That Haunting Melody

Posted by Earl in A Walk Through the Forrest with Earl Roesel, Books, Latest News on November 25th, 2009

Comparatively few know that, in addition to being an archivist, actor, author, agent and ardent Esperantist, Forrest J Ackerman was also a singer/songwriter. Whenever an idle moment arose, Forry was prone to breaking into song, usually one of the 1920s-30s vintage with which he grew up. The Al Jolson repertoire was perennially popular, as were a number of hits made famous by his personal Scarlet Woman, Marlene Dietrich. One I personally would often request was a sprightly tune called Sing, Sing, Sing. The way the Ackermonster’s eyes would light up while warbling it delighted me.

Above all, as was also manifested in his joke-and-pun-telling, I think FJA simply loved to entertain, and singing was a natural outgrowth of this. Being the center of attention in a given situation, particularly if said attention was of the female variety, couldn’t have hurt either.

Forry-Return-Violin_2 Forry’s flirtations with music go back quite a long way. He described his 1960s sojourn into songwriting with longtime friend Naomi Gordon (later Magaziner) thusly:

“When [Naomi] got established in LA, she called me up and invited me to meet her in her home. She at once fascinated me by playing up a storm on her piano. She asked me if I knew of any good lyricists because she’d composed a lot of songs but she had no words for them. She kept me up till about 4:30 in the morning, playing one wonderful tune after another. Finally when I left, as I was driving home, I remembered one of the many tunes and words that just seemed to fit it began filing up the whole song in my mind.

I got home only about ten minutes after I’d left Naomi so I knew she’d still be awake. I phoned her and said, ‘Did you mean lyrics, something like this…?’ And I sang an entire song to her and she shouted, ‘Forrest Ackerman, don’t you leave! I’ll be right over!’

About ten minutes later, she arrived, sat down at my piano, played that tune and I sang it with my words. She was so enthusiastic that she began playing one melody after another to acquaint me with them and before I knew it, I was writing lyrics to all kind of wonderful tunes. One time I was standing in line at a post office waiting for my turn to buy some stamps and I was holding an envelope in which I’d received some mail, but it was blank on the backside. I began scribbling down some words; by the time I got to the front of the line I’d created another song.

I think originally Naomi thought [she] could get to some popular singer of the day like Tony Martin and they would only have to hear one of these songs to record the rest of them. Naomi told me that she was so enthusiastic, she believed this was going to be a whole new career for herself and me.”