Marshall Chess

more because he started. He still had a nightclub when he started, called the Macambo Lounge, and the company that he bought to turn to Chess was called Aristocrat Records, and he started working as a salesman. He wanted to learn learn, so from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty, while the nightclub still existed, my uncle came back from the army. He worked as a salesman for Aristocratic Record. Whatever that meant um. I never even discussed that with him,

but that's what it says. He was a salesman and then in nineteen fifty he formed Chess Records and started. Actually I was my father was a workaholic, from the always, so I hardly saw him. I was the first and only son. I was desperate to play. He never played ball, right, he was an immigrant that came over in nineteen twenty two, So he wasn't We weren't playing ball. It wasn't the

typical American thing. He was always at work and uh, you know, so I knew that that was my My way to him was through the family business, through work. Let's start there. Okay, your father was an immigrant. Your mother was she born in the States where she immigrant to My mother was born in the States from immigrant parents. How did your parents meet? Uh? They met in Chicago. Evidently the real story was my father had a girlfriend.

He must he was in his early twenties. He had a girlfriend from a wealthier Jewish family that the father made her not see my father because he was an immigrant peasant. But my father really loved her, and uh, I guess he met my mother was on the rebound. And um, they had a really close friend that both my father and this guy, Marty Whitzel, worked at a shoe store called Burger Shoe Store. Shoes, you know, shoe guys. It was a big, big, giant shoe store where everyone

got discount, cheaper Jewish kind of business. And they got married. He my mother and my father and this guy Marty and Millie. He had a double wedding and they got married together. They were very close friends, and that's how it began. You know. I've seen early photos of them horseback riding in the park in Chicago. But yeah, they got married very young. Um, and uh, that's how they met, you know, through through My father didn't like working in

this shoe's store. He was a milkman before that. He hated working for people. He instilled that in me very much, so, so I know, and I instilled it in my son and my daughter, so I know how that goes when you're in still young. But uh, he didn't want to work for people, so he that in Chicago. We gotta go back to a million black people came up from the Illinois Central from Memphis, primarily from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky into Chicago to make money. They could not make

money in the South. It was short and that before civil rights, not long after slavery. You know, it was very difficult. World War two hit and the factories in Chicago go, Uh, it became like a bloodline for making money. So they you know, immigrants, Black immigrants along with Irish, Polish Jews. They all came to Chicago at the same time and it was really an immigrant center. So my father that black people could not they couldn't get a

store front. They didn't have bank accounts. People like young people don't understand that no bank accounts, no storefront, didn't know anything about business. And um, my father and my uncle both heard black. My grandfather, Joe Chess came seven years prior to America with okay, just one second, what was the name in the old country and how to become Chess Chess c z y z Chez and Ellis Island. They changed my grandfather, but they must have said, but

you know, what's your name? You know, get Joseph Chesz Chess now and that was it. That's how it started. Okay, So your your grandfather came seven year before your father, seven years prior with some relatives to Chicago. Guy was a carpenter, uh part of the family from a small village and on the pole it right now it's it's Belarus. He was right where all this trouble is now in Ukraine. Right on the border. It was Poland then. And he came from this small village Muttle, a Jewish little tavern.

They had a tavern in town. It was a village on the road. My grandfather was he was a traveling cobbler, shoemaker or whatever. He was fixed and he came to Chicago, and uh he came, and he earned the money to to bring over the family. Seven years later on Thelicitania, that same boat that picked up people from the Titanic. They came from Southampton to Chicago to Walton, New York, Southampton a train from Poland, I guess, and then to

Southampton to New York, trained to Chicago. My uncle said when he got to London to the Southampton, he went to the He never had an inside toilet. He didn't know how to flush it. He was the chain in one of those from the ceiling. He didn't know. That was the first toilet he saw. But anyway, they came because they didn't know English. And my grandfather was a stern kind of guy. I heard later in life that he was a child beater with a belt, you know. He used to really punish. But my father beat me

with a belt. Soul Yeah, my father beat me up really bad ones. You know how they say that gets inherited. He did really bad one time. Um at Aside from that, so ac my grandfather evolved to a junkyard then he had. Then it was a scrap metal yard, and my uncle said that part of their big business was getting empty old bottles on the street. They'd sell to al Capone's

bootleg brewery to rebottle. My uncle said, I'll gave me a hundred dollars when I went into the army, said I'll gave you a hundred dollars and pre passing his whorehouse. But we checked it by Sun and I and act impossible. It was like ten years difference. But it was someone that was still that going on in Chicago. It was someone you know. So anyway, across from that junkyard was a black church, the the old kind with an upright piano,

tambourines and a bass drum. And they would hear they heard the gospel singing and they were fascinated because my uncle would tell me. My uncle was the guy who told you all the real stories. My father was about business, you know, making sure that you could handle life, not the old stories. But anyway, my uncle said, yeah, man, we heard the black singing. And we'd stand there and and we listened, fascinated to the music. And we'd come home late and Zadi would beat us with his belt,

the grandfather for being late for dinner. But in the village in Poland, evidently one guy had a wind up petrolla and when you play it, like half the town would come under the window to hear that, you know, to hear music. I don't think they've done sounding like they had any live music in that little village. Um.

And so that's how that began. So he uh, he was around black people right from the beginn any before he spoke English, you know, there wasn't you know, there was this that was it was in the ghetto that you know, where the church was, where the junkyard was. And anyway, when he wanted to go on his own, he found out through the grapevine or whatever that if you white guys can you could get a really cheap lease for a storefront in the ghetto if you were white.

This is this is your grandfather, my father, my father father. Okay, just to be clear, your your grandfather came your grandfather was working in the junkyard and your father worked there too. Yeah, my father worked there too, and then um he left. My grandfather closed the junkyard evidently, and he he had earned enough. He bought some Rundown apartment building and he made it into a you know, he had to end of a sort of ghetto apartment buildings, a few of them. Actually,

my uncle lived in one. So it wasn't so bad, you know. Okay, So when did the shoe store come before or after he got the store? Oh? No, the shoester came wait after, that's already after high So so he got the store front and keep going. He got the storefront on State south State Street, right on the edge of the Black ghetto where you know, still the ghetto, but then on the south side of Chicago. And he opens cut Right Liquors. And he sees that on weekends,

the eagle flies on Friday, that famous blue song. He sees that they're coming in like crazy to buy booze, you know, the party. He loves it. He sees that's a business. He learns black culture, he learns how to talk to the customers. He works by himself, fifteen eighteen hours a day. That's kind of guy. I was always and uh my father owned a liquor store too, same thing, same thing, in the black area of Bridgeport. So he quickly moved to uh two years later to a corner.

This is the story. I've heard a couple of versions, but I'll tell you the version that I want to believe. He moved to the seven oh eight club a couple of two years later, maybe nine forty five or six. And I was a little kid then to be or I was born. Okay, but just a couple of questions. World War two is happening, how does he not? Yeah, my uncle went, My uncle went off. My uncle went off to the Lucian Islands. My dad could not get drafted.

He wore a brace on his left leg, a leather brace from some you know, some village disease, probably polio, rheumatic fever, they don't know. And to get into America, they had to throw the brace overboard and he had to walk straight. They didn't elect cripples in you know, cripples had to go to another line in that era. Um, so he couldn't go to the army. That kept him out. And you know, coincidentally, I've had back surgery had I lost the I lost the nerve in my left leg,

and now it's thin like his. It's so bizarre, you know, stranger, stranger things happened, I guess. So I have a thin leg now, but you could only notice it a little bit if he had a bathing suit on. It wasn't drastic anyway. Uh yeah. So then he had the club, the seven oh eight, and there was a jukebox, so not only got the booze, he sees their dropping nickels. That was it wasn't five cents of play Nichols like crazy along with the booze. And he said music booze.

You know, he was he was the successory and the guy he felt and he I think he was insecure around white people. Now I think he felt being an immigrant. I think he felt a very symbiotic security with the black people. I always felt that. I mean, you know, we always had black friends there way before man was

the first infractional of men in Chicago. Really part, I mean it was, but he I always felt, as I got older and learned about psychology that maybe he was a little insecure, you know, being an immigrant and all that. But anyway, he opened the club and then um, he got a light. The next thing wasn't nineteen forty five. I guess he that I read in this well researched book called Spinning Losing to Gold. It's still online. We're really well researched. I guess he got a license for

the Macambo Lounge, which was his nightclub. It had a stage Bob's Ribs in the back that he get ribs. It became a live music There was a guy Tips forget his first name, El Tips, played a saxophone. It was a house band bar Long Bar. I was only in there one time. I have my famous Marshall's story. My father takes me there, picks me up at the house. Again. I only was around him if I had to go to work, so he picks We lived at forty four in Drexel, which was on the edge of the third

floor walk up. And but it was a Polish Irish Jewish neighborhood. But eight blocks eight blocks north was the black line where the black you know. So that's where the club was a twelve fourteen blocks away the Macambo Lounge. And then my dad picked me up and it was in the night early seven eight o'clock at night. They used to take turns. When my uncle came back from the army, he came back while the club was still working and I walked in with my dad. Hold it.

I was little man, you know, and there was a gunshot and he threw me over the bar to my uncle who was the bartending, and my uncle laid me down on these horrible wooden slats that were on the floor and laid on top of me to protect me. To this day, the smell of rotten alcohol and scummed that my face was pressed. Now, I can remember the smell. And that was my first time there. And then, you know, whatever it was, the problem ended and they took me home.

You know, I don't remember the details, but I should remember that that he threw me over the counter, you know. Um it was a rough club. One of the oldest employees, this guy Gene Ross, who was held big six ft five guy who was half black and half Cherokee Indian. He loved federal prisons. He always got in trouble for he was a drug but he worked in my father as a bouncer and he the reason he was always around.

During that Macombo time. A guy came after my father with a knife and Big Jean jumped in front and took the knife. And after that he was He always had a job when he was out of prison, even when my dad had a DeSoto from that At the time of the club, my mother was crying. Brand his first new car, or de Soto was was a Christlier car at the time Christlier owned it. Um that Jeane galbas that he had heroin in the glove compartment, and the Feds confiscated the car and my dad freak and

Jane of course went to prison again. I saw him all the way to when I worked with the Rolling Stones when we tore Chicago. He found Jesus. He became a religious guy. But yeah, he found me. During the concert, I couldn't believe it. I went to the sidelines and saw him and had people, you know, he was big guy. They five Marshal Chress. Yeah he was good. But that was so that. Yeah, he had the club and then uh,

you know, someone came into they came into record. I think Aristocrat was owned by many people, and he just you know again and perked up. He went from the liquor store to the corner tevan to a nightclub. Now, like black people music, record business. What's the record business? And like my just typically like my father, he became a salesman to learn it, to see what it was about. And coincidentally one of the artists do it. And it

wasn't a black label. It was seventy eight and it was they had folk music, all kinds of different artists, but one of the artists was Muddy Waters. At that time, he was a truck driver as well. His name was McKinley morgan Field. But he was already well known from uh Alan Lomax, the famous document. Well, he was the guy recorded all the music in the South. He had recorded Muddy for historical recording from the cotton fields. What was the name of that plantation? He he actually lived

on a plantation. Used to tell me he'd catch fish for forget a nickel of fish, and Hollywood, you know, all kinds of stories. His first guitar strings around the wall of the cabin that he ran strings the strum um. He was the closest of the artist to me because he was my father's true friend. They grew together. He said, there was a radio show when my dad died because we owned a radio station and w v O N the Voice of the Negro, the first modern black radio

station in America, first black news director, etcetera, etcetera. But Muddy said, uh yeah, Leonard, Leonard Chess was a true friend. He would have said on me chest and I would have said, Leonard made me. You know, they had this, you know, and these were he hits. Ten thousand, twelve thousand was a giant Blue said, this is not million sellers, so miss and screwed by people as time goes on. You know, uh, two cents the publishing was two cents royalty, you know, um uh, you know it was a whole

other thing. There were no giant hits then. The first TiO we had was the ninet with when rock and roll broke with Chuck Berry and Roddaly. That was a big year. That was my thirteen bar mitzvah it hits first money started rolling in and everything changed in my life. I told that, I told that I took my son, who's the third generation record man, Jo Marches. He's uh the thrill to see that he carry he's carrying it on on his own as well. But uh, he wanted to meet Chuck Berry. So he he was on his

farewell through and he was in his eighties. He was playing at BB King's Club in Chicago. So I took him and Chuck and I were friends. I was his road manager when he came out of prison. You know, I knew him well. So I took my son backstage and I said to him, you know, it was like an emotional thing. I don't know, it brings up my father and everything. So I said to Chuck, you know I never told you this, but man, n five, when I was thirteen, you change you. Man changed my life.

I got a Schwin three speed bicycle. We moved out of that walk up apartment. Everything changed, you know, with maybe Lane nineteen fifty five. And he said, what are you talking about? He took my hand and his eyes were watering up. Just what are you talking about? You changed mine in ninety five. What a what a beautiful moment. And my son heard that, you know it was beautiful. Yeah. Okay, So let's your father becomes a salesman. When he's a salesman,

he sells the club. He's out of the club already. No, not out of the club, though I can now that everyone's dead. No one's gonna assue me. No. In nineteen and nine. In nineteen four fifty, right before he bought Chess Records, strangely enough, off the club burned down with a really nice insurance policy, and my uncle against there you had those motherfucker's. The firemen were passing out cases of liquor. They weren't fighting the fucking fire. And we

didn't say a word. And then I actually remember my dad didn't trust banks. I never remember. It's vague, but I'll tell you. Maybe you know it's just for color. I don't think. He took a cashed the check from the insurance and brought it home in cash, and it was all laid out on the bed hundred dollar bills and that's what he used to buy to buy them out, to buy Chess records them a combo down. So first it was aristocratic records. Tell me how it ends up

becoming Chess. He bought him out here after two years of being a salesman and wanting to go on the record business. He they offered the one of the the one of the women of Evelyn, her name was Evelyn, who was one of the owners from the beginning. She had been married twice. I I had a feeding even my father and her had just my own idea from that that they had a thing. But she ended up getting married for a second time or so I wanted to get out of the business, wanted to sell it.

They wanted to sell it, and so he inherited that the late you know, he bought it because Mighty Waters was on it. You know, he bought it whatever. I don't know the cost or anything. And then they renamed it Chess Records. Yeah, no, they renamed it because they had My father had one of the record pressers for Aristocrat was the guy out of Memphis, one of the first pressing plants in America named Buster. Williams. Bussy used to fly up. He he flew a twin cessna Southern

gentleman he was. But somehow him and my father had this great relationship. And Buster is the one when my dad told him, you you're gonna you'll be my presser. I'm buying Aristocrat. I want to change your name. He suggested, why don't you just call it Chess Records, and that that was from Buster, and he he was a family friend with We were always in the pressing business. Tool from him. He was in we were We we had

such a unique thing, and we'll talk later. But at the end we had this eight story building that had three studios, full record pressing plan, injection pressing, printing, and plating. You could come in, you could make it. It has never been something like that. It was the old Wallen Sack recorder building that in Chicago, and it was a manufacturing building, and we we had this fabulous, unbelievable with an elevator. They had a rooftop sauna where they were

bringing their girlfriends. They had like a whole rooftop sauna, barbershop, all you know. The the guys who were built the building, and we bought that building so it was all all under one roof. But we always the problem with the independents. There were weren't a lot of independent pressing plans. So if when the independent record business broke, if you if five labels had hits it one time, you couldn't always get your product. And so owning a plant was important.

My father thought that was an important thing, and we could press for the other guys when they were even hits. But we started with a very small plant. I actually worked to press when I was sixteen. I was raised to be a record man a record while my um I I've been told that. Uh. I went on the road the first time when I was thirteen, through the South my dad. We arrived in New Orleans, I met caused the famous Cosmo. My dad gave me a ten

dollar but he said, I'll see it tonight. I tell my wife that your mother that you wander around New Orleans at ten ten dollars was like fifty then too. Yeah. I went to three movies eight like a pig. I did it. He ran and I was always an independence soul. He always you know, let's thread a few let's spread a few needles. You've got in business with the guy in Memphis? Was he partners in the press? Buster just

on the pressing plant, but he would have been. He was going to be the press, our press for the whole country. Okay, So what was your friends from the aristocrat? He pressed the aristocrat. So what were the first records? And then what was the first big hit? The first chess session? I actually went again. I wanted I wanted to be around my dad. We well before we built our own studios in Chicago, had one famous great recording was called Universal Recording. They ended up becoming Bill Putnam.

Maybe he opened this became famous making studio equipment, limits and stuff for the studios. The first was Gene Emmons, My foolish Heart, I have a friend here on eight my heaven um. I slept on three metal folding chairs. My dad took me to the studio to see that. That was the first one, and it was chess for fifty. Karlov was their first department in America. He was superstitious about ship and that I inherited because when I did this, I had my own label, the psychedelic label to dead concept.

The first record I did was three twelve, my father's birthday. We were always and you know again the black early black culture. You know, it came from African man. It was voodoo, mojo man, all that. And my father very much was exposed to the whole kind of you know, superstition. I mean, this is a sidebar since we're talking about it. When I was maybe in high school seventeen, when Buddy Guy, the famous blues guy now was a studio guy. He was going back to Mississippi and I asked him to

bring me a mojo so I could get girls. And he brought me this little pink bag. It smelled like the cheapest Woolworth perfuman and he had like pig bristles sticking out of it, like bristles, you know, and you penned see the white T shirt. Everyone were I've pinned it when I went to work, you know, in that air, if you're lucky to touch the brass draft, you know it didn't work, you know. Okay, so you're first, you've touched the top of the rasio. You you were bragging

into your buddies. You know. So your father and your uncle are producing these records too, right, learning how to produce? Yeah? Producing? Yeah, So they didn't know what they were doing. They just wann't turned on what they were doing. But know if they didn't keep things moving, it would collapse. How do I know that because in my my I produced my first album in nineteen sixty two, I was twenty years old. When I was eighteen or nineteen, I was worked. I

worked always every summer. Um. I just loved it. I wanted being there. I loved it. I loved it. If my dad said to me, they used to record the studio, wasn't upon floor, my dad would say, he said, go up to the studio. I have to go to the I have to go to a meeting. Not your uncle's not here. I said, do what you know? He said, just tell the motherfucker's to take another one. I said what he said, Look, if you don't tell him to take another one, they're gonna sit around talking about pussy

and jobs. Nothing's gonna get done. He said, one of those takes is gonna be a mother. He said, we said motherfucker a lot in my family. That one of those takes is gonna be a motherfucker. And uh, that's what I did. So that's how he learned. Do what That's exactly what I'm saying, Take another one, take another one. But another thing I learned from my father. I still do it today. I'm producing a record right now with a partner. Surround yourself, make symbiotic relationships of stuff you

don't know, like great, it'll be better. So he always you have to. He surrounded himself with people who knew music and then watched and learned from them. The first guy that was the closest was his name is Willie Dixon, the blues writer, producer, bass player. He'd get all the bands together. He would co produced really all those early sessions with my father, but little by little, my father learned how to produce. What do you really learned was

what made records sell because we weren't making art. We were making singles and everyone artists, all of us, wanted hits. It was all about making money. Artists didn't care about art. Then they all wanted to hit. They came to Chess because they wanted We got radio play. We paid off this jockeys. We got hits, you know. So you know my father learned. I mean, he was very responsible. We had what we had. His nickname, he was very responsible for so much in rock and roll. Um. His studio

nickname was the foot Stomper. That's because he wanted that strong backbeat. He was stomped his foot. He even played bass drum on blues record once to show him what he wants. So when I Chuck Berry died, you know, eight or ten years ago, his wife asked me to speak at his funeral in St. Louis, I said, of course I knew him, well, everyone else is dead really that knew him directly. I went and it was amazing, like five people in this big auditorium and they treat

him like Mozart in St. Louis. I mean he's very famous. Um and uh so that I did. I did my spear with speech. The governor was in line with me. This was a major thing. His family was all sitting there and nodding, and you know me when I was speaking telling stories. So then there was a break, Uh what to pull out the casket? He had like twenty all white Cadillacs with motorcycles. It was amazing. And I'm standing was a hot sunny day and I see this like I could tell he was well dressed. Kelly was

a Jewish guy leaning. I'm leaning on the same post. We're waiting, and he says, who are you? And I said, Marshall said, oh, I know, you know your father. I'm Chuck lawyer, you know. And he tells me you know all of Chuck and this lawyer. But then another guy, a black man, came up to me and he said, Mr Chess. He said, I gotta tell you something you probably don't know. I heard you speaking there. You know your daddy I was there. I went with Chuck when

he made maybe leading in Chicago. You know it was your daddy who kept pushing for the beat and it was your daddy who turned up to echo. Your daddy did it. And I I never heard that or known that. I knew the chess our music was a tremendous part of the foundation of rock and roll. I mean, it's the fact, that's a great legacy. I know that for a fact that that's true. But I never knew my dad was that he was the big he was the beat and that and no, we did. We had a

homemade echo chamber. It was in the basement. I used to have to go down there because of rats making noise, just like you would. Because it was a long sewer pipe. It was all very in ventive stuff, man, the beginning of creativity making records. We wanted these sounds, just like like a lot of reggae has it. We wanted this black audience then love these unique sounds, different things, echo, big beats, loud of guitar. That was a very it was it made it sell more, that's a better way

to tell you. And so we had this long clay sewer pipe with a chief speaker at one end and the mic on the other and they would send the signal down to the speaker. It would go through the mic be picked up by the mic and sent back up. That was the echo. And then there were so they were used to be noises and uh they'd say, there's rats, go down there. I had to go down. I was was get the coffee. I was. That's I was the coffee boy. To that was one of my first my

first job. I should tell you that story. Um So I went down there and I see all these old boxes and I opened up one, you know a stack of four or five boxes, and it's full of seventy eight Louis Armstrong on the leavel. I go back up to my uncle. I could never talk about. My father went to even disgust it with me. I said, Phil, what's the Louis Armstrong? Oh ship? When times were hard, we had to do some ship. I guess they were bootlegs, you know that to pay the pet the cell, they

must have, you know, done something. They weren't original pressings, that's for sure, But that that's a that's a true thing, man, that they always wanted to change the sound and make it better. We had our own mastering. Our studio was built on springs. It was brilliant. You know, all those like the rolling stones when they came to Chicago. I set that up in nine you know, because I got to know them well for seven years. I hung out

with him nightly. They would say they thought play they wanted to record a chess that that's why I set it up there. Manager Andrew Olam called me. I got the call because he had a foreign accent. That's why I'd already been to England um to set up chess internationally. That was another one of my early jobs. But anyway, aside from that, Michael said, use them. The stone S thought if they recorded at the Chess studio, they sound like a chess record. Of course that's not the truth.

It's the playing. Yeah, the studio is something. Actually, they wrote and pre produced Satisfaction and that's then they finished the recording in l A on that tour in But that was my first experience with them and seeing those English groups when they came to Chicago. Okay, so let's go, let's go bork. Okay, So your father's making these different records, how does he go into and how does he go into rock and his Chuck Berry the first person he got I got it, I got it ready, here we go.

Chuff Berry wanted to be a blue singer, you know. And he came up to Chicago with his wife. You need no his wife, that muddy wife. He came to Chicago with his wife that I don't forget what her name is. He came to Chicago with his wife. They want to hear Muddy Waters. He was a giant Muddy Waters fan in the club. And after that gig, he went to Muney says, look, I made a tape. What do I do to get on a record? He says, go see letter Chess tomorrow morning. Tell the Muddy Waters name.

And that's exactly what he did. And he went and waked in the morning. He said, Muddy Waters told me to see you, Mr Chess. My dad went in and played the tape and it was two sides. It was a cut named I'd a Read and and one called we We Ours. We We Ours was a straight twelve bar blues like Muddy Waters would sing. We Were Ours was a unique different song which perked my father up. It was called I'd a Red My Fithers. I don't like the title, and I'm not sure about the lyric,

the way it sounds the guitar to beat. You got something different there let's make a deal, but go and rewrite the song. And there happened to be one of the girls that had lipstick or makeup called Mabel Lean Cosmetics. It was a company called Mabel Line. You probably remember that. And uh they looked. He called Mabel Line and he was back within two weeks and it were written Maybe Line, called it Maybe Lane. They recorded it, and that was in and he went. So all the road trips were

done by car. No planes wouldn't have the money. Was a small company, was blues company. He was on the road. He started in New York and he was gonna work his way back to Chicago. At that time, the king of radio in New York was the disjecty named Alan Freed. Everyone knew about Allan Freed. And it was also the time of massive payola. You know, uh, the independent record business would never have even developed without payola. I mean payola is what allowed anyone to make a record and

check it out and put it on the radio. See of the phone ring of people wanted to buy it. So anyway, my dad goes and plays Allen Freed, Maybe Lane. Allen Freed. Hears it. It's something special and different. He coined the word rock and roll. That was all part of the Chuck Barry Alan create Alan Kline. Instead of giving him money, he became the writer of Maybe Lane. He went on as writer that was his and that night and my dad got in this car or drive

back to Cleveland. Right one day drive, Alan played Maybe Lene NonStop three hours, over and over, broke the records. My dog get My dad got to Cleveland. He calls my uncle in Chicago. Because they didn't have cell phones in or anything or internet caused my uncle and he says, what's up. What the fund is going on? It's going crazy here. The phone rings every two seconds. This Alan freed Maybellen. It's broke. We gotta hit Landard, we gotta hit And of course he rushed back to Chicago and

began to spread it. By then we had independent distributors, you know, all the indie labels. There was a whole group of independent distributors all across the country. It's so funny when I hear that Kanye West bullshit anti sembatic. Everyone I knew had there was all Jewish names. I could give you a list of thirty, you know, you know, they were all these Jewish guys like my father and uncle,

you know who who who? Just like the early movie guys, you know, they send something about this music and all that um. But coincidentally, in nineteen fifty five, a couple of months later, Bo Diddley came in, who was the Chicago street artist. My uncle heard that tape again and put out Bo Diddley. So we had these two major pre foundational rock and roll hits in nineteen fifty and like I say, my life changed. Our whole family's life changed.

And I must say the world began to change, maybe because rock and roll change the world, and my family had a lot to do with it. And you know, I never realized that Bob Krasnell, you know that that was you know. Of course Bob once sold me so don't you know yours the first family of rock and roll? He said, you don't even know that, and I said, you're right. Bob and I had taken much rooms together. We were like when he had we had uh, he had Blue Thumb, Blue Thumb Records. Bob was the one

who steered me to the Rolling Stones. He wanted to join me with me to sign the Rolling Stones. That's how I found out that they were available, you know, they wanted them to do something. And I told Bob, I said, after tripping with you, you know, motherfucker, we could never work together. Our egos. That was that era of you know, our egos are way too big. I said, will you give me Mick Jagger's phone number? He gave me his home phone number. That's how it all began

for me through Bob Krasnow. Okay, but let's let's go back. Let's go back to the blues era. Your father's cutting everybody. Well, it starts with Muddy Waters. Who becomes who has hits? I feel like going home? They were big hits, you know not. I mean again, there was a radio station in the South w l a c H fifty thou watch white disc jockeys, but they played blues black music. It would cover thirteen states at night, all through the South. So you you know, we were we were having like,

you know, blues hits. I'd say the biggest record thirty would be a giant, giant blues hit, like a million man sellar. But yeah, we were having hits. But Muddy Waters and all the airplay put Chess on the map with every other blues artist who wanted to be on

the radio and they it became a magnet. And then how and then and then at the same time we had a great deal with Sam Philip who own Sun who eventually had Sun Records with Alvis, but before that he was probably one of the first record producers of you know, white record pruces of black musical will in my father. At the same time, he sent us Howling Wolf,

you know, and then we had Hollowing Wolf. And then we had another big hit called which they say is the first rock and roll record, called Rocket eighty eight by Jackie Brinston and who was the saxophone player for Ike Turner's orchestra. I con Tina Turner. It wasn't ten then, just like and we had that yet, Uh, Rocket eighty eight. I'll never forget the way those cars two tone paint. That was the big ghetto car because it was the first with two tone. Yeah, and uh, don't be late,

come on baby in my Rocket eighty eight, you know. Okay, So what were those old blues guys like and what was their man? You're asking me that everyone asked me that. Here's what they were like, Marshall, Did you get me yet? Did you dick get checked out. Yet they ever asked me. They only cared about it if I ever discovered sex. I was twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen. They didn't talk about business or music with me at all. Zero I have you get And I was, like I said, at

that time, I was the coffee boy. I have to walk to get before we had people and coffee machines and offices, he had to go out to get it. In that area, they had shitty cardboard cups with these horrible paper bags that would leak, they disintegrate. My hands would be burning, you know. But what were they like? They were great muddy waters. Just to call me his white grandson, his wife guenivis to semi fried. He'd bring me fried chicken and the thickest illuminum foil. Then was

sick man. I can remember that he'd bring me that, you know, money, money was. I was the closest the money. He first time I met money was. I always told this story. But you're already a still probably like it. Um, I might it must have been. I must have been. So I'm just trying to think. Twelve years old, we had moved from the third floor are with blues moved up from the third floor walk up to a row house thirty six South Gates. Um on the south side,

should call my uncle lived two blocks away. I'm on the front yard and literally with a house next to a cattle that pulls up and this guy comes out and he's got the bright green, iridescent green suit with hair looked like with a foot high, like who the fuck? You know, as a kid of you, what is this? You know? Um, I had seen black people, but this was duked out and the car and I looked down and his shoes blew me away. They were like pinto pony hair of the fur of a course or cow.

And you looked at me and say, you must be young chess. You'll pappy home. That's how I met Muddy waters Man, and uh, he came over again advice money. I don't know. I wasn't in, you know, I don't know what went on, you know, I I was dragging around and I didn't when they were I never saw. I went on the road with my father, you know, I saw he was paying people off, but I didn't know what it even was. You know, I sort of was just I just was. It was all a natural thing.

And I always wanted to make records like my dad. I had a chance when I was twenty in nineteen sixty two, I got to go to Muscle Beach Uh in Carolina, Muscle shoals Uh and recorded Bowls Beach Party with a lot of desktop was there wasn't a remote recording land. Me and the sales manager, Max Cooperstein, we co produced it. And in the middle of that, I'll give you an example of how it was, so you want to know how it was. Um Bow Dolly had Chester Simmons. That was like this road manager we recorded

in the middle of the second set. Jerome Green, the Morocco player, was the original guy when they played on the streets in Chicago, so they didn't have to carry a drum. Was Bow, didley and guitar. And this guy Jerome with Moroccas. He jumped off the stage and all these white kids started dancing around them. Twenty minutes later cops came him in with German shepherds shut us down and said, let them white kids dance with your niggas.

He's I lock you jus up. No one will even nowhere to find you, you know after exactly right, And but we recorded enough to put out that album and it was stopped. Okay, back to the hotel, keep going hotel. It's a good story. Then we went back to this whole beach hotel, oh Wood once from that era. You know, we we were planning to go earlier. We shared rooms in those days. One was having separate rooms, me and Max,

and then the next room was a honeymoon couple. And he showed me out of your hold one of those old time water glasses against the wall you could hear. So I had my experience of watching people, hearing people fuck for the first time on that trip, as well as being called a dirty jew nigger lover, you know, excuse my language with the N word. Okay, But so your life anges with then what happened and and bo diddly, then what happened together? Did it? And what happened with

the company and what happens with you? Then the company exploded, I mean, you know, we had money to produce. Morris signed more, expand more. They wanted to expand into LPs, into jazz all that, you know, little by little, UH we wanted to get into jazz. LP was really invented out. Um. It started with uh Dave We We had this guy, Dave Usher was like a jazz fanatic friend of my uncle's from Detroit. He produced stuff. Then there was a famous magazine and chic call it called down Beat. The

Jazz was the major jazz magazine. We hired the editor, Jack Tracy, figured he knew everyone, and that's how we started. And the blues are all, believe it or not. The blues were always recorded in the daytime, but we had the empty studio at night. So Jack, we would we

we we would work it out. Everyone knew they could pick up some extra cash after the gig at Chess and that's why we put out such great The first role of Kirk Elvin, James Moody, Uh God, Dorothy Ashby and Jazz Harve I'm and Jamal Ramsey Lewis Wow because it was relaxed, it was at night. A lot of it was real jazz. They just wanted the money. They made it up. It was totally improvised a lot and one of my early jobs was Mr. Samuel's. We were we did union sessions. You got paid for a three

hour session. I was one of my because I got all the dirty jobs, getting coffee, going late early in the six in the morning at the pressing plant. Um. I also had to go meet Mr Samuel's, the union guy from when the checks were signed. They had to make sure they signed the publishing and all that before they got the check. So I used to go at night. Yeah, let's talk about the business. You know, certainly Atlantic wasn't paying royalties. What was the royalty situation at Chess? It was?

It was, it was no what was it? You know? I always got to ask that because there's such a lot of the you know, Chest ripped off artists. Every the Indians ripped off some did um. And I don't believe my father ever overtly ripped off anyone because of the way he raised me. You know, I mean I I that's not even I was, you know, he just was never even part of it. I uh. But there were no entertainment lawyers that came later. We had a one page contract, publishing on one side, recording on the other,

one piece of paper. Yeah, um um. We had no computers. Everything was manual, even order taking every you know, it's so confused now with modern technology. When I worked at Chess, everyone had one of those little pads with carbon paper. And the phone would ring in a thirteen hundred st Louis, you just yelled your handing in the carbon paper. I saw my dad once. This is way after. This is later,

um in sixties six sixty five. I saw my dad the only time once of reviewing the royalty statements with the bookkeeper and he would bring in this long you know stacks, the white paper and the Dells blue option prepared a big hit then called, oh what a night. And he looked at the Dells. It was day was like, you know, eighteen thousand bucks, I mean, you know, not millions. And he looked at Muddies. Blass wasn't prove when blues were dead, Black people wanted motown, you know r and

b uh. We don't want our grandfather's music. And the white jees hadn't discovered the historical ones, you know. Um anyway, and I looked at my dad, but I heard my dad looked and he held up money and he said to Ted it was the big take five grand off of the thousand foot it on Muddy. That's my last story on royalties. That was my father. Okay, so you graduate from high school and then what happens with you? I go to college and I become the chess promotion

man in Denver, Colorado. So you go to college in Denver. Yeah, I wanted to go to you know, I wanted to go to u C. L A. Or USC. I did not get accepted. I wanted the West Coast bad. I love cars, I loved girls. I loved California. I've been there. New we had the first black record executive, Paul Gayton.

Paul Gayton was from New Orleans. He was a famous New Orleans band leader and he started out playing for the most famous Italian mafioso in a horrorse and then he became a a big band leader, well known during that era. And my dad and him hit it off and he became our first guy in New Orleans when we did all this Clarence Frogman, Henry Ain't got no home, all our Cajun kind of music. But then he moved to Cali, Fornia with his wife and he drove a

Rolls Royce. He lived on top of the hill with icon Tina Turner's house, and he opened our little office, the chess office in l A. So I wanted to work with him, but I didn't get accepted. So After two years at Denver, I applied to USC and got in, and I moved to Hollywood and my dad was having an affair with the hostess at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Wait Wait, Wait, Wait Wait was an apartment building behind the ground Chinese Theater that was for hookers, and we never knew that, and he she got me a department there had sparkle in the ceilings, and that's where I lived. H I lived behind the Chinese Theater for my first year of college at USC and worked out with Paul Gayton in the office. So did you graduate? No, I didn't graduate. I never wanted to go to college. My dad didn't give his ship. He said, just go learn

what you can for the business. I had a radio show at USC, and it took plastic engineering to learn about record pressing, marketing. Um. But I would have stayed. But I never did it in a proper way. I would have probably had it gone five or six years, because I just took what interested me. We didn't care. He didn't really care. I didn't have a push from my mother or father about not like a modern way.

I pushed my kids, you know, But I didn't have the push but then in my senior year, a fourth year, second year at USC, my dad got horribly beat up. Evidently, Uh, the mafia tried to move in on Chess Records in Chicago and m he refused and got out of it with help from Morris Levy. You know that is of course Roulette Records. Okay, well Morris. Anyway, they knew each other. We all all the indies were like part of the wild bunch, you know. Morris knew the Chicago mafia to

his guys. But they were upset that he got that they couldn't get a piece of chess. And two guys they called him up that there was a fire, and he went down there at night and two guys he fought them with a heart condition and he was horribly beat up. He couldn't even go out of the house for weeks. His face was life came back, but they called me and said he he lived, but he was horribly beat up. And I said, I'm coming home, and I got in my car and I drove to Chicago

and started working in chess records. That was it. So that's how you dropped out of college when your father was good. Yeah, I wanted to go home. I didn't want to go to college anyway, but I like the lay. I loved it. I love living there. I had a house eventually in Benedict Canyon. Um uh, you know, I I love working with Paul gat And that was a fabulous experience, you know, working with him, like little Richard would come by the office, all kinds of he was.

It was just he was just a brilliant guy. And I learned a lot about life from him. And he was a brilliant musician. Um. And he used to come to our house, stay at our house, play the white Jewish grand piano and the suburbs and we'd all go around. I used to play. I started playing. He got me. I was a trumpet player. That's a whole other musicians story. Um can I can I go story? So I uh, I watched, I mean, kid, I watched From Here to Eternity,

you know that movie, of course? In this movie, of course, and when the guy played taps with a bugle, I got moved, emotionally moved, and I wanted to be do that. And I joined the boy Scouts and I became a bugler. I was thirty fourteen, just turned fourteen, and my dad thought the boy boy Scouts were whacked. I could tell he didn't like it. And he went to one thing with me there one father and something. It wasn't his thing.

But so I learned how to play readily, and the chart, a few things, taps and now then I started in high school. I was fourteen South Chard High School in Chicago, still living on the south Side before we moved to the suburbs. Um and I began to take trumpet lessons. I had a Martin trumpet. I used to walk on the rail I was just enamera. I joined the high school band. No before that was my eighth grade. I used to walk on the railroad tracks. I practiced. I

could play Lady of Spain. I adore you all these oh my Papa, I could make you cry. Man. I could play it. I loved it, and uh then I we I went my freshman year before he was the suburb south Shore High School. I joined the band. I could read and read music. I learned how to read, you know, not like the arranger. But I could play my little parts, and uh, I loved it. And uh. I was at Chess Records working in My father said, come on into the office. Is my uncle, my father

and my grandfather ZD. And they all said, uh, you know, we don't think you should become a musician. I said, what we're in the music business, Marshall is the worst. They get forty bucks a session. You'll never be able to have a supportive family. It's a horrible They knew from you know, hiring guys. It's not a good thing. We know that you love it. We think we think, you know, like it was like like a mafia that you should come in the record business. Come in the

record business. That's your business. You'll be around music, you can learn how to be a producer. And I of course said yes, you know totally. I mean that was like the committee, you know. I said, yes, I still have a trumpet, and I still so. Years later. I'm on a Rolling Stones tour nineteen seventy two. We it was a tour where we hired Stevie Wonders horn section called wonder Love, Steve Mateo on trumpet, Him Price on trumbone,

Bobby Keys on saxophone. The Stones always had a couple of tune up runs and Steve Matteo had three or four horns, so I picked up one of his trumpet was a trumpet and I could still, you know, I could play an impressive riff one rift that up, but the jazz riff, and they looked up like, oh my god, Marshall. But you know, blah blah blah, come and join us. Well, every horn section wants to be fatter, you know. It

was adding another horn, you know. I said, man, you gotta I said, come on, you gotta teach me at least the chords. And so they taught me some of the bullshit and the first night I went on and by the end, by the next morning, I couldn't touch my lips. They were that bruise because it takes years to develop the callous and the pressure. Yeah, I could, but I wanted to give me on stage. So it's online I played so that we were before a year ie we we've had an English gig. That was the

next gig. It was in England, some Liverpool, some city, not London. I know it's online that they were. You could see where they talk about it and they have my name is the player. And I ended up convincing them that I would only come in for the last four songs and ended that concert tour ended with street fighting man. It was easy one note. Uh so I got.

I played eight concerts on stage, the last four numbers with the Rolling Stones on the European tour and um, it was a tour where it was this was a fabulous lifetime experience. It was a tour where the promoter had to give us a bushel basket full of rose petals and mick which the horns were on the facing the stage. We're on the far left and the piano

was on the far right. He would start with on the far right, dancing towards the end, and he would throw rose petals on the piano, on each player, bill woman, and everyone would cheer as he you know, did that walk across the stage. Well, the first time he came with thirty thousand people in front of the horn section, Alm was peted my parents. I never felt anything like that. The energy factor, it was unreal. It was in describable. I can't even describe it to you. When people say

what is it, I said the closest thing. As a poet, I would say it was like a mother's love holding you. It was a warm man. It was something special like And that concert tour we had no encore so everyone walked after street fighting man. We all went with him. We walked into the van and it was dead quiet. While they were still cheering. We were on our way back to the hotel. So, uh, I got that amazing experience of feeling that energy, which is why I'm sure

they're still out there doing it. You know, that is special. You get addicted to that. That is way stronger than anything I ever took. You get thirty people loving you. You know, they weren't loving me, they were loving Mick. But at the overflow, you know, he's standing in front of you. Boom. That was a fantastic thing. So that was a great experience. And that was the end of my trumpet playing, even though I still have it as a souvenir against the wall in its case, um My

Martin trumpet. Okay, do you know why you're named Marshall? No? I do not. They thought it was an unusual name. I'm not named after anyone. Nope. I didn't even like it. It was an unusual name when I was a kid. That's why I'm asking. Oh no, A lot of my girlfriend's mother that they keep a lot of the mothers that we call me Chess for some reason, it wasn't a common name. I hated when they call me chess. Okay, r was my name. Your father gets beaten, beaten up.

You come back from the coast. You're in the business totally. Now what are you doing? Oh yeah, that's a good story. Good story, Bobby, I mean the story. I come to work the famous building, historical landmark where the stones recorded before we moved to the big eight story building. I come to work. I got but that was suit and tie and pinky ring. Because the black artist they wanted you, they liked you if you they wanted what you had. So my dad bought a new Cadillac every year. We

were dressed sharp. You know, they knew if you were that successful, then they you could help them get that way, you know, that was the thing. So I was a sharp dress like the zz top sharp dressed man. I had my custom made suits from Maxi the but the R and B. Taylor by bar Mr suit was custom made light blue with blue stitching on the side. I was into that from from being around those sharp dressed people, you know, I mean the jazz guys. They were always

the sharpest dressed people. They were like even now they are you know they get they really control the fashion culture. I mean the ghetto, you know, from the ghetto seeds. But yeah, so that's what happened, man. I So anyway, my dad then had the radio stations at the end when you know we're in the car. We we had a car wash like the one in the movie The car Wash, and we it was two blocks in the na avenue and we had a deal. Do you could get it every day? Everyone could get a car wash

every day. He just wentn't line and he paid a monthly feet whatever it was. Well, I I came from college. No one told me where to sit, No one told me what my job was, No one told me what I was making. I was very confused. So I got the courage and asked my father that. I said, Dad, you know i've been back a couple of months. I don't know where to go, what office to sit in, and I don't know what to do. Um what you know? What's up? And he said to me, and I can

remember this, you stupid motherfucker. Your job's watching me and the subject he with the old European style, watch me, watch me a little by little, he would, do you have me do? This, help me do that, like going to the studio. He taught me in that old European way, little by little, little by litterly, let me screw up. I made my first deal with Pie Records. It was a a even. I screwed up the math. And when you'll never do it again, will you? Nope, never do

it again? You know? That was how I was sort of raised. Um, I guess that's the way he learned. So he just laid that on me. Um. Yeah. So then I started working and I started doing promotion. And there was a famous record promotion guy. You may even have heard of him. I'm sure your listeners have named Howard Bednoe. He was the dean of record promotion probably in America, all the major labels, who was an indie

promotion guy. But he worked also for all state record distributors, our distributor, Paul Glass, and I became hot for That's how I learned promotion. I was. He didn't drive, Howard never did. I was his driver and sidekick for a whole summer, you know, seeing all meeting all the disc jockeys, seeing how he did it, how he had a befriend them. And then we then in Chicago. Then w l S was the major States fifty clear channel AM radio. It

wasn't you know, white pop radio. They were in this building underneath was the London House, so they hang out of record promotion. Man, where was the London House? And we had our own little section. We'd always played liars poker and then the DJs from upstairs would come down and uh So for that whole year, I was eating steak four nights a week, just signed the bill at the London House, hanging out with all the record promotion of all the labels. It was like a crowd, and

they all accepted me. I was the youngest one. I mean when I went to the first meet him, I was the youngest one. I was always the youngest one until young guys started getting into it. Chris Blackwell came to buy records from me before Island Records. He came to buy old singles that weren't hits that they were selling in England. That's how we started out. Chris, I've met so his dad was married to a woman in Lake Forest. So I got to be friends with Chris

when he before he started Island. All the first young record guys, Mike and Richard Vernon Blue Horizon Record, seymour Stein who had just left Kinge Records. You know, um, there was this growing group of young guys. You know, I was going to I. I did go to Europe early. I I I aught well. I was always enamored with Europe and I wanted to go real badly. And I told that to my father and he, you know, he

gave me a great experience, he said. I went twice to Europe and to Japan with Harry Goodman, my father's publishing partner. But Harry Goodman was the original bass player of the Benny Goodman trio with Lionel Hampton Gene Krupa. So that was my teacher of international kannak, eating hookers and uh international record business. And I went around with him. And then it was one of the dean first of the great entertainment lawyers, a guy named Alan Arrow Orangstein

Arrow and Silverman. They were one of the first that was our firm. I became close with Alan Arrow. I went to Japan with him. He showed me the far East. We went, you know, introduced me to a lot of people. I had great tutors, and um, you know, I learned that and then I set up chess in Europe. Um and um I I said, I wanted a percentage of any extra we knew we were. We had one contract with London Decca for all of the world and when we were making nothing. You know, they knew nothing about

rock and roll nothing. I mean the Stones were also started with them at that time. They really knew nothing about especially about black music. So Alan Arrow introduced me to Louis Benjamin. It later became Sir Louis from Pie Records that was owned by Lesson Loud, the Grades, the Carney people and from England. Um so I I uh, That's where I made my first international deal was with Louis Benjamin. That was the one that didn't make money. Louis offered to change it and I said, my dad said, no,

you'll have to suffer, don't change it. Let him so I. After two years we redid it. But then I went around Europe by Eddie Barkley. You know that you ever Barkley Records and all Indies, the Durham the Minton Jin's, Turkish people in Italy, Uh, Eddie Barkley and the French um Doug hog list so on that Grandmophone, all the indies like Jess and they I was like, you know, man,

I was like, you know, they loved me. I was like the indie, you know, I came from that INDI for one of the first I mean, they became my close friends. I used to go to Europe a lot um. We had great success. The first year we made a hundred and fifty ground and they were shipping green. That

was like a half a million bucks back then. And it was in nineteen sixty four when the big statement came in and uh I bought Ah that was the year the stones came because I had just bought my first car and payments hundred and eighties six dollars a month. But it was a red Porsche, the old kind, the little look like the little egg my dad. They thought it was the most ugly thing. They were coming from Cadillac.

That was the ugliest car they ever saw, you know. Anyway, So yeah, so I had, you know, I was up getting custom made suits. I was on an ego trip that you wouldn't believe. I had success. I bought a single from Pie Records for three hundred pounds, sold a million pictures of Matt stick Man that status quo. I was gonna ask you about that. So how did that come to be? Well, I wanted to have my I started, like I say, in nineteen sixty also like in nineteen

sixty two or three. I couldn't believe it's online. I wanted my own record label, so I started. My dad said start one, and I started the label called mar Mars. My little sister Susie used to call me m A R m A R. Just the other day, I just said, could that be online? I found a photo of the label and I so I bought a master from Louis Benjamin, another pie Master, the first one, for like three hundred pounds.

That was the deal, non hits, and it was a guy named Nichols, Jimmy Nichols, who was the first drummer of the Beatles. It's actually on the label, says first drummer of the Beatles, Scott remember scat music, And I put it's probably those forty copies. I put out two singles on marmar and uh, you know then it didn't sell it. I couldn't do it. I had no promotion. But that was my first thing. And I did the Bau Diddaly and little by little, I you know, I started to to uh, but the status quo. I wanted

my own label. Then of course I formed that labeled Cadet Concept before the status quo that was, that was my own that was why why was it? Why was it called Cadet Concept Because of this guy that worked there. I loved him. His name was Dick La Palm. They were part of the Cadet renaming. Argo was the original jazz label. We had to give up the name Argo because there was an English spoken word label name Argo. They sued us. We decided just to change the name.

So we they came up with the name Cadet. I never personally liked it at all, but they liked it because it was chess checker Cadet three season. The way it sounded so okay. So when I wanted my own label, they came up. Well, I said, what's it gonna be. It's gonna be my concept because it was the whole acid pod psychedelic thing. I was one of them that I was one of that. The exact age I went to Woodstock, I drove from Chicago. You know, I was one of those people who took acid and and pot.

I was just enamored with it all and uh, anyway, that's how that happened. They said, well, you know, let's call it that concept. So I said, okay, we'll call it that concept. It was the easiest way to get my own. I went for it. I would have probably not liked it, and that's how it started. I agreed to do it, and then I got Then I had we My daddy had hired these really a fabulous avant garde ad agency named Hervis Spinser in Churchill, one of

the first young new ones in America. They were in Chicago. He had hired them for the radio station. And I met this guy, Robin Binzer, who designed the Cadet concept label, and he came up with the name rotary connection. You know all those Okay, well one story at one time, because we're gonna get the many ripton. Well, it's all of that concept. Okay, wait, let's call connect concept. You put out pictures of match stick Man. I bought that single. Okay, did you hear it and say, hey, this is a hit,

and and how did you make it a hit? I heard of that, I heard and I thought it was ahead of course, And how did you make it? A here a dis jacket that would do favors for me on that fifty thousand one station. Art Roberts broke that and rotary connection I learned from Howard Bednow. Okay, so I get it. I made him. Okay, I'll tell you how I got it. I made a movie in nine four, probably one of the first music videos. Two guys from Illinois Institute of Technology, I think came. I thought it

was University Chicago, but it wasn't. They they were film majors and they said, we want to make and we make a film about something with Chess records we needed for our to graduate. Our thestis was a fifth Little George film. I wanted to be a film producer. I even had my own Safari equitor. You know. I was ready to be a producer. Yeah, I'll help you. So happened. I called him as that Bo Diddley is recording for a week and attended, let's do it. So I made

this black and white film, Legend of Bo Diddley. You can see it yourself. I just put it up. I'm building a YouTube channel for my grandchildren, and it's on there. I actually fixed it, we repaired it. It's you know, it's not a good movie, but I gave a featured pardon it to Art Roberts, that famous, that fabulous nighttime disc jockey. You know, he was my guy, you know,

and um he were friends. But you know, and he broke that record in the rotary and you know he played you know, yeah, he could play what he wanted. I guess I don't remember the details. Before they had strict playlists, you know this, jackets could still have to have some freedom in those eras, that era. Then when Paola came, they started with control paylists and all those things to stop it. But that's how that started. And then I got real lucky because I moved my office.

I had this real op art office on the first floor of that eighth story building. Jeff Berry said. It was the best office you ever saw. I had like black and white hop art. It was wood panel. I had it painted black epoxy because I saw Eve San Laurent in Paris. His shop where I used to buy clothes was painted with orange epoxy, you know, before he became famous. So I did black epoxy. It was a way big speakers. Everyone would call me. After that, my dad left, we'd all smoke pot and listened to all

the music in there. That was my office. But then we moved. We moved to the eighth floor where we had We came up with a concept. We had the studio a this big studio studio be a medium size. Then I I built a small studio with very simple equipment for the musicians to work. And I hired a rhythm section, famous people Donnie Hathaway, Danny Danny Hathaway, Donnie Hathaway and piano still up to John Bace, Maurice White, the first way to fire on drums. Sometimes they come

every day. Paid them like a hundred and fifty a week. The jam worked on tracks. We had four little rooms with upright pianos and real to real tape recorders for songwriters and they would work. We have a blackboard. I put Eddie James coming in two weeks right songs. Then they would develop it with these musicians. We cut little tracks. They could work it. It was a creative, a creative factory. And I moved up to the eighth floor. That was where I ended my career chest on the eighth floor.

But I moved up to the eighth floor and one of my jobs then was to get lead sheets made. Now, lead sheets had to be if you wanted to copyright you in those areas, you didn't send in a tape or CD. You actually had notated on a lead sheet that you had to send with notes and paper. And I would you know, we had people we hired to make lead sheets of the records that we put out

so we could copyright them. So I heard about this guy, Charles Stepney Um and that he would do lead sheets, like for fifteen bucks a lead sheet, whatever we pay if done cheap, you know, fifteen was probably like forty bucks now for a sheet. And this short, chubby guy in a suit uncomp suit and Tide comes at the eighth floor. We also had a commissary with like a microwave and weird horrible junk food, so the musician everyone would stay up there this musician's coffee machine or whatever.

And we're in the commissary. Me met this Charles. I made a deal with him for lead sheets, and he had this big portfolio, like a bit six inch thick folder. What's that? You know? It's a symphony everyt and I said, oh my god, you wrote a symphony. He said, I'm in my senior year of music school. I'm gonna graduate now. I had to write this. If you ever heard it, no, I played on the piano. I hear it in my head, you know, I said, well, you know, I've got this

fucking wet. I got to know him over months making leecheets, and he would come and were talking. I've got this idea for an interracial group. Um, I got many Riperton here works through the Sydney and the other guy hanging around. I got this. I said that this is one of the sales guys. They had a band of Polish band in Chicago, white band. Um, I didn't forget that the other day. I remember their name for a minute, now

I forgot anyway up. So I combined them and I told her, if it's this idea, I said, this is the psychedelic age. By then I had been taking LSD numerous times, but I wasn't ever into the Grateful Dead, uh. I was into the spiritual. I went to hear Tim Leary, Bob Dillian opened up for him or in white robes. I was into that because the first asset trip I took in the sixth you know, mid sixties, whenever that

was was really the real deal. Sandals Laboratory from Switzerland. Um, that's where I played the sraman on Good Vibe because I heard Good Vibrations on the Ascid of the Beach Boys and they have that whoo. So I wanted to put that on the rotary. But so I talked told him, I said, you know, I think there's there's this whole alternative radio market. You know, Um, there's there's a lot happening now across the country. Um, I want to do this thing for people on a bad trip to calm

him down. But you know, a soft psychedelic and uh again, Um, I'm using my dad's concept. If you get people around you know their ship, you'll make your stuff better. Will you work with me? And he said, of course. It was this chance, you know I mean. And then I got Jean Bard, who was part of our house a and our staff family, who had he came up from the South. He had one hit record called Country. He was agreed. He still is a great He's still like

in his nineties. He still does gigs playing saxophony. He was a brilliant saxophonist. He's on a ton of Chess records and he was an actor. I made him part of my team, Charles, Stephanie, Marshall, Chess because they he was the guy who talked to the musicians, because I I had the concept, but I couldn't write the music. I couldn't do all those things. And I'll be honest, I never got it a hundred percent how I wanted,

but I got it close enough. And then when if became a semi hit, of course you say, yeah, it was my thing. But you know, I had this great band. I put together the most avant garde group of black musicians in Chicago. Maurice White was ended up on earth Wind and Fire. Louis Sadderfield earth Wood and Fire. Drummer was another Morris Jennings who played with Ramsey Lewis fill Up Church brilliant bassist and guitarists. Um, I put them all together and uh we started rehearsing. I got the

White band with many and then we started working. I picked the songs, my concept I did. I picked that. I I picked the songs, and I kept pushing the concept, what how we were going to do it? And then we we recorded and I remember the first session. It was the first time Charles had ever heard his music, you know, played back that he had written. You know that he was sweat, you know, he was so worried.

But we eventually we would. We started doing all the strings and horns from the Chicago Symphony, you know, we would, and he would. He he became a great arranger. He died young. He did all the earth, wind and fire. He would have been he was like Henry man Sin. He would ended up in Hollywood. He was a genius. He died very young, in his like late thirties of

him forties. You know, he died young. But we made uh, you know, and I even helped him when I left Chess, I helped him make his agreement with the new people who own chest after it was so um. But he he was, He was amazing. He was a genius. He was probably the best thing I ever brought the chess. If it would have stayed sixty nine, I don't know if you want to jump to ninety nine, but that was like probably the heaviest year of that period of

my life. And it began in January. I was already on a high man I had, you know, I had things were good for me at Chess. Foreign royalties, shock, Berry Broken England. It was I was taking people to BBC TV shows Fontela Bass, Ready, Steady Go, like the first TV music show in the world was in England, and um, you know all that was happening. But in sixty nine, that was a heavy year. It was. It started in January. I got a call from Seymour Stein and uh, Mike Vernon. They you know, we have a

group called Fleetwood Mac. She just died. It's in the news now, Fleetwood Mac. But before her it was a blues man Fleetwood Mat. When they started, it was Mick Fleetwood on drums, but they had a fabulous guitarist named Peter Green really as good as Eric Clapton, as far as I's going, really good. Well, we're doing a tour that we're you know, we love the blues. We're touring America. It was our second tour. Will you help us do

an album in Chicago? Can we come to the studio? Well, I'd already done the Stones in sixty four, so they knew, you know, they they it was known that I could do that. I mean I could have done that, so I did. I said, yeah, what do you want? We want you to get? Get me four or five chess players that we want Willie Dickson, we want so and so on piano. Um, I ort to span uh and we'll play with him and we'll we want to record

one day, full day, we'll be there. So they came to Chicago and we recorded eighteen hours double album called Fleetwood, Mac and Chicago. It's online. You could hear it on Spotify. And Uh, that's how my years started. In January, then I did another one, uh, Fathers and Sons with all the white blues guys, Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg, Samily and drums, Paul Butterfield and Brite and Harmonic. He. I did that live in Chicago studio. And this is all nine. I'm

on a fucking I had the Rotary. I had Electric Mud, which was a chiant, the biggest blues album we ever had. And then I get a call from my father had a cell phone, not a cell phone, a mobile phone in the car and him my uncle called me from the radio station and say, you know you're we're gonna sell Chack. We're gonna sell Chess records. Um, don't worry, you can start your own label. You'll get part of the sale. Huh. And I was blown away. I mean,

this was like I was. It was like mean the way I say, it's like raised for an Olympic event. They canceled the year before the Olympics. You know, after a lifetime. Oh my god, you know, I couldn't believe it. Don't worry, don't worry. It's we got this great off of the radio. My dad was enamored with radio. He knew that it was the dying days of white people owning a black business, even though we were converting to a full scale business. But he was already bored with it,

and he loved radio. And he became a He became a humanitarian. I don't know what the word is, scholars ships. We give a thousand bags of food Christmas at the churches. He gave back. He would tell me he gave back. He fell to the black community. You could hear. I could send you I have When he died, they did an hour radio show, child let her Chest tribute. Everyone called in probably black. You could hear how they what

he did. He gave the water for Martin Luther King for a march, you know, all kinds of stuff after. You know, maybe he was guilty. Maybe he did take barrel. I don't know. You never told me that, and I don't think he did in that evil way. He had his own he self made guys and self made businesses in their own beliefs of how it should be. You know, ship man, I paid him off. I'm doing all the work. You know, they got a modern recording contract has all

that in it. Artists pay for promotion, videos, everything. He felt, why shouldn't they pay for a part of Paola. You know, he felt that he really believed it, but it wasn't in the contract. He just maybe I don't know what he did. I wasn't involved with the royalty and at all. I really wasn't. I didn't care about it. You know, we had bookkeeper, we had too good accountants. Um I left before was that was dever came. I never reached that stature. Um yes, I have the records on that concept.

I made sure they, you know, that lived up to the contract, but I never got into the full scale. I don't know what went on. I didn't care about it then. You know, it was why I was having too much fun, you know, being a record man, making a lot of money, sports cars, Uh, marijuana was like blew my mind. It was like wearing sunglasses on a clary day, you know, it was it was good. That was a good time. But then they called me and

I was blown away. And then shortly after that, my dad dropped head driving the car fifty two years old from the radio station with her his public affairs director, Bernardine C. Washington. We had a public affairs director, black lady, very high class, high society black lady. In a way. They had that in Chicago. There's the whole cotillion people from Jet magazine, Ebony. There's like, uh kind of group. There wasn't that error anyway. Um anyway, that's what happened.

So that that's that's was sixty nine was mind boggling. And then my dad died and my uncle wanted to leave. They they were glad to let him leave. They were they wanted to move. They knew they were going to close it up and moved to New York. They hired uh uh Land Levy at the time from Epic. You know, it was a major knew nothing about the Indies nothing. They were idiot people called g RT from Sunny Vale, California.

They were still at the beginning of Silicon Valley. The reason they had all that money is when eight tracks and concettes first were invented, only two people manufactured them in the world, Ampex and g RT on the West Coast. Majors had to go to them, so they had all those millions of dollars, and both Ampics and g RT thought they needed content. So that's why they wanted to buy Chess. And it happened that Alan Arrow, the big music lawyer, was a lawyer for three m who made

the tape and eight checks and cassettes. He put it, so he knew he put it together when they said they wanted content, and uh, it was a great deal, except the stock was seventeen and when I sold Mina was seven dollars or something. My mother never even sold hers. It collapsed, you know, because it was restricted stock. You couldn't sell it for two years or something then, so I ended up So it was, you know, a crazy time.

I uh never got my money as I was supposed to get the million bucks I was supposed to get, and there was my dad had no will. Most of the kid's money all went seventies percent or something to a state tax. But that's that's when I was you know and then this GRT they wanted. They were on the stock exchange. So they sent me to an American Management and Association meetings, to a school to learn about stock and how to make forecasts. That was the big thing.

We never made a four said, just be made hits. Made another hit, not a forecast. I hated it. I hated it. I hated them. I hated everything at that period. And uh, I quit and I was I quit. I just couldn't. I just said, fuck it, I'm quitting. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had a bad marriage. My first marriage was a disaster. I was still married. Everything collapsed the end of sixty nine, and

that's what I got. The call from Bob Krasnow said, Man, I heard the Rolling Stones are getting rid of their manager Alan Klein and their label London Decca is over. I know of you and I joined together. We could let's get him man. He had blue thumb. I know you could help me get them. And I thought about it, and I told you. I called him up and I said we can't never work together. Come on, man, and he gave me a mixed number. And then a couple of weeks later, I went to London, and that's how

it all began. That's a whole other story about how my first meeting with the Rolling Stones and all that. Tell that story now, and tell the story of Rolling Stones Records. I called Nick Jagger. I met him in Chicago. Well before you go, there was crass now mad that you did it without him? Yeah? No, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. Man. We had taken mushroom steal and that that's what I'm trying to tell you. We were already out another level. You know. We love the honesty

more than madness. You know, he agreed we couldn't work together. He was an egomaniac to he became the president of elected whatever. Remember I loved them, Yeah, I loved them, man, you know, but we loved each other, you know, but we're you know, in that early thing. No, he wasn't mad, and who knew what was going to happen. So I did call. I had met Nick Jagger when he was in Chicago. But the one I bonded with was Brian Jones, the one who died. And I was gonna say that story.

In ninety four, they were staying at this Chicago motel and they asked me to I want to come by and hang out. Well, they blew me away. Man, I've never seen people with long hair like that in person. They were drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle. I was drinking screw drivers with girls you know, body or they were drinking it out of the bottle. Okay, Uh, they're going, I'll drive Brian. I took him around and introduced him. I gave him each records. I was already

sending records to Mack and Keith. They would come when I was working in the shipping room. We had this weird connection. Man born in a similar year. I was connected to them. You know. I would send them. They couldn't send letters. So that's all making Keiths met because they had chess. One of one of them at Chess records on the subway and then one saw the other and started talking. But but anyway, that's what they told me. So I said, you know, I called Mick River. I said,

you know company has been soul and depressed. I heard, uh, you are also having a situation with your label. I think there's something we could do together. Oh Marshall, I loved I come to you call where to talk? To you, but I just had my passport held for having feather means in the London airport. Could you come to London? I said, yeah, I'll come in the next two weeks. He had this great woman running his office and named Joe Bergman, an American, so she, you know, she knew

I was coming. And two weeks later I went to London. I was familiar. I had been to London probably twenty times by then, you know, setting up the stuff, and I knew where to stay. And so I went to London and I called her up and I said, a Marshall Chess, I'm here. Had my meeting with Mack. She said, well mix in Ireland writing and I rip flipped out what the means? And I he told me to come here. Well,

I'll talk call them and tell him you're here. I was really upset, you know, My ego was upset, you know. But sure enough, two or three days later he came to London. We had our meeting and he said, come to my house on Cheney Walk. I don't know if you know London. Cheney Walk is fabulous. It's on the river, these beautiful brownstones. I to each house today is probably worth and her fifteen million. You know, he's gorgeous old right on the river though in Chelsea, so near the

King's Road. So uh, I go to mixed house. I'm a little nervous, you know, I'm wearing but I'm wearing already my I've already switched from the suit and tight chest g O Levi, you know Levi's. I was in my more modern, you know, sixties gear and the Mick take took me up to his sitting room and blew me away. Man, I'm from Chicago, from the Midwest, uncultured. This guy at antiques or yell rugs. It was. I never paneled walls, you know. But he had this long table,

the couch and this long table. And I immediately laughed because he treated LPs like me badly out in the cover, piled scratched, you know, he treated him badly as a record player. And he goes up to the table. I'm in the couch and he puts on Lift Engineer, which is a zydical from the Bayou, New Orleans. He puts on black Snake Blues and he comes in front of me and he starts doing that like a dance back and forth while we're talking, and I'm thinking, like, my

father's this guy's nervous. Well, you know, I knew he was. He was nervous. You know. They looked at me like if I was, you were a car dealer and I Henry ford Son came in. Come on, they got their name from Chess record from Rolling Stone, Muddy Waters, come on, you know they named you know, they named the track an Instrumentale twenty after our address. You know. So my relationship with them was a whole other kind of weirdness, you know, based on just whatever. Uh. But I was

a real record man. Man. They were lucky motherfucker's to get me. It was. I was at the top of my game, you know, and and there weren't guys like me many around if any and I think they knew it. I was. So you know, my plan was to become the seventh or eighth Rolling Stone. You know, I had a whole and I wanted a label, you know. But anyway, I said, well we can former label. We we like Atlantic, but we had offers from Columbia and all these other

epic They knew about Atlantic. They didn't know Ahmed then yet, they hadn't met Ahmed or anyone but they knew about the music on Atlantic. They loved it. Um anyway, well, I went to mix, so he says, we's dances and okay, he said, why don't you go down there down the street. Keith lives right down the street, right on Cheney Walk. Go over to Keith and tonight you'll come with us to meet everyone and we have a rehearsal tonight. We have a rehearsal room in East London, the poorer section

of London, their original probably rehearsal room. So I said, great. If I walked down, I knock on keys doors and he's got a some Italian like butler, older guy, you know, house man answers, oh keys upstairs. I go up to steps, same kind of house, walk up the steps and there's Keith with Graham Parsons, you know, the famous country rock guy. They're at this yellow or psychedelics sort of like the Beatles. Piano all yet wasn't it was a styway but painted weird.

They they were playing together and singing, and I sit down and how Martha did they They commence about how I was dressed because they saw me from the key, had seen me in Chicago, sharp dressed man, you know, the suit to tie the whole thing. Then they had a joke about it. Anyway, I went with them that night. I was in the car and I'll tell you how naive I was. We're going to East London and uh, I see in every building there's a glow in the window,

And I said, what's that fucking glow? Man? Don't you know what that is? A poor people who have to put money at to keep the heaters going tenpence, fivepence whatever in And all those glowes were heaters, and you know, in the living room was winter. So and we get to the rehearsal room and it's down in the basement and it's funky, but all they had drums that all set up, you know, to play and guess what's on the column? My Electric Mud album opened up with a big,

you know pick of muddy and white rope. That is my omen this is the ship, you know. And I went back to Chicago and I told them a why I at the time, I was good friends with the winners. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco. I had met them on my alternative. You know, I needed for all my albums for that concept that was a great They were important. I remember if you subscribe to Rolling Stone, you got a free copy Electric Mud. Okay, there you go, you got it. So I even I think I spent

one night on Jan's couch. You know, I knew him well. I loved them, you know, and we loved each other. We had They introduced me to Donny and Mitchell the first all the big alternative radio guys in San Francisco. I had driven around the country these alternative stations. You could come in with your album. They would like to joint and put your album on right on the air, you know, and sit around and played. It was great anyway. I U Jane and Joan Winner managed an artist called

Boscags and Um. They had one album on Atlantic, which was a flop, and then the contract ended with one record deal. I said, I wanted this is before when I thought I was gonna start my own label. I said, I could, I want to. I want to sign bos He's. They took me to see him with his band in this little club. He was just great. We hit it off immediately and uh he he even drove me to the airport. And because it was the psychedelic there was

you probably remember your old enough. The Bible of the sixties. The first psychedelic was the Teachings of Don Juan Carlos Costaada. Boz Scags gave me the manuscript. He knew it from Berkeley when he got it. That's where the Carlos Costnada was the professor at Berkeley. He gave me the manuscript of that book and we drive me and I dropped me at the airport. He was gonna do what the point is? Then I didn't get the money. Then all

that collapsed. I knew I couldn't have a label, but I told the Stones that I had to know in two weeks because I I'll tell you, I'm embarrassed. They'll probably hear this. I told him that I had Texas millionaires. That's what I thought was a good line to give to back my label. And I was gonna have Boss Gaggs as an artist, but I would like to work with them. You gotta let me know in two weeks.

And like I said, had this bad marriage. I was living in Lake Forest, Illinois and uh with my wife and on the believe it or not, on the fourteenth day, I got a weather a Yellow Western Union telegram saying we want to make a deal, come to London, and that's how it began. I came to London. I met Prince Rupert, the guy they had hired to handle their financial problems, and he didn't know nothing about the record business. I got them to hire Allan Arrow introduced Prince Rupert.

He he owned, He was a partner in a merch a private merchant bank called Leopold Josephin's Sons. So yeah, that's how how all that began. And then they never wanted the manager of the Rolling Stones that because they got burnt by Alan Kline. He owns to this day that they he's now, but they owned the masters and publishing of all those early great tunes. Um. And then years later we found that he had even that he was even he had the Stones lawyer on his payroll.

It was all set up, you know. Anyway aside from that, um, you know, uh, we want they wanted to go forward, and we did and we made the deal with Atlantic. That was a fabulous experience because it was Ahmed er Agan, Mike Matt Mayor in the same building was their lawyer. And that was Atlantic was on Broadway before the w e a you know, and I knew Ahmed. He was at my bar Mitzvah. I'm a you know they I had a star. I had Sam Phillis from San Ahmed. They were you know, he was there, Jerry Wexler, whom

I never really liked, but I was filt. He was an elitist to look down upon my parents and my uncle. He looked at them like they were peasants. Anyway, aside from that, um he so anyway, saw that went down. I I started with the stones. They sent me the telegram. I went. I met Prince Rupert. We we could close the London Decade deal. I had to bring them all the tracks. Sir Edward lewis one of the inventors of Radar. He was the head of London Decca. I went with

Patty Grafton Green. He was an assistant lawyer of Miss Stacey, the big guy he was like she was the dean of the lawyers in London. Patty Grafton Green is now one of the biggest entertainment lawyers in England. If you still if you still not retire. Um. We went to the meeting. We had to bring I had to bring because at the deal with London Decca was the Stones had to give them all the stuff recorded during while

they were signed. So we went through all the tapes and got basically made a big reel of Grade B songs. But then Mick decided to stick it up their ass and he did that song called cock Sucker Blues. You know, I don't know can I sing the lyric on your show? Where could I? I'm a strangery? Where can I get my cock sucked? You know? Where can I get my ass fucked? I'm a stranger in town? That should be

a gay anthem right now, you know? Anyway, aside from that, um they when they heard that, they flipped all these stuffy Englishmen they played that. You know, that was a classic pardiographed in Green has told people he was shocked himself. He remembers I remember reading where he said he remembered walking across the bridge after that meeting and shocked. But that's how that ended. And then we made the deal with Atlantic and it was a great deal. I asked

for a dollar. I was really I was very much, very much a key element in that first deal because I knew the record business more than any of them. Im I didn't know the record business. The big argument was I wanted the dollar an album and they said that was impossible because they lie. They didn't know. I letter I worked the press. They're gonna tell me I will cost to make a record, So I knew I won im and was sweating with his white ten dollar

salta handkerchiefs on his ballhead. He was president and I was saying this, But we ended up getting a dollar an album and uh form Rolling Stones Records. Okay, before, just for one second, rumor is you took less money from Atlantic in advance to be in Atlantics. That true? No, not true, not in my mind. No. We never even no negotiated any further with anyone. That was it. That

was it in my mind. I mean, you know, maybe Prince Rupert got an offer from Depic and that, you know, maybe I forgot it and we decided to forget it. I wanted Atlantic because they were my friends. You know, they were an India. I could work with them. You know, I didn't want to go. I hate the majors that hate him to this day. You know, I don't hate them. I mean, I'm an Indie. I liked it. I don't like the board of people twenty opinions. I'm not like that.

I still am not right now. I mean, you know, I'm a different So I never wanted to be involved with the Majors. Um. I just like the end and we were just a very warm, symbiotic, wonderful relationship. Okay, so the first record, The Stones put out a Sticky Fingers, which is bigger than anything that I worked I worked

out before you had before it. Wait, wait, before you get there was part of your deal that you would put out records yourself or we were gonna have Rolling Stones Records, and I was gonna be able to I owned a part of Rolling Stones Records that we were gonna have other artists. We had even talked about putting giving Jimmy Jimmy Hendricks. He he was available outside of the US, and we talked about putting him, giving him his own logo like the Stones head and that, you know,

he was so special. And then he died. I remember being in Rotterdown when we heard the news that he died. So that ended. But but then what happened is they realized they had no money, Dad Alan, they had nothing. They had these big corporate checkbooks in their minds They thought that may own those companies because they had these corporate chef which they could write checks. They owned their houses and cars, but they didn't own their own ship at all. And it ended up that they had no

money even for a living. They were broke. So Prince Rupert, we had, you know, when we realized all that, they called me in and said, there can't be either artists on the label. There's no money and you have to this. We'll let you out. I had a contract. There was a Mike Tannon, a great music lawyer. He was an assistant lawyer at the Arrow Ornstein firm and he was a lawyer learning, a young lawyer. He became my lawyer. Later he was Paul Simon lawyer. I mean he you know,

he really worked. He became a big music lawyer. Um. But uh yeah, they said, we'll let you out of your contract. We can't have a label, but you could stay. You know you want to stay, you know with the Stones you could do what you could do, what you want. We'd love you to stay. And I said, I'm staying. That's rock and roll. I'm loving it, you know, I'm loving I'm about around the world and meeting famous artists

and people I never even dreampt about authors artists. Uh. Their crowd was amazing for you know, sub Royalty Pipe, the Guinness kids, you know, oh they they they you know, they had a lot of starfuckers around them. Um anyway, uh yeah, So I decided to stay and I made that my life. Man, I made that my life. I I in my mind that was the seventh or eighth Rolling Stone. I went on the plane. I still lived at Key's house. I stayed with make it Mozart's house

in the south of France. Um. I was like, you know, part of the family for those years. Uh. Then towards the end, drugs got involved, which you know, which sort of tell everything. And then I quit because I quit. I quit because the quitting story is just this, you know, I just it was time to change channels. I was very embarrassed about my drug problems, and my drug problems I can't and you know, years later I did. I was lucky enough to take when I was trying to

kick all the drugs. I ended up getting turned onto one of the fathers of LSD psychotherapy, which is now in vogue. Um. And he saw me a year before he took acid with me. He took it with me and Harry hermone You could look him up. There's a couple of things online. Dr hermone Um. He said, I'll lead you to why you like that ship? It was all because he sold the company. Oh my god. I mean I had all that subconscious, deep pain, you know, because he took away my legacy, took it away. You know.

I went back to that meeting being the record businesses as years and this called me up and saying we're selling it, you know that. But something that really affected me in a horrible pain, in a deep well of pain. But once I realized that that's what why I like drugs, that was the pain I was killing, I dumped it instantly. It was very good. That was a great I mean it was shocking how once you realize the seed of something,

how it becomes irrelevant, you know. But yeah, so that that that I left the Stones mainly because I I would. I didn't like myself. I didn't talk to my uncle for three years. I was embarrassed, you know, I was embarrassed. You know, it was not my you know what I went and it was bad. I was killing pain that didn't even know what it was. And uh so that ended. And then I, you know, I went out with arc music in my life and all kinds of other new things. But that was a great I would do it again,

even with the drugs. That was great, a great experience. The Stones have nothing to do. The only thing the Stones did was uh because the drugs were around everyone. Every record executive was collapsing with cocaine, are you kidding? I went to fifty dinners with guys, would go to the bathroom, know when we'd eat the food to to you know, if you still you know. So it wasn't just me, you know, but U being around the Stones and all the group He's constantly bringing you know. And

then I lived with Keith. But I have no blaming them what's or ever? You know, in a way, in a way I have. In fact, I don't even regret my drug period. I grew in it because I beat it, you know. So it's like climbing mountain evers that changes you too, you know. Um yeah, I don't regret it. Um was it was a waste, but I managed to have all number one records, you know, and uh, okay, so the first record is Sticky Fingers, which is certainly

a great record. To what degree were a record? To what degree were you involved in that when you and to what degree were you responsible for the success? I think I was, but you know who knows it's my own ego. Probably yeah, I was totally one and two involved with that record. It's my first taste of takeout Indians though the Olympic Studios Glynn John's um No, it was a great record. In fact that later recently, after forty nine years in my car, for the last two years,

I've already been playing music. I go in my car for rides in the mountains. I only play what I, my family or me have been associated with for two years straight, only for memories. It's shocking when I played the Stone but started with it was the sixtieth anniversary of Exile on Main Street and BBC did a big, you know, production show on it. They called me up.

They said, well, there's already a handful of guys that were alive now that we're around that you know um And I said, well, I haven't played the fucker in forty nine years. So I had I had a brand new vinyl coffee and I still love the speakers in my living room now that I auditioned that album for in l A at my house on San Marco Drive.

They were Stevie Wonders speakers that I had rented from Westlake Studio because he had returned them because his new girlfriend didn't like the way they looked in his house. So I had rented them for this promo party, and I dragged. I still have my ended up by him. But I got in my living room and I blasted Exile, and I was shocked. I wanted to call Keith. I'm gonna still talk to him about it because it's brilliant. I'm just so thrilled that I was even involved in

Sticky Fingers and Exile. Those are brilliant records, you know. And I ended up driving around getting you know, eighty miles an hour in my car, blessing them, you know. But I hadn't played him in almost fifty years and they held up great, you know. Um. But yeah, I was totally involved with Atlantic with the cover, you know,

getting that zipper cover made. It was highly complex. Luckily, one of my best friends who sold me album Stickers in Chicago was a guy named Craig Braun who was the father of the custom album cover, the Andy Warhol Banana Cheaching, Cheaching, Chong, Big Bamboo, all those custom covers. So it was craigging another competitor. They were, you know. Next we gave it to Craig for me. I asked next week. I told him Craig was a friend of mine, you gotta give it to him. He did, and we

had We had a lot of trouble. We had to get garment district people to put the zipper in. Then we did test shipments and the zipper, the zipper and up was causing a hitting the groove. Then we had to get all the on zippers unzipped so would be on the label parn. It was complex and we paid. I paid Andy Warrel five thousand bucks for that design, but we had a convert it to make it, you know, and Mike introduced me to Andy. Those are the kind of people I was meeting man, Andy Warhol, Man Ray

in Paris, you know, all for album covers. He's famous. They all wanted to do stones covers. Hitler's filmmaker Lenny Russian stock She I went to talk to her. Yeah, so you know that I was involved with the making of the album. Then with the logo of the tongue and lips. Yeah, all that, that was all the beginning. That was I was. I lived it. It was twenty four hours a day. I and uh, I you know I was. That was my I looked at myself then as a rolling stone and that was my job. That

was my instrument. I wanted to be as good as them. Huh. The big victory lap was the seventy two tour. There was unbelievable publicity. What do you remember about that other than playing with Stevie Wonder, etcetera. It was great. It was remember the birthday mixed birthday with Stevie Wonder. I I set that up because again you know again it's it's my ego. But Youret Abner was the president of Motown. You know who that is? You were? He was the president.

He was the president of VEJ. I knw him from Chicago. He was another one of those high society Chicago black people. And but we were good friends. We used to go to Bat's Jewish restaurant, meet there all the time, once or twice a week when he was at VJ. But he lost VJ Las Vegas shooting craps. You know, I knew him well. He was when I got picked up the award of the Rocketroll Hall of Fame, my father, he was the presenter. I asked for him to be the prisoner. He was a good friend. But I went

to him. I said, let's do a double fucking album. Get Stevie on the tour. He's never been exposed to the Stones audience, and we'll do a double album. And I made a deal to do it, and we did, and it fell through at the very end. They backed out. Atlantic couldn't do it. It was it was gonna be a double albument. It was in production and ready you know. Uh and that never happened. But uh, yeah, so that you know, so that that was a great tour the whole. It was just so exciting that on that tour you

had Jackie o' nascius's sister, you had Truman Capponi. Oh, Truman Capponi, who hated me. He said I had fat Jewish thighs. He hated me because where where did he write? Where? What? What stay? Was in Oklahoma or Kansas? Where that was? You know, Kansas, Kansas. Yeah, so when we played in Kansas, he was there, of course, and he wanted to come right on the edge of the stage and I stopped him, and he hated me for that, and then I'm that

tour he came. He came to New Orleans and Keith Richards and Bobby Keys Pete all over his hotel room, so he stepped on it when he opened his door. He was in love with Bobby Keys. He wanted that. You know, I remember we're all in the same hotel in New Orleans. Yeah, Truman, Campodi, Peter Beard with the photographer. UM, so many people. Uh you know the thing about uh you know I got I would get to get tickets I got so they bullshit you. Those people I got

invited once to um it wasn't Jackie Ones? Is their sister? What was her name? Lee? Yeah, she was married to Peter Beard, the photographer, and I had gone to see him about covers. He was in Africa then shooting elephants and girafts and uh so I got a call from Archy said we're having a party of cock tail party. Do you want to come by? I said, oh, my god, who's gonna be there? And then she said, oh, by

the way, we get backstage passes. You know, that's how they operate so I got invited to the party, but I had to get them passes. That whole crowd, you know, and so what have you know? That's we were. We wrote a song about them, starfuckers, that they're about them. We had too we they don't even know. We had two dressing rooms. We had one for the starfuckers who thought they were in the backstage, and another hidden one where the real friends hung out. What happened to the

movie Cocksucker Blues? What happened? It got? Well, oh no, that's a whole this could be another whole show for you. So the Stones introduced me. Mick and Keith say, had I ever seen a book called The Americans? No fucking way, am and you from Chicago. I'm not looking at photography books. What's the Americans? They pulled it, they showed me. I think it was Keith who showed me. It's a it's Robert Frank on the glowing with Jack carolluact the famous beating Nick and it's a it's on the road his

famous book. And Robert Frank travels with him and comes out with a code book called the Americans, which are all black and white. So he says, uh, we why don't we get Robert Frank to do the cover the Exile and Main Street cover. Um, it would be great, look at it, look at his photographs, you know. So I tracked down Robert Frank in New York and the bower He lived Bowery, Remember, well, he wasn't amazed. He

was he was one of them. He was probably one of the most major factors in my own consciousness in life. We became very close friends. Another Jewish guy a little older than me. His father was applying Steeler in Zurich or something, you know, Jewish Applian Steeler. He was a beat nick and he shot the cover with He didn't use his fancy like anymore. He was shooting instant instant cameras, not Kodak, I mean Code acted when they first came

out with thirty five millimeter point and shoot. He was using that and so he he uh, you know, he shot the cover and the Stones loved all the shots. My pictures on it. Twice. I'm on that cover, you know, which is amazing. My daughter she was a big blow up of it, you know. Uh in our house was my little like wouldn't recognize me then, But yeah, I became very close with Robert Frank, and then we were in l A. And then they said, well, why don't

we do a movie? And I said, great man, they had seen that my Bodiddley movie I told you I made in sixty two. Not only did they see it, Ian Ian Stewart their manager, their original member and piano player and road manager. He got a played on BBC two and you know one time and so you know, hey, I said, what a movie. Pretty, I'll I'll let's do that. You know, I'll talk to Robert Frank, but I already talked him about the cover and he loved the idea because he's you know, we just loved it. Was another

going on tour with the Rolling Stones. He had all kinds of ideas. Super eight cameras just came out. We'll give each member of Super eight they can shoot. We'll edit it all later. You know what they shoot? When I shoot, I want to use Danny Seymour, who's also got a fabulous book. Father is famous Broadway photographer Seymour. If you go to any of those places, the black and whites of all the Broadway characters. Seymour was married to a socialite from Cape. You know, from Rima Kennedy's

Hyanna supporters somewhere. He was an unusual guy. We also became he was a junkie though, and Robert said, he's a junkie. I want to use him a second camera and sound. Um, I want to use him. But he's a junkie. But I'm sure he'll he'll clean up. I'll get him to clean up. So I meet Danny Seymour and I make a deal. I go to Warner's film I forget the old guy there. Oh god, I can't remember that. Anyway, I made a deal. Uh were they paid?

I think it was a hundred thousand dollar advance for first refusal rights to the film and um, which they ended up refusing actually, but at the time, and we went out and we went and made the film, and uh, you know it was It was amazing. Although as we beat the tour began, Robert became disenchanted more and more with the Stones, with the whole life, with the drugs. Danny went back on drugs. We found the shoes at the curb. I did some of the sound with Inaugura. Um,

so it became weird. But my main experience told but Robert Frank He used to give me books to re keep the River on the right. That was the one that's where about the Amazon. And I ended up going twice because of that book. When he turned me onto, you know, to take ayahuasca. He was into it forty years ago. So Robert Frank turned me on two books, music, all kinds of hippie. He told me I was fucked up. He said, you are fucked up man. He said, you don't even know who you are. You know, you know

he saw my construct, this ego centric guy. You know, yes it was. I was just at the top of my game of being great, you know. And uh so in Texas is that we have to do live. We need the live for the we can't do the live soundtrack. I call up Yoko Ono and John. They had a film company on White Street in New York because I use They had a Steve Gibbard. They had a film crew hit by this guy, Steve grab Gibbard, Bob Bob,

I forget his last name. He mad, if I don't mention it anyway, Um, yeah, you can use the crew. Just pay him. You know, we're not doing any thing now. They had some people on weekly salary whatever a camera, couple of cameraman whatever. So they came to Texas, and I knew that that's the way the Stones work is by the third or fourth gig on a tour, the set is the sets locked, so it's the same every night, like a Broadway play. It's exact. I mean Midnight Raveler,

he's whipping the floor. It's exact. It's exact. And I knew that, you know, I was fascinated by that. Actually, the whole construction of the tour. How we used to talk after the first one and and I love that I was being involved in something creative and new, and I just loved it. Anyway, we would talk about it and uh, and okay, we do the same set every night.

So when we did Texas, I said, I have an idea, Steve Gebhard, the two cameraman, give them headsets with me, and I'll tell them every mixed coming out in one in it and kneel down so they know where to aim their cameras. It was like me calling the shots because I knew that that I did that the set ends in Dallas or Houston. We had two gigs. We're recording with a live truck, you know, live mobile. I get out to get in our limo with my crew, the Yoko Ono crew. Right. We had two big black

security guys there. Uh, I don't know. I can't remember their name. At the moment um, it will come to me. Although it's not important. This one guy steps in front of me, Man, this is our car. You can't this isn't for your car. He was, you know, he and I lost my temper at him, completely lost my temper. Motherfucker's his micro Okay that and then we ended up getting a car. We left three or four days later.

In those days, it wasn't like video. You you shot, you sent the negative to the New Yorker somewhere, they'd send you Russia's back in two days, and you look at what you got. Robert Franks has come out in this room, Marshall. I go in the room. He's got a projector and there's a little speed. He's looking at the rushes, you know. He says, sit down, and he hits the button, and it's me losing my temper. Without audio, my face was ugly, like the devil, like a monster.

Close up of me in full a temper tantrum. Yeah, I couldn't even took me five times to look at it. That bloom. I mean, I can't tell you. It affected my whole life from that moment on, you know. And uh so he did stuff like that that he was like my surro good father. I went to just to go see him in the Bowery. We did the editing in the bar. We rented our own table, uh you know, with a couple of local kids that he hired to do the editing. Then the Stones were in. Uh So

the first edit, I was involved in the editing. And you know, no one knew what he got. He's the father of realism. We got we were taking people with debbing sex, the doctor on the plane, the baggage guy eating pussy with the girl on his shoulders on the plane. I'm recording it. You know, we had that. No one knew what it was gonna be. So we were in Munich, Germany, and I came from New York with a you know, with a reel of film sixteen millimeter I guess whatever.

I think it was super sixteen or sixteen. And they sat in this screening room and I put it on. They hated they, oh my god, they didn't like it. They felt like I did, seeing myself losing my temper. They didn't like a lot of it. There was some stuff with me, you know, they we they just didn't like it. So they wanted a lot of edits and you know, they said what they wanted, and Ahmed would say, cut out. There was pictures of armed snorting and smoking.

Cut that out, please, I beg you, Marshall, I did. I threw it on the floor for him. He went to my Missville, I want to you know, Uh, no one wanted to be be shot that way, you know, and uh so then so then you know, there was a whole scene about the film and they didn't you know, they didn't want it out. They thought it was you know, it showed too much drugs and him watch weirdness and even though it was highly real. But I will admit

Robert frank and he admitted this to me. He as he became more malcontent with the tour, his the way he edited and shot became malcontent. In other words, he left out the Magnificent seven ship, all the fun, all the laughter. He left a lot of that out. You know, we were having a good time, you know, um the group he's uh, the music, he left a lot out. He got more into the how fucked it was, you know, the whole Rolling Stones just it wasn't that healthy to him.

What it was the opposite of the beat nick thing. You know. He didn't like it, um, but he knew it was a great document. He liked the film because he was real, you know. But so the Stones own that they had the right warners refused on the option. There was a four grand I had a four hundred grand. I own percent of that film. I had a four grand recoupment. Now that same guy did uh that. I hired my buddy from my dad's advertiser. He's from Robin Binzer who did Rotary Connection name and all that. He

called me up. He said, let me make a music film out of what Yoko. You know what what Yoko and Gubbard shot. We'll call it, Ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones will make two films. I talked to the Stones. Yeah, great idea first music film. We'll tour it with. We're gonna open it in New York at the zig Field. We're gonna have a rock concert sound system. And because of Alan there oh three m Game was the first

stereo music track on our ladies and gentlemen. I can remember that I went to the grand opening and Robins sold it to this guy Miles, you could look it up. He sold it to a guy who blew it into this distribution of it and he couldn't you know, the guy blew it and the and the ladies and gentlemen thing collapsed. And so the Stones didn't want cock Sucker out. They made a deal. They could only be shown at art like the Museum of Modern Art has shown it

numerous times. It could be shown as film art with Robert Franken attendance, you know, not commercially, not on HBO. I've heard HBO offered am in advanced for it. I've heard that I don't know, um in the meantime um a video when when videos VHS and all that was the big thing video but you know, Blockbuster and all that. A company just wanted to buy ladies and gentlemen the music part, and we sold it to him and they paid a million bucks. So I recouped the four hundred

and I got my ten percent on the six hunter. Okay, what comes around goes around, and someday my kids will get money for Cocksucker. When it's on HBO because it will be you know, once they can't get suit and they were all dead, you know, I mean there's a lot of ship in there. Because I didn't know, I didn't get a lot a lot of it was my fault as producer. It was impossible to get releases. Willie the baggage man, and with the girl on his shoulder on the plane eating her, he wasn't gonna sign it

re lease. He had a white and kids. You know, uh, you know there was there was a tour doctor who was a sex maniac. He would have cards, white cards with the Rolling Stones logo the tongue, and he looked for the prettiest girls in the audience. And he's right. And then we in every city, we'd have our own suite. We'd want on a neutral suite called we We. We'd make it Mr White or Mr Yellow case anyone busted us would been under no one's name because of drugs

or anything. So yes, So this guy, Larry, I don't gotta say his name, but the doctor um, he would hand our cards to all these pretty girls. You'd say, you want to meet the Stones, come to this suite at midnight or some got girls that were there on dates. He would maybe give out twenty cards. Five or six would show up. It was shocking to meet nicker Keith or to screw him, you know, and they were never around.

Sometimes they would take one. I was all this doctor would have his sweet pickings and would say, well, I would introduce you if you uh, you know, it was a trip. It was really a bizarre That tour was bizarre. And then the wives all came to visit us in Canada. It was crazy. But uh, you know the whole that whole scene was crazy. That was the epitome of the croupies and you know the claster casts. All that was going on. You know, Um, it was a lot of fun.

That's why I say I would do it all over again, you know if I had to. But I'm glad I left. Well you're there, Mick Taylor's replacement guitarists. He ultimately leaves, and you know what was really going on amongst the band, bill Wan, what was going on was Mick Taylor. Uh, you know, Mick Taylor. They got Mick Taylor because he's just so fucking brilliant of a guitarist and in my opinion,

as a record producer. It was the best overall Stone sound because he played a less Paul, he played a whole other style of lead guitar and Keith he Uh. They they coexisted. Beautiful they're playing together, his his lead and mixed rhythm. Uh and mixed mix, I mean mix mixed lead and Keith's rhythm. To me as a record producer, it was just genius. Those tracks are brilliant and but he couldn't take it. He couldn't take the pressure of

being a rolling Stone. And he had a wife, Rose, who was very incestuous with other members, and I think it totally destroyed a lot of his something he did not like being a rolling Stone. I remember one time he froze his his shoulders with freeze and he eventually quit. I went to Robert Stigwood, Mick and I went to Robert Stigwood's house. Ahmard was there too, and Eric Clapton and they were all there at this party. Robert Stigwood gave and we went to Mick Taylor begging him to

not leave, but he said he was leaving. And and then and then I saw, uh who it was. It wasn't Mick Taylor. It was someone that was so drunk and ripped. I'm matsued. It was a terrible but we left. We not you even needed that. That's when and I hadn't known Ron would We were friends before while rom when he was in the Faces, Keith in introduced me to him. We go into his house. He had his own little studio. But Keith and Ron would they play

a similar style? They're both brilliant, you know. In fact, if I wanted, if I wanted to get into it, I have a great idea to produce them. Now. Then I have an idea for two rhythms that I have a great but I don't know if I want to get into it. But I just with them again. But uh, I do have a concept that you know, and it doesn't matter who the vocalist is. Just I have a great idea because I always felt they never took advantage

of their similarity. Uh, and I thought they could do some amazing stuff if they if it was just directed right, Okay, so it ends with the stones. How do we get to today? How long does it take to pick yourself up? And what do you want to do there after? Oh? It ends with the stones. Yeah, it ends with the Stones and I I, uh quit the Stones. They were upset. They thought, I'm You're quitting because of us. I said, no, I'm not quit because of me. And I knew I

wanted to stop the drugs. I'd tried many times during the last year and a half of the Stones, I had tried drugs stopping and failed. Went back, you know, stop went back, very difficult being around Keith who also was stopping, going back, stopping tour. It was difficult, um, And so I knew what happened is I uh. The ending scenario is uh, I would buy methodone from on the black market in New York, and I knew a druggist. We all knew this druggist who uh yeah, he was

part of us. We knew this druggist was a Rolling Stones groupie. And he would put it in a bottle and make with a label like it was a Vitamin C tonic because I would get sick, you know, I was snorting heroin and stuff. And we were in Montrose, Switzerland, and Uh, I went to fancy five star hotel and I went to in the morning, I woke up feeling horrible. I went to the maybe after I opened that bottle and I drank it and I looked in the mirror. That was it. That night I quit. I saw myself

all that acid. I guess did something Robert Frank. I saw myself the way I really was at that moment, and I quit. That night I went we all went to Remember in the hotel room, telling him I was leaving. I said, otherwise I'm gonna die. It's not what I can't be here anymore. It's time. This w chapters and they said, oh, it's our not our fault. That's what I remember. It's not your fault, obviously. And I left. And then I came back to New York and I

was having a hard time. I used to get seventy phone calls to day all the Ksano it was zero one. You know, no longer the guy. You know. That's what you learned when you're with the Stones. It's never about you. That's the part that destroys you. It's only about them. They make you think it's about you to get to them, but you gets easy to get sucked into that. Yeah,

So once that was taken away. So anyway, I during one of the last Stone store, I had met a cocaine smuggler who lived in Bearsville, New York, couple where I lived now near Woodstock. Not a dealer, smuggler, you know. And his deal was he would supply drugs basically to Keith and me for front row tickets of every concert. He carried it from gig to gig in Europe. So that was great. You know. We also once had a C I X C I. A guy hearing it, you don't know it wants to get busted. So anyway, I

went up to I called the guy up. I said, come you know, I'm coming on board and come come up here, man, come up you know. So I drove up from New York to Bearsville and I uh, I was meeting the Woodstock Times. It was an ad for this house I'm sitting in now, and I said, man, I need a place to change my you know, it was time to shift, to really get in a whole get back to my spiritual and the whole thing. And I just said, I want to see that how something

about it? And I spent spent overnight on holiday in in Kingston, New York. I came up here the next day, was sort of dilapidated. It's on built a hundred years old on ten acres of land. It was built by the people that owned the Align Electric Chain Company back in the twenties. They had money. Heated floor in the bedroom, but old time, hundred years you know. And I bought it to uh I was I was divorced by then

from my for the bad marriage. I bought it. This was where I was gonna clean up and change my life, kept back to nature, and I did. That's what happened, and I met my wife in the city and we ended up moving here. But it took me a long time. That's when I went through the whole therapy, the LSD psychotherapy. I I was going to a psychiatrist in Manhattan named Joe Gross and he said to me, you know, I'm just not doing it with you it. There's a brilliant guy,

the father of LSD psychedelics, coming from Austin, Texas. He's the Russian Jew Polish Jew, Harry Hermone coming in New York. He had to leave Texas. I didn't know why then, but he had to leave for some stupid read. He had the first marijuana licensed federal in America nineties sixties for CBD, invented CBD to grow pop for sleeping. He was that brilliant. He's a pharmacologist, like you know, full brilliant psychiatrist. Um anyway, um so he said, this guy's coming.

And Harry Hermon did not like private patients. He got a job at King's County, the largest psychiatric hospital I think in America in the in New York, and he was in forensic. He had he did this slasher of Staten Island. He did criminals and his own clients with Lou reading me. That was it two junkies. There was already clients. And uh he saw me for a year. Man. You know, Nanny took acid with me and that we became friends. You know. He ended up moving to Israel.

He's dead now. Um So that's how all that stopped. But in the meantime, I had the house up here, and um I met my I met my wife, who was a school teacher, and you know, my life changed. I had kids. Everything changed then when my my mother had inherited and my mother died. She had inherited my father's share of Arc Music, which was the Chess Records

publishing that was run by Gene Goodman. That Harry Goodman's brother you know another mont of Benny Goodman's brothers in New York that was through Alan Arrow and those people. But we knew nothing of copyrighting Publishing International. The original deal though, was they only owned the Chess publishing for not Chess records. In other words, anything they got European anything, other labels cover records. But when Chess was sold, they had the windfalls getting it all then, you know, because

when Chess was so, that ended. So they owned it and uh, you know, they was doing great all the you know, all the advertising and everything. And my mother was a partner, and my mother died and willed it to me. That was a struggle like that guy Jean Goodman tried to cut me out. I had a break into the office of this no old Silverman, another big entertainment lawyer who wrote the He had to admit that I was had the right to inherit my mother's share,

and then I became a partner. And then I threw out Jean Goodman because I called him he was he had my uncle and him was stealing from my mother and my uncle didn't even know it. And when I showed that to my uncle, who were on Santa Monica Boulevard driving to the Palmer Somewhere, Eddie jammed on the brakes. He freaked out. He never spoke to me. Pete on

him at the Friars Club. He didn't realize that he made him a partner, that that was such an affront that he would that he would steal from his brother's wife. You know, Oh my god, and so ruined their friendship. They never spoke after I showed him, I spelled it out, and instead of going to court and suing Genleman, I told him to go home. I didn't want to start loss. I didn't want it, and I took it over and I changed it from Madison Avenue to the west Side

Ninth Avenue. Oh, young people, we boomed. I made a great publishing company. I ran it for twenties, you know, two until two you know, when I sold it to Fuji, and now it's owned by BMG. I sold the Fuji Japan UM. But yeah, I made a great company. I loved that I lived up here. I used to go to the city and sleep one or two nights a week in hotels or at an apartment, my mother in

law's apartment. UM, and I raised my kids here. My wife was a school teacher and uh changed my life and I met you know so that and now I've just been working on not becoming me. This is really hard for me. It's against my what youreld Barbara fake, you know, forget who you are because it's bullshit. It's just like what the shirt you're wearing. You're much more than who you are, he taught. They laid a lot of good ship on me. I've never been happier in my life. I live in the woods. I walk around

the forest. I still take psychedel was you know, uh if I can. Mushrooms are now every everyone, every kid I know has a bag of mushrooms. You know. Um, I smoke pots still. I don't take hard drugs anymore. I had serious surgery three years ago this month. I had to learn to walk again. Two years ago. Took me a year and learned to walk laying on the couch or a double back surgery. I went down on a hundred one pounds and it was near death and

something happened again. I can't another indescribable thing. I'm like a weird I get people laughing. I'll get you laughing because I have a happier. Something happened to me. When you get near dying, you realize how much time you waste on bullshit. That happened. That's something happened to me. I was, you know, on that couch, trying to gain weight a pine of hog and doze to day. I couldn't gain I was like the Oshwitz. I looked in the mirror and cried the first time. That's like I

was twelve years old at that way. There's nothing. It was horrible, but anyway it was. It turned out to be a positive thing. You hear about that all time right in life. That weird ship turns out good. And now I'm I'm enjoying riding around in my car and I'm gonna talk to keith I I recently. Do you think I have a good memory. I'm gonna tell you a memory story about the rolling Stones. Does it sound like an eight year old guye that those has a good memory talking to you? Yes? I do think you

have a good memory. Okay, I think you want to hear the story about memory. It's a rolling stone story. So, uh, we're in uh France and in Switzerland, and uh we have a tour coming up and both Keith and I are taking hard drugs, heroin um and everything else anything if you get you know, we like drugs and we but we knew he had a clean up for the tour.

I wanted to and we had heard about in Marseilles, France there was a drug shortage and they we heard about this Swiss doctor, Dr Denver, and he said, well, there was a heroin drought in France and they were a drug that had been invented by a drug company in Paris called lucid drill. You could look it up. It's called many different things, but it was called lucidrill by a French lady. And uh he wanted to use it on Keith and I for a drug here, and we said okay, and we took it was injectable and

he gave you barbituous to sleep through the sickness. But it was mostly this lucid drill. We took hundreds of these pills, you know, big bottles, and I saw I had many times three or four cures I took with him, trying three for sure, Keith maybe two or three. And then it ended, you know, and it didn't cure us. We went back and I ended up coming here doing what I told you to cure. But recently I decided I wonder what happened to that lucid drill. So I look it up online and it's one of the drugs

given for Alzheimer's to remove plaque in your brain. So I think in our thirties, Keith and I started fresh, we cleaned out all the ship. I want to call me, ask him, how's your memory? Because everyone I know tells me it's shocking my memory. Other eight year olds, you know, I I and it's true. I I feel that things come up from way and I'm wondering if that we're laughing, could it be the lucid drill? You know? And this story and I'm not knowe Marshal, we'll leave it here

for the first chapter. You're a fount of stories well told. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to my audience. You asked good questions. You're good. You're good until next time. This is Bob left Sex