Author: Michael Witthaus

Ahead of biography, Felix Cavaliere performs

Felix Cavaliere’s voice powered hits like “Groovin’,” “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long” and “It’s A Beautiful Morning” into the cultural zeitgeist, landing his band The Rascals in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He’s still on the road, satisfying fans who never stopped craving the group’s signature brand of blue-eyed soul, even though they split after less than a decade together.

At the relentless urging of E Street Band guitarist and satellite radio impresario Steven Van Zandt, The Rascals reunited in 2012 for the multimedia show Once Upon A Dream. It ran on Broadway and toured North America the following year. As the group swung through press conferences in different cities, Cavaliere decided to start work on an autobiography.

“They would ask us questions individually, and everybody had a different answer,” he said by phone recently. “I said, ‘Wow, was I there or did I dream this?’ It’s kind of like when you tell a joke and somebody repeats it, it’s never the same. … I thought, I’ve gotta make sure, for my sanity if nothing else, that I write down my story.”

Memoir Of A Rascal arrives March 22. A big part of the book covers their time with Atlantic Records. The Young Rascals were one of the first rock groups signed by the legendary R&B label. They made the deal after turning down an offer from producer Phil Spector.

Their decision to go was driven by a desire for creative control.

“I knew that if we went with Phil, we wouldn’t sound like what we sounded like,” Cavaliere said. “We would sound like Phil … that big wall of sound. But Atlantic said, ‘Yeah, you guys can produce yourselves,’ and I was adamant about that.”

The unanticipated presence of Atlantic co-producer Arif Mardin, who decades later helmed Norah Jones’s chart-topping debut album, made a big difference, Cavaliere said.

“Then good fortune comes into the picture,” he said with a laugh. “You can’t really put into words the addition that was to our music. … It’s like The Beatles with George Martin. This gentleman not only became one of my dearest friends, but like wow, man, was he talented! He was phenomenal.”

Working at the home of artists like Ray Charles, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin was “just a joy,” Cavaliere said. “First of all, my record collection at that time was three quarters Atlantic, and one quarter Motown. To be on that label was not only a treat, but that place was all about making good music. They made it so easy and comfortable for us, [and] for that I’ll always be grateful.”

Cavaliere spent most of the past year and half in Nashville, where he’s lived for several years, finishing his book and making an album called Then & Now, which pairs classic favorites with newly written tunes.

“Out of the two million songs that interest me, I chose five and re-recorded them. … I did Jackie Wilson’s ‘Higher and Higher’ and Ben E King’s ‘Spanish Harlem,’ and I wrote five new ones that were influenced by that,” he said.

In October he made a tentative return to the stage at a tribute concert for Lee Greenwood. Though it was an odd pairing for Cavaliere, whose liberal resume includes co-writing “People Got To Be Free” and working for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, the two go back to their early days as musicians.

“He’s an old friend, and he’s done well for himself,” he said. “We are on opposite poles of the universe, but that’s OK, he’s a good guy.”

The two initially connected when Cavaliere and future Rascals drummer Dino Danelli first played together at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, backing Sandu Scott, a forgotten singer bankrolled by her hotelier husband. Greenwood was with a group that approached him with an offer. Scott called her band Her Scotties, and for the duration of their brief run Cavaliere and Danelli wore traditional kilts on stage.

“Hey,” said Cavaliere, “everyone’s gotta work.”

An Evening With Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals

When: Friday, Jan. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $50.50 and $60.50 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Felix Cavaliere. Courtesy photo.

Corey Rodrigues headlines Tupelo Night of Comedy

The world is full of comedians who entered the craft after being inspired by another standup, but Corey Rodrigues came to it through the crucible of a barbershop owned by his family. Making the customers laugh came naturally, and the more he did it, the clearer it became that he was destined for bigger crowds.

However, Rodrigues was the last one to know about his career in the making.

“I never thought I would be a comedian,” he said in a recent phone interview. “People used to say I should, but I was like, that’s stupid. I don’t know how to make people laugh [who] I don’t know, and I don’t want to … I’m not a clown. I didn’t even know how that could be possible.”

So Rodrigues became a comic by acclamation, as classmates, coworkers and others urged him to give it a shot.

“It’s just in me, I’ve always been this person,” he finally realized. “There’s a funny angle at which you look at things … someone else may have thought it, but they just don’t know what to do with it. That’s not their mindset. … The blessing and curse of a comedian is you’re constantly finding something funny.”

After suffering through a few tough shows early on, he did begin to study other comics.

“I was like, I could eventually get to that … it looks easy enough,” he said. He eventually became aware of another critical standup survival skill. “If you’re delusional, you’ll stay in this business. … You have to have a level of delusion.”

Rodrigues was raised in Milton, Mass., after his troubled mother sent him and his brother to live with their grandparents — he described it as an act of mercy in an Epix Unprotected Sets episode filmed last year.

Early on, he sharpened his edge at Boston’s Improv Asylum, later winning several competitions. A key break came in 2018, when his Dry Bar Comedy Club special garnered over 40 million views, leading to a Late Night With Conan O’Brien appearance the following year.

The Dry Bar special required Rodrigues adhere to PG content, which wasn’t a difficult pivot for him, as he already had a long resume working on cruise ships.

“I do churches, colleges, corporate gigs, everything,” he said. “If you have enough material, you could talk about your balls and something very vanilla at the same time and still make it funny. It was probably one of the best experiences I ever had. … I killed that set.”

He’s done some other unconventional things, like appearing on Mike Huckabee’s show in Nashville a few months back.

“I want to make it [out to] be worse than it was, but it was actually pretty cool,” he said of the experience. “I don’t agree at all with what he said after, when we talked, but he knew my jokes [and] everybody’s gotta laugh.”

Further evidence of Rodrigues’s inclusive comedy was found in Corey’s Stories, a family-friendly livestream he did with his son in the early days of the pandemic. The two read books together, told jokes and invited their audience to call in to answer trivia questions for prizes.

“I had a lot of friends complaining about being stuck at home, kids getting on their nerves and everything, so I created something to kind of give people a break,” he said.

Does Rodrigues have plans for his son to follow in his footsteps?

“I’m not really grooming him for that, but he already knows how to hold his own,” he said. “He showed me that in the show, which was pretty awesome.”

Corey Rodrigues, Kyle Crawford and Alex Giampapa

When: Friday, Jan. 14, 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $22 at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Corey Rodrigues. Courtesy photo.