Marshall Chess

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sess Podcast.
My guest today is Marshall Chess. Marshall, when did you
realize your father was in the record business? Oh? God,
when I was maybe uh so in nineteen fifty, I
would be uh eight forty two, eight eight or ten

(00:30):
years old. When he first started. He used to bring
home the records, you know when when he first started,
which was ninety seven, But I really knew in nineteen
fifty when Chess started. Then I knew that was much
more because he started. He still had a nightclub when
he started, called the Macambo Lounge, and the company that

(00:51):
he bought to turn to Chess was called Aristocrat Records,
and he started working as a salesman. He wanted to
learn learn, so from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty,
while the nightclub still existed, my uncle came back from
the army. He worked as a salesman for Aristocratic Record.
Whatever that meant um. I never even discussed that with him,

(01:14):
but that's what it says. He was a salesman and
then in nineteen fifty he formed Chess Records and started.
Actually I was my father was a workaholic, from the always,
so I hardly saw him. I was the first and
only son. I was desperate to play. He never played ball, right,
he was an immigrant that came over in nineteen twenty two,

(01:38):
So he wasn't We weren't playing ball. It wasn't the
typical American thing. He was always at work and uh,
you know, so I knew that that was my My
way to him was through the family business, through work.
Let's start there. Okay, your father was an immigrant. Your

(01:58):
mother was she born in the States where she immigrant
to My mother was born in the States from immigrant parents.
How did your parents meet? Uh? They met in Chicago.
Evidently the real story was my father had a girlfriend.
He must he was in his early twenties. He had
a girlfriend from a wealthier Jewish family that the father

(02:20):
made her not see my father because he was an
immigrant peasant. But my father really loved her, and uh,
I guess he met my mother was on the rebound.
And um, they had a really close friend that both
my father and this guy, Marty Whitzel, worked at a
shoe store called Burger Shoe Store. Shoes, you know, shoe guys.

(02:42):
It was a big, big, giant shoe store where everyone
got discount, cheaper Jewish kind of business. And they got married.
He my mother and my father and this guy Marty
and Millie. He had a double wedding and they got
married together. They were very close friends, and that's how
it began. You know. I've seen early photos of them

(03:03):
horseback riding in the park in Chicago. But yeah, they
got married very young. Um, and uh, that's how they met,
you know, through through My father didn't like working in
this shoe's store. He was a milkman before that. He
hated working for people. He instilled that in me very much, so,
so I know, and I instilled it in my son

(03:25):
and my daughter, so I know how that goes when
you're in still young. But uh, he didn't want to
work for people, so he that in Chicago. We gotta
go back to a million black people came up from
the Illinois Central from Memphis, primarily from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee,

(03:45):
Kentucky into Chicago to make money. They could not make
money in the South. It was short and that before
civil rights, not long after slavery. You know, it was
very difficult. World War two hit and the factories in
Chicago go, Uh, it became like a bloodline for making money.
So they you know, immigrants, Black immigrants along with Irish,

(04:07):
Polish Jews. They all came to Chicago at the same
time and it was really an immigrant center. So my
father that black people could not they couldn't get a
store front. They didn't have bank accounts. People like young
people don't understand that no bank accounts, no storefront, didn't
know anything about business. And um, my father and my

(04:30):
uncle both heard black. My grandfather, Joe Chess came seven
years prior to America with okay, just one second, what
was the name in the old country and how to
become Chess Chess c z y z Chez and Ellis Island.
They changed my grandfather, but they must have said, but

(04:50):
you know, what's your name? You know, get Joseph Chesz
Chess now and that was it. That's how it started. Okay,
So your your grandfather came seven year before your father,
seven years prior with some relatives to Chicago. Guy was
a carpenter, uh part of the family from a small
village and on the pole it right now it's it's Belarus.

(05:12):
He was right where all this trouble is now in Ukraine.
Right on the border. It was Poland then. And he
came from this small village Muttle, a Jewish little tavern.
They had a tavern in town. It was a village
on the road. My grandfather was he was a traveling cobbler,
shoemaker or whatever. He was fixed and he came to Chicago,

(05:32):
and uh he came, and he earned the money to
to bring over the family. Seven years later on Thelicitania,
that same boat that picked up people from the Titanic.
They came from Southampton to Chicago to Walton, New York,
Southampton a train from Poland, I guess, and then to
Southampton to New York, trained to Chicago. My uncle said

(05:53):
when he got to London to the Southampton, he went
to the He never had an inside toilet. He didn't
know how to flush it. He was the chain in
one of those from the ceiling. He didn't know. That
was the first toilet he saw. But anyway, they came
because they didn't know English. And my grandfather was a
stern kind of guy. I heard later in life that
he was a child beater with a belt, you know.

(06:14):
He used to really punish. But my father beat me
with a belt. Soul Yeah, my father beat me up
really bad ones. You know how they say that gets inherited.
He did really bad one time. Um at Aside from that,
so ac my grandfather evolved to a junkyard then he had.
Then it was a scrap metal yard, and my uncle

(06:34):
said that part of their big business was getting empty
old bottles on the street. They'd sell to al Capone's
bootleg brewery to rebottle. My uncle said, I'll gave me
a hundred dollars when I went into the army, said
I'll gave you a hundred dollars and pre passing his whorehouse.
But we checked it by Sun and I and act impossible.
It was like ten years difference. But it was someone

(06:56):
that was still that going on in Chicago. It was
someone you know. So anyway, across from that junkyard was
a black church, the the old kind with an upright piano,
tambourines and a bass drum. And they would hear they
heard the gospel singing and they were fascinated because my
uncle would tell me. My uncle was the guy who
told you all the real stories. My father was about business,

(07:19):
you know, making sure that you could handle life, not
the old stories. But anyway, my uncle said, yeah, man,
we heard the black singing. And we'd stand there and
and we listened, fascinated to the music. And we'd come
home late and Zadi would beat us with his belt,
the grandfather for being late for dinner. But in the

(07:39):
village in Poland, evidently one guy had a wind up
petrolla and when you play it, like half the town
would come under the window to hear that, you know,
to hear music. I don't think they've done sounding like
they had any live music in that little village. Um.
And so that's how that began. So he uh, he
was around black people right from the beginn any before

(08:00):
he spoke English, you know, there wasn't you know, there
was this that was it was in the ghetto that
you know, where the church was, where the junkyard was.
And anyway, when he wanted to go on his own,
he found out through the grapevine or whatever that if
you white guys can you could get a really cheap
lease for a storefront in the ghetto if you were white.

(08:22):
This is this is your grandfather, my father, my father father. Okay,
just to be clear, your your grandfather came your grandfather
was working in the junkyard and your father worked there too. Yeah,
my father worked there too, and then um he left.
My grandfather closed the junkyard evidently, and he he had
earned enough. He bought some Rundown apartment building and he

(08:43):
made it into a you know, he had to end
of a sort of ghetto apartment buildings, a few of them. Actually,
my uncle lived in one. So it wasn't so bad,
you know. Okay, So when did the shoe store come
before or after he got the store? Oh? No, the
shoester came wait after, that's already after high So so
he got the store front and keep going. He got
the storefront on State south State Street, right on the

(09:05):
edge of the Black ghetto where you know, still the ghetto,
but then on the south side of Chicago. And he
opens cut Right Liquors. And he sees that on weekends,
the eagle flies on Friday, that famous blue song. He
sees that they're coming in like crazy to buy booze,
you know, the party. He loves it. He sees that's
a business. He learns black culture, he learns how to

(09:29):
talk to the customers. He works by himself, fifteen eighteen
hours a day. That's kind of guy. I was always
and uh my father owned a liquor store too, same thing,
same thing, in the black area of Bridgeport. So he
quickly moved to uh two years later to a corner.

(09:50):
This is the story. I've heard a couple of versions,
but I'll tell you the version that I want to believe.
He moved to the seven oh eight club a couple
of two years later, maybe nine forty five or six.
And I was a little kid then to be or
I was born. Okay, but just a couple of questions.
World War two is happening, how does he not? Yeah,

(10:10):
my uncle went, My uncle went off. My uncle went
off to the Lucian Islands. My dad could not get drafted.
He wore a brace on his left leg, a leather
brace from some you know, some village disease, probably polio,
rheumatic fever, they don't know. And to get into America,

(10:31):
they had to throw the brace overboard and he had
to walk straight. They didn't elect cripples in you know,
cripples had to go to another line in that era. Um,
so he couldn't go to the army. That kept him out.
And you know, coincidentally, I've had back surgery had I
lost the I lost the nerve in my left leg,
and now it's thin like his. It's so bizarre, you know, stranger,

(10:55):
stranger things happened, I guess. So I have a thin
leg now, but you could only notice it a little
bit if he had a bathing suit on. It wasn't
drastic anyway. Uh yeah. So then he had the club,
the seven oh eight, and there was a jukebox, so
not only got the booze, he sees their dropping nickels.
That was it wasn't five cents of play Nichols like

(11:18):
crazy along with the booze. And he said music booze.
You know, he was he was the successory and the
guy he felt and he I think he was insecure
around white people. Now I think he felt being an immigrant.
I think he felt a very symbiotic security with the
black people. I always felt that. I mean, you know,
we always had black friends there way before man was

(11:40):
the first infractional of men in Chicago. Really part, I
mean it was, but he I always felt, as I
got older and learned about psychology that maybe he was
a little insecure, you know, being an immigrant and all that.
But anyway, he opened the club and then um, he
got a light. The next thing wasn't nineteen forty five.
I guess he that I read in this well researched

(12:01):
book called Spinning Losing to Gold. It's still online. We're
really well researched. I guess he got a license for
the Macambo Lounge, which was his nightclub. It had a
stage Bob's Ribs in the back that he get ribs.
It became a live music There was a guy Tips
forget his first name, El Tips, played a saxophone. It

(12:25):
was a house band bar Long Bar. I was only
in there one time. I have my famous Marshall's story.
My father takes me there, picks me up at the house. Again.
I only was around him if I had to go
to work, so he picks We lived at forty four
in Drexel, which was on the edge of the third
floor walk up. And but it was a Polish Irish

(12:50):
Jewish neighborhood. But eight blocks eight blocks north was the
black line where the black you know. So that's where
the club was a twelve fourteen blocks away the Macambo Lounge.
And then my dad picked me up and it was
in the night early seven eight o'clock at night. They
used to take turns. When my uncle came back from
the army, he came back while the club was still

(13:11):
working and I walked in with my dad. Hold it.
I was little man, you know, and there was a
gunshot and he threw me over the bar to my
uncle who was the bartending, and my uncle laid me
down on these horrible wooden slats that were on the
floor and laid on top of me to protect me.

(13:32):
To this day, the smell of rotten alcohol and scummed
that my face was pressed. Now, I can remember the smell.
And that was my first time there. And then, you know,
whatever it was, the problem ended and they took me home.
You know, I don't remember the details, but I should
remember that that he threw me over the counter, you know.

(13:53):
Um it was a rough club. One of the oldest employees,
this guy Gene Ross, who was held big six ft
five guy who was half black and half Cherokee Indian.
He loved federal prisons. He always got in trouble for
he was a drug but he worked in my father
as a bouncer and he the reason he was always around.
During that Macombo time. A guy came after my father

(14:16):
with a knife and Big Jean jumped in front and
took the knife. And after that he was He always
had a job when he was out of prison, even
when my dad had a DeSoto from that At the
time of the club, my mother was crying. Brand his
first new car, or de Soto was was a Christlier
car at the time Christlier owned it. Um that Jeane

(14:37):
galbas that he had heroin in the glove compartment, and
the Feds confiscated the car and my dad freak and
Jane of course went to prison again. I saw him
all the way to when I worked with the Rolling
Stones when we tore Chicago. He found Jesus. He became
a religious guy. But yeah, he found me. During the concert,
I couldn't believe it. I went to the sidelines and

(14:58):
saw him and had people, you know, he was big guy.
They five Marshal Chress. Yeah he was good. But that
was so that. Yeah, he had the club and then uh,
you know, someone came into they came into record. I
think Aristocrat was owned by many people, and he just
you know again and perked up. He went from the

(15:20):
liquor store to the corner tevan to a nightclub. Now,
like black people music, record business. What's the record business?
And like my just typically like my father, he became
a salesman to learn it, to see what it was about.
And coincidentally one of the artists do it. And it
wasn't a black label. It was seventy eight and it

(15:41):
was they had folk music, all kinds of different artists,
but one of the artists was Muddy Waters. At that time,
he was a truck driver as well. His name was
McKinley morgan Field. But he was already well known from
uh Alan Lomax, the famous document. Well, he was the
guy recorded all the music in the South. He had
recorded Muddy for historical recording from the cotton fields. What

(16:03):
was the name of that plantation? He he actually lived
on a plantation. Used to tell me he'd catch fish
for forget a nickel of fish, and Hollywood, you know,
all kinds of stories. His first guitar strings around the
wall of the cabin that he ran strings the strum um.
He was the closest of the artist to me because
he was my father's true friend. They grew together. He said,

(16:28):
there was a radio show when my dad died because
we owned a radio station and w v O N
the Voice of the Negro, the first modern black radio
station in America, first black news director, etcetera, etcetera. But
Muddy said, uh yeah, Leonard, Leonard Chess was a true friend.
He would have said on me chest and I would

(16:49):
have said, Leonard made me. You know, they had this,
you know, and these were he hits. Ten thousand, twelve
thousand was a giant Blue said, this is not million sellers,
so miss and screwed by people as time goes on.
You know, uh, two cents the publishing was two cents royalty,
you know, um uh, you know it was a whole

(17:10):
other thing. There were no giant hits then. The first
TiO we had was the ninet with when rock and
roll broke with Chuck Berry and Roddaly. That was a
big year. That was my thirteen bar mitzvah it hits
first money started rolling in and everything changed in my life.
I told that, I told that I took my son,
who's the third generation record man, Jo Marches. He's uh

(17:35):
the thrill to see that he carry he's carrying it
on on his own as well. But uh, he wanted
to meet Chuck Berry. So he he was on his
farewell through and he was in his eighties. He was
playing at BB King's Club in Chicago. So I took
him and Chuck and I were friends. I was his
road manager when he came out of prison. You know,
I knew him well. So I took my son backstage

(17:57):
and I said to him, you know, it was like
an emotional thing. I don't know, it brings up my
father and everything. So I said to Chuck, you know
I never told you this, but man, n five, when
I was thirteen, you change you. Man changed my life.
I got a Schwin three speed bicycle. We moved out

(18:17):
of that walk up apartment. Everything changed, you know, with
maybe Lane nineteen fifty five. And he said, what are
you talking about? He took my hand and his eyes
were watering up. Just what are you talking about? You
changed mine in ninety five. What a what a beautiful moment.
And my son heard that, you know it was beautiful. Yeah. Okay,

(18:39):
So let's your father becomes a salesman. When he's a salesman,
he sells the club. He's out of the club already. No,
not out of the club, though I can now that
everyone's dead. No one's gonna assue me. No. In nineteen
and nine. In nineteen four fifty, right before he bought
Chess Records, strangely enough, off the club burned down with

(19:04):
a really nice insurance policy, and my uncle against there
you had those motherfucker's. The firemen were passing out cases
of liquor. They weren't fighting the fucking fire. And we
didn't say a word. And then I actually remember my
dad didn't trust banks. I never remember. It's vague, but
I'll tell you. Maybe you know it's just for color.
I don't think. He took a cashed the check from

(19:26):
the insurance and brought it home in cash, and it
was all laid out on the bed hundred dollar bills
and that's what he used to buy to buy them out,
to buy Chess records them a combo down. So first
it was aristocratic records. Tell me how it ends up
becoming Chess. He bought him out here after two years
of being a salesman and wanting to go on the

(19:46):
record business. He they offered the one of the the
one of the women of Evelyn, her name was Evelyn,
who was one of the owners from the beginning. She
had been married twice. I I had a feeding even
my father and her had just my own idea from
that that they had a thing. But she ended up
getting married for a second time or so I wanted

(20:09):
to get out of the business, wanted to sell it.
They wanted to sell it, and so he inherited that
the late you know, he bought it because Mighty Waters
was on it. You know, he bought it whatever. I
don't know the cost or anything. And then they renamed
it Chess Records. Yeah, no, they renamed it because they
had My father had one of the record pressers for

(20:30):
Aristocrat was the guy out of Memphis, one of the
first pressing plants in America named Buster. Williams. Bussy used
to fly up. He he flew a twin cessna Southern
gentleman he was. But somehow him and my father had
this great relationship. And Buster is the one when my
dad told him, you you're gonna you'll be my presser.
I'm buying Aristocrat. I want to change your name. He suggested,

(20:53):
why don't you just call it Chess Records, and that
that was from Buster, and he he was a family
friend with We were always in the pressing business. Tool
from him. He was in we were We we had
such a unique thing, and we'll talk later. But at
the end we had this eight story building that had
three studios, full record pressing plan, injection pressing, printing, and plating.

(21:19):
You could come in, you could make it. It has
never been something like that. It was the old Wallen
Sack recorder building that in Chicago, and it was a
manufacturing building, and we we had this fabulous, unbelievable with
an elevator. They had a rooftop sauna where they were
bringing their girlfriends. They had like a whole rooftop sauna, barbershop,

(21:39):
all you know. The the guys who were built the building,
and we bought that building so it was all all
under one roof. But we always the problem with the independents.
There were weren't a lot of independent pressing plans. So
if when the independent record business broke, if you if
five labels had hits it one time, you couldn't always
get your product. And so owning a plant was important.

(22:04):
My father thought that was an important thing, and we
could press for the other guys when they were even hits.
But we started with a very small plant. I actually
worked to press when I was sixteen. I was raised
to be a record man a record while my um
I I've been told that. Uh. I went on the
road the first time when I was thirteen, through the
South my dad. We arrived in New Orleans, I met

(22:27):
caused the famous Cosmo. My dad gave me a ten
dollar but he said, I'll see it tonight. I tell
my wife that your mother that you wander around New
Orleans at ten ten dollars was like fifty then too. Yeah.
I went to three movies eight like a pig. I
did it. He ran and I was always an independence soul.
He always you know, let's thread a few let's spread

(22:49):
a few needles. You've got in business with the guy
in Memphis? Was he partners in the press? Buster just
on the pressing plant, but he would have been. He
was going to be the press, our press for the
whole country. Okay, So what was your friends from the aristocrat?
He pressed the aristocrat. So what were the first records?

(23:14):
And then what was the first big hit? The first
chess session? I actually went again. I wanted I wanted
to be around my dad. We well before we built
our own studios in Chicago, had one famous great recording
was called Universal Recording. They ended up becoming Bill Putnam.
Maybe he opened this became famous making studio equipment, limits

(23:38):
and stuff for the studios. The first was Gene Emmons,
My foolish Heart, I have a friend here on eight
my heaven um. I slept on three metal folding chairs.
My dad took me to the studio to see that.
That was the first one, and it was chess for fifty.

(24:00):
Karlov was their first department in America. He was superstitious
about ship and that I inherited because when I did this,
I had my own label, the psychedelic label to dead concept.
The first record I did was three twelve, my father's birthday.
We were always and you know again the black early
black culture. You know, it came from African man. It

(24:21):
was voodoo, mojo man, all that. And my father very
much was exposed to the whole kind of you know, superstition.
I mean, this is a sidebar since we're talking about it.
When I was maybe in high school seventeen, when Buddy Guy,
the famous blues guy now was a studio guy. He

(24:43):
was going back to Mississippi and I asked him to
bring me a mojo so I could get girls. And
he brought me this little pink bag. It smelled like
the cheapest Woolworth perfuman and he had like pig bristles
sticking out of it, like bristles, you know, and you
penned see the white T shirt. Everyone were I've pinned
it when I went to work, you know, in that air,

(25:08):
if you're lucky to touch the brass draft, you know
it didn't work, you know. Okay, so you're first, you've
touched the top of the rasio. You you were bragging
into your buddies. You know. So your father and your
uncle are producing these records too, right, learning how to produce? Yeah? Producing? Yeah,

(25:29):
So they didn't know what they were doing. They just
wann't turned on what they were doing. But know if
they didn't keep things moving, it would collapse. How do
I know that because in my my I produced my
first album in nineteen sixty two, I was twenty years old.
When I was eighteen or nineteen, I was worked. I

(25:50):
worked always every summer. Um. I just loved it. I
wanted being there. I loved it. I loved it. If
my dad said to me, they used to record the studio,
wasn't upon floor, my dad would say, he said, go
up to the studio. I have to go to the
I have to go to a meeting. Not your uncle's
not here. I said, do what you know? He said,
just tell the motherfucker's to take another one. I said

(26:13):
what he said, Look, if you don't tell him to
take another one, they're gonna sit around talking about pussy
and jobs. Nothing's gonna get done. He said, one of
those takes is gonna be a mother. He said, we
said motherfucker a lot in my family. That one of
those takes is gonna be a motherfucker. And uh, that's
what I did. So that's how he learned. Do what

(26:33):
That's exactly what I'm saying, Take another one, take another one.
But another thing I learned from my father. I still
do it today. I'm producing a record right now with
a partner. Surround yourself, make symbiotic relationships of stuff you
don't know, like great, it'll be better. So he always
you have to. He surrounded himself with people who knew

(26:55):
music and then watched and learned from them. The first
guy that was the closest was his name is Willie Dixon,
the blues writer, producer, bass player. He'd get all the
bands together. He would co produced really all those early
sessions with my father, but little by little, my father
learned how to produce. What do you really learned was

(27:18):
what made records sell because we weren't making art. We
were making singles and everyone artists, all of us, wanted hits.
It was all about making money. Artists didn't care about art.
Then they all wanted to hit. They came to Chess
because they wanted We got radio play. We paid off
this jockeys. We got hits, you know. So you know
my father learned. I mean, he was very responsible. We

(27:40):
had what we had. His nickname, he was very responsible
for so much in rock and roll. Um. His studio
nickname was the foot Stomper. That's because he wanted that
strong backbeat. He was stomped his foot. He even played
bass drum on blues record once to show him what
he wants. So when I Chuck Berry died, you know,

(28:03):
eight or ten years ago, his wife asked me to
speak at his funeral in St. Louis, I said, of
course I knew him, well, everyone else is dead really
that knew him directly. I went and it was amazing,
like five people in this big auditorium and they treat
him like Mozart in St. Louis. I mean he's very famous.
Um and uh so that I did. I did my

(28:25):
spear with speech. The governor was in line with me.
This was a major thing. His family was all sitting
there and nodding, and you know me when I was
speaking telling stories. So then there was a break, Uh
what to pull out the casket? He had like twenty
all white Cadillacs with motorcycles. It was amazing. And I'm
standing was a hot sunny day and I see this

(28:47):
like I could tell he was well dressed. Kelly was
a Jewish guy leaning. I'm leaning on the same post.
We're waiting, and he says, who are you? And I said,
Marshall said, oh, I know, you know your father. I'm
Chuck lawyer, you know. And he tells me you know
all of Chuck and this lawyer. But then another guy,
a black man, came up to me and he said,

(29:09):
Mr Chess. He said, I gotta tell you something you
probably don't know. I heard you speaking there. You know
your daddy I was there. I went with Chuck when
he made maybe leading in Chicago. You know it was
your daddy who kept pushing for the beat and it
was your daddy who turned up to echo. Your daddy
did it. And I I never heard that or known that.

(29:32):
I knew the chess our music was a tremendous part
of the foundation of rock and roll. I mean, it's
the fact, that's a great legacy. I know that for
a fact that that's true. But I never knew my
dad was that he was the big he was the
beat and that and no, we did. We had a
homemade echo chamber. It was in the basement. I used

(29:52):
to have to go down there because of rats making noise,
just like you would. Because it was a long sewer pipe.
It was all very in ventive stuff, man, the beginning
of creativity making records. We wanted these sounds, just like
like a lot of reggae has it. We wanted this
black audience then love these unique sounds, different things, echo,

(30:14):
big beats, loud of guitar. That was a very it
was it made it sell more, that's a better way
to tell you. And so we had this long clay
sewer pipe with a chief speaker at one end and
the mic on the other and they would send the
signal down to the speaker. It would go through the
mic be picked up by the mic and sent back up.
That was the echo. And then there were so they

(30:36):
were used to be noises and uh they'd say, there's rats,
go down there. I had to go down. I was
was get the coffee. I was. That's I was the
coffee boy. To that was one of my first my
first job. I should tell you that story. Um So
I went down there and I see all these old
boxes and I opened up one, you know a stack

(30:58):
of four or five boxes, and it's full of seventy
eight Louis Armstrong on the leavel. I go back up
to my uncle. I could never talk about. My father
went to even disgust it with me. I said, Phil,
what's the Louis Armstrong? Oh ship? When times were hard,
we had to do some ship. I guess they were bootlegs,
you know that to pay the pet the cell, they
must have, you know, done something. They weren't original pressings,

(31:22):
that's for sure, But that that's a that's a true thing, man,
that they always wanted to change the sound and make
it better. We had our own mastering. Our studio was
built on springs. It was brilliant. You know, all those
like the rolling stones when they came to Chicago. I
set that up in nine you know, because I got
to know them well for seven years. I hung out

(31:44):
with him nightly. They would say they thought play they
wanted to record a chess that that's why I set
it up there. Manager Andrew Olam called me. I got
the call because he had a foreign accent. That's why
I'd already been to England um to set up chess internationally.
That was another one of my early jobs. But anyway,
aside from that, Michael said, use them. The stone S

(32:05):
thought if they recorded at the Chess studio, they sound
like a chess record. Of course that's not the truth.
It's the playing. Yeah, the studio is something. Actually, they
wrote and pre produced Satisfaction and that's then they finished
the recording in l A on that tour in But
that was my first experience with them and seeing those

(32:26):
English groups when they came to Chicago. Okay, so let's go,
let's go bork. Okay, So your father's making these different records,
how does he go into and how does he go
into rock and his Chuck Berry the first person he

(32:47):
got I got it, I got it ready, here we go.
Chuff Berry wanted to be a blue singer, you know.
And he came up to Chicago with his wife. You
need no his wife, that muddy wife. He came to
Chicago with his wife that I don't forget what her
name is. He came to Chicago with his wife. They

(33:08):
want to hear Muddy Waters. He was a giant Muddy
Waters fan in the club. And after that gig, he
went to Muney says, look, I made a tape. What
do I do to get on a record? He says,
go see letter Chess tomorrow morning. Tell the Muddy Waters name.
And that's exactly what he did. And he went and
waked in the morning. He said, Muddy Waters told me

(33:28):
to see you, Mr Chess. My dad went in and
played the tape and it was two sides. It was
a cut named I'd a Read and and one called
we We Ours. We We Ours was a straight twelve
bar blues like Muddy Waters would sing. We Were Ours
was a unique different song which perked my father up.

(33:53):
It was called I'd a Red My Fithers. I don't
like the title, and I'm not sure about the lyric,
the way it sounds the guitar to beat. You got
something different there let's make a deal, but go and
rewrite the song. And there happened to be one of
the girls that had lipstick or makeup called Mabel Lean Cosmetics.

(34:16):
It was a company called Mabel Line. You probably remember that.
And uh they looked. He called Mabel Line and he
was back within two weeks and it were written Maybe Line,
called it Maybe Lane. They recorded it, and that was
in and he went. So all the road trips were

(34:37):
done by car. No planes wouldn't have the money. Was
a small company, was blues company. He was on the road.
He started in New York and he was gonna work
his way back to Chicago. At that time, the king
of radio in New York was the disjecty named Alan Freed.
Everyone knew about Allan Freed. And it was also the

(34:58):
time of massive payola. You know, uh, the independent record
business would never have even developed without payola. I mean
payola is what allowed anyone to make a record and
check it out and put it on the radio. See
of the phone ring of people wanted to buy it.
So anyway, my dad goes and plays Allen Freed, Maybe Lane.

(35:20):
Allen Freed. Hears it. It's something special and different. He
coined the word rock and roll. That was all part
of the Chuck Barry Alan create Alan Kline. Instead of
giving him money, he became the writer of Maybe Lane.
He went on as writer that was his and that
night and my dad got in this car or drive

(35:42):
back to Cleveland. Right one day drive, Alan played Maybe
Lene NonStop three hours, over and over, broke the records.
My dog get My dad got to Cleveland. He calls
my uncle in Chicago. Because they didn't have cell phones
in or anything or internet caused my uncle and he says,
what's up. What the fund is going on? It's going

(36:04):
crazy here. The phone rings every two seconds. This Alan
freed Maybellen. It's broke. We gotta hit Landard, we gotta
hit And of course he rushed back to Chicago and
began to spread it. By then we had independent distributors,
you know, all the indie labels. There was a whole
group of independent distributors all across the country. It's so

(36:26):
funny when I hear that Kanye West bullshit anti sembatic.
Everyone I knew had there was all Jewish names. I
could give you a list of thirty, you know, you know,
they were all these Jewish guys like my father and uncle,
you know who who who? Just like the early movie guys,
you know, they send something about this music and all
that um. But coincidentally, in nineteen fifty five, a couple

(36:50):
of months later, Bo Diddley came in, who was the
Chicago street artist. My uncle heard that tape again and
put out Bo Diddley. So we had these two major
pre foundational rock and roll hits in nineteen fifty and
like I say, my life changed. Our whole family's life changed.
And I must say the world began to change, maybe

(37:11):
because rock and roll change the world, and my family
had a lot to do with it. And you know,
I never realized that Bob Krasnell, you know that that
was you know. Of course Bob once sold me so
don't you know yours the first family of rock and roll?
He said, you don't even know that, and I said,
you're right. Bob and I had taken much rooms together.
We were like when he had we had uh, he

(37:33):
had Blue Thumb, Blue Thumb Records. Bob was the one
who steered me to the Rolling Stones. He wanted to
join me with me to sign the Rolling Stones. That's
how I found out that they were available, you know,
they wanted them to do something. And I told Bob,
I said, after tripping with you, you know, motherfucker, we
could never work together. Our egos. That was that era

(37:53):
of you know, our egos are way too big. I said,
will you give me Mick Jagger's phone number? He gave
me his home phone number. That's how it all began
for me through Bob Krasnow. Okay, but let's let's go back.
Let's go back to the blues era. Your father's cutting everybody. Well,
it starts with Muddy Waters. Who becomes who has hits?
I feel like going home? They were big hits, you

(38:16):
know not. I mean again, there was a radio station
in the South w l a c H fifty thou
watch white disc jockeys, but they played blues black music.
It would cover thirteen states at night, all through the South.
So you you know, we were we were having like,
you know, blues hits. I'd say the biggest record thirty

(38:37):
would be a giant, giant blues hit, like a million
man sellar. But yeah, we were having hits. But Muddy
Waters and all the airplay put Chess on the map
with every other blues artist who wanted to be on
the radio and they it became a magnet. And then
how and then and then at the same time we
had a great deal with Sam Philip who own Sun

(39:00):
who eventually had Sun Records with Alvis, but before that
he was probably one of the first record producers of
you know, white record pruces of black musical will in
my father. At the same time, he sent us Howling Wolf,
you know, and then we had Hollowing Wolf. And then
we had another big hit called which they say is
the first rock and roll record, called Rocket eighty eight

(39:22):
by Jackie Brinston and who was the saxophone player for
Ike Turner's orchestra. I con Tina Turner. It wasn't ten then,
just like and we had that yet, Uh, Rocket eighty eight.
I'll never forget the way those cars two tone paint.
That was the big ghetto car because it was the
first with two tone. Yeah, and uh, don't be late,

(39:43):
come on baby in my Rocket eighty eight, you know. Okay,
So what were those old blues guys like and what
was their man? You're asking me that everyone asked me that.
Here's what they were like, Marshall, Did you get me yet?
Did you dick get checked out. Yet they ever asked me.
They only cared about it if I ever discovered sex.
I was twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen. They didn't talk

(40:06):
about business or music with me at all. Zero I
have you get And I was, like I said, at
that time, I was the coffee boy. I have to
walk to get before we had people and coffee machines
and offices, he had to go out to get it.
In that area, they had shitty cardboard cups with these
horrible paper bags that would leak, they disintegrate. My hands

(40:26):
would be burning, you know. But what were they like?
They were great muddy waters. Just to call me his
white grandson, his wife guenivis to semi fried. He'd bring
me fried chicken and the thickest illuminum foil. Then was
sick man. I can remember that he'd bring me that,
you know, money, money was. I was the closest the money.
He first time I met money was. I always told

(40:48):
this story. But you're already a still probably like it. Um,
I might it must have been. I must have been.
So I'm just trying to think. Twelve years old, we
had moved from the third floor are with blues moved
up from the third floor walk up to a row
house thirty six South Gates. Um on the south side,
should call my uncle lived two blocks away. I'm on

(41:12):
the front yard and literally with a house next to
a cattle that pulls up and this guy comes out
and he's got the bright green, iridescent green suit with
hair looked like with a foot high, like who the fuck?
You know, as a kid of you, what is this?
You know? Um, I had seen black people, but this
was duked out and the car and I looked down

(41:33):
and his shoes blew me away. They were like pinto
pony hair of the fur of a course or cow.
And you looked at me and say, you must be
young chess. You'll pappy home. That's how I met Muddy
waters Man, and uh, he came over again advice money.
I don't know. I wasn't in, you know, I don't
know what went on, you know, I I was dragging

(41:55):
around and I didn't when they were I never saw.
I went on the road with my father, you know,
I saw he was paying people off, but I didn't
know what it even was. You know, I sort of
was just I just was. It was all a natural thing.
And I always wanted to make records like my dad.
I had a chance when I was twenty in nineteen
sixty two, I got to go to Muscle Beach Uh

(42:18):
in Carolina, Muscle shoals Uh and recorded Bowls Beach Party
with a lot of desktop was there wasn't a remote
recording land. Me and the sales manager, Max Cooperstein, we
co produced it. And in the middle of that, I'll
give you an example of how it was, so you
want to know how it was. Um Bow Dolly had
Chester Simmons. That was like this road manager we recorded

(42:41):
in the middle of the second set. Jerome Green, the
Morocco player, was the original guy when they played on
the streets in Chicago, so they didn't have to carry
a drum. Was Bow, didley and guitar. And this guy
Jerome with Moroccas. He jumped off the stage and all
these white kids started dancing around them. Twenty minutes later
cops came him in with German shepherds shut us down

(43:04):
and said, let them white kids dance with your niggas.
He's I lock you jus up. No one will even
nowhere to find you, you know after exactly right, And
but we recorded enough to put out that album and
it was stopped. Okay, back to the hotel, keep going hotel.

(43:25):
It's a good story. Then we went back to this
whole beach hotel, oh Wood once from that era. You know,
we we were planning to go earlier. We shared rooms
in those days. One was having separate rooms, me and Max,
and then the next room was a honeymoon couple. And
he showed me out of your hold one of those
old time water glasses against the wall you could hear.
So I had my experience of watching people, hearing people

(43:48):
fuck for the first time on that trip, as well
as being called a dirty jew nigger lover, you know,
excuse my language with the N word. Okay, But so
your life anges with then what happened and and bo diddly,
then what happened together? Did it? And what happened with

(44:08):
the company and what happens with you? Then the company exploded,
I mean, you know, we had money to produce. Morris
signed more, expand more. They wanted to expand into LPs,
into jazz all that, you know, little by little, UH
we wanted to get into jazz. LP was really invented out. Um.
It started with uh Dave We We had this guy,

(44:31):
Dave Usher was like a jazz fanatic friend of my
uncle's from Detroit. He produced stuff. Then there was a
famous magazine and chic call it called down Beat. The
Jazz was the major jazz magazine. We hired the editor,
Jack Tracy, figured he knew everyone, and that's how we started.
And the blues are all, believe it or not. The
blues were always recorded in the daytime, but we had

(44:54):
the empty studio at night. So Jack, we would we
we we would work it out. Everyone knew they could
pick up some extra cash after the gig at Chess
and that's why we put out such great The first
role of Kirk Elvin, James Moody, Uh God, Dorothy Ashby
and Jazz Harve I'm and Jamal Ramsey Lewis Wow because

(45:15):
it was relaxed, it was at night. A lot of
it was real jazz. They just wanted the money. They
made it up. It was totally improvised a lot and
one of my early jobs was Mr. Samuel's. We were
we did union sessions. You got paid for a three
hour session. I was one of my because I got
all the dirty jobs, getting coffee, going late early in
the six in the morning at the pressing plant. Um.

(45:38):
I also had to go meet Mr Samuel's, the union
guy from when the checks were signed. They had to
make sure they signed the publishing and all that before
they got the check. So I used to go at night. Yeah,

(46:00):
let's talk about the business. You know, certainly Atlantic wasn't
paying royalties. What was the royalty situation at Chess? It was?
It was, it was no what was it? You know?
I always got to ask that because there's such a
lot of the you know, Chest ripped off artists. Every
the Indians ripped off some did um. And I don't
believe my father ever overtly ripped off anyone because of

(46:25):
the way he raised me. You know, I mean I
I that's not even I was, you know, he just
was never even part of it. I uh. But there
were no entertainment lawyers that came later. We had a
one page contract, publishing on one side, recording on the other,
one piece of paper. Yeah, um um. We had no computers.

(46:48):
Everything was manual, even order taking every you know, it's
so confused now with modern technology. When I worked at Chess,
everyone had one of those little pads with carbon paper.
And the phone would ring in a thirteen hundred st Louis,
you just yelled your handing in the carbon paper. I
saw my dad once. This is way after. This is later,

(47:10):
um in sixties six sixty five. I saw my dad
the only time once of reviewing the royalty statements with
the bookkeeper and he would bring in this long you
know stacks, the white paper and the Dells blue option
prepared a big hit then called, oh what a night.

(47:31):
And he looked at the Dells. It was day was like,
you know, eighteen thousand bucks, I mean, you know, not millions.
And he looked at Muddies. Blass wasn't prove when blues
were dead, Black people wanted motown, you know r and
b uh. We don't want our grandfather's music. And the
white jees hadn't discovered the historical ones, you know. Um anyway,

(47:51):
and I looked at my dad, but I heard my
dad looked and he held up money and he said
to Ted it was the big take five grand off
of the thousand foot it on Muddy. That's my last
story on royalties. That was my father. Okay, so you
graduate from high school and then what happens with you?
I go to college and I become the chess promotion

(48:12):
man in Denver, Colorado. So you go to college in Denver. Yeah,
I wanted to go to you know, I wanted to
go to u C. L A. Or USC. I did
not get accepted. I wanted the West Coast bad. I
love cars, I loved girls. I loved California. I've been there.
New we had the first black record executive, Paul Gayton.

(48:33):
Paul Gayton was from New Orleans. He was a famous
New Orleans band leader and he started out playing for
the most famous Italian mafioso in a horrorse and then
he became a a big band leader, well known during
that era. And my dad and him hit it off
and he became our first guy in New Orleans when

(48:53):
we did all this Clarence Frogman, Henry Ain't got no home,
all our Cajun kind of music. But then he moved
to Cali, Fornia with his wife and he drove a
Rolls Royce. He lived on top of the hill with
icon Tina Turner's house, and he opened our little office,
the chess office in l A. So I wanted to
work with him, but I didn't get accepted. So After

(49:13):
two years at Denver, I applied to USC and got in,
and I moved to Hollywood and my dad was having
an affair with the hostess at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
Wait Wait, Wait, Wait Wait was an apartment building behind
the ground Chinese Theater that was for hookers, and we

(49:34):
never knew that, and he she got me a department
there had sparkle in the ceilings, and that's where I lived.
H I lived behind the Chinese Theater for my first
year of college at USC and worked out with Paul
Gayton in the office. So did you graduate? No, I
didn't graduate. I never wanted to go to college. My

(49:56):
dad didn't give his ship. He said, just go learn
what you can for the business. I had a radio
show at USC, and it took plastic engineering to learn
about record pressing, marketing. Um. But I would have stayed.
But I never did it in a proper way. I
would have probably had it gone five or six years,
because I just took what interested me. We didn't care.

(50:16):
He didn't really care. I didn't have a push from
my mother or father about not like a modern way.
I pushed my kids, you know, But I didn't have
the push but then in my senior year, a fourth year,
second year at USC, my dad got horribly beat up. Evidently, Uh,
the mafia tried to move in on Chess Records in
Chicago and m he refused and got out of it

(50:42):
with help from Morris Levy. You know that is of
course Roulette Records. Okay, well Morris. Anyway, they knew each other.
We all all the indies were like part of the
wild bunch, you know. Morris knew the Chicago mafia to
his guys. But they were upset that he got that
they couldn't get a piece of chess. And two guys

(51:02):
they called him up that there was a fire, and
he went down there at night and two guys he
fought them with a heart condition and he was horribly
beat up. He couldn't even go out of the house
for weeks. His face was life came back, but they
called me and said he he lived, but he was
horribly beat up. And I said, I'm coming home, and
I got in my car and I drove to Chicago
and started working in chess records. That was it. So

(51:25):
that's how you dropped out of college when your father
was good. Yeah, I wanted to go home. I didn't
want to go to college anyway, but I like the lay.
I loved it. I love living there. I had a
house eventually in Benedict Canyon. Um uh, you know, I
I love working with Paul gat And that was a
fabulous experience, you know, working with him, like little Richard
would come by the office, all kinds of he was.

(51:48):
It was just he was just a brilliant guy. And
I learned a lot about life from him. And he
was a brilliant musician. Um. And he used to come
to our house, stay at our house, play the white
Jewish grand piano and the suburbs and we'd all go around.
I used to play. I started playing. He got me.
I was a trumpet player. That's a whole other musicians story.

(52:08):
Um can I can I go story? So I uh,
I watched, I mean, kid, I watched From Here to Eternity,
you know that movie, of course? In this movie, of course,
and when the guy played taps with a bugle, I
got moved, emotionally moved, and I wanted to be do that.

(52:29):
And I joined the boy Scouts and I became a bugler.
I was thirty fourteen, just turned fourteen, and my dad
thought the boy boy Scouts were whacked. I could tell
he didn't like it. And he went to one thing
with me there one father and something. It wasn't his thing.
But so I learned how to play readily, and the chart,

(52:50):
a few things, taps and now then I started in
high school. I was fourteen South Chard High School in Chicago,
still living on the south Side before we moved to
the suburbs. Um and I began to take trumpet lessons.
I had a Martin trumpet. I used to walk on
the rail I was just enamera. I joined the high
school band. No before that was my eighth grade. I

(53:10):
used to walk on the railroad tracks. I practiced. I
could play Lady of Spain. I adore you all these
oh my Papa, I could make you cry. Man. I
could play it. I loved it, and uh then I
we I went my freshman year before he was the
suburb south Shore High School. I joined the band. I
could read and read music. I learned how to read,

(53:30):
you know, not like the arranger. But I could play
my little parts, and uh, I loved it. And uh.
I was at Chess Records working in My father said,
come on into the office. Is my uncle, my father
and my grandfather ZD. And they all said, uh, you know,
we don't think you should become a musician. I said,

(53:53):
what we're in the music business, Marshall is the worst.
They get forty bucks a session. You'll never be able
to have a supportive family. It's a horrible They knew
from you know, hiring guys. It's not a good thing.
We know that you love it. We think we think,

(54:14):
you know, like it was like like a mafia that
you should come in the record business. Come in the
record business. That's your business. You'll be around music, you
can learn how to be a producer. And I of
course said yes, you know totally. I mean that was
like the committee, you know. I said, yes, I still
have a trumpet, and I still so. Years later. I'm

(54:36):
on a Rolling Stones tour nineteen seventy two. We it
was a tour where we hired Stevie Wonders horn section
called wonder Love, Steve Mateo on trumpet, Him Price on trumbone,
Bobby Keys on saxophone. The Stones always had a couple
of tune up runs and Steve Matteo had three or
four horns, so I picked up one of his trumpet

(54:59):
was a trumpet and I could still, you know, I
could play an impressive riff one rift that up, but
the jazz riff, and they looked up like, oh my god, Marshall.
But you know, blah blah blah, come and join us. Well,
every horn section wants to be fatter, you know. It
was adding another horn, you know. I said, man, you
gotta I said, come on, you gotta teach me at

(55:22):
least the chords. And so they taught me some of
the bullshit and the first night I went on and
by the end, by the next morning, I couldn't touch
my lips. They were that bruise because it takes years
to develop the callous and the pressure. Yeah, I could,
but I wanted to give me on stage. So it's

(55:44):
online I played so that we were before a year
ie we we've had an English gig. That was the
next gig. It was in England, some Liverpool, some city,
not London. I know it's online that they were. You
could see where they talk about it and they have
my name is the player. And I ended up convincing
them that I would only come in for the last

(56:04):
four songs and ended that concert tour ended with street
fighting man. It was easy one note. Uh so I got.
I played eight concerts on stage, the last four numbers
with the Rolling Stones on the European tour and um,
it was a tour where it was this was a

(56:25):
fabulous lifetime experience. It was a tour where the promoter
had to give us a bushel basket full of rose
petals and mick which the horns were on the facing
the stage. We're on the far left and the piano
was on the far right. He would start with on
the far right, dancing towards the end, and he would

(56:47):
throw rose petals on the piano, on each player, bill woman,
and everyone would cheer as he you know, did that
walk across the stage. Well, the first time he came
with thirty thousand people in front of the horn section,
Alm was peted my parents. I never felt anything like that.
The energy factor, it was unreal. It was in describable.

(57:08):
I can't even describe it to you. When people say
what is it, I said the closest thing. As a poet,
I would say it was like a mother's love holding you.
It was a warm man. It was something special like
And that concert tour we had no encore so everyone
walked after street fighting man. We all went with him.
We walked into the van and it was dead quiet.

(57:30):
While they were still cheering. We were on our way
back to the hotel. So, uh, I got that amazing
experience of feeling that energy, which is why I'm sure
they're still out there doing it. You know, that is special.
You get addicted to that. That is way stronger than
anything I ever took. You get thirty people loving you.
You know, they weren't loving me, they were loving Mick.

(57:51):
But at the overflow, you know, he's standing in front
of you. Boom. That was a fantastic thing. So that
was a great experience. And that was the end of
my trumpet playing, even though I still have it as
a souvenir against the wall in its case, um My
Martin trumpet. Okay, do you know why you're named Marshall? No?

(58:13):
I do not. They thought it was an unusual name.
I'm not named after anyone. Nope. I didn't even like it.
It was an unusual name when I was a kid.
That's why I'm asking. Oh no, A lot of my
girlfriend's mother that they keep a lot of the mothers
that we call me Chess for some reason, it wasn't
a common name. I hated when they call me chess. Okay,

(58:33):
r was my name. Your father gets beaten, beaten up.
You come back from the coast. You're in the business totally.
Now what are you doing? Oh yeah, that's a good story.
Good story, Bobby, I mean the story. I come to
work the famous building, historical landmark where the stones recorded
before we moved to the big eight story building. I

(58:53):
come to work. I got but that was suit and
tie and pinky ring. Because the black artist they wanted you,
they liked you if you they wanted what you had.
So my dad bought a new Cadillac every year. We
were dressed sharp. You know, they knew if you were
that successful, then they you could help them get that way,
you know, that was the thing. So I was a

(59:14):
sharp dress like the zz top sharp dressed man. I
had my custom made suits from Maxi the but the
R and B. Taylor by bar Mr suit was custom
made light blue with blue stitching on the side. I
was into that from from being around those sharp dressed people,
you know, I mean the jazz guys. They were always
the sharpest dressed people. They were like even now they

(59:36):
are you know they get they really control the fashion culture.
I mean the ghetto, you know, from the ghetto seeds.
But yeah, so that's what happened, man. I So anyway,
my dad then had the radio stations at the end
when you know we're in the car. We we had
a car wash like the one in the movie The
car Wash, and we it was two blocks in the

(59:57):
na avenue and we had a deal. Do you could
get it every day? Everyone could get a car wash
every day. He just wentn't line and he paid a
monthly feet whatever it was. Well, I I came from college.
No one told me where to sit, No one told
me what my job was, No one told me what
I was making. I was very confused. So I got

(01:00:21):
the courage and asked my father that. I said, Dad,
you know i've been back a couple of months. I
don't know where to go, what office to sit in,
and I don't know what to do. Um what you know?
What's up? And he said to me, and I can
remember this, you stupid motherfucker. Your job's watching me and

(01:00:42):
the subject he with the old European style, watch me,
watch me a little by little, he would, do you
have me do? This, help me do that, like going
to the studio. He taught me in that old European way,
little by little, little by litterly, let me screw up.
I made my first deal with Pie Records. It was
a a even. I screwed up the math. And when

(01:01:04):
you'll never do it again, will you? Nope, never do
it again? You know? That was how I was sort
of raised. Um, I guess that's the way he learned.
So he just laid that on me. Um. Yeah. So
then I started working and I started doing promotion. And
there was a famous record promotion guy. You may even
have heard of him. I'm sure your listeners have named
Howard Bednoe. He was the dean of record promotion probably

(01:01:27):
in America, all the major labels, who was an indie
promotion guy. But he worked also for all state record distributors,
our distributor, Paul Glass, and I became hot for That's
how I learned promotion. I was. He didn't drive, Howard
never did. I was his driver and sidekick for a
whole summer, you know, seeing all meeting all the disc jockeys,

(01:01:48):
seeing how he did it, how he had a befriend them.
And then we then in Chicago. Then w l S
was the major States fifty clear channel AM radio. It
wasn't you know, white pop radio. They were in this
building underneath was the London House, so they hang out
of record promotion. Man, where was the London House? And

(01:02:09):
we had our own little section. We'd always played liars
poker and then the DJs from upstairs would come down
and uh So for that whole year, I was eating
steak four nights a week, just signed the bill at
the London House, hanging out with all the record promotion
of all the labels. It was like a crowd, and
they all accepted me. I was the youngest one. I
mean when I went to the first meet him, I

(01:02:29):
was the youngest one. I was always the youngest one
until young guys started getting into it. Chris Blackwell came
to buy records from me before Island Records. He came
to buy old singles that weren't hits that they were
selling in England. That's how we started out. Chris, I've
met so his dad was married to a woman in
Lake Forest. So I got to be friends with Chris
when he before he started Island. All the first young

(01:02:51):
record guys, Mike and Richard Vernon Blue Horizon Record, seymour
Stein who had just left Kinge Records. You know, um,
there was this growing group of young guys. You know,
I was going to I. I did go to Europe early.
I I I aught well. I was always enamored with
Europe and I wanted to go real badly. And I
told that to my father and he, you know, he

(01:03:15):
gave me a great experience, he said. I went twice
to Europe and to Japan with Harry Goodman, my father's
publishing partner. But Harry Goodman was the original bass player
of the Benny Goodman trio with Lionel Hampton Gene Krupa.
So that was my teacher of international kannak, eating hookers

(01:03:35):
and uh international record business. And I went around with him.
And then it was one of the dean first of
the great entertainment lawyers, a guy named Alan Arrow Orangstein
Arrow and Silverman. They were one of the first that
was our firm. I became close with Alan Arrow. I
went to Japan with him. He showed me the far East.

(01:03:55):
We went, you know, introduced me to a lot of people.
I had great tutors, and um, you know, I learned
that and then I set up chess in Europe. Um
and um I I said, I wanted a percentage of
any extra we knew we were. We had one contract
with London Decca for all of the world and when
we were making nothing. You know, they knew nothing about

(01:04:16):
rock and roll nothing. I mean the Stones were also
started with them at that time. They really knew nothing
about especially about black music. So Alan Arrow introduced me
to Louis Benjamin. It later became Sir Louis from Pie
Records that was owned by Lesson Loud, the Grades, the
Carney people and from England. Um so I I uh,

(01:04:37):
That's where I made my first international deal was with
Louis Benjamin. That was the one that didn't make money.
Louis offered to change it and I said, my dad said, no,
you'll have to suffer, don't change it. Let him so I.
After two years we redid it. But then I went
around Europe by Eddie Barkley. You know that you ever
Barkley Records and all Indies, the Durham the Minton Jin's,

(01:04:57):
Turkish people in Italy, Uh, Eddie Barkley and the French
um Doug hog list so on that Grandmophone, all the
indies like Jess and they I was like, you know, man,
I was like, you know, they loved me. I was
like the indie, you know, I came from that INDI
for one of the first I mean, they became my
close friends. I used to go to Europe a lot um.

(01:05:19):
We had great success. The first year we made a
hundred and fifty ground and they were shipping green. That
was like a half a million bucks back then. And
it was in nineteen sixty four when the big statement
came in and uh I bought Ah that was the
year the stones came because I had just bought my
first car and payments hundred and eighties six dollars a month.
But it was a red Porsche, the old kind, the

(01:05:41):
little look like the little egg my dad. They thought
it was the most ugly thing. They were coming from Cadillac.
That was the ugliest car they ever saw, you know. Anyway,
So yeah, so I had, you know, I was up
getting custom made suits. I was on an ego trip
that you wouldn't believe. I had success. I bought a

(01:06:01):
single from Pie Records for three hundred pounds, sold a
million pictures of Matt stick Man that status quo. I
was gonna ask you about that. So how did that
come to be? Well, I wanted to have my I started,
like I say, in nineteen sixty also like in nineteen
sixty two or three. I couldn't believe it's online. I
wanted my own record label, so I started. My dad

(01:06:24):
said start one, and I started the label called mar Mars.
My little sister Susie used to call me m A
R m A R. Just the other day, I just said,
could that be online? I found a photo of the
label and I so I bought a master from Louis Benjamin,
another pie Master, the first one, for like three hundred pounds.
That was the deal, non hits, and it was a

(01:06:46):
guy named Nichols, Jimmy Nichols, who was the first drummer
of the Beatles. It's actually on the label, says first
drummer of the Beatles, Scott remember scat music, And I
put it's probably those forty copies. I put out two
singles on marmar and uh, you know then it didn't
sell it. I couldn't do it. I had no promotion.
But that was my first thing. And I did the

(01:07:07):
Bau Diddaly and little by little, I you know, I
started to to uh, but the status quo. I wanted
my own label. Then of course I formed that labeled
Cadet Concept before the status quo that was, that was
my own that was why why was it? Why was
it called Cadet Concept Because of this guy that worked there.

(01:07:28):
I loved him. His name was Dick La Palm. They
were part of the Cadet renaming. Argo was the original
jazz label. We had to give up the name Argo
because there was an English spoken word label name Argo.
They sued us. We decided just to change the name.
So we they came up with the name Cadet. I
never personally liked it at all, but they liked it

(01:07:50):
because it was chess checker Cadet three season. The way
it sounded so okay. So when I wanted my own label,
they came up. Well, I said, what's it gonna be.
It's gonna be my concept because it was the whole
acid pod psychedelic thing. I was one of them that
I was one of that. The exact age I went
to Woodstock, I drove from Chicago. You know, I was

(01:08:11):
one of those people who took acid and and pot.
I was just enamored with it all and uh, anyway,
that's how that happened. They said, well, you know, let's
call it that concept. So I said, okay, we'll call
it that concept. It was the easiest way to get
my own. I went for it. I would have probably
not liked it, and that's how it started. I agreed

(01:08:32):
to do it, and then I got Then I had
we My daddy had hired these really a fabulous avant
garde ad agency named Hervis Spinser in Churchill, one of
the first young new ones in America. They were in Chicago.
He had hired them for the radio station. And I
met this guy, Robin Binzer, who designed the Cadet concept label,
and he came up with the name rotary connection. You

(01:08:55):
know all those Okay, well one story at one time,
because we're gonna get the many ripton. Well, it's all
of that concept. Okay, wait, let's call connect concept. You
put out pictures of match stick Man. I bought that single. Okay,
did you hear it and say, hey, this is a hit,
and and how did you make it a hit? I
heard of that, I heard and I thought it was
ahead of course, And how did you make it? A

(01:09:17):
here a dis jacket that would do favors for me
on that fifty thousand one station. Art Roberts broke that
and rotary connection I learned from Howard Bednow. Okay, so
I get it. I made him. Okay, I'll tell you
how I got it. I made a movie in nine four,
probably one of the first music videos. Two guys from

(01:09:41):
Illinois Institute of Technology, I think came. I thought it
was University Chicago, but it wasn't. They they were film
majors and they said, we want to make and we
make a film about something with Chess records we needed
for our to graduate. Our thestis was a fifth Little
George film. I wanted to be a film producer. I
even had my own Safari equitor. You know. I was

(01:10:01):
ready to be a producer. Yeah, I'll help you. So happened.
I called him as that Bo Diddley is recording for
a week and attended, let's do it. So I made
this black and white film, Legend of Bo Diddley. You
can see it yourself. I just put it up. I'm
building a YouTube channel for my grandchildren, and it's on there.
I actually fixed it, we repaired it. It's you know,

(01:10:23):
it's not a good movie, but I gave a featured
pardon it to Art Roberts, that famous, that fabulous nighttime
disc jockey. You know, he was my guy, you know,
and um he were friends. But you know, and he
broke that record in the rotary and you know he
played you know, yeah, he could play what he wanted.
I guess I don't remember the details. Before they had

(01:10:44):
strict playlists, you know this, jackets could still have to
have some freedom in those eras, that era. Then when
Paola came, they started with control paylists and all those
things to stop it. But that's how that started. And
then I got real lucky because I moved my office.
I had this real op art office on the first

(01:11:05):
floor of that eighth story building. Jeff Berry said. It
was the best office you ever saw. I had like
black and white hop art. It was wood panel. I
had it painted black epoxy because I saw Eve San
Laurent in Paris. His shop where I used to buy
clothes was painted with orange epoxy, you know, before he
became famous. So I did black epoxy. It was a

(01:11:26):
way big speakers. Everyone would call me. After that, my
dad left, we'd all smoke pot and listened to all
the music in there. That was my office. But then
we moved. We moved to the eighth floor where we
had We came up with a concept. We had the
studio a this big studio studio be a medium size.
Then I I built a small studio with very simple

(01:11:47):
equipment for the musicians to work. And I hired a
rhythm section, famous people Donnie Hathaway, Danny Danny Hathaway, Donnie
Hathaway and piano still up to John Bace, Maurice White,
the first way to fire on drums. Sometimes they come
every day. Paid them like a hundred and fifty a week.
The jam worked on tracks. We had four little rooms

(01:12:10):
with upright pianos and real to real tape recorders for
songwriters and they would work. We have a blackboard. I
put Eddie James coming in two weeks right songs. Then
they would develop it with these musicians. We cut little tracks.
They could work it. It was a creative, a creative factory.
And I moved up to the eighth floor. That was
where I ended my career chest on the eighth floor.

(01:12:31):
But I moved up to the eighth floor and one
of my jobs then was to get lead sheets made. Now,
lead sheets had to be if you wanted to copyright
you in those areas, you didn't send in a tape
or CD. You actually had notated on a lead sheet
that you had to send with notes and paper. And
I would you know, we had people we hired to

(01:12:51):
make lead sheets of the records that we put out
so we could copyright them. So I heard about this guy,
Charles Stepney Um and that he would do lead sheets,
like for fifteen bucks a lead sheet, whatever we pay
if done cheap, you know, fifteen was probably like forty
bucks now for a sheet. And this short, chubby guy
in a suit uncomp suit and Tide comes at the

(01:13:14):
eighth floor. We also had a commissary with like a
microwave and weird horrible junk food, so the musician everyone
would stay up there this musician's coffee machine or whatever.
And we're in the commissary. Me met this Charles. I
made a deal with him for lead sheets, and he
had this big portfolio, like a bit six inch thick folder.

(01:13:34):
What's that? You know? It's a symphony everyt and I said,
oh my god, you wrote a symphony. He said, I'm
in my senior year of music school. I'm gonna graduate now.
I had to write this. If you ever heard it, no,
I played on the piano. I hear it in my head,
you know, I said, well, you know, I've got this
fucking wet. I got to know him over months making leecheets,

(01:13:55):
and he would come and were talking. I've got this
idea for an interracial group. Um, I got many Riperton
here works through the Sydney and the other guy hanging around.
I got this. I said that this is one of
the sales guys. They had a band of Polish band
in Chicago, white band. Um, I didn't forget that the
other day. I remember their name for a minute, now

(01:14:16):
I forgot anyway up. So I combined them and I
told her, if it's this idea, I said, this is
the psychedelic age. By then I had been taking LSD
numerous times, but I wasn't ever into the Grateful Dead, uh.
I was into the spiritual. I went to hear Tim Leary,
Bob Dillian opened up for him or in white robes.
I was into that because the first asset trip I

(01:14:39):
took in the sixth you know, mid sixties, whenever that
was was really the real deal. Sandals Laboratory from Switzerland. Um,
that's where I played the sraman on Good Vibe because
I heard Good Vibrations on the Ascid of the Beach
Boys and they have that whoo. So I wanted to
put that on the rotary. But so I talked told him,

(01:15:02):
I said, you know, I think there's there's this whole
alternative radio market. You know, Um, there's there's a lot
happening now across the country. Um, I want to do
this thing for people on a bad trip to calm
him down. But you know, a soft psychedelic and uh again, Um,

(01:15:23):
I'm using my dad's concept. If you get people around
you know their ship, you'll make your stuff better. Will
you work with me? And he said, of course. It
was this chance, you know I mean. And then I
got Jean Bard, who was part of our house a
and our staff family, who had he came up from
the South. He had one hit record called Country. He

(01:15:44):
was agreed. He still is a great He's still like
in his nineties. He still does gigs playing saxophony. He
was a brilliant saxophonist. He's on a ton of Chess
records and he was an actor. I made him part
of my team, Charles, Stephanie, Marshall, Chess because they he
was the guy who talked to the musicians, because I
I had the concept, but I couldn't write the music.
I couldn't do all those things. And I'll be honest,

(01:16:06):
I never got it a hundred percent how I wanted,
but I got it close enough. And then when if
became a semi hit, of course you say, yeah, it
was my thing. But you know, I had this great band.
I put together the most avant garde group of black
musicians in Chicago. Maurice White was ended up on earth
Wind and Fire. Louis Sadderfield earth Wood and Fire. Drummer

(01:16:27):
was another Morris Jennings who played with Ramsey Lewis fill
Up Church brilliant bassist and guitarists. Um, I put them
all together and uh we started rehearsing. I got the
White band with many and then we started working. I
picked the songs, my concept I did. I picked that.
I I picked the songs, and I kept pushing the concept,

(01:16:49):
what how we were going to do it? And then
we we recorded and I remember the first session. It
was the first time Charles had ever heard his music,
you know, played back that he had written. You know
that he was sweat, you know, he was so worried.
But we eventually we would. We started doing all the
strings and horns from the Chicago Symphony, you know, we would,
and he would. He he became a great arranger. He

(01:17:10):
died young. He did all the earth, wind and fire.
He would have been he was like Henry man Sin.
He would ended up in Hollywood. He was a genius.
He died very young, in his like late thirties of
him forties. You know, he died young. But we made uh,
you know, and I even helped him when I left Chess,
I helped him make his agreement with the new people

(01:17:31):
who own chest after it was so um. But he
he was, He was amazing. He was a genius. He
was probably the best thing I ever brought the chess.
If it would have stayed sixty nine, I don't know
if you want to jump to ninety nine, but that
was like probably the heaviest year of that period of
my life. And it began in January. I was already

(01:17:54):
on a high man I had, you know, I had
things were good for me at Chess. Foreign royalties, shock,
Berry Broken England. It was I was taking people to
BBC TV shows Fontela Bass, Ready, Steady Go, like the
first TV music show in the world was in England,

(01:18:14):
and um, you know all that was happening. But in
sixty nine, that was a heavy year. It was. It
started in January. I got a call from Seymour Stein
and uh, Mike Vernon. They you know, we have a
group called Fleetwood Mac. She just died. It's in the
news now, Fleetwood Mac. But before her it was a
blues man Fleetwood Mat. When they started, it was Mick

(01:18:37):
Fleetwood on drums, but they had a fabulous guitarist named
Peter Green really as good as Eric Clapton, as far
as I's going, really good. Well, we're doing a tour
that we're you know, we love the blues. We're touring America.
It was our second tour. Will you help us do
an album in Chicago? Can we come to the studio? Well,
I'd already done the Stones in sixty four, so they knew,

(01:18:59):
you know, they they it was known that I could
do that. I mean I could have done that, so
I did. I said, yeah, what do you want? We
want you to get? Get me four or five chess
players that we want Willie Dickson, we want so and
so on piano. Um, I ort to span uh and
we'll play with him and we'll we want to record
one day, full day, we'll be there. So they came

(01:19:20):
to Chicago and we recorded eighteen hours double album called Fleetwood,
Mac and Chicago. It's online. You could hear it on Spotify.
And Uh, that's how my years started. In January, then
I did another one, uh, Fathers and Sons with all
the white blues guys, Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg, Samily and drums,
Paul Butterfield and Brite and Harmonic. He. I did that

(01:19:41):
live in Chicago studio. And this is all nine. I'm
on a fucking I had the Rotary. I had Electric Mud,
which was a chiant, the biggest blues album we ever had.
And then I get a call from my father had
a cell phone, not a cell phone, a mobile phone
in the car and him my uncle called me from

(01:20:02):
the radio station and say, you know you're we're gonna
sell Chack. We're gonna sell Chess records. Um, don't worry,
you can start your own label. You'll get part of
the sale. Huh. And I was blown away. I mean,
this was like I was. It was like mean the
way I say, it's like raised for an Olympic event.
They canceled the year before the Olympics. You know, after

(01:20:23):
a lifetime. Oh my god, you know, I couldn't believe it.
Don't worry, don't worry. It's we got this great off
of the radio. My dad was enamored with radio. He
knew that it was the dying days of white people
owning a black business, even though we were converting to
a full scale business. But he was already bored with it,

(01:20:43):
and he loved radio. And he became a He became
a humanitarian. I don't know what the word is, scholars ships.
We give a thousand bags of food Christmas at the churches.
He gave back. He would tell me he gave back.
He fell to the black community. You could hear. I
could send you I have When he died, they did

(01:21:04):
an hour radio show, child let her Chest tribute. Everyone
called in probably black. You could hear how they what
he did. He gave the water for Martin Luther King
for a march, you know, all kinds of stuff after.
You know, maybe he was guilty. Maybe he did take barrel.
I don't know. You never told me that, and I

(01:21:24):
don't think he did in that evil way. He had
his own he self made guys and self made businesses
in their own beliefs of how it should be. You know,
ship man, I paid him off. I'm doing all the work.
You know, they got a modern recording contract has all
that in it. Artists pay for promotion, videos, everything. He felt,

(01:21:45):
why shouldn't they pay for a part of Paola. You know,
he felt that he really believed it, but it wasn't
in the contract. He just maybe I don't know what
he did. I wasn't involved with the royalty and at all.
I really wasn't. I didn't care about it. You know,
we had bookkeeper, we had too good accountants. Um I
left before was that was dever came. I never reached

(01:22:07):
that stature. Um yes, I have the records on that concept.
I made sure they, you know, that lived up to
the contract, but I never got into the full scale.
I don't know what went on. I didn't care about
it then. You know, it was why I was having
too much fun, you know, being a record man, making
a lot of money, sports cars, Uh, marijuana was like

(01:22:28):
blew my mind. It was like wearing sunglasses on a
clary day, you know, it was it was good. That
was a good time. But then they called me and
I was blown away. And then shortly after that, my
dad dropped head driving the car fifty two years old
from the radio station with her his public affairs director,
Bernardine C. Washington. We had a public affairs director, black lady,

(01:22:49):
very high class, high society black lady. In a way.
They had that in Chicago. There's the whole cotillion people
from Jet magazine, Ebony. There's like, uh kind of group.
There wasn't that error anyway. Um anyway, that's what happened.
So that that's that's was sixty nine was mind boggling.

(01:23:10):
And then my dad died and my uncle wanted to leave.
They they were glad to let him leave. They were
they wanted to move. They knew they were going to
close it up and moved to New York. They hired
uh uh Land Levy at the time from Epic. You know,
it was a major knew nothing about the Indies nothing.
They were idiot people called g RT from Sunny Vale, California.

(01:23:32):
They were still at the beginning of Silicon Valley. The
reason they had all that money is when eight tracks
and concettes first were invented, only two people manufactured them
in the world, Ampex and g RT on the West Coast.
Majors had to go to them, so they had all
those millions of dollars, and both Ampics and g RT
thought they needed content. So that's why they wanted to

(01:23:54):
buy Chess. And it happened that Alan Arrow, the big
music lawyer, was a lawyer for three m who made
the tape and eight checks and cassettes. He put it,
so he knew he put it together when they said
they wanted content, and uh, it was a great deal,
except the stock was seventeen and when I sold Mina

(01:24:16):
was seven dollars or something. My mother never even sold hers.
It collapsed, you know, because it was restricted stock. You
couldn't sell it for two years or something then, so
I ended up So it was, you know, a crazy time.
I uh never got my money as I was supposed
to get the million bucks I was supposed to get,

(01:24:36):
and there was my dad had no will. Most of
the kid's money all went seventies percent or something to
a state tax. But that's that's when I was you
know and then this GRT they wanted. They were on
the stock exchange. So they sent me to an American
Management and Association meetings, to a school to learn about
stock and how to make forecasts. That was the big thing.

(01:24:58):
We never made a four said, just be made hits.
Made another hit, not a forecast. I hated it. I
hated it. I hated them. I hated everything at that period.
And uh, I quit and I was I quit. I
just couldn't. I just said, fuck it, I'm quitting. I
didn't know what I wanted to do. I had a
bad marriage. My first marriage was a disaster. I was

(01:25:19):
still married. Everything collapsed the end of sixty nine, and
that's what I got. The call from Bob Krasnow said, Man,
I heard the Rolling Stones are getting rid of their
manager Alan Klein and their label London Decca is over.
I know of you and I joined together. We could
let's get him man. He had blue thumb. I know

(01:25:40):
you could help me get them. And I thought about it,
and I told you. I called him up and I
said we can't never work together. Come on, man, and
he gave me a mixed number. And then a couple
of weeks later, I went to London, and that's how
it all began. That's a whole other story about how
my first meeting with the Rolling Stones and all that.

(01:26:04):
Tell that story now, and tell the story of Rolling
Stones Records. I called Nick Jagger. I met him in Chicago.
Well before you go, there was crass now mad that
you did it without him? Yeah? No, no, no, no, no, no,
not at all. Man. We had taken mushroom steal and
that that's what I'm trying to tell you. We were
already out another level. You know. We love the honesty

(01:26:25):
more than madness. You know, he agreed we couldn't work together.
He was an egomaniac to he became the president of
elected whatever. Remember I loved them, Yeah, I loved them, man,
you know, but we loved each other, you know, but
we're you know, in that early thing. No, he wasn't mad,
and who knew what was going to happen. So I
did call. I had met Nick Jagger when he was

(01:26:47):
in Chicago. But the one I bonded with was Brian Jones,
the one who died. And I was gonna say that story.
In ninety four, they were staying at this Chicago motel
and they asked me to I want to come by
and hang out. Well, they blew me away. Man, I've
never seen people with long hair like that in person.
They were drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle. I
was drinking screw drivers with girls you know, body or

(01:27:10):
they were drinking it out of the bottle. Okay, Uh,
they're going, I'll drive Brian. I took him around and
introduced him. I gave him each records. I was already
sending records to Mack and Keith. They would come when
I was working in the shipping room. We had this
weird connection. Man born in a similar year. I was
connected to them. You know. I would send them. They

(01:27:30):
couldn't send letters. So that's all making Keiths met because
they had chess. One of one of them at Chess
records on the subway and then one saw the other
and started talking. But but anyway, that's what they told me.
So I said, you know, I called Mick River. I said,
you know company has been soul and depressed. I heard, uh,

(01:27:52):
you are also having a situation with your label. I
think there's something we could do together. Oh Marshall, I
loved I come to you call where to talk? To you,
but I just had my passport held for having feather
means in the London airport. Could you come to London?
I said, yeah, I'll come in the next two weeks.
He had this great woman running his office and named
Joe Bergman, an American, so she, you know, she knew

(01:28:16):
I was coming. And two weeks later I went to London.
I was familiar. I had been to London probably twenty
times by then, you know, setting up the stuff, and
I knew where to stay. And so I went to
London and I called her up and I said, a
Marshall Chess, I'm here. Had my meeting with Mack. She said,
well mix in Ireland writing and I rip flipped out

(01:28:36):
what the means? And I he told me to come here. Well,
I'll talk call them and tell him you're here. I
was really upset, you know, My ego was upset, you know.
But sure enough, two or three days later he came
to London. We had our meeting and he said, come
to my house on Cheney Walk. I don't know if
you know London. Cheney Walk is fabulous. It's on the river,

(01:28:57):
these beautiful brownstones. I to each house today is probably
worth and her fifteen million. You know, he's gorgeous old
right on the river though in Chelsea, so near the
King's Road. So uh, I go to mixed house. I'm
a little nervous, you know, I'm wearing but I'm wearing
already my I've already switched from the suit and tight

(01:29:19):
chest g O Levi, you know Levi's. I was in
my more modern, you know, sixties gear and the Mick
take took me up to his sitting room and blew
me away. Man, I'm from Chicago, from the Midwest, uncultured.
This guy at antiques or yell rugs. It was. I
never paneled walls, you know. But he had this long table,

(01:29:44):
the couch and this long table. And I immediately laughed
because he treated LPs like me badly out in the cover,
piled scratched, you know, he treated him badly as a
record player. And he goes up to the table. I'm
in the couch and he puts on Lift Engineer, which
is a zydical from the Bayou, New Orleans. He puts
on black Snake Blues and he comes in front of

(01:30:06):
me and he starts doing that like a dance back
and forth while we're talking, and I'm thinking, like, my
father's this guy's nervous. Well, you know, I knew he was.
He was nervous. You know. They looked at me like
if I was, you were a car dealer and I
Henry ford Son came in. Come on, they got their
name from Chess record from Rolling Stone, Muddy Waters, come on,
you know they named you know, they named the track

(01:30:28):
an Instrumentale twenty after our address. You know. So my
relationship with them was a whole other kind of weirdness,
you know, based on just whatever. Uh. But I was
a real record man. Man. They were lucky motherfucker's to
get me. It was. I was at the top of
my game, you know, and and there weren't guys like
me many around if any and I think they knew it.

(01:30:51):
I was. So you know, my plan was to become
the seventh or eighth Rolling Stone. You know, I had
a whole and I wanted a label, you know. But anyway,
I said, well we can former label. We we like Atlantic,
but we had offers from Columbia and all these other
epic They knew about Atlantic. They didn't know Ahmed then yet,
they hadn't met Ahmed or anyone but they knew about

(01:31:11):
the music on Atlantic. They loved it. Um anyway, well,
I went to mix, so he says, we's dances and okay,
he said, why don't you go down there down the street.
Keith lives right down the street, right on Cheney Walk.
Go over to Keith and tonight you'll come with us
to meet everyone and we have a rehearsal tonight. We
have a rehearsal room in East London, the poorer section

(01:31:32):
of London, their original probably rehearsal room. So I said, great.
If I walked down, I knock on keys doors and
he's got a some Italian like butler, older guy, you know,
house man answers, oh keys upstairs. I go up to steps,
same kind of house, walk up the steps and there's
Keith with Graham Parsons, you know, the famous country rock guy.

(01:31:54):
They're at this yellow or psychedelics sort of like the Beatles.
Piano all yet wasn't it was a styway but painted weird.
They they were playing together and singing, and I sit
down and how Martha did they They commence about how
I was dressed because they saw me from the key,
had seen me in Chicago, sharp dressed man, you know,

(01:32:15):
the suit to tie the whole thing. Then they had
a joke about it. Anyway, I went with them that night.
I was in the car and I'll tell you how
naive I was. We're going to East London and uh,
I see in every building there's a glow in the window,
And I said, what's that fucking glow? Man? Don't you
know what that is? A poor people who have to

(01:32:35):
put money at to keep the heaters going tenpence, fivepence
whatever in And all those glowes were heaters, and you know,
in the living room was winter. So and we get
to the rehearsal room and it's down in the basement
and it's funky, but all they had drums that all
set up, you know, to play and guess what's on
the column? My Electric Mud album opened up with a big,

(01:32:57):
you know pick of muddy and white rope. That is
my omen this is the ship, you know. And I
went back to Chicago and I told them a why
I at the time, I was good friends with the winners.
Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco. I had met
them on my alternative. You know, I needed for all

(01:33:17):
my albums for that concept that was a great They
were important. I remember if you subscribe to Rolling Stone,
you got a free copy Electric Mud. Okay, there you go,
you got it. So I even I think I spent
one night on Jan's couch. You know, I knew him well.
I loved them, you know, and we loved each other.
We had They introduced me to Donny and Mitchell the

(01:33:38):
first all the big alternative radio guys in San Francisco.
I had driven around the country these alternative stations. You
could come in with your album. They would like to
joint and put your album on right on the air,
you know, and sit around and played. It was great anyway.
I U Jane and Joan Winner managed an artist called
Boscags and Um. They had one album on Atlantic, which

(01:34:02):
was a flop, and then the contract ended with one
record deal. I said, I wanted this is before when
I thought I was gonna start my own label. I said,
I could, I want to. I want to sign bos He's.
They took me to see him with his band in
this little club. He was just great. We hit it
off immediately and uh he he even drove me to

(01:34:23):
the airport. And because it was the psychedelic there was
you probably remember your old enough. The Bible of the sixties.
The first psychedelic was the Teachings of Don Juan Carlos Costaada.
Boz Scags gave me the manuscript. He knew it from
Berkeley when he got it. That's where the Carlos Costnada
was the professor at Berkeley. He gave me the manuscript

(01:34:46):
of that book and we drive me and I dropped
me at the airport. He was gonna do what the
point is? Then I didn't get the money. Then all
that collapsed. I knew I couldn't have a label, but
I told the Stones that I had to know in
two weeks because I I'll tell you, I'm embarrassed. They'll
probably hear this. I told him that I had Texas millionaires.
That's what I thought was a good line to give

(01:35:08):
to back my label. And I was gonna have Boss
Gaggs as an artist, but I would like to work
with them. You gotta let me know in two weeks.
And like I said, had this bad marriage. I was
living in Lake Forest, Illinois and uh with my wife
and on the believe it or not, on the fourteenth day,
I got a weather a Yellow Western Union telegram saying
we want to make a deal, come to London, and

(01:35:31):
that's how it began. I came to London. I met
Prince Rupert, the guy they had hired to handle their
financial problems, and he didn't know nothing about the record business.
I got them to hire Allan Arrow introduced Prince Rupert.
He he owned, He was a partner in a merch
a private merchant bank called Leopold Josephin's Sons. So yeah,

(01:35:51):
that's how how all that began. And then they never
wanted the manager of the Rolling Stones that because they
got burnt by Alan Kline. He owns to this day
that they he's now, but they owned the masters and
publishing of all those early great tunes. Um. And then
years later we found that he had even that he
was even he had the Stones lawyer on his payroll.

(01:36:11):
It was all set up, you know. Anyway aside from that, um,
you know, uh, we want they wanted to go forward,
and we did and we made the deal with Atlantic.
That was a fabulous experience because it was Ahmed er Agan,
Mike Matt Mayor in the same building was their lawyer.
And that was Atlantic was on Broadway before the w

(01:36:33):
e a you know, and I knew Ahmed. He was
at my bar Mitzvah. I'm a you know they I
had a star. I had Sam Phillis from San Ahmed.
They were you know, he was there, Jerry Wexler, whom
I never really liked, but I was filt. He was
an elitist to look down upon my parents and my uncle.

(01:36:53):
He looked at them like they were peasants. Anyway, aside
from that, um he so anyway, saw that went down.
I I started with the stones. They sent me the telegram.
I went. I met Prince Rupert. We we could close
the London Decade deal. I had to bring them all
the tracks. Sir Edward lewis one of the inventors of Radar.

(01:37:14):
He was the head of London Decca. I went with
Patty Grafton Green. He was an assistant lawyer of Miss Stacey,
the big guy he was like she was the dean
of the lawyers in London. Patty Grafton Green is now
one of the biggest entertainment lawyers in England. If you
still if you still not retire. Um. We went to
the meeting. We had to bring I had to bring

(01:37:35):
because at the deal with London Decca was the Stones
had to give them all the stuff recorded during while
they were signed. So we went through all the tapes
and got basically made a big reel of Grade B songs.
But then Mick decided to stick it up their ass
and he did that song called cock Sucker Blues. You know,

(01:37:56):
I don't know can I sing the lyric on your show?
Where could I? I'm a strangery? Where can I get
my cock sucked? You know? Where can I get my
ass fucked? I'm a stranger in town? That should be
a gay anthem right now, you know? Anyway, aside from that,
um they when they heard that, they flipped all these
stuffy Englishmen they played that. You know, that was a

(01:38:18):
classic pardiographed in Green has told people he was shocked himself.
He remembers I remember reading where he said he remembered
walking across the bridge after that meeting and shocked. But
that's how that ended. And then we made the deal
with Atlantic and it was a great deal. I asked
for a dollar. I was really I was very much,
very much a key element in that first deal because

(01:38:40):
I knew the record business more than any of them.
Im I didn't know the record business. The big argument
was I wanted the dollar an album and they said
that was impossible because they lie. They didn't know. I
letter I worked the press. They're gonna tell me I
will cost to make a record, So I knew I
won im and was sweating with his white ten dollar
salta handkerchiefs on his ballhead. He was president and I

(01:39:02):
was saying this, But we ended up getting a dollar
an album and uh form Rolling Stones Records. Okay, before,
just for one second, rumor is you took less money
from Atlantic in advance to be in Atlantics. That true? No,
not true, not in my mind. No. We never even
no negotiated any further with anyone. That was it. That

(01:39:25):
was it in my mind. I mean, you know, maybe
Prince Rupert got an offer from Depic and that, you know,
maybe I forgot it and we decided to forget it.
I wanted Atlantic because they were my friends. You know,
they were an India. I could work with them. You know,
I didn't want to go. I hate the majors that
hate him to this day. You know, I don't hate them.

(01:39:46):
I mean, I'm an Indie. I liked it. I don't
like the board of people twenty opinions. I'm not like that.
I still am not right now. I mean, you know,
I'm a different So I never wanted to be involved
with the Majors. Um. I just like the end and
we were just a very warm, symbiotic, wonderful relationship. Okay,

(01:40:06):
so the first record, The Stones put out a Sticky Fingers,
which is bigger than anything that I worked I worked
out before you had before it. Wait, wait, before you
get there was part of your deal that you would
put out records yourself or we were gonna have Rolling
Stones Records, and I was gonna be able to I
owned a part of Rolling Stones Records that we were

(01:40:26):
gonna have other artists. We had even talked about putting
giving Jimmy Jimmy Hendricks. He he was available outside of
the US, and we talked about putting him, giving him
his own logo like the Stones head and that, you know,
he was so special. And then he died. I remember
being in Rotterdown when we heard the news that he died.

(01:40:47):
So that ended. But but then what happened is they
realized they had no money, Dad Alan, they had nothing.
They had these big corporate checkbooks in their minds They
thought that may own those companies because they had these
corporate chef which they could write checks. They owned their
houses and cars, but they didn't own their own ship
at all. And it ended up that they had no

(01:41:09):
money even for a living. They were broke. So Prince Rupert,
we had, you know, when we realized all that, they
called me in and said, there can't be either artists
on the label. There's no money and you have to this.
We'll let you out. I had a contract. There was
a Mike Tannon, a great music lawyer. He was an
assistant lawyer at the Arrow Ornstein firm and he was

(01:41:32):
a lawyer learning, a young lawyer. He became my lawyer.
Later he was Paul Simon lawyer. I mean he you know,
he really worked. He became a big music lawyer. Um.
But uh yeah, they said, we'll let you out of
your contract. We can't have a label, but you could stay.
You know you want to stay, you know with the
Stones you could do what you could do, what you want.

(01:41:53):
We'd love you to stay. And I said, I'm staying.
That's rock and roll. I'm loving it, you know, I'm
loving I'm about around the world and meeting famous artists
and people I never even dreampt about authors artists. Uh.
Their crowd was amazing for you know, sub Royalty Pipe,
the Guinness kids, you know, oh they they they you know,

(01:42:15):
they had a lot of starfuckers around them. Um anyway,
uh yeah, So I decided to stay and I made
that my life. Man, I made that my life. I
I in my mind that was the seventh or eighth
Rolling Stone. I went on the plane. I still lived
at Key's house. I stayed with make it Mozart's house
in the south of France. Um. I was like, you know,

(01:42:37):
part of the family for those years. Uh. Then towards
the end, drugs got involved, which you know, which sort
of tell everything. And then I quit because I quit.
I quit because the quitting story is just this, you know,
I just it was time to change channels. I was
very embarrassed about my drug problems, and my drug problems

(01:42:59):
I can't and you know, years later I did. I
was lucky enough to take when I was trying to
kick all the drugs. I ended up getting turned onto
one of the fathers of LSD psychotherapy, which is now
in vogue. Um. And he saw me a year before
he took acid with me. He took it with me

(01:43:20):
and Harry hermone You could look him up. There's a
couple of things online. Dr hermone Um. He said, I'll
lead you to why you like that ship? It was
all because he sold the company. Oh my god. I
mean I had all that subconscious, deep pain, you know,
because he took away my legacy, took it away. You know.

(01:43:40):
I went back to that meeting being the record businesses
as years and this called me up and saying we're
selling it, you know that. But something that really affected
me in a horrible pain, in a deep well of pain.
But once I realized that that's what why I like drugs,
that was the pain I was killing, I dumped it instantly.
It was very good. That was a great I mean

(01:44:03):
it was shocking how once you realize the seed of something,
how it becomes irrelevant, you know. But yeah, so that
that that I left the Stones mainly because I I would.
I didn't like myself. I didn't talk to my uncle
for three years. I was embarrassed, you know, I was embarrassed.
You know, it was not my you know what I
went and it was bad. I was killing pain that

(01:44:25):
didn't even know what it was. And uh so that ended.
And then I, you know, I went out with arc
music in my life and all kinds of other new things.
But that was a great I would do it again,
even with the drugs. That was great, a great experience.
The Stones have nothing to do. The only thing the
Stones did was uh because the drugs were around everyone.
Every record executive was collapsing with cocaine, are you kidding?

(01:44:48):
I went to fifty dinners with guys, would go to
the bathroom, know when we'd eat the food to to
you know, if you still you know. So it wasn't
just me, you know, but U being around the Stones
and all the group He's constantly bringing you know. And
then I lived with Keith. But I have no blaming
them what's or ever? You know, in a way, in
a way I have. In fact, I don't even regret

(01:45:09):
my drug period. I grew in it because I beat it,
you know. So it's like climbing mountain evers that changes
you too, you know. Um yeah, I don't regret it.
Um was it was a waste, but I managed to
have all number one records, you know, and uh, okay,
so the first record is Sticky Fingers, which is certainly

(01:45:30):
a great record. To what degree were a record? To
what degree were you involved in that when you and
to what degree were you responsible for the success? I
think I was, but you know who knows it's my
own ego. Probably yeah, I was totally one and two

(01:45:50):
involved with that record. It's my first taste of takeout
Indians though the Olympic Studios Glynn John's um No, it
was a great record. In fact that later recently, after
forty nine years in my car, for the last two years,
I've already been playing music. I go in my car
for rides in the mountains. I only play what I,
my family or me have been associated with for two

(01:46:12):
years straight, only for memories. It's shocking when I played
the Stone but started with it was the sixtieth anniversary
of Exile on Main Street and BBC did a big,
you know, production show on it. They called me up.
They said, well, there's already a handful of guys that
were alive now that we're around that you know um
And I said, well, I haven't played the fucker in

(01:46:34):
forty nine years. So I had I had a brand
new vinyl coffee and I still love the speakers in
my living room now that I auditioned that album for
in l A at my house on San Marco Drive.
They were Stevie Wonders speakers that I had rented from
Westlake Studio because he had returned them because his new
girlfriend didn't like the way they looked in his house.

(01:46:55):
So I had rented them for this promo party, and
I dragged. I still have my ended up by him.
But I got in my living room and I blasted Exile,
and I was shocked. I wanted to call Keith. I'm
gonna still talk to him about it because it's brilliant.
I'm just so thrilled that I was even involved in
Sticky Fingers and Exile. Those are brilliant records, you know.

(01:47:16):
And I ended up driving around getting you know, eighty
miles an hour in my car, blessing them, you know.
But I hadn't played him in almost fifty years and
they held up great, you know. Um. But yeah, I
was totally involved with Atlantic with the cover, you know,
getting that zipper cover made. It was highly complex. Luckily,
one of my best friends who sold me album Stickers

(01:47:37):
in Chicago was a guy named Craig Braun who was
the father of the custom album cover, the Andy Warhol
Banana Cheaching, Cheaching, Chong, Big Bamboo, all those custom covers.
So it was craigging another competitor. They were, you know.
Next we gave it to Craig for me. I asked
next week. I told him Craig was a friend of mine,
you gotta give it to him. He did, and we

(01:47:59):
had We had a lot of trouble. We had to
get garment district people to put the zipper in. Then
we did test shipments and the zipper, the zipper and
up was causing a hitting the groove. Then we had
to get all the on zippers unzipped so would be
on the label parn. It was complex and we paid.
I paid Andy Warrel five thousand bucks for that design,

(01:48:21):
but we had a convert it to make it, you know,
and Mike introduced me to Andy. Those are the kind
of people I was meeting man, Andy Warhol, Man Ray
in Paris, you know, all for album covers. He's famous.
They all wanted to do stones covers. Hitler's filmmaker Lenny
Russian stock She I went to talk to her. Yeah,

(01:48:43):
so you know that I was involved with the making
of the album. Then with the logo of the tongue
and lips. Yeah, all that, that was all the beginning.
That was I was. I lived it. It was twenty
four hours a day. I and uh, I you know
I was. That was my I looked at myself then
as a rolling stone and that was my job. That

(01:49:05):
was my instrument. I wanted to be as good as them. Huh.
The big victory lap was the seventy two tour. There
was unbelievable publicity. What do you remember about that other
than playing with Stevie Wonder, etcetera. It was great. It
was remember the birthday mixed birthday with Stevie Wonder. I
I set that up because again you know again it's

(01:49:29):
it's my ego. But Youret Abner was the president of Motown.
You know who that is? You were? He was the president.
He was the president of VEJ. I knw him from Chicago.
He was another one of those high society Chicago black people.
And but we were good friends. We used to go
to Bat's Jewish restaurant, meet there all the time, once
or twice a week when he was at VJ. But

(01:49:50):
he lost VJ Las Vegas shooting craps. You know, I
knew him well. He was when I got picked up
the award of the Rocketroll Hall of Fame, my father,
he was the presenter. I asked for him to be
the prisoner. He was a good friend. But I went
to him. I said, let's do a double fucking album.
Get Stevie on the tour. He's never been exposed to
the Stones audience, and we'll do a double album. And

(01:50:13):
I made a deal to do it, and we did,
and it fell through at the very end. They backed out.
Atlantic couldn't do it. It was it was gonna be
a double albument. It was in production and ready you know.
Uh and that never happened. But uh, yeah, so that
you know, so that that was a great tour the whole.
It was just so exciting that on that tour you

(01:50:34):
had Jackie o' nascius's sister, you had Truman Capponi. Oh,
Truman Capponi, who hated me. He said I had fat
Jewish thighs. He hated me because where where did he write? Where? What?
What stay? Was in Oklahoma or Kansas? Where that was?
You know, Kansas, Kansas. Yeah, so when we played in Kansas,

(01:50:56):
he was there, of course, and he wanted to come
right on the edge of the stage and I stopped him,
and he hated me for that, and then I'm that
tour he came. He came to New Orleans and Keith
Richards and Bobby Keys Pete all over his hotel room,
so he stepped on it when he opened his door.
He was in love with Bobby Keys. He wanted that.

(01:51:19):
You know, I remember we're all in the same hotel
in New Orleans. Yeah, Truman, Campodi, Peter Beard with the photographer. UM,
so many people. Uh you know the thing about uh
you know I got I would get to get tickets
I got so they bullshit you. Those people I got
invited once to um it wasn't Jackie Ones? Is their sister?

(01:51:43):
What was her name? Lee? Yeah, she was married to
Peter Beard, the photographer, and I had gone to see
him about covers. He was in Africa then shooting elephants
and girafts and uh so I got a call from
Archy said we're having a party of cock tail party.
Do you want to come by? I said, oh, my god,
who's gonna be there? And then she said, oh, by

(01:52:05):
the way, we get backstage passes. You know, that's how
they operate so I got invited to the party, but
I had to get them passes. That whole crowd, you know,
and so what have you know? That's we were. We
wrote a song about them, starfuckers, that they're about them.
We had too we they don't even know. We had

(01:52:25):
two dressing rooms. We had one for the starfuckers who
thought they were in the backstage, and another hidden one
where the real friends hung out. What happened to the
movie Cocksucker Blues? What happened? It got? Well, oh no,

(01:52:48):
that's a whole this could be another whole show for you.
So the Stones introduced me. Mick and Keith say, had
I ever seen a book called The Americans? No fucking way,
am and you from Chicago. I'm not looking at photography books.
What's the Americans? They pulled it, they showed me. I
think it was Keith who showed me. It's a it's

(01:53:09):
Robert Frank on the glowing with Jack carolluact the famous
beating Nick and it's a it's on the road his
famous book. And Robert Frank travels with him and comes
out with a code book called the Americans, which are
all black and white. So he says, uh, we why
don't we get Robert Frank to do the cover the
Exile and Main Street cover. Um, it would be great,

(01:53:32):
look at it, look at his photographs, you know. So
I tracked down Robert Frank in New York and the
bower He lived Bowery, Remember, well, he wasn't amazed. He
was he was one of them. He was probably one
of the most major factors in my own consciousness in life.
We became very close friends. Another Jewish guy a little
older than me. His father was applying Steeler in Zurich

(01:53:53):
or something, you know, Jewish Applian Steeler. He was a
beat nick and he shot the cover with He didn't
use his fancy like anymore. He was shooting instant instant cameras,
not Kodak, I mean Code acted when they first came
out with thirty five millimeter point and shoot. He was
using that and so he he uh, you know, he

(01:54:16):
shot the cover and the Stones loved all the shots.
My pictures on it. Twice. I'm on that cover, you know,
which is amazing. My daughter she was a big blow
up of it, you know. Uh in our house was
my little like wouldn't recognize me then, But yeah, I
became very close with Robert Frank, and then we were
in l A. And then they said, well, why don't

(01:54:36):
we do a movie? And I said, great man, they
had seen that my Bodiddley movie I told you I
made in sixty two. Not only did they see it,
Ian Ian Stewart their manager, their original member and piano
player and road manager. He got a played on BBC
two and you know one time and so you know, hey,

(01:55:00):
I said, what a movie. Pretty, I'll I'll let's do that.
You know, I'll talk to Robert Frank, but I already
talked him about the cover and he loved the idea
because he's you know, we just loved it. Was another
going on tour with the Rolling Stones. He had all
kinds of ideas. Super eight cameras just came out. We'll
give each member of Super eight they can shoot. We'll
edit it all later. You know what they shoot? When

(01:55:21):
I shoot, I want to use Danny Seymour, who's also
got a fabulous book. Father is famous Broadway photographer Seymour.
If you go to any of those places, the black
and whites of all the Broadway characters. Seymour was married
to a socialite from Cape. You know, from Rima Kennedy's
Hyanna supporters somewhere. He was an unusual guy. We also

(01:55:44):
became he was a junkie though, and Robert said, he's
a junkie. I want to use him a second camera
and sound. Um, I want to use him. But he's
a junkie. But I'm sure he'll he'll clean up. I'll
get him to clean up. So I meet Danny Seymour
and I make a deal. I go to Warner's film
I forget the old guy there. Oh god, I can't

(01:56:05):
remember that. Anyway, I made a deal. Uh were they paid?
I think it was a hundred thousand dollar advance for
first refusal rights to the film and um, which they
ended up refusing actually, but at the time, and we
went out and we went and made the film, and uh,

(01:56:26):
you know it was It was amazing. Although as we
beat the tour began, Robert became disenchanted more and more
with the Stones, with the whole life, with the drugs.
Danny went back on drugs. We found the shoes at
the curb. I did some of the sound with Inaugura. Um,
so it became weird. But my main experience told but

(01:56:50):
Robert Frank He used to give me books to re
keep the River on the right. That was the one
that's where about the Amazon. And I ended up going
twice because of that book. When he turned me onto,
you know, to take ayahuasca. He was into it forty
years ago. So Robert Frank turned me on two books, music,
all kinds of hippie. He told me I was fucked up.

(01:57:11):
He said, you are fucked up man. He said, you
don't even know who you are. You know, you know
he saw my construct, this ego centric guy. You know,
yes it was. I was just at the top of
my game of being great, you know. And uh so
in Texas is that we have to do live. We

(01:57:34):
need the live for the we can't do the live soundtrack.
I call up Yoko Ono and John. They had a
film company on White Street in New York because I
use They had a Steve Gibbard. They had a film
crew hit by this guy, Steve grab Gibbard, Bob Bob,
I forget his last name. He mad, if I don't

(01:57:54):
mention it anyway, Um, yeah, you can use the crew.
Just pay him. You know, we're not doing any thing now.
They had some people on weekly salary whatever a camera,
couple of cameraman whatever. So they came to Texas, and
I knew that that's the way the Stones work is
by the third or fourth gig on a tour, the

(01:58:16):
set is the sets locked, so it's the same every night,
like a Broadway play. It's exact. I mean Midnight Raveler,
he's whipping the floor. It's exact. It's exact. And I
knew that, you know, I was fascinated by that. Actually,
the whole construction of the tour. How we used to
talk after the first one and and I love that

(01:58:38):
I was being involved in something creative and new, and
I just loved it. Anyway, we would talk about it
and uh, and okay, we do the same set every night.
So when we did Texas, I said, I have an idea,
Steve Gebhard, the two cameraman, give them headsets with me,
and I'll tell them every mixed coming out in one

(01:59:00):
in it and kneel down so they know where to
aim their cameras. It was like me calling the shots
because I knew that that I did that the set
ends in Dallas or Houston. We had two gigs. We're
recording with a live truck, you know, live mobile. I
get out to get in our limo with my crew,
the Yoko Ono crew. Right. We had two big black

(01:59:23):
security guys there. Uh, I don't know. I can't remember
their name. At the moment um, it will come to me.
Although it's not important. This one guy steps in front
of me, Man, this is our car. You can't this
isn't for your car. He was, you know, he and
I lost my temper at him, completely lost my temper.
Motherfucker's his micro Okay that and then we ended up

(01:59:46):
getting a car. We left three or four days later.
In those days, it wasn't like video. You you shot,
you sent the negative to the New Yorker somewhere, they'd
send you Russia's back in two days, and you look
at what you got. Robert Franks has come out in
this room, Marshall. I go in the room. He's got
a projector and there's a little speed. He's looking at
the rushes, you know. He says, sit down, and he

(02:00:09):
hits the button, and it's me losing my temper. Without audio,
my face was ugly, like the devil, like a monster.
Close up of me in full a temper tantrum. Yeah,
I couldn't even took me five times to look at it.
That bloom. I mean, I can't tell you. It affected
my whole life from that moment on, you know. And

(02:00:30):
uh so he did stuff like that that he was
like my surro good father. I went to just to
go see him in the Bowery. We did the editing
in the bar. We rented our own table, uh you know,
with a couple of local kids that he hired to
do the editing. Then the Stones were in. Uh So
the first edit, I was involved in the editing. And
you know, no one knew what he got. He's the
father of realism. We got we were taking people with

(02:00:53):
debbing sex, the doctor on the plane, the baggage guy
eating pussy with the girl on his shoulders on the plane.
I'm recording it. You know, we had that. No one
knew what it was gonna be. So we were in Munich, Germany,
and I came from New York with a you know,
with a reel of film sixteen millimeter I guess whatever.
I think it was super sixteen or sixteen. And they

(02:01:14):
sat in this screening room and I put it on.
They hated they, oh my god, they didn't like it.
They felt like I did, seeing myself losing my temper.
They didn't like a lot of it. There was some
stuff with me, you know, they we they just didn't
like it. So they wanted a lot of edits and
you know, they said what they wanted, and Ahmed would say,

(02:01:35):
cut out. There was pictures of armed snorting and smoking.
Cut that out, please, I beg you, Marshall, I did.
I threw it on the floor for him. He went
to my Missville, I want to you know, Uh, no
one wanted to be be shot that way, you know,
and uh so then so then you know, there was
a whole scene about the film and they didn't you know,

(02:01:56):
they didn't want it out. They thought it was you know,
it showed too much drugs and him watch weirdness and
even though it was highly real. But I will admit
Robert frank and he admitted this to me. He as
he became more malcontent with the tour, his the way
he edited and shot became malcontent. In other words, he
left out the Magnificent seven ship, all the fun, all

(02:02:18):
the laughter. He left a lot of that out. You know,
we were having a good time, you know, um the
group he's uh, the music, he left a lot out.
He got more into the how fucked it was, you know,
the whole Rolling Stones just it wasn't that healthy to him.
What it was the opposite of the beat nick thing.
You know. He didn't like it, um, but he knew

(02:02:39):
it was a great document. He liked the film because
he was real, you know. But so the Stones own
that they had the right warners refused on the option.
There was a four grand I had a four hundred grand.
I own percent of that film. I had a four
grand recoupment. Now that same guy did uh that. I

(02:03:01):
hired my buddy from my dad's advertiser. He's from Robin
Binzer who did Rotary Connection name and all that. He
called me up. He said, let me make a music
film out of what Yoko. You know what what Yoko
and Gubbard shot. We'll call it, Ladies and gentlemen, the
Rolling Stones will make two films. I talked to the Stones. Yeah,
great idea first music film. We'll tour it with. We're

(02:03:26):
gonna open it in New York at the zig Field.
We're gonna have a rock concert sound system. And because
of Alan there oh three m Game was the first
stereo music track on our ladies and gentlemen. I can
remember that I went to the grand opening and Robins
sold it to this guy Miles, you could look it up.

(02:03:48):
He sold it to a guy who blew it into
this distribution of it and he couldn't you know, the
guy blew it and the and the ladies and gentlemen
thing collapsed. And so the Stones didn't want cock Sucker out.
They made a deal. They could only be shown at
art like the Museum of Modern Art has shown it
numerous times. It could be shown as film art with

(02:04:09):
Robert Franken attendance, you know, not commercially, not on HBO.
I've heard HBO offered am in advanced for it. I've
heard that I don't know, um in the meantime um
a video when when videos VHS and all that was
the big thing video but you know, Blockbuster and all that.
A company just wanted to buy ladies and gentlemen the

(02:04:31):
music part, and we sold it to him and they
paid a million bucks. So I recouped the four hundred
and I got my ten percent on the six hunter. Okay,
what comes around goes around, and someday my kids will
get money for Cocksucker. When it's on HBO because it
will be you know, once they can't get suit and
they were all dead, you know, I mean there's a

(02:04:51):
lot of ship in there. Because I didn't know, I
didn't get a lot a lot of it was my
fault as producer. It was impossible to get releases. Willie
the baggage man, and with the girl on his shoulder
on the plane eating her, he wasn't gonna sign it
re lease. He had a white and kids. You know, uh,
you know there was there was a tour doctor who
was a sex maniac. He would have cards, white cards

(02:05:14):
with the Rolling Stones logo the tongue, and he looked
for the prettiest girls in the audience. And he's right.
And then we in every city, we'd have our own suite.
We'd want on a neutral suite called we We. We'd
make it Mr White or Mr Yellow case anyone busted
us would been under no one's name because of drugs
or anything. So yes, So this guy, Larry, I don't

(02:05:36):
gotta say his name, but the doctor um, he would
hand our cards to all these pretty girls. You'd say,
you want to meet the Stones, come to this suite
at midnight or some got girls that were there on dates.
He would maybe give out twenty cards. Five or six
would show up. It was shocking to meet nicker Keith
or to screw him, you know, and they were never around.
Sometimes they would take one. I was all this doctor

(02:05:58):
would have his sweet pickings and would say, well, I
would introduce you if you uh, you know, it was
a trip. It was really a bizarre That tour was bizarre.
And then the wives all came to visit us in Canada.
It was crazy. But uh, you know the whole that
whole scene was crazy. That was the epitome of the
croupies and you know the claster casts. All that was

(02:06:19):
going on. You know, Um, it was a lot of fun.
That's why I say I would do it all over again,
you know if I had to. But I'm glad I left.
Well you're there, Mick Taylor's replacement guitarists. He ultimately leaves,
and you know what was really going on amongst the band,
bill Wan, what was going on was Mick Taylor. Uh,

(02:06:41):
you know, Mick Taylor. They got Mick Taylor because he's
just so fucking brilliant of a guitarist and in my opinion,
as a record producer. It was the best overall Stone
sound because he played a less Paul, he played a
whole other style of lead guitar and Keith he Uh.

(02:07:02):
They they coexisted. Beautiful they're playing together, his his lead
and mixed rhythm. Uh and mixed mix, I mean mix
mixed lead and Keith's rhythm. To me as a record producer,
it was just genius. Those tracks are brilliant and but
he couldn't take it. He couldn't take the pressure of
being a rolling Stone. And he had a wife, Rose,

(02:07:25):
who was very incestuous with other members, and I think
it totally destroyed a lot of his something he did
not like being a rolling Stone. I remember one time
he froze his his shoulders with freeze and he eventually quit.
I went to Robert Stigwood, Mick and I went to

(02:07:46):
Robert Stigwood's house. Ahmard was there too, and Eric Clapton
and they were all there at this party. Robert Stigwood
gave and we went to Mick Taylor begging him to
not leave, but he said he was leaving. And and
then and then I saw, uh who it was. It
wasn't Mick Taylor. It was someone that was so drunk
and ripped. I'm matsued. It was a terrible but we left.

(02:08:09):
We not you even needed that. That's when and I
hadn't known Ron would We were friends before while rom
when he was in the Faces, Keith in introduced me
to him. We go into his house. He had his
own little studio. But Keith and Ron would they play
a similar style? They're both brilliant, you know. In fact,
if I wanted, if I wanted to get into it,
I have a great idea to produce them. Now. Then

(02:08:32):
I have an idea for two rhythms that I have
a great but I don't know if I want to
get into it. But I just with them again. But uh,
I do have a concept that you know, and it
doesn't matter who the vocalist is. Just I have a
great idea because I always felt they never took advantage
of their similarity. Uh, and I thought they could do
some amazing stuff if they if it was just directed right, Okay,

(02:08:54):
so it ends with the stones. How do we get
to today? How long does it take to pick yourself up?
And what do you want to do there after? Oh?
It ends with the stones. Yeah, it ends with the
Stones and I I, uh quit the Stones. They were upset.
They thought, I'm You're quitting because of us. I said, no,
I'm not quit because of me. And I knew I

(02:09:15):
wanted to stop the drugs. I'd tried many times during
the last year and a half of the Stones, I
had tried drugs stopping and failed. Went back, you know,
stop went back, very difficult being around Keith who also
was stopping, going back, stopping tour. It was difficult, um,
And so I knew what happened is I uh. The

(02:09:37):
ending scenario is uh, I would buy methodone from on
the black market in New York, and I knew a druggist.
We all knew this druggist who uh yeah, he was
part of us. We knew this druggist was a Rolling
Stones groupie. And he would put it in a bottle
and make with a label like it was a Vitamin
C tonic because I would get sick, you know, I

(02:09:58):
was snorting heroin and stuff. And we were in Montrose, Switzerland,
and Uh, I went to fancy five star hotel and
I went to in the morning, I woke up feeling horrible.
I went to the maybe after I opened that bottle
and I drank it and I looked in the mirror.
That was it. That night I quit. I saw myself
all that acid. I guess did something Robert Frank. I

(02:10:21):
saw myself the way I really was at that moment,
and I quit. That night I went we all went
to Remember in the hotel room, telling him I was leaving.
I said, otherwise I'm gonna die. It's not what I
can't be here anymore. It's time. This w chapters and
they said, oh, it's our not our fault. That's what
I remember. It's not your fault, obviously. And I left.

(02:10:42):
And then I came back to New York and I
was having a hard time. I used to get seventy
phone calls to day all the Ksano it was zero one.
You know, no longer the guy. You know. That's what
you learned when you're with the Stones. It's never about you.
That's the part that destroys you. It's only about them.
They make you think it's about you to get to them,

(02:11:03):
but you gets easy to get sucked into that. Yeah,
So once that was taken away. So anyway, I during
one of the last Stone store, I had met a
cocaine smuggler who lived in Bearsville, New York, couple where
I lived now near Woodstock. Not a dealer, smuggler, you know.
And his deal was he would supply drugs basically to

(02:11:24):
Keith and me for front row tickets of every concert.
He carried it from gig to gig in Europe. So
that was great. You know. We also once had a
C I X C I. A guy hearing it, you
don't know it wants to get busted. So anyway, I
went up to I called the guy up. I said,
come you know, I'm coming on board and come come

(02:11:44):
up here, man, come up you know. So I drove
up from New York to Bearsville and I uh, I
was meeting the Woodstock Times. It was an ad for
this house I'm sitting in now, and I said, man,
I need a place to change my you know, it
was time to shift, to really get in a whole
get back to my spiritual and the whole thing. And

(02:12:06):
I just said, I want to see that how something
about it? And I spent spent overnight on holiday in
in Kingston, New York. I came up here the next day,
was sort of dilapidated. It's on built a hundred years
old on ten acres of land. It was built by
the people that owned the Align Electric Chain Company back
in the twenties. They had money. Heated floor in the bedroom,

(02:12:27):
but old time, hundred years you know. And I bought
it to uh I was I was divorced by then
from my for the bad marriage. I bought it. This
was where I was gonna clean up and change my life,
kept back to nature, and I did. That's what happened,
and I met my wife in the city and we
ended up moving here. But it took me a long time.
That's when I went through the whole therapy, the LSD psychotherapy.

(02:12:51):
I I was going to a psychiatrist in Manhattan named
Joe Gross and he said to me, you know, I'm
just not doing it with you it. There's a brilliant guy,
the father of LSD psychedelics, coming from Austin, Texas. He's
the Russian Jew Polish Jew, Harry Hermone coming in New York.
He had to leave Texas. I didn't know why then,

(02:13:13):
but he had to leave for some stupid read. He
had the first marijuana licensed federal in America nineties sixties
for CBD, invented CBD to grow pop for sleeping. He
was that brilliant. He's a pharmacologist, like you know, full
brilliant psychiatrist. Um anyway, um so he said, this guy's coming.

(02:13:33):
And Harry Hermon did not like private patients. He got
a job at King's County, the largest psychiatric hospital I
think in America in the in New York, and he
was in forensic. He had he did this slasher of
Staten Island. He did criminals and his own clients with
Lou reading me. That was it two junkies. There was

(02:13:56):
already clients. And uh he saw me for a year. Man.
You know, Nanny took acid with me and that we
became friends. You know. He ended up moving to Israel.
He's dead now. Um So that's how all that stopped.
But in the meantime, I had the house up here,
and um I met my I met my wife, who
was a school teacher, and you know, my life changed.
I had kids. Everything changed then when my my mother

(02:14:19):
had inherited and my mother died. She had inherited my
father's share of Arc Music, which was the Chess Records
publishing that was run by Gene Goodman. That Harry Goodman's
brother you know another mont of Benny Goodman's brothers in
New York that was through Alan Arrow and those people.
But we knew nothing of copyrighting Publishing International. The original

(02:14:41):
deal though, was they only owned the Chess publishing for
not Chess records. In other words, anything they got European anything,
other labels cover records. But when Chess was sold, they
had the windfalls getting it all then, you know, because
when Chess was so, that ended. So they owned it
and uh, you know, they was doing great all the

(02:15:03):
you know, all the advertising and everything. And my mother
was a partner, and my mother died and willed it
to me. That was a struggle like that guy Jean
Goodman tried to cut me out. I had a break
into the office of this no old Silverman, another big
entertainment lawyer who wrote the He had to admit that
I was had the right to inherit my mother's share,

(02:15:26):
and then I became a partner. And then I threw
out Jean Goodman because I called him he was he
had my uncle and him was stealing from my mother
and my uncle didn't even know it. And when I
showed that to my uncle, who were on Santa Monica
Boulevard driving to the Palmer Somewhere, Eddie jammed on the brakes.
He freaked out. He never spoke to me. Pete on

(02:15:48):
him at the Friars Club. He didn't realize that he
made him a partner, that that was such an affront
that he would that he would steal from his brother's wife.
You know, Oh my god, and so ruined their friendship.
They never spoke after I showed him, I spelled it out,
and instead of going to court and suing Genleman, I
told him to go home. I didn't want to start loss.

(02:16:10):
I didn't want it, and I took it over and
I changed it from Madison Avenue to the west Side
Ninth Avenue. Oh, young people, we boomed. I made a
great publishing company. I ran it for twenties, you know,
two until two you know, when I sold it to Fuji,
and now it's owned by BMG. I sold the Fuji

(02:16:31):
Japan UM. But yeah, I made a great company. I
loved that I lived up here. I used to go
to the city and sleep one or two nights a
week in hotels or at an apartment, my mother in
law's apartment. UM, and I raised my kids here. My
wife was a school teacher and uh changed my life
and I met you know so that and now I've
just been working on not becoming me. This is really

(02:16:54):
hard for me. It's against my what youreld Barbara fake,
you know, forget who you are because it's bullshit. It's
just like what the shirt you're wearing. You're much more
than who you are, he taught. They laid a lot
of good ship on me. I've never been happier in
my life. I live in the woods. I walk around
the forest. I still take psychedel was you know, uh
if I can. Mushrooms are now every everyone, every kid

(02:17:16):
I know has a bag of mushrooms. You know. Um,
I smoke pots still. I don't take hard drugs anymore.
I had serious surgery three years ago this month. I
had to learn to walk again. Two years ago. Took
me a year and learned to walk laying on the
couch or a double back surgery. I went down on
a hundred one pounds and it was near death and
something happened again. I can't another indescribable thing. I'm like

(02:17:39):
a weird I get people laughing. I'll get you laughing
because I have a happier. Something happened to me. When
you get near dying, you realize how much time you
waste on bullshit. That happened. That's something happened to me.
I was, you know, on that couch, trying to gain
weight a pine of hog and doze to day. I
couldn't gain I was like the Oshwitz. I looked in

(02:17:59):
the mirror and cried the first time. That's like I
was twelve years old at that way. There's nothing. It
was horrible, but anyway it was. It turned out to
be a positive thing. You hear about that all time
right in life. That weird ship turns out good. And
now I'm I'm enjoying riding around in my car and
I'm gonna talk to keith I I recently. Do you

(02:18:22):
think I have a good memory. I'm gonna tell you
a memory story about the rolling Stones. Does it sound
like an eight year old guye that those has a
good memory talking to you? Yes? I do think you
have a good memory. Okay, I think you want to
hear the story about memory. It's a rolling stone story. So, uh,

(02:18:42):
we're in uh France and in Switzerland, and uh we
have a tour coming up and both Keith and I
are taking hard drugs, heroin um and everything else anything
if you get you know, we like drugs and we
but we knew he had a clean up for the tour.
I wanted to and we had heard about in Marseilles,

(02:19:06):
France there was a drug shortage and they we heard
about this Swiss doctor, Dr Denver, and he said, well,
there was a heroin drought in France and they were
a drug that had been invented by a drug company
in Paris called lucid drill. You could look it up.
It's called many different things, but it was called lucidrill
by a French lady. And uh he wanted to use

(02:19:30):
it on Keith and I for a drug here, and
we said okay, and we took it was injectable and
he gave you barbituous to sleep through the sickness. But
it was mostly this lucid drill. We took hundreds of
these pills, you know, big bottles, and I saw I
had many times three or four cures I took with him,

(02:19:50):
trying three for sure, Keith maybe two or three. And
then it ended, you know, and it didn't cure us.
We went back and I ended up coming here doing
what I told you to cure. But recently I decided
I wonder what happened to that lucid drill. So I
look it up online and it's one of the drugs
given for Alzheimer's to remove plaque in your brain. So

(02:20:13):
I think in our thirties, Keith and I started fresh,
we cleaned out all the ship. I want to call me,
ask him, how's your memory? Because everyone I know tells
me it's shocking my memory. Other eight year olds, you know,
I I and it's true. I I feel that things
come up from way and I'm wondering if that we're laughing,
could it be the lucid drill? You know? And this

(02:20:35):
story and I'm not knowe Marshal, we'll leave it here
for the first chapter. You're a fount of stories well told.
I want to thank you so much for taking the
time to talk to my audience. You asked good questions.
You're good. You're good until next time. This is Bob
left Sex