Chuck Dunaway

 The Way I Remember It (Episode 27)

1968 was a time of political transition in Cleveland, and throughout the
country. I am ashamed to say I voted in only one Presidential election
before I lived in Cleveland. I am now very active in politics, but I've
learned not to argue the subject, because I cannot change someone else's
mind, and they cannot change mine. We can disagree, and everyone has a
right to believe the way they do. It's one of the reasons America is such
a great country.

In 1968, much of the music we played on-air was political, due to the
polarizing effect of the Vietnam War. A lot of music was being made which
capitalized on the feelings of young people who were opposed to the war,
and did not want to be drafted.

Just before going on the air one day I received a call from a buddy named
Ron Sunshine, a former radio guy who had gone on to work for the booking
agency, Premier Talent. Ron knew that over the years I had booked a show
here and there, and he had an act about to break. So he wanted to know if
I was interested in booking the act for Cleveland. I asked who it was, and
he told me "Jimi Hendrix." This was before Hendrix became a guitar god;
before I'd tried to blow out Hal Moore's ears with Hendrix music. Hendrix
was an unknown. But the price was right and Ron assured me it was a home
run. Ron let me know he was doing me a huge favor.

In those days, no single promoter handled concerts in Cleveland. So I
cleared a date at a small hall in Cleveland, and began to make plans for
the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Ron sent the contract, and I returned the
executed copies with the required deposit. My next visit was to Dino
Ianni's office to buy air time for the event. Dino said he'd need to check
with corporate headquarters to make sure it was OK. I had never had a
problem buying air time to promote a show before, but this was NBC. And
sure enough, the legal department in New York let Dino know that I was not
allowed to promote a concert, even though I was buying the air time to do
it.

Now I panicked, because the deposit and the contracts were in the mail. I
checked around and found that Mike and Jules Belkin, who owned a clothing
store in the suburbs, had booked an act or two to play in their parking
lot. So, knowing no one else to call, I got in touch with Mike
Belkin. Mike had not heard of Jimi Hendrix either, but he said he would
check it out.

As luck would have it, Hendrix was beginning to attract a lot of
attention, and his concerts were becoming sell-outs in smaller venues. Mike called
back and asked me to assign the contract to Belkin Brothers, and I
suggested we get clearance to sell tickets at the WKYC studios. Dino
agreed to selling the tickets in the WKYC lobby because the Belkins were going to
spend money advertising, and he thought it might be good for the station
to be involved.

As it turned out, the timing was perfect for the concert, and we all felt
good about the booking. After a full month of hype, the tickets were to go
on sale on a Saturday morning. The line to buy tickets formed the night
before. Mike and Jules showed up with a briefcase full of tickets, which
were to be quickly replaced by cash. We set up a table up in the lobby,
the Belkins handled the transactions themselves, and in two-and-a-half hours
the Hendrix concert was a sellout.

The small hall could accommodate only 3,000 people, so Jules made a phone
call and a second show was booked. This was better than I imagined. Now we
had two fast sell-outs for Hendrix in Cleveland, and it all started with a
phone call from an old radio buddy.

Writer and friend Joe Eszterhaus called to tell me that he was hired as a
"stringer" to write an article for Time Magazine. His approach was to
spend time with Jimi, as Hendrix sat in with a local band to play guitar. As it
worked out, Jimi would be in Cleveland the day before the concert, instead
of arriving on the day of the concert, as would usually be the case.

Joe told me he would work me into the story if I showed up, and I was
incapable of turning down free publicity.

Two days before the phone call from Joe, I had made a fashion-show
appearance at Higbee's department store with Leonard Nimoy of "Star Trek"
fame. The night before the fashion show, Jerry Hall, the local promotion
man for Nimoy's label and an old friend from Texas, had arranged for the
three of us to have dinner together, even though I had nothing to do with
picking music for the station.

Nimoy and I hit it off, talking politics for hours after dinner in his
hotel room. At the fashion show, I told Nimoy of the Time magazine
article. Leonard said he had heard of Hendrix, and decided to stay in Cleveland
another day, joining me at the Hendrix "impromptu" guest shot with the
local band. So we met Jimi at the club that night and the three of us
began talking politics. We were all on the same wavelength, wanting to see the
end of the war in Vietnam.

The appearance had not been promoted, so the club, located in the hotel
where Hendrix was staying, was only one-third full. The small audience
made it easy for all of us to get acquainted. Joe had brought a photographer
from the Cleveland Press to shoot accompanying photos for Joe's article in
"Time." After Hendrix did his "guest" guitar tune for the benefit of the
article, we adjourned to Jimi's suite upstairs, and talked until three in
the morning. As I left, I made an offhand remark that Jimi should be on my
radio program the next day. Jimi asked what time my show started,and to my
major surprise, the next day at 3:00 p.m. a limo pulled up to the WKYC
studios. Out stepped Jimi, along with bass player Noel Redding. When he
came into the studio it was like old friends meeting again. A nicer person
in the music business did not exist.

Jimi and Noel stayed for the entire program,even foregoing a sound check
to hang out on the air with me for four hours. When my program was over, we
walked to the stage door entrance of the venue, only about a block from
the WKYC studios. The first show was to start at 7:30 p.m. and we were
backstage with only a few minutes to spare. At exactly 7:30 p.m., I
introduced the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

At the point of the concert when Jimi brought out the lighter fluid to set
his guitar on fire, the Cleveland bomb squad told Mike Belkin to stop the
show because of a bomb threat. Mike told me to stop the show and Jimi's
road manager assured me it would be OK for me to talk to Jimi, since by
that time Jimi and I were well-acquainted. So I approached Jimi on stage,
telling him there was a bomb threat, and that we needed to stop the show.
He stopped immediately, and as the crowd was booing, I explained they
needed to check for a brown paper bag under their seats. Nothing was
found, and after the bomb squad swept the backstage area, the show was allowed to
continue.

Jimi picked up where he left off and the remainder of the evening went
perfectly.

If you've heard the story of Hendrix buying a red Corvette with cash that
day, I can assure you it's true. At the club the night before, he met the
saleslady who sold it to him. Jimi Hendrix was quite a man.

When the Time article was released a few days later, the first line says,
"The local MC stopped the show while the audience looked for a bomb." The
picture used was of Jimi on the big stage, and, as it turned out, nothing
was mentioned of the club concert the previous night. I called Joe, who
told me, "I put your name in as the MC, but the editors took it out as
being irrelevant to the story."

Hippie days get even wilder in the next episode. 

Thanks for reading.

Edited by Stacy Richardson

© 2003 Chuck Dunaway
All Rights Reserved