This is going to be somewhat cool.
Many years ago, a couple of years before her death, Gary happened to catch Laura Nyro opening for some hot eighties or ninties act at the GARDEN STATE ARTS CENTER. She was the first of three performers; and she played as the crowd was coming in. She used a smallish digital keyboard so there was no impressive Steinway stage setup... the sun wasn't even down yet, so no stage lighting. Applegate was like "Am I the only one who knows who this is?" He filed it away until this summer when the incident gelled into a lyric.
He emailed the lyric to Richie who (unusually quickly) emailed a solo demo back.
Then everything stopped for a while as it tends to do in Clamville. Gary went wandering, Richie went to a Yankees game, Mario moved to a new pad, etc.
...but they played what they had for me, and said I could post it while they finished it. Gary drafted his brother Bill to come up with some artwork for the single, and Mario and Gary and maybe Al should start work on a basic track soon.
Nov.3rd
In mid October Gary began work on a basic track (using Gelb's stipulation that it have a bomp-ba-bomp "be my baby" beat), but after a long uninterrupted weekend
in the basement, he found that he hadn't left anything for Mario and Al.
The instrumental track
Richie came over a few days later and did the vocals to this and another song. I have some video of the session I will post when I get it organized (edited).
Meanwhile drawings began arriving from the west coast
Here's the video of Gelb doin' the vocal.
