Ramon Hervey II

Ramon Hervey II is a manager, publicist, and trusted confident to heavyweights like Richard Pryor, Bette Midler, Little Richard, Quincy Jones, Don Cornelius, the Bee Gees, Herb Alpert, Andrae Crouch, Vanessa Williams, Rick James, Paul McCartney, Luther Vandross, Peter Frampton, James Caan, Aaliyah and more. He joins Questlove Supreme to talk about his experiences in the entertainment industry, and discuss his new book, The Fame Game.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
All Right, ladies and gentlemen, this is a Quest Love,
Quest Love Supreme back on Zoom. That had a dream
that we were actually out in the open and uh

(00:20):
we saw the world and we saw each other and
we were doing these shows in person. Wow with role
falls and everything. Yeah. Man, it was so amazing, like
you were there and you were there and you were
there amazing. I dreamt that Bill was there, you know. Dream. Yeah,

(00:40):
it was amazing. No, it was. It's good to be back.
We're here with the fam. It's uh, Bill, Steve and
my ya Fonte went out to get some cigarettes, but
it's coming back faster this time. He gives us regards.
Let me go a little bit off the rails. This
might be quasi lengthy, but I'll say this is my
as as a preface to this particular episode. Um, I'm

(01:04):
gonna start with a quickie personal story, and that story
is basically so, there's a gentleman that's been in my organization.
His name is Silbert Money, and silver Like. The thing
about the Roots organization is, you know, we work with
literally the best people and I've had very few terminations,
you know, thirty years at the helm of this organization.

(01:26):
I mean, yeah, some people like move on to do
other projects. And for the most part, I'll say that
everyone in my organization has done superb work and has
been you know, with us anywhere from ten to thirty years.
So when I say we get the best of the best,
we get the best. Now, in the case of Mr
Armani Silbert, he came to meet with us about potentially

(01:48):
being the new Roots tour manager and that being a
tour managers sort of like being the group's father, like
what Dave Saville is to the Chipmunks. That's what a
tour manager is, to make sure that everything runs smoothly,
and that was the role he was filling in. And
you know, we are a professional organization, and you know,

(02:08):
job interviews are a thing where you know, it's not
like I'm in an office with a receptionist and a
coffeemaker any of those things. Um, but I am very
serious about the tour manager position. And it's also been
a very long time since we've had a mail uh
in this particular position. You know, I'll say over these
thirty years that of our organization has been run by women.

(02:34):
So when seel kind of came in this organization. I
wanted to come with the hard questions and I simply
asked one question. I said, what do you think you have,
uh that qualifies you to work in the capacity as
as tour manager for the Roots And he said, I've
been public Enemies tour manager for fifteen years, a hundred

(02:58):
plus shows a year, theaters, clubs, stadiums worldwide, opening for
the biggest rock acts in the world, like solo dates,
all stops in between, he said, and never once has
flavor flavor been late or ever missed. Before you said

(03:18):
the last word, I was like, you're hired. That's all
I needed to hear. And you know, when you, as
the patron, you go to Massive Square Garden to see,
you know, a Kendrick show or whatever. You know, we
praise artists and all the time, but we never ever
get to see how the sausage is made. We never,

(03:39):
you know, give praise to the tour bus driver for
getting them there, or the manager for negotiating the right contract,
or even the tour manager for getting the act there
at one time to give you your money's worth. So
there's a new book has been written by our guest
today called The Fame Game an insiders playbook for earning
your fifteen minutes of fame. And for some reason, I

(04:01):
know that the your in the title is sort of
implied to be artist, but I actually think that this
book is meant for anyone who is currently an intern
or an assistant, uh, future managers, future publicists. Um. This
this book is almost it's an important Like I was

(04:23):
reading it thinking like, oh, maybe I could use this
when I get job twenty to be a manager, because
you guys know, like, Okay, So before the rest of
the Quest of Supremum gets bored to death with this
long ass intro, I will just say that our our
guest today has simply worked with the best and his

(04:44):
job is to be the person who is behind the
scenes that make sure everything is running smoothly. And he's
also the person that gets that three am phone call
when ship hits the fan. Name them Quincy Jones, Don Cornelius,
her Albert Andre Krauss, Luther Mantels, Paul McCartney, Peter Frampton,
Nick Nolton, Mohammed Ali, Richard Pryor, Bett Mitler, Like literally,

(05:09):
there's no one, Vanessa I can name it. I apologize
for this long assentro, but I think it's really important
that I set this up. Please welcome to Quest Love Supreme,
the one and the only Supermanager and Doctor fix It,
the one and only Ramon Harvey the second on Quest

(05:30):
Love Supreme. Thank you. That was really well crafted, um
and and it makes makes a lot of sense. Well,
I just asked, like, let me ask the final question first,
what's your secret Ramon? To your to being successful at
what you what you chose to do all these years.

(05:52):
It's more why why would you want to stress yourself
out with this job? You have the most dangerous job
and entertainment, That's all. That's my take after finishing the
book was why would you want to do that? What's
your answer? You know, I think that over the you know,
I kind of fell into it by accident. First of all,

(06:14):
I never really wanted to. I didn't grow up to
be a manager or a publicist. Um, I just I was.
I was a flight attendant for PanAm Airlines and I
ended up, you know, flying to London and I lived
there for four years and that's where I got my
my break in the music industry. And it was quite

(06:35):
by accident, you know, I was dating a singer and
her agency. Um, I got laid off from PanAm and
I was actually the only UH black was repreent. You
know at that time PanAm, this was in the mid
seventies and PanAm didn't have any black people for the
most part, they had very few and they had no mails. There.

(06:56):
All the UH international airlines, like with tons of France
British airways, they all had men, but there was no
men in any of the American airlines. So I killed
two birds with one stone, being black and being a male.
And that's why I got hired. Um. And in fact,
you are might I always tell a funny story that

(07:16):
we had. I had a huge afrow and I used
to have to pat it down because we had a
three inch maximum from the from the top of your
head to the to the outskirts of your wherever your
your out for reached. So I used to pat it
down put water on. You know, if you have a

(07:38):
eighties deputy D was like your best yeah right right, well,
afro seen whatever, but whatever you could do. UM. When
I got over there and this this opportunity to work
at this talent agency came up, I just found out
I had a certain understanding of I interacted well with artist.

(08:00):
I worked with the Bass City Rollers over there with
this agency called Starlight Artist, and I worked with a
group called marmalade Um. Basicity Rollers were supposed to be
like the next Beatles at the time, but a lot
of people don't realize they actually didn't sting on their records.
There was two guys named Bill Coulter and Bill Bill
Martin and Phil Coulter who produced and wrote two records

(08:24):
for the Big Rollers and they got him on top
of the pops wherever. But they in those days you
could could you could lip sync, so they never had
to sing and they actually got you know, the first
album was huge and they never really performed. Almost everything
they did was lip sync. Are you are you disappointed, Steve?
I'm literally about to jump out the window right now.

(08:45):
I'm I'm a big bag City Rollers fan. Yeah, well,
I'm sorry to bust your bubble. But now they didn't.
They didn't. It was all done by session singers. You
just Milli Vanilli, Steve, Yeah, they were before Millie valilarly
did the whole thing. So the second record was actually
done after they got successful. In the first record, Um,

(09:06):
they got kind of full of themselves, and they said, hey,
we don't want to do uh, we don't want to
use these guys. So they fired them and they those
guys went and got five new faces, uh, some English
guys named Kenny. And that was one of the groups
that I worked with over there. And then also I
got to work as an editor for a couple of
music magazine, so I just had a sense of that

(09:29):
music was maybe in my destiny, you know, relating to artists.
And but when Ramon, because you were a flight attendant first,
but before off, what year was it that you, uh
did your time in London from nineteen seventy three to
nineteen seventy seven. Oh wow, so you know the music

(09:52):
scene was really vibrant then Bowie and uh you know
Alvin Stardust and Gary Glitter and I mean you know
the Rolling Stones. Um. I remember seeing, uh, the first
time I saw Billy Preston, he opened for the Rolling
Stones at Wimbley. That was in the seventies and he
was just in craid. I thought he blew him off

(10:13):
the stage, to be honest, but there was just it
was just a hotbed of music. I mean I got
to see some of the best. You know. I saw
Elton John at the peak of his career back then
at UM was the rain. Uh. It's one of the
most famous UM concert halls in London. I forget that
it begins within our Royal Albert Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Yeah,

(10:37):
Royal Oberall. And he was just he was amazing. Well, first,
I'm fascinated. I know that because of your pan Am experience,
Like you go back and forth to London a lot,
but it's just so now I was based there. I
lived there for that whole time, right, But you didn't
get to pick it. He didn't even get to pick it.
You didn't even know you were gonna be there, because
people don't know that part about be gonna fight. It's

(10:58):
in there, right, They just said go. Well, we had
three bases to choose from UM. It was Washington, d C,
Boston or London, and I was one. I was the
only guy and four women who got picked to go
to London. Where were you born? First of all, I
was born in Chicago, Illinois, and I was My dad
was in the service, so we moved around a lot.
I went to UH Elementary School UM in UM Springfield,

(11:24):
mass and then he got transferred to Vandenberg Air Force
Base and went to junior High school up in Lompo, California,
which is about sixty miles inland from Santa Barbara. And
I went to junior high school and high school there.
Then I went to Whittier College and you know, just
a little bit east of northeast of l A. And

(11:45):
got my undergraduate there. M really went to school to
be a lawyer. Um. And then a friend of mine,
actually Sheryl Boone Isaacs, who used to be president of
the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was the
first black woman to do that. We we actually I
met her in college and she was from Springfield as well,

(12:09):
and she got a job with PAN M and that's
how I ended up. She said, Hey, you know you should,
uh you should apply for PAN and they're looking for
black men. And I said really, and I said, and
she had already been doing it for a year, So
I said, all right, I'll apply. What the heck? You know,
I wanted to travel anyway, and sure if I wanted
to continue my education. And uh so it was really

(12:31):
from her that I got the tip that they've even
hiring and then uh I finally got you know, I
got hired, and that's that's it took six months process
re interviews or some screening process and and they want
to know. At that time, my offer was even bigger.
They said, you know, would you be willing to cut

(12:52):
your affro And I said, well, no, not for you
just to see it, but if you hire me. Yeah,
but uh yeah, I said, that's how. That's how I
ended up going over there to make a move that bolt,
especially that early. I mean, okay, it's five years after
what I considered the the civil rights period of the sixties,

(13:14):
which you know, most people look at is sort of
like a seminar year where a lot of revolutionary changes happened.
But what I mean the difference between what you did
and the difference between a lot of the artists that
you represent. Like as an artist, the first thing that
entered my head was like, oh, fear, like I'm gonna

(13:37):
be safe and dada, da da, this is too risky.
Why would I do that? Like that's it's very unusual,
like for at least I don't know many black men
are thinking international or that they could have a space
in some place that's not the United States. You know,
but what was it generally about you that I thought bigger,

(14:00):
more international, thought that you could handle this, because for me,
like this is something that only white people would do
and not. I always had a feeling of wanting to
be adventurous and try try new things, try something you know,
different that hadn't been done before. You know, nobody in
my family had really traveled. I had only been on

(14:20):
an airplane, like from from l A to San Francisco.
I had never even traveled from one coast to the other.
You know, because when we came across country, drove in
a car and uh, one of those little tin things
that you you prop up. It looks like a trailer.
It's like, yeah, yeah, it's like a tent that you

(14:42):
build up. And that's how you know, that's how we
ended up coming west until to east to west. Your
first time flying, you doing the pan Am. Yeah, yeah,
that was my first time flying. When I went in training,
I was nervous out. I wasn't nervous about from inside

(15:03):
in terms of like I thought I could I could
figure out whatever, you know. I just thought I always
wanted to travel, see the world and just get out
of the context of just being a black man in
the US. I felt like in those times, everyone that
that's all they ever talked to you about was, you know,
it was a black white thing. And I wanted to

(15:23):
see what the if I would be perceived differently in
another part of the world, or you know what I
would maybe would anyone even look at me as being
an American? Could you just talk about just generally, well,
now that you are a professional and you are renown
like a world traveler, whatnot? Um One, are the basic

(15:43):
differences that you could say, we're in London at the
time when you first lived there as opposed to now
where it's kind of like, you know, the Internet has
sort of colonized the world, where there's Starbucks everywhere, a
seven eleven everywhere, a KFC mc donalds every you know,
you get the same uh J cole record around the

(16:05):
world at the same time. But for you, in general,
what what were the most What's what's the difference in
how your life was first living there as opposed to
how it is now. I think the biggest difference was,
um well, two things that I noticed right off the bat.
One is that for the very first time in my
whole life that I could recall I was in a

(16:27):
pub and somebody asked me what it was like to
be in American and I went, jeez, no one's ever
asked me that question. They only ever asked me what
it's like to be black. I need to really think
about that for a second, because I don't. I've never
really thought of myself as an American, to be honest,
you know, that was like a big question, and that
that was you know, that was part of the process

(16:48):
of wanting to go there in the first places, to
see how I would be viewed. And so there was
that part. But then on the black side, they they
were a little bit behind our civil rights movement at
the time, so they they didn't really see themselves. They
just saw themselves as being English. And I remember asking

(17:09):
a guy what's it like to be what's it like
to be black? And it's in you know, in England,
because he had The voices are different, the inflection, they
speak English like English people, you know, it's a little
bit different than us, you know, and you have colloquialism
and throughout different parts of you know, depends if you're
on the East coast, west coast, you know, but we're
basically speaking a little bit different vibe than the way

(17:32):
the English folk and so, but they kind of resented
the idea that I was looking at them as being
anything other than English, and I thought weird. I just wow,
So you just you just consider yourself to be English.
I mean, it doesn't really work that way in the state,
but but you know, more power to if that's where

(17:53):
it works, you know. And this was very early on
in the embratic days of me being there and just
getting adjusted to, you know, being UM in a place
where it's the majority. You know. The one thing about
England that's that makes it easier and more accessible for
black people or American people is it is English. You
are speaking English. It is their language, although it is

(18:15):
totally different. Like when I was an editor, I had
to learn to spell every everything different because they don't
pronounce everything the same as as we do, you know,
like there's uh I remember that. One of the silliest
things I was going through in the movie theater they
call it the cinema over there and um. One of
the most famous squares in Um in England is is

(18:40):
uh Less Square. That's where they have all the big theaters.
But it's spelled L E I C E S t R.
So I get in a cab and the guy goes,
where are you going? I said, I'm going through um
to Leicester Square. I never heard of Leicester Square. That's
what do you mean? You never heard a license of square?

(19:02):
I mean, like, how long you've been driving a cat?
So I've been driving a cab for like thirty years.
And I said, well, it's that, you know, it's the square,
you know, licensees Square where all the theaters are. Really,
you know, it's all where all your big cinemas are,
and you know sitters here's oh, you mean Lester Square
And I said, Lester Square, that's how you said. And

(19:24):
I said, well, in the stage we would spell that,
you know, L E S T E R. So I
an't spell it that way. You know, I just had
to learn all kinds of different spellings and stuff like that.
You know, it was also still easier than like, say,
you know, my second language was French. Um, but it
was still easier to do that than to go to
Paris and try to speak French. Because really, how did

(19:45):
snooty attitude about Americans trying to speak to things exactly?
Immediately thought you were? You know, persecuting their language. You know,
the only language I ever learned to among you speak French,
her like her like like you know, And that's a
comment from Bill. I mean, I'm I'm an America learned

(20:09):
a lesson that learned the language in school. I'm a
what do y'all think? Time out? Time? Yeah, Steve, Yes,
I have twenty copies of the Basity Rollers first album
Behind You. That was such a love joke. That's been
up there for like ten fifty minutes. No, what said
ship joke. It's been sitting at a hole. I didn't

(20:32):
even see him do that, like dog, Why do you
have twenty copies of this record? Well, first of all,
it's thirty and I've probably owned about a hundred copies
of this and give them away. It's I buy it
every time I see it. So is this the album
you're referring to? It's like, I believe it's like the
first American Yeah, that's the that's the first one. In fact,

(20:55):
they really because of that problem with the producers. Um,
you know, the one show that everyone broke on and
during those days was Top of the Pops, which was
one of the most influential music shows ever. Uh, in
any you know, in any country that I know of.
I mean, you could really break and keep sustain a
career just being on top of the pops um. But

(21:17):
they changed the ruling and you had to start singing
live to track on the show because of that, because
they weren't the only ones that were doing that, and
so the unions and everything started complaining. Switched the procedures
so that you couldn't lip sync on top of the Pops.
But for the first ten years I think that the
show existed, you could. It was always lip syncing. Right, well,

(21:39):
I asked them that they were lip syncing, but but
you're are you suggesting or did you suggest that they
they had session singers in the making of the albums.
Them making their first album was completely written recorded by session.
Since you've been had Steve, Yeah, all right, well you're life,
thank you. And again they had that. They had two

(22:05):
records recorded and they just put they put other guys
together and they used the exact same you know, they
made a few tweaks in the record in the second
record that would have been the Basicity Roller second record.
So very sorry to note, Ramona is right, that rule
is actually what say the roots life. Um, only because

(22:26):
the French version of that show, we had a situation
and explained it before where the Bratt was a guest
on the show and she wanted to lip sing her
song and they're like, no, you have to do it
lot to track and she called an attitude, walked off
the show and we got the call that you know,
can you fill in her eighteen minutes? And this is

(22:49):
you know, long story short. Uh. The next day, like
the Roots could suddenly go from playing Alicia MoMA over
in Paris to play like the Zenith, like their version
of Madison Square Garden. So you're right, like some of
those shows are like that where you have to sing it.
Even if it's two can track, you still have to

(23:12):
sing live to it. And so well, whoever whoever sang
on this record, it's it's incredible. Yeah. Um but but okay,
now well less less mc less mcwen I think was
his name, lead singer. He passed way recently? Oh did he? Yeah?

(23:36):
I did not know that. Wow. I would like to
know what do you consider the first step, the first
step into your career path, Like how do you start

(23:58):
inching towards the entertainment business? Um? I think the first
step was that working for that talent agency UM in London,
Starlight Artist, and uh, so then I had I had
been there for almost four years and had to make
a decision whether to stay there and become British more

(24:18):
or less or come back to the States, and uh,
I really didn't want to be Uh. There was a
chance I could get hired back at pan Am, but
I felt like my time up there, uh with Panama
at kind of uh was over. I mean, you know,
I used to tell people I'm a I'm a waiter
in the sky because you know, I had a college degree,

(24:39):
right all I was doing was I was really just
a waiter to just do it on a plane instead
had in a restaurant. And I just felt like I
didn't go to college just to do that job. Even
though it was a lot of fun. I got to
see the world, and uh it was it was great.
So when I came back to the States and I
decided I wanted to continue to work, you know, uh
and the entertain mean business. But I had been an

(25:01):
editor of those two magazines. They were both pop zine magazines.
One was called Poster and one was called Superstar, And
I was the only guy wrote the whole the magazine.
But I told the guys, I said, you know, if
you really want to, we have to make it look
like we're a bigger operation. And I don't, you know,
I don't want to have the only name. And uh,
you know, so what if you don't have to have

(25:23):
a problem, I like to make up some names of
other writers. I'll still write it and I'll try to
write a little bit different, sort of feel like we
have a staff. So you were basically what Cynthia Horner
was the right on magazine, Yes, exactly, was really the
only and she didn't care. I care. I didn't want
to be the only person. But yeah, Cynthia Horner. Wow,

(25:43):
that's a flashback. Yeah, that's my dream interview. And you know,
she's very shy about coming on on this podcast, and
I think she just thinks like, no one knows who
I am and that's not big of a deal. But
this is this is literally the platform. Oh yeah, no,
she You know, when you start off in the entertainment
business in black press or whatever, everyone knew who sent

(26:05):
your Horner was right, you gotta go through her first. Yeah,
she was one of the you know, right on was
one of the top magazines for you to get exposure
and if you're a black artist. So coming back to
the States, how much of a culture shock was it
for you, because I mean you're living in London in
a key period of development the United States, you know,

(26:28):
like the Nixon period um, you know with the college,
you know, Nixon's college. I went to Nixon Scotlange. That
was college. That's where he was. Yeah, he went to
where college and they all they also said that he
was from Whetier, but he wasn't from where they He
was from Laura, Belinda. He was born there and he

(26:48):
went through he went through the Whier school system, but
he didn't actually, he wasn't a resident. So when all
the ship hit the fan, they pretty much they had
a sign saying welcome to right down their main street
was green Leaf Avenue, Welcome to President Nixon's hometown. And
then when when Watergate happened and they tore the science,

(27:11):
they said, well, actually they went on the whole campaign
really to disown them, and they said, no, he's not
really from here, you know, he's from Linda. But he
was really adopted by videos. That was so it was
it was how much of a. Uh, it was a
big culture shock because for one, you know, the music
was really different I had. I wasn't really in tune

(27:33):
with all the music UM that was going on in
the States. Then, you know, four years is a big,
you know, vacuum of time to lose connection with your roots.
And uh, one of the first groups that I fell
in love with when I came back was Um Brothers
Johnson and the song get the Funk Out of the Face.

(27:54):
But when I listened to it on the radio the
first time I heard it, and I had a British
accent that I didn't even try to. I didn't realize
it until I got back, and you know, some of
my friends and well, what's what's up with you? Bro?
The voice she got, and you know I was calling
things petrol instead of gas. There's just little things that
you learned just from you know, being in one place
for four years, you know, And I had to re

(28:16):
turn that stuff off and readjusted. And also I drove
on the wrong side of the street. And you know
one time in l A because I was used to driving,
and I was in the car with my sister and
she she says, hey, you know, I don't want to
scare you, but you're driving the wrong side. You know,
it sad to turn, you know, so little things like that.

(28:36):
But I thought that that song said get the funk
out my face. And I called her friend. I said, wow, man,
music has really changed here. Like maybe you're like, no,
you can say on the radio station, go no, man,
they're not saying that, They're saying funk. And I go, oh,
get the front, Okay, I gotta gotta got it, you know.
But I mean a lot of things had had changed,
and uh, I got luck, very lucky. I was literally

(29:00):
was working in a photo mat booth um when I
was a little yellow Yeah. Yeah, one of those little huts.
It was on there. It was in the hood and
on Rodalo in uh and off Crenshaw. It's right next
to a Pioneer Chicken. And I was, you know, I
came back. I didn't come back with a lot of
money or whatever. So I just got a part time job.

(29:21):
Because that that job, I could work from three to
eight and I could look for a real job during
the day. And I was trying to be a writer.
I was applying to Rolling Stone through ben Func Tories
and trying to you know, but everything was on spec.
Everybody said, well, you know the way we do it here,
and I said, well, I need some money. So I
found this job, and I said, you know, I figured
i'dn't even work there for a couple of weeks, which

(29:43):
is what happened. I only worked there for a couple
of weeks. But it was one of those crazy jobs
where people they were it was always getting robbed and
they had women there all before me. So they hired
me because they thought it would be more you know,
I'd be more intimidating. And they I don't know why
people would want to rob the photo map booth. There's
not a lot of money. He explain this to me

(30:04):
because I was way too young. But like the photo
map is, those booths were literally like the size of
telephone booths, right. Yeah. I could barely fit in it.
I mean every time I moved, I knocked something over
my knees or something. You know, it's there was but
it was like just an easy job. You know. You
would just take the photos or like you would you
have to process the photos too, know what. It's basically

(30:28):
drop off the drive gay So people would come in,
they would bring their film and then I'd give him
a receipt and for it, and then when the film came,
delivery truck would come by and drop off the process films.
So all I was was a cash here and you know,
exchanging film, collecting film, and then giving people their photos.
After Back to the Future, I stopped seeing those photos.

(30:50):
Yeah they're around for a while, you know. And uh
so I and I remember one time guy calls me
up and says, hey, we're gonna come down and rob
robbed the place. Go okay, well, thanks for the head up.
What's up, you know? And I went to I writ
and Satin Pioneers chicking. I called the manager. I said, hey, man,
uh these guys, I gotta call Sey're gonna rob the place.

(31:11):
I'm gonna sitting here for a few minutes and see
if anyone comes by. If they don't, I'll go back
in the head. You know. Oh my god, this it
was this crazy. Now, that was really culture shock, you know,
coming from because I had I had not really lived,
uh in a black area like that. I wasn't raising
that area and that was an all black ghetto areas,
so that was a difference from living in London. So

(31:34):
it was a cultural shock. I'm any levels, but it
was while I was working in there. Uh a photographer
named Bruce Tollerman. I don't know if you've heard. Yeah,
so Bruce Jackson's and yeah, Parliament full you know, Bruce Holliman, Yeah, Bruce.
Bruce also went to wet Here College. So legend legendary photographer,

(31:54):
like yeah, legendary, you know, and he worked for He's
got a great book out to a great cop table
book if you haven't seen it. I got that for
someone gave it to me for my fiftieth birthday and
he was kind of enough to sign it for me. Yeah,
and he's, you know, he's been he's had a really
scalar career and he heard that. Um. I saw his

(32:15):
name in the staff for Soul Magazine with Jinnas Jones
Soul Magazine because I was going to try to write
for that, and then I saw Bruce and I so
I called him up and said, hey, Bruce Man, how
are you doing. I see you're like a photographer bla
blah blah. I'm trying to get into business here and
uh so he said, well, you know, I know I

(32:36):
think somebody, this guy Bob Jones at Motown who is
the black publicist there at the time. He's looking for
I think he's looking for an assistant. Would you be interested?
I said, yeah, sure, you know, I'm calling me, you know,
or alcohol and whatever. And Bob Jones called called me
while I was working at Photo of Photo my brute

(32:56):
and he said, Hey, would you like to come in
UM and interview for uh junior publicist position at Motown?
And Motown had just moved from Detroit and they were based.
They moved into UM the CNN building on Sunset for
this was uh yeah, this was sent and they moved

(33:19):
to they moved out of Detroit to Hollywood. For the
first time, you got to explain something to me, what
is the What was the role of Irish Gordy because um,
you know, coming of age and being a fan of

(33:39):
like High Energy Switch, just a lot of those Love Smith,
like a lot of those seventies Motown groups and even Apollo.
You know, they would often go on Soul Train. I
would hear Don talk about Irish Gordy. What was Irish's
role in Louis the mid seventies period of Motel. I

(34:03):
think she's more or less in in our artist development.
I'm still wrestling with the fact that you have you know,
I got, I got the I got like the Spanish
a whole Saturday night, Like you don't understand what's going
on over here, your background of all of all we've
been we've been doing this was just six years now, Steve,

(34:26):
You've totally outdone yourself. But it looks like it looks
like a filter, but it's not. It's actually Steve copies
of the Basic Rolling. I'm sorry. I mean, people got
to check out this record for even my dream interview.
I'm still like I'm right now. It's it's taken a
lot of space in my head. This collecting you a copy.

(34:46):
I'm gonna bring you a copy tomorrow. Thank you, Steve Stevens.
That your Shawshank record, Like you have to buy it
if you're in the thing, like you have to watch
sas on. This is absolutely this is the record. I
own the most copies of it. It started with It
started with the A track. I had the A track
of this back in the day. It was like the
first cool music I ever heard. Okay, let's let's not

(35:08):
it's my first musical memory quest. Alright, let's let's not
get into the rabbit hole, all right, So I was
asking what was Irish Gordy's role think, So, I mean
it was you know, you gotta remember too, you know
this isn't uh I'm I'm not from Detroit. You know,
it's a family business and there was a lot of

(35:30):
Gordy's involved with it, and UM, when you to come
in and in my role as sort of a I
was just a burgeoning publicist, So I didn't even deal
with I knew who Irish was, and I dealt with
her very minimally. I mean I was They had a
very structured class system at Motown. So how was it?

(35:53):
What was the modus operandi at Motown doing it period
that you were out there. I've heard stories about how
they operate in Detroit, and you know they all use
their I d s and took meticulous notes as far
as like union scales and all those things. But what
was your experience there, UM, and what was the everyday

(36:15):
operations like, Well, my my primary job was to serve
as a writer and a publicist for a lot of
those junior you know, like at that time, Eddie Kendrick's
um had had left, you know, UM, and David Ruffin
had left UM. Edwards had left UM. So there was

(36:38):
like three temptations that were all working on solo records. UM,
Junior Walker and the All Star Dynamic Superiors down in Houston. UM.
You work with the Dynamic Superiors. I did their publicity
and I got all those second tier guys. But you know,

(36:59):
at the same time I worked with you know, I
got a chance to work with Stevie wonder Um and
I got a chance to see the campaigns for like
Diana Ross and the Four Tops and Marvin and you know.
So it was just I mean, to be able to
get to have that access, not to them, I wasn't

(37:21):
out there partying with them or whatever, but just to
have the access to see how they were treated compared
to the Dynamic Superiors or Junior Walker in the All Stars.
And all those guys were frustrated. I mean, Eddie Kinnocks
used to just yell at me and just say hey,
you know, I'd say, Eddie, look, I'm not in charge, brot. Yeah,
do you want to do the interview or not? If

(37:42):
you don't want to do it, it's cool, you know,
I'll try something else, you know. But they were all
frustrated because there was such a you know, Barry had
a really it was like a university, but it was
also like very competitive, and he hands selected who's going
to be famous. Leon Where, for example, I work with
Leon Where. Leon Where gave Marvin Gaye I Want You

(38:06):
that whole album and it broke him as an artist.
You know, he told me that, you know personally that
that record he that record was meant for him. And
Barry told him that, hey, look, I can release this
record on you and I don't know how much how
well it's gonna do, but if you give this record
to to Marvin, you're gonna make tons of money. And
he did, he gave the record. Yeah, So he put

(38:28):
people in different situations like that. You know, maybe twelve
years ago, I saw an ep k um for Songs
in the Key of Life and which I mean they
did this thing where they like rented out this ranch
and invited all these people from the press and whatnot,

(38:50):
and it's literally like they documented the press hearing songs
in the Key of Life for the first time, and
you know, faces on them and every thing, and you're
literally watching them. I mean, they edited it nicely, but um,
I remember Stevie came in with a weird cowboy hat
on like they were they were like on a ranch
or whatever. But just in general, how you know, was

(39:15):
there much strategy behind how motown operated, at least as
on the publicity side of things, on how they operated
and handled things or was it just generally No, it
was very It was very structured and very restraining. For example,
Bob Jones allowed to pitch any of the major white magazines,

(39:41):
like what Bob Jones, We've been there for Like I
don't know when I got there. He had already been
there for teen years or something. He wasn't allowed to
speak to Newsweek, Time Life, all the biggest entertainment magazines.
There was a guy named Mike Roskin who was the

(40:02):
vice chairman of the company, and he took control of
all the major big artists and he he personally pitched
those people. So me, as a lonely publicist that just
came in, I was assigned to only deal with black press,
you know. So I dealt with you know, Marie Moore
from the Answer Dam News, Gertrude Gibson from the l

(40:23):
A Sentinel, you know, all the uh Earl Earl Callaway
from Chicago Defender and yeah, and all those, yeah, all
the local folks. Those are my go to guys. The
Baltimore's Son, Yeah, Baltimore Son, all those things. And I
used to write what they call cann features and they
would use them verbatim and just put their name on it.

(40:45):
But I didn't care because I wasn't getting paid any
extra money, you know. So, but because a lot of
the black newspapers and magazines didn't have enough money to first,
you know, they're very limited in staff. So but I
I doubt with the Regina Jones and Steve Ivory and
uh Steve Ivory, legendary Steve Ivor. Yeah, so all those

(41:06):
guys were, you know, my go to people. But you know,
I thought, like, for young guys, I need to do
something more than just do black press. I really make
a name for myself. And so I decided without asking anyone.
At the time, the Commodores were just starting to break
had their first hit single, I forgot what it was.
It was before Machine Gun, but it was off their

(41:27):
first album, and they were starting to gain some some traction,
and so I decided I was going to call a
newsweek and pits them to do a story on the Commodores,
and um so I called the guy and he says, uh,
I forgot what his name was, and he said, well,
who are you? And I said, well, my name is
Ramon and Hervey and I'm a publicist at Motien. Said yeah,

(41:49):
but I don't. I don't deal. I don't normally deal
with anyone Motown except for my Mike Rosskin, right, And
I said, oh, okay, well you know, well I'm calling you.
Are you interested in uh, you know, possibly doing a
story or whatever. He goes, let me, uh, let me
get back to you on it. So he immediately calls

(42:10):
my and he says, hey, some kid calls me today.
And I thought we had a deal, you know, blah
blah blah. So then I go into Bob Jones calls
me in his officers, What the hell are you doing? Man?
You called newsweek. I don't even I can't even call
it newsweek. You're in trouble. I don't even know if
I can keep you, if you're gonna keep your job.
Because Roskin wants wants to meet with you. So I

(42:32):
had to go up to Roskin, and you know, I mean,
he was kind of cool. He said, said, hey, well
we have a we have some policies here, some regulations
that you need to follow if you're gonna work here.
And I said, okay, well, you know nobody told me
I wasn't allowed to talk to other media. Well yeah,
there are certain things that we do here and you're
not allowed to talk to these people. That's what I do.

(42:56):
And I said, okay, well I stand correct. You know,
thanks for the heads up, and you know they can't
fire me. But I realized then I gotta get out
of here because if I can't have that, you know,
any latitude to grow then and you know, Bob Jones
wasn't gonna give up his job. So I just said,
I I gotta find another outlet. So you're saying that

(43:16):
UM for entry artists at Motown and none a list
frontline artist, I e. Diana Stevie. Um, there was a
limit to where you could go. And I guess for
you that the limit was maybe Jet or possibly Ebony
or I don't know if Ebany was considered Jet what Jet?

(43:38):
And I don't think I was allowed to pitch Ebony.
I was allowed to speak to Jet for sure, because
I knew Bob Johnson and Silvery planning and and they
were always trying to get They were always trying to
get money. And I said, Bob, I don't do advertising.
I do. You know, there's other people at the company
that you need to talk to you to get avertig.
But he was always saying, well, if we do a story,

(43:59):
can we get some ads? And you know, I was
just going to ask, how does that work with a
group like the Commodores, in which, you know, there's clearly
a point where like in seventy five they were a
black act, and then comes seventy seven when that self
titled record came out with you know, easy and brick
House on it, when they suddenly became like triple platinum

(44:21):
in there, and thank god it's Friday and Lionel was
about to you know, spread his wings. Then suddenly they
only deal with the top tier, the guy above Bob Jones,
which is yeah, pretty much pretty much shifts like that,
and you see how they the hierarchy like. But you know,
one of the highlights of my time in Motown was

(44:43):
I got to work with Stevie Wonder on songs of
the Key of Life. And I was in the marketing
meeting that only someone at his leverage, uh and Cloud
could even demand. So he called a meeting and he
wanted everybody from all the divisions to come in that
they could tell him what they're gonna do for songs

(45:04):
of the Key Alive. You know that that only you know,
probably him, Marvin Diana uh probably did semptations. The four Tops,
like those the Jackson Five, those groups could probably command that,
their managers could command that. But all those other guys,
they would never get an opportunity to meet with the
whole staff of the label. And one of the first

(45:26):
things that Stevie said, and I mean I was I
was so hyped because I hadn't met him yet and
just eating with him, and especially that album I think
of that album is probably the you know, pinnacle of
his career. And one of the first things he said is, Okay,
so just to set the tone for this meeting, I
wanna I would like to request I want a billboard

(45:50):
in Times Square that's so big and so bright that
even I can see it. He had that kind of
charisma and he was but he was dead serious, and
you know, just the way that he commanded the meeting.
I was so thrilled. I just I've remembered that line
forever I've even asked him a couple of times over
the years because I've had a great friendship with Stevie

(46:12):
since that day when I did R and B live
and stuff. He came and and and performed, and uh,
I just really have so much respect for him as
an artist. Everything he's done with me, you know, the
Martin Luther King Holiday. He just had such an incredible career.
But that was a great experience. And then that one
of the problems with that album that a lot of

(46:32):
people don't realize those It had a twenty four page
leaflet songbook inside and when you add the shrink, when
you shrink wrap that with a double album and you
have this twenty four page there were stories breaking in
the news that there was more returns on that album
because of the war page. And so I did some

(46:55):
research on it to find out what was the percentage
of warpage that comes with every album, and I found
out that the percentages is I was like under ten percent,
around under ten percent of all the albums being released
in those days would would there would be a warpage
issue and returns based on warpage, and so I um

(47:18):
I talked to this guy in manufacturing to get his figures,
and then I was able to get a story in
Billboard to say that the the information was misinformed and
that the percentage of warpage for Stevie's album was not
as great. There was on par with the same amount
of warpage for any album and it was so I

(47:41):
turned around the it and then I got in trouble
for that too, because Faye Hale was this elderly black woman.
It was she was the head of manufacturing, and she
called me in to her office and got piste off
that one I went to a or a person in
her to get information and I didn't clear it with her.

(48:05):
So there was all these kind of departmental things that
I just you know, know, there wasn't a guide book.
They don't give you, like you can't talk to this person,
cant this, can't that You just guya have to find
your way, you know. Okay, I want to move on
past Motown, but since you're already there, I gotta know this.
Why did Motown never use a consistent manufacturer? Like one

(48:34):
of the weirdest things about Motown to me was, um,
you know, like okay, for with Steve with his ninety
Bay City rollers back there. Yes, I you know I
have I have a large record collection myself and which
I've purchased maybe you know, maybe I have ten copies

(48:55):
of songs in the Key of Life. But my question
is that I know that obviously Motown had to use
various pressing plants, independent pressing plants across the United States,
in the world, because the ink, like the fonts of
the ink for you know, if you brought the album

(49:15):
down South and Georgia somewhere is different than if you
brought it in New York, and different if you brought
in l A. And I just never understood why a
label of Motown's magnitude never just had one consistent pressing plant,
Like was Motown basically still an independent label even though

(49:38):
they were the biggest black label? Yeah? There that was
you know, Barry thought. I think he believed that he
had more power, uh more influenced as an independent label
than he would if he cut a distribution deal. He
would make more money. He was willing to take those
risks that you're talking about and working with all the

(50:00):
is independent once stops and manufacturing centers around. But um
and he couldn't compete um. You know, I think there
was an issue. Are these bigger companies, you know, taking
a big piece of independent companies and being able to
offer a record UH stores and stuff a bigger piece

(50:21):
of a pie. It was very difficult for him and
UH to stay independent. Um he wasn't the only one
that was trying to do it, but it was very,
very difficult. But I think that it was a it
was a numbers games to him, you know at the
time that he felt, you know, that he was going
to win bigger by staying independent than doing a distribution

(50:42):
deal with someone. And what was the logic and the
reason for why Motown never registered with the r I
A A Like every television appearance I would hear like
and the Jackson sold you know, seven million units, I'll
be there, Like it would just be like these really

(51:02):
crazy numbers. So what was like the logic of not
joining the Recording Industry Associations of America And how did
that affect I think it's because he didn't want to
be He didn't want to have to be certified. He
wanted to be able to use his own publicity and
say whatever he wanted without being questioned. I mean, you know,

(51:25):
that's the only thing that I could think of at
the time was he didn't want to have buy on
you know, he could always exaggerate, you know, and and
all the companies were exaggerating. I mean he used to
you know, the big thing in those days was to
say that a record ship platinum. And you know, it's
not how many records ship, that's how many you sell.

(51:46):
But you know, they realize, you know, they'd run these stories,
oh so and sort of ship platinum, but they return gold.
You know, so you know, did you guys, did you
guys know numbers? It was a big part of the
record business thing. So I think that he was part of,
you know, wanting to be able to control the narrative

(52:07):
of what his company really represented in the marketplace. Yeah,
I was gonna say, now with streaming, especially in the
movie business, like the one thing I'll never know is
how much money my film actually made. Like that's the
one thing they won't allow me to do. I can't
look at the numbers at all to see if we

(52:28):
did nine dred billion or just one million. So yeah,
it's a it's red tape. It's the red tape of
being involved in all. You know, that's the same thing
that you've been dealing with with your film. That's been
going on for years in the film business too, where
they tell you, oh, well we didn't recoup you know.
The whole idea is, you know, if you don't have

(52:49):
to uh tell your artists, you don't have to quantify
how many records and you can you can you can
also tell them that you owe us more money than
you owe us. Right, he got a lot of why
he had so much frustration with a lot of the
artists because the numbers didn't match what they felt they
should should be getting, you know, and he got a

(53:11):
bad rep for you know, supposedly shortcoming you know, uh
short short star selling everybody and not paying them what
they were entitled to. So what was your next step
after Motown? Like, what was your last period at Motown?
And what was the next step afterwards? The stepboards I

(53:34):
got laid off because they were having a really tough winter,
and uh, they were old a lot of money, you know,
in terms of um. You know a lot of what
people don't realize is there's a when you're an independent company,
you can't afford to not get paid for like ninety days.
So they were getting old. They were being old a

(53:56):
lot of money because a lot of companies just weren't
paying them and so they had to lay off a
bunch of people. And I was one of the people
that was laid off, and Bob Jones was kind enough
to one He let me write for some other magazines
like black Star. I don't remember remember black Star Black Star?
Remember black Stars? Black Stars and the CPA, Yes, I
remember them. So I wrote for that under a pseudonym.

(54:20):
Ray Trish was my name, and uh he told me
I could you know, he helped to introduce me to
He said, look, you I know we not I can't
get you any more money, but you know you could
write for some magazines. I'll refer you. So I wrote
for a lot of other magazines at the time as
a freelancer, but I couldn't use my own name. And
he told me that this company named Rogers and Cowen,

(54:41):
which is actually a very famous uh PR company. They're
actually the first independent public relations company in Hollywood when
the studios originally started. You know, they controlled everything. You know,
they basically employed the all the actors and they there
were no managers and no agents and no publicists. And
they were the first company to be an independent publicist

(55:04):
where big stars like Nally Wood and Robert Wagner and
people of Paul Newman could actually go and have their
own publicity. UM. And at this time there was an
emergency of agents like the William Morris's and all those
you know agents started around the same time. UM. So
he told me that Paul Block, this guy Paul Block,

(55:25):
who was a UH was the head of music over there,
was hiring um UH freelance writers. And he said, you know,
we're probably gonna hire you back, but this will maybe
hold you over. And so that's when I went to
UH to meet with Paul Block UM to see if
he would hire me to do some freelance work. And

(55:45):
was after work, was at seven o'clock. I had a
GELOPI of a car. I had a Dodge Dark and
I didn't have enough money to had no reverse. I
had no reverse. I didn't have enough money to fix it.
So I used to drive around to find the right
parking space. I couldn't do any ballet parking or whatever.

(56:05):
And I was driving around to find a spot where
I could go up into a spot. Yeah, but you
couldn't even go in head first. You could go head
first anywhere because you have to back out exactly. So,
you know, I was waiting to get enough money to
fix my reverse and uh, and so I went to

(56:26):
Beverly Hills. Their offices were on Bedford and Wiltshire, and uh.
I went in to meet with Paul and here was
a nice guy, didn't really give me any guarantee that
I would get hired or not. And then I went
back to my car kind of a little bit deflated
and disappointed and realized that I'd screwed up and I

(56:47):
had I couldn't pull my you know, somebody had parked
in front of me, so I had to back the
car up, and this guy saw me trying to you know,
I was leaning and trying to get you know, those
cars were kind of heavy. So uh, this guy comes
up and says, hey, man, uh he comes with your

(57:07):
car and I said, yeah, it's just I guess my
it seems like my reverse is not working. I'm not
really sure. I mean, I lied, I pretended like I
didn't really know what was wrong with my car, and
he helped me and I finally got out of there,
and then I had About two weeks later, I got
a call from Paul, and he says, hey, do you
want to come in and work on I have a
project that I think I could use you for. You

(57:28):
come in, I'll tell you what it's for. And he says, well, uh,
he said, I one of my clients is Paul McCartney.
I said, well, Paul McCartney from the Beatles. Paul McCartney.
He goes, yeah, that Paul McCartney. And I said, wow, yeah, yeah,
I would love to work on the Beatles. I mean,
you know. So what I found out was that Paul
had um I bought the publishing to the Buddy Holly catalog,

(57:52):
so uh, he had owned it and he was doing
a week of you know, in a special Buddy Holly
week in in the uth Ky and he wanted a
press kit put together, and so I was my task
was to write all the materials that would go into
press kit for for them to use for him to
use to uh launch that week. And so that was

(58:13):
my first project at Rogers and Cowen. And I didn't
talk to Paul, but he approved all everything that I
did and um and they ended up hiring me as
a as a publicist based on my work. I'm Paul
McCartney and then I ended up being like a day
guy on on Paul's account in l A. And then

(58:35):
he had another guy working in New York, but Paul
was really the head guy. I you know, I Linda
McCartney and Lee Eastman, his father in law, and there
was a couple of meetings and on phone call and stuff.
I didn't really get to know him very well, but
I got a chance to work on as an account
and I learned so much. I mean, he had one
of the biggest publishing MPL Communications. He owned so much

(58:59):
publishing it's just amazing. It's like books of it. And
I got to see all and he owned like over
a hundred fight songs from all the major colleges across
the US, really won schools. I mean, it just was unbelievable,
just so many songs. Well, it said that he's the
one that taught Michael Jackson about like the power of

(59:22):
owning publishing. Yeah. Well apparently what it ended up happening
was that he told him that Capital had offered, uh,
you know, to buy for giving them an opportunity to
buy their catalog back. Yeah, and he was telling Michael,
you know, I just couldn't pull my you know, I
couldn't convince myself to pay that much money for songs

(59:43):
that we wrote, you know, and so he turned it down.
But then Michael went back and uh told Mike Stewart
at the Mike Stewart was ahead of publishing at Sony
at the time, and Mike Stewart helped him purchased the
music Pause fault man. He should have Always claim your legacy,

(01:00:05):
Always claim your legacy. Well what's your take on on
people these days selling their catalogs and that being a
thing that people do these days? Do you you see
this for tuitous or not? You know, I think it's
I think it's a great It's great for these a
lot of artists that uh are not really relevant you
know on streaming services and stuff. They're not making a
lot of money. But these are companies that their job

(01:00:26):
is to, you know, try to make money after publishing
off placement and sinking and all that stuff. So I
think I think it's great. I've I've seen it. Uh
it's amazing that they uh, you know, I kind of
it's a it's a further development from when I guess
maybe ten years ago when Live Nation and um A

(01:00:49):
E g started paying huge amount of money for artists rights,
you know, just circumvent agents and you know where they
would you know, end labels. You know, they wanted to
really monopolize and control, and this is just another form
of that where you know, publishing has always been an
annuity for artists if they understood it that it's something

(01:01:12):
that lasts in perpetuity. And so I would always say,
hang on to it. But if someone's going to give
you three hundred million dollars, uh, and you're still gonna
you know, make money, you know, that's a lot of
money to turn down. Spend it now? Yeah, you know
I did that, right, Bill? What did you do? Sold
my publishing? Did you sell an opposing I sold it

(01:01:35):
so you can pay for the new house. Because it's
like the logic was they did the math for me
and basically the way I was going now, um, I
would have gotten the full value of my lifetime work,

(01:01:56):
but maybe when I was seventy seven years old, so
I could either they did the math like we can't
even give this all to you right now, like what
you would make up into seventy seven years old, or
we just pay you off a little bit at a time,
a little bit at a time, and you know, the
Roots are just one of those prestige artists that, like,

(01:02:17):
selling records was never our thing. And I mean for
the most part, licensing you know, like do you still
have to get permission for licensing? Correct, Like it's not
full out you sold it and they can just do
whatever they want to with it. I mean, we have
a very specific arrangement. So you know, I don't want
my ship being used for like mega parades or anything.

(01:02:40):
But if I didn't ask you would to disclose that information.
I'm like, don't want people out here thinking the Roots
music could just be anywhere. There's there's always sort of stipulations,
like depending on what it is. I mean for the
most part, yeah, I I decided to It's not as
big as as a Bob Dylan deal or you know

(01:03:01):
McCartney deal. But but you started in nineteen seven, right
with the Roots. Well I'm technically eighty seven, but we
got our three. Yeah, it's it's thirty years for us,
and so you you earned the right to do that.
That's what I'm saying that people you know who've been
in the industry a long time, you know, you guys

(01:03:21):
have been, you know, performing. I've seen you guys perform
several times. In fact, we met. I don't even know
if you remember, but we met with v Jane. Yeah
remember that, remember you well you trying to act like
you know, I just didn't know the radar. No, No,

(01:03:42):
I just didn't know if you remember how we how
we met. But yeah, that was absolutely Yeah, you're the
first time when I did a speech, just a solo
solo situation. Yeah. You start your your book at a
very curious place. You start with the Richard Pryor story,
and that particularly chapter in chapter one, to me, I

(01:04:06):
was very curious about that, only because kind of one
of the prevalent themes on this show that we often
talk about that I'm often curious about is when a
creative or an artist sort of subconsciously lets you know
that they don't want to do this anymore. And oftentimes, uh,

(01:04:28):
it'll happen, They'll they'll react in ways that will let
me know that. Um, and oftentimes artists will self sabotage
you know, a good thing, and there's ways to do it.
There's you know, I mean lightweight stuff like gambling, and
you know, for you, especially as a manager, I know

(01:04:49):
that time management, uh is also a way that an
artist will express their unhappiness with the situation. I'm certain
you've dealt with artists that last minute will cancel something,
you know. I used to always joke that I always
felt that Jackson's made up. I only knew that Jackson's
got exhaustion. That's why I like, right right, I've never

(01:05:16):
seen the word exhausting you so much whenever it's like
I canceled Michael or Janet like exhaustion, okay, whatever. But um,
for you though, Um, just the amount of fires that
you've had to put out with every client that you've had,

(01:05:36):
Like it's like you're being sent out into the front lines. Um,
and you go off on. Yes, Lie is holding up.
I'm holding up the chapter where he says a path
of self destruction can sabotage fame. Yeah, so well, one,
I wanted to know why you felt this is a

(01:05:57):
very unique interpretation of your life, that is, that isn't
a biography or memoir. And as I said at the
top of it, I feel like this book is important
for the future managers or really, like to me, I
think it's important for interns because I know every intern

(01:06:20):
I ever met in n is now CEO that I
work with, and it always starts with, Hey, you don't
remember it, but you came to my college back to
the back when I was an intern. But for you
UM to be at the Helm, especially like the way
you started that Richard Pryor Um chapter in your book,

(01:06:43):
why would you want to subject yourself to that level
of torture and and and I'm saying it's all bad,
but you know, like surely you're you have to be
living every day like any moment going to get a
call at three am and I gotta get I gotta
put a fire out. It did come to that, but

(01:07:06):
I didn't. I didn't think that going in, Like I
had bright lights and I thought, Wow, I'm getting a
chance to represent Richard Pryor, someone who I really respected,
who I knew about, who I was a fan with.
You know, he was giving a black kid, you know,
young still you know, uh by that time, I was
pretty experienced. But his manager, David Franklin, he made sure

(01:07:31):
that Um when he that he wanted he said, Richard
really wants you to do this, and we want to
make sure that you're going to be the one to
do it. We want you to be responsible. So I thought, wow,
this is great, you know, to have a and you know,
at that point, Richard was really you know, he was
one of the top paid black actors in the business.
He had been successful as a writer. Um, he had

(01:07:55):
had a lot of success, you know, and so it
was like a real feather in my cap to him
as a client, you know, and I was thinking, Wow,
I can do you know, there's no limits to what
I can do with this guy from a pr standpoint.
So that was where my thinking was, like, this is
gonna be a great opportunity. I'm gonna make him even

(01:08:15):
a bigger star than he already is. Uh. And then
when I got into trenches, UM, it wasn't quite Um,
the opportunities that I thought were there weren't a hundred
percent there because he was you know, he was very
unpredictable and and he was going through a lot of
personal issues with his drugs and alcohol and stuff like that.

(01:08:37):
And you mentioned at three o'clock, you know what the
first time that that happened. Um, he was supposed to
do a uh. He had agreed the headline for the
Brotherhood Black Crusade, UH, which was a very well known organization,
fundraising organization, community organization in Los Angeles and the guy
named Danny Bakewell was the founder of it, and then

(01:09:00):
still Um has kept the organization going. But Richard called
and his at that time, it was his wife, Jennifer.
They called me at three o'clock in the morning and
they're kind of giggling. I can kind of tell they're
high and stuff, and they tell me that Richard wants
to Richard wants to cancel his performance. It was like

(01:09:21):
early Saturday morning, and that the show wasn't until that
he wasn't even go on until like the next night.
So he says, well, you know, we went to the
doctors and he had gastro unitus. I don't even know
what gastro ent unitus was, so I had to look
it up and I said, we had the stomach ache.
You know, that's a fancy word for a medical terms.

(01:09:46):
So I said, well, you know, why don't you guys
go to sleep and let's just re you know, re
reconnect in the morning. Uh, you know, get a good
night's sleep. I can call you around the leven and
then we'll decide what we should. I mean, you know,
you don't have to go on until nine o'clock. Maybe
your stomach will be fed better by that. And I said, also,
I really don't want to. You know. He wanted me

(01:10:08):
to make an announcement, and I said, that time. There's
no place I can go. You know, at that point,
there was no social media or whatever like that, and
the only way I could break a story like that
was I could go to a p associated press, and
I said, I don't want to do that, and I
wanted to wait and talk to Danny Bakewell to see
what he thought what would work best for him. I

(01:10:30):
did end up talking to Danny in the morning, and
I convinced Richard that I would create a statement to
be read and that we wouldn't announce it nationally as
a national thing. We just announced it at the venue
because a lot of people, do you know, it's just
a charity event, and not everybody needed to know that
he was canceling it except for the people that were

(01:10:53):
in there. And he also agreed to donate ten thousand
dollars to the Brotherhood Crusade, so said, So Danny was
fine with that. So I went there that night, you know,
and I had prepared the statement with the idea that
Danny Bakewell would read the statement to the audience and
also tell them. So when I got there, Uh, I

(01:11:16):
hadn't met Danny. I had only talked to him on
the phone. So I said, well, Danny, here's the statement
that Richard wants you to read because I'm not reading that.
He said, you're here, you're his guy, So you go
up there and read it. And it was at the shrine.
I said, man, you're kidding me, like, you know, really
glad to go up on stage and and tell five
thousand black people who were expecting Richard Prior to perform

(01:11:40):
to and that that was really the beginning. It's set
a pattern of just having to do that all the time.
You know. Richard was just one of those guys. He
was unpredictable and I'd come to the office some days
and I just never knew what he was going to
So you just kind of hope that, you know, And
then there was other things that he did do. For example,

(01:12:01):
the Richard Prior Life and Concert film was my you know,
was an idea I brought to him. That wasn't it
wasn't my idea to do the contract, but somebody came
to me a guy by the name of Bill Sergeant.
Well sorry, I mentioned in the book. He's the guy
that offered fifty million dollars for the Beatles to your
Union tour. And he said, I want to do a
live continent. So why I think that's a really great idea.

(01:12:22):
I don't know if I can sell it, but and
you know, David and Richard gave me their blessings and
I helped to put that whole thing together. So you
you get those kinds of moments and you think, well,
you know, if I could do more of that, that
offsets those other times when I'm canceling signatory whatever. But
you came. I just wanted to give you your props

(01:12:43):
and at least at the least in the Richard Pryor chapter,
because not only do you account for all these events,
but you also give perspective and where Richard came from
and kind of telling his story to give you know,
this kind of two I always say lens of the
cause and effect. Basically, yeah, different, you know, like, you know,

(01:13:03):
Richard did a lot of things he never got canceled,
like what's happened with Dave Chappelle, And you know, Richard
that people just loved him because he was so vulnerable
and he shared. He turned his his his misfortune into
comedy in a way that it was resonated with people,
and they forgave him. They always forgave him of everything,

(01:13:25):
and he he you know, as I think you noticed
in the book, he created a pattern that was very
successful for him in terms of marketing. The way he
marketed his fame and his persona, you know, his common
Live Conscience film. You know, there's very rare, you know,
as a strategic uh you know, crisis manager or whatever.

(01:13:47):
The first thing you say is let's do something and
let's move away from Let's figure out a way to
put that in the past. And he found a way
to actually allowed that to fuels a lot of his comedy. Alright,
so I forgot where I read it, But there was
a show that he did at the Hollywood Bowl. Um,

(01:14:09):
I'll remember there's a famous photo where he says, I
want you all to kiss my happy black ass. He's
a little I think it was like he was doing
a benefit. It was like an l G B t Q.
I was representing Bette Midler. Then, yes, so that was

(01:14:32):
a star span go to night for rights right. Bette
Midler's manager, Aaron Russel, came up with the idea and
we um and I was I really had a big
role in that because we met with all these gays,
you know, l g b Q organizations from San Francisco,
because we donate the money UM from the concert, and

(01:14:55):
Richard agreed to do it, but I didn't. I didn't
represent Richard then. But I literally was on the stage
and uh, I was six ft away from him before
he went on, and I stayed on the stage because
I was such a big fan I wanted to see
him close up, so as as on the wing of
the stage watching that all happened, and he walked right

(01:15:15):
by me. After he did that, he walked off the
stage and went straight to his limbo and left. I
heard it was it was described as someone say it
was the cabaret version of Altamont. If you know what happened,
it was he freaked out everybody. I mean, he just
went and you could watch him turn as it was,

(01:15:37):
you know, he started off and people were laughing and whatever,
and then he just dark and he just I don't
know if he realized there or if he was misled,
but he just really turned on the audience. Can you
give me an example, because oftentimes I said, I see

(01:16:00):
that you you are thrown in the front line to
strategize something or think of a spin or fix this
real quick. Can you just in your whole career, like
what was the one time where you felt like whatever
spin you had to put on something that you know,

(01:16:22):
maybe this might in golf you or kind of you know,
you might get drawn into the tornado yourself, like this
is something that you can't handle. I don't know, I've
never thought there was something I couldn't hear. And though
so you're not handling this with fear because even then
you have to like meet with people. You gotta be

(01:16:43):
the bearer bad news. I'm sorry, my client blah blah
blah blah blah is not going to make it. You know, well,
you think you learned, you know, you build up a
resiliency like Richard, Richard Pratt telling me how to be
resilient because he was constantly forced you to be richis
games to Rick James. Wasn't that guy that tested me

(01:17:03):
my you know, my resolve and my ability to just
you know, because I really I really admired Rick and
thought he had a lot of talent. You know, he
was really skilled a musician, and but he was just
his own worst enemy. But I always wanted him to win,
and I just trying to come up for ways to
help him win because I thought, like you know, I

(01:17:25):
did feel like he had UH potential to be bigger
than what he was and it becomes but I but
I never gave up on that belief, and so that's
what fueled my you know, but isn't it exhausting? But
is it not exhausting too? Is it not exhausting for
you sometimes to have to Jedi mind trick your artists?

(01:17:50):
You know? It is? It is there's times when I don't.
I haven't enjoyed being a MOP. I'll be honest. I
mean it's not something that I wake up going like
what problem I fucking fixed today? You know, that's not
like I don't wake up with that attitude. But I
just feel I just always felt comfortable with the pressure
that I felt I would be able to UH if

(01:18:12):
they trusted me, that I could help them, we could achieve.
Our collaboration to me, you know, artists and managers is
really it's a synergy and it's a shared vision, and
you know it's not like one or the other. It's
if we can share a vision of what we hope
to accomplish on that's what you really hope for. But
it's not always possible for you. In getting to know

(01:18:37):
uh some of your clients, do you often get to
the heart of the matter, like are they talking at
all about like, hey, maybe I should see Like I
don't know how prevalent seeing a therapist was to suggest
in or ninet. You know, now, of course, you know
we throw everyone like therapy in the face and yes,

(01:18:59):
mental health is everything in two but back in if
you since that an artist is sort of stuck in
that place, like what what solutions are there that aren't
you know what's perceived as embarrassing as oh, maybe i'd
need to see somebody, you know, therapy wise, No, I

(01:19:20):
think there was there was. There were times when I
um asked people, you know, have you given any thought
to getting some help, you know, um seeing a therapist
or you know, to really do do you even think
you have a problem? I mean, it seems like you
do have a problem, you know. You know, even with
Don Carnunius, you know he had a brain surgery and

(01:19:45):
it made him unstable. So you were there in eighty
three when he had his aneurysm. Yeah, I wasn't close
to him then, but by then, let me think, I'm
trying to think. When was the first SoulTrain Music Awards. Yeah,

(01:20:06):
so he had Yeah, so it was after the you know,
it was shortly after that that I became more Uh.
I started doing pr for him after the brain anamism,
and he told me about it. But then when we
were doing the Salting Awards, um and I worked on
that show for at least five years or so, I

(01:20:27):
remember him telling me that it made him moody and
and sometimes he wasn't He didn't know how he was
going to react to certain things, and you know, you
could see it, you know, actually happen in real time.
A couple of times. Different things that he did that
I think, you know, contribute, were influenced by that. And

(01:20:48):
I remember asking him once, have you thought about going
back and getting another surgery done? And he said, uh,
I half thought about it, and I talk to the doctors,
but the reality is they couldn't guarantee him that he
would get better, and it also might even be worse.

(01:21:09):
So you know, these are things that people you know.
I don't think he told everybody that, but that's something
I can say he shared with me, I mean and
just for him, you know, because he wanted me to
understand and I was trying to understand him. And um,
and we had that kind of friendship. I mean, he
wasn't like a total open book with me, but there

(01:21:30):
are times when we would sit down and talk for
a couple of hours and he would tell me, you know,
the different things, this frustration with just black people and
black artists that wouldn't support him and you know, UM,
and I always tried to help with any artists that
I was managing or whatever. Like, you know, we got
to do the Soul Train Music Awards, you know, because

(01:21:51):
I knew how hard it was, you know, when artists
crossed over a lot of them forgot that. You know,
Son was the one who put him in a position
to be on national television. Um. How long did you
work with the Soul Train Awards the music awards? UM?
Up until probably the first five years I think, or
six or seven year or something like that. So you

(01:22:12):
leased there. Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna debunk a major theory
I have a major theory that I'm afraid to ask
you this question. M hmm, because I think I know
the answer, but I'm gonna ask this question anyway. So
let's let's go February. This is the infamous Michael Jackson

(01:22:37):
h crutches period where if you remember he did remember
the time sitting down, this is what I think happened,
and all you have to do is verify if it's
true or not. Alright, So based on our em C
search story, remember the m C search story where hammer
took took it right, took a hit out right, and

(01:23:00):
then it wound up in Bob Jones hands where he
had to uh, they had to manufacture and Artists of
the Decade award from Michael to win. So that uh,
Michael conceptsi on. Okay, So that was the American Music Awards,
which of course is a Dick Clark platform. That was

(01:23:21):
also eighty nine. So in in February of Dangerous is
out and Michael is being given a Lifetime Achievement Award
or whatever, like a made up award, and Eddie Murphy
and Elizabeth Taylor are presenting it to him, and Michael
has crutches on, and you know sympathy. This is like

(01:23:43):
right after the the Oprah interview and everything, so it's
like the a brief period where like empathy is really
on Michael Jackson's side, and he performs. He was supposed
to perform, remember the time, but you know, he has
to sit in a wheelchair and performing. He can't move whatever,
so he's just basically performing from the top of you know,

(01:24:06):
he's just used his shoulders in his neck and whatever.
I don't buy that one bit. I believe that that
was all. I don't believe that Michael Jackson injured his
foot and rehearsals. But I smell. I smell only because

(01:24:26):
Michael also had to do Dick Clark's American Music Awards
for the same thing. And I know that there's a
rivalry between Don and Dick, So well, what are you
proposing him? Come on, I'm calling foul. I I believe
that there was a situation between Don and Dick Clark

(01:24:48):
American Music Awards and Soul Trying Awards, which this is
hat Field McCoy territory. And I think the compromise was
me that okay, I perform, I saw, but I'll sit
in a wheelchair and perform it. I don't by the way,
it wasn't a Wheelja with the throne, but he yeah,
but all right, can you in my closeness. I don't

(01:25:12):
I remember the video because it was like twelve minutes long. Right.
The performance doesn't stand out to me, But I just
remember that there was a lot of work that went
in to get Michael to do the show, and that
at that time, you know, Michael had so much clout
that he demanded he put together a video that was

(01:25:34):
twelve minutes long about himself. If you look back, it
was the Grammys, American Music Awards and and the Soul
Training Awards had to use that to introduce him. Then
that's when after the video plays, then Eddie Murphy comes out.

(01:25:56):
So he made that a mandatory thing that all those
major awards shows had to do that in order to
get him on. And it was always a lot of
there was back and forth. If certain black acts did
American Band stand down didn't want him on the show,
and then the other way around, if a big act

(01:26:17):
Soul Train first, then Dick Clark wouldn't wan him on
the show. And this went on the whole time. That
ours work really yea, it wasn't It wasn't just Michael.
It was a lot of how the time I became
aware of you. Of course, during the situation with your
ex wife having been around at the time, uh in four,

(01:26:42):
you were brought aboard, I guess to sort of handle
her press and whatnot. Can you talk about the situation
of how you were brought into handle obviously, um, for
those that don't know, you know, it's it's it's amazing
to me how you ushered as her manager, like what

(01:27:04):
would have been a tarnished career, like you managed to
turn Vanessa Williams's entire trajectory around and made her way
bigger than whatever being a Miss America could have promised her.
But how did how did you get brought into the
organization to fix it? There are two really huge misnomers

(01:27:26):
about that whole situation, which I'm going to clarify for you, UM,
that have been part of history and wrongly reported uh
as they're just not authentic. One was that Vanessa had
a career. When I met her, she didn't have a career.
She was a beauty pageant winner, you know, she wanted

(01:27:47):
Miss America pageant. And what made it more significant for
her than other pageant winners prior to her was the
fact that she was black, so she was the first
black Miss America in the sixty or few year history
of the page She was a sophomore in college and
some woman from the New York State pageants saw her
performing a play and said, wow, you you know you

(01:28:09):
would be great. Have you ever thought of being in
a pageant? Her parents were school teachers, she had never been.
It wasn't a career to be in pageants. And when
they told her that if you win Miss America, you
get twenty five dollars in scholarship money, she said, yeah, sure,
I'll give it a try. So she ended up winning
Miss New York. And then when you win UH, you

(01:28:32):
automatically get a bid to compete in the Miss America pageant,
And so that all happened in six months. Then the
once she won UM I was representing UH an artist
a paint her named Phoebe Beasley who's pretty well known,
and she does, you know, amazing collages and stuff. And
she knew a guy named Dennis Dodel who was a

(01:28:56):
handler for Vanessa. He was really just a neighbor because
her parents were school teachers. And because she was the
only black Miss America, they were being besieged by request
from black organizations to have Vanessa come and you know,
make appearances, public appearances and such. So um, they asked
for some help in Dennis was a corporate lawyer for

(01:29:17):
American can and he said, sure, I'll try to help out,
and so he was really uh, and Vanessa did want
to have a career in entertainment business once she finished
her reign as Miss America, and so I, Uh, my
friend Phoebe, who was a client at the time, said hey,
I record, I wanted to know if I could recommend
you to this guy. Do you know who missa who

(01:29:39):
Vanessa Williams is And I said, yeah, yeah, the black girl,
that one Miss America. I know she is. And uh,
he said, what she wants to go into the entertainment business,
And I said, you should talk to Ramon. He would
be great to add to your team. And so I
met with Dennis one time and uh, he liked me,
I would like to introduce you to Vanessa. She's on
the road every day right now. And I said, yeah, sure.

(01:30:01):
You know, In fact I was, I was living in
l A. Then I flew to New York. I had
lunch with him in New York, and I said, you'd
be happy to me with her. And you know, because
for me, just being a beauty pageant winnor we even
though it was Miss America, I didn't think that was
an automatic ticket to being successful in entertainment business. So
but I said, you know, yeah, if you guys are
putting together a team, you know, i'd be interested to

(01:30:23):
see what can happen. And then um, I didn't hear
from him for quite a while, and then this was
in July, probably mid July. I heard from him and
he told me that he needed my advice on something,
and so I said, yeah, sure, what do you need
And he said, well, I heard there's some rumors of

(01:30:45):
some pictures of Vanessa and I don't know if they're
if if it's a legit or not. And I said, well,
if you don't know if they're legit, and don't say anything,
don't do anything. You know, I'll see if I can
nose around and find out anything. And then a couple
of weeks past I told him I hadn't found out.
I couldn't. I didn't hear any wind of it. And

(01:31:07):
then he said well, the pictures exist. What should I do?
And I said, well, have have you seen the pictures?
As the pageant seen the pictures? He said no, I
don't know if they have or not. And I again
told him, you know, don't say anything if you don't
really know what you're up against. And there's no way
curve what the clatter or gamage will be if you

(01:31:28):
go out too soon any kind of crisis. You need
to know what you're up against. And so ultimately the
pageant um I did see the pictures, and this guy,
Albert Marks, who was the CEO of the pageant and
had been for I don't fifty years or whatever, he
requested that Vanessa design. Didn't demand it, he requested. And

(01:31:53):
that's another thing that a lot of people whenever it's
been reported that she was forced to resign, she wasn't
forced to resign. She was requested. The reason they requested
it because he didn't know legally whether they could actually
fire her, and he didn't want to go into medication.
But that's why he never said it. So he gave
her seventy two hours to respond, and that's when Dennis

(01:32:17):
called me and said, what should I I said, well,
now we can do something now we have Do you
want me to control this and and tell you guys
what to do, or or do you want me just
to tell you whatever. Whatever you want me to do,
I'll try to help out. He goes, no, no, I
want you to manage it, take care of it. Whatever.
So on Friday afternoon in l A, I was, I was.

(01:32:39):
I had seventy two hours basically from the time that
he had not announced it, which was around eleven o'clock
on Friday morning, New York time. By time I found
out about it, it was a little later. And so
I said, here's what I think we should do. We
should have a press conference in New York. I'll put
it together. I don't care what you know. If she's
going to resign she doesn't really, then I need to

(01:33:00):
know that right now. But I need to put together,
uh photo news alert and get you know, get a
commitment and see if we have enough press people that
will come out to the press conference. And then what
we'll do is we'll have one statement and that's what
we're doing. Can I ask, was there not a person
like the the hysty person that's trying to like blackmail

(01:33:22):
like I have these photos and I want, you know,
one hundred thousand dollars or nothing like, was there no,
no GRUCIONI had already, uh had the magazine had her
picture on the cover. That's what we saw. He was
about too, so he just he printed it with so
he claimed that he had a model of release. So

(01:33:45):
he had been planning this whole thing. He had planned
it to happen before she ended her rock her reign
as missing. We wanted it to happen before the next
Miss America was in, you know, crowned, which was going
to be a few weeks away. So there wasn't six

(01:34:05):
weeks left. There wasn't at least a pre phone call
like how much? How much for me? Did not destroy
your life right now? And none of that. Now he
connived and planned the whole thing. And how was she
this whole time? Like what were her feelings? Was she angry?
Was she like? Well, I hadn't met her. I had
never even met her. So what happened is she ended
up confessing to Dennis that she did take the pictures,

(01:34:28):
but she didn't sign a model release. And so that
part I knew about before I came involved, But I
literally got involved with seventy to two hours. My my
job wasn't to come with a solution on how we're
going to deal with this announcement. And I suggested the
announcement so that she could go on with her life
one time, don't answer any questions from the pressure. You're

(01:34:50):
gonna do a statement. I'm gonna hand a statement out
to all the press. I hired UH affiliate company New York,
a good friend of mine to help me set it up.
And then night I took a red eye to New
York and on the way, this guy came picked me
up at the airport at JFK. I drove out to
Norwood where they live in Westchester County, and by the

(01:35:11):
way there, Dennis told me there was going to be
a lawsuit. I go, okay, that's a lawsuit hunt. So
we had it. So now I'm finding out to I'm
and have to deal with lawyers and they're gonna have
input on what the press statement can be. And when
I got to Millwood, there was over four hundred and
fifty media people, like an encampment taking over her her neighborhood,

(01:35:37):
neighborhood front on across the street and everything. And that
was the first time you said that, did I have fear?
I had fear then, because I said, Wow, this is
a much bigger thing than I realized, because in l A,
you know, it wasn't when I was in when I
just didn't even be the fact that she won this
America was not It was like a one page picture
on the front page of the l A Times. But

(01:35:59):
in New York, as she was from New York, she
was missing New York. It was huge. And so all
these people were waiting and they didn't even know where
she was. She was at home, but they were just
waiting to get a glimpse and and everything. And so
I when I went in there, I met the parents,
and I met Vanessa probably at around eight o'clock in
the morning, and mostly you know, then the lawyers showed up,

(01:36:23):
and at that time everybody wanted to uh said that
they were going to fight and they weren't gonna let
her resign, that they were gonna But my feeling was
based on the fact that there was only six weeks
left before the national cast, and I felt in my
heart that the pageant was not going to Yeah, they

(01:36:49):
weren't gonna let her, you know, be on that show.
For one, And I didn't think that there could be
an injunction. You know, whether they could get an injunction
or not, they're not gonna let her perform any of
her services that she was supposed to deliver as Miss America.
So why fight for? What's what are you fighting for?
You have nothing. The only thing left for you to

(01:37:11):
do is to be on that show and give the
other girl the new crown, you know, And is that
really worth it? Just go on with your life. But
I wasn't in charge, you know. I mean that they
had lawyers, the parents had input. So I was I said, Hey,
whatever you guys want to do, I'm gonna frame this
statement to represent the nessa's voice, you know. And so
I worked with an SSA over the course of that,

(01:37:33):
within that seventy two hours, and we bantered about with
the lawyers, and at one time they were saying, well,
she can't say this and she can't say that, And say, well, look, guys,
she can't say anything, then let's just cancel the press conference.
You guys can do your lawyership and just make a
lawyer legal ease announcement and just making it like a
law release instead of a press release and I'll be

(01:37:54):
happy to service that for you guys. And then then
we changed and we were back and forth, and then
ultimately in the book I explained what everything did happened.
But she did end up you know, the world knows
that she did end up Um resigning, but she had
the option not to. That's the thing that I think
a lot of people don't realize. They didn't force her out,

(01:38:14):
but she decided to do and I think she did
the right thing. Two questions to minor questions. One only
because I went to school with her, Did she ever
have a conversation with Suzette so sus thattte Charles Um? Yeah,
and it was his jersey, but she's really Philly Um.

(01:38:35):
And I went to school like she was my sister's
best friend. So we all you really know, Oh, I definitely.
I'm sorry. I was cheering for that the whole time,
but you know, but I'm cheering for anybody. She's African
American as well, she's black. She's a black woman as well.
So was there did they ever have a conversation about

(01:38:58):
this during this time period or now both camps were separate.
They're both separate, And if I would have been Suzanne's
manager River to tow it. Don't accept it. I always
now on the hinds would have more famous, she would
have been more famous. Not accepted it because it's like
one black woman, like, you're gonna do this to a

(01:39:18):
black woman and then I'm gonna slide in there. And
she never I mean, she was only Miss America for
six weeks weeks. Why would you accept that like pennies
and she never got to do after that. I mean,
you know, she's not one of the most you know,
I mean Miss Americas are not recognized, but she's at Charles.
It's probably one of the least recognized. Because she accepted that. Well,

(01:39:41):
everybody ain't have a Ramon would have said, no, don't
be more famous. So she would have been all over
the news. She could add her own press conference to
say why she didn't accept it? What were your feelings?
When I guess, I guess thirty seven years later, Uh,

(01:40:05):
they tried to pull a Mia Copa and say, Okay,
we were wrong and that was tone deaf of us,
and we want to reinstate you back as Miss America.
And I assumed she declined it, but we're even aware
that maybe seven, eight years ago that that organization. Actually, yeah, yeah,

(01:40:30):
I wanted to write them. She called me, she asked
me what I thought she should do, and you told
her still no, I said, no, why would you go
back to them? Yeah? But you know she she did.
I mean I was. I think that she did it
for her parents, for mom, end up doing it. She

(01:40:52):
ended up supporting them. She didn't actually do what they wanted,
but they did reach her. Uh uh. You know, she's
she's held in a different light now than she was.
And I said, it's up to you. I wouldn't do
it if I were you, but you know, it's your
life and if that's if you guys want to, if
you want to have peace and you get some benefit

(01:41:12):
out of it, didn't do it. She's a whose name
as Miss America of all times? Isn't you former Miss America? All? Yeah,
it took a long time, you know, it took a
long time for all that stuff to really uh put
it behind her. A lot of people say any publicity
is good publicity, and I don't want from that school
of thought. It took over a decade before she could

(01:41:33):
actually be listed by her name only, meaning for ten years,
every time she was in the paper, there was some
reference to former a former New New Pictures. Miss. It
was like a tag. And when he's like, you know,
having a monkey on your back, only was in writing.
It was like a little literally like a brand tag,

(01:41:55):
you know, renew Miss America forced to resign because of
New Pictures. I'm wording it was always every time, you know,
and I said, if we could, you know, for me,
my biggest goal was if I could just have one
person say, just use her name without any reference to
the past. And it finally happened. A journalist by the

(01:42:16):
name of David Rich who is a well known Broadway critic,
when she wasn't kissing the Spider Woman for her review,
he was the first one that didn't didn't use the reference.
And fucking a man, we we finally won. We got
your name back, you know, watching the the initial uh

(01:42:40):
launch of you know her seven the right of the
album and the comfort Zone album, and how that how
you just really managed to do the impossible, which is
like anyone associated with Miss America, it's almost like that
would have been a sure shot way to uh, almost

(01:43:03):
like career suicide. But somehow you managed to make her
to a household word and and international stars. So could
you just describe what the basic strategy. I continued to
be a publicist for a while, and I even just
a publicist, never a manager. No, No, I was a

(01:43:25):
manager a much longer time than I was a publicist.
I was a publicist for less than six months probably
or maybe less than a year, but I was a
manager for over ten years. But um, what ended up
happening was I didn't want to manage her because I
had worked with so many other UH people who either

(01:43:46):
their mother or their husband or different people in the
business who were managed by their mother or their husbands
or whatever. And I said, I never I don't want
to be that. I don't want to be an appendage
to the NASA as a man of er. And I
told her that, and I said, but I'll find you
a good manager. I'll help you, you know. And I

(01:44:07):
tried to find her a good manager, and everybody said, uh,
you know no, And so finally, um, she did have
a woman by name of Dolores Robinson, was a pretty
well respected UH manager in the business, and they didn't
work out. And then um, one day she just said, well,

(01:44:27):
you know, why don't you just manage me. I come
to you for everything. Anyways. You know I'm not gonna
do anything without getting your advice, So why don't you
just do it? And uh, I finally you know, I mean,
you don't like to make decisions out of emotional decisions,
but I really did it out of love for her
because I wanted to see her, you know, I wanted
her to be happy. And uh so I finally committed

(01:44:50):
to it and I said, look, I want to do it.
But the vision is I don't think I can make
you a star in Broadway and motion pictures or TV
because there's not a lot of parts for black for me.
And what we have to do is come up with
an identity that people that you can own. And I
think the best way to do that is in the
music industry because we can brand you. I can't brand

(01:45:11):
you waiting for the right role to come up, you know,
and you can people know that you can see me
one the So what we have to do is create
an identity that is not Miss America because you're not
really you don't really represent Miss America and you don't
really represent the pictures. So they were diametrically opposed. So
if we we can find music, and you give me

(01:45:31):
an opportunity to do that, then then I think we
can create. And if we fail, then we'll try Plan B.
But let's try to go with the music route and
and try to brand you and create an identity that
you can own, and then we can build and then
hopefully that will be a caveat in a pathway for
you to do film, television, Broadway and all the other stuff.

(01:45:52):
But then, I what I really didn't realize was that,
you know, the stigma of what everything that had happened.
I mean, everyone turned me down. Um you know Bob
kraz Now, um, Gerald Buzzby, Um, you know, I got
turned down by like eight labels. Clive Calder, you know,
I remember he told me, he said, well, I kind
of see Vanessa's you know, this is kind of like

(01:46:13):
a page three like in the Sun that in the UK.
Like that's how what people kind of think of her
might be. Like maybe she could be a celebrity, but
I don't think anybody will ever take her serious as
an artist. And he told me that, you know, this
is in his office, me and and Vanessa. He said
this in front of an Essa too, And uh, you know,

(01:46:34):
so I was getting turned down left and right, you know,
but Clyde was actually he sent me a really nice
note and he said, everything you told me you were
going to do in that meeting, you did and I
blew it. And I was so happy that he owned
up to that, you know, because I told him, I said, no,
I don't want a demo deal. I want a real deal.

(01:46:55):
She can will make her a legitimate artists. And the
guy who really came to the table was at X
time and Ed was calling it called me at that time.
He had just gotten to deal with Wing Records to
be you know, to start Wing Records, and he had
one group signed at the time, Tony Tony Tony, and
uh so he was just telling me we were friends,

(01:47:16):
and you say, man, I got this new label, so
if you got anybody you know, please run and buy me.
And he knew that, you know, at this point, Vanessa
and I had a relationship. People knew about it and everything.
So you know, at the end of our conversation, I say,
I don't have anybody right now. But he said, well,
what are you doing with Vanessa? And I said, well,
I'm trying to get our damn record deal. But everyone

(01:47:38):
wants to do a demo and I don't want to
get you know, demo deals are like purgatory. You know,
you get a demo deal and then all of a
sudden they reject you. Then nobody wants to touch you.
And I I don't want to go that route. So
he just said, well, you know, why don't you come here.
Let's do it. And I said, really serious, and he said, yeah,
I don't have any money. I don't have any kind
of real money, but you know I can give you somebody.

(01:48:00):
So we boarded a little bit. There wasn't a lot
of room. I negotiate a little bit more, and that's
where we started. And so it was the three of
us and and you know, that was the beginning of
her musical career. And then the rest is you know, history.
And you know, I think I did have a big
role in that first decade of her career and everything

(01:48:21):
that we The one thing I was disappointed about was
we didn't get a chance to do a major tour.
And I thought that that was something that I would
have loved for her to dedicate and stay more in
trench in the music industry, to really launch a major tour.
While I was still at her helm and then our
relationships started. You know, by this time we had three kids,

(01:48:45):
and uh, you know, I don't regret any of the
time that we spent together. We were very successful in
our run, and she's gone on to do really great things.
I have to ask, have you guys ever forgiven l
A and Baby Face forgiving girl friend away the pebbles? Yeah,
that was a total that was a total money deal.

(01:49:06):
Like Ed and Vanessa. Man, they hated them. I think
you read in the book where we ran into I
ran into l A and baby Face. That was so
fu funny, man, I was cracking up. But I never
I didn't have the hate for them. I just didn't
like the the business business ethics that they exercise. And

(01:49:27):
all they had to do was call it was a
money It was a money deal, you know. And also
we didn't have a lot of people don't realize is
we didn't have a contract with them. We were doing
an ede, you know, we were doing a specterre with
them because they brought We wanted them to write original
material and write and produced regin material for Vanessa on

(01:49:49):
her debut album. And they came with four songs and
we didn't really like most of you know, the three
of the songs we we didn't feel right, um, but
Girlfriend it's one that we thought was interesting. It wasn't
really the direction we're thinking. But we said, let's do
this song, you know, switch and let let Vanessa put
her lead vocals on it, and we'll do it as

(01:50:11):
a speck and if everything goes well, then we're committing
three songs. So there's a version of girl Friend with
her voice on it somewhere in this world. That's what
Pebbles heard. Pebbles came to the partner she does have
the stronger voice than Oakwood Oakwood apartments. It was where
l A and Face came um to and they were

(01:50:35):
just trying to you know, they had just left the
group deal and they were trying to you know, they
had the Whisper song that was a big hit, Yeah,
rock Sydy, and so they were just starting off and
they were came toing to l A to you know,
mind some business and make money, you know, try to
get some deal with some songwriting production deals. And so

(01:50:56):
what happened was they were asked that place and Pebbles
was also starting her first record with m c A
and she came in and heard I think Vaness was
actually at the place when Pebbles came in and she
heard her voice a slave of her voice on that

(01:51:17):
track on girlfriend. And then when Vanessa left, she said
to l A, I want that song, and that husby
got involved and her husband had money. Yeah, so they
it was a money It was a money switch because
we didn't have a deal. We were on spec and

(01:51:39):
so when they got the money, they just didn't have
the guys to tell us that they we're gonna go.
And also, in all fairness to them, Vanessa was pregnant.
We were gonna have to delay the record the money.
And Kenny also thought that it was more of a
her been tracked that it wasn't that Bevil's had a

(01:52:03):
better voice. She had a more urban voice than Vanessa.
Baby said that she was girlfriend. Yeah, girlfriend, I can
hear girlfriend, I can hear. Yeah, that was Kitty, that
was Kenny said. He said that, but he let l
A kind of take the blame for it. But uh no,
you know, so you know, I told him when I

(01:52:24):
saw them at the Forum Club. Look, I don't hate
you guys, but you guys should have called man. That's
the only thing, just out of courtesy, just go and say, hey,
you know, I understood that you guys did it for
money and her point in your career. That made sense,
you know, but you should All you had to do
was call us. So okay, I'm I'm gonna close here
because I I could ner it out for twelve hours.

(01:52:45):
I do want to know, though, at least for when
your daughter, and of course your daughter's Jillian, she's lying baby, well,
she's expressing interest in getting in the biz and knowing
what you know, knowing who you dealt with, all these
cast of characters that you meet, and there's a lot

(01:53:06):
of heartbreak here, you know, and and the clients that
you're working with, um, like what advice are you? Are
you being encouraging like ah, I wish you would try
something else, or da da da da da, or like
or were you the encouraging dad that's like, go ahead,
follow your dream, this is what you want to do. Yeah,

(01:53:29):
I know. I never gave her any discouraging news or
suggestions about I didn't throw my history on her in
that respect and give her, you know, the dark side
of our business with two chas, you know, there's a
lot of darkness in our business. But I did try to. Uh,

(01:53:50):
she was like hands off. First of all, she goes, Dad,
it's not ready for your ears yet. She was Yeah,
she was very guard did and she told me she
was working on one song and she would play it
for me when it was ready. And I said, well,
you know, you know, I listened to all kinds of songs.
I listened to Medley's, you know, just piano or guitar,

(01:54:12):
you know, just let me hear it, you know, I'd
just like to hear what your direction is. And she goes, no, Dad,
I'm not I'm not ready to play it for you.
I said, okay, so um. She did end up coming
to me treat me like fire, and finally when there
was a rough demo of it that she was happy
with at least to let me listen to you. I
made some suggestions on it, but she and Lucas pretty

(01:54:36):
much formulated all their own imaging and everything. I didn't
have any import or anything. I just kind of let
them do what they wanted to do. And I remember
seeing the video when she had all that hair. I've
never seen so much hair. She always had wild hair,
but this was like, you know, this was like hair
on steroids. Yeah, that's better. I was like, wait, who's
this person? She like, Okay, how did you get all

(01:54:57):
that hair? That's so uh? But you know what ended
up happening was um, because I was her father, everyone
thought I managed her. And so when that's single, when
they put the single out on SoundCloud, I mean, it
was just like a immediate response, like a resceral response,
and everybody fell in love with the track. And so

(01:55:18):
I was getting all these calls from labels and lawyers
and managers and hey, every moment, are you managing your daughter?
What's going on? What's going on? You know? I said no, no,
I'm not. I'm just your dad. You know I can,
I can pass on the information to I'm just her dad.
What ended up happening, I said, I will help you.

(01:55:39):
I don't want to manage you, you know, forever, but
you guys need help, and I'd like to offer my
services to get, you know, set you a sale. Because
I never wanted to wake up and you know, because
I had managed her mother, I said this whole idea
of managing my daughter and waking up one day and saying, uh,

(01:56:00):
I love you, but you're fired. I'm not going to
be around for that. So I just said, I'm gonna
help you, and that's how I did. I helped them.
I helped them get a manager. I flew to London
um and they ended up signing to Outsiders, a small
label that was distributed by Polly Door the UK UM

(01:56:22):
and Amanda Ghost. You know there's you evere her meet
Amanda Ghost. I've not met Amanda Ghost now, Okay. So
she was a successful songwriter. She was on she was
a president of elect of Epic Records for about six
months or so. She was on American Idol as a
judge for a minute, you know. So she had that

(01:56:44):
some uh you know, some traction in the music industry
and she fell in love with the group, and so
I helped them negotiate that deal. I I set them
up with an attorney, and then I went over to
London to help them. Since she was gonna be steyning
to they were gonna be signed to a London based label.
I said, you guys should get a London based manager
as well, who has you know, tentacles in the US market,

(01:57:08):
because you've got to still release the record here in
the US. And I wanted them to know that I
was going to be out of the picture. I didn't
want to manager thinking that I was going to be
second guessing everything that they did. And so I met
with everyone and I said, look, you know my role once.
If they decided to go with you, I'm out. I'm
just regular dad. You don't have to answer to me,

(01:57:29):
you don't have to copy me in anything. Your relationship
will be with Lucas and Julian, not me. And I
just felt that that was my responsibility, UM, to give
them clear sailing, you know, and to let them manifest
their career however they saw it. And so that parenting.
That's the role that parenting. I I want to thank
you for doing this for us, UM again. Oh thank

(01:57:53):
Deanna too. I want to thank Deanna. Thank you Deanna,
because yes, Deanna, she's uh, you know, she's sure god
mother right, Yes, sir, just to let our our our views. Yes,
I feel like it's imperative reading the Fame Game and
Insiders playbook on earning your fifteen minutes, Um, Harper Collins
shout out to Harper Collins. But yes, I think it's

(01:58:14):
re quiet reading. Yes, I have notes, I have written
notes inside. That's how good it is. Yeah, it's it's
a journey into and it makes me think twice about
working with any artist ever again. So on behalf of
Sir Bill. I'm calling you now, Sir Bill. I'll take it.
Royal Bill and and Mr Bay City Rollers down there,

(01:58:37):
Sugar Steve Sister so satity man that man, I didn't
even I mean they had. I went to several of
their big concients back in the day. Um when they performed.
One was at a racetrack. I mean they were getting
you know, run over by women were chasing them. But

(01:58:57):
I've never seen anything like that. That's what's easy, man, Nah,
it's it's even a lot for me. Anyway, I'll be
out of Bill and Steve and Fantigolo and like, yeah,
we thank you very much, thank you all, Thank you all.
I really had fun. This was really great and I
really appreciate your support. And yeah, thank you so so much,

(01:59:17):
Thank you very much much. Love Supreme is a production
of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

(01:59:39):
you listen to your favorite shows.