When I saw Lori Lieberman sing at Carnegie Hall, I couldn’t help but compare the storied venue to the place where I’d first met her 47 years earlier. The clarity and beauty of her voice at the recent concert, set off by a quartet of viola, two violins, and cello, added extra oxygen to the rarefied air of that hall. We were worlds away from the night in 1974, when I heard her sing sitting in front of a brick wall in New York City’s small but significant Bitter End club.
In 1974, we were both in our 20s. I was a young reporter on an assignment to cover an up-and-coming singer named Lori Lieberman, a lovely long-haired blonde, who was singing ballads written for her by the powerhouse songwriting team of Norman Gimbel (lyrics) and Charles Fox (music), noted for their catchy TV theme songs for shows like Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley.
Gimbel and Fox had won a Song of the Year Grammy earlier in 1974 for “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” whose lyrics were crafted in collaboration with Lieberman, based upon a poem she had written about a personal experience.
Although Lieberman had recorded it on her first album, it was Roberta Flack’s version of the song that reached the stratosphere and gained the recognition that led to that Grammy. Did Gimbel and Fox, older men with big reputations, add Lieberman’s name to the songwriting credits? No. This omission would become an important part of Lieberman’s evolution.
With both of us 47 years wiser, we spoke about how events led her to drop away from the music business, but not disappear forever. She has returned boldly in recent years, accompanying herself on piano and guitar, with her voice and talent beautifully honed. The Girl and the Cat is her new album of songs recorded with the Matangi Quartet on CD and vinyl, and this month in New York City she, at age 67, and Roberta Flack, at 82, met for the first time, in what Lieberman describes as “full circle.”
Haven’t We All Been There At One Time Or Another?
In the Carnegie Hall concert, Lieberman—who writes her own songs these days—sang a new song, “Cup of Girl.” The opening lyrics are: “Well you take a cup of girl / Share a tablespoon of world … Let her simmer gently in an open fire.” Many of us can relate to being a naïve “cup of girl” who is young and hopeful and easily intimidated and influenced. Also relatable is the song’s last stanza: “So you broke this cup of girl / But she grew wiser in this world … She has choices to choose with / And a voice and she will use it.”
Lieberman had not been prepared for the rough and tumble self-interests of the moguls of the coastal music industry in the 1970s. She had been found by Gimbel and Fox, who wanted to team up with a singer the way Burt Bacharach and Hal David had with Dionne Warwick. They made a deal with Capitol Records and Lori signed a management contract with them. “They were everything to me,” she says. But after four albums together, Capitol ended their deal, and the romantic relationship that had developed with Gimbel was on a downward spiral. “I loved him very, very much,” Lieberman says. But at age 24 she wanted to go it alone career-wise.
Gimbel wrote to Lieberman and said, “Get ready, buckle up, It’s going to be bumpy for a while.” Even though they’d already made millions on “Killing Me Softly,” they sued Lieberman for breach of contract and did not allow her to record independently. “They said I owed them $27,000, and at the time that was more money than I had ever seen,” she says. “They prevented me from recording for three-and-a-half years. Every time I got close to a deal a letter followed saying ‘She cannot record with you unless you pay us back.’ That was right in the prime of my career.”
Lieberman finally was able to sign a contract with a record company, but it folded four months after releasing her album. “Then I just had it. I was exhausted at 28. I was beaten down. Also the music business was changing, going more to disco.” Still, she tried, taking a meeting with a record company executive who proceeded to talk on the phone while she waited in front of him. “He was disrespectful. I walked out and I never looked back.”
A Singer Sings Again
It would be about 20 years before Lori Lieberman experimented with recording songs again, although she was always writing while raising her family in Los Angeles. “I got married to my best friend. We had three kids.” Daughter Em is 33, Dan, 31, and Will, 30. “My happiest times are when I’m around my sons and my daughter … being a mother, nothing better.” When her marriage to television composer/musical director Gary Scott ended in 1996, she was not planning to jump back into a singing/touring career after so many decades away.
However, that same year, the Fugees, with Lauryn Hill as lead vocalist, recorded their version of “Killing Me Softly,” which became a hit. “Gimbel and Fox decided they would change the story of how the song was written.” This is the true story, that I had heard when I first met her in 1974: Lieberman had gone to the Troubadour Club in 1971 and heard Don McLean singing “Empty Chairs.” She felt he was singing about her life and wrote a poem on a napkin. When she came home, she shared her experience and her poem with Gimbel, and he said it would go well with a title he had written in his notebook, “Killing Me Softly With His Blues,” (eventually changed to “His Song”). From there, they went back and forth to come up with the final version.
In the revised version, published as recently as July 2019 in an interview with Charles Fox (Gimbel died at age 91 in 2018) in the Wall Street Journal, “They have maintained, no that’s not how it happened,” she says. “We wrote the song, we played it for Lori, she loved it and it reminded her of the time she had gone to a club to hear Don McLean.”
Fighting for Credit
So it is hardly surprising to hear Lori say, “I feel my integrity is on the line, a lot of people publicly are saying now, ‘We’ll never know the truth,’ and oh gosh, I don’t know why they changed it. I never asked for a penny, for anything, I just wanted the correct story to be told.”
Slowly, with the encouragement of Joe Cali, the man she married in 2000, she found her confidence for a second start and a chance to stand up for her contribution to an iconic song.
“He’s the one who said ‘We can figure this out. It’s not that complicated,’” Lieberman says. She and Cali, an actor who designs and installs high-end home sound and theater systems in the LA area, formed their own record company, Drive On Records. Their first album was called Monterey. The Girl and the Cat is album number nine. “I wanted to challenge myself, express myself fully as an artist, and I really did not have any thought or regard for what anyone would think. I wrote in a bubble, songs that opened up big sections to include the quartet and their talents.” She orchestrated the songs in collaboration with cellist Stefanie Fife.
Read More: What Happened to Sinead O’Connor–And Does Anybody Have Her Back?
In her international tour, which started in New York City and is traveling throughout the Netherlands, Lori Lieberman raises her rich voice in original songs that make personal issues universal. She sings Don McLean’s “Empty Chairs” and “Killing Me Softly” with the wisdom of a woman who has lived and learned.
The playbill of the concert notes: “This evening is dedicated to Roberta Flack, whose voice and vision carried my song to the world.” On October 5, Flack posted photos of herself with Lieberman on her Facebook page, along with this: “Last week I had the pleasure of meeting the brilliant and lovely singer, songwriter Lori Lieberman (Killing Me Softly). A long time coming and very moving for both of us.” The circle of life can truly make things right.
For Lori Lieberman’s “The Girl and the Cat,” available on vinyl and CD, go to: www.lorilieberman.com
A version of this story was originally published in October 2019.
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