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Like a Rolling Stone
Living Out a Rock & Roll Fantasy
by
Ben Fong-Torres
AsianConnections
is proud to present the adventures of Ben Fong-Torres, our Renaissance
man: author, broadcaster, and former senior editor and writer at
Rolling Stone Magazine. This guy's our hero!
Ben
was a featured character in "Almost Famous," the Oscar and Golden
Globe-winning film by Cameron Crowe.
- AC Team
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Last time out, I told you how I got onto Your Big Break, the
Dick Clark production in which I do my impression of Bob Dylan. (The
show airs on April 30 or 31, depending on where your TV set is.)
What I didn't get into was the production itself: How it
felt to go through three days of preparation, at the NBC Studios
in Burbank, where we taped the show before a live audience, in the
studio where the fabled Johnny Carson did his Tonight show.
In fact, we were next-door neighbors to the current, Jay
Leno-driven show, and were constantly bumping into Tonight
guests. One afternoon, we were returning from lunch when I spotted
Carlos Santana heading for a studio, for rehearsals. I interviewed
him many years ago for Rolling Stone, and, more recently,
for the liner notes for a reissue of Santana's classic first three
albums. We embraced and exchanged pleasantries, and, this warm August,
1999 day, he continued on into the studio, to begin another day
to promote his new album, a little something called Supernatural.
Although I wasn't busted for it, I'd broken the law by saying
hello to Carlos. The producers of Your Big Break gave us
strict rules for our three-day stay in show business. One of them
was to refrain from talking with any celebrities we might encounter.
This is a policy I've heard before, from the time, back in 1993,
when I was a contestant on Wheel of Fortune.
We were, after all, contestants. The way Your Big Break
is set up, five of us�whether solo or a group�perform on the show,
each doing an impersonation of a famous music star�and the audience
votes for its favorite, who then goes on to a semi-finals round,
leading, the winner hopes, to some cash and a recording contract.
I had no such dreams. Despite the name of the show, I'm too
old to be hoping for a break. I was here mainly because, by some
freak accident, I was chosen by the producers to be on the show.
Check my previous dispatch, Breaking
a Leg, to learn how.
Surrounded by starry-eyed hopefuls, I had no illusions about
winning the competition. If I were true to Dylan, I'd be up there
scowling, spitting out those convoluted lyrics with sarcasm. The
audience's love and votes, I knew, would go elsewhere. Besides,
I was still trying to learn this tongue-twisting song, "Like a Rolling
Stone."
So, while others were raving about how this was their chance
of a lifetime, and how great it was to get the star treatment, I
was looking mainly to get through the performance without humiliating
myself.
Accidents have happened, we were told at our orientation
session. Because Your Big Break is a competition, if a singer
messes up�forgets a lyric, say�too bad. There are no second takes.
"It's a very aggressive three days," a staffer told us, giving us
our schedules for sound checks, hair and makeup, costuming, choreography,
and vocal coaching.
"We'll do everything we can to make you look exactly like
the artist you're doing," one of the producers told us. Of course,
with some of us, they could only do so much. The show has featured
an overweight woman portraying Karen Carpenter, an Eddie Murphy
look-alike doing Barry White, and a Hispanic man singing Wilson
Pickett. But they do try. In the makeup room, the staff has photographs
of the stars we're imitating, and, with wigs, facial hair (or the
removal thereof), they try to transform us.
So does the vocal coach. It's obvious that some of the contestants
are semi-professionals or better, but guys like me need all the
help they can get, and I hungrily absorbed everything my teacher
told me, about how to relax my throat to reach higher notes; how
to breathe; how to get that exquisite Dylan whine down pat.
Right up to the moment that I stepped, uncertainly, through
the fake fog and onto the stage, I didn't have all the lyrics memorized.
But I have to admit that, on the way to that moment, I had fun.
Between visits to the various departments, there were long waits
in dingy, cramped dressing rooms. There, I got to know my fellow
contestants, and to enjoy a few memorable moments. A young man who
was doing Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 discovered, to his delight,
that the real Rob was a guest on the Tonight show�to sing
"Smooth" with Santana. Because rehearsals are piped into TV monitors
throughout the studios, he was able to watch Thomas work, and to
take notes on his mannerisms.
The producers clumped two shows into a three-day span, so
there were ten acts going through the paces. On the second day,
a bunch of us were in the dressing room, just waiting for the next
thing, and I suggested that we have a round robin, each of us doing
our voices. Suddenly, we had Frank Sinatra, Earth, Wind & Fire,
R. Kelly, Elton John, Otis Redding, and me�Bob Dylan�singing in
succession.
Inevitably, it was showtime. I'd lucked out with most of
the behind-the-scenes business. Take choreography. The show treats
Sixties-based acts as somehow exempt from showbiz glitz. So, for
Dylan, they would have the dancers dressed as sign-carrying protestors,
wandering around behind me while I paid them no mind. Since Dylan
always plays guitar, I had to hold, and pretend to play one. But
when the producer asked whether I might strap on a harmonica rack
for the few bars the harp comes in, I became a protester myself.
It was enough, I thought, to remember the words, to sing them on
key, and to pretend to be playing a guitar. They gave the harmonica
to one of the dancers.
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Photo
Courtesy (c) BVTV
Show host Christopher "Kid" Reid
with Ben Fong-Torres.
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To look at least like I was the same species as Dylan, they gave me
a wig, but forgot that Dylan didn't wear glasses, like I do. With
some dark cellophane, they turned my specs into shades. Decked out
in a purple shirt and jeans�something I'd never seen Dylan wear on
stage�I was ushered into the wings. Standing behind the huge doors
that would be opening all too soon, with fog, a studio audience (including
my wife, Dianne, and four in-laws), and an unseen national audience
awaiting, I wondered just what I was doing there. I wondered how weird
it was going to be for Dylan himself to see this.
In the interview with host Chris "Kid" Reid that led into
my performance, I'd called Bob Dylan one of the great songwriters
of all time. He wrote "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are
A-Changin'," "All Along the Watchtower," "My Back Pages," and "Positively
4th Street." That song goes, in part, "I wish that for
just one time you could stand inside my shoes, and just for that
one moment I could be you."
For me, at least, that one moment had come.
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Ben Fong-Torres, long-time writer and editor at Rolling Stone magazine,
is the author of four books, including his memoirs, The Rice Room:
Growing Up Chinese-American, and his latest, Not Fade Away: A Backstage
Pass to 20 Years of Rock & Roll. He is Editorial Director of
myplay.com, an Internet music site that offers free Web space, where
users can grab, store, mix, play, and share music of all kinds.
Click
to Ben Fong-Torres Articles
Index
Visit Ben's official site: www.BenFongTorres.com
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