Alison: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. If you've been a longtime fan of music here in New York City, there's a very good chance you have seen a concert presented by Ron Delsener, and he made sure you knew it by putting his name right there on the poster. Ron Delsener is a legendary concert promoter who has worked with acts like Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Kiss, Billy Joel, and so many more. Now, a new documentary tells the story of how Ron came to dominate the New York music scene. The name of the movie is Ron Delsener Presents.

The film, directed by Jake Sumner, shares how Ron pioneered outdoor concerts in Central Park, turned Carnegie Hall into a rock venue, and even managed to convince George Steinbrenner to let musicians play at Yankee Stadium. The movie also follows Ron, now well into his 80s, as he runs around the city still working, sometimes even covering multiple shows a night. Ron Delsener Presents is running at the Quad Cinema starting tomorrow, and will play in various select theaters after that. I'm joined in studio now by Jake Sumner. Hey, Jake.

Jake: Hey, Alison.

Alison: Hey, listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you ever encountered Ron Delsener in your life or your career in the music industry? Do you remember going to $1 concerts in Central Park or seeing Simon & Garfunkel reunion that Ron Delsener planned? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can text that number or you can call in and join us. How did you first meet Ron Delsener?

Jake: Oh, I've known Ron Delesner in a peripheral way since I was a small kid. I grew up around the live music business, and Ron was the guy in New York who put on shows. Actually, we'd live in the States during legs of US tours, and Ron would get me and my sister tickets to various things from the Ringling Brothers Circus and also to Knicks games. I've just known him in that way, and Ron is someone that always had a wisecrack or a funny story.

As I got older and got to know him, I realized that, "Wow, these stories are really important and he's talking about some really important people and everyone from Jimi Hendrix to The Beatles, Nina Simone." He just has this amazing history that comes with him. It took a lot of convincing, actually, to get him to do this. [chuckles]

Alison: I was going to say, what questions did he ask when you said, "Hey, I want to do a documentary about you?"

Jake: It just took time. He would palm it off, and he'd say, "Oh, yes, yes, yes," like one minute, and then he'd change his mind the next. It was this kind of dance that we did. I think in the beginning, we didn't really even know what we were doing. We would just follow Ron around shows and go out to his place in the Hamptons. I think I saw his basement, which is this Aladdin's cave of amazing stuff.

It's like the greatest rock and roll memorabilia you've ever seen, and then a lot of junk, and you have to find your way through the junk to get to the gems. Then I realized, "We have a real archive to work with here." COVID happened, so we stopped being able to go to shows. I just spent really a lot of COVID with my colleague, Kate Greenberg, both of us just in Ron's basement, going through his archives and digitizing his stuff.

Alison: It was hilarious. There's a very little subtle moment where he pulls out [chuckles] a police flyer. People may have figured out by now that your dad is Sting. Yes?

Jake: Yes. Correct.

Alison: Correct. Ron Delsener was born in 1936 in Astoria in Queens. When you thought about it, how did Queens shape him?

Jake: I think New York shaped Ron. I feel like they broke the mold with him, kind of. I think he's just an iconic New York character. I don't know that you'd get a Ron Delsener coming out of anywhere else. His dad was a salesman, and Ron grew up going to a lot of Broadway shows, going to the circus at Madison Square Garden. He was in it from the beginning. Then as a teenager, he would go to the Copacabana and to Birdland and watch the Basie band or watch Sinatra. It's in his blood, the showbiz kind of thing. I don't know that that kind of character could really come out of anywhere else.

Alison: One of his longest partnerships has been with his sister, who works for him. What insights did she provide about Ron growing up?

Jake: Harriette. Harriette's wonderful. Harriette Delsner. She's been his partner for over 50 years. I think they talk about in the film that she's the only person that Ron trusts with the money.

[laughter]

Jake: What insights did she provide on Ron? How complicated Ron is to work with. I think you have to be a pretty complicated person to be a rock concert promoter, especially at the time he was doing it. These are real gambles and moonshots he was taking with these acts who now it makes total sense. "Oh, David Bowie at Carnegie Hall sounds like a hit." At the time in 1972, no one had heard of David Bowie, and Carnegie Hall didn't want to program David Bowie. Ron had to convince them to do it.

I think Harriette actually helped me understand a little bit of the kind of gambler mentality that Ron's always had. Actually, the two of them would put on shows in their basement as kids. They would see the circus at Madison Square Garden, and then they would replicate it in their parents' basement. They would go and they would charge kids, like, I don't know, $0.05 to come to watch the show. They would stack tables, so they had cheap seats. That was really his beginning in show business. I think he was probably 10 years old.

Alison: Let's talk to Liz from Wilton, Connecticut. Hey, Liz. Thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Liz: So happy to be here and share my history with Ron Delsener. Crazy of driving in the car, and I hear you're talking about him, so I had to pull over and call in.

Jake: Hi, Liz.

Liz: I grew up in the building that Ron Delsener and his family lived in, and I used to babysit for his children. It was a great gig because the side benefit was tickets to concerts. I saw my very first concert, courtesy of Ron Delsener, Aerosmith at Madison Square Garden when I was 14 years old.

Alison: When you were 14?

Liz: Yes.

Alison: That must have been quite a sight.

Jake: Wow.

Liz: It was. [laughs]

Alison: Thank you for-- Yes, what?

Liz: I was going to his office after school, and picking up tickets or picking up his kids. Just great, great memories of Ron Delsener as a teenager in New York City.

Alison: Liz, thanks-

Jake: Very cool.

Alison: -for calling in. My guest is director Jake Sumner. We are talking about his new documentary, Ron Delsener Presents, about New York City concert promoter Ron Delsener. If you have a relationship to Ron Delsener or you saw a Ron Delsener concert, give us a call, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You mentioned how hard it was to get David Bowie at Carnegie Hall. What were some other acts that Ron Delsener really, really had to pull for?

Jake: I think a lot of them-- I know there's the inverse of that, where an act by the name of Kiss had to convince Ron Delsener [chuckles] to take them on because he thought they were like a novelty act. That's what he referred to them as in the beginning, with the makeup and things like that. Someone approached him from Casablanca Records about promoting this act called Kiss. I guess he saw a tape or he saw something, and he was like, "No, this is not for me." I think Casablanca convinced him to--

I think he had a date, and he said, "All right, I'll give you guys one show," but this was back in the day where they would do two shows a night. Kiss, the band, I think, put up the money to do a second show. Ron said, "Okay, but that's on you." They sold out both, and they were a huge hit. This is one of the only times that Ron admits, "Okay, I got it wrong. Then after that, he developed this kind of great relationship with the band and obviously went on to promote them at Madison Square Garden, and the rest is history.

Alison: How would you describe his relationship with musicians?

Jake: I think he's someone that just has kept tabs on people, and he's always there. He's like one of these figures that just turns up to the show, turns up to the events through probably the ebbs and flows of different acts' careers. Ron, he's omnipresent backstage and in green rooms, and I imagine that acts appreciate that.

Alison: What about managers and agents?

Jake: That's a different story.

[laughter]

Jake: That's a complex triangle. The promoter, the manager, and the agent, there's a lot that goes on between those three figures in an act's career. I think Ron does have really good relationships with managers and agents. I think he's just one of these kind of stalwarts of the business that's just been around long enough and knows all the players.

Alison: We're talking about the new documentary, Ron Delsener Presents, with its director, Jake Sumner. After the break, we'll hear about the Simon & Garfunkel concert in Central Park. Stay with us.

[music]

Alison: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest in studio is director Jake Sumner. We're talking about his new documentary, Ron Delsener Presents, about New York City concert promoter Ron Delsener. It's playing at the Quad Cinema starting tomorrow. Ron helped facilitate the huge, huge concert in Central Park of Simon & Garfunkel years after they broke up, and you got both of them to talk for the documentary. That was amazing. [chuckles] How was he able to pull that together and to convince them to do it?

Jake: I think there's different versions of the story, but to my eyes, it was a magic trick that Ron pulled to pull it all together. I think it started off as a Paul Simon show. First of all, I think Gordon Davis, who was the parks commissioner at the time, had it in his mind that he wanted a Simon & Garfunkel show. This was around the time of Ed Koch's re-election campaign, so they wanted a big blowout in the park before, I guess, the mayoral election. He had this idea, like, "Ronnie, get me Simon & Garfunkel." Ron was like, "That's not possible. They don't like each other. It's not going to happen."

I think what ensued is Ron went to Paul Simon with the idea of Paul doing a Paul Simon show, knowing that Paul would come around and think, "Oh, they're going to want to see Artie. Maybe Artie comes on at the end." I don't want to ruin it because I think you have to see the film, but it's shows the kind of skills and kind of magicianship of Ron on the phone, which I think, at the time, was walking the phone was really a big part of Ron's job.

Alison: That's a big part of it. He was walking the phone constantly.

Jake: Yes, that's a theme in the film. The phone is a theme in the film for sure.

Alison: Let's talk to Larry from Oceanside, Long Island. Hi, Larry. You're on the air.

Jake: He's on the phone.

Larry: Hey there, Alison. Hey there, Jake. How are you doing?

Jake: Hey, Larry.

Larry: Good. I have a story. It's more of a story than I realized. This has to do with the very first concert I ever attended. It was dubbed an Electronic Thanksgiving.

Jake: Oh, wow.

Larry: It was November 28th, 1968, at Philharmonic Hall. Do you know of the show because [crosstalk]

Jake: I do know. I do know of this infamous show that we had a whole scene in the movie dedicated to this show, that sadly, there wasn't enough good archival, but please go ahead. I'm curious to hear your story.

Larry: This was unusual. Being at Philharmonic Hall was a decidedly different turn of events for the hall. This concert found no home at Carnegie because I think the Stones had a raucous concert there. In doing so and allowing the Jimi Hendrix experience into the hall, they insisted that there needed to be a classical music component, so on the same bill was Fernando Valenti, a musical harpsichordist, and a New York Brass Quintet. In order to do this, I spoke to Mitch Mitchell once about this, who played with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

This is something that Ron must have navigated because Mitch had to show up for an interview, if you will, with Leonard Bernstein, with regards to how the evening was going to go. Either he or Jimi or someone needed to play on stage with one of the artists, and it turned out to be Mitch, because Jimi didn't want to do it, who played, in fact, with New York Brass Quintet. He came out and played drums. The whole navigation of that had to do with Ron to even get permission to play in that Philharmonic Hall in those conditions. Tell me what you know about that, because I'm curious what you know about that performance.

Jake: I do know a little bit about it. I do know that they first went to Carnegie Hall, which is where Ron did a lot of shows. I think the Allman Brothers had played Carnegie Hall preceding that. I think this is how the story goes. I could be getting it wrong, but I'm pretty sure from what Ron told me, the Allmans had played Carnegie Hall, and I think someone had vomited in one of the boxes. [chuckles]

Alison: Oh my. [laughs]

Jake: I think that the powers that be at Carnegie wanted a break from rock and roll. Then Ron had to use all kinds of chicanery to get rock and roll acts into Carnegie Hall. He would then work with Philharmonic Hall. I believe that the Electronic Thanksgiving was really him convincing Leonard Bernstein into allowing it to happen, which is amazing in itself. Just the idea of Jimi Hendrix's Experience playing Philharmonic Hall, and then, as you said, Mitchell having to do this kind of classical rendition.

We've tried to find tape on this stuff, but it was very hard to find. There's only one photo that we could find in existence of this show, and it's just a black and white image of Jimi Hendrix. It really could be anywhere. We had a whole scene and story about this show and the film. Sadly, we didn't really have the material to be a visual accompaniment.

Alison: You've got to tell it here, so that's exciting. Let's talk to Gregory from Arizona. Hey, Gregory. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Gregory: Hey, y'all. It's great to be on your program. Now I'm moving into retirement, and I thought, "Wow, what a great idea to talk about Ron Delsener, a great guy and a serious entrepreneur."

Jake: Hey, Gregory. Nice to chat.

Gregory: I'm excited to be in the film, brother. I'm very excited. It's going to be fun to walk down memory lane with someone else's eyes.

Alison: Because you used to be a stagehand. Is that true?

Gregory: I'm a semi-retired stagehand in IATSE, Broadway tours, et cetera. I grew up in New York City, so NYC's been my home for a long time. Ron Delsener and I have crossed paths many times over the last 30-plus years. He's very approachable, always recognizable, always well-dressed. I was telling one of your assists, I was coming down the street on the way to a show at Madison Square Garden, and coming the other way is Ron Delsener, easily recognizable, very dapper, always with a tan, even in the middle of [crosstalk]

[inaudible 00:17:40] eyes, and so, of course, say hello, and he says, "Where are you going, stagehand?" Because he doesn't remember my name, because he meets so many [inaudible 00:17:51] people. We walk on together until he gets to the stage door, and he says, "You coming in?" I said, "I'll go with you." I walk in with Ron Delsener, so no one's going to question why I'm there, because I'm walking with Ron Delsener.

Jake: Which show is this?

Gregory: He's going in to check with people backstage before he heads up to the Beacon to see Tedeschi Trucks, and I'm going in to see Chris Stapleton. All of a sudden, I don't need a ticket, but of course, I have to meet friends, go back out with him, and he says, "Catching a car?" I said, "No, I'm going in to see Chris." He said, "Why didn't you just stay there?" I said, "Because we were hanging. How do you do that [crosstalk]"

Alison: You know what, I'm going to dive in, Gregory, because we're going to run out of time, and I have more questions for Jake. I did want to ask you, you follow him around, he says he's retired, but he doesn't actually appear to be retired.

Jake: I don't think that Ron is capable of full retirement. We labeled it Ron Delsener Retirement. I think it's what he loves doing, is booking shows, and I think that he'll be walking the phone until he can't anymore. It's just what he loves to do. I don't know.

Alison: You've got people in the film like Patti Smith, you've got Jon Bon Jovi, you've got Bruce Springsteen. Why do you think they agreed to sit down and talk about Ron Delsener?

Jake: Actually, that was the easy part, because I think---

Alison: He was the hard part, it sounds like. [laughs]

Jake: That's correct. That was the easy part. We focused on acts that either from New York or made their break in New York. That was important, I think. Everyone from Billy Joel, Simon & Garfunkel, Kiss, Patti Smith, Bette Midler, obviously, she's not a native New Yorker, but this is really where she started, and many others. I think that, for a lot of these acts, like Kiss and Billy and Bon Jovi, Ron gave them their first shot. Yes, they were playing in clubs, but to take it to the next stage, to play theaters or arenas, I think you had to go through Ron Delsener.

There were others at various points, too. Ron was not the only promoter in New York, but for a good deal of time, it really was Ron Delsener Presents. What's amazing is now the business is very large corporations, but at the time, you think about the kind of major media market of New York, it was really one guy and a small team that were presenting all these shows and doing many shows a night. I think you have to be a certain type of person to be able to take all that on. It was all his money. [chuckles]

Alison: To find out more, you have to see the documentary. It's called Ron Delsener Presents. My guest has been Director Jake Sumner. Thank you for being with us. By the way, it's opening at the Quad tomorrow.

Jake: Thanks so much for having me.

Alison: OK Go, they're going to be next performing live in Studio 5. Stay with us.