On The
With
Marty Fishofis the man behind the
former Beatles All-Starr Band tours,
and a slew of other music/sports events.
GARY GRAFF SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
t's a chilly afternoon in Milwaukee,
but David Fishof is in his glory.
On the hotel floor below him is
Seattle Mariners' manager Lou
Piniella, one of Fishofs clients. A floor
above is former Beatle Ringo Starr,
for whom Fishof organizes and books
the successful All-Starr Band tours every
other year.
I've spent the whole day going between
Ringo and Lou," Fishof gushes, out of
breath from his ministrations. "It's very
exciting."
That's a good word for Fishofs life. At
40, he's a multifaceted entertainment im-
presario with interests in sports, music
and family entertainment. If he's not ne-
gotiating an athlete's contract, he's going
over details for a Grand Funk Railroad
tour or putting together the next Rock and
Roll Fantasy Camp.
Catch him at a show — such as Start's
recent stop in East Lansing — and you'll
find him lining up guests for a pre-show
meet 'n' greet, dispatching runners to pick
up playing cards and poker chips for the
flight to Atlanta, and carrying a birthday
cake onstage for All-Starr bassist Jack
Bruce.
At Grand Funk's recent series of Bosn-
ian benefit concerts, he got onstage — de-
spite boos from audiences wanting more
rock 'n' roll — to introduce Bosnia's U.N.
ambassador.
Mix Jerry Maguire with Col. Tom Park-
er, put a yarmulke on him, and you have
David Fishof.
"He's very creative," says Phil Ober of
Belkin Productions, who has promoted sev-
18
Gary Graff is a Detroit-based music
journalist and editor of MusicHound
Rock: The Essential Album Guide.
eral of Fishofs shows in the Detroit area.
"He's done wonders creatively for the busi-
ness in bringing some interesting things
other people didn't have the foresight to
deal with. He's not afraid to take a chance."
The wrinkle here is that Fishof is a de-
vout Jew working in industries that don't
usually make allowances for Orthodox
practices. As of sundown Friday — a prime
night in the entertainment business —
Fishof is out of touch until Shabbat ends.
He's not inaccessible, but he can't be
reached by telephone, and he won't drive
anywhere — not even to put out a fire at
one of his shows or to hear a multimillion
dollar endorsement offer for one of his
sports clients.
The people he works with not only ac-
cept this — they respect it.
One of Fishofs favorite stories comes
from the 1987 Super Bowl, where he rep-
resented eight New York Giants. It was
Friday afternoon, and Fishof was about to
change hotels to be closer to the synagogue
where he'd go to services the next morn-
ing.
He began briefing quarterback Phil
Simms on how to get ahold of him if nec-
essary, and Simms looked at him and said,
"Don't worry about a thing. Your Sabbath
is more important than the Super Bowl."
`That was the most encouraging thing
when he said that to me," Fishof remem-
bers. "And the kicker of the story is he went
out that Sunday and broke [almost] every
record. It was the best day ever for a quar-
terback.
`They've been very supportive of me —
all my artists, all my athletes. [New York
Giants] tight end Mark Bavaro came to
my house for a Friday night meal once. He
saw two challahs on the table and thought
they were rolls! He went to eat one and we
Marty Fishof, right, with Ringo Starr: "I always had this dream, because my brother is a drummer, to go
sign the world's greatest drummer."
said, 'No, no. We need those to last all
weekend!' "
Ritual and entertainment run hand in
hand in the Fishof family. His father Mark
Fishof — a survivor of Auschwitz and
Buchenwald — was the cantor at Temple
Beth El in Hackensak, N.J. (He recently
retired after 30 years.) Fishofs older broth-
er, Joey, played drums in a rock 'n' roll
band.
"I always wanted to be in my brother's
band, but because I was six years younger,
they didn't want me," says Fishof, who
learned the liturgy well enough to stand
in for High Holiday services when his fa-
ther was hospitalized five years ago.
"My father used to say to me, What do
you need to be in the band for? You can
book six bands and make the money. Why
don't you be behind the scenes?' "
Fishof took that advice to heart. He
started working as a waiter in the
Catskills, then began booking his broth-
er's band to play there. A chance meet-
ing with Herschel Bernardi landed Fishof
his first client, and he bolstered his pres-
ence by writing a syndicated celebrity gos-
sip column for Jewish publications around
the country.
One of his interviews was with New
York Mets utility player Elliot Maddox,
who was in the midst of converting to Ju-
daism. That provided Fishofs entree into
the sports world, and Fishof began rep-
resenting Simms, Piniella, Vince Ferrag-
amo, Freddie Dryer and others. The kid
who wanted to be in his brother's rock 'n'
roll band was now full-steam in the world
of "Jerry Maguire."
"I didn't lose a player like he did," Fishof
says of the character that earned Tom
Cruise an Oscar nomination, "but [the
movie] does tell you what athletes are like,
both in a positive and negative way."
Management, too. Fishofs worst nego-
tiation experience was with Cincinnati
Reds owner Marge Schott, when he went
to her house and saw Nazi memorabilia
laying around. "It made me go to her and
wind up charging more for the player,"
Fishof says.
But being a sports agent had its limita-
tions, too. "Show me the money is great,
but I get bored with that," he says. "I want
to be creative. That's why I enjoy the en-
tertainment business."
So he was open when he received a call
asking if he'd be interested in the Associ-
ation — even though his first question was,
`The Association of what?" The caller was
referring to the soft rock band that had hits
such as 'Windy" and "Cherish"; the group
was looking for management and a cre-
ative mind to find fresh avenues of expo-
sure.
Fishof hit on an idea — packaging the
Association with other acts of the same vin-
tage, such as the Turtles and the Grass
Roots. This wasn't a new idea; package
tours were standard procedure in rock 'n'
roll until the late '60s.
But Fishofs first foray, the "Happy To-
gether'' tour, hit the road in 1984 and ben-
efited from nostalgia fever generated by
the hit film The Big Chill. What was sup-
posed to be a 20-show tour turned into 125,
with a sequel a year later.
And Fishof was credited as a visionary
whose idea created a standard that was
applied for such '90s modern rock tours as
Lollapalooza, the H.O.R.D.E. and others.
What to do for an encore? In 1986, Fishof
watched a rerun of the Monkees' TV show
in a Kansas City hotel room; it got him
thinking, and he began tracking down the
members. Timing was on his side again;
MTV — whose offices were a floor above
Fishof in Manhattan — aired a day-long
Monkees marathon that spurred a new
generation of Monkee mania. Fishof locked
in MTV sponsorship for the tour, which
was one of the hottest of that year.