New York, NY (Top40 Charts) In the winter of 1964, Virgin Islands native Scott Fagan arrived in New York City on a bus with just the clothes on his back, his acoustic guitar, eleven cents in his pocket and the number of a New York City songwriter given to him by his mother. He spent ten cents calling the number from a phone booth and found himself talking to Doc Pomus. A day later, after auditioning for Doc in his room at the Forrest Hotel, Scott acquired a manager, a mentor and a production deal.
Working out of their office in the penthouse of the Brill Building in the late '50s and early '60s, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman had already crafted a string of hits for Dion and the Belmonts ("A Teenager in Love"), Elvis ("
Suspicion" and "
Viva Las Vegas"),
Andy Williams ("Can't Get Used To Losing You"),
Ray Charles ("Lonely Avenue"), the
Drifters ("
Save The Last Dance For Me") and many more.
Scott says that, on hearing him sing, Doc "thought he'd discovered another
Bobby Darin." Pomus and Shuman would produce Scott's first singles for Columbia and Bell (both unreleased) and Scott co-wrote a song with them for Irma
Thomas , entitled 'I'm Gonna Cry Till My
Tears Run Dry' (also covered by
Linda Ronstadt). In 1965, Doc also set Scott to work recording demos of new songs he had written with another young protege of his, Venezuelan-American songwriter Joe Kookoolis, who would become Scott's songwriting partner for several cuts on his album, 'South Atlantic Blues.'
Among the songs Scott recorded for Doc was 'All For the Sake of Love.' Scott's version was never released. It was also never recorded by anybody else. The song is not even listed among the catalogue of Doc Pomus' songs assembled by the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.
This recording of 'All For the Sake of Love' was found completely by chance in a box of acetates uncovered by two of Scott's children at their family home in the summer of 2015. The acetate, likely the only recording of this song in existence, was transferred, restored and remastered by engineer
Jessica Thompson, who also remastered Scott's debut album 'South Atlantic Blues.'
A sumptuous evocation of a bygone era when singers, songs and songwriters seemed in perfect harmony, 'All For The Sake of Love' is an extraordinary thing--a newly-discovered and previously-unknown work by one of the most important American songwriters of the 20th Century.
Doc's daughter, Sharyn Felder, who produced A.K.A. Doc Pomus, the 2012 documentary about her father, describes 'All For the Sake of Love' as "a gorgeous gem of a song."
"I believe my father would be overjoyed knowing that Scott, his dear friend and very talented partner, has unearthed this recording fifty years after its creation."
'All For The Sake Of Love' is included as a bonus track on the upcoming reissue of Fagan's 1968 album, 'South Atlantic Blues,' out via Saint Cecilia Knows/lil'fish records on 20 November 2015.
