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| Different Keith... |
The Hit
A little tune titled, “Ninety-Eight Point Six,” which sounds like something you’d hear in some coming-of-age B-movie from the late 1960s (and which, if you type it as "98.6" fucks up the link, so...). It topped out at No. 7, but hung in the charts for just over a quarter of a year. It was written by a team - Tony Powers (lyrics), George Fischoff (music), John Renzetti (arrangement) - and handed to Keith, who was pried out of a band by a producer who saw star qualities in him and sent out into the world as a solo artist. Keith’s reaction to it all bears noting:
“And When I hooked up with Jerry [Ross] he put me more into that pop commercial vein, and after hearing the song I remember calling my wife at the time and saying you wouldn’t believe what they have me singing, and I sang it to her over the phone. No, I had no idea.”
That last comment was on whether he knew it’d be a hit when he recorded it…
The Rest of the Story
Keith was born James Barry Keefer, and grew up in Philadelphia and with the “fame” bug. He started a number of bands, nearly all of them a play on his name – e.g., Keefer and the Shadows, Keif and the Bel-Airs (then there was The Admirations) – but he realized he had to drop most variations of “keif” when he learned it was “a Moroccan drug.” Keefer did enough to catch the attention of a DJ named Kal Rudman, who steered him to Ross, who in turn rechristened him “Keith” and sent him out into the world.
The “pop commercial vein” worked well for Keefer, and Ross fed him a couple other tunes – e.g., “Ain’t Gonna Lie” - which became his first (minor) hit. With those two hits under his belt, Keith made a big enough name to open for The Beach Boys on a national tour. Touring, as it happens, was very eventful for him. First, he was kicked off that tour for this:
A little tune titled, “Ninety-Eight Point Six,” which sounds like something you’d hear in some coming-of-age B-movie from the late 1960s (and which, if you type it as "98.6" fucks up the link, so...). It topped out at No. 7, but hung in the charts for just over a quarter of a year. It was written by a team - Tony Powers (lyrics), George Fischoff (music), John Renzetti (arrangement) - and handed to Keith, who was pried out of a band by a producer who saw star qualities in him and sent out into the world as a solo artist. Keith’s reaction to it all bears noting:
“And When I hooked up with Jerry [Ross] he put me more into that pop commercial vein, and after hearing the song I remember calling my wife at the time and saying you wouldn’t believe what they have me singing, and I sang it to her over the phone. No, I had no idea.”
That last comment was on whether he knew it’d be a hit when he recorded it…
The Rest of the Story
Keith was born James Barry Keefer, and grew up in Philadelphia and with the “fame” bug. He started a number of bands, nearly all of them a play on his name – e.g., Keefer and the Shadows, Keif and the Bel-Airs (then there was The Admirations) – but he realized he had to drop most variations of “keif” when he learned it was “a Moroccan drug.” Keefer did enough to catch the attention of a DJ named Kal Rudman, who steered him to Ross, who in turn rechristened him “Keith” and sent him out into the world.
The “pop commercial vein” worked well for Keefer, and Ross fed him a couple other tunes – e.g., “Ain’t Gonna Lie” - which became his first (minor) hit. With those two hits under his belt, Keith made a big enough name to open for The Beach Boys on a national tour. Touring, as it happens, was very eventful for him. First, he was kicked off that tour for this:
“But a skit that had him squeezing or eating fruits with suggestive offstage audio comments and sound effects caused problems. Keith left the tour after the mayor of a large southern city objected to the humor. The politician's daughter had been in the audience!”
Not too long after that, Keith was arrested for draft evasion – again, on tour – and effectively taken out of circulation for the length of his service. He didn’t vanish entirely at that point; someone got him playing with Frank Zappa, singing “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow,” and so on ("I think they brought me in to commercialize Frank"), and he did make one final grab for relevance with 1969’s Adventures of Keith. RCA took the chance on him, giving him creative/production control. Because he doesn’t comment on it specifically in anything I read, it’s tricky to say how much Keefer tried to play to the times when making Adventures of Keith, but he did comment later that the stuff he’d made before “was [already] butting the tide with the kind of music I was doing compared to what was out at that time.”
That album is his baby – more than his hits, certainly – and he relates stories about how some of his fans claim Adventures of Keith as a desert island disc. As much as I’d like to talk it up as some kind of lost gem…nah. While it does sound like the times, it’s messy, different elements in the music trip over the others (e.g., “Marstrand” and “Elea – Elea”), etc. It feels dickish to note it, but a lot of the muddiness sounds like problems on the production side. At any rate, that’s where Keith ends as recording artist concern.
When Rolling Stone checked in on Keith back in 1985, here’s what they reported:
“For the last 11 years, Keith, who is 36 and has two children from a former marriage, has settled into a routine of tending bar for a living and playing local clubs in Los Angeles.”
Keefer did land a second act in television. He became an audio engineer, working on shows like Family Feud, Judge Brown and Judge Judy (he shared an anecdote about her dancing before every episode in a couple interviews), while also pitching shows that he can host to MTV and VH-1. He was recording, and just creating generally, throughout and he had a sweet comment about that:
“I have always considered any song, poem, or painting that I created like my children, and now Grandchildren. You love and enjoy them all.”
Yes, that does make me feel like a dick for crapping on Adventures of Keith…
About the Sampler
I pulled together a 10-song sampler of Keith. The balance of it coming from the Jerry Ross era/writing team, but with one notable exception, “Tell Me to My Face,” which came out of this process: “Tony Hicks and Allan Clarke, Graham Nash and in twenty minutes they came out and had written that song.” (Is it a coincidence that I’d call that Keith’s best song? Probably not.) The other three “Jerry Ross songs” are “White Lightnin’” (which shows a “White Lightin’” on the sampler, for some damn reason; also, can't find it), “Sweet Dreams (Do Come True),” and “Mind If I Hang Around.” Keith did have one more album – 1968’s Out of Crank – but I decided to pull the rest of the sampler from Adventures of Keith, so people can decide for themselves whether it makes their desert island cut. I already named two of the songs I chose above; the other two on the sampler are “Trixon’s Election” (my favorite from Adventures, as far as that goes) and “Charley Cinders.” The Jerry Ross stuff is definitely easier listening, but it suffers from the common defect of the poppiest of pop: it's bland and broad.
Source(s)
Wikipedia
Rolling Stone, “Where Are They Now” profile (1985)
Official Keith Site, Radio Interview
Official Keith Site, Corky’s Time Machine interview (2002)
Official Keith Site, WRCO Interview
Not too long after that, Keith was arrested for draft evasion – again, on tour – and effectively taken out of circulation for the length of his service. He didn’t vanish entirely at that point; someone got him playing with Frank Zappa, singing “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow,” and so on ("I think they brought me in to commercialize Frank"), and he did make one final grab for relevance with 1969’s Adventures of Keith. RCA took the chance on him, giving him creative/production control. Because he doesn’t comment on it specifically in anything I read, it’s tricky to say how much Keefer tried to play to the times when making Adventures of Keith, but he did comment later that the stuff he’d made before “was [already] butting the tide with the kind of music I was doing compared to what was out at that time.”
That album is his baby – more than his hits, certainly – and he relates stories about how some of his fans claim Adventures of Keith as a desert island disc. As much as I’d like to talk it up as some kind of lost gem…nah. While it does sound like the times, it’s messy, different elements in the music trip over the others (e.g., “Marstrand” and “Elea – Elea”), etc. It feels dickish to note it, but a lot of the muddiness sounds like problems on the production side. At any rate, that’s where Keith ends as recording artist concern.
When Rolling Stone checked in on Keith back in 1985, here’s what they reported:
“For the last 11 years, Keith, who is 36 and has two children from a former marriage, has settled into a routine of tending bar for a living and playing local clubs in Los Angeles.”
Keefer did land a second act in television. He became an audio engineer, working on shows like Family Feud, Judge Brown and Judge Judy (he shared an anecdote about her dancing before every episode in a couple interviews), while also pitching shows that he can host to MTV and VH-1. He was recording, and just creating generally, throughout and he had a sweet comment about that:
“I have always considered any song, poem, or painting that I created like my children, and now Grandchildren. You love and enjoy them all.”
Yes, that does make me feel like a dick for crapping on Adventures of Keith…
About the Sampler
I pulled together a 10-song sampler of Keith. The balance of it coming from the Jerry Ross era/writing team, but with one notable exception, “Tell Me to My Face,” which came out of this process: “Tony Hicks and Allan Clarke, Graham Nash and in twenty minutes they came out and had written that song.” (Is it a coincidence that I’d call that Keith’s best song? Probably not.) The other three “Jerry Ross songs” are “White Lightnin’” (which shows a “White Lightin’” on the sampler, for some damn reason; also, can't find it), “Sweet Dreams (Do Come True),” and “Mind If I Hang Around.” Keith did have one more album – 1968’s Out of Crank – but I decided to pull the rest of the sampler from Adventures of Keith, so people can decide for themselves whether it makes their desert island cut. I already named two of the songs I chose above; the other two on the sampler are “Trixon’s Election” (my favorite from Adventures, as far as that goes) and “Charley Cinders.” The Jerry Ross stuff is definitely easier listening, but it suffers from the common defect of the poppiest of pop: it's bland and broad.
Source(s)
Wikipedia
Rolling Stone, “Where Are They Now” profile (1985)
Official Keith Site, Radio Interview
Official Keith Site, Corky’s Time Machine interview (2002)
Official Keith Site, WRCO Interview
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