David Forman's Lost Album 'Who You Been Talking To' Finally Released
(BHM) High Moon Records is proud to release David Forman's Who You Been Talking To on CD and LP. Recorded for Arista Records in Los Angeles in 1977 but never released, Who You Been Talking To is a revelation - a lost masterpiece of blue-eyed soul and literary street poetry produced by the legendary Jack Nitzsche (Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Phil Spector) and featuring an all-star cast of L.A. session players including Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, David Lindley, Fred Tackett, Tim Drummond, and Flaco Jimenez.
The album is accompanied by deluxe packaging with extensive liner notes by acclaimed journalist Joe Hagan, featuring exclusive interviews with David Forman, Aaron Neville, Jim Keltner, songwriting partner David Levine, and other collaborators. The package includes rare photographs by legendary downtown New York photographer Peter Hujar (whose other subjects included Susan Sontag, William Burroughs, and Candy Darling), along with never-before-seen memorabilia from Forman's extraordinary life.
In 1976, Rolling Stone declared David Forman a songwriter on the same level as Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, and Tom Waits, comparing his vocals to Curtis Mayfield and Smokey Robinson. His self-titled debut album for Arista Records, produced by Joel Dorn, was hailed as "an artistic success" before Forman seemingly vanished from the music world.
But Forman didn't vanish - he recorded a second album.
In 2022, a group of friends with a vinyl listening club - journalist Joe Hagan, photographer Tim Davis, and museum curator Joel Smith - became entranced by Forman's first album, which Smith found in a record shop for $2, intrigued by a portrait of Forman on the back cover by legendary downtown photographer Peter Hujar. They soon discovered that Forman lived only a few miles away. Eager to learn about the rumored second record, they sought Forman out and took him to lunch. Forman agreed to play the album for them, sparking a passionate campaign to get the record released.
Who You Been Talking To captures Forman at the height of his powers, blending doo-wop and Brill Building R&B with 1970s sophistication, Randy Newman's wit with Aaron Neville's melismatic vocal style. The album opens with "Who You Been Talking To," a smoky Motown groove that matches sultry blue-eyed soul to a worldly-wise lyric full of downtown New York attitude. "Let It Go Now" features Forman's falsetto against Nitzsche's cavernous production, a gigantic surf guitar riff, and columns of angelic backup singers. "A-Train Lady" is a quintessential New York subway soul serenade with a Drifters groove, contrasted to "Little Asia," a sphinxlike ballad of high cinematic intensity featuring Ry Cooder on Colombian tiple. Throughout, Forman updates the street-corner doo wop and Brill Building songcraft of his Brooklyn youth with the urbane sophistication of the late 1970s, evoking a world that lives somewhere between memory and myth.
Forman rose from folk-rock obscurity when he made a demo backed by Aaron and Charles Neville for Bell Records in 1973 and was championed by legendary rock critics Stephen Holden and Paul Nelson. Holden, who compared his voice to Marvin Gaye and his songwriting to Randy Newman, helped land Forman a deal at Arista.
The second in the two-record deal Forman signed in 1976, Who You Been Talking To was recorded at the Sound Factory on Selma Avenue in Hollywood over two weeks in late summer 1977 (just days after Elvis Presley's death) and engineered by Dave Hassinger, who had worked with the Rolling Stones and Frank Sinatra. Despite the extraordinary musicianship and Forman's remarkable vocal performances, Arista Records head Clive Davis chose not to release the album, claiming he didn't hear a radio hit, instead offering to return it to Forman to shop elsewhere.
Devastated, Forman declined, and the tapes went into storage for nearly 50 years.
The album existed only as a reel-to-reel tape that Forman had sent to Hal Willner, the late musical director for Saturday Night Live. In the early '00s, Willner rediscovered the tape in his archive and returned it to Forman, who had it digitized but lost the original tape in a move. Then, while clearing out his late father's archive, Jack Nitzsche Jr. discovered two rough mix tapes sequenced by Nitzsche himself and sent them to Forman. These tapes became the source material for Who You Been Talking To, mastered by Steve Addabbo (Bob Dylan's boxed sets for Sony), who spent considerable time bringing Forman's vocals forward from Nitzsche's dense, layered production.
David Forman's story is one of bohemian adventure and missed opportunities: he sang doo-wop with Aaron Neville in Brooklyn; worked on Robert Downey Sr.'s 1972 film, Greaser's Palace, where he first met Jack Nitzsche; sailed to the Caribbean on his own ketch; helped Philippe Petit prepare for his legendary World Trade Center wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974; and became a years-long subject for legendary downtown photographer Peter Hujar. Forman's songs have been covered by Marianne Faithfull and Mink Deville, and recorded by both Aaron Neville and the Neville Brothers.
Sophisticated, soulful, and utterly distinctive, Who You Been Talking To places Forman in the pantheon of great 1970s singer-songwriters where he always belonged. With its striking artwork and packaging, designed as Arista might have released it in 1977, this album offers the full spectrum of Forman's artistry, grit, humor, and intelligence to the world.
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