WEBVTT - Jac Holzman 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:14.240 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftet's podcast. My guest 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.200 today is Cruly, a legend in the pian era. Mr 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.320 Electra Records, Pano Vision, and so much more. Jack Holsman, Jack, 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.560 it's a pleasure to be here. Okay, first question, why 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.520 is there no kay On Jack? Because the name was 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:34.360 originally Jacob and my dad, I'm a junior, Jack Holsman. 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.720 It's Jacob Holsman, and my dad said that when he 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.440 was going to school up in Portland, Jacob was a 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.120 Jewish name, so he decided to get rid of that 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.200 in terms of talking to other students that he named 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.000 himself Jack and I inherited on my birth certificate is 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.120 Jacob Easton Holsman the second But you are Jewish and 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.840 were raised Jewish? Correct? Yeah? I was Okay, So he 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.319 was doing it, Uh, just so he wouldn't experience anti 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.679 semitism in Portland. What was he doing in Portland? Well, 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.479 the whole family had come across the United States, had 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.360 settled in Denver, and at one point I thought that 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:18.279 Portland was new, fresh open territory, and uh, they opened 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.959 up second hand stores there. Okay, we'll get back to that. 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.360 But h in our conversations previous to this, you said, well, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.679 you didn't know whether you could schedule because you were 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.280 doing work for Warner Music. What exactly, how exactly and 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:36.360 what are you doing involved with Warner today? Well, what 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:41.280 happened was that I was with the company for twenty 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.640 three years, and I knew I couldn't leave the company 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.080 until we had a solid distribution system. And I had 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.760 made a promise to myself to quit my at midlife. 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.640 I saw a movie once, uh, and it was a 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.680 story of about a guy who decide that he wants 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.440 to stop at midlife and figure out what he's doing 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.080 and then pick up and go from that. And I 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:12.000 thought that was in uh, incredibly smart, And so I 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.160 knew that I wanted to stop in my forties and 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.680 take how many years to do whatever I wanted. There 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.000 were things I longed to do. I was a pilot. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.919 I loved airplanes. I like to fly airplanes. I love 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.880 to scuba dive, I wanted to travel. I just wanted 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.840 to have time off and see what comes into my 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.720 perspective and figure out what I'm going to do later. 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.520 I did that for seven years, uh, and then in 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.560 the end of that seventh year, I UH called the 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.120 chairman of the company and I said to him, I'm 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:50.840 ready to come back. And he said, what do you 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:52.600 want to do? And I said, I want to come back, 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.080 not in the music group, but as as a technologist, 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.760 your chief technology. As he said, You're hired. And then 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.920 we got into cable and a whole bunch of interesting 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.280 things and I was there as part of that group, 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.280 and when we had problems, I knew how to solve them. Okay, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.239 so you're rehired at Warner is the chief technologist? What 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.120 does that ultimately leave you? That ultimately led me into 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:23.600 cable TV. I had a friend who had done a 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:29.519 video which I thought was quite amazing, and Uh, I said, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.680 I think there's something here. One of the things that 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.640 happened that was material was that somebody gave me a 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.280 film of his performing a song and I thought it 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.760 was wonderful, and I got it up on one of 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:49.920 the UH Warner cable channels and there was excitement about that, 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.760 and then that turned itself into MTV over time, and 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:59.920 that was just wonderful because suddenly the record companies had 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.960 an outlet for making people aware of their records and 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.800 promoting their records without having to go through radio stations 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.560 and all the nonsense that went on with getting your 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.040 thing on the air, and it was a more complete 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.760 emotional picture or emotional experience of what the song was. 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:25.320 So MTV was was was the happy outcome of what 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.800 I had started. I got it to the right people 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.599 at the right time, and it just happened. So from 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:35.159 there you go to Piano Vision. You go through many iterations, 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.560 but before we go literally you're still working for the 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:45.159 company today. Yes, that's a longer story, but what happened 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:50.600 was that after we got the MTV up, Warner Communications 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.760 became Warner Communications. They immediately acquired a company called Pani 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:59.479 Vision at the recommendation the man who was running the 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.840 uh the studios. And the thing about Panavision was that 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.480 it made cameras. It was very profitable at least cameras 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.000 and lenses to all of the picture companies. The picture 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.560 companies had sent their equipment back. And what happened at 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.039 Panavision is that it was upgraded. There were new lenses, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.160 everything was guaranteed. They rented it, you had somebody standing 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.880 by to fix it if it needed fixing. That was 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.240 all wonderful then suddenly they were spending a lot of 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.520 money and nobody could find out what the money was 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.440 being what the money was being spent on. And since 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:40.080 I knew something about cinematography, Steve Ross, who was the 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.120 chairman of the company, asked me to go out and 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.840 find out what the hell was going on. So I 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.520 went to Panavision and I sat with the man who 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.880 was in charge of the company, Bob got Schalk. He 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.880 was very tightly woven. I couldn't get any answers. And 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.760 then he took me into room where all of the 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.640 pan division equipment was showing, and I looked around and 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.159 I saw a camera that had a red light flashing, 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.599 and it had it had film in it, but I 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.560 didn't hear anything. So I said, is that a silent camera? 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.039 He said yes. I said, in effect, what you did 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.560 was didn't try to muffle the noise. You tried to 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.359 eliminate it before it happened. He said, exactly right, And 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:35.000 that was the Panaflex. So suddenly movie making change. Everybody 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:39.000 wanted a Panaflex because it was a smallish camera, it 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.599 could be moved around and you didn't hear it. It's 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.240 it saved all kinds of time and money. Gotchawk was 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.200 running it. He was running it moderately well, but then 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:55.520 he was killed by a living male lover. And I 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.200 got a call from Steve Ross saying, we've heard that 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.400 Gotcha talk was was killed. Can you find out what's 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.599 going on and try to come up with something that 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.480 you think we should do. So I was up at Atari, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.600 where I was in a where I was a director 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.600 because I had been involved in the evaluation, the technical 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:21.760 evaluation of that company. And I called into the got 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:26.240 Shocks UH secretary and I said, Michael, and he said 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.920 it's true. And I said, what's happening? He said, everybody's 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.320 going around crazy with rumors. I said, I'd like you 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.679 to stay off the phone for five minutes. I need 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.200 to think, and he said I'll do that. And I 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.200 as he stayed off the phone for five minutes, I 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.640 asked myself, do I really want to take over this company? 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.280 Do I think I can do that job? Well? I 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.560 have some fun, it's so totally different from anything I've 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.240 ever done, and yet it's in the business that I 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.680 admire so much. And I called him back and I said, well, 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.080 tell everybody I'm taking over the company. And I'll be 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.040 there at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. And you picked the 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.760 executives you think I need to meet with first before 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.800 we meet with everybody. He said fine. And then I 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.720 called Steve Ross and I said it's true. And he said, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.680 you have any ideas? I said, I've taken over the company, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.800 and he said, what can I do for you? I said, 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:27.760 don't call me cash my checks and he said, agreed, 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.440 will do that. I said, I need I'll talk to 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.720 you when I think I've got my arms wrapped around it. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.480 But these are people I don't know, and I'm going 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.200 to have to earn my way into their confidence, and 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.640 that's going to take time. And that's what we did, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.679 and I took over the company. We brought in all 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.000 of the people from around the world who were releasing 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:57.360 agents for us, and uh. They all were helpful. And 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.560 when I was in the company two or three months, 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.520 I could see the defects and what we needed to 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.520 do and where we needed to go. And we had 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.760 optics that were too old and some optics that weren't honest. 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.199 So we got it all fixed. And three years later 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.520 Ross decided he didn't want the company anymore, and he 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.680 was going to sell it. I had money and was 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.440 willing to buy it with a people, with people I 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.520 could raise money from. But he never sold any company 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:29.280 to any person who would run it on the grounds 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.800 that you knew stuff that he didn't know, and so 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.080 you had an advantage. So he turned me down and 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:41.679 that was it. And Uh. Eventually I left Warner Communications 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:47.440 and stayed out while I took a vacation that I 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.960 had promised myself. I had seen a movie called Holiday 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.960 with Carrie Grant. That was a wonderful movie about a 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.520 guy who was from the wrong side of the tracks 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:00.440 when he was on the rights I had of the 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.640 tracks and beginning to make some money if he made enough, 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.160 he wanted to take a break for a period of time, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.000 figure out where he was going and what his life 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.680 was all about. And at nineteen years old, I saw 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.800 sat in the back of the theater and I said, God, 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.200 that makes so much sense. I don't want to forget that, 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.079 and I didn't so that. When my contract was up, 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.000 UH and I was asked to renew, I said, look, 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.160 you can put a lecture with Asylum. You've got Geffen, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.040 You've got all of these good people. You don't need 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.640 me anymore. I need time for myself. And I had 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.760 discovered Hawaii and a holiday trip, and I knew that's 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.000 where I wanted to be. And I moved to Hawaii 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.200 and I lived there for seven plus years and did 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.840 everything I wanted to do, so all the people I 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.520 wanted to see and meet and have all of the adventures, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.040 and I I loved my life. But I knew it 0:10:58.160 --> 0:10:59.839 was time for me to go back to work and 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.439 called Steve Ross and that's when we got into the 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:09.560 stage of being the chief technologist. But let's go back 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.240 to the beginning. So your parents were they born in 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.480 the US? Were they born in the so called Old Country? No, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.960 they were born in the United States. My mother was 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:25.040 born in Cincinnata. My father was born in Portland. Where else? Okay, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:30.240 So they met in Portland, Um, actually they did. My 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.040 mother came there with her mother, a stell Sternberger, who 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.720 was a real personality. She had a program, a weekly 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:43.040 political analysis program on CBS network which was broadcast on 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:48.400 Saturday mornings. And that was a big piece of my 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.600 actually going into music because when I asked to sit 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.600 in the studio with her, they said, oh no, you 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.040 can't do that. But you can sit in the control 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.040 room and in the control room where all the lads 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:05.520 and earned tables and uh everything. It was used in broadcasting, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.640 and I was intensely curious about it, and I'd ask 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:10.920 a lot of questions and they'd explained it to me. 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.640 So that when I was reading Life magazine and saw 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:21.480 an article uh that showed the inventor or the creator 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.000 for CBS Labs of the LP record, I knew that 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.480 it was going to be a winner, and that small 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:33.400 independent labels could start because we would do stuff that 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.120 was not related to the major labels at all. I 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.400 thought I would do folk music in baroque music. Baroque 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.160 music was too expensive for me. I only had six 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:48.760 hundred dollars, and so I tried folk music. Glenn Yarborough, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.720 who turned out to be a star later and a 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:55.840 member of the Limelighters, was one of my first early artists. 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.000 And at the end of that third year, St. John's 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:03.720 College was an am using school. It it's had a 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.559 curriculum that did not use textbooks. It used the original books. 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.880 If you were studying geometry, you went all the way back. Well, 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.440 let's just let's go back. We'll get back to St. John's. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.760 So you grew up in Portland. No, I didn't grow up. 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:20.640 I grew up in New York. My father came to 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.000 New York UH after his after his supremat he came 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:31.000 to medical school at Harvard. And after medical school at Harvard, UH, 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.040 he was taken in by Mound Sinai and was at 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.040 Mount Sinai for a number of years, and then he 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.720 went into private practice. And he called up my mother 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.640 our writer or a letter or whatever did and then 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.520 they started dating, and eventually I emerged. And how many 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.280 kids in the family? True? My brother and I my 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:58.960 brother Keith, who's the oldest. I'm the oldest. I'm And 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.840 to what degree be the oldest child? Were you in 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.559 the embodiment of their hopes and dreams? My father didn't 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.240 think I was very smart, and he said that, look, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:12.840 I know you're gonna have a trouble finding a way 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:17.559 to make a living. So I'll buy a drug store 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.360 for you in this building. We'll put it up and 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:22.320 then you run the drug store, and we split the 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.040 profits at the end of the year. And I said, 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.600 that's not what I have in mind. He said, what 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.200 did you have in mind? I said, I don't know, 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.400 but I'm going to think on it. And Uh, I 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.480 started a little record shop for folk music and as 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:42.960 the office for a record company I named Electra because 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.520 I loved the name. Electra was one of the one 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:51.040 of the outer muses in the Solar system. And but 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.120 I wanted Electra with a C. Was. I wanted a heart, 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.920 more dramatic K. And so the lecture came with a K. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.160 And I found my first folk singer, Geane Ritchie, and 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.760 she we made a wonderful album together. You could record 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.800 the artist in their own home. I had my own 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.960 tape recorder by that time, six hundred dollar Magna order 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.160 and a microphone. And so what we do was we 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.920 would set up the rooms, hang hang things on the 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.760 walls to keep the echoic nature of a room from 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.920 happening into the microphone. And I did that with a 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:34.280 whole bunch of artists, Oscar Brand, Frank Warner, uh And 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:38.240 slowly these were tenanth LPs. They kind of grew and 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.960 grew and grew. I still wasn't making money. I was 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:48.880 making debt. In nineteen fifty five, I was sitting in 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.400 a at a home with some friends and they were 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.560 having everybody brought their guitar and they're singing songs. And 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.200 they gave this guitar to this guy who was an actor, 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:03.240 and he just blew me away. It was Theodore Bickel. Uh. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.000 He was doing Yiddish songs, he was doing Israeli songs, 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.080 he was doing Russian folk songs. And I knew those 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.680 genres had big audiences in the major cities. So I 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.880 sat theo down and we talked, and we made a 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:22.000 record deal together, and uh, we started making these albums. 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.800 And in the nifty six when twelve inch records happened, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.200 we added more music to the album as they came 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:34.800 out as twelve inch LPs, and suddenly we were selling records. Okay, 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.240 let's go back. Uh, you're growing up. What kind of 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.640 kid are you? You have a lot of friends. Are 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:45.200 more of an introvert? I was a loner. I had 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:49.680 one friend named Adam Pinsker. Adam was smart and kept 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.400 me kind of straightened out. I was kind of loose 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.280 and banging at all kinds of edges. But when I 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.560 had something I love to do, I did it very well. 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.560 And when I went to St. John's College, which was 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.840 this great book school which Ahmed Errigan had gone to 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.480 eight years earlier than me. When we found out that 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.320 we had both gone to this very obscure school where 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.359 there are only one hundred students in it for all 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.159 all grades, big hugs and kisses because we had that 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:27.679 extremely important education and opportunity in hand. Why did you 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.680 go to St John's Because I had my only other 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.480 choice with another college. I had a promising date for 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:40.800 that weekend, so I they insisted upon an interview that weekend. 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:42.560 I said, the hell with it. I'll go to St. 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.800 John's whatever that is. I had no idea what I 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:47.840 was getting into what it turned out to be a 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.439 turning point in my life. And as I was there 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.960 and picking up some packages that I had sent to myself, 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.720 I noticed one to Adam Pinsker. He had also ended 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.000 up in this school. The child wildhood friend whom I 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.479 hadn't seen in years was in this school, and he 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.840 was enormous help to me. And so at what point 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.240 do you decide to start electra? Are you still at 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.880 St John's and don't you have a partner. I'm still 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.400 at St. John's. I had somebody who had come out 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.879 of the Navy who put up three hundred dollars and 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.879 they we were partners. Uh. He later didn't want to 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.640 be involved with this, and so I think I gave 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:31.760 a thousand dollars. I don't know where the hell I 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.760 got the thousand dollars, but I gave a thousand dollars 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.840 and he went his way, and I owned a hundred 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.840 percent of the company, but we were in about ninety 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:47.760 thousand dollars worth of fifty five debt before Theodore Bikail 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.439 the Theater or Pikail records between them sold about a 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.399 hundred thousand, but they were very profitable despite the fact 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.960 that they were very elaborately produced. Did you had a 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:03.399 Russian album? We had a book of liner notes. It 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.119 wasn't liner notes on the back so much as it 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.600 was liner notes. Inside the album. We would have the 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.640 songs in Russian in a transliteration, which is what if 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.919 you want to sing along with us and can read English, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.160 you might be able to sing with with theo uh 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:24.240 and then the English translation. And because they were so 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.000 complete and the covers were so good, we did well. 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.920 And I had very good suppliers. They were really generous 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.000 with me. I owed him ninety thousand dollars, but my 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.399 strategy with them was not to put off paying them. 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.560 It was the opposite, to pay a small amount every 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.639 two weeks. So they saw a check coming every two weeks, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.639 and the checks got bigger and bigger and bigger, and 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.440 then one day I wrote checks for ninety thousand dollars, 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:56.400 paid them off and kept them. Okay. Now, I certainly 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.480 remember growing up with Theodore Maquel records, and he was 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.720 very definitely a star. The reason I bring this up 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.760 is when you meet him in this party. Had he 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.560 been contacted by anybody else to make records? No, he wasn't. 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:12.560 He was an actor. He was on Broadway. I thought 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.960 he could be in a record artist. And I said, Jim, 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.080 come on over to the house and we'll record some stuff. 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.760 We'll see how it goes. And then I played it 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.800 back for myself a lot, and I said, this isn't 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.920 this is an artist. I think that will help get 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:33.560 me there. And about five years after he had helped 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.240 get me there, I said THEO we're doing well. Now 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:43.320 you deserve a reward as an appreciation, and he said 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.679 what I said, Well, I'll sell you five percent of 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:51.000 the company for the low price of twenty dollars and 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.679 he bought it, and when the company was sold, he 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.879 walked out with five hundred thousand dollars. But that's what 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.160 I felt. I owed him. He was there at that time. 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.120 You have a record deal. Today, record deals are very complicated, 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.000 never mind the streaming era. What kind of deal did 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.479 you cut the O back in the fifties. Well, I 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:15.040 cut the deal of no money down and a royalty 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:21.000 of seven on the price on which all records were sold, 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.800 because there was a ten percent federal tax at that time, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:29.399 instituted during the war. So that was it. The contracts 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.080 were very simple. We had very successful series. We had 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:37.600 a series we did. Another artist, Oscar Brand, who had 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:42.239 a New York radio show every Sunday, came to me 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.280 one day and said, you know, I've been getting lyrics 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:50.000 and stuff with melodies from Air Force people. He said, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.040 you know, we could make an Air Force album. I 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:54.040 said that kind of crazy, but let me listen to 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.920 the material. And the material was there, and so I said, okay, 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.359 we'll call at the y old Blue Johnder. We made 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.600 a record, we put it out, It did well, and 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.840 we sent a copy with a note to the unit 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.080 that bought all of the stuff for the stores that 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:15.520 they ran in each of the various locations the world, 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.280 and uh so we sent it and we didn't hear 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.000 from them, and then about three weeks later we got 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.919 a letter with an order for ten thousand copies. I 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:27.719 called him and said, do you guys make a mistake 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:29.560 with a zero? And they said, no, no, we think 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.800 we can sell ten thousand, and so that worked, and 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:34.800 then we did it for the Marines, we did it 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.760 for the Navy. We were doing well. No, nothing explosive, 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.399 but I was having fun and we were doing things 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.080 that other people didn't do. There was a moment when 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.600 I had there was nothing to record. I could not 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.000 find an artist I wanted just before Josh White, so 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:56.960 I said, what else can I record? I'm a Ham 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:00.119 radio operator and I have trouble with Morse code. So 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.919 I came up with a Morse code record that you 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.840 could play at thirty three, forty five, and seventy eight, 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:10.520 depending upon your how good you were in reading Morse code. 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.720 And we didn't sell it through record stores. We sold 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:18.320 it through stores that had big mail order departments. Uh 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:22.280 and they were located throughout the country of Concord was 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.080 one of them. There were about eight, and he sold 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.760 about five a month, So I was selling three thousand 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:31.400 a month of what I couldn't give away in fol 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:34.639 in folk music, and I never forgot that it's not 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:39.640 always about recording music, which came later on and proved 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:43.840 to be the most dynamic restart in a record company 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:47.760 that I know of. Okay, now, one thing we know 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:51.600 in the era of independent distribution as opposed to branch distribution, 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.440 that it wasn't always so easy to get paid even 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:58.439 if the records sold. What was that experience like for you? 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:03.359 I didn't have that experience very badly. I picked good 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:08.960 people who actually paid me, but took their time about it, 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:10.879 which was one of the reasons why I didn't have 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:15.120 enough money to pay off the manufacturers and people who 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:18.280 made the records assemble the albums. But I knew that 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.280 had to end, and that was one of the sparking 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:24.639 points with which I always lived. I've got to find 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:29.480 an opportunity for independent labels to be able to supervise 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:34.080 and handle the last thing between the record and the 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:38.879 person who buys it, so you ultimately form wea But 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:41.600 staying with the Electra story tell us the story of 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:47.120 Josh White Josh White. I got a phone call one day. 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:50.359 A man said to me, I represent Josh White, and 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.879 Josh White can't get a record contract because he's been blacklisted. 0:24:55.600 --> 0:25:00.600 Why was he blacklisted? He performed at a Russian a 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.240 concert to raise money for Russia and special arms for 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:08.280