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Jason Bentley DJing the Playboy Playhouse in May attends the Playboy Playhouse on May 9, 2019 in Hollywood, California. – Erik Voake/Getty Images

Jason Bentley Explains Why He’s Stepping Down at KCRW
The L.A. public radio staple is inching away from the airwaves
By Merle Ginsberg – July 1, 2019

After a decade as KCRW’s music director and host of Morning Becomes Eclectic and Metropolis, Jason Bentley has become as much a part of the fabric of L.A. as ice blended coffees, chopped salads, and power pilates. But on August 31, the velvet-voiced 48-year-old will sign off of MBE for the last time.

While he’s slowing down, he’s not going away entirely. He’ll still host Metropolis on Saturday nights–but, for the always-busy Bentley, that’s practically retirement. As for what he’ll do with the other six days of the week, he isn’t exactly sure just yet.

We caught up with Bentley at Gjusta, near his home in Venice, to discuss the details of his departure and reflect on his radio career so far.

How did you get to KCRW in the first place? Take us back in time.

Since I announced my last day a few weeks ago, I’ve been reflecting. It got me pretty nostalgic. I started in the summer of ’88, volunteering after graduating Santa Monica High School. My parents were big record collectors, my dad took me record shopping at Rhino Records, and I always loved radio. I had a makeshift radio station in my room as a kid!

So you started on the airwaves in college?

I got my first radio show at U. Mass Amherst. I called it Nomad–it was really just a riff on Tom Schnabel’s MBE at KCRW. By ’92, I had come back here and went to Loyola Marymount. I eventually became GM of their station, volunteering at KCRW at the same time. Then that year, I got a regular KCRW air shift, Metropolis, a spectrum of electronic music, from Massive Attack to Portishead to drum and bass. Then I started playing clubs.

Did people tell you growing up that you had a great voice?

I never wanted it to be about my voice. I wanted it to be about music first, culture first. The voice is useful–and that’s part of being successful in radio–but that’s not what I’m passionate about.

After all this time, why step down from MBE and your role as music director right now?

I always had the idea I would leave after ten years as music director and MBE host. Nic Harcourt did it longer than that, but for Chris [Douridas] and Tom [Schnabel], it was ten years. I’d rather call it on my terms than hang out too long.

There’s a lot of change at the station right now: The new studio, new staff. My tenure–what I call “the basement years”–feels like it was this golden era, mostly before streaming.

There’s no drama about my leaving, no negativity. It’s purely intuition.

No clear plans for the future yet, though?

Well, I hope I can pivot to something interesting. I’m considering getting my own label deal, signing bands.

And I want to continue to produce events. I loved doing the public programs we created. A real highlight was the outdoor summer series we at the Annenberg Space for Photography. To see that go from concept to 5,000 people loving it, I don’t want to lose that. Maybe it will be “Jason Bentley Presents.”

Didn’t you do the booking for all those artists who played live in the 11 o’clock hour on MBE?

Curating all that has been wonderful. To be part of their careers is a real privilege. I helped Phoenix on their way, Massive Attack, Florence and the Machine, the XX. I heard Adele early on. Now that she’s getting divorced, I know she’ll come back and do a new record with some real heartbreak!

The KCRW audience is so influential. Studio execs, people in advertising, writers–the creative community. And, you know, I’m still going to do Metropolis for Saturday nights. And trust me, when it comes to booking talent now, we get a lot of calls!

You got married this past October to your girlfriend Venus Faas. Did that play into your decision to leave?

Sure. My wife and I do want to start a family. My priorities are changing. I want ownership of my own projects, a vested interest in things I’m creating. Being in public media at a non-profit is wonderful–you’re a folk hero and get high fives all day long–but you don’t own anything at the end of the day.

Will you stay involved with the station outside of doing Metropolis?

Yes, but I don’t really know the extent. I’m available for whatever they need, to interview new candidates, mentor people.

The search for the new music director could take six months. Anne Litt will do it in the interim. My gut tells Anne wants to take on MBE on a regular basis, but we’re gonna split the positions. The music director needs to focus on the industry part of it. Working with managers, labels, artists. It’s a lot of work.

How are people reacting to your leaving?

I’ve gotten so many heartfelt letters and comments. It’s important for me to get it right. I’m not going to some big industry job–I wish I had some clever answer to what my plans are. I want to take a bow politely. It’s too important to me, too much of who I am.

We’re putting out a double vinyl live session release for the end of my tenure. I want to pitch it and sell it as I’m going out, because it’s about raising money for the station. I do not want it to be about me. You’ll only be able to buy it over the air.

To all the fans and listeners who love your insight and passion, what wisdom do you have to impart?

I have about 50 KCRW coffee mugs, and I love the sayings on them. It’s always something about staying committed to the arts. One of them reads: “Fear no art.” I’ll leave you with that.

By Anita Gates

Jan. 1, 2019

Norman Gimbel, the wildly versatile Brooklyn-born lyricist who won a Grammy Award for a blues hit, “Killing Me Softly With His Song”; an Oscar for a folk ballad, “It Goes Like It Goes” (from “Norma Rae”); and television immortality for the bouncy series themes to “Happy Days” and “Laverne and Shirley,” died on Dec. 19 at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 91.

The death was confirmed by his son Tony, managing partner of his father’s music publishing company, Words West.

Any attempt to categorize the elder Mr. Gimbel’s musical leanings would be complicated. He was famous for the English lyrics of “The Girl From Ipanema,” Antonio Carlos Jobim’s 1964 bossa nova hit originally written in Portuguese. He also wrote English lyrics for Michel Legrand’s music from Jacques Demy’s romantic 1964 French film “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” most notably “I Will Wait for You” (“Till you’re here beside me, till I’m touching you”) and for what became “I Will Follow Him,” a solid hit about teenage adoration sung by Little Peggy March (age 15) in 1963.

Among his early hits, “Sway” (“When marimba rhythms start to play”) was clearly Latin-accented, even when Dean Martin sang it, and “Canadian Sunset,” recorded by Andy Williams, became a jazz standard. “Ready to Take a Chance Again” (from “Foul Play,” 1978), which earned an Oscar nomination, was a wistfully hopeful love song. Jim Croce’s 1973 hit “I Got a Name” (“Movin’ me down the highway, rollin’ down the highway, movin’ ahead so life won’t pass me by”) was quintessential folk rock.

Mr. Gimbel worked with David Shire on “Norma Rae,” but his most frequent collaborator may have been Charles Fox.

“Killing Me Softly,” which brought Mr. Gimbel and Mr. Fox the song-of-the-year Grammy after Roberta Flack released it in 1973, had a conflict-ridden back story. Lori Lieberman, a California bistro singer, had recorded the song first (Mr. Fox and Mr. Gimbel were her producers and managers) and she said that the lyrics (among them, “I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud”) had been based on a poem she had written about attending an emotionally stirring Don McLean concert.

The song, which became a hit again with the Fugees’ hip-hop cover in the 1990s, is now sometimes listed as written “in collaboration with” Ms. Lieberman.

Norman Gimbel was born in Brooklyn on Nov. 16, 1927. His parents — Morris Gimbel, who was in the restaurant business, and Lottie (Nass) Gimbel — were Jewish immigrants from Austria.

Norman, who studied English at Baruch College and Columbia University, began his career working for the music publisher David Blum and for Edwin H. Morris & Company.
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His first hit was “Ricochet,” written with Larry Coleman and Joe Darion and recorded by Teresa Brewer in 1953. The saucy, country-tinged pop song (“If you’re careless with your kisses, find another turtle dove”) rose to No. 2 on the charts.

Mr. Gimbel soon moved to Los Angeles, where he worked more widely in television and film, teaming up with Mr. Fox on the themes to the hit sitcoms “Laverne and Shirley” (“Schlemiel, schlimazle, Hassenpfeffer Incorporated”) and “Happy Days” (“Sunday, Monday, happy days”) and the 1970s series “Wonder Woman” and “The Paper Chase.”

He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

Back in New York, Mr. Gimbel wrote lyrics for two Broadway musicals, “Whoop-Up” (1958) and “The Conquering Hero” (1961), working with the composer Moose Charlap. The first show, set on an American Indian reservation, earned two Tony nominations; the second, starring Tom Poston as a fake war hero, had a book by Larry Gelbart. Despite positive reviews, both musicals flopped at the box office and closed early.

Both of Mr. Gimbel’s marriages, to the fashion model Elinor Rowley and to Victoria Carver, a lawyer, ended in divorce. In addition to his son Tony, survivors include another son, Peter; two daughters, Nelly Gimbel and Hannah Gimbel Dal Pozzo; and four grandchildren.

Mr. Gimbel gave relatively few interviews. In a six-minute segment as a contestant (alongside Burt Bacharach and Jerry Leiber) on “Play Your Hunch,” an early Merv Griffin game show, he spoke only three words.

That verbal reticence, though, served him well professionally. “Norman had the extraordinary ability with his lyrics to capture the human condition with never an excessive word to describe a feeling or an action,” Mr. Fox, the composer, said in a statement after his writing partner’s death.

He went on to praise Mr. Gimbel’s ability to conjure an entire song with its first line, and he offered examples: “Tall and tan and young and lovely.” “Strumming my pain with his fingers.” “If it takes forever, I will wait for you.”
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My first favorite band. So so under appreciated.  They are coming around and I will be there to see them.  Probably the last time :-(.  Anyway life moves on, right?

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S03UOkb9zU4[/embedyt]

Some other songs to check out.

1. Uncertain Smile – Master Piece!
2. The whole Soul Mining album…

http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/