HORSE-DOGGIN’ – THE MORRELL ARCHIVES VOLUME 1,
TALES FROM LEGENDARY PROMO MAN AND BEATLES COLLECTOR DAVE MORRELL, IS OUT NOW
Book Chronicles The Music, The Madness, The Mayhem And The Fun Of NYC Circa 1971, As Teen Journeys From Superfan To Music Biz Insider
Industry Tastemakers And Beatles Fans Ask For More After Morrell’s Post About His First Meeting With John Lennon, Who Gave Dave His Own Personal Copy Of The Butcher Album Cover
New Book Excerpt Posted Today – Click HERE
Horse-Doggin’, the first volume in the memoirs of longtime record company promo man and Beatles collector Dave Morrell, is now available HERE on Amazon.com in ebook and paperback formats. The 20-chapter book features vignettes from Morrell’s madcap, music-fueled teen years in the Big Apple in the early 1970s.
The invitation-only Beatles fan forum You Won’t See Me lit up late last year when members convinced Morrell to tell them about the first time he met John Lennon. That 1971 evening ended with an extraordinary record exchange – Lennon gave his own personal copy of the rare “Butcher” cover of The Beatles Yesterday And Today to Morrell and Dave reciprocated, giving John his copy of the Yellow Matter Custard Beatles bootleg. Morrell’s brief post got forum members begging for more, thus spurring him to finish the first book in the series.
Morrell recently gave fans a preview of the self-published Horse-Doggin’, posting the chapter that tells how Howard Smith, then a WPLJ-New York DJ and Village Voice columnist, brought Dave to the Record Plant East at Lennon’s request for that first meeting. You can read it HERE.
The response from musicians, journalists, radio station program directors and other industry insiders was phenomenal. Collective Soul’s Ed Roland called it “the coolest story ever.” Bill Knoedelseder, author of The New York Times bestseller Bitter Brew and Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business and the Mafia, said, “the anecdote about Yoko signing the photo was priceless! I really did laugh out loud…it says so much.” WXRT/Chicago’s John Farneda, WTMD/Baltimore’s Scott Mullins and music journalist Lee Zimmerman (Blurt, American Songwriter, Elmore) pronounced it “awesome.” Lenny Bronstein, former head of rock radio promotion at A&M, called it the “best thing I’ve read in years.” WFUV-NYC’s Darren DeVivo marveled, “Dave…you are THE MAN! It’s fascinating to hear about these items today because over the past 40 plus years, the collectors/bootleg market has gone through the stratosphere.”
Horse-Doggin’ – a great summer read at a succinct 101 pages – unfolds during the summer of 1971. FM radio is blaring Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” and Morrell, who has just graduated from high school, appropriates it as his theme song. He spends days working at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Newark, listening to the radio on his earphones, and nights going into New York City for concerts. “The only appetite I had was for more music, concerts and magazines that wrote about the rock & roll scene,” he writes.
After word got out about the teen’s record exchange with Lennon, the media descended on Morrell’s parent’s home in Kearny, NJ. CBS-TV sent a crew and The Village Voice observed, “The most miniscule point will set him blabbing for hours about his obsession, but his energized zaniness is appealing and infectious.” The Newark Star-Ledger and Bergen Record also profiled him. Correspondence began to pour in from around the world and, after throwing an informal Beatles collectors convention in his bedroom, Dave was getting upwards of 50 letters a day.
“Post Office Box E Kearny, NJ” – the chapter posted by Morrell today at http://davemorrell.wordpress.com/ – details how one such letter led to a partnership with Ron Furmanek. Ron’s extensive archives have since become legendary and he was one of the go-to guys when news organizations were seeking rare footage for their coverage of the Beatles’ 50th anniversary earlier this year. But he was only 15 when he met Morrell. Soon the two had launched a Beatles collectibles mail order business and Furmanek was making business cards for them in his high school’s print shop. Ron scored them eighth row seats to Elvis at Madison Square Garden – a row ahead of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, whom we also encounter later in the book.
Like East Coast counterparts to Cameron Crowe, Dave and Ron were music nerds who succeeded in channeling their passion into bonafide careers. Thanks to a tip from Furmanek, Dave landed a job as the Assistant Stock Boy in the eight-track tape department at the Warner/Elektra/Atlantic (WEA) warehouse distribution center in Carlstadt, NJ. Soon Morrell was upped to Promotion Coordinator and attending concerts by the likes of the Kinks, Bette Midler, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young and Alice Cooper was part of his job description, as was rallying the sales staff to get retail accounts out to the shows.
While the teen approached the work with gusto, it often gave him pause as he saw exactly how they stoked the starmaker machinery behind the popular songs. After a hugely successful 1973, WEA announced it was closing the distribution center and only a few employees would be making the move to the branch office at Rockefeller Center. Morrell was only 20 and poised for his next big step – which he will explore in the forthcoming 1974 – The Morrell Archives Volume 2, releasing later this year.
About the Author
Dave Morrell entered the music business in June of 1972. He hasn’t recovered yet, but he did find time to write about the early experiences of meeting his heroes in Horse-Doggin’ – The Morrell Archives Volume 1. Subsequent volumes will trace his adventures at such record companies as Warner Bros., RCA, Arista, Capitol and Geffen. Lured out to Los Angeles by Concord Music Group in 2005, he has since done independent promotion for 429 Records and Lakeshore Entertainment and purchased a convertible.
HORSE-DOGGIN’- The Morrell Archives Volume 1
By Dave Morrell
Paperback: 978-1497594104 US Price: $11.69
Kindle E-book: B00IZLEFQ6 US Price: $9.99
