Scott Tady: Rich Engler's gambles pay off; Billy Price is right

If you regularly attended Pittsburgh concerts in the 1970s, '80s or '90s, you knew about Rich Engler.

His name was on your ticket stub, as the more hands-on half of DiCesare-Engler Productions, that era's dominant concert bookers regionally, bringing to town most of the big acts.

His title might have been "promoter," though Engler says a more fitting one might have been "gambler," as he explains in "Behind The Stage Door," a documentary about his trailblazing career debuting Sept. 13 on DIRECTV, Apple TV, iTunes, Verizon FIOS and Frontier Communications. The movie makes its cinematic debut on Oct. 1 and again on Oct.. 15 at 5:30 p.m., in surround sound at The Rangos Giant Cinema at Carnegie Science Center.

The film outlines Engler's life wheeling and dealing with A-list artists like The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney.

Engler gets emotional recalling how a noticeably weakened Bob Marley insisted on performing a Stanley Theatre show because his bandmates "needed the money." That Marley concert, Sept. 23, 1980, at what's now the Benedum Center, would be the final performance by Marley, who died less than eight months later from cancer.

"Behind the Stage Door" relies on interviews with music industry insiders like James Taylor's manager Peter Asher, Kiss' manager Doc McGhee, rockers Phil Ehart (Kansas), Lou Gramm (Foreigner), James Young (Styx), Danny Seraphine (Chicago) and Alex Lifeson, guitarist for Rush, who says "The relationship between a promoter and an artist is seldom a very close, personal relationship," noting Engler was an exception.

"We were well taken care of and respected," Lifeson said.

Gramm recalled Engler sitting in Pittsburgh radio station lobbies at 6 a.m., accompanying Foreigner on interviews hyping their local show.

"That endeared him to us even more," he said.

Engler recalls his blue-collar dad's reaction when first hearing his boy hoped to become a concert promoter: "I hate to tell you, son, that's not a career, that's a hobby."

One band manager says Engler and some other 1970s promoters acted like "godfathers" reigning over their turf, though they built the successful infrastructure for what became a billion-dollar concert industry.

More:This September will be one to remember for Beaver concertgoers

Engler helped rewrite the rulebook, as a promoter who also printed the concert tickets.

Though even successful gamblers and godfathers experience losses.

"You're throwing $3 million down on the table in a bet that an attraction is going to at least break even," Engler said. "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

Exhibit A: The 1988 Monsters of Rock show at Three Rivers Stadium with Van Halen, Metallica, The Scorpions, Dokken and Kingdom Come.

"I needed 40,000 people to break even, did 30-some thousand people (and) lost $400,000 in one afternoon," Engler said. "That's brutal."

DiCesare-Engler made an absolute fortune in 1998 when it sold off its assets to Clear Channel, the conglomerate that became Live Nation, the industry's primary concert promoters and owners of venues like The Pavilion at Star Lake.

That transition hasn't necessarily benefitted concertgoers, the documentary claims.

"When big business takes over, everything changes," Engler said. "The music business really started to fall apart. Guess who gets hurt? The customer. Ticket prices just keep going up, up, up and up. Little did I know you sell your heart and soul and everything."

More:Getting deep with Blue Oyster Cult founder ahead of Munhall show

Billy Price's 50 years of soul

Love, lust, longing, lament − Billy Price dives into all the crucial emotions with that smooth and oh-so-soulful voice of his on a new three-CD set: "Billy Price: 50+ Years of Soul."

Pittsburgh's beloved blue-eyed soul/R&B singer curated the remixed collection, spanning evenly through his half-century career. He includes songs from his early 1970s days as vocalist with nationally known guitar virtuoso Roy Buchanan, onward to fronting The Keystone Rhythm Band and Billy Price Band.

Price's liner notes give ample credit to the former Jeree Recording in New Brighton, where the first Price & The Keystone Rhythm Band album, "Is It Over?" was recorded in 1978-79.

"New Brighton was an unlikely locale for a recording studio," Price says, "but at the Jeree board was a kindred spirit named Don Garvin. Don, a great guitar player who played for many years with the Pure Gold oldies group, was a soul-blues aficionado just like me. We clicked from the moment we met, and Don would go on to engineer and play guitar on three albums for me at Jeree ("Danger Zone" and "The Soul Collection" were others).

The 16-page insert also discusses notable KRB and Billy Price Band alums like Eric Leeds who later joined music legend Prince's band; the late Glenn Pavone, whom Price recalls as a guitarist as talented as any national guitar god, and Eric DeFade, the two-time Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center adjunct professor, whom Price salutes on-stage amid a couple Disc 1 live selections.

The CDs also include cuts from Price's collaborations with his R&B/soul music hero Otis Clay and blues guitarist Fred Chapellier, who has helped Price expand his French fan base.

Available at billyprice.com, "Billy Price: 50+ Years of Soul" is one of those mood-lifting albums you play straight through, savoring that way Price vocally testifies about the almighty power of love. Album cuts like "I Know It's Your Party (I Just Came Here to Dance)" "Lifestyles of The Poor and Unknown," "It Ain't a Juke Joint Without The Blues" and "Let's Get Married" will put pep in your step.

To hear him live, get to the official CD release show Oct. 1 at the Syria Shrine Center in Cheswick.

WYEP weekend shuffle

Pittsburgh's 91.3 WYEP altered its weekend programming, eliminating a few specialty shows to give listeners more of the indie rock, Americana, blues and local hip-hop the station plays on weekdays.

Among the changes, "An American Sampler" leaves the Sunday evening schedule. Host Ken Batista has been among the station’s longest-tenured volunteer hosts, bringing folk and acoustic music to listeners for 31 years.

"The Soul Show," a tradition since 1995, also departs from its Saturday afternoon slot. Smooth-voiced host Mike Canton will continue the show on his website, soulshowmike.org.

Unchanged are the Saturday evening blues shows, Big Town Blues and Rollin' & Tumblin'.

Catch "The Grateful Dead Hour" 11 p.m. Sundays.

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Tady: Engler's gambles pay off; Billy Price is right