Lips to Lips and Dust to Dust

Vladimir Nabokov's story "Lips to Lips" (Usta k ustam) was published in 1956 (more than twenty years after it was written). His notes mention that at the time of publication "everybody who might have been suspected of remotely resembling the characters in the story was safely and heirlessly dead."

The story, about a would-be writer getting a story published (or a fragment of a story published) in a journal, which he is tricked into subsidizing, brings to mind a recording project I wrote about in 2007.

The experience was a positive one for me. As a novice arranger I got paid what I believe my work at the time was worth. Gene Hoots paid me $15 (in 1998 dollars) per hour for my work transcribing his songs from a shoebox of cassette tapes that he recorded, singing and playing on his electric piano.

I arranged the songs and instrumental pieces for string quartet, and we played a few concerts; Gene sat on the stage and a professional tenor sang the vocal numbers.

Since Gene was a local celebrity, a business owner, and a genuinely nice guy, there was a lot of community spirit involved in the project. His producer, a guy from Las Vegas, got a nice commission from Gene, and the recordings we made graced the jukebox in Gene's restaurant.

After the restaurant was sold the recording we made of Gene's music was no longer sold at the counter, and it was no longer in the jukebox, which is no longer there. The only place you are likely to hear the recording is in the homes or cars of the people who bought the CDs, if they still have working CD players.

Gene's obituary doesn't make direct reference to the CD, but it does mention a country song he wrote "making it to the Bill Board [sic] top 30 Country Music Charts." Here is a reference to it in the Aprl 10, 1993 issue of Cash Box: