Bette Midler (23 page)

The album contained a newly recorded nonconcert song called “You’re Moving Out Today,” written by Bette and Carol Bayer Sager. The song is about Midler asking her boyfriend to pack his things up and leave her life. She sings it in an odd little Betty Boop-like voice, which doesn’t sound like her at all. It was ironic that Bette was now writing songs with Carol, since Carol had co-written most of the songs with Melissa Manchester on Melissa’s 1973 debut album
Home to Myself
. It was also a strange twist of fate that by 1977, both Barry Manilow and Melissa Manchester each had scored huge hits on the record charts (“I Write the Songs” and “Midnight Blue,” respectively), yet Bette, who was considered a bigger star, was still trying unsuccessfully to produce a hit record.

According to one inside source, the only reason that “Bang, You’re Dead” appears on Bette’s
Live at Last
album was because Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson had threatened to give the song to someone else if Midler didn’t hurry up and release it. It was a last-minute addition to the album, and it replaced “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman” on the LP. “Junkman” appears on the videotape of the HBO special; “Bang” does not.

What the
Live at Last
album did accomplish was to reestablish Bette’s image as a live concert performer par excellence. It was a testament to her enormous dexterity as an onstage singer, actress, and stand-up comedian. Even the usually snide
Village Voice
admitted, “This double album catches Bette at the best—when she is working a crowd, milking it for laughter, delight, and applause. . . . her singing here has a limpid, liquid quality that never made it onto her previous recordings. She sounds spontaneous—eager and breathless” (
74
).

Live at Last
contains most of the songs that made Midler famous—like “Friends,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and “Delta Dawn,” Bette also sang several songs that were unique to this album. They include her version of the Supremes’ “Up the Ladder to the Roof,” the sexual entendre–filled “Long John Blues,” and Neil Young’s “Birds.” “Long John Blues” is actually an overtly lewd and wickedly amusing song about a dentist with a very large “tool” made for filling a “cavity” in need of attention, which Bette successfully milked for laughs. In addition to the songs and intermittent patter, the album also features some of Midler’s comedy bits, including her raunchy Sophie Tucker jokes and her own trademark stand-up routine, labeled here as “Comic Relief.” The inclusion of “Up the Ladder to the Roof” was obviously an outgrowth of her attempts at recording several songs for her aborted
Bette Does Motown
album.

Also captured on this record are two of her acting vignettes, in which she portrays different characters to embody some of her songs. “The Vicki Eydie Show” gave her the platform to perform a global cavalcade of “cheese”—including “Around the World,” “Hawaiian War Chant,” and “Istanbul.” For her sad and downtrodden tunes, Midler portrayed a character she called “Nanette,” a bag lady whose life somehow eclipsed her sense of reality. As Nanette—the crazy lady with a fried egg on her head—Bette brought to life her songs “Mr. Rockefeller,” “Ready to Begin Again,” and a bittersweet version of “Do You Want to Dance?”

Live at Last
is part concert, part mini-Broadway musical, part stand-up comedy, and 100 percent Midler. The one totally studio-recorded cut on the album, the quirky “You’re Moving Out Today,” is presented at the end of the first disc as a musical “Intermission” between acts. So much more than just a musical concert performer, the album clearly captures Miss M in transition to becoming an actress who sings—as opposed to being a singer who acts.

It was clear by this point that Bette Midler was one of the most critically lauded and original performers of the 1970s.
The Los Angeles Times
proclaimed that “Midler shows more range and vision on stage than either Barbra Streisand or Liza Minnelli,” and
People
magazine glowed: “She is a showplace of exhausting versatility, singing, dancing: she brings S.R.O. houses to their feet night after night” (
8
). However, the biggest problem facing her career was the inconsistent quality of the projects, songs, and showcases she chose to show off her talents.

The one single that was released off
Live at Last
was the studio-recorded cut “You’re Moving Out Today.” It was the song that Bette wrote with Carole Bayer Sager—together with Bruce Roberts. Sager’s record company decided that the song would also be a great single for her. For whatever reason, both singles were released at the exact same time. Bette had the biggest hit—at Number 42 in America—while Sager had the bigger hit in England, at Number 6, as well as in Australia. Sager’s version of the song peaked at Number 69 in the United States. Carole’s version of the song was produced by Brooks Arthur, and Bette had Tom Dowd producing her version of the song. Bette was friends with Carole and not only co-wrote “You’re Moving Out Today” with her, but can also be heard on the 1977
Carole Bayer Sager
album. Midler sings a featured solo on the song “Shy As a Violet” and provides background “harmony” vocals, which were written by Sager and Peter Allen.

On September 18, 1977, Bette found herself in the uncomfortable position of headlining a gay rights rally gone awry. The so-called “Star Spangled Night for Rights” turned into one of Aaron Russo’s biggest fumbles.

In an effort to smooth over any bad blood between Bette and the gay audiences who had given her initial start on the road to stardom, Aaron used Bette’s name to enlist the services of several other big-name stars. Proceeds were to be donated to the San Francisco–based pro-gay rights organization Save Our Human Rights Foundation (SOHR). Unfortunately,
the event cost over $200,000 to produce and barely cleared $100,000 for the cause. That $100,000 was to be held in escrow by another holding company called Star Spangled Night, Inc. In the confusion, several hundred tickets to the event went unsold by show time. Some Los Angeles–based gay organizations even boycotted the event. Such backstage intrigue notwithstanding, the real battle was waged onstage when the show began.

The event boasted a star-studded line-up that included comedians Lily Tomlin, David Steinberg, and Richard Pryor; singer Tom Waits; rock groups War and Aalon; actor Christopher Lee; ballet dancers Johanna Kirkland and John Clifford; the Hollywood Festival Orchestra, and, finally, Bette as the closing attraction. The evening was long and slow moving, and by the time Richard Pryor took the stage, the audience was restless. Pryor began his directionless monologue by complaining that none of the other performers had admitted to personal homosexual experiences. After discussing his own experimentation in the early 1950s, his remarks became increasingly hostile.

“We’ve got a lot of faggots in the ghetto, but not a single homosexual. Niggers don’t want nothing to do with homosexuality,” he contended. After several minutes of antigay comments, Pryor shouted at the hecklers he was inciting, “Kiss my happy rich black ass!” (
75
). With that, he stormed off the stage to a sea of “boos” from the crowd.

An apologetic Russo took the microphone and was promptly booed off the stage. Likewise, whiskey-voiced blues singer Tom Waits was jeered and booed while the stage was hastily prepared for Bette’s entrance. She had no idea what she was about to walk into the middle of: a hostile crowd with no sense of humor.

According to Bette: “I was in my dressing room, running lines with the PA system turned off. I had no idea that anything unusual was happening until one of the Harlettes came back and told me that Richard Pryor had walked off the stage and told the audience to kiss his ‘rich black ass.’ ‘Hmmmmm,’ I thought, ‘that’s interesting. I’ve said worse than that to a lot of folks.’ And so, not grasping the context in which he’s said it, I went on stage and said, ‘Who’d like to kiss my rich white ass?’ I sensed right away that something else was going on out there besides me . . . something scary. Still I really didn’t have any idea of how deeply Pryor had offended the audience until after the show when somebody described to me what had happened, and then I went into shock, too” (
67
).

To make her entrance even more dramatic, Bette had staged a whole bit of business that found her dressed as the Statue of Liberty, swathed in chains and shackles, and dragged on stage by the Harlettes, who were dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes. After Pryor’s racist remarks, Bette’s humor was seriously out of line. Not even her Anita Bryant jokes were coming out funny. After a quick medley of her hits and two additional songs, she realized she had gotten in over her head. “I think I really need a few friends,” she announced and was joined by Tomlin, Steinberg, Waits, Kirkland, and Clifford for a finale of the song “Friends.” Unfortunately, the “Star Spangled Night for Rights” left a sour taste in several people’s mouths.

“That sorry business brought me so far down,” Bette later admitted. “I’ve thought and thought about it, and I’m still not sure what happened that night.” Her harshest comments were reserved for Pryor’s hypocrisy” (
67
).

“Well, Christ . . . what was Richard trying to do?” she wondered. “I couldn’t tell you because I haven’t talked to him since. Some said that he showed up without enough material, and when he ran out of stuff to say, he simply went on the attack. Others claimed he was right in introducing a serious political issue into the program. Whatever it was, was very dangerous. I mean, ranting and raving about ‘where were the faggots during the burning of Watts?’ That’s serious? That’s political? I don’t know Pryor very well—he’s always kept his distance from me—but I’ve always thought of him as much more Jewish than black, and as I recall, the first few years of his career he was exceedingly like a cop—VERY much like a cop. And as to where all the heavies were during Watts: Pryor’s manager was backstage that night and he said, ‘I can tell you where Richard Pryor was during the Watts riots. He was at my house watching them on television!’ ” (
67
).

One of the performers on the bill was someone who was becoming one of Bette’s best friends: Tom Waits. “I first ran into him at the Bottom Line in New York,” she explained. “He was singing ‘The Heart of Saturday Night,’ and I just fell in love with him on the spot. We got passingly acquainted that first night, and then I ran into him out here [L. A.] someplace, and I suggested we get together for a visit. Tom lives . . . well, sort of knee-deep in grunge, so he was reluctant for me to see his apartment. I grew up in lots of clutter myself, and delicate I ain’t so I kept after him till he finally invited me over. He acted ultra-shy at first, but he finally ushered me around, and he’s got his piano in the kitchen, and he only uses the
kitchen range to light his cigarettes, and then there’s this refrigerator where he keeps his hammers and wrenches and nuts and bolts and stuff like that. He opened the fridge door, and with an absolute poker face he said, ‘I got some cool tools in here.’ I howled for an hour, and we’ve been buddies ever since. Tom can always get me tickled, and he really helped jack up my spirits after the disaster of that gay rights benefit in Hollywood” (
67
).

During this same period, Bette was preoccupied with the recording of her fifth album, which was to be titled
Broken Blossom
. It was being produced by Brooks Arthur, and she used several singers on the background vocals, but she did not employ the Harlettes. Ula, Sharon, and Charlotte performed with Bette in the Hollywood Bowl gay rights show and on the TV special
Rolling Stone: The Tenth Anniversary
, but for most of the year, the Harlettes were unemployed. Between Bette Midler tours, there was no source of income for them. It was in the spring of 1977 that the trio began to pursue projects away from Bette.

According to Charlotte Crossley, “After Bette recorded her albums, when we sang background, she would go on promotional tours, and when they ended, Bette would say that she was going to take a couple of months off to prepare the next album. We each went off into our own thing—studio singing, straight acting, things like that. A club owner, who knew us with Bette, called Sharon and asked if we ever appeared as a group when Bette was not working. She told him that we had not worked up a solo act. He suggested that we do this and appear at his club, since he felt we were strong enough to draw an audience” (
76
).

“We got together and began to play with songs and material to see whether it might work,” explains Ula Hedwig. “My neighbor, Marc Shaiman, a professional musical coach, agreed to work out the musical harmonies. Sharon’s friend, Andre De Shield, who played the role of the Wizard in the Broadway musical
The Wiz
, gave the act some direction” (
76
).

This is the year of Marc Shaiman’s introduction to the whole Midler camp. Bette liked Shaiman, and in time he became Midler’s piano player, musical collaborator, and sometime producer. (On Midler’s ill-fated 2000–2001 TV sitcom, the character of “Oscar” was based on Marc Shaiman.)

Andre De Shield had worked with Bette as a choreographer on
Clams on the Half-Shell
, and in addition, the Harlettes found that several former Midler employees were thrilled to lend a hand. Bette’s former
publicist, Candy Leigh, became the trio’s manager, and it wasn’t long before they landed a record deal. The producer was David Rubinson, who had produced the first Pointer Sisters’ albums, and he got the girls a deal with Columbia Records. Sharon, Ula, and Charlotte billed themselves as “Formerly of the Harlettes,” and away they went on their own career—sans Midler.

Naturally, it wasn’t long before the trouble started. The name of Bette’s background group, “The Harlettes,” was never copyrighted, and although Aaron Russo attempted to sue the trio, he didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. As a sort of compromise, the album and the group were billed as “Sharon Redd, Ula Hedwig, Charlotte Crossley: Formerly of the Harlettes.” Long, but to the point. The cover of the album, which was released in early 1978, was done by artist Richard Amsel, who had painted the covers of Bette’s first two albums.