Adler Renews His Ode to Rock

Lou Adler, one of the most successful pop music producers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, is returning to active duty after a 10-year sabbatical.

Adler, a key force behind such landmark projects as 1967’s ground-breaking Monterey Pop Festival, Carole King’s Grammy-winning 1971 “Tapestry” album and the 1975 cult musical film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” is reactivating his respected Ode Records label. The first release, due Jan. 24, is a single by a new Portland-based R&B; quintet, Cool’R.

The East Los Angeles native produced a steady stream of hits in the ‘60s and ‘70s, including the Mamas & the Papas’s “California Dreamin’,” Johnny Rivers’s “Poor Side of Town” and Scott McKenzie’s flower-power anthem, “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair).”

Why did someone with such a Midas touch walk away from the music business?

“There were a lot of personal things involved,” said Adler on Thursday, in his ocean-front Malibu office. “My kids (now 10 and 15) were at an age when I wanted to spend a lot of time with them.

“Also, I had somewhat burned out in the (recording) studio toward the end. I just got tired of saying the same things. I’d say them and they would sort of echo back at me: ‘More bass-bass-bass-bass.’ You don’t know day from night in the studio and if you’re doing it right, you’re working 18 hours a day.”

Adler, 52, also cited business reasons for backing away from the record business in the late ‘70s. “The artists (King and Cheech & Chong) were about to go their own way, and my deal with A&M; (Ode’s distributor) was also up at that time. I pretty much knew I was going to be out of music for a while--I had sort of a closed-ears attitude--but I never realized it would be a decade.”

Another factor: Adler was more interested a decade ago in pursuing film projects. Having produced three commercial and/or critical hits in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s--”Monterey Pop,” “Brewster McCloud” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”--he produced and directed the 1978 comedy smash “Up in Smoke,” starring Cheech & Chong.

As it turned out, Adler took a sabbatical from films too. Except for a 1980 cable project, he hasn’t produced a movie since “Up in Smoke,” though he said he’s still open to the right project.

The road back for Adler began last year when he heard Cool’R doing a sound check at the Roxy, one of three local nightclubs he co-owns. Impressed, Adler brought a tape of the group to Herb Alpert, the co-founder of A&M; Records and a friend for more than 30 years.

“I took it to him just to see if he would be interested in signing them, and he suggested that I produce it,” Adler said. “The timing felt right, so I went in the studio with them. Once I got involved, I decided why not take it all the way, so I reactivated Ode.”

Cool’R’s initial single, “Victim,” will be followed in February by an album that Adler has produced. Adler is currently finishing work on an album by a Jamaican group, Native, which Ode will release in April.

The veteran producer has seen a lot of changes in the music business over the years. In 1964, he produced a successful live album, “Johnny Rivers at the Whisky a Go Go,” for $2,700, a figure that probably wouldn’t have covered the catering bill for his lavish 1972 album of the rock opera “Tommy,” which featured the London Symphony Orchestra and a bevy of top rock stars.

But the biggest change that Adler has seen is that the music business has become more of a business.

“It has much more of a conglomerate feeling,” he said. “In the ‘50s and ‘60s, it was much more of an independent business, but most of those independents have either disappeared or been gobbled up. And it was a street business as opposed to a 38th-floor-office business.

“The people who were running the show were really record people. They went on their instincts. Now it’s very much big business except for a few companies--A&M; being one of them--where the people running it are still record people.”

Like other artists and executives who have passed 40, Adler has had to come to grips with the fact that he is a middle-aged man in a field most often associated with the young.

“My dad always said, ‘You’ve got to get a trade; become a mechanic or a tailor,”’ Adler said. “Well, the truth of the matter is that somewhere along the line this became my trade. This is what I do.

“They told us in the beginning that rock ‘n’ roll was only going to last through the summer. That was so drilled into us, maybe that’s why a lot of us tend to act like it’s just a part-time job. People who are in the film business are in the film business for life, but we tend to think of this as just part of our life.

“But if I do it until I’m 80 and I do it right, what’s the difference? Rock ‘n’ roll is a spirited music and if you’ve got the spirit it doesn’t matter how old you are or how long you’ve been in it.”