by Steve Brewer
“Sure thing.” Eddie held out his hand. “Eddie Long, what can I do for you?”
They shook hands. “Eddie, I’m Bill Herron and this is Franklin—”
“Big Bill Herron, the producer? Are you kiddin’ me?”
Big Bill smiled and looked straight in Eddie’s crystal green eyes. “No kiddin’.”
“I sure didn’t expect to see you here. I figured you’d be at the CMC Awards.”
Franklin elbowed his way past Bill. “By the way, Eddie, I’m Franklin Peavy, Bill and I work together.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Peavy.” Eddie pointed at him knowingly. “Hey, you negotiated that big recording deal for Luther Bridges, didn’t you? That was a helluva deal!”
Franklin puffed up a bit. “That’s right,” he said, “You must read the trades pretty close.”
Eddie scuffed his boot on the asphalt. “Oh I just try to keep up with both ends of the business, that’s all.” Eddie leaned his guitar case against his car then pushed up the brim of his Stetson. “So what do a couple of big shots like you want with little ole me?”
Big Bill smiled. “Son, we’d like to talk to you about your career.”
26.
Under normal circumstances Bill and Franklin would have taken Eddie to The Sunset Grill to discuss career possibilities. The Sunset Grill was an enticing fusion of Nashville and Hollywood with deep fried spinach served by hip young waiters dressed in black. Using excess flattery and the big city atmosphere of the place, Herron and Peavy found they could get most new-to-town artists to sign almost anything. But with the CMC Awards wrapping up, it would be too crowded to get within a block of the place, so they decided to go elsewhere.
Big Bill was at the wheel of his monumental Ford Excursion. Franklin was way the hell over in the co-pilot seat and Eddie was two yards behind them in the first row of back seats. Eddie was leaning forward, hanging on their every word. Two big-time music industry vets telling war stories.
Big Bill and Franklin Peavy got along fine when it counted. And nothing counted more than signing new talent with an unpublished hit song. They’d done it so many times it was a dance. One minute Bill would lead, then Franklin would take over. They two-stepped on the fears and egos of the uninitiated and they rarely stumbled.
“Seriously,” Eddie said, “you really think it’s a good single?”
“A good single?” Bill looked in the mirror at Eddie. “Hell, son, it’s way more than that. You put that song on the worst disc you ever heard and I betcha dolla it’d go gold, maybe platinum. You got any idea what a song like that’s worth?”
“Not really.”
Big Bill smiled inwardly. “Let’s say you sell five hundred thousand units, okay? That’s good, but not as good as I think this song is, but let’s just use it for an example. A gold record brings in four million for the label.” Big Bill paused to let the seven figures sink into Eddie’s imagination. “Now, you don’t get all that,” he said with a smile, “you gotta share some of it with your producer. But even if you’re not very good at math, you can tell you gonna do all right.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Eddie said. He sounded almost suspicious.
Franklin actually said, “You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. You come out of the gate with a big hit single like we’re talking and the record company’s gonna wanna keep you happy, right?” Eddie nodded. “Sure, they got the option on your next seven discs and a greatest hits package but trust me, they’ll renegotiate. Probably increase your royalty rate from the standard eight percent to, say, ten percent, maybe even better if you let me handle it.”
“Better than ten percent?” Eddie smiled like he’d just been let in on a secret. “You’ve done that before?”
“I’m the one who did it first,” Franklin said. “I’ve renegotiated some of the best contracts in country music history. Trust me, I can get you a higher royalty than anybody in town.” For the next fifteen minutes, Peavy and Herron spun wild stories of success and financial excess they had personally witnessed. They gave one example after another about the artists they’d handled and the money they’d made. “You shoulda seen that girl’s face when she saw that check for a hundred thousand dollars. I thought she was gonna faint.” It was a sales pitch they’d made a hundred times and it sounded mighty tempting. Sign with Peavy and Herron and get the keys to the kingdom.
During a lull in the pitch, Eddie glanced out the window. He’d been in Nashville long enough to recognize what neighborhood they were in. He leaned forward and tapped Franklin on the shoulder. “You mind if I ask where’re we going?”
Franklin reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his global positioning satellite receiver, showing it to Eddie. He pointed at the map on the screen. “We’re here, right?” He pointed again. “Place we’re going to is there. It’s called Estella’s. Best fried shrimp you’ll ever put in your mouth.”
“Plus they got a great jukebox,” Big Bill said. “If you like old R&B.”
Eddie smiled and nodded. “Sounds good.” He didn’t care about the jukebox or how good the shrimp were. His just wanted to get down to business.
As he pulled into the parking lot, Bill looked in the rear view mirror at Eddie. “You like old R&B? I’m talking Little Milton, Jackie Wilson that sort of thing.”
“That’s a little before my time.”
“You know I managed some of those R&B acts when I first started.” He shook his head. “Boy, that was a long damn time ago,” he said with a laugh. “Produced some hits too. Also did some concert promoting.” Big Bill found three parking spaces near the front door and took them all. As soon as they got out they could hear the jukebox.
“Hey,” Eddie said, cocking his ear toward the music, “Tyrone Davis.”
Big Bill gave Eddie a shove. “You rascal. Before your time, my ass. I been had!” He chuckled. He was starting to like this Eddie Long. He had a bit of the larceny in him.
Eddie smiled. “Well, you know, I heard a little of this and that.”
Big Bill reached the door first, opening it for the others. The smell of tobacco and fried shrimp hooked them and drew them in where they were greeted by Estella. She was perched on her stool, her upper body heeding the call of Tyrone’s song. “Well, well,” she said as the three men came through the door. “If I could turn back the hands of time. . . Come ooon in!” Estella slowly got up off the stool and slid three menus off the stack in front of her.
Big Bill stepped up and slapped the top of the podium, an old man acting foolish. “Who do I see about gettin’ a table at this establishment?” He forced a laugh, causing everyone else to do likewise.
“Hello, Mr. Herrons.” Estella had a habit of putting an ‘s’ on the end of his name. “How you doin’ tonight?” Not that she cared. She didn’t like the man. Didn’t trust him any further than she could comfortably spit a rat, but there was no point in acting it out. There was nothing wrong with his money. “Good to see you.”
“We’re all right,” Big Bill said. “We just come to get our mouths greasy.”
“You come to the right place, then.” Estella had long suspected Big Bill of stealing money back when he was Otis’s manager. It was just a hunch, of course. It wasn’t something she could prove, so she just kept him at a polite distance. Estella looked at Franklin and gestured with the menus. “You want the booth, Mr. Peavy?”
“That’ll be fine, Estella,” Franklin said as Estella led them toward their table. “You doin’ all right tonight?”
“Oh yeah, ain’t complaining. How ‘bout you?”
“Good, good, we found us a new young talent here and decided to fatten him up with some of your shrimp.” Franklin clapped Eddie on the back and winked.
Estella led them to a corner booth and pulled out the table so they could squeeze in. “Well all right. Everybody just set down here.” After pushing the table back in, Estella took their orders, then left to get their drinks.
Bill leaned back in the booth, arms spread wide across
the back of the seat. “You know, Eddie, I been in this business a long time and I’ve come to be a pretty good judge of talent. And I gotta tell ya, when I got your tape, I said to Franklin, I said, ‘betcha dolla this boy’s goin’ places.’” Bill gave a quick nod to confirm he was speaking the truth.
“I appreciate that. But here’s the—”
“So,” Big Bill interrupted, “where’re you from and how long you been in Nashville?”
Eddie leaned forward and fixed Bill with his eyes. “Mississippi and long enough,” he said. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Herron, I’d like to cut to the chase on this.” Big Bill and Franklin wouldn’t have looked more surprised if Eddie had stood and pissed on the table top. They glanced at one another, curiosity replacing surprise. “No disrespect,” Eddie said, “it’s just that I ain’t much for small talk and I kinda take a business approach to things. That’s all. I hope you don’t mind.”
Franklin and Bill looked at one another for a moment then laughed. “Well all right, then,” Bill said. “Let’s cut to the chase.” He gestured at Franklin. “Show him the contract.”
Franklin pulled a document from his inside coat pocket and handed it to Eddie. “This is a standard artist-manager contract. It has all the usual clauses detailing our percentages for the different types of deals you might enter into, touring, recording, publishing, et cetera.” His tone was relaxed and meant to imply that there was no reason to even read the thing it was so standard and usual and normal. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a look at it while we have our drinks.”
When Estella brought the drinks to the table, she saw Eddie looking through the contract. She was tempted to warn him against selling his soul to Mr. Herrons, but it wasn’t any of her business, so she held her tongue. “Mr. Peavy, ya’ll wanna go ahead and order?”
“I think we’ll have three shrimp plates, if that’s all right.” Franklin looked at the others to get their approval. Big Bill nodded. Eddie never looked up from the contract but made a vague wave of his hand. “Yeah,” Franklin said, “three of the plates’ll be fine.”
Estella took the menus and went back to the kitchen. “Three swimps,” she said as she came through the swinging door.
Otis went to the refrigerator and pulled out the large metal bowl. He set it on the counter and turned to Estella. “This Mr. Peavy’s order?”
“Un huh. He’s over there with Mr. Herrons, ‘bout to get some boy to sign papers.” She looked out the service window at the booth where they were sitting. “That man is ugly as a stump full of spiders and twice as crooked.”
“Man can’t help the way he looks,” Otis said. He sunk his hands into the big bowl of cold milk and paprika and he gathered extra shrimp the way he always did for Mr. Peavy. “And you don’t know he’s gettin’ his hooks in that boy’s pocket any more’n I do. Now just do like me and let it go.” He lifted his hands out of the bowl and let the juices drain between his fingers.
Estella put her hands on her hips and looked at Otis. “That’s right. That’s ‘xactly what you did.” Her head jerked from side to side as she spoke. “You just let it go and he just went right on down to his bank and made a gret, big deposit with all yo’ monies.”
Otis smiled serenely, forcing the little grey tuft of whisker under his lip to point outwards. “Jus’ let it go,” he said as he worked the wet shrimp into the spicy flour. “Bye, bye.”
Estella turned and headed for the door. “Hmmph.” She loved Otis, but she could never understand his peace of mind and the way he accepted his fate. There was no denying that he had stabbed that man in Memphis, but the way Estella figured it, Big Bill Herron had put the knife in Otis’s hand. When she walked by the booth, Estella looked at Eddie and hoped things would turn out better for him.
Eddie didn’t notice Estella. He was absorbed in the subparagraphs of the clauses in the contract. Somewhere on page seven he stopped and looked up. “What’s this?” He turned to Franklin. “You co-produce everything I do?”
It was hard to say who was most surprised by this question. Franklin, who never expected some hick kid to actually read the contract, let alone understand it, or Big Bill who, up until this moment, had always been the sole producer listed in the contracts they issued.
“Oh, that’s just a credit,” Franklin said, trying to remain calm. “It’s nothing, standard stuff.” He tugged on the cuffs of his shirt and inspected a button closely. He hoped against hope that Big Bill had suddenly gone deaf and that Eddie would drop the matter.
But Bill’s hearing was fine. And, despite the web of veins in the whites of his bulging eyes, so was his sight. He stared across the table at his entrepreneurial partner. The son of a bitch was sneaking shit into the contracts. Bill wondered how long that had been going on. He wanted desperately to say something about the knife twisting in his back but he didn’t want Eddie to know there was dissention in the ranks, so he acted like this was business as usual. “Oh yeah,” Bill tapped his forehead with his fingers. “That’s the credit-only clause we discussed adding to the new contracts? I’d completely forgotten about that.” He emphasized the word ‘completely.’
Franklin looked at the tiny red veins in Big Bill’s eyes. “Yeah, credit-only, like we discussed.” He’d begun to sweat like a pedophile on a playground.
Eddie flipped ahead a page and pointed at something. “Well here in paragraph six, sub-b, doesn’t that trigger this producer royalty?”
“Let me see what you’re pointing at.” Franklin took the contract and pulled some reading glasses from his pocket. Head tilted downward, Franklin pretended to read what he already knew was there. “Well, I can see how you might misread that, yes. It’s a complicated clause and perhaps not as artfully written as it might—”
“Well, let’s lose it all,” Eddie said flatly. “No offense, but I’m only going to agree to have Mr. Herron produce the record, all right?” He flipped forward to review the last pages of the contract without waiting for a response.
This was a first. Big Bill and Franklin didn’t know what to say. Bill was tempted to laugh since Eddie had just pulled the rug out from under Franklin’s attempted co-producing scheme. And Franklin was tempted to reach across the table to strangle him for doing it. But neither of them said anything. They just sat mute, waiting, as if under Eddie’s spell. He had taken control of the situation and the two veterans were willing to let him, for now. Eddie had a song they wanted. It was a hit, plain and simple. They figured the best way to get it was to play along until the kid was in so far over his head they had to bail him out. Then they’d show him how to renegotiate a contract.
Eddie gauged the reactions on their faces. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I want you guys to handle things for me, but let’s get one thing straight from the get go. I’ve done my homework. I know about compulsory licenses, producer royalties, synchronization rights, and mechanicals. I also know about things like MP3 files, I-drive, and Internet marketing strategies. The bottom line, fellas, is that we can have a mutually beneficial relationship only if we don’t try to fuck each other at every turn. Know what I mean?”
Franklin and Bill were dumbstruck. They’d never met a young artist who seemed to know so much about the business. Artists usually didn’t know this much ‘till they’d been screwed several times, lost their record deal, been through detox, and ended up in court with the IRS. Herron and Peavy could only stare across the table at this prodigy. This kid was going places.
“Here’s what it boils down to,” Eddie said. “You want me and my song, you’re gonna have to do it my way.” He shrugged. “Otherwise I’ll find somebody else.”
Each of them had a reason for agreeing to Eddie’s terms. Big Bill needed the money he knew the song would fetch. Franklin didn’t care about the money as much as being associated with a hit. He figured it would go a long way toward earning him the industry respect he so coveted. Bill and Franklin looked at one another with what-do-you-think expressions. They’d worked together long enough for
each to know what the other was thinking. Finally, they both nodded. “What the hell,” Big Bill said. “We’ll try it your way.”
Eddie’s face didn’t light up the way most young artists did when their deal closed. In fact if there was any change at all in his demeanor, it was that he seemed to grow a little darker. “Oh, yeah, one more thing.” Eddie leveled a knowing finger at Franklin. “The standard royalty rate for a new artist is twelve percent,” Eddie said. “Not eight. Twelve.” He looked off toward the kitchen, then back at the stunned lawyer and his partner. “After we eat, I’ll tell you about my marketing plan.” He turned and looked back toward the kitchen again. “Now where’s this shrimp plate you’ve been bragging about?
27.
Megan was doing her best to forget about Jimmy. Clean breaks hurt less, right? Was that true both of bones and of broken hearts, or was it just bones? Wait a second, it was clean cuts that hurt less than ragged ones. That was it. Paper cuts hurt more than — Christ! Why am I worried about paper cuts?
Megan knew Jimmy was in love with her but she didn’t think she bore any responsibility for that. All she did was go out with him. Sure, she laughed when he told a joke, and she’d met a few members of his family, but that didn’t mean anything, did it? And, yeah, they’d had sex, pretty good sex, come to think of it, but so what? They screwed more than they made love, or at least that’s what Megan’d been doing. Jimmy would probably tell the story differently, but he tended to be more of a romantic about those sorts of things. Was it Megan’s fault that guys just tended to fall in love with her? It’s not like she asked them to.
Well, she couldn’t worry about that right now. She was running out of time. She was at the radio station clearing out her desk. She was due in Nashville in two days to start her new job. Between now and then Megan had more to do than she had time to do it. She was in too much of a hurry to worry about neatness so she dumped the contents of a drawer into the liquor box she’d brought for packing.