Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
All Right, ladies and gentlemen, this is a Quest Love, Quest Love Supreme back on zoom.
Is that a dream that we were actually out in the open and uh.
We saw the world and we saw each other and we were doing these shows.
In person and everything.
Yeah, man, it was so amazing, like you were there and you were there and you were there.
It was amazing. I dreamed that Bill was there, you know. Yeah, it was amazing. No, it was.
It's good to be back. We're here with the fam. It's uh, Bill, Steve and my ea. Uh Fonte went out to get some cigarettes, but.
It's coming back faster this time.
He gives us regards. Let me go a little bit off the rails.
This might be quasi lengthy, but I'll say this my as a preference to this particular episode. I'm gonna start with a quickly personal story, and that story is basically so, there's a gentleman that's been in my organization. His name is Silbert MANI and Silbert like the thing about the Roots organization is, you know, we work with literally the best people and I've had very few terminations. You know, thirty years at the helm of this organization. I mean,
some people like move on to do other projects. And for the most part, I'll say that everyone in my organization has done superb work and has been you know, with us anywhere from ten to thirty years. So when I say we get the best of the best, we get the best. Now, in the case of mister Amani Silbert, he came to meet with us about potentially being the new Roots tour manager, and that being a tour manager sort of like being the group's father, like what Dave
Seville is to the chipmunks. That's what a tour manager is, to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
And that was the role he was filling in.
And you know, we are a professional organization, and you know, job interviews are a thing where you know, it's not like I'm in an office with a receptionist and a coffeemaker or any of those things. But I am very serious about the tour manager position. And it's also been a very long time since we've had a male in this particular position.
You know, I'll say over.
These thirty years that eighty percent of our organization has been run by women. So when sel kind of came in this organization, I wanted to come with the hard
questions and I simply asked him one question. I said, what do you think you have that qualifies you to work in the capacity as tour manager for the Roots And he said, I've been Public Enemies tour manager for fifteen years, one hundred plus shows a year, theaters, clubs, stadiums worldwide, opening for the biggest rock acts in the world, like solo dates, all stops in between, he said, and never once has Flavor Flav been late or ever missed a And before you said the last word, I was like,
you're hired.
That's all I needed to hear.
And you know, when you, as the patron, you go to Massive Square Garden to see, you know, a Kendrick show or whatever. You know, we praise artists and all the time, but we never ever get to see how the sausage is made. We never, you know, give praise to the tour bus driver for getting them there, or the manager for negotiating the right contract, or even the tour manager for getting the act there on time.
To give you your money's worth.
So there's a new book has been written by our guest today called The Fame Game, an insider's playbook for earning your fifteen minutes of And for some reason, I know that the you're in the title is sort of implied to the artist, but I actually think that this book is meant for anyone who's currently an intern or
an assistant, future manager's, future publicists. This book is almost it's an important like I was reading it thinking like, oh, maybe I could use this when I get job twenty to be a manager.
Because you guys know I like.
Okay, So before the rest of Quest of Supreme gets bored to death with this long ass intro, I will just say that our guest today has simply worked with the best, and his job is to be the person who is behind the scenes that makes sure everything is running smoothly. And he's also the person that gets that
three am phone call when shit hits the fan. Name them Quincy Jones, Don Cornelius, her Albert Andre Krauts, Luther Vandros, Paul McCartney, Peter Frampton, Nick Nolty, Muhammad Ali, Richard pryor Bet Mintler.
Like literally, there is no one, Vanessa one I can name it.
I apologize for this long ass intro, but I think it's really important that I set this up. Please welcome to Quest Love Supreme, the one and the Only Supermanager and Doctor fix It, the one and only Ramone Harvey the second on Quest Love Supreme.
Thank you, And that was really well crafted and it makes a lot of sense. Well, and I just asked, like, let me ask the final question first, Yes, what's your secret?
Ramon?
To your to being successful at what you what you chose.
To do all these years?
You add to that, it's more why why would you want to stress yourself out with this job? You have the most dangerous in entertainment.
That's all that.
My take after finishing the book was why would you want to do that? What's your answer?
You know? I think that over the you know, I kind of fell into it by accident. First of all, I never really wanted to. I didn't grow up to be a manager or a publicist. I just I was. I was a flight attendant for PanAm Airlines and I ended up, you know, flying to London and I lived there for four years and that's where I got my break in the music industry. And it was quite by accident. You know, I was dating a singer and her agency I got laid off from pan AM and I was
actually the only black was reporent. You know at that time PanAm, this was in the mid seventies and PanAm didn't have any black people right for the most part, they had very few and they had no mails. All the international airlines like of Tonza of France, British Airways, they all had men, but there was no men in any of the American airlines. So I killed two birds with one stone, being black and being a male, and that's why I got hired. And in fact, I always
tell a funny story that we had. I had a huge afro and I used to have to pad it down because we had a three inch maximum from the from the top of your head to the to the outskirts of your wherever your opera reached. So I used to pad it down, put water on, you know.
If you want eighties dippity do was like your best.
Yeah, yeah, right right, well afro sein, whatever the whatever you could do. When I got over there and this this opportunity to work at this talent agency came up, I just found that I had a certain understanding of I interacted well with the artist I worked with Bay City Rollers over there with this agency called Starlight Artist and I work with a group called Marmalade. Bay City Rollers were supposed to be like the next Beatles at the time, but a lot of people don't realize they
actually didn't sing on their records. There was two guys named Bill Coulter and Bill uh Bill Martin and Phil Culture who produced and wrote two records for the Bay Rollers and they got him on top of the Pops whatever. But they in those days you could you could lip sync, so they never had to sing and they actually got you know, the first album was huge and they never really performed. Almost everything they did was lip sync.
Are you are you disappointed? Steve?
I'm literally about to jump out the window right now. I'm a big Bay City Rollers fan.
Yeah, well, I'm sorry to bust your bubble. But no, they didn't. They didn't. It was all done by session singers, Steve. Yeah, they were before Milli Villin did the whole thing. So well.
The second record was actually done after they got successful in the first record, they got kind of full of themselves and they said, hey, we don't want to do a we don't want to use these guys, so they fired them and they those guys went and got five new faces, some English guys named Kenny, and that was one of the groups that I worked with over there. And then also I got to work as an editor
for a couple of music magazines. So I just had a sense of that music was maybe in my destiny, you know, of relating to artists.
And but win Ramon because you were a flight attendant first, but before attend and then I.
Got laid off.
What year was it that you did your time in London.
From nineteen seventy three to nineteen seventy seven.
Oh wow, okay, so.
You know the music scene was really vibrant then Bowie and uh you know Alvin Stardust and Gary Glitter and I mean, you know the Rolling Stones. I remember seeing the first time I saw Billy Preston. He opened for the Rolling Stones at Wimbley. That was in the seventies and he was just incredible. I thought he blew him off the stage, to be honest. But there was just it was just a hotbed of music. I mean I
got to see some of the best, you know. I saw Elton John at the peak of his career back then at the was the Rain it's one of the most famous concert halls in London. I forget the name. It begins with a R.
Royal Albert Hall, Royal Albert Hall.
Yeah, Royal Oberoll. And he was just he was amazing.
Well, first, I'm fascinated.
I know that because of your pan Am experience, Like you go back and forth to London a lot.
But it's just so.
No, I was based there.
I lived there for that whole time, right, But you didn't get to pick it. He didn't even get to picket it. You didn't even know you were going to be there. Because people don't know that part about me to fight. It's in there, right, They just said go.
Well, we had three bases to choose from. It was Washington, d C, Boston or London, and I was one. I was the only guy and four women who got picked to go to London.
Where were you born? First of all, I.
Was born in Chicago, Illinois, and I was My dad was in the service, so we moved around a lot. I went to elementary school in Springfield, mass and then he got transferred to VanderBurg Air Force Base. I went to junior high school up in Lompo, California, which is about sixty miles inland from Santa Barbara, and I went to junior high school and high school there. Then I went to Vidio College and you know, just a little bit east of northeast of LA and got my undergraduate there.
Really went to school to be a lawyer. And then a friend of mine, actually Sheryl Boone Isaacs, who used to be president president of the Academy Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences. Yeah, she was the first black woman to do that. We we actually I met her in college and she was from Springfield as well, and she got a job with pan AM and that's how I ended up. She said, hey, you know you should you should apply for pan and they're looking for black men. And I said really, and I said, and she had
already been doing it for a year. So I said, all right, I'll applay. What the heck, you know, I wanted to travel anyway, sure if I wanted to continue my education. And so it was really from her that I got the tip that they were even hiring. And then I finally got you know, I got hired. And that's that's It took six months process reinterviews or some screening process and and they want to know. At that time,
my offer was even bigger. They said, you know, would you be willing to cut your appro and I said, well, no, not for you just to see it, but if you hire me. Yeah. But yeah, So that's how that's how I ended up going over there.
To make a move that bold, especially that early. I mean, okay, it's five years after what I consider the the civil rights period of the sixties, which you know, most people look at nineteen sixty eight is sort of like a seminal year where a lot of revolutionary changes happened. But what I mean the difference between what you did and the difference between a lot of the artists that you represent.
Like as an artist, the first thing that entered my head was like, oh, fear, like I'm going to be safe and da da da da, this is too risky.
Why would I do that?
Like that's it's very unusual, like for at least I don't know many black men are thinking international, or that they could have a space in someplace that's not the United States, you know, But what was it generally about you that thought bigger, more international, thought that you could handle this Because for me, like this is something that only white people would do and not.
I always had a feeling of wanting to be adventurous and try try new things, try something you know, different that hadn't been done before. You know, nobody in my family had really traveled. I'd only been on an airplane, like from from LA to San Francisco. I'd never even traveled from one coast to the other, you know, because when we came cross country over in a car and one of those little tent things that you you prop up, it looks like a trailer. It's like on the top
of a car. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a tent that you build up. And that's how you know, that's how we ended up coming Springfield to east to west.
So that was your first time flying, you doing the pan Am.
Yeah, yeah, it was my first time flying. When I went and training and I was nervous. I wasn't nervous about from inside in terms of like I felt I could I could figure out whatever, you know. I just thought I'd always wanted to travel, see the world and just get out of the context of just being a
black man in the US. That I felt like in those times, everyone that that's all they ever talked to you about was you know, it was a black, white thing, and I wanted to see what the if I would be perceived differently in another part of the world, or you know what, I would maybe would anyone even look at me as being an American?
Could you just talk about just generally, well, now that you are a professional and you are renown like a world traveler, whatnot? What are the basic differences that you could say were in London at the time when you first lived there, as opposed to now where it's kind of like, you know, the Internet has sort of colonized the world, where there's Starbucks everywhere, a seven to eleven everywhere, a KFC Donald's every you know, you get the same J cole record around the world at the same time.
But for you, in general, what were the most What's what's the difference in how your life was first living there as opposed to how it is now.
I think the biggest difference was, well, two things that I noticed right off the bat. One is that, for the very first time in my whole life that I could recall, I was in a pub and somebody asked me what it was like to be in American and I went, geez, no one's ever asked me that question. They only ever asked me what it's like to be black.
I need to really think about that for a second, because I don't I've never really thought of myself as an American, to be honest, you know, that was like a big question, and that that was you know, that was part of the process of wanting to go there in the first place, is to see how I would be viewed. And so there was that part. But then on the black side, they they were a little bit behind our civil rights movement at the time, so they
they didn't really see themselves. They just saw themselves as being English. And I remember asking a guy what's it
like to be what's it like to be black? And this in the you know, in England, because the voices are different, the inflection they speak English like English people, you know, it's a little bit different than us, you know, and you have colloquialism and throughout different parts of you know, depending if you're on the East coast, west coast, you know, but we're basically speaking a little bit different vibe than
the way the English spoke. And so but they kind of resented the idea that I was looking at them as being anything other than English, and I thought, weird. I just wow, So you just you just consider yourself to be English equal. I mean, it doesn't really work that way in the States, but but you know, more power to you if that's the way it works, you know. And this was very early on in the Inbratic days of me being there and just getting adjusted to, you know,
being in a place where it's the majority. You know. The one thing about England that's that makes it easier and more accessible for black people or American people is it is English. You are speaking English. It is their language, although it is totally different. Like when I was an editor, I had to learn to spell every everything different because they don't pronounce everything the same as we do. You know, Like there's a I remember that one of the silliest
things I was going to in a movie theater. They call it the cinema over there. And one of the most famous squares in England is Less Square. That's that's where they have all the big theaters. But it's spelled l E I C E S t R. So I get into cab and the guy goes, well, where are you going? I said, I'm going to Leicester Square? I never heard of Leicester Square. That's what do you mean? You never heard of license Is Square? I mean, like, how long you've been driving a cat? So I've been
driving a cab for like thirty years. And I said, well, it's the you know, it's the square, you know, Licenses Square where all the theaters are. Really, you know, it's all where all your big cinemas are, and you know theaters. He goes, oh, oh, you mean Leicester Square. And I said, Leicester Square, that's how you say it. And I said, well, in the stage we would spell that, you know, l E S T E R, So why ain't I spell it that way? You know, I just had to learn
all kinds of different spellings and stuff like that. You know, it was also still easier than like, say, you know, my second language was French, but it was still easier to do that than to go to Paris and try to speak French, because they really had a snooty attitude about Americans trying to speak French exactly. We immediately thought, you were, you know, persecuting their language.
You know, the only language I ever learned to alon. I understand you speak her like on her.
Like, you know, and that's another comment from Bill.
I mean, I'm an American. I learned a lesson. I learned the language in school.
What do y'all say?
Time out? Time? Yeah? Steve, yes?
I do you have twenty copies of the Basity Rollers first album?
Behind You? Oh? That was such a love joke. That's been up there for like ten to fifteen minutes. No one said ship. Finally, that was a love joke.
It's been sitting at a hole. I didn't even see he did him do that?
Like dog? Why do you have twenty copies of this record?
Well, first of all, it's Mark thirty and I've probably owned about one hundred copies of this and I give them away. It's I buy it every time I see it. So is this the the album you're referring to? It's like I believe it's like the first America.
Yeah, that's the that's the first one. In fact, they really because of that problem with the producers. You know, the one show that everyone broke on and during those days was Top of the Pops, which was one of the most influencial music shows ever. Yeah, in any you know, in any country that I know of, I mean, you could really break and keep sustaining a career just being
on Top of the Pops. But they changed the ruling and you had to start singing live track on the show because of that, because they weren't the only ones that were doing that, and so the unions and everything started complaining. They switched the procedures so that you couldn't lip sync on Top of the Pops. But for the first ten years I think that the show existed, you could. It was always lip syncing.
Right, well, I understand that they were lip syncing, but but you're are you suggesting or did you suggest that they had session singers in the making of the albums.
Them making their first album was completely written recorded by session singers.
You've been had, Steve, Yeah, all right, well you were in our life, Thank you, talk to you.
And again they had they had two records recorded and they just put that. They put other guys together and they used the exact same you know, they made a few tweaks in the record in the second record that would have been the Bay City Roller second record. So very sorry.
Ramona's right, that rule is actually what say the roots life only because the French version of that show, we had a situation and I explained it before where de Bratt was a guest on the show and uh, she wanted to lip sing her song and they're like, no, you have to do it live to track, and she called an attitude, walked off the show and we got the call that you know, could you fill in her eighteen minutes? And this is you know, long story short.
The next day, like the Roots could suddenly go from playing Alicia MoMA over in Paris to play like the Zenith, like their version of Madison Square Garden. So you're right, like some of those shows are like that where you have to sing it. Even if it's too can track, you still have to sing live to it.
And so well, whoever whoever sang on this record, it's it's incredible.
We get them.
Yeah, but but okay.
I'm pretty old. Now.
Well let's less mccau less McKowen I think was his name, lead singer.
He passed way recently?
Oh did he?
Yeah? I did not know that. Wow. I would like to know.
What do you consider the first step, the first step into your career path, Like how do you start inching towards the entertainment business.
I think the first step was that working for that talent agency in London, Starlight Artists, and uh so then I had I had been there for almost four years. I had to make a decision whether to stay there and become British more or less or come back to the States, and I really didn't want to be Uh there was a chance I could get hired back at pan Am, but I felt like my time up there
with PanAm had kind of, uh was over. I mean, you know, I used to tell people I'm a I'm a waiter in the sky because you know, I had a college degree. R all I was doing was I was really just a waiter to just do it on a plane instead I had in a restaurant, And I just felt like I didn't go to college just to do that job. Even though it was a lot of fun. I got to see the world, and uh it was it was great. So when I came back to the States and I decided I wanted to continue to work,
you know, in the entertain business. But I had been an editor of those two magazines. They were both pop zine magazines. One was called Poster and one was called Superstar, And I was the only I wrote the whole damn magazine. But I told the guys, I said, you know, if you really want to make we have to make it look like we're a bigger operation, right, And I don't you know, I don't want to have the only name. And uh, you know, so what if you don't have a problem, I like to make up some names of
other writers. I'll still write it and I'll try to write a little bit different, sort of feel like we have a staff.
So you were basically what Cynthia Horner was to write on magazine, Yes.
Exactly, only she was really the only and she didn't care. I cared. I didn't want to be the only person. But yeah, Cynthia Horner. Wow, that's a flashback.
Yeah, that's my dream interview.
And you know, she's very shy about coming on on this podcast, and I think she just thinks, like, no one knows who I am and that's not big of a deal.
But this is this is literally the platform.
Oh yeah, no, she You know, when you start off in the entertainment business in black press or whatever, everyone who sent your Horner.
Was right, you got to go through her first.
Yeah. She was one of the you know, right on was one of the top magazines for you to get exposure in if you're a black artist.
Yeah, So coming back to the States, how much of a culture shock was it for you, because I mean you're living in London and a key period of development the United States, you know, like the Nixon period.
You know, went to college, you know Nixon's college. I went to Nixon's college. That was far college. That's where he was. Yeah, he went to Wilier College and all. They also said that he was from Whittier, but he wasn't from whitty He was from Laura Belinda. He was born there and he went through he went through the Widio school system, but he didn't actually, he wasn't a resident.
So when all the ship hit the fan, they pretty much they had a sign saying welcome to right down their main street was Greenleaf Avenue, Welcome to President Nixon's hometown. And then when when Watergate happened, they made a tour the science they said, well they went on the whole campaign really to disown him, and they said, no, he's not really from here. You know, he's from Ladover, Linda. But he was really adopted by videos. That was a funny.
So it was it was how much of a.
It was a big culture shock because, for one, you know, the music was really different I had. I wasn't really in tune with all the music that was going on in the States. Then, you know, four years is a big, you know, vacuum of time to lose connection with your roots. And one of the first groups that I fell in love with when I came back was Brothers Johnson and the song get the Funk Out the Face Right. And but when I listened to it on the radio the first time I heard it, and I had a British
accent that I didn't even try to. I didn't realize it until I got back. And you know, some of my friend, well, what's up with you, bro? What this voice you got? And you know I was calling things petro instead of gas. There's just little things that you learn just from you know, being in one place for four years, you know, and I had to re turn
that stuff off and readjust it. And also I drove on the wrong side of the street and you know, one time in LA because I was used to driving, and I was in the car with my sister and she she says, hey, you know, I don't want to scare you, but you drive on the wrong side. It is too course, yes, you know, had to turn you know, so little things like that. But I thought that the song said get the fuck out my face, right, And I called her friend. I said, wow, man, music has
really changed here. Like a lady. You're like, no, you can say fuck on the radio station. Go no, man, They're not saying that. They're saying funk. And I go, oh, get the front. Okay, I got I gotta got it, you know. But I mean a lot of things had had changed, and uh, I got luck, very lucky. I was. I literally was working in a photo mat booth when of those little yellow yeah, yeah, one of those little huts.
It was.
It was in the hood and on Rodeo uh uh and off Crenshaw It's right next to a Pioneer Chicken. And I was, you know, I came back. I didn't come back with a lot of money or whatever. So I just got a part time job. Because that that job, I could work from three to eight and I could look for a real job during the day. And I was trying to be a writer. I was applying to Rolling Stone through Benfunctories and trying to you know, but
everything was on spec. Everybody said, well, you know the way we do it here, and I said, well, I need some money. So I found this job, and I said, you know, I figured I'd only worked there for a couple of weeks, which is what happened. I only worked there for a couple of weeks. But it was one of those crazy jobs where people they were it was always getting robbed, and they had women there all before me.
So they hired me because they thought it would be more you know, I'd be more intimidating, and they I don't know why people would want to rob the photo map booth. There's not a lot of money.
Wait, CA explain this.
To me because I was way too young. But like photo mat is, those booths were literally like the size of telephone booths, right, Yeah.
I could barely fit in it. I mean every time I moved, I knocked something over my knees or something. You know there was but it was like just an easy job.
You know, you would just take the photos or like, would you have to process the photos too? No?
What It's basically drop off the driveway. So people would come in, they would bring their film and then I'd give them a receipt and put it in and then when the film came, delivery truck would come by and drop off the process films. So all I was was a cashier and you know, exchanging film, collecting film, and then giving people their photos.
After Back to the Future stopped seeing those photo Yeah, they.
Were around for a while, you know. And so and I remember one time guy calls me up and says, hey, we're gonna come down and rob rob the place. Go okay, well thanks for the head up. What's up, you know? And I went to I went and sat in Pioneered Chicken. I called the manager. I said, hey, man, uh, these guys I got to calls they're going to rob the place. I'm gonna sit in here for a few minutes and see if anyone comes by. If they don't, I'll go back in the head.
You know, Oh my god, this it was this crazy.
Now, that was really culture shock, you know, coming from because I had I had not really lived, uh in a black area like that. I wasn't raised in that area and that was an all black ghetto areas, so that was a difference from living in London. So it was a cultural shock on many levels. But it was while I was working in there a photographer named Bruce Tolloman. I don't know if you've heard. Yeah, so Bruce Jackson's.
And yeah, Parliament you know Bruce Tolloman.
Yeah, Bruce. Bruce also went to Whittier College.
So legend legendary photographer, like.
Yeah, legendary, you know. And he worked for He's got a great book out too, a great cop the table Book at if you haven't seen it.
I got that for someone gave it to me for my fiftieth birthday, and he was kind of up to sign it for me.
Yeah, and he's, uh, you know, he's been he's had a really stellar career and he heard that. I saw his name in the staff for Soul Magazine with Gennys Jones Soul Magazine because I was going to try to write for that, and then I saw Bruce and I so I called him up and said, hey, Bruce Man, how are you doing. I see you're like a photographer, blah blah blah. I'm trying to get into business here. And so he said, well, you know, I know, I think somebody at this guy Bob Jones at Motown, who
is the black publicist there at the time. He's looking for I think he's looking for an assistant. Would you be interested? I said, yeah, sure, you know, have him call me, you know, or I'll call him whatever. And Bob Jones called called me while I was working at PHOTOO Photo my boot and he said, Hey, would you like to come in and interview for a junior publicist position at Motown? And Motown had just moved from Detroit and they were based. They moved into the CNN building on Sunset.
That's where their first This was seventy seven.
Uh yeah, this was seventy seven, and they moved to they moved out of Detroit to Hollywood for the first time.
You got to explain something to me, what is the What was the role of Iris Gordy, because you know, coming of age and being a fan of like High Energy Switch, just a lot of those Lovesmith, like a lot of those seventies Motown groups and even Apollo. You know, they would often go on soul training. I would hear Don talk about Iris Gordy. What was Iris's role in the mid seventies period of Motel.
I think she's more or less in A and R artist development.
I'm still wrestling with the fact that you have thirty.
Dude, you know I got I got the I got like the Spanish forty five of you got a whole Saturday, Like you don't understand what's going on over here.
Your back all of all, we've been we've been doing this for just six years now, Steve, You've totally outdone yourself.
But it looks like a it looks like a filter, but it's not. It's actually Steve forty copies of the Basic Roller. I'm sorry.
I mean, people got to check out this record for even my dream interview.
I'm still like I'm right now. It's it's taking a lot of rint space in my head.
This. I bring you a copy. I'm going to bring you a copy tomorrow. Thank you, Steve.
Steve is at your Shawshank record, like you have to buy it if you're in the thing, like you have to watch Shawshank if it's on.
This is absolutely this is the record. I own the most copies of it so much. It started with it started with the A track. I had the A track of this back in the day. It was like the first cool music I ever heard. Okay, let's let's not it's my first musical memory quest.
All right, let's might get into the rabbit hole, all right. So I was asking what was Iris Gordy's role?
I think so, I mean it was you know, you got to remember too, you know, this is in uh I'm I'm not from Detroit. You know, it's a familyiness and there was a lot of Gordy's involved with it. And when you come in in my role as sort of a I was just a burgeoning publicist. So I didn't even deal with I knew who Iris was, and I dealt with her very minimally. I mean I was They had a very structured class system at Motown.
So how was it?
What what was the modus operandi at Motown doing that period that you were out there. I've heard stories about how they operated in Detroit, and you know, they all use their IDs and took meticulous notes as far as like union scales and all those things. But what was your experience there and what was the everyday operations.
Like, Well, my my primary job was to serve as a writer and a publicist for a lot of those junior you know, like at that time, Eddie Kendricks had had left, you know, and David Ruffin had left, Edwards had left so there was like three temptations that were all working on solo records, Junior Walker and the All Star Dynamic Superiors. THELM. Houston.
You work with the Dynamic Superiors.
Yeah, man, I did their publicity and I got all those second tier guys. But you know, the same time I worked with you know, I got a chance to work with Stevie Wonder, and I got a chance to see the campaigns for like Dana Ross and the Four
Tops and Marvin and you know. So it was just, I mean to be able to get to have that access, not to them, I wasn't out there partying with them or whatever, but just to have the access to see how they were treated compared to the Dynamic Superiors or Junior Walker and the All Stars, and all those guys were frustrated. I mean, Eddie Kindricks used to just yell at me and just say hey, you know, I'd say, Eddie, look, I'm not in charge, bro, Yeah, do you want to
do the interview or not? If you don't want to do it, it's cool, you know, I'll try something else. You know. But they were all frustrated because there was such a you know, Barry had a really it was like a university, but it was also like very competitive and he hand selected who's going to be famous. Leon Ware, for example, I worked with leon Ware. Leon Ware gave Marvin Gay I Want You that whole album, and it
broke him as an artist. You know. He told me that, you know personally that that record, that record was meant for him, and Barry told him that, hey, look, I can release this record on you and I don't know how much is how well it's going to do, but if you give this record to Marvin, you're gonna make tons of money. And he did, he gave the record. Yeah, So he put people in different situations like that. You know.
Maybe twelve years ago, I saw an ep K for Songs in the Key of Life, in which I mean they did this thing where they like rented out this ranch and invited all these people from the press and whatnot, and it's literally like they documented the press hearing songs in the Key of Life for the first time, and you know, faces on them and everything, and you're literally watching them.
I mean, they edited nicely, but.
I remember Stevie came in with a weird cowboy hat on. Like they were they were like on a ranch or whatever. But just in general, how you know, was there much strategy behind how Motown operated, at least as on the publicity side of things, on how they operated and handled things, or was it just generally.
No, it was very It was very structured and very restraining. For example, Bob Jones allowed to pitch any of the major white magazines, like, say what Bob Jones, who'd been there for like I don't know when I got there, he'd already been there for ten years or something. He wasn't allowed to speak to Newsweek, Time, Life, all the biggest entertainment magazines. There was a guy named Mike Roskin who was the vice chairman of the company, and he took control of all the major big artists and he
personally pitched those people. So me, as the lowly publicist that just came in, I was assigned to only deal with black press, you know. So I dealt with you know, Marie Moore from the Answer Damn News, Gertrude Gibson from the La Sentinel, you know, all the Earl Callaway from Chicago Defender and yeah, yeah, all the local folks. Those are my go to guys, the Baltimore Son, Yeah, Baltimore's son,
all those things. And I used to write what they call canned features, and they they would use them verbatim and just put their name on it. But I didn't care because I wasn't getting paid any extra money, you know. So but because a lot of the black newspapers and magazines didn't have enough money to first, you know, they're very limited in staff. So but I dealt with the Regina Jones and Steve Ivory.
And uh, Steve Legendary Steve.
I yeah, so all those guys were, you know, my go to people. But you know, I thought, like, for a young guys, I need to do something more than just do black press that really make a name for myself. And so I decided without asking anyone. At the time, the Commodoores were just starting to break. They had their
first hit single, I forgot what it was. It was before Machine Gun, but it was off their first album, right, and they were starting to gain some some traction, And so I decided I was going to call a newsweek and pitched them to do a story on the Commodores. And so I called the guy and he says, uh, forgot what his name was, And he said, well, who are you? And I said, well, my name is Ramon Hervey and I'm a publicist at Multi see. Yeah, but
I don't I don't deal. I don't normally deal with anyone Motown except for my Mike Roskin, right, And I said, oh, okay, well, you know, well I'm calling you. Are you interested in, you know, possibly doing a story or whatever. He goes, well, let me, uh, let me get back to you. H on it. So he immediately calls Mike and he says, hey, some kid calls me today and I thought we had a deal, you know, blah blah blah. So then I go into Bob Jones calls me in his offices. What the hell are you doing?
Man?
You called Newsweek. I don't even I can't even call Newsweek. You're in trouble. I don't even know if I can keep you, if you're going to keep your job. He goes, Roskin wants wants to meet with you. So I had to go up to Roskin, and you know, I mean, he was kind of cool. He says, said, hey, well, we have a we have some policies here, some regulations that you need to follow if you're going to work here. And I said, okay, well, you know, nobody told me
I wasn't allowed to talk to other media. He goes, well, yeah, there are certain things that we do here and you're not allowed to talk to these people. That's what I do. And I said, okay, well I stand correct. You know, thanks for the heads up, and you know they didn't fire me. But I realized then I got to get out of here because if I can't have that, you know, any latitude to grow then and you know Bob Jones wasn't going to give up his job, right, So I just said, I gotta find another outlet.
So you're saying that.
For entry artists at Motown and non A list frontline artists ie Diana Stevie, there was a limit to where you could go. And I guess for you that the limit was maybe Jet or possibly Ebony or I don't know if Ebany was considered.
Jet, but Jet, and I don't think I was allowed to pitch Ebane. I was allowed to speak to Jet for sure, because I knew Bob Johnson and Silvery planning again, and they were always trying to get they were always trying to get money. And I said, Bob, I don't do advertising, I do put you know, there's other people at the company that you need to talk to here to get advertising. But he was always saying, well, if we do a story, can we get some ads?
And you know, I was just going to ask, how does that work with a group like the Commodores, in which you know, there's clearly a point where like in seventy five they were a black act, and then come seventy seven when that self titled record came out with you know, easy and Brickhouse on it, when they suddenly became like triple platinum and there and thank god it's Friday and Lionel was about to you know, spread his wings.
Then suddenly they only.
Deal with the top tier, the guy above Bob Jones, which is yeah.
Pretty much pretty much shifts like that, and you see how they the hierarchy like. But you know, one of the highlights of my time in Motown was I got to work with STEVIEE. Wonder on songs of the Key of Life. Okay, And I was in the marketing meeting that only someone at his leverage and cloud could even demand.
So he called a meeting and he wanted everybody from all the divisions to come in so that they could tell him what they're going to do, or songs of the key you know that that only you know, probably him, Marvin Diana uh probably did simptations. The four Tops like those, the Jackson Five, those groups could probably command that, their managers could command that. But all those other guys, they would never get an opportunity to meet with the whole
staff of the label. And one of the first things that Stevie said, and I mean I was I was so hyped because I hadn't met him yet and just meeting with him, and especially that album. I think of that album as probably the you know, pinnacle of his career. And one of the first things he said is, Okay, so just to set the tone for this meeting, I want to I would like to request I want a billboard in Times Square that's so big and so bright
that even I can see it. He had that kind of charisma and he was but he was dead serious, and you know, just the way that he commanded the meeting. I was so thrilled. I just I've remembered that line forever. I've even asked him a couple of times over the years because I've had a great friendship with Stevie since that day when I did R and B live and stuff, he came and performed, and I just really have so
much respect for him as an artist. Everything he's done with, you know, Martin Luther King Holiday, He's just had such an incredible career. But that was a great experience. And then one of the problems with that album that a lot of people don't realize is it had a twenty four page leaflet songbook inside. Yeah, and when you add the shrink, when you shrink wrap that with a double album, and then you have this twenty four page There were stories breaking in the news that there was more returns
on that album because of the war page. Yeah, And so I did some research on it to find out what was the percentage of warpage that comes with every album, and I found out that the percentage is I was like under ten percent, around under ten percent of all the albums being released in those days would there would
be a warpage issue and returns based on warpage. And so I talked to this guy in manufacturing to get his figures, and then I was able to get a story in Billboard to say that the information was misinformed, and that the percentage of warpage for Stevie's album was not as great. It was on par with the same amount of warpage for any album, right, and it was So I turned around then of it. And then I got in trouble for that too, because they hail was
this elderly black woman it was. She was the head of manufacturing and she called me in tour office and got pissed off that one I went to a low person in her to get information and I didn't clear it with her. So there was all these kind of departmental things that I just you know, know, there wasn't a guidebook. They don't give you like a you can't talk to this person, get this through that. You guys have to find your way, you know.
Politics.
Yeah, okay, I want to move on past Motown, but since you're already there, I gotta know this. Why did Motown never use a consistent manufacturer? Like one of the weirdest things about Motown to me was, you know, like, okay for with Steve with his ninety Bay City rollers back there.
Yes, I'm here.
I you know, I have a large record collection myself in which I've purchased maybe you know, maybe I have
ten copies of songs in the Key of Life. But my question is that I know that obviously Motown had to use various pressing plants, independent pressing plants across the United States in the world, because the ink, like the fonts of the ink for you know, if you brought the album down South and Georgia somewhere is different than if you brought it in New York, and different than if you brought in LA And I just never understood why a label of Motown's magnitude never just had one
consistent pressing plant, Like was Motown basically still an independent label even though they were the biggest black label.
Yeah? That was you know Barry thought. I think he believed that he had more power, more influence as an independent label than he would if he cut a distribution deal. He would make more money. He was willing to take those risks that you're talking about of working with all the independent once stops and manufacturing centers around. But and
he couldn't compete, you know. I think it was an issue of these bigger companies, you know, taking a big piece of independent companies and being able to offer record stores and stuff a bigger piece at a pie. It was very difficult for him and to stay independent. He wasn't the only one that was trying to do it,
but it was very, very difficult. But I think that was a it was a numbers games to him, you know at the time that he felt, you know, that he was going to win bigger by staying independent than doing a distribution to with someone.
And what was the logic and the reason for why Motowl never registered with the r I A A. Like every television appearance I would hear like and the Jackson sold you know, seven million units, I'll be there, like it would just be like these really crazy numbers.
So what was like the logic of not.
Joining the Recording Industry Associations of America And.
How did that affect I think.
It's because he didn't want to be He didn't want to have to be certified. He wanted to be able to use his own publicity and say whatever he wanted without being questioned. I mean, you know, that's the only thing that I could think of at the time, was he didn't want to have buy on you know, he could always exaggerate, you know, and all the companies were exaggerating. I mean used to you know, the big thing in those days was to say that a record ship platinum.
And you know, it's not how many records you ship, that's how many you sell. But you know, life they realized, you know, they'd run these stories, Oh it's and sort of ship platinum, but every turn gold. You know, so you know, did you.
Guys, did you guys numbers?
It was a big part of the record business thing. So I think that he was part of, you know, wanting to be able to control the narrative of what his company really represented in the marketplace.
Yeah.
I was going to say, now with streaming, especially in the movie business, like, the one thing I'll never know is how much money my film actually made exactly, Like that's the one thing they won't allow me to do. I can't look at the numbers at all to see if we did nine hundred million or just one million.
So right, Yeah, it's it's red tape. It's the red tape of being involved. And you know that's the same thing that you've been dealing with with your film. That's been going on for years in the film business too, where they tell you, oh, well, we didn't recoup you know, the whole idea is, you know, if you don't have to tell your artist, you don't have to quantify how many records and you could you can you can also tell them that you owe us more money than you
owe us, right. But I think that a lot of why he had so much frustration with a lot of the artists because the numbers didn't match what they felt they should should be getting, you know, and he got a bad rep for you know, supposedly shortcoming you know, uh short short sty selling everybody and not paying them what they were entitled to.
So what was your next step after Motown? Like, what was your last period at Motown? And what was the next step afterwards?
Then that was I got laid off because they were having a really tough winter and they were old a lot of money, you know, in terms of you know, a lot of what people don't realize is there's a when you're an independent company, you can't afford to not get paid for like ninety days. So they were getting old. They were being old a lot of money because a lot of companies just weren't paying them and so they
had to lay off a bunch of people. And I was one of the people that was laid off, and Bob Jones was kind enough to one He let me write for some other magazines like Black Star. I don't remember if you remember Black Stars, Black Star, You remember Black Stars.
Black Stars and the CPA, Yes, I remember them.
So I wrote for that under a pseudonym. Ray Trish was my name, and he told me I could you know, he helped to introduce me to He said, look, I know we not I can't get you any more money, but you know you could write for some magazines. I'll refer you. So I wrote for a lot of other magazines at the time as a freelancer, but I couldn't use my own name. And he told me that this company named Rogers and Cowan, which is actually a very famous PR company. They were actually the first independent public
relations company in Hollywood when the studios originally started. You know, they controlled everything. You know, they basically employed the all the actors and there were no managers and no agents
and no publicists. And they were the first company to be an independent publicist where big stars like Nally Wood and Robert Wagner and people of Paul Newman could actually go and have their own publicity and at this time there was an emergence of agents like the William Morrises and all those you know agents started around the same time.
So he told me that Paul Block, this guy Paul Block, who was the head of music over there, was hiring freelance writers, right, and he said, you know, we're probably going to hire you back, but this will maybe hold you over. And so that's when I went to meet with Paul Block to see if he would hire me to do some freelance work. And was after work, was at seven o'clock. I had a GELOPI of a car. I had a Dodge Dart and I didn't have enough money to had no reverse. What I had no reverse,
I didn't have enough money to fix it. So I used to drive around to find the right parking space. I couldn't do any valet parking or whatever. And I was drive around the finest spot where I can go.
Up into a spot.
Yeah, but you couldn't even go in head first. You could go head first anywhere because you have to back out.
Exactly all right. So you know, I was waiting to get enough money to fix my reverse, and so I went to Beverly Hills their offices were on Bedford and Wiltshire, and I went in to meet with Paul, and here's a nice guy. Didn't really give me any guarantee that
I would get hired or not. And then I went back to my car kind of a little bit deflating and disappointed and realized that I'd screwed up and I had I couldn't pull my you know, somebody had parked in front of me, so I had to back the car up, and this guy saw me trying to you know, I was leaning and trying to you know, those cars were kind of heavy. So this guy comes up and says, hey, man, you comes with your car And I said, yeah, it's just I guess my it seems like my reverse is
not working. I'm not really sure. I mean I lied, pretend like I didn't really know what was wrong with my car, and he helped me and I finally got out of there. And then about two weeks later, I got a call from Paul and he says, hey, do you want to come in and work on I have a project that I think I could use you for. You come in, I'll tell you what it's for. And he says, well, he said, I one of my clients is Paul McCartney. I said, wow, Paul McCartney from the Beatles,
Paul McCartney. He goes, yeah, that Paul McCartney, and I said, wow, yeah, yeah, I would love to work on the Beatles, I mean, you know. So what I found out was that Paul had bought the publishing to the Buddy Holly catalog, so he had owned it, and he was doing a week of you know, in a special Buddy Holly week in the you K and he wanted a press kit put together, and so I was my task was to write all the materials that would go in the press kit for them to use for him to use to launch that week.
And so that was my first project at Rogers and Cowan. And I didn't talk to Paul, but he approved all everything that I did, and and they ended up hiring me as a as a publicist based on my work.
I'm Paul McCarthy.
And then I ended up being like a gay guy on on Paul's account in LA and then he had another guy working in New York, but Paul was really the head guy. Okay, I you know, I I Linda McCartney and Lee Eastman, his father in law, and it was a couple of meetings and on phone call and stuff. I didn't really get to know him very well, but I got a chance to work on his an account and I learned so much. I mean, he had one of the biggest publishing MPL communications. He owned so much publishing,
it's just amazing. It was like books of it. And I got to see all he owned, like over one hundred fight songs from all the major colleges across the US really usually won schools. I mean, it just was unbelievable, just so many songs.
Well, it said that he's the one that taught Michael Jackson about like the power of owning publishing.
Yeah. Well apparently what ended up happening was that he told him that Capital had offered, you know, to buy for giving them an opportunity to buy their catalog back right. Yeah, And he was telling Michael, you know, I just couldn't pull my I couldn't convince myself to pay that much money for songs that we wrote, you know, And so
he turned it down. But then Michael went back and told Mike Stewart at Mike Stewart was ahead of publishing at Sony at the time, and Mike Stewart helped him purchase the music.
It's Paul's fault, man, he should have Always claim your legacy, Always claim your legacy.
Well, what's your take on people these days selling their catalogs and that being a thing that people do these days? Do you you see it as fortuitous or not?
You know, I think it's I think it's a great. It's great for these a lot of artists that are not really relevant, you know, on streaming services and stuff. They're not making a lot of money. But these are companies that their job is to, you know, try to make money after publishing off placement and sinking and all that stuff. So I think it's I think it's great.
I've seen it. It's amazing that they you know, I kind of it's a it's a further development from when I guess maybe ten years ago, when Live Nation and AEG started paying huge amount of money for artists rights, you know, to circumvent agents and you know where they
would you know, end labels. You know, they wanted to really monopolize and control, and this is just another form of that where you know, publishing has always been an annuity for artists if they understood it that it's something that lasts in perpetuity, and so I would always say, hang on to it. But if someone's going to give you three hundred million dollars and you're still going to you know, make money, you know, that's a lot of money to turn.
Down spending it now. Yeah, I you know I did that, right, Bill? What you do sold my publishing? Did you sell a posting?
I sold it so you could pay for the new house.
Exactly all of it, all of it.
Because it's like the logic was, they did the math for me, and basically.
The way I was going now, I would have gotten the full value of my lifetime work. But maybe when I was seventy seven years old, so I could either they did the math, like we can either give this all to you right now, like what you would make up into seventy seven years old, or we could just pay you off a.
Little bit at a time, a little bit at a time.
And you know, the Roots are just one of those prestige artists that like selling records.
Was never our thing. And I mean for the most part, licensing, you know, like.
You still have to get permission for licensing, correct, Like it's not full out you sold it, and they can just do whatever they want to with it.
I mean, we have a very specific arrangement, so you know, I don't want my shit being used for like mega parades or anything.
Right, That's what I'm asking. But if I didn't ask, you want to disclose that information, I'm like, you'll want people out here thinking the music could.
Just be anywhere.
No, there's there's always sort of stipulations, like depending on what it is.
I mean, for the most part, Yeah, I decided to It's.
Not as big as a Bob Dylan deal or you know McCartney deal.
But but you started in nineteen eighty seven, right with the roots.
Well I'm a technically eighty seven, but we got ninety three. Yeah, it's thirty years for us, and so.
You earned the right to do that. That's why I'm saying that people you know who've been in the industry a long time. You know, you guys have been you know, performing. I've seen you guys perform several times. In fact, we met. I don't even know if you remember, but we met when d Jane yeah with feet are.
Yeah, totally remember that. Maybe you well you.
Try to like you, No, I just didn't know the radar. No, no, I just didn't know if you remember how how we met.
But yeah, that was absolutely Yeah, you're the first time when I did a speeches a solo solo situation. Yeah, you start your your book at a very curious place. You start with the Richard Prior story, and that particular chapter in chapter one, to me, I was very curious about that, only because kind of one of the prevalent themes on the show that we often talk about that I'm often curious about is when a creative or an artist sort of subconsciously lets you know that they don't
want to do this anymore. And oftentimes it'll happen. They'll react in ways that will let me know that. And oftentimes artists will self sabotage, you know, a good thing, and there's ways to do it. There's you know, I mean lightweight stuff like gambling, and you know, for you, especially as a manager, I know that time management is also a way that an artist will express their unhappiness with the situation. I'm certain you've dealt with artists that last minute, we'll cancel something.
You know.
I used to always joke that I always felt the Jackson's made up. I only knew the Jackson's got exhaustion.
That's why, like, right.
Right, I've never seen the word exhausting you so much. Whenever it's like I canceled, Mike origanet like exhaustion, okay, whatever.
But for you, though, just.
The amount of fires that you've had to put out with every client that you've had, like it's like you're being sent out into the front lines and you go off on Yes, while he is holding.
Up I'm holding up the chapter where he says a path of self destruction can sabotage fame?
Yeah, so well, one, I wanted to know why you felt this is a very unique interpretation of your life,
that is, that isn't a biography or memoir. And as I said at the top of it, I feel like this book is important for the future managers or really, like to me, I think it's important for interns because I know every intern I ever met in nineteen ninety three is now CEO that I work with, and it always starts with Hey, you don't remember it, but you came to my college back to then and back when I was an intern.
But for you.
To be at the Helm especially like the way you started that Richard Pryor chapter in your book, Why would you want to subject yourself to that level of torture and not saying it's all bad, but you know, like surely you're you have to be living every day like any moment, I'm going to get a call at three a m. And I got to get I got to put a fire out.
It did come to that, but I didn't. I didn't think that going in, Like I had bright lights and I thought, Wow, I'm getting a chance to represent Richard Pryor, someone who I really respected, who I knew about, who I was a fan with. You know, he was given a black kid, you know, young still, you know, by
that time, I was pretty experienced. But his manager, David Franklin, he made sure that when he that he wanted He said, Richard really wants you to do this, and we want to make sure that you're going to be the one to do it. We want you to be responsible. So I thought, wow, this is great, you know, to have a you know, at that point, Richard was really you know, he was one of the top paid black actors in
the business. He had been successful as a writer, he had had a lot of success, you know, and so it was like a real feather in my cap to get him as a client, you know. And I was thinking, Wow, I can do you know, There's no limits to what I can do with this guy from a pr standpoint. So that was where my thinking was, like, this is gonna be a great opportunity. I'm going to make him even a bigger star than he already is.
Uh.
And then when I got into trenches, it wasn't quite the opportunities that I thought were there. Weren't one hundred percent there because he was, you know, he was very unpredictable, and he was going through a lot of personal issues with his drugs and alcohol and stuff like that. And
you mentioned at three o'clock, you know what. The first time that that happened, he was supposed to do a he had agreed the headline for the Brotherhood Black Crusade, which is a very well known organization, fundraising organization, community organization in Los Angeles and a guy named Danny Bakewell was the founder of it and still has kept the organization going. But Richard called, and at that time it was his wife, Jennifer. They called me at three o'clock
in the morning and they're kind of giggling. I can kind of tell their hw and stuff, and they tell me that Richard wants to Richard wants to cancel his performance. It was like early Saturday morning and the show wasn't until he wasn't gonna go on until like nine to twenty the next night, right, So he says, well, you know, we went to the doctors and he has gastro internitis.
I didn't even know what gastro in tonitis was, so I had to look it up and I we had the stomach ache, you know, basically that's a fancy word for stomach ach medical terms. I said, well, you know, why don't you guys go to sleep and let's just re you know, reconnect in the morning, Uh, you know, get a good night's sleep. I can call you around eleven and then we'll decide what we should. I mean, you know, you don't have to go on until nine o'clock.
Maybe your stomach will be feel better by then. And I said, also, I really don't want to. You know, he wanted me to make an announcement, and I said that there's no place I can go. You know, at that point, there was no social media or whatever like that. And the only way I could break a story like that was I could go to AP Associated Press, and I said, I don't want to do that, and I wanted to wait and talk to Danny Bakewell to see
what he thought what would work best for him. I did end up talking to Danny in the morning, and I convinced Richard that I would create a statement to be read and that we wouldn't announce it nationally as a national thing. We just announced it at the venue because a lot of people, do you know, it's just a charity event, and not everybody needed to know that he was canceling it, right except for the people that were in there. And he also agreed to donate ten
thousand dollars to the Brotherhood Crusade. I said, So Danny was fine with that. So I went there that night, you know, and I had prepared the statement with the idea that Danny Bakewell would read the statement to the audience and also tell them. So when I got there, I hadn't met Danny. I'd only talked to him on the phone. So I said, well, Danny, here's the statement that Richard wants you to read. He goes, I'm not reading that. He said, you're here, you're his guy. So
you go up there and read it. And it was at the shrine. I said, oh, man, you're kidding me, like, you know, really, So I had to go up on stage and tell five thousand black people who were expecting Richard Prior to perform. And that was really the beginning. It set a pattern of just having to do that all the time.
You know.
Richard was just one of those guys. He was unpredictable and I'd come to the office some days and I just never knew what he was going to so you just kind of hope that, you know. And then there was other things that he did do. For example, the Richard Prior Life and Concert film was my you know, was an idea I brought to him. That wasn't It wasn't my idea to do the contract. But somebody came to me, a guy by the name of Bill sargent
Well I mentioned in the book. He's the guy that offered fifty million dollars for the Beatles to your Reunion tour. And he said, Hey, I want to do a live concert. And I said, well, I think that's a really great idea. I don't know if I can sell it, but and you know, David and Richard gave me their blessings and
I helped to put that whole thing together. So you get those kinds of moments and you think, well, you know, if I can do more of that, that offsets those other times when I'm canceling signatory whatever.
But you gave.
I just wanted to give you your props and at least at the least in the richer prior chapter, because not only do you account for all these events, but you also give perspective and where Richard came from and kind of telling his story to give you know, this kind of twenty twenty two. I always say lens of cause and effect basically, right.
Yeah, different, you know, like you know, Richard did a lot of things he never got canceled, like what happened with Dave Chappelle. And you know, Richard, people just loved him because he was so vulnerable and he shared, He turned his cont his his misfortune into comedy in a way that it was resonated with people, and they forgave him. They always forgave him of everything, and he he you know, as I think you noticed in the book he created a pattern that was very successful for him in terms
of marketing. The way he marketed his fame and his persona. You know, his comedy, live concert film. You know, there's very rare, you know, as a strategic uh, you know, crisis manager, whatever, the first thing you say is let's do something and let's move away from Let's figure out a way to put that in the past. And he found a way to actually allowed that the fuels a lot of his comedy.
All right, So I.
Forgot where I read it, But there was a show that he did at the Hollywood Bowl. I'll remember there's a famous photo where he says, I want you all to kiss my happy black ass. He's a little I think it was like he was doing a benefit. It was like an l g b t Q.
I was representing bet Midler then, yes, so that was a star spangled night for rights. Bet Midler's manager, Aaron Russo, came up with the idea and we and I was I really had a big role in that because we met with all these gay you know, l g b Q organizations from San Francisco. Because we donate the money from the concert and Richard agreed to do it, but
I didn't. I didn't represent Richard then, okay, But I literally was on the stage and I was six feet away from him before he went on, and I stayed on the stage because I was such a big fan I wanted to see him close up. So I was on the wing of the stage watching that all happen, and he walked right by me. After he did that, he walked off the stage and went straight to his limbo and left.
I heard it was.
It was described someone say it was the cabaret version of Altamont.
If you know what happened, it was he freaked out everybody. I mean, he just went and you could watch him turn as it was, you know, he started off and people were laughing and whatever, and then he just dark and he just I don't know if he realized there or if he was misled, but he just really turned on the audience.
Can you give me an example, because oftentimes I say, I see that you you are thrown in the front line to strategize something or think of a spin or fix this real quick. Can you just in your whole career, like, what.
Was the one time where you felt like whatever spin you had to put on something that you know, maybe this might engulf you or kind of you know, you might get drawn into the tornado yourself, like this is something that you can't handle.
I don't know. I've never thought there's something I couldn't handle.
So you're not handling this with with fear because even then you have to like meet with people. You got to be the bearer of bad news. I'm sorry, my client, blah blah blah blah blah. It's not going to make it.
You know, well, you you learn, you know, you build up a resiliency, like Richard Richard prior telling me how to be resilient because he was constantly forced me to be chimes too.
Rick James was another.
Guy that tested me my you know, my resolve and my ability to just you know, because I really I really admired Rick and thought he had a lot of talent. You know, he was a really skilled musician, and but he was just his own worst enemy. But I always wanted him to win, and I was trying to come up for ways to help him win because I thought, like, you know, I did feel like he had a potential to be bigger than what he was, and it becomes.
But but I never gave up on that belief and so that's what fueled my You know.
But isn't it exhausting? But is it not exhausting to Is it not exhausting for you sometimes to have to Jedi mind trick your artists, you know, like I know it is it is.
There's times when I don't. I haven't enjoyed being a MOP. I'll be honest. I mean, it's not something that I wake up going like what problem can I fucking fix today? You know, that's not like I don't wake up with that attitude. But I just feel I just always felt comfortable with the pressure that I felt I would be able to if they trusted me that I could help them, we could achieve. Our collaboration to me, as you know, artists and managers is really it's just a synergy and
it's a shared vision. And you know, it's not like one or the other. It's if we can share a vision of what we hope to accomplish on, that's what you really hope for. But it's not always possible for you.
In getting to know.
Some of your clients, do you often get to the heart of the matter, like are they talking at all about like, hey, maybe I should see Like, I don't know how prevalent seeing a therapist was to suggest in nineteen eighty two or nineteen you know, now, of course, you know we throw everyone like therapy in the face, and yes, mental health is everything in twenty twenty two, but back in nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty four, if you since that an artist is sort of stuck in
that place, like what what solutions are there that aren't you know what's perceived as embarrassing as oh, maybe I'd need to see somebody, you know, therapy wise.
No, I think there was there was up There were times when I asked people, you know, have you given any thought to getting some help, you know, seeing a therapist, or you know, to really do you even think you have a problem? I means it seems like you do have a problem, you know. You know, even with Don Cornelius, you know, he had a brain surgery and it made him unstable.
So you were there in eighty three when he had his aneurysm.
Yeah, I wasn't close to him then, but by then, let me think, I'm trying to think when was the first soul train music Awards eighty seven. Yeah, so he had. Yeah. So it was after the you know, it was shortly after that that I became more I started doing pr for him. After the brain animism, he told me about it. But then when we were doing the Soul Train Awards, and I've worked on that show for at least five years or so, I remember him telling me that it
made him moody, and sometimes he wasn't. He didn't know how he was going to react to certain things, and you know, you could see it, you know, actually happen in real time a couple of times. The different things that he did that I think, you know, contribute were influenced by that. And I remember asking him once, have you thought about going back and getting another surgery done?
And he said, I have thought about it and talk to the doctors, but the reality is they couldn't guarantee him that he would get better, and it also might even be worse. So, you know, these are things that people, you know, I don't think he told everybody that, but that's something I can say he shared with me, I mean, and just for him, you know, because he wanted me to understand and I was trying to understand him and
we had that kind of friendship. I mean, he wasn't like a total open book with me, but there were times when we would sit down and talk for a couple of hours and he would tell me, you know, the different things, this frustration with just black people and black artists that wouldn't support him, and you know, and I always tried to help with any artist that I
was managing or whatever. Like, you know, we got to do the Soul Training Music Awards, you know, because I knew how hard it was, you know, when artists crossed over a lot of them forgot that, you know, someone was the one who put him in a position to be on national television.
How long did you work with this whole train awards, the music awards.
Up until probably the first five years, I think, or six or seven years something like that.
So you're leased there for ninety one ninety two. Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna debunk a major theory. I have a major theory that I'm afraid to ask you this question because I think I know the answer. But I'm gonna ask this question anyway. So let's let's go February of nineteen ninety two. This is the infamous Michael Jackson crutches period where if you remember he did remember the time sitting down, This is what I think happened, and all you have
to do is verify if it's true or not. All right, So based on our EMC search story, you remember the MC search story where hammer took it right, took a hit out right story right, and then it wound up in Bob Jones's hands where he had to they had to manufacture and Artists of the Decade award for Michael to win, so that Michael concepcion. Okay, So that was the American Music Awards, which of course is a Dick Clark platform.
That was also eighty nine.
So in February of ninety two, Dangerous is out and Michael is being given a Lifetime Achievement Award or whatever, like a made up award in Eddie Murphy and Elizabeth Taylor are presenting it to him, and Michael has crutches on, and you know, sympathy. This is like right after the Oprah interview and everything. So this is like a brief period where like empathy is really on Michael Jackson's side and he performs he was supposed to perform.
Remember, the time.
But you know, he has to sit in a wheelchair perform and he can't move whatever, so he's just basically performing from the top of you know, he's just used his souldiers in his neck and whatever. I don't buy that one bit. I believe that that was all. I don't believe that Michael Jackson injured his foot and rehearsals.
But I smell.
I smell only because Michael also had to do Dick Clark's American Music Awards for the same thing. And I know that there's a rivalry between Don and Dick.
So well, what are you proposing there?
Come on, I I I'm calling foul.
I believe that there was a situation between Don and Dick Clark American Music Awards and SoulTrain Awards, which this is Hatfield McCoy territory, and I think the compromise was made that. Okay, I wanted Tom I saw, but I'll sit in a wheelchair and perform it.
It was a throne, by the way, It wasn't a throne, but he was.
Yeah, but all right, can you my closest.
I don't I remember the video because it was like twelve minutes long, right, I don't. I don't. The performance doesn't stand out to me, but I just remember that there was a lot of work that went in to get Michael to do the show, and that at that time, you know, Michael had so much clout that he demanded he put together a video that was twelve minutes long
about himself. He submitted it to If you look back, it was perfectly the Grammys, American Music Awards and his and the Soul Train Awards had to use that to introduce him. Then that's when after the video plays, then Eddie Murphy comes out. He made that a mandatory thing that all those major awards shows had to do that in order to get him on. And there was always
a lot of there was back and forth. If certain black acts did American Bandstand, don didn't want him on the show, and then the other way around, a big act did soul Train first, then did Clark wouldn't want him on the show. And this went on the whole time that ours working. Really Yep, it wasn't. It wasn't just Michael. It was a lot of how the time.
I became aware of you, of course during the situation with your ex wife having been around at the time in nineteen eighty three eighty four, you were brought aboard, I guess to sort of handle her press and whatnot.
Can you talk about the situation of how you were brought into handle obviously for those that don't know, you know, it's amazing to me how you ushered as her manager, like what would have been a tarnished career, Like you managed to turn Vanessa Williams's entire trajectory around and made her way bigger than whatever being a Miss America could have promised her. But how did you get brought into the organization to fix it?
There are two really huge misnomers about that whole situation, which I'm going to clarify for you.
Yes, that have been part of history.
And wrongly reported as they're just not authentic. One was that Vanessa had a career. When I met her, she didn't have a career. She was a beauty pageant winner. She won a Miss America pageant, and what made it more significant for her than other pageant winners prior to her was the fact that she was black. So she was the first black Miss America in the sixteen three
year history of the pageant. Right, she was a sophomore in college, and some woman from the New York State pageant saw her performing a play and said, wow, you know you would be great. Have you ever thought of being in a pageant? Her parents were school teachers, she had never been. It wasn't a career to being pageants, right, And when they told her that if you win Miss America, you get twenty five thousand dollars in scholarship money, she said, yeah, sure,
I'll give it a try. So she ended up winning Miss New York. And then when you win, you automatically get a bid to compete in the Miss America pageant, And so that all happened in six months. And once she won, I was representing an artist, a painter named Phoebe Beasley who's pretty well known, and she does, you know, amazing collages and stuff. And she knew a guy named Dennis Doudell who was a handler for the NASA. He
was really just a neighbor. Because her parents were school teachers, and because she was the only black Miss America, they were being besieged by requests from black organizations to have Vanessa come and you know, make appearances, public appearances and such. So they asked for some help. And Dennis was a corporate lawyer for American can and he said, sure, I'll try to help out. And so he was really and Vanessa did want to have a career in the entertainment
business once she finished her reign as Miss America. And so I, uh, my friend Phoebe, who was a client at the time, said hey, I reco wanted to know if I could recommend you to this guy. Do you know who Miss it who Vanessa Williams is And I said, yeah, yeah, the black girl that won Miss America. I know she is. And he said, well, she wants to go into the entertainment business. And I said, you should talk to Ramon.
He'd be great to add to your team. And so I met with Dennis one time and he liked me, and I would like to introduce you to Vanessa. She's on the road every day right now. And I said, yeah, sure. You know, in fact I was. I was living in La then I flew to New York. I had launched with him in New York, and I said, yeah, I'd be happy to meet with her. And you know, because for me just being a beauty pageant when even though it was Miss America, I didn't think that was an
automatic ticket to being successful in entertainment business. So but I said, you know, yeah, if you guys are putting together a team, you know, I'd be interested to see what can happen. And then I didn't hear from him for quite a while, and then this was in July,
probably mid July. I heard from him and he told me that he needed my advice on something, and so I said, yeah, sure, what do you need And he said, well, I heard there's some rumors of some pictures of Vanessa and I don't know if there if it's legit or not. And I said, well, if you don't know if they're legit, then don't say anything, don't do anything. You know, I'll see if I can nose around and find out anything. And then a couple of weeks past I told him
I hadn't found out. I couldn't. I didn't hear any wind of it. And then he said, well, the pictures exist. What should I do? And I said, well, have have you seen the pictures as the pageant seen the pictures? He said no, I don't know if they have or not. And I again told him, you know, don't say anything if you don't really know what you're up against, then there's no way curve what the collateral gamage will be if you go out too soon in any kind of crisis,
you need to know what you're up against. And so ultimately the pageant did see the pictures and this guy, Albert Marx, who was the CEO of the pageant and had been for I don't know fifty years or whatever, he requested that the NASSA design. Didn't demand it, he requested it. And that's another thing that a lot of people whenever it's been reported that she was forced to resign,
she wasn't forced to resign. She was requested. The reason they requested it because he didn't know legally whether they could actually fire her, and he didn't want to go into litigation about it. That's why he never said it. So he gave her seventy two hours to respond. And that's when Dennis called me and said, what should I
I said, well, now we can do something. Now we have Do you want me to control this and tell you guys what to do, or or do you want me just to tell you whatever whatever you want me to do, I'll try to help out. He goes no, no, I want you to manage it, take care of it. Whatever. So on Friday afternoon in La, I was, I was. I had seventy two hours basically from the time that he had not announced it, which was around eleven o'clock on Friday morning New York Times. By time I found
out about it, it was a little later. And so I said, here's what I think we should do. We should have a press conference in New York. I'll put it together. I don't care what you know. If she's going to resign, she doesn't really, then I need to know that right now. But I need to put together a photo news alert and get you know, get a commitment and see if we have enough press people that
will come out to the press conference. And then what we'll do is we'll have one statement and that's what we'll do.
Can I ask, was there not a person like the sisty person that's trying to like blackmail, like I have these photos and I want, you know, one hundred thousand dollars or nothing like?
Was there?
No? No, GUCCIONI had already uh uh had the magazine had her picture on the cover. That's what we saw. He was about to par so.
He just he printed it with it so.
Sat He claimed that he had a model release. So he had been planning this whole thing. He had planned it to happen before she ended her rock her reign as missing. We wanted it to happen before the next Miss America was in, you know, crowned, which was going to be a few weeks away. So there wasn't six weeks left.
There wasn't at least a pre phone call, like much how much were me in that destroy your life right now?
And none of that?
Now he connived and planned the whole thing.
And how was she this whole time?
Like?
What were her feelings? Was she angry? Was she like, well, I.
Hadn't met her. I had never even met her. Wow, So what happened is she ended up confessing to Dennis that she did take the pictures, but she didn't sign a model release. And so that part I knew about before I came involved, But I literally got involved with seventy to two hours. My job was to come to a solution on how we're going to deal with this announcement, and I suggested the announcement so that she could go on with her life one time don't answer any questions
from the press. You're going to do a statement. I'm going to hand the statement out to all the press. I hired an affiliate company in New York, a good friend of mine to help me set it up, and then night I took a red Eye to New York and on the way this guy came picked me up at the airport at JFK. I drove out to Milwood where they live in Westchester County, and I got away there, Dinnis told me there was going to be a lawsuit. I go, okay, that's a lawsuit, hunht. So we got it.
So now I'm finding out that I'm gonna have to deal with lawyers and they're going to have input on what the press statement can be. And when I got to Millwood, there was over four hundred and fifty media people, like an encampment taking over her neighborhood, across the street and everything. And that was the first time and you
said that, did I have fear? I had fear then, because I said, Wow, this is a much bigger thing than I realized, because in La you know, it wasn't when I was in I just didn't even the fact that she won Miss America was not It was like one page picture on the front page of the La Times. But in New York because she was from New York. She was missed New York. It was huge, and so all these people were waiting and they didn't even know where she was. She was at home, but they were
just waiting to get a glimpse and everything. And so when I went in there, I met the parents and I met Vanessa probably at around eight o'clock in the morning, and mostly you know, then the lawyers showed up, and at that time everybody wanted to uh said that they were going to fight and they weren't going to let her resign, that they were gonna But my feeling was based on the fact that there was only six weeks left before the national cast, and I felt in my
heart that the pageant was not going to support. Yeah, they weren't going to let her, you know, be on that show for one And I didn't think that there could be an injunction. You know, whether they could get an injunction or not, they're not going to let her perform any of her services that she was supposed to deliver as Miss America. So why fight for what are
you fighting for? You have nothing. The only thing left for you to do is to be on that show and give the other girl the new crown, you know, And is that really worth it? Just go on with your life. But I wasn't in charge, you know. I mean that they had lawyers, the parents had input. So I was I said, Hey, whatever you guys want to do, I'm going to frame this statement to represent Vanessa's voice,
you know. And so I worked with Vnessa over the course of that, within that seventy two hours, and we bantered about with the lawyers, and at one time they were saying, well, she can't say this and she can't say that. And say, well, look, guys, if she can't say anything, then let's just cancel the press conference. You guys can do your lawyer shit and just make a lawyer legalese announcement and just it'll make it like a law release instead of a press release. And I'll be
happy to service that for you guys. And then then we changed and we were back and forth, and then ultimately in the book, I explained what everything need to happen. But she did end up. You know, the world knows that she did end up resigning, but she had the option not to. That's the thing that I think a lot of people don't realize. They didn't force her out, but she decided to do and I think she did the right thing.
Two questions, two minuted questions. One only because I went to school with her. Did she ever have a conversation with Susette? So Susette Charles and it was this Jersey but she's really Philly And I went to school like she was my sister's best friend.
So we all you really know, Oh, I definitely. I mean, I'm sorry.
I was cheering for Suzette the whole time, but you know, but that's cool cheering for anybody's.
African American as well. She's black. She's a black woman as well.
So was there Did they ever have a conversation about this during this time period or now?
Both camps were separate.
They were both separate. And if I would have been Suzanne's manager, I would have told her don't accept it.
I always now hindsight, we would have been more famous, she would have been more famous.
Accepted it because it's like one black woman, like you're gonna do this to a black woman? And then I'm going to side in there. And she never I mean, she was only Missed America for six weeks.
Six weeks.
Why would you accept that like peons like pennies? And she never got to do after that. I mean, you know, she's not one of the most you know, I mean Miss Americas are not recognized, but Susie Charles is probably the one of the least recognized. Because she accepted that.
Well, everybody ain't have a ramone, so.
I said, no, don't be more famous. So she would have been all over the news. She could have her own press conference to say why she didn't accept it?
What were your feelings when I I guess, I guess thirty seven years later, they tried to pull a mea kopa and say, Okay, we were wrong and that was tone deaf of us, and we want to reinstate you back as Miss America. And I assume she declined it. But we're even aware that maybe seven eight years ago that that organization actually yeah, yeah, I wanted to write them wrong about it.
She called me, she asked me what I thought she.
Should do, and you told her still no, I.
Said, no, why would you go back to them? Yeah? But you know she she did. I mean I was I think that she did it for her parents for a mom d doing it. She ended up supporting them. She didn't actually do what they wanted, but they did reach it. Uh uh. You know she's she's held in a different light now than she was. And I'd say, it's up to you. I wouldn't do it ifire you,
but you know, it's your life. And if that's if you guys want to if you want to have peace and you get some benefit out of it, then do it.
Miss America of All Times, isn't you mean former Miss America of All Time?
Yeah?
Wait, but it took a long time, you know, it took a long time for all that stuff to really put it behind her. A lot of people say any publicity is good publicity, and I don't want from that school of thought. It took over a decade before she could actually be listed by her name only, meaning for ten years, every time she was in the paper, there was some reference to farm former New New Pictures missing. It was like a tag and it's like, you know, having a monkey on your back only was in writing.
It was like a little literally like a brand tag, you know, new Miss America forced to resign because of new pictures I'm wordying. It was always every time, you know, and I said, if we could, you know, for me, my biggest goal was if I could just have one person say, just use her name without any reference to the past. And it finally happened. A journalist by the name of David Rich who's a well known Broadway critic, when she was in Kissed as Spider Woman for her review.
He was the first one really that didn't use the reference. And fucking aim Man, we finally won. We got your name back.
You know, watching the initial launch of you Know Her eighty seven, the Right of the album and the comfort Zone album, and how that, how you just really managed to do the impossible, which is like anyone associated with Miss America, it's almost like that would have been a sure shot way to almost like career suicide. But somehow you managed to make her into a household word and an international star. So could you just describe what the well basic strategy.
I continued to be a publicist for a while.
And I even just a publicist, never a manager.
No, no, I was a manager a much longer time than I was a publicist. I was a publicist for less than six months probably or maybe less than a year, but I was a manager for over ten years. But what ended up happening was I didn't want to manage her because I had worked with so many other people who were either their mother or their husband, or different people in the business who were managed by their mother or their husbands or whatever. And I said, I never I don't want to be that. I don't want to
be an appendage to the NASA as a manager. And I told her that, and I said, but I'll find you a good manager. I'll help you, you know. And I tried to find her a good manager, and everybody said, you know, no, And so finally she did have a woman by the name of Dolores Robinson, was a pretty well respected manager in the business, and they didn't work out. And then one day she just said, well, you know,
why don't you just manage me? I come to you for everything anyways, I'm not going to do anything without getting you advice, So why don't you just do it?
And I finally, you know, I mean, you don't want to make decisions out of emotional decisions, But I really did it out of love for her, because I wanted to see her, you know, I wanted her to be happy, and so I finally committed to it and I said, look, I want to do it, but the vision is I don't think I can make you a star in Broadway and motion pictures are TV because there's not a lot of parts for black for me. And what we have to do is come up with an identity that people
that you can own. And I think the best way to do that is in the music industry because we can brand you. I can't brand you waiting for the right role to come up, you know, and people know that you can sing you one. So what we have to do is create an identity that is not miss America because you're not really You don't really represent miss America and you don't really represent the pictures. So they
were diametrically opposed. So if we can find music and you give me an opportunity to do that, then then I think we can create. And if we fail, then we'll try Plan B. But let's try to go to the music route and try to brand you and create an identity that you can own, and then we can build and then hopefully that'll be a caveat a pathway for you to do film, television, Broadway and all the
other stuff. But then what I really didn't realize was that, you know, the stigma of what everything that had happened. I mean, everyone turned me down, you know, Bob kraz now, Gerald Busby, you know, I got turned down by like eight labels. Clive Calder, you know, I remember he told me, he said, well, I kind of see Vanessa's you know, this is kind of like a page three like in the Sun in the UK, Like that's how what people
kind of think of her might be. Like maybe she could be a celebrity, but I don't think anybody will ever take her serious as an artist. And he told me that, you know, this is in his office, me and Vanessa. He said this in front of Vanessa too, And you know, so I was getting turned down left and right, you know, but Clive was actually he sent me a really nice note and he said, everything you told me you were going to do in that meeting,
you did. And I blew it. And I was so happy that he owned up to that, you know, because I told him I said, no, I don't want a demo, dao, I want a real deal. She can will make her a legitimate artist. And the guy who really came to the table was at X time and Ed was calling
called me. At that time, he had just gotten a deal with Wing Records to be you know, to start Wing Records, and he had one group signed at the time, Tony Tony Tony, and so he was just telling me we were friends, and he said, man, I got this new label, so if you got anybody, you know, please run and buy me. And he knew that, you know, at this point Vanessa and I had a relationship. People knew about it and everything, so you know, at the end of our conversation, I said, oh, I don't have
anybody right now. But he said, well, what are you doing with Vanessa? And I said, well, I'm trying to get a damn record deal, but everyone wants to do a demo and I don't want to get you know, demo deals are like purgatory. You know, you get a demo deal and then all of a sudden they reject you. Then nobody wants to touch you. And I said, I don't want to go that route. So he just said, well, you know, why don't you come here. Let's do it, And I said, really, am you serious, And he said, yeah,
I don't have any money. I don't have any kind of real money, but you know, I can give you some money. So we barded a little bit. There wasn't a lot of room. I negotiate a little bit more, and that's where we started. And so it was the three of us, and you know, that was the beginning of her musical career and then the rest is you know, history.
And you know, I think I did have a big role in that first decade of her career and everything that we The one thing I was disappointed about was we didn't get a chance to do a major tour, and I thought that that was something that I would have loved for her to dedicate and stay more entrenchs in the music industry, to really launch a major tour while I was still at her helm. And then our relationship started. You know, by this time, we had three kids, and you know, I don't regret any of the time
that we spent together. We were very successful in our run, and she's gone on to do really great things.
I have to ask, have you guys ever forgiven La and Babyface for giving girls away the pebbles instead of Yeah.
That was a total that was a total money deal. Like Ed and Vanessa. Man, they hated them. Yeah, I think you read in the book where we ran into I ran into La and Babyface the warm Clock. That was so fucking funny. Man, I was cracking up. I never thought I didn't have the hate for them. I just didn't like the the business business ethics that they exercise. And all they had to do was call it was
a money It was a money deal, you know. And also we didn't have But what a lot of people don't realize is we didn't have a contract with them. We were doing a ED one. You know, we were doing a spec deal with them because they brought We wanted them to write original material and write and produce rigial material for Vanessa on her debut album. And they came with four songs and we didn't really like most of you know, the three of the songs we didn't
feel right. But girlfriend one that we thought was interesting wasn't really the direction we're thinking. But we said, let's do this song, you know, switch and let Levan has put her lead vocals on it, and we'll do it as a spec and if everything goes well, then we'll commit three songs for the album.
So there's a version of Girlfriend with her voice on it somewhere in this world.
That's what Pebbles heard. Pebbles came to the party.
She does have the stronger voice than the.
Oakwood Boy the Oakwood Apartments. It was where La and Face came to Andy. They were just trying to you know, they had just left the group the deal, and they were trying to you know, they had the Whisper song that was a big hit, yeah, rock Sydetti, and so they were just starting off and they were cametinue to La to you know, mind some business and make money, you know, try to get some deal with some songwriting
production deals. And so what happened was they were at that place and Pebbles was also starting her first record with NCA, and she came in and heard I think Vanessa was actually at the place when Pebbles came in and she heard her voice a slave of her voice on that track on Girlfriend. And then when Vanessa left,
she said to La, I want that song. And then Husby got involved and her husband had money, right, and yeah, so they it was a money It was a money switch because we didn't have a deal we were in spec and so when they got the money, they just didn't have the guys to tell us that they were going to go. And also, in all fairness to them, Vanessa was pregnant. We were going to have to delay the record, so they were not going to make the money.
And Kenny also thought that it was a more of an herb been tracked that it wasn't that Devil's had a better voice. She had a more urban voice than Vanessa.
Yeah, baby said that she was girlfriend. Yeah, yeah, girlfriend.
I could hear a girlfriend. I could hear it.
Yeah, that was Kenny. That was Kenny who said he said that, but he let La kind of take the blame for it. But uh no, you know, so you know, I told him when I saw them at the Forum Club. Look, I don't hate you guys, but you guys should have called man, that's the only thing. Just had a courtesy Just call and say hey, you know, I understood that you guys did it for money and her point in your career, that made sense, you know, but you should All you had to do was call us.
So Okay, I'm I'm gonna close here because I can nerd out for twelve hours. I do want to know though, at least for when your daughter, and of course your daughter's uh, Jillian, she's lying, babe, Well, she's expressing interest in getting in the biz and knowing what you know, knowing who you dealt with, all these casting characters that you meet, and there's a lot of heartbreak here, you know, in the clients that you're working with, Like what advice
are you? Are you being encouraging, like ah, I wish you would try something else, or da da da da da, or like or were you the encouraging dad? That's like, go ahead, follow your dream, this is what you want to do.
Yeah, I know. I never gave her any discouraging news or suggestions about I didn't throw my history on her in that respect, Okay, and give her, you know, the dark side of our business with the gas. You know, there's a lot of darkness in our business. But I did try to. She was like hands off. First of all, she goes, Dad, it's not ready for your ears yet. She was guarded with the Yeah, she was very guard And she told me she was working on one song and she would play it for me when it was ready.
And I said, well, you know, you know I listened to all kinds of songs. I listened to Medley's you know, just piano or guitar, you know, just let me hear it, you know, I'd just like to hear what your direction is. And she goes, no, Dad, I'm not ready to play for you yet. I said, okay. So she did end up coming to me with treat me like Fire, And finally when there was a rough demo of it that she was happy with at least to let me listen to.
I made some suggestions on it, but she and Lucas pretty much formulated all their own image and and everything. I didn't have any input or anything. I just kind of let them do what they wanted to do. And I remember seeing the video when she had all that hair. I'd never seen so much hair. She always had wild hair, but this was like, you know, this was like hair on steroids.
Right, Yes, that's how first matter. I was like, wait, who's this person? She like, okay, how did you get all that hair?
That's so But you know what ended up happening was because I was her father, everyone thought I managed her. And so when that single, when they put the single out on SoundCloud, I mean it was just like an immediate response, like a pess or a response, and everybody fell in love with the track. And so I was getting all these calls from labels and lawyers and managers and say, hey, mom, man, are you managing your daughter? What's going on? What's going on? You know? I said, no, no,
I'm not. I'm just your dad. You know I can, I can pass on the information to.
I'm just her dad.
What ended up happening? I said, I will help you. I don't want to manage you, you know, forever, but you guys need help and I'd like to offer my services to get, you know, set you a sale. Because I never wanted to wake up and you know, because I had managed their mother, I said this whole idea of managing my daughter and waking up one day and saying, I love you, but you're fired. I'm not going to be around for that. So I just said, I'm going to help you, and so I did. I helped them.
I helped them get a manager. I flew to London and they ended up signing to Outsiders, a small label that was distributed by Polydor UK and Amanda Ghost. You know, did you ever run her? Meet Amanda Ghost.
I've not met Amanda Ghost now.
Okay, So she was a successful songwriter. She was on she was a president of elect of Epic Records for about six.
Months or so.
She was on American Idol as a judge for a minute, you know. So she added some uh, you know, some traction in the music industry, and she fell in love with the group. And so I helped the negotiate that deal. I set them up with an attorney, and then I went over to London to help them since she was gonna be signed to they were gonna be signed to a London based label. I said, you guys should get a London based manager as well, who has you know, tentacles in the US market, because you've got to still
release the record here in the US. And I wanted them to know that I was going to be out of the picture. I didn't want to manager thinking that I was going to be second guessing everything that they did. And so I met with everyone and I said, look, you know my role once. If they decide to go with you, I'm out. I'm just regular dad. You don't have to answer to me, you don't have to copy in anything. Your relationship will be with Lucas and Jillian, not me.
Wow.
And I just felt that that was my responsibility to give them clear sailing, you know, and to let them manifest their career however they saw it.
And so that's parenting.
That's the role that parenting. I want to thank you for doing this for us again.
Oh, thank Deana too. I want to thank Diana, Thank you Deanna, because yes.
Diana, she's aid, you know, she's sure god mother right, Yes.
Sir, just to let our views not yes, I feel like it's imperative reading the Fame Game and Insider's playbook on earning your fifteen minutes. Harper Collins shout out to Harper Collins. But yes, I think it's required reading.
Yes, I have notes. I have written notes inside. That's how good it is.
Yeah, it's a good journey into and it makes me think twice about working with any artist ever again.
So on behalf of sir Bill. I'm calling you now, Sir Bill. I'll take it. Royal Royal Bill.
And mister Bay City Rollers down there, Sugar Steve Saturday, Hey, go man to.
Pay for that man.
I didn't even I mean they had I went to several of their big concerence back in the day when they performed. One was at a racetrack. I mean they were getting you know, run over by women were chasing him. But I've never seen anything like that. That's really easy, man.
It's even a lot for me.
Anyway, when we have a Bill and Steve and font Tigelo and light yea, we thank you very much.
Thank you all, Thank you all. I really had fun. This was really great and I really appreciate your support. And yeah, thank you so so much.
Thank you very much much. Love Supreme is a production of iHeart You Radio.
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