QLS Classic: Alan Leeds (Part 2)

The former tour manager for James Brown, Prince, KISS, D’Angelo, Maxwell and more returns to QLS for an all new interview about working the Chitlin Circuit with James Brown and the inner workings of the James Brown Revue stage show.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's up, y'all, It's on pay bill here to give
you the latest quest. Love Supreme Classic episode Back in October,
Allen leads with a fifth guest on Quels. That conversation
which I heard you all to check out has been
re released, but even three hours down was not. He
came back for a two part interview. Here's Allen Leads
a second ql S appearance from right this one. He

(00:23):
talks a lot about it. Here's James crowd some really
great stuff about playing the Chiland circuit and put it together.
Those epic James Brown review shows. You can hear why
Allan Leads deserves three episodes. Episode one oh one. Enjoined
to volume dolls and hipp yats across the nation. This

(00:47):
is a special distide of course, Love I always wanted
to talk like uh like a fifties sixties radio jock
Uhlas and gentlemen, this is the quiet edition. Of course,
Love Supreme saw many crabs outside, so should be backing

(01:12):
about a mom. I'm the only smoker here and everybody
else right exactly, Ladies and gentlemen, Our guest today needs
absolutely no introduction. If you're a longtime fan of the show,
this is one of our rare repeat guests. In my opinion,
our guest today is probably one of the most organized
humans in show business. At least I'm like to believe

(01:34):
that you are. He's shaking his head right now, Denial.
I would say that he is the glue that really
ensures that you would have gotten your money's worth if
you are seeing your favorite act perform in concert. Speaking
of which which acts would they be? You can name
them all from Colony Gang, the Bootsies, Robert Van to Kiss,

(01:56):
to Print, whoever that is Uh, to Chris Rock, to
D'Angelo to Rathfiel Sadiq to Maxwell Uh and of course
the main reason that we're all gathered here today me
My name is Sugar. No, of course, I'm speaking of

(02:19):
his time with James Brown, which probably a domino effect
his long standing power um and offered him the credibility
to pretty much stand next to a kazillion geniuses and
in music, his book, Thank God, there's this book entitled
There Was a Time on post O Press, recently released

(02:44):
this late winter. It was it was late February. Okay, yes, yeah,
still we don't know that yet anyway, Um, yeah, There
Was the Time offers a rare glimpse into the world
of the Chipland circuit, or outside the Chipland circuit as

(03:05):
it morphed into regular show business for most R and
b X one of my favorite human beings on Earth.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Alan leads back to screen. Were good.
Thank you, Alan. I'm Alan hates. That's where I get
it from. When you guys say that I assue compliments,

(03:26):
compliments and praise. Alan often cringes when I have to
say that as well. Not on the inside. Gwen tells
me it's because you don't know how to take compliments,
so you pretend you don't care. Trying to be cool.
Compliments are very hard. Um, I get it. Well, Steve,

(03:49):
you're a great guy than you everybody. So do you
how weird is it for you to be at this
phase in your career? Like, are you the type of
person that it was like when you write the book
this is sort of end of a life chapter or
I mean not to sound super morbid, but I just
mean usually like the people came to me writing books

(04:12):
like I was like, no, I have more life to
live and I'll save it for later. Yes and no,
okay no, because I started this book thirty years ago. Really, okay.
I actually thought it when my first marriage broke up
and I was sitting around nothing to do, and I said, okay,
at least diaries in papers and while it's frushing my mind,

(04:35):
let me start putting stuff down. Now. I couldn't write
a lick at that point. It was terrible because I've
got there. That was after. It was after. Even the
early line notes are pretty poorly written. But um, talking
about the payback, he thanks very much. I was asking

(04:57):
because that's the first one. He did write the line
of notes for the payback on the inside, right, Yeah,
that's gonna be a mother Damn. I forgot that. That worked. Ye,
that work. There was There was a James Brown called Hammer,
Oh yeah, despite the title was Christmas record, and I
wrote the line notes for that, and a jew writtening

(05:17):
liner notes for a Christmas album. It's kind of an
anomally to start with. What did he ask you to write? Yeah? Really? Yeah,
because back then, you know, you had to put information
on the back of the album. Well, he thought it
was a genius just because I could write publicity releases.
James Brown is coming to town and I could do that.

(05:38):
One page in newspapers would take it and fill their
pages up, and so he thought it was Shakespeare. Um
so he said, let so you started thirty years ago
writing in this book. Yeah, and it was. It was
the kind of thing where you know that original draft
besides of fact, they just poorly written. I'm looking to

(06:00):
the finished book. It's just um, that was a bunch
of drivel. It was really a tour diary. It was.
It was like personal tour diary in fifty percent James
Brown Body he was born and made that kind of stuff.
And as time went on, realized that the diary was
self indulgent and had a lot of stupid stuff that

(06:21):
was no interest to anybody, not even me. And um,
you know it was like what I had for breakfast
before the show was dumb stuff. This guy actually act.
But I was smoking a lot of weed that and
it's like so you kept note, see that's the thing

(06:41):
like I that was the horder So am I Yeah, Well, OK,
half my houses I think we knew that. Um No.
And when he left King Records for Paula Door Invent one,
we're cleaning out the office and there's tons of foul

(07:01):
cabinets full of old tiner hereies to routings, publicity pictures, UM,
all kinds of stuff, the kind of stuff you would
think would be in our office like that. And also
we're recording session reports UM music Union session reports with
dates and who plays what and that tracking sheets in

(07:22):
sessions like saying loud and Funky drummer. The original tracking
sheets were in the office. Yeah, not inside the real
box where they were probably copies in the real boxes.
But you know, it just meticulous with filing back, Like
how did you know to save all that stuff? Like
how did you know? Because I was a fanatic. It
was just I was already you're one of us. He

(07:44):
never did you already knew that of his history by then. No,
I knew. I wanted it. It was purely selfish, I
think it really, it really was. This comes from the
fact that he never had credits on his records right right,
So to a real fanatic, it was like, Okay, who's
the drummer around this session? Who's the guitar point this session?

(08:06):
Wouldn't did this guy leave the bands and replaced by
the next guy. I was that guy who wanted to
know who did everything on his records and here's the
Holy Grail, and it's a copy of the King Master Book,
which tells you the recording sessions and locations and dates
and what time of day and all that kind of crap.

(08:27):
So this is to somebody who was compiling the discography
that that never really dreamt anybody who gives a shit
about except me. But I wanted to know, so I
asked him. They're gonna trash all this stuff literally dump
put it in the dumpster because we're moving to New York,
well some of us to Augusta. That's all another story

(08:47):
that the book tells you about. But but and I
just said Mr Brown, can I And He's like, yeah,
something to somebody want to keep it? It's history. He
knew it was history. I knew it was a collection.
I wanted. It was like baseball cards to me, I
want the collection that was it? Okay? And of course
time went by and you begin to realize that this

(09:09):
is gonna be worth something. One as as his his
stardom becomes a kind of classtic and so on. Time
goes on. You really be getting to get this incident like, okay,
I really need to preserve this and documented properly and
so on. I mean, I've got a four hundred page
discography that has every session's produced and even has the

(09:31):
bootlegs of the concert recordings that I mean, it's it's
stupid little publishers that stuff. I mean, it's read it.
I'll read it an obsess over it. No, I'm serious,
it's very important that but it comes out exactly it's important.
So I can assume that if they can do for

(09:52):
the Beatles, they can do it for times as in
a side. Everybody I've talked to says, well, making a
coffee table book, you don't need all the details, And
I'm like, no, no, no, it's all about the details.
They just don't get it because they're just looking. It's
a research book. Yeah, it's not a coffee table book.
It's not for the casual casual fan. It's it's it's
for us. Right, So can I assume that the So

(10:17):
you really were the source of most of the information
in the startime box set. So you're so anytime I
read who was on what and blah blah blah. So
without that we would have just been guessing. Literally now,
mind you, as time would go on, every time they'd
have a session and This discontinued for years after I

(10:39):
stopped working for him. Um, I would call Fred Wesley
or David Matthews the arranger, and you know any sessions
lately where when, what did your record? Who was on
the session? I'm used to drive them crazy. Matthews talks
about it his wax poetic story. He's like only that
never really knew what he did, but he used to
drive me crazy about details of the sessions, and he

(11:01):
would write everything down. Um so yeah, do you have
any of the original charts or the charts also in
the office as well, like the horn arrangements and stuff.
So they just write them down and then leave him
at the studio. I think most of them were head
charts really, just you know, he would do recordings like
It's a Man the World with an arranger like Sammy Low,

(11:22):
and it wouldn't be his band. They were charts for that.
I never saw him the charts for that. I'm sure
David Matthews did charts for his arrangements. Um, but as
far as the the bulk of the hit records that
James would his own band, those were all head charts alright.
So then for James Brown himself, uh, would he could

(11:49):
I could. I say that, I'm assuming that he freestyle
a majority of this stuff, where like he just would
have an idea and right down four lines. And it
really varied. Um ofttimes there'd be an idea and many
times I shouldn't say, Matty, but quite a few times
ideas would come from having changed the arrangements of pruvious hits. Okay,

(12:16):
you know, like the vamp becomes the new song exactly, Okay,
I get it. I mean sex Machine came out of
a guitar lick that they were doing and give it up,
return it loose. At some point they changed the guitar
part and give it up, return it loose on the
road the road arrangement, and he liked that part and
ended up building a song around it was sex Machine.
I see. So then with but I'm saying, like what

(12:40):
I mean, a song that has actual lyrics like black
and proud. I'm certain it was notated on paper whatnot,
but then maybe maybe not, because the story goes I
wasn't at that session, but Charles Bobb it was, and
Bob a Dolt was claimed that it was a very
impulsive thing, like they were talking in a hotel late
at night, and Brown was staying, there needs to be

(13:00):
a song like this, and I've got a lyric, and
I suppose he went to pee and said, let's cook
something up around this lyric. And you know whether whether
they did it in the studio or the night before
in the hotel, on the bus or whatever. But but
I'm saying it has actual lyric structure. It's a poem, right,

(13:22):
but for something like escapism, doing it? Escape it? All right?
So alright, so Key's playing a song like escapism? Is
it Escapeism? A long version, I think it's it's like
a twenty minute it's ridiculous rap session where they just talk,
actually talk about that session in the book and tell
the whole story. But the short version is he was

(13:45):
out of the club in Cincinnati where the de Police
trio What's the House? But and this was a cocktail
trio ja as you know, soft jazz trio that mostly
played standards, and he used them for a couple of
records where he dreamt the bean Sinatra for a minute.
There was a time accident exactly exact example exactly. He

(14:09):
was hanging out at this club and somebody used the
word escape pism in the context of a casual conversation,
like they had a drink and said, you know what's
wrong to its kids. It's all escapism. They're not paying
attention to what's going on in the New world. So
and I just heard the horn squeal in my exactly.
He came into the studio the next day and I

(14:30):
was there. This wasn't an anti during one time. And
as a matter of fact, my brother Eric should be
here to tell his story because he actually said it
on the session. He didn't play, but but he was
in the booths the whole day. The session was for
and I know you got sold, Bobby Burn. Okay, we're
about to record very real quick exactly, that's what the

(14:50):
session was for. But James had this obsession with the
word escapeism. So he comes in the running over the trap,
which was ostensibly gonna be for a you Got Sold
and at some point Jesus bird, I'm gonna do this one,
and he had libbed to escape by sometimes I don't

(15:13):
down the night, abody looking for it, everybody looking for
the day. And according to Eric, who was actually in
the boots, I was in the office. I couldn't hang out.
It was during the afternoon so I had to be busy.

(15:33):
I couldn't just hang in the studio or you know,
how far is the studio from proximity for where the
home offices were the same building. It's just you know,
go down the hallway, go through a door, up a
ramp in your in the studio because you hear them
or was it like it was the studio there was
a warehouse between that you had to kind of walk around,

(15:54):
but it's in the same it's a huge factory like building.
So no, you couldn't hear a thing. But so Eric
was saying, yeah, so he was hearing, and he said
that that you know, James just loved the track and
he was dying to do something with this thing escapism,
and listened to the record, you realized there's, as you say,

(16:15):
there's a lyrical structure. It's just him, just him fucking
with the band and at the limping ship. And it
gets to the port where he's out of ideas. So
he starts walking around the studio asking who's where are
you from? You know? Okay, So when he does that, okay,
So during this period he does that a lot, a
lot on the JVS records, where he'll talk to jabbo

(16:38):
and talk to various members of the band. Where is
he holding a free mic in his hand as he's
doing it? Or is it like a traditional studio set
up that like, you know, are they like he set
up like his stage show? No? No, actually, a few
times I saw him record with the band. Um, probably
have dozen, It's not a dozen times. First he'd be

(17:00):
recording live, okay, and much to the engineer's chagrin, he'd
sacrificed separation in favor of chemistry, vibe chemistry. So ofttimes
the band was in like a semicircle and he would
just be in the middle so he didn't have to
walk with the mic. He could just you know, like

(17:22):
I'm talking to a mic now. And he was just
looking to hey, Jimmy from North Carolina, tell me about
old Carolina. What do you have for breakfast? Fred? Where
are you from? L A, Yeah, Lower Alabama? And to
you know, this is just what he did. Okay. The
track goes on and on and on, and of course
the group was ferocious, and um, he walks in the

(17:44):
I guess table was running out Ron Lenn HAPs the
engineer probably signaled to him like, yo, dude, you know
and he walks in and he says, whoa. And Eric
just wrote this down. He had to remember it, and
he says he could quote it perfectly. Um, he said.
He walks into Run looking up and he said, well, Run,
that's a long one. That's gotta be ten minutes. Ron said,

(18:06):
Mr Brown, it's twenty one minutes. And Brown looks at
him and said, well that's enough for part one, two, three,
four and five, all right. And so of course after
that they recorded I know you got so Old with
its own left because of right Eric, yeah, whatever else.

(18:27):
But the thing is is that they also do this live,
and at least on the live of the Apollo did
they often do Escapism live and recreate um because it's
almost like, yeah, it's sorry to recreate, but they kind
of matched on the Apollo record. Or he just knew,
here's something interesting. When we were going through tapes back

(18:50):
when the tape Vault was in Edison, New Jersey, and
we had access, We're doing Start Time and a few
of the other early CDs Harry and nine, Harry Executive
Universe A Universal, we would go to the tape Fault
and just spend days in there going through tapes and
my whole mission. Again, it's my discography, what's in the tapes,

(19:11):
what's on the tape boxes. So I'm just running around
and making copies because they had a studio there where
I could put the tapes up and burnt cededs or
not sorry, make exactly and um, you know. And this
all help because I'm listening to unishoot stuff that I
can then document in the discography as well as the

(19:33):
complete versions and stuff and get data. Anyway, long story short,
So we're going through the tapes for Revolution of the Mind,
which was the third live at the Apollo album, recorded
in seventy one, shortly after he joined poland Or Records.
They recorded eight shows and pulled from the eight shows
to sequency album. And yes, yeah, I mean I don't

(19:58):
think they used portions of all. Maybe they used portions
at two or three, but they had eight shows to
draw from, and no, I haven't listened to all eight shows.
But here's the point. Someday we'll do with deluxe version.
And you know then I've been on Harida. You know,
it's it's university there you go, so it'll come me

(20:19):
for you and bringing this up. But that's why I
bring it up. But here's here's the interesting thing. The
only show he did Escapeism, all the other shows are identical,
meeting the sequence is identical for all for the seven
of the eight shows. He only did Escapism on the

(20:40):
first show. Now, was that intentional because he wanted the
title on the album but it wasn't really part of
the show yet, or didn't he like cow it came off?
I can't tell you why. I can just tell you
that there's only one live version of that. Whereas we
had eight shows, there's one escape him Now after the

(21:01):
record came out and hit, it was in the show,
but very briefly, and I honestly can't remember what it
was like. I just I can hear the audience actually channing,
you know, the lyrics, which I was like, wow, like
they I'm just baffled that a spontaneous conversation is now

(21:23):
a hit single, or at least where people are repeating
a lyric back. That was actually my first thought when
I first heard. I was like, wow, this this this
was a hit record. Like it's strange people of course,
who did that? I mean, can you see this reading
I'm talking to Steve Cropper breakfast? Like that wasn't good
appen So for that particular album, do you remember, all right?

(21:45):
So if all the shows were recorded, um, were they
all done night after night? Or were these like, okay,
we'll record the twelve o'clock show, the three o'clock show,
now he was doing. But then instead of doing the
old four or five shows a day, he'd cut. He
convinced the Apollos that for his appearance as he would
just do to at night and maybe three on weekends,

(22:09):
so he would do at seven o'clock, in ten o'clock
something like that. And ye, when did that same thing
stop in the seventies or early seventies? So was it
that system for the live of the Apollo two albums?
So in nine was seven the apollowed. There was a

(22:31):
jun Juno sixties seven and they recorded two and a
half shows that we found. We have two complete shows
and about half of the third show. But what I'm
asking is for that particular run at the Apollo, was
that the one o'clock in the afternoon, the two o'clock,
the three o'clock. Yes, okay, So, and I don't think

(22:51):
we went through this the last time because I'm still
trying to imagine how you squeezing five shows with I'm
assuming that he at least had sort of a cavalcade
of at least four acts. I mean it's Bird doing
some solos. Yeah. In fact, on the deluxe edition, they

(23:15):
didn't record Bird sets, but they did get two songs
on tape and we used to we used to he
did Sweets Sold Music, Arthurchly Sweet sould Music. And did
we use a second track? Is? I don't think so? Um,
you got to change your mind or ye that later.

(23:36):
I think the only thing that we found with Sweets
Sold Music. But what I'm asking is he's not not
The show ran, yes, okay, the band would come out
and and this was the shorter Obviously, you're doing four
or five shows a day. They're shorter than you would
get in a arena or a concert hall where you're
just doing one show at eight o'clock, and the shows

(23:57):
would maybe run three hours. In the Apollos had run
maybe an hour forty five. Okay, okay, the band would
come out and just do one or two instrumentals, whereas
on tour they might do a half hour of instrumentals.
For example, the the the nine eight Boston show that's

(24:18):
on video, they recently discovered a reel with the instrumental
set and they're doing five or six instrumentals before anything
happens the band is but in the Apollo they do
one or two just as a warm up. Okay, then
Brown would come out and all right, let me think back. Um,

(24:40):
he would come out and he would would go right
into his his nightclub set where he does. That's life
for if I ruled the world in Kansas City. All right,
now I'm trying fifteen minutes. I'm treating you as a
DVR right now, I'm pausing the show. So with someone

(25:00):
of his stature ego at least, why would he deflate
the balloons early and not come out with a bang? Like?
Why was startime so late? Where? Like was it even
fan fair? He was just building out? Yes, absolutely so
he would play. See what the m C would say, Now,

(25:21):
surprised the star of the show, James Brown. He's blown
out because who expects him to come on the show
just started ten minutes ago? What was his logic? Like,
people know that I'm gonna show up earlier. It logic
by then, and this was understanding everything. Apollo Too album
is just as he's beginning to change his format. But
even in the old days before that, he would come

(25:43):
out earlier and play Oregon with the band for a
half hour, and that wouldn't ruin the surprise. Really, No,
it was all about building. It was all about building,
and and his idea was that we're gonna save the
explosions for the end, of course, for the climax. And

(26:03):
he would come out and he would do back to
Let's stick with the Apollo to seven. He would come out,
Let's see he did. That's life. I want to be
around both of them. He's sitting in a stool and
just playing nightclub crooner, which was new for him. That
was new, He'd never done that before. And he would

(26:25):
do this at the Apolo. Yes, it's on the record.
What was and what was the purpose though for to
do that Frank Sinatra stuff at the Apollo. The purpose
was to show another side of him that he was
expanding beyond just a predictable soul singer with a predictable review.
He was like, I'm an all around entertainer. He was
hoping to get gigs in Vegas and Miami Beach in

(26:48):
the lucrative showrooms and and expand his his horizons and
his audience. All right, so let me pause here. Okay,
so let's go to the copa more my i Ami. Now,
if he's at a place that's the opposite of the Apollo,

(27:09):
wouldn't right, So wouldn't the highlight them be the crooning
stuff and then sort of be like this might be
this might be too little rally for them, giving them
a kind Yeah, it's a good point. You kind of
know what you're getting, um and we would they be disappointed?
Is a bathroom time or popcorn? His whole thing was

(27:33):
it's about making a new audience meet him in his world.
It was like, I'm not I'm gonna you know, I'm
gonna make changes and I'm gonna grow. It isn't hard.
It's gonna show a different side to me, but I'm
still gonna be true to who I am. I'm not
gonna do anything that's going to disappoint my die hard fans.
He's like, you know, if I can attract that vagance audience, great,

(27:55):
but I'm never going to turn my back on the
hood because that's my base. Okay. So it was like
it was like, you got to come to me on
my terms. This is who I am. And I'm not
going to deny that. So if you don't like hard funk,
then you can leave. But I'm gonna get you because

(28:16):
I'm an entertainer. Even if you don't like my songs
by records, I'm gonna do something that stage that's gonna
make you stop and pay attention. Even in the seventies,
so even by seventy two when he's just like afrowed
out and well he had stopped doing the ballads and
and that stuff like that. Um, And since I'm really

(28:38):
dissecting every now, I wasn't. I wasn't joking about the
food stuff and whatnot. Because the main reason why I
probe and probe and ask you these questions for the
last twenty years i've known you it is simply because
I mean, had I been born thirty forty years earlier,
I would have been the musician on that stage. So

(29:00):
I'm just curious to see, as a working musician, how
are our lives compare like the quest level of the
late sixties. So what I want to know is, Uh,
it's gonna be like a stupid question, but I always
wanted to know, right, Okay, So with with with a

(29:22):
show that high energy I know that bottle water wasn't
quite invented yet in the late sixties early seventies. How
are they replenishing themselves on the state like is there
boy on the side or intermission? Oh so you weren't

(29:43):
allowed to bring a drink on stage or that's not professional.
That's why I asked you. Would he allow that towels
even up for police? Please please with the capes so
only for him, So the band would have to meet
jehold by the head of towel on the floor next
to the kid. But don't let nobody see it. And

(30:04):
I've never seen in any of the photos. I've never
seen set lists, no tape to the oh, so you
would have to know. But I mean, basically, remember this
is this is a show that was on the road
fifty one week. Saw the worked sometimes four nights a week,
five sometimes six or seven, depending on the venues and
the routing of the They could probably play it in

(30:26):
the sleep exactly exactly, and the show gradually changed. It
didn't change overnight. The set list, Um, I mean, like
I said, the Apollo three and Apollo two for them,
and the set lists were the same for each show
because they were there were segues in different dynamics that
set up each song, and it was carefully structured. I

(30:48):
mean it was you know, there was there was a
method to the madness in terms of the pacing so
that he could catch a breath. Um, you know as
still where the ballots go and so on. Mean it's
it's the chop one on one. Um, so all right,
he's croony, yeah, continue, Okay, So he does that center
fifteen minutes, whatever it takes to do that. The last

(31:10):
song that that said is Kansas City, which is uppeat,
which means that he kicks the stool back, and halfway
through Kansas City he jumps up and starts dancing a
little bit. It's a tease. The band is smoking and
he's giving it a tease of James Brown. That that
James Brown, who slides across the state jump want foot,

(31:31):
just the tease. Then he disappears, and here comes Bobby
Bird to do two or three songs on two or
maybe four songs and the Apollo maybe two. Then here
comes Marvel Whitney. Then here comes James Brown again. No introduction,
lights go dark, he walks on stage, lights come up,

(31:52):
and he sings into Man's World. For fifteen minutes. Okay, right,
there was a really long version that's that's on the
Apollo To album. It's longer on the Deluxey d and
it was on the album for out of us reasons, um.
And that's another show stopper because it was a huge
hit and it's a very dynamic, and he incorporates a

(32:15):
medley of some of his older tunes within it, Bewildered,
Lost Someone, some of that stuff to satisfy his older fans,
and then he goes off stage again. Then either there's
a comic. Clay Tyson was our own house comic who
traveled as part of the show, and he'd come out
and do ten minutes of old jokes and then would
be an intermission, questions pause. I forgot that there's the

(32:38):
JB Dancers who come out and do five minutes of
dancing while the band plays Caravan or something. So when
that stuff is playing, so when I'm listening to the
stuff on YouTube, they're dancing the JB Dancers are playing
or dance into those instrumentals. No, No, they get a
feature in the first part of the show before and

(33:00):
mission where they're introduced as the JB Dancers and their
downstage center and they do a routine too. Oh they
use different itsr metals. On the sixty seven Apollo it
was caravan Um. Later on in the sixties it was
the Massa Killers grazing in the grass and it just
picked an instrumental and work out that that's there in

(33:24):
the spotlight. So there's always been a Vegas element to issue.
But but you know what it when you say Vegas,
it wasn't cheesy, right, I mean sometimes maybe it was,
but but let me put it this way. If it
was cheesy, it was black cheesy, okay, But was it

(33:44):
cheesy to you watching it in sight? No? The girls
were hot, ask Okay, So right now I'm at my
board phase, like I go through three. They weren't out
there long enough for you to get put so bored.
Well no, no, no, I'm just saying that when I
when I go through my board phase, then this is

(34:05):
when I start embracing uh nineties James Brown, like I'll
look at can't get any harder for sake. No, no, no,
I'm just saying that out Like last week I watched
uh his would Stop three performance, which was exactly I

(34:30):
don't know when when the rumors of the when the
when the was James Brown murdered rumors started seeping out.
Then I just, I don't know, I felt the need
to just look at the last ten years of his
life to see what his show would become of, which
he never straight away from the formula. Like in my mind,

(34:51):
I never thought that there were dancing girls and this
cover song and that sort of thing, because on the
live album, you're just getting the James Brown show as
you know it. And then once I discovered the tapes,
then I realized, like, oh, there are dancing girls and
there are that sort of thing. Well that That's why
I was so happy with the expanded to c D

(35:14):
version of Apollo too, because we were able to take
the tapes from the two and a half shows and
to the best of our ability, recreate what the show
really flowed like. Because the album the original album, because
of the length of songs, they weren't able to sequence
it with any logic really, and the whole mission with

(35:34):
the c D was, let's create the show with the
flow and then you know, the ebbs and the peaks
was actually was. I was really appreciative that the Frankie
Crocker intros were included in that too, So yeah, yeah,
d O J. Yeah, Um, can I see that? Letting
Crocker or O J or a person of the day

(35:55):
introduced the show was sort of like a greasy palm.
Let me well, they Frankie and Audio J. And it
was also Rocky g who was the program director in
the mid in late sixties. Um, they would sponsor shows
at the Apollo, not just James's where they weren't really
promoting the shows because it was in house the Apollo,

(36:16):
but the Apollo would spiff them to put their names
on there, so it would be Frankie Crocker, Video J
Present James Brown and and that's something the Apollo had
been doing for years and years. Wait slight slight jump
into the future because I always wanted to know fast

(36:39):
forward on your own leads remote control. Okay, so at
the that you were uh tour managing. Uh. Crocker also
introduces Vanity six. What was the lot? Like? Whose idea

(36:59):
was that? Was it just hey, if you want me to?
Was that you? Or was that I wasn't at the
New York show? Was that I came in right after that? Oh?
So I can't but but I'll tell you what I
do remember. I remember before I went to work for Prince,
when Vanity six record came out and Nasty Girls took off.

(37:23):
I happened to be home in Brooklyn at the time
with what was What was it? Then? Kiss? What's? The
station was w L. Frankie was less at the time,
and um, they did a promo studio visit with Frankie
did I happen to hear? And U just happened to

(37:43):
have the radio and the part in Brooklyn, And because
I was a fan and Prince and Nasty Girls paid attention,
and um, they seemed to bond. I mean, it was
a really playful interview that was memorable, exactly exactly exactly
all the remembers they kept saying every time, I mean

(38:05):
he'd asked them a question, Um, Susan and and V
would go like Frankie, Frankie Panky, Frankie pranky, and and
it just stuck with me. It was like, okay, okay,
I want to meet them, you know, and with no
idea that I would you be connected them forever. But
you know, look, everybody knew Frankie had juice. I mean,

(38:27):
he was in New York radio and um, you'd be
crazy to come to town and not let him get
on stage and say hello if he wanted to. Just
as good to you as it is for you. You
get so much with the Frankie crocod touch, after all,
how can you lose with the stuff I use? Turn
up the lightinghole, MITSI. Frankie says, it's just got to

(38:48):
be all right. Closer than white song, right, is closer
than coals on eyes, closer than a collas on a dog,
closer than a hay Amazon, our country home, really young,
and do ain't never had enough of nothing? Definitely ready
if you need it, be steady. Everything's gonna be everything.

(39:11):
But remember if you can't stand it, please don't demand it.
I don't let your eyes get your mind messed up
with your heart and soul desires something you know you
just can't stand. Really, all I have to do is
set the needle to the tracks, separate the soul from
the wax lay and the groove, and hope to make

(39:33):
you move. Okay, So he comes out and does the
this gargantea in It's a Man's World. This whole episode
is going to be about. And then you said that, Uh,

(39:58):
Comedians So does this formula I assume that we're going
to get the star time after intermission? Right, of course,
does this formula work all over the United States? It's
full proof, not one person trying to boo klay Tyson
or Oh, they were people who didn't want to hear him. Sure,

(40:18):
they were kids who didn't want to hear him, and
that there were people who did. Because let's let's have
to And this is really difficult to explain to anyone
under the age of fifty. I suppose, um, this all
came out of vaudeville, right, and that was that was

(40:39):
Brown's template for creating a review of self contained show.
Remember that most solo artists traveled solo or with their
own accompaniment and so on, but they didn't have reviews
because they either couldn't afford them or just weren't interested. Um,

(41:00):
James Brown's idea was like, let's do all this in
the house. I'm tired, you know when he was when
he was younger, before he was had to influence in
the success to to take over things. Um, he would
be like everybody else and they'd be on shows where
they'd be different acts every night, depend on you know,
if you were in Chicago, you might have Martha Van

(41:22):
Della's or Gene Channel or the Impressions or the Drifters
on the show with you. And then you go to
Cincinnati the next day in and so this writing and
Carla Thomas, and you never know because the promoters would.
First of all, they never felt that there was one
entertainer who could sell out the theater or an arena

(41:43):
on their own, so they felt obligated to take two
or three semi stars and a bunch of one record
acts and put a package together. And the idea was
to have nine or ten acts, most of whom just
did two or three songs. The star would do half
an hour, and you had those tours and you've probably
seen the vintage posters of that stuff, and they would

(42:05):
go all over the country. So that's what people were
used to. James Brown said, why do I have to
share the revenue with all these other acts? Let me
get my own acts. Let's stop Bobby Bird do three songs,
so let's let Baby Lloyd, one of the other Flames,
do a couple of songs. Let's get a girl singer
who's cute and can hold a note, and let's she

(42:28):
do three songs, and they were on salary, so I'm
not paying uh, the promoters and paying Eddie James or
the drifters and so on. I got my own review.
And the template, of course was vaudeville, because that's where
theater shows came from. And and if you go back
and look at the bills, the weekly bills of the

(42:50):
Apollo Theater throughout the sixties and going all the way
back to the thirties, but even in the sixties, at
the height of the soul music area, there would always
be a median, there would always be a vocal group,
there would always be a male singer, it would always
be a female singer, and then god knows what else
they needed to fill up the show. It was always
a package unless you were Duke Kellington, you know, who

(43:16):
would also play the Apollo. But even he would have
his own, his own singers that would get a you know,
promp Basi had Joe Williams for years and years, and
and Ellington had singers. So people expected variety, a variety show,
and the idea was that you have sex, yeah, something
for the guys, something for the girls, and you have

(43:39):
some laughs and you have some good instrumental music, and
you had to have all those things to be a
complete show, and that's what audiences expected. The Roots have failed.
A question back to the Roots comedy because first, since

(44:02):
since we're at the intermission of the show, UM, so
far besides the comedy, it sounds like the band is
out there the entire time, the same band. All. I
just want to make that, make that clear to the listeners. Absolutely,
but it should be noted that James Brown often at
two or three drummers. Yeah, yes, in the basis they

(44:22):
all went to the to the same gigs. But I
mean so they would switch out. No, no, no, there
was one band that traveled on the same bus and
went to the same gigs. Absolutely, but different drummers would
switch out for different acts, for different songs, different songs.
I mean they were listen when he recorded. Um. I
mean that's a whole lot of tangent. For a second, um,
I want to get back to the Roots comedy just

(44:44):
for a split because I had an inspiration. I had
an idea that it's it's it's so obvious. You probably
don't want to do it because it's too it's too obvious,
but you can do Thank you. Notes translate that something
to the stage. You know what, because either you or
Arka somebody has to do is do they. I hate
to say this, but when James is on these shows

(45:08):
with us, it's like they get mad if it does
not do thank you notes. They yell thank you notes now.
And it's not just one more note. That's good, Okay,
my other question, sorry, and we'll talk this. The show

(45:32):
also sounds like it's, like you said, it's supposed to build,
but it also sounds somewhat chronological. Is that is that
correct as far as like his earliest and then his
and then leading me into the big single or my latest.
Not necessarily, but but you save the hits for the

(45:53):
start time segment. Obviously, even his oldest hits Yeah Try
Me and Police Please Please were the oldest songs that
he would continue to do until he stopped working. Um,
we're always in the startime set, so after intermission in startime, Yeah,
ladies and gentlemen, it's start time at the Apollo Theater.

(46:16):
Million dollars seller, chry Me Please Please Please. Papa's got
a brand new bag. This is a man's World. Puss
constructive tune of nineteen sixty six don't be a dropout
recently recall it. Let yourself go, baby, don't you week?

(46:39):
Let's pick him on right now, everybody, the heartest working
man in show business. I'm gonna let you say his name,
James Brown, Lady and gentleman. And that's a half hour,
thirty five minutes start. It's usually ran about an hour.

(47:01):
I mean in the old days. In the old days,
in the Apollo when they still had more support acts.
For example, Apollo one was recorded in nineteen sixty two
and on the show was Bobby Womack and the Valentineo
Solomon Burke. There were other real recording artists on record,
not exactly like Pigmy Markham. What was on the show? Um?

(47:27):
You know, so Brown would do? I mean the Apollo
one album is about thirty five minutes and there's only
one song cut out, so so he was doing forty minutes.
But by sixty seven Star time, I mean, he had
so many hits it pretty much was an hour and
that that pretty much stayed that way until he changed
the format late seventies. So you're saying from the instrumentals

(47:53):
all the way to Clay Tyson, it's man's world before intermission.
That's kind of like forty five minutes. I mean the
bathroom breaks ten minutes obviously, and then he does fifty
minutes to an hour and into the show. Okay, and
your observation. They're doing this four to five times a day.

(48:16):
They were up until sixty nine not kissed this when
he started. Where do you feel the best show normally?
Is like? Or was there? No? There is no Ah,
he didn't do that much energy tonight as opposed to
like can he keep it up all five shows? No?

(48:41):
So for you. But but what James Brown, the difference,
the difference between the slow show and the hot show,
it's not that vast. So who's in the audience that
the one one clock on a weekday? Some old ladies,

(49:03):
some drunks. School really so it's a weekday one pm.
Police aren't in the audience, like shouldn't you be in school?
They may have occasionally, I don't know. These says were
sold out, No, they weren't sold out. Was he disappointed?
Were like the late sixties? They were? But but it

(49:25):
wasn't typical to sell out every show. You couldn't do
me m hmm. Okay, I mean there were times where
you would played a half a house at one o'clock
in the afternoon, and that was not deflating to his
ego or nothing. He was understanding that, oh it's one
o'clock in the why would that? I mean, you got

(49:46):
to see, this tradition goes back to the nineteen thirties,
and I mean, I guess we've surmised that people in
the nineteen thirties didn't have that much to do, and
I don't know why, but but it's it's always been that.
I mean it it's you know, the white vaudeville theaters
in mid Tawm, Manhattan. We're doing the same thing, but

(50:07):
they were doing it with Sinatra Woody Herman instead of
James Brown, Duke Ellington. Um, it was just the world
we lived in, and people would go to, you know,
people who didn't want to fight the crowds at night
because obviously the seven and ten o'clock shows were the
busiest shows. And so depending on the demographic that in

(50:31):
artists appealed to, Um, you know, it might be kids,
it might be older people, it might be people who
were bored and have nothing to do. I'd like to
think that maybe the seven o'clock was the better show
because that's where, yeah, you're off work and it's date

(50:57):
night or something like that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just
sleep weekends. But to answer your question directly, the hottest
show was the midnight show on Saturday. See, I figure
he'd be worn out by then. He might be, but
but all the players is there. The audience is hot. Okay,

(51:18):
you could you couldn't. You couldn't. You couldn't skate okay.
And the other one was the Wednesday night Late Show
because that's the amateur night that brought out the serious
audience that was dedicated to amateur night. So we're amateur
night fitting late on a Wednesday show on the Late Show?

(51:38):
What time like after James is over? You know, I
can't honestly tell you. And it was a separate audience,
separate letout let it no, no, no, no no. It
was like a movie theater. If you bought a ticket
at one o'clock, you could stay there all day and
all night. You could watch kids could come in on
Saturday morning and watched four shows. Oh they didn't clear
the no theater. Is it standing room or seats? There were?

(52:03):
I mean, there's there's a little stupid in the Apology,
they're standing room in the back, but it's of course
it's seats. So but the people where they're pre brought
tickets back in the day, like James Brown is coming
May nineteen. No let me go and get tickets. You
just lined up outside and as people left, they let
people in. So it's like a nightclub in the theater exactly,

(52:27):
you know, if if if, I mean there were times
where they'd be lined up and actually be standing in
line through a whole show that's going on inside because
they're hoping they can get in for the next show.
Now that's if you're hot. I mean, it wasn't typical
of every week in every show, but by the time
Brown really really got hot in the mid sixties, it

(52:49):
was frequently like that, and there'd be a line around
the block all the way up. But I would think
that they would do a show, clear the place and
let people buy tickets, like he could make more money,
of course, and that's where he never once started that.
Of course they did, and he insisted they do that

(53:09):
at a certain point, and I want to say that
point was either in or early sixty nine is when
he went to the Apollo and said, look, what I'm
doing this is do two shows. I'll do three on Saturday,
and you got to clear the house. And was that
foreign to them back in the day, Yes, absolutely, because
it was the same. It was that's just how the

(53:31):
theater was running. And it was typical of all these
vaudeville theaters. So I could have bought a James Brown
ticket for five dollars, walked and walked to the apollog
two bucks three and seemed like calendar in sixties, one

(53:52):
for me, one for you moms, two dollars in the
nineteen sixty seven, that's me spending two bucks today. Maybe
I don't know, but I mean I bet the earliest
show and we were saying one o'clock, but maybe he
was two o'clock, three o'clock, but I don't know. But
never any later than that, and the first show was

(54:17):
probably for a buck except on weekends. I mean envisioned
an old movie theater. What a time to be alive. Yeah,
I mean it was crazy. Now, obviously shows had to
be an automatic pilot at some point, because it's it's
just how can even if you're not physically tired, how
do you get mentally amped? Particularly somebody like Brown or

(54:42):
his band who worked so hard and then you come
off stage and they basically show a film. Yeah, but
but like yeah, short in the joke all was was
they'd find the worst movies because they were trying and
encourage people to get up and leave. Really yeah, okay, um,

(55:09):
I'm cheating right now on my calculator. By the way,
So if I were to play two dollars to see
James Brown in, yes, fifteen bucks and okay, so that's
still cheap. Yeah, and you could have seen like four
shows that day for absolutely and so the standards of

(55:34):
the day and back then, because then I would think, Wow,
you see this joke before or you've seen this song before,
like the same people. But no, I mean obviously everybody
didn't do that, right, There's there's a handful of nuts
who just either really love the artist. I'm raising my hands.
They got they got absolutely nothing else to do, you know,

(55:58):
they found some good weed. They don't want to build
their group, so they just okay, um, wow, for two bucks,
you could just have the best entertainment of your life
right all day? What's this? What's this merch teme? Look
like we're there t shirts back then or like programs
program There were programming books starting in I guess the

(56:19):
earliest when I was, but that was from a tour.
Wasn't in the theater. But they saw programmed books. And
they used to have hats that would have a little
picture of him in the band and um, you know,
different jokes. But they never had T shirts. T shirts
were the thing then. It wasn't some programmed books and photos.
You get a glossy or button. You know, they had

(56:43):
saying loud buttons they sold. Well, okay, okay, So the

(57:05):
show is over, and how long does it break? Before
forty five minutes? Maybe an hour? I mean I have
to sit and do the math. I can't, you know,
it's been a long time. But all right, so let's
say forty five minutes. I'm his drummer. What am I doing?
All right? There's there's in all these theaters. And this

(57:27):
goes for the Howard Washington uptown in Philly, in regally
exactly from that circuit again old Vaudeville thing. There's a
chalkboard backstage mhmm, and the stage manager of the theater
puts up what's called the half hour, and in Vaudeville parlance,

(57:51):
what that means is this is a half hour before
the next show starts. If the next show is going
to start at eight o'clock, then the half hour seven
thirty post that in advance to let everybody in the
cast know, you gotta be back here at That was
the rule. You gotta be back in the house a
half hour before the show starts. Okay, Now what you

(58:11):
do up until that time is your business. So you
can go up to the dressing room and go to sleep.
You can go down in the basement and shoot craps,
you can go down the street. Those dressing rooms are
small as hell though, and I'm certain that James and
his enter I Stuart taking up most rooms. So where
does the band go in the basement? Don't now the

(58:35):
Apollo is nice now, ye, No, the basement looked like rats. Yeah,
it was rough. I mean, it wasn't anything like it
it's now. It wasn't. It wasn't puddles of water in
the corner. It was like the basement of some factory
or something. That's so weird because in the basement I
think would hurts there. Actually, the shows would open Friday.

(58:57):
They would play Friday through Thursday, and on Thursdays. The
next days the new show would rehearse in the basement.
So when you're upstairs the James Brownson was playing up there,
then there might be Sam and Dave in the basement
working with the house band to get ready for tomorrow's opening.
While that shows the that's crazy. So wait a minute, um,

(59:21):
So in the laundry room in the basement of the Apollo,
there's now a sign that hangs. It says like this
is now the Flip Wilson room, because Flip Wilson would
play here five nights a week and he would just
set up Uh. He would put a couch in the
laundry room and sometimes sleep here overnight. I would assume
the saved cash whatever. But you're saying that the basement

(59:44):
was less than desirable. It's not want to spend the night,
but do what you gotta do. Wow, okay, okay. Food wise,
is there catering back then or do you you just
if if you could afford it, you sent some gophers
out to go down the street with James was like,

(01:00:09):
are you kidding? Really, dude, we would get on his
lerid jet. Now I'm fast forwarding to like seventies seventy one,
we get on the ridge. He got it in sixty six.
You're right, Um, but I'm talking about when I was there,
and I don't speak when I was there and Danny
raised one of his many gigs was to make sure

(01:00:31):
there was food for Brown after the show went and
there it because frequently we'd fly out, depending on what
city we were in. He didn't like spending the night
in small towns. So if we were playing Making Georgia,
we would fly to Atlanta because he had a favorite
hotel there. If we were playing, well, the same same

(01:00:51):
thing wherever you were, if you were in you So
he had, you know, different places where he liked the
hotels and where they had late night food and things
to do and so on. So so we gotta look
if you happen to be flying with him on the
jet play the jet only seats five or six people
at Forget, but small. It's a small plane. And um,

(01:01:15):
it would be Danny Raid who was just fatily, and
Henry Stallings who was a bodyguards hair stylist, and maybe
his wife, maybe his girlfriend, right, and then there'd be
room if if he wanted to talk to one of
the musicians, maybe Will be pe we your Fred the
band leader, because he'd have an idea for a new

(01:01:37):
song or want to change something in the show and
make them fly with him. And on the weekends, because
I wasn't on the road constantly. Our job was in
the office Monday through Thursday, and then on Fridays, one
or both of us would fly out and meet the
show wherever it was and hang on the weekend and
then go back to the office. Um, unless we had

(01:01:58):
to go to another city to advance the promotion of
an upcoming show. Let's say tickets were slow selling in Nashville,
so maybe Brown, so you better go to Nashville and
go visit the radio stations and give the promotion to
boost you know that kind of thing. So we're not
on the same schedule as the show. Um, but he

(01:02:22):
you get the jet and there'd be food for him,
but nobody else, nobody else, and you just sit there
and watch the meat and it was you know, and
you just realize he's the boss and this this, this
is how he rolls, and and everybody else is on
their own, and you know it's like, Okay, I can

(01:02:43):
feed myself. I'm not gonna beg for food see my
rule is that it's a different time by I have
to buy five times as much because each member of
the Roots is going to ask me for a little bit.
Well listen, each one of the band could ask James
for food, Do you gonna have a fronch frying? And

(01:03:03):
he'd say no, that's all he got to learned his Nope.
I always wanted to know, Um, because of the way
that Otis riding passed away. Was he ever afraid of
flying on lear jets afterwards? Or you know, was he

(01:03:24):
like no more flying for me? He was a little
afraid all along, even before Otis's accident. I mean, he
was always a nervous flyer when it was bad weather.
And I was actually in the jet in a lightning
storm once and it wasn't fun. That thing bounced around
like like ping pong ball. Um, it's a small light

(01:03:44):
along to the next gig, Mr Brown, pretty much it
was a bit of an adventure and you could see
him tightening up. I mean he was you know, he
wasn't crazy, but he loved the convenience of it, the
idea that he could play some stupid town and then
and I mean, if I use the same example if
we played Making Georgian, he didn't want to stay there.

(01:04:06):
We'd be in Atlanta in the hotel by twelve thirty.
You know, show comes down at ten thirty or eleven,
and he drives off and you get out and you're
in a plane by twelve, and you know, well, okay,
maybe not twelve thirty, but wonder one thirty. You know,
it's still doable hours in a major city, you can
probably still find something decent to eat. I have a

(01:04:27):
question about advances. Normally, at least a day, tour managers
collect the money now, at least in our standard today,
when you book an act, uh, you're supposed to have
half the money up front in months in evance, three
or four months in evance, and before said act goes

(01:04:48):
on stage, maybe an hour before, you're supposed to settle
advances and get the rest of the deposit before they
go on stage. Was it always that protocol or did
you guys have to wait until all box office for
seats were counted Because we were promoting most of the
shows ourselves. We were waiting for somebody to pay us.

(01:05:09):
It was our money. So who's there to count like,
who's there to make sure that you know manager personal
manager when I'm on the road, me or Bob Patton,
who was my colleague with booking New Tour, whichever one
of us was there, we were all there. We would
all go up and we would do the settlements. But

(01:05:30):
the settlements wouldn't You had to wait for the box
office to close. So if the show started at eight,
chances are you can't start settling until there's no deposits
because we're renting the buildings. Were the promoters? I see?
So who's to stop? Said? Uh, let's all right in.
We're in Chattanooga, Tennessee, right now at a at a theater.

(01:05:53):
So who's to stop the I mean the guy that
the house manager, somebody from letting is eight family members
in for free? Like you know that there's six hundred
seats in the theater and you know the show sold out? Sir?
Are you saying that, okay? Well six tickets at you know? Whatever?

(01:06:18):
Are you? Who's doing force? If someone comes short? All right,
here's what happens the box office. And you know there
were variations on this, but let's use the the standard rule.
The box office of a venue would give you a
report at some point on ten o'clock at night, and
on that report would be how many tickets were sold

(01:06:38):
at which price, because you have different prices, three tickets,
all tickets or whatever, how many comps came to the door,
And if the number of comps was reasonable, you wouldn't
squawk about it, because if if, if, if you had
a successful date and and the manager of the building

(01:06:59):
one to let his kids in. To use your example,
it's like, I'm not going to make an issue of
that because we want to play that building again, and
I want this building manager to give us first DIBs
at good dates. We would even tip them literally literally
tip them. Yeah, I mean, these weren't city employees. And
I talk about this in the book too, and how

(01:07:20):
different the business was about then basically what the book
is about. And um, they were city employees that made,
you know, very middle class if if that income they're
on salary from the city that manage these these m arenas.

(01:07:41):
Oh so they weren't privately owned, No, it's it's it varied.
Do you take five venues, the structures of them might
be completely different if you're playing a theater and might
be privately owned. If you're playing a dance hall, it
might be it might be a local promoter who rented

(01:08:02):
the building and you're dealing with that promoter. Um, if
you play the apollo, you're dealing with in the theater.
But if you're playing an arena, which is mostly what
we were doing when I was there, the guys who
run those buildings are they're usually city owned buildings. Okay,
you go to Roanoke, Virginia's Cincinnati. Um, there's there's no

(01:08:26):
Donald Trump building arenas there was, you know, and this
was before they were sponsorships in the arena's all had
names of banks and stuff on him, because he didn't
have that. And even then, if if, if, if the
bank is sponsoring an arena, it doesn't mean they run.
There's still a guy who's got the job to run
the arena, run the box office and so on. And
these are not guys get rich. They're just start a

(01:08:48):
city salary. If it's assuming it's the city owned building.
So um, you know, so you can look together. Way
as long as the cops were koshers, you know, five
comps gonna fight, but you know, if it's twenty, who cares?
And mind you, we would also give out comps to
radio people and newspaper people, and you know, anybody was

(01:09:09):
going to help us build the promotion. So cops were like,
it was you know, it was a commodity that we
could use to influence the promotion. So there'd always be
a certain amount of comps. But but here's the deal.
If you didn't trust the promoter or the building for
any reason at all, the only way you could deal

(01:09:32):
with it then was count the ticket stubbs to see
if the ticket stub counts. Because you get a stub,
they tear the ticket when you come in and throw
it in a bucket and keep the stubbs right. So
there were nights where we literally had to sit down
and count thousands of ticket stubs, and you'd be there
till two in the morning because you felt something about

(01:09:55):
the report was fishy. It's like, well, I mean, if
there's ten thousand tickets ten I was in seats in here,
the place is jam packed, and you're telling me you
sold tickets. M hmm, it's bullshit. So now I'm going
to count the ticket stubs. Now. What stopped them from

(01:10:15):
pulling out a thousand stubs before I got up there? Nothing?
So there were sometimes where we actually would put a
guy on the door with a clicker really to count
the people that came in so that you could then
match that. In some venues, the tickets were just rolls

(01:10:38):
of tickets and were numbered, and you get the number
of the starting ticket so you could do the math
at the end of the night. It was a moment
pop business. So I have a question. I would assume
that you guys were the standard or the best game
in town for a black tour And during that period,

(01:10:59):
what stopped MYB activity from wanting to I was getting
ready to go there? Yea, what stops MYB activity from
saying like, oh, like now, it's hard to do because corporations,
like if you remember that Sopranos episode where where Tony's
guys like going to the Starbucks for the first time

(01:11:20):
and they're trying to shake down the Starbucks and then
it's slowly realizing like, oh, this isn't like a mom
and pop operation like art, and they realize like, oh, ship,
we're dinosaurs because we can't shake down a corporation like
we used to, so or not? What stops like have
people try to I want a piece of the action.

(01:11:44):
How do you wrangle out of that? Like how do
you You don't have a manager who's mommed up, you
don't have a booking agency that's mobbed up, and you're
not on a record company that's mopped up. And there
were mobbed influences in all three of those areas, but
there were protects you. Who protects you from someone trying
to edging? Who's to stop age Knight of the sixties.

(01:12:10):
The only thing I can say is this. When I
went to work with James, one of the things he
told me is if anybody fishy ever tries to buddy
up to you and acts like they want in or
want to get next to me, or become your friend
and make offers that sound too good to be true,
let me know immediately. And that was his way of saying,

(01:12:34):
don't let that happen. Mm hmmm. And I can only
say that he was smart enough and discriminating enough about
who he hired that there was never one of us
in a position that could have encouraged that kind of development.

(01:12:54):
And I'm sure it was trying meeting to listen to
my I've had pieces of studios, recording studios in New York.
The Mob had certain a lot of independent record labels,
were bopped up. There were several booking agencies that booked
Black Guardians that were mopped up, not all of them.
They were everywhere time out, Time out, ladies and gentlemen.

(01:13:16):
I knew you hate when this happens, but you know
it had to happen. Yes, you're gonna have to wait
for a part two of this story with Allen Leads.
Of course, he has a gazillion stories. And yes, you
Prince fans, I'm not gonna leave you out. You know
good and well. He's gonna tell some print stories in
addition to Moore James Brown stories. So tune in next
week for another epic episode of the Allen Leads Quest

(01:13:39):
Love Supreme return show. Thank You Court Love Supreme is
a production I Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced
by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app Apple Podcast

(01:14:00):
Asked or wherever you listen to your favorite shoes