Sad to say, except for my daily call lists
I never took notes on what I did or on what date something happened. At the time how could anyone have imagined it would be of in- terest to anyone, and besides I was always too busy just promoting records. The office prob- ably looked like it was in total chaos to out- siders, phones ringing, calling stations, shouting about airplay, loud music blasting, it really was sensory overload.
1Talk about your process of getting these “Southern Rock” records played on radio. I don’t remember how the term “Southern Rock” came about, but as a one-man promo- tion department it’s what helped me distin- guish our Capricorn sound from LA Rock, English Rock, etc. etc. After being rejected 49 out of 50 times by radio stations I’d go home discouraged, but little by little I’d get one sta- tion, then get another so on and so on. I just kept my head down and ground out one sta- tion after another and I just kept calling radio smiling and dialing until I looked up one day and on the walls of Capricorn Records hung dozens of Gold and Platinum albums and “Southern Rock” was known worldwide.
Tell the story about your setting up of the 1973 live broadcast of New Year’s Eve. The Allman Brothers were moving up the charts in 1972 and Bill Sherard, PD of At- lanta's top station and I talked about what to do for New Years. The ABB and Wet Willie were playing at the Warehouse in New Or- leans and a local radio station asked me for permission to air the show live. Bill said he’d want the show in Atlanta too, so I started planning how to get the two stations con- nected. It cost $700 to link New Orleans to At-
lanta which was big money for Capricorn to spend on a promotion. But undaunted and with two anchor stations under my belt I
rented the long-distance lines hopping to in- crease our sales by getting New Years airplay. I set out by calling other stations to join the show and cobbled them all together and called it a network. While adding stations I asked them play the ABB and Wet Willie in heavy rotation prior to the broadcast, some did and some didn’t, but regardless the show went off without a hitch and it was a big suc- cess for radio and sales went up dramatically. At the time this new idea was un-
proven, but in retrospect I guess it was be- cause no one had ever tried it and that is what kept me on edge. Anyhow, the show had been a huge success, radio stations loved it and we got several tracks from the ABB for later use, and the classic Wet Willie live album “Drippin Wet" was recorded. The show was broadcast throughout
eight southern states and I was pleasantly surprised when we got national attention in the trade magazines… Eureka! This was the formula to launch new artists that I’d dreamed of… take an event, syndicate it on radio and sell it to national sponsors. During the next year I tested the new idea and broad- cast several local shows and they proved suc- cessful. It was a vertically integrated promotion and it was the formula I knew could go big-time.
1And the next year you did it again with the Marshall Tucker band. Tell me about that show. With the Allman Brothers national airplay rocking along in 1973, I began to organize the next New Years broadcast featuring the ABB, and to open the show would be the Marshall Tucker Band as we’d just released their debut album. I added (150) stations to the growing
Network we now called CapCom, added two national sponsors (Landlubber and Pioneer) and viola... the music industry's first vertically integrated Rock & Roll promotion was cre- ated.
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