Sometime in 1985, a friend asked me to cover for him as the production manager at a new club that was opening in Toronto. The ask was pretty straightforward, I just had to be the liaison between the production crew, who were already hired, and the club’s management for the opening night event, an evening with the hardest working man in show business, Mr. James Brown for two shows, 7 pm and 10 pm.

Since I already knew everyone on the crew, the challenge was more about dealing with the manager of the club because A) he didn’t know me, B) he hadn’t had an opportunity to get to know the guy I was subbing for either, and, C) as it turned out, he didn’t know much, if anything, about production.

On the day of, load in and set-up went smoothly. The club, which was called The Spectrum, was like many clubs in Toronto, built in a small, early 20th century vaudeville house and still had the proscenium stage and heavy velour curtain typical of those venues. Load in was, inevitably, off the alley behind the club. It was actually ready to open, which in my experience was a minor miracle.

Around the same time period I remember being in another club at about 2 in the afternoon of opening night, looking around at piles of sawdust and lumber and thinking “There’s just no way…” But, by the time darkness fell, the lights were on, the doors were open, there was a raucous crowd and all of the construction debris had been cleaned up… or at least hidden.

With the system set up, we were ready for the band. Which was fine, except that there was no band to be seen. After a while we heard that James and Mrs. Brown had arrived at and been safely ensconced in the presidential suite of one of the downtown luxury hotels, but still no band. Eventually, we got word that they were at the border and were being held up by the border folks. This situation went on for hours and hours, even past doors and well past the 7 pm start time of the first show.

Best-Laid Plans

The club was packed with fabulous people. The good news was that everyone was having a good time, and no one seemed to be getting too bent out of shape about the show not actually starting. This was a relief as sometimes these situations can turn nasty.

Somewhere in there we got word that the band bus had cleared the border and that it was just a matter of them making the hour-plus drive to the club. This they did, and when they arrived, we hurriedly got them loaded in and set up. If memory serves, we ended up getting the band on in time to start what would have been the second show if things had gone according to plan.

With the band on stage, and the Godfather of Soul doing his thing, attention turned to what to do about the second show. At the time, Toronto had notoriously inflexible rules about when, and more to the point, how late clubs could remain open, so there was no question of having the second show that same night.

This raised the question: was the act available for a show the next night? They were, so I asked the folks from the sound company if they could support the show… which is where things got a little bit sticky. They told me that the system was booked for another show the following night, but they were willing to go back to their shop and pull an all-nighter and build a new system for that other show. They just needed to know that the second James Brown show was really going to happen.

And that’s when things started to get crazy. I’ve neglected to mention that up to that moment my main point of contact with the club had been with the assistant manager, Bill (who would go on to manage the club in the 90s). Bill and I discussed the situation and agreed that this plan was workable, we just needed to get the manager to sign off on it and book the production for the second night.

This proved to be extremely challenging. I hadn’t seen much of the manager while the late arrival of the band was playing out but when Bill and I walked into his office to explain the plan, we found him to be very wound up. I quickly got the impression that he wanted things to be… very precise and orderly. To his credit, I’m sure this is why the place was ready to open on time, and once open (even with a packed house on the first night), was functioning smoothly as a bar. I remember being astonished to see the manager’s diploma in hospitality, from a Swiss hospitality institute, proudly displayed on the wall. I’d had no idea that was even a thing. Of course, being entirely self taught, most diplomas have that effect on me.

In any case, when Bill and I explained the situation to the manager, and our proposed solution, we sure didn’t get the “That sounds like a plan, let’s do it!” response that we were hoping for. Instead, the manager just seemed really… angry and kind of paranoid, like we were trying to put something over on him.

An Answer, Please?

Somewhere along the line the show ended, last call came and went, and the burning question, from the sound company – “Are we striking this and loading out, or, leaving it, going back to our shop and building a second system for tomorrow’s show?” – became the only question.

Bill and I made repeated attempts to get the manager to make the call. For my part, I was getting nowhere even convincing the guy that I was working for him and that I was there to help him with this problem. At one point, I even said to him, “Look, I’m working for you and I just need to know what you want to do. If you want me to tell these guys to go, we’ll load them out, and tomorrow morning I will get on the phone and line up another rig for the second show – we just need a decision.” But it was no use, in his mind I was just another one of them.

However, eventually, he came around and agreed that it was best to keep the rig for the second show the following night. By this point, it was 2:30 in the morning. I went home, and the sound crew went off to their shop to pull their all-nighter, having just wasted 90 minutes waiting for the manager to decide what he wanted to do.

The next night, things were much calmer on the production front, with the band already set up, we just had to show up and do the show. For that show, I found myself backstage, standing by to open the old-school velour curtain. This is a cherished “moment” in my career, being alone with James Brown and the band, minutes before the show.

Mr. Brown was pacing the stage, having a quiet word with each member of the band. I remember he stopped and showed the young guitar player a couple of chords, reaching around him to put his hand on the neck of the guitar. And then…the emcee announced the “Hardest Working Man in Show Business” and I hauled on the rope and opened the curtain!

At which point… I found myself unsure as to how to get back into the club without crossing the stage. After looking at various possibilities, I went through a door on the upstage right side, and promptly found myself in the alley behind the club, as the door clicked shut behind me. I pounded on the door a couple of times, but I knew there was no one to hear me or let me in, so I resigned myself to having to go around.

I nodded at the band’s bus driver, who was leaning against his bus having a smoke, and began the six-block walk, down the alley, up the side street, and back along the main drag to the club… hoping the bouncers would recognize me when I got to the front door.