A Good Summer Read for Sponsorship and Event Pros
Posted: 6/8/2010 9:17:09 AM by
Lesa Ukman | with 0 comments
Just finished Jerry Weintraub’s entertaining autobiography When I Stop Talking You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man.
Founder of Concerts West, Weintraub pioneered large arena tours, bypassing local promoters and working directly with the venues. Starting with nothing, he became the impresario behind Sinatra, Dylan, the Stones, Elvis and others.
The book is filled with good stories and history: To get Elvis, Weintraub called Colonel Parker every day for a year. To appease Led Zeppelin after the band complained a sound system was not loud enough, Weintraub painted speaker-size cardboard boxes black and made a wall of fake speakers beside the stage. The band was impressed. "If you expect loud, loud is what you are going to hear," he writes.
Weintraub also discovered, and built the career of, John Denver. After making millions, he tired of dealing with musicians and started producing television—the ABC telecast preceding the opening of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games—Broadway shows and movies: Nashville, Diner, The Karate Kid, Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13. He owned record labels and music publishing firms, was on the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, etc., etc.
My favorite anecdote in the book involved my one-time boss at the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Special Events, Col. Jack Reilly. Having been director of the office under the first Mayor Daley, Mayor Jane Byrne kept him on as honorary head of the office.
To me, Col. Reilly represented government at its worst. For example, when he was running the office, it was used to stage ticker-tape parades and fundraisers for visiting Democrats and for Mayor Daley. My first big confrontation with him came my first week in the office. I cancelled the “beauty contest” that was part of the city’s Venetian Night festival. Serving no purpose, the winners merely rode in the boat with the colonel and his cronies. With the city having its first female mayor, it felt especially wrong. Col. Reilly reinstated it. I went to Mayor Byrne. She had no problem with keeping the contest. So I called my friends in the media and announced the addition of a male beauty contest. That put an end to the event.
My next move was the first-ever city-sponsored welcome home picnic for Vietnam veterans, cosponsored with VVAW. Unbeknownst to the mayor and the colonel, VVAW stood for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Our keynote speaker was Ron Kovic. Almost got fired over that one. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Fun times.
I wish I had known then what I know now having read Weintraub’s book: Col. Reilly was the “bag man” for the first Mayor Daley. Wow. With Weintraub having met and worked with so many people, who knows what you’ll discover reading the book.
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Filed under: music