In 1989 I was entering the fourth year of my run at ET in Los Angeles, going through a divorce, when I was recruited by my old friend David Michaels to work part time for NBC Sports. He’d moved into his new position at NBC Sports a few years earlier, and he wanted me to work on the Tour de France with him again and to be a host for NBC’s Olympic Games coverage in Barcelona coming up in 1992. I said yes, of course, because David is David and because this time, I’d get another opportunity to flex my creative muscles, which had gone a bit soft because of too much teleprompter time on ET.
In the middle of the Tour that year, neck-deep once again in exhausting twelve-hour TV work days, I heard through the grapevine that NBC, who had just acquired the television rights to broadcast NBA basketball for four years, had put out an open call for composers to submit demo songs for a “signature” theme to accompany their newly minted basketball coverage.
At this point in my professional music career I had very little notoriety as a composer beyond a small tribe of cycling loyalists who had heard my underscore on the Tour de France TV coverage. And while I felt certain that every composer in town would want a shot at writing the theme, since the network sent the message that they were not already committed to super-pros like John Williams or Hans Zimmer, I allowed myself to visualize what it would be like to be the guy listed on the credit roll.
Looking back, it shouldn’t have felt like such a crazy idea. I certainly had a bit of an edge over other TV and film composers, what with my knowledge of the form and substance of a sports theme. I had already composed two Emmy-winning themes for the Pan American Games and the Tour de France, and I had spent hundreds of hours in sports production trucks collaborating with producers and directors to create music for an array of sporting events. This could be considered to be in my wheelhouse.
We were in the final stages of the Tour when the news about the theme song search found its way into the production truck. I had been writing nearly an hour of music a week, and I was tired, but now all I could manifest were thoughts of basketball music. What should that sound like?
My first hint of inspiration shocked me out of a dead sleep like a bolt of lightning. It hit at 2:00 a.m. in a tiny hotel in Megéve, France, a few kilometers down the road from the starting line of one of the last mountain stages of that year’s Tour.
I’m sure you know the feeling of being jolted awake from a deep sleep with a big idea bursting from your brain. Nine times out of ten when it happens to me I just roll my groggy self back to sleep, but for some reason I can’t roll over this time. Instead, I leap from the bed like a wild animal, searching my dark hotel room for a notepad—except that isn’t going to work. This is an idea for a song. I need to either sing the melody or somehow play this thing I have in my head on a keyboard and into a tape recorder, otherwise it will be gone forever by morning.
I quickly run through my mental rolodex of options. All of my recorders and synthesizer keyboards are locked in the production truck, so that’s out. Wait . . . had I spotted a piano in the lobby when we checked in? Ugh, no. There is barely a lobby in this tiny hotel, so I doubt there is a piano. My watch now says 2:15 a.m. The tune is just barely hanging on in my prefrontal cortex. If I go back to sleep and then wait until morning to use one of the crew’s tape recorders, it will definitely be gone. I switch on the lamp on the nightstand in my guest room so I won’t fall back asleep, which then triggers a light-bulb moment in my brain.
I’ve got it!
I’ll use the phone to call my answering machine back in America and sing the melody into the machine. There’s just one problem: France. More specifically, making an international phone call in 1989, in a very French town of only a few thousand people, from an alpine hotel staffed by people who, if they are even awake, are probably not at all interested in dealing with an overanxious American walking in circles muttering music to himself. You see, you don’t just pick up the phone and dial the United States. First, you must dial zero on your room phone for the front desk. Then the desk clerk dials your number in the US (after doing the calculus for the country and city codes). When the number in the US answers, the desk clerk then puts that call on hold and has to call you back in your room to complete the connection between his switchboard phone, the international call, and the room phone (usually with those giant patch cords you saw on Laugh-In).
On a good day this is a labyrinthian process, but for what I need it’s effectively impossible. The process is so time consuming that by the time the clerk can call me back and connect me, my answering machine will have hung up on us both and reset itself. Or I will have fallen back asleep with the melody lost in dreamland.
So here I am, looking like a lamebrained nincompoop, pacing the floor of my hotel room, relentlessly repeating a melody under my breath:
Da Da Da Da Da, Da, Da-Daaaah. Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba Baa Ba ba-ba-ba-Bask-et-Ball. Da Da Da Da Da, Da, Da-Daaaah. Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba Baa Ba ba-ba-ba-Bask-et-Ball.
I’m left with one choice. I need to go downstairs and dial the international call myself right from the front-desk switchboard. If the clerk is asleep, I’ll do it myself, even if that is not technically “allowed.” What’s the worst that can happen? It’s no more risky than using the NC State University reel-to-reel tape machine without permission, and it is certainly less audacious than forging a professor’s signature.
That settles it. I dash down from the third floor, still repeating the melody softly to myself as I run.
What I confront when I get to the lobby is not promising. Behind the front desk is a swirl of switchboard wiring. There’s a very real possibility that if I monkey with it too much I could cut off Megéve from the outside world. I pause to imagine the consequences: my next few weeks in a high-altitude French prison, surviving on a baguette and something less sparkling than Perrier at the hands of the local gendarmerie. There is no way I’m touching this tornado of patch cords.
I figure my only choice is to find a phone and just start dialing the country and city codes and hope for the best, except all I can find is a headset that looks to be from World War II and a giant rotary dial bolted to the wall under the patchbay. I start dialing. A full two minutes later, after listening to a bunch of weird tones . . . Eureka!
Answering Machine: Hello, this is John, there’s no one home right now. Please leave a message at the sound of the tone and I’ll get right back to you. BEEP!
ME: Hey, it’s me.
(I know, so polite.)
Here is the NBA basketball theme. There are two parts and the first part begins like this:
(singing)
Da Da Da Da Da, Da, Da-Daaaah, Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba Baa Ba ba-ba-ba-Bask-et-Ball, Da Da Da Da Da, Da, Da-Daaaah, Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba Baa Ba ba-ba-ba-Bask-et-Ball.
Answering Machine: Beep!
The machine cuts me off. Now I’m in a panic. I’m exhausted from the previous day’s twelve hours of broadcasting and travel, and I’m fighting to stay awake so I can file the rest of this melody, which could easily end up being worthless anyway. One more flurry of wrist-wrenching rotary phone dialing.
“Hello, this is John, there’s no one home right now . . .”
I skip the pleasantries this time, get right to singing the second part of the theme, and get it out with just enough time on the tape to spare.
“Buh buh buh buh buh buh-ba ba ba ba ba ba ba-Buh buh buh buh buh buh-DOO DOO DOO DOO!”
Done!
I leave one hundred francs (the equivalent of about twenty dollars) under the telephone for the clerk. Hush money. I’ve got to get some sleep. There are only three more hours till daylight and I’ll once again be back in a van writing bike music.
One week later, I’ve arrived back home. My trusty Radio Shack sentinel is blinking the confirmation that it had, indeed, recorded something. My luggage is still by the front door as I scramble to unplug the machine from the telephone jack and place it on top of my piano in my studio. I hit Rewind. Brrrrrrrrr-eep! Play. It takes a while for me to decipher the melody. The audio sounds like it’s been bounced off ten satellites and then played through two cups and a string. But I have it! With my Studer reel-to-reel tape recorder rolling, I sketch out the melodies from both messages with my right hand on the piano. Next, I set about experimenting with chord changes to support the theme. I play those on a Prophet 10 synthesizer and a Roland Super Jupiter. (You can hear those keyboards used brilliantly by composer Tom Conti on the Rocky IV soundtrack and of course on all of my Tour music.)
I see my basketball theme in three distinct movements. The primary movement (the first twenty-two notes on the answering machine) should repeat twice in order to establish the theme. I use my Synclavier music sampler to play that line with trumpets the first time through and then include low brass the second time through to add more energy.
The second movement of the theme (also repeated twice) will be violins, cellos, and violas with a completely different melody line (answered by the brass section). For the third movement I know that I will need one radically different, but crucial, section in the song that should feature a more syncopated feel. For that, I will use only bass trombones, bass guitar, drums, and guitar. A deep, masculine sound. This is when an announcer will break in and describe the teams and what’s at stake in the game.
The arrangement for this “announcer” section is so critical that I will tell the drummer not to use high hats or crash cymbals while we are recording it because they will interfere with what the announcer is saying. This technique also speaks to the art of demo presentation. When the network producers first hear a demo, I never want to give them an opportunity to say, “It’s great, but . . . blah blah blah.” I want them to hear it fully formed (even as a demo) so they can actually put it on the air as is, if they had to.
Okay, I have my arrangement and a rough music mix. But there is one more thing to do. I know these sports executives. I know how they think. I need to add video to the music demo. I call around to my old sports buddies from CBS, locate a VHS recording of 1988’s NBA Finals, and head for a small video-editing house in Los Angeles. Six hours later I have my theme perfectly synchronized to highlights from Game 7 of the 1988 Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the bad-boy Detroit Pistons.
At this point no one has heard the theme except me and the video editor, whom I just met. The two of us watch the demo five times. It is good, but there is something wrong. What is it?
“Well, your song is much slower than the pace of the guys playing basketball,” my editor says matter-of-factly. “Wait . . . that’s genius!”
He is right. When the video footage shows Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas fast-breaking down the court, their tempo of dribbling the basketball is significantly faster than the tempo of my song. I had been so enamored by the sheer excitement of creating the musical arrangement, I had missed the disparity.
I book a second editing session for the next day and spend that evening back in my home studio synchronizing the Synclavier’s digital click track (the metronome) to the average fast-break dribble rate in the game footage. I estimate the tempo to be 132 beats per minute (slightly faster than a Donna Summer song) and remix at the new tempo. When it is matched to the video the next day in the edit bay, the effect is remarkable. The editor and I spend the rest of our session finishing the mix. When we are done, I slap a title on the tape, “Roundball Rock,” along with my name and then drop the tape off at the NBC Sports offices the following morning.
They’ve had my demo videotape with the theme and highlights for two days when I get the call. It sounds like a room full of people on a speaker phone.
“Hey, John, it’s Dick Ebersol from NBC. We love the theme!”
Just like that. One sentence.
“Wow! I mean, thank you. I mean, that’s great, Dick. Thank you so much.”
“Just one thing, John.”
Here it comes.
“We like your arrangement and all that, but . . . would you be okay if we had a live orchestra record it before we debut it on the network?”
Silence. How does one respond to an offer like that? It’s like someone asking if they can buy your house for more than the sale price.
“John?”
“Uh. Yes, sir? I mean . . . of course, that would be great!”
“Okay, perfect. I’ll have my guys get back to you and we can work it all out. And congratulations. This is great work.”
As goofy and ludicrous as the creation process was for the “Roundball Rock” theme, there was one element that I never could have predicted: the explosion in popularity of NBA basketball. The 1990s would be a golden era for the NBA, defined by the double three-peat dynasty of the Chicago Bulls and the reign of Michael Jordan. This was the decade that featured other iconic superstars beyond Michael as well: Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Patrick Ewing, Shaq, and Dennis Rodman. Add announcer Marv (yes!) Albert to the mix, and pro basketball resembled a modern-day Circus Maximus in scope and intensity, rife with epic confrontations. In the ’90s, pro basketball television audiences reached near Super Bowl proportions every year during the playoffs and finals. And with NBC owning the broadcast rights, my song was set to become the era’s soundtrack.
Not that you would have known it if you were judging by its debut.
It is November 3, 1990. I’m sitting in an airport sports bar in Atlanta, bound for a destination I cannot recall. The bar is jammed. There are no fewer than ten large-screen TVs set to full volume as NBC Sports debuts their coverage of their new sports television franchise.
(From the TV)
Deep Voice Guy: Stand by! The debut of the NBA on NBC! The Los Angeles Lakers versus the San Antonio Spurs . . . is next!
At the top of the three o’clock hour all of the big screens in the bar dip to black. The NBC Sports logo bursts with shimmering brilliance onto the screens. The bar fills with a trumpet fanfare and a thunderous tympani roll as my answering machine message, now an orchestral piece, fills the room.
Da da da da da da-da-daaah—Marv Albert adds his trademark announcing style. Yes! And there it is. The phone call from Megéve, France, is reborn as “Roundball Rock,” the signature song for the NBA.
I’m pinching myself but this is real. And it’s absolutely the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m grinning like a crazy person. I look around the bar. No one is looking at me. They’re all watching basketball. But shouldn’t they know who wrote the song? They must be curious, right?
Nothing.
After the first fifteen minutes of play, Marv throws to commercial break and the theme blasts once more through the big speakers in the bar. I can’t take it anymore. I signal for the bartender.
“Refill?” he asks.
“No, I’m good right now. Did you hear that?”
“I’m sorry, hear what?”
“That music. On the TV. The basketball music.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t notice, I’m slammed back here, pal. You a Lakers fan? You ready for another beer?”
There are many ways to write a piece of music. Elton John and Bernie Taupin famously split the music-lyric duties right down the middle. There are artists who start with either music or lyrics first and others who will write both concurrently. I know many movie soundtrack composers who sing and/or dictate ideas for musical themes into portable tape recorders. With the advent of high-speed internet and Skype, co-writers can now collaborate from any place on earth. My trusty Radio Shack answering machine was my co-writer for what is arguably my most recognizable composition—the tune that travelers now sing back to me in airports; the melody that has been played by YouTubers on everything from ukuleles to Casio keyboards and banjos; the theme that generated a hilarious parody on Saturday Night Live, complete with lyrics by my fictional brother, Dave: “Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Basketball, gimme, gimme, gimme the ball ’cause I’m gonna dunk it!” During those “answering machine years” ol’ Radio Shack and I collaborated on hundreds of song ideas from dozens of remote locations. Most never matriculated into compositions but a few made it through to become songs. I’m proud of all of them, but none more than “Roundball Rock.”
Thirty years hence, whenever I perform “Roundball Rock” live in concert, I tell this bizarre story and I always bring that answering machine up on stage with me. It still powers up and blinks when I plug it in, and I play the tape of the original message with the song demo, although the oxide on the little Radio Shack mini-cassettes is just barely hanging on.
I love this song. I fought hard for it. The story of its creation, the melody that woke me that night in France, was a “Holy Spirit moment” in my life. A big tap on my shoulder of inspiration. During my concerts, I especially love to watch from the piano as the men—who I imagine were dragged there by their wives for a romantic John Tesh concert—become galvanized and suddenly shift to the edge of their seats when they grasp the reality of the music that’s coming at them from the stage.
“Wait, honey, this is the basketball music I listened to every week at McSorley’s Old Ale House. This guy wrote it?!”
The ballads and wedding songs are forgotten as the room is now brimming with testosterone-filled memories of fast breaks and three-pointers. What a rush.