Early Life and The Strawberry Alarm Clock
Weitz was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1945 and at 6 months old moved to California. He took up playing piano and organ at an early age and at age 20 joined a rock group called Thee Sixpence as one of the singers and the organist. Three or four years older than everyone else, he had more definite musical ideas than his bandmates, as well as a more mature and professional outlook on music, which served them well the next four years. He also found something of a kindred musical spirit in Ed King, the band's lead guitarist.
Weitz was an able composer, and for the group's 1967 single on the all American label he turned in two songs, "The Birdman of Alkatrash", written just by him, and "Incense and Peppermints", a collaboration with King. The latter, turned over to another composer by the record's producer, became a #1 national hit for the group, newly christened Strawberry Alarm Clock. For the next three years, Weitz rode a whirlwind of dizzying success and frustrating attempts at a follow-up, though he did prove the single wasn't a fluke and wasn't to the credit of the lyricist by creating a top 30 hit called "Tomorrow". Weitz played some memorable keyboard parts on their first three albums, and on S.A.C.'s album Good Morning Starshine he showed himself in collaboration with King to be an able first-time producer.
Read more about this topic: Mark Weitz
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, strawberry, alarm and/or clock:
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (19081973)
“The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder.”
—Anthony Trollope (18151882)
“One of the joys our technological civilisation has lost is the excitement with which seasonal flowers and fruits were welcomed; the first daffodil, strawberry or cherry are now things of the past, along with their precious moment of arrival. Even the tangerinenow a satsuma or clementineappears de-pipped months before Christmas.”
—Derek Jarman (b. 1942)
“Dignity takes alarm at the unexpected sound of laughter.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Theyll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
Theyll tell the clock to any business that
We say befits the hour.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)