NMPA’s Lifetime Service Award

Presented to Dean Kay

Although Dean had taken piano lessons as a child, he hadn’t thought about devoting his life to music until he heard Elvis Presley for the first time in 1954 and - BANG - that was it. There was no turning back. Music was going to be his life.

He was “Jerry Lee” in a high school rock ‘n’ roll band started by his lifelong friend Hank Jones. When the band went their separate ways after graduation, Dean and Hank launched Hank and Dean, a folk duo.

2 years later - after countless trips to Los Angeles from Oakland, CA with friend and co-writer, Larry Ray, to try to sell their songs and land a record deal for Hank and Dean - a successful audition with 1500 other hopefuls resulted in the duo getting a regular featured spot on the 5 day a week, nationally televised Tennessee Ernie Ford Show out of San Francisco. Subsequently they were signed to RCA Records by Steve Sholes — the man who signed Presley to the label. They did the show, traveled the country promoting their records, stopped in Philadelphia to do the “Dick Clark Show” and managed to continue their college education simultaneously.

Dean’s induction into the Army (you remember the draft) ended the Ford Show / RCA days and necessitated the breakup of the team. Hank went on to become a successful film and TV actor and an internationally renowned genealogist.

And, in 20 minutes at age 22 on Christmas leave from the Army, Dean wrote “That’s Life.” It was his answer to his own question as to how he was going to deal with starting over – then – and, as it turned out, for the rest of his life.

Four years later he was sitting five feet from Frank Sinatra at Western Recorders in L.A. listening to the first play back of his recording of “That’s Life.” Sinatra and Mia Farrow stopped by the studio on their way to a party. He took 2 passes at the song and in 20 minutes gathered up Ms Farrow and was off into the night.

At 3AM the same night Dean’s wife to be, Michelle, called him and told him to turn on KFBW, then the hottest rock station in L.A. And, there it was, Frank Sinatra’s new single, “That’s Life.” Producer, Jimmy Bowen, had hand cut acetate copies of the recording shipped to major radio stations across the nation to be sure radio had it in time for Sinatra to introduce it as his latest single on the already taped television special “Frank Sinatra, a Man and His Music Part II” scheduled to air within days of the recording.

“That’s Life” went on to become Frank Sinatra’s fastest (not biggest) selling single of all time.

A few weeks later, Dean was off to Las Vegas - as Sinatra’s guest - to sit in the front row and be introduced by Frank Sinatra from the stage of the legendary Sands Hotel when Sinatra performed the song for the first time live.

Pretty heady stuff for a 26 year old.

To date there have been over 200 cover recordings of the song worldwide by some of the world’s greatest artists.

In 1971 when Dean got the opportunity to become an executive with Lawrence Welk’s music publishing company, he had to make the toughest decision of his life and that was whether or not to give up songwriting. “Ethically, I thought it would be wrong to compete with the songwriters I would be representing,” Dean said. “I made the decision, became a publisher, never looked back and never wrote another song.”

“To this day, I have never regretted that decision … I loved being a songwriter … and I’ve loved being a music publisher and working with - and on behalf of - countless numbers songwriters through the years.”

“With the support of my wife, Michelle, my daughter Lisa, and the rest of our family, it’s been an amazing and wonderful life in an exciting business that has taken me wherever I’ve wanted to go and let me do anything I’ve ever wanted to do – within reason.

“In the words of Ira Gershwin, “Who could ask for anything more.”