P.F. Sloan proudly announced that he wrote a song last night.
And that's a good thing for the writer of some of the most memorable tunes of the 1960s and a guy who spent three decades away from music, suffering physical and psychological problems that left him replacing sunglasses in display racks at Thrifty drug stores.
His songs remain much better known than he is.
He wrote “Eve of Destruction” as a 19-year-old in 1964 wrestling with the world after JFK's assassination. He shot out 1960s pop hits – “Secret Agent Man,” “Where Were You When You When I Needed You,” “You Baby,” “Let Me Be,” “A Must to Avoid,” and others – like a machine gun.
The Grass Roots, Jan & Dean, Herman's Hermits, the Turtles, the Mama's and the Papas, Johnny Rivers, the 5th Dimension, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition and Peter & Gordon stood by waiting for P.F. Sloan songs.
But that was then.
DATEBOOK
P.F. Sloan
7:30 p.m. Saturday;
AcousicMusic San Diego, 650 Mansfield St., Normal Heights;
$15 to $20;
(619) 303-8176 or
www.acousic
musicsandiego.com
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“It feels good to write again,” Sloan said from his Los Angeles apartment. “I actually finished a song last night. I started at 11 a.m. and thought I had it done at 1. I came back to it a couple of times and finally about 3 this morning, it was finished – at least for now.”
At 60, Sloan is making a comeback. He has a new CD, “Sailover,” which features nine new songs as well as five songs revived from his past and guests such as Frank Black, Buddy Miller and Lucinda Williams. He performs Saturday night at AcousticMusic San Diego in Normal Heights.
“I'm really enjoying performing,” Sloan said. “It's something I wanted to do for 40 years.”
Sloan has a star-crossed legacy.
As a teenager, he went to work for Dunhill Records in Los Angeles, writing pop songs with partner Steve Barri. The songs were instant hits and Sloan, who hoped to become a pop star himself, was relegated to a back room where he would write songs day in and day out.
Sloan's account is that the anti-war politics of “Eve of Destruction,” rubbed conservative “love-or-leave-it” record industry executives the wrong way and he was pushed into the background.
With lines such as You're old enough to kill, but not for votin' and Think of all the hate there is in Red China / Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama, rubbed America's nerves.
Liberals, meanwhile, thought he was trying to make a quick buck off the anti-war movement with a hit song.
“I was just trying to vent my frustrations to God and pray for some kind of understanding,” Sloan said. “I was trying to understand the world.”
The fallout from his song crushed Sloan. He suffered from undiagnosed hypoglycemia, which was exacerbated by the stress. That led to depression and catatonia. By 1973, his creativity was gone and he spent three decades in seclusion.
“Sailover” producer Jon Tiven called Sloan twice a year for the past decade, trying to lure him back to the recording studio. Sloan resisted each time, but found his creativity stirring again a few years ago and decided to rekindle his musical career.
Four years ago, MCA Universal rewrote contracts to give back to Sloan the songwriting royalties he signed away years ago under duress.
“What I discovered after I was kicked out of the music industry is that I knew my name, but I didn't know a lot about me,” he said. “I'm feeling healed now and really enjoying going out and playing for an audience.
“If I could go back to that 19-year-old kid again and tell him that writing 'Eve of Destruction' would mean that he would spend the next 40 years in the desert, would I do it again?
“Yeah, I probably would. It was an exploration of life and kind of a mystical thing that happened. You don't get many chances to experience something like that.”
