Her short fiction, poetry and essays have been included in Mockingheart Review, The OffBeat, Raven’s Perch, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Los Angeles Press, The Voices Project, and Between the Lines Anthology: Fairy Tales & Folklore Re-imagined.
Along with singing and writing, her other passion is photography, and her black & white photographs of film composers have been included in exhibitions at the Association of Motion Picture & Television Producers headquarters in Los Angeles, and at Cite de la Musique in Paris, France.
Website: https://www.sallystevenswriter.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sallytwitshere
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sally.stevens.14
Welcome to My Bookish Pleasures. We would love to get to know you and your book. Can you tell us about I Sang That? What inspired you to write it?
I had been pursuing my passion for writing by running off to Iowa every summer - this would have been the 22nd summer were it not for the pandemic lockdowns. I took workshops in every genre - fiction, poetry, memoir, novel, playwriting - and as you sit with a group of twelve colleagues you find out what everyone does in their everyday life. Learning that I had worked in music for so many decades in Hollywood, people kept saying “Oh, you have to write a book!” When the pandemic was at its peak and I was pretty much a front-porch sitter, it was a perfect time to get chapters organized, edited and in order that I’d dabble with over the years. And I had ideas for new chapters, current emotions that had begun to surface etc. It was the perfect time to get the chapters together and ready to send out into the world!
What was the most challenging aspect of writing your book?
Keeping the subject matter in order, which I somewhat failed at, in terms of writing about some project or event in one chapter, and then referencing it again in another chapter. But it’s very hard to keep track of all those years! AND of course, trying not to say anything that would seem hurtful to the people who might read it. To be honest, to express my feelings, but at the same time be protective of the dignity of others.
Can you tell us a little about your background in music?
I always loved singing, and grew up in a family of musicians. I began to do solo work in high school, began to work a bit professionally in college, also had been writing songs all through high school. I majored in music, but knew my goal was not to work at a profession that would have required a degree. I wanted to perform, to work on music for TV, Film, Sound Recordings. When I was at UCLA, Herb Alpert and Lou Adler (partners at the time, before they each had accomplished such immense successes independently) produced a single record of me as an artist, singing two songs I wrote. Shortly after that I had a chance to audition for the first concert tour that Ray Conniff was to do as an artist. I got hired, and did that tour plus a 47-nighter bus concert tour in the fall of that same year. I learned so much about the business, and made so many connections to other singers in the business, that I never finished my senior year at UCLA. I just had a chance to start doing the work I longed to do, and continued to pursue it. I did several booking in Las Vegas in the years when there was a 15-minute production number preceding whoever was the headliner artist. I toured with Nat King Cole and then began to get more connected with the music community and the jobs began to come in steadily, for Variety TV, for film scores, for sound recordings, and back in the seventies for commercials quite often.
Of everyone in the music industry that you have met, who do you admire the most and why is that?
Of course, in the early days, it was heart-pounding to be in the studio with Frank Sinatra. He’s still my favorite singer, alongside of James Taylor.
But I have such admiration for John Williams, who I’ve sung for and assembled choirs for. He is of course so brilliantly talented, but also is one of the most gracious and kind, humble people in the business. I also greatly admire Seth McFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad, and his live-action series The Orville. He is a wonderful singer himself – very much Sinatra style – and such a respecter of music, of “live” musicians. He scores all his shows with live orchestras, unlike what has happened with so many projects now scored with synths and sound effects. Seth McFarlane is one of the most delightful, sweet people in our business - and so extraordinarily creative and funny.
You've also done vocals for The Simpsons and others. How did you get into that aspect of show business?
I had worked on several of Danny Elfman’s early film scores, and when he was asked to write a main title for a new animated show in the works at Fox, he hired me to also sing on it. Little did any of us know how successful that show would become, and that our main title would still be airing thirty-three years later! Along the way I got acquainted with the music team at Fox TV, and was referred to work on other projects. Alf Clausen was the primary composer for The Simpsons for 28 years. We did so many fun vocal source cues - the village folks singing some silly song, and often I got to do a “sound alike” excerpt from some currently popular song, for the end title credits. TV, Film, Sound Recordings - they are all kind of cross-over areas of work, and draw from the broader community of session singers like me. I’ve just been so very lucky over the years, to have established relationships along the way, and to be relied on to assist with union information, rates, etc. AND to assemble groups of singers who I knew so well and worked with - whose voice works well with whose, etc. The term Vocal Contractor became part of our SAG union contracts, though I did not do any contracting until after I’d just worked as a solo and ensemble singer for about 20 or so years. It was a wonderful extension of my work activities, and I think also extended my working years by quite a bit.
Do you still sing?
Indeed I do! I am working on a Family Guy vocal session next week, and did a couple of film calls last month. It’s slowed down, as one might expect; the other young singers deserve their time! But I'm so grateful to still have activity going on. So far the voice still seems to work! I’m an incessant hummer, which drives some folks (like my daughter) crazy! It’s unconscious - I don’t even know I’m doing it. But I’m told that the humming has really helped to keep the vocal cords in shape.
What projects are you currently working on now that your book is published?
I have a novella length fiction that is sort of “magical realism” that I’ve worked on for years. I would love to get that out into the world. Each chapter has sort of its own adventure within, but the main characters are Mrs. Naomi Billingsley, a mid-west woman at empty-nest age of her life, and her psychiatrist, who is nuttier than a fruit cake. She lives in her mind much of the time, and he accepts those adventures as real, and tries to deal with them, so their sessions are quite interesting. At least they were fun for me - I hope they’ll be fun and interesting to others!
Author: Sally Stevens
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Pages: 390
Genre: Memoir
This book is a personal journey behind the scenes into the world of music-makers who created the film scores, television music, sound recordings, commercials and concert evenings over the last sixty years.
It’s about a long singing career that began in 1960 with concert tours – Ray Conniff, Nat King Cole, and later, solo work in concert with Burt Bacharach – to thirty years of vocals and main titles for The Simpsons, vocals for Family Guy…vocals on hundreds of film & television scores & sound recordings, plus twenty-two years as Choral Director for the Oscars. It’s also the personal story of growing up in a “his, hers and theirs” family in the forties and fifties, and how a shy little girl became a second-generation singer in the ever-evolving music business of Hollywood.
Release Date: October 25, 2022
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Soft Cover: 978-1639885510; 390 pages
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3GmcBJD
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