Music World Hops to Songwriter’s Beat

BALTIMORE —  In the old days, as a fledgling songwriter and medical student, Skip Scarborough did practically everything to try to get someone, anyone, to hear his music and buy his songs.

“When I was trying to make it as a writer, I tried everything to get through to Dionne Warwick,” Scarborough said in a recent interview here. “I went to Vegas. I paid maitre d’s to send flowers to her room. I got hold of her phone number and answering machine.”

Well, things have certainly changed for Scarborough. Now, some of music’s heavyweights come to him for hits.

And he is delivering. Movie producer Ivan Reitman commissioned him to write the title song for “Twins,” the Danny DeVito-Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, a duet sung by Little Richard and Philip Bailey, co-lead singer of Earth, Wind and Fire.

However, most album-note readers will know Scarborough for his work on Anita Baker’s single, “Giving You the Best That I Got,” which he co-wrote with Baker and Randy Holland, a Nashville recording engineer. It is his biggest hit so far, having climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard chart.

Originally, Scarborough had intended “Giving” for a man, specifically Howard Hewett, former lead singer of Shalamar. But “by the grace of God,” Baker got a copy of the tape of the song and wanted to record it, with a few changes.

“She said that she loved the song but wanted to change the direction a little,” Scarborough said. “We had it going in one direction, but Anita took it further, so we ended up with a true collaboration, so we ended up rewriting it.”

Scarborough, 44, wrote songs as a kid growing up in Louisiana and California, influenced by the style of Smokey Robinson. He remembers his first successful song, even if most of the world doesn’t.

“In 1969, I wrote a song called ‘More and More’ in California for a girl named Little Helen. The song was a local song that sold about 10,000 copies,” Scarborough said. “The first royalty check was $1.20, I think.”

However, word started to spread, and a classmate of his at UCLA, a singer named Jessica Cleaves, became interested in his work. Cleaves was singing with the Friends of Distinction, which was looking for a songwriter. She introduced him to the group, and he wrote “Love or Let Me Be Lonely,” which was a minor hit for them.

Scarborough’s biggest early career break came when Cleaves left the Friends in 1972 to join a fledgling group named Earth, Wind and Fire and its young leader, Maurice White. Cleaves, who left Earth, Wind and Fire after two albums, told White about her songwriting friend who had written a piece that would be good for her.