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.