A Tribute To Jerry Weintraub Live

on Robertson where they had the Jerry Wine Trout special. Now, the fascinating thing about Jerry and a lot of time this is that the elite players is their icons, and you think, you know, you always are trying to go up the ladder. But he was so endearing, so human. The other thing is, as soon as you know, he started sharing details about his personal life, about his kids and this, and maybe it was only me, but he

always did that and we maintained a relationship. And the other thing I realized is he was the pro jenitor. People who were a little bit younger grew up with David Geffen being ruling and then Irving A's off. I realized Jerry did it first. If you know Irving, Irving loves to connect you with doctors and do all that stuff. That's what Jerry did. First, he says, you know, the first I wake up and I hook everybody up with the doctors and I do that. That was a real manager.

So we're I went through the exhibit. It was kind of weird because Jerry was so alive and to see the pictures was really kind of creepy. And if you lived through that era, you know what a tumultuous time it was. We were inventing it. That's one thing about the music business today. We're not inventing much. Certainly we were in turmoil for about twenty years with Napstur at all at all. But Jerry changed so many things and invented so many things, and certainly that was when music

drove the culture. I mean, I'm looking at the thing, so I was that that leads up a thing. Oh I couldn't get tickets to Wings over America. You just remember everything immediately. So I'm gonna jump right in. We'll introduce people as we go along. Now, Claire, how did you first hear of Jerry? Well, it was all the way back in the days when I was at the Spectrum, Okay, Spectrum and Philadelphi and phill it down. Now, the one thing about the Spectrum is legendary that the roof blew off.

Oh yes, and I had a dog and pony show all about how we were going to put it back together again by the Franklin Institue. Okay, so how did you hear it? Jerry? Well, you're always looking to put more events in your building, and Jerry was the one to know if you wanted to have the biggest stacks, right, So you remember what the first gig you did with Jerry was. I remember the nine seventy one gig with Elvis Presley. So what was that like? Bedlam? Absolute bedlam?

They had three different floors, the Bellevue Stratford Hotel and that kind of sort of how to propel us up? To get him up on this stage? And then why do I have fabulous to Okay? So they posted him up there. Now you have a long history running buildings, et cetera. How did you get in the business. Well, I was a pencil pusher. So I started at the Spectrum as a bookkeeper and then a few months I

became the business manager. And I went because in an arena, there is usually only one or two in each major city, and I was in the private arena so if I had to go somewhere else, I had to go to window their city. So I traveled around the country quite

a bit. So you were in Philly. You're obviously at a long tenure here in l A at the Forum, and what were some of the cities between between ip I went down to Orlando, Florida, and Bill Putnam, who owned the hockey team in Philadelphia, hired me to be the financial DP and we try to open something called Wild Kingdom. It never went and we sold a few

animals on the quarterhouse steps. And then I went to Cleveland, and in Cleveland was where I met Seal Bonifetti, and I took him out to the site it was, and I gave him my spield. This is where the trucks will go underneath, and this is where the stage entrance will be, and all of it. And sell pulled himself up to his full height and he said to me, this is a frigging mud hole. He said, you better book the municipal building for the same gates because it

will never get done. But it did get done. And although we thought we had all the traffic problems taken care of the opening night of Frank Sinatra and we had medalgons with an image of Frank for all the women. The traffic was so bad that in their long downs and their husbands in Texas, they pulled their cars over to the side of the state inter state and they walked the rest of the way. Okay, that's great. And then from Cleveland, l A. From Cleveland, I went to

l A. Okay, Bob, I got you over here. It's like, Okay, you're telling me a story in the green room. How you were fraternity brothers with Mike Ovits. Tell us how we get from there to work in with Jerry. We were roommates in college at UCSB and traveled down to Universal Studios that was hiring young people to work at the studio. So I started They're picking up papers, and then became a tour guide and eventually I was booking the Amphitheater. Okay, and how did you meet Jerry? Well?

The first season of the Amphitheater, we wanted as major acts as we could get, and one of those was John Denver. Jerry was managing John, and we had to convince people to not play the Greek. What was your what was your pitch? Well, the primary pitch was the throw of the theater was so much less than the Greek. If you were sitting in the cheap seats in the Greek,

you were way back there. If you were sitting in the cheap seats at the Amphitheater, which were six dollars and fifty cents for the prime seats six fifty and four fifty um, you'd be equal to where you are in the prime seats at the Greek. And we and we had a we had about a hundred more seats, so we could gross up a little bit more. I gotta tell you. Moving to l A, the Universally emphathet the worst thing they ever did was put the roof

on it, which I know they had to do. It was such an experience that Greek to this day is not close to what the Universally Emphathater was. Well yeah, I mean the roof was because the noise was going out in the community and they were getting a lot of grief. Actually, the first act that played the Amphitheater was a Grateful Dead. They they the heads of Universal said they wanted to make this a count of culture complex.

Who said that? Do you remember who that was? That was Wasserman yeah, but but but that it was John Denver, and it was the Carpenters and acts like that. But the opening act was a Grateful Dead and they had a curfew at eleven o'clock. And I don't know if you've ever been to a Dead concert, but they don't get off at eleven o'clock. So that did they stay on?

They stayed on and that was one of the reasons why they had to put the roof on because they couldn't keep the curfew and the community just went up in arms. Okay, your roommates with Ovid's do you have any idea he's going to have the arc that he does? No? I mean, Mike wanted to be a doctor. He really didn't have an interest in that business at the time. And are you still in contact with him somewhat? Our mothers,

our family was very very close. Okay, So once again, you're working at the universally PSI, how do you meet Jerry? So I meet I meet Jerry in booking John Denver. Jerry was incredible and he said, leave here and come to work for me. And I said, well, I have this commitment to Universal because they had put me through law school. And he said, well, when's that up, And

I said, well, let's happen three years. He said, uh, okay, Well he kept he kept pressing, and then he said, well, I'm moving out to California and I've just started with this fellow, Mickey Reuden. Because I told Jerry, I said, look, I'd like to do that. I'd like to have some experience practicing law. I want to practice law. He said, Okay, go meet this guy, Mickey Ruden, who he just does don't know. He was the fixer who had a reputation for, let's say, being on the wrong side. So Jerry I

just started working with Mickey. I went and interviewed with Mickey. Mickey, you interviewed. He smoked a cigar like Jerry did, Cuban cigars every day, and when the cigar was through, the interview was through. Yeah, So I started. I started working with Mickey and representing Jerry and and and then Jerry said, okay, now leave Mickey. Okay, just just to make this clear, you met him when you were just starting law school

and he waited three years. No. I I had finished law school and had a three year commitment to university. I see, but you played that out play that out and really and he because usually an opportunity if you don't take it now never returns. Well, they had paid for school. I'm talking about Jerry. Jerry. Jerry was great. Okay, now, Peter, you're an Englishman. How did you run into Jerry? Um? I met Jerry in September nineteen seventy one at the

Troubador when he had John Denver who was playing there. Uh. I represented an English band called the Moody Blues. Never heard of him, and uh, we'd been We've been touring, you know for a number of years. And let's go back because it happened to be a huge body blues fan. When did you get started with the Booty Blues? Wow? Um trying and to cut the story down. Um, I became friends. I met them at some clubs in London when they were playing. Denny Lane is in the group

where he's already gone. No, Denny Dan just left and they were starting their new band with John John Lodge and Justine Hayward. And Um they had a gig this one night a club they were It was an after show party for um a film that has been playing and UM they said, can you help us? Our road manager can't do it. I said, ye, what do you want? So they said, can you He'll give you his van and equipment. Can you bring it down to the gig and do it and then take it? So I said, okay,

no problem. So I took the equipment down, we unloaded it, played this club till four o'clock in the morning, and they said, look, you know we when he got fifteen pounds, so you know you can have it. I said no, no, no, no, no, I don't need it at this point. It's just fun, you know. So then Justin said to me, could you bring the equipment and the van to recordings to you tomorrow afternoon. So Jah, just tell me where to be

and I'll be there. So there's a deck of studios in West Hampstead and I turned up there and met there there the production manager, road manager. We unloaded the equipment and I thought that's it. I'm done. And then Justin turned around and said to me, would you like to stay and watch the session? So I said yeah, I've never never been a studio before, and so he said he said, we're putting nights down nights in what's at So I was like wow. So I mean I had been friends of him for a few months. It

wasn't just like a week or something. So um, they used the equipment. When they finished with the equipment, the road manager packed it up and he left and I stayed and I made tea, you know, and sandwiches, and we went on till three four o'clock in the morning.

And then they nights you know, they had finished it and they said, okay, we've got to get the recording executives in now from Decca and this this American guy, and they all came in and we're sitting there and they said, okay, play it, and we're all sitting in the studio and it was like bom and we we would start. Everybody at the and every everybody was stunned because it was actually a demonstration disc for Dan Ram for stereo, that's what it was made for. And so

we're sitting there and it was like wow. And then somebody in the band to turn around and said, Peter, can you go down the studio? I said yeah, yeah, sure, you know, I mean the way I better go. So I said, oh, oh go, you know, they said no, no, no, no, just just go down the studio. I went down the studio this layer. They said, Peter, come come up. I went up to the room and I said, uh, you want a job. I said what I said, you want to be our road manager. And there you have it.

Now you told me just be sorry. You just retired from road management within the last twelve months. Well, I keep trying. Yes, okay, so let's go back to the narrative. Sorry, you're at the Troubador and how do you meet and go to work for Jerry? Well, I didn't go to work for him then. I was. I was representing the Moodies. Then we've done quite a few tours in America and uh and in Europe, and we'd in those days of the sixties, you were screwed over more times than you knew.

You didn't get paid, they gave you half the money, they gave you a part, you know whatever. And the deals. This is where Jerry came. This is what Jerry was all about. When you do a deal with somebody like I. We did this one the last tour I did before Jerry. Um. I was because I wasn't a tour manager. I didn't I was a road manager. I didn't really know the whole science of what went on, and so we hired a guy, an American guy, to teach me on the

road what went on. And so we would come in near the end of this tour and we were going and playing four or five arenas and I'm talking about nineteen somewhere in seventies, seventy one, somewhere in there in that way back then. And this too manager guy who's teaching me turned around and said, now, I know you always want cash because you always gets good now and I know that these last three or four shows are huge. Said yeah, and he said there's there's too much cash.

You can't play with that. I said, well, how are we going to get paid? We're playing ten eleven thousand seat arenas. That's a lot of money, even in those days. So he said, look, this guy is good for it. Okay, Barry Faye, but you know, God God bless him, they stilly said if he was. So the last night becomes I'm expecting the money, the band, we're all expecting the money, and he says, no, come to my house, and we thought, here we go again, Bob due to his word. He

had a briefcase. He opened it and there was all the money on the deal sheet. When I looked at the deal sheet, he made as much money as we did, because that was the deals they did, you know. Okay, And so we'll get back to going back. We'll get back, Peter John. Now you still operate under the name Concerts West, which of course Jerry started, and you're promoting the Stones as we sit here. But you had a tenure in the early days. Tell us how you got to work

with Jerry Well. I started in one of the Concerts West offices. So by when I started, which was UM a lot of college concert promoters back then, and I was at Washington State University, and I was lucky because uh it was a pack eight at the time. Building had We had like a twelve thousand seat arena down in but Spokane, which was a major market north of US, only had like a ten thousand or not even that, seven thousand seats civic auditorium. So we got the bigger

shows because we had the bigger capacity. So that's how I got to know the Concerts West guys. And I actually got hired by a guy named Tom Hewlett. Everybody up here knows, and Tom was up in the Seattle office and UM brought me on and and uh, you know, you started hearing about this guy Jerry Wine troub down in Los Angeles because we were all up in Seattle, and he was you know, it was this It was just larger than life guy, It really was. I got there the year after Elvis had died, and that was

it was a pretty you know, turning point. I think somewhat in the company because that was such a big part of that company at the beginning. And but I was fortunate enough to be there when all the big tours were going on. So it was bad Companies and b g's and um uh God, Eric Clapton, uh, Dan Fogelberg, Boz Scags, Beach Boys, Chicago Queen. I mean, it was

like one company is doing all these tours. So but what's kind of what was kind of interesting is that his model, you know, he started that model really well. Explain to the audience with the model is the model is touring national touring or now what we do is international touring and that and see, the promoters were either raised in a local marketplace. You know, you had Avalon Attractions or Wolf Rust Miller in Los Angeles, and you had uh Bill Graham and San Francisco and Ron Delsner

and New Orc. But what Jerry did which was so unique was, um, he looked at his artists and said, you know, why can't we go out and be the promoter. We know you know how to sell our artists better than anybody else does. We used the Arenas, if anything, is our local partners because we figured they knew about the marketplace, they had great advertising deals. So it was always the Arenas place there advertising. But what was so unique about it is we did everything ourselves. We never

worked with local promoters. And we would go in and rent the building and find limo companies and higher caters and we would get our tickets from quick tick and you'd send them to a box office and they'd get sent out to record stores to sell and and you'd come in and you know when you you do it city after city after city, and it was it was just the manager and the concert company. So there was no agent. Well I don't know, Bob, what can I say about that? Um? Yeah, there was always there were

you ought to get into that. I mean it created a whole war in the entertainment business. Yeah, I mean, Bob could talk more about that, because we just looked at it and said, wait a bitute, what are we paying these people for? And and I I mean that was like Eric Clapton, the Moody Blues, every big act in the world at that time. And we when I started, we had more tours than we had people to go out and cover them. Remember we could hire Charlie Brusko

in Atlanta. You didn't have to pay him, just gave him a backstage pass and he goes settle the show for you. Well, you weren't making much money, if I remember, No, God, those were to I mean, no me. I was making two d dollars a week. I remember when I moved to Los Angeles is one. I think when we moved everybody down to ninety four Wilshire, the famous Management three Concerts West, and I remember finding out that Bob Finkelstein made a hundred thousand dollars a year, and I'm going,

oh my god. He was like, you know, he was the guru, Bob with the president of Management three, and it was like, oh my god. And they would drive up in these you know, and Jerry got to park his his roles on the ramp at the Forum and I was like whoa. I was like, you know, and I was just I mean, I had to. I started when I was down here, like a lot of my first job was I ran messages from Wilshire over to Jerry and Jimmy neater Lander at the pole of Lotch.

That's what I did here, take him over our messages, you know, and then you get a little lecture from one of them, you know, they tell you a story. You gotta Jimmy Peter in a story, you get a Jerry story, go back and forth. And I did that for months. So I started on the ground and he got excited about your success, and he'd be thrilled about it. And I know he was, he was. I know. Okay, Michael, this is your father. Most of us did not grow up with a famous, rich and powerful father. When did

you realize he was Jerry Weintrum. Well, first of all, he was always Jerry Weinkroup. I talked, I've talked to you. He and my mother, who was his first wife, went to high school together and they were high school sweethearts. They got married when they were twenty years old. And he was always Jerry Weintrup. He was always bigger than life. From the beginning, and anybody who knew him back then will tell you that they knew that he was going

to be the success that he was. Jane, who he married in nineteen sixty five, who is my stepmother, and so I was three years old, and who thank god, is still doing great in Kenny Bunkport, Maine right now. I talked to her just a little while ago while we're up at the exhibit. But you know, Jane is the one who really saw what he could be. She's the one who said to him, you're going to walk

with kings and presidents. And he believed it, um, and she believed it, and they set out together to make that happen, and over the next you know, thirty forty fifty years, that's what they did. Um. But for me as a kid, you know, as a kid, you don't know.

As a kid, it's it's your only reality. And I lived half the time with my mother in a two bedroom, one bath apartment in Riverdale and the other half with Dad and Jane in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Museum of Modern Art UM And then in we moved out here to California to a huge house in Beverly Hills, and I went from being a kid who could get around New Yor City on my own at twelve years old by subway in cab and express bus to a kid who was behind the gate and didn't I couldn't

get anywhere. It was. It was a very big life change for me. But by then it was pretty apparent, you know, his success, and that it was different than what most kids were living, and the fact that I was going on the road with him and the Colonel and the first Elvis tour was seventy one, so I was nine years old when I first went on the road. So you're on the road with your father, neither your mother nor stepmother. There Jane was performing still, he was

a big singer. But you're on the road with Elvis, with dad. He was working pretty hard, so you're like unsupervised. I was. I was tagging along. He took me everywhere. He took me to breakfast with the current supers. Later, yeah that was John had the unfortunate task of supervisor me a few times later on. But yeah, so I I really spent time with him, and we went all

over the country. It went over the all over the country with him and Elvis with him, and John Denver with him, and Frank Um and it was in It was an amazing way to grow up. Okay, now, my father, who needs it, was a real estate appraiser, know, the liquor store. He was working all the time, but whenever I was one on one with him, he was always imparting life lessons. So when you were on the road with your father, was he like giving you instruction? No,

absolutely not. He couldn't teach what he did. You could observe it, you could try to understand it, but he couldn't teach it. And so he I don't ever remember him sitting down with me and saying, here's how you do it. But I do remember always being able to be with him and watch him do it, which was learned from that. Okay, So did you know the colonel and Elvis? I knew the colonel. I met Elvis ice I wouldn't say I know him. So do you think the colonel was born in America or not? I think

the colonel was probably not born in America. But who cares if you don't know that the colonel he was famously why he didn't have Elvis tour overseas? You want to say something clear. Yes, I have a funny story about Tom Hewitt. Why why do you first explain who Tom was? Okay, Tom was the head of Concerts West And when I knew Tom, he was already involved with jury. And we had put on this concert and Tom was there and he said, I'm hungry. I want to go

out and eat afterwards. I said, okay, And he had his hugual cowboy look on, no jacket. It was warm weather, and I figured, where am I going to take him in Piladelphia. It's late Maybe a hotel would be the best idea. So the best hotel in Philadelphia at that time was the Bellevue Stratford, and we walk in in the major. Days says, of course we can see you, but uh, the gentleman will have to wear a jacket.

And Tom says, the jacket, What do you mean? Well, it's rule here in the hotel gentlemen have to wear a jackets. And I will lend you a jacket. And Tom looked at him, scowled and said, I can't go anywhere in the country. I can't go anywhere in California without a jacket. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna come in here and wear that scraggly old jacket. You want me to wear it? So what happened? Naturally we

didn't get served. So Bob, let's go back once you start, once you leave practicing law, and you're working for Jerry. What is your gig president of manager three in Concerts West. So so you oversaw both both and that continued for how long? That was about five years? Okay, So Concerts West was just developing. And we've heard stories about the innovation of Jerry. Do you remember other innovations that you had working with Conscience West and Jerry Well, I mean,

the genius of Concerts West was a fair count. I mean one of the lines from Mickey Rewden he did tell those things that you know, like like you asked, he said, if anybody ever asked you what you want in life? First count. So now you've got people going out on the road that we're not getting first count. Okay, that was when, as Peter said, that was when it was a cash business. Well, it was a cash it was a cash business. But even if it wasn't a

cash business, that's the cash that they already counted. And it was before computers. Well, but but it was when you when you had all of these with the agents and they were driving prices and looking for guarantees, and then some of the promoters were put up against it, and they would find ways to make the guarantee work. And the ways they would make the guarantee work. The facility charge might not be accurate, the sounding lights might not be accurate, the catering was a little bit too high.

Concerts West didn't do any of that to this day. And and so you could always promise more to your artists. The artist are the artist would always get more. But not only would they get more, they'd get it right. So, I mean, one of Jerry's best ideas was once a concert was sold out, he took up thank you add out, or he'd take a second add out when you didn't need the second ad because it was going to bring it back the next time. It was going to make

the concert more exciting. He would never let any seats go in the first five rows that weren't to the fans. And he learned that from Elvis and the corneal Right, there's there and and if you ever let your artists play with empty seats, you're dead. But I still do that today. First in Rows Must Go and South to the Public. Well, that is book he talks about the first team, does Elvis. So when you're in this situation, especially in the seventies, how do you fill the seats? Wow?

We had some great techniques back then. Do you know what the best one was? The hospitals and the hospitals Yeah, I don't know, no, but it's the nurses. See, there's you know, there's like if you've got two d beds, you know, you may have eighty or whatever, two nurses for bed. What are nursese for every day whatever? But there's two shifts always not working when the concert's going on. So our our line was always, um, well Mr Denver was we're holding these seats for the record company and

we we can't put them back on seats solo. Mr Denver likes us to offer him up to you know, people who could use them, and that that that's how we got to know a lot of nurses. When it was great, I mean nurses the hospitals they were like number one, and then you go you go firemen and police after that, but hospitals were best. I did that in the Vietnam wool was going on and I we had a show down in um in San Diego and it just wasn't going. And so my brother in law

was a colonel in the Marine Corps Camp Pendulum. So I turned around Seve Money, I got some seats we wanted here, and you know, could you use him? He said, oh, we got. There are these guys, you know, they're cooped up in the camp. I love it. They sent bust loads, busts of troops of Marines to the to the facility. And many years later, when his daughter got married, there was this four star general there and turn Ray said, Peter,

I want you to come and meet this guy. And he went up and he said colonel, and he had the general, he had his name, and he said, this is the man that provided something like two thousand seats to the Marine Corps when they were all in Vietnam. And he went, oh, thank you. And he turns around and he pulls his coin out of his pocket and apparently it's some calling the card, and he gives it to me and he says, you ever need anything, just give him that. Have you ever used it? No, don't

get in trouble. But it was, but we I remember, so I'll never forget. In Houston, Texas at the summit after the show, Um, I get roamed over the phone. I don't know what I'm getting room for by your dad, and all I know is I need to go see the principle. Neil was always called the principle, you know, getting to see the print, and Bonafett he'd always be on the phone on the radio going out the principles. Protrusion is protruding from the principle, you know, So you

have to go in and see the principle. And I go walk it in Neil's dressing room and he goes, you know, John. I walked out there tonight and the flag rolled right, remember flag on America always rolled down. And I looked out there was it was just nothing but a massive people. And I went to the right and there was a massive people. And I went to the left and I walked behind the stage and there were five empty rows. And I didn't know what to do. And all you could do is go, you know, I'm sorry,

Mr Diamond. Never happened again. Right, that was it? And then you got but you got man, you did that, you got reamed. If they were empty seats with John Denver was also remember the light from the curtains. That was like his thing with the light from the curtains from the bombs. You know how they'd have curtains to close it over so the concourse light wouldn't go in. He'd go nw clear if those things were left open, you know. But all of them had their little things.

You know, you had to learn it. Okay, Bob, going back to management, you work with a lot of characters, did you Did you work with Peter Grant, your personally Peter Grant a little bit the led Zeppelin tours, it just about tailed tailed out, Okay, that was one. And what it was like between him and Jerry, because certainly they had a great relationship. Really yeah, they had a very very good relationship. Jerry had a longstanding relationship with

their attorney, um forget his name at the moment. Yeah, but Steven Joyce. Okay, Steven, so talking about the management company. So when you came in, he already had John Denver, Denver, Diamond, Dellan Moody, Blues, Carpenters, beach Boys. I mean we represented Rick James, who represented the Pointer sisters. Okay. Usually usually acts or you know, they want complete attention. Other than John Dever, who ultimately left for his own reasons, the

Acts didn't leave. How what what made you? What made them stay at management three? Well, Jerry was that type of person when you were in the room with him, you were the only person in the room. So he had that ability to just have that laser focus and problem and they were and they were really good people taking care of business TCB was Elvis Presley's motto. You know, there were wonderful things that happened all the time, but lest you should go home and think there were never

things that happened that really needed attention. We recently had a new owner at the Forum and that was an entrepreneur named Jerry Buss. Jerry Buss came up with an idea that we didn't have any seats that were boxes. So he came up with this idea, will take the second level of the arena and take three hundred and twenty seats in the rows in the second level, which usually had a lesser price, and we will make them

like a box. You'll have waitress service, and you'll get the status if it's a game, and you'll get programs if it's if it's a concert. And he marketed them so that you got every event that was held in the arena, which turned out to be a big mistake because it costs us a lot of money, and everybody learned from our They were called Senate seats, and it was left to me to negtiate how much would be

paid for every concert. And I must say that one of Mr Wintrop's representatives ripped me up and down and sideways about these seats, and I shed a few tears, but not for anything he saw. And I worried about it at night. But we went on and we did many many successful Whatever happened with the seats, would you pay that you would have got? Okay, because this is an argument today are often around the manifest You know, people are still funny, Michael. You wanted to say something

I was just gonna say. You asked about Peter Grant, and Dad's relationship with Peter, and Peter was also bigger than life. But Dad had Dad had great relationships with anybody like that, whether it was Colonel Parker, Peter Grant, Arthur wurtz Uh. He loved Lea. I'd say, hypothetically, somebody crossed him. Then what oh, you never wanted to be his enemy. He was the best friend in the world to have and the worst enemy. You wanted him in a fox hole next to you. You didn't want him

shooting at you. And he was legendarily friends with the Bushes. Were you exposed to that very much? So from the time I was very young. And then that's through Jane. You know, Jane grew up in Kenny Bunkport. She and George Bush. I asked her a couple of years ago, I said, when did you and George Bush first meet? And she said, we we didn't meet, We just work. They were they were the same age. They knew each other as long as either one of them could remember.

And did Dad ever tell you the story of the first time he met George Bush. I think he did, but it's a great story. Um. Jane takes him up to kenny Bunkport in for the first time and takes him to the Kenny Bunk River Club to play tennis. And the Kenny Bunk River Club is what you would expect, I know, you're from New England, what you would expect play? Well,

they didn't. So that was so he went and signed his name, and they said wine Treber you Jewish and he said yes, and they said, well you you can't play tennis here. You're not allowed to play tennis here. And he got very upset. He you know, he let loose a string of of bronx words and uh and went back to Jane's farm and said, I'm getting I'm out of here. I'm gone. I'm back to New York and I don't need lobster and all this other crap. I'm gonna go home and have a cheeseburg on a

Coca Cola and uh, go back to my business. And she said, no, no, just stay one more day. So the next morning, at six in the morning, the phone rings and he answers that he's already awake working, and the guy at the other end of the phone says, is this Jerry Wintrev. He says yes. He said, well, you don't know me, but my name is George Bush. I've known Janey forever my whole life. And I understand you had a little problem at the River Club yesterday. He said, I don't know if I call it a

little problem. They're a bunch of anti semites over there. They told me, I couldn't play. Told me I wasn't allowed to play tennis, and he said, well, I'll tell you what, Jerry. He said, you don't know, but meet me over there at ten o'clock this morning, and you and I and the club president and the club pro are gonna play doubles. And Dad said, you don't listen. Very good dude, He said, oh no, I listened just fine.

But let me tell you something. My family built that place and they're gonna let you play or I'm gonna burn the place down. That is a story I hadn't heard, so it's almost a show stop, as you can imagine. He followed George Bush wherever George Bush went from that day on. I know he's very loyal and George loyal. So, Peter, what was your oldtimate gig when you start to work for Jerry Well? Um, as I said, are you? We were looking with the Moodies, we were looking for a promoter. Well,

we were not going to work under those conditions. And so my agent in England turned around and said, I found this guy, UM called Jerry Windrop. So I see Jeff, so he said, and he's got this company with concerts West. Um, they like to meet your So I got on a plane from London. I went to l A and I'm trying to think who met me, Dan Fiella. Remember Danny was one of our guys. Yeah who passed away? Um? Yeah? And Danny said he gave me his letter and he said it was from Jerry. I wish I had kept

it and it's sorry. I can't be here, but I'm doing this show tonight at the Troubador with John dev and you're welcome to come. Said yeah, let's go check in the hole hell and I'll go. So I went there. I saw him the following day. He met him and I said, you know, you've got a proposal and he said, yeah, I've got a proposal to put you. We want to offer you. I said, said yee, I said not. So we went over it and I said, you got a deal. So he said, okay, well you signing signed a contract.

I said no, we don't sign contracts anymore. You got my hand, no, shake your hand, and we got a deal. And that's how I met him and started to work. I was still with the Moody Blues all that time, and then when they eventually they broke up and that was since seventy one. They broke up in seventy four. I did a couple of odd things, and then in seventies seven I asked him for a job and what was your job? Basically, it's like John, we were all what we all did. We we were like two managers.

We ran to us. We were It wasn't always these big to us sometimes. I mean I did Queen. I did shows. Yeah, I did twenty shows. We had states with Queen, I remember that. Yeah. We used to get stuff like that. And then I did um the long run too with the Eagles. Now at the time, was there an accountant on the road or due to the settlement We did the settlement, Yeah, see we did. There were two guys. Yeah, there were two guys, one in production of one lead. We used to say yeah yeah there.

Then then when you could grab if you like, we're good enough if you graduate to be the lead guy. And we had a thing called show pay was eighty bucks. Eighty bucks, so it's like if you're out with Peter Gond where they'd split that with your forty forty. If you were simthor j you got twenty bucks. Yeah. That was se me and me and John and Pool Gunga were we Okay, we've all had long careers. Did anybody leave the operation I did eventually, Yeah, well we all.

I think the only reason we all left is because Jerry went from being in the music business to being in business. That's kind of I mean, because we're all like we I went all the way through one Troub Entertainment group and then it was like, God, you know, he wasn't doing anything in music anyway. I think that Earth Wind and Fire management deal was probably the last management deal he did, right Ken Craig and had left, Yeah,

Craig and used to work for Yeah. I mean some of the names that worked at this place would would absolutely blow you away that we're there, not here from every day and it's like he invented the business. I didn't know. We worked for Jerry hard time. Yeah, he'll tell you about that. The height of Kenny Rodgers. Yeah, that's right, Kenny Rogers, Belt Blue Heaven and then who any other people in the management side who setti U? Sal was sal Well Claire Claire was an Italian guy

that and Jerry and he were very good friends. But Jerry one of one of Jerry's everything had to be Jerry Weintrapp Presents. I mean, Jerry weintrap Presents was as prominent as anything else in any ad Billy freaking nickname for Jerry's presents. When when when Jerry did Diner and Barry Levinson was was just screwing around with him. If you look at the credits on Diner, the credits of Jerry weintrop Picture are about ten times bigger than the

Diner had. Barry Levinson and Frank had a wicked sense of humor. And one time he's playing Caesar's Palace and Sal Bonifetti is out on the road with Frank, and Frank says to the Caesar's Palace, guys, we're gonna put up on the on the marquee here Sal Bonifetti presents that would have led to Sal's premature death. He were Sid Bernstein, Yes, said Bernstein. Was the first minute he brought the Beatles, brought the Management three was and how did leave to start his own thing when Jerry kept

the name Management three. But when these three guys broke up, that's when when Bernie started. I think Bernie started with with the guys from Saturday Night Live. Bernie actually came out. Bernie came out to California to open the l A office. What was Bernie doing before he was in? So he and Marty and Dad were together in New York at one thirties sixties fifty fifth Street in an apartment that they had converted illegally into an office. Um that I grew up in sort of and uh, and Bernie got

sent out to California to open the California office. Bernie had the Muppets, Bernie had Jim Henson, Dad had John Denver. This that's how they got together. They were together before they were together at the time that they both signed, but then later on the Muppets got together. Dad and Bernie ultimately decided to go separate ways. Bernie took Jim Henson and the Muppets. Saturday Night Live started out as a vehicle for the Muppets, So if you actually go

the original, it was really a vehicle for the Muppets. Wow, that's an amazing story. So Bob s that you work with Jerry every day. Any other lessons or any other funny stories you can tell us about Jerry? U there aren't. I mean, Jerry was just larger than life. I mean it's there. It's uh, you know, when he wasn't going to come into the office and the act was waiting there for him, that was you know, where is Jerry? But now Jerry was larger than life, and I don't

know there was there wasn't. He had a wicked sense of humor, but he ran a business. How did your tenure end? I had just reached a point where I wanted to do some other things. And uh, what did Jerry say when you left the family? It was not a good party. It was not a good party. You ever make up? It took us years. And in fact, um we played golf the day before he passed away. And I have a place in Santa Barbara and Jerry was in Santa Barbara and we had played golf that saturday.

He was on the fourth of July weekend. And then I'm driving and I hear on the radio that the Jerry Weintrop had passed away in Palm Springs. I said, well, that's that's impossible. I was just with him. He's here in in uh in Montecito, and I called and I got I think I got Susie on the phone, and she was at the hospital so I was it. I mean, there was. It was so sudden, it was so unexpected. It's clear clear you're gonna add something here. I was just going to tell a funny story about John Denver.

We did, uh I did? That was going to be two shows in the same evening, one at seven thirty and one at ten thirty something like that was the Forum of Union Bill Yes, stage, Okay, So there's a lot of cost have two shows. And I had just hired a new assistant and he worked that day, and by the time the first show was over, the poor kid was exhausted. And so I said, look, you have

to work up to this. You have to be on your feet twelve thirteen hours before you can do a double show because in those days, circus run three performances on a Saturday. Ah. So I let him go home and I worked the second show and it was the best show that John ever did. And he was always sorry that I was so much older and he was tired, and I still worked the second chow unbelievable. John. Your long tenure with Jerry, Any lessons you learn from him? Um?

A couple of things. One was he always say never assume anything. Remember that never assume anything. That was one of the lines. And then Bob said at TCB. We all grew up with TCB, which was take care of take care of business. It was on started on the Elvis tour Jackets. But if you go back all the old concerts west to our Jackets, you'll always see a little patch on there that said TCB and it just want to take care of business. And it was you know, it was it was a work ethic of of a sort.

We you know, you're doing a tour. You're not like work in the local scams like Bob is talking about. You're out there your partners with the artists. You're being transparent. You know, there's no it's even better today because the Internet didn't even allow you to be to steal anymore. You can find anything steal. We never even we had. You know, I'm glad we don't have to, like people go look at our past because it's clean. Um. But it's just been it's a way of doing it. It's

a it's a different way. And it was Jerry and it was Tom and it was Terry Bassett and Bill McKenzie or the guys who started that. When you go out in the exhibit. You'll see the pm L there for one of the shows. Okay, Bill McKenzie made that piano, you know, paid by cash, paid by box office, paid by home office, paid by infield check right, and all

the list. When I had after, you know, started meeting other local promoters because we really didn't know him that well, I started looking at the form and I go on, that form looks familiar. Where did you get it? Every promoter in the country was using Bill Mackenzie's form to settle shows. Ron Delzer they just took the concert sweat of heading off and put it there. But you know, the first time we did wire transfers, that's how you know.

It was Bill McKenzie who came up with that whole thing about we would sign a piece of paper and and the building would wire the money the next morning. That was this. It had never been done before, you know, no computer ice ticketing. It was all Now, if you're green at two hundred dollars a week and there only two of you out there, is you the senior guy training you or you'd have to make decisions by yourself a little both. I mean the senior guy should be

training you. Did you feel pressure. I remember I worked for these English guys. They said, you're you were paying you. You have to handle it. Or would you ever freak out and say I gotta call somewhere? There was no, no, no you. I mean you could always you were a partnership. If the partnership didn't work, then we'd break up the partnership and find somebody else. And there were there were times where we'd go, you know, so and so is

not working right on the beach. Send them over to bad company, and we'll take on the beach and they go to bad company. And so we got moved around. We were just we were told where to go. I got I would somebody walk in my office and go to l A, go see j Hackerman. You go out and the road at their Clapton like okay, And that's how it would be. Okay. If you're out that much, do you start to dislike the music? No, that's why we do it. That's what we love. Okay, now, Bob.

There was a famous meeting on Long Island, UH to try to break up Jerry's ruling roost. Can you tell us about that? The all of the promoters thought that

they would divide up the country like the Mafia. So Belkan would have Cleveland, and Delsner would have New York, and Graham would have San Francisco and Reese Wolf re Smeller would have l A and Jerry would be frozen out of the business because these were their territories and they had exclusive or thought they had exclusives with the buildings, and uh, that was a battle that had to be fought.

But the acts are the power when you when when you're when you're representing the Rolling Stones, you're going to make the deal and they're gonna have and the building is going to have to have you. So so you didn't encounter any static doing this. Tremendous static and some of it were you know there. Jerry always believe in

leaving something on the table for the other guy. So as you go into these facilities, you you might pay a local promoter, but you had the act and you're doing a national promotion, so you're getting the best deal. You give the other guy something, and it worked itself out, and that's why several of the promoters who were at that meeting in Long Island walked out of the room and immediately got on the phone to California and called Dad and said, hey, here you should know. Here's what

just happened. And Dad, so will you go back in there and you you tell Graham and Barcelona and those guys that to circle the whole country and put concerts west. I mean, we had we we did get the law changed in California. There there was a tremendous tension between agents and managers in the music business because the lawn California said that you had to have a talent and

licensed talent agent in order to book you. And the famous cases of Jefferson airplane case where this manager had booked somebody to get them a gig when an agent wouldn't even give them the time of day, and years later they went to the Labor Commission and rescinded the contract and they had to disgorge everything that they had earned. And so we point in time said Jerry, this this is this isn't working. And we went up to the

state of California. We had a relationship with Governor Brown and Willie Brown, and we got the law chan age to have an exemption for the recorded business and if you work with a licensed talent agent, you were exempt. Let's go back because We covered this earlier, that you did a national tour. You really didn't need the agent. So how did you handle that? They didn't have agents? Yeah? John, Yeah, I mean Elvis had the William Morris agency, which was

a long time relationship with Colonel Parker. Did you pay them or Cornel paid him out of his end? Probably paid him out of his end, because I don't remember us paying them. But but um, John Denver didn't have an agent, Frank didn't have an agent, and they why do they? What do they need an agent for? To book and a gig that they're going to be selling out when they can get a deal. I totally agree, and we've seen that today, So I'd love a deal today.

Yeah that doesn't exist. Yeah right, So Peter, what did you learn from Jerry? The act always came first. You always took care of the act to just keep him happy, comfortable, and yet it came first. So what was that something back there? So if the act wanted something unreasonable you said no, no, no, no, no no, we would just take care of the business actually wanted something in a reasonable We walk around backstage and go, who the hell is that guy? Think he is? Jerry? Wein Trump. No,

we didn't you No, we didn't do that. Well, you were on the you were on the road all these years. To what degree were these musicians bad actors? Bad actors? You know? We hear all the stories of drugs, women destroying hotel rooms. You had some of that. There was always some of that. You know. I was lucky. I've been very lucky. I didn't want to ever want to work with those people, so I didn't heard about it. Jerry Jerry let Rick James stayed at his house and

in order to get clean. Did he get clean? No? I did have dinner at the Edgewater three nights ago. I'm serious, Okay, So Tony Ronnie went down to check all the famous mud shark story can tell the dark story nineteen? Is there such a thing as a nud shark? From my window at the what does a bud shark look like? It's like, oh, it's pretty big. I was

there on one night. We were a couple of times I've done it was right Thomas the movie Blues, and we were both fishermen and we would go down rent the polls and all this stuff and just shit, they were not pulling out. And you get it from the hotel room, tell him what it is, and then then then put them in the bath and then you'd leave them. People would fill up they you know, not the not the LEDs up on the story, but everybody feels out

of the window. You fill up the bathtub and then you catch my sharks and you throw them in the bathtub. And sometimes you'd like to leaving in the hotel. Now, didn't bad company and some of these other acts come with agents, whether it be Frank Barcelona or other people. That was they had agents earlier on in their career and when they got big, they left Frank, they left Frank. Yeah, that was the same with the Big That was a big fight when Barton, when led Zeppelin got rid of

Premier and Frank and concert just did all. Well, yeah, all their tours were they started opening up for the Vanilla Fudge. That's where their first tour was. Okay, so clear. I've literally sat in the box office with representatives from promoters and they've shown me the two sets of books. Now, as the business developed with how did the promoter make money? You mean the local guy, he had to get it cut it off of somebody else, the local guy because

he was superseded. Okay, so there are any other stories or characteristics of Jerry we haven't covered. Well, there's a great story with when Elvis is on tour and he dies. We've got all of the all of this money in the box office and Elvis is not going to Elvis has left the building. So I said, you know, what are we gonna do? So we just said, okay, of course everybody can have their money back, but make sure

that you get the two. In fact, there's some of the tickets that are in the exhibit up here, fifteen dollars apiece. People didn't get their tickets back because they wanted the final There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars money in the box office. Problem was many of the buildings that we were playing were municipal buildings, and the state took a position that that money is sheeted to the state. Oh that's a bummer, so we but but we said, no, the ticket has value, so

it's our money. And then we worked out a deal between splitting it well so you got the money, yeah, splitting it with with Jerry Elvis, and hey, you know what's an interesting point of that. You know how people refunded their tickets on that is, they wrote their name and their address on the back of the ticket and mailed it back to the box office and then they

got a check. Years later, you could go contact act all those people, right, and you want to get your ELPs ticket back and how much they were fifteen tickets. But I'm just saying that that's people mailed in their ticket with their name and their address written on the back of the ticket, and then they got a check back. Speaking of tickets, one thing we know is concert tickets today are expensive. Never mind the fees, etcetera. But I remember when they went from three four and five to

three fifty four fifty and five fifty. How did you decide and you couldn't get a ticket that was the everything sold out and it was so how did you decide on the prices? Many acts wanted to keep their prices as low as possible. Frank wanted to keep prices as low as possible. And I want to talk about the grateful dead six fifty for a ticket. Um, the escalation just became part of the business and the expense of a tour. I don't acts generally want their fans

to be able to see a concert. They don't want to see a gouge. How about the famous uh policy of act scalping their own tickets? Did we see that at the Concerence West. We had tremendous control on tickets so that that would not take place, and scalping we looked at as really one of the seven deadly sins, So we tried tried very hard to make sure the tickets were very controlled. Acts at that time did not scalp their own tickets. Okay, clear a seems you want

to say something. We talked about refunding money for tickets. Well, when I was set the spectrum, we lost the roof during an ice paid time and that was one thing that Jerry didn't produce. So it was during that day performance and the orchestras started to play off we go in the wild Blue Ye. Now we had the ice capades booked for another whole week, so we had a lot of money in the box office, and that was when we decided you would take the ticket back to

where you purchased it. So if it was Macy's that's sold it, or Bloomingdale's, you took it back there. If you brought it from the box office. You took it back there, and as you stated, we never refunded all of them, but we became known as the place to go to to find out how do you refund a really large amount of money, which was something we really didn't want the reputation for. Okay, I think that we've really done a great job of illuminating how powerful, larger

than life Jerry was. I think everybody here on the piano told all these great stories. Thanks for coming, h