Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Jac Holzman

Transcript

Jac Holzman · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftet's podcast. My guest
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: today is Cruly, a legend in the pian era. Mr
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Electra Records, Pano Vision, and so much more. Jack Holsman, Jack,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to be here. Okay, first question, why
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: is there no kay On Jack? Because the name was
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: originally Jacob and my dad, I'm a junior, Jack Holsman.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It's Jacob Holsman, and my dad said that when he
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: was going to school up in Portland, Jacob was a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Jewish name, so he decided to get rid of that
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: in terms of talking to other students that he named
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: himself Jack and I inherited on my birth certificate is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Jacob Easton Holsman the second But you are Jewish and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: were raised Jewish? Correct? Yeah? I was Okay, So he
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: was doing it, Uh, just so he wouldn't experience anti
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: semitism in Portland. What was he doing in Portland? Well,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the whole family had come across the United States, had
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: settled in Denver, and at one point I thought that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Portland was new, fresh open territory, and uh, they opened
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: up second hand stores there. Okay, we'll get back to that.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: But h in our conversations previous to this, you said, well,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: you didn't know whether you could schedule because you were
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: doing work for Warner Music. What exactly, how exactly and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: what are you doing involved with Warner today? Well, what
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: happened was that I was with the company for twenty
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: three years, and I knew I couldn't leave the company
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: until we had a solid distribution system. And I had
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: made a promise to myself to quit my at midlife.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I saw a movie once, uh, and it was a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: story of about a guy who decide that he wants
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to stop at midlife and figure out what he's doing
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and then pick up and go from that. And I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: thought that was in uh, incredibly smart, And so I
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to stop in my forties and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: take how many years to do whatever I wanted. There
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: were things I longed to do. I was a pilot.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I loved airplanes. I like to fly airplanes. I love
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: to scuba dive, I wanted to travel. I just wanted
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to have time off and see what comes into my
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: perspective and figure out what I'm going to do later.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I did that for seven years, uh, and then in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the end of that seventh year, I UH called the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: chairman of the company and I said to him, I'm
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: ready to come back. And he said, what do you
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: want to do? And I said, I want to come back,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: not in the music group, but as as a technologist,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: your chief technology. As he said, You're hired. And then
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: we got into cable and a whole bunch of interesting
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: things and I was there as part of that group,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and when we had problems, I knew how to solve them. Okay,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: so you're rehired at Warner is the chief technologist? What
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: does that ultimately leave you? That ultimately led me into
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: cable TV. I had a friend who had done a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: video which I thought was quite amazing, and Uh, I said,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I think there's something here. One of the things that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: happened that was material was that somebody gave me a
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: film of his performing a song and I thought it
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: was wonderful, and I got it up on one of
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the UH Warner cable channels and there was excitement about that,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and then that turned itself into MTV over time, and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: that was just wonderful because suddenly the record companies had
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: an outlet for making people aware of their records and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: promoting their records without having to go through radio stations
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and all the nonsense that went on with getting your
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: thing on the air, and it was a more complete
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: emotional picture or emotional experience of what the song was.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: So MTV was was was the happy outcome of what
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I had started. I got it to the right people
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: at the right time, and it just happened. So from
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: there you go to Piano Vision. You go through many iterations,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: but before we go literally you're still working for the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: company today. Yes, that's a longer story, but what happened
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: was that after we got the MTV up, Warner Communications
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: became Warner Communications. They immediately acquired a company called Pani
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Vision at the recommendation the man who was running the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: uh the studios. And the thing about Panavision was that
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it made cameras. It was very profitable at least cameras
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and lenses to all of the picture companies. The picture
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: companies had sent their equipment back. And what happened at
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Panavision is that it was upgraded. There were new lenses,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: everything was guaranteed. They rented it, you had somebody standing
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: by to fix it if it needed fixing. That was
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: all wonderful then suddenly they were spending a lot of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: money and nobody could find out what the money was
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: being what the money was being spent on. And since
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I knew something about cinematography, Steve Ross, who was the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: chairman of the company, asked me to go out and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: find out what the hell was going on. So I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: went to Panavision and I sat with the man who
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: was in charge of the company, Bob got Schalk. He
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: was very tightly woven. I couldn't get any answers. And
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: then he took me into room where all of the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: pan division equipment was showing, and I looked around and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I saw a camera that had a red light flashing,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and it had it had film in it, but I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: didn't hear anything. So I said, is that a silent camera?
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: He said yes. I said, in effect, what you did
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: was didn't try to muffle the noise. You tried to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: eliminate it before it happened. He said, exactly right, And
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that was the Panaflex. So suddenly movie making change. Everybody
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: wanted a Panaflex because it was a smallish camera, it
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: could be moved around and you didn't hear it. It's
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: it saved all kinds of time and money. Gotchawk was
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: running it. He was running it moderately well, but then
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: he was killed by a living male lover. And I
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: got a call from Steve Ross saying, we've heard that
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Gotcha talk was was killed. Can you find out what's
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: going on and try to come up with something that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: you think we should do. So I was up at Atari,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: where I was in a where I was a director
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: because I had been involved in the evaluation, the technical
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: evaluation of that company. And I called into the got
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Shocks UH secretary and I said, Michael, and he said
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it's true. And I said, what's happening? He said, everybody's
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: going around crazy with rumors. I said, I'd like you
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to stay off the phone for five minutes. I need
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to think, and he said I'll do that. And I
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: as he stayed off the phone for five minutes, I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: asked myself, do I really want to take over this company?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Do I think I can do that job? Well? I
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: have some fun, it's so totally different from anything I've
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: ever done, and yet it's in the business that I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: admire so much. And I called him back and I said, well,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: tell everybody I'm taking over the company. And I'll be
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: there at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. And you picked the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: executives you think I need to meet with first before
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we meet with everybody. He said fine. And then I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: called Steve Ross and I said it's true. And he said,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: you have any ideas? I said, I've taken over the company,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and he said, what can I do for you? I said,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: don't call me cash my checks and he said, agreed,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: will do that. I said, I need I'll talk to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: you when I think I've got my arms wrapped around it.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: But these are people I don't know, and I'm going
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: to have to earn my way into their confidence, and
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that's going to take time. And that's what we did,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and I took over the company. We brought in all
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of the people from around the world who were releasing
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: agents for us, and uh. They all were helpful. And
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: when I was in the company two or three months,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I could see the defects and what we needed to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: do and where we needed to go. And we had
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: optics that were too old and some optics that weren't honest.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So we got it all fixed. And three years later
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Ross decided he didn't want the company anymore, and he
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: was going to sell it. I had money and was
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: willing to buy it with a people, with people I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: could raise money from. But he never sold any company
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: to any person who would run it on the grounds
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that you knew stuff that he didn't know, and so
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you had an advantage. So he turned me down and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that was it. And Uh. Eventually I left Warner Communications
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and stayed out while I took a vacation that I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: had promised myself. I had seen a movie called Holiday
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: with Carrie Grant. That was a wonderful movie about a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: guy who was from the wrong side of the tracks
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: when he was on the rights I had of the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: tracks and beginning to make some money if he made enough,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: he wanted to take a break for a period of time,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: figure out where he was going and what his life
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was all about. And at nineteen years old, I saw
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: sat in the back of the theater and I said, God,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: that makes so much sense. I don't want to forget that,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and I didn't so that. When my contract was up,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: UH and I was asked to renew, I said, look,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you can put a lecture with Asylum. You've got Geffen,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: You've got all of these good people. You don't need
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: me anymore. I need time for myself. And I had
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: discovered Hawaii and a holiday trip, and I knew that's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: where I wanted to be. And I moved to Hawaii
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and I lived there for seven plus years and did
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: everything I wanted to do, so all the people I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to see and meet and have all of the adventures,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and I I loved my life. But I knew it
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: was time for me to go back to work and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: called Steve Ross and that's when we got into the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: stage of being the chief technologist. But let's go back
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to the beginning. So your parents were they born in
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the US? Were they born in the so called Old Country? No,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: they were born in the United States. My mother was
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: born in Cincinnata. My father was born in Portland. Where else? Okay,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So they met in Portland, Um, actually they did. My
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: mother came there with her mother, a stell Sternberger, who
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: was a real personality. She had a program, a weekly
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: political analysis program on CBS network which was broadcast on
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Saturday mornings. And that was a big piece of my
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: actually going into music because when I asked to sit
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: in the studio with her, they said, oh no, you
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: can't do that. But you can sit in the control
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: room and in the control room where all the lads
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and earned tables and uh everything. It was used in broadcasting,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and I was intensely curious about it, and I'd ask
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of questions and they'd explained it to me.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: So that when I was reading Life magazine and saw
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: an article uh that showed the inventor or the creator
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: for CBS Labs of the LP record, I knew that
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it was going to be a winner, and that small
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: independent labels could start because we would do stuff that
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: was not related to the major labels at all. I
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: thought I would do folk music in baroque music. Baroque
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: music was too expensive for me. I only had six
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and so I tried folk music. Glenn Yarborough,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: who turned out to be a star later and a
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: member of the Limelighters, was one of my first early artists.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And at the end of that third year, St. John's
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: College was an am using school. It it's had a
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: curriculum that did not use textbooks. It used the original books.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: If you were studying geometry, you went all the way back. Well,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: let's just let's go back. We'll get back to St. John's.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: So you grew up in Portland. No, I didn't grow up.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I grew up in New York. My father came to
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: New York UH after his after his supremat he came
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to medical school at Harvard. And after medical school at Harvard, UH,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: he was taken in by Mound Sinai and was at
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Mount Sinai for a number of years, and then he
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: went into private practice. And he called up my mother
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: our writer or a letter or whatever did and then
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: they started dating, and eventually I emerged. And how many
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: kids in the family? True? My brother and I my
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: brother Keith, who's the oldest. I'm the oldest. I'm And
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: to what degree be the oldest child? Were you in
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the embodiment of their hopes and dreams? My father didn't
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: think I was very smart, and he said that, look,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I know you're gonna have a trouble finding a way
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to make a living. So I'll buy a drug store
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: for you in this building. We'll put it up and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: then you run the drug store, and we split the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: profits at the end of the year. And I said,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that's not what I have in mind. He said, what
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: did you have in mind? I said, I don't know,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to think on it. And Uh, I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: started a little record shop for folk music and as
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the office for a record company I named Electra because
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I loved the name. Electra was one of the one
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: of the outer muses in the Solar system. And but
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I wanted Electra with a C. Was. I wanted a heart,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: more dramatic K. And so the lecture came with a K.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And I found my first folk singer, Geane Ritchie, and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: she we made a wonderful album together. You could record
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the artist in their own home. I had my own
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: tape recorder by that time, six hundred dollar Magna order
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and a microphone. And so what we do was we
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: would set up the rooms, hang hang things on the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: walls to keep the echoic nature of a room from
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: happening into the microphone. And I did that with a
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of artists, Oscar Brand, Frank Warner, uh And
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: slowly these were tenanth LPs. They kind of grew and
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: grew and grew. I still wasn't making money. I was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: making debt. In nineteen fifty five, I was sitting in
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: a at a home with some friends and they were
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: having everybody brought their guitar and they're singing songs. And
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: they gave this guitar to this guy who was an actor,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and he just blew me away. It was Theodore Bickel. Uh.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: He was doing Yiddish songs, he was doing Israeli songs,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: he was doing Russian folk songs. And I knew those
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: genres had big audiences in the major cities. So I
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: sat theo down and we talked, and we made a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: record deal together, and uh, we started making these albums.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And in the nifty six when twelve inch records happened,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: we added more music to the album as they came
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: out as twelve inch LPs, and suddenly we were selling records. Okay,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: let's go back. Uh, you're growing up. What kind of
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: kid are you? You have a lot of friends. Are
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: more of an introvert? I was a loner. I had
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: one friend named Adam Pinsker. Adam was smart and kept
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: me kind of straightened out. I was kind of loose
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and banging at all kinds of edges. But when I
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: had something I love to do, I did it very well.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And when I went to St. John's College, which was
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: this great book school which Ahmed Errigan had gone to
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: eight years earlier than me. When we found out that
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: we had both gone to this very obscure school where
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: there are only one hundred students in it for all
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: all grades, big hugs and kisses because we had that
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: extremely important education and opportunity in hand. Why did you
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: go to St John's Because I had my only other
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: choice with another college. I had a promising date for
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: that weekend, so I they insisted upon an interview that weekend.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I said, the hell with it. I'll go to St.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: John's whatever that is. I had no idea what I
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: was getting into what it turned out to be a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: turning point in my life. And as I was there
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and picking up some packages that I had sent to myself,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I noticed one to Adam Pinsker. He had also ended
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: up in this school. The child wildhood friend whom I
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen in years was in this school, and he
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: was enormous help to me. And so at what point
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: do you decide to start electra? Are you still at
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: St John's and don't you have a partner. I'm still
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: at St. John's. I had somebody who had come out
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: of the Navy who put up three hundred dollars and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: they we were partners. Uh. He later didn't want to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: be involved with this, and so I think I gave
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a thousand dollars. I don't know where the hell I
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: got the thousand dollars, but I gave a thousand dollars
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and he went his way, and I owned a hundred
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: percent of the company, but we were in about ninety
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars worth of fifty five debt before Theodore Bikail
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the Theater or Pikail records between them sold about a
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand, but they were very profitable despite the fact
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that they were very elaborately produced. Did you had a
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Russian album? We had a book of liner notes. It
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't liner notes on the back so much as it
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: was liner notes. Inside the album. We would have the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: songs in Russian in a transliteration, which is what if
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: you want to sing along with us and can read English,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you might be able to sing with with theo uh
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and then the English translation. And because they were so
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: complete and the covers were so good, we did well.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: And I had very good suppliers. They were really generous
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: with me. I owed him ninety thousand dollars, but my
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: strategy with them was not to put off paying them.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: It was the opposite, to pay a small amount every
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: two weeks. So they saw a check coming every two weeks,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and the checks got bigger and bigger and bigger, and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: then one day I wrote checks for ninety thousand dollars,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: paid them off and kept them. Okay. Now, I certainly
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: remember growing up with Theodore Maquel records, and he was
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: very definitely a star. The reason I bring this up
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: is when you meet him in this party. Had he
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: been contacted by anybody else to make records? No, he wasn't.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: He was an actor. He was on Broadway. I thought
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: he could be in a record artist. And I said, Jim,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: come on over to the house and we'll record some stuff.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: We'll see how it goes. And then I played it
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: back for myself a lot, and I said, this isn't
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: this is an artist. I think that will help get
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: me there. And about five years after he had helped
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: get me there, I said THEO we're doing well. Now
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you deserve a reward as an appreciation, and he said
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: what I said, Well, I'll sell you five percent of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the company for the low price of twenty dollars and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: he bought it, and when the company was sold, he
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: walked out with five hundred thousand dollars. But that's what
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I felt. I owed him. He was there at that time.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You have a record deal. Today, record deals are very complicated,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: never mind the streaming era. What kind of deal did
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you cut the O back in the fifties. Well, I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: cut the deal of no money down and a royalty
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of seven on the price on which all records were sold,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: because there was a ten percent federal tax at that time,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: instituted during the war. So that was it. The contracts
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: were very simple. We had very successful series. We had
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a series we did. Another artist, Oscar Brand, who had
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a New York radio show every Sunday, came to me
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: one day and said, you know, I've been getting lyrics
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and stuff with melodies from Air Force people. He said,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: you know, we could make an Air Force album. I
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: said that kind of crazy, but let me listen to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the material. And the material was there, and so I said, okay,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: we'll call at the y old Blue Johnder. We made
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a record, we put it out, It did well, and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: we sent a copy with a note to the unit
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that bought all of the stuff for the stores that
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: they ran in each of the various locations the world,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and uh so we sent it and we didn't hear
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: from them, and then about three weeks later we got
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a letter with an order for ten thousand copies. I
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: called him and said, do you guys make a mistake
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: with a zero? And they said, no, no, we think
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: we can sell ten thousand, and so that worked, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: then we did it for the Marines, we did it
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: for the Navy. We were doing well. No, nothing explosive,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: but I was having fun and we were doing things
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that other people didn't do. There was a moment when
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I had there was nothing to record. I could not
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: find an artist I wanted just before Josh White, so
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I said, what else can I record? I'm a Ham
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: radio operator and I have trouble with Morse code. So
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I came up with a Morse code record that you
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: could play at thirty three, forty five, and seventy eight,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: depending upon your how good you were in reading Morse code.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: And we didn't sell it through record stores. We sold
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: it through stores that had big mail order departments. Uh
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and they were located throughout the country of Concord was
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: one of them. There were about eight, and he sold
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: about five a month, So I was selling three thousand
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a month of what I couldn't give away in fol
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in folk music, and I never forgot that it's not
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: always about recording music, which came later on and proved
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to be the most dynamic restart in a record company
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that I know of. Okay, now, one thing we know
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: in the era of independent distribution as opposed to branch distribution,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't always so easy to get paid even
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: if the records sold. What was that experience like for you?
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't have that experience very badly. I picked good
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: people who actually paid me, but took their time about it,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: which was one of the reasons why I didn't have
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: enough money to pay off the manufacturers and people who
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: made the records assemble the albums. But I knew that
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: had to end, and that was one of the sparking
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: points with which I always lived. I've got to find
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: an opportunity for independent labels to be able to supervise
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and handle the last thing between the record and the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: person who buys it, so you ultimately form wea But
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: staying with the Electra story tell us the story of
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Josh White Josh White. I got a phone call one day.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: A man said to me, I represent Josh White, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Josh White can't get a record contract because he's been blacklisted.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Why was he blacklisted? He performed at a Russian a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: concert to raise money for Russia and special arms for
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Russia during the Second World War, so he was blacklisted.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I said, that's no reason to be blacklisted. They well,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: they calling him a communist. I said, well, I call
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: him Josh White, and I would love to have him.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: He said, I'm not going to send him over if
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you're going to disappoint him. I said, if he can
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: sing the way I remember he could sing, then you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: have no problem. And he came over and we sat
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: down and we got along very well. And then he
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: began to sing, and I realized that all of the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: recordings that had been done mono records were done very cheaply,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and he didn't sound like Josh White. I thought I
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: could make him sound like Josh White. And we talked
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: about this, and then we did the We did an
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: album called John Henry, which was two LPs. One was
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: just the story of John Henry and the other was
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: other songs from that same period and then we did
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Josh at Midnight, which was the winner. We did it
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: late in the evening, a young lady would drop by.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: We had to do it all with one microphone, so
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I had I put the people where I thought they
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: belonged in front of the microphone and you know, take
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: something to the floor so that they wouldn't know we're
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a step. We recorded, and that's when we made the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Josh White recording and it just took off. By take off,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I mean it was selling thirty thirty five thousand, which
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: for me was wonderful, and he got paid, so Josh
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: was easy to work with me. We made about seven
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: albums and all overtime. So this begs a question. Since
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: you were recording in Mono and you had the magnetone
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: tape recorder, were you also serving as the engineer and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: do you have skills in that area. I did everything myself. Yes,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I was the engineer. I had the tape recorder, we
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: had the one microphone. They were placed strategically where they
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: should be in terms of distance. Uh. They were wonderfully cooperative.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: But I recorded every album with my tape recorders. I
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: would go places by strapping my tape recorder onto the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: spare seat behind me on my motor scooter. I didn't
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: have a car, but I motor scooted everywhere. I love
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: that motor scooter. Okay, So for those of us who
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: are a little bit younger, we remember Elektra being one
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of the two kings of folk music, the other being Vanguard.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: So as we start to hit the sixties and the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: folk music eras begins with even Hood Nanny on DV,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: you start putting out these folk records that start getting traction. Okay.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: What happened was by nineteen sixty, I thought folk music,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the five to eight hundred songs that were folk songs
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: had all been recorded. They had been played to death
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: on radio and people would sit there clapping their hands,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: which had nothing to do with folk music. And I said,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it's a different direction. If I find a folk artist
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that I are, an artist like a Judy Collins, who
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I think has has talent, I'll do that. But I
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: don't know what the hell to record, and I'm not
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: going to record crap. So I went back to my
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: time every of recording the Morse Code, and I said,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I said, what's not out there that needs to be done?
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Because I'm not going to make any piece of ship.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I thought, and I thought, and I came home one
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: day and I was closing the door. I heard a
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: car crash which was on my wife's TV. And I said,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: sound effects. There are no sound effects albums that I
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: know of that are available to the public. So I
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: did a lot of research, and I started started by
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: sitting down watching television and writing down every sound effect
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I heard, and every sound effect I could think of.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: When I had six hundred of them, I put together
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a team of people who had for whom I could least,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the recorders and microphones and stereo, and we started recalling
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: recording all of these and it took about eight months.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And when I got them all together, I program them
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: into ten albums and you could buy them as a unit,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: or you could buy them individually, but you could. You
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: ended up with forty some odd sound effects at a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: course of about fourteen cents each, and it blew wide open.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I could not believe the numbers of sound effects I
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: was selling, and they were. They were obviously in record stores.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: We made them available through mail order. We produced a
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: very good record, and we thought about everything to locate
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a sound effect when you had twenty of them. On
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: one side. We had a little ruler which had a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: little hole where which you put over the center hole
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and then you wrote down which track that arrow was
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: entered into. So you had twenty arrows and you could
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: find the sound effect immediately. So you think about all
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: of that stuff beforehand, and then you do it. And
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: when you do it with love and intention and you
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: don't spare the money, you do well. We made a
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: million and a half dollars that year on sound effects.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of money. Uh, sixty years ago, back
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one, boy, that was a lot of money. Okay.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: We also asks the question you're having these huge successes
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: are other people than imitating you? There's no point in
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: imitating a set that's got everything. You force them out
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: of doing it by making it so good and so
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: complete and so full that nobody wants to buy anything
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: but yours, because you have those little grace notes like
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the thing that slips over the spindle on your turntable,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: those kinds of thinking and talking about how we did them,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and then we would sell them in a special package.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: You could get the package for fifty dollars and uh,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: we would send it off to you. You got the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: whole thing. We didn't collect for licensing. If somebody wanted
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to use the sound effect, go ahead and use it.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: We don't care. We made it for you to use,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and we're very satisfied with the profit we're making per album.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So with all of these benefits, who's going to come
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: out and try to compete with us, especially when we
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: did such a good job making them. You have this
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: big victory. What's your next step? My next step is Okay, folks,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: music is going where do we go? And I'm beginning
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to hear I heard about the Paul Butterfield blues band,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: uh and that sounded really good and my uh but
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: but before we got to Paul Butterfield, you you recorded
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Tom Rush. There are a lot of other people that
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: you recorded phil Oaks that were folk yaks before you
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: got into rock. You're you're absolutely right, So let me
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: start again. Knowing that there were no more folk songs anymore,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: there was beginning to come forth. The generation of people
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: who inspired by Dylan were writing their own songs, and
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: they they were phil Oaks and Tom Rush, who was
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: also an interpreter, and any number of people who wrote
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: distinctively different songs, phil Oaks especially, and we recorded all
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: of those people. And then as we saw different things happening,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and and Dylan went electric at Newport and I was
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: standing right below him, and parts of the Butterfield Blues
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Band were accompanying him, and I just shivered because I
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: knew exactly where I was going. I was going to
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and I was out the next day and
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: we started looking for things in the first group I
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: found was Love, and then Love turned me onto a
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: group that they thought was pretty good. That was the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: second on their bill, which was The Doors. Now I
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: went to see The Doors four times before I got them.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: If I got the means before, I understood because Jim
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: loved to sing the blues, and he'd sing the blues
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: for a whole set. And I don't need Jim to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: sing the blues, but I need those musicians. They are
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: superb guitar, keyboards, drums, each superlative. I can get the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: right material to them. And then one day they play
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a song that it was so totally off the wall.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Show me the Way to the next whiskey bar. Yes,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: that's the song. They just sort of slipped into the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Whiskey Bar song. And when I heard what they could
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: do with that, and I heard how Jim and everybody
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: was so locked in with each other, I said, I
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: have to have that group. And I went back and
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: introduced myself. They knew we were coming, and we talked
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and we talked and we talked, and I made them
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: an offer, and we went back and forth. They were
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: taking their time. They had a contract with Columbia, but
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Columbia dropped them. Uh. Columbia said, well, we'll keep you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: if you'll record a single force and if we like
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the single, and they said, the hell with this, we
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: don't want this. We got an offer from Electra, so
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: they started nosing around and talking to other artists about Electra,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and we had no problems there and we signed The Doors. Now,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: the very first album was both a huge success and legendary.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us about the experience of making that. Well,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: my problems were that I wasn't the producer. I needed
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: somebody who was right and who keep them in line
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and who was at least as smart as they were,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: and I could manage the group. So we decided to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: do two weeks of rehearsal and I asked Paul Rothschild
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to do it. He said, well, look, I'll go out
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: there and I'll check it out. But they liked each
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: other a lot, and so there was a natural coming
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: together and he helped polish the songs a lot. He
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: would make suggestions about how to make changes and they
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: would do it, and the album was recorded in about
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a week. Bruce Botnick, who had done the Love Album
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: with me and I was the producer of that, was terrific.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: And so the combination of Rothschild and Bruce Botnick was
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: just magic and the band and we did it. It
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: was wonderful in many respects. I knew that Jim was
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: in love with the U forty seven microphone because he
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: was a big Frank Sinatra follower, and Frank Sinatra always
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: sang in front of this microphone. So when he came
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: into the studio and I said for the vocals, you'll
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: be in the booth or outside depending and this is
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: your microphone, he had tears in his eyes. He said,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you gave me Thank Sinatra's microphone. I said, we think
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that's best for you. And uh, it went well. I mean,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: there were all kinds of wild things that happened during it.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: That Jim got mad and threw UH through some stuff
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: against the glass in the control room. I had to
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: take care of all of that and keep it quiet
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: without calling the police. I knew he was going to
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: be Uh needing constant watch. But we were finished the
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: album and it was scheduled to come out in November
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty six, and I said to myself, wrong month.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: So I got the band together and I said, guys,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I might a mistake of promising you November. It's the
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: wrong month. They said, why Christmas is coming, people can
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: give it a Christmas present. I said, you're not gonna
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: You're not going to get the airplane that you need.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: And I said to them, if you let me come
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: out in January January four, I promise you you will
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: be the only album we released that month. Now, you
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: could do that when you're only issuing eighteen albums a year,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: but nobody out offers anything that crazy and on and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I had everything probe. We knew what we were going
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to do. I had the idea I see these billboards
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: on Sunset Strip, but nothing had to do with music.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: So I decided I'm gonna buy a year on that
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: billboard and we went up and when the record was
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: out there was this billboard on Sunset strip which was
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: you couldn't miss. And then we we did our job
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and took it across very slowly, and the band was
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: an enormous success, and the doors were history and joy
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and in history and not so much joy sometimes, but
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the artist always comes first, and you take care of
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the artists and the other The other three lads were
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: just beautiful to work with, and the ones who were
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: still alive are still very close friends. So do you
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: know that Late My Fire is going to be a smash?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And how do you make it a smash? Back in
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the days of indie labels competing with majors. I knew
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: that was the song, but it was very long. That
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: was the problem. So I sat down with Rathchild and
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: everybody and said, let's try some edits down and I'll
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: tell you what I'll do. I'll do two forms of
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the song. I'll do a single which you can buy
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: that has the complete song, the short song on one
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: side and the complete song on the other side, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: or I will come out with one that has the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: short version and then another song from the album on
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the other side. Both of these will be out, the
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: public will buy what it wants, but I need to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: get it heard. And what was happening in starting in
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: San Francisco, Uh there was FM radio for the kinds
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: of music we were recording. And uh so I knew
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: that if I could get the FM stations to begin
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to back it, their A M counterparts would be forced
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: to putting it on the air sooner or later. And
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: that's what happened. Uh. It went on the air in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles the same time were they were having the
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven rock festival Monterey Pop Monterey Pop, and
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: they were all over the radio. They had not been invited,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Blood had been invited, but it turned it down. But
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: whenever you turned on the radio and everybody with nuts,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: why aren't the doors here? They've got the hottest song
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: in California. And it moved slowly across the country. It
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: by the time it was not playing in Los Angeles,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: it was number one in New York. And in June
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty seven, one of my people came and
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: said to me, your number one next week would light
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: my fire nationwide. I cried, was that your first number one?
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: That was my first really charted. I never had a
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: chart single before. It was my watch stopped. My watch stops.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: So I later put the watch aside and bought an
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: expensive watch the next day, and that that that we
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: had had a number one. Considering what we had started from,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: which was the smallest inkling of an idea, and how
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: it had grown mostly because we were We were straight
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: with everybody. We had a good reputation. The DJs would
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: come to the office in Los Angeles, what would they
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: pick up? They weren't picking up the rock records. They
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: were picking up the none such records. They had amazing
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: taste and we were very close to them, and we
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: didn't ask for favors. If it wasn't right for them,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: it wasn't right for them, and they shouldn't play it.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: But we started with the doors and then we grew
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: from that. Okay, Uh, did you get a piece of
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the publishing on these acts? Yes, I had of the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: publishing they had. When the contract was over and I
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to make one more album, the album that was
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: to become l a Woman. I had a hunch Jim
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: was going to go off to France. I didn't think
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the group was going to stay together after that I
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: didn't know that he was going to die, but I said,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: there is one more album to be had. And one
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: of the negotiating points from the lawyer, who said he's
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: not going to give this up, was that I give
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: up my of the publishing, which I said, we're not publishers.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: They can have it, no problem. That's the all the deal.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And we had the opportunity to do the sixth studio album,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: which I think is right up there with their first
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: is the best. But starting with that sixth album, uh,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: they'd done Morrison Hotel but for which in retrospect is
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: legendary with Rhodehouse Blues and so many other songs Piece Frog,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite as successful financially as what came before.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: So they make a record l a Woman, and they
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: fired Paul Rothchild and they make it themselves. Aren't you afraid? No,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that he was on that record. He was not fired,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: he quit, which is a very interesting story. We knew
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: we were going to make a sixth album, so we're
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: talking about what to do. The Doors start writing some
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: material and Rothchild goes, here's here's it and says, I
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: think it's awful. I don't want any part of it.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I don't want to produce this. I had somebody in
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: back in my mind to produce it, so I said, okay, sorry,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: thank you for everything you've done. Will remain friends, and
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: we did very close friends. We worked together on projects
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: later on when he couldn't get work and I had
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: owned yet another label. But anyway, I didn't hear the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: material for l a woman. I said to Bruce Botaniic,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: you can produce this, who is traditionally an engineer. Yeah,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: he's basically an engineer, but he had produced a great
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: deal of what became one of the great albums of
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: all time, the Love Forever Changes Album, which is just
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: so special. I knew he could do it, and he
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: did it very, very cleverly, and he got them back
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: in and I said, I think we need we need
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: some richer instrumentation. This is not a rock record anymore.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: This is a record from a point in time. So
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: let's do what we think we should do. And there
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was a song that I thought could be orchestrated, and
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that's what we did. And it opens up the record. Uh,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: and you have this grand, welcoming song that just overwhelms you.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: And then the rest of the record is what we
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: intended it to be. We understood what was happening. It
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: became the record which every time I I cried because
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I loved it so much. Uh, getting a record that
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: you hear sometimes for the first time, and I was
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: not allowed to hear this record until it was done.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: We're talking forever changes, right, yeah, And but when I
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: heard it, I knew it was there. I knew the
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: sequencing was wrong. I reserved the sequencing for myself and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I would listen to any good argument, and sometimes I
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: would make changes if they were minor. But I knew
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: how to I knew how to sequence albums. I knew
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: about the keys. I knew about the mood structure, what
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: you want to do at the end of the first
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: side to get him to turn to the to the
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: second side. All of that stuff was inherent in me,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: and so I took a crack at it, and they
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: would say we like it or we don't like it,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: and maybe make a change or two. But that worked.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I was the final word. But I was not arrogant.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I was this is what I really believe in. Give
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it free, give it careful, listen, and I could pick
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: out the songs that we're going to happen with the Doors.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: L A woman was with a song that was going
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: to happen. It was destined, and I knew it was
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: worth giving up the publishing so I could get this album,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: which was a statement, now we're not going to be
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: any more Doors albums. We did do a gym, a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: gym album, his poetry album, and that's another story. So
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: that happened, and all of the songs hold up. The
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: sound effects that are used on the opening and closed
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: are found the sound effects library. So they got on
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that record the Thunderstorm, it's all very much in the
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: distance and very polite, and then it's writers on the Storm.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: What a wonderful song that Hey, every day it rains
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: in l A, they play it. Let's just let's go
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: back to the Butterfield Blues Band. Why did not not
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: break bigger than it did? Very influential, but not a
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: huge sales success. They didn't have any singles hits without
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: a single. It's very very tough. I mean it's possible,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: look at but Dylan had singles. They had a strong
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: loyal group and their records did very well. And the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: double records that that came out of the of the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: folk festival. Was was just incredibly successful. This is after
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the festival and things start falling apart. They had played
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: with with Dylan on stage. A couple of them had
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: played with Dylan on stage, but they were What happened
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: with them is that other artists would say, well, you
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: really worked and stayed with Butterfield even though they don't
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: have any hits. We're willing to take a chance with you.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And what about Mike Bloomfield, what can you tell us
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: about him? Who's in the Butterfield Blues. He he wasn't
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the drugs so valuely he didn't know whether it was
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: going to show up or not. The story the album.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Rothschild made the album and after we had ten thousand
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: of them ready to go, they were in their sleeves.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: He said, I didn't get it. I said, what do
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: you mean you didn't get it? We were flying up
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: to see Tom Rush and we're in my airplane and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: I just gently lowered the nose of the airplane and
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: picked up speed, and he saw we were heading for
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the ground. I said, what do you mean? He said,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I just didn't get it, And I said, convinced me.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And he talked for a few minutes with such passion.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I straightened the airplane back up and I kept some
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: of the records and I trashed the rest, kept the covers,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: and then we went out and we did it three
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: times more and he got what he thought was the
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: record and it it was excellent. What it lacked with
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: some of the passion that was in the first album.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Years later, I got the first album re released on Rhino.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: When when I heard it that this is I got
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: flu mixed. I shouldn't have done it, but it all
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: worked out and I got the first record out and
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: it was wonderful, and even Rothschild said, you know, maybe
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I overdid it. And that was that. Okay. What about
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Tim Buckley? Tim Buckley is comes in the mail. His
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: manager sends me an ascertate of He said, this is
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: someone who sings, and I think you should listen to it,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: and it's I take him in the order in which
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: they come in and it flows to the surface. Three
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: days later and I hear Tim Buckley and I am
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: absolutely knocked out. He's doing the wrong material, But the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: voice is there, and what can be done with that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: voice if we figure out what's going to fit that voice?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And so I signed him, put together proper team. We
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: did the first album. I didn't think we hit it
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: with a first album. Then we did the second album,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and that's when we got it. The album was perfect,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: happy sad with Buzzing Fly and all those other tracks. Yeah, yeah,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: it was what I was looking for. And suddenly he
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: broke wide open and it was wonderful to see happen.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: But there was a point when I knew he was
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: going to go downhill. He felt that his audiences owned him,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: and that put him in a very depressive state, and
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: so he became more cautious and more cautious, and then
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: he stopped playing all together, which was a shame because
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think his audiences were trying to do that.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: He was into drugs a lot. We made a fourth album.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't think it was very good, but I released
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: it because I thought it was the right thing to do.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: As time went over, I realized it was a much
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: better album that I thought it was, and I, uh so,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: I was happy I did that. I'm always trying to
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: stay in congruence with the artist, to feel what they feel,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: and if we have a problem, we just figure it out,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: sit it out, talk it out or bargain it out.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: I mean I've I've had some strange things happen with
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: artists and groups like what well, Arthur Lee in Love.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I had a problem on the second album. He said,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I don't have to record for you under my contract.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: I was a minor when I signed the contract that
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you would not believe. This guy was under eighteen years old.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: And he said, I'm just gonna go find a better deal.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: And his lawyer was a very good guy, and he
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: said I didn't know anything about this, and I said, look,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: I absolutely trust you. I need only one thing from you.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I need you to get me in the room with
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: him when he's in a calm state. So uh, that happened.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: And he said, well, I think AUTO have ten percent
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: for everybody that's in the band, and he said it's
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: going to be nine people. So I want we sit
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: down and we talk and he realizes that he's over
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: he's over pushing it, and so I increased the advances
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: and I increased the royalties and then Paul Rothschild does
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: the second album, which is not a good album. It
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: was experimental, but it wasn't the album I expected. And
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: then we started working toward a third album. I took
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Rothchild off it and said to Botanick, you get along
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: with him, Why don't you guys try to put the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: album together? And they did. Bruce brought in a lot
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: of other musicians. We brought in an arranger for the
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: opening song. That album was done, and then I worked
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: through it with him and we made some changes and
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: I got the sequencing right, and then we came out
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: with the album and that became a hit as an album,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: but not with any singles. Would you ever tell any
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: of your acts once the record was delivered that you
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: were not going to put it out as is, or
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: that they needed to record a single. Uh No. I
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to get the singles from the album in some
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: form that it would promote the album, because that's where
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: their income wasn't It was true of me as well.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: The singles were the calling cards for the albums. The
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: singles on Light My Fire did remarkably well for the album.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the album was selling over a million and a
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: half records. But did you ever say the album isn't done,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: you need one more song? Oh yeah? And what would
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the ox say the well? Judy Collins as an example,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: I let Judy and her producer, who was a staff member,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: do the do the fifth album on her own. And
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: then they played the album for me and it was good,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: but it didn't stand out. It was lacking a certain feeling.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel she was as passionately in the materials
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: as I could wish her. But I had to show
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: that passion someplace on the album. So I said, uh,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: we can't release what we have. We need to go
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: out and look for more. And she said, you know
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: how much trouble I've had. And I said, Judy, I know,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm seeming like I don't care about the album,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: but I really do. It just don't think it's finished yet,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: So see if you can find some more songs. And uh.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Then I didn't hear from her. I figured, well, I'm
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: on the don't call thing. And then three weeks later
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: I got a call and she said, you won't believe it.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I met this wonderful poet who speaks French from Canada
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and he writes these glorious songs and I have got
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: such and such and such and such, and she things
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: them over the phone for me, and you know who
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: that was. Of course, let her call it dude, what's
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the story of both sides? Now that we that we
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: put it out because we thought it was a single,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: there's no story behind it. How did you actually find
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: and signed Judy Collins? Uh? I found Judy Collins singing
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: in a club downtown and Columbia was looking at them
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: as well. I saw enough material that I knew we
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: had a starter album. I never thought that an artist
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: has to hit with The first album will build up,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: we'll learn, we'll do better, and maybe around the third
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: album we'll hit it. But we'll do these things right
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: and with honor. And we all listened to each other,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and that's what happened. That's how we would do these things.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: And then somebody, somebody would come up with an idea,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: and Leonard Cone was an amazing choice. You put his
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: two songs in the album, and suddenly the glue flowed
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: throughout the record. You had him exactly precisely placed as
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: to where you wanted them to be. When you heard
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: it that way, then you knew you had an album.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: I was loath to release anything that I didn't believe
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: was going to be good for the artists. If it
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: was not going to be good for the artist, that
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to be good for me. And the artists
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: were really very good in trusting me about this. If
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I said no, they'd grumble a lot, but it always
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: worked out, and then they would always remember that and
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: they would tell that story to other artists. Though the
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: artist at a lecture were very were very chummy. Okay,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: how do you end up with Bread, which is seemingly
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: a different kind of music than the rest of electra? Yeah?
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: How did I? How did I get Bread? That? You're
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: very astute, because that was everybody said, that was so
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: different from what you were doing When I had Trouble
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: with Love on the second album. Their lawyers said to me,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: you handled it very well. If anything crosses my desk
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: that I think might be good for you, I'll give
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: you the first shot. And I got a call saying
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: he had this group called Bread, and so and so
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and so and so was in it. And I knew
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: some of the names, David Gates, I knew from his
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: other recordings, and I said, I'd love to hear something.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Are they available to go to our studio? We by
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: that time, I had built a studio in California in
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: the studio was available, and they went over that day
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and they recorded four or five songs and the song
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: was in the album or not the album, but the
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: disc was delivered to me the next day and I
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: listened to the songs, and yes they were popular, they
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: were not what intellectual, but they were beautiful. And how
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: hard is it to write a simple song? You write
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: a song like if? When I heard that, I cried.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: I cried a lot and when I'm listening to music,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: because it just gets inside me so quickly. And I said,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: I'm going to make an offer. And I made an
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: offer and he called me back and he said the
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: boys accepted it. I said, we're in business. Let's get
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: started working on an album. And they made the first
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: album out at our studios and the album was quite wonderful,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: but it got put out the at the wrong time.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Crosby Stilton Nash came out and that totally wiped any
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: attention anybody was going to pay to them. It was
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: bread just was gone. So I said, we lost the
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: first album. We're never going to get it back. But
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Crosby Till the Nash aren't gonna last forever start writing.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: And they started writing and they were in the studio
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: and I went into the studios and I would listen,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and one day I said to uh them, what's that
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: fourth track and they said it's Oh, it's called if
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: and it's I said, let me hear it, because I
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: think that that's got hit single capability. Now I never
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: pick hit singles in my life. If they happened, they
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: happened because they were part of something else. But I
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: listened to it again and I said, that's the single,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: and we came out with it, and that was the single.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: And suddenly all those bread records and everyone that came
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: after went platinum very quickly because they wrote they wrote
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: simple songs. These were guys who came in with their
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: briefcases in the morning record from nine to twelve, had lunch,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: finished at five, picked up the briefcases and went home.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Now nobody was using the studio between nine and six.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: They were all coming in at eight o'clock at night
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: to use it all night. So these guys were perfect
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: and we got along very well with him. Except there
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: was a part of their contract I didn't know about.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Their contracts said that if any band, any member of
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the band left the band, the band was dissolved and
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: the drummer left the band, and I got a call
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: in from the lawyer about this and I said to him,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: give me his phone number. I said, I have an
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: idea and let me go try it out. So I
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: went up to see him and he gave me all
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: the reasons and not giving him enough of the money,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: and so and so and so and so, and I said, look,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: you can wreck the group or you can make some
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: real money. He said, how I said, I will pay
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: you your royalty, whether you're on the album or not,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: so you will collect on every album they sell, even
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: if you're not on it. Now, that was about one
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: and three quarter percent, which which I could easily afford.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: It was going to be about seven cents an album,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: but it was really big money down the line. So
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: by doing that I got him to sign off on
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: it and we kept the band alive. And did he
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: play on the record. Nope. I didn't want to see him.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: But he got paid anyway. And was that the was
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: that the last Bred record? No, no, no, that was
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the second Bread record, which was the hit. They did
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: about five or six of them. Okay, So he did
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: he get paid on every record thereafter? He got paid
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: on every record thereafter. So why do these bands after
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: they have success, why did they break up? Internal stuff?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Usually they don't think they want half of their songs
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: on the album because the writers were really the guitarist
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: and David. Sooner or later, it's just going to get
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: to the point where nobody's gonna want to play with
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: anybody anymore. We had five, I think albums with them. Uh.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: I thought that if it's going to break up, it's
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: going to break up. We've got the best of what
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: they have, and so we'll just move on. But trying
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: to save trying to save a contract. Uh, it was
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: something that I was very conscious of. I didn't want
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: to see bands split up, and I was willing to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: pay extra to keep the bands together. Do you remember
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: any other stories but like that. Nope. But there are
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: always stories of me going and quieting people down and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: getting them back on track and getting them to talk
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: to talk together again. Uh. I mean the artists that
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I worked with, we're wonderful. Harry Chapman was terrific. When
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: you go through the list of artists we had. While
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: we had Bread, we had the Stooges just developing. We
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: had Carly signed Man who was breaking out. We were
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: yet to get Queen. We had the Doors who were
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: continuing to make records. We had Tim Buckley, and we
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: had enough going two to do well. As we were
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: looking for new artists. New artists would come up just
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: when we needed them. Harry Chapin would come up a
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: year and a half after Carly Simon. That was a
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: hard That was a hard contract to get, a really
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: hard contract again, But the Carly Simon contract, Oh, Carly
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Simon was easy. She always wanted to be on an
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: electric She thought of a lecture in book terms, because
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: she was the daughter of the of the partner who
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: ran Simon and Sister publishing. So she said, well, Electra
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: reminds me of a good publishing company that watches its roster. Uh.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: And she was very easy to work with, ah, and
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: she would listen to two ideas that I had. At
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: first I wasn't sure she was a writer, but then
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: but then she became a writer. And when I told
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: her we needed a single from the first album to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: move that forward, and I always thought, I always heard
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: that's the way it should be. Was the single. It's
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: a tongue twister of a title for a DJ, but
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: it opens light. No other single view have heard simple
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: piano notes and then it goes into this song which
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: women will understand. Men won't get it, but I knew
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: the women would understand. And my wife, my former wife,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: told me that she heard this on the radio and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: she saw cars pulling over to the side of the road.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: There were other ladies wanting to hear that song, and
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: it broke her out big. Because we're willing to be daring,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: and because I was dead sure that was the song. Okay,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: So why was it so hard to get Harry Chapin?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Because I was running into Columbia again. Columbia would go
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: against me on an act sometime, I think simply because
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Clive liked to be in uh jousting with me. We
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: were we were friendly, We were definitely friendly. I had
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: been recommended to seek uh Harry Chapin. I went down
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to see him playing at the village gate. I thought
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: there was a band there that his inclusion of a
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: cello player I thought was brilliant because that permitted us
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: to get a different kind of song into his repertoire. Um.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: So I made an offer. And then when Clive heard
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: that I made an offer, he made an offer that
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: was much bigger than ours, and sat down and showed
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: them what their sales would be. His sales would be
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: someplace less than deal bit more than so and so uh,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: And he decided to sign with A Clive and I
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: had to go to California, and he said. He came
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: out to see me at the airport. He said, I
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: have to tell you this. I'm gonna go with with Columbia.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And I said, Clive is good, We're better, but I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: wish you well. And it ate away at me the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: entire flight out to California, and it ate away at
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: me all week. And then I found out that the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: numbers Clive had showed were numbers that they showed artists
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: on an inflated basis, or at least that's what I
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: was told. So I was revitalized. I never said it.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: I never told him that part of the story, but
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I gave him a ring and said, I'm coming in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: on Sunday and I'll be at your door at six
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: seven in the morning, and I'm not going away until
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: you and I have a deal. You belong with Electra.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: I understand what you're doing. I love the way you've
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: arranged the material. I love how you can write a
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: song quickly. I like the way the band unites in
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: their instrumentation. So I'll be there and I'm going to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: bang on the door. And I was there, and I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: banged on the door, and we made a tough deal,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: made a deal and money far more than I expected
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: of that. I think a dollar advance. Um. But uh.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: I then said, you know, I haven't produced a record
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: in a long time. I'd love to produce this record.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: So I'll produce the record with you, will work it out,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: we'll finish the record. I'll do my sequencing for which
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: I am famed for, and then we'll talk about and
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: if we don't have something right, we're gonna go fix it.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: That record is not going out with me as producer
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: unless I know it is perfect. So he said, I
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: can't beat your offer, but we've got to take our
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: family with us. I said, I'll get a company yet,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: because we were part of of of what was then
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: UH Warner Warner Communications, and so I got them to
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: give me the plane and the dogs and everybody got
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: on and everything happened, and we were in the studio
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: for three weeks and we did the album, and then
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: we did the mix, and then I lived with it,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and then when I thought we had it, Harry agreed
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: to everything that I had done, and we came out
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: with it, and I made him the same promise, I
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: won't issue any album the same month yours comes out,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: because Clive can't do that. He's got fifty records. He's
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: got to get out that month. And I'm taking advantage
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: of what he can do, which I do on purpose,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: but I wear them down and Harry, he sort of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: pulls himself together and Uh, calls Clive and says, I've
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: got to go with the lecture. And he went with
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the lecture, and Clive said, Jack will do right by you.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: So all was peaced. We fought it out and the
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: rest worked exactly as we thought it was going to work.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: But going back to that first album, the track, of
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: course is Taxi, but it's the better part of seven
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: minutes long. Yeah. Uh, we didn't care. We didn't. I
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: don't recall that we made a version of that, but
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: FM radio would play that like crazy, and AM would
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: pick it up. It happened, and the album happened because
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: we were within them eight weeks, we were a quarter
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: of a million albums sold. Yeah, and then I would
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: work with them on. What I like to do was
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: had people come over to a house I had in
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the country, just from the weekends, and we would record everything,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: very simple, and I would just sit and listen to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: the songs and study of the songs and get myself
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: into the songs. And if I thought we had it,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: we'd go into the studio. If I thought we didn't
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: have it, we might go into the studio anyway, because
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: when everybody was eating lunch, Harry was sitting in the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: corner writing more songs. He was wonderful to work with.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: How how does Richard Perry end up getting hooked up
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: with Carly Simon? Because that was my idea. After we
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: had a very good selling record from Carly, we needed
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: a hit single and I heard one, and I knew
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: it needed an experienced producer. So I called his lawyer,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: who didn't particularly like me. He had been the doors
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: lawyer who said to the doors, Jack will never do this.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: And then Jack did it, and he was embarrassed by it,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: but he said, that's a good that's a good choice.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: She's right for this, and so that that happened. It
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: was very easy. It was an off the wall choice.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: From but I thought about it very carefully. I would
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: go through whatever publication I could go through. If a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: producer was listed, I wanted to know who that was,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and I had a list of them together with knowing
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: the songs that they had recorded, like go check on,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and I had those records on file. So I just
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: thought he was right. She needed somebody tough and authoritative
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: because she didn't like making decisions much herself. But she
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: was very very good to work with, and they both
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: were good to work where there were some there were
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: some fights and stuff going on, but it all got settled. Now,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: she famously has stage fright and doesn't go on the road.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: To what degree did that affect you in terms of
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: thinking of signing her and how to break records? Well,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: we didn't know that that was part of her her
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: disease that she did that she couldn't perform, and I
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: found out after the contract was signed. So I said,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: we're just going to have to get her perform to perform,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: because I need to see what the problem is. We
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: arranged to have her perform in West Hollywood at a
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: club everybody went to and told her she had to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: do it. Well, she said, I'll only do it if
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: I can get ahold of these these band leaders whom
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: she knew were committed to be playing with somebody else.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: It turns out that somebody else was not, uh, was
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: not going to do the recording at that time. So
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: we said they're all available. She said, then I'm going
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: to have to do it. We had someone who just
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: actually was with her all of the time, and when
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: she came in she was nervous on the stage, but
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: after thirty seconds she was in command of the room,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: and you saw the nervousness, but she saw the love
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: of it, the appreciation she got. She could suck it
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: out of those people there and was a triumph. But
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: then she proceeded not to go on the road. Yes, uh,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't. She did not go on the road very much.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: But she did go on the road for big festivals,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: but did not go on the road playing clubs. It's
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: a big difference because they have a big festival. You're
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: in command of that festival a lot of people. And
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: she learned that she would get over whatever negative feelings
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: she had in the first thirty seconds of performance. And
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: she was always a pleasure to work with. She never
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: argued with me about anything, and she had very good management.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: It was a non sexual love affair. It was we
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: really cared deeply for each other, and I watched out
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: for her and she watched out for me. It was
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: an excellent relationship. So tell us the story of signing
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Queen Ah. It's an interesting story. I had a call
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: from Trident Studios saying that they had been recording a
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: lot of artists and they thought they wanted their own
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: record label. Uh. And they were sending some tapes of
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: these artists. They were ten and all over with a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: with the person who was going to be the manager
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: of this enterprise. The representative tried and came and he
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: put ten albums on my desk. By albums, I mean
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: ten tape boxes of ten different groups. And he said,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: this is how we want to start. We want you
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: to do for us what you did for a lecture,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: to go from nothing and take us someplace and we
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: have all this wonderful music. Uh. Now I knew I
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to do that. And I knew it because
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: I knew how those deals work. You put up all
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: the money, meaning elector puts up all the money. You
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: take your time away from your artists because your people
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: are doing stuff on this new label and you put
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: up all the money and you get half the profits.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Now that's dumb to begin with, but I figured I'll
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: listen to some of the stuff. So I listened to
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: a couple of tracks of about three or four different albums,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: and then I see this thing with Queen, and I
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: listened to a whole side and there was something there.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: I heard one or two singles. I don't remember what
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: they were. Keep Yourself Alive. Yeah, well that's for sure.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: I just had a feeling that there was more to
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: this band. So when he came back the next day,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: I said, look, I can't do that. I can't do
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: for my artists what I want to do for my
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: artists if I'm handling a label for somebody else. He said, yeah,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I can understand. I thought you'd come up with that.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: I said, however, there is one group there, Queen, that
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: I think is very promising. I heard two songs that
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: I was happy with, and I said, it only takes
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: one or two songs to get a start in America.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: I said, the album is not what i'd like it
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: to be for a first album, but I know it's
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: coming out in England, and there's nothing I can do
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: about that. But I would like to distribute and handle
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Queen in America, but handled them as a label. We
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: we would be their label, not Trident, and we would
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: work together and you would be the manager. He said, well,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: you know the Columbia is interested, And I said, I
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: know that Columbia is interested. And I'll tell you what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I'm going to come on over and
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: see the band and talk to them for a while.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: When I saw them perform on stage, just as sort
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: of an audition stage, they didn't move, talk about dance.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: They were frozen, stiff, and I remember writing a three
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: page letter to them, which I wish I still had,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: about things that I thought they could do to improve
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: their performance. Little that I know that we were going
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: to have this explosion of Freddie Mercury. Uh. But then
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: I decided to make you comfortable. I'm going to send
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: over every week one of our other key people, so uh,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: person who who did radio, who did normal publicity, anybody
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: that was material and they're moving forward. Went over and
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: spent three or four days with them, and I had
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: him pretty electra oriented, and I I said to the manager. Well,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to make an offer. He said, well, we
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: haven't heard from Clive Davis yet. I said, how long
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: does it take for Clive Davis to make an offer?
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: He said, we don't know what's happening. And I sat
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: in with a meeting with them and somebody said something stupid.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: So I have a little bit more orientation towards you now.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: So I said, you have you seen the contract from
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: Columbia And he said no. I said, you better get
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: out to magnifying glass because it's going to be thirty
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: pages and someplace on page seventeen, it's going to tell
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: you what you get. I said, our contracts are different.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: They're much simpler. And our contracts indeed were Our contract
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: was a letter. It started as a letter. It said
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: how much we wanted them on the label, why we
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: wanted them, the advances they would get, the royalty, they
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: would get, the territories we had. At the beginning, it
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: was just North America. It ended up that we had
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world outside of Europe. But then
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: it was accompanied by something called the small print, and
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: it had all of the things that the big companies
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: have in their contracts, and not all but many of them,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: except they were written so simply and with with humor
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: that people liked reading them. And I never had any
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: lawyer called me and asked for any change from that
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: contract except the modification of one clause. The clause was
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: record company agrees to treat artists with love and affection
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: artists in terms agreed to treat record label people with
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: a modicum of respect. And that was it. But I
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: didn't send the contract off yet. I said, I want
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: to put myself in their shoes. What is Columbia not
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: going to do that I can do. And since the
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: contract was only a page and a half letter which
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: had all the money stuff in it, and four pages
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: folding of of small print, and we called it the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: small print, I said, I'm going to write a check
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: for twenty dollars and sign it. Anybody's going to tell
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: me not to do this, but I'm going to do it.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: So I didn't tell anybody, and I sent it and
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: they haven't heard from Clive, and here's twenty five dollars
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: sitting in front of them. When they're desperate, they deposit
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: the check. We have the artist. And then the first album,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Very Good. I bought it when it came out, but
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: you don't really have any success till the second album,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: and then the third album goes wild. The third album
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: goes wild. But I believed in them now. I left
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: after the second album. But and there were some clean
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: complaints from David Geffen about the group, And I said,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: have you ever had any experience where the first album
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: is promising, the second doesn't make it because they're not
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: sure of where they are. But by the third album
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: they maybe wait for the third album and uh, the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: third album, was it? Okay? Just going to one more act?
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Tell us the story of the Stooges. The Stooges. Ah, yes,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: the Stooges. Now you've picked all the right groups in this.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: I commend you on getting everything that I prepared for.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: I had somebody working for me called Danny Fields. Danny's
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: job was to go to the clubs at night, sit around,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: take the temperature of what was happening, all that stuff
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: that was essential, and come back to me with the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: information because I was going to get my good night's sleep.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: But if he wanted to start his day at eleven
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: o'clock at night, it was okay with me. He could
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: come in late in the afternoon, which is exactly what happened.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: And he tells me about this group he had seen
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: because I had let him go to Detroit to check
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: out the m C five, and he said there was
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: this other band performing with them, and the m C
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: five say that if we're going to sign them, we
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: got to sign these guys. I said, well, get a
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: can set, get something on what they do and who
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: they are. And I heard nothing. I mean, it just
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: was a disaster. But I said, I trust you. If
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: you think they're that going to be that good, then
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: let's take a chance. I'll sign the contract, which called
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: for like fifteen thousand. Now it was much much less
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: than that. It was five thousand dollar advance. And you know,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: the worst that can happen is they get the five
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars and I walk away. But they came into
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: New York and they came and loaded, and they had nothing.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: I couldn't hear a thing, and so I said, to them,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, you're still elector artist. Go
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: get clean and come back. And they came back a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: month later and they had nothing to play for me.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: I said, where are you going to get the material?
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: I said, oh, we're going to write it tonight. So
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: I said okay, and they did. So I had a
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: produced album and when they played it back for me,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: the this, this, the tension and the strength weren't quite there.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: It was on the corner of it, but not not inside.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: So I said, give me the master tapes and the
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: master mixes, and they were eight track, and so I went.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: And this is in New York, where we didn't have
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: a studio, but we had very good listen rooms. I
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: went into the main listening room eight track, turn them
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: all up as loud as I could go. I pinned
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: every every microphone, and my god, there it was. So
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: we came out with the album not knowing what to expect.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I was told that if I released this album, I
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: was ruining my record company. I said, I don't think so,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: but you never know how these things are gonna work out.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: And you know that Danny has going to knock himself
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: out trying to promote them, and so yeah, let's go
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: for it. And we did, and it started and it
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: got picked up lightly, but it was on the second
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: album where it really took hold. And after that I
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: was no longer at the company, and so they didn't
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: have me there, and they went and signed elsewhere. Yeah,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: they went with raw power with Columbia. Tell us the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: story of none such St. John's College. Again. I know
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: you've asked every question that I hoped you'd ask. The
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: stuff that was important to me, Not the stuff that's
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: gonna look glorious to anybody else, but the stuff I
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: lived through. My friend Adam Pinsker and I used to
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: buy records together. Twelve inh LPs were five dollars and uh,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: in order to buy two, we each had to buy
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: a half. And you know, why do they have to
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: be this expensive? I love baroque music? Why can't I
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: get it to anyway? I forget, totally forget about it. Meanwhile. St.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: John's College is giving me an education in baroque and
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: folk music, and I'm sitting in a delicate testin before
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: we had our own distribution, waiting for my New York distributor,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: and noticed that there's a baroque concert happening in the
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: small theater next to Carnegie Hall. So I say to myself,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I get there's no tablecloth, it's just Butcher's paper. So
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I start figuring out can I have a record? It
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: sells for the same price as the quality paperback that
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: is profitable. And do I know whether I have the material?
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: I knew I had the material, and by that I
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: meant I had been been collecting magazines over the years
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: UH from English, French and German German publishers, which would
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: list all of their serious music, and this music that
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: I love so much. If they had four stars, I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: would make a circle. And I had a whole stack
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: of this information. So I knew these companies were in
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: the Europe but not able to get released in the
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: United States. And what if I make a release engine
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: for this? What am I going to call it? I had?
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: I thought of publishing company that went out of business
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: decades ago in England called none Such and said, there's
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: no possibility that this is gonna work, but I'm going
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: to give it a shot. We're gonna call it None Such.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: And so I figure out that you can actually make
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: a record, and if you sold it, you would sell
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: it UH at about the two dollar and fifty cent
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: record would go out of US at about a dollar
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: fifty and the rest was the distributor which wasn't US UH,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and the dealer, so it would cost US ninety and
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: we could make sixty cents an album, and but I
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: knew we had to come out ten at a time.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: So I had the first ten albums ready ready to go,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: including a two two records set. UH. That was critical,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: and my sales manager went to the key stores in
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: major markets and talked to them and said, we want
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: to do this. We want to sell it at to fifty.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: They say it's a bastard price. It's got to be
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: to and I said, to strikes, it hits at the
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: quality of this, it's just another multiple. No, we're going
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: to do it at the price of a quality paperback
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: and that's how we're going to advertise it, which is
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: what we did. And we had ten records ready to go,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: which I had gotten for many people overseas. We started
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: the project in November, and on February the following year,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: nine sixty four, we released the first ten LPs. Now
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: I had ten LPs and ten LPs and ten LPs
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: already picked out and in the works going beyond that.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: I committed about sixty to seventy thousand dollars of company
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: money to test this project out. UH. Fortunately I had
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: a young man from the Even Dozen jug band who
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: played kazoo, who knew this music cold, and was very
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: helpful in writing and writing record notes. And we came
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: out with the first ten records, and three weeks later
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: we hadn't sold any and little nervousness begins to set in,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly they're disappearing. They're all selling off the shelves.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: We have to make more. Nobody are advertisements didn't take
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: a page. They took a page and a third and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: it said what we were doing. We were very good,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: very competently made records at the price as an equivalent paperback,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: and then we could come out with material. We came
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: out with ten records a month. We had nine records
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: out there doing phenomenally well before anybody else who had
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: all of the classical catalogs, like like Vanguard. Uh. They
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: they thought I was going to fall flat on my face.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: They knew about it beforehand because I told them about it,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: figuring that they might support it and come out with
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: their own stuff. So we were because I wanted to
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: create this price level, but they weren't for it. They said,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: now we got to get five. I said, you have to,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: but I don't have to because the music has already recorded,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: it's paid for. I just have to pay these guys
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: at ten percent royalty, and that's going to be a
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: lot more money. And they got nice advances and the
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: result was exactly what I hoped it would be. And
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: then I started playing with the idea, what else can
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: we do with none such it just can't be baroque music?
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: What else am I interested in? I was interested in
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: the very nascent beginnings of electronic music, and I ran
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: into some gentlemen who did a basically an instruction manual
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: with information is how you can do this yourself. So
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: I had electronic music. But then I wondered, you know,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: there's a there's got to be somebody out there recording
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: world music that we don't know about. And he walked
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: in the door about a month later. He had gone
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: to Sam Goodies and the interesting records to him were
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: our folk music record which were wide ranging. Uh, And
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: so he came in to see us and he had
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: all of this material, like music from the Morning of
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: the World, which was Gamalan music. And we signed him
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: up to do nothing but go out and record this
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: kind of music. We paid him to go out and record.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: We improved his equipment and he went out and for
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: the next eight years recorded music all over the world.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: This was what we would call world music. Yes, right,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: so it music from all kinds of odd places where
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: you never thought you'd heard anything from. And then you
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: would meet people later in life and who said your
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: music change in my life. I was listening to music
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: morning of the world. I just fell into it, realized
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: I wasn't happy here and went to live in Europe
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: or I went to live in Asia. The music affected
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: people's lives and ways I never expect and the covers
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: were superb because graphics were big on my list, and
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: I had the best art director extant and we were
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: off and none such today is still alive and doing
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: business and has this great history. I released only in
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: the music I life, and I know I was arrogant
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: in that, but I did release the Stooges. But I
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: had to love it, or had to see a reason
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: in it. And I was very, very lucky in the
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: opportunities that came to me, and in the opportunities I
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: see by either creating them or getting somebody to go
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: with me who was already out there and needed help.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: So how did you decide to sell the Warner Communications.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting story. This distribution was always a problem.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: You had every label going through independent distributors unless they
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: were Columbia Decca or r c A who had their
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: own controlled distribution. And you saw how much better that
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: was because they spoke with your voice. So I started
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: at about nineteen sixty six, I started bugging Ahmed, and
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: I started bugging Mo Washton, with whom I was very friendly,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: and Ahmed and I had gone to both the St. John's,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: so at least he would sit into what he thought
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: would be an intelligent idea, is that we have to
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: start our own distribution system. You have no idea how
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: much money is out there, and we do not have
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: control over the miss message in the product. I thought,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know when to use the word product, but
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a message we need to get out,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: and you only are going to get a message coherent
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: with what you want if their distribution is yours. You're
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: the ones who write the paychecks. And everybody said it
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: was a good idea, but they didn't have enough critical mass.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I said, you guys have got eight of it, and
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: my company is fifteen of it. My output doesn't it
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't compete with your your output. My output is my interest.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: So it broadens the sense of what this new distribution
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: can offer. And we finally decided to do it, and
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: within about four months it was done, and it was
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: a miracle. Suddenly we were the number one sellers. The
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Warner Music Group was just doing phenomenally well. We topped
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: the hundred million dollars our first year, which is what
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: I thought was the number we wanted to reach, and
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: then it went to a hundred and fifty or two.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: We were and our money was critical to the parent company,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: so they loved the idea. Steve Ross could look at
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: a wall of numbers and pick out the wrong one.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: I've seen him do it, but he recognized something that
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: compared to the film company was so important to him.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: His films required a lot of cash upfront. Our records didn't,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: but our payroll, which was our own distribution generating all
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: that cash which we weren't taking back, he took and
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: used it to finance pictures. So he had an automatic
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: functioning we get it here, we place it there, we
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: grow and it was a brilliant Uh. I didn't know
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: he felt this way until it happened but I thought
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: it was extremely smart of him and it was great
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: for us. And once I had that done, I knew
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: my key to freedom was eventual because I could once
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: it was up and running, Geffen merged his label with Electra.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: Great artists came with him. Everything was working, and that
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: happened in nine seventy, which was the thirtieth anniversary of Electra,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: and I served my my three years there. I ran
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: the company's got to new the other guys. We got
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: to new each other. And when I had an option
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: that needed to be picked up and it wasn't, someone
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: forgot about it or it got lost in the shuffle,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: and I waited politely, and then I sent him a
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: note since Steve rossa notes saying my option has not
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: been picked up, for which I am most grateful. You've
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: been wonderful. But I think it's time that I go
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: out on my own and do something that I dreamed
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: about for years. This movie, The Holiday with Carrie Grant
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: was just a fabulous movie, and it had left something
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: that I had promised I would do deep inside myself.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: And I got to do it. And when was done,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: and I had done all the explanation, I went back
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: to the people who had been good to me and
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: said I can do this job for you, and now
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: let me do it. Okay, come, okay, just to cover
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: though ultimately Warner Steve Ross bought all those three labels
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: though you know the Warner Music, the Atlanta Electra, so
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: that you actually sold Electra prior to the formation of
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: Warner of WIA the distribution company. How did you decide
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: to sell to Steve Ross? How did I decide to
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: sell it? It was an opportunity for me to get
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: out and to have and to have distribution we owned.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: They both were equal uh of equal importance to me.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: Knowing that I would have control and have an instrument
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: to work with, and that our records would be handled
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: the way we needed them to be handled was powerful
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: and the and the potential exit. I expected them to
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: pick up my contract and I've been five years instead
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: of three. But I was willing to do that. And
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: we made a tremendous amount of money on the way.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: So all I was doing was making my company more
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: productive better we could we could. We had an argument
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: that we could give distribution that was equal to or
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: better than Columbius. Did you in retrospect do you feel
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: the number, Steve Paige, you was fair. I mean the
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: ten million dollars that they gave me the sale of
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: the company. I had to work them up to get
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: him there. But it gave me freedom because the money
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: of that money was taxable, and capital gains tax were
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: between twenty five and thirty at that time. Uh and
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: I had shareholders. Thearadore Bickel had five percent, which was
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: now worth a half a million dollars, and my mother
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: had five percent. There goes a million, and there was
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: about a million dollars I was giving to the staff.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: I walked out with about four and a half million,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: which was not a lot, but it was a lot
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: back then. But I was free. I was able to
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: build a life for myself, and I had no idea
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: about how I was going to do it, but I
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: knew the company was in good hands and that the
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: artists were in good hands. Okay, I know you're a
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: student of the game. So what do you think of
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: the business and music today? Well, it's totally different, and
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: today it's different from six months ago. The music has
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: always been broadened by the technology. CDs were imperative to
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: our growth and sales, and in the year two thousand,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: our sales as record companies combined was about twenty four billion.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: Today it's about twenty and it may be less because
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: we're not all back on our home basis. Record making
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: has changed, Contracts have changed, the opportunities for people to
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: bypass record companies have changed. They can go up online themselves.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: They can hire people who were specialists in doing that,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: who can sell eight of a download that record company
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: labels don't have. I think the artists have far more control.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: I think that's okay because I think the artists who
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: are very concerned about the money, are very concerned that
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: we pay them fairly. We paid them exactly what they're
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: entitled to, and we have extraordinarily deep royalty statements which
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: they can go online and visualize. So I think there
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: are so many different ways that music gets across, and
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: I think all of these different ways are essential to mute,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: for music to grow. Actually, when you think about uh, Spotify,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: I remember conversation those of us who ran record companies
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: would have in the sixties, and the conversation went, boy,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: what we really need is a jukebox in the sky.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: But the problem was we had this great idea, but
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: We didn't know how to get it down to the people.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: The technology wasn't there yet, digital technology where punch cards
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: you stuck them in a machine. But we had the
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: idea that you had to get directly to the customer
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: and we would talk about a lot, but nothing could
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: happen because the technology simply wasn't in place. But it
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: is in place now. I think having a many different
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: opportunities for artists to do it themselves, to make it up,
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: to create distribution of their own, to be their own commander.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's there and I think that's good. Okay,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: this has been wonderful, Jack, Thanks so much for taking
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: time out of your day to talk to me. It's
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: a story I wanted to tell, but it's the story
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: I wanted to have stimulated by good questions. Well, thank
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: you so much. We got most of the story, Like
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: I could still dig deeper. We didn't cover rhinoceros and Aprica, Brandy.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: We didn't cover the original version of m C five
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: with that had to be edited after but we'll save
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: that for another time until next time. This is Bob
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: left Sets. Thank you, Jack. B