Frank Barsalona: The No-Name Who Made Names

On hearing of the death of Frank Barsalona on November 22, 2012, Who guitarist Pete Townshend wrote on the Who’s website: “Frank was the Who’s agent in the USA from the beginning, almost until the end. He arranged our first appearance in New York at the Murray the K (a NYC DJ) Show in 1967, Woodstock in 1969 and every major tour from then until in the ’90s the big companies like Live Nation, Concerts West and AEG started to provide entire tour programs for artists like the Who.  Frank was a gem. Just thinking about him always makes me smile.”

In 1964, The Who was on the verge of becoming just another only-popular-in-England band.  But before they almost contracted a case of Cliff Richard-itis, the notorious Allen Klein attempted to manage them.  Pete wrote in his autobiography Who I Am: “Klein made it clear that the only way I could escape Shel Talmy’s grip (the producer who owned the rights to the group’s original master recordings) was to repudiate my contract with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp (the Who’s managers). If I gave him the word, he would start proceedings, then he and Andrew Oldham (Stones manager) would take over management of the Who.”

Klein was unsuccessful in his takeover bid, but when Barsalona heard that The Who had thought of involving Klein in their business, he didn’t want to be involved. Frank begrudgingly placed the group (whom he’d never heard)with a Murray the K tour in 1964.  When he finally heard and saw the group’s wild stage act during a dress rehearsal, his eyes (and ears) were opened. And so began a beautiful friendship with the four Brits.

It wouldn’t have happened if Frank hadn’t met his British wife, June, a writer for the fan magazine Fabulous. Molly Bernstein, co-director of the 2018 documentary The Show’s the Thing: The Legendary Promoters of Rock, noted: “June introduced Frank to all the British invasion acts and their representatives.”  Molly’s co-director, Philip Dolin, added: “Frank is a guy from Staten Island who was a yodeler in his teenage years. His father, who was a bus driver, loved country music, and Frank would drive the bus with his father and listen to music. The story goes that he became an agent so he could book himself as a yodeler. But he was the quintessential young person in the music industry at the time when people thought rock-and-roll was a fad. He was at a broader talent agency, GMC, and so they handed it over to him and he booked the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.  After witnessing the size and passion of the crowd for the Beatles’ first Washington, DC concert in 1964, he began to imagine a full network of concert tours by scores of rock bands.”

Frank’s close friend, Springsteen guitarist Steven Van Zandt, proclaimed: “You cannot exaggerate the role Frank played in creating the infrastructure of the rock ’n’ roll world as we know it today. Like the new young turks of Mob history, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, he knew the old ‘Mustache Pete’ promoters had to go. They didn’t understand or even like rock, and they were strictly ‘take the money and run.’ What Frank did, again like the American Mafia, was to divide the country into regions and then make alliances with young promoters who would be loyal to him.”

Warren Zanes of the Del Fuegos explained: “He helped create a framework for touring bands, linking regional promoters like Bill Graham (San Francisco-based), Ron Delsener (NY-based), Don Law (Boston-based) and others in a web of connections that spread across the map. When we went to meet him, our managers said, ‘Don’t act like idiots.  This is Frank Barsalona.’”

Whenever Frank took a group under his wing, it seemed their records would inevitably fly up the Billboard charts.  Juggling eccentric personalities and their schedules resulted in Frank being the only talent agent to be voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he joined some of his ex-clients like the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, the Clash, Van Halen, Springsteen, the Pretenders, Tom Petty, U2, Cyndi Lauper, the Ramones and Bon Jovi.

But before his stable of rock stars became so rich that they could live in castles, Frank acted as their moat to keep leeches from crawling into their bank accounts.  At a memorial tribute to Frank on April 25, 2013, Bono attested: “When U2 first went to America, my father said, ‘This is a very dangerous business; particularly watch out for the Italians. They do stuff you don’t want to know about.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘They’ll hug you.’ He was right. A lot of people in this room have been hugged by Frank Barsalona. We have been ‘Barsalona’d’. And if you’re Irish, it’s just a bit off-putting, having only ever had a handshake from your father, to have Frank kiss you all over.  U-2 has never been ripped off. Frank Barsalona was our bodyguard.”

But bodyguards don’t have a 9-5 job as Frank’s daughter, Natalie, could attest.  She stated: “I had a bit of an alternative upbringing. I was always up late and tired at school the next day, even as a tiny kid, because my dad would drag me to shows and use me as the excuse to leave early.” Van Zandt concurred: “Nicole was born the adult in the family.”

Nicole could relate to parents who wanted to rip their hair out over rock ‘n’ roll records played WAY too loud; as she recalled: “I was always telling my parents to turn the music down and telling them what time it was and that we should all go to sleep.”

-Mark  Daponte

Photo: Frank Barsalona, 2002 (Barsalonaestate via Wikimedia Commons)