Author: Dave Morrell

Legendary record company promo man/author Dave Morrell still just thinks of himself as the luckiest fan alive. Growing up in Kearny, NJ in the early 1970s, he amassed a collection of Beatles memorabilia so unique that when John Lennon heard about it, he promptly asked to meet the teen. WPLJ New York DJ Howard Smith brought Dave by the recording studio and Lennon wound up trading his own personal copy of the rare “Butcher” cover of The Beatles Yesterday And Today for Dave’s copy of the Yellow Matter Custard Beatles bootleg. Vignettes like these make Morrell’s book series a great read for any rock music fan. He tells of the time he held a Beatles convention – in his bedroom, attracting fans from up and down the Eastern seaboard as well as the media. The Village Voice profiled Morrell, WCBS turned up at the door of his parents’ house and he appeared on one of the biggest TV talk shows of the time – “The Joe Franklin Show.” Thanks to a tip from a friend, Dave landed a job as the Assistant Stock Boy in the 8-track tape department at the Warner/Elektra/Atlantic warehouse distribution center and began his journey from mega-fan to promo man. Morrell’s books take readers to a post-show private party for Van Morrison where Paul Simon takes time out from hanging with Kurt Vonnegut and Roman Polanski to tip off Dave to one of his pre-Simon & Garfunkel recordings. Dave, like many fans, was blown away by the final night of Led Zeppelin’s three-night stand at Madison Square Garden in 1973 – but he was one of the few to witness Jimmy Page rocking out at a used guitar shop in Manhattan while Robert Plant looked on the next day. Morrell also gives readers the inside scoop on the lengths labels would go to stoke the starmaker machinery behind the popular songs. The Morrell Archives detail his music business adventures at Warner Bros., RCA, Arista, Capitol and Geffen. Lured to Los Angeles by Concord Music Group in 2005, Morrell is now doing independent promotion for companies like 429 Records and Lakeshore Entertainment and cruising the California coast in his convertible.