It was 1990, and I was about to sing my swan song: “Bye-Bye American Pie, this will be the day the music died.” It was take-stock time, and I did. However, I will never be sure whether, at that late date in life, I could have continued with any form of success in the music business, as my last year in the world of rock and roll produced only about $30,000.00. At the time, that seemed woefully short of what I needed to continue and pay my bills.
I was selling my house due to a pending divorce, and the profit from that would keep me going for some time. Between the divorce and the state of my business affairs, maybe I could have hung on. Looking back, $30,000.00 in 1990 would be worth approximately $76,500.00 today, so it was possible. However, my mind was thinking to hell with it. It was time to give up the ghost and get out of rock and roll.
Another thing that soured me on the music business was that while doing very well in the R&B field as the American manager to Princess, who had a major disco hit that I put on tour, I was also representing songwriters. I was able to provide one excellent team of writers from Canada with approximately thirty-five recordings by artists who recorded their songs.
One day, when I brought them to Los Angeles for a meet-and-greet, the reaction from the brothers in A&R was shock that these successful black music songwriters were white.
The brothers were shocked that these great writers were white, and I was shocked at their reaction, which included future recordings of their songs drying up. This was racism in reverse. That told me my future dealing in black music was capped.
The first thing I did so I could never go back was toss out my rather valuable Rolodex, containing the names and phone numbers of every major player in the world of music. If I was to do nothing else, that Rolodex would have brought some heavy dollars on eBay. But I was always impetuous. At that point another phrase from the verse came to mind: “I saw Satan laughing with delight, the day the music died.”
WHY THIS STORY BELONGS AMONG THE BEST ROCK MEMOIRS
Many rock memoirs tell stories of fame, excess, and success. The reason this chapter belongs in a discussion of the best rock memoirs is that it tells the part most people never see. The music business is full of stories about making it. Far fewer stories deal honestly with walking away from it.
When readers search for rock memoirs, they are often looking for truth rather than mythology. The reality is that careers do not always end with platinum records and farewell tours. Sometimes they end with divorce papers, declining income, difficult choices, and a realization that the life you built is no longer the life you want.
That was my reality.
Aside from an actual job I had taken for a couple of months selling discount long-distance telephone services, I essentially took the next two years off. I went to work for a company in Los Angeles that gave me the Diamond District territory for sales. They supplied me with leads developed from cold calls, and I would hop into my car, meet the prospects, and show them how much money they could save with our service.
Within the first week, I became their number two salesman. One of the founders was number one and had been doing it much longer. I liked the territory because it reminded me of Manhattan, with its tall buildings and people moving almost as fast as the traffic. Within a couple of months, I realized that being number two was not earning me the money I envisioned. I quit.
I was owed a paycheck, so one of the company executives brought it to my apartment just outside Marina Del Rey. He asked if I would consider returning and told me I could soon be making $500.00 per week. I explained that from my perspective and history, that was not exactly a worthy goal. I declined.
As this was near the end of my two-year sabbatical, I figured it was time to build anew. After I was given a taste of the commercial printing business by a woman I dated at the time, and when that didn’t last, I thought, “This could be for me.” I was always a solid salesperson, so I went to the library and photocopied all the pages in the Manufacturers Guide, since you could not borrow it.
My next step was to circle all the companies that looked promising as print buyers and were within an hour of my home, so they would be convenient if I needed to meet them in person. Some I met; some I printed for four years and never met. In my first year in my own printing business, I earned approximately $130,000.00 in 1992 dollars. That would be worth more than $300,000.00 today.
This was it. I had completed the circle.
ROCK MEMOIRS ARE ALSO ABOUT REINVENTION
The reason many readers are drawn to rock memoirs is that they are not simply books about music. They are stories about reinvention. They reveal what happens after the spotlight fades and how people respond when life forces them to choose a new direction.
My story became one of those reinventions.
I had completed the circle of my departure from the music business and the world that inspired so many rock memoirs. The song “American Pie” asks, “Did you write that book of love?” Yes, I did, but not until about thirty-six years later.
The result was my rock and roll memoir, Once A King, Now A Prince.
Unlike many celebrity books, this is not a tale built solely on success. It is a memoir about music industry life, filled with victories, mistakes, disappointments, and lessons learned. It is also a collection of rock and roll stories drawn from a period when the music business was changing rapidly and often ruthlessly.
For readers who enjoy a music industry memoir that goes beyond the headlines, the backstage glamour, and the public image, this story explores what happened after the music stopped.
The journey eventually became a rock and roll memoir about survival and starting over. Like many memorable rock and roll memoirs, it is less about fame than it is about what happens when the applause ends.
Those experiences became the foundation for a music industry memoir and a collection of rock and roll stories that ultimately found their way into Once A King, Now A Prince, a rock and roll memoir written long after I thought my life in music was over.
That is one reason I believe it belongs among the top rock memoirs.
