The Wrecking Crew (16 page)

But Michel Rubini, for all his seeming good fortune, hated every single minute of it.

Sometime before, while running errands with his mother one day in nearby Santa Monica, Rubini had gone into the local record shop to buy a song he had heard on the radio, a new release called “Hearts of Stone” by the Jewels. He loved everything about the little R & B number. The simplicity. The power. And, especially, the
feel.
It was nothing like the usual vanilla-sounding stuff coming over the airwaves. Singers like Tony Bennett, Perry Como, and Eddie Fisher—the top stars of the day—were fine in small doses. But they sorely lacked any kind of soul. On the other hand, “Hearts of Stone” stirred more emotion inside of Rubini than ten piano concertos stacked on top of each other. It was also the perfect example of the kind of music his father despised most.

“Don't let your dad know you bought that,” his mother warned as they drove northward on the Pacific Coast Highway toward home.

However, within days, Rubini's father did find out about the record and soon thereafter, many more just like it. He tried his best to put an end to what he perceived to be his son's wayward musical ways, but it was too late. Michel Rubini was completely, hopelessly hooked. The kid had stumbled onto a kind of music that spoke to him. And he wasn't going back. He began to realize that he no longer wanted to become a concert pianist, either.

By the time Rubini began attending Hollywood High School in 1956, his parents, after years of marital discord, finally called it quits. He at first lived with his mother in Studio City, but her subsequent decision to relocate to New Jersey pushed him into moving over to his father's Beverly Hills home instead. It wasn't that he liked him better. Mostly Rubini just didn't want to live on the East Coast. It seemed so desperately far removed from where the real action was. He wanted to stay near the thriving popular music scene in Los Angeles, hoping that somehow, someday, he might find a way to become a part of it.

In what evolved into a shockingly unsupervised and lonely existence for someone so young, Rubini largely ended up living solo in the lavish Beverly Hills mansion, answering to no one. Meanwhile, his virtuoso father spent the bulk of his time either on tour, staying with various lady friends, or living separately in his Malibu beach pad.

On several occasions, when the elder Rubini chose to rent out the house, Michel was forced to live in the maid's sleeping quarters over the garage at the back of the property. Other times, whenever the latest set of tenants didn't want the landlord's son hanging around, Rubini would glumly gather his belongings and move down to an old trailer his father kept in a mobile home park near the corner of Washington and La Cienega Boulevards. Not the kind of glamorous life most would imagine for a child of apparent privilege. Michel Rubini was essentially a Fifties version of a latchkey kid, except in his case it was a 24/7 proposition. A circumstance about which the California Department of Social Services, had they known, surely would have investigated.

To compound matters, Rubini was also on the receiving end of a daily barrage of schoolyard bullying. With his curly hair, girl-like first name, and prominent piano-playing skills, he became an easy mark among the more Neanderthal members of the student body. The taunts often turned physical, too, with Rubini gamely fighting back, ably inflicting his fair share of return punishment. Usually outnumbered, however, most of the time he just plain got the snot kicked out of him, his nose being broken too many times to even bother counting. With little incentive to continue showing up for his regularly scheduled beat-down sessions, Rubini's school attendance suffered accordingly.

With him having no family, no friends, no rules, and a gigantic target of ridicule pasted squarely on his back, Michel Rubini's young life was in a fast-moving downward spiral. Something had to give. He was inches from turning into a juvenile delinquent, maybe worse. Just about the only thing the troubled teenage pianist hadn't experienced was spending any time in jail—yet.

*   *   *

Walking down the street one afternoon in a residential area of Beverly Hills with his eleven-year-old brother in tow (who had come for a visit), Rubini started to feel an old familiar itch. It had been a while, but the high school sophomore-to-be knew the sensation all too well. He had first experienced it while briefly living with his mother and little brother over in the Valley before the two of them moved back east. And, unfortunately, there was no ointment or other medication Rubini could take as a remedy.

No, the only way to successfully scratch this particular kind of itch was to steal a car.

In the heart of the Fifties, the small city of Beverly Hills represented to many the epitome of immense wealth and genteel living. From movie, TV, and music stars to captains of industry, the well-heeled inhabitants enjoyed not only an idyllic, sequestered existence but also one of surprising innocence. So innocent, in fact, that many trusting locals routinely left their expensive automobiles unlocked in the driveway or on the street, some with the key still in the ignition.

For anyone with the nerve and the inclination, a smorgasbord of alluring, luxurious theft opportunities awaited. Let's see, shall it be a Jaguar today? Or perhaps a Bentley? How about a Cadillac Eldorado convertible? With no hot-wiring required, it was as simple as turning over the engine and then driving off. Almost.

With Michel Rubini eventually spying an unattended ride that was to his youthful liking—a brand-new, top-of-the-line, bright red Chrysler Imperial Crown (“The brilliant Chrysler … for those accustomed to the finest!”)—he swung into action. Time to scratch that itch.

Stopping along the sidewalk next to the parked vehicle, Rubini first casually glanced up and down the block. No need to have some angry owner start chasing after him. That would be bad.

With nobody in sight, however, the boy quickly stepped toward the curb, bent down, and peered through the passenger side window. Just as he had hoped: a set of keys, glinting in the sun, sat dangling from the ignition. Exhibiting the confident air of someone who had done it all before, Rubini then strode around to the driver's side and opened the unlocked door. So far, so good.

Swiftly sliding behind the wheel, with one quick turn of his wrist Rubini brought the mighty 392-cubic-inch FirePower V8 hemi engine roaring to life. Pulling the PowerFlite automatic transmission into gear, he then reached across the front seat to shove open the other door for his brother, and the two siblings sailed off down the street.

But under the watchful eye of the no-nonsense Beverly Hills police chief, Clinton H. Anderson, successful car thievery was a little more problematic than it might have appeared to the average practitioner. Or at least to Michel Rubini.

With keeping crime to a minimum being a particular point of pride in their squeaky-clean jurisdiction, the cops in Beverly Hills were constantly on the lookout for anything suspicious. And the Chrysler being driven by Rubini definitely qualified. As it zoomed by a parked patrol unit, the officer inside did a double take. To his amazement, all he saw flying past his window were two very small heads in one very big car. He flipped on his lights.

After being arrested and taken to police headquarters inside City Hall on Rexford Drive, Rubini half-expected to spend time in jail. Underage though he was, he had been caught red-handed and he knew it. But instead of being shown to a cell, the teenager to his surprise ended up in an interrogation room sitting across a table from, of all people, Chief Anderson.

“Mr. Rubini, I know that you're on probation for stealing cars in North Hollywood,” he began sternly. “And if I were to tell them that you had now done the same thing here in Beverly Hills, you'd be going to prison camp.”

Rubini swallowed hard. Having heard the stories, he wanted no part of something like that.

“But I talked to the owner of the car and he's not going to press charges against you. He's a friend of mine.”

The chief paused, looking straight at the boy.

“So, this is what I'm going to do,” he continued. “I'm putting you on probation here in Beverly Hills. And you're going to write me a letter once a week—every week—for the next two years, telling me everything that you're doing. And if it does not coincide with the reports I get from my officers, then you
will
be going to jail.”

Rising from his chair, Anderson then leaned in close to Rubini's face, making sure his message came through loud and clear.

“If you do anything—
anything
—I will know about it,” he intoned. “You now have two strikes against you. Don't get a third.”

*   *   *

In what at first seemed to be yet one more desperate act by an unhappy kid who was on his way to almost certain incarceration, being busted by the Beverly Hills police turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Michel Rubini. Thanks to a decent cop who scared the daylights out of him, Rubini learned his lesson. Just as he had been instructed, he faithfully wrote a letter every week for two years regarding his whereabouts. And he privately vowed to funnel his boundless energy and talent into creating a professional music career. It was the one thing he knew for sure that he could do. His brief crime spree was dead and buried, a function of silly youthful indiscretion.

By 1961, having finally graduated from the awful torment of high school, Rubini began taking a series of weekly piano lessons from a legendary jazzer named Harry Fields. Rubini also started frequenting some of LA's black jazz venues, places like the Black Orchid and the It Club. With an eye toward one day possibly joining their ranks, he wanted to watch the best of the best do their thing. In particular, keyboardists like Les McCann (piano) and Richard “Groove” Holmes (organ) could alternately make Rubini cry and blow his mind with the depth and beauty of their playing.

Over the next couple of years, while still occasionally working as his father's accompanist, Rubini spent many hours a day honing his technique on the piano. He wanted to start building a name for himself in the clubs, just like so many of his bebop heroes had done. Even with the notoriously poor pay, he figured that jazz was the milieu for him.

But life had other plans for Michel Rubini.

One night, after impulsively stepping in to play the Hammond organ onstage for a shorthanded surf band in a small club on the Sunset Strip, Rubini surprised himself afterward by agreeing to become their regular tour organist. He had no rock-and-roll experience, of course, but the simple three-chord music was hardly a challenge. And with time on his hands and looking to make some quick cash, he thought it would be a lark. How long could it last, anyway?

Produced by a guy named Joe Saraceno, the group was called the Marketts, and they were constructed exactly like the Champs and the Beach Boys before them: one version stayed out on the road, while studio pros—namely, the Wrecking Crew—cut all the records back home. For Saraceno, like so many other producers, it was all about expediency and keeping costs to a minimum. Already successful with releases by various phantom bands he had produced, including the Routers (“Let's Go” and “Sting Ray”), the shrewd Saraceno had his lucrative formula down to a science.

But with word soon being passed along from the road about the organ-playing Rubini's even more out-of-this-world abilities on piano, Saraceno decided to give the kid a listen for himself. He was always on the lookout for strong keyboard talent to bolster his various studio projects.

After meeting with Saraceno and providing him with the requested run-through of his skills, an astounded Rubini was offered a job on the spot.

“Listen,” said Saraceno. “If you want to, you can come in and play on a recording session we've got coming up. I'll let you play on one of the sides.”

“Yes, sir, that'd be great,” Rubini enthusiastically responded.

Saraceno clearly wanted to take him on a test drive before committing to anything further. But that was okay. Rubini felt he could play alongside anybody, and he had also heard that studio work, reportedly tough to get, paid well, too. The whole thing sounded like a gas.

But from the moment of his first official recording date for Saraceno, when Rubini sat down inside Liberty Records' in-house recording studio next to the imposing likes of Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, Hal Blaine, and several other Wrecking Crew heavyweights, the twenty-one-year-old knew he had found his calling. He loved it. And the producer loved him back.

Rubini could sight-read like nobody's business. He could play by ear. And he could improvise when needed, playing any kind of style. He was also fast and usually flawless. Rubini had everything in his musical toolbox a rock-and-roll producer could want.

Saraceno soon began using Rubini on just about everything he cut, including the Markett's Top 5 instrumental smash, “Out of Limits.” Big-time arrangers like Ernie Freeman and Gene Page, along with a rising young producer named Jimmy Bowen, also brought Michel Rubini in. He was quickly becoming
the
hot new must-hire inside the cloistered world of LA recording studios, an important addition to the Wrecking Crew's hit-making ranks.

And that's why Phil Spector had to have him, too.

By early 1966, with his last bankable Philles act, the Righteous Brothers, having recently made a very public (and litigious) jump over to MGM/Verve Records, the once-dominant Phil Spector was suddenly left with no one important to produce. With his previously unrivaled position in the music industry's fickle pecking order rapidly slipping away, Spector was desperate to regain his former glory. He decided that his only option was to go for broke. He would need to pull out all the stops and create the masterpiece of all masterpieces. Something so monumental that it would instantly reestablish his status as the biggest producer of them all. And he thought he knew just who should sing it for him: Tina Turner.