Songwriters Hall of Fame member Ervin Drake was recently honored with the Towering Song award for “It Was A Very Good Year,” made famous by Frank Sinatra in 1965.
The award was presented by Dominic Chianese, also known as Junior from The Sopranos.
The 92-year-old Great Neck resident joined the ranks of those who penned songs such as, “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” “When The Saints Go Marching In,” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.”
“It Was A Very Good Year” has been covered by artists that range from Eartha Kitt to The Flaming Lipps, but it was Sinatra who recorded Drake’s favorite version.
“There was nobody in a class, nobody came close,” Drake said. “He was that talented.”
A prolific writer, among Drake’s better known songs are “Tico, Tico,” “Cuando, Cuando, Cuando,” and “I Believe.”
He said he is most proud of helping to extend the copyright law and writing the words and music for long-running Broadway play “What Makes Sammy Run.”
He worked in television as a writer, composer and producer with stars like Jayne Mansfield, Jackie Gleason, and Milton Berle. He is also a proud member of the Townsend High School Hall of Fame, his alma mater in Queens whose anthem and fight song he penned.
Born in Manhattan to a creative family – his mother was a singer and his father a furniture designer – Drake moved to Queens when he was 18.
He made a home in Great Neck to raise his family and has called the peninsula home for 60 years.
“I never regretted it, because it was a better area for kids growing up than New York City,” he said.
He lost his first wife, Ada Sax, in an alcohol-related incident. The call came while he was in California on business.
“She must have been a little woozy from drink, and she fell down and fractured her skull almost instantly,” Drake said.
Devastated by the loss, he reconnected with his first love soon after his wife’s death and tied the knot her within the year. The two have been happily married for 36 years.
“What is amazing is the way we fell together with such gusto,” he said. “We obviously where meant for each other.”
Drake was born Druckman, but changed his last name to Drake on the advice of a publisher. After five or six years in the music industry, he found success in the early 1960s with the surprise hit “Tico, Tico.”
“They figured nobody would ever record something like “Tico, Tico” so give it to the kid, let it cook on the shelf,” Drake said.
In addition to American classics, he had hits in France and Germany.
His strangest run in with a fan might have been a Haitian cab driver sometime in the 1950s. After the man’s mother found out her husband had been unfaithful, she made him stay in the house for three days listening to Drake’s “Beloved Be Faithful.”
“I said, ‘That’s called cruel and unusual punishment,'” he said.
His advanced age has not slowed the writer down. His current project is an album for a Texan billionaire/singer.
“I convinced him finally that religion wasn’t the whole bag of tricks,” he said. “My wife and I both have never given the time of day to religion. We think it’s a dreadfully divisive part of the culture, any culture.”
