Thank Goodness for people like Carol Dickson, the tireless All My Children and One Life To Live Fan Club president. She mounted a fantastic event a couple of weekends ago in Manhattan for die-hard fans of those two shows. The annual AMC and OLTL luncheon was a blast. Thank you Carol!
I’d never been to a fan event before, but I had a great time and learned alot about the dedication fans have to their favorite shows. My husband John, performing artist Sophia Kartadinata-Levy (she’s on the OLTL CD!) and her husband Phil Levy helped me carry our Soapsongs CDS and fliers to the table that Carol so graciously allowed us to exhibit at. I met hundreds of fans from all across the country who’d travelled here to meet and greet the actors from these shows and purchase souvenirs from the various actors’ fan clubs. And the souvenirs were many! From beautiful one-of-a-kind dungaree jackets with photos of all the characters in Llanview and Pine Valley to pens, music CDs and key chains — this group of vendors had it all.
You could even buy a raffle ticket for a dinner with the star of your favorite show, or a furry designer coat some cute size 2 actress (aren’t they all?!!!) had worn while in character.
I met fans who’d been searching for years on internet and in stores to find a song they’d heard on the soaps - and there I was, able to immediately tell them what the song’s title was, and how they could now obtain it through Soapsongs.com.
For me, the best thing was being able to get immediate feedback from fans about what music they had noticed on the soaps, and what delighted or annoyed them. Some people wanted the music turned up because they could barely make out the lyrics, and others wanted it turned down because they wanted to hear every single word an actor spoke without the distraction of music.
I was particularly tickled by one fan who quoted the words from one of our songs that played on the Valentines Day 2004 episode of OLTL “ Girl don’t you know that I want you, so won’t you stay. I got a lifetime of love to put on you, don’t walk away. “ Sandy wanted to know where to find that song - and I was so flattered that she remembered it, because it was used for all of 30 seconds when Bo and Nora danced to it that day!
And just yesterday I got an email from someone who’d been at one of the other soapfan events that same weekend asking me if I knew anything about the John-Natalie song called “Invisible Man”. Well, I sure did, because it was written by one of our writers - and it’s been used in many of John’s agonizing-over-Natalie scenes on OLTL. No one had been able to find that song, so I was happy to be able to solve the mystery for the music fans who loved it. Knowing which songs are popular with fans also helps me figure out what to put on on future Soapsongs CDs.
But what made me truly happy was knowing that the long hours my writers and I spend composing music and songs that air for a few seconds on soaps is NOT IN VAIN, and that people actually notice them and want to hear them again!
Anyway, I just want to say THANK YOU to all of you who find your way to Soapsongs.com with your “what was that song?” questions, because now I know you’re really listening closely. If you’ve got a question I can’t answer, I’ll be sure to convey your questions to the music supervisors who emerge from their editing rooms at the end of long, hard days looking for just the right song to delight you with!
Please check out the photos I’ve posted of the AMC/OLTL Fan Luncheon ‘05 : http://soapsongs.blogs.com/photos/amcoltl_fanfest/
Talk to you later!
