Steve got us meetings at major labels. Carol Childs headed up A&R at Elektra, the label that was just breaking Tracy Chapman. Carol liked what she heard but said she needed to hear me live, with my band. Well, I didn’t have a band. I explained that these were songs that I’d written, produced, and sung, playing all the instruments. Wasn’t that enough to figure out if I merited a deal? Apparently not. Elektra passed.
So did other labels. Some executives said the music wasn’t Black enough, while others said it wasn’t white enough. What the hell did that mean?
I didn’t know how to categorize this music any more than I knew how to categorize myself. I dreaded the prospect of going around town from office to office, playing my stuff for execs who just didn’t get it.
After weeks of rejections, Steve got us an appointment with Nancy Jeffries, A&R director at Richard Branson’s Virgin America, a relatively new label, on Alden Drive in Beverly Hills. Nancy lived in New York and spent weekdays in L.A. When we arrived at 4 p.m., she said she was on her way to the airport and had only five minutes. She urged us to hurry up.
I pulled the cassette out and played “Let Love Rule.”
Nancy listened carefully. When the song was over, she told us to wait right there. She left the room and then returned seconds later with Jeff Ayeroff, one of the label heads. She told me to play the song for Jeff.
I pushed the button and, like Nancy, Jeff was attentive. When the song was over, he asked if I’d mind playing it a third time. No problem. He called his partner Jordan Harris into the room. I pushed the button again. Nancy, Jeff, and Jordan were all in sync. They liked what they heard.
Nancy wanted to know if I had another song, so I played “Be.” Jeff passed a note to Jordan. He later showed me he’d written, “Prince meets John Lennon.”
Nancy said she had to run to the airport, but that Jeff and Jordan knew what to do.
What did that mean?
Jeff made it plain. They wanted to sign me. He wasn’t sure how he’d market this music or even whether the music would sell. He was sure, though, that the music was real.
I was stunned. I didn’t expect this.
I shook their hands and walked out in a daze.
That night, back on Milwood, we partied. Not wanting to get champagne all over the house, Steve and I jumped in the shower and sprayed each other with a bottle of Dom Perignon until we were soaked. Lisa caught it all on camera.
The following week, though, things got complicated. Benny Medina, who’d originally wanted to sign me and Tony LeMans at Warner Bros., a deal I’d nixed, heard about Virgin’s offer. He wanted to hear the demos, and when he did, he got excited and played the songs for his bosses. They told him to sign me.
Benny reminded me that we went back a long way. He’d known me since high school. He was a friend and a fan, and he should have first option. He said Virgin was cool but didn’t have the power of Warner Bros. Besides, he had been authorized to top Virgin’s offer.
Lisa and I talked it over for hours. I slept on it, and when morning broke, my head was clear. The Warner Bros. offer was hard to pass up. Although I would have gotten more money, I thought that if my first album didn’t have a hit, I might be over. Jeff and Jordan at Virgin believed deeply in the music and in me. I felt their sincerity. I saw them supporting my development and giving me the time to grow freely as an artist. They knew that my music was going against the grain, against the status quo.
We started negotiating with Virgin. After the deal was done, I received my advance. The first thing I did was buy thirty acres on Eleuthera, my dream island in the Bahamas. Buying land meant that, no matter what, if I never made another dollar, I’d have a place to live. I also bought the motorcycle I’d always wanted, a Harley Davidson. I also paid my dad back and gave Mitzi a check for every cent she’d so generously spent on me.
End of round two.
* * *
Round three.
March 1989: back to Hoboken to turn the tracks into a finished album. I was a man on a mission. Lisa and I traveled across the country in a rented Winnebago, Zoë at her mother’s breast. Sunshine all the way—the rugged beauty of Arizona, the big sky over Texas, a stopover in New Orleans just to walk around the French Quarter and breathe in the original funk. Iris Dillon, who had championed me at A&M years earlier, was visiting her family there, and they asked us over for dinner. We were happy to accept, thinking it’d be a casual thing. But when we walked in, two hundred people were standing there staring at us, waiting for a picture and an autograph. It was a bit much, but we had to laugh.
Undaunted, we moved on, following the southern route through mossy Mississippi up the Delta to Memphis—my tracks blasting over the speakers—the rolling hills of Kentucky, the Appalachians of West Virginia, the Amish country of Pennsylvania, and on into the Empire State and New York City. Nancy Jeffries had found us an apartment in the historic American Thread Building, home to artists like musician Eumir Deodato and actress Isabella Rossellini.
Back in Hoboken with Henry, I spent weeks refining the tracks without losing the immediacy of the original versions. A lot of our work was focused on what not to do. Don’t make it too slick. The sight of Lisa and Zoë hanging out at the studio had me smiling.
BEAUTIFUL BESSIE
In the middle of one of the sessions, Mom called and told me that my grandmother Bessie had died. I stood there with the phone against my ear. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t imagine a world without Grandma Bessie. I had just turned twenty-four, and no one that close to me had ever passed away.
I called Grandpa Albert, who told me that Grandma’s last words were all about the beautiful life she had led. Grandpa Albert was a philosopher of the sky, but Grandma Bessie was a woman of the earth. She’d been there for me ever since I slept by her side in her Brooklyn bedroom, a baby boy comforted by a loving spirit. She had made my world safe.
The funeral service was emotional, but, unexpectedly, the most emotional person was my father. For the first and only time in my life, I saw Dad weep like a baby. Grandma Bessie had treated him like her son. Despite what he had done to my mother, Bessie had never stopped loving him.
I thanked God that Grandma had lived long enough to see Zoë.
I remember once questioning Grandpa about Grandma’s rich diet. A fabulous cook, she loved her food sugary, greasy, salty, and fried. Couldn’t Grandpa help her change?
There’s a saying in the Bahamas: “If you love it, let it kill you.”
Bessie Roker died peacefully. She was in her late seventies. She had led a rich life as a loyal wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Her impact on the family was everlasting.
* * *
Just weeks later came another loss, one that, in its own way, was even sadder. It involved Jewel. We had stayed in touch. She’d met a man who loved her. They’d moved to Alaska, where she gave birth to her first child. Life had taken a happy turn. Fate was finally kind. But the kindness didn’t last. During our last talk, she said that her child was sick, but she was hopeful that a cure could be found. Then came the call. The baby had died. I insisted on coming to the funeral to stand by Jewel’s side. The tragic news came the day before Henry and I were set to fly to L.A. for final overdubs. To get to the funeral on time, we had to drive directly from LAX to the church. Henry was good enough to accompany me.