Some time circa 1973, Ralph and John were working on a song idea about a woman who embodied a passion for music but who also couldn’t catch a break. It was like a theme song for so many singers and songwriters who had invested their hearts and lots of late nights performing while never quite finding the success that might have been theirs with a little luck. They titled the song Pearl’s a Singer, and it appeared on their lone LP recorded with the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with John singing the lead vocal with a mellow Wurlitzer organ and piano backing him.

I’ve heard that since ‘Pearl’ was a nickname of Janis Joplin, the song was inspired by or possibly referring to her. Janis was a star who burned brightly in her time, so if she did spur the naming, then I tend to think that maybe it was in the sense that Ralph and John’s Pearl represented the other side of the coin of fame. The longer version of the song featured a bridge written by Leiber and Stoller that invoked the name of Betty Grable. One thing that I’ve always remembered is that the lyrics’ reference to the songstress having been a winner in a contest likely came from John winning a contest performing while serving in the US Army stationed in Germany in 1966.

The song’s later incarnations were performed by Elkie Brooks, who had great success with it in the United Kingdom in 1977, and Bernadette Peters on her self-titled LP in 1980 stateside.

Years later, I can still remember how excited John was and the enthusiastic phone calls back and forth with Ralph in 1995 when they found out that Pearl and the song Neighborhood were both to be included in the Broadway musical revue Smokey Joe’s Cafe. As a result of a record-breaking run, both of these songs from the revue caught the attention of a singer named Vonda Shepard. She was to become a fixture and recurring musical act on the Ally McBeal Show in the late 90s. Ms. Shepard recorded her own version of Neighborhood for the show’s first soundtrack CD, and she performed Pearl’s a Singer on one of the show’s episodes as well.

Fortunately, I recently found Vonda Shepard’s SoundCloud page, so let me present to you her version of the song (I couldn’t possibly let you go without hearing the song!):

And what’s more, Ms. Shepard also shared some thoughts on the song a couple of years back while reflecting on some of her favorite tunes.

Hope you enjoyed this short history and the recording above. (Oh, and if you’re looking for other versions of the song, you can get them on your Amazon Echo device by requesting them by title and artist and on iTunes as well as on the original Broadway Cast recording of Smokey Joe’s Cafe). As something of a tribute to her biggest hit, Elkie Brooks titled her 2017 greatest hits CD Pearls and made the song the very first track.

Can’t sign off without a huge shout out to Ralph for being such a fantastic singer, co-writer, and all-around partner with my dad. We will keep documenting the story of the songs and with hope, more and more digital versions of all these recordings will be available as time goes on.

C.S.

Here is a superb piece of audio that showcases what might be the very best performance of John and Ralph’s lovely ballad “Paula’s Theme” from the soundtrack of the film Viva Max!

This two-minute track features a winsome performance and superb little embellishments by the great Al Hirt on trumpet heard here on his home turf, and what’s more, the man at the piano is none other than Ellis Marsalis, father of the great jazz musicians Wynton and Branford.

Enjoy a listen to one of the high points of Dino and Sembello’s 1969 foray into motion picture scoring. We are lucky that this worldwide web has snared this performance from April 25th, 1970 in New Orleans for us, and thanks very much to pastemagazine.com for making it available on their site. More to come from Dino and Sembello.

Paula’s Theme performed live