PUSH the 'PLAY' button to HEAR Rita Abrams'

"Mill Valley"

Click HERE to see the VIDEO of "Mill Valley."

The following is an article from NEWSWEEK

MAGAZINE, July 20, 1970, titled "Pet Teacher":

"Last Christmas, a pretty schoolteacher strolled

out into the sunshine and wrote a song about her

new hometown, Mill Valley, Calif. She wrote it for

her kindergarten class - and put the pleasant

north-of-San Francisco suburb (population:

12,150) on the map. The song has already sold

more than 100,000 records; it's No.5 on the local

hit parade and this week it's on the national

charts.

"Mill Valley's" composer is 26-year-old Rita

Abrams, a Cleveland girl who went west and was

"so overwhelmed by the beauty of the town" that

she had to write about it. "I couldn't believe a

Christmas without cold or snow," she says. Her

Mill Valley's a place where "creeks run on

endlessly," as the song goes, and with "trees as

far as you can see." Rita tried the song first with

her own class at Strawberry Point School, but

the kindergartners, long on enthusiasm, proved

to be short on pitch. So she enlisted the vocal

assistance of third-graders. Luckily, she knew

Erik Jacobsen, producer of such groups as the

Lovin' Spoonful and Sopwith Camel, who first

recorded and then sold the song to Reprise

Records.

Gentle: The third-grade chorus - 26 of them -

sing the refrain, "Mill Valley, talking 'bout Mill

Valley, that's my home," while Rita handles the

solo part and plays the electric piano. Like an

unobtrusive little show tune, "Mill Valley" has a

simple melody, carried along by a gentle rhythm and easy rhymes like

"People aren't afraid to smile/And stop and talk with you awhile." The

predominantly white-collar town, whose inhabitants include such rock stars

as singer Janis Joplin and guitarist Mike Bloomfield, coexists peacefully with

a hippie community.

"Mill Valley" isn't Rita's first musical effort.

At 13 she started to write what she calls "teeny-bopper love songs that were

bad enough to be hits but never made it." After attending the University of

Michigan, she helped form an all-girl rock band, 3 Faces of Eve, that didn't

make it either. So, she decided to teach fulltime.

If Rita's Christmas inspiration has not yet made her and the third-graders

superstars in July, they are at any rate still celebrities. "Mill Valley" has

already been officially designated the town song; and at a recent school-

board meeting it was played nine times. Next fall Rita will teach special

music courses throughout the Mill Valley school system. She's hard at work

adapting some of her rock 'n' roll songs for her schoolchildren - now promoted

to the fourth grade. As for the kids, they're getting $5 each for gigs in town

and starting to talk show biz. "If we can get on Ed Sullivan," one 9-year-old

shouts, "we can make it to the top!"

SONGBOOK FORWARD - Rita Abrams wrote in the forward to her published

song book:

"Finding Mill Valley was one of my happiest accidents. I came out here from

Boston with no prospect of either a place to stay or a teaching job, just a few

days before school was to start. On the map, one town looked like another,

and I called all of them to find work. When I was offered a job, I knew I

should take it and cancel the one interview I had left. But, just to be sure, I

kept that last appointment.

I drove into Mill Valley, and by the time I reached the door of the school

district office I was in love with the place. The people I met inside gave me

even more of a feeling that Mill Valley was where I wanted to be.

On Christmas day of the next year, after a peaceful walk through town, I

decided that if any town deserved to have its own song Mill Valley did. I

think it was the easiest song I ever wrote, and I couldn't wait to teach it to

the kids at Strawberry Point School - they mostly giggled when they heard it.

The story would have ended there, or maybe with the adoption of "Mill

Valley" as the official town song (which was exciting enough). But in another

happy accident I met a producer at a party, the same Erik Jacobsen who had

been mentioned to me back in Boston as someone who might like one of my

songs. I told Erik about "Mill Valley" and he wanted to hear it. When he liked

the classroom tape enough to try making a record, I went into a daze that

lasted about three months, losing a lot of sleep and several pounds.

The things that have happened to the kids and me since the release of "Mill

Valley" have filled a lot of scrapbooks: Letters from around the world, articles

in all kinds of newspapers and magazines, national TV shows, and. at last.

the release of our album. "

Visit Rita's new WEBSITE.

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COPYRIGHT

All of the material

on this website is

copyrighted by

Jason Lewis

unless otherwise

stated.  Those

images not owned

by Jason Lewis

are copyrighted

by their

respective

owners.  If you

are interested in

using material

from these pages,

please contact

Jason Lewis at

jason@marinnost

algia.org prior to

doing so.