The High Notes: A Novel(28)

“Did everything just happen the way I think it did? He’s offering us both a contract, and I’m going to do two singles and eventually an album?” Boy stared at her in disbelief.

“And I’m doing an album and a tour.” She grinned broadly at him.

“Holy shit, I don’t believe it. We’re going to work for Clay Maddox, thanks to you.” Boy felt like he was dreaming. Joanne asked them if they would be able to change hotels that afternoon. She had a suite at the Plaza for each of them. She told them who to contact at the hotel. “The suites are yours until you finish recording, and after that, you’ll probably want to go home.” And the recordings would take time. Except that Iris had no home to go to, but she’d be there for quite a while to record the album. Boy had a studio apartment in Nashville, but he’d be in New York for some time too. And they were staying at the same hotel.

“I can’t believe it,” Iris said softly as they left. She owed the debt of a lifetime to Judd for giving her Clay’s direct number. She was going to write to him and tell him what had happened. And Boy had never expected something like this to happen when he offered to drive to New York with her. In her inimitable way, Iris had swept him along with her own good fortune, and shared it with him. His life had changed in an instant, thanks to her.



* * *



—

They went back to the hotel and packed their things, drove to the Plaza in Iris’s disreputable car, which they left with the doorman at the Plaza to have put in the garage. They looked like the Beverly Hillbillies moving into the hotel with their suitcases and guitars, and were escorted to their suites by an assistant manager. They were bowled over when they saw the suites Clay Maddox had treated them to. They were identical suites side by side, with a communicating door through their living rooms. They were very grand with a view of Central Park. They stood and looked at each other after the assistant manager left the room, and Boy started to laugh. He laughed so hard he couldn’t stop for a minute.

“Am I in a movie or what? Iris Cooper, you are one amazing woman. You sure hit the high notes on this one, and I was right. You are going to be a star, a great big beautiful star.”

“And so are you,” she said softly, smiling at him. It was nearly impossible to believe all that had happened to them in the last twenty-four hours. After nine years of nightmare tours and being exploited by her managers, and her father all her life, her dreams were coming true. It had only taken fifteen years to get there, and no one had ever said truer words than Boy when he looked at her.

“Baby, you paid your dues.” She wrote a song about it that night.





Chapter 8





Along with the luxuries Clay introduced Boy and Iris to, he expected them to work hard, which wasn’t unfamiliar to either of them. They were exactly the kind of talent he looked for. Young people who loved their music, had a passion for it, and an unquenchable thirst to play better each time, and learn everything they could. They both spent countless hours at the studios they’d been assigned, perfecting their craft and improving the songs they were singing, recording over and over again to get it right. They’d been assigned studios on the same floor, and visited each other occasionally during a break. There were two floors of studios in constant use. Famous artists who came and went all day and night.

Clay stopped by for a few minutes sometimes too, but he didn’t want them to feel that he was checking on them. He just enjoyed listening to them, and their progress on the recordings they were making. He had assigned separate producers to them, and they each had a backup band that Clay had chosen for them. The bands were what they needed to complement their voices. Clay had an unfailing ear for music, and an ability to spot raw talent, and turn singers who might have gone unnoticed into stars. It was like picking diamonds from the sand. He knew exactly what the audiences wanted and what they were waiting for.

He had dreamed of a career in music himself when he was young, growing up on a farm in Kentucky. He had gone to Nashville first, as a singer himself, and then New York, spent some time in L.A., and had discovered that he had a genius for finding talent in odd places. He had been doing it ever since.

He’d started by booking other singers he met into nightclubs, and he eventually gave up singing and became a booking agent. His first big win had been discovering Alice Blye, a huge star, until she died of an overdose, five years into her brilliant career. He’d found countless others who were legends now. That was his special gift, turning singers into stars, just as he was doing with Boy and Iris now. He always knew quality when he saw it, or heard it. He knew how to support young artists and help them grow. He watched over them like a loving father and protected them, shielded them, nurtured them. He was the exact opposite of Billy Weston and Glen Hendrix, who squeezed them like lemons, wore them down and brutalized them, and then threw them away, without getting out of them what he really should have, and helping them to polish their skills. Boy and Iris were thriving and blossoming under Clay’s loving care. It was almost a sacred mission to Clay. He would help them become all they could, and discover more than they ever knew they had in them, and then present them to the world. What he did was a blessing for everyone, the artist, the audience, not just himself, and he fought like a lion to protect them, sometimes even from the risks they took and the damage they did to themselves. He valued young artists who worked as hard as Iris and Boy. He had seen Iris working in the studio until midnight sometimes. She never wanted to leave until she felt she’d gotten the song, the music, and the arrangement just right.