“Music Is A Passion”: Jake Steinfeld On How ‘Body By Jake: Don’t Quit!’ Came Together

Emerging decades before the global popularity of “workout playlists,” Body By Jake: Don’t Quit! is just one milestone among a laundry list of pioneering accomplishments from the timeless fitness personality Jake Steinfeld.

Released in 1984, Don’t Quit! was Steinfeld’s groundbreaking collection of all-original pump-up music, the first original soundtrack to an exercise video, a precursor to the type of curated playlists found on Peloton and the streaming services. The collection was executive produced by Steinfeld himself.

Now, more than 35 years later, Don’t Quit! has been revitalized for the digital age as it makes its streaming debut via Body By Jake Music/UMe, returning to raise heart rates, work muscles and move bodies once again. In celebration of this milestone, Steinfeld did an exclusive interview with uDiscover Music, during which he revealed all about how the Body By Jake: Don’t Quit album became a reality.

This project was the first of its kind. Tell us how it all came together.

Jake Steinfeld: “To take it back a little bit, everything that I’ve ever done in my career – if everyone was going left, I went right. And I’ve been very fortunate. I was the first guy to really do personal fitness training and made it an occupation. Fortunately for me, I did it in Hollywood. The people that surrounded themselves with me, or vice versa, were people like Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Priscilla Presley, Bette Midler, Warren Beatty, all the biggest stars of the 80s and still today, I became famous by association. Spielberg, who I call Wheels, became like a big brother. He introduced me to folks like Lew Wasserman at MCA and Sid Sheinberg.

I was getting ready to do my first book which was with Simon and Schuster. The book was called Body by Jake, and I had pictures of all the different clients that I just mentioned to you in that book. And look, I love music. I’m a huge music fan. I’m 64 now, so I grew up in the late ‘60s and the ‘70s. I went to camp in upstate New York, which was right by Woodstock. I’m a big Jethro Tull guy. I mean I go from Tull, to Frank Sinatra, to Alice Cooper, and Deep Purple, The Who, Cream, everywhere in between. Music to me is a passion. It’s emotional. And exercise is boring. And I knew that. I’m a wacko. I love to exercise. I train. I’m up in the morning, super early in the morning. But people who love to train are very few and far between.

This book with Simon and Schuster was ready to come out, and then I made a deal at MCA Home Video. Jane Fonda had come on the scene a little bit earlier doing the high-impact aerobics classes, Jayne Kennedy, Victoria Principal, names of the past. And they actually had exercise records that they did, where there was a record, and they did this one-and two-and three-and- four, with this canned music behind it. The music wasn’t really snappy. It wasn’t something that I related to, because I love to listen to what the competition is doing, or what people were doing in general.

I had this crazy idea. I said ‘What if I was able to break an artist on my exercise video? What if I did the first original soundtrack to an exercise video?’ I started talking to a few people and one of the guys I spoke to was Spielberg. I was at his house this one day, pitched him the idea. Spielberg says, ‘This is really interesting.’ Now, his girlfriend at the time was a girl named Kathleen Carey and she had a company over at MCA Records called Unicity Music. It was a publishing arm that Kathy and another terrific guy, Ronnie Vance, had.

So I sat down with these guys and they said, ‘We love this idea, let’s go for it.’ I then sat down with Irving Azoff and pitched this idea which was simply: You have a number of artists that probably don’t have enough content for their own album. Maybe you can help me and I might be able to help you. We might be able to break an artist on my exercise video, and maybe if we did a soundtrack to the exercise video, that could be helpful.”

This all sounds like an incredible bit of cross-promotion for everything you were doing at the time.

Steinfeld: “The album stood on its own, the exercise video stood on its own, and the book stood on its own. I was able to get Gulf and Western (that owned Simon and Schuster) to work with MCA Records and MCA Home Video. And inside the record, there was a pullout chart of exercises that you could do. All three worked in concert with each other.

And the video did gangbusters, the book did gangbusters, and the album did okay. But the music, now, is really quite interesting. In the last few months, talents like Beyoncé and Drake are dropping 80s dance records. And I just say Beyoncé, Drake, look out for Body by Jake now, because we’re coming” [laughs]

Do you have any stories from putting together the record?

Steinfeld: “The first guy we talked to, this is actually a good story… We listened to music in Ronnie Vance’s office. This one young guy comes in and plays some stuff for us. Very nice guy from Virginia Beach. He walks out of the office and I said to Ronnie, I don’t think this guy is much of anything. Turns out to be Bruce Hornsby. So I missed on that one!

Later in life, I did a sitcom on the Family Channel in Virginia Beach. And I was at an Italian restaurant having dinner with my cast. And people are making a fuss. And someone says, ‘Oh, wait, it’s Bruce Hornsby!’ And I’m going, ‘Oh no!’ So he comes walking over and he says, ‘Hey you’re Jake!’ And I go, ‘Hey, how you doing, Bruce? He goes, ‘Thanks for not putting me on your album, man.’ That’s all I can tell you. He was a terrific guy about it, though.

Anyway, so we put our minds together. Ronnie Vance finds Bobby Caldwell, who had a big hit in the ‘70s, “What You Won’t Do for Love.” And that’s how all this began. We said we wanted to get a few good producers. So guys like Richard Feldman, Rick Kelly, Andre Fischer. Andre Fischer came out of a band called Rufus, man. Rick Chudacoff and Peter Bunetta.”

Do you have any more stories from the talent scouting that went on?

Steinfeld: “Here’s one. The great composer John Williams was at Spielberg’s office one day. I was going in and training Spielberg three, four or five times a week. And I would meet all kinds of people. And I was just telling Wheels, sitting down, having a conversation, how the album’s coming along.

And John Williams says, ‘What kind of album are you doing?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m doing the first original soundtrack to an exercise video. He goes, ‘Boy, that’s genius!’ He said, ‘My son is an artist. Would you be interested in listening to some of his stuff?’ And I said, ‘Well, absolutely.’

Ronnie and Kathy got together. And Joseph Williams does two cuts on my album. Now this is, honestly, this is before he becomes a lead singer for Toto, right? So Toto fans around the world: I’ve got two incredible cuts of music on our album that you have never heard, and to hear Joseph’s voice is just magnificent.”

When you sat down with these artists to tell them the concept, what did you tell them?

Steinfeld: “I asked them each to give me something that you could work out to, that you can kind of bop to in the car, you can clean your apartment to. But I want it jumping, I want it popping and pumping and it’s positive. And that was the only note that I gave. I’m not a singer, this is not what I do. But I surrounded myself with a great bunch of people.”

I’m curious about the video you did. What can you tell me about it?

Steinfeld: “In the summer of 1983, there were about four or five music video channels that were launching. MTV being one of them. I had this idea that I wanted to, I’ve always wanted to do the reenactment of the back of the comic book, Charles Atlas. The nerdy guy who gets sand kicked in his face, gets his girlfriend taken away from him from a bully, and then he works out vigorously and ends up winning the day and getting his girl back and they live happily ever after. That was always in my mind.

Bobby Caldwell loved the idea. At the time, I was training Priscilla Presley. Priscilla was dating a guy who happened to have been the number one male model in the world, Michael Edwards. I pitched the idea to Mikey and I said, ‘Buddy boy, would you do me a favor? We’re doing this video for MTV. He goes, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Yeah, could you play along? Would you be the nerd and play the guy that the bully takes his girl? (The bully happens to be one of my brothers, by the way.) But then I’m going to work you out. You’re going to get the muscles and you get your girl back and you live happily ever after. He goes, ‘I’m in!’

We had a ball doing it. We took one afternoon to shoot it, and the way they re-digitized it recently, it looks like we shot it last week. And if you look how beautiful, how big the beach is. And the ocean looked magnificent. And the bodies and everything else. And the songs just kick ass, man. The song is so motivational, so inspirational. I’m not going to sing, I promise, because you’ll hang up on me!”

You continued doing music stuff with Universal in various capacities. I’m curious if you can just talk briefly about what you were doing and the idea behind it.

Steinfeld: “MCA had always been great to me. Lots of people there have been very incredible to me. A young attorney who was at MCA Records when I did the album was a guy named Bruce Resnikoff. And Bruce became a big macha at Universal. And we’ve always kept in touch.

Around 12 years ago, this other label came up to talk to me about not only having a label but curating songs and playlists. And I said, ‘Yeah, this is super interesting. But then I just happened to run into Bruce at Toscana in Brentwood. And he says, ‘Jake, you are the only guy, any artist that I’ve ever dealt with, that gave me a thank you on the back of your album’. It’s true, I did!

And I said, ‘Oh, you’re not going to believe this. There’s an opportunity for me to do this Body by Jake label at this other place. He goes, ‘Are you kidding me? You better come to my place. I’m in charge of this stuff!’ I said, ‘Okay, I’m happy to talk to you about it. And we looked at creating these compilations that we’ve now done over the years.

Well, Bruce and I, got together for lunch recently to talk about freshening the label up, getting some new music, and he goes, ‘Some of the biggest current artists are releasing ‘80s dance albums. We should re-release Body by Jake: Don’t Quit. I go, ‘Oh my God, it’s a great idea. It’s crazy. He goes, ‘Come on, we’ll have some fun. And that’s how it happened.

I haven’t spoken to some of these people, well, since summer of 1983 so have been reconnecting with some of the artists and producers and it’s been a lot of fun to reminisce. The music really is good. And to hear people respond to it is so much fun.

What do you think is the legacy of this whole project?

Steinfeld: That taking a shot really can and does pay off. And the excitement and the enjoyment of doing something, not just first, but doing something that people got together and engaged with, and committed to executing on. The final product really came out great. And people enjoyed, and will enjoy it again, or maybe enjoy them for the first time, these eight great cuts of music that I promise you, will not only make you smile but will motivate you to take a walk maybe, or a run, or bop up and down in your car when you sit on a 405 and you’re bumper to bumper.”

Buy or stream Body By Jake: Don’t Quit.