Vera Gets Warm Reception From ‘Big Chill’ Generation

For a 43-year-old singer who’s still a regular on the Southland bar-band circuit--a year after landing his first No. 1 hit single--Billy Vera is doing all right.

He has yet to repeat the chart-topping success he had in 1987 with “At This Moment,” but after more than two decades as a struggling musician, today Vera is sitting on top of--get ready--a new album that has spawned a hit on the Adult Contemporary charts, a new wife, a new house and a new star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

And he attributes much of that bounty to his following among the Big Chill generation.

“For those people between the ages of 25 and 50 who want to rock but maybe don’t want Dokken, I’m their way to do it,” said Vera who, with his longtime band the Beaters, plays the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana tonight.

“We have the same influences, grew up on the same music. And if you think I’m kidding, look at the success of (Paul Simon’s) ‘Graceland’ or Robbie Robertson’s new record. That’s how I know there’s a place out there for me,” Vera said.

But that following wasn’t always as evident as it has been lately.

It took Vera 22 years to make it to the top of the charts, after a modicum of success in the late ‘60s with two duets recorded with Atlantic Records labelmate Judy Clay, “Storybook Children” and “Country Girl, City Girl.”

Along the way, he wrote hits for everyone from Ricky Nelson (“Mean Old World”) to Dolly Parton (“I Really Got the Feeling”). He served as bandleader for the Shirelles, Chuck Berry, Patty LaBelle & the Blue Bells and the Ronettes. He also appeared at The Apollo Theatre in New York during a time when white singers were most definitely the exception to the rule.

“People used to think I was black,” Vera explained, laughing. “And more than a few of them looked pretty surprised when I showed up.”

When he moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1979, he started the Beaters because, he says, “I think I wanted to be the Bob Wills of the ‘80s. I remember listening to his records and hearing all his influences and the way he mixed everything up and thinking, ‘I like pop and rhythm and blues and country. What if I take all those elements from my generation and do what Bob Wills was doing in the ‘40s and ‘50s?’ And that’s how I got the idea for the band.”

Every Monday night, you could find Billy Vera & the Beaters holding court at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, working out on rock standards, classic country songs and a handful of originals that fell somewhere in between. Designed as a way for some of Los Angeles’ session players to have fun, it was a mix that brought people out of the woodwork.

In 1980, Vera signed to Japanese-based Alfa Records and released two albums and a single called “At This Moment” that barely clawed its way onto the lower reaches of the charts. Then the company folded.

Undaunted, Vera became a local bar-band favorite and pursued acting at the encouragement of Jon Voight. Since then, he has appeared in feature films including “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai” and “Blind Date,” several episodes of “Days of Our Lives” and HBO’s “Baja, Oklahoma.”

But even with all his acting successes, Vera’s heart remained with music. So, Billy & the Beaters kept playing, seemingly resigned to being a local club sensation--until a producer from NBC’s “Family Ties” heard Vera sing “At This Moment” one night and decided it was the song they needed for the scene where Michael J. Fox’s Alex Keaton character falls for the girl.

After the second broadcasting of the song flooded NBC’s switchboard with 9,000 calls, local independent label Rhino Records, which had licensed the Alfa material, unexpectedly had a hit record to contend with. What began as a record targeted at Vera’s Southern California fans, “By Request: The Best of Billy Vera and The Beaters” ended up being a gold album--and changed the life of the man who had recorded those songs in 1980 and ’81.

Since then, Vera has bought a house in Los Angeles, signed to Capitol Records, which recently released “Retro Nuevo,” an album that mines his early R&B; roots and has yielded a Top 10 Adult Contemporary hit with “Somewhere Between Like and Love,” and received the star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

His house is filled with memorabilia from various points in his career. A framed Billboard chart marking “At This Moment” going to No. 1 and the declaration for his place on the Walk of Fame sit alongside the original sheet music for standards recorded by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Jimmie Rodgers, Ernest Tubb and Perry Como and a record collection of about 35,000 discs.

But even more predominantly displayed is the gold band on Vera’s left hand. This spring, he married Rosalee Mayeux, the former model on the cover of “Retro Nuevo.” After all these years, Billy Vera the hopeless romantic, who sang all those songs about yearning for, finding and losing love, has actually found what he was looking for.

The question arises whether success will spoil Billy Vera. Will it take away the edge that made his songs so compelling? And how can he possibly hope to compete with younger stars such as George Michael, Poison and Debbie Gibson?

“Obviously I’d be a little absurd trying to compete with those people,” Vera says. “I’ve got to be me and hope there’s an audience for me because, let’s face it, me trying to be George Michael would be as silly as your Mom putting on your clothes and going to the mall.

“When I was growing up, rock ‘n’ roll was very youth-oriented. If you were 25, you might as well have gone to Vegas because that’s all that was left for you. But now there’s a whole generation who grew up on rock ‘n’ roll, and they still want to rock. So now we know that rock ‘n’ roll didn’t die.”