Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to guest Tamar Springer about her composer/songwriter father Philip Springer. Now, unless you are in music publishing or a collector of film soundtracks or possibly a musical academic, the name Philip Springer might not seem like a name you would know. A ha, but if I told you he was the composer & co-writer of the hit Eartha Kitt, Christmas song "Santa Baby" then would you know? Or perhaps you'd know some of his other work which has been sung by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald, from Dusty Springfield to Elvis Presley. In all, Philip Springer has composed more than 500 songs and he's still writing songs today at age 99.

Our conversation with Tamar centers around a documentary she made about her father that is Academy Award eligible and has screened at film festivals around the country. Her film about her father, More Than Santa Baby is Tamar's film about her father's career that spans performing classical music, writing some of the earliest electronic music, scoring film and television shows, writing for songwriters at the famed Brill Building and much much more.

What's more, there is a familiar connection between Tamar and host Josh Mills family that even he didn't realize when they started the conversation. It's more than incredible, it's downright cosmic. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a has a story. But not like this. Not like the one guest Tamar Springer tells on this episode. She really lived up to her name!

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Ed Eckstein, son of smooth as silk singer & bandleader Billy Eckstein. Our chat with Ed was funny, educational, occasionally jaw dropping and always engaging. Now, before we even started our chat with Ed, upon his agreeing to be a part of the podcast, we got a list of topics from Ed that he thought we might want to discuss. Effectively, he sent us a cheat sheet that they didn't get to on his appearance on the Questlove Supreme podcast prior to our chat. Who were we to say no? There were like 60 totally engaging topics Ed had written out and we get to some of them here.

Jazz fans and pop fans will know Billy Eckstein for his deep baritone voice that singers of the era loved and the ladies swooned for. Sinatra was a fan and a friend. As was Ella and a host of others. Dapper, good looking, classy, entrepreneurial and courageous, we discuss with Ed all of those qualities his father had that made him a star. It also made him a target as you will hear, surrounding an article in Life Magazine that exposed America's racists past that frankly, doesn't seem too far removed from where we are today.

We also talk to Ed about his own career as a journalist and music executive who recounts his obsessive love of rock music, his time working for the one and only Q, Quincy Jones and some of the most insane and jaw dropping interviews he conducted with the likes of Issac Hayes. We also get into his years as his father's helper before he went on stage at Jewish and Italian resorts in the 1960s and as Nabil Ayers said in a 2020 New York Times piece, what it "was like to be the first black person to be let in — to be allowed by the predominantly white music industry to helm one of its largest entities,"when he was the president of Mercury Records.

This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Katherine Kramer, daughter of producer/director Stanley Kramer. Our chat with Katherine or Kat was both edifying and easy as we had familial connections and we learned a few things in the process. Such as? Well how about what famous actress was she named after, where in the Western United States did her family move to once they left Hollywood and what films made her father a bankable director while he was still producing.

We also spoke about some of his films, many of them 'message' films such as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Judgement at Nuremberg, The Defiant Ones and a small, off-beat comedy called It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World which co-starred Edie Adams, our host's Josh Mills's mother. In all, Stanley Kramer's films garnered 80 Academy Awards and starred everyone from Spencer Tracy to Sidney Pointier, Marlon Brando and so many, many more.

Kat talked to us about her work as well – in terms of both her charity events and her film festivals, her one woman show about Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, her creepy house growing up, The Kennedy Assassination and much more. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Kat Kramer's is coming right up!