My first ride on an airplane was on a DC3, in the 1950’s, from LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, to Boston. I made the trip with my best friend, Steven Duke. We didn’t really see or accomplish much, nor was there anything that warranted writing about in past or future rock and roll stories. We saw the wooden sail ship in the Boston harbor, and we ate at what was purportedly to be the best seafood restaurant on the wharf, having a large bowl each of some amazing Boston Clam Chowder, the white version, with Manhattan Clam Chowder being the red, tomato-based one. The only other site we visited on our one-day, non-stay-over trip was to view where Paul Revere lived. In other words, we came, we ate, and we went home, not yet worthy of my later rock and roll stories.
My next memorable trip, and probably my second, happened in the early sixties, just a few years later. That trip is fit to be written about in my rock and roll insider stories, because it was the very beginning of my sojourn into the world of music, and this will give you, the reader, some insight into a behind the music industry view of how I managed to evolve into the music business from simply being a lover of rock and roll music and a major fan.
In 1960, following graduation from Midwood High School in Brooklyn, New York, I commenced my studies as a biology major, hoping to follow in the footsteps of my esteemed uncle, a world-renowned pathologist. I even joined him once during an autopsy while he was the Pathologist at Kingston Labs in Kingston, New York. Frankly, the only memorable thing about those horrific six months spent at Long Island University, and even capable of being written about by me in one of my music business stories, was the fact that the auditorium of L.I.U. was the old Brooklyn Paramount Theater, where the King of the then music business, Alan Freed, who ran some of his rock and roll shows in it.
The worst part of my short stay at L.I.U. was that my esteemed pops decided right after I enrolled to move his business from Brooklyn to Long Island, New York. That left me with a two-hour round-trip from home to school. Upon arriving home, I would have dinner, go to my room, and crack the books. Within five minutes, as I was exhausted from traveling, I would be asleep. While there is nothing in this that warrants expanding on any of my music industry stories, the action starts when I transfer to Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, New York, a period that also belongs among my dysfunctional family stories.
College, And Alan Freed, Fueled My Rock And Roll Stories
At the beginning of the school year, in September 1961, in the era of my hero, Alan Freed, I transferred to Hofstra, which I could now walk to from our home. I decided to major in music because I was a trumpet player at the time. However, it was not a choice of any great forethought, as I could not play worth a dime, and by the time we hit Harmony and Theory, I found myself being unable to hang with the big dogs. I then changed my major to Speech and Drama, and upon graduation, my degree was just in speech, which I excelled in. What makes my stay at Hofstra worthy of being part of any of my rock and roll stories was that here, I was at least majoring in a field I loved, which, overall, was music, no matter how bad my players’ chops were, and those college days would feed many future rock and roll stories.
I made three male friends while at Hofstra, one of whom was a black guy who used to sit next to me in the Jazz class. In that class was also a student who went on to fame, and who is remembered for her role in Young Frankenstein as The Bride of Frankenstein, Madeleine Kahn, who died way too young of cancer. A second Hofstra pal of mine was my roommate, Pat Sciortino, who was in the band with me, him playing great and me not so great.
A third friend was Larry Marshak, who would become pivotal as my partner in crime at our Fraternity Theta Kapa, who also had a member who was the drummer for the Ivy Three, who recorded Yogi, which became a big hit at the time. Larry and I had one thing in common: Doo Wop music, and in the sixties, we were avid collectors of those great records from the fifties. This was where my second travel jaunt took place, and it was with Larry Marshak. As Doo Wop was pivotal to my entering the music business, it most surely warrants its place among my music industry stories.
One day, Larry and I drove from his home, not far from mine, in Roslyn, Long Island, to New Jersey, and while I forgot the town, it was about halfway into New Jersey from New York City. It was one of our many trips to record stores, in our hunt for rock and roll oldies. This one was the first one beyond the Hudson River and out of our state. It did not matter whether we knew who the artist was, and in many cases obscure, so long as it had that New York Sound, with clear basso, a high tenor or falsetto, and great harmonies. If it did, we bought it, either for a nickel, a dime, or even a quarter. Some of our best finds were in the ten-for-a-dollar bin. These tidbits above are literally how I started and deserve a place in my music business stories, as without them, I would never have gotten there, and those record bins became the seedbed of my rock and roll stories.
Rock And Roll Stories: My Entry Into The Semi-Bigtime
As I have written in some of my other posts and in my book Once A King, Now A Prince, Larry and I went on to produce local rock-and-roll shows, which eventually led me to manage Hank Cardello and the Emeralds. Following my bringing this amazing group into New York City to perform, they were so wonderful that the club owner would inevitably ask, “who else do youse got?” which that particular style of pronunciation can be heard in “Now youse can’t leave,” an iconic phrase from A Bronx Tale (1993).
That was the point where I became an agent overnight, a turning point in my rock and roll memoir. Once I started working as an agent and putting my groups into the big clubs at that time, like The Metropole, Trude Hellers, and others, I started to gain recognition by the big agencies and was “made an offer I couldn’t refuse,” taking a job with Joe Glazier’s Associated Booking Corporation. It was while at ABC that Larry and I hit on our next venture, “Rock Magazine,” and that was when my rock and roll stories entered the clubs.
My 60s N.Y.C. Rock Newspaper And My Rock And Roll Stories
Rock Magazine had national distribution by the time I had exited, because I didn’t want to continue working with Larry Marshak, but when starting out, it was purely a New York City play. The first issue was written entirely by Larry and me, with Larry carrying the bulk of the load. One thing that did occur, which I mentioned in another post about rock and roll insider stories, was that, without any staff and writing all the articles ourselves, we used pseudonyms so it looked as if we had a large staff. One article that I wrote, under a female pseudonym of Linda Kaplan, an old college friend, caught the eye of CBS radio, who, after reading it, called to offer me a job as the assistant program director. So, behind the music industry, you know now, I was a “female impersonator,” at least as far as the writing went.
Rock And Roll Stories: Woodstock And Rock Magazine
The very first issue was loaded into our rented station wagon, and off we went on the 3-hour drive, in normal times, from Long Island to Woodstock, New York, in the summer of 1968. We had a carload of magazines, and did I mention, toilet paper, a rare commodity at Woodstock. What we didn’t count on was the massive turnout, so our drive was about three hours to reach the area and another three to get onto the Woodstock grounds. If you were lucky enough to save your Look Magazine from that time, whose issue was all about Woodstock, the centerfold pictures a white station wagon not too far from the stage, on the extreme right.
That was Larry and me, being immortalized forever in our rented white wagon. From our stock of Rock Magazine, we walked the audience up and down, hawking our rock and roll magazine: “Get your free copy of Rock Magazine,” we yelled. We were determined and focused. I say this because, at that time, I was a young agent at Associated Booking, with clients performing there, such as Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Sly and the Family Stone. I did not go backstage because I did not want to announce that I was there selling Rock Magazine, which I thought, at the time, might conflict with my agency job at ABC. This little gem is a hidden treasure trove of rock and roll insider stories, and Woodstock remains one of the boldest chapters in my rock and roll stories.
Rock And Roll Stories And The Man Who Funded The Dream
Ever since my marriage to my first wife, Jean Prodan, and having purchased her engagement ring on 47th Street from Lee Runsdorf, of Runsdorf Jewelers, Lee and I had become friends to the point that whenever in the area, I would pop in for a visit, as well as make purchases there until I moved from Manhattan to Los Angeles, CA. Another interesting tidbit, in my telling of rock and roll stories, is that, before the sale, when buying my ring from Lee, he allowed me to take it for an independent appraisal. Due to my work for Joe Glazer at ABC and, prior to that, booking the Peppermint Lounge, I had some juice in the Diamond District. So, a buddy named Abe appraised it for me, and Lee was right on the wholesale money.
Following our Woodstock debut of Rock Magazine, I approached Lee for investment. He was kind enough to give us $1,500.00, which is equivalent to 10 times that amount in today’s money. Lee was a true gentleman and friend, but as I left the magazine, Larry was not; he never repaid Lee for his investment. Some years after this, when Rock Magazine folded, Larry went into the printing business, where he personally set the old-fashioned cold type to keep his costs down, a chapter that sits squarely in my music business memoir. I was long gone by then, pursuing my dream and other rock and roll stories, and Lee’s investment became part of my rock and roll stories.
My Reading From Rock And Roll Memoirs On The Craft Of Songwriting
