It's a small world after all

I ran across this article in the Concordia St. Paul Magazine tonight. It's just amazing how small the world really is....I remember watching this cartoon when I was younger and it's completely amazing knowing that the composer behind the music shares my alma mater.

Another thing that is actually pretty cool is that you can now get a CSP license plate from the state of MN (along with other colleges and universities) just from being an alumnus. I'm totally going to have to get one when I get my new car :-)


Lyricist Turned Rebel Makes Music History

Danny Janssen (’54) deflects the compliment when people praise his work. “I’ve never really felt like I was the one doing anything,” said Janssen. “It’s God working through us.”

The 1954 Concordia alumnus has long practiced the Christian principles he learned at school - as he did when he made entertainment history by integrating a cartoon rock band. The real-estate developer, composer and music producer is still at work writing lyrics imbued with an upbeat message. If you’re not familiar with his name, you know Janssen’s music. His lyrics included tunes for TV’s “The Partridge Family,” “Scooby Doo,” and “Josie and the Pussycats.” This last, a comicbook girl band, became a Saturday morning cartoon show and then a reallife bubble-gum pop recording group, cutting an album and six singles for Capitol Records in 1970.

Thanks to a defiant Janssen, the Pussycats made entertainment history by including an African-American singer, Patrice Holloway. How does a preacher’s kid from Odessa, Minn., get to be an entertainment industry rebel? “God picks out what you do,” said Janssen, “and how we do it.” It happened thus: When animator Hanna-Barbera transformed its cartoon girl group into a real band, Janssen produced the album. Holloway, an established singer, auditioned as one of the Pussycats. Janssen liked her voice and picked her with singers Cathy Dougher and Cherie Moor - later better known as actress Cheryl Ladd.

Hanna-Barbera said no. Holloway was black and the storyboards had white Pussycats. A black Pussycat hadn’t been market-tested. Janssen refused and walked. He would be happy to work with the cartoon giant on another project, he said, but not this one. Not without Holloway. Three weeks later, Hanna-Barbera called back. They took Holloway. When Janssen returned to the studio to produce the Pussycats album after his three-week holdout, the parking lot was so full he had trouble finding a parking space. Why? Elvis had sent his band, and Billy Preston, “the fifth Beatle,” had sent musicians. They were delighted that Janssen had stood up for a black artist.

The album “Josie and the Pussycats” came out in late 1970 and Holloway became the voice of the first African-American cartoon character on television. Later, she returned to her work on background vocals, also writing songs for Neil Young, Ray Conniff and others. She may be best known for co-writing the 1970 Blood Sweat & Tears hit “You Make Me So Very Happy.” She died in 2006.

Janssen denies any heroics. “I always think of myself as just a messenger boy,” he said. “I tell the guys that work for me and the guys that I work with, ‘Take God with you. Let God work with you.’”