Some jobs have a coolness factor that is hard to deny. Paul Rappaport spent over 30 years working in the promotions department of Columbia Records, rocking a serious expense account and hanging out with stars like Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Hell, Rappaport even got to play guitar onstage with Pink Floyd. Not a bad gig.
Thanks to his new memoir, Gliders Over Hollywood: Airships, Airplay and the Art of Rock Promotions (Jawbone Press, 344 pp., $24.95), we can all understand just how great it was to be Paul Rappaport during the ‘70s and ‘80s, when record companies were making money hand over fist, and no extravagance was deemed to be too outrageous.
Folks like Rappaport, who rubbed elbows with the rich and famous for decades, are often told, “You have so many great stories. You should write a book.” Why did he actually follow through and do it?
“From the early ‘70s through the ‘80s and into the ‘90s, the times were so magical. The music, we all know, was magical. It was a renaissance. It was like Bach and Beethoven, except it was rock and roll. But the business mirrored the music and how fun the music was. It was a business that was so wonderful. And so crazy. And I thought, once people like me are gone, people maybe would forget that it happened,” Rappaport explains.
To be clear, Gliders does not air the dirty laundry of the world’s biggest rock stars. Sure, there are references to copious amounts of cocaine being shoveled into eager nostrils, but it’s really not that kind of book. “It’s not a tell-all,” Rapaport says. “I just wanted to capture the times.”
Additionally, Rappaport says, he wanted to shed some light on the players behind the scenes: the managers, the publicists, the salesmen. “They were special in and of themselves,” he says. “They were characters. And sometimes the characters in the music business were bigger characters than the artists. Some artists could be pretty boring by comparison!”
Begin a conversation with Rappaport, and you can see why he was successful in the record business. Speaking from his home in New York, Rappaport is not jaded or weary. On the contrary, he is bursting with energy, squeezing in a quick Zoom interview between a live radio appearance and going out to play a gig with his band later in the evening. A Les Paul sits on a stand behind him, and framed gold records are visible on the walls. There is also a top hat sitting on a table, which makes sense when Rappaport explains that magic is one of his avocations.
Despite the fact that Rappaport has a host of intriguing mementos scattered around his office, he values one souvenir of his glory days above all others. It is an 8 x 10 photo autographed by none other than Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who once gave Rappaport a guitar lesson during the period when the band was working with Columbia.
Richards’ inscription to Rappaport lists the ingredients he believes are necessary to achieve the classic Stones guitar sound: “Five strings, three notes, two fingers, one asshole.”
The secret to Richards’ sound is an open-G tuning, which eliminates the sixth (lowest) string on the instrument, giving the guitar the distinctive clang that the “Human Riff” is known for. Richards’ inscription to Rappaport lists the ingredients he believes are necessary to achieve the classic Stones guitar sound: “Five strings, three notes, two fingers, one asshole.”
Being a guitarist himself often aided Rappaport when it came to establishing professional relationships with artists. “Loving music so much and being a player was a nice introduction to the artist that I was going to work with, because we would have something in common. They didn’t look at me like just another record guy, because we could talk about something that we mutually loved.”
Referring to his guitar lesson from Richards, Rappaport says, “It was fabulous because it wasn’t Keith the rock star, it was just guitar player to guitar player. And he told me something amazing. He said, ‘As a guitar player, it’s my job to pass it on to people like you. This is what I’m supposed to do. And you pass it on to someone else. In fact, when I die, you know what I want them to put on my headstone? I want them to put: He Passed It On.’”
Rock stars have a reputation for demanding, flaky and sometimes bizarre behavior. Did Rappaport find this to be the exception or the norm? “Most of them were easy to work with, because they’re trying very hard to make something happen, and you’re on their team. And if you get to a level of the Stones or Paul McCartney, you’ve seen it all and been to hell and back. They’re generally pretty remarkable people. They know what’s up. So those people turn out to be even more easy to work with than somebody young coming up.”
Rappaport tells a quick story to underline this point. After a full day of doing interviews, Paul McCartney was tired but insisted on keeping a promise to stop by Columbia’s New York offices. “It was 7 o’clock already,” Rappaport recalls, “and he had been working nonstop, doing interviews since 9 o’clock. I said, ‘Paul, you look very tired.’ And he said, ‘We have to go.’ I said, ‘Paul, you understand that these are not the executives. A lot of people want to meet you, you’re Paul McCartney, but these are all the assistants, the workaday people.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I want to go. These people are so important to me.’
“I’ve worked with so many artists who would have said, ‘Let’s bag it. I’m done.’ But he walked around the 12th floor, he hugged and kissed every assistant, he signed autographs, he took photographs, he didn’t rush anybody. He didn’t leave until 9 o’clock at night. What a person, what a guy.”
Reminiscing over promotions of years past, Rappaport admits, “I did some crazy stuff.” But, of course, the purpose of all this expensive horsing around was to sell records, as he helped establish multiplatinum careers for acts like Judas Priest, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, to name just a few.
A highlight of Rappaport’s career occurred in 1994, when a blimp (“When it gets above a certain size, it’s an airship,” Rappaport gently corrects me) painted with a psychedelic design was commissioned to promote Pink Floyd’s tour in support of The Division Bell. The airship (christened “The Division Belle”) flew to major markets across America, creating a sensation wherever it appeared. At almost 200 feet long, you really couldn’t miss it. I remember looking out the window of my 51st floor office in downtown Houston and seeing the craft. I can tell you that it was nigh unto a religious experience.
So, aside from the Pink Floyd airship, what was another of Rappaport’s favorite promotions?
“One of them was shooting an argon laser cannon off the tallest hill in L.A.,” he says. “It shot for 30 miles. It freaked the hell out of everybody, unless you knew what it was, which was a promotion for the Blue Öyster Cult album that has ‘[Don’t Fear] the Reaper’ on it. [At their concerts] they were pioneers in laser technology. I always liked to take a page from a band’s live performance or their records, because I wanted it to be authentic. I wanted it to be something where people relate it to the artist. You can do something big and flashy, but I want it to make sense.
“The radio station KNAC was [telling listeners], ‘We’re going to have a laser light show for the city of Long Beach and Orange Country. Just go on your front lawn, lie down on a blanket, have a glass of wine, smoke whatever you want and look at the sky, because it’s going to light up.’
“I didn’t realize until we turned it on how dynamic it was. When we turned it on, we saw this giant, thick laser beam go from where we were all the way to Pasadena. I thought, ‘This is too scary. We’re gonna scare people.’ It looked like War of the Worlds. It looked like a death ray from a spaceship. And we had it pulsing, so it looked like it was hunting for somebody. That was just nuts.”
After such an illustrious career, how does Rappaport want to be remembered? What is his legacy? Following a lengthy pause, he says, “This is going to sound very egotistical. I’m embarrassed, but you’re asking me. I would like to be remembered as the greatest rock promotions man of all time.”
