Harold Bronson is a true rock-n-roll Zelig. He’s an everywhere man who began his career as a teenage rock journalist before rising to become co-founder of Rhino Records, the revered label that has put decades of often overlooked and unappreciated music back into circulation to the delight of both lifelong fans and new generations of music lovers.
Bronson’s latest production is another intriguing one. It’s a memoir called Time Has Come Today: Rock and Roll Diaries 1967 – 2007 (Trouser Press Books). This 440-page opus written in diary form is the third book in Bronson’s ambitious autobiography project.
Before he co-founded America’s leading re-issue label, Bronson was just another Southern California kid who was mad about music. He channeled his passion and discerning ear into writing about music, first for the UCLA Daily Bruin then with Rolling Stone, Hit Parader, Melody Maker and many other magazines. After interviewing many of the greats, he helped co-found, with Richard Foos, Rhino Records from the back of Foos’ record store. The label was created to release novelty records like those of Dr. Demento and Wild Man Fischer. But, most importantly, it would go on to re-issue classic sounds and many unheard gems from the catalogs of artists who were critically undervalued at the time like Arthur Lee & Love and The Monkees.
Bronson’s book is very much a diary, one rendered with day-by-day entries. It begins in the Summer of Love with him journalizing his critical take on, and the price paid for, albums like Procol Harum’s Shine on Brightly and The Beatles’ White Album. There’s also his mini-reviews of the many concerts he attended by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine and The Vanilla Fudge. Soon, Bronson is getting his first paid work – an interview for Entertainment World with the Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb. Bronson hauls his massive reel-to-reel tape recorder to the interview, one where Gibb delights in telling him a stream of lies such as that he played and sang on The Beatles’ Abbey Road. In short order, Bronson is publishing features with artist like Cat Stevens (he looks like a “gypsy carnival worker”), Van Dyke Parks (who shows him “the future” from his office at Warner Brothers – the first fiber optic cable) and famed British session pianist Nicky Hopkins (who mistakes Jeff Beck for Mick Jagger at his first Rolling Stones’ meeting and who badmouths The Kinks for never paying him for his session work with them). There are also notables like comedian George Carlin and The Doors’ manager Danny Sugerman who he will interview repeatedly and forge lifelong friendships with.
Bronson’s life kicks into high gear in 1974, when he takes a job managing the Rhino Records store in L.A. Soon, Bronson and Foos will launch their label with novelty records by artists like Wild Man Fischer (the certifiably insane street singer discovered by Frank Zappa), The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra (with whom he makes appearances on national TV shows) and a reissue of tracks by comedian Alan Sherman of Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda fame. But Bronson and Rhino’s true worth would come with their lovingly crafted re-issues like the 1995 box set, Love Story (1966 – 1972). Bronson would have a long history with Arthur Lee, the band’s mercurial leader, a man he calls “an arrogant Muhammad Ali.”
Bronson’s book is chockful of humorous meetings with the likes of Iggy Pop (who asks for money to get wine and 10 aspirin at tackle a hangover), ELO’s Jeff Lynne (who confesses he can only write melodies between 10 am and noon) and Howard Kaylan (who recalls snorting coke off Abe Lincoln’s desk during a visit to the Nixon White House with his band, The Turtles). Also revealed is how Richard Delvy, a former surf musician/music entrepreneur, won the rights to “Wipeout” in a poker game.
Rhino Records would get much bigger until Bronson left the company in October 2001. Before that, there would be many acquisitions and partnerships that would find Bronson in the midst of many bigger things, such as bringing The Monkees TV show to a new generation via MTV and ultimately managing their careers, going into business with one his idols, Frank Zappa, on the Beat the Boots project and more. There’s even a cameo by the odious MAGA architect, Steve Bannon, during his days as a venture capitalist.
Credit should go to longtime music journalist Ira Robbins who is the driving force behind Trouser Press Books, the publisher of this and other fine releases reviewed here at NYSMusic. If you like Bronson’s LA-centric rock time trip, be sure to check out another Trouser Press book, Rock’s In My Head. This is the memoir of Art Fein chronicling his six decades in the California music scene, drawn from over 10,000 page of diaries he kept. For 20 years, he was the host of Art Fein’s Poker Party, a decidedly offbeat, ultra-low budget public affairs spectacular where the cream of music – from Phil Spector and Tom Waits to Joe Strummer and the Stray Cats – let down their guard over sometimes friendly, sometimes fierce games of cards.
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