The Budweiser Superfest and the Business of Black Music Part 3: The Teddy Bear & the War of The Gods

                                                              

In a pivotal scene (episode 4: The Racket) from Vinyl, HBO's short-lived (and must-see) series about the coke-crazed Seventies music industry, record man Richie Finestra's shady contract negotiations with fictional rock band The Nasty Bits is thwarted by gravelly-voiced ex-client Lester Grimes---a Black singer who lost his career (and vocal chords) at the hands of his domineering mobbed-up label bosses.

 Lester descends into obscurity for a decade, plunging toilets as a handyman in a South Bronx housing project skeptically observing hip hop's genesis. Swooping in for the big payback, he negotiates a $20,000 advance for the band---as their new manager. Outwitted at his own game, Richie is livid: In what universe do you think these shitpalms pay a Black man twenty percent of their dough?"

In the 1970s, big-money rock and pop acts worked exclusively with white promoters and managers in a world Black promoters, A&R execs and managers were rarely given access to. In a scene from the same Vinyl episode---Clark, a white A&R on the brink of losing his job due to his inability to sign viable acts---tries to turn the tables on a black co-worker on the verge of signing a rock group:

Clark: "So you found an act. Are they---what are they like? They're black guys?" 

Co-worker: "Nah."       

Clark: "Really did you not find any (black bands). You didn't wanna go that way?"                               

Co-worker: "I did. You think I'm here to just bring in the brothers?"                     

 When white promoters began using their connections to book R&B performers like the Jacksons and Earth Wind and Fire in high-paying arena gigs---Black promoters pushed back. At the center of this dispute was one of Black music's biggest solo superstars: Teddy Pendergrass.

                                                                           

Befitting his status as a platinum act, Pendergrass' manager Shep Gordon steered toward high-paying engagements like LA's  Roxy and Greek Theater and Lake Tahoe's Sands Hotel. Cut out of lucrative opportunities, some promoters moved to boycott Pendergrass' current tour. Others levied death threats ('your life won't be worth a damn.") forcing Pendergrass to secure police and FBI protection.

Abandonment claims were unfounded. Pendergrass offered dates to promoter friends and pushed for co-promotion between white and black promoters whenever possible. Making no excuses for his power moves, his reason for moving upward and onward were justified. Only a couple years into a solo career he'd experienced situations prompting him to leave the chitlin circuit  behind for good. 

                                                            

 In 1977, manager Taaz Lang was killed at her doorstep while Pendergrass was on tour. Lang's murder was rumored to be committed by Philly Black Mafia factions angling for control of his career. A year earlier, Pendergrass exited the Blue Notes citing years of poor treatment and bad pay. Disgruntled group leader Harold Melvin responded with death threats against his ex-lead singer.  

Early tours found Pendergrass dealing with unscrupulous promoters. During his co-headliner days he beefed with Bobby Womack and his gun-toting entourage over stage time. Locking eyes with an audience member making gestures that he'd shoot the singer onstage. Pendergrass abruptly canceled a final show causing his manager to hastily pull together $100,000 to reimburse promoters. 

 

                                                                           

 As co-headliner, Pendergrass beefed with Bobby Womack and his gun-toting entourage over stage time. When the hit-making Isley Brothers hired him as opening act ("its  $10,000---the most you'll ever make for a date in your life"), his star was rising fast. His first two albums went gold in a year. News of one selling a million copies would incite the jealousy of the Isleys ("Oh your album's platinum huh?"). Frustrated over the thought of lost money over a canceled Isley Brothers' date---Pendergrass offered to take the date, proposing he get paid double his rate if he sold out----or bypassing his fee if he didn't.

                                                                                  

Pendergrass' sellout show liberated him from the mercy of other competitive established acts ("And I won. Big. I muttered "Screw you" to Kelly Isley where he might be and I never opened for---or answered to anyone else again"). A year later, the superstar with consecutive three platinum albums now stood in the crosshairs of promoters refusing to accept dates for his current tour.

A deal was brokered. Dick Griffey---Solar Records exec and president of the United Black Concert Promoters of America called off the boycott after Pendergrass agreed to give up a percentage of his tour dates to black promoters. Griffey walked back his threats:

 "It would be foolish of us to let egos get in the way and there's always room for compromise.We probably made a mistake in saying we wouldn't take the dates. Last week we said we wouldn't accept Teddy's dates because we were getting an unfair deal. Teddy's people came to us with a deal that is more than fair. We don't want to hurt Teddy or Philadelphia International Records" 

Pendergrass' career would continue to ascend. One year and another million selling album later, he'd be booked for a slot at the inaugural Super Fest '80. Meanwhile, the black promoter boycott would gain momentum arriving at the Super Fest's door. Next up: PT IV: Money and The Power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                 

 

                                                                

 

                                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                

 Finally reaching a settlement, Pendergrass offered Black promoters percentages of future performance dates. Similar boycotts prompted Anheuser-Busch to sign promoter Al Haymon to a multi-year pact to run the Superfest. Starting out promoting jazz acts in college, Haymon had graduated to promoting concerts from top-flight Black entertainers of the 70s and 80s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                  

  "Reverend, one thing I'm trying to raise you on is, don't mind other folk's business. Mind your business. Your business is you want American dollars."-----James Brown (1972)

 "Let me ask me you a question. Can  you sing Get Up On The Good Foot?  You're going to sing it tonight, unless you come up with some American money."---James Brown 1972

 

 Lucrative relationships Black performers were now enjoying with white promoters were a far cry from the "plantation system" described in Dempsey Travis' A Biography of Black Jazz. Black entertainers were the exclusive property of mobbed-up club owners.

 

Contracts were "perpetual." One jazz pianist was bound to a $150-a-week contract constructed to last forever. If the mobster who held the contract died, the entertainer was the personal property of the widow. If she died, the eldest son would assume control of the contract for life. Performance fees were tied up in a form of "escrow" to coerce an act to perform. 

 

The need for a protective benefactor and "the notion of a white champion" resonated with Louis Armstrong who took the advice of a friend as he left New Orleans for Chicago: "When you get up north, Dipper, be sure and get yourself a white man to put his hand on your shoulder and say this is my nigger."

 

Forty years later, on live television with manager Joe Glaser seated nearby---Armstrong echoed the same sentiment. Laurence Bergreen's 2012 book Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life  traces these master-slave relationships back to a "survival mechanism" that Black people "reluctantly developed" during Jim Crow-era society.

 

Weary of the threats and extortion, artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong signed on with white managers---relinquishing a large share of their publishing rights in exchange for protection. Irving Mills and Joe Glaser kept Armstrong and Ellington on the road 300 days a year. As their clients got rich, Mills and Glaser got wealthy.

 

 

The need for a protective benefactor and "the notion of a white champion" resonated with Louis Armstrong who took the advice of a friend as he left New Orleans for Chicago: "When you get up north, Dipper, be sure and get yourself a white man to put his hand on your shoulder and say this is my nigger."

 

Forty years later, on live television with manager Joe Glaser seated nearby---Armstrong echoed the same sentiment. Laurence Bergreen's 2012 book Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life  traces these master-slave relationships back to a "survival mechanism" that Black people "reluctantly developed" during Jim Crow-era society.

 

Weary of the threats and extortion, artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong signed on with white managers---relinquishing a large share of their publishing rights in exchange for protection. Irving Mills and Joe Glaser kept Armstrong and Ellington on the road 300 days a year. As their clients got rich, Mills and Glaser got wealthy.

 

 

 

                                                                      

 

 Following his success with Armstrong, Glaser created the Associated Booking Corporation Associated Booking Corporation (ABC) in 1940 to handle the concert bookings of African-American performers. After Glaser died in '69, the company was willed to Armstrong's  former road manager Oscar Cohen. Armstrong was left financially secure but was was not given a piece of the business he helped build.

 

Fifty years after Glaser's death, ABC continued to a major force in booking black talent. Cohen became a millionaire. After his death in April 2020, the company remained in the Cohen family.

 

 

 Some entertainers were more in control of their fate on tour. Cash was king. Payment was always due upfront. Long after bank wires replaced cash payments, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin and James Brown continued to conduct cash-only transactions.

 

                                                                      

 

 Following his success with Armstrong, Glaser created the Associated Booking Corporation Associated Booking Corporation (ABC) in 1940 to handle the concert bookings of African-American performers. After Glaser died in '69, the company was willed to Armstrong's  former road manager Oscar Cohen. Armstrong was left financially secure but was was not given a piece of the business he helped build.

 

Fifty years after Glaser's death, ABC continued to a major force in booking black talent. Cohen became a millionaire. After his death in April 2020, the company remained in the Cohen family.

 

 

 Some entertainers were more in control of their fate on tour. Cash was king. Payment was always due upfront. Long after bank wires replaced cash payments, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin and James Brown continued to conduct cash-only transactions.

 

 In 2001, a seventy-six year old Berry drove eighty miles for an outdoor concert (to save on air fare), arriving at the venue (late) with an empty briefcase and message to management: "first things first." Berry meticulously counted out his fee for a 45 minute performance ---$20,000 in $100 dollar bills---before hitting the stage.

 

Aretha Franklin shared the same sentiment. With reading glasses perched on her nose,

she watched promoters count out the money and hit the stage with money in hand ("the purse would always make it on stage"). Al Green carried a briefcase full of tour money on stage.

 

 In his book Go And Tell Phaoroah, Al Sharpton recalls his adventures working with Brown as his de-facto road manager. Once when Sharpton booked Brown for a London gig, he was paid up front in British currency. The exchange in the aftermath is between the two is a lesson in Brown's sharp business acumen:

 

 Sharpton: "We've got our money". Brown: "Good Reverend." Sharpton: "Yeah, twenty thousand pounds." Brown: "Pounds? Where'd you go to school at Reverend? "

 

  Sharpton: "Samuel J. Tilden High School & Brooklyn College." Brown: "And where are those schools at, son?" Sharpton: "New York" Brown: "Did any of those schools talk about pounds?  Go tell them I want American money for the show tonight." 

 

Sharpton: They said its 10'oclock. Where are we going to get fifty thousand dollars this time at night?

Brown: "Reverend, one thing I'm trying to raise you on is, don't mind other folk's business. Mind your business. Your business is you want American dollars."

 

Despite having only a sixth grade education, Brown understood the fluctuating value of foreign currency ("Reverend,  they'll drop the value of that pound tonight"). He also wouldn't budge from his demands ( "Let me ask me you a question. Can  you sing Get Up On The Good Foot?  You're going to sing it tonight, unless you come up with some American money."). 

 

When Sharpton booked Brown to  play an all-star concert in support of the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire for $100,000, Brown's eye was always on the bottom line. Sharpton tells the story:

                                

"The day James and the band are leaving. We are riding to the airport. James says, Reverend, where's the money? I said I didn't have it. I didn't think they couldn't give it to us all at once. James said he wasn't leaving until he was paid. He made Don King's people come up with the money, a hundred grand in cash. And they did."

 

"I asked James why didn't he want to stay and enjoy the fight, he laughed and said Reverend, how many times do I have to tell you. This is a business? I did my show, I made my money. I got things to do. And strangely enough, Mobutu (the Zaire dictator) put everybody on house arrest because of high hotel bills but James was here in America, counting his money and booking new dates. All business."

  

 In 2002, Sharpton repeated an abbreviated version of their adventures in Zaire during an interview with The New Yorker---“Reverend, I’m going to be over here making my next dollar while Ali’s making his.”