Heartbroken by this news: Adam Schlessinger passed away yesterday.
He was an incredibly talented songwriter. I met him in the mid-90s when the movie "That Thing You Do" (starring Tom Hanks) came out. Adam wrote that theme song, and was recognized with an Academy Award nomination. I love that movie so much, and if you've seen it, you know the entire concept of the film falls apart without that song. It had to be a song that sounded like a hit record from the 1960s. That wasn't so easy to write in the 1990s, but Adam did it. Here's the song...
At the time he was also in a band called Fountains of Wayne. I had never heard of the band, but they were playing at the Metro in Chicago, and that's how I got Adam on the show. At the time he lived in New York and I called information (remember that?) and sure enough, he was listed. So, he came into the studio at the Landecker show and spent a half hour with us. He was not a morning person. It was funny how much he wasn't a morning person. During the commercials he put his head on the counter and slept.
But...I bought his band's CD and it contained this incredible song...
I was hooked. I later bought every single thing they created, and there isn't a bad song among them. I have all their albums. It's a tragedy that they only had one hit, and it was this one...
It won a Grammy. Adam also played in a few other groups during the years, including the band Tinted Windows. Again, he wrote their songs, like this one...
I was impatiently waiting for a Fountains of Wayne reunion the past five or six years, but Adam wasn't just sitting around. He was working on the show Crazy Ex-Girlfirend. He won an Emmy for writing this song...
He also worked on Broadway. He wrote the theme song for the Tony Awards one year...
When he died Adam was working on the musical for The Nanny.
I saw the Fountains of Wayne perform once at Space in Evanston (thanks to my friend JoMarie who scored me a ticket). It was a great show and I was thrilled to see it, but Adam wasn't exactly a showman on stage. That wasn't his thing. He didn't take center stage. He was the writer. I get it. I can relate to that. I could relate to him.
I'm really upset that this friggin virus has taken him from us.
He was only 52.
