📚 A Bookish Chat with 'I Sang That' Author & Singer Sally Stevens | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview

Today we welcome Sally Stevens to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! Sally is the author of the memoir, I Sang That. This interview is part of her I Sang That Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

Sally Stevens is a singer/lyricist/choral director who has worked in film, television, concert, commercials and sound recording in Hollywood since 1960. She sings the main titles for The Simpsons and Family Guy and her voice can be heard on hundreds of film and television scores. She has put together choirs for John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, and many others for film scores, and was choral director for The Oscars for 22 years. In the earlier years she toured with Ray Conniff, Nat King Cole and Burt Bachrach, and she has also written lyrics for Burt Bacharach, Don Ellis, Dominic Frontiere, Dave Grusin, and others.

Her short fiction, poetry and essays have been included in Mockingheart Review, The OffBeat, Raven’s Perch, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Los Angeles Press, The Voices Project, and Between the Lines Anthology: Fairy Tales & Folklore Re-imagined.

Along with singing and writing, her other passion is photography, and her black & white photographs of film composers have been included in exhibitions at the Association of Motion Picture & Television Producers headquarters in Los Angeles, and at Cite de la Musique in Paris, France.

Website: https://www.sallystevenswriter.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sallytwitshere

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sally.stevens.14

Welcome to The Writer's Life, Sally! How did you get started in the music industry?

On those jobs with Ray, I got to know other session singers and learned more about the business. There is also a lot of networking” that goes on in our community; by that I mean if you stand next to someone in a group who does a great job, you’re likely to remember that person and perhaps recommend them if asked “do you know a good Soprano?” etc. So little by little, the connections grew. It was a time in the business when there was a tremendous amount of work being done, and I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, and show what I could do.

Who would you say was your greatest mentor?

Carol Lombard, one of the singers I met on the first Ray Conniff tour, was beginning to do a lot of vocal contracting around that time, and she really guided me through the business; she hired me, but also talked about studio procedures, other singers in the community and how the community worked, etc. We remained dear friends for the next fifty years, until her passing just a couple of years ago. And later on down the road I was able to hire Carol on projects when I began to contract myself.

University of Iowa, in Iowa City. I would just run away and pretend to be a writer for a couple of weeks every summer. In those classes, different genres of writing - memoir, fiction, poetry, playwriting, flash fiction - you get to know one another in the 12 person groups, and when folks learned I had worked in the music business in Hollywood over such a long period of time, they would say “Oh, you have to write a book!” So I had started chapters along the way. But during the pandemic - it was a perfect time to focus on editing, organizing the pages, expanding the stories and getting the book together.

What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

I think it might be the 18 or so single-spaced pages at the end of the book, where my film, TV and sound recordings credits are listed. That even surprised me, as I gathered them together! But I think also that it begins in present time as my journey had obviously begun to wind down and I was struggling a bit with that. Then I jump back into childhood, and begin the journey from the beginning. I've been told by folks who have read the book that they were impressed or touched by the honesty with which I shared parts of the journey. I was grateful to hear those comments, because I did try to share the emotional journey as well as the wonderful and varied experiences over the years.

Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?

I think part of the message is "Follow your dream - say yes to everything" (well, almost everything). Sometimes we have to be brave enough to just put our talent out there. It may or may not get the attention we pray it will, but if we don’t put it out there, for SURE it never will! One thing I talk about is wishing that I’d had the confidence to follow up more with my song-writing earlier in the journey. I bought into the attitude that session singers are great musicians and talented in being able to come up with the right sound, whatever the project is, but that they don’t have “identities”, that they don’t have their own style. I know that many session singers are happy doing ensemble work, being able to make a living in music. But I also know some that have extraordinary talent and have been able to see that blossom along the way. I sometimes regret not working harder at the artist aspect of the business. But on the other hand, I am so incredibly grateful for the fascinating journey that has lasted six decades — and I would not have wanted to trade it for what might have been a five -year career as an artist and then just not much activity over the rest of those years.

This book is a personal journey behind the scenes into the world of music-makers who created the film scores, television music, sound recordings, commercials and concert evenings over the last sixty years.

It’s about a long singing career that began in 1960 with concert tours – Ray Conniff, Nat King Cole, and later, solo work in concert with Burt Bacharach – to thirty years of vocals and main titles for The Simpsons, vocals for Family Guy…vocals on hundreds of film & television scores & sound recordings, plus twenty-two years as Choral Director for the Oscars. It’s also the personal story of growing up in a “his, hers and theirs” family in the forties and fifties, and how a shy little girl became a second-generation singer in the ever-evolving music business of Hollywood.

Release Date: October 25, 2022

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Soft Cover: 978-1639885510; 390 pages; $18.99; Hard Cover $23.83; Kindle $8.49

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3GmcBJD