During the mid to late 1970's the team of Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis defined the disco sound that was coming out of Los Angeles. Their work on such projects as El Coco, Saint Tropez, Le Pamplemousse and countless others is legendary. In addition, they wrote the music to 525 television shows ("In Search Of," "Thats Incredible"), 35 films and produced 46 albums.
Laurin Rinder was born in Los Angeles, California on April 3, 1943 he knew by the age of six that he wanted to be a musician. At seven, he was playing the trumpet. His father, who was an understudy for Bing Crosby during the 1930's and 40's, encouraged Laurin to play and later built him a drum set out of trashcans and corrugated boxes. Soon the trumpet gave way to the saxophone and then finally the drums in his junior high school band.
He played on his first album as a session drummer in 1953 while only ten years old. During his sophomore year, he decided to drop out of high school to pursue music on a full time basis by playing with local bands around Los Angeles. The first band he played with was Dick DAugustine And The Swingers who had a local hit with a tune called "Nancy Lynn."
At 19, Laurin enrolled in a correspondence course at The Berkeley School Of Jazz and devoted his life to music. The great jazz artists of the day such as Davis, Monk and Mingus were his influences. Laurin was among the first in a small group of young musicians that played rock and roll in Hollywood during the mid-to late 1950's. There was a shortage of drummers, since little if any of the older musicians wanted to play this new style of music. Rock and roll in its infancy was essentially an amalgam of blues, r & b and country & western. During the period between 1956 to around 1963 Laurin claims to have played on roughly about half of the music that was released during that time.
In the early 1960's Laurin made the move to Detroit and was part of the early Motown history along with friend Bernard Purdy. While now based in Detroit he continued to travel and record in Philly, Miami, and the famed Muscle Schoals studios in Alabama where he played on Arthur Prysock, Anita ODay and Billy Eckstein sessions among others. He traveled extensively with James Brown, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and John Hooker by bus throughout the South during the 1960's where he was usually the only white player in a black group. Las Vegas also figured into his travels where he even did comedy as part of "Rinder, Ryder And The Swinging Brass" around 1966-67. When asked why so many different things under his belt his only reply is, "Im an opportunist. I look for the door and go through it." "Things got a little thin in the early 1970s when we were doing hard rock and at this time is when Michael (Lewis) comes in."
Around 1968 Laurin was living in Laguna Beach, California when he called his friend Dick Dodd, the leader singer of the group The Standells, to arrange for an audition. The Standells had scored a number 11 hit in 1966 with "Dirty Water." Michael, who hailed from Alabama, was their keyboard player and had just come from another group, We Five, which had the 1966 hit "You Were On My Mind." Michael had also performed on fellow Alabamian Percy Sledges "When A Man Loves A Woman." The two met and later went on to form a rock group called Joshua. The six-piece group was comprised of former members of The Righteous Brothers and Bonnie And Delaney. After several unsuccessful years the group disbanded. The bands manger, Seymour Heller who was the president of "The Conference of the Personal Managers of the World" and guided the careers of such stars as Liberace and Debbie Reynolds had other plans for Rinder and Lewis. Heller was the owner of "Producers Workshop" and partners with Ray Harris in the "American Variety International" (AVI) record label.
Around 1973 that they were asked by Harris if they knew anything about "this new music called Disco." They were then asked if they would like to go into the studio and try something out. Laurin recalls, "We went in and did all this stuff and we were the first ones to do this thing. And I was putting in these sh, sh, sh hi-hat things on r & b songs that turned into Disco songs. Then I said why dont we start using bells and whistles and I do some strange sounds like ew-ee, ew-eewell put breaks into it and play some bass drumboom-boom and who cares" to which everyone agreed.
A very popular gay disco called Studio One was near Laurins home, so one night Laurin and Michael decided to stop by and see what this new Disco music was all about. The two found themselves dumbfounded.They could not help noticing that the crowd was eating it up and thought we can do this with no problem at all.
Within a two-month stretch they pounded out tons of material with the first one being "Let's Get It Together." Released under the moniker of El Coco. There was so much material that whatever didnt work for El Coco then went to Le Pamplemousse. The third tier was then Sweet Potato Pie and so on. So, whatever material didnt work for one studio group went to another until it found a home. The only thing that would change between each group was the back up singers they would hire for each project.
By the time of the release of "Seven Deadly Sins" Rinder and Lewis stepped forward to credit themselves with all the actual work involved with the production. 1977's "Seven Deadly Sins" was a concept album and featured the 12" single of "Envy/Lust." The album was well received and brought their names to the public attention.
The 1979 album "Warriors" followed, featuring the 12" single "Willie And The Hand Jive" which went Top Ten in the clubs. An interesting side-note: during the making of that album, Laurin and his dad went down to Alabama to visit Michael and his dad. The highlight of the trip was to take both fathers out fishing. On one of those days, Laurin quickly snapped a photo of the two fathers and chose to use that picture for the upcoming album cover. Another album under the name "The RinLew All-Stars" (1978) featured musicians they had worked with in the past.Their final album as Rinder & Lewis was 1979's "Cataclysm" which veered away from disco and more towards their rock roots.
As the 1980's were approaching Laurin and Michael became increasingly involved with television as opposed to Disco since there was more money to be made and they were sick of suing record labels for their fair share. There was accountability in television and film whereas in music there really was none. Around 1982 is when Laurin says he bowed out of music and by around 1985 had stopped his television work as well. Seeing as he had built up a comfortable annuity from royalties he spent time travelling and even got married more than once. There was even a time where he opened a mens and womens clothing store in Santa Monica, but was wiped out in the big earthquake of 1994. He would later host a fishing show on ESPN called "Charlies Anglers" for about a year and a half. Fishing is something he has been enjoying since his father took him as a child.
Michael has since continued in the music business and Laurin is now a gallery owner and renowed artist.
from Discomuseum.com
