Hollis King
Record industry executive and producer Tommy LiPuma.
Record industry executive and producer Tommy LiPuma helped run some of the biggest labels in the world.
Tommy LiPuma was a music man through and through. He started in the industry playing gigs as a teenager, and his story takes him from the mailroom of a Cleveland record distributor in the ’50s to Hollywood by the early ’60s. There he eventually co-owned his own marque and helped run some of the biggest labels in the world. Even those not familiar with his name certainly would recognize much of the music he was involved in creating over the years: Grammy Award-winning projects with George Benson, Natalie Cole and Diana Krall are just a few examples.
Madison renaissance man Ben Sidran is the perfect person to reflect on the life of LiPuma, who died at age 80 in 2017, in The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma, just out from Nardis Books. His relationship with LiPuma goes back to 1972 and Sidran’s second solo album, I Lead a Life, which was issued on LiPuma’s freewheeling Blue Thumb label. Sidran makes it clear in the book’s prelude that this biography is “not the definitive history of Tommy.” Rather, “these are the stories he told me over a period of years.” The book that has emerged from a lifetime of friendship is a fitting, heartfelt tribute, and a fascinating window into a bygone recording industry era, a time before physical media was overshadowed by a sea of streaming options.
Growing up in Cleveland, the son of a barber, LiPuma displayed strong interest in music from his early years. It became a passion during years of convalescence when a baseball injury led to a hard-to-diagnose bone infection. As his playmates deserted him, and he was in and out of hospitals and care facilities, the radio became a lifeline — especially when he discovered the local R&B station, WJMO. Sidran connects this traumatic, isolated period of LiPuma’s childhood with the empathetic production style he eventually developed; LiPuma describes one particularly hurtful incident that led him to try to become “the nicest guy in the room.”
In junior high, LiPuma picked up the saxophone; before long late-night gigs and a general lack of interest in school led him to drop out during 10th grade. By the mid-1950s he had developed what would become a lifelong love of jazz music, and was leading a dual life as a barber by day and saxophonist/occasional vocalist with the Sammy Dee Orchestra at night. Ironically, it was the barbering that eventually provided his entree to the music business. His barber shop became a hangout for local Cleveland promo men and DJs. Those connections led to a mailroom job at the Cleveland branch of MS Distributing, which sold records to retailers and promoted current singles for radio station playlists. He quickly moved up at MS, where he had some success spotting and pushing potential hits. That led to a move to Los Angeles in the early ’60s, when a promo job opened up at Liberty Records — via another barber shop connection.
courtesy The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
A Blue Thumb marketing meeting checking out Dave Mason's "Alone Together" album: (left to right): Don Graham, Tommy LiPuma, Sal Iannucci, Bob Krasnow.
Music fans will particularly enjoy Sidran’s book once the scene moves to LA in the 1960s. LiPuma’s career moved quickly through many changes, parallel to the then-exploding record industry during that decade (and, of course, culture itself). Sidran traces how LiPuma became a prime mover during the industry’s commercial explosion, managing to maintain his musical soul and that of the artists he worked with even while making hit records. There are not too many artists or producers who can claim that over an entire career, and it’s heartening to read the story of someone who pulled it off with aplomb, from a fellow artist who was there along the way.
“He loved being with creative people, enjoying a good bottle of wine, exchanging war stories and laughing, always laughing,” Sidran writes. “Tommy raised hanging out to a high art.”
Hear more about the book and Tommy LiPuma from Sidran himself on May 20 at 7 p.m. during a chat with journalist Doug Moe. The virtual event is hosted by Mystery to Me on Crowdcast. Sidran was also the inaugural guest for a wide-ranging conversation on Stuart Levitan’s WORT-FM program Madison BookBeat, which can be heard here.
