QLS Classic: Shep Gordon

Artist manager Shep Gordon shares behind-the-scenes stories about Alice Cooper, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Yeo yo, what up? This is Fonte back again with
another q LS classic. This one we take this from
back to October sixteen. This was episode six of our
show where we sat down with one of the most

(00:22):
iconic managers all of music. Chef Gordon came into Quest
Love Supreme and he talked about his time with Luther Vandroul's,
Tim Pendergrass, Alice Cooper, and countless others. This is a
really fun episode. Chef was a lot of fun. Y'all
enjoy this q LS classic. Sponte low yep so Surema,

(00:52):
role called, supremo, role call, subrima, Suprema rog My name
is Quest Love. Yeah, I have a fence. Yeah, don't
get mad Steve. Yeah, I didn't rhyme the word you
think I was Suprema roll call, Suprema, So Suprema roll call.

(01:20):
My name is Fante. Yeah, I am a trooper. Yeah.
My favorite single yeah was Jeffrey Carlouf SAfrica. Suprema roll call, Suprima,
Suprema roll call. I aname in sugar. Yeah. You know
my stand Yeah, It's nice to meet you. Yeah, Superman Shore,

(01:44):
Suprema Suprema, roll call, Suprema Suprema roll call. Stiller is here, Yeah,
quest Love Supreme. Yeah, thank you for listening. Yeah to
this Pandora stream Soma Sorima roll call, so Prima sorima

(02:07):
roll called name. Yeah. I love the brothers. Yeah. But Chef, yeah,
I got me thinking about the h frima roll call
sub prima frema roll call. My name is Chef. Yeah,
I come from MAUI. Yeah, I'm looking for your joint. Yeah.

(02:30):
I have no idea how to try that call roll
call Soma su frima roll call so prima soprima roll
that was perfect with some ladies and gentlemen. This is

(02:56):
course love. How you doing. We are alive at Electric
Lady Studio. I'm sitting here with Team Supreme. How you
doing guys? Yeah? Yeah, right, all right, all oh man,
I'm really I'm really excited today because UM, the the

(03:18):
Guru of all gurus, UH, the one of the best,
most powerful managers, most effective managers of music, UH is
with us today, Chef Gordon. Um he I mean some
of the greatest name m. Luther andros Uh Alice Cooper,

(03:38):
Blondie Blondie, Teddy Pendergram. Wait, food he does food too,
that's amazing. Yes, of course he invented the foodie. So um,
we're just gonna try and I actually want to pick
his brain. Just not many people know that have seen

(03:59):
the Superman documentary that Mike Myers did for those that
don't know, when they were shooting Wayne's World and requested
Alice Cooper to come on the movie to do a cameo.
We're not worthy, We're not worthy. Um. That's how Mike
Myers got to know Chef Gordon, and when he heard
his life story, he was like, one day, I'm gonna

(04:20):
make a story of your life. So, I mean some
nineteen twenty years later he made that documentary. But um,
because Chef's clientele is so expansive in and Lodge, Um,
not many people know that he has managed some of
the greatest, most powerful names in black music. I mean

(04:43):
they cover Teddy Pendergrass, but I mean, as we mentioned,
like Midnight Start Kenny Loggins, Kenny Loggins was black for
a couple of him. So yeah, you're right, you're right.
So we're gonna pick his brain a little bit. Um,

(05:06):
but you know how, I want to know how you
guys are doing. What's up? Fonte? Man, I'm in the
middle of trying to move for my goddamn house and
is tying is turning? Man, you're doing it on your own.
Hell no, I'm hering movers. One part is tiring. Well,
it's just like because you don't realize how much ship
you have until you start taking away ship that you

(05:29):
sit your ship on. So like, you know, you got
a little TV on the big TV. I'm not that good.
I'm you know, I'll pass the Do you want to
have a small TV on the We had that? We
had the floor model that didn't work, and then we
had the TV on top of it. Yet that you

(05:51):
know that did that had you know it had the
big back a little bit so now man, But now
I'm in the presence of moving, you know what I'm saying,
and um packing up all my music and that's been
the biggest thing, like clearing my meteorat with all my
like CDs and vinyl and d CDs and still keep
your CDs in your cassettes. Not my cassettes I don't,
but my CDs I do. My whole thing is like

(06:14):
you're gonna have to downsize that. You're like, I did
I have? I have downside? I called to her. I
think I got like maybe like two hundred copies of
the two hundred CDs away. So I got two hundred
out and it was just stuff that no, no, no,
they're throwing away. I don't throwing away. I donated them.
I donated them like a good will or whatever. So
you're not seeing them again. You would have hated me

(06:34):
in two thousand nine. Well, you gave stuff away. I
threw stuff away. Oh wow, what's your throw away? A
whole like this? Who's right at the end of my
record label days. So I had a ton of just
shitty promos and stuff that I couldn't sell them for anything,
So I just put them out on the corner. Yeah,
to sell them on Amazon. That was like too much work,
Just like do I really need three copies of white

(06:57):
Tea by the franchise Bow? I mean, that's exactly kind
of stuff I was throwing out, you know, all those
crappy Universal Records promos in the blue sleeves that nobody wants.
I won't lie like we realized that if we went
up to uh Geffen records and jack a couple of
boxes we could sell them and make cash. So there

(07:18):
was a period where we were like stealing our own
promos big Red Boot. But after a while they're like,
I don't need no more distortion and stag. You know,
I already got two hundred copies. But yeah, that's been
man just like picking up and like getting rid of

(07:38):
ship and uh handling life stuff. It's it's been interesting
being absolved into the Quest Love universe because you are
in your own time and uh, it is it is
a lot, you know what I'm saying. But we do
it because we love you a great better be honest,
now stopping all of you, stop it, sante, No, we

(08:05):
do it. Let me do it in service of it.
I'm honored and to be in your presence. I worked
for this really great guy. All right, I'm skipping all
of you. Actually we have we have someone new and
our actually Scott is like our boss. He your boss bosses.
He's the boss of boss pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, when

(08:28):
at first I didn't like you around because I just
felt this pressure. Well, let's used to stand behind me
like the like the like the angel of death. Yes,
well I got seated there. I didn't actually choose that place,
but I did. I felt bad about being he did.
He did. He actually hit me up the next day
and he was like, oh man, I hope he didn't
feel this. I mean, you know, like the Family Guy

(08:49):
episode where like the angel dev is his chilling talking
to Peter like any second he could die. Like any
email I've ever got from Scott, I'm like, oh shoot,
I just lost the show. I lost the show. The
shows on. How are we doing, Scott Great, It's amazing. No, No,
I mean literally, how are we sorry? Yes? What what

(09:12):
is what is the what is the need for us
to always check that I have employment? Like we I
think we're always like okay, uh with like I think
every every black person that has had some success, like
we're always secretly like waiting because we like that white
man to come and just take everything away. Because you know, seriously,

(09:34):
I was I was literally just thinking my going through
my work history, and like pretty much any time I
got an email from any any uh my supervisor or whatever,
it's like, uh, that's it. Any time. Yeah, let's let's
hope in the future that's still at my eighteen jobs.
That's that's all. I'm saying, so, Steve, how you how
you doing? I'm good? How are you great? Um? Is

(09:54):
it good to be back at an Electric Lady studio?
Oh yeah, this is amazing. I love being here. Great
staff is great, all the memories and so forth. You
started from the bottom here right and look at me,
now here, look at me. He turned to Phil Collins,

(10:14):
started from the bowling and take him look at field
of gold, and I feel good. I missed. Bill Sherman
is not here, so I'm gonna be doing this where Bill. Bill.
Bill is in l A. He is working on a
TV show that he and I both will be nice.

(10:37):
I'm saying, so, see you getting your jobs? One, I'm
getting my job, yo. I told you Quest Love is
I want to be like Quess Love your job, Bro,
I'm getting I'm getting my jobs up. Man, that's perfect,
that's awesome. I'm not complaining. So, of course, our special
guests today on Quest Love Supreme. Um, what can I say?
I mean? Uh. At the the very beginning of the

(11:01):
tonight show, we had a guest Mike Myers on promoting
a movie, a documentary he called super minch and on
Netflix right now, Yes and so on Netflix right now
and instantly caught my attention because I mean, you know,
I thought I was going to see a music documentary
and instead I got a life lesson. It was like

(11:22):
the greatest ted talk ever. Yeah, but like not way
cooler than the more the most creative technic of all time. Yeah.
So you know about our next guest, Chef Gordon Is.
I mean, he's a guru. He's a manager and organizer, conceptualizer,
uh and most importantly he's a friend to everyone. Ladies

(11:45):
and gentlemen. Welcome to of course love supreme Chef Gordon.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Thanks for Netflix plug.
Oh yeah, yeah we watched. I watched UH for the
first time a couple of nights ago, and I remember
what the things I can remember. You know, when you know,
get into the business. My friend of mine told me,

(12:05):
he was, like, your manager has got to be whoever
you choose as your manager. That has got to be
the guy that knows where all your bodies are. Like,
that's got to be none. It's got to know everything.
Whatever whatever drug you want, whoever girl you're sleeping with, whatever,
all the dirt, Like, your manager has to be the
guy to know it. Because he's the guy that has

(12:27):
to protect you from it. You know, you're saying that
if you were the past, you have somebody and a
little bit everyone brother, everyone needs a Mr. Wolf And
watching the Superman's documentary, I was just like, yo, Chef
Gordon is the ultimate Mr Wolf. Like he's the ultimate

(12:50):
like manager that anyone could ever wish for. Now we're
broadcasting here at our at our home and electrical waiting
and I you know, of course if your a connection
with Jimmy Hendricks. Uh, you said you were here when
he Yeah, I lived on ninth Street, UM at Fifth Avenue,

(13:11):
and I had a good friend of mine, Alan Douglas,
who had a a daughter who was the same age
as a child I was raising, and he was here
at the time, UM doing some over. Jimmy had passed away,
and this was the first album coming out after he
passed away. They put in John McLachlan and a bunch

(13:33):
of people to play on it. They said that they
had found the guitar part only UM and rebuilt the
record and UM, I used to drop my the girl
I was not my daughter, but the girl I was
raising here and they'd babysit for while they were working
here at Electric cleante Land. Yeah, because it was all
part of you know, it was such a different business then.

(13:56):
You know, it was a family. We all knew each other.
It wasn't it wasn't like random people were coming in
to use the studio. There was no studio business. It
was basically acts. It was signed by a record company
and everybody sort of new So it was very family. See.
That's when when uh I did my residency here back

(14:18):
in I started, was Eddie Kramer here then, uh, you
know the first year they that's when they first started
to re release a lot of hidden uh not the hidden,
the unreleased Hendrick stuff. Um so Jannie Hendrickson and Eddie
had crazy stories for us, like they played us all

(14:39):
these tapes and everything, and um you know, like it's funny,
like this was like I consider this my my home
because I did like a majority of my work at
the studio from like seven too, like two thousand and four,
and I think like between and two thousand and two,

(14:59):
Like I mean, there will be times where I just
like slept here in the studio, like but that was
that was the way it was then. That was sort
of the way it was. You know, you came in,
it's been sixty days, forty five days. You sort of
live here, you do your record. Um, it was a
different The recording process was a very I think I

(15:20):
never recorded, so I don't know, but I think a
very different process. It was a it was much more
a creative collaboration. And if someone was in studio B,
you'd bring them in in the same thing. Yeah, they'd
work on the record with it. It wasn't this territorial
weird thing. The same thing here, Like we would there'll
be clients in the sea room upstairs and we'd be

(15:43):
in the a room downstairs, and then we sneak over
and I need a background vocal anybody. Uh yeah, coach
people and do that. Um. So you for those that
haven't seen the film, UM, I guess what the beginning
of your your management career was. Alex Cooper And uh,

(16:06):
I mean at the at the time. I mean for me,
like a manager, there's two types of manager. Ones is
like super established, like if you go to like a company,
and someone that's like ultra established, and someone that's just
your rope buddy that's organized. And I mean, you haven't
haven't had any experience in the music business like where

(16:28):
you kind of worried about how to navigate. You know,
I never really thought about it. I did it as
a mine was a cover um. I got into being
a manager. So if someone asked me how did I
make a living, I could say it was I was
a manager. Jimmy Hendrick said to me when he's I
was I was a dealer and on a very low level.

(16:48):
And he said, what are you gonna do with the
police ask you where you make your money, you know,
and where I grew up. You need to you wear
a new watch. You better be able to tell the
cop where you got to watch. And I said, you know,
I'm a middle class to they did Long Island. They
don't police don't come to you. Yeah. I was about
to say, like opportunity exactly, but that's crazy because they

(17:12):
watching the documentary. I sat there and I wondered. I
was like, at the point where you and Alex Cooper said, okay,
we're going to do this, you had to have more
expertise than just a dealer, like how and you know
what else? Alice says, his words are shep and I
met at a lie. I told him I was a singer.

(17:32):
He told me he was a manager. But what what
happened was people started getting busted around me, and I
didn't want to do anymore. So I sat down with
Alice and I said, I have no idea what I'm doing.
And he said, I have no idea what I'm doing.
And I said, well, let's figure it out and get rich,
and let's agree to stay together until we didn't, so

(17:53):
we we. I had never thought of myself as a manager.
It was trying to earn lunch. I didn't even know
what a manager was. There was no rules for a manager.
I had never met a manager. UM. But I had
this idea that, um, if we could piss off parents,
kids would come to us, and that we could hire
people to make music. UM. And that's where we focused,

(18:17):
and that's where all of our stunts came from. Our
focus at band meetings was how do we piss off parents?
And that's where the chicken came from. And that's where
the name came from. Now, okay, from our from our
side of the fence, especially because we're not the target
rock audience. Like I'm certain that you know both you Fantee,

(18:37):
and I'm talking to Fante right now. Like we were
brought up at least in this Baptist or Christian background
where it didn't not did Jewish world either. It's just
like from our point of view, it's always like I
was taught, especially the church I went to, like this
Pentecostal church, which everything was of the devil and the same,

(19:02):
you know, like you would look these you know, you
look at the Ozzy Osborne covers or or blue Oyster
Calton like all these things, and you're thinking, like, man,
there's a temple of devil worship. And basically it's just
like a marketing scheme, like how can we you were
doing exactly. And by the way, Alice's father was a minister.
His grandfather was the head of the Church of Jesus
Christ in America. He married the daughter of a minister.

(19:26):
He reads the Bible every morning at five o'clock since
I know he goes to church on Sundays. And I
had to hide all that because I said, yeah, people
are gonna like you. We can't have you. So that
was that was really our biggest challenge was was not
giving up who he was. But that's just amazing though, man,
I mean, because that's like a clear like showing just

(19:47):
the difference between your persona versus your identity, you know
what I mean, and the fact that he could hold
onto who he was and not get lost. But he did.
He did. Oh yeah, yeah, he got consumed. He went
to rehabby at the bottom. But I think most people
who hit that level of fame, especially if they've done

(20:08):
it as entertainers, have to deal with that moment where um,
they're not being fulfilled. That there's very few of the
number one or is that I've come across who don't
need an adjustment somewhere along the way, who don't fall
to something. You know, Um, I've had so many. You know,
Teddy's not around, Luther's not around, um, all the people

(20:30):
I grew up with. Jimmy Hendricks died at twenty seven Mars,
and um, there there always was a link between fame
and and um using crutches that really hurt you. What
do you think that link is? Like? Why do you think?
You know? I think I don't know in the general world,
but I think in the entertainment, in the world that
I lived in, which was live entertainers, the rejection is

(20:53):
so gigantic to get to a place of success. It's
it's so overwhelming that if it's us, if your goal
is to just make a living or to have a career,
you can't take all that rejection. So normally it's to
fill some hole in you that you think that applause
is going to fill some hole for you, and it doesn't,

(21:14):
and then you just get angry and you use more
crutches and you know, hopefully you take a small fall
and you come back. Well, let me ask, okay, the
way that my manager uh taught us to cope with it? Uh.
And this is really where because everyone around me was like,
he's so negative, why do you embrace like all that nectivity?

(21:38):
And my mom you know, she had problems with him
and everything. But what I realized he was doing by
the first year was he was just preparing us to
not have any expectations, like he told he told me
Richard Nicholas, So like Richard was basically like, you know,
he's like, I'm not preparing you guys are starting. I

(22:00):
want you to have a long term career, so i'd
rather you, guys, you know, live better than the average
jazz musician. You know, now, because we were in hip hop,
you're instantly thinking of this ticker tape Parade or what
Rich called the Bentley movement. Think think, think of like

(22:21):
think of like your most delicious Height Williams video and
pouring champagne all over women like that that, you know,
and he just wanted for us to sort of just
get rid of that expectation, like he would always say,
just lower your expectations. And maybe the first year we
started taking a personal and point fingers at each other,

(22:42):
it's your fault, and well you drum to a drum click,
but DJs will play like all this thing, you know,
And then I will say that, I'll say that protecting
our ourselves helped us, helped me in Taraka the long run.

(23:03):
I mean, some of us sort of failed by the
waysides and kind of succumbed to different vices and whatnot,
But at least for Tarka and I, it kind of
helped us. But then again, like twenty years later into it,
I don't know if it's made us immune to emotional
feelings like I've so, you don't feel the good So

(23:27):
when you say that, you mean like you don't feel
the good stuff either, Well I don't, Yeah, I don't
feel anything. And it's like it's to the point where
it's just like, I'm mere Stevie Wonders almost show. Oh
my god, yeah that's cool. Oh my god. I mean
like what what what ten years ago you would have
been like. And that's the thing, Like I had to
numb myself so much to protect to keep myself from

(23:50):
forming a Drugger cabin or suicide or whatever the vices
that a artists get into. That now as a forty
plus year old man like it. Now, I'm trying to
get emotions back and it's it's yeah, no, it's funny
you should say that because I from a completely the

(24:11):
other side. I've come to the same place. Um. I
have people ask me if there anything you regret. It
was one of the questions that's been asked, and I say,
you know, um, one of the most satisfying nights of
my life was Alice getting in the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. It was forty years of hard work,

(24:31):
um and really amazing. And I went home and looked
in the mirror and said it worked, and got into
bed and watch CNN. Fifteen minutes after the thing. I
didn't go to the party. I wish I could have
shared it in the Love and I said to Allie
the next thing, you know, it's weird. I I've always
been like this. I don't know why. And he said, well,

(24:53):
I was in bed fifteen minutes after watching a movie.
But so we come up from the other side because
we were I manage them exactly the opposite way. I
used to sit him in a room and I would.
I would always tell clients, if I do my job perfectly,
it's very possible I'll kill you because I'll make you

(25:13):
so famous that you're gonna kill yourself or hurt yourself.
And but I would tell him that and say, that's
what I do for a living. It's the only thing
I know how to do. Other guys will make you
more money. Other guys will do a lot of stuff
better than me. I know how to make you really famous.
And UM, so is it almost is it almost better

(25:35):
to go for a second place. I don't know better.
I don't you know, hard for me to judge, but
I think you do you do what you know how
to do. UM. I think it's UM. I think better
like if I have someone I love, UM, I'm going
through it now with my assistants. UM daughter who I love,
who's very talented, very beautiful. A lot of record companies

(25:58):
are trying to sign her and take her, and I
hug her, and I say, why don't you become a
school teacher and have three kids because you're you're really
happy now, and you're gonna work for thirty years the
goal to be happy, and you're gonna have to unwine
a lot of stuff if you're successful, because that's really
the goal I think for most people is get happy,

(26:20):
be able to buy dinner, and yeah, and I think
most artists work at it so hard and they get
to the end of the row where they can be happy,
and they forgot how to be happy. Yeah, it's like
it's the dog. It's literally the dog chasing its own tail.
But I will say that there there is also an
insatiable thing going on, because you know, like my goal

(26:43):
for always, you know, there's always a deeper, uh kind
of in game every three or four years, you know,
back and and it's like, man, just okay, get one
grammy and I'll be happy. Now it's just by my

(27:04):
mom one house, and I'll be happy. And then I
mean for now, um, I don't know, like, okay, what
were your personal my personal like my my life goals.
I don't believe in happy. I believe in satisfied. So okay,
what would where would you really truly be satisfied but

(27:26):
be artist or never know? I'm gonna keep always I
know a lot of you brother, for real. Look we're
keeping hunting this question pres what we do? All right?
So look all right, my happiness for me is again
or my sty satisfied, my satisfied. My satisfaction would be
when I have enough money in the bank to where

(27:49):
I can sit still for three years at least three
years and like not do shit, Like if I don't,
I don't gotta go to a show, I ain't gottacking write,
not a song, I gotta sing one got them note
I'm good for Like what about ten years? Ten? No? No, no,
But I'm like, it's all right, it's three more realistic

(28:09):
to you or ten because I had the three year plan,
but then was like, damn if I get a bigger house,
and I think that's human nature nature. No, no, no,
I think it's human nature. I think for me, this
is like my whole thing, and it's kind of you
know what Sheff was saying. You know, my thing was

(28:31):
when I first got in when I first when I
first first started, before like we had signed anything, I
was working at the call center making ten dollars hour.
You know what I'm saying. And you know I'm in college.
I mean, I'm working at the call center. It was
I mean, it was a shitty job, but I was like,
look it's ten I was hour. I remember saying to
myself specifically, if I could just get to a point
in my career where I'm making ten dollars an hour rhyming,

(28:55):
doing what I love to do, I'm good. If I
can do If I can make ten dollars an hour
and not being this fucking call center and gotta be
nice to these people, I'm good. And so I got
to that point. And so for me, my kind of
moment realization was I got to the point where I
made way more than that. I mean, you know, crazy
time more, but you still finding yourself asking for more.

(29:18):
And so it's like I had to check myself. It's like, man,
that was a time in my place. So I so
I got to when I made twin dollars our, and
it's like, man, I remember that was a point in
my life. I never thought even now, even now, that.

(29:46):
So for me, I just keep that and I keep
that in mind. For me, It's like there were times
where whenever I get like depressed or overwhelmed, it just
whatever the case, I remember that there was a day
I was praying for the things that I have now
absolutely and keeps me kind of grounded, you know what
I mean. I say, I wake up and physically say

(30:07):
thank you every day for absolutely gifts I have. It's
it's amazing and just for all I mean all of
us we're sitting here, I've been to your house in Hawaii,
so I do the same thing. So I gotta ask you, um,

(30:27):
because you established that you knew the quote unquote club
which consisted of Hendricks and Jim Morrison. So I mean,
was this on a daily or a weekly basis that
you would see these people? And I see him, I
see Janie. Janis lived at the motel. It was a

(30:49):
Hollywood Landmark motel. Where is that where the high It
is right now, right next to the Magic Castle on
Franklin between Highland and liber Are. It's still there till
you know. It is right next to the driveway from
the Magic Castle. And Janie lived there. So when she
wasn't on the road. She was there every day and

(31:09):
with her Southern comfort bottle and usually a guy int
and a revolving door. Guy Jim would come by once
in a while. Wasn't there all the time. The Chambers
brothers lived there, so they were there all the time. Um,
But it was Why was that particular spot the Hollywood mythical?
I think because it was cheap. First of all, Um,

(31:31):
it was cheaper than having your own property or oh yeah,
this was thirty four dollars a night for the room. Um,
you know, this was not a fancy This is a
very bear roots hotel. In those days thirty ft dolls
was still something, but it was very cheap. It was
a hotel California, swimming pool two stories around it, and

(31:52):
for some reason, you know, it was just music friendly.
You go to the pool and on a typical afternoon
would be Arthur Lee, who was really interesting because he
when he was there, he was the creative leader. When
they would sit around the pool and play. He's the
one who would say you take this, take a background vocal,
will do this song, you do this. Everybody would look

(32:13):
at him. He was the he was like they bowed
Arthur Lee. He was he was the real power in
the room. So you're describing this utopian atmosphere where authorly
in love and the Jannis Stopplin would just singing like
twistic guitars. Usually it was Bobby knew Earth which would started.
Bobby knew Earth was Bob Dylan's road manager and also

(32:37):
became a folk singer later on in his life. He
was usually the instigator. Paul roth Child lived there, who
was the producer of UM a lot of the Doors Records,
great producer UM. So they were usually the instigators and
they would bring up Bobby would bring out his guitar
and they just started, and Janis would jump in and
sing and one of the chambers of others would get

(32:58):
on like a you know, start beating on a garbage
pail or something. And that was sort of the rhythm
of the place. It wasn't every day, UM never was organized.
Was the general public aware of this? I mean the
way that was cut now, Yeah, it was funny, you know,
it was pre aids UM. Yeah, there was a great
it was a great rhythm. And you'd like sit at

(33:19):
the pool and UM you'd see like this really pretty
girl come in and she'd be with like Pink Floyd
in this room, and then you get to the pool
the next morning should come out of the chambers. It
was rude. And then you come down the next morning
and come out of the you know, someone else's room.
They sort of worked exactly. They sort of worked. They
were out of the place and the g t o

(33:41):
s lived there. I don't know if you've ever heard
of then the girls together outrageously. They were a bunch
of groupies who did a recording, recorded an album for
Frank Zappa's label, and they were fantastic there. It was
miss Christie missed this would missed that one. And they
sort of took care of all the girls and made
sure they got fed, you know, and they just remember

(34:01):
that one of the great days at the pool because
it was a different time. It was a free love time,
you know, it was really different. Um. But I remember
I was down at the pool with with I think
Lester Chambers and Bobby new Worth, maybe Roth Tom, and
we get to the pool and somebody spots up in
the corner an entire line of ladies lingerie drying out

(34:24):
and we're like hound dogs getting so excited. The ice
Capades had checked in Oh my god, I'm sorry. That

(34:47):
was the high point of life at the Hollywood Landmark.
The Ice Capades were here. It was like, oh my god.
I mean, by that point, could you imagine and during
mainstream society or was this just like oh, I'm fine,
just yeah, no, you know, I had no consciousness of

(35:07):
what it was. And they weren't really mad Rushmore people
at the time. I was. I had just come out
of college. I remember, I I wasn't I had very
few female relationships. I was very I was close to
a virgin at this point in my life. Yeah. It
was a late bloomer and this beautiful blonde was at

(35:27):
the pool and she came and she stayed with me
at night and we made love and I'm thinking I'm
in love and I go downstairs the next day she said,
Lester Chambers room. So you know, one of the things
I questioned now, the way that you were describing managing
Anne Mary, because I was, you know, five or six

(35:54):
years old at the time. You know, I mean, they
weren't calling it yacht rocked back then or a soft
pop or whatever. Like it was just always on read
like I mean you need me, was like played like
forty two billion times a day, like your lord. However,
are you saying at one point she was a hard

(36:14):
sale because she was a very tough sell. So that
was you that got her on them up at show
with Alice and Midnight Special and all that stuff. She
was a very she was a very tough sell. But
she was amazingly talented in her in her I don't know,
I mean, I don't mean this in a negative way,
her narrow highway. She had one of the greatest purest

(36:37):
voices you ever heard, and she had very little recognition
of what that meant or um that part that it
wasn't just the voice, you had to be an entertainer.
So she was as pure vessel, completely as far away
from Alice as you could possibly get in terms of
her attraction in her drawer And how did she come

(37:01):
to your attention? I was up in Canada doing a
pop fit a show with John Lennon the first time
of Plastic Chicken Show, The Chicken Show, and she I
turned on the TV. There was a guy named Brian
to Hearn who was a producer, and he said, you
gotta watch his TV show. I had the I had
this girl who teaches Jim in Canada, who's singing this

(37:21):
song Snowbird, And she's fantastic. You may want to work
with her. And it was a summer show, and that
she had been she was a gym teacher who got
a job in the summer on this four week show
and she sank Snowbird. And I heard the song and whoa,
and UM then just stought it to get some traction
on radio. And I got the number one. And when
it got the number one, I knew the people of
Capitol Records, and they and her called me and I said, oh,

(37:46):
I know all about you. I was up in Canada.
It was great. And so was this truly a time
period in which I mean, I definitely know the seventies
before before MTV came to playing I mean, now you know,
image overtakes talent like talent doesn't even count anymore, borderline
in every field. But I mean, are you saying that

(38:10):
at one point, at least for a good twenty year period,
talent could account for something in which well, I wouldn't
go that far. But here here was the difference between
then and now, I think is it? Um Radio was
open to playing things. Radio ruled the world, hit records

(38:33):
ruled everything UM entertainment. It was a very different world.
It wasn't like a concert world where you had to
be a great performer UM. And if you could get
the record company to spend the money, you could have
hit records. And that was my goal with her, was
to get hit records. And I got her in this.

(38:57):
I decided that I would try and put her next
to the biggest ours in the world, take that back
to the record company and see if they would treat
her like one of the biggest stars in the world.
And I so. It was a heart cell, very heart sell,
heart sell to her and a heart sell to the
record company. UM. But once I got the picture with
I orchestrated an event where John Lennon, Mickey Dolan's who

(39:20):
was gigantic, the monkeys, the biggest thing in the world.
Then UM Harry Nielsen, who was unbelievably respected UM by
the industry, and Alice took a picture with her. And
that picture enabled me to sell just about anybody the
white sofers that that photo killed the sofer. We see what?

(39:51):
And I got her on hosting Midnight Special because if
John Lennon liked her, she had to be great. Um,
it just thought of a circle of stuff then. Um,
you know those days it was much simpler. It was
very different. There was nobody really knew who she was
till she was famous. There was no internet. You couldn't
see how bland she was. Um, none of that stuff

(40:12):
got revealed. It was really about getting somebody to pay
enough money to get her records on radio. But I
mean by that point a singer like Helen Ready had
sort of prominent, so you know she there was a
lane at least four Oh, definitely a lane. I've been
a lane from all the way back. The the concept

(40:32):
of of wholesomeness and and and not movement and not entertainer,
you know, non entertainment singers. What were her live concerts like,
I mean were they saying? I mean, for me, they
were boring because they weren't entertaining. But for her audience
she had this beautiful voice. Um, you know there was

(40:53):
um people would hold hands and wear suits and ties.
And remember by the times he had like I have
her six hits under her belt, and it was like
she established it. And she turned out to be a
very good performer. I mean, she played through her audience.
She really developed and she got a style and a
a comfort level with the stage with an audience. And

(41:15):
I went to see her a few years after I
stopped managing, and it was really entertaining. I saw it
revere Um. She got a little production in m Okay.
So the one thing well plus in also talking your
head off a few times I've met you, I've come
to discover now, of course Superman's does touch on your

(41:41):
your history with Teddy Pendergrass. But then later I found
out that you damn near managed everyone important in black music,
which I mean Superman's kind of treat like a small
footrot Like, oh, by the way, Rick James know that
that listed the end of Superman. Just I copied that

(42:02):
list and wrote it all down to everybody, and it
was like whoa Rick James and Stephanie Mills and Lisa Fisher,
which I'm sure was not happy about. He was so okay.
So the thing I didn't know that was before before okay. So,

(42:26):
Teddy one seventy six, you're saying that most black shows
that occurred were strictly for radio stations and DJs and
not for pay, and I mean audience is paid. Artists
didn't get paid there was an organization called the Black
Promoters Association. UM. I don't know if they still exist

(42:48):
or not, but they were sort of the enforcers um.
And they had a collection of promoters who worked with
the radio stations and the record companies, and they kept
everybody in line. UM. And it was it was, you know,
it was a street business. It was Teddy's last manager
before me had been shot to death. Um. It was

(43:09):
a tough business. And and they were making a lot
of money and they didn't want to give it up.
And I didn't scare you at all, you know, I
never they sent you in the line of fire. And
there was like, oh, by the way, my last manager
guts out, so we'll get him. Set Hey, you go
get him. Um. So you're saying like a cat, like, uh,

(43:35):
let me pick a random seventies like mac davis. Mc
davis could go out and do whatever he wanted to
do make some money. But Teddy went out strictly to
ensure that his record played over the radio. He was
he was convinced by by the record company who profited
greatly by the record sales and made nothing on the road,

(43:55):
that the only way he was gonna keep getting hit
records and keep getting basically the rented car that they
give him. M Yeah, how how would he make money?
Because how he gamble? If gamble on huff for writing
the songs. He lived a very simple life. He wasn't
There was no mansions in any of those guys lives.
They were you know, you talked to the o js,
you talked to all these guys. In the beginning, they

(44:17):
were just working musicians. They were working musicians until when
like what do you think for me? With Teddy? It
was um. It was the second solo album. That's about
when we started. That's when we we we Our history
was that we UM. I understood, once I understood the

(44:40):
Chidling check, that we can't do this. So I booked
him in Radio City Musical and we got picketed and
nobody wanted across the picket line. The Black Promoters Association
picketed us. So it was like al Haman and those
guys are part of it? Or was al Haman more
like the eighties and he was going apart, But he
was much one new tre He was the second wave,
he was first wave was and good guys. I actually

(45:02):
got friendly with most of the guys with Jesse Boseman's
who I love, great guy. I mean, there's still a
lot of respect from But that was their business and
they were able to get away with it and that's
what they did. And um so I said, I'm you know,
I'm gonna have no, We're not doing this, and I
booked Teddy into a radio City and um, nobody wanted
to cross the picket line. I mean, it got it

(45:24):
was pretty deep. Jesse Jackson came and picketed. Uh, it
was it was deep. Um So I knew I had
to do business with him somehow, some way, we had
to do business, and we ended up making an arrangement
with him. But um, if Teddy played a institutional building

(45:46):
like Radio City, that was where the promoter owned the building,
they would allow us to do it as long as
we paid him a fee. It's like the mafia. Yeah,
but every business. I mean, you know, try and buy
laundry in New York and then you're restaurant and you know,
it's still the same. It's life works the same way.
It just the waybute to somebody. Yeah, yeah, it always

(46:07):
works that way. So that was the way we sort
of got out. And then what we did was we
just played those kind of places, and finally they came
back to us and said, okay, we'll let you. My
beef was money, but it was also promotion. Um. They
didn't do anything, and I wanted the shows promoted. So
we finally made arrangement that they we could take a

(46:28):
white promoter who has been in the business, pair them
with someone from the Black Promoters Association, give them their
fifty of the day, but don't come, don't do anything,
just leave us alone. Um. So all those shows that
are you saying that that was the modus operandi for

(46:48):
the average black show And then well what happened is
then other people's earth. When that fire came on that highway,
a lot of acts started to follow that highway and
everything started to So did this at the great a
little bit um and it opened up. Um by the
time I got to Rick James, I didn't have to
deal with it at all. So with the exception of
like James Brown, you're saying everyone had to go for

(47:10):
that that funnel system. I'm sure James Brown probably went through. Well,
I know that he was kind of handling his own
business or whatnot, but that's that's what it was. It
was a chilling circuit. It's just the way it was. Wow.
I went to UH. I went to elementary school on
in Philadelphia thirteen three thirteen Broad Street, which is right

(47:34):
next door at the Philly International. So at that great
bar across the street. What the name of that bar?
There was a great bar in the corner, and everybody
hung out of the former Philadelphia International. Yeah, now' SLS Hotel?
H Is that what it is? Then? Yeah, they're about
to build an SLS. But I could time it perfectly,

(47:56):
like and I could tell that he might have been
on CP time every time because I could always I
knew when Teddy pen the Grass was outside. It was
always like twelve two, like during lunch break, so between
like third and sixth grade, like like clockwork, I could
catch Teddy pen the Grass right outside, right outside of

(48:18):
a philiator, like I've never seen a kind of this
hard day's night fan mobbing situation. And he had a
well assume it's a rose voice or whatever. Yeah the
plate Teddy rented right. Yeah, And I just like that

(48:42):
made an impression on me, not like man, one day,
I want you want to be people, So I mean,
but what I know you can't get super personal of it,
but I mean v the heat and stick, the idea
of what a rock star was. I know that was

(49:05):
that for Teddy pe which I mean, how not bad
did it get? How how extreme? Because now, but it's
all a matter of of of levels. And Teddy was
probably making more money than he ever thought he'd ever

(49:27):
make in his whole life, just by the drippings from
the side. Um. You know, he was selling millions of records.
That's a lot of money. So if a couple of
hundred thousand maybe went off to him, where another white
artist may have gotten a million. If he's getting a
couple of hundred thousand, that's big money. Because all you
know is what you know, um, and you know so.

(49:50):
So he was when I got inbould He was happy.
He had no problem with going and doing the dates
and not getting paid. It was my problem, not his problem. Um.
He accepted it as that was the way of life,
and he was getting enough drippings to come in that
he felt like he was on top of the world. Um,
so how are you able to orchestrate the women only concerts? Like?

(50:11):
Were their guards there to stop? No? No? Um, I
realized when I thought of it that I could get
sued if I didn't let guys in. Um and every
you know, everybody told me I couldn't do it because
but I just said, if they want to buy a ticket,
I don't care if they buy a ticket and come in.
I just want the twenty five million people who aren't
attending the concert to see the women only. I couldn't

(50:34):
care if there's a guy in the place. No even
I think made hbo and it was like, I think
it was only kinds of women, So I only thought
that's all they were. No men came, No men came
at all. I mean they could have, but they were outside.

(50:55):
We had a lot of pimps outside waiting for their
ladies to like to let out. I have reason to
believe that Teddy rocked a few marriages in my family's.
But the best part of those shows is we gave
out everybody chocolate Teddy barrel lollipops, so he going to
like close the door and you're seeing them out in

(51:16):
the audience to girls like flicking the lollipop and fighting
its head off. Teddyties a lot of patties on stage.
Did it ever bother him in the least? Or was
he just enjoying it. He enjoyed it. Yeah, Teddy was.

(51:36):
I had such a great time working with Teddy was
one of my you know, Alice for me is like
an arm but after Alice, Teddy, Teddy was. Um. I was.
He's my favorite music. That's what I listened to at home.
That's the only thing I play in my house for
the last fifteen years is Teddy. And he just loved
being that character. I loved it was. I used to

(52:00):
have these great conversations with him. I would show up
and he say, oh, Ship, it is the time and
I say, yeah, we called it that. Don't be a
schmuck conversations and I sort of shut the door and
I go, man, you're being a schmuck. And I a
shrunk again, and I get it off my chest and
we deal with it. It was great. You could you
could talk. You know, with some artists you have to

(52:23):
tiptoe around the issue. You have to figure out a
way to get the waere you want to go back?
With him, you didn't have to tiptoe. I could just
tell him, you know, as as un uh fancy as
I could what I felt. So what would be with
him would issue? Well, actually, for women only came out
of it. That's how the concert happened. He played, UM,

(52:45):
I got really piste when I went and did the
first Chipland circuit show with him, really piss me off,
like you can't let this happen. That's when he told
me his manager got killed. And I said, you know,
I don't give a ship, I don't have kids, I
don't care let him kill me, but I'm not going
to be part of this thing. And he said, what
do we do? I said, I'm gonna book you in
the whitest place I can find and fuck them excuse me,

(53:11):
and we're going. Uh. So I booked him in the
Roxy in l A, which very white bread small club.
I don't think a black artist that ever played at
that point. We got a lot of death threats. Um
we got um we ended up getting FBI security there.
They what the Black Promoters Association. So you know, so

(53:39):
I'm like risking my life to do this. UM rock
the Rocksy, You're not gonna make any money in the Roxy.
It's two hundred seats and um I had only done
one show with him, and we get to the Roxy
and he does the whole show sitting on a stool.
All the women wanted to do was like grab him

(54:01):
and fucking brains up. And he's sitting on a stool
being this really cool, really cool guy, like you know,
and I was getting furious, like furious, like I can't
believe you're not giving it up. The energy in this
room is so strong at you, and you're just you're
not reacting and you're not engaging it. You're not giving

(54:24):
it back to him. You're not doing So I go
upstairs and this is only my second show with him,
and he's got these two security guys, one real big,
one real small, and they really don't know me, and
they tell me, I gotta wait. Teddy's getting you know, changing,
which really pisces me off the beginning with because I'm
used to immediate access. And then this parade of women

(54:44):
starts coming in and you know, woman comes in and
I'm out there. It's fifteen minutes later, the next one
comes in. It's now it's two o'clock in the morning.
I've risked my life. I hate the show and I'm
sitting here at two o'clock in the morning and hilet
I get in, you mud the fucker who the fund

(55:04):
do you think you are. You know, I've risked my
life for you to sit on a fucking stool and
and like be cool, and then you make me wait
till two o'clock in the morning, go funk yourself. And
he said, hey, man, what do you what do you
expect for me? I'll tell you what. I expect me
to get those women crazy and let me be the

(55:24):
only guy in the room when you're doing it. I
will have the greatest time ever. And then I said,
wait a second, let's do shows for women only. Well,
I do know that, And that was came out of
that moment. Don't be a smug conversation. And he said
can we do that? And I said, yeah, I'm sure
we could do anything we want to do. Let's go
do it. Well. I think before this point there used
to always be two sets of shows, because even Sam

(55:47):
Cook had the show that he did at the Copah
show the night and then at midnight do the you know,
rebel Rousing show and James Brown Motown. Like I think
maybe because perhaps Marvin how Melvin Blue Notes sort of
had to have dual shows as well, Like you play

(56:09):
certain places where it's like suit and tie and you know,
because I saw one of their concert tapes where I
mean they were doing like Broadway Danny Rose and stuff
like let us entertain you, like songs from Tipping. Yeah. No,
they were doing like magic Tricks and wow. I was like,

(56:30):
really I never knew how Blue notes seeing the way
we were now getting ready for the job. Yeah, but
I mean just pretty much even James Brown, like start
time was like the hits, but then he'd do some
Sinatra stuff. He'd do That's life and you know, like
I can be serious and play the copa. So maybe

(56:52):
that was the mentality, Like I think he was just
trying to be cool. So we're the audience where there
the demographics different as well, Like did he ever? Yeah,
it was all it was. He started at the end
to get some white audience. Once he got once, um,
they press finally started calling him the black Elvis and

(57:12):
that sort of attracted a lot of white women once
they said black Elvis. But up till but never really
was gigantic, but it was it was every woman in town.
I mean it was. It was fantastic and they had
the greatest time. I mean it really it paid off.
He was an entertainer who paid off. They went home exhausted.
Let me ask you a personal question because in the

(57:34):
documentary some of your friends admit that you love the ladies.
So how does the police police himself? Because if you were,
you know, with these guys like Teddy and I was,
and where women were everywhere, was there a moment when
you had to go earth, maybe just three tonight or
just to um? No I was. I've always um. I've

(58:03):
always been very direct. I try to always be honest. Um.
And in those days, I was overworking, you know, I was.
I was. That was all I had was my work
to all I cared about. So there wasn't really time
for relationships. So but I loved women and I love sex.
Did you have any did you have some game? What

(58:23):
great game? It's not great game, but great access Because
I had. I was in the midst of all the stars. Always,
I was standing next to the people they wanted to
be next to. Everybody wanted to be with the lead
singer of a band. And so I said to myself,
how could I I don't have the time to romance someone.
You know, It's like it's eleven thirty, I gotta get
up at six. I'm in a hotel room. I don't

(58:46):
have time to like, I love you, I love you,
and it's not honest. Actually, everybody else on the road
is like telling these girls that they know they're never
gonna see again how much they love him, just to
get him into the bed and yeah, And I said,
I can't do that. So I said, what do I do?
I said, well, what's my strength? My strength is that
I can get these women of backstage pass to meet

(59:07):
the lead singer. So I made up a T shirt
that said no head no backstage pass was honest. He
wanted great, You don't wanted great, no problem at all.
It was head based, which that was what stopped you
from having so many thoughts thought babies. Okay, that was
very smart. It eliminated the downside, fulfilled the upside, honest

(59:35):
right to the point. So shup, I gotta, I gotta,
I gotta ask uh because I remember again as a
Philadelphia and I remember it so well. But can you
take us through the like I believe like Marunch of

(59:59):
two when you got that phone call, like what they
I got a phone call that Teddy had his accident.
Do you still remember it, like oh, like it was yesterday.
I remember I don't remember getting to Philly. I remember
the elevated the elevated door in the hospital opening, and Um,
Sedonia Walker was there, who ran Teddy's office, and Karen

(01:00:24):
who was I don't know if she was his wife
at that point she had been a singer in the show.
She was there Teddy's mom, who's still alive and just
an amazing woe. I mean, like they should build a
statue to her. She is a remarkable woman. And the
doctor because they had Calton down. Then um, doors open

(01:00:44):
and they said, the doctors and Mr Gordon Gold you're here. Um,
Teddy is never gonna walk again. We're not sure if
he's gonna live again or not, but it's really important
in his recovery for us to tell him rapidly that
he's not gonna walk again. We found that that's really
part of the way. If he's gonna come through this thing,

(01:01:06):
he's got to know it now. And why was that.
I have no idea and everybody they just wanted you
to put it in this instantly, and they said, and
we kill our hopes, so you know, so it's reality,
and you know where you're going to kill the spirit
though you know he he's strapped to a table um
that they flip every ten minutes. Yeah, I saw that device,

(01:01:28):
like and all he could do is blink. That was
the only you know, like, can you can you hear me?
Teddy blink once? Yes, twice no, and he blink And
then they'd flipp him every ten minutes and they said uh.
And everybody felt that you should be part of the
team to tell him. And within sixty seconds, I'm in
his room telling the guy that he's never gonna walk again.

(01:01:50):
It was a guy I love. I mean, I love Teddy.
I can't I still love him. Amazing, just an amazing
you know, he gave me the trust. Not easy, um,
really not easy. And UM so that was a pretty
traumatic moment. And I went and I he had some children. UM,

(01:02:15):
I didn't know how many, because Teddy was he didn't
wear the same T shirt I didn't. And he spent
everything he had. Um, it's every no matter how much
he made, he spent it. So I knew there was
no money to take care of everybody. So I decided
I had to attached myself emotionally from this. The doctors

(01:02:37):
would take care of him, I would I would figure
out how to take care of his family. So, um,
there was a beer company that had been sponsoring us
to will go unnamed, and I called him up and
I explained what happened and told him about the kids,
and they agreed to put some money into a trust fund,
sizeable trust fund and get the good will for the

(01:02:59):
beer company and help Teddy's family. And um, and I thought, okay,
got it done with, Like I think a million dollars
or two million dollars, Go to sleep, wake up in
the morning, get the newspaper. The girl in the car
with Teddy was a guy front page story, so I
knew I would never hear from the beer company ever again,

(01:03:21):
which I never did. So they revealed that daily news
front page. Yeah I remember, yeah, I remember. I mean
I was really young. The reason why I remember my
mother she was I mean, she loved it. And that
was one of the first times, like with the celebrity.
I remember seeing my mother cry like I remember her
when the news broke and I mean I was like
three or four years old. And his connection to his audience.

(01:03:46):
I've never seen a connection like he had to his audience.
These women, they really felt that well. He was one
of the few he was they would, you know, each
one felt personally like he was their lover, their son,
their husband. It was really remarkable. Relations is very I
mean he was such a masculine figured out I mean

(01:04:07):
I'm not saying that, you know, as man I ever
saw him, biggest presence I've ever seen, and he walked
in the room and was like wow, not for nothing.
I remembers his album when I was a little girl,
and that was the only album that I knew, and
I used to sing and perform it in front of
my my family and friends about that all ages. So
I wake up in that stories in the newspaper. So

(01:04:29):
as a manager, how what do you do? Then? Like?
So what I did then? And it? Um? I called
Mrs Pendergrass um Ida, and I said it, I think
we um, I think we have a problem. I don't
think the beer company is going to do what I
said they were going to do. Um. Can I come

(01:04:50):
out to the house and go through all the tapes
and see if I can find maybe there's some songs
that Teddy's done that haven't been released and I can
get someone to pay to put him out. I found
an album's worth of material and the rest of The
story is almost too ugly to tell, but we got
him some money. Um. He was recording for a record company. UM.

(01:05:13):
I went to the record company distributed their record company
correct CBS, and they were CBS agreed to give me
a million dollars for Teddy for the tapes. Um. But
but um, they said they couldn't pay it to us directly.
Teddy was signed to p I R. They had to
give it the p I R. So I took Teddy's

(01:05:34):
mom and the two kids that I knew of to
Gamble and Huff's office. I remember sitting in the chair.
It was it was always dramatic to sit there because
they sat in two thrones and behind them were all
the black militants, all of them. All of them talked

(01:05:54):
about killing people like me. You didn't have a good
wasn't the war's place to be? And UM told them
what I had done. They got very mad that I
went to CBS behind their back. Um. But they did
finally agree that they would get the check and give
it to Teddy. And they did get the check and
they gave part of it to Teddy. UM. So that

(01:06:16):
saved us for a while. And then I, UM, I
had it In the contract, there was a soundtrack clause
that he could do one album not on p I
R if it was a soundtrack of a movie Super one. Yeah.
So I went to I went to, Um, what did
you work on Super One? No? I just know that. Yeah,

(01:06:37):
I I've never seen the movie, but I haven't I
worked on that. That was a barb and Worth movie,
Like I never know the movie ever came out. So
I made this movie. I sawed a film company made
a movie called Choose Me um, and Teddy got the
sound got an advance from a lecture for the soundtrack,

(01:06:59):
and that's to what put him on straighten that out.
Took care of the kids, took care of the mom.
So by the time you guys on the Electra when
he did like the Joy album with things like good Things, yes,
because because the Electra stepped up to the line and
gave him um uh. There was a fella named Bob
kras Now and he had just taken over Electra and

(01:07:20):
I had promised Teddy that if he um um did
something legally that I could get him a million dollars.
And he did it, and the guy renegged on the
million dollars at CBS Walter. This is after this, this

(01:07:42):
is the second part of the incident. And I didn't
know what to do. You know, Teddy's lying there still. Um.
I promised him a million dollars. I got him to
go against some of his what he considered his best friends.
And I wasn't bringing back the million dollars and I
didn't have a million dollars or what had given it
to him. And I went to Bob Kraus's office and

(01:08:04):
I told him the story, and he said to me,
is Teddy gonna live? And I said, I don't know,
and uh, he said, well, I can just do me
a favor. If he dies. I need to have a
tape in my file of him doing something, and I
need a script of a movie. You don't have to
make the movie. Doesn't that be him? But I gotta

(01:08:27):
have my ass covered. So so I went to Luther
and I told him and I said, can you make
yourself sound like Teddy and get me a tape? And
he wrote, choose Me, Luther. He wrote the song and
he did like twenty generations, removed the noise in the background.
But we we had a tape up choose Me that

(01:08:47):
sort of sound like Teddy, and I went to a
filmmaker I had worked with, a guy named Alan Rudolph,
and I said, would you write a script from me?
We're never gonna make the movie, but I told him
the story and he wrote the scripts that we got
the money and I thought everything was pretty good. Teddy
was rocket and then I would Rudolf cold me up
that a year later it said now I need a
favor and I said what's that? And he said, I

(01:09:09):
want to make the movie. So I wasn't. I wasn't
sold my soul to Chris Blackwell, who had always who
had always wanted to meet a uh started film company

(01:09:30):
for in partner with me because I was I had
won the con Film Festival. I was doing pretty good
and um, but I knew that he had a bad
reputation as as you know, a lot of people who
had been with him had been burned. And but I said, listen,
I know you're sort of devilish, but I will sell
much soul to you. I'm always honest against my greater

(01:09:52):
and and he said, I know people talk about and
I said, but I need a million dollars to make
this movie. I know you have a wreck good company
but you can't get the soundtrack. But I'll make it
up to you somehow and I'll partner with in we'll
do great. And I just thought it. I owned the
live films and Choose Me was the first movie Electric
got the soundtrack with Teddy Um and um, here we are.

(01:10:17):
So I'm noticing that, like you're rolling alone in the situation.
But I know the business was dangerous in the seventies,
and I mean the sixties, seventies and eighties, because it's
my run. I mean, how did you get out unscathed?

(01:10:39):
I don't know. If about scathe what is your most
I would say what was your most? I would say
my scariest moment um and I'll leave the names of
the people out. But my only real brush, the Black
Promoters Association, never really came after me hard. It was
never a moment where I and I'm not gonna live anymore.

(01:11:01):
I had one second of that one guy put a
gun to my head, but I knew he wasn't going
to use it. I just knew he was too high profile.
He wasn't going to shoot me. So I wasn't even scared.
It was just like yeah, um, But then I was
this is years later, I was in my apartment in
New York. It was when Teddy had his accident. I
moved to New York for two years and I went
down to Philly every week to see him. And I

(01:11:24):
had taken Bob Everren, who produced Alice's, his apartment in
New York. He let me use for two years, and
there was a little phone on the side of the bed,
a red phone that never rang. I didn't know the number.
I have no idea what he used it for. I
don't want to know. And one day had ranged and hello,
chep guard. Uh yeah, meet me at the corner of

(01:11:49):
this really heavy voice. You need to meet me at
the corner. Okay, hang up the phone. I don't go
called the next day, really heavy, like heavy and off
that I hired two x cops to be with me
twenty four hours a day. You know, how did you
get this number? A how did you know? I was answering,

(01:12:10):
he knew where my office was, and he had that
voice he was this was serious Italian kind of you know,
soprano's voice. And the next day I get a phone
call from a guy that I had met a few
times who everyone had told me was connected mafia connected

(01:12:30):
and he calls me up. I guess I could say
his name because I think he's dead. Tommy for Stola,
who ended up going to jail for life for beating
up a record company guy. And he says, hey, Chip,
how you doing great? Tommy? Uh, how did you get
my number? He said, oh, we got friends. We got friends.
And he called on the same phone and he says,

(01:12:51):
you know how lucky you are? And I said, what
do you mean? Tommy says, So, I'm having breakfast this
morning with the guys and one of the guys says,
I gotta leave early. And I says to him, boy,
do you gotta leave early? I gotta go bump this
guy off. Ship cording up then, and he said, you
can't bump the guy off. He's with me, and I'm

(01:13:13):
like no, I was thinking to myself, which is worse
getting bumped off from being with him? Exactly? He's with me.
You can't do that, And he says, uh, what the
other guys did too, So I can tell the story.
So you tell you why, kid meet me at Moista's
office this afternoon. It too Moist was Marris leaving. Ah,

(01:13:35):
So I go up to Marris Leavy's office. So I've
never met before with Tommy. He tells the story and
Morris says, you're a lucky kid to have Tommy on
your side, you know that. I said, but you know
you should do something for him. What should I do
for him? He said, you know that new Blondie record
that's coming out. Um, I on these stores strawberries, UM,

(01:13:57):
get me fifty clean copies meant that they weren't punched
as free goods so they could sell. And I said, um, Marris,
I don't. I'm not the record company, I really but
we settled at ten thousand copies, which I bought from
the record company. It cost gave him and it was
like and luckily a few months later, Tommy Eva stole

(01:14:21):
a guy caught on camera in Philadelphia, um beating up
a record store guy who hadn't paid his bill the
boisch with a baseball bat and went to jail for
the rest of his life. Still in jail. I think
he died in jail. He may be around. A few
will probably come after me. But that when you became

(01:14:41):
a Buddhist. Yeah, so but that was my only real
you know, there's so much talk you see vinyls. You
see all this stuff, it never really was you know,
there were thugs, but it wasn't this organized. You know,
that was my only brush and forty years of doing it,
like real organized crime stuff. So did you did you

(01:15:04):
have personal relationships with all of your clients, because I mean,
I mean at some point you had like forty at
the same time, correct I I so, what about like
Rick James, Rick James, I had a very personal relationship
with I would say Rick, Teddy, Alice um Raquel to

(01:15:24):
some extent um. Those were really my closest. There was
something that I had no and and some of the
African artist Johnny Clegg King Sunny a Day was the
most elegant human being I've ever been around in my life.
Magic Fascik was just the joy um so um. But
there were many I didn't Luther I did not have
a close relationship with at all, but you were with

(01:15:47):
him all times. Though I was with him twenty years
so we lived ten blocks from each other. He never
was at my house. Wow, Yeah, I mean did you
have a liaison like I had a liaison for every
act um I used to tell acts, I'd say, you know,
the biggest waste of my time is talking to you
on the phone about you need four Coca colas. You know,

(01:16:09):
then I'm not doing my job. So I charged. If
you don't need me to be in your face all
the time, I will get someone that you can beat
up whenever you want to beat him up, and you'll
only charge you. And everybody went for fift I never
had anybody say no, I want you for twenty, but

(01:16:31):
it was true. My my job is getting ahead of
the artist but a year or two and telling them
where to go. And if I'm spending my time talking
about like I didn't have the right light in my
dressing room last night, and you know I like pink lights,
not they had a blue light. Could you believe they
had a blue light? Um? Well I can. I can
imagine that, especially after the massive success of Street Songs,

(01:16:59):
um MV, dawning of MTV, that Rick James really wanted
to be ushered into you know, the eighties the same
way that Michael and Prince got there too. So I mean,
what was that whole scenario, Like, I mean, was there

(01:17:23):
a pressure on you like to get me on MTV?
And I mean no, not not from but we were
doing so good that I didn't he didn't need to. UM.
We had. It was a great career, which he complained
about it a lot though, you know on MTV. Never
to me. I never never really got it from but
he may have to the guy who worked for me,
he may have UM, but he made he was We

(01:17:43):
were headlined those bud Wise and festivals and it was
good times. Boy, he was a great guy. I really
loved Berke smart Man. Yeah, my my, my Rick James
story was at the House of Blues, uh me Common
and Rosario Dawson went to go see Rick and it
was really the Tina Maris show, but Rick just happened

(01:18:05):
to be there and they got out in the diffire
and desiring everything. It was like anyway, So we're up
backstage and Rick comes in with leon Isaac Kennedy. So
the thing is like a beautiful girl. Have you ever
seen that sex stage? This is where I'm leading to.

(01:18:29):
This is where I'm leading to. Now Rick saw me.
Rick saw me walking with Rosario, right. But after a while,
like me and Tina started talking a lot about like
I'm I'm kicking out whatever. So at some point Rick
comes up to me and I was like he gives
me this firm handshake, and I was like, yo, man,
like I can't even believe you know who I am.

(01:18:51):
He's like, of course I knew you are. Motherfucker. You
want to people the one of the funkiest motherfucker's walking
on earth right now, And he said, but I should
tell you something now. At this point, he points on
my peripheral and Leon is over there rapping to Razzario. Now.
I mean we were cool, like she wasn't my data
or anything. But Rick don't know that, he says. He

(01:19:14):
points leon He says, you know that motherfucker over there.
I said, that's leon Isa Kennedy, right. He's like, yeah,
He's like, is that your lady? And you know I
was I was like, well, you know, we were cool,
but you know, he's, um, if you know what that
motherfucker's hands, and man, i'd go get your lady right now.

(01:19:38):
Meet meat. Nice to me, you guys, get back. I
bumped into Dave Chappelle recently and I told we were
interviewing you, and you know, I reminded him that you
had managed Rick James, and I was there the day

(01:19:59):
that we actually shot Rick's porson of the interview and
uh he was actually I think the first of the
second person that we showed the final sketch too, and uh,
you know he loved it. He yeah, he loved it.
We we got new complaints from him. Rick was um
the way the way I started with Rick. I was

(01:20:20):
in my office one day and this by Doroth gets
thrown open and he just thrown open, like worked his
way right through the reception. It just came to the thing.
He goes, you, motherfucker you sheep Gordon, motherfucker. I know
more about you than you know about you, really, And
I said, what who are you? And he said, motherfucker,
Rick James, I'm from Buffalo, New York. You went to

(01:20:41):
school in Buffalo, New York. You lived on Main Street.
You ate it? You did? He like had it down.
And I said what do you do? And he said,
he's what do I do? I'm the fucking baddest motherfucker
you ever came across in your fucking life. What do
you mean why do I do? Wow? And he and
he had a hit record on Motown. So you and

(01:21:02):
I had already been out, and yeah, you and I
was out. He had to he had just Um was
just about to sign the Mary Jane Girls to Barry,
and he said, motherfucker, I got these girls that are
gonna be even fucking bigger than me, and you're gonna
do the deal. I'm throwing you in the pit with Barry.
And that was my first meeting. I went to the
penthouse on sunset and Barry was playing pool and um, yeah,

(01:21:25):
and and this is the motherfucker's gonna squeeze you for
more money you've ever given anybody. What was so? What
was that light with Barry? I never really got to
know him. Um, he was very Um, he dismissed me, right,

(01:21:47):
I mean he really dismissed me. I was out. He
was very dismissive. Yeah, he dismissed me. Say, but we
held out and he came around and we made the
deal and he paid him. Um he was Barry was
my oppression. And I didn't know him well. And I
can't say this with a certainty, but um, he would

(01:22:11):
fuck you to your faith, not to your back. He
cut a really hard dealt and you gotta respect it.
And he delivered the goods. He got you to hit records.
He did the stuff he had to do. But it
was all about Barry, and he wasn't sharing, and he
was vocal about I can deal with anybody if they're honest,
they tell you what the game is. You want to
get dealt in, you know you have a choice. Did

(01:22:33):
he at least respect that Rick Rick celebrity and his
status at the time was going to carry Motown to
the eighties. I don't mean with the exception of and
ste Yeah, that was it. Yeah, I don't know. I
really don't know if I Rick ended up dealing more
with him than I did. Um. Really, yeah, Rick had

(01:22:55):
a good relationship with him. Um, I was the white
kid on the block who was trying to steal from him,
and so I let Rick. I would I would wind
Rick up and send him in rather than go in myself.
I said, you know, here's what we got to get,
and here's what I need. And the Mary Jane Girls
had to hit. The first record was a hit, so
both those records, so they were real happy with them.

(01:23:17):
So you orchestrated both those albums, I wouldn't say orchestrated
and made the deal. I made the deal for him
to allow him to hit. But I didn't have any
real influence on Rick. Rick was very much in control
of his career. Um, he was very strong, one of
the smartest artists I've ever worked with. So with the
exception of maybe Freddie Demand, if I'm who, by the way,

(01:23:40):
I think is maybe the best manager of my in
my lifetime. Really well, with the exception of Freddie Demand,
I don't know where he managed the Jackson's and then
he did Michael's launch a solo launch Madonna from Jump
Street right from jumps Street and brought back line O Richie.

(01:24:02):
And he would only do one of two accident time,
That's all he needed that but he did. He did
the job. I mean he really I uh, my respect
love for him is unbelievable. I Mean I always when
people ask me, I always say, Freddie Demand was the guy.
Well I was gonna say, between Jerry Goldsmith and Freddie Demand,

(01:24:24):
Well let me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I gotta try
and stop left. Sorry, I'm sorry. Well, no, I mean
he had war slide the animals. Yeah, but I'm just
saying that la lawsuits. However, I'm saying that if I

(01:24:50):
am a black act that's looking to crossover, and crossover
was definitely on the minds a lot of black acts
in the seventies how to break out of the chitland
circuit and really want to generate money for myself. But
like staying power, I mean, are you are you the

(01:25:12):
Are you the golden child that will is it? Even
you are Freddie that's the golden child that will take
you there? Or yeah? I think they were. And it's
based on the relationships you have with radio stations. And
I think, you know, in a way of thinking, um,
I think there were a couple other guys, um, trying
to think of the guys that did earth, wind and fire.

(01:25:34):
They were they had found the highway to go down
to the way they could do stuff like that. There
were a few people, um. But you know, also radio
was hungry for it. They were really hungry for it.
It wasn't a hard sell, um. It was radio hungry
for music. Like now, radio is hungry for you to

(01:25:55):
buy their the product that they're advertising. So it's not
music centric more than it is getting you know, you
to hear the commercials and getting kids to hear their
parents to hear the commercials to buy the product. Like
music is almost an afterthought for radio, which is why
we get the same fifteen songs and rotation. But are

(01:26:15):
you saying that there's a point where radio was truly
interested in I wouldn't say truly interested because I don't
know if they're capable of that. FM was but pop
am radio, but they found that those records worked on
their stations. Um. So you you know, the game was

(01:26:37):
always buying your way on. But you couldn't just buy
your way on. You had a see, I always thought
you could buy your way I'll tell you a great
Philly story. Really. So I'm a young punk Alice as
a hit record, comes time for the second record, and

(01:26:58):
the record company is not gonna do anything. They're just
not gonna just told you this. No, but you can
tell you know, you know, by the signs and not
taking any adds out. There's no independence hired for the single. Um,
that's just you know, the tale tale signs. So I'm
not gonna let them stop me, like I'm just gonna
buy my way on. I had some cash and so
the most powerful guy at the time in radio was

(01:27:19):
out of Philadelphia, Freddy disappeal. Um. He was probably the
the most effective guy. He was you could pay him
and you gotta hit record. Um, So I went to
Freddy and he had never heard of me. I got introduced,
I think by maybe Albert Grossman or somebody on a
phone call. There were no emails or anything like that.

(01:27:41):
And I told him the story and it's Alison. How
much is it? And in those days they used to
charge by Parallel one, Parallel two, Parallel three. Parallel one
was a big station, so maybe that was a ten
thousand dollar by Parallel two was the smallest station, maybe
a five thousand dollar by um. So I wanted the
Parallel one station and paid him ten thousand. And first

(01:28:04):
week we're it's like, oh my god, this is the
greatest we're gonna you know, we're getting around the record company.
And the second week with five it's moving up the charts.
This is fantastic. Third week it drops off the chart.
In the record business, once you lose your momentum, no

(01:28:25):
other station in the country is going to pick you
up if you don't. That's so I the record was over.
Maybe a year later I found out what the game was.
The station only played twenty songs, but he sold thirty slots,
so of course there were no sales. The record never

(01:28:45):
got played. So I paid ten thousand to kill the
record just to be to kill it. I killed it.
Lesson learned, Yeah, good learned. Lesson learned. There's always a

(01:29:05):
curtain behind the curtain. So and then I'm I'm I'm
now now I'm putting two two together. The fact that
you managing Stephanie Mills explains her presence on the Teddy Records, Uh,
you managing the Callaway Brothers and Midnight Star explains their

(01:29:27):
presence on I Want to Be Rich and I wanted
what a great tour. I love that I want to
be rich? That was that your concept? Yeah? Completely? Man?
Was I mean that completely? But the thought was there,
you know, it was like come on, let's just say it,

(01:29:54):
and it happened. Um, I got it. I mean I
have so many my my experience with Luther V. Andrews.
I mean, as as a person who was immersed in
hip hop whatever I mean, Luther Andrews was the definition
of smooth R and B kind of answer, like the
complete opposite of what hip hop represented. But I mean

(01:30:18):
I still respected it. Um. But Luther's live show was
like my mom would physically describe every moment. And this
is from Lisa Fisher Fontie Thornton to all these things.
So what is I mean of Luther at his at

(01:30:40):
his peak, at the peak of his his powers, which
I mean, I guess you could say the night is
the nightfl lovers. It give me the reason? I mean, yeah,
give me the reason. I mean, God, that was so.
I mean what I've had of love was probably my
personal I mean yeah, as my my personal favorite too. So,

(01:31:04):
but I also know that he was notorious for being
very meticulous and like heart of than James Brown, like
fines and no spot nor wrinkle. Where does that come from?
Like that level of discipline that I'm neritable. Yeah, I've
never seen anything like it. It was, you know, I
I my reputation. Most many of the artists hired me

(01:31:27):
because I wrote and directed the stage shows, and um,
that was my joy and I was really yeah so
that I didn't know. I did the Earth Wind and
Fire Pyramid show, I did the first Kiss show. I
loved doing shows and doing productions, and I knew how
to get standing ovations and that was a lot of
my value to most of my artists. Luther would would

(01:31:48):
not let me come to see him until he had
broken the show in so I would never allowed to
come to the first four or five six shows because
he wanted to be perfect. I'd stayed to him, you of,
my job is to help you make it perfect. And
he was. He was in complete control of every second
on that stage, every single light, every wardrobe change. Um,

(01:32:12):
and did it as good as I mean as good
as you could possibly do it. Um, fanatic about it,
but and drove a very hardship. You know, if someone
was the second light, they were toast. If they were
off on a queue somewhere, if a lighting queue went down, um,
that guy was toast that night. He was just you know,
throw it into the dressing room and dressed. Now. He

(01:32:33):
needed everything absolutely perfect, and he was perfect every night,
so he could demand that he hit his marks every night.
He was everything was You could almost overlay one show
to the other with Luther. Yeah. One question I always
had in regards to Luther. And you know, it was
a lot of talk about UM. You know uh as

(01:33:00):
a kid of the eighties, you know my mother, I
mean that was the soundtrack too much outod and no
one cared, you know what, nobody cared at all. Yeah, Like,
no one cared at all. We just wanted to hear
him seeing UM as a manager. Was that something that
presented a challenge for you or was it how? How
did you? How did you handle that? Didn't present a
challenge at all. The only the part of it that

(01:33:20):
presented a challenge to me, UM wasn't professional was personal. UM.
I never felt that he was joyful, and I I
felt that a lot of that lack of joy was
that he didn't have any relationships in his wife. He
didn't that I know of. There was no male relationship,
There was no female relationship. There were no relationships UM.

(01:33:45):
And that was for me was the hard part, because
I wanted to be happy and enjoy a success even
with you, Like was there a guard between you guys? Completely? Yeah?
And I strictly business and strictly business. I don't even
didn't really know who he was. Um you had one
candid conversation or never had a real conversation. How did
he seek you out to men? Or how did you

(01:34:06):
end up managing? Um? He? Uh? The record company called
me up, and he called me up. He Uh. We
had a mutual business manager, UM, and he loved the
work I did, and we took a meeting and need
we joined up, and UM, I had a guy in
my office and took care of him and um we

(01:34:27):
never we had no real relationship at all, um we
we Actually he's the only artist that UM I worked
with and had no communication with. It. At a point
in time came when he wouldn't talk to me, and
it was about the last three years of our relationship
that I managed him, and I would send them notes
and say, listen, you don't have to stay with me,

(01:34:48):
and he said, no, no, you're the right guy. I
just um, I don't want to talk. He you know,
he was a he he was a different kind of
a guy. Luther I attend to well in in light
of the unfortunate events that have happened in two thousand
and sixteen. Uh, I'm seeing a common denominator with Well.

(01:35:13):
One particular icon that that for this episode of remain
name was who's notoriously very secret, secretive and very guarded. UM.
And I guess in light of his demise, the things
that we found out about his life and what caused
his exit, you know, that's a secret that's you know, now,

(01:35:34):
I get why everything was so secretive, and you know
when you're hiding something. So maybe I'm just thinking that
he wasn't ready to be vulnerable in front of But
even what who you're mentioning, I feel like we knew
more about his past with Luther. I don't feel like
we know a lot about who Luther was. And I
think he really knew who he was, you know. I think, Um,

(01:35:58):
he lived for his career. Um, he lived for that
moment on stage. That's when he that's when he knew
what to do. UM. And I think you know, you
can see the issues with the weight going up and
down and how it translates, and you know, you just
see certain things. Um. But he was a great artist
and UM, UM honor that I worked with him. There's
one thing that a lot of the public doesn't know. Um,

(01:36:22):
you're responsible for or I guess by accident, you're responsible
for Deborah Harry and Christine meeting fat by Freddie Well, yeah,
I've slowed a part of the team. I wouldn't say responsible,
but part of it. We were searching for, Um, we're
searching for a new single. What do we do for
a new single? And um, they were very culturally significant.

(01:36:48):
Um they were. They were a real product of the times.
So we were looking for something to hang our head on.
There was more significant than just a song. And we
had heard about this thing that was going on up
in Harlem, um cardboard boxes on the floor, beat boxes,

(01:37:08):
guys dancing, and we said, let's go take a look,
let's see what this is all about. And we got
a guy to take us up. We went up by
train and when we's just that casual. It was that casual,
there's no concern. Was Chris, Debbie, myself on the train. Subway.
They liked the subway. They were subway kind of people.
And we got off the station and there was a

(01:37:30):
guy spray painting the wall and it was really early
in the game and it was really cool and Debby said, wow,
is that cool. So we started to walk over to
him to talk to him, and he started to not run,
but move away from us really fast, and he got
on the next train when it came, so we jumped
on the trade and that we're all trapped on the

(01:37:51):
trade and it was fab five friends and he then
we you know, we said when I coughed, when I
busting you, it's it's all good. And he took us
back um to see the dancing and then he saw
he was the tour guy and then he sort of
you know, if you remember the video, he's he's in
the background the whole time, you know, fat fat Freddie
with dude. That's yeah, that's that's a mean. I mean,

(01:38:15):
there was a landmark movement. It was Eric. Eric thorn
Gren was the guy who took us up there. He
was the engineer on Grand Master Flash's record, and he
was he was the one we went too and then
he took us to Harlem. That's amazing. So and I
think he engineered that record. Maybe he may have. I'm

(01:38:36):
not sure the Chapman produced it, but Eric may have
come sinse and uh. Well. Later that year, also when
Blondie hosted Saturday Night Live, they insisted that um the
Funky four plus one be the musical guest. That was
a fight. Oh really that was a fight. How so

(01:38:57):
um nobody really did No? One knew Yeah, nobody ever
heard no but that that's me. That was an amazing moment.
Like I remember that during the first one of of
of seeing that, did you ever think at any point
in times of managing hip hop artists or was that
never wanted to No, never never appealed to me. I

(01:39:22):
didn't like, Um, I started to see the thug element
come into the music business. The backstage rhythm changed completely. Um,
the attitude of the artist and popsy started to happen. Um.
I never had to deal with popsies before that. Jesus Christ. Wait,
you say that, and I didn't know that. You started

(01:39:45):
Carlos and Charlie's Like, these are the things you learned,
Like I'm casually mentioned like carloson Charlie's was like you
go to Hollywood Spot and He's like, oh, I could him,
And I was like, and only know of it because
of Eddie Murphy. Oh, every Eddie Murphy story ever heard,
a print story starts with Carlos and Charlie's. Like even

(01:40:07):
even that those great Eddie Murphy story, Carlos and Charlie again,
it was they went. Posses didn't really exist. Um. The
first posse that I have saw with my eyes was
Thomas Hearns came to the club with a posset and
you know, I don't think they would call posse, but
he had like six guys with them who hangars. Yeah,

(01:40:29):
and they moved like a wave. You know, they were
so Um. Eddie Murphy had a posse and he comes
one night until the clinic came out almost every night
to the club, but he comes in this one night
and its club was very empty, and there's a little
white kid on the dance floor with his girl and
the posse comes through like this and hits the guy
and sort of breaks his nose. And there's nobody in

(01:40:50):
the club and there's nothing going on, and he starts
giving them ship with its nose bleeding. It's coming down,
they call I was downstairs evan dinner. They called me upstairs.
And now for the next thirty minutes is this ridiculous
escapade of Eddie Murphy trying to get to this kid
to beat him up because he's talking disrespectfully to his people.

(01:41:12):
My guards are are around him, keeping him, you know,
away from getting hurt. And it's just really stupid. And
I go over to Eddie and I said, I didn't
know him well, but I said, listen, man, you won
the game. You're rich, like you want it. You don't
have to beat the kids. Look at his nose, He's like,
you know, it weighs a hundred pounds. You really don't
have to do this. You wont just calmed down, and

(01:41:33):
he wouldn't let go. And next I called the police.
I had a sergeant and we got him arrested and
he went to jail. And it's about five or thirty
in the morning. My phone rings in my house and
it's the guy named Don Simpson and he says, Chef,
you still on Carlos and Charleys, And I said yea.
He said, you gotta help me. I'm starting a movie
this morning and my lead actor, Eddie Murphy, is a jail.

(01:41:56):
I guess the movie was Beverly Hills comp So this
is this is the best fault of the story. So
I call up the sergeant and I say, I'm really sorry.
We got to get him out of jail. Now you
gotta get the charges dropped. I'm not going to charge it,
and you know no one's gonna I got the kick.
So he goes down to the jail and he calls
me up. He says, okay, the motherfucker won't leave the cell.

(01:42:17):
We said you're at you're out of here, and he said,
if you want me out of here, then I'm staying here.
The last word I always wanted to hip hop come
around and bite you a little bit personally, because we

(01:42:39):
found out in the documentary Super Minch that you ended
up adopting, uh, two of your ex girlfriend's branches, four
of your experments grand babies, and they're at a certain
age being raised in the eighties and nineties and stuff.
So I just wonder at something I can remember. There
was a great moment. It's funny you bring that up,
because it's exactly. There was just great moment when you know,

(01:43:01):
I built my life on with Alice by trying to
get parents to hate him. That was my goal. And
now it's ten or fifteen years later, the kids are
getting you know, I have these four kids, they're young.
They're staying in the bedroom next to me at my
house and I come walking by and I hear hip
hop for the first time, and I opened the door.

(01:43:22):
I go, what is this ship? You're listening? And that's
Alice Cooper dad. And as I say it, I realized,
oh my god, this is exactly they're gonna that's that's it.
And what's there? What's the oldest kid? How old? Now? Yeah,
they were fine, Oh yeah, no. They dungarees were always

(01:43:43):
you know, the underwear was show and it was every
single thing. If they were yo, MTV raps was all
they cared about. That you know that was their life,
but I knew it right then. As soon as I
said that, when those words came out of my mouth,
I said, it's me usic business is changing because if
I can't stand that, it's going to be the biggest

(01:44:03):
thing and then it works. So probably the biggest lesson
that I learned, I mean, the point where I realized like, oh,
this is a lesson that I have to learn is
the fact that you had to walk away from it
and really just let go. Which to think about that

(01:44:23):
right now for me is like that's one of the
scariest things because you think, like, this is all I have.
There is all that you know. I don't have a
lineage or that sort of thing, and it's just like, well,
I've made a commitment to the music business, so this
is all I've got. I mean, at what point did you, like,

(01:44:46):
did it take having to go to the hospital where
it's just no, no. Mine was completely different. I had
a I've always done knee jerk reactions. I've never been
a planner. Um, I planned for my artists, for my
own life. I've always you know, I wake up in
the morning, I re act And I had a premier
at Universal studios for one of my movies, Big Red
Carpet Premiere, Clee, Lights of Flying and you know all

(01:45:10):
that stuff. And I was bored to death, like so bored,
you know, I just couldn't wait to get out of there,
go see CN and do anything. But it was, you know,
the same old, same old, same old for me. And
the next day I flew to Maui and I was
alone on my hammock having a drink at sunset, and
every molecule in my body was ecstatic, like ecstatic. I

(01:45:34):
can't even describe how happy. And I said to myself,
you know, you're miserable there, you're happy here. What are
you doing? M It's pretty simple, like what's lifeful about?
I worked so hard to get happy and I found
what makes me happy and I'm not doing it. And

(01:45:57):
I went to the office about four days later and
resigned from everybody and told him the story. And I said,
you know, you don't have a fear of missing out
we call it. You didn't have a because it's to
me it was sort of false gods anyway, you know,
it's um it's it's like fool's gold. I mean, I've

(01:46:18):
always had that awareness that we're in the entertainment business.
It really doesn't matter. And it is sort of fool's gold.
And it's fun and it's great and it provides great stuff,
but it's not you know, it's not curing cancer. Um.
And and for me as a manager. What I also
realize is that up until that point, I had spent

(01:46:39):
my life living other people's lives, and I had no
idea what my life actually was like. If I'm if
I don't have to go to the office, am I
gonna be bored to death? Am I gonna like myself?
Am I gonna hate myself? Maybe I'm gonna get married
like I always wanted to do, but I never had
never happened. Um, let me find out what my journey is.
May be what I found out is that there's no difference.

(01:47:03):
Like my life is absolutely not different. Retiring not retiring.
I probably if I get a second life and could
do it again, I probably wouldn't retire. I would find
the way to have the two live with each other,
because there were great advantages for me to be in
the traffic. UM. I still love to think of something

(01:47:24):
and then make it happen. UM. To create something out
of that doesn't exist. And I did a big benefit
Monday night for a chef, Roger Virget, with about twenty chefs.
And in the early days I could do that with
the staff in my office, so I could think of it.
Now it's just me, so the effort is gigantic. The

(01:47:44):
result is probably the less than it might be with
the great staff. Um. And I still do the same stuff.
But you're not retired either. Technically you're not manage Alice.
But in my brain I thought, and take himself out
of that, out of the hustle and bustle, like, did
you personally have a one on one with all your clientele?

(01:48:06):
Was it just? I called everybody? Did it on the phone? Um?
I called him all? The only Luther who I hadn't
spoken to in a couple of years. Um, was it?
Was it? The only one that was sort of upset?
All right? And then when I was so I woke,
I got back to l A. I called Alice and
I said where are you? He said, up in l A.

(01:48:27):
I said, we picked me up today for lunch because
I want to get really drunk and I don't want
to drive. And he said, what's wrong? And I said,
nothing wrong? But I'm going to resign from everybody but
not you. But and I really don't. I want to
get whacked. And so I called um all the clients.
Everybody was and I told the truth. You know, I said,
I want to find out who I am. I have

(01:48:48):
no idea what my life is. And how oh were
you at this point? I was fifty seven, fifty six
maybe fifty six? How much grace time do you give them? Like? Okay?
So what I said to him was, you know you
can use the office, UM use my guys if you
want um running. Yeah, I can find you somebody else.

(01:49:09):
If you'd like, I'll give you a list. I'll go
to the interviews with you and really help you get
through it. I just I gotta find out who I am.
You know, this is for me, not about you. And
everybody was happy. Luther wasn't, but he sort of understood.
And as I was leaving the office with Alice, the
phone rang and my secretary said, you gotta take this

(01:49:31):
call and said, I'm not taking any more calls. It's
over done. I'm going to the car and you've really
got to take this call. And it was George Harrison,
who had just found the the basement tapes that John
Lennon song Free as a Bird, And he said, UM,
do you think any record company will put this stuff out?

(01:49:53):
And I said, do I think any pets get out?
He turned out to be close to right. It was
a fight, a fight, real tough fight, but fight for
you guys to get a new Beatles. Capital didn't want
to resign him. Um, it was it was it's a
long that. It's a whole other story, and it's a
long one, but it was Gary Grosser a Capital. I

(01:50:15):
hired garyot Capital win at that during that you see
what I mean? During that? Do you know this guy
named Gary Grosser? He was during that period of time,
during that period of time. So, um, anyway, I ended
up um making the deal with Capital, which wasn't easy
for him, and doing working on the BBC tapes and

(01:50:37):
the anthology. UM, and Luther freaked out. You told me
you were resigning, Now you're doing the beat He found
that I have no idea and he rewrote his biography
and took me out of it. I was very heavily
in the first printing of the second print. Patty Well,

(01:51:09):
I'm more amazed that a new Beatles song. Well there's
a there's a long history here, so here's sort of
the let me give you the cover of it. Here's
the cover. UM Capital E m I an electronics company
that happened to be in the music business, but thorny
m I was the core of their business. They made refrigerators,

(01:51:30):
UM defence stuff. They were basically a science UM patent
owner company. And they hired a guy named They bought
a company from a fellow named Colin Southgate and UM
made him chairman of thorny am I part of the purchase.
He gets the job. He's in the job for three weeks.

(01:51:56):
He goes what they call Wall Street in England, the Street.
So he goes to make his first speech to the
street and the announcement is that they've resigned the Beatles
in the press conference. During the press conference, as he's
saying we resigned the Beatles, a warrant server comes up
to him and gives him a lawsuit from the Beatles

(01:52:17):
to get off the label. This is his first time
as head of the company addressing the street. So for him,
I never want to see the Beatles when the contracts over,
get rid of the Beatles. Don't ever want him near here,
can't stand them, hate them. So now that now the

(01:52:39):
contracts up at that point, guys who are running the company, Uh,
we're more interested in their bonuses than in um, you know,
they shut the black music department of Capitol Records, like
just to get to their bonuses. Yeah. If they would

(01:52:59):
have to be wanted forty two million dollars to resign,
which they deserved, if they had given him that money,
they wouldn't have gotten their bonuses. So I had the chairman,
the president, and the vice credit all against resigning the Beatles.
And it was wild. So there is more of a headache. Yeah,
they didn't want to deal with it, just didn't and

(01:53:20):
they didn't care. They wanted their bonus that I could.
They couldn't care less. I couldn't imagine none of the
Beatles music being on any other labels Capital h Um. Anyway,
we made it work, but it was it was pretty wild. Well,
I mean, you know, I can go on forever and ever,

(01:53:40):
but um, you know, all good things come to an end. Yeah,
and this was fun, guys. Yeah, this has been the
greatest man. So one question I did have, So now
you know, what does managing Alice Cooper look like? Now
like on a day to day basis, well that I don't.

(01:54:01):
It doesn't occupy the whole day, but I still wake
up in the morning thinking about how to enhance his career,
and I go to sleep at night thinking about how
to enhance the career. Recently, we just um put him
in a band with Johnny Depp that I created, which
was great for his profile. Great john it was. It

(01:54:21):
was a win win. Johnny's a musician who always wanted
it tour. I'm always looking for a way to make
Alice current um and give it an extra twist, so
that was perfect. Um. Now we're running in for president.
We have a great campaign for get Alice elected and

(01:54:41):
he's on the Wild Party, Slim Pickens the His platform
is um gradual marks on a fifty dollar bill, Lemmy
on Mount brushmore one selfie allowed a year prison sentence
for anyone talking in a movie theater. Okay, that's just platform.

(01:55:02):
So it's you know, Alice is Um. Everybody in their
life should have a relationship like Alice Um. It's just
we've it's been an amazing forty five years and he
gives me the freedom to fail, which gives me the
freedom to be creative. Wow. I have to say, uh,

(01:55:24):
you are probably I mean, the textbook guru of of
of of all gurus. I mean, there's there's no person
that I've not made watch this documentary over and over again,
and and you've been very very generous. Uh and and

(01:55:45):
your wisdom and everything. I really would like to thank you,
said Gordon, for just being here. Man, thank you, thank you.
Guys are really Mrs Love Supreme is a production of

(01:56:10):
My Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the
team at Landorm. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.