Bumping into Pete Childs and Jay Kellum, a couple of late-'60s Greenwich Village folk accompanists, on the street, he asked them to check out a new song he'd been working on. They weren't terribly impressed, but they offered a few suggestions and encouragement before moving on. A few days later Shel asked them to give it another listen. It was much improved, maybe even hit material, and they told him so. "Great," he said, "I'm cutting you in on the credit." There was a stunned silence. Partial credit on a hit record can bring you enough money to make a down payment on California real estate. You don't just give it away. Jay and Pete, having more class than brains, graciously passed. The song, "The Last Morning," was later used during the opening credits of the Dustin Hoffman vehicle "Who Is Harry Kellerman, and Why Is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About Me."

Books by Shel Silverstein

The movie bombed, but the song has personal significance for me and several of my best friends. Shel and the producer of the record wanted to have the song recorded by an unknown band, and there was nobody more unknown than these five maniacs calling themselves Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, who were playing to the drunks in a bar across the river in Union City, N.J. Shel loved them, and they quickly found themselves lifted out of obscurity and hanging out with movie stars. The producer assured them there'd be money in it for them later. It wasn't the last time he'd be less than truthful to them, but they did get a recording contract out of it, and Shel wrote three albums worth of songs for them. In show business, this is known as a break. When the album was done, Dr. Hook needed a couple more musicians in order to pull it off live, and Shel made sure that I was one of them. We were together for 15 years and had eight gold records in the U.S.

While cutting our second album, I learned the method to Shel's madness with writing credits. We were sitting around Columbia's Folsom Street studio in San Francisco, arguing loudly for our respective percentages of a song we'd just finished, when Shel came through the door. He stopped, looked us over and scowled. "What are you guys doing?" he asked. "You can't quantify magic. How can you possibly figure out what the most important parts of a song are? Art is magic and magic doesn't work like that." Then the kicker: "Do you really want to live your life as if this is the last good idea you'll ever have?" He told us that anyone who wrote with him got equal credit, even if they only contributed one line or one idea. That way, his collaborators went away happy and more than willing to write with him again, and he never had to fight over percentages again.

Later that year, he wrote a lovely country waltz, "A Couple More Years," that became a staple in our shows. The melody, however, bore more than a passing resemblance to a song that our lead singer, Dennis, had written years earlier called "Moon Tune." When somebody remarked on it in Shel's presence, Dennis found himself owning half of a new song. To the delight of both of them, Willie Nelson covered it. And Dennis bought some California real estate.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dennis left the news of Shel's death on my answering machine. He said he'd rather have told me in person, but didn't want me to be blindsided by hearing it on the 6 o'clock news. It hit both of us like a death in the family. Dennis said he'd seen Shel in the Village a few months back and that he hadn't looked good. He'd seemed old, and looked like he hadn't been taking care of himself. Now we know that his heart was going. Sixty-six seems young to check out, but Shel packed more life into each day than most of us do in a week. He preferred quality to quantity, though he'd always go for both if he could.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have a favorite Shel Silverstein cartoon. It's so old that I can't remember where I first saw it, but it's photographically fixed in my mind. Two scrawny, flea-bitten prisoners are manacled hand and foot, hanging about six feet off the floor of a cell. Up in the corner there's this tiny little window, maybe a foot in diameter. And there are bars on it. As you contemplate the utter hopelessness of the situation, one prisoner whispers to the other, "Now here's my plan ..."

There was a sequel to that cartoon that was never published. It was a gift for a friend. Same cell, same dinky little window. But the manacles are empty.
salon.com | May 27, 1999

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

  Get a printer-friendly version

  E-mail a friend about this article

  Backflip this article to find it again

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Search Salon