Carrie Fisher’s Album

“Carrie Fisher — for a very brief time in her life — thought that she wanted to make a record. She needed backup musicians. We had no idea what Carrie Fisher had in mind, and neither did she. But her mother, Debbie Reynolds, funded this whole expedition to New York. Jeff and I were staying at the Waldorf and going to performances of Debbie Reynolds, who at that point in 1973 had Broadway absolutely by storm starring in the musical Irene at the Minskoff Theater, and we hung out with Debbie Reynolds. Maybe Jeff was used to that, but I certainly wasn’t – although I became quite good at it very fast. Dinner at the Rainbow Room, waltzing through the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria – crazy things that you could get away with. I got into the Rainbow Room without a tie with Debbie – we were stopped at the maître d, and she just said, ‘Well, we’ll go somewhere else,’ and all of a sudden we were in the Rainbow Room. That was quite something. The record never materialized with Carrie Fisher, but we had a great time. I’m glad that the bill at the Waldorf never came my way, because that would have been quite the shock.”

— Robin Sutherland, as told to Tessa Updike. Robin Sutherland Oral History / San Francisco Conservatory of Music