Dear Friends,

These are the only surviving recordings of SOON that I am aware of, these recordings were made at the Pilgrimage Theater in Los Angeles (Actually Hollywood) California in the first days (or nights ) of November of 1972. Both Robert Greenwald (The Director) and I had been fired and barred from the SOON production in New York City, in January of 1971 when we rejected the Producer’s demands that we turn SOON into an entertainment for the sweet little blue haired ladies that made up the bulk of the Broadway audiences of that time.

Robert got a gig at the Center Theatre Group in LA and arranged for Gordon Davidson (then head of the Center Theatre Group) and I to meet in a New York Hotel room where I sang some of the tunes for him with my guitar.
Gordon was excited and decided that we could go ahead with a small production in Los Angeles.

I flew out in July or August of 1972 and we opened in late October for a two-week limited run . Although we all tried valiantly to get Music Business folks to attend the production, it turned out that not a single one would come. I was disappointed, but not completely surprised.

Many in the Music Business saw my partner Joe and I as “anti Music Business” we saw ourselves as anti B.S. in the music business. We were true believers and could see that the emphasis inside the business was shifting away from the “real” to the superficial, from content to process or, from the music, to the business.
We thought that SOON could be a part of reversing that shift. In any case, in the climate of the times and what had occurred in New York, we sort of sealed it that no one on the West Coast would consider recording SOON either

However, we in the L.A. Cast sang our hearts out.. still believing that we had a chance to make a statement and a record that could make a difference in and outside of the music business.

Our L.A Cast was much smaller than the one we had put together for Broadway, as was our Band. The Band was an “Honest to God” Garage Band from El Monte called “Woodbury”, led by Will “Rusty” Graham. Will doubled on Guitar, Saxophone, Piano and Flute, Claude Alexander was the percussionist, Will’s Ex Wife, Nell Graham played the unbelievable bowed electric Bass, while Mike Kelley played the electric Twelve string, Rhythm guitars and the Violin.

Beautiful Indira Danks played Annie, I played Kelly, David Talisman played Henry, Gar MacRae and Alan Martin played Wilson and Zak. The Groupies (Faith, Hope and Charity) were played by the Beautiful Susan McAneny, Freda Walker and Robin Tapp.

We were much less formal than the Broadway production; still we knew that we had a difficult and demanding, big piece of music to do. We had no concern what so ever for “the Critics” It was 1972, and it had already been shown that the establishment critics wouldn’t get it (but rather than confessing that they didn’t get it, would dismiss the work) and we knew that the critics that “got it” would be excited. We had no control over who did or did not come to SOON so we just sang.

We had much fun doing SOON and were well received by the L.A audiences, However as I’ve said, not a soul from the Music Business came, and not a soul was interested in talking about recording SOON. Consequently, we arranged for an intern to set up a fairly good Wollensack (a kind of reel to reel tape recorder) to catch the last night on tape, so that we could have a good demo for the future. Unfortunately the intern exaggerated his ability with Wollensacks and we wound up with a tape that has been un-listenable for 36 years.

Recently a music editor/producer by the name of Anthony Gargiulo contacted me to offer his help in cleaning up the SOON tapes. I gratefully accepted his offer and we went to work on it. The SOON tapes as they now exist are not perfect, but they are listenable and they are real. However, please note that the “Spoken Intro” and first song “In Your Hands” and the last song “It Won’t Be Long” are still fairly rough. Also, we were not able to get “Please be Well” from the SOON Tapes, so we have used my recording from the Helsinki Album (Many Sunny Places) in it’s place. You will have to imagine that a full cast is singing our “Fare Thee Well” rather than just Vicki Sue and I.

Hopefully we are now a significant step closer to a first ever, full production recording of this interesting, ambitious (and I think) important work. Meanwhile, (hopefully) you will be able to dig and enjoy the time, the place, the people, the music and the message, frozen forever in The SOON Tapes, one “live” tripped out and loving November night, in 1972, in Los Angeles, California.