at his office/studio in New York:

thebeatswithin: I heard a snippet of a song called Jitterbug when I visited the Library of Congress, which was on the same tape as the other Erotica demos, but sounds nothing like any of those songs.

“It was an attempt to do something for the A League of Their Own soundtrack where there was a jitterbug dance scene in the film and it was an attempt to try to do a jitterbug in somewhat of a modern way. So, it was a real, rough demo idea of how it would be and envisioning it.

Actually, if it had have been carried out, it probably would played out like the actual piece of music that was used in the movie. It was very Big Band oriented and, if it were to have been produced, I think it would have been produced with a full Big Band and a full horn section and all that.

We were trying to think conceptually was there a way to do a jitterbug in a cool kind of contemporary way and give it to her and see what kind of lyrics and melody she would come up with and it was never really explored beyond the initial demo music.
thebeatswithin: I only heard about 30 seconds of music. Was that as far as the idea went?

“Pretty much. There was just a really rough sketch – “How about something like this? Is this what you’re trying to do?” I think we were in the middle of so many other things at the time and maybe there wasn’t a necessity for it in the movie.

It was around the time we were doing This Used to Be My Playground and the Jitterbug thing was an idea then. We went to meet with her in Chicago when she was doing the movie, so that’s when that was done.”

thebeatswithin: Did you record that demo with Madonna in Chicago?

“No, we recorded This Used to Be My Playground in Los Angeles and Jitterbug, we did in New York at Shep’s house.”

Click here to watch the scene from A League of Their Own, that inspired Jitterbug. Incidentally, the scene uses the song Flying Home, written by “The King of Swing” Benny Goodman, with Lionel Hampton, Sid Robin and Sydney Robin, and is performed by Doc’s Rhythm Cats.

in the evidence of her brilliance – Tony Shimkin speaks

Shimkin and Ciccone - getting their "beats within" out in the studio





In July 2006 I flew to New York City and met with Tony Shimkin at his office at Noble Music, a company that he established back in the early 1990s. From 1989 to 1995, Tony worked extensively for Madonna – from the Like a Prayer singles remixes, to Vogue, The Immaculate Collection, Erotica and the Bedtime Stories single remixes.

On a typically balmy summer's afternoon, in Tony’s office/studio (complete with Tony’s impressive RIAA Diamond certification for The Immaculate Collection proudly mounted on the wall), I spoke with him about his amazing career and his work with Madonna – which included an impromptu instrumental performance of Deeper and Deeper by Tony on his unplugged electric guitar. Towards the end of the interview, Tony spoke about Madonna’s song writing:

“I’d say Patrick Leonard’s best work is Madonna. William Orbit’s best work is Madonna. Mirwais’ best work is Madonna. Stephen Bray, everybody... and Shep Pettibone is best known for Madonna. I think what she does is, whatever you do, she adds a melody that’s on par, or if not, brings it to a higher level. A lot of these songs that any of these people, including myself, had written, somebody else could write a melody to it and it would be a totally forgetful song.”

the beats within: Critics have often applauded Madonna for being incredibly discerning when it comes to choosing the right collaborators; however it often comes across as a bit of a backhanded compliment, with an assumption that the credit for her music lies elsewhere.

“If you take any of those tracks and take her contribution off it, it would have a different melody and lyrics and it would never be a hit. I’m sure she can get airplay because of who she is, but people are singing her songs to this day. I have written a piece of music that I did and given it to three different singers and you’d be amazed at the difference between what each person could contribute and where one can just be head and shoulders above the others.

But what Madonna brings to a song is so unique to herself. It’s her voice too. She’s not the greatest singer in the world, but if Cathy Dennis were to sing it, it wouldn’t be as successful. It would be successful and it would still be a great pop song, but it’s the melodies she (Madonna) writes.

Deeper and Deeper is a cool piece of music, but without that melody and without that energy that is added to it. It’s really the opposite – people think that so-and-so wrote the music. The music is not the hard part to write. The hard part to write is the lyrics and the melody. That’s the hardest thing to write in the world. If I, or these other people, could write lyrics and melodies like her then these people would be supplying her with finished songs and she would just be singing them. But that’s not the case if anything she’s made their songs come to life and made them notable because she put a great lyric and melody on it. I really think it’s the opposite.

There are a million tracks out there by artists now and if you took their vocals off and gave it to her to write to it would be a huge hit. It’s as simple as that. It’s one of the hardest things to write a memorable melody, like Beatles songs. So many of their songs are just simple Blues progressions but listen to what they wrote over it, it’s legendary.”

Click here to find out more about Tony at the Noble Music website

holiday, celebrate – Bashiri Johnson speaks



Bash!

Summer has officially arrived, so let’s celebrate with percussionist, Bashiri Johnson’s memories of playing percussion on Madonna’s summer anthem, Holiday:

“My first time working on Madonna’s music was on Holiday with Jellybean as the producer on that particular session. She really struck me because she was really, really beautiful, really vivacious and she was very into everything that was going on. She was really into what I was doing and into the whole process and she was 100% aware of everything. She wasn’t like some artists, who might just hang out in the lounge, or other artists who just sit back and take everything in, or some other artists who might not even be present almost. She was definitely present at all of the sessions.”

thebeatswithin: Did you record your percussion parts on top of an existing track?

“Yeah, I did. I came in and I overdubbed my stuff to the track that was already laid down. It was a rough mix, but I wouldn’t say that it was completed. I heard her vocals and everything else was there, all of rhythm section stuff was there and I just added my bit. It wasn’t mixed yet and it might not have been fully edited yet, but it was definitely a version I could play to and I remember when I walked out of the studio it stuck with me.”

thebeatswithin: What percussion instruments did you play on the track?

“On that track I just played cowbells – the cowbell part that you can hear that goes all the way through it. I think I might have also played shakers on that track, but that track was mainly just a simple cowbell part. The great thing was that the cowbell part was really like a signature part of the song and it really helped to drive the track. As a matter of fact, a lot of people called me up to come in and play on their records because of that track. They were like, “Oh yeah, you played on that Madonna track. I need you to put some stuff on my record.” So, although it was just cowbells on the album version, I played a lot more on the remix, including congas, shakers, timbales and tambourine.”

thebeatswithin: Did you have any idea that Holiday would become not only Madonna’s breakthrough hit song, but such an enduring pop/dance anthem?

“It’s funny because I’ve played on thousands and thousands of records and there are records that you just know are going to affect people and have mass appeal. I’ve experienced that on many occasions, but the way that the music business is set up, it’s not always based on the highest quality product and sometimes other factors make a song a hit. So, even though I might be in the studio and getting goose pimples from playing on it, the machinery of the music business might not be able to follow through and make a great song a hit. But I did feel something special about that track. I felt that it was going to be a powerful track and that people were really going to be into when I worked on it.

She was talking about something that’s universal – taking a break, having fun and just letting go and releasing your stress, your cares and worries – “Take a holiday!” That’s something that’s sort of put down, but yet that’s something that’s very important to people.”

thebeatswithin: I heard the original Holiday demo by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stephens, at the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress in Washington.

“Wow! Those guys wrote some great stuff and they came up with some really, really cool ideas and cool hooks that people could really get into. That’s why I think the song was such a great success. It was a really great, well written song.”

Click here for more about Bashiri Johnson

Goh Hotoda – we love you

This week, 21 years ago, Vogue was still giving good face, spending in its eighth week inside the Top 10 of the UK singles chart. The song had already been at #1 for a month – not to mention #1 in 30 other countries!

When I interviewed Goh Hotoda in 2007, he told me about mixing the song and coming up with the song’s synth string introduction.

“Even for me, Vogue was my monumental work. As my career was Chicago house music, it was only ever dance music and never crossed over to pop music. The pop music style in 1990 was still white bread candy pop with lots of reverb and many expensive effects all over the place. Our work on Vogue was very contemporary – so simple and very dry. There was nothing like it then - now, the beat style is so popular that everybody is making music like that. But that was the kind of music that I really wanted to work on for such a long time.

Madonna’s original aim was to release the song as special 12” record and so she gave us total freedom. The song was originally produced a bit different at first. I made a different introduction to the mix and recreated a different version only for club play (Bette Davis Dub). It was standard that I make a dub mix after everything was done and Tony (Shimkin) would edit them later. Shep and Madonna really liked the new introduction that I made and so we went back into the studio to re-make the video version based on my Dub Mix and Tony’s edit. The song became an untouchable hit.”

Click here to listen to Vogue (Bette Davis Dub), as mixed by Goh

bad girl guitar demo – Paul Pesco speaks

Paul Pesco - grinding his axe!

 

In 2008 an unreleased demo of Bad Girl, known as the ‘Guitar Demo’, leaked online. Due to a number of fake Madonna demos doing the rounds online and a lack of information about the origins of this demo; many believe this to be the creation of a talented fan.

In 2006 I visited the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and listened to a number of Erotica demos on the infamous ‘Rain Tapes’ and although I listened to some Bad Girl demos, the guitar demo wasn’t among them.

When I spoke to legendary stage and session guitarist, Paul Pesco, I asked him about playing guitar on the Erotica sessions:

“I actually played on a couple of other tracks that I don’t think ended up on the album. I think it was Bad Girl I played on, where I did a couple of tracks. Bad Girl had a lot more guitar. That was really cool – I thought it was awesome! I played tracks on Deeper and Deeper, Bad Girl and it may have been Thief of Hearts, I’m not sure. She ended up using Why’s It So Hard and Deeper and Deeper.

It (the sessions with Madonna and Shep Pettibone) was always great. There were a couple of engineers also. I worked with Goh (Hotoda) a lot. I was there throughout the recording of the album. By that time, I’d done dozens of sessions for Shep’s records and he’d used me a lot for stuff over the years, and I’d been friends with him. He has a very distinct production style and he knows exactly what he wants and the groove would be in there. It’s funny, for not being a musician; he’s one of those people who's very musical.

For that album I used my blue ESP Strat (Fender Stratocaster guitar) that’s been one of my main studio axes on a bunch of records. I also used my ESP graffiti Strat that has EMG pick-ups on it that I used on that album as well and actually I used that guitar for the C&C Music Factory stuff as well, the Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) guitar part – that was my ESP graffiti guitar.”

Click here to listen to the Bad Girl guitar demo.

cook and f**k – Michael Bearden speaks



Michael Bearden (second from right) with his Girlie Show bandmates - catering by Madonna

When I spoke to Michael Bearden, keyboard player on The Girlie Show and Musical Director on the Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light promo tours, he told me about an unreleased song by Madonna, titled, wait for it… Cook and F**k.

The existence of the song first came to light in 2000 when it was listed on ASCAP's online song database, after a short instrumental version of the song was performed by Paul Shaffer and The CBS Orchestra to welcome Madonna on to the stage of The David Letterman Show in November that year.

The song is credited on ASCAP to Madonna and Michael Bearden and so I asked Michael about the origins of the country-sounding song:

“This song actually started during the rehearsals for The Girlie Show. We rehearsed a long time for that show and after so many days of playing the same thing over and over again, you get a little stir crazy. One day M said, “Okay everybody, let’s do that one again”. As everybody started to re-set, I just started to play this country, Floyd Kramer-esque type piano and Niki Haris started singing the song we just finished in a southern, twangy voice. Niki is unbelievably talented! The band naturally just fell into the vibe and so did Madonna. About a week or two later, I started it up again. M was in a mood and the lyrics just evolved into Cook and F**k. I don’t remember the entire verse but I know that Cook and F**k refers to how women please their men. Trust me, it got much worse! (Laughs)

How it became registered was supposed to be a joke. M was appearing on The David Letterman Show one night and Paul Shaffer (the show’s Musical Director) called me (I often sub for him on the show) and asked what the band should play for Madonna’s walk-on. Instead of the usual Like a Virgin or something like that, I asked if I could do something as an inside joke. Paul loved the idea and I dictated the chords and the style to Paul over the phone and he executed it on the show brilliantly, as usual. M was indeed surprised and laughed about it on air. She knew that song was my doing. Because it aired on network television, it was registered.”

i have a tale to tell – Marc Moreau speaks

This week, 25 years ago, Live to Tell was sitting at its #2 peak on the UK pop singles chart. The song was her fourth single to narrowly miss out on the top spot – the international novelty hit, Rock Me Amadeus, by Austrian pop musician, Falco, was at #1. Incidentally, one of the four runner-ups (Warner UK’s shameless, yet genius, post-Live Aid re-release of Holiday) missed out on the top spot because Madonna’s other summer '85 anthem, Into the Groove, was implanted at #1.

Having dominated pop music in 1985, with a hyperactive rush of pure pop brilliance, Madonna’s much-anticipated, first single release of 1986 was the haunting ballad, Live to Tell – just one of many Madonna songs that would re-write the rules of pop music.

Co-written and produced with Pat Leonard, fresh off the road with Madonna on The Virgin Tour, Live to Tell sounded like nothing else being played on pop radio and nothing like what the world thought a Madonna song, or a pop song for that matter, should sound like – the first of many times that Madonna's music would defy expectation. With lyrics by Madonna, Live to Tell wiped some of the sneers off the faces of those who had mocked her earlier pop/dance hits.

I know where beauty lives
I’ve seen it once, I know the warmth she gives
The light that you could never see
It shines inside, you can’t take that from me

In 1989, Marc Moreau began working as a studio engineer at Pat Leonard’s studio in LA. On his second, or third day in the studio Marc began working as second engineer to Brian Malouf and Bill Bottrell – engineers on Madonna’s forthcoming I’m Breathless album. Marc would continue to work as a studio engineer with Pat and Madonna up until Ray of Light.

When I spoke to Marc, he spoke about Madonna’s songwriting and recalled a conversation with Pat Leonard about Live to Tell.

“Their first song broke a lot of rules. I mean, it was a ballad, it was like six minutes long, which is two minutes longer than the record company – they were screaming about that! It has this big spot in the middle, where it just breaks down to almost nothing and then comes back. I remember Pat talking about it once and he said, “It pretty much violates every rule that you have for a single!” But yet she loved it and she stuck to it and backed it all the way and they (Warner Bros Records) were starting to give this young producer, Pat, a bunch of grief about the song and she stuck to her guns on it and it was a huge, huge hit. It broke all the rules. I could see how that would cement them together from that point on to be able to make the next records that they did.

Madonna could go to that emotional place, which I think separates her from a lot of pop artists. She can dig up some stuff about herself, and it’s real stuff, and can put it out there emotionally, as well as have the fun, “Let’s go party!” songs and not a lot of artists can sort of do that and let you get in there and get real for a bit.”

unplugged on Oprah: Michael Bearden speaks

Making her second appearance on Oprah, in May 1998 (13 years ago!), Madonna gave two stunning live performances, the TV debut of Ray of Light and an acoustic version of Little Star – her one and only live performance of the song to date.

Madonna’s Musical Director on Oprah was Michael Bearden. Michael – who has worked with many a music legend, from Stevie Wonder to Michael Jackson – began working with Madonna in 1993, as a keyboard player on her Saturday Night Live appearance and The Girlie Show, and continued to work with her, as Musical Director on the Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light promotional tours. 

When I spoke to Michael, he told me about Madonna’s performance of Little Star:

“Madonna is not a trained musician but, she knows what she likes. She also hates to make mistakes. I would just explain to her that sometimes the best ideas come from mistakes. I would encourage her to just be vulnerable and whatever comes out will come out. Don’t worry about making a mistake. She embraced the concept when we performed on Oprah during her Ray of Light period. We performed two songs on that particular show. We did the first song (Ray of Light) like we always do, full out with the band. We did the second song (Little Star) with just a trio acoustically. Madonna had rarely done this kind of performance on television. It was the first time she did it in the nine years I worked for her. She was a little nervous and in fact, we had to perform the second song twice for the taping. Oprah only allowed it because it was Madonna. She runs a tight ship. I love Oprah! Madonna nailed it the second time, although she was still a little nervous.

She thanked me as she was leaving the show and was very happy about the show. It was the first time in a long time I had seen M so happy about anything having to do with her career. I think Lola (her daughter) had a lot to do with her good mood during that period. I was happy because Mo was pushing herself musically and trying to reach for something new. It was a big change from how we used to do things. We would often rehearse until the song had no life, in my opinion. She was now leaving room for spontaneous possibilities and I liked that approach.”

Click here to watch Madonna’s gorgeous acoustic performance of Little Star (with Michael Bearden on piano) at Madonna-TV.com – the bestest Madonna TV site on the internet!

angels with dirty faces: Bruce Gaitsch reveals unreleased demo

When I interviewed Bruce Gaitsch, co-writer of La Isla Bonita and guitarist on True Blue and Like a Prayer, I asked him if he was involved in any of the unreleased Madonna/Pat Leonard demos, which have been reported from that era, Possessive Love and Just a Dream:

“I have a tape somewhere of some songs I had to learn parts from

and none of these songs are on it. But there is a song called

Angels with Dirty Faces on it that is killer!”

Angels With Dirty Faces is the name of 1938 film, starring Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Cagney’s 1949 film, White Heat, also inspired the equally “killer” True Blue album track of the same name, which samples his dialogue from the film.

b-sides the hits

In July 2008, I wrote the cover feature for Record Collector magazine. The feature, ‘Madonna Rare: Unwrapping the Candy’, was a 10-page investigation of Madonna’s B-sides and other commercially released, hidden gems from the most collectable diva of all and featured commentary on these songs, taken from my original interviews with Madonna collaborators Mark Kamins, Reggie Lucas, Tony Shimkin, Greg Fitzgerald, Guy Sigsworth, Daniel Abraham, Mark Endert, Alvin Speights, Rico Conning and Kevin Parker.


The feature also revealed a couple of other exclusives – Sophie Ellis-Bextor recorded the Madonna demo, Revenge, and that a cover of another Madonna demo, I Can’t Forget, had been recorded and commercially released by UK dance outfit Tilt, albeit re-titled as Come Closer.

i want you, i want you, i want you: Steve Bray reveals unreleased demo

During a telephone call with Steve Bray in 2009, he revealed to me the name of a song he co-wrote/produced with Madonna in the 1980s that has never before been reported. The title? I Want You.

Hold on, hasn’t Madonna already released a song called I Want You?

Yes - in 1995, Madonna recorded a cover of Marvin Gaye’s I Want You with Massive Attack for the tribute album, Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye, which also appeared later that year on Madonna’s ballads retrospective, Something to Remember.

There’s also the lesser-known Take Me (I Want You) from Madonna’s Emmy days, which was later re-titled I Want You when she recorded her Alec Head/Jon Gordon-produced solo version at Mediasound for her four-track demo tape – to be be touted around major labels by former-manager Camille Barbone.

I quizzed Steve as to whether he was referring to the early ‘80s version of the song, but he said that I Want You was an entirely new song that he co-wrote/produced with Madonna later that decade.

in the evidence of her brilliance: Guy Sigsworth speaks



Guy Sigsworth

In 2005 I conducted my first ever interview with one of Madonna’s collaborators, Guy Sigsworth. Guy co-wrote and co-produced What It Feels Like For A Girl, the third and final single from Madonna’s Music album. “It was definitely the last song recorded for the album. I think that she heard the track quite late on and it was literally the last track done. At the time I was in Iceland doing stuff with Björk that was going to be the base of Vespertine. We just arranged that, as soon as I got back, we’d hook up.