Spencer Proffer has been a songwriter, music producer, executive and more since the 1960s.He’s produced music from artists such as Tina Turner, Heart, the Little River Band, and Quiet Riot. Proffer eventually ventured into producing music documentaries such as “The Day the Music Died,” which details the making and influence of the song “American Pie” by Don McLean. A New Mexico native, Proffer will return to the Land of Enchantment for a screening of the film at the Rio Grande Theatre on October 17th for the Las Cruces International Film Festival. Scott Brocato spoke with Proffer about the film, his career as a music producer, and his New Mexico roots.
Scott Brocato:
Talk about your roots in New Mexico, coming to America with your parents when you were five.
Spencer Proffer:
Actually five-and-a-half. I'm an immigrant and like the blue state that New Mexico is, I feel that immigrants are welcome in America. And therefore we came to America and to Ellis Island, and the only people my parents knew in America from Poland, which is where they're from, was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So we took the train from New York to Albuquerque. And I lived there until I was 10 1/2 years old, fell in love with the state, fell in love with the spirit of New Mexico. And for a friend of mine who I worked with 30 years ago (Las Cruces International Film Festival’s Ross Marks) to invite me back to screen a film that I made a few years ago, American Pie (aka “The Day the Music Died”), is an honor and a privilege and I'm very pleased to do it. And I'm very pleased to speak with you, Scott.
Scott Brocato:
I'm pleased that you're speaking with us. And when you left New Mexico when you were ten, your folks went to California?
Spencer Proffer:
Yeah, my dad was a sewing machine mechanic who used his hands to make a dollar. He made 20 bucks a week. He moved to the ghetto in Los Angeles to be a sewing machine mechanic. So I grew up here, went to high school, went to UCLA, went to law school, and then moved to New York when I became Clive Davis's assistant at the age of 23. So I'm pretty much a California guy, but I'm now migrating back to being a New Mexico guy.
Scott Brocato:
Well, you mentioned Clive Davis, who has helped so many careers himself. How did he help you?
Spencer Proffer:
Signing me as an artist and realizing that I was a smarter guy that I was a good guitar player and singer. So he helped me, because in my second year of law school, where I was executive editor of Law Review, published #1 in my class, I got offered a job. I got flown to New York the first time I was on an airplane, and I met with Clive's lieutenants, and ultimately Clive. And I was offered one of two choices when I graduated, whether I passed the bar or not. Choice one: to have him pick up my option as a recording artist. But then I only had a singles deal, so it wouldn't have meant that much. And my first record kind of went to #90 with an anchor (on the charts). It wasn't that big a hit. (Laughs)
Scott Brocato:
Not a “bullet...”
Spencer Proffer:
Not a bullet but an anchor! (Laughs) It went the other way. We got it released in England. It did a little better there.
But number two, I could come to work after I graduated law school, to go to work for Clive as his shadow. And I did for a couple of years. And so I moved to New York at the age of 23. He really helped me. He mentored me and showed me the way it's supposed to be.
Scott Brocato:
And then how did you get into producing, music producing?
Spencer Proffer:
I started...it's a long, long story, we don't have enough time. But I started producing my own demos of songs that I had written when I was a young kid coming up. Very few of them made it early on, but by the time I was 20, I had 18 songs recorded in the top 50. And all of the demos to all of my songs were produced and arranged and sung and played by me.
So therefore, how I got into it was that was in my DNA. But when I started working with talent much bigger and better than me, like Jeff Beck, like Brian May from Queen, real good guitar players--believe me, I put the guitar down like that.
When I started working with vocalists like Tina (Turner) and Ann Wilson from Heart, people who were really good singers, and Johnny Farnham, lead singer at the Little River Band, I stopped singing. So the point is, I'm a better behind the curtain guy than I am in front of the curtain.
Scott Brocato:
I'm going to hopscotch here to (the film) “The Day the Music Died.” My favorite sequence in there is with Ed Freeman, who produced (the song) “American Pie” and the album. And they had a bit of...he and Don McLean had a bit of a contentious relationship in the studio. He didn't want, for example, Don McLean to play acoustic guitar. Which leads me to my question for you: when you were a producer, did you have any similar incidents with other artists that you could talk about, and how did you handle those?
Spencer Proffer:
Great question. You did your homework!
Being a record producer is kind of analogous to being a film director or a psychologist. And in working with artists who had a deep opinion of their talent--deservedly so, like Stevie Wonder, like ultimately Don McLean--if you show them a way to do it that takes their art and their creativity to another level, and it's a good idea, they'll listen.
And there were some instances like Kevin DuBrow, singer of Quiet Riot, who was an absolute egotistical maniac. I couldn't really work with him in spite of selling 8 million records on our debut (the album “Metal Health”), you know, the "Bang Your Head,” “Cum On Feel the Noize” record. But what I did with Kevin is we put a blanket in front of the control room so I wouldn't have to look at him when he did vocals.
Scott Brocato:
And that was the first metal album to reach #1 in the Billboard Top 200, correct?
Spencer Proffer:
Yes, sir.
Scott Brocato:
So did he change his tune about you after the success of “Metal Health?”
Spencer Proffer:
No, Scott. What happened is they threw him out of the band because he started--we had Rudy Sarzo as our bass player who played with Ozzy Osbourne, and Kevin would do radio interviews with guys like (you) for NPR and other stations that we set up, my company set up, saying how Ozzy Osbourne is an imposter, how he (DuBrow) is the best singer that ever lived, blah, blah, blah. So the rest of the band democratically threw him out of the band after a few albums. He wasn't nicer to me. He was more egotistical than ever.
Scott Brocato:
Well, let's move on to your involvement with feature length music documentaries. I believe the first one was the John Coltrane doc?
Spencer Proffer:
The first one was a doc that I put together in 1996 for a Canadian guy named Robbie Robertson.
Scott Brocato:
Oh, from The Band.
Spencer Proffer:
Yeah. And I had a sequence in there with Robbie talking to Martin Scorsese. his best friend, about how music makes a difference in visual stuff. And I got very inspired to make what I wound up doing 20 years later then.
But I did put that together. We had (footage of) Robbie actually coming down from Canada, electrifying (Bob) Dylan. We had "Basement Tape” footage from Dylan that nobody had seen. We have a sequence from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where Eric Clapton was jamming with Bob and wishing he had joined The Band. I mean, he thought he wanted to be another member of The Band, but he wound up slumming it in Blind Faith and other things. Clapton actually looked up to Robbie, who was very dear to me. I met Scorsese through Robbie, which was wonderful for me because he's still one of my heroes. But that was the first music doc I was involved with in 1996 before it became fashionable.
Scott Brocato:
And you went on to do documentaries about Elvis's ‘68 comeback special and Coltrane, like I mentioned. And now let's move on to "The Day the Music Died.” Why did you want to make a documentary about that one song, “American Pie?”
Spencer Proffer:
When I was a kid going to UCLA and driving--I said this before and he interviews and Don (McLean) knows this--I heard “American Pie” on the radio. This was like 1970, into 1971. And three minutes went by. It kept going. I pulled over. Three minutes went by again. I stayed static. It was the longest song I had ever heard on the radio until I actually made a record eight years later called “Children of the Sun” by Billy Thorpe. Yeah, I wrote that and produced that with Billy. We started laser light shows. That was eight years after I heard “American Pie”. I was so moved by it.
And I was in a band. I was a failed singer, guitar player. And so I said to myself back then, “One day when I grow up”--who knew it would be 50 years later--”I'd like to do something with the song,” because it really touched me: the lyric, the spirit, Don's poetry; I think Don is one of the genius poets of our lifetime. And the fact he wrote that and another song called “Vincent,” which was my other favorite song, “Starry Starry Night,” I love that song.
We just made a children's book, an illustrated children's book on “Vincent” that we're going to animate through UNICEF, that my wife, Judy—here's a picture of Judy--she's a fantastic, brilliant talent. She's an author, she's a journalist. and she is my boss.
But Don McLean, back to your point, I think he was a genius. I became friendly with Don, and I asked his permission to do other stuff with him, which he gladly offered me to do. And he met Judy and the rest is history. We're in the middle of the “Vincent” project right now.
Scott Brocato:
But then you have the project (“The Day the Music Died”) at hand. You get McLean on board. What is the process of then choosing which way to go, all the different avenues, the paths to explore, the different people to interview? What did you narrow down when it came to the actual making of the doc?
Spencer Proffer:
Relevance. Social, cultural, human relevance. It was the journey of the song from the time Don wrote it to its trajectory for the last 50 years. And any people that connected in that journey were people I thought should be talked to and interviewed, be it other artists like Jon Bon Jovi, and John Mayer, who did versions of the song; new artists like Jade Bird, who you saw in the film, was 24 years old now, but she was a kid growing up and heard the song in her native England because her parents played the song to her. Willa Amai was a fantastic new artist who was very involved with Dolly Parton years ago. You saw her at the piano. She heard the song growing up.
So I thought the part of what would make it very interesting to do 90 minutes on one song would be the journey of the song and the lyrics and its inspiration and its influence, which is why I'm proud to bring it back to New Mexico and share it with the next gen.
Scott Brocato:
Well, how was Don McLean like to work with throughout the process of making the doc?
Spencer Proffer:
I would say that Don was collaborative, inspirational, and a real human being, because he trusted me. So I didn't do anything of significance without letting him and his manager, Curt Webster, see it.
But they gave me the rope to take the ball--I'm an ex-quarterback--to take the ball, using a football metaphor, down the field all the way. But at each juncture, every maybe 20, 30 yards, I would share what I was doing with Don. And I would say, what do you think? Good idea or not? Should I talk to this person? Should I not? He was instantly collaborative and gracious to work with. So for me, I had a great experience.
Scott Brocato:
So what are you working on now as far as a music doc?
Spencer Proffer:
Now there's a half a dozen projects that we are doing through my company now that deal with relevance--social, cultural relevance. “Stand by Me” is a good one. If you remember the Ben E. King song written by Leiber/Stoller. I got together with Mike Stoller, who's terrific also. He's 92 years old. I talked to Mike about what he really meant when he wrote that song with Jerry Lieber and Ben E. King. And one aspect of it was more than a love song. It was standing next to your brother. Black and white, straight, gay, political, left, right, didn't matter what. "Stand By Me”, it's standing together. So I want to make a doc which I want to premiere at the United Nations about humanity standing together with each other to support one another.
Scott Brocato:
You're going to be here on the 17th for the screening of “The Day the Music Died” at the Rio Grande Theater in Las Cruces. You'll also be speaking with students here at NMSU during a presentation on October 19th at the Pan Am Center. What can we expect from that presentation?
Spencer Proffer:
Craziness. (Laughs) No, sincerity. Just...I'm not preparing for either the Q&A after the film or the class, other than speaking from the heart. Because I think the great thing about true politicians--I'm a big fan of Deb Haaland, I'm a big fan of a lot of the people that are representing both Congress and the Senate in the state of New Mexico--they speak from the heart. And that's what I want to do when I come as a carpetbagger from California to New Mexico, my adopted home state. and speak to the students and speak to the people at the festival about what's real.
Scott Brocato:
And what wisdom do you want to impart to them?
Spencer Proffer:
Don't be afraid to take no for an answer, like Babe Ruth, who hit the most home runs for a time and he struck out a lot. Just keep going. Follow your dream, follow your heart, and don't sell out.
