He said “Next time we have a good show we are paying you back.” I said alright, that’s good enough. We did that a number of times. Then a buddy of mine from Mercer told
me I needed to meet Alan Walden. He said Alan was leaving his brother Phil at Capricorn and was starting Hustlers, Inc. Alan was working with Eddie Floyd who was doing a big show with Frieda Payne. Alan wanted to see some of the bands I was working with at the time. So, he came down, and he really liked Skynyrd a lot. I told him that I was coming to Macon to go to Law School at Mercer, so he said why don’t you come in and join us at Hustlers Inc. I said alright. So, I was going to be a partner to start with. When I got up here, he said he wanted to have a side agreement with Hustlers to co-manage Lynyrd Skynyrd. At that point in time, I was not aware of publishing or production agreements. Alan took all of those for himself and didn’t share with me. The first nine months I was with Hustlers I brought in $60,000 in bookings. I was booking fraternities and sororities all over- University of Alabama, Auburn, University of Tennessee, UGA, Univer- sity of Florida, Florida State- all of my bands were out working. Then I had a situation with Alan where Ronnie called Alan one day and told him, “Alan, we don’t like you and you are not going to manage us anymore. Pat is.” Well, Alan accused me of trying to steal “his band.” After that, I de- cided that I couldn’t work with Alan any longer. But I brought Lynyrd Skynyrd to Alan Walden. So, we split up, I took the bands that I could book and he took Skynyrd. My agreement read that if at any time, he decided to no longer work with Skynyrd, I had the right to come in and take over. What happened was the band went out on the road and started making a name for themselves, and Peter Rudge (manager of the Who) put them out on the road opening for The Who. They let Peter know how disappointed they were with Alan, so he said “I’ll manage y’all.” So, I got a call from Ina Myabach, a powerful New York attor- ney. A real ball buster. She’s not quite a legend, but I have heard from people who had to deal with her on the other side, and they did not enjoy it! She called and said “I’m representing Alan Walden, and Peter Rudge is going to take over management of the band. I’m sending you a one page agreement to sign that states that you have
no right, title or interest in the band Lynyrd Skynyrd.” I told her I had recently come across my agreement, and I told her I knew she would not be calling me unless she knew that I did in- deed have certain rights to the band. She said, “What are you going to do?” I said I’m not going to do anything, and I’m not going to sign it. About 30 minutes later I get a call from Alan and he was upset, and he said “What’s going on?” I said well, you went off on me and caused our partnership to break up, so forget you!” And I hung up. The next day I get a call from Ronnie. He said, “We really want out of this thing, and Alan told us he paid you $50,000.” I said Ronnie, he didn’t give me a nickel. I said “Who do you want to believe?” I said, I hear you’re going to be at Capricorn two weeks from now with Tom Dowd. I said, why don’t I have my girlfriend, who is a gourmet cook, cook up a big dinner for us, and we’ll sit down and talk about this. I got a case of their favorite drink at the time, Blue Nun, believe it or not, and iced it down. My girlfriend cooked this incredible roast beef dinner. Everybody got fat and sassy, and about five in the morning Ronnie and I ended up at my office. I said here Ronnie, this is the separation agreement. You’re welcome to read it all, but if you’re concerned about that $50,000 go to paragraph 5. That’s the only five you’ll see in this whole thing. He read it over and he said, “He screwed you too didn’t he?” He said everyone has screwed us. Him, the label and Al Kooper too. You’re the only one who hasn’t. I said well, I didn’t think it would be in my best interest, You guys were working your asses off. With that, he said “I’m asking you now to please stand down. After our deal is done you can sue him, you can sue Peter, we don’t care. We just have to get this deal done.” From what I understood MCA had advanced them a million dollars, and they were paying Al Kooper three quarters of a million for a release from Sounds of the South. They had offered Alan a quarter of a million, because they still had 14 months left on the contract. He turned them down, so Ronnie said well, we’re going to take that quarter of a million and split it between the band members, and we are going home to Jacksonville. We are going to fish and drink beer and write songs and we are not playing another show or earning you another nickel. Pe- riod. So, he accepted their offer. That’s pretty
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