Nov. 4, 1977 Gusto feature: A day with Debby Boone

 

A celebrity visit takes me into New Yorker “Talk of the Town” mode. 

Nov. 4, 1977

Debby Lights Up

St. Mary’s Pupils 

          “They think you’re like Elton John,” says the woman who invited Debby Boone to St. Mary’s School for the Deaf. The teenage students hang out the windows above the limousines in the courtyard and throng about the door, chatting excitedly in sign language.

          For the young, previously unknown singer whose “You Light Up My Life” has been America’s favorite record for the past four weeks, this will be the fifth of six stops in a whirlwind promotional tour of Buffalo Thursday. Furthermore, it’s the only one that doesn’t directly involve the music business.

          It already had been quite a day. Before she even left the Sheraton Inn-Buffalo East, it had started. A phone call to Pittsburgh and deejay Jim Quinn. She’d eaten her health-food breakfast in the white limo on the way to WKBW.

          “I’ve never seen so much commotion or pre-excitement,” KB morning man Dan Neaverth said. She gave the first of her easy, good-natured laughs. The wily Neaverth, in return, shot her the only question she wouldn’t be asked again and again the rest of the day: “Are you now or have you ever dated Burt Reynolds?”

          A bigger laugh from Debby. “No,” she said, recovering.

          From there it was across the parking lot to WKBW-TV for another interview. “Dialing for Dollars.” Passing a pumpkin pie demonstration on a stove, she laughed again. “This,” she declared, pointing to the mixer full of pie filling, “is not my element, I’ll have you know.”

          She looked good in the TV monitors – thin and cleanly attractive in her creamy tunic top belted at the waist. She wore it over rust-colored slacks and open-toed platform shoes. A pink plastic clip held her sun-streaked hair straight back. A tiny crucifix hung at her neck. The interviewer asked how old she was. She turned 21 on Sept. 22.

          Then it was around the block to Linwood Avenue for still another interview, this one disguised as an idyllic autumnal stroll with a TV newsman. The rest of the party hung close to the limos. Debby, they agreed, was that rarity among recording artists – reliable and easy to work with.

          “Debby has such a wide appeal that she can work with almost any kind of personality,” said the man who brought her to Buffalo, David Cahn, locally-based regional promotion director for Warner Bros. Records. “She at this point is the most widely accepted artist I’ve ever dealt with.”

          Cahn got Debby for a day in his region, which includes Cleveland and Detroit. He chose to bring her here and set local promo man Richard Wolod to work, lining up details. Wolod did his job well. It was going like clockwork.

          Minutes later, she was in Allentown at WGR, answering questions on midday man Larry Anderson’s show from phone callers who all seemed to be old fans of her father, ‘50s hitmaker Pat Boone. Did he ever spank her, one wanted to know.

          “He sure did,” she smiled, “and I’m really thankful for that.”

          By the time Anderson broke for the 10:55 news, Debby was ready for a break herself. It was no picnic, fielding those questions over and over, bouncing back with cheery answers again and again. She must know them all by heart. Here’s half a dozen of them.

          How did she find the song? Producer Mike Curb brought it to her. He’d been looking for the right song for her for three years.

          Does she sing in the movie? No. That’s a singer who does commercials in New York. Debby based hers on that one. There are two versions out now – the soundtrack and Debby’s. Debby’s is the hit.

          What’s her next single? They haven’t decided that yet. Several cuts on the album look good. They’re asking for suggestions.

          When will she do a concert tour? Next year, maybe with two or all three of her sisters. They sing on five tunes on the album.

          Does she have a boyfriend? No, but she dates sometimes. She has a hard time shutting people off, so she wears a wedding band to keep men from randomly accosting her.

          What about her family? They’re very close. She draws a lot of security from them. “I come home,” she said, “and realize who I am.”

          From WGR, it was off to City Hall, where Mayor Makowski beamed and gave her the first of the new keys to the city. It was the first time she’d gotten a key to a city.

          Then came buffet lunch with local radio and record people upstairs at the Park Lane Manor.

          After St. Mary’s School comes an album-signing marathon at Record Theater, where Cahn hopes to establish a world record for the Guinness book – most albums sold in an hour.

          “I checked it out,” he says. “Nobody has that record yet. Whatever we sell today, that’s it.”

          But first, there’s a group of St. Mary’s School staffers who recently formed a sing-and-sign-language chorus. They gather in the tiny auditorium to do one of the three numbers they’ve learned – Debby’s hit. Pianist Chris Wiles had invited her to come see it.

          “It has such a good message for deaf people,” says choir director Sister Theresa Moore. Then she strikes up the music.

          “You light up my life

          You give me hope

          To carry on.

          You light up my days

          And fill my nights

          With song …”

          The party has heard the song innumerable times this day, but the deaf kids watching and the choreography of the sign language does something strange and miraculous.

          “Excuse me,” Cahn says, “I’ve got something in my eye.”

          So does everyone else. Debby wipes away the tears and steps up to say a few words before she sings – and signs – the song in encore with the chorus.

          “This,” she says, “is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened since the recording of the song. This means more to me than I can express.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Debby Boone receives the key to the city from Mayor Stan Makowski.

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FOOTNOTE: Does anybody remember that there was a film called “You Light Up My Life” in 1977? I sure don't. Rated at 20% by Rotten Tomatoes, everybody said the best thing about it was the song, originally performed for the soundtrack by Kasey Cisyk, a classically trained opera singer and vocalist on commercial jingles.

Debby’s version was the biggest hit single of the 1970s, spending 10 straight weeks on top of the Billboard charts. It won her a Grammy as Best New Artist and a place on the decade’s long list of One Hit Wonders.

Debby, whose maternal grandfather was country singer Red Foley, had a more enduring career in his kind of music, where she had a No. 1 hit in 1980 with “Are You on the Road to Lovin’ Me Again.” She enjoyed still greater success in Christian music, where she won two Dove Awards and a pair of Grammys.   

In 1979, she got to wear a wedding band for real when she and Gabriel Ferrer, an ordained Episcopal minister and son of Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney, tied the knot. They have four children and have co-authored a bunch of children’s books.