Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend
heart through their courage and sacrifice. Apparently his belief centered around the idea that the greatest music came from extreme and carefully thought out, well-placed pain.
What I needed was money.
For the longest time I struggled with what transpired during my time with Prager. I created two different scenarios for what played out during the course of that relationship. The first came about because I was unable to comprehend a human being so cruel and mean-spirited, as I eventually perceived Prager to be, and so I brought myself to believe that I was somehow at fault for the collapse of the relationship. After all, here was a man who managed a successful act known as Mountain, and when he told me I was one of the greatest things to hit the music scene since white bread, didn’t I owe it to him to believe him? He was in a position to know. He dealt with the big boysevery day. He told me a starving public awaited the return of Mitch Ryder. He had given me everything I asked for and went out of his way to remake me into the star of the stature I deserved.
I told myself I let him down at every turn. I failed him. What was wrong with me that I could allow myself to hurt a believing, hardworking, dedicated, loyal, honest, and truthful manager to the point that I had broken his heart?
Prager’s gallant attempts to resurrect me began this way. First, pull the star up from the poverty he was dealing with. Give him some stability and security. Instruct him to begin writing and have him put together a band. My recording contract with Paramount Records was still in force as a result of Bob Crewe’s transfer of recording rights to Famous Music years earlier. This became a big topic of conversation between Prager and me. Prager couldn’t get Paramount to release me, probably because he wasn’t offering them anything of substance to help recoup the tremendous beating they took from Crewe. I liked to think they cared so much about me that they were trying to protect me from the slowly unfolding sinister plot Prager was hatching.
Prager then induced me to write a letter to Famous Music in which I demanded to be released and further stated that I had never been happy with them and had tried on many occasions to remove myself from the contract. It was true that I was not happy with their performance, but the rest was a lie. There were some great talents beyond the artists at Paramount. Paramount finally, under tremendous pressure from Prager and his attorney, Mr. Allen Arrow, relented. I was free. But now, for the first time since I started my recording career, I was without ties to a label and was at the mercy of my recording agreement with Prager.
Prager suggested the time was right to put together a band that I could take into the studio. I held auditions and after a few weeks came up with a very nice group of players: Timmy Schaffe on bass, Fred “Sonic” Smith on guitar, Wayne Kramer on guitar, and K.C. Watkins on drums.
We began rehearsing many of the tunes I had written over the past months, and also began putting together a stage show. Everyone needed to work and I wasn’t provided with a budget for the project, unless I chose to totally deplete the advance money I was being provided for the year. We were now approaching the halfway point of the initial one-year term and I was enthusiastic over the prospect of once again recording. It was at this moment that Prager chose to begin applying in earnest his “management skills.”
Prager wanted me to join a tour with Leslie West, the great guitar player from Mountain. The show would be called the Wild West Show. I didn’t understand. I asked what I was supposed to do with my band, since we had already invested much time and effort, and he stated I would have to let them go, since he felt the tour with Lesliewas much more important to my career. It was very disappointing to everyone. In fact, some of the guys were quite pissed off. At our last gathering I said I was going out for some cigarettes and I never returned. I didn’t have what it took to debate the injustice I had just dealt them.
The tour was hard for me. I knew something was at work that I couldn’t reconcile, and I began to question Prager’s motives. I was doing what I was asked to do, and then suddenly that was ripped out from under me for no logical reason. In my mind, the band was more important than the tour.
I felt alone and without friends for the entire tour, not that I had ever felt
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