Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sess Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Marshall Chess. Marshall, when did you
Speaker 1: realize your father was in the record business? Oh? God,
Speaker 1: when I was maybe uh so in nineteen fifty, I
Speaker 1: would be uh eight forty two, eight eight or ten
Speaker 1: years old. When he first started. He used to bring
Speaker 1: home the records, you know when when he first started,
Speaker 1: which was ninety seven, But I really knew in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty when Chess started. Then I knew that was much
Speaker 1: more because he started. He still had a nightclub when
Speaker 1: he started, called the Macambo Lounge, and the company that
Speaker 1: he bought to turn to Chess was called Aristocrat Records,
Speaker 1: and he started working as a salesman. He wanted to
Speaker 1: learn learn, so from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: while the nightclub still existed, my uncle came back from
Speaker 1: the army. He worked as a salesman for Aristocratic Record.
Speaker 1: Whatever that meant um. I never even discussed that with him,
Speaker 1: but that's what it says. He was a salesman and
Speaker 1: then in nineteen fifty he formed Chess Records and started.
Speaker 1: Actually I was my father was a workaholic, from the always,
Speaker 1: so I hardly saw him. I was the first and
Speaker 1: only son. I was desperate to play. He never played ball, right,
Speaker 1: he was an immigrant that came over in nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: So he wasn't We weren't playing ball. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: typical American thing. He was always at work and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so I knew that that was my My
Speaker 1: way to him was through the family business, through work.
Speaker 1: Let's start there. Okay, your father was an immigrant. Your
Speaker 1: mother was she born in the States where she immigrant
Speaker 1: to My mother was born in the States from immigrant parents.
Speaker 1: How did your parents meet? Uh? They met in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Evidently the real story was my father had a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: He must he was in his early twenties. He had
Speaker 1: a girlfriend from a wealthier Jewish family that the father
Speaker 1: made her not see my father because he was an
Speaker 1: immigrant peasant. But my father really loved her, and uh,
Speaker 1: I guess he met my mother was on the rebound.
Speaker 1: And um, they had a really close friend that both
Speaker 1: my father and this guy, Marty Whitzel, worked at a
Speaker 1: shoe store called Burger Shoe Store. Shoes, you know, shoe guys.
Speaker 1: It was a big, big, giant shoe store where everyone
Speaker 1: got discount, cheaper Jewish kind of business. And they got married.
Speaker 1: He my mother and my father and this guy Marty
Speaker 1: and Millie. He had a double wedding and they got
Speaker 1: married together. They were very close friends, and that's how
Speaker 1: it began. You know. I've seen early photos of them
Speaker 1: horseback riding in the park in Chicago. But yeah, they
Speaker 1: got married very young. Um, and uh, that's how they met,
Speaker 1: you know, through through My father didn't like working in
Speaker 1: this shoe's store. He was a milkman before that. He
Speaker 1: hated working for people. He instilled that in me very much, so,
Speaker 1: so I know, and I instilled it in my son
Speaker 1: and my daughter, so I know how that goes when
Speaker 1: you're in still young. But uh, he didn't want to
Speaker 1: work for people, so he that in Chicago. We gotta
Speaker 1: go back to a million black people came up from
Speaker 1: the Illinois Central from Memphis, primarily from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: Kentucky into Chicago to make money. They could not make
Speaker 1: money in the South. It was short and that before
Speaker 1: civil rights, not long after slavery. You know, it was
Speaker 1: very difficult. World War two hit and the factories in
Speaker 1: Chicago go, Uh, it became like a bloodline for making money.
Speaker 1: So they you know, immigrants, Black immigrants along with Irish,
Speaker 1: Polish Jews. They all came to Chicago at the same
Speaker 1: time and it was really an immigrant center. So my
Speaker 1: father that black people could not they couldn't get a
Speaker 1: store front. They didn't have bank accounts. People like young
Speaker 1: people don't understand that no bank accounts, no storefront, didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about business. And um, my father and my
Speaker 1: uncle both heard black. My grandfather, Joe Chess came seven
Speaker 1: years prior to America with okay, just one second, what
Speaker 1: was the name in the old country and how to
Speaker 1: become Chess Chess c z y z Chez and Ellis Island.
Speaker 1: They changed my grandfather, but they must have said, but
Speaker 1: you know, what's your name? You know, get Joseph Chesz
Speaker 1: Chess now and that was it. That's how it started. Okay,
Speaker 1: So your your grandfather came seven year before your father,
Speaker 1: seven years prior with some relatives to Chicago. Guy was
Speaker 1: a carpenter, uh part of the family from a small
Speaker 1: village and on the pole it right now it's it's Belarus.
Speaker 1: He was right where all this trouble is now in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Right on the border. It was Poland then. And he
Speaker 1: came from this small village Muttle, a Jewish little tavern.
Speaker 1: They had a tavern in town. It was a village
Speaker 1: on the road. My grandfather was he was a traveling cobbler,
Speaker 1: shoemaker or whatever. He was fixed and he came to Chicago,
Speaker 1: and uh he came, and he earned the money to
Speaker 1: to bring over the family. Seven years later on Thelicitania,
Speaker 1: that same boat that picked up people from the Titanic.
Speaker 1: They came from Southampton to Chicago to Walton, New York,
Speaker 1: Southampton a train from Poland, I guess, and then to
Speaker 1: Southampton to New York, trained to Chicago. My uncle said
Speaker 1: when he got to London to the Southampton, he went
Speaker 1: to the He never had an inside toilet. He didn't
Speaker 1: know how to flush it. He was the chain in
Speaker 1: one of those from the ceiling. He didn't know. That
Speaker 1: was the first toilet he saw. But anyway, they came
Speaker 1: because they didn't know English. And my grandfather was a
Speaker 1: stern kind of guy. I heard later in life that
Speaker 1: he was a child beater with a belt, you know.
Speaker 1: He used to really punish. But my father beat me
Speaker 1: with a belt. Soul Yeah, my father beat me up
Speaker 1: really bad ones. You know how they say that gets inherited.
Speaker 1: He did really bad one time. Um at Aside from that,
Speaker 1: so ac my grandfather evolved to a junkyard then he had.
Speaker 1: Then it was a scrap metal yard, and my uncle
Speaker 1: said that part of their big business was getting empty
Speaker 1: old bottles on the street. They'd sell to al Capone's
Speaker 1: bootleg brewery to rebottle. My uncle said, I'll gave me
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars when I went into the army, said
Speaker 1: I'll gave you a hundred dollars and pre passing his whorehouse.
Speaker 1: But we checked it by Sun and I and act impossible.
Speaker 1: It was like ten years difference. But it was someone
Speaker 1: that was still that going on in Chicago. It was
Speaker 1: someone you know. So anyway, across from that junkyard was
Speaker 1: a black church, the the old kind with an upright piano,
Speaker 1: tambourines and a bass drum. And they would hear they
Speaker 1: heard the gospel singing and they were fascinated because my
Speaker 1: uncle would tell me. My uncle was the guy who
Speaker 1: told you all the real stories. My father was about business,
Speaker 1: you know, making sure that you could handle life, not
Speaker 1: the old stories. But anyway, my uncle said, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: we heard the black singing. And we'd stand there and
Speaker 1: and we listened, fascinated to the music. And we'd come
Speaker 1: home late and Zadi would beat us with his belt,
Speaker 1: the grandfather for being late for dinner. But in the
Speaker 1: village in Poland, evidently one guy had a wind up
Speaker 1: petrolla and when you play it, like half the town
Speaker 1: would come under the window to hear that, you know,
Speaker 1: to hear music. I don't think they've done sounding like
Speaker 1: they had any live music in that little village. Um.
Speaker 1: And so that's how that began. So he uh, he
Speaker 1: was around black people right from the beginn any before
Speaker 1: he spoke English, you know, there wasn't you know, there
Speaker 1: was this that was it was in the ghetto that
Speaker 1: you know, where the church was, where the junkyard was.
Speaker 1: And anyway, when he wanted to go on his own,
Speaker 1: he found out through the grapevine or whatever that if
Speaker 1: you white guys can you could get a really cheap
Speaker 1: lease for a storefront in the ghetto if you were white.
Speaker 1: This is this is your grandfather, my father, my father father. Okay,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, your your grandfather came your grandfather
Speaker 1: was working in the junkyard and your father worked there too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my father worked there too, and then um he left.
Speaker 1: My grandfather closed the junkyard evidently, and he he had
Speaker 1: earned enough. He bought some Rundown apartment building and he
Speaker 1: made it into a you know, he had to end
Speaker 1: of a sort of ghetto apartment buildings, a few of them. Actually,
Speaker 1: my uncle lived in one. So it wasn't so bad,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So when did the shoe store come
Speaker 1: before or after he got the store? Oh? No, the
Speaker 1: shoester came wait after, that's already after high So so
Speaker 1: he got the store front and keep going. He got
Speaker 1: the storefront on State south State Street, right on the
Speaker 1: edge of the Black ghetto where you know, still the ghetto,
Speaker 1: but then on the south side of Chicago. And he
Speaker 1: opens cut Right Liquors. And he sees that on weekends,
Speaker 1: the eagle flies on Friday, that famous blue song. He
Speaker 1: sees that they're coming in like crazy to buy booze,
Speaker 1: you know, the party. He loves it. He sees that's
Speaker 1: a business. He learns black culture, he learns how to
Speaker 1: talk to the customers. He works by himself, fifteen eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a day. That's kind of guy. I was always
Speaker 1: and uh my father owned a liquor store too, same thing,
Speaker 1: same thing, in the black area of Bridgeport. So he
Speaker 1: quickly moved to uh two years later to a corner.
Speaker 1: This is the story. I've heard a couple of versions,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you the version that I want to believe.
Speaker 1: He moved to the seven oh eight club a couple
Speaker 1: of two years later, maybe nine forty five or six.
Speaker 1: And I was a little kid then to be or
Speaker 1: I was born. Okay, but just a couple of questions.
Speaker 1: World War two is happening, how does he not? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my uncle went, My uncle went off. My uncle went
Speaker 1: off to the Lucian Islands. My dad could not get drafted.
Speaker 1: He wore a brace on his left leg, a leather
Speaker 1: brace from some you know, some village disease, probably polio,
Speaker 1: rheumatic fever, they don't know. And to get into America,
Speaker 1: they had to throw the brace overboard and he had
Speaker 1: to walk straight. They didn't elect cripples in you know,
Speaker 1: cripples had to go to another line in that era. Um,
Speaker 1: so he couldn't go to the army. That kept him out.
Speaker 1: And you know, coincidentally, I've had back surgery had I
Speaker 1: lost the I lost the nerve in my left leg,
Speaker 1: and now it's thin like his. It's so bizarre, you know, stranger,
Speaker 1: stranger things happened, I guess. So I have a thin
Speaker 1: leg now, but you could only notice it a little
Speaker 1: bit if he had a bathing suit on. It wasn't
Speaker 1: drastic anyway. Uh yeah. So then he had the club,
Speaker 1: the seven oh eight, and there was a jukebox, so
Speaker 1: not only got the booze, he sees their dropping nickels.
Speaker 1: That was it wasn't five cents of play Nichols like
Speaker 1: crazy along with the booze. And he said music booze.
Speaker 1: You know, he was he was the successory and the
Speaker 1: guy he felt and he I think he was insecure
Speaker 1: around white people. Now I think he felt being an immigrant.
Speaker 1: I think he felt a very symbiotic security with the
Speaker 1: black people. I always felt that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we always had black friends there way before man was
Speaker 1: the first infractional of men in Chicago. Really part, I
Speaker 1: mean it was, but he I always felt, as I
Speaker 1: got older and learned about psychology that maybe he was
Speaker 1: a little insecure, you know, being an immigrant and all that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he opened the club and then um, he
Speaker 1: got a light. The next thing wasn't nineteen forty five.
Speaker 1: I guess he that I read in this well researched
Speaker 1: book called Spinning Losing to Gold. It's still online. We're
Speaker 1: really well researched. I guess he got a license for
Speaker 1: the Macambo Lounge, which was his nightclub. It had a
Speaker 1: stage Bob's Ribs in the back that he get ribs.
Speaker 1: It became a live music There was a guy Tips
Speaker 1: forget his first name, El Tips, played a saxophone. It
Speaker 1: was a house band bar Long Bar. I was only
Speaker 1: in there one time. I have my famous Marshall's story.
Speaker 1: My father takes me there, picks me up at the house. Again.
Speaker 1: I only was around him if I had to go
Speaker 1: to work, so he picks We lived at forty four
Speaker 1: in Drexel, which was on the edge of the third
Speaker 1: floor walk up. And but it was a Polish Irish
Speaker 1: Jewish neighborhood. But eight blocks eight blocks north was the
Speaker 1: black line where the black you know. So that's where
Speaker 1: the club was a twelve fourteen blocks away the Macambo Lounge.
Speaker 1: And then my dad picked me up and it was
Speaker 1: in the night early seven eight o'clock at night. They
Speaker 1: used to take turns. When my uncle came back from
Speaker 1: the army, he came back while the club was still
Speaker 1: working and I walked in with my dad. Hold it.
Speaker 1: I was little man, you know, and there was a
Speaker 1: gunshot and he threw me over the bar to my
Speaker 1: uncle who was the bartending, and my uncle laid me
Speaker 1: down on these horrible wooden slats that were on the
Speaker 1: floor and laid on top of me to protect me.
Speaker 1: To this day, the smell of rotten alcohol and scummed
Speaker 1: that my face was pressed. Now, I can remember the smell.
Speaker 1: And that was my first time there. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, the problem ended and they took me home.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't remember the details, but I should
Speaker 1: remember that that he threw me over the counter, you know.
Speaker 1: Um it was a rough club. One of the oldest employees,
Speaker 1: this guy Gene Ross, who was held big six ft
Speaker 1: five guy who was half black and half Cherokee Indian.
Speaker 1: He loved federal prisons. He always got in trouble for
Speaker 1: he was a drug but he worked in my father
Speaker 1: as a bouncer and he the reason he was always around.
Speaker 1: During that Macombo time. A guy came after my father
Speaker 1: with a knife and Big Jean jumped in front and
Speaker 1: took the knife. And after that he was He always
Speaker 1: had a job when he was out of prison, even
Speaker 1: when my dad had a DeSoto from that At the
Speaker 1: time of the club, my mother was crying. Brand his
Speaker 1: first new car, or de Soto was was a Christlier
Speaker 1: car at the time Christlier owned it. Um that Jeane
Speaker 1: galbas that he had heroin in the glove compartment, and
Speaker 1: the Feds confiscated the car and my dad freak and
Speaker 1: Jane of course went to prison again. I saw him
Speaker 1: all the way to when I worked with the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones when we tore Chicago. He found Jesus. He became
Speaker 1: a religious guy. But yeah, he found me. During the concert,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. I went to the sidelines and
Speaker 1: saw him and had people, you know, he was big guy.
Speaker 1: They five Marshal Chress. Yeah he was good. But that
Speaker 1: was so that. Yeah, he had the club and then uh,
Speaker 1: you know, someone came into they came into record. I
Speaker 1: think Aristocrat was owned by many people, and he just
Speaker 1: you know again and perked up. He went from the
Speaker 1: liquor store to the corner tevan to a nightclub. Now,
Speaker 1: like black people music, record business. What's the record business?
Speaker 1: And like my just typically like my father, he became
Speaker 1: a salesman to learn it, to see what it was about.
Speaker 1: And coincidentally one of the artists do it. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't a black label. It was seventy eight and it
Speaker 1: was they had folk music, all kinds of different artists,
Speaker 1: but one of the artists was Muddy Waters. At that time,
Speaker 1: he was a truck driver as well. His name was
Speaker 1: McKinley morgan Field. But he was already well known from
Speaker 1: uh Alan Lomax, the famous document. Well, he was the
Speaker 1: guy recorded all the music in the South. He had
Speaker 1: recorded Muddy for historical recording from the cotton fields. What
Speaker 1: was the name of that plantation? He he actually lived
Speaker 1: on a plantation. Used to tell me he'd catch fish
Speaker 1: for forget a nickel of fish, and Hollywood, you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stories. His first guitar strings around the
Speaker 1: wall of the cabin that he ran strings the strum um.
Speaker 1: He was the closest of the artist to me because
Speaker 1: he was my father's true friend. They grew together. He said,
Speaker 1: there was a radio show when my dad died because
Speaker 1: we owned a radio station and w v O N
Speaker 1: the Voice of the Negro, the first modern black radio
Speaker 1: station in America, first black news director, etcetera, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: Muddy said, uh yeah, Leonard, Leonard Chess was a true friend.
Speaker 1: He would have said on me chest and I would
Speaker 1: have said, Leonard made me. You know, they had this,
Speaker 1: you know, and these were he hits. Ten thousand, twelve
Speaker 1: thousand was a giant Blue said, this is not million sellers,
Speaker 1: so miss and screwed by people as time goes on.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, two cents the publishing was two cents royalty,
Speaker 1: you know, um uh, you know it was a whole
Speaker 1: other thing. There were no giant hits then. The first
Speaker 1: TiO we had was the ninet with when rock and
Speaker 1: roll broke with Chuck Berry and Roddaly. That was a
Speaker 1: big year. That was my thirteen bar mitzvah it hits
Speaker 1: first money started rolling in and everything changed in my life.
Speaker 1: I told that, I told that I took my son,
Speaker 1: who's the third generation record man, Jo Marches. He's uh
Speaker 1: the thrill to see that he carry he's carrying it
Speaker 1: on on his own as well. But uh, he wanted
Speaker 1: to meet Chuck Berry. So he he was on his
Speaker 1: farewell through and he was in his eighties. He was
Speaker 1: playing at BB King's Club in Chicago. So I took
Speaker 1: him and Chuck and I were friends. I was his
Speaker 1: road manager when he came out of prison. You know,
Speaker 1: I knew him well. So I took my son backstage
Speaker 1: and I said to him, you know, it was like
Speaker 1: an emotional thing. I don't know, it brings up my
Speaker 1: father and everything. So I said to Chuck, you know
Speaker 1: I never told you this, but man, n five, when
Speaker 1: I was thirteen, you change you. Man changed my life.
Speaker 1: I got a Schwin three speed bicycle. We moved out
Speaker 1: of that walk up apartment. Everything changed, you know, with
Speaker 1: maybe Lane nineteen fifty five. And he said, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? He took my hand and his eyes
Speaker 1: were watering up. Just what are you talking about? You
Speaker 1: changed mine in ninety five. What a what a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: And my son heard that, you know it was beautiful. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's your father becomes a salesman. When he's a salesman,
Speaker 1: he sells the club. He's out of the club already. No,
Speaker 1: not out of the club, though I can now that
Speaker 1: everyone's dead. No one's gonna assue me. No. In nineteen
Speaker 1: and nine. In nineteen four fifty, right before he bought
Speaker 1: Chess Records, strangely enough, off the club burned down with
Speaker 1: a really nice insurance policy, and my uncle against there
Speaker 1: you had those motherfucker's. The firemen were passing out cases
Speaker 1: of liquor. They weren't fighting the fucking fire. And we
Speaker 1: didn't say a word. And then I actually remember my
Speaker 1: dad didn't trust banks. I never remember. It's vague, but
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Maybe you know it's just for color.
Speaker 1: I don't think. He took a cashed the check from
Speaker 1: the insurance and brought it home in cash, and it
Speaker 1: was all laid out on the bed hundred dollar bills
Speaker 1: and that's what he used to buy to buy them out,
Speaker 1: to buy Chess records them a combo down. So first
Speaker 1: it was aristocratic records. Tell me how it ends up
Speaker 1: becoming Chess. He bought him out here after two years
Speaker 1: of being a salesman and wanting to go on the
Speaker 1: record business. He they offered the one of the the
Speaker 1: one of the women of Evelyn, her name was Evelyn,
Speaker 1: who was one of the owners from the beginning. She
Speaker 1: had been married twice. I I had a feeding even
Speaker 1: my father and her had just my own idea from
Speaker 1: that that they had a thing. But she ended up
Speaker 1: getting married for a second time or so I wanted
Speaker 1: to get out of the business, wanted to sell it.
Speaker 1: They wanted to sell it, and so he inherited that
Speaker 1: the late you know, he bought it because Mighty Waters
Speaker 1: was on it. You know, he bought it whatever. I
Speaker 1: don't know the cost or anything. And then they renamed
Speaker 1: it Chess Records. Yeah, no, they renamed it because they
Speaker 1: had My father had one of the record pressers for
Speaker 1: Aristocrat was the guy out of Memphis, one of the
Speaker 1: first pressing plants in America named Buster. Williams. Bussy used
Speaker 1: to fly up. He he flew a twin cessna Southern
Speaker 1: gentleman he was. But somehow him and my father had
Speaker 1: this great relationship. And Buster is the one when my
Speaker 1: dad told him, you you're gonna you'll be my presser.
Speaker 1: I'm buying Aristocrat. I want to change your name. He suggested,
Speaker 1: why don't you just call it Chess Records, and that
Speaker 1: that was from Buster, and he he was a family
Speaker 1: friend with We were always in the pressing business. Tool
Speaker 1: from him. He was in we were We we had
Speaker 1: such a unique thing, and we'll talk later. But at
Speaker 1: the end we had this eight story building that had
Speaker 1: three studios, full record pressing plan, injection pressing, printing, and plating.
Speaker 1: You could come in, you could make it. It has
Speaker 1: never been something like that. It was the old Wallen
Speaker 1: Sack recorder building that in Chicago, and it was a
Speaker 1: manufacturing building, and we we had this fabulous, unbelievable with
Speaker 1: an elevator. They had a rooftop sauna where they were
Speaker 1: bringing their girlfriends. They had like a whole rooftop sauna, barbershop,
Speaker 1: all you know. The the guys who were built the building,
Speaker 1: and we bought that building so it was all all
Speaker 1: under one roof. But we always the problem with the independents.
Speaker 1: There were weren't a lot of independent pressing plans. So
Speaker 1: if when the independent record business broke, if you if
Speaker 1: five labels had hits it one time, you couldn't always
Speaker 1: get your product. And so owning a plant was important.
Speaker 1: My father thought that was an important thing, and we
Speaker 1: could press for the other guys when they were even hits.
Speaker 1: But we started with a very small plant. I actually
Speaker 1: worked to press when I was sixteen. I was raised
Speaker 1: to be a record man a record while my um
Speaker 1: I I've been told that. Uh. I went on the
Speaker 1: road the first time when I was thirteen, through the
Speaker 1: South my dad. We arrived in New Orleans, I met
Speaker 1: caused the famous Cosmo. My dad gave me a ten
Speaker 1: dollar but he said, I'll see it tonight. I tell
Speaker 1: my wife that your mother that you wander around New
Speaker 1: Orleans at ten ten dollars was like fifty then too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I went to three movies eight like a pig. I
Speaker 1: did it. He ran and I was always an independence soul.
Speaker 1: He always you know, let's thread a few let's spread
Speaker 1: a few needles. You've got in business with the guy
Speaker 1: in Memphis? Was he partners in the press? Buster just
Speaker 1: on the pressing plant, but he would have been. He
Speaker 1: was going to be the press, our press for the
Speaker 1: whole country. Okay, So what was your friends from the aristocrat?
Speaker 1: He pressed the aristocrat. So what were the first records?
Speaker 1: And then what was the first big hit? The first
Speaker 1: chess session? I actually went again. I wanted I wanted
Speaker 1: to be around my dad. We well before we built
Speaker 1: our own studios in Chicago, had one famous great recording
Speaker 1: was called Universal Recording. They ended up becoming Bill Putnam.
Speaker 1: Maybe he opened this became famous making studio equipment, limits
Speaker 1: and stuff for the studios. The first was Gene Emmons,
Speaker 1: My foolish Heart, I have a friend here on eight
Speaker 1: my heaven um. I slept on three metal folding chairs.
Speaker 1: My dad took me to the studio to see that.
Speaker 1: That was the first one, and it was chess for fifty.
Speaker 1: Karlov was their first department in America. He was superstitious
Speaker 1: about ship and that I inherited because when I did this,
Speaker 1: I had my own label, the psychedelic label to dead concept.
Speaker 1: The first record I did was three twelve, my father's birthday.
Speaker 1: We were always and you know again the black early
Speaker 1: black culture. You know, it came from African man. It
Speaker 1: was voodoo, mojo man, all that. And my father very
Speaker 1: much was exposed to the whole kind of you know, superstition.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a sidebar since we're talking about it.
Speaker 1: When I was maybe in high school seventeen, when Buddy Guy,
Speaker 1: the famous blues guy now was a studio guy. He
Speaker 1: was going back to Mississippi and I asked him to
Speaker 1: bring me a mojo so I could get girls. And
Speaker 1: he brought me this little pink bag. It smelled like
Speaker 1: the cheapest Woolworth perfuman and he had like pig bristles
Speaker 1: sticking out of it, like bristles, you know, and you
Speaker 1: penned see the white T shirt. Everyone were I've pinned
Speaker 1: it when I went to work, you know, in that air,
Speaker 1: if you're lucky to touch the brass draft, you know
Speaker 1: it didn't work, you know. Okay, so you're first, you've
Speaker 1: touched the top of the rasio. You you were bragging
Speaker 1: into your buddies. You know. So your father and your
Speaker 1: uncle are producing these records too, right, learning how to produce? Yeah? Producing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they didn't know what they were doing. They just
Speaker 1: wann't turned on what they were doing. But know if
Speaker 1: they didn't keep things moving, it would collapse. How do
Speaker 1: I know that because in my my I produced my
Speaker 1: first album in nineteen sixty two, I was twenty years old.
Speaker 1: When I was eighteen or nineteen, I was worked. I
Speaker 1: worked always every summer. Um. I just loved it. I
Speaker 1: wanted being there. I loved it. I loved it. If
Speaker 1: my dad said to me, they used to record the studio,
Speaker 1: wasn't upon floor, my dad would say, he said, go
Speaker 1: up to the studio. I have to go to the
Speaker 1: I have to go to a meeting. Not your uncle's
Speaker 1: not here. I said, do what you know? He said,
Speaker 1: just tell the motherfucker's to take another one. I said
Speaker 1: what he said, Look, if you don't tell him to
Speaker 1: take another one, they're gonna sit around talking about pussy
Speaker 1: and jobs. Nothing's gonna get done. He said, one of
Speaker 1: those takes is gonna be a mother. He said, we
Speaker 1: said motherfucker a lot in my family. That one of
Speaker 1: those takes is gonna be a motherfucker. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: what I did. So that's how he learned. Do what
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm saying, Take another one, take another one.
Speaker 1: But another thing I learned from my father. I still
Speaker 1: do it today. I'm producing a record right now with
Speaker 1: a partner. Surround yourself, make symbiotic relationships of stuff you
Speaker 1: don't know, like great, it'll be better. So he always
Speaker 1: you have to. He surrounded himself with people who knew
Speaker 1: music and then watched and learned from them. The first
Speaker 1: guy that was the closest was his name is Willie Dixon,
Speaker 1: the blues writer, producer, bass player. He'd get all the
Speaker 1: bands together. He would co produced really all those early
Speaker 1: sessions with my father, but little by little, my father
Speaker 1: learned how to produce. What do you really learned was
Speaker 1: what made records sell because we weren't making art. We
Speaker 1: were making singles and everyone artists, all of us, wanted hits.
Speaker 1: It was all about making money. Artists didn't care about art.
Speaker 1: Then they all wanted to hit. They came to Chess
Speaker 1: because they wanted We got radio play. We paid off
Speaker 1: this jockeys. We got hits, you know. So you know
Speaker 1: my father learned. I mean, he was very responsible. We
Speaker 1: had what we had. His nickname, he was very responsible
Speaker 1: for so much in rock and roll. Um. His studio
Speaker 1: nickname was the foot Stomper. That's because he wanted that
Speaker 1: strong backbeat. He was stomped his foot. He even played
Speaker 1: bass drum on blues record once to show him what
Speaker 1: he wants. So when I Chuck Berry died, you know,
Speaker 1: eight or ten years ago, his wife asked me to
Speaker 1: speak at his funeral in St. Louis, I said, of
Speaker 1: course I knew him, well, everyone else is dead really
Speaker 1: that knew him directly. I went and it was amazing,
Speaker 1: like five people in this big auditorium and they treat
Speaker 1: him like Mozart in St. Louis. I mean he's very famous.
Speaker 1: Um and uh so that I did. I did my
Speaker 1: spear with speech. The governor was in line with me.
Speaker 1: This was a major thing. His family was all sitting
Speaker 1: there and nodding, and you know me when I was
Speaker 1: speaking telling stories. So then there was a break, Uh
Speaker 1: what to pull out the casket? He had like twenty
Speaker 1: all white Cadillacs with motorcycles. It was amazing. And I'm
Speaker 1: standing was a hot sunny day and I see this
Speaker 1: like I could tell he was well dressed. Kelly was
Speaker 1: a Jewish guy leaning. I'm leaning on the same post.
Speaker 1: We're waiting, and he says, who are you? And I said,
Speaker 1: Marshall said, oh, I know, you know your father. I'm
Speaker 1: Chuck lawyer, you know. And he tells me you know
Speaker 1: all of Chuck and this lawyer. But then another guy,
Speaker 1: a black man, came up to me and he said,
Speaker 1: Mr Chess. He said, I gotta tell you something you
Speaker 1: probably don't know. I heard you speaking there. You know
Speaker 1: your daddy I was there. I went with Chuck when
Speaker 1: he made maybe leading in Chicago. You know it was
Speaker 1: your daddy who kept pushing for the beat and it
Speaker 1: was your daddy who turned up to echo. Your daddy
Speaker 1: did it. And I I never heard that or known that.
Speaker 1: I knew the chess our music was a tremendous part
Speaker 1: of the foundation of rock and roll. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the fact, that's a great legacy. I know that for
Speaker 1: a fact that that's true. But I never knew my
Speaker 1: dad was that he was the big he was the
Speaker 1: beat and that and no, we did. We had a
Speaker 1: homemade echo chamber. It was in the basement. I used
Speaker 1: to have to go down there because of rats making noise,
Speaker 1: just like you would. Because it was a long sewer pipe.
Speaker 1: It was all very in ventive stuff, man, the beginning
Speaker 1: of creativity making records. We wanted these sounds, just like
Speaker 1: like a lot of reggae has it. We wanted this
Speaker 1: black audience then love these unique sounds, different things, echo,
Speaker 1: big beats, loud of guitar. That was a very it
Speaker 1: was it made it sell more, that's a better way
Speaker 1: to tell you. And so we had this long clay
Speaker 1: sewer pipe with a chief speaker at one end and
Speaker 1: the mic on the other and they would send the
Speaker 1: signal down to the speaker. It would go through the
Speaker 1: mic be picked up by the mic and sent back up.
Speaker 1: That was the echo. And then there were so they
Speaker 1: were used to be noises and uh they'd say, there's rats,
Speaker 1: go down there. I had to go down. I was
Speaker 1: was get the coffee. I was. That's I was the
Speaker 1: coffee boy. To that was one of my first my
Speaker 1: first job. I should tell you that story. Um So
Speaker 1: I went down there and I see all these old
Speaker 1: boxes and I opened up one, you know a stack
Speaker 1: of four or five boxes, and it's full of seventy
Speaker 1: eight Louis Armstrong on the leavel. I go back up
Speaker 1: to my uncle. I could never talk about. My father
Speaker 1: went to even disgust it with me. I said, Phil,
Speaker 1: what's the Louis Armstrong? Oh ship? When times were hard,
Speaker 1: we had to do some ship. I guess they were bootlegs,
Speaker 1: you know that to pay the pet the cell, they
Speaker 1: must have, you know, done something. They weren't original pressings,
Speaker 1: that's for sure, But that that's a that's a true thing, man,
Speaker 1: that they always wanted to change the sound and make
Speaker 1: it better. We had our own mastering. Our studio was
Speaker 1: built on springs. It was brilliant. You know, all those
Speaker 1: like the rolling stones when they came to Chicago. I
Speaker 1: set that up in nine you know, because I got
Speaker 1: to know them well for seven years. I hung out
Speaker 1: with him nightly. They would say they thought play they
Speaker 1: wanted to record a chess that that's why I set
Speaker 1: it up there. Manager Andrew Olam called me. I got
Speaker 1: the call because he had a foreign accent. That's why
Speaker 1: I'd already been to England um to set up chess internationally.
Speaker 1: That was another one of my early jobs. But anyway,
Speaker 1: aside from that, Michael said, use them. The stone S
Speaker 1: thought if they recorded at the Chess studio, they sound
Speaker 1: like a chess record. Of course that's not the truth.
Speaker 1: It's the playing. Yeah, the studio is something. Actually, they
Speaker 1: wrote and pre produced Satisfaction and that's then they finished
Speaker 1: the recording in l A on that tour in But
Speaker 1: that was my first experience with them and seeing those
Speaker 1: English groups when they came to Chicago. Okay, so let's go,
Speaker 1: let's go bork. Okay, So your father's making these different records,
Speaker 1: how does he go into and how does he go
Speaker 1: into rock and his Chuck Berry the first person he
Speaker 1: got I got it, I got it ready, here we go.
Speaker 1: Chuff Berry wanted to be a blue singer, you know.
Speaker 1: And he came up to Chicago with his wife. You
Speaker 1: need no his wife, that muddy wife. He came to
Speaker 1: Chicago with his wife that I don't forget what her
Speaker 1: name is. He came to Chicago with his wife. They
Speaker 1: want to hear Muddy Waters. He was a giant Muddy
Speaker 1: Waters fan in the club. And after that gig, he
Speaker 1: went to Muney says, look, I made a tape. What
Speaker 1: do I do to get on a record? He says,
Speaker 1: go see letter Chess tomorrow morning. Tell the Muddy Waters name.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what he did. And he went and
Speaker 1: waked in the morning. He said, Muddy Waters told me
Speaker 1: to see you, Mr Chess. My dad went in and
Speaker 1: played the tape and it was two sides. It was
Speaker 1: a cut named I'd a Read and and one called
Speaker 1: we We Ours. We We Ours was a straight twelve
Speaker 1: bar blues like Muddy Waters would sing. We Were Ours
Speaker 1: was a unique different song which perked my father up.
Speaker 1: It was called I'd a Red My Fithers. I don't
Speaker 1: like the title, and I'm not sure about the lyric,
Speaker 1: the way it sounds the guitar to beat. You got
Speaker 1: something different there let's make a deal, but go and
Speaker 1: rewrite the song. And there happened to be one of
Speaker 1: the girls that had lipstick or makeup called Mabel Lean Cosmetics.
Speaker 1: It was a company called Mabel Line. You probably remember that.
Speaker 1: And uh they looked. He called Mabel Line and he
Speaker 1: was back within two weeks and it were written Maybe Line,
Speaker 1: called it Maybe Lane. They recorded it, and that was
Speaker 1: in and he went. So all the road trips were
Speaker 1: done by car. No planes wouldn't have the money. Was
Speaker 1: a small company, was blues company. He was on the road.
Speaker 1: He started in New York and he was gonna work
Speaker 1: his way back to Chicago. At that time, the king
Speaker 1: of radio in New York was the disjecty named Alan Freed.
Speaker 1: Everyone knew about Allan Freed. And it was also the
Speaker 1: time of massive payola. You know, uh, the independent record
Speaker 1: business would never have even developed without payola. I mean
Speaker 1: payola is what allowed anyone to make a record and
Speaker 1: check it out and put it on the radio. See
Speaker 1: of the phone ring of people wanted to buy it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, my dad goes and plays Allen Freed, Maybe Lane.
Speaker 1: Allen Freed. Hears it. It's something special and different. He
Speaker 1: coined the word rock and roll. That was all part
Speaker 1: of the Chuck Barry Alan create Alan Kline. Instead of
Speaker 1: giving him money, he became the writer of Maybe Lane.
Speaker 1: He went on as writer that was his and that
Speaker 1: night and my dad got in this car or drive
Speaker 1: back to Cleveland. Right one day drive, Alan played Maybe
Speaker 1: Lene NonStop three hours, over and over, broke the records.
Speaker 1: My dog get My dad got to Cleveland. He calls
Speaker 1: my uncle in Chicago. Because they didn't have cell phones
Speaker 1: in or anything or internet caused my uncle and he says,
Speaker 1: what's up. What the fund is going on? It's going
Speaker 1: crazy here. The phone rings every two seconds. This Alan
Speaker 1: freed Maybellen. It's broke. We gotta hit Landard, we gotta
Speaker 1: hit And of course he rushed back to Chicago and
Speaker 1: began to spread it. By then we had independent distributors,
Speaker 1: you know, all the indie labels. There was a whole
Speaker 1: group of independent distributors all across the country. It's so
Speaker 1: funny when I hear that Kanye West bullshit anti sembatic.
Speaker 1: Everyone I knew had there was all Jewish names. I
Speaker 1: could give you a list of thirty, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: they were all these Jewish guys like my father and uncle,
Speaker 1: you know who who who? Just like the early movie guys,
Speaker 1: you know, they send something about this music and all
Speaker 1: that um. But coincidentally, in nineteen fifty five, a couple
Speaker 1: of months later, Bo Diddley came in, who was the
Speaker 1: Chicago street artist. My uncle heard that tape again and
Speaker 1: put out Bo Diddley. So we had these two major
Speaker 1: pre foundational rock and roll hits in nineteen fifty and
Speaker 1: like I say, my life changed. Our whole family's life changed.
Speaker 1: And I must say the world began to change, maybe
Speaker 1: because rock and roll change the world, and my family
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I never realized that Bob Krasnell, you know that that
Speaker 1: was you know. Of course Bob once sold me so
Speaker 1: don't you know yours the first family of rock and roll?
Speaker 1: He said, you don't even know that, and I said,
Speaker 1: you're right. Bob and I had taken much rooms together.
Speaker 1: We were like when he had we had uh, he
Speaker 1: had Blue Thumb, Blue Thumb Records. Bob was the one
Speaker 1: who steered me to the Rolling Stones. He wanted to
Speaker 1: join me with me to sign the Rolling Stones. That's
Speaker 1: how I found out that they were available, you know,
Speaker 1: they wanted them to do something. And I told Bob,
Speaker 1: I said, after tripping with you, you know, motherfucker, we
Speaker 1: could never work together. Our egos. That was that era
Speaker 1: of you know, our egos are way too big. I said,
Speaker 1: will you give me Mick Jagger's phone number? He gave
Speaker 1: me his home phone number. That's how it all began
Speaker 1: for me through Bob Krasnow. Okay, but let's let's go back.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the blues era. Your father's cutting everybody. Well,
Speaker 1: it starts with Muddy Waters. Who becomes who has hits?
Speaker 1: I feel like going home? They were big hits, you
Speaker 1: know not. I mean again, there was a radio station
Speaker 1: in the South w l a c H fifty thou
Speaker 1: watch white disc jockeys, but they played blues black music.
Speaker 1: It would cover thirteen states at night, all through the South.
Speaker 1: So you you know, we were we were having like,
Speaker 1: you know, blues hits. I'd say the biggest record thirty
Speaker 1: would be a giant, giant blues hit, like a million
Speaker 1: man sellar. But yeah, we were having hits. But Muddy
Speaker 1: Waters and all the airplay put Chess on the map
Speaker 1: with every other blues artist who wanted to be on
Speaker 1: the radio and they it became a magnet. And then
Speaker 1: how and then and then at the same time we
Speaker 1: had a great deal with Sam Philip who own Sun
Speaker 1: who eventually had Sun Records with Alvis, but before that
Speaker 1: he was probably one of the first record producers of
Speaker 1: you know, white record pruces of black musical will in
Speaker 1: my father. At the same time, he sent us Howling Wolf,
Speaker 1: you know, and then we had Hollowing Wolf. And then
Speaker 1: we had another big hit called which they say is
Speaker 1: the first rock and roll record, called Rocket eighty eight
Speaker 1: by Jackie Brinston and who was the saxophone player for
Speaker 1: Ike Turner's orchestra. I con Tina Turner. It wasn't ten then,
Speaker 1: just like and we had that yet, Uh, Rocket eighty eight.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the way those cars two tone paint.
Speaker 1: That was the big ghetto car because it was the
Speaker 1: first with two tone. Yeah, and uh, don't be late,
Speaker 1: come on baby in my Rocket eighty eight, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what were those old blues guys like and what
Speaker 1: was their man? You're asking me that everyone asked me that.
Speaker 1: Here's what they were like, Marshall, Did you get me yet?
Speaker 1: Did you dick get checked out. Yet they ever asked me.
Speaker 1: They only cared about it if I ever discovered sex.
Speaker 1: I was twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen. They didn't talk
Speaker 1: about business or music with me at all. Zero I
Speaker 1: have you get And I was, like I said, at
Speaker 1: that time, I was the coffee boy. I have to
Speaker 1: walk to get before we had people and coffee machines
Speaker 1: and offices, he had to go out to get it.
Speaker 1: In that area, they had shitty cardboard cups with these
Speaker 1: horrible paper bags that would leak, they disintegrate. My hands
Speaker 1: would be burning, you know. But what were they like?
Speaker 1: They were great muddy waters. Just to call me his
Speaker 1: white grandson, his wife guenivis to semi fried. He'd bring
Speaker 1: me fried chicken and the thickest illuminum foil. Then was
Speaker 1: sick man. I can remember that he'd bring me that,
Speaker 1: you know, money, money was. I was the closest the money.
Speaker 1: He first time I met money was. I always told
Speaker 1: this story. But you're already a still probably like it. Um,
Speaker 1: I might it must have been. I must have been.
Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to think. Twelve years old, we
Speaker 1: had moved from the third floor are with blues moved
Speaker 1: up from the third floor walk up to a row
Speaker 1: house thirty six South Gates. Um on the south side,
Speaker 1: should call my uncle lived two blocks away. I'm on
Speaker 1: the front yard and literally with a house next to
Speaker 1: a cattle that pulls up and this guy comes out
Speaker 1: and he's got the bright green, iridescent green suit with
Speaker 1: hair looked like with a foot high, like who the fuck?
Speaker 1: You know, as a kid of you, what is this?
Speaker 1: You know? Um, I had seen black people, but this
Speaker 1: was duked out and the car and I looked down
Speaker 1: and his shoes blew me away. They were like pinto
Speaker 1: pony hair of the fur of a course or cow.
Speaker 1: And you looked at me and say, you must be
Speaker 1: young chess. You'll pappy home. That's how I met Muddy
Speaker 1: waters Man, and uh, he came over again advice money.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wasn't in, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what went on, you know, I I was dragging
Speaker 1: around and I didn't when they were I never saw.
Speaker 1: I went on the road with my father, you know,
Speaker 1: I saw he was paying people off, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it even was. You know, I sort of
Speaker 1: was just I just was. It was all a natural thing.
Speaker 1: And I always wanted to make records like my dad.
Speaker 1: I had a chance when I was twenty in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, I got to go to Muscle Beach Uh
Speaker 1: in Carolina, Muscle shoals Uh and recorded Bowls Beach Party
Speaker 1: with a lot of desktop was there wasn't a remote
Speaker 1: recording land. Me and the sales manager, Max Cooperstein, we
Speaker 1: co produced it. And in the middle of that, I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example of how it was, so you
Speaker 1: want to know how it was. Um Bow Dolly had
Speaker 1: Chester Simmons. That was like this road manager we recorded
Speaker 1: in the middle of the second set. Jerome Green, the
Speaker 1: Morocco player, was the original guy when they played on
Speaker 1: the streets in Chicago, so they didn't have to carry
Speaker 1: a drum. Was Bow, didley and guitar. And this guy
Speaker 1: Jerome with Moroccas. He jumped off the stage and all
Speaker 1: these white kids started dancing around them. Twenty minutes later
Speaker 1: cops came him in with German shepherds shut us down
Speaker 1: and said, let them white kids dance with your niggas.
Speaker 1: He's I lock you jus up. No one will even
Speaker 1: nowhere to find you, you know after exactly right, And
Speaker 1: but we recorded enough to put out that album and
Speaker 1: it was stopped. Okay, back to the hotel, keep going hotel.
Speaker 1: It's a good story. Then we went back to this
Speaker 1: whole beach hotel, oh Wood once from that era. You know,
Speaker 1: we we were planning to go earlier. We shared rooms
Speaker 1: in those days. One was having separate rooms, me and Max,
Speaker 1: and then the next room was a honeymoon couple. And
Speaker 1: he showed me out of your hold one of those
Speaker 1: old time water glasses against the wall you could hear.
Speaker 1: So I had my experience of watching people, hearing people
Speaker 1: fuck for the first time on that trip, as well
Speaker 1: as being called a dirty jew nigger lover, you know,
Speaker 1: excuse my language with the N word. Okay, But so
Speaker 1: your life anges with then what happened and and bo diddly,
Speaker 1: then what happened together? Did it? And what happened with
Speaker 1: the company and what happens with you? Then the company exploded,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we had money to produce. Morris
Speaker 1: signed more, expand more. They wanted to expand into LPs,
Speaker 1: into jazz all that, you know, little by little, UH
Speaker 1: we wanted to get into jazz. LP was really invented out. Um.
Speaker 1: It started with uh Dave We We had this guy,
Speaker 1: Dave Usher was like a jazz fanatic friend of my
Speaker 1: uncle's from Detroit. He produced stuff. Then there was a
Speaker 1: famous magazine and chic call it called down Beat. The
Speaker 1: Jazz was the major jazz magazine. We hired the editor,
Speaker 1: Jack Tracy, figured he knew everyone, and that's how we started.
Speaker 1: And the blues are all, believe it or not. The
Speaker 1: blues were always recorded in the daytime, but we had
Speaker 1: the empty studio at night. So Jack, we would we
Speaker 1: we we would work it out. Everyone knew they could
Speaker 1: pick up some extra cash after the gig at Chess
Speaker 1: and that's why we put out such great The first
Speaker 1: role of Kirk Elvin, James Moody, Uh God, Dorothy Ashby
Speaker 1: and Jazz Harve I'm and Jamal Ramsey Lewis Wow because
Speaker 1: it was relaxed, it was at night. A lot of
Speaker 1: it was real jazz. They just wanted the money. They
Speaker 1: made it up. It was totally improvised a lot and
Speaker 1: one of my early jobs was Mr. Samuel's. We were
Speaker 1: we did union sessions. You got paid for a three
Speaker 1: hour session. I was one of my because I got
Speaker 1: all the dirty jobs, getting coffee, going late early in
Speaker 1: the six in the morning at the pressing plant. Um.
Speaker 1: I also had to go meet Mr Samuel's, the union
Speaker 1: guy from when the checks were signed. They had to
Speaker 1: make sure they signed the publishing and all that before
Speaker 1: they got the check. So I used to go at night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the business. You know, certainly Atlantic wasn't
Speaker 1: paying royalties. What was the royalty situation at Chess? It was?
Speaker 1: It was, it was no what was it? You know?
Speaker 1: I always got to ask that because there's such a
Speaker 1: lot of the you know, Chest ripped off artists. Every
Speaker 1: the Indians ripped off some did um. And I don't
Speaker 1: believe my father ever overtly ripped off anyone because of
Speaker 1: the way he raised me. You know, I mean I
Speaker 1: I that's not even I was, you know, he just
Speaker 1: was never even part of it. I uh. But there
Speaker 1: were no entertainment lawyers that came later. We had a
Speaker 1: one page contract, publishing on one side, recording on the other,
Speaker 1: one piece of paper. Yeah, um um. We had no computers.
Speaker 1: Everything was manual, even order taking every you know, it's
Speaker 1: so confused now with modern technology. When I worked at Chess,
Speaker 1: everyone had one of those little pads with carbon paper.
Speaker 1: And the phone would ring in a thirteen hundred st Louis,
Speaker 1: you just yelled your handing in the carbon paper. I
Speaker 1: saw my dad once. This is way after. This is later,
Speaker 1: um in sixties six sixty five. I saw my dad
Speaker 1: the only time once of reviewing the royalty statements with
Speaker 1: the bookkeeper and he would bring in this long you
Speaker 1: know stacks, the white paper and the Dells blue option
Speaker 1: prepared a big hit then called, oh what a night.
Speaker 1: And he looked at the Dells. It was day was like,
Speaker 1: you know, eighteen thousand bucks, I mean, you know, not millions.
Speaker 1: And he looked at Muddies. Blass wasn't prove when blues
Speaker 1: were dead, Black people wanted motown, you know r and
Speaker 1: b uh. We don't want our grandfather's music. And the
Speaker 1: white jees hadn't discovered the historical ones, you know. Um anyway,
Speaker 1: and I looked at my dad, but I heard my
Speaker 1: dad looked and he held up money and he said
Speaker 1: to Ted it was the big take five grand off
Speaker 1: of the thousand foot it on Muddy. That's my last
Speaker 1: story on royalties. That was my father. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: graduate from high school and then what happens with you?
Speaker 1: I go to college and I become the chess promotion
Speaker 1: man in Denver, Colorado. So you go to college in Denver. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to you know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to u C. L A. Or USC. I did
Speaker 1: not get accepted. I wanted the West Coast bad. I
Speaker 1: love cars, I loved girls. I loved California. I've been there.
Speaker 1: New we had the first black record executive, Paul Gayton.
Speaker 1: Paul Gayton was from New Orleans. He was a famous
Speaker 1: New Orleans band leader and he started out playing for
Speaker 1: the most famous Italian mafioso in a horrorse and then
Speaker 1: he became a a big band leader, well known during
Speaker 1: that era. And my dad and him hit it off
Speaker 1: and he became our first guy in New Orleans when
Speaker 1: we did all this Clarence Frogman, Henry Ain't got no home,
Speaker 1: all our Cajun kind of music. But then he moved
Speaker 1: to Cali, Fornia with his wife and he drove a
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce. He lived on top of the hill with
Speaker 1: icon Tina Turner's house, and he opened our little office,
Speaker 1: the chess office in l A. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: work with him, but I didn't get accepted. So After
Speaker 1: two years at Denver, I applied to USC and got in,
Speaker 1: and I moved to Hollywood and my dad was having
Speaker 1: an affair with the hostess at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
Speaker 1: Wait Wait, Wait, Wait Wait was an apartment building behind
Speaker 1: the ground Chinese Theater that was for hookers, and we
Speaker 1: never knew that, and he she got me a department
Speaker 1: there had sparkle in the ceilings, and that's where I lived.
Speaker 1: H I lived behind the Chinese Theater for my first
Speaker 1: year of college at USC and worked out with Paul
Speaker 1: Gayton in the office. So did you graduate? No, I
Speaker 1: didn't graduate. I never wanted to go to college. My
Speaker 1: dad didn't give his ship. He said, just go learn
Speaker 1: what you can for the business. I had a radio
Speaker 1: show at USC, and it took plastic engineering to learn
Speaker 1: about record pressing, marketing. Um. But I would have stayed.
Speaker 1: But I never did it in a proper way. I
Speaker 1: would have probably had it gone five or six years,
Speaker 1: because I just took what interested me. We didn't care.
Speaker 1: He didn't really care. I didn't have a push from
Speaker 1: my mother or father about not like a modern way.
Speaker 1: I pushed my kids, you know, But I didn't have
Speaker 1: the push but then in my senior year, a fourth year,
Speaker 1: second year at USC, my dad got horribly beat up. Evidently, Uh,
Speaker 1: the mafia tried to move in on Chess Records in
Speaker 1: Chicago and m he refused and got out of it
Speaker 1: with help from Morris Levy. You know that is of
Speaker 1: course Roulette Records. Okay, well Morris. Anyway, they knew each other.
Speaker 1: We all all the indies were like part of the
Speaker 1: wild bunch, you know. Morris knew the Chicago mafia to
Speaker 1: his guys. But they were upset that he got that
Speaker 1: they couldn't get a piece of chess. And two guys
Speaker 1: they called him up that there was a fire, and
Speaker 1: he went down there at night and two guys he
Speaker 1: fought them with a heart condition and he was horribly
Speaker 1: beat up. He couldn't even go out of the house
Speaker 1: for weeks. His face was life came back, but they
Speaker 1: called me and said he he lived, but he was
Speaker 1: horribly beat up. And I said, I'm coming home, and
Speaker 1: I got in my car and I drove to Chicago
Speaker 1: and started working in chess records. That was it. So
Speaker 1: that's how you dropped out of college when your father
Speaker 1: was good. Yeah, I wanted to go home. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to go to college anyway, but I like the lay.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I love living there. I had a
Speaker 1: house eventually in Benedict Canyon. Um uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: I love working with Paul gat And that was a
Speaker 1: fabulous experience, you know, working with him, like little Richard
Speaker 1: would come by the office, all kinds of he was.
Speaker 1: It was just he was just a brilliant guy. And
Speaker 1: I learned a lot about life from him. And he
Speaker 1: was a brilliant musician. Um. And he used to come
Speaker 1: to our house, stay at our house, play the white
Speaker 1: Jewish grand piano and the suburbs and we'd all go around.
Speaker 1: I used to play. I started playing. He got me.
Speaker 1: I was a trumpet player. That's a whole other musicians story.
Speaker 1: Um can I can I go story? So I uh,
Speaker 1: I watched, I mean, kid, I watched From Here to Eternity,
Speaker 1: you know that movie, of course? In this movie, of course,
Speaker 1: and when the guy played taps with a bugle, I
Speaker 1: got moved, emotionally moved, and I wanted to be do that.
Speaker 1: And I joined the boy Scouts and I became a bugler.
Speaker 1: I was thirty fourteen, just turned fourteen, and my dad
Speaker 1: thought the boy boy Scouts were whacked. I could tell
Speaker 1: he didn't like it. And he went to one thing
Speaker 1: with me there one father and something. It wasn't his thing.
Speaker 1: But so I learned how to play readily, and the chart,
Speaker 1: a few things, taps and now then I started in
Speaker 1: high school. I was fourteen South Chard High School in Chicago,
Speaker 1: still living on the south Side before we moved to
Speaker 1: the suburbs. Um and I began to take trumpet lessons.
Speaker 1: I had a Martin trumpet. I used to walk on
Speaker 1: the rail I was just enamera. I joined the high
Speaker 1: school band. No before that was my eighth grade. I
Speaker 1: used to walk on the railroad tracks. I practiced. I
Speaker 1: could play Lady of Spain. I adore you all these
Speaker 1: oh my Papa, I could make you cry. Man. I
Speaker 1: could play it. I loved it, and uh then I
Speaker 1: we I went my freshman year before he was the
Speaker 1: suburb south Shore High School. I joined the band. I
Speaker 1: could read and read music. I learned how to read,
Speaker 1: you know, not like the arranger. But I could play
Speaker 1: my little parts, and uh, I loved it. And uh.
Speaker 1: I was at Chess Records working in My father said,
Speaker 1: come on into the office. Is my uncle, my father
Speaker 1: and my grandfather ZD. And they all said, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't think you should become a musician. I said,
Speaker 1: what we're in the music business, Marshall is the worst.
Speaker 1: They get forty bucks a session. You'll never be able
Speaker 1: to have a supportive family. It's a horrible They knew
Speaker 1: from you know, hiring guys. It's not a good thing.
Speaker 1: We know that you love it. We think we think,
Speaker 1: you know, like it was like like a mafia that
Speaker 1: you should come in the record business. Come in the
Speaker 1: record business. That's your business. You'll be around music, you
Speaker 1: can learn how to be a producer. And I of
Speaker 1: course said yes, you know totally. I mean that was
Speaker 1: like the committee, you know. I said, yes, I still
Speaker 1: have a trumpet, and I still so. Years later. I'm
Speaker 1: on a Rolling Stones tour nineteen seventy two. We it
Speaker 1: was a tour where we hired Stevie Wonders horn section
Speaker 1: called wonder Love, Steve Mateo on trumpet, Him Price on trumbone,
Speaker 1: Bobby Keys on saxophone. The Stones always had a couple
Speaker 1: of tune up runs and Steve Matteo had three or
Speaker 1: four horns, so I picked up one of his trumpet
Speaker 1: was a trumpet and I could still, you know, I
Speaker 1: could play an impressive riff one rift that up, but
Speaker 1: the jazz riff, and they looked up like, oh my god, Marshall.
Speaker 1: But you know, blah blah blah, come and join us. Well,
Speaker 1: every horn section wants to be fatter, you know. It
Speaker 1: was adding another horn, you know. I said, man, you
Speaker 1: gotta I said, come on, you gotta teach me at
Speaker 1: least the chords. And so they taught me some of
Speaker 1: the bullshit and the first night I went on and
Speaker 1: by the end, by the next morning, I couldn't touch
Speaker 1: my lips. They were that bruise because it takes years
Speaker 1: to develop the callous and the pressure. Yeah, I could,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to give me on stage. So it's
Speaker 1: online I played so that we were before a year
Speaker 1: ie we we've had an English gig. That was the
Speaker 1: next gig. It was in England, some Liverpool, some city,
Speaker 1: not London. I know it's online that they were. You
Speaker 1: could see where they talk about it and they have
Speaker 1: my name is the player. And I ended up convincing
Speaker 1: them that I would only come in for the last
Speaker 1: four songs and ended that concert tour ended with street
Speaker 1: fighting man. It was easy one note. Uh so I got.
Speaker 1: I played eight concerts on stage, the last four numbers
Speaker 1: with the Rolling Stones on the European tour and um,
Speaker 1: it was a tour where it was this was a
Speaker 1: fabulous lifetime experience. It was a tour where the promoter
Speaker 1: had to give us a bushel basket full of rose
Speaker 1: petals and mick which the horns were on the facing
Speaker 1: the stage. We're on the far left and the piano
Speaker 1: was on the far right. He would start with on
Speaker 1: the far right, dancing towards the end, and he would
Speaker 1: throw rose petals on the piano, on each player, bill woman,
Speaker 1: and everyone would cheer as he you know, did that
Speaker 1: walk across the stage. Well, the first time he came
Speaker 1: with thirty thousand people in front of the horn section,
Speaker 1: Alm was peted my parents. I never felt anything like that.
Speaker 1: The energy factor, it was unreal. It was in describable.
Speaker 1: I can't even describe it to you. When people say
Speaker 1: what is it, I said the closest thing. As a poet,
Speaker 1: I would say it was like a mother's love holding you.
Speaker 1: It was a warm man. It was something special like
Speaker 1: And that concert tour we had no encore so everyone
Speaker 1: walked after street fighting man. We all went with him.
Speaker 1: We walked into the van and it was dead quiet.
Speaker 1: While they were still cheering. We were on our way
Speaker 1: back to the hotel. So, uh, I got that amazing
Speaker 1: experience of feeling that energy, which is why I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're still out there doing it. You know, that is special.
Speaker 1: You get addicted to that. That is way stronger than
Speaker 1: anything I ever took. You get thirty people loving you.
Speaker 1: You know, they weren't loving me, they were loving Mick.
Speaker 1: But at the overflow, you know, he's standing in front
Speaker 1: of you. Boom. That was a fantastic thing. So that
Speaker 1: was a great experience. And that was the end of
Speaker 1: my trumpet playing, even though I still have it as
Speaker 1: a souvenir against the wall in its case, um My
Speaker 1: Martin trumpet. Okay, do you know why you're named Marshall? No?
Speaker 1: I do not. They thought it was an unusual name.
Speaker 1: I'm not named after anyone. Nope. I didn't even like it.
Speaker 1: It was an unusual name when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm asking. Oh no, A lot of my
Speaker 1: girlfriend's mother that they keep a lot of the mothers
Speaker 1: that we call me Chess for some reason, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a common name. I hated when they call me chess. Okay,
Speaker 1: r was my name. Your father gets beaten, beaten up.
Speaker 1: You come back from the coast. You're in the business totally.
Speaker 1: Now what are you doing? Oh yeah, that's a good story.
Speaker 1: Good story, Bobby, I mean the story. I come to
Speaker 1: work the famous building, historical landmark where the stones recorded
Speaker 1: before we moved to the big eight story building. I
Speaker 1: come to work. I got but that was suit and
Speaker 1: tie and pinky ring. Because the black artist they wanted you,
Speaker 1: they liked you if you they wanted what you had.
Speaker 1: So my dad bought a new Cadillac every year. We
Speaker 1: were dressed sharp. You know, they knew if you were
Speaker 1: that successful, then they you could help them get that way,
Speaker 1: you know, that was the thing. So I was a
Speaker 1: sharp dress like the zz top sharp dressed man. I
Speaker 1: had my custom made suits from Maxi the but the
Speaker 1: R and B. Taylor by bar Mr suit was custom
Speaker 1: made light blue with blue stitching on the side. I
Speaker 1: was into that from from being around those sharp dressed people,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the jazz guys. They were always
Speaker 1: the sharpest dressed people. They were like even now they
Speaker 1: are you know they get they really control the fashion culture.
Speaker 1: I mean the ghetto, you know, from the ghetto seeds.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's what happened, man. I So anyway,
Speaker 1: my dad then had the radio stations at the end
Speaker 1: when you know we're in the car. We we had
Speaker 1: a car wash like the one in the movie The
Speaker 1: car Wash, and we it was two blocks in the
Speaker 1: na avenue and we had a deal. Do you could
Speaker 1: get it every day? Everyone could get a car wash
Speaker 1: every day. He just wentn't line and he paid a
Speaker 1: monthly feet whatever it was. Well, I I came from college.
Speaker 1: No one told me where to sit, No one told
Speaker 1: me what my job was, No one told me what
Speaker 1: I was making. I was very confused. So I got
Speaker 1: the courage and asked my father that. I said, Dad,
Speaker 1: you know i've been back a couple of months. I
Speaker 1: don't know where to go, what office to sit in,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what to do. Um what you know?
Speaker 1: What's up? And he said to me, and I can
Speaker 1: remember this, you stupid motherfucker. Your job's watching me and
Speaker 1: the subject he with the old European style, watch me,
Speaker 1: watch me a little by little, he would, do you
Speaker 1: have me do? This, help me do that, like going
Speaker 1: to the studio. He taught me in that old European way,
Speaker 1: little by little, little by litterly, let me screw up.
Speaker 1: I made my first deal with Pie Records. It was
Speaker 1: a a even. I screwed up the math. And when
Speaker 1: you'll never do it again, will you? Nope, never do
Speaker 1: it again? You know? That was how I was sort
Speaker 1: of raised. Um, I guess that's the way he learned.
Speaker 1: So he just laid that on me. Um. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: then I started working and I started doing promotion. And
Speaker 1: there was a famous record promotion guy. You may even
Speaker 1: have heard of him. I'm sure your listeners have named
Speaker 1: Howard Bednoe. He was the dean of record promotion probably
Speaker 1: in America, all the major labels, who was an indie
Speaker 1: promotion guy. But he worked also for all state record distributors,
Speaker 1: our distributor, Paul Glass, and I became hot for That's
Speaker 1: how I learned promotion. I was. He didn't drive, Howard
Speaker 1: never did. I was his driver and sidekick for a
Speaker 1: whole summer, you know, seeing all meeting all the disc jockeys,
Speaker 1: seeing how he did it, how he had a befriend them.
Speaker 1: And then we then in Chicago. Then w l S
Speaker 1: was the major States fifty clear channel AM radio. It
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, white pop radio. They were in this
Speaker 1: building underneath was the London House, so they hang out
Speaker 1: of record promotion. Man, where was the London House? And
Speaker 1: we had our own little section. We'd always played liars
Speaker 1: poker and then the DJs from upstairs would come down
Speaker 1: and uh So for that whole year, I was eating
Speaker 1: steak four nights a week, just signed the bill at
Speaker 1: the London House, hanging out with all the record promotion
Speaker 1: of all the labels. It was like a crowd, and
Speaker 1: they all accepted me. I was the youngest one. I
Speaker 1: mean when I went to the first meet him, I
Speaker 1: was the youngest one. I was always the youngest one
Speaker 1: until young guys started getting into it. Chris Blackwell came
Speaker 1: to buy records from me before Island Records. He came
Speaker 1: to buy old singles that weren't hits that they were
Speaker 1: selling in England. That's how we started out. Chris, I've
Speaker 1: met so his dad was married to a woman in
Speaker 1: Lake Forest. So I got to be friends with Chris
Speaker 1: when he before he started Island. All the first young
Speaker 1: record guys, Mike and Richard Vernon Blue Horizon Record, seymour
Speaker 1: Stein who had just left Kinge Records. You know, um,
Speaker 1: there was this growing group of young guys. You know,
Speaker 1: I was going to I. I did go to Europe early.
Speaker 1: I I I aught well. I was always enamored with
Speaker 1: Europe and I wanted to go real badly. And I
Speaker 1: told that to my father and he, you know, he
Speaker 1: gave me a great experience, he said. I went twice
Speaker 1: to Europe and to Japan with Harry Goodman, my father's
Speaker 1: publishing partner. But Harry Goodman was the original bass player
Speaker 1: of the Benny Goodman trio with Lionel Hampton Gene Krupa.
Speaker 1: So that was my teacher of international kannak, eating hookers
Speaker 1: and uh international record business. And I went around with him.
Speaker 1: And then it was one of the dean first of
Speaker 1: the great entertainment lawyers, a guy named Alan Arrow Orangstein
Speaker 1: Arrow and Silverman. They were one of the first that
Speaker 1: was our firm. I became close with Alan Arrow. I
Speaker 1: went to Japan with him. He showed me the far East.
Speaker 1: We went, you know, introduced me to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I had great tutors, and um, you know, I learned
Speaker 1: that and then I set up chess in Europe. Um
Speaker 1: and um I I said, I wanted a percentage of
Speaker 1: any extra we knew we were. We had one contract
Speaker 1: with London Decca for all of the world and when
Speaker 1: we were making nothing. You know, they knew nothing about
Speaker 1: rock and roll nothing. I mean the Stones were also
Speaker 1: started with them at that time. They really knew nothing
Speaker 1: about especially about black music. So Alan Arrow introduced me
Speaker 1: to Louis Benjamin. It later became Sir Louis from Pie
Speaker 1: Records that was owned by Lesson Loud, the Grades, the
Speaker 1: Carney people and from England. Um so I I uh,
Speaker 1: That's where I made my first international deal was with
Speaker 1: Louis Benjamin. That was the one that didn't make money.
Speaker 1: Louis offered to change it and I said, my dad said, no,
Speaker 1: you'll have to suffer, don't change it. Let him so I.
Speaker 1: After two years we redid it. But then I went
Speaker 1: around Europe by Eddie Barkley. You know that you ever
Speaker 1: Barkley Records and all Indies, the Durham the Minton Jin's,
Speaker 1: Turkish people in Italy, Uh, Eddie Barkley and the French
Speaker 1: um Doug hog list so on that Grandmophone, all the
Speaker 1: indies like Jess and they I was like, you know, man,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, they loved me. I was
Speaker 1: like the indie, you know, I came from that INDI
Speaker 1: for one of the first I mean, they became my
Speaker 1: close friends. I used to go to Europe a lot um.
Speaker 1: We had great success. The first year we made a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty ground and they were shipping green. That
Speaker 1: was like a half a million bucks back then. And
Speaker 1: it was in nineteen sixty four when the big statement
Speaker 1: came in and uh I bought Ah that was the
Speaker 1: year the stones came because I had just bought my
Speaker 1: first car and payments hundred and eighties six dollars a month.
Speaker 1: But it was a red Porsche, the old kind, the
Speaker 1: little look like the little egg my dad. They thought
Speaker 1: it was the most ugly thing. They were coming from Cadillac.
Speaker 1: That was the ugliest car they ever saw, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I had, you know, I was up
Speaker 1: getting custom made suits. I was on an ego trip
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't believe. I had success. I bought a
Speaker 1: single from Pie Records for three hundred pounds, sold a
Speaker 1: million pictures of Matt stick Man that status quo. I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask you about that. So how did that
Speaker 1: come to be? Well, I wanted to have my I started,
Speaker 1: like I say, in nineteen sixty also like in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two or three. I couldn't believe it's online. I
Speaker 1: wanted my own record label, so I started. My dad
Speaker 1: said start one, and I started the label called mar Mars.
Speaker 1: My little sister Susie used to call me m A
Speaker 1: R m A R. Just the other day, I just said,
Speaker 1: could that be online? I found a photo of the
Speaker 1: label and I so I bought a master from Louis Benjamin,
Speaker 1: another pie Master, the first one, for like three hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: That was the deal, non hits, and it was a
Speaker 1: guy named Nichols, Jimmy Nichols, who was the first drummer
Speaker 1: of the Beatles. It's actually on the label, says first
Speaker 1: drummer of the Beatles, Scott remember scat music, And I
Speaker 1: put it's probably those forty copies. I put out two
Speaker 1: singles on marmar and uh, you know then it didn't
Speaker 1: sell it. I couldn't do it. I had no promotion.
Speaker 1: But that was my first thing. And I did the
Speaker 1: Bau Diddaly and little by little, I you know, I
Speaker 1: started to to uh, but the status quo. I wanted
Speaker 1: my own label. Then of course I formed that labeled
Speaker 1: Cadet Concept before the status quo that was, that was
Speaker 1: my own that was why why was it? Why was
Speaker 1: it called Cadet Concept Because of this guy that worked there.
Speaker 1: I loved him. His name was Dick La Palm. They
Speaker 1: were part of the Cadet renaming. Argo was the original
Speaker 1: jazz label. We had to give up the name Argo
Speaker 1: because there was an English spoken word label name Argo.
Speaker 1: They sued us. We decided just to change the name.
Speaker 1: So we they came up with the name Cadet. I
Speaker 1: never personally liked it at all, but they liked it
Speaker 1: because it was chess checker Cadet three season. The way
Speaker 1: it sounded so okay. So when I wanted my own label,
Speaker 1: they came up. Well, I said, what's it gonna be.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be my concept because it was the whole
Speaker 1: acid pod psychedelic thing. I was one of them that
Speaker 1: I was one of that. The exact age I went
Speaker 1: to Woodstock, I drove from Chicago. You know, I was
Speaker 1: one of those people who took acid and and pot.
Speaker 1: I was just enamored with it all and uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: that's how that happened. They said, well, you know, let's
Speaker 1: call it that concept. So I said, okay, we'll call
Speaker 1: it that concept. It was the easiest way to get
Speaker 1: my own. I went for it. I would have probably
Speaker 1: not liked it, and that's how it started. I agreed
Speaker 1: to do it, and then I got Then I had
Speaker 1: we My daddy had hired these really a fabulous avant
Speaker 1: garde ad agency named Hervis Spinser in Churchill, one of
Speaker 1: the first young new ones in America. They were in Chicago.
Speaker 1: He had hired them for the radio station. And I
Speaker 1: met this guy, Robin Binzer, who designed the Cadet concept label,
Speaker 1: and he came up with the name rotary connection. You
Speaker 1: know all those Okay, well one story at one time,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna get the many ripton. Well, it's all
Speaker 1: of that concept. Okay, wait, let's call connect concept. You
Speaker 1: put out pictures of match stick Man. I bought that single. Okay,
Speaker 1: did you hear it and say, hey, this is a hit,
Speaker 1: and and how did you make it a hit? I
Speaker 1: heard of that, I heard and I thought it was
Speaker 1: ahead of course, And how did you make it? A
Speaker 1: here a dis jacket that would do favors for me
Speaker 1: on that fifty thousand one station. Art Roberts broke that
Speaker 1: and rotary connection I learned from Howard Bednow. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I get it. I made him. Okay, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: how I got it. I made a movie in nine four,
Speaker 1: probably one of the first music videos. Two guys from
Speaker 1: Illinois Institute of Technology, I think came. I thought it
Speaker 1: was University Chicago, but it wasn't. They they were film
Speaker 1: majors and they said, we want to make and we
Speaker 1: make a film about something with Chess records we needed
Speaker 1: for our to graduate. Our thestis was a fifth Little
Speaker 1: George film. I wanted to be a film producer. I
Speaker 1: even had my own Safari equitor. You know. I was
Speaker 1: ready to be a producer. Yeah, I'll help you. So happened.
Speaker 1: I called him as that Bo Diddley is recording for
Speaker 1: a week and attended, let's do it. So I made
Speaker 1: this black and white film, Legend of Bo Diddley. You
Speaker 1: can see it yourself. I just put it up. I'm
Speaker 1: building a YouTube channel for my grandchildren, and it's on there.
Speaker 1: I actually fixed it, we repaired it. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not a good movie, but I gave a featured
Speaker 1: pardon it to Art Roberts, that famous, that fabulous nighttime
Speaker 1: disc jockey. You know, he was my guy, you know,
Speaker 1: and um he were friends. But you know, and he
Speaker 1: broke that record in the rotary and you know he
Speaker 1: played you know, yeah, he could play what he wanted.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't remember the details. Before they had
Speaker 1: strict playlists, you know this, jackets could still have to
Speaker 1: have some freedom in those eras, that era. Then when
Speaker 1: Paola came, they started with control paylists and all those
Speaker 1: things to stop it. But that's how that started. And
Speaker 1: then I got real lucky because I moved my office.
Speaker 1: I had this real op art office on the first
Speaker 1: floor of that eighth story building. Jeff Berry said. It
Speaker 1: was the best office you ever saw. I had like
Speaker 1: black and white hop art. It was wood panel. I
Speaker 1: had it painted black epoxy because I saw Eve San
Speaker 1: Laurent in Paris. His shop where I used to buy
Speaker 1: clothes was painted with orange epoxy, you know, before he
Speaker 1: became famous. So I did black epoxy. It was a
Speaker 1: way big speakers. Everyone would call me. After that, my
Speaker 1: dad left, we'd all smoke pot and listened to all
Speaker 1: the music in there. That was my office. But then
Speaker 1: we moved. We moved to the eighth floor where we
Speaker 1: had We came up with a concept. We had the
Speaker 1: studio a this big studio studio be a medium size.
Speaker 1: Then I I built a small studio with very simple
Speaker 1: equipment for the musicians to work. And I hired a
Speaker 1: rhythm section, famous people Donnie Hathaway, Danny Danny Hathaway, Donnie
Speaker 1: Hathaway and piano still up to John Bace, Maurice White,
Speaker 1: the first way to fire on drums. Sometimes they come
Speaker 1: every day. Paid them like a hundred and fifty a week.
Speaker 1: The jam worked on tracks. We had four little rooms
Speaker 1: with upright pianos and real to real tape recorders for
Speaker 1: songwriters and they would work. We have a blackboard. I
Speaker 1: put Eddie James coming in two weeks right songs. Then
Speaker 1: they would develop it with these musicians. We cut little tracks.
Speaker 1: They could work it. It was a creative, a creative factory.
Speaker 1: And I moved up to the eighth floor. That was
Speaker 1: where I ended my career chest on the eighth floor.
Speaker 1: But I moved up to the eighth floor and one
Speaker 1: of my jobs then was to get lead sheets made. Now,
Speaker 1: lead sheets had to be if you wanted to copyright
Speaker 1: you in those areas, you didn't send in a tape
Speaker 1: or CD. You actually had notated on a lead sheet
Speaker 1: that you had to send with notes and paper. And
Speaker 1: I would you know, we had people we hired to
Speaker 1: make lead sheets of the records that we put out
Speaker 1: so we could copyright them. So I heard about this guy,
Speaker 1: Charles Stepney Um and that he would do lead sheets,
Speaker 1: like for fifteen bucks a lead sheet, whatever we pay
Speaker 1: if done cheap, you know, fifteen was probably like forty
Speaker 1: bucks now for a sheet. And this short, chubby guy
Speaker 1: in a suit uncomp suit and Tide comes at the
Speaker 1: eighth floor. We also had a commissary with like a
Speaker 1: microwave and weird horrible junk food, so the musician everyone
Speaker 1: would stay up there this musician's coffee machine or whatever.
Speaker 1: And we're in the commissary. Me met this Charles. I
Speaker 1: made a deal with him for lead sheets, and he
Speaker 1: had this big portfolio, like a bit six inch thick folder.
Speaker 1: What's that? You know? It's a symphony everyt and I said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you wrote a symphony. He said, I'm
Speaker 1: in my senior year of music school. I'm gonna graduate now.
Speaker 1: I had to write this. If you ever heard it, no,
Speaker 1: I played on the piano. I hear it in my head,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, well, you know, I've got this
Speaker 1: fucking wet. I got to know him over months making leecheets,
Speaker 1: and he would come and were talking. I've got this
Speaker 1: idea for an interracial group. Um, I got many Riperton
Speaker 1: here works through the Sydney and the other guy hanging around.
Speaker 1: I got this. I said that this is one of
Speaker 1: the sales guys. They had a band of Polish band
Speaker 1: in Chicago, white band. Um, I didn't forget that the
Speaker 1: other day. I remember their name for a minute, now
Speaker 1: I forgot anyway up. So I combined them and I
Speaker 1: told her, if it's this idea, I said, this is
Speaker 1: the psychedelic age. By then I had been taking LSD
Speaker 1: numerous times, but I wasn't ever into the Grateful Dead, uh.
Speaker 1: I was into the spiritual. I went to hear Tim Leary,
Speaker 1: Bob Dillian opened up for him or in white robes.
Speaker 1: I was into that because the first asset trip I
Speaker 1: took in the sixth you know, mid sixties, whenever that
Speaker 1: was was really the real deal. Sandals Laboratory from Switzerland. Um,
Speaker 1: that's where I played the sraman on Good Vibe because
Speaker 1: I heard Good Vibrations on the Ascid of the Beach
Speaker 1: Boys and they have that whoo. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: put that on the rotary. But so I talked told him,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I think there's there's this whole
Speaker 1: alternative radio market. You know, Um, there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: happening now across the country. Um, I want to do
Speaker 1: this thing for people on a bad trip to calm
Speaker 1: him down. But you know, a soft psychedelic and uh again, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm using my dad's concept. If you get people around
Speaker 1: you know their ship, you'll make your stuff better. Will
Speaker 1: you work with me? And he said, of course. It
Speaker 1: was this chance, you know I mean. And then I
Speaker 1: got Jean Bard, who was part of our house a
Speaker 1: and our staff family, who had he came up from
Speaker 1: the South. He had one hit record called Country. He
Speaker 1: was agreed. He still is a great He's still like
Speaker 1: in his nineties. He still does gigs playing saxophony. He
Speaker 1: was a brilliant saxophonist. He's on a ton of Chess
Speaker 1: records and he was an actor. I made him part
Speaker 1: of my team, Charles, Stephanie, Marshall, Chess because they he
Speaker 1: was the guy who talked to the musicians, because I
Speaker 1: I had the concept, but I couldn't write the music.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do all those things. And I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: I never got it a hundred percent how I wanted,
Speaker 1: but I got it close enough. And then when if
Speaker 1: became a semi hit, of course you say, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was my thing. But you know, I had this great band.
Speaker 1: I put together the most avant garde group of black
Speaker 1: musicians in Chicago. Maurice White was ended up on earth
Speaker 1: Wind and Fire. Louis Sadderfield earth Wood and Fire. Drummer
Speaker 1: was another Morris Jennings who played with Ramsey Lewis fill
Speaker 1: Up Church brilliant bassist and guitarists. Um, I put them
Speaker 1: all together and uh we started rehearsing. I got the
Speaker 1: White band with many and then we started working. I
Speaker 1: picked the songs, my concept I did. I picked that.
Speaker 1: I I picked the songs, and I kept pushing the concept,
Speaker 1: what how we were going to do it? And then
Speaker 1: we we recorded and I remember the first session. It
Speaker 1: was the first time Charles had ever heard his music,
Speaker 1: you know, played back that he had written. You know
Speaker 1: that he was sweat, you know, he was so worried.
Speaker 1: But we eventually we would. We started doing all the
Speaker 1: strings and horns from the Chicago Symphony, you know, we would,
Speaker 1: and he would. He he became a great arranger. He
Speaker 1: died young. He did all the earth, wind and fire.
Speaker 1: He would have been he was like Henry man Sin.
Speaker 1: He would ended up in Hollywood. He was a genius.
Speaker 1: He died very young, in his like late thirties of
Speaker 1: him forties. You know, he died young. But we made uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and I even helped him when I left Chess,
Speaker 1: I helped him make his agreement with the new people
Speaker 1: who own chest after it was so um. But he
Speaker 1: he was, He was amazing. He was a genius. He
Speaker 1: was probably the best thing I ever brought the chess.
Speaker 1: If it would have stayed sixty nine, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you want to jump to ninety nine, but that
Speaker 1: was like probably the heaviest year of that period of
Speaker 1: my life. And it began in January. I was already
Speaker 1: on a high man I had, you know, I had
Speaker 1: things were good for me at Chess. Foreign royalties, shock,
Speaker 1: Berry Broken England. It was I was taking people to
Speaker 1: BBC TV shows Fontela Bass, Ready, Steady Go, like the
Speaker 1: first TV music show in the world was in England,
Speaker 1: and um, you know all that was happening. But in
Speaker 1: sixty nine, that was a heavy year. It was. It
Speaker 1: started in January. I got a call from Seymour Stein
Speaker 1: and uh, Mike Vernon. They you know, we have a
Speaker 1: group called Fleetwood Mac. She just died. It's in the
Speaker 1: news now, Fleetwood Mac. But before her it was a
Speaker 1: blues man Fleetwood Mat. When they started, it was Mick
Speaker 1: Fleetwood on drums, but they had a fabulous guitarist named
Speaker 1: Peter Green really as good as Eric Clapton, as far
Speaker 1: as I's going, really good. Well, we're doing a tour
Speaker 1: that we're you know, we love the blues. We're touring America.
Speaker 1: It was our second tour. Will you help us do
Speaker 1: an album in Chicago? Can we come to the studio? Well,
Speaker 1: I'd already done the Stones in sixty four, so they knew,
Speaker 1: you know, they they it was known that I could
Speaker 1: do that. I mean I could have done that, so
Speaker 1: I did. I said, yeah, what do you want? We
Speaker 1: want you to get? Get me four or five chess
Speaker 1: players that we want Willie Dickson, we want so and
Speaker 1: so on piano. Um, I ort to span uh and
Speaker 1: we'll play with him and we'll we want to record
Speaker 1: one day, full day, we'll be there. So they came
Speaker 1: to Chicago and we recorded eighteen hours double album called Fleetwood,
Speaker 1: Mac and Chicago. It's online. You could hear it on Spotify.
Speaker 1: And Uh, that's how my years started. In January, then
Speaker 1: I did another one, uh, Fathers and Sons with all
Speaker 1: the white blues guys, Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg, Samily and drums,
Speaker 1: Paul Butterfield and Brite and Harmonic. He. I did that
Speaker 1: live in Chicago studio. And this is all nine. I'm
Speaker 1: on a fucking I had the Rotary. I had Electric Mud,
Speaker 1: which was a chiant, the biggest blues album we ever had.
Speaker 1: And then I get a call from my father had
Speaker 1: a cell phone, not a cell phone, a mobile phone
Speaker 1: in the car and him my uncle called me from
Speaker 1: the radio station and say, you know you're we're gonna
Speaker 1: sell Chack. We're gonna sell Chess records. Um, don't worry,
Speaker 1: you can start your own label. You'll get part of
Speaker 1: the sale. Huh. And I was blown away. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was like I was. It was like mean the
Speaker 1: way I say, it's like raised for an Olympic event.
Speaker 1: They canceled the year before the Olympics. You know, after
Speaker 1: a lifetime. Oh my god, you know, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, don't worry. It's we got this great off
Speaker 1: of the radio. My dad was enamored with radio. He
Speaker 1: knew that it was the dying days of white people
Speaker 1: owning a black business, even though we were converting to
Speaker 1: a full scale business. But he was already bored with it,
Speaker 1: and he loved radio. And he became a He became
Speaker 1: a humanitarian. I don't know what the word is, scholars ships.
Speaker 1: We give a thousand bags of food Christmas at the churches.
Speaker 1: He gave back. He would tell me he gave back.
Speaker 1: He fell to the black community. You could hear. I
Speaker 1: could send you I have When he died, they did
Speaker 1: an hour radio show, child let her Chest tribute. Everyone
Speaker 1: called in probably black. You could hear how they what
Speaker 1: he did. He gave the water for Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: for a march, you know, all kinds of stuff after.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe he was guilty. Maybe he did take barrel.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You never told me that, and I
Speaker 1: don't think he did in that evil way. He had
Speaker 1: his own he self made guys and self made businesses
Speaker 1: in their own beliefs of how it should be. You know,
Speaker 1: ship man, I paid him off. I'm doing all the work.
Speaker 1: You know, they got a modern recording contract has all
Speaker 1: that in it. Artists pay for promotion, videos, everything. He felt,
Speaker 1: why shouldn't they pay for a part of Paola. You know,
Speaker 1: he felt that he really believed it, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: in the contract. He just maybe I don't know what
Speaker 1: he did. I wasn't involved with the royalty and at all.
Speaker 1: I really wasn't. I didn't care about it. You know,
Speaker 1: we had bookkeeper, we had too good accountants. Um I
Speaker 1: left before was that was dever came. I never reached
Speaker 1: that stature. Um yes, I have the records on that concept.
Speaker 1: I made sure they, you know, that lived up to
Speaker 1: the contract, but I never got into the full scale.
Speaker 1: I don't know what went on. I didn't care about
Speaker 1: it then. You know, it was why I was having
Speaker 1: too much fun, you know, being a record man, making
Speaker 1: a lot of money, sports cars, Uh, marijuana was like
Speaker 1: blew my mind. It was like wearing sunglasses on a
Speaker 1: clary day, you know, it was it was good. That
Speaker 1: was a good time. But then they called me and
Speaker 1: I was blown away. And then shortly after that, my
Speaker 1: dad dropped head driving the car fifty two years old
Speaker 1: from the radio station with her his public affairs director,
Speaker 1: Bernardine C. Washington. We had a public affairs director, black lady,
Speaker 1: very high class, high society black lady. In a way.
Speaker 1: They had that in Chicago. There's the whole cotillion people
Speaker 1: from Jet magazine, Ebony. There's like, uh kind of group.
Speaker 1: There wasn't that error anyway. Um anyway, that's what happened.
Speaker 1: So that that's that's was sixty nine was mind boggling.
Speaker 1: And then my dad died and my uncle wanted to leave.
Speaker 1: They they were glad to let him leave. They were
Speaker 1: they wanted to move. They knew they were going to
Speaker 1: close it up and moved to New York. They hired
Speaker 1: uh uh Land Levy at the time from Epic. You know,
Speaker 1: it was a major knew nothing about the Indies nothing.
Speaker 1: They were idiot people called g RT from Sunny Vale, California.
Speaker 1: They were still at the beginning of Silicon Valley. The
Speaker 1: reason they had all that money is when eight tracks
Speaker 1: and concettes first were invented, only two people manufactured them
Speaker 1: in the world, Ampex and g RT on the West Coast.
Speaker 1: Majors had to go to them, so they had all
Speaker 1: those millions of dollars, and both Ampics and g RT
Speaker 1: thought they needed content. So that's why they wanted to
Speaker 1: buy Chess. And it happened that Alan Arrow, the big
Speaker 1: music lawyer, was a lawyer for three m who made
Speaker 1: the tape and eight checks and cassettes. He put it,
Speaker 1: so he knew he put it together when they said
Speaker 1: they wanted content, and uh, it was a great deal,
Speaker 1: except the stock was seventeen and when I sold Mina
Speaker 1: was seven dollars or something. My mother never even sold hers.
Speaker 1: It collapsed, you know, because it was restricted stock. You
Speaker 1: couldn't sell it for two years or something then, so
Speaker 1: I ended up So it was, you know, a crazy time.
Speaker 1: I uh never got my money as I was supposed
Speaker 1: to get the million bucks I was supposed to get,
Speaker 1: and there was my dad had no will. Most of
Speaker 1: the kid's money all went seventies percent or something to
Speaker 1: a state tax. But that's that's when I was you
Speaker 1: know and then this GRT they wanted. They were on
Speaker 1: the stock exchange. So they sent me to an American
Speaker 1: Management and Association meetings, to a school to learn about
Speaker 1: stock and how to make forecasts. That was the big thing.
Speaker 1: We never made a four said, just be made hits.
Speaker 1: Made another hit, not a forecast. I hated it. I
Speaker 1: hated it. I hated them. I hated everything at that period.
Speaker 1: And uh, I quit and I was I quit. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. I just said, fuck it, I'm quitting. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I wanted to do. I had a
Speaker 1: bad marriage. My first marriage was a disaster. I was
Speaker 1: still married. Everything collapsed the end of sixty nine, and
Speaker 1: that's what I got. The call from Bob Krasnow said, Man,
Speaker 1: I heard the Rolling Stones are getting rid of their
Speaker 1: manager Alan Klein and their label London Decca is over.
Speaker 1: I know of you and I joined together. We could
Speaker 1: let's get him man. He had blue thumb. I know
Speaker 1: you could help me get them. And I thought about it,
Speaker 1: and I told you. I called him up and I
Speaker 1: said we can't never work together. Come on, man, and
Speaker 1: he gave me a mixed number. And then a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later, I went to London, and that's how
Speaker 1: it all began. That's a whole other story about how
Speaker 1: my first meeting with the Rolling Stones and all that.
Speaker 1: Tell that story now, and tell the story of Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones Records. I called Nick Jagger. I met him in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Well before you go, there was crass now mad that
Speaker 1: you did it without him? Yeah? No, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. Man. We had taken mushroom steal and
Speaker 1: that that's what I'm trying to tell you. We were
Speaker 1: already out another level. You know. We love the honesty
Speaker 1: more than madness. You know, he agreed we couldn't work together.
Speaker 1: He was an egomaniac to he became the president of
Speaker 1: elected whatever. Remember I loved them, Yeah, I loved them, man,
Speaker 1: you know, but we loved each other, you know, but
Speaker 1: we're you know, in that early thing. No, he wasn't mad,
Speaker 1: and who knew what was going to happen. So I
Speaker 1: did call. I had met Nick Jagger when he was
Speaker 1: in Chicago. But the one I bonded with was Brian Jones,
Speaker 1: the one who died. And I was gonna say that story.
Speaker 1: In ninety four, they were staying at this Chicago motel
Speaker 1: and they asked me to I want to come by
Speaker 1: and hang out. Well, they blew me away. Man, I've
Speaker 1: never seen people with long hair like that in person.
Speaker 1: They were drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle. I
Speaker 1: was drinking screw drivers with girls you know, body or
Speaker 1: they were drinking it out of the bottle. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: they're going, I'll drive Brian. I took him around and
Speaker 1: introduced him. I gave him each records. I was already
Speaker 1: sending records to Mack and Keith. They would come when
Speaker 1: I was working in the shipping room. We had this
Speaker 1: weird connection. Man born in a similar year. I was
Speaker 1: connected to them. You know. I would send them. They
Speaker 1: couldn't send letters. So that's all making Keiths met because
Speaker 1: they had chess. One of one of them at Chess
Speaker 1: records on the subway and then one saw the other
Speaker 1: and started talking. But but anyway, that's what they told me.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know, I called Mick River. I said,
Speaker 1: you know company has been soul and depressed. I heard, uh,
Speaker 1: you are also having a situation with your label. I
Speaker 1: think there's something we could do together. Oh Marshall, I
Speaker 1: loved I come to you call where to talk? To you,
Speaker 1: but I just had my passport held for having feather
Speaker 1: means in the London airport. Could you come to London?
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I'll come in the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: He had this great woman running his office and named
Speaker 1: Joe Bergman, an American, so she, you know, she knew
Speaker 1: I was coming. And two weeks later I went to London.
Speaker 1: I was familiar. I had been to London probably twenty
Speaker 1: times by then, you know, setting up the stuff, and
Speaker 1: I knew where to stay. And so I went to
Speaker 1: London and I called her up and I said, a
Speaker 1: Marshall Chess, I'm here. Had my meeting with Mack. She said,
Speaker 1: well mix in Ireland writing and I rip flipped out
Speaker 1: what the means? And I he told me to come here. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll talk call them and tell him you're here. I
Speaker 1: was really upset, you know, My ego was upset, you know.
Speaker 1: But sure enough, two or three days later he came
Speaker 1: to London. We had our meeting and he said, come
Speaker 1: to my house on Cheney Walk. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know London. Cheney Walk is fabulous. It's on the river,
Speaker 1: these beautiful brownstones. I to each house today is probably
Speaker 1: worth and her fifteen million. You know, he's gorgeous old
Speaker 1: right on the river though in Chelsea, so near the
Speaker 1: King's Road. So uh, I go to mixed house. I'm
Speaker 1: a little nervous, you know, I'm wearing but I'm wearing
Speaker 1: already my I've already switched from the suit and tight
Speaker 1: chest g O Levi, you know Levi's. I was in
Speaker 1: my more modern, you know, sixties gear and the Mick
Speaker 1: take took me up to his sitting room and blew
Speaker 1: me away. Man, I'm from Chicago, from the Midwest, uncultured.
Speaker 1: This guy at antiques or yell rugs. It was. I
Speaker 1: never paneled walls, you know. But he had this long table,
Speaker 1: the couch and this long table. And I immediately laughed
Speaker 1: because he treated LPs like me badly out in the cover,
Speaker 1: piled scratched, you know, he treated him badly as a
Speaker 1: record player. And he goes up to the table. I'm
Speaker 1: in the couch and he puts on Lift Engineer, which
Speaker 1: is a zydical from the Bayou, New Orleans. He puts
Speaker 1: on black Snake Blues and he comes in front of
Speaker 1: me and he starts doing that like a dance back
Speaker 1: and forth while we're talking, and I'm thinking, like, my
Speaker 1: father's this guy's nervous. Well, you know, I knew he was.
Speaker 1: He was nervous. You know. They looked at me like
Speaker 1: if I was, you were a car dealer and I
Speaker 1: Henry ford Son came in. Come on, they got their
Speaker 1: name from Chess record from Rolling Stone, Muddy Waters, come on,
Speaker 1: you know they named you know, they named the track
Speaker 1: an Instrumentale twenty after our address. You know. So my
Speaker 1: relationship with them was a whole other kind of weirdness,
Speaker 1: you know, based on just whatever. Uh. But I was
Speaker 1: a real record man. Man. They were lucky motherfucker's to
Speaker 1: get me. It was. I was at the top of
Speaker 1: my game, you know, and and there weren't guys like
Speaker 1: me many around if any and I think they knew it.
Speaker 1: I was. So you know, my plan was to become
Speaker 1: the seventh or eighth Rolling Stone. You know, I had
Speaker 1: a whole and I wanted a label, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I said, well we can former label. We we like Atlantic,
Speaker 1: but we had offers from Columbia and all these other
Speaker 1: epic They knew about Atlantic. They didn't know Ahmed then yet,
Speaker 1: they hadn't met Ahmed or anyone but they knew about
Speaker 1: the music on Atlantic. They loved it. Um anyway, well,
Speaker 1: I went to mix, so he says, we's dances and okay,
Speaker 1: he said, why don't you go down there down the street.
Speaker 1: Keith lives right down the street, right on Cheney Walk.
Speaker 1: Go over to Keith and tonight you'll come with us
Speaker 1: to meet everyone and we have a rehearsal tonight. We
Speaker 1: have a rehearsal room in East London, the poorer section
Speaker 1: of London, their original probably rehearsal room. So I said, great.
Speaker 1: If I walked down, I knock on keys doors and
Speaker 1: he's got a some Italian like butler, older guy, you know,
Speaker 1: house man answers, oh keys upstairs. I go up to steps,
Speaker 1: same kind of house, walk up the steps and there's
Speaker 1: Keith with Graham Parsons, you know, the famous country rock guy.
Speaker 1: They're at this yellow or psychedelics sort of like the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Piano all yet wasn't it was a styway but painted weird.
Speaker 1: They they were playing together and singing, and I sit
Speaker 1: down and how Martha did they They commence about how
Speaker 1: I was dressed because they saw me from the key,
Speaker 1: had seen me in Chicago, sharp dressed man, you know,
Speaker 1: the suit to tie the whole thing. Then they had
Speaker 1: a joke about it. Anyway, I went with them that night.
Speaker 1: I was in the car and I'll tell you how
Speaker 1: naive I was. We're going to East London and uh,
Speaker 1: I see in every building there's a glow in the window,
Speaker 1: And I said, what's that fucking glow? Man? Don't you
Speaker 1: know what that is? A poor people who have to
Speaker 1: put money at to keep the heaters going tenpence, fivepence
Speaker 1: whatever in And all those glowes were heaters, and you know,
Speaker 1: in the living room was winter. So and we get
Speaker 1: to the rehearsal room and it's down in the basement
Speaker 1: and it's funky, but all they had drums that all
Speaker 1: set up, you know, to play and guess what's on
Speaker 1: the column? My Electric Mud album opened up with a big,
Speaker 1: you know pick of muddy and white rope. That is
Speaker 1: my omen this is the ship, you know. And I
Speaker 1: went back to Chicago and I told them a why
Speaker 1: I at the time, I was good friends with the winners.
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco. I had met
Speaker 1: them on my alternative. You know, I needed for all
Speaker 1: my albums for that concept that was a great They
Speaker 1: were important. I remember if you subscribe to Rolling Stone,
Speaker 1: you got a free copy Electric Mud. Okay, there you go,
Speaker 1: you got it. So I even I think I spent
Speaker 1: one night on Jan's couch. You know, I knew him well.
Speaker 1: I loved them, you know, and we loved each other.
Speaker 1: We had They introduced me to Donny and Mitchell the
Speaker 1: first all the big alternative radio guys in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I had driven around the country these alternative stations. You
Speaker 1: could come in with your album. They would like to
Speaker 1: joint and put your album on right on the air,
Speaker 1: you know, and sit around and played. It was great anyway.
Speaker 1: I U Jane and Joan Winner managed an artist called
Speaker 1: Boscags and Um. They had one album on Atlantic, which
Speaker 1: was a flop, and then the contract ended with one
Speaker 1: record deal. I said, I wanted this is before when
Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna start my own label. I said,
Speaker 1: I could, I want to. I want to sign bos He's.
Speaker 1: They took me to see him with his band in
Speaker 1: this little club. He was just great. We hit it
Speaker 1: off immediately and uh he he even drove me to
Speaker 1: the airport. And because it was the psychedelic there was
Speaker 1: you probably remember your old enough. The Bible of the sixties.
Speaker 1: The first psychedelic was the Teachings of Don Juan Carlos Costaada.
Speaker 1: Boz Scags gave me the manuscript. He knew it from
Speaker 1: Berkeley when he got it. That's where the Carlos Costnada
Speaker 1: was the professor at Berkeley. He gave me the manuscript
Speaker 1: of that book and we drive me and I dropped
Speaker 1: me at the airport. He was gonna do what the
Speaker 1: point is? Then I didn't get the money. Then all
Speaker 1: that collapsed. I knew I couldn't have a label, but
Speaker 1: I told the Stones that I had to know in
Speaker 1: two weeks because I I'll tell you, I'm embarrassed. They'll
Speaker 1: probably hear this. I told him that I had Texas millionaires.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought was a good line to give
Speaker 1: to back my label. And I was gonna have Boss
Speaker 1: Gaggs as an artist, but I would like to work
Speaker 1: with them. You gotta let me know in two weeks.
Speaker 1: And like I said, had this bad marriage. I was
Speaker 1: living in Lake Forest, Illinois and uh with my wife
Speaker 1: and on the believe it or not, on the fourteenth day,
Speaker 1: I got a weather a Yellow Western Union telegram saying
Speaker 1: we want to make a deal, come to London, and
Speaker 1: that's how it began. I came to London. I met
Speaker 1: Prince Rupert, the guy they had hired to handle their
Speaker 1: financial problems, and he didn't know nothing about the record business.
Speaker 1: I got them to hire Allan Arrow introduced Prince Rupert.
Speaker 1: He he owned, He was a partner in a merch
Speaker 1: a private merchant bank called Leopold Josephin's Sons. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how how all that began. And then they never
Speaker 1: wanted the manager of the Rolling Stones that because they
Speaker 1: got burnt by Alan Kline. He owns to this day
Speaker 1: that they he's now, but they owned the masters and
Speaker 1: publishing of all those early great tunes. Um. And then
Speaker 1: years later we found that he had even that he
Speaker 1: was even he had the Stones lawyer on his payroll.
Speaker 1: It was all set up, you know. Anyway aside from that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we want they wanted to go forward,
Speaker 1: and we did and we made the deal with Atlantic.
Speaker 1: That was a fabulous experience because it was Ahmed er Agan,
Speaker 1: Mike Matt Mayor in the same building was their lawyer.
Speaker 1: And that was Atlantic was on Broadway before the w
Speaker 1: e a you know, and I knew Ahmed. He was
Speaker 1: at my bar Mitzvah. I'm a you know they I
Speaker 1: had a star. I had Sam Phillis from San Ahmed.
Speaker 1: They were you know, he was there, Jerry Wexler, whom
Speaker 1: I never really liked, but I was filt. He was
Speaker 1: an elitist to look down upon my parents and my uncle.
Speaker 1: He looked at them like they were peasants. Anyway, aside
Speaker 1: from that, um he so anyway, saw that went down.
Speaker 1: I I started with the stones. They sent me the telegram.
Speaker 1: I went. I met Prince Rupert. We we could close
Speaker 1: the London Decade deal. I had to bring them all
Speaker 1: the tracks. Sir Edward lewis one of the inventors of Radar.
Speaker 1: He was the head of London Decca. I went with
Speaker 1: Patty Grafton Green. He was an assistant lawyer of Miss Stacey,
Speaker 1: the big guy he was like she was the dean
Speaker 1: of the lawyers in London. Patty Grafton Green is now
Speaker 1: one of the biggest entertainment lawyers in England. If you
Speaker 1: still if you still not retire. Um. We went to
Speaker 1: the meeting. We had to bring I had to bring
Speaker 1: because at the deal with London Decca was the Stones
Speaker 1: had to give them all the stuff recorded during while
Speaker 1: they were signed. So we went through all the tapes
Speaker 1: and got basically made a big reel of Grade B songs.
Speaker 1: But then Mick decided to stick it up their ass
Speaker 1: and he did that song called cock Sucker Blues. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know can I sing the lyric on your show?
Speaker 1: Where could I? I'm a strangery? Where can I get
Speaker 1: my cock sucked? You know? Where can I get my
Speaker 1: ass fucked? I'm a stranger in town? That should be
Speaker 1: a gay anthem right now, you know? Anyway, aside from that,
Speaker 1: um they when they heard that, they flipped all these
Speaker 1: stuffy Englishmen they played that. You know, that was a
Speaker 1: classic pardiographed in Green has told people he was shocked himself.
Speaker 1: He remembers I remember reading where he said he remembered
Speaker 1: walking across the bridge after that meeting and shocked. But
Speaker 1: that's how that ended. And then we made the deal
Speaker 1: with Atlantic and it was a great deal. I asked
Speaker 1: for a dollar. I was really I was very much,
Speaker 1: very much a key element in that first deal because
Speaker 1: I knew the record business more than any of them.
Speaker 1: Im I didn't know the record business. The big argument
Speaker 1: was I wanted the dollar an album and they said
Speaker 1: that was impossible because they lie. They didn't know. I
Speaker 1: letter I worked the press. They're gonna tell me I
Speaker 1: will cost to make a record, So I knew I
Speaker 1: won im and was sweating with his white ten dollar
Speaker 1: salta handkerchiefs on his ballhead. He was president and I
Speaker 1: was saying this, But we ended up getting a dollar
Speaker 1: an album and uh form Rolling Stones Records. Okay, before,
Speaker 1: just for one second, rumor is you took less money
Speaker 1: from Atlantic in advance to be in Atlantics. That true? No,
Speaker 1: not true, not in my mind. No. We never even
Speaker 1: no negotiated any further with anyone. That was it. That
Speaker 1: was it in my mind. I mean, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: Prince Rupert got an offer from Depic and that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I forgot it and we decided to forget it.
Speaker 1: I wanted Atlantic because they were my friends. You know,
Speaker 1: they were an India. I could work with them. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go. I hate the majors that
Speaker 1: hate him to this day. You know, I don't hate them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm an Indie. I liked it. I don't
Speaker 1: like the board of people twenty opinions. I'm not like that.
Speaker 1: I still am not right now. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a different So I never wanted to be involved
Speaker 1: with the Majors. Um. I just like the end and
Speaker 1: we were just a very warm, symbiotic, wonderful relationship. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the first record, The Stones put out a Sticky Fingers,
Speaker 1: which is bigger than anything that I worked I worked
Speaker 1: out before you had before it. Wait, wait, before you
Speaker 1: get there was part of your deal that you would
Speaker 1: put out records yourself or we were gonna have Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones Records, and I was gonna be able to I
Speaker 1: owned a part of Rolling Stones Records that we were
Speaker 1: gonna have other artists. We had even talked about putting
Speaker 1: giving Jimmy Jimmy Hendricks. He he was available outside of
Speaker 1: the US, and we talked about putting him, giving him
Speaker 1: his own logo like the Stones head and that, you know,
Speaker 1: he was so special. And then he died. I remember
Speaker 1: being in Rotterdown when we heard the news that he died.
Speaker 1: So that ended. But but then what happened is they
Speaker 1: realized they had no money, Dad Alan, they had nothing.
Speaker 1: They had these big corporate checkbooks in their minds They
Speaker 1: thought that may own those companies because they had these
Speaker 1: corporate chef which they could write checks. They owned their
Speaker 1: houses and cars, but they didn't own their own ship
Speaker 1: at all. And it ended up that they had no
Speaker 1: money even for a living. They were broke. So Prince Rupert,
Speaker 1: we had, you know, when we realized all that, they
Speaker 1: called me in and said, there can't be either artists
Speaker 1: on the label. There's no money and you have to this.
Speaker 1: We'll let you out. I had a contract. There was
Speaker 1: a Mike Tannon, a great music lawyer. He was an
Speaker 1: assistant lawyer at the Arrow Ornstein firm and he was
Speaker 1: a lawyer learning, a young lawyer. He became my lawyer.
Speaker 1: Later he was Paul Simon lawyer. I mean he you know,
Speaker 1: he really worked. He became a big music lawyer. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, they said, we'll let you out of
Speaker 1: your contract. We can't have a label, but you could stay.
Speaker 1: You know you want to stay, you know with the
Speaker 1: Stones you could do what you could do, what you want.
Speaker 1: We'd love you to stay. And I said, I'm staying.
Speaker 1: That's rock and roll. I'm loving it, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: loving I'm about around the world and meeting famous artists
Speaker 1: and people I never even dreampt about authors artists. Uh.
Speaker 1: Their crowd was amazing for you know, sub Royalty Pipe,
Speaker 1: the Guinness kids, you know, oh they they they you know,
Speaker 1: they had a lot of starfuckers around them. Um anyway,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, So I decided to stay and I made
Speaker 1: that my life. Man, I made that my life. I
Speaker 1: I in my mind that was the seventh or eighth
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. I went on the plane. I still lived
Speaker 1: at Key's house. I stayed with make it Mozart's house
Speaker 1: in the south of France. Um. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: part of the family for those years. Uh. Then towards
Speaker 1: the end, drugs got involved, which you know, which sort
Speaker 1: of tell everything. And then I quit because I quit.
Speaker 1: I quit because the quitting story is just this, you know,
Speaker 1: I just it was time to change channels. I was
Speaker 1: very embarrassed about my drug problems, and my drug problems
Speaker 1: I can't and you know, years later I did. I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to take when I was trying to
Speaker 1: kick all the drugs. I ended up getting turned onto
Speaker 1: one of the fathers of LSD psychotherapy, which is now
Speaker 1: in vogue. Um. And he saw me a year before
Speaker 1: he took acid with me. He took it with me
Speaker 1: and Harry hermone You could look him up. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of things online. Dr hermone Um. He said, I'll
Speaker 1: lead you to why you like that ship? It was
Speaker 1: all because he sold the company. Oh my god. I
Speaker 1: mean I had all that subconscious, deep pain, you know,
Speaker 1: because he took away my legacy, took it away. You know.
Speaker 1: I went back to that meeting being the record businesses
Speaker 1: as years and this called me up and saying we're
Speaker 1: selling it, you know that. But something that really affected
Speaker 1: me in a horrible pain, in a deep well of pain.
Speaker 1: But once I realized that that's what why I like drugs,
Speaker 1: that was the pain I was killing, I dumped it instantly.
Speaker 1: It was very good. That was a great I mean
Speaker 1: it was shocking how once you realize the seed of something,
Speaker 1: how it becomes irrelevant, you know. But yeah, so that
Speaker 1: that that I left the Stones mainly because I I would.
Speaker 1: I didn't like myself. I didn't talk to my uncle
Speaker 1: for three years. I was embarrassed, you know, I was embarrassed.
Speaker 1: You know, it was not my you know what I
Speaker 1: went and it was bad. I was killing pain that
Speaker 1: didn't even know what it was. And uh so that ended.
Speaker 1: And then I, you know, I went out with arc
Speaker 1: music in my life and all kinds of other new things.
Speaker 1: But that was a great I would do it again,
Speaker 1: even with the drugs. That was great, a great experience.
Speaker 1: The Stones have nothing to do. The only thing the
Speaker 1: Stones did was uh because the drugs were around everyone.
Speaker 1: Every record executive was collapsing with cocaine, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: I went to fifty dinners with guys, would go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, know when we'd eat the food to to
Speaker 1: you know, if you still you know. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: just me, you know, but U being around the Stones
Speaker 1: and all the group He's constantly bringing you know. And
Speaker 1: then I lived with Keith. But I have no blaming
Speaker 1: them what's or ever? You know, in a way, in
Speaker 1: a way I have. In fact, I don't even regret
Speaker 1: my drug period. I grew in it because I beat it,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like climbing mountain evers that changes
Speaker 1: you too, you know. Um yeah, I don't regret it.
Speaker 1: Um was it was a waste, but I managed to
Speaker 1: have all number one records, you know, and uh, okay,
Speaker 1: so the first record is Sticky Fingers, which is certainly
Speaker 1: a great record. To what degree were a record? To
Speaker 1: what degree were you involved in that when you and
Speaker 1: to what degree were you responsible for the success? I
Speaker 1: think I was, but you know who knows it's my
Speaker 1: own ego. Probably yeah, I was totally one and two
Speaker 1: involved with that record. It's my first taste of takeout
Speaker 1: Indians though the Olympic Studios Glynn John's um No, it
Speaker 1: was a great record. In fact that later recently, after
Speaker 1: forty nine years in my car, for the last two years,
Speaker 1: I've already been playing music. I go in my car
Speaker 1: for rides in the mountains. I only play what I,
Speaker 1: my family or me have been associated with for two
Speaker 1: years straight, only for memories. It's shocking when I played
Speaker 1: the Stone but started with it was the sixtieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of Exile on Main Street and BBC did a big,
Speaker 1: you know, production show on it. They called me up.
Speaker 1: They said, well, there's already a handful of guys that
Speaker 1: were alive now that we're around that you know um
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I haven't played the fucker in
Speaker 1: forty nine years. So I had I had a brand
Speaker 1: new vinyl coffee and I still love the speakers in
Speaker 1: my living room now that I auditioned that album for
Speaker 1: in l A at my house on San Marco Drive.
Speaker 1: They were Stevie Wonders speakers that I had rented from
Speaker 1: Westlake Studio because he had returned them because his new
Speaker 1: girlfriend didn't like the way they looked in his house.
Speaker 1: So I had rented them for this promo party, and
Speaker 1: I dragged. I still have my ended up by him.
Speaker 1: But I got in my living room and I blasted Exile,
Speaker 1: and I was shocked. I wanted to call Keith. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna still talk to him about it because it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I'm just so thrilled that I was even involved in
Speaker 1: Sticky Fingers and Exile. Those are brilliant records, you know.
Speaker 1: And I ended up driving around getting you know, eighty
Speaker 1: miles an hour in my car, blessing them, you know.
Speaker 1: But I hadn't played him in almost fifty years and
Speaker 1: they held up great, you know. Um. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: was totally involved with Atlantic with the cover, you know,
Speaker 1: getting that zipper cover made. It was highly complex. Luckily,
Speaker 1: one of my best friends who sold me album Stickers
Speaker 1: in Chicago was a guy named Craig Braun who was
Speaker 1: the father of the custom album cover, the Andy Warhol
Speaker 1: Banana Cheaching, Cheaching, Chong, Big Bamboo, all those custom covers.
Speaker 1: So it was craigging another competitor. They were, you know.
Speaker 1: Next we gave it to Craig for me. I asked
Speaker 1: next week. I told him Craig was a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: you gotta give it to him. He did, and we
Speaker 1: had We had a lot of trouble. We had to
Speaker 1: get garment district people to put the zipper in. Then
Speaker 1: we did test shipments and the zipper, the zipper and
Speaker 1: up was causing a hitting the groove. Then we had
Speaker 1: to get all the on zippers unzipped so would be
Speaker 1: on the label parn. It was complex and we paid.
Speaker 1: I paid Andy Warrel five thousand bucks for that design,
Speaker 1: but we had a convert it to make it, you know,
Speaker 1: and Mike introduced me to Andy. Those are the kind
Speaker 1: of people I was meeting man, Andy Warhol, Man Ray
Speaker 1: in Paris, you know, all for album covers. He's famous.
Speaker 1: They all wanted to do stones covers. Hitler's filmmaker Lenny
Speaker 1: Russian stock She I went to talk to her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know that I was involved with the making
Speaker 1: of the album. Then with the logo of the tongue
Speaker 1: and lips. Yeah, all that, that was all the beginning.
Speaker 1: That was I was. I lived it. It was twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day. I and uh, I you know
Speaker 1: I was. That was my I looked at myself then
Speaker 1: as a rolling stone and that was my job. That
Speaker 1: was my instrument. I wanted to be as good as them. Huh.
Speaker 1: The big victory lap was the seventy two tour. There
Speaker 1: was unbelievable publicity. What do you remember about that other
Speaker 1: than playing with Stevie Wonder, etcetera. It was great. It
Speaker 1: was remember the birthday mixed birthday with Stevie Wonder. I
Speaker 1: I set that up because again you know again it's
Speaker 1: it's my ego. But Youret Abner was the president of Motown.
Speaker 1: You know who that is? You were? He was the president.
Speaker 1: He was the president of VEJ. I knw him from Chicago.
Speaker 1: He was another one of those high society Chicago black people.
Speaker 1: And but we were good friends. We used to go
Speaker 1: to Bat's Jewish restaurant, meet there all the time, once
Speaker 1: or twice a week when he was at VJ. But
Speaker 1: he lost VJ Las Vegas shooting craps. You know, I
Speaker 1: knew him well. He was when I got picked up
Speaker 1: the award of the Rocketroll Hall of Fame, my father,
Speaker 1: he was the presenter. I asked for him to be
Speaker 1: the prisoner. He was a good friend. But I went
Speaker 1: to him. I said, let's do a double fucking album.
Speaker 1: Get Stevie on the tour. He's never been exposed to
Speaker 1: the Stones audience, and we'll do a double album. And
Speaker 1: I made a deal to do it, and we did,
Speaker 1: and it fell through at the very end. They backed out.
Speaker 1: Atlantic couldn't do it. It was it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a double albument. It was in production and ready you know.
Speaker 1: Uh and that never happened. But uh, yeah, so that
Speaker 1: you know, so that that was a great tour the whole.
Speaker 1: It was just so exciting that on that tour you
Speaker 1: had Jackie o' nascius's sister, you had Truman Capponi. Oh,
Speaker 1: Truman Capponi, who hated me. He said I had fat
Speaker 1: Jewish thighs. He hated me because where where did he write? Where? What?
Speaker 1: What stay? Was in Oklahoma or Kansas? Where that was?
Speaker 1: You know, Kansas, Kansas. Yeah, so when we played in Kansas,
Speaker 1: he was there, of course, and he wanted to come
Speaker 1: right on the edge of the stage and I stopped him,
Speaker 1: and he hated me for that, and then I'm that
Speaker 1: tour he came. He came to New Orleans and Keith
Speaker 1: Richards and Bobby Keys Pete all over his hotel room,
Speaker 1: so he stepped on it when he opened his door.
Speaker 1: He was in love with Bobby Keys. He wanted that.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember we're all in the same hotel
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Yeah, Truman, Campodi, Peter Beard with the photographer. UM,
Speaker 1: so many people. Uh you know the thing about uh
Speaker 1: you know I got I would get to get tickets
Speaker 1: I got so they bullshit you. Those people I got
Speaker 1: invited once to um it wasn't Jackie Ones? Is their sister?
Speaker 1: What was her name? Lee? Yeah, she was married to
Speaker 1: Peter Beard, the photographer, and I had gone to see
Speaker 1: him about covers. He was in Africa then shooting elephants
Speaker 1: and girafts and uh so I got a call from
Speaker 1: Archy said we're having a party of cock tail party.
Speaker 1: Do you want to come by? I said, oh, my god,
Speaker 1: who's gonna be there? And then she said, oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, we get backstage passes. You know, that's how
Speaker 1: they operate so I got invited to the party, but
Speaker 1: I had to get them passes. That whole crowd, you know,
Speaker 1: and so what have you know? That's we were. We
Speaker 1: wrote a song about them, starfuckers, that they're about them.
Speaker 1: We had too we they don't even know. We had
Speaker 1: two dressing rooms. We had one for the starfuckers who
Speaker 1: thought they were in the backstage, and another hidden one
Speaker 1: where the real friends hung out. What happened to the
Speaker 1: movie Cocksucker Blues? What happened? It got? Well, oh no,
Speaker 1: that's a whole this could be another whole show for you.
Speaker 1: So the Stones introduced me. Mick and Keith say, had
Speaker 1: I ever seen a book called The Americans? No fucking way,
Speaker 1: am and you from Chicago. I'm not looking at photography books.
Speaker 1: What's the Americans? They pulled it, they showed me. I
Speaker 1: think it was Keith who showed me. It's a it's
Speaker 1: Robert Frank on the glowing with Jack carolluact the famous
Speaker 1: beating Nick and it's a it's on the road his
Speaker 1: famous book. And Robert Frank travels with him and comes
Speaker 1: out with a code book called the Americans, which are
Speaker 1: all black and white. So he says, uh, we why
Speaker 1: don't we get Robert Frank to do the cover the
Speaker 1: Exile and Main Street cover. Um, it would be great,
Speaker 1: look at it, look at his photographs, you know. So
Speaker 1: I tracked down Robert Frank in New York and the
Speaker 1: bower He lived Bowery, Remember, well, he wasn't amazed. He
Speaker 1: was he was one of them. He was probably one
Speaker 1: of the most major factors in my own consciousness in life.
Speaker 1: We became very close friends. Another Jewish guy a little
Speaker 1: older than me. His father was applying Steeler in Zurich
Speaker 1: or something, you know, Jewish Applian Steeler. He was a
Speaker 1: beat nick and he shot the cover with He didn't
Speaker 1: use his fancy like anymore. He was shooting instant instant cameras,
Speaker 1: not Kodak, I mean Code acted when they first came
Speaker 1: out with thirty five millimeter point and shoot. He was
Speaker 1: using that and so he he uh, you know, he
Speaker 1: shot the cover and the Stones loved all the shots.
Speaker 1: My pictures on it. Twice. I'm on that cover, you know,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. My daughter she was a big blow
Speaker 1: up of it, you know. Uh in our house was
Speaker 1: my little like wouldn't recognize me then, But yeah, I
Speaker 1: became very close with Robert Frank, and then we were
Speaker 1: in l A. And then they said, well, why don't
Speaker 1: we do a movie? And I said, great man, they
Speaker 1: had seen that my Bodiddley movie I told you I
Speaker 1: made in sixty two. Not only did they see it,
Speaker 1: Ian Ian Stewart their manager, their original member and piano
Speaker 1: player and road manager. He got a played on BBC
Speaker 1: two and you know one time and so you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I said, what a movie. Pretty, I'll I'll let's do that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll talk to Robert Frank, but I already
Speaker 1: talked him about the cover and he loved the idea
Speaker 1: because he's you know, we just loved it. Was another
Speaker 1: going on tour with the Rolling Stones. He had all
Speaker 1: kinds of ideas. Super eight cameras just came out. We'll
Speaker 1: give each member of Super eight they can shoot. We'll
Speaker 1: edit it all later. You know what they shoot? When
Speaker 1: I shoot, I want to use Danny Seymour, who's also
Speaker 1: got a fabulous book. Father is famous Broadway photographer Seymour.
Speaker 1: If you go to any of those places, the black
Speaker 1: and whites of all the Broadway characters. Seymour was married
Speaker 1: to a socialite from Cape. You know, from Rima Kennedy's
Speaker 1: Hyanna supporters somewhere. He was an unusual guy. We also
Speaker 1: became he was a junkie though, and Robert said, he's
Speaker 1: a junkie. I want to use him a second camera
Speaker 1: and sound. Um, I want to use him. But he's
Speaker 1: a junkie. But I'm sure he'll he'll clean up. I'll
Speaker 1: get him to clean up. So I meet Danny Seymour
Speaker 1: and I make a deal. I go to Warner's film
Speaker 1: I forget the old guy there. Oh god, I can't
Speaker 1: remember that. Anyway, I made a deal. Uh were they paid?
Speaker 1: I think it was a hundred thousand dollar advance for
Speaker 1: first refusal rights to the film and um, which they
Speaker 1: ended up refusing actually, but at the time, and we
Speaker 1: went out and we went and made the film, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it was It was amazing. Although as we
Speaker 1: beat the tour began, Robert became disenchanted more and more
Speaker 1: with the Stones, with the whole life, with the drugs.
Speaker 1: Danny went back on drugs. We found the shoes at
Speaker 1: the curb. I did some of the sound with Inaugura. Um,
Speaker 1: so it became weird. But my main experience told but
Speaker 1: Robert Frank He used to give me books to re
Speaker 1: keep the River on the right. That was the one
Speaker 1: that's where about the Amazon. And I ended up going
Speaker 1: twice because of that book. When he turned me onto,
Speaker 1: you know, to take ayahuasca. He was into it forty
Speaker 1: years ago. So Robert Frank turned me on two books, music,
Speaker 1: all kinds of hippie. He told me I was fucked up.
Speaker 1: He said, you are fucked up man. He said, you
Speaker 1: don't even know who you are. You know, you know
Speaker 1: he saw my construct, this ego centric guy. You know,
Speaker 1: yes it was. I was just at the top of
Speaker 1: my game of being great, you know. And uh so
Speaker 1: in Texas is that we have to do live. We
Speaker 1: need the live for the we can't do the live soundtrack.
Speaker 1: I call up Yoko Ono and John. They had a
Speaker 1: film company on White Street in New York because I
Speaker 1: use They had a Steve Gibbard. They had a film
Speaker 1: crew hit by this guy, Steve grab Gibbard, Bob Bob,
Speaker 1: I forget his last name. He mad, if I don't
Speaker 1: mention it anyway, Um, yeah, you can use the crew.
Speaker 1: Just pay him. You know, we're not doing any thing now.
Speaker 1: They had some people on weekly salary whatever a camera,
Speaker 1: couple of cameraman whatever. So they came to Texas, and
Speaker 1: I knew that that's the way the Stones work is
Speaker 1: by the third or fourth gig on a tour, the
Speaker 1: set is the sets locked, so it's the same every night,
Speaker 1: like a Broadway play. It's exact. I mean Midnight Raveler,
Speaker 1: he's whipping the floor. It's exact. It's exact. And I
Speaker 1: knew that, you know, I was fascinated by that. Actually,
Speaker 1: the whole construction of the tour. How we used to
Speaker 1: talk after the first one and and I love that
Speaker 1: I was being involved in something creative and new, and
Speaker 1: I just loved it. Anyway, we would talk about it
Speaker 1: and uh, and okay, we do the same set every night.
Speaker 1: So when we did Texas, I said, I have an idea,
Speaker 1: Steve Gebhard, the two cameraman, give them headsets with me,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell them every mixed coming out in one
Speaker 1: in it and kneel down so they know where to
Speaker 1: aim their cameras. It was like me calling the shots
Speaker 1: because I knew that that I did that the set
Speaker 1: ends in Dallas or Houston. We had two gigs. We're
Speaker 1: recording with a live truck, you know, live mobile. I
Speaker 1: get out to get in our limo with my crew,
Speaker 1: the Yoko Ono crew. Right. We had two big black
Speaker 1: security guys there. Uh, I don't know. I can't remember
Speaker 1: their name. At the moment um, it will come to me.
Speaker 1: Although it's not important. This one guy steps in front
Speaker 1: of me, Man, this is our car. You can't this
Speaker 1: isn't for your car. He was, you know, he and
Speaker 1: I lost my temper at him, completely lost my temper.
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's his micro Okay that and then we ended up
Speaker 1: getting a car. We left three or four days later.
Speaker 1: In those days, it wasn't like video. You you shot,
Speaker 1: you sent the negative to the New Yorker somewhere, they'd
Speaker 1: send you Russia's back in two days, and you look
Speaker 1: at what you got. Robert Franks has come out in
Speaker 1: this room, Marshall. I go in the room. He's got
Speaker 1: a projector and there's a little speed. He's looking at
Speaker 1: the rushes, you know. He says, sit down, and he
Speaker 1: hits the button, and it's me losing my temper. Without audio,
Speaker 1: my face was ugly, like the devil, like a monster.
Speaker 1: Close up of me in full a temper tantrum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't even took me five times to look at it.
Speaker 1: That bloom. I mean, I can't tell you. It affected
Speaker 1: my whole life from that moment on, you know. And
Speaker 1: uh so he did stuff like that that he was
Speaker 1: like my surro good father. I went to just to
Speaker 1: go see him in the Bowery. We did the editing
Speaker 1: in the bar. We rented our own table, uh you know,
Speaker 1: with a couple of local kids that he hired to
Speaker 1: do the editing. Then the Stones were in. Uh So
Speaker 1: the first edit, I was involved in the editing. And
Speaker 1: you know, no one knew what he got. He's the
Speaker 1: father of realism. We got we were taking people with
Speaker 1: debbing sex, the doctor on the plane, the baggage guy
Speaker 1: eating pussy with the girl on his shoulders on the plane.
Speaker 1: I'm recording it. You know, we had that. No one
Speaker 1: knew what it was gonna be. So we were in Munich, Germany,
Speaker 1: and I came from New York with a you know,
Speaker 1: with a reel of film sixteen millimeter I guess whatever.
Speaker 1: I think it was super sixteen or sixteen. And they
Speaker 1: sat in this screening room and I put it on.
Speaker 1: They hated they, oh my god, they didn't like it.
Speaker 1: They felt like I did, seeing myself losing my temper.
Speaker 1: They didn't like a lot of it. There was some
Speaker 1: stuff with me, you know, they we they just didn't
Speaker 1: like it. So they wanted a lot of edits and
Speaker 1: you know, they said what they wanted, and Ahmed would say,
Speaker 1: cut out. There was pictures of armed snorting and smoking.
Speaker 1: Cut that out, please, I beg you, Marshall, I did.
Speaker 1: I threw it on the floor for him. He went
Speaker 1: to my Missville, I want to you know, Uh, no
Speaker 1: one wanted to be be shot that way, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh so then so then you know, there was
Speaker 1: a whole scene about the film and they didn't you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't want it out. They thought it was you know,
Speaker 1: it showed too much drugs and him watch weirdness and
Speaker 1: even though it was highly real. But I will admit
Speaker 1: Robert frank and he admitted this to me. He as
Speaker 1: he became more malcontent with the tour, his the way
Speaker 1: he edited and shot became malcontent. In other words, he
Speaker 1: left out the Magnificent seven ship, all the fun, all
Speaker 1: the laughter. He left a lot of that out. You know,
Speaker 1: we were having a good time, you know, um the
Speaker 1: group he's uh, the music, he left a lot out.
Speaker 1: He got more into the how fucked it was, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole Rolling Stones just it wasn't that healthy to him.
Speaker 1: What it was the opposite of the beat nick thing.
Speaker 1: You know. He didn't like it, um, but he knew
Speaker 1: it was a great document. He liked the film because
Speaker 1: he was real, you know. But so the Stones own
Speaker 1: that they had the right warners refused on the option.
Speaker 1: There was a four grand I had a four hundred grand.
Speaker 1: I own percent of that film. I had a four
Speaker 1: grand recoupment. Now that same guy did uh that. I
Speaker 1: hired my buddy from my dad's advertiser. He's from Robin
Speaker 1: Binzer who did Rotary Connection name and all that. He
Speaker 1: called me up. He said, let me make a music
Speaker 1: film out of what Yoko. You know what what Yoko
Speaker 1: and Gubbard shot. We'll call it, Ladies and gentlemen, the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones will make two films. I talked to the Stones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great idea first music film. We'll tour it with. We're
Speaker 1: gonna open it in New York at the zig Field.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a rock concert sound system. And because
Speaker 1: of Alan there oh three m Game was the first
Speaker 1: stereo music track on our ladies and gentlemen. I can
Speaker 1: remember that I went to the grand opening and Robins
Speaker 1: sold it to this guy Miles, you could look it up.
Speaker 1: He sold it to a guy who blew it into
Speaker 1: this distribution of it and he couldn't you know, the
Speaker 1: guy blew it and the and the ladies and gentlemen
Speaker 1: thing collapsed. And so the Stones didn't want cock Sucker out.
Speaker 1: They made a deal. They could only be shown at
Speaker 1: art like the Museum of Modern Art has shown it
Speaker 1: numerous times. It could be shown as film art with
Speaker 1: Robert Franken attendance, you know, not commercially, not on HBO.
Speaker 1: I've heard HBO offered am in advanced for it. I've
Speaker 1: heard that I don't know, um in the meantime um
Speaker 1: a video when when videos VHS and all that was
Speaker 1: the big thing video but you know, Blockbuster and all that.
Speaker 1: A company just wanted to buy ladies and gentlemen the
Speaker 1: music part, and we sold it to him and they
Speaker 1: paid a million bucks. So I recouped the four hundred
Speaker 1: and I got my ten percent on the six hunter. Okay,
Speaker 1: what comes around goes around, and someday my kids will
Speaker 1: get money for Cocksucker. When it's on HBO because it
Speaker 1: will be you know, once they can't get suit and
Speaker 1: they were all dead, you know, I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ship in there. Because I didn't know, I
Speaker 1: didn't get a lot a lot of it was my
Speaker 1: fault as producer. It was impossible to get releases. Willie
Speaker 1: the baggage man, and with the girl on his shoulder
Speaker 1: on the plane eating her, he wasn't gonna sign it
Speaker 1: re lease. He had a white and kids. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know there was there was a tour doctor who
Speaker 1: was a sex maniac. He would have cards, white cards
Speaker 1: with the Rolling Stones logo the tongue, and he looked
Speaker 1: for the prettiest girls in the audience. And he's right.
Speaker 1: And then we in every city, we'd have our own suite.
Speaker 1: We'd want on a neutral suite called we We. We'd
Speaker 1: make it Mr White or Mr Yellow case anyone busted
Speaker 1: us would been under no one's name because of drugs
Speaker 1: or anything. So yes, So this guy, Larry, I don't
Speaker 1: gotta say his name, but the doctor um, he would
Speaker 1: hand our cards to all these pretty girls. You'd say,
Speaker 1: you want to meet the Stones, come to this suite
Speaker 1: at midnight or some got girls that were there on dates.
Speaker 1: He would maybe give out twenty cards. Five or six
Speaker 1: would show up. It was shocking to meet nicker Keith
Speaker 1: or to screw him, you know, and they were never around.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they would take one. I was all this doctor
Speaker 1: would have his sweet pickings and would say, well, I
Speaker 1: would introduce you if you uh, you know, it was
Speaker 1: a trip. It was really a bizarre That tour was bizarre.
Speaker 1: And then the wives all came to visit us in Canada.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. But uh, you know the whole that
Speaker 1: whole scene was crazy. That was the epitome of the
Speaker 1: croupies and you know the claster casts. All that was
Speaker 1: going on. You know, Um, it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: That's why I say I would do it all over again,
Speaker 1: you know if I had to. But I'm glad I left.
Speaker 1: Well you're there, Mick Taylor's replacement guitarists. He ultimately leaves,
Speaker 1: and you know what was really going on amongst the band,
Speaker 1: bill Wan, what was going on was Mick Taylor. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Mick Taylor. They got Mick Taylor because he's
Speaker 1: just so fucking brilliant of a guitarist and in my opinion,
Speaker 1: as a record producer. It was the best overall Stone
Speaker 1: sound because he played a less Paul, he played a
Speaker 1: whole other style of lead guitar and Keith he Uh.
Speaker 1: They they coexisted. Beautiful they're playing together, his his lead
Speaker 1: and mixed rhythm. Uh and mixed mix, I mean mix
Speaker 1: mixed lead and Keith's rhythm. To me as a record producer,
Speaker 1: it was just genius. Those tracks are brilliant and but
Speaker 1: he couldn't take it. He couldn't take the pressure of
Speaker 1: being a rolling Stone. And he had a wife, Rose,
Speaker 1: who was very incestuous with other members, and I think
Speaker 1: it totally destroyed a lot of his something he did
Speaker 1: not like being a rolling Stone. I remember one time
Speaker 1: he froze his his shoulders with freeze and he eventually quit.
Speaker 1: I went to Robert Stigwood, Mick and I went to
Speaker 1: Robert Stigwood's house. Ahmard was there too, and Eric Clapton
Speaker 1: and they were all there at this party. Robert Stigwood
Speaker 1: gave and we went to Mick Taylor begging him to
Speaker 1: not leave, but he said he was leaving. And and
Speaker 1: then and then I saw, uh who it was. It
Speaker 1: wasn't Mick Taylor. It was someone that was so drunk
Speaker 1: and ripped. I'm matsued. It was a terrible but we left.
Speaker 1: We not you even needed that. That's when and I
Speaker 1: hadn't known Ron would We were friends before while rom
Speaker 1: when he was in the Faces, Keith in introduced me
Speaker 1: to him. We go into his house. He had his
Speaker 1: own little studio. But Keith and Ron would they play
Speaker 1: a similar style? They're both brilliant, you know. In fact,
Speaker 1: if I wanted, if I wanted to get into it,
Speaker 1: I have a great idea to produce them. Now. Then
Speaker 1: I have an idea for two rhythms that I have
Speaker 1: a great but I don't know if I want to
Speaker 1: get into it. But I just with them again. But uh,
Speaker 1: I do have a concept that you know, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter who the vocalist is. Just I have a
Speaker 1: great idea because I always felt they never took advantage
Speaker 1: of their similarity. Uh, and I thought they could do
Speaker 1: some amazing stuff if they if it was just directed right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so it ends with the stones. How do we get
Speaker 1: to today? How long does it take to pick yourself up?
Speaker 1: And what do you want to do there after? Oh?
Speaker 1: It ends with the stones. Yeah, it ends with the
Speaker 1: Stones and I I, uh quit the Stones. They were upset.
Speaker 1: They thought, I'm You're quitting because of us. I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not quit because of me. And I knew I
Speaker 1: wanted to stop the drugs. I'd tried many times during
Speaker 1: the last year and a half of the Stones, I
Speaker 1: had tried drugs stopping and failed. Went back, you know,
Speaker 1: stop went back, very difficult being around Keith who also
Speaker 1: was stopping, going back, stopping tour. It was difficult, um,
Speaker 1: And so I knew what happened is I uh. The
Speaker 1: ending scenario is uh, I would buy methodone from on
Speaker 1: the black market in New York, and I knew a druggist.
Speaker 1: We all knew this druggist who uh yeah, he was
Speaker 1: part of us. We knew this druggist was a Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones groupie. And he would put it in a bottle
Speaker 1: and make with a label like it was a Vitamin
Speaker 1: C tonic because I would get sick, you know, I
Speaker 1: was snorting heroin and stuff. And we were in Montrose, Switzerland,
Speaker 1: and Uh, I went to fancy five star hotel and
Speaker 1: I went to in the morning, I woke up feeling horrible.
Speaker 1: I went to the maybe after I opened that bottle
Speaker 1: and I drank it and I looked in the mirror.
Speaker 1: That was it. That night I quit. I saw myself
Speaker 1: all that acid. I guess did something Robert Frank. I
Speaker 1: saw myself the way I really was at that moment,
Speaker 1: and I quit. That night I went we all went
Speaker 1: to Remember in the hotel room, telling him I was leaving.
Speaker 1: I said, otherwise I'm gonna die. It's not what I
Speaker 1: can't be here anymore. It's time. This w chapters and
Speaker 1: they said, oh, it's our not our fault. That's what
Speaker 1: I remember. It's not your fault, obviously. And I left.
Speaker 1: And then I came back to New York and I
Speaker 1: was having a hard time. I used to get seventy
Speaker 1: phone calls to day all the Ksano it was zero one.
Speaker 1: You know, no longer the guy. You know. That's what
Speaker 1: you learned when you're with the Stones. It's never about you.
Speaker 1: That's the part that destroys you. It's only about them.
Speaker 1: They make you think it's about you to get to them,
Speaker 1: but you gets easy to get sucked into that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So once that was taken away. So anyway, I during
Speaker 1: one of the last Stone store, I had met a
Speaker 1: cocaine smuggler who lived in Bearsville, New York, couple where
Speaker 1: I lived now near Woodstock. Not a dealer, smuggler, you know.
Speaker 1: And his deal was he would supply drugs basically to
Speaker 1: Keith and me for front row tickets of every concert.
Speaker 1: He carried it from gig to gig in Europe. So
Speaker 1: that was great. You know. We also once had a
Speaker 1: C I X C I. A guy hearing it, you
Speaker 1: don't know it wants to get busted. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: went up to I called the guy up. I said,
Speaker 1: come you know, I'm coming on board and come come
Speaker 1: up here, man, come up you know. So I drove
Speaker 1: up from New York to Bearsville and I uh, I
Speaker 1: was meeting the Woodstock Times. It was an ad for
Speaker 1: this house I'm sitting in now, and I said, man,
Speaker 1: I need a place to change my you know, it
Speaker 1: was time to shift, to really get in a whole
Speaker 1: get back to my spiritual and the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: I just said, I want to see that how something
Speaker 1: about it? And I spent spent overnight on holiday in
Speaker 1: in Kingston, New York. I came up here the next day,
Speaker 1: was sort of dilapidated. It's on built a hundred years
Speaker 1: old on ten acres of land. It was built by
Speaker 1: the people that owned the Align Electric Chain Company back
Speaker 1: in the twenties. They had money. Heated floor in the bedroom,
Speaker 1: but old time, hundred years you know. And I bought
Speaker 1: it to uh I was I was divorced by then
Speaker 1: from my for the bad marriage. I bought it. This
Speaker 1: was where I was gonna clean up and change my life,
Speaker 1: kept back to nature, and I did. That's what happened,
Speaker 1: and I met my wife in the city and we
Speaker 1: ended up moving here. But it took me a long time.
Speaker 1: That's when I went through the whole therapy, the LSD psychotherapy.
Speaker 1: I I was going to a psychiatrist in Manhattan named
Speaker 1: Joe Gross and he said to me, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just not doing it with you it. There's a brilliant guy,
Speaker 1: the father of LSD psychedelics, coming from Austin, Texas. He's
Speaker 1: the Russian Jew Polish Jew, Harry Hermone coming in New York.
Speaker 1: He had to leave Texas. I didn't know why then,
Speaker 1: but he had to leave for some stupid read. He
Speaker 1: had the first marijuana licensed federal in America nineties sixties
Speaker 1: for CBD, invented CBD to grow pop for sleeping. He
Speaker 1: was that brilliant. He's a pharmacologist, like you know, full
Speaker 1: brilliant psychiatrist. Um anyway, um so he said, this guy's coming.
Speaker 1: And Harry Hermon did not like private patients. He got
Speaker 1: a job at King's County, the largest psychiatric hospital I
Speaker 1: think in America in the in New York, and he
Speaker 1: was in forensic. He had he did this slasher of
Speaker 1: Staten Island. He did criminals and his own clients with
Speaker 1: Lou reading me. That was it two junkies. There was
Speaker 1: already clients. And uh he saw me for a year. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, Nanny took acid with me and that we
Speaker 1: became friends. You know. He ended up moving to Israel.
Speaker 1: He's dead now. Um So that's how all that stopped.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, I had the house up here,
Speaker 1: and um I met my I met my wife, who
Speaker 1: was a school teacher, and you know, my life changed.
Speaker 1: I had kids. Everything changed then when my my mother
Speaker 1: had inherited and my mother died. She had inherited my
Speaker 1: father's share of Arc Music, which was the Chess Records
Speaker 1: publishing that was run by Gene Goodman. That Harry Goodman's
Speaker 1: brother you know another mont of Benny Goodman's brothers in
Speaker 1: New York that was through Alan Arrow and those people.
Speaker 1: But we knew nothing of copyrighting Publishing International. The original
Speaker 1: deal though, was they only owned the Chess publishing for
Speaker 1: not Chess records. In other words, anything they got European anything,
Speaker 1: other labels cover records. But when Chess was sold, they
Speaker 1: had the windfalls getting it all then, you know, because
Speaker 1: when Chess was so, that ended. So they owned it
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they was doing great all the
Speaker 1: you know, all the advertising and everything. And my mother
Speaker 1: was a partner, and my mother died and willed it
Speaker 1: to me. That was a struggle like that guy Jean
Speaker 1: Goodman tried to cut me out. I had a break
Speaker 1: into the office of this no old Silverman, another big
Speaker 1: entertainment lawyer who wrote the He had to admit that
Speaker 1: I was had the right to inherit my mother's share,
Speaker 1: and then I became a partner. And then I threw
Speaker 1: out Jean Goodman because I called him he was he
Speaker 1: had my uncle and him was stealing from my mother
Speaker 1: and my uncle didn't even know it. And when I
Speaker 1: showed that to my uncle, who were on Santa Monica
Speaker 1: Boulevard driving to the Palmer Somewhere, Eddie jammed on the brakes.
Speaker 1: He freaked out. He never spoke to me. Pete on
Speaker 1: him at the Friars Club. He didn't realize that he
Speaker 1: made him a partner, that that was such an affront
Speaker 1: that he would that he would steal from his brother's wife.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh my god, and so ruined their friendship.
Speaker 1: They never spoke after I showed him, I spelled it out,
Speaker 1: and instead of going to court and suing Genleman, I
Speaker 1: told him to go home. I didn't want to start loss.
Speaker 1: I didn't want it, and I took it over and
Speaker 1: I changed it from Madison Avenue to the west Side
Speaker 1: Ninth Avenue. Oh, young people, we boomed. I made a
Speaker 1: great publishing company. I ran it for twenties, you know,
Speaker 1: two until two you know, when I sold it to Fuji,
Speaker 1: and now it's owned by BMG. I sold the Fuji
Speaker 1: Japan UM. But yeah, I made a great company. I
Speaker 1: loved that I lived up here. I used to go
Speaker 1: to the city and sleep one or two nights a
Speaker 1: week in hotels or at an apartment, my mother in
Speaker 1: law's apartment. UM, and I raised my kids here. My
Speaker 1: wife was a school teacher and uh changed my life
Speaker 1: and I met you know so that and now I've
Speaker 1: just been working on not becoming me. This is really
Speaker 1: hard for me. It's against my what youreld Barbara fake,
Speaker 1: you know, forget who you are because it's bullshit. It's
Speaker 1: just like what the shirt you're wearing. You're much more
Speaker 1: than who you are, he taught. They laid a lot
Speaker 1: of good ship on me. I've never been happier in
Speaker 1: my life. I live in the woods. I walk around
Speaker 1: the forest. I still take psychedel was you know, uh
Speaker 1: if I can. Mushrooms are now every everyone, every kid
Speaker 1: I know has a bag of mushrooms. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I smoke pots still. I don't take hard drugs anymore.
Speaker 1: I had serious surgery three years ago this month. I
Speaker 1: had to learn to walk again. Two years ago. Took
Speaker 1: me a year and learned to walk laying on the
Speaker 1: couch or a double back surgery. I went down on
Speaker 1: a hundred one pounds and it was near death and
Speaker 1: something happened again. I can't another indescribable thing. I'm like
Speaker 1: a weird I get people laughing. I'll get you laughing
Speaker 1: because I have a happier. Something happened to me. When
Speaker 1: you get near dying, you realize how much time you
Speaker 1: waste on bullshit. That happened. That's something happened to me.
Speaker 1: I was, you know, on that couch, trying to gain
Speaker 1: weight a pine of hog and doze to day. I
Speaker 1: couldn't gain I was like the Oshwitz. I looked in
Speaker 1: the mirror and cried the first time. That's like I
Speaker 1: was twelve years old at that way. There's nothing. It
Speaker 1: was horrible, but anyway it was. It turned out to
Speaker 1: be a positive thing. You hear about that all time
Speaker 1: right in life. That weird ship turns out good. And
Speaker 1: now I'm I'm enjoying riding around in my car and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk to keith I I recently. Do you
Speaker 1: think I have a good memory. I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: a memory story about the rolling Stones. Does it sound
Speaker 1: like an eight year old guye that those has a
Speaker 1: good memory talking to you? Yes? I do think you
Speaker 1: have a good memory. Okay, I think you want to
Speaker 1: hear the story about memory. It's a rolling stone story. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we're in uh France and in Switzerland, and uh we
Speaker 1: have a tour coming up and both Keith and I
Speaker 1: are taking hard drugs, heroin um and everything else anything
Speaker 1: if you get you know, we like drugs and we
Speaker 1: but we knew he had a clean up for the tour.
Speaker 1: I wanted to and we had heard about in Marseilles,
Speaker 1: France there was a drug shortage and they we heard
Speaker 1: about this Swiss doctor, Dr Denver, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: there was a heroin drought in France and they were
Speaker 1: a drug that had been invented by a drug company
Speaker 1: in Paris called lucid drill. You could look it up.
Speaker 1: It's called many different things, but it was called lucidrill
Speaker 1: by a French lady. And uh he wanted to use
Speaker 1: it on Keith and I for a drug here, and
Speaker 1: we said okay, and we took it was injectable and
Speaker 1: he gave you barbituous to sleep through the sickness. But
Speaker 1: it was mostly this lucid drill. We took hundreds of
Speaker 1: these pills, you know, big bottles, and I saw I
Speaker 1: had many times three or four cures I took with him,
Speaker 1: trying three for sure, Keith maybe two or three. And
Speaker 1: then it ended, you know, and it didn't cure us.
Speaker 1: We went back and I ended up coming here doing
Speaker 1: what I told you to cure. But recently I decided
Speaker 1: I wonder what happened to that lucid drill. So I
Speaker 1: look it up online and it's one of the drugs
Speaker 1: given for Alzheimer's to remove plaque in your brain. So
Speaker 1: I think in our thirties, Keith and I started fresh,
Speaker 1: we cleaned out all the ship. I want to call me,
Speaker 1: ask him, how's your memory? Because everyone I know tells
Speaker 1: me it's shocking my memory. Other eight year olds, you know,
Speaker 1: I I and it's true. I I feel that things
Speaker 1: come up from way and I'm wondering if that we're laughing,
Speaker 1: could it be the lucid drill? You know? And this
Speaker 1: story and I'm not knowe Marshal, we'll leave it here
Speaker 1: for the first chapter. You're a fount of stories well told.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to talk to my audience. You asked good questions.
Speaker 1: You're good. You're good until next time. This is Bob
Speaker 1: left Sex