I began the opening bars of “Itty Bitty,” slowed way, way down. It wasn’t what we’d planned, but the lyrics were perfect for the segue, and since I’d stepped in it, now I had to fix it.
“She’s always bossing me around,” I sang into the mic, and I heard Money curse. They were waiting for their cue. “She’s always telling me what to do. She’s always standing in my way. She’s always treading on my shoes.”
“Who? Your girl?” Esther said, and I laughed out loud.
“Yeah, my girl,” I shot back, and I kicked it up to double time. “Let’s sing it from the top, shall we?” I said, and the boys didn’t miss a beat. They swooped in, and Esther broke into “Itty Bitty” exactly the way we’d done it in the studio. The crowd was clapping, Esther was wiggling, and on the bridge I told the audience all about my itty-bitty girl with a great big mouth.
“I don’t have a big mouth!” Esther folded her arms and stomped her high-heeled foot.
“Who says I’m talking about you?” I teased, and the crowd howled.
Money sidled in beside Esther and leaned into the mic.
“Don’t worry, little sister. He’s definitely talking about you.”
Perfect.
One song rolled into another, and Esther and I bickered our way through ten songs, most of them songs I’d never played before. I was an accent, an exclamation point, but I’d jammed with enough musicians to follow along, and the performance was as natural—and as fun—as anything I’d ever done. Esther kept engaging me, keeping the shtick going, and the crowd ate it up. We didn’t flirt, we fought, and Esther never strayed from the mic.
The set was a little scattered; Lee Otis lost his stick and had to lunge for it, Alvin forgot the second bridge on “I Don’t Need Any Man,” and Money looked like he wanted to slam the piano lid down on my head. But Esther sounded like a million bucks, and when the crowd wasn’t dancing, they were smiling.
The Barry Gray Show
WMCA Radio
Guest: Benny Lament
December 30, 1969
“I can’t believe that was your first performance!” Barry Gray marvels.
“That was it. Like most everything else with us, it wasn’t planned. But it worked,” Benny Lament says, laughter in his voice.
“I must tell our audience that I saw that performance at La Vita. It was early December, 1960. Esther Mine was wearing white. She looked like a little doll on that stage. I remember feeling nervous for her, thinking who is this? Then she opened her mouth and this huge sound came out. Her voice filled the place. I was dining with friends—Stanley Tunis from WRKO and Scott Muni, who’d just moved from WMCA to WABC—and we were all blown away,” Barry Gray says.
“You three were a big reason we went on stage. We hadn’t rehearsed together beyond a writing session and that first recording session at Atlantic, but you have to take chances sometimes to get noticed.”
“I saw your performance, and I made an executive decision,” Barry Gray says.
“You gave me a card when we walked off the stage and asked us to come on your show the very next night. If I remember right, it was a show about duos, which was why you didn’t want the band.”
“That’s right. It was the ribbing you two gave each other that made your performance at La Vita so unique. I had quite a few local acts that night. Comedians and sportscasters and some Broadway actors and actresses. I’d prerecorded their segments, but you two had to go live.”
“You worked us into the lineup. We were only supposed to introduce ourselves and do one song.”
“And I gave you two. And you were fabulous. That appearance got your single in rotation from the Good Guys, and WMCA beat WABC to the punch. We had a little bit of a competition going.”
“Scott Muni got ‘I Don’t Need Any Man’ to number one on WABC.”
“True. But we played it first, and we also had the live recording of ‘The Bomb Johnson,’ weeks before the single dropped.” Barry Gray chuckles. “WMCA was also the first station in New York to broadcast a recording by the Beatles, but no one’s keeping score.”
“Of course not,” Benny Lament retorts, his tone wry. “Minefield and the Beatles will be forever grateful, I’m sure.”
“I’m counting on it,” Barry Gray says. “Here it is, folks, the appearance that Benny Lament and Esther Mine made on The Barry Gray Show nine years ago.”
10
THE BOMB
We were at WMCA studios, located at