Selections from
"South Rock"
Kiki Lee

Dick Wooley
"Music Promoter"

Atlantic Records: Making Music Legends
 
In 1968, Dick Wooley was managing bands in Atlanta and promoting records in the Carolina's with F & F Arnold where he'd started several hit records, including some for Atlantic Records. Dick's successes prompted Miami's super-promo man Dick Kline to introduce him to Jerry Greenberg at an Atlantic convention in the Bahamas. Jerry Greenberg would be the next president of Atlantic and Jerry invited Dick to work as a regional promotion executive for Atlantic Records covering the Southeast and Midwest. Dick welcomed the opportunity and opened Atlantic's promotional office in Cincinnati.

Record promotion was not an easy task back in the halcyon days of vinyl records, before the Internet, or the Interstate highway system. Dick regularly drove fifteen-hundred miles a week over two-lane black top roads throughout the Midwest and Southeast  promoting Atlantic Records. These were the folks that would play an unknown artist's new record, crisscrossing fourteen-states calling on scores of medium and small market radio stations to convince programmers to play Atlantic records was the Atlantic way.

It was challenging work, because at the time Atlantic/Atco only had six full-time promotion men to cover every radio stations, show promoter and record distributor in America. This small group of six guys headed by Jerry Greenberg, included Dick Kline, Leroy Little, Bob Greenberg, Vince Faracci and Dick Wooley. Dick reflected, "I felt privileged just being a member of that group and it was a once in a lifetime experience to be working for music geniuses like Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd".

Atlantic Records established many of their greatest R & B legends and "Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame" artists in the 1960's, including; Percy Sledge, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex, The Young Rascals, King Curtis, Sam & Dave, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, Eric Clapton, Delaney and Bonnie, Led Zeppelin, YES, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Derek And The Dominos.

But, this was also a time when people were marching in the streets protesting the Vietnam war. As Dick called on the major AM radio stations to promote Atlantic artist, he found most programmers were paranoid about attracting unwanted Government attention if they played what they referred to as "anti-war", or "hippie" music. So instead of playing new progressive artists, these stations settled on playing mindless "bubble-gum" pop songs as they were called, these were considered safe. These paranoid radio programmers missed out on a once in a generation music revolution by not being a part of rock's greatest artists, "Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton" and many others.

This era was tough on record promoters too, their jobs depended on getting new records on the radio, and the following personal account is just one example of the "Big Brother" times:  "Dick Wooley was in Miami's Criteria Studios when legendary producer Tom Dowd was recording "Layla" with Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon and Carl Radle known as "Dreck and the Dominos". It was electric in the studio each night, Ahmet Ertegun, the President of  Atlantic Records, loved the Blues and was usually there. Much later, anticipation for the album release was big, but major AM radio stations refused to play it, citing the same excuses as before, "For me... this was the last straw in dealing with programmers who would not play great music like this", Dick recalls, "They sold airtime as Rock and Roll stations! So I reasoned, they should play new progressive rock... new music is what Rock and Roll is all about... right? Wrong!" - "I knew I had to find a better way to get airplay for new artists".

Dick had a life changing motorcycle wreck in 1971 and began to consider he and his family's future. He said, "I'd worked non-stop  for many years with Atlantic, now the timing was right and I decided on a vacation... a very long one." For the rest of the year Dick, his wife and young son Christian traveled through Europe, they drove narrow dirt roads over the Atlas Mountains of North Africa and down into Fez Morocco. It was another world Dick said "we'd stay a day or a week at locations along the way and best of all, I didn't think about the music business or getting records on the charts once. We set up a home base in each country, travel and live it a day at a time, it was a remarkable experience."
   

ATLANTC RECORDS 1960's-1970's

ATCO RECORDS 1960's-1970's

    
*footnote: Subsequent to Dick's leaving Atlantic Records, it took their great promotion staff, that now included Phillip Rauls and Mario Medius a year of hard work to get "Layla" on stubborn radio playlists. By the way, Layla recently was voted the number one song in Rock History! 

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Capricorn Records: The start-up

Dick's extended hiatus was well timed, because the tide turned and radio had changed. When he came back many of his old friends were programming new independent FM stations and playing progressive rock, they were driving the timid AMs out of the market. At last, good, relevant music was being played. Dick reflected, "For me, it had been great to get away, and the FM stations turning the markets upside down was a bonus, but it was hard to leave Atlantic Records, it was like leaving my family."
  
After months of vacation traveling, Dick was energized, full of ideas, and ready for a challenge. In early 1972, Frank Fenter called Dick from Macon, Georgia and invited him to a meeting with he and his partner, artist manager, Phil Walden.

Dick had worked with Frank Fenter when they were both at Atlantic Records, Frank ran Atlantic's European operation from the company's London office. Frank was a brilliant record man and everyone was surprised when he'd moved in 1969, from London to Macon to start Capricorn Productions. In Macon, a highly respected Frank Fenter was the man behind the scene that pulled the deal together with Atlantic Records allowing Atlantic to finance the company. Then, to start the ball rolling Jerry Wexler gave Phil and Frank's new production company a top 10 hit record, "Sunshine" by "Johnathan Edwards".

That had been some time ago, and now Dick was anxious to hear what these old friends had in mind as he drove the 100 mi. south to Macon for their meeting. During Phil and Frank's favorite lunch; "Hoppin'-John and double Martinis at Mark's Cellar", they began persuading Dick to come onboard and help them launch their production company into "Capricorn Records". Dick had some reservations due to Phil's well-known erratic personality, but it never affected their personal relationship back when Phil and brother Alan Walden managed Atlantic's great R & B artist Otis Redding. They began to hash out objectives and went over the duties each member was expected to perform in the new venture, Frank naturally would manage the record company production, while Phil managed up-and-coming artists Wet Willie and the Allman Brothers Band and Dick would do national record promotions,

Dick had promoted Wet Willie and the Allman Brothers while at Atlantic Records and during the "Bubble Gum" radio era, when major radio refused to play Progressive or Southern rock. That, and many things had to be considered and sorted through before Dick would bring his family into a community as fractious as Macon and help start a new record company. Frank and Phil seemed like a good partnership, Phil managing the artists and Frank managing the company, but admittedly they were not into record promotion and they, therefore, needed Dick in the trenches. Dick had other offers, and friends advised him against the Macon move because he'd make less money, and gamble a hard earned reputation on a unknown start-up!  Also, many in the music community had openly stated the ABB would never recover from the untimely loss of their brilliant leader Duane Allman, and at that time the Allman Brothers albums had only sold a few thousand copies. But, Dick had listened to the tracks producer Johnny Sandlin was making for the company (raw tracks from the ABB's yet to be released "Eat A Peach") and said "yes" to the offer by Frank and Phil. In early 1972, Capricorn Records had their third man in the record company.

Frank Fenter had just finalized a new distribution deal that transitioned Capricorn away from Atlantic Records to Warner Brothers, which kept them in WEA distribution, and satisfied all concerned. However, the conventional wisdom on the street was, "it may be the swan song for the young label". Dick recalled, "That didn't bother me, I'd been in many karate tournaments, it couldn't possibly be more painful than that. Anyway, when you're the underdog, just suck it up and go!"

Dick, Frank and Phil shared what had been the late Otis Redding's office in the ramshackle Redwall Music Publishing building on Cotton Avenue. "We knew we were a great team" Dick said, "We also thought we were ten feet tall and bulletproof". In reality, Frank, Phil and Dick were professionals, they knew the odds and they fully understood that each man had to cover their area of expertise under the new Warner Brothers deal and make it work like never before.

From the first day, Dick knew it was going to be tough going when he called radio stations around the country and they'd ask; "Capricorn what? Allman who? Macon where?"  Dick decided instead of endless dialing of stations he didn't know, he'd target old friends at the new FM radio and a few still at AM stations and began calling in ancient favors to play the new Allman Brothers "Eat A Peach" album. Even though, Southern Jam Rock was not the type of music these stations were accustomed to playing, several of Dick's radio pals in Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles began playing the new album and were stunned at the good response from listeners when they played the ABB's album.

Once the momentum started, "Eat A Peach" began to inch up the charts, Dick went to work on the more conservative middle-American radio markets. The ABB album was added to more and more stations, gathering chart speed until early the next year it became the Allman Brothers Band's first Gold and then later Platinum album. 
   

Quick to take advantage of the building "Eat a Peach" success, Dick had a radical idea after talking with, and enlisting the much needed help of Atlanta radio-man Bill Sherard for promoting a "Southern Rock" new years radio show. It was an unproven idea and had never been done in 1973, but betting on strength in numbers Dick lined up dozens of independent AM and FM radio stations across the South, cobbled them together, bought time on AT&T telephone long distance lines and called it a "radio network". It had only cost about $700, so Dick gave the show free to his affiliated stations provided they played his albums in heavy rotation in the weeks prior to the broadcast and give Capricorn advertising spots during the broadcast.

The New Year's Concert live from New Orleans featured the Allman Brothers Band and Wet Willie. The program was broadcast in only eight states, but was a big success for the promoters, the bands, the radio stations, the new network and Capricorn Records. And not least, Capricorn got several great tracks to use in later ABB projects, and the classic live album, "Drippin Wet" for Wet Willie, produced by Johnny Sandlin.

The success of the New Years show proved to Dick there was a better way to launch new artists; "assemble multiple radio stations syndicated together". This was a big deal for Dick, because he was one person, but more to the point, he was the only person calling these radio stations nationally promoting unknown artists on an unknown record label!  Up until then, Dick, just as every other record promoter, had called each station programmer one at a time trying to sell them on giving airplay to his new artists. But after the broadcast, these same programmers were calling him seeking exclusive broadcast rights to the next show, whoever it was and whenever it would be.

With momentum building, Dick began planning the next New Years show, added (150) stations to the Network, he now called CapCom and acquired two national sponsors, creating the first vertically integrated Rock & Roll radio promotion. The upcoming 1974 event was on a much larger scale than the first one, it would be broadcast from San Francisco's (15,000) capacity "Cow Palace". And, legendary Fillmore East and West owner Bill Graham was to be the event promoter. Dick and Bill had invited San Francisco's FM pioneer DJ Tom Donahue to be MC and Tom, in turn asked several of his San Francisco Rock luminary friends to sit in on the show to add even more flavor to the spectacle.

Bill Graham was an original showman, and he proved it during the sold-out show when he descended from the highest balcony in the great hall onto the stage at midnight, inside a giant Plexiglas hour-glass, dressed as "Old Father Time" with a flowing white beard. The Allman Brothers, Boz Scaggs, members of Charlie Daniels Band, Marshall Tucker and the Grateful Dead all stopped playing for a few seconds to hail the new year, then picked back up on the jam just where they left it... it was a surreal and magic New Year.

The coast-to-coast event was the "first of a kind" for radio, in addition, the show was picked up by Armed Forces Radio and broadcast live all over the world to an estimated (40) million listeners. By design, the show launched a group that Dick and Frank brought into Capricorn "The Marshall Tucker Band".

The results in album sales after the event were immediate -- The ABB's current and catalog albums sold through the roof, and the debut album by the Marshall Tucker's sold (250) thousand copies within a couple of months, becoming their first gold, and later a platinum album.

The New Year's broadcast was a headline grabbing success. The following week, news of the event was splashed across the front page of every entertainment trade paper of the day, banner headlines in Billboard, Radio & Records, Cashbox. And later, in July of 1975, the prestigious business magazine Fortune printed a major article on the rise of Macon Georgia's Capricorn Records in the entertainment business with group and individual stories on Phil, Frank and Dick.
     

Dick in Fortune Magazine	ABB First Platinum	40 Mil. Listeners Headlines	Dick & Chuck Leavell
Check out some great photos of the Historic 70's - 80's - 90's Atlanta-Macon music scene by; Carter Tomassi click here - Jerry Womack click here - Phillip Rauls  click here

In 1976, Frank Fenter played Dick a track from a new Elvin Bishop album that was in production. Frank thought it was a great song and he began playing it over and over in his office knowing Dick would surely hear it, as his office was right next door -- this was usually Frank's "not so subtle" way of letting Dick know what thought should be promoted. After a full day of Frank's good-natured brainwashing Dick understandably found he too liked the song, but told Frank it needed something as it just wasn't ready for radio yet.

Dick took the tape it into his office and played around with the arrangement for a couple of days, rearranging it again and again, trying to find the right combination that would fit seamlessly onto several radio formats. Once satisfied with a final arrangement, Dick and Frank flew it to LA like they had done once before with the Marshall Tucker tape and played this new Elvin Bishop tape for Warner Brothers Mo Ostin, Ed Rosenblatt and Russ Thyrett. They loved it and in just a few short weeks "Fooled around and fell in love" became the number one single on all Top 100 record charts.

For a long time Dick had been restless and eager to make a change, he reasoned there would never be a better time to start his own record company than with the Elvin Bishop single at number one, and two Allman Brothers albums high on the charts with two Marshall Tucker albums climbing the charts. Dick made a decision, he resigned as VP of Promotions at the peak of Capricorn Records' success.

Several million-selling artists were launched during whileDick was VP of  Promotions at Capricorn, including; The Allman Brothers Band, Marshall Tucker Band and Elvin Bishop. Dick also launched other artists into the national spotlight, including; the great Southern Blues band Wet Willie, comic-singer-actor Martin Mull, venerable singer-songwriters and "Eric Clapton's favorite band" Cowboy, the legendary Southern Rock band Grinderswitch, Bluesman John Hammond, Jr. and rising Country Music star Hank Williams, Jr.

Since Dick moved to Macon in 1972 to help Frank and Phil build Capricorn Productions into Capricorn Records, the company's growth had been truly astonishing. Four short years later, Capricorn Records had come from a production company with an empty bank account and three guys with a dream, into a Southern Rock Empire with sixty employees, a roster of great artists recognized worldwide and sales of $30 million a year. "What a ride it was!" recalled Dick.


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Rabbit Records & DWA: The start-up
 
What a wild year 1976 had been!  Dick left Capricorn Records with several hit records at the top of the charts, opened the doors at Dick Wooley Associates (DWA), helped the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign fund with free shows, and started Rabbit Records. Then, Dick's old friends at Atlantic Records became interested in financing his new Macon, GA based Rabbit label and a distribution deal was made.

Flush with development money, Dick asked top Warner Brothers promotion man Al Moss to join the new company, and asked two great working bands of the day to sign on with Rabbit Records. Dru Lombar's Grinderswitch, managed by Alex Hodges, who today heads-up "Neiderlander" and the Winters Brothers, managed by Charlie Daniels manager, Joe Sullivan.

Rabbit Records charted both the Grinderswitch and Winters Brothers albums that first year and built career momentum by working the bands on hundreds of tour dates opening for the Charlie Daniels Band, The Allman Brothers Band, Marshall Tucker Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Dick's office, on Walnut Street in Macon, was across the street from the Armstrong Booking Agency and its owner Pat Armstrong had an extensive roster of working bands, he'd also been Lynyrd Skynyrd's first manager. Pat was anxious because he hadn't participated in Southern Rock's popularity and came to Dick one day in 1977 to ask if he would help him launch a new band he managed called "Molly Hatchet". Pat said they were being looked at by a major producer and a record company.

Dick went to see Pat's band in the basement club of a seedy Macon flop-house called the Dempsy Hotel. The venue was a nightmare with water standing an inch deep on the dance floor. Later, Dick said, "it was a miracle nobody was electrocuted". However, as bad the surroundings, Dick saw whatPat had seen and said he'd go to work on the album when it was ready. Later that year, Dick got the call from Pat a month before the Molly Hatchet's album was released. Dick added so many radio stations that first week Epic Records could only respond by throwing big development money at the new "Bad Boys" of Southern Rock.

Molly Hatchet's debut album was a big success, first going gold, then platinum. There were huge smiles in both Walnut Street offices as Pat's future was brightened with a major new artist. And, Dick was happy because he'd launched his first million selling band since leaving Capricorn, who unfortunately after his departure had been unable to launch another major artist and was going bankrupt.
    

Dick, Becky Bondia, Al Moss	Rabbit Records	Rabbit Records & DWA - Macon, GA
Grinderswitch and Dick	Molly Hatchet	Winters Bros. at Farm Aid

   
In 1980, the "Disco" craze swept over the country like a tsunami and destroyed all airplay in it's path... Southern Rock, Progressive and Blues Rock. Dick had zero interest in disco music and decided to sit out the dance, take time off, relax and start a quiet life at the nearest beach.

Dick moved to Tybee Island in 1981. Tybee's is a small island at the dead-end of Highway 80 off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. At the time, it was a quiet fishing village of about 1500 people, and a perfect spot to relax, think, write songs for Cotton States Music, learn to sail a Hobie Cat, build a beach house and look at the record business from the rear-view mirror.

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2004 King Mojo Records: The start-up

Fast-forward to 2004, we find Dick enjoying sunset views from the deck of his beach house, still writing songs for his publishing company and with his business partner Benchmark/Atlantic President Arthur Schultz had just finished building and selling 500 new college and beachfront investment condos.

Family interests called Dick to return to home town Atlanta, he'd retired, but was never been one to be without a project for long, he decided a new goal was needed. He'd always been hooked on the process of finding new ideas, musicians or music and promoting them to mainstream audiences. Dick began searching the music landscape for ideas and was overwhelmed when he saw a new generation of under-thirty fans packing the fusion-blues festivals and clubs around the country to capacity. He recalled later, "this discovery opened my eyes to the opportunity available to serve an huge under-served market. Radio today doesn't play what these people want to hear, radio plays what's shoved down their throats by the multi national conglomerates because it's cheap to produce. The kind of music that was attracting hundreds of thousands of people to these festivals and club events was not being played by mainstream radio!"

The label idea began to evolve and after talking with musician friends the interest increased even more, Dick reasoned that if he started a label, the artists would have to be so special they would brand the label as a unique, original, not a cookie-cutter label . On the short list of such original artists was his good friend of thirty years, guitar legend Dru Lombar, leader of the great Southern Rock band "Grinderswitch". Dru and Dick soon met, Dru loved the idea and signed on to the new label immediately.

Traditionally, blues and jazz fans have driven the success of blues music, but today's new generation of fans expect something new. They want their blues-based music integrated with roots blues, rock, jazz and club beats, it's really cool stuff... its being done nightly in successful clubs... but could it build intoa new direction for music that was long overdue?

The label idea immediately gained traction and a momentum all its own and the one guiding principle was to find great music wherever it was. "Find the best original artists in the genre's of contemporary blues, jazz, roots rock and fusion music, then showcase them exclusively using the Internet." A few months search revealed several great artists equal to the challenge, by mid 2004 they were showcased on our first Internet based release King Mojo Allstars, Vol. 1. The artists were; Diane Durrett, She's the cutting edge of blue-eyed soul. ~  Mike Lowry, A multi-talented guitarist, singer, he's the real deal! ~ The Polk Street Blues Band, A Blues Rock Jam band. ~ The legendary Dru Lombar and the new members of Grinderswitch bring it all back home with Dru's first studio album in three decades, "Ghost train from Georgia". After a surprising success, other artists were added on the second release King Mojo Allstars, Vol. 2  - Big Shanty, who transforms Blues into Beats, tales of hard luck, hard times and hard women. ~ Beau Hall, An unstoppable force of energy, you will love. ~ Bill Stewart and the ATL, Original jazz cooked up by the very best Atlanta musicians. ~ Little Phil, A great Southern Soul singer that always entertains. ~ Dustin Sargent, A Jazz statement made and a powerful new wave.

The next step...
   

King Mojo 2007
Beau Hall	Big Shanty	Bill Stewart and the ATL	Diane Durett	Dustin Sargent	Grinderswitch	Liz Melendez
Mike Lowry	Little Phil	Polk Street Blues Band	Russell Gulley	T G Z	True Believers	Wet Willie Band

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Beau Hall "Nu Rock"	Big Shanty "Fusion" Blues	Rojo Diablo "Dust & Jazz"