Ed Kleinman partied with the best of ‘em as a rock industry insider.

Ed Kleinman looks the part of a vintage rock ’n’ roll star. The lean, 71-year-old Towson resident sports multiple earrings, longish hair and peppers his speech with expressions like “Far out!”

It’s no wonder. In his 18 years as a fixture on the music scene, Kleinman had an all-access backstage pass to the world’s most popular and raucous rock acts. Along the way, he rose from a lowly roadie to the owner of an entertainment management company.

“Music moved my youth,” says Kleinman.

Kleinman, who belongs to Kol HaLev Synagogue in Baltimore, is an executive business coach offering advice to clients all over the globe. He’s also penned “Joint Venture,” a self-published memoir that blends rock ’n’ roll remembrances with life advice.

“The lessons learned in rock ’n’ roll are applicable to any business,” he says.

Growing up in Jersey City, N.J., Kleinman grooved to Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and so-called “Negro music” on the radio. Later, Kleinman’s worried Jewish mother didn’t know that her 14-year-old son was regularly taking the train to New York’s Greenwich Village when folk music was in its heyday.

“I remember Peter, Paul and Mary playing before they were well-known,” says Kleinman, who also heard hipster Allen Ginsberg read his poems in the village. “I may have seen Bob Dylan play, but I don’t remember.”

In between college semesters in New York, Kleinman lucked into his first professional rock gig. Approached by Al Kooper (Dylan’s occasional organist who later formed Blood Sweat & Tears), he was soon loading amps and guitars for the band the Blues Project. For all of his schlepping, Kleinman says he was paid a mere $50 a week.

Kleinman worked steadily as a roadie while in college, slowly building his network and rock ’n’ roll credibility. “We were just a bunch of hippies,” says Kleinman, who adds he missed being backstage at Woodstock due to a managerial snafu.

After earning a degree in media communications, Kleinman continued his ascent in the rock world. “The bands kept calling. I realized if you do the job right, people remember you.”

Kleinman soon became tour manager for several bands and was responsible for everything from making sure equipment arrived at gigs to keeping the bands sober. Along the way, he hung out and partied with such rock royalty as Mick Jagger, Carly Simon and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

“John Lennon would always tell jokes at 3 a.m.,” says Kleinman, who remembers driving the late Beatle home to the Dakota after long nights of carousing in bars. “Yoko Ono turned me on to sushi. It was fascinating to watch them together.”

At times, Kleinman admits being a tour manager was a bit like living in the rock movie spoof “This is Spinal Tap.”

“The egos were definitely there,” says Kleinman. “Life was crazy.”

While Kleinman — literally and figuratively — experienced many highs and lows during his tenure in the music industry, one incident still resonates. On Oct. 20, 1977, a plane carrying members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd ran out of fuel and crashed, killing several members. It happened while Kleinman, who was managing the band opening for Lynyrd Skynyrd, was driving to Louisiana to meet the group.

“That was the low point of my career,” says Kleinman. “It makes you take stock.”

The following year, Kleinman was hired to manage The Stranglers, a British punk band. Soon, he was crisscrossing Europe, “throwing people off the stage” and “being spit at.” In Portugal, he survived a riot when 20,000 concertgoers rushed the stage.

By 1984, Kleinman’s music career was winding down. Newly married, he and his wife, Susan Erlichman, decamped to Philadelphia so she could attend law school. The couple moved to Baltimore in 1987, and their son, Michael, was born here.

Today, Kleinman looks back on his days in rock music with great affection. When asked, Kleinman offers a final piece of advice for getting through life: “Keep rockin’.”

Jill Yesko is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.

Photo by Lisa Shifren

 

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