Jim Halsey, the Prince of Pickin’ and Grinnin’ : He Sold Country Music to Glitzy Las Vegas

Thirty years after he booked his first act into a downtown casino, Jim Halsey has come within a whisker of realizing a major goal--having his stars featured on every marquee on the glitzy Las Vegas Strip.

Some call him the prince of pickin’ and grinnin’ while others say he is the most influential man in country music.

The former saxophone player who was bitten by the booking bug while a teen-ager in Independence, Kan., has made an indelible mark on country music, its stars and the way they are viewed by the public and the entertainment industry.

Halsey was a student at Independence Junior College when he earned $300 for booking a country band into a concert hall on a crisp October night in 1949. Today his acts draw up to $100,000 a night.

The Halsey Company represents 40 country and western stars, including the Oak Ridge Boys, Roy Clark, Pat Boone, Lee Greenwood, Merle Haggard, Mel Tillis, Tammy Wynette, the Righteous Brothers, the Judds and Reba McEntire.

The company generates millions of dollars annually through its offices in Nashville, Los Angeles, New York and Tulsa, but Halsey declines to give a specific figure.

His first venture in Las Vegas came in 1957 when he booked Hank Thompson into a lounge at the Golden Nugget Hotel. He later booked Wanda Jackson there and she brought along a young guitarist named Roy Clark. Halsey and Clark became close friends and began a 25-year business relationship backed only by a handshake.

Halsey, 56, spent the next 13 years chasing a dream of bringing country music to the staid Strip show rooms.

“The entertainment bosses just weren’t convinced that country artists would draw people to a Las Vegas show room,” Halsey recalled of his efforts. He got a foot in the door in 1970 when Clark was booked into Caesar’s Palace with singer Petula Clark.

Entertainment bosses remained unconvinced until 1973 when Clark was tagged to fill in for a pop star who became ill during an engagement at the Frontier Hotel.

Those days are a far cry from the entertainment agenda on the Strip today. In one recent week, five of the six major show rooms--Caesar’s Palace, Bally’s, the Las Vegas Hilton, the Frontier and the Sahara--featured Halsey’s talent.

“The only place we missed was the Desert Inn,” Halsey said in a recent interview. “We didn’t have anybody available or we’d have probably had them, too.”

That Desert Inn booking would have given him a sweep of the Strip’s show rooms that once felt country music was beneath their dignity.

The change on the Las Vegas Strip is a reflection of America’s changing musical moods, Halsey said.

“Country music is getting bigger and bigger all the time,” he said. “A recent Harris Survey showed 27% of Americans call country music their favorite, followed by rock with 21%, symphony, 12% and rhythm and blues or jazz 10%.”

Halsey’s knack for feeling the public’s entertainment pulse is perhaps best illustrated by his work with the Oak Ridge Boys. A dozen years ago, the group was performing at the Landmark Hotel for $7,500 a week while emerging from pure gospel music to a mix of rock, pop and country that was orchestrated with Halsey’s help.

There were times when Halsey had to help cover the tab for the group’s meals. Now the Oaks make upwards of $100,000 per performance, plus a percentage of the gate.

Halsey is focusing on acquiring new clients, television packaging and production, fine arts festivals, record production, show packages, broadcasting and music publishing.

Included on the 1987 agenda is an international song festival for Billboard magazine and a series of 20 seminars at universities around the country, focusing on careers in entertainment.

Halsey helped put together a series of 18 sell-out concerts in the Soviet Union a decade ago, featuring Roy Clark and the Oak Ridge Boys, and he said the tour taught him that music is a universal language that can foster peace and harmony.

“I’ve never been anywhere in my life that people haven’t been interested in living in peace and harmony,” Halsey said. “I don’t know why we can’t do it.”