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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, brocome back to the Bob Left Sets Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is truly legendary artist manager Ken Craigan.

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Speaker 1: We have the Smothers Brothers, Lionel Richie the First Edition,

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Speaker 1: Travis Tritt, Tricia Yearwood, the comedian Gallagher. Is there anybody

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Speaker 1: who haven't represented Ken? It's amazing. It's sort of that

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Speaker 1: six degrees of separation. I'm connected to everybody one way

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Speaker 1: or another. So why did you decide to become an

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Speaker 1: artist manager? You know, it's funny. I didn't exactly decide that.

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Speaker 1: I went to Harvard Business School. Let's go back, where'd

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Speaker 1: you go to undergraduate? I went to undergraduated Berkeley. Okay.

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Speaker 1: My dad was vice chancer and teaching in the law school,

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Speaker 1: and uh, and we were living in Berkeley, and I

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Speaker 1: ended up going there thinking I was gonna be a microbiologist.

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Speaker 1: Why a microbiologist? I have no idea. Well, six for

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Speaker 1: we have to be started here. How many kids in

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Speaker 1: your family? Uh? Just myself and my sister and your

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Speaker 1: sister older or younger. She's younger by six years and

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Speaker 1: she's still with us. Oh, what's she up to? She's

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Speaker 1: got four kids and thirteen grandchildren's boyfriend. Her husband passed

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Speaker 1: away a few years ago, and you got a wonderful

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Speaker 1: boyfriend that's and which I love at her age and

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Speaker 1: they travel all over the world together. It's fabulous. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So you're growing up in Berkeley. This is the fifties

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Speaker 1: and fifth well we went. He was he was ahead

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Speaker 1: of Loeban Lobe here in l A. And that's a

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Speaker 1: legendary also entertainment. Yeah, he represented eleven studios. He was

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Speaker 1: a chief lobbyist and Sacramento for them. And he had

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Speaker 1: the funny thing is this is a good story. He

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Speaker 1: he had clients. His clients were Deborah Carr, William Holden,

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Speaker 1: Alan lad Mickey Rooney. And they used to come over

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Speaker 1: the house and I was like six years old or something,

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Speaker 1: and I would sit at their feet in the on

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Speaker 1: the rug in the living room and here the taught

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Speaker 1: my dad and them tell stories about all these entertainment stories, right,

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Speaker 1: And I remember, I do remember this perfectly that I

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Speaker 1: thought to myself, I'll never have any stories like that. Now,

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Speaker 1: you bring up any subject, I can tell you a story.

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Speaker 1: Something in my fifty or sixty years in this business. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So you're living where in l A. At that time,

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Speaker 1: we were living over near Fairfax in Beverly, where I

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Speaker 1: ended up much later, basically having an office at CBS. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you never left, but uh, in terms of were you

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Speaker 1: aware that your father was that successful? We we Uh,

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Speaker 1: we moved when my dad was really at Loeban Loeban

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Speaker 1: doing Grady ended up being the managing partner. Uh. We

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Speaker 1: lived on Irving in Los Angeles, right off of right

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Speaker 1: off of third Street. Uh, in that kind of area

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Speaker 1: where they shot movies a lot, and there were all

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Speaker 1: these big homes at the time. And I would go

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Speaker 1: down on the weekend and get to help run the

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Speaker 1: switchboard at Loeban Lobe. Yeah, that was like a little kid.

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Speaker 1: Where was their office that their office was Grant Union

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Speaker 1: and Grant Okick or something like that or Grand I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: grand And and Union, I think. Okay, so you met

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Speaker 1: a lot of powerful, famous people when you were growing up.

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Speaker 1: Did that have an impact upon you? You know, I

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Speaker 1: don't think so. But what changed my life in a

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Speaker 1: funny way was uh that I we moved when I

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Speaker 1: was fifteen to Berkeley. And when we moved when my

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Speaker 1: dad took what happened, and it's a big lesson. My

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Speaker 1: dad was making I don't know, over a hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: a year, because that was a lot of money back then, ton,

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Speaker 1: I mean the fifties, fifty two. This was you See,

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Speaker 1: Berkeley comes to him and they offer him twelve five

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Speaker 1: to come pel five a year to come teach us

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Speaker 1: like ten percent of his salary right to come teach

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Speaker 1: at Berkeley in the law school. And he takes it,

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Speaker 1: and we leave Los Angeles and we moved to Berkeley.

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Speaker 1: I've used it in my classes at U c l

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Speaker 1: A when I've teaching there. I used it as a

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Speaker 1: great example of do what you love, what you really believe.

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Speaker 1: He stayed there forty two years. He taught till he

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Speaker 1: was eighty seven. He chaired committees till he was ninety five.

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Speaker 1: He died in his sleep at night. I mean he did.

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Speaker 1: He lived it so he never had any regrets none,

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Speaker 1: And somehow or other he ended up living, leaving my

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Speaker 1: kids and and uh and my sister's bunch of kids.

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Speaker 1: Uh A lot of money. I who knows it from where?

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Speaker 1: You know? So you moved You were born in l A.

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Speaker 1: You moved to fifteen What about your mother? My mother

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Speaker 1: was basically a housekeeper and homekeeper. But she had been

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Speaker 1: a violinists with the Oakland Symphony. And but after she

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Speaker 1: met my dad, slowly she wound that. Now she still

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Speaker 1: played even when we moved down here in groups there.

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Speaker 1: So music was in our life, but I was a

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Speaker 1: terrible musician. I played a lousy trombone. Okay, So your

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Speaker 1: parents born in the US and their parents born in

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Speaker 1: the Old Country as her family, this is kind of neat.

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Speaker 1: Our family came, at least one side of it, came

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Speaker 1: to San Francisco for the gold Rush. The great great

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Speaker 1: grandfather came across the Isthmus of Panama on a donkey

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Speaker 1: because there was no canal. Then he rode across. He

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Speaker 1: got on a steamer. He came up to San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: But he got there in eighteen fifty two and the

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Speaker 1: gold Rush was essentially over. And he then formed or

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Speaker 1: opened the first furniture store on Market Street in San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: And he had come from where he had come. Well,

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Speaker 1: we always thought it was Austria, but I think what

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Speaker 1: we're finding out is it may be part of Austria now,

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Speaker 1: but it was hungry, I think in that. And what

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Speaker 1: about Poland, and what about the other side of your family,

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Speaker 1: the other side of the family also from that kind

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Speaker 1: of area. My mom trade. This is kind of interesting,

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Speaker 1: My mom trace back to the fact that in the

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Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds a Jewish, a regular general in the German army,

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Speaker 1: married a Jewish woman and was kicked out of the

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Speaker 1: army in the seventeen hundreds. Right. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: she found that out, but she did, and so they

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Speaker 1: moved away from Germany. And so I think both sides

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Speaker 1: of the family came from that, you know, that Hungary, Austria,

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Speaker 1: Poland kind of one came in eighteen fifty. When did

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Speaker 1: the other one come? You know, the other one came

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Speaker 1: when there was a railroad that I don't know the

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Speaker 1: year now, I probably should, but the wild part of

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Speaker 1: it was, and this is the first She was with

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Speaker 1: the firstborn child, who was like four or five, and

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Speaker 1: the new and a new baby in her arms, and

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Speaker 1: she came across on a train and they changed trains

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Speaker 1: in Chicago, and the four or five year old ran

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Speaker 1: under a train and was killed. And she had to

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Speaker 1: arrive in San Francisco with the firstborn boy in the

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Speaker 1: family in a coffin wild you know, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: My mother was phenomenal at tracing all that stuff back. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So let's be like you were born in l Aye

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Speaker 1: and he didn't move to Berkeley. I was born in Berkeley, Okay,

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Speaker 1: and moved to l A. I remember. I think I

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Speaker 1: started Third Street School in Los Angeles and probably the

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Speaker 1: third grade. So you were here for like six or

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Speaker 1: eight years before you went back to Berkeley a little more,

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Speaker 1: and you were in Berkeley you went to regular public school. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I went to Berkeley High. I'm an alumnus of Berkeley High.

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Speaker 1: So what was that experience? Like? Very interesting? Uh? You know?

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Speaker 1: For the interesting most interesting thing is Berkeley High had

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Speaker 1: a theater attached to it, a regular community theater, and

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Speaker 1: the first show I ever produced was for a group

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Speaker 1: of the Kingston Trio or no, it was sort of

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Speaker 1: the lot. It was for the Gateway Singers. I think

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Speaker 1: I don't even know they well, they predated they were

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Speaker 1: sort of the West Coast weavers, you know, in that

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Speaker 1: old folk era, you know, I know it was one

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Speaker 1: of those, and it probably was the king Centrio and

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Speaker 1: it was in the Berkeley Community Theater. And the reason

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Speaker 1: I remember it so well is the group made three

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Speaker 1: sixty dollars, which was more money than they had ever made.

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Speaker 1: That that night, I made eighty two dollars until my dad,

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Speaker 1: who was a tax expert, explained to me that there

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Speaker 1: were admission taxes and they were eighty dollars. So so

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Speaker 1: my first show in the Berkeley Community Theater, right where

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Speaker 1: I went to high school, I ain't two dollars. And

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Speaker 1: so you're in high school, You're a popular kid. Were

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Speaker 1: you a nerd? What kind of kid were you know?

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Speaker 1: I joined a club there, club called the Annoias and

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Speaker 1: we called what they were called the Unoias EU. And

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Speaker 1: I have no clue. I don't know. But what I

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Speaker 1: know is because this was the seeds of my career

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Speaker 1: is in l A. We had always had these big

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Speaker 1: dances with Nay. We had Frank Sinatra come and sing

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Speaker 1: it at a high school dance, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was unbelievable. Got to Berkeley and I felt like

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Speaker 1: they were ten years behind the time. So I started

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Speaker 1: through my dad, I made some connections and I started

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Speaker 1: bringing acts from l A to come up to perform

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Speaker 1: at dances or not concerts. At that point, we're talking

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Speaker 1: the fifties, uh and and I'll never forget because I

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Speaker 1: bought this. I bought the stand Kenton band. Except you

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Speaker 1: didn't get the band. You got a group that he

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Speaker 1: formed of musicians in San Francisco, and they sent the

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Speaker 1: drums that said Stan Kenton on it, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: but at least Stan Kenton was there, right. No, No,

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Speaker 1: Stan wasn't there either. Stan couldn't be there, and I

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Speaker 1: had booked his I think his wife was Julie Christie maybe,

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Speaker 1: and I booked her and she couldn't come either, So

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Speaker 1: they sent a lady named Terry Southern. These are all

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Speaker 1: acts no one would know now, you know, but the bad.

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Speaker 1: But we made money, you know. My mother sent me

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Speaker 1: a picture one time of me giving six four dollars

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Speaker 1: to the Red Cross from one of these shows that

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Speaker 1: I did, you know. Okay, so you're in high school,

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Speaker 1: are you you know, certainly looking at your career? Are

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Speaker 1: you that entrepreneurial? From day one? You have a paper

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Speaker 1: route that kind of I sold Time Life Sports illustrated subscriptions,

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Speaker 1: and I would go up to the Berkeley campus and

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Speaker 1: I would hand out discount cards in what was then

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Speaker 1: the Red Line. Now you wouldn't have stand in line

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Speaker 1: to register then you had to stand in a long,

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Speaker 1: long line for hours to go and actually register, and

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Speaker 1: I would have to. So I would go down the

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Speaker 1: line and hand everybody a students a student discount card

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Speaker 1: for Time Life for Sports Illustrated. But it had my address,

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Speaker 1: my home address on it. I would get. I remember

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Speaker 1: I made eighteen hundred dollars one week in commissions in

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Speaker 1: high school. It's like today doing My mother looked at

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Speaker 1: me like I was. She thought, oh, no thing is

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Speaker 1: going to come from this. So I did that. I

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Speaker 1: got over the years. Even after I got into college.

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Speaker 1: I had I called at the cal Subscription Service, but

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Speaker 1: because my first initials ken K in my last k,

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Speaker 1: it was called k L Subscription Service. I ended up

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Speaker 1: with fifty sales people around California on campuses. I so

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Speaker 1: I was totally entrepreneurial from the early stages there. Okay,

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Speaker 1: and how did you get you know, was it a

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Speaker 1: super discount price? Why did everybody say that it was

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Speaker 1: like half the normal price? And how did you get

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Speaker 1: hooked up? Well, somehow or other, I agreed to do it,

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Speaker 1: and they gave us. I would get like six they wanted.

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Speaker 1: They wanted the subscription, so that would give me like

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Speaker 1: sixty or seventy of the cause of the subscription. So

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Speaker 1: even though the subscription was less than five dollars for

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Speaker 1: for the year, I would get, you know, three sixty

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Speaker 1: five or something from every subscription. You know that our

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Speaker 1: mailbox would be stuffed with these cards and fifty salesman.

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Speaker 1: How much did you take from them? You know? I

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Speaker 1: don't remember that. I don't remember, but I might have

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Speaker 1: split with them or maybe I don't know. I gave

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Speaker 1: them enough as incentive, and even I let when I

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Speaker 1: went to Berkeley. I was in Berkeley four years and

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Speaker 1: then the King cent Trio I was doing their shows

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Speaker 1: and they wanted me to become their concert promoter on

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Speaker 1: the road. And the meantime, I got accepted to Harvard

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Speaker 1: Business School, and my father, I think that's the only

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Speaker 1: time in my whole life, he said, you've got to

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Speaker 1: do something. He said, if you don't go to Harvard

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Speaker 1: Business School now, you will never go Okay, let's go back.

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Speaker 1: You're in Berkeley studying, what I'm saying. From getting out

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Speaker 1: of high school, I thought I'd be a microbiologist. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then I ended up in engineering and I did terrible

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Speaker 1: there because I was awful at math. I used to

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Speaker 1: skip math in high school for basketball practice and and

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Speaker 1: so I dropped out of that for after a year.

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Speaker 1: And they had a special deal for basketball players at Berkeley,

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Speaker 1: although I wasn't a big time player there, and it

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Speaker 1: was where you could make up. Of course, the schools

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Speaker 1: all have it now. This they created for the athletes,

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Speaker 1: and you could take subjects from You had to have

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Speaker 1: a total of twelve units and you could go up

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Speaker 1: to three different areas. So I picked anthropology, sociology, and journalism.

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Speaker 1: Don't ask me, I don't know why, but there were

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Speaker 1: all things I was interested in. So I did very

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Speaker 1: well because I now was taking things that were fascinating

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Speaker 1: to me and interesting to me. And I got all

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Speaker 1: ready to graduate from Berkeley, and I turned out I

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Speaker 1: was three units short. So my journalism for me who

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Speaker 1: was my sort of my mentor too, she gave me, uh,

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Speaker 1: she let me work on a study with her, and

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Speaker 1: she gave me three credits so I could graduate. Okay,

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Speaker 1: did you promote shows in college? Yes, we're at the

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Speaker 1: college or the idea. The first show I ever did

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Speaker 1: at the college was the group the Limelighters, and it

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Speaker 1: was in a sevenfty hall seed Hall. I've got the

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Speaker 1: poster on my wall at home. I know. The tickets

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Speaker 1: were seventy cents, okay, and I and it was first come,

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Speaker 1: first served, no pre sale. And I remember sitting in

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Speaker 1: the office of the editor of the of the school paper,

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Speaker 1: the Daily Cow, and saying to him, Oh, God, is

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Speaker 1: anybody going to show up? And we walked out of

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Speaker 1: his office, which was right across from the hall, and

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Speaker 1: there was a line around the building. We sold out.

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Speaker 1: It was my my first show on the Berkeley campus.

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Speaker 1: And and by the way, it led to my managing

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Speaker 1: that group after I got out of Harvard Business School,

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Speaker 1: because they thought of me as some kind of genius.

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Speaker 1: They had never done that, They've never made that much money.

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Speaker 1: They were appearing at the Hungry Eye, a little club

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Speaker 1: over in the Bay Area, and uh. And I was

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Speaker 1: like a hero as a kid, you know, from doing it.

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Speaker 1: And I actually ended up by the way U after

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Speaker 1: once I got professional, after Harvard, I wrote a book

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Speaker 1: on promoting college concerts. Okay, so the line lighters hadn't

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Speaker 1: broken yet if they're playing at the Hungry No, they

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Speaker 1: hadn't broken back. Okay. Now today it's a track people

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Speaker 1: become part of the concert committee, etcetera. Were you operating

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Speaker 1: totally independently or were you part of a club? No,

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Speaker 1: I was. I was operating pretty much independently, but I

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Speaker 1: was doing everything. In fact, once I took on the

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Speaker 1: management of that group after after the business school, I

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Speaker 1: would do everything from sending the laundry out to booking

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Speaker 1: the airfares to uh, you know, I'd be a shill

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Speaker 1: at the concert and have to throw out a line

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Speaker 1: that got a very funny reaction from the their response

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Speaker 1: to it, and stuff like that. I mean I was

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Speaker 1: a run spotlights. I sold souvenir programs, whatever was necessary

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Speaker 1: at that moment in time that had to be done

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Speaker 1: that would help the group I did. It was a

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Speaker 1: great education. They were older and me. They knew what

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Speaker 1: they were doing. I learned management. Okay, so you're still

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Speaker 1: in Berkeley. When you book a bandon Berkeley, you know,

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Speaker 1: today there's a huge guarantee and the promoter can lose money.

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Speaker 1: What was the deal back then? Well, I just you

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Speaker 1: reminded me of one grace whore. I booked Ray Charles,

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Speaker 1: and it's Saturday night in Berkeley and they get there

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Speaker 1: for rehearsal at four in the afternoon and Joe Adams,

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Speaker 1: his manager, says to me, you owe him ten thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: which is what I had to pay for him then.

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Speaker 1: And he says, and we want it in cash. Where

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Speaker 1: do you get Where does a college kid get ten

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars? And I have no idea where I got it.

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Speaker 1: I did, and I watched them count every dollar. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you graduate from college, you go to Harvard Business School

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Speaker 1: the following fall. Do you take time off? Yeah, here's

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Speaker 1: the crazy thing. The king Centrio asked me to be

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Speaker 1: there answer promoter. My dad had ah. I think I

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Speaker 1: had grant some kind of a grant to go to

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Speaker 1: Europe and do some lectures there. So we went to

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Speaker 1: Europe for the summer, and I flew directly from Copenhagen

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Speaker 1: back to Boston to start Harvard Business School. And I

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Speaker 1: walked into my dorm room and a guy said to me,

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Speaker 1: my god, have you heard this song by the Kingston

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Speaker 1: Trio Hanging out your Head Tom Dooley. It's the number

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Speaker 1: one song in the country. I was sure, absolutely certain,

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Speaker 1: I had blown it, and my career was in the

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Speaker 1: in the entertainment business. I had lost, I had lost

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Speaker 1: any opportunity there. I was sure of it. I thought,

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Speaker 1: you know, you should have taken that job. Look at

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Speaker 1: their the number one and I had predicted a year

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Speaker 1: before when I first heard him. I walked up to

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Speaker 1: him after the show at a little club called the U.

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Speaker 1: The UH was the Blue Onion or something in San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: and I I said to them, you know, a year

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Speaker 1: from now, you're going to be the hottest thing in

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Speaker 1: the US. And almost a year to the day they

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Speaker 1: had the number one record. Okay, so at that time

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Speaker 1: you ended up managing the Kingston Trio. No never, No, okay.

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Speaker 1: So you go to Harvard Business School. When you were

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Speaker 1: in college, did you live at home or on campus?

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Speaker 1: And lived at home? Okay, so this is the first

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Speaker 1: time you're living alone. Yeah, and your Harvard Business School dorm.

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Speaker 1: Any idea what you're trying to achieve by going survive?

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Speaker 1: I flew home the first year until my parents. I

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Speaker 1: had flunked out. I was sure of it, and I

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Speaker 1: ended up twenty seven in the class, and I I

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Speaker 1: was absolutely certain I had to fake some of the exams,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean it was it was so hard,

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Speaker 1: it was unbelievable. And they told us that the dean.

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Speaker 1: I think the reason I got into Harvard School is

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Speaker 1: the dean of of the school had been the dean

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Speaker 1: of men at Berkeley when my dad was vice Chances

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Speaker 1: that they were all friends. Somehow I got in, you know,

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Speaker 1: those that wouldn't happen nowadays. But and and uh, and

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Speaker 1: I was sure that I had was flunked out, and

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Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe it. But the second year was

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Speaker 1: a little easier than the first, but never it was easy.

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Speaker 1: And and I, by the way, I started a subscription service.

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Speaker 1: I called it New England Subscription or something like that

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Speaker 1: in England. You know I had but I you know,

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Speaker 1: I got an offer from this group, from the Lime Letders.

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Speaker 1: They I was home at Christmas between I still had

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Speaker 1: four or five months ago, and they called me just

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Speaker 1: as I'm getting ready to leave to go back, and

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Speaker 1: they said, we need an executive secretary. Would you be

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Speaker 1: our executive secretary? And I think this is probably the

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Speaker 1: single guttiest thing I've ever done in my life, because

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Speaker 1: I said to them, look, I didn't go to Harvard

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Speaker 1: Business School to be an executive secretary. If you need

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Speaker 1: a manager, you know, call me. And when I got

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Speaker 1: back to school. The leader of the Lime Letters was

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Speaker 1: a very funny guy named Leuke Got Ladies. Rik was funny,

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Speaker 1: and there was this wonderful letter that I can't find anywhere.

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Speaker 1: And he said, we want you to be our manager.

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Speaker 1: So now I accept the management and he want and

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Speaker 1: they want me to come out of school. And I

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Speaker 1: said no, no no, no, no, no. Four months from now,

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Speaker 1: I'm you know, in May or whatever it is, I'm graduating. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you have to wait. But I started working for them

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Speaker 1: right away, and I took their album and I walked

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Speaker 1: into the biggest station in Boston at the time, w

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Speaker 1: b Z, and who was the program director but Joe

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Speaker 1: Smith not He was the librarian. Joe Smith for those

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Speaker 1: of no, Joe Smith had a legendary career in the

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Speaker 1: record business, working at Warner Brothers Records running Electra. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he was co president of Warners with Mo Austin. You know,

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Speaker 1: the gold Dust Twins, that's what they were called. So

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Speaker 1: he he was the first guy. He sat me down

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Speaker 1: and gave me clues to the business. And I took

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Speaker 1: that record all over Boston and promoted it and everything.

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Speaker 1: Had some unbelievable experiences. You know, this was the days

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Speaker 1: of Paola and other stuff like that, and there were

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Speaker 1: some amazing things happening in those days. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if we have time for it, but I okay, if

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Speaker 1: there's Paola, you're a graduate student. How did you get

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Speaker 1: the money to pay them? I didn't. I didn't pay anybody.

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Speaker 1: But it led, it led, and I wish I could

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Speaker 1: remember the guy's name. He was like the hottest DJ

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Speaker 1: in the country at the time. What if he played

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Speaker 1: your record, you were made right? And he was at

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Speaker 1: a competing station, not busy, and I made an appointment

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Speaker 1: to take one of the members of the group kind

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Speaker 1: of a hot blooded he's still around and still I think,

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Speaker 1: occasionally performs with the group as he's constituted. A guy

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Speaker 1: named Alex Hasslev and he was from a Russian background,

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Speaker 1: and UM and I took him with me to meet

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Speaker 1: this DJ with our record, with our single, whatever it was,

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Speaker 1: and we and UM he kept us waiting over an hour,

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Speaker 1: which was getting Alex kind of upset anyway. Then he

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Speaker 1: walked into the studio, walked right by us, went to

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Speaker 1: his office and we were sat there for another half

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Speaker 1: hour or more. Finally we go into his office and

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Speaker 1: he is he's got a stack of In those days,

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Speaker 1: they were those little forty five with a big hole, right,

399
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Speaker 1: and he's taking them and he's throwing them one after

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Speaker 1: the other into the waste basket. Uh. And every every

401
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,280
Speaker 1: so often he puts one down on the desk, but

402
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,520
Speaker 1: the rest just get tossed. And we're standing there in

403
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Speaker 1: front of me. Doesn't offer any place to sit, and

404
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:30,639
Speaker 1: he doesn't look up, and he says, come back when

405
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Speaker 1: you get a hit. That's it, Alex. I have to

406
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Speaker 1: restrain Alex from jumping over the desk and strangling him

407
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Speaker 1: from the dead. This is my first month in the job, right,

408
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,400
Speaker 1: and the bigger thing than happened. I go to Chicago.

409
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Speaker 1: The group is in Chicago that went at the Easter break.

410
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Speaker 1: So I go to Chicago. They're peering at a at

411
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Speaker 1: a club in Chicago, and I go to their hotel room.

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Speaker 1: And as I walk in their hotel room, and I've

413
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 1: turned down bb D, N O, Procter and Gamble Time magazine,

414
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Speaker 1: all these people that are hiring the Harvard grats, the

415
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Speaker 1: Harvard Business School grads and and uh. As I walk

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Speaker 1: in the room, Alan, I hear Alex say, Okay, that's it.

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Speaker 1: We're breaking up. And what I didn't know was they

418
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:26,720
Speaker 1: break up every day from there on concerant. You know, okay, God,

419
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Speaker 1: just finishing Harvard Business School before you got that call

420
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Speaker 1: slash letter from the Lime Lighters. Would you have gone

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Speaker 1: into music management or would you have gone to work

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Speaker 1: for Procter and Gamble or one of those? I think

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Speaker 1: I might have gone to work for Time magazine because

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Speaker 1: of all my history with Time, and the department that

425
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: wanted me a time was called New Developments or innovation,

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Speaker 1: or nowadays it'll be called innovation. When there was a

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00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: recession a year later, I guarantee you it was the

428
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: first department to go. So I made one good decision.

429
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:01,639
Speaker 1: And what are your parents say about you going to

430
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 1: Harvard Business School? Now you're a manager? You know? The

431
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: great thing about my parents is whatever I was doing

432
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,400
Speaker 1: they were thrilled with. They were here. So many stories

433
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: now of kids whose parents, you know, fight what they

434
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: want to do. You read books about it all the

435
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,119
Speaker 1: time here, and the kids do it anyway. But you know,

436
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: we all want to make our parents proud. I think

437
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: even even abusive parents, people still want to They're they're

438
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: driven to make them proud and um and in my case,

439
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: I felt the same way. But they never pushed me

440
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:33,919
Speaker 1: one way or another, and they were just proud of

441
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: everything I did. And I and I got lucky. Listen,

442
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: I took this group on. We were I moved him

443
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: from Electra Records. I moved with Jack Holtsman, dear Jack Holdsman,

444
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: of course the recent scene. I moved him from there

445
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: to our c A for a much bigger deal. At

446
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: the time, Elector was an independent. Yeah, it was a

447
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: smaller independent. They didn't have the money to promote them.

448
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: I made a rather revolutionary d at the time. I

449
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: made a deal which gave us a fifty thousand dollar

450
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 1: promotion fund would be five thousand maybe now or more.

451
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: A fifty thousand dollar promotion fund that that we controlled.

452
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: They had to if they objected anything that had to

453
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,959
Speaker 1: be coordinated with them, but we could control it. And

454
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: um and so I had that fund to work with

455
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: to promote the group, and we became the number two

456
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: selling artist at our c A. But you know, it

457
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: was just kind of amazing. I mean, I learned by

458
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: making mistakes through that whole period. But these guys, they

459
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: couldn't agree on anything together. So what they would do

460
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: is each one would take me aside and try to

461
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 1: get me to agree with their point of view about

462
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: which booking agency we should go with, whether she we

463
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: should take this tour or not, and so on, you know,

464
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: and um, and then what would happen is we'd get

465
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: together they each want to do at a different time,

466
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: in different place. Then we all get together to meet

467
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: and make a decision booking agencies. One I particularly remember

468
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: they each wanted a different agency. They finally throw up

469
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: their hands and say, well, let's let Ken decide. Like what, Ken,

470
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: what do you think? Now? I've heard all the arguments,

471
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: ad infinitum. I mean, I've heard them over and over

472
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: and over, and I make a decision, you know, and

473
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: hopefully I make the right decision. In fact, one of

474
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: the wrong decisions I made that was perfectly right for them,

475
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 1: as I pulled them off some booking to put them

476
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: on the mort Salt tour all over the country, thirty

477
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 1: four cities and thirty five year we have like sixty two,

478
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 1: sixty probably sixty and sixty one. Yeah, in six you

479
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: go to negotiate a record deal. Everything is very sophisticated,

480
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: these tapes. Did you have a lawyer. Do you do

481
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: it yourself? How did it work? We had lawyers usually

482
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: I don't remember who was there. Oh, they did have

483
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: a lawyer that I wasn't too crazy about, but they

484
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: But the record deals, I still got very much involved.

485
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 1: I didn't know better, you know, I mean and and

486
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: and it wasn't anything like it is today. Really talking

487
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: to So you're dealing with the record company, then to

488
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: what degree are you telling the record company what to do?

489
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,120
Speaker 1: I can't. It's not my style. So what is your?

490
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: My style is finding a way that together we make

491
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: decisions and that that I but I'm willing to go

492
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: with them the extra mile to support everything. To that

493
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not saying to them, you go promote this,

494
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,159
Speaker 1: you go. I mean, even we're talking, if you if

495
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: you skip ahead thirty years on, Kenny Rodgers or Tricia

496
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: Earwood or I would make four hundred radio calls to

497
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: promote a record. Now the record company's still doing the

498
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: same thing. But my calls. They don't get calls from

499
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: managers on you know, the program directors Like I became

500
00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:00,199
Speaker 1: close friends with program directors all over the country, and

501
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: I would call, call and call to get my records

502
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: on the end. What if you felt the record wasn't

503
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:17,360
Speaker 1: an a level record, would you still call That's an

504
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: interesting question. I you know, hopefully most times, you know.

505
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember one of those incidents. I'm pretty

506
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 1: sure that I was involved enough that whatever came out

507
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: with something. Now, when Kenny Rogers first recorded Lucile, he's

508
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: into seventeen songs. I thought it was hysterically funny. It

509
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: was going to be either a big flop or a

510
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: big or a big success. And I tried to get

511
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 1: the record and you put it out, and they wouldn't.

512
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: They put out one or two records before it. But boy,

513
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: when we got to it, I worked that record like

514
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: crazy because I believed in it. I don't know what

515
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: I did with the previous two. I probably didn't work

516
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: anywheres as hard. Okay, so you're managing the law lights.

517
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: Their career gets better when you're the manager, much better,

518
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: and you're making any money A lot a lot of

519
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: my when when I graduated from Harvard Business School, and

520
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: anybody who knows what they get nowadays from that school

521
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: when you're grad will just be before it the the

522
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: top price that the guys coming out of Harvard Business

523
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: School got on the average a lot of them got

524
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: it was twelve five a year. Okay, that was considered

525
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: a lot of money for them. H I earned by

526
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: my second year, I earned thirty five. And at this point,

527
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: how many people do you have working for you? If

528
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: any maybe no, I probably nobody. Probably, So the Limelighters

529
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: are big, big and successful. What's the next step? The

530
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: next step is the Limelighters finally reach a point where

531
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: they decided to break up. And by that time, by

532
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: the way, by that time, for the last year, they

533
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,479
Speaker 1: have replaced me with a woman they met in New

534
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: York who because they've decided they can save the timber cent,

535
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: they're paying me, right, and you charge ten? Then ten

536
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 1: was all? Then yeah, it went up to five. I

537
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: never charged more than fifteen. The managers get hey, Colonel

538
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: Tom Parker got you know that story, it's the great story,

539
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: some news guy says to him. So I understand that

540
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 1: you know that you take you take half of Pressley's earnings.

541
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: He said, no, no, no, no, Elvis Presley takes half

542
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: of months, right, you know, but anyway, uh, in those days,

543
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think now, I got a little off trail. Okay,

544
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: So the point is they were the limelighters, replace you

545
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: to save money. Where does that leave They replace me

546
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:45,479
Speaker 1: with a woman. They send her out to give her

547
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: two weeks to learn everything I'm doing. She calls him

548
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: up in the second week and says, this is crazy.

549
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: It's gonna take me a year out here. She stays

550
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: like four or five months. She finally goes back. She's

551
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: mannaging him for six months, and now she asked them

552
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: for tier and he saved anything. In the meantime, they

553
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: make me the concert promoter. I'm making two or three

554
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: times what I made as their manage. At that time,

555
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: there wasn't percentage, right, you paid a flat fee. Uh

556
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: you may for for the if you're a promoter to

557
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: the act, to the act, you paid them, Yeah, some

558
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: kind of percentage usually though even then, Yeah, a lot

559
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: of times was flat feet. And earnings in those days,

560
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: my god, I mean we were getting ten thousand a night.

561
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: Streisan came along and charged twenty five thousand, and we

562
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: all talked about how uh you know that she was

563
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: going to ruin the business at Okay, so you know

564
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: you're being the promoter, but the band breaks up, what

565
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: do you do next day. Here's the crazy part of it.

566
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: The band breaks up. Well, I'm holding a ten thousand

567
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: dollar commercial for Chrysler Cars in my hand that for them,

568
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: and they can't do it because they've broken up. And

569
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: I approached the Smothers brothers and say I'd like to

570
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: manage I knew them, I knew them from San Francisco.

571
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: We were friendly and said I wanted to manage him.

572
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: And here's a ten thousand dollar deal. I've convinced the

573
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: buyer that they that the Smothers are the right group.

574
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: At that point, they're on a lot of of the

575
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: late night shows jacqu Parr and shows like that, and

576
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 1: I say, I say, I'm gonna always make more money

577
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: than I cost you for you and they signed with me.

578
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: So the day the Lime Letters break up, I signed

579
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: the Smothers brothers and that within a month, they appear

580
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: on three major network shows in the same week. That

581
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: never happened then, but they prefer a prayer performing on

582
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: three shows. Uh, Judy Garland, I can't remember the shows,

583
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: but the Sullivan Show was one I can't I don't

584
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: remember what the third one was anyway, that never happened

585
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: because they all had exclusivity causes clauses. But the smothers

586
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: weren't big enough than anybody cared because Striison was on

587
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 1: one of the shows, and so you know the show.

588
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: The shows each wanted to put whoever they had on

589
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: that week, and the smothers were secondary, but they got

590
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: all the and the commercial breaks. So the Christi commercials

591
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: are playing on the on the Today Show, and the

592
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: Tonight Show, the the they're on a bunch of shows

593
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: one week, we get so much exposure. The next forty

594
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: nine shows selled out. Okay, just to be clear, was

595
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: it your plan to get them on all those shows

596
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: in a week or was that I think it was.

597
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: I think it sort of happened. I mean, I don't

598
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: think I had any idea. I looked back at it.

599
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: I teach now something called the magic of threes. How

600
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: it takes three impressions in a concentrated period of time

601
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: for anybody to take any real action. That if you

602
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: just have one, so you try and combine, you try

603
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: and bring things together. So they all happened in a

604
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: very tight period that I learned that it now shown

605
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: as a real law, I mean, a real scientific principle.

606
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: But in those I learned it when I started teaching

607
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: at u c l A. By looking back and specifically

608
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 1: that week taught me that everybody got excited when they

609
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: saw the Smothers in those multiple appearances all happening in

610
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 1: one week. It was all in one week. So anyway, uh,

611
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: the Smothers very quickly are red hot and a blast vocal.

612
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 1: Who's running. William Morris at that time talks to CBS

613
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: and says, all of your stars on the network are aging.

614
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 1: You've got Ed Sullivan and you've got all these old

615
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: you know, all these other stars that are older. Red

616
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: Skelton had a show. They're they're all older stars. You

617
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: need some youth, and he convinces them to put the

618
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: Smothers on the air. So it's just sixty six. That

619
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: was about that. What we've started out with was was

620
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:56,919
Speaker 1: a show in which Tommy played in Angel. Oh yes, yes,

621
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:00,799
Speaker 1: that exactly just to be there before we get to

622
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: my brother the Angel. Had you kept regular contact up

623
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: with theos because I was living in the Bay Area

624
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: right right a block two blocks from the Hungry Eye,

625
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: and it was the Purple Onion. I said, it was

626
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 1: the blue it's the Purple Onion. And they were appearing,

627
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: and then they do a live album from the Purple Onion.

628
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,359
Speaker 1: I think they did absolutely one of the first step

629
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: maybe the first album. Okay, And didn't they have a manager? No,

630
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: they didn't at that point. I don't know if they

631
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: had had it or not prior I can't remember. Okay,

632
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 1: So they do that show, I remember, and what network

633
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: does it? The first show the My Brother the Angel

634
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: was on. I think it was a sho That's what

635
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: I was going to say. Okay, so I know it was.

636
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 1: It was a company called screen gim So it was

637
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: now I remember because I had a friend who had

638
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: the record, and so therefore I tuned in. But from

639
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: the perspective of viewer, the show wasn't really successful. But

640
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: in those days they bought twenty six shows. Nowadays you

641
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: get six maybe, And in those days they bought you

642
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 1: for a season, and they lived with you for a season.

643
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: There were only three networks, and and if you got

644
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: on the air, you still got a year's worth of exposure.

645
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't they didn't take you off mid year.

646
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: They didn't have any other shows to put on. Uh.

647
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 1: So we did get through a year and then we

648
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 1: kind of things were it still gave them weekly exposure,

649
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: which was good, so fed the concert business and everything,

650
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: and they were touring a lot. And then we then,

651
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: of course in six okay, let's go back. Did they

652
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: like each other or not? If they were threatened from

653
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: the outside, they would respond as brothers, as a pair. Uh.

654
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:53,959
Speaker 1: If they were just arguing among themselves, uh, they would

655
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: really argue. And the funny part of it was one

656
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: night they had a they had a concert in Aspen,

657
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: or or very close to Aspen somewhere. They're in a

658
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 1: club and it was snow on the ground everywhere, and

659
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: everybody was lined outside the club waiting to get in.

660
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: And Tom and Dick come along and they're arguing and

661
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: they start throwing punches and they now are wrestling in

662
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 1: the snow in front of the crowd that's going into

663
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: Tommy says, best show we ever did. People believed everything. Okay,

664
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: so they see you can drive off the concert business.

665
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: The show ends, and then what, uh the I don't

666
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,399
Speaker 1: quite understand the SMS Brothers. They do their network show

667
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: runs a season half a year, twenty six episodes, and

668
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: then they just continue touring and stuff like and doing

669
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 1: some records and stuff. We were on Mercury Record and

670
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: then um and then this is when last Vogo convinces

671
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: the network that they should put the Smothers brothers on

672
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: and they and they put them on nine in a

673
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: slot which see me, us has failed over and over

674
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: and over there in fact, for eight years, nobody can

675
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: knock bananas out and number one. But Sunday nights at

676
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: eight o'clock and it's Bonanza and it's America's show, right,

677
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,320
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna do anything, and we knock them out of

678
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 1: number one. All Smothers goes on in sixty seven becomes

679
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: an instant hit. Not instant, but within a week or

680
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: a few weeks. We were not a lot of the show.

681
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: A lot of the show was kind of traditional old,

682
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: you know, variety show. But certain number five ten minutes

683
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: of the show was outrageous and and we had young riders.

684
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: We were protesting the Vietnam War, we were protesting racism.

685
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: We were but in a satirical way, in a in

686
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 1: a you know, really really funny way. There's a great

687
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: there's a great documentary on it called Smothers Smothered, and

688
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: it has the highlights of all the show and what

689
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: happened because after two and a half three years, the

690
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,439
Speaker 1: CBS threw them off the air. UH new president Bob

691
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: Wood who came in and Tommy went head to head.

692
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: Tommy got rid of after about in nineteen sixty nine,

693
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: he got rid of me, and he got rid of

694
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: UH my partner at the time, and he had nobody

695
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 1: beat no buffer, and he went one on one of

696
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: the network president. Next thing you know, they were off

697
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:24,360
Speaker 1: the air. He you know, he's looked back on that

698
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: and said it was the wrong thing to do. Okay,

699
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 1: But just in that era, you're the manager you have,

700
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: you know that they're testing the limits on a regular basis,

701
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: and how did you manage that with the uh that

702
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: work before they had a change. I always loved to

703
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: tell this. We would be in the dressing room. There

704
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: was a wonderful man from the CBS network who was

705
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: sort of the guy that dealt with us day in

706
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: and day out, and and we'd be in the dressing

707
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: room and Tom and Dick would be swearing, you know,

708
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 1: like like say, I mean sailors um about, you know,

709
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: tell CBS to take this show and shove it, you know,

710
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,279
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and swearing left and right, and

711
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: then kN Frets, my partner at the time, and I

712
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: would walk out of there and we'd go up to

713
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 1: the CBS guy and we say, you know, we have

714
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: a small problem here. You know, we would have we

715
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: would bring it all down and we would talk with

716
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 1: them and so on and everything. And we were a hit,

717
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: which helps. I mean, we're the number one show on

718
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:33,359
Speaker 1: television for a while, and you know, they put up

719
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: with a lot when you are By the time the

720
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: Smothers got thrown off, a lot of things that happened,

721
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: and they were maybe seventeen. Today, they wouldn't consider throwing

722
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: the seventeen show up, but in those days that was considered.

723
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 1: You know, we had been number one, We'd set a

724
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: pretty high gund bar um. So we would always kind

725
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: of modify it and keep it down. And there was

726
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 1: a William Morris agent named Stamp came in and he

727
00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: kept everything. We all kind of controlled the volatility. And

728
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,839
Speaker 1: the other thing about the Smothers is Dick was super conservative.

729
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 1: Tommy was the liberal one. Tommy was hanging out with

730
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary and doing LSD and and hanging out with

731
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: there was I can't remember his first his first name now,

732
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: but there was a h Federal Communications remember who was

733
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 1: a rebel and Tommy would hang out with him, and

734
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 1: he would urge Tommy to you know, to be as

735
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 1: controversial as possible. And Tommy would think, wow, this is

736
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 1: the FCC, so telling me this, you know, but but

737
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty crazy and okay, a couple

738
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 1: of things. How did you end up getting the partner?

739
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 1: Ken Fritz hired him as a road manager for the Smothers.

740
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: And then, uh, uh, Tommy, you know when when I

741
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: found this a lot when an act is on the

742
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 1: road with a guy who's there every night. I mean

743
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: the early days, it was me, you know, always with

744
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: the act. But once I got more successful, I was

745
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: not going as much because I had too many other

746
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: responsibilities and also felt staying in l A I could

747
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: do a better job for my group. I go out

748
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: on all the big things. But if ken Fritz was

749
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: traveling as a road manager for a couple of years,

750
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: and uh, finally Tommy said, you gotta make him a partner,

751
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: and I already had a partner at that a guy

752
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: out of Boston. So for a short while we were

753
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 1: three ways was the guy out of Boston? Oh God,

754
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:32,760
Speaker 1: I'm tom Oh well, what was how did he get involved?

755
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 1: I can't remember how he got involved, but I know

756
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 1: I originally he may have been I may have been

757
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: involved with him when I was doing concerts or something. Yeah,

758
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: but by the way, he did a very key thing

759
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,240
Speaker 1: when I moved. I was I first started out working

760
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: out of San Francisco. When I decided to move to

761
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, or we decided to put our offices in

762
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: l A, Tom Carroll said to me, we're going to

763
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,359
Speaker 1: go to l A. We're gonna have We're gonna be

764
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: the most honest guys with the best reputation and business

765
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: is going to be the path to our door. That

766
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: I mean Tom Carol unfortunately died early young, but Tom

767
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:15,440
Speaker 1: I felt he was so right. That's what I did,

768
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: And literally I never had to run after an act.

769
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: I think in all the years, the only act other

770
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: than maybe the Smothers, which really wasn't running after him.

771
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: But but other than that, um, you know, Bill Medley

772
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: and Righteous Brothers were the one act I ever heard

773
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: ran after and we didn't get him. I got I

774
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: got Medley years later as a solo artist, but I

775
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: never managed him. Okay, So during this period you also

776
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: have first edition, the Kenny Riding the first station comes along.

777
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: After the Smothers are on the air for a year

778
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 1: and and very hot, and a lawyer keeps calling me

779
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: and bugging me to go see this group at a

780
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:57,800
Speaker 1: little club called Leadbetters. Leadbetters was owned by the leader

781
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 1: of the New Christie Mistrels. The group him out of

782
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: the New CHRISTI instruls. Kenny Rogers was a member of

783
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: the group, and I went down finally and saw them

784
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: after six weeks of this lawyer in l A. It's

785
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: in l A on Westwood Boulevard, or it was no

786
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: longer there, And I went down there and flipped and

787
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: I brought Mason Williams and Tommy Smothers the next night

788
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: or the next week or whenever, and they flipped for him,

789
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 1: and we put him on the show and started managing

790
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: right away. And Kenny Rodgers was part of the group,

791
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: but he wasn't. He was singing lead on some of

792
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 1: the songs, but he wasn't the key member in it.

793
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: He didn't didn't become Kenny Rogers in the first edition

794
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 1: until a couple of years or a year at least

795
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: a year later. So how does just dropped in to

796
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: see what condition my condition was in. That was the

797
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: initial big hit. How did that come together? You know,

798
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: I don't remember how the song got in there. I

799
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: do know that was a song that kind of changed

800
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: things for us. That and Ruby Don't Take Your Love

801
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: to Town and Lucy Well Lucy a for Kenny as

802
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: a solors um. But but the thing was that Kenny

803
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: became the lead voice on a lot of those and

804
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: we had a hit going up the charts. And I

805
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,760
Speaker 1: remember meeting with Mo Austin and Joe Smith at Warners

806
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: and them saying, we've got to do something because this

807
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,000
Speaker 1: record is starting to get play and we've got another

808
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: record that's way up the charts. What do we do?

809
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 1: And we sat there and somehow in the group we

810
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 1: made a decision that since Kenny was the lead on

811
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,439
Speaker 1: I think it was Ruby Um, that it would be

812
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers and the first edition for one of them,

813
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: in the first edition for the other. It was a

814
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: group happy with this. No, okay, during this area, you're

815
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 1: managing the Smothers, you manage the first edition managing anybody else. Yeah,

816
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 1: I had three or four let's see, from the Smothers

817
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:57,280
Speaker 1: Brothers show. I had a fabulous, probably the best banjo

818
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:01,640
Speaker 1: player in America, John Hartford, uh uh, who became kind

819
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: of a sidekick on the on the Glenn Campbell Show.

820
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: By the way, I I literally found Glenn Campbell for

821
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 1: that show to be the summer replacement for the Smothers

822
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: when I was tasked with that job by watching. In

823
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: those days, the tapes that you viewed were these heavy, huge,

824
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: heavy video tapes. There were two inches wide. They I

825
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: don't know how much they weighed, but I could barely

826
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: carry one. And I had to watch fifty of those.

827
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: I had a hundred hundred acts to watch, hundred artists

828
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: to see who would host the show. And when it

829
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 1: got to number fifty, actually number fifty, exactly halfway through,

830
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:44,399
Speaker 1: Glenn Campbell was there. Uh, And I ran upstairs, got

831
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: Tommy Smithers, brought him down to the screening room, said

832
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: here's our guy. And we never looked at the other fifty. Okay,

833
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: so uh, Now it ends with the Smothers brothers. What's

834
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: keeping the door open? That the first edition and they're

835
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 1: they're hot in the US, and then we also as

836
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: they start to cool here, we get an offer to

837
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 1: tour in New Zealand and believe it or not, We

838
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:11,919
Speaker 1: go to New Zealand were treated like the Beatles. It's

839
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: unreal how hot we get in New Zealand. We make

840
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:19,919
Speaker 1: three tours there and I literally spent probably six months

841
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: of my life in New Zealand, which is an incredible

842
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: country visually, and everything else conservative is all get out.

843
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: I mean everything Saturday afternoon until Monday morning, everything closed closed.

844
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 1: In those days. It was, you know, quite a different experience,

845
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: but it was the most fabulous country visually. Uh you know.

846
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: So anyway, so first edition is driving, But I have

847
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: other clients during that period of time. I've been handling

848
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: Mason Williams out of the I had Bob Einstein, who

849
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: went on ended up being Super Day Super Dave. Yeah.

850
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: By the way, I just recently went to the memorial

851
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: service for Bob Einstein and he had to his two brothers,

852
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: one of whom his head of a big advertising agency, Cliff,

853
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:07,279
Speaker 1: and the other one is Albert Brooks, the comedian. So

854
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: Cliffs gets up to and and does a whole thing

855
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: on Bob from beginning to end. It's like thirty minutes.

856
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: Everybody else is talking five just Seinfeld was there, All

857
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 1: kinds of people Tommy smothers were there. They all talked

858
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: five or ten minutes. Cliff does this whole big long thing,

859
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:29,800
Speaker 1: and he's followed by Albert Brooks. If anybody knows wonderful

860
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,359
Speaker 1: comedian movie maker move, you know. Albert Brooks gets up there.

861
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,839
Speaker 1: He has this sheaf of papers in his hand and

862
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 1: he throws him up in the air and he says, well,

863
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: the heck with that. They told me Cliff had died.

864
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: That's good, great, And then he says, but now I

865
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 1: hear Cliff speak. Jeez, I went out to move my

866
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:55,920
Speaker 1: car twice while Cliff speak. He brought the house that.

867
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: It was the best two lines of the night. It

868
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: was hysterical. I just that. I mean, that family was

869
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: so funny, and their father was a guy name of

870
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: all things, whoever remembers this father was a comedian named

871
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 1: Parker Carcass. That was his name, I mean his stage name,

872
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, But I had Einstein, I had Mason Williams,

873
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:21,240
Speaker 1: I had John Hartford. Oh, I had Jennifer Warren, uh

874
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,479
Speaker 1: you know. And and somewhere in that period of time,

875
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: I think maybe it was a little later, Jennifer and

876
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: Bill Medley did fabulous songs for the movie. Uh. So

877
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: I had a lot going on during that period. Uh.

878
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: But then I went to work for Jerry Wander. How

879
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: did that come about? I used to collect old cars,

880
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:50,280
Speaker 1: antique cars, and Kenny gave me an old nineteen uh

881
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: Ford with a little Ford coupe with a with a

882
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: rumble seat, and I had a park somewhere I was.

883
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: I drove it around town and a note came on

884
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: my window and said, we're doing this thing in Vegas,

885
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: the show in Vegas, and we're using antique cars and stuff.

886
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 1: Could we use your car? Actually, first around l A,

887
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 1: it was a group called the Do Dog Gang. I

888
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember it. You're talking about the

889
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,839
Speaker 1: people did the parade and they did all kinds of

890
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 1: things that they that they they were They played as

891
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: if they were nine. So there was Big Jim and

892
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: he was a gangster, and they were all hoodlums and

893
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: there were a rival gang and they'd have shootouts in

894
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: l A. In fact, he gets married to this lady

895
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,680
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be she's a dancer from a chorus

896
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: line in Chicago, because he's from Chicago. And they get

897
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: married at the Beverly Hills hotel and as they're walking

898
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: out of the hotel, the rival gang kidnaps. Her name

899
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 1: was I can't remember what her name was, but Bob

900
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: Boop see something or something like that, you know, and

901
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: then they go in to shootout around town. So we

902
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: opened in Vegas. They talked me into coming up and

903
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 1: helping produce a show in Vegas at the at the

904
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: Flamingo and it failed, and um but it failed. The

905
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,799
Speaker 1: week that Time magazine did a fabulous review of it.

906
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:16,919
Speaker 1: We just couldn't We couldn't get a second show going.

907
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 1: We were in a side room. Didn't work anyway. I

908
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: limped back to l A. And I had loaned the

909
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: show what amounted to my life savings to pay the

910
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: very last week's salary, thinking we were getting money. But

911
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:32,720
Speaker 1: we didn't. So I lost my money. So I'm now broke.

912
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: I've got my house in my car and an antique

913
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:41,240
Speaker 1: piano from the show and that's it. And and somehow

914
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: or other, I found Jerry Weintrop and he hired me.

915
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: Hired me for nothing. I mean, it wasn't much, but

916
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: it was enough to keep me alive at the at

917
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: that point in time. And I worked for him for

918
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: two years. And I learned an enormous I learned an

919
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: enormous amount from it. Uh good and bad. I have

920
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: to be a couple of things. What was good what

921
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 1: was bad. The good things were things like you play

922
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: uh l A and New York for the career, and

923
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: you play the rest of the country for the money. Okay,

924
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: I mean for him by the way I handled the carpenters.

925
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: I worked with John uh John Davidson, I worked with

926
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:22,280
Speaker 1: with John Denver. We had all we had all the d's.

927
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 1: We had Davis and Denver was unbelievable. We even had

928
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: Dylan for a while. I remember walking down the hall

929
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:32,080
Speaker 1: and Bob Dylan's walking towards me. The Colonel used to

930
00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 1: come and hang out in my office. Colonel Tom Parker

931
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 1: would hang out in my office anyway. In that, you know,

932
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:40,359
Speaker 1: That's what I learned that what I the problem was

933
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: Jerry was driven by power and money. You know, I'm

934
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 1: very driven by those things, and that's just not my style.

935
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 1: It's not what I you know. So those were like

936
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: the Kings, and and so I learned things not to do.

937
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: But I really learned a lot from him. On a

938
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: positive side, he was incredibly sick Cessil and he had

939
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:03,520
Speaker 1: a thing called Concerts West, which is still around now.

940
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,400
Speaker 1: Uh that was part of the company and they produced everybody,

941
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 1: and they did all the Sinatra tours. I got to

942
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: work with Sinatra and stuff. It was pretty fun. I mean, now,

943
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: at the time, you're still managing Kenny Rogers. No, Kenny

944
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: had left, the group had broken up. That was the

945
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: other thing that had happened before. Right around that time,

946
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 1: the first edition broke up. But I wasn't making much

947
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:27,319
Speaker 1: from them anyway. They were in the very, very downside

948
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 1: of their career. Uh So I at that point in time,

949
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: I went, you know, I'm going to work for Jerry.

950
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 1: Was kind of salvation for me at that moment in time,

951
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 1: and um, I kind of lost my trend. Thought, I'm sorry, no, okay,

952
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 1: So how do you decide to leave Jerry? Oh yeah,

953
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,439
Speaker 1: that's exactly. Let me right back into the Kenny Rogers thing.

954
00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 1: So Kenny goes to Nashville, meets up with Larry Butler,

955
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 1: starts to record song since a seventeen song. I sit

956
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 1: in Jerry had his own promotion department. The three guys

957
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: from the promotion department and I sit in the little

958
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 1: room we had with the great speakers and stuff, and

959
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 1: we listened to these seventeen songs and we hear Lucy

960
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:14,800
Speaker 1: Elle and a couple of other songs that became big hits,

961
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: and we're pretty mesrized with it. And so I want

962
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 1: to and I want to sign Kenny, and Jerry says, oh,

963
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:24,800
Speaker 1: he's washed up and so over. It's not going to happen.

964
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:28,359
Speaker 1: Don't do that now, you know that'd be straight and so.

965
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: But over his objection, I signed Kenny, which, by the way,

966
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: ultimately made Jerry several millions, and after I had left him,

967
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: by the way, um so, anyway, Kenny knows that Jerry

968
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,840
Speaker 1: didn't want him as a client. I don't remember. I

969
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: doubt if I said that directly, but he knew. Uh.

970
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: As Kenny starts to become successful, he says to me,

971
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. You can either go with me or not,

972
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,840
Speaker 1: but it's up to you. Well, you know, now Kenny's

973
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 1: my hot client. I've got others. I've got Dottie West

974
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 1: the singer, and I've got I'm working with Harry Chapin

975
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 1: and and who Jerry had signed, and a few others.

976
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: So I decided to leave Jerry very contentious decision. It

977
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:21,560
Speaker 1: wasn't pleasant. But so what did Jerry? Sorry, yeah, give

978
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 1: me a few million dollars and you can go. And

979
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 1: he was paying me next to nothing. Um No, but

980
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: he did keep a piece of Kenny for a couple

981
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 1: of years, which turned out to be a couple of

982
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:36,239
Speaker 1: big years. Um So in any event, um, and he

983
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 1: became very fair. Used to come over and visit me

984
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,400
Speaker 1: at my other once. I became very successful with the

985
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:43,279
Speaker 1: new new acts. I mean, I've been there before during

986
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,759
Speaker 1: the mother's days being real hot, but I got very

987
00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 1: hot in the eighties, as you know. And uh, and

988
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: Jerry would just drop by and his in his sweat clothes,

989
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 1: come over and sit in my office. You know. It's funny. Uh,

990
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 1: sort of like Colonel Tom Parker did. It was interesting.

991
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:05,320
Speaker 1: But but when I left Kenny, I bought a little

992
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:08,959
Speaker 1: house on Shaborne Drive here in Los Angeles that would

993
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 1: have been Casablanca Records and Neil Bogart's place, and but

994
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 1: it was the record company. Uh, and you know, set

995
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 1: up an office there and started managing acts and had

996
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: almost huge success from the very beginning because Kenny was

997
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: read hot and he was getting out of all the

998
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,520
Speaker 1: time and I was really able then I was able

999
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 1: to probably use whatever skills I had as a manager

1000
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: really came into play in that period. Who's the next

1001
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 1: big act? Dr? Kenny? Uh, Lionel Ritchie and how did

1002
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 1: you get Lionel Richie been with the Commodores? How did

1003
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:52,319
Speaker 1: he come to you? He came to me because Kenny

1004
00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: had been very hot on the country charts and was

1005
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: now doing extremely well popped. People don't kind of realize,

1006
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 1: but the first act to really cross from country to

1007
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:06,320
Speaker 1: pop and keep his foot in both was Kenny Rogers,

1008
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 1: and he decided there was one other chart at the time.

1009
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,719
Speaker 1: He decided he wanted to be number one on the

1010
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 1: R and B charts, so he Uh. He went to

1011
00:57:17,680 --> 00:57:20,160
Speaker 1: Jim as It, who was running the record company, and said,

1012
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 1: I want to have an R and B head And

1013
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: Jim said, well, there's only one guy around to write

1014
00:57:24,800 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 1: it for you. It's Lionel Richie. And I think Lionel

1015
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 1: was in Vegas. Al the Linel remembers is the opposite.

1016
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: He remembers that he went to Vegas to visit Kenny.

1017
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: But the story I've always known was Kenny went to

1018
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: Vegas to visit Lionel and Lionel played him what he

1019
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 1: had of this song and then wrote it for Kenny,

1020
00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 1: which was Lady, which became one of Kenny's very biggest hits,

1021
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:50,320
Speaker 1: and produced it for him and everything. So it was

1022
00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: quite something and and he Uh So, all of a sudden,

1023
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,720
Speaker 1: I had two huge acts. One of the things I'm

1024
00:57:57,720 --> 00:58:04,920
Speaker 1: extremely proud of his one through into two. For eighteen months,

1025
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: I had forty eight percent of the top ten records

1026
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 1: in America were my clients over an eighteen minute period

1027
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: month period for eighteen months. Okay, so who was it?

1028
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 1: It was Kenny, it was Lionel, it was Kim Carnes

1029
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 1: with Betty Davis eyes and a lot don't fall in

1030
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: Love with a Dreamer, which she did with Kenny. Uh.

1031
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: You know, she had a whole series of hits. Uh

1032
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: had we had the Jay Giles band at that time

1033
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 1: with freeze Frame and you know a lot of the

1034
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 1: other songs. Um, I hadn't taken on Olivia yet, and

1035
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: I didn't have big hits with Olivia. Later on. I

1036
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 1: had Olivia, John and the Bigs for short periods of time,

1037
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:49,640
Speaker 1: and Burt Reynolds for a very short less than a year. Uh.

1038
00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to think who all the others were

1039
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: right in that period. But you know, Lionel and Kenny

1040
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 1: would have more than one hit in the top ten

1041
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 1: at times. Okay, So lionle to manager and he just

1042
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 1: called you up and said, I want to go with you. No,

1043
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:06,959
Speaker 1: we were doing after we did, lady. We flew down

1044
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 1: to Tuskegee for a TV special and for and had

1045
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: the Commodores as a guest. I have a great picture

1046
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 1: with all of them. And they were managed by Benny Ashburne.

1047
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 1: I think, boy picking names out of my head that

1048
00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'm doing it. Uh, And and

1049
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 1: they were, and he was he had really done a

1050
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 1: lot for the group. But Lionel came to me and

1051
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 1: said he and his wife at the time, Brenda, and said,

1052
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 1: you know, we want to we want Lina wants to

1053
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 1: go solo and he wants to do this. And I said, look,

1054
00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna. I've never stolen an act from another manager,

1055
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 1: you know, so you gotta if you leave Benny, come

1056
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 1: to me when you're free, which he did very quickly,

1057
00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 1: and he always felt very bad about it because Benny

1058
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 1: probably in another year or maybe less, Benny died yeah. So,

1059
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 1: and Lionel took that hard of it. I mean, you

1060
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:04,480
Speaker 1: think these were the tracks were really hot because he

1061
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:08,800
Speaker 1: had all night long. Yeah, yeah, he had. He had

1062
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 1: so many hits in in a period of time. But

1063
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 1: remember Kenny was having hits then two Kenny's got like

1064
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:18,320
Speaker 1: fifty number one records. Lionel was having one hit after another.

1065
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: Lena was taking more time. Kenny would get a record.

1066
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 1: Kenny could record a record in Nashville, and he could

1067
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 1: do it in three days, okay, three days, you know.

1068
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:32,720
Speaker 1: Lino would take a year and a half, you know,

1069
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: and the record company would be calling for the last

1070
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: six months, calling me every day, is it ready yet?

1071
01:00:38,400 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 1: Is it ready yet? They were trying to schedule it

1072
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 1: as it ready in line, it will be going I

1073
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 1: need one more song, I need one I've got to

1074
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:48,120
Speaker 1: tweak this or whatever. So that the style was so different,

1075
01:00:48,200 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 1: you know. Okay. The question, of course is would they

1076
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:55,200
Speaker 1: have been as successful if they had not been with you. Well,

1077
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:57,920
Speaker 1: that's a trick question. I'll tell you why, because if

1078
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 1: I didn't believe that was true, wouldn't be any good

1079
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: at what I do or what I did. I don't

1080
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: do that much anymore now, but I believed that was

1081
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 1: the best manager in the business, not the only good

1082
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 1: one and not but I and not doing it the

1083
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 1: same way others did you know if he went to

1084
01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 1: Peter Asher who ended up managing Linda Runstad and James

1085
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: Taylor and others. You know, he was a record producer,

1086
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:27,040
Speaker 1: He's been an act He've been part of Peter and Gordon,

1087
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:30,360
Speaker 1: isn't yeah, um, you know, but he was a wonderful

1088
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: record producer and would produce incredible music with him. What

1089
01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:36,080
Speaker 1: he did in the rest of the areas, I'm not

1090
01:01:36,120 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 1: sure because I never followed that part of it, but

1091
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 1: he had great success with his act. Um. You know,

1092
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: Sandy Gallen and and Jim Morey and some of the

1093
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 1: other managers in the business that were successful worked different ways.

1094
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:53,200
Speaker 1: They were they were tougher, They were probably better negotiators

1095
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:58,480
Speaker 1: than me. I always felt my strength was twofold one

1096
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:04,200
Speaker 1: picking the right artist, some gut feel for who has talent?

1097
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:08,400
Speaker 1: Where is that X factor? Where what's totally different about

1098
01:02:08,400 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: this person in some way? It doesn't have to be everything.

1099
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:13,320
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of things may not. It may

1100
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:15,360
Speaker 1: not be good to be different in every way, but

1101
01:02:15,480 --> 01:02:20,600
Speaker 1: what's unusual what's special, what's the wow factor, what's why? Why?

1102
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: You know? Where's the I could feel the charisma of

1103
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: certain artists when they walk in the room. They didn't

1104
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:30,520
Speaker 1: have to do anything. Give me a couple of examples. Um,

1105
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:33,600
Speaker 1: that's interesting, that's a good, good question. I'd have to

1106
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:37,800
Speaker 1: think about it for a minute. Um, you know, I mean,

1107
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 1: certainly Lionel had it and Kenny had it. Um, great, great,

1108
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:49,880
Speaker 1: Kenny illustration Slightly different than that answer. I felt what

1109
01:02:49,960 --> 01:02:53,320
Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers could do was like what Michael Jordan did

1110
01:02:53,360 --> 01:02:57,120
Speaker 1: on the basketball court. If the chips were down, if

1111
01:02:57,160 --> 01:02:59,600
Speaker 1: if he had to hit the shot to win the game,

1112
01:03:00,240 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 1: he would take his game up and hit the shot.

1113
01:03:03,400 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: I found Kenny every time there was a challenge there,

1114
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 1: he dialed it up. Yeah. I know, this is like

1115
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:11,840
Speaker 1: sports starters. You can hang with him every day and

1116
01:03:11,880 --> 01:03:14,520
Speaker 1: he could be better than them. But when competition comes

1117
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:18,560
Speaker 1: there just there's one thing, you know, they just and

1118
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 1: a part of it is they don't want to fail.

1119
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:25,680
Speaker 1: Part of it is they're absolutely determined not to be embarrassed,

1120
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:29,160
Speaker 1: not to fail. I listened. I gave a fiftieth birthday

1121
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: party for Kenny Rogers at the Mountain Gate, which the

1122
01:03:32,200 --> 01:03:36,520
Speaker 1: golf course here in l a And and I live

1123
01:03:36,560 --> 01:03:40,040
Speaker 1: across the street from it. But I gave a party

1124
01:03:40,080 --> 01:03:43,080
Speaker 1: there as a surprise for Kenny. And he was out

1125
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:46,080
Speaker 1: on the golf of course, playing in a foursome that day.

1126
01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 1: He didn't know there was any party coming. And flew

1127
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:52,760
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton in flew his original jazz group, the Bobby

1128
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:57,120
Speaker 1: Doyle Tree in trio in. We had all things scheduled,

1129
01:03:57,360 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 1: and Kenny's playing the course and I got the fifty

1130
01:04:00,640 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 1: people are so attending to hide behind trees and rocks

1131
01:04:04,600 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: around the ninth hole. And what I had told him

1132
01:04:08,680 --> 01:04:11,320
Speaker 1: was when he find when he hits the final punt,

1133
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: you jump out, yell surprise, happy birthday or whatever. Well

1134
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: he's off the green, and somehow or other, the minute

1135
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:23,480
Speaker 1: they see him, they all jump out from behind the rocks,

1136
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:26,640
Speaker 1: and you know, and they and they yell surprise, and

1137
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 1: he's he's, you know, twenty ft off the green. He

1138
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:35,360
Speaker 1: chips to nine feet and he sinks the putt. I

1139
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:38,680
Speaker 1: went to I said, all you need is a little pressure.

1140
01:04:39,080 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 1: All you need, I said, you could go on the

1141
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: pro tour. You know, I mean, he he was He

1142
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:45,800
Speaker 1: was a good golfer, but he wasn't that level or

1143
01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:47,720
Speaker 1: you're gonna do that with a hundred and fifty people

1144
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:51,880
Speaker 1: standing around at yelling surprise. But but that was typical

1145
01:04:51,920 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 1: of me, of that Michael Jordan's quality that you see,

1146
01:04:55,400 --> 01:05:01,680
Speaker 1: or the Kobe Bryant quality, that competitiveness. Uh uh So. Anyway,

1147
01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:03,880
Speaker 1: what I started to say is I have some kind

1148
01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: of a gut feel for who has that extra dimension

1149
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:11,040
Speaker 1: and it's got to excite me. It's got to be

1150
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:14,120
Speaker 1: something that I feel like, oh boy, there really is

1151
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: something cool happening here, even if it isn't my genre

1152
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: music I would listen to normally, If it's quality, if

1153
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:25,360
Speaker 1: it's different, if it's unique, then that's that's the biggest

1154
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:29,840
Speaker 1: that's the number one. Number two. I think I take

1155
01:05:30,040 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 1: everything I'm working on and try and take it up

1156
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: to another level, almost like what I'm talking about with

1157
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 1: the artist. I always try to find the piece of it,

1158
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:42,040
Speaker 1: what how can we make this something bigger than it

1159
01:05:42,160 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 1: might otherwise be? So and I feel extremely creative. I

1160
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:50,760
Speaker 1: think my strengths are creative vision of stuff. How do

1161
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 1: you how do you take stuff? Whatever I'm working on,

1162
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:57,080
Speaker 1: I mean, whether it was you know, the great charity

1163
01:05:57,080 --> 01:06:01,600
Speaker 1: projects have done that are very historical. It's always finding

1164
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:04,680
Speaker 1: that way to have a wow factor, to have something

1165
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 1: that takes it to another level. And those are those

1166
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 1: are my areas of strength. I'm not the strongest negotiator

1167
01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:13,920
Speaker 1: in the world. I negotiate differently than some of the

1168
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: tougher guys I know in the business. I still get

1169
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:20,000
Speaker 1: it good stuff, but I start with acts that can

1170
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:23,440
Speaker 1: demand that that that are going to get that anyway. Okay,

1171
01:06:23,440 --> 01:06:25,800
Speaker 1: but didn't you you develop some of these acts like

1172
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:29,720
Speaker 1: Travis Tritt and Trishanyrwood from the beginning the same way,

1173
01:06:30,160 --> 01:06:34,000
Speaker 1: same way, figure out, you know, bottom line, figure out

1174
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: what's needed at that moment in time for that day,

1175
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:41,320
Speaker 1: even what what's the most important thing you can accomplish

1176
01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:46,240
Speaker 1: today and go after that and make it happen, and

1177
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:49,920
Speaker 1: um so on each of those acts. I mean Travis Tritt,

1178
01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:52,280
Speaker 1: when I first saw him, it was because of Warner

1179
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:56,120
Speaker 1: Brothers promotion. Guy called me and said, you've got to

1180
01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: come to Atlanta and see this act. And he just

1181
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 1: and and I trust did him enough that I really

1182
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: had to go do it. And he blew my mind

1183
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:09,080
Speaker 1: in his live performance. And Jim Ed Norman, who was

1184
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:12,720
Speaker 1: running the Warner Brothers in Nashville, was there, and he

1185
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:17,880
Speaker 1: Travis had a singles deal, and uh. And I turned

1186
01:07:17,880 --> 01:07:21,520
Speaker 1: to Jim in and I said, Jim had um, he's

1187
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 1: not going to record anymore for you unless he has

1188
01:07:24,400 --> 01:07:27,440
Speaker 1: an album deal. You've got to agree to put make

1189
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: turn this into an album deal, which he did. But

1190
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:33,840
Speaker 1: I looked at Travis Tritt and I went, this is

1191
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,760
Speaker 1: a great live performer, this guy. This is a guy

1192
01:07:37,240 --> 01:07:40,680
Speaker 1: who's sensational on stage. So the first thing I went

1193
01:07:40,840 --> 01:07:44,000
Speaker 1: did is I went out and bought an old I

1194
01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:48,280
Speaker 1: think it was Randy Travis or somebody's tour concession bus,

1195
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:51,360
Speaker 1: so he had a bus so he could tour. Because

1196
01:07:51,840 --> 01:07:54,040
Speaker 1: we couldn't afford to fly him from day to day.

1197
01:07:54,760 --> 01:07:57,920
Speaker 1: We just started taking him everywhere across the country, playing

1198
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:01,720
Speaker 1: in clubs and anything else, but creating excitement because in

1199
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:04,400
Speaker 1: every city he went into, it wasn't so the important

1200
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 1: thing wasn't so much the audience. We didn't need to

1201
01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:09,320
Speaker 1: get an audience to react, but it was the record

1202
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:11,720
Speaker 1: people that we brought in, the DJs and the program

1203
01:08:11,760 --> 01:08:15,200
Speaker 1: directors and song in every city so that we created

1204
01:08:15,280 --> 01:08:19,120
Speaker 1: excitement out there. Because he could do that in person, phenomenal,

1205
01:08:19,320 --> 01:08:23,400
Speaker 1: great songs, terrific songwriter, and he might have hit even

1206
01:08:23,439 --> 01:08:27,040
Speaker 1: if he didn't to her, but touring was his biggest strength.

1207
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:34,759
Speaker 1: And what about Tricia Herewood. It's interesting Tricia Herewood. Again,

1208
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:37,160
Speaker 1: by the way, in those days, I rarely, if ever,

1209
01:08:37,240 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: I ran after an act. I mean I didn't, and

1210
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:42,840
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't after Tricia. Somebody brought me Tricia, maybe

1211
01:08:42,840 --> 01:08:46,280
Speaker 1: the record company, and it might have been um the

1212
01:08:46,320 --> 01:08:48,080
Speaker 1: president record company. I think it was an m C

1213
01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:52,880
Speaker 1: A um uh and I but I wasn't sure she

1214
01:08:52,960 --> 01:08:55,040
Speaker 1: was going to take me as a manager. And she

1215
01:08:55,200 --> 01:08:57,280
Speaker 1: flew out here to meet with the people out here,

1216
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 1: and we were walking up to the off this and

1217
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 1: I turned to her and I said, am I going

1218
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:08,080
Speaker 1: in as your friend or your manager? And she said,

1219
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:12,240
Speaker 1: you're my manager? Right there? It was that was the question,

1220
01:09:12,360 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: you know. And and then that's the funny part of

1221
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:17,920
Speaker 1: this was that night we went to Spago here you

1222
01:09:17,920 --> 01:09:21,280
Speaker 1: know when it was used to be yeah, was my

1223
01:09:21,360 --> 01:09:24,840
Speaker 1: office was the next block. And uh so we we

1224
01:09:24,960 --> 01:09:27,160
Speaker 1: go to Spago and we're sitting there just she and

1225
01:09:27,560 --> 01:09:31,120
Speaker 1: me at a table, and a little lady comes up

1226
01:09:31,520 --> 01:09:33,839
Speaker 1: and with a pad and a pin and a pencil,

1227
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:36,720
Speaker 1: and Tricia and I were both thinking, she's coming to

1228
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:39,000
Speaker 1: get Tricia. Tricia had number one record, She's in love

1229
01:09:39,080 --> 01:09:43,000
Speaker 1: with a boy. The lady says Mr Craig, and Mr Craig,

1230
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:46,439
Speaker 1: and will you sign one thing? So I'm thinking on

1231
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:49,439
Speaker 1: my feet fast. And when she leaves, I turned to

1232
01:09:49,479 --> 01:09:53,160
Speaker 1: Creatricia and I said, Tricia, you realize our job now

1233
01:09:53,439 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 1: is to see that you're big enough that that never happened, okay.

1234
01:09:58,479 --> 01:10:01,040
Speaker 1: And I just had a leisure with one of my

1235
01:10:01,120 --> 01:10:05,000
Speaker 1: tricks in those days I learned from Jerry wein trump Um.

1236
01:10:05,040 --> 01:10:08,040
Speaker 1: It was a guy named Joe Layton who was the

1237
01:10:08,080 --> 01:10:10,800
Speaker 1: most brilliant stage or. He'd come from Broadway and won

1238
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:14,040
Speaker 1: the Tony a few times, and he was staging people

1239
01:10:14,040 --> 01:10:17,280
Speaker 1: like Bet Midler and Share and people like that, and

1240
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:20,599
Speaker 1: he was brilliant at staging. And I had gotten him

1241
01:10:20,600 --> 01:10:24,120
Speaker 1: to stage line Ritchie and then Kenny and Dolly went

1242
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:26,280
Speaker 1: they went on to her and others. And he always

1243
01:10:26,320 --> 01:10:30,479
Speaker 1: did amazing things. He did Diana Russ's tours, did everything,

1244
01:10:30,640 --> 01:10:35,559
Speaker 1: and he was incredibly good at surprising the audience. He

1245
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:39,440
Speaker 1: would create amazing stuff the way he did it. And

1246
01:10:39,439 --> 01:10:42,160
Speaker 1: and so I brought him in to do Tricia Herwood,

1247
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:45,320
Speaker 1: and she had been very stiff on stage and hard

1248
01:10:45,360 --> 01:10:49,880
Speaker 1: to move around and everything, and she just blossomed. She

1249
01:10:50,040 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 1: had an inner they all did, really but that wasn't

1250
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:57,680
Speaker 1: her thing. And he gave her confidence on stage and

1251
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:00,479
Speaker 1: gave her a show that she could do really well

1252
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:04,040
Speaker 1: and it and it helped to move things along in

1253
01:11:04,080 --> 01:11:06,720
Speaker 1: a wonderful way. And then you have to know, when

1254
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:09,640
Speaker 1: I was managing triciaan Travis's is the end of the

1255
01:11:09,640 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 1: eighties beginning of the nineties, I was so established, you know.

1256
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:18,040
Speaker 1: I could pick up I remember Regis and Cathy. They

1257
01:11:18,040 --> 01:11:21,280
Speaker 1: had that Gelman as their producer and they used to

1258
01:11:21,280 --> 01:11:24,840
Speaker 1: refer to them all. I can't remember his first name now, anyway,

1259
01:11:25,200 --> 01:11:28,800
Speaker 1: I could pick up the phone, call him and say

1260
01:11:29,040 --> 01:11:32,200
Speaker 1: I've just signed this act Travis Tritt, and he'd say,

1261
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:35,320
Speaker 1: send him back, We'll put him on. Because they knew

1262
01:11:35,520 --> 01:11:39,400
Speaker 1: the quality of the artists I represented, and they wanted

1263
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:42,840
Speaker 1: they needed me when they wanted Kenny Rodgers or Line

1264
01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:48,720
Speaker 1: or my other superstars. So I had leverage and I

1265
01:11:48,800 --> 01:11:53,840
Speaker 1: had credibility, you know, and those things worked. So how

1266
01:11:53,880 --> 01:11:56,680
Speaker 1: about Gallagher tell me the story of God? You love

1267
01:11:56,760 --> 01:12:00,320
Speaker 1: this so I go to a TV show I don't

1268
01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:05,200
Speaker 1: remember which one, but with Bill Medley. Bill's performing and

1269
01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:08,920
Speaker 1: this comedian is on the show and he blows again.

1270
01:12:09,040 --> 01:12:14,160
Speaker 1: I'm just seeing star power. There's something so unique, so special.

1271
01:12:14,280 --> 01:12:18,160
Speaker 1: So you know, he's prior to any of these prop comics,

1272
01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:21,800
Speaker 1: and he's got props and he's smashing watermelons and he's

1273
01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:24,080
Speaker 1: doing all kind of crazy though, And so I give

1274
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:26,160
Speaker 1: him my card. He didn't even want to take my car.

1275
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:30,000
Speaker 1: Now I don't need a manager, so I start inviting

1276
01:12:30,040 --> 01:12:32,280
Speaker 1: him to things we're doing. Like I would stage a

1277
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:38,240
Speaker 1: big baseball game, softball game up in Vegas with Kenny

1278
01:12:38,320 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 1: Rodgers and doing it playing the local media with a

1279
01:12:42,040 --> 01:12:45,000
Speaker 1: team he and his band and stuff. And Kenny was

1280
01:12:45,040 --> 01:12:48,240
Speaker 1: a really first class softball pitcher, so he could really

1281
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:51,080
Speaker 1: pitch underhand, fast and good. And we would do that

1282
01:12:51,080 --> 01:12:52,880
Speaker 1: all the time. So if id gallery to fly up

1283
01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:54,679
Speaker 1: with us and be part of all of a sudden,

1284
01:12:54,680 --> 01:12:58,800
Speaker 1: he's running after me for management and so and I

1285
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:00,960
Speaker 1: put him on. So I I put him on tour

1286
01:13:01,080 --> 01:13:05,080
Speaker 1: with Kenny. Actually I think I signed him first. And

1287
01:13:05,080 --> 01:13:07,559
Speaker 1: and I went to a luncheon, my wife and I

1288
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:10,519
Speaker 1: went and we sat at lunch with Gallagher, and he

1289
01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:14,839
Speaker 1: trashed everything in the business, trashed everybody, He trashed everything.

1290
01:13:14,920 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: He he was on stage or sitting. This was sitting

1291
01:13:17,400 --> 01:13:19,880
Speaker 1: at lunch prior prior to putting him on tour with

1292
01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:25,160
Speaker 1: I think too great Gallagher stories. So he's he's sitting there,

1293
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:28,040
Speaker 1: we're sitting at lunch and he's telling us what's wrong

1294
01:13:28,120 --> 01:13:31,600
Speaker 1: with everything, and we get up and we leave, and

1295
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:33,880
Speaker 1: my wife on the in the parking lot, I remember

1296
01:13:34,040 --> 01:13:37,679
Speaker 1: distinctly as we're walking out, and says, you're not gonna

1297
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:39,560
Speaker 1: sign him. I mean, there's no way you're going to

1298
01:13:39,680 --> 01:13:41,479
Speaker 1: sign that guy. I mean, that was so negative. I

1299
01:13:41,560 --> 01:13:44,599
Speaker 1: can't believe it, I said, Cathy, I can't promise you that.

1300
01:13:44,680 --> 01:13:48,120
Speaker 1: I said, I'm like a moth to the flame. When

1301
01:13:48,160 --> 01:13:51,599
Speaker 1: I see that level of star quality, when I see

1302
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:55,400
Speaker 1: that level of unique talent, it is just so hard

1303
01:13:55,439 --> 01:13:57,519
Speaker 1: for me to stay away from it, even though I

1304
01:13:57,600 --> 01:14:00,879
Speaker 1: know it's going to be a lot of a a hassle,

1305
01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:03,360
Speaker 1: you know, and it was a lot of work in

1306
01:14:03,400 --> 01:14:05,680
Speaker 1: a hassle. But he was brilliant. But this is the

1307
01:14:06,080 --> 01:14:10,080
Speaker 1: too really funny Gallagher story. One kind of tragic and

1308
01:14:10,360 --> 01:14:15,400
Speaker 1: not exactly but we um I booked him with Kenny

1309
01:14:15,479 --> 01:14:20,200
Speaker 1: Rogers first show. And it's in Aptis, California, little town

1310
01:14:20,280 --> 01:14:26,040
Speaker 1: up near below Sant Jose and everything. And uh, it's

1311
01:14:26,080 --> 01:14:28,160
Speaker 1: a concert in a concert hall and he's up on

1312
01:14:28,280 --> 01:14:30,800
Speaker 1: stage and he used to break a watermelon and it

1313
01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:34,040
Speaker 1: would splatter out, and there's a guy sitting in the

1314
01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:39,280
Speaker 1: center of the front row in a white soup. Now understand,

1315
01:14:39,320 --> 01:14:43,000
Speaker 1: nobody has seen Later on with Gallagher audiences, people would

1316
01:14:43,000 --> 01:14:47,000
Speaker 1: come with plastic and umbrellas and everything. You try to

1317
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:50,960
Speaker 1: trick them, but they become prepared to get squirted and

1318
01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:56,760
Speaker 1: covered with stuff. This guy, nobody's seen him, right, he

1319
01:14:56,880 --> 01:15:01,160
Speaker 1: smashes the watermelon and it goes right onto the guy

1320
01:15:01,400 --> 01:15:04,760
Speaker 1: in the white suit. And I mean, and Kenny's this,

1321
01:15:05,360 --> 01:15:09,360
Speaker 1: it's my act, Kenny headlining, right, I'm We're all panicked.

1322
01:15:09,720 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 1: We run out there, we go up to the guy.

1323
01:15:12,760 --> 01:15:16,400
Speaker 1: We're saying, listen, sorry, we'll get it cleaned, or we

1324
01:15:16,520 --> 01:15:20,000
Speaker 1: probably can't clean it, we'll buy you. Ah No, that

1325
01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:22,400
Speaker 1: was the funniest act I ever saw. You don't have

1326
01:15:22,439 --> 01:15:25,479
Speaker 1: to do it. Wow, I couldn't believe it. We didn't

1327
01:15:25,479 --> 01:15:28,280
Speaker 1: have to do anything. We didn't even take his name. Um,

1328
01:15:28,320 --> 01:15:31,519
Speaker 1: but the other one was kind of crazy. I got.

1329
01:15:32,120 --> 01:15:33,760
Speaker 1: I got a lot of good things for Gallery. I

1330
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:37,120
Speaker 1: sold a series of specials to Showtime I think it was,

1331
01:15:37,600 --> 01:15:40,800
Speaker 1: and stuff that were great shows that he did. Anyway,

1332
01:15:41,080 --> 01:15:46,120
Speaker 1: I get Gallagher a deal to do it. Well, I

1333
01:15:46,200 --> 01:15:50,800
Speaker 1: want to get Gallagher a TV show, and so I

1334
01:15:50,880 --> 01:15:53,880
Speaker 1: get Bud Grant, who's the president of CBS at the

1335
01:15:53,960 --> 01:15:56,560
Speaker 1: time and the head of one of the studios to

1336
01:15:56,680 --> 01:16:01,360
Speaker 1: fly up to Las Vegas where Caliger's opening for one

1337
01:16:01,400 --> 01:16:04,439
Speaker 1: of my acts. It may have been apartment, may have

1338
01:16:04,479 --> 01:16:07,799
Speaker 1: been Kenny, but it also may have been Olivia. Any event,

1339
01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:12,599
Speaker 1: I am checking in staying overnight, but the Kenny's playing

1340
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:16,040
Speaker 1: which we used, is flying them back that night after

1341
01:16:16,120 --> 01:16:19,200
Speaker 1: the show, So it must have been Kenny. Uh, because

1342
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:24,080
Speaker 1: Olivia didn't go in private jet um and and they

1343
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:26,880
Speaker 1: go in the bar, and who do they come upon

1344
01:16:27,000 --> 01:16:30,040
Speaker 1: but Gallagher, and he does just what he did to

1345
01:16:30,080 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 1: me my wife at that luncheon. He now trashes the

1346
01:16:34,120 --> 01:16:38,639
Speaker 1: whole industry. And then he leaves and I come back

1347
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:41,519
Speaker 1: down and the guys are sitting there and they say,

1348
01:16:41,520 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 1: we're going back to l A And I said, why

1349
01:16:43,640 --> 01:16:46,040
Speaker 1: is it? We just had this encounter with Gallagher we

1350
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:49,479
Speaker 1: don't see any point in doing anything here. He hates

1351
01:16:49,800 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: everything in the business, you know. And and but they

1352
01:16:53,400 --> 01:16:56,639
Speaker 1: didn't leave. I convinced him to stay. They stay, They

1353
01:16:56,680 --> 01:16:58,760
Speaker 1: see the show, they stand up after the show, they

1354
01:16:58,800 --> 01:17:01,280
Speaker 1: give me a thumbs ups, and we make a deal

1355
01:17:01,320 --> 01:17:04,360
Speaker 1: to do a series. And we get a guy named Maddie.

1356
01:17:04,920 --> 01:17:07,120
Speaker 1: I can't remember his name, but he was National Lampoon

1357
01:17:08,040 --> 01:17:13,639
Speaker 1: right ahead of it. Maddie. It's an s. Maddie Simmons,

1358
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:17,720
Speaker 1: Mattie Simmons. So Maddie comes up with they come up

1359
01:17:17,760 --> 01:17:21,400
Speaker 1: with this great idea, and it's it's called our Man

1360
01:17:21,439 --> 01:17:25,000
Speaker 1: in the House, and it's it's a little a little

1361
01:17:25,040 --> 01:17:29,960
Speaker 1: county in Idaho. The congressman dies and the governor of

1362
01:17:30,040 --> 01:17:33,599
Speaker 1: the state has to appoint a new congressman. And there

1363
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:38,000
Speaker 1: are only eight possibilities in this part of the state. Uh,

1364
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:40,760
Speaker 1: And there are reasons for eliminating seven of the eight.

1365
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:44,160
Speaker 1: And the one that's left is Gallagher. And Gallagher used

1366
01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:46,439
Speaker 1: to go around on roller skates all over the place

1367
01:17:46,479 --> 01:17:50,200
Speaker 1: on his stage show and everything. So the idea was

1368
01:17:50,360 --> 01:17:53,599
Speaker 1: you you go to the parking area at the Capitol

1369
01:17:53,640 --> 01:17:57,160
Speaker 1: building and you'd see car after car with license later

1370
01:17:57,200 --> 01:17:58,479
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you have a parking

1371
01:17:58,520 --> 01:18:01,559
Speaker 1: spade and they'll be two roller skates in it. And

1372
01:18:01,680 --> 01:18:05,080
Speaker 1: so Gallagher says, look, I want to go back and

1373
01:18:05,120 --> 01:18:08,120
Speaker 1: research this. CBS loves the idea. That's great, you know,

1374
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:12,000
Speaker 1: called our man in the house, and he goes back

1375
01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:14,240
Speaker 1: and I introduced him to friends of mine in Washington.

1376
01:18:14,320 --> 01:18:16,760
Speaker 1: Patrick Lay's a friend of mine. He hangs out in

1377
01:18:16,800 --> 01:18:22,160
Speaker 1: these congressional offices and meantime we set up a meeting

1378
01:18:22,160 --> 01:18:24,720
Speaker 1: out here with the network. When he gets back, he

1379
01:18:24,800 --> 01:18:27,600
Speaker 1: comes right back from there. He comes over to CBS.

1380
01:18:27,640 --> 01:18:30,800
Speaker 1: I'm sitting with the head of the Bud Grant Head

1381
01:18:31,240 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 1: and Matty Simmons in the office when Gallagher walks in.

1382
01:18:34,760 --> 01:18:38,719
Speaker 1: He walks into the office, he says, I just spent

1383
01:18:39,600 --> 01:18:43,400
Speaker 1: two weeks in Washington. I would need two years before

1384
01:18:43,439 --> 01:18:46,439
Speaker 1: I'd be steeped enough and what's going on there to

1385
01:18:46,479 --> 01:18:48,720
Speaker 1: be able to do this show any justice? And he

1386
01:18:48,720 --> 01:18:51,479
Speaker 1: turns around and walks out. It's the end of the series.

1387
01:18:52,280 --> 01:18:57,320
Speaker 1: We had a serious deal. Okay. Now it's something I remember.

1388
01:18:57,479 --> 01:18:59,960
Speaker 1: You would turn on you talk about those cable special

1389
01:19:00,520 --> 01:19:02,840
Speaker 1: It seemed like whenever you went on the dial, Gallagher

1390
01:19:02,920 --> 01:19:05,360
Speaker 1: was on. He was on more than anybody. Oh God,

1391
01:19:05,400 --> 01:19:07,960
Speaker 1: they were so good. I mean, that's what this guy

1392
01:19:08,120 --> 01:19:10,960
Speaker 1: had and still has. I saw him maybe two years

1393
01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:13,240
Speaker 1: ago now, but he was funny as I'll get my

1394
01:19:13,280 --> 01:19:16,360
Speaker 1: wife and I still quote all kinds of lines from Gallagher.

1395
01:19:17,120 --> 01:19:19,720
Speaker 1: It's just brilliant. Just okay. So why did it end

1396
01:19:19,760 --> 01:19:23,960
Speaker 1: with you and Gallagher? You know, I don't really recall

1397
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:27,519
Speaker 1: the ending of that usually I can, but it certainly

1398
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:30,720
Speaker 1: wasn't bitter or anything like that. It wasn't I In

1399
01:19:30,800 --> 01:19:33,120
Speaker 1: most cases I stayed friendly with I mean, I went

1400
01:19:33,160 --> 01:19:35,840
Speaker 1: to with the people, you know, you know part of it.

1401
01:19:35,880 --> 01:19:38,960
Speaker 1: You asked me, are you you know? Were they successful

1402
01:19:39,040 --> 01:19:42,880
Speaker 1: because of you? My attitude, which served me so well

1403
01:19:42,960 --> 01:19:46,080
Speaker 1: during that period, was they need me more than I

1404
01:19:46,120 --> 01:19:49,559
Speaker 1: need them. If they leave me, I have more free time.

1405
01:19:49,840 --> 01:19:54,160
Speaker 1: I don't have whatever hassles I was having with them. Uh, somebody,

1406
01:19:54,240 --> 01:19:57,080
Speaker 1: something better is going to come along. No matter what

1407
01:19:57,160 --> 01:20:00,400
Speaker 1: it was, even when Lionel Richie I part, I would

1408
01:20:00,479 --> 01:20:04,280
Speaker 1: have so much self confidence and hopefully it wasn't arrogance

1409
01:20:04,400 --> 01:20:07,679
Speaker 1: or or you know or whatever, but so much feeling

1410
01:20:08,360 --> 01:20:11,200
Speaker 1: that that was that it was a good thing. I

1411
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:13,519
Speaker 1: think it's part of I have a general philosophy that

1412
01:20:13,600 --> 01:20:18,320
Speaker 1: everything in life happens for a good reason, and that uh,

1413
01:20:18,600 --> 01:20:21,760
Speaker 1: everything that happens, even the negatives, can be turned into

1414
01:20:21,880 --> 01:20:25,680
Speaker 1: very positive, even some of the most serious I look

1415
01:20:25,720 --> 01:20:28,599
Speaker 1: at I teach this sort of I look at mothers

1416
01:20:28,640 --> 01:20:31,960
Speaker 1: against drunk driving. They their kids were killed by drunk drivers,

1417
01:20:32,200 --> 01:20:35,880
Speaker 1: formed an organization save millions of live That's one of

1418
01:20:35,920 --> 01:20:38,360
Speaker 1: the worst things you can possibly happen. Not that it

1419
01:20:38,439 --> 01:20:41,639
Speaker 1: was there wasn't. There was good in it because they

1420
01:20:41,720 --> 01:20:44,719
Speaker 1: found that they wouldn't let their kids die in vain.

1421
01:20:45,200 --> 01:20:48,000
Speaker 1: You know, I can give you fifteen different examples like that.

1422
01:20:48,520 --> 01:20:52,439
Speaker 1: Um So, I think that when an artist leaves me,

1423
01:20:52,520 --> 01:20:55,400
Speaker 1: I just figure and now I don't have to worry

1424
01:20:55,400 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 1: about that. I don't manage anymore. But I always feel

1425
01:20:58,479 --> 01:21:01,320
Speaker 1: like there's a good reason for everything the way it happens,

1426
01:21:01,640 --> 01:21:04,439
Speaker 1: and when you look for that, most of the time

1427
01:21:04,560 --> 01:21:08,920
Speaker 1: that's what you find. You know, it changes your approach too,

1428
01:21:09,880 --> 01:21:12,640
Speaker 1: not feeling defeated, but feeling like, oh, this is just

1429
01:21:12,760 --> 01:21:16,680
Speaker 1: part of life and something better is coming along. Okay,

1430
01:21:16,960 --> 01:21:20,320
Speaker 1: Just staying in that philosophy, you have a very active

1431
01:21:20,520 --> 01:21:25,200
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial personality. If someone didn't have that, maybe nothing would

1432
01:21:25,240 --> 01:21:28,720
Speaker 1: come along. Well, that's true. I do get out when

1433
01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:31,519
Speaker 1: I get excited about something, I work on it. Okay,

1434
01:21:31,520 --> 01:21:33,320
Speaker 1: So how did inn You know a number of these

1435
01:21:33,400 --> 01:21:35,880
Speaker 1: artists that work with you, they and something like Gallagher

1436
01:21:35,960 --> 01:21:39,200
Speaker 1: Travis Tritt, subsequent to work with you, their careers are

1437
01:21:39,240 --> 01:21:42,479
Speaker 1: nowhere near and successful. Yeah, that's I was kind of

1438
01:21:42,479 --> 01:21:44,960
Speaker 1: proud of that for a while. I was. I would

1439
01:21:44,960 --> 01:21:47,760
Speaker 1: always say, gee, you know, nobody's ever left me and

1440
01:21:47,880 --> 01:21:50,880
Speaker 1: been hot or after they left me. Now I will say,

1441
01:21:50,920 --> 01:21:54,160
Speaker 1: and I'm friendly with him still. I just saw him recently, Uh,

1442
01:21:54,320 --> 01:21:57,280
Speaker 1: Lionel Ritchie. It's pretty hot again. He's got a lot

1443
01:21:57,320 --> 01:21:59,439
Speaker 1: going for him. And we've seen him three times in

1444
01:21:59,439 --> 01:22:02,320
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, most recently just a few

1445
01:22:02,360 --> 01:22:06,000
Speaker 1: weeks ago in UH concert in Santa Barbara and I

1446
01:22:06,040 --> 01:22:08,200
Speaker 1: love it because we were the only ones backstage because

1447
01:22:08,200 --> 01:22:10,760
Speaker 1: he was late getting there, which wasn't unusual, and he

1448
01:22:10,760 --> 01:22:13,639
Speaker 1: had to really rush on stage, so they positioned us

1449
01:22:14,000 --> 01:22:15,760
Speaker 1: right where he got out of the elevator and went

1450
01:22:15,800 --> 01:22:18,400
Speaker 1: through the stage store to go on stage. And he

1451
01:22:18,600 --> 01:22:20,639
Speaker 1: comes on. He hugs my wife, he said, I gotta

1452
01:22:20,680 --> 01:22:23,840
Speaker 1: hug the women. First meets our cousins who were there,

1453
01:22:24,360 --> 01:22:26,400
Speaker 1: and and then he looks at me, and there's a

1454
01:22:26,400 --> 01:22:30,320
Speaker 1: whole group of people around, the musicians and everybody, and

1455
01:22:30,360 --> 01:22:33,600
Speaker 1: he goes, that's the man who made me famous? Is

1456
01:22:33,640 --> 01:22:36,720
Speaker 1: that boy that made me high? Like puffed up? I

1457
01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:40,160
Speaker 1: felt so good, that was so wonderful. But he's a one.

1458
01:22:40,280 --> 01:22:44,000
Speaker 1: He's a charming, wonderful, wonderful. So why maybe he's hotter

1459
01:22:44,080 --> 01:22:46,639
Speaker 1: now he's got great management. Now he's got a guy

1460
01:22:46,720 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 1: named Bruce Escovitz who's just fabulous and Escowitz and uh

1461
01:22:51,040 --> 01:22:54,479
Speaker 1: um okay, But why did he leave? Why did Travis

1462
01:22:54,479 --> 01:22:58,640
Speaker 1: Trent leave? It's always different reasons. There is one underlying

1463
01:22:58,680 --> 01:23:02,320
Speaker 1: reason that quite often happens. I've said, you work your

1464
01:23:02,320 --> 01:23:05,720
Speaker 1: way out out of management job or you know, one

1465
01:23:05,760 --> 01:23:08,840
Speaker 1: of two ways. One you're terrible at what you do,

1466
01:23:08,960 --> 01:23:12,000
Speaker 1: or you you fail somehow and they leave you because

1467
01:23:12,000 --> 01:23:14,320
Speaker 1: you didn't do the job that you hope to do.

1468
01:23:14,479 --> 01:23:18,320
Speaker 1: You might have might have tried hard. I haven't had

1469
01:23:18,360 --> 01:23:22,599
Speaker 1: that happen hardly ever, but it has happened. The other one,

1470
01:23:22,920 --> 01:23:26,920
Speaker 1: which has more often been my case, is they get

1471
01:23:27,040 --> 01:23:29,439
Speaker 1: very successful and they look at what they're paying you.

1472
01:23:30,680 --> 01:23:32,320
Speaker 1: And I mean I had an artist come to me

1473
01:23:32,400 --> 01:23:34,960
Speaker 1: one time it had made five million dollars that year,

1474
01:23:35,720 --> 01:23:42,400
Speaker 1: and she had netted one point five and she paid

1475
01:23:42,439 --> 01:23:49,920
Speaker 1: mecent commission. So I made seven fifty dollars, but that

1476
01:23:50,000 --> 01:23:53,960
Speaker 1: was my gross. Her gross was five million she netted,

1477
01:23:56,240 --> 01:24:01,080
Speaker 1: or or of what she what she made. I went

1478
01:24:01,120 --> 01:24:03,120
Speaker 1: back when she said, she said to me, you're making

1479
01:24:03,200 --> 01:24:06,920
Speaker 1: more almost as much money as I am. Uh you know,

1480
01:24:06,960 --> 01:24:09,920
Speaker 1: And I said, wait a second. Years is after everything,

1481
01:24:09,920 --> 01:24:13,200
Speaker 1: including taxes, what you needed. Let me tell you what

1482
01:24:13,320 --> 01:24:15,720
Speaker 1: I needed. And I went back and I looked at it,

1483
01:24:15,800 --> 01:24:18,720
Speaker 1: and it was seventy five dollars. Ten percent of what

1484
01:24:18,800 --> 01:24:25,679
Speaker 1: I got didn't fly because she looked at the seven

1485
01:24:25,760 --> 01:24:27,840
Speaker 1: fifty and went, I don't have to. I mean I

1486
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:31,000
Speaker 1: could save all that, you know, and did for a while.

1487
01:24:31,080 --> 01:24:35,360
Speaker 1: I think she had other advantages in ways she could

1488
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:40,200
Speaker 1: get advice. But but I have said that you can,

1489
01:24:40,439 --> 01:24:44,040
Speaker 1: at least in my case, I have more often found myself.

1490
01:24:44,120 --> 01:24:46,759
Speaker 1: I mean I managed this mother's brothers three separate times,

1491
01:24:47,280 --> 01:24:51,639
Speaker 1: three different times, and each time when we got really

1492
01:24:51,800 --> 01:24:54,559
Speaker 1: successful and things were really going good, Tommy fired me.

1493
01:24:55,160 --> 01:25:00,800
Speaker 1: So you know, it's the you kind of you reach

1494
01:25:00,840 --> 01:25:03,800
Speaker 1: a point that they think you know artists ego. It

1495
01:25:04,080 --> 01:25:07,400
Speaker 1: becomes very hard to think that somebody else is responsible

1496
01:25:07,479 --> 01:25:10,559
Speaker 1: for even part of your success, if not a good

1497
01:25:11,000 --> 01:25:14,280
Speaker 1: part of it. I always felt Kenny Rogers and I

1498
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:19,120
Speaker 1: were fifty fifty, that he brought the talent, which was

1499
01:25:19,160 --> 01:25:23,920
Speaker 1: half the equation, and I brought the creative and you know,

1500
01:25:24,080 --> 01:25:29,720
Speaker 1: business expertise and career management and career promotion and all

1501
01:25:29,760 --> 01:25:32,479
Speaker 1: that expertise that was the other half of the equation.

1502
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:36,400
Speaker 1: I didn't get paid, but I always looked at it

1503
01:25:36,479 --> 01:25:39,280
Speaker 1: as a partnership. We did. We did share a partnership

1504
01:25:39,280 --> 01:25:42,000
Speaker 1: on some of the Gambler movies which I developed for him,

1505
01:25:42,120 --> 01:25:44,800
Speaker 1: UM and some other of his movies of the week.

1506
01:25:45,280 --> 01:25:50,040
Speaker 1: But but I always felt that my my arrangement with

1507
01:25:50,080 --> 01:25:54,720
Speaker 1: an artist was that I was we were partners. We

1508
01:25:54,800 --> 01:25:57,760
Speaker 1: were doing this as partners. Looked at it that way.

1509
01:25:57,840 --> 01:25:59,760
Speaker 1: We didn't get paid that way, but that was more

1510
01:25:59,800 --> 01:26:02,440
Speaker 1: because of the traditions. Kay, did you have written contracts

1511
01:26:02,560 --> 01:26:06,439
Speaker 1: or not? Once? But what about if an act left you?

1512
01:26:06,920 --> 01:26:09,519
Speaker 1: They left me? They left me. Now, I think there

1513
01:26:09,560 --> 01:26:12,240
Speaker 1: have been times when having a written contract might have

1514
01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:16,080
Speaker 1: been some value, but there are also ways for artists

1515
01:26:16,120 --> 01:26:22,640
Speaker 1: to get out of written contracts. There is, unfortunately, um Ah,

1516
01:26:22,680 --> 01:26:24,599
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of there have been artists who

1517
01:26:24,600 --> 01:26:28,560
Speaker 1: have fought when I'm at because when you're a manager,

1518
01:26:28,640 --> 01:26:33,639
Speaker 1: you almost always have to do something uh to uh

1519
01:26:33,680 --> 01:26:37,160
Speaker 1: to book the artist, which in California gets you in trouble.

1520
01:26:37,600 --> 01:26:40,120
Speaker 1: And you can know the famous Jefferson airplane case whatever,

1521
01:26:40,240 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 1: And it's still going on. There's still the talent agency. Uh.

1522
01:26:44,439 --> 01:26:47,920
Speaker 1: The talent act has been fought a lot by managers,

1523
01:26:47,960 --> 01:26:51,200
Speaker 1: but not successfully. Okay, so but let's just say you

1524
01:26:51,280 --> 01:26:53,479
Speaker 1: had an act who left and they had a very

1525
01:26:53,520 --> 01:26:56,120
Speaker 1: hot record. You know, in a written contract you have

1526
01:26:56,200 --> 01:27:00,519
Speaker 1: sunset classes in this particular case, how much would you

1527
01:27:00,520 --> 01:27:02,720
Speaker 1: you know, try to commission what was coming in the

1528
01:27:02,720 --> 01:27:06,759
Speaker 1: future are supposed to walking away that day. I would

1529
01:27:06,840 --> 01:27:11,120
Speaker 1: never worry too much. I was never money driven, um

1530
01:27:11,160 --> 01:27:13,760
Speaker 1: you know, I would never not only because I was

1531
01:27:13,800 --> 01:27:16,640
Speaker 1: making good money, but more importantly, it wasn't what motivated

1532
01:27:16,680 --> 01:27:21,360
Speaker 1: me and and so as a result, I didn't care

1533
01:27:21,400 --> 01:27:23,160
Speaker 1: that much. I wanted to get on with my life

1534
01:27:23,920 --> 01:27:27,439
Speaker 1: um and and the things I was doing. I did

1535
01:27:27,640 --> 01:27:32,200
Speaker 1: care about fairness, but the accident in general that I

1536
01:27:32,320 --> 01:27:37,759
Speaker 1: managed uh were such that they lived up to whatever

1537
01:27:37,840 --> 01:27:41,599
Speaker 1: would be fair in the situation. If we currently had

1538
01:27:41,680 --> 01:27:44,320
Speaker 1: something that was payment, but I didn't get I didn't

1539
01:27:44,360 --> 01:27:49,240
Speaker 1: get long term residuals on stuff that's still selling to

1540
01:27:49,320 --> 01:27:52,400
Speaker 1: this day. You know, I mean I could have easily

1541
01:27:52,520 --> 01:27:55,200
Speaker 1: gone after that, but I never wanted to be about

1542
01:27:55,200 --> 01:27:59,719
Speaker 1: the money and I and uh, you know, I mean, listen,

1543
01:27:59,760 --> 01:28:03,400
Speaker 1: I any Rogers thirty three years without a contract. You know,

1544
01:28:04,080 --> 01:28:07,559
Speaker 1: there's something about a contract that or but not having

1545
01:28:07,600 --> 01:28:10,720
Speaker 1: a contract that says, look, if you go, you go,

1546
01:28:11,240 --> 01:28:14,080
Speaker 1: it's your problem. Now that thirty three years he had

1547
01:28:14,080 --> 01:28:18,640
Speaker 1: fired you once in the end, No, Lionel did not Kenny,

1548
01:28:18,720 --> 01:28:22,760
Speaker 1: and then Kenny Kenny fired me in the end. That

1549
01:28:23,040 --> 01:28:28,000
Speaker 1: primarily happened because of a three way partnership. We got

1550
01:28:28,040 --> 01:28:33,120
Speaker 1: into a three way deal which never really really happens properly,

1551
01:28:33,320 --> 01:28:37,599
Speaker 1: and and I always felt I was a bit betrayed

1552
01:28:37,680 --> 01:28:40,479
Speaker 1: by the other partner. Okay, So who have you worked

1553
01:28:40,479 --> 01:28:45,400
Speaker 1: with who has had this charisma? Who didn't hit? I

1554
01:28:45,479 --> 01:28:48,280
Speaker 1: worked with a teen group group called Three of Hearts,

1555
01:28:49,160 --> 01:28:53,479
Speaker 1: who were gorgeous, but they were in the wrong music field.

1556
01:28:54,000 --> 01:28:56,840
Speaker 1: They were they would have been a pop hit, and

1557
01:28:56,880 --> 01:28:59,720
Speaker 1: they had records that should have been released. Bob, and

1558
01:28:59,760 --> 01:29:03,680
Speaker 1: we've begged the record company to do it. Uh but

1559
01:29:03,880 --> 01:29:06,479
Speaker 1: and the other problem was they were seventeen years old.

1560
01:29:07,439 --> 01:29:10,680
Speaker 1: Listen I went. I went on a bus tour with

1561
01:29:10,760 --> 01:29:13,479
Speaker 1: three seventeen year olds and a and a mom as

1562
01:29:13,520 --> 01:29:17,160
Speaker 1: a chaperone, sleeping in bunks on a bus all summer,

1563
01:29:17,840 --> 01:29:22,080
Speaker 1: introducing them to radio and doing shows all over the country.

1564
01:29:22,600 --> 01:29:26,880
Speaker 1: And they were terrific. They were wonderful singers, they were gorgeous,

1565
01:29:27,200 --> 01:29:31,160
Speaker 1: they were charming, they were totally different each one, and

1566
01:29:31,160 --> 01:29:33,760
Speaker 1: and we everything in that first year that you could

1567
01:29:33,760 --> 01:29:37,720
Speaker 1: make happen happened. Everything imaginable, but we had we were

1568
01:29:37,800 --> 01:29:41,400
Speaker 1: in the right we weren't in the right genre. And

1569
01:29:41,479 --> 01:29:44,479
Speaker 1: as much as we tried the record company to release

1570
01:29:44,560 --> 01:29:46,960
Speaker 1: some pop, they didn't do it. And the part of

1571
01:29:47,000 --> 01:29:50,080
Speaker 1: the reason was it was our c A and they

1572
01:29:50,160 --> 01:29:54,120
Speaker 1: had a pop similar pop group breaking at the same time,

1573
01:29:54,640 --> 01:29:58,000
Speaker 1: and they didn't want two of them, and we just didn't.

1574
01:29:58,320 --> 01:30:01,120
Speaker 1: And that was the biggest season. But the group broke

1575
01:30:01,200 --> 01:30:04,799
Speaker 1: up after after a whole year of great stuff happening.

1576
01:30:04,880 --> 01:30:08,240
Speaker 1: The group went three separate ways, and none of them,

1577
01:30:08,280 --> 01:30:10,479
Speaker 1: as far as I know, are still in music as

1578
01:30:10,800 --> 01:30:13,080
Speaker 1: you know, or doing much in it. Okay, how do

1579
01:30:13,200 --> 01:30:15,840
Speaker 1: acts feel when you're this white hot. How do they

1580
01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:19,200
Speaker 1: feel that you're spending time with the other acts? Well, first,

1581
01:30:19,320 --> 01:30:23,320
Speaker 1: I tried to limit my personal clients to three because

1582
01:30:23,360 --> 01:30:27,680
Speaker 1: when you get above three, I found you can't proportion

1583
01:30:27,760 --> 01:30:31,479
Speaker 1: your time properly. Three you can kind of balance. I've

1584
01:30:31,520 --> 01:30:34,400
Speaker 1: had moments when they didn't balance, but generally you can't.

1585
01:30:35,000 --> 01:30:37,479
Speaker 1: I mean, I once went to Uh, Tricia was going

1586
01:30:37,479 --> 01:30:40,559
Speaker 1: to do a big commercial for Revlon in New York,

1587
01:30:40,600 --> 01:30:42,360
Speaker 1: and I felt I needed to be there when they

1588
01:30:42,400 --> 01:30:47,280
Speaker 1: filmed it. Travis Tritt was doing a video in uh

1589
01:30:47,320 --> 01:30:53,280
Speaker 1: in Georgia. Uh yeah, I think, I think probably near

1590
01:30:53,360 --> 01:30:57,200
Speaker 1: his home there in Marietta. And it was the same day,

1591
01:30:58,479 --> 01:31:00,840
Speaker 1: and I got on a plane in for New York

1592
01:31:01,120 --> 01:31:04,639
Speaker 1: and landed in New York and got two calls, one

1593
01:31:04,720 --> 01:31:10,040
Speaker 1: from Georgia where Travis had walked off the set because uh,

1594
01:31:10,120 --> 01:31:13,640
Speaker 1: they had um the director had called him in at

1595
01:31:13,680 --> 01:31:16,200
Speaker 1: six thirty in the morning and it was four thirty

1596
01:31:16,200 --> 01:31:19,160
Speaker 1: in the afternoon. They hadn't used him yet, but I

1597
01:31:19,200 --> 01:31:21,479
Speaker 1: hadn't gone there because he'd worked with that director a

1598
01:31:21,479 --> 01:31:24,559
Speaker 1: lot in the past. But he just got fed up

1599
01:31:24,600 --> 01:31:28,080
Speaker 1: with sitting around the whole day and he left. So

1600
01:31:28,120 --> 01:31:31,760
Speaker 1: they were now calling me panicked, And I get a

1601
01:31:31,760 --> 01:31:34,760
Speaker 1: call from Tricia and I'm on my way to the

1602
01:31:34,800 --> 01:31:37,439
Speaker 1: stage where she was doing stuff, and that he wants

1603
01:31:37,439 --> 01:31:39,799
Speaker 1: her to do something that's real sexy and she doesn't

1604
01:31:39,800 --> 01:31:42,400
Speaker 1: want to do it. As the director, she had big

1605
01:31:42,439 --> 01:31:46,080
Speaker 1: time director that she hadn't worked with before, so I

1606
01:31:46,120 --> 01:31:50,519
Speaker 1: went to that. But I'm I'm like torn. It's one

1607
01:31:50,560 --> 01:31:53,880
Speaker 1: of the few times I can remember where I should

1608
01:31:53,880 --> 01:31:56,479
Speaker 1: have been in one place and it should have been

1609
01:31:56,479 --> 01:31:59,400
Speaker 1: in the other at the same moment in time. Usually

1610
01:31:59,400 --> 01:32:03,080
Speaker 1: when I kept it to three, I could. I could

1611
01:32:03,120 --> 01:32:06,080
Speaker 1: cover for three. They weren't all getting hot at the

1612
01:32:06,120 --> 01:32:09,360
Speaker 1: same moment or time or whatever. It might compromise three,

1613
01:32:09,560 --> 01:32:13,080
Speaker 1: even three might compromise my personal life some you know,

1614
01:32:13,240 --> 01:32:17,040
Speaker 1: I found conflicts when I couldn't do things because I

1615
01:32:17,080 --> 01:32:20,000
Speaker 1: remember on Valentine's Day when my wife always went to

1616
01:32:20,000 --> 01:32:23,639
Speaker 1: a restaurant that was a terrific restaurant in l A. Chasen's,

1617
01:32:23,680 --> 01:32:26,719
Speaker 1: if you may. Of course, we used to have a table,

1618
01:32:26,800 --> 01:32:29,840
Speaker 1: permanent table for Valentine had to be in New York

1619
01:32:29,880 --> 01:32:35,000
Speaker 1: because Tricia was appearing in Central Park, you know. But okay,

1620
01:32:35,120 --> 01:32:38,120
Speaker 1: so with the it was called Craigetting Company, at its peak,

1621
01:32:38,320 --> 01:32:41,559
Speaker 1: how many acts? How many people working there at its

1622
01:32:41,600 --> 01:32:44,839
Speaker 1: absolute peak, which was a mistake, by the way, fifty

1623
01:32:45,560 --> 01:32:54,280
Speaker 1: people working twelve acts. Three managers I had, Kenny Lionel

1624
01:32:54,520 --> 01:32:57,360
Speaker 1: and one other whoever it was at that moment. It

1625
01:32:57,520 --> 01:33:05,519
Speaker 1: changed over time. Um. And it's really interesting because another

1626
01:33:05,600 --> 01:33:09,719
Speaker 1: manager called me when I started to get big, and

1627
01:33:09,960 --> 01:33:13,360
Speaker 1: he said, Ken, I'm gonna give you a piece of advice.

1628
01:33:13,360 --> 01:33:16,240
Speaker 1: You're not going to take it, but you're going to

1629
01:33:16,360 --> 01:33:19,719
Speaker 1: get big and you're gonna regret it. He said, because

1630
01:33:19,760 --> 01:33:22,080
Speaker 1: society kind of makes you want to grow and be

1631
01:33:22,160 --> 01:33:26,320
Speaker 1: bigger and everything. But in our business, smaller is better.

1632
01:33:26,760 --> 01:33:29,000
Speaker 1: And once you add people, it's so hard to get

1633
01:33:29,080 --> 01:33:32,640
Speaker 1: rid of them. Everybody is dependent on an assistant. Everybody's

1634
01:33:32,720 --> 01:33:36,000
Speaker 1: been And you know, he was so right. And what

1635
01:33:36,160 --> 01:33:38,800
Speaker 1: happened and what drove me finally to cut it down

1636
01:33:39,600 --> 01:33:43,760
Speaker 1: was another manager in my company, Gary Boorman, who went

1637
01:33:43,800 --> 01:33:48,000
Speaker 1: on to be very successful with a lot of big acts. Uh.

1638
01:33:48,040 --> 01:33:51,679
Speaker 1: And another one of my employees decided to leave even

1639
01:33:51,720 --> 01:33:55,400
Speaker 1: though I just spent a year negotiating a phenomenal deal

1640
01:33:55,520 --> 01:33:58,600
Speaker 1: for them. Unbelievable. They could never I was covering the

1641
01:33:58,640 --> 01:34:00,719
Speaker 1: overhead and they were going to get any five percent

1642
01:34:00,800 --> 01:34:04,200
Speaker 1: of what they brought in and U. But they decided

1643
01:34:04,240 --> 01:34:06,960
Speaker 1: to leave and form any any formed. Ultimately, his own

1644
01:34:07,000 --> 01:34:12,360
Speaker 1: company is very successful these days. Um. But when I

1645
01:34:12,479 --> 01:34:15,920
Speaker 1: added up they took it was five employees. They took

1646
01:34:16,040 --> 01:34:20,519
Speaker 1: three other people with them major employees, so it was

1647
01:34:20,560 --> 01:34:24,080
Speaker 1: five of them. I added up. I was two hundred thousand,

1648
01:34:24,200 --> 01:34:26,679
Speaker 1: and they took five acts. Five employees and five acts

1649
01:34:27,479 --> 01:34:30,400
Speaker 1: I added up. I was two hundred thousand better off

1650
01:34:30,439 --> 01:34:34,160
Speaker 1: after they left than I was before. And I went,

1651
01:34:34,240 --> 01:34:37,439
Speaker 1: wait a second, and I started cutting my company down

1652
01:34:37,479 --> 01:34:40,439
Speaker 1: like crazy. And I eventually, I mean, nowadays, I don't

1653
01:34:40,439 --> 01:34:44,439
Speaker 1: manage anymore. I do mostly consulting and nonprofit work and

1654
01:34:44,479 --> 01:34:47,160
Speaker 1: all kinds of very big but I get paid for those.

1655
01:34:47,200 --> 01:34:52,200
Speaker 1: But I do that, uh and UM, but I looked

1656
01:34:52,240 --> 01:34:56,240
Speaker 1: at it, and I eventually worked out of my home, okay,

1657
01:34:56,280 --> 01:35:00,000
Speaker 1: with one assistant. Um. Did you learn anything in Harvard

1658
01:35:00,080 --> 01:35:03,640
Speaker 1: Business School that helped you in your career? More in

1659
01:35:03,720 --> 01:35:08,519
Speaker 1: my life, because it gave me interest in anything every area.

1660
01:35:09,640 --> 01:35:12,799
Speaker 1: A couple of things. I mean, I learned something about banking,

1661
01:35:12,840 --> 01:35:15,640
Speaker 1: at least at the time. It's changed now. But I

1662
01:35:15,760 --> 01:35:20,080
Speaker 1: learned that the time banking was subjective, not totally objective.

1663
01:35:20,439 --> 01:35:23,680
Speaker 1: It's more so now because corporations have gotten on the

1664
01:35:23,720 --> 01:35:28,280
Speaker 1: banks and stuff big ones. But in those early days,

1665
01:35:28,360 --> 01:35:33,240
Speaker 1: in the sixties, seventies, eighties, my relationship direct relationship with

1666
01:35:33,280 --> 01:35:37,240
Speaker 1: a banker. Man, I could pick up the phone and say, listen,

1667
01:35:37,400 --> 01:35:40,599
Speaker 1: I've got this artist. They need fifty dollars to buy

1668
01:35:40,600 --> 01:35:43,559
Speaker 1: a bus and go on the road. I mean, I

1669
01:35:43,600 --> 01:35:47,000
Speaker 1: did that this exact thing for Travis, and they'd say,

1670
01:35:47,040 --> 01:35:49,639
Speaker 1: all right, here, come in, we'll sign up the papers,

1671
01:35:49,720 --> 01:35:55,360
Speaker 1: you know, and do it. And I made I learned

1672
01:35:55,360 --> 01:35:57,720
Speaker 1: that banking relationships. I don't know how I learned that

1673
01:35:57,760 --> 01:36:02,439
Speaker 1: at Harbor, but I did. Um that banking relationships were

1674
01:36:02,479 --> 01:36:05,360
Speaker 1: there were people that made decisions that affected you and

1675
01:36:05,360 --> 01:36:07,599
Speaker 1: if you could be if you could get the trust

1676
01:36:07,680 --> 01:36:10,400
Speaker 1: and the friendship of those people, it could really be

1677
01:36:10,439 --> 01:36:13,160
Speaker 1: a value. Much harder to do these days, it's a

1678
01:36:13,160 --> 01:36:17,840
Speaker 1: whole different ballgame. Um. I learned. I learned to be

1679
01:36:18,000 --> 01:36:24,799
Speaker 1: interested in what anything, every business, and the interesting the

1680
01:36:24,840 --> 01:36:29,840
Speaker 1: most valuable thing about that is the more you learn,

1681
01:36:29,960 --> 01:36:33,080
Speaker 1: you find angles that support some other part of what

1682
01:36:33,120 --> 01:36:38,680
Speaker 1: you're doing. You know, um uh, oh, gosh, what's his name?

1683
01:36:38,760 --> 01:36:43,000
Speaker 1: Jacqueline Hyde and Frank Wildhorn. Frank Wildhorn came to teach

1684
01:36:43,040 --> 01:36:44,479
Speaker 1: him my class at u C l A, and the

1685
01:36:44,520 --> 01:36:47,240
Speaker 1: first thing he said to the students was, don't ever

1686
01:36:47,400 --> 01:36:51,280
Speaker 1: quit learning. Don't ever quit being a student. The most

1687
01:36:51,320 --> 01:36:54,360
Speaker 1: important thing you can do that will support everything you

1688
01:36:54,400 --> 01:36:59,799
Speaker 1: do in life is is learning constantly. And I read

1689
01:37:00,040 --> 01:37:02,920
Speaker 1: everything I can every time. I love anything new that

1690
01:37:02,960 --> 01:37:08,280
Speaker 1: I haven't learned about. Um, you know, I just I'm fascinating.

1691
01:37:08,320 --> 01:37:10,160
Speaker 1: I'd like to live a lot longer than I'm going

1692
01:37:10,200 --> 01:37:14,600
Speaker 1: to live, just because I want to know everything I

1693
01:37:14,640 --> 01:37:16,599
Speaker 1: want to know, and particularly I want to know a

1694
01:37:16,600 --> 01:37:19,080
Speaker 1: lot of stuff about space that hasn't been discovered. I

1695
01:37:19,120 --> 01:37:23,080
Speaker 1: have quite an interest in astronomy. I built my own observatory,

1696
01:37:23,280 --> 01:37:31,479
Speaker 1: you know. But I'm fascinated by, uh, by learning. Okay,

1697
01:37:31,479 --> 01:37:34,200
Speaker 1: what are you most proud of in your career? In

1698
01:37:34,320 --> 01:37:38,880
Speaker 1: my career, probably the United Nations Peace Medal. Tell us

1699
01:37:38,880 --> 01:37:41,800
Speaker 1: the story of that, well, it's just basically from we

1700
01:37:41,880 --> 01:37:43,680
Speaker 1: Are the World. We haven't talked about we are as

1701
01:37:43,680 --> 01:37:45,400
Speaker 1: I say so, tell the story of we are the World.

1702
01:37:46,400 --> 01:37:48,639
Speaker 1: We are the World started with a well, it started

1703
01:37:48,640 --> 01:37:52,759
Speaker 1: with Bob Geldof seeing pictures on the BBC in London,

1704
01:37:53,280 --> 01:37:57,120
Speaker 1: of children dying in Africa and deciding you had to

1705
01:37:57,160 --> 01:38:00,479
Speaker 1: do something about it, and twisting the arms of all.

1706
01:38:00,560 --> 01:38:03,120
Speaker 1: I mean, he wasn't a big deal at the time,

1707
01:38:03,560 --> 01:38:06,840
Speaker 1: but he he bugged everybody to the point where they

1708
01:38:06,920 --> 01:38:09,639
Speaker 1: all agreed to perform, and he put a record together

1709
01:38:09,680 --> 01:38:12,800
Speaker 1: and it ultimately brought in ten million dollars. Led to

1710
01:38:12,880 --> 01:38:17,320
Speaker 1: live Aid much later. But while that was going on

1711
01:38:17,560 --> 01:38:21,320
Speaker 1: and making the news, Tom brokaw here insisted that those

1712
01:38:21,360 --> 01:38:26,280
Speaker 1: same pictures from Africa be shown on NBC here, and

1713
01:38:26,800 --> 01:38:29,880
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everybody over here was seeing it,

1714
01:38:30,600 --> 01:38:33,720
Speaker 1: and Harry Belafoni picked up the phone. Well what Belifani

1715
01:38:33,800 --> 01:38:36,439
Speaker 1: did first as he went to he thought they should

1716
01:38:36,479 --> 01:38:39,439
Speaker 1: do a concert here. So he went to a concert

1717
01:38:39,439 --> 01:38:42,879
Speaker 1: promoter named Ron Delsner in New York, and Ron Delsner

1718
01:38:42,960 --> 01:38:46,519
Speaker 1: said to him, look, Ken Craigan manages some of the

1719
01:38:46,560 --> 01:38:49,839
Speaker 1: biggest art and Belifani wanted to do it with strictly

1720
01:38:49,880 --> 01:38:54,479
Speaker 1: with African American artists who had some ties to Africa,

1721
01:38:54,560 --> 01:38:56,880
Speaker 1: which is a good idea, but not not the one

1722
01:38:56,960 --> 01:38:59,720
Speaker 1: we ended up with. And I'm glad we didn't just

1723
01:38:59,800 --> 01:39:04,639
Speaker 1: do African American art. But anyway, Delzner said, look, Ken

1724
01:39:04,680 --> 01:39:10,040
Speaker 1: Craigan's got managing some of the hottest artists in the world. Um,

1725
01:39:10,320 --> 01:39:13,479
Speaker 1: and he cares about this because he was Harry Chapin's manager,

1726
01:39:14,120 --> 01:39:20,880
Speaker 1: and he said he he Um, these issues, these hunger

1727
01:39:20,960 --> 01:39:24,519
Speaker 1: and homeless issues and poverty issues are something that he's

1728
01:39:24,560 --> 01:39:27,559
Speaker 1: been working on with for years with Harry and then

1729
01:39:27,560 --> 01:39:30,760
Speaker 1: with Kenny Rogers. So I get a call from Belofani

1730
01:39:30,880 --> 01:39:35,000
Speaker 1: on two days before Christmas or two days before Christmas.

1731
01:39:35,840 --> 01:39:40,599
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, he says, uh, we should do a concert.

1732
01:39:40,680 --> 01:39:42,519
Speaker 1: Have you seen these photos? I said, yeah, I've seen

1733
01:39:42,560 --> 01:39:45,799
Speaker 1: him on television. And I said, but why do a concert?

1734
01:39:45,840 --> 01:39:49,000
Speaker 1: I said, Geldof has just shown us the way. I said,

1735
01:39:49,040 --> 01:39:52,360
Speaker 1: We've got bigger artists who sell more records here than

1736
01:39:52,400 --> 01:39:54,120
Speaker 1: what he had there. And not that he didn't have

1737
01:39:54,200 --> 01:39:57,519
Speaker 1: some very big artists, but we we've got a better

1738
01:39:57,520 --> 01:40:02,479
Speaker 1: stable in terms of what we can rape. Um, let

1739
01:40:02,479 --> 01:40:04,640
Speaker 1: me see what I can do. So I hung up

1740
01:40:04,640 --> 01:40:08,160
Speaker 1: with him. I drove to Lionel's house. I was picking

1741
01:40:08,200 --> 01:40:11,519
Speaker 1: him up for he was going to host the American

1742
01:40:11,600 --> 01:40:14,759
Speaker 1: Music Awards and I was taking him to a meeting

1743
01:40:14,760 --> 01:40:17,280
Speaker 1: with Dick Clark to go over some of the details.

1744
01:40:17,720 --> 01:40:21,599
Speaker 1: It wasn't for another month until the twenty eight January.

1745
01:40:22,360 --> 01:40:25,439
Speaker 1: On the way on my way to Lionel's house, I

1746
01:40:25,479 --> 01:40:28,200
Speaker 1: called Kenny Rodgers and Kim Carnes and they both said,

1747
01:40:28,680 --> 01:40:31,880
Speaker 1: you know, they do whatever we wanted. And then I

1748
01:40:31,920 --> 01:40:34,000
Speaker 1: got to Lionels and he and his wife Brenda had

1749
01:40:34,000 --> 01:40:36,519
Speaker 1: seen there. They wanted to do something bad, and I

1750
01:40:36,560 --> 01:40:40,960
Speaker 1: suggested the right with Stevie Wonder, but he couldn't. He

1751
01:40:41,000 --> 01:40:44,040
Speaker 1: couldn't reach Stevie tried all night. In the meantime, I

1752
01:40:44,080 --> 01:40:45,920
Speaker 1: took Lionel to meet with Dick Clark, and on the

1753
01:40:45,960 --> 01:40:48,120
Speaker 1: way over to Dick Clark, I got this idea, why

1754
01:40:48,120 --> 01:40:49,880
Speaker 1: don't we do it the night of the American Music

1755
01:40:49,920 --> 01:40:53,200
Speaker 1: Awards because the artists would be already be in town.

1756
01:40:53,600 --> 01:40:57,200
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have to struggle to get him. Um.

1757
01:40:57,320 --> 01:40:59,400
Speaker 1: I told Dick that he loved that because it would

1758
01:40:59,439 --> 01:41:03,920
Speaker 1: help him get artists to come to down. So I'm

1759
01:41:03,960 --> 01:41:07,679
Speaker 1: I did. Then the next morning, Lionel was still trying

1760
01:41:07,680 --> 01:41:12,400
Speaker 1: to reach Stevie and his wife Brenda at the time.

1761
01:41:12,479 --> 01:41:16,040
Speaker 1: His wife then then went into a jewelry store to

1762
01:41:16,040 --> 01:41:18,519
Speaker 1: buy it was the day before Christmas, to buy last

1763
01:41:18,520 --> 01:41:24,599
Speaker 1: second gifts. Who walks in but Stevie wonder. I probably

1764
01:41:24,720 --> 01:41:27,120
Speaker 1: had somebody with him who said, that's Brenda Richie, because

1765
01:41:27,320 --> 01:41:30,599
Speaker 1: Stevie couldn't go around on his own. But I don't

1766
01:41:30,600 --> 01:41:33,040
Speaker 1: know that part of the story. I do know that

1767
01:41:33,200 --> 01:41:36,240
Speaker 1: he said, would you help me pick out some jewelry gifts?

1768
01:41:36,640 --> 01:41:39,840
Speaker 1: And she said not until you call my husband back.

1769
01:41:40,840 --> 01:41:45,920
Speaker 1: And they got Lionel in a dentist chair and Stevie

1770
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:50,040
Speaker 1: agreed to write. In the meantime, I'm on the phone

1771
01:41:50,040 --> 01:41:53,280
Speaker 1: with Quincy Jones. He's on a getting He's in the

1772
01:41:53,320 --> 01:41:56,360
Speaker 1: airport getting on a Warner Brothers plane to fly to

1773
01:41:56,439 --> 01:42:01,760
Speaker 1: a wife for vacation, for Christmas vacation. And I say,

1774
01:42:02,200 --> 01:42:06,360
Speaker 1: will you produce this? He says absolutely, And he I said,

1775
01:42:06,439 --> 01:42:08,719
Speaker 1: can you get Michael to be one of the singers.

1776
01:42:09,520 --> 01:42:12,080
Speaker 1: He calls me back thirty minutes later. He says, Michael

1777
01:42:12,120 --> 01:42:14,080
Speaker 1: will do it, but only if he writes a song

1778
01:42:14,200 --> 01:42:18,880
Speaker 1: with Lionel and Stevie, which is all good. I mean.

1779
01:42:20,160 --> 01:42:23,120
Speaker 1: Bellafoni calls me back after the day after Christmas, says,

1780
01:42:23,160 --> 01:42:25,519
Speaker 1: if you thought about this at all, what do you

1781
01:42:25,560 --> 01:42:28,080
Speaker 1: think we ought to do? I said, well, I've got

1782
01:42:28,080 --> 01:42:31,519
Speaker 1: a song being written by Lama Richie Stevie Wonder, I

1783
01:42:31,600 --> 01:42:34,599
Speaker 1: thought and didn't work out that way. And Michael Jackson,

1784
01:42:34,640 --> 01:42:37,439
Speaker 1: I've got Quincy Jones producing. I've got Kenny Rogers and

1785
01:42:37,520 --> 01:42:40,200
Speaker 1: Kim Karnes and Lindsey Bucking and the rest of my

1786
01:42:40,280 --> 01:42:45,760
Speaker 1: clients willing to perform. He says, uh, oh, okay, Well,

1787
01:42:45,800 --> 01:42:48,160
Speaker 1: I'm off to Europe. He was going to Europe for

1788
01:42:48,200 --> 01:42:51,080
Speaker 1: a month. I'll be back. He got back three days

1789
01:42:51,120 --> 01:42:57,000
Speaker 1: before the recording session. Um. Any event, I very little

1790
01:42:57,040 --> 01:42:59,479
Speaker 1: could get done from there till New Year till after

1791
01:42:59,520 --> 01:43:03,479
Speaker 1: New Year's But I just sat down starting January two,

1792
01:43:03,680 --> 01:43:07,400
Speaker 1: every day, get two artists. Go start at the top

1793
01:43:07,439 --> 01:43:10,760
Speaker 1: of the billboard charts. Get two artists that are up there.

1794
01:43:10,800 --> 01:43:14,360
Speaker 1: I had already number one and number three, which were Lionel,

1795
01:43:14,400 --> 01:43:18,679
Speaker 1: and number one was Michael, Number two was Prince, Number

1796
01:43:18,720 --> 01:43:21,599
Speaker 1: three was Lionel. But I just worked my way down

1797
01:43:21,640 --> 01:43:24,400
Speaker 1: the charts and would get in touch with and call

1798
01:43:24,479 --> 01:43:27,519
Speaker 1: an artist every uh at least. And I wouldn't go

1799
01:43:27,520 --> 01:43:29,840
Speaker 1: to bed at night until I had two artists. And

1800
01:43:29,880 --> 01:43:34,599
Speaker 1: then on the fifteenth of January, UM Bruce Springsteen's manager

1801
01:43:35,479 --> 01:43:39,519
Speaker 1: John Landau. I had convinced John that he should ask

1802
01:43:39,880 --> 01:43:42,320
Speaker 1: Bruce to come out and do it. He talked Bruce

1803
01:43:42,360 --> 01:43:44,559
Speaker 1: into it. It didn't take much from what he said,

1804
01:43:45,120 --> 01:43:52,240
Speaker 1: and uh and uh. I from the moment that Bruce said, yes,

1805
01:43:52,720 --> 01:43:55,680
Speaker 1: I never made another outgoing call. I just had to

1806
01:43:55,680 --> 01:43:59,160
Speaker 1: turn people down or okam, you know I already had

1807
01:43:59,280 --> 01:44:02,559
Speaker 1: quite a bit at that point, but Bruce was that

1808
01:44:02,680 --> 01:44:06,879
Speaker 1: magnet that brings people you know to it. So okay,

1809
01:44:07,120 --> 01:44:09,680
Speaker 1: so now you have how hard was it to absolutely

1810
01:44:09,800 --> 01:44:12,320
Speaker 1: actually finalize it, have it done that night at A

1811
01:44:12,439 --> 01:44:16,840
Speaker 1: and m etcetera. Well, it almost didn't happen. There's a

1812
01:44:16,840 --> 01:44:20,439
Speaker 1: great Thornton Wilder quote, every great thing balances at all

1813
01:44:20,520 --> 01:44:24,040
Speaker 1: times on the razor edge of disaster. And I've always

1814
01:44:24,080 --> 01:44:26,479
Speaker 1: found the bigger they are, the more often that's going

1815
01:44:26,520 --> 01:44:31,679
Speaker 1: to happen. And the night before the actual recording session,

1816
01:44:33,240 --> 01:44:37,719
Speaker 1: one of the artists managers who quite involved with the artist,

1817
01:44:38,680 --> 01:44:42,679
Speaker 1: came to me and said, the rockers don't like the song.

1818
01:44:43,960 --> 01:44:46,160
Speaker 1: They don't want to stand on the stage next to

1819
01:44:46,240 --> 01:44:49,639
Speaker 1: the non rockers because they think it will diminish him somehow.

1820
01:44:50,640 --> 01:44:57,320
Speaker 1: And so we're leaving. And I said, you know, listen,

1821
01:44:57,360 --> 01:44:59,360
Speaker 1: if you're gonna leave, you're gonna leave. I can't do

1822
01:44:59,439 --> 01:45:03,280
Speaker 1: anything about that we're recording tomorrow. Well, they went to

1823
01:45:03,360 --> 01:45:07,040
Speaker 1: Springsteen and Springsteen said, I came here to feed people

1824
01:45:07,080 --> 01:45:10,519
Speaker 1: and save lives. I'm not going anywhere. And they knew

1825
01:45:10,600 --> 01:45:13,960
Speaker 1: that if they left and the boss stayed, they're gonna

1826
01:45:13,960 --> 01:45:19,479
Speaker 1: look pretty sat nobody left, but you know, hey, listen,

1827
01:45:19,800 --> 01:45:24,519
Speaker 1: it was it was difficult in every way, you know,

1828
01:45:24,720 --> 01:45:26,720
Speaker 1: to pull it off. But I had a staff of

1829
01:45:26,800 --> 01:45:30,240
Speaker 1: fifty in those days. I mean, my my head of

1830
01:45:30,280 --> 01:45:35,439
Speaker 1: a of you know, personnel at the company was parking cars.

1831
01:45:35,640 --> 01:45:38,680
Speaker 1: My assistant was sitting at the get door with a

1832
01:45:38,760 --> 01:45:42,040
Speaker 1: sign saying check your egos at the door, checking people

1833
01:45:42,080 --> 01:45:46,640
Speaker 1: in and directing their whoever had come with them to

1834
01:45:47,400 --> 01:45:51,400
Speaker 1: the There was a sound stage there where they could

1835
01:45:51,400 --> 01:45:55,400
Speaker 1: watch on a big TV screen what was going on

1836
01:45:55,479 --> 01:45:57,800
Speaker 1: in the studio. But think we couldn't have all the

1837
01:45:57,840 --> 01:46:00,160
Speaker 1: people that were came with, you know, with everybody was

1838
01:46:00,200 --> 01:46:03,599
Speaker 1: allowed to bring five people and forty five artists. You know,

1839
01:46:03,680 --> 01:46:07,080
Speaker 1: you've got I don't know a hundred some people there

1840
01:46:07,280 --> 01:46:11,600
Speaker 1: fifty people. So so um uh, it was quite in.

1841
01:46:11,920 --> 01:46:14,840
Speaker 1: Geldof came. We flew Geldof over and he came and

1842
01:46:14,880 --> 01:46:18,960
Speaker 1: he uh uh, he almost spoiled the whole thing because

1843
01:46:19,360 --> 01:46:22,720
Speaker 1: he he went out, I had put a microphone and

1844
01:46:22,760 --> 01:46:24,760
Speaker 1: a little stand up if any of the artists wanted

1845
01:46:24,760 --> 01:46:27,320
Speaker 1: to talk to the crowd that was there. And I

1846
01:46:27,360 --> 01:46:32,200
Speaker 1: see where you're going, Bob, keeping Bob. So Bob goes

1847
01:46:32,320 --> 01:46:36,000
Speaker 1: up there and we have everything's been donated. Every single

1848
01:46:36,080 --> 01:46:42,280
Speaker 1: thing for that night has been donated. Couches, pool tables, food, everything.

1849
01:46:43,040 --> 01:46:46,719
Speaker 1: He gets up on that podium and he says, listen,

1850
01:46:47,200 --> 01:46:49,400
Speaker 1: there are people dying in Africa, and you people are

1851
01:46:49,400 --> 01:46:52,360
Speaker 1: sitting here and eating all this food. You should be

1852
01:46:52,400 --> 01:46:56,520
Speaker 1: ashamed of yourselves. And he starts lecturing them on everything,

1853
01:46:56,960 --> 01:46:59,400
Speaker 1: and I get I'm in the studio and somebody runs

1854
01:46:59,439 --> 01:47:00,840
Speaker 1: in and gets me. You've got to get out here

1855
01:47:00,880 --> 01:47:03,400
Speaker 1: and get Bob off this stage. Sure enough, about half

1856
01:47:03,400 --> 01:47:05,800
Speaker 1: the people left. I mean it was much like you know,

1857
01:47:05,960 --> 01:47:08,160
Speaker 1: was two in the morning or something like that. We

1858
01:47:08,280 --> 01:47:11,720
Speaker 1: finished at eight am. But when he spoke, had you

1859
01:47:11,800 --> 01:47:14,600
Speaker 1: done any recording? We have been recording and people have

1860
01:47:14,600 --> 01:47:19,800
Speaker 1: been seeing it. Oh yeah, so the whole project. Did

1861
01:47:20,439 --> 01:47:24,439
Speaker 1: it turned out the way you expected? Much bigger, much bigger?

1862
01:47:24,600 --> 01:47:30,280
Speaker 1: And he twists and turn serendipity that you didn't anticipate. Well, no,

1863
01:47:30,520 --> 01:47:34,200
Speaker 1: but the greatest thing was I was able to convince everybody,

1864
01:47:34,280 --> 01:47:38,160
Speaker 1: record distributors, everybody, but we paid. We paid for nothing

1865
01:47:38,280 --> 01:47:41,200
Speaker 1: but the vinyl. So when you bought a record, I

1866
01:47:41,200 --> 01:47:44,479
Speaker 1: don't know, it was either eight those days for a

1867
01:47:45,040 --> 01:47:50,200
Speaker 1: you know, thirty three and album, a big album. When

1868
01:47:50,240 --> 01:47:53,880
Speaker 1: you bought that record, we got all but a dollar

1869
01:47:54,479 --> 01:47:57,160
Speaker 1: of you know. I talked to There's a big distributor

1870
01:47:57,200 --> 01:48:00,280
Speaker 1: called Handelman. I talked to them. They said, we lost

1871
01:48:00,280 --> 01:48:03,040
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars distributing that album, but we didn't

1872
01:48:03,080 --> 01:48:07,840
Speaker 1: care for a good cause. Um, you know. So yeah,

1873
01:48:07,880 --> 01:48:11,040
Speaker 1: there were all kinds. I mean, look, every every we

1874
01:48:11,080 --> 01:48:14,920
Speaker 1: had lawyers negotiating deals with record companies so that you know,

1875
01:48:15,040 --> 01:48:18,160
Speaker 1: the artists. But the good news was we had the

1876
01:48:18,160 --> 01:48:21,280
Speaker 1: biggest artists in the country all agreeing to be part

1877
01:48:21,280 --> 01:48:24,719
Speaker 1: of this. So nobody put up. Nobody drove us crazy, really,

1878
01:48:25,320 --> 01:48:28,080
Speaker 1: and Josh, from the first day it came out, it

1879
01:48:28,160 --> 01:48:31,280
Speaker 1: just went through the roof. I mean, it was just

1880
01:48:31,600 --> 01:48:34,360
Speaker 1: one of the you know, I would go to Tower

1881
01:48:34,439 --> 01:48:38,680
Speaker 1: Records here on you know, on Sunset, we're near the

1882
01:48:38,720 --> 01:48:42,080
Speaker 1: block from my office, and I'd see people walking out

1883
01:48:42,120 --> 01:48:45,800
Speaker 1: with ten and fifteen albums under their arm. It was

1884
01:48:45,840 --> 01:48:48,479
Speaker 1: one of those things I'm doing in the project and

1885
01:48:48,600 --> 01:48:52,360
Speaker 1: big project I'm doing now. You you give people something

1886
01:48:52,400 --> 01:48:56,120
Speaker 1: that they want and yet at the same time they're

1887
01:48:56,160 --> 01:48:59,519
Speaker 1: doing good so they know that the money they're buying

1888
01:48:59,600 --> 01:49:04,120
Speaker 1: this records with is going to a good cause. And

1889
01:49:04,120 --> 01:49:07,479
Speaker 1: and but they're getting We put a record album out

1890
01:49:07,520 --> 01:49:11,400
Speaker 1: with unreleased tracks, you know, we had we had ten

1891
01:49:11,479 --> 01:49:15,680
Speaker 1: or eleven under his release tracks. Um, and and we

1892
01:49:15,760 --> 01:49:19,639
Speaker 1: are the world on this album. And so you've got that,

1893
01:49:19,760 --> 01:49:22,840
Speaker 1: You've got a double album that it wasn't two records,

1894
01:49:23,240 --> 01:49:25,760
Speaker 1: but you got a double album that you could a

1895
01:49:25,800 --> 01:49:29,360
Speaker 1: gatefold gatefold. Yeah, that's the right, and uh, with all

1896
01:49:29,479 --> 01:49:33,200
Speaker 1: kinds of photos and everything, and and uh, you know

1897
01:49:33,280 --> 01:49:35,519
Speaker 1: it was I still have it right behind my desk

1898
01:49:35,520 --> 01:49:39,360
Speaker 1: in my office. I love it. And so we found

1899
01:49:39,360 --> 01:49:42,040
Speaker 1: ways to really make it exciting for people. I you know,

1900
01:49:43,720 --> 01:49:47,320
Speaker 1: it was a pretty heavy time. Things really went amazing

1901
01:49:48,280 --> 01:49:52,200
Speaker 1: for and a lot of people jumped him. MTV vh one,

1902
01:49:52,560 --> 01:49:55,400
Speaker 1: well yeah, I think h one had started by the yes,

1903
01:49:55,439 --> 01:50:00,080
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Yeah, Um, they both jumped on HBO. I

1904
01:50:00,120 --> 01:50:04,920
Speaker 1: sold HBO a special on it, which MTV was also

1905
01:50:05,040 --> 01:50:08,160
Speaker 1: doing like a three or four days on it. I

1906
01:50:08,240 --> 01:50:12,559
Speaker 1: had to then convince a MTV that the HBO special

1907
01:50:12,640 --> 01:50:18,320
Speaker 1: would be a promotion for the Michael Michael Fuchs was

1908
01:50:18,360 --> 01:50:23,040
Speaker 1: the president of HBO. Uh and he wasn't you know,

1909
01:50:23,680 --> 01:50:25,519
Speaker 1: or one way or maybe it was the other way around.

1910
01:50:25,800 --> 01:50:30,400
Speaker 1: I think it was Michael Michael had paid two million dollars. Yeah,

1911
01:50:30,439 --> 01:50:34,679
Speaker 1: he paid two million dollars for the special and MTV

1912
01:50:34,920 --> 01:50:38,400
Speaker 1: had three days of it and he and I said, no,

1913
01:50:38,560 --> 01:50:42,960
Speaker 1: it's a build up to your special. Okay, this has

1914
01:50:43,000 --> 01:50:46,040
Speaker 1: been wonderful, Ken. We got your biography, We only touched

1915
01:50:46,040 --> 01:50:48,519
Speaker 1: on certain parts of your management career. We could go

1916
01:50:48,560 --> 01:50:50,519
Speaker 1: on for six or eight hours, but we're gonna end

1917
01:50:50,520 --> 01:50:53,040
Speaker 1: it here today. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

1918
01:50:53,320 --> 01:50:57,000
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been my pleasure. Okay, until next time.

1919
01:50:57,040 --> 01:50:58,240
Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sex