Ira blacker: A life in rock & Roll

Hi there, and thank you for stopping by. My name is Ira Blacker, and I am preoccupied with a particular thought.  Have you ever wondered how you ended up where you are currently or reached a certain point in your life? It’s almost like waking up one day, and whether you are thinking about your age, your successes or lack thereof, and wind up asking yourself, How the hell did I get here? If you enjoy reading good celebrity memoirs, which is also a memoir about family, you may appreciate this one. This music memoir has all the action you would expect from reading the best rock and roll memoirs about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and the mob. Throw in books about dysfunctional families, and this memoir has it all. 

Over the last few years, with this one finding me at the ripe old age of 83, I have been fortunate to be very fit and healthy, minus the usual skeletal aches and pains, as if it were the horror version of the movie “Groundhog Day.” As I wake up each day, I feel like that Halloween skeleton you are familiar with, but with inflamed joints. Bone touching bones is never fun. But still, thank G-d for being the “gym rat” that I was and still am for most of my adult life. Eating very healthy, with mostly organic foods, proper supplements, and junk foods not being part of my diet. 

Thus, as I age, and may G-d bless me with more of the same, I seem to question more and more my past and my actions during that time. What I also find interesting is that since I completed my music memoir, “Once A King, Now A Prince,” and now have the additional requirement of writing for this website, I have been finding myself asking the same question repeatedly: How did I get here?

I think all of us, as we age, ask ourselves: “How did we get here?” In my case, I have been thinking not just about how but also about what occurrences and behaviors, both of my own and those directed at me, have enabled me to become exactly who I am today. More to the point, why did I make the decisions I made in life that led me to this very day? Like many lives led, this does not come to fruition in my memoir, until late in the book. 

The eventual result of all of this was that I craved attention. I wanted to be in the spotlight, and there was even a part of me that envied the attention my sister received from my deeply dysfunctional father throughout his life, and I wanted the same. My father always preached his “worker’s mantra,” that “I should get a job and make that ‘steady seventy-five cents an hour,’ and be happy with just being a cog in the wheel of life. I listened for a New York Minute (thirty seconds), and when the opportunity arose, I jumped at it. I loved the rock and roll music of the time, and when my college fraternity gave up on the idea of running a dance, my friend Larry and I jumped in and took the project over. I will never forget that look on my father’s face; however begrudgingly it may have been to show when he saw over a thousand kids pile into our dance. The die was cast. I finally found the attention I was seeking. I became the master of ceremonies for all the shows, which included a successful stint at stand-up comedy. The rest is in my music memoir.

So, in answer to my question, “How did I get here?” All of the above is how.

Upon graduation from Hofstra University with a BA in Speech, “I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse.” I went to work for Joe Glazer, a former Capone mobster and lieutenant who founded Associated Booking Corporation, where I “rocked and rolled” for a living. Once there, my first two signings were Rod Stewart & Faces and Savoy Brown. Upon Joe’s death, I established my agency, American Talent International, which eventually became a major one, representing notable artists such as Rod Stewart, ZZ Top, The Eagles, Deep Purple, and many more.

CAA later purchased American Talent International. Following my departure from ATI, I became a music business personal manager, representing artists such as Kraftwerk, Ronny Laws, Wayne Henderson, and The Jazz Crusaders, among others.

Following my years at the top of the music industry, I founded two additional successful businesses: a commercial printing company, called Printing By Design, and an online antique clock business, ValuableClocks, which I still own and operate today. I honed my writing skills as a blogger for over two decades, with one of my blogs being featured by The Times of Israel. I am also referenced in many books and articles by or about Kiss, Rush, Kraftwerk, and others. My life, as you will read in this memoir, was one hell of a ride.