Frank & Charli

by Frank Yandolino

  There we stood, two hippies and our German Shepherd who seemed to terrify everyone, the last possible tenants he ever dreamed of renting to. It was too late, though; he had already given me the lease. Bushy was in shock, especially when Frank told him he wasn’t sure if he could live in a building that didn’t have a synagogue across the street, recounting to Bushy his Shabbos boy experience growing up in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Bushy was amused by Frank’s story and said not to worry: there is a synagogue in the lobby. Frank is convinced that even though we didn’t know then that I am partly Jewish, Bushy somehow instinctually knew and that’s why he liked me.

  Frank says, “Everyone who meets Charli loves her, not me.” At that time, no one in our building would talk to him and he didn’t even know the names of the people who lived on our floor. What they didn’t know but soon found out was that he was perfectly happy to avoid them. Well, all of them except for the infamous Bergmans, who lived across the hall.

  In the early 1980s Rabbi Bernard Bergman’s family was on the front page of the newspapers everyday, mired in a huge scandal. He had been convicted in the late seventies, accused and sued for cheating Jewish Holocaust survivors who were living in his many nursing homes from their Social Security and savings, and depriving them of their medication—truly a shameful act, much like what Bernie Madoff did a few decades later to his countrymen, friends and family.

  We had just moved in across the hall from the Bergmans. I met the daughter-in-law, Frieda Bergman, a stunningly beautiful young woman with three young children. She seemingly led a very affluent life. Even when she would go to the grocery store she went in designer clothes and hats and always wore very expensive blonde wigs of various shapes. Frieda was interested in my life, and would constantly ask me questions, her inquisitive green eyes full of interest, thinking that what Frank and I were doing, leading a charmed life at a young age with no children, was very exciting. It seemed she married her husband without knowing him, having grown up a rich girl in Switzerland who was introduced to her husband days before their arranged wedding. Frieda gave the impression that this orthodox life was not for her. Maybe she was too young. She told me how she would get all dressed up with her cousins and drive to Studio 54, sit in the parked car, and watch the people go in and out, wondering and dreaming of what it would be like to go inside.

  One day our elevator man said someone was found dead in the back alley. Suspiciously Frieda’s husband remarked to the elevator man, “It must be my wife.” Why would he say that so fast? Without knowing for sure.

  Well, very sadly, it was Frieda. She had climbed the stairs to our rooftop, sixteen flights, then took off her clothes and her wig, and jumped. I will never forget her.

  It is a sin to commit suicide in the Jewish faith. Some people from her world came and took her away, very quietly, and then immediately the next day her body was flown to Israel to be buried. Somehow this never made the news, but one neighbor, I won’t mention who, telephoned the Daily News and let them know what happened. It was then printed in the paper and the world found out how a Bergman had committed suicide. I just really thought that she should not be snuffed out like that; it was so sad. The press seemed so insensitive. A few weeks later in the trash outside of our apartment we found all of Frieda’s photographs of her and her children, just all thrown out as if she never lived. I had to take these photographs and save them. I save a lot of things, and Frieda deserved to be remembered, even if just by me.

  Only a few months went by before her husband remarried. One day I saw him and his new wife in front of the building. She was the exact duplicate of Frieda, with all the designer outfits and wigs and Frieda’s three boys beside them walking in front of my building as if nothing ever happened. I will never forget beautiful lonely Frieda and her sad story.

  All my life, I was told by my mother that we were Norwegian and that she was born in Oslo in 1918. My family, my three sisters, and my brother were brought up Lutheran. Just a few years ago, in 2008, my brother Robert informed me he heard there was proof of our heritage that had been kept secret for several decades in a little black box in the attic of my Aunt Elsa’s home in Lubec, Maine. Photographs and documents in the black box showed that our grandmother, born in 1900, and great-grandmother, born in 1880 or so, were Jewish, and that they had originally lived in Austria.

  As the story developed, it seems my great-grandfather was a count whose last name was Van Geisler. He had owned a confection company in Austria. It is said that because he and his family were Jewish, they were persecuted and had to leave Austria. They fled to Oslo, Norway, and when they settled in my grandmother married my grandfather, Peter Egeland, a Norwegian engineer. They had three children: my mother, Erna; Elsa; and Peter. My grandfather became a sea captain and was encouraged by my grandmother to smuggle Jewish Norwegian children on his ships at night down the Black Sea to Germany. At that time, Germany was somewhat safe for Jewish people; it was just as Hitler was launching his plans for them. One day a neighbor, a Swedish man, reported to the authorities that my grandfather was smuggling the children to Germany, so my family had to flee from Norway to America. My grandmother had some money and opened a beauty parlor in Howard Beach, where her two daughters, Elsa and Erna, worked for her. My grandfather remained a sea captain on merchant marine ships. My mom eventually married my father, George Miller, also a Norwegian, but they never told us of our true heritage. I told my story to my neighbors and then the word got out about my grandmother being Jewish and then suddenly, the world changed. We were invited to Friday night Shabbos dinners. We were in.

  Good Shabbos!

  CHAPTER 14

  Stuff

  After the Riviera festival and our amazing car trip from France to England and back to New York, Charli and I moved in with Michael for a few weeks at his loft in SoHo while we searched for a new apartment. Charli eventually found a place on West 81st Street. We then made arrangements to have all our stuff packed and shipped from our house in Atlanta back to New York, moving every single thing we had brought with us, including Big Red. Returning to New York’s hustle and bustle was as much a culture shock as returning from no-clothes-required Dominica had been. Ray Paret had arranged to move our office out of Gulf & Western into a four-story brownstone on East 61st between Park and Madison Avenues. A lawyer had a small office on the ground floor, Paul Simon and his company occupied the second floor, while our company, Just Sunshine Productions, had the two top floors.

  Michael and Ray felt obligated to pay me back since I lost my investment in the Riviera Festival. They offered me the opportunity to become the sole manager of the band Stuff despite knowing full well that I didn’t know much about what a manager’s job was. Our first meeting was in our townhouse office with all six members of the band. I was scared to death and that was the beginning of a worldwide roller-coaster ride. The obvious ball was in the air. Although I’d never managed a band on this level before, it never really occurred to me at the time that I couldn’t do it. Taking the risk with a careless regard, I just said, “Hi, I’m your new manager.” They looked at me and said nothing. I took it to mean it was okay and from that point I never needed a management contract to represent the band. I just took care of business. The biggest task was keeping these guys from killing each other. I was the glue. We recorded and toured the world for ten years, and the band never really questioned me. They even called me STUFF. Somehow these streetwise musicians felt my honesty and Brooklyn vibe.

  Stuff was composed of four black players—Cornell Dupree, Eric Gale, Gordon Edwards, and Richard Tee—and two white members—Chris Parker and Steve Gadd. These guys individually and collectively toured and recorded for everyone from Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Van McCoy, Quincy Jones, to Joe Cocker and many others. They were the best studio musicians in the world and everyone knew it.

  Saturday Night Live 1975

  Our connection to the New York music scene was at its peak, culminating around our almost weekly presence on
Saturday Night Live. Stuff was basically the Saturday Night Live Band, and if they weren’t, whoever was the band that night wore Stuff T-Shirts. It was very prestigious to have a Stuff T-shirt; they were very rare. I made them hard to get—you could only get one from management or a band member and only one at a time.

  We began to work with Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd—I might add mainly because of our partner in Just Sunshine, Ray. We were in the middle of what was happening in the city for years, constantly invited to shows, private parties, recording sessions, TV and radio shows, concerts, events, and many written stories and articles. The SNL after-parties were something movies were made of. We were unstoppable.

  Stuff was the band all musicians respected. We played with and backed up everyone who was anyone that appeared on the show, or played and recorded in New York. We were by far and acted like the best band in NYC, bar none. No one could touch us. Others lived in fear of Stuff performing or opening shows for them, since even major acts could not compete with what Stuff did on stage.

  As the new manager, I put together our personal cash machine, booking shows and tours for cash only. Charli came to every one. We would go out to do a little tour of six or seven clubs every two months or so, make a quick thirty, forty thousand cash in clubs like The Lake in Woodstock, New York, Mykels on 96th Street in New York City, My Father’s Place on Long Island, and At the Bottom Line and Kenny’s Castaway in Greenwich Village. Whichever musicians were in town made sure they stopped by to see or sit in with Stuff. We would headline or open for major acts on New Years Eve every year such as Ashford and Simpson, The Average White Band, and others.

  There were several other venues and big shows—The Montreux Switzerland Jazz Festival, The Beacon Theater with Joe Cocker—and aside from other concerts and festivals worldwide we would go off to Japan two times a year where we would tour for two to three weeks. We would always travel first class and pick up a couple of hundred thousand dollars in cash along the way.

  Charli always traveled with me and kept me and the band grounded. The band’s wives and girlfriends and our crew—at times as many as sixteen or more people—were all considered Stuff. Nothing I did was ever enough, though. The problem with Stuff was their enormous egos. If they would have concentrated on the band instead of taking every offer to tour or work with other musicians, they would have been more of a success. Instead they felt more comfortable taking every studio or live gig and working for other acts that came their way. As they said, a bird in hand paid better. They didn’t and wouldn’t commit to their own careers. In the long run it backfired; they remained very talented studio musicians but never became millionaires. They never fully understood that you have to believe in yourself and your craft, and work hard at your own life, not others’, and then you will be free.

  A perfect example was when we were all in Los Angeles. Stuff had been nominated for a Grammy. At the awards, Chaka Khan approached me and asked if Stuff would be interested in joining her to make an album and then join her on tour. When I brought it up to the band their reaction was, “We don’t need that bitch.” Many months later, I got a call from Quincy Jones. He wanted to use members of the band to make a record for him. He knew Stuff had a unique sound, especially when at least three members played together. Quincy wanted that sound, so he offered me something like double scale for each member to record. Single scale is a minimum fee per three-hour recording session set by the musicians’ union—at that time about three hundred bucks per session, per man. His initial offer was for Richard, Steve, Cornell, and Eric. Quincy knew he would get the sound he wanted without having to pay the whole band. I told Quincy that as their manager, I couldn’t accept the offer and I explained that if three or more members of the band were hired to perform or record, it constituted the sound of the band, and in that case, I would have to charge him a $25,000 fee. He laughed at me, saying, “Then I’ll call them directly.” You see, he knew they wouldn’t see what I was trying to build. He knew they would take scale payment and run. Well the end of the story is Quincy hired them, paid them nothing, maybe triple scale, a few thousand dollars, recorded with Chaka, and not only got their sound, but called the song “Stuff Like That” and sold millions of copies. The other band members and I got nothing.

  Grandpa Yandolino told me this story when I was a young boy, and ever since then I have repeated it many times to every girl I ever dated, never more important than when I repeated it to Charli.

  Grandpa told it to me as if it were a matter of fact, taking my little hand in his, looking me in the eye very seriously and saying, “Back in the early days it was a measure and symbol of wealth and prestige to own a horse. Not everyone had one. My father’s father—your great-great-grandfather—had just gotten married to your great-great-grandmother. On that very day he took her out to the barn to show off his fine stallion. He was carrying a bucket filled with water, and she wondered why her new husband was doing this. When they entered the barn Grandpa looked the horse in the eye and, making sure the horse and Grandma were paying attention, he placed the bucket in front of the horse. Pointing to the bucket filled with water, he commanded the horse not to drink from it. ‘Do not drink,’ he said. The horse was just a horse, though, and was thirsty to boot. Paying Great grandpa no mind he drank the water. In a stern, serious tone, Great-Grandpa shouted at the horse, ‘That’s one!’ Then, taking Great-Grandma by the hand, he exited the barn. Great-Grandma was surprised by his actions. What did it all mean?

  “The next day Great-Grandpa took his wife to the barn again, repeated the same thing, presenting the bucket of water to the horse and again directing the horse, ‘Don’t drink.’ Well the thirsty horse again didn’t listen and drank the water. Grandpa stood back and said to the horse, ‘That’s two!’ Grandma was now even more confused by Grandpa’s actions. What was the point? What is he saying? What did he expect from the horse? Still it wasn’t over. The next day the same thing, off to the barn, putting the bucket under the horse’s nose. Grandma looked on in wonderment. When will this end? Grandpa commanded the horse again, ‘Don’t drink.’ As you can imagine, the horse paid Grandpa no mind, and sure enough he drank the water. Grandpa stood back, looked his prestigious horse in the eye and said, ‘That’s three!’ This time he took out his gun and shot the horse dead. Great-Grandma was shocked by this knowing the value of this horse she was horrified, asking ‘Why did you shoot the horse?’ Great-grandpa looked her in the eye, proclaiming, ‘That’s one!’

  “The lesson here is don’t ask too many questions as to how and why I do things, especially if you don’t know how to do what I do better.”

  You can lead a horse from water but they still drink.

  Joe Cocker

  Joe’s character was exactly like the horse. You can lead him from water but you couldn’t stop him from drinking. Stuff, having toured worldwide and recorded with Joe, became the official Joe Cocker Band. The music and the shows they played together were spectacular; there will never be another “Stingray’’ album, or another “Catfish’’ performance. Since I am a Yankee fan, one day I questioned Joe, “Why did you do that song about Catfish Hunter? It feels like you really know him.” His answer surprised me. He said, “I don’t know, Franco.” (For some reason, to this day, he introduces and calls me Franco Zeffirelli, the Italian director.) He didn’t know anything about Catfish, only sort of knew he was a Yankee baseball pitcher, but you would never know it. Joe was great. He always sang a song with complete soul and believability, always gave a great performance of a new song or a covered classic, like “Whiter Shade of Pale,” which was originally recorded by Procol Harum. Joe covered the songs and he always performed his way, on any song he ever sang, like in the special Beatles song “A Little Help from my Friends,” or “Feeling Alright” by Stevie Winwood and Traffic. In fact, Joe never wrote a song himself. He created his own style and put his own spin on songs. He would only sing songs he felt personally connected to and would never do a song if he couldn’t r
elate to the lyrics.

  Drunk or sober, he sang the shit out of it. No two days or performances were ever the same. They were all experiences. You always held your breath for his last scream, hoping he would hit the high note. Later on in his career, the audiences didn’t care if he could hit those notes or not; they sang the high note for him. It became a thing for the kids to try—if they could hit it with him they had rights to say they sang with Joe Cocker.

  In October 1976 everyone in New York was talking about the big event coming up on Saturday Night Live. Joe Cocker and Stuff were going to perform together live with the SNL cast. Thursday, the day before the rehearsal for the show, we flew Joe into New York, put him in his hotel room at the Essex House, and secured the two adjoining rooms.