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The Hit
I recognized intro to “The Playground in My Mind” the second I heard it. Had someone asked me cold where it came from, I’d say something like…shit, I don’t know, Sesame Street? Some weird damn kids’ program I’d forgotten from the 70s? Happily, the real story makes far less sense.
A guy named Clint Holmes recorded that saccharine and literally escapist trifle. It has its good parts - e.g., I like the piano - but, generally, it’s a vicious little earworm that chokes on kid vocals. And, for the record, Holmes had nothing to do with its creation. A New Yorker named Paul Vance caught him performing at the Paradise Island Hotel while vacationing in Nassau and, adding together a lounge-singer and that song, somehow came up with “four” (i.e., he thought it added up). Holmes recalled his skepticism in an interview with Classic Bands (best source for all this, btw):
“He had a couple of songs. I didn't particularly like the ‘My Name Is Michael’ song. I thought it was cutesy. The other song he had was a song called ‘There's No Fortune In My Future Without You,’ which was a little closer to where I really thought I ought to be recording.”
Hold that last thought. Vance got one thing right: he had written a hit, one that soared as high as No. 2 on the 1972 Billboard chart.
For good or ill - mostly the former, happily - it stranded Holmes professionally. He didn’t have anyone he really worked with, for one, but it also didn’t sound like anything else he did day-to-day. While he performed it on American Bandstand and variety vehicles like Merv Griffin and the Mike Douglas Show, Holmes never toured. As it happens, he was more of a residency kind of performer…
The Rest of the Story
Clint Holmes was born in Bournemouth, England in 1946, but his family later relocated to the United States - a tiny town called Farnham, New York, specifically. His parents had roots in the arts - his mother was an English opera singer, his father a Black jazz musician - but other interviews (e.g., a 2017 interview with Las Vegas’ KNPR) answered the question of where a jazz musician and an opera singer would perform in a town of 500: they didn’t. While it’s unclear what his mother did for a living, Holmes’ father, Edward Louis Holmes, commuted to nearby Buffalo, New York, where he worked a variety of jobs - working in steel, driving garbage trucks, working as a janitor. His father found something else in Buffalo, too: jazz clubs.
His regular place was a nightclub called The Colored Musicians Club (still a landmark, btw) and, when they started playing Sunday afternoon shows, Holmes’ father would take him along. Holmes saw his father transform during those visits. He knew and mingled with the musicians and, now and then, would get on stage to sing tunes like “How High the Moon.” Holmes would eventually get on that stage himself, choosing Duke Ellington’s “Satin Doll” as the first song he’d sing on stage at age 16.
After a disinterested stint in college - Holmes continued to sing at Buffalo nightclubs - the Vietnam draft called his number and he shipped out. When he caught wind of the Army music program, he found his way in as a trombone player, but kept pushing for a shot as a singer. In the interview with Classic Bands, he theorized that he finally got his chance after none other than General Westmoreland saw him sing and decided that the Army chorus should look more like the Army that fought. That’s as close as Holmes ever got to combat…
Upon returning to the States, he settled into the Washington, D.C. lounge circuit, playing with eventual stars like Roberta Flack. He wound up in Nassau eventually, of course, and the real story of Holmes’ career can be summed up in one brief Mad-lib: “he was working at a lounge/resort called ________ when __________ saw his show and thought he’d be perfect for ________.”
Holmes didn’t return to the life immediately after “The Playground in My Mind.” Vance (or someone else) had another song called “Shiddle-Eee Dee” that didn’t go anywhere. He hadn’t given up on singing - to his credit, he never did - but he struggled against a couple headwinds. From Classic Bands:
“That was kind of the dawn of Disco. Disco was really coming in. So I kind of found myself no place to be. And the next couple of things we tried didn't really work, so we never had another hit. I even went down to Nashville and cut some stuff I liked a lot. But we did have a follow-up and we did have an album, but we never had that second hit.”
He settled back onto the lounge/resort circuit, eventually settling in Florida - and, of course, he was working a lounge when a producer who was about to open a Resorts International in Atlantic City caught his act and thought he’d do nicely as an opener for Bob Newhart. He booked Holmes and slotted him between Steve and Eydie and Newhart. That started Holmes’ real career, which started as an opening act for massive acts like Bill Cosby, Joan Rivers and Don Rickles. He eventually parlayed that experience into headlining his own act in Las Vegas for over 20 years. He did some truly odd stuff between here and there - e.g., an announcing gig for Joan Rivers talk show on Fox when it first went on the air - but he mostly kept performing. In fact, he just played his first pandemic shows as recently as February 2021.
There’s one more story to tell, a bittersweet little moment that shows how brutal show business can be. Holmes wrote and starred in a musical that, briefly, went up somewhere on or near Broadway. The New York Times’ reviewer was not gentle (quoted from Wikipedia):
“Whether you choose to endure two and a half hours of Mr. Holmes acting and singing it out, with the assistance of seven other actors and singers, is up to your tolerance for ego-driven show-biz excursions into the orbit of the vanities. It is also dependent on your predisposition to Mr. Holmes's talents. And it has a lot to do with your need for an assertiveness-training manual in the guise of musical theater...it looks as if Mr. Holmes wrote the book on self-indulgence.”
The play was called Comfortable Shoes (now revived, apparently), and it told the tale of growing up in a mixed race family in rural New York in the 1950s and 60s. Maybe it sucked, and the Times’ is certainly entitled to its opinion, but….damn.
That said, I’ll be first to admit I struggled through Holmes’ material - but even that’s generous given how rarely I got through it. He’s got talent, a velvety voice, it’s quality material, etc. But 1) so far from norm of just about everything I listen to, and 2) in a vein I’ve been taught to ridicule as schlock since birth. All the same, I’ll always think twice before knocking anyone who makes it as a professional in any creative field. The New York Times could shit all over your childhood, for one.
About the Sampler
Spotify did right by Holmes, and it didn’t. It has plenty of the material you’d likely hear him perform in Vegas or way back in his lounge days - e.g., lots of medleys, jazz-inspired, but material that only a guy with real singing chops can turn into anything good. That’s the stuff he piled onto Rendezvous - e.g., songs like “Stop This Train” (a John Mayer song his daughter passed on and that spoke to him powerfully), “The Perfect Trance” (nice tropical vibe), and the croon-tastic, “Every Time We Say Goodbye.” Most important of all, would be the song, "At the Rendezvous," in which Holmes sings about his dad taking him to the Buffalo nightclubs - and, for those wondering, yes, he called it "The Rendezvous," because it's goddamn impossible to rhyme with "The Colored Musicians Club." Even the version of “The Playground in My Mind” gets reimagined on a collection he calls, appropriately, Re-Imagined. It’s mostly covers - e.g., his take on “Human Nature” and “Late in the Evening.”
I recognized intro to “The Playground in My Mind” the second I heard it. Had someone asked me cold where it came from, I’d say something like…shit, I don’t know, Sesame Street? Some weird damn kids’ program I’d forgotten from the 70s? Happily, the real story makes far less sense.
A guy named Clint Holmes recorded that saccharine and literally escapist trifle. It has its good parts - e.g., I like the piano - but, generally, it’s a vicious little earworm that chokes on kid vocals. And, for the record, Holmes had nothing to do with its creation. A New Yorker named Paul Vance caught him performing at the Paradise Island Hotel while vacationing in Nassau and, adding together a lounge-singer and that song, somehow came up with “four” (i.e., he thought it added up). Holmes recalled his skepticism in an interview with Classic Bands (best source for all this, btw):
“He had a couple of songs. I didn't particularly like the ‘My Name Is Michael’ song. I thought it was cutesy. The other song he had was a song called ‘There's No Fortune In My Future Without You,’ which was a little closer to where I really thought I ought to be recording.”
Hold that last thought. Vance got one thing right: he had written a hit, one that soared as high as No. 2 on the 1972 Billboard chart.
For good or ill - mostly the former, happily - it stranded Holmes professionally. He didn’t have anyone he really worked with, for one, but it also didn’t sound like anything else he did day-to-day. While he performed it on American Bandstand and variety vehicles like Merv Griffin and the Mike Douglas Show, Holmes never toured. As it happens, he was more of a residency kind of performer…
The Rest of the Story
Clint Holmes was born in Bournemouth, England in 1946, but his family later relocated to the United States - a tiny town called Farnham, New York, specifically. His parents had roots in the arts - his mother was an English opera singer, his father a Black jazz musician - but other interviews (e.g., a 2017 interview with Las Vegas’ KNPR) answered the question of where a jazz musician and an opera singer would perform in a town of 500: they didn’t. While it’s unclear what his mother did for a living, Holmes’ father, Edward Louis Holmes, commuted to nearby Buffalo, New York, where he worked a variety of jobs - working in steel, driving garbage trucks, working as a janitor. His father found something else in Buffalo, too: jazz clubs.
His regular place was a nightclub called The Colored Musicians Club (still a landmark, btw) and, when they started playing Sunday afternoon shows, Holmes’ father would take him along. Holmes saw his father transform during those visits. He knew and mingled with the musicians and, now and then, would get on stage to sing tunes like “How High the Moon.” Holmes would eventually get on that stage himself, choosing Duke Ellington’s “Satin Doll” as the first song he’d sing on stage at age 16.
After a disinterested stint in college - Holmes continued to sing at Buffalo nightclubs - the Vietnam draft called his number and he shipped out. When he caught wind of the Army music program, he found his way in as a trombone player, but kept pushing for a shot as a singer. In the interview with Classic Bands, he theorized that he finally got his chance after none other than General Westmoreland saw him sing and decided that the Army chorus should look more like the Army that fought. That’s as close as Holmes ever got to combat…
Upon returning to the States, he settled into the Washington, D.C. lounge circuit, playing with eventual stars like Roberta Flack. He wound up in Nassau eventually, of course, and the real story of Holmes’ career can be summed up in one brief Mad-lib: “he was working at a lounge/resort called ________ when __________ saw his show and thought he’d be perfect for ________.”
Holmes didn’t return to the life immediately after “The Playground in My Mind.” Vance (or someone else) had another song called “Shiddle-Eee Dee” that didn’t go anywhere. He hadn’t given up on singing - to his credit, he never did - but he struggled against a couple headwinds. From Classic Bands:
“That was kind of the dawn of Disco. Disco was really coming in. So I kind of found myself no place to be. And the next couple of things we tried didn't really work, so we never had another hit. I even went down to Nashville and cut some stuff I liked a lot. But we did have a follow-up and we did have an album, but we never had that second hit.”
He settled back onto the lounge/resort circuit, eventually settling in Florida - and, of course, he was working a lounge when a producer who was about to open a Resorts International in Atlantic City caught his act and thought he’d do nicely as an opener for Bob Newhart. He booked Holmes and slotted him between Steve and Eydie and Newhart. That started Holmes’ real career, which started as an opening act for massive acts like Bill Cosby, Joan Rivers and Don Rickles. He eventually parlayed that experience into headlining his own act in Las Vegas for over 20 years. He did some truly odd stuff between here and there - e.g., an announcing gig for Joan Rivers talk show on Fox when it first went on the air - but he mostly kept performing. In fact, he just played his first pandemic shows as recently as February 2021.
There’s one more story to tell, a bittersweet little moment that shows how brutal show business can be. Holmes wrote and starred in a musical that, briefly, went up somewhere on or near Broadway. The New York Times’ reviewer was not gentle (quoted from Wikipedia):
“Whether you choose to endure two and a half hours of Mr. Holmes acting and singing it out, with the assistance of seven other actors and singers, is up to your tolerance for ego-driven show-biz excursions into the orbit of the vanities. It is also dependent on your predisposition to Mr. Holmes's talents. And it has a lot to do with your need for an assertiveness-training manual in the guise of musical theater...it looks as if Mr. Holmes wrote the book on self-indulgence.”
The play was called Comfortable Shoes (now revived, apparently), and it told the tale of growing up in a mixed race family in rural New York in the 1950s and 60s. Maybe it sucked, and the Times’ is certainly entitled to its opinion, but….damn.
That said, I’ll be first to admit I struggled through Holmes’ material - but even that’s generous given how rarely I got through it. He’s got talent, a velvety voice, it’s quality material, etc. But 1) so far from norm of just about everything I listen to, and 2) in a vein I’ve been taught to ridicule as schlock since birth. All the same, I’ll always think twice before knocking anyone who makes it as a professional in any creative field. The New York Times could shit all over your childhood, for one.
About the Sampler
Spotify did right by Holmes, and it didn’t. It has plenty of the material you’d likely hear him perform in Vegas or way back in his lounge days - e.g., lots of medleys, jazz-inspired, but material that only a guy with real singing chops can turn into anything good. That’s the stuff he piled onto Rendezvous - e.g., songs like “Stop This Train” (a John Mayer song his daughter passed on and that spoke to him powerfully), “The Perfect Trance” (nice tropical vibe), and the croon-tastic, “Every Time We Say Goodbye.” Most important of all, would be the song, "At the Rendezvous," in which Holmes sings about his dad taking him to the Buffalo nightclubs - and, for those wondering, yes, he called it "The Rendezvous," because it's goddamn impossible to rhyme with "The Colored Musicians Club." Even the version of “The Playground in My Mind” gets reimagined on a collection he calls, appropriately, Re-Imagined. It’s mostly covers - e.g., his take on “Human Nature” and “Late in the Evening.”
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