Sweet Serenditpity

It isn’t very often that those who play the songs on the radio have a hand in changing the tune of its future. What you’re about to read is a story of a song serendipity as sweet as its lyrics.

In the 1970’s, my radio home was KMPC in Los Angeles -- one of America’s great personality radio stations. I was a kid, surrounded by the likes of Dick Wittinghill, Wink Martindale, Gary Owens and other radio superstars.

On Mondays, the record promotion people would visit hoping to get their music played and it was one of those Mondays in 1971 that a record by an unknown talent on caught my ear. The singer had been captivated by another artist at the Troubador, a famous Hollywood night club.

"From the moment he walked on stage, I was spellbound. I felt like he sang to my soul," she would relate years later.

Mesmerized, she returned every night that week. She jotted down her feelings on a napkin and later took the rhyme to her record company, where a well-respected songwriting team finished the song. It was included in her debut album and as a single recording in 1971, resulting in yet another song lost in the shuffle.

I phoned the record company to let them know I would be playing it on KMPC. After sharing the story and the song with my listeners, I received a call from a company that produced music programs for the airlines wanting information about the recording that it might be included in one of their programs.

Two years later, well known artist was traveling from New York to LA and happened to hear the program with the song by the unknown artist. By the time her American Airlines flight touched down at LAX, she was convinced she should record it as soon as possible.

Days later, she was in the studio interpreting the haunting lyrics in her own inimitable style. Almost as quickly, it seemed, it became the top song in the nation and later became the Song of the Year.

Who can really say how one event will lead to another?

And, who knew that what Lori Lieberman felt when she saw Don McLean at the Troubador that week in 1971 and eventually described to Norm Gimble and Charles Fox at Capitol Records would lead to Roberta’s Flack smash recording, “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”