Gary James' Interview With World Goes Round Vocalist
Elizabeth Lamers



Elizabeth Lamers has enjoyed such a varied career in the world of music. She's a songwriter. She's done voiceovers. She produced radio shows. She's toured as a background singer with the likes of Linda Ronstadt and John Denver. And now a band that she recorded with in the late 1980s is receiving widespread attention from a recording that was never released! That band is World Goes Round. Elizabeth Lamers talked with us about World Goes Round and her musical background.

Q - Elizabeth, how is it that this World Goes Round project was shelved? Who's to blame for that?

A - I remember a meeting we had with Arif Mardin at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He was in town working and he was about to take a plane. We had lunch at the pool. We had dropped the cassette off the day before and he listened. It was just Frank (Musker, World Goes Round band member) at the meeting. I remember him finally getting around to it after coffee and he said, "Okay kids. Where's the sex?" (laughs) What?! He just didn't think it was sexy enough for the '80s. There wasn't enough romance in it. That's what songs were all about. "Let's go, let's go. Let's do it." That's what they were all about. Here we were talking about what was important in love and to us, the world, global warming and poverty. We were talking about social change. At the time he just didn't think it could get off the ground without something that was a little more sexy, romantic, dance.

Q - I've heard of that guy's name. Was he associated with Atlantic or Arista Records?

A - Gosh, I think he was associated with both at different times. He was a famous producer who worked with everybody and had big hits with everybody from Bette Midler to Chaka Khan, hundreds of artists. He did everything from Jazz to Disco to Country. Everything. He's a lovely man. He has so many Grammys to his name. Just amazing that he said that to us. I remember us going, "Wow! We could write a love song. We could write something that was sexy." (laughs) And who knows if that's the real reason? We just fell between the cracks and we all were working. We all had worked with different projects. So, if there's a moment when we could all throw ourselves in the studio and lay down another track, we'd do it. But then I was touring with Linda Ronstadt. We ended up doing television specials with different artists and got calls to write for a different artist. We had Sister Sledge in the living room at one point. So what we did just got moved to the side, depending on the other things that were going on. World Goes Round was a labor of love for all of us. It was waiting for us to get our emotional stuff out, exercising it out. We were all ringers for other artists and worked in other artist's bands.

Q - Since more than thirty years have passed, musical tastes have changed. So, where would the audience be for World Goes Round?

A - I'll tell you what it is. I have kids. I remember being in the front row of Guardians Of The Galaxy when it was released, listening to that '80s music. The moment it popped out and the kids are all engaged, I'm going, "Yeah! Okay!" (laughs) Now there's a lot of retro Rock 'n' Roll sound, retro Pop sound, showing up in young music and there are a lot of movies about the '80s and '90s about them coming out. They're looking for material that sounds like that. There's a reason why that resonates now, the way that in the '70s we were listening to the '50s music, Happy Days. There's a reason why we look back at that music and go, "That was a better time," or something like that. Not to say that our music will sidestep contemporary Pop music, but it's an addition to. It certainly sounds brilliant thanks to Tommy Vicari, our engineer. It sounds great and a lot of new music I don't think sounds as interesting as that because it's on MP3 files. It's just squished and it doesn't have quite the sound qualities. So, this is a lovely experience.

Q - How did you get to become a background singer for Linda Ronstadt and John Denver? Did you know somebody?

A - I came to L.A. as soon as I heard about it. So, I was quite young when I came to L.A., without a dime in my pocket. The first night I was here I went downtown to Hollywood and walked into a club where they had live music. I'd been performing live since I was a kid and I knew all the songs and I just sat at the end of the bar just jumping up and down. There was actually a manager of this small group, about eight people in the group, and she came over and said, "You look like you know this music." I said, "I do." She said, "Well, we're replacing the girl on the right at the end of the night. Can you get a good dress and come back here and work tomorrow?" I said, "I'm here." I came back and the next thing, I'm in a Swing band. Swing music I just knew like the back of my hand. Lots of harmonies. Lots of parts. I'd been doing it like forever. I fit right in. Before you know it, I was managing the band and doing all the arranging. We worked all over Hollywood, Los Angeles, Southern California for a number of years.

Q - What year did you arrive in Los Angeles?

A - '83 or something. So, live music was great. We could make a living at it. The people I was working with, we could work at night and do studio work during the day. It was just a great scene. I was supporting myself and living in L.A. and doing exactly what I wanted to do. All I wanted to do was sing. There were some super trendy clubs at the time. Melrose was taking off. There was a club on Melrose called Nucleus Nucleus and I was working there one night and Linda Ronstadt came in and she just loved what we were doing. At that point it was four people in the band, bass, piano, and two singers, but I arranged the parts for everybody. So, we sang four part harmony. She really adored it and she stayed all night and I talked to her at length. I just had this great night. I went home and called my mom in the middle of the night in Texas and I said, "I just had the best night in my life. I just talked to Linda Ronstadt all night." I met lots of people in that club. I met Joni Mitchell. If you're live working in Hollywood you bump into people. Rod Stewart. All sorts of people would come in and see us perform. I thought nothing of it after that. I got a phone call from Peter Asher and Linda Ronstadt's office, her manager, and I hung up on 'em. I said, "Who is this?" I thought it was somebody playing a joke on me. They called back. (laughs) They said, "This is Peter Asher's office. This is the number. I'm going to hang up now. You can call us." (laughs) I called right back. I was so embarrassed. Next thing you know I'm touring with Linda. There was another club called Chadney's. These will ring a bell to people who are my age, that was in Burbank, right across the street from the television studios. The Tonight Show was filmed there. Everybody came over after they got off filming The Tonight Show and partied all night long. I worked there live.

Q - Did Johnny Carson ever come in that club?

A - Johnny didn't come in at that point, but all the musicians did. Acts would always come in that were on the show. Chadney's was legendary. I worked there in a house band. I was singing parts, making it up and having fun. One of the guys in the house band had grown up with John Denver and at some point they had an opening in that band. I auditioned for it. I got the audition through one of the people in the Chedney's house band. I toured with him for a number of years, many years. I've got lots of John Denver stories. A lovely, lovely man.

Q - Talk more about Linda Ronstadt.

A - The bottom line is, I went in there and he (Peter Asher) said, "Would you be interested in being in a music video? Would you do a world tour?" I said, "Okay." (laughs)

Q - Linda Ronstadt seems like such a nice person. That must have been a nice gig.

A - A lovely gig and she's a lovely individual, a lovely human being and one of the smartest people really. Just so articulate about so much of life. I loved being on the road with her. Such a thoughtful, brilliant mind. A real thrill for me. Those were wonderful times. In between we're making our own music and writing and working with other artists. It was just a fruitful time. A lot of things going on. Who knows why our album, "WGR" didn't get off the ground, because it was diluted or lost in the mix, 'cause we had so much going on.

Q - How about John Denver? What was he like to work with?

A - He was amazing to work with. I'm from Texas and I certainly know my share of Country music and Country music's history. I wasn't sure that I would gel with that group. Then I got involved and I was hired and it was just the best job I ever had and the best music environment. Really creative. Just brilliant musicians in the band. Live music at its best. He was just so loved by his audience that being onstage with him was such a joy. You could feel that energy coming back at you. He was a lovely human being. Far more handsome in person than you'd think. Again, like Linda, super articulate. Thoughtful. Cared about life and love. Just a wonderful human being. I used to love traveling with him. He was lovely to everybody he met. We'd be in an elevator in the middle of a conversation, the doors would open. Someone would get on the elevator and you could tell they knew who he was. And he'd stop the conversation, turn around and go, "Hi. I'm John Denver." He'd put his hand out to shake their hand. He'd do that with total strangers. He'd wait around after doing a three hour show in a stadium and go backstage and shake the hand of everybody who wanted to shake his hand. Hours later his staff was like, "You gotta go home John." (laughs) He said, "Wait. Wait." A really lovely human being.

Q - Besides a singer/songwriter and musician he was an environmentalist.

A - Yeah. That was another little joy, being associated with him 'cause we talked about that stuff. We would try to bring awareness. I thought he was making some progress with that. But here we are, talking about the same stuff we were talking about in 1985. It's just really crazy.

Q - You produced a radio show on KCSN in Los Angeles, Listening To Movies. You mean listening to musical movies? Movies with singing in them?

A - No. Listening to soundtracks and composers and songs that end up in the movies. I had at one point, I was back in L.A. and I decided it was frustrating to try and hold a band together in town. That's when I was drifting more and more into Jazz. But I decided I wanted to sit still and not leave town to keep my commercial connections. I was singing commercials and themes for films and television. That at the time was really good repay for replay. It was a good way to make a living. But I wanted to do live performances and I realized NLR, late night radio, was still really creative in free form. And I got on the radio. They loved my voice and they thought I would be perfect for Classical. This is a Classical station that had late night Jazz programs and Folk and Country and all over the map music programs on the weekends. I started doing Classical announcing during the day. Just a couple of hours a day. It was a great eye opener. Great to listen to Classical music a couple of hours every day. (laughs) It's really good for you. The thing I loved about radio is it was just me alone and it worked or it didn't, but it was all me, where in some band situations the band can make a mistake, but everybody looks at the singer and goes, "She didn't get that right." I loved being in charge of the whole thing, being in a studio doing radio. After awhile I got pretty good with Classical music. I thought now I want to interview composers, like what you're doing. I wanted to talk to them about that process of composing. Modern Classical music is considered film scores. No one else was doing it. They were thrilled to come into the studio and talk to me about their process and play some music for a film that was just released. I figured it kind of connected the dots for so many people in Hollywood who were there within an earshot. They could hear something about the film they were involved in. I had a nice following and did that for a number of years. Then I moved a little bit further south, San Clemente, California. I never thought I'd leave Los Angeles.

Q - You also supplied voiced to Warner Bros. cartoons. I would think that's a difficult field to break into. Did you have to audition for that or have an agent?

A - Never had an agent and I never auditioned. What I did do was sing on cartoons. A lot of music in cartoons, especially in the classic cartoons that we grew up with as kids, is Swing. You can't write Swing on a page. So you bring in some ringers and really good studio singers. Swing is between the phrasing. So for example, "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones." It's in between. When you write it on the page it doesn't swing. So they'd always pull in a ringer. I got pulled in to sing in sections for cartoons and I would do all the swinging and the other singers would follow the phrasing. Well, the next thing, you're sitting there and they're paying you a lot of money to be there in the studio and there's voice over people competing. There's twenty people in a room on a microphone, separated with engineers and producers to do a Warner Bros. cartoon and the editor says, "I need a concerned dog owner, mom voice. Elizabeth, can you do that?" I'm looking at the script and I went, "Sure. I can do that." And next thing you know they kind of had me doing the voices as well as the singing. But really, I just started singing on cartoons. And the singing led me into doing voices. It was good work. But I'd always worked on a microphone and they knew I was a professional. It was just an easy call. I lucked into it.

Q - Was it your intention to become a famous, touring and recording singer when you were growing up?

A - No. I think if it was I would have done it. (laughs) It was my intention to be the best musician I could be. I really was always focused on that. When I was in a room with people that were clearly much more experienced and talented, I was always making notes saying, "What can I do to get better at this thing? What can I do? What will it take?" I just wanted to feel like I was adding something to whatever musical situation or production I was a part of and wanted to be respected for being a professional and good at it. By being focused that way I just got better and better as a player, as a musician, because I learned from the best, people like Linda Ronstadt and John Denver. They taught me so much. I'm just so lucky to have had this career and continue to be able to work with brilliant players and get out there and do what I do.

Official Website: www.ElizabethLamers.com

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