I. An Unanswered Memo

I started working as an A&R for Clive Davis at Arista Records on Monday, October 13th, 1997: Columbus Day. A friend suggested that I call Clive the night before, tell him I didn’t realize it was a holiday, and that I’d prefer to start on Tuesday.

Ha.

For the first six weeks I worked at Arista, I was trying to find my way.

There’s no handbook for succeeding with Clive. Some find their way, some don’t. I know one very successful A&R who had hits at every label he ever worked at. Except Arista. That’s just how it is.

In late November, I saw an opening.

Clive had recently reunited with Carlos Santana, decades after their first success at Columbia. He'd just seen Carlos perform and believed that, despite many years without a major hit, he still had enormous commercial potential.

Unfortunately, no one at Arista had yet figured out what kind of record to make. Carlos kept sending brilliant but commercially unlikely demos—ten-minute instrumentals, songs sung entirely in Portuguese.

Around the same time, B.B. King's Deuces Wild—a collaborative covers album featuring artists from Van Morrison to Tracy Chapman—became B.B.’s highest-charting album in twenty years.

That made me wonder if a collaboration album could work for Carlos. But instead of covers, what if every guest wrote a brand-new song? And what if those guests were younger artists who had been inspired to pick up a guitar because of Carlos himself? Could that create an album that appealed not only to Carlos' audience—but to their kids as well?

So I wrote a memo.

The memo laid out the idea, mentioning many of the younger artists who had cited Santana as a major influence.

Clive didn’t do email back then, so I printed it, left it with his assistant, and went back to my office to wait for a response.

And waited.

After around a week, I realized that there would be no response.

Nothing positive.

Nothing negative.

Just nothing.

I didn’t yet have the relationship with Clive where I could barge into his office and ask what he thought. So I decided to stop waiting and just start doing it. I figured if he disliked the idea and wanted me to stop, he’d tell me.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I cold-called Santana’s manager, Greg DiGiovine, and pitched him directly on the idea. Greg loved the concept. We got to work.

The first artist I called was Wyclef Jean of The Fugees. His manager, David, was a friend, so I came right out with it:

"David, we're putting together a collaborative Santana album, and I wanted to run an idea by you..."

He cut me off.

“We’re in.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’re in?’ I haven’t told you the concept.”

“Doesn’t matter. Clef is a guitar freak who thinks that Carlos Santana is a god of the guitar. Where do you want him?”

And just like that, Clef, his production partner Jerry Wonda, and vocalists The Product G&B were on a plane to San Francisco.

When they got back, we all (Clef, Jerry, David, myself and my brilliant A&R colleague Drew Dixon) sat with Clive to play him the song they’d recorded: “Maria Maria.”

Clive looked at Clef:

“I love it.”

Then Clive looked at me:

“Go.

“Do more.”

II. “Pete, Take A Memo”

A lot has been written about Santana's comeback smash, "Smooth"—oral histories, anniversary retrospectives, even a recent video by the song's co-writer, Itaal Shur.

One thing that hasn’t been discussed is how Clive had to convince Carlos to record the song in the first place.

In early 1999, there was a knock on my door. It was Clive’s right-hand man.

"Pete, time's up. We're scheduling the Santana album for June. You need to deliver the final master by the end of the month."

“But I’m not done. I don’t have our first single yet.”

“Pete, you’re done.”

“But…”

Shit.

Then, in a moment of divine intervention, I received a call from Gerry Griffith. Gerry had spent years doing A&R at Arista, where he famously discovered Whitney Houston and introduced her to Clive.

Gerry had become the closest thing I had to a Clive-whisperer as I tried to figure out my way around the place.

“Pete, you still working on that Santana album?”

“Good timing. I’ve now got a deadline but no first single.”

Gerry told me he had met a songwriter named Itaal Shur who might have what I was looking for.

Itaal came to see me and played me the song he had written for Carlos: “Room 17.”

I told Itaal I didn’t think the lyric was right. But there was something to the music. Could he get me the instrumental?

On the recommendation of the great music publisher Evan Lamberg, I sent the instrumental to Rob Thomas. Rob and Itaal got together and turned it into a new song called "Smooth." The three of us spent the next few weeks tweaking it until I was ready to play it for Clive.

Clive listened to the song while reading a lyric sheet that I had printed out for him (a must in a Clive Davis A&R meeting). When the song finished, Clive’s reaction was the same as it had been with Wyclef:

“I love it.

“What does Carlos think?”

I explained to Clive that I hadn’t presented it to Carlos yet because I needed to know that he liked it first.

“I love it.

“Send it to Carlos.”

Just as I was ready to breathe easy that our album finally had its first single, I got a call from Greg DiGiovine.

“Pete, Carlos hates the song you just sent him.”

What?

“Candidly, he says it makes his skin crawl. If you really believe in it, he’ll agree to use part of it, but he’d like to combine it with the 10 minute Portuguese track he sent you.”

I asked Greg to have Carlos listen to it again.

Same response.

This time, though, the door opened a crack.

“Pete, with all due respect, Carlos has known you for two years. He’s known Clive for thirty. If Clive tells Carlos directly that he believes this song is a hit, he’ll agree to record it.”

I walked into Clive’s office and explained the situation.

Clive listened.

Then he looked at me.

“Pete.

“Take a memo.”

Clive dictated a short letter telling Carlos he believed "Smooth" wasn't just another song on the album—it could be the first single.

Fax sent.

Greg called again.

“Carlos says thank you for doing what he asked. He will agree to record the song.”

III. “We’re Signing Her Tonight”

While we were finishing the Santana album, I met a 14-year-old blues singer from Fargo, North Dakota, named Shannon Curfman. She ripped on guitar and sang like Bonnie Raitt.

I caught a great show in Minneapolis and set up a date for Shannon and her mom, Mary, to come to New York to showcase for Clive in person at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.

After one song, Clive turned to me and whispered:

“I haven’t seen anything like this since Joplin. As soon as she’s done, get her in a car to my office. We’re signing her tonight.”

We got to Clive’s office before he did and I began to show Shannon around. Clive’s wall was filled with framed photographs: Clive with Aretha, Clive in 1970 with a young Carlos Santana, Clive with Sly Stone.

When Clive arrived, he immediately started raving over Shannon’s performance and telling her why she should sign to Arista.

Then I noticed something.

Shannon’s mom was missing.

Sometime between Shannon’s tour of Clive’s office and Clive’s arrival, her mother had disappeared.

A few minutes into Clive’s pitch, a door opened in the back of the office.

There she was.

Mary stared at us.

We stared back.

And that’s how Mary Curfman, of Fargo, North Dakota, discovered Clive Davis’ private bathroom.

IV. “Do it Again. The Entire Set”

During my first A&R stint with Clive, I played him a band from England called Electrasy. Clive liked the music and agreed to fly the band over to New York for a showcase.

The band hadn’t spent much time outside of England before and were understandably a bit nervous.

Their lead singer, Ali, looked to calm his nerves with some drink. It may have helped his nerves but it also may have skewed his perspective.

When Clive walked into the showcase, Ali thought he looked exactly like Frank Butcher, a character from the long-running BBC soap EastEnders.

Clive introduced himself to the band and Ali responded:

“Nice to meet you, Frank.”

Not an auspicious beginning.

The band played four songs.

When it was over, Clive looked at them stone-faced and then spoke:

“I don’t believe you. Do it again.”

Ali said,

“Frank—what? The last song?”

Clive replied,

“No. The entire set. And this time like you really mean it.”

They did.

They played like men possessed. Ali even stood on his head for the entire last song.

Arista signed Electrasy.

V. “Well Isn’t This A Pleasant Surprise”

In 2006, at the height of American Idol-mania, Clive brought me and my colleague Ashley Newton in to work on the debut album from that year's fan-favorite, Chris Daughtry.

We all met Chris for the first time in Clive’s office. After some pleasantries, Chris asked if he could perform an original song. This was unusual. Back then, the typical Idol contestant was more singer than songwriter.

Clive said of course and Chris took out his guitar.

When an A&R person sits with Clive and listens to songs, Clive wants their opinion.

But he doesn’t want words.

He wants numbers.

Every song is graded on an informal 1-to-10 scale. Nothing is ever a 1 or a 10. A 6 is a pass, a 7 is an album cut. An 8 is a real hit.

Saying the number 8 out loud is sacred. You had better mean it.

Of course, some A&R's would get cute and give a song that’s better than an album cut but maybe not quite a hit a 7.87275.

But how do you communicate all this to Clive if the artist is sitting with you in the room?

Like a baseball coach, we’d flash signs.

Three fingers on the cheek meant “album cut.” (10 - 3 = 7)

Two fingers on the cheek meant “hit.” (10 - 2 = 8)

No idea what the sign would be for 7.87275.

Chris took out his guitar.

I took out my notepad.

He started singing.

Without thinking, I looked down.

My pen had already written one number.

8.

Before I could flash the sign to Clive, the song had finished.

But Clive was thinking the same thing.

With a sly grin, he turned to Chris.

“Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise.”

VI. Bitter(sweet)

In 2008, Clive brought me in to work with him on another American Idol-alum, Kelly Clarkson.

Kelly and Clive had just had a very public dust-up over her album My December and it was time to press reset.

I started working with Kelly and found her to be a great creative partner. She listened to our suggestions, and we listened to hers. Together, we were making a very strong album.

Towards the end of the process, I received a job offer to become Head of A&R for Atlantic Records. It was too good an opportunity to turn down.

I had to tell Clive I was leaving.

He was very understanding and wished me well. He asked if I could stay on to finish Kelly’s album. No problem.

I introduced Kelly to the great songwriter Ryan Tedder and they sent me a song they wrote together called “Already Gone.” I loved it (in my opinion, it had 8 written all over it) and sent it to Clive along with a lyric sheet.

He called me right away.

“Pete, have you listened to this song you sent me?”

Uh-oh.

“Have you read the lyrics?”

Sigh.

“Why don’t you come in and let’s talk about it?”

Later that day, I was in Clive’s office with the “Already Gone” lyric sheet in front of us. Clive had circled (in blue felt marker, his favorite) nine words.

“Let me show you something,” he said. “There’s a difference between bittersweet and bitter. These nine words are much too angry. They need to be changed.”

We called Ryan. He did not disagree.

Ryan and Kelly changed the words. The song would become a hit.

And it was then, as I walked out of his office for the last time to assume my new position at Atlantic, that I remembered something.

A line from a forgettable 1980 movie called The Baltimore Bullet:

“Just remember, I may have taught you everything YOU know, but I haven’t taught you everything I know.”

VII. Find My Friends

In November 2022, I bumped into one of Clive’s sons at a party for the opening night of a Broadway show.

It had been well over a decade since I left for Atlantic. I still spoke to Clive from time to time, but it had been a while since our last conversation.

“How’s your dad doing?” I asked.

“How’s my dad doing?” he repeated. Then he took out his phone and pulled up the Find My Friends app.

He showed me his father’s location.

On a Thursday night at 10:45 p.m., 90-year-old Clive Davis was eating a steak at Peter Luger in Brooklyn.

VIII. A Final Note

Last Fall, I was given the opportunity to teach a college course at the Clive Davis Institute, part of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

The course was called “A&R: Past, Present & Future.”

I had taught the course elsewhere but had always wanted to teach it at the music business program that Clive had endowed.

As I prepared for the semester, I found myself thinking back to my earliest days with Clive and wrote about them on Substack.

I wrote about the challenging job interviews, my first day at Arista, how demanding Clive could be—and how much I learned from him.

When you publish a piece on Substack, you never know who, if anyone, will read it.

And if they do, what will they think?

Will they connect with it?

Or will the whole thing float in the digital ether, like a long-ago unanswered memo?

This time, the response came quickly:

Dear Pete:

What a great article you wrote for my institute at NYU. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wish you all the best for your work there. I’m so glad the students will be getting the benefit of your experience and expertise.

Best always,

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Billy Joel, Brian and Eddie Holland, Gamble & Huff, Paul Williams.

When half of those names don’t even merit a mention, it’s not just a difference of opinion—it’s a disregard for the very standards by which songwriting excellence has historically been judged.

Lists like this often reflect the moment they’re written in—favoring narrative, relevance, or cultural heat over the longer arc of songwriting craft.

I’ve spent my entire A&R career more laser-focused on the “R” (the repertoire/songs/songwriters) than the “A” (artists/performers). My logic has always been simple: one great songwriter can create hundreds of great songs. And in the business of hit music, a great song performed by a middling artist will almost always outlast a mediocre song by a great one.

That ideology has led me down a song-first path where I also own my own music publishing companies: we sign writers we believe are capable of one day being included on some list of future greats. I also proudly serve on the board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, where our mission is to acknowledge and preserve both great songwriters and their songs. Any writer voted into the Song Hall is chosen by their peers—and the bar is incredibly high. A spirited debate takes place every year.

The Song Hall’s criteria is that any songwriter - either performing or non-performing - becomes eligible for nomination twenty years after their first release. In fact, Taylor Swift is being inducted next month in her first year of eligibility (for you baseball fans, that’s the ultra rare air of Hank Aaron and Mariano Rivera).

That said, you would think any list of greatest living songwriters would include those already recognized by their peers on a Hall of Fame level. In fact, the Song Hall gives its highest honor, the Johnny Mercer award, to a writer already in the Hall who has established a history of outstanding creative works. Writers on the New York Times list who have been honored with the Johnny Mercer award include Carole King, Paul Simon, Smokey Robinson, Dolly Parton, Stevie Wonder, Brian and Eddie Holland, Lionel Richie, and Diane Warren.

All of which make the omissions even more puzzling. To see a “living greats” list that ignores some of our other Mercer award winners like Mike Stoller, Billy Joel, Jimmy Webb, Barry Mann, Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Neil Diamond, Carole Bayer Sager, Paul Williams, Stephen Schwartz and (this year’s honoree) John Fogerty isn’t just puzzling—it feels careless.

Spend enough time around great songwriters, and you start to see the same truth over and over: the extraordinary is almost always hiding inside something ordinary.

It’s been a great joy of mine to have spoken to some of these greats on my podcast: Jimmy, Barry, Kenny, Leon, Carole and Paul have all been guests. To hear them discuss the creation of some of the songs that have become known and loved the world over is a peek into how creative genius really works.

Jimmy’s childhood memories of seeing a county worker on the line in Oklahoma, while driving out of the state with his father, became the basis of what is, in my opinion, the greatest song ever written: the iconic “Wichita Lineman.” But don’t take my word for it; there’s been an entire book devoted to why this is the case:

Songwriters are inspired by the everyday world around them. Jimmy’s memories of a past relationship combine imagery of both the happy and innocent (a birthday cake) with all that was left behind (that same cake, now melting in the rain) on another all-time classic “MacArthur Park.” No one else has written a song like that - either before or after.

Barry Mann told me that while his wife Cynthia Weil was usually responsible for the lyric writing in their creative partnership (“On Broadway,” “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place,” “Somewhere Out There”), he was the one who suggested the now legendary couplet that opens their magnum opus: “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling:”

“You never close your eyes anymore/
When I kiss your lips”

That one phrase is as heartbreakingly honest as any that’s ever been written. That’s Barry.

Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff used to meet for breakfast every day at a restaurant downstairs in Philadelphia’s Shubert Building, where they worked writing songs. They noticed a couple there one day, and Leon realized he knew the guy. He turned to Kenny, “Gamble, that’s not his wife.” They went upstairs and wrote that story: “Me & Mrs. Jones.”

Paul Williams told me about not being able to get the right vocal performance out of Jim Henson singing as Kermit The Frog on Paul’s song “The Rainbow Connection.” He suggested that Jim grab the Kermit puppet and perform as “Kermit,” not Jim. The result? History:

Carole Bayer Sager told me about one of her legendary collaborations with her former husband, the immortal Burt Bacharach. As she often did, Carole started adding lyrics to Burt’s music when he stopped her right away: “That’s not what I wrote.” He was referring to a pick up note that led into the first bar of what would later become the evergreen “That’s What Friends Are For.” Carole argued that lyrically it wouldn’t make sense to add an extra word before what she heard as the start of the verse. To which Burt replied, “I don’t care what word you use, pick any one you want.”

The word Carole chose was “And.”

That’s why the song starts with the listener entering mid-conversation, like a friend:

And I never thought I’d feel this way
And as far as I’m concerned
I’m glad I got the chance to say
That I do believe I love you
And if I should ever go away
Well, then close your eyes and try
To feel the way we do today
And then if you can remember

Keep smilin’, keep shinin’
Knowing you can always count on me for sure
That’s what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I’ll be on your side forever more
That’s what friends are for

Behind every song, there’s a story. And behind every story, there’s a songwriter.

Lists are an unfortunate reality of a world that likes to categorize things. I remember as a kid running to the bookstore to buy a book made up entirely of lists. It was a best seller:

Lists may come and go, shaped by taste, bias, or the need to provoke. But the songs—and the songwriters behind them—are the things that actually endure.

So rather than debate, we should celebrate. Celebrate these sui generis creative minds while they’re still with us.

Perhaps one of them can write a song about it.

Last week, I came back — this time as a teacher.

This semester, I’m teaching a course called A&R: Past, Present & Future — A Deep Dive into the Recording Industry. It’s the second time I’ve taught it at Wesleyan.

When I interviewed John Sebastian from The Lovin’ Spoonful for my podcast, he told me about writing the theme song for a 1970s television show about a former student returning to teach at his high school. The show was originally called “Kotter.” When John finished the song, the producers liked it so much that they changed the name of the show itself. Welcome Back, Kotter became one of the biggest shows of the decade, and John’s song hit #1 in the spring of 1976.

I arrived at Wesleyan as a student in the summer of 1984 when I was 17 years old. Freshman orientation was a few days later, on my 18th birthday. I was one of the younger students and definitely felt like it. It took me a while to adjust to college life and most of that adjustment happened via music.

There were no music business classes at Wesleyan back then, so without realizing it, I created my own “do it yourself” music business program, not for college credit. I knocked on the door of the college radio station, was shown to a room in the back, told to start filing records, and I never left. I also ran Wesleyan’s concert committee and booked great shows with bands like The Neville Brothers and Living Colour. I managed a campus band called Mood Swing (they quit making music together shortly after graduation but I still listen to their music — it’s great).

Of course, I still had real college work to do.

I chose English as my major and also pursued a separate degree through Wesleyan’s Educational Studies Program (ESP). I didn’t know if there was a future for me in music. A teaching certificate could come in handy.

ESP was run by a wonderful teacher named Marjorie Daltry Rosenbaum. She projected the warmth, caring and love one would normally expect from a grandparent and had spent her entire career in education.

The program became like a second family to me. Not only were the faculty always there for us, but all the ESP students grew very close. I loved everything about getting an education IN education.

But music ultimately had the stronger pull. As I approached graduation, I was offered a job in the music business. It was an entry-level job at a small independent label in Manhattan, in radio promotion — not something I was especially interested in. But it was a foot in the door and I decided to take it.

Before I could break the news to Marjorie, she approached me with news of her own. Each year, Wesleyan awarded the Elizabeth Ormsby Award to the most promising future teachers in ESP. For our graduating class of 1988, it would go to two students: my friend Beth Foster (who would go on to teach high school English for over 35 years in nearby Portland, Connecticut) and me.

I didn’t know what to say, other than to tell Marjorie the truth. I wouldn’t be teaching after graduation. I was going to work in the music business. Her smile disappeared, but only momentarily.

Then she looked at me with genuine affection and said:

“You know, we all teach.”

I went on to do A&R at major record labels for over 35 years. I worked with some incredible artists and remain extremely proud of what we did. But Marjorie’s words never really left my mind.

During my 20th college reunion, I reached out to her. She and her husband Robert welcomed me and my family to their home in Middletown, Connecticut, and we had a lovely afternoon together catching up on lost time. Marjorie was also a singer and had a deep love for music — she had even made the cast of Kiss Me, Kate on Broadway. She enjoyed hearing about my exploits in the business of rock and roll, and I was grateful to see her one more time.

Five years later, Marjorie passed away. She was 92 years old. Robert died a few years later, at 102.

When I started teaching classes about the history of contemporary music to my A&R team at Atlantic — long before the podcast — I thought of Marjorie.

And when I stepped back on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown last week, she was with me.

I dedicate this semester to her.

We all teach.

Welcome back.

We call the podcast Rock & Roll High School —both an homage to the famous song and film from the ’70s, and an acknowledgment that we’re all still learning. Learning about the music, the stories, and the people behind them, each absolutely unique in how they create.

Originally, the podcast was going to be called School of Rock, but we changed the name when the Broadway show opened directly across the street from our office.

And now that I’m teaching the history of A&R in colleges across the country, I’ve been able to bring these interviews directly into the classroom. School of Rock, indeed.

Before launching our current season, we’d already released more than 70 original episodes. Each follows the same core idea: an iconic artist, writer, producer, or music executive in a candid, unfiltered conversation about their life and work.

The concept was inspired by legendary executive Joe Smith who in 1988 published Off The Record: An Oral History of Popular Music. Joe’s book was built from 200+ hours of interviews with artists and creators like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, and Elton John. Those original interviews are now housed in the Library of Congress.

What’s fascinating, when you speak to so many legendary figures, is how often the same themes repeat.

For example, anyone I’ve spoken to who was born between 1947 and 1954 will tell you their life changed on the exact same day: February 9, 1964—the night The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Many of them saw their future in that moment. The path was set.

Another near-universal truth: they heard music young, devoured everything they could, and decided—long before success arrived—that this was what they were going to do with their lives.

As these legends get older, the urgency to get their stories told only grows. Some of our previous guests have already passed away, and their episodes have taken on a new poignancy—voices like Lamont Dozier, Lou Christie, Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) and Steve Cropper. Like their music, their words live on.

This season, we speak to an incredible new lineup of icons: Alice Cooper, Lou Gramm (of Foreigner), Suzi Quatro , Al Jardine (of The Beach Boys), Don Was , Warren Haynes (of Gov’t Mule, the Allman Brothers Band, and the Dead), Kevin Cronin (of REO Speedwagon), Darlene Love, Harry Wayne “KC” Casey (of KC & The Sunshine Band), Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul and Mary), Henry Paul (of The Outlaws and Blackhawk), Richard Thompson (of Fairport Convention and Richard & Linda Thompson), Bobby Colomby (of Blood, Sweat & Tears), Howard Jones —and more still to come.

What I personally love about these conversations is how deeply they allow me to dive into each artist’s music and life before we ever sit down to talk. Some are artists whose work I’ve known for decades; others are names I’ve long admired but never fully explored.

The great English artist and songwriter Richard Thompson is a perfect example. His music was something I’d heard about more than I’d actually listened to. In the days leading up to our conversation, I immersed myself in his catalog—from Fairport Convention to his work with his former wife, Linda Thompson, to his prolific solo career. The depth of talent is astonishing. It had been waiting for me to discover it—and once I did, it made the conversation even more meaningful to share with you.

Hearing Noel Paul Stookey (Paul from Peter, Paul and Mary) talk about performing “Blowin’ in the Wind” at the March on Washington in August 1963—before Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech—is like being given a front-row seat to living history.

Taken together, the music across this season—and past seasons—feels like a greatest-hits album of the 20th century.

I hope these episodes bring back memories, spark discoveries, and maybe even teach you something you didn’t already know.

After all, it’s not called Rock & Roll High School for nothing.

Link to listen here

They don’t say that about A&R guys but, yet, it happened to me.

I remember exactly when and where it happened:

New Year’s Eve, 1979 into 1980. I had recently turned thirteen years old.

It’s an odd thing to be thirteen on New Year’s Eve. You’re not old enough to be out all night at parties but you’re too old to be going to bed at 8pm. So what do you do?

I turned on the radio.

Radio hadn’t meant a lot to me before then. We listened on car rides and it was on in the background as we went about our daily lives. But I hadn’t really given it much thought until that moment.

From our home in suburban New York that winter night, the radio picked up a golden age of stations and formats. There were the two legendary AM powerhouses still playing the hits: WABC & WNBC. There was punk rock emerging from the new 102 WPIX-FM. Disco on 92 KTU, WNEW-FM —where rock lived— and more of the hits on 99X (WXLO).

The pop stations were all spending their New Year’s Eve playing the top hits of the year soon-gone-by. For whatever reason, I grabbed a notebook and started writing down what they were all playing. By the end of the night, with my notebook filled and my curiosity piqued, I went looking for more.

I can’t remember how I first heard about Billboard Magazine, American Top 40, Casey Kasem and everything that came after, but once I realized that Billboard was printed weekly and that it arrived every Tuesday at our local library, I was hooked.

And every Tuesday afternoon, after school, long before Find My Friends, that’s where you could find me. I read each week’s issue, cover to cover. I sometimes photocopied the charts and brought them home, to study like it was my Bar Mitzvah torah portion from earlier that year. I would also sometimes surreptitiously rip out the full-page color ads the record labels placed in the magazine and hang them on the walls in my bedroom so that it resembled a low-rent record store.

Even better than purloined ad pages from the library were the weeks that I was able to get my very own copy of Billboard to keep. But from our suburban New York home, it was hard to find a newsstand that sold it. Not like the newsstands in Manhattan.

Luckily for me, my dad commuted in every day to the pharmacy he owned in Chelsea (Ganbarg Pharmacy was a neighborhood staple for years, on the northwest corner of 7th Avenue & 15th Street), passing multiple newsstands on his way to work. And each week I would beg and plead and ask him to stop, buy one and bring it home. Most weeks, I had to settle for the library copy but every once in a while, he would surprise me with my very own copy. And when he did, my face lit up like Times Square.

Once, while watching me devour that week’s issue, he said, “looks like you’re really into this music thing. Do me a favor. If you ever make it in the music business, look up my old friend Tommy Dowd.”

Back then, still a young teenager, I had no idea what he was talking about. My music education was at its very beginning. That name meant nothing to me. Yet.

A little bit more about my dad:

My dad grew up in Uptown Manhattan. West 110th Street - between Broadway and Riverside Drive. A street also known as Cathedral Parkway. My dad was born in 1925 and by the mid 1930’s, he had accumulated a bunch of neighborhood friends (he’d refer to them as a gang) who called themselves the Cathedral Boys. They would cause all sorts of pre-teen mischief up and down the block.

There was Howard (my dad), his friends Marty and Richie. And there was Tommy Dowd.

They all stayed close for a long time, even as life took them in different directions. My dad served in World War II and spent time fighting in Europe. He was a medic and would be injured in combat.

His friend Tommy took a different path.

With a brilliant mind for math and science, Tom Dowd was recruited to work with Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project when he was still a teenager. Since all eighteen year old men were to be drafted, Oppenheimer had to look for the best scientific minds not yet of draft age. Tom’s work would be top secret.

When it was finished, Tom enrolled at Columbia University to study physics. The problem was that since the work he had done with Oppenheimer was classified, his physics professors thought his classwork made no sense. They began to give him failing grades. Fed up, Tom dropped out and would eventually take his scientific mind to the recording studio.

Tom became an early sonic architect of Atlantic Records, working alongside legendary record men Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin. Tom’s work as a recording engineer would run the gamut of almost every legendary session that Atlantic recorded back then, from Ray to Coltrane, from Aretha to Dusty.

He also pioneered the art of multi-track recording, invented years earlier by guitar icon Les Paul.

When Tom later began producing on his own, the records he made would become some of the greatest ever captured on vinyl: “Layla,” “Midnight Rider,” “I Shot The Sheriff,” “Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright),” “Melissa,” Skynyrd’s iconic live version of “Free Bird,” and many, many more.

========================================

When my dad returned from the war and recovered from his injuries, he enrolled in Fordham University’s School of Pharmacy.

My father came from a long line of pharmacists. His father, his grandfather, his uncles, his cousins. They were all pharmacists. The Ganbarg name was so prominent in early 20th-century New York pharmacy circles, that Fordham even gave out an annual Ganbarg Prize to the year’s most promising future pharmacist.

One day, my dad sat me and my older brother down to have “the talk.” No, not that one.

“You can do whatever you want with your life,” he said. “But you can’t be a pharmacist. That ends with me.”

My brother and I didn’t argue. Of course, we were around eight and ten years old at the time and much more interested in the score of the Met game.

Owning a pharmacy was a tough life for my dad. He worked to excess — as he did most things, including smoking and drinking.

He smoked several packs of unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes every day — as he had since he was a teenager — and developed such a violent, persistent cough that we always knew where he was sitting at school concerts without even seeing him.

The cigarette smoke ultimately led to lung cancer and my dad died before my twenty third birthday.

Two months earlier, I had started my first job as a full-time A&R guy.

========================================

A&R in those days was a lot of fun. There was traveling, people to meet, and lots of bands to see live. Local promoters took advantage of that moment in time and organized regional conferences where we talent scouts would fly in, get wined and dined for a few days, see all the city’s new bands and meet all the locals. Places like Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, Cleveland and Memphis were just some of our destinations.

In Memphis, there was a music conference called the Producer’s Showcase. About 20-30 A&R guys would fly in and spend a long weekend seeing music on Beale Street, eating ribs at The Rendezvous and getting guided tours of Graceland. We all stayed at the legendary Peabody Hotel, where every morning at 11am a procession of ducks marched to the fountain in the main lobby. They’d march back up to their rooftop residence that same day at 5pm.

In April 1991, we were all congregated in the lobby of the Peabody, watching the ducks, when someone mentioned that they had just returned from the legendary Ardent Recording Studios on Madison Avenue in Memphis. Recording there that day were The Allman Brothers. Their producer? Tom Dowd.

My dad’s voice immediately re-entered my mind: “If you ever make it in the music business, look up my old friend Tommy Dowd.”

I ran up to my hotel room (no cell phones in 1991) and found the number for Ardent. The receptionist answered and I asked to be connected. “Who’s calling,” they asked. “Well, it’s kind of a long story. I’m an A&R guy and am in town for a conference. My dad, who passed away a few years ago, grew up with Tom Dowd and told me that one day I needed to …”

They put me on hold.

After several minutes, a voice came on the line: “Yes, who is this?”

“Tom Dowd?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“Well it’s kind of a long story. I’m an A&R guy in town for a conference. My dad said he grew up with you.”

“Who’s your dad?”

“Howard Ganbarg”

“Stop whatever it is you’re doing. Come over to the studio right now.”

I raced over to Ardent, and for the first time came face to face with the great Tom Dowd.

“Your dad was a great man,” he told me. They had indeed grown up together and Tom was sad to hear that my dad had passed away. We spoke about Manhattan in the 1930s and 1940s, the hijinks of the Cathedral Boys and, eventually, the music business — then and now.

Then Dickey Betts arrived, it was time for Tom to go back to work with the Allmans, and he wished me well and thanked me for coming by.

Afterwards, I sat in the back of the control room and watched a master at work. At one point, Tom had Jaimoe hit his crash cymbal, then asked Dickey and Warren Haynes to tune their guitars to its sustain. I just sat and watched in awe.

It was a special day for me.

Tom died in 2002. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, received a Grammy Trustees Award in 2002, a Technical Grammy in 2006, and won multiple Grammys for his production and liner notes. His legacy as one of the all-time greats in the history of music is secure.

His incredible life story is told in the documentary Tom Dowd & The Language of Music, released just a year after his death.

In 2008, I was hired to head up the A&R department at Atlantic. On my first day, I noticed a framed photograph of Tom on the wall — a studio shot of him, Arif Mardin, and Jerry Wexler, all meticulously dressed in long-sleeve shirts and ties, working with the great soul-shouter Solomon Burke. In my sixteen years at Atlantic, I must have passed that picture and looked at it hundreds of times.

We were face to face again.

Tom would have turned 100 years old on October 20th of this year. My dad, just a few months older, would have turned 100 this past May.

I often think about how my dad’s childhood friend helped lay the musical foundation for the storied record label I was later privileged to help run for more than a decade and a half.

And maybe, somewhere, the Cathedral Boys are back together again — having a great time, causing trouble on their own celestial 110th Street, occasionally looking down and smiling.

Happy Birthday guys.

Jeff was sixteen.

He showed up on my doorstep on a snowy Sunday in December, like something out of Dickens.

Why he showed up that day is kind of a funny story.

When I left Epic Records in late 2003, no one wanted to hire me. So, necessity being the mother of invention, I started my own company, Pure Tone Music, and hired myself.

I set up an office in my home in suburban New Jersey, around 25 miles outside Manhattan. What I thought was going to be a company focused on new artist signings quickly morphed into a thriving ‘gun for hire’ independent A&R shop, anchored by my always-benefactor, the great Clive Davis.

Soon, I was knee-deep in outside label projects to oversee: artists who needed songs, albums that needed producers, music legends in need of grand concepts, and lots of clients to keep happy in order to keep the lights on.

As Lin-Manuel so eloquently once said, I was gonna need a right-hand man.

Since I no longer had a corporate IT department on speed-dial, I hired a local PC expert to make sure that all my data didn’t disappear. He would come over the house whenever there was a digital near-miss and became my very own de-facto IT crew. His name was Bill.

Bill mentioned one day that his teenage son had brought him some new unsigned artists to invest in. He asked if I could listen and assess their viability, to know if it was a good investment. Normally, 99% of expeditions like this lead nowhere. The artists are usually solid-to-decent; with such a high bar for profitability, though, most will never make it.

I listened.

The music was surprisingly good. It wasn’t just that one artist stood out. It was that all of them stood out. In other words, whoever found these acts (the equivalent of a gold needle in a sonic haystack) just might have a genuine ear to spot real talent.

“Your son found these acts?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Can I meet him right away?”

Bill’s son knocked on my door a short time later. As soon as he said hello, my inner voice said “that’s not the guy.”

“Did you find these acts?”

“No. My friend Jeff did.”

Jeff showed up on my doorstep soon after. He said hello and this time I said, in my outer voice, “Oh, you’re an A&R guy. Come right in.”

=====================================================================

For the next few years, Jeff would come to my home office every day after school and sit on the floor while we both listened to whatever project needed attention. He eavesdropped on every one of my work calls. His instincts, ears, and innate talent sharpened. He was getting better.

Before he graduated high school, his parents called me. Did I think Jeff should go to college? Or should he keep working with me, learning how to do A&R? My advice: “Yes, he should go to college. But see if it can be close to New York.” If he came in on weekends and school breaks, he could be getting two educations at the same time. He chose SUNY Purchase, around an hour outside of Manhattan.

When I got hired to run the A&R department at Atlantic, I requested to bring Jeff with me. The CEO asked to meet him first. When Jeff was asked what new artists he had his eye on, he mentioned a new female singer from Chicago he was excited about. Neither of us had any idea that the CEO had flown her in to meet Atlantic a few days earlier. Thumbs up on Jeff.

Jeff settled into SUNY Purchase and Atlantic and began to make his mark on both. He joined the concert committee at college and got into a tussle with his fellow board members when he tried to book a new rapper to headline their Spring festival. The rapper had never performed before in the US but Jeff had a hunch. After winning the argument, he booked his man. And Drake headlined his very first US concert.

At Atlantic, Jeff became my much-needed contrarian. He didn’t care what I thought — only what his ears told him. Even if it meant disagreeing with me, which was exactly what I wanted.

In addition to Jeff, I continued to bulk the department up with new, young hires. Brandon, a star of the concert committee at University of Buffalo, started as our intern, and then became my assistant. Same thing with Mikey, whose family worked in Broadway, and whose connections there would help us with Hamilton and our other cast recordings. Both showed great promise in A&R.

One day, Jeff came to work wearing a Velvet Underground T-shirt. The one with the iconic illustration of Andy Warhol’s banana.

I knew that he didn’t know the album and challenged him on his choice of clothing.

“Why are you wearing that? You have no idea who that band is.”

“Yes I do.”

“Really? Who’s the lead singer? What’s your favorite song from the album?”

Silence.

As I rolled my eyes, he turned the tables on the argument.

“You’re the one who’s wrong, Pete. Nobody my generation knows this stuff. And I’ll prove it to you.”

Ten minutes later, a dozen young label workers, all under the age of 25, were in my office. I started soft-balling some basic music history questions:

The Rolling Stones’ drummer?

Motown hitmaker behind the group The Miracles?

Famous brothers in the Kinks?

Nothing.

Original lead singer of Van Halen?

A hand shot up in the back. Yes!

“Eddie Van Halen!”

It was time for me to break out my long-dormant teaching degree from college.

“That’s it. I’m starting class next week on contemporary music history. It’s optional for everyone. But for Jeff, it’s mandatory.”

We started with the basics - the rock era starts in 1955. Let’s begin.

The first class was Jeff and half a dozen curious kids. We brought in pizza and beer.

“This is Chuck Berry. This is Buddy Holly. Little Richard. The Everly Brothers.”

We listened to a lot of music. The next class had twice as many kids.

By the time we had chronologically made it to the present day, we had a full house.

Next, I started to bring in guests. People who actually helped create the history itself.

I was in an airport and recognized Carmine Appice, drummer for Vanilla Fudge, one of the first rock bands ever signed to Atlantic. He was our first speaker.

Then came Sire Records founder Seymour Stein, Michael Lang (who co-created the Woodstock festival), Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul & Mary, David Porter (Isaac Hayes’ songwriting partner at Stax in Memphis). Even Clive joined in. All standing room only. It was fantastic.

During the pandemic, we moved the classes online and pressed record. Eventually, it became a podcast.

That podcast, Rock & Roll High School, is now 4 seasons and close to 75 episodes in, with more coming.

In the music business, as in life, nothing lasts forever, and change is needed to keep things moving forward. For everyone.

After sixteen years as Head of A&R at Atlantic, I left the label at the end of 2024.

That job is now shared by Jeff and Brandon. I’m rooting for them. Mikey too.

They’ve started to hire their own kids, as the cycle continues.

But whatever happened to the Andy Warhol banana shirt?

I can only imagine that Jeff took it off, threw it out, and never wore it again.

This fall, I’ll be teaching a semester-long course on the History of A&R at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, part of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As I prepare to meet my students, I’ve been reflecting on my nearly 30-year relationship with Clive — one of the greatest record men of all time, and someone who has changed my life multiple times.

I first met Clive in the summer of 1997. At that point, I had been doing A&R for SBK Records since 1989 — starting just before the label released its very first record and continuing through its rapid rise in the early ’90s.

SBK grew so quickly that it was fully acquired by UK investor Thorn-EMI and merged with their two other U.S. labels, EMI and Chrysalis. Eventually, the SBK team was tapped to run all three under a single banner: EMI Records in the U.S.

SBK was a special place. It was my first real label job — and the same was true for many of the other twenty-somethings who filled its halls. We were united by a passion for music and a hunger to make our mark on the business. Looking back now, the roster of SBK alumni reads like a future music-industry Hall of Fame, all working under the guidance of label heads Charles Koppelman and Marty Bandier.

Our head of radio promotion, Daniel Glass, would go on to launch Glassnote Records and sign Mumford & Sons and Childish Gambino. Junior radio guys Rob Stone and Jon Cohen later co-founded Cornerstone and The Fader (RIP Rob, one of the greats). And then there was the radio promo intern — always in a suit and tie — Monte Lipman, now founder and CEO of Republic Records and one of the most successful executives in the business.

But in business, as in life, nothing lasts forever. I had naively imagined working for Charles and Marty my entire career, but in mid-1997, Thorn-EMI shut the label down in the U.S. for good. Everyone — from the CEO to the guy in the mailroom — was let go on the same day.

I’d started at SBK when I was 22. Eight years later, I was 30, with a wife and a child. We were no longer the wide-eyed kids who’d first walked through those doors. I needed a new job — and fast.

I was making the rounds of the New York labels when my friend Joe called. He’d just spoken with Clive Davis at Arista — and Clive had mentioned he wanted to meet me.

A meeting was set, and I’m not sure what I expected — but it turned out to be one of the worst job interviews of my life.

Clive asked who I’d worked with at SBK. I told him. “Never liked them,” he said.

Who did I have my eye on now? “Nope. Wouldn’t work for us.”

I’d say up, he’d say down. I’d say black, he’d say white. It went on like that for over two hours. By the end, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Before I left, he asked me to put together two tapes for him — one with new artists I’d be interested in pitching, the other with unrecorded song demos I thought were hits. “Get those to me soon,” he said. “I’ll listen and get back to you.”

Yeah, right.

After that disaster of an interview, I wasn’t about to waste time making tapes for someone who clearly didn’t like what I had to offer. Maybe RCA was hiring. Maybe Columbia. My mind was already moving on.

A few weeks later, Fred Davis called me. Fred — Clive’s son and, at the time, my music business lawyer — said his dad wanted to know why I hadn’t sent the tapes.

“Fred,” I said, “that was a horrible interview. I’m not going to waste my time making tapes.”

His response was short: “My father is flying to L.A. tomorrow. He wants your tapes before he leaves.”

Click.

Shit.

My friend Evan let me use his company’s tape room, and I hurried to put together cassettes that might change the rhythm of our disastrous first meeting. I ran to Clive’s office, left them at the front desk, and waited for his reply.

And waited.

Six weeks later, I called Fred. “You’ve got some nerve,” I said. “I jumped through hoops to make those tapes, and nothing. Thanks a lot.”

He said he’d call his dad and get back to me.

The next day, Clive’s office called. He wanted to set up a second meeting.

Sigh.

I’d like to tell you that the second meeting went better. But it was actually worse.

Clive apologized for the delay in getting back to me, and said he’d been planning to write me a letter — but my tapes were “so all over the place” that he thought it would be better to go through them together in person.

Not a promising start.

He popped Tape 1 into his cassette deck, and it was déjà vu all over again.

First song: “Ooh, I don’t like that.”
Second song: “Nope.”

Ugh.

You ever go to the dentist and they forget to use enough novocaine? Yeah, this was like that.

An hour later, he started playing me what he was excited about — a new Whitney Houston song. A new Aretha album. Yes, the whole album. Eventually, I zoned out. Maybe Atlantic was hiring. Warner Brothers?

The meeting ended. He said he’d confer with his senior staff and that they’d make their decision soon. I’d be hearing from him.

Yeah, right.

Of course, in the upside-down world we live in, my phone rang the next week:

“Congratulations. You’re hired!”

Huh? Wrong number?

I started work at Arista on Columbus Day, 1997. That’s when the real fun started.

I got to the building around 9 a.m. and was escorted to my windowless inner office by the head of HR. She handed me some of the label’s CDs and told me to “get to work.”

Ha.

I spent most of the day letting people know I was now at Arista. Around 5:30 p.m., the phone rang. Clive.

“Welcome to Arista. Have you heard about the showcase?”

Huh?

“A bunch of us will be going to SIR Rehearsal Studios to see a new band audition at 6 p.m. After that, there will be an A&R meeting back in the office. There will be dinner.”

Ok.

After the showcase, we returned to the office and filed into a conference room to listen to the brand-new album by rapper Mase, which had just been delivered. I was sitting next to Michael, one of the veteran A&R guys, and he had sales reports printed out in front of him. I asked if I could take a look and started leafing through them as the playback began.

Halfway through the second song, the music abruptly stopped. I looked up. Everyone in the room was looking at Clive. Clive was staring at me.

“What are you doing? How can you pay attention to the lyrics if you are reading?”

Ok. No more reading during playbacks. Got it.

After the playback, we were called into Clive’s office for an A&R meeting. There was music to listen to. And dinner. And more music.

By 11:30 p.m., I was getting a little manic. This was a lot. It was my first day and I was about to hit hour 15 at the office.

The meeting finally adjourned around midnight. My head was spinning. As I was leaving his office, Clive called my name.

“Pete,” he said — dead serious — “welcome to Arista.”

The story of how Atlantic met Hamilton is one worth telling—and the upcoming anniversary feels like the perfect time to tell it.

In the summer of 2008, I had accepted the position of Head of A&R at Atlantic, with plans to start that October. I figured I’d wrap up a few projects, lay low for a bit, and then hit the ground running in the fall. But my then–11-year-old daughter had other ideas.

My daughter has always been obsessed with theater, and from our home in suburban New Jersey, she was constantly begging us to take her into the city to see the latest and greatest shows.

The show of the moment that summer of 2008 was In the Heights, the Broadway debut of writer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda. I wasn’t paying much attention to new musicals at the time and had no idea what any of it was about. But, as dads with daughters do, tickets were purchased, and I was soon driving her into the city to see the show.

While glancing at the Playbill, something immediately caught my eye: Lin and I had something in common—we were both graduates of the same small liberal arts college in Connecticut: Wesleyan University.

Those of us who’ve graduated from Wesleyan—many of us viewing ourselves as a small, ragtag band of weirdo misfits—tend to have a strong attachment to the school and root for one another out in the real world. Suddenly, I had a vested interest in In the Heights.

It did not disappoint. By the time the show ended, I was on my feet, cheering even louder than my daughter. Everything about it stuck the landing—the story, the music, the cast, and Lin himself. I immediately reached out to my guy at Wesleyan and asked for an introduction.

My first conversation with Lin was brief, but I told him we shared an alma mater, that I was about to start a new job as Head of A&R at Atlantic Records, and that whatever he did next, I hoped Atlantic could be its label home.

And that was that. In the Heights continued its triumphant—soon-to-be Tony Award–winning—run on Broadway, I got situated in my new gig at Atlantic, and life went on.

One of the people I told that story to was Sean Flahaven, who was then working at Warner Chappell, the publishing arm of Warner Music. Sean worked closely with theatrical composers—and had signed Lin to a publishing deal.

A few years later, Sean knocked on my door. Lin had been working on his next show, and there was a reading coming up. Would I like to go with him?

The reading was for Hamilton, and I remember sitting in a small rehearsal room downtown, in a building directly across the street from The Public Theater—where the show would ultimately make its debut. The audience was made up of friends and family, along with a few theatrical legends, including Stephen Schwartz, who was taking notes to share later with Lin.

As anyone who has seen the show can attest, it’s completely original—unlike anything that came before. I immediately ran back to Atlantic, ready to do whatever it took to live up to the earlier offer I had made to Lin: “Whatever you do next, I hope Atlantic can be its label home.”

Inside any major record label, there are two sides to the brain: the right-brain creative side and the left-brain business side. My boss on the creative side was all in. Forty-six songs—rapped and sung—about the Founding Fathers, all portrayed by actors of color, with lyrical themes about the Constitution, the founding of the first Federal Bank, and states’ rights? Great!

Part of what makes a creative executive successful is the ability to believe in ideas that may sound crazy on paper—but if they work, they can actually move culture.

Those with left brains are not so easily swayed.

Recording Broadway cast albums is expensive. There are fixed union fees, and the more songs you need to record, the higher the costs climb. And forty-six songs is a lot of songs. We estimated the cost of recording this album at over $600,000.

In analyzing the marketplace, we couldn’t find a Broadway cast album that had recouped that kind of money in a very long time. The left-brain crew was not amused.

While we duked it out internally, we set up our first meeting with Lin and team to explore the possibility of Atlantic becoming the label home for the Hamilton cast album.

The meeting went well—it was their first with any potential label partner—and I left feeling cautiously optimistic. But as time went on and the buzz around the soon-to-be-staged show grew, we started to face competition.

One of the things that mattered most to Lin was having a credible hip-hop co-sign for the show before it even opened. He also wanted the first piece of music released to be a mixtape of songs inspired by the show—not tracks from the show itself.

At that point, the worlds of hip-hop and musical theater were about as far apart as any two could be. This would not be an easy get.

The competition was armed and ready. Sony brought out Salaam Remi, a close collaborator of Nas—one of Lin’s favorite rappers. Warner Bros./Nonesuch countered with Mike Elizondo, a longtime collaborator of Dr. Dre who had co-written and co-produced hits for Eminem and 50 Cent. Both had exactly the pedigree Lin was looking for.

We were fucked.

As I felt the deal slipping away, I searched for a Hail Mary. I owed it to my daughter—and to Wesleyan. But what could it be?

Then I thought of something. Atlantic had recently hired A&R executive Riggs Morales, who had previously worked at Eminem’s label, Shady Records. Before that, Riggs was a journalist at The Source, where he famously discovered a demo from a then-unknown Eminem in a cassette bin and profiled him in the magazine’s Unsigned Hype column.

It was the hip-hop equivalent of when Jon Landau called Bruce Springsteen “the future of rock & roll” in Boston’s The Real Paper in 1974.

I introduced myself to Riggs and explained our Hamilton conundrum. He got it right away. Then he asked, “Has anyone called The Roots?”

Whoa.

The Roots are hip-hop royalty—as credible as it gets. If they signed on to Hamilton, it would be a slam dunk. Game over.

Riggs called their manager.

The Roots got it right away, too. Our next meeting was with Riggs, The Roots, and Lin. Checkmate.

With The Roots on board to executive produce—and the left-brain contingent finally at bay—Atlantic signed Hamilton.

There’s a lot more to the story.

Since the show itself served as the greatest marketing engine the album could ask for, the label didn’t have to spend much in additional marketing money. Hamilton is now one of the most profitable recordings that Atlantic Records has ever released.

Lin and Riggs became best of friends. Riggs is now part of Lin’s inner circle of close advisors—and even had a brief cameo in an American Express commercial that Lin directed.

That’s Riggs sitting in the window behind Lin in the barber shop at the :20 mark in this clip:

We recorded much of the Hamilton album at our in-house studios at Atlantic. Along the way, we got to know Lin’s team really well—including his brilliant musical collaborator, orchestrator, and arranger, Alex “Lac” Lacamoire.

While we were making the album, Lac asked if there was more we could work on together. I asked what he was doing next—and he introduced me to two more young creative geniuses he was collaborating with: Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Atlantic’s next cast recording was the show the three of them were working on: Dear Evan Hansen. It, too, became a bestseller—and even won a Grammy for all involved (including me).

Benj, Justin, Atlantic, and I would go on to work together on the best-selling movie soundtrack The Greatest Showman.

And none of this would have happened if I hadn’t caved and bought tickets for my daughter to see In the Heights all those years ago.

So do yourself a favor.

Listen to the kids.

They may know more than you think.

Cory was the first person I knew who actually worked in the music business and for me, a 14 year old, Billboard magazine-toting, radio-obsessed music junkie, he was something of a local hero.

In 1981, Cory - along with his business partner Steve - started their own label called Profile Records. By that time, my friend Mike and I had our own business - DJ’ing local birthday parties and Sweet 16’s. I made a point of buying as many Profile 12” singles as I could afford and would work them into our DJ sets. All the Profile singles came in a unique red & black sleeve which made them stand out in the racks.

Songs like “I Specialize In Love” by Sharon Brown, “Memory” by Menage, and “Rain Forest” by Paul Hardcastle were all in heavy rotation for the illustrious PM DJ’s of Monsey, NY.

In 1983, Cory signed Run-DMC and Profile released their first 12” single, “It’s Like That”/”Sucker MC’s.” These records were not always easy to find at record stores so we’d have to go to the other side of town - ‘The Hill’ - to track them down.

I wore out the grooves on that record - it was like nothing I had ever heard before - and became obsessed with them.

Whether alternating lines on “Peter Piper” with my friend Rob in the school parking lot across the street (we were horrible), studying Eddie Martinez’ guitar riffs on “Rock Box,” or skipping out on a job interview to see “Krush Groove” in a Times Square move house in 1985, this was it for me.

If Spotify Wrapped existed in the 80’s, there’s no doubt what my most played songs would have been between 1983 - 1986.

============================================================================

Fast forward a dozen years to 1998 and I’m doing A&R for Clive Davis at Arista Records, knee-deep in the Santana comeback project that would later become Supernatural.

At around the same time, Cory and Steve come to the end of the line at Profile and decide to sell.

The buyer? Arista Records.

============================================================================

Now would be a good time to talk about the Die Hard effect. Die Hard, the 1988 movie starring Bruce Willis, was such a big hit that Hollywood began pitching the same concept in different settings. If the original was ‘good guy takes on bad guys in an office building’, what about if it took place on a bus! (Speed/1994). A plane with prisoners! (Con Air/1995). A plane with the president! (Air Force One/1997) At an airport! (Die Hard 2/1990).

When Santana’s Supernatural became a runaway hit in 1999, we had our own version of Die Hard-palooza. What if we took the Supernatural concept (legendary artist joined by the younger generation he helped inspire) and applied it to other genres?

And that’s what led to my very first meeting with the latest addition to Arista’s artist roster: Run-DMC.

The pitch was straight forward. Run-DMC influenced as many young artists as Santana did - all we would need to do is to let them know the opportunity existed for collaboration. And, being 1999, this was the era of Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Should be easy, right?

Turns out the artists weren’t the problem. They all wanted to participate. Kid Rock contributed a track, “School Of Old,” that showed how much they had influenced him. And Fred Durst’s contribution, “Them Girls,” felt extremely of that moment.

The problem was single rights. Kid Rock was signed to the same label as Rob Thomas (just coming off the massive hit “Smooth” with Carlos) and they weren’t going to let our label make money off of one of their superstars again (‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me’). Limp Bizkit was absolute massive at the time and had their own singles to work. Single rights on both? Denied.

Enter Everlast. Everlast was coming off the massive Whitey Ford Sings The Blues album and he and his producer, Dante, had already collaborated with us with Santana. They were honored to join the project. Dante had a great idea for a song. What if we flipped Steve Miller’s “Take The Money & Run” with updated lyrics and the name “Run” sampled from old Run-DMC records in the chorus. Everlast would sing the hook. They cut the record and it sounded great. All we needed to do was to clear the sample and the new lyrics.

Problem.

Word came back that Steve Miller wasn’t a fan of rap music. Sample request denied.

This was slowly turning into death by a thousand paper cuts. I decided to try to do something about it. Steve Miller controlled his own publishing and worked with a woman named Linda who administered his catalog. I wrote Linda a letter asking them to reconsider.

What happened next surprised me.

Linda called.

What should have been a five minute phone call lasted over an hour. Turns out Linda was a music junkie, had been doing this a long time, and appreciated the passion we had for Steve’s music. She’d see if she could get him to reconsider.

He did. Sample request approved.

None of that mattered to Everlast’s label though. Same issue as with Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit. Single rights denied. Shame though. Song sounds like it could have been a hit.

We finally got the rights we needed to actively work a single from the band Third Eye Blind. They were huge at the time, coming off the hits “Semi-Charmed Life” and “Jumper.” The band’s lead singer and main creative, Stephan, was a gifted songwriter and huge Run-DMC fan. He was excited to collaborate and his label had no problem granting us the rights to work it.

We flew to Miami to work on the mix of the song. Stephan brought his engineer Jason in from San Francisco to work with our engineer, Tom, to mix the track together. Stephan flew in as well. We started working on the mix and Stephan joined us a little while later. He brought a woman with him and introduced her to us as his cousin from Miami. They left a while later and we all agreed to meet back up the next morning to finish the mix.

The next day, Stephan came back with his cousin. Something felt off though. Were they wearing the same clothes they had been wearing the night before? I looked at Jason. He shrugged. He came up to me after they left and whispered:

“He’s got a lot of cousins.”

The weird thing about it was that Stephan was in a very public relationship at the time with a famous actress. An actress who was also considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. I later read they broke up.

Not long after, she won her first Oscar.

Back to the music: we had our single and were ready to shoot a video. We spent all night on set with the great Dave Meyers shooting a video for our single “Rock Show.” I sat with Sam, Arista’s video commissioner, and Dave got some cool shots with Run and Stephan.

As you can see in the video, DMC isn’t doing a lot. That’s because he had a vocal injury at the time and couldn’t record new rhymes. We had to find unreleased vocals from the vault and add them to the new tracks on the album. Jay, too, looks a bit like a fish out of water. Clearly, we were trying too hard and in our quest for single rights, we overlooked the first rule of A&R: you always need a great song to have a hit.

The album Crown Royal was released in early 2001 and didn’t do much. Apparently, this time, Die Hard 1 was better than Die Hard 2.

============================================================================

The next time I saw Run was at Jam Master Jay’s funeral.

Jay was murdered in his own recording studio in October 2002. Arrests wouldn’t happen for close to 20 years later. Two men were finally convicted in 2024.

My friend Sam, from Arista, and I went to the funeral together. We sat upstairs at the Allen AME Church in Jamaica, Queens among the Allen AME churchgoing regulars.

The funeral itself was one of the most emotional things I’ve ever witnessed.

Jay’s widow and young children sat in the front row. LL Cool J sent a funeral wreath shaped like a turntable.

Donnie McClurkin, the Gospel legend, sang his song “We Fall Down.”

While all this was happening, I felt someone repeatedly tapping my shoulder. That was weird. The only person I knew there was Sam, and she was sitting right in front of me. I turned around.

It was one of churchgoing regulars, an older lady with gray hair extending her arm, holding a tissue.

I had no idea that I had been crying the whole time.

===========================================================================

By this time, I had left Arista and was doing A&R for Epic Records in New York. Run had an idea he wanted to discuss.

Could I come out to the house?

Run lived in Queens, in the House on the Hill.

When he was a kid, growing up in Jamaica, he would pass a huge house in the neighborhood that stood on a hill. He always wanted to live in that house. When he got older and became successful, he bought it.

I drove out to Queens and Run gave me a tour of the House on the Hill. He asked me if I wanted to get dinner with him in town to discuss his idea. Did I want to take the Bentley? Sure. He tossed me the keys and proceeded to sit in the back. Quicker than you can say “Driving Miss Daisy,” we were on our way to town.

His idea was this: he had found three white kids in town. They rapped. He wanted to sign them to his production company (named House on the Hill Productions, natch) and would I want to sign them to Epic and we could all work on it together? He named the group Union Turnpike, after where he had first seen them rapping.

We signed the group together and proceeded to look for material for them to record. I was in a record store one day and heard the song “The Stroke” by Billy Squier, a hit from 1981. The riff felt like one that could work for a hip hop record. I called my producer friend, Ali, and he put a great track together. Run’s nephew, Chris, was a gifted lyricist who wrote the verses. The song they put together, called “Oh!,” sounded great.

Now we needed to clear the Billy Squier sample.

We got the song to Billy and he listened. He had some questions about it before he would approve. Could we meet to discuss?

Our mutual friend, Mark, introduced us and we met at Billy’s apartment on Central Park West before heading to dinner at Rao’s uptown.

The first thing I noticed when walking into Billy’s apartment was the original Andy Warhol art hanging from the ceiling. Andy Warhol had painted a portrait of Billy for his third album, Emotions In Motion. The original now hung there, larger than life.

Our dinner at Rao’s was fairly uneventful. Billy was very encouraging and was happy to approve the sample. Apart from one faux pas on my part (I may have mentioned a certain music video of his that should have been off limits in the conversation), all was well.

The song came out and got a bunch of synchs in film and television. There was one TV show (can’t remember the name) where the song opens the episode in a strip club that’s about to get held up. It sounded fantastic.

============================================================================There was a management change at Epic Records in late 2003 and just like that, I was out. In situations like this, there are good firings and there are bad firings.

This was not one of the good ones.

My lawyer advised me to disappear for a few weeks while he worked to get me everything I was owed on my deal. It was dicey for a while - I wasn’t sure if I was going to get paid and if not, what was I going to do? I hadn’t had a great run at Epic, the job offers weren’t exactly lining up, and we had just bought a new house in New Jersey that had a mortgage that needed to be paid, the kids needed to eat, and so on.

It was during this time that I reconnected with Run. He had sold the House on the Hill and had moved out to Jersey, near me. We agreed to meet at a restaurant halfway between us for lunch. I was in a vulnerable spot. I opened up to him and let him know how scared I was if things didn’t end up working out. He listened but the conversation was way more monologue than dialogue.

Run’s mind was elsewhere. Whether he was thinking about the idea that would become his successful MTV reality show a couple of years later or something else, I don’t know.

The title of that show? Run’s House. Natch

The waiter brought the check.

I paid for both of us.

Actually, there were many times when the radio was magic. A lot of the musicians I interview on my podcast talk wistfully about the moment they heard “it.” Something coming from the small radio somewhere in a room that changed their lives.

For them, it was AM radio. The local AM stations signed off at sundown so those frequencies opened up to strange voices from faraway cities every night. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top told me that from his Texas home as a kid, he would hear AM stations blasting in all the way from Mexico. Bob “Wolfman Jack” Smith held court. And unlike the US, where radio station calls would start with either the letter “W” or the letter “K” (based on whether they were east or west of the Mississippi), the Mexican station call letters started with something different altogether. ZZ Top paid tribute to these stations in their 1975 song “Heard It On The X.”

The sounds of musicians like BB King, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, all transported through the frequencies of radio, inspired and changed the lives of so many of the music stars I’ve interviewed, it’s impossible to keep a list.

For me, though, it happened a few decades letter. On the AM, it was WKBW (1520) from Buffalo. Sometimes I needed to stand on a chair to hold the antenna a certain way to hear it, but not only was it worth it, it was something I looked forward to.

As I got older, it was FM. And that’s where this story starts.

In the mid-80’s, my friend Sandy told me about a radio show that aired every Sunday night called “Idiot’s Delight.” It was hosted by a NY-area DJ named Vin Scelsa and it was a throwback to the early days of FM, when the predominant format was free-form, or DJ’s choice.

With consolidation and corporate takeovers, the only place to hear something comparable these days is on community or college radio. Back then, though, it was “Vin” (as Sandy referred to the show) Sunday nights from 8pm - Midnight on a new NY rock station WXRK 92.3 FM (also known as K-Rock).

Listening to the show was like being transported to another place. A magical place. Vin would play bands we had never heard before. He would play songs multiple times in a row. He would read from novels he loved. It was like hearing from a great friend, though one we had never met. Once, I remember him talking about taking his young daughter to a carnival and going back the next day to find the carnival vanished. He spun the tale so vividly that it was almost like aural theater. The story ended, a Van Morrison song started. The lyrics were about a carnival. We were transfixed.

Artists would visit and have conversations with Vin that felt like two old friends catching up. For me and my friends like Sandy, it was appointment listening. Every Sunday night.

“Did you hear that band on Vin last night,” Sandy asked me. “No, I wasn’t home. Who was it,” I asked back.

And that’s the first time I heard the name Black 47.

Black 47 were a NY-based band of Irish ex-pats living in and around Alphabet City. Their music was like the love child of Lou Reed’s dirty New York, Joe Strummer’s burning, charged London, and Shane MacGowan’s favorite pub. Distorted guitars, lots of feedback, but all mixed in with uilleann pipes, bodhran and tin whistle. It was unlike anything I had heard before.

Vin mentioned on-air that he often went to see Black 47 live at a weekly residency they had at an Irish pub called Paddy Reilly’s - owned by the lovably ornery Steve Duggan - on the northwest corner of 28th & 2nd in Kips Bay. Luckily (for me), Vin would play Black 47’s music every week and it was not long thereafter that I found myself in a pint-soaked room watching the band mesmerize the place.

It was mostly regulars - a lot of cops just off their shifts, fans from the Bronx who would shuttle down on the train. Just like what Sunday nights with Vin had become for me, Tuesday nights at Reilly’s had become appointment viewing for them. And I soon became one of them. I was there. Every Tuesday night.

I was transfixed. Everything Vin had said about the band came to life in person. The lead singer, Larry, was unlike other frontmen. He had red hair and glasses. His voice equal parts transfixed and grated. But he played guitar like his life depended on it, leaning into his amp so the feedback made joyful noise. To his left was Chris, the piper. Chris played the uilleanns like a man possessed (the uilleann pipes are to Ireland what the bagpipes are to Scotland; instead of blowing into them, though, the piper pumps a bellows under his arm like you would use to fan the flame of a fire). Chris was also the man on the bodhran (a hand-held Irish frame drum). And he was also a cop ( we once had a meeting where he met me in his blues, right off his shift on the beat).

Geoff played the sax. He had been an early member of Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Fred played trombone and tin whistle, loud and proud. Hammy on the drums. The shows were marathons, the beers overflowed, the place electric. These guys were the E Street Band of the lower east side.

I became obsessed. I was doing A&R at the time for SBK Records and I had to sign them. My colleague Debbie found about them at the same time I did and we set out to sign them together. The band’s managers were first-timers, Murad and Judy. Even though they hadn’t managed many bands, Judy had management in her genes. Her brother, Elliot Roberts, was one of the great rock managers in music history. Up until his death in 2019, Elliot managed Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. He had also managed Tracy Chapman, Tom Petty and The Cars.

And that’s how The Cars’ Ric Ocasek came to produce Black 47. When Debbie and I first met Larry and Chris, Ric had already produced an EP on the band, which included everyone’s favorites from those Tuesday night shows at Reilly’s: “Funky Ceili,” “James Connolly” and “Maria’s Wedding.”

Back on “Idiot’s Delight,” Vin Scelsa put all of those songs in heavy rotation.

After what felt like our 50th Tuesday night at Reilly’s, we made an offer to the band. Larry later said that the band HAD to sign with us since we were there all the time. He actually gave an interview where he said that it felt like I slept under his bed every night since I was around so much.

Debbie and I signed the band to SBK, released the Ric Ocasek-produced EP and then finished up their full-album debut with Ric, “Fire Of Freedom.” The album cover shows a photograph of a garbage can fire outside of Paddy Reilly’s. At the moment of the shot, a white bird entered the frame. It’s perfect.

The band’s EP was a sensation in New York. They were actually being called New York City’s house band. The timing felt perfect for the release of the album. “Fire Of Freedom,” with Larry’s epic song-stories, the band’s spirited playing and Ric’s expert production, is still, to-this-day, one of my personal favorite projects I’ve ever worked on. A top-ten desert island disc for me for sure.

It should have been huge. It wasn’t. Whether delayed timing, wrong radio single choices or a sound just too New York to play in Sheboygan, it felt like a lateral move, not a touchdown. We hired Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads/Modern Lovers) to produce the band’s follow up album, “Home of the Brave,” but a moment in time felt like it might be passing.

And that’s when something so unexpected, so unusual and so weird happened, that I’m not sure it would ever happen the same way again. The label had to make a decision on whether or not to pick up the band’s option for album #3. As the music business is wont to do, there were executive changes at the company. The new boss, Davitt, requested a lunch meeting with Larry. He wanted to understand the band more before deciding their fate as SBK recording artists.

The lunch went well. Towards the end, Davitt said he felt good and that he’d likely tell the lawyers that we were going to exercise the band’s option. That’s when something unusual and actually tragic happened. Davitt got a note while we were leaving the restaurant. One of our label’s other artists had senselessly just been shot in Texas. We all awaited more news. It was Selena Quintanilla.

We got back to the office and heard more. Selena had died.

She was an absolutely lovely young woman who also happened to be incredibly gifted and was on her way to becoming a massive superstar. I was privileged to have gotten to spend time with her in the studio. It was a tragedy. She was 23 years old.

And just like that, the mood changed irreparably. Black 47’s option sat in limbo and was ultimately not picked up. The band changed labels - signing with Danny Goldberg at Mercury - but their momentum never surged into overdrive like we had all expected. They continued to play spirited sets around New York City and elsewhere until they finally hung up their whistles, pipes and guitars in 2014.

The New York Times wrote a full retrospective about them before their final show in November that year and a terrific documentary film “Fanatic Heart: The Story So Far of Black 47” - directed by Stephanie Silber - was released in 2016.

Larry is not only a musician, he’s also a playwright. He was nominated for a Tony Award for writing the book of the musical “Paradise Square” in 2022.

Vin Scelsa is retired now. Some of his shows can still be found online and still weave the same magic they did when they first aired.

Steve Duggan died in April, 2024. He had sold Reilly’s. It’s still open for a pint and live music (but has since moved uptown - all of one block - to 29th & 2nd).

Stephanie Silber died last December. She loved the band and it showed in every frame of her film, which is available to stream on Vimeo.

Larry is still writing plays. He invited me down to see a recent work about a musical duo that thinks about reuniting many years after a messy break-up when one of their songs goes viral. He used my name in the script as an A&R guy who’s interested in signing the band.

Thanks Larry. And thanks Black 47 and Vin Scelsa. For a magical time that might not ever happen again.

I was around one year in to my first A&R job, working for Charles Koppelman at SBK Records when Charles called me into his office: “I’ve done something I’ve never done before,” he told me. He had signed a new artist - sight unseen - after hearing a song on the phone (pre internet, pre mp3).

My job was to be the new artist’s in-house A&R man, meeting him shortly thereafter on his first trip to New York City, working with him on his music and becoming his liaison with everyone else at the label.

We called him Ice - not Rob, not Vanilla. Ice was accompanied on that first New York trip by his manager, a Dallas-based independent label owner named Tommy Quon. Tommy was soft spoken but he was also a born promoter. At our first dinner that night, the music in the restaurant sounded new. Unbeknownst to me, Tommy had already gotten the place to play Ice’s as-yet-unreleased album over the in-house sound system.

When we discussed the new music Ice would be recording, he only wanted to work with one record producer, a New York-based DJ named Gail “Sky” King. Gail’s name was not well known. She had remixed for Kid ‘N Play and for Rob Base. Those records were favorites of Ice. Gail was who he wanted.

I hadn’t met Gail before but we became fast friends. Along with her manager Duffy and her engineer Dave, we embarked on a year-plus journey that would see us witness, first-hand, Robbie Van Winkle’s stratospheric launch and equally rapid fall.

In an industry known primarily for white male creatives, Gail was an outlier. Born to Barbadian parents, Gail followed her muse while growing up in New York City. Music, certainly, but also roller skating and juggling. She apprenticed to Arthur Baker during the golden age of downtown New York before stripping tracks down to their vocal-onlys and becoming a rarity: a trend-setting remixer who was female and black.

Our adventures with Ice took us cross-country. We camped out of the Record Plant Remote mobile rig, recording a live album. We criss-crossed movie sets, overseeing the music for the 1991 movie Cool As Ice.

But just as Ice’s ascendancy boomeranged back to earth, our paths took us separate ways. Gail married Maris Ambits in 1989 - Maris had invented the Mood Ring in 1975 - and their daughter Krista was born later that year. They lived in the West Village in a building on Bleecker Street. A devoted mother, Gail segued to children’s music, composing music for Sesame Street from 1993 - 2005. All while continuing to juggle and skate. The International Jugglers Association established the Sky King Award in 2021, given “in recognition of outstanding dedication to furthering diversity and equity in the juggling community by a BIPOC member of that community.” The first award was given to Gail.

Maris died in 2018. I wasn’t in touch with Gail much after that but when she passed away in 2022, I had heard that her broken heart had never really healed.

There’s a spot in Central Park called Skate Circle, near 69th Street, where the skate dancers do their thing. This is where Gail “Sky” King held court. Every time I pass it, which is often, I think of her.

But he wished that he could be

Told us kids to call him uncle

And we’d be his family

He had a wife and kids in Fresno

The youngest one was twenty-four

Dad had brought him in to our house

When they didn’t want him anymore

— “Uncle Lloyd” by Darrell Scott

My college roommate Ed met Darrell Scott when they were both studying abroad in London. Darrell was older than us; he had already lived a lot of life before deciding to get his degree when he was closer to thirty than he was to twenty, like the rest of us.

Darrell wrote songs and he shared them with Ed. Ed shared them with me. The song titles alone invited us in to a new world - “Uncle Lloyd” “The Man Who Could Have Played Bass for Sha-Na-Na” “Helen Of Troy, PA” “East Of Gary”- just a guy with a guitar singing some of the most descriptive personal songs we had ever heard.

I kept Darrell’s cassette close at all times and waited for the opportunity to do something with it. We graduated college, I eventually got an A&R job, Ed became Darrell’s manager, and Darrell signed to SBK, the label that had hired me.

Now it was time to make an album. As his A&R guy, it was my role to help figure out how that would happen. I scoured my record collection looking for the perfect producer. I was ready to swing big. These were some of the best songs I had ever heard. Now we needed to turn these into records that, in my humble opinion, had a chance to change the world.

In these pre-internet times, I kept coming across the same name on the back of a bunch of albums that I owned: Eric Andersen, Dan Fogelberg, Jimmy Buffett, Joan Baez. They were all produced by the same guy: Norbert Putnam. Those albums were all timeless, exactly what I wanted for Darrell. I tracked down Norbert. He was retired. No worries. I’d get him to un-retire. Darrell was worth it.

Norbert flipped for Darrell’s songs and proceeded to assemble a band to play on the album that was a veritable murderer’s row of sidemen: Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Mike Utley. We booked a studio in Memphis. It was happening. What could go wrong?

Ed and I were both around 23 years old. In other words, we had no idea what we were doing. Norbert basically kicked both of us out of the studio and went to work. It was only later that I realized the arrangements weren’t right. They didn’t serve the songs. The intimate poetry of Darrell’s writing got lost amid the rest of the music. I knew it wasn’t right but I didn’t know how to fix it.

The album was delivered to the label and no one knew what to do with it. It sat on the shelf. A year went by. The label ultimately decided that there was no market for it and opted not to release it. I was crushed.

No one doubted Darrell’s talent and songwriting ability though. In addition to his brilliant writing, he also played nearly every instrument and impressed everyone he met.

Ultimately, some colleagues of ours in Nashville who worked for SBK’s publishing division, invited Darrell to move to Music City to write songs and play sessions. There, he excelled. The cuts started coming: Travis Tritt, The Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Sara Evans, Brad Paisley, Patty Loveless.

In 2001, Darrell was named ASCAP’s Songwriter of the Year. He’s been nominated for four Grammys. In 2010, he joined Robert Plant’s Band of Joy. He sang, played mandolin, guitar, accordion, pedal, lap steel and banjo. Darrell still records and still tours - solo and with others - today.

I’ve run into Darrell several times since we made his aborted album debut for SBK. There’s no bad blood, no regrets. But I still kick myself. That album should have changed the world.

My dad passed away in July, 1989. My mom held on for a few more months before she passed away in January, 1990. I was also diagnosed with a collapsed lung from walking pneumonia that didn’t properly heal and needed surgery. Advantage: worst of times.

Yet, as there always is, there was music to be made.

After I got better and back to work, I got called into the boss’ office. His name was Charles Koppelman and he was the greatest first boss anyone could ask for. His career in music was legendary - publishing exec for Don Kirshner, head of A&R for Columbia, owner of his own production company responsible for The Lovin’ Spoonful, Tim Hardin, some huge albums for Streisand, and (with a tip from his son Brian) Tracy Chapman, among many others.

Charles told me he had a problem and needed my help (I’m sure he knew, given the year I was having, that I would appreciate the musical challenge). Our label, SBK, had the rights to a soundtrack album for a forthcoming movie but no hit single. Could I assist? He flipped me the script and as I imagined all the great movie musicals of the past, I turned it over to see the words Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the cover. I didn’t know what that meant but sure, challenge accepted. I walked out of his office with the script under my arm.

Next door to Charles’ office was Arma Andon’s office. Arma was the head of SBK’s management division. He liked to sit outside seeing the action coming out of the CEO’s office. “What’s that you got,” he asked me. I told him and his eyes lit up. “My kids are obsessed with that TV show. They run around the house all day screaming ‘turtle power, turtle power.’ You should get one of your acts to write a song called ‘Turtle Power’.” Sure, why not?

Back then, if an A&R wasn’t sure if an artist was ready, they could offer a development deal: money for studio time, engineers, musicians, professional feedback, etc. The first artist I had signed at SBK was a rap duo who had met as students at Syracuse. They called themselves Partners In Kryme. Their demos were very impressive: smart sample choices, good hooks, great vocal presence.

I called them up: “how would you guys like to skip the line of the development deal? I’m sending over the script. See if you can write a song called “Turtle Power.”

The demo they sent back a day later was perfect. They had distilled the 100 page script down to a 3 1/2 minute recap. I played it for Charles. He beamed. We had our single.

The song was released as the first single from the movie soundtrack and when the movie became a hit, the song became a momentary phenomenon. It made it inside the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100 and was even a bigger hit in the UK where it stayed at #1 for 4 weeks.

A few months later, a replica gold single showed up. Wow. This was easy.