When I was thirteen I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and I immediately picked up a broom and imitated them playing something that was in their hands. Some-time later, I learned that what they had in their hands was called a guitar. Within two months I was standing at the loading dock of the Sears and Roebuck store, across from a park called The Fenway, with my arms outstretched, reaching up, while the warehouse guy lowered down my box with my bright red, shiny, new guitar in it. I took that guitar home and right away I started plucking the strings, singing to it, making up words, my hand doing what the Beatles had done.
By the time I was sixteen I was given a book by some people in a school for truants, dropouts and at-risk kids that I was going to at the time. The book was called 'Black Voices'. It was an anthology of poems and short stories by black poets and writers.
It was the first time I had seen or read a book like this with all African American writers and poets and it literally changed my entire life. I was now ready to begin my journey and knew that I wanted to be a writer or a journalist and that my guitar was a part of that. By the time I was seventeen I realized that I didn't know a damn thing about music. But I began saying things to my guitar that I knew about, drinking, drugs and girls, making up stories and poetry about life in the ghetto. Just like my 'Black Voices' book, except with music and words that I made up.
By the time I was eighteen years old I had left the projects for Lackland Air Force Base and Shephards Air Force Base in Texas, Misawa Air Force Base in Japan, Puson Air Force Base in South Korea, Tegu Air Force Base in South Korea and DaNang Air Force base in South Vietnam.
I later went to Los Angeles, where I found a guitar in Mexico and the words found me again. I met a woman who after she heard me say the words, on a guitar, put me in show business. I found a friend in the mail room at Warner Brothers and Columbia pictures called The Burbank Studios, and I would rite lyrics while he would play piano, giving notes to the chords that I would play on the piano for him.
It would be the first time I would write music and lyrics with somebody. Somehow that led to my being hired at Warner/Electra/Atlantic Records, (WEA) where someone thought I would do well to learn record distribution, marketing, accounting and sales. Then RCA Records hired me and I was trained in studio record production, music business, marketing, promotion, distribution, and A&R work.
A year I returned to Boston, met Maurice Starr, and got him a record deal with RCA Records, and he would introduce me to a young musician named Charles Alexander. We would call ourselves Prince Charles and the City Beat Band; and Maurice, his brother Michael Johnzon, Prince Charles and I would make some words and music and I would have my first hit record, "In the Streets", and go on to manage and produce, Prince Charles Alexander for the next ten years.
I would begin a record company called, Solid Platinum Records and Productions. We wrote and published, words and music, about things we grew up with, loved. I also worked with Maurice Starr on a New Kids on the Block album and received two more gold and platinum albums and two ampex golden reel awards. In 1979, shortly after I had met Prince Charles Alexander and Maurice Starr, I met a muse named Yvonne, who attached herself to me, and became my inspiration.
Forever Yours, a book of unpublished works, words, poems and lyrics, is dedicated to Yvonne Rose for her friendship, love, and dedicated service, as my muse, wife, best friend and lover, for thirty-seven years.
Author Biography:
I would begin a record company called, Solid Platinum Records and Productions. We were very successful having production deals on Virgin Records, Atlantic Records and Pavilion - CBS/Sony Records, with licensing and co-publishing deals with many music companies in Europe, Canada, and the United States, sold some millions of records around the world, receiving two gold albums. We wrote and published, words and music, like, Stone Cold Killers, Combat Zone, More Money, City Life, Cash Money, Big Chested Girls, Fistful of Dollars, Bush Beat, Rise, You Are My Love, Video Freak, Don't Fake the Funk, Tight Jeans and Skintight Tina, songs from the albums, "Gang War", "Stone Killers", and "Combat Zone", about the ghetto, politics, money, sex and drugs, things we grew up with, loved, and knew very well. Some years later, I worked with Maurice Starr on a New Kids on the Block album and received two more gold and platinum albums and two ampex golden reel awards. My words and music with Prince Charles and the City Beat Band and the other groups I wrote for, are still played, bought, sold and listened to on YouTube.com, Amazon.com, iTunes.com, Google.com, Unidisc.com, Cdbaby.com, and every music source throughout the world, to this very day, this very second. That same year of, 1979, shortly after I had met Prince Charles Alexander and Maurice Starr, I met a muse named Yvonne, who attached herself to me, and became my inspiration. Forever Yours, a book of unpublished works, words, poems and lyrics, is dedicated to Yvonne Rose for her friendship, love, and dedicated service, as my muse, wife, best friend and lover, for thirty-seven years. I had enjoyed writing words, poems and lyrics since I was a young teenager. One day, once upon a time in a magical place, I married my muse, and during my early life, downtime from Prince Charles and the City Beat Band and upcoming life, I wrote, over the years, hundreds of these unpublished words, lyrics, and poems about 'love, life, and living', a lot of them about her, even before I had met her, and long after. After the music writing and lyric years, I became a book publisher and author, with the number one African American book publishing company in the world, writing six international-critically acclaimed-best-selling books: Is Modeling for You? The Handbook and Guide for the Aspiring Black Model; African American History in the United States of America; Before the Legend: The Rise of New Kids on the Block and a Guy Named Maurice Starr; How to be In the Entertainment Business and Become a Record Producer, Record Company, Personal Manager, Film Producer, and Book Publisher, A Beginners Guide to Success in the Music, Film, Television and Book Publishing Industries; The Autobiography of an American Ghetto Boy; America the Black Point of View; The Investigation of the White People of America and Western Europe and the Autobiography of an American Ghetto Boy; and The Investigation of the White People of America and Western Europe, bought, sold and read all over the world on YouTube.com, Amazon.com, Barnes and noble.com, iTunes.com, Google.com, and Amberbookspublishing.com. I would publish over two hundred book titles, receiving among other accolades, many Book Publisher of the Year Awards and winning an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature, and setting up a company, Quality Press in 2001, that to date has made authors and publishers of many thousands of African American writers. I would complete, during my lifetime, a 380 degree turn around from the music world back to the world of books and writing books, a promise that I had made to myself decades ago, when I had to make a conscientious decision to change from the writing and journalism world to the music world.
