Chuck Morris

Chuck Morris is a Denver legend who started in the club business and then went on to work for Barry Fey, Live Nation and AEG Presents. He also managed the Dirt Band and Big Head Todd & the Monsters. In addition to his emeritus status at AEG, Chuck is the Chairman of the newly-created Music Business Department at Colorado State University. Chuck is a fount of energy and wisdom, here he opines about today's concert landscape, his history and the details of the new CSU program.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is What a Ry concert promoter Chuck Morris.
This week is titled as Chairman Emarritus of the Age
presents in both Denver and the Pacific Northwest, and he's
head of the new music business program at Colorado State University. Chuck,

(00:29):
good to have you. Now, this is great, Bob, thank
you so much for inviting me. Okay, let's just start
with general topics. Live shows, when are they coming back? Um, Hey,
you know as well as I, we need a vaccine.
You know, we we figured out our beautiful new uh
Mission ballroom which seats walt all standing thirty fifty. If

(00:52):
we're socially distant, we may be able to sell seven
under tickets and the band can't make a penny. We're
not in business. It's gonna need a vaccine. If I
had a guess, and it's strictly a guess, my guest
is a vaccine will go We'll start being given out.
And this is such a guess. You never know. I
think by next April to June of next year will

(01:14):
begin to have shows. That's my guests. Okay, just a
couple of questions. If we don't have a vaccine, no shows.
I don't see how big acts, even midsize acts can
play in our kind of halls. I mean, you know,
we have the Bluebird five hundred, the Odds in seventeen hundred,
the Gothic a thousand. We have big shows at the

(01:37):
stadiums of PEPSI, we have the our mission ballroom is
thirty d We have the first bank, which is you
can't put enough people in for the band to make
a penny. I think the tiny acts will play the
tiny rooms for fifty people and probably be happy. I mean,
if I was a baby act and who just wanted
to play, it's in my advantage to do that. But

(01:59):
the big acts, I don't see how they can do it.
I just don't see it. I mean, do you, Uh No,
I don't either. But going back before March, before the shutdown,
how would you compare the business as opposed to the
seventies when you really got ranking and going. Our business
today up till this tragedy has been mind blowing. When

(02:23):
I first started, my first club was Tlagi's Nightclub and
Boulder UM. I never dreamed that I would outlive all
my rich friends who are working for record companies and
morning guys in radio and entertainment editors of newspapers, and
we outlived them all. You know, the Internet, all the

(02:46):
other stuff that's going on. Uh, you can replace anything
except live music. And I was always you know, I
owned clubs for first eight years, and then I started
working with Faye as his number two guy, and built
my own cup and you with Greg Pearl of b
g P Chuck Morris and went on blah blah blah,
the Sects, the clear Channel to live Nation, and then

(03:07):
I joined my old friend Phil and Sews. I never
dreamed that live entertainment would get so big and a
big chunk of the rest of the business would be
replaced by other things and making it less well, make
making it less important. I mean I was always uh
jealous of my friend, not jealous. I never cared about

(03:28):
money anyway. But you know, my rich friends worked for
record companies. They were morning guys, they were newspaper editors
of music editors. They were writing for Rolling Stone and
making good money on articles. They were doing all this stuff.
While the libins we we did well, don't get me wrong,
but I never dreamed it would be do this well,

(03:49):
I mean our office and God bless my great partners.
One of them happens to like you, which I worry
about Don Strassburg and Brent for Trees, who will be
taking over my position as the number one person. I've
been with them twenty seven years. Um, I have a
dream to it get this big. You know it used
to be in the old days. I think you'll agree
with this. People would go on the road to sell

(04:14):
albums because that's where they made all their money. Today,
you make an album as a pr thing so you
can sell more tickets on the road. That's where they
make all their money. Okay, so I agree with you totally.
In terms of being the promoter. How has it changed
in terms of deals from then to today? The bands? Uh? Well,

(04:39):
first of all, I hate old promoters that liked the
old days and either leave the business or complain about it.
To me, it's a much better business. I don't mind
the fact that there's more lawyers and accountants and people
that protect the bands, the customers, even the promoters and everybody.

(05:00):
I'm not one of those old guys that said, oh
I wish there's the old way where we could you know,
write and an offer on a piece of paper and
bullshit away with expenses. You know, every agency has their
own marketing people, their own accountants, their own everything. Tour
managers are as sharpest that can get. And I think
it's a better business for that. And I've learned how

(05:21):
to change. That's why I've survived this long up until now.
And now I'm I'm doing something that I've wanted for
most of my life, which is as I as I
ended my career, uh started department at a major university
in Colorado and teach music business, which has been my
love my whole life. Well, we'll certainly get deeper into that,

(05:41):
but going with this statement just made how have you
changed over the years in terms of business. Um, I've
learned how to deal with lawyers, and I've learned how
to deal with accountants, and I've learned how to have
people now, you know, make deals and go through them
and number by number. I've learned that you have to
be straight in today's world. I mean in the old days,

(06:06):
let's be real, in the seventies, even into the eighties,
we were all partying, we were all having it was
a great business. I had more fun than you can believe,
but I mean I got sober. I've been sober ever
since because my body was breaking down and I couldn't
stay until four o'clock in the morning and get up
and go to work, and it was breaking down, and

(06:26):
I had I realized that business is getting so big
and how you had to be straight to deal with
what was going on was how it was changing, and
I think all for the better, I really really do. Okay, So, uh,
let's talk about an act that can sell arenas or larger.
Traditionally they're taking about nine So if you're lucky, if

(06:51):
you're okay. So where does the promoter make their money today?
Promoter makes his money if he owns a building. You
make it on food and beverage, an alcohol, and some
on ticketing if you have your own ticketing company, or
you make a deal with the ticketing company on on
corporate sponsorship. As far as the door is concerned, the

(07:12):
bands make some points percent percent of the growth of
the door. You have to make it an answering income
or you're not in business anymore. In the old days,
I remember the first deals I made. One of the
first acts, Big Acts, one of the first acts that
played for me was the Doobie Brothers in seventy one
on my first club nineteen seventy actually listen to the music,

(07:35):
was just breaking their first fifth single. I gave them
twenty dollars versus fifty percent of the door for five nights.
We didn't show any expenses because it didn't matter. They
got half the door, so I could spend all I
wanted or nothing. And we always sold great tickets in
Bold of Colorado. My club's always just so well. So
they didn't care, and so there was never any settlements.

(07:58):
They made half the door. Yeah, they count of the tickets,
took half the money and left and everybody was happy.
It was just a different ballgame. The bands, the promoters
made a chunk of the door in the old days.
Today's days have changed now. Don't know if you get
Irving was the first that I love. Irving one of
my oldest dearest friends. I did this second Eagles Day

(08:20):
when they played for me in my club too, Lodgy's,
in November of n rehearsing. They played a week in
Aspen and a week for me in Boulder to rehearse
to make their first album, and Irving had just joined
Elliot Robinson, David Geffen, I don't even know if he
was doing the day to day for the Eagles. And
they called and they said they wanted two weeks to rehearse,

(08:42):
so they were gonna go in in January to make
their first album. And their producer, guy named Glenn John's,
was flying in from England and wanted to take notes.
And it was it was the last week in November
after Thanksgiving, college town college kids with three too bar
so you could be eighteen. And I said, no one's
gonna come. There's finals and then they leave, and I

(09:04):
think I was talking to may rest in peace. It
was Elliot Robins or David Geffen, I can't remember. I
said nobody's gonna be there, and said, we don't care.
We're gonna work a week and ask them that little
club up there which is still around a different name,
the Goldberghnes and My Club, and it was the four
original guys um and we did about twelve people a

(09:24):
night and they were amazing. But I I watched history
because I saw Glenn John's taking notes. But they were
playing all the songs from their first album. They had
never done any live days before that. I was they
had they who put together by those guys. Uh, let's
just stop there. Uh So if they played for five nights,

(09:45):
business did not increase over those five nights. Uh it
was a blizzard most of the time and finals were over. No,
they didn't, but they didn't care. They wanted to rehearse
the songs and they were playing peaceful, easy feeling and
take it Easy and all those great songs they recorded
a month and a half later in London with Glenn
John's Wow. So I watched history that week. Okay, let's

(10:10):
talk about dates that you buy where you're losing money.
What happens then, both in the past and in today. Um.
Most promoters today have given up asking for money back.
In fact, I really never did a because I was
always embarrassed to do it. Even though I was a

(10:32):
club owner, I was self made, I didn't I wasn't
Baptist before I joined fe Line and Barry UM. But
I always felt, you know, you win some, you lose some,
and we got killed on some dates and it was
not much she could do. I will tell you the
greatest story ever. Though I had a great comic named

(10:52):
Dick Gregory at Ebbottsfield, my second club. I named it
because I grew up in Brooklyn, ten blocks from the
baseball park of the Brooklyn Just I was a big
brookn Dodging fan at nine years old, and I had
Dick Gregory as a stand up. He had already started
moving away from being a stand up. It was probably
nineteen seventy seventy one, maybe two at Ebbittsfield and tore

(11:16):
about eighty people, and I gave him twenty dollars, which
was a lot in those days. And this happened to
be the only time in my career he and he
didn't have a road manager. In those days aren't usually
turned on their own. And he walked in, the nicest guy,
just and he was already writing books on losing weight
and liquid diets and was moving away from being a

(11:38):
stand up, so he wasn't seting tickets much as a
stand up anymore. And he looked at me and said,
he got killed to night, didn't you. I said, yeah,
I got killed. He said, I'm gonna tell you something.
You pay me whatever you think is fair. And I
wrote out a chapter half the money never happened since

(11:59):
only time in my career that an artist ever did that.
That was Dick Gregory. I will never forget that as
long as I live. It was the sweetest, kindest, wonderful thing.
And I needed the money because we were getting murdered
and that never happened again. Okay, so when we you
know what the conventional wisdom today is no one gives

(12:20):
money back to Live Nation because it's a public company. Uh.
Were you the outlier or were really other? You know?
The tradition was I give money back to the promoter
to keep him in business, so the next time around
he has money to pay me. Was it that you
were so good and your economics were good, or was

(12:41):
it there were other people getting money back? What do
you think that I shouldn't say not getting back to
just that there have been some and there still are
some if you get killed. There's some artists that are
pretty a few that are very nice about it. Um.
But to be honest, most of the time they blame
the promoter or the club owner that we didn't know

(13:03):
how to sell tickets. When it's sold out, it's because
the act is hot. And when it doesn't it doesn't
sell tickets is because we do a lousy job. And
that's not everybody. God bless them. There's some of the
greatest artists in the world that I consider some of
my best friends. You know, I managed the Dirt Band
for years. They always gave money back if they if
they heard a promoter. But of course they wanted to

(13:23):
come back, and some of them were country festivals that
they wanted to come back and play too. I mean,
there was some some reason for it, but they were
really nice guys who didn't like to see people get burned.
So there are people like that, but it's not not
a general thing that happens. You know, a band comes
out today with you know, even midsize acts with you know,

(13:45):
four semis and a fourteen man crew, and they have
a lot of expenses. I sound like a band manage now,
which I've been my whole career, as well as promoter.
But you know, it's hard for them to give back
some money. Okay, let's say you're the promoter and you
lost money and the band wants to come back. What
do you say, Um, have I asked them for money

(14:10):
back when I got killed the first time? No? No, No,
let's just say you did the date you lost a
real sum of money as opposed to ten dollars. Suddenly
it's six months a year later, they want to come
back on the road. They ask you for an offer.
What do you say? You say, you give him a
lobo offer. You give them what they want. You say,
I'm not gonna play you at all. All of the above,

(14:31):
none of the above. I've lost money on bands knowing
I would. When I heard a first album from an
act that I thought was phenomenal and I knew that
hadn't the record hadn't really started taking off. I would
lose money out of band, a few bucks because I
believe in the band. People forget what Bruce Springsteen what
was his third album? Fourth album before he happened? Ari

(14:56):
Ari Speedwagon had like three or four before you know did?
They're big hit A million acts were like that, and
I would. I would lose money a few bucks on
bands if I believe it'd be a future. Okay. But
in the old days, prior to the roll up of
the bands were loyal. They're not really loyal anymore, are they.

(15:17):
Some are, some aren't. It's definitely there's a lot less.
There's less loyalty these days, and there used to be.
Um we have we have people that have played for
us their whole careers. God bless them. And we have
bands that do tours with other unnamed um major promoting

(15:38):
companies that have that have given us an exception on
their contracts. And we've done the dates in Denver thanks
to myself, thanks to Don and Brent, who are the
greatest partners in the world, who have their own relationships
plus mine. They have great ones where a band sometimes
will say, I'll do a tour for a Bold Bucks,
but we we've always worked for the gang in Denver.

(16:00):
We want to play for them. And once in a
while a band will you know, or a promoter will
allow that band to make an exception. Sometimes they won't
and they played for somebody else. It does happen. It hurts,
but it does happen. Okay, So why is Denver such
a spectacular live music market we have. That's a good question.

(16:23):
There have been some great people. I guess I'm one
of them. My two key guys have been one of them.
We have the greatest first of all, we have the
greatest amphonthater in the world, Rent Rocks, which has been
around forever. We also have a great audience that we've
all helped develop we have some great institutions there. I'm
not the only one that has been a pretty good promoter,

(16:45):
bringing in great acts with great buildings. And we have
a town, an unbelievable public pbst you know about Nick
and and Ea town there on what three hundred radio
stations around the country from Boulder, Colorado, which is promoted
some great music from Colorado. We have tell you Ride
Bluegrass when the greatest festivals in the world Colorado Festival.

(17:08):
You know, thanks to those guys. It's it's a it's
a wonderful place. We've developed a great market for shows,
for buildings, for special events, and we've had a lot
of good people. I've by this. I'll talk to Don
and he'll tell me the kind of business he's doing
with acts that can't tell anywhere near that number in

(17:30):
another market. I'll tell you a funny story when I
decided to go back and promote. When Barry Faye decided
to retire, and I was just managing bands and working
in as a consultant at FE Line, and when Barry
decided to retire, I was always a number to promoter
for years behind Barry. I decided to come back and
I made a deal with my great friend Greg pearl Off,

(17:51):
and we started Chuck Marris Bill Graham Presents and built
the film more because they had the brand name. I
always wanted to build a great rock club because I
had built my own before that. And uh, Greg and Sherry,
who you know, I'm sure very very well. Greg would
call me and say, there's a mistake here. I said,
what are you talking about? Pro Off? He said, he

(18:14):
got tickets from Michael front day. You're full of it.
He does great in San Francisco, and he and and
maybe maybe a few other places and Michael. I love Michael,
and he sells a lot of tickets now. But there
were acts like that that Greig thought I was lying
with my ticket counts. But we have an interesting market.
First of all, we've had KBCO Radio for forty years

(18:35):
that has played not as much alternative music as they
do as they used to, but always took chances on
records and bands. We just have a great, great market
that we've all worked hard at and developed. You know,
Austin gets a lot of press, and I love Austin.
I managed a great band years ago called the Ugly
Americans of Bob Schneider loved off still love lost the music.

(18:57):
They get a lot of pressed, but I tell the
Colorado music scene is really amazing. I don't think we've
gotten as much national and international presses. We probably should
have because we've we've developed we meaning all of us.
I'm only one of them, and I've been blessed that
I have two guys that are taken over. They're probably
better than me. You know, We've just wet some great

(19:20):
promoters in great club owners, great buildings, great radio stations,
great special events. It's just been a wonderful place to
develop music. And I've been blessed that I was part
of it right from the beginning. So let's assume, you know,
if they're playing the Pepsi Center, which is a small arena,
they're playing red rock. The acts are dictating the terms.

(19:41):
But if they're playing the Mission ball over, they're playing smaller.
Can the promoter make a greater percentage of the revenue.
That's why it's not true. They explain it to me.
They get almost as much money as they can. That's
the job of the Asians, and they take almost everything
from the door and hope you can make it on

(20:03):
the other end. That's just the way our our business
has gotten and that's and that's not the worst thing
in the world. We still do okay, okay, okay, but
I put five kids through college, so I did. Okay. Okay.
Now we all know on the inside, the ticketmaster is
a front for the acts. Really, the acts are taking
all the ticket revenue, so the money for profit for

(20:26):
the promoter. Okay, give me your take on it. Ticket
Master takes money of the money. Yeah, they have to
make a profit. What I'm saying is, let me put
it in in a different way. The fees were a way
to keep a certain amount of money out of the
gross that the acts wanted to commission. Correct yes and no. Yes,

(20:51):
it's true. But the only way promoters could survive was
as things got moving along from the seventies and the
eighties and into the nineties, the bands were taking more
and more and more of the money, and promoters, if
they wanted to survive, how to figure out other ways
to make money. Some of it was ticketing, some of

(21:11):
it was sponsorship, some of it, some of it was advertising,
some in the in the in the arenas. Some it
was all sorts of stuff. Answering income is the only
way promoters have been able to survive, and that's where
you make your money. In the old days, I made
money at the door. We okay, but let's let's talk

(21:32):
about club dates. You know, when you have a hundred
dollar plus ticketed a large venue, the uh the fee
is less of a percentage of the overall cost. But
I get email all the time people say, well, you
know the ticket was twenty five dollars and the fees
were twenty dollars. What do you say to that? First

(21:53):
of all, I've never seen that higher higher amount. Well,
I certainly have, but maybe not in your more money
for not our market. You're telling me a twenty ticket
against a twenty dollar fee. Yes, just just just for
the ticketing. Now, there's also some buildings that are owned
by somebody else will have a building fee to pay
back to build a building. That might be an addit

(22:16):
add on, okay, well, ultimately in fees. Let me put
it in a different way. How come we can't go
into an overall one price because expenses have gone up
for everybody, and everybody is in some ways greedy to
be able to survive, to make as much money as possible,
and that's why they have managers and agents and lawyers

(22:38):
and accountants. Okay, let's just let's just assume the fee
is fifteen dollars if you own the building and you
are the promoter, or what percentage of the fee will
you get back? It all varies. It all varies on
the city, on the deal you make with a ticketing company,
on which ticketing company. Um. It all depends. And there's

(23:00):
promoters that don't don't charge, don't take a lot of it.
There's some promoters that keep there, and there's some bands
that keep their ticketing down. You know, God bless Dave Matthews.
He's up there, but he still keeps a reasonable ticket
and you know, we've been working with him from the
very very very beginning. And uh, speaking of the beginning,

(23:21):
let's go back to you. You're from Brooklyn. What kind
of circumstances did you grow up in. My father was
a public school teacher. I grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
or rather a lower middle class area. I was a
Brooklyn Dodger fan. Um, I love the Dodgers. Grew up
about fourteen blocks from Evants Field. My second club by

(23:42):
named David's Field, which, by the way, I couldn't do today.
I'd be sued by the Los Angeles Dodgers and it
was Billboard Club of the Year, and I used the
same logo in nineteen seventy two. I would have been
enjoyed from doing that. But knowing cared in those days. Okay,
let's stuh okay, how many kids in the family? Have
five kids? I was actually, believe it or not a

(24:03):
very good student. But where were you in the hierarchy
of the five kids? Uh? No, no, I have five kids?
No no, no, no no. Then the media asked question,
in the family that you grew up in, how many
kids were there too? Just my brother and I. He's
a dentist. And who was the oldest? He was four
years four years older. Usually the oldest. All the hopes

(24:32):
and dreams are in the oldest, and they sort of
coddle the younger. What was it like in your family? Well,
I was a really excellent student. I graduated from Forests
High School when I was sixteen because they had something,
you know, called the sp where you can skip the
eighth grade and do seven, eight and nine and two years.
And I started kindergarten when I was four because I

(24:52):
passed some i Q tests and started so I graduated
high school at sixteen, went to Queen's College. Actually, Paul
Simon an Arty garfen Call went to Horses I school
in Queen's College with me, although they were four years
ahead of me any time, and graduated with me. And
I was real good friends with in high school and college.
But anyway, came out to Boulder, and I don't even
know what Colorado was because we didn't have any money,

(25:14):
but they gave me a scholarship to go for a
PhD and political science. I love government. That's probably what
I've done fifty benefits for a whole bunch of politicians,
especially my boy John Hickenlooper will be arranging a new
one for a Senate campaign. But I go back with
Gary Hart and Pat Schroeder and all the liberal Democratic
politicians that I've done. I love politics. Was on my

(25:36):
way to a doctor at twenty two and a half,
but I I spent my youth buying albums and going
to concerts. My father is a school teacher. During the summer,
he would be a camp counselor at Lake Should talk
with New York, which is the greatest place. It's a
summer resort and they have an Amphitheater there and they
have music and symphony and all sorts of stuff. I

(25:59):
went there. We sigment with my dad's as as a
camp counselor, and I started. I saw the Kingston Trio
when I was eleven years old, and I saw God.
I went to see again. I stuck in the front row,
sat on the floor, and I fell in love with
folk music. Absolutely fell in love with folk music. I
bought every album of all the old folk eas In fact,

(26:23):
can you see that? Yes I can, It says born
to Folk. I finally my kid, who has tattoos, convinced me.
I said, I always wanted this, but I never had
the nerve out of way till my Jewish mother died.
But I finally got that. But I fell in love
with folk music. I saw the Kingston Trio, brought up

(26:43):
Tenor Martin for string guitar like Nick Reynolds of the band,
played in a couple of folk bands. Was not very good,
but I lived for music. I also, when we got
my father became an assistant principal. We made a few
extra books. So we moved to the poorer part of
our hills and I went to the far Stills west
Side Terence Club where they had shows even in those days,

(27:04):
and saw Bob Dylan and a whole bunch of other acts,
and just lived for music Board every album when it
came out, just but I didn't know how to get
into music becauseiness, I didn't know anybody. I knew Eddie
Simon and the Simon family, but that was it. And
after two years of doing well in graduate school at
a very young age, so wait, wait, after those two years,

(27:25):
what year are we in chronologically? Nineteen sixty? He was
so two years of graduate school, I was gonna quit
graduate school and try to make it in the entertainment
business because that's what I really loved. And my parents
almost they disowned me. They thought I was having a
nervous breakdown. My father was a brilliant guy, a school teacher,

(27:47):
you know, five et, a captain and Greek and Latin,
but it was a school teacher and they didn't understand
I quit graduate school. I was a great student and
I wanted to be in music, which my parents did
not understand. And just just before we go, you were
studying what instant at university policide constantly, I was getting
a doctorate in constitutional You are and I was a

(28:09):
twenty year old t a at c U. Okay, I'm
about twelve years old. Okay, And what was the dream
once you did get the pH d. I didn't have
a dream. I like politics, and I guess I didn't
have end up either being a lobbyist like my daughter
has become, or teach teacher. Okay, SI in college. Okay,

(28:30):
so you say I'm leaving to I'm leaving school. I
want to be in the entertainment business. And what is
the next move? The next move is I got friendly
with a guy named Herbie Cavar. Herbie Cavar owned the
most popular bar on the hill in Bold called the Sink.
The Sink was deep place to get a beer and
listen to a jukebox and have fun. It's still around.

(28:53):
It's been around and Bolded for forty years anyway, fifty
years maybe more. And one day I told him I
dropped out and I wanted to do something with people.
I used to have a beer with him every night
when I left New Orleans Library after I studied, and
I told him I had quit and I wanted to
do something with people, maybe music, although they didn't have

(29:14):
live music at the time of the sink, and he said,
you know, my manager of the sink just quit. People
love you. You're really smart. Why don't you manage to sink?
Which was the number one three too bar in the state.
It took a half hour to get in there on
a Friday afternoon and there was no cover charge, just
to show an I d that's how busy it was,
and I decided to take to try it. In fact,

(29:37):
I said I never took a business class. I didn't
know anything about He said, no, you'd be great. I
started managing the sink in night and started booking local
bands in the back room. Some of them became famous.
One of them was this wonderful kid guitar player named
Tommy Bolan, who was one of the greatest that ever lived.
Ran away from Sioux City, Iowa, started playing little clubs

(29:58):
and Boulder became best friends with him. He played the
upstairs of the sink for me. Another one with a
bunch of dropouts from SEU named Flash Cadillac and the
Continental Kids, who they played in the back room for
me for a keg of beer. Second show they ever did.
They ended up being a regular on Happy Days and
then with the movie American Graffiti. They're still touring, by
the way since then, and I started booking local bands,

(30:22):
some of them became well known in the In the
upstairs of the sink, I also did something I knew
I was a good promoter when I did something really nuts.
The Sink jut box was the only music at that
point before I started booking, putting local bands in the
back room for free, and it was a successful jukebox.
And I came up with this crazy idea that I

(30:44):
was gonna make forty five's out of album cuts in
that jute box. Companies didn't give to the ju box.
To the juke boxes, there was always the top forty hits.
So I did a forty five of like the long
range of hit. I did it stuff from you know,
movies that people love, but they never were singles. And
it became the biggest two box in history of the

(31:06):
state if people would go in there to play those
songs that they couldn't get in any other juke box anywhere.
And I did stuff like that, and I knew I
had a natural inclintion to promote music. And after about
two and a half years, I convinced herby that we
ought to take a bankrupt club called to Logs, which
was up the street right next to Don's Fox. By
the way, it's still there, although it's now a lot

(31:27):
of other stores. The signs still up because it's histark
and just stopping for one second when you started to
manage the sink, that is, when you dropped out of
school or were still going to school. But I know
I dropped out of school. Okay, so you you you find,
you find two loggies. I convinced herby because I still
have no money. Because I, to be honest, I party

(31:49):
too much. I love cars, women and having fun. I
did very well. But those were the seventies and sixties,
like sixties and Boulder, Colorado, for God's sakes, I mean
you know. Um. In fact, I'll tell you quick story.
Tommy Bowling became one of my best friends, became one
of the greatest guitarist. Was in Deep Purple. James Gang

(32:09):
um odd and died too young. I had which comedian
that I had, Oh god, what's his name? He died
a while ago. But I walked. I walked in and
Tommy wanted to meet him, and we walked into the
dressing When I was doing the show, and um, he
looked at me and and said, I got a feeling

(32:30):
I really want to get some pot. And I got
the feeling that the guy with hair down his back,
with pink hair in bold of Colorado knows how me
to get score some pot. Which he was right. Of course, Tommy,
you know how to get pot. But it was Bob
what's his name? Great comedian, but it was a funny line.
That's another story. So so I I convinced her me

(32:53):
to put the money up. I owned a small piece.
I did the whole thing book Did you do? You
do you remember how much money he had to put up?
It wasn't that much. It was a rental deal. We
never owned the building. We remodeled it. We opened up
with the hottest band ever in Colorado that never made
it nationally, Tommy Boland's band, Zephyr. And in a period
of three years in blues, I had John Lee Hook

(33:16):
of Money Waters, Lightning Hopkins, Man Slips, Big Mama, Thornton, Uh,
Johnny Ootis, Shug be Yotis everybody um In In Folk,
I had the Dirt band who later moved there, Leo Cocky,
who I managed for years. Um Tom rushed, Tim Harden,
Tom Tom Paxton, everybody in rock. I had body races.

(33:36):
First tour. I had the first tour of zz Top,
which was amazing. I mean, all those bands played for me.
It became one of the most successful clubs in America. Okay,
what was the capacity of Too Loggy's five hundred? And
if you once you were going, if you didn't have
the deep pocket of the guy who owned the sink,
could you have made it? I couldn't have opened the

(33:58):
club and I couldn't have whatce it was open? Was
it always in the black or was it up always
in the black? Did very well, but I only had
a small piece and I did everything. He never came in.
I mean, he gave me my break. I'll never say
a bad thing. He's still alive in his nineties and
gave me the biggest break of my career to manage
to think and then putting up the money for a
club that became my really entree into making it as

(34:20):
a as a promoter. But he was wonderful, But but
I felt like, um, I wanted to have more say,
and I wanted to do bigger concerts. And every time
I book a band, I book the first tour of
Dan Hickson, Hot Licks who were huge, and Boulder, I
mean really obscure bands that were doing just great there.

(34:41):
Uh cold Blood remember them, she was killer there. I
had all those bands anyway. Um, when the band's got bigger,
they played for Faye because he was the big promoter
Faye Line and I wanted to do bigger shows. J J.
Cale was huge and Boulder was the first guy to
bring a man not you ever met him or see

(35:02):
him play. He's the greatest. He was the greatest anyway.
But when they when they got bigger, they played for
Fae because he was a big promoter. And I said,
if I wanted to get big, I might have to
go into business with him. I never met him. We
fought over the phone and he always won. I tried
to do a bigger concerts and he got them, and
I realized then, at least in those days, that's the
way the business was, at least for me. There are

(35:24):
some people that have stayed independent. God bless him. Our
boys in Washington, he see him been like that, and
I have a total respect for them. But for me,
if I wanted to be bigger, I'd have to probably
have to get into business with Barry, who I never met,
and he was three hunder than five pounds, and we
screamed on the phone for about two years and he
always won. So one day I decided I was going

(35:46):
to take it, take a chance, and you're still running
two loggies as a kind of partner doing all the
work herby okay. So two and a half years later
I called Barry. I I thought he would hang up
on me because we fought on the phone. He would
ask the phone, what the fund do you want? That's
how Barry said a low if you knew anything about

(36:08):
I love Barry, but he was a lot different than
most people I've ever known in my life. I loved
him and a lot of ways, best man and two
of my weddings, but we were different a lot of ways.
So I called him and he said, what the fund
do you want? I said, you know, I'm this young
kid that built this big club. I'm finding acts. Linda
Ronstad did a first tour there that he left the

(36:29):
Stone Ponies. I had all these parents, I said, and
then when they get big, they played for you at
fey Line. I want to maybe build a club with
you as a partner. Equal partner in Denver. There was
no rock club then, and then I want to go
on and do bigger shows with you, and he said,
what are you doing tomorrow night? I still remember the show.
I had stone ground to remember that band. Of course,

(36:49):
I'm Warner Brothers from San Francisco. Who's the lead singer?
The same guy for the bull Rumbles? Who? Who? God?
If you had an ass not Sal Valentino, Yes, yes,
oh I love you, You're great. This is the great
And the opening act was Man Slipscomb, the old Delta

(37:09):
blues musician who was about eighty five years old. In
those days, you can put anybody on the on on shows.
So I put together the stupidest shows and the bolder.
It always worked. I wanted to show with who is
the hippie band from from from San Francisco one of
the first ones, and I put my dear friend Mimi
Farina in the open. She was opening for the Sons

(37:32):
of Champlin, Bill Champlin's first Yeah Nea was his R
and B hippie band. And I loved Mimi. She had
played John Pey as his kid sister. Well, I loved
love to death. I put her on there. It would work.
Nowhere else in the world except Balda, Colorado, and people
loved it. Anyway, you could put any acts you want.
In those days, you didn't have agents. Manager saying we're

(37:54):
putting one of the bands that we worked with on
the shows and anyway. So Barry said, I'll come up
and talk to you, and I had some ground and
man slips. He walked in my office and said, you're
the best club kid I've ever seen. Go find a club.
I'll put up all the money, will be partners, and
if it works out well, we'll start doing concerts together.

(38:15):
And that's all I wanted to hear. I left too
Loggy's about six four weeks later, started looking for clubs
and found an old mr room called Marvelous Marks. Who whoa, whoa, whoa?
What did the owner of the sinks say when you
said you were moving on? He was devastated, but we
had our differences. He was God bless Herbie. I love him.

(38:37):
He gave me such a break, but he still didn't
understand the culture of our business. He'd freaked out if
he walked in and a musician with smoking cotton addressing
room freak out right in front of me. I'll never
forget the biggest thing. I've game best friends with the
dirt band who moved to Colorado. I later managed them
and still my best friends for twenty five years. And
they were rehearsing at Too Loggy's before they started a

(38:59):
tour because I lived in Colorado, leaving Denver Boulder and Annassment,
and they rehearsed for four days during the day and
Herby came in. I was this is the first band
I became best friends with. And he came in and
we had pillows on the floor. People would sit on pillows,
hundreds of people and then seats around the outside. And

(39:21):
he started screaming at because the pillows were dirty and
show that night and I said to myself, I can't
do this anymore. And that's what I called faye. Okay,
So you start looking for a club, what do you find.
I find a place called Marvelous Marvs that was an
M O R room that would have like pop AX,
m r X, Las Vegas AX, and they weren't doing well,

(39:41):
and I convinced they to write out the whole check.
We became fifty fifty partners. I named it Everittsfield, the
place that I lived for you own, you rented, or
you actually owned the building. We rented the building, we
rented the room. We remember how much Faye had to
put in to get started. It was. It was a
dumpy place, I would say, I mean those days, it

(40:04):
was a lot of money. Probably that was a lot
of money. Okay. So how long does it take you
after you find it to actually open um? It was
only about six weeks of construction. It was really just
cleaning it up. We had bleachers. People sat in bleachers
that had carpeting on it, and it became a very

(40:26):
very It was as I said, it was Billboard Club
of the Year for two years. Yeah. I happen to
have a list of the four. I'm not gonna let
you read, okay, but just first question for you to
say some of the acts. What was capacity in Ebbitttsfield
two hundred and seventy Okay, So give me some of

(40:46):
the acts, okay. I'll just give you some of the
big ones. Tommy Bowling, George Benson, roy By Cannon, J. J. Kale,
Canned Heat, Cheech and Charm, I'm just Dr hook Ry Coutter,
Climax Blues Band, John fay Leo, Cocky Dan Foldelberg, Peter Frampton,
Richard Greene, David Grisman, Dick Gregory. It was a comical song. Um, John,

(41:12):
we got the idea. So what happened? You all your
open abbage Field? How long is that run? And when
do you get into concert? Four years? Four years and
fay Line was exploding. Barry started doing national tours, did
the Stones and about eight markets, did the Whon about
eight markets. He knew I was a great promoter, a
good promoter. I was a great promoter, Um, and said,

(41:34):
why don't you We're never gonna make any money in
this club. You've developed a lot of great relationships, so
why don't you sell the club and become my number
one guy at fay Line so and start doing bigger shows.
And so I sold the club four years after we
opened and became the senior vice president of fe Line
for ten years and booked many, many of the shows,

(41:58):
and we did shows all over the country. We did
William Whalen and the Outlaws across America. That's how I
became best friends with Willie and Mark Clothboun who still
as manager Um and did that. I had some differences
with Barry in terms of business practices and he had
some problems that are well known locally with gambling, and

(42:21):
I decided, Uh, I started managing the Dirt band and
Leo Kaki and I put together a band by myself
that became a band called Highway one on one, the
THEOS country group of the Year, and I managed Susie
Boggas and I'm and I found these young kids from
Columbine High School named big Hat Todd in the Monsters.
So my management company. While I was running Faye or

(42:41):
number two at Faye was doing well, I was a
little burnt out on I'm promoting, but more burnt out
of my relationship with Barry. I loved him, but we
had our differences and so I left and just managed bands.
Barry was bailed out he was going into bankruptcy for
personal reasons um by Michael Cole. Michael Cole flew me

(43:01):
up to Toronto. He had cp I then and said,
you're the only body that fake and it it will ever
listen to. I want to keep you on as a consultant.
You can manage all anybody you want, but stay on
part time. So I saw. I stayed on when col
bail Barry out and owned most of the line he
got tired of Barry and got bought out by a

(43:23):
guy named Jay Marciatto who was running House of Blues.
Jay did the same thing and said, you're the only
body failed ever listened to stay around as a consultant.
So I did. And then when Faye announced he was retiring,
I decided I'd go on my own as a promoter.
And that's what I called my dear friend Greg pearl
Off and said, why don't we start at Chuck Mars
program Presents in Denver? So what one? What year? We

(43:46):
late nineties it was, And I said, I got an
old building called Mammoth Events Center that is so made
to be a film Wore. You guys own the brand.
I want to build a filmore here and I'll never
forget Greg and Sherry said, you're crazy. Bill never wanted
to be like a House of Blues that have film.
War was all over the country. Guess who bo the

(44:08):
companies and now have film was all of the company.
But anyway, they came into town. They saw this old
nineteen eleven club that needed a lot of work, and
they said, Bill would call this a film Wore. And
that was our first move. We opened the film wore
in Denver and we really took over. While I was
doing that, Greg said I got something I gotta tell you.
I said, what's that? I said, I've been talking to

(44:30):
this guy, Bob Sillerman, who's probably gonna buy our company,
and he's buying a whole bunch of our promoting companies,
of other promoters. You just started a company in Colorado.
You will get a chunk to give up your part
in Colorado. I said, what the heck does that mean
for me? He said, Okay, here's the deal. You're gonna
get a nice check, nothing like we did when we

(44:51):
saw b GP, but a nice check for being a
business for four months. You will get more money to
invest in other things, and we're all stay. I said, well,
that is not a hard decision to be made, so
I stayed. We sold my part, everybody sold it to Bob,
and of course he sold it the Clear Channel. I

(45:12):
kept running it. Hired Don and Brent Is my first
moves years ago. I hired Don, who was running the Fox.
I hired him one day a week because I saw
him as being me twenty five years later. I said,
this kid's a genius, So I hired him one day,
one day a week, help helping our new company which
became s X, which became whatever first p g P

(45:36):
Chuck Mars and hired another guy from fay Line who
couldn't handle the old fay Line and quit, named Brent
for Drees hired him. Both hired Gone one day a week.
That I said, work two days a week. You're booking
great fade shows. You know that new stuff more than
I do. And then he went to three days. And
then I took him out and said, Don, eight years

(45:58):
was the first eight year of my career. I ran clubs.
It almost killed me. Enoughs enough, you can still all
in the club, Come work and do bigger shows. You'll
have a bigger career. And I convinced someone, and then
he worked full time. When I started a G, I
met him and Brent partners equal partners with me, and
they've been with me forever since then. So ultimately you

(46:24):
sell to Live Nation, but then you and Don and
Brent leave Live Nation, as does pearl Off. What happens there, well,
Um Grant sold it to Live too, actually as effects
was sold at the Clear Channel was spun off the
Live Nation. Greg left the same time as I did

(46:45):
he was getting tired of it and started another planet
same time, and I was getting tired of the politics
of a publicly traded company, and I got approached by
my dear friend Phil and Show. So I've known for
ever as a friend doing charity work with him. I
just loved the guy. Went to Russia with him with

(47:05):
the dirt Band because he had that's a quick story.
He's got the largest Western our collection in the world,
called the Anxious Collection. Grew up in Russell, Kansas, spent
the rest of his life in Colorado, made a lot
of money, built the greatest Western our collection was Sometimes
he tours around the world nonprofit. He called me one
day he loved the dirt band and went to a

(47:27):
bunch of shows. By the way, in fourteen years he's
been to five of our shows, five of US shows
in a g and has been to our age office
once in fourteen years. He's the greatest. Did you do well?
And he and he loves you. He lets you do
your do what you want. He's the greatest. But anyway,
he loved the dirt band and went to dirt band shows,
and one day in nineteen right before the Russian Revolution

(47:50):
in year was it. What was callsby? Says, I gotta,
I want to talk to you. Come over to the office.
We were already great a g wasn't even open yet.
He said he know about my Western art. Question me
and she's collection. I said, yeah, Phil, don't you remember you?
He gave me a tour of it while I was
sitting here in Denver. He said, oh yeah, I forgot.
He said, we're opening up the truck. You have a

(48:10):
museum in Moscow for six months. I've never done this before.
I want to fly my favorite American country band to
do thirty minutes acoustic in Moscow to open the exhibit.
We'll have pressed there Soviet Union officials was right before
the Russian Revolution, and you know other people. I'll get
what do they make? And I said, I'll give him
a fee. I'm there for nine nights doing other business,

(48:33):
oil business. You know, he has a million companies. And
I'll put you and the girlfriends and wives and crew
and band every the other eight nights, take everybody out
for dinner and have I have a lot of fun.
I'm doing business every day, other business. So we played
thirty minutes to open the exhibit, and only Phil as
I called him back in a day and said, Phil,

(48:53):
we're gonna do it. Don't worry, but the band would
love to play in front of some younger kids. This
is the art community. It was Soviet Union officials, it
was He actually invited the whole U. S. Embassy and
their families and art people. He said, Chuck, the whole
country's falling apart. Right, it was fifteen months before the
Soviet Union fell, so you can imagine what Musket was like.

(49:16):
It was a beautiful art museum. Were his exhibit safe
for six months? He said? Two days later he calls
me back to say, Okay, the first night you're gonna
do open my exhibit. The second night I arranged a
private show at a five thousand, most gorgeous opera house
you've ever seen. We're inviting Soviet Union officials, their families,

(49:37):
the U. S. Embassy and their families, and we're given
away twicts to Russian students. And the third night I
arranged How Phil evert did this today, I've never asked him,
but he did it in three days, he said. And
this is Phil talking to me, right. We were already
good friends. A g wasn't even open yet, he said,
don't be mad at me, Chuck. But I said yes
without asking you, And I'm not sure if you're in

(49:59):
the band, think I want to do it. But I
do a lot of business in the Soviet Union, and
I find that if the Soviet, if Soviets, make you
an offer, you have to say yes or no. If
I would have said I got to talk to a
band or prove it, it goes away. So I said yes,
don't be mad at me. And I said, well, we're
gonna have the greatest time in our lives. We don't care.
We'll do anything. He said, Okay, I arranged a free

(50:21):
concert in Gorky Park. He played a talking about fifteen
thousand people. How filled the state did that? I told
I don't even know. It's don't even asked. We get
around about it. But and that's how I became best
friends with the film. Okay, so, how do you ultimately
decide you want to start this music business program at
Colorado State? For my whole life, he I was a

(50:44):
t a of twenty years old to see you. I'm
the son of a school teacher. I always loved teaching.
I've taught it about twenty different colleges on one office,
just talking about music business. And I never had one
plan in my forty eight year of music career. The
one plan I had was I wanted to start a
music business department at a Colorado university. One plan only plan,

(51:07):
and I negotiated with not about money, but what school
would would follow up program I wanted to build. And
I made a deal with CSU where there it's not
a small town anymore, fail Collins. There's starting two thousand
kids to go to that school and it's a big
city now. And um, we're starting in three weeks introduction
of music business and in three years it will be

(51:27):
a minor and in five years it will be a major.
Hired my first teacher under me, and I'm gonna have
a whole department that I'm building, which has been the
dream of my life to do that. And I'm gonna
have guests every week of all my friends in the business.
And I'm inviting you by Skype to be a guest
to okay, and who your first couple of guests You've
already booked the first week because it's the first week.

(51:49):
I invited a guy named Ja Marciano who graduated from
c s U. Who's from Colorado, pattay j. He's the
head of our whole company, and he's perfect, and I
and write a big head title. I managed from here locally,
still a big star here, and so they're gonna talk
on the first week. But I have a stream of

(52:09):
people that are getting ready to say yes, executives, musicians also. Okay,
are you the only teacher at this point, I'm not
teaching at all. I'm gonna chairman of the department. I'll
guess lecture. I'll be there when the when the special
guests come once a week, but I'm not teaching day
to day. I'm not doing exams. I hired my first
teacher who had experience. Who how did you find a teacher?

(52:30):
And who is he or she? Bart Bart Dol worked
at Madison House for String Cheese, worked for Christa. Sally
in his company, and then toured at Metro State for
five years. Music business. I wanted somebody both sides of it. Okay,
what's gonna make your music business program different from all
the other music business programs that have sprouted in the

(52:51):
last few decades. Yeah, there's about forty of them, of
which about ten are real good. And I studied them all.
I've flown to a lot of them. First of all,
I'm gonna have the best as you have seen in
your life because I have a lot of friends. Secondly,
I have a PhD in music business. It's just not
on the wall, and I'm gonna, I'm I believe, I'm gonna.

(53:11):
I'm gonna build a great, great department. And the first
the first class sold out in five minutes. Okay, we
know all you were around when the business was still
being built. Certainly in this sense this century, it's about consolidation.
But we know all these characters. We can list them

(53:32):
one after one another, and you've mentioned a lot of
them here. They were unique characters who probably would have
been successful in some other field if they weren't in
music business. Can you can you teach that to learn
how to make it in the music business. Yes, I
mean it's one thing to teach someone how to be
a road manager or to be a tour accountant. But

(53:54):
the managers and the promoters, the people who built this business,
they broke the mold after they made them. Well, you're
absolutely right. I never took a music business There weren't
any music business classes in those days. I do think
if you love the business, and we'll do anything to
get into it, you can learn some things that will

(54:17):
make you a little bit more successful, a little quicker.
And that's all I can expect to do. I'm not
going to train somebody that doesn't have it in their
bones to want to do it, but I think I
can make it a little bit easier for them. Okay,
so what do you learn being a manager? We worked
for the bands. You could tell them all you want,
you can fight them, you could tell them, but but

(54:38):
the bottom line is the band's And it took me
a while to learn that that. You can do so much.
You can go to a certain point, but if the
band won't do it, you got to live with that,
or else you get fired. I'm as as simple as that.
How do you make the band more successful than they
are when you first get involved? Well, I build a

(55:00):
band by audition called that became a band called Highway
win On One that was a country group of the year.
I auditioned people in Denver and that was like my creation.
As far as big at Todd, they were already selling
out um thousand ceders in Minneapolis and Chicago and San
Francisco and Boulder in Denver and doing three five hundred

(55:24):
in another markets, all managing themselves for about three years,
went to Columbine High School. All were born in Colorado. UM.
I actually chased them for about a year and a
half to manage them because they wanted to manage themselves.
But I convinced them that if they really wanted to
get bigger, um, they really probably had to go to
a label, a big label. They made their own records,

(55:48):
their own label, and they did pretty well. They sold
tenths of twenty thousand two in the Bennett Records, which
was a lot. And and I made a deal with
my great friend Irving at Giant Records, and we did
an album called Sister Sweet Lee, got a great producer
and sold a million and a half records. And they
went from here to here. Yeah, broke, broken hearted stranger?

(56:08):
How long broken a savior? Savior? Excuse me? How much
longer did you continue to work with Bighead Todd after that?
Initially about fifteen years? Thirteen years? Okay, okay? How did
you get involved with the Dirt Band? Uh? They were
the third act that played for me. They moved to Colorado,
they became my closest friends. You know, we're all at

(56:30):
each other's weddings and um they're only other manager before
me was a guy named Bill McEwen. Bill mckewen, That
was John McEwen from the Dirt Band's brother. John McEwen
had signed a young comedian named Steve Martin. Steve Martin
was the opening act for the Dirt Band for almost
three years on the bus. No one ever heard of him.

(56:51):
He was brilliant. In fact, when they played for me
the first time they got off the bus at a
lot of Eason said we got this comic Pam fifty bucks.
He's on the All tour. I said great, and he
was hysterical. Bill Uh. Steve was starting to explode. Bill
was getting ready to do a movie called The Jerk.
Steve was becoming a superstar. He was living in Aspen

(57:12):
as he started a film company. He also signed another
He was brilliant with comics. Bill was signed a young
comic named pee Wee Herman and produced pee Wee's Big
Adventure And called me one day and said would you
come out? And they all lived in Aspen. His company
film company was Aspen Films, and still managing the Dirt band,
his brother's band or one of the members, and said,

(57:33):
I want to talk to you. And I went up
there and he said, I'm just too busy with Steve Martin.
He's exploding, and I have this other comic pee Wee
Pee Wee Herman. I think he's gonna be maybe as big,
and I'm I'm finishing up scores for two movies and
I just learned have enough time for my brother's band.
Would you take over? And I love the guys. I
had to think about it because I had never managed before,

(57:56):
and I said, Bill, I never management before. I'm a promoter,
I'm a club. Are you crazy? He said, Chuck, the
band loves you. You know more about that music than
I do. And it's just the other side of the
coin on another thing when he said that, and he
was right, and I took over. They were sort of
on the way down. They had hits in the seventies,
but it was the early eighties and it was Donna summertime.

(58:19):
They weren't playing bands with banjos and violins anymore. They
had boat Angles and make a Little Magic an American
Dream in the seventies, but they stopped getting radio and
they really were really underdown, and I said, let's go
make a country deal because country radio should play you
and that. And I said, I only managed you if
you'd let me do that. I made a deal with

(58:39):
one Is Nashville didn't change their music, just made some
great records with Paul Warley and had ten top ten
country records. I convinced to do Circle the Unbroken Volume
two that became album of the Year and had a
huge comeback with them for fifteen years, twenty years and
then and you know, managers either get fired or get

(59:02):
bored or get tired and they leave. This is a
certain amount of years, you know. I My joke was
I once signed a band and they were too young
to know what I was talking about. But I took
them out to congratulate them and they signed with me
as their manager. And I said, this is a party
for two things. They said, what's that? I said, resigning
and for breaking up, because we are going to break up.

(59:22):
It's just a matter of time. Okay. So, since you've
played both sides of the fence, what can you tell
people as a promoter and a manager, what can you
tell people who have only played on one side? Well?
I always tell my bands that I manage that unless
their live dates come first before management stuff, you should

(59:45):
get fired. You have to fight for the bands for
how much they make, for where they play, for who
they play for. And if you don't do that, you're
not being a good manager. You're not you should get fired.
So I've always had two hats, sometimes on certain acts,
not lot of them, but I've always you gotta be
a promoter. When you're a promoter first for the band,

(01:00:05):
and you gotta be a manager, and your manager first.
You don't do that. Okay. We mentioned a number of
times at the beginning of your career when bamston't sell
out being a good promoter. What is the essence of
being a good promoter? Okay? How do you sell tickets
for an act? It doesn't sell out instantly? Okay? Let
me tell you what I did. How it was different

(01:00:27):
in two there is now I would I would. I
heard about this great guitar player named Leo Cocky who
had never played bold or Denver. I had a band
I was playing for me and they said that he
had opened for them. Uh, they had opened for him
in Omaha, Nebraska, and he was brilliant. I went through
the record store, bought his record, flipped out this is one.

(01:00:52):
It's like his third album, maybe second. Took it down
to the radio station, which was kr on W, which
became KBCO which have been the number one rock station
in this town forever, played it for him. They loved it,
and they started playing the crap out of it. There
was no playlists then, there was no testing records. Then
if they liked the band or right, maybe partied a

(01:01:13):
little with the DJs, they got to play it and
I would sell out for the first time. Say a
funny story, first time I had J. J. Klee who
I loved him. John Kale was the greatest, by the way.
His real name was John, but he couldn't be called
John Kale because John there was another John Kale, and
because of the union, you can't have the same name

(01:01:35):
from Delvet Underground, so he's his Denny Cordell from Shelter
Records changed his name to j J. Nicest, Sweetest hill
Billy from Tulsa. All he did is want to fish
and write songs. Really didn't like playing. He played once
a year to pay his income Texas because he wrote
a lot of hits for Eric Clapton. After midnight, all

(01:01:55):
these different songs. He came, He came into town, walked
in the door for a sound check. I was standing
outside and said, I am Chuck Morrison. I owned the
pilates and there's a line around the block. And he
looked at me very seriously and said, who am I
opening for? I mean, Cale never thought about money or

(01:02:16):
who he's playing with or anything. It was just a
brilliant songwriter. And just you say, Cal that that's how
we sold tickets. We got him on the radio. Needless
to say, that same paradigm doesn't exist today. Radio stations
have tight playlists. Uh. Younger generation listens to terrestrial radio less.
How do you promote a band today? Get pressed for him? Uh?

(01:02:39):
Word of mouth? Um, get the record stores to tell
them that if they move the record up to a
better position, it's selling like crazy in color, out of springs.
They want to think about it, little things. There's still
ways now I might get used to be though it's
much it's those tricks are not that effect anymore. It's

(01:03:01):
a different business business. Are there any new tricks that
are effective? Uh? Well, the same trick as always bring
a band in as an opening act. Who's great? And
let them develop their own fans right here as an
opening act, put him on a big show. How many
times you've been married, chuck? Uh three? But my wife
now is thirty years. How old were you when we

(01:03:23):
were married the first time? Jesus asking personal questions here? Yeah,
we get down gritty, pardon the pun. It was my
high school and college girlfriend. Okay, because you you were
so far ahead of the game. You were young, so
that might have made it difficult on a relationship level.
It was a very bad marriage, and the last that

(01:03:44):
it was very short. I was still a graduate student.
She came out to Colorado had graduated also in a
young age, and was a school teacher. And we broke
up after a year. And then what was second wife? Yes,
at last or ten years? I have two beautiful children
and my third wife, who was great. We have three
three kids, so it's unusual. I guess the question I'm

(01:04:04):
asking this is a business that's seven. Has it affected
your relationships? Um? You know, I have a wife that
loves what I do, believe it or not, and loves
me watching me work, and loves music. I had another
wife that didn't like it, and I spent too much
time you gotta find the right girl for that, gotta

(01:04:25):
get lucky and will your wife come to your gigs?
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, So tell us about the development
of Red Rocks into the monolith it ultimately be has become. Well,
you know it started um. In fact, here's a little
trivia question. The Beatles played Red Rocks and there were
very few rock shows in the sixties and Red Rocks,

(01:04:47):
in fact, very few. It was the only Beatles show
ever in America that didn't sell out. We did sixties
six I can promote it was before I was in
the business. Uh, you know, did people because people weren't
used to going there. They had church services there, they
had lectures there, they had different stuff, but very little music.

(01:05:09):
In fact, when Faye and I started to started doing
a lot of shows at Red Rocks, the city try
to stop having music and we had to go to
court to convince them that we ought to do more shows.
And the funny part is they stopped us from doing
a band called America, which is as soft as it
could be. And we went we had I asked some

(01:05:31):
of my friends testify that it was a great thing
for the community and that America for God's sakes, you
don't riot to America, I mean, but we won and
now our company does over shows a year at Red
Rocks up till the latest tragedy where we're doing none. Okay,
So Red Rocks is an open building. How do you
compete with other promoters? In Red Rocks? You get the bands,

(01:05:54):
relationship with bands or the agent or the manager. Um,
we we do majority shows. My whole company Live Nation
when I ran that, we did the majority. But I
took my key guys Do and Brenton mostly company with
us and we do a lot more than they do.
It's still relationships. You say they are, but it's still relationships.
You may not have the long relationships like from beginning

(01:06:16):
to end their careers, but it's still relationships. Okay. And
a couple of memorable shows at Red Rocks. What can
you tell us? Well, I did with Faye the YouTube
the famous You two show that was a video. And
the great story was it was snowing that day and

(01:06:36):
Barry and I had booked the US Festival the weekend before.
We did the second year of the US Festival for
Steve Wozniak. We were flying back from Santa Barbara from
the show and we're flying and you two was that
night flying over Red Rocks, landing in Denver and it
was snowing, and Faye was freaking out, and you know

(01:06:59):
the man put up Paul McGinnis, who I loved to death,
their manager for years and retired a while ago. He
put a second on his house to put up money.
I put up money he borrowed from Faye for myself,
from friends to put up money to make that video
which broke the band, of course, no question. So we
got off the foot the plane and Barry's freaking out,
saying we gotta move it inside. In those days, you

(01:07:21):
can move the equipment wasn't like it is today. You
can move a show. If it was by noon, you
could move it indoors to the old Denver Colosseum. And
he was afraid we wouldn't have a show. And I said, Barry,
there's no way they put up their life savings for this.
He said, I'm gonna get him on the phone. He
went to a pay phone at d I A actually
was staple with him then, and called Paul McGinnis that

(01:07:43):
stage who was setting up, and said, you gotta move
the show. It's snowing. We're not gonna have it, will
never make it. And McGinnis said, we put our heart
and soul to this. We don't care, and let me
get Bottle on the phone. Who we had? We had
did his first state in Denver at the Rainbow Music Hall.
I became really good friends with the band. In fact,
I took him out for dinner on a vacation and
dub them one year and Bio said, Barry, we put

(01:08:05):
our life savings into this. I don't care if it
snows all over us, We're gonna play. And it turned
out that cold weather and that air coming out of
his mouth, and and and and the freezing made that
video exactly when he's marched around with the flag. Okay,
since you're a fountain of tales, any other tales you
want to put in here before we wrap up? Oh God,

(01:08:27):
there were so many great shows. It's really hard to
say one from the other. But I would say the
first show we did with Willie and Whalen when we
took over their tour because their previous promoter had gone
out of business. And we started doing Willy William and
the Outlaws for a couple of years all over the country,
and it was the first time I had done Willie

(01:08:48):
at my club and got to know WILLI he had
moved to Colorado actually for a while. But the first
time fail and done Willie and in a bit at
Red Rocks, and that was magical. He's still magical. He's
an amazing guy. Now what we know? There's been a
music business forever, but the confluence of the Boomers and
the Beatles blew it up. Okay, both the record business,

(01:09:12):
which referenced earlier, and certainly the live business. What do
we know? The boom racks, the classic rock acts are
dying or will literally be off the stage within ten years.
Does it matter that they're gone? Or is the business
so big that as long as you're somebody to put
on stage it will all be healthy. Well, I want

(01:09:34):
to disagree on one thing. I remember it was a
famous old quote from Mick Jagger saying he wouldn't be
singing when he was thirty. He's now what on this tour?
Where that weird AG's doing? I think? Okay, So I'm
not so sure that five or ten years some of
them might still be playing. But you're right, they're gonna
die away or retire. I don't know. About retiring, but hey, Williams,

(01:09:58):
in his late ages, he still play. I mean, okay,
but when when those acts expire, whether it be five
years or twenty, okay, when they can no longer play
live or no longer here, will that affect the live business?
I think not that much. I think the live business
has become such a part of our of our life,

(01:10:21):
of our economy, of our soul in America that I think,
you know, the young bands from the eighties and nineties
are gonna be around, and they've been some pretty good ones,
you know, the YouTube era. They're so relatively young, so
I I think it will hurt a little bit, But um,
I think music is going to stay around for a

(01:10:43):
long time, especially in Colorado where it is such a
part of our psychic Well, this has been wonderful, Chuck.
Thanks for your history, your stories, and your insight, and
I wish you luck and continued success with your Colorado
State University venture in the music business. Thanks so much
for doing this. Yeah, well, thank you, and uh Donn

(01:11:04):
and Brent are gonna make it even bigger as they
take over. Right now, I'm totally convinced that those boys
are the greatest. Until next time. This is Bob left
six h