When the Rackets Move In
By Fred Sparks
The San Francisco Examiner
September 28, 1971
One day early this summer, Ringo Starr walked into a music shop in London and asked for the Beatles' album Live at Shea. Recognizing Ringo, the sales clerk asked, "How come you're buying one of your own albums?" Ringo replied, "Because it's not my album. I never heard it."
When the Beatles appeared at Shea long ago, the concert was illegally recorded, and a bootleg record was made and sold. The Beatles got zero.
Another currently best-selling bootleg original is Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder, made from tapes stolen from his home in Woodstock, New York.
Stores around the world are selling copies of popular tapes, cassettes, and records, costing rock musicians and record companies in the U.S. alone an estimated $100 million annually in lost royalties and sales.
New York's assistant district attorney Roy Colts Sr. showed me perfect counterfeits of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar seized in raids on 14 Manhattan stores, some of them "reliable" retail outfits. One of the biggest U.S. bootleg operations is in New Jersey and is dominated, according to my police sources, by former members of the mafia family headed by Joseph Colombo Sr., who was gunned down at a New York rally early in July.
The underworld hard sell is occasionally used. A New Jersey syndicate salesman called on a Lower Manhattan music store proprietor and offered him bootlegged Jesus Christ Superstar albums. "Okay, I'll take 1000," said the merchant. "But we've got you down for 2000," said the salesman, his voice hard. The proprietor snapped, "The hell with you! I won't take any." The thug pushed the merchant into a small bathroom in the rear, knocked him down, and kicked him brutally. Then he shoved his head in the toilet bowl, face down, and almost drowned him.
The former Beatles can afford to lose a few dollars to a bootlegger. They've all become multimillionaires in the last decade, the Rock Decade. Just 10 years ago, on November 9, 1961, in a poorly lit club in Liverpool called the Cavern, Brian Epstein, who ran the record department of his family's department store, discovered the Beatles playing their brains out.
Later, Epstein recalled, "There was quite clearly enormous excitement. They seemed to give off some sort of personal magnetism. I was fascinated." Brian Epstein signed up as the Beatles' manager. A few months later, he got Parlophone in London to let them record "Love Me Do" with "P.S. I Love You" on the flip side; the record went up the chart like a moon rocket, and the money flooded in.
When the Beatles and rock first revolutionized the music business, small record companies mushroomed in England and America, needing only one hit to make big money. They gave these jockeys cash to play the records -- Payola.
One DJ told investigators that though his salary was $850 a month, his rent was $400. Furthermore, he ran two fancy cars. "How is that possible?" He was asked. The DJ replied, "In my business, the salary is unimportant. Many disc jockeys pay the stations for the privilege of working there. Besides my $ 850-a-month salary, I receive checks each month from 12 record companies totaling about $2,000."
Payola was not then illegal; it is now. But Federal Communications Commission investigators say payola is more widespread now than before, though seldom in cash. Curry Grant, a Los Angeles record promoter, told the FCC that gifts to DJs include food, clothing, auto paint jobs, and crates of records they could sell.
In San Diego, a disc jockey was invited by a record company to a party in a hotel suite; he was told to come without his wife. When he arrived, the DJ was given cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and a stunning blonde.
England is the same. Scotland Yard is now investigating a sex for plugs system. The Yard moved after a newspaper exposed an attractive female recording artist as the operator of a call girl ring on behalf of a record company. It was alleged this girl supplied willing young ladies to BBC producers and executives in return for airtime. Not long ago, according to printed reports, two men from the BBC spent the night with two hookers, but still did not play the record requested. A week later, they called for a return engagement. The madam told the girls involved to be straight on the line with them. "They'll either play the record, or there'll be no more scenes coming their way."
Besides probing payola, Scotland Yard detectives, headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Booker, are checking 350 record shops to see if pop charts are rigged. Britain's leading music journal, Melody Maker, said there are a lot of unscrupulous men in the pop business.
Some people are reaping rich rewards by getting in the charts unfairly. I asked a U.S. record company executive if American hit charts are rigged. "Well, certainly people are trying to rig them," he said. "There are certain retail outlets that are called each week by the charts as to what their bestsellers are. Some of the record companies' representatives around the country go into stores and say, 'Look, when they call you, report our product. Here's 25 free albums, 50 free singles.'"
"If you get somebody who's a little shady, you get reported. They have to use judgment, though. It's got to be a record that's selling, if not selling well enough to be reported as a bestseller."
While only a small percentage walk a snaky line, I'm convinced the pirates and rock have easy pickings. Davy Jones of the now disbanded Monkees once had four different managers and agents. One day, Jones showed his contract to a lawyer. After reading them, the attorney shook his head, whistled, and said, "Mr. Jones, according to these papers, your representatives have a right to collect 120% of your earnings."
The Monkees made millions for two years. Their TV show got top ratings. The money rolled in. Now broke in London, Davy sighs. "I haven't been exactly starving, although the icebox has been empty a few times. I was sold down the river. I was too busy performing and let other people handle my affairs. They helped themselves."
Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane is another case in point. "We've made millions of dollars," Miss Slick told a writer, "but we're terrible about business. We have no idea how much money has been taken from us by managers, and sensitive advisers and crooks."
Then there's Noel Redding, who was with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Redding recently said, "We were really earning big money, or so we thought. For a one-night stand at Madison Square Garden, we were told we earned $105,000, but I never had a penny of it. I've already sold my Rolls Royce, and at the moment, I'm earning $12 a night working occasionally in pubs."
Even the Beatles have management problems. Earlier this year, after examining the Beatles' books, London's High Court Justice Stamp said one manager had taken more than 1.2 million dollars in excess of commissions.
In Nobodies, a Greenwich Village bar where rock musicians hang out, I was told that the most outrageous swindles take place when groups are on the road. A rock veteran described a typical situation. One night when a group was playing a Midwestern city, he said the local promoter and the group's road manager handled things at the box office. The gross came up to about $100,000, of which the group was supposed to get 40% or $40,000. These two men each put up $10,000 apiece in their pockets and told the group the gross was $80,000. The musicians were cheated out of $8,000. They got $32,000 instead of $40,000.
There may have been violent disputes over money during concert tours in Melbourne this summer. When Britain's Manford Mann group was touring Australia, a couple of unknown men broke into tour manager Bob Foster's hotel room and gave him a terrible beating. His life was threatened, and the tour was canceled. Back in London, the group's general manager, David Joseph, told the press there were suggestions that Foster had stolen a couple of $1,000 notes. That's all rubbish, of course.
When Epstein made his historic visit to the Cavern Club, each Beatle was making $20 a week. Times have changed. A couple of years ago, George Harrison received a $226,400 royalty check. He slipped it into a drawer in his bedroom. Six months later, reaching for a handkerchief, George found the check. He had forgotten all about that $226,400.
