WEBVTT - Ken Kragen 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.560 Welcome, Welcome, brocome back to the Bob Left Sets Podcast. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:17.639 My guest today is truly legendary artist manager Ken Craigan. 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.240 We have the Smothers Brothers, Lionel Richie the First Edition, 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:27.040 Travis Tritt, Tricia Yearwood, the comedian Gallagher. Is there anybody 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.280 who haven't represented Ken? It's amazing. It's sort of that 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.519 six degrees of separation. I'm connected to everybody one way 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:36.839 or another. So why did you decide to become an 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.839 artist manager? You know, it's funny. I didn't exactly decide that. 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.240 I went to Harvard Business School. Let's go back, where'd 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.440 you go to undergraduate? I went to undergraduated Berkeley. Okay. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.680 My dad was vice chancer and teaching in the law school, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.720 and uh, and we were living in Berkeley, and I 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.480 ended up going there thinking I was gonna be a microbiologist. 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.880 Why a microbiologist? I have no idea. Well, six for 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:01.760 we have to be started here. How many kids in 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.160 your family? Uh? Just myself and my sister and your 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.800 sister older or younger. She's younger by six years and 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.800 she's still with us. Oh, what's she up to? She's 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:17.120 got four kids and thirteen grandchildren's boyfriend. Her husband passed 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.479 away a few years ago, and you got a wonderful 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.480 boyfriend that's and which I love at her age and 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.280 they travel all over the world together. It's fabulous. Okay. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.440 So you're growing up in Berkeley. This is the fifties 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.920 and fifth well we went. He was he was ahead 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:33.959 of Loeban Lobe here in l A. And that's a 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.800 legendary also entertainment. Yeah, he represented eleven studios. He was 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.880 a chief lobbyist and Sacramento for them. And he had 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.800 the funny thing is this is a good story. He 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.160 he had clients. His clients were Deborah Carr, William Holden, 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.720 Alan lad Mickey Rooney. And they used to come over 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.279 the house and I was like six years old or something, 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.360 and I would sit at their feet in the on 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.480 the rug in the living room and here the taught 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.040 my dad and them tell stories about all these entertainment stories, right, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.880 And I remember, I do remember this perfectly that I 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.600 thought to myself, I'll never have any stories like that. Now, 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.680 you bring up any subject, I can tell you a story. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.000 Something in my fifty or sixty years in this business. Okay. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.600 So you're living where in l A. At that time, 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:27.440 we were living over near Fairfax in Beverly, where I 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.600 ended up much later, basically having an office at CBS. Okay, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.360 you never left, but uh, in terms of were you 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.760 aware that your father was that successful? We we Uh, 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.360 we moved when my dad was really at Loeban Loeban 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.880 doing Grady ended up being the managing partner. Uh. We 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.520 lived on Irving in Los Angeles, right off of right 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.799 off of third Street. Uh, in that kind of area 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.400 where they shot movies a lot, and there were all 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.960 these big homes at the time. And I would go 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.600 down on the weekend and get to help run the 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:06.760 switchboard at Loeban Lobe. Yeah, that was like a little kid. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.720 Where was their office that their office was Grant Union 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.880 and Grant Okick or something like that or Grand I'm sorry, 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:19.399 grand And and Union, I think. Okay, so you met 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.800 a lot of powerful, famous people when you were growing up. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:25.919 Did that have an impact upon you? You know, I 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.560 don't think so. But what changed my life in a 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.960 funny way was uh that I we moved when I 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.920 was fifteen to Berkeley. And when we moved when my 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.760 dad took what happened, and it's a big lesson. My 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.000 dad was making I don't know, over a hundred thousand 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.720 a year, because that was a lot of money back then, ton, 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.720 I mean the fifties, fifty two. This was you See, 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.720 Berkeley comes to him and they offer him twelve five 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.040 to come pel five a year to come teach us 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.080 like ten percent of his salary right to come teach 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.720 at Berkeley in the law school. And he takes it, 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.160 and we leave Los Angeles and we moved to Berkeley. 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.160 I've used it in my classes at U c l 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.080 A when I've teaching there. I used it as a 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.760 great example of do what you love, what you really believe. 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.840 He stayed there forty two years. He taught till he 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.919 was eighty seven. He chaired committees till he was ninety five. 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.600 He died in his sleep at night. I mean he did. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.719 He lived it so he never had any regrets none, 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.880 And somehow or other he ended up living, leaving my 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.159 kids and and uh and my sister's bunch of kids. 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.719 Uh A lot of money. I who knows it from where? 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.839 You know? So you moved You were born in l A. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.839 You moved to fifteen What about your mother? My mother 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.920 was basically a housekeeper and homekeeper. But she had been 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.800 a violinists with the Oakland Symphony. And but after she 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.400 met my dad, slowly she wound that. Now she still 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:58.839 played even when we moved down here in groups there. 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.240 So music was in our life, but I was a 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:06.120 terrible musician. I played a lousy trombone. Okay, So your 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.440 parents born in the US and their parents born in 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.360 the Old Country as her family, this is kind of neat. 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.880 Our family came, at least one side of it, came 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.679 to San Francisco for the gold Rush. The great great 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.599 grandfather came across the Isthmus of Panama on a donkey 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.719 because there was no canal. Then he rode across. He 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.520 got on a steamer. He came up to San Francisco. 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.400 But he got there in eighteen fifty two and the 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.359 gold Rush was essentially over. And he then formed or 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.920 opened the first furniture store on Market Street in San Francisco. 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.320 And he had come from where he had come. Well, 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.640 we always thought it was Austria, but I think what 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.680 we're finding out is it may be part of Austria now, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:50.560 but it was hungry, I think in that. And what 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.240 about Poland, and what about the other side of your family, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.200 the other side of the family also from that kind 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.080 of area. My mom trade. This is kind of interesting, 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.680 My mom trace back to the fact that in the 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:08.599 seventeen hundreds a Jewish, a regular general in the German army, 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.480 married a Jewish woman and was kicked out of the 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.440 army in the seventeen hundreds. Right. I don't know how 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:16.920 she found that out, but she did, and so they 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.479 moved away from Germany. And so I think both sides 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.200 of the family came from that, you know, that Hungary, Austria, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.200 Poland kind of one came in eighteen fifty. When did 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.560 the other one come? You know, the other one came 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.360 when there was a railroad that I don't know the 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:36.039 year now, I probably should, but the wild part of 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.840 it was, and this is the first She was with 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:43.080 the firstborn child, who was like four or five, and 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.479 the new and a new baby in her arms, and 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.159 she came across on a train and they changed trains 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.240 in Chicago, and the four or five year old ran 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.040 under a train and was killed. And she had to 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:59.039 arrive in San Francisco with the firstborn boy in the 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.560 family in a coffin wild you know, I don't know. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.200 My mother was phenomenal at tracing all that stuff back. Okay, 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.200 So let's be like you were born in l Aye 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.400 and he didn't move to Berkeley. I was born in Berkeley, Okay, 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:18.000 and moved to l A. I remember. I think I 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:22.000 started Third Street School in Los Angeles and probably the 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.720 third grade. So you were here for like six or 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.080 eight years before you went back to Berkeley a little more, 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:33.320 and you were in Berkeley you went to regular public school. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.920 I went to Berkeley High. I'm an alumnus of Berkeley High. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:41.280 So what was that experience? Like? Very interesting? Uh? You know? 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.600 For the interesting most interesting thing is Berkeley High had 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.320 a theater attached to it, a regular community theater, and 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.840 the first show I ever produced was for a group 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.120 of the Kingston Trio or no, it was sort of 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.560 the lot. It was for the Gateway Singers. I think 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.440 I don't even know they well, they predated they were 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.040 sort of the West Coast weavers, you know, in that 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.680 old folk era, you know, I know it was one 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.600 of those, and it probably was the king Centrio and 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.280 it was in the Berkeley Community Theater. And the reason 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.640 I remember it so well is the group made three 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.760 sixty dollars, which was more money than they had ever made. 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:24.320 That that night, I made eighty two dollars until my dad, 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.080 who was a tax expert, explained to me that there 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:31.040 were admission taxes and they were eighty dollars. So so 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.000 my first show in the Berkeley Community Theater, right where 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.800 I went to high school, I ain't two dollars. And 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.400 so you're in high school, You're a popular kid. Were 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.200 you a nerd? What kind of kid were you know? 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.240 I joined a club there, club called the Annoias and 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.520 we called what they were called the Unoias EU. And 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.040 I have no clue. I don't know. But what I 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.440 know is because this was the seeds of my career 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.920 is in l A. We had always had these big 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.880 dances with Nay. We had Frank Sinatra come and sing 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.360 it at a high school dance, you know, I mean, 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.160 it was unbelievable. Got to Berkeley and I felt like 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.040 they were ten years behind the time. So I started 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.160 through my dad, I made some connections and I started 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.000 bringing acts from l A to come up to perform 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.240 at dances or not concerts. At that point, we're talking 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.240 the fifties, uh and and I'll never forget because I 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.760 bought this. I bought the stand Kenton band. Except you 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:29.400 didn't get the band. You got a group that he 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.480 formed of musicians in San Francisco, and they sent the 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.720 drums that said Stan Kenton on it, right, you know, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.079 but at least Stan Kenton was there, right. No, No, 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.800 Stan wasn't there either. Stan couldn't be there, and I 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.840 had booked his I think his wife was Julie Christie maybe, 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.880 and I booked her and she couldn't come either, So 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.000 they sent a lady named Terry Southern. These are all 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.920 acts no one would know now, you know, but the bad. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.240 But we made money, you know. My mother sent me 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.880 a picture one time of me giving six four dollars 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.520 to the Red Cross from one of these shows that 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:05.720 I did, you know. Okay, so you're in high school, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.839 are you you know, certainly looking at your career? Are 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.600 you that entrepreneurial? From day one? You have a paper 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:18.320 route that kind of I sold Time Life Sports illustrated subscriptions, 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.600 and I would go up to the Berkeley campus and 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.640 I would hand out discount cards in what was then 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.920 the Red Line. Now you wouldn't have stand in line 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.760 to register then you had to stand in a long, 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:35.000 long line for hours to go and actually register, and 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.000 I would have to. So I would go down the 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.920 line and hand everybody a students a student discount card 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.600 for Time Life for Sports Illustrated. But it had my address, 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.880 my home address on it. I would get. I remember 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:52.040 I made eighteen hundred dollars one week in commissions in 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.520 high school. It's like today doing My mother looked at 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.240 me like I was. She thought, oh, no thing is 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.120 going to come from this. So I did that. I 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.199 got over the years. Even after I got into college. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.480 I had I called at the cal Subscription Service, but 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.760 because my first initials ken K in my last k, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.600 it was called k L Subscription Service. I ended up 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:20.199 with fifty sales people around California on campuses. I so 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.640 I was totally entrepreneurial from the early stages there. Okay, 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.880 and how did you get you know, was it a 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.320 super discount price? Why did everybody say that it was 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.600 like half the normal price? And how did you get 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.120 hooked up? Well, somehow or other, I agreed to do it, 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:39.280 and they gave us. I would get like six they wanted. 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.800 They wanted the subscription, so that would give me like 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.199 sixty or seventy of the cause of the subscription. So 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.480 even though the subscription was less than five dollars for 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.600 for the year, I would get, you know, three sixty 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.040 five or something from every subscription. You know that our 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:03.040 mailbox would be stuffed with these cards and fifty salesman. 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.320 How much did you take from them? You know? I 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.240 don't remember that. I don't remember, but I might have 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.760 split with them or maybe I don't know. I gave 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.400 them enough as incentive, and even I let when I 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.400 went to Berkeley. I was in Berkeley four years and 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.280 then the King cent Trio I was doing their shows 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.480 and they wanted me to become their concert promoter on 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.240 the road. And the meantime, I got accepted to Harvard 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.360 Business School, and my father, I think that's the only 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.080 time in my whole life, he said, you've got to 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.880 do something. He said, if you don't go to Harvard 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.880 Business School now, you will never go Okay, let's go back. 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.560 You're in Berkeley studying, what I'm saying. From getting out 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.520 of high school, I thought I'd be a microbiologist. Uh. 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.320 Then I ended up in engineering and I did terrible 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.880 there because I was awful at math. I used to 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:54.640 skip math in high school for basketball practice and and 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.720 so I dropped out of that for after a year. 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.480 And they had a special deal for basketball players at Berkeley, 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.520 although I wasn't a big time player there, and it 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:05.959 was where you could make up. Of course, the schools 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.400 all have it now. This they created for the athletes, 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.520 and you could take subjects from You had to have 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.200 a total of twelve units and you could go up 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:22.800 to three different areas. So I picked anthropology, sociology, and journalism. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:24.920 Don't ask me, I don't know why, but there were 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.280 all things I was interested in. So I did very 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.319 well because I now was taking things that were fascinating 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.480 to me and interesting to me. And I got all 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.840 ready to graduate from Berkeley, and I turned out I 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.120 was three units short. So my journalism for me who 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.840 was my sort of my mentor too, she gave me, uh, 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.720 she let me work on a study with her, and 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.280 she gave me three credits so I could graduate. Okay, 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.560 did you promote shows in college? Yes, we're at the 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.720 college or the idea. The first show I ever did 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:03.240 at the college was the group the Limelighters, and it 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.040 was in a sevenfty hall seed Hall. I've got the 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.880 poster on my wall at home. I know. The tickets 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.520 were seventy cents, okay, and I and it was first come, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.880 first served, no pre sale. And I remember sitting in 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:22.160 the office of the editor of the of the school paper, 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.360 the Daily Cow, and saying to him, Oh, God, is 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:27.640 anybody going to show up? And we walked out of 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.440 his office, which was right across from the hall, and 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.800 there was a line around the building. We sold out. 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.360 It was my my first show on the Berkeley campus. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.120 And and by the way, it led to my managing 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.600 that group after I got out of Harvard Business School, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.960 because they thought of me as some kind of genius. 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.480 They had never done that, They've never made that much money. 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.920 They were appearing at the Hungry Eye, a little club 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.240 over in the Bay Area, and uh. And I was 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.800 like a hero as a kid, you know, from doing it. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.520 And I actually ended up by the way U after 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.840 once I got professional, after Harvard, I wrote a book 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.040 on promoting college concerts. Okay, so the line lighters hadn't 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.480 broken yet if they're playing at the Hungry No, they 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.760 hadn't broken back. Okay. Now today it's a track people 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.040 become part of the concert committee, etcetera. Were you operating 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.880 totally independently or were you part of a club? No, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.200 I was. I was operating pretty much independently, but I 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.600 was doing everything. In fact, once I took on the 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.080 management of that group after after the business school, I 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.320 would do everything from sending the laundry out to booking 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.760 the airfares to uh, you know, I'd be a shill 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:40.760 at the concert and have to throw out a line 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.600 that got a very funny reaction from the their response 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.000 to it, and stuff like that. I mean I was 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.680 a run spotlights. I sold souvenir programs, whatever was necessary 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.640 at that moment in time that had to be done 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.280 that would help the group I did. It was a 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.880 great education. They were older and me. They knew what 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:05.160 they were doing. I learned management. Okay, so you're still 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.880 in Berkeley. When you book a bandon Berkeley, you know, 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.040 today there's a huge guarantee and the promoter can lose money. 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.960 What was the deal back then? Well, I just you 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.760 reminded me of one grace whore. I booked Ray Charles, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.080 and it's Saturday night in Berkeley and they get there 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.320 for rehearsal at four in the afternoon and Joe Adams, 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:30.600 his manager, says to me, you owe him ten thousand dollars, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.200 which is what I had to pay for him then. 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.680 And he says, and we want it in cash. Where 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.240 do you get Where does a college kid get ten 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.840 thousand dollars? And I have no idea where I got it. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:49.920 I did, and I watched them count every dollar. Okay, 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.640 you graduate from college, you go to Harvard Business School 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.640 the following fall. Do you take time off? Yeah, here's 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.720 the crazy thing. The king Centrio asked me to be 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.439 there answer promoter. My dad had ah. I think I 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.400 had grant some kind of a grant to go to 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.800 Europe and do some lectures there. So we went to 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.560 Europe for the summer, and I flew directly from Copenhagen 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.800 back to Boston to start Harvard Business School. And I 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.800 walked into my dorm room and a guy said to me, 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.800 my god, have you heard this song by the Kingston 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.600 Trio Hanging out your Head Tom Dooley. It's the number 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.600 one song in the country. I was sure, absolutely certain, 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.800 I had blown it, and my career was in the 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.359 in the entertainment business. I had lost, I had lost 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.359 any opportunity there. I was sure of it. I thought, 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:42.439 you know, you should have taken that job. Look at 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.880 their the number one and I had predicted a year 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.320 before when I first heard him. I walked up to 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.520 him after the show at a little club called the U. 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.320 The UH was the Blue Onion or something in San Francisco, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.000 and I I said to them, you know, a year 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:58.560 from now, you're going to be the hottest thing in 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.200 the US. And almost a year to the day they 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.680 had the number one record. Okay, so at that time 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.720 you ended up managing the Kingston Trio. No never, No, okay. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.320 So you go to Harvard Business School. When you were 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.200 in college, did you live at home or on campus? 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.639 And lived at home? Okay, so this is the first 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:22.080 time you're living alone. Yeah, and your Harvard Business School dorm. 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:27.520 Any idea what you're trying to achieve by going survive? 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.720 I flew home the first year until my parents. I 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:32.600 had flunked out. I was sure of it, and I 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.479 ended up twenty seven in the class, and I I 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.600 was absolutely certain I had to fake some of the exams, 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.679 you know, I mean it was it was so hard, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.480 it was unbelievable. And they told us that the dean. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.159 I think the reason I got into Harvard School is 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.440 the dean of of the school had been the dean 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.960 of men at Berkeley when my dad was vice Chances 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.560 that they were all friends. Somehow I got in, you know, 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.679 those that wouldn't happen nowadays. But and and uh, and 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:04.840 I was sure that I had was flunked out, and 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.840 I just couldn't believe it. But the second year was 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.800 a little easier than the first, but never it was easy. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.080 And and I, by the way, I started a subscription service. 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.120 I called it New England Subscription or something like that 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.800 in England. You know I had but I you know, 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.440 I got an offer from this group, from the Lime Letders. 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.160 They I was home at Christmas between I still had 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.240 four or five months ago, and they called me just 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.439 as I'm getting ready to leave to go back, and 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:39.320 they said, we need an executive secretary. Would you be 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.919 our executive secretary? And I think this is probably the 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.040 single guttiest thing I've ever done in my life, because 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.639 I said to them, look, I didn't go to Harvard 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.959 Business School to be an executive secretary. If you need 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.320 a manager, you know, call me. And when I got 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.600 back to school. The leader of the Lime Letters was 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.800 a very funny guy named Leuke Got Ladies. Rik was funny, 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.920 and there was this wonderful letter that I can't find anywhere. 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.560 And he said, we want you to be our manager. 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.560 So now I accept the management and he want and 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:10.840 they want me to come out of school. And I 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:12.840 said no, no no, no, no, no. Four months from now, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.200 I'm you know, in May or whatever it is, I'm graduating. Uh, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.560 you have to wait. But I started working for them 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.160 right away, and I took their album and I walked 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.720 into the biggest station in Boston at the time, w 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.240 b Z, and who was the program director but Joe 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.200 Smith not He was the librarian. Joe Smith for those 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.480 of no, Joe Smith had a legendary career in the 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.920 record business, working at Warner Brothers Records running Electra. Yeah, 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.600 he was co president of Warners with Mo Austin. You know, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.000 the gold Dust Twins, that's what they were called. So 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.520 he he was the first guy. He sat me down 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.480 and gave me clues to the business. And I took 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.440 that record all over Boston and promoted it and everything. 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.320 Had some unbelievable experiences. You know, this was the days 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:02.239 of Paola and other stuff like that, and there were 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.200 some amazing things happening in those days. I don't know 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.200 if we have time for it, but I okay, if 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.160 there's Paola, you're a graduate student. How did you get 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.080 the money to pay them? I didn't. I didn't pay anybody. 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.320 But it led, it led, and I wish I could 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.280 remember the guy's name. He was like the hottest DJ 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.560 in the country at the time. What if he played 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.000 your record, you were made right? And he was at 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.200 a competing station, not busy, and I made an appointment 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.240 to take one of the members of the group kind 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.280 of a hot blooded he's still around and still I think, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.520 occasionally performs with the group as he's constituted. A guy 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.399 named Alex Hasslev and he was from a Russian background, 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.240 and UM and I took him with me to meet 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.080 this DJ with our record, with our single, whatever it was, 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:52.080 and we and UM he kept us waiting over an hour, 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.199 which was getting Alex kind of upset anyway. Then he 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.919 walked into the studio, walked right by us, went to 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.680 his office and we were sat there for another half 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.000 hour or more. Finally we go into his office and 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.879 he is he's got a stack of In those days, 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:11.360 they were those little forty five with a big hole, right, 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.520 and he's taking them and he's throwing them one after 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.920 the other into the waste basket. Uh. And every every 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:20.280