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| Courtesy
photo |
The
event that fast‑tracked the career of young Fangette
Willett occurred in 1964, when a friend introduced her
to the R&B sounds of Smokey Robinson, The Temptations
and The Four Tops.
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picture for full size image) |
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Downhill
climb to the top
Fangette
Willett's long, diverse
career continues
by
Barry Cohen
CAVE
CREEK – After ending a career that saw her pen a number
of hit songs, Fangette Willett operated a dairy‑goat
farm, ran an antique shop, raised four children and
embraced Orthodox Judaism. At 70, Fangette (pronounced
Fan‑jet) is still going strong, teaching classical
piano, writing children’s books and continuing to
refine her home. She’s doing all this even as she
battles post‑polio syndrome and fibromyalgia.
Born
in Washington, D.C., Fangette was barely out of the
crib before her physician father and opera singer
mother introduced her to music. She began taking formal
piano lessons at age five and continued studying the
instrument until her second year of college. But her
real talents and true love had emerged even earlier.
At just four, Fangette wrote the first of what would
be hundreds of pieces of music.
The
event that fast‑tracked her songwriting career
occurred in 1964. That’s when a friend introduced
Fangette to R&B music–Smokey Robinson and The
Temptations, The Four Tops, Jerry Butler and the Staples
Singers, among others. Enamored by the sounds, Fangette,
a classical music lover, began inverting chords from
Chopin into R&B, achieving results she called
“spectacular.”
After
writing a number of songs in the new genre, she
headed off to New York to audition for major record
labels. Naive in the ways of the music business,
she showed up at one label without an appointment.
After waiting three hours, the producer agreed to
see her. She played him a song called “That Empty
Feeling,” and he bought it on the spot. One pitch,
one sold song, unheard of in the record business,
then and today.
The
first of Fangette’s songs ever to be recorded was
“Baby,” and it was sung by an artist named Judy
Henske. “Judy and I had the same manager, a fellow
named Herb Cohen, who later discovered Frank Zappa,”
she recalled. “He set up a publishing company called
Fangette Music, but what he didn’t tell me was that
he made himself 100 percent owner!” This introduction
to the ethics of the show business world taught
Fangette a valuable lesson; she never worked with
a manager again.
“Dark
Shadows,” one of Fangette’s biggest hits, was inspired
by the breakup of her first marriage, when her husband
walked out and left her with their young children. The
first version was recorded by a 14‑year‑old
from London named Tammy St. John. Although she wrote
“Dark Shadows” at a time her life was a “living hell,”
it led Fangette to the light at the end of the tunnel,
her second and current husband, Tom.
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At
the time, Tom was the lead singer in a group called the Newports,
which wanted to record “Dark Shadows.” Because she wasn’t familiar
with the group, Fangette was concerned they wouldn’t do the
song justice, so she asked Tom and his brother Charlie to come
to her house to review some new material she had written. “When
I opened the door and looked into Tom’s eyes, it was like a
lightning bolt hit me,” she remembers. “He didn’t know it, but
I knew then that he would be the man I would marry.”
After
receiving a contract from Metric Music in New York City, Fangette
saw one of her songs recorded by a man whose voice she greatly
admired, Walter Jackson. She developed a special bond with Jackson,
a soul singer from Chicago, because he was permanently disabled
by polio and performed on crutches. “It’s an Uphill Climb to
the Bottom” became Fangette’s biggest hit and was later recorded
by Lou Rawls. It was also used in the 1985 motion picture “To
Live and Die in L.A.”
Fangette
was later recruited to Motown in Detroit by none other than
Smokey Robinson. There she wrote songs that were cut by Barbara
McNair and Billy Eckstine. But she missed her husband and children
and that, combined with heavy industry politics, convinced Fangette
to head home. She moved with her family to a 65‑acre dairy‑goat
farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where they lived in a log
cabin and cared for more than 100 animals. Later, Fangette started
an antique shop.
In
1983, Fangette and Tom sold the farm so she could be near Rabbi
Morris Kosman in Frederick, Md., with whom she studied for seven
years. “Up to this time I had been a Reformed Jew, but when
I started learning from Rabbi Kosman and taking classes, I finally
understood what Judaism was all about,” she said. Even though
Fangette and her husband moved to Cave Creek in 1990 to be near
her daughter and grandchildren, she still stays in touch with
the rabbi.
Fangette
and Tom have four children and “a gaggle of grandchildren,”
nearly all of whom play one or more musical instruments. “We
have the makings of a good orchestra,” joked Fangette. Fangette
recently returned to the studio, having composed “a sensual
slow jazz samba.” She hopes to convince a big‑name singer
to record the song.
Contact
the reporter at barry@thedesertadvocate.com.
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