Larry called Bobby and told him that I had fired him, and of course Bobby called the agency and told them they couldn’t use the name unless Larry Dorr was the manager. Check and mate. This caused an immediate panic. The agency had a million dollars worth of concerts booked over the next year or so. Contracts had been signed, commitments had been made and without the name there were no gigs. Airline tickets had been purchased for months in advance, and they don’t give refunds on group tickets. There would have been lawsuits, and of course it would mean unemployment for everybody in our organization. I was trapped. I couldn’t get out of BS&T for at least another year, Bloodlines would never be released and Larry Dorr was still my manager, like it or not.
Things were very tense between Larry and me that summer. The truth was out and I felt betrayed by my best friend. But Larry was a damn good salesman and he pleaded his case. He told me that he was just as much a victim in this as I was. He said he despised Colomby and hated being controlled by him, and he promised to dedicate himself to getting us out of this mess. He came up with another brilliant idea. He suggested that I make a Christmas album. Larry said he could easily find a distributor for such a project, and Colomby wasn’t threatened by a Christmas album so he wouldn’t stand in our way. Dorr said it would help him promote my name as a solo artist and would open the doors for my own record deal. He urged me to forget about Bloodlines and get back into the studio right away.
I was reluctant to throw away twenty years of friendship with Larry Dorr. I really wanted to believe him and I understood all too well what he was up against, so I decided to give it one more shot. I figured maybe if the Christmas album was successful it would save Larry and me both from a lifetime of being controlled by Colomby. Steve Guttman and I booked a studio in downtown Manhattan and we went to work on the Christmas album. It’s a beautiful piece of work, consisting of funky jazz renditions of traditional songs like “Little Drummer Boy” and “We Three Kings.” The recording featured some of the best musicians in New York City. Steve and I were extremely proud of this record. But Christmas came and went, and then another Christmas, and that album wasn’t released either. This one cost me $75,000 and six months of work. It was the last straw. A Christmas album is the easiest thing in the world to sell. Everyone from Pat Boone to Alvin and the Chipmunks had a Christmas album out, and this was a beautiful recording by an artist who was still playing for thousands of fans every night.
It was the end of my relationship with Larry Dorr and ultimately with Blood Sweat & Tears. Larry had been faced with a clear choice. It was either loyalty to his best friend or control over the name. He chose the name. He once said to me, “The BS&T name is a licence to print money.” Our friendship had given him control over that licence and now it controlled him. Larry Dorr had a sure thing with Blood Sweat & Tears, and staking his future on the solo career of a sixty-year-old rock singer was a risky venture at best. Larry Dorr wasn’t a risk taker.
Doc Riley, who played on every one of those albums that would never be released, was pushing me relentlessly. He told me, “It breaks my heart to see you writing these great songs that no one will ever hear. What a waste.” My closest friends were all advising me to get away from Blood Sweat & Tears once and for all. It was a dead-end street, and they knew me well enough to know that I was still a fiercely creative individual who would wither and die if I couldn’t write new music. They were worried about me. The constant touring was taking its toll on my health, and with no possibility of recording new music I was suffocating creatively. The failure of Larry Dorr to give me an outlet for my new music was becoming intolerable. Having a manager who lived in constant fear that I would say or do something to offend Colomby, resulting in his revoking the use of the BS&T name, was a Damocles’ sword I could no longer live under. The idea of still being controlled by Bobby Colomby, a guy who hadn’t played in the band for thirty years, was becoming more repugnant to me all the time. I loved the guys in BS&T and I loved what it stood for musically, but I hated what that name was doing to us all. Once more, the war for control of that name had poisoned everything it touched. That name was born of a power struggle between some massive egos and now, thirty years later, it was still controlling my life. I’d had enough of Blood Sweat & Tears. I wanted out. I wasn’t getting any younger and the road wasn’t getting any easier. Robbie Robertson observed in the movie The Last Waltz, “The road is a goddamned impossible way of life.” It was becoming more goddamned impossible for me every year.
The Lights of Broadway
I remember the day, I remember the sound
I remember one day in September
When the world came thunderin’ down
This is my hometown, the lady’s lookin’ down
Clouds of dust, ashes in her eyes, cinders on her gown
But the lights up on Broadway still shine
And the bells of St. Patrick’s still chime
Go tell the world we’re singin’ songs of freedom
And the lights up on Broadway still shine
So we never forget, so we always remain
So that heroes never are forgotten
And their lives were not given in vain
This is my hometown, the lady’s lookin’ down
Clouds of dust, ashes in her eyes, cinders on her gown
You know the lights up on Broadway still shine
And the bells of St. Patrick’s still chime
Go tell the world we’re singin’ songs of freedom
And the lights up on Broadway still shine
Lyrics by David Clayton-Thomas. Copyright © Clayton-Thomas Music Publishing Inc., 2001.
25
9/11
The late nineties were a mixed blessing. The house in Pomona was comfortable and it was great to have my daughter nearby, but it was a family community—a great place to live if your life revolved around Little League and PTA meetings. I was only there a few days a week, mostly weekdays, and on those days the little town emptied out by 9:00 a.m., as my neighbours commuted to work in the city and Ashleigh left for school. I was very much alone all day. After Suzanne, I was reluctant to subject myself or my daughter to another live-in girlfriend. I was getting a little old for such foolishness. I worked long hours in my studio writing new songs, but by now it was obvious that as long as I was in Blood Sweat & Tears no one would ever hear them. Quitting was not as simple as it might seem. We were booked for nearly a year in advance and my name was on those contracts. It would take time to wind down this money-making machine, so I trudged through airports week after week and dreamed of the day when I’d be out of BS&T. But we still had some of the best players in the business and the music of the band kept me going. When on occasion we played a class venue, the old spirit would come back and I would prove to myself that we could still knock it out of the park. But for every class concert we played there were a dozen oldies shows at third-rate casinos, Woodstock revivals and rib festivals. (“Hey, can we hold the show until after the pig races?”) It was heartbreaking to see this once-great concert band playing under the roller coaster at county fairs as the subtleties of the music were drowned out by the clang of the midway. But Larry Dorr had a payroll to meet every week and he couldn’t afford to be too picky about the venues, and Bobby Colomby didn’t care where we played as long as those cheques kept coming in. Neither of them gave a damn about the show. They weren’t out there. The repertoire hadn’t changed in years either. There was barely enough time to rehearse new players for the show that night, let alone introduce new tunes. The oldies crowd wanted to hear the hits from the sixties. That’s what Larry Dorr was selling, and that’s what we delivered. I found myself singing the same songs night after night. There was nothing to challenge me musically anymore. I could do the BS&T show in my sleep.
As for the musicians, they may have been carrying the name of a group called Blood Sweat & Tears, but they weren’t really a group anymore. These guys were hired guns. They were in it for the money, and they made n
o secret of it. There is a certain mercenary honesty to New York City musicians. If you want the best, you’ll have to pay serious money, and you will get what you pay for. You can buy the best players in the world in New York City, but make no mistake—they’re not your buddies, they’re money players. Somebody offers them fifty bucks a night more, and they’re gone in a big-city minute. Most of the band didn’t even have my home phone number. The only reason they would have to call me was if they wanted a raise, and I steered clear of band politics. If they had problems they could call Larry Dorr or Steve Guttman. It was their job to handle the business of the band.
The magic of the early band was that initially we weren’t in it for the money. Playing little clubs in Greenwich Village with a nine-piece band is not exactly the way to get rich. We were driven by the music we were creating, and as complex and contentious as the relationships may have been, there was love in that early band. We argued like family and we fought like brothers, but when we hit the stage the personal differences were forgotten and the band came together with a common purpose—the love of the music. It was all for one and one for all when we were a struggling band on Bleecker Street. Then twenty million dollars was thrown into the mix and it became every man for himself. The spirit of that early band was long gone, and I was tired of working to support a payroll for guys who cared nothing about the creative legacy of Blood Sweat & Tears. This was not what I wanted for my life, and I knew that for my own self-respect and physical well-being I had to put an end to it. The only way to get out of Blood Sweat & Tears was to get out of New York. As long as I was there I was tied to the band and the million-dollar-a-year business operation that was BS&T. I talked it over with Doc and Bill and told them I was coming home. They offered to help me in any way they could. Ashleigh was graduating from SUNY that year and there would be nothing holding me in New York anymore. I began making plans to leave BS&T and move back to Canada. It was no secret that I was leaving. A for-sale sign stood on the front lawn of the house in Pomona.
There were numerous recording opportunities for me in my home country, where I had become somewhat of a musical icon. I had been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and a few years later into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Doug Riley was by now one of the most respected musicians in Canada. In 2004 Doc was awarded the Order of Canada, the highest civilian honour our country can bestow. Bruce Cassidy had returned to Toronto after several years in South Africa and was now a highly successful musician and composer. He and Doc would make sure that I was surrounded by the finest musical talent in Canada.
Then, two days before my sixtieth birthday, on September 11, 2001, everything changed. I had been in Manhattan nearly every day that summer, working on the Christmas album with Steve Guttman. We’d been recording at a studio on 47th Street just off Broadway, right in the middle of Manhattan. I have a lifelong love affair with New York City. Sometimes it has been a love-hate relationship, but thirty years of my life have been lived there, so my feelings for the city run deep. New York City had been such a force in my life for so long that I considered myself a New Yorker. It was 9:30 in the morning and I was at the house in Pomona sipping a last cup of coffee before I left for the city when the horrific pictures from the World Trade Center disaster flashed across the morning news.
I took 9/11 very personally. This was my city that was under attack. Pomona was a bedroom community, and some of my friends and neighbours who worked on Wall Street didn’t come home that night. Kids that my daughter had grown up with lost parents on that terrible day. The airports were closed, all concerts were cancelled and there was no going into Manhattan for several days. So I stayed up in Pomona and watched the tragedy unfold on television with the rest of America. As I watched the incredible heroics of everyday New Yorkers, I felt the need to contribute something myself, so I did what I have always done in times of trouble. I holed up in my studio for several days and wrote a song. It was called “The Lights of Broadway,” and it was my gift to the city I loved. A month or so later, with a chorus of NYPD officers, we recorded the song at the studio on 47th Street and donated it to the victims’ families so that all money generated by the song will forever go directly to the widows and orphans of the people who died on that tragic day.
In the weeks and months that followed, it became apparent that America would never be the same again. For a band like ours, which travelled several days a week, it was exhausting. Long delays, increased airport security and cancelled flights crippled our touring schedule. Our problems were a minor inconvenience compared to the agony the whole country was feeling, but they cut the heart out of the band. Touring became even more difficult. The gigs were fewer and farther apart. We spent long hours in airports waiting on delayed flights and would come home from the road exhausted and demoralized. But now I couldn’t leave. I drove up to Toronto and had dinner with Doc and Bill. I explained to them that my plans to return to Toronto had been put on hold—9/11 had changed everything. I just couldn’t run away to Canada when my friends and neighbours in New York needed me.
Over the next three years New York slowly returned to normal. And as the memory of 9/11 faded into history I began to refocus on my plans to move back to Canada. I put the house in Pomona back up for sale and told Larry that this would be my last year with Blood Sweat & Tears. He was to accept no new contracts. The gruelling tour schedule that had been a way of life for the past thirty years became even harder in the post-9/11 years, and I couldn’t keep it up any longer. The trust between me and Larry had been broken and there was no way to fix it. Since apparently I couldn’t fire him, I had to leave. It was long overdue anyway. BS&T hadn’t recorded in twenty-five years and my attempts to release new music had hit a brick wall. Colomby had no intention of recording BS&T and Larry Dorr had no intention of making a record deal for me. For a songwriter, this is intolerable. I was writing better than ever, and I had things to say. I needed to make records that would actually be heard.
Mercy Lord Above
I’m movin’ in a new direction, can you deal with that
Clear up a little misconception, show where it’s at
Stop tellin’ me to make my mind up, can’t you let me be
Stop tellin’ me how much you gave up just to be with me
Oh yeah, now there’s no more me and you … understand
Oh yeah, there’s not a damn thing I can do
It’s the same old story, same old plans
Same old somethin’ just keeps slippin’ through your hands
I believe you just go round one time, I believe in true love
I believe it’s all gone in no time, mercy, Lord above
Lord knows I did the best I could do, wasn’t good enough
I bet you called all your girlfriends, talkin’ all kinds of stuff
I need a little inspiration, need to catch my breath
Some devil in the way you do things scares me half to death
Oh yeah, now there’s no more me and you … understand
Oh yeah, there’s not a damn thing I can do
I must have been crazy, I must have been blind
Now you can tell all your friends I must have lost my mind
Lyrics by David Clayton-Thomas. Copyright © Clayton-Thomas Music Publishing Inc., 2005.
26
I AM GOLD
My old friend Bill Pugliese was now a multi-millionaire with powerful business connections in Canada. Bill is a unique character. A high school dropout who became an international entrepreneur, he has been called by financial journals “Bullion Bill the Billionaire Biker.” Even today this corporate CEO still rides his Harley.
In 1989 Bill and a team of Canadian geologists investigated reports of an enormous gold deposit in Mali, West Africa. In a remote villge called Sadiola they discovered a virtual mountain of gold. Bill called me in New York at the time and told me, “Hey, David, I’ve just found King Solomon’s mines.” I laughed. “Yeah, right. So how’s the golf game?”
He wasn’t kidding. Local folklore believes that this was indeed the source of the legend of King Solomon’s mines. Over the next few years, teaming with a South African mining conglomerate, they invested millions in Mali. They rebuilt the town of Sadiola. They piped in water, and built schools and hospitals and housing for the thousands of local families employed by the mine. The Mali operation yielded close to fifty billion dollars in gold in the first five years. Bill is the chairman of IAMGOLD, one of the most successful gold-mining operations in the world. The company he founded in 1990 now operates mines in Africa, South America and Canada. It produces about a million ounces of gold per year and is listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges. In 2007 my friend Bill Pugliese received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. Not bad for a working-class kid from Willowdale, eh?
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