A Tribute To Jerry Weintraub Live

A Tribute To Jerry Weintraub, recorded live at the Grammy Museum Thursday, August 14th, featuring John Meglen of Concerts West, Bob Finkelstein of Sinatra Enterprises, Claire Rothman, emeritus GM/VP of the Forum, Peter Jackson, tour manager of the Moody Blues and Eric Clapton, Michael Weintraub and me, as the moderator. Listen for tales of the impresario who created national touring and promoted such artists at Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Bad Company, the Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin, as well as managing John Denver, Bob Dylan and many more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Uh, it's great to be here. I
met Jerry a lot later than these people. Jerry put
out of his book that You've got to lead, and
I said, you know, I'm a writer. I said, I
don't need to meet Jerry. Immediately heard from Jerry. We
gotta go to lunch, and you went to Il Piccolino
on Robertson where they had the Jerry Wine Trout special. Now,

(00:30):
the fascinating thing about Jerry and a lot of time
this is that the elite players is their icons, and
you think, you know, you always are trying to go
up the ladder. But he was so endearing, so human.
The other thing is, as soon as you know, he
started sharing details about his personal life, about his kids
and this, and maybe it was only me, but he

(00:51):
always did that and we maintained a relationship. And the
other thing I realized is he was the pro jenitor.
People who were a little bit younger grew up with
David Geffen being ruling and then Irving A's off. I
realized Jerry did it first. If you know Irving, Irving
loves to connect you with doctors and do all that stuff.

(01:12):
That's what Jerry did. First, he says, you know, the
first I wake up and I hook everybody up with
the doctors and I do that. That was a real manager.
So we're I went through the exhibit. It was kind
of weird because Jerry was so alive and to see
the pictures was really kind of creepy. And if you
lived through that era, you know what a tumultuous time

(01:33):
it was. We were inventing it. That's one thing about
the music business today. We're not inventing much. Certainly we
were in turmoil for about twenty years with Napstur at
all at all. But Jerry changed so many things and
invented so many things, and certainly that was when music
drove the culture. I mean, I'm looking at the thing,
so I was that that leads up a thing. Oh
I couldn't get tickets to Wings over America. You just

(01:54):
remember everything immediately. So I'm gonna jump right in. We'll
introduce people as we go along. Now, Claire, how did
you first hear of Jerry? Well, it was all the
way back in the days when I was at the Spectrum, Okay,
Spectrum and Philadelphi and phill it down. Now, the one
thing about the Spectrum is legendary that the roof blew off.
Oh yes, and I had a dog and pony show

(02:18):
all about how we were going to put it back
together again by the Franklin Institue. Okay, so how did
you hear it? Jerry? Well, you're always looking to put
more events in your building, and Jerry was the one
to know if you wanted to have the biggest stacks, right,

(02:41):
So you remember what the first gig you did with
Jerry was. I remember the nine seventy one gig with
Elvis Presley. So what was that like? Bedlam? Absolute bedlam?
They had three different floors, the Bellevue Stratford Hotel and

(03:07):
that kind of sort of how to propel us up?
To get him up on this stage? And then why
do I have fabulous to Okay? So they posted him
up there. Now you have a long history running buildings,
et cetera. How did you get in the business. Well,
I was a pencil pusher. So I started at the

(03:28):
Spectrum as a bookkeeper and then a few months I
became the business manager. And I went because in an arena,
there is usually only one or two in each major city,

(03:51):
and I was in the private arena so if I
had to go somewhere else, I had to go to
window their city. So I traveled around the country quite
a bit. So you were in Philly. You're obviously at
a long tenure here in l A at the Forum,
and what were some of the cities between between ip

(04:11):
I went down to Orlando, Florida, and Bill Putnam, who
owned the hockey team in Philadelphia, hired me to be
the financial DP and we try to open something called
Wild Kingdom. It never went and we sold a few

(04:33):
animals on the quarterhouse steps. And then I went to Cleveland,
and in Cleveland was where I met Seal Bonifetti, and
I took him out to the site it was, and
I gave him my spield. This is where the trucks

(04:56):
will go underneath, and this is where the stage entrance
will be, and all of it. And sell pulled himself
up to his full height and he said to me,
this is a frigging mud hole. He said, you better
book the municipal building for the same gates because it

(05:21):
will never get done. But it did get done. And
although we thought we had all the traffic problems taken
care of the opening night of Frank Sinatra and we
had medalgons with an image of Frank for all the women.

(05:45):
The traffic was so bad that in their long downs
and their husbands in Texas, they pulled their cars over
to the side of the state inter state and they
walked the rest of the way. Okay, that's great. And

(06:07):
then from Cleveland, l A. From Cleveland, I went to
l A. Okay, Bob, I got you over here. It's like, Okay,
you're telling me a story in the green room. How
you were fraternity brothers with Mike Ovits. Tell us how
we get from there to work in with Jerry. We
were roommates in college at UCSB and traveled down to

(06:30):
Universal Studios that was hiring young people to work at
the studio. So I started They're picking up papers, and
then became a tour guide and eventually I was booking
the Amphitheater. Okay, and how did you meet Jerry? Well?
The first season of the Amphitheater, we wanted as major

(06:50):
acts as we could get, and one of those was
John Denver. Jerry was managing John, and we had to
convince people to not play the Greek. What was your
what was your pitch? Well, the primary pitch was the
throw of the theater was so much less than the Greek.
If you were sitting in the cheap seats in the Greek,
you were way back there. If you were sitting in

(07:11):
the cheap seats at the Amphitheater, which were six dollars
and fifty cents for the prime seats six fifty and
four fifty um, you'd be equal to where you are
in the prime seats at the Greek. And we and
we had a we had about a hundred more seats,
so we could gross up a little bit more. I
gotta tell you. Moving to l A, the Universally emphathet

(07:33):
the worst thing they ever did was put the roof
on it, which I know they had to do. It
was such an experience that Greek to this day is
not close to what the Universally Emphathater was. Well yeah,
I mean the roof was because the noise was going
out in the community and they were getting a lot
of grief. Actually, the first act that played the Amphitheater
was a Grateful Dead. They they the heads of Universal

(07:58):
said they wanted to make this a count of culture complex.
Who said that? Do you remember who that was? That
was Wasserman yeah, but but but that it was John Denver,
and it was the Carpenters and acts like that. But
the opening act was a Grateful Dead and they had

(08:18):
a curfew at eleven o'clock. And I don't know if
you've ever been to a Dead concert, but they don't
get off at eleven o'clock. So that did they stay on?
They stayed on and that was one of the reasons
why they had to put the roof on because they
couldn't keep the curfew and the community just went up
in arms. Okay, your roommates with Ovid's do you have

(08:39):
any idea he's going to have the arc that he does? No?
I mean, Mike wanted to be a doctor. He really
didn't have an interest in that business at the time.
And are you still in contact with him somewhat? Our mothers,
our family was very very close. Okay, So once again,
you're working at the universally PSI, how do you meet Jerry?

(09:01):
So I meet I meet Jerry in booking John Denver.
Jerry was incredible and he said, leave here and come
to work for me. And I said, well, I have
this commitment to Universal because they had put me through
law school. And he said, well, when's that up, And
I said, well, let's happen three years. He said, uh, okay,

(09:21):
Well he kept he kept pressing, and then he said, well,
I'm moving out to California and I've just started with
this fellow, Mickey Reuden. Because I told Jerry, I said, look,
I'd like to do that. I'd like to have some
experience practicing law. I want to practice law. He said, Okay,
go meet this guy, Mickey Ruden, who he just does
don't know. He was the fixer who had a reputation for,

(09:42):
let's say, being on the wrong side. So Jerry I
just started working with Mickey. I went and interviewed with Mickey. Mickey,
you interviewed. He smoked a cigar like Jerry did, Cuban
cigars every day, and when the cigar was through, the
interview was through. Yeah, So I started. I started working

(10:03):
with Mickey and representing Jerry and and and then Jerry said, okay,
now leave Mickey. Okay, just just to make this clear,
you met him when you were just starting law school
and he waited three years. No. I I had finished
law school and had a three year commitment to university.
I see, but you played that out play that out
and really and he because usually an opportunity if you

(10:25):
don't take it now never returns. Well, they had paid
for school. I'm talking about Jerry. Jerry. Jerry was great. Okay, now, Peter,
you're an Englishman. How did you run into Jerry? Um?
I met Jerry in September nineteen seventy one at the
Troubador when he had John Denver who was playing there. Uh.

(10:51):
I represented an English band called the Moody Blues. Never
heard of him, and uh, we'd been We've been touring,
you know for a number of years. And let's go
back because it happened to be a huge body blues fan.
When did you get started with the Booty Blues? Wow?
Um trying and to cut the story down. Um, I

(11:16):
became friends. I met them at some clubs in London
when they were playing. Denny Lane is in the group
where he's already gone. No, Denny Dan just left and
they were starting their new band with John John Lodge
and Justine Hayward. And Um they had a gig this

(11:37):
one night a club they were It was an after
show party for um a film that has been playing
and UM they said, can you help us? Our road
manager can't do it. I said, ye, what do you want?
So they said, can you He'll give you his van

(11:58):
and equipment. Can you bring it down to the gig
and do it and then take it? So I said, okay,
no problem. So I took the equipment down, we unloaded it,
played this club till four o'clock in the morning, and
they said, look, you know we when he got fifteen pounds,
so you know you can have it. I said no, no, no, no, no,

(12:19):
I don't need it at this point. It's just fun,
you know. So then Justin said to me, could you
bring the equipment and the van to recordings to you
tomorrow afternoon. So Jah, just tell me where to be
and I'll be there. So there's a deck of studios
in West Hampstead and I turned up there and met

(12:41):
there there the production manager, road manager. We unloaded the
equipment and I thought that's it. I'm done. And then
Justin turned around and said to me, would you like
to stay and watch the session? So I said yeah,
I've never never been a studio before, and so he

(13:03):
said he said, we're putting nights down nights in what's
at So I was like wow. So I mean I
had been friends of him for a few months. It
wasn't just like a week or something. So um, they
used the equipment. When they finished with the equipment, the

(13:24):
road manager packed it up and he left and I
stayed and I made tea, you know, and sandwiches, and
we went on till three four o'clock in the morning.
And then they nights you know, they had finished it
and they said, okay, we've got to get the recording
executives in now from Decca and this this American guy,

(13:47):
and they all came in and we're sitting there and
they said, okay, play it, and we're all sitting in
the studio and it was like bom and we we
would start. Everybody at the and every everybody was stunned
because it was actually a demonstration disc for Dan Ram
for stereo, that's what it was made for. And so

(14:12):
we're sitting there and it was like wow. And then
somebody in the band to turn around and said, Peter,
can you go down the studio? I said yeah, yeah, sure,
you know, I mean the way I better go. So
I said, oh, oh go, you know, they said no, no, no, no,
just just go down the studio. I went down the
studio this layer. They said, Peter, come come up. I

(14:34):
went up to the room and I said, uh, you
want a job. I said what I said, you want
to be our road manager. And there you have it.
Now you told me just be sorry. You just retired
from road management within the last twelve months. Well, I
keep trying. Yes, okay, so let's go back to the narrative. Sorry,

(14:55):
you're at the Troubador and how do you meet and
go to work for Jerry? Well, I didn't go to
work for him then. I was. I was representing the Moodies.
Then we've done quite a few tours in America and
uh and in Europe, and we'd in those days of
the sixties, you were screwed over more times than you knew.

(15:19):
You didn't get paid, they gave you half the money,
they gave you a part, you know whatever. And the deals.
This is where Jerry came. This is what Jerry was
all about. When you do a deal with somebody like I.
We did this one the last tour I did before Jerry. Um.

(15:41):
I was because I wasn't a tour manager. I didn't
I was a road manager. I didn't really know the
whole science of what went on, and so we hired
a guy, an American guy, to teach me on the
road what went on. And so we would come in
near the end of this tour and we were going

(16:03):
and playing four or five arenas and I'm talking about
nineteen somewhere in seventies, seventy one, somewhere in there in
that way back then. And this too manager guy who's
teaching me turned around and said, now, I know you
always want cash because you always gets good now and

(16:26):
I know that these last three or four shows are huge.
Said yeah, and he said there's there's too much cash.
You can't play with that. I said, well, how are
we going to get paid? We're playing ten eleven thousand
seat arenas. That's a lot of money, even in those days.
So he said, look, this guy is good for it. Okay,

(16:48):
Barry Faye, but you know, God God bless him, they
stilly said if he was. So the last night becomes
I'm expecting the money, the band, we're all expecting the money,
and he says, no, come to my house, and we thought,
here we go again, Bob due to his word. He

(17:12):
had a briefcase. He opened it and there was all
the money on the deal sheet. When I looked at
the deal sheet, he made as much money as we did,
because that was the deals they did, you know. Okay,
And so we'll get back to going back. We'll get back,

(17:34):
Peter John. Now you still operate under the name Concerts West,
which of course Jerry started, and you're promoting the Stones
as we sit here. But you had a tenure in
the early days. Tell us how you got to work
with Jerry Well. I started in one of the Concerts
West offices. So by when I started, which was UM

(17:58):
a lot of college concert promoters back then, and I
was at Washington State University, and I was lucky because
uh it was a pack eight at the time. Building
had We had like a twelve thousand seat arena down
in but Spokane, which was a major market north of US,
only had like a ten thousand or not even that,

(18:18):
seven thousand seats civic auditorium. So we got the bigger
shows because we had the bigger capacity. So that's how
I got to know the Concerts West guys. And I
actually got hired by a guy named Tom Hewlett. Everybody
up here knows, and Tom was up in the Seattle
office and UM brought me on and and uh, you know,

(18:39):
you started hearing about this guy Jerry Wine troub down
in Los Angeles because we were all up in Seattle,
and he was you know, it was this It was
just larger than life guy, It really was. I got
there the year after Elvis had died, and that was
it was a pretty you know, turning point. I think
somewhat in the company because that was such a big

(19:01):
part of that company at the beginning. And but I
was fortunate enough to be there when all the big
tours were going on. So it was bad Companies and
b g's and um uh God, Eric Clapton, uh, Dan Fogelberg,
Boz Scags, Beach Boys, Chicago Queen. I mean, it was

(19:26):
like one company is doing all these tours. So but
what's kind of what was kind of interesting is that
his model, you know, he started that model really well.
Explain to the audience with the model is the model
is touring national touring or now what we do is
international touring and that and see, the promoters were either

(19:48):
raised in a local marketplace. You know, you had Avalon
Attractions or Wolf Rust Miller in Los Angeles, and you
had uh Bill Graham and San Francisco and Ron Delsner
and New Orc. But what Jerry did which was so
unique was, um, he looked at his artists and said,

(20:08):
you know, why can't we go out and be the promoter.
We know you know how to sell our artists better
than anybody else does. We used the Arenas, if anything,
is our local partners because we figured they knew about
the marketplace, they had great advertising deals. So it was
always the Arenas place there advertising. But what was so

(20:32):
unique about it is we did everything ourselves. We never
worked with local promoters. And we would go in and
rent the building and find limo companies and higher caters
and we would get our tickets from quick tick and
you'd send them to a box office and they'd get
sent out to record stores to sell and and you'd

(20:53):
come in and you know when you you do it
city after city after city, and it was it was
just the manager and the concert company. So there was
no agent. Well I don't know, Bob, what can I
say about that? Um? Yeah, there was always there were

(21:14):
you ought to get into that. I mean it created
a whole war in the entertainment business. Yeah, I mean,
Bob could talk more about that, because we just looked
at it and said, wait a bitute, what are we
paying these people for? And and I I mean that

(21:35):
was like Eric Clapton, the Moody Blues, every big act
in the world at that time. And we when I started,
we had more tours than we had people to go
out and cover them. Remember we could hire Charlie Brusko
in Atlanta. You didn't have to pay him, just gave
him a backstage pass and he goes settle the show

(21:56):
for you. Well, you weren't making much money, if I remember, No, God,
those were to I mean, no me. I was making
two d dollars a week. I remember when I moved
to Los Angeles is one. I think when we moved
everybody down to ninety four Wilshire, the famous Management three
Concerts West, and I remember finding out that Bob Finkelstein

(22:19):
made a hundred thousand dollars a year, and I'm going,
oh my god. He was like, you know, he was
the guru, Bob with the president of Management three, and
it was like, oh my god. And they would drive
up in these you know, and Jerry got to park
his his roles on the ramp at the Forum and
I was like whoa. I was like, you know, and

(22:40):
I was just I mean, I had to. I started
when I was down here, like a lot of my
first job was I ran messages from Wilshire over to
Jerry and Jimmy neater Lander at the pole of Lotch.
That's what I did here, take him over our messages,
you know, and then you get a little lecture from
one of them, you know, they tell you a story.
You gotta Jimmy Peter in a story, you get a

(23:02):
Jerry story, go back and forth. And I did that
for months. So I started on the ground and he
got excited about your success, and he'd be thrilled about it.
And I know he was, he was. I know. Okay, Michael,
this is your father. Most of us did not grow
up with a famous, rich and powerful father. When did

(23:23):
you realize he was Jerry Weintrum. Well, first of all,
he was always Jerry Weinkroup. I talked, I've talked to you.
He and my mother, who was his first wife, went
to high school together and they were high school sweethearts.
They got married when they were twenty years old. And

(23:43):
he was always Jerry Weintrup. He was always bigger than life.
From the beginning, and anybody who knew him back then
will tell you that they knew that he was going
to be the success that he was. Jane, who he
married in nineteen sixty five, who is my stepmother, and
so I was three years old, and who thank god,
is still doing great in Kenny Bunkport, Maine right now.

(24:06):
I talked to her just a little while ago while
we're up at the exhibit. But you know, Jane is
the one who really saw what he could be. She's
the one who said to him, you're going to walk
with kings and presidents. And he believed it, um, and
she believed it, and they set out together to make
that happen, and over the next you know, thirty forty

(24:30):
fifty years, that's what they did. Um. But for me
as a kid, you know, as a kid, you don't know.
As a kid, it's it's your only reality. And I
lived half the time with my mother in a two bedroom,
one bath apartment in Riverdale and the other half with
Dad and Jane in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Museum
of Modern Art UM And then in we moved out

(24:54):
here to California to a huge house in Beverly Hills,
and I went from being a kid who could get
around New Yor City on my own at twelve years
old by subway in cab and express bus to a
kid who was behind the gate and didn't I couldn't
get anywhere. It was. It was a very big life
change for me. But by then it was pretty apparent,

(25:15):
you know, his success, and that it was different than
what most kids were living, and the fact that I
was going on the road with him and the Colonel
and the first Elvis tour was seventy one, so I
was nine years old when I first went on the road.
So you're on the road with your father, neither your
mother nor stepmother. There Jane was performing still, he was

(25:39):
a big singer. But you're on the road with Elvis,
with dad. He was working pretty hard, so you're like unsupervised.
I was. I was tagging along. He took me everywhere.
He took me to breakfast with the current supers. Later,
yeah that was John had the unfortunate task of supervisor

(26:00):
me a few times later on. But yeah, so I
I really spent time with him, and we went all
over the country. It went over the all over the
country with him and Elvis with him, and John Denver
with him, and Frank Um and it was in It
was an amazing way to grow up. Okay, now, my father,
who needs it, was a real estate appraiser, know, the
liquor store. He was working all the time, but whenever

(26:22):
I was one on one with him, he was always
imparting life lessons. So when you were on the road
with your father, was he like giving you instruction? No,
absolutely not. He couldn't teach what he did. You could
observe it, you could try to understand it, but he
couldn't teach it. And so he I don't ever remember

(26:43):
him sitting down with me and saying, here's how you
do it. But I do remember always being able to
be with him and watch him do it, which was
learned from that. Okay, So did you know the colonel
and Elvis? I knew the colonel. I met Elvis ice
I wouldn't say I know him. So do you think
the colonel was born in America or not? I think

(27:07):
the colonel was probably not born in America. But who
cares if you don't know that the colonel he was
famously why he didn't have Elvis tour overseas? You want
to say something clear. Yes, I have a funny story
about Tom Hewitt. Why why do you first explain who
Tom was? Okay, Tom was the head of Concerts West

(27:30):
And when I knew Tom, he was already involved with jury.
And we had put on this concert and Tom was
there and he said, I'm hungry. I want to go
out and eat afterwards. I said, okay, And he had

(27:50):
his hugual cowboy look on, no jacket. It was warm weather,
and I figured, where am I going to take him
in Piladelphia. It's late Maybe a hotel would be the
best idea. So the best hotel in Philadelphia at that
time was the Bellevue Stratford, and we walk in in

(28:12):
the major. Days says, of course we can see you,
but uh, the gentleman will have to wear a jacket.
And Tom says, the jacket, What do you mean? Well,
it's rule here in the hotel gentlemen have to wear
a jackets. And I will lend you a jacket. And

(28:35):
Tom looked at him, scowled and said, I can't go
anywhere in the country. I can't go anywhere in California
without a jacket. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna
come in here and wear that scraggly old jacket. You
want me to wear it? So what happened? Naturally we

(28:56):
didn't get served. So Bob, let's go back once you start,
once you leave practicing law, and you're working for Jerry.
What is your gig president of manager three in Concerts West.
So so you oversaw both both and that continued for
how long? That was about five years? Okay, So Concerts

(29:20):
West was just developing. And we've heard stories about the
innovation of Jerry. Do you remember other innovations that you
had working with Conscience West and Jerry Well, I mean,
the genius of Concerts West was a fair count. I
mean one of the lines from Mickey Rewden he did
tell those things that you know, like like you asked,

(29:43):
he said, if anybody ever asked you what you want
in life? First count. So now you've got people going
out on the road that we're not getting first count. Okay,
that was when, as Peter said, that was when it
was a cash business. Well, it was a cash it
was a cash business. But even if it wasn't a
cash business, that's the cash that they already counted. And

(30:08):
it was before computers. Well, but but it was when
you when you had all of these with the agents
and they were driving prices and looking for guarantees, and
then some of the promoters were put up against it,
and they would find ways to make the guarantee work.
And the ways they would make the guarantee work. The
facility charge might not be accurate, the sounding lights might

(30:31):
not be accurate, the catering was a little bit too high.
Concerts West didn't do any of that to this day.
And and so you could always promise more to your artists.
The artist are the artist would always get more. But
not only would they get more, they'd get it right. So,
I mean, one of Jerry's best ideas was once a

(30:53):
concert was sold out, he took up thank you add out,
or he'd take a second add out when you didn't
need the second ad because it was going to bring
it back the next time. It was going to make
the concert more exciting. He would never let any seats
go in the first five rows that weren't to the fans.

(31:14):
And he learned that from Elvis and the corneal Right,
there's there and and if you ever let your artists
play with empty seats, you're dead. But I still do
that today. First in Rows Must Go and South to
the Public. Well, that is book he talks about the

(31:36):
first team, does Elvis. So when you're in this situation,
especially in the seventies, how do you fill the seats? Wow?
We had some great techniques back then. Do you know
what the best one was? The hospitals and the hospitals Yeah,
I don't know, no, but it's the nurses. See, there's
you know, there's like if you've got two d beds,
you know, you may have eighty or whatever, two nurses

(31:59):
for bed. What are nursese for every day whatever? But
there's two shifts always not working when the concert's going on.
So our our line was always, um, well Mr Denver
was we're holding these seats for the record company and
we we can't put them back on seats solo. Mr
Denver likes us to offer him up to you know,

(32:20):
people who could use them, and that that that's how
we got to know a lot of nurses. When it
was great, I mean nurses the hospitals they were like
number one, and then you go you go firemen and
police after that, but hospitals were best. I did that
in the Vietnam wool was going on and I we

(32:40):
had a show down in um in San Diego and
it just wasn't going. And so my brother in law
was a colonel in the Marine Corps Camp Pendulum. So
I turned around Seve Money, I got some seats we
wanted here, and you know, could you use him? He said, oh,

(33:01):
we got. There are these guys, you know, they're cooped
up in the camp. I love it. They sent bust loads,
busts of troops of Marines to the to the facility.
And many years later, when his daughter got married, there
was this four star general there and turn Ray said, Peter,

(33:25):
I want you to come and meet this guy. And
he went up and he said colonel, and he had
the general, he had his name, and he said, this
is the man that provided something like two thousand seats
to the Marine Corps when they were all in Vietnam.
And he went, oh, thank you. And he turns around
and he pulls his coin out of his pocket and

(33:47):
apparently it's some calling the card, and he gives it
to me and he says, you ever need anything, just
give him that. Have you ever used it? No, don't
get in trouble. But it was, but we I remember,
so I'll never forget. In Houston, Texas at the summit

(34:08):
after the show, Um, I get roamed over the phone.
I don't know what I'm getting room for by your dad,
and all I know is I need to go see
the principle. Neil was always called the principle, you know,
getting to see the print, and Bonafett he'd always be
on the phone on the radio going out the principles.
Protrusion is protruding from the principle, you know, So you

(34:29):
have to go in and see the principle. And I
go walk it in Neil's dressing room and he goes,
you know, John. I walked out there tonight and the
flag rolled right, remember flag on America always rolled down.
And I looked out there was it was just nothing
but a massive people. And I went to the right
and there was a massive people. And I went to
the left and I walked behind the stage and there

(34:51):
were five empty rows. And I didn't know what to do.
And all you could do is go, you know, I'm sorry,
Mr Diamond. Never happened again. Right, that was it? And
then you got but you got man, you did that,
you got reamed. If they were empty seats with John
Denver was also remember the light from the curtains. That
was like his thing with the light from the curtains

(35:14):
from the bombs. You know how they'd have curtains to
close it over so the concourse light wouldn't go in.
He'd go nw clear if those things were left open,
you know. But all of them had their little things.
You know, you had to learn it. Okay, Bob, going
back to management, you work with a lot of characters,
did you Did you work with Peter Grant, your personally

(35:36):
Peter Grant a little bit the led Zeppelin tours, it
just about tailed tailed out, Okay, that was one. And
what it was like between him and Jerry, because certainly
they had a great relationship. Really yeah, they had a
very very good relationship. Jerry had a longstanding relationship with
their attorney, um forget his name at the moment. Yeah,

(35:58):
but Steven Joyce. Okay, Steven, so talking about the management company.
So when you came in, he already had John Denver, Denver, Diamond,
Dellan Moody, Blues, Carpenters, beach Boys. I mean we represented
Rick James, who represented the Pointer sisters. Okay. Usually usually

(36:26):
acts or you know, they want complete attention. Other than
John Dever, who ultimately left for his own reasons, the
Acts didn't leave. How what what made you? What made
them stay at management three? Well, Jerry was that type
of person when you were in the room with him,
you were the only person in the room. So he
had that ability to just have that laser focus and

(36:50):
problem and they were and they were really good people
taking care of business TCB was Elvis Presley's motto. You know,
there were wonderful things that happened all the time, but
lest you should go home and think there were never

(37:11):
things that happened that really needed attention. We recently had
a new owner at the Forum and that was an
entrepreneur named Jerry Buss. Jerry Buss came up with an
idea that we didn't have any seats that were boxes.

(37:36):
So he came up with this idea, will take the
second level of the arena and take three hundred and
twenty seats in the rows in the second level, which
usually had a lesser price, and we will make them

(37:59):
like a box. You'll have waitress service, and you'll get
the status if it's a game, and you'll get programs
if it's if it's a concert. And he marketed them
so that you got every event that was held in

(38:19):
the arena, which turned out to be a big mistake
because it costs us a lot of money, and everybody
learned from our They were called Senate seats, and it
was left to me to negtiate how much would be
paid for every concert. And I must say that one

(38:44):
of Mr Wintrop's representatives ripped me up and down and
sideways about these seats, and I shed a few tears,
but not for anything he saw. And I worried about
it at night. But we went on and we did

(39:09):
many many successful Whatever happened with the seats, would you
pay that you would have got? Okay, because this is
an argument today are often around the manifest You know,
people are still funny, Michael. You wanted to say something
I was just gonna say. You asked about Peter Grant,

(39:31):
and Dad's relationship with Peter, and Peter was also bigger
than life. But Dad had Dad had great relationships with
anybody like that, whether it was Colonel Parker, Peter Grant,
Arthur wurtz Uh. He loved Lea. I'd say, hypothetically, somebody
crossed him. Then what oh, you never wanted to be

(39:53):
his enemy. He was the best friend in the world
to have and the worst enemy. You wanted him in
a fox hole next to you. You didn't want him
shooting at you. And he was legendarily friends with the Bushes.
Were you exposed to that very much? So from the
time I was very young. And then that's through Jane.

(40:13):
You know, Jane grew up in Kenny Bunkport. She and
George Bush. I asked her a couple of years ago,
I said, when did you and George Bush first meet?
And she said, we we didn't meet, We just work.
They were they were the same age. They knew each
other as long as either one of them could remember.
And did Dad ever tell you the story of the

(40:33):
first time he met George Bush. I think he did,
but it's a great story. Um. Jane takes him up
to kenny Bunkport in for the first time and takes
him to the Kenny Bunk River Club to play tennis.
And the Kenny Bunk River Club is what you would expect,
I know, you're from New England, what you would expect play? Well,

(40:57):
they didn't. So that was so he went and signed
his name, and they said wine Treber you Jewish and
he said yes, and they said, well you you can't
play tennis here. You're not allowed to play tennis here.
And he got very upset. He you know, he let
loose a string of of bronx words and uh and

(41:18):
went back to Jane's farm and said, I'm getting I'm
out of here. I'm gone. I'm back to New York
and I don't need lobster and all this other crap.
I'm gonna go home and have a cheeseburg on a
Coca Cola and uh, go back to my business. And
she said, no, no, just stay one more day. So
the next morning, at six in the morning, the phone
rings and he answers that he's already awake working, and

(41:42):
the guy at the other end of the phone says,
is this Jerry Wintrev. He says yes. He said, well,
you don't know me, but my name is George Bush.
I've known Janey forever my whole life. And I understand
you had a little problem at the River Club yesterday.
He said, I don't know if I call it a
little problem. They're a bunch of anti semites over there.
They told me, I couldn't play. Told me I wasn't

(42:03):
allowed to play tennis, and he said, well, I'll tell
you what, Jerry. He said, you don't know, but meet
me over there at ten o'clock this morning, and you
and I and the club president and the club pro
are gonna play doubles. And Dad said, you don't listen.
Very good dude, He said, oh no, I listened just fine.
But let me tell you something. My family built that

(42:24):
place and they're gonna let you play or I'm gonna
burn the place down. That is a story I hadn't heard,
so it's almost a show stop, as you can imagine.
He followed George Bush wherever George Bush went from that
day on. I know he's very loyal and George loyal. So, Peter,

(42:49):
what was your oldtimate gig when you start to work
for Jerry Well? Um, as I said, are you? We
were looking with the Moodies, we were looking for a promoter. Well,
we were not going to work under those conditions. And
so my agent in England turned around and said, I
found this guy, UM called Jerry Windrop. So I see Jeff,

(43:14):
so he said, and he's got this company with concerts West. Um,
they like to meet your So I got on a
plane from London. I went to l A and I'm
trying to think who met me, Dan Fiella. Remember Danny
was one of our guys. Yeah who passed away? Um? Yeah?

(43:40):
And Danny said he gave me his letter and he
said it was from Jerry. I wish I had kept
it and it's sorry. I can't be here, but I'm
doing this show tonight at the Troubador with John dev
and you're welcome to come. Said yeah, let's go check
in the hole hell and I'll go. So I went there.

(44:02):
I saw him the following day. He met him and
I said, you know, you've got a proposal and he said, yeah,
I've got a proposal to put you. We want to
offer you. I said, said yee, I said not. So
we went over it and I said, you got a deal.

(44:24):
So he said, okay, well you signing signed a contract.
I said no, we don't sign contracts anymore. You got
my hand, no, shake your hand, and we got a deal.
And that's how I met him and started to work.
I was still with the Moody Blues all that time,
and then when they eventually they broke up and that

(44:45):
was since seventy one. They broke up in seventy four.
I did a couple of odd things, and then in
seventies seven I asked him for a job and what
was your job? Basically, it's like John, we were all
what we all did. We we were like two managers.
We ran to us. We were It wasn't always these

(45:08):
big to us sometimes. I mean I did Queen. I
did shows. Yeah, I did twenty shows. We had states
with Queen, I remember that. Yeah. We used to get
stuff like that. And then I did um the long
run too with the Eagles. Now at the time, was
there an accountant on the road or due to the

(45:30):
settlement We did the settlement, Yeah, see we did. There
were two guys. Yeah, there were two guys, one in
production of one lead. We used to say yeah yeah there.
Then then when you could grab if you like, we're
good enough if you graduate to be the lead guy.
And we had a thing called show pay was eighty bucks.
Eighty bucks, so it's like if you're out with Peter

(45:51):
Gond where they'd split that with your forty forty. If
you were simthor j you got twenty bucks. Yeah. That
was se me and me and John and Pool Gunga
were we Okay, we've all had long careers. Did anybody
leave the operation I did eventually, Yeah, well we all.
I think the only reason we all left is because

(46:11):
Jerry went from being in the music business to being
in business. That's kind of I mean, because we're all
like we I went all the way through one Troub
Entertainment group and then it was like, God, you know,
he wasn't doing anything in music anyway. I think that
Earth Wind and Fire management deal was probably the last
management deal he did, right Ken Craig and had left, Yeah,

(46:37):
Craig and used to work for Yeah. I mean some
of the names that worked at this place would would
absolutely blow you away that we're there, not here from
every day and it's like he invented the business. I
didn't know. We worked for Jerry hard time. Yeah, he'll
tell you about that. The height of Kenny Rodgers. Yeah,

(46:57):
that's right, Kenny Rogers, Belt Blue Heaven and then who
any other people in the management side who setti U?
Sal was sal Well Claire Claire was an Italian guy

(47:18):
that and Jerry and he were very good friends. But
Jerry one of one of Jerry's everything had to be
Jerry Weintrapp Presents. I mean, Jerry weintrap Presents was as
prominent as anything else in any ad Billy freaking nickname
for Jerry's presents. When when when Jerry did Diner and

(47:40):
Barry Levinson was was just screwing around with him. If
you look at the credits on Diner, the credits of
Jerry weintrop Picture are about ten times bigger than the
Diner had. Barry Levinson and Frank had a wicked sense
of humor. And one time he's playing Caesar's Palace and
Sal Bonifetti is out on the road with Frank, and

(48:03):
Frank says to the Caesar's Palace, guys, we're gonna put
up on the on the marquee here Sal Bonifetti presents
that would have led to Sal's premature death. He were
Sid Bernstein, Yes, said Bernstein. Was the first minute he

(48:27):
brought the Beatles, brought the Management three was and how
did leave to start his own thing when Jerry kept
the name Management three. But when these three guys broke up,
that's when when Bernie started. I think Bernie started with
with the guys from Saturday Night Live. Bernie actually came out.

(48:50):
Bernie came out to California to open the l A office.
What was Bernie doing before he was in? So he
and Marty and Dad were together in New York at
one thirties sixties fifty fifth Street in an apartment that
they had converted illegally into an office. Um that I
grew up in sort of and uh, and Bernie got
sent out to California to open the California office. Bernie

(49:12):
had the Muppets, Bernie had Jim Henson, Dad had John Denver.
This that's how they got together. They were together before
they were together at the time that they both signed,
but then later on the Muppets got together. Dad and
Bernie ultimately decided to go separate ways. Bernie took Jim

(49:33):
Henson and the Muppets. Saturday Night Live started out as
a vehicle for the Muppets, So if you actually go
the original, it was really a vehicle for the Muppets. Wow,
that's an amazing story. So Bob s that you work
with Jerry every day. Any other lessons or any other

(49:54):
funny stories you can tell us about Jerry? U there aren't.
I mean, Jerry was just larger than life. I mean
it's there. It's uh, you know, when he wasn't going
to come into the office and the act was waiting
there for him, that was you know, where is Jerry?
But now Jerry was larger than life, and I don't
know there was there wasn't. He had a wicked sense

(50:18):
of humor, but he ran a business. How did your
tenure end? I had just reached a point where I
wanted to do some other things. And uh, what did
Jerry say when you left the family? It was not
a good party. It was not a good party. You

(50:39):
ever make up? It took us years. And in fact,
um we played golf the day before he passed away.
And I have a place in Santa Barbara and Jerry
was in Santa Barbara and we had played golf that saturday.

(51:00):
He was on the fourth of July weekend. And then
I'm driving and I hear on the radio that the
Jerry Weintrop had passed away in Palm Springs. I said, well,
that's that's impossible. I was just with him. He's here
in in uh in Montecito, and I called and I

(51:22):
got I think I got Susie on the phone, and
she was at the hospital so I was it. I mean,
there was. It was so sudden, it was so unexpected.
It's clear clear you're gonna add something here. I was
just going to tell a funny story about John Denver.

(51:44):
We did, uh I did? That was going to be
two shows in the same evening, one at seven thirty
and one at ten thirty something like that was the
Forum of Union Bill Yes, stage, Okay, So there's a
lot of cost have two shows. And I had just

(52:07):
hired a new assistant and he worked that day, and
by the time the first show was over, the poor
kid was exhausted. And so I said, look, you have
to work up to this. You have to be on
your feet twelve thirteen hours before you can do a

(52:30):
double show because in those days, circus run three performances
on a Saturday. Ah. So I let him go home
and I worked the second show and it was the
best show that John ever did. And he was always
sorry that I was so much older and he was tired,

(52:56):
and I still worked the second chow unbelievable. John. Your
long tenure with Jerry, Any lessons you learn from him? Um?
A couple of things. One was he always say never
assume anything. Remember that never assume anything. That was one
of the lines. And then Bob said at TCB. We

(53:19):
all grew up with TCB, which was take care of
take care of business. It was on started on the
Elvis tour Jackets. But if you go back all the
old concerts west to our Jackets, you'll always see a
little patch on there that said TCB and it just
want to take care of business. And it was you know,
it was it was a work ethic of of a sort.

(53:39):
We you know, you're doing a tour. You're not like
work in the local scams like Bob is talking about.
You're out there your partners with the artists. You're being transparent.
You know, there's no it's even better today because the
Internet didn't even allow you to be to steal anymore.
You can find anything steal. We never even we had.

(54:03):
You know, I'm glad we don't have to, like people
go look at our past because it's clean. Um. But
it's just been it's a way of doing it. It's
a it's a different way. And it was Jerry and
it was Tom and it was Terry Bassett and Bill
McKenzie or the guys who started that. When you go
out in the exhibit. You'll see the pm L there

(54:23):
for one of the shows. Okay, Bill McKenzie made that piano,
you know, paid by cash, paid by box office, paid
by home office, paid by infield check right, and all
the list. When I had after, you know, started meeting
other local promoters because we really didn't know him that well,
I started looking at the form and I go on,
that form looks familiar. Where did you get it? Every

(54:44):
promoter in the country was using Bill Mackenzie's form to
settle shows. Ron Delzer they just took the concert sweat
of heading off and put it there. But you know,
the first time we did wire transfers, that's how you know.
It was Bill McKenzie who came up with that whole
thing about we would sign a piece of paper and
and the building would wire the money the next morning.

(55:05):
That was this. It had never been done before, you know,
no computer ice ticketing. It was all Now, if you're
green at two hundred dollars a week and there only
two of you out there, is you the senior guy
training you or you'd have to make decisions by yourself
a little both. I mean the senior guy should be

(55:26):
training you. Did you feel pressure. I remember I worked
for these English guys. They said, you're you were paying you.
You have to handle it. Or would you ever freak
out and say I gotta call somewhere? There was no, no,
no you. I mean you could always you were a partnership.
If the partnership didn't work, then we'd break up the
partnership and find somebody else. And there were there were

(55:47):
times where we'd go, you know, so and so is
not working right on the beach. Send them over to
bad company, and we'll take on the beach and they
go to bad company. And so we got moved around.
We were just we were told where to go. I
got I would somebody walk in my office and go
to l A, go see j Hackerman. You go out
and the road at their Clapton like okay, And that's

(56:07):
how it would be. Okay. If you're out that much,
do you start to dislike the music? No, that's why
we do it. That's what we love. Okay, now, Bob.
There was a famous meeting on Long Island, UH to
try to break up Jerry's ruling roost. Can you tell

(56:29):
us about that? The all of the promoters thought that
they would divide up the country like the Mafia. So
Belkan would have Cleveland, and Delsner would have New York,
and Graham would have San Francisco and Reese Wolf re
Smeller would have l A and Jerry would be frozen

(56:51):
out of the business because these were their territories and
they had exclusive or thought they had exclusives with the buildings,
and uh, that was a battle that had to be fought.
But the acts are the power when you when when
you're when you're representing the Rolling Stones, you're going to
make the deal and they're gonna have and the building

(57:13):
is going to have to have you. So so you
didn't encounter any static doing this. Tremendous static and some
of it were you know there. Jerry always believe in
leaving something on the table for the other guy. So
as you go into these facilities, you you might pay
a local promoter, but you had the act and you're

(57:34):
doing a national promotion, so you're getting the best deal.
You give the other guy something, and it worked itself out,
and that's why several of the promoters who were at
that meeting in Long Island walked out of the room
and immediately got on the phone to California and called
Dad and said, hey, here you should know. Here's what
just happened. And Dad, so will you go back in

(57:55):
there and you you tell Graham and Barcelona and those
guys that to circle the whole country and put concerts west.
I mean, we had we we did get the law
changed in California. There there was a tremendous tension between
agents and managers in the music business because the lawn
California said that you had to have a talent and

(58:19):
licensed talent agent in order to book you. And the
famous cases of Jefferson airplane case where this manager had
booked somebody to get them a gig when an agent
wouldn't even give them the time of day, and years
later they went to the Labor Commission and rescinded the
contract and they had to disgorge everything that they had earned.

(58:45):
And so we point in time said Jerry, this this
is this isn't working. And we went up to the
state of California. We had a relationship with Governor Brown
and Willie Brown, and we got the law chan age
to have an exemption for the recorded business and if
you work with a licensed talent agent, you were exempt.

(59:07):
Let's go back because We covered this earlier, that you
did a national tour. You really didn't need the agent.
So how did you handle that? They didn't have agents? Yeah? John, Yeah,
I mean Elvis had the William Morris agency, which was
a long time relationship with Colonel Parker. Did you pay
them or Cornel paid him out of his end? Probably

(59:30):
paid him out of his end, because I don't remember
us paying them. But but um, John Denver didn't have
an agent, Frank didn't have an agent, and they why
do they? What do they need an agent for? To
book and a gig that they're going to be selling
out when they can get a deal. I totally agree,

(59:50):
and we've seen that today, So I'd love a deal today.
Yeah that doesn't exist. Yeah right, So Peter, what did
you learn from Jerry? The act always came first. You
always took care of the act to just keep him happy, comfortable,

(01:00:13):
and yet it came first. So what was that something
back there? So if the act wanted something unreasonable you
said no, no, no, no, no no, we would just
take care of the business actually wanted something in a
reasonable We walk around backstage and go, who the hell

(01:00:35):
is that guy? Think he is? Jerry? Wein Trump. No,
we didn't you No, we didn't do that. Well, you
were on the you were on the road all these years.
To what degree were these musicians bad actors? Bad actors?
You know? We hear all the stories of drugs, women
destroying hotel rooms. You had some of that. There was

(01:00:58):
always some of that. You know. I was lucky. I've
been very lucky. I didn't want to ever want to
work with those people, so I didn't heard about it.
Jerry Jerry let Rick James stayed at his house and
in order to get clean. Did he get clean? No?

(01:01:21):
I did have dinner at the Edgewater three nights ago.
I'm serious, Okay, So Tony Ronnie went down to check
all the famous mud shark story can tell the dark
story nineteen? Is there such a thing as a nud shark?

(01:01:44):
From my window at the what does a bud shark
look like? It's like, oh, it's pretty big. I was
there on one night. We were a couple of times
I've done it was right Thomas the movie Blues, and
we were both fishermen and we would go down rent
the polls and all this stuff and just shit, they
were not pulling out. And you get it from the

(01:02:05):
hotel room, tell him what it is, and then then
then put them in the bath and then you'd leave them.
People would fill up they you know, not the not
the LEDs up on the story, but everybody feels out
of the window. You fill up the bathtub and then
you catch my sharks and you throw them in the bathtub.
And sometimes you'd like to leaving in the hotel. Now,

(01:02:28):
didn't bad company and some of these other acts come
with agents, whether it be Frank Barcelona or other people.
That was they had agents earlier on in their career
and when they got big, they left Frank, they left Frank. Yeah,
that was the same with the Big That was a
big fight when Barton, when led Zeppelin got rid of

(01:02:49):
Premier and Frank and concert just did all. Well, yeah,
all their tours were they started opening up for the
Vanilla Fudge. That's where their first tour was. Okay, so clear.
I've literally sat in the box office with representatives from
promoters and they've shown me the two sets of books. Now,

(01:03:10):
as the business developed with how did the promoter make money?
You mean the local guy, he had to get it
cut it off of somebody else, the local guy because
he was superseded. Okay, so there are any other stories

(01:03:31):
or characteristics of Jerry we haven't covered. Well, there's a
great story with when Elvis is on tour and he dies.
We've got all of the all of this money in
the box office and Elvis is not going to Elvis
has left the building. So I said, you know, what

(01:03:51):
are we gonna do? So we just said, okay, of
course everybody can have their money back, but make sure
that you get the two. In fact, there's some of
the tickets that are in the exhibit up here, fifteen
dollars apiece. People didn't get their tickets back because they
wanted the final There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands

(01:04:13):
of dollars money in the box office. Problem was many
of the buildings that we were playing were municipal buildings,
and the state took a position that that money is
sheeted to the state. Oh that's a bummer, so we
but but we said, no, the ticket has value, so

(01:04:34):
it's our money. And then we worked out a deal
between splitting it well so you got the money, yeah,
splitting it with with Jerry Elvis, and hey, you know
what's an interesting point of that. You know how people
refunded their tickets on that is, they wrote their name
and their address on the back of the ticket and
mailed it back to the box office and then they

(01:04:56):
got a check. Years later, you could go contact act
all those people, right, and you want to get your
ELPs ticket back and how much they were fifteen tickets.
But I'm just saying that that's people mailed in their
ticket with their name and their address written on the
back of the ticket, and then they got a check back.

(01:05:17):
Speaking of tickets, one thing we know is concert tickets
today are expensive. Never mind the fees, etcetera. But I
remember when they went from three four and five to
three fifty four fifty and five fifty. How did you
decide and you couldn't get a ticket that was the
everything sold out and it was so how did you
decide on the prices? Many acts wanted to keep their

(01:05:38):
prices as low as possible. Frank wanted to keep prices
as low as possible. And I want to talk about
the grateful dead six fifty for a ticket. Um, the
escalation just became part of the business and the expense
of a tour. I don't acts generally want their fans
to be able to see a concert. They don't want

(01:05:59):
to see a gouge. How about the famous uh policy
of act scalping their own tickets? Did we see that
at the Concerence West. We had tremendous control on tickets
so that that would not take place, and scalping we
looked at as really one of the seven deadly sins,
So we tried tried very hard to make sure the

(01:06:20):
tickets were very controlled. Acts at that time did not
scalp their own tickets. Okay, clear a seems you want
to say something. We talked about refunding money for tickets. Well,
when I was set the spectrum, we lost the roof
during an ice paid time and that was one thing

(01:06:43):
that Jerry didn't produce. So it was during that day
performance and the orchestras started to play off we go
in the wild Blue Ye. Now we had the ice
capades booked for another whole week, so we had a

(01:07:08):
lot of money in the box office, and that was
when we decided you would take the ticket back to
where you purchased it. So if it was Macy's that's
sold it, or Bloomingdale's, you took it back there. If
you brought it from the box office. You took it

(01:07:29):
back there, and as you stated, we never refunded all
of them, but we became known as the place to
go to to find out how do you refund a
really large amount of money, which was something we really
didn't want the reputation for. Okay, I think that we've

(01:07:54):
really done a great job of illuminating how powerful, larger
than life Jerry was. I think everybody here on the
piano told all these great stories. Thanks for coming, h