In 1967, MGM Records forgot to pick up their option on my contract. This left me free to start recording for Chisa, my own label. Stewart rushed us into Gold Star Studios in Hollywood to record The Emanicipation of Hugh Masekela. It contained our current stage repertoire, with songs like “Desafinado,” the great Brazillian classic by Antonio Carlos Jobim, “Ha Le Se Le Di Khanna,” the second of Caphius Semenya’s many compositions that I would record over the years, and several other selections.
Our new album broke out nationally, finally putting Chisa Records on the map. We were getting calls from all over the country. In a month Stewart and I hit all the major cities and met everybody in the record business who mattered. At that time few independent record companies entered the market with the impact Chisa had. Emancipation was climbing the charts, approaching the 100,000 mark in sales. Even though we had a hit record, we were pressing and shipping at our own expense, and payment did not come from distributors until after a ninety-day period. We were sinking deeper and deeper into debt. Larry Spector was beginning to cry that the earnings from my engagements were insufficient to support the Chisa campaign and cover the expenses of promoting the recordings. We began to owe everybody we did business with—the record-pressing plants, the label printers, the independent promotion agents—not to mention rents, car payments, and telephone bills. The shit was coming down all around us.
Luckily, Universal Studios wanted to branch into the record industry, and assigned Russ Regan, an old soldier in the record business, to sign Chisa Records. Russ approached us with a deal under which Universal’s new label, UNI Records, would pick up our debts. UNI had only signed one act on their label, Strawberry Alarm Clock, a rock-’n’-roll group. They needed a marquee artist like me to help build their brand. We signed with UNI and handed over their check for $100,000 to Spector to clear our debts and get him out of the hole. We shook hands on it and thought all contractual issues had now been resolved. The only remaining business requirement was for us to sign a management release from Spector. He refused to sign because he wanted to keep making a management commission from our future earnings. Spector eventually signed our release papers, but not before Stewart grabbed him by the ass and hung him out the window of his sixth-floor office. Spector begged for his life, cried like a baby, and apologized until Stewart pulled him back in. We learned a little later that Spector had actually coerced us to make the deal with UNI Records when we could have waited another month and received royalties that far exceeded our debts. We had agreed to sign right away because we were told that Spector’s mother was on the verge of a stroke, and if the deal wasn’t made, she could die. We were slowly learning the hustle of the music business.
Ned Tannen, a young vice-president of Universal Studios, introduced us to Joe Glaser, the head of Associated Booking Corporation in New York. Glaser booked just about every leading jazz legend. He was revered and feared by every concert promoter and club owner in America. Tannen made Glaser promise to get me high-profile engagements that would match the kind of money UNI Records was about to invest in me. I was assigned to Oscar Cohen, who was Glaser’s heir apparent. Glaser immediately took a liking to Stewart and me, claiming that my humorous and outgoing personality reminded him of the young Louis Armstrong. “Satchmo” had helped Glaser to represent most of the greatest black jazz artists as his clients, and he was Armstrong’s lifetime business partner and manager.
Before long I was appearing on the Mike Douglas, Pat Boone, Johnny Carson, and Merv Griffin television talk shows. The two kings of teen-hop shows, Dick Clark and Jerry Blavat in Philadelphia, invited me on all the time. I was the new kid on the block, and luckily I had the goods that gave Joe Glaser and Oscar Cohen the credibility to muscle the music industry on my behalf.
Oscar put us on the road, where we now opened for such acts as the Supremes, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, B.B. King, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and the Four Tops. One of our first engagements was a concert with Stevie Wonder at Lincoln Center in New York.
Alan Pariser had convinced the owners of the Whisky à Go Go in Los Angeles to book us. We were a smashing success, with lines stretching way up Sunset Boulevard. The club had always been a white preserve where rock groups broke in their acts, and the home of rock royalty. Most of the big groups fine-tuned material for their upcoming international tours at the club. My group was only the second black outfit to play the club, shortly after Otis Redding had baptized it with his funky brand of soul music. No one seemed to care about race at the Whisky. It was a revelation to see how open white kids—at least some white kids—had become on the issue. I had long ago crossed that stupid line. The open doors of the Whisky led to the first influx of African-American clientele from South Central Los Angeles into the Sunset Strip neighborhood. Until then, the racist character of Los Angeles had made it a no-go area for black people.
At the time, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas was lining up the Monterey Pop Festival. Again, Pariser got us on the bill. The people at UNI thought this was the gateway to a completely new audience for us. But of course there were problems. After the Stevie Wonder concert in New York, John Cartwright and Charlie Smalls told me that they would not be returning with us to California. They were disgusted with the manner in which we were handling our business, and had nothing but contempt for Stewart Levine: “Your fucking white boy,” they sneered in my face. This posed a grave problem because we were due to play the Monterey Pop Festival the following weekend, and then go for a week’s engagement at the Whisky, during which time we were scheduled to record a live album for UNI Records. Back in Los Angeles we recruited South African pianist Hotep Galeta, who had come with the Oo-Bwana entourage, saxophonist Al Abreu, and bassist Henry Franklin. We began to rehearse feverishly in preparation for the recording and the festival.
It was at the Monterey Pop Festival that Otis Redding, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin became international household names overnight with their riveting performances, which became legendary with the release of the concert film. The three-day festival also featured Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, and Tiny Tim. Ravi Shankar played a stunning three-hour closing set, during which ten thousand people sat enthralled, in total silence. Almost everybody in the audience was tripping on LSD. It was the largest group high I had ever witnessed. Our band also had a wonderful reception, and the engagement brought attention to us from the massive psychedelic community and international audiences who caught it live or through the film. It was here also that my friendship with Jimi Hendrix started.
We recorded the music for Alive and Well at the Whisky over three days with Stewart running back and forth between the mobile studio parked behind the club and the stage. The set included the Fifth Dimension’s “Up, Up and Away”; Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”; “Ha Le Se Le Di Khanna”; “Coincidence,” an antiwar lament that I composed while on acid one day; and “Son of Ice Bag,” an ode to Pariser’s wonderful smoke. The resulting album became a huge favorite with radio stations. “Up, Up and Away” flew to the number-31 spot on the Billboard singles charts. The people at UNI Records were beside themselves, and so were Joe Glaser and Oscar Cohen at ABC.
Marvin Gaye and I became good friends when I worked with him at the Apollo Theater. It was a very sad time for him because Tammi Terrell, an outrageously talented singer, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Maxine Brown was her replacement. One night after a show, Marvin’s percussionist, Eddie Bongo, invited me to a freak party in Harlem. Marvin had warned me not to go. “Hughsky, don’t go there. Edsky is a bad boy. Believe me, man.” I thought he was just joking. When we got to Sugar Hill up in Harlem, Eddie led me into a luxury apartment where three fine, big black women had been impatiently waiting for him. They even got more excited at the sight of me. I was an unexpected delight. On the table were a magnum of cognac, ready-rolled joints, and a large bowl of pure cocaine. After gulping a large cognac and taking a few snorts of coke
, I realized that the women had rather abruptly undressed and were pulling the clothes off Eddie and me. Before I knew it, I was being twisted and stretched into all kinds of contorted positions—getting fucked to smithereens. Time flew by, because I kept dipping into the bowl, the cognac, and the babes. When Eddie said we had to go to work, I couldn’t believe that it was almost noon—showtime at the Apollo! On stage I was so exhausted that when we counted off our latest hit, “Up, Up and Away,” I went to blow my horn and nothing came out, my lips felt like they were hanging, still frozen from the cocaine and the night’s other activities. I managed to play a short version of the song and motioned my band to leave the stage. Marvin was standing in the wings and said to me softly, “Hughsky, go and get some sleep. Come back for the third show at six. You should have listened to me. I told you about Edsky. That brother is bad.” Eddie Bongo was smiling at me from the other side of the stage. I was too wiped out even to be embarrassed, as I staggered out of the Apollo and hailed a taxi to my hotel.
Did I learn my lesson? No! I felt as if I were unleashing a lifetime’s worth of suppressed energy, and I wanted to pack in as much as I could—it’s a cliché, but I literally lived as if each day were my last. When I got money, I spent it. When I found love—or lust—I pursued it with everything I had. When I was offered a new drug, a new high, a new indulgence, I took it. I was thousands of miles from home, as displaced as the miners I grew up with in Witbank, and eager to find a way to forget a home I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again. I was drunk on money—when I could find it—drugs, which were never hard to find, love, lust, and music, and in no hurry to sober up. In fact, it would take me several decades more to wake up from it.
Potent grass, LSD, and cocaine supplemented my craving for booze and cigarettes. I had more out-of-body psychedelic experiences than I cared to admit. My very first LSD trip was at David Crosby’s Beverly Canyon Drive home. His girlfriend had worked all evening on a sumptuous spaghetti dinner, and when we sat down to eat, the pasta began talking to me. I answered, “You are so beautiful. I can’t eat you.” We went outside, where the red roses and white carnations in his landscaped garden also spoke to me. Crosby and Stewart were right behind me, giggling at my silliness. I looked up to the sky, and the stars came raining down on us. “The stars are raining,” I shouted. My two friends ran back into the house, thinking I had finally lost my mind. Three days later, the science section in Time magazine published a photograph of the meteor shower that had occurred that night, with an accompanying article that claimed this was a phenomenon that would not occur for another ninety years. On one flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, after taking LSD, I knew I had died because the airplane had turned into wax and all the passengers looked like Disney characters, including Al Abreu, who was sitting next to me, unable to speak because he was just as high as I was. When Stewart met us at the airport, I told him that the world had ended, and he drove me to his Malibu home, where Susie gave me a very strong barbiturate and suggested a walk on the beach, where the moisture and the sea breeze would help to bring me down. When we came back from the walk, I had something to eat and then passed out. I didn’t wake up for two days.
In January 1968, I decided to travel to Lusaka, Zambia, a country north of South Africa, to visit Barbara, who was now attending the university there and working with the exiled African National Congress in the office of its president, Oliver Tambo. My problem was I didn’t have a passport. In 1964, after my first one expired, I went to the South African consulate in New York and applied for a new one. Every time I inquired about its status, I was told an answer had not yet come from Pretoria. After several years I got the message and stopped trying. To get around the passport problem this time, I asked Rupiah Banda, the Zambian ambassador in Washington, to arrange for me a one-journey travel document that would enable me to go to Lusaka via London and reenter the United States with my permanent residence green card. I planned to see Barbara, and Rupiah set up a special meeting for me to see President Kenneth Kaunda about the possibilities of establishing Chisa Records in Zambia. Formerly northern Rhodesia, the country had won its independence from the British in 1964.
Stewart traveled with me on the London leg of my trip. Rather than stick to the script—which was to attend a few business appointments—we got sidetracked partying, and got so high on grass and hashish that I missed my flight to Zambia and, most important, my scheduled meeting with the president. When I arrived in Zambia three days later, there was no one at the airport to meet me. President Kaunda had left the country on business, and Barbara was very disappointed by my lame excuse. I was terribly embarrassed because I had just blown a major opportunity to bring modern production and recording technology to this part of the world. This would have been an ideal platform for fledgling African talent to get international exposure. That night we went to see Dorothy Masuka, who was performing with her band from Zimbabwe at the city’s famous Woodpecker Club. The following day I went to visit her in the township where she lived. It was truly heartbreaking to see her living in such squalor. Situated in a rundown neighborhood of gravel streets, her small, four-room home was sparsely furnished with old, thrown-together benches and chairs. The cooking was done on a brazier in the backyard. The house was packed with all kinds of people, ranging from little children who were her nephews, nieces, and cousins to uncles, aunts, and her grandmother. I had last seen Dorothy when we were both members of the African Jazz and Variety Revue. She was one of the revue’s big stars.
The next morning I went to see the president’s secretary and politely asked him to convey my sincerest apologies to President Kaunda on his return, and thank him for scheduling time for me to see him. At the ANC offices I greeted Uncle Oliver Tambo and some of the other South African exiles. It was wonderful to see so many of the friends I had grown up with in Alexandra Township, many of whom were now top guerrilla commanders in the liberation army Umkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). In downtown Lusaka, I bought many of the latest recordings by South African groups like the Dark City Sisters, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, Zakes Nkosi, Ntemi Piliso, Betty Khoza, and others. Some local musicians gave me demo tapes of their material in the hope that I might use some of it or help them advance their careers.
The evening before my return to London and then on to Los Angeles, Barbara took me to see Todd Matshikiza, the composer of King Kong. He was on his deathbed. Esme, Todd’s wife, tried to put on a brave face, but I could see in her eyes the strain she was under, watching her husband wilt away. Todd could barely talk. He offered me something to drink, and as badly as I wanted a shot of brandy to anesthetize the pain of seeing him in that condition, I declined because at the time I just could not partake of something that I felt was partly responsible for his condition. During the ride to the airport, I knew I would never see him again. A great musician, pianist, composer, and author, exiled from his country of birth, was waiting to die in a foreign land, far from his friends the Manhattan Brothers, who were now living in London, and away from Mackay Davashe, Kippie Moeketsi, and many others who I knew would have walked to Zambia to be his pallbearers, if not for the travel restrictions imposed by the South African government. Once again I was filled with contempt for the apartheid government. It was galling that such great talents as Todd had to leave South Africa and struggle to achieve recognition abroad when they came from an environment that would have given them the glory and good life they deserved. Mackay, Kippie, Dorothy, Dolly Rathebe, the Woodpeckers, and the Manhattan Brothers could have reached glory in a free South Africa, but they were all either struggling to make a living abroad or still suffering the humiliation of the internal oppression they were subjected to. In light of all this, the success Miriam and I found in America would always ring hollow as long as our people were enslaved. As I looked down on Lusaka from the porthole window of my plane, the thought of Todd Matshikiza in that bed brought tears to my eyes. He died the next day.
Stewart and I returned to Los Angeles from London
to record a fourth album for UNI Records. I had some tapes and recordings from Lusaka, which I gave to Philemon Hou, one of the Bwanas from Sponono, who had come out west with Letta and Caiphus. Philly was now staying with me. He listened to the tapes over and over again, and soon began to make up little compositions inspired by the music. We titled the new album Promise of a Future. The highlights on it were Marvin and Tammi’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Stevie Winwood’s “No Name, No Number,” and Al Abreu’s “Señor Coraza,” which was our ode to cocaine. Russ Regan came to the studio and felt that we needed one more song to complete the album. Al Abreu insisted that we do one of Philemon Hou’s songs inspired by the music of southern Africa. Because of the simple melody and the easy bass, piano, and guitar lines, we learned the song in half an hour and recorded it in one take. Bruce Langhorne was doing an album with Phil Ochs in an adjoining room at Gold Star Studios. We called him in to play the guitar part because of his background knowledge of South African music from our days at 310 West 87th. After he played his part, he held the cowbell for me to play on with two drumsticks. The entire song took less than two hours to record, overdub, and mix. When Russ Regan heard it he said, “Shit, this is a smash.” We titled the song “Grazing in the Grass.”
Still Grazing Page 26