Stu Who? – Forty Years Of Navigating The Minefields Of The Music Business
Stu Phillips/Cisum Press (Book Review)
Book: A
There are many books that claim to be autobiographies, yet
you know they have possible a ghost writer or it is just a pretense to tell a
very surface, even myth-laden account of one’s life. Stu Phillips is a name you may be familiar with. Though you may not be able to place it, you
have to have subconsciously run into it, because he has worked on some of the
best, most interesting and most memorable music projects of the last half of
the 20th Century that endure well into the next thanks to the
exceptional quality of his work.
However, he has titles his autobiography Stu Who? in reference to
the fact that he is one of the biggest almost widely-knowns in music history,
but anyone who loves music in or out of film and TV knows better and has
definitely enjoyed his work.
For starters, I have to say that the book was brutally
honest without being seedy or exploitive, with Phillips being more open with
and about his life than expected. He
begins at birth and without going off course, builds up the direction that made
him a name success. As I read on, I
realized that it was this honesty than made his music so great and was about to
learn about a truly underrated figure in the entertainment business, one who
has not received the accolades he is deserving of. If you do not believe me, think of this output.
He made The Marcels’ Blue Moon a reality by
producing it, creating it and promising to produce something with the band if
they traveled from their hometown of Pittsburgh to his offices in New
York. The song now stands as one of the
greatest Rock/R&B records ever made.
He also was behind Shelley Fabares’ Johnny Angel, James Darren’s
pop culture classic Goodbye Cruel World and had to come up with al the
instrumentals to go with almost all the episodes of the hit TV series The
Monkees. After also having some
regional hit instrumental albums, he continued scoring feature films running
from 1961 to 1978, 26 in all. They
included “Mad Dog” Coll (1961), Ride The Wild Surf (1964), Dead
Heat On A Merry-Go-Round (1966), Follow Me (1967/8), The
Appointment (1969, the last of four MGM commissioned, the limited edition
CD of which is reviewed elsewhere on this site), Beyond The Valley Of The
Dolls (1970) and Fast Charlie, Moonbeam Rider (1978).
That does not include Battlestar Galactica, the
U.S. TV series whose pilot got a theatrical release. Phillips also became one of the kings of TV pilots, many shows of
which he did continue on. Key TV series
he helped make hits included The Donna Reed Show and Gidget in
the mid-1960s, then Medical Center in the early 1970s, followed by the
first Six Million Dollar Man telefilm, McCloud, Switch, Quincy,
Get Christie Love, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Spiderman
with Nicholas Hammond, Buck Rogers with Gil Gerard, BJ & The Bear,
Sheriff Lobo, Knight Rider (see the soundtrack reviewed elsewhere
on this site), The Fall Guy, Chicago Story, and even Manimal. That is some of the most memorable and
interesting TV music of the last golden age.
However, as stellar as that all sounds, there are as many
valleys as there are peaks and that is why the book is such a great read. Anyone serious about the music or entertainment
industry should think of it as mandatory reading, but it is so well written and
paced that it is hard to put the book down.
Obviously, Phillips honesty in real life is one of the keys to why there
is such a base honesty in his music.
His hard work, strategy, endurance and moral center helped him to
overcome all kinds of changes and troubles.
His early retirement was a huge loss to a music industry already having
trouble on its own.
Yet, his Knight Rider theme has been revived as
sampled material in recent Hip Hop hits, DVD is seeing the long-overdue release
of these key titles, meaning a whole new generation will get to enjoy his
genius in action again, and Blue Moon is the kind of classic that never
goes away. When all is said and done,
the book gives us the portrait of a life and the building of an extraordinary
legacy. When you finish reading Stu
Who?, it is a question you will never ask again. Stu Phillips is a class act and it is great to see he is finally
getting his due. Don’t miss this great
read!
- Nicholas Sheffo
