Tag Team, Back Again
Legends and Longtime Buddies Jerry Farber and Angie Aparo Look to Capture Lightning in a Bottle Once Again.
Beloved local bon vivant and funnyman Jerry Farber’s razor-sharp wit cuts so clean it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s real and what’s a joke.
Did Farber really hire the rare-treasure / hidden-gem that is singer-songwriter Angie Aparo while running his namesake Jerry Farber’s Side Door comedy club in Buckhead back in the ‘80s? At the low-ball rate of $50 a night? And decide to call Aparo’s band the Affordables?
The Affordables!?! Really?
“I met him when he was a kid,” Farber recalls of his long-time friend and special guest performer at his Old as Dirt 86th birthday bash coming up at the Loft.
“We got together back in the mid-‘70s at [popular Atlanta comedy club] Lark & Dove, doing covers, mostly Billy Joel and Elton John. He helped me stay there. We became buddies and stayed in touch. When I opened Jerry Farber’s, he came back, 19 years old, this time with a trio. The Affordables. We had a good crowd. They could do no wrong as far as the audience was concerned. Angie even began introducing his own music, which is impossible to do at that point. People loved it.”
Farber and Aparo created a variety show with the Affordables in a format they replicated every night from roughly 1982-86. Aparo’s talent eventually caught the ear of legendary producer Clive Davis, who signed him to Arista Records, where he released his smash debut album, The American. This launched Aparo’s career into the stratosphere, with national tours on stages shared with big names, and writing songs covered by top-selling country music artists, most notably Faith Hill’s multi-platinum “Cry” in 2002.
So why, after years of trying to reunite on stage, do the stars finally align and bring them back together in Columbus in March for Old as Dirt?
“It’s important for me to be on that stage with him,” says Aparo, talking by phone as he drives from Atlanta to Nashville between gigs during a recent weekend run. “We haven’t done a show together in over 35 years. I am so excited.”
“He’s the best,” Aparo, now 62, says of Farber. “He’s so good at jazz piano. A real serious player. He would play this incredible jazz and then stand up and do a couple hilarious bits and just blow people’s minds.”
Aparo’s career came to a halt in 2016 when he suffered a stroke. The diagnosis was he would never again be able to sing. Miracles do happen though and these days Aparo plays 50-60 shows a year to audiences captivated by his inspired words carried by mesmerizing pure-emotion vocal delivery. To cap off his incredible comeback, in January Aparo hit #1 on iTunes Songwriter chart with a live version of his classic, “Free Man.”
The recording came from a recent showcase in Nashville hosted by country music-industry heavyweight John Rich at his Redneck Riviera club. The song took off after the star of the Big & Rich duo played it on his popular syndicated radio program, the ‘Johnjay & Rich Show.’
“The new ‘Free Man’ single has sparked a whole new world for me and my music,” Aparo says. “It’s rejuvenated my career.”
Though always associated with Atlanta (and for good reason), both Farber and Aparo have found a home at the Loft (1032 Broadway). Farber performs stand-up there regularly, including at his annual birthday show, while Aparo has a long history with the venue, which he praises as “a serious songwriter room with amazing sound and audience” on par with listening-room gold standard, Eddie’s Attic in Decatur.
“It’s amazing what Angie’s done,” says Farber. “Having a stroke, being told he’ll never get his voice back but yet, now, when he sings, it’s as good as it gets.”
Old as Dirt: Jerry Farber’s 86th Birthday with Angie Aparo, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7. Tickets $15. TheLoft.com.
By Frank Etheridge