Stewart returned to the States with the completed mixes of the music we had recorded with Hedzoleh Soundz in Lagos, to see if Herb Alpert was still interested.
At the beginning of December, I went back from Liberia to Ghana after Stewart called to say Herb Alpert had offered some ideas to enhance the product, but Stewart was not keen on Herb’s suggestions. Instead he had made a deal for Chisa to release the album with Bob Krasnow’s Blue Thumb Records. We tightened our sound by performing nightly at the Napoleon, and then boarded a plane for Washington, D.C., on December 31, for a three-month America tour. The album was called Hugh Masekela Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz, and the key songs on it were the catchy “Rekpete,” an old fisherman highlife folk song, which is a sing-along all over West Africa, and “Languta,” an old Shangaan/Tsonga folk melody from the northern part of South Africa about the dangers of going from the rural areas to seek a life in the big city of Johannesburg where you were likely to get defrauded, mugged, burgled, or conned out of everything you have. The rest of the songs were old Ghanaian folk favorites that I learned from the band. It was hell trying to sing in the languages, which were new to me, but in the end I got it all right, and it was a pure joy to play with this band. The percussionists were so powerful that I never had to think about the rhythm and time; I just sailed over the grooves with my horn. It was music heaven.
On January 3, 1974, Blue Thumb Records, in association with the Embassy of Ghana, launched our album at the Sheraton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Stewart flew in from Los Angeles with Bob Krasnow and Gary Stromberg, who would become our public relations man for many years to come. My sister Barbara, who was still an English professor at Rutgers University, came for the launch. We opened to a sold-out reception at The Cellar Door in Georgetown. The crowds were knocked out by the group. No African group had ever come to the States with such a genuinely traditional repertoire, mixed with guitar and trumpet solos and flavored with jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. The singing ensembles were laced with atonal harmonies and chord progressions straight out of rural Ghana. The textures of our music were so new to the Western ear that we attracted many musicians, anthropologists, and critics who did not know just how to describe what we were doing. They were truly fascinated.
Both in Washington and New York, Ghanaian diplomats and other people from Ghana attended the shows, invited us to their homes for dinner, and gave wonderful receptions for us where many other diplomatic personnel from other countries were present. Bob Krasnow and Blue Thumb Records really laid out lavish receptions for us where champagne, whisky, and cognac flowed freely, not to mention the coke we blew behind closed doors. None of the band did coke except Faisal and bassist/guitarist Stanley Todd, whom Stewart and I adopted as a kid brother. Stanley had real movie-star looks, and the women in the audiences screamed every time he soloed or was introduced. He was the heartthrob of the group.
We had asked the percussionists in the band to let us hold most of their money in safekeeping until the end of the tour, but they refused. On our first New York night they left their Broadway hotel with pockets filled with money to solicit women. That same night all five of them were robbed of more than ten thousand dollars when the hookers they were with fleeced them after spiking their drinks.
Faisal Helwani, the band’s manger, and his sidekick-cum-bodyguard Roger “Al Capone” came on tour with us. We were expecting them to return to Ghana following the shows in New York, but they made plans to stay for the whole three months of the tour. We explained that we could not afford the extra expenses, as we were playing mostly clubs and the group had not yet built a name for itself. We eventually persuaded Faisal to send Al Capone back, but Faisal refused to go anywhere without his group. We had heated arguments with Faisal about his refusal to leave. He accused us of trying to steal Hedzoleh Soundz from under his nose and insisted that if he left, they would leave too. There was a very unpleasant atmosphere between us and the stubborn manager, whom the group detested with a passion anyway, something for which he blamed Stewart and me, accusing us of poisoning their minds against him. We finally relented and took Faisal everywhere with us, deciding to drop the acrimony and enjoy his company. He was actually an extremely funny person. We did about eight concerts where we opened for the Pointer Sisters. All the performances along the East Coast were sold out, and the audiences’ reception was really enthusiastic. We played the Fillmore in San Francisco, where the flower children and rock fans gave us a tumultuous reception. The Bay Area audiences turned out to be the most receptive of our entire tour.
Our performance at L.A.’s Troubadour Club was attended by many of our old friends, including David Crosby and Stephen Stills, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, the Crusaders, Stevie Wonder, Minnie Ripperton, and Alan Pariser. Los Angeles musicians, movie stars, and sports celebrities like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and O.J. Simpson all turned up to catch Hedzoleh Soundz. It was a star-studded night and a fabulous reception, but unfortunately it was our last performance of the tour. It was over for now.
In Los Angeles, Stewart and I moved into a mansion out in Brentwood, next to Pacific Palisades. Faisal was our houseguest while the rest of the group stayed in a hotel. When it was time for the band to return to Ghana, they refused to go. Faisal had literally owned the lives of most of the band members back home. They depended on him to put food on their tables. Fearing his close friendship with the country’s president, they thought he might just retaliate for the disrespect they had subjected him to during the entire tour. They suspected that he might influence the military head of state, General Kutu Acheampong, to punish them with imprisonment. The only people Faisal did not have such a hold on back home were percussionist/master drummer Okeyerema Asante, who came from the Ashanti Royal House of Koforidua, guitarist Nii Jagger Botchway, another royal member of Accra’s Ga aristocracy, and Stanley Todd, a fairly well-off mulatto musician who was also one of Faisal’s close friends. Faisal tried to reason with the band, but they told him to kiss their asses. He blamed us for spoiling them. We tried to explain that in the United States nobody had personal ownership of another human being. When he returned to Ghana, Faisal called a press conference, saying I had stolen his band and that he would never allow me in the country again without making sure I was imprisoned.
In the spring of 1974, I went into the studio with Hedzoleh Soundz to do a second album, on which we were joined by two members of the Crusaders, Joe Sample on the piano and Stix Hooper on drums. It turned out beautifully and contained the songs “Stimela,” “In the Marketplace,” “African Secret Society,” and “Been Such a Long Time Gone,” all of which have since become classics and audience favorites. Gary Stromberg, our publicist, named the album I Am Not Afraid. Our album became popular within the industry, but did not generate many sales. Blue Thumb had promised to support the band for the three-month tour and no longer. The tour was over, and Stewart and I could not sustain the band without gigs. We suggested that they return to Ghana and then come back to the States when the album began generating radio play and sales, which would not happen for at least three months. They refused. They were staying in America, and had no intention of going back to be harassed by Faisal. The guys took their instruments and, with the help of some friends from Ghana, applied for asylum in the states. They also had the Musician’s Union Local 47 of Los Angeles sue us for $47,000 on some kind of bullshit technicality. We paid the money. It was the last we heard from most of the Hedzoleh Soundz guys.
Stanley Todd stayed with Stewart and me, but the rest took off. What had begun as a wonderful pilgrimage back to Africa had unfortunately ended up in a very embarrassing shambles. Being back in the States with a group that was so unique and greatly admired was like sweet revenge after I had left the country with my tail between my legs. But with the breakup of the group because of factors beyond my control, I was feeling very stupid. The positive outcome of my pilgrimage was that I learned a great deal about Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zaire in the three
years I had been away from America. I had learned the French language, the Liberian slang, and the pidgin English of Nigeria and Ghana, as well as the customs and culture of the countries and a tremendous amount about their different styles of music. I came to understand the history and politics of the region, but most of all, I had made a whole lot of new friends, poor, rich, powerful, talented, spiritual, humble, learned, enterprising, and extremely beautiful, an education I could have never picked up at a school or in a book. So I was not discouraged. I was armed with new knowledge. I had crazy but good friends and had established a new foothold in the music industry. As an artist, I was once again commanding some respect, both in the industry and in my own heart.
15
ONE DAY AT THE BLUE THUMB RECORDS OFFICE, Stewart picked up a copy of the New York Times and saw an article about an upcoming heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Hyped as the “Rumble in the Jungle” by new boxing promoter Don King, it was to take place in Zaire later in the year. King, who had served time in a Cleveland prison for having caused a death in a street fight, was a close friend of a man named Lloyd Price, and had roped him into the Zaire event to handle the entertainment aspects of the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Lloyd Price had had major hit records in the early 1960s with “Stagger Lee” and “Personality,” which had shot him to the pinnacle of rhythm and blues success. King felt he was just the right man for the job after having known him since the beginning of his entertainment career. When I was hanging out with Johnny Nash and Danny Sims in the mid-1960s, I had met Lloyd Price on many occasions, and over the years we had come to know each other quite well.
On our way out of the Blue Thumb office, all Stewart wanted to talk about was the Rumble in the Jungle as he, Krasnow, and I headed for Dan Tana’s restaurant next to the Troubador Club on Santa Monica Boulevard, at the edge of Beverly Hills; it was our favorite watering hole. At our regular booth deep inside the restaurant, Stewart kept talking about the Rumble. “This is a great chance to have a festival of the greatest artists from America, Africa, and the host country, man. The film that could be made of the festival and Ali and Foreman preparing for the fight would be fantastic. The whole thing could be called ‘Three Days of Music and Fighting’ [a reference to the Woodstock Festival of 1969], and we should see if Lloyd Price would be interested in our helping him to put such an event together. Our advantage is that you lived in Zaire, Hugh, you know the top musicians there, like Franco and Rochereau, who’d put it together, and Lloyd is your friend, man. He’ll listen to you. You should track him down and give him a call.”
At first I wasn’t too keen on the idea. I was still reeling from the breakup of Hedzoleh Soundz. Stanley and I had been talking a lot about getting Asante and Jagger to go with us to Washington, D.C., where the three of them knew some good musicians from Ghana and Nigeria. We were planning to hook up with some of them and put a group together so that we could go out on the road and promote the new album we had just made. Stanley’s drummer brother, Frankie, was also in D.C.
I was rather surprised that Krasnow was impressed with Stewart’s idea and actually thought it was worth following through. The next morning I called Lloyd from Krasnow’s office and proposed our idea to him. He loved it. He said he was in a meeting then with Don King and Hank Schwartz, the owner of the broadcast rights and King’s partner. He put King on the telephone. “Hugh Masekela, I have followed your career for a long time and I think that you are an essential brother. You have helped to inspire many of us to look in the direction of the Motherland to retrace our origins and to reconnect with our roots. I have no doubt that you would be a strategic participant in our effort to put together a festival to go along with the greatest fight of the century. As black brothers, armed with our different expertise in our chosen fields, we would capture the attention and the imagination of the entire world with our joint initiative. Billions of people will be watching this historical event. Let us join hands, my brother, and shake up the world. Any good friend of Lloyd’s is a friend of mine. You are welcome to join this great initiative in the history of the world. Now tell me, my brother, your idea is going to need financing. What kind of backing do you have available to make our vision become a reality?”
I said, “Don, I’m sitting here with the president of Blue Thumb Records, who is very enthusiastic about this project.” Don broke into a happy chuckle, “I love talking to presidents. Put him on the phone.”
The following evening, Krasnow, Stewart, and I took the red-eye flight to New York, where we had set up a meeting with King, Schwartz, and Price. “You get the money to put on this festival and do a film of it. You give me ten percent of your budget and the profits, and you got yourself a deal,” Don King told us. We all shook hands and asked them for two weeks and we would come back to them with the money. At that point Krasnow said to us that that was as far as he could go with the project. He had gotten us in the door. Now he had to go back to Los Angeles and run his record company.
Alan Pariser, from the Detroit family that owned the Solo Cups fortune, had put his trust-fund money into several enterprises that yielded very good returns on his investments. Pariser was fascinated with the Zaire project and formed a company with Stewart and me called the Ace Company.
In Liberia, I had been talking to Steve Tolbert, the president’s brother, who had been named minister of finance because of his outstanding business background and international reputation. As far as we knew, he had made his money legitimately, beginning in the rubber business and then branching out. Some people thought his fortunes might have been ill-gotten, but then we came from the record business, one of the most exploitative and corrupt businesses in the world. We were about to get into bed with people from the highest ranks in the boxing industry, another business that was not too famous for honesty and fair play. As we looked around us, we saw very few businesses that were angelic. And not being angels ourselves, we did not care too much where the money came from—as long as it wasn’t connected to apartheid. We would have taken it from the devil if we could find his dirty ass. We just wanted to be part of the Rumble in the Jungle. We knew it was going to be a huge task, and that we’d have to deal with major egos. This we were very much prepared for. What we did not anticipate was what a fucking nightmare it would finally turn out to be.
Steve Tolbert’s portfolio included a plethora of interests ranging from shipping, fishing, banking, and food packing to international real estate. He was also interested in starting a recording company. He loved the idea of the festival, and suggested that Stewart and I fly to Liberia to discuss the project in detail. Tolbert’s Liberian lawyer Steve Dunbar, his British business manager Ian Bradshaw, and a couple of secretaries were present at the meeting. After a few hours he decided he indeed loved the idea. “How much will it cost me?” he asked. “Two million dollars,” we told him. Everything was agreed. Ace, Alan Pariser, Stewart, and I would be the production company. Bradshaw would fly to New York to do the final negotiations with King, Schwartz, and Price. When everything was signed, we could begin operations and put the music festival together.
The negotiations with Don King, Hank Schwartz, and Lloyd Price were very lengthy, but Steve Dunbar and Ian Bradshaw were tough with the fight promoter’s team. By the time we finished haggling over the numerous little details, King was not so warm anymore toward Stewart and me. He had gotten the ten percent he demanded, but when King is not in total control, he has a tendency to become unnecessarily acrimonious and picky. After two weeks of negotiations that often went late into the night, a deal was finally sealed. We shook hands with King’s team, and in the St. Regis Hotel’s bar, we raised our whisky glasses and drank a toast to a successful collaboration. Bradshaw, Dunbar, Stewart, and I flew down to the Bahamas, where one of Tolbert’s offshore companies was registered. We signed the final papers with his bankers so that money would be released to our company for funding, filming, and recording the festival. We popped a few bottles of Dom Pern
ignon with the bankers and went to bed laughing and backslapping. We had pulled it off.
Alan Pariser joined us in New York, and we went into business. We took some office space in the same building that King and Schwartz were working out of, and hired two secretaries and a runner. Alan, Stewart, and I moved into three suites at the Wyndham Hotel, four blocks up from our offices and directly across 58th Street from the Plaza Hotel. We worked from morning until past midnight on this festival. It was exciting, but very hard work. The festival began to take on an aura of glamour that was attracting more interest than the fight itself. Don King insisted that he be present at all the interviews with the media, where he could always be counted on to hog the microphone. “This is going to be the greatest show on earth. This festival will be greater than anything that was seen at the Monterey or Woodstock festivals. It’s going to be the mother of all festivals, and yes indeed, it’s gonna take place in the Motherland as a prelude to the fight of the century. I have placed the production in the able hands of Lloyd Price, Stewart Levine, and Hugh Masekela, and they are putting together the world’s greatest artists. This is a spectacle, an extravaganza, a blockbuster that should not be missed by anybody. Billions throughout the world via satellite will see it. Yes sir, Don King put it all together with His Excellency the president of Zaire, the honorable Mobuto Sese Seko. Yes sir, Don King, a little black boy from Cleveland, putting together the greatest spectacle on earth, make no mistake about it!”
Still Grazing Page 37