NEVER TRUST A CANADIAN!

I should never have trusted a Canadian, as my father was from Canada.

There was a small-time promoter from Toronto, Canada, named Ray Daniels, who contacted me because one of my agents, Wally Meyrowitz, would not sell him acts for his venue. The venue was the 1,000-seater Victoria Theater, an old burlesque house located next to one of the world’s greatest Jewish delicatessens, renowned far and wide for their “baby beef” brisket, made from veal rather than beef. With a Canadian father and a love for Canada (and its “baby beef”), I took on dealing directly with Ray Daniels.

After several weeks of selling Ray acts for his shows at the Victory Theater, Ray showed up at my office with a vinyl pressing of the first local release by a Canadian band called Rush, which he was managing, and no one was interested in. I think by then, it sold about a dozen copies, my guess, to family and friends. The Canadian tour was limited to a bar, where they played for $150.00 Canadian, back when the Canadian dollar was significantly lower than ours (those were the days). I dropped the record onto my turntable, listened to each track briefly, and heard some good, quasi-Zeppelin-like music. I then told Ray I would be happy to become involved. We agreed on a three-way partnership, as he had informed me at the last minute about his other partner, Vic. I demanded and received a 15% commission share, and they were to split the remainder. While this was not an equal split, considering that I was not going to take an unknown group on for less and that the money they eventually made solely due to my business efforts made it a good deal for all, at least in my mind. 

I flew to Canada, where I met Vic and their attorney for the first time, who was a guy who made divorce attorneys look like ethical wonders. As I was about to meet the band for the first time, Ray informed me that they had taken the opportunity of my securing the Rush record Deal with Mercury Records to fire the drummer, John Rutsey, who had played on the album that had landed them the record deal. Based on Ray’s ethics, I should have also seen the future for myself. 

The first move I made upon my return home was to send the LP to a few friends who could provide me with valuable feedback and were in a good position to assist me with the group. I sent the record to Donna Halper, the well-respected music director at WMMS radio in Cleveland, Ohio, and she not only loved it but began playing it immediately. She went on to become the first person on a U.S. radio station, and probably also on a Canadian one, to champion and play the record. (Donna was credited on Wikipedia for “discovering Rush” at the radio level) At the same time, I had a friend, John Scher, who owned one of the largest record-distributing companies in the Northeast, specializing in importing rock records from Europe, Canada, and other regions. He liked the record, but he was not selling any. At my suggestion, he agreed to hype the sales of Rush imports, should any record labels check with him.

The next move I made was to put them on some dates in the States so labels could not only see them perform but also know that they would be a touring band and could support the album with live dates. I had them open for groups such as Uriah Heep and Savoy Brown, and they did very well on those dates, creating both fans and a buzz around the industry. 

Following the Cleveland airplay, the import hype that I had created, however nonexistent, and the live dates, I started shopping for a deal for the Canadian LP. Irwin Steinberg, then president of Mercury Records in Chicago, was the hottest to trot. With all the hype and action I had quickly established for Rush, who were much better live than I ever imagined from just listening to the first LP, Steinberg was ready to come up with a respectable deal. The album became the biggest first release for a rock band in the label’s history. 

Once Mercury released the album in the States, I toured them continually, having them crisscross the States for months, starting in the summer of 1974 and continuing throughout the rest of that year, opening for such acts as Rare Earth, KISS, Uriah Heep, Rory Gallagher, Sha-Na-Na, and others.

In the summer of 1974, at the age of 33, I lived in a summer rental in Greenwich, Connecticut, and spent many of my days on the phone personally arranging the tour dates for Rush through the end of the year. Even after I departed from American Talent International in the fall of 1974, I continued to book tour dates and oversee those added by others. 

One of the benefits of doing what you do well is that it creates jealousy in others. Every time Ray Daniels or Vic Wilson, my partners in the management of Rush, would venture out to a live engagement, they inevitably would meet the promoter of the show, and on almost every occasion, the promoter would tell them that “the best thing you guys ever did was to hook up with Ira Blacker.” Well, that and the greed of Ray and Vic would become my ruin.

Within a couple of months of my departure from ATI, I received a letter from Ray Daniels and Vic Wilson, not only breaching our written agreement for the co-management of Rush but also demanding that I refund the money I had earned to date for the Album advance on the deal with Mercury, a deal I had made. They, of course, did not have any grounds for this, as none existed, but I guess they thought “possession was nine-tenths of the law” and possessed the “relationship” with the group. I never traveled with the group on dates, and they did, so by the time I ran into the group one day at Mercury Records following the breach of contract, they looked at me as if I had just killed the firstborn of each of them. God knows what Ray and Vic told them that I did. I suppose this was part of Ray’s grand plan, as not long after, he got rid of Vic as well.   

A year or so later, we went to trial, and the court ruled in my favor, and some significant money changed hands. While I was happy to get the money, I lost the band, which was not just hurtful to me on an emotional level, as it denied all of my efforts in successfully building their career from nothing. Furthermore, having a well-known artist on your roster helps you conduct business in other areas. 

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