What I Learned About Business From Smokey Robinson

Another trip down memory lane for me this week. I wrote earlier about how my then 10 year old son got me into the traffic exchange business Here.

I have always had more than one thing going at any time but usually my businesses are in something I know about or can learn about quickly, and they are generally always based out of Texas. But not in the early 1980s. I ventured into unknown territory with some other business associates and we decided to get into the music business. We set up the Pop and C&W labels in Las Vegas, because why not, right? Actually, there were some what seemed to be very sound business reasons to do so.

The President of Hittsburg Records, one of our labels, and a part owner was a man named Al Cleveland. Al was one the nicest men I had ever dealt with in business. He was was an American songwriter for the Motown label in his early career. Among his most popular co-compositions are 1967's "I Second That Emotion" and 1969's "Baby, Baby Don't Cry" performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and 1971's "What's Going On" performed by Marvin Gaye among many other hits. Al was also from Pittsburg. It doesn't take much imagination to see how we came up with the name for our label. It was through Al that I met Smokey who was basically based in Las Vegas at this time and many other former MoTown Greats like Mary Wilson (The Supremes).

First, you have understand that I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s and loved to this day the music of that era. I want you understand how old I am so what I say next might make more sense to you.

One of our producers brought us a demo tape of a group from Compton, CA and tried to explain that what we heard was going to be the next big wave in the music world. I vividly remember saying, "That crap ain't music I don't want to spend my money trying to promote it." That crap was rap, of course.

So, what was the business lesson I learned from Smokey? Nothing specific to Smokey, except he was around at the time. The lesson learned is that no matter how successful you may be in one area doesn't mean it will automatically transfer to another area unless you have the proper foundation first.

By the way, our main record producer on the C&W label was a man named Tommy Allsup. Tommy and Waylon Jennings were the two who "lost" the coin flips on the Night the Music died. Check out Tommy on Wikipedia for more about him. It was through Tommy that I met George Strait for the fist time, even though George and I went to the same college at the same time period. But that is another story for maybe another day.

So is the one about staying in Frank Sinatra's Penthouse in Las Vegas.

Sometimes, venturing out into new territory leads to all kinds of interesting situations in life even if the business part is not entirely successful. It's all a journey and never dull!

And for the record, rap is still crap! The best music ever made was in the 50s and 60s. Book it!