During the twenty-four years that I was Anne Murray’s business manager the best decision she made was hiring Leonard Rambeau, the young man from Smelt Brook, Nova Scotia, who became Canada’s most respected artist manager as well as one of the most respected managers in the U.S. Leonard’s hiring is an interesting story. Here it is.
In April 1971, when Anne Murray, her future husband Bill Langstroth, and I had our first meeting, I set out four conditions with which she’d have to accept in order to become a client, all of which she readily agreed to. They were: There would be no such thing as a standard contract; all would be negotiable. If someone insisted on a quick answer, it would always be “no.” We would never sacrifice the long term for a short term gain. And, because I would be strictly a business advisor, she’d hire a full-time person to handle the day-to-day activities of her career. This is where Leonard came in.
At that time Anne was being managed by Nick Sevano for her U.S. activity, and Bill Langstroth and her producer Brian Ahern were looking after her Canadian affairs. As mentioned, I wanted her to hire a full-time person to take over the Canadian end of things and, I hoped, learn enough about being an artist manager to eventually take over all her activities. I wanted her free of Nick Sevano for two reasons. First, he was alleged to have ties to the mafia. I have no idea whether he did, but even the allegation could hurt Anne’s career. Second, Sevano was managing Frank Sinatra and Glen Campbell (it was Glen who had introduced Anne to him) so I suspected he wasn’t devoting much time to Anne’s U.S. career.
Shortly after Anne became my client we were able to get out of the contract with Sevano, which was so easy to do I suspected he was glad to get rid of us. We made arrangements for Anne’s U.S. career to be taken over by Shep Gordon, a manager from Buffalo, who was managing Alice Cooper. Shep was happy to ease Leonard into the U.S. side of things and graciously stepped aside when he thought Leonard was ready to handle Anne’s entire career.
When I got to condition number four and told her what I had in mind, she had one question: “What are the qualifications you’re looking for?” I told her there was just one: an undying belief in her as an artist. Anne then said she knew exactly who we should hire. I asked her who that was, and I’ll never forget our next exchange. “You’re going to laugh,” she said, “but it’s a guy named Leonard Rambeau who works for Canada Manpower in Halifax.” “I’m not going to laugh, but tell me about him,” I said.
She explained that Leonard, while president of the student union at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, booked her for a concert. After the show he handed her a folded piece of paper and asked her to read it when she had a chance. Thinking he was probably asking for a date, she ignored it until a few days later when rummaging for something in her purse she found the note. She opened it to discover he had written down a number of suggestions for changes to her show, and she agreed with every one of them. They kept in touch and often talked about her career. At Anne’s request Leonard had taken some vacation days and acted as her road manager on a tour of western Canada and she said that things had never run more smoothly. “He’s the guy, Lyman,” she said.
“Well, let’s offer him the job,” I replied. But then I added another condition. I felt that artist managers should get paid a base salary with generous bonuses when they did an outstanding job. My theory was that managers working for a salary rather than a percentage (percentages were the norm in the business) would make career-enhancing decisions rather than ones that would just increase their own cash flow.
Anne said Leonard might actually like that because when she had raised the possibility of him becoming her Canadian manger, the reason he gave for refusing was that he didn’t want to give up the security of having a government pension. (He was twenty-five years old!). She thought the certainty of a salary rather than the uncertainty of a percentage would appeal to him. I asked her how much he was making and she said she thought it was around $7,500 a year.
I said I’d call him, but Anne thought it would be better if she did. She convinced him to take some more vacation days and come to Toronto.
Anne, Leonard and I were sitting around the dining room table at the MacInnis household late one evening. My wife (whose name is also Anne) was a school teacher and was upstairs marking papers.
Anne Murray and I made our pitch to Leonard, including that he would initially be responsible only for her Canadian activity while acting as a liaison to Step Gordon and that he would be working for a salary and bonus rather than a percentage. Remembering his concern about his ultimate retirement, I told him we would pay him enough to set up a registered retirement savings plan. After asking only a couple of questions he agreed to take the job.
“Great,” I said and asked him how much salary he wanted.
Leonard, confirming Anne’s opinion that he was a pretty sharp cookie, countered with, “You’re offering me the job. How much does it pay?” I turned to Anne and asked, “How much do you want to pay him?” Anne said, “That’s the kind of decision I’m paying you to make.”
I fetched three sheets of paper and three pens, giving a sheet of paper and a pen to each of Anne and Leonard and keeping a sheet and a pen for myself. I said, “OK.. Each of us will write down an annual salary on our paper, fold it twice and put it on the table. We’ll call the other Anne down, have her look at them and tell us the middle figure. Not the highest nor the lowest, but the middle figure; and that will be Leonard’s starting salary.” Leonard and Anne Murray agreed.
I called my wife down and explained what we wanted her to do. She looked at the three papers but didn’t say anything. I reminded her that we just wanted the middle figure, to which she said, “There isn’t one.” I said there had to be, but she said, “No, there isn’t; two of them are the same.” I then suggested that one of the two that were the same should be deemed to be the middle figure and that would be the salary. Again, Anne Murray and Leonard agreed.
As phenomenal as two being the same was, so was how close they were. Two of them were $15,500 and one was $15,000. I never asked Anne and Leonard how they arrived at their figures, but I always suspected that Leonard simply doubled what he was making to arrive at the $15,000 figure, and that Anne and I did the same but tacked on $500 for good measure. In any event, it was a great way to start a relationship.
Leonard continued to work for a salary and bonus throughout his entire career, likely the only top-line artist manager in the world to do so. Because both Anne and I recognized his tremendous value, we made sure he always earned at least as much as if he had been on a percentage.
Leonard’s loyalty and devotion to Anne’s career knew no bounds, which combined with his remarkable intuition, computer-like memory, and unequalled people skills, made his hiring the best decision Anne Murray ever made.