Read And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records for Free Online Page B

time, and at 2:00 a.m. we were still waiting to go on. To make matters worse, none of the thirty people in Curtis’s entourage had any rolling papers left. There was smoke, plenty of smoke, but nothing to roll joints with, and certainly no pipe—pipes were not part of the hardcore pot repertoire at that point. This was a major catastrophe. It was intolerable to have to while away the time without being stoned. Not to worry. In amazement, I watched as a member of Curtis’s posse ripped open a paper grocery bag, filled it with marijuana and menthol tobacco from numerous Newport cigarettes, rolled it, fitted one end with a rolled-up piece of cardboard (a perfect filter) and—viola! The biggest joint I had ever seen. It was at least three feet long and four to six inches wide. After two passes to each person, it was gone, but it had served its intended purpose. We were now all in a better mood.
    Eventually, Curtis went onstage before a less-than-enthusiastic audience. The In Concert people had not allowed audience members to go to the bathroom for hours because they were afraid they would leave the hall, and that would make for terrible audience shots. They were also afraid that, once out of their seats, people would not return at all, leaving the production staff to find replacements in the middle of the night. But some audience members decided that they were leaving, and locked doors were not going to stop them. The fact that it was illegal to lock these people into a theater did not seem to bother the show’s producers; they had a show to shoot, and there had to be an audience, no matter what.
    In Concert was, in fact, an excellent opportunity for Curtis, as the target demographic for the show was young white males into rock and roll, and he needed exposure to that audience. I am sure Ron Weisner was responsible for setting it up.
    Neil was a visionary, and he was one of the first people (if not the very first) to use a TV spot to promote an album release. In most cases, the thirty- and sixty-second commercials were cut-down versions of promotional films (essentially music videos), which were mainly created if you needed to promote your product in foreign territories, or if you needed a moving image on a local dance show or news broadcast. Some of those spots, including one for Stories’s (“Brother Louie”) 1973 album, About Us , are even available on YouTube.
    Neil had a wonderful working relationship with two of the principals in the New York production company Direction Plus, which we occasionally hired to produce promo films and TV spots for Buddah. While certainly no one knew it at the time, both of those principals, Bill Aucoin and Joyce Biawitz, would go on to change our lives forever, as we would change theirs.
    The Curtis Mayfield three-foot joint scenario may have been an amusing eye-opener for me, but it was nothing compared to some of the situations I found myself in on Curtis’s behalf. He called me at the office one day (I’m sure one of my Buddah colleagues put him up to it, as I can’t imagine he thought I was cool), and he asked me to meet him at his hotel suite. When I arrived, I found him in bed with several women. He called me over, handed me two thousand dollars, and gave me an address where I was to pick up a package for him. I went to this seedy part of town knowing full well that I had two grand on me and that the package was not going to contain a pastrami sandwich. Carrying around so much cocaine made me very paranoid. I returned to Curtis’s suite, but this time I was not invited in. He opened the door a crack, took the blow from me, and slammed the door shut. No thank-you—nothing. Probably shouldn’t have expected a gratuity, either.
    That one occasion aside, Curtis was always very nice to me. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw him be anything but congenial to anyone. Yet I was totally struck by the irony. This guy had written the music to Super Fly and was hailed by everyone as a