This guy was one of a kind. Scratch that... There was a group of concert promoters, who built this business, who had personality, moxie and could tell a story that you'd repeat for the rest of your life! That's what concert promoters have...stories. It's not like working at a label, the relationship with the acts is different. And they continue. And even though you may only intersect with the act once a year, you're considered a close friend, because the nature of a rock act is...they go on the road, come back home and write and record a record and then go back on the road...such that these concert promoters may be some of the people they see most! Anyway... Donald Tarlton, aka Donald K. Donald, just died. If you're under the age of 60 do you care? If you're under the age of 50 do you care? If you're under the age of 40 you definitely don't care. You've never heard of him and never will. And the business is completely different today. You see the concert business in the sixties and into the seventies was just like tech in the nineties and first decade of this century. It was the wild west, filled with entrepreneurs. And for everyone who succeeded, there were tons who failed. These were not fat cats, just young people with an idea. They could tell something was in the air. They listened to the radio, they perceived the power of music and they knew that kids would want to see these acts...why shouldn't they do it? They could do it, right? Borrow some money and put on a show? Like I said, not everybody succeeded. But there were those who did and rose above and then Frank Barsalona created a territorial system... You played his acts in your assigned territory only, you did not poach from others, and Frank would not only give you the stars, but the up and comers, which you had an obligation to play. And the system was great, and functioned such that everybody got rich, until Robert Sillerman decided to roll up these old promoters and I could run you through a few steps but the end result is today that company is known as Live Nation and it is publicly-traded. Concert promotion is mature. Only for the big boys (and girls). In the old days everybody worked together, if your date stiffed, you'd give the promoter money back, so they could stay in business and book you and pay you in the future. No one gives money back to Live Nation, it's a public company, SCREW THEM! It's no longer a family business, it's just business. Forget the labels. They're moribund. Museums of old records with a few new ones thrown in for sexiness. These new records in few genres get press, but all the action is in live, where if you succeed, you can be a lifer. Now it used to be that labels shuffled the deck every few years, and that's no longer true, but that's just evidence of the calcification of the business. As for live... It's all about relationships, and it all comes down to money. All the b.s. at the labels, deciding who to sign, messing with the act's creativity, that doesn't exist in live. In live if you can sell tickets, everybody wants to be in business with you and they'll pay the freight. And unlike with recordings, the act gets the lion's share of the money. Anyway, Donald Tarlton was there in the sixties. His first breakthrough was at the world's fair, Expo 67. Now I hate to tell the story, because Donald told it so well. And you'll see reference to it in some of the obits, but... Bottom line, Donald made a bad deal for a club at the fair, and it wouldn't work financially. But then he had a brilliant idea. Make it a HALF HOUR disco! And parade people in and out. And I'm not going to give you more, because you've got to know, Donald would not only tell you the story, HE'D ACT IT OUT! Shuffling the people out of the disco. And boy could Donald tell a story, smiling with nuance. And there are two other absolutely legendary stories... One involving Don Fox in New Orleans... Let's just say that Fox was led to believe he was at risk of the Big Guy coming, and he didn't want that... Yup, not the police, not the mafia, please don't let it happen. And when Fox was freaking out, it turned out to be TARLTON who was the Big Guy, and at the time he was a big guy! And he'd wear those white shoes. He looked like he just came from the golf course or Miami Beach, but underneath it all, he was more rock and roll than most of the people in the business today. And he grew an empire, with records, with acts you've heard of, who sold millions, but then... There was the time he played the Who. Great show, all good. And then in the middle of the night, he got a call they'd been locked up...right now I don't remember the offense, I think it had something to do with being rude to the cops. Anyway, to bail them out, Donald needed over 10k in cash. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! This is what a concert promoter does, fixes problems, comes through. They couldn't wait until the banks opened the next morning, the band had to move on down the road. SO... In the middle of the night, Donald calls the local mafioso. Who gives him the money in a paper bag and... Donald shows up at the jail with the cash and the Who are in the cell, with their hands on the bars, singing DON'T FENCE ME IN! Yes, Donald knew the local mafioso. You had to. Everybody knew everybody, it was a shady business. And it's not completely clean today. Now the last time I saw Donald in Toronto... He was hobbled, a bit out of it, we nodded heads at each other, I greeted him in passing, but I just couldn't stop and converse like I normally would. He'd lost more than a step, and I just couldn't handle it. Because Donald Tarlton was so alive. Told the best road stories I've ever heard, and I've heard a lot! And he wasn't threatening, not intimidating, like so many of his peers. He was nice, congenial...not that he did not know where every dollar was buried. Put Donald in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Put all of the legends from Barsalona's circuit. But Donald was in Montreal, which in America is seen as an outpost where people speak French. But Donald was a player, as savvy as anybody in Canada, anybody in the United States. And now he's gone. And he's not the only one. They were all characters, entrepreneurs, and the one thing they had in common was they could tell STORIES! To this day, each and every concert promoter... You think you want to hang backstage with the band? NO WAY! You want to hang with the promoter, go to dinner with the promoter. Which I did with Donald. And I remember that night with that woman in Toronto... No, it's not as dark as you think, but it was intimate and it was important and now Donald is gone. And it's not like the people you see on stage. But in many ways Donald was a bigger rock star than anybody plying the boards. Because he did it his way and he LASTED! Yup, decade after decade, looking like a guy who sold insurance. But Donald sold music, he created events people will never forget, he signed and distributed legendary music and... It was a thrill, an honor to know Donald... No, I don't want to overstate it... I guess that Donald treated me as an equal, and he told his stories this way. He didn't lord them over you, he wanted you in on the joke. And you were, and you'd never forget them or him. I certainly won't. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
