Interview with Michael Murphy

MJ: Michael Murphy, thank you for joining us today.

MM: Sure, good to be here.

MJ: We're here at The House of Blues. Tell us what you do here and tell us

something about the The House of Blues if you would.

MM: I'm the president of House of Blues productions. My job is to do all

television shows, radio shows, special projects, festivals, things like

that. The House of Blues itself is now a multi-tiered entertainment

company. Initially it was just the concept of a restaurant with live

music. And now the company has grown into book publishing, tours,

television shows, radio shows, multi-media, new media divisions, a brand

new sports division, hotel division. So it's really expanded quite

rapidly.

MJ: Can you tell us how it started and the original ideas for it and how

many clubs you have now?

MM: Yeah. The concept came from a discussion between Isaac Tigrett who had

founded the Hard Rock and Danny Aykroyd, who everybody knows from the Blues

Brothers movie and Saturday Night Live fame. They had a conversation about

starting a club revolving around blues music. And that conversation

happened probably about five years ago. And five years later we have a new

club getting ready to open in Chicago. The first one was in Cambridge, then

we had New Orleans, Los Angeles, we'll be opening a club in Myrtle Beach

next year, in Orlando in the fall and then Tokyo, Paris, and

1

London. Quite aggressive growth.

MJ: So who are the owners?

MM: Well the owners are now it's now a corporation. So it's now investors

as diverse as the endowment fund for Harvard University to Disney to, you

know, the regular corporate investors. The Chemical Banks, that sort of

investors. So it's no longer just a company owned by an individual. It

was back in 1992, when I first joined up with Mr. Tigrett, but now you have

the whole board of directors. There's probably be a list of 500 people

investing.

MJ: Of course Dan Aykroyd is famous for his Blues Brothers, for being a

part of the Blues Brothers. Is that where he got the idea? Has he always

been a fan of the blues?

MM: Yeah, I mean, Danny is amazing. He's like a walking encyclopedia, of

really, American music. Danny's always loved the Blues. I didn't know the

gentleman until in '92 when I first met him. And he came to New Orleans,

and I was asked to take him around and show him the city. And I was a

little star struck, but I took him to see some musicians that I happen to

love which was New Orleans blues, R&B. And very quickly I learned that

Danny really knows who recorded what song when, who the band was, the lead

singer. Actually Danny, through that, involvement with Danny, Danny now

hosts the radio show that we do, and he conducts all the interviews, and

he's amazing. He really loves American blues. He loves, he loves music.

MJ: Can you tell us about this building? There are several floors, and what

happens on what floor, and what happens during the week, and the weekends

as well?

2

MM: Sure. It is a multi-level club. This room right here is the Foundation

Room. There is a House of Blues Foundation that is an educational

foundation. And we bring bus loads of school kids here three times a week,

and they get lessons on art, they get lessons on music, on food, basically

African-American culture. And we have people who join the foundation,

they have use of the room, for entertainment purposes, and then the

proceeds from all that fuels the money for the foundation. That's this

level here. Then you have the restaurant level, which is basically a

multi-tiered sort of restaurant. It has a patio outside, it has seating

inside. It has seating around the balconies downstairs also. It's a full

working restaurant. It stays busy non-stop. Great menu, a lot of Southern

cooking, but also a lot of cooking that you'll find here in California and

you'll find the same thing in Chicago or New Orleans. And then we have the

actual nightclub itself. And that's the, that's where the people come,

that's where a thousand people a night, twelve hundred people a night

every night, seven days a week, to see anything from blues to Gospel, to

jazz, to rap, you name it. Which is pretty exciting that the House of Blues

really embraces all forms of music, and once people understand that, they

recognize what the company is about, because House of Blues, we're really

just saluting the roots of American music and it's just like a tree, you

know. The roots are there, but it impacted all levels of music. And that's

why you'll see a very diverse line-up.

MJ: Are people surprised to learn that rock-n-roll has, you know, a

foundation in the blues, and gospel, and the Negro spirituals? Are

people... Are you educating people in a sense?

MM:Yeah, actually we are. And what's surprising is I've done a lot of

3

television work for Europe and for Japan, and the Europeans, and the people

in Japan seem to have a much better understanding of American music. At

least a working knowledge. And they seem to appreciate it more. Here in our

own country, you know, it took the British to come back, and you know, in

the '60's, and take basically American blues and R&B, and throw it back at

us in terms of bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones and the rest

of them. So, that's been the fun part of the process, and you know, it's...

I have a 16-year old boy. When he was eleven I think, he called me up

cause of my involvement with House of Blues at twelve years old and he

said, "Dad, have you ever heard of a band called Led Zeppelin?" and he said

"They do blues." I said, "Yeah, yeah, Jonathan." So it's a lot of younger

kids now who are really getting into it, and it's exciting.

MJ: And how many bands play in a typical week at the House of Blues?

MM: I guess you could say the average would be 12 to 14 bands a week.

Normally a headlining act, with an opening act. And then on Sundays we have

a Gospel Brunch, where there's three seatings, and it's all Gospel music,

and quite surprisingly, most of the audience is middle class, white men and

women and kids who are just coming to understand Gospel for the first time,

but because it's in a place like the House of Blues, they think, you know,

"It must be cool." But Gospel music is one of my favorites. It's great

music. And so, you know, it's all part of the process of the experience of

coming to the club.

MJ: What is the feeling on Sunday, in the club, at the Gospel Brunch?

MM: It's pretty intense. I mean, I've been to a couple of them, I've made

one

4

into a television show. But what is great to see, is that even though it's

predominantly, you know, white people coming, you will have maybe 25%

African-Americans there, you'll have a lot of Japanese coming, some

Europeans coming, and every seating, every time, at the end of it

everybody's holding hands together. They're singing, they're clapping, and

they really leave with a renewed appreciation not only for music, but for

just the cross cultural experience of coming together and enjoying a

certain style of music that is really kind of uplifting. I mean it's

actually one of our most popular events. To get a ticket for the Gospel

Brunch, you usually got to call about a month in advance. It's pretty

amazing and it all started in Cambridge. That was the first club, and Isaac

felt that given the enormous amount of students in Cambridge, Boston area,

because of the universities there, and given their sophistication, if

you're going to break a brand, and get feedback, that's where you break it.

So Cambridge was our first, a tiny little club. It's actually a house. But

it was well received, it did wonderful business, and so it proved that the

concept worked, and the rest you know, is...here we are.

MJ: Who are some of the artists who have played here over the years?

MM: Boy, we've had, you know, obviously Danny Aykroyd and the Blues

Brothers Band, we've had Eric Clapton, we've had Johnny Cash, we've had Bob

Dylan, George Clinton and P-Funk. We have Public Enemy. We've had an

enormous amount of different, varying types of music. The Blind Boys of

Alabama, you know, a Gospel group, so there aren't too many acts who aren't

calling to get in to play the club. It's really a situation where the

record companies and managers, they call constantly. "How can we get our

acts into the House of Blues Club?" So, it's, you know, kind of a good

situation to have

5

there.

MJ: How has it been for you to see this business grow so exponentially in

such a short period of time?

MM: It's been real exciting, it's been a lot of work. Literally, if you see

a picture of me from back in '92 when I first joined the company my beard

was totally black. The amount of work has been relentless. There have been

times when I would spend eight months traveling 25 days a month, when the

company was first starting. So it has been real exciting to get something

started from the ground up. I was an independent producer, I had my own

company. I was doing fine. I was doing a lot of work for NHK in New

Orleans, I was doing some work with some record labels. And probably

because I didn't have the knowledge of what it was going to take to help

Isaac start a company like this, you know, I agreed to sign on, because

now, the... I look back, and it's been a lot of fun, an incredible amount

of work. You know, it's been an experience I will never forget.

MJ: What are your day to day duties here Michael?

MM: Besides answering a lot of phone calls, and from people who somehow get

my name, they want to get into the club free, can I get them on the guest

list, which happens a lot, I am handling a lot of television shows, quite a

bit. Usually heavily involved in the grand opening of the clubs.

Coordinating shoots with, the MTV's, the VH-1's the CNN's, the

Entertainment Tonight's, that sort of thing, to the shows that we produce

our self. Right now I'm working on a real nice Bob Dylan project, and I

have a number of projects that I'm working with NHK on. I have a weekly

radio show that I co-produce for

6

CBS radio. That show's on about 160 stations around the country, and we

just won the Best Radio Program in the World at the International Festival

in New York. I think there were 4,000 entries, there was independent judge

of panel, and we just won this year. We won two gold medals. This year we

won the ultimate prize. And I have two more radio shows that I'm getting

ready to launch. I'm doing a radio show for Public Radio. I'm doing a

Gospel radio show, and developing a whole new television series. Besides a

number of one off specials, a weekly television series. So that keeps me

fairly busy during the course of a day. And then some festivals that I've

always been involved with. I've done work at the New Orleans Jazz and

Heritage Festival for years. And there's a festival in Japan that I've been

doing for six years now. So overall, it's exciting, busy.

MJ: Can you tell us something about your background, and where you grew up,

and your family, and how you got involved in music?

MM: Yeah. The... well, I was born in New Orleans, which to me is the number

one music city in the world. It's... I'm prejudiced, but it's an amazing

city. And the... my background was really... initially I was in marketing

and retail. I owned a couple of stores, and did that for 12 years, but I

always wanted to get back to music. I mean, being a product of the '60's,

and when I mean a product, I mean influenced by the '60's, that time in

American history, there's not too many folks who have come out of that who

haven't been influenced by either the music, the race issues, the issues of

the Vietnam War, and the rest of it, that it just influenced all of us. So

I always wanted to get back to music. And I went back to school and got a

degree in broadcast production, and I started producing radio shows first

for WGBH out of Boston, and I

7

decided that I was going to starve if I kept doing radio shows, so I

decided to become an independent producer in television. And I noticed that

the jazz, the Jazz Festival in New Orleans, that has an enormous amount of

music, and loved worldwide, nobody was taping it. So I self funded a shoot

one year at the Jazz Fest, and I took that tape to NHK through an

introduction in New York, and wound up creating about 15 hours of

programming every year for five years, all music. And it just so happened

that I was trying to produce a series on the history of American blues, and

I was passionate about that, and the city I had picked as one of the

important cities was Memphis. I thought New Orleans, Memphis and Chicago

were key. And I was having trouble in Memphis getting any sort of

reception. Somebody had told me that this guy named Isaac Tigrett was from

Memphis, who started the Hard Rock. So I pulled a couple of political

strings, and I got introduced to Isaac, and he asked me what I wanted to

come see him for, and I said, "Just to talk to you about a history of blues

project I'm trying to do." So we sat down for a couple hours, we talked

about my love of blues music, his understanding of the Memphis scene, and I

never got the project funded, but Isaac hired me, he called me up one day,

and this is how I got to meet Danny. He said, "You know, I'm coming to New

Orleans with Danny Aykroyd, don't know him, but, you know, let's drink some

beer and listen to music." So we did that, and then four weeks later I got

a phone call, saying, "We're starting this House of Blues project. You know

nothing about it. You want to come on board and help us?" And that's how it

happened, and the unfortunate part is now I live in Los Angeles. It's a

great city, but there's nothing like home. So I just moved here literally

six weeks ago I guess it is now.

8

MJ: L.A. is sort of famous for having so many clubs on Sunset Boulevard,

the famous ones. How is House of Blues different from the rest of them?

MM: That's a good question. I would think the answer to that would be, take

a look at the club. I mean, what you see in the club is Isaac's vision.

He's a disciple of a, how do you say it...it's Sai Baba in India. A

spiritual leader I think is the correct way to present that picture. And in

the club you see a lot of Indian motif. He is a firm believer in his

religious teachings, so you see a lot of that, combined with an incredible

mixture of American folk art. And it just gives an atmosphere to the club

that is quite unique. Very unusual. It just has a richness and it has a

soul to it. It's there. I mean, he will go to the extreme where, he

actually went to Mississippi and he did two things. He had, God knows how

much dirt from the Delta shipped here from Mississippi, and actually poured

under the stage.

MJ: Is that right?

MM: Yeah. The second thing he did was, when he was traveling through

Mississippi, this club was finished. The outside was contemporary, almost

like a redwood finish. When he was in Mississippi, he was struck by the old

cotton gins, the cotton mills, so he happened to find an old cotton

warehouse, that was like, I don't know, 100 years old, that was covered in

tin. So he went to the farmer, and said, "If you let me buy your old tin,

I'll put new tin for you." So he actually bought tin that covered an old

cotton warehouse that, you know, just given the history of the legacy of

the land, you know, and the personal triumphs, and the personal problems

that the Delta and the people who worked the land have experienced. And he

took that tin, and he had it stripped off, and shipped here, and that tin

covers the entire venue. And it

9

sounds a little over the top, it's expensive to do, but it sure works. It's

just a feeling. And you'll find the same thing in all the clubs. There's a

stamp to it, that just... It is like dirt, it just feels real. It's got

depth to it. And that to me is what you don't find in other clubs.

MJ:You know, Hollywood is sort of known for maybe being a little shallow,

and in the middle of Sunset Boulevard, you've got this very authentic club.

MM: Right.

MJ: It's sort of... The contrasts are sort of interesting,aren't they?

MM: Yeah. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with Isaac on that

subject. When this club was open like the first six months, this wasn't the

Foundation Room in the sense of what it's used for now. It was the hangout,

the club. And what struck me, was, every night I'd come in here, and it was

always filled with, not only the stars, but also the wannabes. And there's

a lot of wannabes in this town who aren't really comfortable with who they

are. And it struck me that the town felt very exclusionary. So I took Isaac

outside, and we sat on the patio, and I said, "You know, if you change this

concept, if you made this a mandatory... people have join this, and

proceeds go to fund your foundation, and let the people who join the

foundation know that, yes, it's going to have an exclusionary side to it,

because it's cool to be a member, but you're also letting them know there's

a purpose for the fee, and there's a purpose for the foundation." And Isaac

actually followed that comment. Which I thought was great. And people

really come to appreciate the whole club, not just this one beautiful room,

and I think it's made a difference.

10

MJ: How many guests do you see on an average week, or year, or month or

whatever? Any count?

MM: I don't count. I mean, being perfectly honest, being so involved with

the company so long, I don't come here every night. People are always

amazed. I like to go home after work, and I like to usually read, and I

love to cook, and it relaxes me from the day. So when I come to the club,

normally it's for very stated purposes. Like today to meet you. I had

dinner here recently with a Japanese artist that we're going to be doing

some work with. Two nights ago with Disney television. So I see maybe an

average of maybe 20 guests a month. If I wanted to, I could come here and

see hundreds a week, but it would just totally burn me out. And it's... I

don't know, for those involved in the music business, television business,

I don't find a lot of us, and maybe you included, we don't rush home to go

turn on television, or we don't go rush, you know, to the next bar to see

another band. It's, you know, "Been there, done it," sort of thing. But

it's really, you need to step away to have a balanced life.

MJ: What do you want guests who visit the House of Blues to come away with?

MM: It'd be great when the people come to the club, if they can really

feel that they experienced something special. And that... It can be

something special as a wonderful dinner, it can be special in terms of

music, it can be special in terms of meeting somebody at the club that

enjoys the same sort of music you're there for. You know, life's tough

enough on a daily basis, and if there can be like a little oasis to come

here and just forget about your troubles for three or four hours. And you

don't have to spend a lot of money in this club

11

to have a good time. That to me kind of says it all. We have an enormous

amount of return clientele. A lot of people come here all the time. So

there must be something right that we're doing in terms of the atmosphere,

in terms of presenting live music in a nice venue. And for the musicians,

we really try to treat the musicians very well. We don't always succeed,

but we try, and they seem to appreciate that too.

MJ: What does the blues, what do the blues mean to you?

MM: The blues used to mean for me sitting in a bar and trying to pick up a

girl someplace back in New Orleans. But I've really enjoyed reading more

about the blues, and what the struggles were of the people who really just

worked the land, and how they tried to express their sorrows, or their

hopes and wishes through their music. And there's just a real authentic

piece of Americana in blues music. And that's really great. I mean, it's a

real substantive part of my life, you know, that, you know, it's a renewed

appreciation. I mean, I love to listen to Muddy Waters and Big Joe Turner

and that whole Delta blues - Robert Johnson. I did that for a long time.

But I was listening to the music, having a few beers, enjoying myself, now,

I can go home and put on a CD, and read while I listen to the music. And I

just love it. I absolutely love it.

MJ: How is the blues different from the gospel you talked about, or the

Negro spirituals? Is that all mixed in together, or how do you

differentiate?

MM: I think it's all part of the same, you know, I really do. I think it's

all a part of early American music, is the best way I can describe it. I'm

not a historian, but I think it's all coming from the African-American

experience,

12

the culture of what those people faced here in this country. At times it

was wonderful, I'm sure at times it was hostile and frightening. And music,

really for the whole world, can bring peace to people, to their soul. Just

for them, for that individual. And that is what I think is the indelible

mark of Gospel music, of spirituals, of blues music. It's not really music,

if you think about it, it's not music for the masses. It's normally an

individual expressing passion about life. And that passion can be happiness

or sadness.

MJ: Is it fair to say that hard times can make for great music?

MM: Yeah, I think so, and hard times can make for, you know, lousy music,

too, you know. But, yeah, I mean, I think you can say that. I think, you

know, at least hard times can fuel the creative process. I've got a brother

who's a struggling writer. And his hard times force him to his typewriter,

he doesn't have a computer, and he writes when he's feeling down. I'm sure

if he was a musician, he'd write music, but he writes novels. So I think

it's just part of the human condition.

MJ: Thanks for joining us today.

MM: Sure. It was great. It was great.

MJ: Thanks for joining us today.

MM: Sure. It was a pleasure, Mark. Thank you very much.

Interview with Michael Murphy

MJ: Michael Murphy, thank you for joining us today.

MM: Sure, good to be here.

MJ: We're here at The House of Blues. Tell us what you do here and tell us

something about the The House of Blues if you would.

MM: I'm the president of House of Blues productions. My job is to do all

television shows, radio shows, special projects, festivals, things like

that. The House of Blues itself is now a multi-tiered entertainment

company. Initially it was just the concept of a restaurant with live

music. And now the company has grown into book publishing, tours,

television shows, radio shows, multi-media, new media divisions, a brand

new sports division, hotel division. So it's really expanded quite

rapidly.

MJ: Can you tell us how it started and the original ideas for it and how

many clubs you have now?

MM: Yeah. The concept came from a discussion between Isaac Tigrett who had

founded the Hard Rock and Danny Aykroyd, who everybody knows from the Blues

Brothers movie and Saturday Night Live fame. They had a conversation about

starting a club revolving around blues music. And that conversation

happened probably about five years ago. And five years later we have a new

club getting ready to open in Chicago. The first one was in Cambridge, then

we had New Orleans, Los Angeles, we'll be opening a club in Myrtle Beach

next year, in Orlando in the fall and then Tokyo, Paris, and

1

London. Quite aggressive growth.

MJ: So who are the owners?

MM: Well the owners are now it's now a corporation. So it's now investors

as diverse as the endowment fund for Harvard University to Disney to, you

know, the regular corporate investors. The Chemical Banks, that sort of

investors. So it's no longer just a company owned by an individual. It

was back in 1992, when I first joined up with Mr. Tigrett, but now you have

the whole board of directors. There's probably be a list of 500 people

investing.

MJ: Of course Dan Aykroyd is famous for his Blues Brothers, for being a

part of the Blues Brothers. Is that where he got the idea? Has he always

been a fan of the blues?

MM: Yeah, I mean, Danny is amazing. He's like a walking encyclopedia, of

really, American music. Danny's always loved the Blues. I didn't know the

gentleman until in '92 when I first met him. And he came to New Orleans,

and I was asked to take him around and show him the city. And I was a

little star struck, but I took him to see some musicians that I happen to

love which was New Orleans blues, R&B. And very quickly I learned that

Danny really knows who recorded what song when, who the band was, the lead

singer. Actually Danny, through that, involvement with Danny, Danny now

hosts the radio show that we do, and he conducts all the interviews, and

he's amazing. He really loves American blues. He loves, he loves music.

MJ: Can you tell us about this building? There are several floors, and what

happens on what floor, and what happens during the week, and the weekends

as well?

2

MM: Sure. It is a multi-level club. This room right here is the Foundation

Room. There is a House of Blues Foundation that is an educational

foundation. And we bring bus loads of school kids here three times a week,

and they get lessons on art, they get lessons on music, on food, basically

African-American culture. And we have people who join the foundation,

they have use of the room, for entertainment purposes, and then the

proceeds from all that fuels the money for the foundation. That's this

level here. Then you have the restaurant level, which is basically a

multi-tiered sort of restaurant. It has a patio outside, it has seating

inside. It has seating around the balconies downstairs also. It's a full

working restaurant. It stays busy non-stop. Great menu, a lot of Southern

cooking, but also a lot of cooking that you'll find here in California and

you'll find the same thing in Chicago or New Orleans. And then we have the

actual nightclub itself. And that's the, that's where the people come,

that's where a thousand people a night, twelve hundred people a night

every night, seven days a week, to see anything from blues to Gospel, to

jazz, to rap, you name it. Which is pretty exciting that the House of Blues

really embraces all forms of music, and once people understand that, they

recognize what the company is about, because House of Blues, we're really

just saluting the roots of American music and it's just like a tree, you

know. The roots are there, but it impacted all levels of music. And that's

why you'll see a very diverse line-up.

MJ: Are people surprised to learn that rock-n-roll has, you know, a

foundation in the blues, and gospel, and the Negro spirituals? Are

people... Are you educating people in a sense?

MM:Yeah, actually we are. And what's surprising is I've done a lot of

3

television work for Europe and for Japan, and the Europeans, and the people

in Japan seem to have a much better understanding of American music. At

least a working knowledge. And they seem to appreciate it more. Here in our

own country, you know, it took the British to come back, and you know, in

the '60's, and take basically American blues and R&B, and throw it back at

us in terms of bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones and the rest

of them. So, that's been the fun part of the process, and you know, it's...

I have a 16-year old boy. When he was eleven I think, he called me up

cause of my involvement with House of Blues at twelve years old and he

said, "Dad, have you ever heard of a band called Led Zeppelin?" and he said

"They do blues." I said, "Yeah, yeah, Jonathan." So it's a lot of younger

kids now who are really getting into it, and it's exciting.

MJ: And how many bands play in a typical week at the House of Blues?

MM: I guess you could say the average would be 12 to 14 bands a week.

Normally a headlining act, with an opening act. And then on Sundays we have

a Gospel Brunch, where there's three seatings, and it's all Gospel music,

and quite surprisingly, most of the audience is middle class, white men and

women and kids who are just coming to understand Gospel for the first time,

but because it's in a place like the House of Blues, they think, you know,

"It must be cool." But Gospel music is one of my favorites. It's great

music. And so, you know, it's all part of the process of the experience of

coming to the club.

MJ: What is the feeling on Sunday, in the club, at the Gospel Brunch?

MM: It's pretty intense. I mean, I've been to a couple of them, I've made

one

4

into a television show. But what is great to see, is that even though it's

predominantly, you know, white people coming, you will have maybe 25%

African-Americans there, you'll have a lot of Japanese coming, some

Europeans coming, and every seating, every time, at the end of it

everybody's holding hands together. They're singing, they're clapping, and

they really leave with a renewed appreciation not only for music, but for

just the cross cultural experience of coming together and enjoying a

certain style of music that is really kind of uplifting. I mean it's

actually one of our most popular events. To get a ticket for the Gospel

Brunch, you usually got to call about a month in advance. It's pretty

amazing and it all started in Cambridge. That was the first club, and Isaac

felt that given the enormous amount of students in Cambridge, Boston area,

because of the universities there, and given their sophistication, if

you're going to break a brand, and get feedback, that's where you break it.

So Cambridge was our first, a tiny little club. It's actually a house. But

it was well received, it did wonderful business, and so it proved that the

concept worked, and the rest you know, is...here we are.

MJ: Who are some of the artists who have played here over the years?

MM: Boy, we've had, you know, obviously Danny Aykroyd and the Blues

Brothers Band, we've had Eric Clapton, we've had Johnny Cash, we've had Bob

Dylan, George Clinton and P-Funk. We have Public Enemy. We've had an

enormous amount of different, varying types of music. The Blind Boys of

Alabama, you know, a Gospel group, so there aren't too many acts who aren't

calling to get in to play the club. It's really a situation where the

record companies and managers, they call constantly. "How can we get our

acts into the House of Blues Club?" So, it's, you know, kind of a good

situation to have

5

there.

MJ: How has it been for you to see this business grow so exponentially in

such a short period of time?

MM: It's been real exciting, it's been a lot of work. Literally, if you see

a picture of me from back in '92 when I first joined the company my beard

was totally black. The amount of work has been relentless. There have been

times when I would spend eight months traveling 25 days a month, when the

company was first starting. So it has been real exciting to get something

started from the ground up. I was an independent producer, I had my own

company. I was doing fine. I was doing a lot of work for NHK in New

Orleans, I was doing some work with some record labels. And probably

because I didn't have the knowledge of what it was going to take to help

Isaac start a company like this, you know, I agreed to sign on, because

now, the... I look back, and it's been a lot of fun, an incredible amount

of work. You know, it's been an experience I will never forget.

MJ: What are your day to day duties here Michael?

MM: Besides answering a lot of phone calls, and from people who somehow get

my name, they want to get into the club free, can I get them on the guest

list, which happens a lot, I am handling a lot of television shows, quite a

bit. Usually heavily involved in the grand opening of the clubs.

Coordinating shoots with, the MTV's, the VH-1's the CNN's, the

Entertainment Tonight's, that sort of thing, to the shows that we produce

our self. Right now I'm working on a real nice Bob Dylan project, and I

have a number of projects that I'm working with NHK on. I have a weekly

radio show that I co-produce for

6

CBS radio. That show's on about 160 stations around the country, and we

just won the Best Radio Program in the World at the International Festival

in New York. I think there were 4,000 entries, there was independent judge

of panel, and we just won this year. We won two gold medals. This year we

won the ultimate prize. And I have two more radio shows that I'm getting

ready to launch. I'm doing a radio show for Public Radio. I'm doing a

Gospel radio show, and developing a whole new television series. Besides a

number of one off specials, a weekly television series. So that keeps me

fairly busy during the course of a day. And then some festivals that I've

always been involved with. I've done work at the New Orleans Jazz and

Heritage Festival for years. And there's a festival in Japan that I've been

doing for six years now. So overall, it's exciting, busy.

MJ: Can you tell us something about your background, and where you grew up,

and your family, and how you got involved in music?

MM: Yeah. The... well, I was born in New Orleans, which to me is the number

one music city in the world. It's... I'm prejudiced, but it's an amazing

city. And the... my background was really... initially I was in marketing

and retail. I owned a couple of stores, and did that for 12 years, but I

always wanted to get back to music. I mean, being a product of the '60's,

and when I mean a product, I mean influenced by the '60's, that time in

American history, there's not too many folks who have come out of that who

haven't been influenced by either the music, the race issues, the issues of

the Vietnam War, and the rest of it, that it just influenced all of us. So

I always wanted to get back to music. And I went back to school and got a

degree in broadcast production, and I started producing radio shows first

for WGBH out of Boston, and I

7

decided that I was going to starve if I kept doing radio shows, so I

decided to become an independent producer in television. And I noticed that

the jazz, the Jazz Festival in New Orleans, that has an enormous amount of

music, and loved worldwide, nobody was taping it. So I self funded a shoot

one year at the Jazz Fest, and I took that tape to NHK through an

introduction in New York, and wound up creating about 15 hours of

programming every year for five years, all music. And it just so happened

that I was trying to produce a series on the history of American blues, and

I was passionate about that, and the city I had picked as one of the

important cities was Memphis. I thought New Orleans, Memphis and Chicago

were key. And I was having trouble in Memphis getting any sort of

reception. Somebody had told me that this guy named Isaac Tigrett was from

Memphis, who started the Hard Rock. So I pulled a couple of political

strings, and I got introduced to Isaac, and he asked me what I wanted to

come see him for, and I said, "Just to talk to you about a history of blues

project I'm trying to do." So we sat down for a couple hours, we talked

about my love of blues music, his understanding of the Memphis scene, and I

never got the project funded, but Isaac hired me, he called me up one day,

and this is how I got to meet Danny. He said, "You know, I'm coming to New

Orleans with Danny Aykroyd, don't know him, but, you know, let's drink some

beer and listen to music." So we did that, and then four weeks later I got

a phone call, saying, "We're starting this House of Blues project. You know

nothing about it. You want to come on board and help us?" And that's how it

happened, and the unfortunate part is now I live in Los Angeles. It's a

great city, but there's nothing like home. So I just moved here literally

six weeks ago I guess it is now.

8

MJ: L.A. is sort of famous for having so many clubs on Sunset Boulevard,

the famous ones. How is House of Blues different from the rest of them?

MM: That's a good question. I would think the answer to that would be, take

a look at the club. I mean, what you see in the club is Isaac's vision.

He's a disciple of a, how do you say it...it's Sai Baba in India. A

spiritual leader I think is the correct way to present that picture. And in

the club you see a lot of Indian motif. He is a firm believer in his

religious teachings, so you see a lot of that, combined with an incredible

mixture of American folk art. And it just gives an atmosphere to the club

that is quite unique. Very unusual. It just has a richness and it has a

soul to it. It's there. I mean, he will go to the extreme where, he

actually went to Mississippi and he did two things. He had, God knows how

much dirt from the Delta shipped here from Mississippi, and actually poured

under the stage.

MJ: Is that right?

MM: Yeah. The second thing he did was, when he was traveling through

Mississippi, this club was finished. The outside was contemporary, almost

like a redwood finish. When he was in Mississippi, he was struck by the old

cotton gins, the cotton mills, so he happened to find an old cotton

warehouse, that was like, I don't know, 100 years old, that was covered in

tin. So he went to the farmer, and said, "If you let me buy your old tin,

I'll put new tin for you." So he actually bought tin that covered an old

cotton warehouse that, you know, just given the history of the legacy of

the land, you know, and the personal triumphs, and the personal problems

that the Delta and the people who worked the land have experienced. And he

took that tin, and he had it stripped off, and shipped here, and that tin

covers the entire venue. And it

9

sounds a little over the top, it's expensive to do, but it sure works. It's

just a feeling. And you'll find the same thing in all the clubs. There's a

stamp to it, that just... It is like dirt, it just feels real. It's got

depth to it. And that to me is what you don't find in other clubs.

MJ:You know, Hollywood is sort of known for maybe being a little shallow,

and in the middle of Sunset Boulevard, you've got this very authentic club.

MM: Right.

MJ: It's sort of... The contrasts are sort of interesting,aren't they?

MM: Yeah. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with Isaac on that

subject. When this club was open like the first six months, this wasn't the

Foundation Room in the sense of what it's used for now. It was the hangout,

the club. And what struck me, was, every night I'd come in here, and it was

always filled with, not only the stars, but also the wannabes. And there's

a lot of wannabes in this town who aren't really comfortable with who they

are. And it struck me that the town felt very exclusionary. So I took Isaac

outside, and we sat on the patio, and I said, "You know, if you change this

concept, if you made this a mandatory... people have join this, and

proceeds go to fund your foundation, and let the people who join the

foundation know that, yes, it's going to have an exclusionary side to it,

because it's cool to be a member, but you're also letting them know there's

a purpose for the fee, and there's a purpose for the foundation." And Isaac

actually followed that comment. Which I thought was great. And people

really come to appreciate the whole club, not just this one beautiful room,

and I think it's made a difference.

10

MJ: How many guests do you see on an average week, or year, or month or

whatever? Any count?

MM: I don't count. I mean, being perfectly honest, being so involved with

the company so long, I don't come here every night. People are always

amazed. I like to go home after work, and I like to usually read, and I

love to cook, and it relaxes me from the day. So when I come to the club,

normally it's for very stated purposes. Like today to meet you. I had

dinner here recently with a Japanese artist that we're going to be doing

some work with. Two nights ago with Disney television. So I see maybe an

average of maybe 20 guests a month. If I wanted to, I could come here and

see hundreds a week, but it would just totally burn me out. And it's... I

don't know, for those involved in the music business, television business,

I don't find a lot of us, and maybe you included, we don't rush home to go

turn on television, or we don't go rush, you know, to the next bar to see

another band. It's, you know, "Been there, done it," sort of thing. But

it's really, you need to step away to have a balanced life.

MJ: What do you want guests who visit the House of Blues to come away with?

MM: It'd be great when the people come to the club, if they can really

feel that they experienced something special. And that... It can be

something special as a wonderful dinner, it can be special in terms of

music, it can be special in terms of meeting somebody at the club that

enjoys the same sort of music you're there for. You know, life's tough

enough on a daily basis, and if there can be like a little oasis to come

here and just forget about your troubles for three or four hours. And you

don't have to spend a lot of money in this club

11

to have a good time. That to me kind of says it all. We have an enormous

amount of return clientele. A lot of people come here all the time. So

there must be something right that we're doing in terms of the atmosphere,

in terms of presenting live music in a nice venue. And for the musicians,

we really try to treat the musicians very well. We don't always succeed,

but we try, and they seem to appreciate that too.

MJ: What does the blues, what do the blues mean to you?

MM: The blues used to mean for me sitting in a bar and trying to pick up a

girl someplace back in New Orleans. But I've really enjoyed reading more

about the blues, and what the struggles were of the people who really just

worked the land, and how they tried to express their sorrows, or their

hopes and wishes through their music. And there's just a real authentic

piece of Americana in blues music. And that's really great. I mean, it's a

real substantive part of my life, you know, that, you know, it's a renewed

appreciation. I mean, I love to listen to Muddy Waters and Big Joe Turner

and that whole Delta blues - Robert Johnson. I did that for a long time.

But I was listening to the music, having a few beers, enjoying myself, now,

I can go home and put on a CD, and read while I listen to the music. And I

just love it. I absolutely love it.

MJ: How is the blues different from the gospel you talked about, or the

Negro spirituals? Is that all mixed in together, or how do you

differentiate?

MM: I think it's all part of the same, you know, I really do. I think it's

all a part of early American music, is the best way I can describe it. I'm

not a historian, but I think it's all coming from the African-American

experience,

12

the culture of what those people faced here in this country. At times it

was wonderful, I'm sure at times it was hostile and frightening. And music,

really for the whole world, can bring peace to people, to their soul. Just

for them, for that individual. And that is what I think is the indelible

mark of Gospel music, of spirituals, of blues music. It's not really music,

if you think about it, it's not music for the masses. It's normally an

individual expressing passion about life. And that passion can be happiness

or sadness.

MJ: Is it fair to say that hard times can make for great music?

MM: Yeah, I think so, and hard times can make for, you know, lousy music,

too, you know. But, yeah, I mean, I think you can say that. I think, you

know, at least hard times can fuel the creative process. I've got a brother

who's a struggling writer. And his hard times force him to his typewriter,

he doesn't have a computer, and he writes when he's feeling down. I'm sure

if he was a musician, he'd write music, but he writes novels. So I think

it's just part of the human condition.

MJ: Thanks for joining us today.

MM: Sure. It was great. It was great.

MJ: Thanks for joining us today.

MM: Sure. It was a pleasure, Mark. Thank you very much.