play "Layla," our first single from the album, “Too progressive for our listeners” they said. But I’d seen thousands of Atlantic’s artists fans fill concert venues, while bubble-gum bands the AM stations kept playing couldn’t fill a phone booth. I understood the AM radio’s audience
better than they did and knew about the de- mand for our progressive music. Later on the new FM stations began playing Atlantic artists they blew shortsighted AM radio off the ratings map. Anyway, after years of fight- ing with AM radio programmers to get airplay for our progressive music I was worn out. Then I got a life altering reality check after I rode my dirt bike down a wooded trail and al- most got cut in half by hitting a wire cable someone had stretched across the trail. After that I just wanted to get away,
take a long vacation, regroup and think about my life. Not wanting to talk about the bullshit I’d been taking from AM stations and after talking it over with my Atlantic Records fam- ily I left the company on the best of terms and began a long hiatus with my wife and infant son Christian. We traveled through Europe, the UK and North Africa for months and I kept thinking about what I’d been doing in the music business and what if anything, I could do in the future. I kept thinking some- way, somehow there had to be a better way to get artists exposure other than sucking up to clueless AM programmers. Being at Atlantic Records had been the
experience of a lifetime, we’d established many of great artists in R & B and Rock and many that are now in the "Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame". Percy Sledge, Otis Redding, Wil- son Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex, The Young Rascals, The Allman Brothers, King Curtis, Sam & Dave, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Buffalo Springfield, Iron Butterfly, Cream, Eric Clapton, Delaney and Bonnie, Led Zeppelin, YES, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Derek And The Dominos.
Tell me about how and when you hooked up with Phil and Frank at Capricorn? After our trip I was rested, full of energy and returned to Atlanta, anxious to see what life had to offer, but the reality was I didn’t have a job or any prospects. I knew Frank Fenter from Atlantic’s London office and we’d be- come friends over time, he partnered with Phil Walden in Macon and together they’d started an independent production label dis- tributed by Atlantic. Jerry Wexler who was their mentor at Atlantic gave them a hit single “Sunshine” by Jonathan Edwards to help them to start-up after Otis Redding’s tragic plane crash and as their Atlantic rep from time to time I’d visit them in Macon and dis- cuss progress on their artists.
Frank Fenter, Wooley and Phil Walden. (Photo Courtesy Robin Duner-Fenter)
Frank called one day and asked me to
come down to Macon and talk over some business plans he and Phil had. So, a few days later we all met at their funky office on Cotton Avenue directly across the street from city hall and the police station. We went to lunch at Mark’s Cellar on “Hoppin’ John” day (rice, beans and fat back) BTW it tastes way better than it sounds. Over lunch I lost count of the vodka martinis Phil and Frank threw back as I nursed my first beer. Due to martial arts training I never drank much back then and I was pretty lit after my second draft before we got down to business. They’d released many
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