Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / A Tribute To Jerry Weintraub Live

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A Tribute To Jerry Weintraub Live · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Uh, it's great to be here. I
0:13
Speaker 1: met Jerry a lot later than these people. Jerry put
0:16
Speaker 1: out of his book that You've got to lead, and
0:18
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I'm a writer. I said, I
0:20
Speaker 1: don't need to meet Jerry. Immediately heard from Jerry. We
0:22
Speaker 1: gotta go to lunch, and you went to Il Piccolino
0:25
Speaker 1: on Robertson where they had the Jerry Wine Trout special. Now,
0:30
Speaker 1: the fascinating thing about Jerry and a lot of time
0:34
Speaker 1: this is that the elite players is their icons, and
0:37
Speaker 1: you think, you know, you always are trying to go
0:39
Speaker 1: up the ladder. But he was so endearing, so human.
0:44
Speaker 1: The other thing is, as soon as you know, he
0:45
Speaker 1: started sharing details about his personal life, about his kids
0:49
Speaker 1: and this, and maybe it was only me, but he
0:51
Speaker 1: always did that and we maintained a relationship. And the
0:55
Speaker 1: other thing I realized is he was the pro jenitor.
0:58
Speaker 1: People who were a little bit younger grew up with
1:01
Speaker 1: David Geffen being ruling and then Irving A's off. I
1:05
Speaker 1: realized Jerry did it first. If you know Irving, Irving
1:09
Speaker 1: loves to connect you with doctors and do all that stuff.
1:12
Speaker 1: That's what Jerry did. First, he says, you know, the
1:14
Speaker 1: first I wake up and I hook everybody up with
1:17
Speaker 1: the doctors and I do that. That was a real manager.
1:20
Speaker 1: So we're I went through the exhibit. It was kind
1:23
Speaker 1: of weird because Jerry was so alive and to see
1:25
Speaker 1: the pictures was really kind of creepy. And if you
1:28
Speaker 1: lived through that era, you know what a tumultuous time
1:33
Speaker 1: it was. We were inventing it. That's one thing about
1:36
Speaker 1: the music business today. We're not inventing much. Certainly we
1:39
Speaker 1: were in turmoil for about twenty years with Napstur at
1:41
Speaker 1: all at all. But Jerry changed so many things and
1:44
Speaker 1: invented so many things, and certainly that was when music
1:47
Speaker 1: drove the culture. I mean, I'm looking at the thing,
1:49
Speaker 1: so I was that that leads up a thing. Oh
1:51
Speaker 1: I couldn't get tickets to Wings over America. You just
1:54
Speaker 1: remember everything immediately. So I'm gonna jump right in. We'll
1:56
Speaker 1: introduce people as we go along. Now, Claire, how did
2:00
Speaker 1: you first hear of Jerry? Well, it was all the
2:04
Speaker 1: way back in the days when I was at the Spectrum, Okay,
2:08
Speaker 1: Spectrum and Philadelphi and phill it down. Now, the one
2:11
Speaker 1: thing about the Spectrum is legendary that the roof blew off.
2:14
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and I had a dog and pony show
2:18
Speaker 1: all about how we were going to put it back
2:20
Speaker 1: together again by the Franklin Institue. Okay, so how did
2:26
Speaker 1: you hear it? Jerry? Well, you're always looking to put
2:31
Speaker 1: more events in your building, and Jerry was the one
2:36
Speaker 1: to know if you wanted to have the biggest stacks, right,
2:41
Speaker 1: So you remember what the first gig you did with
2:43
Speaker 1: Jerry was. I remember the nine seventy one gig with
2:50
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley. So what was that like? Bedlam? Absolute bedlam?
2:58
Speaker 1: They had three different floors, the Bellevue Stratford Hotel and
3:07
Speaker 1: that kind of sort of how to propel us up?
3:11
Speaker 1: To get him up on this stage? And then why
3:14
Speaker 1: do I have fabulous to Okay? So they posted him
3:18
Speaker 1: up there. Now you have a long history running buildings,
3:22
Speaker 1: et cetera. How did you get in the business. Well,
3:24
Speaker 1: I was a pencil pusher. So I started at the
3:28
Speaker 1: Spectrum as a bookkeeper and then a few months I
3:35
Speaker 1: became the business manager. And I went because in an arena,
3:44
Speaker 1: there is usually only one or two in each major city,
3:51
Speaker 1: and I was in the private arena so if I
3:56
Speaker 1: had to go somewhere else, I had to go to
3:59
Speaker 1: window their city. So I traveled around the country quite
4:03
Speaker 1: a bit. So you were in Philly. You're obviously at
4:06
Speaker 1: a long tenure here in l A at the Forum,
4:08
Speaker 1: and what were some of the cities between between ip
4:11
Speaker 1: I went down to Orlando, Florida, and Bill Putnam, who
4:18
Speaker 1: owned the hockey team in Philadelphia, hired me to be
4:22
Speaker 1: the financial DP and we try to open something called
4:29
Speaker 1: Wild Kingdom. It never went and we sold a few
4:33
Speaker 1: animals on the quarterhouse steps. And then I went to Cleveland,
4:40
Speaker 1: and in Cleveland was where I met Seal Bonifetti, and
4:47
Speaker 1: I took him out to the site it was, and
4:52
Speaker 1: I gave him my spield. This is where the trucks
4:56
Speaker 1: will go underneath, and this is where the stage entrance
5:00
Speaker 1: will be, and all of it. And sell pulled himself
5:06
Speaker 1: up to his full height and he said to me,
5:09
Speaker 1: this is a frigging mud hole. He said, you better
5:16
Speaker 1: book the municipal building for the same gates because it
5:21
Speaker 1: will never get done. But it did get done. And
5:27
Speaker 1: although we thought we had all the traffic problems taken
5:31
Speaker 1: care of the opening night of Frank Sinatra and we
5:39
Speaker 1: had medalgons with an image of Frank for all the women.
5:45
Speaker 1: The traffic was so bad that in their long downs
5:52
Speaker 1: and their husbands in Texas, they pulled their cars over
5:57
Speaker 1: to the side of the state inter state and they
6:01
Speaker 1: walked the rest of the way. Okay, that's great. And
6:07
Speaker 1: then from Cleveland, l A. From Cleveland, I went to
6:11
Speaker 1: l A. Okay, Bob, I got you over here. It's like, Okay,
6:15
Speaker 1: you're telling me a story in the green room. How
6:18
Speaker 1: you were fraternity brothers with Mike Ovits. Tell us how
6:21
Speaker 1: we get from there to work in with Jerry. We
6:24
Speaker 1: were roommates in college at UCSB and traveled down to
6:30
Speaker 1: Universal Studios that was hiring young people to work at
6:34
Speaker 1: the studio. So I started They're picking up papers, and
6:40
Speaker 1: then became a tour guide and eventually I was booking
6:43
Speaker 1: the Amphitheater. Okay, and how did you meet Jerry? Well?
6:47
Speaker 1: The first season of the Amphitheater, we wanted as major
6:50
Speaker 1: acts as we could get, and one of those was
6:52
Speaker 1: John Denver. Jerry was managing John, and we had to
6:56
Speaker 1: convince people to not play the Greek. What was your
7:01
Speaker 1: what was your pitch? Well, the primary pitch was the
7:05
Speaker 1: throw of the theater was so much less than the Greek.
7:07
Speaker 1: If you were sitting in the cheap seats in the Greek,
7:10
Speaker 1: you were way back there. If you were sitting in
7:11
Speaker 1: the cheap seats at the Amphitheater, which were six dollars
7:14
Speaker 1: and fifty cents for the prime seats six fifty and
7:19
Speaker 1: four fifty um, you'd be equal to where you are
7:24
Speaker 1: in the prime seats at the Greek. And we and
7:26
Speaker 1: we had a we had about a hundred more seats,
7:28
Speaker 1: so we could gross up a little bit more. I
7:30
Speaker 1: gotta tell you. Moving to l A, the Universally emphathet
7:33
Speaker 1: the worst thing they ever did was put the roof
7:34
Speaker 1: on it, which I know they had to do. It
7:36
Speaker 1: was such an experience that Greek to this day is
7:39
Speaker 1: not close to what the Universally Emphathater was. Well yeah,
7:41
Speaker 1: I mean the roof was because the noise was going
7:45
Speaker 1: out in the community and they were getting a lot
7:46
Speaker 1: of grief. Actually, the first act that played the Amphitheater
7:49
Speaker 1: was a Grateful Dead. They they the heads of Universal
7:58
Speaker 1: said they wanted to make this a count of culture complex.
8:01
Speaker 1: Who said that? Do you remember who that was? That
8:03
Speaker 1: was Wasserman yeah, but but but that it was John Denver,
8:10
Speaker 1: and it was the Carpenters and acts like that. But
8:15
Speaker 1: the opening act was a Grateful Dead and they had
8:18
Speaker 1: a curfew at eleven o'clock. And I don't know if
8:19
Speaker 1: you've ever been to a Dead concert, but they don't
8:23
Speaker 1: get off at eleven o'clock. So that did they stay on?
8:27
Speaker 1: They stayed on and that was one of the reasons
8:29
Speaker 1: why they had to put the roof on because they
8:33
Speaker 1: couldn't keep the curfew and the community just went up
8:36
Speaker 1: in arms. Okay, your roommates with Ovid's do you have
8:39
Speaker 1: any idea he's going to have the arc that he does? No?
8:44
Speaker 1: I mean, Mike wanted to be a doctor. He really
8:49
Speaker 1: didn't have an interest in that business at the time.
8:51
Speaker 1: And are you still in contact with him somewhat? Our mothers,
8:55
Speaker 1: our family was very very close. Okay, So once again,
8:58
Speaker 1: you're working at the universally PSI, how do you meet Jerry?
9:01
Speaker 1: So I meet I meet Jerry in booking John Denver.
9:04
Speaker 1: Jerry was incredible and he said, leave here and come
9:07
Speaker 1: to work for me. And I said, well, I have
9:11
Speaker 1: this commitment to Universal because they had put me through
9:14
Speaker 1: law school. And he said, well, when's that up, And
9:17
Speaker 1: I said, well, let's happen three years. He said, uh, okay,
9:21
Speaker 1: Well he kept he kept pressing, and then he said, well,
9:25
Speaker 1: I'm moving out to California and I've just started with
9:28
Speaker 1: this fellow, Mickey Reuden. Because I told Jerry, I said, look,
9:32
Speaker 1: I'd like to do that. I'd like to have some
9:34
Speaker 1: experience practicing law. I want to practice law. He said, Okay,
9:37
Speaker 1: go meet this guy, Mickey Ruden, who he just does
9:39
Speaker 1: don't know. He was the fixer who had a reputation for,
9:42
Speaker 1: let's say, being on the wrong side. So Jerry I
9:46
Speaker 1: just started working with Mickey. I went and interviewed with Mickey. Mickey,
9:51
Speaker 1: you interviewed. He smoked a cigar like Jerry did, Cuban
9:54
Speaker 1: cigars every day, and when the cigar was through, the
9:58
Speaker 1: interview was through. Yeah, So I started. I started working
10:03
Speaker 1: with Mickey and representing Jerry and and and then Jerry said, okay,
10:08
Speaker 1: now leave Mickey. Okay, just just to make this clear,
10:12
Speaker 1: you met him when you were just starting law school
10:15
Speaker 1: and he waited three years. No. I I had finished
10:18
Speaker 1: law school and had a three year commitment to university.
10:21
Speaker 1: I see, but you played that out play that out
10:23
Speaker 1: and really and he because usually an opportunity if you
10:25
Speaker 1: don't take it now never returns. Well, they had paid
10:28
Speaker 1: for school. I'm talking about Jerry. Jerry. Jerry was great. Okay, now, Peter,
10:35
Speaker 1: you're an Englishman. How did you run into Jerry? Um?
10:39
Speaker 1: I met Jerry in September nineteen seventy one at the
10:45
Speaker 1: Troubador when he had John Denver who was playing there. Uh.
10:51
Speaker 1: I represented an English band called the Moody Blues. Never
10:54
Speaker 1: heard of him, and uh, we'd been We've been touring,
11:02
Speaker 1: you know for a number of years. And let's go
11:03
Speaker 1: back because it happened to be a huge body blues fan.
11:06
Speaker 1: When did you get started with the Booty Blues? Wow?
11:10
Speaker 1: Um trying and to cut the story down. Um, I
11:16
Speaker 1: became friends. I met them at some clubs in London
11:20
Speaker 1: when they were playing. Denny Lane is in the group
11:22
Speaker 1: where he's already gone. No, Denny Dan just left and
11:27
Speaker 1: they were starting their new band with John John Lodge
11:32
Speaker 1: and Justine Hayward. And Um they had a gig this
11:37
Speaker 1: one night a club they were It was an after
11:42
Speaker 1: show party for um a film that has been playing
11:49
Speaker 1: and UM they said, can you help us? Our road
11:52
Speaker 1: manager can't do it. I said, ye, what do you want?
11:56
Speaker 1: So they said, can you He'll give you his van
11:58
Speaker 1: and equipment. Can you bring it down to the gig
12:01
Speaker 1: and do it and then take it? So I said, okay,
12:04
Speaker 1: no problem. So I took the equipment down, we unloaded it,
12:09
Speaker 1: played this club till four o'clock in the morning, and
12:13
Speaker 1: they said, look, you know we when he got fifteen pounds,
12:17
Speaker 1: so you know you can have it. I said no, no, no, no, no,
12:19
Speaker 1: I don't need it at this point. It's just fun,
12:21
Speaker 1: you know. So then Justin said to me, could you
12:26
Speaker 1: bring the equipment and the van to recordings to you
12:29
Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon. So Jah, just tell me where to be
12:33
Speaker 1: and I'll be there. So there's a deck of studios
12:36
Speaker 1: in West Hampstead and I turned up there and met
12:41
Speaker 1: there there the production manager, road manager. We unloaded the
12:47
Speaker 1: equipment and I thought that's it. I'm done. And then
12:51
Speaker 1: Justin turned around and said to me, would you like
12:54
Speaker 1: to stay and watch the session? So I said yeah,
12:59
Speaker 1: I've never never been a studio before, and so he
13:03
Speaker 1: said he said, we're putting nights down nights in what's
13:07
Speaker 1: at So I was like wow. So I mean I
13:12
Speaker 1: had been friends of him for a few months. It
13:14
Speaker 1: wasn't just like a week or something. So um, they
13:20
Speaker 1: used the equipment. When they finished with the equipment, the
13:24
Speaker 1: road manager packed it up and he left and I
13:28
Speaker 1: stayed and I made tea, you know, and sandwiches, and
13:33
Speaker 1: we went on till three four o'clock in the morning.
13:37
Speaker 1: And then they nights you know, they had finished it
13:40
Speaker 1: and they said, okay, we've got to get the recording
13:42
Speaker 1: executives in now from Decca and this this American guy,
13:47
Speaker 1: and they all came in and we're sitting there and
13:50
Speaker 1: they said, okay, play it, and we're all sitting in
13:53
Speaker 1: the studio and it was like bom and we we
13:58
Speaker 1: would start. Everybody at the and every everybody was stunned
14:03
Speaker 1: because it was actually a demonstration disc for Dan Ram
14:07
Speaker 1: for stereo, that's what it was made for. And so
14:12
Speaker 1: we're sitting there and it was like wow. And then
14:15
Speaker 1: somebody in the band to turn around and said, Peter,
14:19
Speaker 1: can you go down the studio? I said yeah, yeah, sure,
14:21
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the way I better go. So
14:24
Speaker 1: I said, oh, oh go, you know, they said no, no, no, no,
14:26
Speaker 1: just just go down the studio. I went down the
14:29
Speaker 1: studio this layer. They said, Peter, come come up. I
14:34
Speaker 1: went up to the room and I said, uh, you
14:36
Speaker 1: want a job. I said what I said, you want
14:39
Speaker 1: to be our road manager. And there you have it.
14:44
Speaker 1: Now you told me just be sorry. You just retired
14:46
Speaker 1: from road management within the last twelve months. Well, I
14:50
Speaker 1: keep trying. Yes, okay, so let's go back to the narrative. Sorry,
14:55
Speaker 1: you're at the Troubador and how do you meet and
14:58
Speaker 1: go to work for Jerry? Well, I didn't go to
15:00
Speaker 1: work for him then. I was. I was representing the Moodies.
15:03
Speaker 1: Then we've done quite a few tours in America and
15:08
Speaker 1: uh and in Europe, and we'd in those days of
15:13
Speaker 1: the sixties, you were screwed over more times than you knew.
15:19
Speaker 1: You didn't get paid, they gave you half the money,
15:22
Speaker 1: they gave you a part, you know whatever. And the deals.
15:25
Speaker 1: This is where Jerry came. This is what Jerry was
15:28
Speaker 1: all about. When you do a deal with somebody like I.
15:35
Speaker 1: We did this one the last tour I did before Jerry. Um.
15:41
Speaker 1: I was because I wasn't a tour manager. I didn't
15:45
Speaker 1: I was a road manager. I didn't really know the
15:47
Speaker 1: whole science of what went on, and so we hired
15:52
Speaker 1: a guy, an American guy, to teach me on the
15:55
Speaker 1: road what went on. And so we would come in
16:00
Speaker 1: near the end of this tour and we were going
16:03
Speaker 1: and playing four or five arenas and I'm talking about
16:07
Speaker 1: nineteen somewhere in seventies, seventy one, somewhere in there in
16:13
Speaker 1: that way back then. And this too manager guy who's
16:18
Speaker 1: teaching me turned around and said, now, I know you
16:21
Speaker 1: always want cash because you always gets good now and
16:26
Speaker 1: I know that these last three or four shows are huge.
16:31
Speaker 1: Said yeah, and he said there's there's too much cash.
16:34
Speaker 1: You can't play with that. I said, well, how are
16:37
Speaker 1: we going to get paid? We're playing ten eleven thousand
16:39
Speaker 1: seat arenas. That's a lot of money, even in those days.
16:44
Speaker 1: So he said, look, this guy is good for it. Okay,
16:48
Speaker 1: Barry Faye, but you know, God God bless him, they
16:54
Speaker 1: stilly said if he was. So the last night becomes
17:00
Speaker 1: I'm expecting the money, the band, we're all expecting the money,
17:04
Speaker 1: and he says, no, come to my house, and we thought,
17:07
Speaker 1: here we go again, Bob due to his word. He
17:12
Speaker 1: had a briefcase. He opened it and there was all
17:16
Speaker 1: the money on the deal sheet. When I looked at
17:22
Speaker 1: the deal sheet, he made as much money as we did,
17:25
Speaker 1: because that was the deals they did, you know. Okay,
17:31
Speaker 1: And so we'll get back to going back. We'll get back,
17:34
Speaker 1: Peter John. Now you still operate under the name Concerts West,
17:40
Speaker 1: which of course Jerry started, and you're promoting the Stones
17:43
Speaker 1: as we sit here. But you had a tenure in
17:46
Speaker 1: the early days. Tell us how you got to work
17:49
Speaker 1: with Jerry Well. I started in one of the Concerts
17:52
Speaker 1: West offices. So by when I started, which was UM
17:58
Speaker 1: a lot of college concert promoters back then, and I
18:01
Speaker 1: was at Washington State University, and I was lucky because
18:05
Speaker 1: uh it was a pack eight at the time. Building
18:09
Speaker 1: had We had like a twelve thousand seat arena down
18:12
Speaker 1: in but Spokane, which was a major market north of US,
18:16
Speaker 1: only had like a ten thousand or not even that,
18:18
Speaker 1: seven thousand seats civic auditorium. So we got the bigger
18:21
Speaker 1: shows because we had the bigger capacity. So that's how
18:24
Speaker 1: I got to know the Concerts West guys. And I
18:26
Speaker 1: actually got hired by a guy named Tom Hewlett. Everybody
18:30
Speaker 1: up here knows, and Tom was up in the Seattle
18:33
Speaker 1: office and UM brought me on and and uh, you know,
18:39
Speaker 1: you started hearing about this guy Jerry Wine troub down
18:43
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles because we were all up in Seattle,
18:45
Speaker 1: and he was you know, it was this It was
18:48
Speaker 1: just larger than life guy, It really was. I got
18:52
Speaker 1: there the year after Elvis had died, and that was
18:55
Speaker 1: it was a pretty you know, turning point. I think
18:58
Speaker 1: somewhat in the company because that was such a big
19:01
Speaker 1: part of that company at the beginning. And but I
19:05
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to be there when all the big
19:09
Speaker 1: tours were going on. So it was bad Companies and
19:12
Speaker 1: b g's and um uh God, Eric Clapton, uh, Dan Fogelberg,
19:21
Speaker 1: Boz Scags, Beach Boys, Chicago Queen. I mean, it was
19:26
Speaker 1: like one company is doing all these tours. So but
19:31
Speaker 1: what's kind of what was kind of interesting is that
19:33
Speaker 1: his model, you know, he started that model really well.
19:37
Speaker 1: Explain to the audience with the model is the model
19:39
Speaker 1: is touring national touring or now what we do is
19:41
Speaker 1: international touring and that and see, the promoters were either
19:48
Speaker 1: raised in a local marketplace. You know, you had Avalon
19:51
Speaker 1: Attractions or Wolf Rust Miller in Los Angeles, and you
19:55
Speaker 1: had uh Bill Graham and San Francisco and Ron Delsner
19:59
Speaker 1: and New Orc. But what Jerry did which was so
20:03
Speaker 1: unique was, um, he looked at his artists and said,
20:08
Speaker 1: you know, why can't we go out and be the promoter.
20:12
Speaker 1: We know you know how to sell our artists better
20:17
Speaker 1: than anybody else does. We used the Arenas, if anything,
20:22
Speaker 1: is our local partners because we figured they knew about
20:25
Speaker 1: the marketplace, they had great advertising deals. So it was
20:28
Speaker 1: always the Arenas place there advertising. But what was so
20:32
Speaker 1: unique about it is we did everything ourselves. We never
20:35
Speaker 1: worked with local promoters. And we would go in and
20:39
Speaker 1: rent the building and find limo companies and higher caters
20:44
Speaker 1: and we would get our tickets from quick tick and
20:47
Speaker 1: you'd send them to a box office and they'd get
20:49
Speaker 1: sent out to record stores to sell and and you'd
20:53
Speaker 1: come in and you know when you you do it
20:56
Speaker 1: city after city after city, and it was it was
21:02
Speaker 1: just the manager and the concert company. So there was
21:06
Speaker 1: no agent. Well I don't know, Bob, what can I
21:11
Speaker 1: say about that? Um? Yeah, there was always there were
21:14
Speaker 1: you ought to get into that. I mean it created
21:17
Speaker 1: a whole war in the entertainment business. Yeah, I mean,
21:26
Speaker 1: Bob could talk more about that, because we just looked
21:29
Speaker 1: at it and said, wait a bitute, what are we
21:31
Speaker 1: paying these people for? And and I I mean that
21:35
Speaker 1: was like Eric Clapton, the Moody Blues, every big act
21:42
Speaker 1: in the world at that time. And we when I started,
21:45
Speaker 1: we had more tours than we had people to go
21:48
Speaker 1: out and cover them. Remember we could hire Charlie Brusko
21:52
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. You didn't have to pay him, just gave
21:53
Speaker 1: him a backstage pass and he goes settle the show
21:56
Speaker 1: for you. Well, you weren't making much money, if I remember, No, God,
22:02
Speaker 1: those were to I mean, no me. I was making
22:04
Speaker 1: two d dollars a week. I remember when I moved
22:06
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles is one. I think when we moved
22:11
Speaker 1: everybody down to ninety four Wilshire, the famous Management three
22:15
Speaker 1: Concerts West, and I remember finding out that Bob Finkelstein
22:19
Speaker 1: made a hundred thousand dollars a year, and I'm going,
22:22
Speaker 1: oh my god. He was like, you know, he was
22:24
Speaker 1: the guru, Bob with the president of Management three, and
22:28
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god. And they would drive
22:30
Speaker 1: up in these you know, and Jerry got to park
22:32
Speaker 1: his his roles on the ramp at the Forum and
22:37
Speaker 1: I was like whoa. I was like, you know, and
22:40
Speaker 1: I was just I mean, I had to. I started
22:43
Speaker 1: when I was down here, like a lot of my
22:46
Speaker 1: first job was I ran messages from Wilshire over to
22:50
Speaker 1: Jerry and Jimmy neater Lander at the pole of Lotch.
22:53
Speaker 1: That's what I did here, take him over our messages,
22:56
Speaker 1: you know, and then you get a little lecture from
22:58
Speaker 1: one of them, you know, they tell you a story.
23:00
Speaker 1: You gotta Jimmy Peter in a story, you get a
23:02
Speaker 1: Jerry story, go back and forth. And I did that
23:04
Speaker 1: for months. So I started on the ground and he
23:09
Speaker 1: got excited about your success, and he'd be thrilled about it.
23:12
Speaker 1: And I know he was, he was. I know. Okay, Michael,
23:16
Speaker 1: this is your father. Most of us did not grow
23:19
Speaker 1: up with a famous, rich and powerful father. When did
23:23
Speaker 1: you realize he was Jerry Weintrum. Well, first of all,
23:28
Speaker 1: he was always Jerry Weinkroup. I talked, I've talked to you.
23:32
Speaker 1: He and my mother, who was his first wife, went
23:35
Speaker 1: to high school together and they were high school sweethearts.
23:38
Speaker 1: They got married when they were twenty years old. And
23:43
Speaker 1: he was always Jerry Weintrup. He was always bigger than life.
23:47
Speaker 1: From the beginning, and anybody who knew him back then
23:50
Speaker 1: will tell you that they knew that he was going
23:52
Speaker 1: to be the success that he was. Jane, who he
23:57
Speaker 1: married in nineteen sixty five, who is my stepmother, and
24:00
Speaker 1: so I was three years old, and who thank god,
24:02
Speaker 1: is still doing great in Kenny Bunkport, Maine right now.
24:06
Speaker 1: I talked to her just a little while ago while
24:08
Speaker 1: we're up at the exhibit. But you know, Jane is
24:11
Speaker 1: the one who really saw what he could be. She's
24:15
Speaker 1: the one who said to him, you're going to walk
24:18
Speaker 1: with kings and presidents. And he believed it, um, and
24:23
Speaker 1: she believed it, and they set out together to make
24:26
Speaker 1: that happen, and over the next you know, thirty forty
24:30
Speaker 1: fifty years, that's what they did. Um. But for me
24:34
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, as a kid, you don't know.
24:37
Speaker 1: As a kid, it's it's your only reality. And I
24:39
Speaker 1: lived half the time with my mother in a two bedroom,
24:42
Speaker 1: one bath apartment in Riverdale and the other half with
24:46
Speaker 1: Dad and Jane in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Museum
24:49
Speaker 1: of Modern Art UM And then in we moved out
24:54
Speaker 1: here to California to a huge house in Beverly Hills,
24:57
Speaker 1: and I went from being a kid who could get
24:59
Speaker 1: around New Yor City on my own at twelve years
25:01
Speaker 1: old by subway in cab and express bus to a
25:06
Speaker 1: kid who was behind the gate and didn't I couldn't
25:08
Speaker 1: get anywhere. It was. It was a very big life
25:12
Speaker 1: change for me. But by then it was pretty apparent,
25:15
Speaker 1: you know, his success, and that it was different than
25:18
Speaker 1: what most kids were living, and the fact that I
25:21
Speaker 1: was going on the road with him and the Colonel
25:25
Speaker 1: and the first Elvis tour was seventy one, so I
25:28
Speaker 1: was nine years old when I first went on the road.
25:32
Speaker 1: So you're on the road with your father, neither your
25:35
Speaker 1: mother nor stepmother. There Jane was performing still, he was
25:39
Speaker 1: a big singer. But you're on the road with Elvis,
25:42
Speaker 1: with dad. He was working pretty hard, so you're like unsupervised.
25:47
Speaker 1: I was. I was tagging along. He took me everywhere.
25:51
Speaker 1: He took me to breakfast with the current supers. Later,
25:54
Speaker 1: yeah that was John had the unfortunate task of supervisor
26:00
Speaker 1: me a few times later on. But yeah, so I
26:03
Speaker 1: I really spent time with him, and we went all
26:06
Speaker 1: over the country. It went over the all over the
26:08
Speaker 1: country with him and Elvis with him, and John Denver
26:10
Speaker 1: with him, and Frank Um and it was in It
26:13
Speaker 1: was an amazing way to grow up. Okay, now, my father,
26:16
Speaker 1: who needs it, was a real estate appraiser, know, the
26:19
Speaker 1: liquor store. He was working all the time, but whenever
26:22
Speaker 1: I was one on one with him, he was always
26:23
Speaker 1: imparting life lessons. So when you were on the road
26:26
Speaker 1: with your father, was he like giving you instruction? No,
26:30
Speaker 1: absolutely not. He couldn't teach what he did. You could
26:35
Speaker 1: observe it, you could try to understand it, but he
26:39
Speaker 1: couldn't teach it. And so he I don't ever remember
26:43
Speaker 1: him sitting down with me and saying, here's how you
26:46
Speaker 1: do it. But I do remember always being able to
26:50
Speaker 1: be with him and watch him do it, which was
26:54
Speaker 1: learned from that. Okay, So did you know the colonel
26:57
Speaker 1: and Elvis? I knew the colonel. I met Elvis ice
27:00
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I know him. So do you think
27:02
Speaker 1: the colonel was born in America or not? I think
27:07
Speaker 1: the colonel was probably not born in America. But who
27:10
Speaker 1: cares if you don't know that the colonel he was
27:14
Speaker 1: famously why he didn't have Elvis tour overseas? You want
27:18
Speaker 1: to say something clear. Yes, I have a funny story
27:21
Speaker 1: about Tom Hewitt. Why why do you first explain who
27:25
Speaker 1: Tom was? Okay, Tom was the head of Concerts West
27:30
Speaker 1: And when I knew Tom, he was already involved with jury.
27:36
Speaker 1: And we had put on this concert and Tom was
27:40
Speaker 1: there and he said, I'm hungry. I want to go
27:44
Speaker 1: out and eat afterwards. I said, okay, And he had
27:50
Speaker 1: his hugual cowboy look on, no jacket. It was warm weather,
27:57
Speaker 1: and I figured, where am I going to take him
27:59
Speaker 1: in Piladelphia. It's late Maybe a hotel would be the
28:04
Speaker 1: best idea. So the best hotel in Philadelphia at that
28:08
Speaker 1: time was the Bellevue Stratford, and we walk in in
28:12
Speaker 1: the major. Days says, of course we can see you,
28:17
Speaker 1: but uh, the gentleman will have to wear a jacket.
28:22
Speaker 1: And Tom says, the jacket, What do you mean? Well,
28:26
Speaker 1: it's rule here in the hotel gentlemen have to wear
28:31
Speaker 1: a jackets. And I will lend you a jacket. And
28:35
Speaker 1: Tom looked at him, scowled and said, I can't go
28:41
Speaker 1: anywhere in the country. I can't go anywhere in California
28:46
Speaker 1: without a jacket. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna
28:49
Speaker 1: come in here and wear that scraggly old jacket. You
28:52
Speaker 1: want me to wear it? So what happened? Naturally we
28:56
Speaker 1: didn't get served. So Bob, let's go back once you start,
29:02
Speaker 1: once you leave practicing law, and you're working for Jerry.
29:06
Speaker 1: What is your gig president of manager three in Concerts West.
29:10
Speaker 1: So so you oversaw both both and that continued for
29:15
Speaker 1: how long? That was about five years? Okay, So Concerts
29:20
Speaker 1: West was just developing. And we've heard stories about the
29:24
Speaker 1: innovation of Jerry. Do you remember other innovations that you
29:27
Speaker 1: had working with Conscience West and Jerry Well, I mean,
29:31
Speaker 1: the genius of Concerts West was a fair count. I
29:35
Speaker 1: mean one of the lines from Mickey Rewden he did
29:39
Speaker 1: tell those things that you know, like like you asked,
29:43
Speaker 1: he said, if anybody ever asked you what you want
29:45
Speaker 1: in life? First count. So now you've got people going
29:53
Speaker 1: out on the road that we're not getting first count. Okay,
29:56
Speaker 1: that was when, as Peter said, that was when it
29:58
Speaker 1: was a cash business. Well, it was a cash it
30:01
Speaker 1: was a cash business. But even if it wasn't a
30:02
Speaker 1: cash business, that's the cash that they already counted. And
30:08
Speaker 1: it was before computers. Well, but but it was when
30:12
Speaker 1: you when you had all of these with the agents
30:15
Speaker 1: and they were driving prices and looking for guarantees, and
30:19
Speaker 1: then some of the promoters were put up against it,
30:21
Speaker 1: and they would find ways to make the guarantee work.
30:25
Speaker 1: And the ways they would make the guarantee work. The
30:27
Speaker 1: facility charge might not be accurate, the sounding lights might
30:31
Speaker 1: not be accurate, the catering was a little bit too high.
30:35
Speaker 1: Concerts West didn't do any of that to this day.
30:40
Speaker 1: And and so you could always promise more to your artists.
30:43
Speaker 1: The artist are the artist would always get more. But
30:46
Speaker 1: not only would they get more, they'd get it right. So,
30:49
Speaker 1: I mean, one of Jerry's best ideas was once a
30:53
Speaker 1: concert was sold out, he took up thank you add out,
30:58
Speaker 1: or he'd take a second add out when you didn't
31:01
Speaker 1: need the second ad because it was going to bring
31:05
Speaker 1: it back the next time. It was going to make
31:06
Speaker 1: the concert more exciting. He would never let any seats
31:10
Speaker 1: go in the first five rows that weren't to the fans.
31:14
Speaker 1: And he learned that from Elvis and the corneal Right,
31:18
Speaker 1: there's there and and if you ever let your artists
31:22
Speaker 1: play with empty seats, you're dead. But I still do
31:28
Speaker 1: that today. First in Rows Must Go and South to
31:34
Speaker 1: the Public. Well, that is book he talks about the
31:36
Speaker 1: first team, does Elvis. So when you're in this situation,
31:38
Speaker 1: especially in the seventies, how do you fill the seats? Wow?
31:42
Speaker 1: We had some great techniques back then. Do you know
31:44
Speaker 1: what the best one was? The hospitals and the hospitals Yeah,
31:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, no, but it's the nurses. See, there's
31:52
Speaker 1: you know, there's like if you've got two d beds,
31:55
Speaker 1: you know, you may have eighty or whatever, two nurses
31:59
Speaker 1: for bed. What are nursese for every day whatever? But
32:02
Speaker 1: there's two shifts always not working when the concert's going on.
32:06
Speaker 1: So our our line was always, um, well Mr Denver
32:11
Speaker 1: was we're holding these seats for the record company and
32:14
Speaker 1: we we can't put them back on seats solo. Mr
32:17
Speaker 1: Denver likes us to offer him up to you know,
32:20
Speaker 1: people who could use them, and that that that's how
32:23
Speaker 1: we got to know a lot of nurses. When it
32:28
Speaker 1: was great, I mean nurses the hospitals they were like
32:30
Speaker 1: number one, and then you go you go firemen and
32:31
Speaker 1: police after that, but hospitals were best. I did that
32:35
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam wool was going on and I we
32:40
Speaker 1: had a show down in um in San Diego and
32:45
Speaker 1: it just wasn't going. And so my brother in law
32:49
Speaker 1: was a colonel in the Marine Corps Camp Pendulum. So
32:53
Speaker 1: I turned around Seve Money, I got some seats we
32:57
Speaker 1: wanted here, and you know, could you use him? He said, oh,
33:01
Speaker 1: we got. There are these guys, you know, they're cooped
33:04
Speaker 1: up in the camp. I love it. They sent bust loads,
33:08
Speaker 1: busts of troops of Marines to the to the facility.
33:13
Speaker 1: And many years later, when his daughter got married, there
33:18
Speaker 1: was this four star general there and turn Ray said, Peter,
33:25
Speaker 1: I want you to come and meet this guy. And
33:27
Speaker 1: he went up and he said colonel, and he had
33:29
Speaker 1: the general, he had his name, and he said, this
33:34
Speaker 1: is the man that provided something like two thousand seats
33:38
Speaker 1: to the Marine Corps when they were all in Vietnam.
33:42
Speaker 1: And he went, oh, thank you. And he turns around
33:45
Speaker 1: and he pulls his coin out of his pocket and
33:47
Speaker 1: apparently it's some calling the card, and he gives it
33:51
Speaker 1: to me and he says, you ever need anything, just
33:54
Speaker 1: give him that. Have you ever used it? No, don't
34:00
Speaker 1: get in trouble. But it was, but we I remember,
34:05
Speaker 1: so I'll never forget. In Houston, Texas at the summit
34:08
Speaker 1: after the show, Um, I get roamed over the phone.
34:13
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm getting room for by your dad,
34:16
Speaker 1: and all I know is I need to go see
34:18
Speaker 1: the principle. Neil was always called the principle, you know,
34:21
Speaker 1: getting to see the print, and Bonafett he'd always be
34:23
Speaker 1: on the phone on the radio going out the principles.
34:26
Speaker 1: Protrusion is protruding from the principle, you know, So you
34:29
Speaker 1: have to go in and see the principle. And I
34:31
Speaker 1: go walk it in Neil's dressing room and he goes,
34:34
Speaker 1: you know, John. I walked out there tonight and the
34:37
Speaker 1: flag rolled right, remember flag on America always rolled down.
34:40
Speaker 1: And I looked out there was it was just nothing
34:43
Speaker 1: but a massive people. And I went to the right
34:46
Speaker 1: and there was a massive people. And I went to
34:48
Speaker 1: the left and I walked behind the stage and there
34:51
Speaker 1: were five empty rows. And I didn't know what to do.
34:57
Speaker 1: And all you could do is go, you know, I'm sorry,
34:59
Speaker 1: Mr Diamond. Never happened again. Right, that was it? And
35:01
Speaker 1: then you got but you got man, you did that,
35:04
Speaker 1: you got reamed. If they were empty seats with John
35:07
Speaker 1: Denver was also remember the light from the curtains. That
35:11
Speaker 1: was like his thing with the light from the curtains
35:14
Speaker 1: from the bombs. You know how they'd have curtains to
35:16
Speaker 1: close it over so the concourse light wouldn't go in.
35:19
Speaker 1: He'd go nw clear if those things were left open,
35:23
Speaker 1: you know. But all of them had their little things.
35:26
Speaker 1: You know, you had to learn it. Okay, Bob, going
35:29
Speaker 1: back to management, you work with a lot of characters,
35:32
Speaker 1: did you Did you work with Peter Grant, your personally
35:36
Speaker 1: Peter Grant a little bit the led Zeppelin tours, it
35:40
Speaker 1: just about tailed tailed out, Okay, that was one. And
35:43
Speaker 1: what it was like between him and Jerry, because certainly
35:46
Speaker 1: they had a great relationship. Really yeah, they had a
35:48
Speaker 1: very very good relationship. Jerry had a longstanding relationship with
35:52
Speaker 1: their attorney, um forget his name at the moment. Yeah,
35:58
Speaker 1: but Steven Joyce. Okay, Steven, so talking about the management company.
36:06
Speaker 1: So when you came in, he already had John Denver, Denver, Diamond,
36:10
Speaker 1: Dellan Moody, Blues, Carpenters, beach Boys. I mean we represented
36:18
Speaker 1: Rick James, who represented the Pointer sisters. Okay. Usually usually
36:26
Speaker 1: acts or you know, they want complete attention. Other than
36:30
Speaker 1: John Dever, who ultimately left for his own reasons, the
36:33
Speaker 1: Acts didn't leave. How what what made you? What made
36:35
Speaker 1: them stay at management three? Well, Jerry was that type
36:39
Speaker 1: of person when you were in the room with him,
36:41
Speaker 1: you were the only person in the room. So he
36:44
Speaker 1: had that ability to just have that laser focus and
36:50
Speaker 1: problem and they were and they were really good people
36:52
Speaker 1: taking care of business TCB was Elvis Presley's motto. You know,
37:01
Speaker 1: there were wonderful things that happened all the time, but
37:05
Speaker 1: lest you should go home and think there were never
37:11
Speaker 1: things that happened that really needed attention. We recently had
37:17
Speaker 1: a new owner at the Forum and that was an
37:21
Speaker 1: entrepreneur named Jerry Buss. Jerry Buss came up with an
37:28
Speaker 1: idea that we didn't have any seats that were boxes.
37:36
Speaker 1: So he came up with this idea, will take the
37:41
Speaker 1: second level of the arena and take three hundred and
37:46
Speaker 1: twenty seats in the rows in the second level, which
37:53
Speaker 1: usually had a lesser price, and we will make them
37:59
Speaker 1: like a box. You'll have waitress service, and you'll get
38:04
Speaker 1: the status if it's a game, and you'll get programs
38:09
Speaker 1: if it's if it's a concert. And he marketed them
38:15
Speaker 1: so that you got every event that was held in
38:19
Speaker 1: the arena, which turned out to be a big mistake
38:22
Speaker 1: because it costs us a lot of money, and everybody
38:26
Speaker 1: learned from our They were called Senate seats, and it
38:33
Speaker 1: was left to me to negtiate how much would be
38:39
Speaker 1: paid for every concert. And I must say that one
38:44
Speaker 1: of Mr Wintrop's representatives ripped me up and down and
38:52
Speaker 1: sideways about these seats, and I shed a few tears,
38:59
Speaker 1: but not for anything he saw. And I worried about
39:04
Speaker 1: it at night. But we went on and we did
39:09
Speaker 1: many many successful Whatever happened with the seats, would you
39:15
Speaker 1: pay that you would have got? Okay, because this is
39:22
Speaker 1: an argument today are often around the manifest You know,
39:26
Speaker 1: people are still funny, Michael. You wanted to say something
39:28
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say. You asked about Peter Grant,
39:31
Speaker 1: and Dad's relationship with Peter, and Peter was also bigger
39:34
Speaker 1: than life. But Dad had Dad had great relationships with
39:38
Speaker 1: anybody like that, whether it was Colonel Parker, Peter Grant,
39:43
Speaker 1: Arthur wurtz Uh. He loved Lea. I'd say, hypothetically, somebody
39:50
Speaker 1: crossed him. Then what oh, you never wanted to be
39:53
Speaker 1: his enemy. He was the best friend in the world
39:57
Speaker 1: to have and the worst enemy. You wanted him in
40:00
Speaker 1: a fox hole next to you. You didn't want him
40:02
Speaker 1: shooting at you. And he was legendarily friends with the Bushes.
40:07
Speaker 1: Were you exposed to that very much? So from the
40:10
Speaker 1: time I was very young. And then that's through Jane.
40:13
Speaker 1: You know, Jane grew up in Kenny Bunkport. She and
40:16
Speaker 1: George Bush. I asked her a couple of years ago,
40:19
Speaker 1: I said, when did you and George Bush first meet?
40:22
Speaker 1: And she said, we we didn't meet, We just work.
40:25
Speaker 1: They were they were the same age. They knew each
40:28
Speaker 1: other as long as either one of them could remember.
40:31
Speaker 1: And did Dad ever tell you the story of the
40:33
Speaker 1: first time he met George Bush. I think he did,
40:36
Speaker 1: but it's a great story. Um. Jane takes him up
40:40
Speaker 1: to kenny Bunkport in for the first time and takes
40:45
Speaker 1: him to the Kenny Bunk River Club to play tennis.
40:48
Speaker 1: And the Kenny Bunk River Club is what you would expect,
40:51
Speaker 1: I know, you're from New England, what you would expect play? Well,
40:57
Speaker 1: they didn't. So that was so he went and signed
41:00
Speaker 1: his name, and they said wine Treber you Jewish and
41:03
Speaker 1: he said yes, and they said, well you you can't
41:06
Speaker 1: play tennis here. You're not allowed to play tennis here.
41:09
Speaker 1: And he got very upset. He you know, he let
41:12
Speaker 1: loose a string of of bronx words and uh and
41:18
Speaker 1: went back to Jane's farm and said, I'm getting I'm
41:21
Speaker 1: out of here. I'm gone. I'm back to New York
41:23
Speaker 1: and I don't need lobster and all this other crap.
41:26
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go home and have a cheeseburg on a
41:28
Speaker 1: Coca Cola and uh, go back to my business. And
41:32
Speaker 1: she said, no, no, just stay one more day. So
41:35
Speaker 1: the next morning, at six in the morning, the phone
41:37
Speaker 1: rings and he answers that he's already awake working, and
41:42
Speaker 1: the guy at the other end of the phone says,
41:43
Speaker 1: is this Jerry Wintrev. He says yes. He said, well,
41:45
Speaker 1: you don't know me, but my name is George Bush.
41:47
Speaker 1: I've known Janey forever my whole life. And I understand
41:52
Speaker 1: you had a little problem at the River Club yesterday.
41:55
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know if I call it a
41:56
Speaker 1: little problem. They're a bunch of anti semites over there.
42:01
Speaker 1: They told me, I couldn't play. Told me I wasn't
42:03
Speaker 1: allowed to play tennis, and he said, well, I'll tell
42:06
Speaker 1: you what, Jerry. He said, you don't know, but meet
42:08
Speaker 1: me over there at ten o'clock this morning, and you
42:11
Speaker 1: and I and the club president and the club pro
42:13
Speaker 1: are gonna play doubles. And Dad said, you don't listen.
42:17
Speaker 1: Very good dude, He said, oh no, I listened just fine.
42:21
Speaker 1: But let me tell you something. My family built that
42:24
Speaker 1: place and they're gonna let you play or I'm gonna
42:26
Speaker 1: burn the place down. That is a story I hadn't heard,
42:33
Speaker 1: so it's almost a show stop, as you can imagine.
42:36
Speaker 1: He followed George Bush wherever George Bush went from that
42:39
Speaker 1: day on. I know he's very loyal and George loyal. So, Peter,
42:49
Speaker 1: what was your oldtimate gig when you start to work
42:52
Speaker 1: for Jerry Well? Um, as I said, are you? We
42:57
Speaker 1: were looking with the Moodies, we were looking for a promoter. Well,
43:01
Speaker 1: we were not going to work under those conditions. And
43:05
Speaker 1: so my agent in England turned around and said, I
43:08
Speaker 1: found this guy, UM called Jerry Windrop. So I see Jeff,
43:14
Speaker 1: so he said, and he's got this company with concerts West. Um,
43:20
Speaker 1: they like to meet your So I got on a
43:22
Speaker 1: plane from London. I went to l A and I'm
43:29
Speaker 1: trying to think who met me, Dan Fiella. Remember Danny
43:33
Speaker 1: was one of our guys. Yeah who passed away? Um? Yeah?
43:40
Speaker 1: And Danny said he gave me his letter and he
43:44
Speaker 1: said it was from Jerry. I wish I had kept
43:47
Speaker 1: it and it's sorry. I can't be here, but I'm
43:51
Speaker 1: doing this show tonight at the Troubador with John dev
43:55
Speaker 1: and you're welcome to come. Said yeah, let's go check
43:59
Speaker 1: in the hole hell and I'll go. So I went there.
44:02
Speaker 1: I saw him the following day. He met him and
44:05
Speaker 1: I said, you know, you've got a proposal and he said, yeah,
44:08
Speaker 1: I've got a proposal to put you. We want to
44:11
Speaker 1: offer you. I said, said yee, I said not. So
44:19
Speaker 1: we went over it and I said, you got a deal.
44:24
Speaker 1: So he said, okay, well you signing signed a contract.
44:26
Speaker 1: I said no, we don't sign contracts anymore. You got
44:29
Speaker 1: my hand, no, shake your hand, and we got a deal.
44:33
Speaker 1: And that's how I met him and started to work.
44:38
Speaker 1: I was still with the Moody Blues all that time,
44:42
Speaker 1: and then when they eventually they broke up and that
44:45
Speaker 1: was since seventy one. They broke up in seventy four.
44:49
Speaker 1: I did a couple of odd things, and then in
44:52
Speaker 1: seventies seven I asked him for a job and what
44:57
Speaker 1: was your job? Basically, it's like John, we were all
45:01
Speaker 1: what we all did. We we were like two managers.
45:04
Speaker 1: We ran to us. We were It wasn't always these
45:08
Speaker 1: big to us sometimes. I mean I did Queen. I
45:12
Speaker 1: did shows. Yeah, I did twenty shows. We had states
45:18
Speaker 1: with Queen, I remember that. Yeah. We used to get
45:22
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And then I did um the long
45:24
Speaker 1: run too with the Eagles. Now at the time, was
45:28
Speaker 1: there an accountant on the road or due to the
45:30
Speaker 1: settlement We did the settlement, Yeah, see we did. There
45:34
Speaker 1: were two guys. Yeah, there were two guys, one in
45:36
Speaker 1: production of one lead. We used to say yeah yeah there.
45:41
Speaker 1: Then then when you could grab if you like, we're
45:43
Speaker 1: good enough if you graduate to be the lead guy.
45:45
Speaker 1: And we had a thing called show pay was eighty bucks.
45:48
Speaker 1: Eighty bucks, so it's like if you're out with Peter
45:51
Speaker 1: Gond where they'd split that with your forty forty. If
45:53
Speaker 1: you were simthor j you got twenty bucks. Yeah. That
45:58
Speaker 1: was se me and me and John and Pool Gunga
46:01
Speaker 1: were we Okay, we've all had long careers. Did anybody
46:04
Speaker 1: leave the operation I did eventually, Yeah, well we all.
46:09
Speaker 1: I think the only reason we all left is because
46:11
Speaker 1: Jerry went from being in the music business to being
46:14
Speaker 1: in business. That's kind of I mean, because we're all
46:18
Speaker 1: like we I went all the way through one Troub
46:21
Speaker 1: Entertainment group and then it was like, God, you know,
46:25
Speaker 1: he wasn't doing anything in music anyway. I think that
46:28
Speaker 1: Earth Wind and Fire management deal was probably the last
46:31
Speaker 1: management deal he did, right Ken Craig and had left, Yeah,
46:37
Speaker 1: Craig and used to work for Yeah. I mean some
46:41
Speaker 1: of the names that worked at this place would would
46:43
Speaker 1: absolutely blow you away that we're there, not here from
46:47
Speaker 1: every day and it's like he invented the business. I
46:50
Speaker 1: didn't know. We worked for Jerry hard time. Yeah, he'll
46:54
Speaker 1: tell you about that. The height of Kenny Rodgers. Yeah,
46:57
Speaker 1: that's right, Kenny Rogers, Belt Blue Heaven and then who
47:03
Speaker 1: any other people in the management side who setti U?
47:12
Speaker 1: Sal was sal Well Claire Claire was an Italian guy
47:18
Speaker 1: that and Jerry and he were very good friends. But
47:22
Speaker 1: Jerry one of one of Jerry's everything had to be
47:25
Speaker 1: Jerry Weintrapp Presents. I mean, Jerry weintrap Presents was as
47:30
Speaker 1: prominent as anything else in any ad Billy freaking nickname
47:35
Speaker 1: for Jerry's presents. When when when Jerry did Diner and
47:40
Speaker 1: Barry Levinson was was just screwing around with him. If
47:44
Speaker 1: you look at the credits on Diner, the credits of
47:47
Speaker 1: Jerry weintrop Picture are about ten times bigger than the
47:51
Speaker 1: Diner had. Barry Levinson and Frank had a wicked sense
47:55
Speaker 1: of humor. And one time he's playing Caesar's Palace and
48:00
Speaker 1: Sal Bonifetti is out on the road with Frank, and
48:03
Speaker 1: Frank says to the Caesar's Palace, guys, we're gonna put
48:06
Speaker 1: up on the on the marquee here Sal Bonifetti presents
48:14
Speaker 1: that would have led to Sal's premature death. He were
48:19
Speaker 1: Sid Bernstein, Yes, said Bernstein. Was the first minute he
48:27
Speaker 1: brought the Beatles, brought the Management three was and how
48:35
Speaker 1: did leave to start his own thing when Jerry kept
48:40
Speaker 1: the name Management three. But when these three guys broke up,
48:43
Speaker 1: that's when when Bernie started. I think Bernie started with
48:47
Speaker 1: with the guys from Saturday Night Live. Bernie actually came out.
48:50
Speaker 1: Bernie came out to California to open the l A office.
48:53
Speaker 1: What was Bernie doing before he was in? So he
48:55
Speaker 1: and Marty and Dad were together in New York at
48:58
Speaker 1: one thirties sixties fifty fifth Street in an apartment that
49:01
Speaker 1: they had converted illegally into an office. Um that I
49:06
Speaker 1: grew up in sort of and uh, and Bernie got
49:09
Speaker 1: sent out to California to open the California office. Bernie
49:12
Speaker 1: had the Muppets, Bernie had Jim Henson, Dad had John Denver.
49:18
Speaker 1: This that's how they got together. They were together before
49:21
Speaker 1: they were together at the time that they both signed,
49:24
Speaker 1: but then later on the Muppets got together. Dad and
49:29
Speaker 1: Bernie ultimately decided to go separate ways. Bernie took Jim
49:33
Speaker 1: Henson and the Muppets. Saturday Night Live started out as
49:37
Speaker 1: a vehicle for the Muppets, So if you actually go
49:40
Speaker 1: the original, it was really a vehicle for the Muppets. Wow,
49:47
Speaker 1: that's an amazing story. So Bob s that you work
49:50
Speaker 1: with Jerry every day. Any other lessons or any other
49:54
Speaker 1: funny stories you can tell us about Jerry? U there aren't.
50:01
Speaker 1: I mean, Jerry was just larger than life. I mean
50:03
Speaker 1: it's there. It's uh, you know, when he wasn't going
50:06
Speaker 1: to come into the office and the act was waiting
50:08
Speaker 1: there for him, that was you know, where is Jerry?
50:11
Speaker 1: But now Jerry was larger than life, and I don't
50:14
Speaker 1: know there was there wasn't. He had a wicked sense
50:18
Speaker 1: of humor, but he ran a business. How did your
50:22
Speaker 1: tenure end? I had just reached a point where I
50:27
Speaker 1: wanted to do some other things. And uh, what did
50:31
Speaker 1: Jerry say when you left the family? It was not
50:34
Speaker 1: a good party. It was not a good party. You
50:39
Speaker 1: ever make up? It took us years. And in fact,
50:42
Speaker 1: um we played golf the day before he passed away.
50:49
Speaker 1: And I have a place in Santa Barbara and Jerry
50:52
Speaker 1: was in Santa Barbara and we had played golf that saturday.
51:00
Speaker 1: He was on the fourth of July weekend. And then
51:04
Speaker 1: I'm driving and I hear on the radio that the
51:08
Speaker 1: Jerry Weintrop had passed away in Palm Springs. I said, well,
51:13
Speaker 1: that's that's impossible. I was just with him. He's here
51:18
Speaker 1: in in uh in Montecito, and I called and I
51:22
Speaker 1: got I think I got Susie on the phone, and
51:25
Speaker 1: she was at the hospital so I was it. I mean,
51:30
Speaker 1: there was. It was so sudden, it was so unexpected.
51:35
Speaker 1: It's clear clear you're gonna add something here. I was
51:38
Speaker 1: just going to tell a funny story about John Denver.
51:44
Speaker 1: We did, uh I did? That was going to be
51:48
Speaker 1: two shows in the same evening, one at seven thirty
51:54
Speaker 1: and one at ten thirty something like that was the
51:59
Speaker 1: Forum of Union Bill Yes, stage, Okay, So there's a
52:03
Speaker 1: lot of cost have two shows. And I had just
52:07
Speaker 1: hired a new assistant and he worked that day, and
52:13
Speaker 1: by the time the first show was over, the poor
52:16
Speaker 1: kid was exhausted. And so I said, look, you have
52:21
Speaker 1: to work up to this. You have to be on
52:24
Speaker 1: your feet twelve thirteen hours before you can do a
52:30
Speaker 1: double show because in those days, circus run three performances
52:36
Speaker 1: on a Saturday. Ah. So I let him go home
52:42
Speaker 1: and I worked the second show and it was the
52:45
Speaker 1: best show that John ever did. And he was always
52:49
Speaker 1: sorry that I was so much older and he was tired,
52:56
Speaker 1: and I still worked the second chow unbelievable. John. Your
53:02
Speaker 1: long tenure with Jerry, Any lessons you learn from him? Um?
53:09
Speaker 1: A couple of things. One was he always say never
53:11
Speaker 1: assume anything. Remember that never assume anything. That was one
53:15
Speaker 1: of the lines. And then Bob said at TCB. We
53:19
Speaker 1: all grew up with TCB, which was take care of
53:22
Speaker 1: take care of business. It was on started on the
53:24
Speaker 1: Elvis tour Jackets. But if you go back all the
53:27
Speaker 1: old concerts west to our Jackets, you'll always see a
53:29
Speaker 1: little patch on there that said TCB and it just
53:32
Speaker 1: want to take care of business. And it was you know,
53:36
Speaker 1: it was it was a work ethic of of a sort.
53:39
Speaker 1: We you know, you're doing a tour. You're not like
53:45
Speaker 1: work in the local scams like Bob is talking about.
53:48
Speaker 1: You're out there your partners with the artists. You're being transparent.
53:52
Speaker 1: You know, there's no it's even better today because the
53:55
Speaker 1: Internet didn't even allow you to be to steal anymore.
53:57
Speaker 1: You can find anything steal. We never even we had.
54:03
Speaker 1: You know, I'm glad we don't have to, like people
54:06
Speaker 1: go look at our past because it's clean. Um. But
54:10
Speaker 1: it's just been it's a way of doing it. It's
54:12
Speaker 1: a it's a different way. And it was Jerry and
54:16
Speaker 1: it was Tom and it was Terry Bassett and Bill
54:18
Speaker 1: McKenzie or the guys who started that. When you go
54:21
Speaker 1: out in the exhibit. You'll see the pm L there
54:23
Speaker 1: for one of the shows. Okay, Bill McKenzie made that piano,
54:26
Speaker 1: you know, paid by cash, paid by box office, paid
54:29
Speaker 1: by home office, paid by infield check right, and all
54:32
Speaker 1: the list. When I had after, you know, started meeting
54:37
Speaker 1: other local promoters because we really didn't know him that well,
54:40
Speaker 1: I started looking at the form and I go on,
54:42
Speaker 1: that form looks familiar. Where did you get it? Every
54:44
Speaker 1: promoter in the country was using Bill Mackenzie's form to
54:47
Speaker 1: settle shows. Ron Delzer they just took the concert sweat
54:50
Speaker 1: of heading off and put it there. But you know,
54:53
Speaker 1: the first time we did wire transfers, that's how you know.
54:57
Speaker 1: It was Bill McKenzie who came up with that whole
54:59
Speaker 1: thing about we would sign a piece of paper and
55:02
Speaker 1: and the building would wire the money the next morning.
55:05
Speaker 1: That was this. It had never been done before, you know,
55:09
Speaker 1: no computer ice ticketing. It was all Now, if you're
55:12
Speaker 1: green at two hundred dollars a week and there only
55:14
Speaker 1: two of you out there, is you the senior guy
55:17
Speaker 1: training you or you'd have to make decisions by yourself
55:22
Speaker 1: a little both. I mean the senior guy should be
55:26
Speaker 1: training you. Did you feel pressure. I remember I worked
55:29
Speaker 1: for these English guys. They said, you're you were paying you.
55:32
Speaker 1: You have to handle it. Or would you ever freak
55:34
Speaker 1: out and say I gotta call somewhere? There was no, no,
55:37
Speaker 1: no you. I mean you could always you were a partnership.
55:41
Speaker 1: If the partnership didn't work, then we'd break up the
55:43
Speaker 1: partnership and find somebody else. And there were there were
55:47
Speaker 1: times where we'd go, you know, so and so is
55:49
Speaker 1: not working right on the beach. Send them over to
55:51
Speaker 1: bad company, and we'll take on the beach and they
55:53
Speaker 1: go to bad company. And so we got moved around.
55:56
Speaker 1: We were just we were told where to go. I
55:59
Speaker 1: got I would somebody walk in my office and go
56:02
Speaker 1: to l A, go see j Hackerman. You go out
56:04
Speaker 1: and the road at their Clapton like okay, And that's
56:07
Speaker 1: how it would be. Okay. If you're out that much,
56:11
Speaker 1: do you start to dislike the music? No, that's why
56:16
Speaker 1: we do it. That's what we love. Okay, now, Bob.
56:20
Speaker 1: There was a famous meeting on Long Island, UH to
56:25
Speaker 1: try to break up Jerry's ruling roost. Can you tell
56:29
Speaker 1: us about that? The all of the promoters thought that
56:34
Speaker 1: they would divide up the country like the Mafia. So
56:39
Speaker 1: Belkan would have Cleveland, and Delsner would have New York,
56:43
Speaker 1: and Graham would have San Francisco and Reese Wolf re
56:47
Speaker 1: Smeller would have l A and Jerry would be frozen
56:51
Speaker 1: out of the business because these were their territories and
56:55
Speaker 1: they had exclusive or thought they had exclusives with the buildings,
56:59
Speaker 1: and uh, that was a battle that had to be fought.
57:03
Speaker 1: But the acts are the power when you when when
57:07
Speaker 1: you're when you're representing the Rolling Stones, you're going to
57:10
Speaker 1: make the deal and they're gonna have and the building
57:13
Speaker 1: is going to have to have you. So so you
57:16
Speaker 1: didn't encounter any static doing this. Tremendous static and some
57:23
Speaker 1: of it were you know there. Jerry always believe in
57:25
Speaker 1: leaving something on the table for the other guy. So
57:29
Speaker 1: as you go into these facilities, you you might pay
57:31
Speaker 1: a local promoter, but you had the act and you're
57:34
Speaker 1: doing a national promotion, so you're getting the best deal.
57:37
Speaker 1: You give the other guy something, and it worked itself out,
57:41
Speaker 1: and that's why several of the promoters who were at
57:43
Speaker 1: that meeting in Long Island walked out of the room
57:45
Speaker 1: and immediately got on the phone to California and called
57:49
Speaker 1: Dad and said, hey, here you should know. Here's what
57:52
Speaker 1: just happened. And Dad, so will you go back in
57:55
Speaker 1: there and you you tell Graham and Barcelona and those
57:58
Speaker 1: guys that to circle the whole country and put concerts west.
58:03
Speaker 1: I mean, we had we we did get the law
58:05
Speaker 1: changed in California. There there was a tremendous tension between
58:11
Speaker 1: agents and managers in the music business because the lawn
58:15
Speaker 1: California said that you had to have a talent and
58:19
Speaker 1: licensed talent agent in order to book you. And the
58:24
Speaker 1: famous cases of Jefferson airplane case where this manager had
58:29
Speaker 1: booked somebody to get them a gig when an agent
58:32
Speaker 1: wouldn't even give them the time of day, and years
58:35
Speaker 1: later they went to the Labor Commission and rescinded the
58:38
Speaker 1: contract and they had to disgorge everything that they had earned.
58:45
Speaker 1: And so we point in time said Jerry, this this
58:49
Speaker 1: is this isn't working. And we went up to the
58:51
Speaker 1: state of California. We had a relationship with Governor Brown
58:56
Speaker 1: and Willie Brown, and we got the law chan age
59:00
Speaker 1: to have an exemption for the recorded business and if
59:04
Speaker 1: you work with a licensed talent agent, you were exempt.
59:07
Speaker 1: Let's go back because We covered this earlier, that you
59:10
Speaker 1: did a national tour. You really didn't need the agent.
59:13
Speaker 1: So how did you handle that? They didn't have agents? Yeah? John, Yeah,
59:20
Speaker 1: I mean Elvis had the William Morris agency, which was
59:24
Speaker 1: a long time relationship with Colonel Parker. Did you pay
59:27
Speaker 1: them or Cornel paid him out of his end? Probably
59:30
Speaker 1: paid him out of his end, because I don't remember
59:32
Speaker 1: us paying them. But but um, John Denver didn't have
59:35
Speaker 1: an agent, Frank didn't have an agent, and they why
59:39
Speaker 1: do they? What do they need an agent for? To
59:42
Speaker 1: book and a gig that they're going to be selling
59:45
Speaker 1: out when they can get a deal. I totally agree,
59:50
Speaker 1: and we've seen that today, So I'd love a deal today.
59:55
Speaker 1: Yeah that doesn't exist. Yeah right, So Peter, what did
1:00:01
Speaker 1: you learn from Jerry? The act always came first. You
1:00:07
Speaker 1: always took care of the act to just keep him happy, comfortable,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: and yet it came first. So what was that something
1:00:19
Speaker 1: back there? So if the act wanted something unreasonable you
1:00:23
Speaker 1: said no, no, no, no, no no, we would just
1:00:28
Speaker 1: take care of the business actually wanted something in a
1:00:32
Speaker 1: reasonable We walk around backstage and go, who the hell
1:00:35
Speaker 1: is that guy? Think he is? Jerry? Wein Trump. No,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: we didn't you No, we didn't do that. Well, you
1:00:44
Speaker 1: were on the you were on the road all these years.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: To what degree were these musicians bad actors? Bad actors?
1:00:51
Speaker 1: You know? We hear all the stories of drugs, women
1:00:55
Speaker 1: destroying hotel rooms. You had some of that. There was
1:00:58
Speaker 1: always some of that. You know. I was lucky. I've
1:01:02
Speaker 1: been very lucky. I didn't want to ever want to
1:01:05
Speaker 1: work with those people, so I didn't heard about it.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: Jerry Jerry let Rick James stayed at his house and
1:01:14
Speaker 1: in order to get clean. Did he get clean? No?
1:01:21
Speaker 1: I did have dinner at the Edgewater three nights ago.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: I'm serious, Okay, So Tony Ronnie went down to check
1:01:28
Speaker 1: all the famous mud shark story can tell the dark
1:01:32
Speaker 1: story nineteen? Is there such a thing as a nud shark?
1:01:44
Speaker 1: From my window at the what does a bud shark
1:01:46
Speaker 1: look like? It's like, oh, it's pretty big. I was
1:01:50
Speaker 1: there on one night. We were a couple of times
1:01:53
Speaker 1: I've done it was right Thomas the movie Blues, and
1:01:56
Speaker 1: we were both fishermen and we would go down rent
1:01:59
Speaker 1: the polls and all this stuff and just shit, they
1:02:02
Speaker 1: were not pulling out. And you get it from the
1:02:05
Speaker 1: hotel room, tell him what it is, and then then
1:02:09
Speaker 1: then put them in the bath and then you'd leave them.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: People would fill up they you know, not the not
1:02:17
Speaker 1: the LEDs up on the story, but everybody feels out
1:02:19
Speaker 1: of the window. You fill up the bathtub and then
1:02:21
Speaker 1: you catch my sharks and you throw them in the bathtub.
1:02:24
Speaker 1: And sometimes you'd like to leaving in the hotel. Now,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: didn't bad company and some of these other acts come
1:02:31
Speaker 1: with agents, whether it be Frank Barcelona or other people.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: That was they had agents earlier on in their career
1:02:38
Speaker 1: and when they got big, they left Frank, they left Frank. Yeah,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: that was the same with the Big That was a
1:02:45
Speaker 1: big fight when Barton, when led Zeppelin got rid of
1:02:49
Speaker 1: Premier and Frank and concert just did all. Well, yeah,
1:02:54
Speaker 1: all their tours were they started opening up for the
1:02:57
Speaker 1: Vanilla Fudge. That's where their first tour was. Okay, so clear.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: I've literally sat in the box office with representatives from
1:03:06
Speaker 1: promoters and they've shown me the two sets of books. Now,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: as the business developed with how did the promoter make money?
1:03:18
Speaker 1: You mean the local guy, he had to get it
1:03:22
Speaker 1: cut it off of somebody else, the local guy because
1:03:25
Speaker 1: he was superseded. Okay, so there are any other stories
1:03:31
Speaker 1: or characteristics of Jerry we haven't covered. Well, there's a
1:03:34
Speaker 1: great story with when Elvis is on tour and he dies.
1:03:38
Speaker 1: We've got all of the all of this money in
1:03:41
Speaker 1: the box office and Elvis is not going to Elvis
1:03:46
Speaker 1: has left the building. So I said, you know, what
1:03:51
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? So we just said, okay, of
1:03:55
Speaker 1: course everybody can have their money back, but make sure
1:03:59
Speaker 1: that you get the two. In fact, there's some of
1:04:01
Speaker 1: the tickets that are in the exhibit up here, fifteen
1:04:03
Speaker 1: dollars apiece. People didn't get their tickets back because they
1:04:09
Speaker 1: wanted the final There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands
1:04:13
Speaker 1: of dollars money in the box office. Problem was many
1:04:18
Speaker 1: of the buildings that we were playing were municipal buildings,
1:04:22
Speaker 1: and the state took a position that that money is
1:04:25
Speaker 1: sheeted to the state. Oh that's a bummer, so we
1:04:30
Speaker 1: but but we said, no, the ticket has value, so
1:04:34
Speaker 1: it's our money. And then we worked out a deal
1:04:37
Speaker 1: between splitting it well so you got the money, yeah,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: splitting it with with Jerry Elvis, and hey, you know
1:04:45
Speaker 1: what's an interesting point of that. You know how people
1:04:47
Speaker 1: refunded their tickets on that is, they wrote their name
1:04:50
Speaker 1: and their address on the back of the ticket and
1:04:53
Speaker 1: mailed it back to the box office and then they
1:04:56
Speaker 1: got a check. Years later, you could go contact act
1:05:00
Speaker 1: all those people, right, and you want to get your
1:05:03
Speaker 1: ELPs ticket back and how much they were fifteen tickets.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying that that's people mailed in their
1:05:10
Speaker 1: ticket with their name and their address written on the
1:05:13
Speaker 1: back of the ticket, and then they got a check back.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: Speaking of tickets, one thing we know is concert tickets
1:05:19
Speaker 1: today are expensive. Never mind the fees, etcetera. But I
1:05:23
Speaker 1: remember when they went from three four and five to
1:05:25
Speaker 1: three fifty four fifty and five fifty. How did you
1:05:28
Speaker 1: decide and you couldn't get a ticket that was the
1:05:31
Speaker 1: everything sold out and it was so how did you
1:05:33
Speaker 1: decide on the prices? Many acts wanted to keep their
1:05:38
Speaker 1: prices as low as possible. Frank wanted to keep prices
1:05:42
Speaker 1: as low as possible. And I want to talk about
1:05:45
Speaker 1: the grateful dead six fifty for a ticket. Um, the
1:05:49
Speaker 1: escalation just became part of the business and the expense
1:05:52
Speaker 1: of a tour. I don't acts generally want their fans
1:05:57
Speaker 1: to be able to see a concert. They don't want
1:05:59
Speaker 1: to see a gouge. How about the famous uh policy
1:06:04
Speaker 1: of act scalping their own tickets? Did we see that
1:06:06
Speaker 1: at the Concerence West. We had tremendous control on tickets
1:06:10
Speaker 1: so that that would not take place, and scalping we
1:06:13
Speaker 1: looked at as really one of the seven deadly sins,
1:06:18
Speaker 1: So we tried tried very hard to make sure the
1:06:20
Speaker 1: tickets were very controlled. Acts at that time did not
1:06:23
Speaker 1: scalp their own tickets. Okay, clear a seems you want
1:06:26
Speaker 1: to say something. We talked about refunding money for tickets. Well,
1:06:34
Speaker 1: when I was set the spectrum, we lost the roof
1:06:38
Speaker 1: during an ice paid time and that was one thing
1:06:43
Speaker 1: that Jerry didn't produce. So it was during that day
1:06:50
Speaker 1: performance and the orchestras started to play off we go
1:06:54
Speaker 1: in the wild Blue Ye. Now we had the ice
1:07:02
Speaker 1: capades booked for another whole week, so we had a
1:07:08
Speaker 1: lot of money in the box office, and that was
1:07:11
Speaker 1: when we decided you would take the ticket back to
1:07:16
Speaker 1: where you purchased it. So if it was Macy's that's
1:07:21
Speaker 1: sold it, or Bloomingdale's, you took it back there. If
1:07:27
Speaker 1: you brought it from the box office. You took it
1:07:29
Speaker 1: back there, and as you stated, we never refunded all
1:07:36
Speaker 1: of them, but we became known as the place to
1:07:40
Speaker 1: go to to find out how do you refund a
1:07:43
Speaker 1: really large amount of money, which was something we really
1:07:49
Speaker 1: didn't want the reputation for. Okay, I think that we've
1:07:54
Speaker 1: really done a great job of illuminating how powerful, larger
1:07:57
Speaker 1: than life Jerry was. I think everybody here on the
1:08:00
Speaker 1: piano told all these great stories. Thanks for coming, h