QLS Classic: Alan Leeds (Part 1)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Of course, Love Supreme is a production of My Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
The following program contains language that some listeners may find offensive.
Listener discretion is advised. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the

(00:23):
Quest Love Supreme Archives. This is the Allen Leeds episode.
I believe that Alan was definitely uh. In one of
our first ten episodes, UH, the team Supreme made a
pilgrimage to Minnesota to talk to the revolution and UH.
We figured since Alan Leeds was there, we knock off
two for one, and of course it was an education.

(00:45):
We did UH sort of a sequel to that episode.
We did it in two locations at Electric Lady Studios
in New York, with a special appearance by one Michael
Eugene D'Angelo Archer, who infamously gave us uh the shortest
response ever. It's more R and B Anyway. This is

(01:07):
the very classic edgeumicational Allen Leeds given you before one
one the signs of his life as a tour manager
on whatets Love Supreme Archives. Roll Call, Roll Call Suprema

(01:31):
Role Role, It's love and Uptown. Yeah, that's where I live. Yeah,
hang with Allen Leeds. Yeah, five minutes Kid Bollamo, role
called Supremo role. My name is Fonte. Yeah, I'm in Minnesota. Yeah.

(01:56):
Quests Love Supreme. Yeah, we're taken over. So prema roll call,
so prema road call. My name is Steve, Yeah, and
we in Many Yeah. I got the sugars. Yeah, even
though I'm skinny. Roll call so roll. I'm unpaid bill, Yeah,

(02:25):
I can't complain. Yeah, the weather's right. Yeah for purple
rain Roma. Roll call Suprima Prima, roll call boss bills
the name. Yeah, I need to stay in my lane. Yeah,
because I can't write rhymes. And that's a real damn change.

(02:51):
Roll call Soma, roll call my names like yeah, so
happy to see you. Yeah, don't have a leads sometimes,
I believe sometimes. Ye, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another

(03:32):
episode of Quest Love Supreme. How y'all doing good man?
Road trip? Yeah, road trip. It's amazing trip. Ladies and gentlemen,
we are still on our road trip thing. Uh up
here in Uptown many Wood, Minnesota. UM. We are very extremely,

(03:54):
extremely honored to have um a guest that I know
it's personally tired of me bragging about his life and
his achievements. Um, but you know his real life. Yeah,
it is is serious life goals. I mean I'll say

(04:16):
that it's it's he's tired of No, well, it's just
to me the most interesting part of the car. I mean,
people might see the car and see the flash, but
I love engines, I love yes, I love to see
how it works. And this this, I mean name it.

(04:38):
Alan Leeds has been there for Peak, James Brown, not
just like oh remember James Brown, the Blues Brothers or that,
like yeah, like even before must at like this is
you know, he handed him the poster that has the
sex Machine lyrics on it. For James Brown, for Peak, Prime, prints,

(04:59):
for this, for Maxwell, for D'Angelo, for Chris Rock, for
Rathael Sadeck, for me, for you ladies and gentlemen, please
give it up. For Alan Leads And I'm still waiting
for my first record to come out. Um, Alan, like

(05:26):
you do you know, I know it makes people cringe
whenever I try to like overdo it with the with them.
She accolades. Um, so I'll try and do less of that.
But um, and I know you hate that more than anything,
but only publicly you at home, I played the tapes
over and over see this is me. Well you know, well,

(05:53):
I guess if if we are cut from the same
cloth as the fact that you know the value in
uh what history will bring or you you least have
the knack to know that this might be uh in
a historical moment. So I'm one of those sentimental pack
rats that never throws anything away just in case it'll

(06:19):
have historical value at the end. And I will say,
like being at your house, there's so many artifacts and
so so much history in it, but I kind of
want to go back to the beginning. Uh, you were
born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Correct, New York. You were born
in New York. Wow, all these New York surprises. Where
were you born in New York, Jackson Queens? Wow? I

(06:41):
did not. I thought I knew everything about your life. Wow,
I didn't know. So what was your what was your
childhood like? Because the journey, what what makes Alan leads
very distinctive amongst uh any human being that I've known,
is that your role in Black Entertainment's journey and the

(07:04):
fact that you, I mean, a person is lucky to
catch one Maverick in their life. You've caught six of
them and peak moments, not just like at the at
the like you from the beginning of an experiment to
seeing it at its climax. And in his historical note,

(07:25):
so what was your entry into music period, like, did
you come from a musical family where I came from
a music business family kind of indirectly ahead an uncle
who played saxophone in the orchestra that backed Prairie Como Okay, TV,
had another uncle who was programmed director of Tinton Wins

(07:46):
in New York when they were the rock and roll station,
Tinton Wins. He pretty much invented the top forty four men,
and he and Alan Fried Murray the k all these
legendary disc jockeys on his station. And I would go
out there and I met these guys and get tons
of free records. So as a kid, my childhood was

(08:07):
really about baseball and records because and I also had
an aunt who work for a publishing company, Monster Clients,
was a young Quincy Jones Okay, So you know, I
had these people in the extended family that were very
much in the business. My mom and dad were not,
but but they were music fans. Um. So free records

(08:27):
was just the records was the thing that was at
I was a very popular kid once we hit teenage,
and everybody wanted records because I had them, just like
you need no No. I wasn't then interested in sharing
him because usually I didn't like the records they liked.
So what were your contemporaries listening to that They weren't

(08:48):
listening to Elvis and Ricky Nelson and whatever was on
top forty radio. And what were you into? He was
Smith and Clowns and the coasters and Jack Barry and Richard.
You were the the the hip guy, the hip white
guy that knew what was going on in duke joints.
And yeah, well, I mean I don't know a juke

(09:08):
joint yet. I just knew that in these boxes and
records that my uncle would send me, there were always these,
you know, there were all the pop records that were
boring looking labels like calling me in our Cia and
Capital and Decca, and they just looked like, you know,
I already had an anti establishment attitude about age five.
I don't know where, but it was like, these are

(09:30):
some boring labels, um, but didn't there's this label that's
got yellow and black stripes and it's called Specialty Records,
and that was Little Richard and Tutti Fruity did not
sound like any of that other stuff. Um, the first
Little Richard recordized. That's actually a funny story. The first

(09:52):
Little Richard record I heard was Long Tall Sally, which
was his second hit single, and I heard it on
Alan Freed radio show, and I looked ballistic, like, what
the hell is this? I got to have this record?
And I remember telling my mother that I had to
had to had to have an advance on my allotment
so I could go to the store and buy this

(10:12):
this forty five that ED heard on the radio. And
she's like, what is it? Is it new knacking Cole record?
Right now? Mind you are, let's see fifty six. I'm
nine years old. So she took me to the record
store and she says, I, I've never seen you so
enthusiastic about something. So she's dying to see what this is,

(10:32):
so would bring the record home. I put it on
and play it and she just has a steer in
the headlights. Look. That wasn't negative or positive, it was
just what the hell is this? And I remember saying
to her, becasey never let me forget it my isn't
it pretty? Wow? Now? You know, I've heard that record

(10:53):
a million times since, and I'm not sure. The only
thing that, as an adult I can think that I
would have thought was pretty was the melisma in this
singing style. Because it's a it's a screamer. I mean,
it's it's not like it's a ballad. So to use
the word pretty to describe long til sadly but a
little Richard is pretty much a stretch. But there was

(11:15):
something about it that struck me. What's yeah, I was
gonna say, what spoke to you that the Battle Davy
Crockett or you know well, I mean I've watched that
corny and you knew even me, it's almost understand me.
I like that concole I also had and you know,
I get me very careful about this because it's not

(11:36):
politically correct, but I had an obsession with black culture
and I have no idea where that came from. You know,
I would watch it and watch the same TV that
everybody else watched, which was very limited in you know,
you once, once Dick Clark had American Band staying at
least there was something different. But you know then that

(11:57):
it was. It was variety shows would very little are
and be a rock and roll and I enjoyed nacking,
but I always went to the black artists. I love
Louis Armstrong, I love Count Basie, I love Nat King
Cole something Natra, I ignored. My father likes Sinatra. It
was played in the house. It was like, yeah, that's okay,

(12:19):
But I was I didn't pay any attention at all.
Did you read it as more authentic to you or
just eventually not yet because I hadn't been exposed to it.
But once I, once I started actually taking books out
of the library to read about the history of black
music and heard about people like Lightning Hopkins and Howlett

(12:40):
Wolf and I of course I had to go check
those out. But that that came later. That came in
my teens, where I was beginning to actually understand that
there's genres, and there's tastes, and there's the music comes
from somewhere and represents something. But as a little kid
listening nine years old, you don't know all that. It's
it's no, there's no cultural aspect to it. You just

(13:02):
heard something and you don't liked it, or you did
it so no, I mean I like white rock and
roll too, like Bill Haley and the comments, but basically
because I hadn't heard Joe Turner's original of those songs. Okay,
that's what was on radio. So did Can I assume
that the trickle down effect also affected your little brother Eric?

(13:26):
We should know Eric is uh a saxophone uh god
in his own right, uh play with James Brown Prince
of course his own projects. So it is are your
music taste now affecting him as well? Or yeah? I
think inevitably. Um, not so much because it was about

(13:46):
me and my taste, but just because when you have
two brothers in the house and once five years younger
older brother who's opening a lot of doors and whatever doors,
will you know if I'd have been into country music,
he might have been attracted to at I think it
was just circumstantial at first because this is when he
heard me playing, and it's older brother. And when you're

(14:07):
five and your brother's ten, you look up to your
older brother. So when you changes later now in your
teen years, because I know that you you did stints
on on radio and whatnot, like what was your entry
into this is the business? That's there's really two answers
that the the first time I knew I wanted to

(14:30):
be in the I mean I did use the DJ
at home. I had a turntable and a really really
primitive walkie talkie system and ran the court across the
hall to my brother's bedroom and I would DJ for
him and you know, actually touched it and had my
own top forty lists that I typed up every Friday

(14:52):
from my imagineering radio station that nobody heard but my brother.
So that was practice. But that was just was all
I wanted to do when I got home from school,
was played these records. Somebody had to hear it because
it was pretty stupid talking to myself. So he became
the sucker. That was, he was the guinea pig audience
because you had to have when he felt dumb. So

(15:15):
but I went to the first the first R and
B he showed that I saw. It was in nineteen
sixty two, so I would have been fifteen years old,
and it was Fats Domino. It was the Impressions Curtis
made Field when we were still the Impressions, the original

(15:38):
Gypsy Woman that just come out, So it was very
very early in the Impressions. Um I don't honestly remember
who else was on the show. I could look it up,
it doesn't matter, But I'll tell you what was on
the show was five dancers called the Twisting Parquettes. And
I later learned that there was a choreographer in New

(15:59):
York or Glue Parks, a woman who was became quite
famous for choreographing um popular dance in black music circles,
and these were some of her proteges. So they were
the Twisting Parquettes. And this is back in the ear
when the twist was a big deal. But as a
fifteen year old looking at these five sisters and they
had short, little skirts and there was nothing nasty about

(16:20):
it at all compared to today, they were conservative. But
at the time, that ship was hot and I sat there.
I don't remember anything about Fats Domhindo said, because I
was sitting there day dreaming, how do you get on
the bus. These girls ride a bus every night, and

(16:41):
how do you get on that bus so you can
hang with them? Bus driver, I thought, I thought a
little bigger than that, but you know, but you know,
there was an m C and I said, maybe that's
the ticket, because you know, I don't think I don't play.
Probably should have been a musician, but I never had

(17:02):
the patience to learn instrument I took drums for two
weeks and the teacher got mad at me for tapping
my foot to keep time. If he would have explained easier,
but I mean, you know, if if he had, if
he had explained that you need independence to play high
hats and bass drums, and you shouldn't. You don't want

(17:24):
to have the habit of patting your foot, I wouldn't.
I think I would have understood that. But he didn't
say a word except just slap my knee and tell
me to stop. So the anti authority in me lashed
out and said, the hell, we're too Plus we were
on practice pats was the second week, Yeah, trust me,
I didn't test the drums still, like three years into it,

(17:45):
yeah yeah, And that was no fun. So so my
drumming career consisted of turning over the waste baskets at
home and creating a set and playing loaned records, and
I had good time. I was about to say, I
never asked you, like, why didn't you actually choose music?
Because as virtuoso as your brother is, I would imagine

(18:05):
that you could have also been a virtuoso musician. I'm
usually pretty humble, but I probably would have been. I
probably could have played It's stuck to something wow. But
I never settled. I never fell in love with an instrument.
Drums were easy because it was physical, it wasn't melodic,

(18:30):
didn't have to learn music, you know, chords, and so
I was lazy. Really, I just didn't have the commitment
of the self discipline to put into learning how to
play an instrument properly. And honestly, I think that's it's
it's just just lazy and like self discipline. That's weird
because you're the most organized person I know. We are

(18:58):
here with the great Alan Leeds um here on Quest
Love Supreme. I guess you're you're you're foray into uh
what I knew you for, which is tour managing? Um?
Can I safely assume that starts with James Brown? Or
you know? Did you or is it that you jump
from DJing too promoting your own shows? And well I did.

(19:22):
I did a little promoting because myself and another couple
of younger DJs at the station, I mean the station
basically advertise to and or promoted all the urn V
shows they came through Richmond, which were a lot at
that time. They were three or four clubs that had
shows every weekend. There were concert halls that had concerts
on that rege once or twice a month, so it

(19:43):
was a really busy scene. Anybody who played Washington and
was headed south came through Richmond. So you know, the
Otis Ridings, the same cooks to Jackie Wilson's, the Drifters.
You know, all the classic soul artists came through town
at least two, three, and sometimes four times a year. Okay,
So are you saying that it was just they happened

(20:03):
to stop through or was it like today things are
playing like? You know, No, they were both. These were
legitimate businesses. There were clubs and promoters and concert promoters
and these were real shows. But but understand something too,
because artists didn't tour back then. They worked, and they
worked as many weeks out of the year as their

(20:25):
success on records allowed them to work. Because it wasn't
like it wasn't huge money and they weren't playing arenas,
they were playing dance halls. Um, I mean, we did
a James Brown showing alluminum barn at the fair Grounds
in the wintertime with no heat. The band played the
warm upset with their coats on and still had like

(20:45):
three thousand people there. Go figure, And when you say work,
do you mean like they worked just like regular jobs
like they had you know, you say they didn't tour.
They worked, but no, I'm I'm using work as you know, metaphorically.
But they didn't think if it is too like even
when I joined James in in sixty nine, we didn't say,
oh hey, it's time to go on tour. It's like

(21:06):
the show was on the road fifty one weeks out
of the year, because tour insinuates that you're gonna stop
exactly exactly and like it's it's it's it's you know,
you got a new album, sing you tour. Well, it
wasn't about albums. It was about singles, and there was
a new single every three months or so, and that
the idea was this is what you did for a living.

(21:27):
You got your station where and there were a bus
and depending on the level of success you had, um
you went all over the country. Whoever would hire you
and pay you to play, you showed up and played
and hopefully you worked fifty two weeks out of the year,
because that's how you supported yourself. So since James Brown
situation wasn't the average situation in R and B, right,

(21:51):
I mean, I know that everyone has a level of
the what they call the Chipland circuit. Well, I guess
back then the the main houses where what the regal
in Chicago, Uh, well, there was there was the theater
circuit in the major cities. That was a Howard and
Washington regal in Chicago, was abtained in Philly, Royal in

(22:12):
Baltimoreton of course, the Apollo in New York. And there
were a couple of theaters in Detroit that did show
several times a year, like the state theater was that
still the State in Philly, you know, the state theater
in Detroit was that it was usually the Fox okay
okay okay um so and then in between then you
would go to the smaller markets and it was sort

(22:33):
of like up in the air, whoever would or the
Leminum Barn exactly. Okay, I mean you might play a
tobacco warehouse, you might play fair grounds arena of some
kind of basketball or you know, now small theater, big club,
dance Halls. Well, okay, since James Brown situation, uh, it

(22:54):
is quite different. Um, I would like you too, could
you explain to us what the average conditions of a
Chittling circuit date would consist of. I mean just in
terms of well I asked that because like, okay, so

(23:16):
you know, when we first started, there was such a
thing as a writer like put I could put Captain
kruntziiro and have it every night. I could have Bonner's Peppermint,
so like you know, but obviously the glamour rider thing
was obviously the thing that was started in the seventies
and the eighties. But in the sixties. If you are

(23:39):
let's say you're Johnny Taylor and you have kind of
a hot record, that's that's that's cooking a little bit.
I mean, what is the average scenario for you? Are
you traveling by yourself? Do you have an entourage? Do
you have your musicians with you? Or it depends entirely
on me. There's no set rule. The idea was you

(23:59):
get hit record to get you out there. Your first
hit actually gets you out there because everybody wants to
see who has a new hit on radio, And the
first time out you're probably making five hundred bucks at night.
This is like sixties. No, it couldn't be good, but
but you know, you know, I don't know for the

(24:21):
sixties level like was that. Okay, you might make less. Actually,
if you're a support act, you might make three a night.
And when you figured that, you've got to pay for
hotels and gas at the station wagon and whoever you've
got on the road, you gotta pay them. Um No,
even at ten bucks at night in the hotels, it
still adds up. I mean, everything's relatives, it's but the

(24:45):
point being, once you had two or three hits, then
the goal was the first goal was to have the
rhythm section of your own. So some of these artists
would have to go to town. But let's let's take
let's let's take an example. Let's say the Pressions Curtis
made it feels the Impressions. Okay, they had to hit
Gypsy Woman, and they toured behind that. Curtis played guitar,

(25:06):
so they didn't need a guitarist, and they used whatever
band was up in the show. If it was a
theater like the Apollo, that'd be a house band, okay.
If it was a club, it would be like if
they were in Richmond, in my town, Um, there'd be
a local band that would be told to learn the
Impression songs. They'd come in in the afternoon, they do

(25:27):
a quick what you would call a sound check. They
do a rehearsal and hope for the best. Now a
side note, you actually knew the Winston's correct? Uh? The
all right, the Winston's brother they did the infamous straight
out of Compton break? Uh? But were they like the

(25:47):
local band that would be there when well, here's here's
here's the story there. The Winston's themselves were not um
but J. C. Coleman, Gregory Coleman, who was the drummer
in the Winston's in the famous break. Um. He had
a local band in Richmond, And that's how I knew
him because we did gigs together all the time. And
his his first wife was the female singer. And it

(26:10):
was like a seven eight piece band with a horn section.
And they would back o their artists like back to
the Impressions, for example, who come through town, and they
would back them and they do a set of their own.
They might play school dances. They might you know them too.
They would do any gig that came their way, but
they were basically a local band. Now in J. C.
Coleman's case, Um, he was a go enough drummer that

(26:33):
he got recognized and somehow he ended up on the
road with the marvel Letts as part of the Motown
Motortown Review shows, and he was the Martin Valette's personal drummer.
He went from the Otis Reading and he and several
of the members of the Otis Redding Band were laid
off what notice decided to tour with the Barquees. This
was shortly before he died. And Um, at that point

(26:58):
those guys who came out of Otis As Band formed
the Winston's and they became a club band that was
actually based in d C and the regular gig Wood
says a house band of the Discotheque in DC called
Ram's R A N. D. S and UM. And then
they got a deal and they cut color and father
the amen break was the flip side, which was that

(27:21):
was a B side. They actually they actually I loved
something out. They had actually toured strangely enough, with the
Impressions for several months as their band. Now this is
once the Impressions reached a certain point where they had
more hits and the money got bigger than they put
together their own band because they everybody hated playing with
these local bands because it was always raggedy. I mean,

(27:44):
like were they all of them? Was it just like
someone comes with core charts and says, here, read this
or you just his guys didn't even read music. Most
of these local bands, at least in the South didn't
even read music. Now, the house bands in the theaters
up north did and they wanted, like you played the Apollo.
If you didn't bring charge, get your feeling, it's hurt.

(28:05):
But down south, in the in the clubs, nobody read music.
So it was like learning the records. The band were
just learned the records before the group came to down
So the impressions come to town, they do a little
run through before the club opens, and and then they
just wing it. And I mean, I'm Steve. I used
to MC shows in these clubs, and I remember the

(28:26):
drifters who traveled with only a guitar player. They never
had a band, and they had huge hits, but they
never had a band. It was just the vocalists and
the guitar player, and the guitar player would just be
literally calling out changes to the band as that in
the middle of the gig, it was it was crazy wow.
Now keep keep in mind that this was the peak

(28:46):
of soul music, which was the singers the genre so
and and those guys really needed to sing because crowds
wouldn't you know if if if you really couldn't sing, um,
you weren't gonna last out there very long. You get
your feelings are real quick. So most of the one

(29:07):
of those clubs, if as long as the vocals were
clear and you could really feel the vocals and and
the rhythm section kept time, the audiences were usually happy.
But she's saying that they had apoler mentality in other
places then, other than the Apollo, as far as if

(29:28):
your show wasn't tight or yeah, you know you better
come correct. But the point was correct if you suck
your suck. But you know that didn't just just happen
in recent years, and they were a couple of acts

(29:49):
you had tape records that would come through town and
really lay an egg because they just didn't have it.
I wonder what a black route is harder on people,
probably because the martyrn money to see a show. I
think that but also because black music in the sixties
was really a singer's art, whereas particularly after the British invasion,

(30:12):
it was about the band and it was about the
hairstyles and the British clothes. They got sore and the
girls would screaming didn't even hear what they were playing.
So eventually, I guess, I mean, what was your first
James Brown experience and what about that really called out

(30:36):
to you as far as I mean did you Was
it a moment where it's like, oh, this is my
destiny or is it just like I had fallen in
love like everybody else with the first live at the
Apollo Am because it was just so totally apart from
everything else. I mean, it was just so obvious. Like
soul music and sould music, they were great, a ton

(30:56):
of great artists. But once you heard that, rook, could
you like, Okay, this this is some other stuff, this
is this is really the gold standard here, So okay
to explain to our listeners. So um, James Brown came
out the box uh with Please Please Please, which was
an instant hit, and then I guess he struggled for

(31:18):
two years to come up with a follow up hit
and how many singles do you reckon? Like at least
fifteen or sixteen before try Me? Maybe not fifteen, but
probably nine your ten. Okay, so a bunch an amazing
amount of missus which you know nowadays. I mean he
actually got dropped and Trying Me got a miss deal back.

(31:39):
Really he cut a demo up Trying Me that he
played pursued Nathan and King Records, who who had dropped him,
and he said, you know, please Mr Nathan, listen to
this literally try me, please please please try me. Um.
And so once uh I get us, uh, maybe three

(32:02):
or four years and two his career, James Brown decides
that his his audience needs to uh it needs to
feel what his live show or at least the energy
of what his live shows about, and then they'd be
more open to him. So enter James Brown Live at

(32:23):
the Apollo Volume one, which came out sixty two, was
recorded till root sixty two. It came out early sixty three.
So what was you know? I mean, I have my
favorites and obviously because I'm more closer to break beats
and you know, like what my standards for James Brown

(32:44):
a certain type of funk of course, I don't have
a a sentimental attachment to Volume one. I mean, I
understand why it's effective, but you know, my favorite is
personally Volume three. Uh. But what was it about that
record that spoke to you and spoke to America because

(33:05):
DJs would play this from beginning to end like, yeah,
they played it a song, Yeah they really did. Um.
I mean, first of all, it was it was the
the dynamic was so apparent because he really if you're
listening to the album, you realize it's one long medley, okay. Um.

(33:26):
He had segues in between the songs. Oh, never stopping,
never never stopped, never never stopped, which was totally different
because every other act in those days they play a song,
it would end with a big chord, they take a bottle,
you know, that introduced the next song. But with James
was just non stop action and you could just, not

(33:47):
having seen him perform yet, you would just sit there
and fantasize about what this must be like because it's
just it's crazy and I lost someone. Understand something too.
For James Barron, people of your generation, Um, when he
cut that record into sixty two, he was already the
king of that circuit. He was already setting house records
at the Apollo with the Outward Theater in places like that,

(34:10):
and but he hadn't crossed over yet, and most of
White America had no clue who he was. But the
majority of his said records at that point were slow songs.
They were what we call gospel blues, R and B soul,
whatever tag you want to call it, but you know,
very church influenced style of singing and really straight out

(34:34):
of the gospel courtest and but the the energy and
the passion is just unlike anything else that was on
record at that point because nobody, first of all, nobody
even Ray Charles, had made a live record, so you really,
unless you went to the shows, you really had no
concept of what those little forty fives turned into with

(34:58):
a full band arrangement. And it was obvious that James,
first of all, he had a killer band that was
ridiculously well rehearsed, and that alone set him apart from
everybody else, because there was nobody else in har and
B except maybe Ray Charles, who could afford that, because

(35:18):
the economics of that circuit were such that even somebody
like Jackie Wilson or Jerry Butler Otis reading at the
at the beginnings of their careers. Well, Jackie Wilson never
had a band of his own. Otis Otis did, but
it was never a good band. Um well, you know
so so so James thing really was was very unique

(35:42):
on that circuit. I mean he came to do business.
So when he came to Virginia, Uh, I mean, how
did you to first meet? Like what was the Well,
I went to a show and this was long before
I was I shouldn't say a longe, a couple of
years before, and it up on the radio station. I
went to one of his shows about and this was

(36:03):
also in sixty three, and it was it was a
concert in the theater. It wasn't a club show, and
there was like a smattering of white kids, you know
that had discovered James Braham And I'd say, it's you know,
it's what we call the Landmark Theater now then it
was called the Mosque. I'm sure you've played. You played
there with um holds three thousand people, maybe there were

(36:25):
a hundred white people there. So it was at least
that the live album had begun to attract some white fans,
but he still wasn't on pop radio. So yeah, rich
white kid didn't it still didn't really have ac clue
who he was. Um, but I mean the show was
everything I dreamt it would be, and I was just
you know, blown to like everybody else was. But a

(36:47):
couple of years later, fast forward, I'm working for the
radio station James Brown's coming to town. The station is
promoting the show, and I just begged the program director
to let me go interviewing mits hotel to hype this
show because it was kind of true sational that if
an act came to town early enough in the day,
they would either come down to the radio station to
do an interview. And the whole idea was not it

(37:09):
was it was twofold. It was to plug the current
single and encouraged the DJs to continue playing their records.
And it was two hype ticket sales for the show
that night. UM. A lot of the ticket sales for
those shows were walk up, unlike today where shows are
pretty much sold out in advance. Um, in those days,

(37:31):
sales are still not like that, because you know, our
advancing show will be like, yeah, man, you only sold
twelve tickets, we might canceled, IM Like No Man's Black
People and then like it sold down that night, you know,
but that that's that's still a dynamic. But I mean
back then, it was just rule of thumb. It wasn't
the exception. It was the rule. Um. So at any rate, um.

(37:55):
But James was big enough that he wasn't going to
come to the station. He might send Bobby Bird down
to do an interview, or you know, one of the
supporter acts Macio or somebody, but so he rarely came
to the station. Just he used to. But by the
time I went to work at the station, he had
kind of graduated past that. So the idea was, this
is sixty five, so I'm like, let me take a

(38:19):
day recorded to his hotel. And that's what happened. And
you know, I met him and we talked for about
a half hour before we went went on tape, and
for whatever reason, he took a liking to me. And
I've always wondered why. I don't mean that from a
humble sense, um, but we stayed in touch and every

(38:43):
time after that he would come through town, I would
go backstage, hang out the dressing room and we would
talk music. And you know, I was I was the
typical little kid who had all kinds of questions, what's
your next thing? Well, where did you record it? Um,
did you use the road band? Who's in the band now,
who's the lead who's the new lead trumpet? You know,

(39:06):
exactly exactly, And he would engage you totally. But after
I went to work for him, I discovered you did
that with any disc jockey who had primed time, because
it was like, so, you know, I mean, he made
me feel like I was the only guy in the
world he's talking to like this, right, I mean, we're
talking business. I actually turned the tape recorder on when

(39:26):
we were just kicking it without him knowing it, and
you hear us in the background conversing and we're talking
about things like the Motown review and what promoters Berry
Gordon used and he should have used a black promoter,
and James is just going off about you know, we're
talking business and I'm a little pimpley faced high school kid.
It's like I was just blown away. It's like I

(39:49):
love this guy that he engaged you. Yeah, exactly, And
I think I'm gonna be the next Dick Clark. It's like,
so you're gonna be big. You got the prime time
you know his yeah, his rule of thumb. I guess
one of his books he said that, you know he
always made the well the intern or the or the
person who not Lewis on the totem pole. But pretty

(40:11):
much he'd make them feel important because he figured that
and about five to six to seven years that they
will soon be the station manager exactly. Yeah, they'll be
the music director picking the records. That he started that
concept because all of us just took down. That's real, right, No, yeah,

(40:31):
like I was taught that was the first thing. I
was taught to do. Every college interview, every and now
every every RinkyDink college interview ever done now ends with
ten years later like some CEO of some corporation that's like,
you don't remember this is but in Brown University you
played at home my first interview, and like, you know,

(40:53):
that's now I'm doing something else for them that's you know,
way big. So it's it's I see how that's plays.
So at what point did he take you serious enough
to take over or at least start working for Did
you start off as tour manager or no, actually started
doing publicity. What happened is that I used to chase

(41:15):
the show around. I mean any time it was anywhere
near where I was a hundred miles two hundred miles.
I'd go to d C at the Howard Theater. I'd
go to Norfolk, Virginia, and I'd go to West Virginia.
And you know, just any time the James Round Show
was within radius, I was there and really just totally
make it a pest to myself. But I got to
know his manager. I got to know his his road manager,

(41:38):
and not to mention, made friends with Bobby Burden, some
of the guys in the band, and um, you know,
for whatever reason, they let me hang. So fast forward
to nineteen sixty nine and I'm in college in Pittsburgh. Um,
the little radio phase it and it thanks to the
Vietnam War trying to draft everybody. It wasn't in college,

(41:59):
so I'd aside a bit of getting college where I
was going to Vietnam. So so your career was abruptly
halted in favor of a college career that lasted for
about two years until he hired me. But what happened
is when you actually his manager called and said he's
coming to Pittsburgh and he's got issues with the program director.

(42:21):
Of the black station there. So he needs a local
watchdog for the promotion of the concert. Would you be
willing to do it? And what would that entail? That
entailed buying the advertisement, newspaper ads, radio ads, um, monitoring
it to make sure the ads are played right, Um,
you've been your own customer adds Yes, yeah, yeah, that

(42:43):
that was That's the way I knew they'd be, the
way I wanted to be, and didn't really trust anybody
to do them. And it was part of the fun
because I enjoyed doing it. Um, and you know, putting
up posters, I mean literally driving around and with a
trunk full of big window card post justs and with
a staple gun, put them up on telephone poles all
over town, put him in barbershop windows, and exactly it was.

(43:09):
It was the old school version of the Street Team.
And suffice it to say, the show sold out. But
what really got him was I showed him a bunch
of newspaper stories that the local paper had done. Um,
the local daily paper. And at that point, daily papers
didn't pay a lot of intention to black shows, seldom

(43:30):
and reviewed them and very seldom wrote them up in advance.
But what I didn't tell James was that the entertainment
editor of the paper happened to be a friend of
my dad's. Okay, so I had the white privilege paid
off and I got I got, you know, so I
got a bunch of stories in the paper and he

(43:50):
was like blown out and he's like, got this, yeah, exactly.
So I showed it to him in the dressing room
after the show and he's all geek because the shows
sold out and we were in the Civic Arena. It's
like thirteen thousand people, so it was, you know, it
was a real deal. And he was like, Alan, you
did this here? Can you do this everywhere? And of
course I said yes, and I had you know, my

(44:14):
dad doesn't know anybody else in any of the city
knock the South in that, you know. So that was
the gig. I was hired to come to Cincinnati where
King Records was in James's office space was within King Records,
and at quit school, drove to Cincinnati and started my
job as publicity director. So was it a learning curve
for you? Totally? Totally. I was just a kid right

(44:38):
without the aid of I mean, of course, technology makes
us alwasier could make us all publicists in this room
right now, with our with our phones and our computers.
But I mean, what resources did you have to even know? Uh,
you know to get coverage in the Times? Or there

(44:59):
was a marketing book that listed all the country's newspapers. Okay,
I got hold of that, and once I got to Cincinnati,
they just threw an itinerary in my in my lap
and said this is where the show is going. Do
you think you got it? And there was really nobody
to supervise, so it was kind of like I can
invent this and you know, do whatever, because nobody had

(45:22):
done it for him before in the house, and so
you were his first publicists pretty much. I mean, he
had a few independent people that would plant stuff in
the Washington Afro American, in the Amsterdam News and stuff
like that, but in terms of like calling the dailies
in major cities, no, um. And that's what I did.
I just cold called the newspapers and every town where

(45:45):
the show was going and would ask for the entertainment
editor of the paper. And they were used to get
in calls like this because nobody did it. Now I
didn't know that. I'm thinking everybody must do this, but
really they didn't. So at what point do you stop
doing or did you stop doing publicity? Or were you doing?
Because I know the James Brown organization people do double duties.

(46:07):
After about a month when I didn't get paid, this
see to what I also didn't understand that the James
Brown organization. First of all, I always called him James
until I went to work for him, and it was
made very clear, now it's Mr. Brown. When you were
friends with him, you were allowed to call him James. Yeah.
I was a kid. I didn't even know any better,

(46:30):
and I was also just jockey, so I could have
called him anything. He was gonna be cool with it
because he wanted his records played. But now I'm working
for him now it was a reciprocal I mean he
called me Mr. Leeds. Everybody in the organization was Mr
or Mrs or miss whatever the case. Maybe. But what
I didn't know was that he had gone to the

(46:50):
president of King Records and told him that he should
pay me. I brought this kid in. He's a great publicist,
you pay him. He went off on the road. Well,
the guy, how nearly it was the president King Records.
He didn't know who I was. He never met me,
nor could he care less. So long and short of
it is, I didn't get paid. So after about the

(47:12):
third week, I'm like, well, you know the first week
the office managers telling me, well, it's it's just the
payroll has got to catch up. Because the pay would
come from the road Every Sunday, the road manager would
wire money to the office to pay the office staff.
And they were like, you know, a couple of clerical people,
and the receptionists and staff and s and the guys

(47:34):
who booked the shows. Who literally because because James um
he booked his own shows, he had guys on his
payroll who would call the buildings and call promoters and
booked the shows instead of using an agent. It was
all in house. So I'm watching these guys do this
because I'm sitting at a desk in the same office,
and I'm just paying attention to what they're doing. One

(47:57):
of them got fired, and I mean I left out
the point where after after I didn't get paid, I
actually left for about a month and a half. Brown
was on tour in California. I couldn't get him on
the phone, and the guy King Records said, hey, sorry kid,
but just didn't work out, you know, kind of a thing.
So I was mad, and you know, my friends at

(48:19):
school in Pittsburgh had thrown me going away party, you know,
big shot lead. I could not go home, are you
I wouldn't go home? Yeah, that's that's tragic, And I wasn't.
I've never been a person who wants to be tragic.
So I drove to New York and I knew a

(48:39):
guy who was cooling the games road manager okay, and
he hooked me up with Jane Red Junior, I admit
his dad. And he hooked me up with Jeane Red
Junior cooling the game. We're just breaking. Their first single
was just hitting, so I actually got a get with
them for about a month. Um. But that was also
no salary. That was like you get a piece of

(49:01):
the gigs you book commission, um. And most of the
gigs I was booking were DJ gigs up and down
the East Coast and djsd' I was gonna say. What
I learned, uh, was that it was a whole house.
The black acts were kind of at the mercy of
the radio stations totally that would throw these shows, so

(49:23):
no one could actually make a living. It was tough,
you know, as a musician until so you had several
hits and could really sell tickets on your own. So
afterwards you you just you just gave up and came
back to James. Well, what happened is one of the
guys who was booking the tour got fired and the

(49:43):
guy that was still there, Um had stayed in touch
with me, and he convinced me that James would rehire me.
And I'm like, rehire me. I never got paid, right,
I might have worked, but I wasn't. James rounds concerned
and you're still there doing something and he didn't know

(50:05):
that you were going. Oh no, he knew I was going.
He just knew I was going, Just like, yeah, a
nice kid. But didn't work out, you know. But the
longest short of is James told as fellow's name was
Buddy Nolan and Buddy Cauldon. He said, Mr Brown said
that if you could be in Rochester, New York tonight,
you got a job and he'll break you in ast

(50:26):
to our director, assistant to our director and so on,
and you'll help book the dates and promote the dates.
So it's no more publicity. Now, it's like we're you know,
promoting the shows. Um, and I was in New York
with very little money in my pocket, scraped enough together,
bought a bus ticket, went to Port authority, caught a
bus to Rochester, showed up at the gig right as

(50:47):
he was coming off stage, got backstage, shook hands, said
welcome back. Son said something patronizing, and an hour later
I was with him when his lear jet flying the
Cincinnati So you know what from a greyhound at the
port authority would know, money in my pocket to a
job that actually paid me in and a seat on

(51:10):
the lear jedge. So not bad. It was a good day.
That is Yeah, that that isn't bad at all. Can
you can you tell the story of Okay, I wanted
to give her an example of the time when you
assumed that James Brown was going to be sick and
canceled a show that was not one of my bit
of days musty years and must day years. Yeah he was, Um,

(51:37):
we had he was. He was what he would do
because he had a lear jet, he could fly in
and out of one night ER's in b markets, so
he might base himself in New York for example, if
he had gigs. Let's say Fridays in Boston, on Saturdays
in Providence, and Sundays in Hartford. He would base himself
out of a favorite hotel in New York and just

(51:57):
flying in and out of these places and you know,
be back in his hotel in New York by one
in the morning. Right. So, he was staying at the
Americana now the Sheritton on the Seventh Avenue. I was
home in Cincinnati, and we had a gig in Providence,
and Bobby Bird, who traveled with him was you know,
quasi leader of the band at the time and traveled

(52:19):
with James, was in New York with him, and he
called me in the morning. I forget if it was
he or Danny. One of them called me and said,
Mr Brown is really sick. The doctor's here. Mr Brown's
got the flu. He's got a fever on it four.
He can't hold any food down, he can't drink water,
he's sweating up a storm. He tried to get up
and go to bathroom and he felt faint and couldn't

(52:39):
even make it. And he's said, and I'm like, well,
so are you telling me to cancel the show? Did
he say, canceled the show? Well, he didn't say anything,
Mr Leeds, he's out cold, but you know he's just
telling you the man's very sick. So I'm in this
situation of like, Okay, what do I do. UM. On
one hand, it kicks in right away that the sooner

(53:02):
you cancel the show, you cut your losses, because the
longer you wait, the more expensive the cancelation is going
to be. Because you've got all the labor costs in
the building. You can stop at two o'clock in the afternoon.
You don't have to pay the ushers, you know, have
to pay the police, you know, to pay it's a
lot of people you don't have to pay um that
you would have to pay if you canceled at seven
o'clock at night, after they've all showed up for work.

(53:24):
So that's on my mind. Um. But by the same token,
I know James Brown is not very seldom cancels the show.
And it was the kind of guy who just kind
of didn't believe in sick He thought sickness was weakness.
I mean, I actually got laid off for three weeks
once because I got sick and couldn't come to work

(53:45):
for a few days. Miss Leads is too sick to
come to work. I'm too sick to pay him. You know,
It's like that, it's it's it's like he just thinks
she's supposed to willach. So I was very reluctant to
cancel the show. But you know, they're telling me the
guys on his deathbed. So you know, so three or

(54:06):
four calls back and forth every hour, I'm calling, how
is he? How is he? Oh, he's he's he's he's
going nowhere, miss leads, he's really sick. I'm like, okay,
So now, mind you. This is before his cell phones
and pagers and all of this, and it's a Sunday.
So now I have to call the radio station that's
promoting the show. I have to find the road manager

(54:27):
of the band. I have to talk to the venue director.
And most of these are switchboards that are closed on weekends. Um,
so it wasn't easy getting hold of people. But after
a couple of hours of going round about, and managed
to get hold of everybody and officially canceled the show.
So after all that was done, I called the Hotel

(54:48):
of New York back to see how he was doing
because we had to show the next day somewhere and
his wife did answered the phone in his sweep, and
I said, oh, Mr d I'm so glad you're there
with him. Is he is he feeling the better? What's up?
What's up? What's up? She said? I wish I knew.
And I'm like, huh, what do you mean? Because she

(55:09):
had just gotten there, if she had flown up from
Georgia because her husband sick, right, And she said, by
the time I got you, he'd already left for the
gig in Providence. Yes, okay, So now I got to that.
You want to talk about feeling like a fool, Call

(55:29):
all these people back and say, oh, by the way,
they show I canceled two hours ago. It's back on.
Go back on the radio, and tell all those people
you told to give refunds tomorrow that, oh, by the way,
forget what I told you to. You know, I've blown
the credit of all the radio stations, you know, And
and I'm sure I blow my job. I'm just I know.

(55:52):
It's it's history, right. So he obviously he gets there,
and um, I'm sure we took a hit. I can't
remember the exact not half him, like a half a house, right,
So of course I get that I get told my
girlfriend this. He told yet what happened? I'm sure somebody
told him he had you know, of course. I mean

(56:14):
the the band hadn't gotten off the bus, you know,
they hadn't even expected to set up. They were getting
ready to turn around and go to the next town.
So I told my girlfriend, I said, about ten thirty tonight,
this phone's going to ring and it's gonna be real ugly.
And it was suffice as to say it really was

(56:37):
Misleeds Quarter Leaven. But soon as he got off stage,
he found a phone and called me, son, I know
you're worried about me. I love you for that. And
then his voice just cut higher and faster and higher
and faster until he was shrieking. And the thing it

(56:58):
was Bobby Burr that had a little hit record that
called I need help. And he said, why in the
world you gonna take Bobby Bird's word? You know he
needs help? Don't you never cancel the show unless I
tell you. And he's like, I gotta be up here
sick and worked to have a house. So yeah, things happen. Um,

(57:24):
you know, it's not one of my better days. But
but you still can't be cool. Um, no, no, did
he fire? No, actually he didn't. I was a standard,
he didn't. I mean, how many times you reckon you've gotten?
Was getting fired and laid off? Always like a thing
with him, like was it a running not a running joke?

(57:46):
But I got fired twice, which was not a lie
in that camp. I mean there were some guys. I
mean he's like anybody didn't any kind of self made
man who runs his own business. He has a very
very keen knack of re eating people and knowing how
far to go. Was that mean he knows who will
take certain things and who won't. And you know the

(58:09):
guys that are vulnerable, they get fired once a week,
and it was usually right before pay day. You know,
So when when did you leave the organization? What you uh,
finally seventy four and you're there for the mustache period,
the big yeah yeah, yeah. Context. But I don't think

(58:36):
this is a generational thing because it's it's like I
I didn't realize until I went to work for Prince
how because James had lasted so long, had gone through
so many metamorphoses artistically, that every generation has their own
James Brown. And you know, like you said, your favorite
Apollo album is three and mine is probably two. But

(58:57):
you know, it depends how old you are and what
your personal taste and so. But but you know, very
few artists have that many phases that are so distinctly different. Um,
but when you're that close, you don't think of it.
And I think of it in terms of the records.
But you know when you say the month when when
you guys first started talking to me about the mustache period,

(59:18):
I was like, huh, I had to go back and
look at pictures to see when more because I'm not
like clocking this mustache? Right? Did the music change when? Right? Well?
I would call that the payback era because that was
like the big comeback record and arguably his last great record.
So were you did you go to the Zaire? Were

(59:40):
you there for the Muhammad Ali? No? No, unfortunately you
left by that point. I don't remember if I had left,
but he wouldn't have took me anyway, because so you
when you tour manage, you were always in the home base.
And since that, you know, it was back and forth.
What would happen is we'd work in the office month
through third is d and on Friday one if not

(01:00:03):
both of us, meaning the guys who were booking the
shows would fly out and join the tour for the weekend,
and usually it was just one of us. We take turns.
That's why I was home when he was in Providence,
in sick in New York. It was my weekend to
be home. But um, but I wasn't a road manager
in the sense that I was on the bus constantly, Okay,

(01:00:26):
So it was very much back and forth. I mean
it was. It would never never two weeks went by
where I didn't see the show somewhere. So what happens
after seventy four? Now I know that your period of
Prince was he started uh eighty two, well the last
stages of the nineteen so he came in eighty three,
eight three. So what were those ten years? What did

(01:00:50):
you do in the in between those ten years? Like
what other acts are? Well, actually got married and had
a kid, which kept me at home for a while,
and then I was I was actually promoting shows, um,
putting little R and b at, a at, a backer
and a partner, and we were putting little packages together
and taking a tour like the Shylights and the Stylistas
and the Detroit damnerals, take three or four bands, put

(01:01:12):
them together and and book a four day runting down
South somewhere. Maybe play Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond, you know that
kind of a thing. Now, had touring conditions changed by
the mid seventies than it was in the in the sixties,
they were starting to they were starting to. Um, it

(01:01:33):
had dramatically changed in the pop world. It was a
little bit ahead of the R and B world. But um,
it wasn't so much that the business changed as much
as the culture changed. I mean just the face of
America was changing. The lifestyles, the living conditions, everything was changing. Um,
at least on the surface it things weren't as as

(01:01:58):
overtly segregated, meaning that here's an example. Back in the sixties,
if you're gonna play in New York, you played the
Apollo Theater. I mean you could count on one hand
the black artist who could who could do enough business
to play the Garden, But you would play the Apollo
and do four four shows a day, five on weekends.

(01:02:20):
So if you played the Apollo for a week, and
the typical booking was you opened the show opened on Friday,
one o'clock in the afternoon the first show on the
first and then second show is like four seven and ten,
and how long are the shows? How long is the show?
Two hours? But inside these shows were comedians. Yeah, yeah,

(01:02:43):
it was. It was. It was not as you sang,
it's for two hours straight. It was kind of no,
because there would be support acts and the star might
do fifty minutes our dependent on the audience feel satisfied
that totally. That's what they were used to. They didn't know.
I'm just used to, you know, the lead person doing
a two hour show. Yeah, but nobody did that then,

(01:03:06):
Oh okay, nobody did that. Very few people doing that,
and nobody's given to our shows. Now that's very rare, no,
I mean you we we would. We would tour and
have say the Stylistics as a support act. After they
were talking about Stylistics when they were on maybe their
third or fourth hit single like rock rock and roll baby, Yeah,

(01:03:28):
the hits um, but the first hits well, I mean
like the round two albums and you may yeah exactly,
and they'd get twenty minutes, twenty minutes. Yeah, they ain't
got the three jams. What they gonna do? Well, I
don't know. My research. They would use some songs and yeah,
that's what they did after they ran out of their hits.

(01:03:51):
Everybody did Alfhie. You know, you're right, did Alfie? Everyone
did Alfie? Yeah, yeah they do. I mean that's a
very seventies thing. But but it's you know, nobody expected
them to do more. So let's kiss your first foray
into the rock world. Yeah really, the only one. Now,

(01:04:13):
why why did they seek you out? They didn't? Oh you,
I just believe it or not. This is the only
act I ever chased was James Brown. Every everything else
came just by being in the right place at the
right time. It's just God looks out for fools or something.

(01:04:35):
The only show I really chased was James Brown. But
I had been off the road for several years, okay,
and was looking to get back in it and paranoid
because the business had changed. This is now one. So
after they took the makeup off, No they was. It
was actually the Creatures of the Night was the album
which didn't sell and it was their last tour. Would

(01:04:57):
make up before it came off? Or they still playing stadiums,
or they down they were playing arenas but see markets
and half filling them. It was really a low exactly. Yeah,
I played pretty much pretty much, but they always had
big production still like it was a big show. Okay, Yeah,

(01:05:19):
they had to satisfy their fans and they hoped to
what was that experience like loud? Really yeah? I mean,
I can honestly say, and it should be a shame
to say this, but I can honestly say I did
not know one of the songs you weren't doing like
I was reading for Loving You Christian, no clue I

(01:05:45):
love kiss man. No j Brown had gotten in my head. Man,
if it wasn't funky, or if it wasn't jazz, I
was not me. But the Dynasty album they're trying to
get a little fucking joint word is trying, you know.
I mean, you know, I was impressible seven year old
kid at the time, So you know, I get if

(01:06:06):
I was seven out of probably get impressed too. I
don't know, impressed enough to buy the book. I'm just
saying that I'm not. I wasn't a kiss fanatic, But
I mean I grew up in the household in which
you know what, you you developed your musical taste in

(01:06:26):
your formative years from the other adults in the house.
You're your parents, I'm she was in the kiss. Well, no,
I'm just doing the particular high school. So you're saying
my mother turned me on too, James brand Oh man,
I'm just saying everyone has a cool older figure. I'm

(01:06:51):
just saying that I I don't know me man like you.
I mean, look, it's all good. I just for me.
I mean I was in the South. They had makeup
on that was like, you know, it was some devil ship.
I'm gonna tell you though, that's pretty much I'm kissing
twisted sister, all that ship all but not see. But

(01:07:14):
you're missing in the seventies and ages. I know you're
born a little bit after me, but feeling the same
character like white men with paint on now reminded me
Stephen King. I just know I'm good with all that ship. No,
I'm just like when yeah, you sound like pretty good.
Already established the reason I have the shows because my

(01:07:38):
sponge memory for stupid details, like even Allen asking Alan
questions I don't want to know about, like does he
show the poster with the sex machine lyrics on it?
I want to know what James Brown's writer was in
ninety three yo I've heard crazy writers stories from various groups.

(01:07:59):
I think, uh, let's see that. We didn't have riders,
know what? Any right? Did you know? The contracts that
we have were like one page. That's literally it was
just like, yeah, this is this is the date, this
is the time of place. So it never occurred to you,
guys the number one touring attraction for black music in America,

(01:08:22):
probably second to the Motortown Review, which I guess lost
team after six or sixty five sixty six. It never
occurred to you guys wants to like, hey, maybe we
can have because he brought everything donuts, No, he brought everything.
Every anything he wanted he brought with him. Okay, his

(01:08:43):
dressing room was full of stuff, but he would just
bring it because there was The promoters didn't do that.
I'll give you give you an example. Teddy Powell. I
don't know if you know who that was. He was
a major, major black music promoter based in New York,
but he promoted all over the Northeast and he took
tours out. He took single dates, he played gospel shows,

(01:09:05):
he played jazz festivals, he played R and B tours,
and whenever we played Newark was played for Teddy. He was,
you know, our promoter in Newark, and he would occasionally
buy dates and put him in under the City's too um.
Teddy had a Marvin Gay two ur shortly after What's
Going On broke and Marvin had a rider. And this

(01:09:28):
was when I was in Pittsburgh and I went. I
went to the show to basically to see Teddy and
hang out and talk shop. And he's like home, He
called everybody home. It was just a real old school
kind of you know, rough promoter always had a suit
and tie on, but it was always wrinkled, you know

(01:09:49):
that guy. And he's like, oh, I gotta take it.
Been promoting shows for twenty years now. I'm a rug merchant.
You know what scripe Marvin Kay? I mean, I know
he's got a big hit, but it says he's wants
carpeting and to dressing. We're in the arena. Arenas don't
have carpeting and dressing room. But I got him. Wow.

(01:10:12):
He laid out newspaper and taped it to the floor.
You can't make this up. I saw it, and that
was his way of saying, get the hell out of here.
What's your writer? Okay? Yeah, so it took a minute
before the artists had the juice to make those kind

(01:10:33):
of demands, and promoters the whole balance of the relationship.
Back in those days, the promoter was, God, this is
the guy that paid you. You worked for him. I
guess you got a start. I got the kiss gig
guy got out of a classified ad in variety. They
took an ad out. They took an ad. They were
being managed by a business manager. Their their their longtime manager.

(01:11:00):
The coined it parted ways. So their managers were a
couple of guys who were really accountants clickman and Marx
how are it? Clickman? I forget so you know all
about it? Um, And they were not really rocket road guys. UM.
Longer short of it is Yeah, they put an ad.

(01:11:21):
They needed a road manager because they had a tour manager,
but they needed somebody to handle all the travel and
the logistics because the tour manager was too good to
do that stuff. It was that kind of a thing.
And I was looking for a way to get back
into business. And as I said, the business had changed
a lot. It It was on the verge of turning
from a low tech to you know, mom and pop

(01:11:43):
business into something that wasn't quite high tech yet, but
it was on the way it was changing. It was
definitely corporatized, and particularly with kiss because they were a
corporation and ran things that way. But longer short of
it is I guess the only way they knew to
do it, because what ever think to put an ad
in variety for a rock and roll road managers? And

(01:12:04):
it was insane. But it was like they saying it's
for kissing. It was just I don't know. In fact,
it was it was an employment agency that placed to
add on their behalf. I mean a place like I
went to apply for this job with no idea of
who the group was, and it was the kind of
employment agency where there's like twenty people taking typing tests

(01:12:26):
to go to work as clerical people in offices like
Manpower exactly. It was like insane, Ah, man Manpower, it's
where people we did Moore go to fund It really

(01:12:46):
is that man Power was like if gessfore you went,
if you you know, you didn't have like no, no
kind of degree and nothing like the job corps. It's
not quite it's like Manpower and the job corps like
the bottom of the remember feel a job yeah, but
at least you're geting the office and manpower. Yet your
job called they seen you like third world countries. How

(01:13:07):
do you know that that's peace Corps. Now I think
it's dropped. Say whatever, it's not. It's bad peace job
Corps on the court. It's like gardens and rhymed about
job of corps. So I knew it was bad instantly,
but now I knew. But I used to work. I had.
I had a temp job before I had a couple

(01:13:30):
of now I had. I worked in a call center.
I used to call just call people for the government.
Who for the government, Well you wanted they wanted their
money back or now it was like some kind of
survey that they wanted to do. It was some bullshit.
But I would just call and around. That's why I
have a good speaking voice on radio. A man. I

(01:13:51):
was started the call center and then after that went
to work for Blue Cross, another call center. Things you
learn that su never mind and forget it. So what
what what was your your experience with kiss Like, what

(01:14:13):
what was the difference between Matt and James Brown. I
know that I would assume that you could say that
James Brown was high maintenance. So what was the difference.
The difference was James Brown, I was raced to see
the show. Would kiss the gig was get back to
the hotel. I didn't have to see the show. I
mean I saw it once. I was impressed. It was cool.

(01:14:33):
But I would think that you would have to always
just be there to whole hands because that that they
had a tour manager and as long that it was
way more important. I mean, they were a well oiled machine.
They had the right kind of security, the right kind
of tour manager. They just needed to know that there
would be the right fruit salad in the room when
they get back to the hotel. Do you tell the

(01:14:54):
food salad story real quick? I mean it was like
he's literally telling the truth. It's like that that that
was the most important thing was they had to be
a fruit salad for Gene. They all had an idea
menu for what they wanted in their rooms, and I'm
talking it should be in the room when they walk in.
The makeup is dripping in, the suits are still on

(01:15:17):
its on, but the food has to be there. Proper temperature, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Which is find if you're in at risk. Carton but
if you're in a holiday inn in Dubuque, Iowa, where
the kitchen clothed it, ten forget it. So that's how
I got out of having to watch the shows, because
I would actually take the limit after I dropped them
at the show. Once the show went up, I take
one of the cars and goes shopping and actually find

(01:15:41):
a supermarket and make the fruit salad because and the
reason was that was like about the third or fourth
show out. Um, I get a call from Gene right
after they got in their rooms, walked them up, mediment lobby,
walked them up to let them to their rooms. Go
back to my room. About five minutes later, phone rings,
come to my room. Okay, come to this room. This

(01:16:05):
is a fruit salad. And it means all of a sudden,
this rock and roll star in makeup still got the
uniform on, and he sounds like Jackie Mason. He's like,
you called this a fruit salad, like Rodney Dangerfield. And

(01:16:26):
he picks up a piece and I mean it was
like about four slices of orange and like two slices
of pineapple and something. This is what this holiday is
called the fruit salad? Right, this is not a fruit salad.
This is ship. This is what I pay you for.
So it was like, okay, I got it. I'm gonna
make the fruit salad. So for the next, you know,

(01:16:47):
the rest of the tour, I made the fruit salad.
So you're trying to tell me that the only one
kiss was not It's a totally different man. Halen like, wait,
I'm like fruit salad. What about the women and the
groupies and the like? Were they beyond that now? And that?
I was just like, all right, I'm on stage. Where's
no Jean was still seeing both d and Ross and Share,
so he was juggling, That's right, he was. He was

(01:17:11):
Diana Ross and Yeah and Um. How long did that
last for UM one tour? It was like three months,
two months, three months something like that. So when it
was over, you thought you were coming home. I thought
I was coming home. They shared the production manager with Prince.
Prince was out in the tour, and the production manager

(01:17:34):
caught me and Catering at like the second to last
gig on the kiss around like a typical conversation, what
do you do when you go home? I don't know.
I'm going to wait for the phone to ring and
um and he says, well, you're interested in the Prince
gig because he just let somebody go. And that was
like the second or third tour MANAGERIED had on that
particular tour, And I was like, of course I'm interested

(01:17:56):
when he pays me to go home, Yes, I'm interested.
Now the rere he was, I had already fallen in
love with Prince. It was very obvious this guy's going places,
and it was a show I'd enjoy seeing every night.
Now I had no idea what the gig was gonna be,
like I've heard he's difficult, a little crazy, but you know,
I didn't really know much. I didn't know anybody in
the camp, so I really went in there blind. Did

(01:18:19):
that were you that he already went through two or
three during one tour? No? No, there was only a
month left on his tour and it was either that
or go home, and said, of my butt until the
phone rang And I loved his music. Well, so to
me it was it was. It was terrific. It was
like an opportunity to get into camp that that that
had a future. But I'm in worried as in like

(01:18:40):
I would think like when someone changes their cell phone
number twice in a year. I'm already thinking, like I questioned,
someone that changes their selves like their life and okay,
what what life decisions have you made that brought to you? Right,
it's like the spinal tap, like the whole joke of
you went through eight drummers? Is that night drum Right?

(01:19:01):
So I would figured to go through a couple of
tour managers in such a short period of time that
this person is difficult. Yeah, that was. But is it
that you once you dealt with James Brown kind of
handle anything? Maybe that was it? I mean, you know,
was that in the back of my mind? Sure it was.
And as I began, because I didn't know anybody on

(01:19:23):
the tour except the production manager and um and he
had warned me. The first thing he said, and the
first thing for a no he said when he hired me,
was don't approach Prince until he's comfortable with you. He'll
let you know, he'll send you a side and somehow
he'll let you know when he's ready to communicate with you.
And like that that was normal sounding to you. No,
of course not. But I was working for him. It

(01:19:46):
was his house and it's like, so I don't have
to put up with the the artist in my ear
giving me instructions all the time. Great, I can't mess
up something I'm not told to do. But someone has
to be your your information person, alright. So so the
first week out was out there and and I mean
I went up to him, he took my hand the

(01:20:07):
first night, welcome aboard, something like that. That was all
we talked about. Um the third or fourth day I
needed to talk to him about picking hotels. And traditionally
I would go to an artist and say, here's where
we're going. Do you have a favorite hotel in these cities,
so as to make sure that they were booked where
they would want to be, and being new in the camp,

(01:20:29):
it sounded like a logical question. So I came up
to the dressing room before show one night and I
talked to Big Chick said I need to see Prince. Well, buddy,
I don't know if that's a smart thing to do.
I'm still new blood. So everybody's like patrinising me. And
he says, well, here's the thing, what do you want
to talk to him about? Now? Chick called himself looking

(01:20:49):
out for me. I'm thinking he's blocking me, right, because
I still don't get the doneamics of the person answering,
you know, I'm new in camp and he says well,
and I said, well, and you just talked to him
about a few hotels for the next next few weeks. Buddy,
here's the thing. He hired you because you know what
you're doing, and if you ask him about hotels, he's

(01:21:10):
gonna think you don't know what you're doing. Then why
did he hire you? So you knew that logic was
out the window, and so it was up to you
to guess what his preferences. Yes, so I went to
Bobby Z and I went to Farnoli and I said,
where do you guys stay? It's like, okay, he doesn't
want to talk about hotels. So maybe maybe a week

(01:21:35):
into me being there, after four or five, six shows whatever,
we're in St. Louis and we're in a hotel. After
the show, I'm in the lobby bar with with the
whole band I think was there all five of them probably,
So they hung out occasionally occasionally, and you know, it's
one of those deals where in a boring hotel and
after hours and you're leaving first thing in the morning,

(01:21:57):
so you're not gonna go out in the street and
everybody just met. I'll meet you in the bar. We'll
have a drink right just unwind after a show. So
we're sitting in a huge round table and the band is.
You know, I've had a couple of drinks, and it's
kind of lively conversation and so on and so on,
and suddenly we look up and here comes to Print
and Chick walking across the lobby towards us. And what's

(01:22:22):
fascinated to meet was the conversation stopped. There was a
tension at the table. You could feel, and I'm like, hey, now,
all of a sudden, everybody's scared to talk because into
whatever it is they're saying, they don't want him to
hear it, because what I didn't realize is that he
has a way of taking what you say out of context,

(01:22:43):
twisting it around him mean something else, and so on.
So their whole thing was, let's just don't say anything
unless we're asked. Now, I'm from New York, I don't
know from That's like, I'll say anything. Pick what you want,
you know. Um, as luck would have it. The only
empty chair at the table, who was next to me,

(01:23:05):
so Chicken Prince Head outside of the table and I
get up to offer my seat to Chick, figuring Prince
will take the empty seat, and Chick kind of physically
pushes me back in the seat, which was the right
thing to do, is the bodyguard. But I'm being polite
because I'm the newbie, right. So we're sitting at the
table and now it's like awkwardly quiet, and everybody's waiting

(01:23:27):
for him to say something because now the boss is here,
and you know, they were talking about how the show
was and so on, but but maybe he didn't like
the show, so they're afraid to express anything. They want
to read him first. Did he like to show or
did he not? Is he here to pick up this mood?
Did we miss the que that if they want to
read his mood? Right, So there's this awkward silence for

(01:23:49):
about sixty seconds, and then he just turns to me
in my ear and he says, tell me some James
Brunce stories. Wow, And I don't know what I thought
of something real quick. I don't really knows what I
told him. I have no recollection at all. And from
that point on we talked so that that was okay,
you're in. You passed initiation really and after that I

(01:24:13):
couldn't get in this shut up because now it is
it is the guy calling number ten minutes with get this,
do that, get this, do that. Knowing what I think
I know about him, I would have thought he was
testing you to see would you spill any secrets, like
he was testing your loyalty. So the story you told
must have been humorous enough to give just a little

(01:24:36):
bit of information. I'm sure this is that one time
when I caught James Brown, You're like, oh no, he's
not no, no dirty laundry that that that's that's too
are men and you want no one that you don't
You never dis a previous artist with the New Orleans
because wow, you just don't. So when when you entered

(01:24:56):
the the realm of of the Prince tour um, what
preparation of anything that you were given? Like what's your
I still don't know how you just jump in the
head first too an already existent situation. You know, you
just dive in. You figure out what's been done, what
hasn't been done. But the biggest thing in that situation,

(01:25:18):
because I wasn't used to jumping in its stream, was
just kind of observe the whole thing was like, let
me clock everybody and see how this works. Catch the
dynamics of the personalities, who's outspoken, who's a problem, who's cool,
who oversleeps? You know, just get a sense of of
what you're dealing with. You know, you can't reinvent it.

(01:25:39):
You can't come in cold and and reinvent the wheel,
because whatever they're doing, it's working. Did you have to
uh to babysit all three acts or was it just Prince?
And each act had a road manager but they all
answered to you? Yeah, pretty much, because I was the
one who was telling him what plane we're on and

(01:26:00):
what hotel we're gonna be out and so on. They
didn't have a voice in that. What the res are
you talking about? Vanity six? In the time as you
I'm referring to um? So was it? Was? It well oiled?
Even with those acts, Like were they professional? Were they?
Everybody was very professional and it was obvious that he
didn't tolerate in bullshit, so it was a very professional operation. Now, still,

(01:26:24):
there were a lot of opinionated people, and it was
there was some you had a real sense of drama
and obviously it didn't take long to learn. A lot
of it had to do with, um, what had happened
with Jimmy, jam and Terry before I joined, when they
had broken away, and Mr Gig because they've been in
the studio, wounded Atlanta and so on for the listeners

(01:26:45):
who don't quick side note. So Jimmy and Terry uh
flew to Atlanta to produce just be good to Me, right,
and then an ounce of drop of snow came in
Atlanta shut the airport down, thus forcing uh, I guess
uh Brown Mark and Lisa and Prince to fill in.

(01:27:11):
Uh the Times music backstage? Were you witnessed to that? No? No,
there was before before. Okay, So by I mean by that,
by that point though, I mean could you, I mean
the bands weren't speaking. The first of all, there was
a musical rivalry between the bands because the Time could
kick their ass and often did. Yeah, I mean because

(01:27:38):
but Prince did he not have his well, it was
already he designed that he wanted that. Well, I know that.
But when I hear like, oh, the Time kicked our
ass tonight, like I think it was like the frankis
not Minster that kind of went beyond his control. Like
I think it was I think the time was him
just kind of getting his funk nut off, like I'll
just do this kind of function. But you know, for

(01:28:00):
a while, and I think even when we talked to
Brown Mark and them, right, you know, they were saying that,
I mean, because you know, after while the time was
I mean, that was like the black audience, So they
were It was a stylistic thing as much as anything else,

(01:28:22):
because the nature of the songs, the repertoire was was different.
It was more R and B. Yeah, it was hardcore
R and B. When you get when, I mean, you
can't funk with a ten minute vamp on cool a little.
It's a tremendous song, but it ain't gonna do to
a house what ten minutes to Cool does or seven

(01:28:45):
seven seven, I mean, I get it. So, I mean
they were just at at best cordial to each other
by that point best. And then there was the Vanity
sixth thing where he did been you know, been through
the Vanity thing. They had already broken up, but he
was trying to make people think he was still in

(01:29:06):
there and they would hang together. But she was making
everybody aware that it was just to hang that she
was really done with him. And Susan Moons he's still
his like sometimes friend, but she's not sleeping with him either,
And Jill Jones is there, and I mean it was
it was crazy at that levels of awesome juggling. One

(01:29:30):
day fontago, you and I will discuss life. Life goes,
I guess by the point. But by the time you
joined the tour, the fabled Purple Notebook ever show itself.

(01:29:51):
I mean, how much talk of we might do a
movie or this sort of thing. Well, I heard that.
I heard that because some of the guys in the
band were talking about it. Jill Jones was talking about it.
I remember Vanity and Susan Moon's he telling me, you know,
he's writing in his notebook and these ideas. He thinks
he's gonna make a movie, and everybody kind of like

(01:30:11):
the sense I got was that nobody really believed it,
but everybody was too afraid of him to express it.
So everybody acted like, yeah, we're gonna make a movie,
but you know, but like they didn't believe it. At
what point did it become like, oh crap, this really
is going to happen. Um About a month after I

(01:30:34):
was in Minneapolis and we started doing casting calls. Well.
But the one thing that I noticed when at least
for searching the notes of the music that went into
Purple Rain, was that he was on a serious deadline
because once the movie got greenlit, songs still weren't finalized yet.

(01:30:57):
And so, um, when I'm reading the Warner brother logs,
the Warner Brothers uh studio logs of how songs got
created and how fast and close to deadline that they were,
you know, like the beautiful ones really wasn't created until
like mer or months before they had to shoot this stuff.

(01:31:18):
So I think Take Me with You came like during
Well that's my point and the fact that, I mean
it's easy to take for granted that his his talents
were endless and metaphoric metaphorically speaking, he was just shooting
three pointers all day. The film people worried about that,

(01:31:39):
but we didn't because we, I mean we by then
I knew what everybody else in they camp do that
this was the guy who would go downstairs and in
six hours great a new song. And at that point
in his career, the songs it was creating were consistently good. Um,
I think it didn't take long one shooting began to
realize a that nobody in this cast was going to

(01:32:01):
threaten Meryl Streep or George C. Scott. What were those preparations, like,
did you witness like these? Balied? YEA. When when I
first got to Minneapolis, as Farnoli said, you're an off
road road because I said, what's the gig? You're an
off road road manager with three bands. Why wouldn't Farnoli

(01:32:23):
come into do the because he lived in l a
And and he didn't want to leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean that this is this was kind of the
gopher stuff. It's like we had an acting coach who
had come come been hired from California to come in

(01:32:45):
and work individually with the people who had the most
speaking roles. We had a dance class down downtown that
was just basically just basic dance and entered as much
a workout as anything else. But so it's just to
keep them in shape, not exactly exactly making them lazy

(01:33:05):
and like no, but I just just figured yeah, um,
and and then there was the rehearsals, and and you
had Vanity six, you had the time, and you had
the Revolution, and they were all rehearsing. So it was
my job to stagger their schedules to make sure everybody

(01:33:26):
knew where to go and win. The dance classes were
like three times a week downtown at the Minnesota Dance Theater,
three times a week downtown. Yeah, then it would be
like in late morning so that we could have the day,
you know, the day for rehearsing, and um, everybody would
go to that together. So that would be all the
groups together and anybody else who was the nineteen people?

(01:33:48):
Is your job to wrinkled nineteen people? Yeah, pretty much,
Morris included, and yeah, absolutely absolutely, And then Gwen and
I would go and Gwen would get in tights and
work out with Susan Mooncy and it would just all
hang out the silly and Jerome with clown and drive
the dance teacher crazy, give us hysterical. We should have
had footage of that that. The dance theater stuff was

(01:34:08):
all right. Prince included sometimes not always, but sometimes, I'd
say half the time he was there. So, I mean,
it was it easy at all for you to make
this move or was it? Like? No, it was pretty
traumatic actually, because it was like leaving a girlfriend and
leaving New York, neither of which I wanted to leave
um to live in a town I had no designs

(01:34:30):
of staying in and and but but it was like
it was like, this is the offer you can't refuse,
and and and I was I really played hard to
get with Farnoli when he called me, because it was like,
you know, because he could tell I ain't feeling Minneapolis, man,
I mean, how long am I to be there? Well?
Maybe forever? It was like, no, well, you were lucky

(01:34:53):
enough to pull Gwynn into the circle. Yeah, I can't imagine.
That was like, okay, well I tried that once, like
out of the end he broke up at the end
of that. It ended. But wait, that's what you just said, Alan,
you said that was a part of deal. Like it's
either both of us or it was part of the

(01:35:14):
deal at a certain point. Because after I was here
for a while and I realized this was a keeper,
meaning the gig, I was really concerned about our relationship
because the relationship had just gotten to the point where
this is like getting serious. And um, but you know,
she had a good job in New York. She was
public relations directed for the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum

(01:35:36):
and Natural History had been there for several years. All
her friends were in New York. She had never lived
anywhere else except when she went away to school, and
so the idea of her movie just didn't even seem
worth having a conversation about. Never occurred to me. But
something happened at the planetarium. They had a change in management,
and the new regime was was not to her liking.

(01:35:58):
So she was starting to obblund So Fate just said
that if she was ever going to consider a move,
this was the time. And um my thing was that
eventually we would tour, which is what I lived for.
If I had want to be in the movie making business,
I wouldn't moved to La and got in that business.
This was just something we were doing until we got

(01:36:20):
to the next tour. That that's what got me excited,
was hitting the road and making music. Making a movie
was tedious to me. It was just bored. You didn't
know whether or not it was gonna work or not. No,
but but I knew whither without the success of the movie.
One day, he's going to tour again. He's got a band,
he makes new music, and he's popular. We're going to

(01:36:40):
go out and the root and do what we do
and at that point, I don't want to be away
from home for six months. So the thing with Gwen
was like once she came to she she came to visit,
and then the job situation for her turned intowards something
that became unpleasant because the management change and was like,
you know what, and I missed you too, maybe this

(01:37:02):
is what I'm supposed to do, so lo and behold.
She was willing to move. So at that point I
was like, okay, if we're going to tour, she's going
to become my assistant. And it it kind of morphed
organically because there was no Paisley Park, there was no office,
and so kind of by default my apartment living room
became the office. That's where guys would come to pick

(01:37:25):
up their perdems and you know, when the packages would
come that I'd have to take the Prince of rehearsal.
So it was kind of the headquarters for Pierre and
Productions until we finally had an office a year later.
Um So, needless to say, Prince Scott used to calling me,

(01:37:46):
He got used to Gwen answering the phone, and very
gradually he started asking her to do stuff for him. Heah,
so he was like, and I don't know if he
was testing her what, but he was, you know, did
did a package come for me? Well? I think so,
but Alan's at the store. Well I need the package.
Can you bring it out to the house, you know,

(01:38:09):
you know, or or at at one in the morning,
it was like, you know, I'm in St. Paul and
I ran out of gas because somebody brings me some gas.
He would do that a lot. Really yeah, I got
it probably half a dozen times that he would call

(01:38:30):
the house and say, we're not a gas and we
have to go get gas, or we call somebody who
was already out, either his brother Dwayne, or we find somebody.
It wasn't like it had to be me, but you know,
somebody got to bring me some without cell phones. I
can't even imagine exactly that's that's crazy. Yeah, it was crazy,

(01:38:52):
but but he he got used to Gwen doing stuff,
so it just became like okay. And then then fans
had discovered his house, the Purple House, and whenever he
and I would go to New York or go to
l A for meetings or business or just to get
away for a few days, he was getting nervous about
leaving the house empty. So there were a few times

(01:39:13):
he asked Gwen the house sit for him when we'd
be out of town and so and so so was
it a gate at the house or yeah, there was
an electronic gate and so on. In fact, once there
were some fans out there and she accidentally opened the
gate and at art attack because they came in. But
that's a Gwen story. But but long and short of
it is she just became part of the family. I
mean it was you know, she became very friendly with

(01:39:37):
Susan Muncie, particularly because Moosey didn't drink the kool age.
She was more like a very grounded person, which appealed
to Gwen because she was totally baffled by the whole
rock and roll thing. She was She was from the planetarium,
from the museum world, where every postage stamp counted, and

(01:39:57):
you know, now it's like rock and roll, it's like
case send something counter to counter, which was before fed
x um. And she just couldn't get with the the
sentiment entitlement and the with the waste and in the
excess of our lifestyle. So it was it was a
little bumpy for us. But you know, she adapted pretty

(01:40:19):
quick and and and he accepted her. Well, I'm just
amazed that. Can you describe the I guess the work
ethic is what I'm really trying to grasp because I've
never seen anyone who is up at the crack or
I mean, what time did rehearsals normally start? Mm hm,

(01:40:42):
as a were like like three ish to three o'clock
in the afternoon. Really yeah, okay, So when did they end?
Though totally varied, depended whether it was just a rehearsal
rehearsal or if it was something specific, and the closer
you get to that specific gig or tour, then the
rehearsals might go to midnight, one or two in the morning.

(01:41:04):
But the average day because I mean, he'd rehearse all
everybody's on a retainer, so he would rehearse constantly, even
if there wasn't a tour around the corner, and those
rehearsals might be I mean, if he went the studio
and recorded a new song, he'd want to rehearse it
with the band, so they'd learned it even before the
record ever came out, without even knowing whether the song

(01:41:25):
would make an album. So we were always rehearsing, and
those just for lack of better way of putting in.
Those kind of everyday rehearsals without a serious purpose would
maybe three o'clock till eight o'clock a day or something
like that, five or six hours. Not as intense as no,

(01:41:46):
but then if it's if it's a tour three weeks away,
then they get really really focused and longer. But the
thing was the rehearsal might last three or four or
five hours, but then he'd want the jam on night. Oh,
after the rehearsal, after rehearsal, once he done whatever he
wanted to rehearse, then it was like, okay, didn't he

(01:42:09):
like all of his studden started playing body heat and
vamp on it for like an hour. Were they generally
enjoying it or was it like one of them was like, yo, man,
I made plans to Yeah, there were those times, but
they knew better than to make plans. You just didn't
dare make plans. But I'm certain someone gave you like

(01:42:30):
the eyes like yeah, of course it's my kid's birthday,
Like that's sort of but none of that matters. It's
all about him indulging. Is That's what retainers are for
you're seven. In fact, let's play first Avenue to night
at midnight, get out of bed and comes down town.

(01:42:52):
What was the most eleventh hour request you've ever had
to make? Happened in your history of this organization? The
video for Alphabets Alphabet Street. Really that was a oh god,

(01:43:12):
this might not happen or no. It was a phone
call on a Sunday morning in a snowstorm. But I
mean it's Minneapolis, so that's no. But it's still a
Sunday morning. And he it was no advance notice whatsoever.
Was literally like ten ten eleven o'clock Sunday morning phone rings.
I want to see the video, okay, when now? Wait?

(01:43:38):
Time out? Was there even like in a hello, hello,
is Alan there? No? Very seldom just hello, I want
to shoot the video? He'd just go right into He'd
never say alone. I just said. It used to drive
quitting crazy because he'd never say hello to her, and
like would she would dance the phone Allen there? Not
is Allen? Just two words Allan there? And like yeah,

(01:44:04):
and she did what you would probably do, high prince,
how are you just hey? Prince? How you hello? Wait?
Were you're allowed to call even I can't imagine him.
I can't imagine calling him Prince. That was his name. Yeah,
what else was coma play? I'm gonna call him Clay.

(01:44:24):
This is long before alright, you know? Uh so Alan, Uh?
I guess can you tell us at the time when
you're taking this uh tour on the road, like, at
what point does this become like Beatlemania? As soon as

(01:44:46):
we got to Detroit the first shop? What is it
about Detroit? Like he was it? The fact that electrifying
mojo just yeah, I think I had the city on
fire for him more than anything that wasn't around. But
I think it was one of the first cities where
he blew up. And for whatever reason, it just works.
Billy Sparks from Billy Sparks is from Detroit. But but

(01:45:08):
when you really think back, Detroit, Motown, decide Detroit. When
you think of p funk Um and the fact that
the early Funkadelic came out of Detroit, there was always
kind of a unique merger of of funk and rock

(01:45:29):
there that wasn't necessarily elsewhere, And maybe that speaks to it.
I'm just guessing here. I always wanted to know how
did Billy Sparks get his position in Purple Rain, like
was he just always Billy Sparks is a promoter by
trade and an actual Actually he worked with Quentin Perry
and Jeff Sharpoo where our tour promoters, and had been

(01:45:53):
with Prince since the controversy tour so It's before my time,
and continued to be the tour per voters and um
Billy's Billy's gig was that he did to all their
radio and he was like their publicist. He was their
promo guy who would go to all the radio stations
and hype the shows. But I mean, obviously there's something

(01:46:17):
personal about Billy that Prince took a liking to him.
I mean he had he was. Billy's a character. He's
got a really outgoing personality and a real flavor to
him and had a good sense of humor. But enough
to say I'm gonna put you in my movie and

(01:46:37):
do you have any I mean, this is the guy.
But you just thought that was natural, Like, oh yeah,
well dude, he put me in the movie. Why wouldn't
he put put everybody in the movie. Yeah. By the way, Alan,
for those who do all the point is about me,
It's about he put everybody in the movie. It was like,
you know, that was his that was his thing. Where

(01:47:00):
the world everybody's going to be part of this his dream.
Once we would all live in a gated community Janasson
and and you know kids will have a nursery center
inside Paisley so we never have to mix with it
was real, Howard. You know, it's more like Dr York
York Bill. No, I'm just no, no, no, that's a

(01:47:27):
whole yeah with its own soundtrack. Yeah, all right, So
you're just saying it was very natural for Billy Sparks
to just Yeah. It was like it's part of the gang.
That's the Purple Crew gang. At at the at the
at the height of that tour, Um, I mean did

(01:47:47):
you think that it was over? Was? I mean what
kept you on because he stopped touring for two years,
but yet you were still there correct? Yeah, Um, you
were just there on standby and case. No, because by
that point, whatever he did that was part of it,
even if it was just two for the hang, that

(01:48:08):
was just part of whenever he traveled and go with him,
and it was it was I mean, there was a valet,
there was a chef, and there was me and I
was like the road manager. And even if it wasn't
a tour, I was still managing his moves in in
and ounce of hotels and clubs and whatever. Okay, So
it was just, you know, there was just that point

(01:48:28):
in time where whenever he moved down, moved with him.
So and and understand something to all this time from
the day I got to Minnesota. What it really really
was was, as much as anything was, I was like
the liason between Prince and the management. Because his management Kavala, Ruffalo,

(01:48:51):
and FARNOLDI were based in l A. They did not
want to move to help to Minneapolis. If they had,
I wouldn't never had a gig. So you were the
silent member of of of that firm. You decided to
live in Minnesota. I see, I see. Um. So at
what point are you just told that you're the president

(01:49:12):
of Paisley Park or no. It's just it's like, Kate,
we got the money, we're gonna build the building, you know.
And um Now, Okay, as as a principan that I
was his guy, I mean I was the guy on site.
I mean there was Farnoli who I answered to, and

(01:49:33):
Cavallo and Ruffalo to a degree. But um, but in
terms of on site mean, now, there were a lot
of other guys by the nd by the time we
built Paisley that it was a pretty big crew of
technicians and engineers, and um we hired a student that
the the guy who actually ran Paisley, the facility, the

(01:49:54):
studio manage, the building manager was a guy named Harry
Grossman who had Maurice White's complex in West Hollywood. We
hired him away as as a as a music observer,
always noticed that whenever someone chooses to upgrade, that also

(01:50:15):
marks the beginning of the moment, like kind of the
beginning of the not the beginning of the end. But
it's like Barry Gordy taking Motown out of Detroit and
going to l a uh wu tang uh leaving the

(01:50:36):
versus Basement two a more posh Hollywood studio. I mean,
there's other examples of you know, cleaner studios and that
sort of stuff, and then it lose it's it's it's
did you feel I mean not saying that you could
answer from I wouldn't call you a Prince fan, but

(01:50:56):
I would at least think that you miired some of
his music time, did you necessarily feel like this might
be a jink situation where like, and you know, all
this magic is coming out of the warehouse in this
particular studio, not a jink situation. UM, I think, would
I know where you're going with this? But I look

(01:51:18):
at it a little differently, but maybe with the same result.
My brother always accuses me, He says, you holp you
what was like every artist's early work the best? And
I do tend to um And I think it's because
there's a there's a sense of adventure when an artist
is developing. When an artist is growing and learning, is

(01:51:42):
he or she goes along and discovering new things to
their skill set that they didn't even know they had
necessarily And you're gonna get that in their early work.
Now that doesn't mean it's their best work, but just
the way my DNA is, that's what appeals to me

(01:52:03):
the most. And the more you're established, the more you've
defined yourself, then it's starting to get to the point
where you can become derivative or or or or just
repetitive because you pretty much have done what you have

(01:52:26):
to do and now it's just about how can I
do this differently, but you've kind of learned what you're
gonna learn. There's just a point where you get a
ceiling as as as an artist, and you, I don't
want to say, run out of ideas, but you know
you you're gonna you're gonna do another adort. It's just

(01:52:47):
gonna have a different name it. It might be even
as good. But I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Have
you heard this song? I have not heard She's all that?
Have you heard this? She's all that? Alan? That's not fair.
Wait a minute, have you heard it? Of course of
course he's heard it. Okay, that was during it was

(01:53:09):
during your reign. Are you allowed to say what you
thought of it? Or you should probably tell who it
is first? Okay? Well, I don't know that. No, we can't.
Even if even if we could, I don't think I
don't think we would. Is it that? Well? There was
a point where okay, so when Karmen electra, Okay, we

(01:53:33):
can start right there? All right, quest les Supreme where
leads ladies and gentlemen? No? Um, yeah, so he uh electorate?
First off, you should probably tell the significance of the
song the door. Will you tell me? Well, it's like
the fan favorite Prince song, Like, what's your favorite Prince ballot? See,

(01:53:54):
that's the thing that's it's a door. It's a door.
It's a door, trust me. But what's your favorite? Forget
what anybody else thinks. What's the most popular, what's the best,
what's your favorite's close? Win with dance and glo slow.
Here's the thing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna be

(01:54:16):
real honest with you. I technically have been very much
indifferent to print slow songs. No, no, no, you gotta
pick don't do that. No no, no, no no, Like
I don't know, I skipped these ships. I you move
for beautiful ones. It moves you. When I got it

(01:54:37):
you on then I'm like, all right, I'll put some
print things on it. But I don't like, like, look,
I acknowledge, I acknowledge that do Me Baby is probably
his best. See that's mine vocal performance. Yeah, but it's like, really,
hearing a ten minute song of Prince having sex is
not my go to thing. So I think that's generational.

(01:55:02):
I think that's that's your generation of of No. No,
I'm who feel uncomfortable and racing a ballot unless you
got a woman under your arm. Yeah, it's okay to
like a ballot. No, no, I'm saying, I just never
like slow songs. I just had a flashback to the

(01:55:23):
endography bird. She's sorry with the ballot, all right, you
get it passed. But my point was there there was
a point in his career where we've heard his ballots.
They just sounded like, Okay, this is the new version
of doom me baby, and it's like scandal. This might

(01:55:45):
be a dynamite ballot if I never heard the other ones, right,
But if I heard Scandal his first, that's the joint.
I like condition of the heart. But I don't consider
that a ballot. The narrative, the point being, there's a
point where you've defined yourself as an artist and and
you can't help but be repetitive because it's what you do. Now.

(01:56:09):
You've kind of stopped learning and growing. And yeah, you
may you may find a new way to mix it,
or you may tinker with the instrumentation and approach it.
You know, it's you know, different ways to do things,
but you're basically still doing the same thing you've already done. Wait,
that's what I knew was eventually going to happen, but
it would have happened with it with out Paisley part

(01:56:30):
because it happens to every artist. Well to explain to
our listeners, uh sort of u taboo blasphemous thing that
Prince did in terms of karma, the lecture and and
some sort of Ted Turner colorization. Way was he took
his much loved the door ballot and gave it to
Carmen to wrap over a song called I'm All That. Yeah,

(01:56:58):
it was Badea, so suffice it to say God burst
his soul. He was a little confused with the advent
of hip hop and hip hop's um crossover into mainstream
acceptance just at best bewildered him. Were you around for
his hammer observations? Because I think more than Run DMC

(01:57:22):
and Public Enemy, I feel like Diamonds and Pearls was
derivative of the Hammer reaction. Thunder was definitely definitely that
I got. I can't think of its of a particular song,
but there's a conversation that we had alone in studio

(01:57:42):
A and I don't recall how we've gotten on the subject,
but I'll never forget what he said. He held up
a copy of Billboards Hot one m and Hammer and
Vanilla Ice both had hits at the time, huge hits,
a dark period. And he pointed to the chart and
he said, do you know what it feels like to

(01:58:04):
spend your whole life learning a craft and look at
this and see Hammer and Vanilla Ice, who cannot sing
and cannot play an instrument, and I can't get in
the top twenty. Yeah. Wow, he didn't get it. And

(01:58:26):
I would say, okay, fuck Hammer, fun funk the Ice,
What up with public enemy? Well that's a good politics,
but it ain't it ain't. They can't singer, They can't
singer play. You know, I don't think he really respected
the art of sampling in mixing, but he wasn't mad
at those pray checks either. Well of course, well no,

(01:58:48):
of course, but it's certainly influenced. As you said, you know,
there was a point where you can't beat him join them,
because there was a point where he looked up and
lives that. You know, this is a guy who threw
out the bulk of the eighties. Was the he was
the leader. He was the guy who was building the new,

(01:59:09):
the new. He was setting the new trends. You know,
he was at the forefront that he he was cutting edge.
Everything he was doing was what everybody was fighting. Now
all of a sudden, it's not his day anymore. There's
new kids on the block, bad bad pun But um,
you know, all of a sudden, it's something else, and

(01:59:30):
it's something he doesn't do and something that he doesn't
I mean, look, I know the brother grew up in
North Minneapolis, and you know what the Minneapolis is to Minneapolis,
it's the hood. But it ain't like growing up in
the Bronx in the seventies. When we moved to Minneapolis
and sort of hood, the first thing we thought was

(01:59:51):
like damn projects, Like how did it end? Everything is relative? Okay,
dude did not understand hip hop culture. Okay, he may
or may not have liked to give ni record, but
the culture didn't relate to him. Blackness aside. It wasn't
where he came from. He grew up in Mini funking Apolis.

(02:00:12):
You know what I wish, You know what I wish though,
I wish someone was there to actually just explained to
him he was actually hip hop and didn't even know it.
Like he That's the funny. The funniest thing was that
he didn't even know he was showing the blueprint, because

(02:00:33):
in my mind, all he did was provide the blueprint,
because everything he did from his work on drum machines,
that to me it was hip hop. Yeah, I'm not
even talking about the times where he just rapped a song,
like even when no, no, I know, but even then
I didn't think like, oh, Prince can rap. I was

(02:00:55):
just like Prince sometimes just spoke shit and but but
I've meant his attitude. But those are his cask offs
and his head those are just the silly little songs
that we have fun with. Their not the serious work. Right.
But even then, like everything he did from his u
the stories that he would concoct in early interviews, to

(02:01:19):
his exploitation of are fair scared exotic women, I mean,
that's that's that's your definition of hip hop, which is
very broad. But his as much an arro who work
hip hop, to him, moment meant two things. You didn't
play and you didn't sing, but you still made records.

(02:01:39):
But to me, he was more when he wasn't trying
to rap. So yeah, I agree, I agree, And I
mean that the proof of the pudding is that when
he you know, when when he suddenly realized that not
maybe not suddenly, he gradually realized that that he was
no longer at the cutting edge of things and had
to reckond saw that. Then all of a sudden, he's

(02:02:02):
he's singing into a microphone shaped like a gun, and
he's got somebody spitting rhymes in his band. And the
guys who were trying to get him into hip hop
we're actually the wrong guys because they weren't prime examples
of that culture and were people who rapped for a
living or tried to. But it wasn't Chuck, but we're

(02:02:24):
him and Michael Jackson going through it seemed like at
the time, and I said, I felt like Michael Jackson
and him were going through that at the same time.
At some point. They both must have felt that that
way because they both were artists. But I think he
adapted way better In prisoned, Michael Jackson worked with like
actual rappers and we got the Golden the album from

(02:02:49):
But I think I think the important thing is Michael
never tried to be somebody he wasn't And when prince
of singing into a mic shaped black a gun and
having a rapper in the band who isn't good that's
trying to be something you're not. Was there? And this
is only like a few short years after the song

(02:03:10):
dead on It where he basically calls out rappers. So
was there a general feeling of relief when the Batman
soundtrack sold like seven eight million units? Or was it
just like was it like, okay, the lights are still on?
Or was it well, I don't, I mean nobody was
nobody was feeling doom? Um? Well okay, well, okay, I

(02:03:36):
mean don't don't justus understand. Mean, Diamonds and Pearls was
a huge selling record. I know that. So did he feel.
Vince Kid and you know, Love Sexy was a flop
by his standards, but there's a lot of artists would
have loved to have those sales. I mean, every everything
is relative. It wasn't like he was, you know, he
just was no longer at the forefront of things because
the world had caught up and people were listening to

(02:03:56):
different things. They got used to him. There's a point
were no matter how good you are, people get used
to your only knew once. I would like to ask
you about your take, or at least what you can
indulge on the Japan run which for many Prince fans
know that was like the the last hurrah of the revolution. Um,

(02:04:20):
how not? How easy was it too? This is eighty
six I believe there's eighty six. Um, So I guess
the legend is that once one d and uh Bobby
saw Prince smashes cloud guitars twice. Actually, um, when you
watch have you seen the clip? So there's he's doing

(02:04:41):
the preboine solo and then he just looks and then
he just takes the cloud guitar and stamps to the
ground marches off stage. But what's so funny is that
the staff is so efficient. I know he wanted to
be like the one and done, like this is done,
I'm walking off stage. But then the guitar tech had
another weren't ready for him, so I was like, man,

(02:05:03):
you you were the momentum. Now gonna go back. So
then he came out, didn't know this older and then
he smashed that one too, and this time really marched
off stage. And you know, Wendy was like, oh god,
I knew that was the beginning of the end. I mean,
you've been there for a lot of I guess awkward

(02:05:25):
silent car rides home. Um, did you think, did you
know if you had a future after that, you know,
after that moment where you figured he was going to
disband the group or I didn't take it as seriously
as they did. Um Oh, so even if he didn't
have a future, you just be like on to the
next And well, I thought I had a future because

(02:05:46):
I figured somebody's gonna play with him. Okay, you know
I wasn't there. The band didn't hire me, he did, Okay,
So so that didn't I didn't for a minute think
that that would affect me. Um. I had a different
idea about the thing, because there was by that time,
there was a lot of tension in the band for

(02:06:07):
whatever reason. And I've been around the you know, everybody
in that band. This was their first real taste of
anything major. They'd all come from bar bands and all
they knew was this, And it was almost a disservice
to their careers to blow up to the proportion that

(02:06:28):
they did, because it's deceptive. It's like the real world
doesn't like Purple Rain, but that's their reference point. Wow.
And I had been through so many artists and so
many bands have been through James Brown, going from Macio
to Bootsey and you know, all of those kinds of transitions.
And I was fully aware of the fact that there's

(02:06:49):
only one name on the marquee that sells the tickets,
and that as long as the new band is good,
Prince is gonna be eight. Now people are gonna sendimentally
miss the old band and due to the stay for
good reason. Yeah, but I never for a minute thought
it wasn't gonna be I. Um, but isn't the whole

(02:07:09):
starting over again? And no, because because his music was growing.
And now the irony is that went near at Leasta
had so much to do with opening him up to
new music, but so did Eric and so did Sheila,
all right in their own ways had brought him to
things that he hadn't heard before. And the point here

(02:07:31):
is not who did it, but that his palette had
had grown so tremendously that five pieces wasn't going to
handle it. I E. Here comes Eric and he says,
get a trumpet player, so we can do parts umlution
movement and now it becomes the counter revolution um. But

(02:07:53):
the real point being that that he just his what
he heard was so much bigger than what Purple Rain
was in terms of just from a musical standpoint, and
I think he saw those five pieces as a limitation wow.

(02:08:14):
And it has nothing to do with the quality of
musicianship or the personalities or anything. Um. It was just
time for a change and he wanted some new blood,
and he wanted a bigger group and an opportunity to
explore different kinds of music. And I think to something
else I picked up from James Brand was that when
you bring new people into the band, it reinvigorates you.

(02:08:38):
Because when you feel you've gone as far as you
can with the people around you, the only way to
keep from being derivative is to freshen up the people
around you, and James did that all the time, particularly
with drummers. He may not change his whole band, but
he went through drummers like crazy, and every one of
them had a very identifiably different style out Jabbo Claude,

(02:09:03):
I see you're right. So you were president of Paisley
Park two win, Well it was technically I was vice
president the Paisley Park Records. I was president. He was
um obvious, I forgot that one. I took over the
label in January of eight nine. So was it a
real label like warners respected you guys, and they wanted

(02:09:26):
to h and up until I took it over. Really,
there was no Paisley Park Records. It was an imprint.
I mean, it existed on paper, but nobody ran it.
You know, Cavala Ruffalo and Farnoli we're supposedly running it.
But I mean, if you wanted to call Paisley Park Records,
there was no number to call. You would call Cavala
Ruffalo Management and maybe they'd have time to talk about it.

(02:09:50):
But it wasn't there focus because they ran am management
company with a lot of clients. So it's just a
vanity label in their eyes to him, and I think
they usually really wanted it to turn into something new
way Maverick did, in the sense that one of these
artists will catch on. Yeah, because he was a guy
who had been able to produce Manic Monday the time,

(02:10:12):
Vanity six. This was a guy who could write and
produce good records with people, and they expected he would
do that in the house. When did you realize, like,
maybe perhaps you should make your exit then what or
it ended up being ninety two? May have ninety two, Um,
you're just this just one day you wake up and

(02:10:34):
realize you've been in the same place too long and
you're just not Minnesota. Though, like you know, when i'd
say place, I'm talking about a career position. UM, I
don't mean geographically. UM. Was it quasi amicable? I mean
at least that, Yeah, I mean actually hired me back

(02:10:55):
for a couple of one off projects. I came back
a year later to put together a Japanese to reform UM.
I didn't do the tour, but I assembled the crew
and dealt with the promoter and worked on all the
contracts and the writers and so on. UM. And then
I came back to do the liner notes for the
Hits project. So we we spoke. I mean, we were cool.

(02:11:20):
It was just that he had the Paisley Park label.
Was wasn't no win. It was a joint venture with Warners,
meaning there was owned fifty fifty and funded by Warners. UM.
But his contract was up and he wanted He was
in the midst of renegotiating his own contract. And there

(02:11:41):
were a lot of things about those negotiations that I
wasn't keen on. We we just didn't see eye and
certain things from a business standpoint. It wasn't you know,
as much as anything else. But Um, he he was
convinced that the failure at Paisley Park, and I've never

(02:12:02):
met an artist who would say anything different was because
Warners didn't prioritize the product. And I knew for a
fact because as as as the head of the label,
I was spending better part of a week to ten
days out of each month working out of Warners in
Burbank and very close with Mo Austin, Lenny Warnick or

(02:12:22):
Bitney Medina, the whole gang, and I knew what they
were willing to do if we had the product they wanted,
and it just wasn't there. They expected him to make
cutting edge records, or at least contemporary radio worthy records,
and not that all the records were bad. We made
some good records, made a couple of great jazz albums

(02:12:44):
with my brother Um, one of which actually did very
well on the jazz charts Things Lift and Said was
the top ten jazz album that year. But jazz albums
were selling units at best. Um we had George Clinton
record that was one of the least interesting George Clinton records.
It was old stuff that he had recorded for another label.

(02:13:04):
The deal had fallen apart and Prince did it as
a favor. Um, and the idea of signing George was
that they would work together. Never happened. I mean, Prince
gave a couple of tracks, but none of the none
of that was one song and that was the worst
song in the album. No, it was the Big Pump

(02:13:28):
with a Big Pump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that Um.
And then he signed Mavis Staples and that that was
a good, solid old school soul record. But it wasn't
time for her to come back yet. Thankfully she has.
She had a lot of successfu lately thrilled for that
much deserved. The Mayvid Staples records were good records, but

(02:13:50):
there were no hits. There was nothing at all that
was contemporary radio worthy, not when hip hop was blowing up,
and you know that's what those were the records were doing.
And Warnest was just like, come on, guys, we love
Mavis and George, but there's a reason they don't have
deals cold they're not selling records. Wow, now I'm depressed.

(02:14:19):
I always brag about you have, uh, you have this
artifact in your house, um, on this cassette. You have
what what my opinion is some of the greatest recorded
moments in answer machine history. Uh, of which these these
notable music gods are leaving you messages, But but you

(02:14:42):
still get an inkling of an idea of what the
time was like, Like, I guess with James Brown's message,
it's because he left a few messages. I get the
feeling that was like one of the first times that
James Brown was dealing with a modern answering machine. I
was one of them, you know, like the news guy
doesn't know he's on the air yet, like yeah, wait,

(02:15:04):
wait now, oh hey, guys, this is from Channel six news,
Like that's how James Brown's messages And then like next
comes uh uh, I guess Prince left you a message about,
you know, uh, leaving a piano for my father to
play in this But it sounded like that grasshopper kunk

(02:15:25):
Fu voice. Yes, I don't I don't know if he
mentioned seventeen days or he I think he mentioned one
of his singles that was kind of I don't know,
I've only heard it once. And then then George Clinton
calls and talks about, you know, I might sign the
Paisley Parker that sort of thing, and then like it's

(02:15:49):
just it goes through throughout history and you get to
see the scope of you know, of of what Alan's
life is like when the angel calls like that happened
was and there's one that's missing that I never somehow
I erased, never transferred what that was? Miles and it

(02:16:13):
was tell that little purple motherfucker that called me. Well, yeah,
I have to say I had it for about a month.
I saved it. One day was gone. Well I know that.
I mean, even though you made a life and soul,
I know for a fact that you are a jazz fanatic.

(02:16:37):
I mean, if anything, I think that you would have
loved to how come you never pursued I know that
your love for Weather Report kind of surpasses, at least
in my eyes, any any music that you've worked with,
Like I know that your fandom for for that particular unit.
How come you never I don't know about surpasses, but

(02:16:59):
I know you love some other big time tim So
how come you never? And probably the number one is
any Parmier Wow? Mm So at no point did you
think like I want to manage these guys and um,
it just wasn't my world and they didn't. But I

(02:17:24):
figured if you can conquer that they don't have well
paid tour There you go, gigs weren't there, okay, so
when you made your exit, didn't I mean, do you
ever fear? I mean, I guess the life of a
tour managers like you're only as stable monetarily at least

(02:17:45):
as the act that year with until you get to
your next I feel like it's almost like a trappiez thing,
like you might catch you might catch the you know,
the the bar of the Chapeese line, or you can
just fall into the pit. I mean, there were there
were phases in my career where for just simple economic

(02:18:08):
reasons I was concerned about what's next and fearing the
fact that you might have to take a gig it
didn't like, or worse yet, just go through a year
without kicks because sometimes the phone didn't ring. But you know,
it was very blessed because that it was ten solid
years with Prince would a paycheck every week, so that's
not a typical tour manager situation. It was five five

(02:18:32):
and a half solid used with James Brown except for
the three weeks I got fired because I was sick.
Otherwise would a paycheck every week, so that was not
a typical tour managers thing. Now the rest of the time,
it's been kind of freelance, except once I got back
with the Angelo, now is his co manager. Of course,
that's an entirely different relationship, and it's you know, it's

(02:18:54):
about management contracts and so on, which is a whole
different um kind of the compensation situation. But you know,
there were times, but I've just been really really blessed
because it's it's it's like like the Prince thing. I mean,
I had become a huge Just just to make a

(02:19:15):
long story short, I didn't get into Prince until Controversy
and um um before I met my wife Gwen and
was dating a girl in Pittsburgh who worked at a
radio station and said, I got front road tickets to
the Controversy show Prince and come on, let's go because
she worked for the station and they were promoting it
so on and so literally front row center. And I'm like,

(02:19:38):
I don't want to see this, like the record, but
you know, I want to see some little guy in bikinis.
What what I'm going to miniature Chippendale's. You know, It's
like I had absolutely no interest, but you know, new
girlfriends so I went and I walked out of there like, yo,
I gotta work for this guy someday. And it wasn't

(02:19:58):
just the music, it was the whole pack. It's the
lighting was dope, the p a was dope. Everything about
his thing was was like what's like gold standard? And
I'm like, you could see this is this is the
real deal and obviously an amazing performer. Um, And I
didn't know a soul with that outfit. And I was

(02:20:20):
out of the business that A year later, I'm working
for Kiss and Lo and behold, the production manager says, hey,
you want to go to Prince Okay? You know um,
and kind of D'Angelo happened. I mean, I met Chris
Rock because he came to a print show. He came
to Love Sexy. This was even before sn L and

(02:20:42):
he was when Nelson George brought into the show and
we hung out after and it was like that kind
of like hey man, one day, I'm gonna be big
and I want you to run my shows. Like if
you run this, I want you to run my shows.
That's how literally, and it's like yeah, it was was
Chris Rock next after your Prince? No no, no no,
But I'm saying that's how I'm and and you know,
we kind of stayed in touch, rand into each other

(02:21:04):
once or twice a year. He'd come to Mineapolis pay
Comedy Club and call me, and once he blew up.
And it's now it's been five Chris Rock tours UM
and the Maxwell thing happened. Somebody of a friend of
mine who worked for Sony gave me the first CD
UM the Urban Hank Sweet before it came out, said

(02:21:24):
this is a kid from New York. You think it's
right up your alley. You're probably gonnat like this. Just
gave it to me, and I'm like, oh ship, this
is kind of dope. I'm driving around the lake one
day playing it in the car and Gwen says, what's that.
I'm like, there's some kid from New York. Maxwell's He's,
oh my god, I haven't heard anything fresh in years.
So on it's and my wife has real old r

(02:21:45):
and b ears it, so it went for for her.
It's from Luther Vandrows to Maxwell. That was the evolution.
But I'm like, Okay, if she loves it, this is
this is gonna work. And like three months later, I
get a call from an agent who says, I got
a new kid who's going now and he's kind of difficult.
So I thought of you. And I don't know if
that was a compliment or not, but you know, it's

(02:22:06):
the rep I guy after Prince and James Brown and
so on. And it turned out to be Maxwell. And
that's the record I've been in love with for three months.
So I do several Maxwell tours. Brown Sugar comes out.
I fall in love with that. Um, I'm a D'Angelo fan.
I saw him once or twice on shows that I
was with other artists, didn't know him, never met him. Um.

(02:22:30):
It wasn't an impressed with the show I saw because
he was a guy in the Trench coast sitting at
a piano. He didn't really work the stage. Yet this
is Brown Sugar, eras and trench coats and but but
I finished at Maxwell tour. I don't remember which one
is the third or fourth Maxwell tour. And I'm in

(02:22:53):
New York at a meeting, finishing up the accounting with
the business manager, planning to fly home in the morning.
I've been on the road for three or four months,
and I'm walking across the lob in my hotel and
my cell phone rings and it's like, Mr Leeds, my
name is d' angelo and I've heard about you and
so on and so on and so on. And I

(02:23:14):
thought it was Maxwell playing a prank, honest to god.
So I'm like, yeah, right, Max, to get out of
here because I just left him at this meeting. We've
been on the road for three months. He's playing. He's
playing playing with me. So I'm like, yeah, right, Max,
you can't. You can't get me now. I'm on the
phone up and two minutes later it rings again. It's like, seriously,
this is d' angelo and um, you know, i'd like

(02:23:36):
to see if you could fly into New York to
have a meeting. And you guys were working on in
the last month or so a voodoo at the time,
and um, I stayed over and I said, well, I
happened to be in New York. I canceled my flight,
went to meet with him, and dumb god bless his soul,
um the next day. And that was fifteen years ago.

(02:23:56):
What was hilarious was that we didn't I think I
told him the night before that you were going to
come to like one of the rehearsals. I don't know,
I don't know what you were. I recall that you
came to s I R to watch us do something.
I don't know if it was the very beginning of
the tour or whatever. We're just starting to rehearse the tour,

(02:24:17):
but I remember remember the night before, like d and
I were like rehearsing our lines, like Okay, we don't
want to freak him out, so maybe we shouldn't ask
that many uh Prince Chase questions, so which is like

(02:24:38):
We're gonna play real cool when he comes in, like don't, don't,
let's not geek out. And I think that last at
all for like five minutes in the So you guys
were like the anti Prince back then, where no we
were when one Prince and Alan first started talking and
he was like tell me some James Brown stories. Yeah,
we were like tell us some print stories. Um. So yeah,

(02:25:02):
I was gonna say, like if I mean what drives
you now, like what's your what's your passion? What's the
same thing that always did to music. I'm still a
kid who's a fan of the music. And that's the
blessing is that every other tour manahge I know may
have started out that way and then got jaded because

(02:25:24):
they had to take that gig they didn't want, or
the artists they were in love who turned out to
be a jerk and um, you know, or they had
too many months off between tours and couldn't pay the bills,
and all that passion for this, this life of traveling
and meeting interesting people and going interesting places and doing
interesting things comes to a halt. And you know, but

(02:25:48):
my first wife once said, you know, what, are you
gonna come home and get a real job. And I'm like,
I think it's real money paying the bills, isn't it.
I don't know what you call a real job. But
you know, I'm one of the few people on the
planet that's blessed enough to actually enjoy what I'm doing
to get and get paid for it. But I love

(02:26:12):
the music, and I guess at the end of the day,
I mean, people ask him at this age, what in
the world are you doing on the road because Mondy's hurt.
When I get in a bunk on the tour bus,
this is not fun anymore. But when the lights go
down and people scream and the vant guard hits the
funk out of here, I get paid for this. That's

(02:26:33):
all you can say. I guess wait before before we
we we we wrap up. I just personally want to know,
I mean out of I mean, you've seen a lot
of historical things in your years as a manager tour manager.
You know, do you think you can actually um come

(02:26:57):
up with like a top three historical moments like I
was there when blah blah blah was conceived, or you
know that time when Prince and Michael Jackson that, you
know whatever, Like do you have a personal top three

(02:27:18):
like reflection? I was actually there when this happened thro
about sex Machine. So you mentioned the poster with the
lyrics on it in Nashville, which was the first recording
session he did with the new bit, and that was
Boots and his brother Phelps and those guys um which

(02:27:38):
kind of reinvented his brand of funk and open things up.
So did you feel so James Brown was about to
be played out by that point or something? He was
played out, the records weren't selling the it had I can't,
but in nineteen sixty nine, I'm still thinking like Mother Popcorn.
So you're saying that the younger kids Mother Popcorn was
Mother Popcorn was a huge hit, but we were living

(02:28:01):
in the era of this is still living in the
era of the single, and you were only as good
as your last single. And after Mother Popcorn came Fucking Drummer,
which is legendary, but you couldn't give the record away,
didn't sell. That's crazy. James Brown's one flop and his
whole it was between the and let a Man Come In,

(02:28:25):
which it's a nice record, but it wasn't a real hit.
I mean, it did okay, but it wasn't like a
number one record. Brother Rap that was another one, did okay,
but it wasn't a number one record. But Sex Machine
was hot. Sex Machine was like, all of a sudden,
people are calling, kids are bugging out, the attendance at

(02:28:47):
the show's picked up, and the fact that we had
a new band and had gone through the bad press
that came when Macy on Him left and Marvel Whitney
had quit and did an interview this and James So
the press had been really, really negative, and all of
a sudden we got this new band with these new
kids and this fresh hit, and it was like, in

(02:29:07):
a period of three or four months we had gone
downhill and come back up. So that was cool. That
was that was pretty major. I think Payback because there
again he was cold. He'd had several records that you know,
you might consider worthy but weren't huge hits. And Payback
was a huge hit, and um and didn't sound like

(02:29:31):
the other ones. Okay. And then obviously Purple Rain. I
mean that's that's just the premiere of that, just or
just you know, the premiere and the idea that the
reviews and the box office the opening week that like,
my god, we're really really part of something that's gonna
be huge. That's amazing. This is this is a story

(02:29:55):
about the Proper Rain premiere that you tell a lot
that I don't think. I don't think all of our
listeners have heard about you guys being in the limo
approaching the theater. Can you tell that story. Yeah, we
we had a procession of limos going to the premiere.
The premiere was that the Man's Groundlands Chinese Theater in

(02:30:16):
Hollywood board and you know, big red carpet affair. MTV
was out front and everybody else was out front, and
you know, um, a lot of celebs invited. We typically yeah,
typical l a rock and roll movie. Premiere, UM, and
we had a We were staying in Westwood at what

(02:30:37):
was then called the Westward bar Key, I think it's
a w now and UM. We had limos for the
band Windy and Lisa we're in one. I guess Bobby
and Fink we're probably at new I don't I forget
how we were divided up, but we had several limos.
And I was in the car. Who was just me,
Prince and Chick. Chick was in the front. I was
in the Backwood Prince. As we came out of the hotel,
he grabbed the flower from the garden in front of

(02:31:00):
the hotel. There was just a little garden in front
of the hotel, but along the curb grabbed flowers and
he was holding them in the car all the way.
Now this is again before cell phones and high tech stuff,
so we had walkie talkies, and we had security already
at the theater that we're going to orchestrate how the
cars pulled up in what sequence and so on and

(02:31:21):
so on. And as we got within about five or
six blocks of the theater, one of our security guys
radio Big Chick and to and started telling them how
crazy the scene was like man, you won't believe there's
there's thousands of kids in the street. The police are
going crazy trying to control the crowd. This is just

(02:31:42):
the biggest thing I've ever seen. It's madness. So on
and so on and so on, and and Prince overheard,
we in the backseat kind of overheard some of it,
and all of a sudden his voice kind of broke
and he said, Chick, what did they say? And Chick

(02:32:05):
repeated it to him, and I looked at his face
and it was the deer in the headlights. It was
like all of this preparation, the whole or deal of
making the movie, making the album, of doing the preview
shows that we did at First Avenue and so on,
all of that had let up to this moment, this

(02:32:27):
whole fantasy that know what he believed what happened, but him,
or at least he claimed he believed it would happen.
And for a split second, he really lost it, and
he grabbed my hand and he said, what did he say?
Say it again? I mean, just just really lost it.
And it lasted for about his hand was shaken, and

(02:32:49):
it lasted for about ten fifteen seconds, and then all
of a sudden he stiffened up, he got his game
face back on, and from then on it was typical Prince.
And I don't think he ever heard so he was human.
He was human totally for like fifteen seconds. And that

(02:33:10):
was the only time you ever did that in front
of you or in front of me. That's amazing. Did
you have a human sat next to him at the
premier graffiti bridge? All right? Just like that was the case?
What was that? Who where he got up and left
before the lights came up? It one scene? Or Okay,

(02:33:33):
do you love this film? No? I mean, but it
was the birth of Tevin Campbell, so you know it
has a special place in my heart. Really, for all
five minutes he was right, and thank you. See I
was close. She was pretty whatever she was actually liked
her album. I don't know what any My wife was

(02:33:53):
pretty shet in a movie to shame. Well that I
know that, you know, doing all this emotional emotion of
the stuff is you can't stand it. And uh, I
appreciate the fact that you let us pick your brain.

(02:34:14):
If you got a second, let me put one PostScript
on the last thing we talked about momentous moments. This
is something I want to share, and and it's embarrassing
to share it to you. I wish we were talking
to somebody else because it looks like I'm trying to
bottle you up. But um. Once we're in a car
coming from his show and Chris Rock I don't know where,

(02:34:35):
he said, Yo, what was the best tour you were
ever on? And he was like, you know Jame's brand,
Prince Prison. I'm sure he was fishing for a print store,
because you know, Chris says, you will know he's a
print o file like the rest of us. And I
you would think I'd stop and think about it, but
before I could even think, it just came out, as

(02:34:56):
if I were programmed. Voodoo really just came out. I
wouldn't even even think to ask that. I didn't think
about it. I didn't think of it. And once it
came out, I was like, yeah, he's right, you know,
and what made that the best? Yeah? Oh, did you

(02:35:20):
see it? That's what Chris said, because he was he
was stunned and and and and the only thing I
could say to him was did you see it? And
he said, no, I missed it. When it played Tann
I was out of town and I missed it, damn it.
And I said, then I can't tell you the biggest
disgrace in my whole career is that we didn't professionally
shoot that show. That there isn't a professional shoot of

(02:35:43):
that show. I mean there's bootlegs of the Brazilian shows,
but you weren't there and we didn't have the set.
They don't count. Yeah, yeah, I gotta say that. Uh
you know, I think maybe I downplay it just it's
just to do. It was the perfect show, the perfect
material that was not it was Well I hear that too.

(02:36:08):
Um yeah, yeah, I guess I could probably say that,
probably say that probably the most magical times of my
drumming career came where it's that to where I don't know,
it's like in our mind, I think that we just
created the show hoping that one day, like we get

(02:36:33):
the pad on the back approval from the Big Brother
approval thing, and uh, it didn't happen. But we still
went to that city and I felt like, who are
you looking to get the pedal the back from? I
don't think that was the best show though. Really they

(02:36:54):
were in Minneapolis Fonte. Oh okay, I get it. So
you thought that it was just okay, no, you know
what your brother got on stage, and yeah, he ruined
Jock's life for about a month. No, Um, maybe okay,
maybe I was just caught up in the good one.

(02:37:15):
But I think that was just the whole prince or
magic of it all. I mean, because the thing was,
it could have went either way, and I felt like
what I didn't I didn't want to. We could have
slam dunked it. Or we could have been like, uh
what's his name on the Orlando Magic that missed those
four Uh yeah, yeah, or we could have Kenny Anderson

(02:37:40):
and missed and and lost our our our championship goals.
No on the worst night, that show was dope. Um,
I mean yeah, just for a listener. Wise, though, y'all
you and indeed eventually did get like a pad on
the back. Maybe it wasn't for Voodoo, but like creatively,
at some point we had we had respect. We had

(02:38:02):
his respect. Tell us who was in that band, in
the in the Voodoos tour band, well, uh, miraculously he
got Probably the best thing about that tour was the
fact that he got a lot of cats to just
leave their day jobs. Much of the Segrein of whatever
situation they were in. So like Roy Hargrove, uh was

(02:38:25):
part of the horn section, uh Peno Palladino, who um
I mean by that point, I mean even before then,
before two thousand, I mean he was severely in demand
as a session bass player. Um cats like an uh
about to say Anthony Anderson right before you did, right, Anthony,

(02:38:51):
Anthony Hamilton's uh j Yes, Shelby j James KOs have
one point Balou was yeah, but um didn't he get
fired or something? Bloud never got fired. I couldn't swear
there was some somebody got Firedou just things like I
got fired. But okay, now he just got a record

(02:39:14):
deal after that, and uh, you know, I mean there
was a time lapse between the gig that Blou was
on that was like the Essence Festival, and you know,
by the time we got Voodoo finished, it was a
new millennium. So but Spanky and uh yeah, Spanky, Alfred
Chalmers and jeff Johnson Jesus, yeah I forgot about Yeah,

(02:39:38):
God rest is so old to Jeffrey Johnson. Um. Anyway,
So Alan, I would like to thank you for coming
get up for Alan, Thank you for having me this
is a bit fun. Thank you. I appreciate you coming. Um,
I guess it's a brutality. Yeah, alright, so we're about

(02:40:08):
to wrap up. We've learned a lot uh with Fontikola. Man,
what did you learn today? Bro? What did I learn?
I think the most interesting thing I learned just when
listen now and talk is, um, how similar the business
of you know yesterday or yesteryear. Rather, it's very similar
to the business now, and that it's very much singles driven.

(02:40:29):
You know what I'm saying. It's it's not really uh
a thing of you know, it's not really about the
album per se um. When you talk about James would
put out a single every three months. That's pretty much
what all the guys are doing now, particularly in like
hip hop, and you know it's cats just kind of
putting out well, you know, just singles. That's just what's
kind of that only tells me that we need I mean, well,

(02:40:53):
the Beatles changed all that once Charging Peppers came out.
Then it was like, ah, the album to be the format.
So I guess now any day now someone's gonna release
the album format that will make everyone believe in a
bigger vision than just the single and maybe they will
do it only on pendor uh so uh, I'm paid, Billy.

(02:41:18):
What did you learn today? Bro? Two things? One I
could listen to on Lyad the Dog for fucking ever. Man.
It's just like it was amazing and too it was
interesting to listen to a guy who has been going
off his instincts, his his love of music and what
he likes and how that shaped his career. It's a
pretty inspiring thing, just like this is the music he loved,
and so he followed it and he continues to follow it.

(02:41:40):
And I think, as a person who dabbles and music,
that that's a great thing. That's amazing. There's very few
people that get to make a living off of like
what you love. I mean, like you have to sometimes
just kind of do the ship you hate in order
to make that rent. But and those people are in
this room, which is also kind of cool to share
that just trying to make rent man every damn day,

(02:42:00):
sugar Steve. What I found interesting about Alan was among
among the the things that made him uniquely qualified to
do what he did and to have the career that
he had was I think that at all the different stages,
I think you did what my father tells me to do,
which is make yourself useful. So like, in addition to
doing your actual job of tour managing, you did the

(02:42:23):
publicity for James and then you did the the imprint label.
You're running that for Prince. So you were doing making yourself,
you know, worthy of a salary, you know, worthy of
having a weekly paycheck rather than just the tour manager checks.
You know, kept your employed. You know, so I thought that,

(02:42:44):
you know, I was thinking about my father, because it
makes yourself useful. You know that my dad told me
that too, your is not mine? Oh my god, so much?
What had I learned? Well? I learned not to give up,
um because I don't. Showed me that through your passion

(02:43:04):
you can live life in the joyous way, and that's
my goal. I have also learned that, um yeah, working
with musicians is a doozy. I've also learned that I
need to take a mirror in a corner and slow
drag with him and to a nice Prince ballot, because
show what is from with life. I'm just saying all
that I learned some more too, Okay, much time, boss Bill?

(02:43:29):
Would you learn bro? I learned that I'm too reliant
on technology, and I wouldn't have made it four years ago. Yeah,
I love technology as much as you. You see, we

(02:43:51):
will see you next Wednesday one pm specifically yea and
ten m specific specific Listen Pisketti ten am, Pisketti time.
This is Quest Love Supreme Onfa Fontigoelo Boss Bill, unpaid Bill,
and uh Sugar Steve and do we have a proper

(02:44:15):
moniker for yet? Doesn't misogynistic Margaret. We'll see you then,
Thank you, West. Love Supreme is a production of I

(02:44:37):
Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team
at Pandora. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.

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