The Official Website of the Singer & Songwriter

Geoffrey S Lapin

'Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and
philosophy.Music is the electrical soil in which the
spirit lives thinks and invents.'
  Ludwig van Beethoven

Well before I was 14, I had already labeled myself as a
musical snob. Even as a really little kid, I would sneak into
 the living room to put on my parents’ 78s of Tchaikovsky,
interspersed with an occasional dose of their Glenn Miller
45s. But that was as “pop” as I allowed myself. I was a
self-proclaimed classical musician, and I was not going
to succumb to the so-called music that other kids were
listening to. Until …

It was in December of 1964 that I heard a song on
someone’s radio. And I kept hearing it a lot. And I got to
 like it. “When you’re alone, and life is making you lonely
…” is how it went. And when I found out who was singing
 it, I went out and bought my very first 45. Orange labeled
Warner Brothers. I read the labels on both sides. I always
 read everything. I still remember the song’s being by a
Tony Hatch. And it said “An original Vogue Recording.” I
had no idea what that meant – then. Months went by and
another 45 by that singer came out: I Know a Place with
the same information on the labels that Downtown had. And it was that way again with You’d Better Come Home, Round Every Corner, and My Love. All the songs seemed to have an expected evolution in their style and writing (remember that I was a musical snob even at that age), and My Love maybe seemed a little different. But the info on the label was all as before. Same with A Sign of the Times. Then in 1966 something did change on the label – I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love had an additional song credit on it: Hatch – Trent. No idea who that new person was, but the words and the sound were seeming to be somehow “slicker” than before. And then came out more songs with the coupling of Hatch and Trent. Who Am I jumped to the top of my pops favorite list and it still is there.

Fall of 1967 I left my hometown of Baltimore (Maryland, The Colonies) for college in Indianapolis (Indiana). I was a music major, loved music history and theory, going to concerts by the Indianapolis Symphony, and playing in the college orchestra and chamber groups. It was about a half-hour bus ride to the downtown from the college campus, and I’d head down there sometimes just to get away. L. S. Ayres, one of the department stores had its record department in their basement, and they always had single 45s in a bin. I had been a 45 bin diver ever since my pop-music epiphany in ’64, and here was a source in my new town. Remember how I said I always read record labels? Well, as I was carefully going through the 45s, I saw one on the Kapp Label that had that name Jackie Trent on it. But it wasn’t as composer, but as performer. Hey, I didn’t know this person also sang, and I didn’t even know if they were a guy of a gal. So I bought it, got back to my dorm room, got out my little plastic record player I had brought away with me from home, and listened to If You Love Me. (It had printed on the label “A Pye U.K. Recording.”) Whoa. Wow. The sound. One person’s voice that sounded like it could fill up an entire orchestra hall. She may have been someone who teamed up with that Hatch guy to write stuff, but when she sang, this gal had balls!

And so I went on a search for more records by her. I found another “loose” 45 in another bin somewhere – On the Other Side of the Tracks from the Broadway musical “Little Me” that had had Sid Caesar in it (We always watched his 50s TV show when I was growing up.) Miss Trent had now quickly jumped to the top of my all-time, favorite singers list. A little record/incense/head shop in downtown Indianapolis had a section in back where they filed away 45s by artist, and they had a slew of white-label “demos” by Trent, all of which I bought. All were also on the Warner Brothers label, and had the “Pye recording” notice on them. And for years I would go back there, and they regularly had a new demo or two for me. In 1968, I started going through the big PhonoLog record catalogue the store had, and saw that a new Trent title Hollywood was to be released on the A&M label, the one owned by Herb Alpert. But the shop wasn’t able to get a copy for me. However, that summer I was home in Baltimore, and had the radio on while I was putting in a new bathroom floor for my mom (my father had unexpectedly died the year before, so I had to take on the man o’ the house chores). And the radio station had a special guest on, one of the executives of A&M records. They gave a phone number for call-ins, and I dialed and dialed and dialed (no push-button phones yet it those days), and finally got to talk to him, asked where I could get a copy of Hollywood. He asked for my address and actually mailed me a comp copy! (That was also the same year that 7:10 to Surburbia came out, and to this day I cannot understand why they labeled it that, since everyone knows it’s From …)

The following school year, I moved from the dormitory to a sleeping room I was renting from a member of the Indianapolis Symphony. He had a great stereo system – so much better than my little piece of plastic crap! He had a collection of Gramophone magazines, and I discovered the ads in the back for new and used records. I chose Record Hunter in London, typed up a letter, and mailed it. And I waited for weeks for a reply to my asking if they had anything at all by Jackie Trent. The letter finally came. Three typewritten pages and listing all the 45s and LPs they could send me. LPs Yesterdays, Once More With Feeling, Stop Me and Buy One, and a slew of 45s. They were even kind enough to list every song on each of the LPs! I wrote back that I wanted them all – of course. And weeks later, they wrote with the bad news that Once More and Stop Me had been discontinued and they could not find copies. But they did have everything else on the list, I sent off a check, and about a month later got my first present to myself from across the pond! There is no need to talk about all the different cuts I listened to, and my reaction. Just that I was incredibly happy – and I finally got to see what she looked like for the first time! (OK, one comment: Show Me the Way to Go Home literally ripped my heart out.) The folks at Record Collector were really good at keeping me informed about any new releases by Jackie. That’s how I eventually got her Look of Love LP – an incredible album. (A few years ago, our beloved Pops Director for the Indianapolis Symphony, Jack Everly, and his partner, Pops Producer Ty Johnson, were over here for dinner, and I had that LP playing. When Such a Small Love had played for about a minute, Jack paused with fork in mid-air and asked, “Who is that?” And he stopped eating until the entire LP track had played, sitting there transfixed.)

1972 was my last year of college. And an Australian violinist in my school came by and I played a cut or two from one of Jackie’s LPs. The Australian listened and said: “You play the way she sings!” And sure enough, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much Miss Trent had influenced my music phrasing and even my cello vibrato!

Record Hunter eventually seemed to disappear. But I was still able to get the Columbia releases (Jimmy Webb’s Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon still blows me away!), and at one point wrote to Pye to find out what might be coming out from them. And they kindly sent me an unexpected package: an autographed photo of Jackie, and copies of the LPs Golden Hour and Can’t Give it Up!

  So, a quick jump to the near-present: The Internet had come about, and I took
  off like the proverbial jack-rabbit in hell – or whatever. Jackie didn’t seem to
  have anything new out for so long. Seemed that some CD retrospectives from
  Jackie’s career were being released and I got to hear some of her earlier
  things I had never heard before, and I heard her evolution as a musician and
  singer. But it was not even an evolution – she had always been a
  consummate artist: a musician’s musician. And through the internet, I became
  acquainted with two other fans of hers. Michael Dina was the only other
  American I found who had even heard of her. And then Karl Johansen, with
  whom I also became an email pal. But best of all, Jackie and I started
  emailing, and sharing our own worlds of music with one another. Her recent
  Trentquility shows that she indeed does still have balls, and that’s a dream
  come true for a fellow musician! 'I'm sincerely hoping to add 'Jackie Trent' to
  this formidable list of performing artists - this year!