Entertainment Promoter

Now, now, so, so you worked at Planters Bank [Union Planters Bank, Nashville Tennessee] and you, you went to school [Memphis State College, later University of Memphis, Memphis Tennessee] at the same time?$$Yeah, I was going to school at night. And I did that all the way until the, the summer of '71 [1971]. Along the way I met, you know, [HM] Isaac Hayes, David Porter, the group The Soul Children, Jim Stewart, Al Bell, Otis Redding would come in there, Mack Rice who wrote 'Respect Yourself' and 'Cheaper to Keep Her.' You know it got to be [unclear] all these people.$$I didn't realize the same person wrote 'Respect Yourself' and 'Cheaper to Keep Her.'$$Yeah, yeah, Mike Rice, Cadillac assembly line. He's a character, yeah. Bonnie Mack Rice from Clarksdale, Mississippi, lives in Detroit [Michigan]. And he--but I was, I was still going to school, you know and I went nonstop from the time that you know that I, that I started back in, in the--in May of '68 [1968] until I, you know, I got to the summer of '71 [1971] and I didn't--I couldn't take the--the couple of classes that I needed to finish at night. And I didn't want to wait until the summer, so I took off during the summer from the job to go--to finish. And when I came back to talk to the bank, you know about what was gonna happen. You know, I graduated from college now and what was gonna happen at the bank. I remember the guy made a call to somebody and said well you know Fred Jones is here and you know, what we gone do with him? I'm, you know I'm sitting there listening to him and got off the phone and he said well, we don't know what we gone do with you. In the meantime, Isaac Hayes offered me a job working for him. Say he needed, you know, his 'Shaft' was just breaking, breaking big and they finna go on the road and they needed somebody who, who could handle money.$$'Shaft' was breaking real big.$$Yeah.$$It was the biggest thing in the--$$Yeah, so actually the biggest thing in the world. And said, you know we want you to--you know, we gone go out on a tour and we want you to, you know, somebody who can count money. Obviously with my experiencing in banking and--so my first day on the job, I was on a plane going to LA [Los Angeles]. And they say the rest is history, you know. And, and I left the bank and went with Isaac and that was my real--although I had done some things for the Soul Children on the weekends. But that was the real, the real big thing for me, going with Isaac and learning how to do manifests and count tickets and all those kinds of things, how they worked.$$Okay so your, your responsibilities were primarily counting responsibilities.$$Well here again, I've always liked numbers. So you, you'll probably hear this kind of a, a central theme through my whole career. You know, you know my job was to pick up the money and account for it. You know if it was, was spent somewhere, then you just make sure that you get the, the receipts and you account for--I, if I picked up 15,000 dollars then the money might go wherever it was, you know it was to go, but at the end of the day I needed to have you know, if it was less than 15,000, I have that, you know and an accounting of it, you know. Which was a thing that you, you know that you kind of learn going on that you got to, you got to make this money, but you also have to account for it, especially the expenses. So you know for income tax purposes and all that.$Tell us about the Southern Heritage Classic. How did you get the idea for that and when did you start?$$Well let, let me make--let me say one thing here. I don't wanna let that go. One of the other groups that I've gotten really close to over the years was the Isley Brothers. And it's, it's strangely how that happened. They were gonna go out on a tour in the late '70s [1970s], can't think of the exact year. And think it was '77 [1977], '78 [1978], I can't--one of the years. And a guy named James O. Thomas [ph.] who I knew from working with [HM] Isaac [Hayes], was working with them. And they had tried some promoters and things didn't work out. He said well I know this guy who can--I know he can get it done. So he called me up and said you know, we want, you know they want you, to consider you to do this tour. Really? I don't have no money. I ain't have money to take the trip to New York. They gon' take care of that. They just want somebody to take care of it. So that started a relationship that I still have with the, with the family from, from, you know from that point. And it kind of showed me a side of what, what can be done in this business 'cause they were one of the first groups that--they were doing their own shows, writing their own music, playing their own music, had their own business. And I remember we doing the, the tours--the times that I--when I first started it, they were financing it. I did everything else. Only thing they did was sing. Where, where the arena they played, how much the ticket prices were, where they stayed, all of those kind of things were taken care of. All they had, had--what time do we go on stage? And, and we took care of that. And that was a tremendous relationship that I still have with the, with them right now, with Ronald [Isley] and Ernie [Isley] and they're the two ones that are still in the band now. But Kelly [O'Kelly Isley, Jr.] who's the older brother, who kind of--everything kind of flowed through Kelly in terms of the business and what have you. And he was telling me one time, he say you know people don't realize about the entertainment business, how emotional it is. You're on a tremendous high, and tremendous low. And you know that's kind of tough to take. You got a record that you put a lot of things in and goes to number one, then you have one that, that could flop. Fortunate for them, once they start, you know, started churning out hit records with, with the younger brothers, you know and, and Chris [Jasper], you know, the brother-in-law, man it was--they had a tremendous run. And I was right, right there for the, right there for that.$$Yeah, one of the few groups that they had a hit almost every year for the last thirty years.$$It's tremendous. You know then you hear the stories about the time when they went to Motown, or hear the story about the (unclear), you know, how they--nobody would that take that record and they took they last money and, and, and produced it themselves, one of the biggest records in their history. You know just, you know they were--at the time I was, when I was with them, it was like when I was with [HM] Isaac [Hayes], I was right in the forefront of what was going on with, with music. And you know not people--not that many people get that opportunity to, to be where the action is. When I was with Isaac, Isaac had the number one record in the world. I mean all the Vegas [Las Vegas, Nevada] shows was doing the theme from 'Shaft.' We went to Europe, worked with Burt Bacharach. We--one of the first artist that sold you know, a million records--equivalent of a million records in Canada, you know. It was tremendous. The Isley Brothers came along with 'Fight the Power' and all that stuff. Man, you right there in the middle of it and doing their own shows and doing you know, national tours and that kind of thing. It was tremendous. So, you know that was, you know I--being close to that, you know that family and that group for a long time.