Ira Blacker
Self confessed, “a bit of a PT Barnum,” Ira’s brash, persuasive style earned him his reputation as someone who could get things done. Ira was in his late twenties when the opportunity to represent Rush came up at ATI, and it couldn’t come fast enough.
“At the time, I was enraged by my two partners,” he says. These were Jeff Franklin and Sol Saffian, who for different reasons were causing Ira to want to work on his own portfolio. Ira still lacked management experience – “I didn’t have any business chops,” he says – so he was looking for a band with whom he could cut his teeth.
Ira was already aware of Rush, having been invited by Ray Danniels to watch them play. However, it wasn’t until the band started to get US airplay that Ira offered his services to provide US representation. Following “the discovery”, Ira remembers things slightly differently from Donna Halper and Bob Roper: “I also arranged the Cleveland airplay, and fixed the performance at the Agora, with Hank Leconti,” he says.
At the end of 1974, Ira fell out with Jeff Franklin for the final time. He left ATI and took the US representation for Rush with him. Things turned sour with Anthem however. “One minute, they’re saying the best thing they ever did was bring in Ira Blacker,” he says. “The next thing I get is a letter from an attorney saying, the contract’s over, and please refund twenty thousand dollars. I won, and I would have won more if Jeff Franklin hadn’t undermined my case.” The process completed at the start of 1977.
Later, Ira was instrumental (sorry) in building Kraftwerk’s position in the US. In 1976, he spent some time in the UK, notably running a TV show in Plymouth. On his return, he left New York and moved to California – there was nothing really to keep him there. “My mother died, I figured, what the hey,” he says. Ira’s work with Rush led him to being the manager and executive producer of Savoy Brown.
In 1990, Ira was representing “a bunch of people, including Kraftwerk and Ronnie Lane,” when a recession hit the music industry. “I never really hit it after that,” he says. The last straw for Ira was a DC-based band, “They had the track ‘Put Down The Guns’,” he recalls. Ira brought in Barry Richens to do a video, was shipping several hundred a week, a dozen radio stations were playing the record, but it all came to nothing. “We watched MCA blow it,” he says.
Today, Ira works for a California-based printing company. Looking back, he has no regrets. “I’m resolved with what I did,” he says. “I did it with flair and creativity.”