Miami to record with a new producer and an ex Capricorn engineer to keep me posted. In Miami after hearing the new tracks with only one drummer the energy was too low. I was in panic mode. I pulled the plug on the session and later found out from the engineer that their new producer had introduced them to Miami coke. Later that night I flew home wrapped up in Delta Airlines blankets to stop my body shivering that started after having such a big letdown. And I had still had to face Jerry Greenberg and tell him that I’d just flushed the equivalent of $250,000 of At- lantic Record’s money down the drain. Jerry was understanding and gave me
the green light to move forward with the band. I hired Paul Hornsby MTB’s producer to do their album and hoped for the best. Their next album just never took hold and neither had the Grinderswitch album. Then the Disco Mega Hit “Staying
Alive” by the Bee Gees went on radio 24/7 and put the nail in the coffin for Southern Rock, or so I thought.
Talk about Pat Armstrong and Molly Hatchet. Pat Armstrong and his brother Jack had a college booking agency down from mine on Walnut Street in Macon and we became friends. Pat said to me many times he felt snubbed by the Southern Rock phenomenon and told me how early on he’d traded “Lyn- yard Skynard” to Alan Walden for Alan’s band “Burnham Wood”. Pat hoped to remedy that with a new
band “Molly Hatchet” and asked me to pro- mote their debut album. We came to terms and I started laying the groundwork for a fast start up. Epic Records hadn’t given up on Southern Rock and they signed Pat’s band. Pat had the genius idea to use the dramatic art of Frank Frazetta on the band’s first album cover. And so it began… within the first week I
had thirty or so radio stations playing the
east as bumps in the road made the rear end scrape the ground sending up showers of sparks in the morning air. It was quite a sight…
When and how did King Mojo Records start?
album and by the next week I had sixty, Epic saw the response and opened the checkbook. The album with the massive support of Epic Records took off and quickly became a gold and later platinum album. Epic wanted Pat to tour Molly Hatchet,
but it didn’t start out well. Pat rented a Stra- toliner bus for the band to tour but the day before they were to leave a crew member for- got to engaged the parking brake. Late at night the huge bus began rolling backwards down Walnut Street crushing into a dozen cars and ending up in someone’s yard a total wreck. The photos were on the front page of the Macon News, but there was no time to dwell on the negative, Pat rented the band a Winabago and as he and I watched the band departed packed full with roadies and equip- ment. Loaded down the Winabago headed
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