It’s late October 1978 and the top five of the UK charts reads like a list of all-time classic songs.
At number five, Rose Royce is telling us Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, at number four, John Travolta is pining for Sandy, at number two Boney M are all about Russia’s greatest love machine, Rasputin and sitting at number one is the endless classic Summer Nights by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
What about number three? Well that’s one Dean Friedman with the mini-musical that is Lucky Stars.
“Olivia – bless her – and Mr Travolta held me off that top spot, but I held no grudges. There was no fighting the goliath that was Grease,” said the American singer-songwriter, who, like the rest of the world, was saddened by the Grease star’s death this week.
“She had a lovely spirit and a beautiful voice and she gave a lot of joy to a lot of people,” said Dean, who will be performing at Aberdeen Arts Centre this Saturday August 13 before taking up a residency at the Edinburgh Fringe next week.
Dean Friedman was on brink of stardom – until BBC banned his song
Dean’s UK chart achievement with Lucky Stars – a duet with Denise Mara – was followed up with popular tracks such as Lydia and Woman Of Mine, while he was best known in his native US with his hit single Ariel.
His album, Well, Well Said The Rocking Chair reached number 21 in the UK charts and won both critical praise and an army of loyal fans, many who still today think of Dean’s songs from that period as a soundtrack to their lives.
He seemed to be on the brink of major stardom, ready to take his place among the stars of the day that are still household names, such as the Boomtown Rats, Electric Light Orchestra, and Blondie.
Then it all went quiet. Dean blames the BBC.
“My single McDonald’s Girl was banned by the BBC because at that time they had very strict regulations about making any mention of a commercial entity – even though there was only one McDonald’s in all of the UK,” he said.
“That led to me being dropped by my label.”
However, several years later a then-unknown Canadian band – the Bare Naked Ladies, no less – covered McDonald’s Girl and it became their first hit.
“Then YouTube came along and it went viral all over the world,” said Dean. “There are hundreds of versions of people acting out McDonald’s Girl. It was the little song that could, it insisted on being heard.
“Then to top it off, more than 30 years after it was banned, I got a phone call from the McDonald’s Corporation saying ‘Dean, we’d like to licence your song for our national TV and radio campaign’. I said ‘what took you so long?’”
Dean Friedman created one of the world’s first crowdfunded albums
Not that Dean was idle during any of this. In the 80s he composed and produced soundtracks for TV and film – including the hit series Boon, which starred Michael Elphick.
He also wrote the first consumer guide to synthesisers, becoming a pioneer of virtual reality and creating the first reality video game for TV, used by Nickelodeon.
And in the 1990s he developed a “musical playground for children” at the Eureka! The UK’s Children’s Museum in Halifax with a range of weird and wonderful invented instruments such as the honkblatt and booble.
“So for a number of years I was creating these gigantic musical playground instruments for museums and theme parks all over the world and millions of kids have played on them.”
But by 2001 the siren song of writing and producing a new album was too strong to resist.
“I was sitting in my treehouse, I had a bunch of songs, I wanted to record an album, but I needed money to upgrade the studio and pay other musicians.
“It was the early days of the internet and only had about 1,000 people on my email list, but I wrote an email saying ‘I don’t want to wait another 20 years for some label to give me permission to record, so if you pre-order this album in advance, I’ll deliver it within a year’.”
The Treehouse Journals was one of the world’s first crowdfunded albums – Marillion had done a similar thing a few months earlier – and set Dean back on track.
“I’ve been crowdfunding my albums and tours ever since for which I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my enthusiastic listeners.”
Dean Friedman wants to create songs with ‘cinematic quality’
That includes his latest album, his ninth, American Lullabies which came out last year, his personal reflection on the “crazy stuff” that has swept the world in recent years.
It also highlights the model of songwriting that has stood Dean in such good stead throughout his career.
“I think of what I do as someone who writes short stories and sets them to music,” he said, adding he draws on numerous genres including the artists who influenced him, such as Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, Paul Simon, Elton John and Bernie Taupin.
“Somehow in their songs they manage to conjure up a whole world, almost of a cinematic quality. That’s something I have always aspired to do, from starting out as a songwriter to this day.”
Dean Friedman will play mix of songs for his fans at Aberdeen Art Centre
Which means Dean will have plenty of material to draw on for his gig at Aberdeen Arts Centre on Saturday – more than 45 years’ worth.
“I always delight in visiting those familiar tunes that folks were first introduced to my music with, all those early hits. Then I mix it up with fan favourites from four decades of recordings and I’ll sprinkle in some selections from the new album, American Lullaby,” he said.
For more information and tickets for Dean Friedman at Aberdeen Arts Centre visit aberdeenartscentre.com
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