Famous friends and Grammy-nominated recordings did not give
Tony the confidence to pursue his dream of musical success.
He died of alcoholism at the age of 45. When he died,
the basement music studio of his family home contained a trunk
filled with lyrics to more than one hundred forty songs, and
boxes holding nearly two hundred reel-to-reel tapes.
These tapes contain more than fifty songs Tony had written,
arranged, and home recorded on multi-track. He performed
all the vocals, including harmonies, and played all the
instruments. These have never been commercially
released.
Tony's family has recently completed archiving this
extraordinary musical legacy, a small part of which will be
included in a CD to be released later this year. The
songs now being released do not include his very early work or
his musical parodies. Tony was a professional musician
for may years, beginning in the 1960's with a MGM recording
group Chamaeleon Church, with young drummer
Chevy
Chase, and a well-known Boston band Ultimate Spinach
that also showcased the talents of guitarist
Jeff Baxter.
Both groups recorded songs written by Tony, in fact, re-issues
of these original 'albums' are currently available on CD.
As a cast member of National Lampoon's off-Broadway production
"Lemmings," Tony worked alongside
John Belushi and
Chevy Chase
and for several years he worked with National Lampoon writing,
performing and producing many musical parodies for their Radio
Hour. There are many listeners who are quite familiar
with his parodies of Bob Dylan,
James Taylor,
Leon Russel,
Grateful Dead,
Neil Young and
Cat Stevens that, until now may
not of heard of Tony's equally stellar efforts at popular
song. His Neil Young parody "Southern California Brings
Me Down" is featured on the Grammy-nominated National Lampoon
album "Goodbye Pop", and his song "Methadone Maintenance Man"
that parodies James Taylor, is played regularly on "Imus in
the Morning." both are available on the Best of National
Lampoon Radio Hour CD from Rhino Records.
pronounced sure-in |
