Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Marshall Chess

Transcript

Marshall Chess · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sess Podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Marshall Chess. Marshall, when did you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: realize your father was in the record business? Oh? God,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: when I was maybe uh so in nineteen fifty, I
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: would be uh eight forty two, eight eight or ten
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: years old. When he first started. He used to bring
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: home the records, you know when when he first started,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: which was ninety seven, But I really knew in nineteen
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: fifty when Chess started. Then I knew that was much
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: more because he started. He still had a nightclub when
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: he started, called the Macambo Lounge, and the company that
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: he bought to turn to Chess was called Aristocrat Records,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and he started working as a salesman. He wanted to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: learn learn, so from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: while the nightclub still existed, my uncle came back from
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the army. He worked as a salesman for Aristocratic Record.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Whatever that meant um. I never even discussed that with him,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: but that's what it says. He was a salesman and
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: then in nineteen fifty he formed Chess Records and started.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Actually I was my father was a workaholic, from the always,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: so I hardly saw him. I was the first and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: only son. I was desperate to play. He never played ball, right,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: he was an immigrant that came over in nineteen twenty two,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So he wasn't We weren't playing ball. It wasn't the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: typical American thing. He was always at work and uh,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you know, so I knew that that was my My
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: way to him was through the family business, through work.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Let's start there. Okay, your father was an immigrant. Your
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: mother was she born in the States where she immigrant
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to My mother was born in the States from immigrant parents.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: How did your parents meet? Uh? They met in Chicago.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Evidently the real story was my father had a girlfriend.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: He must he was in his early twenties. He had
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend from a wealthier Jewish family that the father
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: made her not see my father because he was an
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: immigrant peasant. But my father really loved her, and uh,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I guess he met my mother was on the rebound.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And um, they had a really close friend that both
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: my father and this guy, Marty Whitzel, worked at a
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: shoe store called Burger Shoe Store. Shoes, you know, shoe guys.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: It was a big, big, giant shoe store where everyone
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: got discount, cheaper Jewish kind of business. And they got married.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: He my mother and my father and this guy Marty
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and Millie. He had a double wedding and they got
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: married together. They were very close friends, and that's how
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: it began. You know. I've seen early photos of them
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: horseback riding in the park in Chicago. But yeah, they
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: got married very young. Um, and uh, that's how they met,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: you know, through through My father didn't like working in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: this shoe's store. He was a milkman before that. He
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: hated working for people. He instilled that in me very much, so,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: so I know, and I instilled it in my son
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and my daughter, so I know how that goes when
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you're in still young. But uh, he didn't want to
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: work for people, so he that in Chicago. We gotta
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: go back to a million black people came up from
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the Illinois Central from Memphis, primarily from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Kentucky into Chicago to make money. They could not make
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: money in the South. It was short and that before
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: civil rights, not long after slavery. You know, it was
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: very difficult. World War two hit and the factories in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Chicago go, Uh, it became like a bloodline for making money.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So they you know, immigrants, Black immigrants along with Irish,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Polish Jews. They all came to Chicago at the same
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: time and it was really an immigrant center. So my
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: father that black people could not they couldn't get a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: store front. They didn't have bank accounts. People like young
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: people don't understand that no bank accounts, no storefront, didn't
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: know anything about business. And um, my father and my
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: uncle both heard black. My grandfather, Joe Chess came seven
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: years prior to America with okay, just one second, what
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: was the name in the old country and how to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: become Chess Chess c z y z Chez and Ellis Island.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: They changed my grandfather, but they must have said, but
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you know, what's your name? You know, get Joseph Chesz
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Chess now and that was it. That's how it started. Okay,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: So your your grandfather came seven year before your father,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: seven years prior with some relatives to Chicago. Guy was
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: a carpenter, uh part of the family from a small
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: village and on the pole it right now it's it's Belarus.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: He was right where all this trouble is now in Ukraine.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Right on the border. It was Poland then. And he
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: came from this small village Muttle, a Jewish little tavern.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: They had a tavern in town. It was a village
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: on the road. My grandfather was he was a traveling cobbler,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: shoemaker or whatever. He was fixed and he came to Chicago,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and uh he came, and he earned the money to
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to bring over the family. Seven years later on Thelicitania,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: that same boat that picked up people from the Titanic.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: They came from Southampton to Chicago to Walton, New York,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Southampton a train from Poland, I guess, and then to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Southampton to New York, trained to Chicago. My uncle said
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: when he got to London to the Southampton, he went
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to the He never had an inside toilet. He didn't
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: know how to flush it. He was the chain in
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: one of those from the ceiling. He didn't know. That
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: was the first toilet he saw. But anyway, they came
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: because they didn't know English. And my grandfather was a
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: stern kind of guy. I heard later in life that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: he was a child beater with a belt, you know.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: He used to really punish. But my father beat me
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: with a belt. Soul Yeah, my father beat me up
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: really bad ones. You know how they say that gets inherited.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: He did really bad one time. Um at Aside from that,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: so ac my grandfather evolved to a junkyard then he had.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Then it was a scrap metal yard, and my uncle
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: said that part of their big business was getting empty
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: old bottles on the street. They'd sell to al Capone's
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: bootleg brewery to rebottle. My uncle said, I'll gave me
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a hundred dollars when I went into the army, said
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I'll gave you a hundred dollars and pre passing his whorehouse.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: But we checked it by Sun and I and act impossible.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: It was like ten years difference. But it was someone
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that was still that going on in Chicago. It was
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: someone you know. So anyway, across from that junkyard was
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a black church, the the old kind with an upright piano,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: tambourines and a bass drum. And they would hear they
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: heard the gospel singing and they were fascinated because my
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: uncle would tell me. My uncle was the guy who
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: told you all the real stories. My father was about business,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you know, making sure that you could handle life, not
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the old stories. But anyway, my uncle said, yeah, man,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: we heard the black singing. And we'd stand there and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and we listened, fascinated to the music. And we'd come
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: home late and Zadi would beat us with his belt,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the grandfather for being late for dinner. But in the
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: village in Poland, evidently one guy had a wind up
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: petrolla and when you play it, like half the town
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: would come under the window to hear that, you know,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to hear music. I don't think they've done sounding like
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: they had any live music in that little village. Um.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: And so that's how that began. So he uh, he
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: was around black people right from the beginn any before
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: he spoke English, you know, there wasn't you know, there
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: was this that was it was in the ghetto that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: you know, where the church was, where the junkyard was.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And anyway, when he wanted to go on his own,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: he found out through the grapevine or whatever that if
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you white guys can you could get a really cheap
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: lease for a storefront in the ghetto if you were white.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: This is this is your grandfather, my father, my father father. Okay,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: just to be clear, your your grandfather came your grandfather
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: was working in the junkyard and your father worked there too. Yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: my father worked there too, and then um he left.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: My grandfather closed the junkyard evidently, and he he had
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: earned enough. He bought some Rundown apartment building and he
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: made it into a you know, he had to end
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of a sort of ghetto apartment buildings, a few of them. Actually,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: my uncle lived in one. So it wasn't so bad,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So when did the shoe store come
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: before or after he got the store? Oh? No, the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: shoester came wait after, that's already after high So so
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: he got the store front and keep going. He got
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the storefront on State south State Street, right on the
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: edge of the Black ghetto where you know, still the ghetto,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: but then on the south side of Chicago. And he
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: opens cut Right Liquors. And he sees that on weekends,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the eagle flies on Friday, that famous blue song. He
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: sees that they're coming in like crazy to buy booze,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the party. He loves it. He sees that's
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a business. He learns black culture, he learns how to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: talk to the customers. He works by himself, fifteen eighteen
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: hours a day. That's kind of guy. I was always
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and uh my father owned a liquor store too, same thing,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: same thing, in the black area of Bridgeport. So he
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: quickly moved to uh two years later to a corner.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: This is the story. I've heard a couple of versions,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: but I'll tell you the version that I want to believe.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: He moved to the seven oh eight club a couple
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: of two years later, maybe nine forty five or six.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And I was a little kid then to be or
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I was born. Okay, but just a couple of questions.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: World War two is happening, how does he not? Yeah,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: my uncle went, My uncle went off. My uncle went
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: off to the Lucian Islands. My dad could not get drafted.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: He wore a brace on his left leg, a leather
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: brace from some you know, some village disease, probably polio,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: rheumatic fever, they don't know. And to get into America,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: they had to throw the brace overboard and he had
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to walk straight. They didn't elect cripples in you know,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: cripples had to go to another line in that era. Um,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: so he couldn't go to the army. That kept him out.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And you know, coincidentally, I've had back surgery had I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: lost the I lost the nerve in my left leg,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and now it's thin like his. It's so bizarre, you know, stranger,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: stranger things happened, I guess. So I have a thin
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: leg now, but you could only notice it a little
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: bit if he had a bathing suit on. It wasn't
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: drastic anyway. Uh yeah. So then he had the club,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the seven oh eight, and there was a jukebox, so
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: not only got the booze, he sees their dropping nickels.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: That was it wasn't five cents of play Nichols like
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: crazy along with the booze. And he said music booze.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: You know, he was he was the successory and the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: guy he felt and he I think he was insecure
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: around white people. Now I think he felt being an immigrant.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I think he felt a very symbiotic security with the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: black people. I always felt that. I mean, you know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: we always had black friends there way before man was
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the first infractional of men in Chicago. Really part, I
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: mean it was, but he I always felt, as I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: got older and learned about psychology that maybe he was
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a little insecure, you know, being an immigrant and all that.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But anyway, he opened the club and then um, he
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: got a light. The next thing wasn't nineteen forty five.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I guess he that I read in this well researched
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: book called Spinning Losing to Gold. It's still online. We're
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: really well researched. I guess he got a license for
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the Macambo Lounge, which was his nightclub. It had a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: stage Bob's Ribs in the back that he get ribs.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It became a live music There was a guy Tips
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: forget his first name, El Tips, played a saxophone. It
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: was a house band bar Long Bar. I was only
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: in there one time. I have my famous Marshall's story.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: My father takes me there, picks me up at the house. Again.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I only was around him if I had to go
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to work, so he picks We lived at forty four
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in Drexel, which was on the edge of the third
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: floor walk up. And but it was a Polish Irish
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Jewish neighborhood. But eight blocks eight blocks north was the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: black line where the black you know. So that's where
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the club was a twelve fourteen blocks away the Macambo Lounge.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And then my dad picked me up and it was
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in the night early seven eight o'clock at night. They
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: used to take turns. When my uncle came back from
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the army, he came back while the club was still
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: working and I walked in with my dad. Hold it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I was little man, you know, and there was a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: gunshot and he threw me over the bar to my
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: uncle who was the bartending, and my uncle laid me
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: down on these horrible wooden slats that were on the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: floor and laid on top of me to protect me.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: To this day, the smell of rotten alcohol and scummed
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that my face was pressed. Now, I can remember the smell.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And that was my first time there. And then, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, the problem ended and they took me home.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't remember the details, but I should
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: remember that that he threw me over the counter, you know.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Um it was a rough club. One of the oldest employees,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: this guy Gene Ross, who was held big six ft
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: five guy who was half black and half Cherokee Indian.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: He loved federal prisons. He always got in trouble for
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: he was a drug but he worked in my father
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: as a bouncer and he the reason he was always around.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: During that Macombo time. A guy came after my father
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: with a knife and Big Jean jumped in front and
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: took the knife. And after that he was He always
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: had a job when he was out of prison, even
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: when my dad had a DeSoto from that At the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: time of the club, my mother was crying. Brand his
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: first new car, or de Soto was was a Christlier
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: car at the time Christlier owned it. Um that Jeane
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: galbas that he had heroin in the glove compartment, and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the Feds confiscated the car and my dad freak and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Jane of course went to prison again. I saw him
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: all the way to when I worked with the Rolling
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Stones when we tore Chicago. He found Jesus. He became
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a religious guy. But yeah, he found me. During the concert,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. I went to the sidelines and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: saw him and had people, you know, he was big guy.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: They five Marshal Chress. Yeah he was good. But that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: was so that. Yeah, he had the club and then uh,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you know, someone came into they came into record. I
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: think Aristocrat was owned by many people, and he just
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you know again and perked up. He went from the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: liquor store to the corner tevan to a nightclub. Now,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: like black people music, record business. What's the record business?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: And like my just typically like my father, he became
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: a salesman to learn it, to see what it was about.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: And coincidentally one of the artists do it. And it
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't a black label. It was seventy eight and it
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was they had folk music, all kinds of different artists,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: but one of the artists was Muddy Waters. At that time,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: he was a truck driver as well. His name was
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: McKinley morgan Field. But he was already well known from
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: uh Alan Lomax, the famous document. Well, he was the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: guy recorded all the music in the South. He had
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: recorded Muddy for historical recording from the cotton fields. What
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: was the name of that plantation? He he actually lived
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: on a plantation. Used to tell me he'd catch fish
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: for forget a nickel of fish, and Hollywood, you know,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: all kinds of stories. His first guitar strings around the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: wall of the cabin that he ran strings the strum um.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: He was the closest of the artist to me because
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: he was my father's true friend. They grew together. He said,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: there was a radio show when my dad died because
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: we owned a radio station and w v O N
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the Voice of the Negro, the first modern black radio
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: station in America, first black news director, etcetera, etcetera. But
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Muddy said, uh yeah, Leonard, Leonard Chess was a true friend.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: He would have said on me chest and I would
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: have said, Leonard made me. You know, they had this,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you know, and these were he hits. Ten thousand, twelve
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: thousand was a giant Blue said, this is not million sellers,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: so miss and screwed by people as time goes on.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: You know, uh, two cents the publishing was two cents royalty,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: you know, um uh, you know it was a whole
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: other thing. There were no giant hits then. The first
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: TiO we had was the ninet with when rock and
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: roll broke with Chuck Berry and Roddaly. That was a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: big year. That was my thirteen bar mitzvah it hits
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: first money started rolling in and everything changed in my life.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I told that, I told that I took my son,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: who's the third generation record man, Jo Marches. He's uh
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the thrill to see that he carry he's carrying it
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: on on his own as well. But uh, he wanted
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to meet Chuck Berry. So he he was on his
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: farewell through and he was in his eighties. He was
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: playing at BB King's Club in Chicago. So I took
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: him and Chuck and I were friends. I was his
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: road manager when he came out of prison. You know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I knew him well. So I took my son backstage
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and I said to him, you know, it was like
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: an emotional thing. I don't know, it brings up my
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: father and everything. So I said to Chuck, you know
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I never told you this, but man, n five, when
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I was thirteen, you change you. Man changed my life.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I got a Schwin three speed bicycle. We moved out
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: of that walk up apartment. Everything changed, you know, with
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: maybe Lane nineteen fifty five. And he said, what are
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: you talking about? He took my hand and his eyes
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: were watering up. Just what are you talking about? You
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: changed mine in ninety five. What a what a beautiful moment.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And my son heard that, you know it was beautiful. Yeah. Okay,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So let's your father becomes a salesman. When he's a salesman,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: he sells the club. He's out of the club already. No,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: not out of the club, though I can now that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: everyone's dead. No one's gonna assue me. No. In nineteen
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and nine. In nineteen four fifty, right before he bought
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Chess Records, strangely enough, off the club burned down with
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a really nice insurance policy, and my uncle against there
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you had those motherfucker's. The firemen were passing out cases
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: of liquor. They weren't fighting the fucking fire. And we
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: didn't say a word. And then I actually remember my
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: dad didn't trust banks. I never remember. It's vague, but
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Maybe you know it's just for color.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think. He took a cashed the check from
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the insurance and brought it home in cash, and it
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: was all laid out on the bed hundred dollar bills
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: and that's what he used to buy to buy them out,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to buy Chess records them a combo down. So first
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it was aristocratic records. Tell me how it ends up
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: becoming Chess. He bought him out here after two years
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of being a salesman and wanting to go on the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: record business. He they offered the one of the the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: one of the women of Evelyn, her name was Evelyn,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: who was one of the owners from the beginning. She
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: had been married twice. I I had a feeding even
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: my father and her had just my own idea from
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: that that they had a thing. But she ended up
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: getting married for a second time or so I wanted
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to get out of the business, wanted to sell it.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: They wanted to sell it, and so he inherited that
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the late you know, he bought it because Mighty Waters
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: was on it. You know, he bought it whatever. I
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: don't know the cost or anything. And then they renamed
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: it Chess Records. Yeah, no, they renamed it because they
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: had My father had one of the record pressers for
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Aristocrat was the guy out of Memphis, one of the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: first pressing plants in America named Buster. Williams. Bussy used
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to fly up. He he flew a twin cessna Southern
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: gentleman he was. But somehow him and my father had
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: this great relationship. And Buster is the one when my
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: dad told him, you you're gonna you'll be my presser.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I'm buying Aristocrat. I want to change your name. He suggested,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: why don't you just call it Chess Records, and that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: that was from Buster, and he he was a family
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: friend with We were always in the pressing business. Tool
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: from him. He was in we were We we had
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: such a unique thing, and we'll talk later. But at
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the end we had this eight story building that had
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: three studios, full record pressing plan, injection pressing, printing, and plating.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: You could come in, you could make it. It has
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: never been something like that. It was the old Wallen
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Sack recorder building that in Chicago, and it was a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: manufacturing building, and we we had this fabulous, unbelievable with
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: an elevator. They had a rooftop sauna where they were
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: bringing their girlfriends. They had like a whole rooftop sauna, barbershop,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: all you know. The the guys who were built the building,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and we bought that building so it was all all
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: under one roof. But we always the problem with the independents.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: There were weren't a lot of independent pressing plans. So
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: if when the independent record business broke, if you if
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: five labels had hits it one time, you couldn't always
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: get your product. And so owning a plant was important.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: My father thought that was an important thing, and we
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: could press for the other guys when they were even hits.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: But we started with a very small plant. I actually
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: worked to press when I was sixteen. I was raised
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to be a record man a record while my um
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I I've been told that. Uh. I went on the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: road the first time when I was thirteen, through the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: South my dad. We arrived in New Orleans, I met
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: caused the famous Cosmo. My dad gave me a ten
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: dollar but he said, I'll see it tonight. I tell
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: my wife that your mother that you wander around New
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Orleans at ten ten dollars was like fifty then too. Yeah.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I went to three movies eight like a pig. I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: did it. He ran and I was always an independence soul.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: He always you know, let's thread a few let's spread
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a few needles. You've got in business with the guy
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: in Memphis? Was he partners in the press? Buster just
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: on the pressing plant, but he would have been. He
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: was going to be the press, our press for the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: whole country. Okay, So what was your friends from the aristocrat?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: He pressed the aristocrat. So what were the first records?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And then what was the first big hit? The first
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: chess session? I actually went again. I wanted I wanted
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: to be around my dad. We well before we built
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: our own studios in Chicago, had one famous great recording
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was called Universal Recording. They ended up becoming Bill Putnam.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe he opened this became famous making studio equipment, limits
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and stuff for the studios. The first was Gene Emmons,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: My foolish Heart, I have a friend here on eight
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: my heaven um. I slept on three metal folding chairs.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: My dad took me to the studio to see that.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: That was the first one, and it was chess for fifty.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Karlov was their first department in America. He was superstitious
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: about ship and that I inherited because when I did this,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I had my own label, the psychedelic label to dead concept.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: The first record I did was three twelve, my father's birthday.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: We were always and you know again the black early
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: black culture. You know, it came from African man. It
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: was voodoo, mojo man, all that. And my father very
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: much was exposed to the whole kind of you know, superstition.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is a sidebar since we're talking about it.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: When I was maybe in high school seventeen, when Buddy Guy,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the famous blues guy now was a studio guy. He
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: was going back to Mississippi and I asked him to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: bring me a mojo so I could get girls. And
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: he brought me this little pink bag. It smelled like
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the cheapest Woolworth perfuman and he had like pig bristles
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: sticking out of it, like bristles, you know, and you
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: penned see the white T shirt. Everyone were I've pinned
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: it when I went to work, you know, in that air,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: if you're lucky to touch the brass draft, you know
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: it didn't work, you know. Okay, so you're first, you've
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: touched the top of the rasio. You you were bragging
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: into your buddies. You know. So your father and your
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: uncle are producing these records too, right, learning how to produce? Yeah? Producing? Yeah,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So they didn't know what they were doing. They just
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: wann't turned on what they were doing. But know if
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: they didn't keep things moving, it would collapse. How do
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I know that because in my my I produced my
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: first album in nineteen sixty two, I was twenty years old.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: When I was eighteen or nineteen, I was worked. I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: worked always every summer. Um. I just loved it. I
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: wanted being there. I loved it. I loved it. If
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: my dad said to me, they used to record the studio,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't upon floor, my dad would say, he said, go
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: up to the studio. I have to go to the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I have to go to a meeting. Not your uncle's
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: not here. I said, do what you know? He said,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: just tell the motherfucker's to take another one. I said
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: what he said, Look, if you don't tell him to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: take another one, they're gonna sit around talking about pussy
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: and jobs. Nothing's gonna get done. He said, one of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: those takes is gonna be a mother. He said, we
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: said motherfucker a lot in my family. That one of
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: those takes is gonna be a motherfucker. And uh, that's
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: what I did. So that's how he learned. Do what
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm saying, Take another one, take another one.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But another thing I learned from my father. I still
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: do it today. I'm producing a record right now with
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a partner. Surround yourself, make symbiotic relationships of stuff you
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: don't know, like great, it'll be better. So he always
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: you have to. He surrounded himself with people who knew
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: music and then watched and learned from them. The first
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: guy that was the closest was his name is Willie Dixon,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the blues writer, producer, bass player. He'd get all the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: bands together. He would co produced really all those early
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: sessions with my father, but little by little, my father
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: learned how to produce. What do you really learned was
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: what made records sell because we weren't making art. We
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: were making singles and everyone artists, all of us, wanted hits.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: It was all about making money. Artists didn't care about art.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Then they all wanted to hit. They came to Chess
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: because they wanted We got radio play. We paid off
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: this jockeys. We got hits, you know. So you know
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: my father learned. I mean, he was very responsible. We
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: had what we had. His nickname, he was very responsible
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: for so much in rock and roll. Um. His studio
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: nickname was the foot Stomper. That's because he wanted that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: strong backbeat. He was stomped his foot. He even played
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: bass drum on blues record once to show him what
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: he wants. So when I Chuck Berry died, you know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: eight or ten years ago, his wife asked me to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: speak at his funeral in St. Louis, I said, of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: course I knew him, well, everyone else is dead really
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that knew him directly. I went and it was amazing,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: like five people in this big auditorium and they treat
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: him like Mozart in St. Louis. I mean he's very famous.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Um and uh so that I did. I did my
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: spear with speech. The governor was in line with me.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: This was a major thing. His family was all sitting
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: there and nodding, and you know me when I was
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: speaking telling stories. So then there was a break, Uh
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: what to pull out the casket? He had like twenty
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: all white Cadillacs with motorcycles. It was amazing. And I'm
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: standing was a hot sunny day and I see this
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: like I could tell he was well dressed. Kelly was
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a Jewish guy leaning. I'm leaning on the same post.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: We're waiting, and he says, who are you? And I said,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Marshall said, oh, I know, you know your father. I'm
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Chuck lawyer, you know. And he tells me you know
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: all of Chuck and this lawyer. But then another guy,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a black man, came up to me and he said,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Mr Chess. He said, I gotta tell you something you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: probably don't know. I heard you speaking there. You know
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: your daddy I was there. I went with Chuck when
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: he made maybe leading in Chicago. You know it was
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: your daddy who kept pushing for the beat and it
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: was your daddy who turned up to echo. Your daddy
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: did it. And I I never heard that or known that.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I knew the chess our music was a tremendous part
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of the foundation of rock and roll. I mean, it's
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the fact, that's a great legacy. I know that for
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a fact that that's true. But I never knew my
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: dad was that he was the big he was the
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: beat and that and no, we did. We had a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: homemade echo chamber. It was in the basement. I used
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to have to go down there because of rats making noise,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: just like you would. Because it was a long sewer pipe.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: It was all very in ventive stuff, man, the beginning
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of creativity making records. We wanted these sounds, just like
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: like a lot of reggae has it. We wanted this
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: black audience then love these unique sounds, different things, echo,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: big beats, loud of guitar. That was a very it
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: was it made it sell more, that's a better way
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: to tell you. And so we had this long clay
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: sewer pipe with a chief speaker at one end and
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the mic on the other and they would send the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: signal down to the speaker. It would go through the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: mic be picked up by the mic and sent back up.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: That was the echo. And then there were so they
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: were used to be noises and uh they'd say, there's rats,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: go down there. I had to go down. I was
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: was get the coffee. I was. That's I was the
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: coffee boy. To that was one of my first my
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: first job. I should tell you that story. Um So
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I went down there and I see all these old
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: boxes and I opened up one, you know a stack
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: of four or five boxes, and it's full of seventy
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: eight Louis Armstrong on the leavel. I go back up
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to my uncle. I could never talk about. My father
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: went to even disgust it with me. I said, Phil,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: what's the Louis Armstrong? Oh ship? When times were hard,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: we had to do some ship. I guess they were bootlegs,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you know that to pay the pet the cell, they
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: must have, you know, done something. They weren't original pressings,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that's for sure, But that that's a that's a true thing, man,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: that they always wanted to change the sound and make
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: it better. We had our own mastering. Our studio was
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: built on springs. It was brilliant. You know, all those
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: like the rolling stones when they came to Chicago. I
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: set that up in nine you know, because I got
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to know them well for seven years. I hung out
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: with him nightly. They would say they thought play they
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: wanted to record a chess that that's why I set
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: it up there. Manager Andrew Olam called me. I got
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the call because he had a foreign accent. That's why
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I'd already been to England um to set up chess internationally.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: That was another one of my early jobs. But anyway,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: aside from that, Michael said, use them. The stone S
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: thought if they recorded at the Chess studio, they sound
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: like a chess record. Of course that's not the truth.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: It's the playing. Yeah, the studio is something. Actually, they
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: wrote and pre produced Satisfaction and that's then they finished
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the recording in l A on that tour in But
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: that was my first experience with them and seeing those
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: English groups when they came to Chicago. Okay, so let's go,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: let's go bork. Okay, So your father's making these different records,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: how does he go into and how does he go
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: into rock and his Chuck Berry the first person he
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: got I got it, I got it ready, here we go.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Chuff Berry wanted to be a blue singer, you know.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And he came up to Chicago with his wife. You
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: need no his wife, that muddy wife. He came to
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Chicago with his wife that I don't forget what her
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: name is. He came to Chicago with his wife. They
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: want to hear Muddy Waters. He was a giant Muddy
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Waters fan in the club. And after that gig, he
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: went to Muney says, look, I made a tape. What
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: do I do to get on a record? He says,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: go see letter Chess tomorrow morning. Tell the Muddy Waters name.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what he did. And he went and
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: waked in the morning. He said, Muddy Waters told me
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: to see you, Mr Chess. My dad went in and
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: played the tape and it was two sides. It was
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a cut named I'd a Read and and one called
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: we We Ours. We We Ours was a straight twelve
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: bar blues like Muddy Waters would sing. We Were Ours
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: was a unique different song which perked my father up.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: It was called I'd a Red My Fithers. I don't
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: like the title, and I'm not sure about the lyric,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the way it sounds the guitar to beat. You got
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: something different there let's make a deal, but go and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: rewrite the song. And there happened to be one of
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the girls that had lipstick or makeup called Mabel Lean Cosmetics.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: It was a company called Mabel Line. You probably remember that.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: And uh they looked. He called Mabel Line and he
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: was back within two weeks and it were written Maybe Line,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: called it Maybe Lane. They recorded it, and that was
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: in and he went. So all the road trips were
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: done by car. No planes wouldn't have the money. Was
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a small company, was blues company. He was on the road.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: He started in New York and he was gonna work
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: his way back to Chicago. At that time, the king
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of radio in New York was the disjecty named Alan Freed.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Everyone knew about Allan Freed. And it was also the
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: time of massive payola. You know, uh, the independent record
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: business would never have even developed without payola. I mean
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: payola is what allowed anyone to make a record and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: check it out and put it on the radio. See
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: of the phone ring of people wanted to buy it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: So anyway, my dad goes and plays Allen Freed, Maybe Lane.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Allen Freed. Hears it. It's something special and different. He
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: coined the word rock and roll. That was all part
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of the Chuck Barry Alan create Alan Kline. Instead of
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: giving him money, he became the writer of Maybe Lane.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: He went on as writer that was his and that
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: night and my dad got in this car or drive
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: back to Cleveland. Right one day drive, Alan played Maybe
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Lene NonStop three hours, over and over, broke the records.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: My dog get My dad got to Cleveland. He calls
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: my uncle in Chicago. Because they didn't have cell phones
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: in or anything or internet caused my uncle and he says,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: what's up. What the fund is going on? It's going
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: crazy here. The phone rings every two seconds. This Alan
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: freed Maybellen. It's broke. We gotta hit Landard, we gotta
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: hit And of course he rushed back to Chicago and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: began to spread it. By then we had independent distributors,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: you know, all the indie labels. There was a whole
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: group of independent distributors all across the country. It's so
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: funny when I hear that Kanye West bullshit anti sembatic.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Everyone I knew had there was all Jewish names. I
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: could give you a list of thirty, you know, you know,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: they were all these Jewish guys like my father and uncle,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: you know who who who? Just like the early movie guys,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: you know, they send something about this music and all
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that um. But coincidentally, in nineteen fifty five, a couple
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of months later, Bo Diddley came in, who was the
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Chicago street artist. My uncle heard that tape again and
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: put out Bo Diddley. So we had these two major
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: pre foundational rock and roll hits in nineteen fifty and
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: like I say, my life changed. Our whole family's life changed.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: And I must say the world began to change, maybe
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: because rock and roll change the world, and my family
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: had a lot to do with it. And you know,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I never realized that Bob Krasnell, you know that that
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: was you know. Of course Bob once sold me so
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: don't you know yours the first family of rock and roll?
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: He said, you don't even know that, and I said,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you're right. Bob and I had taken much rooms together.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: We were like when he had we had uh, he
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: had Blue Thumb, Blue Thumb Records. Bob was the one
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: who steered me to the Rolling Stones. He wanted to
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: join me with me to sign the Rolling Stones. That's
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: how I found out that they were available, you know,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: they wanted them to do something. And I told Bob,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: I said, after tripping with you, you know, motherfucker, we
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: could never work together. Our egos. That was that era
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: of you know, our egos are way too big. I said,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: will you give me Mick Jagger's phone number? He gave
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: me his home phone number. That's how it all began
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: for me through Bob Krasnow. Okay, but let's let's go back.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the blues era. Your father's cutting everybody. Well,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: it starts with Muddy Waters. Who becomes who has hits?
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I feel like going home? They were big hits, you
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: know not. I mean again, there was a radio station
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: in the South w l a c H fifty thou
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: watch white disc jockeys, but they played blues black music.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: It would cover thirteen states at night, all through the South.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: So you you know, we were we were having like,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you know, blues hits. I'd say the biggest record thirty
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: would be a giant, giant blues hit, like a million
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: man sellar. But yeah, we were having hits. But Muddy
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Waters and all the airplay put Chess on the map
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: with every other blues artist who wanted to be on
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: the radio and they it became a magnet. And then
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: how and then and then at the same time we
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: had a great deal with Sam Philip who own Sun
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: who eventually had Sun Records with Alvis, but before that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: he was probably one of the first record producers of
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: you know, white record pruces of black musical will in
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: my father. At the same time, he sent us Howling Wolf,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and then we had Hollowing Wolf. And then
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: we had another big hit called which they say is
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the first rock and roll record, called Rocket eighty eight
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: by Jackie Brinston and who was the saxophone player for
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Ike Turner's orchestra. I con Tina Turner. It wasn't ten then,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: just like and we had that yet, Uh, Rocket eighty eight.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I'll never forget the way those cars two tone paint.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: That was the big ghetto car because it was the
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: first with two tone. Yeah, and uh, don't be late,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: come on baby in my Rocket eighty eight, you know. Okay,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: So what were those old blues guys like and what
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: was their man? You're asking me that everyone asked me that.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Here's what they were like, Marshall, Did you get me yet?
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Did you dick get checked out. Yet they ever asked me.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: They only cared about it if I ever discovered sex.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I was twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen. They didn't talk
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: about business or music with me at all. Zero I
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: have you get And I was, like I said, at
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that time, I was the coffee boy. I have to
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: walk to get before we had people and coffee machines
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: and offices, he had to go out to get it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: In that area, they had shitty cardboard cups with these
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: horrible paper bags that would leak, they disintegrate. My hands
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: would be burning, you know. But what were they like?
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: They were great muddy waters. Just to call me his
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: white grandson, his wife guenivis to semi fried. He'd bring
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: me fried chicken and the thickest illuminum foil. Then was
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: sick man. I can remember that he'd bring me that,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: you know, money, money was. I was the closest the money.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: He first time I met money was. I always told
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: this story. But you're already a still probably like it. Um,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I might it must have been. I must have been.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to think. Twelve years old, we
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: had moved from the third floor are with blues moved
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: up from the third floor walk up to a row
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: house thirty six South Gates. Um on the south side,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: should call my uncle lived two blocks away. I'm on
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: the front yard and literally with a house next to
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a cattle that pulls up and this guy comes out
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and he's got the bright green, iridescent green suit with
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: hair looked like with a foot high, like who the fuck?
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: You know, as a kid of you, what is this?
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: You know? Um, I had seen black people, but this
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: was duked out and the car and I looked down
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and his shoes blew me away. They were like pinto
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: pony hair of the fur of a course or cow.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: And you looked at me and say, you must be
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: young chess. You'll pappy home. That's how I met Muddy
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: waters Man, and uh, he came over again advice money.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I wasn't in, you know, I don't
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: know what went on, you know, I I was dragging
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: around and I didn't when they were I never saw.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I went on the road with my father, you know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: I saw he was paying people off, but I didn't
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: know what it even was. You know, I sort of
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: was just I just was. It was all a natural thing.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: And I always wanted to make records like my dad.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I had a chance when I was twenty in nineteen
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: sixty two, I got to go to Muscle Beach Uh
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in Carolina, Muscle shoals Uh and recorded Bowls Beach Party
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: with a lot of desktop was there wasn't a remote
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: recording land. Me and the sales manager, Max Cooperstein, we
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: co produced it. And in the middle of that, I'll
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: give you an example of how it was, so you
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: want to know how it was. Um Bow Dolly had
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Chester Simmons. That was like this road manager we recorded
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the second set. Jerome Green, the
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Morocco player, was the original guy when they played on
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the streets in Chicago, so they didn't have to carry
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a drum. Was Bow, didley and guitar. And this guy
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Jerome with Moroccas. He jumped off the stage and all
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: these white kids started dancing around them. Twenty minutes later
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: cops came him in with German shepherds shut us down
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: and said, let them white kids dance with your niggas.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: He's I lock you jus up. No one will even
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: nowhere to find you, you know after exactly right, And
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: but we recorded enough to put out that album and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: it was stopped. Okay, back to the hotel, keep going hotel.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: It's a good story. Then we went back to this
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: whole beach hotel, oh Wood once from that era. You know,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: we we were planning to go earlier. We shared rooms
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: in those days. One was having separate rooms, me and Max,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and then the next room was a honeymoon couple. And
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: he showed me out of your hold one of those
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: old time water glasses against the wall you could hear.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: So I had my experience of watching people, hearing people
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: fuck for the first time on that trip, as well
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: as being called a dirty jew nigger lover, you know,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: excuse my language with the N word. Okay, But so
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: your life anges with then what happened and and bo diddly,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: then what happened together? Did it? And what happened with
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the company and what happens with you? Then the company exploded,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we had money to produce. Morris
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: signed more, expand more. They wanted to expand into LPs,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: into jazz all that, you know, little by little, UH
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: we wanted to get into jazz. LP was really invented out. Um.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: It started with uh Dave We We had this guy,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Dave Usher was like a jazz fanatic friend of my
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: uncle's from Detroit. He produced stuff. Then there was a
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: famous magazine and chic call it called down Beat. The
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Jazz was the major jazz magazine. We hired the editor,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Jack Tracy, figured he knew everyone, and that's how we started.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: And the blues are all, believe it or not. The
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: blues were always recorded in the daytime, but we had
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the empty studio at night. So Jack, we would we
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: we we would work it out. Everyone knew they could
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: pick up some extra cash after the gig at Chess
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: and that's why we put out such great The first
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: role of Kirk Elvin, James Moody, Uh God, Dorothy Ashby
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and Jazz Harve I'm and Jamal Ramsey Lewis Wow because
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: it was relaxed, it was at night. A lot of
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: it was real jazz. They just wanted the money. They
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: made it up. It was totally improvised a lot and
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: one of my early jobs was Mr. Samuel's. We were
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: we did union sessions. You got paid for a three
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: hour session. I was one of my because I got
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: all the dirty jobs, getting coffee, going late early in
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the six in the morning at the pressing plant. Um.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I also had to go meet Mr Samuel's, the union
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: guy from when the checks were signed. They had to
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: make sure they signed the publishing and all that before
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: they got the check. So I used to go at night. Yeah,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the business. You know, certainly Atlantic wasn't
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: paying royalties. What was the royalty situation at Chess? It was?
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: It was, it was no what was it? You know?
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I always got to ask that because there's such a
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: lot of the you know, Chest ripped off artists. Every
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the Indians ripped off some did um. And I don't
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: believe my father ever overtly ripped off anyone because of
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the way he raised me. You know, I mean I
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I that's not even I was, you know, he just
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: was never even part of it. I uh. But there
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: were no entertainment lawyers that came later. We had a
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: one page contract, publishing on one side, recording on the other,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: one piece of paper. Yeah, um um. We had no computers.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Everything was manual, even order taking every you know, it's
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: so confused now with modern technology. When I worked at Chess,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: everyone had one of those little pads with carbon paper.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: And the phone would ring in a thirteen hundred st Louis,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: you just yelled your handing in the carbon paper. I
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: saw my dad once. This is way after. This is later,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: um in sixties six sixty five. I saw my dad
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the only time once of reviewing the royalty statements with
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the bookkeeper and he would bring in this long you
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: know stacks, the white paper and the Dells blue option
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: prepared a big hit then called, oh what a night.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And he looked at the Dells. It was day was like,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you know, eighteen thousand bucks, I mean, you know, not millions.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And he looked at Muddies. Blass wasn't prove when blues
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: were dead, Black people wanted motown, you know r and
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: b uh. We don't want our grandfather's music. And the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: white jees hadn't discovered the historical ones, you know. Um anyway,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and I looked at my dad, but I heard my
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: dad looked and he held up money and he said
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to Ted it was the big take five grand off
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: of the thousand foot it on Muddy. That's my last
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: story on royalties. That was my father. Okay, so you
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: graduate from high school and then what happens with you?
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: I go to college and I become the chess promotion
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: man in Denver, Colorado. So you go to college in Denver. Yeah,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go to you know, I wanted to
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: go to u C. L A. Or USC. I did
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: not get accepted. I wanted the West Coast bad. I
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: love cars, I loved girls. I loved California. I've been there.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: New we had the first black record executive, Paul Gayton.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Paul Gayton was from New Orleans. He was a famous
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: New Orleans band leader and he started out playing for
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the most famous Italian mafioso in a horrorse and then
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: he became a a big band leader, well known during
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: that era. And my dad and him hit it off
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and he became our first guy in New Orleans when
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: we did all this Clarence Frogman, Henry Ain't got no home,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: all our Cajun kind of music. But then he moved
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to Cali, Fornia with his wife and he drove a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Rolls Royce. He lived on top of the hill with
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: icon Tina Turner's house, and he opened our little office,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the chess office in l A. So I wanted to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: work with him, but I didn't get accepted. So After
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: two years at Denver, I applied to USC and got in,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: and I moved to Hollywood and my dad was having
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: an affair with the hostess at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Wait Wait, Wait, Wait Wait was an apartment building behind
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the ground Chinese Theater that was for hookers, and we
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: never knew that, and he she got me a department
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: there had sparkle in the ceilings, and that's where I lived.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: H I lived behind the Chinese Theater for my first
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: year of college at USC and worked out with Paul
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Gayton in the office. So did you graduate? No, I
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: didn't graduate. I never wanted to go to college. My
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: dad didn't give his ship. He said, just go learn
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: what you can for the business. I had a radio
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: show at USC, and it took plastic engineering to learn
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: about record pressing, marketing. Um. But I would have stayed.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: But I never did it in a proper way. I
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: would have probably had it gone five or six years,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: because I just took what interested me. We didn't care.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: He didn't really care. I didn't have a push from
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: my mother or father about not like a modern way.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: I pushed my kids, you know, But I didn't have
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the push but then in my senior year, a fourth year,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: second year at USC, my dad got horribly beat up. Evidently, Uh,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the mafia tried to move in on Chess Records in
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Chicago and m he refused and got out of it
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: with help from Morris Levy. You know that is of
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: course Roulette Records. Okay, well Morris. Anyway, they knew each other.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: We all all the indies were like part of the
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: wild bunch, you know. Morris knew the Chicago mafia to
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: his guys. But they were upset that he got that
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: they couldn't get a piece of chess. And two guys
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: they called him up that there was a fire, and
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: he went down there at night and two guys he
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: fought them with a heart condition and he was horribly
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: beat up. He couldn't even go out of the house
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: for weeks. His face was life came back, but they
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: called me and said he he lived, but he was
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: horribly beat up. And I said, I'm coming home, and
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I got in my car and I drove to Chicago
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: and started working in chess records. That was it. So
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: that's how you dropped out of college when your father
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: was good. Yeah, I wanted to go home. I didn't
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: want to go to college anyway, but I like the lay.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I loved it. I love living there. I had a
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: house eventually in Benedict Canyon. Um uh, you know, I
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I love working with Paul gat And that was a
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: fabulous experience, you know, working with him, like little Richard
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: would come by the office, all kinds of he was.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: It was just he was just a brilliant guy. And
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot about life from him. And he
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: was a brilliant musician. Um. And he used to come
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: to our house, stay at our house, play the white
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Jewish grand piano and the suburbs and we'd all go around.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I used to play. I started playing. He got me.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: I was a trumpet player. That's a whole other musicians story.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Um can I can I go story? So I uh,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I watched, I mean, kid, I watched From Here to Eternity,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: you know that movie, of course? In this movie, of course,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: and when the guy played taps with a bugle, I
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: got moved, emotionally moved, and I wanted to be do that.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: And I joined the boy Scouts and I became a bugler.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I was thirty fourteen, just turned fourteen, and my dad
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: thought the boy boy Scouts were whacked. I could tell
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: he didn't like it. And he went to one thing
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: with me there one father and something. It wasn't his thing.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: But so I learned how to play readily, and the chart,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: a few things, taps and now then I started in
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: high school. I was fourteen South Chard High School in Chicago,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: still living on the south Side before we moved to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: the suburbs. Um and I began to take trumpet lessons.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I had a Martin trumpet. I used to walk on
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the rail I was just enamera. I joined the high
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: school band. No before that was my eighth grade. I
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: used to walk on the railroad tracks. I practiced. I
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: could play Lady of Spain. I adore you all these
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: oh my Papa, I could make you cry. Man. I
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: could play it. I loved it, and uh then I
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: we I went my freshman year before he was the
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: suburb south Shore High School. I joined the band. I
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: could read and read music. I learned how to read,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: you know, not like the arranger. But I could play
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: my little parts, and uh, I loved it. And uh.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: I was at Chess Records working in My father said,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: come on into the office. Is my uncle, my father
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and my grandfather ZD. And they all said, uh, you know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: we don't think you should become a musician. I said,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: what we're in the music business, Marshall is the worst.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: They get forty bucks a session. You'll never be able
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: to have a supportive family. It's a horrible They knew
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: from you know, hiring guys. It's not a good thing.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: We know that you love it. We think we think,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: you know, like it was like like a mafia that
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: you should come in the record business. Come in the
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: record business. That's your business. You'll be around music, you
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: can learn how to be a producer. And I of
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: course said yes, you know totally. I mean that was
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: like the committee, you know. I said, yes, I still
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: have a trumpet, and I still so. Years later. I'm
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: on a Rolling Stones tour nineteen seventy two. We it
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: was a tour where we hired Stevie Wonders horn section
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: called wonder Love, Steve Mateo on trumpet, Him Price on trumbone,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Bobby Keys on saxophone. The Stones always had a couple
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of tune up runs and Steve Matteo had three or
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: four horns, so I picked up one of his trumpet
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: was a trumpet and I could still, you know, I
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: could play an impressive riff one rift that up, but
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: the jazz riff, and they looked up like, oh my god, Marshall.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: But you know, blah blah blah, come and join us. Well,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: every horn section wants to be fatter, you know. It
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: was adding another horn, you know. I said, man, you
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: gotta I said, come on, you gotta teach me at
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: least the chords. And so they taught me some of
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: the bullshit and the first night I went on and
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: by the end, by the next morning, I couldn't touch
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: my lips. They were that bruise because it takes years
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: to develop the callous and the pressure. Yeah, I could,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to give me on stage. So it's
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: online I played so that we were before a year
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: ie we we've had an English gig. That was the
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: next gig. It was in England, some Liverpool, some city,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: not London. I know it's online that they were. You
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: could see where they talk about it and they have
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: my name is the player. And I ended up convincing
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: them that I would only come in for the last
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: four songs and ended that concert tour ended with street
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: fighting man. It was easy one note. Uh so I got.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: I played eight concerts on stage, the last four numbers
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: with the Rolling Stones on the European tour and um,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: it was a tour where it was this was a
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: fabulous lifetime experience. It was a tour where the promoter
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: had to give us a bushel basket full of rose
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: petals and mick which the horns were on the facing
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: the stage. We're on the far left and the piano
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: was on the far right. He would start with on
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: the far right, dancing towards the end, and he would
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: throw rose petals on the piano, on each player, bill woman,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and everyone would cheer as he you know, did that
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: walk across the stage. Well, the first time he came
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: with thirty thousand people in front of the horn section,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Alm was peted my parents. I never felt anything like that.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: The energy factor, it was unreal. It was in describable.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I can't even describe it to you. When people say
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: what is it, I said the closest thing. As a poet,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I would say it was like a mother's love holding you.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: It was a warm man. It was something special like
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: And that concert tour we had no encore so everyone
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: walked after street fighting man. We all went with him.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: We walked into the van and it was dead quiet.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: While they were still cheering. We were on our way
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: back to the hotel. So, uh, I got that amazing
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: experience of feeling that energy, which is why I'm sure
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: they're still out there doing it. You know, that is special.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: You get addicted to that. That is way stronger than
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: anything I ever took. You get thirty people loving you.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: You know, they weren't loving me, they were loving Mick.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: But at the overflow, you know, he's standing in front
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: of you. Boom. That was a fantastic thing. So that
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: was a great experience. And that was the end of
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: my trumpet playing, even though I still have it as
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: a souvenir against the wall in its case, um My
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Martin trumpet. Okay, do you know why you're named Marshall? No?
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: I do not. They thought it was an unusual name.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not named after anyone. Nope. I didn't even like it.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: It was an unusual name when I was a kid.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm asking. Oh no, A lot of my
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: girlfriend's mother that they keep a lot of the mothers
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: that we call me Chess for some reason, it wasn't
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: a common name. I hated when they call me chess. Okay,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: r was my name. Your father gets beaten, beaten up.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: You come back from the coast. You're in the business totally.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: Now what are you doing? Oh yeah, that's a good story.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Good story, Bobby, I mean the story. I come to
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: work the famous building, historical landmark where the stones recorded
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: before we moved to the big eight story building. I
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: come to work. I got but that was suit and
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: tie and pinky ring. Because the black artist they wanted you,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: they liked you if you they wanted what you had.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: So my dad bought a new Cadillac every year. We
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: were dressed sharp. You know, they knew if you were
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that successful, then they you could help them get that way,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: you know, that was the thing. So I was a
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: sharp dress like the zz top sharp dressed man. I
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: had my custom made suits from Maxi the but the
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: R and B. Taylor by bar Mr suit was custom
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: made light blue with blue stitching on the side. I
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: was into that from from being around those sharp dressed people,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean the jazz guys. They were always
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the sharpest dressed people. They were like even now they
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: are you know they get they really control the fashion culture.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: I mean the ghetto, you know, from the ghetto seeds.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's what happened, man. I So anyway,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: my dad then had the radio stations at the end
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: when you know we're in the car. We we had
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: a car wash like the one in the movie The
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: car Wash, and we it was two blocks in the
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: na avenue and we had a deal. Do you could
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: get it every day? Everyone could get a car wash
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: every day. He just wentn't line and he paid a
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: monthly feet whatever it was. Well, I I came from college.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: No one told me where to sit, No one told
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: me what my job was, No one told me what
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I was making. I was very confused. So I got
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: the courage and asked my father that. I said, Dad,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you know i've been back a couple of months. I
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: don't know where to go, what office to sit in,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: and I don't know what to do. Um what you know?
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: What's up? And he said to me, and I can
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: remember this, you stupid motherfucker. Your job's watching me and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the subject he with the old European style, watch me,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: watch me a little by little, he would, do you
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: have me do? This, help me do that, like going
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: to the studio. He taught me in that old European way,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: little by little, little by litterly, let me screw up.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I made my first deal with Pie Records. It was
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: a a even. I screwed up the math. And when
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: you'll never do it again, will you? Nope, never do
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: it again? You know? That was how I was sort
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: of raised. Um, I guess that's the way he learned.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: So he just laid that on me. Um. Yeah. So
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: then I started working and I started doing promotion. And
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: there was a famous record promotion guy. You may even
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: have heard of him. I'm sure your listeners have named
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Howard Bednoe. He was the dean of record promotion probably
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: in America, all the major labels, who was an indie
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: promotion guy. But he worked also for all state record distributors,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: our distributor, Paul Glass, and I became hot for That's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: how I learned promotion. I was. He didn't drive, Howard
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: never did. I was his driver and sidekick for a
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: whole summer, you know, seeing all meeting all the disc jockeys,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: seeing how he did it, how he had a befriend them.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: And then we then in Chicago. Then w l S
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: was the major States fifty clear channel AM radio. It
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: wasn't you know, white pop radio. They were in this
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: building underneath was the London House, so they hang out
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: of record promotion. Man, where was the London House? And
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: we had our own little section. We'd always played liars
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: poker and then the DJs from upstairs would come down
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: and uh So for that whole year, I was eating
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: steak four nights a week, just signed the bill at
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: the London House, hanging out with all the record promotion
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: of all the labels. It was like a crowd, and
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: they all accepted me. I was the youngest one. I
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: mean when I went to the first meet him, I
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: was the youngest one. I was always the youngest one
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: until young guys started getting into it. Chris Blackwell came
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: to buy records from me before Island Records. He came
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: to buy old singles that weren't hits that they were
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: selling in England. That's how we started out. Chris, I've
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: met so his dad was married to a woman in
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Lake Forest. So I got to be friends with Chris
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: when he before he started Island. All the first young
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: record guys, Mike and Richard Vernon Blue Horizon Record, seymour
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Stein who had just left Kinge Records. You know, um,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: there was this growing group of young guys. You know,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I was going to I. I did go to Europe early.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I I I aught well. I was always enamored with
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Europe and I wanted to go real badly. And I
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: told that to my father and he, you know, he
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: gave me a great experience, he said. I went twice
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: to Europe and to Japan with Harry Goodman, my father's
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: publishing partner. But Harry Goodman was the original bass player
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: of the Benny Goodman trio with Lionel Hampton Gene Krupa.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: So that was my teacher of international kannak, eating hookers
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: and uh international record business. And I went around with him.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: And then it was one of the dean first of
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the great entertainment lawyers, a guy named Alan Arrow Orangstein
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Arrow and Silverman. They were one of the first that
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: was our firm. I became close with Alan Arrow. I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: went to Japan with him. He showed me the far East.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: We went, you know, introduced me to a lot of people.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: I had great tutors, and um, you know, I learned
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: that and then I set up chess in Europe. Um
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: and um I I said, I wanted a percentage of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: any extra we knew we were. We had one contract
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: with London Decca for all of the world and when
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: we were making nothing. You know, they knew nothing about
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: rock and roll nothing. I mean the Stones were also
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: started with them at that time. They really knew nothing
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: about especially about black music. So Alan Arrow introduced me
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to Louis Benjamin. It later became Sir Louis from Pie
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Records that was owned by Lesson Loud, the Grades, the
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Carney people and from England. Um so I I uh,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: That's where I made my first international deal was with
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Louis Benjamin. That was the one that didn't make money.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Louis offered to change it and I said, my dad said, no,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you'll have to suffer, don't change it. Let him so I.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: After two years we redid it. But then I went
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: around Europe by Eddie Barkley. You know that you ever
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: Barkley Records and all Indies, the Durham the Minton Jin's,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Turkish people in Italy, Uh, Eddie Barkley and the French
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: um Doug hog list so on that Grandmophone, all the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: indies like Jess and they I was like, you know, man,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, they loved me. I was
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: like the indie, you know, I came from that INDI
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: for one of the first I mean, they became my
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: close friends. I used to go to Europe a lot um.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: We had great success. The first year we made a
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty ground and they were shipping green. That
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: was like a half a million bucks back then. And
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: it was in nineteen sixty four when the big statement
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: came in and uh I bought Ah that was the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: year the stones came because I had just bought my
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: first car and payments hundred and eighties six dollars a month.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: But it was a red Porsche, the old kind, the
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: little look like the little egg my dad. They thought
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: it was the most ugly thing. They were coming from Cadillac.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: That was the ugliest car they ever saw, you know. Anyway,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so I had, you know, I was up
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: getting custom made suits. I was on an ego trip
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't believe. I had success. I bought a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: single from Pie Records for three hundred pounds, sold a
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: million pictures of Matt stick Man that status quo. I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: was gonna ask you about that. So how did that
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: come to be? Well, I wanted to have my I started,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: like I say, in nineteen sixty also like in nineteen
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: sixty two or three. I couldn't believe it's online. I
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: wanted my own record label, so I started. My dad
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: said start one, and I started the label called mar Mars.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: My little sister Susie used to call me m A
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: R m A R. Just the other day, I just said,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: could that be online? I found a photo of the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: label and I so I bought a master from Louis Benjamin,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: another pie Master, the first one, for like three hundred pounds.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: That was the deal, non hits, and it was a
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: guy named Nichols, Jimmy Nichols, who was the first drummer
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: of the Beatles. It's actually on the label, says first
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: drummer of the Beatles, Scott remember scat music, And I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: put it's probably those forty copies. I put out two
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: singles on marmar and uh, you know then it didn't
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: sell it. I couldn't do it. I had no promotion.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: But that was my first thing. And I did the
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Bau Diddaly and little by little, I you know, I
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: started to to uh, but the status quo. I wanted
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: my own label. Then of course I formed that labeled
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Cadet Concept before the status quo that was, that was
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: my own that was why why was it? Why was
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: it called Cadet Concept Because of this guy that worked there.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: I loved him. His name was Dick La Palm. They
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: were part of the Cadet renaming. Argo was the original
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: jazz label. We had to give up the name Argo
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: because there was an English spoken word label name Argo.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: They sued us. We decided just to change the name.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: So we they came up with the name Cadet. I
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: never personally liked it at all, but they liked it
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: because it was chess checker Cadet three season. The way
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: it sounded so okay. So when I wanted my own label,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: they came up. Well, I said, what's it gonna be.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be my concept because it was the whole
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: acid pod psychedelic thing. I was one of them that
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: I was one of that. The exact age I went
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: to Woodstock, I drove from Chicago. You know, I was
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: one of those people who took acid and and pot.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: I was just enamored with it all and uh, anyway,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: that's how that happened. They said, well, you know, let's
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: call it that concept. So I said, okay, we'll call
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: it that concept. It was the easiest way to get
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: my own. I went for it. I would have probably
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: not liked it, and that's how it started. I agreed
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: to do it, and then I got Then I had
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: we My daddy had hired these really a fabulous avant
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: garde ad agency named Hervis Spinser in Churchill, one of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: the first young new ones in America. They were in Chicago.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: He had hired them for the radio station. And I
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: met this guy, Robin Binzer, who designed the Cadet concept label,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: and he came up with the name rotary connection. You
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: know all those Okay, well one story at one time,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: because we're gonna get the many ripton. Well, it's all
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: of that concept. Okay, wait, let's call connect concept. You
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: put out pictures of match stick Man. I bought that single. Okay,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: did you hear it and say, hey, this is a hit,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: and and how did you make it a hit? I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: heard of that, I heard and I thought it was
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: ahead of course, And how did you make it? A
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: here a dis jacket that would do favors for me
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: on that fifty thousand one station. Art Roberts broke that
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: and rotary connection I learned from Howard Bednow. Okay, so
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I get it. I made him. Okay, I'll tell you
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: how I got it. I made a movie in nine four,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: probably one of the first music videos. Two guys from
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Illinois Institute of Technology, I think came. I thought it
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: was University Chicago, but it wasn't. They they were film
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: majors and they said, we want to make and we
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: make a film about something with Chess records we needed
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: for our to graduate. Our thestis was a fifth Little
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: George film. I wanted to be a film producer. I
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: even had my own Safari equitor. You know. I was
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: ready to be a producer. Yeah, I'll help you. So happened.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I called him as that Bo Diddley is recording for
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: a week and attended, let's do it. So I made
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: this black and white film, Legend of Bo Diddley. You
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: can see it yourself. I just put it up. I'm
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: building a YouTube channel for my grandchildren, and it's on there.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: I actually fixed it, we repaired it. It's you know,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: it's not a good movie, but I gave a featured
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: pardon it to Art Roberts, that famous, that fabulous nighttime
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: disc jockey. You know, he was my guy, you know,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: and um he were friends. But you know, and he
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: broke that record in the rotary and you know he
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: played you know, yeah, he could play what he wanted.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't remember the details. Before they had
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: strict playlists, you know this, jackets could still have to
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: have some freedom in those eras, that era. Then when
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: Paola came, they started with control paylists and all those
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: things to stop it. But that's how that started. And
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: then I got real lucky because I moved my office.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: I had this real op art office on the first
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: floor of that eighth story building. Jeff Berry said. It
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: was the best office you ever saw. I had like
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: black and white hop art. It was wood panel. I
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: had it painted black epoxy because I saw Eve San
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Laurent in Paris. His shop where I used to buy
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: clothes was painted with orange epoxy, you know, before he
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: became famous. So I did black epoxy. It was a
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: way big speakers. Everyone would call me. After that, my
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: dad left, we'd all smoke pot and listened to all
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: the music in there. That was my office. But then
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: we moved. We moved to the eighth floor where we
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: had We came up with a concept. We had the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: studio a this big studio studio be a medium size.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Then I I built a small studio with very simple
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: equipment for the musicians to work. And I hired a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: rhythm section, famous people Donnie Hathaway, Danny Danny Hathaway, Donnie
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: Hathaway and piano still up to John Bace, Maurice White,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: the first way to fire on drums. Sometimes they come
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: every day. Paid them like a hundred and fifty a week.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: The jam worked on tracks. We had four little rooms
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: with upright pianos and real to real tape recorders for
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: songwriters and they would work. We have a blackboard. I
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: put Eddie James coming in two weeks right songs. Then
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: they would develop it with these musicians. We cut little tracks.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: They could work it. It was a creative, a creative factory.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: And I moved up to the eighth floor. That was
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: where I ended my career chest on the eighth floor.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: But I moved up to the eighth floor and one
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: of my jobs then was to get lead sheets made. Now,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: lead sheets had to be if you wanted to copyright
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you in those areas, you didn't send in a tape
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: or CD. You actually had notated on a lead sheet
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: that you had to send with notes and paper. And
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: I would you know, we had people we hired to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: make lead sheets of the records that we put out
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: so we could copyright them. So I heard about this guy,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Charles Stepney Um and that he would do lead sheets,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: like for fifteen bucks a lead sheet, whatever we pay
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: if done cheap, you know, fifteen was probably like forty
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: bucks now for a sheet. And this short, chubby guy
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: in a suit uncomp suit and Tide comes at the
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: eighth floor. We also had a commissary with like a
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: microwave and weird horrible junk food, so the musician everyone
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: would stay up there this musician's coffee machine or whatever.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: And we're in the commissary. Me met this Charles. I
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: made a deal with him for lead sheets, and he
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: had this big portfolio, like a bit six inch thick folder.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: What's that? You know? It's a symphony everyt and I said,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you wrote a symphony. He said, I'm
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: in my senior year of music school. I'm gonna graduate now.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: I had to write this. If you ever heard it, no,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I played on the piano. I hear it in my head,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I said, well, you know, I've got this
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: fucking wet. I got to know him over months making leecheets,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: and he would come and were talking. I've got this
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: idea for an interracial group. Um, I got many Riperton
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: here works through the Sydney and the other guy hanging around.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: I got this. I said that this is one of
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the sales guys. They had a band of Polish band
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: in Chicago, white band. Um, I didn't forget that the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: other day. I remember their name for a minute, now
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: I forgot anyway up. So I combined them and I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: told her, if it's this idea, I said, this is
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: the psychedelic age. By then I had been taking LSD
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: numerous times, but I wasn't ever into the Grateful Dead, uh.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I was into the spiritual. I went to hear Tim Leary,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Bob Dillian opened up for him or in white robes.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: I was into that because the first asset trip I
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: took in the sixth you know, mid sixties, whenever that
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: was was really the real deal. Sandals Laboratory from Switzerland. Um,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: that's where I played the sraman on Good Vibe because
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: I heard Good Vibrations on the Ascid of the Beach
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Boys and they have that whoo. So I wanted to
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: put that on the rotary. But so I talked told him,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I said, you know, I think there's there's this whole
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: alternative radio market. You know, Um, there's there's a lot
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: happening now across the country. Um, I want to do
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: this thing for people on a bad trip to calm
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: him down. But you know, a soft psychedelic and uh again, Um,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: I'm using my dad's concept. If you get people around
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: you know their ship, you'll make your stuff better. Will
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: you work with me? And he said, of course. It
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: was this chance, you know I mean. And then I
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: got Jean Bard, who was part of our house a
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and our staff family, who had he came up from
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: the South. He had one hit record called Country. He
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: was agreed. He still is a great He's still like
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: in his nineties. He still does gigs playing saxophony. He
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: was a brilliant saxophonist. He's on a ton of Chess
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: records and he was an actor. I made him part
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: of my team, Charles, Stephanie, Marshall, Chess because they he
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: was the guy who talked to the musicians, because I
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: I had the concept, but I couldn't write the music.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do all those things. And I'll be honest,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: I never got it a hundred percent how I wanted,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: but I got it close enough. And then when if
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: became a semi hit, of course you say, yeah, it
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: was my thing. But you know, I had this great band.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: I put together the most avant garde group of black
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: musicians in Chicago. Maurice White was ended up on earth
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Wind and Fire. Louis Sadderfield earth Wood and Fire. Drummer
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: was another Morris Jennings who played with Ramsey Lewis fill
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: Up Church brilliant bassist and guitarists. Um, I put them
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: all together and uh we started rehearsing. I got the
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: White band with many and then we started working. I
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: picked the songs, my concept I did. I picked that.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: I I picked the songs, and I kept pushing the concept,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: what how we were going to do it? And then
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: we we recorded and I remember the first session. It
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: was the first time Charles had ever heard his music,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: you know, played back that he had written. You know
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: that he was sweat, you know, he was so worried.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: But we eventually we would. We started doing all the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: strings and horns from the Chicago Symphony, you know, we would,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: and he would. He he became a great arranger. He
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: died young. He did all the earth, wind and fire.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: He would have been he was like Henry man Sin.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: He would ended up in Hollywood. He was a genius.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: He died very young, in his like late thirties of
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: him forties. You know, he died young. But we made uh,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: you know, and I even helped him when I left Chess,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: I helped him make his agreement with the new people
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: who own chest after it was so um. But he
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: he was, He was amazing. He was a genius. He
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: was probably the best thing I ever brought the chess.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: If it would have stayed sixty nine, I don't know
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: if you want to jump to ninety nine, but that
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: was like probably the heaviest year of that period of
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: my life. And it began in January. I was already
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: on a high man I had, you know, I had
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: things were good for me at Chess. Foreign royalties, shock,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: Berry Broken England. It was I was taking people to
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: BBC TV shows Fontela Bass, Ready, Steady Go, like the
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: first TV music show in the world was in England,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: and um, you know all that was happening. But in
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: sixty nine, that was a heavy year. It was. It
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: started in January. I got a call from Seymour Stein
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: and uh, Mike Vernon. They you know, we have a
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: group called Fleetwood Mac. She just died. It's in the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: news now, Fleetwood Mac. But before her it was a
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: blues man Fleetwood Mat. When they started, it was Mick
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: Fleetwood on drums, but they had a fabulous guitarist named
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Peter Green really as good as Eric Clapton, as far
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: as I's going, really good. Well, we're doing a tour
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: that we're you know, we love the blues. We're touring America.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: It was our second tour. Will you help us do
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: an album in Chicago? Can we come to the studio? Well,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: I'd already done the Stones in sixty four, so they knew,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: you know, they they it was known that I could
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: do that. I mean I could have done that, so
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: I did. I said, yeah, what do you want? We
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: want you to get? Get me four or five chess
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: players that we want Willie Dickson, we want so and
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: so on piano. Um, I ort to span uh and
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: we'll play with him and we'll we want to record
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: one day, full day, we'll be there. So they came
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: to Chicago and we recorded eighteen hours double album called Fleetwood,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: Mac and Chicago. It's online. You could hear it on Spotify.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: And Uh, that's how my years started. In January, then
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: I did another one, uh, Fathers and Sons with all
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: the white blues guys, Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg, Samily and drums,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: Paul Butterfield and Brite and Harmonic. He. I did that
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: live in Chicago studio. And this is all nine. I'm
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: on a fucking I had the Rotary. I had Electric Mud,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: which was a chiant, the biggest blues album we ever had.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: And then I get a call from my father had
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: a cell phone, not a cell phone, a mobile phone
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: in the car and him my uncle called me from
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: the radio station and say, you know you're we're gonna
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: sell Chack. We're gonna sell Chess records. Um, don't worry,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: you can start your own label. You'll get part of
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: the sale. Huh. And I was blown away. I mean,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: this was like I was. It was like mean the
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: way I say, it's like raised for an Olympic event.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: They canceled the year before the Olympics. You know, after
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: a lifetime. Oh my god, you know, I couldn't believe it.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: Don't worry, don't worry. It's we got this great off
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: of the radio. My dad was enamored with radio. He
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: knew that it was the dying days of white people
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: owning a black business, even though we were converting to
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: a full scale business. But he was already bored with it,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: and he loved radio. And he became a He became
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: a humanitarian. I don't know what the word is, scholars ships.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: We give a thousand bags of food Christmas at the churches.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: He gave back. He would tell me he gave back.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: He fell to the black community. You could hear. I
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: could send you I have When he died, they did
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: an hour radio show, child let her Chest tribute. Everyone
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: called in probably black. You could hear how they what
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: he did. He gave the water for Martin Luther King
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: for a march, you know, all kinds of stuff after.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe he was guilty. Maybe he did take barrel.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know. You never told me that, and I
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: don't think he did in that evil way. He had
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: his own he self made guys and self made businesses
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: in their own beliefs of how it should be. You know,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: ship man, I paid him off. I'm doing all the work.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: You know, they got a modern recording contract has all
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: that in it. Artists pay for promotion, videos, everything. He felt,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: why shouldn't they pay for a part of Paola. You know,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: he felt that he really believed it, but it wasn't
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: in the contract. He just maybe I don't know what
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: he did. I wasn't involved with the royalty and at all.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: I really wasn't. I didn't care about it. You know,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: we had bookkeeper, we had too good accountants. Um I
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: left before was that was dever came. I never reached
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: that stature. Um yes, I have the records on that concept.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: I made sure they, you know, that lived up to
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: the contract, but I never got into the full scale.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know what went on. I didn't care about
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: it then. You know, it was why I was having
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: too much fun, you know, being a record man, making
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of money, sports cars, Uh, marijuana was like
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: blew my mind. It was like wearing sunglasses on a
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: clary day, you know, it was it was good. That
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: was a good time. But then they called me and
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: I was blown away. And then shortly after that, my
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: dad dropped head driving the car fifty two years old
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: from the radio station with her his public affairs director,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: Bernardine C. Washington. We had a public affairs director, black lady,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: very high class, high society black lady. In a way.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: They had that in Chicago. There's the whole cotillion people
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: from Jet magazine, Ebony. There's like, uh kind of group.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: There wasn't that error anyway. Um anyway, that's what happened.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: So that that's that's was sixty nine was mind boggling.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: And then my dad died and my uncle wanted to leave.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: They they were glad to let him leave. They were
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: they wanted to move. They knew they were going to
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: close it up and moved to New York. They hired
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: uh uh Land Levy at the time from Epic. You know,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: it was a major knew nothing about the Indies nothing.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: They were idiot people called g RT from Sunny Vale, California.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: They were still at the beginning of Silicon Valley. The
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: reason they had all that money is when eight tracks
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: and concettes first were invented, only two people manufactured them
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: in the world, Ampex and g RT on the West Coast.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: Majors had to go to them, so they had all
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: those millions of dollars, and both Ampics and g RT
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: thought they needed content. So that's why they wanted to
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: buy Chess. And it happened that Alan Arrow, the big
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: music lawyer, was a lawyer for three m who made
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: the tape and eight checks and cassettes. He put it,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: so he knew he put it together when they said
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: they wanted content, and uh, it was a great deal,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: except the stock was seventeen and when I sold Mina
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: was seven dollars or something. My mother never even sold hers.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: It collapsed, you know, because it was restricted stock. You
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: couldn't sell it for two years or something then, so
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: I ended up So it was, you know, a crazy time.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: I uh never got my money as I was supposed
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: to get the million bucks I was supposed to get,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: and there was my dad had no will. Most of
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: the kid's money all went seventies percent or something to
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: a state tax. But that's that's when I was you
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: know and then this GRT they wanted. They were on
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: the stock exchange. So they sent me to an American
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: Management and Association meetings, to a school to learn about
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: stock and how to make forecasts. That was the big thing.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: We never made a four said, just be made hits.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: Made another hit, not a forecast. I hated it. I
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: hated it. I hated them. I hated everything at that period.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: And uh, I quit and I was I quit. I
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: just couldn't. I just said, fuck it, I'm quitting. I
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: didn't know what I wanted to do. I had a
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: bad marriage. My first marriage was a disaster. I was
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: still married. Everything collapsed the end of sixty nine, and
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: that's what I got. The call from Bob Krasnow said, Man,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: I heard the Rolling Stones are getting rid of their
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: manager Alan Klein and their label London Decca is over.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: I know of you and I joined together. We could
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: let's get him man. He had blue thumb. I know
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: you could help me get them. And I thought about it,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: and I told you. I called him up and I
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: said we can't never work together. Come on, man, and
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: he gave me a mixed number. And then a couple
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: of weeks later, I went to London, and that's how
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: it all began. That's a whole other story about how
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: my first meeting with the Rolling Stones and all that.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Tell that story now, and tell the story of Rolling
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: Stones Records. I called Nick Jagger. I met him in Chicago.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: Well before you go, there was crass now mad that
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: you did it without him? Yeah? No, no, no, no, no, no,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: not at all. Man. We had taken mushroom steal and
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: that that's what I'm trying to tell you. We were
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: already out another level. You know. We love the honesty
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: more than madness. You know, he agreed we couldn't work together.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: He was an egomaniac to he became the president of
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: elected whatever. Remember I loved them, Yeah, I loved them, man,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: you know, but we loved each other, you know, but
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: we're you know, in that early thing. No, he wasn't mad,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: and who knew what was going to happen. So I
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: did call. I had met Nick Jagger when he was
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: in Chicago. But the one I bonded with was Brian Jones,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: the one who died. And I was gonna say that story.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: In ninety four, they were staying at this Chicago motel
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: and they asked me to I want to come by
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: and hang out. Well, they blew me away. Man, I've
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: never seen people with long hair like that in person.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: They were drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle. I
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: was drinking screw drivers with girls you know, body or
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: they were drinking it out of the bottle. Okay, Uh,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: they're going, I'll drive Brian. I took him around and
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: introduced him. I gave him each records. I was already
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: sending records to Mack and Keith. They would come when
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: I was working in the shipping room. We had this
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: weird connection. Man born in a similar year. I was
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: connected to them. You know. I would send them. They
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: couldn't send letters. So that's all making Keiths met because
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: they had chess. One of one of them at Chess
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: records on the subway and then one saw the other
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: and started talking. But but anyway, that's what they told me.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: So I said, you know, I called Mick River. I said,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: you know company has been soul and depressed. I heard, uh,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: you are also having a situation with your label. I
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: think there's something we could do together. Oh Marshall, I
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: loved I come to you call where to talk? To you,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: but I just had my passport held for having feather
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: means in the London airport. Could you come to London?
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I'll come in the next two weeks.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: He had this great woman running his office and named
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: Joe Bergman, an American, so she, you know, she knew
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: I was coming. And two weeks later I went to London.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: I was familiar. I had been to London probably twenty
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: times by then, you know, setting up the stuff, and
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: I knew where to stay. And so I went to
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: London and I called her up and I said, a
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: Marshall Chess, I'm here. Had my meeting with Mack. She said,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: well mix in Ireland writing and I rip flipped out
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: what the means? And I he told me to come here. Well,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: I'll talk call them and tell him you're here. I
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: was really upset, you know, My ego was upset, you know.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: But sure enough, two or three days later he came
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: to London. We had our meeting and he said, come
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: to my house on Cheney Walk. I don't know if
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: you know London. Cheney Walk is fabulous. It's on the river,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: these beautiful brownstones. I to each house today is probably
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: worth and her fifteen million. You know, he's gorgeous old
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: right on the river though in Chelsea, so near the
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: King's Road. So uh, I go to mixed house. I'm
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: a little nervous, you know, I'm wearing but I'm wearing
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: already my I've already switched from the suit and tight
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: chest g O Levi, you know Levi's. I was in
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: my more modern, you know, sixties gear and the Mick
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: take took me up to his sitting room and blew
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: me away. Man, I'm from Chicago, from the Midwest, uncultured.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: This guy at antiques or yell rugs. It was. I
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: never paneled walls, you know. But he had this long table,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: the couch and this long table. And I immediately laughed
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: because he treated LPs like me badly out in the cover,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: piled scratched, you know, he treated him badly as a
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: record player. And he goes up to the table. I'm
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: in the couch and he puts on Lift Engineer, which
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: is a zydical from the Bayou, New Orleans. He puts
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: on black Snake Blues and he comes in front of
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: me and he starts doing that like a dance back
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: and forth while we're talking, and I'm thinking, like, my
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: father's this guy's nervous. Well, you know, I knew he was.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: He was nervous. You know. They looked at me like
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: if I was, you were a car dealer and I
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: Henry ford Son came in. Come on, they got their
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: name from Chess record from Rolling Stone, Muddy Waters, come on,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: you know they named you know, they named the track
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: an Instrumentale twenty after our address. You know. So my
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: relationship with them was a whole other kind of weirdness,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: you know, based on just whatever. Uh. But I was
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: a real record man. Man. They were lucky motherfucker's to
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: get me. It was. I was at the top of
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: my game, you know, and and there weren't guys like
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: me many around if any and I think they knew it.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: I was. So you know, my plan was to become
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: the seventh or eighth Rolling Stone. You know, I had
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: a whole and I wanted a label, you know. But anyway,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: I said, well we can former label. We we like Atlantic,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: but we had offers from Columbia and all these other
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: epic They knew about Atlantic. They didn't know Ahmed then yet,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: they hadn't met Ahmed or anyone but they knew about
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: the music on Atlantic. They loved it. Um anyway, well,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: I went to mix, so he says, we's dances and okay,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: he said, why don't you go down there down the street.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: Keith lives right down the street, right on Cheney Walk.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: Go over to Keith and tonight you'll come with us
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: to meet everyone and we have a rehearsal tonight. We
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: have a rehearsal room in East London, the poorer section
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: of London, their original probably rehearsal room. So I said, great.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: If I walked down, I knock on keys doors and
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: he's got a some Italian like butler, older guy, you know,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: house man answers, oh keys upstairs. I go up to steps,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: same kind of house, walk up the steps and there's
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: Keith with Graham Parsons, you know, the famous country rock guy.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: They're at this yellow or psychedelics sort of like the Beatles.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: Piano all yet wasn't it was a styway but painted weird.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: They they were playing together and singing, and I sit
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: down and how Martha did they They commence about how
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: I was dressed because they saw me from the key,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: had seen me in Chicago, sharp dressed man, you know,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: the suit to tie the whole thing. Then they had
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: a joke about it. Anyway, I went with them that night.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: I was in the car and I'll tell you how
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: naive I was. We're going to East London and uh,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: I see in every building there's a glow in the window,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: And I said, what's that fucking glow? Man? Don't you
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: know what that is? A poor people who have to
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: put money at to keep the heaters going tenpence, fivepence
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: whatever in And all those glowes were heaters, and you know,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: in the living room was winter. So and we get
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: to the rehearsal room and it's down in the basement
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: and it's funky, but all they had drums that all
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: set up, you know, to play and guess what's on
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: the column? My Electric Mud album opened up with a big,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: you know pick of muddy and white rope. That is
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: my omen this is the ship, you know. And I
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: went back to Chicago and I told them a why
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: I at the time, I was good friends with the winners.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco. I had met
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: them on my alternative. You know, I needed for all
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: my albums for that concept that was a great They
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: were important. I remember if you subscribe to Rolling Stone,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: you got a free copy Electric Mud. Okay, there you go,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: you got it. So I even I think I spent
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: one night on Jan's couch. You know, I knew him well.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: I loved them, you know, and we loved each other.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: We had They introduced me to Donny and Mitchell the
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: first all the big alternative radio guys in San Francisco.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: I had driven around the country these alternative stations. You
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: could come in with your album. They would like to
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: joint and put your album on right on the air,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and sit around and played. It was great anyway.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: I U Jane and Joan Winner managed an artist called
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: Boscags and Um. They had one album on Atlantic, which
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: was a flop, and then the contract ended with one
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: record deal. I said, I wanted this is before when
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna start my own label. I said,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: I could, I want to. I want to sign bos He's.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: They took me to see him with his band in
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: this little club. He was just great. We hit it
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: off immediately and uh he he even drove me to
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: the airport. And because it was the psychedelic there was
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: you probably remember your old enough. The Bible of the sixties.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: The first psychedelic was the Teachings of Don Juan Carlos Costaada.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: Boz Scags gave me the manuscript. He knew it from
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: Berkeley when he got it. That's where the Carlos Costnada
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: was the professor at Berkeley. He gave me the manuscript
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: of that book and we drive me and I dropped
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: me at the airport. He was gonna do what the
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: point is? Then I didn't get the money. Then all
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: that collapsed. I knew I couldn't have a label, but
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: I told the Stones that I had to know in
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: two weeks because I I'll tell you, I'm embarrassed. They'll
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: probably hear this. I told him that I had Texas millionaires.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: That's what I thought was a good line to give
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: to back my label. And I was gonna have Boss
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: Gaggs as an artist, but I would like to work
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: with them. You gotta let me know in two weeks.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: And like I said, had this bad marriage. I was
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: living in Lake Forest, Illinois and uh with my wife
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: and on the believe it or not, on the fourteenth day,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: I got a weather a Yellow Western Union telegram saying
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: we want to make a deal, come to London, and
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: that's how it began. I came to London. I met
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: Prince Rupert, the guy they had hired to handle their
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: financial problems, and he didn't know nothing about the record business.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: I got them to hire Allan Arrow introduced Prince Rupert.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: He he owned, He was a partner in a merch
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: a private merchant bank called Leopold Josephin's Sons. So yeah,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: that's how how all that began. And then they never
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: wanted the manager of the Rolling Stones that because they
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: got burnt by Alan Kline. He owns to this day
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: that they he's now, but they owned the masters and
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: publishing of all those early great tunes. Um. And then
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: years later we found that he had even that he
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: was even he had the Stones lawyer on his payroll.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: It was all set up, you know. Anyway aside from that, um,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, we want they wanted to go forward,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: and we did and we made the deal with Atlantic.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: That was a fabulous experience because it was Ahmed er Agan,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: Mike Matt Mayor in the same building was their lawyer.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: And that was Atlantic was on Broadway before the w
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: e a you know, and I knew Ahmed. He was
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: at my bar Mitzvah. I'm a you know they I
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: had a star. I had Sam Phillis from San Ahmed.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: They were you know, he was there, Jerry Wexler, whom
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: I never really liked, but I was filt. He was
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: an elitist to look down upon my parents and my uncle.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: He looked at them like they were peasants. Anyway, aside
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: from that, um he so anyway, saw that went down.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I I started with the stones. They sent me the telegram.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: I went. I met Prince Rupert. We we could close
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: the London Decade deal. I had to bring them all
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: the tracks. Sir Edward lewis one of the inventors of Radar.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: He was the head of London Decca. I went with
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: Patty Grafton Green. He was an assistant lawyer of Miss Stacey,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: the big guy he was like she was the dean
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: of the lawyers in London. Patty Grafton Green is now
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest entertainment lawyers in England. If you
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: still if you still not retire. Um. We went to
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: the meeting. We had to bring I had to bring
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: because at the deal with London Decca was the Stones
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: had to give them all the stuff recorded during while
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: they were signed. So we went through all the tapes
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: and got basically made a big reel of Grade B songs.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: But then Mick decided to stick it up their ass
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: and he did that song called cock Sucker Blues. You know,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know can I sing the lyric on your show?
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: Where could I? I'm a strangery? Where can I get
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: my cock sucked? You know? Where can I get my
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: ass fucked? I'm a stranger in town? That should be
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: a gay anthem right now, you know? Anyway, aside from that,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: um they when they heard that, they flipped all these
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: stuffy Englishmen they played that. You know, that was a
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: classic pardiographed in Green has told people he was shocked himself.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: He remembers I remember reading where he said he remembered
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: walking across the bridge after that meeting and shocked. But
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: that's how that ended. And then we made the deal
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: with Atlantic and it was a great deal. I asked
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: for a dollar. I was really I was very much,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: very much a key element in that first deal because
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: I knew the record business more than any of them.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: Im I didn't know the record business. The big argument
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: was I wanted the dollar an album and they said
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: that was impossible because they lie. They didn't know. I
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: letter I worked the press. They're gonna tell me I
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: will cost to make a record, So I knew I
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: won im and was sweating with his white ten dollar
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: salta handkerchiefs on his ballhead. He was president and I
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: was saying this, But we ended up getting a dollar
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: an album and uh form Rolling Stones Records. Okay, before,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: just for one second, rumor is you took less money
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: from Atlantic in advance to be in Atlantics. That true? No,
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: not true, not in my mind. No. We never even
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: no negotiated any further with anyone. That was it. That
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: was it in my mind. I mean, you know, maybe
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: Prince Rupert got an offer from Depic and that, you know,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: maybe I forgot it and we decided to forget it.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: I wanted Atlantic because they were my friends. You know,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: they were an India. I could work with them. You know,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to go. I hate the majors that
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: hate him to this day. You know, I don't hate them.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm an Indie. I liked it. I don't
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: like the board of people twenty opinions. I'm not like that.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: I still am not right now. I mean, you know,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: I'm a different So I never wanted to be involved
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: with the Majors. Um. I just like the end and
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: we were just a very warm, symbiotic, wonderful relationship. Okay,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: so the first record, The Stones put out a Sticky Fingers,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: which is bigger than anything that I worked I worked
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: out before you had before it. Wait, wait, before you
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: get there was part of your deal that you would
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: put out records yourself or we were gonna have Rolling
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: Stones Records, and I was gonna be able to I
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: owned a part of Rolling Stones Records that we were
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: gonna have other artists. We had even talked about putting
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: giving Jimmy Jimmy Hendricks. He he was available outside of
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: the US, and we talked about putting him, giving him
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: his own logo like the Stones head and that, you know,
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: he was so special. And then he died. I remember
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: being in Rotterdown when we heard the news that he died.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: So that ended. But but then what happened is they
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: realized they had no money, Dad Alan, they had nothing.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: They had these big corporate checkbooks in their minds They
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: thought that may own those companies because they had these
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: corporate chef which they could write checks. They owned their
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: houses and cars, but they didn't own their own ship
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: at all. And it ended up that they had no
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: money even for a living. They were broke. So Prince Rupert,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: we had, you know, when we realized all that, they
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: called me in and said, there can't be either artists
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: on the label. There's no money and you have to this.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: We'll let you out. I had a contract. There was
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: a Mike Tannon, a great music lawyer. He was an
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: assistant lawyer at the Arrow Ornstein firm and he was
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: a lawyer learning, a young lawyer. He became my lawyer.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Later he was Paul Simon lawyer. I mean he you know,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: he really worked. He became a big music lawyer. Um.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: But uh yeah, they said, we'll let you out of
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: your contract. We can't have a label, but you could stay.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: You know you want to stay, you know with the
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: Stones you could do what you could do, what you want.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: We'd love you to stay. And I said, I'm staying.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: That's rock and roll. I'm loving it, you know, I'm
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: loving I'm about around the world and meeting famous artists
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: and people I never even dreampt about authors artists. Uh.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Their crowd was amazing for you know, sub Royalty Pipe,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: the Guinness kids, you know, oh they they they you know,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: they had a lot of starfuckers around them. Um anyway,
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, So I decided to stay and I made
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: that my life. Man, I made that my life. I
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: I in my mind that was the seventh or eighth
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. I went on the plane. I still lived
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: at Key's house. I stayed with make it Mozart's house
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: in the south of France. Um. I was like, you know,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: part of the family for those years. Uh. Then towards
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: the end, drugs got involved, which you know, which sort
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: of tell everything. And then I quit because I quit.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: I quit because the quitting story is just this, you know,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: I just it was time to change channels. I was
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: very embarrassed about my drug problems, and my drug problems
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: I can't and you know, years later I did. I
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: was lucky enough to take when I was trying to
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: kick all the drugs. I ended up getting turned onto
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: one of the fathers of LSD psychotherapy, which is now
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: in vogue. Um. And he saw me a year before
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: he took acid with me. He took it with me
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: and Harry hermone You could look him up. There's a
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: couple of things online. Dr hermone Um. He said, I'll
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: lead you to why you like that ship? It was
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: all because he sold the company. Oh my god. I
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: mean I had all that subconscious, deep pain, you know,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: because he took away my legacy, took it away. You know.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: I went back to that meeting being the record businesses
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: as years and this called me up and saying we're
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: selling it, you know that. But something that really affected
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: me in a horrible pain, in a deep well of pain.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: But once I realized that that's what why I like drugs,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: that was the pain I was killing, I dumped it instantly.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: It was very good. That was a great I mean
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: it was shocking how once you realize the seed of something,
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: how it becomes irrelevant, you know. But yeah, so that
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: that that I left the Stones mainly because I I would.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't like myself. I didn't talk to my uncle
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: for three years. I was embarrassed, you know, I was embarrassed.
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: You know, it was not my you know what I
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: went and it was bad. I was killing pain that
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: didn't even know what it was. And uh so that ended.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: And then I, you know, I went out with arc
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: music in my life and all kinds of other new things.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: But that was a great I would do it again,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: even with the drugs. That was great, a great experience.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: The Stones have nothing to do. The only thing the
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: Stones did was uh because the drugs were around everyone.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: Every record executive was collapsing with cocaine, are you kidding?
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: I went to fifty dinners with guys, would go to
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: the bathroom, know when we'd eat the food to to
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: you know, if you still you know. So it wasn't
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: just me, you know, but U being around the Stones
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: and all the group He's constantly bringing you know. And
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: then I lived with Keith. But I have no blaming
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: them what's or ever? You know, in a way, in
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: a way I have. In fact, I don't even regret
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: my drug period. I grew in it because I beat it,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: you know. So it's like climbing mountain evers that changes
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: you too, you know. Um yeah, I don't regret it.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: Um was it was a waste, but I managed to
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: have all number one records, you know, and uh, okay,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: so the first record is Sticky Fingers, which is certainly
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: a great record. To what degree were a record? To
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: what degree were you involved in that when you and
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: to what degree were you responsible for the success? I
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: think I was, but you know who knows it's my
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: own ego. Probably yeah, I was totally one and two
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: involved with that record. It's my first taste of takeout
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: Indians though the Olympic Studios Glynn John's um No, it
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: was a great record. In fact that later recently, after
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: forty nine years in my car, for the last two years,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: I've already been playing music. I go in my car
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: for rides in the mountains. I only play what I,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: my family or me have been associated with for two
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: years straight, only for memories. It's shocking when I played
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: the Stone but started with it was the sixtieth anniversary
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: of Exile on Main Street and BBC did a big,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: you know, production show on it. They called me up.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: They said, well, there's already a handful of guys that
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: were alive now that we're around that you know um
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: And I said, well, I haven't played the fucker in
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: forty nine years. So I had I had a brand
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: new vinyl coffee and I still love the speakers in
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: my living room now that I auditioned that album for
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: in l A at my house on San Marco Drive.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: They were Stevie Wonders speakers that I had rented from
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: Westlake Studio because he had returned them because his new
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: girlfriend didn't like the way they looked in his house.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: So I had rented them for this promo party, and
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: I dragged. I still have my ended up by him.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: But I got in my living room and I blasted Exile,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: and I was shocked. I wanted to call Keith. I'm
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: gonna still talk to him about it because it's brilliant.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just so thrilled that I was even involved in
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: Sticky Fingers and Exile. Those are brilliant records, you know.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: And I ended up driving around getting you know, eighty
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: miles an hour in my car, blessing them, you know.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: But I hadn't played him in almost fifty years and
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: they held up great, you know. Um. But yeah, I
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: was totally involved with Atlantic with the cover, you know,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: getting that zipper cover made. It was highly complex. Luckily,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: one of my best friends who sold me album Stickers
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: in Chicago was a guy named Craig Braun who was
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: the father of the custom album cover, the Andy Warhol
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: Banana Cheaching, Cheaching, Chong, Big Bamboo, all those custom covers.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: So it was craigging another competitor. They were, you know.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: Next we gave it to Craig for me. I asked
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: next week. I told him Craig was a friend of mine,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: you gotta give it to him. He did, and we
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: had We had a lot of trouble. We had to
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: get garment district people to put the zipper in. Then
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: we did test shipments and the zipper, the zipper and
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: up was causing a hitting the groove. Then we had
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: to get all the on zippers unzipped so would be
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: on the label parn. It was complex and we paid.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: I paid Andy Warrel five thousand bucks for that design,
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: but we had a convert it to make it, you know,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: and Mike introduced me to Andy. Those are the kind
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: of people I was meeting man, Andy Warhol, Man Ray
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: in Paris, you know, all for album covers. He's famous.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: They all wanted to do stones covers. Hitler's filmmaker Lenny
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: Russian stock She I went to talk to her. Yeah,
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: so you know that I was involved with the making
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: of the album. Then with the logo of the tongue
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: and lips. Yeah, all that, that was all the beginning.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: That was I was. I lived it. It was twenty
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: four hours a day. I and uh, I you know
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: I was. That was my I looked at myself then
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: as a rolling stone and that was my job. That
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: was my instrument. I wanted to be as good as them. Huh.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: The big victory lap was the seventy two tour. There
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: was unbelievable publicity. What do you remember about that other
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: than playing with Stevie Wonder, etcetera. It was great. It
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: was remember the birthday mixed birthday with Stevie Wonder. I
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: I set that up because again you know again it's
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: it's my ego. But Youret Abner was the president of Motown.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: You know who that is? You were? He was the president.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: He was the president of VEJ. I knw him from Chicago.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: He was another one of those high society Chicago black people.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: And but we were good friends. We used to go
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: to Bat's Jewish restaurant, meet there all the time, once
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: or twice a week when he was at VJ. But
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: he lost VJ Las Vegas shooting craps. You know, I
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: knew him well. He was when I got picked up
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: the award of the Rocketroll Hall of Fame, my father,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: he was the presenter. I asked for him to be
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: the prisoner. He was a good friend. But I went
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: to him. I said, let's do a double fucking album.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: Get Stevie on the tour. He's never been exposed to
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: the Stones audience, and we'll do a double album. And
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: I made a deal to do it, and we did,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: and it fell through at the very end. They backed out.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: Atlantic couldn't do it. It was it was gonna be
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: a double albument. It was in production and ready you know.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: Uh and that never happened. But uh, yeah, so that
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: you know, so that that was a great tour the whole.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: It was just so exciting that on that tour you
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: had Jackie o' nascius's sister, you had Truman Capponi. Oh,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: Truman Capponi, who hated me. He said I had fat
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: Jewish thighs. He hated me because where where did he write? Where? What?
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: What stay? Was in Oklahoma or Kansas? Where that was?
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: You know, Kansas, Kansas. Yeah, so when we played in Kansas,
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: he was there, of course, and he wanted to come
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: right on the edge of the stage and I stopped him,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: and he hated me for that, and then I'm that
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: tour he came. He came to New Orleans and Keith
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: Richards and Bobby Keys Pete all over his hotel room,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: so he stepped on it when he opened his door.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: He was in love with Bobby Keys. He wanted that.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I remember we're all in the same hotel
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Yeah, Truman, Campodi, Peter Beard with the photographer. UM,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: so many people. Uh you know the thing about uh
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: you know I got I would get to get tickets
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: I got so they bullshit you. Those people I got
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: invited once to um it wasn't Jackie Ones? Is their sister?
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: What was her name? Lee? Yeah, she was married to
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: Peter Beard, the photographer, and I had gone to see
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: him about covers. He was in Africa then shooting elephants
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: and girafts and uh so I got a call from
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: Archy said we're having a party of cock tail party.
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: Do you want to come by? I said, oh, my god,
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: who's gonna be there? And then she said, oh, by
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: the way, we get backstage passes. You know, that's how
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: they operate so I got invited to the party, but
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: I had to get them passes. That whole crowd, you know,
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: and so what have you know? That's we were. We
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: wrote a song about them, starfuckers, that they're about them.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: We had too we they don't even know. We had
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: two dressing rooms. We had one for the starfuckers who
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: thought they were in the backstage, and another hidden one
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: where the real friends hung out. What happened to the
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: movie Cocksucker Blues? What happened? It got? Well, oh no,
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: that's a whole this could be another whole show for you.
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: So the Stones introduced me. Mick and Keith say, had
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: I ever seen a book called The Americans? No fucking way,
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: am and you from Chicago. I'm not looking at photography books.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: What's the Americans? They pulled it, they showed me. I
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: think it was Keith who showed me. It's a it's
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: Robert Frank on the glowing with Jack carolluact the famous
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: beating Nick and it's a it's on the road his
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: famous book. And Robert Frank travels with him and comes
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: out with a code book called the Americans, which are
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: all black and white. So he says, uh, we why
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: don't we get Robert Frank to do the cover the
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: Exile and Main Street cover. Um, it would be great,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: look at it, look at his photographs, you know. So
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: I tracked down Robert Frank in New York and the
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: bower He lived Bowery, Remember, well, he wasn't amazed. He
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: was he was one of them. He was probably one
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: of the most major factors in my own consciousness in life.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: We became very close friends. Another Jewish guy a little
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: older than me. His father was applying Steeler in Zurich
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: or something, you know, Jewish Applian Steeler. He was a
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: beat nick and he shot the cover with He didn't
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: use his fancy like anymore. He was shooting instant instant cameras,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: not Kodak, I mean Code acted when they first came
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: out with thirty five millimeter point and shoot. He was
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: using that and so he he uh, you know, he
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: shot the cover and the Stones loved all the shots.
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: My pictures on it. Twice. I'm on that cover, you know,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: which is amazing. My daughter she was a big blow
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: up of it, you know. Uh in our house was
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: my little like wouldn't recognize me then, But yeah, I
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: became very close with Robert Frank, and then we were
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: in l A. And then they said, well, why don't
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: we do a movie? And I said, great man, they
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: had seen that my Bodiddley movie I told you I
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: made in sixty two. Not only did they see it,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: Ian Ian Stewart their manager, their original member and piano
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: player and road manager. He got a played on BBC
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: two and you know one time and so you know, hey,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: I said, what a movie. Pretty, I'll I'll let's do that.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll talk to Robert Frank, but I already
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: talked him about the cover and he loved the idea
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: because he's you know, we just loved it. Was another
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: going on tour with the Rolling Stones. He had all
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: kinds of ideas. Super eight cameras just came out. We'll
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: give each member of Super eight they can shoot. We'll
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: edit it all later. You know what they shoot? When
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: I shoot, I want to use Danny Seymour, who's also
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: got a fabulous book. Father is famous Broadway photographer Seymour.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: If you go to any of those places, the black
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: and whites of all the Broadway characters. Seymour was married
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: to a socialite from Cape. You know, from Rima Kennedy's
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: Hyanna supporters somewhere. He was an unusual guy. We also
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: became he was a junkie though, and Robert said, he's
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: a junkie. I want to use him a second camera
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: and sound. Um, I want to use him. But he's
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: a junkie. But I'm sure he'll he'll clean up. I'll
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: get him to clean up. So I meet Danny Seymour
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: and I make a deal. I go to Warner's film
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: I forget the old guy there. Oh god, I can't
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: remember that. Anyway, I made a deal. Uh were they paid?
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: I think it was a hundred thousand dollar advance for
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: first refusal rights to the film and um, which they
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: ended up refusing actually, but at the time, and we
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: went out and we went and made the film, and uh,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: you know it was It was amazing. Although as we
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: beat the tour began, Robert became disenchanted more and more
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: with the Stones, with the whole life, with the drugs.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: Danny went back on drugs. We found the shoes at
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: the curb. I did some of the sound with Inaugura. Um,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: so it became weird. But my main experience told but
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: Robert Frank He used to give me books to re
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: keep the River on the right. That was the one
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: that's where about the Amazon. And I ended up going
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: twice because of that book. When he turned me onto,
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: you know, to take ayahuasca. He was into it forty
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: years ago. So Robert Frank turned me on two books, music,
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: all kinds of hippie. He told me I was fucked up.
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: He said, you are fucked up man. He said, you
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: don't even know who you are. You know, you know
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: he saw my construct, this ego centric guy. You know,
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: yes it was. I was just at the top of
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: my game of being great, you know. And uh so
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: in Texas is that we have to do live. We
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: need the live for the we can't do the live soundtrack.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: I call up Yoko Ono and John. They had a
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: film company on White Street in New York because I
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: use They had a Steve Gibbard. They had a film
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: crew hit by this guy, Steve grab Gibbard, Bob Bob,
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: I forget his last name. He mad, if I don't
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: mention it anyway, Um, yeah, you can use the crew.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: Just pay him. You know, we're not doing any thing now.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: They had some people on weekly salary whatever a camera,
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: couple of cameraman whatever. So they came to Texas, and
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: I knew that that's the way the Stones work is
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: by the third or fourth gig on a tour, the
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: set is the sets locked, so it's the same every night,
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: like a Broadway play. It's exact. I mean Midnight Raveler,
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: he's whipping the floor. It's exact. It's exact. And I
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: knew that, you know, I was fascinated by that. Actually,
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: the whole construction of the tour. How we used to
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: talk after the first one and and I love that
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: I was being involved in something creative and new, and
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: I just loved it. Anyway, we would talk about it
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: and uh, and okay, we do the same set every night.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: So when we did Texas, I said, I have an idea,
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: Steve Gebhard, the two cameraman, give them headsets with me,
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell them every mixed coming out in one
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: in it and kneel down so they know where to
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: aim their cameras. It was like me calling the shots
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: because I knew that that I did that the set
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: ends in Dallas or Houston. We had two gigs. We're
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: recording with a live truck, you know, live mobile. I
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: get out to get in our limo with my crew,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: the Yoko Ono crew. Right. We had two big black
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: security guys there. Uh, I don't know. I can't remember
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: their name. At the moment um, it will come to me.
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: Although it's not important. This one guy steps in front
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: of me, Man, this is our car. You can't this
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: isn't for your car. He was, you know, he and
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: I lost my temper at him, completely lost my temper.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: Motherfucker's his micro Okay that and then we ended up
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: getting a car. We left three or four days later.
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: In those days, it wasn't like video. You you shot,
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: you sent the negative to the New Yorker somewhere, they'd
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: send you Russia's back in two days, and you look
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: at what you got. Robert Franks has come out in
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: this room, Marshall. I go in the room. He's got
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: a projector and there's a little speed. He's looking at
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: the rushes, you know. He says, sit down, and he
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: hits the button, and it's me losing my temper. Without audio,
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: my face was ugly, like the devil, like a monster.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: Close up of me in full a temper tantrum. Yeah,
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: I couldn't even took me five times to look at it.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: That bloom. I mean, I can't tell you. It affected
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: my whole life from that moment on, you know. And
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: uh so he did stuff like that that he was
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: like my surro good father. I went to just to
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: go see him in the Bowery. We did the editing
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: in the bar. We rented our own table, uh you know,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: with a couple of local kids that he hired to
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: do the editing. Then the Stones were in. Uh So
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: the first edit, I was involved in the editing. And
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: you know, no one knew what he got. He's the
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: father of realism. We got we were taking people with
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: debbing sex, the doctor on the plane, the baggage guy
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: eating pussy with the girl on his shoulders on the plane.
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: I'm recording it. You know, we had that. No one
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: knew what it was gonna be. So we were in Munich, Germany,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: and I came from New York with a you know,
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: with a reel of film sixteen millimeter I guess whatever.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was super sixteen or sixteen. And they
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: sat in this screening room and I put it on.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: They hated they, oh my god, they didn't like it.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: They felt like I did, seeing myself losing my temper.
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: They didn't like a lot of it. There was some
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: stuff with me, you know, they we they just didn't
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: like it. So they wanted a lot of edits and
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: you know, they said what they wanted, and Ahmed would say,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: cut out. There was pictures of armed snorting and smoking.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: Cut that out, please, I beg you, Marshall, I did.
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: I threw it on the floor for him. He went
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: to my Missville, I want to you know, Uh, no
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: one wanted to be be shot that way, you know,
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: and uh so then so then you know, there was
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: a whole scene about the film and they didn't you know,
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: they didn't want it out. They thought it was you know,
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: it showed too much drugs and him watch weirdness and
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: even though it was highly real. But I will admit
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: Robert frank and he admitted this to me. He as
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: he became more malcontent with the tour, his the way
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: he edited and shot became malcontent. In other words, he
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: left out the Magnificent seven ship, all the fun, all
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: the laughter. He left a lot of that out. You know,
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: we were having a good time, you know, um the
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: group he's uh, the music, he left a lot out.
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: He got more into the how fucked it was, you know,
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: the whole Rolling Stones just it wasn't that healthy to him.
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: What it was the opposite of the beat nick thing.
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: You know. He didn't like it, um, but he knew
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: it was a great document. He liked the film because
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: he was real, you know. But so the Stones own
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: that they had the right warners refused on the option.
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: There was a four grand I had a four hundred grand.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: I own percent of that film. I had a four
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: grand recoupment. Now that same guy did uh that. I
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: hired my buddy from my dad's advertiser. He's from Robin
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: Binzer who did Rotary Connection name and all that. He
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: called me up. He said, let me make a music
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: film out of what Yoko. You know what what Yoko
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: and Gubbard shot. We'll call it, Ladies and gentlemen, the
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stones will make two films. I talked to the Stones. Yeah,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: great idea first music film. We'll tour it with. We're
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: gonna open it in New York at the zig Field.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: We're gonna have a rock concert sound system. And because
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: of Alan there oh three m Game was the first
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: stereo music track on our ladies and gentlemen. I can
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: remember that I went to the grand opening and Robins
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: sold it to this guy Miles, you could look it up.
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: He sold it to a guy who blew it into
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: this distribution of it and he couldn't you know, the
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: guy blew it and the and the ladies and gentlemen
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: thing collapsed. And so the Stones didn't want cock Sucker out.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: They made a deal. They could only be shown at
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: art like the Museum of Modern Art has shown it
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: numerous times. It could be shown as film art with
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: Robert Franken attendance, you know, not commercially, not on HBO.
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: I've heard HBO offered am in advanced for it. I've
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: heard that I don't know, um in the meantime um
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: a video when when videos VHS and all that was
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: the big thing video but you know, Blockbuster and all that.
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: A company just wanted to buy ladies and gentlemen the
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: music part, and we sold it to him and they
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: paid a million bucks. So I recouped the four hundred
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: and I got my ten percent on the six hunter. Okay,
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: what comes around goes around, and someday my kids will
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: get money for Cocksucker. When it's on HBO because it
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: will be you know, once they can't get suit and
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: they were all dead, you know, I mean there's a
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: lot of ship in there. Because I didn't know, I
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: didn't get a lot a lot of it was my
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: fault as producer. It was impossible to get releases. Willie
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: the baggage man, and with the girl on his shoulder
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: on the plane eating her, he wasn't gonna sign it
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: re lease. He had a white and kids. You know, uh,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: you know there was there was a tour doctor who
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: was a sex maniac. He would have cards, white cards
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: with the Rolling Stones logo the tongue, and he looked
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: for the prettiest girls in the audience. And he's right.
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: And then we in every city, we'd have our own suite.
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: We'd want on a neutral suite called we We. We'd
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: make it Mr White or Mr Yellow case anyone busted
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: us would been under no one's name because of drugs
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: or anything. So yes, So this guy, Larry, I don't
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: gotta say his name, but the doctor um, he would
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: hand our cards to all these pretty girls. You'd say,
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: you want to meet the Stones, come to this suite
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: at midnight or some got girls that were there on dates.
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: He would maybe give out twenty cards. Five or six
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: would show up. It was shocking to meet nicker Keith
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: or to screw him, you know, and they were never around.
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they would take one. I was all this doctor
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: would have his sweet pickings and would say, well, I
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: would introduce you if you uh, you know, it was
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: a trip. It was really a bizarre That tour was bizarre.
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: And then the wives all came to visit us in Canada.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: It was crazy. But uh, you know the whole that
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: whole scene was crazy. That was the epitome of the
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: croupies and you know the claster casts. All that was
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: going on. You know, Um, it was a lot of fun.
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: That's why I say I would do it all over again,
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: you know if I had to. But I'm glad I left.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: Well you're there, Mick Taylor's replacement guitarists. He ultimately leaves,
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: and you know what was really going on amongst the band,
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: bill Wan, what was going on was Mick Taylor. Uh,
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: you know, Mick Taylor. They got Mick Taylor because he's
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: just so fucking brilliant of a guitarist and in my opinion,
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: as a record producer. It was the best overall Stone
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: sound because he played a less Paul, he played a
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: whole other style of lead guitar and Keith he Uh.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: They they coexisted. Beautiful they're playing together, his his lead
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: and mixed rhythm. Uh and mixed mix, I mean mix
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: mixed lead and Keith's rhythm. To me as a record producer,
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: it was just genius. Those tracks are brilliant and but
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: he couldn't take it. He couldn't take the pressure of
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: being a rolling Stone. And he had a wife, Rose,
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: who was very incestuous with other members, and I think
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: it totally destroyed a lot of his something he did
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: not like being a rolling Stone. I remember one time
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: he froze his his shoulders with freeze and he eventually quit.
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: I went to Robert Stigwood, Mick and I went to
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: Robert Stigwood's house. Ahmard was there too, and Eric Clapton
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: and they were all there at this party. Robert Stigwood
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: gave and we went to Mick Taylor begging him to
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: not leave, but he said he was leaving. And and
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: then and then I saw, uh who it was. It
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't Mick Taylor. It was someone that was so drunk
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: and ripped. I'm matsued. It was a terrible but we left.
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: We not you even needed that. That's when and I
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: hadn't known Ron would We were friends before while rom
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: when he was in the Faces, Keith in introduced me
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: to him. We go into his house. He had his
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: own little studio. But Keith and Ron would they play
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: a similar style? They're both brilliant, you know. In fact,
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: if I wanted, if I wanted to get into it,
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: I have a great idea to produce them. Now. Then
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: I have an idea for two rhythms that I have
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: a great but I don't know if I want to
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: get into it. But I just with them again. But uh,
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: I do have a concept that you know, and it
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter who the vocalist is. Just I have a
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: great idea because I always felt they never took advantage
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: of their similarity. Uh, and I thought they could do
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: some amazing stuff if they if it was just directed right, Okay,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: so it ends with the stones. How do we get
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: to today? How long does it take to pick yourself up?
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: And what do you want to do there after? Oh?
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: It ends with the stones. Yeah, it ends with the
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: Stones and I I, uh quit the Stones. They were upset.
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: They thought, I'm You're quitting because of us. I said, no,
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not quit because of me. And I knew I
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to stop the drugs. I'd tried many times during
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: the last year and a half of the Stones, I
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: had tried drugs stopping and failed. Went back, you know,
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: stop went back, very difficult being around Keith who also
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: was stopping, going back, stopping tour. It was difficult, um,
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: And so I knew what happened is I uh. The
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: ending scenario is uh, I would buy methodone from on
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: the black market in New York, and I knew a druggist.
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: We all knew this druggist who uh yeah, he was
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: part of us. We knew this druggist was a Rolling
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: Stones groupie. And he would put it in a bottle
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: and make with a label like it was a Vitamin
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: C tonic because I would get sick, you know, I
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: was snorting heroin and stuff. And we were in Montrose, Switzerland,
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: and Uh, I went to fancy five star hotel and
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: I went to in the morning, I woke up feeling horrible.
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: I went to the maybe after I opened that bottle
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: and I drank it and I looked in the mirror.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: That was it. That night I quit. I saw myself
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: all that acid. I guess did something Robert Frank. I
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: saw myself the way I really was at that moment,
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: and I quit. That night I went we all went
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: to Remember in the hotel room, telling him I was leaving.
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: I said, otherwise I'm gonna die. It's not what I
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: can't be here anymore. It's time. This w chapters and
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: they said, oh, it's our not our fault. That's what
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: I remember. It's not your fault, obviously. And I left.
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: And then I came back to New York and I
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: was having a hard time. I used to get seventy
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: phone calls to day all the Ksano it was zero one.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: You know, no longer the guy. You know. That's what
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: you learned when you're with the Stones. It's never about you.
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: That's the part that destroys you. It's only about them.
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: They make you think it's about you to get to them,
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: but you gets easy to get sucked into that. Yeah,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: So once that was taken away. So anyway, I during
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: one of the last Stone store, I had met a
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: cocaine smuggler who lived in Bearsville, New York, couple where
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: I lived now near Woodstock. Not a dealer, smuggler, you know.
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: And his deal was he would supply drugs basically to
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: Keith and me for front row tickets of every concert.
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: He carried it from gig to gig in Europe. So
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: that was great. You know. We also once had a
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: C I X C I. A guy hearing it, you
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: don't know it wants to get busted. So anyway, I
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: went up to I called the guy up. I said,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: come you know, I'm coming on board and come come
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: up here, man, come up you know. So I drove
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: up from New York to Bearsville and I uh, I
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: was meeting the Woodstock Times. It was an ad for
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: this house I'm sitting in now, and I said, man,
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: I need a place to change my you know, it
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: was time to shift, to really get in a whole
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: get back to my spiritual and the whole thing. And
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: I just said, I want to see that how something
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: about it? And I spent spent overnight on holiday in
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: in Kingston, New York. I came up here the next day,
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: was sort of dilapidated. It's on built a hundred years
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: old on ten acres of land. It was built by
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: the people that owned the Align Electric Chain Company back
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: in the twenties. They had money. Heated floor in the bedroom,
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: but old time, hundred years you know. And I bought
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: it to uh I was I was divorced by then
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: from my for the bad marriage. I bought it. This
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: was where I was gonna clean up and change my life,
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: kept back to nature, and I did. That's what happened,
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: and I met my wife in the city and we
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 1: ended up moving here. But it took me a long time.
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: That's when I went through the whole therapy, the LSD psychotherapy.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: I I was going to a psychiatrist in Manhattan named
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: Joe Gross and he said to me, you know, I'm
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: just not doing it with you it. There's a brilliant guy,
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 1: the father of LSD psychedelics, coming from Austin, Texas. He's
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: the Russian Jew Polish Jew, Harry Hermone coming in New York.
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: He had to leave Texas. I didn't know why then,
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: but he had to leave for some stupid read. He
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: had the first marijuana licensed federal in America nineties sixties
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: for CBD, invented CBD to grow pop for sleeping. He
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: was that brilliant. He's a pharmacologist, like you know, full
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: brilliant psychiatrist. Um anyway, um so he said, this guy's coming.
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: And Harry Hermon did not like private patients. He got
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: a job at King's County, the largest psychiatric hospital I
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: think in America in the in New York, and he
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: was in forensic. He had he did this slasher of
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: Staten Island. He did criminals and his own clients with
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: Lou reading me. That was it two junkies. There was
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: already clients. And uh he saw me for a year. Man.
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: You know, Nanny took acid with me and that we
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: became friends. You know. He ended up moving to Israel.
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: He's dead now. Um So that's how all that stopped.
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime, I had the house up here,
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: and um I met my I met my wife, who
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: was a school teacher, and you know, my life changed.
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: I had kids. Everything changed then when my my mother
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: had inherited and my mother died. She had inherited my
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: father's share of Arc Music, which was the Chess Records
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: publishing that was run by Gene Goodman. That Harry Goodman's
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: brother you know another mont of Benny Goodman's brothers in
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: New York that was through Alan Arrow and those people.
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: But we knew nothing of copyrighting Publishing International. The original
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: deal though, was they only owned the Chess publishing for
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: not Chess records. In other words, anything they got European anything,
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: other labels cover records. But when Chess was sold, they
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: had the windfalls getting it all then, you know, because
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: when Chess was so, that ended. So they owned it
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they was doing great all the
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: you know, all the advertising and everything. And my mother
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: was a partner, and my mother died and willed it
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: to me. That was a struggle like that guy Jean
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: Goodman tried to cut me out. I had a break
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: into the office of this no old Silverman, another big
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: entertainment lawyer who wrote the He had to admit that
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: I was had the right to inherit my mother's share,
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: and then I became a partner. And then I threw
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: out Jean Goodman because I called him he was he
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: had my uncle and him was stealing from my mother
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: and my uncle didn't even know it. And when I
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: showed that to my uncle, who were on Santa Monica
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: Boulevard driving to the Palmer Somewhere, Eddie jammed on the brakes.
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: He freaked out. He never spoke to me. Pete on
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: him at the Friars Club. He didn't realize that he
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: made him a partner, that that was such an affront
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: that he would that he would steal from his brother's wife.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: You know, Oh my god, and so ruined their friendship.
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: They never spoke after I showed him, I spelled it out,
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: and instead of going to court and suing Genleman, I
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: told him to go home. I didn't want to start loss.
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't want it, and I took it over and
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: I changed it from Madison Avenue to the west Side
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: Ninth Avenue. Oh, young people, we boomed. I made a
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: great publishing company. I ran it for twenties, you know,
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: two until two you know, when I sold it to Fuji,
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: and now it's owned by BMG. I sold the Fuji
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: Japan UM. But yeah, I made a great company. I
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: loved that I lived up here. I used to go
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: to the city and sleep one or two nights a
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: week in hotels or at an apartment, my mother in
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: law's apartment. UM, and I raised my kids here. My
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: wife was a school teacher and uh changed my life
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: and I met you know so that and now I've
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: just been working on not becoming me. This is really
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: hard for me. It's against my what youreld Barbara fake,
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: you know, forget who you are because it's bullshit. It's
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: just like what the shirt you're wearing. You're much more
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: than who you are, he taught. They laid a lot
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: of good ship on me. I've never been happier in
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: my life. I live in the woods. I walk around
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: the forest. I still take psychedel was you know, uh
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: if I can. Mushrooms are now every everyone, every kid
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: I know has a bag of mushrooms. You know. Um,
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: I smoke pots still. I don't take hard drugs anymore.
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: I had serious surgery three years ago this month. I
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: had to learn to walk again. Two years ago. Took
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: me a year and learned to walk laying on the
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: couch or a double back surgery. I went down on
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: a hundred one pounds and it was near death and
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: something happened again. I can't another indescribable thing. I'm like
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: a weird I get people laughing. I'll get you laughing
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 1: because I have a happier. Something happened to me. When
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: you get near dying, you realize how much time you
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: waste on bullshit. That happened. That's something happened to me.
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: I was, you know, on that couch, trying to gain
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: weight a pine of hog and doze to day. I
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: couldn't gain I was like the Oshwitz. I looked in
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: the mirror and cried the first time. That's like I
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: was twelve years old at that way. There's nothing. It
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: was horrible, but anyway it was. It turned out to
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: be a positive thing. You hear about that all time
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: right in life. That weird ship turns out good. And
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: now I'm I'm enjoying riding around in my car and
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk to keith I I recently. Do you
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: think I have a good memory. I'm gonna tell you
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: a memory story about the rolling Stones. Does it sound
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: like an eight year old guye that those has a
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: good memory talking to you? Yes? I do think you
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: have a good memory. Okay, I think you want to
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: hear the story about memory. It's a rolling stone story. So, uh,
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: we're in uh France and in Switzerland, and uh we
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: have a tour coming up and both Keith and I
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: are taking hard drugs, heroin um and everything else anything
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: if you get you know, we like drugs and we
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: but we knew he had a clean up for the tour.
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: I wanted to and we had heard about in Marseilles,
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: France there was a drug shortage and they we heard
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: about this Swiss doctor, Dr Denver, and he said, well,
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: there was a heroin drought in France and they were
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: a drug that had been invented by a drug company
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: in Paris called lucid drill. You could look it up.
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: It's called many different things, but it was called lucidrill
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: by a French lady. And uh he wanted to use
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: it on Keith and I for a drug here, and
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: we said okay, and we took it was injectable and
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: he gave you barbituous to sleep through the sickness. But
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: it was mostly this lucid drill. We took hundreds of
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: these pills, you know, big bottles, and I saw I
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: had many times three or four cures I took with him,
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: trying three for sure, Keith maybe two or three. And
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: then it ended, you know, and it didn't cure us.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: We went back and I ended up coming here doing
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: what I told you to cure. But recently I decided
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: I wonder what happened to that lucid drill. So I
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: look it up online and it's one of the drugs
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: given for Alzheimer's to remove plaque in your brain. So
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: I think in our thirties, Keith and I started fresh,
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: we cleaned out all the ship. I want to call me,
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: ask him, how's your memory? Because everyone I know tells
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: me it's shocking my memory. Other eight year olds, you know,
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: I I and it's true. I I feel that things
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: come up from way and I'm wondering if that we're laughing,
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: could it be the lucid drill? You know? And this
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: story and I'm not knowe Marshal, we'll leave it here
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: for the first chapter. You're a fount of stories well told.
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking the
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: time to talk to my audience. You asked good questions.
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: You're good. You're good until next time. This is Bob
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: left Sex