Meet Spencer Proffer, The Man Telling The Stories Of The Music Titans Behind Jimi Hendrix, Motown, Woodstock And More
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebaltin/2020/04/26/meet-spencer-proffer-the-man-telling-the-stories-of-the-music-titans-behind-jimi-hendrix-motown-woodstock-and-more/#2390c68f6e77
Ask anyone inside the music business and they'll concur, if you want the best stories go to the people behind the scenes — the producers, managers, engineers, concert promoters — who were there to witness it all firsthand.
After 25 years of interviewing everyone I can give countless examples, from the great producer/artist Daniel Lanois sharing with me secrets of Bob Dylan's writing process during Time Out Of Mind to Joni Mitchell's drummer, Brian Blade, telling me about Mitchell's mastery of pinball.
So having come up in the industry for four decades as a songwriter, producer, executive and more, Spencer Proffer, now a documentary producer, understands full well that it's those unsung heroes of music that have the most interesting tales.
Maybe Jimi Hendrix can't tell his story anymore, but Eddie Kramer, who worked with Hendrix on all four of his studio albums before his death, can tell you what it was like to try and keep up with Hendrix in the studio. Or how it was to be there when Led Zeppelin put together the landmark Led Zeppelin II. Kramer can talk about working with the Rolling Stones, engineering the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" or recording all three days of Woodstock.
In the same way that Hendrix is not here to tell stories of seminal moments in his career, neither is icon Elvis Presley. But Proffer’s long time friend and occasional business partner, Steve Binder - director/producer of the seminal Elvis NBC Comeback Special, is.
In 2018, on the 50th anniversary of Elvis’ passing, Proffer produced one of the most successful music events in Fathom theatrical event history, by bringing the iconic NBC ’68 Elvis Comeback Special to the big screen. The making of that special, where Binder and Elvis bonded and defied the never before told story of the clashes with manager Colonel Tom Parker, are the basis for Binders book and forthcoming documentary.
Proffer will now be producing a documentary with Binder, on the unique buddy story between and Elvis, based upon his book. Uber director Baz Luhrmann is helming a definitive feature on Elvis with Warner Brothers which Binder is serving as a consultant on. Proffer and Binder plan to cross promote Binder’s making of the Elvis Comeback Special with Baz’s feature next year.
Likewise, Lamont Dozier, part of the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting trio during the commercial heyday of Motown, is a huge part of music history. He was there writing for the Supremes, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and more.
Both of these music titans have upcoming documentary projects with Proffer, who has many more projects coming down the pike as he attempts to delve into underappreciated parts of history.
"Spencer and I wrote a couple of songs together, god, 20 years ago now," Dozier tells me. "We started talking shop and we started writing some songs for a couple of TV shows. That's how it started out and the relationship just blossomed over the years. He's a wonderful guy. You couldn't ask for a better guy to steer the ship so to speak because when it comes to career and doing great things he knows how to reach down and pull out all the stops to make you look good."
Dozier goes on as to why he trusts Proffer to tell his story. "He brings out the good stuff in the person he's trying to tell the world about. And he sees things in me I have overlooked myself. It makes me feel good too somebody is paying attention," he says. "He read my book and he said, 'Look, this is a bigger story and we should get in and do a movie.' That's what we're doing now, trying to make sure we get all the right people and tell the story of what I've been doing for 50, 60 years."
Kramer also goes back several years with Proffer. "We met about nine years ago. I'd known about him way before then, him being in the business from the early '80s as a record producer, having his own record company," Kramer recalls. "I've always known about him.. The guy was a rock and roll producer and then his career changed once that part of his life sort of decreased. He got into other things like making documentaries. We did a couple of projects together when the music business was still the music business, that was about five, six years ago. So over the years we've worked on projects together and just enjoyed the hell out of each other's company cause I love Spence. He is a force to be reckoned with. He is like a bull terrier, won't let go until he's got what he's looking for. It can put some people off, but hell with it. I'd rather he's on my side."
As for the upcoming documentary, Kramer says, "He figured out that because of the nexus points in my life — I was at Woodstock, I recorded that; I was fortunate enough to meet Jimi Hendrix right at the very beginning of his career, did all his albums; worked with Led Zeppelin, the Stones, the Beatles, the list goes on and on. I was kind of the right guy at the right place at the right time."
In many ways, Proffer's story is ripe for a documentary. From producing chart-topping heavy metal band Quiet Riot in 1983 and producing a show for the troops with Destiny's Child and KISS in 2005 to working on the Tony-nominated Broadway show It Ain't Nothing But The Blues to getting Denzel Washington to narrate the John Coltrane documentary Chasing Trane, which also featured an appearance by Bill Clinton, Proffer has been kind of a music industry Zelig for the last 40 years.
So when we sat down to talk at his San Fernando Valley home right before the lockdown he had some amazing stories. Like I said, it's always the behind the scenes guys.
Steve Baltin: What appeals to you specifically about docs?
Proffer: We talked about the Coltrane film, Chasing Trane. I had a fight with one of the streamer people. I wanted my director to go to Japan because Coltrane had a social, cultural impact on Japanese culture. He did a concert for the people of Nagasaki, a peace concert. I wanted to profile that and have a segment in my Coltrane doc about Japan. You think when I pitched that people thought that was smart? Coltrane wrote "Alabama," it was the instrumental piece to the beats of Martin Luther King's speech when the girls got killed in Alabama. I thought that should be profiled in his journey. Denzel [Washington] narrated this. There's a reason, he saw a rough cut and it was good. So I'm approaching all my things differently, be it Lamont, be it Eddie. With Eddie I'm gonna look at the social cultural stuff that happened when Eddie engineered his records juxtaposed against what [Jann] Wenner and Rolling Stone were doing. That's why they wanted to be my partner.
Baltin: What do you look for in the people you bring into the fold?
Proffer: I build teams. I'm an ex-quarterback. What's good about that? I get rid of the ball. I didn't like getting tackled. The thing that's brilliant about Peter Jackson and Ron Howard, they do their thing. I have different teams for different projects because everybody is different. Lamont is different than Eddie. These are icons I'm doing and I'm creating extensions that I believe nobody else is doing today. There's Broadway, stage plays, a book out of everything I'm doing.
Baltin: Where did you play quarterback?
Proffer: Fairfax high, bench UCLA. Not good enough to start, but good enough to call the plays and get out of the way. Hand off, pass, double reverse, get rid of the ball. So the thing I learned as a kid is there are 11 guys that cross the goal line. So I don't just take the snap and run with it. Let the team win, the quarterback gets the girl anyway. So I'm all about that. And I've learned to live my life like that. So the lane I'm really into is building lanes around my projects. Eddie is a great example. The team on Eddie: Joe Berlinger, Emmy winner and Oscar nominee who did the Metallica doc; Sterling, my older son, is a co-producer. He's my millennial marketing genius. Eddie Barbini has one Academy Award and three Emmys, he's an EP. John Dorsey, the director, is an Emmy and Peabody winner. He doesn't come from music. I saw his ESPN and Red Bull work and I thought it was brilliant. And I thought to myself John is a filmmaker. I'm not about just getting a guy who's done a thousand music docs. I want a filmmaker to go to a different side. So I put him on the phone with Eddie and they talked. Eddie is a really good, smart person. They really hit it off so I said, "I'm going against the grain." He would never get approved if this were a big streamer deal. But if I have the money outside and then I go shopping that's interesting. So I want to keep true to the subject and to the narrative.
Baltin: So you put the money together first?
Proffer: I find a way. I get backing from A, B, C. D, or E. But the thing is there's a vision and the team is built and I develop it. Then I have the content locked. Lamont is a great guy, he's my friend. I've written songs with Lamont. I've been in the studio with Eddie Kramer. These are people that I'm one of them and now I've graduated out of that because I come from the music. And now I'm taking their stories and trying to bring them forward. They trust me differently.
Baltin: But you are also doing films on the behind scenes people, who have very different takes.
Proffer: I'm following the art and the art is the story. I'll tell you something I learned about Lamont. When Lamont Dozier produced and wrote the hits for the Supremes, the Four Tops, Martha And The Vandellas, he is a great cook. He used to be a cook at Motown and before his sessions he'd cook it out. So Lamont was working with Phil Collins and Eric Clapton in England. Lamont's wife sent a body bag with 100 pounds of ribs so he could cook for everybody when he was working. So it's that kind of stuff, that if you watch it, it's not your linear doc. On the Coltrane doc I had a brilliant director, John Scheinfeld, who had the vision. And we aligned on everything. So I think when we're done we are going to see who Eddie is, who Lamont is. For me, what I love about the projects that I'm doing, is I find stuff that is really compelling and interesting. And it's so human. In this economy and this world, telling people's journeys that are interesting, that go up and down, when Lamont left Motown there was a dry period until he hit with Phil Collins and Eric Clapton. I think we should look at that. The journey is what's interesting. How to deal with no.
Baltin: Does that mirror your own story in a way?
Proffer: I've dealt with no. I've gotten rejected on a lot of stuff. Quiet Riot, I think 21 labels passed. Ultimately I made [CBS President Walter] Yetnikoff put it out, we shipped 4,000 records under miscellaneous Q, I put up my own money, I made the video, I bypassed Epic, sent it to MTV, got on the air at four in the morning, went number one phones for the video for "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)." When the record went gold my best friends at the label called me, "We love this record." They hated it.
Baltin: So you've consistently had to be resourceful?
Proffer: My stage show, It Ain't Nothing But The Blues, which had four Tony nominations, in 1999, I did something really crazy with that. I couldn't afford a stage set, so we got pictures from the Smithsonian and the Library Of Congress, that was our stage set. Got four Tony nominations, including Best Musical. Asked, licensed, $1.98. Broadway shows were going at out at about $900 grand a week. We made it down to $200,000 per week. Pretty good. What I also did was people in Peoria couldn't afford to go to Broadway. So for my cast album I got Taj Mahal and Whoopi Goldberg to go into a studio with me in Culver City. They pretended they were sitting on a porch in Mississippi and when you put a CD-Rom in part of my stage show comes to life while they're talking. It was the first CD-Rom from a Broadway show in 1999.
Baltin: Talk about your philanthropy, you give 25 scholarships to kids, and arrangement with Space Camp.
Proffer: I have a long term arrangement with Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama to develop and produce media My younger son Morgan went to Space Camp for nine consecutive summers in the quest of wanting to fly and be an astronaut. From the time my son Morgan began his nine years as a Space Camper and counselor, I sensed that its ethos about fraternity, teamwork and dream fulfillment would be a solid foundation and enriching life experience as well as a lot of fun. To be able to pay it forward and give other kids a chance to build the life skills that my son has achieved, is something that means a lot to my wife Judy, my other son Sterling and myself.