Danny Robas
Matti Caspi arranged and produced Danny Robas’ debut album“Frames”(1983), and in it played the electric piano, clavinet, harmonica, synthesizer, bass, prophet 5 synthesizer, drums, and percussion).
On the album cover Robas is quoted thanking Caspi for doing everything professionally and lovingly, and for also being a dear friend.
about the song “I’m Coming Home from the Night” Robas said: “I remember very few moments of happiness like the one where Matti complimented this song”.
Matti Caspi:
“When I produced the ‘Faces and Names’ album for Robas, it had a very pleasant music, he was a very intelligent and sympathetic person, but back then he still wasn’t a good singer like he is today, the kind that has that ‘aura’ above his head. I told myself I was going to draw attention from him to other things, so the listeners would be able to hear other elements too, despite him still remaining in the front. I’ve written him very broad arrangements for many instruments. Back then I used two drum sets, one I played and the other played another drummer, and I also added a lot of percussion and acoustic and electric pianos. The musical arrangement wrapped the album beautifully… when you listen to a song like “I’m Coming Home from the Night” there are other things which attract your attention and that draws attention from the unripe sound of his singing. Today of course, he sings much better”.
During some of his shows, Robas usually tells the emotional story of his first encounter with Matti Caspi:
“Eight years ago I worked as one of Arik Sini’s accompanying musicians and we performed all across the nation in shows. I was an accompanying musician for many singers, for several years, I accompanied Shlomo Artzi, Nurit Galron, Arik Sini, Yael Levy, Oshik Levy, David Levy, I also accompanied bands during the mandate to Jerusalem, yeah I was a known musician.
During the work with Arik, he was a very popular singer and had big hits, back then he worked on some material for a new record titled “Heavy Shadow” and among the material he listened to for that record was one of my songs called “Pretending” and he decided he liked it and wanted it included in his album. He told me I needed to come over to his house the next morning, and there the musical manager of the record will listen to the song and decide if it’s really worthy of a spot in the album.
It all sounded simple and unproblematic, except for one small problem in that matter, that the musical manager was Matti Caspi.
Now, I’m not sure you know this, but to me, as someone who’s only started playing the guitar and writing his first songs in his life, Matti was god, an unattained mythological figure, he was god, really, or at least god’s vice president, first runner-up of the water girl, something, some title, really, something you can’t reach.
Well, after a sleepless night I appeared the next morning at six thirty under Arik’s apartment, dressed in my best clothes, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, clean and shaved (audience: you had a beard…), oh right, you’re right, unshaved, back then I had a big black beard, I was tall, blonde, with blue eyes, for some time…
Ok, so I stand under Arik’s apartment waiting for god to arrive… five minutes to nine and god arrived in short pants and sandals, and he went up to the apartment. I gave myself five minutes to calm down and then went up after him.
Matti was sitting on a couch and in front of him there was an empty one, and I weighed in whether or not I should bow to him, when finally I decided to keep it normal and human, and I sat on the couch in front of him and we stared at each other for ten seconds.
And then Matti said: ‘Do you want to play the song’?
I said: Yes…
(playing) “Sitting for hours…” I played the song “Pretending” from beginning to end and all the while I was thinking: ‘Damn it what do I need this for? I’m so nervous… Matti didn’t move a muscle in his face, he listened intently, I noticed, yet didn’t move a muscle in his face. The song came to an end and again there were ten seconds of awkward silence, until he said: ‘Do you want to play the song again’?
(playing) “Sitting for hours…” I play the song all over again and tell myself: ‘ok, I might as well jump out the window from the fifth floor, what do I need this test for…’ and then the song was finished and Matti slowly turned his head to me and suddenly looked me in the eye and said in an extremely emotional tone (Robas in an undertaker’s voice): “It’s a very beautiful song”.
It’s hard to describe how great is a compliment like that… it was a huge compliment, maybe the greatest I’ve ever received.
And then, well, of course I couldn’t show my excitement to him so I politely said goodbye and only after I closed the door behind me I started jumping down the stairs…”.
Danny Robas was one of the artists who participated in Caspi’s album“Songs in a Tomato Juice”".
In 2016 Caspi and Robas started working together on Caspi’s new album where Robas wrote all the lyrics. The first song that came out of that album isThere Is No One Like Her".