Rex still takes your breath away

Even if he comes every now and then, Rex Smith still takes his Filipino fans’ breath away with his enduring love songs, so soothing that he sounds like he’s putting you to sweet slumber. That’s what he will do again on Sept. 18 when he mounts his I Am Rex Smith concert at the Kia Theatre at the Araneta Center (for tickets, call 911-5555 or log on to www.ticketnet.com.ph). We never get tired listening to his songs like Simply Jessie, You Take My Breath Away and Let’s Make a Memory, do we?

By the way, because his songs precede Rex, not many people perhaps recall that he’s also an actor…making his debut in Grease (1978) on Broadway and following it up with The Pirates of Penzance, a New York Shakespeare Festival’s Central Park production that won him (as Frederic) a Theatre World Award in 1981.

He also acted in TV dramas, noted for his role as Jesse Mach in Street Hawk (1985), with guest appearances in The Love Boat, Baywatch, Caroline in the City and JAG, and from 1990 to 1992 a contract artist playing Darryl Crawford in the CBS daytime drama As The World Turns (in which Lea Salonga once guested).

During this exclusive phone Conversation last Thursday, Rex revealed (maybe for the first time) why he considers the Philippines as a second home: “My daughter-in-law is a Filipina, so my grandson has Philippine blood, too. So part of my family is Filipino and that’s very much part of my life, too!”

He counts among his close Filipino friends Danee Samonte (a.k.a. Steve O’Neal), a regular contributor to The STAR who produces concerts including Rex’s on Sept. 18 (with Uniprom, Inc. as co-producer).

 At the end of the Conversation (he called from L.A.), he made a special message for The STAR.

“Listen,” he said, “I wanna thank you. I always pick up The STAR when I’m down there. You guys have always treated me so well, giving me good write-ups. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me over the years. I want you to know that I recognize it, that I’m aware of it.

“Tell everyone that I’m looking forward to seeing them because I really, truly am. It’s really a big part of my life; I truly mean that from my heart. It has been a significant part of my life.”

You’ve been coming and going. What were your expectations the first time you came to the Philippines?

“The only way to understand and embrace the Philippines is to visit it and really experience it yourself, you know? It is a bit of a mystery to many people around the world. And like so many places, it is something that I have an ever-deepening relationship with as I come. I almost feel a real kinship and a true, like, a second home in the Philippines. There are several artists that the Philippines has embraced and really held on to and championed, and I feel very proud that I’m one of those artists that have, really, generations of Filipinos enjoying my music and my art.”

How many Filipino artists have you worked with?

“I’ve been on several bills with other artists, but mainly it has been...I’d come in to do solo concerts. Mark Mabasa has opened for me. I’ve done several shows with his group.”

You sing your songs the way you did them the first time. How do you do it?

“I practice.” (Laughs). “I sing in the car.”

And in the bathroom, too?

“I’d wake the whole family if I do that but I’m the guy who, when you’re at the stop light, you see singing. That’s me.”

What else do you do to preserve your voice?

“I exercise, I swim, I run...to keep the breathing. I just have been blessed to be very healthy all these years and stay in very good shape, I think. Performing all my life has been a big factor in staying, especially on Broadway. It has kept me in pretty good shape.”

Are cold drinks, smoking and lack of sleep bad for the voice?

“Lack of sleep is the No. 1 thing. When I come to the Philippines, it’s the 16-hour difference. You just find a way to do it. That’s where the real experience comes in and how you thread that needle and bring a level of performance that I demand upon myself in every show that I do.

“I’m really on a constant regimen of diet and exercise to afford myself physically to give my all no matter what size of audience I play for. I give the same performance for everybody. It’s just not in me to take a shortcut or give less of a performance because everybody that is an audience for me, I demand upon myself to give them the best I’ve got.”

Alcohol and cigarettes?

“Don’t do it! I never have. I’m so glad I haven’t.”

Tell us the stories behind some of your songs.

And I don’t know how I knew it

But I knew it somehow

You’re the answer to the question

No one’s answered till now

That’s from Simply Jessie. Who is Jessie?

“Jessie is every woman that every man has ever loved. Jessie is every woman. It’s not one person; it’s not aimed at one person. I think that’s the success of the song; it’s able to let anybody who’s ever been in love, who’s in that bloom of love, to relish the experience. It’s a very simple song, too. I mean, the simple construction.”

So Jessie has no relation to the Jesse Mach character that you played in Street Hawk?

“You know, isn’t that funny? Simply Jessie is one of my biggest songs and I played Jesse on a TV show. I guess it’s kind of a bookend. You know, until you mentioned it, it’s not something I really have considered. That’s the first time anyone’s asked me that, so hat’s off to you; no one’s ever mentioned that to me. That’s pretty good, after all these years!

“I just came from the ComiCon in London for the show and for being the original Daredevil, too. Someone mentioned that in the show, when I wasn’t driving the motorcycle I drove a Mach 1 Mustang. So they said, ‘Do you think your name was Jesse Mach because  you drove a Mach 1?’ And I never thought of that! I was the guy driving it, I never put that together! So thank you very much, I’m gonna use that. Not only did I sing Jessie...but I was Jesse.”

You

I don’t know what to say

You take my breath away

You’re every song I sing

You’re the music that I play

And you take my breath away

That’s from You Take My Breath Away (a gold 1979 Top 10 single).

“The beauty of that song is in its simple construction. When I recorded that song I did it in one take! I did like half of a take; I wasn’t recording it. I was just setting the volume on the microphone, and that sort of thing, and getting ready to do a take. I did just one take and Charlie (Charles) Calello ­— he did the Four Seasons; he was known as the Fifth Season, he produced all the Four Seasons’ records ­— he said, ‘Come in, I think we got it.’ And I went, ‘Really, I only did it once.’ He said, ‘I don’t think we need to do it again.’ I went into the sound booth, I went into the control room. The first thing he did was play it for a minute and he pushed up the sliders for the control board and he had like four back-up singers, you know, and they were all singing, ‘Oh, huh, take my breath away.’ He went, ‘Well, I don’t think we need that. I think you just nailed it.’

“He played it for me and about halfway through, I said, ‘I gotta go to the bathroom.’ And I went and locked the door and I started crying. It was such an emotional thing. I said, ‘I just made a hit record!’ I mean, after all the years and all the stuff of playing clubs and loading and sleeping in the truck and traveling and everything, and I went, ‘That’s it! That’s a hit record!’ I did not mean it in an egotistical way but I knew in my bones that it was a hit. He was right. It only took one take.”

Has any woman ever taken your breath away?

“On a city bus sometimes, when I was younger. Just one look and oh my gosh, you know? Usually on a city bus tour going on the other direction from me and looking out the window and… oh my gosh. That’s the best kind, isn’t it? The kind you know you’ll never meet and she just takes your breath away.”

You and I will build a world of our own

Where we can run to

We will find what all true lovers have known

Will make our dreams come true

As we walk in this land

Heart and heart, hand on hand, darling

Put your faith in me

Let’s make a memory

And that’s from, you know, Let’s Make a Memory.

“That was just really from the heart, like all my other songs are. But I wrote that with my brother. It was a wonderful collaboration to write with your brother. And my cousin, too. So it was almost like a Bee Gees thing, the three of us. I think it’s one of those things that would be hard to write now with my life. You were really at the beginning of a journey, so many journeys there.

“And if you are fortunate enough to be working artistically, in an art form, that you also have reached the level that you can  get it out in the world...I mean, I still love to sing those songs. It’s a youthful thing. It can be applied for later in life but really, songs that were written in that time of your life really reflect the hope and aspiration. You are always aspiring for a great relationship”

What’s one memorable moment that keeps recurring in your mind?

“Ah, it would have to be the birth of your first child!”

You have five children (by three different women), right?

“But I think the coming of the first child is something else. The first experience is like going over the waterfalls in Niagara Falls. It’s life-altering; it changes your life forever. I mean, you asked an honest question, and that’s the honest answer.”

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