By Paul Freeman [1997 Interview]

A famous parent can be a plus in launching a show biz career… but it won’t help you sustain success.

It wasn’t the fact that comedy legend Jerry Lewis was his father that made Gary Lewis one of the 60s’ major pop stars. It was Gary’s amazing string of irresistible records that did the trick. While British artists were dominating the charts, Gary Lewis and the Playboys secured a place among the era’s most popular groups. Lewis was the band’s drummer, as well as lead singer.

With production by Snuff Garrett, arrangements by Leon Russell and pleasing vocals from Lewis, he reeled off hit after hit between 1965 and 1968. Right out of the gate, Lewis reached number one with “This Diamond Ring.” Then came “Count Me In” and “Save Your Heart For Me.” He co-wrote his fourth straight smash, “Everybody Loves A Clown,” with Russell.

In 1965, the industry magazine Cashbox named Lewis “Male Vocalist of the Year.” Among the other nominees were Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra!

Lewis continued to record memorable tunes, among them, “She’s Just My Style,” “Sure Gonna Miss Her,” “Green Grass,” “My Heart’s Symphony,” “(You Don’t Have To) Paint Me a Picture” and a remake of “Sealed With a Kiss.”

When he was drafted into the Army in 1967 and served briefly in Vietnam, then in South Korea for the rest of his two-year stretch, Lewis’ career began to wane.

But Lewis, who has sold more than 45 million records, returned to performing in the mid-80s and has been a staple on the 60s rock package tours ever since. After 50 years, fans still love Lewis and his colossally catchy hits. In 2016, at age 70, he’s still going strong.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
Has there been a resurgence of interest in 60s music?

GARY LEWIS:
Well, the resurgence started around 1984. And it kept going to the point where, I believe, 60s music has its own place now. Just like the big bands in the 40s did. And Elvis and the 50s, stuff like that. I definitely believe all the 60s artists have made their mark and it’s here to stay. Maybe people believed it was like a fad, at the time, in the 60s, but it’s come full circle. And 60s music definitely has it’s place now. It’s not going to go away.

PCC:
A lot of people seem to feel that it’s actually the golden age of rock. Would you agree with that?

LEWIS:
Absolutely. I mean, all the tremendous ground-breaking for rock ’n’ roll. And thank God for The Beatles, because they just opened it up for so many different groups - myself included. It just broke ground for so many wonderful bands and such good music. And in the 60s, there weren’t a lot of heavy messages. It was music people could understand and relate to. The heaviest at the time, I guess, were The Beatles. They did have songs that people could think about and say, “Well, what the heck does that mean?” But other than that, everything else was very simply, good times, situations that people have all been through in their lives, that they could relate with, that kind of stuff. So I am just so pleased to be part of that whole thing.

PCC:
It seems like, in later decades, it kind of got away from the song and became more about the production or the performance that was more important. And it seems like people are longing for those songs again.

LEWIS:
Well, you know, that’s what I’ve been finding out, too. And every time we play somewhere, after the shows, I’ll do autographs and talk to people and stuff like that. And they say, “You know, the music in the 60s was so refreshing. It was so uncomplicated.” And they always say to me, “Thank you so much for bringing this good music back to us” and all that. Even though, I did like the 70s rock ’n’ roll. And like you said, you’re right - tremendous production, like there’d be a five-piece group having something out, but they’d have like 19 parts on it and stuff like that. And I never agreed with that. I always felt that you should reproduce your records on stage exactly the way it sounded to people on the record. And that’s exactly what we do, because I have a five-piece band and that’s what I recorded with. And we don’t use any of the synthesizers or whatever the heck there is in music now to accentuate and just make it fatter and bigger, because I just want it to sound like the way the records sounded. And people always mention to me how great that is.

PCC:
The production on your records was really classic. Do you give all the credit to Snuff Garrett? Was it a collaborative kind of thing?

LEWIS:
Well, yeah, Snuff Garrett was the producer. Ever since he started in rock ’n’ roll, he never had a failure, as far as a group or a song. In the 50s, he produced Johnny and Dorsey Burnette and then in the early 60s, he had Gene McDaniels, the guy who did “100 Pounds of Clay.” And then after that, he had Bobby Vee who had so, so many great hits. And then after Bobby Vee was myself. And he was just never a failure. He always knew how to pick songs and exactly when to put them out. So he was brilliant. But he wasn’t the only one. Our arranger, who arranged everything, was a guy named Leon Russell, before he even had his own career.

PCC:
And he played on your records, as well?

LEWIS:
Yeah, he played. He did some overdubs on guitar. And he would play some horns and stuff. But he was a fantastic arranger, too. So we had a wonderful team going.

PCC:
You had a lot of great musicians. Did Hal Blaine play drums, too?

LEWIS:
Hal Blaine played on some of our stuff. Wonderful, wonderful guitar player named Tom Tedesco. We had various people come in to overdub certain material. But myself and the Playboys always laid down the main tracks. I always did the lead singing. So nobody can take that away, even though we did have overdub musicians, sure.

PCC:
What about the choice of the songs? Every song is so memorable. Did you just have have a good sense of what worked?

LEWIS:
Well, that was Snuff Garrett. What he did, like 50 percent of all the songs that we did were submitted to Liberty Records as demos. And he just had the knack for picking hit songs. He just knew what would suit me. He just knew how to pick ‘em. We’d go in and cut four or five songs at a time that were all potential hits. But he knew exactly where to place them, in which order, also considering what was out there at the time. He just knew. He really knew. And he’s the greatest.

PCC:
In the era of Beatlemania, the concerts got so crazy. What was that like for you? The whole mob experience, the frenzy?

LEWIS:
Well, yeah, we had that whole thing, too - where everybody’s screaming and they never hear anything you play. And they just wanted to rip your hair out and your clothes off and stuff. Yeah, we had that. And at the time, it was very wonderful, because that’s what The Beatles had going on. You know? And it was very cool to be in such good company and have the same things happen. But after a while, it kind of got a little scary. And as time went on, people got calmer. They would sit out in the audience, listen to what you had to do, applaud after every song, but then, they would become civil [laughs]. It was just applause, quiet, into the next tune or whatever I’m talking to the people about. And I like that much, much better now.

PCC:
Back in the day, you did those Caravan of Stars tours for Dick Clark, didn’t you?

LEWIS:
Sure, that was the very first tour I ever did, in ’65.

PCC:
That must have been pretty wild and crazy, with so many artists crammed together on a bus.

LEWIS:
Oh, yeah. Like 10, 12 artists. It was terrific. I mean, those were big shows, because everybody that was on that show at least had one giant hit. So 10 artists doing their big hit or their two big hits, with so many people on the show, that’s all you could do was like two or three hits and get off. It’s time for the next act, because there were so many people. But it worked out just wonderful. The headliner on the first Caravan of Stars tour that I did was Gene Pitney. And Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs and Bryan Hyland, Bobby Goldsboro, a few others.

PCC:
So all traveling on a bus, was that fun?

LEWIS:
Well, it was fun, because it was so brand new. It was absolutely fun. Every minute of it was fun, because I was so thrilled that here, all of a sudden, I get my first giant hit record, goes to number one in the country and it kicked The Beatles out of number one. And here I am on tour. Absolutely wonderful, wonderful fun. It was just great. But it was also very hard. We had to do the job, pack up, leave that night, drive all night, get there just in time to set up at another show. And it was very rough. But all of us got along together real well, while we were on the bus. We played cards with each other and just joked and played our guitars in the back of the bus. It was really an awful lot of fun, it really was.

PCC:
You hardly ever got to stay in a hotel during those tours?

LEWIS:
Well, sometimes we did, but it was an actual sleeper bus and most of the trips were very long, overnight. But we did stay in hotels and when we did, we would go down to the lounges in the hotel and we would sit in with the bands that were playing in there. And at that particular time, I was only 19, 20. So it was very much fun to be recognized by the public that was in the bar, especially the younger ladies [laughs]. So it was fun.

PCC:
Being in such close quarters, was there never tension?

LEWIS:
Oh, there was tension, all right [laughs], because Gene Pitney was the headliner on the tour and he was the only one on the bus that had a bed. He had a bed built on the bus, because he was the headliner and he wanted to sleep. So after a while of being very, very tired, a lot of times people started having resentments about this bed. So we started talking to him about it and he said, “All right, I’ll relinquish the bed to each person or each group every other night.” So we made a deal with him, you know. So it was okay.

PCC:
At that point, being just 19, did it seem like being caught up in a whirlwind, so much happening so fast?

LEWIS:
Oh, absolutely. It was too much fun. The thing is, I graduated high school and then my first year in college, we cut “This Diamond Ring.” It went to number one, sold a million and all of a sudden we’re on tour. And, you know, your business mind isn’t with you yet. It’s just not with you, as far as investments, taking care of your money, doing the right things with it. Realizing that what you do is a business - that was not there. That was not there until later years. So I know I lost a lot of time, could have made a whole bunch of different money probably. But it wasn’t important at the time. It was just fun. I wanted to have fun. And maybe that’s what happens, when you’re a late teen.

PCC:
As far as young performers having too much fun, were there managers or others looking out for you, setting down rules? Or was it pretty much a free-for-all?

LEWIS:
Well, we had tour managers and all that. And they would lay down rules. But they realized that they could never be followed [laughs], so…

PCC:
That sudden surge of fame, were you better able to handle that, coming from a show business background?

LEWIS:
Well, the things that I acquired from the show business background were the important things to remember, as far as professionalism, how to treat people. The fans are the major people who put you wherever you are, so you take care of them, you sign the autographs. And my Dad always told me, the best idea is to treat the fans the greatest and to be humble. Be grateful for what you have and be humble about it, because without those fans, you’d be nowhere. So that’s the good stuff that I acquired from a show business family was the professionalism and the philosophies as far as that goes. And everything else just fell into place after that.

PCC:
With it being such fickle business, did you realize that leaving for the army, it could be difficult to pick up your career where you left off?

LEWIS:
Oh, yeah, I thought that was the total end of everything. I got drafted after we had seven top tens in a row. And so I had to go in the Army and I’m thinking, “Well, that’s it. That’s the end of it.” But I didn’t realize at the time that when I had leave time, I could still come back home to Los Angeles and record songs. So by the time I got out of the service, we had already had two or three hits that were released while I was in the service. So because of that, we were still able to go out on tour and play for about two or three years after that. And then everything started turning around to real heavy rock ’n’ roll, like Led Zeppelin and various 70s groups that were much, much heavier. And I didn’t want to stay in music and play that kind of music for the sake of staying in it, because that wasn’t my style. So after about ’74, I bought a music store in Los Angeles, California and sold guitars and drums and gave lessons. And I did that for 10 years, all the way up till ’84, when agents started calling me and saying, “Hey, you’re very bookable. Let’s do some stuff.” And that’s when it picked up again.

PCC:
Did that surprise you? Or had you figured that eventually something like that might happen?

LEWIS:
No, no, I really didn’t. I thought, “Okay, this is my nine-to-five time and that’s the way it’s going to be.” I had no idea that anything was going to come back. There was no indication of it. But it sure did.

PCC:
Going into the 70s, the career had to change.

LEWIS:
Oh, sure. Everybody in the 60s went through the same thing. When harder rock came out in the 70s and then disco happened in the 70s, every single 60s artist went through the same thing. In order to keep playing, you had to play smaller venues. You had to do more sets per night, for less money, to stay in it. And then early 80s was when the money started coming back around, the venues got larger. You got onto package shows with people suiting your own popularity. And since ’84, it’s been going completely for me. And it’s been getting better and better every year. The money’s better. The venues are bigger. The crowds are bigger. The shows are better. And I’m just thrilled to death and grateful for what I have. It’s incredible.

PCC:
And these package shows, do they end up being like family reunions in a way?

LEWIS:
Absolutely. All the time. All the 60s acts play the exact same circuits. We play the same local TV shows, the same national TV shows. Whenever we run into each other, it’s like, “Hey, good seeing you again! This is great!” So we’re having a ball.

For tour dates and more, visit www.garylewisandtheplayboys.com.