American Cathartic Success Been Cruel to Larry Shaeffer

Glory Days. Shaeffer says there was no genius behind what he was doing; it was simply an exceptionally fertile period in popular music, and he was there to benefit from it. Jeremy Charles "The record labels were over-investing in everything because there was so much wealth. So from 1976 to 1983 or '84, all I had to keep saying was, 'I'll take 'em, I'll take 'em.' " By the time he was finishing up high school, life on the farm held no further appeal for Larry Shaeffer. Growing up in the 1960s on a 105-acre spread west of Keystone Lake that his grandparents first settled and his parents inherited, Shaeffer surveyed the idyllic "Green Acres" lifestyle and concluded it was not for him. Not coincidentally, this revelation came to him shortly after he put together his first band, the Undertakers, with a group of Mannford High School classmates and began to experience the pleasures of life as a rock 'n' roll guitarist. Even at that modest level, Shaeffer was a sucker for the easy cash, the pretty girls and the attention that seemed to go hand-in-hand with that world. "I knew I was on to something when we had money in our pockets and I had fun doing it," he said, recalling how he was seduced by a business that would soon become his lifestyle for most of his adulthood. "There was that proverbial golden moment in time when I first heard the Beatles doing 'She Loves You' . . . and that was my lucky--or, unlucky break." So Shaeffer understands that some people might find it ironic that the family farm he fled in the mid-'60s in search of a more exciting life now has become his refuge a little more than four decades later. The same guy who went on to put the Sex Pistols on a Tulsa stage in 1978, sell a Buick Riviera to Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, collect vintage guitars by the dozens and regularly rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in the music business has spent the past several years living in a mobile home on a patch of prairie within shouting distance of his mother, 77-year-old Wilma, and father, 81-year-old Cecil--on that same farm he once couldn't wait to leave. And he has no plans to leave. "As much as I wanted to get off that farm, it's exactly where I will spend my last days," he said from his Sand Springs office one afternoon in mid-September. Despite all the finality that statement carries, it's a little premature for anyone to be shoveling dirt on Larry Shaeffer's grave--even Larry Shaeffer himself. Almost 10 years past a debilitating series of personal, legal and financial setbacks that left him disgraced, divorced, drunk, broke and homeless, the former owner of the legendary Cain's Ballroom has settled comfortably into elder statesman status on the same Tulsa music scene he did so much to shape over the past three and a half decades. Best known now as a promoter for outlaw country icon Willie Nelson, Shaeffer at age 60 has rediscovered his passion for a business that he was convinced he wanted no more of by the year 2000. "I've been trying to get out of this business for 36 years," he said. But, "... It's very gratifying for me to show up at one of (Willie's) shows and be treated with immense respect and admiration for the job I've done. Maybe that's the payoff." You Can Check Out Anytime You Like If this is the payoff, the end of the 1990s is very much when the proverbial bill had come due for Shaeffer. His high-flying, high-octane lifestyle as the owner of Cain's (which he purchased and rescued from irrelevance in 1976), concert promoter (his Little Wing Productions regularly booked some of the biggest acts in the business throughout Oklahoma), rare automobile restoration specialist and vintage musical instrument collector carried with it a hefty price tag, both literally and otherwise. The chaos his life was devolving into is by now well known to anyone who followed local music in those days- -Shaeffer went through money at an alarming rate, and he was going through drugs and booze even faster. It was a hedonistic lifestyle that was impossible to sustain, as Shaeffer was about to discover in harsh terms. It was all quite a comedown for a guy who had spent most of the preceding 28 years building a bigger and bigger name for himself. Since entering the music business in 1972, Shaeffer had enjoyed practically boundless success. Not only was his Little Wing Productions a cash cow, he also served as the national promoter for Hank Williams Jr., then one of the hottest acts in all of popular music. But it was Shaeffer's purchase of Cain's in 1976 and his reopening of the ballroom as a rock venue that made him practically a household name in these parts. Under his watch, the all-but-forgotten Cain's reclaimed the glory and stature it had once enjoyed during the heyday of Bob Wills, a development that ranks as one of the more significant in Tulsa's musical institutions. Shaeffer said he paid $10,000 down on the building and financed the other $50,000. Despite the vast sums of money that came his way over the next two and a half decades, he said he still hadn't paid off the note when he sold the ballroom at the end of 1999. Financial missteps aside, Shaeffer recognized immediately he had a treasure on his hands. "I knew right away how important it was," he said. "I sat hundreds of hours with old people who were there as teenagers and saw the original Texas Playboys in the '30s and '40s. I realized how important Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were to people who worked and toiled in the oil fields and cotton fields and used Cain's Ballroom on Saturday night as their only outlet. The best stories (about Cain's) aren't told by Bob Wills' Texas Playboys; it's from the people who came there every Saturday night." Shaeffer's deep affection for that music and history is what separates him from so many other people who work on the business side of the music industry, his friends say, and that's a trait he never lost. Former Tulsa World music writer John Wooley, who met Shaeffer in 1983 and has been friends with him since, acknowledged there aren't many promoters you can say that about. "It's getting rarer all the time," he said, including Shaeffer as part of a group of local music impresarios such as Jim Halsey and Ray Bingham "who are in it because they love it. Now, Larry's certainly not averse to making a buck, but that's never why he got into it." Shaeffer's longtime friend Steve Ripley, frontman for the multi-platinum-selling country-rock group the Tractors and onetime owner of the now-defunct Church Studio in Tulsa, believes the former Cain's owner brought a unique gift to the local market. "He could have been P.T. Barnum or Col. Tom Parker," Ripley said. "That's what he is--a combination of snake oil salesman and lover of the arts, at least the art that I'm involved with." In those days it was virtually impossible to meet Shaeffer and not wind up being charmed by him. Matt Alcott, now Shaeffer's assistant, was a blues and rock writer for the Tulsa World in the mid-'90s when he strolled down to Cain's one Friday afternoon to visit with Shaeffer about an upcoming show. Fourteen beers later, Alcott staggered home, having watched Shaeffer conclude the "interview" by relieving himself in the office trash can rather than make the long walk to the men's room. "... I left with the concert info, a buzz and a friend for life," Alcott wrote in an e-mail. Shaeffer's reputation as a master showman and his ability to recognize the next big thing may have been cemented on that frigid winter night in 1978 when the notorious Sex Pistols--then virtually unknown in America--took the Cain's stage under the watchful eye of the ballroom's famous Wills portrait. That event is still talked about by local music fans, but it was hardly the only groundbreaking show Shaeffer would deliver to Cain's patrons over the next quarter-century. Among the other then-little-known acts he broke in Tulsa over that period were the Police, Pat Benatar, the Talking Heads and the Blasters, most of whom went on to achieve major stardom. Shaeffer booked Van Halen and U2 for $500 each shortly before both those bands skyrocketed to the top of the charts. Stories like that make it seem like Shaeffer could do no wrong, but he admitted to having passed on a few shows he shouldn't have. For instance, there was the time he had the chance to book some guy from New Jersey named Springsteen and didn't. But those mistakes were few and far between. Shaeffer now insists there was no genius behind what he was doing; it was simply an exceptionally fertile period in popular music, and he was there to benefit from it. "I did a pretty good job of grabbing everything I could grab," he said. "The record labels were over investing in everything that looked interesting because there was so much wealth. So from 1976 to 1983 or '84, all I had to keep saying was, 'I'll take 'em, I'll take 'em.' " Ripley said Cain's Ballroom during the Shaeffer era made a singular impression on him. "I saw some of my favorite acts at Cain's," he said. "I saw Elvis Costello as an angry young man, then later as a wise old guy... Without Larry, some of that stuff would have faded by the wayside. I still would have seen Elvis Costello, but I wouldn't have thought of it the same way." Another pal of Shaeffer's, Brady Theater owner Peter Mayo, considers Shaeffer the first significant promoter in the city. "He was on par with any national promoter," Mayo said. "He was able to bring entertainment to Tulsa that no other local person had ever done." Cain's wasn't only a showcase for upcoming artists; it was also attractive to older, more established artists who adored its timeless, honky-tonk aura. Shaeffer recalled bringing in Jerry Lee Lewis for a performance shortly after he purchased Cain's in 1976. Lewis showed up at 10am the day of the show, having flown in from Mississippi with his personal pilot. Having nowhere to go and nothing to do until showtime, Lewis camped out in Shaeffer's office and worked his way through a fifth of whiskey, docile as a lamb. And when the lights came up that night, the Killer was in terrific form, pounding away at an old baby grand piano while the sell-out crowd stomped and cheered, the dust floated down from the rafters. The Bob Wills portrait seemed to grin, and a thousand more folks milled around outside on the sidewalk because they couldn't get in. It was a night to remember. Twenty years later, Shaeffer brought Lewis back for an encore performance. This one didn't go so well, he recalled. "Jerry Lee was angry," Shaeffer said of that night in 1996. "He's angry all the time. I guarantee you that, right now, wherever he is, he's cursing Elvis." Performing that night with several members of the King's band, including legendary guitarist James Burton, Lewis spent most of his time between songs berating Shaeffer to the audience. "Finally, he walks off stage, mid-song," Shaeffer said. "A couple of minutes later, with the band still playing and waiting for him to return, I get a call from Jerry Lee. He tells me, 'Larry, you tell my band if they're not at the airport in three minutes, they're walking home. Oh, and one more thing--tell those motherfuckers they're fired.'" Shaeffer dreaded having to deliver the bad news to the gentlemanly Burton afterward, but he did. Burton simply rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, it's okay--he fires us every night." Cain's was a launching pad for local artists, as well, including the Red Dirt Rangers, who found themselves trying to break into the Tulsa scene in the early 1990s from their Stillwater base. The fledgling red dirt music scene had yet to catch fire, but the Rangers' John Cooper said Shaeffer had an immediate affinity for the music. "He gave us a chance when we weren't going that big," Cooper said. "It took a long time for us to break into Tulsa, but Larry got us opening slots for a lot of national touring acts and gave us a chance to get our feet on the ground. "Larry's always been real kind to the red dirt scene," he continued, noting that the band's annual Red Dirt Christmas Show, now a Tulsa tradition in its 13th year, began under Shaeffer at Cain's. "We were the first guys to come over from Stillwater and promote the red dirt scene. He knew the scene and the music and was very helpful." Things may have been going wonderfully on the Cain's stage, but Shaeffer's personal situation was becoming a mess. His success had provided him all the trappings of the life he thought he wanted--a luxury home on Lake Keystone, a beautiful wife, fame, motorcycles, rare guitars, expensive automobiles. It was funny how each of those things seemed to lead to the other--Shaeffer had a side business restoring cars, for example, and one day got a call from the manager of Led Zeppelin, who reported band leader Robert Plant wanted Shaeffer to find him a 1972 Buick Riviera. Shaeffer located such a vehicle, restored it and a few weeks later found himself tooling up and down the streets of Muskogee with one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, who had shown up in person to claim his prize and take it for a drive before having it shipped to the U.K. Life In The Fast Lane But the excesses of his lifestyle--and the empty feeling they left him with--were catching up with Shaeffer. He was no stranger to drugs, but his main problem was alcohol. By the mid-1990s, he was drinking himself to unconsciousness as many times a day as he could. Predictably, his business suffered, as did his relationships with many of the people closest to him. The lowest point came in November 1997, when he was arrested and charged with six felony counts--two each of first- degree rape, indecent exposure and forcible sodomy--in the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl who had worked at Cain's. The case was not tried until October 1998, almost a year later, and not a moment too soon for Shaeffer. "The misery was being accused and not being able to answer," he said of the wait between his arrest and trial. "The trial wasn't misery, although I didn't know what the outcome would be, because you never know. It was horrifying waiting on the trial to happen. I reached the point where I couldn't stand my own skin and would medicate myself with six-packs of beer." Wooley, who served as a character witness for Shaeffer during the trial and played with him in a band called the Moody Dudes, said he had no qualms about testifying on his friend's behalf, even given the serious nature of the charges against him. "Nothing that happened honestly convinced me that he wasn't a good guy," said Wooley, who noted that his testimony at the trial extended only to his knowledge of Shaeffer's character and not the material facts of the case. "He was not a bad human being." Shaeffer admitted to having had sex with the girl but claimed it was consensual. Defense witnesses testified the alleged victim had previously discussed the possibility of obtaining money from Shaeffer. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated more than five hours before returning with a verdict of not guilty on all counts. Shaeffer had been vindicated in this case, but his life was far from being turned around. "That setback changed everything on my agenda," he said. "It took its toll on all of us. You don't ever come back the same from that. I thought I could sing my way through it, but I lost my . . . wife, who saw no humor in it." The same night he was acquitted, Shaeffer and a female acquaintance were arrested by police in his hometown of Mannford on a drug charge. That charge was later dropped after he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of public intoxication, but more trouble followed--a lawsuit from the city of Tulsa over unpaid bills stemming from a music festival Shaeffer had staged. Still, the most pressure Shaeffer says he was feeling was internal, as he had grown increasingly uncomfortable with his ownership of Cain's. The more he learned of the ballroom's history--and Shaeffer aggressively pursued that knowledge, digging endlessly for stories, artifacts, photos, etc.--the greater responsibility he felt to preserve it. With the building in obvious need of major structural improvements by the late 1990s, Shaeffer feared he was presiding over the ballroom's demise and decided it was time for him to part ways with it. "I decided to sell it primarily because I had to drag myself into the building each day," he said. "I was aware of how much of a responsibility it was, and I didn't have a million dollars to put into it." More than that, Shaeffer was feeling hemmed in by his association with the ballroom. By Christmas 1999, he had concluded a deal to sell it to a former assistant named Danny Finnerty, who later sold the building to Rodgers Properties, the current owner. "My prevailing fear was that all I was ever going to be was the guy who ran Cain's," he said. "... It was time for me to be gone. I still love the place dearly. But Cain's is currently in much better hands." Even though he no longer owns the ballroom, Cain's retains a special place in Shaeffer's heart. "I love the ballroom in an extreme manner because of all the history, some of which I helped make," he said. "But the real history there is from the '20s. Do I think I'm the guy who put Cain's on the map? Absolutely not. I'm just one of the guys who passed through there." That transaction may have freed Shaeffer of a huge psychic burden, but it didn't solve his financial problems. He wound up declaring bankruptcy in 2000 and lost his home, his cars, and basically everything. On the far side of 50, he found himself forced to start over. Wooley remembered a conversation he had with Shaeffer years later, after the various crises in his life had passed. He recalled Shaeffer telling him, "You know, I don't know why I did all the things that I did and wasted all my money. I guess deep down, I didn't think I deserved it." Industrial Love Song His reputation, and life, in tatters, the only place left for a humbled Larry Shaeffer to go was home. He put a single-wide trailer back on to his father's farm and moved in with his sons. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he was certain it was going to be something different. "When I left Cain's, I was literally done with the music business, and it was done with me," he said. "I felt I didn't have anything else to prove to myself or anyone else. And I also didn't have any money. "I had to clear my head for a year, year and a half and start up again. The hardest part is keeping that fire lit. I used to be a fired-up go-getter, and I made lots of mistakes by going too fast, and the hardest thing was getting re-enthused about what I was doing." Shaeffer rediscovered his promotional passion through the good graces of his friend Mayo, owner of the venerable Brady Theater, located just a few blocks from Cain's. Mayo didn't put Shaeffer on his payroll, but he gave him an office at the Brady and encouraged him to begin booking the venue. Shaeffer took him up on the offer and, accompanied by his new assistant Alcott, who had agreed to work for free, made the Brady his new base of operations. "Our friendship had grown through the years, but all I did was offer him office space, and he basically did the rest," Mayo said. Shaeffer recalls that gesture in different terms, expressing his profound gratitude to his one-time competitor. "Peter gave me a place to land while I figured out where I was headed," he said. With Alcott's help, Shaeffer began putting the pieces back together. He had gone through alcohol rehab treatment a couple of times, but it wasn't until his third visit to a treatment facility that he was able to get a grip on the problem. Having regained his sobriety, Shaeffer worked out of the Brady for the next five years, making the Tulsa Blues Festival his signature event and bringing in shows for Mayo. Then, one day, he got a call from his friend David Snyder at the William Morris Agency that changed his life. Snyder represented Willie Nelson and tried to convince Shaeffer to start booking Nelson, since the two of them had a relationship that went back to the mid-'70s. Shaeffer wasn't exactly sold on the idea, but when Snyder asked him, "What else better do you have to do?" Shaeffer realized he was right. He began putting Nelson in secondary markets where the Red Headed Stranger had never played before, and both artist and promoter have found the arrangement very much to their liking. "I'm doing something now I didn't know I could do," Shaeffer said. "Willie uses me as a cleanup man. I'm the guy who fills dates for him in Flagstaff, Texarkana and Dodge City. I fill in his dates during the week between his big offers. That's exactly what I want to be." When he's not on the road these days with Nelson or Country Music Hall of Famer Ray Price, Hank Williams' onetime roommate, Shaeffer conducts his business from a suite of offices in a nondescript strip mall behind a Western Sizzlin' steakhouse in Sand Springs, adjacent to a CPA and a U.S. Army recruiter. His desk is crowded with manila folders containing contracts for shows from artists ranging from Price to Widespread Panic. The phones ring constantly, with Alcott dashing in and out of his office to get a ruling on something. Shaeffer snaps off answers around a cigar tucked in the corner of his mouth that he chews on but never lights. The only addiction from his previous lifestyle that Shaeffer seems to have retained is his fondness for rare instruments. His office walls are lined, floor-to-ceiling, with vintage Marshall and Fender amps, steel guitars and the odd upright bass. Shaeffer's work with Nelson--"I've only lost money on one show with him in three years," he said--has provided him with financial security once again, although he acknowledges his weakness for those museum- quality amps and guitars. "What happens when you're 60 and have some money is, you start buying everything you couldn't afford when you were 16," he said, nodding at a stack of amps in the corner and grinning. But that's about as far as spending sprees go for Shaeffer, he says, these days. His ride is a dented, brown, 1984 Ford pickup his father gave him, and he goes home every night to that mobile home on the farm where he grew up. "It's not an ugly house trailer, by the way," he said, smiling. "We're not that down and out. But I don't mind being called 'trailer trash'." It's that modest lifestyle that keeps him grounded, Shaeffer believes. His partying days long behind him, Shaeffer's free time these days is spent taking his dogs swimming, feeding his catfish and keeping up with his children, 24-year-old Lauren, 19-year-old Jake, 18-year-old James and 15-year-old Delaney. He insists that the only legacy that interests him these days is being remembered a good son and a good father. If anyone doubts Shaeffer's newfound perspective, his friends and associates are quick to rise to his defense. "He never has cared what anyone thinks of him other than mom, dad, his kids, God and I hope me," Alcott wrote about Shaeffer in an e-mail. "Age inspires wisdom. He likes to say, 'Somewhere, someone is calling me an asshole!" "I always saw Larry, and still do, as a very positive person," Ripley said. "When he came out of the other side of that . . . he was more positive than ever and is still a buddy." Wooley believes the best indication of Shaeffer's true nature is the annual Cain's Christmas Eve Toy Giveaway Shaeffer used to hold every year at the ballroom. The event, which ended in 2004 after 14 years because of a lack of funds, attracted thousands of people each year, hundreds of whom would line up hours in advance for a free meal and the opportunity to select a gift that Shaeffer had bought or collected from a donor. What separated that event from others like it, Wooley said, was the fact that anyone was welcome to attend, no questions asked. "Larry always told me, 'We can't discriminate.' That's the definition of unconditional love," said Wooley, who served as a volunteer for the event along with Mayo. "To put Larry Shaeffer and unconditional love together, some people might think is funny, but it's not." Meanwhile, life with Willie couldn't be better, to hear Shaeffer tell it. "That's become what I am," he said. "I'm enjoying the business for the first time because of my relationship with Willie, who is one of the kindest, most genuine people I've ever met, coming in second only to my father." Shaeffer goes so far as to describe Nelson as the most honorable person he's ever met in the music business, an artist with no agenda beyond the next show. "I'm certain Willie is a national treasure," he said. "Some people ask me, 'What's it like to be on the road with Willie?' I say, 'It's like being with Babe Ruth.' He's so much a part of America." Despite his dedication to Nelson, Shaeffer is by no means done with high-profile shows. His production company, Larry Shaeffer Presents, has a full slate of concerts coming up in the Tulsa area, including John Prine and Nelson at the Brady this fall, and a Trace Adkins show at the new BOK Center in early December. He also regularly books alternative rock acts and never gives up on trying to figure out what it is the kids want next. "This business reinvents itself three or four times a year," he said. "It takes so much to stay up with musical tastes. The music business has always been about teens and young people. Even Bob Wills in his heyday, his audience was teenagers drinking bootleg whiskey and grabbing ass. This business demands your complete attention at all times."