"Promotion
Man" Chapter 1, Cont.
The 1960's was a turbulent period in American history, the bloody Vietnam War had split
the country into two radically divided camps, the media described the two camps as the
"Peacenicks" and the "Hawks". The conservative Hawks, who claim they
are true patriots, the same people who think making war is great, if they don't have to
fight and they usually send young people fight it for them.. And the young draft age
anti-war Peacenicks who objected to being used as cannon-fodder in America's murderous
misadventure in Vietnam. The latter often marched in protest of the war and then found
themselves under FBI surveillance, many Peacenicks were beaten or arrested on trumped up
charges due to overly aggressive government agents. This often made radical and violent
people out of what had been peaceful protesters excersizing their constitutional rights to
assemble and protest an illegal war. In many cities authorities routinely enforced a
strict curfew, arresting violators and some cities even declared martial law to discourage
Peacenicks and Hippies from marching. To many, America lost it's way and had become a
Police State.
In 1968 Atlantic Records moved Dick back to his hometown of Atlanta Georgia and from where
Dick could better service the booming Southeastern radio market. During this time,
Atlanta's centrally located Piedmont Park had become a gathering spot for young people, on
weekends local bands routinely played for the young crowds and the momentum from the
exposure propelled many new bands into the national spotlight, groups like Hydra, the
Hampton Grease Band and the Allman Brothers Band.
Sometimes the bands jacked their equipment into the city parks power supply for
amplification and police had been warning them to stop. Dick witnessed how out of control
authorities became during this period when one Sunday afternoon a peaceful
"Happenings" in the park turned into a police riot. A local band was playing to
the young crowd and the faint aroma of burning hemp began to waft into the air. Suddenly
on alert, the Atlanta police waded through the crowd of young spectators slashing at them
with nightsticks and leaving a trail of bloody longhaired teens in their wake. Not
satisfied with their vicious show of force, the police continued to beat on the helpless
teens and rough them up as they drug them across the softball field and into police vans.
Local TV news crews filmed the police riot and even showed one burly cop smashing his
nightstick across the face of a helpless handcuffed teen. The evening news claimed that
dirty hippies were invading the city's public parks and that heroic police officers had
been forced to remove them from the family orientated park. No action, legal or otherwise
ever mitigated the damage done to these peaceful teens in the brutal attack by the redneck
thugs wearing Atlanta police uniforms. "I never watched the local news
again", said Dick.
The military industrial complex and the majority party of war-lovers were solidly in power
at the time and the disenfranchised anti-war community was largely unorganized and
powerless. Students, artists and musicians seemed to feel the frustration more than anyone
about the country's inability to end the draft, the war or bring our troops home. The
frustration and rage spawned a generation of counterculture artists who fashioned profound
changes in our society's conscience and produced the most socially relevant music of the
century.
This turbulent period was making entertainment history too and Atlantic Records was very
proud to offer peaceful solutions through music and signed many of the anti-war movement's
leading voices to the label. After the senseless police riot and bloody attacks on
counterculture students at Chicago's Democratic convention and the reprehensible Kent
State massacre of several students by the Ohio National Guard, the outrage against the
American government's illegal war was brought to a head and became the foremost issue on
everyone's mind.
The average person in America had been cowed into silence because the uber-wealthy
military industrial financed conservatives ruling the country also ruled the media and
propagandized "my country right or wrong". Regular, hard working folks were
afraid to speak out against the government... which we had once naively called our
government. America is very slow to awaken to the destruction of our culture by the
military industrial conspiracy.
One example of government distrust Dick recounted was when he called on radio stations
around the country promoting Atlantic's socially active artists, he found most of the big
radio programmers were paranoid about attracting FCC attention, afraid of government
retaliation if they played the counterculture inspired music. This made for tough times in
promoting records, "our jobs depended on getting airplay for new artists and
every week we went into the stations to do battle with radio programmers and get our
socially progressive records added onto their station playlists".
At the time, AM stations dominated all markets and they all chose to play it safe by
programming mindless songs we called "bubblegum music". But after the radical
social phenomenon of Woodstock, the pent-up demand by the "Woodstock generation"
to hear more progressive music on the radio could no longer be denied, no one can stop an
idea when its time has come.
Another sad example of the "Big Brother" atmosphere hovering over America began
one day for Dick when he was in Miami promoting
records to the local stations. Atlantic's legendary
record producer Tom Dowd who was across
town in the studio producing a new album with Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Bobby Whitlock, Jim
Gordon and Carl Radle, to be later known as "Derek and the
Dominos." Tom called to invite Dick to come over and sit in on the session
at Criteria Studios.
Ahmet Ertegun, the owner of Atlantic Records was at the session when Dick arrived
and as he recalls, "the music being made in that north Miami studio can only be
described as incendiary blues-magic." Some months later, when Atlantic scheduled the
release of the "Derek and the Dominos" album, Ahmet's expectations naturally
were high for the promotion team to get it national airplay, but once again the dominant
AM stations refused to play the album or the first single "Layla". They cited
the same old excuses they always used... it's too progressive for their audience (code for
"we're afraid to play it because the FCC might screw with us). Dick said, "This
was the last straw for me, these timid programmers falsely proclaimed to the world that
they were Rock and Roll stations! "Rock and Roll is about new music and Layla
was the best new music in a decade. I wondered how long these milquetoast programmers
could hold back against the rising tide of change from their young listeners. "I held
my tongue so as not to embarrass Atlantic, but I was mad as Hell because I knew there had
to be a better way to expose these great new artists without groveling before these
cowardly AM programmers."
In hindsight those timid radio programmers must feel remorse or guilt, because they now
know they missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help shape music's future and
maybe our country's history. I wonder how different things could have been if big AM radio
had been onboard the music revolution early, giving airplay to the iconic social voices of
artists like: "Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eric
Clapton" and so many others. "Many of these AM programmers, and by the way,
us record guys know who they are, have written books claiming they were in on the 60's
music revolution from the very beginning... not".
Late in 1971 a freak motorcycle accident sidelined Dick for a while, but it provided quiet
time to think about where music was going, what was lacking in record promotion and what
he wanted to achieve. Just grateful to be alive, he took the opportunity to reflect and
made a life changing decision. Dick said, "I'd been working non-stop at
Atlantic for some time and the accident provided the perfect excuse, and an opportunity to
get away without feeling guilty about letting down his Atlantic Records family. It was
time to get away, travel and to make family life a priority. Dick told Atlantic he was
taking a hiatus... a very long one."
ATLANTIC RECORDS
1960's-1970's |
ATCO RECORDS
1960's-1970's |
CAPRICORN PROD.
1969-1972 |
Editors Note: (a)
After Dick left Atlantic Records, to explain how entrenched AM radio was in playing
mindless songs like "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies, the great promotion staff at
Atlantic that now included Phillip Rauls and Mario Medious worked a whole year to get "Layla" on major AM radio playlists. Per
Atlantic's VP Dickey Kline, WIXY in Cleveland was the first major station to play Layla. By
the way, recently Layla was recently voted the "Number one Rock song in
History"... Duh... (b) Atlantic
Album Discography
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