by Shep Gordon
We put together the Alice Cooper Holiday Tour, beginning in Nashville on December 3 and winding up in Buffalo on New Year’s Eve. It was all stadiums, coliseums, and arenas now. As we were getting the tour ready, a very good journalist with the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob Greene, who’d been writing about the band for a few years, got in touch with me. He was not a music critic but was very interested in the way rock was evolving from the soundtrack of the hippie counterculture in the sixties to the global corporate business of platinum albums and arena tours in the seventies. Since Alice Cooper had so much to do with that, Greene was especially interested in us. He approached me with the idea of going along on the tour—not just to observe but as part of the band in some way, so he could get the full inside experience. I cooked up a role for him: he would come out toward the end of the show as Santa Claus, and Alice and the band would beat him up.
It turned out to be the tour that broke up the band. Bob describes it in detail in the book he ended up writing, Billion Dollar Baby, one of the best books written about seventies rock. The band was truly sick of the stage show by this point and close to mutinying. Alice was drinking constantly as a buffer, which was ruining his health. Winter weather made moving the band and the equipment from city to city nerve-racking. Meanwhile, I was busy dealing with threats from parent groups and city councils in various cities to ban us. Again, to me this was gift-from-God publicity, as long as they didn’t actually go through with their threats. The most serious came from the city of Binghamton, New York, where the band was scheduled for December 29. The city fathers of Binghamton were especially concerned about our beating up Santa Claus. They sent a four-man commission eighty miles to the War Memorial Arena in Syracuse on December 15 to judge for themselves how evil the show was.
I met with them backstage before the concert and put on a real show myself. Bob Greene describes the hilarious scene in his book. Four middle-aged guys in jackets and ties sat in a row of folding chairs while I addressed them in my most polite and persuasive manner. Bob writes that I reminded him of a minister giving an Easter sermon. I introduced Bob to them as a highly respected gentleman of the press. When one of them asked Bob what he thought of the Santa Claus part of the show, I pounced: “Gentleman, Mr. Greene is Santa Claus in the show.” Then I introduced them to the Amazing Randi, a middle-aged man like themselves, who told them he found the show entirely respectable and professional. After that I introduced them to Alice himself, who was also at his most polite. He explained to them that part of the purpose of the show was to introduce the young audience to the cultural significance of Busby Berkeley–era spectacle, and that rather than promoting immoral behavior, the show was in fact “a morality play” in which the evil figure of Alice Cooper is punished in the end for his misdoings.
Then I went into my routine. I explained to them that the Alice Cooper group were all serious, hardworking young men who would never jeopardize their careers by promoting violence or immorality. Yes, they depicted it onstage, but only to entertain and educate young people, not to incite them. I told them that I had written the show myself, and as a former probation officer (I didn’t say for only about four hours) with a degree in sociology, I cared deeply for America’s youth.
“They say that you can’t get young people to care anymore,” I somberly told them. “But we do it.” I told them that when they saw the show, they’d see young people laugh, cringe with fear, and applaud with delight. We were an outlet for them, a release valve. I told them how hurt and indignant we all were about some of the terrible things written about us in the press, and that I completely understood how that press might have given them a false perception of the show.
I went on like that for thirty minutes. Then I escorted them to the stage, where they watched the show from the wings. After that I met with them again for another hour.
In the end, Binghamton canceled the show. I protested to the Binghamton press, but I wasn’t surprised. I had already gotten our agent to book a replacement gig in Utica for that night.
That was the last tour of the original band. The bitterness and resentment toward Alice and me had made things too difficult. For a year, a year and a half, on more occasions than I can remember, I had to have very heavy conversations or they would refuse to go on. They hated that Alice was the star and focus of all the attention, on stage and off. They hated all the theatrics of the show. They wanted to go back to T-shirts and dungarees.
I would take the position, “That isn’t what we agreed upon. That isn’t Alice Cooper.”
“Well, people are laughing at us,” one of them would say. “They don’t think we’re good musicians.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I’d say. “We’re sharing equally. You don’t get paid any less than Alice. I can’t help it if your ego is suffering. I can only do what I know.”
Now, after the holiday tour ended, they called a group meeting. That had never happened before in all our years working together. Group meetings only happened if I called them. I went expecting nothing good, and that’s what I got. They wanted no more theatrics. They wanted time off to record solo albums. They wanted the world to know they were great musicians, not just some anonymous flunkies playing for Alice Cooper.
“Listen, we all made a deal,” I said. “We agreed to do this until we were all millionaires. We’re not millionaires yet. If you guys break this deal, I hope you understand that leaves Alice free to use the name to do what he wants, and it doesn’t mean he has to come back. Once you break this deal and let him out of the cage, he’s free. And I’m going with him. I can’t work with you on solo projects after you’ve broken your word to me. I have killed myself to make this thing happen. We’re right there. We’re the biggest group in the world. What do you mean you want a year off? I am not taking a year off. And if you let me out of the cage, I may never come back, either.”
A few of them countered by saying that they wanted to make solo albums. That left Alice free to make one of his own.
So that was it, the end of the original Alice Cooper group. I feel bad about the way history subsequently played out, because none of them managed much in the way of commercially successful careers on their own, but it was their decision. We were all on the gravy train together, and it was just about to pull into the station, and they jumped off.
Now Alice and I had to reinvent the wheel. If his next project was his first solo one, it had to be huge, bigger than anything we’d done before. We came up with Welcome to My Nightmare, which meant taking every dime he and I had in the world and reinvesting it. Luckily we won. But it’s not how we had wanted to do it.
9
EVERYTHING I’D DONE FOR ALICE I HAD INVENTED. Was it just luck that it worked? Or did I really have a knack for this that I could apply to other kinds of artists? I had to know. I had to challenge myself.
I got an opportunity to do that while we were touring Canada in 1973 and I met up with the Canadian record producer Brian Ahearn. We’d met back in 1969 when I helped organize the Toronto festival. He wanted to talk to me about the singer Anne Murray. She’d had a big hit single in 1970 with “Snowbird.” She was huge at home in Canada, but that’s a limited market. Outside Canada, where a longtime friend named Leonard Rambeau was her manager, she needed the help of somebody who could take her to the next level.
I agreed to meet with her. Partly that was because I liked her music. I thought she had a beautiful, pure voice. Most everyone in the rock world thought her stuff was corny, but the truth is that rock was never my favorite music. I liked music that emphasized good singing—soul, rhythm and blues, and yes, Anne Murray. I encouraged all the theatrics of Alice’s show partly because, at least in the early days, I didn’t think the music alone was strong or distinctive enough to carry them to where we all wanted to get. Alice knew that and it never bothered him; when he was offstage, he didn’t listen to much rock, either.
But I had a bigger reason for seeing Anne Murray. The success I had with Groucho was n
ice, but it was a limited demonstration of my skills. He was a giant in the industry who only needed some help getting his affairs in order. No one was farther from Alice Cooper than Anne Murray, or would present more of a challenge. She was squeaky-clean, straight as a pin, middle of the middle of the road, and as white as white bread gets. She was the girl next door who happened to have a few hit records. She appealed to a totally different market than Alice did. If I could successfully apply what I’d learned with Alice to an artist like her, then I’d know that it wasn’t just luck, but a set of operating principles I could use for any client. If I failed, that would be an important lesson, too. I didn’t want to spend my life doing something I wasn’t really good at, just lucky at.
So we met. She said she had talked to other managers but liked what I had done with Alice. She’d had those hit singles but almost no name recognition. She wanted to be a star. She wanted to headline in Vegas and be on Midnight Special, the new late-night rock concert show. Did I think I could do something like that for her?
I said I’d try. Everybody thought I was crazy. What could the guy who managed Alice Cooper do for an artist like Anne Murray?
Exactly.
As talented as she was, Anne didn’t have much of what you could call star quality, and she was pretty much the antithesis of cool. But I’d learned two things with Alice: stars aren’t born, they’re made; and if you put someone with people who are acknowledged to be cool, they become cool by association. One of the coolest clubs anywhere in 1973 was the Troubadour in Los Angeles. All the female folksingers who people thought were hip and cool played there—Linda Ronstadt, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell. I wanted Anne Murray to be seen as one of them.
When Alice moved to L.A., he and some friends had formed a drinking club that met upstairs at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset. They called themselves the Hollywood Vampires. Alice was the club president; Keith Moon of the Who was vice president; other founding members included Harry Nilsson, Elton John’s lyricist, Bernie Taupin, and Alice’s neighbor Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Harry’s friend John Lennon frequently joined them. He was going through a dark period when he’d left Yoko back in New York and moved to L.A., and was doing an awful lot of drinking and carousing with Harry, who was one of the biggest drinkers and carousers on the planet. Photographers were dying to get shots of Lennon, but he was doing a good job of evading them. I knew that if I could get a photo of John and the Vampires that just happened to include Anne Murray, heads would spin at every newspaper and magazine in the world. The elusive John Lennon seen out on the town with . . . Anne Murray? The what-the-hell factor would get the photo everywhere, and her coolness would increase a thousandfold.
I went to the Rainbow and upstairs to their hangout, called the Lair of the Hollywood Vampires. I actually got down on my knees and said, “Guys, you gotta help me. I need a very big favor. I booked Anne Murray in the Troubadour. If I can get you guys to go and get your picture taken with her, I swear to God I’ll come to the Rainbow every time the Vampires meet, and I’ll drive you all home at the end of the night for the rest of my life.”
They all said yes, and I recruited a group of paparazzi, TV, radio, and press people to ensure maximum coverage.
Anne debuted on Wednesday, November 21. Thanksgiving was the next day, so we organized it as a Thanksgiving party. Staff dressed as pilgrims and Indians served turkey and all the trimmings to the three hundred handpicked guests. We handed out little old-fashioned snuff boxes and copies of Anne’s records. To start her show, Anne stepped out of a big wooden turkey. She did a great set, and the audience, who were already having a good time, applauded enthusiastically. Then I herded the Vampires around her for the all-important photo. Anne Murray smiling, looking pretty, with John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper, and Micky Dolenz all standing behind her, looking drunk as skunks.
Of course, that picture went everywhere, and had a fantastic impact. Rolling Stone called for an interview. So did People and Time. Several music magazines put her on the cover. Overnight she was the coolest woman in music.
NBC’s Midnight Special came on Friday nights after Johnny Carson at 1 A.M., and right out of the gate it was a big hit with rock fans. There was no MTV in 1973, no Internet where young fans could easily check out new music and bands. A show like Midnight Special was a godsend to fans, and everybody in the business wanted to be on it. As Alice’s manager, it wasn’t hard for me to swing a deal: I not only got Anne Murray on the sixth week of the show, March 2, 1973, but I got her the host position. We gave her a hipper look—not radically different, still squeaky-clean and innocent, just bell bottoms, a velvet vest, and a softer hairdo instead of the knit sweaters and curly Raggedy Ann hair she’d had. She sat on a stool in a spotlight and sang her cover of Kenny Loggins’s “Danny’s Song” (“Even though we ain’t got money . . .”). It was slated as the title track and first single from her next album. When the single came out the following month, it went straight to the top ten in the United States, and I high-fived myself in the mirror.
The experiment had worked. The same principles of management I had used for Alice worked for Anne Murray. Let the games begin! After this I went on to manage dozens of great artists in a wide array of musical genres—from George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic to the Manhattan Transfer, to King Sunny Adé, to Rick James, and on and on. Lucky me!
So many times in my life, I wake up and things happen. The important thing is to be open to whatever comes and remember to say yes. One morning in 1973 I got a call in my L.A. office.
“Shep Gordon?” a woman said.
“Yes.”
“Are you the young man who made that freak Alice Cooper famous?”
“Well, I helped.”
“This is Raquel Welch,” she said. “And you could help me. If you’ll take me to the Academy Awards next week, I’d like to talk to you.”
Raquel Welch was inviting me to the Academy Awards? Little Shep from Oceanside? How could I say no?
The following week she appeared at my house in a limo. She looked absolutely stunning in a pink chiffon, low-cut, no-bra evening dress. She was maybe thirty-three, and stunningly gorgeous. I was twenty-eight and feeling like the kid back in Oceanside who didn’t know how to act around girls. I’m sitting in a limo beside Raquel Welch, heading to the Academy Awards show. I had no idea what to say. But she was very nice, easygoing, and kept the conversation rolling. She told me that she was getting a little old for a “sex star” (her words), and roles for women her age were hard to find in Hollywood. She had recently been divorced for the second time, had two children to support, and was worried about her income. She’d seen other former sex stars like Ann-Margret doing song-and-dance shows in Vegas and thought that was something she could do, too. Then she went to see one of Alice’s shows, and that led her to me.
At that point the limo rolled up to the red carpet. In those days, the radio host Johnny Grant, the “honorary mayor of Hollywood,” stood there with his microphone to greet the stars. It wasn’t like today with hundreds of reporters and television cameras and photographers. He was the only one. He actually got in the car with you. He was saying, “Miss Raquel Welch, ladies and gentlemen!”—forget me, he had no idea who I was—when Raquel turned to me and whispered through her dazzling movie-star smile, “Could you grab the back of my dress? The clasp just broke. It’s going to fall off.”
Her door swept open, she started to slide out, and I scrambled across the seat right behind her, grabbing the back of her braless pink chiffon dress to keep it from falling off. My knuckles are white. Wow. I’m holding Raquel Welch’s dress together. I’m touching her naked back. Bill Graham later sent me the photo that ran in People, captioned, “Raquel Welch and unnamed escort.”
We marched up the red carpet that way, Raquel sweeping along in front like the great star she was, me trying to look natural coming along right up behind her with my hand on her back. I’m sure people were wondering who the hell that guy was Raquel had brough
t to the ceremony. We made it backstage. I surrendered her to the costume crew, and they sewed her back together. But what a moment. What an introduction.
We started to work together shortly after that, developing her new stage act. Vegas was our goal, but I thought we should try it out before we took it there. I knew the guy who booked the entertainment at the Concord Hotel in New York’s Catskill Mountains; it was the flagship resort of the Borscht Belt. He asked me why he should book Raquel Welch.
“Are you kidding me?” I scoffed. “What would old Jews rather do than slobber over Raquel Welch?”
He laughed and said, “Okay, you got it.”
I had forgotten one ridiculous tradition at the Concord: the audience didn’t applaud, but banged these big wooden clackers instead. It was loud and obnoxious, and Raquel did not appreciate it.
At John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino in Reno, Nevada, her second gig, a pair of elephants, Bertha and Angel, always opened the show. They did a whole “showgirl” routine and were a famous draw. Just before Raquel was to go on, she watched from the wings as one of them took a big dump onstage. I don’t need to tell you she was pretty upset at having to follow that act. I never again made the mistake of not knowing in advance everything there was to know about a venue—especially anything that could upset or distract my artist.
After that I helped negotiate a long-term contract at Caesars Palace in Vegas, and things went smoothly. The audiences loved her show. She rehearsed seriously and was very successful.
I knew TV would be key in breaking this new Raquel. People seeing this beautiful, sexy woman singing and dancing on TV would want to come see her live. So how to get her on TV? HBO had been launched in the early 1970s, and Michael Fuchs, who ran it now, was a good friend. I kept trying to get him to do music specials featuring my artists, and he kept saying that the only programming that seemed to work on pay cable was pornography. HBO was a family channel, so he couldn’t do porn, but he didn’t think music was the answer.