But if you're watching the Academy Awards on Sunday, you might hear his name.
No small feat when you consider Depp, 44 — who'd never sung a note previously — snagged a Golden Globe and is nominated for an Oscar for his singing performance in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.Having accepted the title role, Depp called Witkin with a plea to help ascertain if he was capable of pulling it off, because director
In the film's production notes, Depp admits, "That was the first song I ever sang in my life."
Working from a Broadway cast recording, the two men were forced to pick Stephen Sondheim's demanding melodies apart on the piano and rely on their ears for the vocal lines because neither reads music.
"If there was a long note Johnny needed to hit, he would just get it up and hit it," said Witkin, a 45-year-old sound engineer who records and produces under his own Unison Music label. "To see someone like Johnny, who had never sung before, come into my studio so prepared really blew me away."
Witkin and Depp's friendship dates to 1980, when both played in a
They were so young they often had to sneak in the back doors of clubs — the Button South, the Tree House, the Play Pen and the Candy Store — to play.
"I was the vocalist and played bass; Johnny was our guitarist," recalled Witkin, who dropped out of Hollywood High — with the permission of his mother, a local band manager — to pursue his music career.
"Those early days were a lot of fun and fruitful for guys of our age. We were pulling in around $50 a night between four of us, and we were playing shows and we were surviving."
Depp calls Witkin "a brother." In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said, "We worked in bands together, we were on the road together. We lived together when we were teenagers. His mom was basically my second mom." Indeed, last year, at a charity concert in memory of Sheila Witkin, Depp turned up at Club Cinema in
After heading to Los Angeles to seek their fortunes, the Kids — a punk/new-wave outfit whose sound was a mix of Ramones, XTC and other '70s-'80s bands of that ilk — survived for a few months before breaking up in 1984, whereupon Depp went into acting. That same year he appeared in A Nightmare on Elm Street — and the rest is box office history.
Witkin continued making music.
He played on bills with
"Johnny and I reconnected in 2000, when I started working and touring with his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis, a talented French singer," he said.
Will Witkin's work with Depp in Sweeney Todd open new doors?
"I did it because Johnny's my friend and I wanted him to come out sounding great," Witkin said. "He put this in my hands — and he trusted me with his voice. My goal was for him to be happy with the result.
"I think I succeeded."
Patricia Towle is a freelance writer in Lantana.
*Sun-Sentinel.com*
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