Steve Sonday gets up close and personal with the famed jazz critic of the Chernobyl Semi-free Press
Sadly, this interview took place just two weeks before Leonid Fedder passed away from complications resulting from his radiation burns. In lieu of sending flowers, Leonid's widow has requested that well-wishers purchase a "No Nukes" t-shirt or tether themselves to a power-generating windmill. We remember fondly how Leonid Fedder could light up a room! Our condolences to his grotesquely misshapen family.
Leonid's Signature Shades (Check eBay's RadioActive category)
So, Stepan, what prompted you to record your album, Lawdy!?
Leonid, I’m sitting at this drugstore lunch counter in Hollywood, Florida. A dapper stranger comes up to me. “Kid,” he says, “I’m a bigshot recording exec, and I been listening to you sing along with those William Shatner cuts on the jukebox. You got what it takes, kid! Come with me to the casting couch and we’ll consummate the recording contract.”
And the rest is history, nyet?
Nyet, Leonid. Unfortunately, before the dapper stranger could consummate me, an exchange student burst pantsless from the men’s room waving a ceremonial Japanese sword. "Goddam yankee imperialist abrasive toilet paper!" he's shrieking.
“Hey, Ninja Turtle asshole,” the dapper stranger shouts back, “put down the sushi bar play toy before I wax your ass back to Iwo Jima.” There's a scuffle. The dapper stranger’s head's still on a stake marking the drugstore handicapped parking space.
Fascinating, Stepan, but can we get to the studio part of the story?
Leonid, about a month after the head incident at the drugstore, I went into the studio. There were the initial difficulties — wrong lighting, arguments about style. But twenty minutes later we had a finished product.
Amazing, Stepan! You went into the studio and recorded a complete album in twenty minutes!
Photography studio, Lenny. I needed passport pictures for a rodeo gig in Arkansas. Costs me a hundred bucks to rush it through, then they don’t let me deplane at Little Rock because my swine flu vaccination expired. To record the album we spliced my Sears 8-track into my cousin’s karaoke machine. Technology’s amazing these days!
So, Stepan, growing up who were your vocal influences?
I listened to all the great jazz singers — The Partridge Family, Jerry Lewis. The three crows singing "I Never Seen an Elephant Fly" in Dumbo remains one of the finest jazz vocals in the liturgy. And did you ever hear Eddie Grabanowicz and the Warsaw Warblers’ version "Chewing Gum Polka"? Lenny, it’ll tear your heart out.
Stepan, we ex-KGB don’t listen to anything to do with Warsaw. As the old Russian children’s rhyme goes — "Crows, okay. Poles, no way." So, without further references to the vile kielbasa-breaths, how would you characterize your own jazz vocal stylings?
Leonid, I'd rate my singing better than David Hasselhoff's or Rod Stewart's, worse than everybody else's. Kind of a cross between Frank Sinatra and a backhoe.