Last Room on the Right

Bo Harwood & John Cassavetes

A History & Musical Chronicle 1970-1985
[Click # in blue box to buy or demo song]
 2

Last Room on the Right

On a warm Friday night in 1970, about a hundred and fifty people were filing out of a
Universal Studios screening room and gathering in groups to chatter about the film they’d just
seen. It was a rough cut and the sound track had been hastily mixed the day before for
screening purposes. The Bach Train was a powerful 16mm feature made by a handful of artists
over a two-year period for less than forty thousand dollars, conceived and directed by one of
the great artists in Hollywood, James Eric.

James Eric

The screening went well, but my nerves were shot as I was only twenty-three and it was
the first time I’d written music for the screen. To make matters worse, a good portion of the
audience appeared unresponsive, even a bit disturbed, but that was probably due to the film’s
surrealistic and sexually charged nature. I had invited a good friend of mine, Robert Heffernan,
an editor working across the street in a series of apartments converted into editing rooms for the
film, Husbands, directed by John Cassavetes. Robert brought John to the screening, who in turn,
brought actors Ben Gazarra and Peter Falk.
 3

All I knew about John was what Robert told me and that John, Ben and Peter had
recently been on the cover of Life Magazine.

Robert said the cover story created a pressure cooker at Columbia to get the film out as
soon as humanly possible. It was a huge deal to be on the cover of Life and a release date had
been set. Then it was pushed back. Another date was set and pushed back, then another and
another and another....
John had been taking the film back to the cutting room week after week. Months had
now passed and, as Robert told it, the indignation at Columbia was pretty intense. I was a pup
and all the business and politics were way over my head, but I loved the idea of someone going
up against the big boys. But how was he doing it?
Robert explained that the critical acclaim, the honors and awards received for his
previous film, Faces (1968), not to mention the ground breaking Shadows (1959), Too Late
Blues (1961) and A Child is Waiting (1963), had earned John tremendous notoriety in the
international film community and eventually, paved the way to this deal at Columbia.
As with his initial investors on Husbands, John had total artistic freedom (a key word
 4

found in Husbands and later, in its publicity). Columbia owned the picture, but John had ‘final
cut’ (final approval). This left the studio execs virtually powerless... something they were not
used to. How did he manage all this? Who was this John guy?
He didn’t look like a tough guy. Matter of fact, from where I sat, he and the guys on the
cover of Life looked more like ultra conservative family men from the suburbs of New Jersey.
Guys not likely to buck the system.
Being anti-establishment was something my peers and I prided ourselves on back then.
We were just coming out of the turbulent sixties and were still young and wonderfully naive.
For many of us, it was a mystical time.
Three months prior to working on Husbands, Robert was breaking bread with the
Mazatec Indians, high in the mountains of Oaxoca, and I was a proud veteran of the 1967
Summer of Love in San Francisco’s Haight/Ashbury, fully equipped with long hair, knee-high
moccasins, beads, bracelets and a pocketful of hope.
 5

Anyway... Robert brought John over to meet me. So this was the guy. We shook hands
then, he slowly leaned in toward me ‘til he was looking through his eyebrows and said in a very
deliberate tone, “The music... was... terrific.” Then, a smile crept across his face, "But I didn't
understand...” chuckling, “a thing in the movie....”
After he’d had a bit of a laugh, he straightened up, put his arm around me in a consoling
manner and said, “It was terrific.... I loved its freedom and dynamics.”
Its freedom and dynamics. Hmm. Whatever. I thanked him and just figured he was too
straight to get it.
Later, people began moving toward their cars and John walked back over. He asked me
if I was working. I explained that I was putting in a little time with Jim Eric and the rest of the
gang on the final stages of The Bach Train, but did I have a job job? No. He said there wasn’t
any music in Husbands, but if it was okay with Jim, maybe I could help in the editing room.
Sure. I’d spent a little time in a cutting room. Not much, but some. John pointed to a guy
standing just outside the chatter perimeter, "You'll be talking to that guy over there... the guy
with the white hair. That's Al (Ruban). He's the producer.”
Al took a few steps toward me, gave me this slow, uninterested nod as if thinking, "O
dread, another parolee” then, looked down at my feet, “You got shoes?” After several beats, he
let me off the hook with a half hidden smile, and we made arrangements to meet at his offices
the next morning. Al was something else. I got the impression that he was someone I didn’t
want to fuck with. A very cool dude but, as Robert put it, he had an uncanny knack of
disengaging, disarming even destroying someone with a short, moderately delivered phrase.
By the time we all said goodnight, I was exhausted: the stress of our Fellini-esque
screening, then meeting John Cassavetes and Al Ruban in one sitting, was almost more than I
could handle. I rode into work in the morning with Robert. After filling out my paperwork in
Accounting, I visited the cutting rooms for the first time. They were two large rooms, wall to
wall, ceiling to floor film racks filled with well over a million feet of 35mm film and sound
reels. I’d never seen anything like it.
I was put to work as an editorial “go-fer.” Filing film and sound trims, labeling boxes,
 6

that sort of thing. Over the previous couple of years, I had worked on a short and, of course,
The Bach Train which had given me enough experience in the cutting room to pull off most
tasks at the editing bench such as syncing, cleaning and rewinding film and sound. I could use a
Butt Splicer (used to cut and splice film and sound) and because I was moderately skilled at
running a Movieola (a motorized film/sound viewer), I was soon working with John as his after
hours Moviola Operator. He loved working late and always managed to lasso someone into
working with him. Being the pup that I was... Hell, why not?
The more I was around the man, the more I liked him. Half the time, I wasn’t sure if I
understood what he was talking about, but did my best just trying to put one foot in front of the
other until I had a pretty good idea.
The editors kept me pretty busy in the beginning with basic editing room duties, but as
time passed John began giving me more challenging tasks. Turns out I had a knack for editing
sound and I began trying to fix edited scenes that had sound or dialog problems. There were at
least two scenes that, for whatever reason, had no sound at all and, using sound FX (effects)
and Wild Track (specific sound or dialog shot on set without camera running), I cut together a
track that sounded pretty much like the real McCoy.
With Universal Studios across the street from our cutting rooms, we had the luxury of
viewing Husbands on a big screen whenever we had a new cut.
 7

As time marched on, I got to know the film pretty well and got a bird’s eye view how
changing or trimming a few scenes could effect later scenes and alter the dynamic of each of
the three lead characters. After a while, I began to see how intricate the film was. It was like a
balancing act between three, equally strong, lead actors constantly interacting with each other...
It was far beyond my editorial expertise... So I listened a lot... And pretty much did what I was
told. I would often hear John, Ben or Peter talking after a screening.... “now it’s Benny’s
picture.” The following week, it was “John’s picture” or “Peter’s picture”. These guys loved
each other, but I couldn’t help thinking there was an editorial competition going on, especially
between Benny and Peter. John was just onboard for the editorial ride.
The picture went through change after change, week after week....
I continued to work in the cutting room with John, Robert Heffernan and the rest of the
editors for the next several months while Columbia continued to step up the pressure to get the
film out. I heard from second hand sources that the level of outrage at Columbia’s Marketing
and Distribution departments was supreme. One afternoon, John did mention something about
some late night phone calls, bordering on (physical) threats, but nothing hard core ever came to
pass which was a good thing, according to Robert, as any kind of hard line stand by the big
boys would have just pissed John off. Are you serious? I thought. Who the fuck is this John
guy?
Besides not being part of the system and having very little regard for money and power,
I learned that John and Al had a combined talent when it came to dealing with the powers-that-
be at the studios. They were a team to be reckoned with. John was the devil-may-care artist and
Al acted as the tough, never-the-first-to-blink part of the combo.
 8

Al Ruban & John

I’ve been told that certain studio executives were thrown so far off balance after sitting
across a desk from these two that they didn’t know whether they were coming or going by the
close of a meeting. I believe it. John and Al shared a love of the filmmaking process but that
was about it. They were two very different people. They fought a lot, but more importantly,
they complimented each other. Al was a grounding force and John trusted him.
By the end of my six months on Husbands, the drama of holding off Columbia reached
a peak. On two separate occasions, John scheduled a screening in front of a full house of
invited guests that ended rather poorly. One evening, John’s projectionist showed up dreadfully
late and on the other, didn’t show up at all. God, he was pissed off and totally convinced it was
an executive ploy to embarrass him. Security around the film tightened. A sharp eye was kept
on the reels before and after our screenings at Universal. The cutting room became a fortress
that safeguarded Husbands, the actual footage, in the war with Columbia. It got that crazy.
There wasn't much for me to do on John's next film, Minnie & Moskowitz
 9

We were still located across the street from Universal Studios in the same offices we
had on Husbands. John and Al gave me a music room down the hall from the production office.
My job title as Music Supervisor was certainly grander than the music I was responsible for. I
knew from the getgo that there wasn’t going to be much music. A few old standards were
selected and I wrote two or three background tunes and a song (“Play It Again”) that played
over the last scene and end credits. Sweet, but nothing to write home about. I feel I could have
written more, but I think in those early days, both John and myself were a bit shy when it came
to music consideration. John had yet to regard music as a creative or emotional force in any of
his films unless it was being shot live or was just subsequent music in the background, known
as source music. He didn’t much care for movie scores (traditional background instrumentation
or orchestration), not back then.
Looking back on my relative brief involvement with Minnie, there were no real
challenges. Oddly enough, one of my most memorable moments came one evening before we
started our final mix (for release). Al called me into his office. He said he wanted me to sign
some kind of contract or release for publishing and the performing rights and in return, offered
me a thousand dollars. Yes, sir. That would be just dandy. A thousand bucks was a lot of
money back then, but the big thing was.... I was being paid for something I’d written! I’d never
actually received any money for writing music until that night. When Al handed me that check...
it was sweet. Being paid for something I’d written... Imagine that.
More importantly, there were other things that were going on between John and myself
during postproduction of Minnie. During the final weeks, John began visiting the music room
bringing stacks of records under his arm. He played me stuff he loved and I, in turn,
reciprocated by playing him stuff I liked. John loved music, but was no musician. He was
pretty much tone deaf. You would think that would invoke a musical shyness on his part.
Hardly. If something struck him, he’d go wild... dance around the room, clapping his hands,
maybe play the desk top like a pair of bongos or pick up a tambourine or a kazoo or fearlessly
conduct an air orchestra...
 10

I hope you get the picture. It’s important because this means of musical expression was
the principal fiber that eventually made up the bridge of musical communication. It was primal,
yet so often sweet. John could get just as enthusiastic listening to a painter on a lunch break
playing the spoons and kazoo as he could listening to a violin concerto.
Ironically, this “non-musician” is the one that sat me down one evening and introduced
me to several of Tchaikovsky’s greatest compositions. Knocked me out. Absolutely knocked
me out. Over a period of several weeks, John turned up with other classic greats, but what
really stands out were his records from the 30’s and 40’s. I’d always loved the music from that
era, but John pulled stuff out of the woodwork I’d never heard before. Great stuff such as
Walter Huston’s “September Song” and Bing Crosby’s, “Just One More Chance.” Lovely stuff.
Looking back on it now, John did have a desire to incorporate music in his films, but
wasn’t sure how to go about it. Frankly, neither did I... not in a Cassavetes film, anyway. So we
explored by listening and playing. Talking. Feeling. Late at night. Something new was coming
up on the horizon...
It was A Woman Under the Influence, beginning in 1972. John worked long and hard on
the writing of A Woman. I think from its conception, or shortly thereafter, he envisioned Peter
Falk and, his wife Gena Rowlands in the lead roles of Nick and Mabel Longhetti. All I know is
when I first heard about the script, in the early days, he was writing it for Peter and Gena.
 11

That was always a given. I heard the script went through a lot of shape shifting before
my involvement. I believe it started as a single stage play, then became a trilogy then, morphed
its way into a screenplay of which there were countless versions.
John told me early on that he wanted me to do the music for A Woman Under the
Influence. Wow. Great, but unnerving. I reminded him that I didn’t know how to read or write
music and would need some help in the final stages when it came to orchestrating the score as I
had done with The Bach Train. That seemed fine with him. It also took a little heat off me.
Our pre-production offices were located at the CBS Television Studios in Studio City. I
was given a temporary music room there and moved in my guitars and tape recorders.
My inventory of equipment was pretty simple. Back then, not many songwriters or
composers, like myself, had the luxury of multi-track recording to work with or experiment
with and had to depend on sound-on-sound recording to build layers of vocals or layered
arrangements.
John hadn’t found any money yet, but charged ahead as if he had a million bucks. I
understand that certain moneys were there for the taking, but with John, where the money came
from and what strings were attached, was everything. If taking money meant giving up artistic
control or tied him to some time restriction, he’d walk away... Politely, but without blinking.
Every time.
 12

Maybe it was the money people. Maybe he didn’t like them. Well, fine, but we needed
money! I mean, shit! Don’t people have to give up something to make a movie? There’s always
compromise in the business world, right? Wrong. He didn’t want to give up a thing. If he had a
vision, it wasn’t up for debate. If anything obstructed the creative process, it was out! It was
that simple. Period. Done deal.
But the fact was... we had no money. No one did. When any of us really needed some
cash, whether it be for food, gas or even someone’s rent, John would reach deep in his pockets
or pick up the phone and always managed to pull through with something. Somehow, we all
managed to eat and we all had a roof over our heads. Columbo was in its heyday and Peter told
John that he’d match any money John raised. And that’s how we shuffled along week after
week.
Then came the shocker. I was putting new strings on my 12-string in the music room
and there was a knock at the door. It was John. “Bo, I’ve been thinking... I want you to do the
music on piano.” I was a little struck and came back with the obvious, “I don’t play piano.”
And without missing a beat, he said, “Rent one.”
He was dead serious and I knew it. Long story short, Peter had a bungalow on the
Universal lot that he rarely used.
 13

That was to be my music room. We moved an old upright piano into the living room.
Peter used the place on occasion to draw and etch, so I pretty much left the bedroom and
kitchen alone. But what a cool place! I loved working on studio lots, especially the old back
lots where the air is thick and heavily scented with the glamorous ghosts of Hollywood’s
golden years.
So, that became my work place and I began tinkling away on the piano keys, exploring
simple thematic ideas. Strangely enough, I came up with the (primary) main theme for A
Woman within a few days. John loved the melody, which in turn allowed me to relax a little. I
was happy with the melody, but in those early days, John’s enthusiasm and encouragement
meant everything. To me, it was a first step toward tackling some kind of film score.
I was just settling in and expanding out into secondary and sub themes when John paid
me a visit. I was at the piano and about to play him something new when he blurted out, “I
don’t think this sound guy is going to work out.” He was referring to one of the crewmembers.
The sound mixer. I won’t mention his name, but he is still one of the leading sound mixers in
Hollywood. “What do you mean, he’s not going to work out?”
“I just don’t feel it’s gonna work out. I think you should do it.”
“Do what?”
“Do the sound on the picture.”
With blood rushing to my head I asked, “What about the music?”
He laughed and said, “You worry too much. You can do the music and the sound. It’s
not as if you have to do two things at once. You’ll have plenty of time to work on the music.
This way you’ll be on the set everyday. You’ll watch dailies (the film shot the previous day).
You’ll be in the cutting room. You’ll be totally involved. It’ll be good for the music later on!
Why not do the sound?”
Without hesitation I snapped, “Because I don’t have a clue. I have no idea...”
“Sure you do. You do all your own recording. You record your own music. One tape
recorder is like the other. You know what the editors need. I know you can do it.” I couldn’t
believe what I was hearing. He concluded with, “You’ve got three weeks.”
 14

John was really good at talking me into stuff. It was as if he had this thing... this faith...
a blind faith that I could do anything I set my mind to. Christ Almighty. I put the music on the
back burner and rented a Nagra IV (an industry standard recorder) and a Sennheiser 405
microphone and ran around town in a near state of panic asking as many questions as possible.

Talk about stressed out! Then, Nick Spaulding came on board as my boom operator. He
had enough mixing experience to get me up and running and would later prove to be invaluable.
Most of the script was to take place in the Longhetti house and John had already spent
several weeks looking for this location as the last of the crew positions were filled. He finally
decided on a two-story house on Taft Avenue just north of Hollywood Blvd occupied by an
elderly couple. They had lived there for decades and, without going into a lot of detail, the
house was in an alarming state of disrepair. John found and rented them a nice place to stay for
the next several months and we all went to work on the house.
When I say “we all,” I mean the crew, production staff, even some of the cast. When
John wasn’t writing, rehearsing or looking for production money, he’d be sanding the floors or
painting the walls with the rest of us.
Around that time, John made a deal with the newly formed Audio Services Corporation
(now the acclaimed, Location Sound Services Corp) for sound gear and also with a mobile
equipment company called Cinemobile. They provided a customized bus (and driver) that
carried cast and crew and all the stuff we needed... Camera, sound, lighting and grip equipment,
not to mention it’s built in generator. We were set. But still no money.
 15

Then John struck a deal with the American Film Institute. He agreed to be their first
Resident Filmmaker/Director in exchange for a production office, two cutting rooms, a music
room and the use of their screening rooms. I should mention that the Institute was located on a
grand old 18-acre estate in the hills above Bel Air and Beverly Hills, called Greystone
(formally the old Doheny Estate).

It was elegant and stately and incredibly ironic, since we were all penniless. But we had
our fun. I reveled in a sort of reverse snobbery every morning when pulling up under the
mansion’s marble entryway in my rumbling, 1951 Ariel Square-Four motorcycle. Ah, youth...
Back at the Taft House, everything was going according to plan. We were only using
one of the upstairs bedrooms as a set and utilized the rest of the second floor as a location
production office. After the downstairs was all cleaned up, the guys in Camera and Lighting
went to work pre-lighting as much of the interior as possible. We used a lot of clip-ons, along
with the studio lights we gained through Cinemobile. Several weeks later, we were ready. It
was the last week in October. We were only a few days away from Shoot Day Number One and
Mike Lally, Jr., our production manager, called for a production meeting at the Taft House.
Everyone involved was invited. Cast, crew, staff, go-fers, everyone. The entire downstairs, the
dining room, foyer and living room, was packed with people. Mike called the meeting to order.
After expressing how happy he was to be there, he took a deep breath and said, “John,
we have to push back our start date.” After a long beat, he continued, “We’re not gonna make
it.”
 16

John replied, “What do you mean, ‘we’re not gonna make it’?”
“We’re supposed to start shooting in two days and we don’t have our money and we
don’t have any film.”
John took about four seconds to turn a beet red then he blasted, “I don’t give a shit if we
don’t have any money! I don’t give a fuck if we don’t have any film!... On November first (two
days away), we are all gonna be on this set...!! The actors are gonna be on THAT side of the
camera...!! I’m gonna be on THIS side of the camera and we’re gonna MAKE this movie FILM
OR NO FILM!!!”

Well, that was the end of Mike Lally’s meeting and everyone went home scratching
their heads but believing somehow we were gonna make a film. We were all pretty young and
believed in miracles.
As it turned out, the night before we were supposed to start shooting, John managed to
get his hands on ten thousand feet of film and we started on schedule. Finding money to make
his film was, I think, tougher than John expected. Back then, making a non-union film was not
cool. Unions kept a hawk eye on us, which prevented us from getting some of the
crewmembers we wanted. Credit houses closed their doors to us. Certain film laboratories
would not extend us credit. Yet, somehow, throughout the entire making of the film, John
managed to raise money, a little here, a little there (with Peter Falk matching each dollar), that
enabled each of us to get anywhere from $60 to $75 a week. Not sure how we did it, but we all
got by. And had a great time doing it. There was a general feeling among us like... the little
guys up against the big boys... the artists versus the corporations... passion versus money...
Besides being tough, it was a wonderfully romantic time.
 17

My adventure on the set of A Woman Under the Influence is a story I couldn’t possibly
lay out in any kind of detail in the space allotted here, but let me share a few points...
By the time we started shooting, John had successfully placed most of us in a position
of grave responsibility either undertaking a new task or working at a higher skill level than ever
before and most of us were scared shitless. He tried to lighten the load by telling us he expected
fuck-ups, basically giving us permission to make mistakes. That helped, but during the first
week, I actually had to sneak off set twice to vomit. We were all on edge and we all made
mistakes. My first and worst screw up came in that first week.
I had accidentally loaded a roll of 1/4” tape on the Nagra (the recorder) that had
previously just been recorded on, thinking it was a fresh roll then, recorded over it (erasing the
initial recording). I remember, vividly, the pit in my stomach when I realized the mistake, but
draw a blank when I try to recall what I said or did after that. Probably something like, “John...
We have a problem.” After I figured the extent of the damage, John just took a deep breath and
announced, rather calmly, that we would immediately re-shoot the stuff. I must say, he was
 18

extremely cool about it, although it took me some time to recover. On the bright side, I think it
relaxed the crew to witness a major fuck up that, 1) John handled with grace and, 2) was a
disaster they hadn’t been part of.

Sound-wise, if there was a serious problem, we either lived with it, re-shot it or in most
cases, covered it with a piece of Wild Track (recorded sound or dialog as if the camera were
running). You would never hear him say “we’ll loop it” (re-record in post) or “We’ll fix it in
post (production),” which is customary in mainstream filmmaking. Nothing was fixed in post
other than editing in a little Wild Track or FX shot on set.
I think it’s important to understand that the sound of a completed Cassavetes film is
pretty much like the sound in dailies (the initial set recording). He didn’t like to smooth things
over or make things slick. The acting, the camera work, the sound, music or the look. A
dangerous way to make films. Most of us, as audience members, have been trained to view or
listen to a movie in a certain way. There are built in formulas and techniques in movie making,
whether it be story structure, how a camera moves, how things are lit, cut, or how they sound.
Values are different in a Cassavetes film. Having a plot or a beginning, middle and an
end... was, for the most part, unimportant to John. Character was. Being truthful. And
innovation. He loved it when something new was discovered during the creative process... by
 19

an actor or a crewmember.

L – R: Bo, Mitch Breit (lighting), John, Mike Ferris (camera)

If a performance hit the mark and happened to be a little rough, or a bit out of focus, so
be it. A lot of us had a hard time going along with this from time to time, but as the weeks went
by, his methods proved to get results, again and again. If something felt right... Bull’s eye. This
lies at the core of Cassavetes’ filmmaking.
John loved, actually insisted on, our participation. He often asked his collaborators to
try stuff. His actors, editors, crew, everyone. He listened to ideas, even occasional feedback
from crew members. Involvement was everything. When we were shooting a scene, everyone
watched, everyone was involved.
 20

None of this, “When you’ve done your job, go fuck off somewhere until it’s time to
work on the next set-up (camera position)”. For one thing, a Cassavetes set isn’t tightly
compartmentalized like most movie sets with strict borders around the various departments.
None of this, “When you’ve done your job, go fuck off somewhere until it’s time to work on
the next set-up (camera position).”
We all crossed the lines. Everyone helped everyone. Not only that, everyone had an
understanding of the scenes we were shooting and was around when we shot them. Everyone
on set was doing something. Participating. I never saw anyone reading a magazine or a
newspaper on or near a Cassavetes set. It just wouldn’t happen because we were all involved in
what was being shot. It was all about individual and group involvement. When the grips were
finished setting light stands or flags, they hung out or helped other departments and then
watched the performances, up close and personal. Involvement.
21
22
 23

And that’s why John handed out challenges to his actors and his crew. It forced
involvement. Find your own way to do it. You do it. Suddenly you would be faced with a task
you’d never done before and weren’t sure how to pull it off. I think he liked to watch us squirm
outside the comfort zone. “I hate it”, he once said, ”when everyone’s comfortable... The
creativity goes out the window.” To him, putting our creative center on unfamiliar territory was
a good thing. Besides generating instant involvement or new approaches to a problem, the end
result produced sky-high levels of individual accomplishment. We were often forced to take
risks, but John never left us out on a limb. He’d intervene if something wasn’t working right.
Regardless, he was usually there applauding the outcome.
After a tiring, but vastly rewarding, eighteen weeks shooting A Woman Under the
Influence, we set up for postproduction at Greystone. John and the editors went to work in the
cutting rooms and I moved my piano and recording equipment from the bungalow at Universal
to an office at The Post Production Center in Hollywood.

Some of the “Woman” editing staff at Greystone (photo: David Armstrong)

The Hollywood office was larger and much quieter (for recording purposes) than
Universal or Greystone. But John and I used the music room at Greystone to listen to my music
 24

trials and also to edit it. John knew early on that he wanted to use opera in various places and
the Greystone facility provided a place to listen and select those pieces. There was also a grand
piano located in the main screening room in the mansion that I often used for writing, but all
the recording was done at the Hollywood office.
While the film was being assembled (cut together roughly in sequence order), I didn’t
have much to do. I helped out in the cutting room during the first eight to ten months more than
I did writing or recording music.

“Woman” John’s office at Greystone

By the time John had his first serious cut (a film that flows), I had all my themes written.
It was around this period that John bought me a brand new Sony 854, four channel, reel to reel
recorder which was top of the line (semi-pro) technology in those days. I was thrilled. What a
great tool! It enabled me to record one or two tracks of piano and add my voice on the
remaining tracks, whether implied orchestration or simple voicings intending to be Gena.
Shortly thereafter, I recorded an eight or nine minute version of what I called “A
 25

Woman Under the Influence: Composite Themes.” It contained variations of the Main Theme
(recurring near the end with lyrics), Secondary theme, Love Theme, Children’s Theme and
Gena’s Theme (her ♫la-la-la’s♫) heard at the very beginning and at the end of the piece (track
#13). It became the centerpiece of the music I drew from when experimenting with various
cues in the film.

Bo with Guild in John’s office at Greystone

The time needed to complete the film was grossly underestimated. After our six month
welcome expired, the administrators of the Institute wanted their space back, but by then, so
many eyes were on the project, booting us out would have been a bad move, politically. They
agreed to let us stay on a bit longer.... Which I think they later regretted as we ended up staying
for well over another year.
By the time we locked (completed editing) the film and were preparing for a final mix,
A Woman Under the Influence had been in the making for nearly two years. To my utter dismay,
John had fallen in love with the original music temp music tracks and didn’t want to arrange,
orchestrate or re-record any of it. He liked it as it was. Since the beginning, I had been working
 26

under the assumption that I would collaborate with an orchestrator, and also re-record my piano
tracks with a bit of polish. But he was dead set against it. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” he
insisted.
I was tormented by the poor sound quality and clumsy piano playing (never mind no
orchestration), while John’s only concern was its feeling and its innocence. That was the
bottom line. At first, I thought it was a money issue, but it wasn’t. John always got what he
needed or wanted. If he wanted it arranged and orchestrated, he would have found the money to
do just that. No, he truly loved the music as it was... Raw, temp track music room recordings,
with the exception of a high school string and bass section we brought in (to the Hollywood
music room) to play some linear bass lines behind my piano. That was the extent of our
orchestration. It was a difficult adjustment for me.
As a side note.... In the years that followed, I may have had certain misgivings about the
final music in A Woman Under the Influence, but John never flinched, often saying it was his
favorite film score.
The final mix took place in the grand screening room located inside the main mansion
at Greystone. The late, great soundman and inventor, Mike Denecke, was at the helm during
the final mix.
The equipment at the American Film Institute facility was limited and extremely out
dated. We had five or six dubbers (machines that played back edited sound reels), which
worked out fine because John didn’t want to perform much surgery on the final sound.
Again, John preferred raw material and didn’t want to overly fix or smooth out a lot of
the sound track’s rough areas. After various attempts to find a theatrical distributor for the film,
John made the bold decision to distribute the film himself. With the help of Al Ruban and
David Armstrong, Faces Distribution Company was established. Almost single-handedly, they
got the film out in key locations just in time for Academy consideration in 1974.
 27

Around this same time, Ted Mann, international theatrical chain CEO, provided new
office space for us all. One of the Los Angeles theaters we opened in was the Wilshire Theater
in Beverly Hills. Ted owned the building and gave us the entire second floor above the theater.
Fourteen offices in all. A reception area, staff offices, one huge cutting room and a smaller one,
a darkroom and a layout room Sam Shaw worked out of, a conference room and way down the
hallway, the last room on the right, was my new music room. This place was even cooler than
our facilities at AFI. Right outside John’s office window was a fire escape and next to that,
only a few feet away, was the theater marquee that proudly displayed, A Woman Under the
 28

Influence. This new location would be our production center for the next several years.
John immediately began planning his next film, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, but his
main focus was trained on promoting A Woman Under the Influence. John, Sam and David
went to work on newspaper layouts and we made our own radio ads in the music room. The
reviews, for the most part, were great. The word of mouth was terrific. There was definitely an
air of excitement around us
Then, a day I would not soon forget...
It was the day they announced the nominations for the 1974 Academy Awards. Most of
us had been up all night long waiting for the results and were at the newsstands at daybreak
waiting for the Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter (both trade papers). We got two
nominations! Best Actress in a Leading Role, Gena Rowlands and Best Director in a Drama,
John Cassavetes. Well, I’ll be Goddamned.
Someone brought a couple of TVs into the cutting rooms the day before and had them
on the entire day listening to every newscast on the air. I can’t begin to express the level of
jubilation at the office. After nearly two years of hard work and scrounging for money, we had
made our film. Despite the film labs’ reluctance to extend us credit and the unions cutting us
off at every pass, we accomplished the goal of making a wonderful film and were now getting
Academy recognition.
Our sense of accomplishment and camaraderie was over the top. It was just too much.
Anyway, I don’t remember what time it was, but the sun was setting and John called me into
his office. He grabbed a couple of furniture blankets, a bottle of Courvoisier and pointed to two
shot glasses, “You bring the glasses”, and he crawled through the window out onto the fire
escape. He spread out the blankets and I joined him, literally two feet from the theater marquee,
overlooking the sidewalk. The timing was perfect as people were lining up below us to see our
movie. How cool was that? John poured a shot of cognac in my glass and one for himself. He
raised his glass to mine and then with this sweet, almost tender smile on his face, lifted his
glass out over the city and said...., “Fuck’em”.
Whenever driving down Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, I always slow down as I
 29

pass the old theater building. The fire escape is no longer there, but I can still see the two of us
sitting up there as clear as a bell... “To you, John. Here’s to you.”

John’s office is circled

 30

We were well into 1974 when we started up on The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Al
Ruban’s presence was truly missed during the making of A Woman, but he was back as the
film’s Producer and Director of Photography. Other returning crewmembers were, Mike Ferris
(Camera), Mitchell Breit (Lighting) and Phedon Papamichiel (Art Director). I had only been
married to Joanne Tolley a few months when she joined the crew as the Continuity Person
(who logs and describes every shot for the editors). She had been on the set of A Woman Under
the Influence where she was trained by Elaine Goren (Kagan) to do Continuity. Once again, I
was going to do the music and the sound mixing.
This film was a whole different experience. Ben Gazzara played the lead role of Cosmo
Vitelli, a strip club owner.

Most of our shooting was done on Sunset strip at night or down dark streets and alleys.
My recollection of this film is vague and a bit on the dark side. Not just script-wise, but also in
reality.
There was a lot of drinking after hours amongst some of the crew members and some of
the cast. And there were drugs... John hated drugs and didn’t want to know about them. He
didn’t understand the use of marijuana and hallucinogens during the sixties and was totally in
the dark when it came to the harder stuff. But being products of the sixties, many of us had
 31

explored alternative realities and had experimented with mind-altering substances already, so
when the harder stuff came around, we tried it. It was great fun in the beginning. I won’t lie to
you, most of us had a ball, however, further on down the road, it was a different story... one that
I won’t go into here. Anyway, I think John made a conscious decision to stay away from the
subject as long as he didn’t see it and it wasn’t affecting the film. As long as it wasn’t affecting
the working relationships on the film, the topic wouldn’t come up. Maybe he talked to others
about it, but he never directly confronted me. But I knew he knew. He wasn’t stupid. There
were a couple of occasions, I remember him looking me... dead in the eye and in a very
deliberate tone asking, “How ya’ doin’? Are ya’ doing okay?” I knew what he was asking and I
did my best to convey a comforting, “I’m fine. I’m doing all right”. Back then, I didn’t think I
was on dangerous ground, yet I hated the idea there was some unspoken shit existed between us.
Like John, I didn’t want to think about it.
So anyway, I have mixed feelings about the making of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
For the most part, it was a good experience, but there was definitely a dark element on board.
 32

Then one night, something new happened.... John was visiting the music room and
asked me to put some fresh tape on the recorder. With tape rolling, he began spouting odd,
poetic phrases. I picked up my Guild 12-string and began strumming a harsh, droned B7 on the
guitar. In less than an hour, we had just written and recorded a song. “Down and Dirty” (track
#6) pretty much sums up what we were feeling that night.
It didn’t end up in the film, but it was our first song. I went to work on the music full
time as soon as the film was shot.
One of the first challenges I was faced with was coming up with a piece of source music
(music coming from a source in the scene) that played on the jukebox in a bar scene.
When we shot it, John had Bunny Berigan’s “I Can’t Get Started” (a 30’s standard)
playing in the back ground and fell in love with it. When he tried to get the rights to put it in the
film, he was quoted an exorbitant fee, I think somewhere between ten and twenty thousand
dollars. He didn’t love it that much.
He turned to me and said, “Let’s write something like it.”
Good Lord. I can’t tell you how unappealing that was to me. I never had to write, nor
did I want to write, something like something else, ever. Every bit of music I had written in the
past was pulled out of thin air, with no outside influence (that I was aware of). I hated the idea,
but John was stuck on the feel of that music. I wasn’t sure if I even knew how to write
“something like.” John insisted we give it a try.
I had recently met Anthony Harris who was an arranger interested in working with me.
When I told him about the task John had put before me, he didn’t flinch. He knew the basic
chords behind “I Can’t Get Started” and laid them out. We played with chord structure awhile
and a new melody came to mind.
After fine-tuning it for several hours, I sang it for John.
 33

He liked it. John worked on the lyrics for an hour or two... and it was done. The entire
lyric. We called it, “Almost (In Love With You)” (track #10). To my pleasant surprise, I liked
it. It’s not on my favorites list only because it was inspired by another song. John was so crazy
about it that he wanted to schedule a recording session as soon as possible. But who was going
to play on it and who was going to sing? A blues/jazz singer, for sure.
“I’ll call Ray. He’ll love it.” John wasn’t fucking around and sent a rough demo of the
tune to Ray Charles. You’re kidding... This is no bullshit as John had that kind of access.
Should have seen his phone book. Over the years, he introduced me to some amazing music
people ranging from David Bowie to Tony Bennett to Booker T. Jones. Anyway, we heard
back from Ray within a day or two. He liked the tune, but was on a tour in Europe and wasn’t
returning for a month or so.
We immediately went in another direction. Old jazz. John called Jack Shelton and
Anthony and Jack contacted the rest of the players and scheduled a session within a few days.
Jack Shelton’s vocal put the tune in a whole new class as did his trumpet solo. Shelly Manne
was on drums, Hampton Hawes at the piano, Don Lodice on baritone sax, Bobby Bryant on
flugal horn and ‘Red’ Mitchell on stand-up bass. What a line up! We recorded it ‘old school’.
Live. No over dubs and in mono. Take three was the keeper. Most everything else in Bookie
 34

was recorded in the music room.

My main instrument shifted between the piano and the guitar. Sometimes a Mini-Moog
synthesizer was used. The music that started going in the film was generally raw as it was in A
Woman, but darker and in some cases more electronic. There were exceptions where the music
took a gentle turn, usually behind a tough scene.
Months earlier, I had written a rather lengthy poem to my wife, Joanne, and put it to
music. I called it, “Rainy Fields of Frost and Magic” (track #5).

Bo and Joanne

One night, John asked me to transfer it to 35mm mag (all movie sound is initially on
35mm magnetic stock) so he could try it behind the waitress audition scene in which Ben’s girl
friend enters and starts a fight. It was totally his idea. Never would have entered my mind.
The gentle fairy tale-like ballad played against the discomfort of the scene. This
counterpoint worked for John and stayed in the film. Another soft, but unfinished ballad, "No
One Around to Hear it" (track #8), was also played against Cosmo's dreary night club.
Then came Opening Night in 1977. This was a different type of film for John, but
centered on two very familiar themes in the Cassavetes household. The love of the theater and
the fear of getting old.
 35

Once again, I was honored to be at the sound and music helm. There were lengthy
discussions on how to approach the sound recording (in the theater scenes) and the music
composition. After some thought on the production sound, I came up with a game plan on how
to approach recording inside the theater during actual performances. Since John was planning
on having from five to seven cameras running at once, I had to be able to record several sound
perspectives at the same time. We didn’t have the luxury of multi-track recorders or even stereo
recorders back then; therefore, I was going to have to establish a recording station (an
independent recorder and microphones) for each camera perspective. Here’s a brief layout:
Camera A (a wide Master Shot encompassing the entire stage and a good part of the
audience): This recorder had two mics over the stage to pick up a wide perspective on the
actors and two mics aimed at the audience for their reaction.
Camera B (a tighter shot of the stage, excluding the audience): This recorder was
hooked into five directional foot mics at the stage lip aimed at the actors and were mixed
according to where the actors moved on stage. This was a sharper perspective than Camera A.
Camera C & D (these two cameras were tighter shots of the actors): This recorder was a
blend or a mix of the wireless mics the actors were wearing and the mics at the lip of the stage
(using wireless mics alone is too close and dry. By mixing in some of the foot mics, their
voices get a more realistic room bounce).
Camera E & F (these cameras were shooting away from the stage, over the audience for
their reactions): This recorder had two mics pointing out over the audience. Sometimes scenes
were shot backstage at the same time an on stage scene was being filmed. This then required,
 36

Camera G (shooting a scene back stage): This recorder may not only record the
backstage scene, but if an on-stage scene was going on (that we wanted to hear) as well as the
presence of a live audience, a second and third mic (or more) would be placed for those distant
perspectives. Tricky stuff.
Before we were finished shooting the scenes that required a live audience, John and
Gena got up on stage and asked the audience if they would help us record a little wild track for
the editors. The two of them went into performance mode on stage and basically conducted the
audience while I recorded their reactions.... various lengths of applause and laughter, talking
aloud and quietly, even taking their seats and sitting quietly.
Before they did this, I set up two recording stations. One with mics shooting out over
the audience while another station was miking it further away to simulate a back stage, dressing
room or lobby sound perspective. Long story even longer, the sound we got on film including
the wild track and FX were terrific. How do I know? The sound editors loved me as did the
rerecording (final) mixers. My best judges. I should add that this approach to recording the
sound on Opening Night was yet another example of John putting me in the hot seat and
making me figure out how to pull it off. Beyond cool.
Now, the music. Way back in pre-production, I began looking for a main theme on the
piano. John told me up front that at least some of the music would be orchestrated. Oh boy!
Within a few short weeks, I had written a main theme for piano and orchestra that I felt very
good about. I called it, “The Grandeur of the Theater.”
Around this time, in pre-production, John was still hard at work rewriting the screen
play. Keep in mind that the heart of the film was the character, Myrtle Gordon, a very famous
and beautiful actress, played by Gena Rowlands. Myrtle loves the theater. She has spent her
entire adult life on stage. But she is older now. Physical beauty is fading and the emotional
access she once had as a young actress seems to have drifted away. Her life and the lives of
those around her have become increasingly difficult as she desperately attempts to rekindle that
youth.
 37

The focus of John’s rewrites was usually on Gena (Myrtle). John did most of his
rewriting in the privacy of his office, which was located at the front of the Wilshire complex.
My music room was way down the hall, the last room on the right. One late afternoon, after
being behind closed doors writing for several hours, he barged in my room without even a hello.
“Can you put up some fresh tape?” Then, “Wanna try something?” I don’t remember what else
was said, but I loaded the Sony recorder, sat John on a stool, got a chair for myself, set up two
mics and grabbed my 12-string guitar. I usually slate or identify the tape I’m about to record, so
I asked, “What do I call it? What are we doing?” He thought for a minute and said, “A talk
through... of Gena on opening night, what she’s feeling... on opening night.”
I pulled the mic down to my guitar, hit the record button and announced, “This is the
First Draft of Opening Night, Talk through. Opening Night.” After a moment, John began
speaking, “It was quiet... Like the Holy night... I was frightened... With the crowd in sight...”
And I just played a simple, but paced guitar cadence that evolved as John continued on (track
#1).
This was just the beginning of what was to be a series of improvisational sessions
between the two of us. His visits to the music room became more frequent. If it was warranted,
the sessions would be transcribed by John’s secretary and we would refine it into a workable
lyric and melody. After a week or so, these improv sessions evolved into actual song writing. I
have edited down the length of two sessions on the CD (tracks #2 and #3) to illustrate a couple
of evolutions. In a few short weeks, we had written nearly twenty songs that resulted from our
 38

improvisation.
Once we started shooting Opening Night, I hardly gave music a thought. On set, my
hands were full as the soundman. But when filming was over, I jumped back into composing,
full swing. After a couple of months, we met Lee Housekeeper, who was a music producer
interested in working with us. He owned a small recording studio in Hollywood that we figured
would be perfect for recording most of our music cues.
Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to Booker T. Jones, formally of Booker T. and the
MG’s.

I knew he was a brilliant musician, but was quite taken by his gentle nature. Even
though he was producing the Star Dust album for Willie Nelson, he believed he had enough
time to work as my arranger and orchestral conductor on Opening Night. I was jazzed, but a bit
intimidated as he was nothing short of a musical genius. Besides being a virtuoso on keyboard,
Booker began writing orchestra charts (without the use of a keyboard as he had perfect pitch)
and playing keyboard behind Otis Redding at the young age of sixteen. At sixteen! Good Lord,
I didn’t even know how to write music (on paper). I considered myself a horrible keyboard
player and a mediocre guitar player. Booker didn’t seem to mind and liked what I had
composed for the film up to that point. I did my best to break him into John’s mode of working,
i.e., being only interested in the feeling behind the music, not it’s production or polish.
A few weeks later, I had finished writing all the cues and had recorded them as temp
track for trial use in the film. It was at that point that Booker and I discussed each cue and
determined the arrangements and/or orchestrations. Booker then went off and wrote the
 39

necessary charts. Days later, when he played them for me... I was very happy.
We then started recording in Lee Housekeeper’s studio, usually at night, which was the
deal we made with Lee. It was great! Alone in a studio with Booker and an engineer (to handle
all the technical stuff).
One afternoon, we were recording several cues with Jim Horn, the brilliant sax and
trumpet player.

I was in the control room as Booker (on piano) and Jim (on down-muted trumpet) were
getting ready to record “Same Ending Again” (track #18). Booker had (as always) written out
charts for the players, but I was having to correct Jim again and again as his phrasing just
wasn’t what I wanted. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable it was, not only correcting him, but
not being able to talk in music terms such as “in the 42nd measure, change the E flat to a C”... I
had to walk into the studio and fucking hum the melody to him.
After my third or forth apology for my lack of training, Booker walked me back to the
control room with his arm around me. In a very gentle tone said, “Bo, don’t worry about it... I
wish I could write a tune like you.” That was the nicest thing anyone could have said to me,
especially at the time. Really put me at ease... probably for the rest of the show.
We finally finished recording all the cues with the exception of the ones requiring
orchestration. We booked five hours at a large studio and got a music contractor to hire the 49
musicians needed for our orchestra. The piano cues that required later orchestration were all
 40

recorded in Lee’s studio.

The night before our big orchestra session, Booker and I met at Lee’s Studio to record
the lead piano tracks on two separate cues that were our most important. They were two
versions of the film’s main theme and required all 49 pieces in the orchestra. I had naturally
assumed that Booker would play the piano tracks as he was THE keyboard player. We tried
take after take. Once again, to my utter dismay, I had to keep correcting his phrasing. The
feeling that I wanted just wasn’t quite there.
Then, without any frustration or ego present, he looked up and said, “Bo, you’re gonna’
have to play it.”
I quickly came back with, “No, you gotta’ do it. You’re the player. Besides my meter
(exact tempo) sucks!”
“But you got the feel and that’s what John wants. You play the lead piano and I’ll play a
few fills on the other grand.”
Well, that’s exactly what we did. There were two grand pianos in the studio. Our
engineer miked both grand pianos and I played the lead piano (as I had done on the temp track)
while Booker backed me up with a few nice fills here and there. It only took a few takes and we
had it (track #16). As I feared, my meter veered a bit, but it felt really good. Booker was
pleased and said he would be listening to our tracks when conducting and could easily conduct
the orchestra around my slight time (meter) changes.
The next morning we arrived at Richard Perry’s Studio 55, which was right next to
Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue. When we got there, a couple of Booker’s friends were
waiting: Billy Swan and Otis Blackwell. It was great meeting Billy Swan, but... Otis Blackwell!
I remembered his name on record labels back in the 4th grade. He wrote most of the early Elvis
tunes! I don’t often get star struck, but I was totally blown away being in the presence of Otis
Blackwell!
Then we were taken into the main studio. My heart jumped into my throat seeing 49
musicians setting up for the session. The engineer told me we were in the very studio where
Bing Crosby recorded “White Christmas.” The whole thing was almost too much.
 41

Booker went up to the conductor’s podium as the contractor handed out the music
charts. It was pretty much in Booker’s hands now, so I went to the control booth and started
pacing. After a few words to the orchestra, we rolled tape. Take one blew me away! Put me up
against the wall. God it was powerful and my heart was beating a mile a minute.
We had successfully recorded the two main theme cues within thirty minutes (tracks
#15, #16 & #17). As we whittled through the cues, we dismissed parts of the orchestra until we
were down to our simplest cues such as “Dorothy/Manny Suite” (track #14) that only required
an oboe, our strings and bass section). Anyway, the session was a success and everyone was
happy. It was a total joy working with Booker.
About a month after Opening Night was in release, I got a call from Alexis Kanner in
Montréal. He got my name from somewhere and wanted me to come up to Montréal and act as
a musical liaison and sound designer on the film he’d just finished directing and producing
called, Kings and Desperate Men. It starred Patrick McGoohan and Maggie Trudeau (yep, the
Prime Minister’s wife). I had been dying to visit Montréal as my sister, Joan (platinum photo
artist) and brother-in-law, Paul Almond (famed Canadian director), had been living there for
years.
The gig required my recording equipment, which I was afraid to ship. Alexis kept a car
at a mechanic’s shop in L.A. and suggested we drive it cross country. Sounded great to me as I
had never been east of Texas.
Two weeks later, my wife, Joanne and I (totally sober) were headed for Quebec in
Alexis Kanner’s Citroen-Maserati (no shit!). The trip was amazing, but Montréal took my
breath away. To me, it was a French San Francisco and I fell in love with the city.
Several months later, we became Landed Immigrants (same as green card status in the
States), but alas, went our separate ways after a year or so.
Joan and Paul had an incredible 19th century, five-level house on Mount Royal
overlooking downtown Montréal and the Saint Lawrence River on one of the most beautiful
streets in the city, Redpath Crescent.
42
 43

I turned the first sub-level into a music room and went to work. The time I spent on
Redpath Crescent was wonderfully creative. There were only three of us in this gigantic house
and we all had a project in the works. The daily routine went something like this: We were all
up at six in the morning for yoga stretches followed by a mile run on the mountain, followed by
a light breakfast then, we split up... Joan went to her dark room to print exhibits for an
upcoming show. Paul went up in his office to work on his screenplay and I went down a spiral
staircase to the basement music room to continue on with my writing.
We would all meet in the kitchen for lunch, talk about what each of us was working on
then, then we’d all split off again to our perspective work places. Again, at dinner, we gathered
and discussed our progress or whatever was going on. This went on for months. What a great
routine and a real eye opener for me. I was a night person. Always had been. I worked on music
late in the day, sometimes all night long. I was amazed to find I was a firecracker and full of
vigor, by nine in the morning. Every morning. Who knew?
Several months later I had written a small book of songs I called, The Basement Tapes.
It was a collection of thirteen songs, ranging from rock‘n roll to Nashville, from ballads to a
forties blues piece called, “(You Say You’re) Only a Little Lonely” (track #20) that John later
used in Love Streams. I had a writing breakthrough up on Redpath Crescent. In the past, I
struggled with lyrics, but up there, words began pouring out of me like never before. I was
writing lyrics with relative ease! I attribute that to the many hours spent improvising with John
down in L.A.... No doubt about it.
By 1981, I was getting relatively well established in Montréal both musically and as a
sound mixer when I got a call from John. He had just finished Gloria and had mixed feelings
about the experience. He told me he’d made some money and, as a result, had to spend some
for taxes. He was hell bent on putting on three plays written by Ted Allan and himself and
wanted me to fly down and help get it all up and running. ‘Nuff said. I was on a plane back to
L.A. within the week.
I moved into John and Gena’s house up in the hills just off Mulholland Drive and took
over the maid’s room. The project was called, Three Plays of Love and Hate and once again, I
 44

had no idea what I was in for.

Turns out, none of us did. In the beginning, there were four of us looking for a space...
that we could put on three completely different plays... and run them in rep (a different play
every day). We had to work fast because John and Gena were scheduled to go to Greece in a
few months to shoot Paul Mazursky’s, The Tempest.
We found a small rehearsal hall in Hollywood and started making plans while putting
the word out that we needed help.
As people began trickling in, it was my job as co-producer, to sit down with everyone
who came in and make sure he or she was in the right place. By that, I mean several things...
They had to understand there was no money to be made. I was supposed to figure out whether
or not they would fit in and work well with the others. Not everyone is suited to work on a
structure-free (and salary free) project like this. John wouldn’t assign titles to anyone at first,
which was understandably confusing to most. Nearly everyone who walked through the doors
said something like, “I’m a stage manager” or “I’m a costume designer” or “I wanna be an
actor”. I’d have to come back with, “Can you swing a hammer? Why don’t you start over there
and see what happens or where you fit in from there.”
It wasn’t until a couple of months later when we were close to an opening (and a
program pamphlet) that John and the program designers assembled to figure out everyone’s
title.
 45

I don’t remember exactly when I first learned that John was ill. I think shortly after I
arrived from Montréal. Turns out, years before I knew John, he had contracted infectious
hepatitis, became extremely jaundiced and was down for months. His doctors warned him
against drinking alcohol as he had a damaged liver. As many of us know, John enjoyed
drinking, sometimes a lot, but never over a long period. He was in no way an alcoholic drinker.
From where I sat, his drinking never got in the way of his work or anything for that matter.
That was never a problem. But periodic drinking over many years slowly broke the camel’s
back. He now had cirrhosis of the liver. The only apparent symptoms were a slight swelling of
his stomach. He usually felt pretty good.
One afternoon, he pointed to his belly as if making fun of it, then after a long beat said,
“The doctors gave me a year or so... but what do they know.”
I can tell you this, everyone went about their work and kept their focus on the plays as if
nothing was wrong.
 46

Truth was, most of us didn’t want to believe it. But it was front and center for Gena.
John and I often stayed up late at the house, talking, playing music, or doing whatever. Well,
one morning I walked into the kitchen to get some coffee and ran into a wall of angry women.
Gena, Lady (her mom), Xan (their daughter) and Catharine (the house keeper) all turned and
faced me.
Gena stepped forward. “Bo! John didn’t get to bed until four this morning! He’s
exhausted. He’s working long, hard hours. And he’s 52 years old with a failing liver, a prime
candidate for a heart attack and if he didn’t have anyone to stay up with... He wouldn’t stay up!
Okay? I don’t want you staying up late with John anymore!”
“Gena, I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. It won’t happen again. You’re right.” And
believe me, after that, if John stayed up much past midnight, it wasn’t with me! Two and a half
months later, there were over two hundred actors, stagehands and people just wanting to help,
 47

all working for free, who had successfully converted this odd space into one of the most
innovative theaters in town.
Jim Eric (The Bach Train) came up with the most brilliant stage design ever. The stage
was L-shaped with geometrically suggested walls and a narrow alleyway that ran deep
backstage. The seating was fantastic. At the very back of the theater were bleacher-type seats
facing the stage at a 45-degree angle. In front of those were three different heights of swivel
chairs, also at 45 degrees, the shortest ones being closest to the stage. This enabled the audience
to follow the actors' movement on this very wide, L-shaped stage.

Each of the plays had a quadraphonic sound (4-channel, surround sound) design unlike
anything I've ever heard. To this day, I think it's some of the best sound work I've ever done.
The music cues were rich and included several songs that John and I co-authored like, "Just
One Moment In Time" (track #4). And the lobby...with its lipstick red carpet, displayed an
array of artwork surrounded by walls filled with Joan Almond and Steve Reisch photos
depicting the theater’s construction.
 48

Bo and sister Joan Almond

Word quickly spread that three plays directed by John Cassavetes were about to open.
Three Plays of Love and Hate became the hottest ticket in town. There were no give-aways or
comp tickets for reviewers or for any of the Hollywood big guns. Only those working on the
plays got comp tickets. Everybody else had to stand in line to buy a ticket and they were cheap.
For $4.50 (evening) or $2.50 (matinee) you could see a three-act play with Jon Voight, Gena
Rowlands, Michael McGuire or Peter Falk, to name a few.
It was quite an event. When approached by a cable company to shoot the plays at a
whopping $2 million per play, John declined the offer, telling us all, “It’s not about money.
Look what we’ve done. Look how happy everyone is. Why change anything? Why change the
intention of what we’re doing here?” And that was the end of that.
 49

John was so totally amazing. He had fucking blinders on. He’d go right to the heart of
the creative process and nothing else mattered. Not even money. As a matter of fact, he didn’t
like money much. He really did believe that it changed the intention of things.
How many people do you know, even if they believed that to be true, would stick to
their guns in the throes of trying to get a project on? My guess... No one.
We knew from the outset that the plays could only run for five weeks because John and
Gena had to leave on a certain date for Greece to shoot The Tempest.
After playing for five weeks to sell out crowds, we were approached by a New York
firm to take at least two of the three plays to the Big Apple.
That was an exciting prospect to most of us, but again, John wasn’t crazy about the
whole thing and said, “That could be good... That could be good”. The place was dead quiet.
Then, “Look, we created a hell of an event, right? Right...? We did it and it’s over. Walk away.
Let’s just walk away.” And that’s what we did. No one tried to recover any of the equipment or
decor that we invested in the little theater. All our rentals were returned and we simply
followed his suggestion... and just walked away. It was yet another amazing event I would
 50

never forget.
A few days after John and Gena left the house for Greece, I hopped on a plane to
Vancouver, British Columbia to work as the Music Director/Composer on the Paul Almond
feature, Ups and Downs.

Paul wrote the script, based on seven stories written by students at Bishop’s College
School and was set to shoot the film at Saint Michael’s University School in Victoria, British
Colombia. We were going to shoot it at the prep school while it was in session and cast it with
actual students and teachers at that facility. No professional actors.
We did have to go outside the school to cast one of the roles. The Jed character was a
school nerd who would secretly sneak off campus to rehearse with his rock‘n roll band. My
 51

first task was to find that character. He had to be the lead singer, ideally, play a guitar and act to
a certain degree. I went on a couple of Vancouver radio stations and put out the word. That
resulted in having to audition about twenty-some-odd bands.
That’s where I met Bobbi Permanent, aka Robert Pollard.

He was the front man in a group called “The Keys” which was one of the hottest new
wave/punk bands in British Columbia. Bobbi was about 15 years my junior, but we instantly hit
it off. Besides his being an actor in Ups and Downs, Bobbi and I had to compose the title song,
which his band was set to perform in the final scene of the film
We set up a music room in what once was a weight room beneath the school gym.
Using a Teac Porta-Studio 4-track recorder, Bobbi and I wrote and recorded the song “Ups and
Downs” as a demo. Everyone loved it. The plan was then to re-record it at Legacy Studios in
Victoria, but this time, using his band members. So, that’s what we did.
Two weeks later, we were to shoot the Annual School Dance sequence, which was the
 52

film’s final scene. That afternoon, after listening to our new master of “Ups and Downs”
against our basement demo, I had to make a difficult decision. Bobbi and I talked it over and
with Paul Almond’s permission, decided to use the basement demo as the playback master
instead of the studio master. The band members were devastated because they were playing on
it and the studio master did sound much better. All I could say to them was, “Do you want
people coming out of the theater saying the song had a good sound or had a good feel?” They
weren’t terribly happy but went along with the decision. The demo that Bobbi and I made
ourselves had a much better feel and sounded more like a live performance.

As a side note, a year or so later (1984), that song won Bobbi and me the Canadian
Academy Award (The Genie) for Best Original Song.
I can safely say that had I never worked with John Cassavetes, I probably wouldn’t have
made the decision to toss out a polished studio master in favor of a rough demo simply because
it felt better.
 53

While we were shooting the film, I had to collaborate with several students and an
almost non-existent school choir to write and record three pieces of music that were slated to be
performed live on camera. I don’t have the space here to go into the particulars, but I must say,
my time at Saint Michael’s University School was simply golden. A really sweet time.

With the film in the can, we all returned to Montréal. Paul and his editors went to work
cutting the film. I had met the beautiful Leslie Hope during the shoot and we had fallen in love
 54

and were constantly in touch by phone.

Leslie Hope

Bobbi left his band and moved to Montréal. Paul wanted Bobbi and me to write the rest
of the music for Ups and Downs so, once again, a studio was set up in one of the sub-levels of
the Almond’s house. We purchased a slew of new equipment, including a TASCAM 8 Channel
recorder and a Sony mixing console. We bought a Korg Poly-6 keyboard and an old wood
Ludwig drum kit.
Between Bobbi and myself, we could play or synthesize just about anything and we
went to work. One of the first pieces of music we wrote for the film, in which we sang and
played all the parts, was a tongue-in-cheek love song entitled, “Tru Luv” [NOTE: also later
used in Love Streams] (track #19). And then, during the eight-month editing period, we went on
to write and record a total of fifty-two music cues for the film... all in our little studio up on
Redpath Crescent! If things weren’t good enough, they only got better when Leslie moved to
 55

Montréal.
Besides writing and recording music with Bobbi... in our own private studio...
overlooking one of the greatest cities on the planet… I was madly in love. It was a wonderful
time. The very best.

Bo and Bobbi in studio

Several months later, I got a call from John. He was prepping his next film, Love
Streams and wanted me to come down and do the music and the sound. Things had changed
while I’d been in Montréal. I had a studio now. And a partner in music. I knew if I committed
to doing the music and the sound for John, I would be away from the Montréal scene for about
 56

a year.
“How about I come down after the film is shot and do the music?”
“I need you here to do the music and the sound.”
I explained my new situation and we went back and forth on the phone for nearly an
hour and a half. It basically came to John drawing a line, “Bo, it’s all or nothing.” But I was
adamant about my new situation and the call ended with a sad, “Well, I guess we have nothing
to talk about.”
I’d never turned down John before. It was a terrible, terrible feeling, but I felt so
strongly about the partnership with Bobbi and the studio, I had no choice.
As it happened, I had introduced Leslie to John on an earlier trip to Los Angeles and he
immediately cast her in one of Love Streams’ smaller roles. So as it ironically turned out, Leslie
flew to L.A. to work on the film while I was in Montréal, feeling that I was really missing out.
Meanwhile, John hired Mike Denecke to do the sound and Elmer Bernstein to do the music.
C’est la vie.

Ah, but it didn’t end there. About ten days after that, I got a call from Al Ruban. He was
having a problem with Mike Denecke’s approach to the sound. I knew Mike. He was a really
brilliant guy. Not just as a sound mixer, but also as an inventor (i.e., the Denecke Smart Slate).
I think Mike wanted to shoot in stereo and maybe complicate things by incorporating some new,
maybe even digital, sound and sync ideas. Well, John and Al are strictly old school and didn’t
 57

know what the fuck to do, so they offered me a grand a week to come out and act as the sound
liaison.
I jumped on it! Leslie was there and, shit, I wanted to be “in the soup.” I flew out a few
days later and it was great. Like old home week. I think it was during the second or third week
when Leslie and I decided to get married. We told no one and flew to Las Vegas the next
afternoon with Phedon Papamichael (the Art Director and John’s crazy Greek cousin), who
offered to be our Best Man, and we tied the knot.
Right after leaving the Justice of the Peace’s office, Phedon took us to Caesars Palace.
Within twenty or thirty minutes, Phedon won enough money at the Blackjack table to
completely take over the upstairs Feast Room and we ate all the pheasant, duck, roast beef and
Dom Perignon we could hold. It was there I realized that, unchecked, Phedon was a total wild
man. We loved him. We were back in L.A. by eight that evening.
A few days later, during the crew lunch break, Mike Denecke came storming out of
John’s house with his arms waving wildly in the air, “I’m outta’ here... It’s all yours!” And I
quickly retorted with, “I don’t want it, bud.” He didn’t even stop to talk about it. He was gone.
And right in the middle of a shooting day. I turned around and there was Al and John... looking
at me as if... ‘whaddo we do now?’ Christ.
With my thumb up my butt, I took over mixing the film. Exactly what I didn’t want to
do.
And the music?? Bernstein had that in his pocket.
Well, not exactly. I was in my fourth week of mixing and we were about to wrap for the
night. John and Al called me into the (Cassavetes) house. Everyone was a little tense. Bernstein
was supposed to have turned in some kind of operetta outline or temp track for Gena’s dream
sequence and John couldn’t reach him. Minutes later, John finds out he went to Europe without
letting anyone know.
This piece of music was supposed to be completed and ready for playback (music
played back as actors lip sync during filming) in less than three weeks! John made a long
distance call and fired him on the spot.
 58

Then, “Bo, can you write and record an operetta in two weeks?” Without thinking I
replied, “Sure.” The truth was, I didn’t even know what an operetta was... not really. They
hired Richard Lightstone, a talented mixer Dermot Stoker (our key grip) and I knew from
Canada and he took over the sound.
I was now the Love Streams’ music man. My first task was to come up with an operetta
to be played back on set in two weeks. I was going to need some help. John knew all about the
Montréal studio and my partnership with Bobbi. He’d heard a lot of the music we had done
together and loved the fact that Bobbi played a lot of instruments. I wanted to involve Bobbi
with the project.
At first, John wasn’t crazy about the idea, but finally came around. I called Bobbi and
he began preparing to come to L.A. John set me up in a music room with a piano near Warner
Bros Studios in Burbank.
An operetta, an operetta... Good Lord, I had to come up with an operetta... or something
like it.
Once again, I was on unfamiliar ground and wasn’t sure where to start. I definitely
didn’t want to listen to any operettas or copy anything, so I did as John suggested, “What is an
operetta to you? Write what you think it is... Simple.”
Two or three days later, I had a melodic structure that sounded like an “operetta”... to
me. I liked it. I played it for John. Yes!
 59

We went right to work and four and a half hours later, it was done! And we really liked
it! Bobbi arrived from Montréal and helped me record it in Le Chateau Studios using their
piano and then I orchestrated it using a synthesizer.
In the script, three people are singing the piece... Gena, Seymore Cassel (playing her ex-
husband) and their twelve-year old daughter.
 60

On the day we were to record the vocals, Gena mentioned she wasn’t terribly
comfortable about singing. I told her she could speak it if she wanted.
Well, as soon as the tape was rolling, she came around and sang it, with beautiful
feeling. It was simply perfect. Seymore’s part and their daughter’s part were sung by session
singers, which worked out fine. ”The Love Streams Operetta” (track #11) exceeded even my
own expectations. We’d written and recorded an operetta! Imagine that.
The crew reconvened after a two-week hiatus at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and we
shot the dream sequence to playback. It was a success and at the end of the day John called a
wrap on the film.
If the experience of shooting Love Streams wasn’t a big enough adventure, John
decided to edit the film in New York. The reason being he wanted to direct Meade Roberts’
stage play, Huey, in a small theater during the editing process.
John, Gena and their three kids got rooms at the Wyndham Hotel in midtown and set up
cutting rooms there as well. John also wanted us to do the music in New York. That sounded
great, but how? We needed a space to work out of and recording equipment, not to mention our
many instruments. So, we made some plans.
Bobbi flew from L.A. to Montréal and packed up our entire studio, including our tape
machines (recorders), mixing boards, a stack of rack-mounted effects and gizmos, mics and mic
stands, about ten guitars, guitar amplifiers, our keyboards, a complete drum set, etc., etc., etc...
into two big vans and he and Joanne, who was now my ex, God love her, drove them both
down to New York City. How amazing was that?
They arrived within the week at the Cannon Films Building on 57th and Madison
Avenue at five thirty in the morning. Love Streams was Cannon’s first artistic film venture and
they went out of their way to give us whatever we needed. First off, they set Bobbi and me up
in a couple of rooms at the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West and for a music room, they
gave us this huge projection room on the eighth floor above Madison Avenue. It was hard to
keep a straight face. Our new music room was up and running in no time.
 61

During the first two or three weeks, there wasn’t a whole lot to do. We had fun running
around the city and made occasional visits to the cutting rooms to watch the film being
assembled.

Sometimes we went on theater scouts with John and Meade and sometimes we went out
and just had a good time. I found Manhattan to be the most exciting place I’d ever been,
especially being on a mission with an expense account.
It wasn’t long before they found a theater on the Lower West Side and everyone went to
work. There were readings and auditions. Auditions and readings, day and night. Bobbi and I
sat in on some of that, but were soon experimenting with new ideas or trying something at
John’s request. We transferred some of those ideas to 35mm mag and cut them into the film.
Some stayed, most didn’t. We began slotting in some of the source music cues (music
supposedly coming from a radio or phonograph) with some of our catalog (already recorded)
tunes, that we had earlier agreed upon such as, “Tru Luv” from Ups and Downs, “Almost”
 62

from Bookie, “Only A Little Lonely” from The Basement Tapes and “A Piece of the Pie” (track
#7), which John and I had recently written and recorded.
As time went on and the music cues began adding up, our sound track became more
diverse. The music in Love Streams was definitely richer than in earlier films and certainly
more helter skelter, which seemed appropriate to us all, especially to John.
Weeks later, things intensified. Woody Harrelson and Carol Kane were cast in the lead
roles of Huey and rehearsals started off with a bang. John worked his editing time around the
plays. We were asked to help with the music and sound, but quickly determined that the play
required very little music or sound designing. It was just one of those things... maybe like an
early Cassavetes movie... The play was gritty and stark and music seemed to get in the way.
We made up some linear background sounds that subtly played under a few scenes and that was
it.
A few weeks after that, John began spending more time with us and things started
happening. First, John and I finished a song we had conceived in Los Angeles called, “Love
Cannot Stay” (track #9), which of all the songs we’d co-authored turned out to be our very
favorite. Then, on two separate occasions, when trying to express an idea, John began tinkling
and banging on the piano. I asked him to do it several times. Then, I took what made the most
sense, and with a few minor changes, played it back on the Korg synthesizer (adjusted to sound
like an oboe and strings).
John stood up with a huge smile and shouted, “That’s it! That’s it!” And we put it in the
film. Not exactly what I would have come up with, but it worked. That’s how we
communicated most of the time. You would do whatever it took to express an idea or feeling
and it was up to the other person to shut up and listen.
The threads of music seemed to get more aggressive as we went along. And more
abrupt. John was musically driven as never before. He intentionally edited certain cues to come
in or go out abruptly, sometimes with reasons that escaped the rest of us.
“I’ll Leave It Up To You” was a raw song idea that Bobbi and I came up with in
Montréal. John latched on to the first time he heard it. “Let’s try it at the end of the film!” It
 63

was only a partial idea, missing half its lyric. I wanted to finish the lyric, re-record it, then put it
in. He was anxious to get it in. “Fine. Later. Right now, cut this in.” And so we did. He
absolutely loved it. Bobbi, John and I eventually finished writing the lyric and recorded a
completed version of “I’ll Leave It Up To You” (track #12).

Performing during shooting of the Love Streams Operetta

Weeks later, after the film’s end sequences had been re-cut, John left in a short piece of
the old demo that played over an exterior window shot. The music just popped in and popped
out underneath the violent rainstorm. Only John knows why. He would not take it out or fix it
in any way. He never explained why, other than saying, “Leave it alone. That’s it.”
Maybe this was a foreshadowing of what was to become in John’s life because about
forty-five seconds later, under the pounding thunder and lightning, the song resumes playing on
the living room juke box as Robert Harmon (John) stands alone in the window. This was the
final scene of Love Streams. Perhaps, John knew it was going to be his last picture. Or maybe
not. But when “I’ll Leave It Up To You” plays and the camera begins to pull away in the
downpour, that image of Robert (John) standing alone, waving goodbye gets to me every time.
It’s a personal thing. I can’t begin to tell you how many explanations I’ve heard about
 64

the film’s ending. The only thing I can say for sure about the closing scene is that John was
adamant about its structure and music. It’s different for me... When I see that remarkable mad
man in the window, waving at the camera with that wet, floppy hat...

…I wave back, filled with tons of gratitude and affection...

“Thanks, John. Thanks for being in my life.”
 65

Photos on pages 4, 10, 14, 18, 33, 34, 42, 44, 45, 47, 51, 53, 59, 63 by Joan Almond,

www.joanalmond.com

Photos on pages 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 by David Armstrong

Photo on page 46 by Steve Reisch

Text © 2013 Bo Harwood/Visa Versa Music Company

Book design by Denise Boiteau & David Stansfield

www.davidstansfield.com