But, I forgot to tell you the most important part of the saga.

He had never heard of them!

I told him about Belushi and Ackroyd.

Never heard of them.

I told him that they were stars of Saturday Night Live.

Never heard of the show.

How could he be totally unaware of a show that had been a huge hit for several years?

The answer was simple to the extreme.

The show was broadcast live on Saturday nights and, well, good musicians are working on Saturday nights.

I remember that I called Doc Pomus in a panic that ‘our guitarist’ had never heard of the band that we wanted to put him in.

He shrugged it off as nothing.

“He’s a player and he’ll do what good players do. It’ll work out fine. Just convince him to take the gig.”

For those of you who not have heard of Doc Pomus, let me tell you that he was one of the greatest song writers (Elvis did seven of his songs) and he wrote the greatest wedding song of all time.

He had polio as a young man and walked with a cane. His condition worsened through the years until he used hand braces, then crutches and finally, he spent his final years in a wheelchair.

He was hobbled on crutches on his wedding day. He loved her so very much that he wrote her the greatest wedding song that any groom ever gifted to his bride.

You can dance-every dance with the guy
Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight
You can smile-every smile for the man
Who held your hand neath the pale moon light
But don’t forget who’s takin’ you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
So darlin’ save the last dance for me

Then I was in the Memphis for the Hall of Fame dinner and the Blues Awards and I ran into Matt Murphy who I had not seen in a whole bunch of years.

The story begins about 1978 or so when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd started their shtick on Saturday Night Live, doing soul standards in their black suits with narrow ties. After a season or two, they started getting offers to put together a real band and take it out of the road when the show was on hiatus.

So I got a call from the late Doc Pomus telling me what was happening. They were using a horn section put together by Howard Johnson, keyboards were set, ‘Duck’ was in on bass but they couldn’t convince Steve Cropper to take the gig.

We tried everything to change his mind and finally realized that we were going to have to get a different guitarist. OK, Doc’s mind was a data base of musicians and we brain stormed on this for a week or so until Belushi reminded us that time was getting really really tight.

It was Doc who thought of Matt Murphy and asked me to sound him out of taking the gig. I knew that Matt was playing in a band called the Zaicheck Brothers (maybe misspelled) in Connecticut and he was very loyal to them. He wasn’t going to walk out of them for another band.

So I told him the deal: try this new band for two weeks and if it didn’t work, he was back with the Zaichecks again.

Belushi called me and, to this day, I tell people that John Belushi as one of the most knowledgeable people that I have ever spoken to in the music business. He was from Weaton, IL, just west of Chicago and he had been a member of the Second City comedy troupe, located right in Chicago. He know exactly what he wanted from a guitar player and we name checked a dozen or more. We talked about Jimmy Dawkins, Otis Rush, Johnny Littlejohn and many others.

He didn’t know anything about Matt Murphy except for the names of the bands he had played with (mighty impressive) but we were right on deadline. The guitarist would come to new York City for two days of rehearsals, fly to Los Angeles and then play their very first gig at a two week advance sold out series of shows opening for Steve Martin at Universal Amphitheater. Martin had his “King Tut” hit single going and this was going to be a major music event.

I went over the money with Belushi, cleared my throat and called Matt.

I told him he was to go to New York on Friday, rehearse for two days and then go to Los Angeles for a two week gig. Naturally, his first question was about the money.

“Seventy-Five Hundred a week.” I said.

Silence

“And a hundred a day for per diem expenses.”

Silence

My mind was racing ahead. What if I couldn’t make this deal happen? We had come to the point of Matt Murphy – period – there was no other choice available.

I heard Matt breathing on the phone.

“How much that come to for two weeks,” he said slowly.

“Fifteen thousand salary and fourteen hundred in per diem,” I said.

“Man . . . ” I heard him say softly, “Who I got to motherfucking kill for that kind of money?”

I exhaled slowly, gave him traveling plans to get to to New York and then I called Belushi back.

“Matt’s good” I said. “He knows where to go for rehearsals.”

Belushi said, “I hope he’d the right guy because we’re fucked if he can’t cut it.”

Well, that’s pretty much the whole story. Nobody ever called me from Los Angeles with a report but I saw the movie a few years later with Matt playing Aretha Franklin’s husband so I guess that it all worked out for the best.

I haven’t told that story in over 30 years, probably because there was so much stress with absolutely no wiggle room for mistakes.

I got a little pay back gift on Wednesday night when Matt Murphy saw me across the room and charged over to give me a hug.

“You changed my life, motherfucker. You sure did change my life.”

Storyville was owner by George Wein and he is (and always has been) the Godfather of music promoters in this country. A wealthy Rhode Island family invited him to promote jazz concerts in Newport in 1954 and thus was born the first out door jazz festival in the country.

He organized the first Newport Folk Festival, the Playboy Jazz Festival (at the Hollywood Bowl), New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and so many more.

George started out as a piano player and he was a very good one at a young age.

“I thought I could make a career out of it,” he said years ago. “But then I saw Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, and I knew that no matter how much I played, I could never get to that level.”

Well, the loss of one aspiring professional turned out to be a huge bonus for jazz fans all over the world.

Wein’s formula is simple: create an atmosphere where the musician is free to create artistically and the benefits flow to the audience. There are many complex factor that influence concert promotion on a global scale but George Wein has built an organization that covers it all.

His concerts have the best sound, lighting, security, and backstage hospitality. The guest ticket list is handled smoothly, press arrangements are done efficiently, fussy divas are gently soothed.

George and his wife Joyce used to rent a house in France every summer where she would grow collard greens, black eyed peas, sweet corn and all the food needed to create feasts for American musicians who kept their American food choices when they traveled abroad.

There is never any drama or tension around a George Wein tour. If Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald were going to go through Europe for three weeks, George had every details taken care of. The artists just had to be at their musical best every night. George would take care of everything else.

I was at Jazz Festival in New Orleans when I saw George go by on a golf cart. I had not seen him since he visited a photography exhibit that I had done in Greenwich Village some years ago. I waited until the golf cart stopped and then I cautiously approached him.

“George,” I said. “It’s Dick Waterman.”

He looked at me and blinked blankly as 87 year old men are prone to do. He nodded his head up and down.

Then his eyes opened wide and he reached out to take my hand.

“Dick Waterman, you’re Dick Waterman. I know you.”

He pointed to me and smiled.

“Newport . . the folk festivals . . . Mississippi John, Son House . . . you took care of all the blues people.”

He touched the shoulder of the young woman driving the golf cart.

“This is Dick Waterman. He made a big difference with the blues singers back in the Sixties.”

He looked at me with a big smile.

“I’m so glad that you’re still with us.”

I was numb with awe. I’ve known him for over 50 years and he is still the greatest offstage personality that I have ever known.

Concert promoters have learned from concert promoters for decades but the genius who created the role is George Wein, Godfather of the all . . .

He would find the beginning of the thread and then gradually trace it back until the light reflecting off of shining money came into view and then Fred would reasonably and responsibly explain why a fair share of this wealth should go to the song writer.

I never knew Fred to ever lose his temper. He was a big man but always chose logic over losing his composure. He was at his best in explaining how some new Federal regulation was going to impact the songwriter.

I don’t even remember how we first met. I think it was when Howard Tate had been rediscovered and brought back to Jerry Ragovoy with high anticipation that they could recapture their musical magic of decades past.

I watched the project unfold with more than a little irritability. There had been incredible industry buzz about Howard but it was fading fast and Fred and I were urging Jerry to finish the album so that a good deal could be made.

It stretched out for a year or two and public curiosity was pretty much gone when it did come forth into the marketplace.

Fred said that Howard had become very difficult to work with and he was stepping back from any business association. Well, I wasn’t going to stick around without my copilot so I bailed on the project too.

When I heard that he had died yesterday after fighting cancer for several years, I felt an overwhelming weight of sadness that one of the really good ones had moved on. I was angry with God that he had taken a soothsayer, a shaman, a wise council, a voice of calm reason just when it was needed most.

I loved him a lot . . . my soft self-deprecating friend who always had the time to help anyone who found himself among life’s disenfranchised . . .

To send him on his way, I found an old copy of “The Grapes of Wrath” and found Tom Joad’s final words to his mother. He tells her that . . . he won’t be here . . . but that he’ll never be gone . . .

“I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be ever’-where – wherever you can look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad – I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise, and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.”

It was then – and remains so today – the best place on earth to watch the game as it was meant to be seen. I have not been back there since they created “Monster Seats,” which means that they tore down the huge screen that caught home run balls hit over the left field wall and replaced it with high priced seats for more revenue.

But come back with me for a moment and I’ll introduce you to this green jewel on the banks of the Charles:

You enter Fenway Park by walked down a concrete slope to the concession area. (Remember Kevin Costner talking to James Earl Jones here in “Field of Dreams.”)

You look at the overhead numbers to find your seating section. Then you start to walk up the ramp toward that designated area.

As you trudge upward, the first thing you see is the top of the light towers. They are bright against the black night sky and you catch a glimpse of the CITGO sign that has been there for decades. It is blocks away but it has always loomed as a backdrop, a righteous part of this baseball scene.

As you move up the ramp, you begin to see the top of that famed netting, final resting place of thousands of home runs. Your eyes seek the very spot where Bucky Fucking Dent broke a million hearts in 1978.

A few more steps and the metal wall – the Green Monster itself – comes into view. It is taller than you think it is. You wonder if it is really made of metal and then you remember watching games on television and hearing the ‘clank’ as the ball came back onto the playing field.

As you near the top of the ramp, the scoreboard comes into view. It is an old fashioned creation that for 100 years has shown the scores of out of town games posted by people working inside the wall. It is a job most desired by Fenway faithful. There is a small opening that was put there for a network camera during the 1975 World Series and that very night, it captured the image of Carlton Fisk waving his arms in a plea that his long drive stay fair for a game winning home run.

At the top of the ramp, the field lies before you. There is no greener green. The lights illuminate evenly and the white Red Sox home uniforms seem to glow with luster.

This is how the game was meant to be viewed. There was a period in the 1970s when monstrosities with artificial turf and faux grass were built in Philadelphia and Kansas City and Cincinnati. But baseball men – real baseball men – came to their senses and they are all gone, torn down as the games returned to its original roots.

But the green jewel on the Charles is still standing . . . a hundred years gone and ready to showcase the game as long as baseball is played . . .

I didn’t know Levon Helm really well. I met him a bunch of time and I knew him to be proud of his Arkansas heritage. The King Biscuit Blues Festival is now a hugely successful event but they had trouble drawing people in their early years. When folks won’t come to free music, you know you have a problem.

So Levon worked around his schedule and tried to be there to headline the last night of the festival with “Levon Helm and Friends.” He always brought top musicians with him (Cates Brothers) and it became a highlight through the years.

He also did a bit of acting here and there and you might have seen him as Loretta Lynn’s father in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

Levon is most closely known as the American who joined up with four Canadian musicians to form The Band. They had it all: they could write great songs, put on a magnificent show and their vocals were memorable. Their music is nothing sort of immortal . . . a forever cave for the best listening in all of rock ‘n roll.

They started out as a working band within the tough Toronto music scene along Yonge Street. No wimps need apply in that rough territory.

The big man back then was Ronny Hawkins and he had his own club called “The Hawk’s Nest.” He wanted his own backup band so he met with Levon, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko. They came in ready to talk business because they already knew that Hawkins worked his bands really hard.

Hawkins said to them, “I’m going to work you ass down to the ground. We start at nine o’clock and do six sets until five in the morning.”

They listened to him without speaking.

“I’m not going to pay you worth shit and I don’t take any back talk or complaining.”

They stared at him in silence.

“But I’ll tell you this . . . you’ll get more pussy that Frank Sinatra.”

They looked at each other and nodded.

“Mister, you got yourself a band.”

An immensely important day in American military history was moving right on past me today. It is the 70th anniversary of Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo, an event that startled both America and Japan and provided a wave of national euphoria just when it was needed most.
After bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese followed up with decisive victories in the Philippines and other military targets.

The allies needed a military victim to turn the tide, to show Americans that we could take the offense and bring the fight to Japan.

A plan was devised to sail an American aircraft carrier, traveling alone to minimize detection, right into Japanese waters and launch bombers right onto the heart of Tokyo. They figured out the maximum flight capabilities of a B-25 bomber and figured that a night time attack would allow the planes to reach safe landing bases in China.
No one ever thought that a B-25 bomber could take off for the deck of an aircraft carrier and certainly not one fully loaded with bombs.
As the “Hornet” cruised close to Japan ready for the raid they were spotted by a Japanese fishing boat and they had to take off sooner than planned. This meant that they’d be over Tokyo gunfire in daylight and the Chinese landing bases were now out of range.

But they took off anyway, delivered their bomb loads and headed west. Several were shot down over Japan, others crashed into the China Sea and some made it to the Chinese mainland.

Some were captured, paraded through the streets and then executed.
It was 70 years ago today and, miraculously, five of the crew members are still alive. They were interviewed, admitting that they thought they were on a suicide mission for sure.
The news that Tokyo had been bombed electrified the country and brought military pride and optimism where none had been before. It was the first offensive strike by American forces and it provided a huge lift in morale just when it was needed most.

A book entitled “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” came out and was followed by a movie of the same title. I read the book (twice) and saw the movie.

How could I have let this date almost slip right past me?
Just thought you’d like to know . . .

It’s so easy to gloss right past the fact that he was the right man in the right place. When Dodger owner Branch Rickey signed Robinson to a contract with their minor league affiliate in Montreal, he told him that he did not doubt that Robinson had the skills to play at the major league level but, a more serious matter, did he have the ability to take the abuse which would surely come his way . . . and do nothing in retaliation.

They would spit on him, curse him to his face and be outright hostile.

And those would be his teammates. Opposing players would be even worse.

Robinson’s competitive streak ran deep. His older brother, Mack Robinson, had been a member of the 1936 Olympic track team and he won medals finishing right behind Jesse Owens.

Jackie himself had starred in three sports at UCLA (baseball, basketball, track) and he fully understood the role that Rickey had marked off for him.

If he returned hated with hatred even one time, this Negro experiment would have failed and the history of the sport would have been totally different.

So let’s remember the man who they knew could dish it out but it remained his personal test to determine just how much he could take . . . and continue to take.

The saddest part of this saga is that I know that so many of today’s black ball players, millionaires many times over, have never heard of Jackie Robinson. They have no point of reference to what he went through to create the world that they live in.

Ironically, Vin Scully, the man who became the Dodgers radio voice in 1950 is still there, now 63 years after he began. His voice has been a part of that legend since Robinson’s fourth season.

“Now batting for Brooklyn . . . Number 42 . . . Robinson . . . second base . . . “

We looked at each other and didn’t know what to say. Mister Roosevelt was the only president that I had ever had.

“I think I had better go home,” I said.

As I ran home, my mind was confused with what might happen. We were at war with Germany and Japan. Would those enemies be quick to take advantage of America not having a president.

I reach my home and went right past my mother who was in the kitchen. She wouldn’t know what to do without President Roosevelt. I would wait for my father to come home. He would know. He knew everything.

I sat on the couch until I heard my father came into the house. He and my mother spoke briefly and then he came into the room where I was waiting.

He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He looked tired and that made me anxious. He picked up a newspaper and sat down in his chair.

“Did you hear that President Roosevelt died today?” he asked me.

I nodded my head and then came around to stand in front of him.

“Who is going to run the country now? Are we going to lose the war?”

My father leaned forward and put his hands on my shoulders.

“We’re going to be all right,” he said. “Our country has a system that someone is ready in case President Roosevelt died. His name is Mister Truman and now he become President Truman. He knows how to do the job because he has been the Vice President.

“Don’t worry about the war. That’s not the president’s job. We have generals and field commanders who take care of that so we’ll be fine.”

We looked at each other for a few seconds. I had been right. My father would know what to do and he would make me feel safe again . . .

I had a call back in January from a woman at the public relations company. She would not give me the name of the company or even the city she was calling from. Well, that’s OK, those PR folks play their cards close to the vest. She wanted to know if I was the photographer of every image on my web site. I told her that I was and asked which image she was calling about.

She said she’d get back to me . . .

About a week later, the same woman called and asked if I had taken the tight head shot of Mick Jagger with his mouth slightly open. I said that I had taken the picture in Europe when I toured with the Stones in 1970.

She said she’d get back to me . . .

In early February, she called and said that she was representing a cosmetic company that was about to issue a new line of lip gloss. They were interested in the Mick Jagger photograph.

Oh, man, I saw the dollar bills flying right out the window. I told her that while the photograph was mine, I had no rights to Mister Jagger’s image and they would have to communicate with him directly about using the photograph in any advertising campaign.

No, she said, I had misunderstood her intentions.

The public relations firm had been authorized by the client (cosmetics company) to purchase 30 large prints of the Mick Jagger image that would be sent as gifts to the editors of major woman’s magazine around the world. The photographs would not appear in the ads and would have no connection with the product. They were just gifts to the editors to announce the new line. We talked money for a while and I tried to get some idea of their budget.

She said she’d get back to me . . .

When I next heard from her, she said the image had been shown at marketing meetings and they wanted to double the order to SIXTY prints! We discussed in detail that I was proud of the work that carried my name and these images would be created on a 100% rag paper with a luminescent glow so that the image would just ‘glow’ off the surface.

She said she’d get back to me . . .

Now by this time I had put a lot of time and research going over paper stock and the availability of getting the right size shipped to Oxford. This was not quite a bird in the hand . . . yet. I also did not know the name of her company or the name of the client either.

She called and said that she was now authorized to place the order, send the money and, by the way, they were running late and needed the prints immediately.

So I called my printer (Bill Martin) who said, “You need 60 of them WHEN?” I told him to make 65 so I could have a few for myself.

So we got them made and then they were hand number from 1/60 to 60/60, and I kept the other five separate. I signed every one with a grey Sharpie, trying very hard to make my signature exactly alike.

So they went off to New York City and I was under orders to not release any information before April 1 which was there official release date of the product.

Well, here we are on April 2 and I can tell you that the new line of lip gloss is being released by “Butter London” and I have never heard of them either.

But there are 60 magnificently created 11″ X 14″ matted photographs of Mick Jagger scattered throughout the world. Of the remaining five that I held back, one is for our house, one for my sister, one for a friend of Cinda’s in Seattle and the other two will be sold at some point.

I have never sold photographs as part of a covert business enterprise before. I might add that it was profitable to a significant degree.

Mick may try and try and try to find his “Satisfaction” but mine came to me through the little known world of lip gloss . . .