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   3 3 9 could count on one of the strongest campaigns for their work. But albums that gain prestige over time and songs that do the same are not enough to keep a troubled business going. C h ap t e r 2 5 Broken-Hearted Rock and Roll Band By late 1971 the lawsuit with Don Crews was finally settled out of court; Chips Moman kept American while Crews now had ownership of Onyx. The first John Prine album, released on Atlantic, was an enormous prestige success. The hiring of Stan Kesler to engineer sessions and to produce already looked to be one of the best decisions Chips ever made. In a remarkable turn of events, Chips proved that, had he been so inclined, he could have been the leader of the entire Memphis music industry. For although Chips and the American musicians stayed removed for the most part from the administrative side of things, that fall they were the organizers of an important musicians’ union meeting due to a conflict with Andy Ledbetter, the president of the local. Bobby Wood remembered the circumstances , describing Ledbetter as a man “who didn’t fit in to the session thing, you know? He was already dillydallying around with the New York people; he could give a flip about Memphis. He was a Mr. Stiff, one of those guys that looks down his nose at everybody.” “He was the longtime head of the union and most musicians were tired of his ways,” added Marty Lacker. “This guy was interferin’ with our work,” continued Bobby Wood. “The union is supposed to be there to help the musicians, not work against them. He started comin’ down on us—” “A lot of it had to do with the length of sessions ,” Bobby Emmons explained. “We were royalty-driven co-producers of the projects we were playing on as musicians. We very early on in the American sessions, as far back as ’68, even before we had a name for what we were 3 4 0   b r o k e n - h e a r t e d r o c k a n d r o l l ba n d doing, were earning royalties. We were earning royalties on that first James and Bobby session. The union by-laws were behind the times to even visualize that type of situation. The union had a strict three-hour limit on master recordings . We set our time limit at five hours because we figured that of that five hours, two of it was directed at our production responsibilities. They weren’t all fifty-five hours, as rumor has it.” Chips, never one to flinch from a confrontation , decided to call a special union meeting to discuss the problem. “Andy Ledbetter didn’t know what was in store for him,” Marty Lacker observed. “We went over [to the musicians’ union building] about six-thirty, seven at night,” Bobby Wood recalled. “Chips had called everybody , we had the symphony guys; we all knew them and had used them a lot.” According to Hayward Bishop, who was in attendance, those gathered in the upstairs meeting room were a Who’s Who of the Memphis music industry. All of the American players were present, from Tommy Cogbill to Billy Burnette. Booker T and the MG’s, Isaac Hayes, and the Memphis Horns all were there from Stax. Elvis sent representatives , and Marty Lacker was there as an independent observer. Chips also brought along Campbell Kensinger, just in case. “We had Campbell up there to make sure Ledbetter didn’t leave or that nobody would start trouble ,” said Marty. From Bobby Wood’s recounting of events, it was shrewd of Chips to have brought Campbell . Bobby recalled the union president. “He tried to roughshod us, it almost came to blows. . . . Chips got up and said, ‘I think we’ve got a quorum, we’ve got the right to kick your ass.’ It got pretty rank. I guess [the president] made a couple of threats. . . . Chips is Mr. Card Player, he’s the maverick gambler of all time, and he called the guy’s bluff, he said, ‘You don’t need to be threatening me, man.’ Campbell walked up to [the union president] and said, ‘I think it’s time for you to leave. I’d get my hat and coat and go. Walk out the door before you get thrown through it.’ The guy left and we never saw him...

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