Below, you can read our interview with Les & Loretta of California, and listen to their album Postcard From London. Check out our full music review of Postcard From London here.
Q: Hello Les & Loretta! It’s great to reconnect. Postcard From London is such a big project – 22 tracks! What inspired you to take on something of this scope?
Les: 22 songs make a statement. That statement now extends beyond anything that we realized upon completion of the album. These days, pop releases are often expected to be “playlist-ready” after just 30 minutes. “Postcard From London” is deliberately expansive. Its very length is part of its concept. A reviewer observed: “The album isn’t meant to sound like a quick stream, but rather like a day in life – car, kitchen, plane, train, beach, as the lyrics suggest. Thirteen of the tracks are original compositions, nine are covers, and the two aren’t neatly separated, but rather interwoven, so that this effect repeatedly occurs: “Wait, is this a classic or a new song that could just as easily have been released in the late ’60s?”
Loretta: We’d like to share with you that our biggest audience is between 18 and 34 years of age, as well as Beatle fans of all ages, who both love the Beatles and know Les from his stardom as “George Harrison” in Beatlemania. One of the things we pride ourselves in is bringing the retro concept into modern production that they are loving.
Q: The album blends 13 originals with 9 covers. How did you decide which songs deserved a place on the record?
Les: It wasn’t easy since our company owns over 500 copyrights, including over 200 original songs.
Loretta: We spent a lot of time together discussing and evaluating that long list of songs. Once we decided on the overall story and concept, the selection became a bit easier.
As reviewer Phil Gottlieb observed, “The… covers don’t copy the originals, but sit down at the table and say, “This is how we would tell this story today with our own sonic universe.” The cover songs remain recognizable, but they now stand alongside [our] originals, which are so stylistically close that they could easily be included in a single [Spotify, iTunes or Amazon Music] setlist.”
Q: There are so many guest musicians involved — from Joe Pecorino and Mitch Weissman to members of The Left Banke. How did all of these collaborations come together?
Les: Yes, the list of collaborators for this particular album is quite long – there are 22 of them. Joe Pecorino and Mitch Weissman were very gifted entertainers and frontmen of Beatlemania, and Justin McNeil was the drummer of the original cast of Beatlemania; they, along with myself, were the original Cast on Broadway and beyond. With my already experienced producer hat on, I took them into the recording studio in 1976, to see just exactly what they were capable of. And “All You Need Is Love”, despite being our first attempt at recording together, shows charm and the potential that turned out to be a smash hit Broadway show.
Although we were backed by an eight-piece orchestra on Broadway, I used my Mellotron Mk II to represent the orchestral parts on the All You Need Is Love track. And let’s not forget my collaborations with the late Phil Spector (working with me and I working with him), who was my neighbor in New York City; we were both from the Bronx, and we remained friends for quite some time. His piano contribution on “Come to Me”, is distinctive alongside John Hawken, who played the Mellotro,n and Mick Ronson, who played the guitar. It remains, to the best of my knowledge, the only time these particular individuals appeared together on a recording, as they did not know each other but they sounded great together.
During the 1980s, I was developing a number of projects as a producer, one of which was a band called the Allies, which included Jim Dessey (Long Island Bands Whiplash and Innocence) and Rick Bloom (another Beatlemania alumnus), and myself. The three of us appear on “You Belong To Me”. And I have overdubbed Loretta so that the past is now present in the future.
Mort Silver and Larry Davidson, the horn section of Beatlemania, also appear on “You Belong to Me,” further recalling the Beatles connection. As a matter of anecdote, John Lennon once remarked to me during the height of the success of the Broadway show when we had a chance encounter on the streets of Manhattan: “Once you’ve been a Beatle, it’s hard to get out!”
Of course, I was also developing the California catalogue at that time, which included “summer fun medley“. I was very fortunate to live and work in New York City and London, England, and worked with these people as the years flipped by. In fact, as may be generally known from Wikipedia, I produced “I Could Make It Last Forever” originally, for the Left Banke for Bell Records, but it remained unreleased at the time.
Some of these collaborators have remained friends for many decades through the present day. Others have passed away and left wonderful memories which we try to share in this album.
Q: Two of the tracks are co-written by Michael Brown, marking his final compositions. What was it like finishing and releasing those songs?
Les: It was great seeing Michael, Yvonne, and their two twin boys, Skylar and Adrian after so many years.
Originally, those songs were released as instrumentals as Michael requested, and I, Les, was enthusiastic to accommodate his musical ambitions. His desire to do an instrumental record around his compositions had been a lifelong dream of his, since 1972, when he first approached me with the idea, and I knew that I could help him realize that dream.
That record was released in 2015, entitled Les Fradkin and Michael Brown: “Finale”. Michael passed away in 2015. Loretta and I felt that the songs could be reimagined for a California recording with lyrics.
We also added additional musical content that was not present in the original instrumentals and composed new music that would complement our lyrics and Michael’s top-line melody.
The music is quite different from the way the songs were realized in 2014 when Michael and I recorded them. These are brand-new versions with lyrics, done as California imagined them to be but to do justice to the spirit of what Michael intended.
Q: With songs like “Perfect World” and “As Eagles Fly In The Night,” the album mixes optimism with reflection. Was there a central message you wanted to convey across the project?
Loretta: The message is the story of our life. And as we say in our press release, “the past is present in the future“.
Q: The album art was shot at the crossing near Abbey Road Studios where Les worked over 50 years ago. Can you tell us about the significance of that location and the hidden “clues” you mention on the cover?
Les: Mr. Phil Gottlieb opined: “The Abbey Road feel of the cover isn’t meant as a ‘We were there too’ pose, but rather as a statement: ‘We come from this school. We know that pop is more than three chords and a hook. We also know that studio work is art.’ The fact that Les Fradkin himself worked in the same studios over 50 years ago lends credibility to the gesture.”
As for clues, aren’t we surprised sometimes when magic happens right before our eyes. Beatle fans love to look for clues. The more we looked at the picture, the more we saw clues pile up one after another! That bus stopped for us to cross the road, and we didn’t prepare anything before we crossed the road, or even if a bus would be there. So here are a few of the clues that turned out to be something more than a coincidence: listen to the album entirely while you check the numbers and letters on the Waterloo red bus! For starters, Abbey Road was the Beatles’ 13th albu,m and “Abbey Road “ where the picture was taken has nine letters in it. 13 and nine are on the bus on the upper right corner.
Here’s another clue for you all: There are 22 songs on the album, 13 originals and nine covers. Note the number 139 on the bus, and there are 22 guest musicians
on the album. 22 songs 13+9 is 22.
The number of letters in the names of the musicians on the album all seem to add up to 13 or nine. You can easily do the counting. The names of the musicians are shown on the Bandcamp page.
Q: The record revisits your history with Beatlemania and the early days of California. How do you see this album fitting into your legacy as artists?
Les: It has been said by Phil Gottlieb on our behalf: “Pop history is not a museum, but an open system. You can still write new songs in the language of the ’60s in 2024/25 if you’re emotionally sincere. “Postcard From London” does just that.”
As a matter of fact, we choose to write in that style and approach.
Q: How do you personally measure success for an album like Postcard From London?
Les : We have put out a lot of releases over the years. But this one means a lot to us because it’s the story of our musical life. And I look back at my days at Abbey Road Studios through to now with both fond affection and hopes that this album will point towards a bright future.
Loretta: It’s amazing that Les and I didn’t meet back then because we were both in Europe and London at the exact same time! In fact, we were there several times and still didn’t find each other until much later.
And how did we find each other? Because I was in charge of the entertainment for the Realtors Association, holding an event at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in October 1999.
The social committee asked me to get the Beatles for entertainment, and I said, “You can’t get the Beatles!”And then they said get the next best thing. After several calls around the US, trying to find the right Beatles tribute band for the event, who do you think answered my call? If you guessed Les Fradkin’s manager, you guessed correctly. So Postcard from London is about a look back at Les’s career, his relationship to the Beatles, and our career and marriage together. By the way, we got married one year later to the day at the Broadmoor Hotel.
Q: Any shout-outs or special thanks you’d like to include?
Les: A very special, thank you to all the different people many of whom my new personal who helped make this album possible: thank you to all the wonderful producers from back, then who taught me how to produce records: Mickie Most (the animals, Donovan, the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, Lulu, Herman’s Hermits, Mary Hopkin), Simon Napier-Bell (the Yardbirds Jeff Beck, Wham!, George Michael), Tony Macauley (Edison lighthouse), Joe Meek,
Phil Spector (the crystals, the Ronettes, the righteous Brothers, Ike & Tina Turner), George Martin (The Beatles) Ron Richards who produced the hollies for EMI, Jac Holzman (former president of Elektra Records whose generous support with Nonesuch records with me, gave me an immeasurable education in Baroque music), Andrew Oldham (The Rolling Stones), Steve Leber & David Krebs (Beatlemania Show Producers), Sandy Yaguda and Jack Carone (Musical directors of Beatlemania, who knew a contender when they saw one ) Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) not to mention my relationships with John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney, who factored pretty heavily in the reason we’re walking across Abbey Road on the cover. It certainly took us back to my past. And the most important? My wife Loretta Pieper Fradkin – she’s 1/2 of the California sound, 1/2 of the production, and my better half of my life.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
Loretta: For all those that are reading this article, the greatest gift you can give back to us is to listen while you look for the clues on the cover, buy it, and share it or gift it with friends and family. We thank you in advance!
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