Songs for Adults
Next time you're in a bookstore, open a copy of Steve Martin's new auto-biography, "Born Standing Up" and look for my name (mispelled as Ultz) on pages 7 and 8. Not many people know this, but in 1965 I managed a bohemian club in San Francisco's North Beach called Coffee and Confusion. I booked the acts for a nightly show -- or went on myself if there was no one else around to perform. One Monday evening, I took a chance on an unknown banjo player who was trying to become a comedian. Despite my initial doubts about this very square-looking fellow, Steve Martin was a big hit with the audience. And you know what happened after that.
Most of my music these days is for children, but I still play in a few NYC clubs for grown-ups. I sing songs that I wrote when I was a folk singer/songwriter in the 1960s and 70s.
Here I am performing at Faceboy's legendary open mic.
I've had a marginally successful adult songwriting career since I published my first tune in 1962. One of my songs, "A Letter to the Beatles," was recorded by the Four Preps and had a brief stay on the Billboard Charts in 1964.
Since then, I've written and worked with Hoyt Axton ("Joy to the World"), Rod McKuen ("Jean"), Gene Clark of the Byrds, and Lowell George of Little Feat. "Heartache," the song I wrote with Lowell, reached the top 20 on the Country Music Charts in 1994 when it was recorded by Suzy Bogguss.
Other people who have recorded my material include Glen Yarborough, Tom Rush, Mary McCaslin, and Valerie Carter. My name has been linked with Steve Mann, Jackson Browne, and Rickie Lee Jones, to name a few.
