CHAPTER 3 “Forever Changes…”

I departed CPR in late 1969, and worked for the living legend Phil Spector for a few months, during the period when he was completing the album "Hair," with the Checkmates, and coming off a hit single with "Black Pearl." Not a prolific or critically successful time for the man, who had just squeaked through the disappointment and rejection of his Tina Turner masterpiece "River Deep, Mountain High" by American radio. Meanwhile, I retained my relationship with Chrysalis, and in 1970 went back to Rogers & Cowan with these clients (Tull, Ten Years After, Procol Harum), feeling that it was time these bands had the power of a major company behind them. These acts, needless to say, achieved major success in the early days of 1970, and I was largely working on them on my own, within the R&C organization, who still didn't understand rock 'n' roll. However, they did have a major music account, Motown, and I was particularly interested in a new young act that Diana Ross had brought to the company. This was the dynamic Jackson Five, about whom my 8 year old daughter had blithered on incessantly. I saw them perform and was blown away, particularly by their adorable lead singer, a bundle of talent. I lobbied hard to become involved with them, working under the direction of their R&C account exec Bob Jones, the ubiquitous and unflappable soul who helps run Michael Jackson's affairs to this day. For a few months, I had the fun of being a part of the launch of this supergroup, and being my daughter's hero at the same time.

We signed Mediarts,a new label headed up by the dynamic (and sorely missed) producer of innumerable hits, Nik Venet. Mediarts hosted some wonderful music by then-unheard of artists, such as Spencer Davis and Peter Jameison, and singer-songwriter Don McLean, whose album featured “Starry Starry Night,” and “American Pie”, both becoming pop classics. There was also a spoken-word album by Orson Welles, which was a challenging project, and in that initial release, the Sylvia Plath of the music business, Dory Previn. Her album was a lovely, but totally depressing depiction of the loss of her husband to Mia Farrow. I absolutely loved it.

"Did Anyone Call While I was Unconscious?"

Then, one night at the Troubador, hanging out with some other PR types at the bar, I received an offer I couldn't refuse...Gibson & Stromberg, a young firm run by some creative crazies, plucked me and my Chrysalis clients from the corporate clutches of R&C, and for the next few years, I got to work with the absolute cream of the music world. We represented the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour; we handled the breaking news of Jim Morrison's death in that Paris bathtub; we virtually owned rock'n' roll publicity in the early 1970's. We had our own table at the Whiskey, with a brass placque on the wall. We worked with The Eagles, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Albert & B.B. King, we hooked up Cheech & Chong with Lou Adler and enjoyed the first flush of success (and a few other substances) with them; we handled upstarts like the very talented Bill Withers, who was fresh from his job at Lockheed, installing toilets in 747 aircraft. We signed the entirely unknown and insane band Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, and insisted that CBS release "On The Cover of Rolling Stone' as their follow-up single to "Sylvia's Mother". Dr Hook eventually got "on the Cover of Rolling Stone" with their story titled "What's their Names Make the cover". We worked with James Taylor AND his brother Livingston (and his sister Kate), we handled Steely Dan, and for the exciting small label Blue Thumb Records, worked with the Pointer Sisters, and the Crusaders. For Shelter Records we handled Leon Russell, and J.J. Cale. My old friends Flo & Eddie (Mark & Howard from The Turtles) came on board. We represented the major-label debut of the lovely singer Minnie Riperton, and I was privileged to watch her recording her first Epic album, produced by her husband Dick Rudolph with the help of Stevie Wonder. We all fell in love and worked with the great songwriter Paul Williams, whose film performance as Swan in "Phantom of the Paradise" is a rock'n' roll classic. We were involved in other films, such as "A Woman Under The Influence" and the Jack Nicholson cult favorite "Five Easy Pieces." We "discovered" the gifted artist Rupert Holmes, whose album "Wide Screen" had everyone, including Barbra Streisand-- gasping for superlatives. Rupert later went on to produce Barbra's "Lazy Afternoon" album, and became a Tony Award winner for his Broadway show "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."

One night, my friend Corb Donohue, publicist from ABC Dunhill Records and I decided to drive down to San Diego to catch two acts opening at a club there. The opening act was his, a man named Jim Croce, a singer-songwriter new to the label, and the headliners were the group Looking Glass, who had a single hit, “Brandy.” We had arranged to meet a kid with whom we were both in correspondence and phone contact, a person with the unlikely name of Cameron Crowe. Neither of us had met him, but he had written for the San Diego Door and for his college newspaper, reviewing our artists’ albums. He was 14, he had told me, and he would meet us at the club. We arrived, and outside the artists’ entrance, was this tall, gangly kid, all chin, waiting for us, because the club’s owner wouldn’t let him in without being accompanied by an adult. I went on to “adopt” this brilliant young writer, introducing him to many of the editors at the major magazines, and watched him go on to become one of the hottest journalists in Rock, the youngest writer ever to write for Playboy, the LA Times, and Rolling Stone. Today, of course, he is the hottest director in Hollywood, his films some of the most critically acclaimed in the business. For the past 20 years, I have watched his career explode from afar, at every step, wishing him well.

It was 1971, the music was incredible, the record companies had "artist development" departments and provided "tour support" and believed, as we did, that spending some money to launch a new act or a new album was part of the process. We were taking our inspiration from our brilliant friend Bob Regehr of Warner Brothers Records, who, a few years earlier, threw perhaps the most outrageous and unforgettable party ever, when he organized a "Coming Out" party for Alice Cooper. Miss Alice, a Pasadena Debutante, was scheduled to "come out" at the Ambassador Hotel, and the hotel staff was horrified when the "guests" began to show up for this Felliniesque evening. Enter the Cockettes, from San Francisco, dressed as roving Cigarette girls, hawking "cigars, Cigarettes, Vaseline.' Midgets and circus performers abounded, and the evening's most bizarre performance was by a 300-1b naked lady called "TV Mama," who was the evening's most photographed guest. Posters of Ms. Mama graced countless refrigerator doors in our town for years thereafter.

Gibson & Stromberg's independent status and success in the industry gave us the creative license to plan some of the early 70's more unusual events, such as a Bowling party for the launch of a new album by Canned Heat. However, the one outstanding evening that comes to mind is the "Come As Your Most Decadent Fantasy" bash we organized for the launch of Dr. Hook's album "Freaker's Ball." For this, we took our inspiration directly from Shel Silverstein's Lyrics: "Black ones, White ones, Yellow Ones, Red Ones; Necrophiliacs looking for Dead Ones."

Guests at our Freaker's Ball were treated to the sight of the Troubador's Doug Weston dressed as a shepherd, guiding gently (with a tall curved staff) a flock of real sheep. There was one guy, naked, except for gold paint, head to toe. One of the publicity women from CBS was dressed as a huge pink bunny. Lydia Woltag, one of the Gibson & Stromberg girls, as we were thought of then, came as Carmen Miranda, with a head full of fruit, making her nearly 8 ft. tall. Memories abound of Gibson dressed as Henry VIII, and Stromberg as The Pope, blessing the guests with an enormous phallic candle. The Ball was covered live on Radio station KMET, The Mighty Met, by an incredulous Richard Kimble, a dear friend of ours and the band. Again, somewhere, there is footage, and a big file of still photos, which I hope to retrieve someday. Dr. Hook had a top-selling album, and yes, the single "On The Cover of Rolling Stone" got them on the cover. The headline read "What's-Their-Names Make The Cover." Later, I persuaded the guys in Hook to disrobe for a centerfold photo in the short-lived humor magazine Zipper. Copies of Zipper, with Hook's Centerfold, made their way to Europe, where the band became heroes. Some years later, when they played a festival in Sweden, the audience insisted that they take their clothes off, then Hook told the audience that they had to get naked first, and, it was one of those rare instances when performer and audience became one. Wish I had been there, but this sea of flesh was amazing, according to their longtime road manager Nineyear Wooldridge.

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