← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight and Jake Sumner Discuss Ron Delsener's Impact on Rock Music History and the new documentary "Ron Delsener Presents"
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- [00:01]
Buzz Knight
Taking a Walk I'm Buzz Knight and welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast. And welcome to the special episode where we celebrate a new documentary which is called Ron Delsner Presents, premiering on all the streaming platforms right now. Now, this film chronicles the remarkable life and career of legendary concert promoter Ron Delzner, the man behind some of the most iconic shows in music history and the man who ran concerts in New York York City. Ron is in the middle of everything in this story and he created the fabric of rock and roll history itself. We're going to talk to the director, Sting's son Jake Sumner. He's going to take us behind the scenes of this fascinating documentary exploring how a promoter's vision and passion help shape the live music landscape we know today. We'll also have some other special guests to share their stories about Ron Delzner. But next, Jake Sumner on the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [01:03]
Jake Sumner
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [01:05]
Dennis Elsass
Guaranteed Human living on a prayer.
- [01:08]
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- [03:46]
Jules Belkin
Taking a walk.
- [03:47]
Buzz Knight
I mean, I had to start at
- [03:48]
Ron Delsner
the bottom like everybody else. What you do is you just develop a rapport. You start off small and you take some acts that no one else wanted, and before you know it, the act started to come to you.
- [03:56]
Buzz Knight
Jake Sumner, welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast. I want to ask you what drew you first to the great story of Ron Delsner?
- [04:05]
Jake Sumner
That's a. That's a big one. Well, I grew up knowing Ron in a kind of peripheral way as someone who would I grew up around the live music business. Ron was a guy who was always backstage, and I spent a lot of time backstage at shows. So I got to meeting a lot of people, and Ron was one of the more interesting types of people around. So what drew me to him and the story was really those interactions. He was the kind of person who, you know, would like to engage with sort of everyone in the room. So if a little kid was interested in Ron, he was there with jokes and tricks and tickets to possible Knicks games of the circus or and any number of things. And he just always had incredible stories and was willing to share them about any number of iconic acts from the Beatles to Hendrix to everyone, really. And I just was always sort of compelled and interested in like, who is this man? I wanted to know more so for
- [05:14]
Buzz Knight
listeners who may not know, paint a picture of who this man is and why his story is critical to music history.
- [05:24]
Jake Sumner
Well, it's really interesting because we named the movie Ron Deltner Presents. And to some people, those words mean so much, and to others, it's a complete mystery, I think. But to those, it sort of means something. To I think it means a lot. And I think he represents, for many, he's kind of the conduit between all of the music that they grew up with in the New York area as the guy who sort of brought so much music to New York. And his name and those three words were sort of. They preceded the name of the act. So we'd say Ron Delfner presents the who. And I think he is synonymous with music in New York and with really bringing so much music to the city. And it's kind of amazing when you think today of, well, who does this? It's, you know, in our minds, I think it's large corporations, but really, back then. And what I think this film sort of highlights is it was really Ron in a small team and sort of people like Ron across the country who were doing this and bringing thousands of shows a year to sort of major cities. And Ron had the kind of crown jewel of New York City and the surrounding areas.
- [06:48]
Buzz Knight
Well, just as Ron Delsner shaped the music and the cultural landscape in New York City, Jules Belkin, he did the same for Cleveland and the entire Ohio region. And he and his brother Mike started Belkin Productions, and they built it into this formidable powerhouse, just like Ron Delsner built his company into. And they're part of the Live Nation stable of assets to this day. And Jules Belkin, yeah, like Ron Delzner has created music history. So we did get to speak to Jules Belkin and get some reflection as a counterpart to Ron Delzner, the first
- [07:27]
Ron Delsner
thing you think about a promoter is a hustler. You know, a guy with a cigar. Carnival.
- [07:32]
Jake Sumner
Come on.
- [07:32]
Dennis Elsass
On Pierce.
- [07:33]
Ron Delsner
Eat a turtle, boy. The alligator boy, that kind of stuff. Costa Prono basically puts the money up for the artist to be there. So if you want to do anything fly out of the ceiling at the Metropolitan Opera House, right, I pay for it. Costa Prona pays all the costs. It's as simple as that. The venue, the people who work at the venue, the advertising, and after all these expenses are paid, he gets a piece of the action. If there's money left. If there's no money left, he loses. If it doesn't sell out, he loses. That's the Risk. It can rain. There could be riots. There could be fistfights. It could be anything that goes wrong. So you have to know what you're doing.
- [08:14]
Buzz Knight
Welcome, Jules Belkin, to the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [08:17]
Jules Belkin
Thank you, Buzz. Very nice to be here. Thank you for that wonderful introduction.
- [08:24]
Buzz Knight
So tell me, how did you first encounter Ron Delsner, and what was your recollection of that in person? First experience?
- [08:34]
Jules Belkin
I think I was driving around New York, and I saw this crazy guy running around the streets, and I was trying to hit him, and it turned out to be Ron Delzner. But that was my. In my fantasy, you know, early on in our business, there were only four or five of us around the country, and Ron was, of course, the king and queen of New York. My brother Mike somehow met him someplace. It wasn't by chance. It was set up, and they kind of discussed what the business was at the time, which was, of course, very early and very unstructured. I think my first time was running into him at Frank Barcelona's office in New York, Premier Talent. And then after that, you know, it was. It was an extremely competitive business. But the farther you got away from your hub, the less competitive became, because it was just a rule. Not a rule, but a form. In the business that was initiated by Frank Barcelona, everybody has their own little territory to work with. We knew Ron, but we never thought about going really out of our particular region. So our relationship was very good. It was not an adversarial relationship in the East. Whereas the closer you came to your own hub, things got a little dicey. But Ron has been such a character. And I know one of the experiences that we had with Ron, it was probably in the early. Maybe you have the information. In the early 70s, we struck a partnership for a club in New York. I was on 44th street off of Times Square, place called the Savoy. And, you know, of course, Ron being in New York, he was kind of the managing partner, if you want to call it that, lo and behold, not as a criticism of Ron, but people were just taking stuff out of the back door, taking booze out of the back door. I mean, eventually the place became history and we ended up getting out of the place. But that was our one, I think, very personal relationship with Ron. We just had a great time with his booking and coming back to us, and this is what I'm going to do. And half the people we didn't even know. It was. I don't know, it was Ron's own stable of people. But that was one of the Good relationships we've had with Ron.
- [11:56]
Buzz Knight
Did you compare notes in terms of acts that were on the horizon trying to break out or established acts in terms of what maybe was doing well for Ron back east? Is that part of the relationship?
- [12:13]
Jules Belkin
Honestly, Buzz, I don't remember that we ever had that. That interaction because, you know, radio in different parts of the country were playing different things. A DJ in Cleveland could pick up on, for example, David Bowie. And we did fantastic. And the rest of the country didn't know who he was. So it was. It was difficult to unnecessarily swap stories, as our stories were different.
- [12:49]
Buzz Knight
Now, in the documentary, you see the aspect of risk taking and gambling that is the life of a concert promoter. As you were watching that, I'm sure you felt many stories about your career, how that risk taking also existed. But what was your perspective on seeing that aspect of it about Ron in the documentary?
- [13:16]
Jules Belkin
Certainly not a surprise. I mean, Ron was Ron from day one and through today, it's the same Ron. I know he was always trying to get us to go on vacation with him. He didn't do that much vacationing himself, but we did a lot. But I was always afraid that if I take a vacation with Ron, I would never stop running. And that's why I take vacations. Just stop running. With Ron, it was constant motion.
- [13:58]
Buzz Knight
Now, I think what's fascinating in the documentary is seeing the way the whole business changed as. As he talked about and as you referred to it, a lot of it in the beginning was making things up, you know, along the way. There were no.
- [14:16]
Jules Belkin
Any.
- [14:16]
Buzz Knight
Any rules. Talk about your perspective of that from your career. But also watching Ron as well, I
- [14:27]
Jules Belkin
think Ron was one of the ultimate innovators in the business at that time. I always say that there was really only one promoter in the world, and that was Bill Graham. And the rest of us kind of took our lower echelon areas and did what we did, but the guy who was just sitting above all of us was Bill. And Ron, I think, probably would take second place. But being in the big cities, they had that advantage, maybe over what we were doing in our little towns. But Ron just had a. Had a. He was the ultimate promoter. And, you know, you put promoter in parentheses. That's a promoter.
- [15:25]
Buzz Knight
Jules Belkin. In closing, if Ron were listening to this, which I don't know if he's going to get his arm twisted to listen to this episode of Taking a Walk, Any words for him?
- [15:38]
Jules Belkin
Well, I. I would tell him that we have loved him for 60 years. We'll continue to love him. Wish them all the best, the best of health, and don't stop running.
- [15:53]
Jake Sumner
Every time you went to New York, you knew you were going to see Ron Delzner.
- [15:56]
Buzz Knight
He's going to take care of you
- [15:57]
Jules Belkin
at the gig, and you were going
- [15:59]
Jake Sumner
to have a good time. The exact guy who he seems to be now.
- [16:02]
Buzz Knight
So, Jake, how long did this project take from conception to completion? And what were the biggest challenges in bringing it to life?
- [16:11]
Jake Sumner
I think we started talking about this film somewhere around 2016, 17. But these were just very loose kind of conversations that we would have with Ron about, hey, you know, someone should make a movie about you. It was never something that he was interested in. And he would tell me, like, oh, people have tried and failed, and I'm not really interested. And then I think it's something. I approached him about it and he said, well, here's my card. Give me a call. That was really the beginning, but it was. It took a lot of convincing and it took a lot of meetings, and it took him. He would call me kind of randomly and sort of like, say, come uptown right now and meet me. And I'd do that. Then he would request that we go film, you know, either whatever show was happening, even though we didn't really have a project set, he would just say, come with your camera and let you know, come with me. We're going to film Cherry. It kind of was this chaotic. How can I say, sort of informal chaotic arrangement we had that wasn't really like a. Like a. Like a film.
- [17:21]
Buzz Knight
And then it was like making it up as. As everybody went along, much like, there's certainly the beginnings of the concert business were. That were very. You know, there were no rules. They made everything up as they went along. Right.
- [17:35]
Jake Sumner
Yeah. I think this was Braun's way of how he could deal with a film about him. It kind of had to be on his terms, I think, in the beginning, which is sort of. If you make a documentary about anyone or anything, I think you kind of have to sort of get comfortable with how it's going to happen, and that's sort of how it happened with him. And it would. It was sort of. I was kind of courting him to be part of this film. So I would do any number of things to make it work. It kind of. We would go to shows and I think it really. Things started to really cement. We shot him at a Jimmy Buffett show. That's part of the film. It was quite early on. I won't. No spoilers. But that moment kind of really set the tone. And then shortly after that, we found ourselves in Covid. Covid happened. And I didn't really know how to continue a film that we thought was about live music and kind of following this character around. And I spent a lot of time in Ron's basement in East Hampton digitizing his crazy archive of material. He has like, he kept everything, so he has like a trove of backstage passes and contracts and incredible photography and video and film reel and beta and all this stuff. And it's just. It's not like it should be. It's not organized or assembled. It's just kind of in piles amongst lots of other stuff. During that time, I had nothing else to do. So I just found myself going through his stuff and found just an amazing collection and an amazing insight into his story. And it was. What was interesting is going through that stuff kind of reminded Ron of like various shows. So rather than bringing a camera in, I just would record a lot of audio with him. It was sort of going through that process and going through and pro, like the process of looking at all this material that reminded him of so many of these key moments. And I think he probably needed someone to bounce ideas off and someone to talk to about it who was willing to take the time to find the stuff and sort of present it back to him for him to be like, oh, yes, kiss, you know, speak in theater, you know, or whatever the story was. So I kind of from there started to realize, like, wow, this is. We really have something here. And through that, it was really through that process that I kind of found the story and found what we were trying to do.
- [20:19]
Buzz Knight
I worked at WNEW FM back in the 80s when so many of these shows happened. And gonna play a couple of clips first from Mark Chernoff, the program director, who I talked to, and then Dennis Elsass, the on air personality with some reflections on what Ron Delsner meant during that time and still means today.
- [20:39]
Ron Delsner
Well, his wife probably knows him better than me, but I know him longer because I've been with him forever. I'm the younger sister. He didn't trust anybody with his money, so he asked me to come and work and do tickets. I was the ticket lady. My sister Harry is still with me working. Yeah, she's great. I trust her.
- [21:03]
Dennis Elsass
That's it.
- [21:04]
Ron Delsner
That's the biggest thing in the old days when we first started, I would have labeled them then impossible. All right, listen, tell him we're going to be there at one o' clock tomorrow. I Want the checkmate out for the full amount. The world has changed and the business has changed dramatically. He has not changed, not at all.
- [21:27]
Buzz Knight
Let's talk to Mark Chernoff, my friend, who was also my program director while I worked at WNEW fm. And I want to talk to you, Mark, about what was the significance not only of live music as you ran the rock station in New York City, but also live music with Ron Delzner.
- [21:47]
Mark Chernoff
Well, Ron was certainly the major concert promoter of shows in New York City. Ron, I believe, had started back more than a decade before the concerts at Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park. And this was before I was associated with the radio station other than as a listener, which you know about growing up in the New York metro area. But we used to love those concerts. There were some free ones, there were some that didn't cost a whole lot of money. I remember seeing the Four Seasons among other things. But you always knew it was a Ron Delsner presentation. Ron owned Bowman's Skating Rink for sure. I mean, he was the guy for New York City at the radio station at AEW in the early 80s. Ron was promoting the Pier 84 concerts on the west side, obviously in Manhattan. And we were the station that co promoted those shows through, I'd say, 1986. I think that was the year. But Ron was an important. The guy. Bill Graham had kind of been the guy when Fillmore was around, but that was defunct for many years at that time. Ron was an interesting guy to talk to. I know his sister was involved and she was often at many of the meetings and we always seemed to have a million meetings. We did a Christmas show with Roger Daltrey, December of 85. And the garden itself was involved, but Ron was peripherally involved with that one as well. I know we dealt with Ron on that and I always found them easy to deal with. Concert promoters are a different species because of the kinds of business that they have to do and working against other promoters and who's getting the better deal and we can do this and they can do that. Ron owned a lot of venues.
- [23:51]
Dennis Elsass
Guessing.
- [23:51]
Mark Chernoff
I think he did the Jones beach concerts, I believe those were his. The Daltrey concert was a great Christmas concert. That was the Under a Raging Moon tour, if I remember correctly.
- [24:03]
Buzz Knight
I'll never forget it, how we were able to be called out on stage and suddenly there comes Santa Claus, Muni bringing out Yoko and Sean.
- [24:15]
Jules Belkin
Right.
- [24:16]
Mark Chernoff
It was quite a night.
- [24:18]
Buzz Knight
It was a wonderful night. Thanks for sharing a piece of music history in Delsner Music history, Mark.
- [24:25]
Jake Sumner
You're welcome. Of course.
- [24:26]
Buzz Knight
Ron Delsner Presents is available to rent or buy on Amazon, Apple, Google Play and YouTube Movies and TV. For more information, visit rondelsnerpresentsfilm.com we'll be
- [24:39]
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Dennis Elsass
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Dennis Elsass
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Dennis Elsass
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Dennis Elsass
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- [27:14]
Dennis Elsass
Right.
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Dennis Elsass
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Jake Sumner
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Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [27:58]
Buzz Knight
Well, I'm so happy to have my friend Dennis Elsis, who I worked with at WNEW fm, the place where rock lives in New York City, which is such an integral part of the music scene. And of course, we're here talking about Ron Delsner Presents the great documentary celebrating Ron's career. Dennis, so nice to be with you and so nice to share and pick your brain about Ron Delsner. There's a lot of fertile territory there, isn't there?
- [28:28]
Dennis Elsass
Oh, yeah. And you can see, I don't know that the audience can see. They can hear the smile in my face and in my voice. Because Ron Deltner was, and in many ways still is the concert guy in New York. Now, he didn't grow up with rock and roll. He'll be the first to tell you. Sinatra was his guy, and the big bands and everything. He came of age then, but he quickly understood the appeal of rock and roll. I mean, I didn't know the name Ron Gelsner, but I went to these concerts at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Now, the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium is where they actually played the US Open, long before they ever built that beautiful facility in Flushing Meadows Park. And it really was a tennis stadium. And I did Because I lived in Queens and it was in Queens, New York. I went to some of those shows. I didn't get to go to see the Beatles show. That's one that. I'm sorry I didn't get to. But I heard a story that Ron told about another Beatles concert that he was involved with. It's a charity show that happens in September of 1964 as the Beatles are coming back from their first playing. You know, the first time they're out there. And he talks about them playing at the Paramount Theater in New York City. But the next day, they have to get back to London quickly. So Brian Epstein books them into a motel hotel right near Kennedy Airport, which is in Queens. Ron makes the craziest deal with the hotel management. I think it was called the Riviera Hotel or the Riviera Motel. This was the most outrageous. I hesitate to use the word scam, but this is the most outrageous Beatle deal I ever heard.
- [30:32]
Ron Delsner
After their tour of America, the Beatles were going back to the uk and I found out they were staying at the Riviera Hotel right next to KFK Airport. So I tracked down the manager of the the hotel. I said, I want to buy everything in the room. Said the Beatles had cigarette bus, Coke bottles, any leftover food, towels, soap sheets, pillowcases. I said, I'm going to have an auction. Not all the dishes were dirty. So I took oregano and oil. I messed them up a little. And the cigarettes, you know, doused them a little more. I made them look a little funky. So I pull up in a stretch limousine, black car, and all the crap is in the trunk and all over the back seat. All this garbage and boxes. And the kids scream like, the Beatles
- [31:16]
Jules Belkin
are in the car.
- [31:17]
Ron Delsner
They're banging on the windows. I go, wow. Get the police out in the barriers. I had newspapers covering it all. And I had Murray Decay, who was a famous DJ at that time, be the MC. I must have given him 100 bucks. And there's Murray Decay up there. How much do I hear for the Coca Cola bottle? How much do I hear for the. The cigarette butts from. They said, Rango. They didn't know whose butts were. It was one of the big four. We were selling everything we could. $200, $100. I went over here, three. I got the cash and put in the cash. It was fantastic. I sold it all. Every show I did from then on. I kept ticket stubs, backstage passes. I got piles of it all over the house, in my attics, in the basements. In every room.
- [31:58]
Dennis Elsass
I didn't know the name Ron Delsner as a kid in high school or college. And his name might not have been on the bill at the time because he was working for somebody else. But he was involved with these concerts that happened at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. It was an open air tennis stadium. Acoustics were. But in those days, acoustics weren't that important. And he booked all these great artists at the time, whether it was Credence or the who or earlier shows with Simon and Garfunkel. So that's where I must have first heard shows that he was involved with. I did start to hear the name in the early 1970s when he took over a skating ring in Central park, the Lowman Skating ring, and had the great idea of putting in seats. Obviously the ice wasn't there because it was summertime and it was in Central Park. So it was very, very convenient. And I just saw some of the greatest shows. There's even a TV show called Good Vibrations from Central Park. On that show is everyone from the Beach Boys to Santana to Carly Simon. So the concerts in the park, which later became the concerts at the Pier, and they were cheap too. I mean, the concerts in Central park started out being a dollar a concert. Maybe they went up to $1.50 or $2. But that's where people might have seen Billy Joel for the first time.
- [33:36]
Ad/Promo Announcer
I mean, I go way back with
- [33:38]
Dennis Elsass
Ron to the early 70s, maybe even before that.
- [33:43]
Ad/Promo Announcer
New York City had all different kinds
- [33:45]
Dennis Elsass
of acts, but they were all promoted by Delsner. Ron Delsner Presents one of the first
- [33:50]
Buzz Knight
big shows we ever did.
- [33:51]
Dennis Elsass
We were an opening act for a guy named Jesse, Colin Young, and thought,
- [33:56]
Jules Belkin
wow, I'm making it.
- [33:58]
Dennis Elsass
I'm being presented by Ron Delsner. Delsner was the guy who took the chance. That's something you need someone to do for you, is to take that chance. There's a lot of history there for those Central park concerts.
- [34:10]
Buzz Knight
Was this possibly brought to you by Schaefer Beer?
- [34:15]
Dennis Elsass
Yes, initially they're the Shaffer concerts. So they weren't necessarily the Ron Delsner concerts. I don't know that Ron Delsner's name is top of mind for me in 1971 or 1972, actually, because I started new, interestingly, WNEW FM in the summer of 71. I'm well aware of Ron's name because I used to do something called Concert Happenings. And it was a one minute piece where I would sort of do the concert calendar of everything that's going on in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, in that week. So I'm trying to remember. I think I referred to it in those days, though, in my pre recording as the Shaffer Music Festival. Not necessarily Ron Delzner presents but several years later. Ron was. Ron was everywhere. I mean, Ron was everywhere. You went to a concert and there he was. He was either backstage, front of stage. Like, I have this distinct memory years later of sitting at Madison Square Garden elevated. I don't know, it was in the second or third level, right? But I had a straight shot to look down at the. At the backstage, the entrance, where the. The. The artists would come out of the. The backstage area and. And get to the stage. And I pointed out to my wife, I said, here's Ron. You know, because you. Ron was a. Ron has a very specific. He. And he kind of. Ron glides through. I mean, Ron just sort of. He doesn't walk or strut. He glides through. And he has this wonderful way of being casual, but being in charge. You know, he's just. He's cool. The artists respect him. They know that they're gonna be comfortable. And, you know, there's always a crisis. There's always something that's gonna freak out somebody, but nothing ever ruffles him. I mean, if it gruffles him, it's all inside. He is just so corny to say, you know, loose is a goose or whatever the phrase is. And the artists know. I mean, I think they even do this in the film. The artists love to play for him because he's going to take care of them. He's going to make sure that they are comfortable and that the venue is as perfect as it can be so they can be their best.
- [36:57]
Buzz Knight
And Dennis, he really did set the stage to what we know now in terms of live concert activity, on how Live Nation has, you know, more sponsorships than. Than ever in terms of, you know, their monetization. I mean, he really crafted this business to have multiple tiers other than you're just paying for a ticket, right?
- [37:24]
Dennis Elsass
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And one of my most cherished memories is WNEW fm, every year did their Christmas concert, and the hook there was that the jocks would be around a Christmas tree in the lobby. We did a lot of those initially in Lincoln center and what was called in those days, Avery Fisher Hall. We later did more at the Garden, Radio City, the Beacon Theater. But those early shows in Lincoln center were very intimate. And the jocks would get there ahead of the crowd, the audience, and we would collect gifts because every patron was to bring a wrap gift for a child. United Cerebral Palsy was involved with distributing them and Ron presided over it all. He was the impresario, so to speak. And again, that's the first time I got to see him behind the scenes in action, making sure that we were comfortable, making sure that the acts were comfortable, making sure that it all worked well. And so those annual Christmas concerts which featured everyone from the first appearance of Genesis with Peter Gabriel, their first American appearance in 1972, Christmas time, Genesis and string driven thing and then continued for years with Emerson, Lake and Palmer and yes, and the Kinks. And in fact, Ron is there that night of December 8, 1980, when we are all there. The Marshall Tucker Band is our headliner. We are on 65th or 66th street on the west side of New York, not knowing, well, no one would know the events that are about to happen. About eight blocks away on 72nd street and Central park at the Dakota. And it is Ron who gets a phone call. How the phone call came through. I mean, there were no cell phones or anything. But Ron gets the phone call and tells Scott Muni the news. And suddenly the after party after the Marshall tucker band on December 8, 1980, Scott Muni delivers the news of the unthinkable with John Lennon being shot and killed and party's over, everybody leaves. And the disc jockeys, on the rare occasion that all the disc jockeys are in the same place because that rarely would happen. But we were all together for that show. Everybody, without telling the other person, went back to the radio station and it became an all night shiver, we call it, or an all night memorial ceremony. Anyway, that's a sad memory. But the happy memories of these Christmas shows are just great. And it was always Ron who was there, Ron. So you got. I got to watch him up close and personal lots of times. And then again, being in the audience or just showing up or getting something to drink at intermission, it was just. He was everywhere. He was everywhere.
- [40:55]
Buzz Knight
Dennis Elsass, thank you so much for sharing your memories of Ron Delsner and talking about the Ron Delzner Presents documentary.
- [41:05]
Dennis Elsass
Great movie.
- [41:08]
Ron Delsner
As a concert promoter, the biggest gamble is always the weather. I would go to bed if I could fall asleep every night worrying about music going to rain on this show. I be nervous all the time. Mother say to you, ron, why you so angry? I said, mom, it's going to rain tomorrow, damn it. You know, I started at first doing shows outdoors. That's how I started my career.
- [41:33]
Buzz Knight
So Jake, Ron worked with everybody, countless legends and I know. Ultimately, when you set out on this project, is it true you heard from folks, artists volunteering to take their time to talk about Ron for the documentary?
- [41:49]
Jake Sumner
It's true that a lot of people contacted me when they heard I was making a documentary. Yeah, for sure. Big names that I don't really want to mention, but who are in the film actually contacted me hearing about a film saying, hey, I hear you're making a Ron Dazna movie. I've got a great story. Like, I owe that guy a lot. Like, I'd love to participate, which is not really usually the way it sort of happens. I think that's usually the hard part for us. That seemed to be quite easy because I believe that a lot of the acts that Ron worked with, there's a degree of respect and I think also a degree of feeling like they owe Ron something. And certainly he had a hand in presenting them to New York and either breaking them in New York or helping support their career in such an important market and really the media market of the world. So that wasn't the hard part. And we got so many great interviews from Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Patti Smith. Who else is in it? Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Paul Simon Garfunkel. I mean, we really were very lucky to have so many testimonials from just incredible legends.
- [43:17]
Buzz Knight
And what's so cool is how they uncover deep into some of these storylines that they were involved with. I'll just mention and tease one. Certainly the Simon and Garfunkel storyline about the legendary concert in Central park is sort of played so brilliantly in the documentary. And so, you know, real life. Right. The feelings are raw and real that are there. It's fantastic now.
- [43:46]
Jake Sumner
Thank you. Yeah, that was really. That was really something. And actually, we interviewed Paul quite early in the process of making the film, and we interviewed Garth Plunkell quite late. And Lorne Michaels was in there somewhere in the middle. And I think between Ron Paul and Artie and Lorne, we really could tell quite a lot of the story. And how it came together, I think quite unlike anything that's been told before. But, yeah, just an amazing. Like, for example, like that show, like, what an amazing coming together. The way that, you know, it's talked about and discussed, it's almost kind of casual and something that, you know, it's kind of came together pretty loosely, you know, but turned out to be the biggest show of all time for that. For that period.
- [44:39]
Buzz Knight
So, Jake, in closing, what do you think separates a great promoter from just a good One. And what did Ron Delzner have that made him legendary?
- [44:50]
Jake Sumner
Well, I'm not an expert by any
- [44:52]
Dennis Elsass
means,
- [44:55]
Jake Sumner
but I would say what Ron has that maybe others don't, I think he has a willingness to kind of go all the way with things. I think it's sort of a force of nature, the way he goes about sort of everyday choices. I think being a promoter in general, you have to be sort of particular, and I think you have to be a gambler of sorts. And it's also not the best, easiest form of gambling. It's like not really a good bet, especially at that time, because you can win and you can win big. But then the loss, as Ron likes to say, sort of it takes 10 winners to make up one big loss. So those aren't really great odds. And that's not really like, you know, how you should gamble. So I think it has to be beyond just a love of money. I think Ron really loved the music, and I think more than music, I think Ron really loved the action and the event and the show business atmosphere and just being part of it and bringing it to people. And I think that that's what sort of carried him through. It's just that. It's just that love of the show and putting on the show what separates him from others. I think he just really loves it, like, in a. In a way that's like, not really particularly beneficial for his personal life. You know, I think he puts show business and putting on shows ahead of everything, but it's what he loves. It's quite remarkable. I think no one really sustained a career like Ron or was there really from the beginning, from the outset of sort of live music as we know it through to the corporatization and the creation of Live Nation. No one's really has that span of time and history that Ron has. I mean, he was outlining stories for us of seeing Count Basie at birdland in the 1950s and that really being the kind of inspiration for him to want to put on shows. And then putting on the Beatles at forest hills in 64. I mean, he was really there kind of at the beginning and helped build it into sort of what it became. And I don't think that there's anyone that quite has that story.
- [47:23]
Buzz Knight
The story is fantastic. The documentary is triumphant. It's heartfelt. It is a real time capsule and it's a lot of fun as well. Congrats, Congrats. Jake Sumner on Ron Delsner presents on streaming platforms right now. Appreciate you being on.
- [47:42]
Jake Sumner
Thanks. Buzz thank you.
- [47:45]
Buzz Knight
I'm Buzz Knight and thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now please check out our companion podcasts produced by Buzz Night Media Productions with your host Lynn Hoffman. Music Save Me Showcasing the healing power of music and comedy, Saved Me Shining a light on how laughter is the best medicine. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are part of the iHeart podcast network.
- [48:16]
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Buzz Knight
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Buzz Knight
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Dennis Elsass
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Dennis Elsass
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Buzz Knight
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Jake Sumner
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Dennis Elsass
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