- May 8, 2024
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Bob Levine, former manager of acts like Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra, is working on a memoir.
Masses gathered outside a theater in Atlantic City, and Bob Levine needed to find a way to sneak The Beatles past them undetected.
It was the band’s first American tour, and Levine was their touring manager. This was after the famous “The Ed Sullivan Show” appearance (“We did ‘Ed Sullivan,’ and then we took off for two years,” Levine says.). So he hired a fish truck and stowed the musicians inside. They rolled away, smelling of engine exhaust.
“My job was security with (The Beatles),” Levine says. “You needed half of the police force to (control) the kids and crowds.”
Another time, Levine huddled the Fab Four into the bed of a New York Times truck. “There was no way to pull a limo around back and get them,” he added. “No way.”
He smiles when he tells the stories, remembering like it was yesterday. But Levine, also former manager of Jimi Hendrix, tour manager of The Rolling Stones and office manager of Frank Sinatra, is getting old. He can feel it. At 84, things don’t work the way they used to, he says, sitting in a chair in his dining room, legally blind, his longish hair peeking out from the sides of his ball cap.
Marianne Gleyer, his caretaker, sits beside him. “She’s my everything,” he says, motioning toward her. “She’s my adviser. She lectures me.” When he knows she’s coming over, he says he gets relaxed.
Having recently graduated from the University of Central Florida, Gleyer is applying to grad school. She is also the proctor of Levine’s memoirs, which he’s currently five chapters into.
The book is planned for release at the end of the year.
With only about 30% of his vision left, Levine holds up a finger and points to its tip. “This is about all I can see these days,” he says. His vision has narrowed to about the size of a pencil eraser.
When it comes to his memories, though, his sight is vivid. He recalls winter nights in the 1960s, when he would stay for hours with Hendrix, “in his apartment on Ninth Street, in the Village.” He remembers the kind of mower he used to cut Frank Sinatra’s grass when he was a boy — before Sinatra was Sinatra.
But Levine never dreamed of being a big-time music man. When he was young, he didn’t aspire to rub elbows with legends and history-makers.
He started in the mailroom at Columbia Records when he was about 18 years old, after dropping out of high school to work as a “band boy” with the Glen Miller Orchestra to help his mother pay bills. After about a year, he joined the Army and then did odd jobs for a while before starting at Columbia.
He says he never realized what a “monster” Glenn Miller was until much later.
“Monster” — he uses that word a lot. Sinatra was a “monster.” Hendrix was a “monster.” Mick Jagger was a “monster.” Once their music hit the radio, then the jukebox, they couldn’t be stopped, Levine says. Onstage, each one wasn’t only a performer but a presence. Behind the scenes, however, he remembers them as quiet, reserved and caring.
Hendrix once brought Levine and his wife groceries when they were sick with the flu. He even cooked for them.
“There wasn’t one (musician) that I regret working with,” Levine says.
Four years after starting in Columbia’s mailroom, Levine was made assistant promotions director. He was in touch with Tony Bennett and Doris Day. He worked with Elvis on “Paradise Hawaiian Style.” Later, he worked Woodstock and managed several of the British Invasion bands, like Herman’s Hermits and The Animals.
He was also the entertainment director at Caesar’s Palace, he says, rattling off names like Tom Jones, Kenny Rogers, Ray Charles and Barbara Streisand.
After 50 years in the industry, though, Levine retired from music in 1992, then moved to Palm Coast, which his wife called “a beautiful graveyard.” Although his wife has since died, he remains in the same house. And in 2007, he had a stroke, which led to his current vision problems.
“A lot of people think I’m gone already,” he said, petting his dog, Scruffy, who recently had heartworm treatment and sleeps restlessly beside him.
These days, Levine is mostly holed up at home, which, all in all, he doesn’t mind much. Gleyer comes over and he gets comfortable, and they talk about his life, and she writes.
“I’m just biding my time now,” he said. “My health is getting a little run down. … I don’t sleep much anymore. Things are changing.”
But Gleyer calls his memoir a “legacy.”
“I felt like I should leave behind, like, a textbook, sort of,” Levine says. “Fifty years. So many people.”
He admits that, sure, maybe there isn’t a lot new to say about Hendrix or the Stones. “Demographically, I think, who cares?” Levine says. “Who knew who Glen Miller was? Who needs to hear more about The Beatles? … And Sinatra’s, like, from another century!”
But writing the book has been good for him. It not only fills his time, but it keeps him sharp. Leafing through old scrapbooks and newspaper clippings reminds him how much life he has really lived in his 84 years.
In his book, Levine will focus only on the “happy times.” Enough with the drama. No war or civil-rights tragedies. No stories about the Depression. He wants to remember life as it was — when it was good.
He was once given the key to Atlantic City, he says, when June 5, 1982, was named “Bob Levine Day.” He was honored in an industry roast, jokingly titled “The Bob Who? Roast.” He once had a feature spot on “60 Minutes.”
“My first impression knocked me out,” Levine says, remembering the first time he realized he was working with giants. He was touring with Frank Sinatra, and they were in India. The arena was packed, 65,000 strong, fans from halfway across the world, roaring and chanting.
Levine was 24 and looked out from the stage with awe.
“I’m a Brooklyn kid, and I thought, ‘How can this be?’” he says. “It was a gift to me. I never planned it that way. I never took any (course or read any books). … One thing leads to another.”
But now stadium roars have been replaced with television hums. He’s feeling his age. History is history.
“I have no other appointments. I’m not going anywhere but this room and the bedroom, you know?” he asked, with a chuckle. Occasionally, he added, he does get to check in with people from his past, though — like Paul McCartney, who called him after hearing of Levine’s wife’s death.
“Paul knows that if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have met the love of his life,” Levine says, citing a web of Linda Eastman’s employment, ending as touring photographer for the Beatles — a job he recommended her for.
“(McCartney) said, ‘Bob, I owe you one,’” Levine continued. Then he smirked and raised his eyebrows. “I said, ‘Well, when you put together another group, call me.’”
