Music - My Gold Records

Fortunately, like a cat, I’ve lived more than one life. But there was a time, in the late ‘90’s, when I thought the world had ended. I had made a fateful decision to leave my cocoon at Capitol Records, after almost 20 years, and try my luck as a consultant. I had no business trying to be a businessman. It was doomed from the beginning. I blew through money, failed to make the allies I needed, and immediately ran into the 1990 recession. I struggled through six years of it, but when best friends start turning in each other, it’s time to re-think your program. By the mid-90’s, rock’n’roll as a vital new force was essentially over, and my business and career were too.
I’d also lost my mother (died), my wife (split), my teacher (died) and best friend (feud)... it was too much. I got clinically depressed, unable to care. Which led to divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, a big tax bill, and drug abuse. The downward spiral. So, when I got T-boned by a truck at Santa Monica and Vine on the way to the airport, I just went home. The insurance company didn’t figure out the fault for a while, so I had to raise money to cover the deductible when my Benz was repaired. I looked around, and thought, “Why not sell these gold record plaques?” And I did, as part of a general load-lightening that ended with me alone with my yoga mats moving to Harbin Hot Springs on 1-1-01.

Now, it occurs that, although I don’t need to impress anyone the way I thought was once cool, it might be historically interesting to list those absent awards. They constitute the essence of an earlier life for me, and I am proud and honored to have been involved in the exciting rock music scene ‘76-’89, with an additional hot year in ‘93. So here’s the list:

1.Sweet, “Desolation Boulevard”. Ed Lefler, who also had Sammy Hagar, Juice Newton and (later) Van Halen, managed. A fellow Scorpio, and a cool guy. This English act had hits with “Ballroom Blitz” and “Fox on the Run.” This was followed up with “Level Headed”, which produced the rock radio hit “Love Is Like Oxygen,” which didn’t quite make gold status.
800,000 units.

2-6. Bob Seger, “Live Bullet.” This was Bob’s first gold, after years of dues-paying, and was followed up by four quadra-platinum records in a row: “Night Moves,” “Stranger In Town,”  “Nine Tonight,” and “Against the Wind.” 16,500,000 units initially. (See my Bob Seger post.) He and his excellent Silver Bullet Band continued with “Fire Down Below” and “Like A Rock.”  He’s at 45 million albums sold now, including the Greatest Hits compilations the songs.) Punch Andrews has been his life-long manager and producer.

7-8. Steve Miller, “Fly Like an Eagle” and “Book of Dreams.” Steve had had his first big hit with “The Joker,” took the money, bought a farm near Medford, Oregon, and made these two blockbuster albums in one creative run. Along with “The Joker,” the hits from these two albums comprise his Greatest hits, which topped the Billboard CD reissue chart for a long time (along with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” another Capitol album). “Take the Money and Run,” “Fly Like An Eagle,” “Jet Airliner,” etc. 9,000,000 initially.

9. Bob Welch, “French Kiss.” Just out of Fleetwood Mac (and managed by Mick), Bob had a big hit with “Sentimental Lady.” It was a treat for me, as Bob had taken my place in an R&B band in ‘66. It was a sweet reunion, produced by my friend, A&R man Carter.  1,000,000.

10. Wings, Wings Over America. I obviously can’t take any credit for Paul McCartney’s career. He had been a superstar with the Beatles since ‘64. And his second band, Wings, had already had big hits with “Band On The Run” and “Venus and Mars.” Then he staged what was to be the best-produced concert series yet seen, and my staff, as artist development/relations people, had the privilege of accompanying the tour. It was a logistical coordination job, and a real pleasure to work with Paul, who on the three occasions I met him to be, clearly, a real gentleman. 3,000,000.

11. Little River Band. This Australian group had an epic 9-minute song, “It’s a Long Way There,” that was too long for radio play. I worked with the best editing engineer in the business, John Palladino, to get a promo version down to 4:16. It wasn’t a simple job,; multiple edits within the extended guitar solo had to make sense. It worked, and set up the next album, “Diamantina Cocktail,” for gold. 500,000.

12. The Motels, “All Four One”  Martha Davis was an underground rocker in the guise of a torch singer, and beloved by the Capitol staff. Also signed by Carter, her group finally struck gold with the Val Garay-produced “Suddenly, Last Summer” and “Only the Lonely.” 500,000.

13. The Knack, "Get the Knack." These Detroit boys, transplanted to L.A., drew their inspiration from the first British music invasion. "Get the Knack" was an obvious take-off on "Meet the Beatles," and, with their hit "My Sharona," their rise up the charts was just as fast. The band was tight; even Bruce Springsteen was impressed when he saw them. They made their record quickly with producer Mike Chapman (Blondie), and in no time had a gold single. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a "one-hit wonder." Nevertheless, 2,000,000.

14-15.  Biily Squier. Billy’s first album did only 35,000, but it had a Zeppelin-like quality that got everyone’s attention. He switched to Mack, one of Queen’s producers, and took off like a rocket with his second album. The next one did just as well. His run included “In the Dark,” “Lonely Is the Night,” “Everybody Wants You,” and “The Stroke.” Years later, he and I were completing a cross-country promo trip together at the CMJ Awards, which were held at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem. He was to present an award to his fellow Bostonians Aerosmith.) Backstage, we ran into Run-DMC and LL Cool J. Billy was astonished to learn from them that his song “The Big Beat,” from his little-known debut album, had been one of the seminal samples of the Queen rap scene. 5,000,000.

16. Missing Persons. We were trying out EPs - low-budget, 6-song mini-albums - to promote new artists. It worked for this L.A. band, with a cute girl singer and a ferocious drummer, Terry Bozzio. The hit was “Walking in L.A.” After the mini-album took off, we launched the full-length LP. 500,000.

17. Thomas Dolby, “She Blinded Me With Science.” Using the same EP-first strategy, and using the new outlets of MTV and dance clubs, we had a big hit with Thomas, who we were happy to get via EMI U.K., our parent company. 500,000. We  came close with “Hyperactive,” from the next album, too.

18-20. Duran Duran. OMG, this felt like a phenomenon. There was a second English music invasion happening, and these guys had it all figured out. Their videos were shot on film (“Girls On Film”) in exotic locales, and the unrelated Taylors, along with Nick in makeup, were hot. For some reason, Lee Abrams’ rock stations went along with this trend. MTV and the dance clubs couldn’t get enough. They went from the Roxy (a club on the Strip) to the Forum (a basketball arena) in one tour. By the second album, “Rio,” I had them at the top of the charts along with the latest Bob Seger album, and I was soon promoted to VP, Rock A&R. There I was given the cushy job of joining the band for a good part of their first big North American tour. Their managers were the Barrow brothers, club owners from their hometown of Birmingham, England (“Peaky Blinders”!). They all developed refined tastes. The first three albums all were mega, including “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Save A Prayer” and “The Reflex” totaling 7,500,000.

21-23. Iron Maiden. Another EMI U.K. gift, this was a slow burn. But when it did, it became one of the biggest catalogs in Capitol’s catalog, along with the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Garth Brooks. The strategy was the brilliant work of managers Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor (no relation to the Duran Duran guitarist). Rod had learned the American music market (intimidating for Europeans) as tour manager for Steve Harley in the ‘70’s. Andy was a financial genius. They made a plan, knowing where they were going to be, to the day, four years out. The strategy was based on fan loyalty and merchandising. Their “mascot,” Eddie was the face of the group, and was as relentlessly visible as he was scary. This was heavy metal in the hard-core Black Sabbath tradition (as opposed to the more melodic Deep Purple one that produced B.O.C and Boston), so radio play was a real challenge. But we pushed it everywhere we could, and the growing success of the group was unarguable. I had a couple of semi-hits with “Two Minutes to Midnight” and “Run to the Hills,” and got a very cool multi-disc plaque. At one point, all the albums in their catalog went gold. Then platinum. It wasn’t going to stop. I guess that in my time their sales were close to 10,000,000.

24. W.A.S.P. This outrageous L.A. group, led by Blackie Lawless, was much like early Alice Cooper, heavy and dark. The first album was about the theater of shock, but the music on the second was actually relatively melodic for a “metal” group. Spencer Proffer, who’d produced Quiet Riot’s hits, had the right touch. Sanctuary Music’s Rod and Andy (see Iron Maiden) managed. Radio resisted, but enough came on board to get us to gold with “Wild Child.” 500,000.

25. Red Rider, April Wine. Beside our U.K. parent, we had a great source of music with Capitol of Canada. Dean Cameron was the A&R honcho, and he sent several good rocks acts to us. I particularly loved Red Rider, featuring Tom Cochrane. I didn’t get him his gold album - that came as a solo project while I was in A&R - but certainly laid the foundation for it with some big rock radio hits, especially “Lunatic Fringe,” which was #1 at rock radio for at least six weeks. April Wine was not considered so special as songwriters, but kept notching up the results. First album, with “Roller”: 200,000. Second album, with “I Like to Rock”: 400,000. Third album, with “Sign of the Gypsy Queen: 800,000. About 2,000,000 total for both acts.

26-28. Great White. My one successful signing as an A&R man. Like Iron Maiden or April Wine, it started small and just got bigger and bigger. This was an L.A. band that was just one of many to emerge in the mid-late ‘80’s. It had been signed, but then dropped by our then sister label, EMI America. But then they put out a song independently that became #1 on the local L.A. rock stations: : “Face the Day.” I wasn’t a complete idiot, so I signed them on my way back to promotion. It didn’t hurt that their manager, Alan Niven, was a cool English guy who co-produced and co-wrote their albums; he also managed another up-coming L.A. band called Guns’n’Roses. So, yeah, there was some growing clout during this escapade. I had signed them, and then was back in the promo chair (now as a VP), so it was a highlight when we went from 100,000 to 1,000,000 with “Rock Me” and the ballad “Save Your Love,” to 2,000,000 with the hit “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” Then a slip to gold, then a greatest hits, so almost 5,000,000 total. Personal fave: the epic blues “House of Broken Love,” which was a top 10 turntable hit.

29. Crowded House. Young, bright A&R man Tom Whalley picked up this update of Split Enz, the Australian group led by the Finn brothers. Everyone who heard “Don’t Dream It’s Over” was entranced, but it didn’t rock hard enough for most programmers to take a chance on it. Capitol was wisely determined, though. I was brought back to promotion after the song had failed to break in two attempts. We got lucky when a Madison, Wisconsin station proved its appeal. We spread it to Chicago, and rolled it from there. 500,000.

30. Poison. Like Guns’n’Roses, this L.A. hard-rock band was cleverly marketed initially with an underground, androgynous  punk music vibe. WBCN in Boston, which normally hated L.A. “hair bands,’ went for it. It set up a well produced follow-up that went right down the middle. The trick was to establish some hard-rock cred (“Nothin’ But a Good Time”), then come with a killer ballad (“Every Rose Has Its Thorn”). 2,000,000.

31. Bonnie Raitt. I’d seen Bonnie open for J.J. Cale at the Ash Grove in L.A. in late 1970. She’s just signed to Warner Bros. She established herself as a fine musician of great credibility, but never had a hit. 18 years later, I got my chance to work with her when she signed to Capitol under the new management of Gold Mountain (Danny Goldberg and Ron Stone, who insisted on sobriety). Don Grierson, our Sr. VP, was a master of resuscitating careers with classic A&R work, namely finding great songs and great producers to go with great voices. He did it with Heart and Joe Cocker, and with Bonnie. But she’s never had a top 40 hit, so I had to deliver first at rock radio. We had the goods (“Thing Called Love”), and the benefit of great support from VH1, MTV’s more adult channel. The record crossed over, went gold, won Grammys and kept going. A favorite experience for me. 4,000,000.

Soon thereafter, under pressure from new management that was cleaning house at the label to bring in their cronies from Columbia or Warner Bros., I left to start my consulting business. After a year, I got a call to see if I’d like to return as a consultant. In another year, I was asked if I’d run the department again. This produced three more big hits, in the early ‘90’s:

32. Megadeth, “Countdown to Extinction.” The grunge thing and Metallica were happening. MTV ruled, and, if you had a killer video, it was pretty easy to get rock radio to go along. This was a huge contrast to the ‘70’s, before MTV, and when heavy metal was restricted to specialty shows on radio, once a week at midnight. Leader Dave Mustaine had originally been in Metallica, and this band became almost as big.  

33. Radiohead. Another gift from EMI U.K., the first album produced “Creep,” the group’s first hit. Sometimes the public senses something special , as with Nirvana. 500,000 on the first album was just the tip of the iceberg. They went on to be the rock band for millennials.

34. Blind Melon. Capitol’s big hit of the grunge scene, “No Rain,” was propelled by a strangely sweet video of a girl in a bee costume tutu dancing through the streets. It was a sensation, and the song broke Aerosmith’s record for the most plays received at rock and alternative radio. Management was by BFD, which also had G’n’R at this point. (Tragically, Shannon Hoon, the group’s leader and singer, committed suicide, as had Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain,) 2,000,000.

There were many other artists, of course, that I had great experiences with.

Sammy Hagar, was very close to gold when his contract expired and he left for Geffen. We had done the grunt work with him.

I had the privilege of working on albums from the Doobie Brothers, Queen, Heart and Joe Cocker, who were already stars when they came to Capitol. I had big radio hits with them, but didn’t “break” these acts, so didn’t deserve any special awards. (I got one for Heart, anyway, just doing my part. 4,000,000.)

Two great guitar players I was involved in signing each sold 800,000. Steve Vai had come aboard as Ingvay's Malmsteen's successor in Alcatraz. We were doing a solo album with him when new management let his contract go, so Relativity picked up the master and got the sales. Eric Johnson came via the Cinema Records production dea I'd done in A&R. 

If we sold at least 100,000 albums, it was successful in terms of establishing the artist and being profitable for the company. There were many of these (30?), of which favorites included Starz (managed by Bill Aucoin, the genius behind Kiss); Mink DeVille (Willy DeVille, who put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, later married my assistant, Nina);  the U.K.’s Be-Bop Deluxe (featuring singer & guitarist Bill Nelson, they performed my edit of their “Modern Music Suite” at the Palladium in New York); Kraftwerk (who I’d done a promo trip with in ‘75); Delbert McClinton (who dedicated a James Brown song to me at his L.A. Roxy show, - we’re both big fans of JB);  Jon Butcher (another Spencer Proffer-produced artist, so talented and well-liked, but the victim of a management change at Capitol); Re-Flex ( a U.K. groove group that I championed to a top 10 hit with “The Politics of Dancing”); Pete Bardens (the keyboardist from Van Morrison and Camel, who was part of the Cinema Records production deal I'd signed, made a New Age album that was Pink Floydish enough to get decent airplay); and Steve Miller’s blues- and jazz- leaning albums of the mid-’80’s, that didn’t sell well but really worked for me. I had a strong multi-week run at #1 on the airplay chart with Steve's “Make the World Turn Around,” and a top 20 with his “Ya-Ya” from “Born 2B Blue,” still one of favorite records. But then, I’ll always be a fan of jazz and the blues.

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