What happens when a legendary music venue prioritizes live music over food and drink? Join host Buzz Knight on this episode of takin' a walk as he dives deep into the heart and soul of The Bottom Line, a Greenwich Village landmark that shaped the landscape of American music. Buzz welcomes Alan Pepper and Billy Altman, co-authors of the compelling book Positively Fourth and Mercer, which chronicles the rich history of this iconic venue.
Alan, the visionary owner of The Bottom Line, shares fascinating insights into the unique concept that made the venue a haven for music lovers. With a focus on creating an intimate, theater-like experience, The Bottom Line became a stage for legendary musicians, including Bruce Springsteen and Darlene Love. As the conversation unfolds, listeners will be captivated by the emotional connections formed through music and the bittersweet memories surrounding the venue's closure in 2004.
Buzz Knight, known for his engaging music conversations, guides the discussion as Alan and Billy recount their journeys interviewing over 100 artists for the book. They explore the diverse range of genres showcased at The Bottom Line, offering listeners a glimpse into the vibrant tapestry of rock music history, jazz music, and even country musicthat resonated within its walls. The episode highlights the cultural impact of music and the role of FM radio in nurturing an audience for these diverse styles.
Throughout the episode, listeners will discover not only the stories behind iconic songs but also the lasting legacy that The Bottom Line has left on the New York music scene. Buzz Knight's friendly style makes this music history podcast a delightful journey for anyone passionate about exploring music history. As they reflect on the past, Alan and Billy also offer a forward-looking perspective on how the spirit of The Bottom Line continues to inspire new generations of artists and music lovers.
Whether you're a fan of indie music, classic rock, or simply love music storytelling, this episode of takin' a walk is sure to resonate with you. Tune in to hear inspiring artist interviews, emotional healing through music, and the stories behind the songs that have shaped our lives. Don't miss this chance to walk down memory lane with Buzz Knight, Alan Pepper, and Billy Altman as they celebrate the magic of The Bottom Line and its enduring influence on the music world.
#bruce springsteen history #inspiring icons #music history podcast #New York Music History #best 80's music podcast #WNEW FM History
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Buzzsnight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Now, before there.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Was a playlist, there was a room, before algorithms decided
what you'd hear. Next, there was Alan Pepper standing at
the back of the bottom Line in Greenwich Village, vetting
everything on the artists who would define generations. As owner
of one of New York's most legendary music venues and
the co author of Positively Forth and Mercer, Alan didn't
(00:28):
just book shows. He created the stage where Bruce Springsteen
proved he was the future, where countless careers were launched,
and where music history was written night after night. Today
we're going to dive deep into the stories behind the stage,
the village scene that changed everything, and what it really
(00:49):
takes to recognize greatness before the world catches on. And
with Alan will be joined by his co author Billy Altman.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Next, I've Taking a Walk Walk, Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, Alan, it's so nice to be with you, And
Billy Altman, it's so nice to be with you on
the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Same here, Buzz so Allan the bottom Line, a fourth
and mercer in Greenwich Village, became the room in New
York City.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Take us back to that wild beginning. What made you
open a music venue in the village and what was
your vision from that first time.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Well, it's like I say in the book positively for
the Mercer, which Billy and I have just completed. The
bottom line was not only a physical place. It was
really a concept of how to present live music. And
it developed from years and years and working at clubs
(01:54):
and presenting music to a way that's standing. My partner
and I thought that music should really be presented, meaning
that it should be in the foreground, not the background,
and that it was We wanted to open a music
room with the thing that we were selling was not
food and booze, but the thing that we were selling
(02:15):
was music, and to that extent we we did. Also,
the concept was to have a club in what would
be like an intimate little theater. So with that in mind,
(02:36):
we actually put together a stage crew that other clubs
didn't have.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
It was.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
So new that we'd actually have two guys mixing sound,
one house sound, one monitors stage hands to help the
band in a lighting person. It was a it was
a full crew. I think there were six people and
in a club that was unheard, we had no minimum,
so you just had a mission when you came in
(03:05):
that sold you had to pay for. We instructed the
waitresses not to hassle anybody for drinks, to let them
enjoy the music, and we took the attitude that food
and beverage were the air if you got thirsty or hungry,
but under no circumstances was it something that was required.
(03:28):
We even went We got cash registers that slid open,
they didn't ring, and we even had heavy duty paper
and plastic utensils so that people went now disturbed by
china and silverware as somebody with somebody was performing. So
(03:50):
we really did think it out.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I was just going back in my brain historically, and
I felt like I was at that Jerry Jeff Walker
show at the bottom line as you.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Were explaining the scenario there.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Alan, I'm so glad that you, after talking to you
a few years back, that the book was able to
come together.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
How did you and Billy come together on this?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
After the club had closed In early two thousand and four,
I was asked to do a piece for Tracks magazine,
which was kind of a short lived magazine that Anthony
the Curtis and Alan Hite were involved in and they
asked me just to write up a thing about the
club closing and somewhat of a history. And the piece
came out really, really well, and I interviewed Alan for it,
(04:39):
and of course I had been going to the club.
My first show at the club was February, about a
month after the club opened in nineteen seventy four. My
last show coming as a patron of the club as
a journalist was about five weeks before the club closed
in early two thousand and four. So I was there
pretty much over the entire run of the thirty years,
(05:00):
and I went to hundreds and hundreds of shows. So
working on the article was a pleasure for me. I mean,
it was a sad moment because the club had closed,
but to be able to relive some of those memories
and then Alan can pick up the story from there.
Fast forward about many number of years later.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
Well, what happened was I wanted to write this book
for legacy purpose because I felt Stanley and I did
something really special and I wanted to be a record
of it, and I wanted to tell that story. I
had made a deal with a writer not Billy somebody
else who was working with me, but he had a
(05:42):
family situation which upset him so much that it was
difficult for him to work on the book with me.
And then I tried to reach out for a bunch
of other writers, and I kept and I kept coming
back to that article that Billy I'd written, because it
made such impression on me that I actually bought several
(06:04):
copies of it and I have it to this day.
And from a very good friend of mine this said
to me when I was telling her about the difficulty
I was having finding a writer and I read her
Billy's article, she said, well, that's your writer, that's the guy.
So I reached out to Billy to see if he
(06:26):
was interested in he was, and we started to work together.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
I love the pace of the book in terms of
all the great stories from this fascinating array of people,
as somebody who grew up in Stanford, Connecticut and would
go to New York City. A lot work in New
York City, so a lot of names that were very
familiar to me. Alan you first, and then Billy, who
(06:54):
are some of the ones in particular that you really
enjoyed talking to and letting them tell their stories of
bottom line music history.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
The interesting thing well obviously Springsteen, and he was very
generous because he gave Billy twenty five minutes. Billy was
the one who did all the interview and he did
a great He did a great job, and he did
a great job translating those interviews to the written page.
There were so many people to interview and we only
(07:28):
got in a portion. But truthfully speaking, as Billy pointed
out to me time and time again, we were covering
thirty years of music, and so we had to be
very judicious in those people that we selected because, as
(07:48):
Billy pointed out to me in the beginning, because I
said I wanted rural history, and he said, well, if
you do, we've got to do it chronologically, which I
agreed with because May told. And the one good thing
that set us on a path was I had written
down every show that we ever did, so I have
(08:09):
from opening night till the very last night, along with
people who set in and ticket prices. So he gave
Billy a path, that gave him a guide. And then
he's got an extensive background in music and music history,
so he was able to wind through this thing. I
(08:31):
kid him because I've always said he was dealing with
like a musical Rubek's cue and he just had to
line up everything. So rather than to answer your question specifically,
rather than Springsteen, which I was very gratified that he
gave Billy the time, I was very moved by some
(08:58):
of the things that Billy told me that some of
the people mentioned, not only about me, bit of about
working at the club, and that gave me an enormous
amount of emotional satisfaction. Billy, you did the had me lifting.
So who are the people? Who are the people that
(09:18):
you enjoy.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Well, well, it was fascinating because, as Alan said, you know,
because the fact that the bottom line wasn't one particular
style of music, you know, anything, anything in the entertainment field,
uh could be on that stage from night to night.
It wasn't a club that was known for the scene
and the hangers out, and you know, it wasn't CBGB's
or Studio fifty four. And again because the enormous time frame.
(09:42):
So you had rock, you had folk, you had blues,
you had jazz, you had country, you had spoken word,
you had theater pieces, you had you know at cabaret
kind of stuff. So trying to be judicious and who
we spoke to. You know, we tried to get a
list together and Alan kept sending me endless list of
people not to talk to. But what was great it
was that almost from the very beginning, every artist that
(10:05):
we approached with I don't maybe one exception and talking
her over one hundred people that I talked to, everybody
had warm feelings about the club, had great respect for
Alan and Stanley about how the club was run. And
then talking to people that worked at the club. So
the great thing about being able to work on this
(10:26):
and the many interviews that we're done, is that many
people were excited to tell stories about things that happened
at the club, things that mattered to their careers. And
Bruce certainly was at the top of that list. But
then people like Darlene Love, you know, one of our
great great singers, and her whole path towards playing at
(10:46):
the bottom line in the early nineteen eighties and coming
from Los Angeles to New York and staying at Alan's
Alan's house and wearing some of Iileen his wife's clothing
because she'd come with, you know, barely a little suitcase.
When they were working on Leader of the Pack, the
great show the ultimately wound up going to Broadway. Some
of them were great, and some of the stories for
(11:08):
me were very, very touching. You know, in the nineties
when the club had their in their Own Words series
where it was a bunch of songwriters and they were
trying to mix the match songwriters, and Allan did one
show and you can tell you the story of how
it happened. But Roger mcgwinn from The Birds and Pete
Seeger did one show together, and this was in nineteen
(11:30):
ninety three and nineteen ninety four. Remarkably, it was the
first time that the two of them had ever been
on his stage together. When you could think about the
fact that The Birds said, of course had a giant
hit with Pete Seger's Turn, Turn in Turn in nineteen
sixty five. But then it turned out that Pete Seeger
had been one of mcgwinn's idols from when he was
a kid growing up in Chicago and taking banjo lessons
(11:53):
at the Chicago School of Music. And Roger was able
to give me almost a minute by minute rundown of
the whole day of that performance, of spending the afternoon
with Pete Seegar going out to dinner at the Minetta
Tavern in the middle of the village, and then he
mentioned to me, he said, it was raining out and
I bought a ten dollars umbrella on the street. He says,
(12:14):
I still have it. It's just in the corner of
the room. It's the Pete Seger Memorial umbrella. So some
of those very touching stories meant a lot to me,
you know, as a journalist and just a music fan,
and to hear these wonderful, wonderful connections. Also, John Hyatt
was wonderful to talk to. He's a really funny guy
and he was terrific. I can share one great story
(12:37):
from the book that he shares. He talks about coming
to play in New York. And you know, as a
struggling singer songwriter, and you know, if you stay at
a hotel, you know the record company would book it
for you and charge it to you. So as many
young people, and Alan can tell you much more than
me about this, many people wouldn't stay at the hotel,
they'd stay with a friend or something. And Hyatt would
(12:59):
come to New York. He had a friend who moved
up from New York from Nashville, who had been an
opera trained singer, a classical singer, who then wound up
on Broadway in Sweeney Todd as one of the villains
in Sweeney Todd. And he was a good friend of John's.
And so he said that he told me that he
he you know, he was staying with his friend and
he said to him, he said, listen, you think I
(13:21):
should take voice lessons. And his friend said, you never
never take voice lessons, and so Hyat says, but I
told him, but you know, I can't sing, and he said.
His friend said, I know, but you still shouldn't take
voice lessons because whatever that little thing that you have
will get ruined if you took voice lessons. So there
was such surprises when when I was able to interview
(13:43):
some of these remarkable people, uh, you know, running from
like I said, from Doylene Love uh to uh, you know,
to Bill Chef, the comedy writer for David Letterman, to
Paul Schaeffer, Uh, to Lenny White, the great great jazz
fusion drummer who played in Mals Davis's Pitches Crew.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
To Betty Buckley, the great Broadway star. So that's how
wide Arnette was for this book.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
And some of the stories. Billy took to Joey Stefko,
who was the drumma with meat Loaf, and he sheds
a lot of interesting stuff about me. Loaf and flowing
Eddie in the turtles and flowing Eddie at the bottom
line was always one of my favorite holiday traditions. I
(14:29):
think they played ten Christmas New Year's Evening and Howard
Kalin occupies several pages in the book and it's hilarious.
I mean, I've read this stuff over and over again.
I still laugh when I'm going back and read reading
and stuff, you know, buzz. As easy as somebody might
(14:51):
think writing a book like this is, it's not. I mean,
it took Billy and I think a couple of years
to put it together, and I had been working on
it on my own for several years. But the advantage,
although it was painful, the advantage of working with somebody
like Billy. He's a discipline journeyman. He's a great writer,
(15:14):
and so he and I had moments of great fiction
when he basically schooled me. You know, he said there
were certain things that I brought to the table that
I felt certain about, and he pointed out to me
on many occasions that you have to let He didn't
(15:35):
want it to be a thousand page home and he
very clearly pointed out to me, you have to let
certain people speak for the rest of everybody. You can't
interview every waitress, you can't interview every stage manager. And
even when it came to music. I mean, there were
times along the way that I felt that we were
(15:59):
missing the boat. But he constructed such a roadmap. He's
done an amazing job the more and you can tell
that by the accolades we've been receiving by people who
were reading the book. Everybody talks about how well written
it is. Tip of the hat to Billy. They took
(16:21):
about how well organized it is, and how it's what
the flow of it is. All of that, I mean,
all of that is from Billy. But it ain't easy,
and both of us have the scars to prove it.
But it was I mean, there were let me put
(16:44):
to you this way, there were still three more books
at least that could be done because it was just
too much to cover.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah, I would say that, you know, we had spirited conversation.
We'll put it out. Well, one thing I will say,
is that because Alan is such a great fan and
so passionate about music and about artists, that he showed
me pathways in terms of who we would go to
speak to. And I think he had a sense of
(17:13):
which people would be able to really give me good
stories and help us move through different different areas of time,
different styles of music that would help, that would help
make a work. And you know, again, one of the
great challenges of the book is the book is as
much about New York and the scene, New York music
scene and radio in the industry. Uh So being able
(17:35):
to kind of get all of those, but Allen's connections
and is ongoing friendships with everybody on Earth, world's biggest
rolodex perhaps really helped clear clear that path for me
a lot, because I knew going in that the people
that we would be approaching would be forthcoming, which, of course,
(17:56):
for a book like this is incredibly incredibly important.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
But let me let me just say this, when we
sat down, you know, when you're when you're trying to
find a writer, it's a dance. Just like if you're quoting,
if you're dating a new person in your life, you're
kind of getting to know them but it's a dance
to see if you two could actually dance well together.
(18:24):
And I sat down with him and I said, okay, look,
there are certain things that I'm really sure about. I
wanted to be in oral history because I didn't see
doing a story the bottom line without the voices of
the people who were there. So I said, not only
the musicians, but the customers and the people who work there.
(18:46):
And I said, the other thing that I'm really sure
about is I want there to be presents in this
book of my partner who's no longer here to fill
in the story, and my wife who's been very important
to me as amuse, and you know, somebody that I
(19:07):
connected with it an early an early age of around music. Actually,
I said, I wanted their their presence to be in
the in the book. And then the last thing I
said is I don't want it to be a bunch
of funny stories that happened at the club to show
(19:27):
how wacky people are. I wanted to have a narrative.
I wanted to be a beginning, middle, and end, and
along the way will include the wacky stories and will
include people's videosyncrasies. But to me, it's got to have.
It's got to have a narrative, and those are things
we never argued about. Those are things that he brought
(19:49):
into immediately. In fact, one of the things in retrospect
when I look back at him, he was very committed
to giving me exactly what I want and sometimes I
didn't see it, but very protective of me. So the
book is very much a what I wanted it to
(20:10):
be and b what my initial vision was, which is
pretty remarkable when you think of all the ways we
could have just gone, you're off in different directions. So
I'm very pleased and very happy, and I'm most gratified
by the response it's getting, not only from people who
(20:32):
worked at the club, but fans of the club. I'm
getting emails from people who are still saying I'm reading
the book, I'm loving it. I just want you to
know how much I'm enjoying how much I'm enjoying the book.
So I'm very happy with the way everything turned out.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Well, since we call this podcast has Taken a Walk,
I have to ask you both a little bit of
a lightning round question here because there's so many characters
that are in the book that were part of the
bottom line. So alan you first, if you could take
a dream walk with someone, who would you take a
walk with? I don't care where it is, Maybe it's
around where the bottom line was situated, But who would
(21:21):
you take that walk with?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And then Billy, same to you.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
I would take it with my partner Stanley and my wife.
I lean, you know, hands down.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
It would you through all history or from the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Whatever you wish, But I think will lean bottom line.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
I would. I would envision that Buddy Holly did not
die in his plane crash, and that he was still
living on fifty Avenue and eighth Street, right by the
arch of Washington Square Park and would and he would
talk about shows that he went to at the club
as an older guy. Things were so horrific there.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
That would be pretty amazing. I love your imagination, Billy,
for sure.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
Hey, buzz, I just want to point out something to you.
Something that I pointed out to Billy early on, but
he didn't need me to point out with the bottom
line was on that corner directly across the street was
folks sitting that was the place that Dylan got that review,
I believe. So Dylan basically found his commercial voice on
(22:28):
one corner was Fourth of Mercia and Bruce Springsteen on
a parallel corner. So that's a very historically speaking, that's
a very valuable piece of musical real estate.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Yeah, and thing one thing that's amazing in the book
is as Alan talks about one of the Springsteen shows
and they were completely sold out because there was such
a buzz about it. And Allan told me the story
of a woman who came up and wanted to get
in and there was no room. It was standing room
all and they had already squeezed them like sardine's anybody
they could. And the woman actually said that to Alan,
(23:06):
she said, you know, years ago, ten years ago, way
fifteen years ago, right across the street, Bob Jellen had
his show at Folks City, and I can't. I have
to get in to see now Springsteen doing something that's
going to maybe mean as much. And they squeezed her
in like a sardine. Both Stanley and I pushed her,
(23:26):
pushed her in. But she was an older woman. She
wasn't a teenager. She was somebody in her mid thirties,
and she literally started to cry on this street corner
and we said, okay, you're gonna wind up hearing much
more than you're going to see, and we just pushed
her in like two guys unloading furniture and a big truck.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
You know, I had an episode I recorded with Danny
Fields the character of all characters from the.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Ramones and lou Reid and so much history.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
So we were walking through the area and he certainly
lamented what he missed in terms of, you know so much,
you know, great energy and great vibes in the day.
Have you both been around that neighborhood lately, and how
do you feel when you're by there thinking of what
(24:21):
was and what is no longer there?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
It's just a loss, you know. I lived in the
village throughout the nineteen eighties and then was living up
near West Point, about fifty miles north of New York.
But my joiner, over the last number of years I'd
been living herself in Greenwich Village and anytime I'd walk
through the park and go through the corner there, and
you just feel a loss of the culture of New York.
(24:48):
And obviously, you know, cities changed neighborhoods change the neighborhood,
it physically is still the same. Washington Square Park is
still there in the middle of everything. But just to
know that, you could be veering down the street on
Mercer and you get to the corner there and it's
just another building and there's you know, there's there's no
sign up there, and there's no plaque or anything like that,
(25:09):
and so I always feel that, but you also feel
I get a flood of memories. So when I go by,
it's bittersweet on some levels. You know, It's like it's
like when you go buy an apartment building, if anybody
that's lived in apartment buildings, there's you walk past an
apartment building that you used to live in, and you
go gee, and you feel bad that you don't live
(25:29):
there anymore, because you might have loved living there, but
you know you wouldn't have stayed living there. So I
think the passage of time for me has made it
more bitter sweet. I certainly for the first number of
years after the club was closed, you just walk away
and start clenching your fists, like, like, how could n
YU have kicked these people out of there? My god?
Speaker 6 (25:48):
So I am I actually have friends and acquaintances and
tell me that they can't walk up that block. Then
they'll take a different route rather and it'll take them
a little longer, but they'll take a different route to
get to where they're going because it's still so painful
to them after all this time. It was interesting when
(26:11):
we were fighting NYU over the lease and the trying
to stay there, we were getting or they were getting
emails from people, and one student wrote to them and said,
I'm so disgusted with the way you've treated the bottom line.
(26:31):
But more than that, I'm disgusted when I walked through
the village and I see your banners on all these
different buildings. It's like it's become your fifdom. And that
was from a student. The guy who was the president
at that time did not see the value of what
it was offering the student body and the city. He
(26:53):
saw it just as a prime piece of real estate
that they weren't getting enough rent for and that it
was severely undermarket, whereas the president before looked at the
club as something of value for the university to support
as well. You know, our fate was based on the
(27:15):
guy who took over.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
You know, well, knowing what you know now of NYU,
don't you sometimes think, well, maybe in the current environment,
the way they have embraced aspects of the community and
the way they've diversified everything that they do as an
educational institution, that maybe they would have thought about it
(27:39):
differently today.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
Yes, I absolutely do, and that's a very good point.
I've absolutely thought about that. At the time, you know,
we were working feverishly to try and come up with
a solution, and we were offering them especially because the
Clive Davis School, and we were offering them internships. We
(28:02):
were offering them a lot of things that would have
been of value to the students who were in that program.
And to them it was all about rent. They didn't
want to hear about anything else. But yes, and that
was the vision of the guy who was in charge.
But as you point out, time goes by, new people
(28:25):
take over and people tend to see stuff differently. So yes,
I absolutely think if there was a different administration there. Listen,
Just to set this record straight, n YU was not
wrong in wanting back rent that was due to them,
(28:48):
and they were not wrong, and they were not wrong
about trying to move ahead to resolve the situation, but
at the same time where I think they might have
been a little bit mistaken. There were better ways to
resolve this situation, and once again the guy who's making
(29:12):
the decisions made the decision. That eviction was. You know,
we had actually made a deal with them, but and
send the book. We actually made a deal with them,
but at the last minute they came to us with
something that was so gregious that we that we couldn't
go along with them.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
So and you had what would have been a burgeoning
affiliation with serious XM. That would have been part of
the future as well. I mean it would have that
would allowed for you know, other creative outlets for sure.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Yes, and I was there was a discussion going on. Yeah,
I won't even get into it. Yes, that could have
been very valuable to everybody, but it was not meant
to be.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Do you sometimes wonder now in the future whether NYU
is going to have this book be part of a
course curriculum around the history of music around where the
university is. I could imagine that.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
I could too, depending on who the depend there and
who the instructors.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I have a feeling either one of
you or both of you would somehow have your fingers
on and if that occurred, is that is my imagination
gone wild.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
I would encourage NYU to to use this book as
part of the curriculum and order a lot of books.
I would would I would have them make a required
reading from many of their classes.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
I think that's marvelous. I want to touch on the
radio side of things, having been an observer of it
and then a part of it as a part timer
there in New York for w n e WFM.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And then over the years seeing other markets where radio
stations had these incredible collaborations with clubs. Talk about the
significance of w n WFM to the bottom line.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Any W was very very important to me first as
a fan, I started listening to a W way before
the bottom line was open. And historically speaking, any W
along with FM radio comes at a very interesting time
(31:43):
because you have Woodstock and you have the success of Woodstock,
which advertised basically on FM radio. The success of Woodstock
showed record companies that there was a major audience out
there that they were not reaching a potential audience, and
(32:06):
this audience was being nurtured by FM radio. It was
training a radio used to play songs that were two
and three minutes long and two and a half minutes long.
FM radio was playing album cuts. They weren't just playing singles,
and they were playing much longer tracks, and in that sense,
(32:30):
they were cultivating an audience and teaching an audience how
to listen as opposed to having a very short attention
span wanting to go from one song to another song.
And FM radio was also didn't have any borders. They
play all kinds of music. You could go from jazz
(32:51):
to folk to rock and any w was very successful
at doing stuff like that. You could have Led Zeppelin
and Billie Holiday to whatever. So it was cultivating again
and appreciation of all different kinds of music to young
to younger people. And if you look at how the
albums were marketed at that point, the covers were fascinating,
(33:15):
the liner notes were interesting, and history music started to
play into this too in terms of liner notes, in
terms of origins of certain certain stuff and reference for
older musicians who came before. And what started happening is
(33:35):
AM radio would basically be playing things by writers from
the brill building. EFILM Radio was playing songs that were
written by young guys who went out to get a
guitar and to and to see if they could do
it by virtue of seeing the Beatles, and so there
was a whole change that was happening. So we wanted
(33:59):
to do live what any w was doing on the air.
We wanted to be the live version of what that
radio station was doing. So I went from a fan
being very excited to meet someone like Pete Fournetel, who
was one of the first people that I connected with,
to having deep relationships with Vince Skelsa and mc griffin
(34:20):
and a whole lot of other people who populated that
radio station. Dennis Elsi's Tom Morera. I knew all those people,
but I knew them as friends. I didn't know them
just as somebody who that I would I would listen to.
That station was so important to me to tell me
(34:42):
discover music, to help me learn its a little. I
remember I've told him this. I remember being my home
doing something and hearing this song write aloud and Wainwright
sing a song called Motel Blues, and I in the
middle of my living room, I couldn't move, straining to
(35:06):
hear every lyric, every part of the lyric that he
was singing. Those things didn't happen on an AM radio.
They only happened on FM radio. So Eddie w was
quite important to me.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
And let me point out that that I think what
Alan was just talking about really speaks to what the
bottom Line offered us throughout its entire existence. Alan's passion
for music and wanting to share it with people. In
other words, it wasn't just sitting their dollars and cents.
We're going to get this pract coming in, We're going
to make this much money this week, although Stanley's partners
(35:44):
only wanted to watch the Pennies and the Nichols. But
the idea is that Alan's lifelong job on the planet
in many respects, but a great deal of it has
been to turn people onto music that he thinks they
should be turned on. So and of course Alan, you know,
one of his great heroes was Bill Graham, you know,
(36:05):
who did the same. That's what Bill Graham did at
the film Wore, you know, and he tried to just
put act shows together with different kinds of music to
get people interested in As Alan was saying, FM radio
throughout the late sixties and early seventies up to really
kind of the end of the seventies, I would say
especially was a place where you could hear just about anything.
You didn't have to go from from station to station
(36:26):
to hear different kinds of music. If you listen for
a half an hour to WNW or some of the
other stations later, you know, you would hear this mix
of everything. And the bottom line, as Alan said, wanted
to present that on stage every single night, so that
whatever whatever act was playing, the bottom line that night,
that's what the club was. It could be a jazz
(36:47):
club one night, it could be a folk club the
next night. It could be a rock and roll club
the next night. It'd be a comedy club the night
after that. And I think it all just spoke to
Alan's passion as a fan of music. And I've spoken
about this before a lot of the most memorable clubs,
especially in a city like New York, were bar owners
(37:09):
who started presenting music. You know it as the music
came to them, and they just started presenting acts because
it helped bring more people in, et cetera. It's et cetera.
But Alan and Stanley wanted to present the listening room
from the word go, and it was the music that
was the driving force, and I think because of that,
(37:29):
their respect for artists and audiences really setting. Buzz. You've
probably been to a million clubs yourself. You know, there's
a lot of club owners we've met over the years
who really don't like the audience that much. There are
club owners who really don't like the music acts that much.
They think everything's necessary evil to keep everything going. And
(37:49):
at the bottom line, that was never what it was about.
It was about respect for the customer and respect for
the artist. Buzz.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
I'll tell you an interesting story.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
You know, I.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
Take this stuff very personally, and you know, I try
to put acts on that I thought. My whole key
was you put on an opening act that nobody's ever
heard of, and hopefully they do so well that the
audience who came to see the headliner walks out talking
about the opening act. So the pairings who were very
(38:23):
important to me were as Vince Skels always as the
perfect segue. And when I mismatched, and I did mismatch,
I took that very personally. So there was one show
where I mismatched so badly based on a misconception of
what I thought the music was about that it wouldn't
come out of my office during the when the artists.
(38:46):
Usually I'd go downstairs during the intermission, I'd see people,
I'd schmooze, I'd hang out. I was so embarrassed at
my mismatch. I just stayed upstairs. I did not want
to walk around down says, That's how personally I took
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
You know what was the mismatch, Allen?
Speaker 6 (39:05):
Oh, you don't want to know.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Oh, I desperately want to know, because that's some of
the fun of I'm sure thinking about this historically.
Speaker 6 (39:16):
You know who Betty Davis was.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Betty Davis.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
Yeah, not the actress. No, Betty Davis was for all
intent of purposes, she lived with Miles Davis and I
think was married to him. Betty Davis was the one
who basically pushed Miles in the direction of not only
going electric, but you know, to reaching out and to
(39:40):
incorporate much more of what was happening. She turned them
on to sly, she turned them onto a lot of
stuff that she thought he should be aware. And so
basically for that creative period she was amused on a
lot of levels, all right. And she was a performer
who sang, but she come out on the stage and
(40:03):
do one of those fuck me you know, like whatever whatever,
you know, really pushing the envelope to a point of whoa,
what is what is this? And I paired her with
an older gentleman who played jazz piano and had a
gospel thing happening or blues thing happening, Lis McCann. So
(40:25):
Liss McCann was during an older audience that was like
totally into jazz, and Les McCann was doing a certain
kind of thing. Betty Davis was on the suck it
fucked me, yeah, and holy shit, Holy moly, you knew.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Something was a little awry. Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
Well that probably she probably taught Miles the trick of
turning his back on everybody.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
I imagine that that he's already learned a long time before.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I know. Yeah, where are the tapes from the liven
w F broadcast?
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Does anybody know?
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Monk Chernoff told me that at the point.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Am I gonna cry? Am I gonna cry? At this? Alan? No?
Speaker 6 (41:12):
No, no. He told me that some of the he
he intervened and just spoke to somebody there and said,
you can't destroy a lot of this stuff. And he
said theoretically they're stored somewhere. He knows, he knows where
it is. I don't, but I have. We've put out
(41:34):
a number of bottom line shows on record, and several
of those were the anew broadcast taking taking Look.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yeah, I remember they were. There was a limited run
of them, right, yeah.
Speaker 6 (41:47):
And so those like the Harry Champion Show, which was wonderful,
Kenny Rankin, there's a lot. And then we have a
lot of stuff in our archives because I have a
lot of those tapes that we can't get clearance for.
We have a phenomenal which you can call it a
hold and O show with a sound fabulous, and you know,
(42:08):
we can't get clearance. And we have Billy Joel. You know,
we have a lot of really good stuff and we
just can't get clearance on any of it.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
And there's also a number of things that are available
on Wolfgang's vaults if you know that website. Yeah, there
are a lot of bottom line shows that you can
you can listen to from there, which for me was
very helpful working on the book. Natalie Parton show is
on there, for instance, when she came and played in
nineteen seventy seven, and very very smartly, so removed all
(42:36):
of her fake nails when she started to fingerpick the
guitar and one of them fell off, and then she
just stopped her show and proceeded in front of Mick
Jagger and Springsteen and every big record company person in
New York. Just took a second out there. She's just
talking everybody. She's just taking the fake nails. So damn it,
I can play this g Gord.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
What oh, that's fantastic. Listen, the book is wonderful.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Well, I encourage you to get positively fourth and mercer.
It is a look at not only the music history
and the bottom line, but it's a look at New
York history, Greenwich's village history.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
I am so grateful Alan Pepper and Billy Altman that.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
You took the time to be on taking a walk,
and I just love going back and it brought back.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I love the way you describe it, Billy.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, A lot of it is bittersweet memories when you're
by there, but when you read the book, it's all
sweet memories, you know.
Speaker 6 (43:33):
Buzz. First of all, thank you very much for that.
But one of the things I've been impressed about and
actually has made me feel great is one of the
things consistent in the reviews. Everybody says it's not a nostalgia,
it's not an nostalgia trip down memory lane. That it
(43:56):
offers so much more, which is why you were just
pointed out. So thank you for saying that, and thank
you for the kind words.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Absolutely thanks, guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Buzzsnight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Now, before there.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Was a playlist, there was a room, before algorithms decided
what you'd hear. Next, there was Alan Pepper standing at
the back of the bottom Line in Greenwich Village, vetting
everything on the artists who would define generations. As owner
of one of New York's most legendary music venues and
the co author of Positively Forth and Mercer, Alan didn't
(00:28):
just book shows. He created the stage where Bruce Springsteen
proved he was the future, where countless careers were launched,
and where music history was written night after night. Today
we're going to dive deep into the stories behind the stage,
the village scene that changed everything, and what it really
(00:49):
takes to recognize greatness before the world catches on. And
with Alan will be joined by his co author Billy Altman.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Next, I've Taking a Walk Walk, Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, Alan, it's so nice to be with you, And
Billy Altman, it's so nice to be with you on
the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Same here, Buzz so Allan the bottom Line, a fourth
and mercer in Greenwich Village, became the room in New
York City.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Take us back to that wild beginning. What made you
open a music venue in the village and what was
your vision from that first time.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Well, it's like I say in the book positively for
the Mercer, which Billy and I have just completed. The
bottom line was not only a physical place. It was
really a concept of how to present live music. And
it developed from years and years and working at clubs
(01:54):
and presenting music to a way that's standing. My partner
and I thought that music should really be presented, meaning
that it should be in the foreground, not the background,
and that it was We wanted to open a music
room with the thing that we were selling was not
food and booze, but the thing that we were selling
(02:15):
was music, and to that extent we we did. Also,
the concept was to have a club in what would
be like an intimate little theater. So with that in mind,
(02:36):
we actually put together a stage crew that other clubs
didn't have.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
It was.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
So new that we'd actually have two guys mixing sound,
one house sound, one monitors stage hands to help the
band in a lighting person. It was a it was
a full crew. I think there were six people and
in a club that was unheard, we had no minimum,
so you just had a mission when you came in
(03:05):
that sold you had to pay for. We instructed the
waitresses not to hassle anybody for drinks, to let them
enjoy the music, and we took the attitude that food
and beverage were the air if you got thirsty or hungry,
but under no circumstances was it something that was required.
(03:28):
We even went We got cash registers that slid open,
they didn't ring, and we even had heavy duty paper
and plastic utensils so that people went now disturbed by
china and silverware as somebody with somebody was performing. So
(03:50):
we really did think it out.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I was just going back in my brain historically, and
I felt like I was at that Jerry Jeff Walker
show at the bottom line as you.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Were explaining the scenario there.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Alan, I'm so glad that you, after talking to you
a few years back, that the book was able to
come together.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
How did you and Billy come together on this?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
After the club had closed In early two thousand and four,
I was asked to do a piece for Tracks magazine,
which was kind of a short lived magazine that Anthony
the Curtis and Alan Hite were involved in and they
asked me just to write up a thing about the
club closing and somewhat of a history. And the piece
came out really, really well, and I interviewed Alan for it,
(04:39):
and of course I had been going to the club.
My first show at the club was February, about a
month after the club opened in nineteen seventy four. My
last show coming as a patron of the club as
a journalist was about five weeks before the club closed
in early two thousand and four. So I was there
pretty much over the entire run of the thirty years,
(05:00):
and I went to hundreds and hundreds of shows. So
working on the article was a pleasure for me. I mean,
it was a sad moment because the club had closed,
but to be able to relive some of those memories
and then Alan can pick up the story from there.
Fast forward about many number of years later.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
Well, what happened was I wanted to write this book
for legacy purpose because I felt Stanley and I did
something really special and I wanted to be a record
of it, and I wanted to tell that story. I
had made a deal with a writer not Billy somebody
else who was working with me, but he had a
(05:42):
family situation which upset him so much that it was
difficult for him to work on the book with me.
And then I tried to reach out for a bunch
of other writers, and I kept and I kept coming
back to that article that Billy I'd written, because it
made such impression on me that I actually bought several
(06:04):
copies of it and I have it to this day.
And from a very good friend of mine this said
to me when I was telling her about the difficulty
I was having finding a writer and I read her
Billy's article, she said, well, that's your writer, that's the guy.
So I reached out to Billy to see if he
(06:26):
was interested in he was, and we started to work together.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
I love the pace of the book in terms of
all the great stories from this fascinating array of people,
as somebody who grew up in Stanford, Connecticut and would
go to New York City. A lot work in New
York City, so a lot of names that were very
familiar to me. Alan you first, and then Billy, who
(06:54):
are some of the ones in particular that you really
enjoyed talking to and letting them tell their stories of
bottom line music history.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
The interesting thing well obviously Springsteen, and he was very
generous because he gave Billy twenty five minutes. Billy was
the one who did all the interview and he did
a great He did a great job, and he did
a great job translating those interviews to the written page.
There were so many people to interview and we only
(07:28):
got in a portion. But truthfully speaking, as Billy pointed
out to me time and time again, we were covering
thirty years of music, and so we had to be
very judicious in those people that we selected because, as
(07:48):
Billy pointed out to me in the beginning, because I
said I wanted rural history, and he said, well, if
you do, we've got to do it chronologically, which I
agreed with because May told. And the one good thing
that set us on a path was I had written
down every show that we ever did, so I have
(08:09):
from opening night till the very last night, along with
people who set in and ticket prices. So he gave
Billy a path, that gave him a guide. And then
he's got an extensive background in music and music history,
so he was able to wind through this thing. I
(08:31):
kid him because I've always said he was dealing with
like a musical Rubek's cue and he just had to
line up everything. So rather than to answer your question specifically,
rather than Springsteen, which I was very gratified that he
gave Billy the time, I was very moved by some
(08:58):
of the things that Billy told me that some of
the people mentioned, not only about me, bit of about
working at the club, and that gave me an enormous
amount of emotional satisfaction. Billy, you did the had me lifting.
So who are the people? Who are the people that
(09:18):
you enjoy.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Well, well, it was fascinating because, as Alan said, you know,
because the fact that the bottom line wasn't one particular
style of music, you know, anything, anything in the entertainment field,
uh could be on that stage from night to night.
It wasn't a club that was known for the scene
and the hangers out, and you know, it wasn't CBGB's
or Studio fifty four. And again because the enormous time frame.
(09:42):
So you had rock, you had folk, you had blues,
you had jazz, you had country, you had spoken word,
you had theater pieces, you had you know at cabaret
kind of stuff. So trying to be judicious and who
we spoke to. You know, we tried to get a
list together and Alan kept sending me endless list of
people not to talk to. But what was great it
was that almost from the very beginning, every artist that
(10:05):
we approached with I don't maybe one exception and talking
her over one hundred people that I talked to, everybody
had warm feelings about the club, had great respect for
Alan and Stanley about how the club was run. And
then talking to people that worked at the club. So
the great thing about being able to work on this
(10:26):
and the many interviews that we're done, is that many
people were excited to tell stories about things that happened
at the club, things that mattered to their careers. And
Bruce certainly was at the top of that list. But
then people like Darlene Love, you know, one of our
great great singers, and her whole path towards playing at
(10:46):
the bottom line in the early nineteen eighties and coming
from Los Angeles to New York and staying at Alan's
Alan's house and wearing some of Iileen his wife's clothing
because she'd come with, you know, barely a little suitcase.
When they were working on Leader of the Pack, the
great show the ultimately wound up going to Broadway. Some
of them were great, and some of the stories for
(11:08):
me were very, very touching. You know, in the nineties
when the club had their in their Own Words series
where it was a bunch of songwriters and they were
trying to mix the match songwriters, and Allan did one
show and you can tell you the story of how
it happened. But Roger mcgwinn from The Birds and Pete
Seeger did one show together, and this was in nineteen
(11:30):
ninety three and nineteen ninety four. Remarkably, it was the
first time that the two of them had ever been
on his stage together. When you could think about the
fact that The Birds said, of course had a giant
hit with Pete Seger's Turn, Turn in Turn in nineteen
sixty five. But then it turned out that Pete Seeger
had been one of mcgwinn's idols from when he was
a kid growing up in Chicago and taking banjo lessons
(11:53):
at the Chicago School of Music. And Roger was able
to give me almost a minute by minute rundown of
the whole day of that performance, of spending the afternoon
with Pete Seegar going out to dinner at the Minetta
Tavern in the middle of the village, and then he
mentioned to me, he said, it was raining out and
I bought a ten dollars umbrella on the street. He says,
(12:14):
I still have it. It's just in the corner of
the room. It's the Pete Seger Memorial umbrella. So some
of those very touching stories meant a lot to me,
you know, as a journalist and just a music fan,
and to hear these wonderful, wonderful connections. Also, John Hyatt
was wonderful to talk to. He's a really funny guy
and he was terrific. I can share one great story
(12:37):
from the book that he shares. He talks about coming
to play in New York. And you know, as a
struggling singer songwriter, and you know, if you stay at
a hotel, you know the record company would book it
for you and charge it to you. So as many
young people, and Alan can tell you much more than
me about this, many people wouldn't stay at the hotel,
they'd stay with a friend or something. And Hyatt would
(12:59):
come to New York. He had a friend who moved
up from New York from Nashville, who had been an
opera trained singer, a classical singer, who then wound up
on Broadway in Sweeney Todd as one of the villains
in Sweeney Todd. And he was a good friend of John's.
And so he said that he told me that he
he you know, he was staying with his friend and
he said to him, he said, listen, you think I
(13:21):
should take voice lessons. And his friend said, you never
never take voice lessons, and so Hyat says, but I
told him, but you know, I can't sing, and he said.
His friend said, I know, but you still shouldn't take
voice lessons because whatever that little thing that you have
will get ruined if you took voice lessons. So there
was such surprises when when I was able to interview
(13:43):
some of these remarkable people, uh, you know, running from
like I said, from Doylene Love uh to uh, you know,
to Bill Chef, the comedy writer for David Letterman, to
Paul Schaeffer, Uh, to Lenny White, the great great jazz
fusion drummer who played in Mals Davis's Pitches Crew.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
To Betty Buckley, the great Broadway star. So that's how
wide Arnette was for this book.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
And some of the stories. Billy took to Joey Stefko,
who was the drumma with meat Loaf, and he sheds
a lot of interesting stuff about me. Loaf and flowing
Eddie in the turtles and flowing Eddie at the bottom
line was always one of my favorite holiday traditions. I
(14:29):
think they played ten Christmas New Year's Evening and Howard
Kalin occupies several pages in the book and it's hilarious.
I mean, I've read this stuff over and over again.
I still laugh when I'm going back and read reading
and stuff, you know, buzz. As easy as somebody might
(14:51):
think writing a book like this is, it's not. I mean,
it took Billy and I think a couple of years
to put it together, and I had been working on
it on my own for several years. But the advantage,
although it was painful, the advantage of working with somebody
like Billy. He's a discipline journeyman. He's a great writer,
(15:14):
and so he and I had moments of great fiction
when he basically schooled me. You know, he said there
were certain things that I brought to the table that
I felt certain about, and he pointed out to me
on many occasions that you have to let He didn't
(15:35):
want it to be a thousand page home and he
very clearly pointed out to me, you have to let
certain people speak for the rest of everybody. You can't
interview every waitress, you can't interview every stage manager. And
even when it came to music. I mean, there were
times along the way that I felt that we were
(15:59):
missing the boat. But he constructed such a roadmap. He's
done an amazing job the more and you can tell
that by the accolades we've been receiving by people who
were reading the book. Everybody talks about how well written
it is. Tip of the hat to Billy. They took
(16:21):
about how well organized it is, and how it's what
the flow of it is. All of that, I mean,
all of that is from Billy. But it ain't easy,
and both of us have the scars to prove it.
But it was I mean, there were let me put
(16:44):
to you this way, there were still three more books
at least that could be done because it was just
too much to cover.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah, I would say that, you know, we had spirited conversation.
We'll put it out. Well, one thing I will say,
is that because Alan is such a great fan and
so passionate about music and about artists, that he showed
me pathways in terms of who we would go to
speak to. And I think he had a sense of
(17:13):
which people would be able to really give me good
stories and help us move through different different areas of time,
different styles of music that would help, that would help
make a work. And you know, again, one of the
great challenges of the book is the book is as
much about New York and the scene, New York music
scene and radio in the industry. Uh So being able
(17:35):
to kind of get all of those, but Allen's connections
and is ongoing friendships with everybody on Earth, world's biggest
rolodex perhaps really helped clear clear that path for me
a lot, because I knew going in that the people
that we would be approaching would be forthcoming, which, of course,
(17:56):
for a book like this is incredibly incredibly important.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
But let me let me just say this, when we
sat down, you know, when you're when you're trying to
find a writer, it's a dance. Just like if you're quoting,
if you're dating a new person in your life, you're
kind of getting to know them but it's a dance
to see if you two could actually dance well together.
(18:24):
And I sat down with him and I said, okay, look,
there are certain things that I'm really sure about. I
wanted to be in oral history because I didn't see
doing a story the bottom line without the voices of
the people who were there. So I said, not only
the musicians, but the customers and the people who work there.
(18:46):
And I said, the other thing that I'm really sure
about is I want there to be presents in this
book of my partner who's no longer here to fill
in the story, and my wife who's been very important
to me as amuse, and you know, somebody that I
(19:07):
connected with it an early an early age of around music. Actually,
I said, I wanted their their presence to be in
the in the book. And then the last thing I
said is I don't want it to be a bunch
of funny stories that happened at the club to show
(19:27):
how wacky people are. I wanted to have a narrative.
I wanted to be a beginning, middle, and end, and
along the way will include the wacky stories and will
include people's videosyncrasies. But to me, it's got to have.
It's got to have a narrative, and those are things
we never argued about. Those are things that he brought
(19:49):
into immediately. In fact, one of the things in retrospect
when I look back at him, he was very committed
to giving me exactly what I want and sometimes I
didn't see it, but very protective of me. So the
book is very much a what I wanted it to
(20:10):
be and b what my initial vision was, which is
pretty remarkable when you think of all the ways we
could have just gone, you're off in different directions. So
I'm very pleased and very happy, and I'm most gratified
by the response it's getting, not only from people who
(20:32):
worked at the club, but fans of the club. I'm
getting emails from people who are still saying I'm reading
the book, I'm loving it. I just want you to
know how much I'm enjoying how much I'm enjoying the book.
So I'm very happy with the way everything turned out.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Well, since we call this podcast has Taken a Walk,
I have to ask you both a little bit of
a lightning round question here because there's so many characters
that are in the book that were part of the
bottom line. So alan you first, if you could take
a dream walk with someone, who would you take a
walk with? I don't care where it is, Maybe it's
around where the bottom line was situated, But who would
(21:21):
you take that walk with?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And then Billy, same to you.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
I would take it with my partner Stanley and my wife.
I lean, you know, hands down.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
It would you through all history or from the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Whatever you wish, But I think will lean bottom line.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
I would. I would envision that Buddy Holly did not
die in his plane crash, and that he was still
living on fifty Avenue and eighth Street, right by the
arch of Washington Square Park and would and he would
talk about shows that he went to at the club
as an older guy. Things were so horrific there.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
That would be pretty amazing. I love your imagination, Billy,
for sure.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
Hey, buzz, I just want to point out something to you.
Something that I pointed out to Billy early on, but
he didn't need me to point out with the bottom
line was on that corner directly across the street was
folks sitting that was the place that Dylan got that review,
I believe. So Dylan basically found his commercial voice on
(22:28):
one corner was Fourth of Mercia and Bruce Springsteen on
a parallel corner. So that's a very historically speaking, that's
a very valuable piece of musical real estate.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Yeah, and thing one thing that's amazing in the book
is as Alan talks about one of the Springsteen shows
and they were completely sold out because there was such
a buzz about it. And Allan told me the story
of a woman who came up and wanted to get
in and there was no room. It was standing room
all and they had already squeezed them like sardine's anybody
they could. And the woman actually said that to Alan,
(23:06):
she said, you know, years ago, ten years ago, way
fifteen years ago, right across the street, Bob Jellen had
his show at Folks City, and I can't. I have
to get in to see now Springsteen doing something that's
going to maybe mean as much. And they squeezed her
in like a sardine. Both Stanley and I pushed her,
(23:26):
pushed her in. But she was an older woman. She
wasn't a teenager. She was somebody in her mid thirties,
and she literally started to cry on this street corner
and we said, okay, you're gonna wind up hearing much
more than you're going to see, and we just pushed
her in like two guys unloading furniture and a big truck.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
You know, I had an episode I recorded with Danny
Fields the character of all characters from the.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Ramones and lou Reid and so much history.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
So we were walking through the area and he certainly
lamented what he missed in terms of, you know so much,
you know, great energy and great vibes in the day.
Have you both been around that neighborhood lately, and how
do you feel when you're by there thinking of what
(24:21):
was and what is no longer there?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
It's just a loss, you know. I lived in the
village throughout the nineteen eighties and then was living up
near West Point, about fifty miles north of New York.
But my joiner, over the last number of years I'd
been living herself in Greenwich Village and anytime I'd walk
through the park and go through the corner there, and
you just feel a loss of the culture of New York.
(24:48):
And obviously, you know, cities changed neighborhoods change the neighborhood,
it physically is still the same. Washington Square Park is
still there in the middle of everything. But just to
know that, you could be veering down the street on
Mercer and you get to the corner there and it's
just another building and there's you know, there's there's no
sign up there, and there's no plaque or anything like that,
(25:09):
and so I always feel that, but you also feel
I get a flood of memories. So when I go by,
it's bittersweet on some levels. You know, It's like it's
like when you go buy an apartment building, if anybody
that's lived in apartment buildings, there's you walk past an
apartment building that you used to live in, and you
go gee, and you feel bad that you don't live
(25:29):
there anymore, because you might have loved living there, but
you know you wouldn't have stayed living there. So I
think the passage of time for me has made it
more bitter sweet. I certainly for the first number of
years after the club was closed, you just walk away
and start clenching your fists, like, like, how could n
YU have kicked these people out of there? My god?
Speaker 6 (25:48):
So I am I actually have friends and acquaintances and
tell me that they can't walk up that block. Then
they'll take a different route rather and it'll take them
a little longer, but they'll take a different route to
get to where they're going because it's still so painful
to them after all this time. It was interesting when
(26:11):
we were fighting NYU over the lease and the trying
to stay there, we were getting or they were getting
emails from people, and one student wrote to them and said,
I'm so disgusted with the way you've treated the bottom line.
(26:31):
But more than that, I'm disgusted when I walked through
the village and I see your banners on all these
different buildings. It's like it's become your fifdom. And that
was from a student. The guy who was the president
at that time did not see the value of what
it was offering the student body and the city. He
(26:53):
saw it just as a prime piece of real estate
that they weren't getting enough rent for and that it
was severely undermarket, whereas the president before looked at the
club as something of value for the university to support
as well. You know, our fate was based on the
(27:15):
guy who took over.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
You know, well, knowing what you know now of NYU,
don't you sometimes think, well, maybe in the current environment,
the way they have embraced aspects of the community and
the way they've diversified everything that they do as an
educational institution, that maybe they would have thought about it
(27:39):
differently today.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
Yes, I absolutely do, and that's a very good point.
I've absolutely thought about that. At the time, you know,
we were working feverishly to try and come up with
a solution, and we were offering them especially because the
Clive Davis School, and we were offering them internships. We
(28:02):
were offering them a lot of things that would have
been of value to the students who were in that program.
And to them it was all about rent. They didn't
want to hear about anything else. But yes, and that
was the vision of the guy who was in charge.
But as you point out, time goes by, new people
(28:25):
take over and people tend to see stuff differently. So yes,
I absolutely think if there was a different administration there. Listen,
Just to set this record straight, n YU was not
wrong in wanting back rent that was due to them,
(28:48):
and they were not wrong, and they were not wrong
about trying to move ahead to resolve the situation, but
at the same time where I think they might have
been a little bit mistaken. There were better ways to
resolve this situation, and once again the guy who's making
(29:12):
the decisions made the decision. That eviction was. You know,
we had actually made a deal with them, but and
send the book. We actually made a deal with them,
but at the last minute they came to us with
something that was so gregious that we that we couldn't
go along with them.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
So and you had what would have been a burgeoning
affiliation with serious XM. That would have been part of
the future as well. I mean it would have that
would allowed for you know, other creative outlets for sure.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Yes, and I was there was a discussion going on. Yeah,
I won't even get into it. Yes, that could have
been very valuable to everybody, but it was not meant
to be.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Do you sometimes wonder now in the future whether NYU
is going to have this book be part of a
course curriculum around the history of music around where the
university is. I could imagine that.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
I could too, depending on who the depend there and
who the instructors.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I have a feeling either one of
you or both of you would somehow have your fingers
on and if that occurred, is that is my imagination
gone wild.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
I would encourage NYU to to use this book as
part of the curriculum and order a lot of books.
I would would I would have them make a required
reading from many of their classes.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
I think that's marvelous. I want to touch on the
radio side of things, having been an observer of it
and then a part of it as a part timer
there in New York for w n e WFM.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And then over the years seeing other markets where radio
stations had these incredible collaborations with clubs. Talk about the
significance of w n WFM to the bottom line.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Any W was very very important to me first as
a fan, I started listening to a W way before
the bottom line was open. And historically speaking, any W
along with FM radio comes at a very interesting time
(31:43):
because you have Woodstock and you have the success of Woodstock,
which advertised basically on FM radio. The success of Woodstock
showed record companies that there was a major audience out
there that they were not reaching a potential audience, and
(32:06):
this audience was being nurtured by FM radio. It was
training a radio used to play songs that were two
and three minutes long and two and a half minutes long.
FM radio was playing album cuts. They weren't just playing singles,
and they were playing much longer tracks, and in that sense,
(32:30):
they were cultivating an audience and teaching an audience how
to listen as opposed to having a very short attention
span wanting to go from one song to another song.
And FM radio was also didn't have any borders. They
play all kinds of music. You could go from jazz
(32:51):
to folk to rock and any w was very successful
at doing stuff like that. You could have Led Zeppelin
and Billie Holiday to whatever. So it was cultivating again
and appreciation of all different kinds of music to young
to younger people. And if you look at how the
albums were marketed at that point, the covers were fascinating,
(33:15):
the liner notes were interesting, and history music started to
play into this too in terms of liner notes, in
terms of origins of certain certain stuff and reference for
older musicians who came before. And what started happening is
(33:35):
AM radio would basically be playing things by writers from
the brill building. EFILM Radio was playing songs that were
written by young guys who went out to get a
guitar and to and to see if they could do
it by virtue of seeing the Beatles, and so there
was a whole change that was happening. So we wanted
(33:59):
to do live what any w was doing on the air.
We wanted to be the live version of what that
radio station was doing. So I went from a fan
being very excited to meet someone like Pete Fournetel, who
was one of the first people that I connected with,
to having deep relationships with Vince Skelsa and mc griffin
(34:20):
and a whole lot of other people who populated that
radio station. Dennis Elsi's Tom Morera. I knew all those people,
but I knew them as friends. I didn't know them
just as somebody who that I would I would listen to.
That station was so important to me to tell me
(34:42):
discover music, to help me learn its a little. I
remember I've told him this. I remember being my home
doing something and hearing this song write aloud and Wainwright
sing a song called Motel Blues, and I in the
middle of my living room, I couldn't move, straining to
(35:06):
hear every lyric, every part of the lyric that he
was singing. Those things didn't happen on an AM radio.
They only happened on FM radio. So Eddie w was
quite important to me.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
And let me point out that that I think what
Alan was just talking about really speaks to what the
bottom Line offered us throughout its entire existence. Alan's passion
for music and wanting to share it with people. In
other words, it wasn't just sitting their dollars and cents.
We're going to get this pract coming in, We're going
to make this much money this week, although Stanley's partners
(35:44):
only wanted to watch the Pennies and the Nichols. But
the idea is that Alan's lifelong job on the planet
in many respects, but a great deal of it has
been to turn people onto music that he thinks they
should be turned on. So and of course Alan, you know,
one of his great heroes was Bill Graham, you know,
(36:05):
who did the same. That's what Bill Graham did at
the film Wore, you know, and he tried to just
put act shows together with different kinds of music to
get people interested in As Alan was saying, FM radio
throughout the late sixties and early seventies up to really
kind of the end of the seventies, I would say
especially was a place where you could hear just about anything.
You didn't have to go from from station to station
(36:26):
to hear different kinds of music. If you listen for
a half an hour to WNW or some of the
other stations later, you know, you would hear this mix
of everything. And the bottom line, as Alan said, wanted
to present that on stage every single night, so that
whatever whatever act was playing, the bottom line that night,
that's what the club was. It could be a jazz
(36:47):
club one night, it could be a folk club the
next night. It could be a rock and roll club
the next night. It'd be a comedy club the night
after that. And I think it all just spoke to
Alan's passion as a fan of music. And I've spoken
about this before a lot of the most memorable clubs,
especially in a city like New York, were bar owners
(37:09):
who started presenting music. You know it as the music
came to them, and they just started presenting acts because
it helped bring more people in, et cetera. It's et cetera.
But Alan and Stanley wanted to present the listening room
from the word go, and it was the music that
was the driving force, and I think because of that,
(37:29):
their respect for artists and audiences really setting. Buzz. You've
probably been to a million clubs yourself. You know, there's
a lot of club owners we've met over the years
who really don't like the audience that much. There are
club owners who really don't like the music acts that much.
They think everything's necessary evil to keep everything going. And
(37:49):
at the bottom line, that was never what it was about.
It was about respect for the customer and respect for
the artist. Buzz.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
I'll tell you an interesting story.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
You know, I.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
Take this stuff very personally, and you know, I try
to put acts on that I thought. My whole key
was you put on an opening act that nobody's ever
heard of, and hopefully they do so well that the
audience who came to see the headliner walks out talking
about the opening act. So the pairings who were very
(38:23):
important to me were as Vince Skels always as the
perfect segue. And when I mismatched, and I did mismatch,
I took that very personally. So there was one show
where I mismatched so badly based on a misconception of
what I thought the music was about that it wouldn't
come out of my office during the when the artists.
(38:46):
Usually I'd go downstairs during the intermission, I'd see people,
I'd schmooze, I'd hang out. I was so embarrassed at
my mismatch. I just stayed upstairs. I did not want
to walk around down says, That's how personally I took
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
You know what was the mismatch, Allen?
Speaker 6 (39:05):
Oh, you don't want to know.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Oh, I desperately want to know, because that's some of
the fun of I'm sure thinking about this historically.
Speaker 6 (39:16):
You know who Betty Davis was.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Betty Davis.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
Yeah, not the actress. No, Betty Davis was for all
intent of purposes, she lived with Miles Davis and I
think was married to him. Betty Davis was the one
who basically pushed Miles in the direction of not only
going electric, but you know, to reaching out and to
(39:40):
incorporate much more of what was happening. She turned them
on to sly, she turned them onto a lot of
stuff that she thought he should be aware. And so
basically for that creative period she was amused on a
lot of levels, all right. And she was a performer
who sang, but she come out on the stage and
(40:03):
do one of those fuck me you know, like whatever whatever,
you know, really pushing the envelope to a point of whoa,
what is what is this? And I paired her with
an older gentleman who played jazz piano and had a
gospel thing happening or blues thing happening, Lis McCann. So
(40:25):
Liss McCann was during an older audience that was like
totally into jazz, and Les McCann was doing a certain
kind of thing. Betty Davis was on the suck it
fucked me, yeah, and holy shit, Holy moly, you knew.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Something was a little awry. Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
Well that probably she probably taught Miles the trick of
turning his back on everybody.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
I imagine that that he's already learned a long time before.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I know. Yeah, where are the tapes from the liven
w F broadcast?
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Does anybody know?
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Monk Chernoff told me that at the point.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Am I gonna cry? Am I gonna cry? At this? Alan? No?
Speaker 6 (41:12):
No, no. He told me that some of the he
he intervened and just spoke to somebody there and said,
you can't destroy a lot of this stuff. And he
said theoretically they're stored somewhere. He knows, he knows where
it is. I don't, but I have. We've put out
(41:34):
a number of bottom line shows on record, and several
of those were the anew broadcast taking taking Look.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yeah, I remember they were. There was a limited run
of them, right, yeah.
Speaker 6 (41:47):
And so those like the Harry Champion Show, which was wonderful,
Kenny Rankin, there's a lot. And then we have a
lot of stuff in our archives because I have a
lot of those tapes that we can't get clearance for.
We have a phenomenal which you can call it a
hold and O show with a sound fabulous, and you know,
(42:08):
we can't get clearance. And we have Billy Joel. You know,
we have a lot of really good stuff and we
just can't get clearance on any of it.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
And there's also a number of things that are available
on Wolfgang's vaults if you know that website. Yeah, there
are a lot of bottom line shows that you can
you can listen to from there, which for me was
very helpful working on the book. Natalie Parton show is
on there, for instance, when she came and played in
nineteen seventy seven, and very very smartly, so removed all
(42:36):
of her fake nails when she started to fingerpick the
guitar and one of them fell off, and then she
just stopped her show and proceeded in front of Mick
Jagger and Springsteen and every big record company person in
New York. Just took a second out there. She's just
talking everybody. She's just taking the fake nails. So damn it,
I can play this g Gord.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
What oh, that's fantastic. Listen, the book is wonderful.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Well, I encourage you to get positively fourth and mercer.
It is a look at not only the music history
and the bottom line, but it's a look at New
York history, Greenwich's village history.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
I am so grateful Alan Pepper and Billy Altman that.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
You took the time to be on taking a walk,
and I just love going back and it brought back.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I love the way you describe it, Billy.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, A lot of it is bittersweet memories when you're
by there, but when you read the book, it's all
sweet memories, you know.
Speaker 6 (43:33):
Buzz. First of all, thank you very much for that.
But one of the things I've been impressed about and
actually has made me feel great is one of the
things consistent in the reviews. Everybody says it's not a nostalgia,
it's not an nostalgia trip down memory lane. That it
(43:56):
offers so much more, which is why you were just
pointed out. So thank you for saying that, and thank
you for the kind words.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Absolutely thanks, guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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