I said, "Look, John. Before we eat, I want you to know I've taken care of the problem. Things will be different from here."

"You took care of them? How?"

"I fired Ferguson."

"You fired Ferguson? Who's Ferguson?"

"There has been trouble with the hotels, with the food, with the venues, with the sound systems? Well, Ferguson was in charge of all of that. He's been fired."

"Really? You fired Ferguson."

"I did. And I think you will notice the difference right away."

We started eating, talking, being brothers again. I was brooding, looking down.

"What's the matter, Jerry?"

"Well, I'll tell you, John. I'm feeling bad about Ferguson. Sure, he screwed up, but he's not a terrible guy. And now he's been fired, and he won't have his salary and he won't have his bonus and it's right before Christmas. For godsakes, John, Ferguson has a family!"

We sat in silence, eating. Finally, John threw down his napkin and said, "Darn it, I feel bad about Ferguson, too!"

Some time went by. I was eating, drinking, looking around. It was one of those stolid British restaurants, with brass on everything and waiters coming and going with pints of ale.

I said, "Look, I have an idea. Let's say, instead of firing Ferguson, I just move him into another part of the business. Away from people."

"Hide him, you mean?"

"Yeah, hide him. In the business, just not out front, definitely not working with artists."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," said John. "I would feel a lot better about that, it being so close to Christmas and all."

"Good," I said. "I will call LA tomorrow and take care of it. Ferguson 's wife is going to be so relieved."

There really was nothing wrong with the hotels, food, venues, or the rest. John had just gotten himself in a tangle and needed to stand up for himself. Which was why we fired Ferguson. I also knew that John was very compassionate and would eventually blame himself for what happened to Ferguson, which was why we hired him back.

The next night, on the way back from the show, I asked John, "So how was the venue, how was the sound?"

"Oh, much better," he said. "I could tell the difference right away. I'm glad we could fix it without firing Ferguson."

Of course, there was no Ferguson.

Jerry Weintraub Presents

By this time, Concerts West had become perhaps the most important company in the industry, known for its live shows and productions. John Denver was just one of many talented artists who made me a force. I did not handle all these people personally-I had partners, employees-but I was sitting over everything, experiencing the entire scene.

I loved and appreciated all my artists, and still do. There was, for example, Bob Dylan. He was a god to his fans, but to me he was just another smart, Jewish kid from the provinces. Yes, he is brilliant. I don't think he has any idea just how brilliant. The man can break your heart with a turn of phrase. But to him it is just another day of work, which is how I treated it, too. Not even a priest wants to be revered when he's away from the church. He wants to go home and have a drink, knowing the lights will stay on and the bills will be paid. And that was my job. After all, an artist like Dylan has enough fans. A man to mind the store, to keep the books, that's what he needs.

And then there was Led Zeppelin, who we signed in the midseventies. Once you start working with the Presleys and Sinatras, other people, the superstars and up-and-comers, come looking for you. It's called momentum, what people mean by the phrase "cooking with gas."

"Jerry Weintraub?"

"Yeah?"

"You've got to help me!"

"Why?"

"Because I've got dreams!"

"All right, my boy! All right."

Zeppelin was wild. Our first concert with them was at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. They were bitching after the show about the sound system: It did not have enough channels, not enough speakers, blah, blah. It was so loud the place was shaking. I was worried about a cave-in or structural disaster. But no, they wanted bigger, louder, more decibels, more, more, more. When these guys played "Stairway to Heaven," they wanted to build an actual stairway to heaven. The next day, I went around with a few of my guys and gathered every box on the island. We painted them black. I can still smell the fumes from the spray-paint. They made me high. We brought the boxes to the Coliseum and stacked them in huge piles on either side of the stage, hundreds of these goddamn things.

"What the hell are these, Jerry?"

"What do they look like? They're the goddamn speakers, schmuck. You want loud, you're gonna have loud."

That night, Zeppelin exploded onto the stage as if they'd been shot from a cannon, like clowns at the circus, danced and screamed and made a lot of wonderful noise, reveling in the mighty power of this wall of speakers, which, of course, were not connected to anything. If you expect loud, loud is what you are going to hear.

A lot of the time, these guys made demands just to be demanding. These were rock stars. They needed to say "Screw you!" to whoever was cutting the check or wearing the suit. It's part of the job description.

One afternoon, before Zeppelin was scheduled to play at Madison Square Garden, I went into a men's store on Fifth Avenue and picked up a gorgeous suit that had been tailor-made for me in London. I tried it on for the mirror-hand-stitched, double-breasted, beautiful-put it in a bag, and carried it to the arena, where I hung it in a closet in the dressing room, with a note pinned on the front: WEINTRAUB! HANDS OFF!

I went out front to watch the show. The lights went down, the announcer spoke over the sound system: "Now, the loudest, most dangerous rock band on earth…" The crowd went nuts, Zeppelin came on stage. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant. John Bonham, the drummer, came out last. He was wearing whatever crap those guys wore, but over it he had on a beautiful blue jacket.

What the hell?

He sat behind the drums, then, in one clean motion, ripped off the sleeves so you could see his arms and shouted, "How do I look, Jerry Weintraub? I've got your new suit." He held up the arms of the suit, then launched into "Black Dog."

It was hysterical.

For years, I handled the Moody Blues, a British group that went through various incarnations before breaking through in 1965 with the song "Go Now." (They are best known for "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon.") I had a brilliant pitch for these guys: I sold them as everyone's second-favorite band. Are you a Beatles freak? Well, you're going to love the Moodies second. Are the Stones your thing? Great! Then check out the Moodies. You'll like them almost as much. We made a lot of money with that. We were, in essence, harvesting several fields at once, collecting everyone's runoff. Then these guys did a stupid thing. They broke up. It always happens. The more successful a band, the more certain its demise, as each member gets to thinking, "Well, it's because of me, it's my success, and I'm tired of sharing it."

Two of the Moodies, Justin Hayward and John Lodge, calling themselves the Blue Jays, decided to make their own record. I tried to talk sense. "We've spent years positioning the Moody Blues, and, as a result, millions and millions of people consider you their second-favorite band," I explained, "but no one has heard of the Blue Jays. You'll be starting from scratch."

Did they care?

Of course not.

When I could see they had made up their minds, I decided to get on board, pitch in. For me, the challenge was plain: get people to judge these veteran rock stars as if they were new, notice, and take time. Convincing cynical members of the establishment to rethink something they believe they already know is no small thing. You might call it a relaunch, or rebranding, but it really just amounts to a man from the Bronx yelling: Here, here, look over here! Remember this? It's still really good! They worked on their album for a year. When it was finished, I had beautiful invitations printed and carried by courier, with great pomp and circumstance, to journalists and critics all across the country. They read like tickets to an exclusive, impossible-to-get-into, one-time-only show by the geniuses behind your second-favorite band-Justin Hayward and John Lodge, playing at Carnegie Hall in New York City.