Charlie McKenzie

Charles R. “Charlie” McKenzie was born and raised in West Roxbury and he loved music. A natural entrepreneur, he was booking local bands for CYO dances while still attending Catholic Memorial High School, so he was able to make a little pocket money and be involved with the music he adored. Though he was not a musician himself, he had an amazing ear for talent and potential hit songs that served him very, very well throughout his career.

WARNER BROS., ABC RECORDS

McKenzie began his illustrious career in the early ‘70s, working for the Warner, Elektra and Atlantic distribution branch in Medford. Starting in the warehouse, he eventually worked his way up to local promotion for Warner Bros. Records, tasked with getting media exposure and airplay on radio for the label’s artists in the New England.

In 1973, he was part the team that set up a promotion for the new Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies release at the old Bal-A-Roue roller rink in Medford, which is remembered as one of the greatest parties of its kind. While at Warner Bros, McKenzie was responsible for breaking records like Deep Purples’ Machine Head (1972), which included their all-time classic, “Smoke On The Water.” He was forced to leave the label due to downsizing, but resurfaced almost immediately doing promotions for ABC Records. While there, he helped propel the careers of legendary Boston artists Duke & The Drivers along with The Pointer Sisters, Steely Dan and others.

“MORE THAN A FEELING” DEMO, BOSTON DEBUT, OTHER PROJECTS

McKenzie always had his eyes and ears out looking for a band that would make him rich. One afternoon, while working in his office, he heard a song being played in the next door office of the branch manager. It was a demo tape the manager received from a relative working at Polaroid who was doing a co-worker a favor. That co-worker was future rock ‘n’ roll legend Tom Scholz of Boston, who worked at Polaroid after graduating from MIT, and the song on the demo tape was “More Than A Feeling.”

The branch manager gave McKenzie the cassette and he immediately sent a copy to his West Roxbury childhood friend Paul Ahern in Los Angeles, where he was working for Asylum Records promoting The Eagles, Jackson Brown and others. They formed a partnership and became co-managers, coming up with the name Boston. Epic released the band’s debut album  in August of 1976 (after the label’s VP of A&R, Lennie Petze, had signed the group)and went on to sell 16 million copies, the biggest-selling debut in the history of recorded music at the time. “It was like a movie, hearing that cassette turned into millions of dollars,” McKenzie once said, and he became very wealthy almost overnight.

Unfortunately, as often happens in the music business, McKenzie and Scholz had a falling out; he left the band’s organization after that first album and dissolved his partnership with Ahern. But he was too much of a music fan to stop for good. He went on to manage Willie Alexander & The Boom Boom Band through their major label release on MCA and also managed Johnny Angel & The Blackhawks and guitarist Dick Wagner while working with Somerville native Dale Bozzio (of Missing Persons fame).

DEATH, TRIBUTES, LEGACY

McKenzie was never able to recreate the success he had with Boston and left the music business before being killed in a car accident in Yarmouth on Cape Cod on March 5, 2002 at age 54. “Charlie was the first person to hear something in the tapes we sent out,” Boston’s late lead singer Brad Delp told the Boston Globe. “We’ll always be grateful to him for that.” Peter Wolf of The J. Geils Band called McKenzie a “true rock ‘n’ roll character” and said he always asked him to listen to J. Geils Band songs before they were released because he had amazing ears and always seemed to know what made a hit record.

McKenzie was known as a gentle giant, since at 6′ 4″ he could be an imposing figure. He loved to party like the best of them but his talents and incredible ear for hit songs changed his life and the history of the music business in Boston forever.

(by Peter Wassyng)