Antonio D'Andrea--The Fly

There is nothing like a warm summer evening in New York City.

Standing on the corner of 49th street and Broadway, the warm, slightly moist breeze and the mixture of odors, is unique to this town. Wow! Here I am in the heart of Tin Pan Alley, the music making capital of the world, waiting for my friend and partner, Frank Garcia, to join me.

The year is 1958, I’m 20 years old and as excited as a teenage boy about to have his first kiss.

Let me back up and tell you why I’m here and so excited. Frank and I are co-workers. Now days you would call us colleagues. We both work at a jewelry store, that’s how we met. Frank is a salesman, a couple years older than me and a married man. I work in the credit department and I’m single. We’ve been friends for about a year and found we both have an interest in music and show business. Frank is an aspiring standup comic and I’m a wannabe guitar player.

One rainy evening at work, when it was not busy, we started fooling around writing a song. It was a novelty tune based on a movie we had both seen called “The Fly”.

“There was a cat working in the lab,

Everybody ‘round the town thought he was mad,

Then he jumped in his little machine,

Came out…Bing, Bang..a flying scream

Why he turned from a guy into a fly..Doo..Wah.”

That was the opening stanza, then another stanza, the chorus, the finale. That’s to give you an idea of what it was about. When we added the music, it wasn’t half bad.

We thought we had a hit. After all, the people at work, who heard it thought it was great. So, we decided to make a demo. I had a friend growing up called Tommy “Asthma”. In my old neighborhood everyone had a name that described him. For example, I was called “black” Anthony, because I had black hair to distinguish me from “Blond” Anthony or Anthony “Hawk nose” other neighborhood kids.

Tommy Asthma, had a band and he was able to get us a piano player and a drummer. So with Tommy on sax and me on guitar, we had a band.

Frank came from the Bronx, and knew some people up there. He picked up this group who called themselves “The Rhodesians”. Don’t ask me why they chose that name. I haven’t a clue. The Rhodesians were five boys who honed their skills under the corner street lights of the Bronx streets. I thought they were really good. The tenor and bass were especially good. In my estimation, they rivaled the Platters.

Frank did good. The singers were great. The band was adequate and we were all working for free. If the song took off we would all share in the profits. Band and singers equally.

Back to my story. That’s why I’m standing here in front of the Brill building at 49th and Broadway, waiting for Frank.

We rented a rehearsal room for two hours, from 7 to 9 PM, and then we were scheduled to record our demo.

The gang started to arrive and at ten to seven, we started up to the rehearsal studio.

Don, our sound engineer, met us at the door, and led us to the studio. The room was larger than I thought they’d give us and even had a grand piano.

We started rehearsing, what we thought was going to be the hit song of the year.

We worked for an hour. It was adequate, but there was something missing.

Don, the engineer said “I figured it out. It’s too hollow, it’s too tinny, we don’t have enough bass, we need a bass player.” He was right. Just then, as luck would have it, a young man about my age, maybe a little bit older, came in. “ Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, I’m right next door, but I can’t help noticing, you need more bass.”

“Thanks”, I said. “We just figured that out, but we don’t have a bass player and the clock is running out on our rehearsal time.”

“ I’ve got an idea.” He said. “ Do you have another Mike?” He asked the engineer.

“Yeah “

“Let me have it” he said.

Don brought him the microphone. The young man took it and placed it under the piano. Then he told the piano player to play heavy with his left hand and lighter with his right, and it would create a bass effect. We tried it and it worked.

In the next hour, we played the song a few more times. It sounded good to me and Don the engineer agreed. We were ready to record our demo.

“Hey”, I asked the engineer “who was that guy? He certainly helped us. I’d like to go next door and thank him.”

“Oh, he’s a guy who rehearses here a lot. He just cut a demo himself, but I like yours much better. I think you may have a hit.His song was too silly.” He said.

“ What was it?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s something called ‘Splish Splash’ his name is Bobby Darin.

“Splish Splash” went on to become number 3 on the US Charts, and number 2 on the top 100 charts that year.

Bobby Darin became a legend. Going on to become an actor and a headliner in New York and Las Vegas.

Our recording “ The Fly” got involved in a litigation conflict, and was never released , but that’s another story.