Out of the Bottle

Apr 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Paul Myers

Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" is the most recent product of producer/composer/keyboardist David Frank's magic touch. Cowritten by Frank, Steve Kipner, and Pam Sheyne, the hit has put Frank back in the top ranks of pop producers. His past production successes have been equally impressive: Phil Collins's "Sussudio," Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You," and Steve Winwood's "Higher Love."

Frank's musical triumphs are largely due to his dedication and hard work. He may not share the sound of his Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building forebears, but he certainly shares their work ethic. Frank always makes time to learn his gear and study music composition from top to bottom. He also experiments constantly, pushing whatever system he's using to its fullest potential. "I've always experimented," he says. "I had a Farfisa organ, and I'd try to get electric guitar sounds out of it." Frank has maintained this diligent approach to music- and record-making throughout his 30 years in the business.

A WELL-ROUNDED EDUCATION

"Genie in a Bottle" and the world of teen pinup pop are a far cry from Frank's early musical career. As a young music student at the New England Conservatory, and later at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, he studied classical piano. But it was at Berklee that Frank received his introduction to electronic music. "My teacher," Frank recalls, "brought in [Wendy Carlos's] Switched-On Bach, which is a pretty influential synthesizer record. To this day, I still have thoughts of doing a synthesizer album of classical music, but then I think, 'No, I don't have time for that.'"

After Berklee, Frank played in a variety of Top 40 bands in the Boston area. On one momentous occasion, the bass player in one of his bands brought in an ARP Odyssey, and Frank's career was changed forever. "He put it in front of me and said, 'Here, play this,'" Frank remembers. "I had no idea how to use it. I played some standard like 'Misty' or something, and it sounded horrible. Still, I was hooked, and the next day I bought one. That was my first synthesizer."

LEARNING THE SYNTH ROPES

In 1979, Frank moved to Manhattan with nothing but the keyboards he'd accumulated. His first job was backing Frank Sinatra imitators at weddings with his ARP Odyssey and Fender Rhodes.

Frank soon developed an interest in Oberheim synths. As more gigs brought in more money, he expanded his keyboard collection to include an Oberheim X-A, DSX sequencer, and DMX drum machine, which he linked to his very first Minimoog.

"That setup was my 'thing,'" remembers Frank of his rig. "I used a Minimoog for the bass, and with the Oberheim DSX and DMX, I could have two different parts with four voices each. So I started programming with those. The DSX was a lot like a MIDI sequencer, except that there was no Velocity sensitivity and you had to start at the beginning each time you recorded something. When I got my DSX, I decided that I was going to figure out how to do everything that you could possibly do with this drum machine and sequencer. I was determined to use it to do something different from what other people had done. I wasn't just out to have a hit record. It was an intellectual challenge for me, as though I was still in school."

Frank's innovative approach to music-making bore fruit in the synthesizer-fueled '80s, when he hit the big time as one half of the System, a radical new funk band. Their cross-format hit, "Don't Disturb This Groove," vaulted Frank and singer Mic Murphy to the top of the charts in 1987.

Like many great inventions, the System was born of necessity and serendipitous timing. Frank recalls the events that led to his fortuitous pairing with Murphy: "One day I got a call from Lou Bolognese, who owned a 24-track studio in Long Island. He wanted me to do a session as a favor, and he offered me some studio time in return. I thought I'd just do some demos and sample commercials with the time, but Lou said, 'Why don't you do a song? You know, a dance song, a 12-inch. Just get a singer, you can do it!'"

Frank programmed a song in a few weeks, but he still needed a singer. Why not ask the girl upstairs? he thought. "The girl upstairs was Madonna," Frank explains. "This was in 1981, before she had a record deal. We were in a pickup band together, and she was the singer. We rehearsed in the same building, called the Music Building, on 37th Street and 8th Avenue. I was actually paid to write with her. I made $30 for four hours of work," he laughs.

Frank had only the title for the song, "Crimes of Passion." He brought in the future mogul to write some words and a melody. Then fate intervened. "We were all set to do it. But the night before we were going to cut the song, Madonna called me and asked if Steve Bray, her drummer, could be in on the session as coproducer. "I love Steve, but I knew he would want to put guitars on the track. I had visualized it as a synth-only song, which was still a bit of a novelty at that time."

The conflict meant that Madonna was out. "I called up Mic Murphy, a singer I knew," Frank continues. "He wrote a new melody for the song and changed the words to 'In Times of Passion.' We recorded and mixed all of it in one day. He took it to a friend of his, who cut an acetate, a 12-inch, and we got a record deal with Atlantic the next day."

Within a month, the System, as the two had hastily dubbed themselves, had a hit song. Not long after, their label (Atlantic Records' Mirage imprint) wanted another, and gave the duo a budget of $35,000. "We thought that might be the last amount of money we ever got, so we decided to keep most of it for ourselves and make the record as cheaply as possible. We kept $10,000 each, so we could only spend $15,000 on the album. Of course, we were doing it all by ourselves, so we could get away with that amount." One of the best-known songs from those sessions is 1982's "You Are in My System," a song that would become a hit for both the System and, later, singer Robert Palmer. Suddenly, Frank was in demand.