Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is a man who's done it all,
Speaker 1: agent manager presently a promoter as CEO of meter Lander Concerts,
Speaker 1: Alex Hodges. Thank you, Bob, glad to be here. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what's the status of the concert business today? It's
Speaker 1: it's robust. You always gotta look over your shoulder though
Speaker 1: you never know when the economy or something else is
Speaker 1: gonna fight you. But it's really strong right now. What
Speaker 1: do you think accounts for that? I think a strong economy.
Speaker 1: I think that people have a jingle in their pocket,
Speaker 1: or that with job they'll spend money on entertainment. Okay.
Speaker 1: That leads to the point where sometimes shows are put
Speaker 1: on for put up for sale like over a year before.
Speaker 1: Is that basically an economic thing? Hey, let's get the
Speaker 1: money while they have it or what. It's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think part of it is beat the competition, get
Speaker 1: on sale early, uh, take money out of the market, um,
Speaker 1: and all the other reasons. You know you're controlling somebody's money.
Speaker 1: You got it in the bank. Okay. For those who
Speaker 1: are unfamiliar, tell us more about the purview of needle
Speaker 1: Leander Concerts for needle Lander Concerts part of a family
Speaker 1: owned operation organization. UM. The needle Leander family started in
Speaker 1: uh Detroit in the theater business in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: So it's family owned and over a hundred years old
Speaker 1: and not for sale. This is so there is a
Speaker 1: certain sense of stability. That's right. It's a good thing,
Speaker 1: unlike the rest of corporate America. UM. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: Jimmie needle Lander Sr. Just to be clear, they left
Speaker 1: the Midwest, and they're like the number one player on Broadway, right,
Speaker 1: don't they have the most theaters? Well, they may not
Speaker 1: have the most theaters, but I'll say the best and
Speaker 1: they have not so it's pretty robust. Um. Um. They
Speaker 1: have Broadway theaters in Chicago, London, New York, l A.
Speaker 1: And interest in San Francisco. Uh in booking arrangements for
Speaker 1: Broadway and other cities like Durham, North Carolina. Uh So
Speaker 1: the Broadway peace is the bigger family. And we say
Speaker 1: it's really the biggest Hamilton's please in the needle Leander Theater.
Speaker 1: Yes and many. Okay, we're going back to Jimmy in
Speaker 1: the seventies, so, uh, Jimmy Needle Lander and his brothers.
Speaker 1: There was Robert and Harry and UH and um um
Speaker 1: who else Joey and one other wasn't in the music
Speaker 1: business Freddie Anyway, Jimmy need Landers sr. Uh went into
Speaker 1: New York from from Detroit years ago to start and
Speaker 1: challenge the Broadway scene in the in the city. In
Speaker 1: the seventies, had an opportunity to work with Lost in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles with the city on reviving UH in recreating
Speaker 1: or you know, building up the Greek Theater in l A.
Speaker 1: Also had an opportunity to purchase the Pentageous Theater with
Speaker 1: a local partner. So all of a sudden it was
Speaker 1: do you want to go west? And I think Mr
Speaker 1: needle Lander's friends all said, don't do it, You'll be
Speaker 1: This's the stupidest thing, is terrible, But he'd done something
Speaker 1: stupid before and it worked out okay. In the process,
Speaker 1: they also built Amphitheaters, Popular Creek in Chicago, pin nob
Speaker 1: Music Theater and in Clarkston, Michigan, which is Detroit, Mariweather
Speaker 1: Post Pavilion, UH in Columbia, Maryland outside of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And between there in Baltimore and others and including Pacific
Speaker 1: Amphitheater in Los Angeles. So the outdoor music, contemporary music
Speaker 1: concert UM experience UM was really led by the Netherlander family. Really,
Speaker 1: they were the first ones who were doing it before
Speaker 1: it became a thing with Universal Conscience Center. Yes, UM.
Speaker 1: After they really had this equation dominated, a lot of
Speaker 1: people wanted to copy it. UM m C A Universal
Speaker 1: Concerts competed, Pace Music competed out of Texas, and so
Speaker 1: they became more UM. There's some historic venues of course,
Speaker 1: Red Rocks in Denver, Tanglewood in Massachusetts. Tanglewood, mass to
Speaker 1: choose it's UM UM Blossom Music Theater is pretty you know,
Speaker 1: it's been around a long time in Cleveland. Some of
Speaker 1: them then later came under m C A Universal Watch
Speaker 1: and some were Needle Ender. They really they really changed
Speaker 1: the model and everybody followed. Okay, so how long have
Speaker 1: you been working for need Leander. Well, I've worked for
Speaker 1: them twice and even work at this time. I came
Speaker 1: back to the company in April of two thousand and seven. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what are you concentrating on now? We're concentrating on
Speaker 1: more venues to book uh, working as a as an
Speaker 1: extension of the venue ownership and management. Sometimes we don't
Speaker 1: own it, we don't manage it. It could be municipally owned,
Speaker 1: it could be privately owned. Uh. And if we come
Speaker 1: in and make a dedicated emphasis on booking it with
Speaker 1: focus trying to you know, not just do an occasional
Speaker 1: one off, but really concentrate as an advocate for a
Speaker 1: venue in the market, we found out we can change
Speaker 1: the landscape. Give me an example. Uh, there's several and
Speaker 1: San Jose for example, it's a civic auditorium in San Jose.
Speaker 1: It was essentially abandoned for concerts. How many Uh what's capacity?
Speaker 1: Yea three thousand, so you can set it up a
Speaker 1: little under or slightly more. There's a balcony. It's a
Speaker 1: civic center from the thirties and it was in the
Speaker 1: in the seventies into the eighties. Bill Graham tried to
Speaker 1: do concerts there. Um. This the venue needed an uplift,
Speaker 1: needed a lot of uplift in anyway, the Bill Graham
Speaker 1: decided to not go back at a point and interestingly,
Speaker 1: a lot of the shows that he did there were
Speaker 1: booked by me and my agent career. Uh, so it
Speaker 1: was it was kind of a loss of an opportunity
Speaker 1: to play another date in the Bay Area when he
Speaker 1: quit doing the midsize with the smaller, smaller spaces UM.
Speaker 1: So fast forward all these years where it was essentially abandoned,
Speaker 1: used for a minor league basketball experiment for a little while, useful,
Speaker 1: some graduations, used for overflow for convention city convention UH business,
Speaker 1: but primarily UM just an extra room in the city,
Speaker 1: and the city recognized they needed to maybe consider renovating
Speaker 1: UH put together a budget, and one of the things
Speaker 1: when we were introduced to the venue in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, and probably because no one was interested them,
Speaker 1: the thing that caught my attention was was that the
Speaker 1: city had spent a million dollars on a boiler. And
Speaker 1: I'm going like, that's the last thing on my agenda,
Speaker 1: but it's maybe should be the first, because it represents
Speaker 1: a real commitment to the venue, you know, the underpinnings,
Speaker 1: the infrastructure to make it work. If they would do
Speaker 1: that that's not seen and not cosmetic, maybe they would
Speaker 1: do a good job with the other amenities that would
Speaker 1: make it a hospitable place for rock and roll bands.
Speaker 1: How much money, So ultimately was the city's money or
Speaker 1: need only enters, money, cities money. I did some uh
Speaker 1: consulting for free, also contributed to pay some consultants to
Speaker 1: help advise on certain specifics. And we started actually booking
Speaker 1: during some of the construction in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: And that was probably a little premature. Okay, you're the
Speaker 1: exclusive booker for the building. We were, and now we're
Speaker 1: the primary booker. But there's some other promoters, international promoters
Speaker 1: and specialty promoters that do some shows, so we do
Speaker 1: almost all. And how many shows this that we do, um,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty shows. Uh, there's twelve months a year.
Speaker 1: And uh, when when I spoke about turning a venue around, Uh,
Speaker 1: that takes the money, It takes some vision, it takes
Speaker 1: some uh staying power. When we did our first thirteen shows,
Speaker 1: we lost on twelve. Really, why do you think that
Speaker 1: was new unfamiliar or the familiarity content was not good? Actually,
Speaker 1: after we satned the deal, was the first time I
Speaker 1: read the Yelp reviews and they were terrible. You literally
Speaker 1: had to turn it around. Oh goodness. I trusted my
Speaker 1: vision though, and uh and Jimmy Nata Lander let me
Speaker 1: keep going, which was terrific. So now it's a robust,
Speaker 1: and we we were just doing a great job. You
Speaker 1: don't make money on every show, but losing on twelve
Speaker 1: by the thirteen was not good. So now we'll make
Speaker 1: money on you know, almost all. So other than showing
Speaker 1: that the building was new and booking good talent, what
Speaker 1: else did need to Leander do to improve the situation?
Speaker 1: What was need to leander special sauce, Well, we made
Speaker 1: a lot of recommendations on making the consumer like interested
Speaker 1: and and that included such important things as um um,
Speaker 1: you know, ah, outlets in the dressing room so they
Speaker 1: could tune a guitar, areas for the crew to work
Speaker 1: behind the staging area to star dressing rooms, not one,
Speaker 1: renovating the upstairs dressing rooms, and then outside in the hallways.
Speaker 1: We thought, what's gonna make this appealing? That in you,
Speaker 1: having been built in the thirties had a rich history,
Speaker 1: so we thought about um, big life size posters framed
Speaker 1: put on the walls. The memorialized the date that the
Speaker 1: stars have been there. And it's pretty interesting when you've
Speaker 1: realized that the who would played their Frank Sinatra played there, uh,
Speaker 1: Barbra Streischan had played there, so um um, you know
Speaker 1: Santana and UM, so many, so many others. But it's
Speaker 1: all a long time ago, from the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies,
Speaker 1: eighties and stopped. So we reincarnated the history, you know,
Speaker 1: with the slogan legends played here and and uh, big
Speaker 1: huge pictures. So all the fans come and they go wow.
Speaker 1: They stand in front of it and take each other's pictures,
Speaker 1: along with some historic great you know, artists rolling stones.
Speaker 1: They'll stand in front of that and take pictures, so
Speaker 1: that that liven the otherwise, you know, rather dull um,
Speaker 1: you know, concourse and what other buildings you book in um.
Speaker 1: Another story of of turning around is much more recent.
Speaker 1: In two thousand thirteen, a winery and pass of Robles
Speaker 1: built and opened a three thousand seats amphitheater um fixed
Speaker 1: seats two thousand, one thousand long and on the pit
Speaker 1: you can use it open pit or you can. In
Speaker 1: any case, it was we we were interested, but the
Speaker 1: the deal made did not provide, in my mind, an
Speaker 1: opportunity to make money. So someone else went in there
Speaker 1: and they lost a lot of money. Why did it not?
Speaker 1: Uh was it not going to be profitable? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, it's new. Second, it's local. Asian is Pastor Robots.
Speaker 1: That's not a big population, so you have to go
Speaker 1: for those people aunt familiar. What's the closest big city
Speaker 1: to the closest small big city is Sant Louis Obispo.
Speaker 1: And how far is it from San Louis Bispo? You know,
Speaker 1: call it fifteen miles, but hundred and four miles to Bakersfield,
Speaker 1: a hundred and four miles to Fresno. So you've got
Speaker 1: this gigantics center central part of the state, creating a
Speaker 1: kind of what I call a triangle almost to get
Speaker 1: people to come. And anything new then requires like you
Speaker 1: gotta book it. Agents have to you know, accept the vision,
Speaker 1: take a risk. You have to, we have to pay
Speaker 1: for it, so it's all at our dollar risk. Then
Speaker 1: then the fans don't know of it because it's new.
Speaker 1: Uh So in this case, it was good to be
Speaker 1: sucking in and we just did a great job. Also,
Speaker 1: it took time. So last year twenty nineteen was the
Speaker 1: first really robust, profitable, you know, uh bottom line profitable
Speaker 1: year in uh in in Pastor Robels at Vena roeblassed
Speaker 1: Amphitheater is fantastic venue, and now we we think we're there,
Speaker 1: recognition from the fans, recognition from agents and managers and
Speaker 1: artists and how many shows did you do there last year? Okay, now, uh,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the elephant in the room. Nider Lander
Speaker 1: is big, but also there's Live Nation in a G.
Speaker 1: How does need a leader fit in the landscape. Well,
Speaker 1: you're talking about a very big elephant. Maybe too, there
Speaker 1: is a couple of big elephants, and and uh it's interesting,
Speaker 1: um uh those younger people in the industry who haven't
Speaker 1: really experienced the days of the independent promoter in almost
Speaker 1: every major city. In smaller cities, um, I really don't
Speaker 1: know how the landscape has changed. So a young agent
Speaker 1: will go, wow, I just got fifty tour offer from
Speaker 1: Live Nation. That's uh, that's hard to compete with. And
Speaker 1: and so we're trying to identifying markets and venues we
Speaker 1: can work in and make the experience unique and then
Speaker 1: just not lose the opportunities to the Live Nation or
Speaker 1: the a G national tour. And there's a couple of
Speaker 1: other things that have made it difficult, like the casino
Speaker 1: business is unique and they can afford to pay artists
Speaker 1: on another type of P and L than just looking
Speaker 1: at ticket sales and then um um um there's fairs.
Speaker 1: That's that's a unique animal. Not really competitive day to
Speaker 1: day to what we do. Uh. So it's it's difficult.
Speaker 1: I recommend to young agents stay an agent. Okay, since
Speaker 1: you've done anything. You were born where I was born
Speaker 1: in Decatur, Georgia in Emery hospital. What what was like
Speaker 1: living in Georgia back then? Was it as southern as
Speaker 1: we felt up north or what was going on? Of
Speaker 1: course not? Uh, you know, major cities of major cities
Speaker 1: with variety of population. Know why was deketor de Keta?
Speaker 1: What was there that drove the Decatur. That's a good
Speaker 1: question because I think, Uh, for years, I used to
Speaker 1: just answer the question, where I'm from is Atlanta? So
Speaker 1: Decatur is um, sort of a bedroom community of Atlanta,
Speaker 1: but it was it was a county seat of De
Speaker 1: Cabb County. So good schools, a lot of good schools,
Speaker 1: amazing um high school football team, um and um. You know,
Speaker 1: so you would ache to trolley or the bus or
Speaker 1: an automobile to Atlanta for major shopping trips. But the
Speaker 1: Decatur was very significantly important. And then years and years
Speaker 1: and years ago, you know, train came through and stopped
Speaker 1: and so forth. So it was it was a bustling,
Speaker 1: bustling uh uh community. And so what'd your father do
Speaker 1: for a living? My father, um was an executive at
Speaker 1: a company called Pure Oil Company, and I think later
Speaker 1: a lot of their stations in the Southeast and other
Speaker 1: places gave way to Golf Oil. But he had been
Speaker 1: he had It's interesting he had been uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like oil and petroleum salesperson before the automobiles really proliferated,
Speaker 1: and before there was a service station on every other corner.
Speaker 1: Uh So when the world changed for automobiles, he was
Speaker 1: in charge of the entire Southeast on a smaller company
Speaker 1: called Wofford Oil, and they picked up a contract for
Speaker 1: distribution of gas. And my father actually visited small towns
Speaker 1: knocking on doors, meeting people at the barbershop, uh and saying,
Speaker 1: you need a service station in your town. And he
Speaker 1: did that all over the Southeast. So he was pretty
Speaker 1: uh it was pretty interesting too to know that he
Speaker 1: was a part of that, you know, before it was
Speaker 1: at anything. Well, it's all so fascinating. Living in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: gas stations keep disappearing. I know now when you want
Speaker 1: to get gas, you gotta think about where you're going.
Speaker 1: There used to be a station on every corner. How
Speaker 1: many kids in the family. I'm the baby of four brothers. Okay,
Speaker 1: and the other three brothers, what are they up to?
Speaker 1: So uh listen, I'm the baby, um four brothers. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm enough junior that I got the benefit of having
Speaker 1: a four older brothers. How what was the gap between
Speaker 1: my ma and my closest brother. He's eleven years older
Speaker 1: and he's still kicking. And how about your old the
Speaker 1: oldest brother, Um turned January the third, and he's still kicking.
Speaker 1: How has he got all his marbles? He does remarkably
Speaker 1: because my girlfriends marbles. I was talking to my mother
Speaker 1: earlier than she's She knows who I am. But it's,
Speaker 1: you know, getting got a bad it's it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: to see the aging. You know, we have a mother
Speaker 1: in law who's going through some issues. And but my
Speaker 1: brothers did well. My old my second oldest brother did
Speaker 1: nine and he was exhausted, really after being a caregiver
Speaker 1: for his wife who had Alzheimer's. That's a tough one.
Speaker 1: It's a long goodbye. And your other brother one was
Speaker 1: a doctor. He was in the navy, you know, during
Speaker 1: the World War Two. He was in the peace building
Speaker 1: part of the navy. Uh as a Navy doctor stationed
Speaker 1: in Japan. After the war was over, and he moved
Speaker 1: around a lot. Uh then he settled in North Georgia,
Speaker 1: uh as a you know, a country or a mountain doctor.
Speaker 1: Now are you close with your brothers and real close? Okay,
Speaker 1: what lessons did you learn from them? I don't have
Speaker 1: any brothers, so being the youngest at having three older
Speaker 1: brothers interesting. I had to speak at the brother who died.
Speaker 1: I had to speak at his service, and at first
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of a story. I mean, my mind
Speaker 1: went blank. And uh, you know, so I wrote notes
Speaker 1: on three by five cards in my practice in front
Speaker 1: of my wife, and she said, very nice, but anybody
Speaker 1: could say those generality these and and she was right.
Speaker 1: She said, they need people need to hear some stories
Speaker 1: that they have forgotten or never heard. And so um
Speaker 1: I did it. I found found a way and it
Speaker 1: triggered something that I started jotting down any story that
Speaker 1: I had heard from the older brothers. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that my brothers carried over from my father
Speaker 1: and my mother is when you're gonna do something, do
Speaker 1: it right. Just do it right. That's the big message.
Speaker 1: Don't shortcut it. Okay, So what kind of kid are you?
Speaker 1: In school? Popular? Reasonably? I was a president of the
Speaker 1: Hot Rods Club. What was that like? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we uh we saw these uh thirty nine Ford coups
Speaker 1: and we saw these and they had passed on and
Speaker 1: we saw that people some race car guys. We're putting uh,
Speaker 1: you know, chevallet motors in them, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it was just kind of a cool thing. I think
Speaker 1: drag racing had its moment at in in the in
Speaker 1: the fifties, right in in early sixties maybe, so maybe
Speaker 1: my parents kind of backed and gave us a garage
Speaker 1: to work in. And I created at school a hot
Speaker 1: rock club called the Idlers, and we had we took minutes,
Speaker 1: we had rules, we had meetings and votes and all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. And it was part of some of
Speaker 1: the other experiences in school from my brothers and hearing
Speaker 1: that they were in in uh you know, different classes
Speaker 1: and clubs and so forth. So it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of participation. And uh, I did build a hot rod. Okay,
Speaker 1: tell me about your hot right. I belt it was uh,
Speaker 1: no fenders, uh thirty four ford uh uh convertible H
Speaker 1: might have been a Cooper originally, but no top when
Speaker 1: I got it, and I put in a two eighty
Speaker 1: three uh chevallet V eight engine to four barrel carburetors,
Speaker 1: and I got it going where it was really drivable
Speaker 1: and uh and and really pretty awesome and time around
Speaker 1: out I went to college and uh so I went
Speaker 1: to Mercery University. But what happened to the well, that's
Speaker 1: that's part of it. What a parents do when kids
Speaker 1: go to they sell something. So my hot rod was
Speaker 1: put up for sale by my father, and a guy
Speaker 1: came and got it. Our father wanted his garage back,
Speaker 1: all right, I don't blame him. Um so, uh. The
Speaker 1: fellow that bought it raced it and had race it.
Speaker 1: He raced it and he brought to the house right
Speaker 1: the door bell knocked on the door, met my father
Speaker 1: and said your son might be happy to know, and
Speaker 1: showed him a trophield winning a quarter track, you know. Right,
Speaker 1: so that was cool. I just kind of felt good.
Speaker 1: So you can do cars are all computer righted now?
Speaker 1: But only speaking. You're completely familiar with how cars are.
Speaker 1: That's why I have in truck was a Mustang engine
Speaker 1: in it. How did you put the engine in? Now? Okay?
Speaker 1: How often do you drive that? Once a week? Really?
Speaker 1: What's that like? This is cool? You know, it looks,
Speaker 1: it looks it's shiny, and it's black and it you know,
Speaker 1: it looks pretty interesting. Cool and the big big white
Speaker 1: walls and uh, nobody thinks that they think they don't
Speaker 1: want to be behind me because I'll be real slow
Speaker 1: and then I'm in front of everybody. And then but
Speaker 1: that has pneumatic breaks. You have to stand on the
Speaker 1: brakes right to stop it. Yesterday, We're pretty good, okay,
Speaker 1: and you can down down shift. How many years? Three? Okay?
Speaker 1: So Mercer College? What's that like? Well, Mercer University and
Speaker 1: how I ended up deciding to go. There was one
Speaker 1: brother went to Emory, one brother went to the University
Speaker 1: of Georgia, one brother went to Georgia Tech. And in
Speaker 1: Georgia there was four kind of major educational institutions there.
Speaker 1: There's now more who have grown in their statue. But
Speaker 1: that left Mercer and I applied for uh to Mercer,
Speaker 1: I applied I made one application to one school. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those days were different. Now you gotta kinda make, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty applications. Anyway, I was, I learned what the word
Speaker 1: tentative meant. So I got accepted. But the word tentative
Speaker 1: was in this sentence, and I'm going, I really wish
Speaker 1: I knew for sure. Uh. Anyway, I got into mercer
Speaker 1: and it was it was a good experience and that
Speaker 1: that uh Uh. Interestingly, this plays into my my brother's
Speaker 1: at war uniform and uh in World War two, uh,
Speaker 1: closest brother uniform and he was he got a bronze
Speaker 1: bronze star for building schools in South Korea as they
Speaker 1: were cleaning minds up, you know, and then building schools
Speaker 1: and so uh, you know. And I'd worn uniform in
Speaker 1: RTC in high school. I didn't want to do it again.
Speaker 1: So first day of college, I get a letter from
Speaker 1: high school buddy who had gone into the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: He wrote and said, dropped some class and go sign
Speaker 1: up for r OTC. You do not want to be
Speaker 1: an enlisted man in the service. And I did it.
Speaker 1: So I wore a uniform in college one day that week,
Speaker 1: and um, so you graduated, was there any war going
Speaker 1: on when you graduated. Not really, I kind of missed.
Speaker 1: I kind of I went. I guess I'm you know,
Speaker 1: UH participated when during during the Cold War, mainly I
Speaker 1: went to Turkey. I was near in Stanbull and that
Speaker 1: was fun um almost two years, not quiet. And then
Speaker 1: I came to California because everybody wants to go to California,
Speaker 1: of course, and I got my orders for California to
Speaker 1: Fort Irwin, and I don't know if you know where
Speaker 1: it was. I didn't either, so so I looked it up.
Speaker 1: Slap dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert. That's
Speaker 1: a long beach. Okay. So in the old days, if
Speaker 1: you were in r OTC okay, So then you had
Speaker 1: to go in the army for two years after exactly, okay.
Speaker 1: And that was the Army, not the Marine. I was
Speaker 1: a finance officer in head of finance department. So I
Speaker 1: had a nice office and you know, it's pretty pretty
Speaker 1: pretty neat job. And what did you study at Mercer? Uh? Economics,
Speaker 1: not just business vantage but economics, and what was the
Speaker 1: plate history? Economics? History was my mind or the plan
Speaker 1: was to go to law school, and uh, I did
Speaker 1: for a little while. So really I didn't know that,
Speaker 1: but I I you know, I was kind of schooled
Speaker 1: out in a while. Oh man. I went to law school,
Speaker 1: but I think at least two years off. It just
Speaker 1: I didn't take any time off. And I also went
Speaker 1: to summer school a lot, and I worked you know,
Speaker 1: one or two jobs during summer school and all. And
Speaker 1: I booked bands in that period too. In college. But
Speaker 1: law school, I just was, I guess schooled out. So
Speaker 1: I went to the dean and said I want to
Speaker 1: drop out and he should stick out the quarter of
Speaker 1: the semester. He said, you're doing better than you think
Speaker 1: you are, because I was, you know, dean student all
Speaker 1: the time and an undergraduate. H This was where the
Speaker 1: law school, it was part of Mercer Walter F. George
Speaker 1: School of Law, Mercer of School of Law. And uh
Speaker 1: so I said, you know, i'll I'll uh good. He said,
Speaker 1: you can always come back, but finish your finish this
Speaker 1: great you know this period. Uh And I got okay marks,
Speaker 1: you know, they were okay. It's not good enough for me,
Speaker 1: but it was it was, you know, never any thought
Speaker 1: about going back, of course, really, of course, but my
Speaker 1: brothers told me something you're gonna make officers pay, You're
Speaker 1: not gonna go back to school. How good was officers pay?
Speaker 1: Pretty good when you've been selling shoes on Friday night
Speaker 1: and Saturday afternoon for you know. Okay, So tell me
Speaker 1: about big book and bands in college. I did get
Speaker 1: started in that. Well, you know, I love music, popular music,
Speaker 1: and I always always had a propensity to listen to
Speaker 1: something that necessarily my older brothers didn't listen to or
Speaker 1: parents didn't listen to. So like a lot of kids,
Speaker 1: you know, you get your own bands, your own music,
Speaker 1: and you And when I went off to college, you know,
Speaker 1: I had my own music and and uh, but I
Speaker 1: also something that plays a part, I think in my
Speaker 1: overall career. I was exposed to an older generation of
Speaker 1: music growing up and from my mother and my brother,
Speaker 1: so already I was sore being various, you know, different
Speaker 1: decades of music, not just mine but others, and uh,
Speaker 1: and that and that's given me, uh, I think maybe
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty good at appreciation of the of music
Speaker 1: through the through the years. But anyway, I was um
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, we were turned fraternity brothers find
Speaker 1: alta Thedo, uh Phil Walden and uh Phil. Phil was
Speaker 1: a fraternity brother, Yes, while you were there, right, we
Speaker 1: were five alta thedo and uh, and he was president
Speaker 1: of the other class. I joined late. I didn't join
Speaker 1: the fraternity of the first couple of years of of
Speaker 1: mercer Um. But I was helping all of these guys.
Speaker 1: And I had buddies that were five aults, including Phil,
Speaker 1: and some of them I was helping study, and some
Speaker 1: of them I was taking their money because I could
Speaker 1: type and I was typing. So in any case, one
Speaker 1: day after a history class, I'm standing in the hallway
Speaker 1: and phills down the hall after another class and I
Speaker 1: went down to the end of the hall and I
Speaker 1: and I always remember this, uh, this conversation. Um. He
Speaker 1: smoked cigarettes. I didn't, but in those days you weren't
Speaker 1: bothered by people's cigarettes anywhere because everybody did. Um. But
Speaker 1: he was lighting a cigarette and he had a little matchbook.
Speaker 1: And you know, you always look to see if it's from,
Speaker 1: you know, a vacation in Miami, or you know something
Speaker 1: on the massment or restaurant. And uh, there's an odd logo.
Speaker 1: I said, what's that logo? He said, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a designed a p W for Phil Walden and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna book bands full time after classes and quit my
Speaker 1: cousin's store. I'll go that's interesting, pretty pretty cool, right,
Speaker 1: So chit chat right before class he said, when do
Speaker 1: you get out of school? He said, I'm getting I'm
Speaker 1: going to take an office over w IRBB Radio. And
Speaker 1: I knew of that was because it was across the
Speaker 1: street from an apartment complex that I had become the
Speaker 1: resident manager on before I moved to another location, another apartment.
Speaker 1: Where is Mercer Mercers in Making Maker, Georgia, right in
Speaker 1: the center of the state and small still small, still small,
Speaker 1: Making or Mercer Mercer is bigger than it was, Making
Speaker 1: is still small. So what was Making like when you
Speaker 1: were going to college? Probably a ninety thousand people and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, quite kind of quiet. Uh uh you know,
Speaker 1: but it was the county seat to a bib county,
Speaker 1: you know, so it was just h you know, just
Speaker 1: to kind of a you know, hallmark, small town little
Speaker 1: college college. Interestingly, Mercy Makon now so had the first,
Speaker 1: I think the first chartered woman's college in the world,
Speaker 1: Westleyan really and making and uh rich rich history for
Speaker 1: for westleyn in particular, and also for mercer. Um, so
Speaker 1: I'm standing wait, wait, wait, a couple of questions. How
Speaker 1: far as mercer from Atlanta nine emails? Okay, how did
Speaker 1: you meet Phil Walton? Never mind this episode with promotion,
Speaker 1: you know, in classes, hanging out talking about music. Was
Speaker 1: he a charismatic guy? He was? He was? And then
Speaker 1: for the fraternity he was, he was president and he
Speaker 1: was pretty charismatic and an interesting guy. Um, a lot
Speaker 1: of self confidence and uh, I don't know, we've struck up.
Speaker 1: So he said, a kins right, and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: when when do you classes that? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: And I said, you know whatever time. He says, well,
Speaker 1: I get out an hour earlier. And I have collected.
Speaker 1: I've gone to the libraries and written down the addresses
Speaker 1: of every school, every unity, every entertainment committee, and more
Speaker 1: from the library, from the phone books that are in
Speaker 1: the libraries. And he says, so I'm writing letters about
Speaker 1: the bands. I'm going to book and I've got these
Speaker 1: local musicians and they have names because they're all the bands.
Speaker 1: You know, you can have a garage, man, you've got
Speaker 1: to give it a name. So everybody had names of bands,
Speaker 1: and they could also play anybody's music so the names
Speaker 1: could change. Um in any case, Uh, he said, I
Speaker 1: can't type, and I got to send these letters out.
Speaker 1: And all the girls at the school want to come
Speaker 1: down and do this. Uh, they're doing their thing. And
Speaker 1: uh so instead of whatever I was getting for the
Speaker 1: type in term papers, now I'm going to get something
Speaker 1: for typing letters about bands. So Phil would write them
Speaker 1: on this cheapest yellow pay people you could buy, and
Speaker 1: I'd come down and uh type them and answer the
Speaker 1: one phone. You know, actually we had I think two
Speaker 1: phones and two numbers. There's no rolling over a conference calling.
Speaker 1: It was just two numbers. And uh. He had bought
Speaker 1: an old military desk and a couple of them, and
Speaker 1: I put Uh. I went and bought flat doors from
Speaker 1: you know, Mountford doing yourself for the lumber company. And
Speaker 1: I've varnished them and painted them and stained them. And
Speaker 1: so we had two executive desks. So how long after
Speaker 1: you started typing did he actually book a band? Well,
Speaker 1: first I told I told Phil, when you go to lunch,
Speaker 1: I'll answer the phone, but I'm not going to try
Speaker 1: to book a band. And I have, you know, over
Speaker 1: the years, mentoring some people in the business and not
Speaker 1: everybody thinks that they can could sell and sell it. Um.
Speaker 1: And I didn't think I could sell ladies shoes. I
Speaker 1: could sell door to door. I could sell if I
Speaker 1: could see somebody. But I didn't think I could sell
Speaker 1: by listening to somebody and talking to them on the phone.
Speaker 1: And then one day Phil had gone to pick up
Speaker 1: some lunch and sandwiches for us, and I'm answering the
Speaker 1: phone and they asked me about a band. And I've
Speaker 1: been typing all the letters and I knew all the musicians,
Speaker 1: and uh so I sell some guys, uh, some school
Speaker 1: or band, and I'm going, gee, was that worked? And
Speaker 1: you learned to listen, you know. I learned to listen
Speaker 1: to my brothers and my mother learned a lot of
Speaker 1: basic good life things. And I was always observing, you know,
Speaker 1: my uncle and my brothers and other people in the school.
Speaker 1: I had decided to be a good student, not a
Speaker 1: bad one. So uh. Also my parents were helping. They
Speaker 1: would pay for the books and tuition I paid for
Speaker 1: over my my living in school. Um. The the idea
Speaker 1: to sell on the telephone was really foreign. But you
Speaker 1: learn how that you don't have to listen to yourself.
Speaker 1: You learn you have to listen to the guy on
Speaker 1: the other phone, on the other side of the phone
Speaker 1: that you can't see, so you get no body language
Speaker 1: except from voice. And it's really fascinating too to allow
Speaker 1: void to be filled by one of the two of
Speaker 1: us and find out the interest and somebody's going to
Speaker 1: ask a question. I'm gonna just talk my head off
Speaker 1: about the musicianship, wrong move. You talk a little bit
Speaker 1: and then and then if the person on the other
Speaker 1: end of the phone is interested, they'll ask a question
Speaker 1: and that and they will create, you know, a good
Speaker 1: exchange dialogue and you can almost vision your lies the
Speaker 1: person on the other side of the phone. And I
Speaker 1: think we missed that today with texting and emails to
Speaker 1: to work through a problem on a band and routing
Speaker 1: and so forth. It's just so much better if you're
Speaker 1: talking on the phone. But that's but today, as another story,
Speaker 1: how important was it to not talk business on the phone,
Speaker 1: like talk about sports of the weather to try to
Speaker 1: establish a rapport. Well, since the phones were a little
Speaker 1: bit more expensive by the clock, Um, there was a
Speaker 1: certain sense of efficiency that was needed. Um, you might
Speaker 1: ask a question, you might say something, but that student
Speaker 1: union person or or or fraternity person was really calling
Speaker 1: with a with a purpose, so you had to stay
Speaker 1: and you didn't didn't have that kind of of relationship
Speaker 1: with them. Yet you might develop it and then you
Speaker 1: would ask about the team of the football team at
Speaker 1: that university and you have, but that was after you've
Speaker 1: done business more than once. Really they were interested in
Speaker 1: and uh, and there was a lot of interest I
Speaker 1: think buying a band, but buying a band for the
Speaker 1: Southern school of buying a band since somebody that was
Speaker 1: in New York City, I mean, they didn't want to
Speaker 1: buy from New York City. I think they felt like
Speaker 1: they always had to until we started, and you had
Speaker 1: no competition other than New York City. There was a
Speaker 1: guy in uh in South Carolina who was booking cover
Speaker 1: bands and and he was pretty successful with it. But
Speaker 1: we thought we could do it differently more novel have
Speaker 1: musicians around Macon who were really good and um, and
Speaker 1: we did it. Uh, we weren't. We weren't in the
Speaker 1: beach music. We were into what you would know as
Speaker 1: rhythm and blues. Okay, but you're doing that, but then
Speaker 1: you ultimately go into the army. Yeah, well, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: It was the army was good in several ways. How
Speaker 1: did you tell Phil, Hey, I'm gonna go well, oh, interestingly,
Speaker 1: Phil went the army first. So I got a letter
Speaker 1: where Phil saying, you know, uh, in the Phil's Allan
Speaker 1: Allan Walden, Alan Walden, Phil's younger brother came in to help.
Speaker 1: And Phil's father Um retired from the cousins or whoever
Speaker 1: owned the clothing store or a hat store, and uh,
Speaker 1: he came in sometimes to help, and he established Alan.
Speaker 1: Phil myself and C. B. Walden had a relationship with
Speaker 1: an up and coming singer named Otis fretting. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: slow down, but let me go back to Phil good
Speaker 1: in the service a second. So here's Phil in the service.
Speaker 1: He had a better gig than I did because he
Speaker 1: was putting bands together in Europe. But I was a
Speaker 1: fun dance guy when I went in. Anyway, Phils in Europe,
Speaker 1: and the letters in the mail or all of his
Speaker 1: visions back and forth letters, A few calls but not
Speaker 1: many to uh, you know, enhance the office or book
Speaker 1: band or sign another band, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: things were more vibrant. Then he came back, but I
Speaker 1: was transitioning to go in and we had you know,
Speaker 1: i'll call it ten minutes of overlap. But and I was,
Speaker 1: I was in the service. A considerable part of my
Speaker 1: two years was when was when UH Phil had been back.
Speaker 1: So Alan and myself book bands and Phil was in
Speaker 1: the service, and Alan really carried carry the torch well
Speaker 1: because then I had to go in the service and
Speaker 1: I needed some money aside, a couple of other jobs
Speaker 1: in addition, but hard to pay commissions at that level.
Speaker 1: And then he just got better and it got a
Speaker 1: little bit better. Then all of a sudden, I'm on
Speaker 1: active duty and I'm shipped off to UH. I went
Speaker 1: for Ben Harrison in Indiana Indian Indianapolis, Indiana was first
Speaker 1: and my wasn' a very good student in finance class.
Speaker 1: They called me lieutenant sleepy um. But uh so they
Speaker 1: sent me to the one of the more remote places
Speaker 1: outside of Turkey. And the guy that I replaced, who
Speaker 1: was going to teach me everything, had already been gone
Speaker 1: for two weeks. So here I'm a lieutenant, I'm ahead
Speaker 1: of a finance unit. I've got five people who work
Speaker 1: for me, and I know nothing. And it was more
Speaker 1: interesting than that because this particular unit part of NATO.
Speaker 1: I guess anyway, um tooth log Turkish US logistics. Wow.
Speaker 1: I reported Air Force and I reported the Army. But
Speaker 1: I was an Army officer. The cool thing about that
Speaker 1: I got to go to meetings in Heidelberg and I
Speaker 1: got to go to meetings in Athens, Greece. So that
Speaker 1: was it was pretty cool yet pretty large. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but Phil was back and when I was in the service,
Speaker 1: he and his brother would send me albums and they
Speaker 1: were signing bands, and Ortis Redding was becoming a star.
Speaker 1: I mean a really just sit down for a second. One.
Speaker 1: When you're in the Army, do you think when you're done,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go back to work with these characters? That
Speaker 1: was Phil's idea while he was in the service, and
Speaker 1: he and I still have the letter that he wrote
Speaker 1: with that vision. Did I believe in it? No? I
Speaker 1: thought I'd go back to law school. Okay, was making
Speaker 1: known as a musicians hangout, musicians town. No, so how
Speaker 1: did you meet Otis Redding? And with one exception, a
Speaker 1: little Richard to come from the All right, but when
Speaker 1: you look at Georgia and Racharles had come from Albany. Uh,
Speaker 1: James Brown was in augusta little Richard had been in
Speaker 1: making and he moved to California, and then this uh
Speaker 1: young artist was starting to take off. And what it
Speaker 1: took was a combination of vision and energy from some
Speaker 1: young guys and a similarly aged young musician, uh who
Speaker 1: were serious about his career and could envision getting bigger
Speaker 1: whatever that might mean. Uh. So that's Otis and Phil
Speaker 1: and me and Allen. Okay, so Otis was from making
Speaker 1: Yes and maybe Hawkinsville right out and when you signed him,
Speaker 1: what was his level of reach? Well when when Philing
Speaker 1: known him even before my going in and open letters.
Speaker 1: So Otis was sort of the catalyst for a lot
Speaker 1: of the musicians because it's such a good singer. But
Speaker 1: Phil had a lot of confidence in the career of
Speaker 1: a of another musician, a left handed guitar player named
Speaker 1: Johnny Jenkins who never really made it right became a
Speaker 1: big studio musician. Not so much, not so much. Why
Speaker 1: do you think Johnny Jenkins didn't make it? I think
Speaker 1: it was had to do with being in the cups, uh,
Speaker 1: which means drinking, and he just he was an emotional guy.
Speaker 1: He was a great guy. Um, you know, he wasn't
Speaker 1: a you know, you know, like a irresponsible oddeball. But
Speaker 1: he but he couldn't. He didn't have quite the drive
Speaker 1: of the discipline in the in the in the self
Speaker 1: discipline that you need to have. Okay, so you're in
Speaker 1: the army. He's selling sending you these records. He's sending
Speaker 1: you what kind of record? Well, it's pretty cool because
Speaker 1: because the adjutant of my post it told me that,
Speaker 1: you know, the commander wouldn't let you go out on
Speaker 1: the sign out on the weekends because we were kind
Speaker 1: of remote. And uh, he picked me up in a
Speaker 1: personal car for door chevallet and I said, how you
Speaker 1: get a personal car? Overefe says, I'll tell you all
Speaker 1: about that later. And you can fill out papers and
Speaker 1: have a car shipped over and then you sell it
Speaker 1: and then it becomes a taxi cab. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: looked over in the back seat. I was telling me,
Speaker 1: uh that I was going to just be in my
Speaker 1: in my quarters and in my room for the next
Speaker 1: year and a half. And I'm and I'm going like, wow,
Speaker 1: you got a Ray Charles album on the back seat
Speaker 1: of your car. You know he's from Georgia. Even though
Speaker 1: he's living in California. Ray Charles is awesome. He says, oh,
Speaker 1: how I made up? You know, told him I was
Speaker 1: story and I said it was a young musician that
Speaker 1: uh is uh it's taken hold and uh as these
Speaker 1: arms of mine and pain in my heart. I've already
Speaker 1: been out and had some traction said you ever heard
Speaker 1: of votice reading? And I don't. I don't remember his answer,
Speaker 1: but it started a friendship between me and this captain.
Speaker 1: So here, I'm a young, you know, white lieutenant, and
Speaker 1: he's an African American captain from Los Angeles, and we're
Speaker 1: stationed in the middle of nowhere in Turkey, but it's
Speaker 1: not the middle of nowhere because we're only twenty eight
Speaker 1: miles from Misson Bulls. Okay. He ultimately let you out
Speaker 1: on the weekends, he and he would tell the commander
Speaker 1: only Lieutenant Hodges has requested. So we would go to
Speaker 1: embassy parties and I would take the albums Sam and
Speaker 1: Dave and all of these really cool albums from Stacks
Speaker 1: Records that Phil would send me. And I take these
Speaker 1: records and you put them on and they were vinyl,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it was just like a cool
Speaker 1: it was a cool deal, um and fun and you
Speaker 1: know some histon bullism metropolis and attracts a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting people, and you know, an author like James Baldwin
Speaker 1: would be at one and just different, different people and
Speaker 1: of course girls too, and it was and it was,
Speaker 1: it was cool. So I had this outlet, and I
Speaker 1: had a pal who had you know, he was in
Speaker 1: the in the chain of command. It was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a good deal, and I had a good staff,
Speaker 1: and I did get my four door chevallet over there,
Speaker 1: so it was great. And then I put in for
Speaker 1: change to orders to go to California, and I asked
Speaker 1: for Presidio San Francisco Ford order up that way, uh,
Speaker 1: because you know, young kid growing up in Georgia wants
Speaker 1: to come to California. Of course. So anyway, I got orders,
Speaker 1: and I asked somebody, you know, Ford Irwin, and when
Speaker 1: officer said, uh, I was stationed there. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you the good and the bad, he said, And then
Speaker 1: he said here's the bad. I said, you never finished
Speaker 1: the good, he said, he said, there isn't it. But
Speaker 1: it was okay. Actually I had a good time. I
Speaker 1: replaced a major in his position, took over a failing
Speaker 1: finance office passed. UH. Mustard got the civilian troops and
Speaker 1: the civilian employees in line. UH taught them what they're
Speaker 1: supposed to know that I didn't know by reading and
Speaker 1: talking to them. And then the military guys had a
Speaker 1: good relationship with with every level. UH, and I was
Speaker 1: I was now a first lieutenant, had replaced a major,
Speaker 1: and UM it was. It was pretty cool. So I'd
Speaker 1: come to UH. I'd come into Los Angeles almost every
Speaker 1: week INN. But there was one weekend when I said
Speaker 1: I was going to go to Los Angeles and the
Speaker 1: commander had sent somebody to tell me. I was invited
Speaker 1: to the Officers Club for New Year's Day for a
Speaker 1: special brunch. And I announced that I was going to
Speaker 1: be in Los Angeles on New Year's even I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to make it. And the gentleman said, have
Speaker 1: you ever heard of command performance? And I go, that
Speaker 1: means I have to And he said you have dressed blues,
Speaker 1: don't you? And that was the dress blue uniform and
Speaker 1: so forth. So I don't remember if I went to
Speaker 1: l A and then made it, but I did make it. UH.
Speaker 1: Maybe I canceled LA. I can't imagine at that age
Speaker 1: I would have canceled l a trip um but it was.
Speaker 1: It was good and uh even even uh, I think
Speaker 1: I think a part I was I'm kind of missing
Speaker 1: here is that when I was transitioning from Turkey and
Speaker 1: visiting home in Georgia and family filling and Alan asked
Speaker 1: me to drop down to making and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: ninety miles getting the car, drive down seeing Uncle, see
Speaker 1: Phil and Allen, and everybody's driving these brand new Thunderbirds
Speaker 1: and cool cars, and I'm going, what in the world.
Speaker 1: They said, you you just can't. You had to come
Speaker 1: see it, and that's what they had said, You've got
Speaker 1: to drive down here and see it. And it's just wow.
Speaker 1: They had bought an office building which had been a
Speaker 1: chicken cleaning and selling. You know, the basement was feathers
Speaker 1: and but they'd already cleaned it up and it was
Speaker 1: a gorgeous two story basement story in one street level
Speaker 1: offices for Otis, for Phil, for Alan, uh, for another
Speaker 1: booker and is like, wow, So here's your salary when
Speaker 1: you get out, and you'll go pick out the best
Speaker 1: furniture at the furniture store and you'll have enough money
Speaker 1: about a new car, and when do you get out
Speaker 1: of the service. So probably when I finally got out
Speaker 1: of the service, I just probably went home for a
Speaker 1: week and then down to making. And that was what
Speaker 1: that was. What year in in sixty seven? Sixty seven? Okay,
Speaker 1: so spring, spring, late winter and spring sixty and so
Speaker 1: what's going on there at Phil Walden making in sixty seven? Uh,
Speaker 1: otis was just getting bigger about a minute. Um, Sam
Speaker 1: and Dave had been signed, Eddie Floyd was the song
Speaker 1: knock on Wood had been signed, Percy Sledge was signed
Speaker 1: out of Alabama, and uh with the best version of
Speaker 1: When a Man Loves a Woman? Uh. Great, And I
Speaker 1: had a conversation with Michael Bolton one night about about
Speaker 1: Percy and that song. It was just you know, it
Speaker 1: was just nice. And Uh anyway, um brother artists. Otis
Speaker 1: had discovered a young singer I think maybe out of
Speaker 1: Baltimore area, UH named Arthur Connolly, and Otis wrote sweet
Speaker 1: soul music for him. So we had a hit. And
Speaker 1: Phil and Phil had struck up a relationship with Clarence Carter.
Speaker 1: Uh he had a number one hit. Funny back then
Speaker 1: sometimes the number one hit was the B side. Now
Speaker 1: they quit doing that A side and B side, And
Speaker 1: it's probably a mistake because several number one hits were
Speaker 1: not intended back in those days. So it was pretty cool. Anyway,
Speaker 1: things were rolling, they were really really uh great interesting
Speaker 1: and uh so I didn't go back to Mercer law school.
Speaker 1: And you're working there, and what do you You're selling
Speaker 1: bands at that point, you're involved in management. What are
Speaker 1: you doing out phil as a manager? Uh? With a
Speaker 1: dream of having a label and filling and filling. Otis
Speaker 1: had a publishing together and and I was a book
Speaker 1: or an agent. No, that was it, you know, at
Speaker 1: a job and a good job and paying more than
Speaker 1: an army and so uh, Otis dies, what is what's
Speaker 1: that like? Well, the weekend of that trip, I had
Speaker 1: booked the tour. Uh it was a weekend to what
Speaker 1: was at this moment Otis was doing uh you know,
Speaker 1: like a few dates and then taking them, you know,
Speaker 1: a week off or something. And I was supposed to
Speaker 1: go with him on Friday, and and I had some
Speaker 1: trouble on a tour. I had my bagpacked at the office.
Speaker 1: He came into the office, he said, are you ready
Speaker 1: to go? And I said, I can't. I got some Uh,
Speaker 1: I just got work to do and uh, um, solving
Speaker 1: a routing problem or something with a promoter or a
Speaker 1: band or I don't even have any idea what it was,
Speaker 1: but you know, duty calls and uh Otis said, uh, uh,
Speaker 1: I'll see you. He had to go to Memphis and
Speaker 1: doing a little bit more overdubbing, and he said, I'll
Speaker 1: see you Monday and next weekend we'll take the plane
Speaker 1: go to the Bahamas. And Sunday night, I'm in my apartment.
Speaker 1: I got the call asking what city Otis was to
Speaker 1: be in, and they wanted some extra verification of you
Speaker 1: know that it was this plane that I crashed, and
Speaker 1: like Manona, Wisconsin, there you go. I stayed on for
Speaker 1: a while. Sam and Dave were hot. But the spirit,
Speaker 1: the mood, the spirit, energy, the emotional content inside you
Speaker 1: changed and I wouldn't got a suit and tie job,
Speaker 1: which was what helping some people run for election in
Speaker 1: the South. Um, and uh yeah, I'll moved to Atlanta
Speaker 1: and uh you know it was you know, interesting stuff, um,
Speaker 1: closer to the family. Um. And then Phil and I
Speaker 1: would keep in touch and go to lunch on occasion
Speaker 1: on a Saturday in Atlanta, he started dating a girl
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and fast forward about two years. He brought
Speaker 1: me uh ascetate, which is uh, you know, pressing test
Speaker 1: pressing for an album, white label, Nope, no art, see
Speaker 1: go home, listen to this. If you like it, we'll
Speaker 1: go see the band play tomorrow night. So I didn't
Speaker 1: go out that night and listen or maybe out of
Speaker 1: day or something. I don't know, but I listened to
Speaker 1: the album like all day and all day Sunday and
Speaker 1: uh and uh. It was first album of the Owner
Speaker 1: Brothers band. So I said, I can be back in
Speaker 1: making on such and such a day. You know. I
Speaker 1: was like, crazy, how do you make a decision like
Speaker 1: that off of one album? That's because you're in your
Speaker 1: twenties different and also you could live on a lot
Speaker 1: less money today people don't take those risks. They don't.
Speaker 1: So you go to work with the Almond Brothers. Now
Speaker 1: he's got his evil Capricorn through Atlantic Records, and what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Well? Interesting on Capricorn, uh and Atlantic
Speaker 1: Records in the label and the Almond Brothers. It had
Speaker 1: gone back. It really still had an association with Muscle
Speaker 1: shoals and and not really stacked, but Atlantic and Jerry
Speaker 1: Wexler had said to feel, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: introduce you to Dwayne Alman. And then Dwayne wanted to
Speaker 1: do a band. They had had had bands, the guys
Speaker 1: that had some bands before and playing in Florida in
Speaker 1: different places and and uh but nothing really really stuck.
Speaker 1: And Dwayne was having this great experience and and enhanced reputation,
Speaker 1: you know from his studio work pretty amazing, and uh
Speaker 1: so then they put together the Almer Brothers band. I
Speaker 1: think in originally they thought Dwayne could sing, but but
Speaker 1: he could, saying they needed they needed his brother. Um
Speaker 1: so I was. I went down as a part owner
Speaker 1: of an old reincarnated but therefore a new agency and
Speaker 1: came up with a new name and called it Paragon Agency.
Speaker 1: And uh uh still had an R and B roster
Speaker 1: still in Percy Sledge, I think Arthur Connelly, um Clarence
Speaker 1: Carter and Candy State and signed Tyrone Davis and had
Speaker 1: Joe Simon. And that's interesting because I put Joe Simon
Speaker 1: out on the road room several bookings and a week
Speaker 1: later he and his brother walked in my office with
Speaker 1: a with uh you know, like like eight foot by
Speaker 1: five ft you know, big plowwood looking your board. Upon
Speaker 1: the board was a fixed a map. It was the
Speaker 1: United States largest United States highway map I've seen maybe
Speaker 1: since the you know, I don't know, but huge map.
Speaker 1: And they said this is for you because I had
Speaker 1: stretched the driving between two gigs a little too far.
Speaker 1: They made it, but they didn't want to do it again.
Speaker 1: Routing is an art at several levels, and uh, and
Speaker 1: that was good. I knew it, but I probably knew
Speaker 1: I was pushing the envelope and they accepted it. So
Speaker 1: in the band that, you know, and the artist accepts it,
Speaker 1: you go. They accepted it. But it wasn't a time
Speaker 1: to argue about that. They didn't even complain. They brought
Speaker 1: me a map. So how long are you at the
Speaker 1: Paragraph Agency? Well, it was as as I said, it
Speaker 1: was kind of the old agency because interestingly, uh Otis
Speaker 1: Redding's brother had, after Otis died, had joined to be
Speaker 1: an agent. And that was waldin artist's promotions. But when
Speaker 1: I came back in seventy and we you know, it
Speaker 1: took over, took some ownership and renamed it and you know,
Speaker 1: mapped down a new mission, uh, naming it Paragon. That
Speaker 1: would have been in uh in the spring of seventy
Speaker 1: and um we we found that some musicians were just
Speaker 1: getting in a van and coming to making because they
Speaker 1: wanted an opportunity to record. Even though there had been
Speaker 1: muscle shows and so forth. This was looked upon as
Speaker 1: new and fresh to a lot of young, aspiring, aspiring
Speaker 1: rock bands. Um so there was a studio in addition, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Phil and Frank Finter had opened the studio of
Speaker 1: Capricorn Records, and so what Willie, for example, drove over
Speaker 1: from Alabama and other bands and musicians started accumulating. Dwayne
Speaker 1: had his reputation, and then the Allman Brothers first album
Speaker 1: came out. But even as it's almost simultaneously, all of
Speaker 1: these things were happening, and musicians showing up, and even
Speaker 1: parents coming in and bringing their young young musicians down.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I noticed in in in
Speaker 1: all of those uh you know, uh, aspiration from the
Speaker 1: young musicians, the better the presentation from them and their
Speaker 1: brother or manager or parents was the worst of music
Speaker 1: was I find the same thing the people who said
Speaker 1: to the really long emails are terrible in real life people,
Speaker 1: is like one sentence. In real life you could talk
Speaker 1: for hours. The best musicians didn't have the greatest presentation,
Speaker 1: and it was interesting. And then so Capricorn was signing bands.
Speaker 1: I was listening to them and listening to the demos
Speaker 1: and listening to the product and making some you know,
Speaker 1: some subjective judgment on whether they could be good. Then
Speaker 1: I would go see him in the club, and then
Speaker 1: that would add to my sense of confidence that they
Speaker 1: could make it. I found two. It's like oversimplification, but
Speaker 1: sometimes you look at a band play and you see
Speaker 1: two bands, but only one on stage a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: What are we saying? So? And that's why this is
Speaker 1: a This is isn't as complicated as it sounds. You
Speaker 1: see a band and it doesn't work, but they're all good,
Speaker 1: so you're just going like, wow, it doesn't work. They
Speaker 1: don't jell together. I don't seem they have a sense
Speaker 1: of who they are as a band. So maybe one
Speaker 1: of the musicians will end up being the road manager
Speaker 1: and they'll reform, and sometimes they'll just split up. But
Speaker 1: you have to you can you can sense it whether
Speaker 1: they have the right commitment and whether they have the
Speaker 1: right chemistry. And I'll get I'll tell you this. It
Speaker 1: was an interesting thing. I don't remember this very often
Speaker 1: or or say it, but I'm sitting with Phil one
Speaker 1: day in his office and Dwayne had been in Florida. Um,
Speaker 1: but Eric Clapton on the session for Layla and uh
Speaker 1: ah he came in and uh. He started talking about
Speaker 1: musicians and showing us a couple of snapshots he had
Speaker 1: had one I think with it with Eric and uh
Speaker 1: and spoke about James Taylor and his complexity of his
Speaker 1: music and the beauty of it, which which was just
Speaker 1: a great conversation. You talk about his band and that
Speaker 1: they were a little tired, have to come off the
Speaker 1: road baby pretty soon for a couple of weeks and
Speaker 1: to get some rest and um, and another musician came
Speaker 1: in and was struggling in another band, and uh, the
Speaker 1: side conversation was Dwayne said to the other guy, he said,
Speaker 1: keep playing. If you play long enough, you'll find the
Speaker 1: guys you're supposed to play with. Wow. Powerful, and that
Speaker 1: explains my you know, simple oversimplification and sounds complex of
Speaker 1: see a band playing on stage and there and they're green,
Speaker 1: and you just sent that they're all good. They should
Speaker 1: probably find other guys to play with. And uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we you know, the Marshall Tucker Band came through Macon.
Speaker 1: Phil and Frank Finner were considering offers to sell some
Speaker 1: masters in bands before the big push would be would come,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying, uh, uh, this song, can't you
Speaker 1: see for Marshall Tucker Man is gonna be a live
Speaker 1: performance anthem. Whether you make it a hit or whether
Speaker 1: or not. I think that that song alone and the
Speaker 1: songwriting of toy carwell you you gotta keep this band, um,
Speaker 1: you know. And the rest is known of course, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's just just a great time. What Willie
Speaker 1: came played in a tent uh at Alex Cooley's Atlanta
Speaker 1: Pop Festival and on the night before and I don't
Speaker 1: know if they had a spot on the stage during
Speaker 1: the festival, but I saw them entertaining all of the workers,
Speaker 1: uh you know, for the food break and stuff on
Speaker 1: the night before to set up, and I thought this
Speaker 1: one's pretty interesting. And uh so, you know, uh, Phil
Speaker 1: and Frank signed wet Willie ban um, you know, just
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting stuff. And Chuck Levell, who I
Speaker 1: think everybody knows from from his keyboard work with the
Speaker 1: Armer Brothers and also currently and for many many years
Speaker 1: now with the Rolling Stones, he had a band and
Speaker 1: he had come over and uh, you know it was
Speaker 1: just his talent was remarkable. His first band with Capricorn
Speaker 1: didn't didn't go anywhere. He laughs about it, but it
Speaker 1: uh uh you know they were probably better than you think.
Speaker 1: But again it did it didn't work, but but he
Speaker 1: was so amazing that uh, you know, what a what
Speaker 1: a great guy and what a great career. So there's
Speaker 1: so many others and we kept the R and B roster,
Speaker 1: and I kept signing people and uh and Los Angeles
Speaker 1: resident singer songwriter uh named Bobby Walmac had recorded in
Speaker 1: uh in Alabama. Um, and I guess it must have shows,
Speaker 1: I think and uh probably with Rick Holds, guy's gonna
Speaker 1: look all that stuff up. UM. So Bobby, we invited
Speaker 1: or found a way to invite Bobby Warmack over to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, I mean over to excuse me over to
Speaker 1: making and uh and I told him I could put
Speaker 1: a band behind him and he wouldn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about being the you know, the the the band wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about the band because he'd been in
Speaker 1: bands and he with his brother and the Valentinos and
Speaker 1: Cleveland and and what a remarkable history. And Bobby and
Speaker 1: I struck up a friendship and I put some regional
Speaker 1: bands with Independent on where I was going to book him,
Speaker 1: and then he got the Santana tour one year and
Speaker 1: that was great. But he had some uh, some great,
Speaker 1: great recordings, you know. Part of part of that was
Speaker 1: that we I'd always felt from the early days that
Speaker 1: if you have uh, if you're having success, you want
Speaker 1: to keep it and be you gotta look for maybe
Speaker 1: the next challenge to go along with it. And uh,
Speaker 1: and that's just been uh, if you sit on status quote,
Speaker 1: it's not so good. And that goes to the band,
Speaker 1: the songwriter, the publisher, and for a an agent. And
Speaker 1: so Paragon had a good basically a ten year run. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then something happened and I made a decision to
Speaker 1: start a new agency in uh night UH and I
Speaker 1: named it uh Empire Agency and no particular reason, but
Speaker 1: Atlanta was the uh uh kind of empire city of
Speaker 1: the South. And but I started it in making out
Speaker 1: of my home. Um and Okay, what what actually happened?
Speaker 1: Why did you break away? They'll break away from was
Speaker 1: happening organically? Not any cause or intent on my part.
Speaker 1: I would have been happy if we had had a
Speaker 1: twenty year career together, you know, with with Phil or
Speaker 1: Capricorn Paragon Agency. In fact, we should have or it
Speaker 1: should have been a thirty years um. But things occur,
Speaker 1: driven sometimes by success and not opening your mind up
Speaker 1: to new ideas and music. And I think Phil had
Speaker 1: a moment of getting stale, and he had a moment
Speaker 1: of of the excesses of success taking over. So lo
Speaker 1: and behold. I get a phone call from an accountant saying,
Speaker 1: better bring your own accountant in. I got you. That
Speaker 1: pretty much tells the story. So you're you're in Atlanta
Speaker 1: with the Empire. So who your acts? Then? So when
Speaker 1: I started in, I signed UMU, the all my brothers,
Speaker 1: mand the Charlie daniels Man who had been my client before,
Speaker 1: UM Atlanta Rhythm Section, a member of the Outlaws for
Speaker 1: a little while, and U UM whom I missing, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe one more band. But we we started small and
Speaker 1: started out of my house in Bcon and a young
Speaker 1: woman who had been working at Capricorn or Phil Wallons
Speaker 1: management company was out of a job, and I thought
Speaker 1: she was an amazing talent and she came over to
Speaker 1: help me with some books as I was closing up
Speaker 1: the Paragon days. And her name was Carol Kensel. So
Speaker 1: Carol uh came in to work in my living room
Speaker 1: and I worked in the four year or vice versa,
Speaker 1: and my secretary came and worked in the hallway, and
Speaker 1: my son sat on the steps and tried to mimic us,
Speaker 1: and my wife made lunch. And that started Empire Agency
Speaker 1: and the first big tour I book. Then Charlie Daniels
Speaker 1: broke his arm on his farm and I had to
Speaker 1: cancel the whole thing. Now here we're starting a new company,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's like how do you how
Speaker 1: do you you know, get by? And all my brothers
Speaker 1: were known for their taking a hiatus frequently, often broke
Speaker 1: up and come back and so forth. They changed managers UM,
Speaker 1: so they you know, you know, the the Capricorn Records
Speaker 1: was going bankrupt or did go bankrupt. I started over
Speaker 1: and it was it was fun again. But I signed
Speaker 1: another artist a couple of years into Empire UM who
Speaker 1: was working clubs, nothing bigger than clubs. And a friend
Speaker 1: of mine said, come see this band, and I sent
Speaker 1: it young guy. I had hired named named Rick Alter.
Speaker 1: I sent him to Texas to see a young UH
Speaker 1: musician who was no longer a baby, but he was
Speaker 1: still pretty young, named Stevie Ray Vaughan. And Rick came
Speaker 1: back and said, Alex, this this is for you. Ge
Speaker 1: just felt it right and I go okay um. Now, interestingly,
Speaker 1: you know Stevie is a guitar band, and isn't a
Speaker 1: time in the early eighties where no label wanted a
Speaker 1: guitar band. The music had changed, and I had changed
Speaker 1: with it to a degree. Even though I had all
Speaker 1: my brothers and in the Atlanta rhythm section, Charlie down unuals.
Speaker 1: I had been at at at Paragon Agency. We had
Speaker 1: employed it. We had brought in Squeeze in getting four
Speaker 1: before the New York agencies were bringing any of those
Speaker 1: artists into the States, and we also brought in the police.
Speaker 1: So I was stretching myself to listen to new music
Speaker 1: and we were doing that. Consequently, we were also doing
Speaker 1: that at UH at MPORE. But I had encouraged me
Speaker 1: in coping. You know, young guy UH and John Huey
Speaker 1: young guy go to New York starting agency and they
Speaker 1: started FBI and really had a great run. So but
Speaker 1: you know, back to my chapter, Um, we put Stevie
Speaker 1: ray Van on as an opener to Greg Alman at
Speaker 1: uh UP in Atlanta, across the street from the Fox Theater.
Speaker 1: Um pretty sure it was Alex Cooley was a promoter,
Speaker 1: but if sometimes that club had been booked by different promoters.
Speaker 1: So uh, anyway, I went early because the manager was
Speaker 1: a friend that I hadn't seen in ten years, and
Speaker 1: I didn't go to Texas to check it out. I
Speaker 1: had sent somebody, So I felt obliged in early March
Speaker 1: to go to the show and be there when they arrived.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting in this little outdoor patio and then
Speaker 1: walks Chestlee and the band and Stevie ray Van and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so I remember standing up introducing myself for
Speaker 1: being introduced. It's just some kind of click that our contact.
Speaker 1: We we sort of had a a pretty cool on, right,
Speaker 1: you know from the get go we're talking about Stevie Stevie.
Speaker 1: I had not seen him play, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: much about his reputation. I had heard a little bit
Speaker 1: about him. Umu Ray Benson from Asleep at the Will
Speaker 1: had called me one day and said, uh, you gotta
Speaker 1: check out Stevie ray Von, somebody else that's said Stevie,
Speaker 1: everyone is gonna sign with Rolling Stones Records, and you know,
Speaker 1: and how do you you know, just tidbits of information.
Speaker 1: But I hadn't gone to see him. I hadn't sought
Speaker 1: him out. Chestly called, I sent somebody. I didn't go myself.
Speaker 1: And now here I am putting him on a show
Speaker 1: and having to meet with Chestly and say what commitment
Speaker 1: I would make, And Chestly said, you've got to. You've
Speaker 1: got to. You've got to tell me and live up
Speaker 1: to it that no show will be under a thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: so not much money, but at the club scene that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of five hundred, seven hundred fifty and
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollar gigs, you know. So I made the
Speaker 1: commitment and it wasn't an average amount, No single show
Speaker 1: would be under a thousand dollars, and uh so I
Speaker 1: committed and they and of course he hadn't played yet,
Speaker 1: but I just felt there was enough information and confidence
Speaker 1: in my young guy worked for me um and I
Speaker 1: found out that he was, you know, had some a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of had done a lot of work
Speaker 1: in those various clubs just needed somebody to push it
Speaker 1: a little harder. Um. He went on stage and you
Speaker 1: just you know, your your jaw drops and your eyes
Speaker 1: get bigger, and you just got don't believe it. And
Speaker 1: he's just absolutely that good. And you know, you always
Speaker 1: wonder if you are in a receptive mode, and it's
Speaker 1: not really that good, right, right, right, So all of
Speaker 1: Greg's musicians just came and said, oh my god, unbelievable,
Speaker 1: just as just just just just totally unreal. And UM,
Speaker 1: so I congratulated him on a good set and we
Speaker 1: went to work. Then we got him. I had Carol
Speaker 1: actually booked the show at the bottom Line in New York.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh Stevie uh Stevie took the headlines as
Speaker 1: the opener. Um who was the headliner again? Um, I
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have remembered except for a story Rob like
Speaker 1: told me in the last couple of years. Um, Uh,
Speaker 1: Bryan Adams, I think I'm pretty sure we shouldn't look
Speaker 1: that up. But anyway, UM took the headlines, you know,
Speaker 1: like who would be afraid of a little of the
Speaker 1: three piece of guitar band to open up at the
Speaker 1: bottom Line? Um, chastely had been in the industry from
Speaker 1: Columbia Records in uh in Uh London had worked with
Speaker 1: A Grateful Dead in San Francisco and at at a
Speaker 1: lot of friends and a lot of places, and he
Speaker 1: had invited uh Mick Jagger to see Stevie at the
Speaker 1: bottom Line and and Mick Jagger has a way of
Speaker 1: slipping and slipping out without being seen, but he was.
Speaker 1: He was there, and others wanted, uh, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're blown away, you know, I mean in New York
Speaker 1: at the bottom Line at some other clubs. You know,
Speaker 1: people are always curious about what's going on, and sometimes
Speaker 1: people missed the opening act. But it was pat and
Speaker 1: Stevie did did did this thing. It was just amazing.
Speaker 1: But he was also going to go on tour um
Speaker 1: with David Boye. And I remember in the dressing room
Speaker 1: and saying, uh, you know, we'll book some side dates.
Speaker 1: We'll book on off dates, will and our well, your
Speaker 1: record is now out. The record was out and it
Speaker 1: was exploding, not exploding, and CBS record he didn't make
Speaker 1: a deal with Rolling On. The album came out on
Speaker 1: CBS on Epic part of the CBS company, right Um
Speaker 1: John Hammond signing, and I mentioned earlier that nobody was
Speaker 1: signing guitar bands. John Hammond, Um, I guess Chesty went
Speaker 1: to a lot of labels. Actually, Stevie was helped by
Speaker 1: Jackson Brownie Larned in Miss Studio for some for some
Speaker 1: of the work that came out on Texas Flood anyway, Um, uh,
Speaker 1: nobody wanted a guitar band. They pressed ten thousand units
Speaker 1: originally Hello Nothing. They were sold in three days, and
Speaker 1: not just in Texas, but could sidill be in Texas?
Speaker 1: They relabeled it, gave it a new number, put it
Speaker 1: out again, and and pushed the envelope and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Stevie was did a video and Stevie was recouped in
Speaker 1: the first nine months. I don't know that it went
Speaker 1: gold in nine months, but it was soon to go gold.
Speaker 1: And of course, uh he continued to put out records,
Speaker 1: all recouped within a very short time. When I say
Speaker 1: it was exploding, what exploding like you saw during a
Speaker 1: later period of time where you know, four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: albums and win a week. But it was it was
Speaker 1: really taken off. And uh so I think we did
Speaker 1: probably you know, he had you know gold in in
Speaker 1: X number of months maybe first year and then later platinum.
Speaker 1: But here's here's uh you know again, um swimming upstream
Speaker 1: against the grain and uh. But Stevie was so unique,
Speaker 1: uh and patient. I didn't want something wasn't earned or
Speaker 1: wasn't there. Um, listen to me, and we got the
Speaker 1: opportunity to to do the Moody Blues tour. Here's Stevie
Speaker 1: ray Van you know nineteen four, Um, would you put
Speaker 1: him on the Moody Blues tour? And that was the
Speaker 1: common thought. No, And I said yes. I talked chestly
Speaker 1: into it, which was not easy. Uh. And Stevie was
Speaker 1: open minded. That really helped found something in common over
Speaker 1: the years with certain musicians who would listen and we're
Speaker 1: open minded and could could uh, except they could They
Speaker 1: could know when something wasn't right and say no. They
Speaker 1: could know. And something was so easy to say yes
Speaker 1: to even questioned it, and when something was a little
Speaker 1: more difficult, they could kind of think it through. Uh.
Speaker 1: Ultimately Stevie said, let's go do this. This would be
Speaker 1: that it's an arena tour. Part of my logic was
Speaker 1: who the fans of the Moody Blues. Why aren't they
Speaker 1: the same fans of Clapton rockers just just think about it, right,
Speaker 1: So Stevie has to get the experience of an arena level. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a different experience. And you know, how was he
Speaker 1: gonna you know do how was they? How are they gonna?
Speaker 1: It's not so much how would they accept him? But
Speaker 1: that's certainly a consideration and a part of it. But
Speaker 1: he needed the exposure then the and the experience, and
Speaker 1: he needed it with um, in my opinion, fans that
Speaker 1: would adapt to him and accept him really quickly. There
Speaker 1: was some I just today you would call them blogs.
Speaker 1: There was some you know, sheets that were out that
Speaker 1: we're very critical. Wanted Stevie to be the traditional new
Speaker 1: blues guy, nothing more and nothing less, just blues guy.
Speaker 1: Not trying to you know, rank it in any particular way.
Speaker 1: But but Stevie saw himself, um, being unique, different and
Speaker 1: committed to the words guitar band. He knew what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and he challenged himself musically and he
Speaker 1: was still doing so when he when he died. Um,
Speaker 1: but that was that was a big decision. We're not
Speaker 1: sharing an easy one, and not everybody went along with it,
Speaker 1: but it worked and then of course, you know, things passed.
Speaker 1: The arena tours only so many dates. I'd have to
Speaker 1: look it up. I don't remember how many days. But
Speaker 1: then what are you gonna do? Well, then you go
Speaker 1: back to clubs and theaters. But his reputation was enhanced,
Speaker 1: the fan base was bigger, we could command more money.
Speaker 1: So it was it was, you know, the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, and it was a part of the chapter
Speaker 1: of stepping up. Later on we did Robert Plant tour
Speaker 1: and then much later on uh in a fairly short
Speaker 1: recording career. But I would say, you know, a bit
Speaker 1: later on, Yeah, the conversation came about whether we would
Speaker 1: co headline or do a tour with Jeff Beck and
Speaker 1: I remember the conversations. Uh. Jeff thatch Hauld canceled a
Speaker 1: tour or two in the States, I believe, going home early.
Speaker 1: But in any case, it didn't. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: where's Stevie and where's Jeff? And Epic Records had picked
Speaker 1: him up and had a really cool album out. UM
Speaker 1: and Stevie and I discussed it and this this is
Speaker 1: unfortunately Stevie and and Chestly my friend had broken up. UH.
Speaker 1: I had suggested different managers for Stevie to interview with
Speaker 1: and then they didn't click. And uh, I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, have the chenth meeting and if and if
Speaker 1: there's a you're still not you know, clicking with one
Speaker 1: of these prospective managers who would love to be involved. Um,
Speaker 1: then put my my name down as number eleven and
Speaker 1: he said, then it's a list of one, not eleven.
Speaker 1: And that was in a hotel room and that's how
Speaker 1: I started managing Stevie. So we ended up with this
Speaker 1: Jeff Beck tour and uh, you know, you read things
Speaker 1: that people put out, whether you're writing something or somebody
Speaker 1: else's and the consensus was it wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: a successful arena level tour. Um, but we won tour
Speaker 1: Package of the Year and two publications. We had a
Speaker 1: very successful tour. Sev closed in New York City and
Speaker 1: we had sold three hundred and sixty degrees twenty thousand
Speaker 1: people and everybody saying, do you have an extra ticket
Speaker 1: because we run it to the box office and it
Speaker 1: was it was. The whole thing was amazing. It was
Speaker 1: really great. It was a lot of fun. I don't
Speaker 1: know what we've missed in all that miss We missed
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Well wait, wait, wait, wait, so Stevie,
Speaker 1: that continues. Now you're a manager, when do you start
Speaker 1: managing Greg Allman? Uh? When the Allmer Brothers had broken
Speaker 1: up and I was in Marriotta still with UH with
Speaker 1: the Empire Agency, and before I moved to California with
Speaker 1: our cm um, the Armor Brothers were on tour and
Speaker 1: something had happened in the band was not getting along, uh,
Speaker 1: and they broke up. UM. I think at that time
Speaker 1: they may have been on Ariostol Records. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: great album. I don't think Clive Davis was really happy
Speaker 1: and they weren't happy with each other. And uh, but
Speaker 1: Greg wanted to work and Dicky wanted to work, so
Speaker 1: we were booking both and Dreg didn't have a manager.
Speaker 1: Whatever it happened with different possibilities of management. So UM,
Speaker 1: his attorney, who's a fellow in Atlanta, said well, let's
Speaker 1: start a management company and call it Rescue Productions or
Speaker 1: something like that. And Uh, I said, that's really not
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. You know, I'm an agent, but let
Speaker 1: me help you on this. So we started, you know,
Speaker 1: formulating how to do that, and he and his wife
Speaker 1: were the lawyer and his wife were doing the books
Speaker 1: and take care of that aspect. But he wasn't in
Speaker 1: a music business. So I ended up running the running
Speaker 1: of the store. And um Greg called me one day said, UM,
Speaker 1: get rid of this guy. So and his mother asked
Speaker 1: me one day if you talked to that fellow, and
Speaker 1: I said not yet. She said, well, you know when
Speaker 1: it's the right time. Greg's mom was really smart and
Speaker 1: uh and uh and a and a good lady. Anyway,
Speaker 1: um we UM. I started managing Greg um in his
Speaker 1: band with the Tola Brothers and uh because Greg liked
Speaker 1: to work, you know, if he wasn't working with an
Speaker 1: organized situation, he'd show up and work with musicians that
Speaker 1: he would know and find himself with a band and
Speaker 1: out there pick up some pick up some change and work.
Speaker 1: He liked. He liked to work, um, but he needed
Speaker 1: he needed a new career. Almer brothers needed a new career.
Speaker 1: But they were not speaking and uh, I was listening
Speaker 1: to songs for with the band and in Florida they
Speaker 1: had a means of doing demos all right, So the
Speaker 1: two demos, I'd send them around and get rejected even
Speaker 1: from friends who had had previously loved the owner brothers. Man. Uh.
Speaker 1: One guy says, like selling a used hire ally and uh,
Speaker 1: but I was Uh, I was convinced that it could
Speaker 1: be a new start, you know. Um one of his
Speaker 1: managers said to me one day, he said, Greg could
Speaker 1: singing this, you know the phone book, you know, but
Speaker 1: I felt there was viability. But the time was you know,
Speaker 1: the mood is just the time wasn't there. And and
Speaker 1: Greg says, you know, I'm probably gonna be the only
Speaker 1: guy with long hair left, but that's not gonna change.
Speaker 1: And uh. Anyway, we did photo sessions, and we did
Speaker 1: this and that, and I listened to songs. I mean
Speaker 1: I listened two hundred thousands of songs on albums to
Speaker 1: try to find one. I listened to tapes that people
Speaker 1: sent and all of a sudden, somebody and I should
Speaker 1: you know, I apologize to that person. Now I don't
Speaker 1: remember who sent me the tape, but I'm no angel
Speaker 1: was on it. And uh. I was moving to l A.
Speaker 1: And Greg came to l A. Uh. We had some
Speaker 1: work to do and some interviews and things to do.
Speaker 1: It came to the O c M office and I
Speaker 1: played him a tape for the first time when I'm
Speaker 1: No Angel the demo that was sent and he said
Speaker 1: I could do that. So Willie Parkins was my partner
Speaker 1: on Greg Almand, and UH got it to the band,
Speaker 1: got the tape to the band, they worked it up,
Speaker 1: went in the studio in Florida and did a dumb to.
Speaker 1: How similar was their version to the original demo? Pretty
Speaker 1: pretty close? Pretty close? UM changed a little, you know something, UM,
Speaker 1: maybe not change as much as Stevie changed cross Fire,
Speaker 1: which is another story of the you know, bandmates of
Speaker 1: his and others wrote cross Fire. And I was on
Speaker 1: a bus and listened to that tape and I said,
Speaker 1: this is the one you should listen to Stevie and
Speaker 1: see if you want to actually massogy and work it
Speaker 1: out and record it and h But anyway, so I'm
Speaker 1: I'm No Angel, and I I sent so many you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I even I would cut out ads from
Speaker 1: Billboard from a label and they'd show the titles of
Speaker 1: six albums you know that. I would say, how can
Speaker 1: I take their ad and superimposed it, cut and pay east, UH,
Speaker 1: put Greg's name in on top or third or something,
Speaker 1: and then may point an hour to it and send
Speaker 1: them a demo and send them their own ad. But
Speaker 1: you know, with with Greg Allman band, uh name on it,
Speaker 1: I'd go to meetings, I'd fly out here and play it.
Speaker 1: Nothing couldn't get I could get in the door. That
Speaker 1: was a compliment, you know. But and I was working
Speaker 1: with Stevie, and I was an agent and had had
Speaker 1: all of these years of some notoriety of success. I
Speaker 1: could get in the door, but nobody was buying. And
Speaker 1: I had all these really cool songs, I thought. But
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, Greg did this demo,
Speaker 1: so I put you know, call it three songs, I
Speaker 1: don't really remember, and the two or three songs, and
Speaker 1: uh send them around and uh um M, I think
Speaker 1: an epic in New York. Um is it Bill Barrett? Anyway,
Speaker 1: maybe Lendy piece the record that my little demo that
Speaker 1: we've done for Greg and his musicians in the band.
Speaker 1: And it was given to somebody who was flying back. Um,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't Harvey Leeds. He got into it as
Speaker 1: soon as he got to hear the demo. But in
Speaker 1: any case, uh, um, you know, on a plane listening
Speaker 1: to tapes and I gotta call, like you know, January
Speaker 1: the third of whatever year that was. Um, we like this,
Speaker 1: we can get a hundred stations on this. Let's go
Speaker 1: do it. And I'm going like I'm out of pensioned myself.
Speaker 1: It is crazy, I said. Okay, So anyway, we ultimately
Speaker 1: made a deal with Epic. Uh. Years later, I saw
Speaker 1: an executive who who tapped me on the shoulder at
Speaker 1: a restaurant and said, because I'm no angel on the
Speaker 1: demo that I had, I said, you'll have to go
Speaker 1: back and find that demo. Okay, just to be clear
Speaker 1: your empire, at what point do you move to the
Speaker 1: West Coast and what's your decision to do that? About well,
Speaker 1: partly because some people said you worked for yourself for
Speaker 1: so long, you won't work for anybody else, and uh,
Speaker 1: I thought that's an interesting comment. But I wondered what
Speaker 1: it was like at a large agency, a full service agency,
Speaker 1: and I could bring clients and I could do this
Speaker 1: job and I and I had, you know, with all
Speaker 1: of my experience, I knew had a lot to learn,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's a big world out there. Um
Speaker 1: so um, we talked for a long time, quiet for
Speaker 1: a while, talked again, went to New York, talked and um,
Speaker 1: Jeffberg was in the South or in Atlanta, and grabbed
Speaker 1: a car and drove to my home in Marietta. And
Speaker 1: I said, you moved me out there, You're gonna move
Speaker 1: me wife, two children, two dogs, cars, you know, my
Speaker 1: forty one four truck and a sixty tea bird. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know, are you sure you want to
Speaker 1: do this? You know, because he's we've moved people before.
Speaker 1: I probably had the biggest moving bill. They'd say it
Speaker 1: along and any case I moved out. It was like
Speaker 1: I met with my team. I said, here's a plan,
Speaker 1: keep booking. I worked out this deal. I'm gonna soarb everybody.
Speaker 1: You don't have to look for a job tomorrow. UH
Speaker 1: need you to stay on and have a kind of
Speaker 1: a smooth transition and um and showed up around Memorial Day.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. And you know, when you're in certain
Speaker 1: towns in the old days, you can pull in a
Speaker 1: service station and ask ask the service station attendant or
Speaker 1: somebody you know, saying how do I get to and
Speaker 1: they'll tell you, well, I was staying at La Park Hotel,
Speaker 1: and nobody at any service station or anywhere else had
Speaker 1: any clue of the streets or La Park hotel or
Speaker 1: how to direct me? And I think I finally went
Speaker 1: into some store in bottatime Alma Scott. Uh took me
Speaker 1: hours to get back to my hotel that night because
Speaker 1: I have a habit of working when everybody else is gone.
Speaker 1: And uh, in any case, Uh, it was funny. We
Speaker 1: were on Beverly Boulevard and I was on and I
Speaker 1: think the sixth floor, and um, and it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It had me a very nice corner office. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't too long after that a friend who
Speaker 1: had known over the years for different associations brought me
Speaker 1: a band to sign and book and we did it.
Speaker 1: It's called Loudness Japanese rock band Hard Rock Man Japanese band.
Speaker 1: Great gave me a watch I still have that the
Speaker 1: sun makes that's this, you know, the the symbol of
Speaker 1: the come. I just like, you know, kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: And I put them at Santa Monica at the San
Speaker 1: Jose Civic with Bill Graham and uh, there's a poster
Speaker 1: of that now that we've re re reframed and well
Speaker 1: put up found anyway here it is in the in
Speaker 1: the you know, four eighty five. Um, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: give me some material to listen to and I'll turn
Speaker 1: it over the guys. Fellow hands me the smallest album
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. So it turns out, you know, it
Speaker 1: was a compact test right, it was a c D
Speaker 1: and we didn't even have one purchase in the office,
Speaker 1: So that was the band. Loudness led to us investing in,
Speaker 1: uh some equipment to play c D s at I
Speaker 1: see m pretty funny story, absolutely, although you know it's funny.
Speaker 1: I went to the music heres they still give it
Speaker 1: away a c D. It's like, hey, my computer doesn't
Speaker 1: even have a CD there? Okay, how does it end
Speaker 1: with I? C m um? So many interesting stories about
Speaker 1: and I C m um um. I became a responsible
Speaker 1: agent for bands that I hadn't like grown up with
Speaker 1: from first album in the Capricorn days, or hadn't had
Speaker 1: a story of, like STEVI abing unsigned and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, here's you got this monster roster and C
Speaker 1: A A is is blossoming and poaching all the agents
Speaker 1: and poaching all the bands, and uh and uh, so
Speaker 1: you've really got to meet new people and absorb yourself
Speaker 1: and get some sense of confidence from them and hire
Speaker 1: and fire and coach and do all of those things
Speaker 1: all at once very quickly. Um uh fascinating. And the
Speaker 1: routing from from territorially, the West Coast office was booking
Speaker 1: the Western States and it's not as many cities and
Speaker 1: you know in the Midwest and the East and the southeast,
Speaker 1: so uh, you know, different, just a different deal big
Speaker 1: and uh. But I enjoyed it. But I met Don Hardon,
Speaker 1: famous manager, yes, Sharon Osborne's father. Yeah, I meant, I
Speaker 1: became a responsible agent for a couple of his clients.
Speaker 1: And I was thrown into You're gonna be the West
Speaker 1: Coast guy to you know, to talk to John Denver,
Speaker 1: and you know, all of a sudden, you know that
Speaker 1: they had this roster um and they needed uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they had a new guy. And I'm a new guy
Speaker 1: with a Southern accent. And I'm sure the the hierarchy
Speaker 1: and the pecking order of all of Los Angeles who
Speaker 1: might know I see him, had heard this guy in
Speaker 1: times had changed music le uh. And I was probably
Speaker 1: given no more than six months by any betting card.
Speaker 1: But I'm still here. So how long do you work
Speaker 1: for I CM? I worked for them until uh, I'd
Speaker 1: say I think it was January an interested now just
Speaker 1: sounded a new contract. But I got an interesting offer
Speaker 1: from Jimmie natal Lander. So when I tell you I'd
Speaker 1: worked for Landers twice the first time started in and
Speaker 1: was it the same operations, the same job, pretty much similar,
Speaker 1: you know? And how long do you don't think we
Speaker 1: had titles back then? Right? How long did you do
Speaker 1: that for? I was, I was how long? What? How
Speaker 1: long did you work with dieter Lando the first time
Speaker 1: through most of the season of ninety four and then
Speaker 1: you go to h O B. There was there was
Speaker 1: There was really no h O B. I think they
Speaker 1: were still putting up folk art on sunset Um. But
Speaker 1: um I met with uh the m c A folks
Speaker 1: and one of the guys was out. J Marciano was
Speaker 1: in and uh um So they had talked to me before,
Speaker 1: but this was ninety four and in done some really
Speaker 1: cool things with Needle Lander. We had done uh I
Speaker 1: was a point guy. We had done two dates of
Speaker 1: Pink Florida at Yankee Stadium. We had opened the pond
Speaker 1: which is now und of center, when had six shows
Speaker 1: of Barber Stwis in two nights. I think of Rod Stewart.
Speaker 1: We were doing dates at the Sports Arena, plus of
Speaker 1: course the Greek Theater and Pacific Amphitheater, so here I was.
Speaker 1: You know, this was and they had their amphitheaters which
Speaker 1: we you know described and we talked about. So I'm
Speaker 1: managing Stevie ray Van. I've got the Greek Theater under
Speaker 1: my umbrella. I got my own private management company, and
Speaker 1: I worked for Jimmy Needlander. This is pretty damn good.
Speaker 1: So uh but nur um, you know, they knocked on
Speaker 1: my door and I'm you know, reciprocated, I suppose, and uh,
Speaker 1: I told Jimmy that I had an offer, and I
Speaker 1: think sometime around September and the fall, I took the
Speaker 1: offer and moved over to Uh you know, I think
Speaker 1: at first it was a closet that they gave me.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, with an air, I was right
Speaker 1: on my head. I got it flew right off the bat.
Speaker 1: What was your responsibility there? Now? In all in all seriousness,
Speaker 1: they you know, you gotta get you got, you gotta
Speaker 1: get officers ready, and you gotta assimilate and uh and
Speaker 1: get yourself into a new position and and so uh,
Speaker 1: booking would be one of my responsibilities. I was vice
Speaker 1: president or executive vice president of senior vice president or
Speaker 1: some some some level. I don't think it was executive
Speaker 1: vice president title. But it was decent and good pay
Speaker 1: and an ice offer and all of a sudden a
Speaker 1: new environment. UM, so you know, a lot of vibrancy.
Speaker 1: Jay was getting the Toronto amphitheater UH finished up and
Speaker 1: had had his eyes on opening an amphitheater and San Diego.
Speaker 1: All of this was uh in order. UM we had
Speaker 1: UM we had an amphitheater deal in uh Cleveland and
Speaker 1: one in Dallas in Atlanta, and you know it's I
Speaker 1: mean it's a big operation. They had m c A
Speaker 1: had a booking office in New York. UM, so you know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of similar, but a different. Inventory of venues.
Speaker 1: In Universal Amphitheater was the twelve months a year competition
Speaker 1: to the Greek Theater. Greek being seasonal and outdoors. Universal
Speaker 1: Amphitheater UH indoors and twelve months a year. And so
Speaker 1: I became, you know, one of the one of the
Speaker 1: key bookers for that. We recruited uh Melissa Miller before
Speaker 1: she was married Melissa Ormond now uh uh as well
Speaker 1: Larry Vallen was still there. He was doing some of
Speaker 1: the nues in transitioning a little bit away from Universal.
Speaker 1: Um and UH met a young girl, lady in uh uh,
Speaker 1: young woman in special events who was helping to work
Speaker 1: on the Latin shows. And so I started working with
Speaker 1: her closer um, you know, getting rid of her bosses
Speaker 1: and bringing her up in statue. And anyway, there we
Speaker 1: are at uh the calendar for Universal Amphitheater. And as
Speaker 1: a booker, as an as a as a promoter with
Speaker 1: a venue, I mean, whether it be the Greek or
Speaker 1: whether it be Universals or two you know, great venues,
Speaker 1: iconic venues, and so matter the calendar and and and
Speaker 1: making that cho us is and being competitive and pay
Speaker 1: more money than the other guy, doing a better job
Speaker 1: at marketing than the other guy. So we we had
Speaker 1: a good We had a good run. And then one
Speaker 1: day the company was sold Edgar Braffman, and then Edgar
Speaker 1: Brochman decided he wanted every label in the world and
Speaker 1: he was going to get rid of some smaller and
Speaker 1: boutique companies and didn't really put the equation together that
Speaker 1: the concert promoting wing company or division was synergistically important
Speaker 1: a core to the record business. And you can make
Speaker 1: the argument one way or the other, but you know,
Speaker 1: live music well certainly have changed after the turn of
Speaker 1: the century. Dry Okay, So then you're with h O B.
Speaker 1: And then and then the h O B things interesting
Speaker 1: because we were interested in making a deal to kind
Speaker 1: of acquire this h O B equation uh into m
Speaker 1: c A Universal Concerts. And I think the name of
Speaker 1: Universal Concerts m c A Concerts changed a couple of times,
Speaker 1: you know, and and um, it makes designers happy because
Speaker 1: they redo the cards. Um. So we ultimately go, wow,
Speaker 1: we need we need a new home. Our company is
Speaker 1: being sold. So s f X or Clear Channel or
Speaker 1: a SMG facility management company now merged in a s
Speaker 1: M And what's what's going to happen here? Um? Ultimately,
Speaker 1: with the blanking equation and the investment equation of House
Speaker 1: of Blues, they thought, and we thought, and the selling
Speaker 1: party m c A thought it would be good to,
Speaker 1: you know, figure out how to have a merger or
Speaker 1: acquisition of House of Blues and pick up m c
Speaker 1: A Concerts. So m c A Concerts becomes House of
Speaker 1: Blues Concerts and often running the House of Blues ultimately
Speaker 1: was affected by their investments in all kinds of new technology.
Speaker 1: It was imploding. How do you ultimately get from House
Speaker 1: and Blues back to need the enter Well, a couple
Speaker 1: of chapters and a couple of things. In particular, they're one.
Speaker 1: The House of Blues thought they had the new model
Speaker 1: for of you know, videoing concerts, concerts and the clubs,
Speaker 1: and there was some people there, Uh, we're convinced that
Speaker 1: it was going to change the outcome of selling albums
Speaker 1: to the extent that they wouldn't have to pay royalties
Speaker 1: and get releases from the artists they were recording. I
Speaker 1: don't think that worked out so well. The the thing
Speaker 1: that really worked was that you had two good divisions
Speaker 1: to You had the concert group with this new logo
Speaker 1: and brand, and you had a pretty amazing brand with
Speaker 1: House of Blues. And I say amazing because I could
Speaker 1: check in a hotel almost any city and in the States,
Speaker 1: and we'll be on an airplane and somebody say, well,
Speaker 1: I love the House of Blues in my city, And
Speaker 1: I said, where do you live in the Napolis, Indiana?
Speaker 1: They don't have a House of Seattle, Washington, they didn't
Speaker 1: have a house. But you know, the brand was huge
Speaker 1: and almost went public. They were the company almost went public.
Speaker 1: But this this UM dot com bubble kind of burst
Speaker 1: and that was one of the that was one of
Speaker 1: the equations to take the dot com thing and in
Speaker 1: all of that new technology, and that was going to
Speaker 1: be explosive and take us into the public world and
Speaker 1: you know, be a very successful stock market equation. Uh,
Speaker 1: it didn't happen, but we were still doing business doing
Speaker 1: it well. A lot of you know changes around the
Speaker 1: scene UM outside UM meaning SFX, the Clear Channels to
Speaker 1: then the spinoff of Live Nation and ultimately in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, Michael Lupino got his board to make
Speaker 1: a pretty during big offer for the House of Blues.
Speaker 1: And I stayed on a few months and uh it
Speaker 1: was one of the last concert executives to leave, and
Speaker 1: a lot of changes and then uh I left and
Speaker 1: was sitting at home helping my son book a tour
Speaker 1: that never happened on a band, but we had it routed,
Speaker 1: had some deposits that just didn't happen. It's kind of
Speaker 1: having fun, you know, UH plan plan with with adult
Speaker 1: toys and helping my son and this and that. Uh
Speaker 1: and I remember going shopping for a gift from my
Speaker 1: wife and running into a house neatle Lander executive who said, Uh,
Speaker 1: you gotta come back, Jimmy, won't you back? And uh,
Speaker 1: ultimately we started talking and I walked in the door
Speaker 1: in April of two thousand and seven. If you hadn't
Speaker 1: gone back to Nita land or do you think you
Speaker 1: would have been done? Or would you find something else?
Speaker 1: I probably found something else. I mean I was thinking
Speaker 1: about the agency world with um, you know, the routing
Speaker 1: of bands the other side of the is the same equation,
Speaker 1: you know? And and how the book. I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have was listening in to those skills. But
Speaker 1: I didn't have any Uh, I didn't have any clients
Speaker 1: and for the agency world, and Stevie Raybone had died
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineties, so all of a sudden, you was
Speaker 1: sixteen years later and uh when they sold, and seventeen
Speaker 1: years later when I walked back in the door. Uh.
Speaker 1: Certainly I missed every chapter that I went through, and
Speaker 1: all of these iterations I missed them. And somebody said,
Speaker 1: will you remember the good stuff? And I, of course
Speaker 1: I'll remember the good stuff. I remember the hard stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but I I like what I do now and I
Speaker 1: like what I did then. So it answers you a question.
Speaker 1: If if I hadn't gone back to needle Land or
Speaker 1: I wouldn't, I would have, and I was talking to
Speaker 1: some people I would have. I would have stayed uh
Speaker 1: in the business and probably on the live music tide,
Speaker 1: possibly as an agent, possibly another promoting company. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we've heard your long story career. Are you gonna be
Speaker 1: a book like that guy who died during the show
Speaker 1: two weeks ago? Are you gonna die at the venue?
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but um I might die at
Speaker 1: a new venue that we haven't opened yet. Well, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm saying without using the euphemism, are you ever
Speaker 1: gonna retire? You know I have? I have hobbies and
Speaker 1: things that I like to do, like water skiing. Water
Speaker 1: skiing in particular. I'm at my age, I'm pretty all
Speaker 1: my nephews, niece's brothers, and they've all quit water skiing,
Speaker 1: and I still slalom water skiing, cut back and four
Speaker 1: across way. Uh. You know, I enjoy it. It gets me.
Speaker 1: It gets me going. I'll say, my breast gets out
Speaker 1: a little sooner than it used to. So I gotta
Speaker 1: work on my my my legs and my cardio. But
Speaker 1: but I love that I love anything on the water.
Speaker 1: I could probably uh figure out something that allowed me
Speaker 1: to be on the water or and be a happy
Speaker 1: camper um. But I like what I do. I like
Speaker 1: the challenges. I have always been uh in an underdog
Speaker 1: situation if you go back to the very beginning story
Speaker 1: that I've told you, and I forget the story in
Speaker 1: the transition, because you gotta go to work every day.
Speaker 1: But you know, small making Georgia, and we aren't the biggest.
Speaker 1: Now we're a small independent promoting company thank fully supported
Speaker 1: by the Needle Leander family, by Jimmy Needle Lander, you know,
Speaker 1: Jimmy senior son, Uh, James L. Nada Lander is a
Speaker 1: great boss and a great partner and a great friend
Speaker 1: and enormously supportive to our you know, to our staff.
Speaker 1: So we'll like to think we're the you know, really
Speaker 1: unique in in and how we find a way to
Speaker 1: keep doing it and didn't do it better and then
Speaker 1: grow and you know, three consecutive years of improvement since
Speaker 1: the city took over the Greek and we still book
Speaker 1: shows at the Greek. So as long as there's a challenge.
Speaker 1: I'm probably up for it. Okay, you've seen so much,
Speaker 1: you book so much, your two favorite shows ever. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: that's hard, I know, but I'm gonna make you do it.
Speaker 1: You want to give me six now? Okay, I'll give
Speaker 1: you a few more if you got on the top
Speaker 1: of your head. Well, you know, uh, when before I
Speaker 1: could drive, I saw I saw Elvis Presley at the
Speaker 1: Fox there in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was an indelible imprint.
Speaker 1: It was just cool and it was a matinee show. Um,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't drive. So when you think about, you
Speaker 1: know how that plays, I don't know really how it
Speaker 1: plays except and able to scream it aloud. You couldn't
Speaker 1: hear everything the way you wanted to. But it was
Speaker 1: totally indelible. Amazing. Did that have anything to do with
Speaker 1: the career that I later have? Who knows? Are you
Speaker 1: directed by some unseen force? You know? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but I know people go to shows and it will
Speaker 1: end up being an agent. Um, I would guess. Uh.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites would be would be um Steve
Speaker 1: very Van at Madison Square Garden. If you take the
Speaker 1: whole thing and put it together that I had told him.
Speaker 1: I had asked him, have you been an opening act
Speaker 1: at Medicine Square Garden before we met or He said no,
Speaker 1: and I haven't even been in Madison Garden. And I said,
Speaker 1: you won't go to Madison Square Garden to play or
Speaker 1: you know, until we can headline and in that particular venue.
Speaker 1: My goal for you is the headline and we'll be
Speaker 1: able to sell three sixty all the way around. Meantime,
Speaker 1: we'll do New Jersey and Long Island, anything and everything else,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to go to Madison Square Garden
Speaker 1: until you can head on and we can sell three sixty.
Speaker 1: And we accomplished that. It was pretty amazing. Everything about
Speaker 1: that day was amazing. Um, pretty cool. You gotta really
Speaker 1: add some some you know. When we did um Barber
Speaker 1: Striching at the Pond, that was totally special. Some of
Speaker 1: the shows that I that I remember, you know that
Speaker 1: I really liked a lot, uh uh you know, you
Speaker 1: knowing the police did I always thought was great and
Speaker 1: we were involved. I thought, I you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: gotta pay for a ticket. And John Huey, who had
Speaker 1: hired and worked for me and making had moved to
Speaker 1: New York and working with Ian and I flew to
Speaker 1: New York and we got on the train and we
Speaker 1: went to Long Island to see the Wall Pink Floyd
Speaker 1: the Wall that first time. And uh, I'm telling you
Speaker 1: that that's got a rank and you know, a top three. Now, my,
Speaker 1: you're just pretty pretty amazing. Um. So, I don't know,
Speaker 1: they're really they're really hard to to pinpoint. I thank you.
Speaker 1: If I had, if I, if I had a drink
Speaker 1: with you on Saturday and a drink with you on Sunday,
Speaker 1: and I'll drink with you on Monday. And you asked
Speaker 1: me the same question, i'd probably for the most part,
Speaker 1: pick different shows. I don't know if they'd be the same,
Speaker 1: but maybe these were. These were pretty pretty special, pretty indelible. Okay, Alex,
Speaker 1: I know we've only scratched for knowing you for all
Speaker 1: these scratch the surface. There's so many storm stories. Maybe
Speaker 1: another type of thanks for being here, your thank you
Speaker 1: for having it's been fun. Absolutely, thank you until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sid