Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Warren Schatz - Warren Schatz (1971 us, lovely soft folk rock)



Warren Schatz is a music industry veteran who details his life in the music business as an artist, engineer, producer, arranger and more. Warren has produced classic records like Turn The Beat Around and Express Yourself, Memories, To Sir With Love and many more, Executive Produced Evelyn "Champagne" King's  hit "Shame." He arranged "Our Day Will Come" for Frankie Valli and Tony Orlando as well as signing some of the biggest acts in the recorded music business including like Bonnie Tyler, Triumph, Krokus and more.

Warren Schatz, at 25, brings to his debut solo album a sense of honesty and the focused personal awareness that are the framework of his generation. He is, in his life and in the songs that surround him, something akin to the magician's cup that never empties, always expressive of open joy in life and the sunshine of a lover's heart. There is beauty in his songs, just shaded with a Scorpionic acceptance of ultimate nightfall.

The Warren Schatz of today, bushy, mustached, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 3, 1945. His father was an early sound enthusiast who stood in front of blasting professional speakers at home conducting recordings from an orchestral score. 

Warren was started on a song repertoire for entertaining guests at two, and really hasn't stopped since. In his mid-teens he booked himself as "Ritchie Dean," a singer-guitarist for fraternity dances in and around New York, and organized a succession of groups for both live dates and recordings. New York area audiences saw him as part of The Pendants, The Petrified Forest, The Warmest Spring, The Shapes of Things and The Whispers.

At the same time he was beginning to handle recording sessions as a recording engineer at Associated Recording Studios in New York. To this ten years of direct and continuous experience both as a performer and as an engineer he has added his most immediately apparent quality, the dynamism and electricity of a charismatic human being. At last year's International Popular Song Festival in Tokyo he galvanized a usually-restrained audience of more than 30,000 to an uproarious ovation.

Warren credits his drive and energy to early encouragement from his teacher, Ruth Roberts, a loving and open person whose advice he often credits.

The songs on this album, like Warren himself, reveal a gentle, open person, joyful, loving, perceptive, often softly saddened, suddenly angry, honest and unashamed always. His message is a good one. 
by Marshall Phillips (liner notes)
Tracks
1. Give A Little Love - 4:56
2. Sorrow (Warren Schatz, Robert Norval Langworthy) - 4:09
3. The Sky Keeps Fallin' Down - 3:22
4. Ain't That What Love's All About - 3:43
5. If I Could Find A Way - 6:04
6. The Ride Has Just Begun - 2:12
7. Good Morning - 2:09
8. Free My Mind - 5:29
9. Willow Song - 3:22
10.I Always Sang For My Father - 2:31
11.Happy Man - 3:29
Words and Music by Warren Schatz except where noted

Musicians
*Warren Schatz Vocals, Guitar, Piano
*Albert Gorgoni - Guitar 
*Al Viola - Guitar 
*Cornell Dupree - Guitar 
*Dick Frank - Guitar 
*Hugh McCracken - Guitar 
*Jay Berliner - Guitar 
*Jerry Cole - Guitar 
*Stuart Sharf - Guitar 
*Vincent Bell - Guitar
*Don Bagley - Bass 
*Jerry Jemmott - Bass
*Joseph Macho - Bass 
*Lou Mauro - Bass
*Gloria Lanzaroni - Cello
*Bernard Purdie - Drums 
*Gary Chester - Drums
*Roy Markowitz - Drums
*Larry Muhoberac - Organ
*Gene Estes, George Davis Percussion 
*Art Butler - Piano 
*Frank Owens - Piano 
*Patti Bown - Piano 
*John Rotella - Woodwind
*Mel Tax - Woodwind
*Clydie King - Backing Vocals 
*Ginger Greco - Backing Vocals 
*Julia Tillman - Backing Vocals 
*Linda November - Backing Vocals 
*Maretha Stewart - Backing Vocals
*Patrice Holloway - Backing Vocals